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 'China travel' trending among younger generation, even entire society in Mexico: Mexican official 09:18, July 12, 2024 By Chen Qingqing and Bai Yunyi ( Global Times Mexico's Secretary of Tourism Miguel Torruco Marques. Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT Another direct flight route between China and Mexico will be opened on Friday. This route, Beijing-Tijuana-Mexico City, will be the second direct flight route between the two countries, following the resumption of the Shenzhen-Mexico City direct flight route in May this year, Mexico's Secretary of Tourism Miguel Torruco Marques told the Global Times in an interview on Thursday. The opening of this route will promote travel from northern Mexico to China and bring benefits to enhancing bilateral relations, Torruco said, noting that traveling to China has become a trend among Mexican youth and expressed hope that more Chinese tourists will visit Mexico in the future. On the evening of May 11, the first direct flight from Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, to Mexico City operated by China Southern Airlines landed at Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport after a 16-hour journey. The local airport held a water salute ceremony to welcome the arrival of the Chinese aircraft. This route, spanning over 14,000 kilometers, is currently the longest direct international passenger flight operated by China's civil aviation. The enthusiasm for traveling to China has spread to the younger generation and even the entire society in Mexico, Torruco told the Global Times. "Everyone wants to go to Xi'an [in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province], Guilin [in Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region], Shanghai, Beijing, and [South China's] Guangdong," the Mexican official said, noting that Mexico has great potential as a source country for international tourists, and major airlines have recognized this, and have doubled their efforts to meet public demand. Mexico is looking forward to welcoming more Chinese tourists. According to statistics from the first five months of this year, it is expected that the number of Chinese tourists traveling to Mexico in 2024 will exceed that of 2019 before the pandemic, Torruco noted. With the increase in economic and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, more routes may be considered in the future, he said. To attract more Chinese tourists to Mexico, the country is introducing many measures to enhance their experience, the Mexican official said. "For example, setting up Chinese signs in some hotels and providing Chinese menus in restaurants," he said. Mexico welcomes more Chinese factories and enterprises, as they not only provide employment opportunities but also stimulate local economic development, he added. China has recently been quite a popular destination for foreign tourists. Many have posted their experiences on social media. Numbers show that "China Travel" has become a top trending search on multiple global social media platforms. Government figures show that in the first half of this year, China received 14.635 million foreign travelers, up 152.7 percent year-on-year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press conference on Tuesday. Among them, 8.542 million entered China visa-free, up 190.1 percent year-on-year. 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, Lin 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, the spokesperson noted. "It's also the result of China's high-standard opening up. China will continue to embrace the world with open arms, inject new dynamism into the world with its development, and create more energy and enthusiasm for people-to-people exchanges between China and the rest of the world," he said. (Web editor: Tian Yi, Zhong Wenxing) CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells poses for a portrait after speaking to a reporter about the effort to restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at a CenterPoint Energy office in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells speaks to a reporter about the effort to restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at a CenterPoint Energy office in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Jason Wells home in Houston lost power for two days thanks to Hurricane Beryl, but the CenterPoint Energy CEO didnt notice it much. Hes been working a lot. Plus, he has a backup generator. Hurricane Beryl knocked 2.26 million CenterPoint customers offline, and with about half of those restored four days later, Wells is in the eye of a storm. Hot and sweaty residents of the Houston area are enraged, officials are asking more and more pointed questions and 12,000 utility crew members are fanned across the region installing new poles and power lines. I think we could do a better job of communicating expectations with our customers, and I personally own that, Wells said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad MORE DARK DAYS AHEAD: 500,000 customers expected to still be without power by next week, CenterPoint says In his first media comments since the storm, Wells on Thursday talked positively about the restoration efforts, acknowledged the company should and will do more to let the public know whats going on and said more investment is planned to harden Houstons defenses from its most common threats of wind and rain. Here are key points Wells made during an exclusive 30-minute interview about the recovery, why it was necessary to restore power to so many customers to begin with, and the criticism the company has faced as it makes repairs. I understand how frustrating it is to be without power, especially in this heat. I understand what a difficult situation this is for our customers, but I am proud of the progress we have made. Restoring 1.1 million customers within effectively 48 hours of the storms passing is faster than what many of our peers have seen in the past 10 named storms. CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells speaks to a reporter about the effort to restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at a CenterPoint Energy office in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Wells notes that fewer than 1 million customers lost power in the May wind event, and many likely stayed off longer than the vast majority of those impacted by Beryl will be. Unlike the wind event, however, which caught the region off-guard, CenterPoint had days to plan for the hurricane and prepare for a possible major restoration job. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Believing the storm would stay mostly to the Houston metro regions west, CenterPoint mobilized about 3,000 contractors last week. Over the weekend, as Beryl crept north and appeared ready for a direct hit on the region, CenterPoint called in more resources to be ready. About 10,000 contractors came in to augment CenterPoints own 2,000-person crew. Those crews began work as they arrived in the area, but needed some training as different states have various specifications for line location, placement and other details. Workers then spent hours cataloging the damage so they knew which matters would need poles installed, and which would simply be chopping up trees and stringing lines or other needed improvements. Those assessments took time, which Wells is not factoring into the 48-hour restoration process. That is the first step of any restoration and that generally takes a utility, when it is a large scale event, upwards of two days to complete. It is only after that work we can understand if it is simply removing debris or is it a more complicated rebuild, and we can begin to offer estimates to restore. I think we should have done a better job of communicating that to the customers that this is going to take two days with the level of this storm and the level of this system to get done. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Wells stressed with that behind them, the work crews have moved fast to bring power back, first to places where the most people could be returned with the least effort, and then going more granularly through the area. Crews are also triaging for which repairs are going to be the most complex. Where it is as simple as taking a limb or tree off the lines, we do that. We then open that breaker again, and power is restored. Because the system stood up so well, that is the only reason why we could restore 1.1 million customers as quickly as we did. While I recognize it is frustrating to be without power, we are not talking about having to rebuild large portions of our system. We are talking about basically clearing debris and reopening those lines. In places, Wells said, the electrical system shut down to protect people and itself from further damage. Live lines, for example, detected by the system might lead to a street-long shutdown to make sure a fire or electrocution does not occur. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We have been making these investments, and I do feel the system operated as designed. We built our transmission structures to withstand extreme winds, and we had minimal damage to the transmission system. Strategically, we need to start by investing in the backbone of the system. If you cant get power into the local area, then you cant get power to people. All indications are the transmission and major systems held up, which officials have touted as part of the hardening strategy. No major lines bringing power into Houston were damaged, though major lines in Galveston and Brazoria counties will have to be rebuilt. We have been hardening the backbone, and the next frontier for us is hardening the distribution system. There is more we can do and will do to strengthen the distribution system. CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells speaks to a reporter about the effort to restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at a CenterPoint Energy office in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer From composite poles to improved vegetation maintenance, the distribution system is where more strengthening is coming. Officials noted where composite poles are already installed notably along the coast in Galveston County they performed much better than wooden poles common in the Houston area. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The investments are part of the companys resiliency plan that commits to responding and avoiding damage caused by disasters, from hurricanes to floods and freezes. In the past four years, Wells said CenterPoint has doubled its investment, to about about $2 billion annually, in improvements. About one-third of that, however, is adding new lines and systems to handle the regions growth. Wells noted vegetation in particular was the culprit in many communities, although damage might look different in different places. For that reason, despite many people fretting over Beryl only being a category 1 hurricane, Wells said it hit the utility like a major storm. This hurricane moved over the entirety of our system, it didnt brush by a portion of it. We had contributing factors, weak trees over the past growing seasons. So it doesnt really matter the distinction from a category 1 or a category 2. This was a hurricane that hit all of the greater Houston area and we had to respond to that. PETERSBURG Two years ago, a new pharmaceutical company broke ground on a facility for building medicines and their ingredients. Now, Phlow Corp.s plant on Normandy Road is up and running. On Thursday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin visited to celebrate the facilitys progress and give the neighborhood a new name. Its being called Campus for Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals in the United States, or CAMPUS. It consists of three companies, Phlow, Civica Inc. and AMPAC Fine Chemicals. Local leaders hope more drug companies will join them. The three companies employ more than 200 people in Petersburg and will have close to 500 when they are fully staffed. Thursdays announcement was held inside Phlows Metric Ton-Scale Current Good Manufacturing Process, or cGMP, facility. Thats where Phlow can make up to 60 metric tons of drug ingredients each year. The company is helping build about 12 medicines that are either considered in short supply or vulnerable because they typically come from other countries. Which medicines is still considered a government secret, said Eric Edwards, Phlows CEO. Many drugs used in the U.S. States are made overseas, especially in China, which means they are susceptible to supply-chain hiccups, natural disasters and geopolitical forces, Edwards said. He called the supply chain fragile. By bringing medicine production back into the U.S., Phlow is helping the country re-establish its pharmaceutical sovereignty, he said. Edwards: Its about national security Earlier this year, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., introduced the Biosecure Act, which would prevent the federal government from contracting with certain foreign biotechnology companies deemed untrustworthy. What is happening to the social media app TikTok is happening to medicine, Edwards said. Just as federal officials are concerned China has too much influence over cellphone data, they worry the Chinese government has too strong a grip on U.S. medicine. This is not just about business, yall, Edwards added. Its about national security. Its about public health. Its about economic stability. In 2020, when Phlow was a brand-new company, it won a $354 million federal contract to build medicines most at risk of shortage. Phlow also agreed to build the countrys first stockpile for drug ingredients, called the Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve, or SAPIR. The facility has been built, and now Congress is considering adding more to access ingredients faster in the event of an emergency. If the government decides to build more reserves, Phlow would likely pursue the contract, Edwards said. Phlow originally got a four-year contract with six additional one-year options. The company has now entered the fifth year. If it runs through all 10, the contract will be worth $812 million. The government understands that building drug ingredients is a multiyear undertaking, Edwards said. Initially, Phlow was given two years to make drugs in shortage or used to treat COVID-19, a deadline it did not make, Politico reported in 2022. But Phlow and the federal government said they were satisfied with the progress made, and now Phlow is delivering on its promise. Phlow became operational in recent months, and Edwards said Thursday was the end of the beginning. Youngkin said Phlows achievements represent success in the partnership between Phlow and government partners, the installation of infrastructure, and collaboration with schools and colleges. All of this activity has benefited Petersburg. When manufacturers closed their doors in the 1980s, the city suffered an economic meltdown, said Mayor Sam Parham. The three companies at CAMPUS represent a $500 million investment. Upgrades to infrastructure planned Phlows founders, Edwards and Frank Gupton, chose Petersburg because it already had AMPAC Fine Chemicals and the former Boehringer Ingelheim chemicals facility. Much of the infrastructure already existed, saving years of the building time. Petersburg is working to upgrade the water and sewer service for the Poor Creek Sewer Service Area, which is almost one-third of the citys land area, including CAMPUS and the spot where Petersburg hopes to build a casino. The project costs about $60 million and is being paid for by federal, state and local funds. A water main recently burst in Petersburg, showing the systems age. Parham said the pipe has been fixed, but residents are still being told to boil their water as a safety precaution. An element of the regions pharmaceutical industry was shaken up this week when Chandra Briggman, CEO of the state authority that oversees technology and research, resigned. A state delegate said Youngkins administration was involved in her departure, but a spokesperson for the governor said Youngkin was not specifically involved. Phlow and Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Medicines for All have labs at Richmonds Bio+Tech Park, which is managed by the state authority, Activation Capital. Top five weekend events: Hanover Tomato Festival, The Oasis Concerts, Fighting Gravity Hanover Tomato Festival Oasis Concerts The Way Back Home RAIN A Tribute to the Beatles Nutcracker in July Richmonds five mayoral candidates came together Thursday evening to discuss economic growth, commerce and future development in the city. The candidate forum, hosted by the Metropolitan Business League, the Jackson Ward Collective and Start Up Virginia, welcomed a small number of Richmond business owners to the Michael Wassmer Innovation Center in Shockoe Bottom. There, mayoral hopefuls Andreas Addison, 1st District council representative; Danny Avula, former commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services; Michelle Mosby, former 8th District council representative; Maurice Neblett, a community organizer; and Harrison Roday, a nonprofit executive and businessman answered questions about the future of commerce in the city. Heres a look at some of their responses. What specific policies will you implement to support the growth and sustainability of small businesses in Richmond? Addison: When I was going through the permitting process of getting my gym, I never felt that City Hall cared about my business, and that relationship from the beginning is hard to trust them. For me, one of the things that I think is key is making City Hall a partner in your success. Avula: City Hall needs to be a place where you all as business owners feel respected and partnered and valued because small business is the way that this city is going to achieve its potential to be the inclusive, thriving city for everybody that it can be. Mosby: Ive had the opportunity to be a business owner, but Ive also had the opportunity to be a council representative and so Ive gotten to see both sides of the coin and how we can help our businesses be at their best. We need a complete shift. We need all departments working toward making sure that small businesses are being looked after. Neblett: The thing about business it can be stressful, starting, taking those first steps to attain your business license. As mayor, I look to alleviate individuals from having those hard, frustrating moments. I look to implement cutting the red tape. I hope to make sure that we have access for individuals to have an easier process. Roday: Theres no better topic, in my view, to talk about the economic future in Richmond than small businesses. They are the engine of Richmonds economy. We could talk through a number of mechanical challenges weve created ... there are a lot of mechanical obstacles that need to be solved, but Id like to start with something more philosophical which is, lets have a mayor that is a true champion for the small-business community. How do you plan to increase access to capital for small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses? Addison: As your mayor, the city will be focusing more on making sure we understand the gaps. We want to make sure that money is available and not worried about credit worthiness, not worrying about systemic challenges we know exist and some applicability of network and support. We want to overcome that and making sure you get favorable terms, favorable interests, favorable payment schedules, making sure that when you get the money, you can actually use it and not have to pay it back right away, so you can actually build that revenue. Avula: Clearly, access to capital is a challenge. I think part of that challenge is knowing what capital exists out there. There are opportunities for it that arent always in the right place where small businesses can get access to it and know about it. Part of the role of the mayor will be to walk across the street to the General Assembly and make sure that they are lobbying for increased investments by the state to help businesses grow. Mosby: Its making sure that we have a mayor thats going to work with our institutions, work with our partner businesses, to change some of the traditional credit guidelines. My concern is that there are a lot of opportunities; however, if youre not getting to the nitty-gritty of the business to understand why they cant access that opportunity, then youre still missing the boat. Neblett: Ill set up a city-backed micro loan program that specifically assists small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses but also well set up relationships with financial institutions to make loan terms better for these small businesses. Also, I look to make sure we have supports in place that once they are in the loan program, they will be able to have reasonable long-term loan terms and it wouldnt be a strain on them along the process. Roday: Im very proud to share and the credit goes to many people what has just been described is what Ive been spending the last almost five years working on nearly every day. Weve built partnerships here in Richmond. We support dozens of small businesses, and we can do more. My commitment to you transitioning from founding a nonprofit that does that to being your mayor is that will never be far from my mind. I will never stop waking up every day thinking what can be done to make sure that small-business owners here have the resources they need. How will you address the issue of affordable commercial space for small businesses in Richmond? Addison: Weve got places that are valuable, places that are affordable currently, today, that are sitting there empty, underutilized, not generating revenue, not supporting entrepreneurial dreams that need to be unlocked. As mayor, I will commit to making sure we work with those landlords to make sure that they see the change that they need to be a part of and making sure they can see that making this business be successful on our end and negotiating a good lease is also going to make you money. Avula: There are ways that the city can financially incentivize new space that comes at cheaper cost to small businesses. Now, clearly, the city has to financially incentivize businesses to come back into the city, as well. I think about Broad Street, the city needs to do its part with better lighting, planting trees ... and then incentivizing small businesses to come into those empty storefronts and bring vibrancy back to downtown Richmond. So, I think, at the end of the day, the answer is money. The city has to put money into this if its going to make it possible for small businesses to survive. Mosby: For me, its offering incentives. We want to offer incentives to owners to help small businesses. We want to look at graduated leases, tax credits, but also look at a development fund. When I was on council, each year, we were able to have a surplus. So its looking to see how we can put a percentage of those dollars to the side to have a development fund that will allow us to explore innovation zones. Neblett: It will be offering tax breaks to business owners who are providing rental opportunities for these small businesses. With those tax breaks, I believe that we can leverage a balance where business owners would be able to afford the lease terms. Also, I definitely want to take advantage of vacant properties so that we can revitalize and encourage co-working spaces. Its simple. Its just we have to make the right moves when it comes to our finances and capital so that we are able to share it with our community. Roday: Many businesses that have been successful started in a commercial kitchen space that is shared. These are amazing businesses that started because thought was put into the idea of how we eliminate or mitigate the No. 1 one cost that small-business owners tend to have, which is rent. So this is fundamentally an access to capital issue. We have so many wonderful, talented small-business owners here. Lack of space cant be the reason that people do not have opportunity to be successful and lack of affordable space. On the campaign trail Mayor Levar Stoney, who is finishing his second four-year term as mayor, cannot run for the office again. He had set his sights on the governors office, but then announced in April he was instead seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. Richmonders will cast their ballots for mayor and their council representative on Nov. 5 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Early voting begins Sept. 20. The deadline for candidates to file was June 18. The Richmond General Registrars Office finalized the official ballot on June 21. Meet the candidates for Richmond mayor Andreas Addison Danny Avula Michelle Mosby Maurice Neblett Harrison Roday Out of the running Linemen tend to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer CenterPoint likened deadly Hurricane Beryl to the infamous Hurricane Ike during a Public Utilities Commission meeting Thursday, pointing commissioners attention to high winds brought to the populated area on the dirty side of the storm. The PUC, which regulates Texas utility companies, called on CenterPoint and other Houston-area utilities to provide information about their post-Beryl power restoration efforts during its regularly scheduled meeting. The commissioners on the PUC, all appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, urged CenterPoint specifically to talk to your customers. Chairman Thomas Gleeson said CenterPoint needed to work on rebuilding trust in the community. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The infrastructure is gonna break; things are gonna happen, Gleeson said during the meeting. But if people feel theyre being effectively communicated with, it makes it a lot easier to go through it. And so Id say get out in the community and go talk to your customers. Here are four key takeaways from the meeting. Expect 'pockets' of prolonged outages Roughly 500,000 customers likely wont get power again until next week, CenterPoint Executive Vice President Jason Ryan said during the meeting. He said he expects much of these prolonged outages to be in hard-hit Matagorda and Galveston counties, yet there will be small pockets throughout CenterPoints service area that wont have power until Sunday or later. More than 1 million customers were still without power Thursday, three days after Beryl rolled through Houston. Beryl brought strong winds similar to Ike Beryl brought 83 mph gusts to Bush Intercontinental Airport, surpassing highs for Ike, Ryan said. But while Ike was stronger, Beryl, a Category 1 storm, knocked out power to more people than the historic Category 2 storm did 2.26 million customers lost power Monday, topping the 2.1 million customers without power during the Ike. More Houston-area customers lost power Monday than any other event in CenterPoints history. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A lot has changed in Houston since Houstons last major windstorm hurricane, Ryan said. Our service territory has grown a lot population-wise since then, he said. So we need to take that into account in terms of how we communicate and to make sure that were clearly explaining to customers what they should expect. Modern poles and wires made a difference Modernized poles and wires hardened American Electric Powers system against Beryl, said Chad Burnett, AEPs vice president for regulatory and finance in the Bay City area. There were several lines that had recently been reconstructed using our modern design standards that were still intact and appeared to have weathered the storm just fine, he said during the meeting. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The company plans to deploy more of the modern design, which includes larger electrical poles installed closer together and made with stronger materials. It really does show that some of the newer designs that were seeing coming out can make a difference in making the system more resilient, he said. Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty asked AEP to compile data showing which poles the company had the most problems with during the storm. He said the commission should look at whether more wooden poles should be replaced with poles made from stronger materials, especially in coastal areas prone to hurricanes. Damage assessment took days In response to criticisms that crews were waiting to do the work, Ryan said the company needed to assess the damage before it could effectively deploy the roughly 12,000 workers largely from other areas that came to help. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We need to know what kind of crews to send where, Ryan said. Ryan said he expected the damage assessment phase to be complete by the end of Thursday. He said that process includes workers literally walking 500 miles of distribution lines. I know its incredibly frustrating to see mutual assistance crews in the early days waiting to do the work, Ryan said. But we cant effectively rely on that workforce if we dont know where to send them. Residents of Leona Vicario discover dead body on public space Puerto Morelos, Q.R. Police were called to an area in the town of Leona Vicario Thursday after the discovery of a dead body. A mans naked body and threat message were found left under a tree by passersby. Puerto Morelos police were assisted by members of National Guard in preserving the scene. The threat message, written in red ink on white cloth, made reference to area drug dealers. Ministerial police collected the evidence which also included shell casings. The deceased has not been identified. A man walks through downtown Houston among fallen trees caused by Hurricane Beryl making landfall a few days earlier on Thursday, July 11, in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Restoring power is the focus point for recovery efforts days after Hurricane Beryl blew through the city, Linemen were working on traffic lights in downtown Houston on Thursday. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Restoring power is the focus point for recovery efforts days after Hurricane Beryl blew through the city, Linemen were working on traffic lights in downtown Houston on Thursday, July 11. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Debris clean up and restoring electricity are the focus points for recovery efforts days after Hurricane Beryl blew through the city, Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Powerful winds and storm surges after Hurricane Beryl inflicted an estimated $210 million to $600 million in losses to insured properties and businesses in Harris County, according to new estimates from property data firm CoreLogic. Harris Countys insured losses are expected to account for about 30% to 40% of all the insured losses estimated in Texas, which could total $700 million to $1.5 billion, according to CoreLogic. That estimate includes insured losses to residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural properties including damages to the contents of those properties and losses from business interruption. It doesnt include uninsured losses or damage owners may pay out of pocket. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Insured losses after Beryl could have been higher had the hurricane made landfall in a densely populated area, instead of the less-populated area of Matagorda, which is about 90 minutes from Houston, said Jon Schneyer, CoreLogics director of Catastrophe Response. If it had been direct hit into Houston, right, we could be talking about a big loss event. You can say we were a little lucky in that it made landfall in a more remote area, and the strongest wind speeds were going on trees, Schneyer said. Moodys estimated that about 18,000 commercial properties and apartments in Houston totaling a cumulative $109 billion in value were likely to have been exposed to potentially damaging winds of at least 50 miles per an hour during Beryl. While major damage to many assets is likely to be minimal, it is also likely that thousands of properties face minor repairs, some of which may not be severe enough to meet their insurance deductibles, said Natalie Ambrosio Preudhomme, associate director at Moodys. This has the potential to add unplanned capital expenditure, leaving property owners more vulnerable to repeated damage throughout whats expected to be a lively hurricane season. So far, property managers said their work to prepare for a busy hurricane season paid off in Hurricane Beryl. Several large commercial building owners and property management firms across Houston including Hines, Transwestern, JLL, Avison Young, Brookfield Properties, Granite Properties and Cushman Wakefield told the Houston Chronicle that many of their office and commercial properties they oversee in Houston sustained minor to moderate damage, as well as power outages. Damages ranged from broken windows, doors, disturbed landscaping, felled trees, broken awnings and signage, roof issues, some water infiltration, but none reported significant losses from the hurricane. Overall, we feel really fortunate with the limited amount of damage that all of our properties had, really the biggest inconvenience has been the loss of power post-storm, said Brett Williams, executive managing director at Cushman Wakefield in Houston. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Returning to normal Although some office buildings were battling with power outages Thursday, many office property managers, owners and tenants said power had been restored at most commercial buildings. Some office tenants were getting back to work across the city, although widespread internet and power outages for employees at home are impeding a full return to normalcy. In The Woodlands, Chevron Phillips Chemical said its headquarters would be closed for the rest of the week after it experienced power outages and downed trees. The company is asking its 989 employees to work remotely for the time being, a spokesperson said. Chevron is also encouraging downtown employees to work remotely through the end of the week, although the oil companys offices at 1400 Smith and 1500 Louisiana reopened for critical business services Wednesday, a spokesperson said. Across downtown, the hurricane knocked down about 200 trees, damaged about 24 storefronts and broke glass at a handful of buildings, said Kris Larson, CEO of Downtown Houston. Some streets are still closed Thursday, and the Metro Rail isnt back up yet, but otherwise most downtown businesses had power, hotels are packed and employers are returning on a case-by-case basis, Larson said. In the Energy Corridor, ConocoPhillips said its offices had reopened by Wednesday after the storm. By Thursday, remaining power outages at office buildings and retail strip centers had been resolved in the Energy Corridor District boundaries, but residential neighborhoods near the district were still dealing with outages, said Zak Miller of the Energy Corridor District. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Shell, which has about 6,000 employees in Houston, said its campus on Dairy Ashford wasnt affected by the storm, and employees are returning back slowly as they contend with their own outages at home. Above all, employees are being strongly encouraged to take care of themselves and their community before returning to the office or a computer terminal, said Curtis Smith, spokesperson for Shell. Much more often than not, work can wait. Diving for science: The diving community is in the spotlight of a new research project that, with the help of divers, aims to collect and analyze continuous temperature data in the Mediterranean Sea. Photo: MARUMCenter for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; C. Galerne. Credit: MARUMCenter for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; C. Galerne Headlines in early summer 2024: Surface water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea are significantly higher than the values from the previous year. Individual data points indicate that it is not only temperatures near the surface that are rising and remaining high, but also those lower in the water columnand consequences for the marine ecosystem could be grave. A new project now aims to systematically collect data to help in monitoring the situation. Researchers are relying on citizen scientists, divers who practice their hobby in these waters and always have a mini-computer with them for safety reasons. The goal is to encourage divers to not only store their data for themselves, but also to share them online through a database portal. "Every person who dives uses a special small computer that is usually worn on their wrist. With the help of our concept of a calibrated diving station, recreational and professional divers become citizen scientists, and their diving computers are transformed into scientific instruments," explains Dr. Christophe Galerne of MARUMCenter for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. The new project is called "Divers for Ocean TemperatureCoastal temperature database for monitoring ocean surface water past and present," BlueDOT for short. It is being coordinated by MARUMCenter for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. The work is led by Dr. Christophe Galerne of MARUM, Dr. Rebecca Zitoun of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Prof. Achim Kopf of MARUM, and Arne Schwab of SchwaRTech, official industry partner of the project. Understanding temperature rise through data analysis With BlueDOT, Galerne combines his scientific work and passion with his hobby. "Over the past five or six years, divers have reported temperature anomalies that suggest the presence of a severe heat wave in the Mediterranean. Surprisingly, this has not been indicated by the monitoring systems currently in place. A distinct increase in average surface-water temperatures compared to earlier records was first recognized in the spring of 2023. "In order to understand what is happening worldwide and in the Mediterranean, we need to analyze more data. That is exactly what is made possible by the collection of data from diving computers, and it will even allow us to analyze what has happened in the past. This is the only way we can find out exactly what causes the heat waves and how their effects can be mitigated," says Galerne. There are similar data-collection projects being carried out for the surface waters, for example, using surfboards. These involve the use of a "smart fin" attached to the board that can record certain parameters in the surface waters. Galerne points out that, "Our project goes further and deeper, down to around 40 meters." People go diving at locations in the Mediterranean Sea every day. "We can use their data to fill a large gap in the present monitoring system," he adds. Rebecca Zitoun of GEOMAR adds, "Diving computer data are already available online, and we have a large amount of historical data that we can use. Our project will make use of these historical data and collect new data in order to analyze past trends of water temperature in the Mediterranean, and to understand how it could develop in the future." These kinds of data are important for climate models as well as for risk assessments for governments, communities and the general public, to aid in making informed decisions. In practice, it looks like this: after each dive, the data from a calibrated diving computer, which include the place, time, pressure and temperature, are downloaded to a PC or laptop after each individual dive. This is where the BlueDOT project comes in, for which Galerne and his colleagues are programming a portal where dive data can be uploaded and processed regardless of the brand of diving computer. The data is then processed by the analysis team for scientific evaluation. Successful in the "Innovation Sprint' The project begins in December with two diving stations in the Mediterranean. Calibration stations for the diving computers will be set up on the Costa Brava and on the Maltese island of Gozo. Divers at these sites will receive training to ensure that the data is of high quality. The citizen scientists will collect data for 18 months that will subsequently be analyzed. These two locations were selected based on diver experience in recent years. With its cooperation partners, the team is currently working on the sensors and on buoys anchored to the sea floor that record stationary temperatures and serve as reference stations for the diving computers. Work is also continuing on the database structure and the portal for uploading the data. They are also drawing up guidelines for data standards and working procedures for citizen scientists. "The development of community-based procedures for the collection, management, storage, and use of diving data is an important part of the project. These assure us that everyone is using the same methods when they contribute to the project. This provides us with confidence in our data so that it can be used for scientific modeling," emphasizes Zitoun. And, of course, the team will seek to establish contacts with divers in Malta and on the Costa Brava to recruit them for the scientific project. "We need dedicated individuals and diving centers to support us in this work. Our planned Ocean Literacy campaigns and workshops are therefore an important component of BlueDOT. With their contributions, enthusiastic individuals can help to find solutions, because scientists cannot solve the problems alone. That is why citizen science projects like ours are becoming more important," says Zitoun. It is already possible for divers to record their data now and upload it later when the programming of the app is complete. As Galerne emphasizes, "We first want to contact local people who dive especially often and in all kinds of weather." This would avoid a "sampling bias"for example, when more dives are completed in the summer and correspondingly fewer when travel restrictions are in effect or in winter conditions. Diving during the winter months is particularly important in order to achieve a sufficient amount of data for all months and all latitudes. The team is committed to involving the diving community even after the data collection phase is completedafter all, water is their element. Provided by MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen Johor Bahru, capital of the state of Johor in Malaysia. (Photo: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg) (Bloomberg) By: Shikhar Gupta and Ram Anand (Bloomberg) Singapore businesses want a planned joint special economic zone with Malaysia to slash red tape and help with labor and connectivity issues, according to a poll by the citys top chamber of commerce. Insufficient skilled labor, unclear tax rules and ease of movement were among gaps and challenges identified by 160 businesses surveyed by the Singapore Business Federation. Half of the respondents already operate in Malaysias Johor state, home of the planned zone. While enthusiasm is high, the report also revealed significant challenges to overcome, including talent shortage, the federation said. Nearly 60% of businesses engaged reported difficulties in sourcing technical and skilled workers in Johor, with additional issues in attracting Singaporean talent to work across the border. The surveys findings underscore the challenges Singapore and Malaysia need to overcome to make Southeast Asias first cross-border special economic zone a success. Hundreds of thousands of Malaysians already cross the worlds busiest land border to work in Singapore each day. The federation said its working group on the zone recommends passport-free travel, digitized cargo clearance, special immigration lanes, harmonized tax policies, and a joint investment promotion agency. The business group organized an investors forum for the SEZ in Singapore on Thursday, attended by Singapores trade ministry and Malaysian investment authorities. At a similar meeting in Malaysia yesterday, officials said theyre on course to sign a deal with Singapore and unveil the zone in September. The business group said around a third of its respondents also anticipate better connectivity via a mooted high-speed rail line linking both countries. Malaysia is currently considering proposals to revive such a project between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2024 Bloomberg L.P. We feature a curated selection of some of the biggest, most important, and fascinating news thats making waves online Effective collaboration between Singapore and Malaysia, coupled with strategic infrastructure and policy solutions, will be key to addressing the significant challenges crucial for the success of the special economic zone. REUTERS/Nicky Loh (SINGAPORE) And that's a wrap. Thanks for tuning in. We'll catch y'all next week. Hello to all our readers, Yahoo Singapore will be bringing you live news updates today. Singapore businesses are calling for reduced red tape in a proposed joint special economic zone (SEZ) with Malaysia, according to a poll by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF). The SBF's survey highlights the hurdles Singapore and Malaysia need to address to ensure the success of Southeast Asia's first cross-border SEZ. Currently, many Malaysians cross the border daily to work in Singapore, emphasising the need for streamlined processes. Read more here. Insect-centric dishes may be on the menu for some local restaurants in Singapore after the SFA approved 16 insect species for human consumption. Find out more here. US President Joe Biden had a slip of the tongue. In fact, make that two gaffes that raised more concerns about his age and mental fitness. Despite calls for him to bow out of the presidential race, Biden vows to "complete the job". More on his mix-ups here. Singapore rental prices are stabilising due to increased supply and reduced local demand. Although prices are easing, many renters still face high costs. Read more here. A woman in China returned $418,000 after a mistaken transfer. Despite initial doubts, she reported the incident, verified its legitimacy, and returned the money in full. More on the extraordinary act of honesty here. Singapore's wedding hong bao (red packet) tradition is evolving, with rates climbing higher than ever before. Guests are expected to contribute generously to cover costs. Here's a guide for 2024 hong bao rates to ensure you're never caught off guard at the next wedding. Teen sensation Lamine Yamal, once cradled by Lionel Messi as a baby, is now making his mark in football, reflecting the inspiring paths of future stars meeting their idols. Read on here. Airports can enhance travel experiences with unique features like art galleries, rooftop pools, and cinemas. We highlight some of the coolest airports globally that offer more than just a place to catch flights here. The Travel + Leisures "Worlds Best Awards" survey for 2024 highlighted the best islands globally, focusing on their natural attractions, activities, food, friendliness, and value. Over 186,000 readers contributed to rating these islands, resulting in a comprehensive list. Check out the list here. Skytrax's World Airline Awards 2024 highlights the best airlines in various categories, celebrating those that provide top-tier comfort, cleanliness, and customer service. Singapore Airlines, AirAsia and Scoot snagged were honoured in the annual awards. Read more here. Dutch and English fans sang Hey Jude in harmony in a moment that has been praised for its display of sportsmanship. But those are not the only hilarious scenes of their Euro 2024 semi-final match. Check out the best memes and moments here. Night owls might be smarter than morning people, according to a recent study. Researchers found that those who are most active in the evening tend to perform better on cognitive tests. More on the (brainy) matter here. Beyond medals, Olympic winners, such as Singapore's Joseph Schooling in 2016, often receive significant cash prizes and gifts. This practice varies widely, leading to debates about its fairness. Find out more here. RURAL CORRECTIONVILLE, Iowa Since its construction in 1883, it's hard telling how many storms Rock Branch United Methodist Church has weathered. Wind, hail, rain -- through it all, the small rural congregation in rural Correctionville has survived. The church appears to have survived potential disaster once again Friday, when a pickup truck belonging to lawn service workers who were mowing the adjacent township cemetery ignited. Soon, the pickup was engulfed, and flames were spreading to the church. "My brother lives over about half a mile," Brian Sadler said, motioning to the west. "I was at the fairgrounds working and he called and said, 'What's the fire at the church?" Sadler, chairman of the church's pastoral parish committee and a lifelong member, headed from the fairgrounds in Moville to the church about 10 minutes away. A sheriff's deputy controlling traffic at the intersection of Woodbury County Road D-22 and Lee Avenue allowed him through a roadblock and Sadler drove the half mile south to the church. "It was smoking badly and they were squirting it with water and cutting holes in the roof," Sadler said. Kingsley fire chief Brandon Sitzmann was first on the scene in his personal vehicle after the lawn service workers called 911 at about 3:30 p.m., and firefighters from nearby Anthon, Correctionville, Moville, Pierson and a ladder truck from Sergeant Bluff soon arrived. Sitzmann said the pickup was engulfed when he arrived, and flames were spreading to the northwest corner of the church. "There's moderate damage to the structure, but it looks like it is not a total loss," he said. Inside, water dripped onto the community hall floor and windows had been broken out. The kitchen appeared to be undamaged. In a Sunday School classroom in a corner of the building, a brightly painted mural picturing Noah's ark and cute animals survived the flames. But water and insulation mixed on the soaked carpet, and water dripped out of holes that had been cut in the ceiling and roof to ventilate the room, the location of the most severe damage. Outside, the white siding was blackened, melted and peeling off the structure. Sitzmann said the sanctuary on the south side of the building had minor smoke damage, but was otherwise OK. What caused the pickup, which was burnt down to its metal frame, to catch fire is still under investigation. Whether the church will be able to host services for its 60 members yet this weekend is unknown. "It's too early to tell, but I'm guessing it's not this week," Sadler said. 713 Day specials around Houston. Houston Chronicle July 13 may seem like an ordinary day to the rest of the world, but for Houstonians, it holds special significance as "713 Day." 713 Day marks the celebration of Houston's original area code, established in 1947 and exclusively used until 1996. This unofficial holiday shines a spotlight on what makes Houston unique, featuring events with food and drink specials at popular spots across the city. Here's a preview of this weekend's 713 Day offerings, noting that events may be subject to change following the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 8th Wonder Brewery 8th Wonder Brewery 8th Wonder Brewery On 713 Day, 8th Wonder invites Houstonians to celebrate with live music from 2 to 8 p.m., a vendor market curated by Good Market HTX, outdoor activities, and the debut of their full bar featuring spirits, wine, cannabis beverages and beer. Admission is free. Cadillac Bar Cadillac Bar is marking 713 Day with an all-day extended Happy Hour. Cadillac Bar Houston The Mexican restaurant is celebrating 713 Day with an all-day extended happy hour. Specials include $5 house Margaritas, $5 tequila shots, and $15 pitchers of house Margaritas. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Cafe Leonelli Cafe Leonelli will celebrate 713 Day with a special cocktail, the Comet Crush. Alex Montoya The Italian cafe located in the Museum of Fine Arts, will be offering a special 713 Day cocktail, the Comet Crush. The cocktail, inspired by Houston's space culture and the iconic hues of the Astros, is made with butterfly pea flower-infused vodka, vanilla, and orange juice. Priced at $7.13, it will be available from 5-9 p.m. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Craft Pita Craft Pita is hosting an "Only in Htown" Cookout on 713 Day to showcase Houston's unique flavors. Michael Ma Craft Pita's Only in Htown cookout on 713 Day, features Lebanese, Filipino, Palestinian, and Peruvian dishes. Chef Gabriel Medina and Chef Rafael Nasr will serve a Filipino lechon shawarma rice bowl with suckling pig prepared shawarma style, while Michaels Cookie Jar and Booza Ice Cream will offer a Tahini Snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich. Rafael and his mother, Claudia Nasr, will debut a mystery Peruvian dish, marking the first time they will collaborate on a dish from Claudias home country. The event is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 5172 Buffalo Speedway; craftpita.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Diversion Cocktails For 713 Day, Diversion Cocktails will offer a Candy Paint drink. Dustyn Zenner Popular for its creative mixology, Diversion Cocktails will celebrate Houston with its $18 Candy Paint cocktail. This special drink features rum, candy syrup, citrus and soda, topped with a lit cinnamon stick. Reservations are strongly encouraged. 7202 Long Point; diversioncocktails.com J-Bar-M Barbecue Door signage at J-Bar-M Barbecue, a new barbecue restaurant at 2201 Leeland. Greg Morago The EaDo barbecue spot will host the Cadillacs and Coffee event from 1 to 6 p.m., as part of their 713 Day celebration. This free car show will feature unique stock and modified classic Cadillacs. Attendees can also indulge in the "El-Dog Sando," a Cadillac-branded glazed donut bun filled with brisket, sausage, house-made pickled red onions, pickles and Texas Style Habanero Hot Sauce, served with a side of fries for $20. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Karbach Brewing Co. Karbach Brewing Co. hosts the Reggae Vibes Festival. Karbach Brewing Co. Houstons Karbach will celebrate 713 Day with live DJs, beer, Shop Local Market and a live performance by Houston legend Lil Flip in the biergarten. MORE FROM ANA KHAN: 7 indoor attractions in Houston to stay cool while recovering from Hurricane Beryl Marmo Marmo is cebrating 713 Day with $7.13 spritzes and other specials. Kirstin Gilliam The Italian chophouse in Montrose Collective, will celebrate 713 Day with $7.13 spritzes available all day. Options include an Aperol Spritz or a Purple Spritz made with Empress gin. These can be paired with menu items such as Oysters on the Half Shell ($24, $48), Polpette ($16), and Burrata ($21). 888 Westheimer, Ste 109; marmoitalian.com Saint Arnold's 713 Day Downtown Pub Crawl Saint Arnold's 713 Day Downtown Pub Crawl returns on on July 13. Saint Arnold Brewing Company Saint Arnold's 713 Day Downtown Pub Crawl returns, taking participants through seven stops across Downtown Houston. The pub crawl concludes at Market Square Park for the We Heart HOU concert. Stops include Flying Saucer, McIntyres Downtown, Underground Hall, Angel Share, Shay McElroys, Little Dipper, and Mollys Pub. Tacodeli Tacodeli celebrates 713 Day with $5 margaritas and $2.13 beers. Courtesy of Mackenzie Smith Kelley Tacodelis Rice Military and Post Oak Plaza locations will offer $5 margaritas and $2.13 beers to complement their signature taco menu, totaling $7.13 when combined. The classic Senorita Margarita will be available on the rocks or frozen and can be mixed with sandia agua fresca (Senorita Watermelon Swirl) or Tacodelis horchata (Senorita Horchata Swirl). Local beers and ciders will also be offered. 1902 Washington Ave D; tacodeli.com WILD Concepts 713 Day cocktails at WILD Concepts. Steven Cromer WILD Concepts invites Houstonians to celebrate the city's original area code with $7.13 specials all day at their Montrose and The Heights locations. Featured cocktails include the Swangin and Bangin, the Still Sippin cocktail, and the $5 Lemon Skunka lemon drop shot with THC. 1609 Westheimer and 2121 N Shepherd; wildconcepts.com Houston Botanic Garden A monarch butterfly lands on foliage in the pollinator garden at Houston Botanic Gardens. Brett Coomer/staff photographer In recognition of 713 Day, the Houston Botanic Garden is offering $7.13 admission on July 13-14, over 40% off the usual weekend rates for a family of four. The Garden will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on July 13th and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 14th, marking its reopening after disruptions from Hurricane Barryl. Enjoy attractions like the shaded Alcoves and the interactive water play area in the Susan Garver Family Discovery Garden. If youve heard anything about Longlegs, its that its scary as hell. The indie distributor Neon, which in March had a modest hit with the Rosemarys Baby riff Immaculate, has been building anticipation for Oz Perkins fourth feature since the beginning of the year, with an enigmatic publicity campaign that felt at times like being on the trail of a real-life serial killer. Even as anticipation built, the ads continued to hide the ball, claiming in one teaser that actress Maika Monroes heart rate spiked to 170 bpm the first time she saw Nicolas Cage made up as the movies titular serial killer, then cutting to a shot of Cage with his face obscured by a large black box. Advertisement This is all great for building suspense and getting audiences into theaters, but it also sets up some false expectations, which may be why several people walked out of my screening on Thursday night. Although Longlegs has the feel of a horror movie, with a tense, droning score and shots that linger on the empty space over a characters shoulder, its not really designed to instill fear, and its especially not designed to release it. (Yet another enigma: The movies score is credited to Zilgi, which may be a pseudonym for an as-yet-unidentified composer or just for writer-director Osgood Perkins himself.) As someone who regularly finds myself itching for the pause button when horror movies get too intenseone reason I prefer watching them in theaters is because it removes that temptationI sometimes have to remind myself that the best way to dissipate that sense of anxiety is simply to keep watching until the end. Evil either is vanquished or, less often, triumphs, but regardless, the monsters leave their hiding places and the constant anxiety about what might happen next is resolved. Longlegs has a mystery at its core, namely how it is that Cages character has induced a string of fathers to murder their families and themselvesa killing spree all the more impressive because theres no evidence he laid a finger on any of his victims or even entered their homes. But Monroes Lee Harker, a novice FBI agent who is just taking on her first cases, doesnt need much time to figure out Longlegs pattern or to decode the cipher in which hes been leaving cryptic letters at the crime scenes for decades. Lee, though, cant entirely explain how she has cracked the case, because shes not only a dedicated investigator: Shes also psychic. Advertisement Theres some quibbling between Lee and her new boss at the Bureau, Carter (Blair Underwood), about whether she actually has inexplicable abilities or is merely highly intuitive. (In a test that resembles The Parallax Views slideshow indoctrination, she correctly guesses a random number eight timesand misses it eight times.) But either way, she feels as if she comprehends things she cant and shouldnt. Its as if an unseen figure has tapped her on the shoulder, she explains, and she just knows where to look. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In other words, Longlegs is less about the fear of the unknown than about the dread of the known, the sickening lurch toward the inevitable. Although Perkinsthe son of Psychos Anthony Perkinsintroduces Cage-as-Longlegs with a childs-eye-view shot that shows him solely from the neck down, its only a minute or two before he ducks into frame, even if the camera cuts away almost as soon as he does. And by the time we do get a good look at him, all I could think is that he looks like a cross between Heath Ledgers Joker and Miss Piggy, not exactly an unholy visage to send ones heart racing. Untold numbers of movies have fizzled in their third acts because a revealed evil is less terrifying than an imagined one, but Longlegs doesnt stretch out the revelation so long that it becomes an inevitable letdown. We can see whats coming, and that only makes it worse. Advertisement Related From Slate The Most Acclaimed Horror Movie of the Year Is Here. Is It As Scary As Everyone Is Saying? Read More This particularly grinding form of dread also drives In a Violent Nature, the cult horror hit that recounts a Friday the 13thstyle slasher story from the perspective of the masked killer himself, and Speak No Evil, the bloody-minded Danish thriller whose American remake was advertised before my screening of Longlegs. Theyre movies that evoke death and doom with a kind of numbed-out regularity, a sense that the worst is already foreordained. In Longlegs, the killer is fond of dropping allusions to Revelation, framing human existence as a book whose last page we can flip to and see how it ends. The movie is part procedural thriller, a riff on The Silence of the Lambs that sets its heroine on a course to stop a killer before he claims more victims. But unlike Jodie Fosters wide-open gaze, Monroes is set and stony, as if she has already seen too much before she lays eyes on her first homicide scene. Shes not surprised by the terrible things she observes, and neither are we, whove watched these kinds of movie horrors before and live in a world populated by worse ones. All we can do is brace ourselves. We know what were headed for. We just dont know how to stop it. President Joe Biden did pretty well at his press conference Thursday night, and that may have disappointed a lot of Democrats. They were probably hoping for one of two outcomes: either that he would do badly, making it easier to persuade him to drop out of the race, or that he would knock it out of the park, allaying their concerns, making them believe that maybe he can stay in and win the election after all. Instead, he did fine. Had the catastrophic debate two weeks ago not happened, this press conference would not have made a dent. It might not even have been broadcast in prime time; certainly, the cable news panels wouldnt have spent hours afterward scrutinizing every line. Advertisement A little before the press conference, as the three-day NATO summit came to an end, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin (though he recovered and corrected himself in seconds). During the press conference, he referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. A reporter asked him afterward if this didnt prove that he isnt in great cognitive condition. Cmon. These are the sorts of mental hiccups that everyone lets out now and then. It doesnt necessarily mean squat. But because of the debate, every Biden speech, press conference, debate, or random conversation will be placed under a microscope, every stumble or stutter underlined, blown up to a large-font headline. The NATO summit, which Biden hosted and which his press conference was meant to highlight, seemed to go quite wellfor the alliance and for Biden. Dozens, even hundreds, of reporters must have canvassed every foreign official, high and low, in attendance to see how they thought Biden came off: Did he have a Parkinsons moment? Did he ever mumble incoherently? Advertisement At least so far, Ive seen no reports of any sources shaking their heads or clucking in regret about the American presidents declining state. Which isnt to say no such moments occurred, or that Biden is not in decline. Its just that this summit and this press conferencewhich were touted as pivotal to Bidens political career and to the fate of democracymoved the story along not one bit. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And so the media will wait in suspense for the next pivotal moment. Is it possible Biden will suffer no bad nights between now and the election? When he has one, what conclusions will be reached? (In the background, Im right now hearing one cable-news commentator moaning, We cant live like this forever.) Advertisement Certainly the news shows are covering nothing elsenot even Trump, whose media advisers have shrewdly persuaded him to stay relatively (and uncharacteristically) quiet. As every consultant knows, when your opponent is digging himself into a big hole, make yourself scarce. Stories about the NATO summit itself were seen as secondary to the Biden psychodrama, even though the event was quite successful. The allies reaffirmed their commitment to spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, upped their support for Ukraine, laid out a path for Ukraines eventual membership in NATO (though not right now). At a press gathering earlier in the day, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that at a roundtable of NATO members, each head of state expressed thanks to the United States and to the president personally for making all this progress possible. Biden repeated the point at the press conference. Those leaders were probably sincere. Biden has been largely responsible, and almost every head of state is terrified at the prospect of another term of Trump, who has disdain for alliances in general and has talked about leaving NATO in particular. Advertisement Related From Slate The One Event That Sheds Light on What Will Happen With Biden Read More There were substantive questions at the press conferenceabout the summit, about Ukraine, about the Middle East warand Biden answered them at length and with deep knowledge. This is his specializationit has been since he became a senator more than 50 years agoand it showed. Aside from the two already noted, he committed no gaffes, no stumbles over leaders names, no errors of fact; it was all clear. Advertisement And it was in these moments that Biden made his case for staying in the race. A reporter asked at one point about his remark, early on in his term, that he considered himself a bridgea one-term transition to younger leadership. What had changed, the reporter asked, meaning: Why are you running again? He replied, What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited, in economics, foreign policy, and the country. He added, Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job. The only legitimate question, he insisted, is Am I getting the job done? Can you name me someone whos gotten more major legislation passed in three years? Biden seems still to be hoping that this becomes the only serious question among the voters as well. For the moment, for good or ill, he genuinely seems to be staying in the race. With President Joe Bidens debate and subsequent interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos on everyones mind, some attention has shifted to a man who might have profound insight into his overall condition and whether he remains fit to serve: White House physician Kevin OConnor. OConnor has implicitly cosigned the view that Biden is capable of the job. In February, he released a routine summary of Bidens health, which noted that he has sleep apnea, a common and easily treated condition, as well as some other conditions, including atrial fibrillation and peripheral neuropathy (the latter of which probably affects his steadiness walking but is not particularly concerning). This week, OConnor published a letter in response to murmurs that a Parkinsons expert has been making extra visits to the White House. Biden, he wrote, meets with the neurology consultant and other specialists during his (again, routine) annual physicals. OConnor revealed nothing alarming in the letter. It should be said that all reports are that OConnor is respected and admired for his integrity. Ive heard several insiders say that if push came to shove, hed do the right thing. But what is that? What questions can the physician to the president really answer? Can Biden lead the country in his current state? Sure. Could a replacement do better? Thats not his doctors call. The information we want to know about Biden may seem medical. But its mostly not. Advertisement Much comes down to prognostics, less to diagnostics. Were the president to undertake a fresh battery of neurologic and cognitive tests, the results themselves would provide only a snapshot of the present. Although Ive long argued that older politiciansespecially obviously ailing onesshould do this and make the results public, interpreting them is not as easy as many imagine. Lower scores on validated tests like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment correlate with higher risks for a variety of relevant conditionsbut the results say nothing about the slope of things. A person scoring perfectly today may suffer a stroke and have a lower score tomorrow. That score could remain stable for years, with little effect on important daily tasks. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, a person with a progressive neurological condition might score 1 point lower on successive tests taken every six months. When precisely that decline inhibits crucial daily functions depends on the person and, importantly, the specific activities in question. Indeed, plenty of people with Parkinsons disease should not drive. But many of them can still do math. At the hospital where I work, Ive spoken to patients who are retired Nobel laureates whoI couldnt help askingkeep up with their highly technical fields. Nevertheless, I wouldnt want them operating heavy machinery around me. At issue are the various and often unique responsibilities of the modern presidency. A presidents doctor can say his patient can take the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call tonight. But he cannot usually predict, based on any test, whether that ability will still be there in a year. Likewise, cognitive tests provide very little context for how a person will function out in the world. As Biden suggested to Stephanopoulos, no test other than the presidency itself possesses the diagnostic information we covet. Advertisement Nor is it the purview of the presidents physician to determine whether his patient is performing his duties with sufficient independencethat is, without a team of advisers hovering over him. If the president needs a team to do a lot of extra meeting preparation for him but he nonetheless arrives prepared, what medical insight would override that? Whats the appropriate level of support in this jobregardless of ageanyway? This isnt the Olympics, where a wind-aided time in the 100 meters doesnt count for the record books. Advertisement Some pundits have observed that Biden appears sharp enough to be a successful president but, paradoxically, not to run for reelection. But, in essence, his doctor implicitly clears him for the concrete campaign activities daily: traveling the country, giving speeches, shaking hands. This again becomes a question of effectiveness, not fitnessone that is political, not medical. Even if his doctor says He will have bad days where he makes gaffes or has lapses, why would a physician be responsible for assessing the resulting political optics? Advertisement Advertisement Importantly, a physician cannot answer specific questions like how well his patient might perform in a very peculiar cognitive test indeed: another televised debate. Whether Biden has the mental sharpness to quickly and convincingly call out and refute a steady stream of lies that Donald Trump flings in the next debate isnt something any cognitive test can determine. Thats what were really after and, perhaps, what makes the debate format uniquely interesting in this particular moment. In fact, everything a president (or anyone) does can be viewed as its own kind of in situ test. I drove to work today. I passed that particular test. Will I be able to tomorrow? Probably. If not, and I need help getting there, can I still do my job? The answer to that is far more complicated, depending as much on the support systems available and the expectations of my employer as on whatever biological change or accident occurred to make operating a motor vehicle impossible. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This is not to say that physicians cant help patients and their families navigate aging safely, based in part on neurocognitive test results placed into their specific contexts. Many of us have been involved in these conversations. Should Dad still drive? Does Mom need to retire? Do we need to hire help to come to the house? Specialists can add insights. But it may surprise you that how these discussions go is often a reflection more of the stakeholders than of the patient. Important decisionslike whether a parent should undergo another round of chemotherapyare heavily influenced by the emotions of their families. The adult daughter who has dutifully and daily attended to her ailing mother for years, who has seen the suffering caused by prior treatments up close, might say, Enough is enough. The best treatment is to maximize quality, not quantity, of life. Conversely, a usually absent brother who just flew across the country in a time of crisis may disagree, not realizing the role that guilt plays in forming opinions. Advertisement Advertisement In the case of a president, even one who holds the opinions of his family in high esteem, people other than family also weigh in on and influence major choices. Crowded around the proverbial exam table are other politicians and people with powerpeople who will lose their status if Biden does not soldier on, people who may genuinely feel that the country will be better off if they continue to back their guy. Advertisement With the stakes as high as they are, I am warmed that many people still believe in the wisdom and insight that a trusted physician can offer. But my colleagues and I have our limits. We cant just read test results and tell you whether the president can win the election or stave off another attack on democracy. Indeed, above all, theres one question about Bidens ability to continue that no doctor can answer: Whats the alternative? The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views and opinions of Brigham and Womens Hospital. Highshine IT Solutions, founded by Hari Gautham Somasundaram, specializes in delivering Odoo ERP solutions globally, focusing on enhancing business efficiency without interruptions by his time at IIT Madras, where practical applications of theoretical knowledge left a lasting impression. Unlike traditional education systems, IIT Madras integrated real-world scenarios into classroom learning. For instance, in a marketing course, students gathered data from diverse demographics, engaging with people in parks and playgrounds. This hands-on approach enriched Haris understanding beyond textbooks. Moreover,curriculum emphasized depth over breadth, allowing Hari to delve deeply into subjects and interact with professors and peers from diverse backgrounds. These interactions and networks continue to provide valuable insights and support in his entrepreneurial endeavours.His entrepreneurial vision was further shaped during an exchange program at the University of Applied SciencesInitially seeking respite from IITMs rigor, the experience proved pivotal. Engaging in practical projects and cultural exchanges broadened his global perspective. Haris ability to connect with German clients and navigate cultural nuances has been crucial in his entrepreneurial journey, illustrating the transformative impact of international exposure on his professional development.Highshine IT Solutions, founded byspecializes in delivering ERP solutions globally, focusing on enhancing business efficiency without interruptions. The motivation behind establishing this venture stemmed from Haris fascination with building businesses from the ground up and optimizing their operational processes. His extensive experience and expertise in ERP systems, particularly IFS, underscored a niche opportunity in the market characterized by its complexity and unmet customer needs.However, the journey was not without its challenges. Initially, Hari faced the daunting task of establishing credibility in a competitive market with limited prior success stories. Financial constraints compounded the challenge of recruiting and retaining skilled consultants essential for project execution. Moreover, balancing his role at Great Learning while building Highshine posed a significant mindset challenge, requiring a seamless transition to an entrepre-neurial mindset from a corporate one.Despite these hurdles, Haris strategic approach and relentless commit-ment paid off. Highshine gradually gained traction, securing prestigious projects like the HAL and partnering with industry giants like Tech Mahindra. These milestones validated Highshines capabilities and cemented its reputation in the ERP solutions domain, marking a successful transition from startup challenges to sustainable growth and industry recognition.Besides, in the first two years of establishing Highshine IT Solutions, Hari Gautham Somasundaram focused almost entirely on his professional life, leaving little room for personal time. However, he emphasizes that achieving balance is crucial. Hari ensures his employees maintain this balance by creating a process-oriented company with clear, defined procedures dictating roles and responsibilities. This minimizes constant oversight and allows the company to run smoothly, enabling everyone, including Hari, to achieve a healthier work-life balance.Hari also values mentorship, having benefited from it throughout his career. He feels obligated to support budding entrepreneurs, especiallyHe actively shares his experiences in entrepreneurship, B-school journeys, and product management. He plans to create a community to offer organized mentorship.In conclusion, Hari Gautham Somasundaram exemplifies a dedicated entrepreneur committed to achieving balance and fostering mentorship, embodying resilience and strategic foresight in his journey with Highshine IT Solutions. Ramya's days at IIT Delhi exposed her to a large alumni network comprising of brightest scientific minds from across India who have contributed significantly towards Ramya Materials valorized like the CEOs or CXOs. Thus, despite offering ground-breaking services to our customers, ensuring that my company and my team members get the deserved recognition and value for their hard work was a constant challenge during the initial days of my entrepreneurial journey, says Ramya.Founded in 2021, Ramya Materials is a nextgen deep tech startup and an entrepreneurship support organization primarily engaged in researching new materials, especially in the areas concerning environmental sustain-ability, circular economy, public health and medical technologies. Some of the major practice areas of the company include R&D Consulting, Technical Due Diligence and Knowledge Products. Today, the firm has garnered the reputation of spearheading IP-led innovation and product development among Indian startups and larger MSMEs as well.Except in niche sectors such as pharma, industrial innovation is a very recent development that is slowly gaining traction in India lately. Although many entrepreneurs wish to explore this area, they find it extremely challenging to find the right talent and acquire the required resources. On the other hand, there are a lot of underutilized assets such as testing and prototyping equipment with academic institutions that are seldom used. As an ESO, we enable such innovators and entrepreneurs to access these underutilized resources and accelerate their product development process, explains Ramya.As an entrepreneur with a scientific mind, Ramya was always intrigued about the material sciences space. Through perseverance and persistence, she gradually built-up the necessary resources including Patent Analysis & Landscape Mapping, Bioprocessing, Industrial Chemicals, Pilots & manufacturing, and Net-Zero Construction to focus her skills towards facilitating entrepreneurs and R&D teams in product solutions and innovation through translational research. This focused approach has been one of the primary factors that have led to the successful entrepre-neurial journey of Ramya, especially in the deep tech vertical.I believe working backward from clear end-user pain points while staying in tune with these problem statements as they evolve is a core principle that must guide every entrepreneur or business professional. Twice every year, I make sure to go outside the scope of my projects, immerse myself with other sectors and get to understand the current happenings within those industries. Members of our team regularly participate in conferences, seminars and exhibitions from across almost every industry that has use cases for material science as well, which has helped me immensely in identifying new business opportunities and broadening our scope of work , adds Ramya.Owing to her vast industry expertise, Ramya is also actively involved with young entrepreneurs and is currently mentoring with a global climate tech fund named Third Derivative. She also won the Investigator Award at an international conference for artificial organ research in Japan, which she cherishes as the proudest moments where she could also represent India. Further, she was even invited to speak at events like the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) National Stakeholders Workshop on the Plastic Life Cycle this June (2024).Going forward, Ramya plans to engage more deeply to support larger and more mature organizations around the world in their product innovation efforts by advancing her firms services and helping accelerate the flow of capital into climate tech, health tech, and similar deep tech verticals which demand concerted efforts and resources towards innovation. Additionally, she envisions building her firm's investor & partner base to create awareness about the potential impact and exponential returns of these work areas as she continues to explore the inter sectionality of material sciences. Stories of Ukrainians who have found job in Slovakia. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share Back in Ukraine, Natalia Bielovceva and Sergej Bielovcev ran a beauty salon that belonged to the French network Frederic Moreno. Then the full-scale Russian invasion of their homeland started in mid-February 2022, and the two escaped to Slovakia, where their friends had recently relocated. After realising that the war might last a long time, they started mulling over how to earn a living in their new home. At the time, they were contacted by Fanny and Frederic Moreno, who offered to help them. So they decided to open a new beauty shop under the same brand in Bratislava. More information about the Slovak labour market Please see our Career Guide. It was a fascinating process, Natalia Bielovceva and Sergej Bielovcev told The Slovak Spectator. A different country, a different language, different rules. We were pleasantly surprised by the openness of Slovaks, their willingness to help. Preparing the necessary documents and projects was easier than to start working, however, because they needed various certificates for hairdressing, manicure, pedicure and massage. They eventually opened their beauty salon in December 2023. Now we are in the process of developing the beauty shop; clients like the services and the quality of the services, they added. We see how quickly the clientele is growing and the business is gaining momentum. Getting a trade licence can be a struggle A selection of short feel-good stories from Slovakia. Judith de Leeuw's 'Beyond the Mind Boundaries' mural can be viewed in Trnava, on Ludvika van Beethovena Street. (Source: Matus Koprda) Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share Every week The Slovak Spectator brings you a selection of three short stories from across Slovakia from which pessimism and negativity are absent. A world-class mural in Trnava A special new mural now adorns a block of flats in Trnava. Situated on Ludvika van Beethovena Street, it was created by renowned Dutch visual and graffiti artist Judith de Leeuw, known as JDL. It took six days to complete. The painting shows a woman enclosed in a circle at the bottom, breaking it into pieces, and emerging from her bubble at the top, de Leeuw wrote on Instagram. It explores polarisation and how people live in isolated realities. She explained that during time spent in America, she learned that meeting different people can dissolve tensions and foster unexpected friendships. In Slovakias current situation, this mural reminds us that breaking out of our bubbles and engaging with others can lead to unity and understanding, the artist added. De Leeuw is regarded as one of the world's leading street artists, and has created artworks in 41 countries, participating in various art projects across the globe. Her works often explore topics related to social differences and inequality, the TASR newswire reported. Slovak nanosatellite will hunt gamma rays Slovakia has sent its fourth satellite into space. The GRBBeta nanosatellite is supposed to validate technology for the future constellation of CAMELOT nanosatellites, which will be used to record and accurately locate gamma-ray bursts from space, and offer services to amateur radio operators. The project was prepared by the Faculty of Aeronautics of the Technical University of Kosice (TUKE), in cooperation with various foreign institutions, including universities in Canada, Hungary, Czechia and Japan, and with financial support from the Slovak Education Ministry. The satellite platform was supplied by the Slovak company SpaceManic. A team of scientists has already made contact with GRBBeta, which is a 2U CubeSat satellite (a class of small satellite Ed. note) whose dimensions in its folded state (without deployed antennas) are just 10cm x 10cm x 22.7cm. Related article Related article Slovak space industry lifts off after ESA membership Read more From the moment the connection was established, the functionality of individual subsystems of the satellite was checked, such as opening of antennas, battery status and charging, satellite temperature, functioning of solar panels, camera cooler effectiveness, and so on, said Peter Hanak of TUKE, as quoted by the TASR newswire. The satellite's GPS and GRB detector were activated successfully, while other systems and necessary measurements will be added in the coming days, he noted. Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are rare, ultra-large explosions described as the most explosive events in the entire universe. Fortunately for us, they do not typically occur in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The new Ariane 6 rocket launching from Kourou, French Guiana, on July 9, 2024. (Source: AP/TASR) The satellite was taken into space on board the new Ariane 6 spacecraft, after receiving a free ticket from the European Space Agency (ESA) back in October 2022, when Slovakia joined the agency. This made the country more visible, and even saved some costs related to launching the satellite into orbit, the Education Ministry commented. Minister Tomas Drucker (Hlas) called it an important milestone for Slovak space research. The magical meadow hidden away in northern Slovakia The village of Oscadnica, situated in the Kysuce region in northern Slovakia, hides a unique spot that has become a favourite among Slovaks and tourists from abroad. Carovna Luka (Magical Meadow) spreads across a total of 8,000 square metres and is divided into several sectors. Each of these contains different colours and different scents of plants and flowers. Among other plants, there are poppies, colourful honey flowers and various herbs at the site. There is also a lavender field where seasonal lavender picking is held. Visitors can stroll around the meadow, but also learn more about various herbs and take pictures, using various props that can be found there. The main aim is that people relax here, enjoy the beauty of the colours, the scent of plants and, of course, take a nice picture with their family in the beautiful surroundings of Kysuce, reads the website. Five feel-good stories published by The Slovak Spectator to read: Political meme of the week (Source: Facebook/Zomri) Caption: When Im copying homework from my classmate: Change it a bit so that it doesnt look the same. Me: [the picture below]. The satirical site Zomri.online has published several memes mocking the recent temporary change in logo by the main news programme of the public-service broadcaster. After a new law on public broadcasting became effective on July 1, following its rapid approval by President Peter Pellegrini, what was RTVS became STVR overnight but no one had thought to prepare new logos or jingles. Several employees of the broadcaster, which has been designed by the government as more of state-directed organ than a public-service broadcaster, called the first days of STVR "chaos". The Culture Ministry in the meantime purchased new logos for both the television and radio departments, but these have yet to be revealed. You can send me your tips on good news stories about Slovakia or funny memes at: radka.minarechova@spectator.sk. Thank you! Dandelion Cafe has been closed since Monday as power outages affected more than a million CenterPoint customers. Marie Elgamal Dandelion Cafe has been closed since Monday as power outages affected more than a million CenterPoint customers. Marie Elgamal Dandelion Cafe has been closed since Monday as power outages affected more than a million CenterPoint customers. Marie Elgamal Damages at Rainbow Lodge after Hurricane Beryl. Donnette Hansen Restaurants, bars and coffee shops have been a saving grace for Houstonians going on five days without power. But some restaurants have been less fortunate, losing tens of thousands of dollars as they remain in the dark. As of Friday, 850,000 CenterPoint Energy customers are still without electricity after Hurricane Beryl. Restaurant owners are left to navigate how they'll recover from the financial hit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Dandelion Cafe owner Sarah Lieberman said she had to toss thousands of dollars of food. They were able to save an insignificant amount of produce by taking it to their Rice University location, which has limited space. She estimates a loss of $40,000 so far, which includes the new inventory they will need to buy. It's especially concerning as the breakfast spot has been gearing up to open a new location in the Heights. She said the Heights location has relied on revenue made at the original Bellaire outpost, which remains without power as of Friday morning. She was notified by her security cameras that the power went out at approximately 6 a.m. Monday. Lieberman said this is the first time Dandelion Cafe has experienced an outage of this caliber. Even during Hurricane Harvey she said it was open the May derecho, as well. At home, she also doesnt have power, but the most stressful thing for her right now is not being able to provide work for her employees. Damages to the patio at Rainbow Lodge after Hurricane Beryl. Donnette Hansen Some of my staff have been with me six and a half, seven years, and these are single mothers with children they're just so important to us, Lieberman said. I hope it comes back on today, so that we can bring them back in and start paying them again. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She plans on applying for a disaster loan with the Small Business Administration to help with the hit to the restaurants finances. Others, like still-closed Hugos in Montrose, turn to insurance claims in the hopes of recovering some of those lost funds. But that hasnt worked too well for Rainbow Lodge, which just got the lights back on Thursday afternoon. Owner Donnette Hansen said the amount she received from a claim from a little over 90 hours without power in May was almost insulting. It only offered coverage 72 hours after loss of power. Power outages are a loss of $13,500 per day in overhead at Rainbow Lodge, not including the up to $18,000 tossed in spoiled food or alcohol. Power loss is devastating in other ways, operational disruption to our systems and platforms, employment interruption for the crew. Daily revenue loss completely interrupts cash flow, account payables and, for many, can easily wreck a business that runs on already thin margins, Hansen told the Chronicle in an email. Ostia will open its patio up on Friday for a pizza pop-up despite no power in the restaurant. Steve Gonzales/Staff photographer Shes grateful to have a storm fund that can cushion the blow for the business and her team. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Cochinita & Co. owner Victoria Elizondo posted on Instagram Threads this is the first time in her eight years that she has felt defeated, as her restaurant is still without power. "For a small business, just a couple of days without income can be catastrophic," she wrote. She's asking people to help support the restaurant by buying e-gift cards. Similarly, Italian restaurant Mimo is asking customers to join its wine club as they await power. Mimo also shared info for Southern Smoke, an organization that supports food industry workers in times of need. On the other hand, the power outage isn't keeping Ostia in Montrose from opening. After four days of zero business, the team is planning on hosting a pizza pop-up in its parking lot using a portable Gozney oven. But with heavy rain Friday afternoon, they might have to even push that to a later time or different day. "We're marching forward and we're not giving up; we're going to find a way to make money, pay salaries and do what we do: feed people," said Ostia chef-owner Travis McShane. The EC has criticised the government over its reduction of penalties for crimes related to misuse of European funds. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share Despite the summer holiday, Slovak lawmakers will meet in parliament next week to approve a change in the criminal law to prevent Slovakia from losing out on funds from the European Union. The amendment, which responds to criticism by the European Commission and aims to enhance the protection of the blocs financial interests, was approved by the government on Wednesday, July 10, a week after the Constitutional Court ruled that most of the much-criticised changes to the penal code originally proposed in early February 2024 are in accordance with the constitution. The European Commission has repeatedly criticised the Slovak government for wanting to reduce penalties for crimes related to the misuse of European money. Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer) claims that this weeks change, which will slightly increase penalties for the misuse of European funds, could not have been made earlier; another change concerns the extension of the statute of limitations in these cases. These matters, which we have now included in the proposal, arose from the Constitutional Courts decision and subsequent communication with the EU. Therefore, they could not have been done in advance, Susko added, as quoted by the state broadcaster STVR. He did not explain why the government had reduced the penalties in the first place. Susko claims that the government had to adopt the changes in part due to the activities of the opposition, which he said is engaging in anti-Slovak activities. The opposition has pointed out to European institutions that the governments changes could allow fraudsters to steal European money with virtual impunity. They are engaging in activities in the EU and the European Commission that damage the interests of the Slovak Republic, especially financial ones, Susko said, as quoted by the Dennik N daily. The opposition likened the government to bunglers, due to its repeated corrections to criminal laws over a short period of time. The government wants to adopt the changes before the decision of the Constitutional Court is published in the collection of laws. If the new changes are approved and published in the collection of laws after the courts July 3 decision, this weeks changes will be meaningless, according to legal expert Jozef Centes. Perpetrators will be prosecuted under the more favourable rules, and this amendment will be pointless, said Centes, a criminal law professor. Parliament will convene on Monday, July 15, at the request of interim speaker Peter Ziga (Hlas). The government intends to adopt the changes through a fast-tracked legislative process. Philadelphia Phillies' Brandon Marsh is doused by Bryson Stott after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) PHILADELPHIA (AP) Brandon Marsh hit a home run and an RBI triple, Trea Turner launched his sixth longball in nine games and the Philadelphia Phillies completed a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 5-1 victory Thursday night. Aaron Nola (11-4) struck out nine in six innings and Kyle Schwarber also went deep for the Phillies, who swept the Dodgers for the first time since 2011 and the first time in Philadelphia since 2008. Los Angeles has lost four straight and eight of 12 overall. (Nolas) been tremendous, Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. Hes Mr. Consistency. You look at tonights game, and the first two innings hes in trouble, and he keeps grinding and battling. In the second inning (with the bases loaded) he strikes out (Shohei) Ohtani and gets a groundball from (Will) Smith and gets out of it. Then he settled in and as the game went on, he got better. Hes been dynamite all year. In a matchup between the top two teams in the National League, the Phillies led in every inning of the series except for the first one on Tuesday, which ended with both teams scoreless. They outscored the Dodgers 19-5 in the three games. Id be lying if I said we didnt wake up differently for games like this, Marsh said. Its a big test for us to see where we stand and I think we held our own. Marsh clubbed a 3-1 fastball from Landon Knack into the right-field seats leading off the second inning. Marsh then ripped a triple off Knack down the right-field line in the sixth, scoring Nick Castellanos to put the Phillies ahead 3-1. Marsh is batting .304 with all nine of his homers against right-handed pitchers this season. Im going to take a page out of (Castellanos) book, Marsh said. Its just see ball, hit ball. Keep it simple. Its hard enough as it is. The second you try to complicate it even more, its just downhill. Just trust the work and stay stubborn to it. Turner hit a solo shot in the first inning off Dodgers opener Anthony Banda (1-2) and added an infield single in the fourth. In the 21 games since he returned to Philadelphia's lineup following a 38-game stint on the injured list with a left hamstring strain, Turner is batting .356 with 11 multi-hit games. Johan Rojas had an RBI single for Philadelphia and made a leaping catch to rob Gavin Lux of an extra-base hit, bouncing off the outfield wall in two places. Ive always said, every hitter who hits the ball toward me, if he wants it to be a hit, hes going to have to hit it out, Rojas said through a translator. "The ball they hit, the ball I catch. If its not out, its in my glove. Nola allowed one run and four hits. His 11 wins rank second in the NL behind Atlanta lefty Chris Sale (12). Lux provided the only offense for the Dodgers when he homered off the base of the left-field foul pole against Nola in the fifth. Theyre clearly playing a lot better baseball than we are, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. Theyre clearly a better baseball team than we are right now. Like I always say, no ones going to feel sorry for you. You've got to play better." TRAINER'S ROOM Phillies 1B Bryce Harper returned to the lineup after missing one game with a bruised left hand. Harper took a line drive off his glove hand in the second inning of Tuesdays game against the Dodgers his first game back after missing nine with a left hamstring strain. UP NEXT Los Angeles turns to LHP James Paxton (7-2, 4.24 ERA) against Tigers All-Star LHP Tarik Skubal (10-3, 2.37) to start a weekend series Friday in Detroit. The Phillies send All-Star LHP Ranger Suarez (10-3, 2.58 ERA) to the mound against Oakland LHP Hogan Harris (1-3, 3.22) in Philadelphia on Friday. ___ AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb London, 11 July 2024 FAEMA, a Cimbali Group brand, is excited to announce the launch of the E61 CULT, a new version of the most iconic and recognisable coffee machine in the brands entire product portfolio. With a proud history and a legacy dating back over 60 years of excellence in the coffee world, the E61 CULT is not just a machine, but a true style icon. Always admired and chosen by industry professionals, including baristas and coffee connoisseurs, as well as designers, chefs and stars of film, sport and fashion, the E61 still represents a timeless legend thanks to its unmistakable design, so much so that it has been chosen by cafes and restaurants all over the world, including the Louis Vuitton Cafe in Osaka, Yves Saint Laurent Cafe in Paris, the Fondazione Pradas Bar Luce in Milan, and Casa Panerai in Geneva, just to name a few. Now, FAEMA wants to take this legend to different contexts, offering the opportunity to experience coffee perfection outside the confines of the traditional cafe. We are delighted to announce the launch of the E61 CULT. The name chosen for this variant says it all: the ultimate synthesis of what the E61 has been in its 63 years of existence, first a trendsetter, now iconic and proudly historic. It is a legendary espresso machine that is evolving and renewing itself with its single-phase version, ready to adapt to new contexts and needs, thanks to its single-phase electrical circuit stresses Andrea Clerici, Global Business Director at Cimbali Group.The E61 CULT opens up to new business segments The E61 CULT maintains the fundamentals that made it legendary. The fine materials, iconic design and quality in the cup, unchanged over time, continue to define the E61, now CULT, as an icon in the coffee world. The E61 CULT has therefore entered new contexts and business segments that are not strictly professional and related to coffee shops, such as boutique hotels, in-store coffee corners and private residences, and in all those places where coffee is not the core business. Through a perfect balance of aesthetics, functionality and design, the new 1-group version can offer consumers a consistently high-level coffee experience. Additionally, the E61 CULT has an installed power that makes it suitable for non-professional environments, and is made even more unique by the wooden aesthetic details, perfectly integrated with the machines steel casing and the distinctive red colour of the backlit panel. These distinctive details make it a real dream product and a furnishing element that can dialogue with even the most minimalist styles and shapes. It is a revolutionary machine in which steel, design and technology are harmoniously combined for timeless success.The history of a revolutionary machine Milan, 1961: a legend is born. With its revolutionary continuous-brewing coffee machine, the E61, Faema dominated the national and international market in the 1960s. This masterpiece, which is still in production today after more than 50 years, has become an icon in the world of coffee machines, permanently revolutionising the way coffee is made. The E61 was named after the 1961 solar eclipse and represents a milestone in the history of coffee machines. Introducing the first volumetric electric pump, which replaces the traditional lever, the E61 guarantees fixed water pressure, creating an excellent and consistent coffee cream. Thanks to the special brewing valve, the coffee powder is wetted before the water pressure passes through it, while an advanced water purification system eliminates limescale deposits, ensuring consistent quality in the cup. With the E61, Faema is heralding a new era in the production of bar coffee machines, combining a user-friendly design with professional performance. This extraordinary model not only marked an era, but continues to be the benchmark for coffee aficionados around the world to this day. Faema Art machine Founded in Milan in 1945, the FAEMA brand is one of the leading manufacturers of professional coffee machines. Design, innovation, sustainability and coffee culture are the cornerstones of the brands production. In line with the Groups new vision, FAEMA offers a diversified range of solutions for coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, workplaces and the home environment: wide ranges of espresso machines (traditional and fully automatic), coffee grinders, digital services (apps and services for professionals and enthusiasts) and accessories. FAEMA has made history, offering lever machines in the 1950s and the FAEMA E61 machine in the 1960s, the first to use a volumetric pump. Thanks to the talent of one of Italys most iconic designers, Giorgetto Giugiaro, and Italdesign, the FAEMA E91, FAEMA Emblema, FAEMA E71 range and FAEMA President were produced. In 2021 the brand launched the exclusive FAEMINA, a machine with a minimal, elegant design with which the company is returning to the home segment, while also targeting consumers. While for the Office segment, the latest addition is the X-Compact, ideal for those contexts where the consumer directly interacts with the machine and therefore seeks ease of use. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/biden-mistakenly-refers-to-ukraines-zelensky-as-putin-during-introduction-at-nato-event-1119345101.html Biden Mistakenly Refers to Ukraine's Zelensky as Putin During Introduction at NATO Event Biden Mistakenly Refers to Ukraine's Zelensky as Putin During Introduction at NATO Event Sputnik International US President Joe Biden was introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he called him "President Putin." 2024-07-11T22:33+0000 2024-07-11T22:33+0000 2024-07-11T22:33+0000 world joe biden vladimir putin volodymyr zelensky ukraine washington white house us https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/05/11/1118492625_0:117:3225:1931_1920x0_80_0_0_923cc5098c90b222354c89c1a5ee55c1.jpg "And now I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said when introducing Zelensky to the podium on stage. Biden immediately corrected himself, saying that he was so focused on beating Putin. The NATO leaders standing behind Putin appeared confused by Biden's mistake as most of them withheld their applause. A White House press pool reporter in the room said the audience "gasped" at Biden's mistake. This mishap occurred as Biden faces major backlash in his reelection campaign over concerns about his cognitive state and ability to serve another four years in the White House. Biden, 81, is the oldest US president in history and would be 86 at the end of a potential second term. A growing number of Democratic lawmakers are calling on Biden to drop out of the presidential race. ukraine 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 biden calls zelensky putin, biden says putin is president of ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/man-arrested-for-allegedly-asking-agent-to-destroy-energy-facilities---us-justice-dept-1119344559.html Man Arrested for Allegedly Asking Agent to Destroy Energy Facilities - US Justice Dept. Man Arrested for Allegedly Asking Agent to Destroy Energy Facilities - US Justice Dept. Sputnik International A man has been arrested for allegedly asking a federal agent to attack electrical substations while he traveled to Ukraine to fight Russia. 2024-07-11T22:00+0000 2024-07-11T22:00+0000 2024-07-11T22:01+0000 americas new jersey russia ukraine us justice department https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/08/0c/1112551009_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_9732941c2ca34dda2a5ee3a15f7a4d16.jpg Andrew Takhistov was allegedly on his way to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps* when we arrested him on charges of recruiting an individual to destroy an electrical substation here in the United States in order to advance his white supremacist ideology, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Takhistov allegedly asked the undercover agent to sabotage electrical substations after he fled to Ukraine, the statement said. The US authorities arrested Takhistov at an airport, where he was planning to travel to Ukraine via Paris, the statement said. Takhistov specifically wanted to join the Russian Volunteer Corps because of its openly National Socialist nature, the statement said. Takhistov encouraged violence against certain ethnic and religious communities online, as well as praised mass shooters, the statement said. The Russian Volunteer Corps is based in Ukraine and fights against Russian forces, although the Ukrainian military denies any official connection to the group. According to the complaint, Takhistov said that he wanted to join the group because of their specialization in "assassinations, attacks on power grids, and other infrastructure sabotage." The complaint also alleged that Takhistov hoped to receive training, fight against Russia on the front lines and then bring that "experience" back to the United States where the country would "hopefully" be ready for that brand of "activism."Takhistov is charged with one count of soliciting another individual to engage in criminal conduct that involved destroying a public service enterprise group circuit breaker and substation, the statement said. Takhistov faces up to ten years in prison if convicted, the statement added.*a terrorist organization, banned in Russia https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/ukraine-loses-up-to-700-soldiers-in-battles-with-russia-battlegroup-yug---moscow-1119337440.html americas new jersey russia 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 terrorist plot foiled, man wants to attack substation, white supremacist goes to ukraine, new jersey man arrested https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/michigan-democrat-rep-joins-calls-for-biden-to-abandon-reelection-campaign-1119345888.html Michigan Democrat Rep. Joins Calls for Biden to Abandon Reelection Campaign Michigan Democrat Rep. Joins Calls for Biden to Abandon Reelection Campaign Sputnik International US Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) has joined the ranks of Democrats calling on US President Joe Biden to end his reelection campaign. 2024-07-11T23:35+0000 2024-07-11T23:35+0000 2024-07-11T23:35+0000 americas joe biden senate us hillary scholten 2024 us presidential election https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/06/1119263775_0:0:3071:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_fdf32845900146c2017271c4802405d0.jpg "We just have too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines and be silent while we still have time to do something," Scholten told the Detroit News on Thursday. Scholten said the decision to run is Biden's alone but urged him to drop out of the race, saying he must do so "for the good of the democracy." Though Scholten praised Biden's political legacy, she said her top concern is about governance. Scholten said that the American people can no longer ignore Biden's poor debate performance two weeks ago and her constituents' confidence in his leadership is shaken. The congresswoman is the first lawmaker from the battleground state to urge Biden to abandon his campaign. Three other congressional Democrats joined her plea on Thursday: Brad Schneider of Illinois, Greg Stanton of Arizona, and Ed Case of Hawaii. At least nine other House Democrats and one Senate Democrat have publicly called on Biden to step aside. The statements come as President Biden prepares for a news conference Thursday evening to dispel doubts about his leadership ability.Unless he drops out, Biden is expected to be renominated in six weeks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19-22. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/senator-welch-calls-on-biden-to-withdraw-from-presidential-race-for-good-of-the-country-1119334326.html americas 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 hillary scholten, joe biden to drop out, who has called on biden to drop out, will biden resign https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/australia-announces-largest-single-169mln-military-package-for-ukraine-1119348947.html Australia Announces Largest Single $169Mln Military Package for Ukraine Australia Announces Largest Single $169Mln Military Package for Ukraine Sputnik International Australia has announced its largest single military assistance package to Ukraine worth almost 250 million Australian dollars ($169.2 million), the Australian Defense Ministry said, adding that it includes air defense missiles, ammunition and anti-tank weapons. 2024-07-12T06:10+0000 2024-07-12T06:10+0000 2024-07-12T06:10+0000 military ukraine australia russia australian defense ministry weapon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/05/10/1118485193_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_3f710a7dda8db20973567c424cfb3b12.jpg "The [Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese Government continues its steadfast support for Ukraine, with the announcement of Australia's largest single military assistance package, worth nearly $250 million," the ministry said in a statement. The package includes air defense missiles, air-to-ground weapons, including guided weapons, anti-tank weapons, artillery, mortars, cannons, small arms ammunition and a shipment of boots, the statement said. Western countries have ramped up their military and financial aid for Kiev since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Australia has provided over $1 billion to Ukraine, including $880 million in military assistance, since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, according to the defense ministry. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240708/west-eyes-false-flag-chemical-weapon-accusation-against-russia-overlooks-ukraines-violations-1119291874.html ukraine australia 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 military package for ukraine, australian defense ministry, air defense missiles https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/biden-says-will-not-allow-zelensky-to-use-us-weapons-to-strike-deep-into-russia-1119349066.html Biden Comments on Zelensky's Request to Use US Weapons to Strike Deep Into Russia Biden Comments on Zelensky's Request to Use US Weapons to Strike Deep Into Russia Sputnik International US President Joe Biden said during a press conference after the NATO summit in Washington that the United States will not allow Kiev to use American weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. 2024-07-12T06:12+0000 2024-07-12T06:12+0000 2024-07-12T10:05+0000 world joe biden russia ukraine nato army tactical missile system (atacms) https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/0f/1118973567_0:159:3078:1890_1920x0_80_0_0_7b06ba8c65842fd8730e3387c87e6cf0.jpg "About [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky asking for the ability to strike deep into Russia, we've allowed Zelensky to use American weapons in the near term, in the near abroad, into Russia," Biden said on Thursday when asked whether he would allow Zelensky to strike deep into Russian territory. In late May, a US State Department spokesperson told Sputnik that Biden had greenlighted Ukrainian strikes using US-supplied weapons inside Russian territory for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkov region, but did not authorize the use of long-range missiles, including ATACMS, inside Russia. The Kremlin has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev since the start of Moscow's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, saying it would lead to a further escalation of the conflict. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia's response to the supplies of long-range weapons to Ukraine may be asymmetrical. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240627/kennedy-says-crimea-atacms-strike-terrorism-act-of-war-by-us-against-russian-civilians-1119147904.html russia 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 us president joe biden, american weapons to strike deep into russian territory, nato summit in washington https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/bidens-costly-failed-floating-gaza-pier-to-be-scrapped-for-good-1119350226.html Biden's Costly Failed Floating Gaza Pier to Be Scrapped For Good Biden's Costly Failed Floating Gaza Pier to Be Scrapped For Good Sputnik International The giant US floating pier off the Gaza shore that was once touted as a magnanimous humanitarian gesture is about to be scrapped. 2024-07-12T11:05+0000 2024-07-12T11:05+0000 2024-07-12T11:05+0000 world gaza strip palestine-israel conflict pier humanitarian aid pentagon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/0c/1119350322_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_a8007c71873308d4a297d0c61d924c36.jpg The giant US floating pier off the Gaza shore that was once touted as a magnanimous humanitarian gesture is about to become history.After being out of service most of the time anyway, battered by inclement weather due to original miscalculations, it will now be shut down, said US officials.Conceived as a way to supplement aid to the starving population of Gaza, the Trident pier took over two months, 1,000 US troops, and multiple US Navy vessels to construct as part of the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) facility. The floating dock was deployed at sea, while a corresponding pier was attached to the Gaza coast. After being damaged by rough seas, the pier was removed by the military for repairs on more than one occasion. After the latest failed attempt to reattach the pier, the decision was taken to abandon the project.The pier has always been intended as a temporary solution to enable the additional flow of aid into Gaza during a period of dire humanitarian need the pier will soon cease operations, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said.Biden displayed acute disappointment that his humanitarian show-off had flopped, saying at the NATO summit in washington:"Ive been disappointed that some of the things that Ive put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port we attached from Cyprus. I was hopeful that would be more successful. US officials have suggested that humanitarian operations meant for the pier could shift to the Israeli port of Ashdod. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240629/hamas-blasts-us-floating-pier-off-gaza-coast-as-political-show-1119182309.html gaza strip Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko 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 Svetlana Ekimenko us aid pier military usage, us anti-drong tech gaza, us testing gaza, biden humanitarian aid pier weapons, gaza devastation, israel-palestine conflict, palestine-israel conflict, israeli-palestinian conflict, palestinian-israeli, https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/brazil-will-soon-send-g20-summit-invitations-to-leaders-including-putin--foreign-ministry-1119347170.html Brazil Will Soon Send G20 Summit Invitations to Leaders, Including Putin- Foreign Ministry Brazil Will Soon Send G20 Summit Invitations to Leaders, Including Putin- Foreign Ministry Sputnik International Brazil will send invites to the various heads of states of G20 countries, including Russia, for the upcoming summit in Rio de Janeiro. 2024-07-12T02:36+0000 2024-07-12T02:36+0000 2024-07-12T02:36+0000 world vladimir putin dmitry peskov russia brazil g20 international criminal court (icc) https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/1f/1116505120_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_4d49b0face88610cbfea4ac351be7db7.jpg In the coming weeks, invitations will be sent to all heads of participant states, Sampaio said. He found it difficult to say whether invitations had already been sent to the capitals. Brazil has held the G20 presidency since December 1, 2023. The final summit in Rio de Janeiro will be held on November 18-19. Earlier, the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reported that the Brazilian government is working to make President Putins visit to the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this fall possible, despite an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to the newspaper, the government last November sent a document to the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) with legal arguments in favor of Putin's visit, despite the ICC warrant. The report said the body is currently working to develop provisions on immunity for heads of state. This status ensures that country leaders will not be prosecuted during international visits. The Hague-based ICC in March 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the alleged "unlawful deportation" of Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia has said their lives were at risk, while presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow did not recognize the courts jurisdiction. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240623/russia-intends-to-prevent-politicization-of-economic-cooperation-within-g20-1119074754.html russia brazil 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 brazil invites russia, g20 summit, icc warrant A Lineman tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Linemen tend to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough sent a message to residents that he is pushing for answers from CenterPoint officials about their slow progress in restoring power to thousands across the county after Hurricane Beryl. Hang in there, we are going to get through this together, Keough posted to Facebook Thursday with Magnolia Mayor Matthew "Doc" Dantzer. You can rest assured I am not going to let up CenterPoint. As of Thursday evening, 75,000 CenterPoint customers still had no power. That number has not changed since Wednesday. According to the Entergy's website, more than 55,000 residents still had no power. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The fact of the matter is we dont get information (from CenterPoint), we dont know where we are at and we still have tens of thousands of homes all around this area still without power, Keough said. Dantzer said he hoped to get more information soon to update residents. Its been a rough couple of days, Dantzer said. In his first media comments since the storm, CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells talked to the Houston Chronicle about the restoration efforts, acknowledged the company should and will do more to let the public know whats going on and said more investment is planned to harden Houstons defenses from its most common threats of wind and rain. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I understand how frustrating it is to be without power, especially in this heat. I understand what a difficult situation this is for our customers, but I am proud of the progress we have made. Restoring 1.1 million customers within effectively 48 hours of the storm's passing is faster than what many of our peers have seen in the past 10 named storms." https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/freedom-of-navigation-china-trolls-us-coast-guard-sails-warships-near-alaskan-island-chain-1119353207.html Freedom of Navigation: China Trolls US Coast Guard, Sails Warships Near Alaskan Island Chain Freedom of Navigation: China Trolls US Coast Guard, Sails Warships Near Alaskan Island Chain Sputnik International The US Coast Guard has made a name for itself as the most ambitious maritime law enforcement and coastal defense entity in the world, regularly deploying its ships in distant hot spots thousands of nautical miles from the USs own shores. But they dont appear to be too pleased when the shoe is on the other foot. 2024-07-12T16:02+0000 2024-07-12T16:02+0000 2024-07-12T16:03+0000 world us russia china pacific coast guard nato us coast guard jens stoltenberg aleutian islands https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/0c/1119353442_0:107:1025:683_1920x0_80_0_0_0a71d19d91efb9207aecfa947172b37a.jpg The US Coast Guard says it has spotted four Chinese warships transiting in international watersinside the US exclusive economic zone north of the Aleutian Islands Amchitka Pass and north of the Amukta Pass between Amukta and Seguam Islands.The ships reportedly passed through the area last Saturday and Sunday, but the Coast Guard curiously didnt report their passage until Wednesday. The Coast Guard did not offer any information regarding the types of Chinese ships it had encountered, but said three of the ships were detected by the USCGC Kimball cutter. A Coast Guard aircraft stationed on Kodiak Island spotted the fourth Chinese vessel.The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms, Coast Guard 17th District commander Rear Admiral Megan Dean said. We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.The Chinese warships transit came just days after China and Russia began joint naval drills in another part of the Pacific. Gathering south of South Korea, Russian and Chinese vessels traveled south, kicking off their fourth joint Russian-Chinese maritime patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The patrols objectives include efforts to strengthen naval cooperation between Russia and China, maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, monitor the maritime area and protect economic facilities of the Russian Federation and China, according to the Russian Navy.The Chinese deployment near the Aleutians came on the eve of NATOs summit in Washington this week. The Peoples Republic was mentioned repeatedly in the blocs post-summit communique, and by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.Commenting on the ongoing Chinese-Belarusian joint drills taking place in Brest, southwestern Belarus on Thursday, Stoltenberg slammed China for coming closer to NATO, in Europe, in Africa, in the Arctic and elsewhere. A day earlier, the Washington Summit Declaration mentioned China over a dozen times, blasting the country over its no-limits partnership with Russia, calling it a decisive enabler of the crisis in Ukraine, and labeling Beijing a challenge to the alliances interests, security and values. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240422/southeast-asia-on-course-for-ukraine-style-crisis-amid-us-militarization-of-philippines-1118061126.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/nato-tantrum-over-chinas-challenge-to-rules-based-order-sign-of-decline-of-wests-hegemony-1119343085.html russia china pacific aleutian islands Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov 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 Ilya Tsukanov are freedom of navigation missions legal, why does us perform freedom of navigation missions, are china and us friends, why are relations between china and us growing tense https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/iran-takes-aim-at-us-over-talk-about-arms-for-houthis-while-bombing-yemen-to-bits-1119354302.html Iran Blasts US Over Talk About Arms for Houthis While Bombing Yemen to Bits Iran Blasts US Over Talk About Arms for Houthis While Bombing Yemen to Bits Sputnik International The US and its allies have spent nearly a decade accusing Iran of sending weapons to Yemens Ansar Allah (Houthi) militia fighters. Tehran has consistently denied the allegations, pointing to the maritime blockade that Houthi-controlled areas of the war-torn country have faced for many years. 2024-07-12T18:03+0000 2024-07-12T18:03+0000 2024-07-12T18:05+0000 world middle east barnaby joyce yemen iran tehran houthi the united nations (un) security council suez canal https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/0c/1116126704_0:0:1272:716_1920x0_80_0_0_699d09cb022f924a4a522ce7b9d80ed3.png Tehran unequivocally and strong rejectsunfounded allegations leveled at the US at the United Nations Security Council this week that Tehran is arming Yemens Houthi militia, Iranian permanent representative to the UN Amir-Saeed Iravani has said.Iran advocates for the peaceful resolution of the Yemen crisis through diplomatic channels and underscores its dedication to maritime security and freedom of navigation. Yet, the fact remains that the United States and its partners are responsible for blatantly violating international law, the UN Charter, and pertinent Security Council resolutions by committing acts of aggression against Yemens sovereignty and territorial integrity, Iravani added.The Iranian senior diplomats remarks come in the wake of the resumption of Houthi drone attacks targeting merchant vessels and US warships in the Red Sea this week after a ten-day pause. The militia has vowed to continue targeting any Israel-linked ships it can reach in the Red, Arabian and Mediterranean Seas and the western Indian Ocean as long as Israel continues the war in Gaza.The US and its regional allies have been accusing Iran of smuggling weapons to Yemen ever since the foreign-backed escalation of the Yemeni civil war in 2015, claiming the Islamic Republic supplies the militia with missiles, drones and other weapons. Iranian officials and media have not denied the provision of moral support and some military-technical assistance, but vocally dismiss claims that theyve sent any actual weapons.The Houthis arsenal, which has managed to effectively shut down the Red Sea to the commercial maritime traffic belong to Israel, the US and some of its allies, consists of an eclectic mix of inexpensive, simple-to-produce drone designs, Soviet-era air defense missiles delivered to Yemen in the 70s and 80s, ballistic missiles and customized naval drones. The militia insists that all of its equipment, including an AK-103 assault rifle nicknamed the Obama, are domestically made.No PushbackThe failure of the US-led naval coalition assembled in the Middle East to check Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels, or to degrade the militias capabilities in a six-month campaign of air and missile attacks into Yemen, has led to concerns and complaining among some US allies about whether the Western alliance may be a paper tiger.We didnt even get a warship up into the Red Sea. I dont know whether its because [the Australian government] didnt want to, or because they couldnt. But either of thoseis a really bad outcome for Australia, because we are more reliant on that channel than so many others. Because to go from Europe the United States you dont have to go through the Suez Canal, but you do if you want to go from Europe to Australia, the politician said.Houthi leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi told supporters in a speech Thursday that the militia has hundreds of thousands of volunteers ready for combat, and reiterated that the militia would continue its military operations against Israel and US interests until the war in Gaza is brought to an end. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/pro-pentagon-media-calls-on-dod-to-step-up-anti-houthi-info-war-amid-blows-to-us-navys-reputation-1119342599.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/houthis-open-office-in-baghdad-a-stones-throw-from-fortified-us-embassy-compound-1119315124.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240702/yemeni-houthis-vow-uss-theodore-roosevelt-primary-target-once-it-enters-red-sea-1119222120.html yemen iran tehran Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov 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 Ilya Tsukanov does iran support houthis, who supports houthis, why can't us stop houthis, who are houthis, why are houthis fighting us and israel https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/nato-believes-ukraine-will-not-be-able-to-launch-counteroffensive-this-year---reports-1119351881.html NATO Believes Ukraine Will Not Be Able to Launch Counteroffensive This Year - Reports NATO Believes Ukraine Will Not Be Able to Launch Counteroffensive This Year - Reports Sputnik International NATO believes that its support to Ukraine, agreed at the Washington summit, will not allow Kiev to launch a counteroffensive until at least the end of the year, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing the alliance's officials. 2024-07-12T09:58+0000 2024-07-12T09:58+0000 2024-07-12T09:58+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine ukraine volodymyr zelensky russia kiev nato https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/19/1119115841_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_d42b25996794db5115ab086afec26aa6.jpg On Thursday, following the bloc's summit in the US, NATO published its Washington Summit Declaration which outlined a $40 billion support package for Ukraine for 2025 alone. Further commitments are to be discussed at the bloc's summit in the Netherlands next year. Officials told the newspaper that up until next year Kiev will not be prepared to launch a counteroffensive or occupy considerable territory. They also said that the arsenals, provided to Kiev by the West, are expected to take weeks if not months to be delivered to the combat zone, while some of the promised weapons are yet to be purchased or manufactured. The support package is expected to enable Ukraine to push back against Russia in 2025 while it receives more munition and weapons from the West and transfers its forces closer to the front lines, the NYT reported, citing a senior NATO official. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that Russia would cease fire and start talks with Ukraine as soon as Kiev withdrew troops from Russia-controlled regions and abandoned plans to join NATO. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the proposal, calling it an ultimatum. Western countries have been providing massive military and financial aid to Kiev since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying it would lead to further escalation of the conflict. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240710/stoltenberg-says-too-early-to-say-when-ukraine-will-become-nato-member-1119325935.html ukraine russia 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 launch counteroffensive, support to ukraine, launch a counteroffensive https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/russia-not-planning-to-restrict-access-to-youtube---kremlin-1119352157.html Russia Not Planning to Restrict Access to YouTube - Kremlin Russia Not Planning to Restrict Access to YouTube - Kremlin Sputnik International YouTube has independently chosen its path in the Russian market, and Moscow regrets this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. 2024-07-12T10:56+0000 2024-07-12T10:56+0000 2024-07-12T10:56+0000 russia dmitry peskov russia moscow youtube kremlin rostelecom https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105947/79/1059477945_0:0:1280:720_1920x0_80_0_0_076f78cc9af6f6bf41225134739b14eb.png "Therefore, the company chose this path itself, we can only regret in this regard, but, of course, let us just say, leaving this market, it has its own technological consequences," Peskov told reporters. Russia had no plans to restrict access to the platform, the spokesman added. Earlier in the day, Russia's telecommunications giant Rostelecom said that there were technical problems in the operation of Google-owned equipment, which may affect the download speed and playback quality of YouTube videos for subscribers of all Russian operators. russia moscow 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 market, access to youtube, restrict access https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/secessionist-sentiment-is-exploding-across-the-us-discover-which-states-want-out-1119352345.html Secessionist Sentiment Sweeps Across the US, Discover Which States Want Out Secessionist Sentiment Sweeps Across the US, Discover Which States Want Out Sputnik International A growing number of American states display strong secessionist sentiment. 2024-07-12T13:17+0000 2024-07-12T13:17+0000 2024-07-12T13:23+0000 world us secession secession process texas alaska yougov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/102386/48/1023864824_0:41:4710:2690_1920x0_80_0_0_85da80539b46a1d2b5b45102ce3c5269.jpg New Hampshire has joined the ranks of American states harboring strong secession sentiments. Its Independence Movement - NHEXIT - has accused the federal government of bringing the nation to the brink of bankruptcy."There are 2.5 million unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and they are responsible for dragging the nation to the brink of bankruptcy. Not only that, but they are siphoning money out of taxpayers' wallets every year, trampling on the rights of New Hampshire citizens," said NHEXIT Now leader Carla Gericke in a statement for Newsweek. Across the US, 23% of adults would back their state leaving the Union, a February YouGov poll revealed.What Other States Are Inclined to Go At It Alone?Around 36% of polled residents of Alaska would support seceding. The Alaskan Independence Party (AIP) has been campaigning for an in-state referendum on independence. Alaska has railed against its pseudo-state status since ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) was passed, according to AIP.In Texas, 31% of adults would support independence. The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) had its petition for a non-binding secession referendum on the Texas Republican 2024 primary ballot thrown out by the Lone Star State's Supreme Court. Calls for secession in the state that was once part of Mexico, and briefly had the status of an independent nation from 1836 to 1845, have increased amidst Governor Greg Abbotts dispute with the White House over illegal migration.29% support secession in California. Its California National Party (CNP) and the Yes California movement have postulated that their powerful and prosperous Golden State pays more in taxes than it gets from federal government expenditures.The Greater Idaho movement has 12 East Oregon counties seeking to secede from Oregon and join Idaho. Supporters argue that the liberals to the west do not share their traditional ways of life. They also claim their rural area is marginalized by an urban state legislature.A Free Louisiana political movement was recently launched in the state, where 23% would back secession. It advocates leaving, either solo or as part of a "federation of mid-American states." It argues the federal government fails to protect residents from immigration, criminals, and other problems.Indigenous activists in Hawaii have been advocating for the restoration of the island nation's self-sufficiency since the monarchy was overthrown and Hawaii was annexed by the US in the late 19th century. These activists argue that these actions were illegal and call for the reclaiming of indigenous culture and language as part of the grassroots sovereignty movement.In other states such as New York (28%), Oklahoma (28%), Nebraska (25%), West Virginia (25%) there is also popular support for independence, the survey revealed. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240127/texas-border-dispute-shows-entire-us-constitutional-system-collapsing-in-multiple-ways-1116422032.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240126/the-second-us-civil-war-1116409233.html texas alaska Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko 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 Svetlana Ekimenko does new hampshire want to secede from the united states, which american states have strong secession sentiments, which us states want to leave the union, secession movement in texas, blue and red states, america's conservative states, us liberal states, most woke us states, oregon secedes, texas secedes, colorado oregon secedes, us states vote for independance, us break up, us secession, texit, border crisis, us border crisis, alaska secession, us separatism, who supports us secession https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/the-us-treasury-is-denying-jill-stein-matching-funds-the-fec-awarded---campaign-manager-1119345703.html The US Treasury is Denying Jill Stein Matching Funds the FEC Awarded - Campaign Manager The US Treasury is Denying Jill Stein Matching Funds the FEC Awarded - Campaign Manager Sputnik International Candidate for the Green Party nomination for president, Jill Stein, was awarded matching funds by the Federal Election Commission, but the US Treasury is refusing to hand it over. 2024-07-12T19:24+0000 2024-07-12T19:24+0000 2024-07-12T19:42+0000 americas jill stein us us treasury fec 2024 us presidential election green party dnc https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/104793/34/1047933419_0:0:5616:3160_1920x0_80_0_0_d8683da8350d717e1ad2d1561b55436a.jpg Jill Stein, the leading candidate for the Green Partys nomination for president is being denied federal matching funds they are entitled to, Stein campaign manager Jason Call said on Tuesday.The funds come from an optional $3 donation to the Presidential Matching Fund on the US individual federal tax returns. That fund is designed to match political donations under $250 to campaigns that meet certain thresholds and do not take private contributions or spend more than $123.5 million.Last week, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) confirmed that the Stein campaign reached that threshold and should be awarded $100,000 immediately, with more to come monthly. Call says the total amount should be around $270,000. The Stein campaign was the only active campaign to reach the required threshold.However, the US Treasury has declined to distribute the funds, citing a shortfall. In March, the government raided the fund of $400 million as part of the $1.2 trillion spending package that averted a government shutdown. Most of that, $320 million, was used to fund the Secret Service, $55 million was appropriated for election security, and $25 million went to the Justice Department.The fund was flush with cash to be raided because, for the last several elections, the two major parties have largely ignored it. According to FEC figures, the fund distributed an average of $165,138,480 per election to the two major parties from its formation in 1974 until 2008, the last election both parties took a significant amount of money from the fund. Since 2008, only $1,088,929 has been distributed to the Democratic Party and none to the Republican party.According to Call, the Treasury said it has to wait until after each partys convention to see if they will take money from the fund, before distributing the funds the Stein campaign has earned, despite neither party taking general election funds in recent elections due to the restrictions it puts on campaigns. He added that it is not clear if or when the funds will be disbursed. He told Sputnik that even if the funds are eventually distributed, the delay will still harm the campaign.Call added that since the funds are for the primary season, the Stein campaign would only be able to use the funds to pay for debts incurred during the primary season and not for the general election, putting them in a precarious position of potentially being bankrupted if the campaign spends the money and then are later denied disbursement.Incurring debt is an extremely risky proposition under these auspices. We could incur the debt in the primary, and they could still deny us the funds, 'There's a shortfall!' And we would then be stuck with the debt, Call explained. In fact, given that [the] Treasury is a politicized department, we think they would probably still deny us the funds to bankrupt us, he argued, noting that the Democratic Party is suing to keep Stein off the ballot in Nevada, a tactic he says the Democrats are not using to win, but rather tie up resources for the campaign.The US Treasury did not respond to Sputniks request for comment. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230720/fed-up-with-biden--trump-half-of-us-voters-consider-backing-third-party-candidate---poll-1112021812.html americas 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 jill stein, green party denied funds, stein campaign denied funds, treasury blocks funds, presidential matching fund From his earliest days of driving on the Grand Circuit, Tim Tetrick has enjoyed success in the Meadowlands Pace. He captured his first Meadowlands Pace in 2007 at the age of 25, making him at the time the youngest driver to ever win the race, and has added five more trophies since then. Tetrick will head to Saturdays $650,000 USD edition of the event for three-year-old pacers with the opportunity to equal John Campbells record of seven Meadowlands Pace triumphs when he drives Mirage Hanover, 9-2 on the morning line, at The Meadowlands. Tetrick recently took time to look back at his six Pace victories and ahead to Saturdays final. Southwind Lynx, 2007 Tetrick and Southwind Lynx captured the $1 million Art Rooney Pace at Yonkers Raceway in early June, then grabbed another million-dollar race by taking the Meadowlands Pace by 1-1/2 lengths over Tell All in 1:49.1. Southwind Lynx, trained by George Teague Jr., was seventh and trapped along the pylons entering the stretch, but Tetrick found an inside seam to get to the finish line first. It was a great race, said Tetrick. I got locked in and shuffled, but like [Meadowlands announcer] Sam McKee said, the Red Sea parted, and I got my picture taken. If I had been third- or fourth-over, I wouldnt have won. Everybody came off the rail and it worked out. Southwind Lynx was pretty special. I got to win the Rooney and that was cool. The Meadowlands Pace gave him two million-dollar races in the same year, so that was really special. That was kind of my first year driving on the Grand Circuit. George always had my back, thought I could drive and gave me a lot of opportunities when I was young. Tetrick won a still-record 1,189 races in 2007 and then-record $18.4 million in purses. One More Laugh, 2010 Tetricks victory with One More Laugh, who defeated favourite Rock N Roll Heaven by a head in 1:47.4, made him the first driver to win the Meadowlands Pace twice before turning 30. It also made trainer Ray Schnittker the sixth conditioner in history to capture both the Meadowlands Pace and Hambletonian, which he won in 2008 with Deweycheatumnhowe. I got lucky and got a good spot and a perfect trip, Tetrick said at the time. I give my horse all the credit in the world. Hes been right there every week, but just hasnt had good luck. Today, I did my job, and he was right there. Tetrick added now, He was really cool. He was one of the first good horses I drove for Ray. I kind of started him along and he was a great two-year-old [winning nine of 12 races including the Governors Cup] and went on to be a really solid three-year-old. He was just a hard-knocking tough horse. Captaintreacherous, 2013 Captaintreacherous, trained by Tony Alagna, had the lead before the opening quarter and breezed to victory by 3-1/4 lengths over Odds On Equuleus in 1:48.1. He became only the third colt to win the Woodrow Wilson at age two and win the Pace the following year. The others were Niatross and Nihilator. Captaintreacherous joined those two horses in the U.S. Hall of Fame in 2019. With 'Captain,' and later with Huntsville, it was my race to win or lose on both of them, said Tetrick. Especially with 'Captain.' I remember we had a really good post [five], and nobody really left, and he crossed right over. It was over at the eighth pole. Hes probably the best horse Ive ever driven. He was tough, he showed up from day one. He was a great two-year-old, a great three-year-old [being named U.S. Pacer of the Year both years]. He battled and would always find ways to win. Even on his off days, he was just a great animal. And now hes gone on to be a great stallion. Hes Watching, 2014 Tetrick picked up the drive on Hes Watching prior to the North America Cup final, where he finished third behind JK Endofanera and Tellitlikeitis. In the Pace, Tetrick and Hes Watching got a second-over trip behind JK Endofanera and sprinted home in :25.3 to win by 2-1/2 lengths over Always B Miki in a world record-equalling 1:46.4. He was a lucky pickup, Tetrick said about the Dave Menary-trained colt. In the Pace, he just came ready. He flew off cover. It was probably the fastest for a piece that Ive ever been coming down the lane. He felt like he was flying, just floating through the air. I was down two [lengths] turning for home, and when he got daylight, it was done. I fist-pumped halfway down the lane. He was just so fast. Huntsville, 2017 Tetrick and Schnittker teamed for another Meadowlands Pace victory with Huntsville, who held off Downbytheseaside by a head in 1:47.4 as the 1-5 favourite. I baby raced him and drove him all the way through his career, Tetrick said about the colt, who finished worse than second only twice in 25 career starts, winning 15. He was one that just overpowered them and went down the road and got the job done. Confederate, 2023 Tetrick got Meadowlands Pace win No. 6 with Confederate, who covered his last quarter-mile in :25.4 to beat Hungry Angel Boy by 3-1/2 lengths in 1:47. The winning time was just one-fifth of a second off the stakes record set in 2014 by Hes Watching, and the margin of victory was the largest since Well Said won the Pace by six lengths in 2009. The victory extended trainer Brett Pellings record for Meadowlands Pace trophies to five. He was probably the easiest best horse Ive ever had to drive, said Tetrick. There was really no pressure with him because you could put him anywhere on the racetrack. He was just so fast off a helmet. One of the most dominating performances Ive seen was in the Pace. He was just out of this world. He was a special horse. He went on to be [U.S.] Horse of the Year, so that was even more special. He was a fun ride. As for this years Meadowlands Pace final, Tetrick will drive Mirage Hanover from post four for trainer Jake Leamon. Mirage Hanover finished second to Legendary Hanover in his elimination, going to the lead at the start and holding that position into the stretch. Legendary Hanover came home in :24.4 to win by 1-1/4 lengths in 1:48. For his career, Mirage Hanover has hit the board in 12 of 15 races, winning six. Im excited about him, said Tetrick. I think the horse has got a really good shot. Hes raced super every start this year, he just got out-sprinted last time. I dont see him being on the lead [in the final]. He cut some on the lead last year as a two-year-old, but thats not his game. He can just get in gear so fast and sprint so fast, thats going to be more his game. I think hes going to be one of the favourites. (USTA) Live harness racing will return to Miami Fair in Winnipeg, Man. for a pair of upcoming race dates in July. With a gap in the schedule at The Loop after this weekend, Miami Fair will host live harness racing on July 20 and July 27, with a 1 p.m. post time for both days. (Standardbred Canada) Doug, and whoever is riding shotgun that day, retrieve a trailer full of cardboard once a week (unless something comes up) from behind Family Dollar Dollar Tree. I remember when a tall black stack smoked on occasion from that side of the strip mall as Alco burned cardboard and whatever else. Various grocery stores on the east end used what looked like an identical incinerator. Both sites bear scars since the owner(s) removed both polluting devices. While I have no data as to the amount of greenhouse gases and particulates the duo released over their lifetime, I know Alliance no longer allows incinerators within city limits according to City code: Sec. 28-487. Outside incinerators prohibited. It shall be unlawful to erect, maintain, use or set fire in any outside incinerator. Code 1986, . . . 4-919) Being environmentally friendly can be a gesture of good will, yet legislation at some level is more likely to set the minimum shade of green. Financial considerations can also move actions to deeper shade. Then there are situations where a lack of oversight and free enterprise make the battle for a clean community a bit trickier. Keep Nebraska Beautiful affiliates enjoyed a few sessions to compare notes during the organizations June conference at Omaha. I was prepared to share a few ideas and accomplishments we consider winners at Keep Alliance Beautiful. Rather, as is my tendency if not called upon, I sat back, listened and took notes. Mona Anderson, executive director of Keep North Platte Beautiful (KNPB), brought up an evolving issue with incinerators, explaining that their city ordinances arent on board. Mona reported that a company has sold a lot of the devices even the Nebraska State Patrol bought one to burn prescription take backs though the troop offices are outside city limits. Look at your city ordinances and see whats there now, Mona cautioned. At the state level, the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) regulates incinerators for certain particulate levels, she noted, but nobody to measure it North Platte is relying on manufacturer specifications. KNPB Financial Director Samantha Wheeler keyed in on how mobile the particular model can be. Theyre small enough to load in your pickup. Sarah Mason, coordinator at Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department (the KNB affiliate), shared that one of the grants they did not receive was for precise air quality tracking. So concerns over personal-size incinerators or maybe whether you live next to a neighbor who fires up the burn pit every summer night, by the passing locomotives in the rail yards or somebody miles out in the country anyone can buy a detector. Sarah suggested PurpleAir, which she said for $200-$300 you get pretty good data measured in parts per million. Mona estimated 15 of the incinerator systems have been sold, a lot of them went into the county and at least five in the city (North Platte). She is unsure what they feature as far as scrubbers or filters. Anyone with a monitor will be able to compare how fresh the air stays. Travel east down Interstate 80 and Kearneys ordinance is good, Mona said. Box Butte County and other Northwest Nebraska residents who have questions about how environmental concerns and local laws intersect should contact their village, city or county administrators and elected officials. Law enforcement officers from across Texas head towards downtown on I-45 to assist the Houston Police Department, a department that is strapped by resources, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston, TX. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer More than 100 law enforcement officers from across the state raced to Houston on Thursday to assist a department that is strapped by resources and failed to fully mobilize until after Hurricane Beryl struck the region. The state of Texas is paying for the officers to work shifts in Houston as it recovers from the storm, Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite said. The 100 new officers are joining 80 from the Texas Department of Public Safety who were already in town. The reinforcements hail from city's ranging from Dallas to San Antonio, and will be using vehicles from their departments. The new officers will be accompanied by one HPD officer per vehicle, Satterwhite said. We wouldnt be having this discussion if we had electricity, Mayor John Whitmire said, citing the 2.3 million residents who lost power after the storm. Advertisement Article continues below this ad MORE FROM HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Harris County Sheriff's Office deputy killed in 'ambush' while on duty Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite speaks during a press conference held by Houston Police Department related to the investigation of the murder of twelve year old Jocelyn Nungaray on Thursday, June 20, 2024 in Houston. Two suspects have been detained. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Whitmire said the additional officers would relieve Houston police who have been working 12-hour shifts since the department fully mobilized Tuesday morning. They would also handle some traffic patrols since more than 1,400 lights remained without electricity across Houston, Whitmire said. Beryl is the second natural disasters the administration has faced since Whitmire took office in January. A surprise derecho storm of rain and wind in May pulled glass from buildings downtown, uprooted thousands of threes and cut power for hundreds of thousands of customers. In this case, forecasters had been warning for nearly a week that Beryl could bring wind and rain to the region, and each forecast showed the track moving closer to Houston. In this case, the new mayor and an acting police chief were left to prepare the city for the storm after Chief Troy Finner abruptly retired in May. The Houston Police Departments nearly 6,000 employees didnt fully mobilize until early Tuesday, almost 24 hours after the storm first battered the Houston region. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The department got short-sighted with this mobilization and no electricity for more than 1 million people, said Domingo Garcia, a former Houston police officer who retired last month. They are standing on pins and needles right now. Unlike other recent storms including Hurricane Harvey in 2017, HPDs leaders opted not to fully mobilize until Tuesday, more than 24 hours after Hurricane Beryl battered the Houston region. This meant officers were working regular shifts, and not as many were pre-staged ahead of the storm as for Harvey. Yes, if I knew it was going to be a direct impact, where Im confident in the roll of the bones, we would have probably had more people, Satterwhite said. But the reality is were going off the information we have. As part of HPDs mobilization, detectives have been pulled from investigations and reassigned to assist in the disaster relief. Satterwhite said they are currently positioned around critical infrastructure, high-value crime targets like guns and pawn shops and pharmacies. Theyre doing a different job as opposed to investigations right now, Satterwhite said. Theyre doing investigations too, but I dont want to paint the picture that theyre steadily in their offices doing follow up investigations. Right now we are still, in our mind, in response recovery. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As part of the mobilization, the Houston Police Department leaders have divided the 5,200 officers into two shifts, one during the day and one at night, to patrol the city and help with storm recovery efforts. Satterwhite Thursday said the full mobilization would continue at least through Sunday, with officers needing to help with water and food distribution and at shelters around the city. Scotts Bluff Countys Oregon Trail Days bring thousands of people to celebrate Nebraskas rich history, tradition, and hometown spirit. Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol will be working to reduce the likelihood of serious crashes around the event. Many people from near and far come together for Oregon Trail, so well be working diligently to keep our local residents and visitors safe this weekend, said Major Jeff Roby, NSP Western Operations Major, in a press release. As folks participate in the different events this weekend, we encourage everyone to plan ahead to have a sober driver. Oregon Trail Days is marking its 103rd consecutive year in 2024. The events run from Thursday, July 11, through Sunday, July 14, at several locations around Gering. Troopers will be performing high visibility patrols on roadways throughout Scotts Bluff County as part of the effort. The Nebraska Department of Transportation Highway Safety Office (NDOT-HSO) has designated Scotts Bluff County as a priority county for 2024. This effort is made possible thanks in part to a grant for $2,160 from NDOT-HSO. Cincinnati-based Kroger and Boise-based Albertsons are slated to sell the Ocean Beach Highway Safeway as part of the companys newest plan to make their proposed $24.6 billion merger appealing to federal and state antitrust regulators. The roughly 61,000-square foot Longview Safeway, owned by Albertsons, is one of 124 Washington stores out of 579 total to be sold nationwide. A Safeway spokesperson told The Daily News the sale would occur after the completion of the planned merger, which has no timeline following legal challenges, including a late-February Federal Trade Commission lawsuit. The spokesperson would not say how many people work at the Ocean Beach Highway location, but Kroger and Albertsons maintain no layoffs would occur as a result of the merger. The plan is for Safeway and other Albertsons stores on the Washington selloff list including Longviews Ocean Beach Highway location to be rebranded by New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers, the parent company of the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain, among others. Currently Texas and Oklahoma are the furthest western states where Piggly Wiggly stores are located. The merger would mean the 15th Avenue Safeway and the Ocean Beach Highway Fred Meyer would be under the same parent company. The 15th Avenue Safeway is roughly 2 miles from the Ocean Beach Highway Safeway, while Longviews only Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger, is right next door to the Safeway slated to be sold. More than half of all supermarkets in Washington state are owned by either Kroger or Albertsons, reports the Washington State Attorney Generals Office, and account for more than 50% of all supermarket sales in the state. The state of Washington filed in January an antitrust lawsuit against the proposed merger as well. Despite the planned sale, no permits for sign changes or letters on zoning verification have been submitted to Longview yet, said city spokesperson Angela Abel. Would competition increase or decrease? Longview Councilmembers Erik Halvorson and Ruth Kendall say the Ocean Beach Highway Safeway sale could offer more choices to local shoppers, who would lose a competitor in the merger. This plan presents an opportunity for increased competition in our local market, potentially welcoming an additional brand to our town, Halvorson said. (The sale) would result in more options and diversity for local shoppers, Kendall added. But Councilmember Angie Wean isnt so sure. Wean said she has fond memories of the Ocean Beach Highway store as a Keils, before it was sold to Safeway, her go-to grocery choice and first employer. I value competition, but the impact locally will be felt, she said. Time will tell whether this brings improved, diverse grocery options and jobs to Longview. I hope it does. Shopper Emily Harvey of Longview said she is fearful of whether any divested stores would remain open longterm following what she saw after the 1999 Safeway-Carrs grocery merger while living in Alaska. The divested stores in that merger were sold to the company Alaska Marketplace and closed within a year, according to the nonprofit Alaska Food Policy Council. Harvey said she also prefers WinCo and Walmart to Safeway and Fred Meyer today because of the lower prices, and questions if the the latter stores costs will increase. If the merger causes prices to go up at the stores, you wont see me here any more than you do now, she said Thursday outside the Ocean Beach Highway Safeway on what she called a rare visit to the store. The same day, United Food & Commercial Workers 3000 of Washington and Idaho released a statement reiterating their efforts along with other states UFCW unions to stop the merger. Its bad for our customers and bad for us as grocery store workers because it would raise prices, close stores and lay off workers, said Brendan Gallagher, a union member and meat wrapper at a Kroger-owned QFC in Seattle in a statement. These companies should do just the opposite: stop the merger, lower prices, hire more staff and open more stores. The FTC also claims the merger would reduce competition, leading to higher prices and lower quality for essentials. However, Rodney McMullen, Krogers chairman and CEO, maintains in an April news release the merger will bring lower prices and more choices to more customers and secure the longterm future of unionized grocery jobs. C&S will also be able to operate competitively following the completion of the merger, the release states, by gaining the brands QFC and Marianos (owned by Kroger) and Carrs and Haggen (owned by Albertsons). Stores under those names retained after the merger will be re-bannered into one of the retained Kroger or Albertsons Cos. banners following the close of the transaction with C&S, the companies report. The Lower Columbia College Foundation is naming the Health Science Building's second-floor nursing simulation laboratory after Richard C. Nau in honor of his donations to Lower Columbia College's Student Success Fund. The Student Success Fund provides emergency assistance for LCC students at risk of dropping out for financial reasons. Money from the fund can cover many different needs including transportation, childcare and school costs. Nau, a pathologist who has lived in Longview since 1974, recently pledged $300,000 to the fund and has contributed over $497,000 in total. His support was partially inspired by former LCC President Chris Bailey's fundraising efforts, which included a 500-mile walk with his family in 2015, according to an LCC press release. Going forward, the laboratory will be known as the Richard C. Nau Simulation Lab. The Battle Ground City Council chose a new city manager Wednesday morning. Kristina Swanson, 54, currently Battle Grounds interim city manager, will become the permanent city manager after her contract is negotiated, Battle Ground Communications Manager Alisha Smith said. Today is the culmination of a day thats several months in the making, Cliff Moore, with executive recruitment firm Prothman, said at Wednesdays special meeting. Prothman conducted a nationwide manager search on behalf of the city. Twenty-one people submitted applications in response to ads on Washington and Oregon websites and social media, Moore said. The city chose three candidates June 17: Swanson; Robert Maul, Camas interim community development director and planning manager; and Joseph Valtierra, senior manager for Multnomah Countys Aging, Disabilities and Veterans Services Division of Human Services in Oregon. They interviewed each during a lengthy city council executive session Wednesday before declaring Swanson the preferred choice. Swanson, who served as Longviews city manager from March 2023 to April of this year, began as interim city manager for Battle Ground on April 22 after former city manager Erin Erdman left to accept a position with the city of Kennewick. She has 33 years of experience in public service and a degree in accounting from Western Governors University. Swansons current salary as interim city manager is $17,333.33 per month. Her new salary will be determined during contract negotiations in a closed-door executive session of the Battle Ground City Council. Her first day as permanent city manager will be decided at that time, Smith said, but there will be no gap between her interim and permanent positions. Megan Menchaca is a Houston Independent School District reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the co-author of The Report Card. She can be reached at megan.menchaca@houstonchronicle.com. Megan joined the Chronicle in 2023 after working as the higher education reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in journalism and government. 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: Device performances. Credit: Nature Energy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01564-0 The power-conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells based on compounds known as polymer donors and fused ring electron acceptors (FREAs) have recently exceeded 19%. In contrast, organic solar cells based on non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs), more affordable compounds characterized by non-fused (i.e., separate) aromatic rings, have so far exhibited disappointing efficiencies of around 16%. As synthesizing NFREAs is significantly less expensive than synthesizing FREAs, developing more efficient solar cells based on these materials could have important implications. Specifically, it could facilitate the widespread adoption of organic solar cells, thus potentially contributing to the reduction of emissions and the mitigation of environmental issues. Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Qingdao University and other institutes in China recently proposed a new approach to fabricate more efficient organic solar cells based on NFRAs. This approach, outlined in a paper published in Nature Energy, relies on the use of a solvent based on chloroform (CF) and o-xylene (OXY), as well as a solid-state additive that further enhances crystallization in NFRAs, thus enabling higher PCEs in solar cells based on these compounds. "Non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) potentially have lower synthetic costs than their fused counterparts," Rui Zeng, Ming Zhang and their colleagues wrote in their paper. "However, the low backbone planarity and the presence of bulky substituents adversely affect the crystallinity of NFREAs, impeding charge transport and the formation of bicontinuous morphology in organic solar cells. We show that a binary solvent system can individually control the crystallization and phase separation of the donor polymer (for example, D18) and the NFREA (for example, 2BTh-2F-C 2 )." Materials and solvent selection. a, The chemical structures of D18, 2BTh-2F-C2 and relevant solvents. Solvents with low volatility and low solubility for the polymer donor are framed by a blue box; solvents with high volatility and low solubility for the polymer donor are framed by a violet box; solvents with low volatility and high solubility for the polymer donor are framed by a green box; solvents with high volatility and high solubility for the polymer donor are framed by a bluish-purple box. b, The solubility of D18 in various solvents in the vh diagram (h, molecular hydrogen bonding interactions; v, V = 2 D + 2 P ). c, Normalized absorption of D18 in various solvents. The blue rectangle represents the absorption peak of D18 in good solvents; the violet rectangle represents the absorption peak of D18 in bad solvents. d, Solvent classification diagram based on vapor pressure and solubility. Good solvents show a RED index smaller than 1, which are inside the solubility sphere; bad solvents have a RED index larger than 1, and the larger the RED number, the worse the solubility. e, Vapor pressure as a function of volume fraction in the binary solvent of CF&OXY. The solid vertical line represents 12% volume fraction of OXY in solvent mixture, the upper dashed horizontal line represents the CF vapor pressure in 12%-OXY solvent mixture for 142.26 torr, and the lower dashed horizontal line represents the OXY vapor pressure in 12%-OXY solvent mixture for 0.41 torr. When OXY takes up the majority of the solvent mixture, the vapor pressure of CF and OXY is both 4.88 torr with the same evaporation rate. fh, Time-dependent contour maps of in situ UVvis absorption spectra for D18:2BTh-2F-C2 blend precursor solutions in CF condition (f), OXY condition (g) and CF&OXY condition (h). The dashed lines and dashed box represent the spectral change time for D18 and 2BTh-2F-C2 of the CF-, OXY- and CF&OXY-based blend precursor solution in the film-forming process. Credit: Zeng et al. (Nature Energy, 2024). As part of their study, Zeng, Zhang and their collaborators first designed and synthesized a compound mixture containing CF and OXY. They then observed how a donor polymer and NFREA responded to this solvent mixture, focusing specifically on the formation of films on these compounds. "We select solvents such as CF and OXY that evaporate at different temperatures and rates and have different solubility for the donor polymer D18," the researchers wrote. "Upon evaporation of chloroform, D18 starts to assemble into fibrils. Then, the evaporation of o-xylene induces the rapid formation of a fibril network that phase segregates 2BTh-2F-C 2 into pure domains and leads to a bicontinuous morphology." The researchers also introduced a solid-state additive, namely 1,4-diiodobenzene (DIB), to their sample. This additive was placed in the formed photoactive thin film, while it had almost dried, to further enhance the crystallization of the NFREA. The researchers used their approach to develop new solar cells based on NFREAs, which they then assessed in a series of initial tests. Remarkably, they found that the morphology enabled by their solvent and additive enabled PCEs of 19.02% for small-area (0.052cm2) cells and 17.28% for 1 cm2 devices. This recent study opens new possibilities for the fabrication of organic solar cells based on NFREAs, which could be significantly less expensive than their FREAs-based counterparts. The promising findings gathered by this research team could soon inspire further efforts in this direction, potentially contributing to the future commercialization of organic solar cells. More information: Rui Zeng et al, Achieving 19% efficiency in non-fused ring electron acceptor solar cells via solubility control of donor and acceptor crystallization, Nature Energy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01564-0 Journal information: Nature Energy 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: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Artificial Intelligence now underpins many of our activities in public and private spheres, including work, education, travel, and leisure. But its rapid development and increased use has been led primarily by commercial interests rather than deliberative policy or legislative choices. As a result, there is increasing unease about the impact on individual and collective human rights, such as privacy and freedom of expression, as well as intellectual property. Recently, this concern has translated into a wave of global, regional, and domestic regulatory initiatives. The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act, expected to enter into force in the next month, is groundbreaking in scope and scale. This act pushes past previous global and national initiatives (such as responsible AI charters and ethical AI statements) to a comprehensive regulatory framework, including an enforcement and penalties regime. Some New Zealand-based companies may incur specific compliance requirements (if their product is available on the EU market, or affects people in the EU), but of wider importance will be the act's influence on global norms. The EU is the largest single world market and a global standard setter. And given the closer links being forged through the New Zealand-EU Free Trade Agreement, New Zealand should monitor regulatory developments closely. The EU AI Act is best thought of as product safety legislation, which aims to protect people from harm and promote trustworthy and safe use of AI. Its core structure is a risk-based framework for AI, with tiered requirements based on the level of risk. High-risk AI systems (for example systems used in employment, education, and critical infrastructure) will be subject to a conformity assessment, where the provider must demonstrate compliance with requirements such as transparency and cybersecurity. Most high-risk systems will need to be registered on a public database. Governance structures are being established at EU level and in the jurisdictions of the EU to monitor compliance, set standards for implementation, and provide expert advice. Of global interest are the decisions about the prohibition of some types of AI (through the act's "unacceptable risk" categorization). These decisions are likely to shape the evolving global conversation on whether some AI systems should be completely prohibited as being incompatible with fundamental rights and human dignity. Systems the act will prohibit include social scoring, scraping of images, and most types of emotion recognition, biometric categorization, and predictive policing applications. Yet, despite concerted action from civil liberties groups, the regulation stops short of a complete prohibition on real-time remote biometric surveillancelive facial recognition technology being the most familiar example. Though this type of surveillance is in the "unacceptable risk" category, there are significant carve-outs for law enforcement purposes, as explored in Laws. Plus, national security, defense, and military purposes are outside the remit of the act. This means the technology will continue to be used. There is also a significant risk that by defining instances where real-time remote biometric surveillance is justified, the EU may be seen to be endorsing the technology as acceptable, perhaps leading to increased use in national jurisdictions without the necessary community endorsement or engagement with particularly affected groups. In the global jostle to host and develop technology hubs, there is considerable debate as to what regulatory settings best promote innovation in AI. Some contend that the EU's approach could strangle innovation, but others would say that certainty and bright lines provide a firm base for investment and innovation. Overall, the EU approach is premised on the idea that where consumers have trust in systems, and confidence in quality, they are more likely to be willing to use AI in the commercial sense and in engaging with public services. So what can New Zealand learn from the EU's approach? New Zealand has significant gaps in its regulatory regime that may hamper innovation and endanger public trust in AI. There is a comparatively weak privacy and data protection regime, a lack of accessible avenues for individuals and communities to know when AI is used or raise complaints about the impact of AI and similar technologies on their rights and interests, a lack of robust enforcement or penalty mechanisms, and an outdated legislative regime for state surveillance. Without a people-centered, trustworthy, and robust regulatory framework, uptake and trust in AI is likely to be affected. Though Aotearoa New Zealand has a unique societal and cultural context requiring a tailored approach, the concepts and framework in the EU AI Act provide a firm foundation for people-centered regulation of AI. More information: Nessa Lynch, Facial Recognition Technology in Policing and SecurityCase Studies in Regulation, Laws (2024). DOI: 10.3390/laws13030035 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The element lithium is used widely in batteries because it results in long-lasting, stable energy storage. However, it's a finite resource, so researchers are hard at work trying to identify alternate materials to use in battery production. Using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, a team from McGill University has recently come up with a way to replace most of the lithium in batteries with sodium. The work is published in the journal Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research. The challenge with using sodium is that the cathode material becomes unstable when it's exposed to air, a big problem if you want to retool existing manufacturing facilities currently producing lithium-ion batteries. "The sodium reacts with carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air, and it makes sodium carbonate and other products," says Eric McCalla an associate professor in McGill's Department of Chemistry. "Water can actually go into the material, and convert it into a completely different structure, which is not a good battery material." McCalla's team used what he calls "wild substitutions," to simultaneously test the impact of 52 different elements on the stability of a sodium-ion battery. The HXMA beamline at the CLS helped them see detailed, localized information about the battery after use, allowing them to understand which elements were effective in keeping the battery stable, when used alongside sodium. To make sense of their mountains of datawhich included countless interrelated variablesMcCalla's team used machine learning, a powerful tool, he says, for rationalizing large quantities of complex information. "The machine can decouple the variables," says McCalla. "It can write a complicated function that takes all of the competing parameters into account." This helped them understand what materials were actually affecting the performance, and which variables played lesser roles. Sodium-ion batteries have a long way to go before they'll fully displace Li-ion batteriesespecially in electric vehiclesso it's still a critical area of research and discovery. "People have been working on lithium batteries for 40+ years, and they're very good," says McCalla. "Using more sustainable materials is a great goal, but the bar is high. We've made progress, and we're going to continue to work very hard on making these materials better." More information: Shipeng Jia et al, Stabilization of NaIon Cathode Surfaces: Combinatorial Experiments with Insights from Machine Learning Models, Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research (2024). DOI: 10.1002/aesr.202400051 Octavia Johnson is a general assignment reporter for the Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at octavia.johnson@houstonchronicle.com. Before joining the Chronicle, Octavia worked as a digital content producer at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., where she became a leader in producing fast paced, audience-focused content. Octavia graduated from UNC Pembroke with a bachelor's degree in journalism before earning her master's degree in media and communications at Norfolk State University. People cut trees that blew over during Beryl as another storm floods the road 5 days after, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Cardenas Ismael, left, speaks about his generator as the family remains without power five days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024. Ismael bought the generator early 2023 to keep his refrigerator running when the power goes out. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Cardenas Ismael opens his fridge hooked up to his generator after being without power days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Power line personnel work near large transformers, center, while they repair a broken power pole along Broadway near the causeway Thursday, July 11, 2024, as crews repair power lines downed as Hurricane Beryl made landfall Monday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Marva Hill hands out Trill Burgers inside Bethel Church days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer The Guy Family waits to get burgers at Bethels Church of Houston days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Trill Burgers served 600 burgers to a community up north earlier in the day and is serving another 500 at the church. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Trill Burgers makes a batch of burgers to serve to the community at Bethels Global Reach days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Trill Burgers served 600 burgers to a community up north earlier in the day and is serving another 500 at the church. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer More than 860,000 CenterPoint customers were still without power four days after Hurricane Beryl struck the Texas coast, according to the company's website Friday afternoon. In an update Thursday night, the company said it expects to restore power to 80% of affected customers by the end of the day Sunday. Follow along below for live updates on the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl from Houston Chronicle reporters and meteorologists. Here's a recap of Thursday's coverage. The Chronicle's coverage of Beryl is paywall-free. To support our journalism, please consider subscribing to the Chronicle for unlimited digital access. Advertisement Article continues below this ad CenterPoint restored power to around 106,200 customers during the day Friday amid mounting pressure to return power and provide transparent communication in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. Less than 878,000 customers were without power Friday morning at 7:49 a.m. Some 12 hours later, around 771,000 were without power. Beryl turned off the lights for 2.26 million CenterPoint customers, and about half had been restored four days later. Tensions are mounting for the company, which also saw fewer than 1 million customers lose access to power after the derecho wind event in May. In a Wednesday pledge, CenterPoint said it planned to return power to 750,000 by Sunday evening. The company stated 400,000 people would be restored by the end of Friday. Around 1.5 million people have had power restored as of Friday evening. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Seeking accurate information on power outages, the Westbury Civic Club decided to take matters into their own hands and develop their own outage map for the neighborhood. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night, the civic clubs office manager, Jennifer Edmondson, drove through the area to determine which streets had power, her mother, Becky Edmondson said. With the cars window down, Jennifer Edmondson can usually spot houses that do not have power but are relying on a generator by its hum. The drive takes a couple of hours, Becky Edmondson said, and it takes an additional hour or so to draw on the map to indicate which streets have power. The maps, timestamped at 1 a.m., are posted on Facebook. The civic club plans on developing its own maps until the majority of the neighborhood has power. Becky Edmondson, who is civic club treasurer, said the recently released CenterPoint outage map appeared to be inaccurate. She said the neighborhoods map can give people a picture of how CenterPoint is progressing with power restoration. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We just wanted our residents to know what was really happening, because CenterPoint was unable to provide us accurate information, she said. Nusaiba Mizan CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells assured U.S. Sens John Cornyn and Ted Cruz late Friday afternoon that they are ahead of schedule on their earlier promise to restore power to 80 percent of their customers by Sunday in a call transcript provided to the Houston Chronicle by Cruz's office. I know weve got our fellow Houstonians frustrated and angry, he told the Senators on a phone call that also included U.S. Reps. Morgan Luttrell, Randy Weber, and Brian Babin, all Republicans who represent parts of the region still recovering from Hurricane Beryl. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He said they are entirely focused on getting power restored. CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells speaks to a reporter about the effort to restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at a CenterPoint Energy office in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Cruz said he wants CenterPoint to prepare an after-action report for the members of Congress on the call to help address what went wrong and how to make sure it doesnt happen again given that hurricane season has a long way to go. If we have another hurricane that is even worse, we need to make sure we are doing everything possible to protect the safety and lives of Texans, Cruz told Wells, who agreed to do the report. Jeremy Wallace Advertisement Article continues below this ad U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is pushing for federal investigations into CenterPoint Energys egregious service lapses after Hurricane Beryl. The Houston Democrat on Friday wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm requesting that the Justice and Energy departments open formal probes into the energy provider. With heat indexes reaching above 100 degrees this week, more than 1 million CenterPoint customers remain without power, shedding light yet again on CenterPoints egregious and consistent service lapses that continue to endanger and threaten the lives of its customers, Jackson Lee wrote. Ben Wermund Houston ISD will distribute food and supplies to families on Monday and Tuesday, Superintendent Mike Miles said in a Friday letter to families. Distribution will start at 9 a.m. at Butler Stadium at 13755 S Main Street on Monday and at Delmar Stadium at 2020 Mangum Road on Tuesday. Miles also wrote that summer school classes will resume Monday in buildings with power and the district will provide an update to each campus Sunday afternoon on which schools will open. About 70 campuses did not have power as of Friday, down from about 150 campuses at the beginning of the week, Miles wrote. About 50 campuses have trees down and 60 campuses reported some roof or structural damage. Our staff is working tirelessly with CenterPoint to get our campuses back online and ready to serve our students, Miles wrote. Nusaiba Mizan Several prisons in the Texas area lost power as Hurricane Beryl swept through the Houston area, cutting off prisoner communications even as backup generators brought back the lights, according to state officials. The emergency generators kicked in Monday at nearly 20 units southwest and north of Houston, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website. Many of the facilities, which officials said sustained minor damage, have since regained power. The following units on Thursday had been running on generators since Monday: Bell, Ellis, Jester III, Lychner, Memorial, Ramsey, Stringfellow, Terrell and Vance. Visitations at those units were also canceled through the weekend amid "restoration efforts and power outages," TDCJ spokesperson Amanda Hernandez said. The backup generators, which power lights and fans, do not extend to servers used for prisoner phones and tablets, she said in an email. Nicole Hensley As hundreds of thousands of Houstonians remain without power amid a sweltering heat wave after Hurricane Beryl, many residents have trained their ire on the regions power distributor, CenterPoint Energy. Elected officials are following suit, homing in on the company that has a state-sanctioned monopoly on Houstons energy distribution. The Chronicle reached out to city, county, state and federal lawmakers to ask for their view on CenterPoints performance. Heres what the regions elected officials had to say. Dylan McGuinness, Abby Church, John Lomax, Cayla Harris, Edward McKinley, Benjamin Wermund and Jeremy Wallace A Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) press officer said 35 nursing facilities are without power and running on generators as of Friday. Of that number, 23 have generators backing up heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and 12 have generators but are not using them to back up those systems. Fifty-seven assisted living facilities are without power and running on generators, the Commission said. Of those, the majority, 40, have generators backing up heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and 17 have generators but are not using them to back up those systems. An additional 10 assisted living facilities do not have power or a generator, according to a Friday statement from HHSC. Prior to the storm, HHSC sent out emergency alerts to potentially impacted areas notifying Long-term Care (LTC) providers of the potential impact of Hurricane Beryl, to ensure emergency preparedness plans were ready for implementation, Assistant Press Officer Thomas Vazquez wrote. HHSC also directly contacts LTC facilities during emergencies, including this hurricane event, to check on residents health and safety. Nusaiba Mizan Many in the Houston area were affected by Hurricane Beryl. And while neighbors pitched in, some volunteers went above and beyond. Did you meet a Houston hero in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl? We want to hear from you. Madeline Papcun A Lineman tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. (Raquel Nataliccio/Houston Chronicle) Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo addressed the recent outbreak of violence against CenterPoint employees at a press conference held Friday. We have heard reports of someone pulling a gun on a group of linemen, somebody shooting pellets at the truck, Hidalgo said. I know people are angry at the situation, and the heat makes us all more frustrated and the tempers run higher, but these folks are here just to help us. Hidalgo urged residents not to take out their anger on linemen or other CenterPoint employees, many of whom have come from out of state to help repair damage caused by Beryl. John Lomax President Joe Biden approved a new wave of federal disaster relief that will allow residents in counties hardest hit by Hurricane Beryl to apply directly for financial aid from the government. Residents who live in 15 counties among the hardest hit by the storm, including Harris, Brazoria, Galveston and Montgomery, can seek up to $42,500 to cover temporary housing and home repairs. Money is also available for emergency items such as food, water and medicine. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo applauded the announcement. Our state and local government just finished verifying the count and made the submission last night. This is an approval in record time, Hidalgo said in a statement. Benjamin Wermund, Rebekah F. Ward After four days without electricity from Hurricane Beryl, Ashley and Jose Garza try to cool off while sitting on a hammock on their driveway on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. They have three children and have been keeping cool with an inflatable pool and taking drives around the neighborhood, although the A/C in the car doesnt work. The latest notification from Centerpoint was they would be back online July 14. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle) Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer More than 860,000 CenterPoint customers in the Houston area remain without power four days after Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas coast, leaving many concerned they won't have power until next week. About 864,000 customers did not have power as of 2:40 p.m., which is a slight increase from approximately 854,000 customers who didn't have power as of 12:15 p.m. More than 1.4 million customers have had their power restored since Monday, according to the CenterPoint outage tracker. The company said Thursday evening that it expected 400,000 more customers to have power restored by the end of Friday, followed by 350,000 Sunday. Read more here. Octavia Johnson In a recent post shared to Reddit, Lynn Abell urged her fellow Houstonians to channel their frustration with CenterPoint by providing a letter template they can send to their local, state and national representatives. I wanted to provide a place, links to where people can reach out, she said. Some people aren't great writers, and that's okay. I consider myself a decent writer, and so I wanted to give people a form that they could use to voice complaints against CenterPoint. Rather than complaining on social media, Abell said she hopes people will make an effort to reach out to their representatives to get a tangible response from politicians and Centerpoint. That's their job, she said. That's what they're supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be listening to their constituents concerns. Caroline Wilburn CenterPoint Energy announced that they have restored more than 1.4 million customers ahead of the initial restoration expectations. We are encouraged by the tremendous progress we have made as we track ahead of our restoration expectations," said Lynnae Wilson, senior vice president of Electric Business, in a news release. "We are not going to stop until every impacted customer is back online." CenterPoint said in a news release they will also provide estimated restoration dates Friday to "substantially all" customers who haven't received one yet. Wilson said many of the outages were in connection with trees and other vegetation damaging electrical equipment due to the high winds from Hurricane Beryl. "Since Monday, crews have replaced over 2,000 poles and addressed damage from more than 6,000 trees impacting lines and other electrical equipment," she said. Earlier this week, 840 tree crews addressed damage from the thousands of trees to restore power, according to the news release Octavia Johnson The Texas A&M Forest Service announced Thursday that W.G. Jones State Forest, located south of Conroe, would close temporarily to the public until further notice due to damages to trees in the forest. The forest is also the home of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. According to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the woodpecker's habitat in the forest was not significantly damaged during the storm. The woodpeckers still have plenty of foraging habitat available, and all active cavity trees surveyed are unharmed. They need large, mature pine trees that are 60 years and older in which to build cavities for roosting and nesting, said Donna Work, red-cockaded woodpecker coordinator for the Texas A&M Forest Service, in a 2023 article in The Courier. The area needs to be kept open free of dense, thick brush and other trees." Sondra Hernandez Brazoria County officials announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that beaches on Follett's Island has been closed because of the damage from Hurricane Beryl. Business owners, homeowners and renters only have access to the island. Here are the beaches that are closed: Surfside Beach County Free Beach Treasurer Island San Luis Pass Octavia Johnson Its been more than five days since Hurricane Beryl devastated Houston. The power loss, high temperatures and strain on social services and businesses have pushed people to their limits. We want to hear from you. Madeline Papcun Tracy Hamblin carries out a bag full of wet insulation and other debris as volunteers with the nonprofit West Street Recovery help Deborah Powell muck out her home after damage from Hurricane Beryl, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Houston. Powells family has own the home since 1960 and Beryl was the first storm that resulted in damage to the home since Powell took over the property 25 years ago from her parents. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer When Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Monday morning, it brought widespread flooding and power outages a combination that can lead to mold in homes. Mold can grow in areas with excess moisture and poses health risks to those exposed to it. There is a way to clean mold caused by water damage without professional help, but it's important to take safety precautions before doing so. Here's what you need to know about the risk of mold growth in your home as a result of flood damage and how power outages could make the issue worse. Caroline Wilburn Two months after Mays derecho took CenterPoint Energys outage-tracking map down, the utilitys data systems are still malfunctioning on an unprecedented scale, new data shows. The system that once fed CenterPoints map which has quietly continued to report data under the hood of the utilitys website became overwhelmed almost immediately after Beryl reached the greater Houston area. It glitched for hours through Monday afternoon. Its shockingly bad how much the utilities actually know about their grid, said Bob Marshall, the CEO and a co-founder of Whisker Labs. They dont have the technology, the sensors and the capability to understand whats going on in real time, and to do it in a reliable way. New data made available by Whisker Labs shows what the CenterPoint system should have been reporting all along: A wave of blackouts that kept more than 60% of Harris Countys CenterPoint customers in the dark for over 24 hours. Read more from the report here. Caroline Ghisolfi The Texas House State Affairs Committee will review CenterPoints response to Hurricane Beryl at a July 31 meeting in Austin. The committee had scheduled the hearing to discuss energy resources, electric utilities and ERCOT. But the agenda was updated Thursday to add a new item: Assessing utility preparedness, response, and recovery protocols, as well as reviewing recent performance in addressing severe weather events. State Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, is not a member of the committee but said she will sit in on the hearing. She also sent a letter to CenterPoint on Thursday requesting they provide information on an immediate plan to ramp up restoration efforts as well as provide a report to the legislature on their preparation, response, and restoration from the derecho through Beryl. The hearing will start at 9 a.m. and will be livestreamed on the Texas House website. Cayla Harris Restaurants, bars and coffee shops have been a saving grace for Houstonians going on five days without power. But some restaurants have been less fortunate, losing tens of thousands of dollars as they remain in the dark. Restaurant owners are left to navigate how they'll recover from the financial hit. Dandelion Cafe, Rainbow Lodge, Cochinita & Co. are among the restaurants hard hit. Read more from the report here. Sonia Garcia Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey performances scheduled for July 19-21 at NRG Stadium have been canceled because of Hurricane Beryl. NRG Stadium, where the circus was supposed to wow crowds, sustained roof damage during the storm. New dates will be announced "at a later time," according to a statement. Read more from the report here. Joey Guerra Houston-area lawmakers are pushing President Joe Biden to approve a new wave of federal disaster relief that would allow residents in 15 counties hit by Beryl to apply directly for financial aid from the government. The Houston congressional delegation wrote to Biden Friday with an urgent plea that he expedite the process that would free up Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance for thousands still stuck without power days after Beryl. "Many residents in and around the Houston area have been without power for several days with heat indexes exceeding 100 degrees daily," said the letter, led by U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, and signed by 18 Texans, including all Democrats and Republicans from the Houston area. "They urgently need the resources FEMA can provide." Benjamin Wermund, Rebekah F. Ward A boil water notice for Rolling Forest public water supply in Montgomery County has been lifted. Normal operating water pressure levels have returned throughout the system, and bacteriological sample test results indicate that the water is free of bacteria, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, In Harris County, boil water notices are still in effect for Mading Lane, Whisper Meadows, Harris County Municipal Utility District 421, Harris County Fresh Water Supply District 45 and the Western Trails Subdivision water system. Read more here. Catherine Dominguez UniverSoul Circus, partnering with PepsiCo and KTSU 90.9 FM, will host a drive-thru event offering free bottled water, ice and Pepsi products to Houston-area residents impacted by Hurricane Beryl. The relief event will be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Butler Stadium on 13755 S. Main St. Greg Rajan CenterPoint Energy said in a statement that it closed a staging site after it received reports of a possible drive-by shooting. The reported shooting is the latest act of violence amid a general rise in criminal activity directed toward linemen and support personnel, CenterPoint said. We have experienced increasing calls for and actual incidents of criminal actions toward public utility property and the men and women who are working hard in hot, dangerous conditions to restore power, the company said in an email. The safety of our employees, contractors, mutual assistance crews and support personnel is our top priority. John Lomax V The Houston Public Library has opened 21 locations, although some physical spaces may still be temporarily closed, according to library's website. The open locations include Bracewell, Flores, Freed-Montrose, Johnson, Kendall and Oak Forest neighborhood libraries. Visit the HPL's website to view the full list. Octavia Johnson The Harris County Public Library announced 11 locations open with internet access and air conditioning Friday amid the power outages throughout the Houston area. Here are the list of the libraries, which are also operating as cooling centers: Aldine Branch Library: 11331 Airline Dr. Fairbanks Branch Library: 7122 Gessner Rd. Clear Lake City-County Freeman Branch Library: 16616 Diana Lane Jacinto City Branch Library: 921 Akron St. Katy Branch Library: 5414 Franz Rd., Katy La Porte Branch Library: 600 S Broadway St., La Porte Maud Smith Marks Branch Library: 1815 Westgreen Blvd. North Channel Branch Library: 15741 Wallisville Rd. Northwest Branch Library: 11355 Regency Green Dr., Cypress South Houston Branch Library: 607 Avenue A West University Branch Library: 6108 Auden St., For more information on the status and hours of each library, visit HCPL interactive map. Octavia Johnson As operations continue to return to normal at Houston's William P. Hobby Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston Airports is sharing more about what it took to get the airports up and running after Hurricane Beryl Monday. Just a few flights took place Monday night following the morning storm. Throughout the week flights resumed, more and more staff were able to return to work at the airports, line waits became shorter and traffic issues lessened. As of Friday morning, a representative from Houston Airports public information office said all three shifts at the airports are staffed and conditions continue to improve as more personnel get power back. Sondra Hernandez A CenterPoint Energy crew received a threat while staging vehicles near Barrett Stadium Thursday, according to a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department. The spokesperson told the Chronicle a woman informed a security guard about a potential threat made against the crew late last night. The security guard then alerted CenterPoint Energy, who passed the report to HPD. The spokesperson did not provide any information regarding the credibility of the threat. John Lomax V Power has returned to many parts of Matagorda County, the small, rural county southwest of Houston where Hurricane Beryl first made landfall early Monday. But residents in Sargent are the outliers, with almost 800 still without power as of Friday morning, according to Mitch Thames, spokesman for the county. Thames described a community facing widespread damage, with around 250 of those almost 800 structures so damaged they werent safe to energize without repairs. Cell service also remained spotty in the small community of around 2,500, Thames said. And county officials have established a checkpoint on FM 457 into and out of Sargent to prevent looting. Visitors must show evidence theyre a resident in town to get through the checkpoint, Thames said. The county is also requiring out-of-town contractors to visit the sheriffs office to receive a credential, Thames said. Theyre working to stop scammers in the storms aftermath. Homes are boarded up after Hurricane Beryl made landfall nearby Monday, July 8, 2024, in Matagorda. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Matagorda County officials have also reduced the number of operating shelters down to one, with plans to soon phase out shelters and serve those still seeking shelter through vouchers and other forms of aid, Thames said. No one is about to get kicked out on the street, he said. He estimated around seven people spent the night Thursday in one of the countys shelters. Matt deGrood Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday he believes CenterPoint underestimated the impact and direction of Hurricane Beryl and could have restored power to more customers in the immediate aftermath of the storm had it been better prepared. We'll get back and dissect what happened or didn't happen, Patrick said. But right now, I want every person at CenterPoint to have one job: Get the power back on. As he spoke, about 1.1 million CenterPoint customers were still without power and air conditioning. The lieutenant governors comments came a day after Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Public Utilities Commission to investigate Houstons continued storm-related outages. Abbott said the PUC should study why Houston has not been able to access electricity on multiple occasions, likely alluding to the roughly 1 million customers who also lost power in May after a massive wind storm. In interviews, Houston-area state lawmakers endorsed the inquiry and said the Legislature should take action to avoid another mass blackout after severe weather. Cayla Harris, Edward McKinley It's not just everyday Houstonians. Even senior officials at City Hall have struggled to get CenterPoint Energy's help powering up critical infrastructure" after Hurricane Beryl. In a 1 a.m. email Thursday, Houston Transtar director Brian Mason urged CenterPoint officials to help restore power to a southside water plant needed ASAP to prevent a Boil Water Notice for 4+ million regional residents and get four sewer plants back online. Mason said he had emailed, texted, called and spoken in person with numerous senior CenterPoint officials but had seen few results and no status or progress updates. I have sent a total of 8 top top top priority critical infrastructure sites, he wrote. Of the 8, only 3 have had power restored, and I have received no updates on the status of the other five other than these have been sent to the CPE (CenterPoint Energy) priority desk. None of the five facilities Mason cited had power as of Thursday night, Public Works spokesperson Erin Jones said, though the water plant and three of the sewer plants were running at least some equipment using generators, none of them supplied by CenterPoint. Power line personnel work near large transformers, center, while they repair a broken power pole along Broadway near the causeway Thursday, July 11, 2024, as crews repair power lines downed as Hurricane Beryl made landfall Monday. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle) Kirk Sides/Staff photographer She stressed that Houston water remains safe to drink. CenterPoint spokeswoman Michelle Hundley on Thursday said, We understand Mr. Masons concerns and we have been in communication with him and his team throughout the day. She declined to elaborate. Mike Morris Odds are at least 50-50 that Houston could see another hurricane as potent as Beryl coming to Texas before the end of the year, with more than a 1-in-5 chance it lands near Houston, one of the nations top hurricane experts told the Chronicle this week. The troubling estimate from Philip Klotzbach whose research team at Colorado State University produces a key hurricane forecast each spring comes days after Hurricane Beryl struck the Greater Houston area. His team revised their seasonal outlook to now predict 25 named Atlantic storms this year. Houston Astros fan Jan Mingus carries an umbrella against rain from a brief thunderstorm outside of Minute Maid Park ahead of an MLB game downtown on Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl. Karen Warren/Staff photographer While his team does not forecast landfalls, Klotzbach said the probability of a hurricane within 50 miles of the state for the remainder of the season remains 50% and for Harris County, the probability sits at 23%. Roberto Villalpando On Houstons north side, where advocates have long called on city leaders to improve drainage infrastructure, residents begin to pick up the pieces, again. At this point were just busy trying to survive, said Dana Jones, a 63-year-old resident who lives on the north west side of the city. For years weve been talking to our leaders, talking to public works, talking to FEMA its exhausting. A similar scene played out in the northeast, where residents said they ended up being spared the worst of the flooding. However, wind damage more than made up for it. This is the first time since Ike that I can remember so many trees blown down, said Linda Park, a 68-year-old resident of Northwood. I think it was because of how saturated the ground is around here, were seeing healthy trees ripped up from the roots. John Lomax After Beryl made landfall as a category 1 hurricane Monday, recovery efforts continued into Friday as CenterPoint crews worked to restore electricity to the hundreds of thousands of customers who remained without power. Upon getting their power restored, residents found some do-it-yourself projects to tackle to move recovery efforts along. Read about how to safely repair some aspects of a home, including a ice maker and washing machine, while waiting for help. Caroline Wilburn Houston ISD said it has been dramatically impacted by Hurricane Beryl, with dozens of campuses still facing power outages and structural damage several days after the storm. HISD reported that 70 campuses do not have power, 50 campuses had trees down and 60 campuses reported some roof or structural damages as of Friday morning. The district said that its facilities and IT teams have been working around the clock to prepare campuses to serve summer school students next week. We are working diligently to address these issues and ensure the safety and well-being of our students and staff, the district said in a statement. Megan Menchaca Although Montrose restaurant Ostia remains without power, it will host a pizza pop-up from 1 to 7 p.m. Friday outside the restaurant at 2032 Dunlavy St. in Houston. First responders and linemen will be treated with a free slice of pizza and beer if they show a valid ID. The public can sit on the patio or in the greenhouse, where Ostia will offer an all-day menu featuring chicken and salsa verde, pizzas from a portable Gozney oven, alongside fresh snapper ceviche and tomato salad. Find beer, wine, Aperol spritz and margaritas on the drink menu. Sonia Garcia Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough sent a message to residents that he is pushing for answers from CenterPoint Energy officials about their slow progress in restoring power to thousands across the county after Hurricane Beryl. Hang in there, we are going to get through this together, said Keough in a video posted to Facebook Thursday with Magnolia Mayor Matthew "Doc" Dantzer. You can rest assured I am not going to let up CenterPoint. As of Thursday evening, 75,000 CenterPoint customers in Montgomery County still had no power. That number hadn't changed since Wednesday. According to Entergy's website, more than 53,000 residents remained without power as of Friday evening. The fact of the matter is we dont get information (from CenterPoint), we dont know where we are at and we still have tens of thousands of homes all around this area still without power, Keough said. 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 Dantzer also said he hoped to get more information soon to update residents. Its been a rough couple of days, he said. The City of Lake Jackson has opened its Lake Jackson Parks & Recreation Center as a cooling center every day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. In addition to being a cooling center, officials say its a safe haven for children to play and a charging station for those needing to energize their devices including oxygen tanks. They also have areas to play games, relax and eat snacks. For two days in a row, rapper Bun B partnered with local organizations to help feed those affected by Hurricane Beryl. "Pray for our cities as we fight through this like we've done before," wrote Bun B on Instagram. FREE TRILL BURGERS: Trill Burger gives away 1,000 smashburgers during Hurricane Beryl recovery On Thursday, Trill Burgers set up shop at One Church at Bethel's Family to pass out 500 smashburgers. The Jameson family sits inside Bethels Church to eat Trills Burgers days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Trill Burgers served 600 burgers to a community up north earlier in the day and is serving another 500 at the church. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer The day prior, he teamed up with Kroger to distrubute 500 smashburgers at the E. Sam Houston Pkwy location. Online images showed cars lined the street waiting for a chance to get food and water as they braced the heat. Shakari Briggs As residents continue to bear the heat without power, organizations have set up food and water distribution centers across the Houston area. People affected by Monday's hurricane can visit sites in Houston, Crosby, Spring and other communities. The events will last until supplies run out. Octavia Johnson Texas Forest Service representatives have been deployed to Galveston County to evaluate the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl, the Texas Division of Emergency Management said Thursday evening. Forest Service representatives will conduct daily damage assessments from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to understand the extent of the destruction and to expedite recovery efforts. The Department of Emergency Management said the primary goals of the assessments are to: Accurately measure the damage to homes, businesses, and public infrastructure Gather essential data to secure state and federal assistance for affected residents and businesses Identify the most severely impacted areas to prioritize recovery and rebuilding efforts Local residents can stay informed about the status of these assessments and any provided aid or recovery efforts through official Galveston County channels and the TDEM website. Caroline Wilburn For the fifth day in a row, university officials have closed the campus of Houston Christian University. In a news release, they attributed the "continuing power outage" as the reason for the closure. It's unclear when the campus will reopen and campus activities will resume. Shakari Briggs Over the past few days, Houston native and rapper Trae tha Truth has offered tree cutting services to those with fallen trees on their homes, driveways or streets. Through his non-profit organization, Relief Gang, he's able to mobilize volunteers to assist the community in times of disaster. On Friday, he'll join the Houston Astros to pass out water and ice beginning at 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Minute Maid Park in front of Union Station. Trae also mentioned after the distribution event with the Astros, he'd partner with the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center to hand out water and ice until supplies last. Shakari Briggs On Friday, city and county leaders opened cooling centers to the public as hundreds of thousands of customers remained without power after Hurricane Beryl barreled across the region. Houstonians can visit Denver Harbor Multi-Service Center, Kingwood Community Center, Kendall Community Center and other facilities to get a break from the heat. AREA COOLING CENTERS: Cooling centers remain open in Houston as many are still without power after Hurricane Beryl Fort Bend County also opened cooling centers at Albert George Branch Library, First Colony Branch, Mamie George Branch, University Branch and other locations. Power utility crews work in the background Thursday, July 11, 2024 as eighty two year old Gilbert Garza sits on his front porch to stay cool because he has been without power since Monday at his residence of 60 years in Galveston. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer For a complete list of city of Houston cooling centers and water and food distribution centers, visit www.houstonoem.org/pages/response. Octavia Johnson On Thursday, METRO Houston announced all local bus routes had been restored. Due to Hurricane Beryl, they continued to work to "fully restore the transit system." The opening of I-69 on Friday added another METRO-operated HOV/HOT lane for drivers to travel on. Shakari Briggs Expect more rounds of heavy rainfall through Saturday, which is not what people dealing with damage caused by Hurricane Beryl, including those waiting on power restoration, want to hear. Storms could stall recovery efforts. The stalled boundary of a front will focus the storm potential near and south of Interstate 10 again on Friday afternoon. As we saw with other days this week, the potential for thunderstorms is most likely during the afternoon and early evening. A BREAK FROM THE RAIN: Storms bubble in Houston through Friday. When will repair crews have dry days again? If youre in The Woodlands, Conroe or Huntsville, your rain chances are significantly lower. Near and south of I-10, we'll have rain chances of 40% to 60% through Saturday. Closer to the coast, your rain chances are higher because youll have the sea breeze adding to the instability in the atmosphere. We don't expect severe weather or widespread flooding, but downpours could result in brief bouts of localized urban flooding. In Houston, we know the drill when it comes to heavy rainfall in typical flood-prone locations. Turn around and seek alternate routes if you come across street flooding. The good news is that by the end of the weekend, rain chances should drop. China calls on EU to acknowledge facts amid EV anti-subsidy probe Xinhua) 09:29, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Thursday that facts and rules are the two major "pillars" for ongoing consultations between China and the European Union (EU) regarding the EU's anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). "The facts should be objective and mutually recognized by both parties, rather than unilaterally determined," said MOC spokesperson He Yongqian. "It is hoped that the European side will face up to the facts that China's competitive advantage in EVs does not come from subsidies, China-EU auto industry cooperation is conducive to shared development, and the EU industry opposes trade protectionist measures," the spokesperson said, urging the EU to make reasonable and objective decisions based on facts and rules. China has already reiterated its stance on reaching a mutually acceptable solution to the trade dispute involving Chinese EVs exported to the EU. On July 4, the European Commission introduced provisional additional tariffs of up to 37.6 percent on Chinese EV makers. The tariffs, widely criticized as protectionist, have prompted objections from China and sparked widespread concerns over rising costs for consumers in the EU and global efforts towards green transitions. On Wednesday, the MOC launched a trade and investment barrier investigation into the relevant practices adopted by the EU in its foreign subsidy investigations. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Power crews work to repair electric lines downed by Hurricane Beryl on Thursday. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Everyday Houstonians arent the only ones fed up with CenterPoint Energys inadequate communication about its work to restore power after Hurricane Beryl. Even senior officials at City Hall, records show, have struggled to get the utilitys help powering up life safety critical infrastructure, including water and sewer plants. In a 1 a.m. Thursday email, Houston TranStar director Brian Mason urged CenterPoint officials to help restore power to a south side water plant needed ASAP to prevent a Boil Water Notice for 4+ million regional residents and get four sewer plants back online, lest they dump untreated sewage into local bayous. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mason said he had emailed, texted, called and spoken in person with numerous senior CenterPoint officials but had seen few results, and we receive very few responses and no status or progress updates. I have sent a total of 8 top top top priority critical infrastructure sites, he wrote. Of the 8, only 3 have had power restored, and I have received no updates on the status of the other five other than these have been sent to the CPE (CenterPoint Energy) priority desk....I can only assume I am not clearly communicating the importance of these requests, and/or not providing the correct information. Mason said he didnt know if the sites could be served by CenterPoints controversial and costly mobile generators or if circuits in each area had been damaged, leaving the plants out for days. Houston Public Works staff update a list of critical city infrastructure and discuss it with CenterPoint officials annually, Mason added, so all the sites are known and should be logged into your system. Therefore, I assume (CenterPoint) has a complete understanding of the importance and urgency of my limited requests. Advertisement Article continues below this ad None of the five facilities Mason cited had power as of Thursday night, Public Works spokesperson Erin Jones said Friday morning, though the water plant and three of the sewer plants were running at least some equipment using generators, none of them supplied by CenterPoint. She stressed that Houston water remains safe to drink. Mayor John Whitmire said Thursday that pressure in city pipes had fallen but not to the level that would require residents to boil water before using it. POWER PROBLEMS: Why did Houston have limited generators for essential facilities after Hurricane Beryl? Whitmire acknowledged challenges in the citys sewer system, noting that about 150,000 gallons of untreated sewage spilled into local bayous, as often happens during intense rainstorms. Jones added that about a third of Houstons 387 lift stations, which push sewage to treatment plants, were without power. City generators, Jones said, are being shuffled around to accommodate each facility. Our crews must also transport fuel back and forth because the initial fuel needed for the generators is running precariously low the longer our systems remain on generator power. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We continue to use available resources to keep critical infrastructure operational for the Houston community, she continued, and will continue to communicate with CenterPoint to get every resource back to full power. Masons 1 a.m. email plea was addressed to CenterPoint officials Jason Ryan and Elizabeth Brock, both of whom deferred comment to the companys communications team. Brock, a vice president at the company, was an aide to Whitmire when he served in the Legislature, and now is his appointed chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority board. CenterPoint spokeswoman Michelle Hundley on Thursday said, We understand Mr. Masons concerns, and we have been in communication with him and his team throughout the day, but declined to elaborate. Masons experience runs contrary to CenterPoints public statements. In testimony to the state Public Utility Commission on Thursday, Ryan, a CenterPoint executive vice president, stressed that the company has staff embedded at local governments response centers partly for the purpose of keeping power flowing to key facilities. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We continue to work with critical facilities like water facilities to avoid boil water notices, Ryan said. We have a priority desk in our emergency operations center that exists solely to take those kinds of requests and work them. Speaking to the Houston Chronicle after his public testimony, Ryan added, The local officials know best what facilities either don't have their own backup generation or have backup generation but it's about to fail. We really encourage those emergency management offices to make sure that they are telling us where it's needed. Whitmire, who was among the city officials copied on Masons email, did not mention difficulties in securing help from CenterPoint at city utility plants during his Thursday news conference but did reiterate broader frustrations with the company. I was talking to the CEO of CenterPoint, letting him know they must do better, they must communicate better, Whitmire said. Were going to hold CenterPoint accountable after we do an action review. But right now the focus is: Get the lights on. Advertisement Article continues below this ad HOUSTON, TEXAS - JULY 12: The Coleman family sit together on their front porch as they get some air on July 12, 2024 in Houston, Texas. We been here since the day it started. Rain came in, power went out; you know how hurricanes be. We been sitting like this for 5 days. Aint nobody came out to see us or nothing. Ive spent over $400 in gas to keep us cool. The nights have been horrible. We gotta sleep in the truck because its the only place that has air. Every hotel is booked, so there really aint no sleep, I mean if you do sleep you sleep for about a hour or two because of the heat, said the Coleman family. Millions of residents around the Houston metropolitan and costal areas continue braving the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl's destruction. Weather reports are indicating a stall in recovery efforts as chances of storms increase throughout the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Brandon Bell/Getty Images Residential neighborhoods without power are shown beyond lit highways on July 12, 2024, in Houston, Texas. Millions of residents around the Houston metropolitan and costal areas continue braving the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl's destruction. Weather reports are indicating a stall in recovery efforts as chances of storms increase throughout the region. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/TNS) Brandon Bell/TNS A Lineman tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. (Raquel Nataliccio/Houston Chronicle) Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Kimmy Crowson, left, passes the time in the garage of their powerless home with a game of Uno with her children Kia and Kayla after Hurricane Beryl made its way through the Greater Houston area after coming ashore as a Category 1 storm, Monday, July 7, 2024, in Houston. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle) Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Utility power line trucks park along Broadway near the causeway Thursday, July 11, 2024, as crews repair power lines downed as Hurricane Beryl made landfall Monday. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle) Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Restoring power is the focus point for recovery efforts days after Hurricane Beryl blew through the city, Linemen are seen working on traffic lights in downtown Houston on Thursday, July 11, 2024. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer HOUSTON, TEXAS - JULY 12: Larry Nelson, 71, rests on his couch in his home in the Third Ward neighborhood on July 12, 2024 in Houston, Texas. Nelson has not had access to his oxygen tank because of power outages in the neighborhood. I need the oxygen because I dont want to be going back and forth to the hospital. I went to the hospital on Monday and was discharged the next day. They told me that I need oxygen but thats automatic, theres no power. I try to only to use it at night if someone comes by with a generator to help me hook up to it, said Nelson. Millions of residents around the Houston metropolitan and costal areas continue braving the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl's destruction. Weather reports are indicating a stall in recovery efforts as chances of storms increase throughout the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Brandon Bell/Getty Images Cellular energy workers wait for flooding to recede after storms move across Houston days after Beryl, Thursday, July 11, 2024. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer After four days without electricity from Hurricane Beryl, Ashley and Jose Garza try to cool off while sitting on a hammock on their driveway on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. They have three children and have been keeping cool with an inflatable pool and taking drives around the neighborhood, although the A/C in the car doesnt work. The latest notification from Centerpoint was they would be back online July 14. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle) Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday that he believes CenterPoint Energy underestimated the impact and direction of Hurricane Beryl and could have restored power to more customers in the immediate aftermath of the storm had it been better prepared. We'll get back and dissect what happened or didn't happen, Patrick said. But right now, I want every person at CenterPoint to have one job: Get the power back on. As he spoke, about 1.1 million CenterPoint customers were still without power and air conditioning. Advertisement Article continues below this ad READ MORE: Texas leaders were slower to request federal Beryl aid than in past hurricanes The lieutenant governors comments came a day after Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission to investigate Houstons continued storm-related outages. Abbott said the PUC should study why Houston has not been able to access electricity on multiple occasions, likely alluding to the roughly 1 million customers who also lost power in May after a massive storm. In interviews, Houston-area state lawmakers endorsed the inquiry and said the Legislature should take action to avoid another mass blackout after severe weather. Abbott has not expanded on the review, and his office did not respond to a request for comment, but the lawmakers said the findings will inform any legislative response to the storm. The Legislature will also likely hold hearings to determine whether CenterPoint was adequately prepared to restore power once the hurricane passed through the city Monday. If we dont come together and really make progress on this, then thats on us, said state Rep. Mano DeAyala, R-Houston. Advertisement Article continues below this ad State Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, said she has basic questions for the PUC to address: Why is this happening? Why is it happening here? Whos responsible? How do we fix it? What needs to happen at each level of government so that it does not keep happening? This is not any way for people to live in our region or anywhere, she said. Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, said he would like the PUC to answer whether it approved CenterPoints emergency operations plan and how much deviation there was from that plan in this latest storm. If CenterPoint asks the Legislature for money next session, any appropriations must come with highly enhanced oversight provisions, he said. Miles added that Houstons current infrastructure is not built to withstand the extreme and frequent severe weather that the city is now experiencing. He said the Legislature must study how feasible it would be to bury power lines in Houston and surrounding areas. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Upgrading our infrastructure without passing the cost on to those whose lives are affected when it fails will require a significant investment of state dollars, but it is imperative that we prevent catastrophes like the ones our region has been experiencing, he said. Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, agreed that the state should consider putting power lines underground. He acknowledged that it would be a complicated and expensive effort but noted that the Legislature expects to have a roughly $20 billion budget surplus next year. We cant keep doing this over and over again, he said. Is shutting the city down every four months for days, if not weeks is that more cost effective? If we know that Houston loses power because power lines get knocked down, why dont we do something about that? Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said the evidence so far suggests fallen trees are to blame and that legislators and political observers shouldnt get ahead of themselves by criticizing infrastructure. After the 2021 winter freeze, trees were severely damaged, and then the state experienced back-to-back droughts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The trees were already weakened, he said, when the derecho hit Houston in May and then came Hurricane Beryl. The post-storm reviews will tell the full story, but it might be the case that property owners need to pay more attention to their trees, Cain said. But he said one area where the state could get involved is improving emergency communication protocol so Houston residents better understand where to access cooling centers and other resources after a storm. People are wondering where and when people are going to distribute water, where the shelters are going to be, he said. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said there are likely many factors contributing to the mass power outages in the city, including the growing number of residents who rely on CenterPoint for electricity. But the biggest problem, he said, is that severe weather is happening much more frequently than it used to, and energy providers must adjust accordingly. We have to realize that and I think (CenterPoint) does as well that this was just a Category 1 storm, he said. A Category 2, 3, or a horrifying 4 or 5 scenario, would be just simply mass devastation, and you would be looking at repair times instead of weeks and months. Advertisement Article continues below this ad MORE DARK DAYS AHEAD: 500,000 customers expected to still be without power by next week, CenterPoint says He said the Legislature has spent much of the past three years talking about energy after Winter Storm Uri, and I would suspect that, at this point in time, that the probability of having a hearing or two is quite high. Bettencourt said hes been getting calls from business owners in the Houston area who are now considering buying costly generators to have on hand for future storms. They cant afford these outages, he said. Some Democrats blasted Abbott and other Republican leaders for, in their view, failing to take action sooner. Rep. Jon Rosenthal of Houston described the governor's calls for an investigation as a political statement. "We have known for a long time that the system is fragile and vulnerable and every one of these storms exposes it, and it should have been no secret for 10 to 20 years," he said. The state has been hit by numerous hurricanes, freezes or other disasters over the years, often leading to power outages. But in that time, the Legislature has not passed any new regulations for energy providers, such as requiring them to preplan or increase staffing ahead of major storms, Rosenthal said. Every one of the legislative sessions that I have been through, trying to get bills to even be heard on energy infrastructure requirements and regulations is a massive struggle, he said. It seems like the energy providers, oil and gas companies, the people that can afford heavy lobbying presence in the Capitol they seem to be able to evade accountability measures and requirements. Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, criticized Republicans for approving a law preventing local governments, including Harris County or the city of Houston, from stepping in and enacting their own regulations for energy providers. He added that Houston is just entering hurricane season and that by the time the Legislature convenes in January, it might be too late. This is probably going to be one of the busiest hurricane seasons that weve ever seen, he said. So this is probably not going to be the last time. Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, said state lawmakers must understand what went wrong before taking steps to fix it. But he said Abbott and his GOP colleagues should acknowledge that they have declined to strengthen the states power system in recent years. People cut trees that blew over during Beryl as another storm floods the road 5 days after, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Ishika Samant/Staff photographer Fallen power lines and construction demolished by Hurricane Beryl are seen in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer President Joe Biden approved a new wave of federal disaster relief that will allow residents in counties hardest hit by Hurricane Beryl to apply directly for financial aid from the government. Residents who live in 17 counties among the hardest hit by the storm, including Harris, Brazoria, Galveston and Montgomery, can seek up to $42,500 to cover temporary housing and home repairs. Money is also available for emergency items such as food, water and medicine. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo applauded the announcement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Our state and local government just finished verifying the count and made the submission last night. This is an approval in record time, Hidalgo said in a statement. To apply, residents can go to disasterassistance.gov and submit their needs. There is no set window for eligibility, meaning any damage associated with Beryl could be covered. Approval time is on a case by case basis. The release of federal aid comes after pressure from Houston-area lawmakers, who wrote to Biden Friday with an urgent plea that he expedite the process that would free up Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance for thousands still stuck without power days after Beryl. Many residents in and around the Houston area have been without power for several days with heat indexes exceeding 100 degrees daily, said the letter, led by U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, and signed by 18 Texans, including all Democrats and Republicans from the Houston area. They urgently need the resources FEMA can provide. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Acting Gov. Dan Patrick on Thursday formally requested Biden approve the individual assistance for residents in 15 counties hit hardest by the storm: Brazoria, Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Orange, Polk, San Jacinto, Walker and Wharton. Gov. Greg Abbott announced Saturday that the federal government had updated the program to include Fort Bend and Nacogdoches counties as well. Patrick said in his initial request that damage assessments required by FEMA to free up the funds indicate many homes in those counties suffered major damage or were totally destroyed. The state had validated reports of 85 destroyed homes and 426 with major damage, Patrick wrote. Patricks letter also cited other serious issues from Beryl, including hundreds of thousands of households with days-long power outages. Biden and state Republican leaders have been at odds over a major disaster declaration request the president approved earlier this week that freed up federal resources for initial life- saving and life-sustaining aid, including debris removal and supplies, such as food and generators. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The president said in an exclusive interview with the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday that he had to track down Patrick, who is acting governor while Greg Abbott is on a business trip in Asia, to get the request, which Biden approved that day. The governor has to formally request federal assistance and the president has to approve it before FEMA can take action. The state has submitted such requests much earlier in past storms, including Hurricanes Ike, Harvey and Hanna. Patrick and Abbott have both insisted there was no delay in getting the request to the White House and accused Biden of lying about his attempts to reach them. Patrick on Thursday said the president was trying to weaponize FEMA as a political tool in a post on the social media site X. Starting Monday, state leaders and the Texas Division of Emergency Management have asked residents impacted by the storm to submit reports of home destruction and other damage through the Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool (iSTAT), an online survey that helps state officials quickly determine the extent of damage across the region. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Many Texans have property damage caused by Beryl. Reporting that information is essential for Texas to qualify for relief from FEMA, Abbott said Monday on social media. The federal government can only provide individual assistance through FEMA to counties that have enough unmet need, including casualties, impact to community infrastructure and households with uninsured losses. (Photo : Unsplash/Clark Young) The Labor Department announced on Thursday that Dollar General, a frequent violator of Department of Labor regulations, and its subsidiaries are facing $12 million penalties and a workplace safety commitment in its 20,000 stores nationwide. The Labor Department's Settlement The agreement mandates Dollar General, the largest chain of dollar stores in the US, to reduce inventory and improve stocking practices to prevent hazards, hire additional safety managers, and create a health and safety committee that includes employee participation. According to the Labor Department, Dollar General has engaged third-party consultants and auditors to identify hazards and conduct unannounced annual compliance audits, established a new Safety Operations Center, and set up an anonymous hotline for employees and the public to report safety concerns. The settlement with the Department of Labor also mandates that Dollar General track the results of its efforts and submit quarterly reports to OSHA, including blocked access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels, as well as improper material storage at its stores within 48 hours and provide proof of correction or face additional fines of $100,000 per day, totaling up to $500,000 for failing to comply. This agreement requires Dollar General to make systematic changes to its operations to improve accountability and compliance while also ensuring the health and safety of its employees, said Douglas Parker, the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, in a press release. READ ALSO: Elon Musk's Tunnel Construction Faces Tough Scrutiny as OSHA Found Eight "Serious" Safety Violations A Chaotic Dollar Store Many dollar stores are minimally staffed, sometimes with only one employee at the register, and typically lack security personnel. According to experts, this has led to a reputation for being easy targets for criminals who believe they cansimply enter and access the cash register. There have been 49 fatalities and 172 injuries reported at Dollar General stores since 2014, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, and at least six employees lost their lives during armed robberies between 2016 and 2020, as per a CNN investigation in 2020. Kenya Slaughter, a former Dollar General employee, described in a CBS News interview that working for the chain was chaotic. Employees faced issues such as customer fights, drug use in the store, and theft, highlighting that a billion-dollar company should have afforded more security. The OSHA's 'Severe Violator' CNBC reported that Dollar General was the first company added to OSHA's list of "severe violators" of workplace safety rules in 2023, just after it expanded its safety enforcement program. Investigators identified severe safety hazards, including blocked emergency exit routes and electrical panels, at a Dollar General store in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, during a November inspection prompted by a complaint to OSHA. According to the Department of Labor, these violations were similar to those found at other Dollar General locations across the US, part of over 180 investigations that have compromised worker safety. The current settlement adds to the Tennessee-based Dollar General's penalties of over $21 million since 2017 due to willful and recurring violations, fire hazards, and safety failures, where it only settled $4 million, according to an OSHA spokesperson speaking to Retail Dive. RELATED ARTICLE: New Federal Rule on Workplace Heat Safety Protects Workers from Extreme Heat, Penalizes Companies for Non-Compliance 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Unsplash/ Phil Hearing) Bruegger's Workers United (BWU) expresses dismay as Iowa City's Riverside workers voted against the union, just after previously expressing intent to unionize, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Bruegger's Workers United (BWU) The union said the result is not the end for BWU. Bruegger's Workers United alleged that Bruegger was undermining justice through ongoing union-busting tactics, highlighting in the post that they would continue to hold them accountable. I'm saddened to say that the hard workers of Bruegger's Bagels on Riverside in Iowa City voted against a union. This is not the end of BWU. Bruegger's has made a mockery of justice with their relentless union busting tactics, and we will not rest til they are held accountable. Bruegger's Workers United (@BrueggersWU) July 9, 2024 READ ALSO: Tesla Restricting Tech Usage at Buffalo, Faces an NLRB Complaint Over Infringement of Employees' Rights Bruegger's Bagels Union-Busting Allegations As reported by AOL, employees at Bruegger's Bagels in Iowa City and Coralville who aim to conduct the first unionization effort in the United States received approval from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month. However, Coralville employees became ineligible after the store closed on May 31, which workers alleged was a "union-busting move" shortly after they announced their plan to unionize. The judgment, issued by NLRB Regional Director Jennifer Hadsall, evaluates the employees' unionization efforts using a three-pronged test from the National Labor Relations Act, which defines a labor organization as any group or agency that involves employees and exists to address issues such as grievances, labor disputes, wages, working hours, or employment conditions, citing all components of this definition were clearly satisfied. According to KCRG-TV9, around 11 employees at the Riverside Drive location in Iowa City previously showed interest in unionizing. The Bruegger's Workers United alleged that the company employed union-busting tactics to encourage a 'no' vote. Series of Unionization in Iowa City Bruegger's workers are not the first in the region to seek better wages, more time off, and more tremendous respect. Workers at the Starbucks in downtown Iowa City are the first in Iowa to initiate the unionization process. Filed on March 27 for the 31 employees at the 228 S. Clinton St. location, the petition seeks to unionize all full-time and regular part-time baristas and shift supervisors. Gazette reported that this effort is part of a broader movement led by Starbucks Workers United, with Starbucks locations across the country and over 290 Suntry unionizing. Many were dismayed by Tuesday's vote, with Paul Iversen, a labor educator with the University of Iowa's Labor Center, saying that the story is not over yet. If the election was conducted unfairly, the board would intervene to order a new election, or, given the previous majority support, it might even require Bruegger to negotiate with the employees. Research indicates that unionization efforts are occurring nationwide, with a strong majority of workers expressing a desire to join unions if given the opportunity. If current unionization initiatives succeed, they could inspire additional locations or stores to pursue similar actions. Iversen asserts that the successes of this movement motivate more individuals to join and participate in the effort. RELATED ARTICLE: Minneapolis Park Workers File Unfair Labor Practice Charges Against Board, Citing Union-Busting Efforts 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Pexels/Photo by Liliana Drew) As many companies reinforce stricter in-office mandates, many workers are torn about whether they are willing to sacrifice the work-life balance a remote setup brings or sneak in to do the bare minimum while still getting paid the same. What Is Coffee Badging? As TheStreet defines it, Coffee badging involves physically going to the workplace briefly to make an appearance, often engaging in a few short conversations or tasks before leaving to finish the majority of work at home or elsewhere. While "coffee" refers to employees grabbing a cup of coffee in the office while briefly interacting with managers or coworkers, "badging" refers to swiping badges when entering the office to monitor attendance. Who Is Often Coffee Badging? Owl Labs' State of Hybrid Work 2023 revealed that a quarter of workers would be willing to give up 15% of their salary for more flexible working hours. The findings indicate that 62% of the respondents are men and 38% are women. The report does not explore the reasons why men may be more inclined to coffee-badge than women. Still, it suggests that gendered expectations about acceptable office behavior could be a factor, where men generally feel more comfortable negotiating higher salaries compared to their female counterparts. TechCo also reported that Millennials are more inclined to coffee badges than other generations, possibly because older generations work from home less frequently or have different workplace expectations, while younger Gen Z workers are still establishing themselves in the workforce. READ ALSO: Not Everyone Wants to Climb The Corporate Ladder; Some Gen Zers Just Simply Want to Descend As hybrid arrangements have become a permanent part of office life, coffee badging continues to persist. A recent LinkedIn poll conducted in June with 1,568 respondents found that 19% of users admitted to still engaging in coffee badging when going to work. IT manager Amanda from Chicago is one of those who has acknowledged participating in this trend. She tells BuzzFeed she comes into the office but limits her time to four hours, as she finds being in the office to be draining. Implications of Coffee Badging While the movement has gained momentum and seems to empower many young workers to adhere strictly to their contracted hours, several employment experts are advising caution. Jill Cotton, a Career Trends Expert at Glassdoor, told MailOnline that workers should not view coffee badging as a long-term solution to workplace issues. While individuals may believe they are "quiet quitting" by doing the bare minimum, others may perceive them as merely showing up, disliking their job, and trying to blend in with their colleagues. Cotton also warns about not seeking extra opportunities, engaging in training, or making one's work known. Relying on quiet quitting may lead to stagnation in experience while peers get ahead. In interviews, individuals who do the bare minimum may also find it challenging to provide examples of their achievements. RELATED ARTICLE: #QuitTok: Gen Zers are Loud Quitting Jobs, Can This Force Employers to Make Workplaces Better? 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Two Russian-born Australian citizens have been arrested and charged in the country for spying on behalf of Russia as part of a "complex" law enforcement operation codenamed BURGAZADA. This includes a 40-year-old woman, an Australian Defence Force (ADF) Army Private, and her husband, a 62-year-old self-employed laborer. Media reports have identified them as Kira Korolev and Igor Korolev, respectively, noting that they had been in Australia for over a decade. The married couple were arrested at their home in the Brisbane suburb of Everton Park on July 11, 2024, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a statement. They have been charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment. "It is the first time an espionage offense has been laid in Australia since new laws were introduced by the Commonwealth in 2018," the AFP said. The federal law enforcement agency has alleged the pair colluded together to obtain sensitive information after the woman traveled to Russia while on a long-term leave from the ADF since 2023. She is said to have instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, to log into her official work account and instructed him to access specific information and send it directly to her private email account while she was overseas. "The woman's ADF account credentials were used on a number of occasions to access sensitive ADF information, with the intent to provide it to Russian authorities," the AFP said. Although the exact documents that were accessed were not disclosed, the AFP said they related to Australian national security interests. An investigation into whether the information was handed over to Russia remains ongoing. "Espionage is an insidious crime, and at a time of global instability, state actors have ramped-up their efforts to obtain information held by Western democracies, including Australia," AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said. "Espionage is not a victimless crime. It has the potential to impact on Australia's sovereignty, safety and way of life." The arrests mark the third time individuals have been charged with espionage or foreign interference related offenses since their incorporation into the Criminal Code Act 1995. Last April, a New South Wales man, 55, was charged with providing information about "Australian defense, economic and national security arrangements" to two individuals associated with a foreign intelligence service who are suspected to be undertaking intelligence gathering activities. Then in late February 2024, a 68-year-old man from Melbourne was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for attempting to influence a Federal Parliamentarian on behalf of a foreign government. Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security in charge of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), said the ongoing threat of espionage is "real," and that "multiple countries are seeking to steal Australia's secrets." Update The Embassy of Russia in Australia shared the following statement on its Facebook page - The press conference of AFP and ASIO chiefs on 12 July was clearly intended to launch another wave of anti-Russian paranoia in Australia. Theatrical tricks were used like talking to imaginary "Russian spies" presumed to be all around. The Embassy has requested official written information from the Australian authorities on the situation and status of Mrs Kira Korolev and Mr Igor Korolev. We'll consider appropriate measures of consular assistance. Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has announced that the government will use the Contingency Fund as well as borrow money to rebuild St. Vincent and the Grenadines, following the destruction wrought on the multi-island nation by Hurricane Beryl. On Monday, July 1, 2024, Hurricane Beryl ripped through St. Vincent and the Grenadines, leaving widespread destruction and at least three deaths. Officials confirmed that three deaths occurred in Union Island which took the brunt of the hurricane, as it passed north of Grenada and its dependencies Carriacou and Petit Martinique. Reports are that an estimated 98% of the housing stock in Union Island, 95% in Mayreau and upwards of 90% in Canouan suffered some degree of damage, including total destruction. The Palm Island Resort was flattened with most structures either laid to rest where they stood or blown away across the Caribbean Sea. In announcing the use of the Contingency Fund, Dr. Gonsalves explained that this Fund was supported by a mandatory one-percentage-point contribution from the Value Added Tax, and he described it as a find that was "set aside for rainy days. He said that some of the money was used during the COVID-19 pandemic and the volcanic eruption in 2021, but since then, the Fund has built up "quiet a tidy nest egg.. With that in mind, Dr. Gonsalaves declared "Well, the rainy day has come and we have to use some of that money or, indeed, all of it. It is not going to be sufficient so, we have to raise other monies. The PM noted that there are very few countries who will give grants and whenever there are grants available, they are normally small. "Of course, we will borrow on very concessional terms, he said, adding that the only problem with this is that there are often delays. However, in the wake of the destruction, there have been some immediate responses to the immediate/relief needs of the county. Neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago and the more distant St. Kitts and Nevis have already dispatched emergency supplies to the country. The World Central Kitchen has also moved expeditiously to mobilise support and have organized a team of voulnteers to prepare meals for distribution, THE VINCENTIAN understands, to persons in emergency shelters. Taiwan and the UN respond And in its usual prompt response to the needs of one of its strongest allies, the Government of the republic of China on Taiwan has pledged a sum of UD$200,000.00. In announcing her governments quick and generous response, Taiwan Ambassador to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, H.E. Fiona, Huei-Chun FAN, expressed solidarity and profound sympathy with the people and government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. She asserted in a press release: "Taiwan stands firmly and willing to offer support to provide an emergency relief grant as humanitarian aid for the recovery and reconstruction efforts. In addition to aid from Taiwan, this country learned very soon after the passage of Hurricane Beryl that it will share in an amount of $400,000 euros, made available by the European Union as humanitarian aid to Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The EU grant is earmarked as assistance to "the most vulnerable individuals impacted by the hurricane, providing them with cash, water, sanitation, hygiene supplies, food and other essential items. Lornette Fya Empress Nedd, pictured here during her victory run in the 2023 Calypso Monarch Final, is set to put up a string defence of her title. The finalists for the 2024 Calypso monarch showdown have been chosen. The event is scheduled for Sunday July 7 at Carnival City, Victoria Park. Concerns mounted about the continuity of the show following last Mondays passage of Hurricane Beryl. Its presence hung over the Victoria Park as the semifinal went on last week Friday, and calypsonians battled through uncertain weather with Beryls shadow lurking. That said, Abuza Cupid, known in the Reggae arena, showed his versatility and romped into the Big Yard on his first excursion on the calypso train. His number One thing to the other earned him the nod. Delahanty Isles will be satisfied that her decision to Go back and sing, proved meaningful. Dennis Bowman is the 1997 Soca king. He is yet to make a similar dent in Calypso genre. He advanced with his composition Where is the culture? Elvis Abijah Abbey was crowned in 2002. He will be looking to do the same this year with his composition: Dem Pirates. Glenroy Homey Delpesche with Stand up for your country sends a message. Gosnel GC Cupid thinks that Only Judges can prevent this years crown going his way. He will hope he gets across to the panel. Johnny Rebel Hall has a Message from the children, which makes him a contender. Kingsley Hero Roberts with his Thank God its Friday is into the final. A cultural activist prominent for his involvement in pan, Hero is at home wherever music is played. Marvo Morgan is one of three females in the zone. Her number, Nobodys listening gained the judges attention. Radeon Madzart Primus has tenure and success in the music industry. His composition Contours is evidence of his obsession with Geography. The other finalist is Robert Patches King with "Kingdom must come down. He perhaps spent the most time on last week Friday night he being one of the keyboardists in the band Nex Level which shared the evenings musical accompaniment with the Festival Band. Alvis Zion I Dennie is the reserve. He stands ready with the composition Negations. Eleven others were eliminated: Junior Calypsonian Divine Skye Hackshaw with My Prayer; Michael Lord Have Mercy Ollivierre - Listen Comrade; Phylicia Nubian Empress Alexander Warrior Queen; Cecile Lil Bit King - Seniors have rights too; Omani Cupid - Are we raising Kings?; Kirk Ninja Knights - Dey want it dead; Maxwell Tajoe Francis - Travel woes; Glenford Azarah Charles - Some weird characters; and Turks and Caicos resident Hilton Duncan Live as one. The MV Hugh Mulzac, of the DVG Coast Guard fleet, being loaded with relief supplies donated by the Government of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. In the aftermath of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Beryl , and towards allowing ease of passage of emergency /humanitarian aid to displaced/affected citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Cabinet has granted approval for a 100% waiver of all import taxes on relief supplies as follows: 1. Import Duty, VAT, Excise Duties, Customs Service Charge and the Bottle Levy on all relief supplies imported into the State from friendly governments, international organisations, charitable bodies, other entities and individuals, and consigned to the following: The National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO); The SVG Red Cross; Rotary Clubs; Lions Clubs; Chamber of Industry and Commerce and/or any other registered not-for-profit organisations and religious bodies, WITH EFFECT FROM JULY 1ST 2024, TO SEPTEMBER 30TH 2024: 2. Import Duty, VAT, Excise Duties, Customs Service Charge and the Bottle Levy on all WATER produced in and imported into the state WITH EFFECT FROM JULY 1ST, 2024, TO AUGUST 31ST 2024. 3. Import Duty, VAT, and Customs Service Charge on water tanks, jackhammers, chain saws and electrical generators WITH EFFECT FROM JULY 1ST, 2024, TO 31ST AUGUST 2024. (The usual regulatory procedures for the importation of chain saws will apply.) 4. VAT, Import Duty and Customs Service Charges on all barrels imported into the State WITH EFFECT FROM JULY 1ST, 2024, TO DECEMBER 31ST, 2024. 5. All charges levied by the St. Vincent Port Authority on vessels transporting relief supplies as their sole cargo WITH EFFECT FROM JULY 1ST TO SEPTEMBER 30TH 2024. Director General Finance and Planning Haitis newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille (facing camera) and Haitis police chief (left) visited the capitals largest hospital, after authorities said they took control of the medical institution over the weekend from armed gangs. (Photo: African News) Haitis newly selected Prime Minister Garry Conille and Haitis police chief visited the countrys largest hospital on Tuesday, July 09, after authorities said they took control of the institution over the weekend from armed gangs. 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. Prime Minister Conille was accompanied on his visit 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 Tuesdays 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 gangs chokehold. "This hospital is not for the rich, its for the poor, Conille said on Tuesday. "These are people that need serious help that cant 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. Conille said his government will focus on addressing gang violence and referenced the recently deployed Kenyan police as being crucial to helping control the countrys gangs and moving toward democratic elections On June 25, the initial contingent of 200 Kenyan police arrived in Port-au-Prince. Kenya has pledged 1,000 police to the international police force and Conille said the next contingent will be arriving "very soon. They will later be joined by police from the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Benin, Chad and Jamaica in the force that will total 2,500 personnel. (Source: AP) Kaymanie Manie Richards was said to be a well-liked and sociable person in his community. St. Vincent and the Grenadines racked up its 24th, 25th and 26th homicide for the year, just a matter of days following the 22nd and 23rd homicides. The ink had not yet dried on the preliminary investigations into the shooting deaths of Kezron Deshong - June 24 and Osborne Soca Glasgow June 26 when the local constabulary was called out to the scenes of shooting deaths of Kaymanie "Manie Richards, Ekron Edwards and Nickelson Thomas. Richards, a 46-year-old mechanic/welder, a resident of Diamond, was socializing on the evening of Friday 28th June, with some friends at a popular shop in the community, when two masked assailants approached the gathering and discharged a barrage of gunshots, concentrated on Richards. He died on the spot, the result of having received multiple gunshots, a source said. Richards was a popular personality both in and out of the Diamond community. His death was counted as homicide number 24. Reportedly, before they had completed their preliminary investigation into the fatal shooting of Richards, the police were called out to Ottley Hall on the afternoon of Saturday 29th June. There they discovered the dead body of a male who was later identified as Ekron Edwards, a 33-year-old minibus driver and resident of Ottley Hall. He was fatally shot by a masked assailant, the police reported. The police report also said that around 2:00 p.m, Edwards was plying his trade in the Ottley Hall community when a masked assailant approached the minibus in which Edwards was seated, and opened fire, resulting in the deceased receiving multiple gunshots about his body. He succumbed to his injuries at the scene. Edwards death was listed as the 25th homicide for the year. In another fatal shooting incident, this time on the Grenadine island of Bequia, the police said that they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 21-year-old resident of Cemetery Hill, Bequia. The deceased, identified as Nickelson Thomas, was discovered with what appeared to be gunshot injuries, a police release said. A source in Bequia told THE VINCENTIAN that the man was shot while attempting a break-in at a residential property on that Grenadine island. This was not confirmed by the police, though his death is listed as the 26th homicide for the year. (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. You have reached a premium content area of Transitions. To read this entire article please login if you are already a Transitions subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). GFH Financial Group has signed a deal with the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) 2024 to serve as the Investment Bank Sponsor of the Forum, which will be held from November 19 to 20, 2024. Chief Operating Officer of GFH, Salah Sharif, said: "This sponsorship aligns with our strategic vision to enhance financial inclusion and foster entrepreneurship and innovation globally. The WBAF provides a unique platform for investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers to collaborate and create impactful solutions for the economic development of the region and beyond." The High Commissioner & Bahrain Country Director of WBAF, Feryal Nass, added: "We are delighted to welcome GFH as partners for the event. Their support and commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship are invaluable. Together, we aim to create a transformative experience for all participants, emphasising the importance of financial inclusion and the role of startups in achieving sustainable development." Power of collaboration Executive Chairman of WBAF, Baybars Altuntas, said: As an affiliated partner of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), WBAF believes in the power of collaboration and the transformative impact it can have on communities and economies. GFHs dedication to enhancing financial inclusion and supporting innovative initiatives aligns perfectly with our mission to empower entrepreneurs and create sustainable economic development. We look forward to working together to deliver a transformative experience that will leave a lasting impact on all participants.--TradeArabia News Service Gulf Islamic Investments group (GII) has welcomed Saeed Saleh Al Ghamdi to the Board of GII Holding, strengthening its representation of Saudi nationals on its Board of Directors, as GIIs activities expand across Saudi Arabia in 2024. Al Ghamdi is Chief Executive Officer of Al Nahdi Family Office. Al Nahdi Family Office became GII shareholders this summer, injecting further growth capital into GII and underlining GII groups continued attractiveness to Gulf investors. Al Ghamdi, a strategic leader with over 26 years of experience in management and finance, held previous positions as Senior Director for Financial Planning and Analysis at Al Nahdi Medical Company, then Group Chief Financial Officer at Fakeeh Care. He holds a Bachelors degree in accounting from King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran and an MBA from King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. Al Ghamdi has also attended several leadership programmes, including the Saudi Oxford Advanced Management and Leadership Programme at the University of Oxford. GII recent ventures The recent activities of GII, a leading Shariah-compliant global alternative investment company with over $4.5 billion of assets under management (AUM), include a logistics joint venture with Jeddah-based Logipoint in May 2024, after selling a majority stake in its UAE logistics business to Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) the previous month. GII conducted a second transaction with BAM in the UAE in late June, as part of a BAM-led consortium acquiring the GEMS network of schools in a transaction that Bloomberg described as one of the largest private equity deals in the Gulf. Mohammed Alhassan and Pankaj Gupta, GIIs co-founders and co-CEOs, commented: We are delighted to be able to add Saeed Al Ghamdis wide experience and impressive contacts in the GII Board, as it delivers strategic direction to GIIs operations across Saudi Arabia and more widely in the GCC. They added: The addition of Al Nahdi Family Offices growth capital and executive experience strengthens GII groups growth strategy and capabilities within the Kingdom, which already includes a CMA banking licence for GII Saudi Arabia, the acquisition of Emad Bakeries in Jeddah and a significant stake in the Abeer Medical Company within the last six months.--TradeArabia News Service Global air cargo demand dropped by around 5% in the first week of July, mainly due to the impact of US Independence Day holidays, but average worldwide rates remain high thanks to continuing rises from Asia Pacific origins. According to the latest weekly figures and analysis from WorldACD Market Data, the 5% drop in worldwide tonnages in week 27 (July 1 to 7) included a fall of 13% from North America origins, with the Fourth of July celebrations also contributing to a 8% drop from Central & South America (CSA), and declines of 4% from Europe and 3% from Asia Pacific. Worldwide tonnages were up, year on year (YoY), by +11% in week 27, roughly in line with the figure for June and for the second quarter of 2024 as a whole, according to the more than 450,000 weekly transactions covered by WorldACDs data. For weeks 26 and 27 combined, tonnages were up by +13%, YoY. Rates rise continues On the pricing side, average worldwide rates of $2.57 per kilo in week 27, were up +2% compared with the previous week, based on a full-market average of spot rates and contract rates driven chiefly by a +3% rise from Asia Pacific origins. That figure of $2.57 per kilo is a rise of +14%, YoY, with prices also still up very significantly compared with pre-Covid levels (+48% compared to July 2019). Further analysis of those pricing figures by WorldACD reveals that average spot rates from Asia Pacific to the US stood at $5.72 per kilo in week 27, up +68%, YoY. Around half of Asia Pacific tonnages to the US originate from China and Hong Kong, where average spot rates in week 27 of $5.34 per kilo and $4.84 per kilo represented YoY increases of +38% and +12%, respectively. But there have been some even higher prices and bigger increases in recent weeks from several other key Asia Pacific origins. For example, rates from Vietnam to the US in week 27 of $6.62 per kilo show the highest increases compared with last year (+147%, YoY) of any Asia Pacific to US major market, having risen again slightly in week 27, while prices from Thailand ($6.46 per kilo) and Singapore ($7.02 per kilo) have continued to rise strongly in recent weeks, and are also more than double their equivalent levels last year. Elsewhere, rates from Japan to the US dropped back slightly in week 27 from their very high levels in week 26 to slightly above $6 per kilo, but they remain very high compared with last year (+64%, YoY).--TradeArabia News Service The Collective Hub, a business incubator backed by Tenmou, has entered into a strategic partnership with Emcan, the pioneer community for entrepreneurs in the Arabworld, owned and managed by Bader Alessa. This alliance aims to support entrepreneurs in Bahrain, fostering innovation and facilitating business growth. To formalise this collaboration, Khawla Alshaikh, Director of The Collective Hub, and Bader Alessa, Founder of Emcan, signed a cooperation agreement. As part of the agreement, The Collective Hub will secure ten memberships for its members for a duration of one year in Emcan's community, programmes and events. The purpose is to enhance the entrepreneurial skills for The Collective Hubs members, enabling them to engage in an optimal learning environment, and empowering them to develop their businesses and advance their projects. Workshop The collaboration will kick off with a workshop hosted by The Collective Hub and led by Bonabeel. Titled How to Find Your Passion, the workshop serves as a celebratory launch for the cooperation and will last for three hours and feature interactive presentations and engaging discussions. "We are thrilled to sign this MoU with Emcan," commented Alshaikh. "At The Collective Hub, we are committed to forming strategic partnerships with a variety of companies and platforms. These collaborations are vital in providing startups and SMEs with the educational and training resources they need. This partnership will not only bolster the investment prospects within the entrepreneurship sector but also support our mission to encourage more Bahraini entrepreneurs to transform their ideas into sustainable economic projects." "This fruitful partnership with The Collective Hub opens up more opportunities for the development and growth of projects affiliated with the incubator," said Alessa. "Emcan is committed to providing all necessary support, services, and innovative solutions to entrepreneurs and startup owners. The entrepreneurship sector, along with incubators and business accelerators, plays a crucial role in driving economic growth and fostering pioneering Bahraini success stories.--TradeArabia News Service Colours, scent, touch the all-new Lincoln Nautilus offers a refreshed physical and digital environment that seamlessly blends nature and technology for an experience of mobile sanctuary like no other. Sanctuary was our guiding principle for the creation of the Nautilus, said Kemal Curic, Global Design Director at Lincoln. Particularly on the interior, we wanted to create a true third space on wheels that is connected and allows you to explore your journey in a most relaxed environment. Interior insights The all-new Lincoln Nautilus features a reimagined interior that aims to maximise the sense of open space for every passenger. While the design team studied living spaces and the ways in which Lincoln clients interacted with those, there was another, somewhat surprising muse behind the Nautilus design. Among the inspirations we used were Zaha Hadids architecture and the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, explained Curic. The architectural design creates this sense of openness and calmness, which, paired with incredible lighting coming from the ceiling, makes the space look inviting and an outdoor-like blending with the surroundings. Syncing human, digital and nature The use of human-centric technology has been a mainstay in Lincolns overall design vision since the debut of Quiet Flight and the all-new Nautilus 48 panoramic display the largest in its class embodies this ethos thanks to its integrated flowing, horizontal instrument panel that offers new levels of personalisation. Attention to detail, not only in the physical form but also in the digital design, is something you can see in the holistic approach we adopted for the creation of the Nautilus, said Curic. Lincoln has always looked to nature as a source of inspiration, and the all-new Nautilus takes this up a notch. A reimagined cabin incorporates new ambient lighting along with crystal-inspired details that capture the essence of seeing sun reflected on water a piano key shifter, instrument panel toggles and audio knob that shimmer. The Nautilus awakens with a new Lincoln Embrace beginning at the center of the new display, flowing out into the front and rear door panels. A flat-top steering wheel allows clients to see over, not through the wheel, giving an overall effect of comfortable openness and a sense of freedom. Scents of sanctuary In keeping with its nature-inspired cabin experience, the all-new Nautilus offers a specially curated range of digital scents for the cabin. Housed in the center armrest, three scent cartridges give a variety of memorable aromas that tantalise the olfactory senses: Mystic Forest, an earthy blend with woody, rich notes of patchouli; Ozonic Azure, a crisp blend of aromatic patchouli and traces of bright violet; and Violet Cashmere, exotic white florals and trusted violet that are crisp and refined as fresh linen. Clients can choose from three levels of scent through the center screen. Colour, smell, touch and feel all are tenets of our Lincoln vision and embody the human experience inside your vehicle, said Curic. We consciously chose the specific colours that pair with each digital scent and on-screen environment, which sets the stage for a range of moods and experiences. The three aromas were purposefully selected to evoke memorable moments and, alongside the award-winning available Revel Ultima 3D Audio System which features 28 speakers that envelop each occupant in rich, precise, and multidimensional sound aim to activate every sense. Dynamic exterior The emotional aspect of design was central to the making of the all-new Nautilus. From the moment you glance at it, there is no mistaking the three words Nautilus brings to mind: Calmness, comfort and reverence, explained Curic. The all-new Nautilus features a dynamic, new exterior and all-new LED headlamps, available H2 Pixel Headlamps as well as all-new LED taillamps with animation. The new signature lighting elements represent the brands lighting vision for the future, reinforcing and connecting the lit Lincoln star, signature front light bar, and a new, handcrafted grille. In addition to the available four signature exterior body colours Red Carpet, Diamond Red, Chroma Caviar and Blue Panther, the all-new 2024 Nautilus introduces three new available interior colour themes: Black Onyx and Medium Light Space Gray, a fresh take on a core offering that enhances the feeling of spaciousness Smoked Truffle, a two-tone neutral but warm theme that provides an interior space that is cozy and calm Black Onyx and Allura Blue, offered as a Reserve model theme, creating interest through a subtle interplay of colours while offering a distinct and refined theme that advances the expression of Lincoln The available Jet Appearance Package, which is available on two trims, includes two-tone paint, available high gloss-black 22-inch wheels, an exclusive interior environment, and anodised black exterior elements. The package offers a sleeker and more dynamic look another way for clients to personalise their all-new Nautilus. The exclusive Black Onyx Sport interior features a Copper Code aluminum applique, which is enhanced by Dusted Copper accent stitching throughout. For the ultimate in Lincoln luxury, the all-new Nautilus will offer a new, exclusive Lincoln Presidential theme Redwood in addition to the popular Chalet theme. Redwood mimics the warmth and beauty of the redwood forest, with a tree-inspired motif. Going forward, we expect to see even greater synergy between physical and digital experiences, which will continue merging into one holistic environment an environment much more curated and bespoke to individual needs, said Curic.--TradeArabia News Service JLR has joined forces with global tyre manufacturer Pirelli in a global automotive industry-first commitment to use FSC-certified natural rubber tyres across its range of modern luxury vehicles. The luxury car manufacturer will be the first to adopt FSC-certified tyres at scale, transitioning all tyres from Pirelli across its entire portfolio, debuting on the new Range Rover Electric. The commitment will amount to over 250,000 FSC-certified tyres per year. The collaboration between JLR and Pirelli represents a significant step in increasingly sustainable tyre production and adoption, supporting the preservation of forests and promoting sustainable development. Reimagine strategy As part of its Reimagine strategy, JLR is fully committed to responsible sourcing, including working to ensure natural rubber used in its tyre production is traceable across every processing stage through to origin. The complex Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) chain of custody certification process verifies that FSC-certified material has been identified and separated from non-certified material as it makes its way along the supply chain, from the plantations to the tyre manufacturer meaning it is fully verified to be sustainably farmed to the highest standards. Andrea Debbane, Sustainability Director at JLR, said: This is an exciting point in our sustainable luxury journey, as we partner with Pirelli, a company that shares JLRs sustainability ambition and is at the forefront of sustainable tyre production. We're looking at every aspect of our vehicles to find solutions that enable us to redefine luxury in a way that's better for people and planet. By choosing Pirelli's FSC-certified tyres, we're offering our clients high-quality, high-performance tyres whilst supporting responsible forest management and protecting the communities in our rubber supply chain to drive real progress. Innovation in materials Matteo Battaini, Pirelli Head of Sustainability & New mobility, said: "Innovation in materials and reliability on our products sustainability features are a must for us. The FSCTM certification confirms that forests are managed to preserve biological diversity, while benefiting local workers and communities in a way that is economically beneficial for them. We are pleased that JLR has chosen to join our Pirelli journey as the first car maker to use Pirelli tyres with this certification across a wide range of vehicles." FSC insights show that awareness and understanding of the FSC logo is increasing, a 2023 survey revealed 77% of people in the UK recognise the FSC logo and 71% would be very or fairly likely to give preference to FSC-certified products. In addition to introducing FSC-certified products across JLRs portfolio, Pirelli and JLR are working together to increase the percentage of sustainable and recycled content of all tyres supplied to JLR as they work towards shared sustainability ambitions. JLR has also strengthened its global sourcing process to enable supplier evaluation on ESG criteria, as part of its effort to set new benchmarks for environmental, societal and community impact as a luxury business. By empowering buyers to collect supplier-specific ESG data it can identify and select suppliers that can demonstrate they meet the highest standards relating to environmental performance, labour practices, and social responsibility.--TradeArabia News Service Wyoming will no longer pay for behavioral health or substance abuse services for some individuals who seek help through community mental health centers. Individuals who have an income greater than 200% of the federal poverty line or who are not part of a priority population will need to either pay out of pocket or find insurance to continue receiving services. The federal poverty line is a pre-tax income measurement used to determine eligibility for assistance programs. The current federal poverty line for a single-person household is $15,060. The federal poverty line for a household of four is $31,200. Under the states new guidelines for behavioral health services, a single person making above $30,120 will no longer be eligible for state-paid mental health services. While several community health centers will still see the patients for services, the individuals will have to pay for the services themselves whether that is a copay from their insurance or the full price for those whose insurance doesnt cover mental health services or are uninsured. Anyone seeking state-paid services must now complete an application through Wyoming Medicaid. Ineligibility for Medicaid does not immediately disqualify someone from being eligible for state-paid services. The Wyoming Department of Health said in a press release that the reason for the change is to focus state resources on those who need them most. These individuals include priority populations, such as those patients with acute or severe psychiatric problems, families at high risk, high-needs children and indigent populations with mental health issues. We really want to help ensure high-needs people facing serious mental illness do not fall through the cracks before their needs grow, said Stefan Johansson, director of the Wyoming Department of Health. The Central Wyoming Counseling Center is the community health center for Natrona County. According to its website, individuals who no longer qualify for state-paid services will still be able to receive services but must become a private-paid client. ECONOMIST Marla Dukharan has called for an independent and objective assessment of all countries worldwide to determine which ones are truly tax havens. Dukharan stated that this approach would help combat the stigma often associated with the Caribbean region. China strongly opposes NATO's Washington summit declaration: spokesperson Xinhua) 09:30, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China deplores and strongly opposes the Washington summit declaration of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which hypes up tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and is full of bellicose remarks with a Cold War mentality, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Thursday. Its content related to China is filled with bias, smearing and provocations, said spokesperson Lin Jian, adding that China has lodged solemn representations with NATO. Lin said that to make a case about NATO's necessity, the United States and NATO trumpeted the "glory" and "solidarity" of the alliance and glossed over it as "an organization for peace" before the summit. That, however, does not hide the fact that NATO is a vestige of the Cold War and a product of bloc confrontation and bloc politics, the spokesperson added. Lin said that NATO forces bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in the name of "preventing further humanitarian disaster," and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Libya make it clear that wherever NATO shows up, turmoil and chaos will follow. NATO's so-called security is more often than not built on others' insecurity, and a lot of its security anxieties are self-made. The "success" and "strength" of which NATO boasts mean enormous danger to the world, he added. "To create imaginary enemies to justify its existence and act out of area is NATO's go-to tactic," Lin said, adding that to falsely picture China as a "systemic challenge" and vilify China's domestic and foreign policies is a case in point. "On Ukraine, NATO insists that China is responsible, which is ill-motivated and makes no sense," Lin said, adding that China's objective and just position on Ukraine and the constructive role China has played are widely recognized by the international community. NATO has been spreading disinformation created by the United States and blatantly smearing China to undermine China's relations with Europe and hamper China-Europe cooperation, he said. "To this day, there's still no end in sight for the Ukraine crisis. Who exactly is fueling the flames? Who exactly is 'enabling' the conflict? The international community is not blind," said Lin. China urges NATO to reflect on the root causes of the crisis and NATO's own behavior, listen to the voice for good from the international community and contribute to de-escalation, instead of shifting the blame onto others, he added. Lin said NATO's reach into the Asia-Pacific, strengthening of its military and security ties with China's neighboring countries and U.S. allies, and collaboration with the U.S. side to implement the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" harm China's interests and disrupt peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. This has already been questioned and rejected by regional countries, the spokesperson said. China urges NATO to discard the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation and zero-sum approach, form the right perception of China, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and vilifying China, and stop disrupting China-Europe relations, he added. Lin said that NATO should not "bring instability to the Asia-Pacific after it has done so to Europe." China will firmly uphold its own sovereignty, security and development interests, and through its own development and cooperation with other countries, inject more stability and positive energy into world peace and stability, he added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Andrea Eger Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Andrea Eger 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 Oklahoma State Department of Education has committed up to $140,000 in taxpayer funds for Tulsas convention center to host Monday events where Ryan Walters administration will be introducing representatives of like-minded political and advocacy groups as instructors and naming the states next Teacher of the Year. The Tulsa World obtained public records from the city of Tulsas contract manager of the Cox Business Convention Center because state education officials did not respond to repeated requests for answers about the costs or source of the funding. The facilitys license agreement, signed by Walters and dated in April, has a total license fee of $62,621. But the OSDEs purchase order for the Tulsa Public Facilities Authority, dated a month later in May, is for more than twice that amount. Agreement with Global Spectrum, LP, as agent on behalf of the Tulsa Public Facilities Authority for the InspireOK conference and Teacher of the Year Gala. OSDE will incumber $140,000 for both events, states the OSDE purchase order. The purchase order estimates that the funds will be allocated as follows: $30,000 for venue, $60,000 for food and beverage, $30,000 for audio and visual, $20,000 for labor. Keller Taylor, general manager of the convention center, told the Tulsa World purchase orders are routinely for much greater amounts than the facility license fee because food and beverage costs frequently exceed the facilitys minimum. Other OSDE costs, such as for printed event materials and transportation and lodging for state employees, are still unknown. Neither Dan Isett, whose taxpayer-funded salary is $130,000 as director of communications for the state Department of Education, nor Walters himself responded to the Worlds questions about the total costs or funding source for the event. A public records request to OSDE showed outside sponsors and vendors were not charged any fees, which was a past practice used to offset event costs. By contrast, OSDE has agreed to pay $9,643 to the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond to host a two-day summer conference for school administrators July 22-23, said Adrienne Nobles, UCOs vice president for communications and public affairs. The practice of hosting an annual professional development conference for teachers as a single, one-day event held in a big convention center in Tulsa or Oklahoma City was common for many years until about a decade ago. Under former State Superintendent Joy Hofmeisters administration, the event was scaled way back and made into a traveling event with stops in public school facilities in seven different cities across Oklahoma to make the professional development sessions, offered by state agency staffers, more accessible to all teachers. Mondays InspireOK conference is to feature a morning question-and-answer session in front of registered participants between Walters and Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Ebony Johnson, who have been in close contact for the better part of a year since Walters threatened a state takeover of TPS. A state official told the Tulsa World the event will be closed to the media. Professional development sessions for teachers are typically offered by subject-area experts from the state education agency on topics including world languages, behavior management strategies and student mental health supports. But this year, at least five professional development sessions for participating teachers will be led by representatives of groups politically aligned with Walters. They include the anti-labor union Freedom Foundation; Turning Point USA, a conservative youth activist organization on high school and college and university campuses founded by far-right influencer Charlie Kirk; and the conservative policy advocacy group Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. And the Education Departments website still states that the 2024 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year will be announced in June 2024. But local school district officials told the Tulsa World the 10 finalists have been invited to a Monday evening banquet at the Tulsa convention center where the winner will be announced. Finalists from the Tulsa area include Amanda Bowser from Broken Arrow, Nichole Leib from Morris, Frances Millspaugh from Locust Grove and Amanda Winn from Glenpool. Other finalists from around the state include Jake Henderson from Woodward, Rachel Keith from Ada, Brian Muller from Mid-Del Public Schools, Stephanie Overby from Lawton, Laura Powell from Anadarko and Lisa Sager from Durant. <&rule> The Tulsa World is where your story lives Vietnamese products may gain access to nearly two billion Muslims worldwide thanks to the Halal industry collaboration between Vietnam and Malaysia, Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry Zafrul Abdul Aziz said during a recent exclusive interview with Tuoi Tre News. Aziz just wrapped up a working trip to Vietnam, where he co-chaired the fourth meeting of the Vietnam-Malaysia Joint Trade Committee. The Malaysian minister's trip saw many positive results in promoting trade between the two countries. What are the core results of this working trip? What notable agreements have the two countries reached? This has been a very productive and fruitful trip. The primary reason I'm here is for the Joint Trade Committee meeting with Vietnams Minister of Trade and Industry. This is the committees fourth meeting, where we discussed many issues, particularly those relating to trade. We also talked about Halal cooperation and explored areas of cooperation in digital and green technologies, with a focus on green transition, innovation, food & beverages (F&B), and agriculture. I think one of the major breakthroughs is a deeper understanding of how we should expand our cooperation in the Halal industry. Our Halal Development Corporation CEO was also here. We want to assist Vietnam in strengthening its capabilities in the Halal value chain. To this end, we are preparing a memorandum of cooperation between the Halal Development Corporation of Malaysia and Vietnam. Additionally, we asked Vietnam to establish an agency dedicated to Halal, and they agreed. This agency will be under Vietnams Ministry of Science and Technology. The second breakthrough is that we agreed on a trade target of US$18 billion by 2025. You have mentioned that you have several agreements about Halal cooperation during this trip. Can you elaborate on the potential of this industry to drive economic growth between our two nations? Halal provides significant access to markets. To give you an idea, I think by the year 2030, the global Halal market will be valued at around $5 trillion. It's important to understand that Halal is for everyone. So youre killing two birds with one stone. When you sell Halal, you target the Muslim market, but people who are not Muslim can also buy it. So you have both markets instead of just the non-Muslim market. Vietnam is already a major exporter of agricultural products. We know how big of an exporter you are in coffee, for example. Malaysia also imports rice from you [Vietnam]. I believe there are also other food items that, if they receive Halal certification, can enter the Malaysian market more aggressively. Without that certification, you cannot export to Muslim markets. Even if you do export, there is no demand because people want to see the Halal certification. Therefore, we talked a lot about Halal, especially Halal certification. The Malaysian Halal certificate is given by the government, not by independent bodies. Hence, it is the most highly sought after. With it, Vietnamese companies can export not only to Malaysia, but also to the rest of the world. So I think that's why the discussion is not just about bilateral trade. I think Vietnamese companies want to access all markets. Vietnams Halal industry is very new. Before this trip, we had to work with various independent parties. We said it's easier to work with one party supported by the government. So the Vietnamese government has formed that agency. From there, we're going to formalize our work. As you mentioned before, the target for bilateral trade is set at $18 billion by 2025 and $25 billion by 2030. Which specific sectors or industries do you believe will be most promising for us to achieve these figures? If you look at the sectors where we are both strong today, the top export and import category is the electrical and electronics (E&E) sector. As you know, both Malaysia and Vietnam are strong in this area. So in terms of trade between our countries, number one is E&E. Number two is chemicals and petrochemicals, which are also quite significant between the two countries. And number three, we're looking at areas like agriculture, which we can improve. That's why I think these sectors will be key to increasing bilateral trade. What is the current perception among Malaysian businesses regarding the investment environment in Vietnam? I had the opportunity to meet with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and we discussed many issues, especially investment. Malaysian companies have been investing in Vietnam for several years. In fact, total Malaysian investments in Vietnam are worth at least $13 billion today. We have many Malaysian companies involved in various sectors in Vietnam. In Hanoi, we had a networking dinner with Malaysian investors in Vietnam. Today in Ho Chi Minh City, I had a roundtable discussion with Vietnamese companies that have trade relations with Malaysia. Malaysian investors are very optimistic about Vietnams growth prospects. Considering the Vietnamese economy and demographics, you can see growth of at least five percent this year with a very young population. Hence, there are a lot of opportunities. Malaysian companies have already heavily invested in property, banking, and manufacturing. There is one sector that we feel Malaysia can also contribute to, which we discussed at the government-to-government level, and that is the renewable energy sector. We have companies like Petronas who are very interested in investing in wind energy in Vietnam, not only for domestic use but also for export to other countries within ASEAN. Vietnam and Malaysia also want to boost collaboration on digital transformation, the digital economy, and e-commerce. What can be done to further cooperation? Digital transformation is important. As we grow as a region and as individual countries, we want the growth to be strong, inclusive, equitable, and resilient. One of the ways to do this is empower our companies, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Smaller SMEs can only be successful if they have scale, and one way to achieve that scale is to participate in digital trade, as it allows companies to be more inclusive. So we need to encourage more products to be sold on various platforms, making it easier for people to buy. However, buying and selling online between ASEAN countries are not easy today, because the policies and payment systems are very different. We need some uniformity and standardization in this area. Malaysia aims to conclude negotiations on the Digital Economic Framework when we chair ASEAN next year. This process was first officially announced when Indonesia held the chairmanship in 2023. What we want is an ASEAN framework that makes payments easier so you can buy or sell any goods on any platform. It will be good to conclude this as soon as possible so that all companies, no matter how small or big, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, or Singaporean, can participate. Thank you for your time! Halal Industry: Not just F&B Halal, an Arabic word meaning 'permissible,' refers to products that comply with Islamic regulations. While often associated with food, the Halal industry encompasses a much wider range of products and services. One of the most basic requirements in Halal standards is the absence of pork or alcohol in the ingredients. However, the Halal industry extends beyond food to include pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and even tourism and financial services. With approximately 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide, representing about a quarter of the global population, the potential of the Halal industry is immense and the demand for Halal products is growing rapidly. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard, the world's first purely jurisdictional carbon credit standard under Virginia-based carbon registry ART, has accepted Vietnam's carbon registration and monitoring reports, S&P Global quoted ART as saying in a statement on Wednesday. This milestone paves the way for Vietnam to bring jurisdictional carbon credits to the market. Jurisdictional carbon credits are backed by the governments of the projects host country and buyer country, with bilateral agreements to ensure that each carbon credit transferred can only be counted toward one country's emission reduction target under the UN's Paris Agreement. Vietnam has signed such bilateral agreements with Japan and Singapore under the UN's Article 6 framework. REDD+ standard issues carbon credits from projects that reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Despite the trust crisis in the past two years that questioned environmental integrity of the REDD+ emission accounting approaches, REDD+ is still widely seen as a viable market instrument for companies to offset their emissions at affordable costs. The documents submitted by Vietnam included a registration report that covered carbon crediting for emissions reduced or to be reduced in 2021-25 and a monitoring report for emission reductions in 2021-22. Carbon registry ART's acceptance of Vietnam's documents indicated that the country's REDD+ program is eligible for jurisdictional carbon credit issuance. Subsequently, it can proceed with developing REDD+ projects, and then validating and verifying emission reductions through accredited verification bodies, according to the statement. "Following successful validation and verification, the ART Board may approve the issuance of serialized TREES Credits to Vietnam," the ART statement said. If the TREES credits are successfully issued, Vietnam will be able to export these credits to its Article 6 partner countries. According to the submitted documents, the Vietnamese government has selected 4.26 million hectares of forest areas to participate in this jurisdictional REDD+ program, which accounts for about 29 percent of the Southeast Asian country's total forest areas. The program is expected to cover 11 contiguous provinces, including Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, and Dak Nong, which jointly account for 22.4 percent of the country's population. The population involved in this program comes from more than 20 different ethnic groups, mainly ethnic minorities, the documents showed. Based on the latest government scheme, Vietnam planned to establish a national carbon credit exchange and officially start its operations in 2028. Before the full rollout of the exchange, the government proposed to initiate a pilot run of a carbon trading platform from 2025. South Korea, Australia, and Switzerland have expressed an interest in trading Article 6-aligned jurisdictional carbon credits with Vietnam, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said in a document earlier in May. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnamese State President To Lam announced on Thursday a gift in the form of 20 VinFast electric cars from Vietnam to Laos during his two-day state visit to the neighboring country. The cars were expected to help Laos successfully host important events during the ASEAN Year 2024, State President Lam said during talks with General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith in Vientiane. After the Vietnamese president gave a symbolic key to the Lao leader, they both got into a VinFast car. The Vietnamese president then drove the car, giving a ride to the Lao leader. The 20 electric cars are VinFast VF9 models, the largest ones made by the Vietnamese EV manufacturer. Vietnamese State President To Lam (R) hands over a symbolic key to General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith as Vietnam gifted Laos 20 VinFast electric cars. Photo: Vietnam News Agency VinFast EVs were introduced in Vientiane in November last year. Vietnam's Xanh SM taxi brand, which uses VinFast EVs, has been operating effectively and expanding to many other cities in the neighboring country. State President Lam and his entourage arrived in Vientiane on Thursday morning for a two-day state visit at the invitation of President Thongloun. Vietnamese State President To Lam (R) shakes hands with General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith. Photo: Vietnam News Agency This is the state presidents first overseas trip, with Laos being the first leg followed by Cambodia, since he was elected to the post by the National Assembly last month. He had meetings with many other senior leaders of Laos. He is scheduled to leave Vientiane for Cambodia on Friday for a state visit lasting through Saturday. Vietnamese State President To Lam drives a VinFast electric car carrying General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith. Photo: Vietnam News Agency Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! What you need to know today in Vietnam: Politics -- Vietnamese State President To Lam announced on Thursday a gift in the form of 20 Vinfast electric cars from Vietnam to Laos during his two-day state visit to the neighboring country. Society -- The criminal police departments under the Vietnamese and Chinese Ministries of Public Security held a conference in Thua Thien-Hue Province on Thursday to launch a campaign to crack down on human trafficking. -- A Vietnamese company has managed to assemble a small-sized pickup truck to battle fires in alleyways in urban areas instead of relying on imported big trucks for firefighting. The pickup truck fetches VND1-1.2 billion (US$39,331-47,198). -- The Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control has warned of the possible transmission of diphtheria to the city from Nghe An Province in north-central Vietnam and Bac Giang in the northern region. -- Two whales appeared on Thursday in the waters of Cu Lao Mai Nha in Tuy An District, Phu Yen Province, south-central Vietnam, surprising local residents. Business -- The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard, the world's first purely jurisdictional carbon credit standard under Virginia-based carbon registry ART, has accepted Vietnam's carbon registration and monitoring reports, S&P Global quoted ART as saying in a statement on Wednesday. This milestone paves the way for Vietnam to bring jurisdictional carbon credits to the market. Lifestyle -- Vietnam Railways Corporation organized a ceremony on Thursday to formally designate Da Lat Railway Station as a tourist destination. The station is located at 1 Quang Trung Street, Ward 10, Da Lat City, Lam Dong Province. -- The Nha Trang International Light Bay Festival 2024 will open on Saturday evening, with a drone light show competition between South Korea and China at April 2 Square in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province, South-central Vietnam. France and the UAE will compete on July 20 at Vinpearl Harbor on Hon Tre Island, which is also the location of the closing ceremony the same day. World News -- "New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Thursday that his country needed to stand up for the international rules-based order as potential military flashpoints loom in the Indo-Pacific region," Reuters reported. Like us on Facebook or follow us on X to get the latest news about Vietnam! The criminal police departments under the Vietnamese and Chinese Ministries of Public Security held a conference in Thua Thien-Hue Province, central Vietnam on Thursday to launch a campaign to crack down on human trafficking. Colonel Vu Van Dau and Colonel Chen Shiqu, deputy heads of the criminal police departments of Vietnam and China, respectively, co-chaired the conference. It was reported at the conference that human trafficking remains complicated with more cunning tricks in the region and the world as a whole. Along the Vietnam-China border, human trafficking criminals operate by abusing the two countries traditional relations as well as their economic openness promotion policies. Between December 2020 and early 2024, Vietnam detected over 100 cases of human trafficking to China, which involved more than 200 suspects and nearly 200 victims. The traffickers used fake names, ages, addresses, and photos to make friends with the victims and promised 'easy work, high salary.' When the victims agreed to meet and go with them, they were sent to China. In the first half of this year alone, the Vietnamese criminal police filed charges against 20 suspects in nine human trafficking cases. As human trafficking from Vietnam to China is forecast to remain complex in the coming time, Vietnamese and Chinese criminal police will continue to closely cooperate to combat the crime in each country. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The number of dollar millionaires in Vietnam has nearly doubled over the past ten years to 19,400 in late 2023, registering the world's fastest growth rate, according to a recent report by British investment migration consultancy Henley & Partners. Vietnams millionaire population has grown an impressive 98 percent over the past decade, followed by China (92 percent), India (65 percent) and the U.S. (62 percent), the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2024 says. The country also has 58 centi-millionaires, who have US$100 million or more in assets, and six billionaires. In terms of absolute quantity, the U.S. ranked top in the world both in millionaires with 5.49 million people and in billionaires with 788 people, followed by China and Germany, according to the report. Remaining in the top spots, Japan and the UK saw their numbers of millionaires slightly decrease by six and eight percent, respectively. In Southeast Asia, Singapore led the region with 244,800 millionaires. The figures detailing the growth of centi-millionaires and billionaires over the past decade confirm a broader economic pattern across the globe: the growth of Asia and the relative decline of Europe, the report cited Misha Glenny, rector of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria, as commenting. China, India, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam have seen their numbers of high-net-worth individuals register a huge relative increase, Glenny said, adding that this trend will continue as intra-Asian growth continues to surge. For Vietnam, the increase in the millionaire population reflects its rapid development, according to the report. Ho Chi Minh City, the nations economic hub, is at the center of this wealth boom, fueled by a dynamic business environment and rapid economic development, remarked Jacky Poh, head of Southeast Asia at Henley & Partners. In February 2024, Andrew Amoils, an analyst at New World Wealth, a global wealth intelligence firm based in South Africa, predicted that Vietnam will see a 125-percent jump in wealth over the next 10 years. According to the firms analysis, this will likely be the largest growth in wealth of any country in terms of GDP per capita and number of millionaires. Vietnam is an increasingly popular manufacturing base for multinational tech, automotive, electronics, clothing, and textile firms, CNBC quoted Amoils as saying. The Vietnamese government has recently set the goal that at least 10 Vietnamese entrepreneurs will make it onto the global list of dollar billionaires, with five of them being recognized as the most influential in Asia by reputable international organizations, by 2030. Currently, topping the list of Vietnam's six dollar billionaires is Pham Nhat Vuong, chairman of Hanoi-based conglomerate Vingroup, with a net worth of $4.4 billion, according to the 2024 Forbes list of the world's richest people released in April. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Respected Seven News presenter Sharyn Ghidella has announced her departure from the broadcaster after 17 years with the network. In a post on Facebook she revealed, When you work in TV for as long as I have, not a day goes by when you arent expecting the proverbial tap on the shoulder After 38 years, my shoulder tap has finally come. It wasnt quite how I expected it to end at Channel 7. I was actually sitting at the hairdressers for work, when I got the call informing me, that after 17 years with the network, my time was up. And while somewhat saddened by this decision, there is also some sense of relief. As has been widely reported, the past couple of weeks in TV has, sadly, been a miserable affair. A long list of talented, loyal and dedicated employees have been shown the door, in what seems to have been an interminable process of pulling the band-aid off slowly when it comes to removing whats been deemed excess stock from the building. These people are some of the best content creators in the business (well, we are digital first now). They are good people and its been heartbreaking to watch. Ive seen the toll its taken on those whove left, those delivering the pain and those still there, and when it comes to witnessing this heartache, I think Im done. Im also not one to have my evening news served up with humour and horoscopes either, so, to be honest, it is time to go. As Im known to say, the caravan moves on. There is certainly plenty of talent left in the building and I wish them nothing but the best moving forward. Because television is a great industry, journalism is a worthy profession in any functioning democracy, and I couldnt be more grateful for all the time Ive spent so far, working in media. From NQTV Cairns and Townsville, Channel 10 Brisbane, National Nine News Sydney, Daybreak, Nines Early News, Qantas News, Today Show, Weekend Sunrise, Today Tonight, 7NEWS Brisbane, Ive enjoyed every minute of it. I couldnt have expected more. I have worked alongside the best in the business at the premier television newsrooms in the country and the many friendships Ive made, I will always hold dear. A sincere thank you to everyone who has made this possible, so far, including past employers like the Stokes, Packer and Gleeson families and the news directors, executive producers and station managers who saw fit to give a kid from Babinda a go. I owe you so much. Likewise, my fellow journalists, presenters, producers, chiefs of staff, researchers, camera operators, editors, directors, DAs, audio operators, technicians, IT specialists, graphic artists, librarians, publicists, marketing, sales team members, promo producers, ingest operators, MCR, security guards, unit managers, receptionists, groundsmen (thats you Gav), autocue operators, stylists, and those beautiful magicians in hair and make-up know that I have always respected what you do and I have always held you in the highest regard. I truly believe television is a team effort and what a team Ive had the privilege of working with over all of these years. And then there are the viewers You will never know how much your kindness and support means. What a privilege it is to be welcomed into your homes to present you the news of the day. Please know that I have read every card, every letter, every email and appreciated every gift youve sent my way. Thank you too to all the charities, theatre and sporting organisations Ive had the pleasure of being involved with, either on the Board or as an ambassador. That connection initially came courtesy of my television career and I hope my little contribution has, and will continue to help, in some way. And last, but by no means least, a heartfelt acknowledgement to all the newsmakers Ive met along the way and the many people who have trusted me to tell their story to date. I have never forgotten so, so many of you, particularly those Ive encountered at the worst of times, in times of disaster and loss. I often wonder how you are getting on. I always hope by telling your story it made a difference and that you got through it all, that life treated you so much better after what you endured. You deserved that. So, for now, as I sign off for the last time from 7NEWS its good night from me. Heres hoping my horoscope for tomorrow will be for brighter times ahead. Im now off to spend some quality time with my beautiful family and friends and to find a new job, whether it be in TV or a new venture, with the same enthusiasm and promise as when I started in the industry 4 decades ago Any suggestions are always appreciated. Please, wish me luck! x TV Tonight understands it was Ghidellas decision not to farewell viewers in a final bulletin which was offered by Seven Brisbane Director of News, Michael Coombes. Seven Director of News and Current Affairs and Seven West Media Editor-in-Chief, Anthony De Ceglie, said: Sharyn has made a significant contribution to Seven over the past 17 years, we are grateful for her hard work and are sorry to see her go. She leaves with sincere thanks from everyone at Seven and our very best wishes for the future. Seven Brisbane Director of News, Michael Coombes, said: For 17 years, Sharyn has been a welcome guest in loungerooms across Queensland always professional, always reliable, always warm. But for all of us, she is so much more. A mentor, a colleague, a friend. I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for Sharyn. And we wish her every success for the future. This post updates. True crime series The Hunters will premiere on Seven later this month. This features journalist Adam Shand and The Human Lie Detector Steve van Aperen looking at archival crimes. It begins with a notorious Melbourne case from 1991. Steve is a former cop who trained with the FBI and worked on 87 homicide cases and two serial killer investigations and is now a world-leading human behaviour and deception expert in high-demand from forces around the globe. Adam has more scoops than any other Australian crime reporter. His trusted sources reach deep into both the criminal underworld and police departments. Together, they are a super-sleuth dream team. Each episode examines a different high-profile case. The series is jam-packed with ground-breaking revelations, as Adam and Steve revisit crime scenes for a vivid hands-on recounting of each crime. With exclusive access to original detectives, eyewitnesses, survivors and crime experts they paint a visceral picture of murders, kidnappings, horrific attacks, and underworld assassinations. Episode One: Unspeakable attacks on Melbourne children horrified the nation in the late 80s and early 90s. Investigators were convinced that a serial child abductor and murderer was at large. The media gave him a name: Mr Cruel. But the cases have never been solved. Based on journalist Adam Shands ground-breaking research, this gripping TV special challenges the assumption that Mr Cruel was escalating his crimes which led to murdering Karmein Chan. Adam is joined by accomplished investigator Steve van Aperen. With unprecedented access to the case, they show how the myth of Mr Cruel sprang into being. 7:30pm Monday 22 July on Seven. Updated. This is a late one, but today is the closing date for applications from South Australian producers to be assisted to attend the Australian Childrens Content Summit in August. ACCS in partnership South Australian Film Corporation is offering up to to six grants for South Australian childrens producers. A closing date deadline of June 30 has been extended to today Friday July 12. You can read more here. The second Australian Childrens Content Summit will be held 27th to 29th August 2024 at Pacific Bay Resort, Coffs Harbour. When he filmed The Dish in Australia in 1999, Patrick Warburton had not long finished his run as Puddy in Seinfeld. The role was what helped him land the gig from Working Dog, filming in Melbourne and Parkes, NSW, as Rob Sitch confirmed to him. I said, Rob, you only know me from Seinfeld, I guess at this point? He said Yeah,' Warburton recalls. Im Al Burnett, the NASA scientist, the least funny character in this film. What made you think I could do it? He goes, I just reckon you could. I was so thankful because what an opportunity and a pleasure. Its one of the best work experiences Ive ever had, getting to work with them, with the great Sam Neill, the whole team, being in Melbourne for a month. I love the city and I love the country. Even spending time in Sydney at home with Sam Neill, the shoot was his introduction to Aussies in their home environment. Aussie people as a whole, Ive always found from my trips down here, have sort of a level of authenticity and realism, he tells TV Tonight. Theyre not that terribly impressed by anything outside of just who you are. Ive just always loved the authenticity I felt here when I was here doing The Dish. I got to know Geoffrey Rush. I was at Sam Neills house, we had a barbecue and one night the first two to show up were Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman, then there was Tim Finn the founding member of Crowded House and Split Enz, and Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward even with these big stars, everybody in Australia seemed to be really grounded and normal. Warburton is currently in Melbourne for Metro Comic Con this weekend. While The Dish may not be high on the Q+A radar, there are plenty of questions about some of his othe 190 acting credits. Primarily its Kronk in The Emperors New Groove. Its Disney stuff. Its Seinfeld. There are The Tick fans. Definitely, a lot of Family Guy and then theres a lot of Series of Unfortunate Events now. Those are the biggest ones. Then there are those that that might be Rules of Engagement fans or different other projects, he explains. Fan conventions can be lucrative business, and a hefty investment for devoted fans. But Warburton is fully aware of the spend shelled out by those seeking autographs, photos and a brief window to meet their screen idol. I try to make a connection, I really do with everybody that comes through. I know they pay money and they wait in lines. Sometimes the Con people say, We gotta get your line moving a little faster but thats really hard for me to do. I want to make every every connection as special as I can, make eye contact and ask them a question. I dont like to rush people, he insists. If I just want to make money Id be on Cameo which would be really easy. Ive been approached by the Cameo people a number of times, but I just dont feel like doing tha right now. I took MetroCon as an opportunity to come here and meet the fans in Australia and Melbourne, which is a very special place for me. I know a lot of actors are making a fortune doing Cameo but theres something thats more authentic about meeting people, shaking hands, giving hugs, taking pictures and hearing stories. Its wonderful. Every now and then youre taking a picture with somebody and theyre shaking and they have tears. As an actor who does voice,work, I dont get that. But I can appreciate that because I have that same fandom for, lets say Eddie Vedder Ive been preaching the gospel of Eddie Vedder for three decades. Hes Bob Dylan with the voice of Eddie Vedder and Ive met at a number of times. Hes always been very gracious, very sweet to me. I never really know what to say because of the impact that his music has had on my life. If he gets to speak to his upcoming projects, Warburton will tease paranormal comedy feature, The Unearthly, UK film Mad Props and feature film The Duel. Grindstone acquired The Duel and then Lionsgate took it and bumped it up from an indie to a theatrical release. So thats gonna get released on 500 screens in the States on July 31. I believe thats going to be here in Australia, too metrocomiccon.com.au July 13, 14 Melbourne. De Mozilla Foundation heeft versie 128 van Thunderbird uitgebracht, een versie die extra lange ondersteuning gaat krijgen. Thunderbird is een opensourceclient voor e-mail en nieuwsgroepen, met features als ondersteuning voor verschillende mail- en newsaccounts. Verder zijn er een spamfilter, spellingscontrole, kalender en adresboek, en heeft het een aanpasbaar uiterlijk. In versie 128 heeft de gebruikersinterface een opfrisbeurt gekregen, die van Mozilla de naam Nebula heeft meegekregen. Verder kunnen folders en accounts van een accentkleur worden voorzien, worden notificaties in Windows in het Windowsnotificatiescherm getoont en zijn delen van Thunderbird in Rust geschreven, wat de veiligheid ten goede moet komen. De complete changelog voor deze uitgave kan hieronder worden gevonden: Whats New UI density now affects multi-message view Added new preference mail.addressDisplayFormat to always display full name and email address of all recipients in message list to always display full name and email address of all recipients in message list "Archived-At" message header field is now displayed as a link, and Message Permalink option is now available in List-Id menu Threaded message views now include "New Message" count Cards View hover and selection paradigms introduced to better support custom themes and accent colors Added account context menu to Unified Toolbar "Get Messages" button, creating quick access option to retrieve new messages for individual accounts OpenPGP no longer attempts to re-initialize secret key storage if individual OpenPGP secret key passphrases have been enabled OpenPGP Key Manager can now create revocation statements for any secret key A nested OpenPGP message's signature status is now viewable Changing expiration of OpenPGP keys with a "complex" structure is now supported Enabled ECDH encryption and decryption for S/MIME messages Custom account colors are now shown in the "From" field when composing a message Manual account configuration now implements form validation iCloud contacts and calendar discovery now supported when using a dedicated app password Improved layout of LDAP address book properties dialog Thunderbird now uses native Windows notifications Added support for OS-specific accent colors Added system accent color support for various elements Selection indicator added to folder pane and address book pane Thunderbird now decodes messages nested in attachments even if decodeSubMessages preference is set to "false" Whats Changed Improved Cards View readability and accessibility Better threading and unread/new indicators for Cards View threaded messages Removed Account Provisioner Search bars in Thunderbird now use a common custom element for more consistency Updated donation link from "give.thunderbird.net" to "www.thunderbird.net/donate/" Activity Manager now shows account and full folder path when indexing Spam and Junk message styling in Card UI adjusted to be less distracting Removed mail.openpgp.key_assistant.enable preference preference Disabled support for LibrePGP v5 AEAD/OCB decryption "Permissive" importing of problematic OpenPGP keys now disabled by default; Set mail.openpgp.allow_permissive_import to allow to allow A warning is now displayed when importing OpenPGP keys that advertise unsupported features Default sort order of messages in message list changed to descending (newest at top) Added Show more/less buttons to notifications in Account Hub Removed "Becky! Internet Mail" importer The "prefer display name" preference for individual contacts was removed in favor of the global preference Address book updated to new card design Addressbook toolbar updated with the same UI/UX paradigms of the folder pane Folder alerts now display full path of affected folder IMAP "Too Many Connections" alerts now display IMAP server name Date range intervals in "Find Events" panel updated Calendar ICS file import now always uses new importer Whats Fixed Thunderbird "--migration" flag opened empty window "Confirm Deletion" prompt was incorrectly shown when deleting messages with Grouped By header also selected Thunderbird did not remove temporary directory created from adding attachment to message via drag-and-drop Certificate errors silently failed when fetching new messages Clicking on native Windows notifications did not bring Thunderbird to the foreground 3-pane view was blank after starting Thunderbird with unsent messages in outbox Some menu bar items did not work with all Thunderbird windows closed on macOS Sender in multi-message view was right aligned when the text wrapped to multiple lines "Find in this message" did not work in multi-message view Non-compliant "References" headers were not handled gracefully when mailnews.headers.showReferences was set was set "news://" URIs failed opening as links or from the commandline Thunderbird sometimes displayed a blank screen on startup Standalone window titles no longer included message subject on macOS Links with IP address as link text and destination incorrectly warned user that link text and destination did not match "Open message in conversation" and "Open message in containing folder" from a standalone window failed "Get Messages" toolbar button was initially disabled after opening a message from a file in a new window "Open Browser With Message-ID" failed for Google Groups due to URL change Focus behavior for opening messages in a new tab changed depending on state of mail.tabs.loadInBackground preference preference Focus changes in 3-pane view occassionally caused keyboard shortcuts to stop working Selected row in folder pane did not always remain visible when using keyboard navigation Using middle-mouse click on a message (open in background tab) did not work Group-by-sort Unified folders were slow to open when expanded-all Holding Shift key while selecting "Delete" from message context menu did not permanently delete message Holding Shift and middle-clicking a message with loadInBackground preference set to "false" did not open new tab in background as expected preference set to "false" did not open new tab in background as expected "Watch Thread" command was incorrectly available on multi-folder and search views "Ignore Thread" did not work on multi-folder and search views Date column of "Grouped By" message views now refreshes at midnight, preventing incorrect dates from being displayed Deleting a mail folder failed silently when disk space was low Undoing deletion of an email from standalone window was not possible Sort type in Quick Filtered and Grouped By unified folders was not preserved after search was modified or cleared Unified Folders did not preserve sort setting when switching to unthreaded view Thunderbird did not always display message deletion confirmation when using Shift+Delete keyboard shortcut Deleting collapsed group in Grouped By Sort did not update the message list to reflect the change Secondary sort was discarded when sorting threaded unified folders Accidental deletion of multiple messages occurred when Delete was pressed and held was pressed and held Message count for synthetic folder views was sometimes incorrect Count of messages in a thread was not refreshed when a message was deleted externally Tag folders with non-alphanumeric characters did not work correctly Scrolling to an unread message in an expanded thread did not show as much of the thread as possible In a synthetic view, right-clicking an unselected message incorrectly selected the message Messages could not be sorted by columns that were not visible Display columns reverted to default columns after an IMAP folder was repaired Mark as "Read By Date" was not available when a folder with unread messages was selected Dynamic height calculation for Cards View based on density and font-size Message List display options were hidden outside of Thunderbird window Compact icon on Unified Toolbar was updated with a compact folder icon Improved localization of OpenPGP strings Creating a new key from the OpenPGP Key Manager erroneously displayed a "Go Back" button on the first page of the wizard Some OpenPGP dialogs' buttons were inaccessible off screen OpenPGP decoding of Base64 data did not allow for spaces and tabs before footer When using an external installation of GnuPG, Thunderbird occassionally sent/received corrupted messages Parsing an email address with a comment caused a failure for OpenPGP S/MIME messages did not display MIME message if MIME header was missing S/MIME status (encryption and signature) was not shown when opening an email from a file Add tooltip displaying full folder path when hovering over location column of thread pane Clear button was missing from Unified Toolbar customization search bar Global search sometimes loaded slowly when opening "Show results as lists" and other synthetic views References and Reply-To headers were not set if they were included in mail.compose.other.header Message compose window was not fully disabled while message was sending Delivery Status Notification did not work when sending message using "Send Later" Print dialog opened in Message compose window did not prevent window interaction Source of 'news:' links were incorrectly attached to messages by default Password Manager did not remember the last selected item when changing sorting or showing/hiding passwords in unfiltered view Entries removed from Password Manager left behind blank entries Messages moved to junk folder from message context menu were marked as read, regardless of whether "Mark messages determined to be junk as read" was checked/unchecked in settings New posts retrieved from RSS feeds incorrectly played mail alert sound No "Close" button in Cookie Manager on macOS Pressing Esc did not close the Cookie Manager dialog did not close the Cookie Manager dialog Modifying Thunderbird UI font size outside of Thunderbird caused App Menu > Font Size option to be disabled Chat Account Settings did not allow scrolling to view overflowed window contents Account setup triggered a second OAuth when looking for calendars Google Calendar account detection failed for Google-hosted domains when the DNS entry had uppercase characters Thunderbird did not have a preference to enable archiving inbox as a folder Yahoo! and AOL account message filters only filtered most recent message match Querying DNS TXT records that return multiple records failed Yahoo! and AOL account message filters only filtered most recent message match "Copy/Cut" context menus did not work in extension options pages Adding duplicate mail addresses in "New/Edit mailing list" dialog, pressing OK, then removing one of the duplicate addresses caused both addresses to be removed Address Book scrolling did not work when using keyboard navigation CardDAV addressbooks could not be used as an import target Removing Organizational Properties from a contact did not clear all organization-related fields CardDAV contacts were synced to server when no changes were made Compose window toolbar items were unreadable on macOS in dark mode Dark mode colors were inconsistent throughout Thunderbird NVDA keyboard table navigation of message list did not work in table view IMAP folders containing other folders could not be deleted due to Thunderbird using "unsubscribe" IMAP command Draft messages were not replaced when saved to an IMAP server without UIDPLUS support Connection sometimes timed out when a large number of POP3 messages were left on server SMTP messages using GSSAPI authentication failed to send Status of IMAP message download progress was incorrect in some locales Newsgroup messages were sometimes incorrectly interleaved when using offline cache Thunderbird sometimes froze when checking for new messages on multiple POP3 accounts simultaneously POP3 tried using USERPASS first (plaintext credentials), before attempting AUTH PLAIN and AUTH LOGIN (obfuscated credentials) POP3 server connection sometimes timed out when processing LIST and UIDL responses Restart was necessary to read an NNTP message if a network error occured during message retrieval Account manager and about:support could break if the chat buddy list became corrupted IRC SASL authentication was enabled by default for all IRC servers IMAP accounts with missing or incorrect OAuth credentials sometimes caused duplicate dialogs to appear, requesting a new OAuth token Hardware key multi-factor authentication did not work in Thunderbird Flatpak Thunderbird defaulted to insecure connection when Exchange Autodiscover configuration was misconfigured Thunderbird incorrectly rejected some valid RSS feeds macOS performance improvements Updating times of recurring events also modified the event exception times Calendar 'Find Events Pane' did not match search terms if they included uppercase letters Calendar day headings did not switch between short and long form when resizing calendar view Task categories menu did not display category colors Today Pane was not Keyboard accessible "Item changed on server" calendar dialog did not have a scrollbar for long content, causing action buttons to be off screen Accepting/declining appointments did not always send confirmation Convert To > Event did not save events on some CalDAV servers Context menu cleanup Various Cards View UX improvements Various visual and UX improvements Known Issues "latest" download bouncer aliases are not available for 128.0esr at this time By Sophie Yu and Casey Hall BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce vendors are struggling for survival as sales growth slows, price pressure rises and shopping platforms compete with ever-more aggressive policies to attract increasingly cost-conscious customers. A once-thriving e-commerce industry punctuated by shopping bonanzas featuring galas and celebrities is bearing the brunt of a sputtering economy that has seen consumers all but tie knots in their purse strings. While extreme discounting, influencer-led sales campaigns and generous returns policies did much to enrich the sector, those same practices by which vendors have to abide are now hurting those upon which the sector rests. "The good times for e-commerce are over," said Shanghai-based e-commerce operator Lu Zhenwang, who sells everyday items for small vendors. "This year there is fierce competition and I don't think a lot of sellers will survive another three years." Profit margins are being squeezed at big platforms such as those of Alibaba and JD.com, but also at the thousands of small businesses which joined the e-commerce boom decade that started around 2013. That boom has left e-commerce accounting for 27% of retail, with 12 trillion yuan ($1.65 trillion) of goods sold annually. But as the economy slows, so does e-commerce, with the double-digit growth of recent years set to be replaced by single digits, showed data from Euromonitor. One outcome is that enthusiasm for participating in sales festivals is noticeably cooling, Lu said, with the biggest - Singles Day, centred on Nov. 11 - a "risky" proposition. "You have no idea how many products you will be able to sell, but you have to build stock for it," he said. "It's almost impossible to see explosive growth during a shopping event." BUYER PROTECTION As the impact of slowdown begins to be felt, vendors are raising their voices against the side effects of sales gimmicks. During online shopping event "618" - stemming from JD.com's 18 June founding - the owner of womenswear brand Inman called on authorities to rein in platforms' "purchase return protection" policies which force sellers to bear the cost of returns. Such policies started on PDD's low-price platform Pinduoduo in 2021 and proved so popular that others followed suit - at huge cost to sellers, vendors told Reuters. "The return rate on e-commerce platforms is 60%," Inman founder Fang Jianhua wrote on social media. Before such policies, it was about 30%, he said. Story continues Fang said major platforms, upon which vendors rely, should not use "consumer first" policies that add to the burden of businesses, many of which have to sell below cost to maintain high positions in search results amid multiple discount events. E-commerce operator Lu said return protection policies had caused return rates to soar in categories such as apparel. Though apparel return rates have always been relatively high, they have jumped since the requirement for buyers to pay for postage when returning goods was scrapped, sellers said. "Every three pieces of clothes that you sell, at least two pieces will be returned, and you pay for the two-way courier cost," Lu said. Pinduoduo, JD.com and Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall did not respond to requests for comment. SELLING AT A LOSS Davy Huang, business development director at e-commerce consultancy Azoya, said consumers had increased the rate at which they return impulse buys, making life tougher for small retailers who do not have sufficient cash flow to bear the cost. "But I think return rates are just a fraction of the challenges these businesses are facing," he said. "They also face high traffic acquisition costs and high costs to collaborate with influencers and livestreamers." Retailers are also feeling the impact of factories selling directly to consumers at factory prices. Consequently, some vendors on Pinduoduo have been running at a loss for two years, said He-Ling Shi, an economics professor at Monash University in Melbourne. "They don't have much hope that prices will eventually be enough to cover their costs, but they have to do it (keep selling via Pinduoduo) otherwise they basically have to close their factories," Shi said. Lu said the operating environment is poor because the peaking of e-commerce has created what is known in Chinese as the "neijuan" effect - working harder for smaller returns. "There is no growth in sales, because there are no new customers and the average income of people is not rising like 10 years ago," Lu said. "There is only competition, between platforms, between sellers. This is the new normal for the e-commerce industry in China." ($1 = 7.2709 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing and Casey Hall in Shanghai; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Christopher Cushing) VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog's Board of Governors passed a resolution on Friday condemning Monday's military strike on a children's hospital in the Ukrainian capital, blaming Russia. The 35-nation Board passed the resolution by 20 votes to two with 12 abstentions, said diplomats at the emergency, closed-door meeting which was held at Ukraine's request. Ukraine asked the Board to consider the matter because Kyiv's Okhmatdyt children's hospital had received support from the International Atomic Energy Agency in the field of cancer diagnostics and treatment. "(The Board) Condemns in the strongest terms the disruption of IAEA technical assistance to Ukraine caused by the Russian Federation's recent military strike that hit the 'Okhmatdyt' National Children's Specialized Hospital," the resolution said. Kyiv suffered on Monday one of its worst days of airstrikes since the start of Russia's war, and attacks across the country killed at least 44 people including two adults at Okhmatdyt children's hospital, Ukrainian officials have said. Moscow denies attacking the hospital and has blamed Ukrainian anti-missile fire for the hit on the clinic, which is one of Europe's largest and treats patients with serious conditions such as cancer and kidney disease. A U.N. rights mission has said there is a "high likelihood" the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile, and Ukraine's security service said it had unequivocal evidence the medical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. Ukraine informed the IAEA that no radioactive sources were present at the hospital, the agency said on social media platform X on Wednesday, adding that there were no nuclear safety or security risks at the site. (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Helen Popper) Kremlin says Biden was disrespectful of Putin and whole world noticed his gaffes By Dmitry Antonov MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Friday that the whole world had paid attention to Joe Biden's verbal slips at a NATO summit and said the way the U.S. president had spoken about Russian President Vladimir Putin was unacceptable. The Kremlin was commenting after Biden on Thursday misspoke and introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin", before quickly correcting himself. In another slip, Biden mixed up the names of Kamala Harris, his vice-president, and his election opponent Donald Trump. "We noticed that the whole world paid attention to what happened, and there can be no comment here (from us), but it is clear that these were slips of the tongue," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It is understandable that they probably received such a wide resonance given the context of the internal political discussions that we are now witnessing in the US, but it's not our topic, it's an internal U.S. topic," he said. Biden's stumbling performance in a debate with Trump last month and subsequent further slips have spurred intense debate about his mental fitness, at 81, to run for a second term, and led some Democrats to call for him to stand aside. Peskov said it was for U.S. voters, not Russia, to determine the U.S. presidential candidates' prospects. But he added that the Kremlin had taken note of what it called disrespectful comments Biden had made about Putin. He did not say what those comments were, but Biden referred to Putin at the NATO summit as "a murderous madman." "We continue to consider it absolutely unacceptable and impermissible behaviour for a head of state to make such disrespectful remarks about other heads of state. I am referring to his remarks about President Putin," Peskov said. "This is unacceptable to us, and we don't think it in any way makes an American head of state look good. This is something that we pay direct attention to and something that is absolutely unacceptable to us." The Kremlin has accused Biden in the past of making unseemly comments about Putin. Biden assented in 2021 to a TV interviewer's description of Putin as "a killer", and in February this year called the Kremlin leader a "crazy SOB". (Reporting by Dmitry Antonov Writing by Andrew Osborn and Mark TrevelyanEditing by Andrew Osborn) Spain's far right quits five regional governments over migration policy FILE PHOTO: Migrants disembark from a Spanish coast guard vessel at the port of Arguineguin By Belen Carreno MADRID (Reuters) -The leader of Spain's far-right Vox party announced late on Thursday he was pulling out of five regional government coalitions with the centre-right People's Party (PP) due to disagreements on migration policy. The PP, which runs five regions including Valencia in partnership with Vox, on Wednesday backed a plan by Spain's central Socialist-run government to move around 400 under-18 migrants from the Canary Islands to the peninsula. "The vice-presidents - in the regional governments - will announce their resignation and Vox will go into opposition," Santiago Abascal told journalists in a televised speech that lasted less than five minutes. He didn't take questions. Not all Vox politicians followed their leader's instructions. On Friday morning, several councillors - the equivalent of regional ministers - in some of the coalition governments in the five regions refused to resign and left the party. "Vox no longer represents my ideals or my fighting spirit," Ignacio Higuero, the environment minister of the southwestern region of Extremadura, said. Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez celebrated the disorder in the ranks of the far-right party. "Today is a great day for Spain, Spain is a better country today," he told a news conference at a NATO summit in Washington. Around 19,000 migrants, mostly from West Africa, arrived in the Canary Islands, off sub-Saharan Africa, in the first six months of 2024, a 167% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to government figures. Around 6,000 unaccompanied minors among the migrants are currently on the archipelago and the central government has urged other Spanish regions to take in arrivals as it seeks to ease pressure on infrastructure. The PP regional leaders affected by Vox's decision to pull out of coalitions in the five regions - the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia and Murcia - said they will try to govern alone. Without Vox's support, these regions may not be able to approve a budget for 2025. "Our party has principles and political maturity," the PP's national leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo told a press conference." The PP will always respect the law and fulfil its responsibilities." Founded in 2013, Vox has become the third-largest party in Spain. However, while far-right parties saw a strong performance in this year's European Parliament elections, Vox's share of the vote in Spain was lower than in national elections in July 2023. Under-18s who migrate alone to Spain are entitled to government protection and aid under Spanish law. In 2022, Spain offered more funding to regions that volunteered to host unaccompanied young migrants. But, to date, few conservative-run regions have accepted more than a handful. The central government says it is now considering making transfers compulsory once the numbers in reception centres in the Canaries reach a certain level. (Reporting by Belen Carreno, editing by Pietro Lombardi, Aislinn Laing and Susan Fenton) FILE PHOTO: Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that was damaged during Russian missile strikes, in Kyiv By Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Ukraine's top prosecutor has called for the International Criminal Court to prosecute Russia over a missile strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv earlier this week. Ukraine's capital suffered on Monday one of its worst days of airstrikes since the start of Russia's war, and attacks across the country killed at least 44 people including two adults at Okhmatdyt children's hospital, Ukrainian officials have said. "For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC," Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told Reuters late on Thursday in an interview in The Hague, where the ICC is based. Moscow denies attacking the hospital and has blamed Ukrainian anti-missile fire for the hit on the clinic, which is one of Europe's largest and treats patients with serious conditions such as cancer and kidney disease. A U.N. rights mission has said there is a "high likelihood" the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile, and Ukraine's security service said it had unequivocal evidence the medical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. Kostin, in The Hague for regular meetings with legal officials, said if the ICC took on the prosecution of the hospital strike, it could help establish a pattern of attacks that show Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine. The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor said on Tuesday one of its teams had visited the site of the hospital strike. While the ICC does not publicly comment on which indictments it is investigating, it has warned that anyone deemed responsible for attacking civilian sites could be prosecuted. It has issued six arrest warrants for alleged Russian crimes in Ukraine including one against President Vladimir Putin. Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities since it invaded its neighbour. Kostin said the decision to prosecute lies with the ICC's prosecutor, adding that Ukraine was ready to share any physical evidence or details of its investigation with the court. He said that while Ukrainian authorities were looking into all of Monday's attacks, they can only bring charges of war crimes and not the more serious offence of crimes against humanity because they are not part of Ukraine's criminal code. A key element of prosecutions for crimes against humanity involves demonstrating systematic attacks on civilians, Kostin said. "It's important to show that Russia itself, at the moment, is a criminal state," he said. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Helen Popper) By Crispian Balmer ROME (Reuters) - Venice's experimental payment system for tourists only had a limited impact on reducing crowds in the lagoon city, meaning prices will almost certainly be hiked next year, a politician who led the project said on Friday. In a world first, the famed Italian destination introduced a 5-euro ($5.44) charge in April for daytrippers arriving on particularly congested days, hoping the levy would deter some people from visiting. The pilot scheme, which has been watched closely by other European tourist hotspots, covered just 29 days and will end on Sunday, opening the way for a period of consultation to decide how to proceed with the project in future. Simone Venturini, the city councillor responsible for tourism and social cohesion, said the initial assessment was positive and confirmed the system would be renewed in 2025, but acknowledged that there were still large crowds. "On some weekends there were less people than the same time last year ... but no one expected that all the day trippers would miraculously disappear," he told Reuters, speaking by telephone from Venice. "It will be more effective in the coming years when we increase the number of days and lift the price," he added, without saying how much visitors might have to pay in 2025. The city council is looking to discourage daytrippers, especially during weekends and holidays when visitors can top 100,000 - double the number of local residents. People with hotel reservations have not had to pay the levy. Not everyone in Venice, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, thinks the scheme should continue. "It has been a total failure. The city is still packed with tourists," said opposition councillor Giovanni Andrea Martini, adding that the number of people paying the charge had fallen as word spread that the threatened fines were not materialising. Venturini acknowledged there had been "very few, or probably no fines", but said it had been a deliberately soft start. "In this experimental phase, rather than fining people, we have focused on informing them," he said. Martini advocated instead a free booking system for visitor slots to prevent lower-income families from being priced out, but that was able to track prospective tourist arrivals. "We need to be able to warn people that if they come on certain days they are not going to have a good time," he said, adding that the long-term goal should be to draw back full-term residents who have drained away from the city in recent years as short-term lets increasingly dominate the housing market. ($1 = 0.9189 euros) (Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Helen Popper) Welcome Guest! You are here: Home AIMPLB convenes meet to discuss SC verdict on maintenance to divorced woman The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMLB) has convened a meeting on Sunday to discuss the legal options in the wake of Supreme Court ruling relating to the maintenance to divorced women. Friday July 12, 2024 3:04 PM , ummid.com News Network New Delhi: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMLB) has convened a meeting on Sunday to discuss the legal options in the wake of Supreme Court ruling relating to the maintenance to divorced women. In a ruling seen as interference in the Muslim Personal Law, the Supreme Court of India Wednesday said a former husband is obliged to give monthly amount to his divorced wife as maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. As per the Muslim Personal Law, a divorced woman is entitled to maintenance only for 90 days, which is the duration of Iddat. This is also as per the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The Supreme Court in its verdict however said a divorced woman is entitled to monthly maintenance beyond 90 days. Commenting on the SC ruling, Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a member of the Muslim Panel, warned about the dire implications. After divorce the relationship between husband and wife ends. They are strangers now and free to move on, he said. In what capacity should a man pay maintenance to someone with whom he no longer shares a marital bond? he asked. He said the AIMPLB has convened a meeting Sunday to discuss the Supreme Courts order and deliberate on the legal options available. According to the Constitution, every citizen has the right to live according to the customs of their religion. For communities with personal laws, like Muslims, these laws guide their daily lives, including matters of marriage and divorce, he said. Our legal committee will review the SC order and decide the future course of action, he said. AIMPLB Spokesperson Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas also emphasised that the SC verdict was perceived as a violation of Shariah law and the constitutional protections under the Shariat Application Act and Article 25, which guaranteed the freedom to practice religion. We are exploring all legal and constitutional remedies, Ilyas said. Jamiat e Ulema Hind, one of the largest representative bodies of Indian Muslims, has also expressed concerns over the SC verdict. [Feautred image used here for representation is generated by AI.] Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. DU Admin rejects proposal to include Manusmriti in law course Delhi University administration has kept aside a proposal to include reading of Manusmriti as part of the law course LLB. Friday July 12, 2024 5:12 PM , ummid.com News Network New Delhi: Delhi University administration has kept aside a proposal to include reading of Manusmriti as part of the law course LLB. "Today a proposal by the Faculty of Law was submitted to the Delhi University. In the proposal, they had suggested changes in the paper titled Jurisprudence. One of the changes was to include readings on Manusmriti", DU Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh said in a video message shared by the varsity Thursday. "We have rejected both the suggested readings and the amendments proposed by the Faculty. Nothing of this sort will be taught to students," he said. Manusmriti or the 'Law of Manu' is considered in a very high esteem by Hindus. But it has also been criticized by noted jurists and scholars. Among them is also Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who held Manusmriti responsible for caste system in India. Dr Ambedkar had burnt Manusmriti on December 25, 1927 in protest of the caste system which discriminates Dalits and people from the so called lower castes. VC clarifies after uproar The Vice Chancellors clarification came after uproar over reports of inclusion of Manusmriti in DU law faculty syllabus. It was reported that the proposal to include Manusmriti in DU syllabus was as per the guidelines of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Attacking the Centre over the proposal to teach Manusmriti in Delhi University, Congress alleged that the move was part of Prime Minister Narendra Modis salami tactics to bring fulfilment to the decades-long attempt by the RSS to assault the Constitution. The Social Democratic Teachers Front also wrote a protest letter to the Vice Chancellor. It has come to our knowledge that Manusmriti has been recommended to students as suggested readings which is highly objectionable as this text is adverse to the progress and education of women and marginalised communities. Introduction of any section or part of Manusmriti is against the basic structure and principles of the Indian Constitution, the teachers body said. On Friday, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also assured there was no plan to include Manusmriti in Delhi University syllabus. There is no endorsement of any such proposal in the proper authentic body of academic council Yesterday only, Vice Chancellor rejected that proposal, he said. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Puja Khedkar: IAS success story that actually is not The message from the 2024 Parliament Election is loud and clear - if any of the UDF or LDF coalition falters, the BJP is ready and prepared to fill the gap in Kerala Saturday July 13, 2024 11:07 AM , George Abraham Mumbai: Tuesday May 23, 2023 was a historic day for 933 lucky men and women who had cracked the coveted Civil Services 2022 Final Exams and were consequently recommended by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for IAS, IFS, IPS, IRS and other prestigious posts coming under the government of India. The entire focus of the whole nation was on these future bureaucrats. Ishita Kishore, Garima Lohia and Uma Harathi all three who respectively bagged the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranks, and 930 others who came next, suddenly became role models and inspiration for a country of 1.45 billion people. Among these role models was also Puja Manorama Dilip Khedkar. Puja had bagged the 821st rank in the UPSC Civil Services 2022 Merit List. Her marks, as per the UPSC, was 914 180 less than 1094 scored by UPSC Civil Services 2022 Topper Ishita. With this score and rank in the UPSC Merit List, Puja Khedkar was not eligible for IAS rank. But, her UPSC scorecard also had two more distinctive points OBC and PwBD5. The OBC is Other Backward Class whereas PwBD refers to Persons with Benchmark Disability. It was Pujas caste OBC and classification under PwBD5 that moved her up in the UPSC Merit List and she was hence appointed as Assistant Collector Pune (IAS Rank) for two year probation period. Puja Khedkar was now on course to become another inspiring IAS Success Story. A female, woman with disability, coming from a backward community fought all odds to crack the UPSC Civil Services Exams, believed to be the toughest in the world, and became one of Indias top bureaucrats The media headlines would have been this few years later. However, blame it on her luxurious lifestyle, desire to flaunt her power and status, or unnecessary haste to achieve targets, everything collapsed within days like a house of cards. Undesirous war with power Puja was supposed to join as Assistant Collector Pune in June this year. Weeks before reporting, Puja started demanding separate cabin, accommodation, staff, car, royal seal and more for which she was not entitled to as a trainee and probationary officer. Snaps of WhatsApp chats now viral in public domain reveal Puja asking the Pune Collector office staff to arrange all these things before her arrival in the city and take charge of the office. According to the reports, Puja was apprised of her trainee status, but she remained adamant and unconvincing. Trying to meet her demands on her own, Puja came to the Pune Collectorate accompanied with her father, and occupied the cabin and antechamber of Pune District Additional Collector Ajay More. Ajay More was on leave and was unware of whats going on in his office in his absence. Puja also removed the name plate of Ajay More and replaced it with her own. As she was not entitled for an official vehicle as a trainee, she put red and blue beacon lights on her own private Audi A4 car and imprinted the Maharashtra Shasan logo on it, according to India Today. Puja is also accused of obtaining with the help of a private contractor VIP registration number for her Audi A4 luxury car. Puja Khedkars out of the way style irked her bosses forcing Pune District Collector Suhas Diwase to take the matter to Maharashtra Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik. False claims, fudged documents Even as the debate was still on about the seemingly unruly behavior of Puja Khedkar, and the Maharashtra Chief Secretary was yet to take action, reports started pouring in about the alleged fudged documents Puja used and the false claims about her illness she reportedly made to get concessions in the UPSC Civil Services Exams. As per the UPSC rules, a civil services aspirant is required to undergo medical tests to confirm his or her illness. Accordingly, Puja Khedkar was asked to report to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi in April 2022 for verification of her disability. She however did not report at AIIMS citing Covid infection, The Deccan Herald reported citing officials. According to Pune Now, Puja Khedkar skipped AIIMS call for medical test five times. She appeared for the 6th time but only for half of the test. She did not agree for MRI test to assess vision loss. Later she submitted a fake disability verification report issued by a private hospital to the UPSC to obtain her IAS posting, The New Indian Express reported citing the documents submitted by Puja at Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). The UPSC challenged her documents submitted at CAT, but she received joining order allegedly using political influence, The New Indian Express reported. Doubts surrounded not only Puja Khedkars health issues but also about her OBC status. As per her documents, Puja comes from the OBC category. But, benefits under the OBC category are reserved for those having non-creamy layer certificate. To get a non-creamy layer certificate, a persons annual income must be less than 8 lakhs. On the other hands, Puja Khedkars father owns 110 acres of agriculture lands, posses 6 plots and 7 flats, holds 900 grams of gold and diamond, 4 luxury cars, partnerships in two private firms, and alone owns property worth 17 crore rupees, according to The Times of India. Pujas father Dilip Khedkar unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. According to the affidavit submitted to the Election Commission, Dilip Khedkars annual income is 40 crores. Hindustan Times and other media reports claimed Puja holds properties worth more than 17 crores. Amid all this a mock UPSC interview of Puja Khedkar also surfaced where she can be heard saying that her parents are separated and she is currently living with her mother Manorama Khedkar. Puja family background Not alone the wealth and properties Pooja Khedkar, who is also a doctor with MBBS degree, is reportedly possessing, her family background is also debated following the controversies after controversies surrounding her Civil Services selection and consequent appointment as Assistance Collector in Pune. Pujas mother Manorama Khedkar with whom she is reportedly living is a Surpanch of Bhalgaon village in Pathardi Taluka of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. She was most recently seen in videos having heated exchanges with media persons, and threatening farmers with a gun. Pujas father Dilip Khedkar, with whom she reportedly went to Pune and occupied Additional Collector Ajay Mores office in his absence, is a retired IAS officer in Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB). Dilip Khedkar had contested the Lok Sabha 2024 elections as a Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi nominee from Ahmednagar Parliamentary Constituency. He bagged some 13,000 votes and lost the poll by a margin of more than 6 lakhs. Dilip Khedkar, according to reports, had used his influence to put pressure on district collector and other senior officials to meet his daughter's demands. Poojas maternal grandfather, Jagannathrao Budhwant, was also a Senior IAS officer, calmingly the first IAS officer from the Vanjari community. Meanwhile, Puja Khedkar has been transferred from Pune to Washim, and the matter has also reached the PM office. The PMO has sought a report from Pune Collector Suhas Diwase. Simultaneously, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, where fresh civil servants are given training, has also sought a report from the Maharashtra State General Administration Department. Maharashtra OBC Welfare Minister Atul Save said a probe will be initiated to scrutinise whether the probationary IAS officer belonged to the non-creamy layer OBC category as claimed by her while appearing in the UPSC exams. In a related development, a police compliant has also filed against Pujas mother Manorama Khedkar for threatening a farmer. [The writer, Aleem Faizee, is Founder Editor ummid.com. He can be reached at aleem.faizee@gmail.com] Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. With top-tier bar services and a design inspired by 1920s New York, The Hudson Rooms & Track 61 have impressed 260 expert judges from William Reed Business Media - the prestigious organisation behind Asia's 50 best bars awards. It is a point of pride for Capella Hanoi and a clear testament to the vibrant growth of the bartending industry in Viet Nam. Dubbed a haven for connoisseurs of alcoholic beverages in Ha Noi, The Hudson Rooms & Track 61 have established their names with signature cocktails inspired by the iconic US railways of the 1920s. Behind the bar, the person delivering exceptional experiences for guests is the talented bartender Nguyen Ngoc Khanh (Patrick) and a passionate young team, led by bar manager Sean Halse. Driven by a deep passion for mixology, Ngoc Khanh regularly participates in knowledge-sharing sessions and advanced courses on wine and mixology for drink lovers and the bartending community. His relentless pursuit of learning and creativity and his teams efforts have created a unique charm for The Hudson Rooms & Track 61. "We are extremely honoured to be recognised among the top bars in Asia. This achievement is the result of our continuous creative efforts, aiming to provide customers with extraordinary experiences that push the boundaries of mixology of The Hudson Rooms team, Ngoc Khanh said proudly. Besides unforgettable cocktail experiences, The Hudson Rooms is renowned for its luxurious and impressive ambience. Dinner will feel like being transporting back to the bustling Grand Central Station of New York during its golden era in the 1920s while enjoying a stunning panoramic view of a beautiful corner of Ha Noi's Old Quarter from above. The rich culinary menu featuring premium seafood, caviar and fine steaks, perfectly complements Track 61's unique cocktails. Discerning guests can experience at The Hudson Rooms from 5.30pm on weekdays and from 11.30am on Fridays to Sundays. The restaurant offers a special Happy Hour with a menu of five signature cocktails and a buy one drink, get one complimentary bar bite, designed for guests who want to relax after work. Meanwhile, Track 61 is a secret bar within The Hudson Rooms, reserved exclusively for invitees, elevating the cocktail experience to new heights. The top 81 best bars in Asia 2024 award is a proud achievement for Capella Hanoi and the entire Vietnamese culinary and tourism industry. Capella Hanoi also boasts three Michelin Guide-recognised restaurants. Hibana by Koki, a coveted one Michelin-starred restaurant, and Backstage and Izakaya by Koki, both recognised with the Michelin Selected award. With The Hudson Rooms & Track 61 making it to the best bars in Asia 2024 list, Capella Hanoi once again affirms its top-notch service. Investor Sun Group continues to showcase its vision of transforming hotels and resorts into premium culinary destinations, leaving a particularly impressive mark on domestic and international visitors. HA NOI More than 50 members of the Vietnam Business Association in the UK (VBUK) have gathered in London to share their operation experience in the European country. VBUK President Hoang Viet Phuong said that the event aims to provide participants with a chance to meet, exchange ideas, and get updates on the macro-economic situation and information helpful for their operations, especially amid current challenges facing the British economy. In the time to come, the association will coordinate with the Vietnamese Trade Office and the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK as well as ministries, sectors, and localities to organise trade and investment events to connect Vietnamese and British businesses, thus providing more chances for them to expand partnership and contribute to the two economies, he said. Meanwhile, VBUK Vice President Nguyen Li Le said the association has always worked as a bridge between Viet Nam and the UK as well as a venue for Vietnamese businesses in the UK. She said that such meetings will be held regularly in every two or three months to foster the solidarity among Vietnamese firms for common development. Along with business issues, participants also shared their experience in many areas such as electricity and gas efficiency in businesses and other noteworthy issues. VBUK, a non-profit organisation established in 2006, operates with the goal of supporting Vietnamese businesses in the UK, while connecting and assisting domestic businesses that engage in import-export and capital attraction activities with the UK, as well as British businesses wishing to invest and cooperate with Vietnamese peers. Currently, the association has a membership of more than 100. VNS HA NOI The National Innovation Centre (NIC), in collaboration with the International Technology Professional Programme (ITPP)of Seoul National University (SNU) and the Global IT Technology Programme (ITTP) of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), on July 11 organised an international seminar titled "Asias Readiness for AI Innovation: Lessons from Korea". The two-day event aimed to foster cooperation in the research and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across Asia. It brought together leading experts, scholars, government officials, and the research and business community in the AI field. NICs director Vu Quoc Huy said in recent years, AI has become a pivotal force reshaping industries and societies, driving global economic transformations. The Prime Minister's 2030 National Strategy on AI underscores its role as a foundational technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, essential for boosting production capacity, enhancing national competitiveness, and fostering sustainable economic growth. Huy said: Aligned with this strategy, the NIC is studying the establishment of an advanced AI training, research and application centre in Viet Nm. This initiative aims to train thousands of AI experts meeting international standards and support 500 AI start-ups, enhancing Viet Nams readiness in innovation and digital transformation. The international seminar featured keynote speakers including top AI researchers from South Korea, political leaders, and executives from IT and communication sectors across Asia. Beyond academic and technological exchanges in AI, the seminar aimed to establish a platform for collaboration. Utilising AI to find innovative solutions for contemporary challenges was emphasised. Topics in the seminar included AI's transformative impact on finance and economic growth, regulatory considerations, ethical research, practical applications, legal frameworks, and ethical challenges in the AI era. The seminar also delved into AI's role in governmental operations, highlighting trends, applications, challenges, and prerequisites for effective AI deployment. Notably, the programme featured successful AI application projects from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam, providing diverse perspectives on AI research, development, and applications in the Asian region. Professors Seung Hun Han, Director of KAIST's International Technology Professional Programme (ITPP), and Junseok Hwang, Director of SNU's Global IT Technology Programme (ITTP), described the Global R&D Centre for Digital Technology as a visionary hub of practical solutions, transcending typical conference standards. The seminar also provided networking opportunities for delegates to connect with peers domestically and internationally, experts from various platforms, policy planners, and leading businesses shaping the future of AI technology. VNS HA NOI Soaring selling pressure continued to weigh on the market, causing benchmark indices to close the week lower while foreign investors backed into the net selling trend. On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), the VN-Index declined 3.05 points, or 0.24 per cent, to close at 1,280.75 points. This marked its third straight session of falls. The market's strong psychological resistance around the 1300-point level is evident. This resistance zone has proven challenging in the past and it remains a formidable barrier. The number of decliners outnumbered that of gainers on the southern exchange, while liquidity extended losses. The value dropped by nearly 18 per cent from the previous trade to VN15.2 trillion (US$600.2 million). Selling pressure mounted as the market neared previous highs, which is a common occurrence. Large-cap stocks continued to face corrections, with the VN30-Index down 4.41 points, or 0.34 per cent, to 1,301,81 points. In the VN30 basket, 16 stocks slid while nine edged higher and five stayed unchanged. Banking and manufacturing stocks led the downtrend of which Vietcombank posted the biggest decline. Shares of the lender fell 0.57 per cent to close Friday at VN87,600 per share. They were followed by Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Masan Group (MSN), BIDV (BID) and Vietinbank (CTG). All the stocks decreased in a range of 0.43-1.21 per cent. Cushioning the losses, some stocks showed positive performances, led by Vietnam Rubber Group (GVR). The rubber producers shares finished the week with a gain of 2.6 per cent. Vingroup (VIC), FPT Corporation (FPT), Vietjet Aviation (VJC) also increased 1.58 per cent, 0.6 per cent and 0.99 per cent, respectively. The HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX) also dipped 0.37 points, or 0.15 per cent, to 245.02 points. Over 54.2 million shares were traded on the HNX, worth VN1.1 trillion. Meanwhile, foreign investors were net sellers as they net sold a VN761.93 billion worth of shares on the southern bourse. They snapped the long net-selling streak on Thursday. While foreign investors' selling activities may contribute to the resistance, the primary factor is the selling pressure from domestic investors. Of particular concern is the weak inflow of funds into blue-chip stocks, leading to unstable price increases that are often short-lived, even for stocks like VCB and FPT. Consequently, the VN-Index lacks a sustainable driving force for sustained growth. VNS BANGKOK The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has announced strategies to attract 40 million foreign tourists and generate 3.4 trillion THB (US$113.3 billion) in tourism revenue in 2025. According to TAT board chairwoman Natthriya Thaweevong, the move is in line with the Thai governments ambitious announcement to promote Thailand as a grand tourism destination. The authoritys strategies include drawing big events to the country and offering tour packages designed to meet each traveler's preferences, such as the elderly and medical tourists. Natthriya noted that tourists preferences have changed in the post-COVID-19 era, but the tourism sector still can generate revenue for the country immediately. She affirmed that Thailand can attract up to 39 million foreign arrivals in 2024, and earn 3 trillion THB in tourism revenue as planned, partly thanks to major tourism events at the end of the year. TAT governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool said the authority aims to boost tourism revenue growth from 3 trillion THB this year to 3.4 trillion THB next year. She noted that this goal can be achieved by attracting at least 40 million foreign arrivals to Thailand and encouraging 220 million Thai tourists to travel domestically. VNA/VNS HA NOI Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception in Ha Noi on Thursday for Chinese Ambassador Xiong Bo who came to say goodbye at the end of his tenure. The two sides rejoiced at positive developments and new milestones in the relationship between the two Parties and countries during the ambassadors term in Viet Nam. PM Chinh commended the diplomats significant contributions to the friendship and cooperation between the two countries, especially his efforts in promoting and arranging many visits by high-ranking leaders of the two Parties and countries, notably the China visit by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in October 2022, and the trip to Viet Nam by Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping in December 2023. Chinh emphasised that Viet Nam and China remain each other's top trading partners, and Chinese investment in the Southeast Asian nation has increased sharply. The PM also highlighted tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, with the number of Vietnamese students in China doubling the figure recorded five years ago. He suggested competent agencies of the two countries closely coordinate with each other to early materialise the cooperative contents that the two sides had agreed upon during his recent trip to China for the 15th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting of the New Champions and working sessions. The PM called on China to increase its import of Vietnamese agricultural products, and suggested the two sides cooperate in building a number of standard-gauge railway routes connecting the two countries, step up border transport infrastructure connectivity, upgrade border gates, enhance border economic collaboration, boost tourism collaboration, well manage land border, enhance people-to-people exchanges, intensify the communications work to promote the traditional friendship, and maintain their close coordination and cooperation as well as mutual support at multilateral mechanisms and forums. Regarding maritime issues, PM Chinh said the two countries should adhere to important common perceptions reached by their high-ranking leaders, the agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues between Viet Nam and China, and international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), while promoting the role of maritime negotiation mechanisms and well controlling the situation at sea in accordance with the new position of the bilateral relations. For his part, Xiong congratulated Viet Nam on its great, important achievements across spheres, especially socio-economic development, and pledged to further contribute to the implementation of such common perceptions, and the building of the community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. VNS VIENTIANE President To Lam met Sinlavong Khoutphaythoune, President of the Central Committee of the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC), in Vientiane on Thursday, as part of his two-day State visit to the neighbouring country. Sinlavong Khoutphaythoune expressed his gratitude for the valuable assistance provided by the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam to Laos during its past struggle for national liberation and current national construction and development. The front leader pledged to continue closely coordinating with the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF) to support and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese residents in Laos in their work and daily lives. President Lam commended the cooperation results between the LFNC and the VFF and other Vietnamese partners and highlighted the cooperation agreement for 2022-26 signed by the two fronts. He suggested that the LFNC work closely with Viet Nam to effectively implement collaboration agreements in various areas such as public mobilisation as well as religious and ethnic affairs. On the same day, the Vietnamese State leader also met with Boviengkham Vongdala, Chairman of the Laos-Viet Nam Friendship Association, and other leaders of the association. Underscoring the strong relationship between his association and the Viet Nam-Laos Friendship Association, Boviengkham Vongdala said he is committed to further promoting the nations friendship, solidarity, and people-to-people exchange. President To Lam reiterated the highest priority Viet Nam gives to strengthening and nurturing the great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation with Laos. He urged the association to continue working with Lao authorities to support the Vietnamese community here so that they could contribute positively to the host nations prosperity. Stressing the crucial role and influence of the Viet Nam-Laos and Laos-Viet Nam Friendship Associations in reinforcing and enhancing the bilateral special relationship, he expressed his hope that these associations will continue to serve as important bridges in fostering the ties. VNS VIENTIANE President To Lam visited the Nguyen Du Lao-Vietnamese bilingual school in Vientiane on Friday as part of his ongoing state visit to Laos, underscoring the deep-rooted educational collaboration between the two nations. Located in Dong Paleb village, Chanthabouly District, the school was built in 2005 with funding exceeding US$500,000 from the Vietnamese Party and Government. The Lao Government provided a 10,379 sq.m plot of land for its construction, which was completed in 2008. The school is managed by the Vietnamese Association in Vientiane, with direct guidance from the Vietnamese Embassy in Laos and professional oversight from the Lao Ministry of Education and Sports. It offers classes from pre-school to high school, providing a bilingual education in Vietnamese and Lao languages, adhering to the curriculum framework of the Lao Ministry of Education and Sports. Currently, the school boasts over 1,000 students, with around 30 per cent being children of the Vietnamese descent, and a team of around 60 staff members. President Lam commended the school for its achievements over its 16 years of development, highlighting its vital role in fostering the friendly relations, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between Viet Nam and Laos, particularly in education. He underlined the importance of inspiring and cultivating idealism and ethics in the younger generation, especially by educating them on the historical traditions and strong bonds between the two countries. On the occasion, President Lamdonated $30,000 to assist in expanding the school's kindergarten area. He expressed his hope that the success of the Nguyen Du school model would be replicated in other Lao localities, further strengthening educational ties between the two nations. VNS VIENTIANE State President To Lam on Friday visited the Vietnamese Embassy and met over 100 individuals representing the Vietnamese community in Laos. Ambassador Nguyen Ba Hung informed the leader that there are currently around 100,000 Vietnamese people living, working and studying in the neighbouring country. Pham Van Hung, Chairman of the General Association of Vietnamese People in Laos, thanked the Party and State for their special attention to the Vietnamese community abroad in general and in Laos in particular. Many policies and laws related to investment and business in the homeland have been amended in favour of overseas Vietnamese (OVs), he said, adding that numerous activities have also been implemented to support them to integrate into the host society, and preserve cultural traditions and the Vietnamese language. Affirming the Party and the State always pay attention to the OV community, an integral part of the national solidarity bloc, President Lam expressed his hope that those in Laos will continue staying united, supporting each other, abiding to local laws, and acting as a bridge to nurture the special Viet Nam-Laos relationship. He welcomed and appreciated the patriotism and significant contributions of the Vietnamese people and business communities in Laos to the nation building and safeguarding cause, as well as to the bilateral relations. The leader said that during visits and engagements with foreign leaders, the Party and State leaders consistently call for support for OVs regarding citizenship, residency, legal status, ensuring security and safety, and assisting them in business, education, and daily life. On this occasion, the President granted US$10,000 to the General Association of Vietnamese People in Laos to contribute to improving infrastructure and organising community activities. This was the final activity within the leaders state visit to Laos. He is scheduled to arrive in Phnom Penh on July 12 afternoon for a state visit to Cambodia. VNS PHNOM PENH State President To Lam arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport on Friday afternoon, starting his two-day State visit to Cambodia at an invitation of King Preah Bat Samdech Preah Boromneath Norodom Sihamoni. Welcoming the President and his entourage at the airport were Senior Minister in charge of General Affairs of the Ministry of the Royal Palace Kuy Sophal, Minister of Tourism Sok Soken, Cambodian Ambassador to Viet Nam Chea Kimtha, and Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia Nguyen Huy Tang, among others. This is Lam's first visit to Cambodia as the President of Viet Nam since he took office in May. This trip holds tremendous significance, marking a milestone in further strengthening and deepening the bilateral relationship based on the principles of "good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, comprehensive cooperation, and long-term sustainability". In his interview granted to the press on the threshold of the visit, Deputy Foreign Minister o Hung Viet affirmed that it will certainly create new momentum to deepen the Vietnam-Cambodia relations, as well as strengthening cooperation within multilateral frameworks such as ASEAN, the Mekong sub-regional cooperation mechanisms, and the United Nations. During his stay, the Vietnamese leader is scheduled to attend an official welcome ceremony in his honour, meet King Norodom Sihamoni, hold separate talks with President of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Senate President Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet, meet with National Assembly (NA) President Khuon Sudary, and attend a state banquet hosted by the King. He will also visit the Vietnamese Embassy, meet representatives of the Vietnamese community in the country, and have several other activities. VNS PHNOM PENH Cambodian King Preah Bat Samdech Preah Boromneath Norodom Sihamoni hosted an official welcome ceremony for Vietnamese President To Lam at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh on July 12. The Vietnamese leader is paying a state visit to Cambodia on July 12 and 13 at the invitation of the King. Following the welcome ceremony, President Lam had a meeting with King Norodom Sihamoni. On the basis of the good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, comprehensive cooperation, and long-term sustainability between the two countries, President Lam's state visit to Cambodia, part of his first tour abroad as the State leader of Viet Nam, is critically important to continuing to reinforce the political trust and promote all-round cooperation in a more practical and effective manner, thereby affirming Viet Nam's consistent policy of attaching importance to, further intensifying its relations with Cambodia, as well as strengthening the trust and close-knit ties between high-ranking leaders of the two countries. The bilateral relations have been maintained firmly, with Party-to-Party cooperation holding the core role in setting up orientations for the two countries ties. Defence - security cooperation remains a pillar while economic, trade, and investment partnerships are currently a bright spot, especially the vigorous growth of bilateral trade. Viet Nam is currently the third largest trading partner of Cambodia in the world and the biggest trading partner within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The bilateral trade rose from US$5.32 billion in 2020 to $10.57 billion in 2022. Last year, despite negative impacts from the global economic downturn, the two-way trade was still maintained at a high level, reaching $8.57 billion. In the first five months of 2024, the Viet Nam-Cambodia trade hit $4.6 billion and is expected to reach the $10-billion mark again for the whole year. Viet Nam now has 205 valid projects with combined registered capital of $2.94 billion, ranking first among ASEAN nations and in the top five countries with the highest amounts of direct investment in Cambodia. Meanwhile, Cambodia has 35 valid projects worth $76 million in Viet Nam. Viet Nam and Cambodia have also been stepping up collaboration in the fields of education, transport, culture - social affairs, tourism, and science-technology. They have recorded new progress in the settlement of legal papers for Vietnamese-origin people. Exchanges and cooperation between peoples organisations of the countries have also been maintained and reformed. Besides, the two nations have kept cooperation, coordination, and mutual support at multilateral forums, particularly the United Nations, ASEAN, and sub-regional cooperation mechanisms. VNS HA NOI The Government has issued a resolution outlining its action programme to continue building and elevating the role of the intellectual workforce for national rapid and sustainable development in the new era. The document assigns key tasks to various government officials, including ministers, heads of ministry-level and Government agencies, chairpersons of the People's Committees of centrally-run cities and provinces, and directors of the Viet Nam National University - Ha Noi and the Viet Nam National University - HCM City. Their focus will be on raising awareness of the critical role intellectuals play in national progress; renovating training and rewarding of intellectuals, with a particular emphasis on talent retention; fine-tuning existing laws, mechanisms and policies; increasing resources to develop a proactive and internationally integrated intellectual community; and innovating the operation of intellectual associations. The Ministry of Education and Training will work with other ministries, agencies and localities to build schemes to propel Viet Nam's leading universities to the level of top Asian institutions. This aligns with existing Politburo resolutions aimed at fostering socio-economic development across various regions. The Ministry of Science and Technology will spearhead efforts, in collaboration with other ministries and agencies, to build investment policies specifically for sci-tech advancements, with a focus on core, foundational and cutting-edge technologies. Additionally, it will prioritise investment in basic and applied research in areas where Viet Nam holds strengths, as well as in social sciences and humanities, political theory, management, education and training, health care, culture, and literature and arts. It was also tasked with developing research centres linking with global and regional innovation networks, making it easier for intellectuals to access sci-tech advances from leading countries. VNS SYDNEY Viet Nam has attached great importance to gender equality and has reaped significant progress in this regard thanks to collaboration with other countries, including Australia, Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Pham Hung Tam, told Australian Ambassador for Gender Equality Stephanie Copus Campbell at a working session on July 11. Tam expressed his delight at cooperation results between the two countries in promoting gender equality, emphasising this remains a focus of the bilateral ties. He also congratulated Australian candidate Natasha Stott Despoja on her re-election to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The ambassador lauded the growing interest of both countries in gender aspects in priority agendas such as climate change, and bilateral cooperation areas. For her part, Campbell noted her deep impressions during her Viet Nam visit in May, with significant outcomes, especially her meetings with representatives of ministries, agencies, the private sector, and businesses where women hold leadership positions. She expressed her desire to share Australia's experience in gender equality practices and international cooperation in this field with Viet Nam. Campbell believed that the Southeast Asian nation will continue affirming its role and making significant contributions to multinational-level cooperation in gender equality, contributing to raising collective voices on this issue. On this occasion, the two officials exchanged views on emerging challenges related to gender equality. VNS HA NOI - A carbon market will create motivation for green transition , said Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha on July 12. Chairing a meeting on the establishment of a carbon market in Viet Nam, Ha said that the establishment is difficult and complex, with many developments and changes, requiring a unified commitment to global-scale implementation. Currently, many countries have established carbon markets, gradually forming technical barriers related to carbon credits for goods. "To ensure the interests of businesses and the nation, Viet Nam cannot stand aside this trend," he emphasised. He urged ministries and agencies to analyse and clarify the necessary conditions to form a carbon credit market with full political and legal bases and engagement of each ministry and sector, and then develop a synchronous implementation roadmap. The operation of the carbon market must follow a roadmap under the management of the State, match the capacity and development levels of businesses and the economy, and ensure national interests, Ha said, adding that its necessary to learn experience through joint ventures, partnerships or cooperation mechanisms but ministries and agencies must stay proactive. According to the Deputy PM, the project on the establishment of the carbon market aims to help Viet Nam fulfill international commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating new financial flows for greenhouse gas emission reduction activities, and creating motivation for green transition for industries and economic fields. He said that on the basis of Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment must allocate emission quotas for each field, industry, and enterprise; guide ministries, agencies, businesses, and consulting organisations on calculation formulas, measurements, statistical reports, appraisals of emission quotas and carbon credits. Deputy Minister of Finance Le Tan Can said that carbon market transactions are proposed to be made on an online platform. It is expected that the roadmap for carbon market development includes two phases with the pilot phase from 2025 to 2027 and the official operation from 2028. Groups of solutions include greenhouse gas inventory and allocation of greenhouse gas emission quotas; carbon credit management; greenhouse gas emission quota and carbon credit trading system; management, inspection and supervision; and awareness improvement and capacity enhancement. Specific tasks are perfecting legal mechanisms and policies; building a system for credit trading and organising and operating the carbon market; and communications programmes to raise awareness of the carbon market among target groups. In Viet Nam, more than 300 programmes and projects have registered to be implemented with carbon credit mechanisms. Of these, about 150 were granted more than 40.2 million carbon credits which have been exchanged on the world carbon market. - VNS After a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal determined child welfare services in First Nations communities were underfunded, the sum offered by the government -- to be spent over the next decade -- aims to improve support for impacted families, according to the First Nations representatives who helped negotiate the agreement. Canada pledges $35.1 bn for Indigenous child welfare, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com "We're trying to change a really broken system. It's going to be hard," said Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), to the applause of other chiefs at a press conference in Montreal. "We encourage First Nations to take control back of our children, back to our homes, back to our communities." According to the 2021 census, 53.8 percent of children in foster care under the age of 14 are Indigenous, despite comprising only 7.7 percent of children in the country. Patty Hajdu, Canada's Minister of Indigenous Services, said the offering marks "a day that Canada moves from compensating for harm to investing in prevention." "It's about restoring... power and control to communities and families and parents so that no child ever again will grow up without being surrounded by love and culture and language knowing who they are," she continued. The funds will be discussed among First Nations groups over the coming weeks before going before a vote by the Assembly in September. The money follows a pledge of $16.9 billion to benefit 300,000 First Nations children and their families who were deemed victims of discrimination by the foster care system that often uprooted them from their communities. Canada's First Nations population experiences higher levels of poverty and lower life expectancy compared to other Canadians, and are more frequently subjected to violent crime, substance abuse and incarceration on average. Canada favours Vietnam market A delegation of nearly 200 Canadian businesses is visiting Vietnam from March 26 to 29 to boost trade and investment. Vietnam and Canada share opportunities to achieve net zero The path towards net zero was discussed at a workshop themed Towards Net-Zero: Canada-Vietnam Experience Sharing, held in Ho Chi Minh City on March 28. Vietnam and Canada share customs procedures A forum themed CPTTP in Action Dialogue with Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department was held on March 27 to discuss country-of-origin issues, tariff classifications and refunds, imports of products samples, and custom clearance with a business delegation from Canada. It was the latest move by Berlin to reduce economic reliance on Beijing that some fear have left it vulnerable, and follows warnings from the EU that the firms pose a risk to the bloc. Germany to ban Chinese telecom giants from 5G network, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com Parts from Huawei and ZTE will no longer be used in "core" 5G mobile networks by the end of 2026 at the latest, the interior ministry in Berlin said. In 5G access and transmission infrastructure, the systems of the telecom firms must be replaced by the end of 2029. "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," said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. "We must reduce security risks and, unlike in the past, avoid one-sided dependencies." The ministry said that 5G networks form part of Germany's "critical infrastructure" and are important for the functioning of sectors ranging from health to transport and energy. Telecoms networks must be protected from cyberattacks, which could be an "existential threat", it added. Officials have reached agreements with Germany's 5G network operators, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica, on banning Huawei and ZTE. Government sources had already indicated in September last year that Berlin was considering such a move, although the dates announced are later than those originally envisaged to give companies time to adopt the new measures. Faeser would not be drawn on whether she feared retaliatory measures from China, although she said that Beijing had been informed about the bans. "For me, as interior minister, it is a matter of finding regulations for telecommunications networks, for critical infrastructure, and I have done that," she told a press conference. In response to the ban, Huawei insisted there was "no specific evidence" that the firm's "technology has cyber security risks". "Huawei has developed into a continuously innovative, secure, and reliable telecom equipment supplier in the German market," a spokesperson said. Beijing's embassy in Berlin also said the move was driven by "groundless accusations". "There is no evidence indicating that these Chinese companies are a danger to any country," the embassy said, according to state news agency Xinhua. "Whether Germany can handle this issue fairly and justly will be a touchstone for its own business environment," it added. Factors that authorities looked at when deciding on the ban included whether the manufacturer was directly or indirectly controlled by the government, or whether they had been involved in activities that had a detrimental impact on Germany or other EU states. China and Germany have long had close ties, with Germany's crucial manufacturers -- from auto companies to machine-tool makers -- exporting vast quantities of products to the world's number two economy. But Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis triggered soul-searching in Europe's top economy about an over-reliance on authoritarian governments and led to Berlin seeking to "de-risk" by cutting its reliance on China. It unveiled a strategy for managing ties with Beijing last year, in which it sought to strike a balance between competing interests, with China described as a "partner, competitor and systemic rival". There have been growing signs of the government's new tougher approach. Last week, Berlin blocked the sale of a gas turbine unit belonging to a subsidiary of the Volkswagen group to a Chinese investor after media reports suggested it had close links to the Chinese armaments industry. EU countries are becoming increasingly wary of using tech from Huawei or other non-EU vendors that may not comply with EU data protection laws. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, last year described Huawei and ZTE as a risk to the bloc and called on EU member states to exclude the companies' equipment from their mobile networks. After the UK in the summer of 2020, Sweden became the second country in Europe and the first in the EU to explicitly ban Huawei from almost all of the network infrastructure needed to run its 5G mobile network. There has also been growing pressure from the United States to take action against Huawei amid a technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington over US fears it could be used for Chinese espionage operations. Strengthening partnerships for efficient 5G networking While Vietnams readiness for 5G commercialisation is in the pipeline, strengthening public-private partnerships is now more crucial to help fast-track the process. 5G network inches ever closer Investment returns may be some way off for telecoms groups, despite taking on ownership of 5G frequency bands via auction. Pham Chanh Trung, head of Ho Chi Minh City Population Department, shared this information during a campaign launch event on July 11 aimed at integrating communication and services to enhance population quality. Ho Chi Minh City faces rapidly ageing population with 12.5 per cent over 60 "Last year, the percentage of elderly in the city was 11.03 per cent, having been under 10 per cent in previous years. The average life expectancy in the city is relatively high at 76.5 years, compared to the national average of 73.7 years," Trung said. Meanwhile, the city's birth rate is continuing to decline. The average number of children per woman of reproductive age in Ho Chi Minh City is 1.32, down from 1.42 last year, significantly lower than the replacement fertility rate of 2-2.1 children per woman that Vietnam needs to maintain. For nearly 20 years, the city has consistently ranked among the areas with the lowest birth rates in the country. "Population ageing creates social, economic, and cultural challenges for individuals, families, society, and the community," Trung stated. The ageing population will alter family structures. People are living longer, having fewer children, and facing fewer caregiving options. Currently, healthcare and mental health services for the elderly in Vietnam are underdeveloped, with most elderly people relying on their children for support. Longer post-retirement lifespans increase pressure on the healthcare system and pension funds. The ageing population also reduces the proportion of the working-age population, changes the occupational structure, and increases the economic burden on younger workers. If these issues are not addressed adequately, they will pose significant challenges to the city's development. Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, noted that to cope with the ageing population, the health sector is striving to address the low birth rate, strengthen and improve the primary healthcare system, and provide medical care for the elderly. To improve population quality, the health sector is promoting the benefits of premarital health check-ups, prenatal screening, and newborn screening. Premarital health check-ups help couples proactively screen for, detect early, and treat reproductive health-related conditions, sexually transmitted diseases, and issues affecting fertility and childbirth. "Raising awareness about the benefits of these health services is crucial to improving overall population health," Chau emphasised. AI-powered solutions to be adequate response to threats Toying around with the latest generative AI tools has been entertaining for many. Yet, AI has long transcended personal use, profoundly reshaping organisational and business activities. Time is now for Vietnam to fully cultivate AI talent Vietnam is well-positioned to fully develop AI talent through government support, international collaboration, and an influx of foreign experts. Located at the Bitexco Financial Tower in District 1, the office marks the firm's first office in Southeast Asia and its fifth overseas, following New York, London, Frankfurt, and Brussels. The new office will provide clients with timely assistance for their business expansion plans in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and with international projects. Since 2011, Atsumi & Sakai has operated an alliance with and continuously seconded Japanese lawyers to A-PAC International Law Firm (APAC), a law firm in Hanoi with experience in negotiations with Vietnamese government authorities. Through this alliance, the Japanese company has built up experience of the business environment in Vietnam and been retained by and provided legal services to a large number of clients, mainly Japanese companies that have entered or are considering entering the Vietnamese market. The new office will provide advice in line with current legal practices through Japanese lawyers well versed in legal affairs in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and a Vietnamese lawyer experienced in general corporate legal affairs and mergers and acquisitions in Vietnam. Atsumi & Sakai is committed to providing efficient and cost-effective legal services, both outbound and inbound, not only to its clients in Japan but also those in Vietnam, Asia, and the rest of the world. By utilising its other offices and global networks, the law firm will be able to handle large-scale cases both itself and in cooperation with law firms in Vietnam and other locations in Asia and globally. It also intends to expand its team to meet clients future needs. Increasing trade opportunities for Vietnamese and Japanese firms The "Japan Business Pitch Vol.1" in Hanoi on June 7 offered Japanese businesses a platform to promote their products, and is expected to further foster economic and trade partnerships with Vietnamese enterprises across various sectors. Amata City Halong welcomes new Japanese investor Tenma Group has decided to invest $56 million in Amata City, Ha Long, marking the group's first project in Quang Ninh, a province along Vietnams northeastern coast. Earlier this month, during Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's official visit to South Korea, nearly 350 Korean businesses and 180 Vietnamese companies, along with leaders from various ministries, attended the Vietnam-Korea Business Forum. At the forum, participants were briefed on Vietnam's development landscape, strengths, investment priorities, and the status of Vietnam-Korea relations. Discussions centred around investment and trade opportunities, the advantages of Korean businesses, and prospects in the Vietnamese market. Be friends first, then do business As one of the four keynote speakers, Thai delivered a presentation on Digital Transformation in the Financial Industry, focusing on macroeconomics, green economy, and circular economy. He emphasised two key factors for successful cooperation. "First, trust and collaboration are crucial, as the Korean saying goes, 'be friends first, then do business.' Second, developing a value business chain is essential, especially with the shift of production from China to other countries. We are ready to cooperate and identify reliable partners from Vietnam," he said In an interview with The Korea Herald on July 2 in Seoul, Thai highlighted the importance of providing tailored services to Korean personnel living and working in Vietnam. This, he noted, would help South Korean businesses operate more effectively in Vietnam. Consequently, starting from August 2024, MB will introduce Korean language support on its banking app to offer a more convenient experience for the South Korean community in Vietnam. "Vietnamese banks have not yet provided specialised services for Koreans living in Vietnam, forcing them to rely on branches of Korean banks. Recognising the increasing number of Korean citizens and companies entering Vietnam, MB will launch banking services in South Korean from August to better cater to the South Korean community," Thai said. The collaboration between MB and South Korean businesses is expected to strengthen the bilateral relationship between Vietnam and South Korea. This partnership is anticipated to bring substantial value to both parties and reinforce the positive diplomatic ties between the two nations. In July 2023, Vietnam and South Korea celebrated 30 years of diplomatic relations and signed a free trade agreement (FTA), further promoting strong and comprehensive cooperation across various sectors, including politics, economy, investment, and high technology. Luu Trung Thai, chairman of MB Strategic partnership between MB and Posco International At the forum, under the witness of PM Chinh, MB and Posco International signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The Prime Minister, along with senior Vietnamese leaders and an MB delegation led by the bank's chairman Luu Trung Thai, also held an in-depth meeting with the chairman of Posco Group. PM Chinh praised the group's investment activities in Vietnam, highlighting the effective operations of its subsidiaries. He welcomed its plans to expand its investments and operations in Vietnam, particularly in green development, promoting a circular economy and digital economy. "Posco's effective operations and their plans for green development and a circular economy are highly commendable," said Chinh. "We look forward to their continued investment in Vietnam's burgeoning digital economy." During the meeting, In Hwa Chang, CEO of Posco, highlighted that the company is among the top five companies in South Korea in steel, energy, trade, and electric vehicle battery materials. "In 2023, our revenue reached $59 billion," said Chang. "In Vietnam, we have established four steel branches with a total investment of $1.8 billion. We aim to expand our cooperation and investment in new sectors in Vietnam, including converting our specialised port into a commercial port and investing in an LNG power plant. Meanwhile, Thai of MB said that the strategic cooperation with Posco not only demonstrated MB's ability to collaborate with major South Korean companies but also opened up numerous opportunities for investment and business collaboration for MB and its partners. "This partnership highlights our capacity to attract and work with leading Korean firms, paving the way for future business ventures," he said. In a separate interview with the press, Vu Thanh Trung, vice chairman of MB, discussed the bank's strategy to support Korean enterprises investing in Vietnam. "Providing comprehensive products and services to ensure the success of foreign invested enterprises, particularly South Korean businesses, is crucial to MB's business policy," Trung said. "To ensure the success of Korean companies in Vietnam, MB has developed a wide range of products, services, and advanced digital platforms to help businesses manage their investments effectively. Our robust digital applications and platforms, equipped with cutting-edge technology, allow businesses to oversee their investment activities comprehensively. Detailed reporting and analysis systems are fully integrated into these digital platforms." MB also aims to collaborate with Korean financial institutions to expand the QR payment system in Vietnam. "If we can link the upcoming MBBank app for Koreans with Korean banks, Koreans in Vietnam will be able to use our QR payment system through their banking apps. We are actively seeking partners for this initiative," Trung added. Vietnam still a magnet for South Korean investors Vietnam remains a magnet for major South Korean investors, and a basis for them to reach out globally, nearly 10 years after a major free trade deal between the pair materialised. Following these efforts, the total tax revenue from this group reached approximately $399 million, an increase of about $139 million compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the tax authorities addressed violations involving 4,560 cases, resulting in back taxes and penalties amounting to $11.88 million. On average, each case faced fines and back taxes of around $2,600. Through data-sharing activities with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and the State Bank of Vietnam, the GDT has obtained data from 929 e-commerce service websites; 130 organisations in telecommunications, advertising, and broadcasting; and 144 million payment accounts (including 10 million organizational accounts and over 134 million individual accounts). The tax authority also recorded over 663,000 connections with the citizen database of the Ministry of Public Security. Furthermore, they shared information with the Ministry of Industry and Trade regarding 929 e-commerce platforms, cross-referencing data of 53,000 business operators from 383 platforms, including major players like Shopee, Lazada, Sendo, Voso, and Tiki. In the first five months of the year, revenue managed from organisations and individuals engaged in e-commerce activities amounted to approximately $71 billion. The taxes paid were around $2 billion, a 23 per cent increase compared to the average for the same period. In Hanoi, the GDT reported that the rate of data matching between citizen ID information and tax codes exceeded 99.8 per cent. The tax authority has identified hundreds of e-commerce platform owners and thousands of online business individuals. Tax revenue from the e-commerce sector in Hanoi alone exceeded $400 million in the first six months, with personal taxes, including those from livestream activities, increasing by 79 per cent. Additionally, the GDT reported that the total taxes declared and paid directly through the electronic information portal by foreign providers in the first half of the year reached $161.56 million, a nearly 19 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2023. This includes significant contributions from major technology companies such as Google ($41.16 million), Meta ($58.68 million), TikTok ($28.92 million), and Apple ($18.48 million). Furthermore, 26 new foreign providers have registered, declared, and paid taxes in Vietnam through this channel in the first half of 2024, indicating a growing compliance trend among international e-commerce entities. At a meeting to discuss investment policy for the high-speed railway on July 11, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh instructed the Ministry of Transport (MoT) to clarify the political, legal, practical outlook for the project, emphasising the need for comprehensive research. The 1,541km-long railway will serve twenty cities and provinces and addresses the national demand for improved transport and logistics. PM Chinh stressed the need for innovative and strategic approaches to complete the railway by 2035. The project is designed to use the most efficient and shortest routes, operating at speeds of 350km per hour. It will complement existing north-south transport routes, including National Highway No.1, Ho Chi Minh Highway, and the under-construction expressway, and focus on passenger transport, while also supporting fast freight and national defence needs. The existing railway will also be upgraded for freight transport. "The MoT needs to calculate the total investment and thoroughly evaluate the socioeconomic impact. These calculations will inform us of the best way to mobilise capital and by what means, such as central and local government funds, loans, bond issuance, and corporate funds," the PM said. PM Chinh also highlighted the necessity of a modern, digitalised management plan, workforce training, technology transfer and the development of a railway industry ecosystem, in line with the directives of the Politburo. Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha will continue to oversee the project, with the MoT refining the project details, incorporating feedback, and preparing for the subsequent submission for approval. Meanwhile, the project has attracted the attention of a Chinese investor. Last October, China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. (CCCC) announced that it wished to invest in several major infrastructure projects in Vietnam, including the north-south high-speed railway. However, there has been no update since then. CCCC has been operating in Vietnam since 1996. The company has implemented more than 20 infrastructure and energy projects here, including Hanoi Haiphong Expressway and Cai Mep Thi Vai Port, as well as Vinh Tan - Binh Thuan thermal power plant and wind power projects. Path to modern north-south hi-speed railway construction outlined The building of the north-south hi-speed rail line must ensure modern, cohesive, and sustainable elements in line with the Politburos guideline as outlined in Conclusion No. 49-KL/TW, permanent Government members made the conclusion in a document issued by the Government Office on February 19. Hanoi to ask for WBs help with design of national railway station The Hanoi Department of Transport has proposed the municipal Peoples Committee ask for the World Bank (WB)s assistance in the technical design of the general layout for the Ngoc Hoi national railway station complex. Chinese railway group opens ties Tracodi China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) on June 12 signed a cooperation agreement with Tracodi, a subsidiary of Bamboo Capital Group, to invest in and develop transport infrastructure, industrial park infrastructure, and social housing in Vietnam. Chinese group proposes to build Tu Lien Bridge and Hanoi Metro Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received leaders from some of the top Chinese infrastructure and energy development firms in Beijing on June 27, including Yan Jiehe, founder of Pacific Construction Group. Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam is one of the first companies to form a strategic partnership with the forestry sector for sustainable forest development, water conservation, and carbon neutrality. The event was marked by a conference named Public-Private Partnership in Developing the Multi-use Value of Forest Ecosystems and Launching of the National Park Passport Initiative. The conference was attended by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan, Suntory Pepsico Vietnam executives, representatives from various ministries, local authorities, embassies, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, associations, businesses, and national nature reserve managers. Director of the Forestry Department Tran Quang Bao and general director and CEO of Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam Jahanzeb Khan signed an MoU for sustainable forest development Jahanzeb Khan, general director and CEO of Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam, addressed the companys commitment to sustainable development in the country, Through strategic public-private partnerships with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, we are raising the impact of our ongoing reforestation programmes and pursuing multiple objectives, such as restoring and replenishing more than 100 per cent of the water used in production at all our plants by 2050, contributing to carbon offset and improving livelihoods." The key areas of cooperation between the MARD and Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam aim to develop forests sustainably, and leverage the multi-use value of forest ecosystems, encompassing environmental, economic, and educational values. Firstly, the collaboration focuses on planting large timber trees and native species combined with medicinal plants. The programme is expected to plant and enrich nearly 250 hectares of forest in watershed and protective forest areas across the country. This approach aims to improve local livelihoods, enhance carbon absorption and neutralisation, protect forest environments, and regenerate water resources. In addition, a "Forestry Semester" for students and tourists will be implemented with the goal of creating forest experiences, educating participants about water resources, biodiversity, and fostering a love for nature. Director of the Forestry Department Tran Quang Bao emphasised the important roles of both the public and private sectors in developing sustainable forests and leveraging the multi-use value of forest ecosystems Tran Quang Bao, director of the Forestry Department, stated, The overarching goal of the forestry sector is to become an economic-technical sector and to establish, manage, protect, develop, and use forests sustainably, ensuring broad and equal participation of all economic sectors in forestry activities. Therefore, the roles of both the public and private sectors are extremely important. According to Nguyen Hong Hai, deputy director of the Forestry Department, private sector funding accounts for 83 per cent of forest restoration activities. Forest environmental services development has received VND 3.5 trillion ($145.8 billion) from businesses in the hydroelectric power, clean water, and tourism sectors. "Public-private partnerships offer significant benefits. They serve as a channel for mobilising resources to develop the forestry sector. Private sector involvement, including businesses, can contribute technological advancements, technical expertise, and new initiatives such as carbon finance schemes, said Hai. For 30 years, under the "Growing for Good" motto, Suntory Pepsico Vietnam has committed to sustainable development through practical initiatives, including water conservation, sustainable packaging, and sustainable production practices. According to the 2023 forest status report, Vietnam has over 14.86 million ha of forests with diverse ecosystem values. "There should be appropriate mechanisms to support, facilitate, and encourage organisations and individuals from all economic sectors to participate in forestry investment and development," said the report. Vietnam approves sustainable forestry development programme by 2025 The Vietnamese government on August 5 issued Resolution No.84/NQ-CP approving the programme on sustainable forestry development in 2021-2025. Project to develop multi-use values of forest ecosystem to 2030 approved Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang on February 29 signed a decision approving a project on developing multi-use values of the forest ecosystem to 2030, with a vision to 2050. Vietnam receives $41 million from World Bank for sale of forest carbon credits Vietnam has received over $41 million from World Bank for sale of forest carbon credits, equal to 80 per cent of the committed amount under the Emission Reductions Payment Agreement. The Vietnamese government has issued a decree to cover direct power purchase agreements (DPPA) that allow enterprises to purchase renewable energy from private producers without an intermediary. The agreement, signed on July 9, allows enterprises to sign renewable energy contracts exceeding a certain scale with private producers, not just the state-owned Vietnam Electricity (EVN). Until now, enterprises mainly procure renewable energy through small-scale solar panels on the roofs of their sites or by purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs). With the implementation of the DPPA, Samsung Electronics Vietnam will be able to strengthen the institutional foundation for securing renewable energy. Samsung Electronics has been tirelessly working with various stakeholders, including the Vietnamese government and civil society organisations, to introduce the DPPA system and put climate strategy into practice. Since the first DPPA discussions began in 2019, Samsung has emphasised the need to introduce a renewable energy procurement mechanism as soon as possible to achieve the country's net-zero carbon emissions goals, and provided technical advice on how to implement the mechanism. Samsung has also continued to communicate with stakeholders through the Asia Clean Energy Coalition (ACEC), a coalition of renewable energy buyers, in collaboration with sellers and financiers, to strategically shift policy in key Asian markets, including Vietnam. Through the DPPA, we plan to get in touch with large-scale renewable energy producers proportionate to the size of operations at Samsung Electronics Vietnam and make competitive purchases of renewable energy, said executive vice president Joo Ho Choi, general director of Samsung Vietnam Complex. We will continue to work with the Vietnamese government to advance Vietnams renewable energy infrastructure. Vietnam authorises DPPA for rooftop solar and biomass projects A recently issued government decree permits rooftop solar, waste-to-energy, and biomass projects to engage in direct power purchase agreements (DPPA) without routing through Vietnam Electricity (EVN). US applauds Vietnam for approving DPPA decree The United States Mission to Vietnam has applauded the government for approving a decree on the direct power purchase agreement. Members of the National Samsung Electronics Union shout slogans in front of a signboard of Samsung Electronics outside the company's Giheung Campus in Yongin on July 10, 2024. A union representing tens of thousands of workers at Samsung Electronics in South Korea said on July 10 it would extend a three-day strike indefinitely in a bid to force management to negotiate. Jung Yeon-je / AFP Here's what we know: - What's going on? - Workers, including some from Samsung Electronics' foundry where the world's most advanced computer chips are produced, walked off the job Monday after months of negotiations with management stalled. The National Samsung Electronics Union wants pay raises, a more transparent performance-based bonus system and an extra day off every year to mark the union's founding in 2019. It is the first indefinite strike in the history of Samsung -- the largest of the chaebols, or family-run firms, that dominate the South Korean economy. The company was actively anti-union for decades, with founder Lee Byung-chul declaring he would never allow them "until I have dirt over my eyes". He died in 1987. "Samsung is the hardest imaginable place to unionise and strike," Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korean studies at the University of Oslo, told AFP. "If Samsung workers succeed in this undertaking, it will empower the rest of South Korea's labour." - What is Samsung's response? - Samsung has said the strike will not affect production, but experts say its staunch anti-union history means it is ill-equipped to defuse the standoff. "Samsung has had no experience in resolving labour issues with its workers," said activist and former lawmaker Chun Soon-ok, whose brother died by self-immolation in 1970 protesting brutal working conditions in the textile industry. Due to this "lack of understanding", the company "needs to bring in someone with expertise in labour relations to find a way out of the current gridlock", she added. - Will it hit production? - With the world's lowest birthrate and tightly controlled immigration, many South Korean companies including Samsung have long embraced factory automation, in part as a hedge against the looming demographic crisis. The country has the highest robot density in the world, with one for every 10 employees -- nearly 40 percent more than runner-up Singapore, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Even so, "Samsung must recognise that it can't make chips without a labour force", Chun said, adding that ever-intensifying competition in the sector made skilled workers essential. - What are Korean factories like? - South Korea's factories may be high-tech, but its "industrial accident fatality rate is significantly higher than the OECD average", said Kim Sung-hee, a professor at Korea University's Graduate School of Labor Studies. This is due to a "failure to adequately address worker safety issues" because it is not the top priority for companies or the government, Kim told AFP. There were more than 8,000 work-related deaths from 2020 to 2023, labour ministry data showed. Last month, 23 people were killed in a major fire at a South Korean lithium battery factory. In Samsung's semiconductor plants, workers have alleged that inadequate protection resulted in employees contracting cancer -- something the company formally apologised for in 2014. - What do Koreans think? - Labour organisation rates are low in South Korea, with only 13.1 percent of wage earners belonging to unions, Seoul says. In the 1970s and 1980s, labour groups were involved in the country's pro-democracy movement, opposing the military-backed dictatorship. The unionised workers -- who were often framed as North Korean sympathisers by the authoritarian government -- sometimes employed militant tactics, a legacy that still colours South Koreans' perceptions, experts say. According to a 2022 study by Hankook Research, 45 percent of South Koreans still viewed union activities "negatively". "In cases like the Samsung strike, the public often perceives these union members as 'greedy' people demanding more benefits" despite already being well paid, professor Kim said. - Does S. Korea have a lot of strikes? - An ongoing strike by junior doctors against government training reforms is currently causing healthcare disruptions, and a huge strike last July briefly hit export-focused auto production. Some strikes have seen violence: one at Ssangyong Motor in 2009 ended with a major police crackdown. But the Samsung union's action shows strike culture is evolving, said Lee Sang-min, professor at Hanyang University. "They are non-political compared to other unions, and are more open to trying new things," Lee told AFP. "If you look at general strike culture compared to the past, violent and illegal strikes have been greatly reduced, and legal and peaceful protests have taken place." Samsung union says will strike after talks breakdown A union representing tens of thousands of workers at South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics told AFP on Tuesday it would hold a three-day strike later this month after negotiations failed. PM visits Samsungs semiconductor cluster in RoKs Gyeonggi province Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his entourage on July 3 visited Samsung's semiconductor cluster in Gyeonggi province as part of his official visit to the Republic of Korea (RoK). Under the plan, the 66km-long Tan Phu - Bao Loc motorway, connecting the provinces of Lam Dong and Dong Nai, will be 17m wide and allow for four lanes of automobiles and emergency stopping lanes. The project is proceeding with an initial investment of about VND17.2 trillion ($716.7 million). Lam Dong will contribute VND8.9 trillion ($371 million), accounting for nearly half of the investment. The Bao Loc- Lien Khuong motorway, will also be 17 metres wide with four lanes and emergency stopping lanes, but will be 73.6 km long with an initial investment of VND19.5 trillion ($825 million). Lam Dong will contribute VND8.7 trillion (almost $332 million) to the project. Once completed, the two projects will connect Ho Chi Minh City to key economic regions in the south, including the cities and provinces of Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Long An, and Tien Giang. The region is home to many industrial parks, shopping malls, and the commercial centres of many major retail groups. Other key transport projects are currently being implemented to connect the localities in the region. Ring Road No.3, running 90km and costing nearly VND75.4 trillion ($3.14 billion), is to pass through Ho Chi Minh City and the three provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An. It will have six lanes designed for speeds of 80-100km per hour for commuting and two lanes for emergency stops. The first phase of the project will stretch 76km long with four lanes, with each locality responsible for clearing the site and building the section in their territory. It is expected to be open for traffic in late 2025 and be fully complete by 2026. Construction of the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau motorway, passing through Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces, started in mid-June. The project is expected to ease traffic congestion on National Highway No.51, which is becoming overcrowded and causing more and more problems and delays. It will also help facilitate travel between Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces and Ho Chi Minh City. The southeast key economic region has maintained its role as the economic engine of the country, with impressive economic indicators recorded in all regional localities, especially in exports. In addition, Ho Chi Minh City, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau are among the top five cities and provinces in the country for attracting foreign investment. New roads the answer for economic growth It is projected that 2024 could be a bumper year for expressway construction to get moving, with several localities approving plans for vital connection infrastructure. Ba Ria-Vung Tau showing enormous potential for development The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau has ramped up efforts to open Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway on schedule by 2025, as directed by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on his field visit to the project site in mid-February. PM urges stronger efforts to complete expressway target Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has asked for greater efforts from ministries, sectors, and localities to realise the goal of completing 3,000 km of expressways nationwide by December 31, 2025. At Stellantis, the issue is that a "seat belt buckle switch sensor may be improperly connected, preventing the front seat air bag from deploying as intended," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a written notice to US Stellantis unit FCA. Stellantis, BMW recall 725,000 US autos over airbag issues, illustration photo "A front seat air bag that does not deploy as intended can increase the risk of injury in a crash," the notice added. The affected pool of around 330,000 autos includes certain models of Alfa Romeo, Jeep and Fiat between 2017 and 2024. FCA discovered the issue during a "routine review" of customer feedback. The company said it knows of no injuries or accidents. "Drivers may notice their airbag light remains illuminated after vehicle start-up, or, the seatbelt reminder sound is activated, even if the seatbelt is fastened," FCA said in a press release. "The remedy will be provided free of charge." BMW said its recall pertained to around 394,000 older vehicles from between 2006 and 2011 containing Takata airbags. The airbags are prone to an explosion that "may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants." Defects in the airbags have been linked to more than two dozen fatalities in the United States. The Takata brand disappeared in 2018 following a bankruptcy in the wake of the airbag scandal, which affected almost every major global automaker, including Toyota and General Motors, and triggered the auto industry's biggest-ever safety recall. BMW to invest $1.7 bn in electric car production in US German carmaker BMW said Wednesday it will invest $1.7 billion in the production of electric vehicles in the United States. BMW unveils car that can change color BMW unveiled Wednesday the prototype of a car that can change color and showcases digital features like projecting driving data across the inside of the windshield. BMW to produce plug-in hybrid car in S.Africa German automaker BMW said Thursday it will inject millions into its South African plant, making it the second in the world to produce and export its X3 plug-in hybrid model. Toyota shares sink after Daihatsu suspension, US recall Shares in Japanese auto titan Toyota dived Thursday as a rigged safety test scandal builds at subsidiary Daihatsu, and after it recalled a million vehicles in the United States over airbag safety concerns. Since Russia's capture of swaths of agricultural land in Ukraine in early 2022, Kyiv has accused Moscow of illegally harvesting and shipping grain produced on occupied territory to third countries. Ukraine says it seized cargo ship used for Crimea grain exports, Photo : themoscowtimes.com The office of the prosecutor general in Ukraine said it had seized the vessel in the southern Odesa region, and that the ship had earlier exported agricultural products via Sevastopol -- a key Russian Black Sea naval hub in Crimea. The waterway has become a fierce battleground of the war, and Ukraine has beaten back a formidable Russian naval blockade of its ports with a fleet of relatively cheap maritime drones. The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) said in a separate statement that it had detained the ship's captain, accusing him of violating rules on entering occupied territory. It also claimed that the grain exported by the vessel -- Usko Mfu -- had been "looted" from southern Ukraine. The charges against the capitan carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the SBU said, while prosecutors identified him as a citizen of Azerbaijan, an ex-Soviet country in the South Caucasus. - Shipments to Turkey - Prosecutors said 12 other foreign crew members were on board at the time of the vessel's seizure, without elaborating on their nationality or whether they too would face charges. The Cameroonian-flagged vessel illegally docked at Sevastopol in November 2023 and loaded more than 3,000 tonnes of agricultural products "intended" for a Turkish company, prosecutors said. "To conceal the illegal activity, the ship's Automatic Identification System (AIS) was turned off before entering the port of Sevastopol, which is a gross violation of maritime safety requirements," their statement added. Prosecutors said the ship returned to Sevastopol a second time in May this year. It was seized at the Ukrainian port of Reni, they added, where they discovered documents issued by Sevastopol port authorities. The port on the Danube in west Ukraine was one of several systematically targeted by Russian aerial attacks after Moscow last year scrapped a UN and Turkish brokered deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea. Igor Delanoe -- deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory -- said this was the first time Ukraine had seized an internationally-flagged vessel over the shipments. "The signal is that they want to make third countries face up to their responsibilities," he told AFP. "From the Ukrainian point of view, these countries are supporting Russia by their silence, while at the same time benefiting from grain that Ukrainians consider stolen," he added. Prosecutors said later on state-television they had issued 21 warrants to seize cargo ships in absentia they believe have docked at Ukrainian ports under Russian occupation. Igor Ponochovny, a Ukrainian official in the prosecutor's office working on issues related to the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russian forces in 2014, said the seizure was a "signal to countries that help Russia to circumvent sanctions." The European Union in May imposed "prohibitive" duties on grain imports from Russia in a bid to cut off revenues to Moscow for its war on Ukraine. The bloc's trade commissioner said the measure would "tackle illegal Russian exports of stolen Ukraine grain into EU markets". The head of Ukraine's southern Kherson region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia, said Thursday that Russian forces caused fires on dozens of hectares of Ukrainian land growing grain. He also said that Russian forces had struck a grain storage facility in the region and attacked firefighters who arrived to extinguish the fire with drones. According to the Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association (Vinafruit), in June 2024, fruit and vegetable exports reached about $800 million, up 20.84 per cent on-year, contributing to bringing the total first-half exports to $3.5 billion, a 30.6 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. Notably, durian accounted for $1.5 billion of this figure. Dang Phuc Nguyen, general secretary of Vinafruit, stated that this year, Vietnam aims to achieve $3.5 billion in export turnover from durian, an on-year increase of 55 per cent. China is the largest market for Vietnamese durian. In the first quarter of 2024, Vietnam surpassed Thailand to become the number one durian exporter to China, with a volume of 32,750 tonnes valued at $161 million, a 2.4-fold increase in volume compared to the same period last year. Vietnam's durian market share in China by value increased from 32 per cent in Q1/ 2023 to 57 per cent in Q1/2024. Vietnamese and Chinese authorities have completed technical negotiations to sign a protocol for exporting frozen durian to China. If China agrees to officially import frozen durian, the export value of durian will increase significantly. According to Vinafruit, Vietnamese durian has advantages with abundant production, year-round harvesting, and at many times, it does not directly compete with Thai durian. Transportation times are fast, and prices are reasonable, especially for frozen durian. Fresh durian from Vietnam is currently exported to 22 countries and territories, while frozen durian is exported to 23 countries and territories. Vietnam is also negotiating exports of fresh durian to India, helping to reduce its dependence on China and open up new development opportunities for the agricultural sector. According to tuoitre.vn, Le Van Thiet, deputy director of the Plant Protection Department (PPD) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, shared his expectations about expanding durian consumption in India, a country with a population of over a billion people. "Currently, China is the largest market for Vietnamese durian. However, relying too much on a single market always poses risks. Therefore, opening the Indian market is good news for Vietnam's durian industry," Thiet said. He added that Vietnam has submitted documents and is waiting for India to consider signing a protocol to begin exporting durian to the country. "India does not have strict regulations like China, and shipping costs by sea are also cheaper, making it a potential market," Thiet added. However, Vinafruit noted that recent shipments have been flagged for banned substance contamination, affecting the reputation of Vietnamese goods. Therefore, businesses need to increase inspections at source and in packing facilities to stop contaminated shipments. The PPD said that local authorities and businesses should closely monitor growing area codes and packing facilities to avoid purchasing goods from unauthorised sources, which could exports of legitimate businesses. Ngo Tuong Vy, general director of Chanh Thu Fruit Import Export JSC, said that while market expansion is very important, the decisive factor is still the quality of Vietnamese durian. If good quality is maintained, Vietnamese durian will attract many potential markets in the future. Additionally, Vy proposed a mechanism to separate durian into an independent industry with its own management mechanism. Fruit and vegetable exports hit record high in first half of 2024 Fruit and vegetable exports continue to be a bright spot in the overall economic picture for the first half of 2024, with revenues approaching $3.5 billion. China drives Vietnam's agricultural export boom Vietnam has witnessed a significant surge in agricultural trade with China, with the total import-export turnover between the two nations reaching an impressive $175.6 billion in 2022. Amidst the challenges faced by other key export sectors in the US and EU markets, Vietnamese agricultural products have experienced remarkable success, particularly in China. The EV company is considering borrowing in either US dollars or local currency. This move aims to enhance VinFast's competitiveness against other global EV manufacturers, particularly in an increasingly fierce market driven by a price war. Since launching its first model five years ago, VinFast has continuously received financial backing from Vietnam's richest man, billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong. As Vuong stated in a recent interview, he will support the company "until I run out of money." In an interview in June, Vuong said that VinFast was not just a business venture, but also a project of dedication. "VinFast will soon reach the break-even point and become self-sufficient," he said. Despite only beginning car production a little over five years ago, VinFast has now entered the US market and is competing with major corporations like Tesla and Hyundai. The company is also making inroads into markets such as India and Indonesia. Vuong also expressed his confidence in steering VinFast through challenges, even as global giants like Toyota and Volkswagen face difficulties. "We are confident in our ability to navigate and overcome these challenges," he said. In a related development, VinFast informed the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 14 that it has decided to expedite the establishment of manufacturing facilities in key markets to leverage attractive government incentives. Specifically, in India, VinFast plans to commence production at its Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu facility in the first half of 2025. In Indonesia, VinFast aims to break ground on its manufacturing facility within the next two months and start production by the end of 2025. Each facility in India and Indonesia is projected to have an initial annual capacity of approximately 50,000 EVs for phase one, with the potential to increase up to 300,000 vehicles annually, depending on market demand. Currently, the global EV market is experiencing a fierce price war. Ken Foong, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, noted that VinFast faces significant risks due to competition in the US market as a new entrant. "They will need to build their brand and endure intense competition. This is not easy in the US and will require a lot of time and money," Foong said. ADB greenlights $80 million loan package for LPBank to finance woman-owned businesses The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LPBank) on June 12 signed a financing package of up to $80 million to expand access to finance for a women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (WSMEs) project in Vietnam. A $10 billion semiconductor plant is bound for Bryan, potentially doubling the property tax base of the city 90 miles from Waco. City and Brazos County officials approved tax breaks worth billions of dollars for the project this week but kept the identity of the company behind it secret and refused to even reveal what would be built on the undeveloped site owned by the Texas A&M University System. Filings with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, first obtained by the Austin Business Journal, revealed the project owner is Americas Foundry Bryan LLC, with a parent company called Substrate Inc., headquartered in San Francisco. An economic impact analysis report shows the total capital investment for the project would exceed $108 billion across the next 40 years. The project has received the greenlight from A&Ms board of regents and received approval for a lucrative tax abatement agreement from both the Brazos County Commissioners Court and the Bryan City Council. Local leaders with knowledge of the project are all under nondisclosure agreements regarding the projects details and have been vague with answers about what the project would entail. A Form AP-243 that Americas Foundry Bryan LLC filed with the comptrollers office shows the project is called Project One Factory. Construction is slated to start late this year and be completed in 2028. Operations are expected to start in 2030, which is the first year of the incentive period that runs through 2039. The project includes a 3-million-square-foot advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility that features administrative buildings, central utilities buildings and infrastructure, a machine shop, receiving and warehousing facilities, and roads. Along with tax abatements from Brazos County and the city of Bryan, Americas Foundry Bryan LLC also has filed for unknown amounts from the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Texas Enterprise Zone Project Designation, the Texas Skills Development Fund and the United States Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors Incentive Program. The project would be located on an undeveloped 288-acre parcel on the A&M Systems Respect, Excellence, Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity and Service Campus. The Bryan City Council designated the site last month as a reinvestment zone to allow for property tax breaks. Bryan city staff said the purpose of the designation was to attract a significant economic development project with the A&M System. The tax abatement will be 80% for the first five years, dropping to 50% for the remaining five. The guaranteed value of the tax abatement begins at $100 million and increases to $10 billion by year seven. According to the agreement, the facility also will create an estimated 1,800 jobs by year 10. A&M System Chancellor John Sharp said Tuesday that the project has the potential to double the city of Bryans taxable income. Bryan city staff said the Brazos Central Appraisal Districts current 2024 estimate of net taxable value for the city to be certified on or before July 25 is a little more than $9.9 billion. Americas Foundry Bryan LLCs parent company, Substrate Inc., a startup company headquartered in San Francisco, engaged in a multi-state site selection process for its initial semiconductor manufacturing facility. The company does not have another business presence in Texas. At the start of the companys site selection process, 12 states offered specific incentives for semiconductor manufacturing. The company received a report last year on six states Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Utah and later added New York to the search. The company later narrowed its search to Texas, Oregon and New York. An economic impact analysis covers a 41-year period, starting with the six-year construction phase, the 10-year incentive period, and an additional 25 years through 2064. The report shows tax revenues during the construction period are more than $463 million for the state of Texas, more than $46 million for the city of Bryan, and more than $15 million for Brazos County. Sharp credited multiple people for their work on the project during comments to the Bryan City Council on Tuesday. He said David Staack, who has served as interim director of the A&M Semiconductor Institute, has taken over the project. Sharp said Susan Davenport, president and CEO of the Brazos Valley Economic Development Corp., is an absolute wizard. Both Davenport and Staack joined Sharp at commissioners court and city council meetings Tuesday. Sharp also said Bryan Mayor Bobby Gutierrez has become the best friend of the CEO of this possible operation. Davenport and Gutierrez were part of a delegation of local leaders on a Brazos Valley Economic Development Corp.-sponsored trip to Japan last month to discuss possible international business opportunities. WATERLOO The Black Hawk County 4-H and FFA Fair will kick off on Sunday at the National Cattle Congress grounds, hosting a variety of livestock shows, games, and educational events. The fair will run through Thursday evening with a slew of activities each day. The annual shows for beef, dairy, sheep, and goats plus other livestock and animals will take place at various locations on the grounds throughout the week along with new activities. On Tuesday, there will be mutton busting in the Pullin-Simonsen Arena at 6:30 p.m. followed by the goat challenge. On Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., the arena will host donkey races. Local 4-H members will make presentations on a variety of topics during the fair. A STEM Fair will also be held 1-4 p.m. Wednesday at Estel Hall. At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, a barbeque cookout and carnival will take place outside of the arena. Diane Wolfe, Black Hawk County 4-H youth coordinator, explained how the fair is an opportunity for children to get involved in their community and learn. The thing that excites me the most is hearing kids figure out how to overcome a difficulty, she said. If they were doing a project, and it failed, how did they work through that to overcome that problem and make it a success? One of the 4-H presenters is Lydia Knight, a student at Waterloo Christian School. Lydia is planning to present her research on hydration and its importance. As a cross-country runner, Lydia became intrigued on the importance of hydration firsthand. Your body is 78% water and losing even 2% of that can be a problem. ... Its been a hot summer, so I saw a lot of people passing out during races, she noted. Ever since then, Ive been really interested in hydration and I want to share it with people. According to Wolfe, between the livestock shows, presentations and the carnival, theres something for everyone at the fair. We have our educational events, our carnival which isnt like a traditional carnival with rides, but more games. Then, its always fun to be able to go through the barns and see all the animals ... this is why we love the event. Just lots of good family events, said Wolfe. Among the fairs first events at 6 p.m. Sunday, the communication winners advancing to the Iowa State Fair will be announced. That was among the contests which took place ahead of the fair. The Miss Black Hawk County Fair Queen competition follows at 6:15 p.m. Among the events on Monday are the llama show, the sheep and goat show, and a kick ball game. On Tuesday, the fair will host the swine show, dog show and poultry show. Wednesday will be the horse shows. On Thursday, the fair will feature the beef/dairy show, rabbit show, and pet show plus pie judging and the family picnic, which will conclude the week of activities. The county fair will also host challenge classes, which are open to the public. Community members are invited to participate in creating art from junk yard items, making sugar cookies, arranging flowers in a five-gallon buckets, or submitting a weather-focused photo. Prizes are available for each age division for each challenge class. For a full list of the Black Hawk County Fair schedule, including the location and times of events, go online to www.extension.iastate.edu/blackhawk/county-fair. Photos: Swine Show, July 18, 2023 071823jr-fair-2 071823jr-fair-3 071823jr-fair-4 071823jr-fair-5 071823jr-fair-6 071823jr-fair-7 071823jr-fair-1 CEDAR FALLS Growing up the daughter of a poet and an artist, Amelia Blue Gotera was given the space to pursue creative work. Still, she long believed that a career as an educator was the only way to make a living in the arts. But then she found the University of Northern Iowas Public Art Incubator, where she mastered skills over several years to truly make a living as an artist everything from how to use software, to 3D-model a sculpture before beginning, to working with local governments to bring public art to life. The Cedar Falls native, now 33, graduated in May from UNI with a bachelors of fine arts in sculpture. Already, opportunities abound for Gotera. Her proposal was selected to make a sculpture for Cedar Valley Pride. She plans to stay busy while exploring masters degree programs. As a queer woman of color in the arts, Gotera said things can feel off-limits, but the incubator has given her the confidence and qualifications to make art a career. Shes hopeful so many opportunities will come her way some day that she can be selective. The beauty of public art, Gotera said, is that its accessible. It becomes a nostalgic part of an environment, an opportunity to present my point of view, feel seen and help others feel seen. Its a powerful thing to leave a mark on a space, Gotera said. On a recent Wednesday, Gotera looked at ease as she held a propane tank and a torch, using it to melt wax to restore a Cedar Rapids sculpture Ann Royers Between Friends. The piece normally is situated at the corner of Third Street and Third Avenue Southeast, outside the Hibu building in downtown Cedar Rapids. It depicts two figures with their backs to one another atop a trapezoidal box. They are configured in a way that makes them look like dancers doing an interpretive dance. The sculpture is made of cast bronze and bronze sheet, a dark green with brown undertones. It is mounted to a painted concrete pedestal. Some of the protective wax coating eroded since the sculpture was installed in 1992. To restore the sculpture, students removed dirt and debris by hand. They also had to restore the protective archival wax coating, first melting wax in a heated bowl, brushing it onto the sculpture and then blasting it with a torch to cover the large surface. The wax helps protect the art from dirt and dust. Holding the torch as she admired the progress made on the sculpture, Gotera paused: It looks so vibrant. Cedar Rapids is one of several Iowa communities that have turned to the Public Art Incubator for assistance with their art collections. The program runs out of UNIs Kamerick Art Building, giving students real-world experience working with artists and community leaders to fabricate sculptures that are placed in public spaces such as parks and libraries. Since the first project was completed through the program in 2011, Public Art Incubator Coordinator Dan Perry said students have worked on more than 65 public art pieces, ranging from Special Olympics cauldrons for the national games to hot air balloon sculptures that will be displayed in Indianola, known for its annual balloon festival. Its showing them at a young age they can contribute to their communities in a real way, Perry said. Helping define a place Demand has grown for public art conservation in Iowa, Perry said, as the worsening climate crisis takes a toll on the condition of art displayed outdoors. More communities are taking an interest in preserving the pieces they have or adding new ones. Public art becomes landmarks within a community, Perry said, creating a sense of place that helps people connect the piece to a specific city. Art pieces can start conversations, make people think and tell a communitys story. I think public art is invaluable to us as a culture, Perry said. It helps define a place. Communities often get connected to the UNI program through the Iowa Arts Council, which supports communities and their local arts needs by helping identify resources such as nonprofits or universities and colleges. Council Director David Schmitz said since he stepped into the role in 2020, he has noticed a trend of public art moving into the mainstream in small rural communities and larger metro areas alike. More cities are using it to draw tourists and build an identity. In particular, Schmitz said cities are looking for help to maintain existing public art work, find qualified artists and work with them through the design and fabrication process or to secure funding for public art. A lot of communities are really looking to develop a strong identity and within that show their younger people and residents that theyre investing in the character of the community, Schmitz said. Free to be me The Public Art Incubator program restored another Cedar Rapids sculpture this year, Ascent by Robert Ellison, normally displayed in Chandler Park, and added a drainage hole because it was damaged in part from collecting water. The 25-foot steel Ricochet sculpture in Jones Park was restored last summer after it was damaged by flooding. It shows strength in rebuilding, Perry said of the citys investment in art restoration. Sarah Byrd, 20, a senior from Springfield, Illinois, is looking to become an art therapist. She had a hard time her junior year and felt alone at times, but decided she didnt want others to be. Byrd initially was focused on painting, but her newfound sculpture experience has piqued her interest in incorporating other items like Play-Doh and building blocks into her future work. In a predominantly white field and university, Byrd said the incubator makes her feel free to be me. Byrd hopes to show other minority artists they can do it, too. Despite being relative newcomers to the program, UNI junior Stacia Iverson, 18, of Webster City, and Byrd both recently worked to restore Song Sung Blue, a guitar sculpture on the promenade by the RiverLoop Amphitheatre in downtown Waterloo, after it sustained wind damage in a storm. Art should be in the community culture, Byrd said. Its like Im giving back. Iverson said the program has given her the opportunity to put her studies into practice as a studio art major with an emphasis in sculpture. She is interested in working for another incubator or being a professional sculptor, so the program gives her hands-on experience beyond whats taught in class. Its intimate and personal here, Iverson said. Photos: Sites and Bite tour, Sept. 7, 2023 090723jr-habitat-tour-8 090723jr-habitat-tour-7 090723jr-habitat-tour-6 090723jr-habitat-tour-5 090723jr-habitat-tour-4 090723jr-habitat-tour-3 090723jr-habitat-tour-2 090723jr-habitat-tour-1 In essence, NATO is sending their real hardware. Hardware it relied upon to do the wars it starts all over the world. The hardware that they would use in any conflict rather than leftovers and junk. And all of it has been destroyed easily by the Russians. NATO is looking at a massive Killing Defensive Machine in the Russians and they never saw that coming https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-nato-poised-unveil-ukraine-aid-reiterate-membership-pledge-summit-2024-07-10/ That damn gas station with nukes Now the West is scrambling and flailing, for they purposefully woke the bear. For they thought that their stick was big enough WtR They have not taken over Russia. They actually believed it was easy to do just that. But, they have destroyed the economies of Europe. As they themselves have started to whine about, If NATO loses to Russia, it is over. Then the EU will follow, and the USA will collapse So they will Double Down, Triple Down, Quadruple Down and then Go Down Their biggest error was believing they could defeat Russia without suffering retaliation and effect WtR While wine has long been the co-conspirator of choice for Michelin-starred and similarly lauded chefs, cocktails are once again coming into their own at the best restaurants in San Francisco. At top-shelf restaurants like Quince and Nisei, mixologists are increasingly playing an essential role not just in dinner menus but in the restaurants overall presentation and experience. A semi-independent cocktail bar is this seasons must-have accessory. The trend isnt exactly a new one. Kim Alter opened intimate cocktail haven Linden Room (292 Linden St., Hayes Valley) next to her elegant Nightbird back in 2017. In 2018, Dominique Crenn followed suit with the swanky Bar Crenn (3131 Fillmore St., Cow Hollow) next door to her three Michelin-starred Atelier . But the concept of a bar with the same quality and cred as its food-focused neighbor is a gift that keeps on giving. Kim Alter opened the Linden Room next door to top-shelf restaurant Nightbird in 2017. (Courtesy of @thelindenroom) Opening a bar next door to Nisei was one of the best decisions I have ever made, says chef David Yoshimura, whose Bar Iris (2310 Polk St.) debuted in 2021. Designed by buzzy interiors maven Noz Nozawa, Iris is Nisei's more fun, more feminine cousin says Yoshimura, with rounder, cooler tones with Japanese accents and a bathroom thats a world unto itself, blue-lit and painted by local artist Maya Fuji. While the restaurant and bar operate autonomously, they share the same ethos. Bar Iris drinkslike the Fern Creek (pine, green mango, mezcal, yun wu tea, yuzu sake, chareau, and clarified milk) and the Okinawa (Okinawa yam, calamansi, jougo kakuto, oat milk, li hing mui, and two types of rum)---are every bit as seasonal, Japanese-inspired, and refined as the dishes crafted in the kitchen. But theres crossover between the two establishments when it counts most. Traditional and NA cocktail pairings are prepared at Iris for guests at Nisei; and izakaya and omakase are created by the Nisei team for guests at Bar Iris. While Iris offerings enhance the Nisei experience, the semi-independent bar makes Yoshimuras artistry more accessible, giving the Nisei-curious the chance to dabble in a dish or two without splurging on the entire tasting menu. The omakase menu at Bar Iris is prepared by the Nisei team. (Courtey of @bar_iris_sf) When Lindsay and Michael Tusk debuted their freshly renovated bar at the end of April, Quince (470 Pacific Ave.) took a slightly different approach. Instead of operating the bar themselves, the Tusks three-Michelin-starred send-up to contemporary California cuisine called in James Beard Awardwinning Bar Agricole. The champions of sustainable, single-origin spirits agreed to pop up for a few months while in the process of transitioning to a new permanent space belonging to another Michelin darling, Osito (2875 18th St.). The partnership is a natural one, says bar manager Craig Lane, because both Quince and Bar Agricole share the same core philosophy, one that puts small, sustainable, biodynamic farmers and producers front and center. The cocktails Lane is mixing at Quince are more specialized takes on what Agricole is serving at Bear Agricole, their pop-up in what is soon-to-be their permanent home in the former Liliana. His favorite, the Brandy Scaffa, a limited edition Old Fashioned made with one-of-a-kind artichoke-based Cynar from the 1960s, echoes the new artichoke harvest mural painted above the bar. Quinces food can be paired a la carte with Agricoles cocktails at the chic new bar, but lets not pretend theyre bar bites. Dishes like sweet, earthy beetroot spaghetti topped with briny Tsar Nicoulai caviar are gorgeous, deliciousand not cheap. But, like at Nisei, the bar offers a sneak peak of Quince to those unable or unwilling to pay for the entire eight to ten course, $390 per person gastronomy menu, plus the bonus of a damn fine drink. Although the partnership is temporary, Lane hopes it will continue through the end of 2024. But even once Agricole moves on, exceptional cocktail barslike the swanky, glamorous venues we saw proliferating earlier this year downtownare a sign that were getting closer and closer to the top of the deep crater left by the pandemic. Out of all the cities, San Franciscos recovery has been one of the slowest in America, says Yoshimura. I think only now are we beginning to see a younger generation in San Francisco start to go out for cocktails regularly again. It makes me feel hopeful for the next few years. 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. 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(eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Wu Chao) (Web editor: Tian Yi, Zhong Wenxing) Ever imagined a celebrity dropping by your kitchen? It's time to turn that dream into reality! Excitement is rising in the kitchens of Kolkata, as Aashirvaad Dahi is stirring up a delightful surprise with the #AashirvaadTokDoiTalk contest, where participants will get a chance to invite Kharaj Mukherjee to their homes! Here's what's cooking: Participants need to share with brand their best recipe made with Aashirvaad Dahi i.e. tok doi with the hashtag #AashirvaadTokDoiTalk on Instagram and Facebook and Tag and follow @aashirvaad_svasti on Instagram / @svastiAashirvaad on Facebook. Top 3 entries with the best recipe will get a chance to invite Kharaj Mukherjee to their homes for a sit-and-dine and will be featured in our Aashirvaad Tok Doi Talk podcast on Aashirvaad Svasti Milks social media pages. From Doi Katla to Shukto, Potoler Dorma to Doi Begun, and Macher Kalia - Aashirvaad Dahi adds that special touch to participants culinary creations. As the brand puts it, "Aashirvaad tok doi khete suswadu, rannay o aane jadu" Aashirvaad Dahi is delicious and brings magic to your food! The #AashirvaadTokDoiTalk contest is more than just about recipes. It's about transforming everyday kitchens into stages of creativity, where ordinary cooks become extraordinary hosts. Winners will enjoy a dining session with Kharaj Mukherjee himself - a blend of adda, storytelling, and shared love for food. These moments will be captured in #AashirvaadTokDoiTalk podcast, bringing brands community closer through shared culinary traditions. Established in 1987, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) is a French multinational conglomerate specializing in luxury goods. It was formed through the merger of Moet Hennessy in 1971, itself a combination of Moet & Chandon (founded 1743) and Hennessy (founded 1765). Moet Hennessy, the Wines and Spirits Division of LVMH, is renowned globally. LVMH includes the iconic Louis Vuitton fashion house (founded 1854). In April 2023, LVMH became the first European company to surpass $500 billion in valuation and ranked 47th in the Forbes Global 2000 in 2023. Headquarters are in Paris. In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Smriti Sekhsaria, Marketing Director, Moet Hennessy India, shares intriguing insights into the luxury brands marketing strategies and challenges in a dynamic market. From adapting to evolving consumer behaviours to carving a niche in a dark spirits-dominated landscape, Sekhsaria unveils the innovative approaches employed by Moet Hennessy India. She also reveals the secret behind upholding luxury values amidst changing times, and offers a compelling perspective on the enduring importance of heritage in luxury branding. How has the shift from at-home drinking being a trend to a behaviour impacted your marketing strategies at Moet Hennessy India? With the changing consumer habits towards at-home consumption, especially during the pandemic, we at Moet Hennessy India have had to adapt our approach to cater to this new reality. During the pandemic, with the rise of home chefs, bakers, and pantry mixologists, leading to a surge in premium product consumption at home. This shift prompted us to introduce limited-edition craft-mixers in collaboration with Svami, enhancing the at-home consumption experience. Even currently, consumer research revealed that consumption occasionality for premium+ spirits is going strong for at home socializing wherein whisky consumption is over-indexed for at home celebrations. Thus, Glenmorangie focused on celebrating drinking your most cherished whisky in the company of close friends, around a living room coffee table, on a couch. This led to creation of Delicious Living a design first series of couches and living room accessories to celebrate the consumers drinking occasion at home. With our sparkling wine, Chandon, we gifted consumers a pair of flutes to elevate their at home drinking occasion. Understanding current occasions and building on future occasions will continue to be focused on how Moet Hennessy crafts experiences for its consumers in unique, relevant and memorable ways. What are the unique challenges you face marketing your products in a market predominantly dominated by dark spirits, and how do you differentiate your brands? In a very large sector, Moet Hennessy focuses on a small segment of the market we are a luxury wines and spirits player and find ways to display craftsmanship of products and experiences alike. Over the last few years, Indian luxury W&S market has premiumized. This aligns very well with our portfolio of prestigious brands like Dom Perignon, Moet & Chandon, Belvedere, Hennessy and Glenmorangie, to name a few. However, we are also constantly adapting our offerings and campaigns to cater to the evolving preferences of the new generation of luxury consumers, who are more inclined towards innovation and authenticity. India is considered a dark market for alcohol advertising, where traditional marketing channels such as TV & print are heavily regulated and restricted. This poses a significant challenge for us in building brand awareness and driving consumer engagement. To overcome this, we have had to be creative in our approach, focusing more on experiential events, organic PR and digital and strategic partnerships to reach our target audience. Moet Hennessy was one of the first global players to invest in India to create a world-class winery in Nashik with Chandon, our award winning sparkling wine. By investing in local production and showcasing the quality and craftsmanship in India, we are able to resonate with the growing pride and aspirations of the Indian consumer. Lastly, to create meaningful long lasting connections with our consumers, we have placed a strong emphasis on immersive experiential marketing initiatives. The Delicious Design Project is testament to that and pays homage to Indias rich cultural heritage, while amplifying the Glenmorangie campaign that infuses vibrancy and color to appeal to the new age whisky drinkers. The launch of our first ever red still wine Chandon Aurva was also a strategic move and we made sure to showcase our commitment to innovation and craftsmanship through the launch event which was thoughtfully curated to reiterate the inspiration our winemaker took from the soil and produce of Nashik Aurva, meaning Of the Earth in Sanskrit, is in fact made of the earth. Given the restrictive environment in India, what innovative strategies have you employed, such as experiential marketing, storytelling, and community engagement, to effectively reach your target audience? Experiential Marketing: To capture Indias growing audience, Glenmorangie adopted an experiential marketing strategy with an India-centric narrative The Delicious Design Project. The Delicious Design Project drew in a new generation of Indian consumers with the power to splurge - the New Maharajas, into the delicious and wonderful whisky moments with Glenmorangie. The campaign re-imagined the cultural nuances of India via a whimsical sonic-visual series created in partnership with Indian-American artist extraordinaire Karsh Kale as Wondermaker. Building on this success and narrowing in on the at-home consumption moment, we launched Delicious Living with design mavericks Shivan & Narresh. To cater to our TG and capture the at-home consumption space, we devised a design first creator strategy to drive disruptive visibility And recall. We went on to curate several touchpoints to engage with our audiences - including the Delicious Living launch event wherein we teleported 300+ designers and luxury connoisseurs, along with their 20M+ social media audience to Glenmorangies Delicious Living Room. We crafted Rivaayat in collaboration with Travel + Leisure and the new age maharajas across India. These intimate dinners celebrated Glenmorangies Delicious Living collection, as guests of the royal families of Bhanjdeo, Kathiwad and Scindia savored the spirit. The launch of Chandon Aurva at the India Art Fair is also a testament to this approach. By creating an immersive experience that surpasses the traditional boundaries of wine tasting, we sought to connect with consumers on a deeper level. The fair, renowned for showcasing the diversity and creativity of the art world, provided an ideal backdrop for Aurva's unveiling. Here, amidst masterpieces by Indian artists, wine enthusiasts had the opportunity to engage with Chandons latest creation in a setting that celebrated both craftsmanship and creativity. Another notable example of our experiential marketing efforts is the innovative and avant-garde culinary series The Pursuit of Smoke by Moet Hennessys Islay Single Malt Ardbeg. At the heart of this cutting-edge dining experience was an immersive art piece, brought to life via the captivating medium of projection mapping, transporting guests to the mystical world of Ardbeg via an animation video projected directly onto their dining tables. Following the projection, the culinary adventure continued with a multi-course dinner of meticulously crafted, smoky dishes harmoniously paired with Ardbeg cocktails designed to complement its flavours and aromas. This exclusive event brought together connoisseurs of fine spirits for an evening of refined indulgence, showcasing the exceptional quality of Ardbeg while fostering a sense of community among the guests. Storytelling: Storytelling plays a pivotal role in our marketing strategy, allowing us to communicate the heritage, craftsmanship, and values of our brands in a compelling and authentic manner. By weaving narratives that resonate with the cultural ethos of India, we connect with consumers on an emotional level, creating a sense of authenticity and relatability. Our storytelling approach aims to captivate audiences, build brand affinity, and differentiate our products in a competitive market. Community Engagement: In keeping with Ardbeg tradition, we hosted Ardbeg Day celebrations on May 31st for the very first time in India. Ardbeg Day is a global celebration of all things Ardbeg. Annually, we host like minded Ardbeg enthusiasts at the distillery for the unveiling of our limited edition release for the year. This year, we bought Ardbegs Dark Circus to Mumbai International Airport for the first-ever Ardbeg Day celebrations in the country, and first ever travel retail celebrations globally. Through the month of June, whisky fans traveling via Mumbai International Airport experienced an offbeat and smoky Ardbeggian take on the circus, through outlandish games and an extravaganza of peaty delights. Ardbeg has a strong base of loyalists in India, and we are delighted to bring to them a wonderful flavour adventure with Spectacular. With our luxury vodka, Belvedere, we created A night with Belvedere, our on-trade programme which crosses the most coveted party locations, across 4 cities. For one night, consumers immersed themselves in a global party destination vibe, sipping on Belvedere cocktails. How do you uphold the core values and principles of luxury that define the Moet Hennessy brand in your marketing efforts? Moet Hennessy is committed to preserving the heritage and excellence that define our brand while innovating to stay relevant in a dynamic market. Our approach centers around several key pillars: Heritage and Craftsmanship: We emphasize the rich history and unparalleled craftsmanship of our brands. Through storytelling and content creation, we bring to life the meticulous processes and the passionate artisans behind each bottle. This not only educates our audience but also instills a sense of reverence and admiration for the legacy of Moet Hennessy. We emphasize the rich history and unparalleled craftsmanship of our brands. Through storytelling and content creation, we bring to life the meticulous processes and the passionate artisans behind each bottle. This not only educates our audience but also instills a sense of reverence and admiration for the legacy of Moet Hennessy. Exclusivity and Prestige : Our marketing strategies are designed to reinforce the exclusivity and prestige associated with our products. We achieve this by curating bespoke experiences, limited-edition releases, and collaborations with other luxury brands. These initiatives create the rarity and desirability which is expected by our discerning clientele. : Our marketing strategies are designed to reinforce the exclusivity and prestige associated with our products. We achieve this by curating bespoke experiences, limited-edition releases, and collaborations with other luxury brands. These initiatives create the rarity and desirability which is expected by our discerning clientele. Excellence and Innovation: While we honor our traditions, we are also at the forefront of innovation. This dual focus ensures that our marketing campaigns like Delicious Design Project for our single malt - Glenmorangie, resonates with both loyal connoisseurs and a engages a new generation of luxury consumers While we honor our traditions, we are also at the forefront of innovation. This dual focus ensures that our marketing campaigns like Delicious Design Project for our single malt - Glenmorangie, resonates with both loyal connoisseurs and a engages a new generation of luxury consumers Sustainability and Responsibility: We recognize the growing importance of sustainability in the luxury sector. Our marketing reflects our commitment to environmental stewardship and responsible practices. One of our key initiatives has been the development and improvement of the Chandon winery in Nashik, India. We have made significant investments in sustainability measures such as the elimination of herbicides, installation of a solar energy system providing 60% of our energy needs, and the implementation of a new water treatment system at the winery. These practices aim to reduce our environmental footprint and promote eco-friendly production processes. We recognize the growing importance of sustainability in the luxury sector. Our marketing reflects our commitment to environmental stewardship and responsible practices. One of our key initiatives has been the development and improvement of the Chandon winery in Nashik, India. We have made significant investments in sustainability measures such as the elimination of herbicides, installation of a solar energy system providing 60% of our energy needs, and the implementation of a new water treatment system at the winery. These practices aim to reduce our environmental footprint and promote eco-friendly production processes. Consumer-Centric Approach: Understanding our consumers lifestyles and preferences allows us to tailor our marketing efforts to their aspirations. Personalized group discussions, trade dinners, unique events, and bringing of exclusive global activities in India, are just a few ways we ensure that our consumers feel valued and connected to the Moet Hennessy India family. In essence, our marketing is based on a tight tension between tradition and modernity, exclusivity and accessibility, all while maintaining the uncompromising craftsmanship that Moet Hennessy India is known for. In your opinion, how important is heritage in luxury branding, especially when comparing new luxury brands with established heritage brands like Moet Hennessy? Heritage brands like ours, possess a deep-rooted legacy that spans generations, embodying a rich history of craftsmanship, excellence, and tradition across all our brands. The narrative of heritage brands is built on a foundation of time-tested quality and a commitment to maintaining the highest standards, which fosters trust and loyalty among consumers. Consumers of luxury products often seek more than just the product itself; they desire the story, the tradition, and the assurance of quality that a heritage brand like ours offers. Tumodo, a Dubai-headquartered online B2B travel platform, has unveiled insights into the evolving dynamics of business travel within the MENA region, highlighting the growing importance of strategic routes between London and Dubai. Notably, the region witnessed a record-breaking 86.9 million international arrivals in 2023, reflecting a surge in travel demand. Tumodos platform reflects this trend, with a significant 10% of all tickets sold in the past year catering to business traveller's needs. Interestingly, London is emerging as a top business destination for MENA travellers. This is further emphasised by the notable 2% of one-way tickets booked, suggesting flexibility in trip duration. Moreover, on average the cost of two-way trip between London and Dubai is 570. The data also reveals a strong inclination towards business travel among UAE employees, with a staggering 64% intending to embark on business trips, reinforcing the significance of strategic travel routes like London and Dubai. According to Tumodos data, theres a new rising trend called bleisure. Its a concept that combines business trips with leisure activities, fostering a more enriching travel experience while remaining productive. According to Tumodos data, nearly 30% of Web Summits visitors this year extended their business trips to leisure. Moreover, internal statistics show that in the MENA region, 25% of IT professionals, 12% of finance and manufacturing professionals, and 75% of men engage in bleisure, with over half being under 35, particularly in marketing, sales, and IT development. Tumodo recognises the evolving needs of todays business travellers with its AI-powered travel management software. A recent survey found that 91% of business travellers would decline a trip that conflicts with their preferences, a challenge for dynamic trip planning. Tumodo rises to this challenge by offering flexibility and catering to unforeseen circumstances, instilling confidence in its ability to adapt to the needs of business travellers. "Recognizing London and Dubai as leading business routes underscores our dedication to supporting the region's economic development through optimised travel management solutions," said Stan Klyuy, Chief Commercial Officer, Tumodo. "Our platform's adaptability to the dynamic needs of business travellers reinforces our leadership position in the industry, fostering innovation and sustainability." Furthermore, John Mason International Movers has reported a 420% increase over the last five years in enquiries from British nationals wanting to relocate to the UAE, with a 45% surge in the past 12 months. Additionally, there has been a 50% year-on-year rise in online searches for move to Dubai and jobs in Dubai from the UK, highlighting the growing appeal of the UAE for business and emphasising the importance of the London-Dubai route. Hilton's recent studies underscore the growing importance of business travel. In 2024, 46% of global workers plan business or 'bleisure' travel. The MENA business travel market, with its bright future fueled by economic growth, rising foreign investment, and the expansion of international business hubs, presents a promising opportunity for businesses. Also Read: AgTalk | Want to bring global concepts in our own version:Plan B's Singh Riveram India Pvt. Ltd. is the exclusive distributor for Nordgreen watches in India. Sana Khan, co-founder of Riveram India, stated, "We are excited to have Harnaaz Sandhu on board, who made our country proud by winning the Miss Universe title in 2021. Her journey mirrors our brand's values of resilience, grace, and the power of dreams. We believe this synergy will inspire many to embrace their unique stories and strive for greatness.""I am thrilled to partner with Nordgreen, a brand that beautifully combines Scandinavian elegance with a commitment to respect and responsibility for future generations. Their dedication to quality craftsmanship and social responsibility resonates deeply with me. Together, we aim to inspire others to embrace a mindful lifestyle, where every moment is cherished and every choice makes a difference," expressed Harnaaz Sandhu.Rishu Bartaria, Head of Talent, shared: "We are thrilled to announce our partnership with this esteemed Danish watch brand for Harnaaz Sandhu. Their elegance and dedication to craftsmanship perfectly align with Harnaaz's values and our agency's commitment to excellence. This collaboration celebrates sophistication and style, and we look forward to creating memorable moments together."Nordgreens vision is rooted in creating meaningful connections and leaving a positive impact on the world. Harnaaz, with her commitment to social causes and advocacy for respect and responsibility towards the environment, embodies these values. Together, they aim to inspire Indians to cherish every moment and make a difference.As Harnaaz joins the Nordgreen family, the brand invites everyone to celebrate this union of elegance and purpose. Through this collaboration, Nordgreen hopes to inspire young Indians to not only look good but also to feel empowered and make a lasting impact.Watches start from INR 15,000 and are available on e-commerce platforms like Myntra, Tata Luxury, Ajio Lux, and more. For more information on Nordgreens range of watches, visit Nordgreens official website at www.nordgreen.co.in or follow their journey on social media. Surinder Chawla, the former Managing Director and CEO of Paytm Payments Bank, has been appointed as the President and Head of Response at Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. (Times Group). Partha Sinha will serve as the President and Chief Brand Officer. Chawla, who joined Paytm in February 2023, has a vast background in the banking and finance sector, previously serving as the Head of Branch Banking at RBL Bank. His career also includes roles at HDFC Bank, ABN AMRO Bank NV, and Standard Chartered Bank. Partha Sinha previously held the position of President, Response, where he was responsible for revenue growth and fostering brand-content interactions. An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad, Sinha has had a diverse career over 30 years, working as a nuclear design engineer, banker, and strategy and marketing head for media and internet companies, as well as an advertising strategist. He has been associated with notable organizations such as Ogilvy, Publicis, BBH, McCann, and Citibank. Also Read: Paytm Payments Bank receives RBI approval to appoint Surinder Chawla BJP Workers in Mumbai Hold Protest Against Rahul Gandhi's Remarks in Parliament 2 The Bharatiya Janata Party workers protested against Lok Sabha LoP and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Mumbai for his remarks made in Parliament. The workers were seen holding posters of Rahul Gandhi with a cross sign in it as a sign of protest. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, National President of BJP Yuva Morcha Tejasvi Surya said that the BJP Yuva Morcha will hold protests outside Congress offices across the country on Tuesday against Rahul Gandhis Hindu comment made in the Parliament on Monday. Hitting out at Rahul Gandhi over his remarks in the Lower House, Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said that the Parliament is not a place to mislead the public and spread fake information. Parliament is not a place to spread fake information or mislead the public. Rahul Gandhi had a lot of fake information in Parliament yesterday. At the time, concerned ministers exposed his lies. It is a part of the procedure to expunge from records the lies told on the floor of the house, he said. Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh called Rahul Gandhi immature and said that the way the LoP was speaking in Parliament looked like he was addressing a public rally. Rahul Gandhi is still immature. He has still not matured. He might have become the LoP but he is still not mature. He was speaking as if he were addressing a public rally. There were no facts or truth. He just levelled allegations. He should be mature if he has become the LoP, Singh said. After Rahul Gandhis remarks against the central government led by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) created a political uproar in the country, several portions of his maiden speech were expunged from the records of the Parliament. The portions expunged include his comments on Hindus and PM Narendra Modi-BJP-RSS among others. Rahul Gandhi in his speech in Lok Sabha on Monday afternoon, during the debate on the motion of thanks on President Draupadi Murmus address accused the BJP and RSS of preaching and spreading violence and hatred. His remarks drew protests from the Treasury benches. The Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh among others stood up to express their protest and rebut the Congress MPs remarks. The BJP leaders accused the Congress MP of speaking lies, misleading the House and terming the entire Hindu community violent. The Congress hit back with counter-allegations against the Modi government. Rahul Gandhi invoked Lord Shiva, Prophet Mohammad, Guru Nanak, Jesus Christ, Lord Budha and Lord Mahavir, saying that he had taken the idea of fearlessness from their teachings. PM Modi slammed Rahul Gandhi during his speech. Calling the entire Hindu community violent is a very serious matter, the Prime Minister said. Home Minister Amit Shah demanded an apology from Rahul Gandhi. However, Gandhi supported his statement by clarifying that the BJP and the RSS are not representative of the entire Hindu community. Delhi Police Crackdown on International Organ Transplant Racket, Arrest 7 Including Doctor 2 Delhi police have arrested seven people, including a doctor, in connection with an organ transplant racket exposed by the Crime Branch, an official said on Tuesday. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Amit Goel told ANI, Seven people have been arrested in connection with an international organ transplant racket. The mastermind of this racket was a Bangladeshi. Both the donor and receiver were from Bangladesh. We have arrested a person named Russell, who used to arrange patients and donors, and a female doctor involved in the transplant has also been arrested, said the official. Police said that the people involved in this racket had links in Bangladesh. They used to charge Rs 25-30 lakhs for each transplant. Both the donor and the receiver were from Bangladesh. They have been running the organ racket since 2019, added the police. An investigation into the matter is underway. Further details on the matter are awaited. Alabama teachers will have new authority to enforce discipline in the classroom. But it isnt clear when exactly the Teacher Bill of Rights, created by a law this spring, will get implemented in local schools. Teachers told lawmakers they have little input into disciplining students who disrupt the classroom. And when they sent a child out of the classroom, principals just send the student back to the classroom without punishment. Under the new law, teachers will be able to challenge a principal if the teacher believes an unruly student that was sent to the principals office was sent back to class prematurely. State Superintendent Eric Mackey said each school district will need to decide how to update its discipline policy. But time is of the essence, with some schools opening Aug. 1, and many schools waiting to see language recommended by the state. The state Board of Education is expected to vote on a model policy Aug. 8. The districts are in a bit of a panic, State Superintendent Eric Mackey said, because the bill is in effect the first day of school. The model policy includes five behaviors that can get students excluded from classrooms: Engage in disorderly conduct, Behave in a manner that obstructs the teaching or learning process of others in the classroom, Threatens, abuses, intimidates or attempts to intimidate an education employee or another student, Willfully disobeys an education employee, or Uses abusive or profane language directed at an education employee. What will the new discipline process look like? The law is clear that students with disabilities are first governed by their Individual Education Program, or IEP, and that the state law does not trump federal law. The law also requires a teacher to follow their principal-approved classroom management plan before sending a child out of the classroom. The teacher must also fill out a referral form for the principal to go along with the student to the office. The Teacher Bill of Rights requires the principal to certify, in writing, that the student is ready to be readmitted to class before sending the student back to the teachers classroom. The law, but not the policy - which only applies to the appeals process - requires parents to be notified at various points during the disciplinary process. Parent conferences are required for students who are excluded from class multiple times within certain time periods. The law gives principals the right to designate someone else, like an assistant principal or counselor, to handle discipline actions. The law gives the teacher the right to appeal to the local board of education. But the states model policy suggests that local boards of education require a teacher to first appeal to the district superintendent. Board President Pro Tem Marie Manning, who represents a district that includes parts of east-central and northeast Alabama, said she has been a classroom teacher and a school principal. I dont think youll see a lot of issues with this, Manning said. I think it would be more the exception than the rule. Board Vice President Tonya Chestnut represents a district that includes parts of central and southwest Alabama. She told AL.com she hopes the new law will be a win-win for teachers and students. Im just hoping that it will work for the good of the students, Chestnut said, because at the end of the day, we know if theyre not in the classroom, they definitely cant learn. However, we want to look out for the best interests and safety of our teachers. Benji Gregory, who as a child actor portrayed Brian Tanner in the 1980s sitcom Alf, was found dead along with his service dog in a vehicle in Arizona. TMZ reports Gregorys sister, Rebecca, confirmed her brother was found last month in a vehicle in a parking lot outside a Chase Bank branch in Peoria, Arizona. He was 46 years old. Gregory suffered from depression, bipolar disorder and had a sleep disorder, Rebecca tells TMZ. He often would stay awake for days, she said. Its suspected Gregory went into the bank to deposit residual checks, then returned to his vehicle and fell asleep and died of heat stroke. His service dog, Hans, also died, reports say. The Maricopa County Medical Examiners office has not released an official cause of death. In complete sadness and shock our family has lost one of the most beloved and wonderful men in our small circle, Gregorys cousin, Camille Jazzy Jenkins, writes on social media. It has taken some time to process and come to terms with our loss. We are not okay ... but take comfort knowing he is with his grandmothers. Arizona has been dealing with a heatwave for the past several weeks, with temperatures routinely well over 100 degrees. Alf ran from 1986 to 1990 and featured an Alien Life Form, portrayed as a puppet, living with a family after crash-landing in their garage. Gregory also made appearances in Murphy Brown, The A-Team, The Twilight Zone, and Punky Brewster. Abbie Stockard has a sparkling smile, a serious career goal and a heart for service. Shes the new Miss Alabama, crowned on June 29 at Samford Universitys Wright Center in Birmingham. Stockard, 21, competed as Miss Hoover, impressing the judges and earning the title after three years in the Miss Alabama organization. Shell move on to the Miss America pageant in January, representing her state for a national audience. READ: Miss Alabama 2024: Abbie Stockard, Miss Hoover, takes the crown AL.com caught up with Stockard just a few days into her reign as Miss Alabama, sitting down with her for a wide-ranging interview. Here are excerpts from that 90-minute conversation, which covered everything from from Stockards roots in Vestavia Hills shes a hometown girl, and proud of it to her thoughts on empowered women. (Oprah Winfrey, that multimedia powerhouse and philanthropist, is her ultimate celebrity role model.) (The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.) You were crowned Miss Alabama on a Saturday night at the Wright Center. When you woke up the next morning, what was your first thought? Abbie Stockard: Is this real life? I dont even remember the crowning moment. I was in complete shock, just because I had no clue what was going to happen. I woke up and I looked at my phone and it had all these texts. And Im like, Im Miss Alabama. This is real life. And now its finally set in. This was your third year competing for Miss Alabama. How did you approach the competition this year? The whole mentality I had going into it was, OK, this is my third year. I have put in all the preparation. I have put in the time, and the effort, and all the work I think it takes to be a successful Miss Alabama. So anytime I felt any kind of fear or doubt or maybe even started comparing myself to the other women, because they are all incredible I just had to be like, Abbie, you are going to go and be yourself. Thats the only person that you can be. Youve put in the work, so trust that youve prepared for this. Thats exactly what I was thinking, and I was being confident in that. It worked! You were born and raised in the Birmingham metro area, in Vestavia Hills. What makes your hometown special? Ive lived in Vestavia my whole life. Ive lived in the same neighborhood ever since I was born. I love the community in Vestavia. I went to Vestavia Hills High School, and there were so many opportunities to get involved and make a difference, not just in my school but also in my community. Something I was the president of my senior year was called Youth Leadership, and basically the tagline is Be the difference. It was a group of like 300 students that wanted to serve the school system and the community. So I just fell in love with Vestavia even more, getting to go out to community events, getting high school students involved in these events. And its just a tight-knit community. I feel like everyone knows everyone. I love that about Vestavia, and thats why I love living here. When you have free time in the Birmingham area, what kinds of things do you like to do? I love hiking and I love getting outdoors. Ever since COVID hit, my family and I started a new tradition where every Sunday after church we would go hiking. My favorite spots would be at Oak Mountain State Park. We also went to Red Mountain Park some, and I also like Moss Rock Preserve. I have become an avid pickleball player. Im not great, but I love it. I have a big sweet tooth, so Ive probably been to every ice cream place in Birmingham. My personal favorite would be Jenis Ice Cream. Even last night, I went and got ice cream at Doodles in Cahaba Heights. Literally, I would eat ice cream for every meal if I could. READ: Miss Alabama 2024 on 10 favorite restaurants: I love any kind of pasta Abbie Stockard performs in the talent competition at the Miss Alabama 2024 finals and crowning at Samford University's Wright Center, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Vasha Hunt | preps.al.com)Vasha Hunt | vhunt@al.com Your talent for Miss Alabama was dance. Did you take dance classes here while growing up? I started dancing when I was 2, and all the way up until eighth grade I trained at Jackie ONeal (School of Dance). My freshman year to senior year of high school, I was at Birmingham Dance Theatre. So I danced competitively, traveling on the weekends, and I was also on Vestavias dance team, which is called the Rebelette Dance Team. I spent a lot of my weekends traveling and competing. My freshman year (of college), I ended up trying out for the Auburn University Tiger Paws dance team. So Ive danced my whole life. It is a huge part of what I do. Why is being a dancer important or satisfying for you? I think dance has always been an escape for me. When I was in third grade, my parents got a divorce and that was a very hard time for me, because it continued all the way until middle school. I had a lot going on, and for me, dance became the only way I could kind of let it all out. Once I walked into my dance studio, anything that was causing me anxiety or stress, or just the dark place that I was in, I could go to the dance studio and I could forget about all of that. Thats where I actually felt free. So any time I do any kind of performance or my talent for Miss Alabama, theres always a deeper meaning behind it. Its more than just dance. Its a meaning that Im trying to portray, and a feeling that I want people to feel when they watch me dance. This year at Miss Alabama, you performed a contemporary dance to Lauren Daigles You Say. What was the meaning you wanted to convey? This is a very special piece. My grandmother (Martha Tucker) passed away less than a year ago, and she actually picked that song. I performed that solo my senior year of high school, and when I came up for my talent for Miss Alabama, there was no doubt I wanted to do that. Because my grandmother would say, Abbie, when you hear this song, I want you to listen to the words. I want you to know that you are loved, you are strong, you are worthy, and dont let anyone make you think otherwise. So any time that I perform that, its about the importance of sticking to the course and staying true to who you are. You love dancing, but youre not planning to dance professionally. Tell us about that. No. I thought about it. This is random, but the recruiter from DCC you know, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders reached out to me, and we had a couple phone calls. So that was in the back of my head, but I dont know. Im in nursing school at Auburn right now, and so I really want to continue pursuing that degree, and then a more advanced degree. So I think maybe dancing may be coming to an end after college. READ: Where did Miss Alabama winners go to college? Which school has the most winners? Has anyone in your family ever competed for Miss Alabama? My mom competed one year, when she was 19. But she didnt love it as much as I did. She was Miss Reveille, which was like Miss Vestavia at the time. We always grew up watching Miss Alabama together, and watching Miss America on TV, so I always loved it, ever since I was little. Miss Hoover Abbie Stockard wins Miss Alabama 2024 at Samford University's Wright Center, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Vasha Hunt | preps.al.com)Vasha Hunt | vhunt@al.com Your career goal is to be a nurse anesthetist, specializing in pediatrics. Why did you choose that specialty? I want to be a pediatric nurse anesthetist because I love kids. I love being around kids; theyve always been a huge part of my life. And basically as a nurse anesthetist, you are in charge of putting them to sleep, and then waking them up after surgery. Ive always been told I have a very calming presence, and I know as a little kid youre probably petrified about going under for surgery. I feel like I would be good at calming them down and giving them peace before they go under for a scary surgery. I also feel like I work well under pressure. And it seems exciting, and it isnt like the same thing every day, because its different cases. Thats the goal right now. Ive got some years of school down the road, but thats the goal. Does being in the medical profession run in your family? My dad (Brad Stockard) is a medical sales rep and my mom (Kim Stockard) is a pharmacist. Both my aunt and uncle are physicians. My other aunt is a psychiatrist, and my granddad was a general surgeon. I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the medical field. Some I probably would have been better off not knowing, but I always knew that it was something that I was interested in. When I started competing in (the Miss Alabama) organization, its when I realized how much I love to serve others. And thats exactly what I knew I would be doing as a nurse. You have to have compassion and you have to have empathy. And by serving the community through my service initiative in this organization, I learned thats how I have the greatest fulfillment, when Im able to give of myself to other people. Your service initiative for Miss Alabama is Be the Change: Find a Cure Cystic Fibrosis Awareness. You have a personal connection to the cause, correct? I do. When I was in third grade, like when I was 9-years-old, I met this energetic, spunky, lively girl named Maddie (Hagler). We became best friends at that young age, and we still are to this day. We are extremely close. Growing up with Maddie, I saw the effects that this disease took on her mental and physical health. Something that I just vividly remember is, she had to miss a lot of school and go into the hospital because her lung capacity is significantly lower. I remember going to visit her in the hospital, and I remember seeing my best friend lying there, helpless and weak. She was hooked up to all these cords; she had oxygen. It sparked a fire in me at a young age that this was unfair. I didnt understand: Why did she have to go through this and I didnt? Thats when my journey with cystic fibrosis began. I got partnered with the executive director of the CF Foundation of Alabama. (I started going to) events and fundraising events that were happening across the state. Then through my service initiative, I created four components: Fundraising, awareness, visibility and legislation. Over the past three years, I have been working to create and find new ways to target each of these components. I hope by doing so, well get closer and closer to finding a cure for CF, because currently there isnt one. Abbie Stockard competes in the evening gown/question section at the Miss Alabama 2024 finals and crowning at Samford University's Wright Center, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Vasha Hunt | preps.al.com)Vasha Hunt | vhunt@al.com Youll have a yearlong reign as Miss Alabama. What are some things youd like to accomplish during that time? I want to increase the visibility of this organization as much as I can. I want to continue building partnerships for Miss Alabama, to make sure shes represented across the state. I want to work on getting connected, networking and maybe securing some future sponsorships for Miss Alabama. I want to grow my service initiative, and Im excited about that. Now, as Miss Alabama, I can go across the state and meet more CF fighters and continue to find ways to grow each of those components I talked about earlier. I want to use social media, very strategically and tactically. Ive been trying to come up with ways that I can increase engagement and attraction on the Miss Alabama page, because social media is so prevalent today. I get to travel to all of the local preliminary competitions across the state, and I want to create fun backstage videos of all the contestants. I want to make them feel seen and highlighted, and post that on the Miss Alabama page. I think by doing this, other young women who arent involved, would be like, Oh, this looks like so much fun. Or, Oh, these preliminaries are happening so close to where I live, because theyre all the way across the state. So Im hoping through that, I can boost recruitment for the organization. And I want to make service the forefront of my reign. I want to travel to as many communities as I can. I really just want to serve the people and touch the lives of those across the state. What qualities do you have that will make you an effective Miss Alabama? I truly believe that I have what it takes to leave a lasting and a positive impact on this organization. Something about me is that I am a very hard worker. When I commit to something, I will commit to it wholeheartedly, and I will always go the extra mile. Thats exactly what Ive been doing as a local titleholder the past three years, and I know this attribute will allow me to be a successful Miss Alabama. Im also a very positive person. I am a social butterfly, and I truly believe that I can make a difference in the community around me. By having this platform of influence, I know that Im going to be able to do just that, by traveling across the state. Miss Alabama winners tend to be achievers. Would you describe yourself as an achiever? Im definitely an achiever. Growing up, I tried to get involved in as many opportunities as I can. I am a go-getter. I love staying busy. Im very goal-oriented. When I commit to something, Im going to do everything I can, no matter what it takes to get to that position and attain that success. The top five is counted down at the Miss Alabama 2024 finals competition and crowning at Samford University's Wright Center, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Vasha Hunt | preps.al.com)Vasha Hunt | vhunt@al.com At the Miss Alabama competition, how did it feel to be among a group of women who are also achievers? I spent the whole week with these women, and they are incredible. I still cant believe its me that won, because I look at them, and they are just amazing. They are dedicated; they are driven; theyre passionate about their service initiatives. They say that being in the Miss America organization, you are forming relationships with like-minded women. I am a testament to the fact thats so true. I spent a week with them, and I left feeling even more inspired than I was before. And its so sweet. You spend this whole week with women who will pray for you, they laugh with you, they cry with you. I left just feeling so supported and so encouraged. RELATED: Miss Alabama: Photos of every winner since 1950 Miss Alabama and Miss America talk about nurturing strong, empowered women. Do you think of yourself a feminist? I mean, yes. The ultimate mission of this organization is to empower young women. I think that women have made incredible strides in the fight for gender equality. I think women have broken down barriers. We have challenged the stereotypes, and I think now women have equal opportunities to be successful in whatever they put their minds to, whether that be society, their career or raising a family. Thats why I think this organization is so relevant, because its empowering young women. Its giving them the confidence and life skills to go and be successful and accomplish any goal that they set for themselves. Is this a good time to be a woman in the state of Alabama? Absolutely. I think the modern woman now is strong, she is capable, she is independent. She doesnt need anyone; she can do anything that she sets her mind to. Thats exactly how I feel. And tying it back to the organization, thats why its so relevant. Its empowering women to go out and seek those positions of leadership, and make sure that women are being represented in many different business roles. What would be your response to people who say Miss Alabama is outdated and irrelevant, or that its all about being pretty? I would say you are crazy! Miss America is the largest scholarship organization and provider in the world. I calculated it, and over the past three years of competing, I have received $36,000 in scholarship money. And that is going to pay my entire undergraduate degree to become a nurse. ... Looking back and seeing how much scholarship money Ive acquired, its like, youd be crazy not to join this organization. Its incredible. Im so thankful. Not only is it allowing me to pursue my educational and my career objectives, but its given me skill sets that I know will carry on beyond my years of competing. This past year I really learned the importance of communication and networking. I was able to create and conduct my very own fundraiser. It was (a roast of Hoover Police chief Nick Derzis), emceed by ESPN host Paul Finebaum, and I was successfully able to raise $190,000 to go directly toward the CF Foundation. Those skills I learned will allow me to be successful, no matter what I do outside of this organization. It is so, so much more than looks. We have to have a talent; you have your service initiative; were required to be aware of what is going on in the world around us, on any kind of global issue. You have to be educated, and it takes so much preparation. Our state seems very polarized right now. There are many social and political issues that divide us. How can Miss Alabama be a force for unity when the people youre going to meet are so divided? I see Miss Alabamas role, first of all, as being politically neutral. ... Everybody, no matter which political party you support, everyone knows the icon and celebrity of Miss Alabama. I see my role as being the girl next door. I dont see my role as taking a political side. I want to be a friend, a neighbor and a light to everyone I meet. My goal is to be a positive role model. And I truly believe through my positivity, Im going to be able to make an impact on the people around me. I want to be approachable. Im going to stay true to my authentic self, and I want to make everybody feel seen. And I want to leave people better than when I first met them. People are usually excited to meet Miss Alabama. Youre a public figure now. Are you going to be on point with everything your clothes, your makeup, your hair, whatever else when you walk out the door? Yeah! Im so ready for that. As a Tiger Paw (dancer at Auburn), thats exactly what I had to do. I had to step out the door and be ready, and dressed to impress. And thats exactly what Im going to do as Miss Alabama, even if Im running to the grocery store. Im going to be ready to be caught at any moment. Can we talk about fashion? How would you describe your style? I love bright colors. I like things that are (adorned with stones). I like things that are unique, that a lot of people would not wear. I like coming up with my own things. My style is very fun, cute and comfortable. I think my style is also very classy. Its classy, because thats what Miss Alabamas supposed to be. I wouldnt want to wear anything that would make me unapproachable, or make anyone uncomfortable. How do you feel about heels? I love heels. My whole wardrobe consists of heels. Luckily, Im already pretty tall, so I dont have to worry about using heels to enhance my height. But I feel sassy, I feel like a queen when I put heels on. Its a confidence booster. Little girls tend to look at Miss Alabama like shes a Disney princess. Are you ready for that? Yes, I cant wait. I cannot wait to be their role model and feel like a princess. Part of me was like, a couple of years ago, Should I get involved in the Disney College Program and become a princess? But now I get to be one as Miss Alabama. I can show these little girls they can wear the crown; they can be Miss Alabama, too. Do you have a celebrity role model? I love Oprah Winfrey. She runs her own talk show, and it gets like over a million viewers every time theyre on air. I mean, shes a writer, shes a philanthropist, a producer. But what I admire so much about her is that she started something called the Angel Network, and basically she provides resources and money to underprivileged women and children. I admire her so much for that, because she is using her platform of influence to serve other people. I think that says a lot about someone, especially under the spotlight. Shes giving back to others. I respect that so much. As Miss Alabama, youll move on to compete for Miss America. Any thoughts on that? Is it a big deal? Oh, its a huge deal! I dont think that part has hit me yet, that Im going to Miss America. Ill have to create my talent piece, get my evening gown, perfect my walk because, trust me there is always room for growth there. Ill be doing interview prep and growing my service initiative. And Im going to work out, obviously. Ive danced all my life, so I know firsthand the benefits of a well-rounded lifestyle physical activity, but also mental wellness. I want to do everything I can to make sure that I am going to represent Alabama in the most positive light, and the best way possible. I want to go into Miss America knowing that I couldnt have done any more work, and that Im going to make the state proud. This may seem like a strange question, since you were born and raised in Alabama, but do you feel Southern? Do I feel Southern? I mean, yeah, anytime I go somewhere where Im not in the South, everyones like, You just have the cutest accent ever! I dont hear it. But every time I go somewhere not in the South, someone says something about the accent. But I feel like Ive got that Southern hospitality. Its a real thing. So Im a Southern girl; I definitely am. Never forget your Southern roots. Alabama wont conduct an autopsy on a death row inmate after his lethal-injection execution next week. The inmate had sued the state to block the post-execution autopsy because of his religious beliefs as a Muslim. No autopsy will be performed on Keith Edmund Gavin, according to a statement Friday afternoon from the Alabama Department of Corrections to reporters. His remains will be picked up by the attending funeral home. Gavin, 64, who describes himself as a devout Muslim, does not plan any further appeals in his case before the July 18 execution at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. But in June he filed a lawsuit asking the state to forego the usual post-execution autopsy due to his religious beliefs. The lawsuit was filed after his attorneys said they couldnt reach a resolution with the state. His religion teaches that the human body is a sacred temple, which must be kept whole, the lawsuit states. 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. Gavins request had made national news. On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which describes itself as the nations largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, issued a statement urging Alabama officials to accept Gavins request to not conduct an autopsy. Gavin was sentenced to death for the March 1998 murder of William Clayton Jr. in Cherokee County. He was on parole for murder from Illinois when he was arrested in the shooting death of Clayton, a courier service driver who had parked his van to use an ATM machine in downtown Centre. Clayton was finished with deliveries for the day and was stopping at Regions Bank to get money to take his wife to dinner. Records stated that Gavin shot Clayton during an attempted robbery, pushed him into the passengers seat, and drove off in the courier van. With an investigator from the district attorneys office in close pursuit, Gavin stopped the van, got out, shot at the investigator, and fled. Gavin was soon apprehended, and Clayton was pronounced dead at a hospital. Two eyewitnesses positively identified Gavin as the shooter, including his cousin, who was an employee of the Illinois Department of Corrections. The cousin testified about trips he and Gavin had made to Centre and on that day saw Gavin fire shots at the driver of the van. Gavin also fired shots at an investigator as he fled, according to testimony. Vice President Kamala Harris record, both as vice president and as a state and local official in California, is under new scrutiny as calls mount for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Harris is a strong favorite to succeed him if that happens, polls say. Former President Donald Trump has ramped up attacks on Harris in recent days as questions about Bidens candidacy continue. Being a vice president historically means being in the shadows. It often means taking on a single task Dick Cheney helped shape President George W. Bushs foreign policy, Al Gore helped reinvent government for President Bill Clinton and so on. But its difficult to separate their record from those of their bosses. Harris biggest talking points in the Biden administration have been about abortion, even as Republicans have dubbed her the border czar for a Central American migration assignment she was handed during her first few months in office. Biden tapped her in March 2021 to lead an effort to ease the root causes of migration from Central America. But the effort has been criticized and mocked by Republicans, and immigration analysts dont see the effort as much about the border. Harris on root causes of migration Harris is not the border czar, explained Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan research Migration Policy Institute. The idea that by focusing on addressing the root cause of migration, youre going to work on issues the border is really not the same, Ruiz Soto said in an interview. Theyre both important. The work that Vice President Harris has been doing has been mostly window dressing, really, said Julie Kirchner, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration nonprofit. Early in the Biden administration, Harris was tapped to lead a national strategy that would improve conditions in three Central American countries El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and encourage migrants to stay. The Root Causes Strategy includes five pillars: addressing economic issues, combating corruption and bolstering democracy, improving human and labor rights, reducing violence and combating sexual and gender-based violence. Speaking in Guatemala alongside President Alejandro Giammattei in June 2021, her first foreign trip as vice president, Harris was blunt with migrants: Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders, she said, drawing criticism from those who said it ignored peoples right to seek asylum at the border. This March, the White House said it was on track to meet its goals set in 2021 to give $4 billion to the Central American countries in four years. The strategy of engaging with Central America is not a new one across different administrations, Ruiz Soto said. Like past in White Houses strategys, this administrations hasnt been developed equally across the countries. This has been a recurring problem of U.S. relations in Central America, Ruiz Soto said, there hasnt been a consistent partner. Ruiz Soto said other members of the administration, such as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have been more visible and important on the southern border. He said that the root causes strategy was effective in addressing different issues within those countries. The White House added that Harris has continued working on the strategy, having worked with the private sector to generate more than $5.2 billion in investments for job creation, internet access and bringing people into the formal financial system to increase economic opportunity in the region. Not to say that those efforts arent important in some respects, but thats not managing our border, Kirchner said in an interview on Thursday, thats not securing our border, that is not stemming the chaos. Immigration has become a focal point of the 2024 election. First, she was put in charge of the U.S. border security. She never showed up, Trump alleged at a rally Tuesday. PolitiFact rated Trumps statement as false, given that Harriss task was to address root causes of migration from three Central American countries, not the border. Vice President Harris is proud to be President Bidens running mate, Rhyan Lake, deputy communications director for Harris on the presidential campaign said in a statement sent to The Bee Thursday. No matter what false attacks Trump and his extreme allies make, she will continue to defend the Biden-Harris record and prosecute the case against Donald Trump. Harris on abortion Immigration was not one of Harris mainstay issues before taking the office of vice president, said Dan Morain, a veteran California journalist and author of the biography Kamalas Way. Immigration was not her issue, Morain said in an interview on Wednesday. She had been to the border. She had talked about transnational gangs. This was an issue that she talked about as California Attorney General, but it wasnt one of her go-to issues. On the other hand, he said, it makes sense that Harris would be a leader for the administration on abortion issues. Without a doubt, womens health issues, thats been a recurrent issue for her, Morain said. Since 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned the 49-year precedent of federal protections set by Roe v. Wade, abortion access has been a key campaign issue for Democrats. Harris has traveled the country as part of her Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour talking about abortion access, warning about what a second Trump administration could do to abortion rights and calling state laws limiting access Trump abortion bans. Since the Supreme Court decision in 2022, the White House said, she has held more than 90 events in 21 states, bringing together elected officials, health care providers, faith leaders, students and advocates. Even before Harris became District Attorney of San Francisco, she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases in the Alameda County District Attorneys Office. She continued prosecuting domestic violence perpetrators, child abusers and sex traffickers as chief of the Division on Children and Families at the San Francisco City Attorneys Office. Throughout her time as California Attorney General and a senator, Harris worked on efforts for womens rights, maternal health and other related issues. The White House listed several other issues that Harris has led on including gun violence prevention, diplomacy, climate change and criminal justice reform in response to questions about this story. Harris before being VP To learn more about Harris stances on specific issues, its useful to look at her years as a state and local official. Harris has been criticized for changing, or at least muddling, her positions on some major issues prior to the vice presidency. She was San Franciscos top prosecutor from 2004 to 2011, then California attorney general from 2011 until 2017. Harris was elected to the Senate in 2016 and served there until being sworn in as vice president in January 2021. She ran for president in the 2020 campaign cycle before being tapped as Bidens pick for vice president. Shes the first woman and Black and South Asian American vice president. Throughout her career, Harris promoted herself as a tough-on-crime attorney. At the 2016 Democratic convention, she told a New York delegation she was Californias top cop, a moniker that many in the states communities of color criticized. When she became a U.S. senator in 2017, Harris became a leading voice in a bid to reform the nations criminal justice system, notably after George Floyd was killed by a police office in Minneapolis in 2020. The White House said that Harris spent her career trying to make the criminal justice system more just through this work trying to reduce recidivism, rebuild after prison and improve childrens civil rights in the juvenile justice system. Some other evolving Harris positions: Health care. Probably the biggest stumble of her brief presidential campaign in 2019 involved her position on Medicare for All. Soon after joining the Senate, she supported the Medicare for All plan of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt. Harris tweeted Its just the right thing to do. She reiterated that view two years later when she started her presidential run. I believe the solution and I actually feel very strongly about this is that we need to have Medicare for All. Thats just the bottom line, she told a CNN town hall. In June, during the Democrats first debate, Harris raised her hand when moderator Lester Holt of NBC asked Who here would abolish their health insurance in favor of a government-run plan? But after the debate, Harris said she misinterpreted the question. In my vision of Medicare for All, it includes private insurance where people can have supplemental insurance, she said. A month after that, she wrote in a post on Medium, We will allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans as a part of this system that adhere to strict Medicare requirements on costs and benefits. Legalizing marijuana. She opposed a 2010 California ballot initiative to legalize pot. But as part of her criminal justice reform package in 2019, she had a different view. It is past time to end the failed war on drugs, and it begins with legalizing marijuana, she said, adding emphasis with the italics. The Biden administration started the federal process of rescheduling weed from the most tightly regulated Schedule I to less regulated Schedule III in May. And at a White House event in March, Harris reiterated a position shes held recently: Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed. Death penalty. Harris has long opposed the death penalty, and was embroiled in controversy as a San Francisco prosecutor when she would not seek the punishment against a suspect accused of killing a police officer. When she ran for attorney general in 2010, many in the law enforcement area opposed her. She worked on that relationship, and four years later, after a federal judge ruled Californias death penalty unconstitutional, Harris appealed the decision. It is not supported by the law, and it undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants, she said at the time. This flawed ruling requires appellate review. Her 2019 campaign platform included seeking a federal moratorium on the death penalty. If Harris were to become the Democratic nominee instead of Biden, her past quotes and record would come under even more scrutiny than they are now. She can try (to boast about her record) but theres a lot of videotape out there, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy in Florida. We live in an age where you can go on the internet and find anything she said in public. 2024 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Visit mcclatchydc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Dr. Max Rogers doesnt want to sugarcoat the fallout of closing one of the last labor and delivery departments in rural southwest Alabama. An obstetrician/gynecologist at Grove Hill Memorial Hospital, Rogers once used euphemisms to describe what might happen if the small hospital ended the service. Now that the closure is set for Aug. 16, he wants to state his predictions clearly. I used to say, poor outcomes, Rogers said. Im just going to tell it like it is. That means that babies are going to die, and mothers are going to die because were not going to have any obstetrical expertise to take care of them. Grove Hill Memorial Hospital on Wednesday announced the closure of its labor and delivery department. The facility sits in rural Clarke County, a good 90 minutes north of Mobile or two hours southwest of Montgomery. It is the last hospital in rural southwest Alabama still delivering babies. Grove Hill Memorial Hospital this week becomes the latest rural hospital to announce plans to reduce inpatient care in order to convert to a Rural Emergency Hospital. The federal Rural Emergency Hospital program is a lifeline to keep hospital doors open, but it also has a cost, including labor and delivery. Grove Hill is one of four Alabama hospitals who have filed notices they will convert to REH. Bullock County Hospital, East Alabama Medical Center-Lanier and J. Paul Jones Hospital in Camden have all signaled their intent to make the switch. Meanwhile, around Grove Hill in southwest Alabama, other labor and delivery services are closing. Monroe County Hospital one county over ended its obstetrical services last year. Whitfield Regional Hospital in Demopolis suspended its labor and delivery services in May with plans to reopen in September. The closest hospital to Grove Hill where women can deliver babies is in Brewton, and thats about 80 minutes away. Im going to paint you the worst-case scenario, Rogers said. I dont want to be accused of being hyperbolic or exaggerating, but in a worst-case scenario, these women are not going to be able to get to Mobile or Selma or Montgomery or Tuscaloosa, which are the only other areas around. When Monroe County Hospital closed its labor and delivery department in November, he said, some of those patients turned to him and the patient count for his practice increased by 35 percent. All those patients will have to find other doctors and labor and delivery centers. Rogers said many patients are low-income and struggle to find transportation to pre-natal appointments. Friends and family members must take off work to drive them to the doctor or hospital. Some will not be able to keep appointments that are more than one hour away. The March of Dimes, an organization that advocates for newborn health, found that the percentage of people in Alabama who live more than 30 minutes away from a hospital with a birthing center is three times higher than the national average. The same organization gave Alabama a grade of F for preterm births. Rogers is not just an obstetrician, he is also the chairman of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, the agency that regulates physicians in the state. He regularly meets with government and public health officials and advocates for the medical needs of rural women and children. Rogers has lobbied city, county and state leaders to save the labor and delivery department. The service loses money, and government leaders have not been willing to provide enough funds to make up for those losses, he said. At one city council meeting, he appealed to the leaders of Grove Hill. City leaders said they couldnt provide funding for one line of service at the hospital, Rogers said. Then, 15 minutes later, they voted to add $20,000 in funding to the local animal shelter, he said. Listen, I love animals just like everybody else, but that is a devastating expose as to where our culture has attitudes about our pregnant women and our young, Rogers said. Rogers has said city, county and state leaders have all pointed fingers at each other when asked who should help support struggling hospitals. Hospitals that seek Rural Emergency Hospital status get monthly payments of $267,408.68, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Those hospitals must operate emergency departments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They cant provide inpatient care, including labor and delivery. Women who had planned to deliver at Grove Hill Memorial Hospital will have to make new arrangements as their due dates approach. Rogers said he is worried about the women in his community, and how they will fare after the department closes. I dont know what the body count is going to be, but there are bleak days ahead, Rogers said. The Sheriffs Office in Mohave County, Ariz., is investigating the death of a baby girl earlier this month after her parents took her boating in 120-degree heat. The 4-month-old fell unconscious shortly after 5 p.m. July 5 while on a boat on Lake Havasu a reservoir straddling the state line between Mohave County and Californias San Bernardino County, the department said in a statement. The infant was taken to Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City to be treated for heat-related illness, and was pronounced dead after she was transferred to Phoenix Childrens Hospital, the department said. Mohave sheriffs officials did not name the parents or the child, but a spokesperson for the city Riverside confirmed to The Times that the father was Matthew Wroblewski, a detective with the Riverside Police Department. A GoFundMe account identified the mother as Alyssa Wroblewski and the girl as Tanna Rae. Alyssa Wroblewski did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. The infants death occurred amid an excessive heat warning in Mohave County. Temperatures around Lake Havasu regularly soar well into the triple digits in the summer, and reached 120 degrees on July 5, according to National Weather Service data. Last year, more than 4,426 people went to emergency rooms in the state for heat-related illnesses, including 215 people in Mohave County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. One of our employees and his family suffered the unimaginable loss of their daughter recently, said the Riverside Police Department in a statement late Thursday, and all of us at the Police Department mourn with them. The recent heatwave also claimed the life of a 2-year-old girl in Marana, Ariz., southeast of Phoenix, after her father left her sleeping in a car with the air conditioning on while he ran inside the house, according to the Marana Police Department. The vehicle, police said, stopped running at some point. The GoFundMe post for the Wroblewskis said they were enjoying a day on the lake when Tanna lost consciousness. Her parents tried to resuscitate her before a Lake Havasu City Fire Department crew arrived. Our precious baby girl gave us her last smiles and we gave her our last kisses, the post read. We will never understand why you had to leave so soon, you were just too perfect. The GoFundMe account included photos of the family, including one of baby Tanna smiling widely and dressed in a monster-truck onesie, a bow on her head. Shortly after the childs death, Alyssa Wroblewski posted a tribute to her on Facebook, according to the Today show. These are the last photos I took of you before you left us, Wroblewski wrote in the July 8 post. Your smile radiated joy. ... I never thought there would be a day in my life without you. Wroblewski said the family was struggling to make sense of what happened that day. Her July 8 post has since been made private or taken down. Some Facebook users had criticized Wroblewski and her husband for taking the infant boating amid such high temperatures, according to KSLA News 12. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. 2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. When Birmingham officials began cracking down on crime in East Lake, they didnt expect to be bringing home bacon. Animal control workers who are part of the Safe Streets crackdown effort in East Lake captured a pig running loose on the streets Thursday. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin posted a statistical update on the Safe Streets initiative today on social media that included this fact: since Monday, July 8, animal control has captured 10 cats, 8 dogs and one pig. Wait. A pig? Animal control was out dealing with some calls, primarily dogs and cats, said city spokesman Rick Journey. While they were out, at 76th Street and Division Avenue, a pig just darted out and kept running. You cant have livestock in the city. So, Animal Control went to catch the pig. They caught the pig. The domestic pig weighed about 25 pounds, Journey said. Its believed to be a mix of Potbelly and American Guinea Hog, he said. The pig was very swift, Journey said. The pig has been taken to a person who does animal rescues. Within the seven days that they hold the pig, the owner can call animal control. They can have it back, they just cant keep in the city. If in that seven days nobody comes and claims the pig, they have identified someone who wants to adopt the pig. The plan is for the pig to be adopted and end up in a caring home, Journey said. After its capture, the animal was given water and an apple and oat treat, he said. The citys Safe Streets: East Lake pilot project addresses public safety, code violations, illegal dumping and animal control. On Tuesday, Woodfin told the Birmingham City Council that Shotspotter detected 2,164 shots fired during 2023 in the East Lake neighborhood. Its part of a litany of crime issues in East Lake that have been out of control, he said. Woodfin said the city has been cracking down on illegal dumping on Division Avenue, prostitution on First Avenue North, drug dealing and speeding on Second Avenue North. The Safe Streets Initiative includes a pilot plan to shut down street access to limit drivers coming into the East Lake neighborhood to shoot at houses and cars. One year ago today, a gunman entered Birminghams Fire Station 9 and opened fire in the bay, critically wounding two firefighters who had just started their shift. Firefighter Jordan Melton, 29, died five days later at UAB Hospital. Jamal Jones, who has since been promoted to the rank of sergeant, is still undergoing treatment and has not yet been able to return to work. Police officials call the deadly shooting one of the most horrific crimes in the citys recent history, yet no arrests have been made, despite a $46,000 reward. Jordan gave his life to the career he loved, and he gave his life to our beloved city, said Birmingham police spokesman Officer Truman Fitzgerald. Jamal Jones would go on to be released. He has suffered life-altering emotional and physical injuries. We stand before you in pain, we stand before you frustrated and we stand before you sickened because a year later, we still have no one in custody, Fitzgerald said. The department, he said, is committed to holding the pure evil responsible for that day and bringing them to justice. Melton and Jones were shot just before 8:30 a.m. that Wednesday after they began their shift at the Norwood station. They were performing routine maintenance in the stations bay area when a gunman opened fire in what police say was a personal, targeted attack. Were not releasing who we believe was the intended target, but we do believe this was a targeted attack no associated with the two being employed as firefighters, Fitzgerald said. Two Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service fighters were shot inside Station 9 in Norwood on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. Both were reported to be in serious condition. (Carol Robinson) Birmingham police and Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service were called to the station, at 1228 27th St. North, where the firefighters had reportedly been shot in the chest and legs. At least one caller reported hearing shots and ran to take cover in the bathroom. The shooter entered the fire station through the open bay door, which typically remains open to be accessible to residents who need their blood pressure checked or other help or information. Police have not confirmed reports that the shooter was wearing a mask. Station 9 remained closed until December. Fitzgerald and Mayor Randall Woodfin held a joint press conference Friday outside of Fire Station 9. No new details or information in the case has been released since it happened one year ago, and no potential motive has been disclosed. Our detective unit has requested we dont release any motives or ideas we have surrounding the motives, Fitzgerald said. Melton was a witness to the 2021 slaying of 27-year-old Eric Tyler Sledge Jr., a Hoover father. The case went to trial earlier this year, and the suspect was acquitted. Police have not said whether they have considered that as part of the investigation into Meltons killing. Police said earlier this year there was a person of interest but did not elaborate. Birmingham Firefighter Jordan Melton was shot July 12, 203, and died five days later. His mother, Rochelle Gaston Malone, is hosting a youth summit on what would have been his 30th birthday.(Carol Robinson) That person of interest is still a person of interest, and we believe there is more than one, Fitzgerald said. To go into a fire station in broad daylight and shoot two on-duty firefighters, that takes time, that takes planning, and in our experience, we believe that took more than one person. Fitzgerald described the lead investigator as experienced and methodical, a detective who leaves no stone unturned. But he needs you, we need you, he said, asking community members to come forward with anything they might know. There is no way that someone entered a fire station in broad daylight, shot two firefighters on duty, killed one of them, a year later has evaded capture from the largest police department in Alabama and has not bragged about that to someone, Fitzgerald said. We live in a sick society today and we know people want attention for everything and even criminals want a pat on the back, he said. We know the individual or individuals responsible for this have talked about it. Fitzgerald said technology has played a strong part in the investigation. We dont want to go into specifics, he said. What our detectives have recovered that day has led us in the right direction however theres nothing more valuable than help from the public. Our reason for not releasing identifying information in any criminal investigation is a detective has to ask the question, Does the benefit of releasing identifying information on the suspect outweigh the risk of assisting suspect evade capture and/or conviction?' he said. We feel if we release identifying information, it will hurt us more than it will help us. Woodfin spoke about Melton and the pain his death caused. I believe the most powerful characteristic of a firefighter has to be their bravery, Woodfin said. It takes bravery to commit your life to the mental and physical training need to bear the title of firefighter. It takes a brave person to literally run head-first into flames, putting your body and well-being at risk to rescue strangers. It takes a very powerful and brave soul to leave your family every day knowing that you might not come home, the mayor said. Jordan Melton showed that bravery every single day. They mayor recalled learning about the shooting. If Im honest, I was in a lot of shock and pain, he said. As mayor, when the city hurts, I and our team often take on what we call the collective grief of the community. The truth is, one year later that pain is still here, that grief is even stronger for his family he left behind, he said. Our hearts our still heavy, because I know Jordan should be out here in the streets right now making us laugh, protecting us. But even in absence in his absence, through his mother and his family, hes still showing us the meaning of his bravery, he said. Thats the legacy he leaves with us- the bravery of a son, the bravery of a friend and the bravery of a firefighter. Melton, affectionately known by many as Chato, has been remembered as an ambitious young man with an infectious smile and an unfailing love for those around him. He not only dreamed of being firefighter since he was a child, but one day hoped to be a fire chief. When Jordan loved you, you knew that he loved you, said close friend Larry Williams. There was no room he could be in and you not know he was there. Hundreds to turned out to say goodbye at his funeral. Meltons mother, Rochelle Gaston Malone, earlier this year launched a GoFundMe Pursuit of Justice for Firefighter Jordan Melton to raise money for a private investigation into Meltons slaying, as well as other future unsolved cases. Its frustrating not to know anything, Malone said at that time. We will not rest until this journey for justice is won. Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham police at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. Benefits of the two-term boss Sometimes it can pay to be a public servant. Those whove stuck around for the second term of Kay Iveys administration have seen it pay off pretty well. AL.coms Mike Cason reports that most of Iveys cabinet positions have seen pay increases from 17% to 40%. Ivey communications director Gina Maiola said its standard practice for the Governors Office to evaluate the salaries as a new term begins. According to the states Open Alabama website, the administrations biggest jump in salary, by percent, came at the office of the Department of Corrections Commission. John Hamm makes $242,000 annually, which is 43% more than his predecessor received in 2021. Commerce Secretary Ellen McNair makes $239,784, 40% more than her predecessor made. At least five other cabinet positions saw increases of 39%. Post-execution autopsy A Muslim civil-rights group is voicing its support for a Death Row inmates request for there to be no autopsy on his body after his execution, reports AL.coms Kent Faulk. Keith Edmund Gavin is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next week. Hes filed suit to stop the usual autopsy, he said, in accordance with his Muslim faith. This week the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged Alabama officials in a statement to go along with Gavins request. An Alabama Attorney Generals Office official has said theres an effort to work something out. Gavin was on parole for murder in Illinois when, in March 1988, he killed William Clayton Jr., who had stopped at an ATM machine in downtown Centre, Alabama, to withdraw money and take his wife out to dinner. Hazels Nook A Muslim civil-rights group is voicing its support for a Death Row inmates request for there to be no autopsy on his body after his execution, reports AL.coms Kent Faulk. Keith Edmund Gavin is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next week. Hes filed suit to stop the usual autopsy, he said, in accordance with his Muslim faith. This week the Council on American-Islamic Relations urged Alabama officials in a statement to go along with Gavins request. An Alabama Attorney Generals Office official has said theres an effort to work something out. Gavin was on parole for murder in Illinois when, in March 1988, he killed William Clayton Jr., who had stopped at an ATM machine in downtown Centre, Alabama, to withdraw money and take his wife out to dinner. More Alabama News The podcast We chat with weather reporter Leigh Morgan -- and persuade her to take the news-review quiz. You can find Down in Alabama wherever you get your podcasts, including these places: Dollar General has agreed to pay $12 million and address safety violations as part of a settlement with the Labor Departments Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We are pleased to have reached an agreement with OSHA to resolve these matters. We remain committed to ensuring a safe working environment for our employees and a pleasant shopping experience for our customers, Dollar General told The Associated Press. READ MORE: Which Alabama county has the most Dollar Generals? It depends. Under the terms of the agreement, the Tennessee-based discount chain has agreed to hire additional safety managers, reduce inventory and speed up stocking to prevent blocked exits and unsafe storage and provide additional health and safety training. The company must also correct hazards and submit proof of the changes for issues such as blocked exits, access to fire extiguishers and electric panels and improper storage of materials. Failure to address these issues can lead to fine of up to $500,000, OSHA said. Dollar General has also hired outside consultants and auditors to ensure safety changes were made. It has also created an anonymous tip line for employees to report safety concerns. These changes help give peace of mind to thousands of workers, knowing that they are not risking their safety in their workplaces and that they will come home healthy at the end of each day, Douglas Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, said in a statement. There are almost 20,000 Dollar General locations throughout the U.S. Huma Abedin, a former Hillary Clinton staffer who was married to disgraced New York politician Anthony Weiner, is engaged to Alex Soros the son of billionaire political donor George Soros. The couple announced their marriage plans on Instagram Wednesday. This happenedwe couldnt be happier, more grateful, or more in love, the pair captioned a photo of Abedin standing on a balcony with Soros down on one knee. According to Vogue, Soros, 38, proposed to Abedin, 47, in late May after less than a year of dating. He reportedly popped the question at a home in New York City, with the couple holding a formal celebration in Italy. The two have been making the scene at recent high-profile events such as the Met Gala and a White House state dinner. Abedin reportedly met Soros, the head of the multi-billion dollar Open Society Foundations philanthropic empire, last fall at a mutual friends birthday party, where they quickly discovered their mutual interests in politics and public service, reported Vogue. Abedin had previously worked closely with Hillary Clinton in the White House, Senate and State Department eventually serving as vice chair of her 2016 presidential campaign. In May 2017, after seven years of marriage, Abedin filed for divorce from former Democratic congressman Weiner the same day he pleaded guilty to sexting with a minor. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison. The ex-couples son, Jordan, was born in 2011. ____ 2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project in South Alabama is getting a huge infusion of federal money thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure plan passed by Congress in 2021. A $550 million grant through the U.S. Department of Transportations Bridge Investment Program will go directly toward the estimated $3.5 billion project that includes the construction of a new six-lane, 215-foot-tall cable-stay bridge in downtown Mobile and a new elevated six-lane Bayway. The new Bayway will replace the existing I-10 Bayway which is set to be demolished. The newly constructed Bayway will connect Mobile to the U.S. 98 exit in Daphne and span approximately 7.4 miles. This federal funding will be a game-changer, not just for Mobile and Baldwin counties, but for our entire state and region, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in an announcement from her office about the grant award. The $550 million grant, according to the governor, is believed to be one of the largest federal grants ever received for an Alabama project. It is the second-largest award in the Bridge Investment Programs history, behind only a $1.4 billion award announced in January for a bridge project over the Ohio River. Ed Austin, chief engineer with the Alabama Department of Transportation, said the $550 million will allow the project to be in a position to break ground as soon as next year. To say were grateful that our federal partners are recognizing the projects national important is an understatement, Austin said. This decision is a testament to the persistent efforts and dedication of our state, local and congressional leaders who have had numerous meetings and extensive discussions with U.S. DOT, tirelessly advocating for this project. Additional funding, Reactions Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, December 15, 2021, at Government Plaza in downtown Mobile, Ala. Next to him is Jack Burrell, a Fairhope City Councilman. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com). The $550 million is the second major infusion of federal grant money for the I-10 project. In 2019, a $125 million federal grant was secured through former U.S. Sen. Richard Shelbys office. The state is dedicating $250 million directly toward the project as well. The balance of the project will be through federal loans, primarily via the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA). An ALDOT official said last month that U.S. DOT officials will grant the state to finance 49% of the entire project through the low-interest TIFIA loans. At $3.5 billion, that would amount to around $1.75 billion. The grant infusion was celebrated by local officials who have, for years, negotiated and battled over the project that is viewed as the most expensive road construction project in Alabama state history. The biggest blow up occurred in 2019, when Ivey declared the project dead after officials in Baldwin County voted to remove the entire I-10 project from their short-term plans out of concerns over a public-private partnership arrangement to build it, as well as a controversial toll plan. Those issues seem to be in the distant past, even though ALDOT plans to assess a toll to utilize the new infrastructure the Wallace and Bankhead tunnels will remain free for motorists. Hallelujah! Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said. It is hard to overstate how important todays announcement is for the future of Mobile. This funding is a monumental boost for the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, and we are moving full steam ahead. Stimpson, chair of the Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization, credited Ivey and ALDOT Director John Cooper for keeping the project alive over the last few years while it faced obstacles. The benefits of todays announcement will be felt along the entire I-10 corridor from Florida to California, Stimpson said. Fairhope City Councilman Jack Burrell, chair of the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the grant announcement represents the most significant day in the projects history. It is a project that deserves federal support like what was announced today, and with the U.S. DOTs continued support, we can build this bridge soon, he said. Federal support U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (center) tours part of the Vancouver, WA waterfront on Tues., Feb. 13, 2024. Dave Killen / The Oregonian The grant money comes from a discretionary program that focuses on existing bridges to reduce the overall number of bridges considered in poor condition, or in fair condition and at-risk of falling into poor condition. The I-10 Bayway, over a gradual period of time, has become a bottleneck along a key east-west corridor stretching from Jacksonville to Los Angeles. During heavy travel seasons that bring tourists to Alabama and Florida, the interstate will average more than 78,000 vehicles per day west of the Wallace Tunnel. Worries exist that more than 95,000 vehicles will be traveling routinely along the Bayway in less than 20 years, further increasing the bottlenecks. The Bridge Investment Program was created through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) long called the bipartisan infrastructure law that has become a signature policy achievement of President Joe Bidens administration. The last major grant announcement under the program occurred in January, with the highlight being a $1.4 billion allocation toward a complete rebuild of the Brent Spence Bridge between Kentucky and Ohio over the Ohio River. The state has applications out for other grant programs under the $1.2 trillion IIJA. The most notable is a request for money under the U.S. DOTs Mega grant program. In prior years, ALDOT has requested $500 million through that discretionary grant program. The state also has an application out for an Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant. That was the same grant that was awarded toward the project in 2019 and secured by Shelbys office. The U.S. DOT has categorized the I-10 project as one of 13 projects eligible for project-specific targeted technical assistance through the agencys Build America Bureau. Tony Harris, a spokesperson with ALDOT, said the project is the most advanced of its type in the country because the state has secured the rights-of-way to build it, and has secured all environmental clearances. In our efforts to advocate for additional federal funding, we have worked hard to emphasize that the Mobile River Bridge and Bayway is the most advanced project of its kind nationwide competing for federal discretionary funding, he said. Our focus now is to finalize our TIFIA loan application and finish the design process, which will help us narrow in on a start date for construction. Harris said the state, following the design process, will be able to better release a date for groundbreaking. He said that could roughly be another six to nine months. Congressional efforts Alabamas congressional delegation sent a letter in June to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg requesting federal support for the bridge project, emphasizing that the tunnels and Bayway are more than 50 years old, and that hazardous cargo is forced to divert from the tunnels and into the historic and disadvantaged community of Africatown. The letter was signed by all eight of Alabamas GOP congressional representatives, none of whom voted in support of the IIJA in 2021. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, the lone Democratic member of Congress from Alabama, also signed onto the letter. Only 13 Republicans in Congress voted in support of the IIJA. U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Mobile, in a statement praised Team Alabamas efforts in securing the grant money. I remain committed to fighting for every additional federal dollar for this bridge, and I will be working with Senator (Katie) Britt and Senator (Tommy) Tuberville, as well as Governor Ivey and local officials, to continue pushing this project across the finish line, Carl said. Britt, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the investment is a huge win for Alabamians and any American who drives along I-10. I was proud to help lead Alabamas entire congressional delegation in support of this well-deserved grant award, and I appreciate Governor Iveys continued partnership and the leadership of the MPOs and local officials who have spearheaded this community-driven, crucial project, Britt said. Returning Alabamians hard-earned taxpayer dollars back to our great state is a top priority of mine in the Senate, and Ill continue fighting to do just that. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators have resurrected a bill that would ban stock trades by federal lawmakers and their families in what could be a blow to an Alabamas senator long criticized over his prolific portfolio. Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri crafted a new iteration of the Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks, or ETHICS, Act, NPR reported Wednesday. While past efforts to pass a congressional stock trading ban have failed, Merkley tweeted there is bipartisan momentum for the new proposal. Members of Congress are elected to serve the publicnot our stock portfolios, Merkley said on his X account. We have bipartisan momentum behind the ETHICS Act to ban lawmakers from buying and trading stocks. It erodes public trust and invites corruptionlets get this bill passed! Members of Congress are elected to serve the publicnot our stock portfolios. We have bipartisan momentum behind the ETHICS Act to ban lawmakers from buying and trading stocks. It erodes public trust and invites corruptionlets get this bill passed! pic.twitter.com/GcCjxkADTt Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) July 11, 2024 Should the ETHICS Act pass Congress, members would have to stop buying individual stocks immediately. When the next Congress convenes in 2027, members would be forced to divest from any individual assets, according to NPR. Previous versions of the bill would have made lawmakers transfer their assets into blind trusts. The current version would have members transfer their assets to mutual funds. The ETHICS Act would also apply to lawmakers spouses and their dependent children but not congressional staffers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who has long been criticized over his stock trades, would likely be among the lawmakers most impacted by a potential ban. A Tuberville spokeswoman could not immediately be reached on whether the senator supports the ETHICS Act or would try to block the legislation should it come to the Senate floor. Unusual Whales, a startup that helps investors track market activity, found that Tuberville made the fourth-largest amount of stock trades -- 389 -- of any member of Congress in 2023. That figure does not include complicated options trading, which makes up a significant portion of Tubervilles activity. In 2022, AL.com reported Tuberville and his wife made a profit of between $50,000 and $127,000 by trading ChannelAdvisor Corp. stock. At the lower end of that estimate, Tuberville and his wife earned about the same as Alabamas median income of $52,000 in less than two months of owning ChannelAdvisor Corp. Stock. There was no evidence suggesting Tuberville had any inside information gleaned from his work in the Senate that spurred the stock purchase, and the senator has long said his financial advisors manage his day-to-day portfolio. Trading on inside information is illegal, although legislators are allowed to trade stocks, even if policies they make through various committees they sit on or information they learn by sitting on those committees could affect their financial portfolios and entire industries. Also in 2022, a New York Times analysis of the Alabama senators transactions found 20 possible conflicts of interest between companies and commodities Tuberville traded and his official Senate business. Of 101 companies or commodities Tuberville traded and reported to the Senate Ethics Committee, about one in five were deemed by the Times analysis as being a possible conflict for the senator because of policy he could influence or information he could learn as a member of certain Senate committees. For instance, Tuberville sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee and is a member of the panels Subcomittee on Commodities, Risk Management and Trade. Meanwhile, the senators financial portfolio included trades of cattle, corn and red wheat futures as well as Hershey stock, according to the Times. The report did not indicate whether Tuberville and other elected officials mentioned in the analysis profited from the trades. The brutal murders of two high school seniors in Alabamas Wiregrass region will be featured this weekend on Oxygen True Crime. J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, 17-year-old best friends, headed out together on July 31, 1999, to celebrate J.B.s birthday. They were going to a field party and then planned to have a sleepover at Tracies house. Their families and friends would never again see the two girls alive. Their slayings remained unsolved until 2019 when Coley McCraney then 45 - was arrested after a DNA match was found through a family DNA website in a genealogy search. The episode is part of Oxygens weekly show called Sins of the South. It airs at 7 p.m. eastern time on Sunday and is described by the network as a true crime series that illuminates the drama, the history and the crime stories found below the Mason-Dixon line. The teaser for the Beasley/Hawlett episode reads, A mothers worry ignites when two teenage girls never come home after getting lost heading to a party in southeast Alabama, says a teaser of this weekends special. When their car is found abandoned, their small town unites to find them and uncover what happened. And when the truth is revealed, says the shows narrator, it rattles all of Dixies. The show features interviews with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, retired Dothan Police Chief John C. White, and ALEA State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Barry Tucker. There it was, an emotional White said when he discussed finding the girls dead. Its one of those visions that will occupy your brain and you will never get rid of it. J.B.s mother, Cheryl Burgoon, talks at length about the events of the night the girls disappeared, her reaction when they were found dead and what it was like to hear the McCraney when he took the stand in his 2023 trial. J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, best friends and high school seniors, were found slain in the trunk of a vehicle on Aug. 1, 1999, when they didn't return home from a party the night before.(OXygen True Crime/Dothan Police) The murders of the girls haunted the Wiregrass region for decades and been given national exposure on television networks throughout the years. The friends were on their way home from J.B.s birthday party when they got lost in Ozark on July 31, 1999. According to Tracies mother, Carole Roberts, the girls had been lost and could not understand the directions they were given before stopping at a convenience store in Ozark. They had been on their way home from a party in Headland. The girls were found the next day inside the trunk of J.B.s black Mazda 929, on the side of Herring Avenue about one block away from the Dale County hospital. Both girls had each been shot once to the head, but there were no other signs of foul play. The girls jewelry, purses and money were not missing and state forensics experts at the time said neither girl had been raped. Within a week, police announced a nationwide, 24-hour hotline to received tips and a reward fund quickly grew to $15,000 in donations from area residents. Then-Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman announce another $10,000 in state funds. In the years immediately after the killing, investigators conducted more than 500 interviews, overworked forensics experts and tested the DNA of more than 70 potential suspects. A 45-year-old Dothan man - Coley McCraney - has been charged with five counts of capital murder and one count of rape int he 1999 murders of 17-year-old friends Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, whose bodies were found in the trunk of Beasley's car. Both had been shot in the head. Their deaths have haunted the Wiregrass region for decades. McCraney has lived his life crime-free and built a family in the 20 years following the murders. At the time of McCraneys 2019 arrest, then-Ozark Police Chief Marlos Walker said the 2018 arrest of the alleged Golden State Killer through use of a genealogy and DNA database sparked the chain of events that led to the break in the Alabama cold case. The department reached out to Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, which specializes in DNA engineering. Police said they started the process in August 2018, and it culminated in the arrest of McCraney, a truck driver who spent some time in the military. McCraney took the stand in his own defense during the week-long trial and testified that he had consensual sex with J.B. He said they had previously met her at the Wiregrass Commons Mall almost two months prior to the murders, and the two planned to meet at the Ozark gas station at 10 p.m. on July 31, 1999. When Beasley was late, he said he went to his mothers house to wait on a call from J.B. but never received one. McCraney, convicted last year, was sentenced to live in prison without parole. An Alabama woman was stabbed to death outside an Arizona Walmart early Friday. Kingman Police Department officials identified the slain woman as Linda Joyce Goodin. She was 53. Her husband, 59-year-old Anthony James Goodin, is being held on a murder charge. Public records indicated the couple lived in Phenix City. Kingman police officers responded about 4 a.m. to the business in the 3300 block of Stockton Hill Road on reports of a man stabbing a woman. Officers arrived to find the husband holding a large knife and a cell phone. He was standing near a box truck. According to a press release, Goodin dropped the knife but would not obey commands from officers, who deployed a stun-gun on him. Gooding was taken into custody. His wife received life-saving measures on the scene and then transported to Kingman Regional Medical Center where she was later pronounced dead. Efforts to reach Kingman police officials for additional comment were unsuccessful. Deputy Kingman Police Chief Joel Freed told local news reporters that the couple was traveling from Alabama to California in a U-Haul. Goodin admitted to stabbing his wife, police said, and was booked into the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility. The investigation is ongoing. Akima Facilities Operations has been awarded a contract to provide installation support services at Redstone Arsenal. The contract could be worth more than a half billion dollars. The contract, awarded by the U.S. Army Contracting Command Redstone (ACC-R), has a potential 10-year period of performance and a total value of $563 million if all options are exercised, the firm said in a news release. Akima is honored by this contract award, and the opportunity to expand our support to the Army at a critical facility that serves as a hub for many aspects of our national defense operations, including technology development, research operations, and program management. said Scott Rauer, president of Akimas Facilities Solutions Group. In the face of anti-trans animosity , people across the gender spectrum are fighting for equity and protection of rights, underscoring a crucial reminder: being nonbinary is not new. On the legislation floor this year, the number of anti-trans bills have already reached an all-time high record at over 620 bills , and these bills themselves are deeply connected to a legacy of colonialism that has established a rigid system of gender binaries across the world. The attacks against trans people, from bathroom bills to ongoing homicides that often target Black gender-variant people today, are alone proof of the larger efforts to maintain the binary. Prior to American colonialism, gender variance has been embedded as part of indigenous culture. Namely, Two-Spirit (2S) people were seen as gifted and honored amongst Native Americans before European settlers violently reframed gender for the sake of Christianity and British legal standards . Today, those who exist outside of the gender binary of man and woman often identify as nonbinary , though specificities vary according to each persons relationship with their gender. For example, some [nonbinary] people have a gender that blends elements of being a man or a woman, as described by trans nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality . Additionally, those who are nonbinary may not feel attached to any gender overall, while some peoples gender may change over time . While genders outside of the binary have long existed across the world, research on the nonbinary community remains limited . It wasnt until June 2021 that extensive research had been conducted, with the LGBTQ think tank, the Williams Institute, publishing two large-scale studies that estimated more than one million nonbinary adults across the U.S. that year. Notably, over three-in-four nonbinary adults in the report were found to be between the ages of 18 and 29, which aligns with precedented studies finding that younger generations like Gen Z are significantly more comfortable labeling themselves as part of the LGBTQ community. When it comes to representation, nonbinary visibility is on the upswing with shows like hit-animation Steven Universe, sci-fi dramas like Netflixs The Umbrella Academy and even chaotic dating reality shows like MTVs Are You The One season 8. Despite growing visibility, systemic challenges persist. In a world that has continued to rely on gender binaries, discrimination against nonbinary people often occurs at micro levels, from gender markers in identification forms or even the increased demand of gender-neutral public bathrooms. In this landscape, some wins include the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions (EEOC ) 2022 decision to officially add a nonbinary X gender marker during the voluntary self-identification questions when filling out discrimination intake forms. While looking ahead towards an inclusive future for all, it is vital to remember that gender fluidity is far from being a new conceptlet alone a trend. In honor of Nonbinary Awareness Week , here are 13 must-know cultures that celebrated, respected and cherished gender variance prior to colonial influences that continue attempting to erase them. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Philippines The babaylan was a spiritual leader and healer who could be man, woman or both. They held significant societal roles, often serving as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms. Additionally, the pre-colonial Tagalog language had gender-neutral pronouns, suggesting a fluidity in understanding gender that extended beyond a strict binary. Early Spanish colonizers noted the presence of asog or bayok, men who lived as women, and held respected positions within their communities. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Albania First documented in the 1800s but traced back to the 1400s in Northern Albania, burrnesha or sworn virgins were women who took a vow of chastity and wore male clothing to be viewed as men in the patriarchal society. The tradition exists to a smaller extent in Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro. As of last year, there were a dozen documented sworn virgins left in the Balkans. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Angola In Luanda, now known as Angola, there was cultural acceptance of the third-gender called chibados, also known as quimbandas. Assigned male at birth, they carried themselves otherwise. A Portuguese soldier documented a similar culture in reference to the quimbandas of Angola. They were part of the Ndongo and Matambo cultures, and were believed to have magical powers and insight. They were involved in political and military decisions, performing burials and even had the ability to marry other men. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Fa'afafine According to the Samoa Faafafine Association, faafafine has been a part of island life for as long as anyone can remember. The faafafine community identifies as different from queer communities, and instead considered a third gender. Modern faafafine differ in two fundamental ways from their traditional counterparts: young effeminate Samoan boys may be recognised as faafafine by their parents, or if it becomes apparent that a boy wants to become a faafafine, he will be taught the duties and crafts of women. They are an extremely valuable member of Samoan society. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Italy Translated little female-men, femminielli was used as an expression of endearment. Though they were often described to be cross-dressing, indicators of their gender assigned at birth were not concealed or hidden. They were accepted as a third sex deemed special for combining the strengths of both man and woman. In particular, femminielli were thought to bring good luck, and Neapolitans often took newborn babies to them to hold. Additionally, they were also popular companions for gambling. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.India Evidence of Hijras in Hindu society can be referenced back to Hindu holy texts, such as Ramayana and the Mahabharata across various South Asian territories. In the story, Hindu hero Arjuna becomes a third gender. During the era of the British Raj, authorities attempted to eradicate hijras, whom they saw as a breach of public decency. During British rule in India, they were held under the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, labeled as a criminal tribe and therefore subjected to compulsory registration, strict monitoring and stigma until they were decriminalized in 1952. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Hawaii In pre-colonial Hawaii, mahu, those who embody both masculine and feminine spirits, held esteemed positions within society. Praised for having a spiritual connection and knowledge, mahu were often served as healers, teachers of hula and keepers of cultural traditions. They were considered integral to maintaining harmony in the community. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Egypt During the Mamluk Sultanate in what is now known as Egypt from the 1200s to the 1700s, young girls who we perceived to have masculine traits were celebrated and raised as boys and afforded all of the legal and societal advantages. In the early Mamluk period, the transformation of girls into boys was cause for public celebrations. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Mexico As Zapotec people of the Oaxacan peninsula, muxes are people who view themselves as neither man nor woman, but instead a distinct third gender in Mexico. Assigned male at birth, they embody female characteristics in presentation, behavior and professionswhich at one point in time brought upon discrimination in denied education and jobs until their uprising in the 1970s. Gender fluidity was never a phase. These 13 ancient cultures prove itNavajo The Navajo term nadleehi and dilbaa refer to non-cisgender people. They are part of the four genders in the traditional culture of Dine, also known as Navajo, a tribe that extends across U.S. states Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Nadleehi refers to those assigned male at birth that embodies not just masculine spirit, while dilbaa refers to someone assigned female at birth that embodies not just feminine spirit. Both are considered to encompass both genders in one person. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Peru Ancient Incas worshiped a dual-gendered god known as Chuqui Chinchay, the deity of water, in which its manifestation on Earth was a wild cat. The quariwarmi shamans wore androgynous clothing as a third space between the masculine and the feminine, the present and the past, the living and the dead. Their shamanic presence invoked the androgynous creative force often represented in Andean mythology, according to scholar Michael J. Horswell. They were deemed sodomites by the conquering Spaniards. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Australia First Nations people who are not cis in Australia might use the term Sistergirl and Brotherboy. Sistergirls were those who embodied a female spirit and took on female roles within the community, while brotherboys were those who embodied a male spirit and took on male roles in the community. This Nonbinary Awareness Week, journey through time and cultures to discover the rich history of gender diversity that colonialism sought to erase, proving that gender fluidity is not a trend but a timeless truth.Pan-Native American Two-Spirit is a modern umbrella term, an English translation of the Ojibwe niizh manidoowag, which refers to a person who embodies both masculine and feminine spirits. In Native American cultures, Two-Spirit individuals held important roles as healers, visionaries, and keepers of cultural knowledge, and were seen as bridges between the physical and spiritual worlds because their unique perspectives were highly valued English News Shanghai strives for high-quality development of AI industry Alwihda Info | Par People's Daily - 9 Juillet 2024 From 2018 to 2023, the number of AI enterprises above the designated size in Shanghai increased from 183 to 348, with the industry value surging from 134 billion yuan ($18.44 billion) to over 380 billion yuan. The city is now home to over 100 large model enterprises, with 34 large models having passed filing procedures. By Xie Weiqun, Shen Wenmin, People's Daily In China's National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center in Zhangjiang High-tech Park, Shanghai, a remarkable full-sized general-purpose humanoid robot named "Healthy Loong" has attracted wide attention. The 1.85-meter robot with 43 spherical joints can engage in fast walking, swiftly avoid obstacles, steadily mount up and down slopes, and resist impact interference. So far, many prototypes of general-purpose humanoid robots have been launched in Shanghai. In recent years, Shanghai has been exploring effective pathways with a reform-minded approach to accelerate the convergence of key artificial intelligence (AI) elements in order to build a high ground for AI development. The city has been improving coordination mechanisms to address challenges in industrial development. "Innovation in AI requires us to stimulate reform vitality and provide more policy services," said Zhang Ying, head of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization. In October 2022, Shanghai implemented a local regulation on boosting the development of the AI industry, followed by policies and measures to advance the unified scheduling of computing resources, new infrastructure construction, and large model innovation. The city is advancing multiple plans to support model innovation, accelerate the development of intelligent computing, and promote demonstration applications. It is also working to establish a center for large model testing, verification, and collaborative innovation, an alliance for corpus data, platforms for intelligent computing scheduling, centers for hardware-software compatibility evaluation, and open-source communities for large models. Shanghai's Pudong New Area is promoting the development of companies focused on intelligent computing chips and humanoid robots, while the Xuhui district is fostering cluster innovation of algorithm enterprises, especially in large models. The city has also built large-scale intelligent computing clusters, primarily deployed in Songjiang district and Lingang new area, to support large model training. Shanghai has formed a "4+X" cluster pattern, centered on the Zhangjiang AI Island in Pudong, the Shanghai AI Tower in Xuhui, the Dishui Lake AI Innovation Hub in Lingang, and the Maqiao AI Innovation Experimental Zone in Minhang district. With an eye on both the present and future, Shanghai is rapidly building an open, secure, and vibrant innovation ecosystem. The city is creating a software-hardware compatibility and testing system, supporting the Shanghai AI Laboratory in establishing deeply linked software-hardware compatibility solutions, and promoting cooperation between the laboratory and companies like INESA (Group) Co., Ltd. to provide a basis for chip selection for the construction of the intelligent computing center. Shanghai has also established an innovation center for humanoid robot manufacturing to accelerate industrial chain integration, create a humanoid robot industrial base, reduce algorithmic innovation costs for enterprises, and promote the standardization of components. The city is building a multi-level talent system and has established the Artificial Intelligence Industry Security Expert Advisory Committee to provide talent and intellectual support for the development of the AI industry. AI technologies are being rapidly adopted across various sectors, demonstrating significant growth and potential. SenseTime, a Chinese artificial intelligence pioneer, has launched an enterprise-level large model integrated machine that can simultaneously support enterprise-level trillion-parameter model acceleration and knowledge retrieval hardware acceleration, saving 80 percent of costs compared to similar products. Shanghai-based AI company Intsig is contributing to the protection of traditional Chinese culture by using generative AI technology to restore pages and text of the Dunhuang manuscripts, a wide variety of documents in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu province. Shanghai First People's Hospital is applying Alipay's "AI medical assistant" solution to provide patients with a voice-interactive "AI Doctor." The SMC Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center, one of China's first dedicated incubators and accelerators for large-scale AI models, has already attracted over 80 large model enterprises. From 2018 to 2023, the number of AI enterprises above the designated size in Shanghai increased from 183 to 348, with the industry value surging from 134 billion yuan ($18.44 billion) to over 380 billion yuan. The city is now home to over 100 large model enterprises, with 34 large models having passed filing procedures. Dans la meme rubrique : < > Prospering telemedicine a reflection of China's rapid internet development Immersive cultural, tourism activities on the rise across China Fruit trade between China, ASEAN thrives Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News To build China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area into new platform for international cooperation Alwihda Info | Par People's Daily - 8 Juillet 2024 On April 28 this year, the first batch of new energy vehicles (NEVs) manufactured in the SCODA left the automobile trading center of the SCO International Hub Port for the multimodal transport center. Later on, they were shipped to Tajikistan aboard China-Europe freight trains. On June 20, a China-Europe freight train loaded with tea, car parts and other products departed from the center and headed to Kazakhstan. By Yu Yichun, Cui Qi, People's Daily On June 10, 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the 18th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Qingdao, east China's Shandong province, during which he announced that the Chinese government supports building a demonstration area in Qingdao for China-SCO local economic and trade cooperation. Six years on, the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) has grown into a center for international logistics, modern trade, two-way investment cooperation, and commercial, tourism and cultural exchanges, while boosting the development of the China-SCO Institute of Economy and Trade. These efforts have injected new impetus into practical cooperation among SCO countries. In 2019, shortly after China announced the establishment of the SCODA, Russian merchant Svetlana set up a trading company there. As the Qingdao SCODA Pearl International Expo Center started official operation in 2022, she began to manage the center's Russian pavilion. "The attractiveness of China's policies and the inclusiveness of the Chinese market provide a favorable environment for us to explore opportunities and develop together with the SCODA," said Svetlana. Over the past five years, the SCODA's total foreign trade volume with SCO countries has reached 21.34 billion yuan ($2.94 billion), with an average annual growth of 70 percent. The SCODA has been actively expanding industrial cooperation with SCO countries and Belt and Road partner countries, primarily focusing on key areas such as industrial internet and high-end equipment manufacturing. It has attracted over 130 projects with a total investment of over 270 billion yuan. For instance, China's home appliance giant Haier Group has developed COSMOPlat, its first industrial internet platform, and established the Haier COSMOPlat Industrial Internet Ecopark within the SCODA. Besides, the Shanghai Electric Wind Power Equipment Industrial Park and the Aerospace Industrial Park have been inaugurated in the demonstration area. So far, the SCODA has hosted more than 400 international events, including the Second Belt and Road Energy Ministerial Conference, and the first China + Central Asia industry and investment cooperation forum. Zhang Ming, secretary-general of the SCO, noted that the SCODA has been committed to opening up, effectively promoting cooperation among SCO countries. In November 2022, a comprehensive platform that offers one-stop services for local economic and trade cooperation between China and other SCO countries went online. According to Chi Yongxin, an official with the SCODA Administrative Committee, this platform was pioneered by the SCODA, which is among the four specialized services offered by the China International Trade Single Window. It has gathered around 14,000 enterprises, handling over 11,000 customs declaration forms with a total value exceeding 100 billion yuan. In July 2018, the multimodal transport center of the SCODA was officially put into operation, establishing an integrated logistics system that covers sea, land, air and land ports, and railway transportation. The center has facilitated trade between China and other SCO countries. For example, more agricultural products and cotton yarn from Central Asian countries can be exported more rapidly to China, and more Chinese household appliances, daily necessities, and automobiles can be quickly delivered to Central Asia. On April 28 this year, the first batch of new energy vehicles (NEVs) manufactured in the SCODA left the automobile trading center of the SCO International Hub Port for the multimodal transport center. Later on, they were shipped to Tajikistan aboard China-Europe freight trains. On June 20, a China-Europe freight train loaded with tea, car parts and other products departed from the center and headed to Kazakhstan. Zang Yuanqi, an official with the SCODA Administrative Committee, said that the SCODA has opened 32 freight train routes to 54 cities of 23 SCO countries and Belt and Road partner countries. So far, China-Europe freight trains have made more than 3,200 trips along these routes. Besides, the SCODA has forged partnerships with 20 international port cities and jointly initiated and established the China-SCO Industrial Parks Alliance with 40 industrial parks worldwide. In recent years, the people-to-people and cultural exchanges are booming in the SCODA, benefiting people of SCO countries. On January 13, 2022, the China-SCO Institute of Economy and Trade was inaugurated in Qingdao. As of May this year, the institute has hosted 207 training programs, such as foreign aid, business and language training, attracting over 15,000 participants from SCO countries and Belt and Road partner countries, said Zhang Xiaoyan, deputy head of the institute. Dans la meme rubrique : < > Prospering telemedicine a reflection of China's rapid internet development Immersive cultural, tourism activities on the rise across China Fruit trade between China, ASEAN thrives Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) There is a political cartoon that shows a gray, genderless non-player character asking a real man, Who radicalized you? The man leans forward and whispers to the lefty NPC, You did. It is a brilliantly succinct depiction of our historical moment. Right now the NPC news media is pretending that it just discovered Joe Bidens raging dementia when his brain crashed during the president-ish debate. Literally right up to the beginning of that June 27 public revealing of the emperors neurological nakedness, the most respected, well-paid, and credentialed reporters in the land were lampooning conservatives who questioned Slow-Joes mental faculties and labeling authenticated videos of his dimwittedness, cheap fakes. The day after Bidens debate debacle, the same lefty NPC pundits were so shocked by Dementia Joes rambling performance that they immediately called for the anti-democratic Democrat Party to find his replacement. Savvy conservatives had been predicting this scenario for years. Why should Democrat Party bosses risk an open primary that might see the elevation of someone not under their complete control when they can just as easily ignore the will of primary voters, anoint Decrepit Joe, and swap him out with their handpicked successor during Augusts nominating convention? Whether the Biden Crime Family will permit this swap is another question. If a sternly-worded letter delivered to congressional Dim-Dems on Monday means anything, Jill, Hunter, Ashley, and the other freeloading members of the Biden Clan have no intention of losing their quid-pro-quo meal ticket asleep in the White House. Perhaps this means that the Dem-controlled Deep State will start acknowledging Bidens half-century of political graft and unseemly interactions with women and children in an effort to bring him down more forcefully. Or perhaps the NPC lefties now calling for his resignation will magically revert to their prior programming and begin praising Dodo Joe-Joe as the smartest, most energetic, most capable leader they have ever known. The next few days will tell. However the NPC Brigade decide to spin Joes future, their lies look desperate. MS-DNCs Lawrence ODonnell wants Bidens staff on stage at the next debate to help him answer questions and even answer questions themselves. I know Zoomers are bringing their parents to job interviews these days, but that doesnt mean would-be presidents should follow suit. Big boys who want big jobs shouldnt have to borrow other peoples brains. Likewise, the Huff and Puff Post is calling for Weekend at Joe Bidens campaign team to release AI-manipulated videos that falsely portray the president-in-name-only as more nimble, youthful, artful, and intelligent than he actually is. Amazing! For years, the NPC media has dishonestly claimed that every real Dementia Joe video is fake; now the NPC media wants to make fake videos and call them real. When unethical journalists justify outright fraud in pursuit of Democrat victory, its no wonder why a majority of Americans remain convinced that mail-in-ballot fraud handed Biden the White House in 2020. As proto-trillionaire Elon Musk continues to warn Americans these days, our NPC rulers want to cheat. Actually, they have to cheat; otherwise, its game over for the non-player characters. For those keeping score at home, the NPC Squads batting average is buried in a deep grave underneath an already deep basement. Lets review a few of their biggest whiffs over the past few years. First, imagine one of those grey, genderless NPC faces scowling at you. Now listen to their lies: COVID came from a wet market. Uh, nope. We must protect grandparents by closing schools. Doh! Closing small businesses will save them. Derp. Stand six feet apart, or youll probably die. Wait a second. Put this mask on; better yet, take three. That doesnt make any sense. Shoot up with this experimental gene therapy; its safe. Are you sure? Yeah, once injected, you wont get COVID. We still got COVID. What we meant was, you wont transmit COVID. We still gave it to everybody. But you would have been a lot sicker without it. How do you know? Just trust us, okay; were experts. Why is Joe Biden threatening our jobs if we choose to use ivermectin? Because hes a genius who wants to keep America safe. You mean that guy who just read, Now YOU take YOUR seat, from his notecards before introducing his wife as the president? He has a stutter. Does it make him forget who he is? Hes just jet-lagged. After vacationing at Camp David for a week? He has a cold. You mean, like COVID? Isnt that impossible? Fine, youre right, Joe Bidens brain is mush, and we must immediately replace him with Hillary. Whoa now, NPC, lets not jump to conclusions here. Its probably just a stutter. We believe you. Oh, the NPC factory is a terribly depressing place. Can you imagine what its like to possess such a minuscule mind that you have to outsource your critical thinking skills to a third party? You dont have to imagine! Thats why we have Rob Reiner so that we can check in on his brain-dead Tweets! After telling us for years that Joe Biden is the most intelligent president the United States has ever had, he now wants Addled Joe to drop out of the race before its too late. What changed? Too many Americans saw the real Joe Biden malfunctioning on TV! Now NPC Reiner insists, Its time to stop f------ 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. Meathead has a potty mouth, but he speaks really good NPC! Luckily, rocker Cherie Currie dropped this cherry bomb on NPC Reiner: Are you smoking somethin? Decency? Cocaine found in the White House. Gay porn taped in the Capital. Topless Transgenders with their naked breasts on the WH lawn. Unprecedented Illegal immigration leading to human and child trafficking with over 100,000 missing minors. Fentanyl killing more Americans than ever in history. Record homelessness. Record crime. Poverty heading to a Great Depression. There hasnt been decency in 3 1/2 years. Oof, the Queen of Noise doesnt pull her punches when Messin with the NPC Boys! Rock on! Unfortunately, Cherie Currie is too much of an independent thinker for the NPC Crowd to understand. To speak NPC, you must communicate like a person who believes she is brilliant even after a botched lobotomy. Whoopi Goldberg (nee Caryn Elaine Johnson) knows how. She says shed vote for Biden even if he pooped his pants. Cant argue with that logic. When youd rather go with the guy who soils himself on live television than recognize that Incontinent Joe isnt president of anything other than the stinky town of Poopyville, then youre admitting that your brains software runs on an old buggy bootleg copy of standard NPC. On the bright side, should Whoopi get her way, other world leaders might insist that the U.S. pursue a more isolationist foreign policy, if only to give President Poopy-Pants the space those with noses need. As radio host and political prognosticator Larry OConnor points out, Bidens White House handlers actually make him cue cards with pictures of his podium so he knows where to walk and where to stand. And he still screws that up. Americans dont necessarily need a Mensa member to represent their interests, but it would be nice if their president had an IQ higher than a wooden table. At least we have Vice President Harris. When that lady talks about the significance of the passage of time, she sounds like a savant! Uff da. At this rate, lefty NPCs will surely be the death of us all. Hat tip to Dr. Ben Carson. Image: zenjazzygeek via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. The behavior of the current U.S. administration toward Iran, in continuation of the policies of the Obama administration, has been appeasement on a monumental scale. That's evident in the financial tribute facilitated and released to Iran; the lack of effective action to circumscribe Irans expansion of its influence in the Middle East; the failure to counter effectively Irans terrorism against America and its friends in the region; the failure to curb Irans development of a nuclear arsenal; and the failure to arrest Irans development of short and long range missiles to deliver those weapons, not only against targets in the Middle East, but also against targets in Europe and America. This appeasement is so breathtakingly pervasive that one may reasonably conclude that the United States is abandoning its traditional regional friends and is courting Iran as an ally of the U.S., and as the potential hegemon of the Middle East. Even if the administration were to change course today, it has already lost critical effective deterrence against Iran. Military historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson has repeatedly made the point that a nations loss of strategic deterrence may cause a weaker potential enemy to conclude that its stronger adversary will never use its power to thwart it, and thus feel free to take aggressive action which leads to open warfare. Dr. Hansons prime example is WWII, which expanded in 1942 to the disaster it became due to loss of deterrence by the Western Allies against Germany in the 1930s. In a 2017 essay for the Hoover Institution, he wrote: To be effective, deterrence must be unambiguous and understood. It should have been folly for the smaller Axis powers to take on the combined might of an undefeated Britain, a neutral America, and a colluding Soviet Union in 1941. But they had at least one good reason to do so: Before 1939, the Allies had not properly rearmed nor made it clear to Germany and Japan that their overwhelming strength would inevitably crush the fascist powers. War, however, is a tragic laboratory that corrects such impressions. Sadly, aggressors often mistake magnanimity for weakness and the lack of preparation for an inabilityrather than a temporary and correctable reluctanceto arm. These are tragic lessons that seem backward or even dangerous in peace, and so over the ages have to be relearned at great cost through war. Germany, Italy, and Japan learned that deadly lesson in 1942, just months after starting an expansion of a previously successful war that they now had no way of winning. In his book The Second World Wars, Dr. Hanson concludes that France and Britains failure to exercise their legal right to stop German rearmament between the world wars, and their failure to intervene militarily to stop Germanys expansion in Europe from 1937 through the spring of 1940; combined with Americas isolationism and failure to mobilize its industrial base to rearm; and the Soviet Unions non-aggression pact with Germany, resulted in Hitlers belief that the eventual Allies were a paper tiger. This caused Hitler to make two fatal errors: His invasion of his then ally, the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941, and his declaration of war against the United States on Dec. 11, 1941. On Dec. 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands, the U.S. declared war, but only against Japan, not against Germany. For many reasons, it was unclear whether Congress would have declared war on Germany, which had not attacked the U.S., so on Dec. 8 President Roosevelt did not ask it to do so. Germany was required by its Axis alliance with Italy and Japan to declare war only against a nation which attacked one of its Axis partners, which the U.S. had not done. Their pact did not require Germany to declare war against a nation attacked by Japan. Nonetheless, Hitler voluntarily brought the United States into the war against Germany by declaring war against the United States. Hitler believed that the British and Americans lacked the moral fortitude or the will to exercise their military strength to stop him. It took another three and one-half years of brutal warfare, and about 45 million civilian and 15 million military deaths, to prove him wrong. In the Middle East, Iran has planned, and operationally implemented, a strategy to become the hegemon of the entire region. It has created and controls various militant proxies, large and small, consisting of Shia militias in Iraq and Syria; Hezb'allah in Lebanon; Hamas in Gaza; and the Ansar Allah Houthis in Yemen, who are now successfully interdicting international trade and freedom of navigation of Western nations. All of these proxies are armed and tasked by the Iranian government and its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iran is supported in this strategy by, if not formally allied with, Russia, China, and North Korea. It is significant that the navies of Iran, Russia, and China have recently completed combined naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Oman. The Iran proxies mount attacks not only against Israel, but also against U.S. troops and facilities in the region. The Iranian proxy attacks specifically against U.S. forces in the Middle East draw little military response from the U.S., even when American troops are killed or wounded. When the U.S. does respond, it is invariably with a small military strike against the proxy, but never against the principal, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Strong as its military presence is in the region, the United States has failed to use it to effect, thus squandering all deterrence against Iran, which continues to implement its murderous strategy as it pleases. The goal of the U.S. government in the Middle East is not to identify and solve any underlying problems, but rather to keep the lid on all fighting in the region, probably at least until the presidential election of November 2024. This U.S. administration seems willing to continue to support Iran, to sacrifice the Jewish State, and to risk the murder of millions of Jews, for a political goal of keeping the Middle East relatively quiet -- for now. On Dec. 7, 2023, Army Gen. Mark Milley, then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with World War II veterans who were in Washington, D.C. to mark the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He told the veterans: Great power war is horrible. We want to keep it a great power competition, and not get into great power war. And the way to do that is through deterrence. The way to do that is to have a very capable military, and demonstrate the will to use that if necessary to deter any opponent. Unfortunately, the U.S. administration, which included Gen. Milley until recently, has given the rulers of Iran no indication that it will, in fact, take any effective action to block the conduct of their ongoing campaign to take over the Middle East. This policy fails Gen. Milleys deterrence test: It has demonstrated that although there actually is a necessity to use force against Iran, the United States does not have the will to use its very capable military to deter Iran, which remains undeterred from pursuing its goals. Because the U.S. administration has indicated that it is not willing to use force against Iran to stop its expansionary program, the U.S. may eventually have to resort to war to do so, when either this administration or the next finally determines that Iran has overreached. Based upon Irans and Washingtons actions during the Obama and Biden administrations, it is legitimate to ask whether the Biden administrations actual foreign policy goal is to facilitate the elevation of Iran to the position of hegemon over the entire Middle East region, to the detriment of both Israel and the American people. Michael S. Goldstein, Esq. is Arizona State Director of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations. He is a 30-year veteran of the United States Navy and of the U.S. intelligence community. His articles appear in American Thinker. Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License Unlike Dinesh DSouza, I do not claim to have evidence of organized, widespread election fraud that cheated Trump out of the White House in 2020. I do, however, have a brain, a functioning understanding of human nature, and several years spent in behavioral science academia (although some of you might discount that last one). Using these faculties, I have spent the last several years debating with myself whether the election was stolen. Conservatives I respect have argued both sides. After hearing their arguments and seeing their evidence, I reluctantly concluded that I do not know what actually happened. And honestly, neither do you. I wish I knew. I also wish President Trump et al. had proved their claims in court. I wish he was currently serving his second term instead of the corpse that resides in the Oval Office now. I also wish I were a billionaire, my hair wasnt thinning, and my academic career meant something. Unfortunately, as a conservative, I must live in the real world. In the real world, where Biden is (nominally) president, we can either whine about past grievances, as leftists do, or we can wise up and learn what must be learnt. So, was the 2020 election stolen? More importantly, at this point: Will this upcoming election follow the same fate? I have finally reached a conclusion. Two, actually: Yes (probably) and yes (definitely). But it was not observable data that convinced me, it was the reason. Specifically, it was an understanding of human behavior and the particular behavior of our leftist friends. The salient question is not whether Democrats committed election fraud sufficient to put a geriatric dementia patient in the White House. Rather, there are three key questions: could they? would they? and (in their minds) should they? A model commonly used in organizational ethics and auditing is known as the Fraud Triangle. Devised by criminologist Donald R. Cressey, the model suggests that for fraud to take place, three elements must be present: opportunity, incentive, and rationalization. Opportunity pertains to the could they question: Does someone have the ability, position, and power to commit fraud without being caught? Incentive reflects the would they question: Is there a desirable outcome to the fraud? Finally, rationalization gets at the should they question: Can that person point to a supposedly justifiable reason to make the fraud seem like a moral choice? As it turns out, the Democrats had all three in 2020 -- and nothing has changed going into 2024. Lets start with opportunity. Were the Democrats in a position to pull this off? While this administrations track-record of incompetence might seem to argue against that thesis, in the aggregate, their grass-roots activists and army of bureaucratic lackeys gave them a distinct advantage. Take the example a few years ago of Arizona governor Katie Hobbs -- the former secretary of state responsible for elections. Do you really think her position gave her no advantage? She barely campaigned, was down in the polls to her Republican opponent Kari Lake and was behind on fundraising. But she had her hands on the levers of power. So did many other local and statewide Democrat politicians and appointees, in 2020 and beyond. To take advantage of the opportunity this presented, they did not need a coordinated conspiracy (which their partys incompetence would have likely derailed). All they needed were some convenient, idiosyncratic distractions; distractions such as voting machine malfunctioning, or water pipes bursting. From any angle, it appears that the Democrats who run our election operations at the state and local levels, particularly in large cities, had more than sufficient opportunity to commit fraud. There was a practical feast of fraud-inducing stews already cooked up, from mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting to unencumbered non-citizen registration. In states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, they even changed the rules going into the election to provide greater opportunity for fraud while opposing any legislation that would decrease the opportunity for fraud. To cap it all off, the House Democrats recently rejected the mildest of all imaginable voter integrity bills. So, put a checkmark by opportunity. What about an incentive? Might the Democrats, who have spent nine years now years screaming that Donald Trump was a fascist (and many years more yelling the same about any legitimate Republican candidate), have been at the very least tempted to cheat? They love to characterize anything they dont like as a phobic, -ism-inspired attack on themselves personally and democracy broadly. Even the democratic process of voting for Trump was an attack on democracy. Heck, these days, supporting RFK Jr., a liberal democrat, is an attack on democracy. What do we think they would have done if they saw the early returns appearing to favor Trump? Likely not shrug their shoulders and say, better luck next time, chaps. Does anyone honestly believe they would not have tried to do something to prevent it? I mean, come on. They twice impeached the guy over nothing. So yes, despite their protestations of moral superiority, its obvious they had, and have still, an adequate incentive to cheat. Another checkmark. Which leaves rationalization. Could the Democrats rationalize committing fraud to win an election? Well, the same people have rationalized killing innocent babies, castrating confused children, and burning down predominantly black cities. Indeed, fraud is much easier to justify than most of their mainstream positions. Someone who thinks its okay to kill a child just moments before birth would be unlikely to draw the line at lying and cheating. Again, check. Or rather, checkmate. Can I prove the 2020 election was stolen? No. Can I predict with certainty that this year will be a repeat? Not that, either. But based on their own words and actions, it is clear to me that the Democrats had the opportunity, incentive, and rationalization to steal the last election -- and having possibly done it once, there is no reason to assume they wouldnt do it again. Quite the opposite, in fact. Remember, in the words of leftist icon Maya Angelou, When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Image: Public Domain As we approach the pivotal election of November, the choice before us is stark and significant. The contrast between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is not merely a matter of personality or political party; it is a choice between restoring American leadership and continuing a downward trajectory that has defined the past four years under the Biden administration. As a political and economic analyst with a moderately populist perspective, I firmly believe that Trump deserves the backing of both the working man and the businessman alike. His proven track record in foreign policy and defense economics offers a compelling vision for a stronger America on the global stage. Under Trumps leadership, America reclaimed its rightful place as a global leader, demonstrating that strength and negotiation can go hand in hand. His administration not only secured a historic $400 billion increase in defense spending from NATO allies but also more than doubled the number of member countries meeting their minimum obligations. This achievement was recognized by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who credited Trump with significantly strengthening the alliance. This commitment to collective defense ensures that American resources are not unduly burdened while fostering a robust environment for international stability. For businesses, this translates into a more secure and predictable global landscape, encouraging investment and trade. By prioritizing national interests and advocating for fair contributions from allies, Trump demonstrated that a strong defense policy is intrinsically linked to economic prosperity. When countries share the financial responsibility for mutual defense, it alleviates the fiscal strain on American taxpayers, allowing for more investment in domestic initiatives and job creation. The strategic withdrawal from the one-sided Iran Nuclear Deal exemplifies Trumps commitment to peace through strength. By imposing crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime, he effectively curtailed their oil exports to zero, striking at the heart of their revenue generation. This decisive action not only bolstered American security but also reinforced the global economic framework by deterring other rogue states from pursuing aggressive policies. Furthermore, Trumps approach to North Korea, which included historic diplomatic engagements and maximum pressure campaigns, laid the groundwork for a more stable East Asian region. This stability has profound economic implications, as it promotes safe investment environments and ensures that American businesses can operate without fear of geopolitical upheaval. The peace achieved through tough negotiations directly supports economic growth at home. In addition to reinforcing NATO, Trumps administration prioritized advancing peace and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. By fostering investments and expanding American partnerships with nations like Japan and South Korea, he created a more interconnected and prosperous economic landscape. This strategy not only enhances regional stability but also opens up new markets for American businesses, ensuring long-term economic growth. The importance of burden-sharing among allies cannot be overstated. By encouraging countries to commit to their defense responsibilities, Trump strengthened the economic foundations of alliances that support American global leadership. A united front not only amplifies military effectiveness but also solidifies economic ties, leading to mutually beneficial partnerships. Trumps efforts to reform and streamline the United Nations, resulting in a $1.3 billion reduction in spending, highlight his commitment to economic accountability on the world stage. By demanding efficiency and transparency from international institutions, he underscored the need for responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. This approach is crucial for a thriving economy, as it directs resources toward more pressing domestic needs rather than ineffective bureaucracies. Moreover, his announcement that the United States would never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty was a strong assertion of Second Amendment rights, reflecting a dedication to American sovereignty. This stance protects not only individual liberties but also upholds the economic interests of American businesses in the defense sector. Trumps administration was marked by a series of bold negotiations that advanced American interests and reinforced national security. His groundbreaking meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was historic, positioning the United States as a diplomatic leader while opening channels for dialogue. This unprecedented approach fostered a climate where American hostages were released, and negotiations for denuclearization took center stage. In the Balkans, Trump brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, demonstrating that peace can have tangible economic benefits. By stabilizing a historically volatile region, he not only enhanced security but also created opportunities for American investment and economic engagement. Trumps leadership extended to holding authoritarian regimes accountable. His decisive actions, such as signing the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, sent a strong message to China regarding its infringements on autonomy. By standing firm against oppressive regimes, he not only protected American values but also ensured a level playing field for American businesses competing in the global market. Additionally, Trumps leadership in rallying allied efforts to defeat the Chinese Communist Partys influence over international telecommunications systems is a testament to his strategic foresight. In an era where technology and communications shape economies, ensuring American interests are protected is paramount. The investment in defense during Trumps presidency was not merely a matter of military readiness; it was an economic imperative. A robust military presence ensures not only national security but also fosters an environment conducive to business growth. Companies thrive in stable environments, and a strong military presence acts as a deterrent to potential aggressors, allowing American businesses to flourish both domestically and abroad. Moreover, the focus on advancing military capabilities translates into technological advancements that benefit civilian industries. The defense sector often leads innovation that spills over into the broader economy, enhancing productivity and job creation. As we look towards November, the need for strong leadership is clearer than ever. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is the candidate capable of restoring American leadership abroad while ensuring that our allies contribute their fair share. His policies have proven that a Republican administration can effectively advance peace through strength, securing both our national interests and economic prosperity. In stark contrast, Joe Bidens administration has been marked by indecisiveness and economic missteps that have left America vulnerable on the global stage. The choice is not just about political allegiance; it is about the future of our nation, our economy, and our standing in the world. As working Americans and business leaders alike consider their votes, the answer is clear: Donald Trump deserves our unwavering support to continue the mission of restoring American greatness. In November, let us unite behind a leader who has shown time and again that he is committed to securing a prosperous future for all AmericansDonald Trump. Together, we can restore American leadership, uphold our values, and build a stronger economy for generations to come. Joseph Ford Cotto, 1st Baron Cotto, GCCCR (DBA) is the author of What Happened to America?: Howand Whythe American Dream Became a Nightmare. He hosts News Sight, an online program with a sharp focus on the current events that impact your life. During 2014, HLM King Kigeli V of Rwanda bestowed a hereditary knighthood upon him. It was followed by a barony the next year. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration. Image: Free image, Pixabay license. The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation, Victor Davis Hanson. Basic Books, 2024. 287 pp. Victor Davis Hansons latest book is a macabre warning to an aging America as it closes in on its 250th birthday. The warning comes in the form of a graphic depiction of the hideousness of war and the terrifying state of those who suffer ignominious defeat. However different the four societies described in the book were, be they Thebans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, or Aztecs, each was blinded by the illusion of invincibility. Hanson shows that such an illusion is so persistent that even as the conquered were being slaughtered, they continued to think: It cannot happen here. Thebes, the 4th century B.C. Greek city-state, sat confidently among the constellation of other Greek city-states. Thebans felt such confidence because of their impressive military, the justness of their cause, the sympathy of their allies and their citys hallowed reputation as an icon of eternal Hellenic culture, as distinguished Professor of Classics Hanson writes. Indeed, both Alexander the Great and his father, Philip, admired the great Theban general, Epaminondas. But Thebes was too cocky to return that respect. Though how could they have missed the threat posed by Alexander and his lethal Macedonian phalanx which he had used to conquer 1,500 other Greek city states?! Since Thebes had sided with the Persian invaders in the fifth century B.C. Persian War, Alexanders scheme to take Thebes gave her allies an opportunity for revenge as well as profit from her defeat. As Hanson notes, this case is thematic in our study of doomed states, showing how allies pile on to destroy their former friends. Hanson notes that no deus ex machina descended to save Thebes just as it didnt with the other doomed polities described in the book. Regardless, their respective fates were sealed because of their weak military, their naivete, their long decline, and the military genius and resources of their attackers. Everyone has heard, Carthage must be destroyed, the imperative with which Cato the Elder ended his Roman Senate speeches. In Hansons chapter on the destruction of Carthage, The Wages of Vengeance, he shows the scar tissue that the Romans had built up in their dealings with Carthage that was reflected in Catos compulsive plea. Despite their two previous Punic wars with Rome, the Carthaginians felt secure in their north African enclave. As descendants of the Phoenicians living in what is now modern Tunisia, the Carthaginians had developed a trading empire in competition with Rome. Consequently, Hannibal and his elephants in 218 BC scaled the Alps, descended into Italy, and won battles there. The most stunning was at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC in southern Italy. The first day casualties of that bloodbath were close to 70,000, which rivals the slaughter of the British on the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916! The loss at Cannae terrorized the Romans so much that, among other rituals, they buried four people alive as a sacrifice to their gods in the hope of saving their own skins. Capitalizing on such fear, Rome sent an army to north Africa, which forced Hannibal home where he suffered a humiliating defeat. Nonetheless, it took 14 more years to level Carthage. Many years ago, an old Armenian man told me that since Constantinople fell on Black Tuesday, May 29, 1453, he often takes a few moments to reflect and pray on Tuesdays in remembrance of that catastrophe. So, the loss of the Byzantine seat of Orthodox Christianity with its grandest church in Christendom, the Hagia Sophia, still lingers in memory in distant times and distant lands. Famed historian, Edward Gibbon, describes the scene after the Turkish Muslims had scaled and breeched the walls surrounding Constantinople, chasing the terrified survivors from every part of the capital as they flowed into the church of St. Sophia: within an hour, the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the galleries were filled with priests, monks and religious virgins, their hope for being rescued being founded on the legend of angelic intervention. Meanwhile the doors to the church were broken open and the Turks, encountering no resistance, began selecting the youngest, prettiest, and most prosperous looking women and boys for their prurient and profitable purposes. Certainly, Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos saw the huge army besieging his city and he also must have noted his own pitiful, defensive force. Apparently though, Constantinople had looked to its past more than to the awful present, as Hanson soberly remarks. Constantinople had survived previous attacks with its fifteen foot thick walls and its ninety towers that were each sixty feet high! But when Giovanni Giustiniani, the leader responsible for Constantinoples survival during the siege, was seriously wounded, the resistance collapsed and with it a millennium of Byzantine civilization. The fall of Constantinople finalized Muslim control of the Levant, forcing Europe to go west in order to go east to trade with China and India. On the way east, the Europeans ran into the Americas. The first adventurers into what is now Mexico were the Spanish conquistadores who in 1521 encountered a wonderous empire -- one confident, warlike and antithetical to Catholic Spanish imperialism in almost every way imaginable, as Hanson writes. And as he continues, the Aztecs could never fathom a man like Hernan Cortes, who was quite willing to annihilate them. And in the process, Cortes and his men had about as many cliffhangers as Indiana Jones! Cortes at age 34 was a faceless functionary, yet he turned out to be a military genius equal to Alexander as well as a cunning negotiator. That the Aztecs were overcome because they were expecting the promised return of the god, Quetzalcoatl, is dismissed by scholars. Though certainly, the mystery and shock of seeing Spanish cavalrymen on horses, equipped with thunderous guns and sharp-edged swords were reason enough to deify the invading Spaniards. But soon the Aztecs saw that the Spaniards hungered for food and sex while imploring the Aztecs to abandon human sacrifice and accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Central Mexico had hundreds of villages some of which Cortes and his men fought their way through, though eventually forming alliances with them against the hated Aztecs. Then the Spaniards reached Tenochtitlan, a magnificent city built on Lake Texcoco with its rich soil and its islands connected by bridges and causeways reminiscent of Venice. But overlooking this were the ninety-foot-high stone pyramids where human sacrifices and cannibalism took place. Thus, the invaders alternately lusted for the gold the Aztecs displayed while also being repulsed by their abhorrent practices. Montezuma II saw the threat posed by the interlopers while his nephew Cacama urged that the Spaniards be welcomed. But it became increasingly clear that the Spanish were a threat. Then, in Cortess absence, his savvy but reckless lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, became so incensed by the Aztecs bloody rituals that he ordered an attack on them. The combat was brutal though the Aztecs in their need to have victims to sacrifice, preferred capturing the Spanish, which seems benign enough. But Cortess men were terrorized when the Aztecs ripped out the hearts of their captured comrades in plain sight on the platforms atop their pyramids and threw their bodies to the ravenous dogs below. Despite these unnerving episodes, Cortes was able to rally his frightened men. As celebrated military historian Hanson observes, Historians have long argued over the mystery of how a small Spanish force beaten and near capitulation, rebuilt an extensive native alliance and obliterated an empire of four million subjects. Hansons tone in The End Of Everything may seem detached and pitiless considering the brutality described in the book. But his tone suggests how we, in contrast to the examples in the book, should unsparingly evaluate ourselves if we are to survive. For peoples fears and hopes are like gravity in their consistency and predictability. In that sense, Victor Davis Hanson is more Isaac Newton as opposed to the progressives, who dream that money, education, and better intentions could arrest the gory arch of history, as he wrote in one of his previous twenty-seven books. Ignoring reality destroyed the four societies shown in the compelling narrative of this book. May such blindness not be visited on us! Have you noticed in the past few days that President Trump has taken the erstwhile advice of Napoleon and stayed out of the way while the ruling-class Democratic party has waged a civil war within its highbrow ranks? There was a time when the fascist far left and the nations socialist media (but there we go, repeating ourselves) dearly depended on a mean tweet that they could demonize for days and the better part of several news cycles to cover any mistakes they made. But now something seems to be different, and its driving the fascist far left insane better yet, lets say further insane. Ben Domenech from Spectator World noticed this phenomenon, and we can only hope that he keeps up the good work, because if the fascist far-left hates something, it has to be good for the country: Since Joe Bidens utterly disastrous debate performance, Trump has displayed incredible restraint and focus, not giving any fodder to the media to distract from the Biden White Houses flailing inability to deal with this moment. Democratic commentators have openly complained about the lack of public events from Trump, as if desperate for him to do something, anything to shift the focus. Amid House Democrats demoralized caucus meeting, frustrated donor calls and Sorkinesque fantasies about a convention blitz of replacement candidates, Democrats and their media allies would love to have anything gifted to them from Trump to talk about instead. Its an amazing trend to behold. The left got so used to this happening over the past eight years, they just took it as a given now theyre practically begging Trump to do something crazy. We can only say, Well played, sir, and keep up the good work. Because that meant the only thing the nations socialist media could do was incessantly repeat the same old tired story about Project 2025 reducing and in some cases, dismantling the administrative state (think of it like an English version of the famous Javier Milei video), so it caused them to go into even more panic. The plain fact is that we regular folks dont care about such things out here in flyover country. Were normally concerned with how we will pay for gas and diesel fuel now that theyve caused those prices to skyrocket. And were shocked that going to McDonalds is now a luxury meal experience. At the same time, you have to practically take out a second mortgage to buy food for the week. We were at peace around the world, with the threat of nuclear war a memory of the distant past, so what did we care about a tiny but overly vocal group of the far-left ruling class that was going apoplectic over a mean tweet or that President Trump dared use words that were also used back in the 1930s? Hence, someone produced an in-your-face response to their bizarre concerns about Twitter posts and created a campaign called Mean Tweets 2024. But this situation is even better, since it takes the issue away entirely. Joy Reid once again played the Hitler card, declaring that she would vote for President Joe Biden even if he were in a coma. Remember, folks: were never, ever to invoke that memory again, lest you violate Godwins Law, unless youre of the leftist ruling class. Then, by all means, have at it. And in the far lefts sinister civil war, George Clooney must have received the memo that its okay to now notice Bidens decline. The Democrats have lost ground in 6 states with an election forecasters post-debate shift, to the point that New York is now a battleground state. You almost have to smile when you read the words of No More Mister Nice (that is the name of the blog), who said, Dear Democrats: You Know People Can Hear You, Right? Yes, we can. Do you ever listen to the pro-freedom right? D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites. Find him on Substack. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. During his press conference on July 11, 2024 at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit, President Joe Biden released his Democrat convention delegates, as seen at 54:20 into the video. The questions and answers were: Q: And, if I may, your convention is coming up where your delegates are pledged to make you the official nominee. Are they free to vote their conscience? A: Obviously, theyre free to do whatever they want. ... Tomorrow if all of a sudden I show up at the convention and everybody says we want somebody else, thats the democratic process. ... Q: Even if that means they vote for someone else? A: Sure. Whether his release is effective as to all of his delegates depends on several factors. Rule 13(J) of the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2024 Democratic National Convention states: Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. The rule is vague. Is it referring to the sentiments at the time the delegate was selected or at the time the delegate votes? Does the rule allow a delegate to vote for a candidate other than the one to whom the delegate was pledged when the delegate was selected if the delegate sincerely believes that another candidate would be better for the Democrat party and the country? Elaine Kamarck at the Brookings Institution writes: There is no definition, nor is there any history about what constitutes in all good conscience. Few, if any, delegates to recent conventions have ever sought to test it. It may be that Rule 13(J) is sufficiently vague to allow any delegate to vote for any candidate on the first ballot. Some states have laws that govern how a delegate can vote. Ballotpedia has a table citing such laws. Some states have laws requiring that a delegate vote for the candidate for whom the delegate was pledged. Other states are silent on the topic. Some states require that a candidates release of delegates must be in writing. One example is Section 9-485(c) of the General Statutes of Connecticut. Another issue is whether state laws can override the Democrat party rules. Democrat convention delegates pledged to vote for Biden on the first ballot may be able to vote for somebody else because of the vague nature of Rule 13(J), as long as there is no effective state law requiring otherwise. Delegates who are bound to vote for Biden on the first ballot, in states that allow an oral release by the candidate, have been released by Biden. Allan J. Favish is an attorney in Los Angeles. His website is allanfavish.com. James Fernald and Mr. Favish co-authored a book about what might happen if the government ran Disneyland, entitled Fireworks! If the Government Ran the Fairest Kingdom of Them All (A Very Unauthorized Fantasy). Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. President Biden addressed a summit meeting of NATO leaders on Tuesday, on the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. His entire speech was read from a teleprompter but, even so, I was still surprised that he spoke in such a strong voice and mostly avoided the verbal flubs and stumbles, the brain fog, and the robotic moves and spaced-out look that have characterized so many of his public statements and appearances, particularly at his recent debate with Donald Trump. Bidens NATO address contributed to my small, nagging suspicion that we are all being sandbagged regarding Bidens cognitive impairment. [For anyone unfamiliar with the term sandbagging, it means to deceive your adversaries by deliberately portraying yourself as weaker and/or less capable.] Image: Biden at NATO (cropped). YouTube screen grab. Ill admit to being cynical to the point of paranoia when it comes to what I believe the Biden crime family and the Democrats are capable of. I wouldnt put anything past them, including the termination with extreme prejudice of Donald Trump. And anyone who doesnt believe them capable of eliminating Trump in such fashion probably also believes that Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself or that it was purely coincidental that Vince Foster, Jim McDougal, Seth Rich (and others who knew too much about the Clintons) also met untimely ends. So, Bidens NATO speech performance triggered a bunch of What ifs along the lines of What if Joe has been faking dementia, Alzheimers etc.? But it was the content of his speech that triggered an entirely different set of What ifs. As I listened to his forceful remarks about Russias war with Ukraine, I wondered What if certain other words were substituted? What if Biden spoke of Israel in the same loving, supportive tones he reserves for Ukraine, and spoke of Hamas and the Palestinians with the same disdain he reserves for Putin and Russia? When Biden said, In Europe, Putins war of aggression against Ukraine continues. And Putin wants nothing less nothing less than Ukraines total subjugation; to end Ukraines democracy; to destroy Uraines cul- Uraine Ukraines culture; and to wipe Ukraine off the map. I thought, What if, instead, hed said this? In the Middle East, Israels retaliatory war against Hamas continues. And Hamas wants nothing less nothing less than Israels total subjugation; to end Israels democracy; to destroy Israels culture; and to wipe Israel off the map. And when Joe Biden said, And we know Putin wont stop at Ukraine. But make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin [applause] especially with our full, collective support. And they have our full support. I wondered, What if hed said this? And we know Islamic terrorism wont stop at Israel. But make no mistake, Israel can and will stop Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Iran especially with our full, collective support. And Israel has our full support. When Biden said this: Together, weve built a global coalition to stand with Ukraine. Together, weve provided significant economic and humanitarian assistance. And together, weve supplied Ukraine with weapons it needs to defend itself: tanks, armored fighting vehicles, air defense systems, long-range missiles, and millions of munitions. The United States and nearly two dozen Allied partners have signed the bilateral security agreements with Ukraine and more countries will follow. I wished hed said this: Together, weve built a global coalition to stand with Israel. Together, weve provided significant economic and humanitarian assistance. And together, weve supplied Israel with weapons it needs to defend itself: tanks, armored fighting vehicles, air defense systems, long-range missiles, and millions of munitions. The United States and nearly two dozen Allied partners have signed the bilateral security agreements with Israel and more countries will follow. Would the current, ostensible Leader of the Free World have said that? And, had he done so, would his remarks have garnered the same applause? Would the world rally behind Israel the way it has behind Ukraine? I think we all know the shameful answer to that question; my maternal grandfather () had an expression that sums it up: Never happen. Authors Note: Stu Tarlowe, a NYC native who now lives where the Kaw meets the Mighty Mo, is a septuagenarian who, since 2010, has contributed over 160 pieces to American Thinker. His personal pantheon of heroes and role models includes Barry Farber, Jean Shepherd, Rush Limbaugh, Long John Nebel, G. Gordon Liddy, Col. Allen West (still his first choice for POTUS), Col. Jeff Cooper and Rabbi Meir Kahane. He writes on matters both political and personal, including occasional dog stories and even jokes, at Stus Stack o Stuff. In an exclusive report at American Thinker yesterday, I broke the news that a highly placed reliable source had confirmed that Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is former president Donald Trumps choice for his vice presidential running mate. My source did not discourage publication of what s/he shared with me as long as I protected his/her identity as an anonymous source, which I did. At 3:00 p.m. ET Thursday, in a scoop at AXIOS titled Don Jr. to speak ahead of Trump's VP nominee at RNC, Sophia Cai reported that evidence was mounting that Sen. Vance would get the nod as Trumps VP choice. Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to speak right before his father's vice presidential pick at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Axios has learned. Why it matters: It's the latest sign that former President Trump has zeroed in on Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as a favorite contender to be his running mate, over North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). . . Don Jr. has an been early and vocal booster of Vance, and the convention's speaking order is the clearest indication yet that the 39-year-old senator could have the inside track to being named the GOP's vice presidential nominee. At this point, we are all reading the tea leaves for clues as to former president Trumps vice presidential choice. My source for yesterdays blog on Vance cautioned that his/her information was current as of Monday July 8, while noting that Trump is known to frequently change his mind. For example, last month Trump told NBC News that he had decided on his VP choice. This month, he has been saying that he has yet to decide. In an article yesterday, The rise of JD Vance: From 'never-Trump guy' to potential VP pick, ABC News appeared to advance speculation that Vance would be the VP pick. 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, possibly serving as vice president to the man he once heavily criticized, former President Donald Trump. . . James David Vance grew up in a low-income family in Ohio. After serving in the Marines and graduating with a degree from Ohio State University, he obtained a law degree at Yale Law School. He then worked as a venture capitalist in the tech industry and in 2016 wrote a wildly successful memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, that was later made into a motion picture. In 2022, running as a conservative Republican with Trumps endorsement, Vance was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio. As ABC News noted: 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. . . What Vance Could Bring to the Ticket [emphasis original.] With Trump expected to announce his running mate in the coming days -- and Vance being one of the top contenders, 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." . . . 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 " Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran journalist who has covered national politics and other topics for over five decades. His most recent interview on BBC Radio in the U.K. can be listened to here. His web page with links to his work and a bio is http://peter.media. Peters extensive American Thinker archive: http://tinyurl.com/pcathinker. His Twitter account is @pchowka. Image: Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED Paris? Its streets covered with homeless illegal-migrant encampments? Not for the Olympics, it isn't. According to the New York Times, President Macron has gone the full Potemkin Village ahead of the international television cameras filming Paris for the Olympics, which begin on July 24, sweeping the illegals out. The French government has put thousands of homeless immigrants on buses and sent them out of Paris ahead of the Olympics. The immigrants said they were promised housing elsewhere, only to end up living on unfamiliar streets far from home or flagged for deportation. ... Around the city over the past year, the police and courts have evicted roughly 5,000 people, most of them single men, according to Christophe Noel du Payrat, a senior government official in Paris. City officials encourage them to board buses to cities like Lyon or Marseille. We were expelled because of the Olympic Games, said Mohamed Ibrahim, from Chad, who was evicted from an abandoned cement factory near the Olympic Village. The story mirrors a similar story done by DW News of Germany featured on YouTube three weeks ago, although the Times did its own reporting and interviewed different illegal migrants: What's going on here is illegals-dumping from Paris to the other French cities, including some that don't vote for Macron. The City of Orleans, made famous by Joan of Arc, is featured in both news items, and based on the voting map of the Loiret department, of which Orleans is the main city, appears to have gone left in the western precinct where Orleans itself is, while voting pro-Macron in the center of the department, pro-National Rally of Marine Le Pen conservative in the west, and for an unspecified fourth party in the south. Orleans has a nice cathedral and Joan of Arc museum, and it's likely some of the newly arrived migrants are getting ideas about how to burn it. It's the same thing San Francisco's mayor, London Breed did when China's president, Xi Jinping, came calling in November last year. Paris is pretending this homeless sweepout has nothing to do with the Olympics (the Times piece found evidence they were lying), but San Francisco didn't even try to hide it. San Francisco was so crude about it even Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted four days later they swept out the homeless for Xi's visit, and shortly after, the city went right back to drugs, homeless campouts, lawlessness and disorder the minute the Chinese president left. For cities such as Orleans and Marseille, it's a raw deal and doesn't solve the root of the problem, which is why the country is tolerating illegal immigrants who can neither assimilate, nor contribute, nor be happy in any Western society. The Sudanese migrant quoted in the DW News video specifically stated that he expected the French government to support him for the rest of his life. As the mayor of Marseille, told the Times: City officials outside Paris told us that they had not been consulted about the program. Theres no money to find places for the homeless in Marseille, but there is money to bring homeless people from Paris? said Audrey Garino, deputy mayor of Marseille. So they're playing pass-the-migrant in the name of giving Paris good public relations coverage for the Olympics, and spreading the homeless-migrant problem across the country. The migrants are homeless because they have so little to offer a developed society and can't earn high wages unless the state pays it for them. But the state doesn't deport them immediately, it lets them just camp out, litter, and commit crimes, making the city of Paris unliveable for the other residents who pay the taxes. Only when fancy foreigners with big television cameras come do they get busy with a cleanup. Seems merely being a Parisian wanting a reasonable quality of life isn't good enough for them to get to work. The Times says they are deporting some of the migrants now with these buses, but one wonders why they didn't do that before the migrants could camp out and make the city hellish. Funny how an international spotlight motivates these blue cities like Paris and San Francisco. They don't do anything otherwise, blithely ignoring the well-being of their own voters. Image: Screen shot from DW video, via YouTube The COVID shot was put on trial in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and coming from California the result might surprise you. Three of four judges agree it was never a traditional vaccine and therefore could not legally be mandated. The case was against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that required employees to get the COVID-19 vaccination or lose their jobs. While this case was making its way thru the courts, LAUSD was playing Hokey-Pokey with their policy on vaccination which didnt play well in their litigation strategy, as it allowed the case to be kept alive rather than becoming moot. Plaintiffs argued that in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), in concluding that the Policy survived rational basis review. Jacobson held that mandatory vaccinations were rationally related to preventing the spread of smallpox. Here, however, plaintiffs allege that the vaccine does not effectively prevent spread but only mitigates symptoms for the recipient and therefore is akin to a medical treatment, not a traditional vaccine. Taking plaintiffs allegations as true at this stage of litigation, plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the COVID-19 vaccine does not effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19. Thus, Jacobson does not apply. Further, the Ninth Circuit Court observed Pursuant to more recent Supreme Court authority, compulsory treatment for the health benefit of the person treated -- as opposed to compulsory treatment for the health benefit of others -- implicates the fundamental right to refuse medical treatment. LAUSD argued, basically, (my words) we didnt know any better so (their words) [t]he science [on vaccines] has not changed and they are still safe and effective. In its final ruling, the court decided At this stage, we must accept Plaintiffs allegations that the vaccine does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 as true And, because of this, Jacobson does not apply. LAUSD cannot get around this standard by stating that Plaintiffs allegations are wrong. Nor can LAUSD do so by providing facts that do not contradict Plaintiffs allegations... But even if the materials offered by LAUSD are subject to judicial notice, they do not support rejecting Plaintiffs allegations. LAUSD only provides a CDC publication that says COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. But safe and effective for what? LAUSD implies that it is for preventing transmission of COVID-19 but does not adduce judicially noticeable facts that prove this. According to Americas Frontline Doctors this is a bigger deal than one might think because Liability protection under U.S. law is granted only to valid vaccines. The CDC and pharmaceutical companies were fully aware of this critical distinction when they changed the definition of vaccine in 2021 to include mRNA shots. Could immunity from liability of Big Pharma be challenged on the basis of this decision by the Ninth Circuit? Personally, I hope so. Image: Baltimore County Government/ING Visuals The EU has been investigating X (formerly Twitter) for some time now to check whether the company complies with its DSA (Digital Services Act). Part of the investigation has concluded with the organization determining that paid blue checkmarks are deceptive to users. The investigation by an EU commission began on December 18, 2023. The organization was examining issues such as potential deceptive practices, transparency (especially in advertising), and data access for independent researchers. As a result, X is the first company officially accused of violating DSA legislation. Xs blue checkmarks are deceptive for users, the EU says The EU Commission found the blue checkmark verification system a deceptive practice, as it makes it difficult for X users to know whether an account is authentic or not. Currently, getting one only requires paying for a supported tier. The platform does not require any additional data. Therefore, the blue checkmark is more of a premium-tier perk than a real verification system. However, there are many users who associate it with account authenticity. The investigation also found cases of profiles using the system to intentionally mislead people on X. So, the EU sees it as a problem that requires a short-term solution. The EU also concluded that X is not complying with its requirements on transparency in advertising and the availability of data to independent researchers either. Following the conclusions of the investigation, X will have the opportunity to defend itself. However, if nothing changes after the defense, the company will be forced to make notable tweaks to the system. If it continues to violate the legislation, X could receive a fine of up to 6% of its gross revenue. Elon Musks company qualifies as a Very Large Online Platform under DSA guidelines. This is because it has more than 45 million monthly active users in EU member countries. Other matters remain under investigation The investigation started in 2013 also included other areas. For example, the distribution of illegal content or moderation on posts related to the war between Israel and Hamas. However, the EU confirmed that the investigation remains ongoing for those issues. Lately, the EU has been actively investigating large companies for compliance with regulations such as the DSA or the DMA. Regarding the latter, Apple was charged for violations related to the App Store, while Google and Microsofts moves in the AI segment are under vigilance. Samsung didnt tell you this at Unpacked, but the Galaxy Z Flip 6 doesnt support DeX. Yes, the $1,100 flagship lacks the feature that extends it into a desktop-like experience by connecting a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The company also hid the fact that the $650 Galaxy Watch Ultra doesnt have a rotating bezel while both foldables miss out on seamless updates. The Galaxy AI watermark has gotten bigger too. Galaxy Z Flip 6 still lacks Samsung DeX support Samsung DeX is a powerful tool found on flagship Galaxy devices. However, despite falling in the flagship category, the Flip series foldables have always lacked it. Last year, the company said it didnt add DeX support to these devices because they dont have a robust heat dissipation system. Using the phone in a PC setup generates more heat than usual, potentially causing performance and safety issues. This years Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a vapor chamber cooling system, a first for the lineup. The camber is allegedly 150% bigger than the one in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, so the new foldable shouldnt have overheating issues. However, Samsung still didnt deem it secure enough to add DeX support, which is a bummer. Its not like the phone lacks powerit uses the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset as the Fold 6 and S24 Ultra. Maybe Samsung can enable DeX on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 via a software update. But no amount of software updates can fix another disappointing move from the company this year. Its much-hyped Galaxy Watch Ultra lacks the iconic rotating bezel. The ultra-powerful watch aimed at professionals and power users doesnt feature the physical bezel ring that many Galaxy Watch fans have come to love over the years. On this note, Samsungs new foldables also do not support seamless updates. A feature aimed at shortening downtimes during software updates, Google introduced seamless updates almost a decade ago. After avoiding it for years, Samsung finally brought the feature to its devices starting with the Galaxy A55 earlier this year. We expected it to offer seamless updates on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Gaalaxy Z Flip 6, but not to be. Samsung increased the AI watermark size on One UI 6.1.1 One UI 6.1.1 debuted with the new foldables and brought more Galaxy AI features, including an impressive tool that lets you create images from rough sketches. Considering the potential misuse or abuse, Samsung increased the watermark size on images edited with Galaxy AI. Alongside the existing starry logo, the watermark now includes the text AI-generated content. Samsung is being transparent here. The new One UI version also brings another change to Samsung foldables, a more positive one. When registering a new fingerprint, you no longer need to unfold the device, at least on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The cover screen can handle the task. Earlier, you could only register fingerprints via the inner display. Older Fold models should pick up this improvement with the One UI 6.1.1 update in the coming weeks. Earlier this year, Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 series and the Galaxy AI suite. The latter includes a set of features powered by generative AI. Interestingly, the company seemed to forget about its own Bixby assistant, for which no Gen AI-based boost was mentioned. However, now Samsung has confirmed its plans in this regard, and they look promising. Google, the pioneer of generative AI in commercial smartphones, has the Gemini assistant powered by its own LLMs. After Google, Samsung was the second phone manufacturer to make the biggest bet on the segment. The company even integrated the Gemini Nano model into its Galaxy S24 series before most Pixel phones (including the vanilla Pixel 8) received it. Many of the Galaxy AI features are inspired by those of the Pixel 8 series. However, the company left out a potential Gen AI-based improvement for Bixby from its announcements. Bixby assistant will be revamped with Gen AI-based features and capabilities The lack of news related to Bixby even made some think that Samsung would get rid of its assistant. However, things perked up in April when Won-Joon Choi, head of Samsungs Flagship Product R&D Team, mentioned the possibility of giving Gen AI features to Bixby. Now it is TM Roh, president of Samsung Mobile, who confirms the company will revamp Bixby with the application of Gen AI technology later this year. Roh did not reveal an exact date for the rollout of the improved assistant. However, he said that it will be powered by the companys own LLMs. So, it seems that the new Bixby will not depend on the Google Gemini models. Instead, Samsung will take a similar path to Apple with Ajax or BBK companies (like OPPO and Oneplus) with AndesGPT. Samsung also confirmed that it will maintain an open approach where it will allow multiple assistants on its phones. This way, it will be the user who decides which one they want to use. The company seems quite enthusiastic about its commitment to AI in all segments. In this regard, Roh said that Samsung is reinforcing and bringing more AI capabilities to all its product lines. Currently, it is unknown what improvements the Gen AI-powered Bixby assistant will bring. The current version is a kind of Google Assistant, but less capable. Samsung has a lot of work to do to make Bixby gain more interest among its broad user base. Samsung has introduced its official accessories for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Both new foldables get four official protective cases and an anti-reflective screen film. Apart from the clear/transparent case, all others come in multiple colors. The company posted YouTube videos highlighting the key features of the new covers. Several third-party accessory makers have also launched protective cases and screen protectors for the duo. Samsung launches official cases for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Like its predecessors, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 supports S Pen (Fold Edition) but the stylus isnt included in the retail box. Its an optional accessory you can buy separately. This also means the device lacks a built-in silo to keep the S Pen. Thankfully, Samsung offers an S Pen Case with an integrated stylus slot. According to the company, this years version is slimmer and more portable than ever. It also comes with design improvements for easier S Pen access. The Galaxy Z Fold 6s S Pen Case is available in Navy, Pink, and Gray colors and bears an MSRP of $100. However, Samsung is currently selling it for just $50. It usually costs $75, so thats a $25 saving right there. But if you wont buy the S Pen or dont need a case with an S Pen slot, Samsungs Silicon Case gives you a kickstand and an easy-carrying grip. It has an MSRP of $85 and is currently priced at $64. It comes in White and Gray color variants. Next up, we have the Kindsuit Case with a smooth textured finish. Its a minimalist case with no add-ons or extra features. Samsung offers it in Gray and Brown/Tan colors. This case costs $67.50 (MSRP $90). Lastly, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 gets a Clear Case that is transparent by design so it doesnt obfuscate the devices original look. It has a raised camera border and a grip holder to keep the foldable in your hand. Its MSRP is $50 but Samsung sells it for $37.50. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 gets a Flipsuit Case Since the Galaxy Z Flip 6 doesnt support S Pen, there is no S Pen Case for it. Instead, Samsung offers a Flipsuit Case with an interactive LED card that uses NFC for innovative sync of the phones back panel and cover screen. It costs $45 (MSRP $60). The Flip models Silicon Case is available in Gray, Navy, Blue, Yellow, and Mint colors, while the Kindsuit case comes in Gray, Yellow, and Mint shades. They cost $30 (MSRP $40) and $75 (MSRP $100). The Galaxy Z Flip 6s Clear Case costs $30 (MSRP $40). All of these accessories are available for pre-order through Samsungs official website, though some color variants are out of stock. The company should soon restock them. Since the new foldables will be generally available starting July 24, Samsung will probably ship the covers before that. Several third-party accessory makers have also launched protective cases and screen protectors for the duo. Buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (Samsung.com) Buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 (Samsung.com) Sony may shift all its smartphone image sensors to the new LYTIA brand, including the existing IMX sensor lineup. According to a new report, the company is slowly doing away with the IMX brand for mobile image sensors. It has already rebranded some IMX sensors to LYTIA (LYT). It plans to completely shift to the LYT lineup by 2026. Sony to move its IMX mobile image sensors to the LYTIA brand Sony is one of the first names that comes to mind when talking about smartphone camera makers. The Japanese firm has been in this industry since 2003 and supplies image sensors to many smartphone companies. Its IMX sensors are found on flagship and mid-range smartphones. It is a leading player in the image sensor industry, alongside Samsung and a few others. A few years ago, Sony introduced a new LYTIA line of mobile image sensors. The company said the new brand will convey the worldview and value that its mobile image sensors provide to the world. With LYTIA, it aims to build on its history of contributing to smartphone photography and videography and give more people access to creative imaging experiences beyond imagination. Since then, Sony has gradually expanded the LYTIA lineup of mobile image sensors. It has launched new products across various categories, including a few flagship offerings. The OnePlus 12 uses the LYT-808 flagship sensor for its 50MP primary camera. Its 48MP ultrawide camera has Sonys IMX581 sensor, while the 64MP 3x zoom camera uses OmniVisions OV64B sensor. According to tipster Yogesh Brar on X, the IMX lineup of Sony sensors will soon disappear. The Japanese firm is in the process of ending this branding for its image sensors. LYTIA will replace it across all segments. Not just new sensors, Sony plans to move its existing IMX solutions under the LYTIA brand. The 50MP IMX890 and IMX882 have already been rebranded as LYT-701 and LYT-600. The rebranding will be completed in 2026 Sony plans to gradually rebrand all IMX sensors to LYT. This rebranding process will reportedly be completed in 2026. Realme has already confirmed that its upcoming Realme 13 Pro and 13 Pro+ will feature Sonys rebranded LYT-701 and LYT-600 50MP sensors. The phones will arrive later this month. In the meantime, expect Sony LYTIA sensors on more phones. The company should also soon announce new LYTIA image sensors. Its arch-rival Samsung recently unveiled a 200MP sensor and two 50MP sensors for flagship smartphones. Freiheit nach zwei Jahrzehnten: Die Mondbaren Nang und Mua wurden gerettet 13. Juli 2024 Willkommen daheim, Nang und Mua Nach zwei Jahrzehnten der Gefangenschaft auf einer Barengallefarm im Dorf Phung Thuong wurden die Mondbaren Nang und Mua von Animals Asia gerettet und ins neue Rettungszentrum im friedvollen Naitonalpark Bach Ma uberfuhrt. Ihre Namen, Nang (das bedeutet Sonne) und Mua (Regen) kennzeichnen die naturliche Schonheit ihrer neuen Umgebung, in der ihre Rehabilitation beginnt. Nang wird fur die Heimreise auf den Lastwagen geladen. Die Bemuhungen von Animals Asia in Phung Thuong Die Gemeinde Phung Thuong ist der grote Brennpunkt der Barengallefarmen in Vietnam, 122 Baren werden dort auf 18 Farmen gehalten. Seit 2016 bemuhen sich Animals Asia und die Waldschutzbehorde (Forest Protection Departmen, FPD) Hanoi unermudlich darum, diese Praxis durch positive und nicht-konfrontative Kampagnen vor Ort zu beenden. In Zusammenarbeit mit der ortlichen Verwaltung, Schulen und der Gemeinde organisierte Animals Asia Konferenzen mit Barenfarmern, Aufklarungsprogramme uber Barenschutz und Gesundheitstage mit dem Verband fur Traditionelle Medizin, um pflanzliche Alternativen zur Barengalle zu fordern. Die Grunderin von Animals Asia, Jill, und der Direktor fur Vietnam, Tuan, nehmen an einer Feier zu Ehren unserer langfristigen Partnerschaft mit der Waldschutzbehorde teil. Die Partnerschaft mit der Regierung in Aktion Wie die Rettung von Primrose, Snowdrop und Daffodil ist auch die Rettung von Nang und Mua eine Gemeinschaftsarbeit unter der Fuhrung der FPD und Animals Asia. Die FPD ist fur den Schutz der Wildtiere und naturlichen Lebensraume Vietnams verantwortlich. In diesem Jahr konnte Animals Asia dank der gemeinsamen Bemuhungen bereits sieben Baren in der Region retten. Wir hoffen, diese Rettung wird auch andere Barengallefarmer in Phung Thuong veranlassen, ihre Baren in die Obhut von Animals Asia zu ubergeben. Die Rettung von Nang und Mua war ein Ergebnis gemeinschaftlicher Bemuhungen unter Leitung der Waldschutzbehorde und Animals Asia.. Endlich zu Hause: Nang wird in die Quarantanezone gebracht, wo die Rehabilitation beginnt. Gemeinschaftlich kommen Animals Asia und die vietnamesische Regierung dem Ende der Barengallefarmen in Vietnam mit groen Schritten naher, sodass Baren wie Nang und Mua eine Chance auf ein besseres Leben erhalten. Lesen Sie weiter: Animals Asia bringt Rezeptbuch mit pflanzlichen Alternativen zur Barengalle heraus Der Mondbaren aus beruchtigtem Brennpunkt der Barengallefarmen gerettet Former home secretary Suella Braverman has urged her party to take responsibility for what we did after the Government announced measures to free some prison inmates earlier than planned. Ms Braverman warned in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that a cut to the proportion of prisoners sentences which must be spent in jail from 50% to 40% could put the public at risk. Her Conservative Party colleague and shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat also questioned whether the move was a good idea, while the independent Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor acknowledged a decision needed to be taken, and none would have been without risk. Everyone and his mother should run to be leader. But weve all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons. Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) July 12, 2024 In a speech at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood branded her Tory predecessors the guilty men responsible for a total breakdown of law and order. She said: In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system and a total breakdown of law and order. The temporary jail time reduction from 50% to 40% would not apply to violent offenders serving more than four years, sex offenders or those in prison for crimes connected to domestic abuse. Dangerous offenders serving extended or life sentences would also be exempted from the scheme, the Government confirmed. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said her Tory predecessors were responsible for a total breakdown of law and order (Joe Giddens/PA) Taking to social media and referring to an upcoming Conservative Party leadership battle after Leader of the Opposition Rishi Sunak announced his intention to step aside, Ms Braverman wrote: Everyone and his mother should run to be leader. But weve all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons. In an attack on her own party, which presided over an early release scheme to free 10,000 prisoners up to 70 days early, Ms Braverman also wrote: I opposed this both inside and outside government. She added: Labour is picking up Tory ideas and putting the public at risk. Mr Tugendhat who could face Ms Braverman in a leadership contest wrote on X: In what world is releasing 20,000 criminals onto our streets a good idea. But Mr Taylor said: This is a critical point for prisons, with barely any places left and the effects of existing measures such as End of Custody Supervised Licence being exhausted. A decision needed to be taken, and none would have been without risk. While we therefore welcome recognition of the seriousness of the situation, and swift action to manage the prison populations to relieve the immediate strain many jails are under, this latest measure will inevitably lead to the early release of some risky offenders, and will add to the workload of already stretched prison Offender Management Units and probation services. How these men are prepared for release and how prisons and probation are supported in managing them will be vital. Baroness Newlove, Victims Commissioner for England and Wales, called for public safety to remain the Governments top priority and added: Clear communication with victims is essential to building trust throughout the process. It is important victims are informed if release dates are brought forward and are given the opportunity to request protective measures. Thorough risk assessments are essential, as are robust release plans. Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat questioned whether the move was a good idea (Danny Lawson/PA) The Justice Secretary said the early release would not take effect until September, that offenders could be forced to wear electronic tags and adhere to a curfew, and that the change was not permanent, with a plan to review it in 18 months time. Campbell Robb, chief executive of the Nacro charity which supports prisoners rehabilitation, said: At Nacro every day across our services we see the impact of the overcrowded, inhumane conditions in prisons. Whilst it is critical to tackle this immediate crisis, the Government must also address how we got here in the first place. We are sending too many people to prison for too long and not rehabilitating them enough while they are in there. We need an effective and sustainable justice system, which puts victims at the heart, and better serves us all. Mr Robb also said: Nacro welcomes the urgent action that the Government is taking to address the prison crisis. Plaid Cymrus Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts turned her attention to deep-rooted failings in a statement. Some 708 places remain available for adult males across the prisons estate as of July 8, according to the latest available Government figures (Joe Giddens/PA) The political party fields candidates in Wales, where 10 prisoners at HMP Parc, near Bridgend, died between winter and summer 2024. Ms Saville Roberts said: The UK Governments approach is just a temporary fix to deep-rooted failings. Plaid Cymru calls for the new Labour government to implement a credible, long-term plan to fully address this crisis. This plan should include community-based sentences for low-risk offenders, efforts to reduce the court backlog, decriminalisation of soft drugs, and strengthened cross-sector crime reduction and rehabilitation strategies through devolving justice powers to Wales. Some 708 places remain available for adult males across the prisons estate as of July 8, according to the latest available Government figures. A fake groom has been jailed for at least 30 years for stabbing a 25-year-old man to death and holding his mother captive after falling out over a sham marriage scam. Jurick Croes was paid 500 to engage in a sham marriage but hatched a plan to rob Bernadette Ortet because he had been expecting 50,000, the Old Bailey heard. When he and two accomplices went to her house near Elephant and Castle, south-east London, in November 2020 Ms Ortets son Riches Obi tried to protect her and was fatally stabbed. The three intruders had bound Ms Ortet with cable ties and a scarf in a bedroom at the property. Rachell Felomina, 40, was convicted of false imprisonment (Met Police/PA) The court had heard that Ms Ortet was alleged to have been involved in a sham marriages scam and at the time was a case worker for a firm of solicitors specialising in immigration and nationality. Following a retrial, Croes, 38, of no fixed address, was found guilty of Mr Obis murder and the false imprisonment of his mother. On Friday, he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 30 years for what Judge Nigel Lickley said was the vicious and savage murder of a defenceless man in his own home. He was also jailed for nine years for false imprisonment to be served concurrently. Raichell Felomina, 40, of no fixed address, was convicted of false imprisonment and jailed for seven-and-a-half years. Hairdresser turned model agency entrepreneur Suvenca Martis, 34, of Forest Hill, south-east London, who had helped in the sham marriage scam, was convicted of false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. She was handed a total of 11-and-a-half years in prison. Judge Lickley said she had been a willing and active participant in the plan. Martis was also sentenced to three-and-a-half years to be served concurrently for five counts of possession of drugs with intent to supply relating to a stash of MDMA, heroin, cocaine and other substances, which she had admitted holding for someone else. Ms Ortet, who is in Nigeria, submitted a victim impact statement to the court detailing her trauma and grief. She condemned the heartless defendants, saying her son was killed in the most gruesome manner and slaughtered like an animal. She described her son as the cornerstone of the family, and a selfless gentleman who had a simple life lived by the highest values. She said: My mind knows nothing but trauma and terror. I lost the full function of my neck since I was assaulted. Suvenca Martis, 34, was convicted of false imprisonment (Met Police/PA) The defendants had been shameless and untruthful and shown no remorse for their crimes, she said. The court heard how police had been called to a stabbing at a property in Harper Road near Elephant and Castle on November 17 2020. They arrived to find the front door partly open and Mr Obi collapsed with stab and slash wounds to his chest in the blood-stained hall. An officer called out to see whether there was anyone else in the flat and a womans voice replied saying Im here, the jury was told. Following the sound of her calls, the officers found Mr Obis mother, Ms Ortet, in a bedroom. Her wrists and ankles had been bound with cable ties and a scarf around her neck appeared to have fallen from her mouth, having been used to gag her. The room was heavily stained with blood, on the bed, door and furniture, up the walls and on the ceiling, the court was told. Despite efforts to save Mr Obi, he was pronounced dead at the scene. An examination of the flat revealed that Mr Obis bedroom appeared to have been searched and a roll of duct tape was under a chair. One of the defendants, Martis, was captured on CCTV at a hardware store in Camberwell, south London, buying cable ties and black tape. Prosecutor Jennifer Knight KC had told jurors: The background to these offences seems to lie in a sham marriage scheme in which all three of these defendants and Bernadette Ortet were engaged. It seems likely that these defendants had become angry about the remuneration they were receiving for their part in the scheme and went to Bernadette Ortets flat on November 17 determined to demand and obtain money from her. The court heard all three defendants had previous convictions in the Netherlands. Croes had convictions for theft, Felominas convictions included threats to kill, theft, having an unauthorised firearm and drugs, and Martis had convictions for theft and cocaine smuggling. The deaths of four migrants in the English Channel are truly awful, the Home Secretary has said. Four people died after their boat capsized off the northern French coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, where several people were reported as being in the water at around 4.30am on Friday morning. According to the French coastguard, 63 migrants were rescued in an operation involving four ships and one helicopter, including a fishing vessel which picked up 14 of the people who got into trouble. The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. My thoughts are with all those affected. Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk. We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue & bring down dangerous smuggler gangs. Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) July 12, 2024 A further four people were taken by a medical team but could not be saved, the maritime prefecture added. The surviving group of people were returned to Boulogne and attended to by emergency services. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on X, formerly Twitter: The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. My thoughts are with all those affected. Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk. We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue & bring down dangerous smuggler gangs. Reports of more deaths in the channel are a tragedy. As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering. James Cleverly (@JamesCleverly) July 12, 2024 An HM Coastguard spokesman said assistance was offered to the French coastguard on Friday, adding: An RNLI lifeboat from Dover and Border Force vessel were initially sent to provide support, but were not required to attend the scene. Latest Home Office figures show 62 people made the journey across the Channel from France to the UK in one boat on Thursday, taking the provisional total for 2024 to date to 14,120. The reports come as five people including a child died trying to cross the English Channel from France to the UK on April 23. Reacting to Fridays incident, shadow home secretary James Cleverly said on X: Reports of more deaths in the channel are a tragedy. As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering. Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage posted: 4 deaths in the Channel this morning, the new Government had better start moving fast. (PA Graphics) Ms Cooper has launched a Border Security Command, which she described as Labours first priority on migration, designed to crack down on people-smuggling gangs orchestrating the crossings. A commander for the unit is expected to be appointed in the coming weeks. It comes as the new Labour government immediately scrapped the Conservatives plan to deport migrants to Rwanda. Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said this mornings loss of life in the Channel highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new Government and called for safe routes to be opened to stop people taking deadly risks. Mr Solomon also urged for co-operation agreements to be put in place with European countries to provide safe passage from France and trial the use of refugee visas. Preventing more deaths in the Channel which are now happening too often is a critical and urgent task, he said. We need to bring an end to men, women and children who have fled war and oppression in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iran being driven into the arms of the smuggling gangs by opening safe routes so refugees wanting to be with their families are not forced to take deadly risks. At the same time, there is much more the UK can do to address conflict and oppression in refugee producing countries. There are no quick fixes but over time, with the right combination of policies, it is possible to stop these tragic deaths. We stand ready to support our new Government in this. Amnesty International UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh also called for more cooperation between the French and UK governments to guarantee the right to seek asylum on each of their territories, otherwise desperate people will continue to take dreadful risks. Mr Deshmukh added: This tragedy is yet another reminder that the new Government needs to go beyond talk of smashing the gangs by urgently setting up safe asylum routes so people can avoid perilous journeys at the hands of people smugglers. One of the jokes about dogs is that the tiny ones (like Chihuahuas) imagine they are massive guard beasts and the big ones think they are lap dogs. This is certainly true for Irish Wolfhounds, an enormous canine with a gentle disposition and a desire to be a total cuddle bunny. And thats certainly true for the Wolfhound in this video, who has a lifelong love of sitting on his human Moms lapwhether hes a large puppy or a gigantic, fully-grown dog. View the original article to see embedded media. Merlin the Irish Wolfhound started cuddling on his Moms lap when he was a puppyalthough for that breed, even a puppy can weight forty or fifty pounds! And even though hes far bigger now, he hasnt stopped the habit. There are even videos on the familys Instagram of him climbing on her lap on a camp chair at the beach. Related: Giant Irish Wolfhound Acts as 'Therapy Dog' for Homeless Pets Look, he just like to snuggle, okay? Nothing beats a hound cuddle, says someone in the comments, who clearly knows from experience. I also adore the fact they still think theyre little no matter how large they get! Sharing a bed or couch with a giant breed is like sharing it with a drunk octopus trying to find its keys, says a commenter on another video of Merlin doing his cuddling act. The History of the Irish Wolfhound Irish Wolfhounds are among the tallest of the dog breeds. There was a breed of hound in Ireland known for its size and ferocity, but they are not genetically related to the hounds that bear the name today. The ancient breed were prized as gifts to kings and emperors all over the world, and were said to be bigger than a colt. Oliver Cromwell once forbade their exportation fro Ireland, and they died out sometime in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, enthusiasts attempted to recreate the legendary dogs by breeding Scottish deerhounds who supposedly shared some lineage with the original Wolfhound together with Great Danes, Mastiffs, and even Eastern European Borzoi. The result is the Irish Wolfhound as we know it today. And though scholars still debate whether or not the modern breed is an accurate representation of those ancient Irish animals, or simply borrowing the name, there is no denying that the new breed is a beloved one. Is an Irish Wolfhound Right For You? Though gigantic, the Irish Wolfhound is notable for its gentleness and affectionate nature. Fans of the breed call it a gentle giant though due to its size, it still requires careful training to make sure it does not inadvertently hurt someone or knock them over. Irish Wolfhounds are eager to serve their owners, but can easily cause a large amount of trouble with only minor misbehavior. Sometimes they just dont know their own strength. Which is why they think they are lap dogs. Irish Wolfhounds are somewhat of a couch potato but because of their great size, they still need a good amount of room to live and to get in even moderate amounts of exercise. Their size also requires them to eat a fair amount, so factor that into your budget as well. 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. The new Government has acted with urgency as it seeks to make early progress on the big challenges facing the country. With more to come as Labour seeks to shape its first 100 days after returning to power after 14 years, here is a summary of the policies and positions confirmed so far. Prime focus on the economy and public finances Chancellor Rachel Reeves has commissioned an assessment of the current state of the economy and the status of the public finances left by the Conservatives. She said Labour is facing a dire inheritance from the previous government and pledged to set a date for her first budget before the Commons summer recess, which she added would be the first steps that we will take to bring that growth back to the economy. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has launched a National Wealth Fund aimed at boosting investment (Justin Tallis/PA) National wealth fund aims to attract private investment A new national wealth fund is designed to attract billions in private sector investment to support UK growth. Supported by 7.3 billion in state funding, the fund is looking to secure roughly triple this in private investment, from sources such as pension funds, to boost the fund. An initial report into the proposed found it needs up to 57 billion in private investment by 2030 to help develop industries it is targeting to drive growth. Bid to boost housebuilding and infrastructure Labour claims the Chancellor did more in her first 72 hours in post to get Britain building again than the Tories did in 14 years. The national planning policy framework will be reformed, including restoring mandatory housebuilding targets for local authorities as part of the drive to build 1.5 million homes over five years. Housebuilding targets will mean allowing building on some land currently designated as green belt. A taskforce will accelerate stalled housing sites, beginning with Liverpool Central Docks, Worcester Parkway, Northstowe and Langley Sutton Coldfield, representing more than 14,000 homes. Also, local authorities will get 300 additional planning officers. The Government has also overturned the de facto ban on onshore wind, as it seeks to boost output as part of its plans to transform the grid to clean energy by 2030. Unacceptable Worklessness Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has said growing levels of worklessness are unacceptable and immediate action is needed. The Government has said Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service will be merged in an effort to both get more people into work and support people to find better paid jobs. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has said the level of worklessness is unacceptable (Lucy North/PA) A new Youth Guarantee for 18 to 21-year-olds will aim to provide more opportunities for training or help to find jobs, while more disabled people and those with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work by devolving new powers to local areas. Transport priorities Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has set out her five priorities. These include improving performance on the railways, driving forward hitherto unspecified rail reform and improving bus services. The Government said it will also transform infrastructure to work for the whole country, deliver greener transport and better integrate transport networks. In her first official visit as Transport Secretary, Ms Haigh is to meet with regional mayors and devolved leaders to discuss improvements in bus provision in every corner of the country. Quick moves on immigration The previous governments controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda was immediately scrapped by Labour. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has set out the first steps to establishing a new UK Border Security Command to tackle the people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel in small boats. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has set out the first steps to establishing a new UK Border Security Command (Lucy North) Recruitment of a border security commander, who will report directly to the Home Secretary, has begun. But the Prime Minister warned the number of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK cant be changed overnight as arrivals for the year so far topped 14,000. NHS performance under scrutiny An independent investigation will be held into the performance of the broken NHS, the Health Secretary has announced. Wes Streeting says the probe will be aimed at diagnosing the problem so that the Government can write the prescription. Plans are already in place to divert billions of pounds from hospitals to GPs in primary care in a bid to fix the front door of the NHS. Mr Streeting has said he is optimistic that the dispute between the Government and junior doctors in England can be brought to an end following a reset meeting with representatives from the British Medical Association. The Health Secretary has also met dentists to begin discussions about reforming the NHS dental contract, which has been branded as not fit for purpose by many. Positive Education Education Secretary Brigit Phillipson has begun work to recruit 6,500 new teachers as part of resetting the Governments relationship with the sector and transforming the image of teaching. Ms Phillipson has also pledged to deliver a sea change in early years learning and support as she called it her number one priority. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has begun work to recruit 6,500 new teachers (Yui Mok/PA) Prisons shock Sir Keir Starmer told reporters that now in power he has discovered the shocking state of prisons is worse than I thought it was. The Justice Secretary is set to announce plans on Friday to address prison overcrowding amid fears jails will run out of space within weeks. Shabana Mahmood is expected to set out emergency measures that could include reducing the time before some prisoners are automatically released. She is expected to argue that the level of overcrowding, described by the Ministry of Justice as catastrophic, requires immediate action to pull the justice system back from the brink of total collapse. Water reforms New Environment Secretary Steve Reed has set out reforms aimed at stopping the unacceptable destruction of our waterways during a meeting with water companies under fire over sewage pollution and leaks. The changes include ensuring water infrastructure funding is ringfenced and can only be spent on upgrades, as well as altering company rules to ensure customers are at the heart of the companies objectives, and that consumers have the power to summon bosses to meetings. Regulator Ofwat released its draft decision on the water industrys future charging and spending plans on Thursday, with further reforms to the sector expected in the coming weeks and months. Rachel Reeves said the prospect of water bills rising amid the sewage pollution scandal and cost-of-living crisis was a bitter pill for consumers. Developing devolution Regional mayors have hailed the potential for a step change in their relationship with the Government after Sir Keir Starmer said he would strive to build a real partnership with the English leaders. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner talks with Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin during a meeting in Number 10 Downing Street (Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror) The gathering followed hot on the heels of a whistlestop tour of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales by Sir Keir, where he met the leaders of the devolved administrations. At the meeting regional mayors were told the new Government wanted to build on their local growth plans and explore further devolved powers. Message for the Civil Service Sir Keir Starmer moved to reassure a Civil Service that was threatened with workforce cuts under the previous government. The Prime Minister said the spirit of public service would define his Government, as he promised collaboration and transparency in everything we do. Strong on Standards Sir Keir Starmer has warned his ministers they would face consequences if they fall short of the highest standards as he prepared to beef up the powers of his ethics tsar. The Prime Minister confirmed he would enact a manifesto commitment to give the independent adviser on ministerial interests, Sir Laurie Magnus, powers to start his own investigations into allegations of ministerial wrongdoing, rather than wait for the Prime Minister to decide whether to order one. Defence and foreign affairs The Prime Minister has reaffirmed the UKs cast iron commitment to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence, but has not set a timeframe for achieving the goal. Ahead of the Nato summit in Washington DC this week, Sir Keir Starmer also confirmed that the Governments strategic defence review, which will determine the future defence posture of the UK, will be launched next week. Reassurance 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. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meeting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in Washington (Stefan Rousseau/PA) 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. Improving EU relations The Prime Minister has stated he intends to strengthen ties with the European Union. Sir Keirs administration wants to repair the damage to relations with Europe caused by the Brexit wrangles and strike a better deal with the European Union than the botched trade agreement signed by Boris Johnson. Position on Palestine Sir Keir Starmer told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the recognition of the state of Palestine as part of a Middle East peace process is an undeniable right. Sir Keir also spoke to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, setting out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages snatched by Hamas in the October 7 attacks. Some current and former Labour MPs said they faced confrontation during the General Election campaign due to perceptions of Labours stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. China relations audit beckons 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. The Scottish Government is missing in action after bacteria pollution at an Edinburgh beach led to swimmers being warned to stay away from the water, an MP has claimed. Chris Murray, the new Labour MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, said urgent action is needed to deal with sewage ending up in waters around the city. The Liberal Democrats also said the public need more information about what is leading to the health warnings, after beach-goers were urged not to swim or paddle at Portobello. The warnings came after an abnormally high level of bacteria was found in water samples which tested for E. coli and intestinal enterococci. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) website indicates the pollution incident is expected to last until Monday. The cause of the incident has not yet been revealed While Sepa has not confirmed the cause of the latest incident, similar warnings were put in place for six days in July last year due to a waste water pump malfunction. Mr Murray wrote to the Scottish Governments current Net Zero Secretary Gillian Martin, saying more monitoring of sewage outflows is needed. He said: You will note that yesterday, the new Labour UK Government announced measures to address sewage and water quality issues in England and Wales. Of course, water policy is fully devolved in Scotland; all strategic and financial decisions on water in Scotland for the last 17 years have been taken by your party. Scottish Water is a publicly owned water company, and Sepa is under your ministerial remit. He added: I am willing to share with you any suggestions and ideas my party has to improve water quality. I am concerned the Scottish Government is missing in action on this issue. Meanwhile, Lib Dem MP for Edinburgh West Christine Jardine said there should be a ban on dumping sewage near bathing waters like Portobello. She said: This is an iconic location in our capital but once again people are being asked to stay out of the water because of threats to health. As Edinburgh gears up for its busiest season, this sends a terrible message. Residents and visitors need more information out of Sepa as to what is leading to these closures and what action is being taken to deliver a long-term solution. The health warning warning covers the area from Pipe Lane to Joppa Rocks. Ever wondered about the journey our bathing water samples take? Once we've taken a sample, it has to get back to our labs within 6 hours. Samples are checked into the lab and analysis can begin. To find our more and check your local bathing water visit https://t.co/ZuYEUSpHMH pic.twitter.com/rTtg7Gxt5D Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) (@ScottishEPA) July 10, 2024 A spokeswoman for Sepa said: As a result of analysis of routine samples, Sepa have indicated a high bacterial result at Portobello central bathing water. We are temporarily advising against bathing and paddling as a precautionary measure, due to the potential human health risk. Sepa are currently investigating the cause of this high result and if required we will explore any mitigation measures. We are currently awaiting the result of further water samples. Signage advising against bathing will remain in place until the water quality returns to a satisfactory level. Sepa are liaising closely with the City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Water, and we will continue to work together to monitor the situation. The Scottish Government has been approached for comment. Alan Cumming has said Joe Biden should no longer be US President as the Scottish actor became the latest high-profile Democratic party supporter to call for him to pull out of the race for the White House. The Traitors US presenter, who has been an American citizen since 2008, follows in the footsteps of movie star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney after Mr Biden stumbled over his words when he faced Donald Trump during a televised debate. Kirsty Wark presenting her last BBC Newsnight, as the longest-serving presenter on the BBC Two programme (Jeff Overs/BBC) Cumming, who previously backed Mr Bidens former rival Bernie Sanders, joined the longest serving Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark for her final show on Friday. Wark asked Cumming, who she said fundraises for Mr Bidens Democratic party, about the Presidents difficulties while campaigning for a second term, including mixing up Russian leader Vladimir Putin with Ukrainian premier Volodymyr Zelensky. Referring to a fundraising event he hosted for Democrat supporters and Mr Biden the night after the debate, Cumming said: Everyone was just sort of apoplectic, it was just awful. He went on: It wasnt good. Nothing about it actually made me think, Oh, that was an aberration the night before. Kirsty Wark presenting her last BBC Newsnight on Friday evening (Jeff Overs/BBC/PA) Its like were all enabling something really bad by not speaking out more. He said he was glad Hollywood actor George Clooney had urged Mr Biden to step aside, before adding: We shouldnt just feel great because he manages to set a firm grasp of foreign policy what we just saw is that man should not be the President of the United States. And I love him and I admire him greatly. Cumming also said: I can see whats happened is people were quiet for a while, the Biden campaign went into repair mode and now people have got a bit of a system and an organisation going on thing like the George Clooney, the donors. He added: Joe, we love you, but you know, youve got to let it go. A kidnap, rape and murder plot hatched by a security guard has had a life-changing impact on TV presenter Holly Willoughby, a court heard. Gavin Plumb was unanimously convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. He faces a lengthy prison sentence on Friday for his depraved and vile plans. Gavin Plumb was unanimously convicted after a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court (Essex Police/PA) The 37-year-old was snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumbs posts that evidence was passed to the FBI. US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumbs flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an abduction kit complete with cable ties. During Plumbs sentencing hearing, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Ms Willoughby wished for her victim personal statement to be private but said it set out the catastrophic impact of these offences. She continued: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. Indeed, being informed of the consequences, the intentions, and the detail of the evidence in this case it is inevitable that that has exacerbated the trauma for this victim. Ms Morgan said Ms Willoughby had made every effort to avoid attention being drawn to herself in this matter after making a short public statement following Plumbs convictions. The prosecutor continued: We say, more broadly, that offending of this type, as Ms Willoughby said in her public statement, has a broader impact on women. Women should not feel unsafe when going about their daily lives. Turning to the offending of Plumb, Ms Morgan said: My Lord knows of the extreme and gratuitous degradation of the victim that was planned by this defendant. Degradation that was so depraved and vile that they were, by agreement, not reported in detail by representatives of the media. The prosecutor said it was a case where the court should impose a sentence of life imprisonment. Plumb assembled an abduction kit to carry out his plans (Crown Prosecution Service/PA) Plumbs defence barrister Sasha Wass KC said the security guard had read in full the extremely lengthy statement prepared by Ms Willoughby. She told the court: Mr Plumb both worshipped and was obsessed by Ms Willoughby for a period of years admittedly in a warped and bizarre manner. A manner which he described as dark when he gave evidence, but nonetheless, he worshipped her and he was devastated to have been the cause of such pain to her. Of course, Mr Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed of the online conversations that formed the focus of this trial these were conversations which he always expected would remain private. Former This Morning presenter Ms Willoughby said after Plumbs conviction last week that women should not be made to feel unsafe in our own homes. The trial was told that Plumbs plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota. Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was definitely serious about his plot to kidnap Ms Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an imminent threat to her. When Plumb was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Ms Willoughby, the defendant told them: Im not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine. The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape. Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else. Plumbs kidnap plans involved attempting to ambush Ms Willoughby at her family home even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack. He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a dungeon-type room. Prosecutors described Plumbs plot as carefully planned pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Ms Willoughby did not have security. Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy. He will be sentenced by judge Mr Justice Edward Murray. Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher has performed hits from the bands debut album in front of enraptured fans at Trnsmt. The look of the day was a St Andrews flag wrapped around an Oasis T-shirt, which was adopted by many young fans. Others wore black-and-white Adidas football shirts branded Gallagher on the back. Trnsmt fans ranged in age from pre-teens to middle-aged at the festival on Glasgow Green. Liam Gallagher performing at the Trnsmt Festival at Glasgow Green (Michael Boyd/PA Wire). Rapper Example, who released his first album in 2007, won the hearts of the crowd who broke into chants of No Scotland No Party. Gallagher opened his set with RocknRoll Star, and fans joined in for a singalong of Half The World Away. He belted out Shakermaker and also performed Married With Children, both from Definitely Maybe. Dressed in his trademark parka, he used a maraca to create the vibe which won Oasis legions of fans in the 1990s. Shirley Manson from Garbage at Trnsmt (Michael Boyd/PA) Gallagher finished with a Beatles cover I Am The Walrus. Garbage performed a lively set including Only Happy When It Rains, and Stupid Girl, with Shirley Manson wearing a tartan dress. She addressed the crowd, saying: Our first record was released in 1995 before most of you were born. She dedicated a song to Siouxsie And The Banshees, and said they inspired Garbage in the 1980s. She commented on the number of pink cowboy hats in the crowd, and said: Taylor Swift has taken the music industry and made it her bitch. A man who indecently assaulted three people at a Scottish university while falsely claiming to be conducting radiation testing after the Chernobyl disaster has been jailed. John Beaumont has been jailed for four years and eight months, after he admitted indecently assaulting three students at the University of St Andrews during the 1980s. The 66-year-old will serve this sentence consecutively to a previous jail term he received from a court in Manchester in 2017, when he was convicted of similar offences. Following the latest sentencing, Scotlands Crown Office said Beaumont pretended to be a Ministry of Defence official who was tasked with gathering samples from people following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. The explosion at the nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which at that point was part of the Soviet Union, led to heightened concerns about radiation poisoning. Beaumont falsely claimed he was carrying out radiation tests (PA) At the University of St Andrews, he produced false identification and consent forms as part of his ruse before subjecting two men and a woman to fake medical examinations. After striking up a friendship with one man, Beaumont told him based on his medical records, that his victim had a heightened risk of developing cancer. This left the victim terrified, prosecutors said. The man was later summoned to Beaumonts room where he was told to sign a false Official Secrets non-disclosure agreement and warned he would be charged by the authorities if he breached it. Beaumont then assaulted the man while claiming to take samples from him with a hypodermic needle and performing examinations on several occasions afterwards. Beaumont, who became a sub-warden at the halls of residence during this period of offending, targeted a second man on one occasion. Prosecutors said this victim believed Beaumonts claims about the secret mission and was left feeling embarrassed, awkward and anxious after Beaumont took a sample from him with a syringe. The third victim was a woman who was approached by Beaumont, who told her he had been asked to take her radiation levels by the Foreign Office. She recalled that he was very convincing and agreed to the test with Beaumont also using a Geiger counter in the fake examination. Beaumont admitted three charges of indecent assault at the High Court in Edinburgh on October 6, 2023. On Friday, a judge imposed an additional sentence of four years and eight months. He was jailed for 13 and a half years at a court in Manchester in 2017. Commenting after the sentencing on Friday, Katrina Parkes, procurator fiscal for High Court sexual offences, said: John Beaumont manipulated and preyed on vulnerable students who should have been safe under his care. He exploited their fears and went to extreme lengths to convince them he was carrying out medical tests in an official capacity. His victims have shown great courage and resilience in holding this man accountable for his crimes. It is thanks to them that this conviction has been secured. I would encourage all victims of similar offending no matter how long ago it may have occurred to come forward, report it and seek help. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said he will leave no stone unturned in trying to find a future for workers at Grangemouth, after ministers from the Scottish and UK governments met its owners. It is understood a report called Project Willow, worth around 1.6 million and funded by both governments, will seek to chart a future in low-carbon energy for Grangemouth. Hundreds of jobs are thought to be at risk after owner Petroineos a joint venture between PetroChina and Ineos announced the oil refinery at Grangemouth would be shut after spring next year. After this point, it would transition to being an import terminal for finished fuels. Other parts of the wider complex at Grangemouth would not be affected. The risk to jobs at the industrial site was one of the main topics discussed at Sir Keir Starmers meeting with John Swinney when the Labour leader made his first visit to Scotland as Prime Minister. The meeting included Gillian Martin from the Scottish Government (Andrew Milligan/PA) On Friday, Mr Miliband took part in a joint meeting with Petroineos alongside the Scottish Governments current Net Zero Secretary Gillian Martin, with Scottish Secretary Ian Murray also attending. Mr Miliband said: The UK government will leave no stone unturned in seeking a future for the Grangemouth site and its workers. We are committed to boosting growth through an industrial strategy, and to engaging with the workers and communities of Grangemouth and the Scottish Government. Thats why we will be immediately funding work to explore options for a sustainable future for the site in partnership with the Scottish Government. Mr Murray said: The future of Grangemouth was the first official briefing I took in office, and the Prime Minister made clear it was a priority for this Government when visiting Scotland on his first official engagement last weekend. That is why I am delighted we are already making significant progress on discussions around potential funding to look at a sustainable long-term solution to the Grangemouth site. This demonstrates what can be achieved when we reset the relationship with the Scottish Government by working in partnership to boost economic growth and make life better for everyone. Ian Murray said the project showed what joint working between governments can achieve (Tejas Sandhu/PA) Ms Martin said: The Scottish Government wishes refining at Grangemouth to continue for as long as practicable and recognises that the site, and its workforce, are crucial to Scotlands economy and our transition to net zero. We are committed to working collaboratively with Petroineos, UK Government ministers and Unite the Union to explore the options available to secure a long term, sustainable future for the site and accelerate new employment opportunities. I am pleased to have had early positive discussions with UK Secretary of State Ed Miliband about this over the past week and I welcome his constructive approach to seeking a long term, sustainable future for Grangemouth and his willingness to work with me to secure that. Joe Biden arrives to speak at the Nato summit in Washington DC on Thursday. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP As he addressed reporters at the conclusion of the Nato conference on Thursday, Joe Biden sent a defiant message to his critics: Im not going anywhere. Despite demands from dozens of Democratic lawmakers that he withdraw from the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance, Biden argued he was the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in November. I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again, Biden said. Theres a long way to go in this campaign, and so I Im just going to keep moving. That message did not assuage some skeptics in Bidens party, as three more House Democrats called on the president to drop out in the hours after the press conference. Biden and his team have not yet quieted critics concerns, but the presidents detractors have few options beyond their public pressure campaign to get him to step aside. With just one month left before the Democrats convene in Chicago for their convention, the party has limited time to determine who will be on the top of the ticket in November. Heres what you need to know about Bidens path forward: How many Democratic lawmakers are calling on Biden to drop out of the race? At least 19 congressional Democrats 18 House members and one senator have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race as of Friday morning. Although those lawmakers represent a relatively small fraction of the more than 200 Democrats on Capitol Hill, their damning statements have intensified scrutiny of Biden and his ability to serve another four years as president. I understand why President Biden wants to run, Senator Peter 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. What do voters think about Bidens candidacy? A clear majority of voters believe Biden should step aside, but Democrats specifically have more mixed views on the subject. According to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Thursday, 67% of Americans, including 56% of Democrats, say Biden should step aside and let someone else run for president. In comparison, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last Tuesday showed 32% of Democrats saying Biden should withdraw from the race. If the proportion of Democrats calling on Biden to drop out continues to grow, the presidents already vulnerable position in the party could become untenable. That being said, the concerns about Bidens fitness for office do not appear to have fundamentally reshaped the race for the presidency. The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll showed Biden and Trump each capturing 46% of the vote, a result that is essentially unchanged since April. A hypothetical match-up between Trump and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, also appears to be a virtual tie, with 49% of voters supporting Harris and 47% backing Trump. Has Biden given any indication that he plans to drop out? No. Biden has instead planned a campaign blitz across the coming days to demonstrate his ability to deliver a convincing pitch for re-election. On Monday, he will visit Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and he will also sit down for an interview with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt. Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there, Biden said on Thursday. Im going out in the areas where we think we can win, where we can persuade people to move our way. Can Bidens critics force him out of the race? They have few options to do so. Presidential primary voting has already concluded in all US states, so the delegates going to the Democratic convention are the only people who can nominate another candidate at this point. But of the roughly 4,000 delegates bound for Chicago, nearly 3,900 of them are pledged to Biden because of his strong performance in the primaries. Biden said on Thursday that the delegates pledged to him can do whatever they want at the convention, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Elaine Kamarck, a member of the Democratic national committee rules committee and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, notes that current party rules state: Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. Kamarck wrote on Thursday: Few, if any, delegates to recent conventions have ever sought to test [the rule]. But if worries about President Bidens ability to run and to serve continue to grow, along with fears of handing the presidency over to Donald Trump, some delegates may find themselves tempted to vote for someone else. How long does Biden have to decide if he will stay in the race? The Democratic convention begins 19 August, but the party may formally nominate a candidate before then. Before Bidens poor debate performance, the Democratic National Committee already planned to virtually nominate a candidate to meet an Ohio ballot deadline of 7 August, but no date has been officially announced for the roll call vote. Because of the Ohio deadline, Democrats have even less time than it might appear to determine who their nominee will be. What would happen if Biden did step aside? If Biden withdraws from the presidential race, the more than 4,000 Democratic delegates will need to nominate another candidate to run against Trump in November. The winning candidate will need to secure the support of a majority of delegates to capture the nomination. Harris would enter the nomination fight with an early advantage, as she has the largest national profile of any potential candidate and some Democrats have already named her as their preferred option. But Harris would not automatically become the nominee if Biden steps aside, as she would still need to win the necessary number of delegates. Other names floated as potential replacements for Biden include the California governor, Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and Illinois governor, JB Pritzker. Asked about Harris on Thursday, Biden said he had the utmost confidence in his vice-president, but he reminded reporters that any other Democratic candidate would enter the election with minimal time to introduce themselves and deliver a winning message to voters. I believe Im the best qualified to govern, and I think Im the best qualified to win, Biden said. There are other people who could beat Trump, too, but its awful hard to start from scratch. 'No poll says I can't win,' Joe Biden tells a news conference at the Nato summit - Kevin Dietsch/Getty After two weeks of calls for him to step away from the presidential race, Joe Biden has finally set out his criteria for ending his five-decade political career. In his press conference at the Nato summit on Thursday, he said that he would stay in the contest unless his team told him: Theres no way you can win. Theyre not saying that, he insisted. No poll says that. That stance is a change from his previous pronouncement that only the Lord Almighty could persuade him to make way for a younger candidate. Joe Biden and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky during a ceremony for the 'Ukraine Compact' at the summit - Will Oliver/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock It came after accusations from sitting Democrats that Mr Bidens belief he is the only man who could beat Donald Trump risked losing his party the presidency and both branches of Congress in Novembers election. On Thursday, he acknowledged: There are other people who could beat Trump, too. But its awful hard to start from scratch. The polls already suggest that he will lose the election, and his advisers are already working out how to break that news to him. David Axelrod, the former Barack Obama campaign adviser, has speculated that Mr Bidens inner circle may be hiding the truth from him about his poor performance in the polls. Mr Biden had something of a comeback earlier this year, after entering 2024 behind Trump in national polls. He increased his support from 44.4 per cent to 46.7 per cent of the US public, halving the gap between him and Trump from 2.2pts to 0.8pts by the end of May. Analysts suggested that the improving economy was finally being noticed by voters. The polls tightened further when Trump was convicted in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. Within a week of the jurys verdict, the gap between him and Mr Biden had shrunk to just 0.3pts. But the constant focus on the 81-year-old presidents age and health has since seen the polls fall back. Since May, the gap between the two men has jumped to three points, as Mr Bidens own support has plummeted down to 44.2 per cent. This has generated significant scepticism that he could beat Trump in November, after months more scrutiny of his age and gaffes. The US betting markets now give vice president Kamala Harris a better chance of winning the 2024 race than Mr Biden, although both are significantly behind Trump. Volodymyr Zelensky casts an eye on Joe Biden, who is under pressure for his gaffes - Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty On Thursday, Mr Biden claimed: There are at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower numbers than I have now. Although strictly true, he neglected to mention that none of the incumbents with lower numbers won their elections. George HW Bush, Jimmy Carter and Trump had similar approval ratings at this point in the presidential cycle, but all lost their races for re-election and left the White House after just one term. At this point in the 2012 cycle, Mr Obama was leading Mitt Romney by 2.5 points. Trump was trailing Mr Biden by eight points. Part of the issue for Mr Bidens campaign is that his support is falling among groups that were most likely to vote for him in 2020, including young liberals and minority ethnic Americans. That trend is driven partly by his stance on the war in Gaza, which has alienated pro-Palestinian Americans. Those voters are unlikely to support Trump, but may pick a third-party candidate or choose not to vote, experts believe. Meanwhile, Mr Biden has also been losing some of the voters in camps where Trump was already leading. Since November 2023, his support among middle-aged people has fallen from 44 per cent to 37 per cent, the proportion of men who back him has fallen from 37 per cent to 34 per cent. He is also neck-and-neck with Trump among Hispanic voters, where the Trump campaign has made some of its largest gains. The nature of state-by-state voting in presidential elections means that Mr Bidens national ratings are less important than his support in several key battleground states. If he loses the majority of the swing states, Trump will win the election, even if he has strong support in some true blue areas, like California. Trump was already leading in the key states, but since the end of May when he was convicted, the polls suggest the gap has widened further. That is true in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In four of these states, the gap now exceeds five points at the start of 2024 it was just two states. If Trump picked up just those states with leads of five points, he would win the presidential election by 271 electoral college delegates to 266, the polls suggest. Mr Bidens aides have argued that the slump in support he has experienced since his disastrous debate with Trump two weeks ago is temporary. They say that he has experienced a campaign moment, rather than a fundamental shift in the race. But as his performance at Nato showed, there is serious potential for more slip-ups that will erode his support further. The additional scrutiny on everything the president does is unlikely to work in his favour. A Brisbane couple with Russian passports have become the first people to be charged under new espionage laws after a joint investigation between Australias spy and security agencies. AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said a 40-year-old woman on long-term leave from the Australian defence force and her 62-year-old husband were charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offence, which could lead to up to 15 years in prison. Defence raised concerns leading to Operation Bergazada, which culminated with a knock on the door of the couples Everton Park residential home in Brisbane. Kershaw alleged the pair worked together to access Australian Defence Force material that related to Australias national security interests. We allege the woman was undertaking non-declared travel to Russia, whilst she was on long term leave from the Australian Defence Force, Kershaw said. We allege that whilst she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home. We allege her husband would access requested material and would send to his wife in Russia. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation. Kershaw said no significant compromise has been identified and Australias Five Eyes security partners had been made aware of the investigation. Australias spy bosses had not ruled out further charges or that others may be involved. Related: False phone calls diverted police from Gaza war protest at Parliament House, AFP chief alleges Asio head Mike Burgess said he would not be commenting on the details of the investigation but issued an invitation for Russian spies to reach out to his agency. I want to speak directly to the operatives of Russian intelligence services, he said at a Canberra press conference on Friday. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Petrov defections. Two Russian spies gave ASIO and our closest allies the name of Russian assets in western countries. If you want to share your secrets, please reach out. ASIO is always listening. Burgess said the threat to Australias security was real and allegations were always treated seriously. Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australias secrets, he said. We cannot be naive and we cannot be complacent. Espionage is not some quaint notion, espionage damages our economy and degrades our strategic advantage. It has catastrophic real world consequences. Foreign intelligence services are capable, determined and patient. They play the long game. The problem for them is ASIO does too. A maximum-security prison in Vught in the Netherlands. Photograph: Robert_Vos/epa Earlier this year, before he became the UK prisons minister, James Timpson described how Britain should follow the Dutch example of mild sentencing to help solve the prisons crisis. They have shut half their prisons not because people are less naughty in Holland, he told Channel 4. Its because they have a different way of sentencing, which is community sentencing so people can stay at home, keep their jobs, keep their homes, keep reading their children bedtime stories, and it means they are far less likely to commit crime again. A custodial sentence is not always the right thing. But in the Netherlands, those comments evoked surprise in some quarters, underlining that there are no easy solutions. The country has experienced an escalation in drug-related crime and has a new rightwing government keen to be seen as hard on law and order. Overall crime dropped in the past decade but figures such as the Rotterdam mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, are sounding the alarm about a wave of violent, drug-related criminality. A lawyer, journalist and the brother of a crown witness were murdered in connection with a gangland trial. Justice ministers have talked about a breakdown in law and order and announced a clampdown on narcoterrorism and higher sentences. This year there have been reports and parliamentary questions on overcrowded prisons. The latest figures from the WODC, the justice ministrys research and datacentre, show the number of people being jailed trended downwards from 2014 to 2020 but since then has risen. Amber van der Toorn, a spokesperson for the Rechtspraak judicial system, said any suggestion that the Dutch punish less was incorrect: There is often an image that Dutch judges give low sentences and that we sit on the side of prevention, but if you look at international research, it is really not the case that we give less high prison sentences in the Netherlands. Sven Brinkhoff, a professor in criminal law at the University of Amsterdam, said the reality was more complex than Timpson thought. On the one hand, we see that the numbers of prison sentences are in fact rising again, he said. We also see a firm law and order tone of voice from the Ministry of Justice, advocating higher sentences. On the other hand, we do see another movement where there is more room for mediation, restorative justice and looking at other ways of punishment like community service. Other criminologists believe alongside life sentences for drug-related murders that judges favour non-custodial sentences for certain misdemeanours. Jan van Dijk, an emeritus professor of criminology at Tilburg University, who has studied global crime patterns from 2006 to 2019, believes the rise in Dutch imprisonments was a blip in a long-term trend. [Timpson] is completely right to say we punish less by incarceration: it was the case 40 years ago, then the prisoner rate grew a lot but in the last 20 years it plummeted to less than half of the British rate, he said. For many crimes where you get a prison sentence in Great Britain, in the Netherlands you get community service, and guidelines from the public prosecution give preference to this. The reason is that Dutch research has shown that people with a short prison sentence only get worse, so the recidivism rate is higher with a short prison sentence than with a community service order. The Dutch justice ministry stressed to the Guardian that judges, who rule on cases and give sentence, operate independently. Our laws give the judges the possibility to give community sentences and conditional sentences, but they apply these sentences where they see fit, said a spokesperson, Frerick Althof. David Downes, a London School of Economics professor who compared the Dutch and British systems in a 1988 study, said the Dutch approach would still be a better alternative. The criminal drug market looms ever larger but that mainly reflects the importance of the Netherlands as an entrepot nation rather than the soft touch in sentencing, he said. The philosophy of sentencing remains remarkably anti-penal despite growing moves to the extreme right politically. It is to be hoped that Dutch tolerance survives. John Beaumont used a Geiger counter as part of his cover for his 'secret mission' - Sean Gallup/Getty A former trainee church minister conducted fake radiation examinations on students in Scotland in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to sexually assault victims. John Beaumont, 66, convinced three victims at St Andrews University that he was on a secret mission to test them for poison for the Ministry of Defence. Under the elaborate plan he would produce a Geiger counter, have his targets sign pretend Official Secrets Act documents and warned they would be charged by the authorities if they breached the agreements. He was jailed for four years and eight months on Friday for offences committed against three victims while he was a theology student at St Andrews University in the late 1980s. John Beaumont tricked young students into beleiving he needed to carry out radiation examinations upon them - UNPIXS Beaumont had already been convicted of similar crimes in 2017 and was serving a 13-and-a-half year sentence after convincing three other victims they may have suffered radiation poisoning. Lord Mulholland, the judge, told Beaumont he had abused his position of trust as a warden at a halls of residence to trick young impressionable students. One of the male victims said he had believed Beaumonts claims, made between 1987 and 1988, because of press reports about radiation potentially blowing over to the UK following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. A female victim told how she had been approached by him in 1988 and was told he had been asked to test her radiation levels by the Foreign Office. After victims agreed to undergo testing, he would then jab them with a hypodermic needle and subject them to intimate physical examinations. Lord Mulholland rejected pleas from Janice Green, Beaumonts lawyer, to allow the sentences to run concurrently with his existing jail term. It means the latest sentence of almost five years will be added to the 2017 sentence handed down by a court in Manchester. You preyed on their experience and pretended to be employed by the Ministry of Defence to take samples to check for radiation levels after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Lord Mulholland told Beaumont. Predator The samples were taken from intimate areas of their bodies. You are predatory and used your status and maturity to prey on them. I dont think it is appropriate that the sentence runs concurrently as that will mean you wont be punished in any way other than denunciation for the offences you pled guilty to. After striking up a friendship with one male victim at St Andrews, Beaumont claimed he had been tasked with taking secret samples from members of the public by the MoD. He stated that, based on his medical records, his victim had a heightened risk of developing cancer leaving him terrified and believing him that it was true. Beaumont, a former trainee church minister and funeral celebrant, admitted three charges of indecent assault at the High Court in Edinburgh in October last year, ahead of his sentencing on Friday. Ms Green said her client had not inflicted any physical harm and that his victims had all believed for a long time that they had been part of a genuine research programme. She said they had only realised when Beaumont was convicted for similar offences in 2017 that this was not the case. However, Katrina Parkes, Scotlands Procurator Fiscal for High Court sexual offences, said there may be more victims and urged them to come forward. John Beaumont manipulated and preyed on vulnerable students who should have been safe under his care, she said. He exploited their fears and went to extreme lengths to convince them he was carrying out medical tests in an official capacity. His victims have shown great courage and resilience in holding this man accountable for his crimes. Putin has watched the Nato conference closely Sir Keir Starmer has humiliated Britain, embarrassed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and handed an undeserved victory to Russia at his first international summit as Prime Minister. Its one thing to flip-flop on domestic policies but quite another, and far more dangerous, to do a screeching U-turn on a vital strategic subject with the eyes of the world on him. But thats precisely what he has achieved on the crucial issue of Storm Shadow missiles. Only a couple of days ago, the international press hailed a new, more hawkish policy from the Government as Starmer suggested that Kyiv would be permitted to fire British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russian territory, lifting previous restrictions on their use. That decision was greeted enthusiastically by Zelensky, who added that he had discussed operational implementation with Starmer. Inevitably, the Kremlin condemned the move as a dangerous escalation. A day later, however, Downing Street clarified that Ukraine will not be able to use Storm Shadow to attack into Russia after all. Whats going on? Pressure from the White House, cold feet in the face of Moscows outrage, or bungling by Starmer? Whichever it is, it is shambolic. The first decision was the right one. For over two years, Russia has been hitting any corner of Ukraine it likes. It took months for Britain and the US to summon up the courage to supply Ukrainian forces with the long-range missiles they needed to hit back. But both countries, fearing Putins wrath, hogtied Kyiv by insisting they not be used against Russian targets outside Ukraine. That has left Moscow free to build up supplies, deploy forces, and launch air attacks from within Russia with virtual impunity. We were reminded of the consequences of that this week when Putin rained down missiles on Ukrainian cities, including a childrens hospital. At least some of those strikes could potentially have been stopped on the ground before they were even launched. The military effects when such freedom of action is allowed were demonstrated a few weeks ago. In the face of a Russian offensive towards Kharkiv, Biden was persuaded to allow some missiles to be used against forces inside Russia. Even that limited permission made a major contribution to the attack being blunted. Under this new dispensation, the details of which weapons could be used, and the distance inside Russia that targets could be hit, were rightly not made public for reasons of operational security. Some understood that Storm Shadows may have been included. But now we know they were not and Russia knows, too. It had been ambiguous, and ambiguity can be a powerful military weapon, keeping the enemy guessing and forcing a dissipation of defensive resources to guard against the unknown. Therefore, clarifying Britains position on Storm Shadow has handed Putin an unexpected advantage. Starmer told Nato leaders in Washington: 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. But that is not the message either Putin or Zelensky will have taken from his Storm Shadow U-turn. Instead, Zelensky will have had his hopes dashed of Britain allowing unrestrained targeting that could have had a major impact on Russias war. And for Putin, there was further confirmation of how afraid Nato is of threats of escalation. This fear still grips Western leaders, despite so many of Putins red lines having been crossed without consequences. Of course it is right that Britain must seek to avoid greater retaliation from the Kremlin. But Ukraines war is our war, and wars are not won without taking the kind of risks inherent in enabling Ukraine to shove back harder against Putin. They are certainly not won by the kind of indecision we have seen from the Government this week. According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell in England from October 2022 to March 2024, more than in any 18-month period since 1836. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA Income from farming in England plummeted by 19% last year after floods meant harvesting many crops was impossible. Farmers have called for more support from the government as the climate breaks down, meaning agricultural businesses are no longer able to count on mild UK weather and increasingly face drought and floods. Farms also contributed less to Englands economy in 2023 at 10bn, a fall of 1bn or 8.7% compared with 2022. Farmers total income from agriculture in England was 4.5bn, down 1.1bn or 19.0% compared with 2022. The drop in total income was driven by a large decrease in crop outputs, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Output, crops that came off farms to be sold, was 9.9bn, down 1.5bn or 13.1% compared with 2022. This was caused by a mixture of a crash in prices of crops such as wheat, combined with poor yields. According to the Met Office, 1,695.9mm of rain fell in England from October 2022 to March 2024, more than in any 18-month period since the organisation started collecting comparable data in 1836. Scientists have said climate breakdown is likely to cause more intense periods of rain in the UK. Martin Lines, the chief executive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and an arable farmer, said: Farm income has significantly decreased due to the impacts of climate change on weather and market price fluctuations. Farmers find themselves at a disadvantage due to market forces, even though theres plenty of money in the system. The income that farmers receive from food production has declined, while food retailers continue to make record profits. Without adapting to a changing climate, the future of UK farmers, businesses, and food security could be at risk. Farmers will soon no longer get a flat rate of government support, because the EU-derived basic payments scheme is being phased out. Instead, English farms have to sign up to environmental schemes to get government funding. The basic payments used to tide businesses over during years of bad weather and low commodity prices, and there is uncertainty in the sector because the new Labour government has not committed to the 2.4bn a year budget for environment land management schemes that the Tories put in place. Joe Evans, the vice-president of the Country Land and Business Association, said: Farmers incomes are continuing to fall after decades of economic neglect. Labour has put economic growth at the heart of its agenda, and the countryside will be key to delivering this. Weve issued Labour with a programme for government to deliver a new era of industry cooperation. This includes committing to an annual 4bn agricultural budget, reforming planning laws to help farmers diversify income, and proposals for ministerial-led, cross-departmental working groups to identify and remove barriers to growth. The rural economy is 19% less productive than the national average, closing this gap is key to our future prosperity. Its time we had a government that matches the ambition of the countryside. Three people found unconscious in the water and a fourth clinging to the dinghy wreckage could not be resuscitated. Photograph: French maritime prefect of the Channel and North Sea Four people died overnight trying to cross the Channel to reach Britain, French officials have said. A rescue operation took place off Boulogne-sur-Mer on Frances northern coast after reports of people in the sea. Four of those pulled from the sea had drowned. At least 56 survivors were rescued early on Friday morning, according to French officials. They are being cared for by the French authorities. Sources in northern France said this was a particularly dangerous week for crossings because the weather was very changeable, with only six-hour windows of favourable weather for crossings. The boat was launched off the coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer at about 2am French time. The drownings happened after one of the tubes from the dinghy the group were travelling in deflated, according to the French maritime prefect of the Channel and North Sea. After the alarm was raised by a French fishing boat in the area, which took part in the rescue operation, the French coastguard spotted the dinghy at 4.30am and a French navy boat and a helicopter were drafted in to assist with picking up those onboard. Three people who were found unconscious in the water and a fourth found clinging to the wreckage of the dinghy could not be resuscitated. The survivors were taken to the quayside at Boulogne. The local state representative, Prefect Jacques Billant, said 56 passengers were picked up, three of them women. Four men, reported to be from Somalia, Eritrea or Ethiopia, died, Billant told French journalists. He said the boat was very poor quality under-inflated and under-motorised. Only one migrant was wearing a lifejacket. A few others had inner tubes, Billant said. An HM Coastguard spokesperson said assistance was offered to the French coastguard. An RNLI lifeboat from Dover and Border Force vessel were initially sent to provide support but were not required to attend the scene, they said. Billant said a second migrant boat was rescued on Friday after leaving Le Touquet with 40 people onboard. The deaths are the first to happen since Keir Starmer took office as UK prime minister. He has pledged to stop the criminal gangs responsible for organising Channel crossings, but it is unlikely any new policy can be put into action quickly enough to make a dent in the peak in crossings through the summer months. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. My thoughts are with all those affected. Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk. We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs. The last major incident was on 23 April when five people died off the French coast trying to reach the UK. The deaths take the total number killed on the perilous crossing from France to Britain this year to 19. Home Office figures show 419 people made the journey across the Channel from France in six boats on Tuesday. The figures mean there was an average of about 70 people on each boat and take the provisional total for 2024 to date to 14,058, according to PA Media. The chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said: This devastating loss of life in the Channel highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new government. Preventing more deaths which are now happening too often is a critical and urgent task. We need to bring an end to men, women and children who have fled war and oppression in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iran being driven into the arms of the smuggling gangs by opening safe routes so refugees wanting to be with their families are not forced to take deadly risks. We also need to put in place cooperation agreements with our European allies to provide safe passage from France and trial the use of refugee visas. The shadow home secretary, James Cleverly, tweeted: Reports of more deaths in the Channel are a tragedy. As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering. Related: Home Office U-turn grants Wirral legend right to live in UK after 46 years Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, said the news of more lives lost in the Channel was deeply upsetting and it should prompt politicians to create safe routes. Every life lost in the Channel is avoidable, and politicians have the power to end these tragedies, he said. Channel crossings are fuelled by a lack of safe routes to claim asylum in the UK, and as a refugee charity that operates in both northern France and the UK we know the only way to stop crossings and save lives is to open safe routes. I hope the new government acts, creates safe routes and saves lives. Dr Wanda Wyporska, the chief executive of Safe Passage International, said the tragedy was entirely preventable and required urgent action to stop it happening again. She said: Sunaks government took a cruel approach to refugees lives, failed to break the smugglers grip on dangerous journeys and refused to open safe alternatives. A new government is an opportunity for a radically different direction. Rather than continuing an anti-refugee approach, the new government must urgently open safe routes and restore the right to seek protection so people fleeing war and persecution have safe ways to reach the UK. In a report published on Friday the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, called on the UK government to uphold the right to asylum and for regional and international cooperation to deal with refugee issues. Vicky Tennant, the UNHCRs representative to the UK, said: In recent years, arrivals across the Channel have generated a perception of crisis, often obscuring the desperation driving these journeys, as refugees move in search of safety and stability. While the challenges of addressing irregular movements of refugees and migrants are real, practical solutions are at hand that work for states and refugees. Gavin Plumb plotted to rape and murder Holly Willoughby A security guard convicted of planning unspeakable violence against Holly Willoughby has been sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Gavin Plumb, from Harlow, Essex, was found guilty of hatching a plot to kidnap, murder and rape the former This Morning host following a week-long trial. The security guard had been attempting to live his ultimate fantasy and was described by the prosecution as someone who had an obsession with Ms Willoughby. Sentencing Plumb on Friday, Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray said he had no doubt his plans for Ms Willoughby were considerably more than a fantasy. The judge said: Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons - including your poor physical health - but you clearly thought it was feasible. The judge told the 37-year-old his plans were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail that they were not shared in open court. Plumb was jailed for 16 years, but will serve a minimum of 15 years and 85 days due to time spent on remand. As he was led out of the dock and down to the cells by a prison officer, Plumb appeared to mutter 15 years to kill myself. A week-long trial heard how Plumb had made an abduction kit, complete with metal cable ties, handcuffs, a ball gag and a blindfold, in preparation for the attack on Ms Willoughby. He scouted her home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could keep the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors. Officers raided Plumbs flat on Oct 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online. Detectives examining his phone and devices discovered vast numbers of images of women 10,322 of which were of Ms Willoughby. Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Ms Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras. As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor. The court heard how the offences had had a life-changing impact on the TV presenter, who wished for her victim statement to be private. In a submission made by the prosecution, Alison Morgan KC said: The prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences. Det Chief Insp Greg Wood, the senior investigating officer in the case, said Plumbs sentencing has brought misogyny and violence against women and girls to the fore. Speaking outside Essex Crown Court, Mr Wood added: It cannot be right that men like Gavin Plumb can join online forums where they freely vent hatred against women and girls and plot to cause them harm. In a statement following last weeks guilty verdict, Ms Willoughby said: As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own homes. I will forever be grateful to the undercover police officer who understood the imminent threat, and to the Metropolitan and Essex police forces for their swift response. 02:57 PM BST Thats all Thank you for following The Telegraphs coverage of Gavin Plumbs sentencing. 02:09 PM BST Plumb is a calculating sexual predator, says Essex Police chief inspector Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood said: He is not a fantasist - he is a calculating sexual predator who has spent his adult life seeking to inflict violence on women. Today I pay tribute to Ms Willoughby and the other women who Gavin Plumb sought to harm. Their bravery has helped us protect other women and I thank them for their courage. 01:51 PM BST Plumb a dangerous individual, says Essex Police chief inspector Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood, of Essex Police, the senior investigating officer in the case of Gavin Plumb, said outside court the defendant was a dangerous individual. Hes a dangerous individual with a history of kidnapping women and girls, Mr Wood said. He tried to claim throughout the trial that he was an obsessive fan and a fantasist - that is simply not true. He planned this attack on Ms Willoughby over a two-year period, scoping her movements, seeking help from others and buying items to incapacitate and inflict violence. 01:41 PM BST Plumb sentencing brings misogyny and violence against women to the fore, says Police spokesman Gavin Plumb sentencing has brought misogyny and violence against women and girls to the fore, a police spokesman has said. In a statement outside Essex Crown Court, Essex Polices Senior investigating officer Det Chief Insp Greg Wood paid tribute to Holly Willoughby and Plumbs previous victims, saying: It cannot be right that men like Gavin Plumb can join online forums where they freely vent hatred against women and girls and plot to cause them harm. Essex Police's DCI Greg Wood says case has brought violence against women 'to the fore' It has demonstrated that we have much to do to stamp it out of society. We need everyone to stand up to call out misogyny and to report those committing or intent on causing violence towards women and girls. 01:19 PM BST Plumbs sentence sends clear message, says Crown Prosecution Service Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service, said Gavin Plumbs sentence of life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years ensures he will remain in prison, where he can no longer threaten or harm women. She said: There is no doubt Gavin Plumb posed a real danger, and the CPS proved that his plans to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby were more than mere fantasy and he had every intention of encouraging others to help him. I hope todays sentence brings some comfort to the victim, as well as the victims of his previous offences, and sends a clear message that the CPS will always bring the strongest possible case against those who plan violence against women. 01:06 PM BST Plumb as hes led away: Ive got 15 years to kill myself Led out of the dock and down to the cells by a prison officer, Plumb said: Ive got 15 years to kill myself. The 37-year-old, who stood as the sentence was read out, initially showed no reaction but as he was led to the cells he made the comment to the dock officer and made an exasperated gesture raising both his hands. 01:00 PM BST Plumbs plans for Willoughby sadistic, brutal and degrading, says judge Referring to Gavin Plumbs online messages with a man named Marc, Mr Justice Edward Murray said the plans he outlined for Holly Willoughby were particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. He told the defendant: The key point in this regard is that the plan to murder Ms Willoughby was the endpoint of a plan developed over a considerable time to kidnap and falsely imprison her for the principal purpose of raping and otherwise sexually abusing her over a sustained period of time in ways that, judging by your discussions with Marc, would have been particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. The judge added: There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action. 12:55 PM BST Plumbs plans too horrifying, shocking and graphic to share in court Mr Justice Edward Murray told Gavin Plumb his plans for Holly Willoughby were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail that they were not shared in open court. He told the defendant: Many of the messages about what you planned to do to Ms Willoughby were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail, they were not read out in open court. The jury, however, read every single message during the trial. Turning to what Plumb said in his defence, the judge added: Your claim in your evidence that you had bought the chloroform to clean a stubborn stain on your living room carpet was a particularly clumsy and obvious lie. 12:45 PM BST Plan considerably more than a fantasy, says judge The sentencing judge said Gavin Plumb had no doubt the security guards plans for Holly Willoughby were considerably more than a fantasy. Mr Justice Edward Murray said: I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you. The judge continued: Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons - including your poor physical health - but you clearly thought it was feasible. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men - the right crew as you sometimes called it - to help you do it. 12:42 PM BST Judge praises Willoughbys considerable courage for waiving anonymity The judge sentencing Gavin Plumb said Holly Willoughby is a well-known and well-loved public figure but is entitled to respect for her private and family life. Mr Justice Edward Murray said he had read Ms Willoughbys victim personal statement, the contents of which are private but were shown only to those who needed to see, including Plumb. The judge said he had carefully read Ms Willoughbys statement, adding: I simply note I am satisfied these offences have had life-changing consequences for her both privately and professionally. He praised the considerable courage Ms Willoughby displayed by waiving her right to anonymity in the case. 12:27 PM BST Judge begins sentencing remarks The sentencing is about to get under way. 12:00 PM BST Judge considering sentence Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray has risen to consider his sentence and will return in 20 minutes. Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray will decide Gavin Plumb's fate 11:58 AM BST Gavin Plumb worshipped Holly Willoughby, says defence Gavin Plumb worshipped and was obsessed with Ms Willougby for years and is devastated to have been the cause of such pain to her, defence barrister Sasha Wass KC said. Taking to her feet, she told the court that Plumb had read the very detailed victim statement made by the TV presenter. She added: Of course, Mr Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed of the online conversations that formed the focus of this trial. They are conversations that he always expected would remain private. 11:52 AM BST Plumb urged convicted paedophile to help him kidnap and murder Holly Willoughby During his trial, it emerged that Gavin Plumb discussed his depraved plans with a man he met in an online chat room called Marc. The Telegraph revealed that the person behind the anonymous account was in fact Mark Mulligan, who is a convicted paedophile and stalker from Dublin, in Ireland. Mulligan was jailed in November 2014 for three and a half years after he admitted stalking a woman and discussed raping her young son. Mark Mulligan, a convicted paedophile and stalker from Dublin, discussed Plumb's plans He also discussed sexually assaulting TV personalities and their children. The then 39 year-old also admitted possessing child pornography when his home was raided on July 7 2013. He was also found guilty of a third charge, which he denied, of producing child pornography. Read the full story here. 11:30 AM BST Plumbs full plans so depraved and vile they cannot be reported The prosecution said Gavin Plumb had plans that were so depraved and vile that they were not reported by the media. Turning to the offending of the 37-year-old, Alison Morgan KC said: My Lord knows of the extreme and gratuitous degradation of the victim that was planned by this defendant. Degradation that was so depraved and vile that they were, by agreement, not reported in detail by representatives of the media. The 'abduction kit' Plumb acquired - PA 11:27 AM BST Plumb made victim view all men as perpetrators Describing another victim statement from a woman Plumb tried to kidnap from a train in Stansted in 2006, Alison Morgan KC said the woman now feels extremely vulnerable and that she began to see all men as perpetrators. I clearly remember the feeling when Gavin Plumb grabbed my leg, the victim said in a statement read to the court by Ms Morgan. I remember how awful it felt to have his hand on me. It was a disgusting feeling. 11:25 AM BST Previous victim felt permanent sense of worry about bumping into Plumb, the court has heard The court has heard moving statements from Plumbs previous victims, including a woman who he tried to falsely imprison in a shop in 2008. She said that hearing details of the defendants plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away. In a victim impact statement described by Alison Morgan KC, the barrister told the court that the woman felt a permanent sense of worry that she would bump into him when he was released from prison. Ms Morgan added: Hearing of these matters has made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away from him, thankful as she is it didnt turn out worse. 11:17 AM BST Listen: Plumbs plan to kidnap Willoughby 11:09 AM BST Impossible to convey shock and fear caused to Willoughby, a court has heard In a submission made by the prosecution, Alison Morgan KC said: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. 11:01 AM BST Watch: Moment police arrest man convicted of plotting to kidnap and rape Holly Willoughby Gavin Plumb said Holly Willoughby was a fantasy of mine as police raided his flat, according to body-worn video footage played in court. The 37-year-old was shirtless when officers forced open his front door and burst into his home in Harlow, Essex, on Oct 4 last year. A police officer handcuffed Plumb, who was in a bedroom in the property, within moments of them entering. Plumb exclaimed what are you talking about? in the footage played to Chelmsford Crown Court, later adding: Please explain to me what the hell is going on? When told he was under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to kidnap, Plumb asked who and was told it was Willoughby. The defendant asked OK, wheres that from? and was told by an officer that will be explained to you in custody. Read the full story here. 10:49 AM BST Continued from previous... A past victim of Gavin Plumb, who said he could have been stopped sooner, told the BBC: I had all the worst scenarios cooking in my head. And I thought if I get off that train, he can do anything and so my thought was not to get off that train at any cost. Asked if she felt a prison sentence could have prevented future attacks, the woman told the broadcaster: I believe so, I believe that lack of punishment was only encouragement. He could go unpunished doing whatever he did, if he got away with it - why not try again? A sketch of Plumb in court - as a survivor said he could have been stopped sooner - Elizabeth Cook/PA She continued: Potentially every man can be a perpetrator and I understand that so many women think along the same lines. A large man sitting right next to a girl: that is a potential danger. It is really sad but that is one of those takeaways from that unfortunate story for me. When I look at men I very often do that quick judgement, what level of danger are they? 10:45 AM BST Gavin Plumb could have been stopped sooner, says survivor A past victim of Gavin Plumb has said the lack of punishment for his attempted kidnap of her was only encouragement as the security guard faces jail for a plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby. Speaking ahead of Plumbs sentencing, one of his former victims told the BBC of being frozen and scared when he attempted to kidnap her. The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, told the broadcaster: He had a rope and replica gun on him. As I read that note it was only then I looked at him. My first impression was that: he is huge, I have no chance. There was this moment when I was frozen and scared. But it was also disbelief, I thought maybe he is joking, it is absurd, but he started approaching me with his hands, he held his hand on my knee and he was indicating that we are going to go. After the initial freeze and disbelief I realised whats going on and I was frightened, that feeling was growing because I started realising that this massive man wants to get me off the train and I knew the next station is in a small village. 10:42 AM BST Plumb arrives in the dock Plumb has arrived in the dock to face his sentencing. Wearing a grey prison tracksuit, he spoke briefly to confirm his name. 10:40 AM BST Large crowd gathers inside courtroom A large crowd of press and members of the public have gathered inside courtroom two at Chelmsford Crown Court this morning to catch a glimpse of Gavin Plumb. The last time he appeared in the dock, he shook his head and closed his eyes before sobbing as the jury announced its unanimous verdict after 12 hours and 19 minutes of deliberation. 10:38 AM BST Who is Gavin Plumb? 35-stone loner drank 18 litres of cola every 10 days and obsessed over Holly Willoughby At his heaviest he was 35 and-a-half stone and drank 18 litres of cola every 10 days while living in a rubbish-strewn council flat, writes Will Bolton. Neighbours described Gavin Plumb, a 37-year-old father of two, as a reclusive figure who used taxis to travel from his flat on the outskirts of the town. Born in February 1987, Plumb worked as a security guard and spent his life living in Harlow and Loughton, both in Essex. Plumb, who has three brothers and a half-brother, is understood not to be in contact with the mother of his children. In 2006, he was handed a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. Read the full story on Plumbs background here. 10:33 AM BST Plumbs ex-partner says he has done it before and will do it again Laura Roberts shares two children with Gavin Plumb The ex-partner of Gavin Plumb said he has done it before and will do it again. Laura Roberts was with the perverted security guard for three years during which time she gave birth to a son, now 15, and a daughter, now 16. Speaking for the first time last week, she said her former partner was a complete fantasist and that she wasnt surprised that his sadistic plan was uncovered by police. I wasnt surprised when I heard what he had done it all fitted in. He has done it before and he will do it again. We were together for three years but I havent seen him since he left, she told The Telegraph. Read the full story here. 10:28 AM BST Plumb had long history of violence towards women Plumbs violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument. 10:18 AM BST Pictured: Inside the flat where Plumb planned to detain Willoughby The inside of Plumb's flat, where he was arrested - CPS Plumb had metal cable ties along with other equipment needed to carry out the kidnapping in his flat - CPS 10:13 AM BST Listen: Plumb sent voice notes detailing plan to kidnap Willoughby using chloroform Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras. As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor. Plumbs violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument. 10:02 AM BST More than 10,000 images of Willoughby discovered on Plumbs phone Detectives examining Gavin Plumbs phone and devices discovered vast amounts of images of women 10,322 of which were of Holly Willoughby. So vast was the amount of material that officers were only able to analyse around 10 per cent, amounting to more than tens of thousands of images, Det Con William Belsham, of Essex Police, told jurors. Plumb, a father of two, was also found to have made web searches including how to meet people who plan to kidnap celebs and what does it feel like to be raped in 2021. In sexualised messages on WhatsApp, Wickr and Kik between Plumb and a man called Marc, the pair exchanged 57 images of Willoughby across 46 WhatsApp messages between Jan 12 and Jan 19 2022. Nine of these images were deepfake pornography, Alison Morgan KC, prosecuting, said. 09:56 AM BST Plumb made abduction kit to kidnap Willoughby During a week-long trial, Chelmsford Crown Court heard how Gavin Plumb had made an abduction kit, complete with metal cable ties, handcuffs, a ball gag and a blindfold, in preparation for the attack. He scouted Holly Willoughbys home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could keep the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors. Officers stormed Plumbs flat on Oct 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online. 09:49 AM BST Willoughby: Women should not be made to feel unsafe in our own homes Speaking after Gavin Plumbs conviction, Holly Willougby said women should not be made to feel unsafe in their own homes and praised Plumbs previous victims for coming forward. In a statement following the verdict at Chelmsford Crown Court last week, Willoughby, who waived her right to anonymity, said: As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own homes. I will forever be grateful to the undercover police officer who understood the imminent threat, and to the Metropolitan and Essex police forces for their swift response. Holly Willoughby waived her right to anonymity - Ken McKay She thanked the prosecutors, the judge, and the members of the jury for ensuring that justice was done and that [Plumb] will not be able to harm any more women. She added: I would also like to commend the bravery of his previous victims for speaking up at the time. Without their bravery this conviction may not have been possible. The security guard had been attempting to live his ultimate fantasy and was described by the prosecution as someone who had an obsession with Willoughby. Read the full story here. 09:47 AM BST Good morning Hello and welcome to the Telegraphs coverage of Gavin Plumbs sentencing. Stay tuned for live updates from Chelmsford Crown Court and the reaction outside afterwards. Staff at Lakewood church hand out water and operate a cooling station in Houston. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP Nearly 800,000 Houston residents remain without electricity five days after the category-1 Hurricane Beryl downed power lines across the city. The outages come as the city is under heat advisory, with heat index values over 100F (37.8C). Residents have described insufferable heat, sleepless nights, and fear for the wellbeing of elderly parents, young children and disabled relatives amid scorching temperatures. Night one wasnt horrible. You just sleep with only a sheet. Night two, we ended up packing up and going to my moms house because it felt unbearable, said Carly Cortez, 29, who lives just south-east of the city. Cortez, a manager at a hotel that did not lose power, said her team received 2,000 phone calls in one day from people looking for available rooms. Normally, the average daily is a few hundred, she said. Related: California: first death of wildfire season as body found in burned-out home Theyre all calling because they have elderly parents, young children, you know, worried theyre on day two and three with no power, Cortez, 29, said. But we sold out pretty quickly since Monday. Soaring demand for cool hotel rooms has driven up prices, with the state attorney generals office receiving complaints of price gouging, according to local media. Some residents have relied on generators to keep the lights and AC on. Cassandra Hollingsworth, 42, who lives north of Houston, said that she and her family have been sleeping on reclining couches in the living room, which has a generator-powered window AC unit. Im disabled with spinal issues and rheumatoid arthritis, so that got to be wearing pretty quickly, she wrote via email because she has poor cell service. She added that constantly having to find gas and keep the generator going has also been a full-time job for my stepdad. As of 11pm on 11 July, the power is still out with no clear timeline for its restoration, she wrote. Its the second time in recent months that Houston has faced widespread power outages. In May, an intense storm left about 1 million people without power for several days. CenterPoint Energy, the citys primary utility company, said weakened trees, which have fallen on power lines, are to blame. But data from Whisker Labs, which tracks power outages, found the utlitys grid is one of the most unstable in the US, with outages occurring at a rate more than twice the national average. CenterPoint did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Texass governor, Greg Abbott, who was traveling on an economic development trip in Asia has called for an investigation into Houstons outages. On Tuesday, Joe Biden declared a major disaster, releasing federal aid to the area. Residents criticized CenterPoint for what they said was an inaccurate power restoration map and lack of communication about the timeline for power restoration. The new map, that CenterPoint only released after being flamed in the national press for having no outage tracker, looks like someone traced the streets on the city map using a tablet with a digital stylus like an Apple Pencil, saidMatt Micik, 30, who lives in midtown. The building Micik lives in warned residents that without electricity they would soon lose water. If you are in need of water to flush your toilet, feel free to collect water from the pool, read an email from Miciks building manager seen by the Guardian. Rebecca Gregory, who lives in Cypress, a suburb in north-west Houston, has two children under two, and said she feels she cannot rely on CenterPoint or local government any more. I think the lineman crews are doing a great job and they had nothing to do with the power outages, Gregory, 30, said. However, on a management level, I would have thought the freeze from February 2021 and the major power outages we experienced two months ago would make CenterPoint, the state of Texas, and the city of Houston, take a closer look at the problem some people even lost their lives due to the loss of power. She added: It just seems that each year it keeps getting worse. But its a reality were living in now and we need to be prepared for the worst. The Hunt family leave 11 Downing Street after Labour's victory on July 5 - Eddie Mulholland for The Telegraph Jeremy Hunts children left notes to welcome Sir Keir Starmers son and daughter into Downing Street. The Prime Minister has taken the larger flat above Number 11 that was occupied by the former chancellor, his wife Lucia and their children Jack, 13, Anna, 11 and Eleanor, nine. He revealed the youngsters had written thoughtful letters to his children, who are aged 16 and 13. Sir Keir said: In terms of notes what I will tell you is this, it was very nice. Jeremy Hunts children left notes for our children coming into the Number 11 flat. We have not moved in yet because we didnt want to leave the kids there while we were away, but I think that was really sweet and thoughtful of them to do that because for children this is very impactful. They have been through it. They are slightly different ages but for them to be thoughtful enough to leave a note is very special... our children were very pleased to get those notes. A removals team carries a piano out of Downing Street on July 7 - Alex McBride/Getty Images Mr Hunt narrowly held on to his seat of Godalming and Ash, but his victory came as it became clear the Conservatives overall had lost. In his speech at the count, Mr Hunt told his children: Dont be sad, this is the magic of democracy. After the result he said it was a bitter pill to swallow for his party but said he and his family were incredibly lucky to live in a country where decisions are made not by bombs or bullets, but by people peacefully placing crosses in boxes on bits of paper. The Prime Minister said he also had a friendly chat with Rishi Sunak in the Commons just before the election of the Speaker, despite forcing him to move out of his home by winning the election. I did have a warm chat with Rishi Sunak when we were walking through, he said. There has never been any personal animosity. We are political opponents that gets quite heated during a general election campaign but I have never had any personal animosity. Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria are in Washington for a Nato summit - Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images Although Number 10 is the official office of the prime minister, the flat above is much smaller than the one above Number 11, the official residence of the Chancellor. Sir Tony Blair, who had a young family, was the first to move into his next door neighbours flat. Gordon Brown, who was then a childless bachelor, moved into the smaller flat above Number 10. Sir Keir told journalists on his way to this weeks Nato summit: This time last week I was just checking into a hotel that was more like a bed and breakfast in Carmarthen and about to do the last day of the campaign. And here we are now on the way to the Nato summit so a real transition. Weve been really busy and I hope that weve made good on our commitment to hit the ground running and obviously I was very pleased to be able to go to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales very early on that meant a lot to me to go to all four of those. Asked whether it was odd travelling with his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer, he said: Look, its been a big transition for Vic and even more for the kids. But Vics very pleased to be doing it. Its great to have her here by my side while we go to this summit. And we will take a bit more time with the kids we havent moved in yet because I didnt want them left on their own while the two of us were away this week, so well just take a bit more time on that. Joe Biden, the US president, alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, during his gaffe-ridden Nato summit speech in Washington - WILL OLIVER/Shutterstock Donors are withholding $90 million in funding to the Democrat party unless Joe Biden pulls out of the presidential race. The money was on hold at the biggest pro-Biden political action committee, Future Forward, sources told The New York Times. Despite the latest opinion poll giving Mr Biden a two-point lead over Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, fears are growing among some major donors that the chances of retaining the White House are slim. One party apparatchik referred to a donor strike among the partys wealthy supporters which appears to have started after the presidents disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump. A campaign strategist told the Telegraph that some donors had been in wait and see mode until the Nato summit. Plans are under way by critics of Mr Biden to push him out of office amid renewed calls for him to step aside after a Nato press conference in which he referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. The never-ending verbal slip-ups are ringing alarm bells among some of Mr Bidens most loyal supporters. Hollywood donors, who normally dig deep during presidential campaigns, have called on Mr Biden to step aside. George Clooney wrote an op-ed in the New York Times pleading with Mr Biden to stand aside. Abigail Disney, the heiress to the family fortune, has called on the Democrats to bite the bullet and replace him as a candidate. Philanthropist Gideon Stein said he was pausing a planned $3.5 million to the Biden campaign but would continue supporting the partys candidates in Novembers congressional races. Reports in Washington suggest that other donors are following suit, or ready to do so. Its not that surprising. Especially with the prospect of a second Trump term, Democrats are looking for any bulwark they can get, Christopher Galdieri, professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire told the Telegraph. If they can win back control of the House or retain control of the Senate you would get a very different scenario than if Trump gets back in with control of the House and the Senate, which would not have moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake and John McCain. Underpinning the strategy is a series of internal polls showing that Democratic congressional candidates are outpolling Mr Biden in battleground states including Pennsylvania, New York and California. Mr Biden spent Friday campaigning in Michigan, the home of the US car industry and another swing state as he tries to hang onto the support of blue-collar union workers. Alarmingly for Mr Biden, leaders of the 400,000strong United Auto Workers Union are worried. Shawn Fain, the unions president who met with the unions executive board, has voiced his deep concerns about the election, despite the union endorsing Mr Biden in January. John Morgan, a Democratic fundraiser who still supports Joe Biden, has cancelled a fundraising event in Florida because of the uncertainty over whether Joe Biden will be the candidate. Some eople are holding back for their own reasons. It started after the debate and its all over the place, he told the Telegraph. He had been planning to hold a fundraiser at his home, but it now may not take place. I have already raisd a million dollars for an event may never happen. A lot of people write big cheques and get a picture. We have to get down the road and every day it becomes more likely he is going to run. But until we have a date I am not going to raise more money for someone who may not be in the race. Some of Mr Bidens closest allies from his long career, including Barack Obama, are also said to be concerned about him staying in the race. But Mr Bidens team gave a robust defence of the president and appear to be digging in to keep his campaign alive. Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, said he had met with Mr Biden on Thursday, as the number of members calling on the president to step aside rose to 20. Mr Jeffries said he expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward to and Mr Biden but did not give further details. 07:37 PM BST Blog closed The blog is now closed, thanks for following. Here is a look at the days big stories: President Joe Biden got a boost on Friday from two prominent Democrats who said he should stay in the White House race. The House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden yesterday to share lawmakers insight and heartfelt perspectives. A senior campaign official has called Joe Bidens performance on Thursday the worst of all worlds. Some Biden campaign aides reportedly celebrated the US presidents performance at Thursdays Nato summit press conference. Dozens of Democrat lawmakers are expected to soon call for Joe Biden to step out of the race for Novembers US presidential election, according to CBS News. 06:24 PM BST Biden gets boost from two Democrats President Joe Biden got a boost on Friday from two prominent Democrats who said he should stay in the White House race, as other members of his party weighed whether to say the 81-year-old incumbent is still fit for reelection. Im riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes, Representative James Clyburn said on NBCs Today program, the morning after Biden held a high-profile press conference to beat back doubts about his candidacy. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been floated as a possible successor, said he was sticking with Biden as well. Im all in. No daylight, he said in an interview excerpt released by CBS. Clyburn, 83, is a respected voice among Black Americans whose support is essential to Bidens 2024 campaign, while Newsom, 56, is one of several younger governors who are widely seen as the future of the party. 05:48 PM BST Biden hits campaign trail as calls to quit pile up Joe Biden returns to the campaign trail on Friday, pushing ahead with his reelection bid after a mixed performance at a major news conference failed to silence calls for him to quit. The 81-year-old will give a speech bashing rival Donald Trump in Detroit in the rust-belt state of Michigan, a crucial battleground state that the Democrat must win in Novembers election. A defiant Biden insisted in a pivotal appearance at a Nato summit on Thursday that he would run again, and win - despite concerns about his age and health following a disastrous debate performance two weeks ago. 05:30 PM BST Branson calls on Biden to make the right decision and step aside Richard Branson said Joe Bidens wish to carry on in the presidential race has created a dangerous distaction from the more important political issues that need to be discussed. Wrting on his Virgin website, Mr Branson said he was watching the discussion over Mr Bidens political future with growing unease. While Mr Biden has been an extraordinary president, said the businessman, he should now step aside. For him, standing down now wouldnt have to mean the end of a lifetime in public service, either. He could still do enormous good in the world. But his desire to carry on has created a dangerous distraction from the issues this presidential race should really focus on. Its not too late to make the right decision now and step aside for America, and for the free world, he said. Thoughts on the debate over Joe Biden: https://t.co/fZ7LbqwCyL pic.twitter.com/0CRF2GmtEH Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 12, 2024 05:02 PM BST Donors moving their money to congressional races Major Democrat donors are reportedly moving money away from Joe Bidens presidential campaign to congressional races in November. Despite the latest opinion poll giving Mr Biden a two-point lead over Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, fears are growing among some major donors that the chances of retaining the White House are slim. One party apparatchik referred to a donor strike among the partys wealthy supporters which appears to have started after the presidents disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump. A campaign strategist told the Telegraph that some donors had been in wait and see mode until the Nato summit. 04:49 PM BST Democrats plot to push Biden out of White House A coalition of top Democrats is plotting behind the scenes to push Joe Biden out of the US presidential election after another string of gaffes overshadowed a set-piece Nato press conference. Veteran Democrats are lobbying former presidents, soliciting lawmakers, organising donors, and arranging polls to make the case for ending Mr Bidens run for re-election, according to Axios. The highly influential US news site has labelled the plotters as the Committee to Unelect the President who are now working full-steam on Mission Push Biden out of the presidential race. The journal said that the group is growing by the day and is commissioning polls showing that the Democrats would be the likely election winners with a candidate other than Mr Biden. This comes as Barack Obama, the former US president, and Nancy Pelosi, one of the most senior Democrats in Congress, were reported to have spoken about their concerns over Biden in private. James Carville, a top US political consultant, said that both Mr Obama and Bill Clinton, who was the 42nd US president, were signalling that Biden should go. Neither former commander-in-chief has publicly voiced support for the 81-year-old Mr Biden in over two weeks. Silence is a very loud form of speech, Carville said. 04:33 PM BST How the White House hid the truth about Bidens decline from the world Smoke and mirrors covered his many gaffes, but now a growing number of Democrats fear the 81-year-old President has made one slip too many, write Ben Wright, Rozina Sabur and Tom Teodorczuk. Following Joe Bidens disastrous performance against Donald Trump in their debate on June 27, White House reporters started poring through the visitors log at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One name kept cropping up again and again: Dr Kevin Cannard. The neurologist and specialist in movement disorders works at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which serves the President. Eagled-eyed journalists spotted that he visited the White House no fewer than eight times between last July and this March. The revelation forced a statement from the White House which suggested Dr Cannard had only seen Biden for his three annual physicals and the other visits were related to military personnel. Dr Kevin OConnor, the White House doctor, added: President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical. But even taken at face value, the statement prompts some additional questions. Firstly, why has the White House press corps taken this long to start investigating the medical comings-and-goings taking place under their noses? And, secondly, if the President really isnt seeing specialist doctors, why not? Read the full story 04:08 PM BST House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden on Thursday evening The House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden yesterday to share lawmakers insight and heartfelt perspectives. In a letter to lawmakers, he said he was granted a private meeting with the president yesterday evening. Over the past several days, House Democrats have engaged in a thoughtful and extensive discussion about the future of our country, during a time when freedom, democracy and the economic well-being of everyday Americans are on the line. Our discourse has been candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. As House Democrats have done throughout this Congress, we will continue to work in the best interests of everyday Americans. Thank you for your continued leadership in service of the communities we are privileged to represent. 03:52 PM BST What do the polls say? An NPR/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50 per cent to 48 per cent, a slight increase from his position before the debate. Mr Biden fared slightly worse than Trump when third-party candidates were included in the questioning. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Mr Biden and Trump tied at 40 per cent each. But some nonpartisan analysts have warned that Mr Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election. 03:34 PM BST Bidens performance was worst of all worlds, says campaign official A senior campaign official has called Joe Bidens performance on Thursday the worst of all worlds. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind ... Itll give some enough cover to back him publicly, only to say hes not up for it privately. Fundraiser Dmitri Mehlhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong, he told Reuters. Mr Biden leaving after his press conference at the close of the 75th NATO Summit on Thursday - Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images 02:50 PM BST Top Biden ally defends president after press conference debacle James Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman, defended Joe Biden in an interview with NBC News on Friday after the presidents verbal slip-ups overshadowed a set-piece Nato summit conference. I am all in. Im riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes, Mr Clyburn told the channels Today programme. He also downplayed Mr Bidens gaffes, attributing them to a stutter that the US president has suffered from since childhood. He sometimes mangles words and phrases but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering and they do focus a little more and when you focus a little more you tend to lose the flow, Mr Clyburn said. He is still working to overcome this ... he has one of the best minds that I have ever been around, he added. 02:02 PM BST Your views: Telegraph readers respond to the Democrat plot to oust Biden With top Democrats reportedly plotting to oust Joe Biden from the US election race, Telegraph readers have been getting in touch with their views on the situation in Washington. 01:57 PM BST US deep state hid Bidens true condition from the public, Kremlin says The US media and the so-called deep state have long hidden Joe Bidens condition from the public, according to the Kremlin. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry press spokeswoman, told reporters that those who wanted to depict Biden as fit for office had only worsened the situation. In an earlier post on her Telegram channel, Ms Zakharova joked that Russian interference could no longer be hidden after Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin during a Nato press conference on Thursday. There is a pro-Russian candidate being run by the hand of the Kremlin, she said, referring to Mr Bidens slip of the tongue. Deep state is a term popularised by Donald Trump. It refers to influential networks within US media, industry and federal agencies allegedly exercising power within or against the elected United States government. 01:38 PM BST Bidens gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, say European officials In Washington DC Joe Bidens gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the Nato summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph. On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky President Putin. The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris vice-president Trump. But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the presidents performance. You can read the full story here. 01:27 PM BST Obama and Pelosi concerned over Bidens future CNN is reporting that Barack Obama and Democrat grandee Nancy Pelosi have been talking about the future of the ticket. The former president has not called on Mr Biden to drop out. But, according to the news station, he has said he will campaign energetically for the Democratic candidate. Mr Obama leapt to Mr Bidens defence after the debate fiasco, posting on X Bad debate nights happen, I know. CNN believes Ms Pelosi in particular could be pivotal in the drive to persuade Mr Biden to step aside. The Hill, meanwhile, says she is already working furiously behind the scenes to put pressure on Mr Biden not to run, even though she has not publicly called on the party to ditch him as its candidate in November. 01:15 PM BST Pictured: How the US media downplayed Bidens press conference debacle Americas biggest news outlets were relatively kind to Joe Biden in their website splashes on Friday morning. While the Washington Post acknowledged Mr Bidens stumbles, it chose to focus its splash headline on the presidents response to foreign policy questions and not his mistaking Volodymyr Zelensky for his Russian enemy Vladimir Putin. The New York Times took a similar approach, leading with Mr Bidens attempt to overcome previous gaffes with policy talk. The Wall Street Journal, however, led with an article on an upcoming Biden campaign rally in Detroit. The front page of the New York Times, Friday July 12 - New York Times The Front Page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday, July 12 - The Wall Street Journal 01:09 PM BST Poll: Which Democrat could beat Donald Trump in the presidential election? Top Democrats are reportedly planning to oust Joe Biden after a gaffe-strewn Nato press conference performance. Choose which figure you think could beat Donald Trump in Novembers election here: 12:46 PM BST Biden-supporting union has deep concerns over election chances Alarm about Joe Bidens prospects has spread to the United Auto Workers, according to reports in the US. The 400,000-strong union endorsed Mr Biden in January and its support is critical in Michigan, one of the pivotal states the president has to win if he is to win a second term. Shawn Fain, the unions president, is understood to have met with the UAWs executive board on Thursday night to discuss his deep concerns over Mr Bidens chances of beating Donald Trump. Mr Biden, who described himself as the most pro-union president in US history, met with the leadership of the AFL-CIO - the US equivalent of the TUC - to shore up support from organised labour. 12:07 PM BST Pictured: World leaders react to Bidens President Putin gaffe Nato and Nato partner leaders including Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada; Kishida Fumio, the prime minister of Japan and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, look on as Joe Biden introduces Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. World leaders look on as Biden introduces 'President Putin' - Susan Walsh/AP 11:46 AM BST Biden aides celebrated presidents gaffe-strewn press conference Some Biden campaign aides reportedly celebrated the US presidents performance at Thursdays Nato summit press conference, where Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. The Biden staffers were said to have been encouraged by the US presidents handling of questions relating to foreign policy. He exceeded expectations. He answered really f----g hard foreign policy questions beyond my personal capacity to answer. And he also had a couple of great lines that were going to be able to use in the campaign, one aide told US newspaper Politico. Hes got a core group of folks who have always believed!! And everyone is going to thank us when he wins! another Biden staffer added. 11:26 AM BST Watch: US officials react to Bidens Vice President Trump gaffe US secretaries Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, as well as national security adviser Jake Austin, react to Joe Biden calling Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. 11:23 AM BST The Kremlin: Like the whole world, we noticed the Biden mix-up Russia has said that the whole world saw Joe Bidens slips of the tongue at the Washington Nato summit on Thursday, but added that it was a matter for US voters. Its not our topic. Its a topic for the US. Let American voters determine the chances of the [presidential] candidates, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, said. Mr Peskov however said that the Russian government had taken note of what it called disrespectful comments that Biden allegedly made about Vladimir Putin. For us this was unacceptable. It does not make an American head of state look good, Peskov said. Mr Peskov did not say what those comments were, but Mr Biden referred to Putin at the Nato summit as a murderous madman. 10:34 AM BST Biden is a danger to the free world he should resign now With the Wests security at stake, Assistant Comment Editor Poppy Coburn argues that Joe Biden should be replaced long before Novembers US presidential election. Forget the candidacy, it is now increasingly doubtful whether Biden should even remain in his position as elected president now. If there were ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment, this is it. You can read the full article here. 10:21 AM BST Pictured: Kamala Harris on the campaign trail Amid calls from numerous Democrats for Joe Biden to step aside, Kamala Harris, the US vice president, is seen as the most likely candidate to take over the top ticket for Novembers US presidential election. The Biden campaign is understood to have run a test of Ms Harriss popularity against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in a head-to-head survey of voters this week. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, participates in a campaign event at James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina, 11 July - ERIK S LESSER/Shutterstock 10:02 AM BST The best of both worlds - how the Trump campaign viewed Bidens Nato gaffes Donald Trumps allies and advisers are said to have viewed Joe Bidens Nato press conference performance as the best of both worlds. A Trump adviser told US newspaper Politico that Mr Biden had been bad, but not bad enough to be forced out. He gave us enough new material and may stave off his insurrection, the adviser added. Trumps campaign prefers that Mr Biden remains in the race for the US presidential election in November, believing him to be the weakest candidate that Trump, the Republican nominee, could face. At the Nato summit press conference on Thursday, Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and referred to Kamala Harris, the US vice president, as Vice President Trump. 09:14 AM BST Poll: Should Joe Biden stand aside? 09:10 AM BST Pictured: Biden during Thursdays Nato summit press conference Joe Biden, the US president, introduced Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, as President Putin during a press conference at the close of the 75th Nato summit in Washington. Joe Biden speaks during a press conference at the close of the 75th Nato Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC - Mandel Ngan/AFP Joe Biden speaks alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president - Ludovic Marin/AFP 08:56 AM BST Democrats test Harris popularity with voter survey Democrats are testing the popularity of Kamala Harris, the US vice president, against Donald Trump in a head-to-head voter survey, according to the New York Times. The Biden campaigns analytics team commissioned the poll, the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources. It is believed to be the first since Mr Bidens June 27 debate with Donald Trump that the US presidents aides have sought to measure how Ms Harris would fare running against the Republican nominee. The move comes after Mr Biden, 81, made a string of prominent gaffes, the latest of which came on Thursday when he referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, as President Putin at the Nato summit in Washington. 08:30 AM BST Trump responds to Bidens Vice President Trump gaffe In a post on social media, Donald Trump quipped Great job, Joe! after Mr Biden referred to Kamala Harris, the US vice president, as Vice President Trump at the Nato summit in Washington. Screenshot of Donald Trump's response to Joe Biden's 'Vice President Trump' gaffe - Truth Social 08:20 AM BST The Democrats who have already called for Biden to quit Lloyd Doggett, a representative from Texas, said after the June 27 debate with Donald Trump that it was time for Mr Biden to make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. Seth Moulton, the representative for Massachusetts Sixth District, said that he no longer had confidence that Mr Biden could defeat Trump. Mike Quigley, an Illinois congressman, said that it was time to let someone else do this. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said Mr Biden could no longer strongly make his case to the American people. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, warned that there is only a small window left to choose a replacement for Joe Biden. Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey congresswoman, said that the stakes were too high to stay silent and that Trump could not be allowed to return to the White House Earl Blumenauer said he hoped Mr Biden would end his bid because the election campaign was about not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy. Hillary Scholten, from Michigan, said: We just have too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines and be silent while we still have time to do something. Brad Schneider, from Illinois, said Mr Biden should heroically pass the torch to a new generation... to guide us to the future he has enabled. Ed Case, from Hawaii, issued a statement calling for Biden to end his candidacy. Greg Stanton, from Arizona, said it was time for Mr Biden to drop out of the race. Jim Himes, a Connecticut congressman, said on social media that Mr Biden was no longer the strongest candidate to confront Trump. Scott Peters, a California congressman, called for Mr Biden to withdraw in an official statement. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois congressman, said on X: I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for President. Peter Welch, of Vermont, told the Washington Post that Mr Biden should step aside. Pat Ryan, a New York Democrat, said Mr Biden needed to step aside due to the threat of a second Trump term. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona congressman, told the New York Times that Mr Biden needed to reconsider his candidacy. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington congresswoman, called for Mr Biden to end his re-election bid. 08:02 AM BST Dozens more Democrats expected to call on Biden to step aside Dozens of Democrat lawmakers are expected to soon call for Joe Biden to step out of the race for Novembers US presidential election, according to CBS News. Citing four Democrat sources, the broadcaster said that statements have been prepared and that planning for their release is being coordinated. The next three to four days could be brutal for Mr Biden, one unnamed source said, adding that by next week it may be untenable for the US president to continue his reelection campaign. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, would be the most likely candidate to take over from Mr Biden, another source added. 07:51 AM BST Hello and welcome to our live coverage Were bringing you the latest updates from the United States after Joe Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin at the Nato summit in Washington on Thursday night. Alec Baldwin attends his manslaughter trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Friday. Photograph: Ramsay de Give/EPA The judge in Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial is considering a motion from the defense to dismiss the case after the actors lawyers argued that the state improperly withheld evidence. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the Rust armorer who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year, was initially expected take the stand at Baldwins trial on Friday. But the proceedings took a dramatic turn as Baldwins defense team accused the state of concealing evidence that would have been favorable to the actor and asked Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to throw out the case. The development, and information revealed in court, appears to have upended the prosecutions case. Special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson resigned in the middle of the day. During the gripping proceedings, a witness confirmed to the judge that the special prosecutor in the case, Kari Morrissey, was directly involved in the decision to file the evidence in an entirely different case file separate from the other Rust materials. In a highly unusual move, Morrissey called herself to the stand to defend her conduct despite instruction from the judge that she did not have to do so. I was not aware at that point in time that it would not be linked to the Rust case number, she said. The evidence consists of live rounds of ammunition turned over to New Mexico police in March that the defense argues call into question the source of the bullet that fatally struck the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Hutchins, who was shot during rehearsals for the western when a gun the actor was holding fired. Gutierrez-Reed oversaw all weapons on set and was responsible for ensuring their safety. Prosecutors have long said evidence shows that Gutierrez-Reed was the source of the live round, but the defense said the state received evidence that suggested otherwise. A good samaritan came forward to police this year with a box of munitions that he claimed came from the prop supplier, Seth Kenney, and matched the ammunition that killed Hutchins, said Alex Spiro, Baldwins defense attorney, on Thursday. A report of the interview was not included with the other Rust evidence nor shared with the lawyer of Gutierrez-Reed and was instead filed under a number unrelated to the case, the defense said. Testimony from Alexandria Hancock, with the Santa Fe county sheriffs office, revealed that she and other officials made the decision to file it separately from the other Rust evidence. The special prosecutor, Morrissey, had said earlier in the day that she had never before seen the report about the ammunition brought to the sheriffs office. But as the judge questioned Hancock, the corporal said that Morrissey took part in the decision to keep the evidence separate from the Rust case which elicited gasps in the courtroom. Troy Teske, the man who came forward with the ammunition, is a friend of Gutierrez-Reeds father, Morrissey had said earlier in the day. She denied the defenses accusations, and said Baldwins team was aware of the evidence brought forward. Luke Nikas, one of Baldwins attorneys, said the report was relevant to the entire case and to the credibility of witnesses who testified in the trial. If this evidence wasnt as important as we say it is, they would have turned it over, Nikas said. Morrissey, the special prosecutor, had said the state did not violate its obligations. This is a wild goose chase, she said. This has no evidentiary value whatsoever. The arguments on Friday appeared to stun the courtroom. Sommer asked that the prosecution bring forward the bullets turned over to police and to call the crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, who spoke to Teske and logged the evidence, and bring her back to the stand. Sommer briefly left the bench and put on gloves to examine the bullets alongside a crowd of lawyers for the prosecution and defense. Shortly after, she dismissed the jury for the day to allow the court to hear from witnesses regarding the motion. In the afternoon, when proceedings appeared to be turning in Baldwins favor, the actor could be heard taking deep breaths as he exited the courtroom alongside his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, on a break. Ken McGinley was discharged from the Royal Engineers with multiple health problems after witnessing five atomic and nuclear bomb detonations on Christmas Island in 1958. Photograph: Andrew Cawley Ken McGinley, who has died aged 85, was the founder of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, set up in 1983 to gain restitution for soldiers who were required to watch in close proximity as British and American nuclear bombs were detonated on various Pacific islands. Ken himself was present at two atomic and three nuclear bomb detonations while serving with the Royal Engineers on Christmas Island in 1958, standing in shorts and with his hands over his eyes. Aged 19, he was one of more than 20,000 members of the British armed forces who took part in a series of tests that established the UK as the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons. Returning home with physical and emotional problems, he was medically discharged at 21, and suffered a duodenal ulcer, a condition which, by 1962, had led him to have two-thirds of his stomach removed. He also became infertile and developed polycythaemia, a rare but treatable type of blood cancer. Ken formed the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association in 1983 and was its chairman until 2002. Over the years he collated huge amounts of data from veterans, and used it to try to pressure the government into action. In 1993 he and a group of veterans sued for 100,000 in damages in relation to health problems that they put down to their involvement in the tests but they eventually lost the case in the European court of human rights. Ken was one of eight children born into a poor household in Johnstone, Renfrewshire. He left Johnstone high school in 1953, at 15, to work as a bank boy for the local flax mill and then for the haulage company Wilson Brothers as a van boy. At the age of 18 he signed up with the army for 22 years and left Scotland for the first time. It was while helping with construction and logistics related to the tests on Christmas Island that Ken and his fellow soldiers were required to be spectators as bombs were detonated. After his discharge from the forces he became a bookkeeper at Littlewoods department store in Paisley, staying there for the rest of his working life and retiring as a manager. I first met Ken face to face in 2022, but he had made an impression on me since 1997, when my father was battling a rare cancer after radiation exposure at Operation Buffalo in Australia (1956). He wrote to me, and phoned me, often, and I was deeply impressed with his strong, caring personality, his drive, his networking capabilities and his humility all of which helped him to gather up allies in the media. During the course of his campaigning he had talks with Ronald Reagan, was involved in the creation of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the US, and gave a presentation to the Japanese Congress, who afforded him the title of Hibakusha, normally reserved only for Japanese survivors of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition Ken was a founder, and sometime editor, of Fissionline, an online newspaper that deals with nuclear and cold war topics. He is survived by his wife, Alice (nee Mead), whom he married in 1960, and their adopted daughter, Louise. Wark will present her first episode of Front Row on Aug 13 while at the Edinburgh Festival - Chris Watt Kirsty Wark, the BBC broadcaster, will present editions of Radio 4 show Front Row after she leaves Newsnight. The 69-year-old, the longest-serving presenter on the BBC Two programme, will host her last show on Friday evening. Wark will present her first episode of Front Row on Aug 13 while at the Edinburgh Festival and after that she will present one edition of the programme weekly from Glasgow. From September, Kate Molleson, music journalist, will join from Scotland as a presenter on the show, which covers arts, literature, film, media and music. Wark said: I have been so lucky to have been given a true labour of love and Im looking forward to many conversations and performances right across the artistic spectrum and beyond. I have always found that people interested in politics are just as interested in culture and vice versa so I see this new role as an extension of everything that I hold dear. From Glasgow once a week Mohit Bakaya, BBC director of speech, said: Were delighted that Front Row will come from Glasgow once a week as part of our commitment to creating production opportunities outside of London and investing in audio across the UK. Following the success of Saturday Live moving to Wales and Pick of the Week to Northern Ireland, our new network radio production hubs allow us to better reflect, represent and serve all audiences. Im looking forward to hearing Kirsty kick things off live on Front Row from the Edinburgh Festival this August. In 2023 the BBC committed to moving 50 episodes of Front Row out of London as part of a commitment to increasing the volume of content that is made from Scotland and Northern Ireland. Journalist Victoria Derbyshire shared a photo of her and Wark on X, formerly Twitter, ahead of her Newsnight exit and wrote: Here she is. The legend that is @KirstyWark on her last day on Newsnight. Wark has interviewed many people, including Lord Macpherson, following his inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and in the US she interviewed victims of Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro. She also reported and presented from Scotland after the 1996 Dunblane massacre, when gunman Thomas Hamilton shot dead 16 children and their teacher in the village primary school before turning the gun on himself. Alistair Strathern, the new MP for Hitchin, is the first cousin once removed of former prime minister Theresa May Labour may have claimed this Goverment will boast the most working-class Cabinet ever but its benches are awash with so-called nepo babies. From the Red Princess to Theresa Mays cousin, The Telegraph has identified 11 new Labour parliamentarians with familial links to politics. The fresh set of faces sworn into Parliament this week includes an impressive roster of qualifications and expertise - but many also belong to miniature political dynasties. Georgia Gould, affectionately dubbed the Red Princess because of her familys links to the party, is a case in point. Voted in as the new MP for Queens Park and Maida Vale, the 38-year-old is the daughter of the late Baron Gould of Brookwood, one of Sir Tony Blairs close confidants who led the partys strategy and polling for more than two decades. Georgia Gould is the daughter of the late Baron Gould of Brookwood, a close confidant of Sir Tony Blair Her mother, Baroness Rebuck, is the chairman of publishing giant Penguin Random House and has been a Labour peer since 2014. Immediately after being elected, subsequent to a stint running Sir Keir Starmers local Camden Council, Ms Gould was appointed as a parliamentary secretary in the Cabinet Office in a highly unusual move for MPs with no previous experience in Parliament. She has been outspoken about her access and growing up in a tribal Labour household, previously telling the Evening Standard after losing an election bid in 2012: Every day, Id wake to articles in the media, and they came from both the Left and the Right, assailing me for being too rich, too young, too inexperienced, but mostly too well connected. The Westminster rising star climbed the ranks of local government, elected as a Kentish Town councillor in 2010, going on to lead Camden Council in 2017. Her fellow parliamentary debutant, Liam Conlon, is closer to Labours current leadership as the son of Sir Keirs chief of staff, Sue Gray. Liam Conlon, the new MP for Beckenham and Penge, is the son of Sue Gray Ms Gray, who investigated the partygate scandal in Number 10, quit her position as a senior civil servant in 2023 to take on the job of the then Opposition leaders chief of staff. Mr Conlon, an avid campaigner for disabled people after being one of the youngest people in Britain to have a hip replacement at 17, won a comfortable 24.7 per cent majority to become the new MP of Beckenham and Penge. Another fresh face, Hamish Falconer, MP for Lincoln, may have only been sworn into the Commons this week, but is also no stranger to the workings of government. His father, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, served as lord chancellor and justice secretary in Sir Tonys Labour government from 2003 to 2007. Hamish Falconer, the new MP for Lincoln, is the son of Baron Falconer of Thoroton Falconer junior also left behind a decade-long career as a diplomat with the Foreign Office, where he focused on national security, humanitarian relief and hostage recovery, particularly in Afghanistan, before becoming an MP. Speaking to the BBC about his political pedigree causing commentators to predict a ministerial career in the pipeline, he said that it was very flattering that people say these things, but added that his constituency of Lincoln was his focus. Meanwhile, Alistair Strathern, who was recently elected as the new MP for Hitchin after winning a by-election in 2023 for Mid Bedfordshire, happens to be Mrs Mays first cousin once removed. Im not sure whether that connection will do more damage to his career or to mine, Mrs May joked previously about their family ties. Some new Labour parliamentarians entering the Commons have party associations through marriage, including Katie White, MP for Leeds North West. Katie White is married to Sam White, a former chief of staff to Sir Keir The charity executive and former civil servant is married to political adviser Sam White, who is best known as former chief of staff to Sir Keir during the period that Labour gained a substantive poll lead from September 2021 to November 2022. Imogen Walker, the new MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley, is married to Morgan McSweeney, the Downing Street director of communications for the Starmer ministry. Imogen Walker is the wife of Morgan McSweeney Markus Campbell-Savours, who won the seat of Penrith and Solway, is the son of Baron Campbell-Savours, a former Labour MP who now sits in the Lords. The MP for Bassetlaw, Jo White, is married to Baron John Mann, the former Labour MP who was granted a peerage. Chris Murray, the MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, is the son of former Labour MP and MSP Margaret Curran. Patricia Ferguson, the MP for Glasgow West, is married to Bill Butler, a Scottish Labour Co-operative politician. Gregor Poynton, MP for Livingston, was previously married to former Labour MP Gemma Doyle, but has since remarried Labour adviser Amy Richards. The Labour Party has been approached for comment. Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, told her fellow Conservatives to take responsibility 'for the things we shamefully left undone' - Mark Thomas / Alamy Live News Labours plan to release thousands of prisoners early will put the public at risk, Suella Braverman has said. The former home secretary claimed the scheme to ease overcrowding was similar to one she had managed to stop during Rishi Sunaks premiership. With 40 MPs, I tabled amendments to the Sentencing Bill to stop the early release of criminals and put public safety first, she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. We managed to stop the government doing it. Labour is picking up Tory ideas and putting the public at risk. Mrs Braverman took aim at her own party for not preventing the prisons crisis, saying the Conservatives needed to start taking responsibility for what we did and for the things we shamefully left undone. Earlier, the Justice Secretary, warned that Britain was on the verge of a total breakdown of civil law and order because of the prisons crisis. In a speech at Five Wells prison in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, Shabana Mahmood warned of looters running amok, smashing windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight if emergency measures were not taken. She announced moves that would lead to criminals, including some convicted of violence, being automatically freed 40 per cent through their sentence rather than the current halfway point. Officials predict it will reduce the number of offenders in jails by some 5,000 to ease chronic overcrowding. Criminals jailed for violent offences for under four years will be eligible for early release, but those sentenced for serious violent offences to four years or more will be excluded. People convicted of sex and terror offences, as well as those convicted of crimes connected to domestic abuse, will be automatically excluded. This will include stalking offences, controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship, non-fatal strangulation and suffocation and breaches of protection or restraining orders. The Ministry of Justice will also recruit an extra 1,000 probation officers by March 2025 to provide supervision of offenders released into the community. 09:17 PM BST Thats all for today Thank you for following The Telegraphs live politics coverage. Here are todays key moments: Britain is on the verge of a total breakdown of civil law and order because of the prisons crisis, the Justice Secretary warned Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said the Governments plan to release thousands of prisoners early to ease the overcrowding crisis is the least worst option Labour claimed the Tories triggered the general election early because they knew issues like prison overcrowding were even worse than they were letting on But Suella Braverman said Labours early release plans will put the public at risk It emerged that a ban on puberty blockers could be made permanent as Labour takes a harder stance on transgender issues Admiral Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, called on Sir Keir Starmer to introduce identity cards Jeremy Corbyn and four pro-Gaza independent MPs incorrectly claimed that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had found that Israel was guilty of plausible genocide George Osborne said the Conservatives would not win power again the party focuses on chasing Reform UK voters Robert Jenrick said Tory MP candidates should be chosen solely by party members, not officials 09:09 PM BST Starmer: I am cleaning up the Tories mess Sir Keir Starmer has said his job is to clean up the mess left by the Conservatives. Politics of service is back, the Prime Minister wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Ill make tough decisions to clean up the mess and get us back on track. Our work is urgent. It started this week. 08:58 PM BST Starmer spends first week picking fights with Eurosceptics, unions and Tories A week since his stunning election victory, Britains new Prime Minister appears so confident of his position that he has spent his first days in office picking fights with those who disagree with him, reports Deputy Political Editor Daniel Martin. Sir Keir Starmer has begun to talk of moves that could water down Brexit, saying he wants closer ties with Brussels eight years after the UK voted to leave the European Union. Bolstered by his huge majority, he has been happy to take on the unions, his partys traditional paymasters. And he has continued to take the fight to the Conservatives, never mind that they are broken by the scale of their historic defeat. Read the full story here. 08:46 PM BST Corbyn and independents incorrectly claim ICJ found plausible genocide in Gaza Jeremy Corbyn and the four pro-Gaza MPs incorrectly claimed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the war in Gaza was a plausible genocide. In a letter to David Lammy, the five MPs said: We, the undersigned, have been elected by our respective constituents, in part, to represent their concerns regarding the ongoing catastrophie situation in Gaza, which has been described by the International Court of Justice as a plausible genocide. In April, Joan Donoghue, the ICJ judge who presided over the January case, said in a BBC interview that the court didnt decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasise in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide, she said. But the shorthand that often appears which is that there is a plausible case of genocide isnt what the court decided. The ICJs January ruling is frequently cited by pro-Palestinian activists as evidence for claims that Israel is guilty of genocide. But it did not actually consider the question of whether genocide had occurred or if it was plausible. 08:37 PM BST Corbyn and pro-Gaza independents tell Lammy to end Israel arms sales Jeremy Corbyn and the four newly-elected pro-Gaza MPs have written to David Lammy telling him to end arms sales to Israel, advocate for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire and immediately recognise Palestine as a state. The former Labour leader joined Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam in signing the joint letter to the Foreign Secretary. It also calls for increased funding to the UNs aid agency in Palestine (UNRWA), diplomatic efforts to secure the prompt release of all hostages and to endorse the deployment of a post-ceasefire UN peacekeeping force to Gaza. 08:17 PM BST Lady Vic? No, its Lady Starmer After I raised the issue of his knighthood in last weeks Peterborough, Sir Keir Starmer has made clear that he wants to be referred to as Keir or Prime Minister, not Sir Keir, writes Christopher Hope in the Peterborough diary column. This is all very well but, apparently, his wife Victoria is known as Lady Vic among Labour staffers. This is, of course, wrong as Sir Keirs wife should be known as Lady Starmer. For her to be styled Lady Vic, she would have to be the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl. Time for a standards investigation! Read the full column here. 07:51 PM BST Orangemen tell Starmer: Listen to us Loyalists in Northern Ireland have told Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism as they mark July 12. Rev Mervyn Gibson, the grand secretary of the Orange Order, called on the Prime Minister to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol, which unionists say cuts Northern Ireland off from the rest of Britain. We would encourage our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism, which is still united against the Protocol, he said in Derriaghy, Co Antrim, at a parade marking William of Oranges victory over James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Deliver us from this iniquitous legislation. Deliver truly frictionless trade within UK. Honour the promises the Tories failed to keep, promises which you indicated you would keep when in power. A man dressed as William of Orange marches in Belfast to mark July 12 - REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne 07:33 PM BST Hunts children leave notes to welcome Starmers kids Jeremy Hunts children left notes to welcome Sir Keir Starmers son and daughter into Downing Street. The Prime Minister has taken the larger flat above No 11 that was occupied by the former Chancellor, his wife Lucia and his children Jack, 13, Anna, 11 and Eleanor, nine. He revealed the youngsters had written thoughtful letters to his children, who are aged 16 and 13. In terms of notes what I will tell you is this, it was very nice, Sir Keir said. Jeremy Hunts children left notes for our children coming in to the No 11 flat. We have not moved in yet because we didnt want to leave the kids there while we were away, but I think that was really sweet and thoughtful of them to do that because for children this is very impactful. They have been through it. They are slightly different ages but for them to be thoughtful enough to leave a note is very special... our children were very pleased to get those notes. 07:00 PM BST Former naval chief calls for ID cards The former head of the Royal Navy has called on Sir Keir Starmer to introduce identity cards. Admiral Lord West, who was security minister under Gordon Brown, told Times Radio: I think itd be a very good move by the Government to say, Actually, this is a good idea and were going to run with this, because it will help those who are less privileged. It will help us all prove who we are. Identity theft is a real problem but if you can prove who you are and youve got biometrics to do it, its much harder for there to be identity theft. I find it quite extraordinary that theres this sort of Orwellian thing of, Oh my God, its Big Brother. Do they not understand how so many private firms have so much data on us? For goodness sake, lets get an identity card which is properly run and properly looked after so people can prove who they are, so they can access things, and so were able to know exactly if an immigrant comes in, is he an immigrant? Isnt he an immigrant? Wheres he gone? Those things are very useful. 06:37 PM BST Starmer under pressure to scrap two-child benefit cap Trade unions have piled pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the two-child benefit cap, reports Political Reporter Genevieve Holl-Allen. Unison, the UKs biggest trade union, has said that the Prime Minister must find a way to abolish the limit after statistics revealed more than 1.6 million children are affected by the policy. Sir Keir said on multiple occasions during the election campaign that his Government would not scrap the cap because of the economic implications of doing so. Around 450,000 families were unable to claim Universal Credit for their third child in April up from 70,000 in 2018 according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. A spokesman for Unison, which is Labour-affiliated, said on Friday: The two-child cap needs to go as soon as possible. Read the full story here. 06:16 PM BST MP claims genocide after Miliband approves solar farm A senior Conservative backbencher has claimed Ed Miliband has approved three large-scale solar farms to be run by companies complicit in the Uighur genocide. Alicia Kearns, the Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford and ex-chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said: This shows a complete disregard [for] community consent, contempt for human rights, and a complete failure to understand food security is a national security issue. He has today waved through three of these mass mega-solar projects, in so doing he has given a green light to every company complicit in Uyghur genocide seeking to make a profit off our agricultural land. 6,295 acres of agricultural land will be lost. She added: This is a slap in the face for all those who value human rights, food security, upholding standards in business, and protecting our agricultural land. 06:01 PM BST Prisoners convicted of serious violent offences to be freed under Labour plans Prisons convicted of serious violent offences will be freed under Labours plans to ease the overcrowding crisis, the head of the Prison Governors Association has said. Speaking to BBC Radio 4s PM programme, Tom Wheatley said: There will be offences of assault, there will be relatively serious violent offences, and it will include those people. Mr Wheatley was also asked if the early release scheme was the best option available to the Government. Yes, its the best we can do now, he said. Had the previous government acted earlier, we might have been able to do something different. 05:50 PM BST Tories must select new leader from the Right, says ex-MP The next Conservative leader must be from the Right of the party, an ex-MP has said. Henry Smith, who was the Tory MP for Crawley from 2010 to 2024, told TalkRadio: Look, I dont know who is standing but I would want to see someone who is to the Right of the party, and I think we all know those names. It would be people like Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch. People who will offer a clear alternative and I think can actually tune in to what a significant number of the population will want to see. When people get hammered with extra taxes and the immigration rate goes up even further and weve got prisoners who have been released early from prison wandering the streets and re-offending, then I think there will be an appetite for a real alternative. 05:26 PM BST Sunak and Tories should go down in history for prison failings, says Labour Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives should go down in history as the guilty men for the overcrowding crisis in prisons, the Justice Secretary has said. Speaking from HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire, Shabana Mahmood said: Those responsible Sunak and his gang in No 10 should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known. 05:04 PM BST What Telegraph readers really think of Labours decision to free prisoners early 04:51 PM BST Unionism remains ascendant in Northern Ireland Aweek on from the General Election and the new Government has been settling in. For Northern Ireland, the story has been that the more things change the more they stay the same, writes Arlene Foster, the former first minister. There has been much excitement about the dominance of Sinn Fein, and it is true that the nationalist community especially in seats such as my own in Fermanagh and South Tyrone are in the main voting for a party which still justifies IRA violence, and whose local candidate refused to condemn the Enniskillen bomb. However, those who want to destroy the UK were only able to muster around 40 per cent of the vote in Northern Ireland the same figure as 1998. The SDLP has become smaller, and Sinn Fein now dominates in republicanism. I dont hear that reflected upon by the partys cheerleaders in the media. In truth, there is absolutely no basis for a border poll, but they will take every opportunity they get to push their Sinn Fein sympathising narrative. Read the full comment article here. 04:19 PM BST Victims commissioner welcomes domestic abusers being excluded from early release The victims commissioner for England and Wales has welcomed the Governments decision to exclude domestic abusers and stalkers from the prisoners who will be released early. Baroness Newlove called the move a welcome and necessary step, reflecting the concerns raised by victims and those who advocate for them. Public safety must remain the top priority as these changes are implemented, she said. We must acknowledge these exclusions have limitations and cannot address every potential risk. 04:01 PM BST Labour must not forget victims right to justice, says ex-chief prosecutor Labour must not forget the right of victims to see justice done as the Government prepares to release thousands of criminals early, a former director of public prosecutions has said. Sir Max Hill KC told Times Radio: We cannot degrade the administration of justice and we all have to bear in mind, as I tried to when I was in office, the very pressing needs of victims of crime to see justice done in their case. Im sure that in making this announcement, the Justice Secretary has no intention of degrading criminal justice. There will need to be an intensive focus at the point of release to be as sure as the system can be that those being released will not commit further crimes and are genuinely no longer a risk to the public. Theres no perfect situation here. This is imperfect, a temporary solution, and those involved in the administration of justice will be keen to restore normal rules as soon as can be done. 03:42 PM BST Probation chief concerned about released prisoners risk to public The chief inspector of probation has said he has concern that the public will not be adequately protected from prisoners being released early. Martin Jones told Times Radio: Now, they need to ensure that they identify the risk that those people represent and that they identify what their needs are when they leave prison. Do they have accommodation? Do they have jobs to go to? Do they have, for example, drugs and mental health support in the community? Now, my concern is, is there enough time to get that right, to ensure they get the right information and that they can then deal with those people effectively when they leave prison? Our recent inspection programme has found that theres some real problems at the front line with the probation service at the moment, particularly in relation to staffing. Some areas that we inspect have fewer than 50 per cent of the probation officers they need. So how are they going to have the capacity to ensure that they safeguard the public when theyre being released from custody? 03:40 PM BST Good afternoon Tim Sigsworth here, taking over from my colleague Jack Maidment for the rest of the day. 03:20 PM BST Chief inspector of prisons: Labour plan will inevitably lead to the early release of some risky offenders A decision to address the prisons crisis needed to be taken and none would have been without risk, chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said. This is a critical point for prisons, with barely any places left and the effects of existing measures such as ECSL (End of Custody Supervised Licence) being exhausted, he said in a statement. While we therefore welcome recognition of the seriousness of the situation, and swift action to manage the prison populations to relieve the immediate strain many jails are under, this latest measure will inevitably lead to the early release of some risky offenders, and will add to the workload of already stretched prison OMUs and probation services. Responding to emergency measures to release prisoners early, @charlie_taylor6 said: pic.twitter.com/4lG59VgAcd HMI Prisons (@HMIPrisonsnews) July 12, 2024 How these men are prepared for release and how prisons and probation are supported in managing them will be vital. We will be watching this very closely as well as any plans that are developed once the immediate pressure is relieved that seek to make prisons places of genuine purpose, help people to break the cycle of reoffending and protect the public from future harm. 03:02 PM BST Braverman: Labours early release prison plan will put public at risk Suella Braverman claimed Labour is picking up Tory ideas with its plan for the early release of some prisoners to tackle overcrowding as she warned it would put the public at risk. The former home secretary said she had opposed a similar plan which had been considered when the Conservatives were in power. She said she and her Tory MP colleagues had managed to stop the government doing it. She tweeted: Labour is picking up Tory ideas & putting the public at risk. Mrs Braverman added: Everyone and his mother should run to be leader. But weve all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons. Everyone and his mother should run to be leader. But we've all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons. Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) July 12, 2024 02:59 PM BST Pictured: Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, visits HMP Bedford Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, is pictured today with Governor Sarah Bott during a visit to HMP Bedford in Harpur, Bedfordshire - Joe Giddens/PA 02:52 PM BST Labour moves to ban puberty blockers permanently A ban on puberty blockers could be made permanent as the Labour party takes a harder stance on transgender issues, The Telegraph can reveal. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, intends to stop powerful hormone blockers being given to children via any means, subject to the outcome of a legal hearing. Laws to ban the blockers being supplied to children by private or off-shore clinics were passed by his predecessor, Victoria Atkins, in emergency legislation ahead of the general election. These are due to expire on Sept 3 and the new Government has to decide whether to pass a law to make it permanent. It is understood that Labour will now seek to renew the ban with a view to making it permanent. You can read the full story here. 02:44 PM BST Pictured: Idris Elba and Labour frontbenchers attend youth opportunity event hosted by The Kings Trust Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and Idris Elba are pictured today at an event for The King's Trust at St James's Palace to discuss youth opportunity - Yui Mok/PA King Charles speaks to Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, at an event for The King's Trust at St James's Palace today - Yui Mok/PA 02:39 PM BST Prisons on the point of collapse, says Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned prisons in England and Wales are on the point of collapse as she unveiled plans to temporarily let some prisoners out earlier to reduce overcrowding. The Justice Secretary said: There is now only one way to avert disaster. I do not choose to do this because I want to but we are taking every protection that is available to us. Let me be clear, this is an emergency measure. This is not a permanent change. I am unapologetic in my belief that criminals must be punished. 02:36 PM BST How is Labour proposing to reduce prison overcrowding? The plans set out by Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, this afternoon would see a temporary reduction in the proportion of the sentence many prisoners must serve in jail from 50 per cent to 40 per cent. This would not apply to violent offenders serving more than four years, sex offenders or those in prison for crimes connected to domestic abuse. Dangerous offenders serving extended or life sentences would also be exempted from the scheme. Most prisoners currently serve 50 per cent of their sentence in jail, with the remaining 50 per cent being served on licence and under threat of being returned to prison if they break their parole conditions. The changes will come into force in September. 02:30 PM BST Justice Secretary warns of risk of total breakdown of law and order amid prisons crisis The UK is on the verge of a total breakdown of civil law and order because of the prisons crisis, the Justice Secretary has warned. Shabana Mahmood announced plans this afternoon to release some criminals less than half way through their jail sentences to tackle chronic overcrowding. In a speech at Five Wells prison in Wellingborough, she said: When prisons are full, violence rises putting prison officers on the front line at risk. When no cells are available, suspects cannot be held in custody. This means vanloads of dangerous people circling the country, with nowhere to go. The police would have to use their cells as a prison overflow, keeping officers off the streets. Soon, the courts would grind to a halt, unable to hold trials. With officers unable to act, criminals could do whatever they want, without consequence. We could see looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight. In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order. 02:14 PM BST Prisons minister: Focus less on length of sentence and more on rehabilitation of offenders Lord James Timpson, the prisons minister, has called for a debate on the length of jail sentences ahead of the Justice Secretarys announcement on tackling prison overcrowding later this afternoon. Referring to a report from Bishop James Jones titled Making Sense of Sentencing, Lord Timpson told BBC Radio 4s World At One programme: The question is, do longer sentences fulfil the five purposes of sentencing, which are to punish, to protect, to reduce crime, to reform and rehabilitate? And the public rightly is outraged when theres a serious crime. Theyre entitled to be morally outraged, but we have to go beyond punishing and protecting society and think about how do we reform and rehabilitate those offenders? Because unless we do, then we will not have a safer society. Everybody wants a safe society. You can only get that safety through reducing reoffending. And what our report in essence was proposing is that we should be less focused on the length of a sentence and concentrating more on the content of the sentence. By content of the sentence, he said he meant programmes in prison that would rehabilitate inmates, for example training, education or therapy to overcome addiction. He added: The question over our prisons is this: are they simply to be warehouses for the incorrigible or become green houses for the redeemable? 02:02 PM BST Union urges Government to give probation workers better pay The GMB union said urged the Labour Government to deliver better pay and conditions for probation workers amid the prisons overcrowding crisis. The union met with Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, earlier this week. George Georgiou, GMB national officer, said: GMB is clear: probation workers need better pay and conditions. This need is magnified as they deal with the overcrowding chaos another toxic legacy of the Tory Government. The Justice Secretary was very receptive and seems to grasp things have got to change if we want a prison service thats fit for purpose. 01:42 PM BST Corbyn hoping grassroots politics can challenge stale status quo Jeremy Corbyn said the grassroots model that led to his election as an independent MP in Islington North could become a new movement that will challenge the stale political status quo. The former Labour leader beat his old party to hold his seat, which he has represented since 1983, in last weeks election. He said the people power behind his victory marked the start of a new politics. In an op-ed in The Guardian, Mr Corbyn said public discontent with a broken political system will only grow as the Government fails to make the real change that people expect, as he called for this energy to be mobilised. Thats why our campaign will organise with those who have been inspired by our victory to build community power in every corner of the country. Once our grassroots model has been replicated elsewhere, this can be the genesis of a new movement capable of challenging the stale two-party system. 01:32 PM BST Rayners unpopular email switch-off is potential minefield for employers Angela Rayners plans to give workers a right to switch off threatens to create a playground for ambulance chasers, an employers group has claimed. A new survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD) found that most employers disagree with the Governments plans to restrict contact with staff outside of working hours and fear a slew of legal action. You can read the full story here. 12:59 PM BST I wont give in to union pay demands, insists Starmer Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that he will not give in to union pay demands. Unions representing teachers, NHS staff, police and other public sector workers have been demanding bumper increases, with junior doctors asking for 35 per cent. But the Prime Minister said not all their demands could be realised because the public finances were in a very poor state, adding that he would prioritise economic stability as part of an attempt to bring mortgage rates down. You can read the full story here. 12:38 PM BST Scale of early prisoner releases under Tories revealed More than 10,000 prisoners were released up to 70 days early by Rishi Sunaks Government to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis with as many as half in some areas recalled, writes Charles Hymas. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures showed that 10,083 prisoners were freed between 18 days and 70 days before their automatic release between October last year and June 30 this year. The number is far greater than previously thought as the Tory Government sought to prevent prisons running out of spaces. The last early release scheme under Labour which ran between 2007 and 2010 saw 80,000 prisoners freed up to 18 days early. The disclosure comes as Labour prepares to announce a major expansion of the early release scheme with thousands of criminals to be automatically released 40 per cent of the way through their sentence rather than the current halfway point. 12:24 PM BST Labour: Tories triggered early election because things were even worse than they were letting on Labour claimed the Tories triggered the general election early because they knew issues like prison overcrowding were even worse than they were letting on. Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said he expected the new Labour Government to discover further hidden horrors in the weeks ahead. Asked about the prison situation, he told the BBCs Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: This isnt a question of policy, this is a question of legacy and necessity I have never been quite sure why the election was called in July, I dont think we had a satisfactory answer to that during the campaign. But when you take that prisons issue and the awful decisions facing the new Secretary of State [Shabana Mahmood], the new Lord Chancellor, and the new Ministry of Justice head when she came in, and other things too, I think we are beginning to discover why the election was called and it certainly wasnt because the plan was working but was because the Conservatives knew that things were even worse than they were letting on. It was suggested to the Labour frontbencher that there may be more horrors waiting to be discovered and he replied: Indeed there are. 12:08 PM BST Tom Tugendhat questions Labours early release plan In what world is releasing 20,000 criminals onto our streets a good idea. https://t.co/ODxgZvS5PN Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) July 12, 2024 11:54 AM BST Pictured: Victoria Starmer meets with Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine Victoria Starmer meets Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine - Twitter - @ZelenskaUA 11:36 AM BST Winning big majority doesnt give you any more money, warns Labour frontbencher Pat McFadden said Labour must not waste a moment in power but sought to temper expectations of what could be achieved by the new Government because winning a big majority has not changed the state of the public finances. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the BBCs Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: We have been out of power for 14 years and we shouldnt waste a moment. This is the chance to implement change and we are in a position now where we have got a good majority for the next few years. I do also have to say though having a big majority doesnt give you any more money. It doesnt magic up money. 11:28 AM BST McFadden hails most state-educated Cabinet in history Pat McFadden said Sir Keir Starmers Cabinet is the most state-educated Cabinet in history, I believe and that is notable. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the BBCs Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: Why is it important? It is not a qualification for leadership in itself. I dont believe it is. But I do think it is notable, particularly in this country where so many of the leading jobs in the country, certainly in the professions, arent going to people like that. This has been an issue in the UK for many, many years. 11:16 AM BST Robert Jenrick: Tory candidates must be chosen by members, not party officials Robert Jenrick said Conservative parliamentary candidates should only be selected by local party members in future. The former minister and potential leadership contender called for the party to ditch its central list of candidates in order to revitalise our grassroots. He tweeted this morning: The campaign review cant just focus on slogans & logos. To rebuild we must revitalise our grassroots. Members, not party officials, should select Conservative candidates. The central candidates list has morphed beyond its purpose. It must be scrapped. 10:59 AM BST How close to full are the nations prisons? There were 708 places remaining in the adult male prison estate across England and Wales as of July 8, according to the latest available Government figures. The adult male prison population on Monday stood at 83,755 out of a usable operational capacity of 84,463. 10:40 AM BST Starmer hints Britain could recognise Palestine before US or Israel The UK could recognise Palestine as an independent state even if the United States or Israel does not, Sir Keir Starmer has said. Speaking at a press conference following the end of this weeks Nato summit in Washington, the Prime Minister reiterated his position that recognising Palestine needed to be part of the process of securing peace in the region. Asked whether he would be willing to act on recognising Palestine before the United States or Israel, he said: So far as our policy is concerned, Ill determine our policy, not follow anyone else. You can read the full story here. 10:25 AM BST Home Secretary Yvette Cooper responds to latest Channel deaths The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. My thoughts are with all those affected. Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk. We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue & bring down dangerous smuggler gangs. Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) July 12, 2024 10:06 AM BST Chasing Reform voters is not the route back to power, Osborne warns Tories George Osborne said the Conservative Party must move back to the political centre ground rather than chase Reform voters if it wants to return to power. The former chancellor argued going after Reform backers would result in the Tories losing even more of their moderate supporters, likely to Labours advantage. Mr Osborne told his Political Currency podcast: It is a very hard tactical choice, for the new leader, which is the obvious thing to do if you look at the maths is to say lets go and get the 14 or 15 per cent who voted Reform, add it to the 24 per cent who voted Conservative and were ahead of Labour, it is easy, job done without noticing really what I think is the central challenge which is the Conservative Party over a number of years vacated the central ground of British politics and allowed the Labour Party to move from the Corbynista position it was in to the centre ground. Should the next Tory leader be thinking more like Reform or more like Labour? As the leadership battle begins, George Osborne thinks a deeply divided Tory party needs to recentre itself LISTEN https://t.co/9qA6ffpP8h pic.twitter.com/BkMq8n5RcP Political Currency (@polcurrency) July 12, 2024 It allowed the Liberal Democrats to get the largest number of seats they have had in a century and decimate the Tories in places like the West Country. And if you dont win back that centre ground, frankly you may get some of those Reform votes somehow and you will lose more of your centre ground support in doing so and there is nothing that says the Labour Party is stuck on 34 per cent of the vote. There is no reason why they couldnt go up higher and deprive you of the majority even if you managed to get some of those Reform people on side because they have expanded their position in the centre ground. 09:37 AM BST Early prison release scheme is least worst option, says Sir Mark Rowley The Governments expected plan to release some prisoners early to tackle overcrowding is the least worst option, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has suggested. He told ITVs Good Morning Britain: The Government have got a situation where theres no easy solution. Prisons are very, very close to full and filling up day in day out. The worst possible thing would be for the system to block, because the system blocks in prisons if they get completely full. That kicks back into the courts and into what we do. And thats really dangerous for the public. So the Government are forced into making a rapid decision to avoid that risk. So its going to be the least worst option theyre going to have to find, so I understand what theyre trying to do, however not ideal it is. Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says the government's expected plans to release some prisoners early is 'the least worst option'. pic.twitter.com/7suY0la1yr Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 12, 2024 09:26 AM BST Reader poll: Should smart phones be banned for under-16s? Sir Keir Starmer has rejected calls to ban children under the age of 16 from buying mobile phones. What do you think? You can have your say in our reader poll below: 09:15 AM BST Buckland tells Labour: Dont send mixed messages about punishment Sir Robert Buckland warned Labour it must not send mixed messages about punishment and should make its commitment to protect the public clear. Sir Robert, the Tory former justice secretary, told Sky News: My advice to the new Justice Secretary [Shabana Mahmood] and I wish her well, shes just come into post is to make sure that we arent releasing people who could pose a risk, particularly domestic abusers, stalkers, those types of offenders. I think it would be wholly inappropriate to release them. He continued: I think we do need to be absolutely iron on our commitment to protect the public. And the new Government would be best advised to make that clear from the outset. Because sending mixed messages about punishment is not a good way, frankly, to start a penal policy when youve just taken office. Labour is expected to announce later today that some prisoners will be released less than halfway through their sentences amid warnings that jails are no more than six weeks away from running out of space. 08:57 AM BST Shadow home secretary James Cleverly responds to latest Channel deaths Reports of more deaths in the channel are a tragedy. As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering. James Cleverly (@JamesCleverly) July 12, 2024 08:43 AM BST Prison building programme needs to be quicker, says senior Tory A prison building programme must be sped up, a former justice secretary said this morning. Sir Robert Buckland said new prisons are being built but not at a pace that is quick enough to keep up with demand. The senior Tory, who lost his seat at the general election, told Sky News: The prison system is always run, as we say, in a very hot way. 98 per cent of the prison estate will be full at any one time and the prison building programme which I started with Rishi Sunak is coming forward but not at a pace that is quick enough, I think, to meet demand. That is what the next Government has got to do. 08:36 AM BST Ex-justice secretary warns Labour not to make mistake on early prisoner release Sir Robert Buckland has warned Labour not to make the mistake of releasing dangerous offenders early to tackle prison overcrowding. Labour is expected to announce later today that some prisoners will be released less than halfway through their sentences amid warnings that jails are no more than six weeks away from running out of space. Sir Robert, a Tory former justice secretary, urged a cautious approach and said Labour now had its chance to prove it will be tough on crime. He told LBC: We didnt hit a problem like this during that period. I have had direct experience of this problem. During Covid I actually created a prisoner release system that could have released 4,000 prisoners, I only released 200, and I took very special personal interest in the release of each and every prisoner because I did not want to see dangerous offenders out on our streets during the Covid crisis. We managed to avoid that nightmare. I do hope that if Shabana Mahmood is to announce this release scheme today that she doesnt, and her officials, dont make the mistake of releasing people who really shouldnt be on the streets early because they pose a risk. Labour have said they want to be tough on crime, well, now is their moment to prove it. 08:21 AM BST Farage urges Labour to start moving fast on small boats after latest Channel deaths 4 deaths in the Channel this morning, the new Government had better start moving fast. Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) July 12, 2024 08:19 AM BST Four migrants dead after dinghy capsizes in Channel Four people have died after their dinghy capsized as they attempted to cross the Channel, according to the French coastguard. Sixty migrants are said to have been rescued after their small boat got into trouble after leaving the north French coast. British sources confirmed there had been an incident. Latest Home Office figures showed 419 people made the journey across the Channel from France to the UK 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. 08:17 AM BST New prisons gummed up by planning system, says ex-justice secretary Efforts to tackle prison overcrowding have been gummed up by the planning system, a Tory former justice secretary said this morning. Sir Robert Buckland, a former Tory MP who lost his seat at the general election, said the Conservatives had taken action in government to build more prisons as he warned Labour against playing a blame game. He told LBC: I think it is right to say that we have been here before with overcrowding. We got here in 2009, just before the coalition government came in, and the Labour government had to use police cells. It is right that over the last 14 years we have not reached this point and that is because we did a lot of work, me included, to really kickstart a prison building programme. It has been frustrating, frankly. I think over the years planning and other issues have really gummed up the works. But new prisons are coming online. I will say this, if Shabana [Mahmood], with respect to her, she is the new Justice Secretary, I wish her well, but if she is just going to point the finger of blame at the past, that is not going to be good enough. Ms Mahmood is expected to use a speech later today to announce that some prisoners will be released less than halfway through their sentences to tackle overcrowding. 08:08 AM BST Early prisoner release plan would relieve overcrowding pressure for maximum of 18 months Releasing certain inmates after theyve served 40 per cent of their sentences rather than 50 per cent would give prisons around 12 to 18 months before further measures are needed, the chairman of the Prison Officers Association has said. Mark Fairhurst told BBC Breakfast such a move - widely expected to be announced by the Government today - would give prisons about 4,500 to 5,000 more spaces. Mr Fairhurst said: It would relieve the pressure on us for a maximum of 18 months, and then longer term the new government would have to look at further measures, he said. He said there are less than 700 places left in adult male closed prisons and that the critical point at which prisons must start using police cells is 300 spaces. We cant operate on that amount of cell space, when you look at the courts theyre sending people to us at the rate of 250-350 per week. If weve got less than 300 we just havent got the capacity, he said. 07:56 AM BST Sir Graham Brady: Entirely reasonable that Tory grassroots should vote on next leader Sir Graham Brady said it was entirely reasonable for Conservative Party members to have a vote in the Tory leadership race. The former chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs suggested the grassroots should play a significant role in choosing the leader. His comments came amid ongoing speculation that the membership could be cut out of the process as MPs consider who could replace Rishi Sunak. Asked if Conservative members should help to choose the next leader, Sir Graham told GB News: I have always said I think when the party is in government there is a problem with that because you are choosing a prime minister, because the parliamentary party can obviously throw a prime minister out because a vote of no confidence will do that. So I think there is a discord in that situation. In opposition, which we were in opposition of course when the current rules were written and the constitution was put in place, I think it is entirely reasonable to allow the members to have a big debate and a big vote at the end of it and to have a significant role in choosing the leader. 07:41 AM BST Ex-1922 Committee chairman predicts Tories will pull together Sir Graham Brady suggested the Tories will now pull together rather than explode. The former chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs who did not stand at the general election, rejected the suggestion that the Conservative Party could now tear itself apart as it looks for Rishi Sunaks successor. Asked the question on GB News, Sir Graham said: I dont think so. I think obviously we are now in opposition, we are in opposition in a very small parliamentary party. I came into Parliament first in 1997 in the shadow of a great big Labour landslide. My experience then actually was that the party started to pull together in Parliament. I think we realised there was a lot of work to do, there is a responsibility to provide a proper opposition and to hold government to account, there were very few people to do the work, even fewer now, and I think that we also started to spend a lot of time together and started to realise we had more in common than we had that divided us. So I hope the same thing will happen again now. 07:32 AM BST Violent prisoners will be freed early to ease overcrowding Prisoners are to be released less than halfway through their sentences amid police warnings that law and order could otherwise break down on Britains streets. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, will today announce measures that would free criminals, including some convicted of violent offences, who have served 40 per cent of their sentences rather than the usual 50 per cent. The move, designed to ease chronic overcrowding, will reduce the number of offenders in jails by about 5,000, officials believe. Many prisons are housing more inmates than they are designed for, and unions have threatened strike action if the prison population grows amid fears over staff safety. In a speech at the Five Wells super-prison in Northamptonshire, Ms Mahmood is expected to justify the moves by highlighting warnings by police and prison chiefs that jails are no more than six weeks away from running out of space. You can read the full story here. 07:14 AM BST Assisted dying laws wont be repealed for at least 18 months, suggests Starmer Laws banning assisted dying will not be repealed for at least 18 months, Sir Keir Starmer has suggested. In a blow for campaigners, the Prime Minister said he had other priorities for his first year in office. Any vote to legalise assisted dying would be introduced by a backbencher, but if it is to pass into law it would require the government to ensure there was enough Parliamentary time. Asked about potential reforms, the new Prime Minister said: What I said was that we would provide time for this, obviously, by way of a private members bill, and there will be a free vote, that remains my position. Having probably got more experience than most people, having personally looked at tens of cases in my time as Director of Public Prosecutions. As to the timing of it, I havent made a commitment on timing and I dont want to. Im not going back on the commitment I made, but we have got to set out priorities for the first year or so, but I will double down on the commitment, we will allow time for a private members bill, and there will be a free vote. It takes a few months for legislation to pass through both Houses of Parliament, meaning that if it is not introduced in the first year, it would likely not pass in the first 18 months of Sir Keirs government. 07:11 AM BST Starmer not in favour of smartphone ban for under-16s Sir Keir Starmer has rejected calls to ban children under the age of 16 from buying mobile phones. The Prime Minister said he was willing to look at restrictions on the content young people can access online. Asked about the calls by ITVs Good Morning Britain, the Prime Minister said: Our children have mobile phones and Im not in favour of simply banning them for children under 16. I think theres a serious question as to what the content is and the control of the content and that is something where I think we need to look again. It comes as Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, is campaigning for an age limit for smartphone usage and stricter controls on access to social media apps. Mirena IUD can be used for up to eight years, the TGA has announced. Photograph: SDI Productions/Getty Images Women can rely on their Mirena intrauterine device to prevent pregnancy for up to eight years, the medicines regulator has decided, making it the longest-acting hormonal contraceptive available in Australia. The Therapeutic Goods Administrations decision includes existing devices. The TGA issued the approval on 5 June based on data submitted by Bayer, which developed the device, from their Phase 3 Mirena Extension Trial, which showed efficacy remained above 99% during years six to eight among the 362 women studied. A TGA spokesperson said the study showed efficacy was maintained and revealed no new or unexpected safety issues. The Mirena IUD is inserted into the uterus where it slowly releases progestogen, which prevents pregnancy by thinning the lining of the uterus so that it is not thick enough for the woman to become pregnant and thickens the mucus in the cervix to prevent sperm from reaching an egg. Peak bodies the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists welcomed the TGAs decision, which they said aligns with the evidence. The chair of RACGPs Sexual Health Medicine group, Dr Sara Whitburn, said the exciting news of Mirenas increased duration supports more women to choose this option. Despite being one of the most effective methods of contraception, rates of uptake in Australia remain low, with the contraceptive pill remaining the default. Related: Why is Australia still waiting for a male contraceptive pill? It makes the Mirena more cost-effective as the upfront costs of insertion are now spread over those years, Whitburn said. The cost of the Mirena device itself, subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, is about $31.60, but patients may also have to pay out-of-pocket costs for a general practitioner or gynaecologist to insert the device. The chair of RANZCOGs sexual reproductive health committee, Prof Kirsten Black, said even with out of pocket expenses for IUD insertion, its still cheaper for the woman than buying the contraceptive pill over eight years, and cheaper for the health system because youre going to prevent a whole lot of unexpected pregnancies, Black said. You are 20 times less likely to have an unintended [pregnancy] using an IUD compared to the pill, Black said. The pill also has a rate of efficacy above 99% if taken correctly, but because its effectiveness can be reduced if taken irregularly, or absorption can be affected by diarrhoea and vomiting. Nearly one in 10 women taking it may still get pregnant, according to the Royal Womens hospital. Related: Eva wanted the morning-after pill after a sexual assault. Confronting pharmacy questions left her frustrated While recent data shows increasing rates of younger women using hormonal iUDs, the latest national data still showed rates of use in Australia are below 10%, Black said. To increase uptake of IUDs however we still need to improve access. This means having more healthcare professionals trained and prepared to insert IUDs. Whitburn said if a womans doctor told her to come back in five years for removal before the advice was updated, she can now wait eight years if the Mirena was inserted for contraception and menstrual control and she is under 45 years old. The US regulator approved eight-year use for contraception shortly after the Bayer study was released in 2022 and the UKs regulator approved it in January. The TGA approval for extended use is for contraception only, all other uses including assisting heavy bleeding during periods or menopause hormonal therapy remain unchanged. Around 9,000 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) will benefit from a new injectable version of the drug, Ocrelizumab A multiple sclerosis jab that cuts treatment time by 90 per cent is set to be rolled out on the NHS. Around 9,000 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) will benefit from a new injectable version of the drug, Ocrelizumab. Currently these patients with the neurodegenerative disease require an intravenous infusion that takes four hours per visit, twice a year. But now they will be able to receive the same drug in under 10 minutes via a jab, after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency gave it the green light. The NHS will be one of the first healthcare systems in the world to offer the new injection, with stocks of the drug set to be available within weeks, NHS England said. How it works Ocrelizumab works by targeting a type of immune cell, called a B cell, and stops it from triggering an immune response against the body. In MS, these cells can mistakenly attack and damage myelin, which is the protective layer around the nerves in the brain and spine, that can become damaged and cause symptoms. The drug works to prevent that from happening and has a 97 per cent success rate at stopping relapses and preventing the development of brain lesions over almost a year. Prof Sir Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, said it would also free up doctors time to see more patients and free up capacity in hospitals. This new injection will drastically cut the time that regular treatment takes for those living with multiple sclerosis, meaning that thousands of patients can spend less time in hospital while helping free up clinicians time to see more patients as well as vital capacity on wards, he said. Ocrelizumab has represented a huge advance in care in recent years as the first drug able to change the course of the disease, and we hope this innovative and speedier option will now make another significant difference in improving patients quality of life and help thousands avoid longer stints in hospital for treatment. For a healthier future Ceri Smith, the head of policy at the MS Society, said it would expand the choices available to many MS patients and will mean more people can receive this treatment in a way that suits them. More than 150,000 people live with MS in the UK, and around 9,000 of them rely on ocrelizumab to keep the disease under control. Ocrelizumab, manufactured by Roche, was first approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis in 2018, with further approval for primary progressive multiple sclerosis in 2019. Nin Sambhi, 39 from Staffordshire, was diagnosed with relapsing MS in 2022 and currently takes ocrelizumab via infusion. She said: Its great to hear that this new ocrelizumab injection has been approved. Ocrelizumab is working well for me right now and making me hopeful for a better and healthier future, but to be able to have an injection would be so much more convenient for me. At the moment, it takes around four or five hours to have my infusion and the logistics can be really difficult I have two children under 10, so sorting out childcare can be challenging. This new treatment would mean significantly less time spent in hospital and more time with my family. Following a career in social work, Pauline Davison volunteered in Cambridge, at Addenbrookes hospital, at a food bank and at Great St Marys church, and was active in the TS Eliot Society Photograph: none My grandmother Pauline Davison, who has died aged 86 of lung cancer, trained as a social worker after her youngest child started school and worked with children and families, first in Lewisham, south-east London, then in rural Cambridgeshire. Following a period in the social work training department of Cambridgeshire county council in the 1990s she worked for three years in a hospice and then as a social worker at Papworth hospital. She was one of the first volunteers to be trained for the Cambridge Mediation Service, which helps warring neighbours resolve their disputes. After retiring from social work in 2000, she committed herself to volunteering in her community in Cambridge: at a charity at Addenbrookes hospital; at her local food bank; and as a trustee at Michaelhouse, a community centre and cafe established by Great St Marys church, of which she was a highly valued member of the community, serving as a church warden and leading the pastoral visitors group. Pauline contributed much to the celebration of literature in Cambridge as co-founder of Something Understood, a modern poetry group, and was active in the TS Eliot Society, playing a key role in maintaining the annual TS Eliot festival at Little Gidding. She was born in Twickenham, south-west London, to Gladys (nee Mayhew), a seamstress, and Harry Le Brun, a printer and trade unionist. She showed early academic promise and won a scholarship to Westonbirt school in Gloucestershire, from where she then won a second scholarship, to the University of Oxford; she read English at St Annes College, as the first member of her family to go to university. After graduating, she taught English in a secondary school in London before moving to Transvaal, South Africa, in 1963 with her husband, Colin Davison, an Anglican priest, whom she had married in 1960. Living in the city of Rustenburg, she taught English at a Lutheran seminary and was involved in various community projects, such as a feeding scheme during a drought and setting up a family planning clinic in the local township, all while looking after her growing family. In 1971, Pauline, Colin and their children were deported and forced to return to Britain, due to the couples active opposition to apartheid. The family lived in Lewisham, where Pauline began her career in social work in 1978, moving in 1980 to the village of Stapleford, south of Cambridge, when Colin was appointed vicar to the parish. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1989. In her later years, Pauline completed a pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. She is survived by her four children, Matthew, Bridget, Simon and Giles, and seven grandchildren. Start by identifying why you want to expand perhaps you have a product thats not available in your target market? Photograph: Morsa Images/Getty Images As any founder or entrepreneur can attest, launching a small business is a monumental challenge. Beyond the exhilarating moment of conceiving an idea and entering the market, the real grind begins with the hunt for new leads and the relentless task of managing cash flow. And thats just the beginning; profitability can seem like a distant dream amid the daily hustle to break even. And what about the trials and tribulations that come later sustaining and growing your business once youre up and running and successfully established in the UK? Expansion into overseas markets isnt for the faint of heart PayPals 2024 Business of Change report, which polled 500 small and medium enterprises, found that 32% of UK small business owners lacked confidence in international sales. Of course, there are always factors you cant control who could have predicted a global pandemic followed by huge rises in energy costs? But figuring out what you can control, and making the best of it, will help give your business the greatest chance of thriving on the international stage. Here, we round up our top tips for going global 1 Establish why you want to expand Start by understanding why youre looking overseas in the first place. Is it to compete with similar companies that may have expanded into other markets and therefore have more share when it comes to like-for-like products or services? Is it to attract new customers who you believe can benefit from your offering outside your current market? Or is it to diversify your customer base and perhaps hedge against risks in the domestic market? Once you know why you want to expand, you can start to think about how. 2 Assess your readiness for expansion Next, review your current business model to identify where there might be room for improvement, whether its offering new or refined products or services, creating an enhanced experience for existing customers (a survey might help here), or simply targeting different audiences. Revisit your original vision and objectives two or three years on, are you really living up to them and doing what you set out to do? This will help you gain further insights and identify other reasons to expand. New markets can help you achieve your goals and this exercise may clarify what those are. Eyes on the prize. 3 Identify target markets Researching what competitors are doing can help inform where you choose to expand. What products and services are they offering to help them cut through the competition and what countries or regions are they offering them in? Once youve whittled down the what and the where to your target market or markets the ones that best align with your business and objectives its time to undertake some good old-fashioned market research. Theres no shortcut for this as it may provide the foundations for solid and sustained expansion. Then you may need to establish a budget and timeframe for this exciting stage of growth. The only way is up. 4 Diversify your payment options Customers are looking to pay quickly and simply in their own currency, using a method they prefer. And they want to have confidence that their payments are secure. On your part, you want international payments to be as seamless as possible. A key facet of the PayPal Complete Payments platform, which has just launched in the UK, is that it accepts a wide range of payment methods, from digital wallets such as Apple Pay1 and Google Pay2 to international credit and debit cards. Being able to offer customers great flexibility in how they purchase your services or products may help conversions at checkout by removing barriers to payment. Vincent Belloc, managing director of PayPal UK, says: At PayPal, we understand its challenging for British small businesses to navigate international sales. A key area of differentiation is our focus on enabling cross-border trade for UK SMEs. PayPal Complete Payments provides faster access to 140-plus currencies in a single wallet, with no account minimums and no management of multiple accounts. Whats more, it offers 25 settlement currencies and business relationships in more than 200 countries. 5 Ensure peace of mind for your business, and customers A new market brings with it a myriad of different regulations that you may not be used to. Luckily, PayPal Complete Payments helps to ensure that payments are compliant with the latest market regulations, for a seamless feel to selling worldwide. Further, todays shoppers dont just expect packages to arrive at their doorsteps promptly they also want to know where they are every step of the way. Package tracking is an essential e-commerce tool that provides convenience and transparency to shoppers everywhere. Remember: expansion is tough, but the rewards favour the brave. Businesses across the world are trusting PayPal Complete Payments to facilitate more payment methods, store customer details securely and simplify the checkout process. All with the aim of turning prospects into customers, driving repeat business and opening new markets. Explore PayPal Complete Payments and empower the expansion of your business 1 Apple Pay is a trademark of Apple Inc, registered in the US and other countries and regions. 2 Google Pay is a trademark of Google LLC. NSW police assistant commissioner Brett McFadden has launched an internal investigation into 85-year-olds death in Bankstown. Photograph: Tamsin Rose/The Guardian Police took 19 hours to respond to a call for help from the Sydney neighbour of an elderly man who was later found struggling to breathe and died in his home a short time later. The NSW police assistant commissioner, Brett McFadden, on Friday launched an internal investigation after being briefed on the delay almost a week after the 85-year-olds death. It is a significant concern for me, McFadden said. I want to understand what was taking place in the environment before we pass judgment. Police were called at about 5.45 pm on 4 July by a neighbour of the elderly man who lived alone in an apartment complex in Bankstown. The neighbour requested police check on the man who had been in poor health and had not been seen for some time. At about 12.30pm the next day, officers attended the William Street apartment where they couldnt raise anyone inside. Fire and Rescue then helped the officers gain entry. They found the 85-year-old man alive but breathing shallowly. Related: Brisbane couple charged with spying for Russia in alleged attempt to access defence secrets First response protocols were implemented, CPR was commenced, but unfortunately, even with the assistance of ambulance, we were unable to sustain the life of the 85-year-old male, McFadden said on Friday. NSW Ambulance paramedics attended and declared the man dead. The cause of his death was not known but police have ruled out suspicious circumstances. The premier, Chris Minns, said that while it was a matter for the police, if any changes needed to be made to systems to ensure callouts are timely, they would be. We want to make sure that when people access triple-zero, when they contact emergency services, theyre dispatched quickly, he said. McFadden was briefed on the incident following a review on Thursday. He said he was satisfied he was informed at the earliest opportunity. Asked if the man could have been saved had police attended when the call was first made, the assistant commissioner said it was really difficult to understand that at the moment. The circumstances are tragic, but we want to understand whether the time between the time of call and our response was a factor in the circumstances of this mans passing. Its something that I take seriously. The mans family live overseas and McFadden said investigators were working with them. He said the Bankstown command was incredibly busy and dealt with competing priorities every day. Finding out what other jobs were on when the neighbours call came through would be a key part of the investigation. I understand the communitys concern with the 19 hours, McFadden said. Its understandable and its expected. Thats why in the public interest, we declared this critical incident. We want to understand exactly what was taking place in the environment and what the police were dealing with at the time. The police watchdog confirmed it was independently monitoring the investigation by the force. The NSWPF are investigating the circumstances of the incident, and this investigation will be reviewed by the professional standards command, a Law Enforcement Conduct Commission spokesperson said. The LECC is independently monitoring the investigation of the critical incident to ensure public confidence in the investigation. Section of the 12th-century carving, which depicts Joseph of Arimathea lifting Christs body from the cross. Photograph: Stevenson, James/Victoria & Albert Museum A beautiful 12th-century walrus ivory carving regarded as an elemental object of English art is to remain in the UK after the V&A successfully raised 2m to acquire it. The 18cm-high sculpture was probably carved in York more than 800 years ago and shows Joseph of Arimathea tenderly lifting Jesus Christs body from the cross. The carving had, for 40 years (until 2022), been on long-term loan to the V&A in London, but it was sold by its owners to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for about 2m, prompting the UK to place a temporary export bar on it. The V&A announced in February that it would seek to raise the funds. On Friday it said it had been successful. Tristram Hunt, the director of the V&A, said the campaign had been vital to save for the nation this elemental object of English art. He added: It is sublime. We often underplay the early medieval period but here youve got such delicacy in the carving you feel the emotion. The carving is revered by medieval specialists and regarded as unusually important. Sandy Heslop, a medieval expert at the University of East Anglia, described it to the Art Newspaper as the first expression of tenderness in a work of art. The historian and author Tom Holland said of the carving: So beautiful, so moving, and all the more precious for being so very rare. The object depicts the moment in the story of the Passion of Christ known as the Deposition from the Cross. The carving is seen as one of the finest and most important examples of English Romanesque ivory still surviving, praised for its embodiment of feelings of human suffering, empathy and compassion. The piece would have been part of a larger scene and one reason the V&A was so keen to raise the money was that it had the only other surviving piece from the ensemble. The carving of Judas at the Last Supper was discovered in a house in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 1769 and entered the V&A collection in 1949. Acquisition of the deposition fragment means it can go on display with the Judas fragment once more. Hunt said that because the carving was a loan it had never been given sufficient foregrounding by the V&A. Now we can, now we can give it the billing it deserves. The raised funds include 700,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, a fund of last resort for saving national treasures. The funds chair, Simon Thurley, said he was thrilled the support would save the sculpture for the nation and secure a home for it at the V&A for audiences to enjoy in perpetuity. He said it was a beautiful and expressive object and one of the most important English pieces to have survived from the Romanesque period. Money had also come from various trusts, foundations and individuals, plus from the Art Fund. The V&A said the deposition carving ranked alongside two nationally important 12th-century Romanesque objects in its collection: the Gloucester candlestick, regarded as a masterpiece of English metalwork, and the Becket casket, a reliquary enamelled with the murder of St Thomas Becket. The carving had been in the collection of the art collectors and dealers John and Gertrude Hunt, passing down after their deaths to their heirs. Lady Starmer, left, wore a 179 dress by British high street label Whistles when she met Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska At a lavish dinner to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Nato, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg made a point of praising the leaders spouses. Its not always easy being married to a politician, he told the partners of the presidents and prime ministers attending the summit in Washington DC. Among those who may have agreed was Victoria Starmer, the wife of Britains new premier. For not only was Sir Keir enduring the international spotlight for the first time, so was his wife. Lady Starmer and Olena Zelenska seem to enjoy each other's company at brunch The Prime Minister has been careful to keep his wife away from the public gaze since he became leader of the Labour Party four years ago. The NHS occupational health worker, to whom he has been married for 17 years, hardly appeared alongside him during the six-week election campaign. Journalists had been led to expect that this reticence would continue after Labours stunning election victory. But despite being a reluctant first lady, Lady Starmer as she is known as a result of her husbands knighthood accompanied him on his first international trip within days of his appointment. Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria elegant in white lace dress arrive in Washington DC As the pair departed for Washington DC for the Nato summit, she was pictured alongside the Prime Minister at the top of the aircraft steps wearing a 450 white lace knit dress by British label Needle & Thread. The labels founder Hannah Coffin told The Telegraph she was delighted and honoured. On Wednesday, the first day of the summit, Sir Keir met Joe Biden for the first time in the White House and held a series of meetings with world leaders including Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. At the same time, Lady Starmer and other spouses were hosted by Jill Biden, the US presidents wife, for brunch at the Smithsonian National Museum of America. Lady Starmer in Labour-red on the balcony with her husband, Bulgarian and Dutch prime ministers Dimitar Glavchev and Dick Schoof, and European Council president Charles Michel and his spouse Amelie Derbaudrenghien - Stefan Rousseau/Reuters That night, she was pictured on the White House balcony as leaders and their wives posed for photographs ahead of a dinner to mark the 75th anniversary of the Western alliance. She wore a 320 Labour red dress by French label The Kooples. The pair dined on grilled mountain peaches, Alaskan halibut and honey mascarpone ice cream, along with sparkling rose wine. Sir Keir and Lady Starmer make their way from the plane in Andrews Air Force Base - Stefan Rousseau/Reuters Guests were serenaded by the US Marine Chamber Orchestra as they ate off the state china used by Harry S. Truman, the US president who signed Nato into being. Lady Starmer was sat next to Mareva Grabowska, the wife of the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the two appeared to strike up a friendship. Its a good contact to have because Greece is a nice place to go, joked one Downing Street adviser. On the last day of the summit, on Thursday, Sir Keir took part in another gruelling round of meetings. His wife, on the other hand, was taken with other husbands and wives on a tour of the US presidents Camp David retreat. Lady Starmer also met with Olena Zelenska, Ukraines first lady, opting for a cheetah-print 179 dress by British high street label Whistles. In an ever-changing market, being represented by someone with her influence globally is so important for the retail landscape and shines a light on what British brands have to offer the market, Camille Sullivan, product director at Whistles told The Telegraph. Sir Keir was definitely glad to have her by his side. Speaking to journalists on the flight on the way to the summit, the Prime Minister said: Its been a big transition for Vic and even more for the kids. But Vics very pleased to be doing it. Its great to have her here by my side while we go to this summit. There was also the need for Sir Keir, the father of two children aged 16 and 13, to work out what to do with them while he was away. The family had not yet moved into Downing Street, waiting until the end of the summit to do so. We will take a bit more time with the kids, he explained. We havent moved in yet because I didnt want them left on their own while the two of us were away this week, so well just take a bit more time on that. Ankita Ghosh and Miriam Miller, accompanied by Julie Spence, the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, were the first to use the post box sending a letter to the King - CHRIS RADBURN/REUTERS Post box insignia may pass unnoticed by most of us, but the King has followed a little-known tradition and given the stamp of approval to a new-look design. Royal Mails red boxes have been marked with the cypher of the reigning monarch since their introduction in the 19th century. But the King has put a unique twist on the design for his reign. His Majestys cypher, which will appear on Royal Mail branding, consists of the overlaid initials of his name and title, rex. In addition to the CR, the Kings regnal numbers are included in the design, something which has not been universal in designs over the last 170 years. The first of these new boxes was unveiled in Great Cambourne, Cambridgeshire, by a group of schoolchildren on Friday. The King's cypher on the new postbox The Kings post-box cypher features the Tudor Crown which he chose to incorporate into his royal cypher in February. Speaking at the unveiling of the post box, Emma Gilthorpe, the chief executive of Royal Mail said: More than 115,000 postboxes across the UK have recorded the succession of monarchs since the first box bore the cipher of Queen Victoria. We thank His Majesty for granting us the use of his personal cypher as we begin the next chapter in the story of the iconic Great British postbox in Great Cambourne. Queen Victorias cypher was the first to be used for England post boxes Scotland uses the St Andrews Crown and it took the form of a V incorporated into ito R for Regina. Edward VII was next, including his regal number in his cypher. However, the use or not of regnal numbers seemed to be down to the choice of the monarch. George V, dropped the regnal number from his cypher, and his successor Edward VIII chose to use his. The late queen included her regnal number, and the King has chosen to do the same. The King's cypher will appear on new post boxes and on many of the Royal Mail's fleet of vans - CHRIS RADBURN/REUTERS The new box was unveiled by children from The Vine Inter-Church Primary School in Upper Cambourne, and Julie Spence, the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. The children posted the first letters in the box using special stamps produced to celebrate the Kings Coronation. As a school project, each child was asked to write a letter to the King about their new Forest School, which will open in September. They also asked for his advice on moving towards a more sustainable future. The new royal cypher has also been applied to the doors of Royal Mail vehicles, with an initial rollout seeing 100 trucks updated to bear the Kings version from Friday, and a further 290 due to receive the new logo over the next six weeks. New postboxes have been decorated with the monarchs cypher for the past 170 years In total, 3636 delivery vehicles will be updated between August and October. Meanwhile, the new version of the Royal Mail logo will be rolled out on new and replacement signage, stationary and vehicles, in line with guidance from the Royal Household, to avoid waste. Similarly, the introduction of the Kings new cypher on insignia such as buttons, liveries and uniforms has been gradual. MSP Russell Findlay has the positivity, energy and charisma to rebuild the Scottish Tories, according to Rachael Hamilton - Ken Jack/Getty Europe A Tory MSP who fought off a knife-wielding gangster in an acid attack has proven he is tough enough to take on Labour and the SNP, one of his allies has said. Rachael Hamilton, the Scottish Tory rural affairs spokesman, hit back at claims that Russell Findlay was the establishment candidate to take over as Scottish Tory leader and argued his previous career as a crime reporter had prepared him to run the party. She mentioned an incident in 2015, when Mr Findlay, then a senior investigative journalist for the Scottish Sun, was targeted by a criminal disguised as a postman who hurled sulphuric acid in his face on the doorstep of his home in Glasgows West End. Despite serious facial injuries, he wrestled his attacker, William Burns, to the ground. Burns was arrested by police, as Mr Findlays then 10-year-old daughter watched the incident unfold. Burns, who was also armed with a knife, was sentenced to 10 years in jail, with a further five years of supervision, in 2017. Mr Findlay claimed a millionaire gangster had put out a contract on him but evaded justice. Ms Hamilton urged Mr Findlay to enter the leadership race, insisting he had the right character to lead. Some Tory MSPs believe Douglas Ross, who quit as leader mid-way through a personally disastrous election campaign, is keen to ensure Mr Findlay, currently the Scottish Tory justice spokesman, succeeds him. Some have raised doubts about Mr Findlays lack of experience, saying he has not been tested beyond his comfort zone of crime. Conserative MSP Rachael Hamilton is urging Russell Findlay to take over the Tory leadership - Stuart Nicol However, Ms Hamilton said he had the positivity, energy and charisma to rebuild the Scottish Tories ahead of the next Holyrood election. Russell spent his entire career in journalism as an investigative crime reporter standing up to the powerful and speaking his mind, no matter who it offended, she said, in an article for The Telegraph. He tells it like it is and does what he believes is right. He is about as far from an establishment type as you can get. However, Lord Michael Forsyth, who served as Scottish Secretary in John Majors government, said he believed the idea of splitting the Scottish Tories was crazy. It is paradoxical for a party that believes in Unionism to think the way to maintain a United Kingdom is to secede from the Unionist party, Lord Forsyth told the Scottish Daily Mail. I think it is a crazy idea and I have no idea how they would fund it and make sure it was an effective campaigning party, especially given the recent performance in the general election. Instead of dreaming of setting up new political parties those people advocating this should concentrate on building up the membership in their own constituencies and their own areas. Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, with Governor Sarah Bott during a visit to HMP Bedford in Harpur, Bedfordshire - Joe Giddens/PA Labour has been warned against politicising the police over its early prisoner release scheme after senior officers backed the policy. Lisa Townsend, the police and crime commissioner for Surrey, said she was concerned that the operational independence of the police could be undermined after senior police sources warned of a potential breakdown in civil law and order unless the scheme went ahead. Ahead of the announcement of the plans, senior police sources warned of unchecked criminality and looting if officers were left without anywhere to detain arrested suspects because of prisons and police cells running out of space. They said they feared they would enter uncharted territory, with criminals exploiting the situation. Ms Townsend said it was not acceptable for officers to be used as political cover for controversial policies, adding: It undermines their operational independence. On Friday, Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, announced moves that would see criminals, including some convicted of violence, automatically freed 40 per cent through their sentence rather than the current halfway point. Britains most senior policeman, Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the early release scheme was the least worst option as he warned that inaction could put public safety at risk. He told ITVs Good Morning Britain: The Government has got a situation where theres no easy solution. Prisons are very, very close to full, and filling up day in, day out. The worst possible thing would be for the system to block, because the system blocks in prisons if they get completely full. That kicks back into the courts and into what we do. And thats really dangerous for the public. Government sources denied police independence was being undermined, with one saying: The police, of their own volition, have expressed their independent views that speak for themselves. Ms Mahmood pinned the blame for the overcrowding crisis in prisons on Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives. Those responsible Sunak and his gang in Number 10 should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country, she said. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known. She announced there would be a review into how the prisons crisis was allowed to happen, adding: It will look at how and why necessary decisions were not taken at critical moments, and the lessons that must be learned by future governments from the failures of the last. Sir Keir Starmer urged Israel and Hamas to lay down their weapons - AP The UK could recognise Palestine as an independent state even if the United States or Israel does not, Sir Keir Starmer has said. Speaking at a press conference following the end of this weeks Nato summit in Washington, the Prime Minister reiterated his position that recognising Palestine needed to be part of the process of securing peace in the region. Asked whether he would be willing to act on recognising Palestine before the United States or Israel, he said: So far as our policy is concerned, Ill determine our policy, not follow anyone else. He also repeated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying he had discussed the issue with other leaders at the summit in Washington. He said: Now we are in office it is our solemn duty to play our full part in resolving the conflict, which has to end. There must be a ceasefire. PM under pressure from Left over Gaza The conflict in Gaza has proved a thorn in the Prime Ministers side since it began in October, with several senior Labour figures facing challenges at the General Election from Independent candidates over discontent with the partys position on the war. Former MP Jonathan Ashworth was one of several Labour candidates defeated by Independents who made Gaza a major part of their campaign, while others such as Health Secretary Wes Streeting saw their majorities slashed. Former shadow cabinet member Thangam Debbonaire, who lost her seat to the Green Party, told Channel 4 News on Wednesday Labours lack of a strong narrative on Gaza had consequences. In his press conference on Thursday night, Sir Keir paid tribute to Ms Debbonaire, saying she had done a fantastic job in the shadow cabinet and was an incredible politician. He said: I pay tribute to her, shes got a lot to offer and she will offer a lot more. Sir Keir also defended Joe Bidens leadership of the Nato summit despite the US President confusing Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. The Prime Minister, who earlier insisted Mr Biden was not senile and was on good form, faced questions about the presidents mental ability just moments after the US leaders gaffe. Responding to questions about Mr Bidens mental capacity, the Prime Minister told journalists I would urge everyone to look at the substance of whats been achieved over these two days over support for Ukraine. The alleged assault happened at the Siri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara Temple in Gravesend on Thursday night - Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy Stock Phot A Sikh worshipper said he tried to tackle a sword-wielding teenage raider who attempted to assault people at a gurdwara in Kent on Thursday. Avtar Singh, 44, said he and other worshippers chased the boy, who was brandishing two swords in the Siri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend. A 17-year-old from Gravesend was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and a religiously aggravated public order offence after police were called to the gurdwara at 8.10pm on Thursday. Kent Police said nobody was seriously injured during the incident, but two women required medical attention for cuts and bruises. A bladed weapon was recovered from the scene, and footage showed a blood-covered male being detained by police officers and members of the public. Nobody else is being sought in connection with the incident. I didnt know what was going on Mr Singh explained that he tackled a man who he said was brandishing two swords in the gurdwara. He said: Wed been told, suddenly, everyone just go out of the temple, and I was just wondering what they were saying it like that. So I was sending my kids and missus downstairs, and as soon as I heard they were calling me Avtar, Avtar come upstairs I just went upstairs, I didnt know what was going on. When I went into the hall, the guy was sitting there on the money pot sitting there with the two swords in his hands and nothing on his head. I cant see that this is against our religion. I just went straight to him, tried to tackle him he put a sword onto me as well, then I fell on the floor, then we hit him with the thing to try to hold him, he fell on the floor as well. Then he ran away around the other side, he ran around the other way, and we chased him all the way along to the Trinity School and then two Indian lads stopped him there, held him, and by that time the police came. Police patrols will remain in area Det Supt Ian Dyball, of Kent Police, said: We understand the communitys concerns in relation to the events at the gurdwara. However, we are treating it as an isolated incident. Patrols will remain in the area for reassurance, and we thank the community for their ongoing support and assistance. Speaking to Kent Online, one local resident said: The police helicopter was circling over the town centre at around 8pm. Shortly afterwards, the air ambulance landed in the grounds of the gurdwara. There were two ambulances and five police vehicles parked in Trinity Road, which was taped off by Holy Trinity primary school. A neighbour said that shed heard that two people had been stabbed inside the gurdwara with a large knife. Lauren Sullivan, the Labour MP for Gravesend, said: I am shocked and saddened by the incident at the gurdwara in Gravesend this evening. My thoughts are with those hurt, the family, and their community. I would like to thank the emergency services for their swift response to this awful event. Full details are still emerging, and there are many rumours running about it, so it is right that we let the emergency services deal with the situation and complete their investigation and release the information as they can. Dan Jarvis , the security minister, said he was being kept updated about the attack. In a message on X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: All communities must be safe in their places of worship. Temple security team called police Jagdev Singh Virdee, the Gravesend gurdwara spokesman, said the temples security team had called police after seeing the alleged attacker. He said: A person has been arrested by Kent Police on suspicion of attempted murder after entering the gurdwara and creating an incident in one of the Darbar Halls. The gurdwara is cooperating fully with Kent Police, who are treating the incident very seriously, with the district commander on site to support whilst the investigation is ongoing. The person was spotted by the gurdwara security team and police were called immediately. He said the incident happened after Sukhasan, a Sikh closing ritual, had taken place. Rishi Sunak and his former ministers are the guilty men who should be held responsible for the most disgraceful dereliction of duty by failing to address the prisons crisis, the justice secretary has said. Speaking as she set out plans to release thousands of inmates early to ease pressure in overcrowded jails, Shabana Mahmood said the Conservatives had left the country threatened with a total breakdown of law and order. Writing in the Guardian, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, underlined the severity of the problem. He said his first week in office had made clear to him the Tories had been arrogant, reckless and irresponsible to the very end ... theyll go down in history as the government that fiddled while the country burned. Related: The arrogant, reckless Tory government left behind a mountain of mess. In one week, weve begun to clear it | Keir Starmer Mahmood set out emergency measures to prevent the prison system from reaching the point of collapse. In a speech at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, the justice secretary said jails had been operating at 99% capacity since the start of 2023. Those responsible Sunak and his gang in No 10 should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known. She added: Time and again, they ducked the difficult decisions that could have addressed this challenge. Instead, they kept the public in the dark about the state they had left this country in. Thousands of prisoners will be released under the new scheme after they have served 40% of their sentences. The government would also recruit 1,000 probation officers to solve an overcrowding crisis that threatened a total breakdown of law and order, Mahmood announced. She described the policy as the only way to avert disaster, saying if prisons were to run out of places, courts would be forced to delay jailing offenders and police unable to arrest dangerous criminals a crisis that would leave the public at risk. If we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order, she said at a press conference at HMP Five Wells in Northamptonshire. From September, the government will temporarily reduce the proportion of certain custodial sentences served in prison from 50% to 40% in England and Wales. It says it will implement safeguards and exemptions to keep the public safe and clear release plans to manage offenders safely in the community. Sentences for serious violent offences of four years or more and sexual offences will be automatically excluded. In a distinction from the end of custody supervised licence scheme (ECSL), the early release of offenders in prison for crimes related to domestic abuse will also be excluded. This will include: Stalking offences. Controlling or coercive behaviours in an intimate or family relationship. Non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. Breach of restraining order, non-molestation order, and domestic abuse protection order. The scheme is expected to allow several thousand prisoners to leave early this year. Sources said the numbers would be eased out gradually. Some violent offenders with a sentence of less than four years will be eligible for the scheme, however. Responding to the announcement, the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, welcomed efforts to protect women who had been attacked by their partners, but added that two-thirds of probation areas were struggling to protect the public. Victims, and the specialist services who support them, must be kept informed about early release plans, and offenders managed robustly in the community. This temporary scheme must be exactly that temporary, she said. During her first visits as lord chancellor, Mahmood met probation staff before a tour of HMP Bedford and HMP Five Wells before delivering a speech to highlight the dire state of prisons. She said: When prisons are full, violence rises putting prison officers on the frontline at risk. When no cells are available, suspects cannot be held in custody. This means vanloads of dangerous people circling the country, with nowhere to go. The police would have to use their cells as a prison overflow, keeping officers off the streets. Soon, the courts would grind to a halt, unable to hold trials. Related: Could Britain solve its prisons crisis by going Dutch? With officers unable to act, criminals could do whatever they want, without consequence. We could see looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight. In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order. The chair of the National Police Chiefs Council, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, said: It is pleasing to see the new government has taken action on this pressing issue so quickly. We are supporting the Ministry of Justice and other partners in the criminal justice system to manage the impact of these changes, particularly around supporting victims, families and others who will be affected. With only hundreds of places left in the adult male estate, prisons have been routinely operating at more than 99% capacity since the start of 2023. Prison cells are expected to run out within weeks, the government has said. Before setting out the next steps to tackle this impending crisis, Mahmood confirmed the ECSL scheme, introduced by the previous government in October 2023, would come to an end. The early release scheme was designed to address capacity pressures on the prison estate. Prisoners were initially released 18 days early but the measure has been repeatedly expanded over the past six months. Over the course of the scheme, more than 10,000 offenders were released. Anyone released under the new scheme would be strictly monitored on licence by the Probation Service through measures that could include electronic tagging and curfews, justice officials said. Those freed face being recalled to prison if they breach their licence conditions. The rules will not apply to most serious offenders, who already either spend two-thirds of their sentence behind bars or have their release determined by the Parole Board. Despite the extra probation officers, unions expressed concerns about the services ability to deal with more releases and called for higher pay. Ben Priestley, the head of probation at Unison, said: The probation service will be crucial to delivering this early release scheme because these individuals will need supervision. But the service isnt adequately resourced for this at present. Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation, also expressed concerns about the capacity and readiness of the probation service. Its really important to say the probation service has a caseload nearly three times the number of those in prison, he told Times Radio. Now, they need to ensure that they identify the risk that those people represent and that they identify what their needs are when they leave prison. Do they have accommodation? Do they have jobs to go to? Do they have, for example, drugs and mental health support in the community? Now, my concern is, is there enough time to get that right, to ensure they get the right information and that they can then deal with those people effectively when they leave prison. Mahmood said: There is now only one way to avert disaster. I do not choose to do this because I want to but we are taking every protection that is available to us let me be clear, this is an emergency measure. This is not a permanent change. I am unapologetic in my belief that criminals must be punished. Mahmood also set out plans to recruit more than 1,000 additional trainee probation officers by March 2025, allowing for greater oversight and management of offenders once they leave. She added: The measures I have set out are not a silver bullet. But they will give us the time we need to address the prisons crisis, not just today but for years to come. That means continuing the prison building programme. And only by driving down reoffending will we ever find a sustainable solution to the prisons crisis. Sinn Fein's Pat Cullen may be the winner in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, but she is hardly a local MP. She is not from the constituency, does not live in the constituency, and refuses to take her seat in Westminster A week on from the General Election and the new Government has been settling in. For Northern Ireland, the story has been that the more things change the more they stay the same. There has been much excitement about the dominance of Sinn Fein, and it is true that the nationalist community especially in seats such as my own in Fermanagh and South Tyrone are in the main voting for a party which still justifies IRA violence, and whose local candidate refused to condemn the Enniskillen bomb. However, those who want to destroy the UK were only able to muster around 40 per cent of the vote in Northern Ireland the same figure as 1998. The SDLP has become smaller, and Sinn Fein now dominates in republicanism. I dont hear that reflected upon by the partys cheerleaders in the media. In truth, there is absolutely no basis for a border poll, but they will take every opportunity they get to push their Sinn Fein sympathising narrative. The Unionists achieved a vote of 43 per cent, whilst the Alliance party (sister party of the Liberal Democrats) fell slightly from 16.8 per cent in the 2019 Westminster election to 15.6 per cent in last weeks poll. That doesnt take away from the significant challenges to the DUP. In 2019 their vote share was 30.6 per cent and they held 8 seats. This time round their vote share was 21.4 per cent and they kept 5 seats. Perhaps that is understandable given some of the very public pressures the party and individuals within it have faced recently. But that is not the whole story of Unionism, which is still, despite all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, strong. Look at North Down for evidence of that, where an independent Unionist was returned. Indeed, this is part of the problem for the DUP there are now competing brands of Unionism. What then to do? I hope that those operating within the different strands of Unionism not necessarily at leadership level will eventually heed the desire for greater synergy felt by so many across the Province, and indeed in mainland UK. Look at how Scotland has pushed back the SNP, which dropped from 48 seats in the last General Election to just nine. And what of the great constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the most westerly part of the United Kingdom? If we were hoping for a local champion to stand up for us in London, we will be severely disappointed. The new Sinn Fein MP, Pat Cullen, is not from the constituency, does not live in the constituency, and refuses to take her seat in Westminster. Before the election Sinn Fein kept her away from the media, after a disastrous appearance on BBC Good Morning Ulster where, as a good Sinn Fein candidate, she stuck to her given lines about the Enniskillen bomb. She had just resigned as the head of the Royal College of Nurses, but couldnt condemn the murder of two medical staff by the IRA in that atrocity, as that would not be in keeping with the no alternative to violence line. Its all a far cry from when Pat Cullen was head of the RCN and had no difficulty pouring praise on the King after he had written offering support to the nursing union. That press release mysteriously disappeared from the RCN website, one presumes to take away the embarrassment for the newly minted republican unable to take the oath of allegiance to the King she had so publicly congratulated. As the French would say, plus ca change! Baroness Foster served as First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party China utilizes population data to improve social assistance 09:36, July 12, 2024 By Wang Aihua ( Xinhua BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- An unemployed leukemia patient surnamed Huang in Liuzhou, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, was relieved to hear that the local government had granted her medical assistance and other temporary help. Rather than seeking social assistance on her own, Huang was instead contacted by local civil affairs authorities after they reviewed a list of patients with excessive medical expenses. According to the Liuzhou Big Data Development Bureau, the city has integrated data shared by multiple departments, such as medical insurance, rural revitalization and human resources, to establish an early warning system for low-income people in need of assistance. Wang Xiaohui, an official with the bureau, said the move had "greatly improved the efficiency of government service compared to the traditional way of locating these people through manual processing of relevant information." Liuzhou and a number of other cities around China responded to the central government's October 2023 demand to strengthen the dynamic monitoring of the low-income population and improve the tiered and classified social assistance system. The central government guideline categorizes low-income people in need of assistance into different tiers based on their degree of difficulty and the assistance includes support for basic livelihood, medical care, education, housing, employment, disaster relief and emergency support. Tang Chengpei, vice minister of civil affairs, said that in addition to channels that encourage low-income families to apply for social assistance, China should leverage big data shared across different departments and dispatch more grassroots workers to households to identify those in need. China's efforts are consistent with the theme of this year's World Population Day, observed annually on July 11. "To Leave No One Behind, Count Everyone" highlights an important but often neglected feature of population censuses: the inclusive and thorough data collection process. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that now is the time to consider who remains uncounted and why. He urged everyone to commit to doing more to ensure that the data systems capture the full range of human diversity so that "everyone is seen, can exercise their human rights, and can reach their full potential." "As the theme of this year's World Population Day reminds us, investing in data collection is important to understanding problems, tailoring solutions, and driving progress," Guterres said. Jiang Wei, director of the social assistance department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said local authorities across China have made progress in identifying low-income populations and developing a platform for dynamic monitoring of the group. The tiered and classified platform aggregates information from different systems, including social assistance, household financial situations, and assistance for individuals in urgent need, covering the whole country with regular updates, Jiang said. The number of low-income population being monitored on the information platform topped 80 million in March of this year, accounting for 5.7 percent of China's total population, according to the ministry. "Those under monitoring do not necessarily need assistance," said Jiang. "The purpose of monitoring is to detect risks at an early stage and sound alarms." Over the years, China has also compared school roll information with population data on a regular basis to detect dropout students, particularly around the start of each new semester, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE). Ma Jiabin, director of the MOE's Department of Basic Education, said China has built a nationwide assistance network covering poor students of different age groups to ensure that no one drops out of school due to financial difficulties. Statistics showed 161 million students received financial assistance in 2022 totaling 292.27 billion yuan (about 41 billion U.S. dollars). Yang Lixiong, a professor of social security studies at Renmin University of China, said these measures help guarantee public living standards in China and consolidate the country's hard-won poverty alleviation results while laying the foundation for the drive to achieve common prosperity for all. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Venice attracted 20 million visitors last year, dwarfing the resident population - Stefano Mazzola/Awakening/Getty Images For the millions of tourists who want to ride Venices famous gondolas or take in the citys famous architecture, it seems a fee of five euros is not enough to put them off. The city council is considering doubling the access fee it charges visitors to 10 (8.40) in an effort to reduce overcrowding the current fee has failed to address. In order to cope with mass tourism, we need to bolster the access fee, the deputy mayor and council official in charge of tourism, Simone Venturini, said on Friday. The beauty that inspired Canaletto is that which draws hordes of visitors to the Unesco heritage city each year, much to locals annoyance. Last year the city attracted 20 million people, dwarfing the resident population of around 49,000. In April, Venice imposed the worlds first city access fee of 5 (4.20) to thin the crowds. The fee applies to weekends and public holidays when the city is busiest. Mr Venturini said the fee has had some success in bringing down numbers, but it still wasnt enough. If they put up the price, it would be in 2025, he added. Venice is still very affordable and we need to reinforce the access fee as a disincentive to curb excess tourism. Venices ambivalence towards tourists has been going on for years. In 2007 the city began deploying stewards in Saint Marks square to prevent tourists from stripping off their T-shirts, taking a nap or dropping fast-food wrappers in the piazza that Napoleon dubbed the drawing room of Europe. The day-tripper fee came into effect after Venice narrowly avoided being placed on Unescos danger list owing to the impact over tourism and climate change was having on the city. Mr Venturini said at the time the scheme would help Venice find a new balance between residents and day-trippers, but hundreds of local protesters didnt see it that way. We are against this measure because it will do nothing to stop overtourism, one resident Cristina Romieri said in April. Moreover, it is such a complex regulation with so many exceptions that it will also be difficult to enforce it. Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor, said it was not a revenue-generating exercise but a way to regulate excessive tourist numbers and help city officials manage the flow. Giovanni Andrea Martini, a centre-Left city councillor aligned with a residents group, Tutta La Citta Insieme ( the Whole City Together), described the scheme as a failure. This week he provoked debate by saying he liked Barcelonas approach to tourism locals there have been firing water pistols at tourists to drive them away. A centre-Left Venice councillor provoked debate by seeming to endorse the actions of Barcelona residents who fired water pistols at tourists - Adria Puig/Anadolu/Getty Images This is a peaceful and fun way in which to make it clear how much tourism crushes the lives of residents, said Mr Martini. He later said he was joking and did not advocate arming residents with water pistols. Mr Martini said he wanted to highlight the worsening impact of overtourism and the failure of city officials to safeguard residents interests and the future of their fragile city. The entrance fee is a failure, tourist numbers are increasing and the quality of life for residents is getting worse, Mr Martini said. About 20 million visitors travel to Venice each year and stay for varying periods of time. The entrance fee for day-trippers was launched at the end of April and imposed for a total of 29 days between April and mid-July. Those who spend at least one night in the city, traditionally known as La Serenissima, are exempt but they must register online before they arrive. Residents, commuters, students and children are also excluded. Meanwhile, Spains tourism minister, Jordi Hereu, condemned a group of protesters who sprayed visitors with water pistols in Barcelona last weekend, saying they did not represent the countrys culture of hospitality. The new laser weapons dubbed the 'StarWars Project' are invisible and noise-free South Korea is planning to deploy 1 Star Wars lasers to melt drones dispatched from the North out of the sky. The new laser weapons are invisible and noise-free and would be operated solely by electricity. They would down incoming unmanned aerial vehicles by melting them out of the sky, one official told AFP. When a laser weapon transfers heat to a drone, its surface melts. As the surface melts, the internal components catch fire, causing the drone to eventually fall, said Lee Sang-yoon, an official at the National Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA). The Block-I anti-air laser weapons system - dubbed the StarWars Project - will be in place by the end of this year, followed by more capabilities in the future, DAPA confirmed on Thursday. It said the system, developed by local defence company Hanwha Aerospace, would be capable of launching precision strikes on small incoming drones and multi-copters, adding that each shot would cost just over 1. Relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have hit a low after a barrage of North Korean missile tests in recent years and the deepening of ties and weapons cooperation between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. The two countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 war that split the Korean Peninsula ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. North Korea has previously used small commercial drones to infiltrate the area in and around the South Korean capital. In December 2022, the Souths defence ministry confirmed five drones had crossed into the South, prompting the military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets, but none of the UAVs were destroyed. More recently Pyongyang has harassed its enemy by floating balloons carrying rubbish in the border area, some of which reached central Seoul. The Souths ability to respond to North Koreas drone provocations will be significantly enhanced by the laser weapons system, DAPA said in a statement, boasting of a 100 per cent success rate in previous tests. It predicted the system could be game-changing for its future ability to counter aircraft and ballistic missiles. However, some analysts have cautioned it is too early to be sure about the weapons capabilities. The breed is already banned in England and Wales - Justin Griffiths-Williams / Alamy Stock Photo XL bully dogs will become the first breed to be banned in Ireland after several serious attacks involving the animals. The breed was linked to a fatal attack in Limerick last month. XL bullies are banned in England and Wales. Stormont imposed the same restriction on July 5 in Northern Ireland. The Scottish ban comes into force on August 1. The move is set to be announced on Friday, the Irish Times reported, and will be introduced in two stages. Protect public safety A source told the newspaper that the government wanted to send a clear message that the XL bully is dangerous, causes serious harm and a ban is now necessary to protect public safety. A ban on breeding, rehoming, reselling and importing XL bully dogs will be imposed on October 1. From February 1 next year, no one will be allowed to own an XL bully unless they have a certificate of exemption, which will only be issued for dogs that have been licensed, microchipped and neutered. The ban comes after increased fines for owners failing to keep dogs under proper control were introduced, a campaign on responsible ownership and 2 million in funding to local authorities for dog warden vans and equipment. Muscular bulldog XL bully dogs are a type of muscular bulldog and a larger variant of the wider American bully breed type. Nicole Morey, 23, was killed by her pet dogs, including an XL Bully, at her home in Fedamore, Co Limerick in June. She had been out celebrating her 23rd birthday but when she returned home, her four dogs, which were all on the restricted breeding list, attacked her. In 2022, Alejandro Mizsan, a 10-year-old boy living in Co Wexford, suffered severe facial injuries when he was attacked by an XL bully. ZZ Top at Wembley Arena - Justin Ng / Avalon While on record ZZ Top are often explorative, and sometimes downright weird, in concert the surprises are few and far between even down to their chest-length beards, dusty hats and cheap sunglasses. With minimal stage production and illuminated only by white light, last nights show at Wembley Arena was akin to watching one of the worlds oldest bar bands perform. ZZ Top have been around for 55 years and their concerts have been like this for a while. A frankly filthy rendition of I Gotsta Get Paid was the only song of the night recorded in the 21st century. Elsewhere, the fluent ease with which Waitin For The Bus ceded ground to Jesus Just Left Chicago (both from their 1973 album Tres Hombres) provided crowd-pleasing proof that sections of this set have been locked in place for decades. Despite being onstage for barely 80 minutes, nonetheless, this was one of ZZ Tops better visits to London. As the band unfurled Gimme All Your Lovin far earlier than might have been expected, the roar from the audience confirmed the party had started in earnest. As Billy F Gibbons faithfully delivered one of the finest solos of its era, it was here, particularly, that his astonishing skill as a lead guitarist resonated from front row to back. Tasteful and instantly distinctive, it was a pleasure hell, one might even call it a privilege to watch him play. While in the past week AC/DC have been missing the high notes across the way at Wembley Stadium, ZZ Top seemed to pull it all together with a flick of the wrist. Both bands are truly great, of course: Angus Young as the eternal schoolboy, Billy F Gibbons as the Wild West troubadour. But it was the apparent good nick of the latter, now aged 74, that at times fostered the illusion that the Texans would be swinging by this way for years to come. Only the sight of surrogate bass player Elwood Francis in the spot normally occupied by Dusty Hill (who died in 2021) suggested otherwise. Earlier in the night, a resounding and emphatically received set from red-blooded Californians Rival Sons included a thank you to the audience for keeping rock music alive. It was worth saying, too, because who can tell where the next generation of arena headliners will come from. On their last visit to Wembley in 2015, ZZ Top were joined onstage by Jeff Beck for the timeless La Grange. Nine years later, with only Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard still walking among us, rocks demographic time-bomb continues to tick. No further UK performances A group of animal rights demonstrators descended on the Hollywood premiere of Twisters to protest against rodeo scenes in the film. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) shared pictures of the protesters on X, formerly known as Twitter, holding signs with slogans including calves necks are twisters at rodeos and rodeos are waking nightmares for animals. The activists were seemingly objecting to the films depiction of the rodeo and demanding that Universal Pictures feature a disclaimer about the torment of animals at such events. We demand a disclaimer! @universalpics , it's time for a reality check. @Twisters rodeo date scene glorifies torment, violence, and death of animals. pic.twitter.com/hECBZbeMAr PETA (@peta) July 12, 2024 A statement from Peta on X said: Dont get it twisted: rodeos are cruel! @GlenPowell @Twistersmovie @UniversalPics. We demand a disclaimer! Its time for a reality check. @Twisters rodeo date scene glorifies torment, violence, and death of animals. In pictures and videos shared by the organisation, the films star Glen Powell can be seen posing for photographs with the protesters and dancing to chants Shame on you. Signs were also held by people wearing cow masks which read animals have heart attacks at rodeos. Meanwhile, a protester reportedly interrupted the premiere as the cast and director Lee Isaac Chung were about to introduce the film to the audience, according to the Hollywood Reporter. In the film, Powell stars opposite British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones as rival forces who come together to try to predict and possibly tame intense storms in central Oklahoma, with other cast mates including Anthony Ramos and Kiernan Shipka. During its London premiere, Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise made a surprise appearance. Twisters is set for release on July 17 in the UK. Representatives for Peta and Universal Pictures have been contacted for comment. A security guard has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years after hatching depraved and vile plans to kidnap, rape and murder TV star Holly Willoughby. Chelmsford Crown Court was told Gavin Plumbs plot had a catastrophic and life-changing impact on the former This Morning presenter. Plumb was unanimously convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following a trial at the same court. Sentencing the 37-year-old on Friday, Mr Justice Edward Murray told him: There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action. The plot had a life-changing impact on Holly Willoughby, the court was told (Ian West/PA) The judge sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years, minus the 280 days he had spent on remand taking the total to a minimum jail term of 15 years and 85 days. Mr Justice Murray described some of the plans Plumb had discussed online as particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. Continuing to give his reasons for imposing the prison term, he continued: Over a number of years, you pursued an unhealthy sexual obsession with Holly Willoughby that led you ultimately to plan over that period to kidnap, to rape and to murder her. You intended to harm her husband and her children as part of your plan. You discussed with Marc and David Nelson and no doubt others in hideous and revolting detail the prolonged sexual violence that you intended to inflict on Ms Willoughby once you abducted her and had her under your control. You had previously been convicted of terrifying offences involving the threat of sexual violence against four different young women I found you to be dangerous. Mr Justice Murray dismissed Plumbs defence that his plans were just a fantasy, saying: I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men the right crew as you sometimes called it to help you do it. The judge added: The jury saw through your various lies that you told at the trial, and convicted you of these offences. Wearing a grey prison-issue jumper, Plumb apparently muttered 15 years to kill myself after he was jailed. Plumb assembled an abduction kit to help carry out his plans (Crown Prosecution Service/PA) The defendant, who stood as the sentence was read out, initially showed no reaction but as he was led to the cells he made the comment to the dock officer and made an exasperated gesture raising both his hands. Plumb was snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumbs posts that evidence was passed to the FBI. US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumbs flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an abduction kit complete with cable ties. During his sentencing hearing, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Ms Willoughby wished for her victim personal statement to be private but said it set out the catastrophic impact of these offences. She continued: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. Indeed, being informed of the consequences, the intentions, and the detail of the evidence in this case it is inevitable that that has exacerbated the trauma for this victim. Ms Morgan said Ms Willoughby had made every effort to avoid attention being drawn to herself in this matter after making a short public statement following Plumbs convictions. The prosecutor continued: We say, more broadly, that offending of this type, as Ms Willoughby said in her public statement, has a broader impact on women. Women should not feel unsafe when going about their daily lives. The trial was told that Plumbs plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota. Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was definitely serious about his plot to kidnap Ms Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an imminent threat to her. Court sketch of Gavin Plumb (right) who plotted to kidnap and murder Holly Willoughby, appearing at Chelmsford Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA) When he was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Ms Willoughby, the defendant told them: Im not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine. The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape. Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else. Plumbs kidnap plans involved attempting to ambush Ms Willoughby at her family home even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack. He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a dungeon-type room. Prosecutors described Plumbs plot as carefully planned pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Ms Willoughby did not have security. Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy. Music mogul Simon Cowell has suggested he would create a One Direction version of Abba Voyage if he owned the bands name. The 64-year-old, who recently launched a UK-wide search for a new boyband, formed the chart-topping X Factor group in 2010. Speaking about what it would be like to put the band back together, he told ITVs This Morning: We would sell out stadiums all over the world. I dont think its going to happen. But Im just saying if they did (get back together). Simon Cowell put One Direction together on The X-Factor (Ian West/PA) Asked if he had any regrets, Cowell added: I wish Id owned the name. Presenter Alison Hammond asked Cowell what he could do with the name. In an apparent reference to the virtual concert Abba Voyage, which sees digital versions of Abbas members performing with a 10-piece live band, he said: Abba, you know the Abba thing, Id do that and I wouldnt have to ask anyone. When the live music show opened in London in 2022 band members Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, reunited in the capital for the first time since 1982. Cowell also revealed that his son Eric had once showed him a One Direction record without realising his link to the band. Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, of the Swedish band Abba (ABBA Voyage/PA) He said: A couple of years ago Eric came in cause hes always trying to find me new records. So he comes running in and goes Oh dad you gotta listen to this record. And he plays me a One Direction record. Im laughing, he goes Why are you laughing? I thought, I love it. He said Why are you laughing? and I said I know this band.' One Direction members Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson went on hiatus in 2016 almost a year after Zayn Malik left the group. Their chart-topping hits include What Makes You Beautiful, Little Things and Drag Me Down. Cowells search for a new boyband is being documented by a TV crew from Box To Box Films, the company behind Formula 1: Drive To Survive. New Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged to listen to the voice of unionism as Twelfth of July parades take place across Northern Ireland. Orange Order Grand Secretary Rev Mervyn Gibson made the plea as tens of thousands of loyal order members and 600 marching bands took part in the annual festivities. The largest parades were in Belfast, as well as the Co Antrim coastal town of Carrickfergus, which boasts historic links to King William of Orange, who triumphed over King James II at the Boyne in 1690. One of the largest parades took place in Belfast (Brian Lawless/PA) Ballymena, Newtownstewart, Londonderry and Killylea were also among the 18 locations hosting processions to mark the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Police carried out what they called a public safety operation across the day. There had been some concern around a former flashpoint in north Belfast after the Ligoniel Loyal Order applied to complete a return route along the Crumlin Road past the Ardoyne shops. An agreement had been made in 2016 that the lodge would walk the full route on the morning of July 12, and there would be no protest by nearby nationalist residents, but not complete the return parade in the evening. The application was refused by the Parades Commission, who ordered that the procession should stop at the junction of Woodvale Road and Woodvale Parade. The Ligoniel orange lodge has abided by the Parades Commission ruling and stopped on the Woodvale Road. All dispersing peacefully now. pic.twitter.com/abMkVQT7PF Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) July 12, 2024 Police maintained a presence in the area on Friday, however the procession stopped short of police officers marking the limit and dispersed peacefully. On Friday evening, Orange Order Grand Master Edward Stevenson hailed the day as a great success. He said extraordinary numbers of people turned out, including visitors from Scotland, England, Wales, Australia, Canada and the United States, to celebrate the largest annual festival in Northern Ireland. I trust everyone involved the participants, supporters, onlookers and traders have had a wonderful day. Whether you attended your first Twelfth or have been attending for many years, there is no doubting that this is a very special event indeed, he said. While I am sure everyone is ready for a well-earned rest, we are already looking forward to doing it all over again next year. Earlier Mr Gibson delivered the main speech at the demonstration in Derriaghy, Co Antrim, where he urged members to give the new government a chance. He said: There will without doubt be decisions we dont like, times we will clash with their thinking, but they cannot be any worse than the Conservatives who not only failed to strengthen the Union, but damaged the Union, who failed to deliver meaningful celebrations to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland; who failed to deliver Brexit for all of the UK; who failed to deliver on many promises made. People take part in an Orange Order parade in Belfast as part of the Twelfth of July celebrations (Brian Lawless/PA) In essence, the Tories failed the people of Northern Ireland So, lets see if this union-promoting Labour government will perform any better. We would encourage our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism, which is still united against the (Northern Ireland) Protocol deliver us from this iniquitous legislation deliver truly frictionless trade within UK. Honour the promises the Tories failed to keep, promises which you indicated you would keep when in power. New Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn visited a Twelfth demonstration at Irvinestown Co Fermanagh. He also met with PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher in Belfast where he was briefed on the policing operation. Members of the public watch the burning pyre at the Craigyhill eleventh night bonfire in Larne (Liam McBurney/PA) The Twelfth parades come after the traditional burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland on Thursday night. There was criticism as politicians election posters were placed on some of the bonfires. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it dealt with more than 100 emergency 999 calls. Brian Stanfield, assistant chief Fire and Rescue officer said: It has been a relatively quiet 11th night. Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. Charlie Campbell playing a a traditional Lambeg drum in Hillsborough (Jonathan McCambridge/PA) During Fridays parades, the Orange Orders Grand Master Edward Stevenson told the demonstration in Newtownstewart that membership of the loyal orders is on the rise. Delivering his speech, he said: One of the most encouraging aspects of the last 12 months has been the resurgence in the junior Orange movement. The growth must be treated as a beacon of hope for the future. This year already they have formed six new lodges. They have attracted hundreds of new members and are working to see that more follow. I also recognise that the junior girls movement is experiencing an increase in membership, with new lodges formed and new members joining existing lodges. Playing the flute in the Belfast parade (Brian Lawless/PA) He added: These are not the actions of a people who have given up, they are the actions of people who have stood up, and who are investing in the future of their lodges, of their young people and their community. As Orangemen and women, we must strive to be more confident and assertive in our identity and culture. We have a proud heritage and a great story to tell. And while we rightly cherish our history, we have every reason to look to the future with much positivity, optimism and with a clear sense of direction ensuring that our cultural traditions remain relevant and continue to prosper in a contemporary world. Saturday will see another gathering, this time organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh. The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James. PSNI Pangolin Public Order Vehicles parked near the Ardoyne shops in Belfast ahead of an Orange Order parade (Brian Lawless/PA) The routes of certain Orange parades became intense friction points during the Troubles, often leading to widespread rioting and violence. The number of flashpoints has reduced significantly in the peace process years. July 11 and 12 remain the busiest days of the year for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two-thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million. An Irish woman who had been under a travel ban in Dubai after being charged with attempted suicide has praised the Irish government for its swift work on her case. The travel ban against Tori Towey, a 28-year-old flight attendant from Co Roscommon, was lifted and the charges dropped on Wednesday after the Irish governments and opposition politicians focus on her case. Ms Towey arrived back in Ireland on Thursday and said she was relieved to be back on home soil. Speaking on a live discussion on the social media site X, Ms Towey said she attended a dinner at her cousins house after arriving back home. There was a time where I didnt think it was even possible that I was going to be able to come back at all, she said. She described conditions in a Dubai police station prison, which she spent several hours in, as harrowing and said she could not stop thinking about other women who did not have someone to advocate on their behalf. She said had she taken the legal route to fight the case against her, the situation might have ended up even worse because I would have been stuck over there for a longer time. She said this was because she would have had to pay very high legal fees which could have seen her go into debt, as she could not work under the travel ban, and resulted in more legal cases taken against her. Radha Stirling, of Detained in Dubai, said that court cases can be taken in Dubai against people who fail to pay credit card bills or rent. Ms Towey said: So Im just relieved and I suppose over the next few weeks Im just going to rest and spend time with family and friends and then just go from there. Ms Towey thanked Ms Stirling for her help with her case, as well as Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon-Galway Claire Kerrane, who raised the case with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald. Then Mary Lou within minutes was on the phone to me and so I told her my story and she said Look, Im going to take it to the Dail (Irish parliament), I think, in one hour, Ms Towey said. So then we were watching the Oireachtas live and she brought it to the Dail and then (Irish premier) Simon Harris called me after they had a private meeting and they were straight on it. They kept in touch with us. Any time there was an update, they were phoning us, I know (Irish foreign affairs minister) Micheal Martin was doing a lot behind the scenes as well. They all just worked as a team and they were amazing. Im so grateful to all of them. She said once the Irish government got involved, embassy officials worked day and night on the case and were updating her constantly, sometimes at night. Ms Stirling praised the Irish governments handling of the case and the embassy escort of Ms Towey to the airport in Dubai. She said: I think what was different about Ireland is they reacted so quickly, it wasnt even two days or three days, it was within hours of me contacting other local political representatives and suddenly its already all the way up the chain within just a few hours. That was amazing to see. Beautiful to see the support coming from all of the Irish people and the media. I think it just helped her get through the time. Ms Stirling said she had been contacted by another Irish woman who appeared to be in a similar situation to Ms Towey as a result of the high publicity of the case. She criticised Dubais legal system as old-fashioned and said there needed to be greater awareness around the world of what is an offence. Ms Stirling said: It just hasnt caught up with the buildings and with the shopping malls and the glitz and the glamour. So thats something that they absolutely need to focus on or every couple of months there is just going to be another big viral story like this that outrages the world. She added: I do believe that the travel warnings absolutely should be increased on the Irish embassy website because theyre insufficient. I havent seen a single country that has been sufficient in explaining to citizens what is actually illegal. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Irish premier Simon Harris at Shannon Airport on Saturday. It will be the first bilateral meeting with Mr Zelensky on Irish soil and will focus on Russias ongoing invasion of Ukraine. While discussing the future of the conflict, Mr Harris is expected to express his condolences for the citizens whom Ukraine has lost in the war including the bombing of Ukraines largest childrens hospital earlier this week. He will also express Irelands full support for Ukraines bid towards EU membership. Taoiseach Simon Harris will meet the Ukrainian president (Brian Lawless/PA) Mr Harris, who became Taoiseach in April, will offer further Irish assistance for thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly relocated to Russia and Belarus and entered into Russian re-education programmes since the war began. He will confirm Irelands membership of an international coalition for the return of the estimated 20,000 children. The two leaders last met on the fringes of the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland in June. Mr Zelensky is stopping at Shannon Airport, Co Clare, on his way back from a summit marking the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington. Ireland has provided 250 million euro in non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine under the European Peace Facility and the country has welcomed over 108,000 Ukrainians under the EU Temporary Protection Directive. Irish Defence Forces members have trained 455 Ukrainian personnel in demining, battlefield casualty care and the use of non-lethal mine clearance equipment. Ben & Jerrys maker Unilever is planning to cut up to 3,200 jobs across Europe by the end of next year, after unveiling plans to make the business leaner and more productive. The consumer goods giant earlier this year said it was preparing to axe around 7,500 jobs, amounting to about 6% of its global workforce. Details of the cuts have now emerged as the company kicks off a consultation process with its staff. Unilever told senior executives on Wednesday that it was expecting a net reduction of between 3,000 and 3,200 roles in Europe by the end of 2025, according to details of a company-wide call shared with the Financial Times (FT). The reductions are expected to primarily affect office-based jobs, rather than those at its factories, which include sites in Gloucester and Burton in the UK. Unilever employs about 128,000 employees in countries around the world, including 6,000 in the UK. Its global headquarters is in Blackfriars in London. A spokesperson for the business confirmed that over the next few weeks it would be consulting with employees who may be affected by the changes. We recognise the significant anxiety that these proposals are causing amongst our people, the spokesperson said. We are committed to supporting everyone through these changes, as we go through the consultation process. Unilever which owns dozens of household name brands from Cornetto, Marmite and Pot Noodle to Dove, Comfort and Persil unveiled its plans for an overhaul in March. It said it wanted to become more productive and focused on doing fewer things better. It is hoping to save around 800 million euros (672 million) over the next three years. According to reporting to the FT, Unilever said almost all its European office locations would be equally affected but particularly the corporate centres in London and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after human remains were discovered in relation to a 65-year-old mans disappearance in Kent. Police said a 50-year-old woman was taken into custody on Thursday as part of a missing person investigation relating to Jeremy Rickards, from Canterbury. Mr Rickards was reported missing on July 5 having not been seen since the beginning of June. His family has been informed as officers are working to identify the deceased, after human remains were found at a property in St Martins Road. Anyone with information is urged to contact Kent Police. A spokesman said: The investigation is being carried out by detectives from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate and residents of St Martins Road are advised to expect an ongoing police presence in the area. Authorities on the Hawaiian island of Kauai resumed search operations on Friday after a tour helicopter crashed off the northern coast of the island, leaving at least one person dead and two others missing. The Kauai Police Department first received a report from hikers that a helicopter crashed about a quarter mile offshore along the Na Pali Coast on Thursday at approximately 1:20 p.m., local time, according to the County of Kauai. At 2:25 p.m. one person was found and confirmed dead, while the other two people remained missing, county officials said. Their names have not been released. Multiple agencies have responded to the incident, including the U.S. Coast Guard, the Ocean Safety Bureau and personnel with the island's fire department, emergency management agency and police department, the county government said. Search and rescue operations, led by Kauai officials, were paused at sundown and were expected to resume at "first light on Friday," the county said in a statement. Meanwhile, crews with the U.S. Coast Guard searched through Thursday evening. The helicopter was part of Alii Kauai Air Tours and Charters, which provides private helicopter tours of the island, taking riders over the Waimea Canyon, the rugged Na Pali Coast and dozens of cascading waterfalls, its website says. Sarah Sulick, a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the agency is investigating the crash but did not provide any information about the incident. NTSB investigations focus on the pilot, the aircraft and the operating environment, Sulick said, adding that witness statements, recordings of air traffic control communications, maintenance records and surveillance videos would all be gathered and examined during the investigation. On Thursday, officials in Kauai offered their condolences and prayers to the families of the victims. "We are incredibly sad to hear of the life tragically lost today, and the two other individuals who are still missing, said Kauai County Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami in a statement. While we do not know all the details surrounding the incident at this time, we do know that our first responders are doing everything they can in this emergency operation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all involved. Kauai Police Chief Todd Raybuck said the multi-agency response remains focused on search and rescue. "Our hearts go out to the families impacted by this tragedy," Raybuck said. "We will continue working with our partners to locate the missing individuals and provide support during this difficult time." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Search underway after tour helicopter crashes off Hawaiian coast "When I heard the baby cry, it was a surreal moment," the dispatcher tells PEOPLE. "I couldnt believe that I had just helped someone give birth Courtesy of April Sweatman David Sweatman It was around 4:30 a.m. on Fathers Day 2023 when Atlanta-area 911 dispatcher Stephanie Brito received a phone call from a QuikTrip gas station employee in Henry County, Georgia, informing her that a 28-year-old female at the store was going into labor. A lot of the times when people call in and they say someone's in labor, their water broke and they're just having contractions, says Brito, 26. You walk them through their contractions and wait for the ambulance to arrive. I didn't really think I was going to deliver a baby. That is, until the employee said she could see the babys head, Brito recalls now. Then I was like, This is the real deal. For more amazing birth stories, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now, or subscribe. Working together with the QuikTrip employee, Brito says she tried to comfort the expectant mother and suggested they find a quiet and private place at the gas station for her delivery. We were trying to get her to lay down, and the mom said she felt uncomfortable, says Brito. The mom said she didn't feel comfortable in the bathroom, and then the employee just randomly was like, Well, what about the QuickTrip cooler? So they went to the cooler. About 15 minutes later, the young woman gave birth to a 7-lb., 5-oz. healthy baby boy while standing up in the cooler. She never did lay on the floor, Brito tells PEOPLE. When I heard the baby cry, it was a surreal moment. I couldnt believe that I had just helped someone give birth. Minutes later, paramedics arrived and took mom and child to the hospital. Courtesy of April Sweatman David Sweatman 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. Meanwhile, about 10 hours after the baby was born, Atlanta emergency room nurse April Sweatman received a phone call from her brother, David Dalrymple, 61, a lifelong bachelor, while celebrating Fathers Day with her family at a Thai restaurant. He told me that his girlfriend just had a baby and that the baby was his, Sweatman remembers him saying. He wanted to know if I would be willing to help raise the baby and bring the baby home with us. Neither one of them were able to take care of a baby. Without missing a beat, April says, she and her husband, Charles Sweatman, agreed to accept the baby and immediately drove with their now 9-year-old son, Kaleb, to the hospital. It was a total shock, says April, 49. But we didnt think twice about it. Related: Mom Remembers Giving Birth on Side of the Road as Paramedics Raced to Help: 'No Way This Is Happening' After the birth mother waived her parental rights, April and Charles, a retired Air Force staff sergeant, 52, immediately adopted the baby boy, David, now 13 months, and shared custody with the biological father until his death on Monday, July 8. It just makes little Davids story of life that [much] more poignant, April says of her late brother. Baby David, known by his family as Peanut, is the youngest of the Sweatmans 10 kids four biological and six adopted ranging in age from 1 to 32. He is a ball of energy, April says. He probably has one of the best personalities of all the children weve ever raised. He likes to be the center of attention and wins you over with them big blue eyes. You just cant help but fall in love. Related: Firefighter Helped Mom of 3 Deliver in Her Trunk During Worst Snowstorm of the Year She finds herself gushing: Hes so super smart, she continues. He said his first word at 6 months old and took his first steps at 10 months. And though David started out with a tough start, April says, hes conquered it all. I just truly believe this child is going to go places. I wouldnt trade this little guy for the world. Hes absolutely amazing. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge stemming from his role in the fatal shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin on July 10. Alec Baldwins wife Hilaria seemed overcome with emotion on Friday, July 12, shortly after the actors defense team asked the judge to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge against him. During a break in court proceedings, Baldwin, 66 who is on trial for his role in the accidental and fatal on-set shooting death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in New Mexico in 2021 and Hilaria, 40, left the courtroom and reentered a short time later. Baldwin sat beside his wife in the chairs behind his legal team. Hilaria, with tears in her eyes, hugged her husband for several minutes as she stroked his arm and back. They whispered to each other intimately before Hilaria left the room again. She returned with a Starbucks cup and conferred quietly with Baldwin again. They once again embraced before Baldwin turned back to his defense team. Related: Alec Baldwins Wife Hilaria Has Faith He Will Be Found Not Guilty at End of Stressful Trial (Exclusive Source) He later turned and blew her a kiss. Ross D. Franklin - Pool/Getty Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin on July 10 in court. Earlier on Friday, before the jury was brought into the courtroom, Baldwin attorney Luke Nikas asked Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to drop the case against Baldwin, claiming that prosecutors never notified the defense of ammunition possibly related to the fatal shooting. Were talking about a prosecution that didnt preserve those bullets, that didnt collect them at all. That didnt turn them over, he said. This is critical evidence in the case that was never disclosed to us We were entitled to it, said Nikas. This case should be dismissed, Your Honor. Sommer called in the jury to tell them they were dismissed for the day so she could hear more testimony related to the defenses request. Eddie Moore-Pool/Getty Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer on Feb. 22. Baldwin, who was indicted by a grand jury in January, was rehearsing a scene on the set of the Western when the gun he was holding discharged, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, who recovered from his wounds. Baldwin has insisted he did not pull the trigger or know how the gun contained live ammunition. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 18 months if convicted. His trial is scheduled to last until Friday, July 19. Baldwins brother, Stephen, who has also been showing his support in court, seemed confident the Emmy winner would be not face a trial going forward. It's going to be dismissed, he told someone in the hallway outside of the courtroom. He could also be heard saying on a call, "Some extremely positive events occurring. Thank you for your prayers." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Arkansans for Limited Government, a group trying to expand abortion access in Arkansas, said the secretary of state acted "unlawfully" earlier this week when he rejected the signatures they submitted for a November ballot measure. Republican Secretary of State John Thurston on Wednesday told organizers did not include two statements required by law listing paid canvassers and affirming they were told about the rules for gathering signatures. In a letter to Arkansans for Limited Government, Thurston said the missing documents "require(s) me to reject your submission outright." "Contrary to your claim, AFLG met the requirements," Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, wrote in a letter to Thurston that was released Thursday. Arkansans for Limited Government delivers over 100,000 signatures to the state Capitol to qualify its abortion amendment for the November ballot on June 5, 2024. Arkansans for Limited Government, which submitted 101,525 signatures to qualify its abortion measure for the November ballot, said the committee had submitted the documentation for paid canvassers in late June and again on July 5 with the signatures. More: A fight for abortion rights in America's most pro-life state could ripple across the South "These materials had already been provided to you, and were only provided again in an abundance of caution, even against the insistence of your staff that some of this information was not required," Cowles said. Cowles argues the secretary of state is legally obligated to count and verify the submitted signatures. Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston The Arkansas Secretary of State's office could not be reached for comment. The threshold to qualify was 90,704 signatures. Of the total submitted, 14,135 had been collected by paid canvassers rather than volunteers. "There is nothing new about this," said Howard W. Brill, a University of Arkansas law professor and former chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. A patient from Arkansas sits in the recovery room at the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana on February 13, 2020. Voter-driven ballot initiates in Arkansas frequently face challenges from politicians, Brill said. The extra requirements for paid canvassers were added in 2013, soon after Republicans took control of the state House for the first time in decades. "I've never seen an effort as organized and disciplined as this one," said Janine Parry, an expert on direct democracy at the University of Arkansas. "They prepared for, it looked like, pretty much every contingency." Going forward, she said, "I think it's going to be a bitter, bitter throwdown, probably for a month." Bettina Brownstein, an Arkansas attorney and supporter of the amendment, said that ultimately, the state's Supreme Court will decide whether the abortion ballot measure appears on the November ballot. "I'm very skeptical about this court defying the administration, and the administration is very much against this," she said. This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Arkansas abortion amendment: Backers slam secretary of state Thurston A version of this story appeared in CNNs What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. President Joe Biden said something interesting at his rare news conference Thursday when he was asked if delegates pledged to support him at the Democratic National Convention have his blessing to support another candidate. Theyre free to do whatever they want, Biden said. The president noted he overwhelmingly won Democratic primaries, which is why nearly all of the convention delegates are currently considered to be pledged to him. But then he added this: Tomorrow, if all of a sudden I show up at the convention and everyone says we want someone else, thats the democratic process. Its not going to happen, he added confidently. Biden is correct that the Democrats rules allow delegates to vote for the candidate of their choice. But its a little more complicated than he let on. During the roll call vote that officially selects the nominee, for instance, delegates who dont vote for an acknowledged candidate would have their vote registered as present. Biden, at the moment, will probably be the only acknowledged candidate and in all likelihood will remain the nominee unless he steps aside. Before Bidens news conference I talked to Elaine Kamarck about how Democrats pick nominees. Kamarck knows more than most. She is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively as an academic about the primary process and is also deeply involved with the Democratic Party, where she serves on the Rules and Bylaws Committee. She told me how the process of replacing Biden would work considering nearly all of the 3,949 pledged convention delegates are currently pledged to support him. Whats below are excerpts of a longer conversation conducted by phone. Is it unprecedented for a president to face this kind of challenge? KAMARCK: No, its not unprecedented. You had it with (Jimmy) Carter. An incumbent president who everybody thought was going to lose, and so there was a check to him (by Sen. Edward Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in 1980). Certainly LBJ (in 1968) was forced to step down, or he thought he was forced to step down, by a bad showing in the New Hampshire primary and his inability to win over the trust of the anti-war movement. So, yes, presidents have been in trouble before. Theyve never been in trouble for this reason, and never so late in the process. Is it too late to replace Biden? KAMARCK: No, it is not too late to replace him. Sort of legally, according to party rules, he could be replaced anytime up to the roll call at the convention. Politically, its very hard to replace him, because with the exception of his vice president, none of the people mentioned have risen to national stature. And their ability to talk to the Alabama delegates, as well as the Maine delegates as well as the Utah delegates is very truncated. And they dont have time to develop it. Were just running out of time. (NOTE: Governors like Michigans Gretchen Whitmer, Marylands Wes Moore and Californias Gavin Newsom are popular in their states and seen as potential future presidential candidates.) Vice President Kamala Harris addresses AKA sorority as the campaign seeks to energize Black vote in Dallas, Texas, on July 10. - Shelby Tauber/Reuters So you think the only viable replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris? KAMARCK: Thats right. Thats not according to the rules or anything, but realistically think about who these 4,000 people are. First of all, theyre all very loyal Biden people. So this would require Biden dropping out. Secondly, because shes been a vice president, she knows them, right? My guess is, of those 4,000 people, shes actually met a lot of them. Thats not the case for anybody else whos been mentioned. The 2028 bench is a very strong bench, which is good for the party, but none of them have gotten out of their states yet. Who are the delegates to the DNC who select the partys nominee? KAMARCK: In most states, theyre elected in congressional district conventions, which follow the primary. (They) file to run as delegates, and then they show up at a certain high school or someplace in their district, bringing as many of their friends and colleagues and supporters as they can. Theyre nominated, and they run for the delegate slots. Everybody is elected. And this is very important, because theres a lot of bullsh** running around about this being a group of elites. These people are the social studies teacher whos an active union member. These people are a leader in the pro-choice movement, or theyre a county commissioner or a state delegate or something like that. These people tend to be local notables, and they tend to be very politically astute and politically active, because theyve got to run and get elected. (NOTE: There is also a much smaller group of superdelegates, or automatic delegates, who get delegate status due to their position in the party, but who do not vote for the presidential nominee on the first ballot at the convention unless there is a consensus nominee.) How strong is the 3,949 delegates pledge or commitment to Joe Biden? KAMARCK: The rule says and the rule has been in effect since the 1984 convention, so its long-standing that delegates shall, and the operative words are, in all good conscience vote for the person they were selected to represent. Its never been tested. Theres no legal history on what in all good conscience means. Does it mean you just suddenly dont like the guy? I think probably not. Does it mean you think hes going to lose and the party will lose? We dont really know what it means because, since it was put in the rules and the robot rule died, this has never happened. Weve never had a convention where a lot of people voted against the person that they got elected with. (NOTE: Kamarck writes more for Brookings Thursday about the in good conscience clause and what preceded it, the so-called robot rule, by which delegates were expected to act, essentially, like robots for the candidate who won their states primary.) When were the most recent convention fights? KAMARCK: You can go to 1980. The Carter-Kennedy fight was a big fight. It was a real fight on the convention floor. It was bitter. It was angry. Kennedy brought a lot of stuff to the table. In the end, Carter prevailed, but he fought it out. In 1976 with the Republicans, Reagan challenged President Ford. That was a great, big fight. They were very close in delegates, and Reagan lost narrowly and then conceded. Those are the two big ones. You dont have to go way back in history to see conventions where there was a fight for the nomination. Should Democrats be talking about all of this right now? KAMARCK: I think we have to be talking about this. And I think we have to be looking at him carefully. None of us get to see the president every single day, so its very, very hard, and thats why I think Democrats are taking their time to think about this. I went to the Democratic congressional retreat in February, sat 20 feet away from the president and watched him answer questions from Democratic members of the House. He was fantastic. I didnt see any signs of mental fatigue or fogginess or anything like that. I thought he was fantastic. That very day that I was there, the Hur report came out. It was a very surreal experience to see this report come across the wires on my phone, and to be watching the man who was quite in command of everything. I think theres a human element to this that everybodys missing, which is that these things can develop quickly. Its really hard to tell how serious it is when youre not with him every day. And so people are being cautious. What would the roll call look like? Its not clear what Democrats roll call will look like at the moment. The Democratic Party is considering a proposal to do a virtual roll call vote weeks before the Chicago convention is set to begin. That plan was originally hatched as a way to comply with an early ballot access deadline in Ohio. In the meantime, Ohio passed a law loosening that deadline. Party leaders may yet carry on with the plan as a way to squash questions about Biden. Read more about that from CNNs Arit John and Ethan Cohen. Democrats who sit on various committees will make those decisions at meetings in the coming weeks. The process for roll call votes is spelled out in a document, the Call for Convention, which spells out the technical rules that do not begin to seem important unless Biden drops out and the nomination is contested. Candidates for president must be nominated, for instance, by between 300-600 delegates, although not more than 50 per state. Superdelegates are restricted from voting in the first round of voting, but only if there is not a consensus nominee. A simple majority of delegates can select a nominee. Et cetera. It should be noted, though, that any of these rules can be changed by a majority of the convention. KAMARCK: The fact of the matter is that these people will descend on Chicago around August 19 and the convention will begin. And everything that goes on between now and then is just straight old politics. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com You probably hear more about heart attacks than strokes. A stroke is like the brains version of a heart attack and is also life-threatening. When the blood flow to the heart is blocked, we call it a heart attack. And when blood flow to the brain gets blocked, we call it a stroke. Strokes are the fifth most common cause of death in the United States, according to the American Stroke Association. And your risk goes up as you age: About two-thirds of strokes happen in people over 65. Someone has a stroke every 40 seconds, and someone dies every 3.5 minutes, says Carlos S. Ince Jr., M.D. He is a cardiologist at the Heart Center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. Your brain controls your movement, speech, behavior, and emotions. It stores your memories, controls your breathing and heart rate, and much more. Thats why damage from a stroke can be so serious. The good news: Early treatment can minimize the brain damage of a stroke and save someones life. Here are answers to some common questions about the causes, symptoms, and treatment of a stroke. What happens when you have a stroke? When someone has a stroke, a blood vessel to the brain bursts or is blocked by a clot. The result: Part of the brain cannot get the oxygen and nutrients it needs from blood, so brain cells die. Its a brain attack, says Dr. Ince. When there is a disruption of blood flow to a specific area of the brain, it damages the brain tissue. It disrupts the functioning of what that part of the brain controls. The brain damage caused by a stroke can lead to serious problem such as: Cognitive issues (memory lapses, difficulty solving problems) Difficulty swallowing and eating Muscle weakness or paralysis, often on one side of the body Problems with speech, reading, and writing Vision changes Because one side of your brain controls the opposite side of your body, a stroke on the right side of your brain will affect the left side of your body, and vice versa. There are two types of strokes, according to the National Institutes of Health: Ischemic stroke happens when blood clots or plaque block blood vessels to the brain. About 87% of strokes are ischemic, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Hemorrhagic stroke happens when an artery in the brain leaks blood or breaks open. The leaked blood puts pressure on brain cells and damages them. You can also have a mini stroke, called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA. This happens when there is a blockage, but it breaks up before causing any damage to the brain. How do I know if Im at risk of having a stroke? Risk factors for stroke are similar to those for a heart attack, says Dr. Ince. They include: Age: You can have a stroke at any age, but your chances go up as you get older. According to the CDC, your risk of stroke doubles every decade after you turn 55. Genetics and family history: You may have a higher risk if someone in your family has had a stroke, especially if they had it at a young age. Genetics can also up the chances youll have issues linked to stroke. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. High blood pressure: According to the CDC, this is a leading cause of stroke. And many people dont know they have high blood pressure. Thats why its important to get your blood pressure checked regularly and get on medication and make lifestyle changes to bring your levels down, if necessary. High cholesterol: In particular, elevated LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol can build up your arteries, increasing your stroke risk. Heart disease: Problems with your heart and arteries can increase your risk of plaque buildup or blood clots that can cause a stroke. Diabetes: High blood sugar can cause damage to blood vessels, which can increase your risk of stroke. How can I tell if Im having a stroke, or if someone else is? Time matters when it comes to strokes. The sooner a stroke victim gets treated, the less brain damage is likely to happen. So, its important to recognize the signs of a stroke. Symptoms depend on the type of stroke and what part of the brain is being affected. According to Dr. Ince and the CDC, common signs include: Sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body and/or face Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or difficulty understanding what others are saying Problems with coordination or walking Trouble seeing in one or both eyes Sudden severe headaches with no known cause If youre a woman, youll also want to look out for these additional symptoms: Disorientation and confusion or memory problems Fatigue General weakness Nausea or vomiting If you think someone might be having a stroke, remember the FAST test: Face: Ask the person to smile and notice if one side of the face droops. Arms: Ask the person to raise both arms and notice if one arm drifts downward. Speech: Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase and notice if their speech is slurred. Time: If you notice any of these signs, call 911 right away. Its best to call an ambulance so that emergency workers can begin life-saving treatment on the way to the hospital, says Dr. Ince. Do not hesitate. Earlier attention and treatment usually result in better outcomes. How are strokes treated in the short term? At the ER, your care team will decide on a treatment plan. That will depend on whether the stroke was ischemic or hemorrhagic, how much time has passed since symptoms began, and if you have other medical conditions. The most common treatment for ischemic stroke is injecting a medicine into a vein in your arm that breaks up blood clots. You must get to hospital within the first three hours of noticing symptoms to get clot-busting drugs. Some strokes may also require surgery to open or repair blood vessels. What are the long-term effects of a stroke? There are many health issues that can emerge after a stroke, depending on the region of the brain affected by the stroke. If the stroke affects the parts of your brain that control movement, then you can have problems with movement like partial paralysis or difficulty walking. If the stroke affects parts of your brain involved with speech and language, you might have problems speaking or understanding speech. If the stroke affects the parts of your brain involved in vision, that can lead to problems noticing things in parts of your visual field, or figuring out exactly what you are looking at. And most of the time when youre recovering from a stroke, youll notice that your brain speed, attention, and memory arent what they used to be. These broad cognitive issues dont necessarily relate to the exact area of the brain damaged by the stroke. They seem to emerge because the overall health of the brain, including the network that connects brain regions to one another, isnt as good after a stroke. How can my brain recover after a stroke? Theres a wide spectrum of success in recovery. Some people never recover and have permanent deficits, and some recover fully, says Dr. Ince. A lot depends on the size and location of the stroke and how quickly you get medical attention. Recovery also depends on rehabilitation. With help from the right rehabilitation specialist, you can work on and improve many of these issues. For example: Working with a physical therapist can help improve challenges with walking, by intensive practice with balance and movement Working with a speech therapist can help with speech issues, by helping you relearn how to produce speech sounds and find words Working with an occupational therapist can help you with day-to-day tasks, such as dressing and bathing, by breaking those tasks down into elemental parts and then helping you relearn how to put them together into complete actions Rehabilitation works through brain plasticity the intensive practice, breaking down tasks into elemental parts, and relearning all drive brain rewiring. A stroke damages the brain. Rehabilitation can help the brain relearn how to do a real-world task. How? By training a nearby part of the brain to take over the work that the damaged part of the brain used to do. New research also shows a role for computerized cognitive training. The American Heart Associations most recent guidelines for stroke rehabilitation show promising results from using a brain training program under the guidance of a clinician as part of a comprehensive rehabilitation program. Clinician-guided rehabilitation works by helping you relearn how to do specific tasks that were affected by the damaged region of your brain. And computerized cognitive training may help with stroke recovery by improving the broad functional networks in your brain that contribute to the building blocks of cognitive skills. These include brain speed, attention, and memory. Stroke recovery can be a long journey, but it is possible to live a long and independent life after stroke. Talk with your care team about your treatment and therapy options. Looking for more ways to build a healthy brain? Try BrainHQ, a brain-training program designed by leading scientists that rewires the brain to help you think faster, focus better, and remember more. And it may be included at no cost with your Medicare Advantage plan. Check your eligibility today. Additional sources: Stroke statistics: American Stroke Association Stroke over 65: Cleveland Clinic Types of strokes: National Institutes of Health Age and stroke: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Symptoms of a stroke: American Heart Association Ischemic stroke statistic: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Study on BrainHQ training and stroke recovery: Neurology TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A federal judge in Kansas has refused to block the nationwide enforcement of a Biden administration rule requiring firearms dealers to do background checks of buyers at gun shows, leaving Texas as the only state so far where a legal challenge has succeeded. U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse's ruling this week came in a lawsuit brought by Kansas and 19 other states, three individual gun collectors and a Wichita, Kansas-based association for collectors. They sought an order preventing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from enforcing the rule that took effect in May through the trial of their lawsuit. Twenty-six states with Republican attorneys general, gun owner groups and individual gun collectors filed three federal lawsuits in May against the Biden administration. The rule is an attempt to close a loophole allowing tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers without checks to see whether buyers are legally prohibited from having firearms. It applies not only to gun shows but also to other places outside brick-and-mortar firearms stores. Critics contend the new rule violates gun rights protected by the Second Amendment and that Democratic President Joe Biden's administration doesn't have the legal authority to issue it. They also argue that the rule will depress gun sales, making firearms less available to collectors and costing states tax revenues. But Crouse, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said in his ruling Wednesday that predictions of harm to the states, gun collectors and groups are too speculative and create doubts that they actually have grounds to sue. He said such doubts undermine their argument that they are likely to win their lawsuit a key question for the courts in deciding whether to block a rule or law ahead of a trial. While they may ultimately succeed on the merits, they have failed to make a strong showing that they are substantially likely to do so, Crouse wrote. Crouse's ruling contrasts one from another Trump appointee in Texas before the rule took effect. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk blocked its enforcement in that state and against members of four groups, including Gun Owners of America. But Kacsmaryk didn't block it in three other states that joined Texas in its lawsuit Louisiana, Mississippi and Utah. Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court there, but a judge has yet to rule. The states also sued U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the U.S. Department of Justice and the ATF's director. The DOJ declined to comment Friday on Crouse's ruling. Phil Journey, one of the gun collectors involved in the Kansas case, said he doesnt know whether Crouses ruling will be appealed. I am confident the rule and perhaps the underlying statute will ultimately be voided, Journey, a former Kansas state senator whos now a state district court judge in Wichita, said in a text. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach also said in a statement that he expects the rule ultimately to be struck down. This is a very early stage in a case that is likely to continue for a long time unless President Trump is elected and immediately rescinds the rule, Kobach said. In the lawsuit before Crouse, Kansas was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. The lawsuit originally was filed in federal court in Arkansas, with that state also suing. But in ruling just days after the rule took effect, U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr., an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said Arkansas had no standing to sue because its argument that it could lose tax revenue was too speculative. Moody then transferred the case to Kansas. The number of calls for Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race has increased nearly every day since his politically calamitous debate performance on June 27. The list includes business-world figures from former top Big Tech CEOs to Democratic lawmakers as well as Hollywood celebrities who had previously supported, and financially backed, the president's run for a second term. The most prominent donor voice yet to call for Biden to step aside is George Clooney. The actor has helped put millions into Biden's campaign coffers but recently said in a New York Times essay he has witnessed Bidens decline. The president, he added, isnt "even the Joe Biden of 2020." The president isn't the Joe Biden he once knew: George Clooney in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images) (Dia Dipasupil via Getty Images) The challenges for Biden's campaign were underscored once again Thursday. Despite an overall strong performance that allayed some fears, President Biden ended a NATO summit with multiple verbal miscues. At one point he introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin before quickly correcting himself. He followed that with a press conference, during which he effectively parried questions for nearly an hour on his age and other topics, but also misspoke again and, at one point, called Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. Both flubs fairly or not took on an outsized importance and trended on social media, quickly bouncing among the worried networks of Bidens supporters mulling a break with the president. Another finance world figure and a former Chuck Schumer insider came on Yahoo Finance this week to make the case Biden should withdraw. "I would tell him to step down so he doesn't have to withdraw," Tusk Venture Partners founder and CEO Bradley Tusk said on the Opening Bid podcast, adding that Bidens odds of winning are now "very, very low." All told, as of Friday afternoon, at least 20 Democratic lawmakers, as well as numerous other prominent figures, have called on Biden to step aside, according to various trackers and reports. On the other side, over four dozen Democratic lawmakers and governors have offered supportive statements for Biden, with others expressing concern about his ability to win, but not yet calling on him to withdraw. Whether the list continues to grow in the coming days remains to be seen, but heres the current tally of who is calling on Biden to step aside. Major donors The Clooney announcement highlighted the role of two key groups who at the moment are providing defectors from Bidens reelection campaign: Hollywood celebrities and major Democratic donors. Clooney is both. The Oscar winner recently helped organize a gala fundraiser for Biden that netted over $30 million for the presidents campaign. It was at that event that Clooney said he saw in Biden "the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Other big names and longtime Democratic donors have also weighed in, from Netflix (NFLX) co-founder Reed Hastings to director Rob Reiner to novelist Stephen King. Still a Biden fan: Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images) Another powerful Hollywood figure asking Biden to drop out is screenwriter Damon Lindelof. He made an extended argument for Biden leaving the race in a recent Deadline essay, saying, I am not writing this anonymously because Im asking others in positions of influence to do the same. Abigail Disney, granddaughter of the Disney (DIS) founder, said she would withhold further donations until Biden drops out. Another blow to Bidens fundraising came Friday when a group of major Democratic donors told the largest pro-Biden super-PAC they were freezing roughly $90 million in pledged donations, per the New York Times. Former Paypal and Intuit (INTU) CEO Bill Harris, according to the Washington Post, is even calling for Biden to step aside and organizing a small group of Democratic donors to fund a "mini primary" complete with debates if President Biden makes that decision. Biden defender: Reid Hoffman in San Francisco in 2023 (Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED) (Kimberly White via Getty Images) Despite the uproar, other Biden mega-donors are staying put. For now. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman has given Biden-allied groups over $9 million so far this campaign. He has repeatedly offered supportive words. But even he acknowledged that some of his colleagues appear to be pulling away from Biden. Silicon Valley, maybe even more vigorously than most places in the world, tends to focus on leaders, he said in a Wired interview before defending both Biden's acuity as well as the team around him. The overall effect on Biden's fundraising won't fully be known for weeks. Biden and his team counter the narrative of fundraising woes by saying Biden raised $33 million in the days after the debate, much of it from grassroots supporters. Still, more recent reports suggest fundraising has slowed. Finance-minded members of Congress Biden has also been losing the support of Democratic lawmakers central to economic policy with strong ties to the business world. Perhaps most closely watched was the former House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who offered a widely noted assessment on MSNBC Wednesday seen as a signal to donors and fellow Democrats looking to break with Biden. She said "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." "Time is running short." Rep. Nancy Pelosi talks with reporters in the US Capitol following the presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on June 28. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Tom Williams via Getty Images) Others have been more direct. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who began his career at Goldman Sachs, said in a statement just after the NATO conference that we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden." Himes remains closely involved in economic issues and serves on the House Financial Services Committee. Another finance-minded lawmaker who announced he wanted Biden out after the NATO conference was Rep. Scott Peters of California. A member of two key committees Energy and Commerce as well as the Budget Committee Peters has been endorsed previously by the Chamber of Commerce. Freshman Rep. Brittany Pettersen another Financial Services committee member joined the calls Friday asking Biden to pass the torch. Julian Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary, called on Biden to drop out of the race quickly after the debate and reiterated his critique Thursday after Bidens NATO events. Sherrod Brown is the chair of the Senates powerful Banking Committee. He has generally dodged questions on Biden in recent days but reportedly has told colleagues he doesnt believe Biden can win the election. This post was updated on July 12. Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Click here for politics news related to business and money Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance King Charles III met with actor Idris Elba to discuss youth violence and opportunity on Friday. As an alum of The King's Trust, formerly The Prince's Trust, Elba, 51, has been involved in the charity's work to support youth. On Friday, the English actor and DJ spoke with the king about ongoing and new projects, including a new Creative Futures initiative, which will support opportunities and jobs for young people in the arts, Buckingham Palace announced. The pair attended a roundtable discussion with youth and youth organizations on creating positive opportunities to address youth violence in the United Kingdom. King Charles III, left, meets with Idris Elba during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in London on July 12, 2024. "The Wire" actor's Elba Hope Foundation has also worked with The Prince's Trust International on projects in Sierra Leone, according to the palace. As a teen, Elba received a 1,500 grant (about $1,944) from The Prince's Trust to attend the National Youth Music Theatre, a private theater school and charity in London. King Charles III, left, meets with Idris Elba during an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunities, at St James's Palace in London on July 12, 2024. Idris Elba, royal wedding DJ, says Duchess Meghan gave him specific playlist for reception The Trust was founded by Charles, 75, in 1976, to assist disadvantaged U.K. youth with life skills and job and education opportunities. The King's Trust International, formerly The Prince's Trust International, has worked to address youth unemployment worldwide since 2015. King Charles III, center, with Idris Elba, center left, and young people hold England football team shirts as they attend an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunity, at St James's Palace on July 12, 2024, in London. King Charles III, back center, Idris Elba, back center right, and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, left, at an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunity, at St James's Palace on July 12, 2024, in London. Elba, who became an officer of the order of the British Empire in 2016, founded his Elba Hope Foundation with his wife, Sabrina Elba. The foundation's mission is to promote economic and educational opportunities for youth in marginalized and underserved communities, especially Africans and the African Diaspora. The "Luther" actor has been a vocal advocate for youth and has called for the British government to better address youth violence. In January, he called on the government to ban serrated knives and machetes in order to reduce knife crimes in Britain. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Idris Elba, King Charles meet about youth violence: Photos After seven months of extravagant pre-wedding celebrations, Anant Ambani, the son of Indias richest man, completed his long-awaited marriage to pharmaceutical heiress Radhika Merchant before thousands of guests on Friday. Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra and former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson were just some of the famous faces who flew in to Mumbai to attend the star-studded event. The wedding also attracted many of the biggest names in Indian entertainment, sport, business and politics, from Bollywood stars like Rajinikanth and Sanjay Dutt, to former president Ram Nath Kovind, the chief ministers of various states and numerous members of the countrys revered cricket team. No expense was spared by the Ambanis, the family behind Indias largest private corporation, Reliance Industries. Founded by Anants grandfather, the conglomerate is now run by his father Mukesh, who is worth over $122 billion, according to Forbes. In a rain-soaked Mumbai, police closed roads in the area surrounding the Ambani-owned, 16,000-capacity Jio World Convention Center ahead of a red-carpet-style arrival event. Attendees dressed the part, streaming past photographers in custom sarees, lehengas and kurtas at an event that may set forthcoming trends in Indian wedding fashion. International guests also honored the traditional dress code, with many seen wearing designs by major Indian fashion designers. John Cena walked the red carpet in an embroidered sky blue sherwani and white pants, while Jonas sparkled in a baby pink version made from a boucle-style woven fabric embedded with sequins and matching satin trousers. Jonas arrived with his wife and actor, Priyanka Chopra, who opted for an intricately embellished sunshine yellow lehengai. The fashion crowd were out in full force too. Zendayas longtime stylist Law Roach arrived in a mauve velvet jacket, purple tunic and a pair of Schiaparelli gold toed shoes, while designer and New York Fashion Week staple Prabal Gurung wore a rose-colored sherwani and aviator sunglasses. Kim and Khloe Kardashian, who skipped the red carpet entirely, were seen on social media dressed in gold and red saris respectively. Kims ensemble featured an off-the-shoulder tasseled bodice, whereas Khloe opted for long, ornate sleeves, stacked necklaces and an opulent maang tikka. In an Instagram story, Kim teased that their film crew was in tow for an episode of their show The Kardashians. John Cena arrived in an embroidered blue sherwani. - Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters Stylist Law Roach paired his traditional Indian ensemble with a pair of Schiaparelli shoes. - Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters Actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was glittering in jewels for the nuptials. - Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters Once inside the venue, which was transformed into a miniature version of the holy Indian city of Varanasi, celebrities including Chopra and Cena were seen dancing and letting loose. Footage widely shared on social media also showed members of the Ambani family dancing on stage with Indian singer, Daler Mehndi. The nights other performers included Afrobeats star Rema, who performed his hit song Calm Down. As for the couple itself, the groom first arrived on the red carpet in a golden sherwani paired with sneakers, which he later changed for the ceremony. The bride dazzled in hand-embroidered bridal couture by the Indian label Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla. Merchant followed the Gujarati tradition of wearing red and white in an opulent red-trimmed ivory ensemble. It featured a 16-foot-long veil adorned with stones and sequins and a long ghagra, or traditional skirt, with a nearly seven-foot-long detachable train, according to her stylist Rhea Kapoor, who shared a first look on Instagram. Ahead of her vidai, the ceremony in which Indian brides symbolically bid farewell to their relatives before joining their grooms family, Merchant changed into an opulent red and gold outfit featuring a woven blouse, lehenga, veil and embroidered head covering. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Blair arrived on the red carpet in classic Indian attire. - Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters In a video posted to social media on Friday morning, Anants mother Nita Ambani recounted a recent trip to Varanasi, in Indias Uttar Pradesh state, where she sought blessings for the pair. She said she hoped to reimagine and present the purity, positivity and beauty of Varanasi at the wedding, adding that the event would pay a tribute to Indias glorious culture and heritage, brought to life by thousands of artisans weavers and craftspeople. It was also revealed that the gown Nita Ambani wore on the event red carpet took more than 40 days to create. The custom peach silk ghagra was designed by couture house Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla and artisans Vijay Kumar and Monika Maurya. A lavish affair The Ambani family has remained tight-lipped about proceedings in the build-up to Fridays wedding, though rumors about the guest list and the identity of star performers have swirled in recent weeks. Local press and Indian social media users have also pored over speculation over everything from the dinner menu to the items of jewelry that might be on display from the familys sizable collection. One of Indias best-known fashion designers, Manish Malhotra, served as the events creative director. The celebrated couturier produced bespoke outfits for various members of the Ambani family throughout the month-long wedding celebrations. Each detail, from the decor and cuisine to the attire and ambiance; each event is designed to immerse guests in an atmosphere of joy, love and celebration, he told CNN via e-mail ahead of the wedding. From left to right, Anant Ambani alongside his father Mukesh Ambani and mother Nita, whose dress took artisans 40 days to handcraft. - Sujit Jaiswal/AFP/Getty Images In the days leading up to Fridays ceremony, the couple took part in several traditional pre-wedding rituals. Justin Bieber performed at the pairs sangeet, a night of music and dance, last Friday. The couple then attended a private haldi ceremony, which traditionally sees friends and family bless the bride and groom by applying a turmeric paste to their heads, faces or bodies. As per Hindu tradition, the wedding dates were reportedly chosen according to auspicious days on the bride and grooms birth charts. A Brown University graduate, 29-year-old Anant Ambani is Mukeshs youngest child and serves as director at an energy business operated by Reliance. His bride Radhika Merchant, also 29, is the daughter of Viren and Shaila Merchant, the founders of pharmaceutical company Encore Healthcare. It is not known precisely how much money the Ambani family has spent on the pairs wedding celebrations. Industry estimates have placed the total firmly in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with musical performers reported to be receiving seven- or even eight-figure sums. On the streets of Mumbai, residents spoken to by Reuters had mixed feelings about the extravagant event and the wealth on display. Its their wealth but it is beyond ridiculous what they are doing, said preschool teacher Devanshi Zaveri, adding: Theres no need to show off that much. Banker Jenica Kothari meanwhile welcomed the boost to local businesses: Its helping the economy, its helping everyone So, I think if they have the money, they should spend it. Local hotel rates reportedly soared as the thousands of guests prepared to jet to Mumbai, a financial hub that serves as Indias commercial capital. Months of celebrations Festivities are set to continue through the weekend at the Ambani familys soaring 27-story Mumbai residence, Antilia. Saturday is expected to see a Shubh Ashirwad, or divine blessings ceremony, while a Sunday reception (with an Indian chic dress code) will give guests a final chance to celebrate with the couple. Kim and Khloe Kardashian are seen arriving at the Ambani wedding on Friday. - MEGA/GC Images/Getty Images The weekend schedule concludes seven months of build-up to what has been described as Indias wedding of year. Celebrations kicked off with a celebrity-filled engagement party in January. Two months later, the Ambanis hosted a communal dinner for more than 50,000 villagers and a 1,200-guest pre-wedding bash attended by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump featuring a rare live performance by Rihanna. In May, the family then chartered a cruise ship to take guests on a four-day trip around the Mediterranean. The schedule included multiple stops through Europe and on-deck concerts from the Backstreet Boys and Pitbull, among others. Anants older sister, Isha, also held a lavish wedding in 2018. Her marriage to businessman Anand Piramal was watched by celebrities, politicians and business tycoons, while her pre-wedding bash featured an intimate private concert by Beyonce. CNNs Rhea Mogul, Esha Mitra, Gladys Tsai, Wayne Chang and Will Ripley contributed to this story. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com President Joe Biden is launching a delayed outreach campaign to key groups of lawmakers the kind of effort Democrats have long called for after he met Thursday with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries following the presidents closely watched solo news conference. In the meeting, Jeffries directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together, the New York Democrat wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Friday. But Jeffries did not offer Biden one key thing: His endorsement. A person familiar with the meeting said Jeffries bluntly shared the views of the caucus as he stated in his letter but intentionally did not offer an endorsement or say publicly that the decision is Bidens to make. While it is uncertain if Biden directly asked Jeffries for his tacit endorsement, a person familiar with the matter said, Jeffries did not extend it at the meeting or in the public letter released Friday morning. Following the conversation, the president has embarked on a series of calls to key groups of Democratic lawmakers the kind of enterprise that many in Congress asked him to make weeks ago following his disastrous debate performance. CNN reported Friday that Biden had calls with the political wings of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday and a Saturday virtual meeting with both the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to sources familiar with those meetings. Ahead of those meetings, defections in Bidens Democratic coalition in Congress continued. Bidens performance during his news conference, which lasted just under an hour and during which he fielded 19 questions from reporters on topics ranging from his mental capabilities to foreign policy, was much stronger than his appearance during the CNN presidential debate, but it did not stem the steady stream of House Democrats coming out against Bidens efforts to seek a second term. More than a dozen Democratic House members and at least one Democratic senator have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from his reelection campaign. That list includes multiple House members in the nations most competitive congressional districts, but also senior Democrats on influential committees and members in safely Democratic seats. One of those Democrats, Rep. Mike Levin of California, told Biden directly on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus call that he should step aside, according to someone briefed on the call, which Biden joined an hour late. Its the first time CNN has reported on a member of Congress directly telling Biden to drop out of the race. Biden responded saying that it was important for him to get out in front of people and let them know that he was still moving well and healthy, according to a source briefed on the call. Dozens of other Democrats have stopped short of calling for Biden to end his campaign, but have either expressed concerns about Bidens chances, said hell lose out right or remain publicly undecided. Still, more than 70 members of the House and Senate have publicly reaffirmed their support for Biden as the partys presidential nominee following his disastrous debate performance late last month. The top Democrats in Congress Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Jeffries have made a series of public statement supporting Bidens bid this week. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi who remains in Congress and is among the most influential members of the party has privately expressed her concerns, CNN reported Thursday night. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler acknowledged anxiety from Capitol Hill, but insisted Biden will continue outreach to lawmakers to shore up his support. Does there continue to be anxiety? Yes, we understand that, the president understands that, he said. Thats why hes gonna continue to engage with folks on the Hill, thats why weve engaged with governors, mayors across the country, the vast majority of whom are firmly behind Joe Biden and understand the stakes in this election Biden on Thursday night was able to provide incisive remarks on everything from Israel to Russia to China to gun control in the United States. But he also had two notable flubs: During a NATO event before the presser, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin, and repeated a similar mistake during the presser, using Donald Trumps name to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris. The evening served as a sort of Rorschach test for Democrats feelings on Biden. Those who remain firmly in his corner seized on his extended answers on wonky foreign policy issues to prove he still has what it takes to lead the country effectively, while his Democratic doubters used his verbal miscues to reinforce their calls for someone to replace the president on the top of the ticket. Biden, for his part, came off as chastened during the news conference and was less defiant than in previous appearances. While he told ABCs George Stephanopoulos last week that only the Lord Almighty could convince him to remove himself from the race, Biden on Thursday night opened the door for other scenarios in which he would drop out of the contest. Pressed on whether he might reconsider his stance if he was shown data that had Harris performing better against Trump, he offered some openness to that possibility. No, unless they came back and said theres no way you can win, Biden said. A Biden ally who has spoken with the president multiple times following the June 27 debate told CNN that since that ABC News interview, concerns about the Lord Almighty comments have been conveyed to the president. Are you really so absolutely inflexible that even if we brought you compelling polling, you wouldnt move? is how the ally described the feedback that has been shared with Biden. And it has been impressed upon the president, they said, that its important for him to continue to show openness. The source acknowledged that Biden heard the criticism and appears to be shifting his approach by trying to turn down his instinct of: Youre not going to push me aside. He heard that level of fierce determination was misread by folks and hes not an arrogant man, the source said, adding, he was genuinely surprised by the criticism. Bidens campaign, meanwhile, has bluntly acknowledged the challenges it has faced since his debate performance two weeks ago. Biden campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon acknowledged to staff in a call Thursday that the period after Bidens disastrous debate performance have been hard, very bad and bad f***ing weeks, a source who was on the call said. Some of the details of what OMalley Dillon said were first reported by Axios. OMalley Dillon acknowledged when she fumbled words that she had not slept much recently. She tried to rally the troops on this call after first bluntly accepting that the most recent stretch has been deeply challenging, the source said. Her case, as this source described it, was: Its not just that we feel like we can win. We have a plan to get there. She laid out both external and internal polling numbers, and made the case that the data still backs up that Biden can defeat Trump. OMalley Dillon argued to her team that the Biden reelection campaign is going through a moment that they are built for, and that it is because of the team that the president would ultimately win. This story has been updated with additional reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia does not rule out any scenarios regarding the possible resumption of the now-defunct Black Sea grain deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. On Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, speaking after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said they had discussed navigational security in the Black Sea, including the grain deal. Russia allowed the Turkish- and United Nations-brokered deal, which for a year facilitated Russian and Ukrainian agricultural exports via the Black Sea, to expire in July 2023. At the time, it said that it would only renew the deal if obstacles to its own agricultural goods reaching world markets were lifted. Asked about a possible renewal of the deal on Friday in light of Erdogan's comments, Peskov said: "The Kremlin does not rule out any agreements. The Kremlin has said, President (Vladimir) Putin has repeatedly said, that he is open to dialogue." Peskov said any agreement on grain would have to be reached as part of a package of issues "within the general context of the current situation". (Reporting by ReutersWriting by Felix Light/Maxim RodionovEditing by Andrew Osborn) Proving that not all heroes require much, if any, clothing, let alone capes, a duo of nudists helped rescue a tourist who was being menaced by a blowtorch-wielding man last week in San Francisco. The two men, Pete Sferra of San Jose and Lloyd Fishback of San Francisco, were taking a naked walk through the citys Castro neighborhood on July 2 when they encountered a man they described to the San Francisco Standard as a crazy kind of pirate guy threatening another man with a blowtorch. A video taken by an eyewitness showed the attacker menacing a tourist on a crowded sidewalk before another bystander snatched the blowtorch out of his hand. The attacker then began punching the tourist repeatedly before being tackled to the ground by Fishback in a decidedly clothing-free scuffle. Fishback followed that up with a slap to the attackers face, who then began to walk away as passers by, both clothed and nude, looked on. More: In major decision, Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps Castro residents said suspect is well-known in area Identified as 38-year-old Zero Triball, the attacker was arrested by San Francisco police and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, according to San Francisco County court records. Castro neighborhood residents described Triball to the San Francisco Standard as a well known disruptive presence in the area, with Terry Asten Bennett, president of the Castro Merchants Association, telling the publication that Triball was erratic and violent. Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nudist duo helps save tourist being attacked in San Francisco A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. While the attacks have slowed, they have not stopped completely, fueling concern from wildlife experts about the impact on threatened species nesting along the coast. Veronica Welsh, a wildlife coordinator at the Parks Department, said the birds were very annoyed by the drones from the moment they arrived on the beach. They will fly at it, theyll swoop at it, theyll be vocalizing, Welsh said. They think theyre defending their chicks from a predator. No birds have been harmed, but officials say there have been several close calls. The drones, which come equipped with inflatable life rafts that can be dropped on distressed swimmers, have yet to conduct any rescues. They spotted their first shark on Thursday, resulting in a closure of most of the beach. City officials said the swarming incidents have been primarily carried out by American oystercatchers. The shorebird, known for its striking orange bill, lays its eggs this time of year in the sand on Rockaway Beach. While its population has improved in recent decades, federal authorities consider the species a high conservation concern. The birds eventually may grow habituated to the devices, which can stretch over 3 feet (nearly a meter) long and emit a loud hum as they take flight, said David Bird, a professor of wildlife biology at McGill University. But he was quick to raise a far more dire possibility: that the drones could prompt a stress response in some birds that causes them to flee the beach and abandon their eggs, as several thousand elegant terns did following a recent drone crash in San Diego. We dont know a lot about what sort of distance is required to protect the birds, he said. But we do know there are birds on this beach that are highly endangered. If they abandon their nests because of the drones, that would be a disaster. On Rockaway Beach, a popular summertime destination for New Yorkers, American oystercatchers share their habitat with multiple tern species of water birds, as well as piping plovers, a small, sand-colored bird that is the citys only federally designated endangered species. Local officials closely monitor the plovers each summer, barring beachgoers and drones from the stretches of sand where they primarily nest. An FDNY drone pilot scans the shoreline for signs of struggling swimmers, sharks and other hazards at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. - Seth Wenig/AP The citys Emergency Management Department, which also flies drones over the beach, flagged the coastal conflict last month to other drone operators in the police and fire department, who agreed to launch the devices further from oystercatcher nesting areas. We pointed out that theres a nest here and theres two angry parents who dont want you anywhere near their eggs or their babies, said Natalie Grybauskas, the agencys assistant commissioner. Since then, agencies have been holding briefings on the issue, a departure from their usual work on disasters like fires and building collapses. Its rare that you have to learn about the life cycles of baby birds, Grybauskas said. But even after the city adjusted its flight range, beachgoers said they witnessed groups of birds rushing at the drones. New York City is not alone turning to drones to patrol its waters. Following a spate of shark bites last summer, a similar effort was launched by officials on Long Island. Those devices are smaller and quieter and do not have flotation devices. In recent years, lifeguards in Australia also have used drones to monitor sharks and to conduct rescue operations. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a devoted drone enthusiast, has touted the new drone program as a great addition to saving the lives of those that we lose over the summer, especially as the city struggles to hire lifeguards to staff its beaches. Four people have drowned off city beaches this summer, matching the total number of swimming deaths from last year. After two teenagers disappeared while swimming off a beach adjacent to Rockaway, the NYPD flew its drones as part of the search mission. Both bodies eventually washed up on the shoreline. The fire departments drones also have captured footage of lifeguards assisting swimmers on Rockaway Beach struggling in a rip tide. Christopher Allieri, founder of the NYC Plover Project, a bird protection group, praised the city for taking an innovative approach to water safety. But he stressed additional precautions were necessary to ensure the drones werent harming the shorebird population. Wildlife in New York is often an afterthought, he said. We should be asking ourselves how we can use this technology in a way that works for all New Yorkers, and that includes those with feathers. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A missing 4-year-old girl from Massachusetts was found dead in her neighbor's pool, police announced Friday morning. The young girl, who has autism and was identified only as Eva, was initially reported missing out of Sutton, about 50 miles southwest of Boston, on Thursday. Hours later, authorities said that she was no longer considered a missing person and then Friday morning, announced she died. Authorities said they would not be speaking to the press or doing on-camera interview out of respect for the girl's family, instead referring the public to a statement from Worcester County District Attorney Joe Earlys Office. At 3:50 p.m. Thursday, the Sutton Police Department received a 911 call reporting a 4-year-old girl had gone missing from her home," the statement read. "A short time later, the girl was found in a neighbors pool, unresponsive. Emergency personnel transported her to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester where she was pronounced deceased. Eva, a little girl authorities were searching for in Sutton, Ma in July 2024. The search for Eva The Sutton Police Department posted Thursday afternoon that the girl was last seen in the Peachtree Drive area. Theres a heavy police and fire presence as we search for this young girl, police shared online. If you see her, please call 911 to alert us. Police call off search, share very little information Just a few hours later, authorities shared that the girl was no longer considered a missing person, but gave very few details. We no longer are asking for assistance regarding the missing girl we posted. Thank you to all who shared, looked and offered info, the police wrote. Police did not immediately respond to requests for more information about the girl at the time, but community members took to the comments to offer prayers for the girls family. Commenters also voiced concerns about the outcome, since the post was vague. Late Thursday night, the police department posted a message saying it would be off air for a bit. "Well return in the near future, but taking a little time out," police wrote on Thursday. On Friday morning, police returned to social media to offer condolences to the girl's family. "The past 12 hours have been incredibly difficult for one of our families in town and our team of first responders," the police department wrote. "There are no words that we can offer to help ease the heartache our residents our feelings no. We are so incredibly sorry." Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia the 757. Follow her on Twitter at @SaleenMartin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Missing Massachusetts girl found unresponsive in neighbor's pool Lyra is a division of San Francisco-based holding company Evergreen Services, which signalled its interest in the A/NZ region with its late 2023 acquisition of Lancom, followed by a string of further acquisitions in Australia. More than 3000 businesses worldwide have been evaluated over the firms seven years investing in the industry, resulting in 70 acquisitions. Lyra Technology Group CEO Elliott Hyman congratulated Kirimetiyawa on his new role. Upon meeting Waruna, it quickly became apparent to us that his character, intelligence, and drive would make him an extremely effective flag bearer for Lyra in Australia and New Zealand, Hyman said. We are very fortunate to have him on our team in this pivotal role as we continue to build the foundation of our business in A/NZ. As the operational arm of Evergreen, Lyra serves as a platform supporting the continued growth of the acquired companies. Lancom and several other businesses across A/NZ have therefore now become operational companies under the Lyra umbrella. The plan always was succession for new CEO Priscila Bernardes and the rest of the management team, Kirimetiyawa said. CEO roles arent forever, and fresh talent and ideas will see Lancom move to even higher success. Kirimetiyawas tenure at Lancom saw the business complete multiple managed services acquisitions and largely accomplish its 10-year plan within seven. The sale of the business was always part of the plan, and when the opportunity arose with Evergreen, it was ideal, Kirimetiyawa said. Evergreen supports organic growth in the selected businesses by providing capital and expertise while empowering local CEOs to run their businesses in accordance with their own proven growth strategies. In his new role, Kirimetiyawa is also the board lead for Lyras A/NZ businesses, facilitating strategy and equipping each with the tools, technology and support necessary for execution. He is also part of Evergreens due diligence processes evaluating target companies. Having spent all of my 22-year career at Lancom, its a continuing privilege to contribute to its ongoing success in my new position, Kerimetiyawa said. As managed services providers, talent is all we are selling, he said. The technology is available to anyone; what you do with it is the differentiator customers want. Microsoft is increasing its investment for partners across Copilot, security, Azure and CSP initiatives, pouring in more than US$240 million. According to Microsoft chief partner officer Nicole Dezen, it has increased its Copilot investment by 10x over last year, marking partners as essential to the Copilot customer journey. That is why weve developed a comprehensive set of pre- and post-sale engagements to guide partner execution in alignment with our existing go-to-market motions, she said. According to Dezen, Microsoft has experienced tremendous growth, with more than 12,000 projects delivered through Azure Migrate, Modernise and Innovate. These are built to work together and enable simpler adoption of Azure to drive customer transformation, she said. In FY25, we are adding new scenarios and increasing our investments for Azure Migrate and Modernise by 50 per cent in FY25. For Azure Innovate, Microsoft increased pre-sales and post-sales investments to more than $150 million. Azure Essentials is a new hub that provides guidance, resources, and tooling to help customers deploy and optimize their cloud and AI investments, wrote Dezen. It supports Azure Migrate and Modernise and Azure Innovate with best practices, reference architectures, and skilling resources. Partners can use Azure Essentials to access content and enablement to deliver differentiated solutions on core scenarios across the Microsoft Azure solution plays and other topics like resilience and security. Microsoft also plans to expand its customer purchasing flexibility of Azure OpenAI to include a Provisioned Throughput Unit (PTU) offering available through customer self-service & CSP partner-supported models. PTUs provide throughput with consistent latency for uniform workloads, making them ideal for scaling AI solutions, also adding a shorter 30-day reservation commitment option for added flexibility. Security is a key priority for Microsoft and to back that up, it is putting US$90 million in incremental investments in FY25. We will continue the threat protection assessment and bring back the data security assessment, wrote Dezen. We are continuing Azure Migrate and Modernise with Defender for Cloud Attach, which rewards you 15 percent for delivering secure migration projects and Microsoft Sentinel Migrate and Modernise. Finally, weve increased investments within CSP for ME5 and are boosting our strategic cybersecurity investments. Aligned with its priority of Microsoft 365 core execution in FY25, Dezen said it was increasing CSP incentives across strategic solutions, including Microsoft 365 E3/E5 and business premium, claiming partners can earn up to $120K in incentives for Microsoft 365 E3 workloads per customer. These announcements were made at Microsofts recent digital event, MCAPS Start for Partners. In the coming months, the vendor will also update about 20 new product licenses for many benefit packages, including Microsoft Copilot, Defender for Endpoint and GitHub. Dezen reaffirmed it was committed to providing the resources and support partners need. Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced three benefit packages, Partner Launch, Partner Success Core and Partner Success Expanded. These benefits are purpose-built to meet the varied needs of our partners at different stages of growth and help you take your business to the next level. We are committed to enabling partner skilling. Through our AI workshops and boot camps, we have trained over 818,000 AI learners on Microsoft Azure, Copilot, and Fabric since we launched them last year, she said. Project Ready Workshops accelerate deployment and implementation, while our Sales Boot Camps boost mindshare and pipeline. Microsoft has also introduced the AI Partner Training Roadshow to help service partners develop AI expertise. Due to high partner demand, the vendor will have 12 more in-person AI Partner Training Days next year, including alignment to the Microsoft AI tour customer events. One of our important benefits to enable us to grow together is a comprehensive incentives portfolio that empowers you to accelerate your growth, drive solution-focused wins, and maximise customer value, she wrote. In FY25, we will continue to align with business priorities and offer differentiating incentives by partner type, solution area, customer segment and MCEM stage. Bhopal: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is set to unveil the massive plantation drive in Indore in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday. The local administration plans to plant 51 lakh trees in Indore in 24 hours on Sunday. Shah is scheduled to kick off the campaign to plant 11 lakh trees in Revati Range in the city, which is part of the project to plant 51 lakh trees in the city, on Sunday, officials said. State urban development minister Kailash Vijayvargiya is spearheading the campaign to plant 51 lakh trees in Indore in 24 hours on the day. Indore is the cleanest city in India. We are now going to turn the city with the highest green cover in the country, Vijayvargiya said. The plantation drive in Indore is a part of the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign launched in the country at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As many as 5.5 crore trees are proposed to be planted across Madhya Pradesh under the campaign. According to Vijayvargiya, the saplings will be monitored for 15 days after their plantation. The trees, if found dead, will be removed and new trees will be planted at their places. The tree plantation drive proposes to plant 51 lakh trees in Indore every year. Shah is also scheduled to inaugurate the Prime Minister College of Excellency, built in each district in the state, on Sunday. He is scheduled to return to Delhi on the same day. NEW DELHI: It was a bittersweet day for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the courts on Friday. While the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in the EDs money laundering case, the Rouse Avenue court extended his judicial custody till July 25 in a corruption case under the CBI probe linked to the excise policy scam. Despite the relief, Kejriwal will remain in jail. The apex courts verdict, however, triggered a political slugfest between the AAP and the BJP. In a major relief to the AAP chief, the apex court granted him interim bail, raising questions on the legality and necessity of his arrest in March by the Enforcement Directorate in the excise policy case. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta also referred some questions on the EDs power to arrest under Section 19 of the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 to a larger bench. The apex court said that Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days and has to be released on bail till the larger bench settles the issue. The bench also said that the court cannot direct an elected representative to step down and that the decision must be made by the CM himself. Soon after the apex court granted interim bail to Kejriwal, the Rouse Avenue court extended his judicial custody in the CBI case till July 25. Kejriwals plea challenging his arrest by the CBI and subsequent three-day remand of the investigating agency is scheduled to come up for hearing before the Delhi high court on July 17. In its interim bail order, the apex court said Kejriwal will not visit the CM office or Delhi secretariat during the interim release. It said that Kejriwal will be bound by the statement made on his behalf that he will not sign official files unless it is required and necessary for obtaining clearance/approval from the lieutenant-governor of Delhi. The court said the chief minister should not make any comment with regard to his role in the present case and should not interact with any of the witnesses and/or have access to any official files connected with the case. Reacting to the development, the AAP welcomed the interim order, saying "satyamev jayate" (truth alone triumphs). At a joint press conference, AAP leaders and city ministers Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Sandeep Pathak termed the top court order "historic" and a "victory of truth" and "defeat of the BJP's conspiracy" against him. Atishi claimed the decisions of the Rouse Avenue Court and the Supreme Court prove the arrest of Kejriwal and the "witch hunting" of the AAP leaders and ministers for the last two years in the name of the "so-called" liquor scam is only a conspiracy hatched by the BJP. "The BJP has hatched this entire conspiracy to stop the work of Delhi's AAP government. That's why it put the chief minister in jail in a false case without any evidence," she alleged. The BJP, however, said the Supreme Court order is not a victory for the AAP as the court has put its "seal of approval" on Kejriwal being guilty in the excise policy case. "The Supreme Court did not provide any relief on this prayer by him. Rather it found that the ED has sufficient evidence to prove the requirement of Section 19 of the PMLA that an accused is prima facie guilty. This is a seal of approval by the Supreme Court," BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj told a press conference. Earlier, during the hearing, the Supreme Court said: As we are referring the matter to a larger bench, we have, despite our findings on reasons to believe, considered whether interim bail should be granted to Kejriwal. Given the fact that the right to life and liberty is sacrosanct and Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days and the questions referred to above require in-depth consideration by a larger bench, we direct Kejriwal to be released on interim bail The apex court made it clear it is not examining the question of bail, but we are only going into the question of what are the parameters of Section 19 (of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act), what is the jurisdiction of the court to go into the grounds of arrest? While reading out the operative part of the 64-page judgement, Justice Khanna said, We have explained the difference between Sections 19 and 45. As far as Section 19 is concerned, its the subjective opinion of the officer but amenable to judicial reviewWhereas Section 45 is concerned, its an exercise undertaken by the court itself and not by the officer. So, the power of the court is different from the power of the officer. The bench said: The power of the court under Section 19, while exercising the power for examining the reasons to believe, is different from the power of the court under Section 45. On the aspects of Section 19 after a detailed discussion, we have held that, as far as reasons to believe are concerned, they meet the parameters of Section 19, the bench said. But having said so, we have raised an additional ground, which relates to the need and necessity of arrestwe felt that this question whether it can be read into Section 19, issue of need and necessity of arrest, especially in view of the principle of proportionalitywe have referred that question to the larger bench, it said. The top court said it framed three questions in this regard. Whether the need or necessity of arrest is a separate ground to challenge the order of arrest passed in terms of Section 19(1) of PMLA? Whether need and necessity of arrest refer to the satisfaction of common parameters of arrestor relates to other personal grounds and reasons regarding the necessity to arrest a person in the facts and circumstances of the case? And if the two questions are answered in the affirmative, what are the parameters and facts that have to be taken into consideration by the court while examining the question of need and necessity for arrest? On May 17, the top court had reserved its verdict on Kejriwal's plea challenging the legality of his arrest by the ED on March 21 in the case. The AAP chief has challenged in the top court the April 9 order of the Delhi high court that had upheld his arrest in the case. The high court had upheld Kejriwal's arrest in the case, saying there was no illegality about it and that the ED was left with "little option" after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation. On June 20, the Delhi CM was granted bail by a trial court on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh in the case. The ED, however, moved the high court the next day and contended that the trial court's order granting bail to Kejriwal was "perverse", "one-sided" and "wrong-sided" and that the findings were based on irrelevant facts. The high court, on June 21, imposed an interim stay on the trial court's bail order till the passing of an order on the ED's application for interim relief. On June 25, the high court had passed a detailed order staying the trial court order. Kejriwal was also arrested by the CBI on June 26 in connection with the corruption case related to the alleged excise policy scam. The plea challenging his arrest by the CBI is pending before the high court. New Delhi: In a rare gesture, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi made an appeal on social media asking people to refrain from being nasty towards former Union minister Smriti Irani, who had defeated him in Amethi with a margin of over 55,000 votes in 2019 and then lost to Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma -- who was making his electoral debut -- by over 1.6 lakh votes in this years general election. In a tweet on X on Friday, Mr Gandhi, now the Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli in UP, wrote: Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter. He added: Humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength. Before the general election, there was a strong buzz that Rahul Gandhi would contest against Smriti Irani from the family bastion of Amethi in 2024 and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would fight from Rae Bareli, another bastion that had been vacated by their mother Sonia Gandhi, who is now a member of the Rajya Sabha. When Kishori Lal Sharmas candidature was announced in May, Ms Irani, then Union minister for women and child development, had said: I think the Congress nomination and the entire Gandhi family backing out from a battle in Amethi is significant because, as far as I am concerned, it is the proclamation of defeat of the Congress Party from Amethi. At a press conference after her loss, Irani said, "I express my gratitude to all the BJP party workers and supporters, those who have worked in the service of the constituency and the party with utmost dedication and fidelity...Today, I am grateful to PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath that their governments have completed the pending works of 30 years in just 5 years. I congratulate those who win. I will continue to be in the service of the people of Amethi." Several senior Congress leaders welcomed Mr Rahul Gandhis statement. Humility, respect, empathy and dignity. These are the values we must cherish. Wish more would learn from Rahul Gandhi, senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot said, quoting Rahuls post. The BJP, however, was not impressed. BJP leader Amit Malviya wrote on X: After unleashing Congress leaders, like a pack of wolves, on the woman who defeated him in Amethi and smashed his arrogance to smithereens, this is rich. All this gibberish doesnt take away from the fact that Smriti Irani forced Balak Buddhi to abandon Amethi. On Wednesday, Ms Irani vacated her official bungalow at 28 Tughlak Crescent in Lutyens Delhi as she is no longer an MP. by Vladimir Rozanskij Fears of Islamic radicalisation have made it an increasingly hot-button issue for Astana. The culture minister is proposing a ban on the hijab and niqab, and President Tokaev himself has described them as "an archaic form of clothing", sparking protests and flash-mobs on social networks. The constitution, which does not provide for such diviedi, was invoked. Astana (AsiaNews) - For some time in Kazakhstan, as well as in Russia and other Central Asian countries, there has been an ongoing debate on whether religious clothing should be worn in public places. The debate focuses on women's clothing, thehijab, himar, niqab and other more local variants, and in the last year, after various terrorist attacks and fears of Islamic radicalisation, the issue is becoming increasingly hot, politically and socially, as well as religiously. One of the most charismatic deputies of the Mazilis (Astana's parliament), the historical opponent Ermurat Bapi, has also spoken out on the need to control and limit women's clothing, in search of solutions to preserve peace and security, and help Kazakhstan to emerge from the sands of authoritarian regimes. The draft law under discussion, in his opinion, must seek a 'compromise between society and religion'. It was the Minister of Culture and Information, Aida Balaeva, who proposed the ban on the hijab and niqab in October 2023, sparking a wave of social protests, mainly through TikTok, by young women showing themselves in continuous flashmobs in the much reviled clothing. This led President Kasym-Zomart Tokaev to propose a ban on TikTok, and in March this year he called the niqab 'an archaic form of dress', which is imposed on Kazakh women by radical Muslim neophytes. Bapi intervened to confirm that 'the problem is not the hijab, but the fact that destructive tendencies seriously damage Kazakhstan's national traditions... If we want to develop as a secular state, we must not be influenced by foreign political and religious ideologies, our future must remain in our own hands'. The debate in parliament is confused between the various models of religious garments, which leave more or less visible inches of women's faces, as well as the cadra and paranja, comparing images and designs from various sources and situations. The problem is that the Kazakh constitution contains no prohibitions or limitations on what citizens can wear, and jurist Maksim Mostovic recalled the various articles stating that 'everyone has the right to the intangibility of private, personal and family life, and to the defence of his or her honour and dignity' (Art. 18), or the right to 'use one's native language and culture, freely choosing the forms of communication, education, instruction and creativity' (Art. 19) as well as the right to 'freedom of conscience' (Art. 22). During the pandemic, recalls Mostovic, 'everyone went around with their faces covered by masks', and one cannot see the reason for a current ban, which would itself be 'radical and illogical'. One would have to justify such a measure with 'the violation of the rights of third persons', the jurist insists, or prove that partially or almost completely covering one's face constitutes 'an attack on the constitutional order or social morality'. Many women wear such clothes under duress from their husbands, and even here official bans do not solve the problem: what is needed is a real 'domestic violence prophylaxis', creating centres for listening and shelter for the victims of such situations. Some women justify their hijab not only by a more in-depth study of religious dictates, but also by a desire to feel more sheltered and more intimately serene, while MPs 'believe that all women in paranja or cadra are hiding a bomb', says Ajzan Auelbekova, a Muslim activist who often speaks in the local press. In her opinion, Ermurat Bapi 'speaks out of turn about religious clothing, about which she knows nothing'. She too agrees that the niqab, which leaves only the slit of the eyes, 'can frighten people around', and in general, the rules of the Koran only suggest covering the outer forms of the body. The conclusion is that 'people who follow religious commandments must first observe the laws of those who govern us, and the authorities must be able to enforce these laws without offending people's religious feelings and freedom'. Today's news: Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister and leader of an opposition party, remains in jail in India Delhi. Pyongyang sends military delegation to Russia, first meeting after Putin-Kim summit. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi: NATO accusations of aid to Moscow in Ukraine war 'unfounded'. Syriac Archbishop recalls Iraqi Christians' resilience after ten years of ISIS persecution. PHILIPPINES ThePhilippines will "maintain our position" in its dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, a senior security official said today, eight years after the international ruling against Chinese claims in the territorial dispute. Tensions over the strategic waterway, a key passage for maritime trade, have risen over the past 18 months following a series of clashes, the most serious occurring on 17 June. INDIA Although the Indian Supreme Court yesterday granted him bail in a fraud case, opposition party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will remain in jail due to his arrest in another case. Kejriwal was arrested in March by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), India's financial crime fighting agency, for alleged corruption in the city's alcohol sales policy. NORTH KOREA North Korea sent a military delegation to Russia. According to South Korea this would be a violation of UN sanctions if cooperation with Moscow leads to an increase in Pyongyang's military power. This is the first military meeting between the two countries since they signed the 'Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty' during last month's summit between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. CHINA Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called NATO accusations that Beijing is helping Russia in its war against Ukraine "unfounded". The words came just hours after the leaders of NATO member states met in Washington DC and issued a statement on the war, accusing China of being a "decisive supporter" of Russia. IRAQ A decade after ISIS militants drove them from their homeland, Iraq's Christian community has shown unwavering resilience, as described by Syriac Catholic Archbishop Nizar Semaan of Adiabene, during an online conference organised by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). "ISIS tried to eradicate us, but failed," he said. ARMENIA The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pasinyan, had a telephone conversation with the newly elected President of Iran, Masud Pezeshkyan, the Yerevan government press office reported. It was a message of congratulations on the election victory and "confirmation of all agreements between the two countries", pledging to meet in person as soon as possible. RUSSIA The holiday season in Russia provides pupils and students with periods of practice in 'patriotic and military training centres', where children are taught how to throw grenades and engage in close combat, the so-called Avangard centres devised by former defence minister Sergei Sojgu; more than 100 of them have now been opened across the country. Elliptic, a British blockchain analysis company, exposes a marketplace called HuiOne Guarantee, which also involves Hun To, cousin of current Prime Minister Hun Manet. Chinese groups are involved in the illicit business. Worth US$ 11 billion dollars, it ranges from money laundering to pig butchering scams. Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) - Cryptocurrency experts have discovered that an online marketplace called HuiOne Guarantee is used by a vast network of cybercriminals in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia, who exploit various types of online scams, including the pig butchering scam, to fuel the criminal business. According to a report by Elliptic (a British blockchain analytics company with offices in London, New York, and Singapore), the platform's merchants offer technology, data and money laundering services s" used for illicit transactions "totaling at least billion". For Elliptic, which reported the new cryptocurrency-related scandal, the virtual area where exchanges take place is an integral part of HuiOne Group, a Cambodian conglomerate whose executives have forged close ties with the Hun family, from the father Hun Sen, who served as prime minister for decades, to his son Manet, who succeeded him in 2023. In particular, Hun To, cousin to the current prime minister, heads one of the units of the HuiOne Group linked to crypto fraud. Precisely this link, according to experts, makes investigations more complicated and risks letting criminals go unpunished. In addition, another HuiOne business, HuiOne International Payments, is involved globally in laundering proceeds from scams. Online scams have led to the theft of tens of billions of dollars from millions of victims around the world. The most common scheme is the pig butchering scam, whereby scammers "fatten up" victims in fake investment programs and then steal what they have accumulated. Other scams involve Ponzi schemes, impersonation of family members and sextortion. According to a report by the US Institute of Peace, many of these scams are perpetrated by transnational organised groups originating in China, operating in Southeast Asian countries, especially Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, and Cambodia, exploiting regional conflicts, corruption, and the growth of lawless special economic zones. According to its website, HuiOne's financial services arm is said to have 500,000 registered users. It also touts Alipay, Huawei, PayGo Wallet, UnionPay, and Yes Seatel as its customers. In some cases, unwitting people in Asia and Africa are lured to the region with the promise of well-paying jobs, only to be trapped in scam compounds run by Chinese thugs who also use electric shackles to keep migrant workers from escaping. This practice, the US institute points out, is spreading rapidly across Asia. Founded in 2021, HuiOne Guarantee includes a network of thousands of instant messaging app channels on Telegram operated by different merchants. Although it claims to serve as a marketplace for real estate and cars, according to Elliptic, most of the goods and services offered are for cyber scam operators. The largest category of merchants operating on HuiOne Guarantee are those offering to move and exchange money," the company explained. "Many of the merchants explicitly offer money laundering services, including accepting payments from victims around the world, transferring it across borders and converting it to other assets including cash, stablecoins, and to Chinese payment apps." According to data shared by SlowMist in early January, merchants associated with HuiOne Guarantee have reportedly carried out additional cryptocurrency transactions with a wallet that received more than 4.6 million USDT from another wallet linked to the Myanmar Alliance Army. "The value of cryptocurrency received by HuiOne Guarantee and its merchants, and the type of goods and services offered, suggest that it is a key enabler of cyber scam operators in Southeast Asia," Elliptic said. A report by the Freedom of Belief Initiative shows the extent of the problem. After Christians come Jews, Alevis, Yazidis, and atheists. Especially targeted are cemeteries, places of worship, homes, and schools linked to religious groups. Anti-Jewish violence has escalated since Israel's war in Gaza. Istanbul (AsiaNews) Christians are the minority group that suffered the most from sectarian attacks in Turkey last year, this according to a recent report by the Freedom of Belief Initiative, which documents scores of violent hate crimes against religious groups, especially Christians and Jews. At least 47 sectarian crimes or incidents are reported in Hate Crimes in Turkey Based on Religion, Belief, or Non-Belief, whose aim is to ensure that such offences do not go unpunished. Christians are the most persecuted group, followed by Jews, Alevis, Yazidis, and atheists, based on data from media monitoring and information from religious communities. According to the study, the number of violent episodes against Protestants and Jews was up last year compared to the past. As in previous years, the Turkish justice system failed to address the full extent of the problem, resulting in widespread impunity. Report author Funda Tekin points out that hate and sectarian offences against individuals, communities, belief-based institutions, or atheists remain a significant human rights issue in Turkey today. The documented episodes suggest that victims and groups associated with them do not enjoy the same rights as the rest of the population, which is a substantial barrier to social peace. With respect to religious group or affiliation, Christians were victims of 22 attacks in 2023; Jews follow with 14; Alevi, seven; Muslims, four; Yazidi two, and atheists, one. Some 26 cases involved threats or threatening behaviour, 11 violent assaults, nine documented cases of attacks on places of worship or cemeteries, at least seven cases of damage to property, three verbal attacks, and one episode of sexual harassment. A review of data from past years indicates that attacks on cemeteries, places of worship, homes or schools linked to religious or faith communities are among the most frequent. Since 2020, the most targeted groups have been Christians (52 incidents), Alevis (42 incidents) and Jews (23 incidents), with persistent bias or hostility towards these minority groups. The report notes that hate crimes are generally underreported and under-recorded, with official figures only a fraction of actual incidents. The main barriers to reporting hate crimes include: victims accustomed to bias-motivated actions or with a high threshold of tolerance, fear of social exclusion that leads people not to report, concern that complaints are not taken seriously or that they may lead to further victimisation, including by law enforcement. Certain locations associated with religious groups have been attacked repeatedly, a sign of systematic threats or pressure on specific individuals or groups. The report points out that hate crimes against Protestants, Assyrians, and Yazidis have become systematic and harassment recurrent. In particular, the increase in attacks against Protestants may be partly due to media bias and hateful rhetoric. Since 2019, about 250 Protestants have been deported or have had their visa applications rejected on "security" grounds. This attitude by the authorities parallels the frequent representations of Protestants as a "threat" to Turkish society due to their "missionary activities". Local newspapers sometimes provide addresses of churches and target places of worship. Lastly, violence against Jews has accelerated following Israels war against Hamas in Gaza, in response to the terrorist attack of 7 October 2023. Incidents in schools where Nazi symbols were used underscore the need for an inclusive, pluralistic, and anti-discrimination educational system and curriculum to ensure a safe school environment. by Sumon Corraya Tens of thousands of young people have been on the streets for five days in the capital and across the country. They are demanding reform of the system that favours relatives of independence fighters. Amnesty's concern over police violence. Nil coordinator Nahid Islam: "We call for emergency session of Parliament". Dhaka (AsiaNews) - In Bangladesh they call the protests that for five days have involved tens of thousands of students, who have been blocking the main streets of the country's capital, especially in Dhaka, demanding that quotas for government jobs - hundreds of thousands of them, well paid - be abolished and that a system based on merit be instituted. The current system favours the sons of the 1971 independence fighters for one third of the posts. Tensions rose, protesters ran into police barricades, resulting in clashes. Yesterday, the Bangladesh High Court temporarily suspended the system, but the protests are not expected to stop until it is permanently removed. At Comilla University, police chased students and opened fire, while in Chittagong they used batons against protesters. Amnesty International expressed concern over reports that at least 20 people, including students, were injured in the police crackdown. The current demand is for Parliament to pass a law reforming the quota system. Without this response the protests will continue. The announcement was made after blocking the Shahbag intersection in the capital for four hours; accompanied by the start of protests in all educational institutions in the country this afternoon. Nahid Islam, among the coordinators of the movement, announced the programme for tomorrow, denouncing police attacks on protesting students in various parts of the country. Tomorrow at 4pm, marches and protest rallies will be held on all campuses to protest these attacks. Islam said: 'Our demand is for an emergency session of parliament to pass a reform'. Addressing the protesters, Nahid Islam warned that any obstacles to the movement would be met with collective action, blaming the government for the people's suffering, arguing that logical reforms to the quota system would avoid the need for protests. He added that the movement has the support of the public. Minister of Public Administration Farhad Hossain said: 'There should be a reform of the quota system. We need a logical solution based on discussion to determine the appropriate quota percentage. This discussion should be conducted in a rational manner'. Since the country's independence, the quota system for government jobs has evolved. Until 2018, 56 per cent of jobs were covered by quotas, the majority, 30 per cent, going to children and grandchildren of freedom fighters. That year, widespread protests demanded reforms to reduce the quotas from 56% to 10%. Eventually, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the cancellation of all quotas and on 4 October 2018, the Ministry of Public Administration issued a circular abolishing the quota system for direct recruitment to ninth class (previously first class) and tenth to thirteenth class (previously second class) positions. However, a 56% quota remains for third and fourth class positions. On 5 June, the Supreme Court, comprising Justices KM Kamrul Quader and Khizir Hayat, declared the decision to cancel the quota system illegal. A Christian freedom fighter, who preferred to remain anonymous, commented: 'If the quota system is cancelled again, it will dishonour the freedom fighters. Martha Das, general secretary of the National Christian Fellowship of Bangladesh (NCFB), told AsiaNews that she supported students, but felt that district, women, ethnic minority and disabled candidate quotas were necessary. "The quota for children and grandchildren of freedom fighters should be reduced from 30 per cent to 10 per cent. All other quotas should remain to ensure integrated development,' Das said. The NCFB is a movement that aims to encourage Christians and Churches in Bangladesh to pray, plan and work together for the evangelisation of Bangladesh. In Nepal, dozens of people are missing after their buses were swept into a river due to landslides caused by torrential rains. In China, concern is mounting about the Yangtze. Six fatalities have been reported in Chongqing, but record levels in the Three Gorges reservoir have raised the alert. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced by the structures construction. Kathmandu (AsiaNews/Agencies) Torrential rains continue to devastate large parts of Asia with unprecedented violence this monsoon season. In Nepal dozens of people are missing after landslides swept away two buses loaded with passengers into the Trishuli River. In China at least six people died in floods in Chongqing while rising water level at the Three Gorges reservoir, one of the largest in the world, is raising concern. The most serious reports come from Nepal, high in the Himalaya, where two buses loaded with passengers disappeared in the Trishuli River at 3.30 am following a landslide in the Simaltal area, along the Narayanghat-Mugling road section in Chitwan district. According to authorities, one of the two buses, operated by the Ganapati Deluxe company, was headed to Gaur Rautahat from Kathmandu with about 41 passengers. The other, operated by Angel Deluxe, travelling to Kathmandu from Birgunj, had about 24 passengers. Three passengers reportedly survived by jumping from one of the buses before it was dragged away by the current; meanwhile, rescue teams continue the search for the others. Nepal has been grappling with monsoon-related disasters for days. In the Kaski district alone, 11 people died in multiple landslides last night. Even before this morning's disaster, police statistics reported 103 fatalities nationwide from landslides and floods. In China, the Yangtze (or Long) River, in the southwestern part of the country, is causing the most serious concerns. Six people died yesterday due to heavy rains in Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in Dianjiang county. A record level 269.2 mm fell in a single day, affecting more than 40,000 people. Once again, the gigantic Three Gorges Dam in Hunan province is also a source of great concern, as water level reached 161.1 metres, the highest ever recorded in July since the facility became fully operational in 2012. The huge structure is more than 180 metres high and more than two km wide, with 39.3 billion cubic metres of water generating electricity equivalent to 20 nuclear power plants. It took 18 years to build, but Chinese authorities were eager to build the dam despite the controversy over its environmental impact and the forced displacement of 1.3 million people. The Changjiang Water Resource Commission, a department that specialises in Yangtze River flood prevention and water pollution, is forecasting heavy rainfall along the upper reaches of the river in the next 10 days, and a new round of floods flowing into the Three Gorges Dam reservoir around 16 July. According to reports from the state broadcaster CCTV, the commission has decided to increase the reservoirs outflow, which could make the situation in the lower part of the Yangtze even more serious. Photo: Flickr / Pedro Vasquez Colmenares Indias Ministry of External Affairs announced the repatriation of Indian nationals fighting in Ukraine after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia. Attracted by high salaries, the possibility of obtaining Russian citizenship, and traveling to countries in Europes Schengen area, hundreds of South Asian men have embarked on the journey to Russia. In many cases, they did so without knowing that they would be sent to the front. New Delhi (AsiaNews) After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to discharge all Indian nationals engaged at the front in the war between Russia and Ukraine, India's External Affairs Ministry said. We expect the release to take place within weeks from various places where they are serving or deployed, sources told The Hindu on the condition of anonymity. The news was not formally confirmed by the Russian side, which is short on troops. At least 50 Indians are in the Russian army and at least four have been killed since the start of the war. But, according to The Hindu, several other Indians have not registered with the Indian embassy in Moscow. The issue also concerns Sri Lankans and Nepalis. Attracted by high salaries (more than US$ 2,000 per month), the possibility of obtaining Russian citizenship, and traveling to countries in Europes Schengen area, hundreds of South Asians have gone to Russia, in most cases without knowing that they would be deployed to the front after a couple of weeks' training. According to reports, recruitment takes place through intermediaries who promise good salaries for security-related jobs. Entry is via tourist visa. In 2022, the number of Indians who entered Russia rose to 8,275, compared to 7,132 the previous year, and a e-visa scheme was introduced in 2023 to speed up the process. After seeing an ad on YouTube, Mohammed Asfan, one of the Indians killed in the war, contacted a recruiter, Faisal Khan, who called himself "Baba Vlogs" online. He was told that he would not be sent to Ukraine, his brother said, but then, in November last year, shortly after his arrival, Asfan was forced to sign papers in Russian that he did not understand. His death in the war was confirmed in early March. Since then, Indian and Nepali authorities announced the arrest of several people involved in a human trafficking network, while Sri Lanka has sent a delegation to Russia to investigate and pressure Moscow to repatriate its nationals present in Ukraine. According to the Sri Lankan parliament, at least 2,000 Sri Lankans are engaged in both fronts. Experts note that Sri Lanka's economic crisis, which began in 2022, is the main factor driving people to conflict areas. A salary of US$ 2,100, in fact, is 13 times higher than the average salary in Sri Lanka. Many of those who enlist are often former soldiers. Until 2009, the country was torn by a civil war that saw the regular military fight the Tamil Tigers separatist group. But even after the war ended, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces remained large to keep unemployment down. Often, retired Sri Lankan generals act as intermediaries with Russia, Sri Lankan police reported. A similar situation also applies to Nepal, where the end of the civil war in 2006 saw few job opportunities created. The Himalayan country is home to the Gurkhas, soldiers who, under a 1947 agreement, also serve the Indian and British armies. India, for example, has 40,000 Gurkha soldiers, 60 per cent of whom from Nepal. Over the years, however, their number has been dwindling, While Nepal has tried to stop Gurkhas from serving in other foreign armies, at least 15,000 Nepalis are involved in Ukraine. Among those who went and made it back, many thought they would work as cooks or helpers. According to information circulated online over the past few months, Nepalis stranded in Russia have asked India for help with repatriation, arguing that New Delhi has much more influence with Moscow than Kathmandu. Modi's recent visit to Moscow confirmed the good relations between India and Russia, but according to analysts, Putin, in order to overcome international isolation, could look for new markets in South Asia and thus facilitate the repatriation of South Asians stranded at the front. INDIAN MANDALA IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO INDIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY FRIDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE. Str8Curious: What Is Cruising & How Does It Work? In Which We Take a Peek Into the World of Gay 'Cruising' Str8Curious is a monthly AskMen column where out and proud lifestyle expert Joey Skladany answers burning questions from heterosexual men about sex, dating, and the LGBTQ+ community. No topic is off limits as he candidly lends advice, debunks stereotypes, and gives it to you straight err gay. Should you be interested in submitting a question for editorial consideration (and we will respect anonymity), feel free to ping Joey directly on Instagram or email him at [email protected]). The Question I am somewhat new to messing around with guys and the term cruising keeps popping up on the sex apps. While Ive come to learn that this essentially means public sex, I am wondering if there is a certain protocol that one should follow if theyre hoping to partake. Isnt this risky? Does it happen organically? Tell me everything I need to know, please. - William, Charleston, SC The Answer Youre most certainly correct, William. In the gay community, cruising isnt sipping mai tais on a giant ship with your grandparents. Its a slang term for public sex with someone youve just met. And while I certainly wouldnt recommend partaking in illegal activities, the rush and thrill of a casual, anonymous hookup in a park, hotel bathroom, or any designated cruising ground can be quite alluring (at least for some men). While these escapades typically happen spontaneously (much like the double-tapping under a stall by self-hating, anti-LGBTQ+ politicians), there are certified cruising spots that are famous for dudes doing the dirty. The catch is that once these public sex spots become too popular, word spreads almost instantaneously and law enforcement may closely monitor the location for lewd activity. If caught, you can face jail time and even felony charges (it ranges state by state). That, of course, doesnt deter adrenaline junkies from getting their rocks off. For those who exercise extreme caution and patience, a quick handjob, blowjob, or even romp can happen after a simple wink of the eye or tug of the crotch. In fact, some cruising areas even boast glory holes men will literally stick their dicks into, with hopes that it will find an open mouth or ass on the other side. RELATED: Heres What Its Like to Have a Wild Glory Hole Experience Apps like Sniffies have gained popularity for guys who enjoy engaging in this type of activity. It highlights active spots and allows gays to even plan ahead and announce when theyll arrive. But again, the reward may not outweigh the risk of getting arrested. Im by no means a prude, but Id hate to see anyone locked up, embarrassed, or even fired from a job, all because they wanted to do what can be done after 15 minutes of watching a favorite performer on OnlyFans. Youll need to ask yourself if its worth satisfying the fetish and consider whats at stake. Should you still decide to move forward, ensure that you are 100 percent getting the right signals. It can be easy to get caught up in the nerves and excitement of the moment and interpret a simple smile from a stranger as an invitation to S their D. But if you make the mistake of making a move to an unwilling participant, youll not only face charges of public indecency, but also sexual assault. There must be mutual consent from both parties with absolutely zero gray area. Just because an assumedly gay man shows up to a notorious cruising spot (typically a bathroom), it doesn't mean that hes into you. He may be there to literally just take a piss. I dont mean to be a boner kill. Lord knows there are places like Fire Island where public sex is as common as the seashells that wash ashore on its beach. But please, for the love of Christ, Beyonce, or whatever deity you worship, dont be stupid. RELATED: How Many People Have Had Sex in a Public Place? Not only will you do a disservice to yourself, but also the entire gay community, which strives each and every day to not be labeled as sex-starved deviants who require every orifice to be stuffed with cock at all times. Whenever cruising is exposed and covered by the media (which, ironically, seems to typically involve the aforementioned hypocritical anti-LGBTQ lawmakers), it acts as fodder for homophobes to paint broad strokes and label us all as hardcore sinners. Play smart. And dont just use the head below your belt when it comes to making spur-of-the-moment decisions. You Might Also Dig: Speaking at the end of a two-day visit to Armenia, Power said Washington also continues to champion the Karabakh Armenians right to safely return to their homeland recaptured by Azerbaijan in September 2023. Their repatriation requires a change in circumstances on the ground right now, she cautioned without elaborating. More than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, the regions virtually entire remaining population, fled to Armenia in the space of a week following an Azerbaijani military offensive condemned by the U.S. and the European Union. Power witnessed the flow of refugees and spoke to some of them when she visited an Armenian border area adjacent to the Lachin corridor in September 2023. She announced at the time $11.5 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to displaced Karabakh Armenians. Power again met with refugees during her latest trip to Armenia that involved talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, other government officials as well as business leaders and civic activists. She praised Armenian government efforts to help the Karabakh Armenians. At news conference in Yerevan, the U.S. official declined to say whether she believes that Azerbaijan carried out ethnic cleansing in Karabakh. She said the U.S. State Departments investigates the events of September 2023 and will come up with a legal determination of what happened in due course. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James OBrien was also noncommittal about the matter when he spoke to RFE/RLs Armenian Service last month. Weve commissioned an independent review by an outside group, a group that advocates for human rights globally, and were still waiting for that group to come back with its conclusions, said OBrien said. He did not name that group. Our position regarding the rights of Karabakh residents is clear, Sobhani told RFE/RLs Armenian Service in an exclusive interview. We recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and emphasize it, but at the same time we believe that the rights of the Armenian residents of Karabakh should be respected. The issue is like a wound, and that wound must be healed, he said. If that wound is not healed it may open again. When we talk about sustainable peace that wound should also be taken into account. Sobhani noted that the more than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians fled to Armenia last September because they did not feel safe. They did not come here voluntarily, and we hope that conditions will be created for them to return to their homes voluntarily, he said. Asked whether their repatriation and security require an autonomous status for Karabakh, the envoy replied, There should be dialogue and negotiation about it. We and you must not make a decision for them. He did not say explicitly that such talks should be between Baku and Karabakh Armenian leaders. Azerbaijan denies forcing the Karabakh Armenians to flee their homeland and says they can live there under Azerbaijani rule. Karabakhs leaders and ordinary residents rejected such an option even before the Azerbaijani offensive. Some of those leaders have said after the exodus that only international guarantees could convince the refugees to return home. Armenias government, which has accused Baku of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Karabakh, does not seem to be seeking such guarantees. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly indicated that the Karabakh issue is closed for his administration. 12 July 2024 08:30 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more Leading up to COP29, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is positioned to actively shape the global climate agenda. Committed to fostering collaboration among national and international oil companies, SOCAR intends to host significant events and panels aimed at advancing efforts in climate mitigation. Afgan Isayev, Vice President of SOCAR, highlighted the companys strategic partnerships and ambitious projects aimed at ensuring a sustainable future for future generations. These endeavors include substantial investments in renewable energy such as solar and wind projects, alongside pioneering efforts in offshore wind energy for the production of green hydrogen. Looking forward to 2035, SOCAR envisions a transformative journey from a conventional oil and gas entity to a diversified energy leader, aligning its emissions profile with global industry standards to underscore its commitment to reducing carbon emissions. As SOCAR prepares to present its innovative initiatives at COP29, its dedication represents a pivotal moment in the global energy landscape. Azerbaijani economist Parviz Heydarov said Azernews that not only SOCAR, but all of the world's leading energy companies have set themselves the goal of diversifying their activities by specific deadlinessome aiming for 2030, others for 2035. "This entails shifting away from the reliance on traditional energy resources and the associated business models focused predominantly on their production and sale. Instead, the aim is to adopt diversified activity mechanisms to effectively meet the ever-increasing global energy demand. This strategy aims not only to prevent further damage to the deteriorating ecology but also to reduce dependence on foreign energy resources and other forms of external dependency. This is a significant and serious initiative, one that SOCAR- our oil company cannot overlook. Therefore, as you noted, considering the current global energy landscape and market dynamics, SOCAR must move in this direction if we are to remain competitive." According to him, Azerbaijan places significant emphasis on utilizing alternative energy sources at the state level. "Moreover, substantial investment agreements have been concluded with Middle Eastern countries in this sector, aiming to expand our utilization of alternative energy sources both to meet domestic energy demands and for international export. In this context, hosting COP29 in Azerbaijan and our nation's dedicated focus on this event reaffirm our commitment to alternative energy sources, despite our status as an oil and gas nation rich in traditional energy resources. Azerbaijan's plans aim to establish a prominent position among nations that prioritize alternative energy sources. This underscores our country's commitment to global climate conditions and the mitigation of climate degradation. Achieving these goals is challenging and demands considerable financial resources and the deployment of advanced technologies. Importantly, investment in these projects is crucial, a goal our country intends to achieve through its financial capabilities and with the assistance of foreign investors." P. Haydarov noted that a portion of our traditional energy resources is exported to Europe and global markets. "Oil extracted from the ACG (Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli) field via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline has been exported worldwide for several years, contributing significantly to our current level of development. Simultaneously, for the past four years, we have been exporting gas to Europe through the Southern Gas Corridor. Azerbaijani gas is purchased by eight countries, with expectations of increasing this number. We have committed to Europe to double our gas supply for these exports, underscoring the need to expand our use of alternative energy sources to ensure we can export gas while meeting domestic demand." "Azerbaijan has set ambitious goals to be recognized not only as a natural gas exporter but also as a provider of green energy in the future. In summary, I believe SOCAR will successfully undertake many of the tasks ahead during this process, navigating the challenges that lie ahead. However, achieving these goals necessitates expanding relationships with other energy and investment firms and increasing investments to consistently and rapidly advance the use of new technologies and alternative energy sources across the country," Heydarov concluded. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 19:57 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more At his first attempt, he approached Pashinyan's administration and wanted to restore himself from the dustbin of the archive, but when his wishes did not come true, he hid behind the clerics and began to drag Armenia into chaos. We are talking about Vartan Oskanyan, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, who has become obsolete and redundant. His collapsed political career is now being revived by radical religious organizations. Vartan Oskanyan was one of the Armenian diplomats who worked under the leadership of Robert Kocharyan and his name was mentioned in corruption. After handing over the post in 2008, Oskanyan, who retreated to a quiet corner and tried to wipe himself off the memories, has been eager to shine again since the Pashinyan administration kicked him away. Although Oskanyan revolved around Pashinyan, the pro-Western prime minister was not interested in him anymore, and thus he had to go to the pages of history. However, joining those who want to revive the dying separatist spirit in the country gave the ex-minister a new chance. The non-governmental organisation Christian Solidarity International, known for its religious radicalism and Azerbaijanophobic position, abused the platform of the UN Human Rights Council and held another anti-Azerbaijani event. At the event, Vartan Oskanian made a speech questioning the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the old and sick rituals of Armenian separatists. The abuse of the UN platform by elements that promote religious radicalism and nationalism and oppose peace in the region was another act of shame and disregard for international law. Oskanyan's speech, turning the UN tribune into a child's toy, is a blow to the image of the international organisation and international law in the truest sense of the word. In addition, representing Armenia and making statements outside the decisions of the Armenian government also means ignoring the direct influence of Yerevan. It means that Oskanyan is so gone astray that he no longer considers the leadership in his country, or the issue is not as we see and imagine... The issue of Armenians who voluntarily moved from Garabagh to Yerevan has been repeatedly emphasised in the speeches of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan: "The Azerbaijani army did not cause any danger to the peaceful Armenian population that came from Garabagh to Yerevan." I wonder what "ethnic cleansing" policy Oskanyan is talking about. Maybe we should go back to the 1990s or list the Azerbaijanis expelled from Yerevan and the historical and cultural monuments that were destroyed since the end of the 1980s? How good that you can take a platform like the UN and say whatever you want! But how is it that you see the UN, whose resolutions you have ignored for 30 years, as a refuge for you today? That is, you enjoy more than licking the bowl you once spat on. Since Vartan Oskanyan could not restore his lost reputation and collapsed political career, and did not dare speak publicly, he found the last opportunity to hide behind non-political religious figures like Bagrat Galstanyan. Will Okanyan grant a new world to the Armenians who refused to live under the flag of Azerbaijan and left Garabagh to live in Yerevan as they found there paradise? Boycotting Azerbaijan at the Paris Olympic Games and defaming Azerbaijan's name can only be a product of radical thinking. Since Vartan Oskanyan could not choose a normal path for himself, today he is trying to resume his faded career among radical religious trends. --- Elnur Enveroglu is AzerNews deputy editor-in-chief, follow him on @ElnurMammadli1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 10:42 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more A delegation led by Goskar Tahmazli, Chairman of the Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency (AFSA), made a business visit to the Russian Federation. During the visit, the AFSA Chairman met with Sergey Dankvert, head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of the Russian Federation ("Rosselkhoznadzor"), Azernews reports. During the meeting, discussions were held on food safety, plant and animal health, increasing agricultural exports from Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation this year, and cooperation between the Azerbaijan Food Safety Institute (AFSI) and the relevant Russian institutions. The discussions focused on agreements and memoranda of understanding on cooperation in plant quarantine and protection, veterinary and phytosanitary control, and the fight against transboundary animal diseases. Chairman Tahmazli emphasized the importance of measures taken in the fields of food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary control between the relevant institutions of the two countries, and the necessity of joint action to combat transboundary animal diseases. He highlighted the importance of strengthening these relations and ensuring biological safety. Dankvert expressed satisfaction with the developing cooperation between AFSA and "Rosselkhoznadzor." He noted that more efficient organization of relations in the field of food safety and the expansion of these relations have led to an increase in the export of agricultural products from Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation and ensured more effective control over this process. The achievements resulting from mutual cooperation were also addressed during the meeting. It was reported that the equivalence of the approval systems for food establishments between the two countries was recognized and cooperation on the registration of high-risk food production facilities was expanded. Additionally, an agreement was reached on the export of high-risk food products produced in Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation as a result of the meeting between the heads of AFSA and "Rosselkhoznadzor." Detailed discussions were held on the export of high-risk food products produced in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to Russia. A general agreement was reached on the export of these products, and it was noted that this would not only expand the access of food enterprises in the Autonomous Republic to international markets but also create wide opportunities for the development of the food industry. Tahmazli stressed the significance of the close cooperation between the Azerbaijan Food Safety Institute and several institutions and research centers of the Russian Federation. Within the framework of cooperation with the "Federal Center for Animal Health" (FGBI "ARRIAH"), it is planned to organize epizootiological monitoring of particularly dangerous animal diseases in border countries, develop a control program for foot-and-mouth disease and rabies, and conduct scientific risk assessments of particularly dangerous animal diseases. Trainings have been organized with the participation of Institute employees, and the Central Veterinary Laboratory of the Institute successfully participated in proficiency tests for foot-and-mouth disease organized by the "Federal Center for Animal Health." It was noted that within the framework of cooperation between the relevant institutes, joint scientific-practical seminars and trainings on combating infectious animal diseases, protecting animal and human health, information exchange on food safety and epizootiological status, and existing legislative acts in the countries, as well as the implementation of joint scientific research projects, will further expand the achievements. It was reported that 74 vaccine samples produced in Russia against animal diseases were subjected to laboratory tests in Azerbaijan and their compliance was confirmed. Tahmazli expressed gratitude to Dankvert for his proposal to gift SAT-2 vaccines from the Russian Federation for vaccinating animals against foot-and-mouth disease in border areas, and for his efforts and practical activities in developing cooperation between the two organizations. He stated that these actions would facilitate the increase of trade turnover between the two countries. He emphasized that import and export operations of food products would be conducted more efficiently and promptly in the future under mutual cooperation and trust. During the meeting, Tahmazli expressed confidence that the appointment of Oksana Lut as the new Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation would contribute to the development of mutual cooperation and wished her success in her endeavors. Dankvert positively assessed the current state of cooperation between the two organizations in the fields of food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary control, expressing confidence that the work being carried out in these areas would contribute to the increase of trade turnover between the two countries. Other issues of mutual interest were also addressed during the meeting. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 17:05 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more Taking its first symbolic step to attract climate finance ahead of the UN COP29 summit in November, Azerbaijan has announced plans to secure at least $500 million for "green projects," Azernews reports. Access to paid information is limited Find the plan that suits you best. 12 July 2024 18:06 (UTC+04:00) On July 12, at the initiative of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Azerbaijan, a meeting was held between the leadership of the Azerbaijani Bar Association (ARVK) and the delegation led by the acting Iranian ambassador - charge d'affaires, Seyyed Jafar Aghai. Citing the Bar Association, Azernews reports that ARVK chairman Anar Bagirov stated that there have been friendly relations between the peoples of Azerbaijan and Iran for many years, that he had a meeting with the representatives of the Iranian embassy in our country for the first time, and gave detailed information about the activities of the organisation he leads in recent years and the work done. , including the fact that the Collegium attaches importance to international relations. Emphasising that he appreciated the meeting, the chairman noted that there is cooperation with the Iranian Bar Association, that quality legal assistance is provided to Iranian citizens in Azerbaijan, and at the same time, he believes that quality legal assistance is also provided to Azerbaijani citizens in Iran. Acting Charge d'Affaires of Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Seyid Jafar Aghayi, said in his speech that they were satisfied with the first meeting and appreciated the steps taken by the Collegium in this field. He expressed the importance of the further expansion of future relations between the bar associations of both states, as well as the establishment of close personal relations between the lawyers of Iran and Azerbaijan. Within the framework of the meeting, preliminary discussions on the organisation of mutual and high-quality legal assistance between the two countries were held, and proposals for future cooperation were voiced. At the end, the guests were presented with the book "Nizami Ganjavi: advices, sayings, wisdom and aphorisms" published with the support of ARVK, and the official emblem of the Collegium. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 16:45 (UTC+04:00) Laman Ismayilova Read more Films from 10 countries have been selected for the "Russia Islamic World" program of the Kazan International Film Festival 2024, Azernews reports. The festival will take place on September 6-11. Non-competition program of the strategic vision group "Russia Islamic World" within the 20th Altyn Minbar Kazan International Film Festival features ten films from ten countries. This year non-competition section includes films made in Uzbekistan, Morocco, Iran, Bangladesh, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Bahrein. "The program is developed around the cinematography of countries from the strategic vision group Russia-Islamic World. As usual, the section includes 10 films. It is interesting to note that Russia is represented by the regional film All at Once, filmed in Dagestan. It has been a long time since Bahraini films appeared on the program. A new shortlist includes the film "Rose Water" from this island state. This year's "Russia-Islamic World" section did not include co-production projects, but many producing countries have gone beyond the territorial limits of their states. For instance, the plot of the road movie "Paradise" embraces Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkiye, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan. In its turn, the Kazakhstani film "Oliara" is made by Hungarian director Tamash Tot, a VGIK graduate. It is noticeable that national cinema tries to expand its borders," said the statement.The Islamic world shows its width, which is fascinating in its way, and marks the tendency of influence and interaction of different cultures", said Nina Kochelyaeva. Nina Kochelyaeva is chairman of the Altyn Minbar Executive Committee of Altyn Minbar, the director of the New Institute of Cultural Studies, candidate of historical sciences, leading scientific fellow, Head of the Department of Development and Assessment of Film Education Techniques at VGIK, expert of the scientific and educational center Civil Society and Social Communications of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and laureate of the Russian Government award in the field of education (2021). According to Nina Kochelyaeva, the main focus like in the main competition is made on human relationships, family values, mentality, traditions, and moral issues. "The program is based on a cinema of moral anxiety. Each film is based on the characters images, who are not indifferent to what is happening and deal with moral issues. When the characters find themselves in weird situations, their moral dilemma becomes the main topic of the film," she said. Note that Altyn Minbar is included in the list of cinema projects supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The Kazan International Film Festival is held with the support of the Rais of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and the Russian Ministry of Culture, as well as in partnership with the strategic vision group "Russia Islamic World". To check the "Russia Islamic World 2024" program click here ---- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 12:45 (UTC+04:00) By Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan During his visit to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, received a special reception that symbolized the unbreakable unity between the two countries. President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Pakistan has great significance in terms of further strengthening of bilateral relations in diverse sectors of economy, investment, energy cooperation, oil & gas exploration, textile, tourism, and greater regional connectivity. It seems that the two sides will engage in wide-ranging discussions on areas of mutual interest to further strengthen bilateral cooperation. Hopefully, several Agreements and MoUs are expected to be signed during the visit. This visit vividly reflects the robust cooperation and leadership-level dialogue between the two countries. Before his visit, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Samir Sharifov arrived in Pakistan and held meetings with different ministers including Energy (Power and Petroleum) ministers and called on Federal Minister for Commerce Jam Kamal Khan which demonstrated the government of Pakistan dedication to forging robust economic relations with other nations. Undoubtedly, Pakistan attaches great importance to its relationship with Azerbaijan. Both sides should jointly work to advance their cooperation in various sectors including tourism, transport, energy security, and defense, though this requires additional efforts. Moreover, finalization, operationalization, and channelization of an early conclusion of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and Bilateral Transit Trade Agreement (BTTA) is the need of the hour which would further streamline and systemize the bilateral relations between the two countries. It is suggested that the ease of travel between the two countries, institutionalization of easy visa policy, cooperation in civil aviation, and last but not least business and people-to-people cooperation would bring the desired goals of greater socio-economic cooperation, banking & finance integration, trans-regional connectivity, energy & food cooperation and above all metals & mining and infrastructure development between two sides. The two countries are taking measures to increase bilateral investment, especially in the energy sector. The two countries will also enhance parliamentary exchanges, strengthen cultural cooperation, and promote people-to-people contacts including between students, academia, businessmen, and tourists. Pakistans Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik disclosed that Baku was considering investing US$2-3 billion in Pakistan. Aliyevs current visit would boost economic cooperation between the two countries. His visit follows an inaugural Pakistan-Turkiye-Azerbaijan trilateral summit in Kazakhstan this month, which was attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It is pertinent to mention that at the summit, Sharif proposed the establishment of tripartite institutional mechanisms in economic and investment areas to further strengthen cooperation among the three nations. Additionally, Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik said that Azerbaijan was considering an investment of US$2 to US$3 billion in Pakistan. Azerbaijan was particularly interested in investing in the mineral, oil, and gas sectors. It was focusing on the oil and gas exploration sector and the country was keen to expand investments in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector as well. It is predicted that the current visit of Azerbaijan Ilham will further boost bilateral ties between the countries and areas of increasing textile exports and promoting the IT sector between the two countries will also be discussed. Simply, it would be a big investment push for the government of Pakistan. It is also hoped that discussions on regional security, peace, and stability especially bilateral military cooperation, joint drills, training, and joint ventures in defense production in terms of 5th generation fighter jets, missile technologies, drones, surveillance mechanisms, and light arms may also be included and further strengthened. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 08:00 (UTC+04:00) As the possibility of real peace grows, we are witnessing the resurgence of selective approaches, double standards, and intervention attempts. This approach is distinctly applied by France in our region. France strives to intervene in regional dynamics under various pretexts, and turn the South Caucasus into a zone of confrontation, applying its shameful neo-colonial practices, said Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova as she addressed a plenary meeting of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum. Sahiba Gafarova added that Azerbaijan and Armenia are currently continuing the normalization process aimed at bringing long-term peace and stability to the South Caucasus region. A firm and resolute position demonstrated by Azerbaijan decisively prevents such attempts, Speaker Gafarova noted. "After restoring its territorial integrity and sovereignty, Azerbaijan has launched large-scale restoration and reconstruction works in the liberated territories. Former internally displaced persons are already returning to their homelands. Thus, Azerbaijan not only ensured the implementation of norms and principles of international law on its own but also restored the justice that our people have been looking for nearly 30 years," Sahiba Gafarova emphasized. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 10:20 (UTC+04:00) Ulviyya Shahin Read more The delegation led by Minister of Agriculture Majnun Mammadov is on an official visit to Hungary, Azernews reports citing the Ministry. During the visit, the minister met with Hungarian Minister of Agriculture Istvan Nagy. The meeting was attended by representatives from both the ministry and companies operating in the agricultural sector. They discussed the prospects for cooperation between the two countries in agriculture. So far, Mammadov has addressed topics including the transfer of modern agricultural technologies, specialist training, the involvement of young Azerbaijani specialists in long-term experience programs in Hungary, the continuation of cooperation in animal husbandry (particularly embryo transfer), the study of Hungarian poultry farming practices, and the initiation of cooperation in this field. He also noted the agreement to establish closer relations between entrepreneurs from both countries. Emphasis was placed on the importance of further expanding agricultural relations between Azerbaijan and Hungary, with particular importance given to the activities of the Azerbaijan-Hungary Working Group in agriculture. Given the economic potential of both countries, the Azerbaijani side highlighted the need to diversify trade relations and increase trade turnover. Mammadov invited his Hungarian counterpart to visit Azerbaijan and to observe the large-scale efforts being made to restore, reconstruct, and create necessary infrastructure in the territories liberated from occupation. In response, Nagy acknowledged that Hungary is a friendly nation and expressed interest in developing partnership relations across all fields. He noted the importance of strengthening trade relations and expanding agricultural cooperation. Nagy accepted the invitation with pleasure and confirmed that he would visit Azerbaijan in the near future. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 13:22 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more During her business visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia, the Chairwoman of the 6th convocation of the Milli Majlis (National Assembly) of Azerbaijan, Sahiba Gafarova, held meetings with Natalya Kochanova, Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus, and Agegnehu Teshager, Speaker of the House of Federation of Ethiopia, Azernews reports. In the meeting with Natalya Kochanova, both parties expressed satisfaction with the development of partnership relations based on the principles of friendship between Azerbaijan and Belarus. They noted the important role of high-level relations between the heads of state of both countries in the current high level of relations and mentioned the intensification of high-level mutual visits and the signing of documents that ensure deeper connections between Azerbaijan and Belarus. During the conversation, the importance of further development of cooperation in various fields between the two countries was emphasised, and ideas were exchanged regarding the existing opportunities in these areas. The meeting also expressed satisfaction with the successful cooperation between the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Belarus, both bilaterally and within international parliamentary organisations. Speaker Sahiba Gafarova fondly recalled her official visit to Belarus last month and the meetings she had. In the meeting with Agegnehu Teshager, the current state and development prospects of relations between the two countries were discussed, and it was stated that there are opportunities for cooperation in several areas. The meeting highlighted the joint activities of the parliaments of both countries in various international organisations. Chairwoman Sahiba Gafarova provided information about the activities of the Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network, established on the initiative of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. She recalled Ethiopia's participation in the organisation's conference. Additionally, she emphasised the importance of mutual visits between friendship groups operating within the legislative bodies of both countries. Agegnehu Teshager praised Azerbaijan's activities within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network and commended the initiatives put forward by Azerbaijan during its chairmanship of the Movement. The meetings also discussed the upcoming 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Baku in November this year. Chairwoman Sahiba Gafarova provided information about the parliamentary conference that the Milli Majlis will organise in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union within the framework of COP29. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 13:41 (UTC+04:00) Fatima Latifova Read more International observers have always closely monitored the processes taking place in Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission Rovzat Gasimov as he told journalists. He emphasized that all conditions would be created for both international and local observers to monitor the snap parliamentary elections. The Central Election Commission has sent invitations to the election authorities of 26 countries to monitor the voting process," Gasimov added. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 14:00 (UTC+04:00) The non-governmental organization Christian Solidarity International, known for its religious radicalism and Azerbaijanophobic position, abused the platform of the UN Human Rights Council and held another anti-Azerbaijani event. At the event, former Armenian Foreign Minister and radical nationalist Vartan Oskanian made a speech questioning the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing the Western Azerbaijan Community, as it said in a statement. The Western Azerbaijan Community condemns the abuse of the UN platform by elements that promote religious radicalism and nationalism and oppose peace in the region. The community also calls on the Armenian government not to allow the destructive activities of people like Oskanian who oppose the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the statement added. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 16:04 (UTC+04:00) President Ilham Aliyev's two-day visit to Pakistan on July 11 was widely covered in Pakistan's local media. In the published articles, the grand welcoming ceremony of the head of state of Azerbaijan, as well as the strategically important documents signed between the two fraternal countries during the meetings were specially emphasized. The Pakistan Observer news site, which cooperates with Azernews newspaper, published one of the similar articles. Azernews presents that article: President Aliyev, a true friend of Pakistan THE warmth with which Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev was received on his arrival in Pakistan for a two day visit is not without a reason as the distinguished guest is a true friend having unreserved commitment to strengthen and diversify relations with Pakistan. As President Aliyev alighted at Nur Khan Airbase from his special aircraft, he was warmly greeted by PM Shehbaz Sharif and his cabinet members amid formal welcome ceremonies reflecting closeness of ties between the two countries. The wide-ranging talks between the leadership of the two countries would surely pave the way for taking the bilateral relationship to new heights as per repeated resolve of the Azeri President. The visit assumed special significance after an announcement a day earlier by Pakistans Minister for Petroleum Dr. Musadik Malik, who disclosed that Azerbaijan was considering investing $2 to 3 billion in Pakistan and the Foreign Office also expected that the visit would give a boost to economic cooperation. In a related development, speaking at the inaugural Pakistan-Turkiye-Azerbaijan trilateral summit in Kazakhstan this month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proposed the establishment of tripartite institutional mechanisms in economic and investment areas to further strengthen cooperation among the three nations. Groundwork for this important visit was laid during visit of Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in May when he held all-encompassing discussions with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and the two sides agreed to further strengthen bilateral strategic relations and broaden the scope of cooperation in all areas of interest, including trade, investment, energy, defense, education, climate action, and regional connectivity. All this shows the two countries, especially their leadership, has will and resolve to forge economic ties with focus on trade and investment. It is a matter of pride for Pakistan that Azerbaijan has consistently been supporting the just cause of people of Kashmir for their right to self-determination. Azerbaijan supports peaceful resolution of the dispute based on the norms and principles of international law and relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council. This expression of solidarity with Pakistan and people of Jammu and Kashmir is not unilateral as Pakistan also unequivocally extended firm moral and political support to Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia. We hope that the immense goodwill that exists between the two countries and understanding reached during the visit will be translated into concrete projects and programmes to forge ties in diverse fields to their mutual advantage. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Thirty one year have passed since the establishment of the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY), Azernews reports. On July 12, 1993, at a meeting held in Almaty with the participation of the ministers of culture of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkiye and Turkmenistan, an agreement was signed on the establishment of the Joint Management of Turkish Culture and Arts. Since 2009, the institution has been called the International Turkish Culture Organization. The secretariat of the organization is located in Ankara, Turkiye. Apart from the six founding member countries of TURKSOY, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, as well as the Republics of Altai, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Tiva, Khakassia and Sakha-Yakut of the Russian Federation, and the autonomous region of Gagauz Land of Moldova, have the status of observer membership in the organization. Activities carried out by TURKSOY are determined by the Permanent Council of the Ministers of Culture of Turkic speaking countries. The organization unites Turkic-speaking peoples by preserving, researching, developing, and promoting their shared culture, language, history, art, traditions, and heritage. Through Opera Days, Literature Congresses and other events, TURKSOY offers a common platform to scholars and artists of the Turkic World and make it possible for them to exchange their experiences Notable figures such as Polad Bulbuloglu, Dusen Kaseinov, and Sultan Raev have served as general secretaries over the years Over the past years, TURKSOY has made significant contributions to promoting Turkic cultural heritage through different initiatives. Most of these projects have become a tradition and are continued every year. The organization actively collaborates with international bodies like UNESCO and maintains partnerships with institutions such as the Organization of Turkic States and the International Turkish Academy. Azerbaijan's membership in TURKSOY Azerbaijan actively participates in TURKSOY's initiatives, hosting events like the Cultural Capital of the Turkic World project in Shusha city. Many events of cultural significance, including the Kharibulbul International Folklore Festival, the Korkut Ata Turkic World Film Festival, the Cultural Days of the Turkic People, the Vagif Poetry Days, the International Festival of Children's Creativity, Wonderland Shusha 2023 International Scout Camp, and other events were organized in Azerbaijan's cultural center in accordance with the Action Plan. Every year, like other members of the organization, the commemorative year of TURKSOY is announced in the name of prominent cultural and literary figures of Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijan works closely with other Turkic organizations, such as the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Countries, the International Turkic Academy, the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation, the Turkic Business Council, which are related bodies and institutions of the organization. Strengthening cooperation with the OTS countries, in the field of science, education, culture and art, Azerbaijan plays a very active role in promoting the common values of the Turkic world at the international level It is no coincidence that the headquarters of the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation, created on the initiative of Azerbaijan in 2012, is located in Baku. Initiated in 2012, the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation focuses on the preservation of the Turkic heritage in member countries as well as conducting projects in collaboration with partners in third nations. The foundation provides assistance in the protection, study, and promotion of Turkic culture and heritage through supporting and funding various activities, projects, and programs. The organization carries out its activities in cooperation with TURKSOY and the Turkic Academy. ---- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 17:16 (UTC+04:00) The Central Election Commission (CEC) has so far registered 519 authorised representatives of 20 political parties. Azernews reports that the Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Mazahir Panahov, said these words at the meeting of the CEC held on July 12. The CEC chairman called on other parties to participate in the election process. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 18:57 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva The Japanese Ministry of Defense believes that the balance of military forces between mainland China and Taiwan is "rapidly shifting" towards Beijing, Azernews reports. "The balance of military forces between China and Taiwan as a whole is rapidly shifting towards China," the report says, officially approved at a meeting of the country's government. At the same time, the Japanese defense Ministry emphasizes that Taiwan continues to strengthen its own defense capability against the background of Russia's war against Ukraine. China, according to the Japanese military, continues to defiantly increase military activity around Taiwan. The Japanese Defense Ministry also believes that the international community's concern about the situation in the Taiwan Strait is "rapidly increasing." Regarding the PRC, the report, as a year earlier, retained an assessment describing China as the "most serious strategic challenge" for the Japanese side. The Japanese Defense Ministry also expressed concern about China's activity in the South China and East China Seas. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 20:29 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva Germany, Italy, Poland and France have signed an agreement of intent on the joint development of cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers, Azernews reports. The document was signed by the defense ministers of the countries within the framework of the NATO summit held in Washington. The purpose of the agreement is to fill the gap in the European arsenal. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) writes that the agreement includes the intention to develop the product. The countries have yet to agree on the details of defense cooperation. According to the FAS, it is planned to create a conventional (non-nuclear) complex with a flight range of more than 1,000 kilometers. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 21:09 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva Data, including photographs, about a new long-range missile being developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defense, has leaked online, Azernews reports. According to the publication, information about the characteristics of the rocket and several pictures were posted for a small group of users of the Discord platform. It is emphasized that with a high degree of probability these data relate to a new long-range missile being developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defense, which is an improved version of the Type-12 missile in service with the Japanese Armed Forces. It is assumed that the messages were left by a serviceman of the country's Air Self-Defense Forces who had access to relevant information. It is also reported that during 2023, he posted other information in the Discord group that may have a secret status - by now all these messages have already been deleted. The Japanese Ministry of Defense and law enforcement agencies are currently investigating the circumstances of the incident. On December 16, 2022, the Japanese government approved a new national security strategy. In particular, it indicates Japan's right to launch counterstrikes against targets on the territory of a potential enemy. At the same time, the document emphasizes that preemptive strikes are not allowed. The strategy also assumes an increase in military spending by 2027 by almost half, to 2% of GDP. To acquire the potential for a retaliatory strike, the Japanese government plans to increase the range of Type-12 missiles it has in service, develop its own hypersonic weapons and purchase American Tomahawk cruise missiles. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 July 2024 23:15 (UTC+04:00) By Alimat Aliyeva The UN believes that only by destroying all nuclear weapons, the world can protect itself from the nuclear threat, Azernews reports. This was stated at a briefing by the official representative of the head of the world organization, Stephane Dujarric, responding to a request from a TASS correspondent to comment on NATO's confirmation in the final declaration of the alliance summit of its nuclear status and commitment to the modernization of weapons. "We remind everyone that the position of the Secretary-General is that the only way to protect yourself from nuclear weapons is to live in a world without nuclear weapons," Dujarric said in response to a question. The final declaration of the NATO summit in Washington, published on Wednesday, states that "NATO will be a nuclear alliance as long as nuclear weapons exist." According to the document, NATO countries "will continue to pursue a policy of nuclear deterrence, adhering to the principles of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," in addition, the alliance remains committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of its nuclear weapons, including through their modernization. NATO will also "strengthen its nuclear. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Poetic verses open doors to China's cultural treasures 09:43, July 12, 2024 By Cheng Lu, Bai Xu and Li Yao ( Xinhua NANCHANG, July 11 (Xinhua) -- If the legendary Chinese poet Li Bai were alive today, he would be astonished to find himself beloved by modern youngsters, not just for his lyrical genius but also because his verses now grant free entry to many scenic spots. Lushan Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage site in east China's Jiangxi Province, is offering free entry to students who can successfully recite Li Bai's 200-character poetry masterpiece, "A Ballad of Lushan Mountain." As of Thursday, more than 480 tourists have passed the test and received the ticket free of cost, normally priced at 160 yuan (about 22.43 U.S. dollars), thanks to the renowned Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet. "Lushan Mountain rises by the Southern Dipper Like a screen penetrating the silky cloud Its shadow falls into a lake with green luster Two ranges are giant gates above the ground" "The landscapes described by Li Bai are no longer confined to books; it's as if I'm standing alongside him, admiring the beauty of Lushan together," said a 21-year-old tourist surnamed Liu, who is a postgraduate student from east China's Zhejiang Province. Liu managed to finish the recital in less than two minutes, with only two errors. "I seized every opportunity to practice before arriving here, whether on the high-speed train or in a taxi," she said. This intriguing initiative is part of a recently launched campaign by Jiangxi, allowing students worldwide to gain free or discounted access to its tourist attractions by reciting designated poems or other classics. A total of 123 scenic spots in Jiangxi have joined this poetry recital campaign, which runs from June 15, 2024 to February 28, 2025. Jiangxi aims to leverage traditional Chinese culture, represented by these poems, to attract visitors and enrich their travel experience, said Kuang Kai, an official of the provincial culture and tourism department. "Jiangxi has long been a land rich in poetic heritage, with many poets leaving behind thousands of verses over the centuries," said Kuang. "The selection of the poems is tailored to reflect the unique cultural and tourism characteristics of each city and scenic spot." An increasing number of Chinese tourist attractions are now pursuing long-term development by tapping into their cultural treasures. In the first half of this year, over 32,000 tourists earned free tickets to Tengwang Pavilion in Jiangxi by successfully reciting "Preface to Tengwang Pavilion" by Tang Dynasty poet Wang Bo. In Qufu in Shandong Province, the birthplace of the prominent Chinese philosopher Confucius, visitors can enjoy free entry to many historic sites after passing a test related to "The Analects of Confucius." Learning Chinese classical literature has become a popular trend in China. The televised Chinese Poetry Competition, a hallmark of this movement, has captivated audiences for years. Participants from all walks of life -- scientists, students, deliverymen, police officers and pilots -- showcase their knowledge and passion for classical poetry. "The classics are cultural genes embedded deep in the blood of the Chinese people," said Peng Min, an editor who won the fifth edition of the Chinese Poetry Competition. "These works are not only alive today but continue to enrich the spiritual lives of contemporary people with their enduring vitality." In an interview with Xinhua, Zhang Yiwu, a professor at Peking University, expressed his belief that poetry recital activities can encourage visitors, especially the young, to gain a deeper appreciation for traditional classics. "Our livelihood has improved significantly, allowing people to pursue higher spiritual goals," he said. Standing atop Lushan Mountain and gazing at the surrounding peaks, Liu, the tourist from Zhejiang Province, can't help but wonder if, over 1,000 years ago, Li Bai experienced the same, climbing the mountain amid drizzles and marveling at the scenery. "Poetry always offers me boundless inspiration to be brave enough to explore and passionate enough to truly live," Liu said. (Xinhua correspondent Zhu Yunuo also contributed to the story.) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Renton, Wash.-based Providence has alerted 2,200 patients of possible exposure to hepatitis B and C and HIV after the health system's infection control practices may not have been followed by an anesthesiologist. The alert was sent to patients of Portland, Ore.-area hospitals, including Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City, Providence Portland Medical Center and other non-Providence hospitals. The physician was employed by Oregon Anesthesiology Group, which no longer provides services for Providence, and the physician is no longer employed by OAG, according to a July 11 news release from Providence. Providence is urging notified patients to undergo a blood test to screen for hepatitis and HIV. St. Louis-based Ascension saw a $3 billion operating loss in fiscal year 2023, and its sustainability strategy includes selling off major hospitals in their system. Additionally, last year, Ascension said it plans to invest more money into its ASCs, imaging and physical therapy sites that advance its footprint of service offerings and provide greater convenience to consumers. Here are five hospital sell-off deals from Ascension in 2024: 1. On June 25, Birmingham, Ala.-based UAB Health greed to acquire the five-hospital Ascension St. Vincent's Health System.The $450 million deal still needs approval from federal regulators and is expected to close this fall. 2. In March, Ascension Michigan, which includes 16 hospitals, announced plans to sell three campuses and an ASC to Midland-based MyMichigan Health this summer. 3. This year, Ascension hopes to ink a joint-venture partnership with Detroit-based Henry Ford Health in the third quarter, pending regulatory approvals. The deal would fold Ascension Michigan's sites of care in the southeastern region of the state under its brand. 4. In February St. Louis-based Mercy announced plans to acquire Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Pittsburg, Kan. The proposed transaction includes the hospital, its locations and related physician practices. 5. Also in February, Ascension sold Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital System in Binghamton, N.Y., to Sayre, Pa.-based the Guthrie Clinic, now a six-hospital system. Columbus-based OhioHealth ise opening a medical office space featuring 18 discrete physician clinics. The $20 million investment aims to improve patient care, recruit more physicians, and improve physician and staff efficiency, according to a July 11 news release from the health system. The new clinics, attached to OhioHealth Doctors Hospital, will double the facilitys exam room capacity and provide a range of services, including obstetrics and gynecology, a community care clinic, general surgery, neurology, pulmonology and gastroenterology. Bismarck (N.D.) State College received approval to offer associate degree programs for dental hygiene and dental assisting, according to a July 11 report by Prairie Public Broadcasting. The North Dakota Board of Higher Education approved the new programs by a vote of five to three. Bismarck State College will be among four schools to offer dental hygiene and dental assisting programs, joining North Dakota College of Science in Wahpeton, Minot State University the Dakota College at Bottineau. North Dakota has 710 active dental hygienists and 800 active dental assistants, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Site preparation and pre-construction on University of Maryland Shore Regional Health's largest hospital will begin later in July. The July 10 rate application approval from the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission was the final step in the regulatory process, according to a news release from the Easton, Md.-based health system. The $540 million-Shore Regional Medical Center in Easton will include 147 beds, seven operating rooms, 27 emergency department treatment bays, a helipad, and neuroscience, orthopedics and women's services. It will also hold centers for birthing, cardiac intervention, acute inpatient rehabilitation and acute inpatient behavioral health. Being able to provide all necessary services in a 2,000-square-mile rural community and continuing to thrive as a health system have been among the main challenges in this project, Ken Kozel, president and CEO of UM SRH, told Becker's. Since January 2005, 192 rural hospitals across the country have downsized or closed. Support from local and state officials as well as collaboration with community members has been vital to the project, Mr. Kozel said. Construction is expected to begin next summer and conclude in 2028. University of Maryland Shore Regional Health is part of Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical System. Maryville, Tenn.-based Blount Memorial Hospital has sold MorningView Village, a senior living facility, for $22.7 million to Ocoee Foundation, a Cleveland, Tenn.-based nonprofit. ABC affiliate WATE reported July 9. The sale is a significant boost for Blount Memorial's finances and follows an agreement between the hospital and county commission for the management of MorningView Village, according to the report. A resolution was passed earlier this year permitting the sale. "The sale of MorningView Village really helped solidify our cash position and improved our financials," Blount Memorial Interim CEO Jonathan Smith told the news outlet. "We feel very confident that Ocoee will be able to offer the same or better service than what Blount Memorial did." Ocoee Foundation owns and operates multiple assisted living, skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities across Tennessee and Wisconsin, according to its website. Blount Memorial did not respond to Becker's request for comment. Citing high costs, payers are favoring bariatric surgeries over Wegovy and similar medications, according to an NYU Langone expert. It's unclear if insurers' policies can quell the booming popularity of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, though. Weight loss surgeries have an upfront cost between $15,000 and $23,000, and GLP-1s can cost about $1,000 each month. There's more data on how much weight is lost after bariatric procedures it ranges between 20% and 30%, according to Anita Courcoulas, MD, chief of minimally invasive bariatric and general surgery at Pittsburgh-based UPMC but patients are hungry for GLP-1s. A four-year study by Novo Nordisk found sustained 10% weight loss among Wegovy users, but there's no consensus. Some studies point toward sustained GLP-1 results, others don't. The CEO of Norman (Okla.) Regional Health System told Becker's the rising demand for GLP-1s influenced the decision to close a weight loss clinic and end its bariatric services. In one year, the system noted a 30% decrease in bariatric surgeries. National estimates indicate a drop in weight loss procedures. Many insurance companies are steering patients toward bariatric surgeries, according to Christine Ren-Fielding, MD, director of the NYU Langone Weight Management Program and chief of the system's division of bariatric surgery. "Bariatric surgery is the old-fashioned way," Dr. Ren-Fielding told Becker's. "Insurers are now putting up barriers for people who want to be covered for GLP-1s and taking down barriers for people who want to have surgery." There's also the issue with medication adherence; a recent study from Prime Therapeutics found only 14.8% of patients continued their GLP-1 obesity regimen over two years. Medicare, commercial insurance companies and employers are confronted with a difficult question: Which option is more effective long-term, and can they afford to cover these newer medications? Seven other updates on GLP-1 medications: The future of GLP-1s 1. As drugmakers test experimental GLP-1s, the FDA approved the first generic option. Novo Nordisk brands the generic liraglutide as Saxenda, a weight loss drug, and Victoza, a Type 2 diabetes treatment. In late June, Teva Pharmaceuticals announced the approval. Dr. Ren-Fielding said the generic can increase access but likely won't make a dent in current demand for brand-name medications. 2. Researchers at Cleveland-based Case Western Reserve University discovered that patients taking the medicines for Type 2 diabetes were less likely to develop 10 of 13 obesity-associated cancers than those taking insulin. Other than cancer, researchers are also investigating whether the drugs can treat kidney-disease related events, sleep apnea, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis and a plethora of other conditions. Safety and efficacy 3. A study linked the use of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, to a potential risk of developing an eye condition that can cause blindness in one eye. Two ophthalmology organizations said vision changes can be temporary side effects to drugs that change sugar levels, adding that this study did not confirm a causal relationship and that more research is needed. 4. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of adolescents and young adults with GLP-1 prescriptions increased from 8,722 to 60,567 equal to a 594.4% increase in dispenses, according to a study published May 22 in JAMA. Vibha Singhal, MD, director of pediatric obesity at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, said emerging data suggests these drugs are safe to use among adolescent populations. 5. In a study of about 18,000 adults who are overweight or obese, those taking Mounjaro lost 5.9% of their weight after three months, and patients taking Ozempic lost 3.6%, on average. Mounjaro also surpassed Ozempic at the six-month and one-year mark. 'Hunger rebound' 6. Carey Brown, MD, the medical director of Kettering Health Miamisburg's bariatric program, said long-term use is preferable "because a strong hunger rebound will likely occur once you are off the medication," according to a statement in a July 2 post. Lawmakers push for lower prices 7. In an op-ed, President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Novo Nordisk of "price gouging," calling the prices of Ozempic and Wegovy as "unconscionably high." The company said the cost debate is being misconstrued for political purposes and that rebates and pharmacy benefit managers are to blame for high drug costs. Readers interested in the effects of GLP-1s on health systems and questions about their role in care delivery over the next 18 months are invited to join Becker's for a complimentary editorial webinar on this topic. Sign up here. Mark Rosenblatt, MD, PhD, was selected as the new CEO of the University of Illinois Hospital and Clinics at UIC, or UI Health, based in Chicago. Dr. Rosenblatt will take the helm permanently on July 12, according to a news release from the health system. He has served in the role on an interim basis since Sept. 16, 2023, and succeeds Michael Zenn. Mr. Zenn stepped down as CEO last year and moved into the new role of senior advisor for enterprise strategic initiatives within the university's office of the vice chancellor for health affairs. Dr. Rosenblatt will continue as the G. Stephen Irwin Dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is also professor and physician surgeon in the UIC Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, professor of pharmacology in the College of Medicine and associate vice chancellor for physician affairs within the university's office of the vice chancellor for health affairs. Mike Cooper was named CEO of Fairfield (Ill.) Memorial Hospital. Mr. Cooper will begin his new role on July 15, according to a hospital news release shared with Becker's. He brings more than three decades of healthcare experience to the position, including serving as CEO of Rush County Memorial Hospital in LaCrosse, Kan., since 2019, the release said. Mr. Cooper also previously served as CEO of Dunn Memorial Hospital in Bedford, Ind., and St. Benedict's Family Medical Center in Jerome, Idaho. Fairfield Memorial Hospital is a 25-bed critical access hospital with more than 400 employees, according to its website. A former Georgia insurance commissioner was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, the Justice Department said July 12. John Oxendine pleaded guilty in March to participating in a scheme that billed private insurers for over $2.5 million in false claims. Mr. Oxendine was Georgia's insurance commissioner from 1995 to 2011. The scheme took place after he left office. According to the Justice Department, Mr. Oxendine conspired with the owner of a chain of ENT practices, to submit unnecessary claims to NextHealth, a Texas-based lab. In 2022, Jeffery Gallups, MD, the owner of the clinics, was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the scheme. As part of the scheme, Mr. Oxendine gave a presentation to physicians at Dr. Gallups' practice, urging them to bill medically unnecessary tests to NextLabs, according to the Justice Department. NextHealth paid a 50% kickback from profits it made from the false claims to Mr. Oxendine and Dr. Gallups. NextHealth charged private insurers over $2.5 million for the tests ordered from Dr. Gallups' practice and were paid more than $750,000 in reimbursements. Mr. Oxendine and Dr. Gallups received $260,000 in kickbacks, according to the Justice Department. Mr. Oxendine received payment through his insurance consulting company, Oxendine Insurance Services, to conceal the scheme. Mr. Oxendine used a portion of his profits to pay a $150,000 charitable contribution, and $70,000 in legal fees for Dr. Gallups. In addition to the prison sentence, Mr. Oxendine was ordered to pay over $760,000 in restitution and a $25,000 fine, according to the Justice Department. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital in Chicago has been hit with a federal class action lawsuit over a data breach that affected 792,000 patients. The lawsuit also alleges that the hospital waited almost five months to inform individuals their information had been compromised, according to court documents. The hospital did publish information about the breach on its website, stating that on Jan. 31, Lurie Childrens "took certain electronic systems offline, including our email, phones, and electronic health record system (Epic), and its patient portal (MyChart). Lurie Childrens also activated our standard incident response procedures, including the Hospital Incident Command Structure (HICS)." The statement also addresses the time it took to address the issue, stating that, "due to the complexity of the attack as well as our infrastructure, it has taken time to understand what happened and to identify the scope of impact to our systems and data." The lawsuit, brought about by multiple patients, states that they have suffered "irreparable" damages and lost much time trying to mitigate these issues on their own to date, and seeks compensation for such damages. Becker's reached out to the hospital for comment and received the following statement: "As is Lurie Childrens policy, we are unable to comment on pending litigation matters," a hospital spokesperson said via email. "Our focus is on continuing to care for our patients as well as addressing the cybersecurity attack." Several hospitals and health systems across the country were awarded $275,000 each for projects designed to elevate and tackle equity issues affecting the nurse workforce. The grants were announced July 9 and jointly awarded by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, AARP, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. "Nurses are witnesses to or recipients of racism and discrimination in health care settings. Yet, nurses are in the best position to leverage their commitment, expertise, and leadership to address these issues for patients, families, and co-workers," Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, professor and dean of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Future of Nursing's Campaign for Action, said in the release. So having the minds' of nurses behind these initiatives is key, she added. The funded projects are from hospitals or systems in California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. "As the largest segment of the health care workforce, nurses are uniquely positioned to not only navigate todays challenges, but to shape the future of health care," Vicki Good, DNP, RN, chief clinical officer for AACN-Critical Care stated in the release. "Healthy work environments are crucial to those efforts, with far-reaching benefits for patients, families, and communities." Here are the hospitals, health systems and initiatives that received awards: American Career College Educational Foundation, a nonprofit in Orange County, Calif. Project : Fostering a Healthy Workplace for Nurses Using the True Colors Communication Program : Fostering a Healthy Workplace for Nurses Using the True Colors Communication Program Goals: Improve communication skills, build effective teams, create a healthier work environment, and improve the vacancy rate using the True Colors interpersonal communications training program. Childrens National Hospital in Washington, D.C. Project : Commensality: A pathway to true collaboration and meaningful recognition : Commensality: A pathway to true collaboration and meaningful recognition Goals: Implement commensality groups, launch engagement strategy for DAISY Foundation award, improve meaningful recognition and collaboration scores. Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston Project : Night To Light Revive Before You Drive : Night To Light Revive Before You Drive Goals: Increase awareness and adherence to safety practices during commutes, implement awareness interventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of safe driving programs for night shift nurses. The Health Collaborative, a nonprofit in Cincinnati Project : Nurse Manager Academy : Nurse Manager Academy Goals: Address and improve mental health challenges, upskill nursing staff in leadership effectiveness, and establish a healthy work environment. The RWJ University Hospital Foundation in New Brunswick, N.J. Project : Pathway to Nursing : Pathway to Nursing Goals: Create a healthy work environment among RN mentors and increase the number of Hispanic RNs to better align with the population served. UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. Project : Development and Retention of New Graduate Nurses in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) : Development and Retention of New Graduate Nurses in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) Goals: Increase new graduate nurse knowledge of the PICU and create a healthy work environment. University Hospital in Newark, N.J. Project : University Hospital's Stress First Aid Program to Enhance Nurse Resilience and Retention Rates : University Hospital's Stress First Aid Program to Enhance Nurse Resilience and Retention Rates Goals: Raise awareness and establish resources to reduce stress and improve nurse well-being. University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation in Towson, Md. Project : Saint Joseph Medical Center Joy in Work Initiative : Saint Joseph Medical Center Joy in Work Initiative Goals: Implement stress first-aid, manager well-being initiatives, advance health equity, support DEI policies, and address social determinants of health. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Project : Promoting Healthy Work Environments and Confronting Workplace Violence Through Simulation Training : Promoting Healthy Work Environments and Confronting Workplace Violence Through Simulation Training Goals: Develop, implement, and evaluate a simulation training program to address workplace violence. University of Southern California Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, Calif. Project : SafePath : SafePath Goals: Establish structures to enhance staff well-being, promote a supportive work environment, and strengthen resilience in addressing workplace violence. Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tenn. Project : The Utilization of the Academy for Diverse Nurse Leaders: Pathway to Healthy Work Environments : The Utilization of the Academy for Diverse Nurse Leaders: Pathway to Healthy Work Environments Goals: Develop and implement a healthy work environment curriculum, enhance indicators of a healthy work environment. Washington State Hospital Association in Seattle The pandemic upended healthcare in innumerable ways, and one of the less visible ones is how it affected the transition to practice for clinicians who were in school studying to become the next front-line clinicians. The transition to practice from medical and clinical education was named the No.1 patient safety concern of 2024 by ECRI safety experts. Hospital leaders told Becker's that while COVID-19 shutting down schools and forcing more virtual and distance learning limited their time to train with peers in person and at the bedside, the transition to practice has always been challenging. Here is what C-suite executives have experienced in their hospitals and health systems related to this challenge: Vicki Good. DNP, RN. Chief Clinical Officer of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: I would say we were seeing it prior to COVID-19. I think that COVID has exacerbated it to a certain extent. Our educational partners had to make some major shifts during COVID, decrease in clinical time that they could get in the hospitals, and they had to do more simulated training, etc. So hospitals said before COVID that new graduate nurses in particular weren't ready for practice, is the term that people would use. But I think that just got exacerbated even post-COVID because they had such, you know, limited time in the clinical setting. When you consider these complications and the fact that our training programs haven't increased, hospitals just can't cover everything that needs to be covered, and you also can't have somebody walk out of their educational setting and walk right into the hospital ready to practice immediately. There are programs out there that are very successful. We need to figure out, how do we replicate this, and how do we spread it? So there are programs called"earn as you learn" where the hospital offers to pay students to come do clinical time in the hospital while they're a student, to get them increased exposure to patients. It also helps them learn the culture of the hospital, learn the interactions with patients, and overall prepares them better to come out of school. And that's a program that hospitals are investing in to try and get them ready even before they exit nursing school. Sunil Madan, MD. Chief Medical Officer at Luminis Health (Parole, Md.): To address challenges with the transition to practice, we are going back to the basics with them once they get here. It is a process improvement model that we use to structure outcomes. If you put the right structures in place and our processes and standards that already work in place, you will get the outcomes you desire. We're refortifying, redefining, and restrengthening those structures and processes and using technology to help us streamline it to deliver the outcomes we want. We are retraining people, and then we're also using a multitude of other strategies to help the new or younger workforce as well. So whether it's a digital mentorship program for a young worker or longer, in-more-detail mentorships or another innovative practice like virtual nursing. We've launched a virtual nursing program, which is additive to our normal nurses that are already working in staff. The senior nurse that sits virtually helps with tasks or answers questions to support the young workforce. Kathy Tregear, MSN, RN. Chief Nurse Executive at Beebe Health (Lewes, Del.): I agree that nationally, it is a concern, and here's why. There are still a fair number of new to practice and relatively new to practice folks who may have gone to school during COVID-19, and when folks were doing going to school during COVID-19, they spent probably more time in the SIM lab than they did in the hospital in terms of patient care. And because so much of what we did electively was shut down, people didn't get as robust of an experience. Katy Perry has dedicated her new album to the numbers 143, which she began seeing several years ago in some of my hardest moments. The US music star released the albums first single Womans World alongside a cinematic music video, which features a cameo from online star Trisha Paytas and celebrates the divine feminine. Former American Idol judge Perry said she felt super grateful and excited after releasing the song, and explained the inspiration behind the albums unusual title on Instagram. I dont know about you, but 143 for me is a message from my angels, Perry said. It means I love you in some digital language, but its a symbol that I get and have received in some of my hardest moments and it was something that started coming to me about two-and-a-half years ago. I see 143 everywhere and not just like on the phone, even though thats always a good sign, but I see it everywhere. The angels always want to speak with you, (youve) just got to be willing to hear it. The music video sees Perry dressed as both US cultural symbol Rosie the Riveter and a bionic woman, having woken up with bionic legs in a world of destruction after being crushed by an anvil. Its a womans world and youre lucky to be living in it, meaning us ladies are so full of love and light and we love you and we are soft, we are strong, we are chaos, we are cool we are feminine divine, Perry said, ending the video. The album will be released on September 20, a month before her 40th birthday. Perry has had five number one singles in the UK with tracks including I Kissed A Girl, California Gurls and Roar, as well as two number one albums with Teenage Dream in 2010 and Prism in 2013. Her last album, Smile, was released in 2020, and went to number five in the UK albums chart in the same month Perry gave birth to daughter Daisy Dove, with her partner, Lord Of The Rings actor Orlando Bloom. Brothers joining proud dad and granddad on parade in Co Down Ethan and Joel Beattie are making their Twelfth debuts (Picture by Peter Morrison) Richard Beattie with sons Ethan and Joel (7) and their grandad Philip (Picture by Peter Morrison) For many families, the Twelfth of July is all about tradition. Maintaining the values and culture passed from generation to generation is crucial. Twins Ethan and Joel Beattie will learn what that means and they march in the Twelfth for the first time today. The seven-year-olds will do so alongside proud father Richard and grandfather Philip, joining Seapatrick Flute Band at the parade in Gilford. When they make their debuts, they will become the fifth generation of the Beattie family to join the parade, a run that dates back to the 1950s, when their great-great grandfather took his first steps with the band. Its something we have always done as a family, said Richard, whose boys got their first taste of band action earlier this month when Seapatrick took part in the Somme Remembrance parade in Donaghcloney. The Beattie familys relationship with the band is one many will relate to. Ethan and Joel Beattie are making their Twelfth debuts (Picture by Peter Morrison) For Richard, it stretches back to his great-grandfather, John Beattie, who became a drummer with shortly after the end of the Second World War. He explained: It was the later 40s and into the 50s when the seeds of the family love of drumming were sown. From then, theres always been a Beattie beating a drum for Seapatrick. My grandfather, Bertie, was next, and I still have some of the old photographs of him parading with the band. Its those sort of things that my own boys look at and feel they want to be a part of the family tradition too. My father, Philip, was a latecomer to the party. Hes only been involved for 10 or 12 years. We were short of a bass drummer, and he said, Sure I could do that. Hes been doing it ever since. But it was really my uncle, Henry, who was my inspiration for joining and Ive been in the band 28 years now. I used to watch him parade when I was a young boy, and he bought me my first set of drumsticks when I was seven years old. That was the catalyst. Ive been a drummer ever since. I can remember my first parade, in 1997, bashing a pair of cymbals. Henry went to Canada in the 1950s but always came back home for the Twelfth. I have a photograph of myself with him in his Canadian uniform that Ill always treasure for the influence he had on me as a child. I couldnt wait to join and be like him, and thats why Im proud to see my boys so excited that theyre finally old enough to get involved. Theyve been wanting to for a long time. They do seem to have a natural ability I suppose it runs in the family. Im happy to just let them go and have fun if thats what they want to do. The uniforms Ethan and Joel will wear today were stitched together by their mum, Cathy, a drumming widow of sorts. Shes marvellous, said Richard. As soon as she knew the boys wanted to join the band, she was pulling together their uniforms, stitching the white linen together for their hats, getting them looking the part. They loved getting the uniform on. I guess Cathy knew when she married me that I was always going to be a drummer. Shes happy to support all of us in what we love being a part of. After they get the Twelfth out of the way, the family will be heading to Scarva tomorrow for another of the biggest dates in the marching calendar, the sham fight. Theres actually a video of me somewhere on YouTube with the band at Scarva when I was eight, said Richard. While his uncle, Henry, died five years ago, he is still remembered by Seapatrick Flute Band, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year. I thought that a lovely way of paying tribute to him would be to have his image painted on our Lambeg Drum, so hell always be able to march with us, said Richard. Thats what celebrations like the Twelfth are all about. We treat it as a family occasion when we all get together, celebrate the culture and the music, walk for a good few miles and look forward to doing it all again the next year. Were not a big flute band, but we give it everything. With one more child in the family, Seapatrick Flute Band is likely to get another member in a few years. Richard explained: My daughter Abigail is only two years old. She might be a bit young yet, but if shes anything like her brothers, shell be mad keen to get involved and join with the family in doing what weve all always loved doing. The band will be on parade today in Gilford at one of the largest Twelfth demonstrations, with more than 60 lodges and bands and around 10,000 spectators expected. The biggest demonstration is in Killylea, where 11 district lodges, 150 private lodges and almost 5,000 brethren will be on parade, accompanied by around 70 bands. Thousands will also line the streets of Belfast city centre to celebrate the 334th anniversary of William of Oranges victory over King James II at the Battle of the Boyne. There are also major demonstrations in Londonderry, Ballymena, Carrickfergus, Cloughmills, Ahoghill, Broughshane, Newtownards, Ballynahinch, Annalong, Irvinestown, Moneymore, Benburb, Newtownstewart, Ballygawley and Derriaghy. Flame, at 3 Bedford Square in Belfast, is a bit of a wonder A new restaurant generates optimism. Those behind a new place are so optimistic and risk averse, their confidence in infectious and affects us all. You think youve got troubles? Try taking on a restaurant project. The care and attention to the design and machinery of the restaurant; the investment; the planning permissions, so laborious, slow and onerous that we are surprised anybody bothers anymore; the recruitment challenge in a shrunken world of hospitality workers rarer than hip surgeons all these hoops the visionary has to jump through before opening night. It requires superhuman levels of optimism and hope, determination and a measure of insanity. PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/07/2024 Final preparations as they get set to light a bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road. Photo Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 12/7/2024: Ladyhill Flute band walks past the huge 11th night bonfire in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON PACEMAKER PRESS BELFAST 11-07-24 Bonfires get lit across Northern Ireland this evening to mark the Eleventh Night and the start of the Twelfth July Celebrations. This is the scene in Larne, County Antrim which is one of the tallest Bonfires to be lit. Photo - Andrew McCarroll/ Pacemaker Press The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 12/7/2024: Fireworks light up the night sky above the large crowd that watched the huge 11th night bonfire in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim burn. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON Pacemaker Press 11-07-2024: The bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland James and Ethan McCrossan pictured at the Bonfire. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press. PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/07/2024 Final preparations as they get set to light a bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road. Photo Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Pacemaker Press 11-07-2024: The bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press. The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations get underway in Northern Ireland on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Craigyhill bonfire (left) in Larne, Co. Antrim which is estimated to be 200 feet or 60 meters tall. The burning of loyalist bonfires is part of the traditional Twelfth commemorations marking the anniversary of the Protestant King William's victory over the Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Picture date: Thursday July 11, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story ULSTER Twelfth. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations get underway in Northern Ireland on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Bonfires across Northern Ireland have been lit at midnight to bring in the Twelfth of July. Some pyres were lit earlier, including one in the Newbuildings area of Londonderry that was ignited at 11pm after their childrens bonfire at 10pm. Northern Irelands largest pyre; built at the Craigyhill estate in Larne was ignited at midnight with thousands traveling to the town for the event. The Eleventh night is one of the busiest nights of the year for Northern Irelands fire service, although this year emergency calls were down significantly year on year. Brian Stanfield, Assistant Chief Fire & Rescue Officer, Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) said: "It has been a relatively quiet 11th night for Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service. "Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. I would like to thank our firefighters, Regional Control Centre personnel and support employees involved in the operational response tonight and commend those involved in the planning preparations including our multi-agency partners. I am encouraging everyone to follow our safety advice across the weekend to help keep themselves and their loved ones safe. Watch: Drone footage shows Village bonfire in Belfast ablaze The Twelfth is a primarily Ulster Protestant tradition which celebrates the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Parades will take place across Northern Ireland on Friday. Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly was among the many thousands enjoying the occasion. She posted on X: An honour to be asked to pour the Boyne Water for the big 11th July Pageant in Kilkeel this evening! What a fantastic event great parade and plenty of activities and fun to be had! Well done everyone. 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 On Thursday evening, there was condemnation of sectarian displays on a number of bonfires, including a threat to all Catholics and one specifically directed at SDLP leader Colum Eastwood that was removed after mediation. Hundreds gathered to watch the lighting of two loyalist bonfires on Wednesday night. The Corcrain bonfire in Portadown was set alight almost 24 hours ahead of the traditional ignition. The unique bonfire featuring a fireworks display was attended by around 800 people despite heavy rain and a childrens fun day being cancelled. Firefighters doused nearby houses and a block of flats as a precaution shortly after the pyre collapsed. Watch: The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations begin Just over 15 miles away in Moygashel, a controversial bonfire was attended by a further 400 spectators. A replica police car, described as edgy artistic expression by loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson was burnt as part of the celebrations. Police car on top of Northern Ireland bonfire The pyre came under scrutiny on Tuesday night when the Belfast Telegraph revealed that a replica police vehicle was placed on top of the bonfire. Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party Doug Beattie described the placing of the 1.3 tonne Vauxhall Vectra as absolutely disgraceful. Watch: Mock police car set alight on Tyrone bonfire to mark traditional Twelfth commemorations Pacemaker Press 11-07-2024: The bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland James and Ethan McCrossan pictured at the Bonfire. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press. The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Pacemaker Press 11-07-2024: The bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press. PACEMAKER BELFAST 11/07/2024 Final preparations as they get set to light a bonfire on Conway Street on the Shankill Road. Photo Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 12/7/2024: Fireworks light up the night sky above the large crowd that watched the huge 11th night bonfire in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim burn. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON PACEMAKER PRESS BELFAST 11-07-24 Bonfires get lit across Northern Ireland this evening to mark the Eleventh Night and the start of the Twelfth July Celebrations. This is the scene in Larne, County Antrim which is one of the tallest Bonfires to be lit. Photo - Andrew McCarroll/ Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 12/7/2024: Ladyhill Flute band walks past the huge 11th night bonfire in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON PACEMAKER, BELFAST, 12/7/2024: Ladyhill Flute band walks past the huge 11th night bonfire in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim. PICTURE BY STEPHEN DAVISON Local policing officers based in Londonderry have charged a man to appear in court after seizing a number of items including suspected Class A drugs with an estimated street value of 100,000. At around 10.50pm, officers at Strand Road were approached by an observant member of the public who advised that they believed a man driving a white van may be under the influence. The vehicle was located in a nearby carpark. A subsequent search of the vehicle led to officers seizing a box of suspected cocaine, drugs paraphernalia, fireworks and approximately 40,000 in cash. PSNI Inspector Cathal Pearce of Derry City & Strabane district support team, who will be progressing the investigation, said: "A 34-year-old man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of possession of Class A controlled drugs, intent to supply Class A controlled drugs, driving while unfit and possession of fireworks without a licence. A suspected conducted energy device (CED) was later found during a full search of the vehicle and we located a small amount of suspected Class B controlled drugs and a crossbow with bolts during a follow-up search of a residential address. The crossbow will be destroyed. While in custody, the detained man was further arrested on suspicion of possessing criminal property, possession of a Class B controlled drug, being concerned in the supply of a Class A controlled drug and possession of a prohibited weapon. He remains in custody at this time. Inspector Pearce continued: We want to thank the member of the public who stopped our officers - had these drugs made it on to the streets, they would undoubtedly have caused heartache for many people including families dealing with loved ones who have addiction issues. "Abuse of drugs such of these causes a huge burden for our health service providers and ultimately, could lead to death. This search, arrest and recovery of drugs demonstrates the Police Service of Northern Irelands commitment to protecting our community from drug suppliers and to actively pursuing those involved in drugs criminality. Police have subsequently charged the 34-year-old man with possession of a Class A controlled drug, possession of a Class A controlled drug with intent to supply, possession of a Class B controlled drug, being concerned in the supply of a Class A controlled drug, possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of fireworks without a licence, possessing criminal property and driving while unfit. He is due to appear at Londonderry Magistrates Court on Friday 12 July. As is normal procedure, all charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service. The PSNI has asked anyone who may have information about suspected drug-dealing or misuse in their area to call the non-emergency number, 101, or report online at psni.police.uk/report. Alternatively, information can also be given anonymously to the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111. Inspector Pearce also advised: Anyone who thinks they might have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs and would like to get help can visit www.drugsandalcoholni.info "This also includes details of services available for individuals affected by someone elses drinking and/or drug misuse. A Palestinian man who has lived in Northern Ireland for almost 24 years has urged unionist politicians to show some leadership over flags and messages displayed on bonfires. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told businesses during the General Election campaign that Labour would reappoint a dedicated UK climate envoy (Lucy North/PA) The new Government must expand the UKs most senior climate diplomat post to include biodiversity, green groups have urged. Labour has pledged to reinstate the UK Special Representative for Climate Change, which aims to further the countrys green goals internationally, including Cop summits. During the election campaign last month, then-shadow foreign secretary David Lammy told businesses and trade bodies that the party would increase economic and climate attaches as well as reappoint a dedicated UK climate envoy. It came after Rishi Sunaks Government was criticised for axing the role in 2023 after Nick Bridge stood down, leaving the UK as one of the only major economic powers at Cop28 in November without a specialist envoy. 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 In a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer this week, a coalition of environmental groups welcomed the new Labour Governments promise to reinstate the role. But they called for biodiversity protection to be recognised within the roles title and remit as part of an integrated approach. The letter noted: Our global climate and biodiversity crises are fundamentally interconnected and mutually reinforcing, not least because the planets natural carbon stores, such as wetlands and forests, are degraded and losing their ability to sequester atmospheric carbon. The groups warned of the loss of UK peatlands transforming the carbon sink into a net source of emissions and the 69% decline of monitored wildlife globally, according to WWF. They wrote that expanding the role to include biodiversity will revolutionise the UKs representation at both climate and biodiversity Cops and help foster effective whole of government approaches. Signatories included Greenpeace, WWF, the Wildlife Trusts, River Action, Chester Zoo, Environmental Justice Foundation and RSPB. An Environment Department (Defra) spokesperson said: Nature underpins everything and is central to the Governments mission on net zero. Its why this Government is committed to restoring and protecting nature. We will ensure the Environmental Improvement Plan is fit for purpose, focus on delivering our Environment Act targets, improve access to nature and protect our landscapes and wildlife. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmers children were left notes from outgoing chancellor Jeremy Hunts offspring in the Downing Street flat that will become their home. Mr Hunts children Jack, Anna and Eleanor moved out of the No 11 flat after the Labour landslide swept the Tories from office. Sir Keir said it was very special that they left messages for his own 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. He told reporters: Jeremy Hunts children left notes for our children coming into the Number 11 flat. We have not moved in yet because we didnt want to leave the kids there while we were away, but I think that was really sweet and thoughtful of them to do that because for children this is very impactful. They have been through it. They are slightly different ages but for them to be thoughtful enough to leave a note is very special our children were very pleased to get those notes. Sir Keir Starmer and wife Victoria with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Dimitar Glavchev, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Dick Schoof, Amelie Derbaudrenghien and her husband Charles Michel, the European Council president, at the White House (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The Starmers will move into the flat above 11 Downing Street, which is larger than the accommodation in No 10. The pace of the transition for Sir Keir and his family meant that less than a week after the election he and wife Victoria were guests at the White House for a dinner with fellow Nato leaders and their partners. Sir Keir said: Its a big transition for Vic and even more for the kids. But Vics very pleased to be doing it. Its great to have her here by my side while we go to this summit. And we will take a bit more time with the kids we havent moved in yet because I didnt want them left on their own while the two of us were away this week, so well just take a bit more time on that. The body of a newborn baby girl was found in a refuse container outside an address in central London, police said (Peter Byrne/PA) A newborn baby girl at the centre of a murder investigation was found dead in a bin after being delivered at home, police have said. The Metropolitan Police said officers were called shortly after 2pm on Monday to reports of a woman presenting at hospital who had given birth. Officers and London Ambulance Service workers then attended a residential address in Taviton Street, in the Euston area, following reports of a concern for welfare. The body of a newborn baby girl was found in a refuse container outside the address, the force said. A 26-year-old man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, child neglect and concealment of a birth. A 29-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of child destruction contrary to Section 1 of the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929. Police said both have been released on bail pending further inquiries and a crime scene remains in place. Detective Chief Inspector Neil John, leading the investigation, said: We have carried out a range of inquiries since the body of a newborn baby girl was recovered on Monday. Following forensic examination, we can now confirm that the baby was delivered full-term inside a residential address and her remains were later recovered by officers from a refuse container outside the building at Taviton Street. This is a terribly sad and upsetting case for everyone involved and I would like to thank local residents for their patience as we continue with our inquiries and urge anyone with information to get in touch. Anyone who has information relating to this incident but has not yet spoken with officers should call 101, quoting 4897/8JUL. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org. Armin Papperger is the chief executive of Rheinmetall (dpa via AP) The German government has said it will not be intimidated by Russian attempts to undermine the countrys support of Ukraine, but refused to comment on a report that Moscow planned to assassinate the chief executive of a leading defence company. CNN reported that American intelligence discovered earlier this year that Russia planned to kill Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger. The report said the US informed Germany, whose security services were able to protect Mr Papperger and foil the plot. Rheinmetall is a major supplier of military technology and artillery rounds for Ukraine. Neither Rheinmetall nor the German government would comment on the report. German interior ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall said his ministry cannot comment on individual threat situations, but added that more broadly we take the significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously. Authorities were able to thwart the plot, according to reports (dpa via AP) Mr Kall added: We know that (Russian President Vladimir) Putins regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government wont be intimidated. He noted that German security measures have been increased significantly since 2022, and that the threats range from espionage and sabotage, through cyber attacks, to state terrorism. In April, German investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets including US military facilities in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine. Germany has become the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. CNN reported that the alleged Papperger plot was one of a series of Russian plans to kill defence industry executives across Europe supporting the Ukrainian war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report. All of this is again presented in the fake style, so such reports cannot be taken seriously, he told reporters on Friday. The Solomon Islands new Prime minister is in Beijing for a visit as China and the strategic Pacific archipelago strengthen their ties. Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele met his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang and was holding more meetings on Friday before his departure Monday. Chinas influence increased significantly during the term of Mr Maneles predecessor, with the country switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China and striking a secret security pact that has raised fears of Chinas security forces gaining a foothold in the region long dominated by the US, Australia and New Zealand. Those moves came at a time of major tensions between Washington and Beijing, and the Solomons tighter ties with China are seen as undermining the influence of America and other traditional allies in the Western Pacific. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, right, headed the delegation (AP) During their meeting, Mr Li pushed for closer economic cooperation and a strategic partnership between China, the Solomons and other Pacific island nations, according to Chinas official Xinhua News Agency. Mr Li stressed that China will continue to uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality, mutually beneficial cooperation and common development, Xinhua quoted him as saying. No explicit mention of military or police ties ties was published, but the security pact has raised major concerns over a Chinese naval presence in the region and the basing of ground troops that could challenge other countries access to the region that lies close to Australia, over which Japan and the US fought savage battles during the Second World War. While the Solomons turn toward China has not been universally welcomed by the countrys politicians, the May election of Mr Manele and his Beijing visit suggests the country will continue in that direction. Mr Manele earlier visited Australia and is also expected to travel to Japan in a bid for investment and development assistance for the country of 726,799 people with a GDP of less than two billion dollars (1.55 billion) that is heavily dependent on fishing, agriculture, forestry and mining. Thousands of civilians and about 100 junta troops have fled from the fighting into Bangladesh. Ma Gyi Chaung Border Guard Camp in Maungdaw township was captured by the Arakan Army around 9 a.m., July 11, 2024. Ethnic minority rebels fighting to take over western Myanmars Rakhine state reported on Friday advances in two areas where its forces have been making significant gains against the military junta that seized power in a 2021 coup. The Arakan Army (AA), which is fighting for self-determination of the states predominantly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population, said its fighters captured the last junta base on the outskirts of Thandwe town, the headquarters of the Infantry Battalion 55 base, on Tuesday, although junta troops still occupied the town center. Thandwe is about 250 km (155 miles) northwest of Myanmars biggest city of Yangon and near one of Myanmars main beach resorts. The AA has captured 10 townships in Rakhine state and neighboring Chin state, since late last year, part of a series of setbacks for the embattled junta. In the north of Rakhine state near the border with Bangladesh, about 350 km (217 miles) northwest of Thandwe, the AA announced that its forces had seized the Ma Gyi Chaung Border Guard Camp on Thursday and was pressing junta forces at Border Guard Post No. 5 and in nearby Maungdaw town. The insurgents said this week its forces had killed more than 750 junta soldiers in those two main battle zones. Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, was not able to independently verify the toll, but residents of both regions have been reporting heavy fighting for weeks. The Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not respond to RFA requests for comment. The Myanmar juntas Thandwe-based Infantry Battalion 55 was captured by the Arakan Army at Tuesday and is seen here on July 10, 2024. [Arakan Army Information Desk] Since the AA warned residents to leave Maungdaw on June 16, more than 5,000 people have fled to Bangladesh, which is across a border estuary, said one town resident who declined to be identified for security concerns. There are at least 80 to 100 Rohingya people fleeing to Bangladesh [every day], he said. Boats from Bangladesh come to pick them up. Despite fighting in Maungdaw town, Bangladesh authorities have forced at least 12 refugees back into Myanmar, residents said. The Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon did not respond to RFAs request for comment. More than 700,000 members of the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after the Myanmar military launched a crackdown against Muslim insurgents. Junta troops cross into Bangladesh Two residents of Maungdaw town were killed in the latest heavy weapons fire and 13 were injured, residents said. There is no medical doctor here or no access to medical treatment, a Rohingya resident in Maungdaw, who identified himself as Zu Bai, told RFA. When an opportunity came up, the injured were taken to Bangladesh. The juntas spokesman for Rakhine state, Hla Thein, did not respond to an RFA request for comment. The AA did not give any update on casualties, either among junta forces or its own, but said 30 junta soldiers and border guards fled into Bangladesh during fighting on Thursday. The Dhaka Tribune reported that over 100 junta border police officers and soldiers crossed the border on Thursday to seek refuge in Coxs Bazar. Bangladesh Border Guard and Coast Guard forces detained the officers and soldiers who entered the country at three different border points, it said. RFA sent a second message to Bangladeshs embassy in Yangon on Friday to ask about the junta soldiers and border guards, but no reply was immediately received. Several hundred junta troops also fled to Bangladesh in February following an attack by the AA. Indonesian heavy metal band Voice of Baceprot performs at the Glastonbury Festival of music at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, England, June 28, 2024. An unlikely trio became Indonesias first band to play at the famed Glastonbury Festival of music in England last month. The band members went to an Islamic junior high school, grew up in a conservative corner of Indonesia and play headbanging heavy metal songs about social justice oh, they also wear hijabs. The three metalheads in their 20s are called the Voice of Baceprot (VoB). They made their Glastonbury debut on June 28 performing a nine-song, 45-minute set at the festival, which is one of the biggest music platforms in the world. And the reviews their performance received were terrific. Baceprot means noise in the Sundanese language spoken in Indonesias West Java province, including the city of Garut where the three women are from. The bands members are Firda Marsya Kurnia, who plays the guitar and sings, Euis Siti Aisyah, who is the drummer, and Widi Rahmawati, who plays the base. They spoke to BenarNews after returning to Indonesia from Glastonbury. Widi admitted the band had pre-show jitters. We were nervous before going on stage because we saw only two rows of people in front of us, she said. Fans react as the Indonesian metal band Voice of Baceprot performs during a concert in Jakarta, June 22, 2024. [Bay Ismoyo/AFP] That changed by the time it was their turn to perform they were the first act on one of the stages on the first day of music at the festival and a packed crowd greeted them. The spectators were mostly intrigued at first, said one reviewer, adding that curiosity visibly morphed into proper excitement 45 minutes later. Thats because the Indonesian band demonstrated that its position on stage had nothing to do with the novelty of seeing three hijab-clad women belting out 1980s-style thrash metal, and everything to do with skills, wrote the reviewer for loudersound.com. The reasons are clear: firstly all three members of VoB have mastered their instruments way beyond their years, bassist Widi Rahmawati doing a mean impression of Steve Harris, galloping up and down her fretboard with impressive dexterity, he wrote, referring to the leader of the illustrious band Iron Maiden. [E]ven a late-set drum solo, standardly the ultimate momentum killer, by Euis Siti Eisyah, garners huge roars of approval, he added. VoBs songs also managed to convey their themes, despite being sung in Sundanese to an English audience, he wrote. This is a band that are passionate about the causes they talk about in their music, and even though there is an obvious language barrier, the eco-friendly and anti-war sentiment seems to hit harder thanks to the unique perspective they bring. Another reviewer, at kerrang.com, called VoB at Glastonbury as joyful to watch as they are commandeering and ferocious. The Guardians reviewer noted that the bands cheerful onstage disposition masks an impressively beefed up brand of old-school metal, and its members were at ease delivering a lacerating growl or a clean, soaring pop-metal melody, as well as frenetic slap bass riffs. Few hardcore metal aficionados would have been surprised. After all, VoB had been invited to and performed two years ago at the Wacken Open Air heavy metal festival in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The annual music extravaganza is one of the biggest metal events in the world. In 2022, joining the roster of performers with VoB were vaunted metal artists such as Judas Priest, Powerwolf and Slipknot. Indonesian heavy metal band Voice of Baceprot Band performs at Soundsfest Experience in Jakarta, June 22, 2024. [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters] As school students in Garut in 2014, VoBs members didnt initially set out to play heavy metal. Their musical journey began with covers of pop songs, but a chance encounter with the music of the Armenian-American heavy metal band System of a Down on their teachers laptop stole their breath. System of a Downs [song] Toxicity blew us away. The drumming was so complex, I [just] had to learn it, Siti told BenarNews. After that, we became comfortable with heavy metal. News reports said that the band members gained national and even some global attention when a video of their composition The Enemy Of Earth Is You became wildly popular in 2017. The song is a furious indictment of environmental destruction. The bands music is more than just noise. Its a platform to speak about social and environmental issues close to their hearts, the members said. Growing up in Garut, they said they witnessed firsthand the struggles of farmers facing unpredictable weather, dwindling water resources and crop failures. Women as household managers feel the difficulty of getting water for cooking or washing clothes, Marsya said. They also become victims of domestic violence because their husbands cant earn a living due to crop failures. In the end, girls have to sacrifice themselves by marrying young to ease the burden on their parents. VoBs lyrics also confront what the band members see as intolerance and the patriarchal norms of the community they grew up in. Indonesian band Voice of Baceprot members pose during a photo session at Le Liberte concert hall during the Trans Musicales music festival in Rennes, western France, Dec. 4, 2021. [Sebastien Salom-Gomis/AFP] Equally, they criticize Western journalists who are focussed on their hijabs, they told popular British publication NME (New Musical Express) in an interview last year. They were on the music magazines cover in the first week of August 2023. God, Allow Me (Please) to Play Music, is an example of such a song that slams both sides. Heres what they say in (Not) Public Property, one of their hit songs Thy are still busy talking bout dressing appropriately. We are forced to abide by unwritten [expletive] rules. And we are tired of things that people say to be good. VoBs rise hasnt been without challenges. The members initially faced resistance from their conservative families and neighbors, who associated heavy metal with moral decadence, drugs and promiscuity. Now, the three young women say their parents are among their biggest fans. Then there were the skeptics. Some people said we only get attention because were novel, Marsya said. But we practice hard, we pour our hearts into our music. We want people to judge us on our skills, not just our appearance. They said they wear the hijab because they are at ease doing so. Were not comfortable when we perform somewhere and people say, Wow, you are cool women wearing hijabs. It shifts the focus, Siti said. Were more comfortable being judged on our musicality. Voice of Baceprot band members Widi Rahmawati (left), Euis Siti Aisyah (second from right) and Firda Marsya Kurnia (right), joined by their high school music teacher, Abah Erza (second from left), recreate the cover of the iconic Beatles album Abbey Road, in London, June 26, 2024. [Via Instagram/@voiceofbaceprot] Their determination to let their music speak for itself has paid off. VoBs music and spirit have resonated with a global audience, earning them critical acclaim and a growing fanbase. Social media endorsements from renowned musicians including Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers further enhanced VoBs profile. But performing at Glastonbury was an unprecedented accomplishment, said Wendi Putranto, music journalist and former editor at Rolling Stone Indonesia magazine. This was a historic moment, Wendi told BenarNews. No Indonesian musician or band has ever played at a legendary festival like Glastonbury. While VoB may not yet be a household name in Indonesia, Wendi said he believed that their Glastonbury performance will help them gain wider recognition. I wouldnt be surprised if they become much bigger after this. He said he admired VoBs talent and determination, noting that the band had honed its heavy metal sound in remote towns with limited resources. They defy the idea that metal is just for men or non-religious people, Wendi said. [A]nd they challenge assumptions about Muslim women and their musical tastes. Paulene Canada, one of five co-accused with pastor Apollo Quiboloy, appears before the media with her face covered at the Philippine National Police Headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, north of Manila, July 12, 2024. An aide to a politically influential Filipino church leader who is wanted for alleged trafficking of underage girls and sexual abuse has been arrested in a wide-ranging manhunt, Philippine officials said Friday. Paulene Canada, who is also facing charges of sexual abuse and trafficking, was detained on Thursday in Buhangin district in southern Davao city, Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. said as he presented the suspect before the press. Police allege Canada was an aide to Apollo Quiboloy, former President Rodrigo Dutertes spiritual adviser, who is accused in the Philippines of alleged child and sexual abuse as well as trafficking. He is also facing the same charges in the United States. Canada is one of five co-accused with Quiboloy. All are members of Quiboloys Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) Christian church that gained prominence during the administration of Duterte, his friend and benefactor. The arrest came after a 1 million peso (U.S. $17,000) bounty was offered for the capture of each of the five. The prize for Quiboloys head is 10 million pesos. We will use all resources of the government to make sure that the ends of justice will be met, Abalos told a news conference Friday. He again urged Quiboloy, who is still believed to be in the country, to give himself up. We are assuring him that the police, the military will go after not just you, but also others who are wanted, he said. Canada appeared before the media wearing a medical face mask and wrapped in a yellow-printed head scarf, with only her eyes showing. Her eyes were downcast amid the full glare of camera lights, a BenarNews photographer said. Abalos said that Quiboloy could be assured of a fair trial. This is now the time to present your evidence, this is the time to present your lawyers, we have procedures in court that we should follow and just in case [Quiboloy loses his case], he can appeal, he said. National Police Chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil on Friday said Canada was the finance officer at Quiboloys church. He did not provide any information of how she was arrested, only that she was caught after a tip on the hotline. Col. Jean Fajardo, a spokesman for the national police, said Friday that investigators had been receiving tips from hotlines in the Davao region and it was only a matter of time before the pastor was captured. Quiboloys lawyer, Israelito Torreon, has denied knowing the whereabouts of his client, although he said there had been rumors he had fled to China. Quiboloy has not, however, been detected passing through any of the countrys air or seaports, according to the immigration bureau. Aside from his case in the Philippines, a U.S. grand jury in 2021 also charged Quiboloy on suspicion of orchestrating a sex-trafficking operation that coerced girls as young as 12 to have sex with him or risk eternal damnation, federal prosecutors said. U.S. prosecutors said the televangelist allegedly recruited girls and young women, ranging from 12 to 25-years-old, to work as personal assistants or pastorals at his church. KOJC also has branches in California. Under the charges brought against him by U.S. authorities, Quiboloy faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of sex trafficking, and five to 20 years if convicted of fraud and money laundering. Quiboloy founded KOJC in 1985. The sect grew in national prominence when his friend, Duterte, was elected president of the Philippines in 2016. Mark Navales contributed reporting from Davao City, southern Philippines Authorities are investigating whether Rodrigo Duterte could be charged after claiming knowledge of the fugitive televangelists location. Philippine Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. and National Police chief Gen. Rommel Marbil talk about a 10 million peso (U.S. $170,760) reward for anyone who has information that could lead to the arrest of fugitive televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, during a press conference in Quezon City, Metro Manila, July 8, 2024. A group of Philippine citizens offered 10 million pesos (U.S. $170,760) Monday for information leading to the capture of former President Rodrigo Dutertes spiritual adviser, who is wanted for alleged sex crimes in the Philippines and United States. Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. announced the reward for the fugitive televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, the self-anointed son of God who heads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), which is believed to have 6 million followers in the Philippines and abroad. Quiboloy, 73, is wanted in the Philippines for alleged child and sexual abuse as well as trafficking, while also facing the same charges in the U.S. Abalos said the reward money was raised by unidentified individuals frustrated by the slow pace of justice to bring Quiboloy in. It is very simple. If you really are innocent, Pastor Quiboloy, there is a court. Surrender and face the accusations against you like any ordinary person, Abalos said at a news conference. It is simple. The law is the law. When asked whether Quiboloy was still in the Philippines, Abalos replied: Well, as of now, our intelligence is that he remains inside the country. Anyone helping Quiboloy hide from authorities could be charged with obstruction of justice under Philippine law, warned National Police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, who sat with Abalos at the news conference. Marbil said police were also looking at whether Duterte could be charged with aiding and abetting Quiboloy after the former president publicly said on June 30 that he knew about his religious advisers location but would not disclose it. Last month, Duterte accused the government of persecuting Quiboloy, calling the raids on the televangelists known properties in Davao City overkill. In November 2021, a U.S. grand jury charged Quiboloy on suspicion of orchestrating a sex-trafficking operation that coerced girls as young as 12 to have sex with him or risk eternal damnation, federal prosecutors said. U.S. prosecutors said the televangelist allegedly recruited girls and young women, ranging from 12 to 25 years old, to work as personal assistants or pastorals at his church. KOJC has branches in California. Under the charges brought against him by U.S. authorities, Quiboloy faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted of sex trafficking, and five to 20 years if convicted of fraud and money laundering. Quiboloy founded KOJC in 1985. The sect, and his name, grew in national prominence when his friend, Duterte, was elected president of the Philippines in 2016. In March, Quiboloys church named Duterte as the administrator of its properties, while he went into hiding to evade being arrested on allegations of sexual assault in the United States. Quiboloy has also refused to appear before the Philippine Senate, which had held inquiries over the allegations against him. Duterte once publicly admitted he had received expensive cars and property from Quiboloy when he was mayor of Davao City, although he claimed to have returned them. Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales contributed to this report from Davao City, the Philippines. A group of women from the Ban Enor community in Rueso District, Narathiwat province, work together to harvest rice from a field under the Abandoned Rice Field Restoration project on April 22, 2024. In the lush landscape of Thailands Deep South, a quiet revolution is brewing. A network of farmers and activists is breathing new life into abandoned rice fields and preserving local culture as they go along. The grassroots movement is encouraging young people to return to their forgotten family fields, build granaries and harvest rice for community lunch programs. In the past, working-age individuals had to leave to find jobs elsewhere, leaving only children and the elderly in the community. Bringing them back home to the farm revitalizes the community, said Fareesy Maka, a project committee member at the Narathiwat Abandoned Rice Fields Restoration Network. Thailand is the worlds sixth largest rice-producing nation, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture research. But many small-scale farmers in Thailands south say they are struggling to survive. Rising costs for fertilizers, competition from big agricultural companies, and increasingly variable weather patterns driven by climate change are putting the squeeze on small farms. At the same time, the labor pool is drying out as young people leave for better job opportunities across the border in Malaysia. Despite villagers efforts to grow rice alongside other economic activities, they still cant generate enough income to support their families, said Sukri Mama, the coordinator of the Narathiwat Abandoned Rice Fields Restoration Network. Waesoh Jetae, a 72-year-old farmer from Kok Nibong village in Pattani province, plants rice in this photo taken on June 7, 2024. [Asmadee Bueheng/BenarNews] As a result, the rice paddies that once blanketed the Deep South the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and four districts of Songklha province near the Malaysia border are slowly disappearing. In 2011, Narathiwat province had 86,600 rai (about 34,640 acres, or 14 hectares) under rice cultivation, but a decade later that had fallen to 84,700 rai, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. In Yala province, paddy fields declined from 52,500 rai in 2011 to 47,600 rai in 2021. The drop was even more pronounced in Pattani, with the area under rice cultivation shrinking from 144,000 rai in 2011 to 94,600 rai a decade later. Preserving culture As the paddy fields disappear, some older residents are beginning to worry about the future of their communities. Aminah, 60, a farmer from Enor village in Narathiwat province, said it was increasingly hard to find the next generation of farmers. Growing rice brings a sense of security and our ancestors told us never to abandon it, Aminah, who only gave her first name, told BenarNews. She said she joined the restoration network to provide guidance on rice cultivation and land management. Revitalizing abandoned rice fields and protecting the mountains is crucial for the communitys overall stability, she said. The communal rice barn in Kok Nibong village serves as a temporary shelter for farmers during the rice harvest on June 7, 2024. [Asmadee Bueheng/BenarNews] In Enor village, some 17 rai of abandoned paddies have been restored over the past five years, yielding an average of 50 sacks of rice annually. While the program helps sustain livelihoods, Fareesy said it was also about preserving the souths distinct Melayu culture, of which Islam is a central part. Four out of five residents in the Deep South identify as Muslim, while 93.4% of Thailands population is Buddhist. Enthno-religious tensions, repression by Buddhist-majority national authorities and poverty are at the heart of a decades-long conflict between separatists and the government in the region. Using local rice varieties and traditional farming techniques, especially those that dont rely on toxic pesticides, was a way to fight repression, said Fareesy. The ecological balance Restoring rice paddies with traditional farming methods has benefits for the environment too, according to Kua Rittiboon, an assistant professor of ecology at Prince of Songkla Universitys Pattani campus. Revitalizing rice fields and local ecosystems is valuable as they provide food, habitats, and beautiful landscapes that protect against disasters, she told BenarNews. She added it also helped support the ecological balance between people and nature. Waesa Jetae and Nadia, two farmers from Kok Nibong village carefully count rice stalks after the harvest, ensuring a supply for storage in the granary on June 9, 2024. [Asmadee Bueheng/BenarNews] After finding success in Narathiwat province, the initiative has expanded to neighboring Pattani. A project in Kok Nibong village has to date restored a relatively small 10 rai of abandoned paddy fields. But that includes plots farmed by both Muslims and Buddhists. Even though outsiders might view Buddhists and Muslims as being at odds with each other, we are friends and farmers who help each other, sharing both happiness and suffering," said Marasri, a 70-year-old Buddhist farmer in the village. Drought and the rainy season do not discriminate based on religion. In Kok Nibong, the restoration network has reintroduced native rice varieties such as Hom Chan, Leb Nok and black rice. After each harvest, the seeds are carefully collected and stored in granaries, all with an eye on the future. We hope that one day our children will return to revive their grandparents rice fields, said Marasri. Tom Andrews, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar (center), speaks to reporters after a meeting with Thailands Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy and National Reform, July 11, 2024. Thailands commercial banks, regulators and anti-money laundering office are considering measures to stop Myanmar acquiring weapons through Thailands banking system, a Thai lawmaker said during a meeting with a U.N. special rapporteur. Tom Andrews, special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, said in a report last month that Thailand had become Myanmars main supplier of military equipment through the international banking system. He called on financial institutions to do more to stop Myanmars junta acquiring weapons. Andrews, in Bangkok this week to address a parliamentary committee on security, called for action to cut off efforts to supply weapons to Myanmars junta in line with a plan promoted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that sets out an end to violence as a first step toward peace. I urge this committee and the government of Thailand to take a clear and strong position opposing the transfer of weapons and dual use technologies into Myanmar, Andrews told a committee hearing on Thursday. In his report The Billion Dollar Death Trade, Andrews noted that Singapore had implemented a clear policy opposing the transfer of weapons to Myanmar. As a result, exports of weapons and related materials from Singapore-registered entities using the formal banking system dropped from almost U.S. $120 million in fiscal year 2022 to just over $10 million over the next 12 months. But Thailand, with no explicit public policy position opposing weapons transfer to Myanmar, saw exports from Thai-registered entities more than double over the same period, from just over $60 million to nearly $130 million, he said. He called on Thailand to conduct as thorough an investigation into transfers as Singapore had done into its companies dealings. Singapore has unambiguously taken this position ... that reflects the U.N. General Assembly resolution in July 2021 that called on all U.N. member states to prevent the flow of weapons into Myanmar, he said. Rangsiman Rome, head of the lower house security committee, said legislators agreed with the report and would consider action. We have no argument against the report. Next, we will have to have measures, an action plan, Rangsiman said, adding that the relevant organizations would report back to the committee in 30 days. Looking to Singapore Andrews said five Thai banks and Thai-based companies were assisting Myanmars junta obtain weapons, dual-technology items and jet fuel, enabling its armed forces to conduct atrocities against the people. But said he had found no evidence that the Thai government was involved in or aware of the transactions or that Thai banks had knowledge. While Thai banks may well have been unaware of the nature of these transactions, they are now and the issue now is what can be done and what will be done, he said. Representatives from Thailands central bank, anti-money laundering office and the commercial banks named in the report were present at the three-hour session at parliament in Bangkok. A representative of the Bank of Thailand said officials were working with banks and the anti-money laundering office to make sure that enhanced due diligence was properly practiced. We will take a look at what Singapore used for how we can strengthen our criteria, measures and procedures, a central bank representative said. The Thai Bankers Association said it did not have the means to investigate and monitor such irregularities beyond Thailands borders. If government security agencies tell us, we will stop transactions, said Pongsit Chaichatpornsuk, an association representative. We dont support arms procurement by Myanmar or any military government to violate human rights. Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar and hosts many thousands of refugees fleeing conflict there, has tried to promote dialogue between Myanmar's military rulers and opposition forces, but no progress has been made. China reiterated that the 2016 court ruling on territorial waters is illegal, null and void. An advocate holds a sign and the Philippine flag to celebrate Manilas 2016 arbitration victory during a rally in Quezon City, July 12, 2024. [Gerard Carreon/BenarNews] Filipinos rallying in Quezon City call on China to respect the 2016 arbitration ruling, July 12, 2024. [Jojo Rinoza/BenarNews] An activist in Quezon City calls on the Philippine government to defend fishermen as the country marks the eighth anniversary of Manilas arbitration victory, July 12, 2024. [Gerard Carreon/BenarNews] Bearing banners and Philippine flags, Filipino fishing boats trawl the shoreline off the town of Subic demanding that China recognize the 2016 arbitration ruling, July 12, 2024. [Handout/Pamalakaya] Filipino fishermen in the western province of Zambales facing the South China Sea mark the eighth anniversary of Manilas arbitration victory against China, July 12, 2024. [Handout/Pamalakaya] Advocates denounce Chinas activities in the West Philippine Sea during a rally in Quezon City, July 12, 2024. [Jojo Rinoza/BenarNews] Members of the Filipino nationalist ATIN ITO! coalition urge the Philippine government to declare July 12 as West Philippine Sea Day, during a rally in Quezon City, July 12, 2024. [Jojo Rinoza/BenarNews] Over 100 members of the Filipino nationalist ATIN ITO! coalition celebrate the Philippines 2016 court victory regarding the South China Sea, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, July 12, 2024. [Jojo Rinoza/BenarNews] Members of Filipino nationalist coalitions, fishing organizations and civil society groups on Friday marked the eighth anniversary of Manilas victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. On July 12, 2016, the court ruled in favor of the Philippines, which had filed an arbitration case, and against Chinas sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea. Activists urged the government to declare July 12 be designated West Philippine Sea Day each year, referring to territories in the South China Sea within Manila's exclusive economic zone. National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano called on China to respect the ruling. It was an overwhelming victory for the Philippines and we should all be proud, he said. We dont want war, Ano said, adding both sides are working to de-escalate tensions in the region. But Ano blamed Beijings blatant disregard for the ruling for the June 17 clash between Chinese personnel and Filipino troops near Second Thomas (Ayungin) Shoal. Meanwhile, Beijing reiterated on Friday that the ruling was illegal, null and void, and non-binding. Its been a delicate balancing act to stay open and do major construction to the main house at 30 East St., built as a summer cottage by Phillip Blagdon in 1906. There have also been surprises, behind nearly every wall and under the floors. Stop & Shop on Merrill Road in Pittsfield will remain open. The grocery store chain announced Friday it will be closing 32 stores across the Northeast, but the three locations in Berkshire County will remain open. You are the owner of this article. Eagle Reels vodcast host Dalton Delan interviewed Publisher Fred Rutberg and Executive Editor Kevin Moran of The Berkshire Eagle about running a newspaper in an era of industry change. This Q&A is from the interview and has been edited for length and clarity. Dalton Delan: The Pulitzer-winning Berkshire Eagle has a long and storied history. Its roots go back to the Western Star, a weekly in Stockbridge in 1789. The Eagle has been published daily since 1892. Fred, you became an owner in 2016. Before that, you were a judge. What attracted you to The Eagle? Fred Rutberg: Judges have a mandatory retirement age of 70. As I was approaching that point in my life, I thought I had a little bit of a fastball left. My wife and I heard Joe Klein speak. And he said offhandedly that democracy requires citizenship. And citizenship requires a town square. The Eagle had been in absentee ownership for 20 years. And it followed the trail of most newspapers when hedge funds buy them: quality went down, price went up. That was the beginning. Delan: Kevin, tell us about editing the paper in the Trump era. Kevin Moran: One of the things that I keep in mind is that a free press is actually enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, we have the responsibility to keep an eye on government. There is no question that Trump has rearranged truth, and has done a really remarkable job at that. What we try to do at The Eagle is to make sure that we provide the right checks and balances to facts or fictions, whether it's coming from a president or it's coming from a city council or a local selectman. Delan: Fred, [hundreds of] newspapers have closed across the country in the last 20 years. You took on The Eagle as your retirement plan. And a mission is one thing, but we all know that running a paper is a business. How did you take that on? Rutberg: I don't get all the credit. I was very fortunate to partner up with three other incredibly accomplished men: Bob Wilmers, Hans Morris, Stan Lipsey. They brought an enormous amount to the table, including an enormous amount of capital. I have been the face of The Eagle, but having that backing is overwhelming. And having a partner like Kevin made it a lot easier. The thing is, we are mission-driven, that's the key. Delan: Kevin, the weekender edition has won the New England Newspaper and Press Association's best-in-class six years running. How do you do it? Moran: Well, we clearly have leadership at the top that has impressed upon us the goals and the mission. And we have a newsroom of about 30 people who are really keen on making sure that we have a high quality, not only newspaper, but we're into digital and wherever our readers are, including in social media. We even have a TikTok channel. Delan: Here we are in this era where I have heard the expression that we've traded analogue dollars into digital pennies. You've even crossed the line to more digital than analog subscriptions. How do you keep a business going in that much of a change era? Rutberg: Being nimble is really important. We know the future is digital. But our present is digital and print, so we have to do both. Our number of digital subscriptions has really, really grown over the last several years. Prior to COVID, we had 2,700 digital-only subscriptions, we now have close to 8,700. Very few newspapers can say that. And the number of people who buy the paper is more today than when we bought the paper in 2016. There are not that many community newspapers, if any, that can say that. And it's only because of the content. That's what people are buying. Delan: The New York Times announced [they acquired] 210,000 new digital subscribers in the last quarter. It seems to me, they're basically saying goodbye to paper. Do you see that day? How long do you think well be in this hybrid mode? Rutberg: I hope a long time. Nine years ago, someone told me that [Times Publisher] A.G. Sulzberger had said that in five years The New York Times would not be printing. Well, obviously, he was wrong about that. We have a strong print audience, people that are devoted to it. From an economic point of view, print advertising dollars are significant. We've demonstrated our commitment to print by installing a new press a couple of years ago, something that very few, if any, newspapers have done. Eventually, we'll be all digital. Whether that's in my lifetime, I don't know. Delan: Fred, you're competing for ad dollars. You've got Google and Facebook algorithms that know everything. Let's imagine that I'm an advertiser. Whats your elevator pitch to put ads into The Eagle? Rutberg: Well, first of all, I would disagree with you that Google and Facebook and Amazon know more. We know more about this community than they do. If I go into a website and say, Dinner in Lenox, they'll give me a list of restaurants. And these are not the restaurants I would send my friends to. I know more about the community. They [Google, Facebook] work on big numbers. We work on real micro knowledge, so we can put your product or your service in front of the audience that is more likely to make a purchase than they can. If you have one chance to make a big noise in the Berkshires, you go to The Berkshire Eagle. It still is the place that reaches the most people. Delan: Kevin, what do you say to the next generation should they still go into journalism? Moran: Absolutely. There's an urgency that we need more journalists in this world. The world is far more complicated. Artificial intelligence is not going to help us figure it out. There's always going to be the human behind the publish button. Who is vetting the veracity of the news that we're publishing? Who has the sensibilities to say that just because the data says one thing or the Google recommendations come up and say another thing, that you're still with a human in control? Its a difficult environment, but it was difficult 30 years ago, 50 years ago. That part never changes. We need people who care about their communities to go in and help us make sense of what's going on around us. I think the only part that we have to worry about is from people telling us that journalism doesn't matter. Those are the people that don't want the lens of journalism focused on them. I'm wary of people like that. I believe in the truth. Journalists do what they do to deliver the truth, because they have no other choice; it is something within their spine. Donald Morrison is an Eagle columnist and co-chairman of the advisory board. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of The Berkshire Eagle. Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. OUR OPINION Our Opinion: Biden's choice must be informed by the people, not just insiders BOSTON Governor's Council members stepped up their calls Wednesday for prompt action to fill the growing list of judicial vacancies, and Gov. Maura Healey responded, telling the News Service she would hand down her next Superior Court nominations "very shortly." Councilor Tara Jacobs raised the issue at the end of the council's weekly assembly, which was chaired by Healey on Wednesday. The North Adams Democrat pointed to empty slots across the court system and said that constituents, lawmakers and members of the judiciary have contacted her with "words of concern" via phone, text and email. "The 30-plus judicial vacancies are creating a critical bottleneck in our courts, one that is felt and seen," Jacobs said. "And that is reaching a critical and urgent level that I hope will be addressed with a renewed vigor in nominations coming to council." Of all the short-handed state courts, the Superior Court is stretched especially thin. Lawyers Weekly reported in June that the Superior Court's "timely disposed rate" for fiscal 2023 was just 54.6 percent, the "lowest of any court department." And "one out of every seven full-time seats on the Superior Court bench is open," according to Lawyers Weekly. As of Thursday, there were 11 vacancies on the Superior Court bench, Healey spokeswoman Karissa Hand confirmed. "There's about 12 sessions that are down, which is really a significant number. It's having a huge impact, especially on the civil side," Councilor Terrence Kennedy told the News Service after Wednesday's assembly. He added, "The civil sessions are basically shut down, almost across the state, from what I've seen. There are some, obviously, functioning. But probably at 10 percent of what they should be." The result is a serious impact on people's rights, said Kennedy, a practicing defense attorney. "You know, you have people in personal injury cases that receive serious injuries that aren't getting compensated. You have business disputes going on that are tying people up that can't conduct business for one reason or another. It just goes on and on and on," the Lynnfield Democrat said. Healey has not nominated a Superior Court candidate since Oct. 20, when she recommended attorney Michael Pineault, a former Patrick aide whom the council confirmed Nov. 8. In total, the governor has sought to fill three Superior Court seats over her one and a half years in office. "This is a top priority for me, to make sure that we have all vacancies filled," Healey told the News Service on her way out of the Council Chamber on Wednesday. "And I expect to be making an announcement very shortly with the next round of nominations for the Superior Court." South Coast Councilor Joseph Ferreira, responding to Healey's pledge to act "very shortly," told the News Service that the council is prepared to go into overtime this summer to process whatever nominations the governor hands down. "Once the governor presents us with nominations, we are more than willing to do our work and have three or more hearings a day if we need to, just to make sure that people get access to justice and that the courts are filled," Ferreira said. Jacobs opened her speech during the assembly by sharing that she had recently read through old council records and found a transcript of applicable remarks by Councilor Herbert Connolly in 1970. She quoted Connolly's speech, delivered when Gov. Francis Sargent chaired the council, in which Connolly said that "many of our citizens are most uncomfortably waiting to be reached in a great number of our busier courts." "I cannot help but feel that we are being negligent of our duty to them, and to the cause of swift administration of justice, when we continue to allow the increasing number of judicial vacancies to go week after week without being filled," the Newton Democrat said 54 years ago. Connolly's sentiment "feels relevant for today," Jacobs told Healey. People beat the heat at the Sand Springs pool in Williamstown on Wednesday as hot, muggy weather kept hanging on in Berkshire County. Collaboration between the two leading healthcare providers is aimed at benefiting patients in India and across the region Ramaiah Memorial Hospital (RMH), one of India's leading multi-super-specialty quaternary care hospitals based at Bengaluru, has signed an exclusive agreement with the New York-based Mount Sinai Health System, marking the beginning of a transformative partnership that aims at advancing healthcare services through collaborations in clinical excellence, quality of care, research, innovation and technology. The collaboration, formalised through a long-term a collaboration agreement, reinforces the commitment of both institutions by provisioning Mount Sinais support to the Ramaiah Memorial Hospital to further advance the development of its clinical competencies and centres of excellence in a host of select specialty areas, including, but not limited to Oncology, Cardiology, Neurosciences, Urology-Nephrology, and other Clinical Specialties. A key component of the Ramaiah-Mount Sinai collaboration will include the periodic review of Ramaiahs complex clinical cases by both Ramaiahs and Mount Sinais top clinical experts across various clinical specialties to assist Ramaiah in identifying the best treatment options for patients. Ramaiah Memorial Hospital and Mount Sinai look forward to a fruitful collaboration that will set new benchmarks in healthcare delivery and positively impact the lives of patients in India and in the sub-continent. This collaboration addresses the growing challenge of dementia in India The Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Boehringer Ingelheim India, a leading global pharmaceutical company, to advance solutions in the field of dementia care. The Boehringer Ingelheim India team, comprising Gagandeep Singh Bedi, Managing Director, and, Prabhat Sinha, Director of Government and Public Affairs, Corporate Affairs, visited SIIC, IIT Kanpur, to strengthen their partnership in fostering healthcare innovations. The MoU was exchanged between Prof. Ankush Sharma, Professor-in-Charge, SIIC, IIT Kanpur, and Gagandeep Singh Bedi, MD Boehringer Ingelheim India. Boehringer Ingelheims grant supports Manastik Technologies, a SIIC-incubated startup at IIT Kanpur, in developing India's first tele neurorehabilitation app for dementia care and diagnosis. Using DADT technology, the app offers personalised assistance from doctors and neuro healthcare professionals, addressing the growing burden of dementia and mental health disorders in India. The grant will help validate the app, raise awareness, and support nationwide dementia screening campaigns. Previously, in 2023, Boehringer Ingelheim supported Lenek Technologies, another SIIC-incubated startup, in improving Tuberculosis screening with a handheld X-ray device. Ryan Reynolds has said wrapping on Deadpool & Wolverine was the most depressed he has ever been walking off a film set as he feels more free playing the character than almost anything else in the world. The Hollywood actor, 47, returned to his career-defining role as the foul-mouthed, anti-hero Deadpool for the upcoming collaboration film, which sees Hugh Jackman reprise his role as the almost indestructible Wolverine. Advertisement It is the third film centred on the Marvel character Deadpool, following the success of the 2016 original and the sequel in 2018. Hugh Jackman, Emma Corin, Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy attending Deadpool and Wolverine UK sneak peek at Eventim Apollo in London (Ian West/PA) Speaking to the PA news agency about Deadpools fourth-wall breaking comedic style at film sneak peak event in London, he said: Deadpool is one of those characters whos very unpredictable. Advertisement I dont know if I could speak specifically to that style, other than to say that I feel more free when I play the character than almost anything else in the world. I recognise how rare that air is to breathe. And on our last day of shooting, I dont think Ive ever been more sad or depressed to be walking off of a film set every day. Jackman admitted it was incredible to watch Reynolds work as he feels his portrayal is so funny. Advertisement The Australian actor, who has had an on-going faux feud with Reynolds for years, jokingly added: And in life, Ryans really dull, really dull, so its its amazing to watch his transformation. Jackman has played Wolverine since the 2000 film X-Men through to 2016s X-Men: Apocalypse, where he has a brief uncredited scene, and in three spin-off films including 2017s Logan. Advertisement There was also a glimpse of Wolverine in 2018s Deadpool 2 but he will be star alongside Reynolds in the sequel, which is being directed by Stranger Things director and producer Shawn Levy. Jackman promised the upcoming film will solve some unanswered aspects of his characters story, saying: For me, having played this character for 24 years, theres whole sides of Wolverine youve never seen before in this movie. These guys wrote it so beautifully and carefully. And I can tell you, fans are going to dig it. Theres some stuff Ive been scratching around for a long time to try and solve, and we solve it here. Advertisement Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman star as Deadpool and Wolverine in the upcoming superhero film (Ian West/PA) After last fully portraying the character in the third Wolverine film, Logan, Jackman said he did not realise how hard it would be physically to return to the role, but that it was absolutely worth it. He said: I really thought I was done. And then when I saw Deadpool one, I was like Hmm hang on a sec. And then five or six years later, I was driving and I just knew in my bones I wanted to do that. I knew for fans it would be the thing theyve waited for. I knew itd be a dynamic that wed never seen before. I had no idea how hard it would be, physically, at age 55 to do it but its absolutely worth it. I loved it every second. Reynolds added that the film, which is being released on July 25, will be an ode to joy and filled with surprises. At its best, movies like this, you want to feel that wish fulfilment, he said. You want to walk out of the theatre just feeling utterly filled with joy. Then also its filled with surprises. Im kind of amazed weve been able to get away with this many surprises for this long. The movie will be out in two weeks so we wont have to hide anymore. Itll feel good to not be hiding anymore. The new crossover film will also feature The Crown actor Emma Corrin, while Morena Baccarin will reprise her character Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al and Karan Soni as Dopinder. The cast will also star Catastrophe actor Rob Delaney and Successions Matthew Macfadyen. Deadpool & Wolverine will be available in cinemas from July 25th. A former male model and airport police officer who is believed to have laundered millions in organised crime cash has been surrendered to the North, where he was sentenced to 20 months for having 180,000 in his luggage at Belfast International Airport. Serial launderer Mark Adams (44), who booked close to 500 flights in and out of the UK in a four-year period, was previously jailed here after he was caught laundering over 1 million for criminals. Advertisement At Laganside Crown Court in Belfast in January 2022, Mark Adams pleaded guilty to attempting to remove criminal property and to arranging to remove criminal property by carrying 180,550 through Belfast International airport to board a flight to Alicante in May 2018. He admitted that he attempted to remove the money from the North on May 9th, 2018, knowing or suspecting the money to be proceeds of crime. He also pleaded guilty to entering into an arrangement, namely the attempted removal of criminal property from Northern Ireland, knowing or suspecting that this arrangement would facilitate the retention, use or control of such criminal property, by persons unknown, between May 13th, 2013 and May 10th, 2018. The offences each carry a maximum penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment. Advertisement In May 2022, Adams, with a last address at Castleheath, Malahide, Co Dublin, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, with a further 10 months to be served on licence. This sentence was to run consecutively to a prison term he was already serving in the Republic that expired in December last year. Adams was given a five-year jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 2020 for his role in laundering approximately 1.2 million in cash that was the proceeds of crime. Adams had pleaded guilty to engaging in handling 582,045, the proceeds of criminal conduct, at Dublin Airport on September 11, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to 227,130 at Bank of Ireland, Dublin Airport; 298,280 at PTSB, Main Street, Malahide and 78,990 at Bank of Ireland Credit Card Centre on dates between January 2012 and March 2017. In passing sentence, Judge Martin Nolan said, as an airport policeman for 13 years, Adams knew the ways of the world and would have been under no illusions that he was aiding and assisting criminal enterprises. Advertisement In August 2021, Adams was temporarily surrendered by the High Court here so that he could attend his court proceedings in the North. He was returned to the Republic in June 2022 after being in custody there for 10 months. The warrant for his surrender stated that Adams was stopped by UK Border Force officers in May 2018 and asked about two brown envelopes he concealed in his hand luggage. Adams confirmed to Border Force officers that he had packed the bag himself, and when asked whether anyone had given him anything to take out of the country, he replied: Yes, 180,000. The respondent had booked 497 international flights into or out of the UK between May 14th, 2014, and May 9th, 2018. On 64 occasions, the outward and return flights were within a matter of hours, the warrant states. Advertisement Lawyers for Adams had objected to his re-surrender to the North on humanitarian grounds, arguing that he may be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment while in prison based on his past experience there. At the High Court on Friday, Mr Justice David Keane said it had been submitted that Adams had been subjected to threats of violence and when this was coupled with his medical needs it amounted to inhumane or degrading conditions, should he be surrendered to serve time in Maghaberry Prison. Adams had submitted that he had previously been wrongly identified as a member of An Garda Siochana in a media article, leading to a letter being passed under his prison door by those he claimed were paramilitaries, telling him to leave the landing or he would be harmed. In his order surrendering Adams, Mr Justice Keane noted that while Adams had submitted that he struggled with his mental health no documents regarding his mental health difficulties had been put before the court. Advertisement Mr Justice Keane said that prison reports on Maghaberry Prison noted that inter-prisoner violence had been decreasing since 2008 and that Adams had not himself been the subject of physical attack in the 10 months he was in custody there. Mr Justice Keane said a systemic failing in the prison system in the North had not been established. The judge said a real risk of inhumane conditions or degradation had to be established in order for the High Court to refuse surrender. He said that the "mere possibility" of such treatment did not establish a real risk of ill-treatment that would be sufficient to breach his fundamental rights. His own evidence says he was not subject to physical or ill-treatment, other than threats. The possibility of such is not enough, said Mr Justice Keane, who ordered Adams surrender. In the warrant for Adams surrender, money-laundering expert Detective Sergeant Adrian Ward of South Yorkshire Police opined that Adams travel arrangements were consistent with the act of someone transporting or delivering something between one place and another and that there were elements of a money laundering system identified within the evidence consistent with Adams acting as part of that system, attempting to smuggle cash as a cash courier. In the UKs National Crime Agency's statement welcoming Adams' sentence in the North in May 2022, the agency said: "Working with our Irish colleagues we were able to spot a pattern of him regularly travelling out of airports in both the Republic and the UK, and returning home shortly afterwards. "Each time he is likely to have taken tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros and may have been responsible for laundering many millions of criminal money in total," the agency said. The jail term was also welcomed by the Northern Ireland Border Force Command, who said the sentence was a result of the "hard work and dedication from Border Force, the NCA and our partners in the Republic of Ireland to tackle dirty money". Politicians election posters have appeared on loyalist bonfires in the North. Posters of First Minister Michelle ONeill (Sinn Fein) and South Belfast MP Claire Hanna (SDLP) appeared on a structure in the Donegall Road area of the capital on Thursday night. Advertisement Meanwhile, a bonfire in Derry bore a board with an apparent threat against SDLP leader Colum Eastwood as well as having an Irish flag on it. SDLP MLA Cara Hunter criticised absolutely despicable behaviour and challenged the leadership of unionism to come out strong against this nonsense and call it for what it is. Absolutely despicable behaviour. Unionist leadership needs to come out strong against this nonsense and call it for what it is. Clearly these people don't know Colum, and he won't be deterred by this backwards sectarian hatred. Solidarity. pic.twitter.com/Mn7J0qUCYu Advertisement Cara Hunter MLA (@CaraHunterSDLP) July 11, 2024 Most of the bonfires, which are normally lit ahead of Orange Order parades on July 12th, pass off without incident but some continue to be the source of controversy. Advertisement The fires, ranging from towering structures to beacons, are at an estimated 300 locations. One of the tallest bonfires in recent years has been at Craigyhill in Larne, which reportedly reached 62 metres in 2022. Well done to the organisers of the record breaking Craigyhill bonfire in Larne. pic.twitter.com/8ZOYmXTMk6 Sammy Wilson (@eastantrimmp) July 11, 2024 Advertisement Last year there was condemnation after an image of Ms ONeill appeared on a bonfire in Co Tyrone with Irish flags. In 2023, police received 68 reported incidents, including 21 alleged hate crimes, involving the burning of election posters or effigies, and 47 alleged hate-related incidents, including the burning of flags. The fires are traditionally ignited on the eve of July 12th before thousands of members of the Orange Order and accompanying marching bands take to the streets at 18 locations across the North to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Advertisement At the battle at the Boyne river, north of Dublin, King William of Orange defeated Catholic King James II to secure a Protestant line of succession to the British crown. July 11th and 12th are among the busiest days of the year for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who are expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million. A mock police car is set alight on top of a bonfire in Moygashel near Dungannon, Co Tyrone, on Wednesday night (Niall Carson/PA) One of the bonfires that was lit on Wednesday night in Moygashel, near Dungannon, featured a mock police car on the top. The bonfire was also adorned with an Tricolour flag and a banner reading Saoirse don Phalaistin an Irish phrase for Freedom for Palestine. Hundreds of people gathered to watch the tower burn. In 2023, a boat was placed on top of the fire in Moygashel, themed as an anti-Northern Ireland Protocol bonfire. President Michael D Higgins has called for a meeting of his advisory body to discuss the constitutionality of the Governments Defence Bill. The Council of State will meet on Monday afternoon to discuss whether the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024 should be referred by the President to the Supreme Court on whether specific provisions are repugnant to the constitution. Advertisement Mr Higgins intends to ask the council about sections 11 and 24 of the Bill in particular and whether the interference with constitutional rights is disproportionate. Section 11 prohibits a member of the Permanent Defence Forces from making a public statement or comment in relation to political matters or Government policy while they are in uniform or otherwise identifiable as a member of the Defence Forces, without prior authorisation from their commanding officer. President Michael D Higgins has summoned the Council of State (Brian Lawless/PA) Advertisement It would also prohibit them from attending a protest under the same circumstances as well as stop them from canvassing for a political organisation or addressing a meeting of such a society. While Section 24 would now allow the Defence Forces to associate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, it would prohibit associated bodies like ICTU from calling for or encouraging industrial action within the military. Those who sit on the council include the Taoiseach, Tanaiste, Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal, President of the High Court, Ceann Comhairle, Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, and the Attorney General. It will be the fourth time that Mr Higgins has convened the Council of State to consider a piece of legislation during his time as President. Advertisement He previously convened the Council of State on July 29th, 2013, to consider the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, on December 29th, 2015, to consider the International Protection Bill 2015, and on October 11th, 2023, to consider the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022. Since 1940, the Council of State has been convened to consider the potential referral of 29 previous Bills to the Supreme Court. Fifteen Bills have been referred to the Supreme Court following such meetings. New UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged to listen to the voice of unionism as Twelfth of July parades take place across Northern Ireland. Orange Order grand secretary Rev Mervyn Gibson made the plea as tens of thousands of loyal order members and 600 marching bands took part in the annual festivities. Advertisement The largest parades were in Belfast, including Carrickfergus, which has links with William of Orange, who beat Britain's King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. One of the largest parades took place in Belfast (Brian Lawless/PA) Ballymena, Newtownstewart, Derry and Killylea were also among the 18 locations hosting processions to mark the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Advertisement Mr Gibson delivered the main speech at the demonstration in Derriaghy, Co Antrim, where he urged members to give the new government a chance. He said: There will without doubt be decisions we dont like, times we will clash with their thinking, but they cannot be any worse than the Conservatives who not only failed to strengthen the Union, but damaged the Union, who failed to deliver meaningful celebrations to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland; who failed to deliver Brexit for all of the UK; who failed to deliver on many promises made. In essence, the Tories failed the people of Northern Ireland. Advertisement Grace Moffett (11) watches an Orange Order parade (Brian Lawless/PA) So, lets see if this union-promoting Labour government will perform any better. We would encourage our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism, which is still united against the (Northern Ireland) Protocol deliver us from this iniquitous legislation deliver truly frictionless trade within the UK. Honour the promises the Tories failed to keep, promises which you indicated you would keep when in power. Advertisement New UK Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn visited a Twelfth demonstration at Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh. He also met with PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher in Belfast where he was briefed on the policing operation. Members of the public watch the burning pyre at the Craigyhill eleventh night bonfire in Larne (Liam McBurney/PA) The Twelfth parades come after the traditional burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across the North on Thursday night. Advertisement There was criticism as politicians election posters were placed on some of the bonfires. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it dealt with more than 100 emergency 999 calls. Brian Stanfield, assistant chief Fire and Rescue officer said: It has been a relatively quiet 11th night. Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25 per cent when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. Charlie Campbell playing a traditional Lambeg drum in Hillsborough (Jonathan McCambridge/PA) During Fridays parades, the Orange Orders Grand Master Edward Stevenson told the demonstration in Newtownstewart that membership of the loyal orders is on the rise. Delivering his speech, he said: One of the most encouraging aspects of the last 12 months has been the resurgence in the junior Orange movement. The growth must be treated as a beacon of hope for the future. This year already they have formed six new lodges. They have attracted hundreds of new members and are working to see that more follow. I also recognise that the junior girls movement is experiencing an increase in membership, with new lodges formed and new members joining existing lodges. Playing the flute in the Belfast parade (Brian Lawless/PA) He added: These are not the actions of a people who have given up, they are the actions of people who have stood up, and who are investing in the future of their lodges, of their young people and their community. As Orangemen and women, we must strive to be more confident and assertive in our identity and culture. We have a proud heritage and a great story to tell. And while we rightly cherish our history, we have every reason to look to the future with much positivity, optimism and with a clear sense of direction ensuring that our cultural traditions remain relevant and continue to prosper in a contemporary world. Saturday will see another gathering, this time organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh. The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James. PSNI Pangolin Public Order Vehicles parked near the Ardoyne shops in Belfast ahead of an Orange Order parade (Brian Lawless/PA) The routes of certain Orange parades became intense friction points during the Troubles, often leading to widespread rioting and violence. The number of flashpoints has reduced significantly in the peace process years. July 11th and 12th remain the busiest days of the year for police in the North, who are expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two-thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million. New legislation banning '51-week only' leases has been welcomed by a student representative body. The new law, passed by the Oireacthas on Thursday, will "provide required clarity" before the upcoming academic year, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said. Advertisement The union raised the matter with the Department of Further and Higher Education earlier this year after students highlighted they were only being offered 51-week leases, as opposed to term-time leases. "We are glad that this issue has now been settled ahead of the start of the academic year," USI president Chris Clifford said. "It will take some stress and pressure off students that were trying to deal with these specific private student accommodation providers, but this issue yet again shows why we should not be relying on private developers to provide our student accommodation. "They just want to squeeze as much money as possible from students and know how desperate many students are because of the housing crisis. "Yet again, we call on Government to publish the long-awaited Student Accommodation Strategy urgently," Mr Clifford added. Dozens of bodies collected in Gaza Citys Tel al-Hawa area have arrived at Al-Ahli Hospital as civil defence workers continue to recover the dead from destroyed streets and buildings. Hospital director Fadel Naem told The Associated Press that the dead and injured had been brought from Tel al-Hawa to the hospital less than a day after it resumed operations following the evacuation earlier in the week due to the fighting in the area. Advertisement About 60 bodies have been recovered, including entire families who appeared to have been killed by artillery fire and aerial bombardment, Mahmoud Basal, the director of Civil Defence in Gaza said. There are homes that we cannot reach, and there are those who were burned inside their homes, he said, noting many of those who were killed had left nearby shelters after being ordered to evacuate. The Israeli military said it could not comment on Tel al-Hawa. The scenes mirror those in another Gaza City area, Shujaiyyah, which Israels military withdrew from in recent days. Palestinians returned to scenes of utter destruction in Gaza Citys Shujaiyyah area (AP) Advertisement On Thursday, civil defence workers found an additional 60 bodies in Shujaiyyah under similar circumstances, with more believed to be buried under rubble. Meanwhile, a UK-based aid group said one of its employees in Gaza was killed on Friday in an Israeli strike that hit its warehouse inside an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone. The strike also killed three staff members from other aid groups using the warehouse, the al-Khair foundation said in a statement. Advertisement The warehouse was in Muwasi, an area on Gazas Mediterranean coast that is part of a humanitarian safe zone where Israel has told Palestinians to take refuge. The latest announcements of casualties comes as the United Nations estimates that about 300,000 Palestinians were still in northern Gaza, as of earlier this week, despite being ordered to evacuate. Much of the population left earlier in the war. Most of Gazas 2.3 million people are now experiencing widespread hunger while crammed into squalid tent camps. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas October 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and abducted about 250. Advertisement 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. Meanwhile in Cairo, mediators are trying to close the gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed deal that would include a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office said Israel would send a delegation for further talks as US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators attempt to seal an agreement. Advertisement Obstacles remain, however as Hamas insists that talks continue until a permanent ceasefire is reached while Mr Netanyahu says Israel will not agree to any deal that would stop its military campaign before Hamas is eliminated. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed (AP) Mr Netanyahu is under growing pressure both domestically and internationally. Large segments of the Israeli population are demanding an agreement to release the hostages after nine months of war, though the Israeli leader has insisted that the offensive will not end until Israel achieves its goal of eliminating Hamas. Relatives of hostages are marching to Jerusalem to demand a deal and the release of their loved ones as Israeli politicians, including defence minister Yoav Gallant, call for a broad government investigation into the conduct of Israels leaders. A risk of regional escalation remains. Israels military said one of its soldiers was killed in combat in northern Israel as the countrys army and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continue to trade cross-border fire. The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been trading near-daily exchanges of fire, with Hezbollah saying it is striking Israel in solidarity with Hamas and would stop its attacks once there is a ceasefire in Gaza. In a press conference on Thursday, President Joe Biden talked about disappointment and frustration with the war and Israels government, pointing to the increasing hopes of a ceasefire. Mr 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. Mediators are helping to fill in the gaps in the agreement, he said. President Joe Biden used his highly anticipated news conference on Thursday to deliver a forceful defence of his foreign and domestic policies. He also batted away questions about his ability to serve another four years even as he flubbed a reference to Donald Trump in one of his first answers. Advertisement Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job I started, Mr Biden said as he insisted his support among the electorate was strong and he would stay in the race and would win. Fumbles notwithstanding, the president pushed back at every suggestion that he was slowing down or showing noticeable signs of decline, or that he was not in command of the job. But he was facing a growing chorus of calls from lawmakers, celebrities and other prominent Democrats to step aside from the 2024 race. My schedule has been full bore, he declared. So if I slow down and I cant get the job done, thats a sign that I shouldnt be doing it. But theres no indication of that yet none. Advertisement President Joe Biden (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Democrats are facing an intractable problem. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers are doubtful of Mr Bidens abilities to carry on his re-election bid after his disastrous June 27 debate performance, but the hard-fighting 81-year-old president refuses to give up as he prepares to take on Mr Trump in a rematch. Im determined on running but I think its important that I allay fears let them see me out there, he said. Advertisement The first questioner of Mr Bidens press conference asked about him losing support among many of his fellow Democrats and unionists and asked about vice president Kamala Harris. Mr Biden was at first defiant, saying the UAW endorsed me, but go ahead, meaning the United Auto Workers. But then he mixed up Ms Harris and Mr Trump, saying: I wouldnt have picked Vice President Mr Trump to be Vice President if she wasnt qualified. Mr Trump weighed in live on Mr Bidens news conference with a post on his social media network of a video clip of the president saying Vice President Mr Trump . Mr Trump added sarcastically: Great job, Joe! Advertisement Vice president Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event on, July 11, 2024. (Chuck Burton/AP) Most of the hour-long press conference was vintage Mr Biden: He gave long answers on foreign policy and told well-worn anecdotes. He used teleprompters for his opening remarks on Nato, which ran about eight minutes. Then the teleprompters lowered and he took a wide range of questions from 10 journalists about his mental acuity, foreign and domestic policy and mostly the future of his campaign. Advertisement I believe Im the best qualified to govern. I believe Im the best qualified to win, Mr Biden said, adding that he will stay in the race until his staff says: Theres no way you can win. No ones saying that, he said. No poll says that. Earlier, Mr Bidens campaign laid out what it sees as its path to keeping the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the clearest pathway to victory. And it declared no other Democrat would do better against Mr Trump. There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs Trump, said the memo from campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez that was obtained by The Associated Press. The memo sought to brush back hypothetical polling of alternative nominees as unreliable and it said such surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. Meanwhile, the campaign has been quietly surveying voters on Ms Harris to determine how she is viewed among the electorate, according to two people with knowledge of the campaign who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to talk about internal matters. As reporters continue to ask questions, President Joe Biden walks from the podium after a news conference (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) The people said the polling was not necessarily to show that she could be the nominee in Mr Bidens place, but rather to better understand how she is viewed. The research came after Mr Trump stepped up his attacks against Ms Harris following the debate, according to another person familiar with the effort. The survey was first reported by The New York Times. While Mr Biden has expressed confidence in his chances, his campaign on Thursday acknowledged he is behind, and a growing number of the presidents aides in the White House and the campaign privately harbour doubts that he can turn things around. But in announcing a compact that would bring together Nato countries to support Ukraine, Mr Biden referred to the nations leader Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin to audible gasps in the room. He quickly returned to the microphone: President Putin hes going to beat President Putin President Zelensky, Mr Biden said. Then he said, Im so focused on beating Putin, to explain the gaffe. Im better, Mr Zelensky replied. Youre a hell of a lot better, Mr Biden said back. Nigel Farage is set to return to GB News next week after being elected as an MP on his eighth attempt, the channel has confirmed. The Reform UK leader, 60, formally took his seat in the UK House of Commons as the representative for the Essex seaside constituency of Clacton after he was sworn in on Thursday. Advertisement He cancelled his GB News show, which he hosted Monday to Thursday each week, in May to free up time to help with the British general election campaigning for Reform UK. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was sworn in to the House of Commons as the representative for Clacton (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA) Mr Farage is planning to broadcast from the channels studios in Westminster three times a week, according to the Financial Times. Advertisement Ofcom has repeatedly found that GB News has breached broadcasting rules on impartiality, which allow politicians to present current affairs programmes but not act as newsreaders. The media watchdog has investigated programmes presented by former Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as former Conservative minister without portfolio Esther McVey and former backbencher Philip Davies. Married couple Ms McVey and Mr Davies are no longer part of the channels line-up. In May, GB News said it was beginning a challenge against Ofcom after the broadcasting regulator warned the channel that it is considering enforcement methods that could include a fine or revoking its licence. Their backlash came after the regulator ruled that GB News broke broadcasting due impartiality rules following the airing of the programme, Peoples Forum: The Prime Minister, where Rishi Sunak was questioned by the public. Advertisement Ofcom has repeatedly found that GB News has breached broadcasting rules on impartiality (Yui Mok/PA) Ofcom said it did not feature an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints and called compliance by the channel wholly insufficient. After initially saying he would not run as a candidate, Mr Farage changed his mind and announced he would stand in Clacton in early June. Advertisement He also took over as leader of Reform UK, representing the party within the major multi-party broadcasting debates held on BBC and ITV. He first contested a parliamentary election 30 years ago the 1994 by-election in Eastleigh, Hampshire, where his UK Independence Party (Ukip) came fourth. He later contested seats throughout southern England as the Ukip candidate before his Clacton win for Reform UK, with 21,225 votes, ahead of the Tories Giles Watling on 12,820. Sir Keir Starmer defended Joe Bidens leadership of the Nato summit despite the US president confusing Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin. The UK prime minister, who earlier insisted Mr Biden was not senile and was on good form, faced questions about the presidents mental ability just moments after the US leaders gaffe. Advertisement Mr Biden introduced Ukrainian president Mr Zelenskiy as president Putin at an event attended by Mr Starmer at the Nato summit in Washington. He immediately corrected himself, saying: President Putin? Hes going to beat president Putin. President Zelenskiy. Im so focused on beating Putin, weve got to worry about it. Advertisement At a press conference at the conclusion of the Nato summit, Mr Starmer repeatedly dodged questions about Mr Bidens blunder. Responding to questions about Mr Bidens mental capacity, the UK prime minister told journalists I would urge everyone to look at the substance of whats been achieved over these two days over support for Ukraine. Advertisement He said: When we think of the global threats, that is the best possible outcome we could have had today and so I think he deserves credit for that, as does the team that worked with him. We close this council with renewed confidence and resolve to meet the challenge of Russian aggression. That is the outcome we all hoped we would get to and President Biden led us through that. Mr Starmer sidestepped a question about whether Mr Biden was capable of serving four more years in the White House, instead again focusing on the outcomes of the Nato summit. Mr Bidens leadership credentials amid questions about his cognitive health, which have intensified since criticism of his performance in a TV debate against Donald Trump. Advertisement UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden at the Nato summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The president, 81, is seeking re-election in November despite discontent within the Democrat ranks about his suitability. Mr Starmer, who met the president for their first bilateral talks at the White House on Wednesday as Nato leaders gathered in Washington to discuss the challenges facing the bloc, said Mr Biden had been across all the detail. Advertisement Before Mr Bidens latest slip-up, Mr Starmer had told broadcaster their one-to-one discussions had happened at pace and Mr Biden seemed on really good form. We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour, he said. He was absolutely across all the detail. We were going at pace through a number of issues. Asked whether the president was senile, Mr Starmer told the BBC: No hes shown incredible leadership. The president has stood firm against suggestions he should drop his candidacy and appealed for an end to the row over how the party moves forward in a sharply worded letter to Democrats. Legislators and fundraisers including Hollywood actor George Clooney have since joined calls for Mr Biden to step aside, after he appeared flustered and stumbled over his words in the presidential debate with Mr Trump last month. Donald Trumps lawyers are urging the judge in his New York hush money case to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case in the wake of the Supreme Courts recent ruling on presidential immunity. The former presidents lawyers wrote in papers made public on Thursday that prosecutors rushed to try Trump in April and May while the high court was still considering his immunity claims. Advertisement Rather than wait for the Supreme Courts guidance, the prosecutors scoffed with hubris at president Trumps immunity motions and insisted on rushing to trial, Trumps lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote. In a historic ruling, the justices said for the first time former presidents can be shielded from prosecution for at least some of what they do in the Oval Office (Jon Elswick/AP) Your Honour now has the authority to address these injustices, and the court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Courts decision. Advertisement Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday, but that is on hold until the trial judge, Juan M Merchan, rules on whether to set aside Trumps felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal. Justice Merchan has said he will rule on the defences request on September 6 and will sentence Trump on September 18, if such is still necessary. Prosecutors have until July 24 to respond to the defences arguments. US president Joe Biden mixed up the names of vice president Kamala Harris and his Republican rival Donald Trump on Thursday but insisted he was pushing ahead with his re-election bid even as more of his fellow Democrats urged him to end his campaign. Mr Biden, 81, touted his decades of experience on the world stage as he argued that he was uniquely qualified to defeat former president Trump, 78, and lead the US for another four-year term. Advertisement "The only thing age does is creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention," said Mr Biden, who is already the oldest person to ever serve as president. Since his poor performance against Mr Trump in a presidential debate two weeks ago, Mr Biden has faced growing doubts from donors, supporters and fellow Democrats about his ability to win the November 5th election and keep up with the demands of the job. He probably did not help his case when he mixed up his vice president and his Republican rival at the outset of the news conference, which lasted nearly an hour. "Look, I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," Mr Biden said as he responded to a question from Reuters about his confidence in Ms Harris. Advertisement The president coughed frequently and occasionally garbled his responses at the outset of the news conference, and towards the end his answers frequently trailed off before he had completed his thoughts. At the same time, he delivered detailed responses on issues such as the Israel-Gaza conflict and the need for western countries to produce more military weaponry to counter Russia and China. Putin gaffe That came a few hours after Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "president Putin" at the Nato summit in Washington, drawing gasps from those in the room. Mr Biden's campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since his poor debate performance against Mr Trump. At least 16 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate's 51 Democrats have appealed publicly to the president to withdraw from the race. Advertisement Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut joined that group shortly after the press conference ended. "We must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump's promised MAGA authoritarianism," he said. "I no longer believe that is Joe Biden." Mr Biden overcame a childhood stutter and has frequently mangled names and misspoken throughout his political career. Mr Biden said his health is in good shape and that he would take another neurological exam to determine his mental acuity if his doctors recommended it. Advertisement Slip-ups A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters they did not know whether the news conference would shore up support on Capitol Hill. Biden donor John Morgan called his performance "fantastic", but another donor, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not think it would help, given the heightened scrutiny of Mr Biden's verbal slip-ups. Mr Biden said he needed to "pace myself" a little more and complained that his aides sometimes over-scheduled him. "I'm catching hell from my wife," he said. The news conference gave Mr Biden an opportunity to tout his successes on the world stage at the close of the Nato summit in Washington, where members extended support to Ukraine to combat the invasion that Russian president Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022. Advertisement Mr Biden argued Mr Trump would weaken Nato and drive up prices for US consumers by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods. He took credit for bringing Sweden and Finland into the alliance, and said he brought together 50 nations to support Ukraine. He also said the Israel-Gaza war must end now and that Israel must not occupy the enclave after the war, adding that both Israel and Hamas had agreed on his ceasefire framework but that there were still gaps to close. Separately on Thursday, United Auto Workers union officials met to discuss their concerns with his candidacy, three sources familiar with the matter said, after endorsing Mr Biden in January. The 400,000-member union has a big presence in industrial states like Michigan that Mr Biden will need to carry to win re-election. No Democratic leaders in Congress have called for Mr Biden to end his candidacy, though former House speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday declined to say he should stay in the race. The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how vice president Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Mr Biden as candidate, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found Ms Harris would fare no better than Mr Biden in a match-up with Mr Trump. Donor unrest Prominent donors, including actor George Clooney, have called on Mr Biden to drop out, and there were signs that concerns are growing within Mr Biden's campaign operation as well. The New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering ways to convince him to drop his re-election bid, while NBC News reported that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the election. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found Mr Biden and Mr Trump tied at 40 per cent each. Other opinion polls have found Mr Trump leading Mr Biden, and some strategists have warned that Mr Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states like New Hampshire and Minnesota. In a strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. If he won those states, along with others considered to be reliably Democratic, he would win 270 electoral votes - the bare minimum needed to secure the presidency. Mr Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020. The campaign characterised other battleground states he won in 2020 as "not out of reach". US president Joe Biden on Thursday mistakenly referred to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as Russian president Vladimir Putin before correcting himself at the Nato summit in Washington. "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, president Putin," Mr Biden said, referring to Mr Zelenskiy. Advertisement While correcting himself about two seconds later, Mr Biden added: "President Putin, you're going to beat president Putin, President Zelenskiy. I am so focused on beating Putin." The room at the summit gasped when Mr Biden misidentified Mr Zelenskiy as Mr Putin. The comments came at an event in the summit during which Mr Biden launched an initiative with allies aimed at supporting Ukraine's security needs. Mr Zelenskiy responded to Mr Biden's comments by saying, "I am better (than Putin)." Mr Biden replied: "You are a hell of a lot better," as some in the room laughed, before Mr Zelenskiy began his own address. Advertisement Mr Biden has been under intense scrutiny in recent days and has faced doubts, including from members and donors of his own Democratic Party, about his re-election chances after a weak and faltering performance in a debate late last month against Republican former president Donald Trump. Mr Biden has thus far vowed to push on with his re-election bid and refused to step aside as his party's presidential candidate, while claiming he is best positioned to beat Mr Trump in the November elections. German chancellor Olaf Scholz defended Mr Biden on Thursday after the president's mistake. Mr Scholz said: "Slips of tongue happen, and if you always monitor everyone, you will find enough of them." British prime minister Keir Starmer, in a press conference of his own, repeatedly avoided answering the question as to whether Mr Biden was fit enough to run for the US presidency. He instead praised Mr Biden's role in organising and leading what he said was a successful meeting of the Nato alliance. Advertisement World How difficult would it be for Democrats to replace... Read More Later on Thursday, Mr Biden held a solo press conference at the Nato summit, his first time facing press alone since November, in which he was asked about his gaffe. He responded by saying the Nato summit was successful under his leadership. "Have you seen a more successful conference?" Mr Biden said to reporters when asked about potential concerns among foreign officials about his fitness for re-election. At the summit in Washington, Nato members have extended support to Ukraine to combat the Russian invasion that began in February 2022. The United States has been Ukraine's most important partner in military assistance during the war. Earlier in the day, ahead of a bilateral meeting, Mr Biden told Mr Zelenskiy: "We will stay with you, period." - Reuters Advertisement Exclusive Eating outFood One of Brisbanes best new bars is this wine joint hidden in a CBD garage Its serving a 50-bottle wine list and cocktails (including a martini menu) matched to a menu of British-inspired comfort food. You just need to find it first. Matt Shea July 12, 2024 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save recipes for later. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share A wine bar, serving good food, in the middle of the Brisbane CBD. When George Curtis and James Horsfall say there was a gap in the market for Milquetoast, it takes you a moment to realise they are, in fact, right. There are wine joints of note that serve good grub: La Lune in South Brisbane, or Bar Francine and Snack Man in West End and Fortitude Valley, respectively (though the latter two arguably veer towards a proper restaurant experience), but not much in the city centre. Youll find Milquetoast tucked away in a garage on a laneway just off Elizabeth Street. Markus Ravik It reflects a bar scene that can sometimes trail behind the southern cities. The quality is right there walk into a Death & Taxes or a Savile Row, and youll be served a killer cocktail but the variety of venues and concepts sometimes isnt. Theres definitely a hunger in Brisbane for people to come to different styles of bars, Curtis says. Weve a lot of gin bars and cocktail bars, but something like Before and After [an amaro-focused bar Curtis opened off George Street in 2022] has proven that people are willing to try something different, as long as its done well. Advertisement Exclusive One of Brisbanes best bar groups has relaunched an iconic 1864-built pub Wine bars have been done, right? But were not just a wine bar. Having this kind of branding and doing the kind of food we do and the drinks we do in a garage. Yes, in a garage. Youll find Milquetoast hidden down the end of a laneway opposite the Hilton Hotel on Elizabeth Street. It makes for a neat two-hander with Alice, Emma and Peter Hollands dive bar just next door. Milquetoast serves a 50-bottle wine list and cocktails matched to menu of British-inspired comfort food. Markus Ravik Advertisement Inside, its homely rather than fancy, Curtis and Horsfall scouring Facebook Marketplace for vintage timber tables, and leather and velvet chairs and bar stools. A bar and open kitchen runs down one side of the venue, and exposed girders are lined with wine bottles. Operators get caught up in needing lots of money and fancy decor, but you dont need that to open a bar, Curtis says. Its just about creating a welcoming atmosphere. Urban Valley mushrooms on toast. Markus Ravik Horsfall says people forget that hospitality is actually about hospitality. You just need to offer them the right thing and execute that correctly. Wine, understandably, takes centre stage here. Horsfall has put together a 50-bottle list that covers Australian and international drops and focuses on small producers, grower champagnes, limited allocations and the like. Advertisement Milquetoasts chocolate cake served with vanilla cream. Markus Ravik Its always got to be quality first, Horsfall says. Local is great but if the local stuff isnt as good as something you can get further away, you should always reward quality. Thats the ethos behind the wine. For cocktails, venue manager Aidan Perkins has written a list that focuses on higher-end spirits. Theres also a martini menu that each month will showcase a different distillery (at opening, its Full Circle Spirits from Adelaide Hills) and presents house interpretations on dry, wet and dirty martinis, as well as a retro riff on an espresso martini, a mini martini, and a martini highball served with tonic. Milquetoast is populated by vintage furniture that owners George Curtis and James Horsfall sourced from Facebook Marketplace. Markus Ravik Elsewhere, theres a house cocktail list that includes the venues signature Caspar Milquetoast (Four Pillars rare dry gin, lacto-fermented rhubarb, sparkling wine, vanilla, and a clarified milk-bread soda). Advertisement As Curtis and Horsfall promise, though, food is just as important. Its the lack of pretence thats perhaps the defining trait of Milquetoast. The name is a term for weak or timid that originated in the United States. Markus Ravik Chef Solenn dHeilly (formerly chef de partie at Bennelong, at the Sydney Opera House) is cooking seasonal produce that taps into a revitalised interest in British food (Curtis is from England, as are Horsfalls parents). It will change regularly, but the launch menu features devilled eggs with bacon and leek cream, a cured fish crumpet with curry aioli, Urban Valley mushrooms on toast, and Cumberland sausages with puy lentils and gremolata. Matching the food and the wine, we have a diverse by-the-glass list, Horsfall says. We have a Tasmanian riesling by Anim that almost feels like its made to go with the crumpet but Ive always taken the approach: if youre busting to crack open a grenache [with that dish], Im not going to stop you. You pair the wine to the person first and the food comes after that. Wine bars have been done, right? co-owner George Curtis says. But were not just a wine bar. Having this kind of branding and doing the kind of food we do and the drinks we do in a garage. Markus Ravik Advertisement That lack of pretence is perhaps the defining trait of Milquetoast. Its right there in the name, a term for weak or timid that originated in the US. Its meant to be a self-deprecating assessment of us, Curtis says. Were just two guys opening a small bar against the backdrop of a city that tends to be dominated by big groups. So were just taking the piss out of ourselves a little bit. We dont mind those groups being around if they do cool stuff and treat their staff well. Milquetoast ran its first service on Thursday night. Markus Ravik But if you have a top-heavy scene, Horsfall interjects, and you dont have that texture underneath, it can sometimes feel a little soulless. Were trying to help fill that out, really. Tue-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 1pm-12am (this Friday and Saturday, the bar is operating 4pm-12am) Advertisement 199 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane milquetoastwinebar.com.au Advertisement Exclusive Eating outRestaurant news Team behind award-winning Maybe Sammy cocktail bar splits from heavyweight hospitality group The end of the landmark deal follows Alpha and the Love Tilly Group parting ways with Jon Adgemis Public Hospitality Group. Scott Bolles July 12, 2024 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save recipes for later. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share Jon Adgemis Public Hospitality was hit with another blow today when the operator of award-winning Sydney CBD cocktail bar Maybe Sammy and Randwick pizzeria Maybe Frank decided to split from the group. Maybe Group founders Vince Lombardo and Stefano Catino announced the end of the partnership with Public on Friday, July 12. Stef and I believe we can best serve our venues by bringing them back under The Maybe Groups wing, Lombardo says. Lombardo says the running of Paddington tequila bar El Primo Sanchez will also transition from Public to The Maybe Group through a licence agreement, a move complicated by the pub in which it operates being listed for sale this week. The Maybe Group (pictured, from left), Vince Lombardo, Martin Hudak and Stefano Catino with Public founder Jon Adgemis (far right) last year. Steven Woodburn Advertisement This follows hatted Greek restaurant Alpha leaving the Public portfolio last month and an abrupt collapse of a business partnership with Love Tilly Group last year. Lombardo concedes these events have obviously had an impact but says Adgemis has supported their decision. Publics operations have grown quickly in recent years, ranging from Sydneys Oxford House to Melbourne venues with star chefs Karen Martini (at Saint George) and Guy Grossi (Puttanesca at The Clifton Hotel). It announced its milestone deal with Maybe Group in April 2023. Named after jazz icon Sammy Davis Jr, Maybe Sammy debuted on the Worlds 50 Best Bars list in 2019 as the best bar in Australasia, a feat it has repeated every year since. Public came knocking to collaborate on the February 2023 launch of El Primo Sanchez, a Mexican-inspired bar in a hotel Public snapped up on Oxford Street, Paddington. The Maybe Group became known for theatrical service at Rocks bar Maybe Sammy. Supplied Sanchezs success led to Publics approach to acquire the Maybe Group in early 2023. While the terms of the arrangement are undisclosed, the Maybe Group deal wasnt a big-ticket play compared to other agreements Public had made for example, the $68 million it forked out for the Noahs Backpackers building in Bondi in 2022. Advertisement It was, however, important from an operational and conceptual perspective. The plan was for Lombardo and Catino to lend their hospitality nous to Publics rapidly expanding portfolio of pubs, bars and restaurants. Lombardo told Good Food last year his group would thoroughly review the existing Public venues to see how their hospitality offering could be finessed. But a month after the Maybe Group deal was announced, a story in The Australian Financial Review outlined Publics level of debt. The group has been under the microscope since some agitated lenders emerged and its acrimonious parting in November with Love Tilly Group, with which it had partnered on projects in Balmain and Redfern. El Primo Sanchez was the first collaboration between The Maybe Group and Public. Steve Woodburn But Public became weighed down by debt, and Adgemis spent months hunting for a refinancing deal. After a failed $500 million refinancing attempt and alleged tax raids, the group reportedly recently secured a $400 million lifeline. Adgemis, a former KPMG dealmaker, struck the deal with a consortium led by Deutsche Bank. Advertisement If my stepping down can stop these malicious attacks on our members and officials and allow this great union to continue to fight for our members, for their wages and conditions, so that they go home safely to their families each day, then Im happy. These stories have been constant, and while Ive been the target of many of them, enough is enough, he said. The investigation unearthed a raft of misconduct allegations involving Setka and the CFMEU. After the union earlier issued a statement defending its conduct, Setka announced on Friday evening he had decided to quit immediately blaming media scrutiny. In the face of repeated questioning about the explosive allegations, powerful CFMEU construction union boss John Setka resigned late on Friday . A months-long investigation by The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, AFR and 60 Minutes has uncovered unprecedented details of senior bikie figures and criminals being parachuted into lucrative union roles, with the problems extending to the Indigenous employment sector. Underworld figures and bikies have infiltrated major Victorian and NSW construction projects, with some securing jobs as CFMEU delegates and secret surveillance exposing the involvement of notorious gangsters in the industry. This article is part of a months-long series investigating misconduct in the CFMEU. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. The Echo anti-bikie taskforce has asked large state government contractor Acciona to provide details of the vehicles movements in the days prior to the shooting and, in May, detectives released grainy CCTV of Leavitt being shot at the Rebels clubhouse after he refused to co-operate with the Echo Taskforce. Acciona said it had fully co-operated with authorities. Leavitt used the rail line upgrade vehicle which like his salary was ultimately funded by the Allan government to drive himself, bleeding from a gunshot wound, to the Footscray Hospital, after which the car was seized for forensic testing by Operation Spitfire. Anti-bikie detectives only stumbled onto crime figure Joel Leavitts Big Build union role when he was shot at the Rebels bikie clubhouse last year, sparking an ongoing Echo taskforce probe, Operation Spitfire, into what police said was suspected rivalry involving outlaw motorcycle gangs. In one extraordinary case in Melbourne, a convicted criminal and bikie figure appointed as a CFMEU health and safety official, earning an estimated $250,000 a year on one of Labors Big Build projects upgrading the Hurstbridge rail line, used a car assigned to conduct worker safety checks to engage in bikie gang activities. In Sydney, union-preferred labour hire companies backed by organised crime continue to be pushed onto major sites by select CFMEU officials, despite years of law enforcement intelligence warning the arrangement is enabling crime to flourish. The investigation revealed that many of the bikies and criminals acting as CFMEU delegates are employed on federal and state government-funded projects, particularly Victorias $100 billion-dollar Big Build road and rail infrastructure program, amid a systemic failure of policing agencies to combat the problems. This masthead has also obtained private and highly revealing text messages between underworld figure Mick Gatto who maintains a key place in Melbournes construction sector despite having his actions scrutinised at two royal commissions and the, now former, union head John Setka. Its worse than ever before, said one veteran Victorian CFMEU insider. Eight veteran CFMEU members or officials told this masthead they were deeply concerned about the underworld infiltration of the union. Separately, select CFMEU officials have advised building companies to hire bikie-controlled sub-contractors, or, to retain underworld standover men, including Hells Angels enforcer Sammy The Turk Ercan, to handle industry or union disputes. Leavitt is not a one-off. Underworld figures who have served as some of Australias highest ranking bikie bosses, including a former Mongols national vice-president and two men who held the top post at the Hells Angels as chapter presidents, along with several bikie gang associates, have been parachuted into union delegate positions, including on publicly funded projects. Leavitt was put on Labors rail job out north by the union. There is meant to be a vote of members but youre just told who you use and no one pushes back. He was the union rep on 200 k plus and a car. No one gives a [expletive] cos its all paid for by the government at the end of the day, said an industry insider, who also described different bikie gangs bluing on Big Build sites. In a statement to its members in April, the CFMEU said it had every confidence that Simon too will make a strong contribution to the Union in this role. Despite previously being forced out of the union for his criminal activity, Gutierrez was also recently elevated to the powerful CFMEU NSW branch committee of management, the unions governing body. In NSW, accused or convicted criminals are also in plum union posts. Simon Gutierrez, who was jailed for seven months for drug dealing only to be busted again in 2019 with drugs while employed as a union organiser, was recently gifted a union delegates job on a joint venture Sydney CBD development funded by the Scentre Group and superannuation giant Cbus. Setkas influence over the federal party has diminished after he was forced out of the ALP in 2019 by Anthony Albanese over Setkas leaked comments about anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty. Setka was later convicted of domestic violence offences. The Victorian construction division of the CFMEU has contributed significant resources and support to the Victorian ALP, where it plays, in particular, an influential role in supporting the governments mammoth infrastructure agenda. When Setkas father died last year, then senior minister Jacinta Allan attended his funeral. The leaked texts cast fresh light on the closeness of the pairs bond, with Gatto telling Setka I love ya and each man describing the other as brother. However, Smith stressed the CFMEU unapologetically believes in second chances and construction was one of the few industries where people with a criminal history could find stable jobs critical to rehabilitation. If there is credible evidence of delegates or officials committing crimes, we will report them. If allegations are proven, people will be thrown out, he said. CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith said on Friday the union had zero tolerance for criminality and had recently adopted what he called the strongest measures in our unions history to prevent it. Australian Federal Police intelligence sighted by this masthead describes how another NSW CFMEU official plotted to blame anti-union politics in the event the union was accused of corruption, while boasting its control of the biggest NSW projects would flourish under the ALP. Secretary Darren Greenfield has resisted internal pressure to stand aside from his role as union secretary while waiting for 2021 bribery charges to be tested before a jury. Mistakes in your past do not mean a lifetime disqualification from serving the members of our union, he said. We will never apologise for promoting people who have demonstrated that they have turned their lives around. Cancel culture is not our culture. Former police officer Mark Ney. Credit: 60 Minutes Former Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Mark Ney, who led the police operation division attached to the Heydon Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, described corruption and criminality in Australias construction sector as endemic, unchecked and fuelled by certain union figures. There are still people taking advantage of their positions within the union to extort money out of others. There are still high levels of corruption within that union and there are still people who [are] doing the wrong thing by their members and by the community, he said, without naming any offenders. While Justice Dyson Heydon was a deeply conservative former High Court judge, Ney is ALP-aligned and his most recent job was serving as a staffer for a minister in the Minns Labor government. He has never before spoken publicly. Ney warned the inappropriate behaviour, extortion and standing over of both members within the CFMEU, but also businesses, both small and large that his investigators uncovered in 2014-15, was continuing at a pace not seen since before the royal commission, if not worse. I have no problem with people getting a job, said Ney. What I do have concerns about is that theyre getting the jobs for the wrong reasons, because they are part of the gang, they are part of the crew, which is highly problematic because it excludes a whole bunch of other businesses, but for the fact that they dont have somebody who has got serious connections. Faruk Ormans journey from jail to a construction empire The problem of gangland infiltration is most pronounced in Victoria, where figures formerly entrenched in the underworld, such as Faruk Orman, are flourishing in the construction sector backed by the CFMEU and gangland players. Orman, a former up-and-coming Melbourne gangland figure close to underworld identities Mick Gatto and Zorlu Steve Kaya, gained infamy in 2007, when he was charged and later convicted over his involvement in a gangland execution. Twelve years later, in 2019, Ormans conviction was quashed as a result of the Lawyer X scandal and he left jail vowing to sue the state government. A jury acquitted Gatto of murdering Andrew Veniamin in 2004, finding he acted in self-defence. But Orman had other means of making money that drew from his deep connections to Gatto and Kaya, self-styled building industry mediators who have spent many years developing close ties with CFMEU officials and building company bosses. Less than a year after leaving jail, Orman started his first construction company, one of at least nine building industry linked firms he launched or controlled, including several awarded CFMEU endorsed enterprise bargaining agreements (EBA). The use of EBAs or collective agreements is a routine feature of the industrial relations system. But in certain sections of the construction industry, such as labour hire and traffic management, a CFMEU-backed agreement can be extremely difficult to obtain from the union and securing one paves the way for securing contracts on major union-controlled building sites. On such sites, the CFMEU has the power to keep out companies with non-union agreements or to favour companies it prefers. Due to state and federal government rules requiring large contractors that win government work to hire Indigenous workers, a company that convinces the CFMEU to give them an Indigenous labour hire or traffic management EBA can similarly prosper. Documents uncovered by this masthead reveal Ormans ability to quickly secure multiple CFMEU labour hire agreements enabled him to build his own small construction empire and also in one striking case sell a company within days of creating it and just 24 hours after securing it a CFMEU agreement. Court and company files reveal that 24 hours after one of Ormans firms, ZK Civil Infrastructure which appears to be named after his mentor, gangland figure Zorlu Steve Kaya was granted a CFMEU agreement in late September 2022, Orman sold it. The sale came after Orman had told the Fair Work Commission that ZK Civil needed the CFMEU agreement to employ a significant number of Victorian and Indigenous Victorian workers who might otherwise be without employment on metro Melbourne and regional Victoria civil and infrastructure projects. Former senior federal policeman Mark Ney said the sale of ZK Civil by Orman just hours after it was granted a union EBA raised a suspicion underworld linked figures were being granted preferential treatment because of their CFMEU connections. Setting up and then selling it straight away, you cant help but feel a little bit suspicious, Ney said. In a statement, one of ZKs new owners, Cameron Buzzacott, an Indigenous labour hire owner who had struggled to get a CFMEU EBA, said he obtained the firm because he believed a union EBA would assist the operation of my business interests in Victoria. But he insisted he only discovered after taking ownership of the firm that it was once registered by Orman, whom he did not know, and had acted ethically at all times. Despite ASIC filings showing the sale of all his shares, Orman said he had never received any money for ZK or the EBA, and even maintained an interest in the firm. There might have been shares and directorship transfers for various reasons, to get bank loans or whatever it might be to fund it, but the companys never been sold or out of my control, he said. He said behind the scenes there are other agreements in place, in between various shareholders and directors. In profiting from labour hire companies with union backing, Orman appears to have followed the lead of Mick Gatto. A covert recording of a figure who worked for a CFMEU-backed labour hire firm M Group which has an Indigenous employment arm called Jarrah and that has won work on Labors Big Build captures him describing how Gatto had assisted the company, which is partly owned by a family member. Hes [Gatto is] trying to push M Group here, M Group there He never came to the office. Its all hush-hush, the former M Group figure said. Gatto has previously said M Group pays him to take care of its union issues but has denied M Group or Jarrah are Mick Gatto companies. On the covert recording, the M Group insider, a veteran industry figure with deep union links, described his broader concerns about the state of the industry. Bikies, everyone is coming in. The union is letting them come back in through the back door. [Expletive] get out of jail, yep come over with us. Surveillance of a Melbourne CBD construction site, the redevelopment of St Vincents Hospital, captures Orman onsite managing one of his union-backed companies alongside traffic management employees of the Gatto-linked M Group. Orman also recently posted photos of himself alongside CFMEU officials at a charity event organised by his close relative,who directs one of his businesses. I do love ya: Gatto and his union mate Gattos connections with the CFMEU have been scrutinised for years, but came into sharp focus late last year when this masthead uncovered Gattos efforts to persuade a developer of a Melbourne inner-city apartment block to pay out a subcontractor who claimed he was owed money. Never-before-released audio captures Gatto appearing to pressure the developer, telling him he could influence building sites. I can stop anyone doing anything, mate, Gatto says on the recording. And I say that respectfully. I dont want to be a smartie. We can cause you grief. I know youve got enough grief in your life already. Former senior Victorian police officer Ken Ashworth, who reviewed the recording, described that statement as a veiled threat that they [Gatto] can interrupt their business. Ashworth, who previously spent years investigating Melbournes underworld, said he suspected Gattos perceived ability to interfere in building projects was via union muscle. In a previous interview, Gatto dismissed suggestions he could halt building projects or had undue union influence. Text messages, obtained by this investigation, sent in 2019, after the now outgoing union boss John Setka was accused of domestic violence and harassment, show Gattos deep bond with the union secretary. In one text to Setka, Gatto wrote: thanks john [sic] for publicly defending our friendship. I do love ya. Without you the union is gone. Best wishes. Your friend. MG A day later, Setka texted Gatto: thanks brother I really appreciate the support and Ill never forget it ... F--- these prim and proper people have never done it hard in the [sic] whole lives and should probably look up in the dictionary what mateship means. When Setka was charged with domestic violence offences involving his estranged wife, Gatto sent him a selfie and his best wishes. Good luck tomorrow champ Sorry you are going through all this nonsense. If I was you I would reconsider pleading guilty. Setka responded: thanks brother. Gatto declined to be interviewed. Gatto and Orman are not the only underworld figures with CFMEU backing. Covert surveillance and audio recordings of industry insiders reveal that an associate of Orman, violent former Hells Angels boss, Sammy the Turk Ercan, has been recently promoted by select union organisers as a figure who, like Gatto, can be hired by building companies to sort out industrial or bikie disputes. A fixture in Melbournes underworld, Ercan was in 2019 charged with threatening to kneecap an accountant while brandishing a pistol unless he handed over $500,000. He was convicted in June and is now remanded, awaiting sentencing. In one covertly-recorded discussion, building industry insiders discuss how certain union organisers were, prior to Ercans jailing, encouraging firms to hire him to manage building industry disputes. Video surveillance captures Ercan and Orman visiting the offices of a Melbourne construction company that a union-linked source said was introduced to the pair by a CFMEU organiser. Ercan and Orman can be seen embracing before walking into the company, which recently obtained a union EBA. Orman denied that he ever worked with Ercan to mediate a building industry dispute or act on behalf of a building company. Its irrelevant if I know him or not, he said. Im not an industrial relations person or any of that sort of nature. Subsequent surveillance vision of Ercan also captures him meeting a CFMEU delegate with his own deep underworld links. Covert surveillance of Ercan conducted over five consecutive days earlier this year records him meeting CFMEU delegate Tyrone Little Ty Bell twice during working hours in the CBD. The purpose of the union delegates meeting with Ercan is unclear, but the pair are seen meeting and speaking intensively before embracing. Bell is not only a union representative. He has held high-ranking roles, including chapter president and national vice-president, in the Mongols outlaw bikie gang, whose members have been jailed for murder, drug trafficking and serious violent offending. Ashworth said that, as a high-ranking Mongols boss, Bell would have wielded immense influence in the gang. What he says, goes, said Ashworth, noting that police regarded the Mongols as an organised crime gang. Bell has no serious criminal convictions and there is no suggestion he is himself a criminal. But his close association with the Mongols calls into question his fitness to be a union delegate on publicly funded jobs. Former high-ranking Mongols bikie Tyrone Little Ty Bell. Bell insisted, when contacted this week, that when he became a union delegate last year, he stepped away from the Mongols to focus on his work for the CFMEU. Bell dismissed suggestions he was appointed a union delegate because of his reputation as a Mongols boss, stressing he was committed to the health and safety of workers. I put my time into the union now, he said. He said he was long-time friends with the owners of the Melbourne construction firm that pays for him to work as a full-time union delegate. I do my job. I make sure their jobs are safe, he said. Documents uncovered by this masthead also reveal that in addition to serving as a union representative, Bells wife owns small building company Solid Seal, which has several CFMEU EBAs. Bell said repeatedly that the business belonged to his wife and he had no involvement in it. Documents lodged with the Fair Work Commission reveal that Bells wife had signed three EBAs alongside union officials. One of the witnesses to the EBA is George Sakkidis, another former Mongol who works for Solid Seal. Bell insisted Sakkidis had also distanced himself from the bikie gang and denied suggestions the CFMEU was pushing delegates and building firms to use Solid Seal, which operates in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. However, covert recordings of another CFMEU delegate capture him describing how a senior union organiser had pushed him to tell companies they should hire Solid Seal. On the recording, the union delegate describes Solid Seal as a bikie-linked firm and discusses his displeasure at being requested by a union organiser to replace another small building firm with the Bell-linked firm. The delegate said the CFMEU organiser had told him: see if you can get em [Solid Seal] for line marking. We are just trying to help a bro out. Solid Seal has also won contracts for the company Bell works for as a union delegate. Bell denied this involved a conflict of interest or union pressure, saying Solid Seal had worked for his employer long before he joined the company. Solid Seal has previously sub-contracted to bikie-controlled bricklaying firm,Maurer Commercial, which also has a CFMEU EBA, and which is owned by Finks bikie Jesse Bonnici. It is not suggested that Sakkidis and Bonnici have criminal convictions. Bell described Bonnici and Sam Ercan as close friends, but denied his connection to the pair was related to the building industry and said he did not know that Ercan was a building industry fixer. Thats news to me, mate, he said. Bell is not the only CFMEU delegate who has held a top post in a bikie gang. The CFMEU recently parachuted former Hells Angels president Luke Moloney to the role of delegate. Hells Angels figure Luke Moloney (left) with Johnny Two Guns Walker Credit: Instagram In 2023, Moloney was convicted, with fellow Hells Angels enforcer and chapter president Kane Montebello, over a violent bashing of another bikie. Montebello, a Hells Angels Darkside chapter president whose twin brother is a senior CFMEU organiser, has also been appointed a CFMEU delegate. Asked this week about whether there was an overlap between his Hells Angels chapter presidents role and his job as union delegate, Montebello issued expletives before hanging up. Other bikie-linked figures appointed as CFMEU delegates include Johnny Two Guns Walker, a former Bandido heavy who was jailed for manslaughter. This masthead has confirmed that at least three other Victorian union delegates are close associates of the Finks or Rebels. Johnny Two Guns Walker (left) with Mick Gatto (centre) and Toby Mitchell. Credit: Instagram NSW: The more things change In 2015, the Heydon royal commission spent weeks exposing how NSW labour hire firms linked to organised crime and the underpayment of workers had been promoted by select NSW CFMEU officials, despite concerns about the practice held by others in the union. More than seven years later, sources close to the NSW union branch claimed there was fresh concern at the decision of two senior CFMEU figures to favour and protect a controversial labour hire company with ties to organised crime figures and which is winning work on major Minns government projects. Court and corporate filings reviewed by this masthead show the state branch has also gifted a series of rare labour hire EBAs to a business run by a man with extensive criminal convictions and a history of business dealings with a known underworld identity. The company has gained a reputation as the king of phoenixing among some industry insiders due to its reputation for sourcing labour from companies that collapse without paying taxes. However, with the backing of the CFMEU, it has won work on major projects, including state and federal-funded civil infrastructure. Separately, the Heydon royal commission sparked limited reforms and criminal investigations in the construction sector, including one that led to the charging of NSW CFMEU state secretary Darren Greenfield for bribery in 2021. Greenfield continues to lead the union in NSW while his case is before the courts. This masthead makes no suggestion in relation to Greenfields case, who is presumed innocent pending his trial. But Ney and senior CFMEU insiders have questioned why Greenfield hasnt stepped down as union boss until his case is finished. More broadly, the former head of the Purana taskforce on organised crime Ken Ashworth said taxpayers and consumers ended up footing the bill for the problems in the construction industry. Because its a cancer that spreads, and Ive seen it spread in my time where theres no governing body. Theyre not being looked at. They flourish in the dark and just keep spreading and spreading, he said. We all pay for it. The costs of building and construction, the taxpayer, the government jobs, it is all paid for by the taxpayer. See more of the investigative series online on Sunday and on 60 Minutes at 8pm After plunging his knife into 18-year-old Hashim Mohamed on St Kilda Beach, a teenager took out his phone, opened the notes app, and wrote a set of violent rap lyrics glorifying the deadly stabbing. In the lyrics, the 15-year-old killer, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Supreme Court, describes the life that he lives, all blacked out wit[h] a blade on m[y] hip. Were cruising around, cruising around tryna get a man down. Hes on the news now Im the talk of the town, wrote the teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons because he is underage. Hashim Mohamed died after being stabbed in St Kilda in December. Credit: Facebook It was a hot summers evening on December 4, 2022, when two warring teen street gangs, the 9ers and the OGK, descended on St Kilda for a chance meeting that would leave Mohamed dead. The following day, the pair would be remanded by a magistrate, both charged with one count each of preparing to carry out an act of espionage, after allegedly working in tandem to gain access to material on Defence computer systems to send to Russian operatives. The AFP allege that Kira Korolev, an information systems technician who held an ADF security clearance, travelled to Russia undeclared while on long-term leave from the army in 2023 and, while she was away, told Igor how to log into Defence systems on her official work account from their Brisbane home. She had been a regular client of a Gold Coast hairdresser, but stopped going around the time of the Ukraine invasion in 2022. The hairdresser, who asked not to be named, said Igor Korolev also went to the salon once. To be honest, he was a little bit strange, but she was a nice girl, the hairdresser said. Shes much younger than him and they would always argue. The hairdresser, who has Russian heritage, said she had discussed the Russian invasion with Kira Korolev. She and her colleagues wondered whether that was why they stopped visiting the salon. My colleague said probably they stopped coming because we had a different vision about this war, she said. The hairdresser said Kira told her she was well-paid by the Australian Army, but also talked about leaving to have a baby. Kira Korolev, in a photo from 2021 praising her hairdresser for her new short haircut. Credit: Facebook The hairdresser said Igor also claimed to have had previous military experience overseas. Because he said, I still have a lot of friends, some of them died, like big position in the army, she said. AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw said the couple arrived in Australia about 10 years ago, and Kira had received her Australian citizenship in 2016, while Igor received his in 2020. She had been in the army for several years at the time of their arrest. Whether she had entered the ADF with a view to stealing secrets was a topic of investigation, Kershaw said. They had been under surveillance for several months at their Everton Park home, in Brisbanes northern suburbs. The arrests came as a surprise to most, although apartment complex caretaker Blake Fraser had advanced warning something was in the works. Brisbane labourer Igor Korolev. An earlier visit from ASIO and the Australian Federal Police was the first hint. Its been a few months since I was approached for access and I gave them access, he said. At the end of the day, you wouldnt think I certainly wouldnt think that in my lifetime something like this would have happened. Andrew, a resident of the complex, said it housed a lot of ADF personnel who came and went on six- and 12-month leases, with the Enoggera Barracks just over three kilometres away. He said he had had pleasant interactions with Igor Korolev. I saw him a few times. Hed say hello, be friendly, and Id say hello to him, he said, adding he was pretty surprised to hear of the arrests. Andrew, a neighbour of the Everton Park unit complex in Brisbane where the alleged Russian spies had been living. Credit: Cameron Atfield The average Victorian worker cannot afford to rent a typical one-bedroom apartment in Melbourne, analysis shows. To find a home to rent, they would have to go further afield to one of just 24 middle or far-flung markets where median asking rents are below what is considered affordable for the average weekly salary. Cat Dunn said she felt shed been pushed into a life decision because of rent rises. Credit: Justin McManus Spiralling rents have caused Melburnians to make difficult decisions about their living situations, such as moving in with partners earlier than theyd like or moving into a share house when it no longer feels suitable, renters and experts say. The average Victorian can afford to spend $437.73 per week on rent, if they earn the average weekly total cash earnings ($1459.10) and pay the maximum amount on their housing costs before the Australian Bureau of Statistics considers them in housing stress (30 per cent). This is now happening all over Sydney, with sky-high property prices enticing developers to target cheap boarding houses and affordable housing-unit blocks to raze and replace with luxury houses and apartments for cashed-up downsizers and wealthy families. But what the developers probably didnt anticipate in Selwyn Street was the fury theyve ignited with their plans. While residents of boarding houses are usually some of the poorest, most vulnerable members of society, often with chronic physical and mental health conditions, and traditionally the easiest to evict, these blokes are determined to fight for their homes. Paddington boarding house residents are backed by their neighbours in a bid to save their homes. Credit: Nick Moir Whats more, theyve been joined by what could be seen as the unlikeliest of allies their neighbours in the wealthy suburb, who many might have assumed would prefer glitzy new houses to push up their own property values. But that couldnt be further from the truth. Were a progressive, diverse community and we all look out for each other, said neighbour Michael Mannix, 58, a management consultant whos lived here since 2000. Many of these residents have been living here for decades and its the only home theyve known. Theyre our neighbours and our friends and were not going to stand by and let this happen. Were not NIMBYs but were in the middle of a housing crisis with so little affordable housing available. I think the applicants thought their plans would just go through and they didnt anticipate the level of community opposition. Loading Another neighbour, Will Mrongovius, 76, is now retired from the finance industry and has been in the area since 1976. He is equally determined, also pushing for the council to buy or co-invest in the boarding houses, prioritise their protection, and advocate for an immediate moratorium on rent increases. The median asking rent for market rate units in Paddington is $610 a week. These people are valuable members of our community, Mrongovius said. Id go to work in the morning and wed all say, good morning, and when I came home at night wed have a chat about whatd been happening in the street. When we have such a shortage of affordable housing, and a massive social housing waitlist, its critical that we save these boarding houses. If this domino falls, there are a large number of other boarding houses in the area that will also be up for grabs, and their residents made homeless. Our campaign to save them now goes out to around 200 people in the community. Its impossible to know exactly how many boarding houses there are in Sydney as many are unregistered, but the City of Sydney says it has 294 registered boarding houses, with 4031 rooms. In the inner west, the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, which operates the only social outreach service for boarding houses in NSW, estimates their region has about 500 boarding houses, down from a peak 10 years ago of possibly 700. After a boarding-house fire in Newtown in 2022 killed three people, many closed, but larger numbers are now shutting their doors, including in the past six months two of the biggest boarding houses in NSW: Dulwich Hill Lodge with 75 residents, and the citys Cosy Hotel with 45. High property prices encourage many to be sold for redevelopment, while rocketing rents have led to others evicting residents to charge higher-priced leases to new tenants. City of Sydney Greens councillor Sylvie Ellsmore says theyve lost two-thirds of their boarding house stock in the past 10 to 15 years. We want the laws to be strengthened to protect boarding houses and make it harder for them to be converted into big houses or luxury units, she said. The problem is that so many residents have nowhere else to go. NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said most developer applications (DAs) are determined at local level. Our recent budget delivered a $5.1 billion investment into social and affordable housing, with half reserved for people fleeing domestic violence, he said. Loading The Minns [Labor] Government has also introduced bonuses when affordable housing is being delivered alongside market housing, and introduced minimum affordable housing requirements at the Transport Oriented Development sites. Meanwhile, all eyes are on 58-64 Selwyn Street, whose battles outcome will either encourage developers all over the state to buy boarding houses and replace them; or deter them. One boarding house around the corner on Flinders Street had its DA turned down, but the developers are yet to decide on a court appeal. Similarly, last week another DA, for the 34-home boarding house at 351 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, to be replaced with 19 apartments, was rejected by the council. That could also end up in court. Neighbours similarly turned out in force to protest. Why are the residents, many of whom have lived here for decades, being forced out of their just-affordable homes? said nearby resident Rosemary Ricketts. Its to make way for the very wealthy minority in a critical time when there is such a shortage of rental properties for the younger and older generations. There are individual lives at stake, an inner-city landscape that is being homogenised, destroying any community spirit. Fellow neighbour Geoffrey Hansen also objected to the council. Those residents may not have high incomes but they are still part of our community and shouldnt be forced to leave, he said. Other boarding houses and affordable units throughout the eastern suburbs and inner west are also now under threat, with the Paddington site the critical test case. The Selwyn Street boarding houses have become a battleground site in the fight to retain low-income housing, said City of Sydney independent councillor Yvonne Weldon. Less travelled than the other major European river cruise routes, the Douro River in Portugal offers a bounty of attractions, including the Douro Valley wine region. Late next month, APT Travel Groups newest river ship, MS Estrela, is set to grace those waters on its maiden voyage, visiting locations such as Regua, Pinhao and Porto in northern Portugal. Cruising the Douro River with APT an artists impression of the MS Estrela. Purpose-built for the Douro River by local shipbuilders in Portugal, the MS Estrela will be the flagship of several new tours through the Douro Valley and beyond, with guests enjoying seven nights aboard the vessel on the 14-day Douro Delights with Madrid and Lisbon. With a capacity of just 114 guests, it promises an intimate experience, Iberian-inspired meals based on local produce, spacious interiors and a sun deck with pool, bar and outdoor lounge beds. The decor is chic and contemporary, with three cabin categories window stateroom, French balcony suite and owners suite. London: A man was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby, one of Britains most high-profile television personalities. At the sentencing hearing on Friday at Chelmsford Crown Court, around 65 kilometres east of London, Judge Edward Murray told Gavin Plumb, 37, that he would have to serve a minimum term of 16 years before he would be eligible for parole. Gavin Plumb. Credit: AP Plumb was found guilty by a jury last week following an eight-day trial. Over a number of years, you pursued an unhealthy sexual obsession with Holly Willoughby that led you ultimately to plan over that period to kidnap, to rape and to murder her, the judge said. You intended to harm her husband and her children as part of your plan. The Israeli military has released the results of its first internal probe into the Hamas attacks on October 7, admitting to major failings in the defence of Kibbutz Be'eri, a hard-hit community on the Gaza border, but falling short of holding individual commanders to account and leaving key questions unanswered. The report said severe mistakes and errors were made in the army response as Hamas overran the community. The army was underprepared, it said, and did not always prioritise civilian lives. The report detailed how in the afternoon, Israel Defence Forces units waited nearby even as residents were killed. Banners showing members of the Shoham family, who were abducted by Hamas on October 7, outside their damaged home in Kibbutz Beeri. Credit: Kobi Wolf For The Washington Post From the afternoon hours onwards, forces were waiting outside the kibbutz while the massacre continued inside, it said. The IDF did not fulfil its mission to defend the residents in the most grave manner and failed in its mission. Military officials presented the findings to the surviving members of the community at the Dead Sea resort they now call home. A total of 101 people died in Be'eri one-tenth of its population as Hamas fighters from Gaza broke through Israels high-tech border fence and took military units by surprise. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles meets US President Joe Biden at the NATO summit in Washington, DC. Credit: @RichardMarlesMP This is a big call at any time. But three months and 25 days before a presidential election, its bizarre. The Democratic hand-wringers and bed-wetters are carrying on as if theyve only just noticed that Biden is an old guy. Hes been confused for many months, even years. It was in February that he related publicly stories of fresh conversations with European leaders whod been long dead. Now hes confused his Vice-President Kamala Harris with his rival, Donald Trump. Not an easy mistake to make. Is this worse than Trump, who this year confused Republican Nikki Haley, his former UN ambassador, with Nancy Pelosi, arch-Democrat hate figure? Hes mixed up Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Not an easy mistake to make. Trump has committed at least as many gaffes and idiocies. Hes claimed that American shoppers need to produce voter ID to buy a loaf of bread, and that whales wash ashore because of the wind. And Trump has taken campaign audiences on a long rumination on the dilemma of choosing to die by shark attack or electrocution by the electric battery of a sinking boat. Twice. The difference? The Republicans MAGA crowd overlooks Trumps flaws; they stick with their guy and defend him against attack. The Democrats elites, on the other hand, go into paroxysms of excruciating self-doubt; they amplify Bidens flaws and look to lynch him. Donald Trump has committed at least as many gaffes and idiocies as Biden. But his welded-on MAGA mob doesnt care. Credit: AP Biden is determined to contest the election; the Democrats have no way of forcing him out; and no compelling candidate to replace him. The result is a protracted act of self-sabotage. Trump doesnt need to say a thing. The Democrats are generating all the headlines against themselves. And Democrat panic is feeding media hysteria, all unaided by Trump. The Democrat frenzy is predicated on the idea that Bidens debate performance made him unelectable. But they forgot to consult the actual electors. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published on Friday (Australian time) found: Biden and former president Donald Trump [are] in a dead heat in the contest for the popular vote, with both candidates receiving 46 per cent support among registered voters. Those numbers are nearly identical to the results of an ABC-Ipsos poll in April. Loading Its a contrast that should humble Americas political class, and the Democrats in particular. Their assessment of the debates effect was dead wrong. The voters either didnt notice, didnt care, or had already made up their minds. Bidens impulse was the right one shrug off his debate performance as a bad night and move on. Much as Trump has done. In the meantime, Trump continues to threaten the existence of the US as a democratic republic; he refuses to commit to accepting the results of the November election. And in Western Europe, the dominant political trend is the rise of the far right. The far right generally has a tolerance or sympathy for racist, fascist and anti-democratic policies. While theyve made serious inroads in France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden, the crown jewels are almost within reach: For a far-right takeover in Europe, Germany is the biggest prize, writes Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now the strongest party in three German states that will hold elections this [northern] fall. Britain is marching to the beat of a different drum with the election of Keir Starmers Labour. With that exception, the essential nations that uphold the Western alliance are all flirting with politics that move them closer to Vladimir Putin than to Winston Churchill. While the American leadership is befuddled and Western Europes besieged, Australias is merely bamboozled. Most notably, Anthony Albanese was seriously outwitted by Peter Dutton in the campaign for the Voice. But Dutton bamboozled him over something as simple as this weeks overseas trip. For two years, the opposition reliably criticised Airbus Albo or Anthony Overseases for travelling to excess. He should stay home attending to the problems of Australians in Australia, went the cry. So when Albanese was invited to this weeks NATO summit in Washington, he declined and stayed home. Dutton immediately thundered that the prime minister was irresponsible to duck a vital meeting that advances Australias national security. Of course, Dutton was in Washington this week at the Australian American Leadership Dialogue while Albanese stayed home. Bamboozled. How can this unserious, sometimes unhinged, ragtag of democracies possibly attend to something as serious as the building the sinews of peace to prevent another colossal global war? Hard to believe, perhaps, this is exactly what theyve been doing. Beneath the radar of media attention, mostly. For instance, the US Congress and administration this week made some essential advances in implementing the AUKUS agreement. Loading Interestingly, the leading Congressional advocate for AUKUS is Democrat Joe Courtney. Even as he was caught up in the Democrats agonising over Bidens future this week, Courtney still managed the unglamorous work of drafting enabling regulations and negotiating extra US spending to make AUKUS happen. And, in the eye of the Democrat storm, Joe Biden managed to host a focused and effective NATO summit. It was striking for three main reasons. First, it pledged serious new support for Ukraine at least $US43 billion ($63.6 billion) over the next year. Australia, though not a NATO member, announced another $250 million worth of munitions and gear for Ukraine. We can and will defend every inch of NATO territory, and we will do it together, Biden declared. Among other developments, four of the European members of NATO agreed jointly to manufacture long-range cruise missiles to bolster the alliances firepower independently of Washington. Second, NATO sharpened its focus on Chinas support for Russias war. The allies said Beijing was a decisive enabler of Russias effort and demanded that it cease and desist. Third, a group of four Indo-Pacific democracies dubbed the IP4 was institutionalised as a permanent adjunct to NATO summits from now on. The four are Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The big takeaway from today, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles told me after leaving his NATO engagements, is that we all feel the pressures in the way the global rules-based order is being tested. The desire for us all to work together at this moment is palpable. We feel a much greater connectedness between the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. And how was his host, Joe Biden? Was he sharp in the private sessions? Completely, replies Marles. Somehow, despite the flaws and foibles of short-term democratic politics, democratic powers are managing, in their haphazard way, to put in place the sinews of peace, deterrents against future wars of aggression. But for sinews to function properly they need the exercise of healthy democratic muscle. It is another tool in the tool bag It can play a role, and governments are right to explore it. But it is by no means a get out of jail free card. Foreign envoys visit China's oil, gas producer, seeking closer cooperation Xinhua) 09:55, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Foreign envoys on a visit to China's largest oil and gas producer have been impressed by the low-carbon and green development in the country's energy sector, expressing their hopes for further cooperation with Chinese energy companies. On the tour of the headquarters of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in Beijing on Tuesday, representatives from more than 70 countries and international organizations learned about the company's green development efforts and technological breakthroughs. For instance, at a manufacturing workshop of the Beijing Petroleum Machinery Company, an equipment manufacturing subsidiary of the CNPC, the envoys were briefed about the company's latest research and development outcomes, namely core technologies and key equipment in the fields of oil drilling and energy production. Martin Mpana, Cameroon's ambassador to China, said that the National Hydrocarbons Corporation in his country has been cooperating with the CNPC in the fields of oil pipelines and product purchasing. Looking forward, he anticipated a future with strengthened cooperation between China and Cameroon in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain in the energy sector. The CNPC has contributed to a greener and more sustainable world through efforts to construct a new energy system and strengthen international energy cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, Dai Houliang, chairman of the CNPC, told the visitors. On display in the exhibition hall of the CNPC headquarters was another telling example of the energy cooperation between the company and its overseas partners. PetroChina International (London), a subsidiary of the CNPC, has been trading in the European carbon emissions market since 2005, and officially entered the European electricity market in 2014, initiating carbon-electricity business. The company has been oriented at developing a biofuel industrial chain, and promoting the transition from traditional oil-and-gas trading to the combination of conventional and new-energy trading in the product trading process. The overseas development of the CNPC is a microcosm of Chinese enterprises' contribution to world development, said Alfredo Ortuno Victory, ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to China. So far, the CNPC has been engaged in investment, trade and engineering services in more than 120 countries and regions, while investing and operating nearly 90 petroleum and petrochemical cooperation projects in more than 30 countries, Dai said. China has set clear emission-reduction targets and made solid efforts, such as installing a lot of renewable-energy equipment, said Mattia Bertolini, a secretary with the economic department at the Netherlands' embassy in China. Bertolini said that many European countries are working hard on the transition to green energy and it is necessary to work more closely with China. Chinese people have become more creative and well off thanks to the country's development, and China has also brought its successful experience to the rest of the world, Victory said. "Today's visit makes me feel that China's development is not only about China, but also about the world," he added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) We know this because we have been there. Most of our team members have lived experience, said Simone Allan, director of WRC. They are in a good place now to give service and support, and that's why we are so passionate about helping women find life on the other side. A group representing non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) has requested the government to let the sector offer credit on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), making the proposal ahead of the Budget on July 23. The Finance Industry Development Council (FIDC) has also sought tax relief in the Budget and a regulatory role for itself. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) only allows banks to offer credit lines on UPI, facilitated through Rupay credit cards and pre-approved credit lines. Considering the fact that the upper layer NBFCs are now subjected to regulations Doctors at Delhis Sir Ganga Ram Hospital have identified a connection between prolonged exposure to pigeon droppings and feathers and chronic lung diseases. A recent case study by doctors warns that feeding pigeons and close proximity to them can pose significant health risks for humans. The doctors treated an 11-year-old boy from Delhis Vasundhara Enclave who exhibited severe respiratory distress linked to his contact with pigeon feathers and droppings. This case underscores a lesser-known health hazard, as reported by The Times of India. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp The boy had initially reported coughing, which seemed usual at first, quickly requiring urgent care at the hospital. Medical examinations revealed that the boy had developed lung inflammation and opacities that were consistent with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP). Physicians found severe respiratory complications, requiring urgent medical care, necessitated by an immune-mediated condition caused by an allergic reaction to pigeon features and droppings. Rare lung disease affects Delhi child According to experts, HP is not usually observed in children, and occurs in only four among one million children. HP is one of the diseases of long-term interstitial lung disease (ILD) in children, which may lead to progressive and irreversible scarring of lung tissue, hindering the affected persons ability to breathe freely. The patient at Sir Gangaram Hospital had to be administered oxygen therapy using a high-flow system and put under steroid treatment. The team of doctors successfully cured the inflammation in the boys lungs, allowing him to breathe normally again. The doctors emphasised the need for awareness about potential environmental triggers, such as bird droppings and feathers. Hypersensitivity pneumonitis cases amid pigeon populations A steep spike in hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) cases across many Indian cities in recent years has been linked to a rising pigeon population. The bird droppings come laced with fungi, which if inhaled for some time, can affect the immune system. The consequences can lead the patients to depend on a consistent supply of oxygen and even require them to go for a lung transplant in some cases. There are more than 300 reasons to get this hypersensitivity pneumonia and [exposure to] pigeons is one of them, CBC News quoted Mumbai-based doctor Pralhad Prabhudesai as saying. Most importantly, this is the most common cause of the disease in our country. Pigeon feeding tradition poses health risks Feeding the birds is a cultural tradition in India and people are often motivated by their religion, with the practice thought to bring blessings. It is, therefore, hard to convince people to avoid close contact with the pigeons. However, the awareness has started to increase over the years with many people developing respiratory complications. Experts are warning people about the risk of zoonotic disease transmission from animals to humans, and close association with pigeons can only exacerbate such risks. Apart from many types of respiratory complications, pigeon exposure can cause gastrointestinal infections, be carriers of certain allergens, ticks and mites, causing a host of illnesses among humans. As many as 31 out of 36 states in India have attained a replacement fertility level of 2.1, which is the average number of children per woman required to sustain a steady population size, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Five states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, and Manipur are the remaining states where fertility rates exceed the desired replacement level. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp Emphasising that India accounts for one-fifth of the worlds population, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda said India should renew efforts toward achieving population stabilisation. The goal of Viksit Bharat can only be achieved when the health of Indias families is well maintained which can be achieved by smaller families. Nadda said. Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel said that more than 65 per cent of Indias population falls in the reproductive age group which makes it pertinent to ensure that they are provided with choices and not burdened with unplanned family growth. Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel emphasised the importance of providing choices to Indias reproductive-age population, which comprises over 65 per cent of the country's total. She said that it is crucial to prevent unplanned family growth to ensure their well-being. Three-phase family planning programme Talking about the family planning programme by the Centre, she said, While earlier it used to be a two-phased program, it has now been expanded to three phases: preparatory phase, community participation and service delivery. Patel emphasised that after seven decades of family programme initiatives, 31 out of 36 states and union territories have achieved the replacement level of total fertility rate (TFR). She urged Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, and Manipur to undertake focused efforts to reduce their TFR. Talking about the National Family Planning Programme, Anupriya Patel noted a significant rise in modern contraceptive use, which has grown from 47.8 per cent in NFHS-4 to 56.5 per cent in NFHS-5. It is also encouraging to note that the acceptance of modern contraceptives in the country has increased to over 56 per cent, she said. She further said, NFHS 5 data shows an overall positive shift towards spacing methods which would be instrumental in impacting positively the maternal and infant mortality and morbidity. The unmet need for family planning has declined to 9.4 from 12.9 (NFHS IV) which is an encouraging achievement. Indias population to start shrinking in 38 years: UN Indias population is projected to reach its peak of 1.701 billion by 2062, according to the United Nations (UN) World Population Prospects report. This indicates that the country has 38 years before reaching its maximum population. Presently, India holds the title of the most populous country in the world and is expected to maintain this status until the end of the century, the report stated. According to the United Nations data, Indias population is expected to begin decreasing between January and July 2062. That year, the population will increase by around 222,000. Following this, the population is expected to decline, with a projected decrease of about 115,000 people in 2063. This decline is expected to grow, with a reduction of around 437,000 people in 2064 and 793,000 in 2065. With a new cadre of ministers at the helm, some addresses in Lutyens Delhi have become hot property. Several senior ministers, including a former chief minister and a prominent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner, have set their sights on a particular bungalow on Akbar Road. This sought-after residence was previously assigned to a minister not included in the current Modi cabinet, reported The Times of India. Another coveted bungalow, located on Safdarjung Road, has drawn attention after its previous occupant, a former minister, lost the election. Known for its high profile, this address has become a prime target for the new council of ministers. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp Members of the new ministerial council, including an alliance partner from Bihar, have also expressed interest in bungalows on Sunehri Bagh. These residences were vacated by two former ministers, adding to their appeal. Some ministers have even visited these bungalows before formally submitting their requests to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Scramble for Lutyens top bungalows The demand is particularly high for sprawling bungalows and those with superior interiors. All cabinet ministers are entitled to the top-tier bungalows, classified as Type-VIII. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which oversees accommodations under the General Pool category, is responsible for allocating residences to all ministers within the Lutyens' Bungalow Zone (LBZ). Sources told The Times of India that the ministers requests for bungalow allocations will be considered soon, following an assessment of the impending vacancies left by former ministers. These requests have been referred to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who chairs the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation. Eviction notices loom for former MPs To date, only a few former ministers have vacated their official residences, with others expected to do so in the coming days. Last month, the housing ministry issued notices to around 50 former Union ministers and MPs, instructing them to vacate their government accommodations. According to regulations, former ministers and MPs must leave their official residences within a month of losing their ministerial position or parliamentary membership. Should allottees fail to vacate within the specified timeframe, the government issues eviction notices. Thus far, no official requests for extensions to remain in their official accommodations have been submitted. Congress on Thursday attacked the Centre over a proposal to teach 'Manusmriti' to Delhi University's LLB students. (Photo: ANI) The Congress on Thursday attacked the Centre over a proposal to teach 'Manusmriti' to Delhi University's LLB students, alleging that this is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "salami tactics" to bring fulfilment to the decades-long attempt by the RSS to "assault" the Constitution. The Congress's Scheduled Caste department also called for protests against the proposed move at the state and district levels. The proposal to teach 'Manusmriti' (Laws of Manu) to DU's LLB students is slated to be discussed in a meeting of its Academic Council on Friday. Reacting to the development, Congress general secretary, in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh said this is "all part of the salami tactics of the non-biological PM to bring fulfilment to the decades-long attempt by the RSS to assault the Constitution and Dr. Ambedkar's legacy". "In its issue dated November 30, 1949, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser had stated: 'The worst about the new Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bharatiya about it. The drafters of the constitution have incorporated in it elements of British, American, Canadian, Swiss and sundry other Constitutions. But there is no trace of ancient Bharatiya constitutional laws, institutions, nomenclature and phraseology in it," Ramesh said in a post on X. "...In our Constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu's Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day, his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti, excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing," he quoted the Organiser as saying. Congress SC department chairman Rajesh Lilothia wrote to chairpersons of the party's state SC departments and asked them to stage protests against the proposed move. Calling it a regressive step of the Central University, he claimed that this was just the beginning of rolling out similar programmes in schools and other state universities in BJP-governed states. This action must be met with strong opposition in each state. Hence, I request you to organise protests at the state and district levels at University and College campuses in your respective states on July 12, 2024," Lilothia said in the letter. The Faculty of Law has sought approval from the DU's highest decision-making body to revise the syllabus of its first and third-year students to teach them 'Manusmriti'. The changes in the syllabus of the jurisprudence paper pertain to semesters one and six of LLB. According to the revisions, two readings on Manusmriti -- Manusmriti with the Manubhasya of Medhatithi by G N Jha and Commentary of Manu Smriti - Smritichandrika by T Kristnasawmi Iyer -- are proposed to be introduced for the students. The decision to suggest the revisions was unanimously approved in a June 24 meeting of the faculty's Course Committee headed by its dean Anju Vali Tikoo, according to the minutes of the meeting. Objecting to the move, the Left-backed Social Democratic Teachers Front (SDTF) has written to DU Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh stating that the manuscript propagates a "regressive" outlook towards the rights of women and the marginalised communities and that it is against a "progressive education system". Malala Day celebrates Malala Yousafzai who bravely fights for girls' education. Today is the birthday of Malala, who became an international symbol of the fight for girls education after she was shot in the head by the Taliban. People celebrate this unique day on July 12 every year, which was the date of her birth. Her fight began when she disobeyed the Taliban's diktat on prohibition of girls from attending schools in Pakistan. She emerged as the face of the fight for girls education when she was first recognised globally on October 9, 2012. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp History of World Malala Day International Malala Day was first celebrated on July 12, 2013, when a Taliban gunman shot Malala for not following the restriction on female education in the country. The meeting of the United Nations was addressed by the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was serving as a UN Special Envoy for Global Education. This day coincides with Malala's birthday. According to the United Nations, the day calls for world leaders to ensure free and mandatory education for girl children. This day emphasises that education is not a privilege but a fundamental right for everyone. Significance Of Malala Day International Malala Day is observed every year to support laws and programs to ensure that children worldwide have the right to an education. By celebrating Malala Day, we uphold our shared obligation to fight for access to education for all children, irrespective of gender or background and pay tribute to her bravery and dedication. This day is also a reminder of individual determination and standing up for one's beliefs that can profoundly impact the world. Millions of people worldwide are denied access to quality education; hence, this day is a perfect occasion to draw attention to them. Malala Day 2024: Top 10 quotes of Malala Yousafzai We realise the importance of our voices only when we are silenced." "Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow's reality." "I raise up my voicenot so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard." "When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful." "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world." "There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin colour, or religion." "I don't want to be remembered as the girl who was shot. I want to be remembered as the girl who stood up." "If one man can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it?" "When someone takes away your pens, you realise quite how important education is." "I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls." About Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist and a Nobel Prize laureate. She was born on 12 July 1997, in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is a female education activist and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her advocacy for girls education. In 2009, Malala started writing a blog under a pseudonym against the military activity rising in her hometown. Once her identity was revealed, she along with her father Ziauddin continued to speak out for the right to education. She also founded the Malala Fund with her father to raise awareness of the social and economic impact of girl's education and to empower girls to demand change. This latest incident adds to a series of similar provocations by China in recent months. Beijing has increased its military activities around Taiwan, including regular air and naval incursions. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) has said that 18 Chinese military aircraft and eight naval vessels operating around Taiwan were detected from 6 am (local time) on Thursday to 6 am (local time) on Friday. According to Taiwan's MND, 14 of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern, southwestern and eastern Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ). In response to China's armed forces, Taiwan sent aircraft and naval ships and deployed coastal-based missile systems to monitor the PLA activity. In a post on X, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) stated, "18 PLA aircraft and 8 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 14 of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern, southwestern and eastern ADIZ. #ROCArmedForces have monitored the situation and responded accordingly." So far in July, the Taiwan's MND has detected Chinese military aircraft 294 times and naval ships 84 times, Taiwan News reported. Since September 2020, China has intensified its use of gray zone tactics by increasing the number of military aircraft and naval vessels operating around Taiwan. According to Taiwan News report, gray zone tactics are "an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one's security objectives without resort to direct and sizable use of force." This latest incident adds to a series of similar provocations by China in recent months. Beijing has increased its military activities around Taiwan, including regular air and naval incursions into Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) and military exercises near the island. Taiwan has been governed independently of China since 1949. However, Beijing considers the island as part of its territory and insists on its eventual reunification, by force if necessary. Earlier on Thursday, Taiwan's Coast Guard shadowed four China Coast Guard vessels that entered Taiwan-controlled waters around offshore Kinmen County, Central News Agency (CNA) reported. In a statement, the Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said that four Chinese vessels approached the outer boundary of "restricted" waters around Kinmen and intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters at 7 am (local time) from four different points to the east and southeast of Liaoluo Bay, the south of Zhaishan, and the south of Fengzui. It was China Coast Guard vessels' first intrusion in July and 31st in 2024, according to Taiwan's CGA. The Taiwan's CGA sent four ships to shadow the intruders and broadcast warnings, the statement said, according to CNA report. The Chinese ships left the restricted waters at 9 am (local time) and re-entered at 10 am (local time) when Taiwan's Coast Guard again dispatched four vessels following Beijing's action. Later, Chinese vessels left Taiwan-controlled waters between 12 pm (local time) to 1 pm (local time). The Taiwan's CGA said that the China Coast Guard's actions undermined maritime safety and do not help cross-strait exchanges. The CGA stated that it will continue to uphold Taiwan's rights in the sea. The deployment of renewable sources of energy is picking up speed around the world. The impressive results of several market surveys recently presented at The smarter E Europe 2024 prove this. Photovoltaics (PV) and storage systems in particular are experiencing dynamic growth, and the trend goes towards the combination of the two technologies. The number of large-scale PV power plants is growing rapidly, as is the number of residential, commercial and industrial PV installations combined with storage systems. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240711733322/en/ The Global Market Outlook for Solar Power 2024-2028 highlights the dynamic growth of photovoltaics. (Graphic: Business Wire) SolarPower Europes Global Market Outlook for Solar Power 20242028 reports a global PV growth of 87 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year. 447 gigawatts (GW) of capacity were installed, which brings the total global capacity to 1.6 terawatts (TW). To put this into perspective, only 239 GW were installed in 2022. According to the study, we are likely to exceed 2 TW of total capacity in the course of this year, after the 1 TW mark was only surmounted in 2022. Achieving the global goal of tripling renewables by 2030 will require financing, digitalizing and flexibilizing energy systems. 1 TW of PV capacity could be installed each year from 2028. Besides, more and more countries are becoming gigawatt countries: from 31 in 2023, their number is likely to go up to 37 in 2024. In total, 576 gigawatts of renewable capacity were added last year. While PV makes up by far the largest share at 78 percent, wind power accounts for 20 percent with 117 gigawatts of total capacity. Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe, comments: The world has truly entered its solar age. How far solar can go will be determined by equitable global access to financing, and the political will to deliver flexible energy systems fit for the renewable reality. European storage market is developing dynamically According to the European Market Outlook for Energy Storage 20242028 (also published by SolarPower Europe), 2023 was the year in which Europe saw high electricity prices and the desire to become independent. As a consequence, battery storage capacities skyrocketed. 17.2 gigawatt hours (GWh), that is 94 percent more than last year, were added. This development was mainly driven by the residential sector, where 12 GWh of new capacity were installed. But the commercial and industrial battery sector and on-grid batteries for large-scale energy storage also showed promising developments, adding 1.6 GWh and 3.6 GWh, respectively. Germany: Record growth of PV Germany is one of the four leading countries when it comes to solar energy use. The German Solar Associations (BSW-Solar) study The German PV and Battery Storage Market underlined this with impressive figures: In 2023, added PV capacity grew by 97 percent the highest registered growth rate in Germany ever recorded. The trend of combining PV systems with battery storage also continued. In 2019, 46 percent of all residential PV systems were installed together with battery storage systems, last year, it was 77 percent. This trend is likely to continue as supportive regulations are expected to be introduced in the near future, states David Wedepohl, Managing Director of International Affairs at BSW-Solar. When combined with intelligent storage systems, the benefits for the energy system go far beyond self-consumption. All market surveys are available for free download via the The smarter E Digital on-demand platform: https://shorturl.at/IDS1y The smarter E Europe Accelerating Integrated Energy Solutions thats the motto of The smarter E Europe. Europes largest alliance of exhibitions for the energy industry puts the spotlight on cross-industry solutions for a renewable 24/7 energy supply covering electricity, heat and transport. The smarter E Europe unites four exhibitions and will take place from May 79, 2025 at Messe Munchen. For more information, please visit: www.TheSmarterE.de View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240711733322/en/ The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) today announced that Tracey T. Travis, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, has decided to retire, effective June 30, 2025, after more than twelve years of exemplary leadership and service at the company. A successor for the CFO role has been identified and will be named in the coming weeks. Tracey will work closely with this person to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Tracey has been an invaluable business partner and a trusted advisor to me, our executives and Board of Directors, as well as a mentor and role model to many across our organization, said Fabrizio Freda, President and Chief Executive Officer. She has built and led a robust, integrated Global Finance & Strategy organization that has served as a valued business partner across the company and has helped to optimize delivery of our financial plans. Her financial acumen, discipline, and operational excellence have been essential to our companys growth, and so many areas of our organization have her valuable imprint on them. Since joining The Estee Lauder Companies (ELC), Tracey has led the companys Global Finance, Accounting, Tax, Treasury, Investor Relations, Information Technology, and Strategy and New Business Development organizations. Tracey has also co-led the companys Global Value Council and served as a member of the Executive Leadership Team and the Investment Development Committee. Tracey has also been a respected and engaging leader in her extensive work with our global investor community. Under her guidance, the company has enhanced its financial strength and flexibility, enabling us to further invest in our long-term growth drivers, such as innovation, digital transformation, emerging markets, talent development, and M&A strategy. Additionally, Tracey has played a pivotal role in leading and advancing the financial profile of our global brand portfolio. Over the last twelve years, Tracey built a robust, integrated Global Finance & Strategy (F&S) organization at ELC that serves as a valued business partner across the company, with a particular focus on cultivating talent across the organization to bring new perspectives to the finance function. Under her leadership, F&S has provided financial guidance throughout the enterprise while maximizing business and transformational opportunities, optimizing the capital structure, and supporting brand growth strategies and cash management. Tracey leaves the F&S function a transformed organization. Together with ELCs senior leadership, Tracey has deeply embedded the companys corporate strategy throughout the organization, solidifying core planning processes with an emphasis on executional excellence. Working alongside senior leadership, Tracey and her team have implemented and driven a progressive end-to-end M&A strategy and value-driven empowerment and integration, including many important strategic acquisitions and investments such as DECIEM and TOM FORD. Tracey has also led the New Incubation Ventures (NIV) team to enable the sourcing, building, and growth of the brands and business models of tomorrow. Tracey has helped further improve and elevate the companys Information Technology function, strengthening its competitive edge through investments in areas such as digital tech centers around the world, embodying ELCs global approach to technology management and innovation and enhancing the diversity of its capabilities. Tracey also served as an instrumental leader in establishing the companys shared services capability to support the business and its growth. Tracey played a critical role in strengthening talent development and engagement by developing and growing ELCs Finance & Strategy Leadership Development Program (FASLEAP), and guiding the functions approach to identifying, training, and placing top talent. Tracey has also been a committed Global Executive Sponsor of the Womens Leadership Network (WLN) employee resource group (ERG), where she helped further a culture of recognizing women as pioneers in the beauty industry and highlighting their creativity and ingenuity in shaping trends and redefining standards. She has been a passionate advocate for the companys efforts across philanthropy, citizenship and sustainability, and inclusion, diversity and equity, including by championing initiatives to advance racial equity and representation within the company and the beauty industry. An inspiring and visionary leader, Tracey has been deeply committed to exemplifying our values throughout her years of dedicated service to our company, said William P. Lauder, Executive Chairman. Tracey has had a remarkable impact on driving our business forward by leading our portfolio strategy, but also by developing our talent, cultivating a culture of inclusion and continued learning, and advancing initiatives to foster a more diverse and equitable workplace and marketplace. Tracey has been honored with numerous industry awards and accolades throughout her distinguished career. She received a Best CFO award by Institutional Investor magazine, was recognized as one of the Top 100 African Americans in Corporate America, as well as The Most Powerful Women in Corporate America by Black Enterprise magazine. In 2019, she was honored with an Achiever Award by Cosmetic Executive Women. Tracey currently serves as a director on the Board of Accenture PLC and the Board of Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly, Facebook). ABOUT THE ESTEE LAUDER COMPANIES The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the worlds leading manufacturers, marketers, and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products, and is a steward of luxury and prestige brands globally. The companys products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, and the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD. For more information, visit www.elcompanies.com. ELC-C ELC-L View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240711879987/en/ The UK Court of Appeal today ruled in the ongoing landmark case between InterDigital and Lenovo for license rates for 3G, 4G, and 5G patents, ruling a limited and very modest uplift of the original royalty rate to 22.5 US cents per unit, only 6.5 cents higher than what Lenovo argued at trial was Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND). The amount ruled on appeal is only 5 US cents off the rate set by Justice Mellor (17.5 US cents), but significantly less than half (27 US cents lower) the 49-50 US cents rate that InterDigital sought as a per-unit rate both at trial and appeal. Beyond the royalty rate, Justice Mellors original ruling otherwise remained undisturbed, including his determination of InterDigitals un-FRAND conduct. As further evidence of its willingness and commitment to FRAND licensing, Lenovo is publicly offering InterDigital 22.5 US cents per cellular unit for a forward-looking license and hope this fully resolves the parties disputes. Commenting on the ruling, Lenovos John Mulgrew, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Chief Intellectual Property Officer, welcomes the decision: We are pleased with the Courts commitment to confirm fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms for licensing, and are encouraged by what this decision means for ongoing negotiations with InterDigital, wider industry IP litigation cases, and most importantly, how this facilitates the proliferation of affordable innovation to customers around the world. Given the decision is far closer to Lenovos original position than InterDigitals, we believe this is a further win for Lenovo and reinforces our continued commitment to FRAND licensing and being a willing licensee in the face of supra-FRAND offers and behavior. About Lenovo Lenovo is a US$57 billion revenue global technology powerhouse, ranked #217 in the Fortune Global 500, and serving millions of customers every day in 180 markets. Focused on a bold vision to deliver Smarter Technology for All, Lenovo has built on its success as the worlds largest PC company with a pocket-to cloud portfolio of AI-enabled, AI-ready, and AI-optimized devices (PCs, workstations, smartphones, tablets), infrastructure (server, storage, edge, high performance computing and software defined infrastructure), software, solutions, and services. Lenovos continued investment in world-changing innovation is building a more equitable, trustworthy, and smarter future for everyone, everywhere. Lenovo is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange under Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY). To find out more visit https://www.lenovo.com, and read about the latest news via our StoryHub. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240711992728/en/ If theres one car that can be considered as the king of reinvention, its the Hyundai Santa Fe. In the five generations its been around, e... Mbeya Cement Co Ltd appoints a new CEO Peter Bell By 12 July 2024 Mbeya Cement Co Ltd, a member of Amsons Group and building materials manufacturer, under the 'Tembo Cement' brand has appointed Dr Mohamed Ismail Elsaidy as its new CEO and member of the Executive Committee. Dr Elsaidy brings 25 years of multinational experience in heavy industry manufacturing and business management to the company. His appointment represents the companys continued commitment to growth and value creation. Published under Votorantim's Edealina plant to double cement capacity Peter Bell By 12 July 2024 Votorantim Cimentos has announced an investment of BRL200m (US$36.8m) in the expansion of its Edealina cement plant, in the state of Goias, Brazil. The modernisation project will add 1Mta to the current cement capacity. The project consists of the construction of a new grinding line that will double production capacity to 2Mta. The project is expected to be completed in the 2H25. The expansion of the Edealina plant is part of a comprehensive BRL5bn investment programme for the next five years that is focussed on growth and structural competitiveness of the company's operations in Brazil. This programme, of which BRL1.7bn is already underway, covers Votorantim's operations in all regions of the country, with structural investments to increase cement production capacity, competitiveness, use of alternative fuels and reduce CO 2 emissions. Our Edealina plant is already a reference for customers and for the market in the central-west region and neighbouring states. The investment in the expansion of this unit strengthens this competitive positioning and reflects our belief in the growth potential of the state of Goias and Brazil. We seek to evolve together, driving regional development, generating jobs and income, and improving the level of service to our customers, said Votorantim Cimentos' global CEO, Osvaldo Ayres Filho. It is in this scenario of sector growth that Votorantim is investing in expansion in Goias to boost cement production and distribution. Opened in 2015, the factory in Edealina currently generates around 600 direct and indirect jobs. The unit produces Tocantins brand cement that supplies the entire state of Goias and part of Mato Grosso. Published under Senegalese cement imports not subject to higher taxes Muriel Bal By 12 July 2024 Gambia will not levy higher taxes on cement imported from Senegal, confirmed Gambia's Minister of Trade, Industry, Regional integration and Employment, Mr Baboucar Ousmaila Joof. Mr Joof explained that the excise tax is levied on imported bagged cement regardless of its source, justifying that the measure doesn't target any specific country as that would constitute discrimination. Past studies of the manufacturing sector in the country found that more than 80 per cent of the manufacturing units were operating less than 50 per cent of their installed capacity due to high cost of energy, taxation and limited market space. To spur growth in the industry, the government has decided to support the industry by imposing an excise tax on the importation of bagged cement, he said. He also explained that due the country's implementation of the ECOWAS trade liberalisation scheme, Gambian producers can sell their products without duties to other ECOWAS countries and that under the terms of the agreement, a reciprocal arrangement was in place. Published under Former Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy did not appear for her first scheduled court date Friday morning after being indicted by the Hamilton County Grand Jury. The appearance was waived for her, though two defense attorneys and two prosecutors were present in the courtroom of Criminal Court Judge Boyd Patterson. A not guilty plea was entered. Mike Dunavant, deputy director of the Tennessee District Attorneys Conference, came down from Nashville with an assistant. Ms. Murphy is represented by Chattanooga attorney Alan Norton, who had another attorney with him. In a brief discussion near the start of court, Judge Patterson was told that the next court date for Ms. Murphy will be Sept. 19. She is charged in a 17-count indictment related to issues about her residency. She was chosen from the Atlanta Police Department as the city's first female black police chief. Mayor Tim Kelly has said this time he is hopeful to find a new chief from within the Chattanooga Police Department. Hamilton County District Attorney Coty Wamp earlier recused herself from handling the case. The charges were the result of a TBI investigation. A wonderful Joint Resolution was passed by the Tennessee House of Representatives calling for an outpouring of prayer in the state in the month of July. I only recently learned of this resolution and believe others also may not be aware of it. Here is the wording of the Joint Resolution: HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 803 By Fritts HJR0803 012438 - 1 - A RESOLUTION to seek God's hand of mercy healing on Tennessee. WHEREAS, our State and Nation suffer from violence committed upon our citizens by our citizens; and WHEREAS, our State and Nation suffer from violence committed upon our citizens by non-citizens; and WHEREAS, acts of violent crime in our schools are unacceptable; and WHEREAS, human trafficking is an unacceptable and violent evil in our State, enslaving lives and violating the core values of our Creator-endowed rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and WHEREAS, drug addiction overwhelms our families, our government finances, our workforce productivity, as well as our healthcare and our law enforcement resources; and WHEREAS, deadly fentanyl flows uncontrollably across our southern U.S. border resulting in the deaths of Tennesseans; and WHEREAS, Driving Under the Influence, drunk driving, results in great pain and injury for Tennessee families; and WHEREAS, we have approximately 9,000 children in need of foster care, indicating a brokenness in many Tennessee homes; and WHEREAS, evidence of corruption in our federal government stands to impact every Tennessean; and WHEREAS, our National and State Founders trusted in the omnipotent hand of Providence to guide and bless our land; and WHEREAS, over decades, these leaders called our people to seek out the Creator's favor by issuing proclamations like the one from John Adams on April 15, 1799: [This day] be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." [Proverbs 14:34]; and WHEREAS, we hold that our Founders correctly acknowledged Truth in their words; and WHEREAS, we hold that "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." (Psalm 127:1); now, therefore, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE SENATE CONCURRING, that the period of July 1, 2024, through July 31, 2024, be recognized as a time of prayer and fasting in Tennessee. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we recognize that God, as Creator and King of all Glory, has both the authority to judge and to bless nations or states. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we, as public servants in the Tennessee General Assembly, seek God's Mercy upon our land and beseech Him to not withdraw His Hand of blessing from us. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we recognize our sins and shortcomings before Him and humbly ask His Forgiveness. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask the Lord Jesus to heal our land and remove the violence, human-trafficking, addiction, and corruption. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask that the Holy Spirit fill our halls of government, our classrooms, our places of business, our churches, and our homes with peace, love, and joy. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we call upon all those who are physically able and spiritually inclined to do so to join in a thirty-day season of prayer and intermittent fasting as we begin a new fiscal year as a means of seeking God's blessing and humbling ourselves to receive His Grace and Mercy, transforming ourselves, our communities, our State, and our Nation. Mark Lander East Brainerd IOC reaffirms full confidence in WADA in Chinese swimmers' case Xinhua) 10:02, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The International Olympic Committee reaffirmed its full confidence in World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and its leadership in the fight against doping based on the report delivered by independent prosecutor Eric Cottier on WADA's handling of the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) case involving 23 swimmers from China in 2021. "The report clarifies that there were no irregularities on the part of WADA in handling the case," the IOC told Xinhua through email on Thursday. "The independent prosecutor had access to all WADA documents and materials, questioned a number of WADA employees on several occasions, and was assisted by other independent experts in the areas of criminal sciences, pharmacokinetics and law. The report was approved by WADA's executive committee. The ExCo comprises democratically elected athlete representatives; public authority representatives from the United States of America, France, the African Union, Japan and New Zealand; three independent members from Australia, Italy and Argentina; and representatives of the Olympic Movement," the IOC added in the statement. Based on this report, the IOC reaffirmed full confidence in WADA and its leadership, and appealed to all stakeholders to respect the supreme authority of WADA in the fight against doping. "This respect forms the basis on which WADA was founded by the governments of the world and the Olympic Movement. This respect is essential for any fair international competition." In the report, Cottier concluded that WADA had been unbiased and reasonable in handling the case. "There is nothing in the file - which is complete - to suggest that WADA showed favoritism or deference, or in any way favored the 23 swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) between 1 and 3 January 2021, when it proceeded to review CHINADA's decision to close the proceedings against them without further action," the report said. "The Investigator did not find any evidence to suggest any interference or meddling in WADA's review, as described above, either within the Agency or externally, from any entity or institution, including CHINADA or the Chinese authorities. "The investigation did not reveal any irregularities on the part of WADA in the review of CHINADA's decision; this review was detailed and covered all relevant issues in determining whether or not to appeal the decision," the report concluded. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The Catoosa County Republican Party is sending three of its members as part of the delegation heading to the 2024 Republican National Convention "to nominate Donald J. Trump for President of The United States." Delegate Denise Burns, who is the 14th District GOP chairman, and Alternate Sherre Bales, Catoosa County GOP secretary, were elected unanimously to these roles at the 14th District GOP Convention on April 20. Catoosa County GOP Chairman Joanna Hildreth was elected as one of 14 at-large delegates at the Georgia GOP State Convention on May 18. Chairman Hildreth is also on Donald Trumps endorsed slate of Georgia at-large delegates and was unopposed in her election. Officials said, "We are proud of these three women who have upheld our conservative principles and served the Republican Party well for many years. They comprise the largest delegation Catoosa County has ever had to the RNC." The RNC Convention will be held in Milwaukee next Monday-Thursday. BASF plans to cease production of the active ingredient glufosinate-ammonium (GA) at the Knapsack and Frankfurt sites in Germany by the end of 2024 due to economic reasons. The GA formulation in Frankfurt will end in 2025. Subsequently, both production facilities will be shut down. Glufosinate-ammonium remains a key component of BASFs global herbicide portfolio. BASFs GA production is increasingly affected by rising competition from generic manufacturers, alternative technologies as well as high energy and raw material costs. Despite both production facilities achieving cost reductions, BASFs volume and profitability development is insufficient. BASF is therefore restructuring its production network and will source the active ingredient from third-party suppliers in the future. In doing so, the company is securing its long-term competitiveness and profitability in the GA market. All jobs (approximately 300) will be retained until the end of 2025, and then gradually reduced in consultation with employee representatives. The company will work closely with the employees to assist in finding future employment opportunities. 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. What happens during operation? Now a team led by HZB researchers Dr. Elmar Kataev and Prof. Marcus Bar has developed a new approach to analyse 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?" Best candidate LiPSCl examined For the study, they analysed 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 nanometres) 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. Hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy HAXPES In order to analyse 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. The grant was awarded by the Department of Homeland Security in a first-ever Tribal Cybersecurity Grant. After 378 days, a volunteer crew exited NASAs first year-long mock mission to Mars on July 6, returning to regular life on Earth. The mission began on June 25, 2023, and it was the first in the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) series. Four volunteers were working and living inside a simulated Mars habitat at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. They were named Kelly Haston, Nathan Jones, Ross Brockwell, and Anca Selariu. The three-dimensionally printed habitat they lived in for over a year was called Mars Dune Alpha. It was 1,700 square feet and was designed to feel like a remote settlement on the Red Planet. The experiences that the crew went through will help NASA plan for real-life missions to Mars, which are aimed to start in the late 2030s or early 2040s. During their time on the mock mission, the crew had to grow some of their own crops and deal with challenges that people can expect to face on an actual mission to Mars. Most of the science they conducted was based on nutrition, which is crucial for survival on the desolate Red Planet. For more than a year, the crew simulated Mars mission operations, including Marswalks, grew and harvested several vegetables to supplement their shelf-stable food, maintained their equipment and habitat, and operated under additional stressors a Mars crew will experience, including communication delays with Earth, resource limitations, and isolation, NASA officials wrote. On July 6, NASA celebrated the quartets return with a welcome ceremony. When they stepped out, they were greeted with a round of applause and were instructed to wear face masks, given their stay in a sterile environment for an extended period of time. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox. During the Second Punic War, which lasted from 218 to 201 B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal led his army of 100,000 troops across the Alps. Included in his ranks were 40 war elephants, a military strategy that has gone down in history as brilliant, bold, and innovative. The massive creatures helped Hannibal and his army triumph over their opponents. The elephants served as live battering rams and gave the general a powerful advantage. Just looking at the enormous animals struck fear into their enemies hearts. However, one question regarding this battle has remained unsolved, even after all these years. Where did Hannibals herd of elephants come from? During Hannibals time, there were only two elephant species in existence, and they were from Asia and Africa. Today, these species are extinct. Hannibal lived in Carthage, now known as Tunisia. The distance between Carthage and Asia, as well as Carthage and Africa, was not a short journey, so how he was able to acquire the elephants in the first place was a mystery. For quite some time, experts have debated over whether Hannibal used Asian or African elephants. Some have argued that Hannibal probably preferred Asian elephants because their smaller size made them more manageable and better suited for military purposes. African elephants are also known for their aggressive and independent nature, so they may have been harder to control and train. Others have claimed that African elephants are no less trainable than Asian elephants, citing that training success depends on individual elephants, no matter what species they are. Additionally, the larger size of African elephants would have made them more formidable than Asian elephants. In 2007, a team of archaeologists discovered the remains of elephants thought to belong to the same species Hannibal used to cross the Alps. They found ivory from the wreck of a Phoenician ship that sank more than 2,500 years ago off the coast of Spain. It is believed that the vessel had been carrying luxury goods from the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa when it ran aground. Some of the cargo washed into a sea cave, where they were uncovered by archaeologists. Among the treasures were bronze and ceramic artifacts, copper and tin ingots, ore nuggets, gemstones, and elephant tusks. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox. The New York Times columnist talks about his new book on grievance and how to talk across differences. This special episode of The Bulletin features an interview with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni about his book The Age of Grievance. Where polarization has split churches, families and friendships, Bruni suggests that the root of this polarization is grievance, an animating impulse in our culture that focuses on scarcity instead of abundance. This conversation offers a way forward for Americans or anyone who looks at culture and wants something better. Todays Guest: Frank Bruni has been a prominent journalist for more than three decades, including more than 25 years at The New York Times, in roles as diverse as op-ed columnist, White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief, and chief restaurant critic. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. In July 2021, he became a full professor at Duke University, teaching in the school of public policy. He currently writes his popular weekly newsletter for the Times and produces additional essays as one of the newspapers contributing opinion writers. His latest book is The Age of Grievance. The Bulletin is a production of Christianity Today Producer: Clarissa Moll Associate Producer: Leslie Thompson Editing and Mix: TJ Hester Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producers: Erik Petrik and Mike Cosper Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Home News Evangelical billionaire Bill Hwang found guilty in multibillion-dollar stock fraud, racketeering trial A billionaire who has claimed to be a devout Christian and was one of the Evangelical world's biggest benefactors was found guilty Wednesday in New York City of massive securities and market manipulation fraud that reportedly wiped $100 billion from the global market. Bill Hwang, who founded the investment firm Archegos Capital Management in 2013, stared ahead and sipped water as the jury announced its verdict that he was guilty on 10 of 11 counts that included racketeering, securities fraud, market manipulation and wire fraud, according to The Associated Press. Hwang was found not guilty on one charge of market manipulation that applied to one stock, but he could spend the rest of his life in federal prison. Patrick Halligan, who served as the former chief financial officer of Archegos, was also convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. 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 Prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Hwang and his co-conspirators illegally manipulated the prices of publicly traded securities and engaged in a scheme to defraud leading global investment banks and brokerages to grow their portfolio from $10 billion to $160 billion. They alleged Hwang deceived banks regarding Archegos' substantial holdings in approximately 12 stocks, as The New York Times noted. According to prosecutors, they accomplished this using complex derivatives and loans. While Hwang's lawyer maintained that his client was a high-risk and aggressive investor who invested in stocks he thought would do well, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference after Hwang's arrest in April 2022 that his actions "nearly jeopardized our financial system." "But last year, the music stopped," Williams said. "The bubble burst. The prices dropped. And when they did, billions of dollars of capital evaporated nearly overnight." When the firm collapsed in 2021, Hwang hemorrhaged $10 billion over 10 days, which also tanked the shares of the investment banks Nomura in Japan and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, according to The Wall Street Journal. UBS and Morgan Stanley also incurred losses. The global market also saw about $100 billion wiped out. Following the verdict this week, Williams claimed that both Hwang and Halligan "lied about Archegos's positions in these companies and just about every other materially important metric investment banks would use in determining the firm's creditworthiness." Their lies allowed them to "fraudulently inflate a $1.5 billion portfolio into a $36 billion portfolio," he added. Archegos was named for a Greek word meaning "chief prince" used in the New Testament to describe Jesus Christ. Before his financial ruin, Hwang had helped to establish the Grace and Mercy Foundation, which reportedly had more than $500 million in assets at its peak, according to Reuters. He had also served as a trustee at Fuller Theological Seminary. The foundation contributed to prominent Evangelical organizations such as Focus on the Family, the late Rev. Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, the Museum of the Bible, The King's College, Ravi Zacharias Ministries and others. Home News A better understanding of US history: Okla. Supt. Defends Bible education in public schools Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is defending his decision to issue a directive that calls for the inclusion of the Bible in public school classrooms. Recently, Walters garnered national attention when he announced that he was changing public school social studies standards to make the Bible more of a focal point in the curriculum. In an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday, Walters defended his directive, explaining that it is of the utmost importance that our kids get a full understanding of American history. 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 Obviously, that includes the most read book in American history, the most purchased book in American history, the most cited book in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bible, Walters said. We're not going to allow left-wing extremists and the teachers union to keep the Bible from schools in its historical context. So, we're very proud to be the first state to put the Bible back into classrooms and make sure that our kids understand its impact in American history. Although the Bible had technically been part of the public school history curriculum already, Walters told CP that, because of complaints from secular progressive groups, we've seen the Bible virtually removed from all classrooms across the country, and here in the state of Oklahoma. The Bible was not being used prominently in its historical role in our schools. We heard that time and time again, he continued. We made clear with the directive; this is not an ask. They will teach from the Bible, they will reference the Bible, they will make sure that that historical context is included when its appropriate. According to Walters, public schools in Oklahoma will receive additional guidance here in the next couple of weeks in preparation for the start of the school year this coming fall. Additionally, the state is working on revising the current standards for the following school year, in an effort to include more direct application of the Bible in our history classes, he explained. David Barton of the conservative Christian group Wallbuilders, who is known for making controversial claims about American history, sits on the committee overseeing the rewrites. We have our guidance to make sure the Bible is being taught in the classrooms as currently written in state law and our current academic standards, but we are rewriting the standards for the following year, Walters said. So, we're doing guidance now under our current standards, but we are currently rewriting them in a process that's been going on for about six months now that will be for the following year. Walters efforts have garnered their share of criticism from assorted groups, among them the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, told CP via emailed comments that she considered Walters direction to be an unconstitutional effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students. Public schools are not Sunday schools. Ryan Walters has repeatedly made clear that he is incapable of distinguishing the difference, she stated. Ryan Walters is on a crusade to abuse the power of his public office and impose his religious beliefs on everyone elses children in Oklahoma. As a former history teacher, Walters should know that our country is rooted in the promise of church-state separation, which protects families and students religious freedom and prevents the government from interfering with religion and religious doctrine. Laser believed that while public schools can teach about religion, including the books religions revere, such as the Bible, they cannot preach it as truth or indoctrinate children into a religion. Even the most well-intentioned Bible classes often go astray, Laser continued. Study after study shows that when public schools teach the Bible, they fail to meet constitutional requirements and end up religiously coercing students. Families whose religious freedom has been violated often have no choice but to challenge them in court. A long line of court decisions makes clear that strict constitutional requirements apply to teaching the Bible in public school classrooms. Laser also told CP that her organization was monitoring how Walters and schools attempt to implement this policy and are ready to respond as needed when school starts back up in the fall. We think the Constitution our countrys founding document is a more appropriate focal point for public schools. Its an entirely secular document that made America the first country to establish the separation of religion and government as the shield that protects religious freedom for everyone, she added. The records from the Constitutional Convention show the Bible was almost never invoked. The Ten Commandments were never cited. Students and educators in Oklahoma deserve to learn the real facts about our countrys founding and values. When asked about concerns that his directive might be unconstitutional, Walters maintained that it is an absurd position that the Left has taken that the most read and the most purchased book in American history should not be utilized in history curriculum. To not have the Bible prominently part of a historical curriculum, of this historical context in American history, is unacceptable, he said. We want our kids to know more about American history than any other kid and that includes understanding the role that the Bible plays in our history. Home News Pakistan raises legal age for Christian marriage amid concerns over forced conversions, abuse Pakistan's National Assembly has passed a transformative law that sets the minimum marriage age for Christians at 18 years for both boys and girls, with the intent to protect minority children from child marriage, sexual abuse and forced conversions. The legislation updates the Christian Marriage Act of 1872, which previously allowed girls to marry at 13 and boys at 16, offering new hope for minority communities in the country. The new law stipulates that marriage can only be solemnized and registered when both contracting parties are 18 years old. In cases of age disputes, courts are empowered to determine the age based on available documents such as the Computerised National Identity Card, birth certificate, educational certificates, or, in their absence, a medical examination report. 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 Nasir Saeed, director of the United Kingdom-based watchdog group Centre for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement, praised the amendment's passage. "This amendment has been a longstanding demand of the Christian community," Saeed noted in a statement sent to The Christian Post. "It will play a vital role in preventing the forced marriage of underage Christian girls, serving as a safeguard for their health, education and overall well-being." Introduced by lawmaker Naveed Amir Jeeva, the Christian Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was unanimously approved in the National Assembly following its endorsement by the Senate earlier this year, according to AsiaNews. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan enthusiastically welcomed the amendment through its National Commission for Justice and Peace. Bishop Samson Shukardin, chair of the CBCP, together with NCJP National Director Fr. Bernard Emmanuel and NCJP Executive Director Naeem Yousaf, issued a joint statement applauding the legislative change. "We extend our sincere appreciation to the entire parliament for passing this bill unanimously," the statement reads. "This legislation will play a crucial role in protecting our young and minor girls from forced conversions and child marriages. We hope the government will take further steps to criminalise forced religious conversions." "The beauty of the act is that it was presented after the consensus of all main Churches of Pakistan," Naeem Yousaf told the outlet. "We are hopeful that this legislation will protect our girls and secure their fundamental rights, particularly their right to education, health, and other ancillary rights." The legislation awaits the president's assent to become law. A 2014 study by The Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan estimated that about 1,000 women and girls from Pakistan's Hindu and Christian communities were abducted, forcibly married to their captors and forcibly converted to Islam every year. The issue of religion is also often injected into cases of sexual assault to place religious minority victims at a disadvantage, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. Playing upon religious biases, perpetrators know they can cover up and justify their crimes by introducing an element of religion. The U.S. State Department's 2023 International Religious Freedom Report cites the Center for Social Justice to report at least "103 cases of forced marriage and the conversion of Christian, Hindu, and Sikh women and girls" in 2023. In January, a panel of United Nations experts expressed alarm with the reported rise in abductions, forced marriages and conversions of underage girls and young women from religious minorities in Pakistan. The panel urged the Pakistan government to take "immediate efforts to curtail the practices and ensure justice for victims." Home News Illegal immigrant charged with sexually assaulting 14-year-old girl was previously deported A Guatemalan man who entered the United States illegally after he had previously been deported has been charged with the sexual battery of a 14-year-old girl. Jose Chan, 24, was arrested last week by Floridas Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office, Fox 25 reported. Authorities arrested Chan and held him at the Okaloosa County Jail to be picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office said in a statement on Thursday that the incident involving the girl occurred at her house on Feb. 25, 2023. The girl told family members about the abuse and was subsequently taken to the HCA Destin-Fort Walton Beach Hospital. 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 medical examination of the victim showed a positive finding for sexual abuse, the statement read. Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab results also found evidence of the girls DNA on Chan, via buccal swabs obtained from the defendant. The sheriffs office investigated and charged Chan with sexually assaulting the girl. According to the sheriffs office, the FBI helped confirm the mans identity due to his past deportation by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Feb. 9. The alleged attack comes amid ongoing concerns about the Biden administration's border policies that have allowed tens of millions of people to enter the country illegally. Some illegal migrants have committed severe crimes against U.S. citizens, including sexual assaults and murders. During the CNN presidential debate last week, former President Donald Trump said many young women have been murdered by individuals President Joe Biden allowed to enter the country illegally. We have a border thats the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, considered the most dangerous place anywhere in the world, and he opened it up, and these killers are coming into our country, and they are raping and killing women, and its a terrible thing, Trump said. Concerns about illegal immigrants committing crimes received considerable media attention following the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley earlier this year. The suspect arrested in connection with her murder, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, entered the country illegally on Sept. 8, 2022, through El Paso, Texas. Ibarra was reportedly released into the country due to overcrowding at migrant detention centers. Rileys body was discovered around the University of Georgia campus, and authorities later determined that she died from blunt force trauma. The young woman, a student at Augusta University, was murdered after she went for a jog on the University of Georgia campus. Another case that generated media attention concerns the murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was strangled to death by two illegal immigrants in Houston, Texas. According to a statement from ICE, the two suspects, Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena, had previously been detained and released by U.S. Border Patrol just weeks before the child's murder. "Martinez and Pena both entered the U.S. illegally without inspection, parole or admission by a U.S. immigration officer on an unknown date and at an unknown location," ICE stated. "On March 14, Martinez was apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol near El Paso, Texas. That same day he was released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear. Pena was apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol on May 28 near El Paso. He was also released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear the same day he was apprehended." Last week, police in Texas apprehended 37-year-old Oved Bernardo Mendoza Argueta in connection to the murder of two Chick-fil-A employees who were shot and killed inside the restaurant in Irving, Texas. The suspect had been placed on an immigration detainer by ICE, meaning that the agency intended to assume custody of him. Whistleblower Doctor Faces 10 Years In Prison After Leaking Alleged Info On Child Transitions: Inside The Monumental Case link to download the audio instead. link to download the audio instead. 11:13 11:13 A Texas surgeon faces a massive fine and 10 years in prison after leaking information about Texas Children's Hospital allegedly performing transgender procedures on minors. Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, recently spoke with Christian Post reporter Jon Brown to explain what unfolded and what's at stake. Brown reported: 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. Brown joins "The Inside Story" to discuss Haim's case, what the doctor is accused of, and why it matters. Home Opinion Biden's mental fitness: Who knew what, and when did they know it? As a nation America is facing a crisis unlike any in living memory. President Joe Bidens cognitive decline has caught many Americans by surprise, even as a shock. Why? The main reason is that there has been an active campaign (dare we say conspiracy?) among the Democratic political establishment and the national media to collude with each other to shield the evidence of the presidents mental and physical decline. The one group not surprised is the viewing audience of Fox News. They are the only major national news outlet that has regularly informed their viewing audience of the clear, compelling evidence of President Bidens mental and physical deterioration. 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 First, it needs to be stressed that the issue is not about chronological age. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is 81 and no one questions his cognitive abilities. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be 83 in November and while many question his policies, no one questions his mental acuity. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 84 and no one questions her mental acumen. Retired reporter Geraldo Rivera is 81 and still demonstrates impressive cognitive and analytical skills. The fact that Biden will be 82 in November is irrelevant. The question is that President Biden is clearly in significant and accelerating mental and physical decline and he occupies the most difficult, demanding job in the world, president of the United States. This is first and foremost a national security issue. As Karl Rove has observed, he served at the right hand of a healthy 54-year-old George W. Bush for eight years in the White House and watched him age under the stress. We all watched the 48-year-old Barack Obama go completely gray during his eight-year White House tenure. The number one issue is how safe is it for President Biden to remain president until the end of his term? Indeed, the question must be asked, Is it realistic to think he can serve as a truly functioning president for four more years? Personally, I am profoundly grateful we had a fully-functioning president (John F. Kennedy) during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). And you never know when such a crisis will arise. It must always be remembered that cognitive decline always goes in just one directiondown. It is becoming clearer every day that there has been a coordinated campaign of the media and political class to camouflage and deny President Bidens serious mental decline. This effort has endangered Americas national security. Everyone involved should be asked a variation of the question the late Senator Howard Baker repeatedly asked during the Watergate controversy, What did the president know, and when did the president know it? The American people should be asking the media and political establishment, What did you know and when did you know it? and, Why did you remain silent? The president I have had the closest personal relationship with was George W. Bush. If I had privately seen the kind of cognitive decline in him that we have seen in President Biden, I would have considered it my patriotic duty to report it to the public, regardless of any personal friendship or sense of loyalty to the president. And my question to everyone who knew is simply this, Why did you put political partisanship above the national security of the nation? We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form 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. Nordea Bank could face an estimated maximum fine of almost $1 billion over alleged failures to stop money laundering if it loses its case with Denmark, according to some legal experts, an amount that would far exceed the lenders own expectations. The case has no precedent but a Danish court might hit the Helsinki, Finland-based bank with a penalty of as much as 6.5 billion Danish kroner ($943 million), said Hans Fogtdal, a lawyer and former deputy public prosecutor at the countrys National Special Crime Unit, or NSK, which is pursuing the case against Nordea. Denmark last week charged Nordea with violating the countrys anti-money laundering laws between 2012 and 2015, when it processed more than $3 billion worth of suspicious transactions largely linked to Russian clients. The indictment marks the first time a money-laundering case against a bank goes to court in Denmark, with all previous ones getting settled. While its almost certain that Nordea will be fined, the amount and exact timing is unclear. The bank has set aside just 95 million ($104 million) to cover the penalty, assuming it will be tried under legislation in place when the alleged offenses happened. By contrast, the NSK is expected to bring the case under legislation providing for much larger penalties but enacted at a later date. We expect to be fined but we do not agree with the assessment of the authorities, Nordea spokesman Tuomas Forsell said in emailed comments, referring to the NSKs indictment. This is a case going back in some instances more than 10 years, and which is, among other things, now being assessed based on subsequent regulations. The NSK declined to comment on the potential fine it will seek from Nordea, but confirmed it disagrees with the bank over its size. It makes sense for the prosecutor to aim for the biggest fine possible in the Nordea case, said Kalle Johannes Rose, an expert on money laundering at Copenhagen Business School. While its a key legal principle to follow the rules for sentencing that were in force when the offense happened, Denmark didnt have clear money-laundering legislation before the 2019 reform, he said. New Rules Following years of money-laundering scandals in Denmarks banking sector, the country passed new laws effective from 2019 that allow courts to impose a penalty equaling a quarter of the total amount in suspicious transactions passing through any given bank. This means Nordea faces a fine of as much as 6.5 billion kroner based on the 26 billion kroner of potentially tainted money flowing through it, according to Fogtdal. The Danish court case comes as various other Nordic banks including Danske Bank and Swedbank are trying to move on from a series of money-laundering scandals that have been hanging over them for almost a decade, long tainting the industrys image. The affected banks have paid billions of dollars in fines, replaced a series of top managers and spent years fixing their controls. Danske settled in late 2022, pleading guilty to all money laundering charges. Among fines it paid to various authorities including the US Department of Justice, the lender agreed to pay 3.5 billion kroner to settle with Danish law enforcement exactly a quarter of the 14 billion kroner worth of suspicious transactions that Denmark had identified. Inadequate Checks Nordea has been in discussions with Danish authorities for almost nine years about its issues, but unlike other banks, it failed to reach a settlement. The bank is now charged with deficient controls, ignoring alarms and failing to report suspicious money flows to authorities, according to the indictment. One key allegation in the NSKs indictment is that Nordea didnt run proper checks on money flows totaling 26 billion kroner carried out by just 25 clients, even though they raised classic red flags such as letterbox business addresses and opaque ownership structures. The lender also sold more than 100,000 in 500 bills without running adequate checks on the buyers despite warnings from watchdogs that large banknotes are frequently used for criminal purposes, according to the indictment. Top photo: A logo sits on display outside the windows of a Nordea Bank AB office in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Denmark has changed the way it conducts monetary policy in response to a 2015 existential crisis, according to Danske Bank A/S, the countrys biggest lender. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. California-based health system Kaiser Permanente recently alerted millions of people that their private information was inappropriately shared with tech giants, angering patients who werent aware of the practice. A Bloomberg News analysis showed the same kinds of online trackers remain on the websites of the nations largest health-care companies, often unknown to their millions of patients. Trackers from Meta Platforms Inc.s Facebook could access patients dates of birth and phone numbers on a website for Cigna Groups pharmacy unit, the analysis found. People signing up for accounts at UnitedHealth Group Inc.s pharmacy benefit division might have part of their Social Security numbers sent to an Adobe Inc. marketing service. Websites for units of CVS Health Corp. allowed Social Security numbers, passwords and dates of birth to be read by analytics company Quantum Metric. Related: U.S. Health Agency Seeks to Shield Private Hospitals from Deluge of Cyberattacks Having something like Facebook trackers all over your website is pretty egregious from a privacy standpoint, said Justin Sherman, founder of Global Cyber Strategies, an advisory firm. Websites operated by nine of the 10 largest publicly traded health insurance, hospital and lab companies had advertising and analytics trackers installed on user registration or login pages places where personal information could be accessed by a third-party company. Bloomberg News examined the websites using a browser tool from Feroot Security, a firm that helps companies find and remove web trackers. A Meta spokesperson said advertisers shouldnt send sensitive personal data through the companys tools, and that its system is designed to filter it out when detected. CVS Health said the company has controls to limit or encrypt identifiable information before it is disclosed to third-party vendors. Representatives from Cigna, UnitedHealth, Adobe and Quantum Metric declined or didnt respond to requests for comment. Privacy advocates warn that trackers on health websites and apps might expose intimate details of peoples lives Viagra prescriptions, pregnancy, mental health treatment to advertisers and data brokers without patients consent. Related: UnitedHealth Hack Put Data of One in Three Americans at Risk In a wider study conducted by Feroot last year, the company found 86% of health-care and telehealth websites were collecting data without users consent and sending it to big tech companies. A separate analysis published in JAMA this year found that of 100 hospital websites, 96 transmitted information to a third-party, and the majority didnt disclose in their privacy policies where the information was going. Federal regulators have been trying to crack down on how health websites harvest personal data for years. The Federal Trade Commission fined several telehealth companies for sharing user data. The Health and Human Services Department issued guidance saying online trackers could violate federal health privacy rules. Hospital groups challenged the health agencys position in court, arguing that it overstepped its authority and pointing out that some government websites used similar technology. In June, a Texas judge ruled against HHS, limiting the agencys power to penalize health-care companies for using trackers. $250 Billion Market Trackers that collect personal data are ubiquitous across the internet. Sometimes called pixel trackers, these bits of code are hidden to most people. But tech companies and data brokers use them to compile information about how users behave on the web. They can access what a user clicks on and where they are located to help advertisers target messages. They also build profiles of website users that fuel a roughly $250 billion market for personal information sold to advertisers. Sometimes details are in the fine print. For example, the privacy policy of CVSs Aetna unit says that the company collects Social Security numbers, internet addresses and demographic data, among other information. Its trackers may collect and record activity like page hits, mouse movements, scrolling, typing and other browsing data. On health websites that handle sensitive data, trackers raise heightened privacy concerns and may violate federal rules intended to protect patients medical information, Sherman and other cybersecurity experts say. About 15% of health websites could read exact keystrokes on login pages, meaning they could collect Social Security numbers, usernames, passwords, email addresses, appointment times, billing information, and medical diagnoses, according to Feroots report last year. Lawsuits Rising A lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente alleged that trackers collected names, internet addresses and search terms and sent them to Alphabet Inc.s Google, social media company X and Microsoft Corp.s Bing search engine. Kaisers trackers were deployed on password protected pages, allowing tech companies to create more targeted advertisements based on individual users behavior, according to the complaint, filed in June 2023 in federal court in the Northern District of California. Kaiser said that the company conducted an internal investigation and removed the trackers from websites and mobile applications. The company has sought to dismiss the case and declined to comment on the litigation. Microsoft said its policies prohibit the use of medical information in its targeted ads lists. Google said customers of its measurement tools, like Google Analytics, own the data collected and the company itself does not use the data for the search engines own ad targeting. Its policies bar customers from using Google Analytics to collect protected health information and also prohibit advertising based on peoples health or other sensitive information, a Google representative said. Another lawsuit against the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, filed in November in federal court in Illinois, alleged that a website for the federal employees health plan sent data to ByteDance Ltd.s TikTok and other tech companies. The data included users searches for topics like mental health or pregnancy, according to the complaint, which noted that TikTok itself is banned on federal government phones over national security concerns. The association has sought to dismiss the suit and had no comment. A TikTok representative declined to comment on the lawsuit and referred to the companys policies, which say the pixel should not be installed on websites potentially sharing personal health information. Some health care companies have removed the trackers from their websites in response to increased pressure, said Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot. He said he expects more companies to disclose data breaches related to the use of trackers, as Kaiser Permanente did. Its not always clear where the data that trackers collect ends up. We dont always know what the purposes for that tracking are, said Charlotte Tschider, cybersecurity law professor at Loyola University Chicago. Its possible that health care organizations dont exactly know that they are doing what theyre doing. Top photo: A CVS pharmacy store in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, May 2, 2022. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. The Simpsons have done it again: 28 years after it was first seen on the show, the hip-hop group Cypress Hill performed with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall last July 10. Season 7 episode, Homerpalooza first aired on May 19, 1996. In it, Homer discovers his music tastes are no longer cool, so he takes his family to Hullabalooza. He finds himself touring with the festival, which includes Cypress Hill. Along the way, Cypress Hill believes they requested to perform with the London Symphony Orchestra. They ask if the orchestra knew Insane in the Brain, to which the concertmaster replied, "We mostly know classical, but we could give it a shot." Insane in the Brain was on the program last July 10 , along with I Wanna Get High, I Ain't Goin' Out Like That, Lick a Shot and other hits from Cypress Hill's album, Black Sunday. The album, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, topped the Billboard album charts in 1993 and has sold over 4 million copies in the United States. The collaboration was more than just coincidence: "It's been something that we've talked about for many years since The Simpsons episode first aired," Cypress Hill rapper B-Real (real name Louis Mario Freese) told BBC. He added: "We've played a lot of historical venues throughout our career and stuff like that, but nothing as prestigious as this." He also tweeted about the event, saying: "Tonight we are rocking with the @londonsymphony at @RoyalAlbertHall. Inspired by @TheSimpsons via the 'Homerpalooza' episode." The one-night show sold out at 128.50 ($165) per seat. Rotunda Rumblings Pass gas: Unidentified drillers asked the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission to free land beneath Leesville Wildlife Area in Carroll County for oil and gas extraction. As Jake Zuckerman reports, this is the sixth application the commission has received this year from developers trying to get under state parks and wildlife areas. Hold it up: Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens and his allies are asking a state appeals court to temporarily freeze a lower-court preliminary injunction stripping them of control over the House GOPs campaign arm, the Ohio House Republican Alliance. In an emergency motion, filed Wednesday with the 10th District Court of Appeals, Stephens attorney argues among other things that the courts lack jurisdiction because its a political dispute and that the preliminary injunction would unfairly allow Stephens intra-caucus rivals to control OHRA for most, if not all, of the fall campaign season. The motion asks the appeals court to order briefs in the appeal to be filed by July 24. Two years: State attorneys asked a state disciplinary board to suspend the license of Geauga County Judge Timothy Grendell for at least two years, Zuckerman reports. The charges center on Grendells decision to jail two teenagers for three nights who refused a visitation with their estranged father in 2020. Congressional contempt: Ohios Dave Joyce and Mike Turner were among just four Republicans who joined with Democrats to thwart an effort to hold U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress and fine him $10,000 per day for refusing to provide Congress with recordings of President Joe Bidens interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur, Sabrina Eaton reports. Joyce, of South Russell, was the only Republican who voted against a resolution last month that found Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to give the recordings to the House Judiciary Committee despite a subpoena. In the money: Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Browns reelection campaign said Thursday it had raised $12.8 million in the second quarter of 2024, and now has $10.7m in cash on hand, down from $15.9m in April. Full campaign finance reports for federal candidates are due on Monday. Stunt work: Browns Republican challenger, former Cleveland-area businessman Bernie Moreno, meanwhile went to Washington, D.C. on Thursday. The stop included holding a press conference outside of Browns office accusing him of helping with a cover-up of President Joe Bidens cognitive decline. Common threads: The National Republican Campaign Committee launched an ad Thursday with a similar theme, accusing Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo of doing the same. Inside job? A Cincinnati woman has been indicted for applying for pandemic-era unemployment benefits even though she held a job at the time reviewing claims for the states unemployment office. As Jeremy Pelzer reports, state investigators say Janelle Thrower-Rivera also tried to wrongly approve the claims of several others she had connections with, though only one of them ended up being approved. Thrower-Rivera has pleaded not guilty. Fired: LifeWise, a Columbus-area Christian nonprofit that offers Bible study to public-school students during the school day, fired an official on Thursday after it came to light that she previously had been fired from a teaching job over allegations she sent sexually explicit messages to a student. Cole Behrens writes for the Columbus Dispatch that Renee Beck had been set to become the director of a program set to launch in the Firelands Local School District in northeast Ohio until the allegations resurfaced this week. This is (a) fine: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau slapped Fifth Third Bank with a $20 million fine this week after finding the Cincinnati-based bank forced auto loan customers to buy unnecessary car insurance policies, and in some cases repossessed their vehicles when they defaulted, CBS News reported. The CFPB also found the bank opened thousands of fake accounts in customers names under a cross-sell sales goal initiative from top management. A bank official said the company has already taken significant action to address these legacy matters. Buckeye Brain Tease Question: The Republican National Convention will begin on Monday in Milwaukee. How many Republican national conventions have been held in Ohio, and where and when were they? Email your response to capitolletter@cleveland.com. The first correct respondent will be mentioned in next weeks newsletter. Also, youll feel much prouder for winning if you dont have to Google the answer! Thanks to everyone who answered last weeks trivia question: In which Ohio county are the vast majority of pizza rolls consumed in the U.S. produced? Last weeks answer: Jackson County is the home of a General Mills plant that produces Totinos pizza rolls, while a Bellisio plant in nearby Jackson produces Jenos pizza rolls and other frozen-food brands. A Bellisio company official told the Dayton Daily News in 2016 that if all the pizza rolls produced in one year at the plant were lined up, it would stretch from San Fransisco and back 44 times. Capitol Letter reader Matt Whatley of Columbus was the first to provide the thanks answer. On the Move Garrett Arnold has been hired as Ohio state director for Donald Trumps 2024 presidential campaign. Arnold is a former Ohio Republican Party political director whos most recently served as U.S. Sen. JD Vances Southwest Ohio regional liaison. Dalton Throckmorton has been named political director of the Ohio House Republican Alliance, the House GOPs campaign arm that state Rep. Phil Plummer recently took control of thanks to a court order. Throckmorton, a former staffer to Treasurer Robert Sprague, most recently served as Ohio state director for the Republican National Committee. In addition, Katelyn Heusinkveld, a veteran GOP fundraising consultant, has been hired as OHRAs new fundraiser. Andy Ellinger has been named director of public information for the Supreme Court of Ohio. He most recently worked as senior public information officer at the Ohio Department of Commerce and Ohio University where he served as communications and marketing director. Birthdays Friday, 7/12: Ben Coyle, the Ohio House IT Help Desk manager; Dionna Herbert, Ohio House Democrats personnel officer; Ohio Second Lady Tina Husted; state Rep. Justin Pizzulli Saturday, 7/13: State Rep. Steve Demetriou Sunday, 7/14: Dan Baker, Ohio House Republicans finance director; ex-state Rep. Anthony DeVitis; Robert Gray, legislative aide to state Rep. Bill Roemer; Rick Neal, 2018 Democratic nominee for Ohios 15th congressional district; ex-state Rep. John Rogers Straight From The Source This is a ridiculous take and what a horrific comparison. This Unfollow felt nice Get a grip Tim. Hamilton County Auditor Jessica Miranda in a Wednesday night post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Miranda, a Democrat, was responding to another post from Tim Ryan, the former Democratic congressman and 2022 U.S. Senate nominee, that said voters will not believe us about January 6 if we dont tell the truth about June 27. Ryan is among the few Ohio Democrats who have called for President Joe Biden to be replaced following his dismal debate performance last month. Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. Subscribe to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free. An earlier version of this post misstated Dan Bakers job title. He works for the Ohio House Republicans, not the House Democrats. It has been corrected. Before going home for the summer, the Republican-run Ohio House of Representatives, by the narrowest possible margin, agreed to let electric utilities offer Ohio consumers optional energy efficiency plans. Ohios Senate, also GOP-run, should pass the proposal and send it to Gov. Mike DeWines desk. The prime sponsors of the bipartisan measure, Substitute House Bill 79, are Reps. William J. Seitz, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, and Bride Rose Sweeney, a Westlake Democrat. US actor Alec Baldwin participates in a pretrial hearing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 8, 2024. A New Mexico judge on Friday dismissed the criminal involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin on the third day of the actor's trial, after ruling that prosecutors improperly kept evidence about live ammunition potentially related to the case secret from defense lawyers. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer tossed the case against Baldwin, which related to the October 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his movie "Rust," with prejudice. That means prosecutors cannot retry the "30 Rock" actor. Baldwin wept as the decision was announced, on what was the third day of trial in the case in state court in Santa Fe. He soon after embraced his wife Hilaria. "There is no way for the court to right this wrong," Sommers said, referring to the prosecution's actions. "The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy." Under U.S. criminal law, prosecutors must turn over evidence to defense lawyers if that evidence is potentially helpful to a defendant. A defense lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who served as the armorer on the "Rust" production, in a statement said he will seek her immediate release from prison, where she is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence after being convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins' death. Guitierrez-Reed's lawyer, Jason Bowels, said the prosecution in Baldwin's and his client's case had engaged in an "absolutely shocking" pattern of misconduct. Baldwin in an Instagram post on Saturday morning wrote, "There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now." "To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family," Baldwin wrote. Brian Parrish, a lawyer for Hutchins' widower Matthew Hutchins, in a statement, said, "We respect the court's decision," but vowed to pursue civil claims against Baldwin. Actor Alec Baldwin walks outside the courthouse, as jury selection begins his manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the filming of the Western movie "Rust", in Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S. July 9, 2024. Alec Baldwin 's involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico was put on hold Friday while the judge considers a defense motion to dismiss the case over disputed ammunition evidence. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day and told them to return Monday after a hearing on the issue raised more questions and prompted her to call for further testimony outside the presence of jurors. The defense argued that prosecutors hid evidence from them about the ammunition that may be related to the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust" in 2021. "We don't know if it's a live ammunition match or not," Baldwin's attorney Luke Nikas told the judge. "But we do know that the state had it, and it's disclosable." The prosecution has said that the ammunition was not connected to the case and was not hidden. The issue came up Thursday on the second day of trial during defense questioning of sheriff's crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro suggested with his questions that Poppell and other authorities had been too cozy with the film's firearms supplier Seth Kenney and had insufficiently investigated whether he was responsible for the live bullets reaching the set. Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey established in her questioning that the source of the ammunition was Troy Teske, a friend of the father of the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in Hutchins' death. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison and is appealing her conviction. Morrissey said the bullets were not the same size or chemical composition as the live rounds found on the "Rust" set, including the one that killed Hutchins. "This is a wild goose chase that has no evidentiary value whatsoever," Morrissey told the judge Friday. "This is just a man trying to protect his daughter." Venture capitalist and Democratic megadonor Ron Conway has spoken directly with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance, according to three people familiar with the matter. Conway suggested to Pelosi that the president's performance raised the odds of a victory for former President Donald Trump in November, said the individuals, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about a sensitive topic. Conway is founder and a managing partner of the venture capital firm SV Angel. He and his wife have given more than $5 million to help elect Democrats so far this cycle. And Conway's conversations are not limited to Pelosi. An ally of Conway's in the tech community told CNBC that the investor has been among a group of donors and party leaders who "decided to light a brushfire for Biden to step aside." The talks with Pelosi were in the buildup to Pelosi's Wednesday interview on MSNBC, in which she refused to explicitly endorse Biden, these people explained. Representatives for both Pelosi and Conway did not deny that the California Democrat and unofficial dean of the House Democratic caucus had spoken to Conway about Biden. "Following the debate, the Speaker's phone exploded with calls expressing a number of views," a spokesman for Pelosi told CNBC. "Like many others, since the debate Ron has had many conversations with Democratic party leaders and other major donors about the best path forward for victory. He's not going to comment on these private conversations," said a spokesman for Conway. A RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump ahead of Biden by about 2 percentage points as of Friday. It's unclear what Pelosi said to Conway, or whether the two have spoken since Biden's news conference on Thursday. Biden's remarks touched on foreign policy, he called Vice President Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump" and said he would only consider getting out of the race if polling data were to show "there's no way" he could win. This nonetheless represented a slight shift from Biden's remarks last week to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, in which he said only the "Lord Almighty" could convince him to leave the race. Conway represents a crucial voice within the Democratic Party's fundraising apparatus in California and the tech community of Silicon Valley. Conway was one of Biden's bundlers during his 2020 campaign, raising at least $100,000 for his campaign against Trump, according to OpenSecrets. Conway donated at least $600,000 in 2023 to Future Forward, a political action committee backing Biden. He's given more than $400,000 to the Biden Victory Fund throughout the 2024 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records. Conway and Pelosi, both California power players in their own ways, have been close for years. Conway has hosted fundraisers for House Democrats, and photos show Pelosi attending. Conway gave more than $200,000 to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund during the 2022 congressional midterm elections, according to OpenSecrets. Conway is far from the only major Democratic donor who has turned on Biden in the last three weeks. Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of Choice Hotels and a six-figure Biden donor, told CNBC after the debate he believes the president should step down. He also said he won't help the president until after the August Democratic convention in Chicago because he's not convinced Biden is going to be the nominee. Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney family fortune and a Democratic donor, said on July 4 she won't be funding the party until Biden drops out. "I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. This is realism, not disrespect," Disney said at the time. Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, speaks at the Milken Conference 2024 in Beverly Hills, California, May 6, 2024. The European Commission on Friday accused Elon Musk's X of deceiving users and infringing digital content rules, putting the social media giant at risk of a hefty fine. The commission, which is the European Union's executive arm, started an investigation last year to assess whether X is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) a piece of landscape legislation requiring Big Tech firms to better police the content on their platforms. The body's preliminary view, published Friday, is that X has broken rules regarding dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers. So-called dark patterns are deceptive tactics designed to push people toward certain products and services. X's use of the blue checkmark for verified accounts does not correspond to industry practices, the commission said, as anyone can subscribe and obtain a verified status. It added that there was evidence of "motivated malicious actors" abusing the verified status to deceive users. The commission also accused X of putting in place design features and barriers that hinder advertising transparency, and said it fails to allow researchers to access its public data, as is required by the DSA. "In our view, X does not comply with the DSA in key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to data for researchers," the European Union's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, said in Friday's statement. "The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation." X did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. In a post on X, Musk claimed that his company was offered an "illegal secret deal" by the commission that would have allowed it to avoid a fine "if we quietly censored speech." "The other platforms accepted that deal," Musk wrote, without providing evidence. "X did not." If the commission's views are confirmed, X could face a fine of up to 6% of its global annual revenue. "X has now the right of defence but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes," EU industry chief Thierry Breton said in a post on X. The commission is also investigating TikTok, Alibaba's AliExpress and Meta over similar concerns. It comes as the EU clamps down hard on tech giants like Google and Meta. In 2022 the commission introduced the Digital Services Act, with a key part of it focused on how digital companies target users with ads. Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Friday: UBS downgrades Tesla to sell from neutral UBS said it has a "lack of visibility" right now for Tesla shares. "While TSLA is investing heavily in AI and the tech is making progress, investment is costly, pace of improvement may slow and the payoff is long dated. If market enthusiasm for AI diminishes, this may impact TSLA's multiple." Wolfe initiates Spotify as outperform Wolfe said the streaming company is a market leader. "We initiate coverage of Spotify (SPOT) with an Outperform rating and a $390 12-mo. forward Price Target (28% upside)." Bernstein reiterates Apple as outperform Bernstein said Apple should "benefit from healthy iPhone revenue growth over the next 1 - 2 years." "We continue to believe that FY 25 should be a strong iPhone cycle, as upgrade rates improve, given an aged installed base and compelling forthcoming AI functionality." Citi upgrades Array to buy from neutral Citi said in its upgrade of the solar tech company that long-term trends are intact and the sell-off is overdone. "ARRY shares are down > 40% this year, likely on fears of project push-outs unexpected CFO change, potential NT margin pressure due to freight costs, and ASP [average selling price] declines." Bank of America reiterates Micron as buy Bank of America said it is sticking with its buy rating after a series of constructive management meetings. The stock sits on the firm's US1 top ideas list. "We maintain Buy and note MU's recent inclusion in BofA's US1 list." Morgan Stanley reiterates Starbucks as overweight Morgan Stanley lowered its price target to $98 per share from $104, but says it is sticking with its overweight rating on Starbucks. "After last quarter's big cut, there is much going on to try to turn around the business, but we think most would endorse the company's comments that, at best, this will take time, clouding the near-term investment case." Barclays initiates Revolution Medicines as overweight Barclays said it is bullish on shares of the biotech company. "We are initiating on Revolution Medicines (RVMD) with an OW rating ahead of two value-inflecting data readouts in 2H24." JPMorgan reiterates Netflix as overweight JPMorgan raised its price target on the stock to $750 per share from $650. "We remain positive on Netflix shares heading into 2Q earnings on Thursday, 7/18, while also recognizing high expectations." JPMorgan reiterates Amazon as overweight JPMorgan said it is bullish heading into Amazon's Prime Day event next week. The firm has Amazon as a best idea. "Subscription/Prime member acquisition, or other parts of the Prime ecosystem, though we believe Prime Day's financial benefits extend well beyond the 2-day event period." Benchmark reiterates Nvidia as buy Benchmark raised its price target on Nvidia to $170 per share from $135. "Positive Take-Aways from Fireside Chat, Demand Continues to Outstrip Supply; Reiterate Buy, PT to $170 vs $135." Citi reiterates Western Digital as buy Citi added an upside catalyst watch on shares of the digital storage company and says it sees "gross margin improvements." "We additionally add an upside 90-day short-term view on WDC on increased confidence in robust NAND pricing and under shipment to demand, supporting WDC flash gross margin improvements, while our sum-of-the-parts analysis suggests further potential to unlock value as the Flash business is spun off later this calendar year." Benchmark upgrades Booking Holdings to buy from hold Benchmark said long-term trends are stabilizing for the travel online website. "We are raising our rating on Booking Holdings (BKNG) to Buy from Hold and establishing a new $4,700 per share price target." BTIG initiates Carvana as buy BTIG said the online used-car company has a "compelling future." "We are initiating coverage on Carvana Co. with a BUY rating and $155 PT." Baird downgrades Visteon to neutral from outperform Baird said in its downgrade of the auto tech parts supplier that it is concerned about decreasing auto production. "We are also downgrading VC to Neutral (wall of worry amid increased LVP [light vehicle production] risks now appears too steep to climb)." Jefferies initiates J. Jill as buy Jefferies said the clothing retailer is underappreciated. "We think the market under-appreciates JILL's sustainability and operational discipline to drive continued profitable growth." Jefferies upgrades Inter Parfums to buy from hold Jefferies said shares of the fragrance company are "oversold." "We upgrade IPAR to Buy based on our view that the shares are oversold." Piper Sandler reiterates Microsoft, Monday.com and Oracle as overweight Piper Sandler said it has its "highest conviction" in these three stocks. "However, there are still pockets of strength. Accelerating IaaS [infrastructure as a service] spend on AI tailwinds should benefit MSFT and ORCL. Healthy demand for workflow builder tools and new pricing has sustained strong momentum at MNDY. " Deutsche Bank reiterates Block as buy Deutsche Bank raised its price target on the stock to $98 per share from $90 and says it is the "best house in [a] tough neighborhood." "Despite weak stock performance by payment peers, we believe SQ continues to shine fundamentally with one of the few beat and raise stories in the sector." Morgan Stanley reiterates DraftKings as overweight Morgan Stanley said it is sticking with the gaming company as a top idea. "We stay OW DKNG (Top Pick) where we tweak our ests but stay above cons/guide & still expect a capital return catalyst." Former President Donald Trump speaks during his campaign rally at the Trump National Doral Golf Club on July 09, 2024 in Doral, Florida. Meta said Friday it's removing any previously imposed penalties and restrictions on former President Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, as the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election nears. The company first took action against Trump's social media accounts in 2021, shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. At the time, Meta suspended Trump's accounts for a two-year period, after it deemed that some of the former president's actions, such as praising the Capitol rioters, were a potential risk for inciting more violence. In January 2023, Meta said it would reinstate Trump on its platform, and he regained access to his accounts the following month. But Trump was still subject to remaining penalties and restrictions that could have led to his social media accounts facing long suspensions. Following Meta's latest announcement, if Trump were to violate the company's community guidelines, he would face a much shorter possible suspension that could last only a few days, as opposed to a lengthier suspension under the previously imposed penalties. Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote in the Friday blog post that the original suspension and penalties "were a response to extreme and extraordinary circumstances, and have not had to be deployed." "With the party conventions taking place shortly, including the Republican convention next week, the candidates for President of the United States will soon be formally nominated," Clegg wrote. "In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis." A Meta spokesperson characterized the update as "simply bringing presumptive GOP nominee Trump to parity with President Biden." TM Roh, head of Samsung's mobile business, talks about Galaxy AI at the Galaxy Unpacked event in Paris, France. On Wednesday, Samsung launched two new foldable smartphones with new AI features as it continues to build up capabilities. PARIS Samsung is developing its suite of artificial intelligence features known as Galaxy AI specifically for the Chinese market, the company's mobile chief told CNBC, as it looks to regain market share that has been decimated by local players. But China, the world's biggest smartphone market, has been a struggle for Samsung over the last few years. Its market share for smartphones sits under 1%, with local players like Huawei dominating. Samsung has been trying for several years to revamp its strategy in China with little success. Now, the tech giant is hoping AI will be able to give it the features its smartphones need to attract Chinese users. "We are especially developing and we are going to especially develop our Galaxy AI capabilities for that market," TM Roh, head of Samsung's mobile business, told CNBC in Korean via a translator during an interview. "I believe by making efforts to create mobile AI for China, mobile AI that can satisfy that will be wanted by the Chinese consumers, by advancing this technology that will contribute to the recovery we're going to have in the Chinese market," he said. Roh didn't give too much detail on what that Galaxy AI in China might look like, but said it will rely on working with local tech and internet companies. For example, this year, Baidu integrated its Ernie chatbot into Samsung's Galaxy S24 smartphones, in a partnership between the two firms. AI in China is complicated due to the strict regulations around the technology and Beijing's control over the internet landscape. Foreign firms looking to launch AI features in China likely need to partner with local companies. Apple, which announced its Apple Intelligence AI suite of features this year, has still not given any date for when those might launch in China as it likely faces similar challenges to Samsung. Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for devices research for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at IDC, told CNBC that the introduction of AI features to China "won't make a massive difference" to its fortunes as brand awareness of Samsung is too low and Chinese players are also introducing rival applications. "We all know that China is a leading market and country in AI. What can Samsung bring to the market is so unique for Chinese consumers to chuck away their Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor smartphone and buy a Samsung?" Jeronimo questioned. Roh admitted that competition in China's smartphone market is "more heated than anywhere else." He said Samsung's strategy in China revolves around introducing premium devices to the market and expanding distribution and retail sales channels. "Currently, although piecemeal, but we are making progress step by step, we are putting together our efforts to create the products and features that will be wanted by the consumers and that can satisfy the consumers out there," Roh said. CEO of Rheinmetall AG Armin Papperger attends the ground-breaking ceremony for the future site of an ordnance factory where German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall plans to start production from 2025, in Unterluess, Germany on February 12, 2024. (Photo by Ronny HARTMANN / AFP) (Photo by RONNY HARTMANN/AFP via Getty Images) Russia planned to assassinate the CEO of a major German arms manufacturer that provides artillery ammunition and armored vehicles to Ukraine, but the plot was uncovered and disrupted by U.S. and German authorities, according to a U.S. official and a source with knowledge of the matter. The alleged plot targeted Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall AG, Europe's largest producer of ammunition, whose company makes 155 mm artillery rounds for Ukraine and plans to open several plants inside the country to produce both ammunition and armored vehicles, including the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle. U.S. intelligence agencies discovered the plan to go after Papperger earlier this year and informed the German government, the sources said. CNN first reported on the assassination plot. Papperger was one of a number of defense industry chiefs in Europe to be targeted but the plot against him was believed to be more advanced, the sources said. The revelations followed recent warnings from NATO's secretary-general, European governments and U.S. officials about an expanding effort by Moscow to disrupt arms deliveries to Ukraine as it tries to defend itself against invading Russian troops. The White House National Security Council would not comment directly on the specific case involving Rheinmetall, but council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the Biden administration was concerned about the growing threat of Russian sabotage. "While I don't have a comment on this specific report, Russia's intensifying campaign of subversion is something that we are taking extremely seriously and have been intently focused on over the past few months," Watson said. "The United States has been discussing this issue with our NATO Allies, and we are actively working together to expose and disrupt these activities. We have also been clear that Russia's actions will not deter Allies from continuing to support Ukraine." The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the German embassy in Washington all declined to comment. A Rheinmetall spokesman, Oliver Hoffman, said the company generally does not comment on security matters but said "the necessary measures are always taken in regular consultation with the security authorities." A spokesperson for the Democratic minority on the House Intelligence Committee declined to comment on the alleged plot but said: "As Putin continues to fail to accomplish his maximalist agenda in Ukraine, Russia has increasingly turned to illegal and aggressive malign activities abroad, including in NATO countries. The Intelligence Committee is closely following these threats, which only strengthen our resolve to support Ukraine." Russia's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance members planned to impose more restrictions on Russian intelligence agents and to bolster security for key infrastructure to counter Moscow's use of sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation to undercut Western support for Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. "We have seen several examples of sabotage, of arson attempts, of cyberattacks, of disinformation," Stoltenberg told reporters. NBC News has previously reported that Russia is conducting a sabotage campaign across Europe in an increasingly aggressive effort by President Vladimir Putin to undermine Western support for Ukraine, seeking to damage railways, military bases and other sites used to supply arms to Kyiv. The attempted sabotage includes an alleged Russian-backed arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in the United Kingdom, a plot to bomb or set fire to military bases in Germany, attempts to hack and disrupt Europe's railway signal network and the jamming of GPS systems for civil aviation. A report in February from the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based security think tank, warned that Russia's intelligence service, the GRU, was building a clandestine network of operatives to conduct espionage and potential sabotage operations in Europe. Rheinmetall's Papperger had announced last month that his company planned to enable the production of Lynx infantry fighting vehicles inside Ukraine "in the near future." And in February, the company signed a memorandum with Ukraine to set up a joint production plant for artillery ammunition. The plant will produce "a six-digit number" of 155 mm caliber artillery rounds in the near future, the company said. Rheinmetall's collaboration with Ukraine is part of a wider effort by European governments to help Kyiv build up its own defense industry and reduce its reliance on Western assistance. Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Human rights advocate, Amnesty International, has called for the immediate release of two Guinean activists from the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (Front National pour la Defense de la Constitution FNDC) who were arreted on 9 July As the oil and gas industry expands throughout North America, research increasingly links fossil fuel development to mental health issues. Environment and Mental Health Living close to oil and gas development sites has significant implications for mental health. A study led by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) examined the mental health of residents living near these sites. How Living Near Oil, and Gas Industry Affects Mental Health These findings suggest that the mental health impacts of living near fossil fuel development are substantial and multifaceted. Depressive Symptoms Published in the American Journal of Public Health, this study utilized data from the Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO) and found that living within six miles of oil and gas development sites increases the risk of moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms compared to those living farther away. Increased Stress High levels of perceived stress were also reported among those living as close as 1.25 miles from these sites. The intensity of the production further exacerbates stress levels. Economic Impact The "boom and bust" cycles associated with oil and gas development can strain local economies and social structures, contributing to mental health issues. Economic instability from these cycles can lead to increased stress and depressive symptoms among community members. Vulnerability During Preconception The study highlights the vulnerability of women during the preconception period, an often overlooked phase. This period is crucial as it sets the stage for a healthy pregnancy, and exposure to environmental stressors like oil and gas development can have long-lasting impacts. Health Inequities The study restricted the analysis to participants with household incomes below $50,000, highlighting that those with fewer financial resources are more likely to live near these development sites and experience related mental health challenges. At the start, it was very much just about him, but in the end, it benefited pretty much everyone else in France, too On July 14th, the people of France will celebrate the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 by eating outside, setting things on fire and generally doing whatever they would otherwise do. Like many countries summer independence celebrations, its mostly an excuse to get drunk and blow things up, but it was a hugely important moment in French history that happened to have been helped along by one of the worlds most infamous filth peddlers. If youre familiar with the concept of sadism, you can thank or blame the Marquis de Sade. He was a French aristocrat most famous for his novels Justin, or Good Conduct Well-Chastised; Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded; The 120 Days of Sodom, or The School of Licentiousness; and Philosophy in the Bedroom. Its not hard to parse his primary interest from those titles, but its safe to say your average BookToker wouldnt find much to like in Sades eroticism. It was usually violent, often horrifically so, involving acts that would make Bret Easton Ellis say, Okay, thats over the line. Sade also practiced what he preached, so its not surprising he spent a fair amount of his life in prison, mostly for the practice but occasionally for the preaching. He was serving one such stint in 1789 at the Bastille, a notorious symbol of injustice often used to house political prisoners. You couldnt wing a croissant in Paris at the time without hitting an injustice, so it was a topic weighing heavily on the minds of its citizens, though in Sades case, he was mostly pissed that hed lost exercise privileges. Thats why, on July 2nd, he fashioned a megaphone, probably out of toothbrushes and ramen noodles, and shouted to the mobs in the streets, They are massacring the prisoners; you must come and free them! Don't Miss Of course, this wasnt true. Historically, the Bastille was one of the better places you could be imprisoned in Paris, and at the time, it barely housed enough inmates to make a massacre plausible. But Sade never met a shit he couldnt stir and was probably bored out of his mind, so if he could rile up the crowds and convince them to break him out, all the better. Less than two weeks later, as rumors swirled of the atrocities occurring inside and definite truths about the huge stockpiles of gunpowder stored therein revolutionaries surrounded the Bastille and fought their way inside. Advertisement What they found there was probably pretty disappointing; ironically, Sade had already been moved to a different facility a few days earlier, significantly reducing the prisons population. In fact, the Bastille had been scheduled for demolition anyway, so the victory was largely symbolic, all that gunpowder notwithstanding (as well as the capture of the governor of the prison, and, well, the less said about what they did to him, the better). What they did find was Sades lost manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom, which was passed around to various wealthy collectors for the next few centuries until it was bought in 2021 by the French government for $5 million in what is surely one of the most expensive cases of lost and found. Imagine being a musician who has to submit their lyrics to the government as part of the parole process If you dont live under a dictatorship, you expect to have certain rights and freedoms: to enjoy a Western Bacon Cheeseburger during any of Carls Jr.s posted business hours, to sing along to Chappell Roan as loud as you want in your own home and to express yourself however you want, as long as youre not hurting anybody (probably with Chappell Roan lyrics). Still, supposedly free countries have ruled against artists rights to free speech, free song, free painting, etc. 5 BG Has to Clear His Lyrics With the Government Don't Miss When rapper BG was released from prison on weapons charges in 2023, one of the conditions of his parole was the submission of any song he intended to record or perform to the government to make sure it wasnt inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation. Specifically, hes not allowed to glorify gang life or violence, soooo hes supposed to just get a new job or something. His lawyers are challenging the requirements on First Amendment grounds, but they totally arrested him for performing such songs with Boosie and Gucci Mane, so yes, apparently, they can do that. 4 2 Live Crew Were Too Nasty for Strip Clubs In 1989, 2 Live Crew released the album As Nasty As They Wanna Be, whose cover featured four nearly naked pairs of womens butts and whose contents upheld this thematic tone. There were probably 12 albums on the shelf just like it this was the 1980s, after all but a Florida judge declared the album obscene, and the group was arrested for performing the songs in a Broward County strip club. Yes, the boob store was deemed an inappropriate place for lyrics about boobs. They were eventually acquitted, but not before dealing with the only reason theyre known today. 3 Radclyffe Hall Was Too Gay for the 20s Advertisement Today, The Well of Loneliness would be considered a fairly standard historical romance whose love interests happen to be two women, but it was a pretty big deal in 1928. After it was declared obscene by the British government, author Radclyffe Hall rallied her famous friends to defend the books literary merit, but they mostly noped out on her. Virginia Woolf herself wrote that she was relieved such a defense wouldnt be permitted because she thought the book kind of sucked. Hall had more luck getting the book published in America, where she gained famous supporters like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who Virginia Woolf also thought kind of sucked. 2 Stass Paraskos Was Fined for Normal Art Advertisement Advertisement Naked people rubbing butts has been the most popular subject in art for as long as art has been made, but cave paintings be damned, you couldnt do it in 1966 England. Thats where Stass Paraskos was charged with lewd and obscene conduct for a Leeds museum exhibit that depicted cartoonish figures in various states of sexy times. He became the last artist successfully prosecuted under those particular laws, but he did have to pay 25 pounds for the trouble, which was probably an artists entire annual income back then. Bob Odenkirk has a healthy outlook on being runner-up for a once-in-a-lifetime gig as the regional manager at a small paper supply company on The Office, as well he should if Odenkirk spent a decade at Dunder Mifflin, he probably wouldnt have ever gotten that law degree. More than most sitcoms, The Office (U.S.) has a whole hypothetical culture surrounding the What if? casting decisions that led to a collection of mostly unknown actors making their big breaks on the lauded NBC sitcom, thanks, in large part, to the many surviving audition tapes of the also-rans. The online and active Office fandom is constantly theorizing what the show would have looked like if Seth Rogen landed the role of Dwight instead of Rainn Wilson, or if Kathryn Hahn beat out Jenna Fischer for Pam, possibly to play out the famed will-they-or-wont-they romance plot line with Adam Scotts Jim. However, the one character thats nearly impossible to separate from their cast member is Michael Scott, who is forever tied to Steve Carell and his magnum-opus performance. Don't Miss As many Office fans well know, the man who would later become Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul was one of the finalists in the Michael Scott sweepstakes before Carell won the role. And as Odenkirk told Fischer and her Office Ladies co-host Angela Kinsey on a recent episode of the podcast, that wasnt the only time Carell beat him out in callbacks either. According to Odenkirk, his approach to comic acting is too rooted in seriousness to play a lighthearted part like Michael Scott its like he never even watched Threat Level: Midnight. There were other parts that I think I was up for that Steve got, and its because hes better at being genuinely fun, Odenkirk told Carells co-stars, though he wouldnt specify which of Carells roles besides Michael almost made it to his IMDb page. I think I bring with me a little bit too much earnest seriousness, and its just kinda there. And theres nothing I can do about it except play other roles where its helpful to have that. And, you know, you just dont believe me as a purely light character. Advertisement Advertisement Though Michael certainly wasnt pure by any definition, Odenkirk is right that the whimsy required to play the part is more natural to Carell than himself. You just are looking for the darkness, and thats actually great in drama, Odenkirk said of his approach to acting. Thats a plus, you know? But in comedy, its not a plus. Odenkirk did, eventually, get the opportunity to play a Michael-ish character on The Office and show people what I would have done in the episode Moving On from the final season, in which Pam applies for a position at a Philadelphia company thats very similar to Dunder Mifflin with a familiar personality in charge. Although, I do think that what I was doing was more a tribute to Steve because thats what I was supposed to be doing, Odenkirk admitted. My character was meant to be very much a version of what Steve had invented when he played the character. Advertisement I guess neither of them ever watched Ricky Gervais do it first. Juba, South Sudan (PANA) - The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the African Union Mission in South Sudan, and the regional bloc known as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Thursday urged the parties to the long-delayed peace agreement to reach consensus on the best way forward for holding free and fair elections across the worlds youngest nation China's giant panda Fu Bao draws thousands, sparks tourism boom in Sichuan People's Daily Online) 10:21, July 12, 2024 Visitors to the Shenshuping giant panda base in Wolong National Nature Reserve, located in southwest China's Sichuan Province, need to be quick with their cameras when viewing Fu Bao, the reserve's newest star attraction. Despite long queues, visitors are limited to just five minutes with the popular giant panda. Since Fu Bao's debut at the base nearly a month ago, she has become a sensation. Fu Bao's enclosure is always bustling, with over 1,000 tourists visiting her daily. Some visitors even return multiple times or stay for extended periods. The giant panda Fu Bao eats bamboo at the Shenshuping giant panda base in Wolong National Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Photo/cbgc.scol.com.cn) "Although five minutes may seem insufficient, we are more than willing to queue up repeatedly to see Fu Bao," said Ji Yanting from Changzhou city, east China's Jiangsu Province, who came with her mother on July 6. To ensure safety, the base has implemented visitor restrictions and time limits, granting each visitor five minutes to watch the giant panda. Visitors take pictures of the giant panda Fu Bao at the Shenshuping giant panda base in Wolong National Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Photo/cbgc.scol.com.cn) Since the start of the year, the base has received 163,000 tourist arrivals. Particularly after Fu Bao's debut on June 12, the daily number of visitors has doubled, surpassing 2,000. At its busiest, the base witnessed nearly 4,000 visitors in a single day. Fu Bao has brought prosperity to local B&Bs. Many operators have reported increased visitors, bookings and longer stays, often reaching full capacity on weekends. The giant panda's allure has extended beyond domestic tourists, igniting a surge in South Korean tourists visiting Sichuan. "There has been a noticeable rise in foreign tourists, particularly those from South Korea," said a staff member at the giant panda base. Fu Bao's daily life has piqued the curiosity of many South Koreans, attracting as many as 30 or 40 visitors in a single day and occasionally even tour groups from the country. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. 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Newlywed Rachel, from Orange County, California, laid out a strict list of rules for her guests, which prompted people to accuse her of having 'control issues'. However, she claimed that naysayers just couldn't 'respect' the rules she and her partner decided to set for their big day. Taking to her TikTok @hairbyrayyycheelll the bride shared a clip, which racked up more than 9.7 million views, detailing her demands for her nuptials - including nobody under the age of 21, despite countless guests asking to bring their children. Rachel only made an exception for the flower girl and ring bearer who went home right after the ceremony. Newlywed Rachel, from from Orange County, California, revealed her six controversial wedding rules- saying people said she was a 'bridezilla' She said: 'We didn't want the liability, there was a lake on the property. No kids. Weddings are not the place for a kid. Parents, take the night off. Have some cocktails with your friends and family.' However, rule number two was the biggest 'drama starter,' because she demanded that groomsmen did not drink alcohol before the ceremony. She said: 'I have been to so many weddings were the groomsmen and groom are trashed and they can't even function during the ceremony. Just wait until the reception. Some people talk sh** on me for that, but I don't care.' The bride claimed asking to bring a plus-one to the wedding was definitely a 'no' because she 'wanted to know every single person at our wedding.' She said: 'Do not ask to bring a plus one, if we wanted the person there we would of invited them. We didn't. This happened a lot actually and it was really stressful.' The newlywed also had a dress code for guests, which required them to wear neutral colors and she banned people from wearing jeans. She said: 'Do not wear jeans to a formal wedding, wedding attire only, a couple of you, you know who you are. 'We asked families to stick to the wedding colors provided and not to make a fuss over it, because we really wanted our wedding photos to be neutral and blend in, and now they look fabulous, but we had some backlash at that.' Taking to her TikTok @hairbyrayyycheelll the bride shared a clip detailing her demands for her nuptials The video ruffled some feathers and thousands took to the comment section to share their opinions Her final rule not standing in the aisle to take photos was broken and ruined her professional snaps. 'One person stood in the middle of our aisle and she's in the back of all of our pictures,' Rachel raged. The video ruffled some feathers and thousands took to the comment section to share their opinions. One person said: 'Too many damn rules. I would have stayed home.' Another said: 'Lmao, did anyone show up? This would have been the quickest decline in history.' Someone else said: 'Lol if my kids aren't invited neither am I. We don't have the luxury of a babysitter.' However, some were more supportive with one targeting mothers complaining about not being able to find a babysitter. 'Invitations go out MONTHS (usually 1 year) before the wedding,' Yall didnt plan ahead.' Meanwhile someone else wrote: 'idk why wedding rules are such a big deal to people. if you don't like the rules, don't go. that simple.' She shared all of her favorite items to stock up on - including soup dumplings If you can't be bothered with your weekly Trader Joe's run then imagine having to travel across the US border to stock up on your favorite items. TikTok user Tara Michelle does just that - traveling from Ontario, Canada, to her nearest Trader Joe's outlet - which is a four-hour drive away. 'My mom and I usually do this quarterly, but we haven't been in six months, and my stock up at home had run out,' Tara Michelle said in a recent video. Once they had crossed the border, Tara and her mom headed into the store to begin their shopping. 'They were already running low on the chicken soup dumplings, and I did make the move where I took all of them,' she admitted, showing herself sweeping all the boxes into her shopping cart. Tara Michelle travels across the US border from Ontario, Canada, to shop at Trader Joe's every three months 'I felt kind of bad about it, honestly, but at the same time, you know, like, we drove a distance,' she quipped. She then stocked up on boxes of her favorite crackers, which included the Fig and Olive Crisps and the Everything but the Bagel seasoned crackers, before moving on to the dips. Tara also grabbed her favorite ravioli - sweetcorn, burrata and basil, shredded cheddar cheese, chili crunch, lemon pesto sauce and some seasonal popcorn. 'I can't even tell you how excited I am to have all my things,' she said enthusiastically. 'This was a good haul,' she continued. 'Like, I got everything I wanted and more.' Tara said she always travels with coolers to store the frozen and cold items on the journey back. After leaving Trader Joes, Tara went into Target to have a browse. 'I did get some candles because I burn a candle every single day - and you can never have too many candles,' she shared. 'This is always the best day, I am very happy,' Tara said of her trip. 'And I can't wait to do it all again in a couple of months' Commenters loved Tara's commitment to Trader Joes - although had some suggestions for next time After picking up some B**tching Sauce - which Tara noted they don't sell in Canada - and flavored coffee creamer, because they are 'just way better in the US,' Tara and her parents went to Crumbl Cookies for a sweet treat on the way home. The family even stopped by a winery near Niagara Falls for her dad to pick up some bottles. 'This is always the best day, I am very happy,' she gushed. 'And I can't wait to do it all again in a couple of months.' Commenters loved Tara's commitment to Trader Joes - although had some suggestions for next time. 'Taking all the soup dumplings is CRIMINAL,' one user wrote indignantly. 'But I would've done the same lowkey.' @imtaramichelle come with me on the 2 hour journey to target & trader joes from canada!!! Walking Around - Instrumental Version - Eldar Kedem 'I found some truffle aioli and you haaaave to take it with you next time, it's so good,' another Trader Joe's enthusiast wrote. 'Not sure if you have Costco near you but their soup dumplings are similar if not the same as the Trader Joe's dumplings,' suggested another. Tara isn't the only one without a Trader Joe's nearby that gets excited to visit the grocery chain. In May, seniors from Northeast High School's graduating class in Pasadena, Maryland, got the hopes of its 24,000 residents up with a fake banner announcing that a Trader Joe's location would be up and running by spring of 2025. While Trader Joe's does have 10 out of its nearly 600 locations in the Old Line state, sadly, none are in the town of Pasadena - though the closest location in, Annapolis, is just under a 25-minute drive away. Netflix's latest dating series following a group of men in Japan on a quest to find love and friendship has received a slew of rave reviews from fans. If you're a PDA-filled and drama-fuelled dating show buff, you might want to look away because The Boyfriend is all about fostering genuine connections. While that could be considered groundbreaking in itself, the series has a more striking aspect it's Japan's first same sex dating show, despite the country not legally recognising same sex marriage. The Boyfriend follows a group of nine men in Tateyama, Japan, over the course of a month as they try and find a connection while living under the same roof and working together in a coffee van. The first three episodes of the show debuted on Netflix on Tuesday, and it's already received praise from critics and viewers alike, with the Guardian hailing it as 'genuinely groundbreaking' and the Independent claiming it's the 'antidote to Love Island'. Netflix's latest Japanese dating show - The Boyfriend - has been hailed 'genuinely groundbreaking' by critics The series follows nine gay and bisexual men from varying backgrounds as they arrive at their new home called the 'Green Room'. In an attempt to mimic the conditions of life outside the show, the contestants work in a coffee van together. And unlike most other dating shows, contestants can leave the house for work-related queries and to see friends and family if necessary. The Boyfriend encourages participants to reveal their emotions in a way that might be done in the real world, for instance, with a letter writing task. Instead of hearing phrases like 'tall, dark, and handsome', contestants say things like: 'If you love yourself, then you are ready to be loved by others' and 'prepare your heart, love yourself first before you try to love someone else and hope someone loves you.' A group of commentators watch the participants throughout the series, offering insights and opinions as the sparks fly throughout the series. 'We started out wanting to highlight the young men's friendships and personalities,' said executive producer Dai Ota in conversation with Netflix. 'Our focus wasn't just on romance but also on spending time together and experiencing personal growth.' The dating show follows nine gay and bisexual men in Japan on a quest to find a genuine connection The show encourages participants to take part in exercises like writing the person they like a letter The Independent branded the new Netflix dating show as 'the antidote to Love Island' Elsewhere, the Guardian branded the show as 'grippingly sweet' and 'genuinely groundbreaking' The show has found success among UK critics, with Daisy Jones of the Guardian saying: 'Netflix's reality series feels genuinely groundbreaking and deeply, grippingly sweet. You'll watch these unforced romances unfold with bated breath'. Jones added that the contestants are 'polite' and 'tentative' and are aware of each other's emotions. For Jones, an added bonus was that the show had an inviting living space, leaving the white lights and bright colours of typical dating shows behind, in favour of a living space that would be expected on the outside world. She said: 'Already, The Boyfriend resembles comfort TV at its finest. Reality shows are usually fluro-lit and agitating, with contestants fighting over unbranded sparkling drinks. This one is the opposite: it's dreamlike, like ASMR.' Elsewhere, the Independent's Katie Rosseinksy said: 'Netflix's The Boyfriend is not just groundbreaking it's the antidote to Love Island'. She added: 'We'll have to wait and see whether it will change attitudes in Japan but it certainly gives us a blueprint for a different kind of dating show, one that's the perfect antidote to Love Island fatigue.' She explained that the show is a 'huge step forward in normalising queer relationships' and pointed to the fact that while Britain has allowed same sex marriages since 2010, it was only in 2023 that a same sex dating show reached UK screens with BBC's I Kissed a Boy. Contestants moved into to a luxury seaside house called the Green Room for the duration of the series Viewers have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to share their thoughts on the show and many are impressed It's a clear shift in the history Japanese dating shows, and while its impact on same sex relationships in the G7 nation is yet to become clear, it's attracted already created a buzz among viewers. Viewers have taken to X to share their thoughts. One said: 'The Boyfriend on Netflix, the Japanese gay dating reality show is really lovely to watch. Nice cool breezy vibe, fast crushes etc, simple storylines - very nice.' A second added: 'I'm watching the boyfriend on Netflix and this show is SO GOOD!' A third said: 'Started to watch Netflix's The Boyfriend, a Japanese show about gay men living together and exploring love and friendships. Very happy Japan is airing a dating show like this. Already feel I might up crying over some of the boys.' A fourth wrote: 'Started the Boyfriend on Netflix last night and it's all I can think about... I *need* new episodes'. Meghan Markle has become known for hiding away her feet with sweepingly long clothing and stylish - yet sensible - shoes. However, at last night's ESPY Awards in California, the Duchess of Sussex, 42, made the rare choice to bare her perfectly manicured toes while wearing strappy black leather sandals. The royal was the image of glamour as she sported a bespoke Oscar de la Renta gown to support her husband Prince Harry at the event. When she was seated, the dress gave a rare glimpse of her feet - which have reportedly been an insecurity for her in past. However, it's clear Meghan has nothing to worry about as the Celine heels she opted for complemented her perfectly and made the perfect finish to the ensemble. Meghan Markle has a known habit of hiding away her feet with shoes and sweepingly long clothing In 2020, an industry videographer who worked closely with the former Suits star before she met the Duke of Sussex claimed that on set she had strict rules about never shooting her feet, and 'hated' them. The mother-of-two's feet became a hot topic of conversation after she took off her shoes during a royal tour in New Zealand in 2018, revealing what some thought was a scar from a bunion-removal operation. Meanwhile in 2022, Thomas Bower in his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors claimed that Meghan has in past even asked for her feet to be 'fixed' after a photoshoot. The author alleged that in post-production of the commercials of Reitmans, Canada's largest women's clothing retailer, Meghan 'sent countless demands about changes to the colour of her lipstick and her waistline'. One request related to some open-toe sandals she was wearing was said to have generated particular mirth'. 'Please fix my feet for me,' she allegedly wrote. 'I get slaughtered online for [sic] people picking apart my feet, sadly.' It has been speculated that this may explain her tendency to prefer dressing in longer hemlines in recent years As she and the Duke of Sussex this year carried out 'quasi-royal' duties including their tour of Nigeria and events marking the Invictus Games, a new trend appears to be emerging in her outfits as she dons trousers, skirts and dresses that appear altogether too long for her. Instead of tailoring her maxi outfits so they perfectly match her 5ft 6in frame, the Duchess often wears clothes that no doubt add to her chic style, but also drag along the floor as she walks. However, at last night's ESPY Awards the Duchess made the rare choice to bare her toes while wearing strappy black leather sandals However, it's clear Meghan has nothing to worry about as the Celine heels she opted for complemented her perfectly and made the perfect finish to the ensemble Meghan Markle pictured wearing a long ruffled dress as she visits Lightway Academy last week in Abuja, Nigeria Meghan Markle sported a pair of creased brown trousers during her trip to Germany last September with Harry In Lagos, Meghan donned a very long Carolina Herrera Silk Overlay Column Gown in 'taxi cab' yellow It seems Meghan has always been a fan of long floaty dresses as she donned this striped garment when she visited Sydney in 2018 Celebrity stylist Rochelle thinks Meghan wears longer outfits that cover her feet to look taller than she is. Above: Meghan in September 2022, Germany It might seem an odd miss in the otherwise incredibly stylish Duchess's repertoire - but a celebrity style expert has suggested Meghan's perceived oversight may actually be a very deliberate decision on her part in order to create a particular illusion. During Meghan and Harry's 'quasi-royal' tour of Nigeria, the Duchess showcased several examples of very long clothing. One such outfit came in the city of Abuja, where she opted for an aptly-named Windsor dress in blush silk, which retails for 1,106. Its California-based designer, Heidi Merrick (one of the Duchess's favourites) actually offers a slightly altered version of the frock for petite customers via its tailoring service. However as Meghan danced the afternoon away at the Wuse Lightway Academy, she appeared not to have opted for the tailored version of the frock and instead donned a version which skimmed the floor as she bopped to Jump Up, Turn Around. Similarly in Lagos, the former senior working royal chose to wear a Carolina Herrera Silk Overlay Column gown in 'taxi cab' yellow. Meghan was all smiles as she soaked up the sun in the 30-degree weather and visited the Lagos State Governor's Office. And yet again, she wore a lengthy vibrant and flamboyant ensemble that dragged along the grass lawn. Celebrity stylist Rochelle White told Femail that the Duchess likely wears long clothing that covers her feet because it gives the illusion of height. She said: 'Long dresses and trousers, depending on body type, can help to elongate the body and shape. 'They can make you look taller and depending on the styles can help to define areas of the body you either want to highlight or cover up.' When the royal couple spent a week in Frankfurt last summer to attend the Invictus Games, Meghan wore an all-brown ensemble on a day that saw them both watching events and attending a NATO meeting. This was made up of a chocolate-coloured blouse and creased taupe trousers that trailed along the floor. She stood next to Prince Harry - who is a whopping 6ft 2inches in height - and although she barely came up to his shoulder, Rochelle says she appears taller because of her outfit choice. Meghan Markle is pictured in a long ballgown at the Variety Power of Women Los Angeles in November Dating back to 2019, the Duchess wore long black trousers that trailed along the floor in Edinburgh The Duchess has worn long ensembles throughout the years including on her trip to Morocco in 2019 - perhaps explained by her pregnancy She said: 'Looking at Meghan, I feel that these styles make her look taller and highlight her silhouette. I feel it makes her look taller. 'I feel that she knows her body and the things or items that work for her best and is tapping into that with her looks.' In 2018, during Meghan's trip to Edinburgh with Harry, she proudly donned a pair of lengthy, flared black trousers which were too long for her despite wearing a pair of heels. As the Duchess was busy greeting people who braved the unpredictable Scottish weather to see the former royals, the slacks were pulled along the wet concrete, gathering dirt on the bottom of them. In 2018 during her visit to Sydney, the mother-of-two was pictured walking along the sand in a black and white striped maxi dress and the following year during her visit to Morocco with Harry, Meghan donned a large cobalt patterned frock. It's no secret that her wardrobe is different from Kate's, with Rochelle noting that the Princess of Wales opts for more traditional pieces of clothing. She said: 'Meghan has more of trendy edge when it comes to her style. Kate is very classic and chic in her fits and style with traditional pieces thrown in. 'With Meghan, I feel she is very much herself and has elements that really showcase her personality and personal style. 'With off the shoulder tops, shorts, co-ords and racer back tops, she doesn't hide what she likes and what works for her.' While Kate tends to wear more fitted dresses and tailored trousers, Meghan's style is dubbed more relaxed and personal. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has made it clear she will be keeping her child out of the public spotlight as she opened up for the first time about her pregnancy. The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, announced that she was expecting her first child with her boyfriend, Ken Urker, in a video shared to her YouTube channel on Tuesday. In her first interview since revealing the unexpected news, the reality star highlighted how her motherly instincts have already kicked in as she confirmed that she does not want her child to grow up 'in front of a camera'. 'I don't know what the future holds,' she explained on Friday's Good Morning America. 'But once the baby's born, I feel strongly that I don't want my baby to be in front of a camera... unless it's for home movies.' She continued: 'I will not be putting my child in the media...at all. This world is so cruel and unsafe. There is a level of responsibility that I have to make sure that my child is protected.' Gypsy Rose Blanchard has made it clear she will be keeping her child out of the spotlight EXCLUSIVE: Gypsy Rose Blanchard talks about her pregnancy and plans for the future: "I understand that with my past, there's gonna be a lot of people that kinda question if I even should be a mother or even have children in my care."@jujuchangabc has more. pic.twitter.com/1yzbN5Tvbn Good Morning America (@GMA) July 12, 2024 Gypsy was famously released from Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri in December, 2023, after serving the mandatory seven years of her 10-year sentence for conspiring to kill her mother, Dee Dee. When asked how she planned to tackle the heavy subject with her child in the future, Gypsy candidly stated that the thought has 'plagued' her mind for years. She stated: 'That question has plagued my mind for a long time. And I have come to a point where I understand that, that question with is going to be asked by my child some day. 'I feel like when that time comes, Ken and I will sit down and have that conversation, and I will explain in the most honest way possible.' The Life After Lockup star has 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, 31, despite their impending parenthood. In fact, the jailbird-turned-reality star is still married to husband Ryan Scott Anderson, with the former couple's first divorce hearing set for July 29. She first announced her separation from Ryan in March, before she revealed that she was back with Ken the following month. The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, has found fame since she was released in December, 2023, having served the mandatory seven years for conspiring to kill her mother, Dee Dee Speaking on Good Morning America, she stated: 'Once the baby's born, I feel strongly that I don't want my baby to be in front of a camera' Gypsy had a simple message for her ex during the chat as she stated: 'I hope he's doing okay, and I wish him the best, emotionally.' However, the star made it clear that she is focusing on herself as she continued: 'I haven't had a moment to stop to think about anything else except, "Am I drinking enough water? Am I taking the prenatal vitamin?" 'I have so much to prepare for, to make sure I am healthy for this baby... nesting and everything.' Due to the complicated timeline, Gypsy has had to hit back at naysayers who claim the baby's paternity is unclear. She told GMA: 'This is absolutely 100 per cent Ken's baby. There was never any question of paternity.' However, TMZ claims the reality star is making moves to speed up her divorce proceedings because a Louisiana law states that 'if the mother of a child is married to someone who isn't the biological father when the child was conceived - or has been divorced for less than 300 days at the time of birth - then her ex, or estranged husband, is presumed to be the father.' Under the law, Ken will have to establish paternity through a DNA test after Gypsy and Ryan's divorce is finalized. Despite the current headlines being made in reaction to her pregnancy, Gypsy gushed that she is 'excited' for this new chapter. She announced that she was expecting her first child with her boyfriend, Ken Urker, in a video shared to her YouTube channel on Tuesday The felon is happy to share details about her pregnancy, highlighting the symptoms she's endured so far, which included cravings, being extra emotional, and feeling extremely tired 'At first I was very nervous but I am very excited. The mood swings are wicked,' she admitted. Reflecting on the mixed reaction by the public, she added: 'I understand that with my past, people may question if I even should be a mother or should children in my care. 'I am not perfect, I made mistakes in the past, and I will probably make minor mistakes going forward. But, at the same time, I know right-from-wrong, and learning from past mistakes is a growth that comes with time.' Gypsy highlighted the fact that she did not have the typical childhood and would be doing all that's in her power to avoid that similar fate for her own child. 'My mother did not want to see me meet those milestones that every child should have,' she recalled. 'Like going on a first date, or prom or a bike ride. All of those little milestone moments that make life worth living. I didn't get to have that. 'So, I want my child to have all of the things that he or she could ever want in life.' The interview comes after Gypsy opened up about the fierce mood swings and emotional outbursts she's experienced while expecting her first child. In her 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 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. Gypsy married teacher Ryan in 2022, while she was still incarcerated for murder, and announced their plans to divorce in March The pair's relationship has been documented in Gypsy's reality show, Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up '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. 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.' 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 Gypsy has had a physical transformation after her release from prison 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 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.' 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 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and spent nearly a decade locked up before she was granted early parole and released in late December. Mumbai locals were left furious over billionaire Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's lavish wedding - as officials closed numerous streets in the Indian city to make way for their excessive entourage. Anant, 29, who is the son of India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and Radhika, 29, are set to tie the knot this afternoon during what some think will be India's biggest wedding this year. The festivities are set to take place all weekend long - and a slew of celebrities have jetted into the country to celebrate, including John Cena, Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Nick Jonas, and Priyanka Chopra. But residents in the area are unhappy with the commotion that the extravagant multi-day long event has caused - especially after police announced that multiple roads would be shut off to the public for the wedding. 'Due to a public event at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex on July 5 and from July 12 to 15, 2024, the following traffic arrangements will be in place for the smooth flow of traffic,' read a tweet from Mumbai Traffic Police last week, along with a list of roads that would be affected. Mumbai locals were left furious over billionaire Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's lavish wedding - as officials closed numerous streets in the Indian city for the event Anant, 29, who is the son of India 's richest man, Mukesh Ambani (seen together today ahead of the wedding), and Radhika, 29, are set to tie the knot this afternoon The festivities are set to take place all weekend long - and a slew of celebrities have jetted into the country to celebrate, including Kim and Khloe Kardashian (seen) Sonam Srivastava, who works in an office right next to the venue where the wedding will take place, told Business Insider that it has caused 'significant disruptions' to his job. 'This situation has forced us to reschedule critical client meetings and events planned for these dates,' he scathed. 'It's alarming that traffic in such a prominent business district has come to a standstill, causing significant inconvenience to businesses, for a private event.' The Mumbai Police's post was quickly flooded with angry responses - and people were especially infuriated that they described the wedding as a 'public event.' 'Is Anant Ambani's marriage a public event? Why is normal public disturbed for someone's marriage?' asked one angry user. 'Since when [did the] government start [getting] involved in private events?' agreed another. 'When did a personal event of an industrialist become a public event? Is every citizen of Mumbai invited to this or a select few?' wrote someone else. 'Instead of putting the general public to inconvenience the organizers should have been told to reschedule this to a latter part of the day, maybe towards the night.' But residents in the area were unhappy with the commotion that the event has caused - especially after police announced that multiple roads would be shut off to the public The Mumbai Police's post was quickly flooded with angry responses - and people were especially infuriated that they described the wedding as a 'public event' 'Billionaire's wedding ceremony is a priority. Public daily commute is not,' read a fourth tweet. A fifth said, 'It's a private event not a public one. Making the public suffer for a private event, wow.' 'You shameless p***ks. It's a billionaire's wedding, stop inconveniencing the common man.' Anant's father Mukesh, 67, runs Indian oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance Industries, and is worth more than $114 billion. Radhika also hails from a well-off family, as her dad is the CEO of Encore Healthcare. This ostentatious wedding will last three days and is estimated to have cost a staggering $1.2 million. Anant and Radhika are seen in 2023 Earlier this month, the couple threw multiple luxurious pre-wedding events, including a Sangeet where Justin Bieber performed In June they also took 1,200 guests on a four-day Mediterranean cruise , throwing parties across Europe with private performances from stars like Katy Perry and the Backstreet Boys This ostentatious wedding will last three days and is estimated to have cost a staggering $1.2 million with the guest list including the likes of Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump, Bill Gates, David and Victoria Beckham, and other industry titans; as well as Bollywood stars, pop stars, and leading politicians. In the months leading up to the nuptials, the couple threw multiple luxurious pre-wedding events. Earlier this month, they held a party known as a 'Sangeet' where Justin Bieber performed, and was reportedly paid $9 million for it. In June they also took 1,200 guests on a four-day Mediterranean cruise, throwing parties across Europe with private performances from stars like Katy Perry, Pitbull, and the Backstreet Boys. The image has not been released to the public because the family find it too distressing, but Shalorna Warner will never be able to erase it from her mind. 'It haunts me,' she says of the picture which was snapped on a mobile phone three seconds before the person taking it became a killer and ripped her family apart. 'The police asked if we wanted to see it, and I did. Some of the family didn't. But I had to, to try to understand.' The photograph, described as 'chilling' by the judge who jailed him this week, was taken by Darryl Anderson in the early hours of May 31 this year. He was at the wheel of his Audi Q5, doing 141 miles per hour, and three times over the drink drive limit. The image also captured a light illuminated on the dashboard. Shalorna had to ask what it was. Such was the force of the impact, eight-month-old Zackary Blades ended up 160ft away on the other side of the A1 The family's vehicle was sent spinning across the opposite carriageway after being hit by speeding drunk driver Darryl Anderson 'It was the collision warning light,' she says. 'Some newer cars have them. They flash when a collision is imminent.' Also clear in the image is Shalorna's car, just up ahead. At that moment, now frozen in time, she was driving, 'probably laughing' with her sister Karlene, who was in the passenger seat. Shalorna had just picked her up from Newcastle airport. Her suitcase was in the boot. In the back of the car, snug in his baby seat ('We got the Isofix one, the safest you can get') was Shalorna's eight-month-old son Zackary. His mother, who tells me she had never even been in a car accident before, not even a little bump, hopes he remained asleep in the unthinkable moments that followed. They never stood a chance. Anderson's car ploughed into them, sending their Peugeot 308 spinning across the opposite carriageway. Karlene never left her seat, and suffered appalling internal injuries. Baby Zack's baby seat, still attached to the rear seat of the car, was ripped from the vehicle. Such was the force of the impact, little Zack himself, who'd been carefully strapped in, was hurled from it and ended up 160ft away, on the other side of the A1. There was a truly desperate hunt as Shalorna miraculously not seriously injured ran up and down the road trying to find her baby among the debris. 'It must have been only for minutes, but it felt like hours,' she says. She recalls a surreal moment, in the midst of all the horror and the carnage, when she stopped for a moment, and closed her eyes and opened them again. 'I thought if I closed my eyes, I would wake up from the nightmare I was obviously having.' Then, after calling 999, and not knowing what else to do, she phoned her dad. 'I always phone my dad. If my car needs something for its MOT, I call Dad. If I run out of lightbulbs, I call my dad.' Her mum answered. 'She couldn't make sense of what I was saying but she knew that if I was calling at that time, it was bad. I remember saying, screaming "They are gone, they are gone. I can't find Zack." I was saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry".' Shalorna's sister Karlene, 30, who worked as cabin crew with Tui, suffered appalling internal injuries in the crash This was how her parents learned that they had lost a child and a grandchild. Little wonder that at Durham Crown Court this week, where Darryl Anderson was jailed for 17 years for causing death by dangerous driving, members of the family challenged him to look them in the face. 'He would not,' says Shalorna. 'The man does not seem to be human. His first words after all this were, "I have a business". Who thinks of that first? He also has a daughter, but he didn't say that.' How to adequately convey the devastation that can be unleashed by one selfish and irresponsible maniac? On Tuesday, the court heard Anderson, 38, had ten previous convictions for 12 offences, including drink driving. An empty bottle of vodka was found in the debris after the collision, and such were the levels of alcohol in his system that Judge Joanne Kidd told him: 'You played Russian roulette with the lives of every man, woman and child you passed on that journey.' This is Shalorna's first interview since that terrible day, although it's taking place not at the home she and her partner Jack shared with baby Zack. They have not been able to face returning to that house, so Jack's employers have arranged temporary accommodation. 'I can't walk back in there because every room will be full of Zack. His ball pit in the living room, his bath seat in the bathroom.' A copy of the order of service from baby Zack and his Auntie Karlene's funeral sits on the sideboard as Shalorna speaks. There, too, are Zack's ashes in the smallest-size urn you can get. Anderson, 38, who was jailed this week, was doing 141 miles per hour and was three times over the drink-drive limit He had ten previous convictions for 12 offences, including drunk driving. He is pictured failing a breathalyser test after the crash The family decided that, in the circumstances, a joint funeral was fitting. Shalorna thinks her older sister 30 to her 26 would have understood that in the moments after the impact, when the car (or what was left of it) had stopped spinning and Karlene was not responding to her desperate screams, Shalorna had to leave her to go and search for her baby. 'Karlene was a mam too,' she says. 'She had a little girl, who is now three. She would have done the same if it was her daughter who had been in the car. But I do feel guilty. I couldn't be with both of them.' That very same conflict Shalorna felt that night 'when my whole world was ripped from me' is replicated today, as she struggles to navigate mourning for her son and her sister simultaneously. 'How do you grieve twice?' she asks. 'It's Zack I think of every minute, but I think I just haven't begun to grieve for Karlene yet. I miss her so much. We told each other everything. She's the one I would have been able to phone and say "I can't do this", but she's not here.' Yet there is comfort that they died together. 'It means Zack's not alone. I don't think I would be here if I thought he was alone. My sister was the best mam, and I know she will take care of him.' Zack was her 'rainbow baby' - a term used to describe a baby born after parents have suffered a loss. 'I'd always wanted to be a mam,' she explains, as she charts his little life. 'But we lost a baby in 2022. At the scan there was no heartbeat. We spent a year trying to get pregnant, which was really hard, and then in January 2023, I fell pregnant with Zack but worried all the way through. When he arrived, I couldn't stop crying at how perfect he was.' Zack was born into a huge and loving family. There were three sisters. Karlene, Lareesa, 28 and Shalorna was the youngest. Their parents now live in France (although have spent much of their time since the crash in the UK, offering support). All the sisters were living their dreams. Lareesa worked as cabin crew, and Karlene ('bubbly, heart of gold, the best big sister you could want') had just landed a similar job with Tui. Karlene had been on holiday, but had to fly home early because she was on standby to work. With so many members of the family out of the country, she'd asked Shalorna if she could pick her up at the airport, apologising for the fact the flight landed in the early hours. Shalorna agreed. Her nights were disjointed anyway because Zack was still waking every three hours for a feed. Also, Jack was away in Scotland for work, 'so Zack was always going to come with me'. She remembers dressing him extra warm for the trip. 'I put a blue baby suit that my mam had bought on him because it was cosy and had a fluffy lining.' She clipped him into the seat, as meticulous as ever. Although the flight was due in at 1.30am it was over an hour later by the time Karlene cleared passport control. In that time little Zack woke for a feed. Sharlorna, parked up outside the airport, gave him what would be his final bottle, then had 'a little cuddle'. Karlene, pictured with Zack, had been on holiday and asked Shalorna if she could pick her up at Newcastle airport Despite the hour, there were shrieks of delight as Karlene finally leapt into the car, leaning round to gasp at how big Zack was getting, full of tales from her holiday. Roadworks meant a route change so Karlene brought up the sat nav on her phone as Shalorna took a longer route home, through Newcastle city centre and out along the A1. Unbeknownst to them, Anderson, fresh from his own holiday in Turkey, was making the same journey. He had rowed with his wife, who had flown home early. He joked with staff at the airport that he was heading off to Bradford to find another wife. He had clearly been drinking, although no-one knew how much. There was barely any traffic on that road. No reason to suspect what was to come. The first thing Shalorna remembers was a massive bang, then 'a sensation I can't even put into words' as the car spun, crossed into the opposite carriageway and crashed into a wall. The left hand passenger door flew off, as did other parts of the car. Shalorna was aware of none of it. 'I wasn't sure if the car had flipped, spun. I didn't know where we were, what was happening. And I was fighting with something, a curtain, a deflated balloon. I didn't know what, but it was the airbags. I'd never experienced airbags going off before.' Bloodied and cut by flying glass herself ('I have no idea how Karlene had the injuries she had, when I didn't even have a broken leg or arm'), she looked to her left, to see her sister, lifeless. 'I was shouting "Karlene!", waiting for her to answer me but nothing came. Then I thought "Zack".' She tells me that in the movies drivers of crashed cars have to struggle to get out of a vehicle, but 'my door just opened'. She told her sister, 'I will come back for you', then staggered out and around her car. And she could not believe what she was seeing. 'Part of the back seat just wasn't there. Bits of the car were everywhere, all over the road. And there was no sign of Zack. I was screaming '"Zack, Zack", lifting random bits of metal. It just didn't feel real. I kept thinking, "I will wake up, please let me wake up".' She remembers Karlene's suitcase being intact, bizarrely, and hauling it out of the way to see if Zack was behind it. 'I ran up and down that road. I listened. I don't know. I thought I might hear him.' At one point she spied Anderson himself. 'I didn't know if he was the other driver, or just someone who had stopped. I said, "Help. I can't find my baby".' Anderson simply stood there. 'He did not help.' Due to roadworks Shalorna took a longer route home, through Newcastle city centre and out along the A1 Among the debris , she spotted the baby seat, mangled and barely recognisable, and still attached to the car seat. And Zack was not in it. 'Afterwards, the police spent four hours with me going over it, and I still don't understand how he came out. But they just said that in a collision at that speed, with that impact...' It was a lorry driver, who had stopped on the other carriage way, who was the first to spot baby Zack. 'The lorry driver cried out. It was an awful cry. I knew. I ran over and there was my baby, lying by the side, on his back, as if he was sleeping. His little legs had come out of the sleepsuit. The buttons must have been off with the impact, but there was very little blood and just a cut on his head. 'I picked him up, I just had to. I will never forget that hug, and the thing is, he still looked perfect.' Hardened police officers have never quite recovered from the scenes they were greeted with that night. What is utterly extraordinary is that Shalorna talks about how sorry she felt for them. 'I know they are trained, but those police officers, the paramedics, that doctor who stopped. They should never have had to see those things, and they were amazing. 'Afterwards, when we were just spending time with Zack at the hospital and then the funeral home, we realised his little comforter, which we used to attach to his dummy, was still missing. I begged the police to find it, and they did, at the scene. That meant a lot. We still sleep with it every night.' Contrast that evidence of humanity with the exact opposite displayed by Anderson, who concocted a ridiculous story about how he wasn't even driving; a hitch-hiker he had picked up was. 'Anyone normal would have been heartbroken if they had killed a baby. He still only thought of himself.' Then came the funeral. Shalorna picked Zack's little outfit a Babygro his nan had given him, with pandas on. She wanted to be the one to 'tuck him in nice' for the final time. 'I put his bobble blanket around him, and arranged his teddies'. She and Jack carried the tiny coffin, which followed Karlene's coffin during the funeral procession. 'It felt like I was carrying the world, even thought it can't have been that heavy,' she recalls. Shalorna, right, is determined to speak out to press for change around drink driving laws. She hopes people will sign a petition which she can then take to Downing Street Hers is the true life sentence. The saddest thing she says to me is that her dream was always to be a mum, and now 'it has been taken from me, twice'. People have said she is still young; there can be other children. She shakes her head. 'I don't know if I can go through that again, knowing that you can lose it all, but at the same time my mam says, "Do not let him take your dreams from you, too".' There is a remarkable strength there, though, underneath the pain. Despite being still raw from grief, she is determined to speak out today, to press for changes to drink driving laws. First, she was horrified to discover that, as things stand, Anderson will be able to get behind the wheel of a car again one day. 'He received a 21-and-a-half year ban, but we feel that should be a lifetime ban. He had been disqualified before. This WAS his second chance, and he killed two people. 'On what planet does he deserve a third chance? If someone has a gun licence and shoots people dead, they will never get another one. He used that car as a weapon so the same should apply.' Then there is the length of that sentence. 'The maximum that he could have had was 25 years inside, but because he pleaded guilty eventually there was an automatic reduction. I have trouble with that. 'My mam likens it to having a Tesco Clubcard, so getting a reduction on the price. But even with the 17 years, he will only serve a portion. With good behaviour he could be out in nine years.' She looks at a photo of Zack and notes that he would not even have started secondary school by that time. It's hard to think of anyone more qualified to challenge the drink driving laws, and make sure men like Anderson can never get behind the wheel again. She hopes people will sign a petition which she can then take to Downing Street. 'It won't bring Zack or Karlene back, but it might stop this happening to another family,' she says. 'Because this was preventable. They did not need to die.' Sign Shalorna's petition at https://www.change.org/p/implement-mandatory-lifelong-driving-bans-for-deaths-caused-by-dangerous-driving A corporate manager has been criticised for an 'illegal' and 'shameful' act after one of his employees resigned. The boss attempted to reassign all of the departed employee's work to another woman without a pay increase. He suggested she stay late every night for almost two months to make up having a 50 per cent extra workload. The boss originally tried to disguise the extra work as a 'favour' but quickly changed his tune when the employee refused, claiming it was 'non-negotiable'. Creator Ben Askins shared a video detailing the text exchange between the manager and employee. 'Hey, really sorry but I need a big favour,' the boss began. 'So Lucy has just resigned and is going to be leaving this Friday. I'm going to need you to take on all of her clients until we find a replacement.' The employee was stunned, but was willing to work with her manager and said: 'Oh my God, I had no idea. How many clients does she have and what does that mean exactly? My hands are pretty full at the moment.' 'She has four accounts that need tending to. We're going to start hiring for her replacement next month and shouldn't take long to get someone in so I reckon it will only be 6-8 weeks ish,' the boss replied. A corporate manager has been criticised for an 'illegal' and 'shameful' act after one of his employees resigned The boss attempted to reassign all of the departed employee's work to another woman without a pay increase The employee was shocked. 'I'm really sorry but that's way too much time,' she politely declined. 'I'm already looking after eight clients and I'm at capacity. There's no way I can work on four more.' After that, the boss offered empty consolations: 'Don't stress, you're a superstar. I'm sure you'll figure it out.' 'What do you mean, I'll figure it out. Isn't it your job to figure this stuff out?' the employee shot back. The boss revealed he had no patience for the employee's outburst. 'Whoa! There's no need for that attitude. I've figured it out by assigning them to you. Now it's your job to manage your own work load. If you work a couple extra hours each day you should be able to manage.' The boss originally tried to disguise the extra work as a 'favour' but quickly changed his tune when the employee refused, claiming it was 'non-negotiable' Furious at her boss's behaviour, the employee claimed she was managing her work load 'just fine' but it would be impossible to add on Lucy's clients as well The employee claimed she was 'fried' at the end of her work days but still asked how much more pay she'd receive to consider the offer. 'There wouldn't bet be any extra pay,' the boss revealed. 'The extra hours was just an idea. It is on you to manage your own workload and if you can't do it in normal hours it might help to stay late.' Furious at her boss's behaviour, the employee claimed she was managing her work load 'just fine' but it would be impossible to add on Lucy's clients as well. 'It's not optional,' the boss said. 'But if it helps, I may be able to sort some food and a taxi home.' The employee stood her ground: 'Sorry, that's not good enough. I'd rather catch the train home at a regular time and eat my own food. There's no way I can take on these clients and I'm not staying and burning myself out for fun. If you have a problem with that then so be it.' The boss finally offered to take on two of Lucy's clients, which meant the employee would only have to stay late once or twice a week. 'No, that is not an option,' she insisted. The boss finally offered to take on two of Lucy's clients, which meant the employee would only have to stay late once or twice a week Hundreds slammed the boss for his illegal management style. 'If my boss wanted me to do 50 per cent more work for free, I would also be resigning,' a woman wrote. 'Not to mention that this employee is doing twice the work as the employee who is resigning,' one pointed out. 'We all know they weren't going to try and hire a replacement. They would have just said she was doing great and keep going,' a third added. It was an odious encounter with a nurse in a remote Alberta hospital that persuaded Heather Hancock how Canada's euthanasia system was coming badly off the rails. Hancock suffered from cerebral palsy since infancy and was used to bullying from her school days, but the treatment she got at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital was something else. A nurse was helping her into the bathroom at night, during a lengthy bout of care for muscular spasms in 2019, when the carer crossed a line into the unthinkable. 'You should do the right thing and consider MAiD,' said the nurse, referring to the country's Medical Assistance in Dying program. 'You're being selfish. You're not living, you're merely existing.' Heather Hancock, 56, says medical teams see her as a waste of healthcare dollars nowadays A nurse at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital in Alberta told her she was 'selfish' for taking up hospital resources Hancock, now 56, says she was 'gobsmacked' but stood her ground, telling the nurse that her life had value, even if she spent four fifths of it in a wheelchair. 'You have no right to push me to accept MAiD,' she recalls saying to her sneering carer. She later complained about the nurse, who was taken off her care team, but did not make an official complaint. Health Alberta said the nurse's comments were 'entirely unacceptable.' Poll Should doctor-assisted suicide be available where you live? Yes No Not sure Should doctor-assisted suicide be available where you live? Yes 8804 votes No 6719 votes Not sure 1475 votes Now share your opinion For Hancock, it was the most egregious, but not the only time her supposed carers advised her to end her discomfort with a lethal injection. On three separate occasions, medical staff nudged her toward MAiD, she says all of them after Canada launched its euthanasia program in 2016. That system has expanded rapidly. Last year, doctors helped 15,280 suffering people end their lives prematurely, according to estimates obtained by DailyMail.com a 15 percent jump on 2022. Some 60,000 people have died from MAiD since the program was launched, and it accounts for 4.6 percent of all fatalities. Doctor-assisted suicides helps recipients escape the misery of cancer, heart disease and other terminal illnesses, but for Hancock and others with disabilities, its availability has changed the way they are seen by carers. 'They just view me as a drain on the medical system and that my healthcare dollars could be spent on an able-bodied person,' she says. Hancock was born in Alberta in 1968 and lived, studied, and worked as a hospital clerk for many years in British Colombia. Her worsening muscular condition forced her to stop working more than a decade ago. Americans should look at Canada before they open the 'Pandora's Box' of assisted dying, warns Heather Hancock Euthanasia deaths jumped by more than 15 percent from 2022 to 2023, our projection shows Heather Hancock pictured here with her father when she was 21 and able to stand unassisted Heather Hancock, pictured here in 2017, has had to use a wheelchair more frequently throughout her life, and nowadays uses one 80 percent of the time Spina bifida sufferer Tracy Polewczuk says nurses treat her like a 'sack of meat' She nowadays claims disability benefits and lives in an assisted facility in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, writing and campaigning against assisted suicides in Canada and the US. Canada's system is far more advanced than America's, where recipients in 10 states and Washington can request a cocktail of drugs that they ingest themselves, most often at home. About a dozen US states have debated bills to legalize procedures this year. Legislation in Delaware cleared both houses, leaving Gov John Carney with the ultimate decision about whether to sign it into law. 'Take a look at what's going on in this country,' Hancock said in a warning to Americans. 'It's a Pandora's Box. Once the lid is off, you cannot control it. All the restrictions disappear really quickly and your freedoms are undermined.' Hancock is far from alone disability rights groups in both countries say MAiD leaves the impaired even more vulnerable. Another Canadian, Tracy Polewczuk, came forward this month about suffering similar problems in Quebec. Polewczuk has spina bifida, a birth defect that can cause weak bones, and bemoans the worsening daily home care visits she gets in Pointe-Claire, Montreal. 'Pain sucks. We all agree. It's terrible. I'm in pain 24/7. It never stops. I can survive that,' she told CTV News. 'I cannot survive being treated like a sack of meat.' On two separate occasions and without prompting, Polewczuk says she was told she was eligible for MAiD by members of her care team. 'It feels like we are being pushed towards the MAiD program instead of being given the help to live,' Polewczuk said. Nearly two thirds of Canada's recipients of assisted suicides are sufferers of cancer Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's liberal government, Canada has repeatedly made it easier to access euthanasia More than 99.9 percent of Canada's assisted suicides are carried out by a doctor 'I want to survive. I want to thrive. I want my life back. I want the opposite of what they're trying to have us do.' MAiD teams are available in all Canadian hospitals to present the elderly and infirm with the option of a doctor-assisted death. But nurses are not supposed to be badgering disabled people about the terminal option as was the case with Polewczuk and Hancock. 'We are sorry and disgusted to hear of Heather's experience,' Andrea Smith, a spokeswoman for Health Alberta, told DailyMail.com. 'In Alberta, there are no circumstances where an individual should ever be pressured into MAiD for any reason, let alone because an individual has a disability. What occurred here is entirely unacceptable.' Canada's road to allowing euthanasia began in 2015, when its top court declared that outlawing assisted suicide deprived people of their dignity and autonomy. It gave national leaders a year to draft legislation. The resulting 2016 law legalized both euthanasia and assisted suicide for people aged 18 and over, provided they met certain conditions. They had to have a serious, advanced condition, disease, or disability that was causing suffering and their death was looming. The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people. Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially decades of life left. Today, any adult with a serious illness, disease, or disability can seek help in dying. Officials in February delayed plans to expand MAiD access to those with mental illnesses, kicking a decision back to 2027. There are also efforts to make euthanasia available to 'mature minors.' Euthanasia is legal in seven countries Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain plus several states in Australia. Other jurisdictions, including a growing number of US states, allow doctor-assisted suicide in which patients take the drug themselves, typically crushing up and drinking a lethal dose of pills prescribed by a physician. In Canada, both options are referred to as MAiD, though more than 99.9 percent of such procedures are carried out by a doctor. The number of MAiD deaths in Canada has risen steadily by about a third each year. Almost half of adults did not even bother trying to see an NHS dentist over the past two years as many were deterred by long waits and high fees, an official survey reveals. Just 52.4 per cent of patients responding to the NHS England study last tried to book an appointment during that timeframe - but almost one in four of those people (23.7 per cent) were unable to get one. Meanwhile, over a quarter - 26.8 per cent - of those who did not attempt to see an NHS dentist said they now go private. Only slightly fewer - 24.7 per cent - did not think they would get an appointment even if they tried, while 5.6 per cent say the NHS fees for check-ups and treatments are too expensive. The Nuffield Trust think-tank, which previously warned NHS dentistry 'has gone for good' and must be rationed to stand a chance of surviving, described the latest findings as 'deeply troubling'. Just 52.4 per cent of patients responding to the NHS England study last tried to book an appointment during that timeframe - but almost one in four of those people (23.7 per cent) were unable to get one (stock image) Meanwhile, over a quarter - 26.8 per cent - of those who did not attempt to see an NHS dentist said they now go private (stock image) It comes after Wes Streeting met the British Dental Association earlier this week to discuss potential reforms to the NHS dentistry contact, which members say is killing the service. The health secretary has vowed to deliver 700,000 emergency appointments after hearing how patients have resorted to DIY dentistry, including pulling out their own teeth, after struggling to access care even when in pain. Almost 700,000 adults completed the GP Patient Survey, which was commissioned by NHS England and asks about the level of service delivered by GPs, dentists and pharmacists. Responses to its questions on GPs highlight the demise of the 'family doctor' and show fewer than three in four patients are happy with their practice, with long waits and struggles getting through on the phone fuelling dissatisfaction. Only one in three patients (32.8 per cent) now have a preferred healthcare professional they like to see at their surgery and just 39.7 per cent of these say they get to speak to this person 'always or almost always' or 'a lot of the time'. This is despite studies showing regularly seeing the same GP can improve health outcomes and reduce pressure on hospitals. It comes after Wes Streeting met the British Dental Association earlier this week to discuss potential reforms to the NHS dentistry contact, which members say is killing the service Dr Becks Fisher, director of research and policy at the Nuffield Trust, said: 'The results on dentistry are deeply troubling. Only about half of people have even tried to get an NHS appointment in the last two years. 'Of those who didn't try, for over 60 per cent this was because of price, waits, private alternatives or the simple unavailability of NHS care. 'Labour's pot of money for urgent and emergency appointments will help patients, but it just isn't going to turn around a situation where half of adults aren't getting the care they should on the NHS. 'The new Government need to build on the promising talks with dentists this week to deliver the reform of the contract they have promised - a contract which has failed dentists and patients for nearly twenty years.' On GPs, Dr Fisher added: 'Particularly worrying is that despite clear evidence that seeing the same health professional over time improves patient outcomes, the proportion of people who have a preferred clinician is falling, and the proportion who actually get to see that clinician is now well below half. 'Having promised to 'bring back the family doctor', the new Government must use guidance and incentives to make this happen for more people, even if it means not demanding as many other things from GPs.' Doctors are warning that common winter viruses such as influenza appear to be growing in potency, with some who have caught the bugs being bedridden for weeks. Cases of whooping cough, the flu and gastro have surged this year, with the spike in illness hitting children hard and adding 'unprecedented' pressure on some hospitals. Influenza infections in 2024 are already 27 per cent higher than the first six months of last year, with more than 170,000 cases and 29 per cent of those in children under nine years old. Vaccine fatigue and perhaps scepticism and fear about jabs after Covid 19 have been blamed for people skipping the flu shot this year, but GPs are urging people to roll up their sleeve, particularly as some strains of viruses going around this winter appearing to be particularly strong. Royal College of General Practitioners rural chair Michael Clements said the figures for those affected were likely much higher as many people don't get tested. One flu victim, Steph Pase, took to social media to describe her experience after a case of the flu last month stuck around for two weeks and developed into pneumonia. 'Guys, you do not want influenza A,' the young mum said. 'I've never been sicker in my life, and I've had Covid. I'm someone who can get sick as a dog and refuse to stay in bed. I need to get up, but this thing has just kicked me on my a**,' she said. Steph Pase said she was 'put on her a**' by a particularly nasty case of Influenza A which sent her to the emergency department Winter lurgies are back with a vengeance with strains this year appearing to be strong Dr Joel Ten, National Asthma Council Australia spokesperson and Melbourne-based GP, said he's 'certainly heard' some strains of flu this year have been intense. 'I've seen a number of patients who have reported that they've had quite severe symptoms, but it does depend from person to person,' he told Yahoo News. Ms Pase said she had briefly recovered but then her flu came back with a vengeance. 'It's no joke, it's 20 times worse than Covid,' she said. 'If you think you've got it go to the doctor.' She later revealed her flu had turned into pneumonia. 'My doctor told me to come in as my heart rate had been high for three days. 'He sent me to hospital and I was in emergency for a few hours. They gave me a drip of antibiotics and fluids plus two lots of antibiotics to take home.' Sydneysider Natalie Hunt said she has been bedridden for three weeks with a respiratory virus despite resting and eating healthily. 'This is the longest and nastiest illness I've had since I was a kid... green chesty mucus, cough, fatigue, swollen glands, lower back pain and blocked ears. 'When I had Covid, I had acute symptoms but it only lasted a few days. With this I feel like I'm going to recover but just wake up the same.' Dr Ten said the virus could seem 'subjectively' worse because Covid shots ameliorated symptoms but many are not getting vaccinated for the flu. It is expected cases will climb as the winter virus peak hits warmer areas in August or September. 'We certainly are concerned that this is going to continue to increase and potentially overwhelm the hospital systems,' Dr Clements said. Australia has seen more than 170,000 cases of flu this year which is a nearly 30 per cent rise on last year (pictured: a computer graphic of flu virus) His comments echo NSW Health Minister Ryan Park, who attributed 'unprecedented' demand on emergency departments in his state to a 30 per cent jump in flu cases, combined with fewer GPs working in the community. Victoria's health department warns vaccine coverage of influenza remains 'low' in all age groups including children, despite a sixfold increase in emergency department presentations due to the flu from April to June. Dr Clements said there's likely no single cause of the jump in flu, but it could be due to lower herd immunity, previous COVID-19 infection which has lowered immunity, more international travel and people going to work while unwell. Cases of whooping cough, have already surged past pre-pandemic levels to more than 12,900 so far in 2024, with total infections in 2023 a quarter of that. More than 60 per cent of cases have been in children under 14, with NSW health warning of 'unseasonably high' infections of whooping cough and pneumonia in school-aged children. 'These are spikes, we certainly have to acknowledge that they are big increases on the last years,' Dr Clements said. Cases of a particular gastro strain have also already tripled the 2023 total, surging to more than 11,700. Cryptosporidiosis, a type of gastroenteritis caused by a parasite, is spread in swimming pools, and anyone with symptoms is advised to stay out of the water for at least four weeks as they could still be shedding the virus, which can survive chlorine. A mum has claimed the acrylics she treated her daughter to became so badly infected she was forced to have her nail surgically removed. Rebecca Scott, from Runcorn in Cheshire, paid 45 for a set for 15-year-old Laylah Crane, ahead of her year 11 prom in June. But after knocking two of her fingers days later Laylah's acrylics tore part of her natural nails. It was only after visiting Ms Scott's nail technician friend that she discovered 'yellow pus' under her thumb and she was rushed to an urgent care centre. Here, she was told to attend Alder Hey Children's Hospital where medics confirmed the acrylics had triggered the infection, Ms Scott said. Rebecca Scott (left), from Runcorn in Cheshire, paid 45 for a set for 15-year-old Laylah Crane, ahead of her year 11 prom in June. But after knocking two of her fingers days later Laylah's (right) acrylics tore part of her natural nails It was only after visiting Ms Scott's nail technician friend that she discovered 'yellow pus' under her thumb and she was rushed to an urgent care centre Here, she was told to attend Alder Hey Children's Hospital where medics confirmed the acrylics had triggered the infection, Ms Scott said Now, she is urging women to check the products used on their nails before going ahead with treatment, after fearing a dangerous chemical may be to blame. Recalling Laylah's ordeal, Ms Scott, 37, said: 'On the Sunday following prom she knocked one of her fingers. 'There was a little bit of blood around so it looked like it had lifted her natural nail a little bit but you couldn't really tell and because she wasn't in a lot of pain she forgot about it. 'But then on the following Tuesday she knocked her thumb. 'There was no chip at all in the acrylic because it was that strong. But, on her thumb, it had ripped her natural nail and didn't look good at all. 'One of my close friends is a nail tech so I rang her and she told me to come down to the salon and she would soak the existing nails off so she could have a look at the damage caused. 'She soaked the nails off. When she got to the finger, she slowly filed this nail off as it was sore and didn't want to put any product on it.' She added: 'When she filed it down, she found that there was an infection and a lot of yellow pus under the finger. 'Laylah has now had her nail removed. She had to undergo a general anaesthetic and be put to sleep to remove her natural nail. 'They can't guarantee that her thumb nail will grow back. It can do, but sometimes it doesn't so she may be left without a thumbnail for life. Ms Scott now believes Laylah's infection was triggered by the chemical methyl methacrylate (MMA) used by the original salon. The powerful substance used to make some types of nail extensions has been branded 'poisonous' by some industry experts. It is banned in the US and Australia but not in the UK. Instead, technicians are advised to use ethyl methacrylate (EMA) or a less dangerous substitute. The chemicals in nail polishes, known as methacrylates, can cause an allergic reaction if they leak into the skin, which can see nails loosen and the skin develop a severe, itchy rash, Once the skin is exposed to methacrylates, the body will no longer tolerate acrylates, meaning anyone with an allergy cannot have medical procedures in which the chemicals are used. Ms Scott now believes Laylah's infection was triggered by the chemical methyl methacrylate (MMA) used by the original salon. Pictured, Laylah's acrylic nail after she knocked it Ms Scott claimed when Laylah knocked her nails, her acrylics should have come off. The strong substance used, however, caused her natural nails to lift off instead Experts have previously warned MailOnline the allergy can occur at high street nail salons if the technician fails to keep a client's hands under the ultraviolet (UV) light for long enough either because they are rushed or poorly trained. There is no single qualification required to be a nail technician but professionals often have either a beauty apprenticeship or diploma in manicures. But in some cases, the diploma can take as little as a single day. Ms Scott claimed when Laylah knocked her nails, her acrylics should have come off. The strong substance used, however, caused her natural nails to lift off instead. She added: 'The [second] nail technician suspected that [the original technician] had used MMA on the nails. 'When normal acrylic is soaked off it should go to a flaky substance but when she was soaking this off it went into a glue and said she thought it was MMA. 'The doctor said she had an infection under the nail and because the nail had been knocked, they said because the acrylic was so strong it lifted the natural nail underneath. 'If an acrylic is knocked it should pop off and come away from the natural nail but because the acrylic used on Laylah's nails was so strong it pulled her natural nail bed off and this is because they used the MMA substance. 'Her nails didn't even last a week. It's a lot of money to throw away.' She added: 'It's upsetting because you get a lot of nail technicians charging the same price but they are using genuine products. 'Then you've got salons that are using cheap products and charging ridiculous prices and it's not good. 'You should do your research before getting your nails done and go to a reputable salon. 'People need to do the research of where they are getting their nails done. 'I think this has put Laylah off for life. I don't think she'll get acrylic nails done again.' Slowed speech, pauses, and using the same handful of words. If you've witnessed these habits in an elderly loved one, it could be an early warning sign of dementia. New research is beginning to untangle what the natural signs of aging look like and which could be due to serious brain conditions when it comes to how people talk. For example, forgetting the name of a person, place or having difficulty finding words is natural and linked to memory retrieval, which gets worse as we get older. However, this combined with slowed or slurring speech, blank pauses, and limited vocabulary may represent broader decline, signaling conditions like dementia and Parkinson's. Lawmakers and citizens have called on President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race over concerns about his cognitive health That was the finding of a University of Toronto study in February, which looked at over 100 adults ages 18 to 90. Those who were unable to quickly verbalize what they were looking at in pictures were more likely to say the wrong word. The findings may be considered timely, as lawmakers and voters repeatedly call for President Joe Biden to step down over concerns about his cognitive health. The 81-year-old suffered another disastrous press conference this week, during which he repeatedly misspoke and lost his train of thought. At one point, he mistakenly referred to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as 'President Putin.' He then accidentally called Vice President Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump.' And at a presidential debate against Donald Trump last month, Biden found himself trailing off. 'Making sure that were able to make every single solitary person eligible for what Ive been able to do with the... with the COVID... excuse me... dealing with everything we have to do with' he said before freezing for several seconds. '...look, we finally beat Medicare,' he continued. Then it emerged the White House was visited eight times by a Parkinson's doctor in the past year, amid speculation that Biden's speech problems are signs of the brain disorder. To test if trouble finding words really is an accurate indicator of brain health in older adults, the University of Toronto researchers looked at 125 healthy adults. The patients were divided into three groups: young, middle-aged, and old. Young participants had an average age of 26, middle-aged were 48 years old on average, and older adults had an average age of 70. The first phase involved a 'picture-word interference task.' Researchers showed the participants pictures of everyday objects - a broom, for example - while playing an audio clip of a word that is either related - such as 'mop' - or one that sounds similar - 'groom,' for instance. The team found that older adults who naturally spoke faster were quicker to correctly name the pictures, suggesting that slower language processing might be a sign of cognitive decline rather than having trouble remembering words. Neurologists have also told DailyMail.com that President Biden shows signs of Parkinson's disease, such as a stiff gait (seen here) While this might sound obvious, people's communications styles do change as they get older, and sometimes it's nothing to worry about. For example, struggling to find words is something that comes with age. Older people also exhibit subtle changes to their speech, such as speaking slower, pausing between words, and a lack of variety of words used. But struggling to identify the word itself from memory, sometimes called the 'tip-of-the-tongue' phenomenon, combined with these speech changes could be a precursor of conditions like dementia, the researchers warned. Dementia researchers at the University of Sussex Claire Lancaster and Alice Stanton, who were not involved in the research, wrote for The Conversation: 'This study underscores the potential of speech rate changes as a significant yet subtle marker of cognitive health that could aid in identifying people at risk before more severe symptoms become apparent.' 'This study has opened exciting doors for future research, showing that it's not just what we say but how fast we say it that can reveal cognitive changes.' Biden's cognitive health has widely been called into question, with neurologists telling DailyMail.com the President exhibits signs of Parkinson's disease, including speech difficulties and a stiff gait. However, Biden maintains that he intends to stay in the presidential race, despite mounting concerns. Most new cars face up to 20 years of declining value before being sent to the scrap yard. But a select few emerge as cherished classics or collectibles. I've spoken to motoring experts and classic car enthusiasts to compile a guide to the future modern classics that could make worthwhile investments. Volkswagen ID Buzz This futuristic take on retro design harks backs to the much loved VW campervan. It was an instant hit, even before launching, thanks to its all-electric, zero-emissions status. Its fun look is also sure to draw the attention of enthusiasts. But it's also practical, with flexible seating, boot space and ability to make tight turns like a black cab. Price new: From 58,915 When will it be a classic? 2053 Modern-retro: The Volkswagen ID Buzz was an instant hit Ariel Nomad The Nomad makes the list for its unique design, exposed frame and mechanical innards bringing a mix of fun and extreme performance. Hand-built and sold in small numbers, it is already catching the attention of enthusiasts. Price new: From 33,000 When will it be a classic? 2036 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio A near dead cert to be a classic from Italy, thanks to fantastic looks and superb performance. Rare GTA variants are already selling for more than the list price, making this model one to watch. Price new: From 79,495 When will it be a classic? 2033 Porsche 718 Cayman S The Cayman's engines are downgraded so that they don't outperform their big brother coupe, but the balance, styling and handling are superb. This flawless design alone could make it a five-star hit in the next decade. Rare spec and colours, such as shark blue, will likely become most collectable. Price new: From 63,800 When will it be a classic? 2037 Fiat 124 Spider This stylish car combines the mechanical underpinning of one of the most competent modern roadsters, Japan's MX-5, with gorgeous Italian looks. What's not to love? Add in that it was sold in much smaller numbers than its Mazda relative, and you get all the ticks in the classic box. Price new: From 19,545 When will it be a classic? 2035 Mazda MX-5 The original model of this affordable Japanese convertible was considered a classic after just 18 years of launch in 1989. It's a strong indicator that this model will achieve similar acclaim. Plus it's stylish, sporty and reliable. Price new: From 27,690 When will it be a classic? 2035 Modern-retro: The Volkswagen ID Buzz was an instant hit Citroen speeds up at car 'Oscars' Next-generation versions of Citroen's C3 super-mini have swept the board at the UK's automotive 'Oscars' with a hat-trick of honours just as order books opened. The all-electric Citroen e-C3, from 21,990, was given 'Car of the Year' and 'Affordable Electric Car of the Year' at the 2024 Auto Express awards. The petrol C3 from 17,790 was best supermini. Hat-trick: Next-generation versions of Citroen's C3 super-mini have swept the board at the UK's automotive 'Oscars' The electric e-C3 is the first model from parent company Stellantis to feature a new 'EV-focused' platform, using a 44kWh battery for up to 199 miles of driving range. Acceleration from 0 to 62mph takes around ten seconds, up to a top speed of 82mph. Judges praised its pricing and funky mini-SUV style. Auto Express editor Paul Barker said: 'Citroen e-C3 breaks new ground in the electric vehicle segment.' Investors can now get a flexible stocks and shares Isa from investment platform Freetrade FreeTrade* launched the flexible feature to allow investors to withdraw and replace money without impacting their annual Isa allowance, so long as it is put back in the same tax year. Flexibility is a useful tax-beating feature to have, allowing savers and investors to dip into funds and pay them back without losing allowance - and is more commonly found in cash Isas. If an investor needed to withdraw 5,000 temporarily from their stocks and shares Isa and it was not a flexible, they would lose 5,000 from that year's Isa allowance when they replaced it. But an investor withdrawing 5,000 from a flexible stocks and shares Isa would still be able to keep every penny of their 20,000 Isa allowance, so long as they replaced the 5,000 they withdrew within the same tax year. Viktor Nebehaj, CEO of Freetrade, said: Life is unpredictable and large expenses often can creep up on us. With a flexible Isa, were giving our customers the opportunity to meet these short-term needs, while not sacrificing the long-term benefits of the Isa allowance. Of course, with a stocks and shares Isa, investors would be wise not to dip in and out of their pots frequently. After all, a key element of investing in the stock market is to leave your money invested so it can grow and compound over the long term. But a flexible Isa means investors can keep funds invested that they may need to draw on but then be able to replace. A flexible stocks and shares Isa gives the ability to withdraw funds for big one-off purchases, or major payments - for example a home deposit, property renovations, a big holiday, or school fees - and then replace them in the same tax year. This is Money's Simon Lambert is a fan of flexible Isas and argues that more savers and investors should consider the feature and more banks, building societies and investment platforms should offer flexibility. Not many investment platforms offer flexible stocks and shares Isas, with big guns Hargreaves Lansdown*, Interactive Investor* and AJ Bell* failing to do so. But new Isa rules mean investors can now open more than one of the same type of Isa. How does Freetrade's Isa compare? Freetrade* has fee-free share dealing and offers UK, European and US shares, ETFs and some investment trusts but not investment funds. Freetrade's Basic plan has no account charges, but those who want a stocks and shares Isa must take its 5.99 per month Standard plan. The Plus account is 11.99 per month, which investors need if they want a Sipp Rival Trading 212* also offers a flexible Isa with fee-free share dealing but carries no account charge for its stocks and shares Isa. While it has shares, ETFs and investment trusts, like Freetrade it does not offer funds. Charles Stanley Direct* has a flexible stocks and shares Isa and allows investors to hold shares, ETFs, investment trusts and funds. It has a 0.35 per cent account charge, which is waived for stocks if a trade is made that month. Fund dealing is free but it charges 11.95 to buy and sell shares. Bestinvest* also has a flexible Isa and offers shares, ETFs, investment trusts and funds with a 0.4 per cent account charge cut to 0.2 per cent for its ready-made investment portfolios. Fund dealing is free and share dealing costs 4.95. > Read our full guide: How to choose the best stocks and shares Isa The rise of the flexible Isa Freetrade said that it saw significant demand for flexibility in a stocks and shares Isa. Flexible cash Isas have been rising in popularity in the cash Isa market. Some of the best easy acccess cash Isas at the moment are flexible, for example Plums* 5.17 per cent deal (this rate drops after four withdrawals), Chip's* 5.1 per cent cash Isa and Zopa's 5.08 per cent cash Isa. A flexible Isa is more important than ever at a time when savers are facing a 10.4billion tax bill on their savings interest. When rates were low, interest on savings accounts was so pitiful that the personal savings allowance offered the protection most people needed against tax on their interest. But with rates higher and the personal savings allowance stuck at 1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and just 500 for higher rate taxpayers, its become much easier to fall into the savings tax trap. With a savings rate of 5 per cent, a basic rate taxpayer needs just 20,000 in cash now to breach the allowance, while a higher rate taxpayer needs 10,000. Meanwhile, if you pay 45p tax, you get no personal savings allowance at all. The driver was luckily unharmed, and only body panelling was damaged Lotus has possibly set a new record an accident on a hill climb, accelerating from zero to wrecked in under two seconds. The British brand - which is now Chinese owned - debuted its 2million Evija X electric hypercar at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday afternoon. But within yards of launching off the starting line, the driver unfortunately lost control and veered into the straw bales, promptly redecorating the front-end of the one-of-a-kind 2,000 horsepower vehicle. A one-off Lotus Evija X hypercar crashed just a few feet off the start line at Goodwood Festival of Speed yesterday The 2m prototype veered head-on into the straw bales just seconds into its run on the up-hill course. The driver was luckily unharmed, but the front end of the car was mulch The Evija X is the track version of the Evija production hypercar. It's unclear what caused the crash but commentators believed it might have been a software fault with the all=electric car's four motors Spectators were rightfully expecting something extraordinary from the outrageous prototype Lotus EV, though sadly not in the way it eventually transpired. The Evija X was making its 'dynamic debut' at Goodwood House at the Chichester estate, which hosts the Festival of Speed annually, having recently set a new record elsewhere. Before [sort of] taking part in the first day of this year's event, it had made headlines for clocking the fastest lap time around the Nurburgring for a 'production car-chassis vehicle'. It was so quick, in fact, that it is the third fastest overall time set at the treacherous German circuit, beaten only by the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo and Volkswagen ID.R full-blooded racing cars. Based on the Lotus' 2milion all-electric Evija road car, the 'X' track version - piloted by racing hero Dirk Muller - set a blistering lap time of 6 minutes and 24 seconds when circulating the fearsome Nordschleife. Alas, the all-electric hypercar might now have the unwanted record for the quickest crash in the West Sussex event's history. The crash happened 1.5 seconds into the run. While the unnamed driver thankfully walked away unscathed, the one-off electric hypercar didn't. The Evija X had made headlines for setting the record at the Nordschleife for a vehicle with a chassis of a production car. The X tack version went round the treacherous German racetrack in 6 minutes and 24 seconds Ready, set, nowhere: The Lotus managed less than 3 seconds on the shootout before spinning out It was all a smoke show, with a huge burnout on the start line before the car ended up in the bales The car can be seen to burnout in a cloud of smoke as it launched, only for the 2,000hp machine to immediately lose control and spear into the bales at trackside, well before it reached the first corner. Lotus has confirmed the crash was caused by loss of control from the pro driver, after the car had its build-up altered by a stalled Solus GT. The Evija X had to move around the Solus GT, ending up lining up at a slight angle. The burnout power proved too much, traction couldn't be found and even the most capable driver couldn't keep the car in check. The project car is said to be worth around $2.3million - or around 1.8 million - and although damage to the car was just broken bodywork, due to stringent post-incident safety checks there wasn't time for the car to run again. If Lotus had time to repair the car for a second run, it had all the ingredients to battle for the fastest time ever. The one-off hypercar boasts a 0 to 62mph time of under three seconds thanks to its enormous 2,011hp, 218mph (electronically limited) top speed and 1,704 Newton meters of torque could put it among the quickest cars to ever complete the famous hill climb. Hopefully FoS 2025 can give Lotus a second attempt at shootout glory. Holy Hillclimb, Batman! This dinky Batmobile-looking electric car hurtled up Goodwood's famous Hillclimb course in a new record time in 2022 The current fastest time at the Chichester House hill route is held by a radical British-built electric car. The McMurtry Speirling, a 200mph battery-powered single-seater that uses two fans to suck it to the road, posted a time of 39.08 seconds at the 1.16-mile route in 2022. With former Formula One driver Max Chilton at the wheel, it beat the previous record time - held by a specially developed electric Volkswagen - by almost a second. The dinky McMurtry, which has been likened to a shrunk-down Batmobile, measures in at 1.5 metres wide and 3.3 metres long - that's smaller than a VW Up! city car. I have a total pension value of 177,000 which is held with one provider. Would it be safer to spread it into two providers? If I am not mistaken, the Government will only cover 85,000 of it if something happens to my provider. F.M, via email SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK YOUR FINANCIAL PLANNING QUESTION Safety in numbers? Experts warn that spreading your pension over multiple pots with different providers could result in the loss of some valuable benefits Harvey Dorset, of This is Money, replies: Generally, consolidating your pension into a single pot is a good idea. By doing so, you can save a lot of the hassle that comes with keeping track of multiple pots from throughout your career and can ensure that you don't forget about one of them. However, you are right in saying that your pension may only be protected up to 85,000 if the provider goes under, depending on the type of cover that you have. If this is the case, and the inconvenience of having two pension pots outweighs the risk of losing your money if your provider goes bust, then it may be a good idea to spread your pension over multiple providers. On the other hand, there are other options and benefits that may be offered by yours or other providers that would prove a wiser move. This is Money spoke to three financial advisers to find out what the best move is when it comes to protecting your pension. Best to check: Craig Ridge says depending on your pension product, you could have no cover at all Craig Ridge, independent financial adviser at Flying Colours replies: This is a short question with a long answer. The protection for financial products regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is provided by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). The FSCS is independent of the Government and financial services industry, and the level of protection available to you if a pension provider fails is determined by the type and structure of the pension arrangement. The level of protection ranges between protecting 100 per cent of the value of the pension, to no cover at all. Therefore, it's important to understand the amount of cover you have in place for your specific pension arrangements. If your pension is structured so the provider is holding an underlying product of another provider, then there may still be some protection from the FSCS if the underlying provider fails. However, the level of protection is normally determined by the type of product held. You should also be aware that some pensions are structured so that your pension's funds are kept separate from the company assets by way of a custodian. This means that they cannot be used to pay outstanding debts, should the provider fall into financial difficulty. For those pension schemes which are not protected by the FSCS, you may find they are protected by the Pension Protection Fund or Financial Assistance Scheme. Some pensions have valuable benefits that are lost on transfer and cannot be replicated with a new provider To understand your pension protection position you should refer to the FSCS website as they have a tool which will tell you what they protect. If they are unable to confirm the level of protection, they will provide a set of questions you can ask your provider to help you find out. Most pension providers also provide information on the level of protection applicable to their products. Therefore, you should speak with your provider to confirm the level of protection in place. Regarding the idea of spreading your pension pot across two providers, I'd recommend that you exercise caution. The level of cover available in the event of a provider failing is an important factor, but it's not the only one that needs to be taken into consideration. Pensions can be complicated, and the average person doesn't know what they don't know. This is a dangerous place to be in if you're considering switching your pension. Some pensions have valuable benefits that are lost on transfer and cannot be replicated with a new provider. Also, in certain instances where a transfer takes place and the investor is in poor health, this could lead to an increase in an investor's inheritance tax liability on death. This is where it pays to work with a financial adviser. Their role is to simplify pensions for you. They will assess your current circumstances and future objectives fully and recommend whether you should consider transferring your pension or not. There comes a realisation at some point in most peoples' lives where they recognise that they will be transitioning from accumulating assets and wealth to suddenly living off them (decumulation). For most, their pension is their largest and most important asset in determining whether they're going to struggle or thrive in retirement. So, it needs to be given the level of attention it deserves. If you are considering switching all or part of your pensions you should speak with a financial adviser as an investment in financial advice is an investment in your future financial freedom. Safety net: Didi Ager says the FSCS may be able to step in if your provider goes bust Didi Ager, chartered financial planner at Hargreaves Lansdown, replies: It's important to feel that your money is safe and to know where you stand with your pension savings. All registered pension schemes in the UK will be regulated by either the FCA or The Pensions Regulator (TPR). There are strict rules governing the financial strength of companies as well as the systems and controls that pension providers should have in place to protect your investments, including segregating your assets from their own. If your pension provider has operated within the regulatory systems and controls that they should have in place, your assets would be separate to those of the failed provider. This reduces the possibility of things going wrong, and means your pension monies are ringfenced from the pension providers' assets and can't be used to pay their creditors. However, if the worst happened, your pension provider went out of business and you were unable to transfer the pot to another provider, the FSCS may be able to step in and pay compensation in relation to any shortfall. FSCS protection varies depending on the type of pension product, and there are limits to the amount the FSCS can compensate for. The FSCS doesn't cover market risk or losses made if a company you have invested in goes bust Safety also depends on the underlying savings and investments held in your pension. The value of 'defined contribution' pension savings will go up and down with the performance of your investments. The FSCS doesn't cover market risk or losses made if a company you have invested in goes bust. However, if something happened to an investment provider or bank you had money deposited with, so long as the institution was covered by the FSCS, the FSCS will normally cover 100 per cent, with a limit of 85,000 per investment firm or banking licence. Ensure you deal with appropriately regulated firms and that you check what cover applies to your money. This will help reduce the possibility of losses down the line. In considering whether to spread your pension across more than one provider, factors to weigh up include whether you'd lose any valuable benefits or guarantees; the administrative complexity of having more than one pension provider; and whether you might end up incurring extra charges against where you currently are. Do you prefer having things under the same roof or would you be happy with multiple providers? Before making any decisions, speak to your pension provider or administrator and ask how they ensure your assets are segregated from their own. Protection: Nick Winter says a custodian will separate your funds from your provider's Nick Winter, financial planner at Quilter, replies: Over time, our pension is likely to become one of, if not our biggest asset, there to fund the life we want when we want to hang up our boots so to speak. So, what happens if the provider of your pension or the fund management firm that manages the assets fails? When you invest through a reputable firm, that is authorised and regulated by the FCA, there are several safeguards to protect your money in the highly unlikely event that the provider or the manager of the assets you invest in, become insolvent. For example: Your money and assets are segregated and ring-fenced from the company's own money. The custodians and the asset managers you are invested in provide extensive financial reporting to the regulators, so that they can be assured there are enough assets to meet their liabilities. If all other protection fails, you may be protected by the FSCS What is the FSCS? Nick Winter replies: The FSCS is the UK's statutory compensation scheme for authorised financial services firms. It is independent from the Government and the financial services industry, but it is funded by firms that are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the FCA. It is the fund of 'last resort,' meaning that the FSCS will work with the FCA to seek other ways of maintaining customer's benefits first, for example, finding another provider to take on parts of the defaulting firm's business. There are limits as to how much compensation the FSCS is able to provide, as this is dependent on the type of product you have. What if the pension provider fails? The majority of personal pensions, stakeholder pensions, and other pension products provided by UK-regulated insurance companies qualify as a 'contract of long-term insurance'. If your pension is structured in this way and and the pension provider failed after 1 April 2019, the FSCS covers 100 per cent of your claim, with no upper limit. However, some types of pensions are deemed to be 'uninsured' pension schemes. These will not be covered in the same way or to the same extent as 'contracts of long-term insurance'. For example, if your pension is a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) and the FSCS can pay compensation, you will normally only be able to claim up to 85,000. It may be worth contacting your provider to see what type of pension you have. What if the external fund manager were to fail? Your pension is likely to be invested in funds that provide exposure to different asset classes such as equities, bonds and property. These funds are either pension providers' own funds, known as 'insured funds,' or external mutual funds from other fund houses. A fund manager must appoint a depository and a custodian. The custodian's primary role is to safeguard securities and cash in deposit accounts, held in the depository's name. This segregation separates the funds from the fund manager's own assets, protecting your investments if the fund manager becomes insolvent. This means you would only need to seek compensation from the FSCS if the fund manager acts dishonestly, fraudulently, or negligently. In the unlikely event of this happening, you will normally be able to claim compensation up to 85,000. If you do have a 'contract of long-term insurance' then there would be little benefit from a FSCS point of view to split your pension over two providers. If the provider of said pension fails, you would be eligible to claim 100 per cent with no upper limit. If your pension then invests in external funds, diversification here would be of greater benefit to ensure you do not exceed 85,000 per fund provider. There are thousands of funds available so you will be spoilt for choice, but building a well-diversified portfolio is more difficult than it sounds so seeking financial advice may be of value here. Unilever plans to cut up to 3,200 jobs as the consumer goods giant's new chief executive seeks to turn it around. The struggling conglomerate has come under pressure from shareholders including activist Nelson Peltz to boost growth. The Hellmann's mayonnaise and Dove soap owner said yesterday it will axe around a third of all office roles in Europe by the end of next year, after chief executive Hein Schumacher in March announced a 'productivity programme' to slash as many as 7,500 jobs. Struggle: Cuts will apply 'primarily to office-based roles' and will not include factory jobs 'The expected net impact in Europe is in the range of 3,000 to 3,200 roles,' Constantina Tribou, a human resources officer, said on Wednesday. Cuts will apply 'primarily to office-based roles' and will not include factory jobs, according to the Financial Times. Unilever has not formally decided the exact location of the losses, but staff in London are expected to be affected. It will kick off a consultation process with employees in the coming weeks. 'From a shareholder's point of view, a turnaround was clearly required at an underperforming business,' Jack Martin, a portfolio manager at Oberon Investments, said. 'These measures mean the biggest job cuts in Unilever for decades,' Hermann Soggeberg, the head of Unilever's European Works Council told staff. He said almost all European offices would be affected but particularly the company's corporate headquarters in London and Rotterdam. Unilever has already said it plans to hive off the Anglo-Dutch company's ice cream unit, including Ben & Jerry's, into a separate business. Ben & Jerry's has been a headache. In January, its chair called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and in 2021 it attempted to boycott occupied Palestinian territories. There has also been an investor backlash against 'woke' policies. As part of its turnaround plan, in April the business watered down its targets on plastic packaging, workers' pay and diversity. Schumacher said that he needed to 'drive performance' and rowed back on sustainability pledges. Star fund manager Terry Smith, whose firm Fundsmith is the 10th biggest shareholder, said in 2022 Unilever was 'labouring under the weight of a management obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on fundamentals of the business'. Complaints about banking have hit a 10-year high, with a rising tide of scams fuelling the rise. The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) said these complaints were 'at their highest level in at least a decade' in the 2023/24 financial year. The FOS also said it was investigating more fraud and scam complaints than ever before. Consumers raised 80,137 cases with the free resolution service about banking and payment products in the last year - a rise of 29 per cent on 61,995 in 2022/23. Flurry of fraud: The Ombudsman said more consumers are bringing claims due to scams Consumers brought 24,402 credit card complaints in 2023/24, of which 13,584 were due to unaffordable or irresponsible lending. By comparison, in 2022/23, there were 14,504 credit complaints and just 3,723 were about this complaint issue. Meanwhile fraud and scam cases have risen by a fifth and are now at their highest level with 27,312 complaints in the 2023/24 financial year. Around half of these cases were authorised push payment scams where someone is tricked into sending money online to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee. Aside from current accounts and credit cards, the other three categories in the top five most complained about products were hire purchase (motor), car/motorcycle insurance and conditional sale (motor), all of which saw year-on-year increases. The FOS upheld 37 per cent of the complaints it resolved last year across all areas, which is slightly higher than the 35 per cent recorded in 2022/23. Driving the increase were peoples concerns about their current accounts and credit cards, as well as worries that they may have fallen victim to frauds and scams. The most complained-about financial areas Financial product 2022/23 complaints 2023/24 complaints % difference Current accounts 26,039 30,635 18% Credit cards 14,504 24,402 68% Hire purchase (motor) 11,446 21,441 87% Car and motorbike insurance 11,851 16,322 38% Conditional sale (motor) 1,900 7,829 312% Source: FOS In particular, consumers complained about administration and customer service followed by perceived unaffordable or irresponsible lending by financial firms. But complaints are not just rising in the banking sector. Overall, the Ombudsman is seeing higher case levels across the board, with 198,798 new complaints in 2023/24 compared with 165,149 the previous year. Although banking has seen the most overall complaints, the biggest rise has been with car finance - with conditional sale agreement complaints rising 312 per cent in a year. FOS chief executive Abby Thomas said: 'Its always concerning when you see cases rise so significantly, particularly when so many people are struggling in the current economic climate. 'Whether someone is the victim of a fraud, struggling with credit card debt, or having issues with their overdraft, they deserve support and understanding from their financial provider.' Consumers warned of dodgy claims firms Increasing levels of complaints are being brought by claims management companies (CMCs) and professional representatives. These accounted for 25 per cent of cases in 2023/24 compared to 18 per cent in the previous year. The FOS warned that it has seen 'examples of both good and bad practice' from professional representatives, who help make claims for money or a cut of any compensation. Some of these representatives submit mass claims without any merit, while others fail to respond to the FOS when it asks for more evidence. The FOS said: 'Consumers can bring their case directly themselves to the Financial Ombudsman Service for free and keep 100 per cent of any compensation awarded to them.' James Dipple-Johnstone, FOS deputy chief ombudsman, said: 'A quarter of all cases coming to the Ombudsman were brought by professional representatives in the last financial year. 'While they have an important role to play in resolving financial disputes, they can also gain financially from our service without contributing to the running costs. 'There is sometimes little evidence of due diligence by some representatives to ensure claims they advance have merit.' BAE, valued at 38.2billion, is Britain's biggest player in defence and the largest contractor in Europe. Its products include nuclear submarines, combat vehicles and the Harrier, Hawk and Typhoon jets. The shares have been boosted by war in Ukraine and are set to be even more in focus. Pressure is growing on Keir Starmer to set out a timetable for raising UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP to counter the mounting level of threat. Nato numbers show that the current outlay is 2.3 per cent. Tell me about BAE It was created from mergers that brought together such illustrious British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley and Marconi. But BAE, which sells to the UK, the US and to the AUKUS alliance (Australia, US and the UK), continues to innovate. This year it bought Malloy Aeronautics, a UK start-up that makes unmanned drones for logistics missions. How have shares done? Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, they were 599p. BAE shares are now 1268p, 112 per cent higher. The Hamas attack on Israel last year added to the momentum. There has been a shift in the perception of defence stocks. Widely viewed as unethical, they are now seen as a means of upholding democracy. The Investment Association says: 'Investing in defence companies contributes to our national security, defends the civil liberties we enjoy, while delivering long-term returns for pensions funds and retail investors.' All change: There has been a shift in the perception of defence stocks So why have they dipped? There has been some weakness over the past four weeks. This appears to stem from fears that populist policies in Europe could reduce defence budgets on the basis that far-Right politicians tend to be pro-Putin. Another reason was the belief that ending war in Ukraine (whenever this comes to pass) would curtail spending in the US, UK and elsewhere, regardless of the politics of nations' leaders. As a result, BAE and other European defence stocks have been seen by some as overvalued. At the start of war in Ukraine in 2022, BAE was trading at 13 times earnings. It is now trading at a premium of 21 times. Are these overvaluation fears warranted? It is always reasonable to question the valuation of a share whose price has soared by 41 per cent over the past year. Yet war in Ukraine has changed governments' long-term thinking. Against the background of tensions in the Middle East and enhanced potential for conflict elsewhere they would be unlikely to slash budgets. Saima Hussain of the research group Alpha Value comments: 'Geopolitical tensions continue to underpin momentum in defence stocks.' Most analysts agree, rating BAE a 'hold' or a 'buy'. The average target price is 1460p. But JP Morgan's is 1500p. More than three in five prisons are overcrowded, MailOnline analysis shows. Around 87,500 inmates are currently being housed across England and Wales and prison governors fear they will run out of space within days. Thousands will be automatically freed early under a controversial plan orchestrated by Labour, who have vowed to tackle the crisis. Prisoners, including some criminals convicted of violent offences, will be released after serving just 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than the current 50 per cent. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood warned we face 'a total breakdown of law and order' with 'van-loads of dangerous people circling the country with nowhere to go' without the emergency measure. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. But Tories have accused Sir Keir's Government of 'shameless scaremongering', with hundreds of prison spaces still available nationwide. One Conservative source accused Sir Keir's Government of 'stoking public panic for political gain' and having 'lost their nerve'. Stark internal forecasts warn the prison population could soar by another 18,000 in five years without action, piling extra pressure on an already fragile system. Seventy-three of the 119 occupied prisons (61%) in England and Wales are operating at overcrowded levels, according to MailOnline's analysis of Ministry of Justice data for June. Another 23 operate above 95%, including three Category As HMP Wakefield (99%), HMP Whitemoor (98%) and HMP Manchester (96%). Some facilities have been stretched beyond their limits for over a decade, including scandal-hit HMP Wandsworth, the scene of an escape by terror suspect Daniel Khalife last year, as well as a prison guard being caught on video having sex with an inmate last month. South west London's Category B prison one of the biggest in the country housed more extra criminals than any other facility last month. Government figures show it had more than 1,500 inmates in June, 550 above what it can provide 'normal accommodation' for (running at 157% capacity). Yet HMP Leeds, another Category B, was technically the busiest, running at 172%. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a series of measures designed to ease overcrowding in jails and avert a 'total breakdown of law and order'. In a speech at HMP Five Wells, in Northamptonshire, she said prisons were 'on the point of collapse' Your browser does not support iframes. Capacity for MailOnline's analysis, as measured by Her Majesty's Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) itself, reflects the 'decent standard of accommodation the Service aspires to provide all prisoners' known as Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA). An inmate housed in cells not of a 'certified normal standard' will likely be sharing a room designed for one with another prisoner. In some cases, three people may share cells designed for two. Across England and Wales as a whole, the number of prisoners has exceeded CNA capacity for the entirety of the last decade. ENGLAND AND WALES' PRISONS, IN NUMBERS Last year, two thirds of the nearly 46,500 who criminals who were put behind bars had committed non-violent offences. More than a third of prisoners convicted last year were sentenced to a serve six months or less behind bars, which was the most common length of a sentence. Current figures show that around 12 per cent of prisoners in England and Wales are foreign nationals, with the most imprisoned being Albanians, with 1273 behind bars, followed by Polish with 906. Around 96 per cent of prisoners are male and around four per cent are female. The overwhelming majority (79%) of prisoners are aged 21 to 49. Fifteen per cent are 50 to 69 and just two per cent are 70 or over. Prison populations in England and Wales are at their highest levels since 2011, and have quadrupled since 1900, when around 17,500 people were incarcerated. The prison population is set to soar by more than 20 per cent to 105,800 by March 2028, or a rise of more than 18,000 extra prisoners, according to a Ministry of Justice report released earlier this year. This means to keep crowding in prisons just at current levels, around 28 new prisons-worth of cells would need to be built and staffed. Under the starkest projection given to bosses at the MoJ and His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), the total population could hit 115,000. Advertisement Figures for June show prisons had an 'uncrowded capacity' of nearly 79,700, despite there being more than 87,300 convicts behind bars. Similar figures were seen when the Tories came into power in May 2010 and during Labour's last administration. The MoJ also tracks crowding by 'operational capacity'. This reflects the number of inmates prison directors say the establishment can hold 'taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime'. This means, charity bosses state, some inmates will live in accommodation that does not meet minimum requirements. According to the MoJ's latest figures for the week ending July 12, prisons in England and Wales had a 'usable operational capacity' of 88,956. This indicates that around 1,450 spaces are technically available. But just 700 remain in the adult male estate, with men's prisons having been running at 99 per cent capacity since the beginning of 2023. These figures exclude the 1,350 of other cells purposely kept free as a contingency measure, so prisons have the capacity to operate safely and respond to any urgent or unforeseen circumstances. The Prison Reform Trust told MailOnline the figures show successive governments' 'strategy has failed' in reducing overcrowding. Deputy director Mark Day said: 'The creation of the concept "Operational Capacity" was is in itself an admission of failure by the prison service. 'It was an acknowledgement it was being asked to hold more people than the prison estate was designed to, in worse conditions than it wanted to. 'Since its creation, overcrowded prisons have become the norm, as successive governments have tried to build their way out of the problem. 'But as these figures show, this strategy has failed. The elimination of overcrowding should be the prerequisite of a modern, decent and effective prison system.' Prison Reform Trust chief executive Pia Sinha said overcrowded conditions leave staff at risk and are an 'indignity' for prisoners. She said: 'Overcrowding is more than the indignity of sharing a cell, designed for fewer occupants, for 23 hours a day with people you don't know, and eating in the same space as the unscreened toilet you share. Your browser does not support iframes. 'Its impact affects us all indirectly. 'Nearly all people in prison will return to our communities at some point, and it's in everyone's interest that when they do, they are less likely to commit crime. 'Overcrowding undermines this. 'It means that staff are forced to supervise more people than they're able to safely. Prisoners are forced to spend more time in their cells, rather than in education, training and work. 'It means people in prison are less safe, with hopelessness and frustration fuelling self-ham and assaults. 'Successive governments have tried to build more prisons as a solution to the problem, but as these figures show, this strategy has failed. 'The elimination of overcrowding, and with it our collective safety, can only be achieved by considering who we send to prison and for how long.' In a speech at HMP Five Wells, in Northamptonshire, Ms Mahmood said: 'In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system and a total breakdown of law and order.' Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. She stressed the rule would not apply to violent offenders serving more than four years, sex offenders or those in prison for crimes connected to domestic abuse. Dangerous offenders serving extended or life sentences would also be exempted from the scheme. The change is expected to come into force in September, with the Justice Secretary also announcing the recruitment of 1,000 additional trainee probation officers by March and an end to the previous government's early release scheme, which saw 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early. Ms Mahmood also announced a promise to recruit 1,000 additional trainee probation officers by March and an end to the previous government's early release scheme, which saw 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early. Sir Keir Starmer himself has also vowed to renew efforts to curb reoffending, previously claiming too many people found themselves back in jail 'relatively quickly' after being sent there. Last week the Prime Minister also appointed Timpsons' CEO James Timpson the new minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation as part of his plan to overhaul the sentencing system. Mr Timpson who will be handed a peerage to take up the role has previously advocated for shorter sentences and has been applauded for his schemes in rehabilitating offenders. Some facilities have been stretched beyond their limits for over a decade, including scandal-hit HMP Wandsworth, the scene of an escape by terror suspect Daniel Khalife last year , as well as a prison guard being caught on video having sex with an inmate last month HMP Wandsworth (pictured) is one of the most overcrowded prisons in the country, running at more than 150% capacity He employs 650 ex-offenders, who he refers to as 'someone with prison experience', in the Timpson family firm. In 2021, he wrote: 'Frankly, it is crazy we still lock up more of our fellow citizens than almost any other European country. If we don't do everything we can to help people get a job and a place to live on release, we're only hurting ourselves twice over.' And earlier this year, Mr Timpson said Britain was 'addicted to punishment' and suggested only a third of inmates should 'definitely' be behind bars. The Ministry of Justice already pledged to build six new prisons to create an extra 20,000 places as demand grows for cell spaces. Labour has said it wants to build more facilities, but whether the programme will continue as planned since the change in government remains to be seen. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. A Government spokesperson told MailOnline: 'The prison system is in crisis with record numbers of offenders behind bars. 'This is putting significant pressure on the whole justice system and turning prisons into a breeding ground for more crime. 'We will get a grip of the situation so we can lock up the most dangerous offenders, protect the public and make our prisons safer for hard-working staff.' Following the escape of ex-soldier and alleged Iranian spy Khalife from HMP Wandsworth last year, a spotlight was shone onto the overcrowding situation in British prisons. The jail, built in the 1850s, was described in a report before his escape as 'overcrowded, crumbling and vermin-infested'. Mark Leech, editor of the Prisons Handbook for England and Wales, said that staff shortages in prisons and lower security in certain areas may have played a part in Khalife's successful escape. As well as being overcrowded, prisons are understaffed. Total staff levels now are around 5% below what they were in 2009/10, with just shy of 24,000 frontline officers currently employed. The Strangeways riot began on April 1, 1990 and lasted for 25 days, with inmates trashing the jail and sitting on the roof to protest about poor conditions It means the number of prisoners per operational staff member has increased to 3.8 in June 2023, from an estimated 3.5 in 2010, says the Institute for Government. Analysis from the think tank also shows that prisons are losing experienced frontline staff who and they are not being replaced with those of equal experience. Twenty-nine per cent of band 3-5 frontline prison officers, supervisors and managers had 20 or more years of experience in 2012/13. This nearly halved to 16 per cent in 2022/23. Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, last year warned that overcrowding had led to 'deprivation, squalor and [a] risk of further violence'. His recent inspection of HMP Bedford found paint peeling off the walls of dirty cells, scraped and battered doors and, in one part of the prison, a 'cockroach game' where prisoners recorded how many of the pests they had seen. Nick Hardwick, ex-chief inspector of prisons, earlier this year cautioned the situation could spark riots similar to that of Strangeways in 1990. The Strangeways riot lasted for 25 days, with inmates trashing the jail and sitting on the roof to protest about poor conditions. One prisoner died and 147 officers injured, while rioters caused 133million of damage. An Australian who travelled around the country asking other Aussies if they would fight to defend the nation has received some surprisingly mixed answers. Surfer and journalist Fred Pawle took his camera and mic to locations including the NSW Central Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast and Brisbane in recent weeks posing the question to people on the street. 'My initial motivation was whether you would be able to judge the responses based on where you live, so which areas would be more or less likely to defend the country,' Mr Pawle told Daily Mail Australia. He said the responses for the most part aligned with his expectations, with those in Melbourne - perhaps jaded at having endured the world's longest Covid lockdown - less inclined to fight than those in Sydney. 'In Sydney the percentage of those saying they would defend the country was up around 80 per cent and in Melbourne it was around 60 per cent. 'I was pleasantly surprised by Byron Bay. If you live in paradise wouldn't you defend it? I had to debate a little to get it out of them, but most said they would.' Mr Pawle said he wasn't entirely surprised that some were so open about admitting they wouldn't defend Australia given increasing polarisation in society. 'The ''Greatest Generation'' won World War II 80 years ago through willpower, strength and unity - it can seem like those qualities are much less apparent than they were,' he observed. Aussies gave mixed responses when asked whether they would defend the country with one man questioning who he would be fighting for For some the answer was easy with one man proclaiming Australia was the 'best country in the world, mate' In the videos, many of the men who answered said they would not hesitate to pick up arms should the nation be attacked. 'I sure would. I live here,' replied one man in Brisbane. '100 per cent,' replied another. 'Best country in the world, mate.' Another young man from Byron Bay replied: 'Of course, but only for defence. 'If your mates were going but you stayed you wouldn't feel too good about yourself.' 'I'd be on the front line,' replied one First Nations man in Melbourne. But others said it would 'depend on the context' or they would choose not to fight - for varying reasons. One Byron Bay local replied 'no' when asked if he would defend Australia but gave an emphatic 'absolutely' when asked whether he would fight for the idyllic coastal town. 'Who are we actually fighting for?' the man asked. 'Are we fighting for ourselves or for someone else who is going to turn around and do what the other guy is doing anyway?' Another Byron Bay resident said they 'don't believe in global politics and being a part of that soap opera'. 'I'm against violence,' a third said. One man with a British accent said he would 'just move somewhere else' if Australia introduced conscription. 'I just value my life more than any of that stuff.' And one man said he didn't believe Australia 'in its current state' was worth defending. Mr Pawle said when he asked a follow-up question about whether territory or values was a reason to fight, one person replied they weren't sure Australia was united in its values anymore. 'That is very concerning,' Mr Pawle said. But he also said he found it 'incredibly encouraging' that even though the country is divided, most people said they would defend this 'wonderful place'. 'Many said they would not go overseas to fight but for most, the answer of whether they would defend Australia at home was an easy yes.' One man said he considered global politics a 'soap opera' and didn't believe in it One Gold Coast man said he has already served in the military and wouldn't hesitate to do so again if it was needed 'It's an important question, the drums of war are beating, but a lot of people looked at me like ''why would you ask that?''.' 'NATO this week has called for stronger ties with Pacific nations. NATO is to keep communism out of Europe - why are they calling for stronger ties with Australia? 'Ukraine is resorting to grabbing young men off the street to get them to fight and the Australian government endorses that. 'Our Prime Minister phoned President Zelenskyy and congratulated him on the war effort and said Australia would support Ukraine as long as it takes.' From Friday, 140 aircraft will fill the Northern Territory skies for three weeks as part of a biennial international air combat activity. With 4,000 personnel from 20 nations taking part, the 2024 event will be the biggest in its 43-year history. Participants will be exposed to complex scenarios while operating advanced equipment and battle systems, which exercise director Peter Robinson says will help build stronger ties with like-minded nations. 'Training with our partner nations demonstrates our commitment to the shared value of sustaining peace and stability across the region,' Air Commodore Robinson said. For the Philippines, Spain, Italy and Papua New Guinea, it will be the first time their personnel and aircraft participate. They will be joined by aircraft from France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand the UK and the US, alongside embedded personnel from Canada, New Zealand, Fiji and Brunei. The exercise will be held as China continues to flex its military muscle in the region against the backdrop of a NATO summit in Washington, where the Indo-Pacific remains a key focus. An urban explorer has set foot on-board a 'creepy' passenger ship that appears to have been abandoned by gamblers who simply 'vanished' from its once-bustling casino. Ben Stevens, who is known for photographing eerie abandoned areas around the world, recently witnessed the rows of slot machines and chip-filled roulette table on the now-defunct boat docked in Florida. The Blue Horizon casino cruise ship, which sailed out of the Port of Palm Beach, disbanded operations less than a year after being launched in 2015. As Stevens ventured inside, the 30-year-old found casino items left in perfect condition and says the casino boat had been left 'standing still in time'. Ben Stevens, who is known for photographing eerie abandoned areas around the world recently visited a a 600-passenge cruise ship docked in Florida He was able to capture pictures of intact slot machines, playing cards as well as a room filled with dozens of casino chips. At one point, Stevens also came across $50 on board which was covered in mold. Recalling his visit, he told What's The Jam: 'It was literally like a ghost ship. It's like people were gambling one day and then they all vanished.' After spending a few hours on the boat, the explorer noted that he found the vessel to be 'creepy and interesting'. After Stevens finished his tour, he recalled: 'It was both creepy and interesting as everything had been left from money and poker chips to all the furniture. As Stevens began to venture inside, the 30-year-old found items predating the outbreak left in perfect condition and concluded that the ship had been left 'standing still in time' He was able to capture pictures of nearly-perfect looking slot machines, playing cards as well as a room filled with dozens of casino chips The Blue Horizon casino cruise ship, which was launched in 2015 and sailed out of the Port of Palm Beach, disbanded operations after being unable to compete with the state's gambling rules 'There was one room with a safe and all the chips that would have been traded in for cash. 'I was there for a few hours but it was so hot inside and the smell of mold was crazy.' After sailing for a mere five months, the Blue Horizon was forced to be docked after land-based Florida casinos were legally allowed to offer craps and roulette to gamblers. Before this, only the day cruise to 'nowhere' could offer high rollers these games as well as slot machines for those keen to make a quick buck. Robert Weisberg, managing director of PB Gaming, the company which operated the ship said with the launch of the new laws, the vessel had been stripped of its uniqueness and no longer held any appeal. 'There was one room with a safe and all the chips that would have been traded in for cash,' he said After spending a few hours on the boat, the explorer noted that he found the vessel to be 'creepy and interesting' Former casino boat captain Mark Wilkerson explained at the time: 'It's a dying era, I understand that. It's hard to compete with land-based stuff. 'When you're stuck [on a boat for] four hours, it's hard to do anything but sit there and wait for it to come back to the dock.' But the new gambling laws weren't the first problem the ship faced. Before PB Gaming bought the ship, it's two previous two operators had gone bankrupt due to unknown reasons. During the first three months of it's launch, the company also ended up spending about $9 million on the vessel to fix its engine and other parts due to damage. The Tories must embrace green policies and politics in order to be seen as a competent party again under its next leader, a former Cabinet minister warns today. Sir Simon Clarke said that the Conservatives might be 'nervous' about Net Zero but should tackle it head on and admit 'targeted' changes to behaviour are needed now to avoid a bigger economic hit in future. Writing for Mail Online the former housing and communities secretary, a rightwing critic of Rishi Sunak, said that becoming greener was vital if the Conservatives want to have any chance of winning back Blue Wall seats lost to the Liberal Democrats. It comes after an election campaign in which the former PM ploughed most of his efforts into trying to avoid an exodus of voters to Reform on the party's right. That included slowing down efforts to mitigate climate change in the short term to keep down costs for homeowners. But Sir Simon, a former ally of Liz Truss on the right of the party, said that climate scepticism would not win back Reform voters whose primary and often sole concern was cutting immigration. 'The winning formula for building a broad coalition of voters, which we missed out on in this campaign, was a positive message on the environment, tougher controls on immigration, and a fiscally responsible plan to lower taxes, all underpinned by competent delivery. In my view, this should be the platform for our next leader,' he said. Sir Simon Clarke said that the Conservatives might be 'nervous' about Net Zero but should embrace it and admit 'targeted' changes to behaviour are needed now to avoid a bigger economic hit in future. 'Championing a market-led approach to delivering both a cleaner environment and hundreds of thousands of good jobs in new technologies stood in a proud tradition dating back through Boris Johnson and David Cameron to Mrs Thatcher's famous reminder of our having a ''life tenancy, with a full repairing lease'' on the planet at Conservative Party Conference in 1988. 'Yet instead of putting our environmental record front and centre, over the last year we decided to undermine, undersell and largely ignore our environmental achievements. We rowed back on some green policies and framed net zero as a burden to be managed, rather than an opportunity to be seized.' Polling released earlier this week suggested 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. 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. 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. 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. 'There are many problems our party must recognise, accept, and look to fix if we're to get back into government as soon as possible ... our record on the environment is not one of them' Given the shattering result of the election, my party will now go through with a fine-tooth comb both this campaign and our time in government to uncover where it all went wrong. As we do so, we also need to remember what we did right and not scapegoat good policies. And what we have done on tackling climate change and protecting the natural environment since 2010 should be one of the Conservatives' proudest achievements from our time in government. Championing a market-led approach to delivering both a cleaner environment and hundreds of thousands of good jobs in new technologies stood in a proud tradition dating back through Boris Johnson and David Cameron to Mrs Thatcher's famous reminder of our having a ''life tenancy, with a full repairing lease'' on the planet at Conservative Party Conference in 1988. Yet instead of putting our environmental record front and centre, over the last year we decided to undermine, undersell and largely ignore our environmental achievements. We rowed back on some green policies and framed net zero as a burden to be managed, rather than an opportunity to be seized. And this was despite local and mayoral elections reinforcing the point that this strategy wasn't shifting the polls. I now worry some will call on us to go even further in undermining our green credentials. Drawing a line from Reform's pledge to scrap Net Zero to their electoral gains is a superficially appealing, but fundamentally flawed analysis. In reality, Reform didn't win over former Tory voters based on opposition to Net Zero. Pre-election polling showed that just 2 per cent of Conservative to Reform switchers put Net Zero as their top electoral priority. Immigration was overwhelmingly the most common reason they gave for switching their support - as my colleagues and I heard on doorstep after doorstep. Another study identified a cohort of around two million swing voters, who backed our party in 2019, care deeply about the environment, and are even willing to pay more for green policies. This is not to mention that water quality featured prominently in many campaigns across the south of England, where we lost so many seats to the Liberal Democrats as well as Labour. The winning formula for building a broad coalition of voters, which we missed out on in this campaign, was a positive message on the environment, tougher controls on immigration, and a fiscally responsible plan to lower taxes, all underpinned by competent delivery. In my view, this should be the platform for our next leader. It comes after an election campaign in which former PM Rishi Sunak ploughed most of his efforts into winning back votes lost to Reform on the party's right. Your browser does not support iframes. We've seen in Teesside what a powerful vision this can be. By harnessing our Brexit freedoms to establish freeports and attract the industries of the future, green investment has flooded into Teesside and brought new opportunities to the area. Mayor Ben Houchen delivered, voters could clearly see this, and they trusted him with their votes once again in May. Not only do we have an expansive and proven-track record on the environment, the environment continues to play a key role in improving our security and prosperity. We have seen how foreign dictators can control oil and gas supplies to blackmail the British population. But, thanks to our party's actions, we have built the five largest offshore wind farms in the world. Renewables now make up half of our electricity supply, compared to 7 per cent in 2010, which has paved the way to energy independence, enhancing our national security and keeping energy prices from spiralling further. Perhaps most impressively, we have got halfway to Net Zero whilst growing our economy more than any other G7 country since 1990. Net Zero sectors are now worth 74 billion to our economy and are set to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the coming decade. Because of this, we are seen as the blueprint for countries around the world of how to protect our environment and create economic prosperity. I understand that Net Zero might make a few Conservatives nervous. We have to be honest that it means some targeted interventions and prudent spending now, to avoid much greater costs to our economy and security further down the line. Faced with Labour's big-state approach with GB Energy, we should look to champion a more market-based approach in this parliament that is more in line with our core principles. We should also not oppose supply side reforms to remove state-imposed planning barriers to private enterprise delivering critical clean energy infrastructure - most notably onshore wind and new nuclear. But, while the benefits of climate action for our country are substantial, they are even more significant for our party in terms of winning elections. All governments make mistakes. All parties in a well-functioning democracy lose elections. There are many problems our party must recognise, accept, and look to fix if we're to get back into government as soon as possible. Our record on the environment is not one of them. President Joe Biden admitted on Thursday night he was open to stepping aside on the Democratic ticket if the new pick could beat Donald Trump and said delegates could do 'whatever they want' at the party's convention next month. The 81-year-old opened the door to being replaced, but insisted he had 'overwhelming support' from his party and the polls show he is winning. Thousands of delegates from across the country are gearing up to head to Chicago next month for the Democratic National Convention. And despite the Biden campaign being roiled by fallout over President Joe Biden's stumbling debate performance and growing concerns over his fitness, delegates are hunkering down and preparing to vote for Biden as their nominee as planned. DailyMail.com spoke with delegates from multiple states who are paying close attention to calls by some Democrats for the president to step aside but are ready to nominate him nonetheless without major reservations. President Biden is facing mounting calls from some Democratic lawmakers to step down from the 2024 presidential race, but the president insists he is running 'I ran as a pledged Biden delegate, and he is the nominee,' said Tennessee delegate Megan Lange. 'He is the only nominee and and, you know, I believe that Biden has done a lot of good.' Lange, who works on Democrats' campaigns, said others she has spoken to in her state's delegation have all been on the same page. There are nearly 4,000 pledged delegates and more than 700 automatic delegates heading to Chicago next month for the convention from August 19 through 22. They are a diverse group of Democrats from young people still in school to senior citizens, local party activists to federally elected and former top officials. Thousands of them were elected to represent their states in the presidential nomination process and committed to following through with their pledge. Behind the scenes, delegates have been holding weekly calls as they prepare to officially nominate Biden. More than 4,600 delegates will head to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention from August 19 through 22 Some delegates told DailyMail.com campaign and party officials had been reaching out to reconfirm support as recently as this week amid the escalating push for the president to exit the race. But others said they had not heard from the campaign for weeks and were not expecting to. Even before Biden's poor debate performance, the campaign and party had been checking in about how delegates are feeling about the election more generally and helping delegates navigate logistics for getting to Chicago. As the convention looms, there has been some private talk among delegates over whether Biden is the best choice to beat Donald Trump in November and mixed views on the matter. Some delegates watching the debate did raise alarms to fellow delegates over his performance including in group chats. President Biden at the presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27. Some delegates described it as a 'bad day' for the president while others said it raised concerns, but every delegate DailyMail.com spoke to said they're standing behind him as nominee President Biden held a press conference two weeks after the debate where he gave a statement and then answered questions for nearly an hour. While the president had several major flubs while speaking including saying 'Vice President Trump,' he also answered several in depth international and domestic policy questions with multiple follow-up questions and fired off some zingers Others argued there is a lot of hard work to to do between now and November to turn out voters, but they still believe Biden is the best choice. Maverick Flowers, a delegate from Tennessee, said every delegate he spoke to after the debate expressed disappointed, worry or were even 'kinda scared.' 'But I think as more time's gone on, I think people are starting to again rally around the president, the campaign,' he said. At the end of the day, Flowers said he has 'no reservations' voting for Biden as a delegate because of what the president has accomplished. Delegates DailyMail.com spoke to rejected discussion of delegates even considering another nominee at the convention. Some noted voters have already spoken; others pointed out talk of a dramatic convention shakeup is not currently viable. 'I think that people, those who are talking, they actually don't even understand the process that we're going through this year,' said Tennessee delegate Jasper Hendricks who also served as a delegate in 2016, but from Virginia. 'We're not voting at the convention. We're voting before the convention.' Hendricks referred to the virtual process which will take place before delegates even arrive in Chicago. He said the debate he has heard about rule changes for the convention were not coming from the delegates but outside voices and is confident in casting his ballot. 'I'm supporting the President and his team because they're doing a job. They're doing a great job right now at this moment,' he said. 'That's my attitude towards it.' Wisconsin delegate Donald Dantzler, who serves on the Fitchburg city council, was one of several delegates DailyMail.com spoke to who were not ready to entertain who could replace Biden if he were to choose to step aside. President Biden speaking in Madison, WI at a campaign event on July 5 He said Biden had a bad debate but that did not determine how he would be able to run the country. He noted that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have both visited his battleground state multiple times this year including Biden holding a campaign event there last week. 'I take those headlines for a grain of salt,' Dantzler said of the debate fallout. 'For every George Clooney there are two people putting in the work,' he said of the actor who wrote a devastating op-ed this week calling for Democrats to pick a new nominee. Dantzler argued the convention will be about getting Democrats' message out. 'I really hope through attending this convention, we can kind of push that narrative to individuals and get them to understand what's really at stake and what could really happen if the other side is put back in office,' he said. A New York City driver was taught an expensive lesson after firefighters took matters into their own hands to access a blocked fire hydrant. A recent clip of the scene posted by FDNY Response Videos showed firefighters at the scene of monstrous blaze, with two of them breaking through the front windows of a gray Honda sedan to attach a hose to a hydrant. The four-alarm fire broke out on 3045 3rd Avenue in the Bronx on June 20. The massive inferno consumed a Dunkin' Donuts, a fabric store, a Chinese restaurant, furniture store and a 99 cent store. Public records revealed that this wasn't the first time the driver has blocked a fire hydrant before, among other violations. A recent clip of the scene posted by FDNY Response Videos showed firefighters at the scene of monstrous blaze, with two of them breaking through the front windows of a gray Honda sedan to attach a hose to a hydrant The unidentified owner of the car owes $9,255.28 in fines dating back to 2023. In two years the driver has racked up 33 fire hydrant violations. Video of the intense blaze shows a thick plume of dark smoke wafting in the air as multiple fire trucks arrive at the scene. Firefighters start to approach the fire as some climb up on ladders to the roof of the building while others attach hoses to fire hydrants nearby. As the flames grow larger and start to spread to nearby businesses, firefighters start to look for more hydrants to get water from. One firefighter takes a large medal tool to the passenger side window of the Honda before moving onto the driver side. Video of the intense blaze shows a thick plume of dark smoke wafting in the air as multiple fire trucks arrive at the scene One firefighter takes a large medal tool to the passenger side window of the Honda before moving onto the driver side As he starts to bash the window's glass, another firefighter clears all of the glass on the passenger window. Once both windows are cleared, one of the firefighters quickly tosses away bags of trash sitting around the fire hydrant before helping his colleague grab the bright yellow hose. Once the two of them unravel the hose, they start to pass it through the two broken windows of the illegally parked car. A firefighter then attached the top of the hose to the fire hydrant as it quickly fills with water. Once both windows are cleared, one of the firefighters quickly tosses away bags of trash sitting around the fire hydrant before helping his colleague grab the bright yellow hose The FDNY told DailyMail.com the fire injured four people, but the cause of the blaze is still under investigation The FDNY told DailyMail.com the fire injured four people, but the cause of the blaze is still under investigation. In New York City it is illegal to park within 15ft on either side of a fire hydrant as emergency crews need to be able to access them at all times. The standard fine for parking too close to a fire hydrant in the Big Apple is around $115, along with the chance of the vehicle being towed, according to The Law Office of Craig Bondy. Other than being fined or towed, the law office warned that drivers can also see their insurance rates skyrocket. Drivers with multiple parking violations can also face additional legal consequences. A bespectacled elderly man in a black leather jacket stomps up the stairs to his office and confronts the bearded plain-clothes policeman guarding the door. Squaring up to the officer, his face within an inch of the other man's, he unleashes a spittle-laden rant. 'I'm telling you, you can't stop me from getting into my office,' he yells in fury. 'We aren't thugs or bandits. Go and do your job as a police officer! I am the republic! I'm a politician! Get out of my way and open this door!' The star of this epic tantrum, which erupted in 2018 when police officers searched his office over allegations of the improper use of political funds and was preserved for posterity on YouTube was Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of an ultra-Left party called France Unbowed. After his parliamentary grouping won more seats than any other party in the Left-wing coalition that emerged as the biggest bloc after last weekend's election, Melenchon is a contender to be France's next prime minister. It's a prospect that should terrify anyone with France's best interests at heart. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of an ultra-Left party called France Unbowed, is a contender to be France's next prime minister Melenchon first won elected office in 1983 when he became a local councillor in Massy, a town just outside Paris For Melenchon who was given a three-month suspended prison term and an 8,000 (6,700) fine following the unedifying confrontation outside his office is the most dangerous clown in France, with the pomposity (and waistline) of Kim Jong Un. It's initially hard to see how he can be taken seriously. But he's a mesmerising demagogue and the snake oil he is peddling appeals to his core vote, concentrated in densely populated suburbs of grim public housing with large immigrant populations. Just as in Islington, plenty of champagne socialists vote for him, too. They all love his passionate support for Palestine, his intention to fling open the French borders and his instinctive hatred of the police. Speaking of his intention to immediately lower the pension age to 60, which would bankrupt the state, Melenchon warned that any deputies who dare to vote against it 'will be named, registered and handed over to the People. That's democracy. I hope they will not be deported to a reform camp'. Was he joking? He's not renowned for his sense of humour. If Melenchon got his way, he'd turn France into a European Venezuela and spark an exodus of wealthy citizens fleeing his proposed 90 per cent top rate of tax (unless they're put off by his exit taxes on anyone trying to leave). Melenchon's positions are a toxic combination of Communism, alliances with militant Islamists and eco-radicals. He stands for higher wages and price controls on food and fuel, while nursing a burning hatred of America, Nato and Germany. It adds up to a manifesto that's madder than one of those absurdist French farces by the national playwright, Moliere. Yet now, by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, this wacky rabble-rouser, with a fondness for Mao jackets, who cultivates a 'man of the people' image despite having a net worth of 2.5million, is demanding the key to the Hotel Matignon, the headquarters of the French PM. 'Brothers in arms' Jeremy Corbyn and Melenchon, 72, speak outside the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, in January this year Melenchon was given a three-month suspended prison term and an 8,000 (6,700) fine following an unedifying confrontation outside his office in 2018 So how has this contemptible agitator risen to within touching distance of the second-highest office in the land? A choir boy in his youth, Melenchon, a vigorous 72, is like his brother-in-arms Jeremy Corbyn a political lifer who, apart from a brief stint as a teacher as a young man, has never had a proper job. A member of the Internationalist Communist Organisation (OCI), a Trotskyist political party, from 1972 to 1976, he then joined the Socialist Party before splitting to found the Left Party, a coalition that allied itself with the French Communist Party. Melenchon first won elected office in 1983 when he became a local councillor in Massy, a town just outside Paris. Three years later, he was elected to the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament, and amazingly given his later flakiness served as 'Minister for Vocational Education' from 2000 to 2002 for Lionel Jospin. In 2009, he was elected to the European Parliament and went on to serve eight years an MEP. He made the first of three attempts to win the French presidency in 2012, finishing with just over 11 per cent of the vote. After founding 'France Unbowed' in 2016 and installing himself as its supreme leader, he finished in fourth place in the 2017 presidential election, with 19.6 per cent of the vote. He made his third and final presidential bid in 2022, winning 22 per cent of the vote but failed to reach the second round. It is fair to say that, in his entire political career, he has achieved nothing beyond a reputation as a bully and fanatic and yet he trousers a pay and allowances package of 10,000 a month, four times the average salary. Now his hour may finally have come. Melenchon finds himself in the thick of a struggle to reconstitute a credible government amid the shambles created by president Emmanuel Macron's unfathomable decision to call a snap election, and after Marine Le Pen's hard-Right National Rally's surprise performance in the European parliament elections. Repairing the political devastation he's wreaked is an operation of bewildering complexity and one that may not be possible. Fifteen factions are now represented in the National Assembly and they don't play nicely together. Putting together a coalition to succeed the government Macron dismissed is akin to solving a Rubik's Cube while blindfolded. And God help France if Melenchon ever emerges a winner. Macron has been Melenchon's witless enabler. Macron let him into his tent. Now he's refusing to leave. Yet despite the bombast, Melenchon's extreme Leftists actually lost ground in the final results after Macron's cack-handed electioneering, winning only 11 per cent of the popular vote (versus 37 per cent for Le Pen) and falling from 77 to 74 seats in the 577-member assembly. His belief that he has won some kind of mandate is symptomatic of his boundless self-importance. Melenchon would plunge France into the mother of all economic, social and political crises but, in his customary intemperate fashion, is threatening anyone who defies him. If he's not given the reins of power, he vows to take his supporters on to the streets. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen who got a higher percentage of the vote in France than Keir Starmer did in Britain has been exiled to opposition. But if Macron's intention was to destroy her, he has failed. She's proved again and again that whatever doesn't kill her makes her stronger. What emerges from the machinations in Paris could be a technocratic government, managing daily affairs but with no legislative agenda. Or some kind of benevolent national government of all the talents, which seems more of a dream than immediate prospect, given the egos involved. The alternative is an unstable coalition with a shelf-life of perhaps weeks or days. It is earnestly to be hoped that no matter how much France seems to have had the nervous breakdown I have long predicted, cooler heads will prevail. And, as a new order emerges, Jean-Luc Melenchon is allowed nowhere near any of it. This is what a 'big boy' press conference looks like: Two teleprompt screens, a list of vetted journalists and press aides with microphones, ready to silence tricky questions. The White House had leaned into the term, first used by a reporter, to signify that President Joe Biden would offer a no-holds-barred demonstration of his ability to parry tough questions. Yet even with the guard rails of screens, fussing aides and an opening statement, Biden struggled at times with a raspy throat, botched lines and meandering answers. He was asked whether Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump if she was top of the ticket, and answered in excruciating fashion. 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president,' he said, triggering a Republican meme avalanche, with mashups of Harris and Trump appearing rapidly online. President Joe Biden appeared for his first solo press conference since November on the sidelines of a NATO summit to quell criticism that he is no longer up to the job Yet for the most part Biden did what he needed to do. He answered questions from 10 journalists and spoke for an hour on topics that ran the gamut from the Democratic convention and his health to long-range weapons for Ukraine and how to tackle a rising China. His allies and worried Democrats wanted a demonstration that he was still up to the job and, those embarrassing flubs aside, he delivered. The bad news for Biden is that it changes nothing. He is still fighting for his political life. This was never the make-or-break night it was billed in the media. It was a survive-or-die night. No performance would ever have been good enough to change the fundamentals. He is still the oldest president in history. He is still getting older. And, as he struggled to clear his throat time and time again, nights like these will become harder and harder. He opened his press conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where world leaders were marking the 75th birthday of NATO, with a filibustering teleprompted speech about the importance of alliances, and a list of his achievements in office. The room full of about 100 journalists, all clutching phones bearing the text of the their prepared questions, became fidgety. Was this it? Was Biden doing a Trump, calling journalists in for a 'press conference' merely to talk at them and then leave? The president was asked whether Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump if she was top of the ticket, and answered in excruciating fashion Biden did what he needed to do on Thursday evening and lives to fight another day Biden's press conference flub prompted a flurry of memes After Biden called Kamala Harris 'Vice-President Trump', social media took the opportunity to make fun of the aging president 'With that, I'll take your questions,' said Biden to the almost audible relief of his audience. 'I've been given a list of people to call out here: Reuters, Jeff Mason.' He was immediately asked about George Clooney's bombshell intervention a day earlier, calling on him to stand aside, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggesting there was still time to decide whether he was in or out. 'There's a long way to go this campaign,' said Biden. 'And so I I'm just going to keep moving, keep moving. 'And because look, I got more work to do. We got more work to finish this.' If Biden's future hung heavily over the NATO summit in Washington it was in part because that's what Biden wanted. 'I guess a good way to judge me,' he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC last week, would be to watch him at the summit. Biden leaves after taking questions from 10 journalists over an hour And watch, the world most certainly did. Maybe not everyone caught the details of the Ukraine Compact earlier in the day, and its array of security agreements and pledges, but everyone by now will have seen the way Biden introduced the Ukrainian president. 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,' he said before realizing he was meant to be introducing President Volodymyr Zelensky who is a very much currently at war with Putin. A gasp ran around the room. Some people shouted the correct name as the leader of the free world tried to rally. 'No, we're going to beat Putin,' he said, as if to suggest he simply had Putin on the brain rather than suffering a senior moment. The event, with so many world leaders in one place, was to show a president hard at work. On Friday he is off to Detroit, Michigan. If it's Monday it's Austin, Texas. Biden made clear in the press conference that he had no intention of pulling out of the race. But it leaves Democrats with a dilemma. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers have raised the alarm about whether the veteran is up to taking on Trump in November. Biden has spent this week surrounded by the pomp and gravity of NATO. He hosted allied heads of state and government at the White House on Wednesday He met new British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer earlier. Starmer later said the president was 'on good form' when asked about his health and fitness Yet he refuses to bow to time. And no performance will ever be good enough to silence the doubters on his own side. 'I'm determined on running but I think it's important that I allay fears let them see me out there,' he told reporters. After an hour, his Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was intent on winding things up and getting everyone home without any more damage being done. 'This concludes the press conference,' she shouted from the floor. Biden could not resist taking one last question. Peter Alexander of NBC News pointed out that he earlier muddled Harris, his own vice president, with Trump. 'Right now Donald Trump is using that to mock your age and your memory,' he said. 'How do you combat that criticism?' 'Listen to the other guy ...' he said with a smile, leaving with his best zinger of the night. When Kamala Harris took to the stage during a Democratic primary debate before the 2020 election and implied that Joe Biden was racist, his wife, Jill's, response was crystal clear. 'Go f**k yourself,' the then-future first lady vented, as she allegedly admitted during a conference call with supporters. And the relationship between the two women that began badly enough during that contentious battle for the presidential nomination has only gone downhill from there. Now, political insiders have told DailyMail.com that Democratic advisors are struggling to push past the powerful role that Jill Biden's loathing of Harris, 59, is playing in Joe's resistance to pass the mantle to his VP as pressure ratchets up for him to step down as presidential candidate and allow another Democrat tackle Donald Trump. According to one former Democrat operative in Jill's circle, the women's long-seated animosity is 'one hundred per cent' part of Jill's resistance to having her 81-year-old husband step aside. Because the truth, according to a source who knows the First Couple well, is that Jill's is now the only voice to which the 46th president listens. And as far as Jill, 73, is concerned, the only thing worse than her husband stepping down would be Kamala stepping up to replace him. The relationship between the two women, pictured together in November last year, began badly enough during the contentious 2020 primary but has only gone downhill from there According to a source who knows the couple well, Jill is the only voice that the embattled Commander-in-Chief will listen to The bad blood between the First Lady and the Vice President, a feeling so strong that one source described it as, 'hatred,' dates to June 2019, when Kamala was running against Biden and condemned him during a televised debate for opposing aspects of mandatory busing for school desegregation. 'Jill holds grudges,' one Democrat insider revealed. 'She doesn't let things go and she has never forgiven Kamala for comments that some took to be allegations of racism.' According to one insider, that was the reason she never wanted Kamala to be her husband's number two in the first place. They said, 'Jill was trying to stop Kamala joining the Biden ticket in 2020. She has hated her ever since the school bus thing. 'But she bit her tongue because Biden boxed himself into a corner by saying he would pick a black woman for his running mate.' In recent days Biden has come under almost relentless pressure to step down. Eighteen House Democrats three of them after Bidens big boy press conference at the NATO summit - and one Senator have now called on the President to drop out of the 2024 race for the White House. On Wednesday, Hollywood star and, until now, staunch Biden supporter George Clooney added his voice to the growing clamor for Biden to step down. The diehard Democrat had been reluctant to speak out against Biden despite the snowballing concerns for the President's mental fitness for office. But on Wednesday Clooney who co-hosted a June fundraiser that netted $28 million for Biden's campaign penned a scathing op-ed for the New York Times in which he stated categorically that it was time for Biden to go. George Clooney visited the White House where he was honored by the President in 2022. On Wednesday the New York Times published a scathing op-ed by the actor calling for Biden to stand down He wrote, 'I love Joe Biden. 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. '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 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.' Former Maryland Attorney General and Democrat Doug Gansler seconded Clooney's take telling DailyMail.com, Thursday, that he believes Biden will ultimately 'do the right thing' and step down. Gansler, who worked closely with both Kamala and Beau Biden during their days as Attorneys General for California and Delaware respectively, said that he believed it would be 'hard to imagine someone more qualified' than her to become the next President. He pointed out that, whatever Jill and Kamala's relationship, 'Joe Biden picked her and arguably in some way he was elected President because he picked her.' He added, 'He's the antithesis of Donald Trump. He's been in politics half a decade and he's always done it for the right reasons. 'On some level I believe Biden recognizes he cannot win the election. He couldn't win it before the debate and he certainly can't win it after it.' It was Biden's disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump coupled with his failure to recover from it with subsequent public appearances a garbled radio phone-in and an unconvincing interview with ABC that triggered calls for him to step down. But according to one well-placed source while the light of public scrutiny is trained on Biden's mental acuity, the real power behind the throne is Jill, who wants to stay in the White House almost as much as she wants to keep Harris out of it. The source told DailyMail.com, 'Jill has become consumed by the power and prestige of the presidency and what that means to her.' The source pointed out that in January 2022 the Marine Corps band performed an original composition entitled, 'Fanfare for the First Lady,' essentially Jill's personal 'Hail to the Chief.' The tune is to be performed and repeated at official White House functions from her first appearance until she is ready to speak. It is all a very long way from the Jill that a long-time associate recalled as a humble 'common' person who exercised at the YMCA in downtown Wilmington and could never be regarded as 'full of herself.' According to one well-placed source the real power behind the throne is Jill who wants to stay in the White House almost as much as she wants to keep Kamala out of it Jill has taken front and center stage during Biden's campaign for four more years Now, according to one, 'It's not about Kamala and it's not really about Joe. It's more about her holding on to her status as First Lady. She doesn't want to give that up.' Another voiced the way that Jill is 'absolutely unwavering about Joe staying [in the race] but if he is forced out or opts out, she would be fully opposed to Kamala replacing him.' One insider revealed, 'Kamala never runs competent organizations. Every office, every campaign, devolves into toxicity. And Jill is keenly protective of Joe's legacy.' Still, one former Democrat insider familiar with the players said that they believed Jill's 'pragmatism' may ultimately hold sway. And some say it is precisely her prioritizing of her husband's legacy that could convince Jill to flip and counsel her husband to step aside. According to one well-placed source, as more and more party faithful voice their belief that Biden will lose to Trump, even Jill will be forced to admit that the most likely outcome of her husband's candidacy is one that will 'throw his legacy in the trash'. And not even her hatred of Kamala can trump that. A spokesperson for Jill's office denied reports of a rift. 'Jill and Kamala have a great relationship, and the First Lady believes that the Vice President is critical to helping her husband win re-election,' she added. A grandfather-of-two was among a pair of nudists who took down a crazed man they saw attacking tourists and shop owners with a blowtorch on the streets of San Francisco. Pete Sferra from San Jose was walking in the Castro area of the city with his friend Lloyd Fishback, who lives in town, when they noticed the something awry. The pair came across a 'crazy kind of pirate guy' with a blowtorch that he was threatening to use as a weapon. Shop owner Chris Watts wrote on Facebook how the man 'threatened my team with a blow torch after we locked the doors' in what was a scary encounter. A grandfather-of-two was among two nudists who took down a crazed man who was attacking tourists and shop owners on the streets of San Francisco with a blowtorch Two nudists, Pete Sferra from San Jose, left, was walking in the Castro area of the city with his friend Lloyd Fishback, right, who lives in town Video from the scene shows Fishback, the younger of the two nudists, grab the blowtorch before the man starts punching the tourist without warning. Fists fly as both Fishback and the deranged man tumbled off the sidewalk an into the street. Just as the suspect appeared distracted, one of the shop owners managed to snatch the blow torch away and hurriedly ran away. The tussle between the pair continued with Fishback following up with another underhand smack to the suspect's face. 'My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy but he didn't waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook,' Sferra said to The San Francisco Standard. It was then the attacker finally got the message and walked away. In the meantime the police were called. Petros Fanourgiakis, who runs the nearby Aegean Delights dessert shop and said the man had threatened to burn the tourist's face with the blow torch. 'He's a known problem in the neighborhood. He's erratic and violent,' said Terry Asten Bennett, president of the Castro Merchants Association. 'My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy but he didn't waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook,' Sferra said Lloyd Fishback dispensed with some justice of his own as he punched the attacker a few times 'It's completely unfair to a community when one person can hold it hostage,' Bennett said. Even the Castro Country Club had obtained a restraining order against Triball in 2021 but decided to not renew the order because it was too expensive. In that case, Triball had threatened to burn down the building and kill the club's executive director. San Francisco Police also appeared to be familiar with the suspect who was arrested and identified as 38-year-old Zero Triball. Triball is suspected of assault with a deadly weapon and remains in county jail. 'In my view, he's a guy who'll continue committing medium violent crimes,' said Rafael Mandelman who is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A nearby shop owner captured footage of the two nudists beating up the man with a blowtorch A shop worker could be seen running away after snatching the blowtorch from the man 'I don't think he should be left to manage his own life. He should be in a conservatorship. Our system is crazy,' Mandelman added. The person who was on vacation in the city and was seen being attacked in the video has not been identified but is believed to be a Brazilian man named Leo 'I hate seeing tourists experience that kind of stuff,' Sferra said. The area of the city is a bustling neighborhood, known for its openly gay culture. Explaining his interest in nudism, Sferra has said that he wants to normalize the practice. 'Over the years we've been doing this, we've tried to show the neighborhood that we're regular peoplewe just have a relaxed idea of what we're supposed to wear. 'We just want to be seen as good contributing members of the community,' Sferra explained. America's oldest airline has infuriated both supporters and opponents of Israel with its cack-handed response to a complaint about staff wearing Palestinian flag lapel badges. Delta's official X account sympathized with a tweet from a passenger on Tuesday that complained about attendants wearing a 'Hamas badge' and said they were right to be 'terrified'. On Wednesday it deleted its response, demoted the person who wrote the tweet, and said the two staff members were being offered support over a message that was 'not in line with our values'. Then on Thursday it announced a blanket ban on staff members wearing any flags other than the American flag from July 15. 'Whether this racist post on Delta's X account was approved or unauthorized, Delta must apologize and take steps to educate its employees about this type of dangerous anti-Palestinian racism,' said Edward Ahmed Mitchell from the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations. The airline faced a storm of criticism after its social media account said a passenger was entitled to feel 'terrified' at the sight of flight attendants wearing Palestinian flag pins 'Bigotry against Palestinian-Americans is absolutely out of control in workplaces and at schools and it must stop.' The row erupted on Tuesday when the X account 'iliketeslas' posted photos of two attendants on different Delta flights wearing the pins on their uniforms, and suggested they made him feel unsafe. 'Since 2001 we take our shoes off in every airport because a terrorist attack in US soil,' he wrote. 'Now imagine getting into a Delta flight and seeing workers with Hamas badges in the air. What do you do?' 'I hear you as I'd be terrified as well, personally,' The airline tweeted in response. 'Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.' The post sparked a furious backlash of protest against equating the Palestinian flag with that of the Hamas terror organization and pledges to boycott the Atlanta based carrier. 'What's the Palestinians got to do with 9/11?' demanded one X user. 'Isn't the whole screenshot the perfect encapsulation of real racism and Islamophobia? Pathetic really. Only in America.' 'These airlines won't learn until you stop giving them business @Delta #BoycottDelta,' added Dr Omar Suleiman, the president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. The Counsel on American-Islamic Relations was among those demanding an apology as calls grew for a boycott of the Atlanta-based airline One of the attendants pictured appeared defiant in spite of the airline's sudden ban on flags But they were denounced by others for allowing staff to flaunt their allegiances while Israel is at war. 'It's repulsive and completely out of place!' wrote one. 'Disney got hurt for going woke, to say nothing of A.B, we should all do the same to Delta!' In a statement to NBC the airline said it 'removed a mistakenly posted comment on X Wednesday because it was not in line with our values and our mission to connect the world'. 'The team member responsible for the post has been counseled and no longer supports Delta's social channels. We apologize for this error.' JetBlue banned its staff from wearing political pins in May after a Jewish passenger was accused of 'causing a disturbance' on a flight to Las Vegas. Paul Faust, 54, said he quietly made a complaint about the pin to a supervisor on the plane but when he landed a uniformed official demanded to see his ID, called the police and then then canceled his return flight. The Parkland, Florida-based telecoms entrepreneur told DailyMail.com that he wasn't happy seeing the flag, but didn't want to cause trouble so kept quiet about it reasoning that he had something equivalent: a visible Jewish tattoo. But he said that when the crew member put on an apron for serving drinks and moved the Palestine pin on top so it still showed, he took it as a deliberate provocation. 'I walked up to the front and said to the lead attendant, 'I just wanna tell you I'm a frequent flier, and it was upsetting that she wore that, and that she only changed that pin to the front of the apron, not the others,' he explained. 'I went back to my seat. I said nothing to this flight attendant the entire flight.' But he said he was hauled aside at the end of the flight by staff who threatened to call the police on him, and canceled his flight home without telling him the following day. In December last year an American Airlines flight attendant reportedly ordered a passenger to remove a pro-Palestinian sweatshirt before a flight from New York to Phoenix or else face law enforcement. Rumors swept X on Thursday that Delta had sacked the staff members pictured wearing Palestinian badges but the airline denied it, adding: 'We're in touch with the flight attendants to offer support'. Paul Faust, pictured with fellow passenger Rachelle Almagor accused JetBlue of anti-Semitism in May after claiming he had the police called on him for a complaint about a Palestinian pin Faust, who is Jewish, told DailyMail.com he was offended to see a female flight attendant - who has not been identified flaunting a Palestinian flag pin on her uniform during the flight 'However Delta is shifting its pin allowance policy effective July 15. 'Beginning then, only US flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms. Previously, pins representing countries/nationalities of the world had been permitted. 'We are taking this step to help ensure a safe, comfortable and welcoming environment for all. 'We are proud of our diverse base of employees and customers and the foundation of our brand, which is to connect the world and provide a premium experience.' One of the attendants posting on Instagram under the handle AJhooray wrote it had been an 'overwhelming few days but I'm grateful for all the love and support'. 'See you in the skies!' he added. Suella Braverman has taken a fresh swipe at Rishi Sunak, claiming her attempts to lower legal migration were 'blocked'. The former home secretary, who is expected to stand in the Tory leadership race, said she 'made the case' but the then-prime minister did not agree with her. It comes after Mr Sunak was said to have personally called all 175 colleagues who lost their seats last week to apologise. Today Mrs Braverman told GB News that Mr Sunak had given her an assurance that he would 'work with me to lower legal migration and cut the number of visas'. But she said: 'Unfortunately, I was blocked... I just wanted to deliver a manifesto commitment to lower overall migration. Suella Braverman, who is expected to stand in the Tory leadership race, said she 'made the case' but the then-prime minister did not agree with her It comes after Mr Sunak was said to have personally called all 175 colleagues who lost their seats last week to apologise 'But if the Prime Minister doesn't agree with you, if no one around the Cabinet table agrees with you, you're not getting anywhere. And that is the reality that I came up against. 'Could I have tried harder? I struggled. I struggled privately for 12 months, biting my lip, supporting the Prime Minister, trying to persuade from the inside. He didn't agree with me.' Mrs Braverman said she was 'very concerned about the exponential rise in immigration', and said she was the 'only one around the Cabinet table who was moving, mobilised and motivated' on legal migration figures. Her comments will be seen as a swipe at her rivals for the likely Tory leadership. But Mr Sunak, who remains Conservative party leader, now faces calls to remove her chances of winning the leadership contest by expelling her from the party following remarks she made about the LGBTQ+ flag earlier this week. The Fareham MP branded the LGBTQ+ Progress Pride flag as 'horrible' and 'monstrous'. She hit out at 'far, far too many Tory politicians' who wanted the flag flown in Whitehall to show 'how liberal and progressive we are'. Mrs Braverman, moaned she was too enfeebled as a minister to get the flag removed from her own department. She blamed 'other Tory politicians' for her failure, while also delivering a wider attack on 'liberal Conservatives' who 'trashed' the party. 'The Progress flag says to me, one monstrous thing: That I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals', she said. Suella Braverman was widely condemned after she branded the LGBTQ + Progress Pride flag as 'horrible' and 'monstrous' The former home secretary hit out at 'far, far too many Tory politicians' who wanted the flag flown in Whitehall to show 'how liberal and progressive we are' Mrs Braverman, who is expected to run for the Conservative leadership, moaned she was too enfeebled as a minister to get the Progress Pride flag removed from her own department Despite a fierce backlash, Mrs Braverman doubled down on her comments with a post on social media Mrs Braverman's blistering speech in Washington DC on Tuesday stirred up a backlash within Conservative ranks, with some Tories vowing to thwart her leadership ambitions. Casey Byrne, a former Conservative candidate for Reading Borough Council and LGBTQ+ campaigner, said Braverman should be 'expelled' for the comments. Speaking to the BBC, he said: 'Suella Braverman has crossed a very clear line that only her expulsion from the Conservative Party, would be an appropriate consequence. 'Rishi Sunak, as leader, should expel her from the party and send a clear message - we will not tolerate hate.' Johnny Luk, a former parliamentary Conservative candidate for Milton Keynes Central in Buckinghamshire, also condemned Ms Braverman's speech. MailOnline has contacted Mrs Braverman for comment. Meanwhile, Mrs Braverman got into a public slanging match this week with her Tory leadership rival Kemi Badenoch. Mrs Braverman tweeted that she would be 'interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I'm having a 'very public nervous breakdown', as Mrs Badenoch was reported to have said during a meeting of the shadow cabinet. Mrs Badenoch said it was a 'shame' the discussions had been leaked, but did not deny making the nervous breakdown remark about Mrs Braverman. Mrs Badenoch (pictured at the Spectator's summer party) said it was a 'shame' the discussions had been leaked, but did not deny making the nervous breakdown remark about Mrs Braverman In a post on X - formerly known as Twitter - 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 yesterday Your browser does not support iframes. While the starting gun has yet to be fired on the leadership race, contenders have begun making their pitches privately. Shadow communities secretary Mrs Badenoch has reportedly demanded her rivals sign a non-aggression pact to avoid blue-on-blue attacks. Her team are said to be braced for a circular firing squad as part of a 'Stop Kemi' campaign, the Sun reported. The timing of the contest remains unclear, but former chancellor George Osborne yesterday urged the party to take its time. He said there was a 'strong argument for allowing the Conservative Party conference to be the hustings for the conservative leadership and allow time for new candidates to emerge'. And he said Mrs Badenoch needs to be 'the leader not the warrior'. 'She's a kind of warrior, she likes taking the fight to people. I've had good, robust arguments with her but can she be the consolidator, the leader, the healer?,' he told the Political Currency podcast. 'Can she bring the party together? In some ways, she was right to tick off the shadow cabinet for being too complacent. I completely agree with her about that. I think she needs to make the move over the next few weeks to being the leader not the warrior.' Freezing air from Antarctica will create a frosty weekend across Australia and the icy air is expected to linger into next week. 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.' There's also a high chance of snow falling in areas from Tasmania to northern New South Wales, even outside the alpine regions. Gale-force winds, with gusts over 90 km/h, will hit Tasmania and eastern Victoria on Sunday and Monday and are expected to spread to New South Wales by Monday. 'The fierce winds that are predicted to hit southeastern Australia from this weekend have the potential to topple trees after a prolonged wet period has led to a soggy landscape,' Weatherzone said. 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) 'While winds should continue to be strong across eastern Australia on Tuesday, they should ease below damaging strength as the low moves further east over the Tasman Sea.' The winds could potentially reach as far as Sydney and the Illawarra region. Weatherzone said that the strengthening low-pressure system could lead to large and dangerous surf along the coasts of Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales from the weekend into early next week. Heavy rain will also batter Tasmania and Victoria from the weekend through to Wednesday, it predicts. 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. Aussies can expect some very cold nights as temperatures plummet due to the polar blast 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 sunshine state can expect 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 the 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. A rescued hostage has told how he was kept chained up for months on end in Gaza as sadistic guards repeatedly threatened to kill him and his fellow captives. Andrey Kozlov, 27, was held for 245 days by Hamas who would punish him by locking him in a squalid toilet or piling blankets on him in 40C heat if he disobeyed them. He cried every day fearing he would die at any moment as the terrorists told fellow hostages Almog Meir-Jan, 21, and Shlomi Ziv, 40 they would put him 'in the grave'. But suddenly on June 8 Israeli special forces burst into the apartment, killed the guards and rescued the three men alongside Noa Argamani, 26, who was held in a nearby building. Today he becomes the first of the four captives to speak out as he starts his fight to save the 120 hostages who remain in Gaza. Andrey Kozlov, 27, was held for 245 days by Hamas who would punish him by locking him in a squalid toilet or piling blankets on him in 40C heat if he disobeyed them But suddenly on June 8 Israeli special forces burst into the apartment, killed the guards and rescued Mr Kozlov, along with three men alongside Noa Argamani, 26, who was held in a nearby building Evgeniia Kozlova, mother of Andrey Kozlov, and Jenifer Master, the girlfriend, hold a poster with his picture during an interview with Reuters on June 11 'It's like I have come out of another planet, another universe,' Mr Kozlov tells the Daily Mail as he reflects on his freedom in Tel Aviv. 'It is like being on the other side of the mirror on October 7 the whole world went upside down.' The Russian sous-chef moved to Israel 18 months ago and was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival to earn more money when terrorists stormed the rave that day. In the mayhem he was caught by Hamas who forced fellow hostage Shlomi to drive them into Gaza at gunpoint. 'For the first two days of captivity we were tied with hands behind our backs,' Mr Kozlov says. 'Then for two months we were tied up in chains, in front, hands 20cm apart, and legs 40cm apart. You go to the toilet like that, you sleep like that. The chains are noisy. 'Every day you feel that your life is almost over. You never know what they were going to do to you. Maybe they will kill you. Maybe they will do something else. Maybe you will be their slave. Noa Argamani, 26, who was held in a nearby building, smiles while having a drink of coke with her father Yakov after being reunited on June 8 Noa Argamani was seen kidnapped on the back of motorbike during the horrifying terrorist attacks on October 7 Fellow hostage Almog Meir Jan reacts after emerging alive from the Gaza Strip on June 8 Fellow hostage Shlomi Ziv, 40, hugs his family after being rescued 'They threatened us. One of them had a big stick knife I can't talk about it.' Mr Kozlov was held with Almog and Shlomi for eights months and the three men were moved seven times sometimes in broad daylight in full view of Palestinian civilians. 'They saw my eyes, I could tell,' he says of non-combatants. 'But they just didn't care. We walked straight past them. 'No-one asked if I was a hostage, they didn't care, they just walked by.' He received different treatment from each guard, with some allowing them to use a toilet while others forced them to share a bucket in the room where they were held. 'One guy in particular was terrible,' he said. 'One of the hardest punishments that I had was to be covered with really thick blankets in the middle of May. 'I couldn't move and you couldn't make space to breathe fresh air. You're sweating over it. You were not allowed to shower because you had to smell your smell. I just tried not to show any emotions. 'One of them was very crazy, shouting: 'Don't look at me. Sit on the mattress.' I know I am not a dog, but I did what he wanted.' Andrey Kozlov smiles with his mother Evgeniia Kozlova Andrey Kozlov reacts as he called loved ones after his rescue on June 8 Evgeniia Kozlova, mother of Andrey Kozlov, and Jenifer Master, the girlfriend, hold a poster with his picture during an interview with Reuters on June 11 Evgeniia Kozlova speaks to Reuters during an interview after Israeli special forces rescued her son from Gaza. Pictured in Tel Aviv on June 11 Jenifer Master was all smiles after her boyfriend was rescued by Israeli special forces Explaining what could lead to punishment, Mr Kozlov said 'every word can be dangerous' with one guard tying his hands for two days because he saw him move off his mattress without permission. Once he caught a glimpse of the huge protests in Israel as the terrorists watched Al Jazeera. 'The cruel one said, "You see, your photo isn't there they don't care about you",' said Mr Kozlov. In one of the most chilling exchanges, the cruel captor referred to a hostage they knew who disappeared and told Mr Kozlov: 'You'll be next.' 'I started to cry and think about my family,' he said. 'They took that guy and we never heard about him again. I can't talk about it. 'We heard some versions about him, we didn't know what happened to him.' In May he heard a guard tell his fellow captives they were going to kill him. 'He promised to Shlomi and Almog to put me in the grave,' he said. 'He told them: 'You will see in the future, I will put him into the grave.' 'You repeat in your head, what will I do if something bad happens? How will I defend myself? What steps to take if he does something?' Footage from the raid showed intense gun battles is the elite IDF unit stalked through Hamas controlled territory The Israeli troops got embroiled in a lengthy firefight to get out of Gaza with the hostages Helmet cam footage from the raid in Gaza shows Israeli forces searching for hostages Special forces made up of undercover operatives of Yamam and Shin Bet surround one of two heavily guarded buildings in Al Nuseirat, Gaza The IDF found the shocked hostages after the daring raid The three men were given the Quran to read, which Mr Kozlov said he found helpful 'to understand' the psychology of his captors. 'I had one goal to survive,' he said. He would play cards with the other two hostages and while they would do squats and push ups when their captors weren't looking to try and stop themselves wasting away. 'In the first several weeks I went inside my own world, telling myself: 'One more day, one more day, don't give up.' 'After when we realised we would be in Gaza a long time, we started to communicate. We are different people with characters and we had problems but we solved them together.' The terrorists would taunt them as hundreds of IDF bombs rained down on some nights claiming that Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to kill them. 'I cried almost every day,' says Mr Kozlov. 'Every day you think you're going to die. The worst thing about captivity is not knowing when it's going to end. 'You know nothing about the next minute, your future, emptiness, it's terrible. I don't have the words.' Relatives of rescued Israeli hostages that were freed pose with an Israeli flag outs Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Centre in Ramat Gan on June 8, 2024 People react after the military said that Israeli forces have rescued four hostages All smiles outside the medical center in Israel after four hostages were rescued alive from the central Gaza Strip on June 8 While he saw no weapons in the first places he was held, his guards in the final apartment were armed to the teeth with RPGs, grenades, guns and bombs. Following months of propaganda and psychological torment he never expected Israel's special forces hostage rescue team, Yamam, to rescue him from such a stronghold. 'For eight months they convinced us Israel is trying to kill us,' Mr Kozlov says. 'That morning I was reading a book about Marco Polo when there was an explosion on the window. 'In ten seconds we realised it was the IDF. The killed both of the guards in seconds. There was a Russian speaker sent personally for me. 'He explained, "You will go with me, two metres in front and behind, not more. We will rescue you - and tonight you'll be home. Don't worry".' Recounting how he was extracted from the apartment and loaded into a waiting car which sped to a helicopter rendezvous on the beach, he said: 'It was a miracle. 'You do what they say. They defended us against all the bullets. We were surrounded and they defended us. 'We were on the street for about a minute, maybe seconds before we got into the car. Each soldier had a Hollywood smile and were so happy to see us. 'They did this for us we saw our own superheroes save us.' Beside him in the car the soldiers were desperately trying to save Arnon Zmora, the Yamam commander who later died from his wounds. Arnon Zamora, an officer of the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, was fatally wounded in the operation the hostages 'Arnon Zmora is my personal hero,' Mr Kozlov says. 'We met with his family and he told me he was that guy who would save hostages. 'There are no words in Russian, English or Hebrew to express what I feel for Arnon and his family.' Mr Kozlov touched down at Sheba Medical Centre, near Tel Aviv, and when his mother, Evgeniia Kozlova, 52, flew in from Russia the next day he collapsed at her feet. Unknown to him, she had fought to save him alongside Mr Kozlov's girlfriend, Jennifer Masters, 32, who he had only been dating for weeks before being taken. 'I froze, I fell on my knees and started to cry,' Mr Kozlov says. 'It was an incredible moment. The best moment of my life. 'All those people I thought about were here in one place. I still can't believe it. Four weeks later, I still can't believe it.' Now he has one mission to help bring all the others back home. 'It's the main goal,' he says. 'They have the worst life. My mind is still there in Gaza. 'I wish all the hostages come back as soon as possible to their families.' Booktopia, which had been Australia's largest bookseller, is in chaos, with customers told their outstanding orders won't be filled and they won't get a refund. The company went into voluntary administration on July 3, just weeks after it announced 50 jobs needed to be cut in order to save $6million. On Wednesday, it emerged that Booktopia had sacked another 165 staff and stopped taking any new orders. Customers have been contacted by the company's administrators Keith Crawford, Matthew Caddy and Damien Pasfield with a message seen by Daily Mail Australia. 'Outstanding orders placed prior to the appointment of the administrators will not be fulfilled,' the note, signed by Mr Pasfield, said. 'You will need to lodge a proof of debt form to make a claim as an unsecured creditor in the administration.' The note also warns that customers can not get a refund, stating: 'The value of the orders placed prior to the administrators' appointment represent an unsecured claim against Booktopia.' Anyone with Booktopia store credits or gift cards is also out of luck, with the administrators saying 'The use of store credit and/or gift cards has been suspended until further notice.' Booktopia, which had been Australia's largest bookseller, is in chaos, with customers told their outstanding orders won't be filled and they won't get a refund The company went into voluntary administration on July 3, just weeks after it announced 50 jobs needed to be cut in order to save $6million. Warehouse pictured And customers who are owed refunds are likely to have a long wait for them, if they ever get their money back. 'The administrators/Booktopia will not be processing refunds,' Mr Pasfield wrote. The payments owed to customers, suppliers and other Booktopia creditors are 'dependent on the outcome of the sale and/or recapitalisation process and realisations from other assets'. Mr Pasfield said the likelihood, or otherwise, of a return to unsecured creditors will be outlined in an administrators' report which will be issued before a second meeting of creditors. Poll Have you ever ordered something from a company that went bust before you got the goods? Yes No Have you ever ordered something from a company that went bust before you got the goods? Yes 97 votes No 152 votes Now share your opinion That date has not yet been set, but a first meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 15. Those owed money by Booktopia have been told they 'should form their own view about whether or not you attend the meeting (in person or via proxy). 'Regardless of whether you decide to attend or not, your claim will not be affected.' Booktopia halted share trading in June, before an update was issued to shareholders and the Australian Securities Exchange. 'Further announcements will be made in due course,' a Booktopia spokesman told Daily Mail Australia at the time. It had been losing vast amounts of money since bricks-and-mortar stores re-opened at the end of the pandemic, including a $16.7million loss for the six months to December 31. CEO David Nenke resigned in June after less than a year in the job, with company co-founder and its former chief executive Tony Nash replacing him. Booktopia's chief financial officer and other senior executives also resigned in recent months, and its chief marketing officer left last year. Mr Pasfield, Mr Crawford and Mr Caddy, who work with from administrators McGrathNicol, have now reportedly sacked all but 18 people from the business as it winds down operations. The decision to do so came within a week of the administrators taking over, indicating they saw no chance of the company trading its way out of trouble. An error message saying 'Payment Gateway Under Maintenance, Try again later' comes up when trying to make an order. 'Our immediate focus is to undertake an assessment of Booktopia's assets and work alongside employees, suppliers, and customers to secure the best outcome for all parties,' Mr Crawford said. The administrators have received 60 expressions of interest in their quest to sell or restructure the business. Booktopia's sales surged during the pandemic lockdowns due to the inability of customers to visit actual stores, and people stuck at home were looking for something to occupy their time. Its turnover in the 2020-2021 financial year was $223.9million, and then went up again to $240.8million the following year. Booktopia's sales surged during the pandemic lockdowns, with people stuck at home and looking for something to occupy their time (stock image) But its revenue fell drastically as the lockdowns ended and people cut their spending as the cost of living crisis intensified, raising doubts about the company's future. One customer told Daily Mail Australia that they had been using Booktopia for almost a year, but had not found it to be a particularly good service. 'The main thing that I noticed about them as a book retailer is that despite the excessive size of their warehouse, they never actually had any of the books I was looking for stocked on location. 'So basically, every book I ordered had to come from their supplier first. The books they actually had in stock were dull looking and dull sounding,' they said. A female prisoner serving life behind bars for the brutal murder of her boyfriend has been quietly making thousands of dollars from selling artwork. Jodi Arias, 44, who was convicted in 2013 of the 2008 murder of her on-off boyfriend Travis Alexander, maintains a website selling a variety of paintings and prints, with one valued as high as $2,500. She also recently noted on Instagram that she was commissioned to paint a cow for a fan, after 'someone I really couldnt turn down asked me to paint one for her office'. Arias' murder conviction became a media sensation over a decade ago as she only narrowly avoided the death penalty, however her artwork does not violate any 'Son of Sam' laws as she is not profiting directly off her crimes. Jodi Arias, 44, who was convicted in 2013 of the 2008 murder of her on-off boyfriend Travis Alexander (pictured together), has been quietly making thousands of dollars from selling artwork behind bars Arias' artworks include this painting titled 'Beyond the Horizon', which the convicted killer is selling for $2,500 The convicted killer claims in her website that she always loved making art from a young age, but stopped for some time when she 'completely derailed (her) life.' After taking up painting again, she began selling them on eBay before moving on to selling them through her website that says she uses the revenue to purchase more supplies. Ten per cent of the profits are donated to charities, while 'some of it will go towards Jodi's appeals', the website states. Most of Arias's prints sell between $28 and $39, and she also hawks sets of postcards for $34.95. When she was recently commissioned to paint the cow, she said on Instagram that a prison guard inspired it's unorthodox title. 'An officer interested in the paintings progress kept asking me how "ol girl" was coming along,' she wrote. 'She said it several times and it clicked: thats the title!' The unearthing of Arias' prison artwork comes 11 years into her life sentence for the murder of Travis Alexander in his home in Mesa, Arizona. Arias said she was recently commissioned to paint a cow for a fan, after 'someone I really couldnt turn down asked me to paint one for her office' Most of Arias' prints sell between $28 and $39, and she also hawks sets of postcards for $34.95 Arias became one of the most notorious female killers in America in 2013 when she was found guilty of murdering her on-off boyfriend in a jealous rage Alexander sustained 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and a gunshot wound to the head The couple met in September 2006 at a work conference in Las Vegas, but their relationship was off-and-on for over a year as they often lived in different states. Prosecutors claimed Arias was a jealous and manipulative girlfriend who raged at Alexander when she found out he had been dating other women. Arias was said to have discovered Alexander was planning a trip to Mexico with another woman, leading her to plot to murder him. Alexander was found dead in his shower on June 4, 2008, after sustaining 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and a gunshot wound to the head. A digital camera found in Alexander's washing machine also included a number of images of Arias and the victim in sexual poses, and another taken moments after Alexander was murdered. The image showed him 'profusely bleeding' on the bathroom floor, where a bloody handprint was found that contained Arias's DNA. Arias initially denied the murder but later admitted to doing so as she claimed it was self-defense after he attacked her. Arias was said to have plotted the murder after discovering Alexander was planning a vacation to Mexico with another woman She was found guilty in 2013 but jurors were undecided over the death penalty and Arias received life without the possibility of parole. Arias was once one of the most notorious female killers in America, but her artwork reportedly does not violate 'Son of Sam' laws, reports the New York Post. Also known as 'notoriety for profit laws' - set up amid fears serial killer David Berkowitz would want to sell his life story - the laws prevent criminals from profiting from the publicity around their crimes. But Arias's paintings do not cross the line because the artwork has no link to the murder of Alexander, and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry reportedly says it is aware of her profiteering. A Duke University neurosurgeon's dreams have come true after he was asked to become a medical consultant on the hit TV drama show Grey's Anatomy. Stephen Bergin, 35, a sixth-year resident at the hospital made the decision to study medicine after he became a regular viewer of the 21-season show while still in high school. Following the steps of the show's beloved character Dr Derek Shepherd, popularly known as McDreamy among fans, Bergin decided to become a neurosurgeon at a young age. As he reached his fourth year of residency at the hospital, the show's producers made a public call for doctors at Duke who wished to become medical consultants on season 19. Stephen Bergin, 35, a sixth year resident neurosurgeon's dreams have come true after he was asked to become a medical consultant on the hit TV drama show Grey's Anatomy Bergin, an ardent fan, quickly jumped at the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and applied for the position. 'I was interested in it immediately because watching Grey's Anatomy in high school inspired me to get into neurosurgery. 'The production always has medical specialists on staff for consults and they like to have a resident in that bunch so all the resident storylines feel realistic. 'I was in my fourth year of residency which is also known as a research year, so I had more time available to take the role on. 'I applied, interviewed and was lucky enough to be chosen,' Bergin told the British news agency SWNS. The Duke University Hospital doctor decided to save lives after he became a regular viewer of the 21 season show while in high school. Bergin (center) is pictured with Caterina Scorsone who plays Dr Amelia Shepherd (left) and Kim Raver who plays Dr Teddy Altman (right) on sets In a video clip, he explained that as a consultant, he is involved in the show's story generation and provides the writers with real-life medical scenarios which they incorporate into the script. 'We would receive scripts from the showrunners or writers with lines in them that would literally say "medical, medical, medical". 'It was my job to fill in these lines with applicable medical jargon. 'I would also be consulted on what type of injury could bring two characters working in different medical departments together. 'For example, if they needed a reason for a neurosurgeon and a cardiothoracic specialist to be in a room together, I would come up with the injury that meant they were both needed.' The senior resident has also appeared as an extra on the Emmy-winning series But his role on set is not limited to just being a consultant. At times, Bergin has also contributed towards filming by teaching actors how to use medical equipment and once helped show lead Ellen Pompeo with her lines during season 19's mid-season finale 'Thunderstruck' in October 2022. 'When I was on set, I got to interact with the actors about the words I had written. 'Ellen Pompeo was going over her lines at one point and asked if there was an alternative way of saying something. 'I suggested a change which got approved and then Ellen chanted "The doctor saved the script!" over and over again. 'I helped Caterina Scorsone, who plays Amelia Shepherd, understand the proper way to use a tool for the spine. The Duke University resident is pictured here with Scott Speedman who plays Dr Nick Marsh on the show 'She was so committed to doing a good job. They all were! I was so impressed by their commitment and kindness to me throughout.' The senior resident has also appeared as an extra on the Emmy-winning series. Sharing a short clip of himself on X, he wrote: 'Found me! Helping transport the patient after a successful #greysanatomy surgery.' While being a doctor and a consultant, Bergin also shares his experiences on set as well as a neurosurgeon on social media to raise awareness. Nancy Pelosi is reportedly working under the radar to push Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race as concerns continue over his ability to win a second term. The former Speaker of the House last spoke publicly about Biden Wednesday, where she stopped short of explicitly telling President Joe Biden to stay in the presidential race. However, Pelosi has allegedly been working the halls of Congress, speaking to as many powerful Democrats as possible to try and come up with a plan to make Biden reconsider. She's said to have canvassed everyone from swing-district Democrats afraid of Biden will drag down their downballot races to long-time veterans in deep blue parts of the country. One Democrat lawmaker anonymously described her as 'very concerned' about Biden and not necessarily making it clear that 'we're sticking with [Biden]'. Nancy Pelosi is reportedly working under the radar to push Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race as concerns continue over his ability to win a second term The former Speaker of the House last spoke publicly about Biden Wednesday , where she stopped short of explicitly telling President Joe Biden to stay in the presidential race Another said Pelosi's message was: 'The stakes are so high. We can't afford to do anything but have our best possible opportunity to win'. She's reportedly concerned that the Biden campaign's response to the disastrous debate in Atlanta that began this controversy two weeks ago was not 'an honest reckoning' or 'an objective analysis'. Another anonymous Democrat said: 'It's very clear that she doesn't think that this matter is settled and that Joe Biden's statement - 'I'm running; shut up' - she said, 'No, we're still talking about this.' Pelosi is rumored to be representing members who feel Biden continuing in the race is being 'rammed down their throats'. 'Team Biden made it clear what their strategy was: ignore the problem, run out the clock, and force the rest of us to live with it,' said Adam Smith of Washington, who called on Biden to drop out. A spokesperson for Pelosi told The Hill a similar message to the one she delivered on MSNBC Wednesday. '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,' Ian Krager said. Asked if Biden has her support on MSNBC's Morning Joe, the former speaker said: 'It's up to the president to decide if he's going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running out.' Pelosi is rumored to be representing members who feel Biden continuing in the race is being 'rammed down their throats' Asked if Biden has her support on MSNBC's Morning Joe, the former speaker said: 'It's up to the president to decide if he's going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running out' Reminded that Biden has made up his mind, Pelosi said: 'I want him to do whatever he decides to do.' 'Whatever he decides, we go with.' Biden wrote in a letter to hill Democrats on Tuesday: '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.' Pelosi, 84, and Biden, 81, have crossed paths in Washington for decades. She's one typically of his biggest defenders on Capitol Hill. She said Democrats should 'let him deal with the NATO conference' happening in Washington, D.C. this week and 'hold off' on public judgment 'until we see how we go this week.' Pelosi was silent upon leaving an all-caucus meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday where they discussed the future of their presumptive presidential nominee. Asked about Pelosi's comments, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters he would not comment on them until he had spoken with her. Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said of the remarks: 'Our view has not changed. President Biden is the nominee. There is no light between our caucus and the work we have done with this administration and the work that we will do in the future. As always, this decision is up to the president.' Pelosi, 84, and Biden, 81, have crossed paths in Washington for decades. She's one typically of his biggest defenders on Capitol Hill .@SpeakerPelosi asked about Biden's candidacy: "I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that's the way it is. Whatever he decides we go with." pic.twitter.com/HqaRGtv2dP Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 10, 2024 So far at least seven House Democrats have demanded Biden step aside in on-the-record statements. Others have flirted with the idea or expressed a similar sentiment behind closed doors. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said he believes Biden will lose Democrats the election on 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,' Bennet said. 'I think that we could lose the whole thing,' he told CNN. Two Russian-born Australian citizens will face court after being charged with obtaining defence material to share with officials in Moscow. AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw fronted a snap press conference on Friday to announce a 40-year-old woman - a private in the Australian Army - and her 62-year-old husband, had been arrested at their home at Everton Park in Brisbane. They have each been charged with an espionage offence, which comes with a maximum of 15 years in prison. 'We allege the woman was undertaking non-declared travel to Russia, whilst she was on long-term leave from the Australian Defence Force,' Commissioner Kershaw told the media. 'We allege that whilst she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home. 'We allege her husband would access requested material and would send it to his wife in Russia [and] they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. It's alleged the information related to national security interests. The woman had been on long-term leave from the defence force since 2023. AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw fronted a snap press conference on Friday to announce a 40-year-old woman - a private in the Australian Army - and her 62-year-old husband, had been at their home at Everton Park in Brisbane It is the first time espionage charges have been laid since federal laws were introduced in 2018. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said many countries were attempting to steal Australian secret information. 'We cannot be naive and we cannot be complacent,' he said. 'Espionage is not some quaint cold war notion. Espionage damages our economy and degrades our strategic advantage. 'It can have catastrophic real-world consequences.' Commissioner Kershaw said the AFP ad 'disrupted' the alleged spying operation and that no significant compromise of Australia's security interests had currently been identified. The pair will face Brisbane Magistrates Court on the espionage charges later on Friday. This video is no longer available This video is no longer available Sir Keir Starmer defended Joe Biden's leadership of the Nato summit despite the US President confusing Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. The Prime Minister, who earlier insisted Mr Biden was not senile and was on 'good form', faced questions about the president's mental ability just moments after the US leader's made the major faux pas. Mr Biden introduced Ukrainian president Mr Zelensky as 'President Putin' at an event attended by Sir Keir at the Nato summit in Washington. He immediately corrected himself, saying: 'President Putin? He's going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. 'I'm so focused on beating Putin, we've got to worry about it.' President Joe Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin ' in a brutal gaffe at the NATO summit with his political future hanging by a thread The 81-year-old facing mounting calls to drop out of the presidential race said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin' At a press conference at the conclusion of the Nato summit, Sir Keir repeatedly dodged questions about Mr Biden's blunder. Responding to questions about Mr Biden's mental capacity, the Prime Minister told journalists 'I would urge everyone to look at the substance of what's been achieved over these two days' over support for Ukraine. He said: 'When we think of the global threats, that is the best possible outcome we could have had today and so I think he deserves credit for that, as does the team that worked with him. 'We close this council with renewed confidence and resolve to meet the challenge of Russian aggression. That is the outcome we all hoped we would get to and President Biden led us through that.' Sir Keir sidestepped a question about whether Mr Biden was capable of serving four more years in the White House, instead again focusing on the outcomes of the Nato summit. At a press conference at the conclusion of the Nato summit, Sir Keir repeatedly dodged questions about Mr Biden's blunder President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky (L), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (2-L), US President Joe Biden (2-R) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council during the summit Responding to questions about Mr Biden's mental capacity, the Prime Minister told journalists 'I would urge everyone to look at the substance of what's been achieved over these two days' over support for Ukraine' Mr Biden's leadership credentials amid questions about his cognitive health, which have intensified since criticism of his performance in a TV debate against Donald Trump. The president, 81, is seeking re-election in November despite discontent within the Democrat ranks about his suitability. Sir Keir, who met the president for their first bilateral talks at the White House on Wednesday as Nato leaders gathered in Washington to discuss the challenges facing the bloc, said Mr Biden had been 'across all the detail'. Before Mr Biden's latest slip-up, Sir Keir had told broadcaster their one-to-one discussions had happened 'at pace' and Mr Biden seemed 'on really good form'. 'We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour,' he said. 'He was absolutely across all the detail. We were going at pace through a number of issues.' Asked whether the president was senile, Sir Keir told the BBC: 'No... he's shown incredible leadership.' The president has stood firm against suggestions he should drop his candidacy and appealed for an end to the row over how the party moves forward in a sharply worded letter to Democrats. Legislators and fundraisers including Hollywood actor George Clooney have since joined calls for Mr Biden to step aside, after he appeared flustered and stumbled over his words in the presidential debate with Mr Trump last month. Whether it's a blissful few days on the beach or packing in the sights, most of us have a preference for our ideal holiday. But it appears there are some tell-tale signs that set you apart as a true globetrotter. A survey found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that owning a worn passport full of stamps was the biggest evidence you were a seasoned traveller, with 42 per cent of us saying so. This was followed by having a host of backpacking tales to wheel out at dinner parties (28 per cent) and putting souvenirs from your trips on your walls at home (27 per cent). The survey of 2,000 Britons showed 14 per cent thought being competent with chopsticks was telling of having travel experience. Meanwhile, pronouncing certain foreign words also showed you had the bug (10 per cent). Owning a worn passport full of stamps was the biggest evidence you were a seasoned traveller, the survey found Among a host of signs that you are a seasoned traveller is being able to eat anything with chopsticks - 14 per cent of respondents said A backpacker on Khaosan Road market in Bangkok, Thailand. The survey found that 96 per cent of Britons believe that holidays are important to broaden your horizons These included the dish pho, as well as chorizo and nduja a spicy spreadable sausage. Referring to airports by their codes, having well-worn walking boots and a year-round tan were also signs of being a travel lover. And when it comes to experiences that expert wanderers should have ticked off, eating street food in Bangkok and seeing the Northern Lights came top. Nearly half of us consider ourselves a traveller rather than just a holidaymaker according to the survey by Hotukdeals. Vix Leyton, from the money saving website, said: 'It's clear that a lot of Britons find joy in travel, and with the cost of living crisis... the idea of getting away from it all has never been so appealing, yet seemingly so out of reach.' Despite the price, the study also found that 96 per cent of Britons believe that holidays are important to broaden your horizons. Pho, a Vietnamese dish which consists of broth and rice noodles, is pronounced 'fuh'. Australian electric vehicle drivers are growing increasingly frustrated with fellow EV drivers who hog charging bays for extended periods of time. An electric vehicle owner raised the issue last week, calling out a BYD driver who left their car charging for over seven hours at Stocklands Harrisdale in Perth. 'Do BYDs take that long to charge? Almost seven hours as per the Chargefox app,' he wrote on Facebook. Some social media users expressed frustration over the 'selfish' parking behaviour, while others pointed out that 'BYD models take almost 10 hours to fully charge.' Others reminded EV owners that public charger ports are meant to be shared. An EV owner from Western Australia vented about a BYD driver who hogged a free charger at Stocklands Harrisdale in Perth 's southeast, over the weekend More Australians are making the switch to electric vehicles with 95,289 sold in the year to June 30, 2024. As lack of proper infrastructure continues to plague the country, the availability of public charging stations continues to be one of the biggest concerns for motorists. It is not uncommon for long queues to form at free chargers in car parks, hotels, restaurants and shopping centres, but they are generally slower than paid charging stations Queensland electric motorbike rider Gordon Walker said occupying the charging stations for longer than needed is just 'arrogant'. 'I've seen it so many times where they're plugged in, they're at 100 per cent and they don't come back for an hour and a half,' he told Yahoo. 'They treat it as free parking, that's annoying. 'I charge my bike and as soon as it's charged I move it out.' Another EV driver shared their experience on Reddit, and said they previously left a note on a vehicle which was regularly plugged in for nine hours. 'I get it, sometimes you might be an hour late getting back to the car... maybe you can't always charge at home, that's okay too,' they wrote. There are currently no laws stopping drivers from using a public electric vehicle charger for extended periods, but drivers are urged to be polite and considerate 'But public chargers aren't yours, don't leave your car there overnight or almost double the charge time for your car.' There are currently no laws stopping drivers from using a public electric vehicle charger for extended periods, but drivers are urged to be polite and considerate. 'Unless it's absolutely necessary, it's best not to charge all the way to 100 per cent,' the NRMA said on EV charging etiquette back in April. 'At the top of any list of lapses in EV charging etiquette would have to be drivers who leave their EV unattended on charge for longer than they need to. This is sometimes referred to as 'camping' and is a source of great frustration for other EV drivers waiting to use the charger.' A passenger has been left injured after a tree branch smashed through the window of a double-decker bus. Emergency services were called to a crash involving a bus and a large tree on Bury New Road in Salford just before 8pm on Thursday. When they arrived, they found that a tree branch had sliced through the top deck window into the seats. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service crews attended the scene for an hour and one passenger was transferred into the care of the North West Ambulance Service. The tree had also been downed in the impact and police cordoned off the area while the road was cleared of debris. Emergency services were called to a crash involving a bus and a large tree on Bury New Road in Salford just before 8pm on Thursday When the emergency services arrived, they found that a tree branch had sliced through the top deck window into the seats A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said: 'Shortly before 8pm this evening (Thursday 11 July), one fire engine from Broughton Community Fire Station was called to attend a crash involving a double-decker bus and a tree on Bury New Road, Salford. 'Crews arrived quickly and worked alongside Greater Manchester Police to make the area safe and clear the roadway. One casualty was transferred into the care of North West Ambulance Service. 'Firefighters were in attendance for around an hour' MailOnline have approached Greater Manchester Police and North West Ambulance Service for a comment. President Joe Biden laughed off claims he needs to get more sleep and said his wife Jill 'gives him hell' for working too much but, in the most important press conference of his career, he vowed he won't leave the presidential race. The president took questions for almost an hour on Thursday night as he tried to put to rest Democratic fears he can't beat Donald Trump in November and doesn't have the mental capabilities to do the job. There were a few notable mistakes and, at times, Biden sounded hoarse and mumbled but he made it clear he's in the race to stay. It's unclear if he's calmed the storm of worry in his party, where at least a dozen Democrats have publicly called on him to exit. There were good moments and bad. President Joe Biden held a nearly hour-long presser on Thursday night He started off on a bad foot when he made a significant mistake: calling his Vice President Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump.' But, despite the gaffes, he is clearly digging in. Biden tried to poke fun at what he called a 'stupid mistake' in the first presidential debate and noted at the next debate he won't be traveling through '15 time zones' before hand. Two weeks before the debate, he had done back-to-back trips to France, Italy and California. He even took a shot at his staff for packing his schedule, saying they were getting him in trouble with the first lady. 'I love my staff but they add things. They add things all the time. Im catching hell from my wife, Biden said. And he pushed back on a report that he told Democratic governors following his debate disaster he would pare back events after 8 pm. Thats not true, he said, laughing. Look, what I said was instead of my every day starting at 7 oclock and going to go to bed at midnight, itd be smarter for me to pace myself a little bit more, Biden said. He said it would be better, for example, to push forward a fundraiser by an hour. Start at 8 people get to go home by 10, Biden said. There have been reports Jill Biden is one of the few people that could convince Joe Biden to exit the contest. But Biden said Thursday night the only way he'll leave is if his staff 'came to me and said there's no way you can win.' And some of his closest aides are doing just that. They are weighing how to tell him he can't beat Donald Trump in November and needs to drop out of the race. Other aides agree his chances at winning are zero and the odds are growing stronger he will take Democratic candidates down along with him. 'He needs to drop out,' a Biden campaign official told NBC News. 'He will never recover from this.' To convince him of that, aides told The New York Times they have to make the case to Biden directly that he can't beat Trump and persuade him another candidate, like Vice President Kamala Harris, can. They also have to reassure him that, if he were to step aside, the process to choose another candidate would be orderly and not devolve into chaos. The White House rejected claims in the report. 'Unequivocally, this is not true,' White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. Other top aides are standing by the president. 'I do not have concerns. He said he had a bad night,' National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Thursday when asked about the president's debate performance. His White House aides have not approached him yet about an exit plan but are taking steps to make sure they have all the information they will need in place. The campaign is quietly testing a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump, the Times reported. The campaign is conducting a survey to see how the results play out. The data could either allow them to present a case to Biden that Harris is a strong contender or to reaffirm his view that he is. Biden, it's said, remains unconvinced that a Democratic besides himself can beat Trump. Jill Biden is said to be one of the few people that could get Biden to exit the race At the end of his press conference, Biden took a question on whether his delegates at the convention are free to vote their conscience if they have second thoughts about them, after acknowledging he needed to keep proving himself. Obviously theyre free to do whatever they want. But I get overwhelming support in the primaries, he said. If tomorrow if all of a sudden they show up at the convention, everybody says, we want somebody else. Thats the democratic process. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper for emphasis. Its not going to happen. Elizabeth Wilson is an intern on the breaking news team. She is a rising senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in journalism with a minor in political science. She has lived in San Francisco for the past decade and is excited to join the breaking news team. Wilson was most recently a fellow for the CalMatters College Journalism Network, where she covered higher education policy. She previously interned at the San Luis Obispo Tribune. At her campus paper, Wilson is a data and investigations reporter. Her award-winning reporting has focused on student experiences with campus safety. In her free time, she enjoys walking around the city, watching nostalgic TV shows and finding new music. An irate Little Caesars customer allegedly pistol-whipped staff members after they got his order wrong - and then went on to kill an elite cop in what authorities are now calling a 'senseless' crime. Harris County Chief Deputy Mike Lee said deputies received a call shortly after 10pm Wednesday night, regarding an aggravated assault at a Little Caesars pizza shop in Houston, Texas, where a suspect allegedly became upset that his order was wrong. The suspect - who has since been identified as 44-year-old Ronnie Palmer - started to verbally assault the clerk at the counter, officials say. He then allegedly pistol-whipped the employee before fleeing the scene. The injured clerk was later able to provide officers with a description of the suspect's vehicle and his license plate - which Deputy Fernando Esqueda was able to track down. Ronnie Palmer, 44, was taken into custody late Thursday after allegedly attacking a Little Caesars employee and shooting dead an elite officer Officials say Palmer became irate after Little Caesars employees got his order wrong The 28-year-old deputy, who was working overtime to keep residents safe in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, then notified his team members that he thought he spotted the vehicle. 'During that phone conversation, our deputy was apparently ambushed,' Lee said at a Thursday morning news conference. He said that other detectives in the area rushed to his location, and 'saw his undercover vehicle with multiple gun strikes in it.' They also noticed that Esqueda was shot multiple times, and rushed him to the hospital in one of their patrol cars, but he was later pronounced dead. One of the first deputies to arrive to Esqueda's location was his own sister, who 'pulled him out of the car,' another sister told ABC 13. Deputy Fernando Esqueda, 28, notified his colleagues that he spotted Palmer's vehicle when he was shot multiple times A number of houses and a vehicle across the street were also hit by gunfire, ABC 13 reports. Fortunately, neighbors said the people who lived in the homes were not there at the time due to some ongoing power outages. The shooting prompted a manhunt for Palmer, with even Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announcing a $10,000 reward for is arrest. SWAT teams later setting up barriers at two locations in an effort to capture the suspect, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez wrote on social media. He was finally taken into custody late Thursday night for the assault on the Little Caesars employee and as a person of interest in the capital murder of Esqueda - who was a five year veteran of the sheriff's department. Esqueda was a five year veteran of the sheriff's department, working in the Violent Person Task Force Esqueda had worked in the sheriff's department's Violent Person Task Force, which Lee said hunts down child rapists, homicide suspects and 'some of the most egregious criminals out there.' 'He went after the worst of the worst,' the chief deputy said at the news conference Thursday, saying there was 'so much promise unfulfilled.' Sheriff Gonzalez also wrote on social media that Esqueda 'was dedicated to protecting and serving the residents of Harris County. 'We pray with Deputy Esqueda's family, friends and colleagues during this incredibly difficult time,' he said. 'Deputy Esqueda's commitment to duty and his sacrifice will always be remembered.' He had earlier worked as an East Aldine Pro Active Deputy, according to Terry Garza, who said she was his sergeant She described Esqueda, second from right, as 'one of the best deputies I ever had to supervise' and 'an amazing patrolman with a heart of gold' Prior to joining the sheriff's office, Esqueda was an East Aldine Pro Active Deputy, according to Terry Garza, who said she was his sergeant. She described him in a Facebook post as 'one of the best deputies I ever had to supervise,' and 'an amazing patrolman with a heart of gold.' Garza noted Esqueda once responded to a call in which children did not have any food, and he and his partner went out to buy food and snacks so that they could eat. 'Kids always wanted to take photos with him because he was a role model to them and he always had a big smile on his face,' she recounted. 'He worked so hard so the community could be safe. 'Rest in peace young hero!!' A week is a long time in politics and an even longer time (you'd imagine) if you're the wife of the new Prime Minister, who, as of last Friday, has had to take her place on the world stage looking appropriately dressed for every thing from a day at the races to formal dinners in Washington DC. Yet, even exiting the plane on Tuesday, ahead of the Nato summit, Victoria, Lady Starmer (or Lady Vic, as she's known in political circles), looked born to this job: glowing and upbeat in a 450 cream, lace-knit dress from British label Needle & Thread, which might as well have had 'breath of fresh air' stamped all over it. A wife who dresses well is not a requirement of the job of PM, nor should it be, but we all know a natural clothes horse when we see one someone who understands how to make fashion work for her character and lifestyle and who is confident enough to have some fun with it. That Victoria happens to have grace and a chin-up, eyes-sparkling naturalness that you couldn't have dreamed up in a Labour focus group, is definitely something for the new government to smile about. Just eight days ago, Victoria was a private, working mother-of-two whom we had barely seen in public, so it's all the more impressive that she has hit the ground running. Winning look: Lady Starmer heads to No 10 last Friday in a 275 Me+Em midi dress in bold Labour red She strutted into 10 Downing Street in a pair of Russell and Bromley silver slingback heels, retailing at 145 On election day, 'Lady Vic' had cut a more casual figure but still on message in red, arriving at a polling station in North London wearing a crimson red shirt-dress from US designer Simkhai She paired the red shirt dress with a pair of classic white trainers by Tommy Hilfige Ticking the right boxes: Victoria, with Sir Keir, wears a 295 jacket by British label Me+Em on last Thursday's election night Fashion stakes: Me+Ems 227 Lantana flower dress is perfect for race fan Victorias day at Sandown Park last Saturday Lady Starmer kept the sun out of her eyes with a pair of Gucci shades It would be tough for anyone to meet all the sartorial expectations of her new role: to stand out from the crowd without stealing the show; to look polished without looking intimidating or frivolous; and at the same time to not lose your own sense of style. From the little we know of Victoria a lawyer turned occupational therapist she would never have chosen this role, but her first week as the PM's wife has been pitch perfect. On election night, she wore a 295 cropped cream jacket by the British label Me+Em (now almost sold out) with smart wide-leg dark trousers and white flatform trainers. This was a soft introduction to the style course she's stuck to since: simple, smart, comfortable. Nothing to scare the horses, but very much her own and that important word given her new position relatable. She looked like she'd happily run with a ballot box or two herself if it'd help. This was Victoria's last outing as a civilian. The next day it was official the Starmers were heading to No 10 and for that she wore an elegant 275 midi dress in bold Labour red with draped short sleeves, again by Me+Em a knock-out on her. A lot of women thought so too, as the brand saw a 300 per cent uplift in traffic and what will be known as that No 10 dress is sold out in every colour bar black. The Russell & Bromley silver slingbacks, now on sale for 145, were key, too. Other PMs' wives have opted for high-heeled suede courts for such momentous occasions, but Victoria's choice was more youthful and on the fashion money. Relaxed: A 105 Me+Em denim shirt with the brands 150 flared trousers to view the familys new Downing Street home on Monday You could almost imagine her trying on a pair of 4.5-inch heels, then rejecting them on the grounds she didn't want to be seen teetering when she entered No. 10. Also: vertiginous heels somehow separate the wearer from the normal civilian population. Not Victoria's style. On Saturday, she was pictured at the races at Sandown Park, this time in a green Me+Em print dress. It was the perfect occasion for a bright, grassy daytime print pretty without being fussy. She also wore an old pair of Gucci sunglasses maybe they were borrowed, maybe she has a stylist or adviser of sorts in the wings either way, they added the finishing flourish. For all her naturalness, Lady Starmer isn't averse to a bit of glamour. Arriving in the U.S. in style: The PMs wife wears a 450 cream Needle & Thread dress with 269 LK Bennett sandals at the Nato summit on Tuesday On the question of a stylist, a spokesman for Me+Em, her favourite label of the week, founded by British entrepreneur Clare Hornby, confirmed it hadn't loaned the clothes to Victoria, which suggests she is buying them herself without the help of a third party. But would a stylist change a thing? Not so far, and furthermore she's scoring tens across the board while wearing High Street brands, albeit at the pricier end of the scale. On Monday, for a low-key visit to Downing Sreet, Victoria was pictured in a Me+Em denim shirt with a ruffle trim (105) yes, you guessed it, none left unless you're a size 6 and flared trousers. Nothing remarkable here, but her 'everyday unremarkable' style is the way 50-something women aspire to look. Lady Starmer may just have the Holly Willoughby factor for her generation. There was a hint of what we might have in store at the Labour party conference two years ago, when Keir Starmer appeared with a lovely looking woman on his arm (could that be his wife?) who was wearing a dark red belted dress and looking, it was noted, more stylish and confident than anyone else in the room. Lady in red at the White House: A 320 dress from French label The Kooples and 145 Russell & Bromley slingbacks for Wednesday's welcome ceremony with US President Biden There was a hint of what we might have in store at the Labour party conference two years ago, when Keir Starmer appeared with Victoria wearing a dark red belted dress and looking more stylish and confident than anyone else in the room Designer Edeline Lee loaned Victoria a long 'Weimar' coat, cream top and trousers for a Press night performance of Dear England at the National Theatre in 2023 Victoria opted for Needle & Thread a 725 romantic lattice embroidered cream gown - for the state dinner for Emperor Naruhito at the end of June. We weren't really paying attention then, but we are now The dress was loaned for the occasion by Edeline Lee, a British designer who also loaned her a long 'Weimar' coat, cream top and trousers for a Press night performance of Dear England at the National Theatre. She's worn Needle & Thread before, too a 725 romantic lattice embroidered cream gown for the state dinner for Emperor Naruhito at the end of June. We weren't really paying attention then, but we are now. And so to that other cream Needle & Thread dress, the highlight of the week so far. An 'I'm not afraid to steer my own course' choice, if ever there was one. Cream is not the easiest, for all the obvious practical reasons, but it's a smart call for a fresh-faced woman stepping off a plane for her husband's first official engagement. The 269 gold, woven leather sandals from LK Bennett were spot on, too summery, dressy and light. Suddenly Victoria looks younger than some previous PMs wives and less hidebound by convention, which may be part of the plan. Or maybe, more likely, she hasn't over thought it. For the Nato summit dinner on Wednesday, she chose strong red again, this time a 320 pleated dress with a deep V by French brand The Kooples, a High Street label she's worn before. Making her appearance on the balcony alongside Sir Keir and other European leaders, her arm around his shoulder, his hand clasping hers she looked like she was just getting into her stride. We're looking forward to it. A Queensland grandmother has claimed a $10 million prize in last night's Powerball draw. The Mackay woman held the only division one winning entry nationally in Powerball draw 1469 held on Thursday. The winning woman took a little longer to discover her newfound fortune after missing multiple calls from The Lott earlier on Friday morning. 'Oh my god, I am shaking,' she said, 'I can't believe it, I don't know what to say 'I saw the missed calls when I woke up this morning, but I thought it was a scam, so I decided to leave it. 'It wasn't until I listened to the voicemail from you that I knew it wasn't a scam and something was up. ' She said the winnings would help her settle the mortgage in full, pay off bills and buy a new car. 'I'd love to buy a Honda or Toyota with a bull bar because we really need one where we live. I'll also slowly start to cut down my hours at work and eventually retire. A Queensland grandmother has claimed a $10 million prize in last night's Powerball draw (stock image) 'It will give me more time to spend with my grandchildren. 'I nearly didnt buy the ticket because I was in a rush on the way to work but Im so glad I did.' The winning numbers in were 17, 20, 9, 12, 19, 22 and 16. The Powerball number was 9. Of the 20 Powerball division one winning entries in 2023, eight landed in New South Wales, seven in Victoria, two each in South Australia and Western Australia, and one in Queensland. EXCLUSIVE The daughter of an entrepreneur who was murdered in the Philippines is due to marry in five weeks' time - as the family say they are 'living a nightmare'. Australian David James Fisk, 57, his wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippine-born Australian citizen, were found dead at The Lake Hotel, at Tagaytay in Cavite province, southwest of the Philippines capital of Manila, on Wednesday. The body of Mary Jane Cortez, 30, a Filipino national who is understood to be Ms Cortez's daughter-in-law, was also discovered alongside the couple. Daily Mail Australia can reveal the tragedy comes as Mr Fisk's daughter Lacinda is due to wed her husband-to-be in August. Just three weeks ago, Lacinda, 27, celebrated her bachelorette weekend with family and friends in Gerringong, on the NSW south coast - drinking cocktails, eating pizza, doing yoga, and going for beach walks. 'Take me back to the weekend that was!' she wrote on Instagram. 'I am still blown away by the love I was surrounded with and the fact that everyone was so willing to spend their long weekend away with me celebrating the good things to come. I am truly blessed. 'Cannot wait to hit the dance floor with y'all in just nine weeks time!' Pictured: Australian national David James Fisk, 57, his Philippine-born Australian wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, On Friday morning, Mr Fisk's family released a statement, sharing their grief and pleading for answers. 'The love we have for our Father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare,' the statement read. 'We pray for answers and the truth in this horrific matter and just pray for their safe return to Australian shores. 'David's daughters, local known and loved residents in the Sutherland Shire, ask on behalf of their family that the media respect our privacy in this incredibly difficult and tragic time and we will be making no further comment.' The family have set up a GoFundMe to assist with 'support getting justice for all loved ones involved' and will be used to 'help ease the financial stress and burden that will arise from this incredibly difficult time'. A longtime neighbour of Mr Fisk and Ms Barquin Cortez told Daily Mail Australia on Friday the couple were 'very, very nice'. She said she last saw them about two weeks ago, as they were leaving to go to the airport for their overseas holiday. 'They were very happy they were going to the Philippines,' she said. 'I am so shocked. It's so sad. 'I cannot believe they are no longer [alive].' A longtime neighbour of David Fisk and Lucita Barquin Cortez (pictured) spoke fondly to Daily Mail Australia on Friday about the couple Ms Cortez and her daughter-in-law Mary Jane, the third victim A hotel worker found the bodies of the victims on Wednesday after they failed to check out of their hotel room. Local police have revealed all three were found with their hands and feet bound with electrical cords and packing tape covering their mouths. Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan told The Associated Press Mr Fisk's throat had been slit, while the women may have been suffocated with a pillow. Ms Cortez's son, speaking under the alias 'Brian' told local media his mother arrived in the Philippines on July 8 and he met the couple at the airport. He said his wife, Mary Jane, was meant to return to their home province, Mindoro, but his mother instead took her to stay with the couple Tagaytay. '[She said] I'm going to take [her]... don't send her home, I'm going to take her and she just came here to Tagaytay.' He said last spoke to his wife on Monday night, with Mary Jane telling him 'goodnight I love you'. He said he tried to contact them in the following days, but when they did not respond, he contacted police. Police are interviewing witnesses and examining security footage from the hotel, and are looking to speak to a man seen on CCTV wearing a mask, a black hoodie and maroon shorts who walked out of the victims' room carrying a bag a few hours before they were found. A statement from the Tagaytay Cavite Police Provincial Office said the station's tracker team had been activated, with searches being conducted at 'all possible exit points within Tagaytay and nearby provinces to apprehend and identify the suspect'. Local Mayor Abraham Tolentino apologised to Australia and has promised the incident will be resolved 'as soon as possible'. 'We were shocked by this incident,' he told local media. The Lake Hotel in Tagaytay, is located in Cavite province, southwest of Manila, the capital of the Philippines 'We're very sorry to our Australian friends.' The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) confirmed they were providing consular assistance to the families of the two Australians killed. 'We send our condolences to the families at this difficult time,' a DFAT spokeswoman said. 'Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment.' It is understood the Australian couple were due to fly back to Australia on the day they were killed, but decided to extend their trip at the last minute. Mr Fisk's body will be repatriated to Sydney, while both women will be buried in the Philippines, with the government to pay for their funeral and burial. The luxurious hotel where the couple were found boasts panoramic views of the world-famous Taal Lake and volcano. Opened in 2008, the four-star, $356-a-night Lake Hotel Tagaytay is a 90 minute drive from Manila. Joe Biden called Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump', introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin' on a night where he made excruciating gaffes as he fought for his political life. The 81-year-old president insisted he doesn't need a cognitive test because he is in 'good shape' at a press conference where he meandered through statements, mumbled and coughed in the face of mountain of calls for him to step aside. He denied reports he wants more sleep more, blamed staff for his disastrous debate performance and said wife Jill 'gives him hell' in the hour-long press NATO summit conference that didn't ease concerns of Democrats who want him off the ticket. Ailing Biden insisted he is staying in the race, rejected claims he is unfit to serve and said there are no polls that show he would lose to Trump in the November general election. He predicted that he won't get ditched as the candidate, but in a surprising statement he opened the door to being replaced by saying delegates at the Democratic National Convention could vote for whoever they want. Biden started the highly-choreographed event with scripted comments on the NATO, took out a sheet with a list of reporters to take questions and started with a botched answer. 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, did I think she was not qualified to be president,' Biden said an hour after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin' in an embarrassing blunder. President Joe Biden said he 'picked Vice President Trump,' mangling his answer about VP Kamala Harris at a press conference where Democrats were judging him on his capabilities as a candidate Biden mistakenly said 'Vice President Trump' when defending Harris' governing ability, as his party debates whether to try to dump him. She would be a leading candidate to run in his place He made another mistake when he said he was following the advice of his commander-in-chief - a title he holds - when he was discussing restricting using American weapons in Ukraine. is country. Taken alone, the gaffes might have been par for the course for Biden, but they came at a time when congressional Democrats are watching him closely, with yet another lawmaker, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, calling for Biden to step back from his campaign just minutes after the presser ended. Trump mocked the Harris error with a post where he wrote sarcastically, 'Great job, Joe!' Biden's X account tried to make the most of it, writing in response: 'By the way: Yes, I know the difference. Ones a prosecutor, and the others a felon. Biden expressed confidence in his ability to win, even as he showed new willingness to consider taking a neurological exam under certain circumstance, in a race where a new Washington Post / ABC poll had a majority of Democrats urging him to step back. Biden and the White House have repeatedly brushed off the request for an exam, and Biden himself made the point that 'no matter what I did, no ones going to be satisfied.' Nevertheless, he said he had gotten three significant and intense neurological exams by a neurosurg a neurologist as part of his annual physical. And they say Im in good shape, Biden said. The flub about Harris came shortly after Biden mistakenly called Volodymyr Zelensky 'Putin' the leader who is waging war on his country He said he would get another exam if the neurologist tells me he thinks I need another exam. If they think theres a problem, I promise you Ill do it, Biden said. No ones suggesting that to me now. Following his disastrous debate performance, some experts including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a prominent CNN commentator, have urged Biden to get a cognitive test. Biden reflected on the benefits of age, even as he dismissed concerns about his stiff gait, which has prompted long-distance Internet speculation about symptoms associated with Parkinson's. 'I do have a little problem with my left foot because I broke my foot and didnt wear the boot,' said Biden, referencing the fracture he suffered in 2020. The only thing that age does is creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention, Biden said. Biden expressed confidence in Harris and in the advice of medical experts but some of his fellow Democrats want to know if he'll heed bad polling data. Asked if he would yield if advisors told him Harris would fare better against Trump than he would, Biden responded: No. Unless they came back and said theres no way you can win me. No ones saying that. No poll says that,' he said, dropping his voice to his trademark whisper. The family of a notorious armed robber has expressed concern for his health as he enters his ninth day without food. Anthony John Smith has gone on a hunger strike following his transfer from Yatala Labour Prison to Port Augusta in South Australia last week. Mr Smith is 24 years into his 30-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to three armed robberies committed in 1999 and 2000. His family has now taken to social media to express concerns over his welfare as he refuses to eat, according to The Advertiser. 'The last time I spoke to him was yesterday afternoon around 2.15pm (Wednesday),' a relative said. 'He was on his seventh day without food, struggling both mentally and emotionally (and) his wellbeing has been at high risk for days. 'This situation is about more than just a transfer, it highlights the ongoing injustices and inhumane treatment he has endured.' Mr Smith has reportedly spent more than seven years in a 23-hour lockdown, with a relative claiming the Department for Correctional Services has denied him 'basic human rights'. Anthony John Smith has gone on a hunger strike following his transfer from Yatala Labour Prison to Port Augusta in South Australia last week 'There has been no real progress regarding Tony's situation for as long as I can remember,' the relative said. 'Any slight advancements have come at a significant cost to us. 'Due to classifications and other constraints, such as not being deemed eligible for medium security programs or release-ready programs, we have faced numerous obstacles.' Mr Smith was sentenced to 12 years for the robbery of the Buckingham Arms hotel at Walkerville, seven and a half years for robbing an ANZ bank, and 18 years for a robbery at Myrtle Bank, however the sentences were later reduced to 30 years with an 18-year non-parole period. He was refused parole in 2021. The DCS has been contacted for comment. Disgraced Orlando City Commissioner Regina Hill brazenly asked a judge to let her back into the house she is accused of purchasing with money stolen from an elderly victim. Hill, 58, appeared in court on Thursday for the second time in a week as she faces charges for allegedly convincing a 96-year-old woman to give her power of attorney and using that authority to spend more than $100,000 from the victim's accounts. Among the many items prosecutors say she spent the money on is a house in the Lake Mann Estates area of Orlando. Hill has been banned from returning to the house under a court order following her March arrest. But on Thursday, her lawyer argued that she needs to return to the home she secured a mortgage for and renovated. Hill, 58, has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges against her Hill allegedly used money she stole from an elderly woman to acquire a home she now wants to return to 'There's ongoing construction there and Ms. Hill would like to be able to continue the construction - she's paying for all of it,' attorney John Notari said, according to WESH. Hill's son and girlfriend were believed to be living in the home the former city employee obtained with the power of attorney at the time of her arrest in March, while she lived in a separate home that once belonged to the elderly woman's parents - which she allegedly spent a large portion of the savings to renovate. The judge said he would rule on the matter at an unspecified later date. Hill's hearing on Thursday came just days after the judge granted a request from her legal team for more time to prepare her defense. Prosecutors claim Hill met the elderly woman in March 2021 in her role as commissioner, and was supposed to help her get better living conditions - but within a month, she had become her power of attorney. Disgraced Orlando City Commissioner Regina Hill appeared in court on Thursday, asking if she could return to the house at the center of an investigation She then allegedly used the money, not just on the house, but on a facelift, perfume, clothing, and dental surgery. Hill also used the woman's savings for a New Year's Eve vacation to Miami, and on a large number of intravenous vitamins from a company named Vitalounge, according to court documents. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and insists she will be acquitted. 'I'm confident,' she said in a brief statement following her court hearing on Tuesday, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 'It's a rough journey, but I've got to take it.' But Hill had previous brushes with the law, which surfaced when she first ran for office in 2014. According to the Orlando Sentinel, news emerged during her run that she had a rap sheet with 21 pervious arrests dating back to 1983. The arrests included drug offenses, DUIs, fraud and passing bad checks. She was also arrested in 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama, for public intoxication, the outlet reported. Hill's son Rakeem was also arrested in 2015 when a cache of guns and drugs were found inside a home she owned at the time, reports WFTV9. Hill was arrested in March following a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation A state investigation into her dealings with the elderly woman finally began when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a tip from one of her staffers who had been fired. During the investigation, FDLE Special Agent Steve Brenton reportedly asked the woman about signing over her power of attorney, and said 'she recalled signing some sort of document but did not understand it and would have never agreed to allow Hill to be a power of attorney.' Brenton continued that when he looked into Hill's spending, 'these purchases and/ or bank withdrawals exceeded $100,000, and solely benefitted Hill.' He said that while her home had undergone renovations, the home the elderly woman had been living in was in need of repairs, but Hill had allegedly not spent any money to fix. The agent's affidavit also noted that before Hill met the elderly woman, she had over $164,000 in her bank account and around a $650 balance. Following her arrest, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order suspending Hill from her post as commissioner As of October, she was left with $60,000 in her bank account, and $10,000 on her credit card. Following her arrest, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order suspending Hill from her post as commissioner for District 5 in Orlando. That order set off a hotly contested race to serve as the interim commissioner, which Shan Rose ultimately won last month. Still, Hill has remained hopeful that she will one day return to office - saying she will do so if either the charges against her are dropped or she wins at trial, which is now scheduled for September 17 Her attorneys now hope that happens sometime this year. 'I want the truth to be known by the community,' she said on Tuesday, the Sentinel reports. A Daily Show correspondent was in for a shock when he gathered a focus group of black voters and half of them revealed they were set to cast a ballot for Donald Trump. The segment was filmed following the release of an Ipsos poll that showed Biden's support among African Americans had dropped 20 points from 2020 after his disastrous Atlanta debate with Trump. The liberal comedy show's segment appeared to emulate this poll, as correspondent Josh Johnson gathered a half dozen black voters to talk about their reaction to the debate. Johnson started off the segment, titled 'Do We F*** With Trump?' by asking the six people - three men and three women - who they'd vote for. Three of them said Trump, albeit one with some reservations, leaving Johnson in shock. A Daily Show correspondent was in for a shock when he gathered a focus group of black voters and half of them revealed they were set to cast a ballot for Donald Trump 'Okay, we're an even split, which - yeah, I didn't see that coming,' he said, as the participants laughed. One survey taker said, when asked who he'd vote for: 'Do I have to say his name? I don't want to, but more than likely, it's going to be Trump.' However, the other two Trump voters in the group seemed much more comfortable, as did the three Biden voters. 'For me, I have always been a Democrat, and it's like, for the most part, with the Democratic Party, they always make a bunch of promises that they cannot deliver,' said the male voter who didn't want to say Trump's name. Both he and one of the two female Trump voters felt there would be a shift in the black community toward the Republican nominee, again blaming the Democrats. 'You know, they use the issues of the African American community as a soapbox to stand on and make promises just to get us to come out and vote, and then once we vote and everyone's in place - it's like, well, what happened?' They said that they were unhappy with Biden's past comments on the black community, including an interview with radio host Charlamagne the God where he proclaimed: 'If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black.' 'They have both said things that were questionable and unsavory, but when you start looking at facts - it's like Biden, you done dropped the ball, brother,' one female voter said. Recent polls show that while Trump remains broadly unpopular with black voters, he has made gains since he left office. Correspondent Josh Johnson gathered a half dozen black voters to talk about their reaction to the debate Johnson started off the segment, titled 'Do We F*** With Trump?' by asking the six people - three men and three women - who they'd vote for. Three of them said Trump, albeit one with some reservations, leaving Johnson in shock Two June polls conducted by AP-NORC shows that about 7 in 10 black Americans have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Trump. While that's still underwater, Trump only got eight percent of the black vote in the last election. President Joe Bidens favorability among black and Hispanic Americans has also fallen since 2021. Younger black Americans might be a little more open to Trump's appeals. About one-third of black younger adults - those under 45 - see him positively, compared to around 1 in 10 black adults who are 45 or older. But most younger black adults view him unfavorably. About 6 in 10 Black Americans, meanwhile, have a positive view of Biden - down from 8 in 10 when he took office. Joe Biden's senior officials struggled to keep their composure when the president mistook Donald Trump for Kamala Harris last night - as dozens of Democratic lawmakers prepared to turn against him. The major blunder came near the top of Biden's 'make-or-break' press conference and shortly after the commander-in-chief introduced Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of the NATO summit as 'President Putin.' Indeed, Biden's cabinet may have hoped that after the epic gaffe in front of a worldwide audience the worst was over. But about two hours later, the cameras were trained on Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan as the president made arguably his worst flub of the night. Democrat sources said the President faces a brutal 48 hours as dozens of party lawmakers go public with calls for his withdrawals after his gaffe-ridden Nato press conference Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left), defense secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan struggled to contain their reactions at the President's latest flub 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, if I think shes not qualified to be president,' Biden answered a reporter's question about whether he thought Harris had what it takes to be president. 'So let's start there, number one,' he continued. Sullivan put his hand to his mouth and Blinken allowed his gaze to drop dolefully as if staring off into space as the president poured gasoline on his chances of re-election. Only defense secretary Lloyd Austin appeared to control his gaze, staring unblinkingly at the commander-in-chief and even attempting a slight nod of agreement. The trio had a front row seat for the press conference at the end of the NATO conference on Thursday evening as calls for Biden to step down reached a fever pitch. Biden insisted he is staying in the race and rejected claims he is unfit to serve while also defying reality by insisting there are no polls that show he would lose to Trump in the November general election. And all the unforced errors came at a critical time for Biden's presidency and candidacy as Democrats launched a coordinated effort to go public with demands he withdraw from his re-election bid against former President Donald Trump. Even his two-term White House boss, former president Barack Obama, reportedly held emergency talks with Nancy Pelosi who had been urging Biden's critics to stay silent ahead of last night's make or break NATO press conference. But his performance did nothing to quell his critics with yet another lawmaker, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who called for Biden to step back from his campaign just minutes after the presser ended. CBS quoted four Democrat insiders claiming that a coordinated party rebellion is now underway, labeling the next two to three days as a 'brutal' stretch during which they expect Biden will be forced to drop out by the middle of next week. Obama had previously tried to calm Democrat nerves in the aftermath of Biden's disastrous presidential debate with Donald Trump last month, insisting 'bad debate nights happen'. Democrat kingmakers Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi held emergency talks about Biden's future as their previous support for the president appeared to be sliding away Donald Trump was quick to mock his rival's latest slip-ups But the 44th president reportedly did nothing to stop his friend George Clooney publish his excoriating op-ed demanding Biden withdraw, earlier this week. Pelosi too had pledged loyalty but told MSNBC that she would support Biden's decision when he made it days after he insisted that he already had. Two teleprompt screens, a list of vetted journalists, and press aides with microphones, ready to silence tricky questions, set the stage for last night's press conference. Yet even with the guard rails of screens, fussing aides and an opening statement, Biden struggled at times with a raspy throat, botched lines and meandering answers. He answered questions from 10 journalists and spoke for an hour on topics that ran the gamut from the Democratic convention and his health to long-range weapons for Ukraine and how to tackle a rising China. His allies and worried Democrat loyalists wanted a demonstration that he was still up to the job. He opened his press conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where world leaders were marking the 75th birthday of NATO, with a filibustering tele-prompted speech about the importance of alliances, and a list of his achievements in office. But then came his first great gaffe of the night as he introduced Ukraine's president. 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,' he said before realizing he was meant to be introducing President Volodymyr Zelensky who is a very much currently at war with Putin. A gasp ran around the room. Some people shouted the correct name as the leader of the free world tried to rally. 'No, we're going to beat Putin,' he said, as if to suggest he simply had Putin on the brain rather than suffering a senior moment. The room full of about 100 journalists, all clutching phones bearing the text of the their prepared questions, became fidgety, fearing his 'press conference' was merely an opportunity for him to talk at them then leave. 'With that, I'll take your questions,' said Biden to the almost audible relief of his audience. Biden's latest press conference flubs prompted a flurry of memes The pained reaction of Biden's most senior officials did not escape watchers on social media 'I've been given a list of people to call out here: Reuters, Jeff Mason.' He was immediately asked about George Clooney's bombshell intervention a day earlier, calling on him to stand aside, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggesting there was still time to decide whether he was in or out. 'There's a long way to go this campaign,' said Biden. 'And so I I'm just going to keep moving, keep moving. 'And because look, I got more work to do. We got more work to finish this.' If Biden's future hung heavily over the NATO summit in Washington it was in part because that's what Biden wanted. 'I guess a good way to judge me,' he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC last week, would be to watch him at the summit. Following his disastrous debate performance, some experts including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a prominent CNN commentator, had urged Biden to get a cognitive test. Biden reflected last night on the benefits of age, even as he dismissed concerns about his stiff gait, which has prompted long-distance Internet speculation about symptoms associated with Parkinson's. 'I do have a little problem with my left foot because I broke my foot and didn't wear the boot,' said Biden, referencing the fracture he suffered in 2020. 'The only thing that age does is creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention,' Biden said. But by the end of it memes depicting 'Vice-President Trump' were flooding the internet and the pained reaction of Biden's most senior officials was already attracting contempt and admiration in equal measure. 'That's the look of 'f*** I gotta go update my resume..' wrote one tweeter. Biden has spent this week surrounded by the pomp and gravity of NATO. He hosted allied heads of state and government at the White House on Wednesday A mixture of admiration and contempt greeted the officials' attempts to keep their cool 'Jake Sullivan just saw billions of dollars of NSA/CIA pet projects go poof in that moment,' wrote another. 'Lloyd Austin was stone cold. that was impressive.' Blinken was under particular scrutiny after he was spotted vigorously shaking his head at undiplomatic comments from his boss labeling China's Xi Jinping a 'dictator' at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November last year. And Donald Trump was quick to weigh in with his reaction to Biden's latest gaffes. 'Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' press conference with 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president,' he wrote. 'Great job, Joe!' Biden's X account tried to make the most of it, writing in response: 'By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One's a prosecutor, and the other's a felon.' A doctor has been charged over the alleged sex-related assaults of two patients at a Sydney medical centre. Police will allege a 28-year-old woman was indecently assaulted during a consultation on June 4 at a medical centre in Arncliffe. On June 26, a 19-year-old woman was sexually assaulted during a consultation at the same medical centre. Police were alerted and officers from St George Police Area Command commenced an investigation. Dr Ahmed Al-Sudan, 45, of Monterey in Sydney's south was arrested at the medical clinic and taken to St George Police Station on Friday following police inquiries. He was charged with sexually touch another person without consent and sexual intercourse without consent. He was refused bail and will appear at Sutherland Local Court today. Police inquiries continue. A doctor has been charged over the alleged sex-related assaults of two patients at a Sydney medical centre On the Health Engine website, Dr Al-Sudani is described as having 'over 17 years of experience in medicine and has been working in Australia as a GP since 2011. 'He holds a Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery and has the Australian Medical Council (AMC) Certificate as well. Additionally, he obtained a fellowship of The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (FRACGP). 'As a doctor in Arncliffe, Dr Al-Sudani is highly attentive and makes sure that our clients receive uncompromised care with the highest standards. He takes a special interest in all aspects of general practice,' the website states. Annie is a reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. She previously was a digital producer for The Chronicles Datebook section. She graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2017 with a degree in journalism. During her time there, she spearheaded a culture column, produced radio pieces for NPR-affiliate station KCBX, and was a DJ and writer for KCPR, the campus radio station. Before joining the Chronicle, she was an associate producer at SFGATE and interned at VICE and Flood Magazine. Shes particularly interested in communities and scenes that are often misunderstood. The family of an 82-year-old woman who was pronounced dead at a New York nursing home are demanding answers after after she was later found to be breathing two hours later at the funeral home. Janet Balducci was thought to have died mid-morning on February 4, 2023 at the Water's Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson on New York's Long Island. Balducci's body was then driven from the nursing home to Casimir Funeral Home in nearby Miller Place, some six miles away, to be embalmed. Just as funeral parlor workers were ready to tend to Balducci's body they noticed the cadaver that lay before them was still had a pulse. Janet Balducci, 82, was pronounced dead at a New York nursing home, then found to be breathing two hours later at the funeral home to which she had been transported The family are now looking for answers and have filed a lawsuit to attempt to uncover how Water's Edge nursing home placed Balducci in a body bag despite still being alive Now the family, Balducci's two sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are looking for an explanation as to how the mix-up occurred in what has been termed as 'extreme and outrageous conduct' in a lawsuit filed by the family which is taking on a two-pronged approach. The sons are suing for what they allege is the premature and wrongful death of their mother. The family believe that staff at the care home both declared Balducci prematurely deceased but then also contributed to her actual death by failing to diagnose a deep vein thrombosis, which they allege occurred as nursing home workers stood by and did nothing to help treat her. The family's lawyer say the woman's sons are 'horrified' by what happened and have to live with the sickening reality their mother 'was placed in a body bag alive.' 'I think the case is more emblematic of what happens when elderly people go into these homes,' DeNoto said. 'They don't have an advocate to keep track of what's happening,' lawyer Peter DeNoto, told The Independent. 'Did the nurse follow the criteria for determining whether somebody is dead and did a doctor confirm what the nurse found?' DeNoto asks. 'There really is no excuse for putting a live person in a body bag and sending them to a facility for embalming,' the lawyer told the New York Post. Following the shocking incident, Suffolk County police, the New York State Department of Health, and the New York Attorney General's Office for investigation opened a case, but the findings over what happened have never been revealed. Janet Balducci's sons are suing for what they allege is the premature and wrongful death of their mother, seen here, pictured as a young woman A criminal investigation into the entire episode is also still ongoing with the Water's Edge facility at the center In the lawsuit, the family allege those involved of 'gross negligence, and/or recklessness.' Balducci had been been living at her own home until she suddenly fell over in the summer of 2022. After being treated at Stony Brook University on Long Island on August 1, 2022, she was eventually taken to the Water's Edge nursing home on September 6. Although Balducci seemed to be okay for the first few months of her stay, her health suddenly began to decline, coupled with a loss of appetite and an increase in tiredness. It was late on February 3, 2023 at 11:52pm that a nurse practitioner at the home suddenly declared the woman to be 'unresponsive'. Although she survived the night, by 7:30am on February 4, the next morning, Balducci was described as being 'in bed and comfortable.' But four hours later, an entry on her chart states that she had 'expired at 11:15am'. Arrangements were then made to have her transported to a funeral home and her body was placed into a sealed body bag. Funeral parlor workers at the Casimir Funeral Home were about to deal with Balducci's body when they noticed the cadaver that lay before them was still alive - and still had a pulse It was another two hours before the workers at the Casimir Funeral Home unzipped the bag whereupon the workers noted she 'was still breathing and had a pulse.' Paramedics were immediately summoned and she was rushed to the nearby John T. Mather Memorial Hospital. When Balducci arrived at the hospital, she was 'noted to be unresponsive and placed on palliative care and held on until 5:20am on February 5, 2023. At that time, she passed', the family layer, DeNoto, explained. Now that Balducci's sons have filed their initial complaint, the family are waiting for both 'the facility and the funeral home to serve answers' from the people who were present at both facilities. They hope to be able to understand what happened, and how such mistakes were made. A criminal investigation into the entire episode is also still ongoing. 'There was nobody there advocating for her as an elderly person,' DeNoto said. 'She was definitely at the end stages of her life, unfortunately. That happens to all of us. But here it seems that it was too easy to say she is not alive anymore let's send her to a facility.' Despite the Water's Edge facility boasting about offering 'outstanding short term and subacute care' and having the 'first-class amenities of the finest boutique hotels', it has received a distinctly average score in the latest New York State Department of Health ratings, with 3 out of 5 stars The home has also been slapped with $22,000 in fines in the last 12 years. There have been a series of incidents including one in which a patient was left out in the hot sun for over an hour leading to dehydration and heat exhaustion, a second in which a patient fell onto the floor of their room, and a third in which a patient's bedsores were left untreated. The leader of a religious group accused of killing an eight-year-old girl by withholding her medication has claimed the trial was 'religious persecution' and they acted reasonably under their faith. Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, was the leader of a Christian group that called itself 'The Saints' and is on trial for murder along with the girl's father, Jason Richard Struhs, 52, in the Brisbane Supreme Court. 'This isn't really a trial about murder of a child as it is religious persecution,' Stevens said. The girl's mother, Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49, and the other 11 members of the congregation are charged with manslaughter. Elizabeth Struhs died at the family home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on January 7, 2022 after her parents and 12 others allegedly withheld her diabetes insulin medication for six days. All 14 defendants are representing themselves at the judge-only trial and Stevens told Justice Martin Burns on Friday that he wanted to make a defence opening statement to give the group's 'perspective'. The 14 defendants accused of either murder or manslaughter have refused to enter pleas 'We believe in God. We see that there is a hypocrisy in the land generally, and we have chosen to walk with God. It is reasonable to believe in God. The prosecution has suggested it is not reasonable,' Stevens said. Stevens said the group, who have refused to enter pleas, had been charged under legislation enacted by parliament and under the authority of King Charles, both of which were established from the word of God. 'God's name is invoked from the beginning. We are within our rights to believe in the word of God completely as we do ... woe onto them that decree unrighteous decrees,' Stevens said. He said the basis of the murder charges, that he and Jason Struhs had acted with reckless indifference to life, had not previously been used in Queensland and was a man-made law. 'Who should you follow, God or man? We have chosen God. We do not particularly care amongst ourselves what the judgment is,' Stevens said. Elizabeth Struhs died at the family home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane , on January 7, 2022 after her parents and 12 others allegedly withheld her diabetes insulin medication for six days Police footage of the Toowoomba home after members of the congregation were arrested Justice Burns previously heard Jason Struhs was woken about 5am on January 8, 2022 by loud prayers and rushed downstairs thinking Elizabeth might have been healed by God in line with the group's religious beliefs. Struhs found instead that Elizabeth had stopped breathing and died during the night after suffering escalating symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis over the course of six days after he allegedly stopped giving her insulin. Kerrie Struhs had weeks before been released from a five-month prison sentence for failing to seek medical help for Elizabeth's diabetes symptoms in 2019, which almost resulted in the girl's death. Members of the group had exchanged messages after Elizabeth died in 2022 and told each other that God would raise her from the dead. The trial on Friday was due to hear from police and ambulance officers who were the first on scene when Jason Struhs called triple zero after waiting 36 hours while Elizabeth lay dead on a mattress on the floor of the family home. The trial is due to run for another 11 weeks. A decision that could see an Oregon man who took his mother's severed head into a supermarket be released into a community treatment facility has sparked fury. Joshua Webb, 43, has lived at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem since he pleaded guilty except for insanity in the killing of his mother, 59-year-old Tina Webb, and the stabbing of a grocery store employee in 2017. Following the gruesome act, psychiatrists for both the prosecution and defense diagnosed Webb with schizophrenia and psychosis at the time of the murder. They said Webb had hallucinations, delusions and spoke to and heard voices in his head despite taking anti-psychotic medication for a year. But Dr. Karl Mobbs, a forensic psychiatrist involved in Webb's treatment for the past 18 months, argued that he should be transferred from the state hospital to a 16-bed residential treatment facility called Lifeways McNary Place. Joshua Webb, 43, pleaded guilty except for insanity in the killing of his mother, 59-year-old Tina Webb, and the stabbing of a grocery store employee in 2018 He has lived at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem ever since, but a doctor now says he is well enough to be transferred to a residential treatment facility He advocated for Webb's 'conditional release,' telling the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board on Wednesday that Webb now accepts the need to take medication, the Oregonian reports. The doctor said he avoids conflict with other patients and takes part in classes and 'therapeutic opportunities' more often than other patients. Webb has done so well, Mobbs said, that he now lives in the lowest security level at the psychiatric hospital - with roughly the same restrictions he would encounter at Lifeways McNary Place, and has privileges that include working in a greenhouse on the hospital grounds. 'Mr. Webb has been doing well for several years,' he told the five-member board in a virtual hearing, as Webb sat next to him in a room at the state hospital. But a woman who identified herself as the daughter of Mike Wagner, a supermarket employee Webb stabbed multiple times, opposed the transfer. 'I do believe in the justice system as well as rehabilitation to some extent,' she said, according to the Oregonian. 'However, due to the violent and horrific crimes committed on that day, I just don't believe justice has been served. 'It's a terrifying thought to think anyone capable of those actions on that day would be able to be released from any kind of custody,' she added. Webb carried his mother's head into the Harvest Market Thriftway, drank a soda, then attacked Wagner without warning. Webb carried his mother, Tina's head, left, into the Harvest Market Thriftway, drank a soda, then attacked a supermarket worker without warning Oregon Department of Justice lawyer Elisabeth Warner also urged the board to keep Webb at the state hospital - pointing to what she said was a documented lack of empathy and an apparent reluctance to apologize for his crimes. But Mobbs said it's hard for Webb to talk about the horrifying violence he committed on May 14, 2017. 'I have managed to talk to him about it privately and I do see that he has empathy around what's happened,' he said, though he admitted that Webb's empathy is 'probably on the lower end of normal.' Still, he insisted Webb was 'extremely ill' when he acted violently 'and so he feels that on the other side of the table that people would understand that it was his illness that caused him to act that way.' Warner, though, said she was unmoved. 'My concern is that removing Mr. Webb from the structure and familiarity of the hospital could lead to more harm than good for everyone involved in this case.' Scott Healey, the first assistant for the Clackamas County District Attorney, also opposed the move - calling Webb's spree of violence extraordinary. 'This particular individual shouldn't be released on any type of conditional release at this time,' he said. Webb admitted to killing his mother, dismembering her body and killing his dog Prosecutors have said Webb had problems with his vision and lived at home so his parents could care for him. In the weeks before the brutal slaying, his mother had confided that Webb 'had been doing weird things lately' and was 'losing his mind,' court papers say. The odd behavior only escalated, with Webb believing his girlfriend was trying to kill him and injecting him with an unknown substance and that Fox TV 'owned him.' He also told his girlfriend that a black box in the garage contained a device that was recording him, and complained of feeling like a squid was sucking onto the back of his head two months before the murder. By Mother's Day 2017, surveillance footage from Harvest Market Thriftway showed Webb running into the store with his mother's head and large knife. Bystanders managed to detain the then 36-year-old until police arrived on the scene. Webb later admitted to killing his mother, dismembering her body and killing his dog. He also confessed to killing his dog and later stabbing Wagner, though he never gave a motive for the brutality. Shocking bodycam footage captured the moment a police officer clung to a speeding suspect's car before shooting the driver dead. Police in Buffalo, New York released footage following the fatal shooting on Wednesday, showing the traffic stop turn chaotic as suspect Daevon Roberts, 25, tried to flee the scene. Officer Ronald Ammerman initially pulled over Roberts for excessive speed and tinted windows, and cops found a 6-year-old relative in his passenger seat with no seatbelt on. Roberts hit the accelerator as Ammerman had his arm on top of the car and leg inside the door, with the cop's bodycam showing him pleading to stop and telling Roberts, 'You're gonna kill me bro.' Bodycam footage captured the moment a police officer pulled over Daevon Roberts, 25, who sped away from the traffic stop with the cop still in his car before he was shot dead The footage showed police officer Ronald Ammerman cling for his life to the side of the speeding vehicle, warning Roberts: 'You're gonna kill me bro' Police launched an investigation after Ammerman shot Roberts six times during the altercation, and with Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia concluding that it was a lawful killing. 'I believe that is a justified use of force that occurred the other night,' Gramaglia said at a press conference. 'When you take into account the fact that the officer found himself in a grave risk of serious physical injury or death, the use of that level of force is justified by law and I do believe that that is a justified use of force in this case.' In the footage, Ammerman was heard asking Roberts for his ID, but the suspect only produced a picture of a Georgia license on his phone. Ammerman ran the license number and found it was not valid, leading Roberts to claim that the car he was driving belonged to his sister. He claimed that he is pulled over for the window tint 'every day', but as Ammerman remains by his side for several more seconds, Roberts decided to attempt to flee. The video shows Ammerman desperately cling to the side of the car as Roberts accelerated to over 60mph. Daevon Roberts, 25, was killed in the incident, and was facing charges of attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon at the time of his death Ammerman initially pulled over Roberts for excessive speed and tinted windows, and cops found a 6-year-old relative in his passenger seat with no seatbelt on Separate footage from Ammerman's partner showed the vehicle speeding away from the scene at a rapid pace Roberts was shot six times in the chaotic scenes, and was pronounced dead in hospital Roberts appeared to try and kick the cop out of his car, before Ammerman fired several shots into the vehicle and it ground to a halt. The six-year-old child in the car was uninjured in the incident, and Ammerman was seen racing to his side of the car as he stood up. It is unclear how the child is related to Roberts, who calls him both his cousin and nephew in the footage. Roberts was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead, reports WIVB. When cops searched his vehicle, they found a loaded gun with seven rounds under the driver's seat. Both cops involved have been placed on administrative leave, and Gramaglia praised the efforts of his officers after the chaotic incident, and said such situations 'don't evolve in a training facility.' 'This is real life, theres not a lot of control the way some of these situations go down. We can train for various situations but when it happens in real life, when there are actual situations, they always happen differently than what they do in a training facility,' he said. It later emerged that Roberts is the half-brother of Jaylen Griffin, a 12-year-old Buffalo boy who went missing in August 2020 and whose body later found in a home in April 2024. Roberts is the half-brother of Jaylen Griffin (pictured), a 12-year-old Buffalo boy who went missing in August 2020 and whose body later found in a home in April 2024 At a memorial for Griffin in April, Roberts was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief after allegedly firing shots at the ceremony. He was later indicted in June as his charges were escalated to first-degree attempted assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Gramaglia said at his press conference that the family 'has been through a lot over the past several years.' 'It's a very sad situation all around.' Buffalo homicide detectives and the Internal Affairs Division are also carrying out separate investigations into the shooting. A man who allegedly endangered a woman's life by pushing her onto train tracks at the start of peak hour has faced court. Patrick Stewart, 54, fronted the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday, charged after the incident at the Richmond train station on July 3. At the end of a brief hearing, Stewart told the court 'I wish to plead guilty to all offences'. But magistrate Tim Shocker said 'I cannot deal with that today, talk to (defence lawyer) Mr Boyle', and adjourned the matter to August 7. Earlier this month, a 64-year-old woman was allegedly pushed onto the tracks at Richmond Station. She was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Stewart faces charges of conduct endangering life, conduct endangering serious injury, reckless conduct causing injury and unlawful assault of a female for the train station incident. He has also been charged over unrelated incidents, including alleged burglaries, thefts, aggravated burglaries, trespassing, unlawful assault and making threats to kill. A man who allegedly endangered a woman's life by pushing her onto train tracks at Richmond station (pictured) at the start of peak hour has faced court Patrick Stewart, 54, fronted the Melbourne Magistrates' Court (pictured) on Friday, charged after the incident at the Richmond train station on July 3 The separate charges are alleged to have occurred at a business on Droop St, Footscray on May 10, a business on Hopkins St, Footscray on June 22 and a hotel on City Road, Southbank at 1.30am on July 4 (aggravated burglary). Stewart appeared in court by video link on Friday. Defence lawyer Callan Boyle told the court that Stewart had been in an influenza isolation ward, which delayed receiving and working through disclosure from police. The magistrate revoked Stewart's bail to the next court appearance in August. EXCLUSIVE The family of an Australian man murdered in the Philippines with his wife and a female relative lost his mother to cancer just 18 months ago - as witnesses report seeing a man lurking near the scene of the crime. David James Fisk, 57, his wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippines-born Australian citizen, and her Filipina daughter-in-law Mary Jane Cortez, 30, were found dead at The Lake Hotel, at Tagaytay in Cavite province, southwest of Manila. Hotel staff made the discovery on Wednesday when they failed to check out of their room, with the victims reportedly found lying face-down, their hands and legs bound with electrical cords and shoelaces, and their mouths covered with packaging tape. Local media reported Mr Fisk's throat had been cut in the horrific attack. Police say they are yet to determine a motive and are searching for a man who was spotted on CCTV exiting the room with a bag on Wednesday morning. According to local media reports, a security guard, Rodney Parahinog, passed the man at 6am on Wednesday at the resort's entrance gate and asked him where he was going. Pictured: Australian national David James Fisk, 57, his Philippine-born Australian wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55 Mr Parahinog said the man said that he was checked into the room and was holding a key card for Mr Fisk's room. As the victims' families come to terms with the tragedy, Daily Mail Australia can reveal the deaths come just 18 months after the Fisk family lost his mother Jan in February 2023. Mr Fisk's twin adult daughters, Lacinda and Brittany, also recently lost their maternal grandmother, Joan Elshaw, in May. Both women had battled with cancer, and Mr Fisk and his daughters were supporters of charity organisations dedicated to supporting those suffering from the disease. 'You suffered much in silence, your spirit did not bend, you fought for life with courage, until the very end,' reads an obituary for the beloved grandmother. 'You left us with memories, that make us laugh and cry, but the love you planted, in our hearts Will never die.' In May, Mr Fisk participated in a 63km walk to support young people impacted by cancer for Canteen Australia. Last month, Lacinda - who is a philanthropy unit coordinator at Cancer Council NSW - announced she would be taking part in Dry July in honour of her nana. Pictured: Jan and Barry Fisk. Jan died in February last year, while her husband passed away in 2019 'Don't forget - every donation, big or small, makes a difference for people affected by cancer,' she wrote on social media. The back-to-back tragedies come just weeks before Lacinda is due to wed her fiance in August. On Friday morning, Mr Fisk's family released a statement, sharing their grief as they pleaded for answers about the horrific deaths. 'The love we have for our Father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare,' the statement read. 'We pray for answers and the truth in this horrific matter and just pray for their safe return to Australian shores. 'David's daughters, local known and loved residents in the Sutherland Shire, ask on behalf of their family that the media respect our privacy in this incredibly difficult and tragic time and we will be making no further comment.' The family have set up a GoFundMe to assist with 'support getting justice for all loved ones involved' and will be used to 'help ease the financial stress and burden that will arise from this incredibly difficult time'. Meanwhile, tributes have poured in online as devastated loved ones remember the 'kind' couple. The three murder victims are pictured, left and centre, with another family member (right) during Mr Fisk's visit to the Philippines with partner Lucita Barquin Cortez One relative shared a photo of the couple on holidays in the Philippines as she called for justice. 'RIP to the three of you,' she said.'I hope you will get justice. You don't deserve what happened to you, you're too kind, why did this happen to you? 'I hope the person who did this to you will be caught.' A long-time neighbour of Mr Fisk and Ms Barquin Cortez told Daily Mail Australia on Friday the couple were 'very, very nice'. She said she last saw them about two weeks ago, as they were leaving to go to the airport for their overseas holiday. 'They were very happy they were going to the Philippines,' she said. 'I am so shocked. It's so sad. 'I cannot believe they are no longer [alive].' Ms Cortex and her daughter-in-law Mary Jane, the third victim Police are interviewing witnesses and are looking to speak to a man seen on CCTV wearing a mask, a black hoodie and maroon shorts. A statement from the Tagaytay Cavite Police Provincial Office said the station's tracker team had been activated, with searches being conducted at 'all possible exit points within Tagaytay and nearby provinces to apprehend and identify the suspect'. Local Mayor Abraham Tolentino apologised to Australia and has promised the incident will be resolved 'as soon as possible'. 'We were shocked by this incident,' he told local media. 'We're very sorry to our Australian friends.' The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) confirmed they were providing consular assistance to the families of the two Australians killed. 'We send our condolences to the families at this difficult time,' a DFAT spokeswoman said. 'Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment.' It is understood the Australian couple were due to fly back to Australia on the day they were killed, but decided to extend their trip at the last minute. Mr Fisk's body will be repatriated to Sydney, while both women will be buried in the Philippines, with the government to pay for their funeral service and burial. The luxurious hotel where the couple were found boasts panoramic views of the world-famous Taal Lake and volcano. Opened in 2008, the four-star, $356-a-night Lake Hotel Tagaytay is a 90 minute drive from Manila. Barack Obama has for the first time expressed private concerns about Joe Biden's chances of beating Donald Trump as the US President muddled President Zelensky with President Putin and then called Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump'. The US President's worst ever gaffes came at a NATO summit in Washington, where his staff and world leaders audibly gasped and Zelensky cancelled his planned press conference, leaving Biden's re-election hopes further hanging by a thread. And his closest allies, Mr Obama and Democrat grandee Nancy Pelosi, are said to have talked through the crisis and concluded that Mr Biden's chances of beating Trump is getting much harder every day - especially after his disastrous debate and near-daily blunders raising questions over whether he is senile. Mr Obama is said to be reluctant to go public with his concerns in case it helps Trump's campaign - and his worries about Mr Biden's chances are already 'one of the worst kept secrets in Washington'. Mr Obama and Ms Pelosi are still considering what action to take, CNN reports, as a Detroit Democrat congresswoman went public and said he must stand aside 'for the good of democracy'. Mr Biden's attempts to show he is not senile have backfired spectacularly on the world stage after he insulted President Zelensky and muddled Harris with Trump. Mr Biden gave his most important speech in months - but it quickly fell to pieces as he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by the name of his sworn enemy and Ukraine's tormentor. The 81-year-old Leader of the Free World, who is facing mounting calls to drop out of the presidential race, said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin'. It sparked intakes of breath from world leaders and Biden's team of aides in the room shouted the correct name. President Joe Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin ' in a brutal gaffe at the NATO summit with his political future hanging by a thread Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (left), defense secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan struggled to contain their shock at the President's latest disaster The president was asked whether Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump if she was top of the ticket, and answered in excruciating fashion. Biden mistakenly said 'Vice President Trump' when defending Harris' governing ability, as his party debates whether to try to dump him. She would be a leading candidate to run in his place Barack Obama, Julia Roberts and George Clooney with Joe Biden. Barack Obama is said to have expressed private concerns about Biden's re-election chances. Mr Clooney has called for Joe Biden to quit the US presidential race Obama is said to have worries that Biden's chances of beating Donald Trump are shrinking A clearly panicked Biden then corrected himself and said: 'No, we're going to beat Putin'. He then blamed the blunder on being 'so focused' on defeating the Russian leader who invaded Ukraine two-and-a-half years ago. Mr Zelensky then cancelled a planned press conference. And later it got worse for Biden when a reporter asked whether Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump - and he answered in excruciating fashion. Muddling up names again he said: 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president'. It came after more senior Democrats said he should drop out. CNN also claimed Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have talked about getting him to step aside ahead of the November election. George Clooney has said the president must drop out of the 2024 presidential race - and President Obama has been urged to step in to get Biden to go. The New York Times is reporting that Biden's long-serving aides are devising ways to persuade him to step down as the election campaign increasingly focusses on his cognitive ability. At least two close allies are believed to have become convinced he cannot defeat Donald Trump in November due to problems during the last head-to-head debate where he got muddled, froze and jumbled his words. And increasing numbers of senior Democrats have refused to endorse him - or publicly urged him to let someone else stand. West Michigan congresswoman Hillary Scholten yesterday called on President Joe Biden to step aside 'for the good of our democracy'. 'We just have too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines and be silent while we still have time to do something,' she told The Detroit News. Last night's gaffes triggered a Republican meme avalanche, with mashups of Harris and Trump appearing rapidly online. It also piles yet more pressure on Biden to go. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks across at Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Mr Biden's cognitive abilities are now under the microscope President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky (L), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (C) and US President Joe Biden (R) attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit at Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington Mr Biden insists he is the best person to take on Trump Sir Keir Starmer defended Joe Biden's leadership of the Nato summit. The Prime Minister, who earlier insisted Mr Biden was not senile and was on 'good form', faced questions about the president's mental ability just moments after the US leader's gaffes. The 81-year-old president has insisted he doesn't need a cognitive test because he is in 'good shape' at a press conference where he meandered through statements, mumbled and coughed in the face of mountain of calls for him to step aside. He predicted that he won't get ditched as the candidate, but in a surprising statement he opened the door to being replaced by saying delegates at the Democratic National Convention could vote for whoever they want. One of his worst gaffes yet came in front of global allies and shortly before his pivota press conference that could be the final nail in the coffin for his hopes of remaining as the Democratic candidate. The latest bungled comments will add fuel to the fire for critics who say he isn't capable of being in office for another four years, yet alone winning in November. It also came as a sitting Democrat indicated that he should resign from office in a stunning statement. Biden had announced a new $225 million aid package for Ukraine, including a Patriot missile system to bolster its air defenses against the Russian airstrikes when he made his gaffe. Behind the scenes at NATO summit, world leaders have been concerned about Biden's cognitive decline. One senior diplomat reportedly said that politicians from around the globe fear he could fall and are 'worried if he knows which direction he is going'. Biden's press conference flub prompted a flurry of memes After Biden called Kamala Harris 'Vice-President Trump', social media took the opportunity to make fun of the aging president House Speaker Mike Johnson also said that NATO leaders have privately told him they are 'deeply concerned' about the president's physical and mental health. The latest gaffe from Biden could not have come at a worse time as the White House desperately tries to prove he is fit to serve. 'And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,' Biden said. He turned away from the podium and then heard the shouts from those calling 'Zelensky' at him. 'President Putin? We're gonna beat President Putin. President Zelensky! I'm so focused on beating Putin. We got to worry about it -- anyway, Mr. President,' he said. 'I'm better,' Zelensky said. 'You are a helluva lot better,' Biden replied as he desperately tried to recover. The 81-year-old facing mounting calls to drop out of the presidential race said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin' His gaffe came in front of global allies and shortly before his pivotal 'big boy' press conference that could be the final nail in the coffin for his hopes of remaining as the Democratic candidate 'No, we're going to beat Putin,' Biden said, and blamed the blunder on being 'so focused' on defeating the Russian tyrant who invaded Ukraine two-and-a-half years ago. The latest gaffe from Biden could not have come at a worse time as the White House desperately tries to prove he is fit to serve The embarrassing flub in front of world leaders sparked gasps and those in the room had to shout the correct name Biden's error dropped just before his first solo press conference in nine months and since his catastrophic debate performance against Donald Trump. Nicknamed a 'big boy' press conference, the pressure is on the president to show he can handle an unscripted moment without a major error. But the major gaffe does not bode well for the president who has not been able to quell the tide of criticism against him. In the two weeks since the first president debate, Biden has not been able to reassure Democrats he is capable of defeating Donald Trump in November. In fact, fears are growing he will take down Democratic candidates with him. At the time of his massive hiccup with Zelensky, 15th House Democrats and one Democratic Senator had called on him to step aside. There were also reports that members of Biden's inner circle are also plotting ways to get him to drop out, fearing a devastating defeat to Trump in November. White House aides have also been accused of carrying out a plot over three-and-a-half years to hide Biden's definicincies from the press and the world. Staff closest to the ailing 81-year-old deployed a multitude of tactics to hide his deficiencies - limiting reporter access to him, giving the president smaller stairs for Air Force One and physically surrounding him in public to hide his stiff walk, a former Biden aide tells DailyMail.com. Biden has also been given large-print notecards with the most basic of instructions written on them for almost every event and kept to a tighter daily schedule so he can get more sleep. There was even staff charged with devising strategies to keep the president from falling down, the source said. 'No, we're going to beat Putin,' Biden said, and blamed the blunder on being 'so focused' on defeating the Russian tyrant who invaded Ukraine two-and-a-half years ago Now, the insider says, those advisers who coordinated the president's protective cocoon should be held to blame for his spectacular fall from grace and the mounting calls for him to drop his reelection bid. The ex-senior staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 'guardrails' placed around Biden meant his meandering and mumbling debate performance was amplified to the more than 50 million viewers. And because his deficits had been shielded from the public by those inner circle aides many Americans were shocked to suddenly see his dramatic decline exposed live on national TV. Biden's falls and gaffes since he took office in 2001 had been highlighted largely by conservative-leaning media outlets but all-but-ignored by more liberal news organizations. That is, until his primetime car-crash two weeks ago on CNN. Donald Trump and Joe Biden traded barbs on social media after the current president's embarrassing gaffe where he confused the name of his predecessor and Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden was asked whether Harris could beat Donald Trump if she was top of the ticket at the start of a Q&A with the press to end the NATO Conference, and answered in excruciating fashion. 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president,' he said, triggering a Republican meme avalanche, with mashups of Harris and Trump appearing rapidly online. Trump took to his Truth Social page and immediately after and savaged the miscue: 'Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' Press Conference with, 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.' Great job, Joe!' However, Biden's account on X had a response for Trump that attempted to hit just as hard. Donald Trump and Joe Biden traded barbs on social media after the current president's embarrassing gaffe where he confused the name of his predecessor and Vice President Kamala Harris 'By the way: Yes, I know the difference,' he wrote. 'Ones a prosecutor, and the others a felon.' Ironically, today was initially scheduled to be the sentencing in those 34 felony convictions for Trump but it was delayed after he seemingly secured immunity from a Supreme Court ruling. It was a rough day for the president, who hours earlier also confused the presidents of Ukraine and Russia. 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,' he said before realizing he was meant to be introducing President Volodymyr Zelensky who is a very much currently at war with Putin. A gasp ran around the room. Some people shouted the correct name as the leader of the free world tried to rally. 'No, we're going to beat Putin,' he said, as if to suggest he simply had Putin on the brain rather than suffering a senior moment. Biden made clear in the press conference later that, despite the continued gaffes and speculation and ridicule of his health, he had no intention of pulling out of the race. But it leaves Democrats with a dilemma. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers have raised the alarm about whether the veteran is up to taking on Trump in November. With the final question of the evening, Peter Alexander of NBC News pointed out that he earlier muddled Harris, his own vice president, with Trump. Trump took to his Truth Social page and immediately after and savaged the miscue After Biden called Kamala Harris 'Vice-President Trump', social media took the opportunity to make fun of the aging president 'Right now Donald Trump is using that to mock your age and your memory,' he said. 'How do you combat that criticism?' 'Listen to the other guy ...' he said with a smile. Biden wrote in a letter to hill Democrats on Tuesday: '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.' Two weeks after Biden's terrible debate performance against former President Trump, questions are swirling on Capitol Hill about whether his leadership will help or hurt down-ballot Democrats. On Thursday, Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Senator to ask Biden to drop out, joining over a dozen members of the House of Representatives. One of them, Alaska's Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, became the first to suggest President Joe Biden should resign from office in a stunning statement. Reports indicate that Democrats across Congress may come out against the president after his speech Thursday evening in an effort to not undermine the country's leader as he manages delicate foreign relations. A victim who was targeted by Gavin Plumb before he plotted to kidnap Holly Willoughby has recalled the moment he tried to abduct her from a train. The woman, who has remained anonymous, was set upon by Plumb while on her way to work at an airport in 2006, well over a decade before the 35-stone loner was arrested for devising a plot to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter. The air hostess was sat alone at the back of the train when Plumb, who was armed with a replica gun and a rope, perched next to her and slide her a note telling her to get off the train quietly. Luckily she was able to signal to other passengers that she was in distress and when they came over to help her, Plumb immediately fled. The now 37-year-old received a suspended sentence for the attempted kidnap but today faces jail for his horrific plot against Ms Willoughby and is due to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court later today. Gavin Plumb was handed a suspended sentence for trying to kidnap a woman on a train back i 2006 well over a decade before the 35-stone loner was arrested for devising a plot to kidnap, rape and murder TV presenter Holly Willoughby Gavin Plumb pictured in his underpants as he is arrested by a policewoman over the plot to kidnap Holly Willoughby in October last year Last week Plumb was found guilty of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby Recalling the moment Plumb revealed his twisted intentions, the air hostess told the BBC: 'He passed me a note, I thought it's just some piece of paper, I didn't even look what he was doing. I ignored it. 'Then he pushed it forward for me to read and when I read it, it was something along the lines of "get off the train with me, be quiet, don't do anything, get off the train with me and nothing will happen to anybody". 'He had a rope and replica gun on him. As I read that note it was only then I looked at him. My first impression was that: he is huge, I have no chance.' The woman then remembered that the next train station was in a small village, which would likely be quiet at that time, and was surrounded by trees and woods. She began thinking of some of the 'worst scenarios' in her head and began desperately looking to other passengers for help. She caught eyes with another woman who alerted another man at the other end of the carriage and both began to approach Plumb. As soon as they did, Plumb got up and fled the train but days later he targeted another woman on a train, again wearing an air hostess uniform. She luckily also managed to escape unharmed and Plumb was subsequently given a suspended sentence for both attempted kidnaps. The woman believes that by not receiving a custodial sentence, Plumb went on thinking he 'could go unpunished doing whatever he did'. The fiend discussed his plans to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter with a US-based policeman An artist's drawing of Plumb at Chelmsford Crown Court at the start of his trial Plumb's chilling kidnap kit, in a photo shown to Chelmsford Crown Court during his trial She added the 'lack of punishment was only encouragement' and could have led him to believe he could get away with it again. Reflecting on Ms Willoughby's case, she said: 'I do feel for Holly because obviously she had to go through it in the spotlight, it must be difficult, 'You do not want your name to be attached to a person like Gavin Plumb and this is one reason I want to remain anonymous. I do not want to be associated with him in anyway.' Two years later, Plumb tried to kidnap 16-year-old Emma Ashby and her best friend Louise, also 16, at a Woolworths in Harlow, Essex, where they all worked. He threatened the pair with a knife and tied the pair up before Louise made a run for it and, while Plumb was distracted, Emma managed to call for help. The following year Plumb was jailed for his attack on the girls, and emerged from prison just over a year later after serving half of a 32-month sentence. Then just last year the security guard was again snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumb's posts that evidence was passed to the FBI. US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumb's flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an 'abduction kit' complete with cable ties. Emma Ashby aged 16. She and her best friend had a knife pulled on them by Plumb in a deserted stockroom above the Woolworths in Harlow, Essex In the last 15 years, Emma Ashby has never forgotten the nightmarish events of that evening in December 2008 Plumb wept after jurors unanimously convicted him of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. Former This Morning presenter Ms Willoughby said after Plumb's conviction last week that women 'should not be made to feel unsafe ... in our own homes'. The trial was told that Plumb's plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota. Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was 'definitely serious' about his plot to kidnap Ms Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an 'imminent threat' to her. When Plumb was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Ms Willoughby, the defendant told them: 'I'm not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine.' The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape. Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else. Plumb's kidnap plans involved attempting to 'ambush' Ms Willoughby at her family home - even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack. He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a 'dungeon'-type room. Prosecutors described Plumb's plot as 'carefully planned' - pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Ms Willoughby did not have security. In her opening to the jury, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the court of his previous convictions for false imprisonment and attempted kidnap, saying that they showed he 'knew what it would take to terrify and overpower a woman'. Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy. He is to be sentenced by judge Mr Justice Edward Murray. The mother of a six-month-old baby was forced to spend the night in a cell after medics mistook her son's birthmarks for bruises and police accused her of abuse. Laxmi Thapa was left feeling 'like a criminal' after her son was taken away from her and she spent 20 hours in custody on suspicion of neglect. Upon her release, the new mother endured another traumatic three days without her son and said her baby was 'unhappy and sad and lost' after their reunion. The 29-year-old has now lodged a formal complaint against Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital and has accused the health service of discrimination as these 'blue spots' are common in mixed ethnicity, Black and Asian children. The mother said she now lost confidence in going to the hospital for fear they will make 'assumptions' again. 'I was really stressed emotionally after that,' she said. Laxmi Thapa was left feeling 'like a criminal' after her son was taken away from her and she spent 20 hours in custody on suspicion of neglect Medics mistook her son's birthmarks for bruises and police accused her of abuse. Blue spot is common in mixed ethnicity, Black and Asian children Mrs Thapa was told after the birth of her son on November 19, 2023 that he had a blue spot - sometimes known as Mongolian blue spot - by hospital staff. The mother was advised to monitor these markings and became concerned when they got darker and spread around the infant's hands and shoulders. On May 28, she contacted her GP who advised her to attend the emergency department at Basingstoke Hospital. Upon visiting the hospital, Mrs Thapa - who moved to the town from Nepal 18 months ago - was asked to sign documents that she could not read before being told the police were outside. The mother said a full check-up was not carried out. 'They had already made assumptions,'she recalled. 'One of the police officers took my mobile and my bag and said 'You have to go into custody while we investigate'. 'I said 'why' and she said 'you have abused your baby'.' Mrs Thapa said she was given no further information about her arrest or how long the investigation would take. The mother described feeling 'helpless' when her baby was taken away from her and said she was not allowed to continue to breastfeed him - despite raising concerns about this. 'I felt they were treating me like a criminal because I'm from another country and I'm another colour,' she continued. The 29-year-old has now lodged a formal complaint against Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital and has accused the health service of discrimination 'I was judged by my colour and because my language was different. 'I felt very discriminated against. I felt helpless and I tried to explain but they didn't want to listen to me. I just kept thinking 'What about my son'.' Mrs Thapa, whose husband was away at the time, spent 20 hours in a cell and said she was not allowed to call anyone or see her son. 'I said so many times 'I'm breastfeeding, I need to express my milk every four to five hours',' she continued. 'I requested to send the milk to my son. I asked 'how is my son, how is he doing?'. 'They said 'Your son is not in danger, he's OK in hospital'.' Her family had no idea about the arrest and Mrs Thapa said she was questioned for up to two hours by two police officers, accompanied by a solicitor and interpreter on a phone call, before being released on bail. However, it was another three days before she was reunited with her son on May 31, when the hospital finally recognised that the marks on his body were blue spots and not bruises. She said the doctor who handed him over apologised, but the mother said the family are questioning why hospital staff failed to recognise the blue spot, despite it being recorded in the baby's notes. The mother said that when her son was returned to her, she 'cried with happiness' but soon realised that her baby was behaving differently. 'He was so happy before, everyone said what a happy baby he is but when he came back, he wasn't like before, he was not smiling,' she told. 'I had explained that he had eczema and shouldn't be fed bottle milk but I was only allowed to supply express milk from home to feed my son. 'It made the eczema worse after he left hospital. He was very unhappy and sad and lost.' Following the trauma, Mrs Thapa said she is now afraid to take her son back to hospital for fear of being arrested again. She said: 'I lost my confidence in going to hospital in the future in case it happens again. I was really stressed emotionally after that. 'I told them it's blue spot, it's normal but instead of doing a proper check and looking through the red book they made assumptions.' Faye Wheeler - who founded Blue Spot Campaign - has assisted her in submitting a formal complaint to the hospital. Ms Wheeler, from Basingstoke, has campaigned nationally after she too felt under suspicion of abusing her own son when doctors failed to recognise he had a blue spot. The mother-of-two, who is a psychotherapist and racial disparities consultant, spoke of her disappointment in Mrs Thapa's experiences and said that many other women whose children have this type of birthmark are also accused of abusing their baby. She questioned why it was assumed that the mark was a bruise when blue spot is common in mixed ethnicity, Black and Asian children, why the baby's previous records were not checked and why the mother was not given an interpreter. Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said in response: 'Safeguarding policies and procedures are designed to identify risks and protect children. In all cases reported to the police, experienced staff will have followed these guidelines. 'We cannot comment on specific cases; however, safeguarding babies and children will always take priority. 'Differentiating between suspected bruising and Mongolian blue spot is complex and protocols have to be followed.' Detective Chief Inspector Gemma Anacora, from the northern child abuse investigation team of Hampshire Constabulary, said: 'Any investigation involving a baby or young child is very emotive and can be distressing for all of those involved. 'We understand the concerns raised, however we need to take each report at face value and carry out a thorough investigation to establish what has happened. 'After receiving a number of medical reports and scans in this case we are now confident that an assault has not taken place. 'We were contacted shortly before 7pm on Tuesday 28 May in relation to the concern for the welfare of a six-month-old boy who was receiving treatment at North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke. 'The concerns raised were in line with agreed protocols that require police contact and as part of our enquiries a 29-year-old woman from Basingstoke was arrested on suspicion of assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, or abandoning a child or young person to cause unnecessary suffering or injury, and attempting to assault a person thereby occasioning them actual bodily harm. 'Following the results of various medical tests she has now been released without charge and will face no further action.' A Patelco Credit Union Branch in Novato. The credit union is still feeling the effects of a June 29 cyberattack. Aidin Vaziri/The Chronicle The ATM at the Patelco Credit Union branch in Dublin is seen in 2018. The credit union was hit by a major security breach June 29. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Nearly two weeks after a cyberattack on Bay-Area based Patelco, the credit union is struggling to restore normal banking services for its half-million members, some of whom already are seeking damages in court. The ransomware attack hit Patelco, the third-largest credit union in the region with more than $9 billion in assets, on June 29. It shut down online banking for Patelcos members and rendered them unable to access their accounts for basic activity like viewing their balances, making electronic transfers and scheduling new online bill payments. While Patelco says its members deposits are safe, it has not said whether any personal data was breached. Meanwhile, the credit union has been hit with at least half a dozen lawsuits filed by customers, who are alleging that Patelco failed to protect their private information and are demanding better cybersecurity measures. A U.S. District Court judge on Thursday denied a motion to join two of the suits seeking class-action status. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But some members in the Bay Area said this week that, despite the uncertainty and inconvenience during the slow recovery, they were planning to stick with Patelco, for a variety of reasons. Some expected business as usual after the disruption is resolved; some cited credit union loyalty; and some said theres no point in going elsewhere since no bank is hacker-proof. According to experts, the Patelco breach sheds light on the increasing cybersecurity risks faced by all financial institutions and what they and their customers can do to help protect themselves. Cyberattacks on the rise Such serious attacks against financial institutions are not uncommon, experts say. And ransomware attacks against credit unions, specifically, are rising, said Nick Merrill, director of the Daylight Lab at UC Berkeleys Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. Thats likely because they arent able to invest as much in cybersecurity as large banks are, yet their customers rely on them in much the same way they would a major financial institution, Merrill said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Banks are for-profit financial institutions, typically privately owned or publicly traded, while credit unions are nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives. The number of each type of institution was about equal in the United States in the first quarter of 2024, according to their federal regulators 4,568 federally insured banks and 4,572 federally insured credit unions with 140 million members. But banks in the U.S. hold far more assets a total of $23.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2023, compared with $2.21 trillion for credit unions, according to federal data. At least 11 credit unions have been breached in 2024, Merrill said. In November 2023, a ransomware attack on an industry vendor caused a prolonged service outage for 60 credit unions, according to the National Credit Union Administration, the government agency that oversees them. However, larger financial institutions with bigger budgets for cybersecurity are not immune to cyberattacks, experts said. In 2019 and 2014, hackers attacked Capital One and JPMorgan Chase, respectively, stealing personal information of millions of customers. You can do great security on a low budget, and you can do terrible security on a big budget, Merrill added. Security is often more about culture and buy-in than dollar investment. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Few details from Patelco According to Dublin-headquartered Patelco, whose members live mostly in Northern California, criminals used malware to infiltrate its computer systems and encrypted them, then demanded a ransom to unlock them. The credit union has not said who was responsible for the attack, how much was demanded and whether it paid the ransom. Rina Johnson, a spokesperson for Patelco, said in a statement to the Chronicle that she was unable to provide further information about the incident, but that the credit union was committed to supporting our members and has created a webpage sharing the latest information about the incident. The most recent online update from Patelco CEO Erin Mendez, issued Tuesday, said the organization was working around the clock to fully restore services. Though Patelco said its systems are stable and secure, it has not publicly indicated when the issue might be resolved. In her statement Tuesday, Mendez said Patelco was working to process a backlog of user transactions. A notice posted to Patelcos Security Incident Update webpage on Friday said, Were expecting to complete our transaction processing by the end of the weekend. This will allow us to restore our banking systems with your balances very soon. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Branches have remained open since the Monday after the breach, and Patelco said it is taking steps to minimize the impact of the service outage on its members. They include reimbursing late fees, overdraft fees and non-Patelco ATM fees and providing letters to credit reporting agencies if late payments hurt a members credit score. Im a little nervous Some Patelco members waiting Thursday for the 10 a.m. opening of the branch in downtown Berkeley told the Chronicle that the attack has been an inconvenience. Some have made several trips to the branch because they cant see their account balance online. Still, most members seemed committed to keeping their account open with Patelco despite the cyberattack. Nicole, a Berkeley resident who declined to give her last name, was at the branch because she received a letter in the mail stating that she did not have enough money in her certificate of deposit account. It was the first time she had ever received such a letter, she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Im a little nervous, she said. I havent seen my account. I dont know how Ive been affected. When asked if she is considering moving banks, Nicole quickly responded: No, because other banks have those same issues. If Im able to pay my bills until they straighten things out, then I think were fine. She said she was still able to use her debit and credit cards. Oakland resident John Kohan was at the branch for the third time since the attack, to withdraw money from his account. The credit union was distributing $500 at a time, he said. He didnt plan to move his account to another bank because of the cyberattack, saying that modern life is really screwed up digitally, so thats not it. It would be nice if this wasnt happening but Im sure theyre freaking out, he said of the bank staff. As a supporter of small co-op banking, Jo Ceel, a resident of El Cerrito, also sympathized with Patelco. Its really unfortunate that it takes them over a week to get back on track, he said. Ceel said he also banks with other financial institutions and has considered leaving Patelco, but does not want to contribute to what he predicts will be an exodus of Patelco customers once the incident is resolved. I wish them good luck, he added. How banks, credit unions can protect against cybercrime The threat of cyberattacks has gotten significantly more complex in recent years due to evolving tactics, techniques and procedures that companies and others struggle to keep up with due to a shortage of cybersecurity talent, according to a recent report by the research company Cybersecurity Ventures. Because both banks and credit unions have been victims of cybercrimes, experts said, neither should be viewed as inherently safer. The priority of both, said Merrill of UC Berkeley, should be to invest in and listen to their cybersecurity teams. In the event of a cyberattack, Ideally, theyd have drilled the scenario and reach for an already-written playbook, Merrill said. When thats not the case, its usually time to hire an incident response team and understand what options are practical under the circumstances. Financial institutions always recover from attacks by hackers, experts said, but timelines vary depending on the severity of the attack and how well equipped the institution is to recover. Theres no standard timeframe, said Jose Quinonez, CEO of Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco nonprofit that connects low-income immigrants to financial institutions and helps them build credit and apply for loans. How customers can protect themselves If a persons bank or credit union is hit with a cyberattack, dont panic, experts say. Attacks may affect the availability of money in the short term, but should not affect balances. Deposits up to $250,000 are federally insured through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for banks and through the Federal Credit Union Administration for credit unions. So no matter what happens to a particular bank or that branch or whatever, there are some assurances that their money is going to be safe, Quinonez said. One step customers should immediately take is to change their banking passwords and consider using password managers like 1Password. If you need cash, the bank teller should be able to help you at the branch, Merrill said. Quinonez also encourages customers to try to freeze information on their credit reports, such as their Social Security numbers, to prevent hackers from accessing it. This is really critical, he said. You can do this for free by contacting each of the three major credit reporting agencies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion online, by phone or by mail. Once your bank or credit union recovers, the decision whether to switch to another financial institution is a personal choice, experts said. If a financial institution takes a long time to recover and customers need to access their accounts to pay bills, Quinonez said people can look into opening another account to continue their transactions. However, the experts the Chronicle spoke with recommended that people prepare themselves for disruptions by opening accounts at a multiple financial institutions, establishing a backup in case of a cyberattack. Regardless of where they bank, individuals should use two-factor authentication and passkeys when they are offered, use a password manager and constantly change their password, experts said. Beyond that, recite the serenity prayer, Merrill said. Four migrants have drowned overnight attempting to cross the Channel - sparking calls from Nigel Farage for Britain's new government to 'start moving fast' to tackle the crisis as he warned 'many more will die'. A packed boat carrying about 67 asylum seekers capsized at 4.30am on Friday off the coast of Boulogne sur Mer, in northern France. A major rescue mission was launched involving four ships and a helicopter, with 63 people saved - with a passing fishing vessel pulling 14 of the survivors from the sea. But four migrant not wearing lifejackets died, sparking a police investigation, with French prosecutors, believing the 'poor quality, under-powered' craft was organised by people smugglers charging around 1,000-a-head on Friday. The enquiry is focused on the 'manslaughter' of four victims, who have not been identified yet. The latest tragedy brings this year's migrant death toll to 19, making 2024 one of the deadliest years on record. Reacting to Friday's disaster, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage - who was sworn in as MP for Clacton yesterday, wrote: '4 deaths in the Channel this morning, the new Government had better start moving fast.' Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Farage added: 'Huge numbers are going to come and many more will die. This is unacceptable at every level.' Migrants, some wearing lifejackets, were seen on Thursday morning packing onto a beach at Graveslines in Normandy as they sought to sail to the UK French cops wearing riot gear were later pictured watching on as the migrants launched into the Channel on their overpacked inflatable boat on Thursday Some 35 migrants arrived in Dover this morning, after making the crossing overnight Nigel Farage (pictured being sworn in to the House of Commons as an MP) said Britain's new Labour government must 'act fast' to tackle the migrant crisis Pictured is a map showing where the migrant boat got into difficulty in the Channel having set off from northern France overnight on Thursday Those responsible also face charges of 'criminal association', and the 'assistance of foreigners in an irregular situation,' a French prosecuting source added. Instead of life jackets, each was given a poorly inflated inner tube to hang on to in case of difficulty. Just one person on board believed to be a man appointed by people smugglers to skipper the boat had a life jacket. It comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer was forced to concede this week that it could take years to solve the crisis. Some 60 men, women and children set off in the boat in the early hours of Friday, despite wind and heavy rain making conditions for the journey 'extremely poor'. Jacques Billant, the Pas de Calais prefeet, said the boat set off from the Boulogne coast around 2am. 'Rescue resources were immediately deployed by the Maritime Prefect, including a fishing vessel which was present in the area,' Mr Billant said. 'The sailors saw four inanimate people and 56 other migrants, including three women in great difficulty near the wreckage.' Describing 'a tragedy with very serious consequences,' Mr Billant said 'the weather was particularly unfavourable'. Latest Home Office figures show 419 people made the journey across the Channel from France to the UK 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. Men were seen being taken ashore after reaching the UK in the early hours today Some of Thursday's departures were forced to wade through neck-high water to reach their boat. This picture was captured in the morning at Graveslines beach Pictured is a group of migrants setting off on Thursday morning from Gravelines in Normandy Home Secretary described Friday's disaster as 'truly awful'. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, she said: 'The further loss of life in the Channel this morning is truly awful. 'My thoughts are with all those affected. 'Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk. 'We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue & bring down dangerous smuggler gangs.' Tory shadow home secretary James Cleverly said on X: 'Reports of more deaths in the channel are a tragedy. 'As a country we must do everything in our power to stop the boats and put an end to this vile trade in human suffering.' The boat is believed to have capsized shortly after 4.30am. Local media reports rescuers responded to a mayday call at about 6am. 'Some survivors were clinging on to the remains of the boat, which had deflated in open sea,' said the Maritime Prefecture spokesman. Three of those who died were found in the water, while the fourth was in the remains of the boat, he added. The Minck a French rescue boat based in Calais was first on the scene and was soon assisted by a fishing boat. Migrants are seen setting sail on Thursday morning in a boat at Gravelines beach in France 'The two boats picked up as many people from the sea as possible,' said the spokesman. A Navy helicopter based at Le Touquet was then involved in looking for survivors, before other rescue craft arrived. Survivors - which reportedly included a number of women and children - were taken to Boulogne sur Mer for treatment. In April, five people including a four-year-old girl lost their lives. They suffocated in a gruesome accident on a small boat which despite the horror continued on its way to Britain. People smugglers were suspected of charging each up to 1,000-a-head to board the inflatable dinghy packed with 112 people, instead of an advised 20. It got in to difficulty off Wimereux beach, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, flinging around 50 people into the bitterly cold water. Some of those who fell in, including the four-year-old girl, got caught underneath the boat, and were trapped by the weight of those still on board. Some migrants appear to take off their shoes and throw them as they waded through the sea Following the deaths former Home Secretary James Cleverly said: 'These tragedies have to stop. I will not accept a status quo which costs so many lives.' Five migrants also drowned while trying to get to Britain from Wimereux beach on January 14. The worst tragedy of this kind came in November 2021, when 27 migrants died after a dinghy sank while heading to the UK the highest recorded number of deaths from a single incident. Arrivals reaching Britain in 2024 are 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). The latest disaster came as French police were seen standing by and watching as dozens of migrants packed into an overloaded dingy and set off across the Channel on Thursday. French police in riot gear were spotted attempting to stop the migrants crossing the Channel About a dozen officers, some armed with riot shields and batons, were pictured at the water's edge in Gravelines, Normandy - about 40 miles from Boulogne sur Mer on the north coast of France. The coastal route is a well-known jump off for human trafficker gangs seeking to illegally smuggle asylum seekers into Britain. Groups of migrants often camp in the sand dunes or use old Second World War fortifications dotted around the beach before the leave. In the latest images from the beach yesterday morning, French cops appeared to try and deter a group of migrants by firing tear gas. However, when this failed, the helpless officers then stood by and watched as the packed boat sailed away. A witness who saw the drama claimed French officers had initially tried to stop migrants as they dashed out from the encampments close to the beach. But the authorities' efforts appeared to fail, with a large group of migrants seen setting sail from Gravelines beach on Thursday (pictured) But when this failed, they resorted to blasting them with tear gas as the asylum seekers entered the sea - as officers refused to give chase. 'The whole thing was just a complete waste of time,' one witness told MailOnline. They added: 'The police fired tear gas and you could hear all this screaming. They clearly fire it as a warning.' Speaking to the Mail earlier this week about their futile efforts to clampdown on the migrants, one French officer said: '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.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was forced to admit this week that Britain's small boats crisis will get worse before it gets better. Keir Starmer (pictured yesterday) has warned the number of migrants arriving in small boats is likely to increase in the near future French police appeared to fire tear gas at some of the migrants but this failed to stop some from reaching the overloaded boat on Thursday Some 484 migrants have arrived in the UK since Sir Keir became PM in the wake of Labour's election victory last week. For the first time in two years, migrants no longer face the threat of being flown to Rwanda upon arrival in Dover, after Labour scrapped the policy on day one of Sir Keir's administration. It's prompted fears that more migrants may now risk their lives to take on the 20-mile journey to Britain. Poor weather meant the first crossing under the new Labour Government came on Monday after a six day pause, with 65 migrants on a dinghy from France later brought ashore at Dover, Kent. In a statement on Wednesday Sir Keir said his plan to 'smash' the people-smuggling gangs would eventually 'stop those crossings' but admitted it could take years. But 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.' Pressed again on whether the situation will deteriorate before it improves, he added: 'It can't be changed overnight. What we can do is set up our first steps straight away. 'The Border Security Command... will lead on smashing the gangs. 'I do not accept these are the only gangs that can't be brought down. I'm determined that our Border Security Command working with others will do so. That's why it's 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.' A British man has died in hospital after he and his wife were hit by a drunk driver outside their Spanish hotel. The 50-year-old man tragically succumbed to his injuries after he was taken to the emergency room of Murcia Citys Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital. His wife, 48, is still in a critical condition in the same hospital. The couple have still not been identified. The crash took place on Tuesday night, outside the Costa Narejos Hotel in Los Narejos. The couple were coming back to their room at around 11pm that night, and were crossing the road when they were run over by the drunk driver. After he fled the scene, local police caught him and found he was more than three times over the legal alcohol limit. The crash took place on Tuesday night, outside the Costa Narejos Hotel in Los Narejos (pictured) The driver has since been charged with a series of offences, including driving without a licence, and may face a reckless homicide charge as well. The tragic crash comes after a British woman accused of driving under the influence of alcohol before mowing down a family, killing a four-month-old baby, finally appeared in a Spanish court, after he first hearing was cancelled due to a panic attack. Olivia Brown, 23, declined to answer questions at the closed hearing in the island capital Arrecife. She was told she could remain on bail and a travel ban preventing her from leaving Spain was kept in place. British mother Alex Chadkirk, 28, was hurt in the March 11 crash after Brown's Ford Fiesta mounted the pavement and careered into her and her baby girl Harper Ayton. Harper, whose recruitment education worker mum proudly showed off her baby daughter in adorable photos following her birth last November, died at the scene despite the efforts of paramedics to save her. A man and a woman who were involved in the savage beating and murder of a teenager inside a western Sydney house have been jailed for decades. Jason Galleghan died after being lured to a Doonside home and viciously assaulted on August 4, 2021 in a crime which shocked Sydney. Kayla Dawson and Richard Sione faced a judge-alone trial in the NSW Supreme Court earlier this year after pleading not guilty to murdering the 16-year-old. However, Justice Robert Allan Hulme found the pair guilty of murder, finding they were a part of a joint criminal enterprise in which Jason was beaten and left for dead. He was lured to a home in Doonside, in Sydney's west, on August 4, 2021 before he was attacked by a group of adults and juveniles, the court heard. At the time, Dawson, a mother of one, had accused Jason of stealing a pair of AirPods, and he was lured to the house as 'retribution', Justice Hulme said in his sentencing remarks on Friday afternoon. Jason caught a train from Sydenham and when he arrived at the property, he was brought into a bedroom where he was assaulted by Sione and several juveniles, while Dawson recorded the beating. Most of the people in the house were affected by alcohol and drugs at the time, the court heard. Jason Galleghan (pictured) died after being lured to a Doonside home and viciously assaulted on August 4, 2021 in a crime which shocked Sydney Justice Hulme said it was 'clear' that the plan was for Jason to be brought to the home and bashed, referring to text messages. The court heard that Sione punched and kicked Jason while interrogating him about the earphones. Sione left after about three to five minutes, the court heard, however the assault continued, this time at the hands of several of the juveniles. During the assault, Jason was stripped down to his underwear. After the assault finished, Jason was left alone in the house and he was later taken to hospital, where he died two days later. 'Jason was left on the floor of the bedroom while everyone else left the house,' Justice Hulme said. Justice Hulme described Dawson's delay in calling an ambulance as 'reprehensible' given he was 'helpless' and unable to breath. Videos of the assault were found on the phones of Dawson, as well as two of the juveniles. While she did not take part in the beating, she was heard laughing and saying she was sending the recording to 'Johnno'. During part of the recording, Jason was made to repeat comments about the '27' postcode gang and its rivals. Dawson had argued that she was not guilty of murder due to her cognitive impairment, however Justice Hulme rejected that contention. Justice Hulme took into account a victim impact statement by Jason's mother (pictured) which was read to the court on Friday, noting her 'grief, pain and loss' Sione was found guilty of murder because Justice Hulme found that he was a part of the joint criminal enterprise which led to Jason's death as he was involved in the beating. Justice Hulme took into account a victim impact statement by Jason's mother, Rachel, which was read to the court on Friday, noting her 'grief, pain and loss'. The court heard that both had been threatened in jail due to the nature of their crime. The court heard that Dawson blamed herself for Jason's death, saying that he would not have been killed if she had not told people that he had stolen her earphones. Sione watched the sentencing proceedings via videolink from jail on Friday, sitting in a chair with his head pointed to the ground. Both Dawson and Sione were facing up to life imprisonment in jail. Sione was sentenced to 32 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 24 years Dawson was given a 20-year term, with a non-parole period of 13 years. A fan of notorious criminal turned rapper Spanian has faced court for spitting on a police officer during chaotic scenes at a meet-up attended by the YouTube star. Spanian, whose real name is Anthony Lees, visited Logan in southeast Queensland on March 9, sparking around 350 of his unruly fans, known as eshays, to run amok in what police called a 'large-scale hooning event'. Following the mayhem, which saw police cars kicked and pelted with bottles, Jacob Neil Armstrong, 20, was one of three people charged. Armstrong, whose distinctive mullet was prominent in videos from the meet-up, faced Beenleigh Magistrates Court on Friday on charges of spitting on a police officer's foot during the event. He was charged with one count of serious assault of a police officer. Separately, he also faces unrelated charges of unlawful use of a motor vehicle, enter premises and two counts of possession of dangerous drugs. The Logan Central man also faces charges of receiving tainted property, trespass and possession of drug utensils. Footage posted on social media captured the wild scenes at the Spanian event, including multiple burnouts as billowing clouds of smoke filled the skies. Jacob Neil Armstrong, 20, (circled) has been charged over a chaotic gathering in Logan for rapper Spanian (pictured right) Flares were also let off as drivers performed risky stunts. Hoons were also filmed surrounding and attacking a police car where they launched repeated kicks at the vehicle which was covered in dents. Three police vehicles were allegedly damaged during the event and one person, a 20-year-old Waterford man, was taken into custody and two people were charged. A YouTube video of the wild street scenes titled 'Inside Brisbane's ROUGHEST Area - LOGAN - Into The Hood' has been viewed almost one million times. Defence lawyer Tamara Lawton sought to split the charges to the Brisbane jurisdiction with the rest to remain in Logan. 'There's a group of three offences that need to be adjourned to court three for case conferencing in three weeks,' she said. Around 350 rowdy fans came out onto the streets of Logan to meet Spanian on March 9 'I'm seeking to essentially split the file. I'll put the serious assault charge aside and adjourn the Brisbane matters to Brisbane Magistrates Court.' Magistrate David Shepherd ruled that fresh bail needed to be signed for the Brisbane and Logan charges. 'There will be a new bail undertaking, granted on the same conditions,' he said. The charges of serious assault of a police officer, enter dwelling and two counts of unlawful use of a motor vehicle have been adjourned to August 7 in Beenleigh Magistrates Court. Footage from the event showed wild scenes as fans of Spanian allegedly attacked police cars Spanian, who grew up in the inner Sydney suburb of Woolloomoolo was incarcerated by age 15 and became addicted to heroin the following year. He spent 12 years in and out of prisons in New South Wales prisons on various drug charges before turning his life around in 2017. Since then, he has established himself as a successful rapper and works to show the underbelly of cities around the world through his 'Into the Hood' series on YouTube where he's amassed more than 628,000 subscribers. This is the heart-in-mouth moment a Boeing 777 jet packed with passengers scraped its tail hundreds of metres along an Italian runway. The 777 jet, part of the Chilean airline Latam's fleet, was seen dragging its tail along the runway of Milan Malpensa Airport, in northern Italy, on Tuesday. Video footage showed the plane, which can carry more than 500 passengers at a time, unable to lift off as smoke and debris fly behind it during the failed take-off. Corriere reported that passengers also saw sparks come off the plane, which was set to fly to Sao Paulo in Brazil, as it dragged itself across the runway. The pilot was someone able to get the plane off the ground, but was asked to land it for an immediate inspection. Data from FlightRadar shows the plane, which flew under the code LA8073, looped around the airport nine times before landing again. The 777 jet, part of the Chilean airline Latam's fleet, was seen dragging its tail along the runway of Milan Malpensa Airport, in northern Italy Video footage showed the plane, which can carry more than 500 passengers at a time, unable to lift off as smoke and debris fly behind it during the failed take-off The plane is currently grounded at Milan Malpensa, local media reported. Italian authorities are still investigating the incident, and are in communication with 'investigative authorities of Brazil and the US.' Boeing has been forced under a harsh limelight for a string of serious failures. Earlier this week, the company announced it plans to plead guilty to fraud in connection with approval of its 737 Max before two of the planes crashed, killing 346 people off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia. The American aerospace giant has apparently made the calculation that admitting to a crime is better than fighting the charge and enduring a long public trial. In a legal filing late Sunday - minutes before a midnight deadline - the Justice Department disclosed the agreement and said the fraud charge was 'the most serious readily provable offense' it could bring against Boeing. Prosecutors say Boeing will pay another $243.6million fine, matching a fine it paid in 2021 for the same crime. The Justice Department says a conviction for fraud will hold Boeing accountable for 'misstatements' it made to regulators who certified the 737 Max in 2017. The crashes took place less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019. The company still faces investigations into the blowout of a panel from an Alaska Airlines Max plane in January, increased oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration, and accusations from current and former employees about poor workmanship and retaliation against whistleblowers. Boeing's plea deal would bring the total to $487.2million, which the Justice Department says is the legal maximum for the fraud charge. The deal also requires the company to invest at least $455million to improve safety. It will be on court-supervised probation for three years, and the Justice Department will name an independent monitor to oversee Boeing's compliance with terms of the plea agreement. Boeing's board of directors will also be required to meet with families of the victims. Donald Trump has mocked Joe Biden after two major gaffes at a NATO press conference, where President Zelensky was introduced as 'Putin'. The US President delivered one of his most important speeches in months at NATO's Washington Summit on Thursday. But it was overshadowed by two monumental slip-ups in which he got the names of the Ukrainian and Russian presidents mixed up and called Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump'. Biden, who is facing growing pressure to drop out of the presidential race, was mercilessly ridiculed for his blunders online with former President Trump leading the taunts. President Joe Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin ' in a brutal gaffe Donald Trump led the online mocking after the US President blundered in one of his most important speeches in months Trump, who is 78, has faced concerns about his age as he frequently made false claims during the debate and often rambles during campaign speeches Writing on TruthSocial, he said: 'Crooked Joe begins his "Big Boy" Press Conference with, "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president." Great job, Joe!' However, Biden has since fired back at his rival, writing on X: 'By the way: Yes, I know the difference. 'One's a prosecutor, and the other's a felon.' Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, has been trying to move past concerns that he is too old for re-election. The 81-year-old has been under intense scrutiny since the fallout from his dismal debate against Trump, the Republican candidate, last month. Trump, who is 78, has faced concerns about his age as he frequently made false claims during the debate and often rambles during campaign speeches. There were noticeable gasps from the NATO audience when Biden mixed up Zelensky with Russian tyrant Putin. While introducing the Ukrainian president last night, Biden said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.' A clearly panicked Biden corrected himself and added: 'No, we're going to beat Putin.' He then blamed the blunder on being 'so focused' on defeating the Russian leader who invaded Ukraine two-and-a-half years ago. Mr Zelensky cancelled a planned press conference afterwards. It got worse for Biden later when a reporter asked whether Kamala Harris could beat Donald Trump. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends the Ukraine Compact meeting during the Washington NATO summit Muddling up names again he said: 'Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president'. Within minutes of his departure from the stage, two more Democratic representatives joined the growing number of party members calling for him to stand down. Democrat representative Jim Himes from Connecticut and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said: 'The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump's promised MAGA authoritarianism. 'I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.' It comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended the President at the NATO summit, insisting that he was not senile and on 'good form' Representative Scott Peters of California said: 'The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course.' Then Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois joined in and became the 18th Democratic member of either the House or the Senate to call from Biden to step aside. CNN has claimed that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have talked about getting Biden to step aside ahead of the November election. It comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended the President at the NATO summit, insisting that he was not senile and on 'good form'. However, behind the scenes at NATO summit, world leaders have been concerned about Biden's cognitive decline. One senior diplomat reportedly said that politicians from around the globe fear he could fall and are 'worried if he knows which direction he is going'. House Speaker Mike Johnson also said that NATO leaders have privately told him they are 'deeply concerned' about the president's physical and mental health. One of London's most famous shopping roads could be pedestrianised due to regular overcrowding with up to 40,000 people on the street at peak times. Camden High Street in North London is hugely popular particularly with tourists, but pedestrians regularly spill into the road while trying to walk along the pavement. The council is becoming increasingly concerned about the potential for accidents involving cars and is therefore suggesting a 'motor traffic-free' part of the road. This pedestrian-only section would run from the junction with Parkway and Kentish Town Road, to the junction with Jamestown Road and Hawley Crescent. Camden Council is also working out how to reroute buses through the area with Transport for London, which has provided 130,000 for a trial to be developed. Camden High Street in North London is a hugely popular area, particularly with tourists An overview map of the proposed changes to Camden High Street in North London Pedestrians regularly spill into the road while trying to walk along the pavement in Camden Camden Council is worried about the potential for accidents involving cars on the high street Adam Harrison, the council's cabinet member for sustainability, told BBC Radio London that the high street often gets 'so very, very crowded' with visitors. The councillor said: 'There could be up to 40,000 on the high street at peak times. We know there is a real potential for collisions between civilians and vehicles.' The trial would initially last for 18 months if passed, with the council hoping it would accommodate huge visitor numbers and support hospitality and retail firms. A public consultation went live this week and will run to August 30. If it goes ahead, the trial is expected to launch from the end of this year or early next year. The council said it wanted to 'seek to create a space that is not only safer, but also healthier, and creates opportunities to improve the reclaimed space'. A map of proposed changes to bus routes which Transport for London is helping to work out A map in the consultation showing proposed changes to loading and delivery on Buck Street Mr Harrison added in a statement: 'We know that Camden Town is an internationally recognised destination and a locally important transport connection. 'Camden High Street's iconic markets, music venues and range of businesses make it a vibrant place, catering to visitors and Camden residents alike. 'The high street is the gateway to this. However, with over 40,000 visitors at peak times, the area also experiences significant overcrowding, with not enough space for people to enjoy their time in the area.' Simon Pitkeathley, chief executive of the Camden Town Unlimited business group, said: 'Camden Town's pedestrianisation trial is a game-changer for local businesses. A map showing the existing and proposed new loading bays surrounding Camden High Street A map showing the proposed changes to Jamestown Road which is part of the consultation 'By creating a more walkable and welcoming environment, pedestrianisation will enhance the customer experience, increase foot traffic, and pave the way for a vibrant, activated high street. 'It's a really exciting time for Camden Town, and we're looking forward to seeing how this scheme will transform the experience of arriving in Camden. 'By prioritising pedestrian-friendly spaces, the high street will be much more accessible to businesses, visitors and residents.' The trial would be brought in under an 'experimental traffic order' which would last for a maximum of 18 months. The consultation began on Monday. A pupil barrister has been fined 500 after he said he was 'so f****** bored' with this during a compulsory online ethics exam. Jack Henry Sadler did not realise he was being recorded when he told the online chatbot: 'F****** p*** off, I don't need to start a f****** chat This is annoying, oh my god, this is going to really p*** me off.' He also made a comment during the exam where he suggested he was more interested in pursuing a criminal rather than civil law career. 'F****** finally, a criminal question,' Mr Sadler said, adding: 'This civil s*** How can you have any ethics if you're a civil practitioner, honestly.' He was also reported to have held his middle finger up to camera at the end of the recorded exam. Mr Sadler was sitting an exam required by all those aiming to qualify as fully practising barristers in England and Wales when the incident took place (stock photo) Mr Sadler was sitting an exam required by all those aiming to qualify as fully practising barristers in England and Wales when the incident took place. The Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers, ruled that the pupil barrister's behaviour was 'likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places' in their profession. The watchdog also found that Mr Sadler had opened work emails during the exam which revealed confidential client information. The Bar Standards Board noted that at the start of the exam, the invigilator had asked Mr Sadler to show his desk area to prove that his phone was not with him. He was also told to demonstrate he was not wearing any kind of watch to which Mr Sadler replied: 'What is a watch going to do, how the f*** am I going to cheat with a watch, come on.' A pupil barrister has been fined 500 after he said he was 'so f****** bored' with this during a compulsory online ethics exam (stock photo) Mr Sadler - who was called to the Bar last year at Middle Temple in London - accepted the misconduct charges but insisted he was not aware he was being recorded. He admitted he had not read the exam briefing material which clearly stated that candidates would be monitored remotely. Mr Sadler insisted that none of his comments were 'personal' towards the exam invigilator in particular and that he genuinely believed he was in private. He also said that accessing his work email during the assessment was 'a catastrophic lapse in judgment' which he apologised for. The Bar Standards Bar reiterated in its report that it was standard procedure for Mr Sadler's computer screen to have been recorded during the online ethics exam. It fined Mr Sadler - who has since left the bar - 500 on the basis his behaviour 'fell within the lower range of culpability and harm'. The woman who stole Ashley Biden's diary has begun her jail sentence early after she was allegedly caught speeding at 90mph while in possession of marijuana. Aimee Harris, 42, was arrested Monday in McIntosh County, Georgia for driving with a suspended license, speeding, possession of an open container, possession of marijuana and obstruction of a law enforcement officer. She was taken into custody just one day before her scheduled voluntary surrender to begin her monthlong jail sentence for stealing a diary belonging to President Joe Biden's daughter in 2020. Harris, of Palm Beach, Florida, and co-conspirator Robert Kurlander then sold the journal to a conservative media outlet for $40,000. She has been taken into custody by US marshals in wake of her arrest in Georgia and is being held in a federal holding facility. Aimee Harris, 42, (pictured outside Manhattan federal court in April) was arrested Monday in McIntosh County, Georgia for driving with a suspended license, speeding, possession of an open container, possession of marijuana and obstruction of a law enforcement officer Harris was taken into custody just one day before her scheduled voluntary surrender to begin her monthlong jail sentence for stealing a diary belonging to Ashley Biden (pictured last month) four years ago Harris was arrested around 11.30pm Monday after she was allegedly caught driving at 90mph in a 70mph zone, according to the McIntosh County Sheriff's Office arrest report, which was obtained by CNBC. She had been travelling southbound on Interstate 95 near Darien, which is located roughly 50 miles south of Savannah and 46 miles north of the Florida border. Harris notified her supervising pretrial services officer on Sunday that she would be going on an 'one day road trip up to' South Carolina Monday and intended to return that night, prosecutors alleged in a New York federal court filing. The US Attorney's Office in Manhattan on Tuesday penned a letter to Chief District Judge Laura Taylor Swain stating they had been informed of Harris' arrest and requested that she be taken into custody by US Marshals. The filing, which was reviewed by DailyMail.com, states that she 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'. 'The defendant is currently in state custody in connection with those charges,' the prosecutors added. Judge Swain, after reviewing the filing, signed off on the request Wednesday morning and within hours Harris was transferred to the custody of the US Bureau of Prisons. The state facility where she was being held is also utilized as a federal holding facility. Harris and co-conspirator Robert Kurlander, of Jupiter, Florida, (pictured) then sold Ashley Biden's journal to conservative media outlet Project Veritas for $40,000 Harris, of Palm Beach, (pictured) found the diary and other items at a friend's Delray Beach, Florida home in 2020. Prosecutors said Biden had believed her items were safely stored after she temporarily stayed there in spring 2020 Harris was sentenced in April to a month in prison and three months of home confinement for stealing and selling Biden's diary four years ago to Project Veritas. Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in August 2022, admitting that she received $20,000 of the $40,000 that was paid by the conservative group for personal items belonging to the president's daughter. Both defendants had each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines. Harris found the diary and other items at a friend's Delray Beach, Florida home in 2020. Prosecutors said Biden had believed her items were safely stored after she temporarily stayed there in spring 2020. 'I do not believe I am above the law,' Harris said at her sentencing hearing in April after a prosecutor urged a prison sentence following her failure to appear at numerous sentencing dates on the grounds that she was consumed with caring for her two children, aged eight and six. 'I'm a survivor of long-term domestic abuse and sexual trauma,' she told the judge. During sentencing, the presiding federal judge noted that Harris and Kurlander had first tried unsuccessfully to sell Biden's belongings to then-president Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. Pictured: President Joe Biden at the NATO Summit in DC on Thursday With a lawyer for Biden observing from the courtroom's spectator section, Harris apologized to the president's daughter, saying she regrets making her childhood and life public. Announcing the sentence, Judge Swain called Harris' actions 'despicable'. The judge noted that Harris and a co-defendant, Kurlander, of nearby Jupiter, Florida, had first tried unsuccessfully to sell Biden's belongings to then-president Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. Judge Swain said Harris, besides being motivated by greed, had hoped to impact the nation's political landscape. Keir Starmer's ally Lord Mandelson has suggested Barack Obama should make Joe Biden quit despite the PM publicly defending the US president. The New Labour architect said Mr Obama would have to 'take a position' and 'step in', claiming that his aides could have been behind a devastating intervention from Hollywood star George Clooney. The peer - who has been tipped by some as the next ambassador to the US - also warned that vice-president Kamala Harris needed to recognise there is no 'consensus' that she would be the best replacement. The comments, on BBC Newsnight, reflect growing concern in Labour circles about the prospect of Donald Trump winning the race for the White House in November. Although Sir Keir has insisted he would work with whomever is president, Mr Trump would be a far trickier prospect for a left of centre government. Mr Biden held a rare unscripted press conference as the NATO summit wrapped up in Washington last night, in an effort to allay fears about his dwindling mental capacity. However, the move backfired as the the 81-year-old commander-in-chief said Mr Trump was his vice-president, heaving earlier introduced Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin'. At his own press conference, Sir Keir tried to put a brave face on questions about the president's condition. President Joe Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin ' in a brutal gaffe at the NATO summit with his political future hanging by a thread The 81-year-old facing mounting calls to drop out of the presidential race said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin' The PM told journalists 'I would urge everyone to look at the substance of what's been achieved over these two days' over support for Ukraine. He said: 'When we think of the global threats, that is the best possible outcome we could have had today and so I think he deserves credit for that, as does the team that worked with him. 'We close this council with renewed confidence and resolve to meet the challenge of Russian aggression. That is the outcome we all hoped we would get to and President Biden led us through that.' Sir Keir sidestepped a question about whether Mr Biden was capable of serving four more years in the White House, instead again focusing on the outcomes of the Nato summit. But Lord Mandelson, who is well connected on both sides of the Atlantic, was less circumspect. 'The initiative is going to pass to President Obama and Mrs Obama. President Obama as the most recent ranking Democrat president is now going to have to take a position,' he said. 'I've heard that the article that was written, authored by George Clooney, was actually written by Obama aides which might suggest where Mr Obama might stand. 'I think he's not just got to talk very frankly to President Biden I think he's got to talk quite frankly to his friend Vice President Kamala Harris. 'Because I really don't think there will be a consensus in the Democrat Party that should Mr Biden step back, as I think most now want him to do, the better replacement as candidate would be Vice President Kamala Harris.' Lord Mandelson - who denied he was in the frame for US ambassador - suggested Mr Biden could stand by his achievements but acknowledge he was 'tired' and has 'had his day'. At a press conference at the conclusion of the Nato summit, Sir Keir repeatedly dodged questions about Mr Biden's blunder President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky (L), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (2-L), US President Joe Biden (2-R) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council during the summit Responding to questions about Mr Biden's mental capacity, the Prime Minister told journalists 'I would urge everyone to look at the substance of what's been achieved over these two days' over support for Ukraine' Mr Biden has been facing mounting alarm from Democrats after a dire performance in the first TV debate against Mr Trump last month. The president introduced Mr Zelensky as 'President Putin' at an event attended by Sir Keir at the Nato summit in Washington. He immediately corrected himself, saying: 'President Putin? He's going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. 'I'm so focused on beating Putin, we've got to worry about it.' Sir Keir, who met the president for their first bilateral talks at the White House on Wednesday as Nato leaders gathered in Washington to discuss the challenges facing the bloc, said Mr Biden had been 'across all the detail'. Before Mr Biden's latest slip-up, Sir Keir had told broadcaster their one-to-one discussions had happened 'at pace' and Mr Biden seemed 'on really good form'. 'We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour,' he said. 'He was absolutely across all the detail. We were going at pace through a number of issues.' Asked whether the president was senile, Sir Keir told the BBC: 'No... he's shown incredible leadership.' The president has stood firm against suggestions he should drop his candidacy and appealed for an end to the row over how the party moves forward in a sharply worded letter to Democrats. Legislators and fundraisers including Clooney have since joined calls for Mr Biden to step aside, after he appeared flustered and stumbled over his words in the presidential debate with Mr Trump last month. Cal Poly Humboldt president Tom Jackson Jr., who presided over the schools rebirth as a polytechnic college, is stepping down after five years at the helm, just months after bitter campus protests. Cal Poly Humboldt The Cal Poly Humboldt campus on April 29, when pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Siemens Hall and Nelson Hall East. Alexandra Hootnick/Special to the Chronicle Cal Poly Humboldt said Thursday that its president, Tom Jackson Jr., is stepping down on Aug. 11 after five years at the helm. Jackson presided over the transformation of the former Humboldt State University, located in Arcata in the far north of the state, into Californias third polytechnic college. But he came under pressure this spring when the campus was convulsed by protests over the Gaza conflict and students occupied university buildings. Police officers eventually arrested 31 pro-Palestinian protesters at the behest of Jackson, who called them criminals in an interview with the Eureka Times-Standard. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Jackson consulted with the university about his decision to step down as president in the spring semester, according to a university news release. He plans to remain at Cal Poly Humboldt in the College of Professional Studies and the College of Extended Education & Global Engagement. Jackson served as president at Black Hills State University in South Dakota before coming to Humboldt in 2019. He was the schools first Black, Filipino and Native American president. California Faculty Association Humboldt members march in solidarity with student protesters at Cal Poly Humboldt on April 29. Manuel Orbegozo/Special to the Chronicle Humboldt became a polytechnic university in January 2022, joining Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as technical schools in the CSU system. President Tom Jackson, Jr. has provided visionary, principled, and forward-focused leadership, as well as prudent stewardship during a tenure that has spanned one of the most momentous periods in Cal Poly Humboldts history, said Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia in a news release. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The university became an unexpected flash point amid the nationwide campus protests that began after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas and Israels subsequent retaliation against Gaza. Hundreds of students occupied two buildings for a week starting April 22, defying orders from Jackson to leave peacefully. On April 30, just before 3 a.m., about 300 police officers in riot gear cleared the administration building, Siemens Hall, and an academic building, Nelson Hall East. Britain suffered one of its largest mass stranding of whales yesterday - but how do you dispose of 77 mammals washed up on the shore? Dozens of pilot whales were found dead or dying on Tresness Beach, on the island of Sanday. Rescuers were confronted by the horrifying scene of 65 of the animals already dead, with a further 12 of the long-finned whales still alive four hours later. In this case, sometimes the suffering mammals are returned to the sea because their carcasses are an important source of nutrients for marine life. But there are various methods of getting rid of the massive beached bodies, from incineration to burial - but some settle on a more explosive choice. Occasionally the authorities decide to blow up the carcass, so those out for a stroll nearby may want to bring an umbrella. In what may be the least grim process for those undertaking the task, sometimes the whales are buried on the beach where they were found or taken to landfill. And if the whales undergo a post-mortem examination, the skeleton is often offered to a museum for its collection. Among the group on Sanday were males up to 22ft long, females, calves and juveniles The Orkney stranding comes almost a year after a pod of 55 pilot whales beached themselves on the Isle of Lewis (pictured) Among the group on Sanday were males up to 22ft long, females, calves and juveniles. Scientists have so far been unable to say exactly why whales beach, or why the numbers of strandings are on the increase along Britain's shores. British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said it 'received a report of a mass stranding of up to 100 long-finned pilot whales' on Sanday at about 10.45am'. Sadly, the BDMLR confirmed on Thursday that night none of the animals had survived. Dr Andrew Brownlow, who is director of the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme and chair of the International Whaling Commission expert panel for strandings said his team were seeking answers over what acoustic activity may have been happening off Orkney. 'Pilot whales can form very large groups, superpods of many tens, when they are subject to disturbance such as noise or the threat of killer whales,' he said. 'We want to know what acoustic activity was taking place in the hours and days before this latest stranding. Man has made our oceans noisier and these activities are having an affect - so we need to get a better understanding at what's happening and the impact on creatures like whales.' In the event that whales cannot be saved, they are usually euthanized - in various ways. Back in November 1970, officials in Oregon, USA decided to blow up a rotting whale carcass Back in November 1970, officials in Oregon, USA decided to blow up a rotting whale carcass that had washed ashore. Deliberating how to dispose of the 45-foot sperm whale, authorities decided against chopping it up or leaving it to decompose, and instead blasted the corpse with dynamite so seagulls could eat the smaller chunks left behind. Ignoring advice that a few sticks would be enough, the engineer in charge opted for half a tonne of the explosive as a gathered crowd watched on. But the dynamite sent huge chunks of blubber into the air - which rained down on the heads of the people who came to watch the spectacle. A car half a mile away was also smacked with a massive blob of the mammal, as its remains scattered up to 800 ft from the site. Ten years ago, a biologist was filmed trying to cut open a whale carcass which exploded A sperm whale being taken to a landfill site after being stranded on the Kent coastline in 2014 Sometimes, dynamite isn't required, and the decomposing whales fill with gas and implode on their own. Whale skin can withstand a great deal of pressure, so when it does burst it is often a dramatic sight. In 2004, a dead whale burst while being transported on a trailer to a research centre, pelting cars and people nearby with its organs. Ten years ago, an unlucky biologist was filmed trying to cut open a whale carcass which exploded all over him. The sperm whale died after being beached in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, captured on camera by the Faroese Broadcasting Corporation. As soon as he began working, the gas trapped inside exploded, spewing tons of organs and guts into the air. A lifeless whale was discovered washed ashore at St Mary's Bay near Dymchurch in 2020 Pilot whales washed up in North Tolsta, on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, 2023 While these incidents do lead to morbid excitement when people gather in anticipation, a lot of the time it deflates slowly and without spectacle. Sometimes the mammals are simply buried where they washed up, but this has to be weighed up against the public nuisance of having the carcass on the beach. Birds are able to scavenge a great deal from a whale, but often it is just too much for them and they leave a lot behind to rot. This seems to be a common choice, as many whales which have washed ashore in the UK are buried. In some circumstances the whale may be towed back to sea, but this must be done carefully as the body will remain buoyant before sinking. This could pose a shipping hazard, especially if the whale was on the larger side. But when a whale died, the corpse sinks to the seabed and provides a host of essential nutrients to the marine environment. The carcass produces manganese, phosphorus, iron, and zinc, which can support a variety of sea life. Scavengers will eat the soft tissue while worms and other organisms will feed on the mammal's skeleton. Strandings are becoming an increasingly common sight on coastlines around the world, including on Britain's beaches. Sri Lankan Navy soldiers try to push back a stranded pilot whale into the deep water in Panadura in 2020 A whale died after being stranded on beach in Bridlington, East Yorkshire Up to 600 whales and dolphins wash on the UK's shores alone, and experts are still unsure of the exact reasons for the epidemics. A report compiled by UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) on behalf of the government found there were nearly 5,000 whale and dolphin strandings in the UK between 2011 and 2017. The most common species found on beaches were harbour porpoises and short-beaked common dolphins. A pod of 55 pilot wales were stranded on the isle of Lewis in Scotland in July last year. Further south in North Berwick, a minke whale became a tourist attraction after beaching near a nature reserve. And a sperm whale turned up on a beach in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire in April 2023. In east Yorkshire a huge 55ft, 30 tonne fin whale turned up on Bridlington beach in May 2023, days after being spotted getting into difficulties in the sea. Factors thought to be behind the strandings include poor weather, which can confuse an animal's sense of direction, and diseases. The pod of 77 pilot whales which has washed ashore on a beach in Orkney Dr Brownlow added that he was still awaiting information from an acoustic buoy that may contain vital clues over last year's mass stranding at Tolsta Beach on the Isle of Lewis. Then an entire pod of 55 pilot whales died. Only 15 of whales were alive when they were washed ashore. One was successfully re-floated while the rest had to be euthanised. A large pod of pilot whales stranded in July, 2011, at the Kyle of Durness, Sutherland, in what was then believed to have been Scotland's largest ever such event. Some 19 of the 70 whales died. Four large bombs exploded underwater by the Royal Navy were later blamed by government scientists for the mass stranding. It is also thought that the sonar waves can frighten deep-diving whales, forcing them to surface too quickly and leading to symptoms similar to decompression sickness, also known as the bends, in humans. But a spokesman for the MoD has said the Navy does all it can to ensure sonar is not damaging marine life. 'The Royal Navy takes its responsibilities in safeguarding the environment very seriously and, when at all possible, operators take avoidance actions should animals be detected before or during sonar operations,' he said. Dr Brownlow added: 'It used to be quite unusual to have a mass stranding event, certainly of this size on Orkney. 'But over the last ten years or so we have seen an increase both in the number of mass stranding events around Scotland and also the size of the mass and the number of animals that it involves. 'So that is slightly concerning and that might be because there are just more animals out there, or it could be that there are more hazards that these animals are exposed to.' Keir Starmer was warned he is taking a 'dangerous gamble with public safety' today as ministers prepare to unveil plans to release thousands of prisoners early. The aunt of Zara Aleena, who was murdered by a man who had been out on licence for nine days, raised concerns that convicts will not be 'supervised adequately'. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to announce a series of measures later designed to ease overcrowding in jails and avert 'unchecked criminality on our streets'. They are expected to include allowing less serious offenders to be automatically freed after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than the current 50 per cent. Sir Keir has installed Lord James Timpson, who previously argued that around two-thirds of prisoners did not need to be locked up, as prisons minister. The PM teed up the move as he gave a press conference at the NATO summit overnight, insisting there were 'far too many prisoners for the prison places that we've got'. Pointing the finger at the previous government, he said: 'We knew there was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought.' However, Conservatives accused the Government of deploying scare tactics. A senior Tory source said: 'This is shameless scaremongering from the Labour Party that risks causing mass panic. 'Labour have come into government with hundreds of prison places available but they've lost their nerve, and are now stoking public panic for political gain.' Keir Starmer (pictured at the NATO summit) was warned he is taking a 'dangerous gamble with public safety' as ministers prepare to unveil plans to release thousands of prisoners early Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to unveil a series of measures later designed to ease overcrowding in jails and avert 'unchecked criminality on our streets' A graph showing the maximum capacity of prisoners in comparison to the prison population The aunt of Zara Aleena (pictured), who was murdered by a man who had been out on licence for nine days, raised alarm that convicts will not be 'supervised adequately' Ms Aleena's aunt Farah Naz told BBC Breakfast: 'If the system cannot deal with those people being released into the community, then those people are not going to be supervised adequately. 'And when people, perpetrators, even thieves are not supervised adequately, crime can escalate. It doesn't always escalate, but it can. 'Then we've got unsupervised people because of a poor probation service in the community and people become emboldened 'well I can do what I like if nobody is supervising me' and that's what happened in our situation. 'It was a man that was emboldened because he was not supervised, he was not assessed, he was constantly allowed to do what he wanted to do, and therein lies a dangerous gamble with public safety with this move right now.' In the case of Ms Aleena's killer Jordan McSweeney, Ms Naz said the probation service was 'not fit to deliver supervision' or 'act in a timely way' when he broke his licence conditions. Overall, 20,000 inmates could be released early in the next few months. Answering questions at the NATO summit, Sir Keir said: 'The crux of the problem we face at the moment, and it is a terrible problem, is that we've got far too many prisoners for the prison places that we've got and we soon will have. 'That is gross irresponsibility of the outgoing government. It is a basic function of government that you should have enough places for your prisoners that judges are sending to prison. 'And for that to have failed I think tells you something material about the last government that we have to pick this up and we have to fix it. 'I can't build a prison in the first seven days of a Labour government.' Sir Keir added: 'We knew there was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought. 'And the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book, having worked in criminal justice, to have allowed your criminal justice system to get to a state where you simply haven't got the prison places for prisoners. 'This is a predictable problem it's shocking. And I think that when further details are released of this, you'll have plenty of extra questions for those that came before us.' Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said plans to release some prisoners early were 'the least worst option'. He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'The Government have got a situation where there's no easy solution. 'Prisons are very, very close to full and filling up day in day out. The worst possible thing would be for the system to block, because the system blocks in prisons if they get completely full. That kicks back into the courts and into what we do. And that's really dangerous for the public. 'So the Government are forced into making a rapid decision to avoid that risk. So it's going to be the least worst option they're going to have to find, so I understand what they're trying to do, however not ideal it is.' Ahead of a speech by Ms Mahmood, a government spokesman said: 'The Justice Secretary will explain that if prisons were to run out of places, police cells would rapidly fill up, courts would be forced to delay cases and police unable to arrest dangerous criminals putting the public at risk from unchecked criminality on our streets.' One senior police source said a failure to free up prison cells risked moving into 'uncharted territory'. It would leave frontline police almost powerless to act against criminals and thugs, it was suggested. Government insiders said prisons currently with just 700 spare places for adult males could be completely full towards the end of next month. 'If nothing was done, I would be professionally very, very worried by the August bank holiday,' a senior prisons source said. Once the jails are full, police station cells would be at capacity just days later meaning police officers would effectively be unable to arrest criminals on the streets, it was suggested. One senior police source said a failure to free up prison cells risked moving into 'uncharted territory' (stock image) A senior police source said the system would grind to a halt if newly remanded criminals could not be sent from the courts to prison. 'If those prisoners aren't collected, we very quickly will run out of space in police cells,' the source said. 'Many forces we estimated would run out of space in about three days or less. 'And clearly that is a situation that is completely intolerable, because you would get to the point where arresting officers wouldn't have anywhere to take people they're arresting. 'And, of course, that in itself may impact on behaviour of the public and particularly criminals. 'So that would be a very serious situation to get into and uncharted territory and we need to avoid that at all costs.' It is understood that senior figures in the criminal justice system fear it could trigger looting, opportunistic crimes and brazen breaches of bail conditions by offenders living in the community. Former Conservative justice secretary Alex Chalk who lost his seat last week said Labour's reported plan 'will buy you 18 months, but it won't buy you any more'. Asked if former PM Rishi Sunak had blocked similar measures, Mr Chalk refused to disclose private discussions but added: 'It is reasonable to say there were a variety of views about what could be got through Parliament.' Tory MP Neil O'Brien said: 'The idea that we would be safer if lots of criminals are let out of jail is absolute nonsense. 'We already know the new prisons minister James Timpson thinks that only one third of prisoners should even be there. 'Both he and the Prime Minister are fundamentally anti-prison.' This is the moment shocked tourists watched on as a violent fight at a popular beach in Tenerife broke out, with people seen swinging knives and hurling rocks, leaving some injured and four men arrested. Video of the vicious brawl at Playa de Las Burras on the Spanish island last Saturday shows men and women in swimming attire screaming and throwing huge rocks at each other. Two men can also be seen getting involved in a scuffle, with one man - who is wearing a white T-shirt - being slammed to the ground. A woman can be heard screaming: 'I could kill him!', before shouting: 'Call the police! Call the police, please! Stop filming and call the police!'. Another man can then be seen running away as a large rock is hurled in his direction, but misses him. A violent brawl broke out last Saturday on a Tenerife beach, where people were filmed throwing rocks and knives at eachother. Image shows a woman in a black swimsuit preparing to hurl an object at someone A woman holds a rock in her hand as two men fight on in the background Footage also shows two small girls trying to get away from the tussle as the adults fight on. According to local police, they were informed of a violent brawl last Saturday evening, but those involved in the scuffle had fled by the time officers arrived at the scene. However, officers later located two of the suspects just 200 meters from the site. One of them, an 18-year-old Cuban male, reportedly had a severe head wound and multiple injuries to his limbs. His companion, who is said to be a 32-year-old Colombian man, also had visible injuries, Canarian Weekly reported. The two men claimed that they had been attacked by three other men, one of them armed with a knife. Video shows two small girls trying to get away from the scuffle as people continue to throw rocks around Another rock is thrown as the beach brawl continues. Four men were detained for their involvement in the fight. They were all injured. One man, an 18-year-old Cuban national, said that he had been receiving death threats from the aggressors, who had allegedly attempted to break into his home the night before the fight Police later confirmed that they discovered a large knife at the scene of the brawl. Another suspect, a 31-year-old man from Argentina, was arrested at the beach. He reportedly had a stab wound to his face which was caused by a screwdriver. All injured parties received medical attention for the injuries from the fight at Los Cristianos Health Centre, but according to local outlet Sol del Sur Tenerife, their aggressive behaviour made it difficult for medical staff to tend to their wounds. The Cuban mad claimed that he had received death threats from the same aggressors who had allegedly attempted to break into his home the night before the altercation. The Argentinian man now faces charges of public disorder, threats and bodily harm. Meanwhile, the Colombian and Cuban men face similar charges, with the addition of attempted homicide. A further 32-year-old supsect has since been arrested on the same charges. The detainees currently remain in custody as they await judicial proceedings. A famous Russian bear tamer has been slaughtered by one of two beasts she kept at her home Alyona Maslyanova, 50, died when a predator escaped from its cage and savaged her in Pargolovo village, near St Petersburg in Russia. A distressing video showed the bear walking around a blood-spattered cage, before panning to the right to show her mutilated body lying face-down on the ground. Maslyanova was from a Russian circus dynasty and also performed with bears, alongside her husband Viktor Maslyanov, and son Alexander, 17. The teenager saw his mother being attacked as she fed the bear and he managed to escape, alerting emergency services. Alyona Maslyanova, 50, died when a predator escaped from its cage and savaged her in Pargolovo village, near St Petersburg Maslyanova was from a Russian circus dynasty and also performed with bears alongside her husband Viktor Maslyanov (pictured, right) Maslyanova was a famous circus performer in Russia She kept two bears at her home, one of which slaughtered Police arrived but initially could not enter the premises as the killer bear was prowling near the woman's corpse. They stood on a rooftop watching the agitated beast. Marksmen were summoned who shot the bear, which had not attempted to run away. The other beast she kept at the family home was tranquilised. The female bears were named Varya and Dasha. The Russian Investigative Committee said: 'The bear attacked the woman who kept two bears at her property in the village of Pargolovo. 'The victim died at the scene. The attacking bear was shot by police officers. 'The second bear is in an enclosure and does not pose a danger to others. The deceased woman was a professional tamer and wild animals had lived with her since 2015.' The take had previously said: 'It is difficult to predict the behaviour of a bear, but it is possible with special attention. A distressing video showed the bear walking around a blood-spattered cage Maslyanova was just 50 when she was killed by the bears 'Since my husband and I take full care of our bears we feed, clean, prepare for work, we see the animal's mood and can guess what to expect from it.' Her husband came to the scene after police arrived and was barred by officers from entering the area where his wife had died. He lamented that his wife approached the bears in his absence. He cried: 'For what? Why did you do this when I wasn't there? For what?' He was also seen hugging his son. The death of 27-year-old from pneumonia after living in a freezing, mould-infested rental home has sparked a renewed call for a private landlord register in England. Nearly two years after Luke Brooks died, a report from the coroner has made urgent recommendations to prevent further deaths in similar conditions. Despite Mr Brooks' parents' belief that the appalling conditions of his privately rented, damp and mould-infested home contributed to his untimely death, a coroner concluded otherwise. But now both his family and and a coroner are calling for systemic changes in the private rental sector. A report from 2023, now made public, reveals that the coroner Joanne Kearsley called on the government to implement a private landlord register in England. Luke Brooks, 27, who died from pneumonia after living in a freezing, mould-infested rental home in Oldham. His death has sparked calls for a private landlord register in England to prevent further tragedies Despite Brooks' parents (James and Patricia) belief that the appalling conditions of his privately rented, damp and mould-infested home contributed to his untimely death, a coroner concluded otherwise The Brooks family lived without a functional boiler for three years, endured leaks, dampness, faulty electrical sockets, and even a collapsed ceiling The property's bathroom ceiling was reportedly covered in mould, and the house was so cold that PC Adam Rogers, who visited the house on the day of Luke's death, recalled, 'being able to see your breath' Ms Kearsley argued that the absence of such a register poses risks, including the inability to hold landlords accountable and the potential for more preventable deaths. Former Housing Secretary Michael Gove responded at the time, promising that a private landlord register would be included in The Renters (Reform) Bill. The bill did not pass, however, before the general election was called. In August 2023, Ms Kearsley told the government that the lack of a private landlord register could risk more deaths, saying private landlords should be contactable. Unlike other UK nations, England does not have a comprehensive register of private landlords, which hampers local authorities' ability to address concerns about rental properties effectively. This lack of information is particularly critical when property issues pose life-threatening risks, such as the presence of asbestos, hazardous fixtures, or severe dampness. The Brooks family had reported the dire conditions of their Huxley Street home in Oldham to the council as early as 2021. They lived without a functional boiler for three years, endured leaks, dampness, faulty electrical sockets, and even a collapsed ceiling. The property's bathroom ceiling was reportedly covered in mould, and the house was so cold that PC Adam Rogers, who visited the house on the day of Luke's death, recalled, 'being able to see your breath.' During the inquest, it was revealed that Luke spent most of his time in his unsanitary bedroom and was a smoker. Although mould, specifically aspergillus, was found in his lungs, tests indicated a higher concentration of this mould outside the house, typically associated with rotting vegetation Despite numerous pleas to the landlord, environmental health authorities, and the charity Positive Steps, the necessary repairs were not carried out. The landlord, Mark Sharples, failed to address the critical issues despite repeated assurances Despite their numerous pleas to the landlord, environmental health authorities, and the charity Positive Steps, the necessary repairs were not carried out. The landlord, Mark Sharples, failed to address the critical issues despite repeated assurances. During the inquest, Luke, according to Ms Kearsley, spent most of his time in his bedroom, which was in an unsanitary condition. He smoked roll-up cigarettes and used cannabis. Although mould, specifically aspergillus, was found in his lungs, tests indicated a higher concentration of this mould outside the house, typically associated with rotting vegetation. The coroner concluded that the mould in the house did not cause his death. Luke's sister, Sarah, said: 'Me and Luke used to sit there, when he was alive, and we used to try and think of ways that we could get them [mum and dad] out of the house. 'But there was just nothing.' Sarah said her family was left to 'fend for themselves' after reporting problems. During evidence in court, Oldham council admitted there were 'missed opportunities' - with a referral to environmental health from Positive Steps not followed up, and a cancelled inspection of the house in 2019 not rearranged. 'It should change,' said Sarah. 'Not just in social [housing], but in private lettings. Private letting people should have a chance just as much as social housing people to have a decent life... at least have a mould-free house.' Sarah said she suspects 'thousands' of families are living in horrendous conditions. 'There's no help for people,' she added. 'It was awful in that house. No matter how much you decorated, cleaned, painted or done anything, it didn't look any better.' A couple have been left 'devastated and traumatised' after 'losing everything' in a house fire caused by a stolen car crashing into their 300,000 home. Manuel Scarrone, 43, and Valentin Tacciu, 28, were stunned when the vehicle, with two teenagers suspected of drink and drug driving behind the wheel, collided with their living room wall before it caught fire. Mr Scarrone was away in Italy at the time, leaving Mr Tacciu alone in their dream three-bedroom detached new build, in Swaffham, Norfolk with their dog, Gizmo. Mr Tacciu was woken by a large bang at 5am on June 30 and looked out of his bedroom window to smoke, flames and a car partially lodged inside downstairs. The blaze spread to the rest of the house in minutes but Mr Tacciu and Gizmo managed to flee in time and alert emergency services. Manuel Scarrone (right), 43, and Valentin Tacciu, (left) 28, have been left 'devastated and traumatised' after 'losing everything' in a house fire caused by a stolen car crashing into their 300,000 home in Swaffham, Norfolk Mr Tacciu was alone in the three-bedroom new build with their dog, Gizmo, when a car, with two teenagers suspected of drink and drug driving behind the wheel, colliding with their living room wall before it caught fire (pictured) Mr Tacciu was woken by a large bang at 5am on June 30 and looked out of his bedroom window (seen after the fire spread) to smoke, flames and a car partially lodged inside downstairs The blaze spread to the rest of the house in minutes but Mr Tacciu and Gizmo managed to flee in time and alert emergency services Mr Scarrone, an interior designer, said: ''Our home was everything to us - we had been so proud to buy it and fill it with love but in the blink of an eye we lost everything we had worked for' Mr Scarrone, an interior designer, said: 'It is absolutely devastating - we are just so traumatised. 'Our home was everything to us - we had been so proud to buy it and fill it with love but in the blink of an eye we lost everything we had worked for. 'I am an interior designer myself so you can imagine how I feel about my home - I put my whole heart into it.' A Norfolk police spokeswoman confirmed two teenage boys were arrested in Lynn Street shortly after the fire. They were taken to King's Lynn Police Station and questioned on suspicion of arson endangering life, aggravated vehicle taking, drink and drug driving and driving without a licence or insurance. They were released on bail pending further investigation with conditions not to enter Lancaster Road. Mr Scarrone told of how he was woken up by a call from his partner telling him their dream home, which they moved into in 2022, was engulfed in flames. He explained: 'Valentin was sleeping in the master bedroom which is the room above the living room where the incident happened. 'He woke up because he heard a large bang outside. When he looked out the window, he saw the car lodged against our living room. 'The car was already on fire because one of the tyres blew up. When the car had smashed into the living room, the flames spread out. He took Gizmo, put his harness on and fled the house. 'All of our neighbours were there, they were really helpful. The firefighters came in about ten minutes but the flames had spread out. 'The damage spread from the living room to all of the house and we've had significant damages from the smoke and the water as the firefighters obviously used a hose. 'We had three inches of water in the house. 'The smoke was very oily as it was from the car fuel so literally everything is black now - all the walls, furniture, all our belongings. Everything is lost.' A Norfolk police spokeswoman confirmed two teenage boys were arrested in Lynn Street shortly after the fire. They were taken to King's Lynn Police Station and questioned on suspicion of arson endangering life, aggravated vehicle taking, drink and drug driving and driving without a licence or insurance Slide me Pictured: The couple's living room before and after the car crashed into it and caught fire Mr Scarrone despaired: 'The smoke was very oily as it was from the car fuel so literally everything is black now - all the walls, furniture, all our belongings. Everything is lost' Mr Scarrone fears it may be up to eight months before they can even think about returning home due to the extent of the damage The couple has launched a GoFundMe page to help them rebuild their lives while they await further instruction from an insurance company Mr Scarrone said he felt further anguish when he couldn't get a flight back home immediately as they were fully booked - meaning he had to wait two days. He said: 'It is literally the last phone call I ever expected to receive. The way in which it happened is the most shocking. 'Maybe if the fire had been caused by the boiler or something else inside the house I could understand a bit more - but two underage kids driving a car? 'Can you imagine how that feels? It is crazy and just really, really awful. 'Our development is a lovely place and the community is amazing. 'Since we moved in two years ago, we have heard people complaining about certain people and children throwing stones at houses. 'But I was never expecting something like that. It was absolutely insane.' The couple were looked after by their 'kind' neighbours for three days after the crash but are now living in a hotel. They are due to be moved to a B&B on Monday and an assessor is set to come out and survey the damage. Mr Scarrone fears it may be up to eight months before they can even think about returning home due to the extent of the damage. The couple has launched a GoFundMe page to help them rebuild their lives while they await further instruction from an insurance company. A US airman stationed in Japan has pleaded not guilty to abducting and sexually assaulting a minor, in a case that has caused widespread public anger. Brennon Washington, 25, is a member of the US Air Force at the Kadena base in the Okinawa Prefecture. He appeared at the Naha District Court today to enter his plea, related to the assault charges that are said to have taken place in December. According to Japanese prosecutors, Washington is alleged to have approached a girl younger than 16 in the park in the central part of Okinawa's main island on Christmas Eve. A US F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off at Kadena Air Base, Japan, June 3, 2022. Washington is stationed at the Okinawa base A general view of Camp Schwab where Marine Lance Corporal Jamel Clayton is stationed Washington is accused of forcing the girl into his car and taking her to his home outside Kadena Air Base where he sexually assaulted her. Despite being indicted on March 27, the case only came to light on June 25 after it was reported by an Okinawan TV station. The case has caused widespread outrage across Japanese society, which was further fuelled when it came to light that another US serviceman was accused of similar crimes. On June 28, a media report claimed that 21-year-old US Marine lance corporal Jamel Clayton, who was also stationed in the prefecture, was indicted on June 17 for attempted rape and injuring a woman in the village of Yomitan on May 26. The Okinawa Prefectural Police defended their decision not to publicise the two cases, saying: 'We need to give sufficient consideration to preventing secondary victimisation of the victims and protecting their privacy. We are also concerned that this could hinder the investigation.' The incidents have added a major strain on relations between Japan and the US and have sparked protests. In June, the Japanese government lodged a protest at the United States Embassy in Tokyo. Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano met the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, to request disciplinary and preventive measures over the two alleged attacks. On June 28, a crowd of 100 people gathered in front of the US Kadena Air Base, bringing flowers and calling for the eradication of sexual violence. People in Okinawa protest against the alleged sexual abuse involving US military personnel stationed on the island A female college student told NHK: 'I can't forgive the Japanese and US governments for hiding it for six months.' Okinawa's governor, Denny Tamaki, said the allegations made him 'speechless and outraged'. He also stressed the need to 'reconstruct' the communication system in case of crime and accidents involving US military personnel. In the wake of the allegations, the Japanese government has reviewed information-sharing arrangements with local governments. It vowed to notify municipalities of any crimes allegedly committed by U.S. military members 'without exception', The Mainichi reported. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was aware of the two incidents but did not provide the information to the Okinawa prefectural government. The case involving the teenager is reminiscent of the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US service members in 1995. This also led to large protests against the heavy US troop presence on the island. It led to a 1996 agreement between Japan and the US on the closure of a key US air station. In 2016, a former US base worker was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman.' Police have branded a father a 'coward' after he allegedly killed his wife, their 6-year-old son and his in-laws in a horrific shooting at their California home. Shane Parrish Killian, 54, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder Wednesday night following a suspected 'domestic violence shooting', police said. Four members of the suspect's family, all of whom lived at the Alameda residence, were killed in the massacre. Killian's one-year-old son was also critically injured. Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi described the incident as 'tragedy', telling The Mercury News that 'these are the actions of a coward'. Residents in the island city, situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, say they are shocked that such a 'heartbreaking' crime happen to in their 'quiet family neighborhood'. Shane Parrish Killian, 54, (pictured holding his infant child) was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder Wednesday night following a suspected 'domestic violence shooting' in Alameda, California Killian allegedly killed his wife, their 6-year-old son and his in-laws in a horrific shooting at their California home. He is pictured with his wife on what appears to be their wedding day Officers responded to a residence on Kitty Hawk Road around 9pm Wednesday after a neighbor called 911. The suspect's elderly father-in-law, who had been shot, showed up on his neighbor's doorstep bleeding in attempt to get help. 'He was shot and he was dying,' Alameda resident Chris, who declined to disclose his last name, told NBC Bay Area. Police arrived on scene within minutes of Chris calling 911. As officers tried to treat the Killian's father-in-law, the suspected shooter exited the house next door and was detained by police. Sarah Henry, spokesperson for the force, said he did not resist arrest. Four other family members were found inside the home, which is also where police believe the shootings occurred, with gunshot wounds. Three of the victims were pronounced dead at the property, including Killian's father in law. The victim made statements to officers before he died. One adult victim was taken to a nearby hospital, where they later died. The suspect's one-year-old son was also hospitalized and, as of Thursday night, was in critical condition. Flowers are seen in front of a home at a residence on Kitty Hawk Road in the City of Alameda, Calif. on Thursday, July 11, 2024 Killian, who works as a welder, was booked at Santa Rita Jail on Thursday morning. He is pictured with his wife Killian's six-year-old son was fatally shot in the massacre and his one-year-old son was critically injured. The young brothers are pictured together Meanwhile, community members are struggling to make sense of the 'heartbreaking' massacre. 'Alameda doesn't have big crime. Nothing like this happens. It catches people's attention. It's shocking,' one resident told The Mercury News. Another, disclosing how the Killians had just moved to area roughly six months ago, said the family 'was very friendly, kind and quiet'. 'They were a typical great family,' the local said. 'Our kids used to play together. I'd hope this wouldn't happen anywhere, especially in a quiet family neighborhood.' 'I don't know how I'm going to tell my 3-year-old when he asks where his friend is,' one neighbor told NBC Bay Area. 'How do I respond to that?' The Alameda Police Department is offering 'support to the family, our community and anyone affected by this incident', Joshi said. Killian, who works as a welder, was booked at Santa Rita Jail on Thursday morning, according to jail records obtained by SFGate. He faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder. Officers (pictured at the scene) responded to a residence on Kitty Hawk Road in Alameda around 9pm Wednesday after a neighbor called 911. The suspect's father-in-law, who had been shot and died at the scene, had gone to the neighbor for help The other family members were found inside the home, which is also where police believe the shootings occurred. Officers are pictured at the scene The Killians had just moved to Alameda roughly six months ago, neighbors allege. They say the family 'was very friendly, kind and quiet.' Pictured is Shane Killian with his wife and son Police did not release a motive for the killings, but did say they recovered multiple firearms from the home. There is no information to suggest any threat to members of the public, the force added said. An investigation is ongoing. This was at least the 21st mass killing in the US this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. Nearly half the perpetrators, dating back to the beginning of the database in 2006, have killed their own family members. Freed air stewardess Tori Towey has revealed how she tried to escape her allegedly abusive husband before being arrested and strip-searched by Dubai cops who charged her with attempted suicide. Irishwoman Towey, 28, was charged with alcohol abuse and attempted suicide on June 28 after she was allegedly attacked by her South African husband in their Dubai home in a case that sparked international outrage. Her passport was blocked by Dubai authorities, preventing Towey, from County Roscommon, from returning home to her family in Ireland and sparking fears she was headed towards a jail term in a hellhole Emirati prison. She was finally allowed to return to her family in Ireland on Thursday, and has now revealed the full extent of her horrific ordeal in the UAE. Towey, speaking on a Live Space on X this morning, described the moment she ran from her home and had her neighbours call for emergency services, after she claimed her husband beat her up, leaving her with horrific injuries. The pair were taken to a police station, where they gave their statements, before she was told to report to a 'special hospital' to undergo a medical assessment. Tori Towey, 28, (pictured) was charged with attempting suicide and had a travel ban imposed on her by Dubai authorities She has since been allowed to return home following an international outcry She was held in a Dubai prison after being charged with attempted suicide Her husband allegedly abused her in their home in Dubai After finding out that her husband would continue to be detained following the domestic abuse claim, she was told to return to her home after her medical exam by a 'criminal investigator.' Thinking she was safe, she said she arrived back at home only to find 'everything had been moved in the house.' 'I knew he had been there', she said. After a few minutes, her allegedly abusive husband turned with 'workmen to try and change the locks.' 'I never got notified that he was going to get released', she claimed. According to lawyer Rahda Stirling, who worked with Towey to get her release, the Irishwoman tried to take her own life after this. Towey said she woke up to several police officers and paramedics surrounding her while 'I was in my pajamas'. After being given oxygen, 'they handed me a green dress of mine, and they just put me in the police car and brought me to the station.' There, cops 'strip searched me, they took all my jewellery off. 'I had a belly button piercing and they were struggling to take it out. They were pulling at it and ripping at it, and hurting me. I was saying 'Look it's okay, i'll take it out myself'. Police allegedly strip-searched her when they took her to prison She was seen with severe bruising across her body after the alleged incident 'It was just not nice at all. They were aggressive and they don't speak to you - they don't tell you what's happening.' Towey said she was taken down a 'tiny corridor with these individual cells with mattresses on the floor', along with other female prisoners. 'Some of them were there for seven months in this tiny little corridor with a mattress on the floor. They hadnt been told what was happening to them. They were there for very minor things. 'That's when I started to panic. I started to think "I could be here for months".' Adding to her anxiety was the living situation. She was not provided with new clothes or toiletries: 'You don't have toothbrushes, you dont get clothes, you need money in there to pay for everything. 'Unless you have family outside to bring you in some clothes and toiletries, you're not given anything. If you don't know anyone, you're gonna be in the same clothes for months with nothing.' Tori added that the lights in the cells are 'so bright, theyre like surgical rooms. Tori flew into Dublin Airport yesterday evening with her mother Caroline , and expressed her gratitude to those who helped her get home 'Without you guys, I wouldn't be here right now', she told journalists. Tori worked as a flight attendant, and was worried that the UAE's decision to block her passport would affect her work 'They dont turn them off even when you try to sleep, the lights were on constantly.' Tori's husband has not yet been publicly identified, nor has he responded to the claims she made today. Tori flew into Dublin Airport yesterday evening with her mother Caroline, and expressed her gratitude to those who helped her get home, including the Irish embassy and the media. 'Without you guys, I wouldn't be here right now', she told journalists. In a statement, the Government of Dubai's media office said: '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.' Speaking about her travel ban being lifted 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. 'It's really terrible that this has happened to a young woman who was full of life and full of adventure', her aunt said Tori Towey pictured left with her aunt, was banned from leaving the UAE and was told she faced jail for drinking alcohol and attempting to take her own life '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 had 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.' Keir Starmer has said he is not in favour of banning mobile phone for under-16s - but hinted at controls on social media use. The PM gave the strongest indication yet of the new government's position as he was grilled on the risks children face. Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered teen Brianna Ghey, is campaigning for an age limit for smartphone usage and stricter controls on access to social media apps. Asked whether he limits his 13-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son's mobile phone use, Sir Keir told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'Our children have mobile phones and I'm not in favour of simply banning them for children under 16. 'I think there's a serious question as to what the content is and the control of the content and that is something where I think we need to look again.' The PM refused to say whether his children's screen time was limited, citing his determination to protect their privacy. Keir Starmer (pictured at the NATO summit) has said he is not in favour of banning mobile phone for under-16s - but hinted at controls on social media use Earlier this year the Department for Education issued non-statutory guidance to schools in England intended to stop the use of mobile phones during school hours Esther Ghey has spoken about her belief that using her smartphone made Brianna (pictured) - who was murdered aged 16 in February last year - more anxious and vulnerable Speaking during the NATO summit in Washington DC, he said: 'I'm not going to start introducing them into interviews if you don't mind because I've taken a strong decision with my wife that we will not be bringing our children into politics. 'But generally, I do think we should look at what is available online to children, but in relation to simply banning phones for under 16s, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think that's a practical way forward. 'But I do think I will sit down with anyone to look at how we'll put in place better protections because all parents and everybody across the country is concerned about what can actually be accessed on a phone.' Earlier this year the Department for Education issued non-statutory guidance to schools in England intended to stop the use of mobile phones during school hours. But the House of Commons Education Committee has warned that does not go far enough. In a report in May, the MPs on the panel said the next government should consider a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools and a total ban on phones for under-16s. Outlining some of the 'serious dangers' posed to children online, they called for tougher guidance on how to manage children's screen time at home to better protect young people's mental and physical health. The report said the next government should consult on raising the age of digital consent from 13 to 16, pointing to a rise in children's screen time and phone use that is consistent with a behavioural addiction. It said the Online Safety Act, which puts responsibility on social media firms to protect children from harmful material, would play a role in keeping children safe from online harms, but not until the Act was fully implemented in 2026. Ms Ghey has spoken about her belief that using her smartphone made Brianna - who was murdered aged 16 in February last year - more anxious and vulnerable. She has also insisted Brianna would still be alive if her teenage killers had been unable to access violent content. Tourist landmark injects new vitality into urban development in Xi'an People's Daily Online) 10:37, July 12, 2024 Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has long been a popular tourist destination thanks to its long history and rich culture. The Datang Everbright City is a tourist landmark featuring a grand street with characteristics of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in the city. The Datang Everbright City, a vibrant block dotted with local cultural landmarks, has a total length of 2,100 meters from north to south, and spans 500 meters wide from east to west. The block showcases Xi'an's cultural image and contributes to cultural development, injecting new vitality into the city's development. Photo shows a night view of the Datang Everbright City in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Xinhua/Shao Rui) By integrating culture and tourism, the Datang Everbright City stands out as a prime example of building a tourist destination with culture at its core. As night descends, the block comes alive with dazzling lights, adding an extra touch of vibrancy and color. It offers over 10 cultural performances every night. "I came to Xi'an to explore its traditional culture. The Datang Everbright City offered a cultural feast, which was very memorable," said Li Rui, a tourist from east China's Shandong Province, who was still strolling along the block at 11:30 p.m. after over three hours of exploration. The scenic area always sees high volumes of tourists during holidays. During this year's five-day May Day holiday, it received an average of 450,000 tourist visits every day. Fine traditional culture is the foundation of the popularity of the Datang Everbright City. The scenic spot has various Tang Dynasty-style buildings. Every night, performances featuring fine traditional culture attract legions of tourists. The spot also houses cultural venues like the Shaanxi Opera House, the Xi'an Concert Hall, the Xi'an Art Museum and Xinhua Bookstore, as well as over 10 museums including the Xi'an Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts, with multiple activities such as year-round art exhibitions, theatrical performances and book launches exuding a strong cultural atmosphere. A staff member of a Hanfu experience store applies makeup on a customer at the Datang Everbright City in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (People's Daily/Wang Ke) In recent years, popular "Guochao" cultural and creative products that highlight the charm of Chinese culture have become an important medium for integrating culture and tourism. Following consumer trends while delving into traditional cultural elements, the Datang Everbright City has developed innovative cultural and creative products that reflect the characteristics of the block, such as blind boxes and figurines, which are sought after by tourists. In March 2023, Datang Everbright City was recognized as a state-level block serving tourism and leisure by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The block's success also stems from continuously analyzing new consumer trends and pursuing innovation. At the block, a voice-controlled fountain has become a magnet for tourists. They always shout in excitement around the fountain, as the louder they scream, the higher the water rises. However, it was once just an ordinary fountain, and its transformation stemmed from a misunderstanding. During the National Day holiday in 2019, many tourists mistook the ordinary fountain for a voice-controlled one and were disappointed when it didn't "respond" as expected. The Datang Everbright City then turned the ordinary fountain into a voice-controlled one, which has become popular among tourists since then. Other innovations include touchscreen displays to bring convenience to visitors, launching facial recognition payment to enable a better shopping experience, smart posts that integrate WiFi, monitoring cameras and emergency buttons for calling the police, as well as a virtual reality (VR) experience center. Tourists clad in Hanfu pose for group photos at the Datang Everbright City in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Photo/Weng Qiyu) With the widespread application of augmented reality, VR, and artificial intelligence in the cultural and tourism sector, the block is accelerating innovation in its cultural activities performances, night tours, and exhibitions. At the Datang Everbright City, the integrated development of dining, recreational activities and shopping with tourism has provided tourists with richer experiences. The block's spillover effect continues to expand. Hui Qian, a native of Xi'an, previously worked outside her hometown. Seeing the booming cultural tourism market in her hometown and the business opportunities for the consumption of Hanfu, the traditional attire of the Han ethnic group, she returned to run a Hanfu experience store at the block. It's common to see tourists clad in Hanfu outfits posing for photos at the Datang Everbright City. A large number of Hanfu experience stores in and around the block offer services such as Hanfu makeup and photography to tourists. Hui advertises the products and services of her store through livestream sessions on popular short video platform Douyin. In just over a year since opening, the monthly revenue of Hui's store has increased from tens of thousands of yuan (1 yuan equals $0.14) to over 1 million yuan, with the majority of orders coming from online sales. On some occasions, a single livestream session on Douyin can generate sales in the hundreds of thousands of yuan. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) A sign welcomes people to the gathering of the Rainbow Family in Vermont in 2016. A Rainbow Family gathering in Plumas County is just finishing up marred, participants said, by a heavy law enforcement presence and local opposition. Wilson Ring/Associated Press 2016 Its not easy being a hippie in California these days. Slipping into the woods to spend time with nature and friends, maybe beat a drum, pray for peace, or smoke a little something, can come with all sorts of obstacles: environmental restrictions, rural residents wary of outsiders, high fire danger, tribes protective of sacred land, misinformed critics on Facebook. These are a few of the issues encountered by the Rainbow Family when it tried to hold its national counterculture gathering this month in Northern Californias Plumas National Forest. Of course, inviting thousands of people to a weeklong camping event on public lands, and not getting a permit, complicates matters. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Rainbows, a loosely affiliated group of drifters, dreamers and pacifists that meets up somewhere each Fourth of July, were ousted from their gathering site this year by federal authorities just as it was getting started, amid numerous concerns about their presence. Many regrouped about an hour and a half away, but the ensuing event was smaller than expected and heavy on law enforcement. There were five arrests and 115 citations, authorities said. While several of the nearly 1,800 attendees praised the experience as epic and healing, others said the scrutiny cast a shadow over the gathering. Some felt misunderstood, unable to share their message of peace and love, and ultimately victimized by a world that may have passed them by. We represent something that doesnt align with most people, said Fern Rose, who attended the gathering with her husband and kids from Cave Junction, Ore. Its not OK to be racist. Its not OK to hate brown, Black and yellow people. But its OK to hate hippies? Rose said she enjoyed her time at the event, spending most of it walking, cooking and attending childrens programs. She, like others, despises stereotypes of the Rainbows as doped-up hooligans and said theyre a judgment-free community offering hope and happiness. Still, she said her family felt the heavy hand of law enforcement at this years gathering, specifically with threats to tow their truck, which she attributes to pressure from a broader community that just doesnt grasp the Rainbow Family. There was no goodwill, she said. No one wanted to work with us. They just wanted to call us drug addicts and get us out of the woods. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The irony wasnt lost that California is proudly viewed by many as the birthplace of the counterculture movement. The crackdown on the gathering began on June 26, when National Forest Service officials issued a closure order for part of the Plumas National Forest near the Lassen County community of Janesville, about five hours from San Francisco, where the Rainbow event was initially planned. The agency deemed the assembly unauthorized. But things were getting weird long before this. In the weeks leading up to the gathering, reports of early attendees running pipelines to carry water from creeks to campers a potential violation of state and federal laws prompted a few local residents to take matters into their own hands and remove the makeshift infrastructure. Tensions began to build. Soon after, a local group went to the area with the intention of blocking cars headed to the gathering site. Ultimately, it stood down but not without crystallizing the opposition. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Were going to have to clean up this mess, Aaron Albaugh, chair of the Lassen County Board of Supervisors, told the Chronicle at the time. Its going to come out of our county coffers. Its terrible that rural counties are getting (burdened) and the federal government doesnt do anything. Meanwhile, news of the event was fanning already sky-high fears about wildfires in Northern California. Memories of the devastating Dixie, Camp and North Complex fires are fresh, and the prospect of more people meant more chance of another catastrophic spark. There were also the tribes. Representatives of the Maidu, Paiute, Pit River and Washoe asked the Rainbow Family, earlier in June, to stay out of the area, worried about disruption to ancestral sites. To top things off, social media was stirring things up. Steady streams of posts chronicled what the gatherers were doing and, from the posters perspectives, why they needed to be stopped. By the end of June, when larger crowds began pouring in to the event ahead of the Fourth of July, public sentiment about the Rainbow Family was firmly against them. The forest services eventual decision to push out the congregants was widely supported, and some who planned to attend just stayed home. Advertisement Article continues below this ad People were just out there acting stupid. There were threats of violence from the locals. Thats not what we represent, said David Smith of Burney (Shasta County), who has been attending Rainbow gatherings since 1997 for the sense of belonging he found after growing up in group homes and completing his military service. However, this year, Smith made the last-minute decision to sit out. I didnt want the harassment. Lafayette resident Chris Bair wasnt deterred. He drove from the Bay Area to the second gathering site, which was near the community of Beckwourth (Plumas County) in Plumas National Forest. He immediately had second thoughts, however. Honestly, Ive never seen so many law enforcement officers in a single location in my entire life, Bair said. Bair was pulled over, he said, for going 21 mph in a 15 mph zone, then he had his car searched. The self-described boring dad from the suburbs who went to gatherings as a younger man and hadnt been to one since 2007, called the reaction to the assembly absolutely egregious and uncalled for. When I left, I was the most paranoid Ive ever been, and Ive got nothing to be paranoid about, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Bair and others acknowledge that the Rainbow Family might have made some missteps in planning this years gathering, such as underestimating the regions fire risk. Still, they say the response was overblown. In the end, the site they convened at was an area that had recently burned, which likely presented less fire danger. Forest service officials said the group simply posed too many potential problems for the agency to ignore. They cited the need to maintain public health and safety as well as ensure adequate stewardship of public lands and natural resources. In advance of the event, the agency assigned a 65-person national incident management team, consisting of 36 federal law enforcement officers from outside the area, to help manage the situation. The team is regularly activated for the national Rainbow gathering, which has been held on forest service lands since 1972 and can draw upward of 10,000 people. Local police and sheriffs deputies also assisted. Hilary Markin, spokesperson for the forest service, said concerns about the event could have been sorted out in advance if the Rainbow Family had gone through proper channels and obtained a group permit. A permit is required for events with 75 or more people and allows for conditions to be imposed to limit impacts, such as requiring portable toilets. The gatherers, though, have long asserted that they have no leadership and no one who represents them, meaning theyre not a group. (Those who spoke to the Chronicle for this story made clear theyre not speaking for everyone, and the Chronicle couldnt find anyone to speak for the Rainbows.) Even though we declared it an unauthorized gathering, they claim to be individuals camping in the woods, Markin said. People beat drums during a Rainbow Family gathering in July 2021 in a forest near Taos, N.M. Cedar Attanasio/Associated Press 2021 The forest service reported 384 law enforcement contacts over the course of the event, which was still going on at the start of this week, with a few hundred attendees at the site. The arrests and citations were for several alleged wrongdoings, including damage to natural resources, violations of fire restrictions, traffic infractions and narcotics possession. Many of the gatherers were adamant that, while they felt bullied, they wouldnt be intimidated. Were moving on now, said Rose, from Oregon. But I will show up to every single gathering for the rest of my life until the day I die. We need to keep up our numbers. A depraved 35-stone security guard who plotted to kidnap, murder and rape Holly Willoughby has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 15 years. Gavin Plumb had plotted to ambush the former This Morning presenter at her London home in the dead of night, using chloroform to knock Ms Willoughby and her husband Dan Baldwin. In his twisted plan, he would have taken the 43-year-old captive, holding her in an isolated 'dungeon' which he described as 'death row', repeatedly raping her before slitting her throat and murdering her. Handing Plumb concurrent life sentences with a minimum term of 16 years for each of his three offences minus 280 days spent on remand the judge said they had been 'particularly brutal and degrading'. While Plumb's 'gross obesity' meant the plot was 'unlikely to succeed', Mr Edward Justice Murray added: 'It's fortunate you didn't' succeed in finding one or more others who were physically more able.' The defendant, who stood as the sentence was read out, initially showed no reaction but after hearing the words 'take him down', he turned to the female security guard and muttered: 'Fifteen years to kill myself.' The judge said a victim impact statement from the TV star, showing the devastating impact of his crime, will not be read out in public but added Plumb's actions had had a 'life-changing impact' on Ms Willoughby 'both privately and professionally'. Prosecuting, Alison Morgan KC, told the court: 'The wishes of the victim are absolutely clear that the document should remain private and restricted.' Gavin Plumb was convicted him of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following a trial last week An artist's drawing of Plumb at Chelmsford Crown Court at the start of his trial Last week Plumb was found guilty of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby Sentencing Plumb today Mr Justice Edward Murray (pictured) said he had 'no doubt' the security guard's plans for Holly Willoughby were 'considerably more than a fantasy' A court artist of Gavin Plumb appearing in the witness box at Chelmsford Crown Court with the Honourable Mr Justice Murray Police body-worn video of obsessed kidnap plotter Gavin Plumb being arrested Prosecuting, Alison Morgan KC, told the court: 'The wishes of the victim are absolutely clear that the document should remain private and restricted.' While the judge said: 'I'm satisfied that these offences have had a life-changing impact for her both privately and professionally. 'In addressing the impact of your offending, I bear in mind the broader effect of these types of offences on women in general who should not be made to feel unsafe as they go about their business.' Plumb's 'carefully planned' plot, some details of which were 'so depraved and vile' that they were not reported by the media, was said to have a 'catastrophic' and 'life changing' impact on Ms Willoughby. Mr Justice Murray said he had 'no doubt' the security guard's plans for Holly Willoughby were 'considerably more than a fantasy'. He said: 'Over a number of years, you pursued an unhealthy sexual obsession with Holly Willoughby that led you ultimately to plan over that period to kidnap, to rape and to murder her. 'You intended to harm her husband and her children as part of your plan.' The judge added: "The jury saw through your various lies that you told at the trial, and convicted you of these offences." 'I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you.' The judge continued: 'Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons - including your poor physical health - but you clearly thought it was feasible. 'Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. Gavin Plumb being quizzed by detectives at the station over his Holly Willoughby kidnap plot Gavin Plumb had previously appeared on a BBC show about weight loss 'You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men - the right 'crew' as you sometimes called it - to help you do it. He added: 'There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action.' Plumb planned his 'home invasion' of Ms Willoughby's London property with accomplices he met on the web. As part of his online chats, the defendant sent a potential accomplice a video of restraint 'kit' items laid out on a bed, Chelmsford Crown Court heard. In a message from Plumb read to the court, he outlined the masked raid, saying: 'We break in when they are in bed, we hold both at a weapon point, tell both to roll over on there [sic] fronts with there [sic] hands behind their backs. With Dan we use the metal cable ties, with Holly we'll use the handcuffs etc' He planned to use chloroform on Holly and her husband Dan Baldwin while striking in the dead of night. Jurors heard that Plumb assembled a 'restraint kit', which he filmed laid out on his bed. Hand and ankle shackles, a ball gag, cat o'nine tails, metal cable ties and rope were among the items said to have been put together by the 37-year-old. Earlier in the trial the jury heard Plumb, of Harlow, Essex, discussing a 'dungeon-style room' big enough for a bed where the 43-year-old presenter would be held captive. He allegedly said the things he planned to do to the former This Morning host would put him on 'death row'. Plumb's chilling kidnap kit, in a photo shown to Chelmsford Crown Court during his trial Plumb had 'highly sexualised' conversations with his online contacts about Ms Willoughby and other celebrities and had 'millions' of saved images, many deep fake porn. Plumb first revealed his intention to target Ms Willoughby with a post on a forum called 'Abduct Lovers', which was being monitored by an undercover police officer based in Minnesota. Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was 'definitely serious' about his plot to kidnap Ms Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an 'imminent threat' to her. Timeline: How Gavin Plumb was snared October 3, 2023 - Plumb comes to the attention of US undercover officer 'David Nelson' after he posts four photos of Holly Willoughby on the 'Abduct Lovers' forum. These include the caption: 'The one in the public eye that I want.' Mr Nelson contacts him on Kik, writing: 'Alright I'll bite. Who's the hottie with the lazy eye?' Plumb replies: 'She's in the public eye but doesn't have her own security and doesn't have CCTV at her house.' The officer continues exchanging messages with Plumb and decides he poses an 'imminent risk' to Ms Willoughby and passes his details to British police. October 4 - Essex Police raid the suspect's home in Harlow, Essex. He initially tells police 'what are you talking about' and 'please explain to me what the hell is going on'. Told he was under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to kidnap, Plumb said 'who?' and was told it was Ms Willoughby. He later admits the TV presenter 'is a fantasy of mine'. Advertisement The policeman had never heard of the TV presenter but felt sufficiently concerned about her safety that he contacted Plumb to find out more about his plans. While the US-based officer's real name will never be known to protect his safety and avoid jeapordising future investigations, his work was absolutely crucial to bringing Plumb to justice. Mr Nelson told Chelmsford Crown Court that Abduct Lovers was a group on an encrypted messaging app called Kik where users discussed kidnap, rape, and murder. The officer, who specialises in using social media to identify planned abductions, rapes and murders, said Plumb came to his attention on October 3 last year after posting four photos of Ms Willoughby, who he didn't recognise at the time, with the words 'the one in the public eye that I want'. After contacting Plumb who used the handle Big Bear he used 'open questions' to establish the level of his intent and was told he had an 'abduction kit'. He also received a photo of a bottle of chloroform, a powerful anaesthetic. 'At that point in the conversation, it was quite alarming,' he told jurors. Mr Nelson also asked for details of the plot and was told: 'We'll jump the outer wall, break in, chloroform both her and her husband, tie both up with zip ties and gag both, take her out of the house and take her out in her car.' Plumb added: 'When we get board [sic] of her, then we get rid Wash her in bleach and put her into a lake at night. Once she's had her throat cut of course.' Mr Nelson sent photos of a computer screen showing the purchase of a plane ticket and another with a fake ID to 'gain trust' with Plumb. Mr Nelson agreed 'the bulk of conversations' on the Abduct Lovers group were mere fantasy but added: 'None [was] as specific as this.' Plumb's posts were 'enough to set off alarm bells', he added. Mr Nelson, from the Owatonna Police Department in Minnesota, said the kidnap, rape and murder plot would have been 'carried out with or without my services'. Asked if the fact the defendant was 'significantly overweight' would have affected the credibility of his plan to invade Ms Willoughby's home before 'jumping over a wall' when leaving, he replied: 'No, it did not.' The undercover officer agreed that the defendant shared 'what appeared to be the address' of Ms Willoughby with him online. Mr Nelson had been speaking with the security guard for just over a day before he police battered down his front door in Harlow and hauled him away in cuffs. When Plumb was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Ms Willoughby, the defendant told them: 'I'm not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine.' The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape. Gavin Plumb pictured in his underpants as he is arrested by a policewoman over the plot to kidnap Holly Willoughby in October last year Gavin Plumb's living room, which was shown to the jury today during Alison Morgan KC's cross-examination of Gavin Plumb A bottle of chloroform, shown to Chelmsford Crown Court in the court case of Gavin Plumb, who masterminded a plot to kidnap, rape and murder TV presenter Holly Willoughby Plumb has previous convictions for the attempted kidnap and false imprisonment of four women in three incidents. One victim was targeted by Plumb while on her way to work at an airport in 2006. The air hostess was sat alone at the back of the train when Plumb, who was armed with a replica gun and a rope, perched next to her and slide her a note telling her to get off the train quietly. Luckily she was able to signal to other passengers that she was in distress and when they came over to help her, Plumb immediately fled. Recalling the moment Plumb revealed his twisted intentions, the air hostess told the BBC: 'He passed me a note, I thought it's just some piece of paper, I didn't even look what he was doing. I ignored it. 'Then he pushed it forward for me to read and when I read it, it was something along the lines of 'get off the train with me, be quiet, don't do anything, get off the train with me and nothing will happen to anybody'. 'He had a rope and replica gun on him. As I read that note it was only then I looked at him. My first impression was that: he is huge, I have no chance.' Plumb even shared a video showing some of the kit he had bought online to help restrain Holly He filmed the items he bought online, which he planned to use to tie up the TV star The woman then remembered that the next train station was in a small village, which would likely be quiet at that time, and was surrounded by trees and woods. She began thinking of some of the 'worst scenarios' in her head and began desperately looking to other passengers for help. She caught eyes with another woman who alerted another man at the other end of the carriage and both began to approach Plumb. As soon as they did, Plumb got up and fled the train but days later he targeted another woman on a train, again wearing an air hostess uniform. Speaking to The Sun, the traumatised stewardess, who now resides in France, remembered how perverted Plumb, who was again equipped with a rope and fake gun, lent over whilst signalling for her to stay quiet. The terrified woman said Plumb quickly showed her an ID card whilst claiming he was a police officer, demanding she alight at the next stop via a note. Still shaken by the ordeal, the woman explained she had only been in England for a few months and was unsure if she should follow Plumb's instructions as he insisted he was an undercover cop. 'He was very close to me and was leaning over and I could feel his breath on me,' she said. 'Even though I was a foreigner in England, I was still not convinced by him. I think he sensed this. Emma Ashby aged 16. She and her best friend had a knife pulled on them by Plumb in a deserted stockroom above the Woolworths in Harlow, Essex In the last 15 years, Emma Ashby has never forgotten the nightmarish events of that evening in December 2008 'He flashed a card and said, 'There you go.' It was like he showed me an ID card or something but it was so quick. 'I said nothing and waited to see what would happen. It was scary because the carriage was deserted but it was daytime. 'Then he just got off at the next stop. I stayed in my seat. It was like I was frozen to the spot. 'I stayed on the train one more stop to the airport. When I got off I ran straight to the station security.' Plumb was later detained by Transport Police after he departed a train at Stansted Mounflitchet in Essex. Following both incidents, Plumb was handed a suspended sentence for two kidnap attempts. Two years later, Plumb tried to kidnap 16-year-old Emma Ashby and her best friend Louise, also 16, at a Woolworths in Harlow, Essex, where they all worked. He threatened the pair with a knife and tied the pair up before Louise made a run for it and, while Plumb was distracted, Emma managed to call for help. The following year Plumb was jailed for his attack on the girls, and emerged from prison just over a year later after serving half of a 32-month sentence. Plumb previously appeared in a standalone feature on the BBC's website in 2018 describing 'how he turned his life around and is now looking to the future with renewed hope'. There is no suggestion the BBC News was aware of his previous convictions at the time the article was published. Morbidly obese Gavin Plumb, 38, appeared in a standalone feature on the broadcaster's website in 2018 describing 'how he turned his life around' Plumb, who was 35 stone at his heaviest, said he worked at Pizza Hut and McDonald's in the past but gave up after his weight became unmanageable. He described his day-to-day life in the BBC feature, which came to light after his arrest. Segments show him describing being in pain due to his weight, discussing how he had not left his flat in four years and stating that he only stepped outside to put a binbag of rubbish in his bin. He is also seen saying how he was 'frustrated' he couldn't play football. Plumb once said he only ever walked out of his front door to go to the communal bins and didn't leave the house for years at one stage. He had a gastric band fitted in 2018 and went on a liquid diet, but still remained severely obese. Prior to his arrest, he had got a job as a security guard at The Pinnacles Shopping Centre in Harlow, Essex. Turning to the offending of the 37-year-old during his sentencing today, Alison Morgan KC said: 'My Lord knows of the extreme and gratuitous degradation of the victim that was planned by this defendant. 'Degradation that was so depraved and vile that they were, by agreement, not reported in detail by representatives of the media.' Ms Morgan KC said the case had a 'catastrophic impact' on Holly Willoughby and had been 'life changing for the victim both in private and personal terms and, indeed, professionally'. 'The extent of the shock and fear of this offending has been impossible to convey it's investable that [the trial] has exacerbated the trauma for this victim. 'We say more broadly that offending of this type, as Miss Willoughby said in her public statement has a broad impact on women. Women should not feel unsafe when going about their daily lives.' The fiend discussed his plans to kidnap, rape and murder the TV presenter with a US-based policeman The 37-year-old kept hundreds of photos of Ms Willoughby on his phone, three of which were shown to the jury Ms Morgan gave details of victim impact statements made by two of Plumb's previous victims, although she conceded they didn't have a direct bearing on the offences the defendant was being sentenced for today. The first was from one of the air stewardesses who Plumb attempted to kidnap in 2006, although the prosecutor said she wasn't naming her. 'She felt extremely vulnerable. She was crying. She burst into tears. She then recalls how she felt having been told that as a result of that offence the defendant receiving a suspended sentence. 'She then realised that this defendant would be able to know where she was. to find her potentially. To know from the circumstances of the offence the clothing that she was wearing, where she walked. 'She sought support from the police in that regard and felt vulnerable for some time. 'She lived in the same area and used the same routes. That sense of vulnerability was only removed when she moved from the area. 'She feared all men as perpetrators and when near men whether she was safe. 'She stopped going out after dark and looked around her to see if anyone was there.' Using the woman's words directly, she added: 'I clearly remember when Gavin Plumb grabbed my leg. How it felt to have his hand on me. It was a disgusting feeling. 'Knowing of these [new] offences, it has brought up a lot of emotions.' Ms Willoughby, 43, announced in October last year that she was stepping down from This Morning after 14 years on the ITV show The second victim impact statement came from a woman who was a teenager when she was falsely imprisoned by Plumb in 2008 when he bundled her and another girl at knifepoint into a stockroom at Woolworths where they all worked. Miss Morgan said: 'She felt a permanent sense of worry as the defendant remained in the same area as she did in Harlow. 'She worried she would bump into him when he was released. Although there was an order that stopped him from contacting her, she felt a sense of fear returning to work and in particular where the incident took place. 'Hearing of these matters made her think of what could have happened to her if she had not managed to run away from him. 'She's thankful it did not turn out worse.' Sasha Wass KC, defending, said her client had read Miss Willoughby' victim impact statement. 'Mr Plumb both worshipped and was obsessed by Miss Willoughby for a period of years,' she told the judge. 'Admittedly in a warped and bizarre manner that he described as 'dark' when he gave evidence. But nonetheless he worshipped her and he was devastated to have been the cause of such pain to her as she described in her statement. 'Of course, Mr Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed at the online conversations that came into focus [as a result of the trial]. He always expected them to remain private.' Ms Wass said her client's offences 'remained at the planning stage and all the offences were about planning'. She continued: 'Mr Plumb never left his house has never been in the area where Miss Willoughby lived. He was never able to drive and he did not have access to a car and he was completely incapable of scaling any perimeter walls.' There was also 'no viable plan as to how she could be kept in his [home] address' before being transferred to an isolated building where she would be held captive. Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood, of Essex Police, the senior investigating officer in the case of Gavin Plumb, said outside court the defendant was a 'dangerous individual'. An artist's drawing of Plumb at Chelmsford Crown Court at the start of his trial on Monday DCI Greg Wood from Essex Police reads a statement outside Chelmsford Police station after Plumb was found guilty at Chelmsford Crown Court last week 'He's a dangerous individual with a history of kidnapping women and girls,' Mr Wood said. 'He tried to claim throughout the trial that he was an obsessive fan and a fantasist - that is simply not true. 'He planned this attack on Ms Willoughby over a two-year period, scoping her movements, seeking help from others and buying items to incapacitate and inflict violence.' 'It has demonstrated that we all have much to do to stamp it out of society. 'It cannot be right that men like Gavin Plumb are able to join online forums where they freely vent their hatred towards women and girls and plot to cause them harm. 'We need everyone to stand up and call out misogyny and to report those causing violence towards women and girls. 'He is not a fantasist - he is a calculating sexual predator who has spent his adult life seeking to inflict violence on women. 'Today I pay tribute to Ms Willoughby and the other women who Gavin Plumb sought to harm. 'Their bravery has helped us protect other women and I thank them for their courage.' A young mother was stabbed to death by her jealous ex just hours after she announced her new relationship on Facebook, an inquest has heard. Regan Tierney, 27, was killed in her own home by Daniel Patten, 31, in a horrific murder-suicide in Salford, Greater Manchester in 2019. The pair had been in an 'on and off' relationship and had two children together, an inquest into Ms Tierney's death heard. Bolton Coroners Court was told the mother-of-two updated her Facebook status on June 4, 2019, to show she was in a relationship with a new man. Her heartbroken sister, Shannon, said Patten had sent Ms Tierney a screenshot of the update immediately, even though she had blocked him on Facebook. Later, Shannon texted Ms Tierney asking if Patten had sent her anything else, to which she replied 'no'. Heartbreakingly, that was the last conversation Shannon had with her sister as just hours later, Patten called Ms Tierney's grandfather and told him he had killed her. Regan Tierney, 27, (pictured) was killed in her own home by Daniel Patten, 31, in a horrific murder-suicide in Salford, Greater Manchester in 2019 Bolton Coroners Court was told the mother-of-two updated her Facebook status on June 4, 2019, to show she was in a relationship with a new man Daniel Patten (pictured) was found with critical injuries and died shortly after The court heard the family rushed to Ms Tierney's house, where her body was discovered lying in bed upstairs, covered in blood. Patten had also been discovered with critical injuries and was taken to hospital. Ms Tierney was pronounced dead at the scene and Patten later died of his injuries. Shannon, who wore a t-shirt with a picture of her sister printed on it, told the court Patten had previously received a suspended sentence for an attack on Ms Tierney. Shannon said this took place following a dispute where her sister wanted to go home but Pattern did not and that Ms Tierney had choked on her blood during the incident. On May 25, 2019 both Miss Tierney and her father Dave Tierney also phoned the police to report Patten's abusive behaviour. She said in a statement read to the court: 'My sister was murdered on June 5, 2019 at her home address on Manchester Road, Walkden. 'I would be better off without a hand or leg than without my sister. It is like I am missing a limb, I am missing my best friend. 'She was not listened to, it was fatal. 'He got in her face and punched her. She fell to the floor and Daniel continued to punch and stamp on her. 'After the suspended sentence there was a lot of mental abuse. 'He would send her messages telling her she was fat, she was horrible and no other man would want her.' Police were called to Regan's house in Salford, Greater Manchester, just before 2.10am on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Emergency services attended and found Regan's body triggering a murder probe. In a statement issued at the time of her death, Regan's family said: 'She was a loving mum who loved family life, she will be greatly missed by her two children and family. 'Regan was taken from our lives too soon. She was a beautiful daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, and an amazing mother. 'We will forever cherish the memories.' Pictured: The scene at a house on Manchester Road Walkden where Regan Tierney was found dead Pictured: Ms Tierney's funeral where her life was celebrated in an emotional service A Domestic Homicide Review was previously commissioned by Salford Community Safety Partnership, following concerns about Regan's contact with Greater Manchester Police and other agencies prior to her death. The report found that a number of opportunities were missed by services including GMP, GP practices, Bolton NHS FT services, Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation, and Salford Royal NHS Trust. During their 10-year relationship, Miss Tierney was subject to coercive and controlling behaviour, intimidation, verbal abuse, physical violence and threats, at the hands of Patten. But despite disclosing that she had been the victim of domestic violence to several professionals, the review found that Miss Tierney was never referred to specialist domestic abuse services. There were also missed opportunities to protect the young mother by Bolton NHS Foundation Trust A&E after she presented with a broken nose in October 2012, the review found. Miss Tierney told hospital staff that it was Patten who had caused the injury, but there was no consideration by staff at the trust to refer her to specialist domestic abuse services. Greater Manchester Police also undertook a risk assessment with Regan following the assault, which was marked as 'standard risk,' but then increased to 'medium risk.' The inquest, before Coroner Peter Sigee, continues. Triple murder suspect Kyle Clifford was arrested in hospital today following the crossbow deaths of three family members of a BBC racing commentator. The 26-year-old was found with injuries in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield, North London, on Wednesday following a manhunt which lasted for a number of hours. Clifford was taken to hospital for treatment, and has now arrested on suspicion of murder today. Hertfordshire Police said he remains in hospital in a serious condition. Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of BBC 5 Live commentator John Hunt, and two of their daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were found fatally injured at a house in the quiet cul-de-sac of Ashlyn Close in Bushey, Hertfordshire, just after 7pm on Tuesday. Detective Superintendent Rob Hall, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said today: '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. Enquiries are continuing at this time.' Police previously said a crossbow has since been recovered as part of the investigation. Officers also confirmed that they had received no earlier reports after exploring whether there had been previous contact with Clifford or the victims - as it emerged Louise was the ex-partner of the suspect. Kyle Clifford, 26, was found with injuries in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield on Wednesday John Hunt is pictured with his wife Carol, who was killed alongside two of their two daughters Colleagues and friends of the three victims have paid tribute to the 'lovely family' since their deaths. Lea Holloway, 60, a childhood friend of Carol Hunt, described her as a 'beautiful person'. Speaking outside St James' Church yesterday after a vigil for Mrs Hunt and her daughters, she said: 'We grew up together and were pregnant at the same time. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. 'I was there the night she met John (Hunt). It was in a nightclub in Hemel Hempstead. We went out together, went to birthdays and events. Hannah Hunt was killed alongside her mother and sister in the crossbow attack in Bushey Louise Hunt (pictured), sister of Hannah Hunt and daughter of Carol and John Hunt, was killed 'It's very difficult. She was the nicest, kindest, sweetest person you could ever meet. A beautiful person.' Ms Holloway continued: 'They were a lovely family and (the daughters) were lovely girls. They were making their way through life and their lives have been taken too soon. It's the thing of nightmares. 'I feel for their eldest daughter and John (Hunt). I can't imagine what it would be like.' After being joined by two other close friends, Dionne Smith, 58, and Abigail Phillips, 58, the trio told reporters: 'We were a four, and now there's only three. It doesn't seem real. We are together in grief.' In a post on Facebook, Hannah Hunt's colleagues at The Anti-Ageing Clinic in Radlett, Hertfordshire, said it was with 'deep regret and sadness' that they learned of the 'horrific murder on Tuesday night of our skin therapist Hannah'. Footage from Sky News appeared to show Clifford being stretchered out of Lavender Hill Cemetery in Enfield on Wednesday by paramedics The post continued: 'She was a fantastic therapist and clients loved her. We send our condolences and prayers to her Dad, sister and family. She was very much a part of our team. Please bear with us at this terrible time.' Loreto College in St Albans said it was 'mourning the loss of two of our ex-students, Hannah and Louise, along with their mother, Carol'. A post on X said: 'We extend our thoughts & prayers to the family during this most difficult time. As a Loreto Community, they will always hold a place in our heart. May they rest in peace.' Colleagues of Mr Hunt said they were 'heartbroken' for the commentator and a minute's silence was held for the family during the July Festival at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk. Jockeys at the fixture sported black armbands. Commentator Richard Hoiles paid tribute to his colleague at the start of ITV's programming. Lea Holloway, 60, a childhood friend of Carol Hunt, described her as a 'beautiful person' Hoiles said his friend Mr Hunt would often talk about his wife and daughters, and recalled how, at an 'annual shindig at Christmas 20-odd years ago', he proudly showed pictures of his daughters to people in the pub. He added: '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 is held, as will be shown by the many tributes that will be held up and down the country.' Yesterday, further searches took place at a house linked to Clifford's brother, Bradley Clifford, who was jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for the murder of moped passenger Soban Khan in 2018. According to the Metropolitan Police, at the time of the murder Bradley Clifford had targeted the moped before crashing into it, and continued to assault Mr Khan after the collision. Close friend Lea Holloway (centre) leaves flowers at Ashlyn Close in Bushey, Hertfordshire Officers were seen at the address on Rendlesham Road in Enfield in relation to the deaths. Police staff wearing gloves and face masks were seen outside the property, which was first searched on Wednesday. Search officers appeared to retrieve two computer hard drives and two document bags from the address. Flowers were left at the scene in Ashlyn Close yesterday, with notes attached to some bouquets with messages such as 'rest in peace'. Clifford was found injured at Lavender Hill Cemetery in Enfield on Wednesday and was taken to a major trauma centre for treatment. Members of the congregation attending a service at St James's Church in Bushey yesterday Police said no shots had been fired by officers. Armed police had earlier been in the area, with an air ambulance nearby. Footage from Sky News appeared to show Clifford being stretchered out of the cemetery by paramedics and a further clip seemed to show the suspect been wheeled into the Royal London hospital. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it received a mandatory referral from the Metropolitan Police after Clifford was found by officers with serious injuries in Enfield, but was satisfied no investigation was needed. A spokesperson said: 'Based on the evidence provided, there does not appear to have been any physical contact with Mr Clifford at the time he was seriously injured. 'Therefore, we were satisfied the matter does not require investigation and it has been returned to the force to deal with.' A view of the scene on Ashlyn Close in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where the Hunt family lived In a press conference before Clifford was found, Chief Superintendent Jon Simpson, from Hertfordshire Police, told reporters the killings were believed to have been 'targeted'. During the hunt for Clifford, who is understood to have left the Army in 2022 after a short stint, the force said they believed he may have been armed with a crossbow and warned people not to approach him. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is urgently considering whether tougher crossbow laws are needed in the wake of the killings. She will look at the findings of a Home Office review carried out earlier this year. During his trip to the Nato summit in Washington DC, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC: 'First let me just say how awful this incident was, and our condolences and thoughts are obviously with all of the family members and family affected. 'In relation to crossbows, the Home Secretary has announced that she will look at the legislation, and she will.' A Florida toddler is on the brink of being orphaned after his mom was killed and dad left critically injured in a horror car crash which also claimed the life of his brother. Fabio Cordoves, two, broke his leg in the collision which detectives say occurred after Dawn Howard, 54, slammed her 'speeding' Lexus into the family's VW Jetta. The family, from West Palm Beach, were travelling near the intersection of the 7800 block of South Military Trail and Miner Road on Wednesday when tragedy struck. Mom Grechy Y. Almaguer-Perez, 43, and her son Diego Cordoves, 10, were killed, while their husband and dad Alejandro Cordoves-Rodriguez, 46, who was behind the wheel, was taken to the hospital. The father was described as in a critical condition and is not expected to survive his injuries. Mom Grechy Y. Almaguer-Perez, 43, and her son Diego Cordoves, 10, were killed in a car crash which left father Alejandro Cordoves-Rodriguez, 46, critically injured and Fabio Cordoves, 2, with a broken leg Detectives said Howard was approaching the intersection as the light was turning yellow and sped up to try and make it. She then allegedly continued speeding, 'entered a sweeping left hand curve' and crashed into the back of the family's Volkswagen which was travelling in the same direction in the outside lane, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. Howard's powerful Lexus went over the shoulder of the grassy edge near the stretch. She sustained minor injuries and was taken to Delray Medical Center. Almaguer-Perez was pronounced dead at the scene, her son was rushed to Delray Medical Center but pronounced dead there. Cordoves-Rodriguez was taken to the same hospital in a critical condition. Howard, a lighting designer, is suspected to have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash, a police report states. A deputy was assigned to watch her while in the hospital, however she reportedly became enraged when informed she could not use the bathroom unsupervised. Police said the family's Volkswagen was hit by Dawn Howard's speeding Lexus near an intersection in Palm Beach County Howard later allegedly slapped a deputy's wrist after she was taken to the hospital under supervision for her supposed role in the crash Howard allegedly slapped the deputy's wrist before she was handcuffed to her hospital bed for which she is facing a count of battery on a law enforcement officer. Charges pertaining to the crash are still being weighed pending the investigation. Howard was released from the Palm Beach County jail Thursday without posting any bail. She has been ordered not to consume drugs or alcohol and faces random testing, court records show. A young woman has spoken out after she allegedly caught an employee at a phone repair shop trying to send himself her nude photos. The 27-year-old New Zealand woman, who did not wish to be named, said she took her phone to a Mobile Planet kiosk in Auckland's Sylvia Park mall to get her camera fixed. However, when she got the phone back she saw a notification saying 'AirDrop failed' with a link to a nude photo in her camera roll that had been 'taken years ago' to send to her boyfriend. In a video posted to TikTok by friend Krisy Erin, the women confront the store's manager about the alleged incident while the accused employee watches on. Ms Erin explains that to find the photo the employee would have needed to scroll a long way back through her friend's photos 'which is such an invasion of privacy and absolutely unethical behaviour'. The manager responds to the accusation by saying he only told the employee to check that the 'camera is working fine'. After the manager looked through the employee's photos to see if he had sent the nude picture to himself, there was a moment of drama as the employee fainted. However, Ms Erin was not convinced by the apparent medical episode. In a TikTok video posted by Krisy Erin a woman is seen confronting the manager and the accused employee about the alleged violation at the mall in New Zealand 'It felt like a diversion, like he was trying to get the heat off himself,' Ms Erin told New Zealand news outlet Stuff on Friday. Ms Erin said after the fainting episode, she and her friend were asked by security to go to customer service and make a complaint. Stuff reported that the employee, who was a casual, had been suspended. The woman involved told the outlet that she was speaking out to warn others. 'I knew there would be negative comments and people saying I shouldn't have the photo on my phone in the first place, but it's important other women know this can happen,' she said. Ms Erin claimed that before she began filming the TikTok the employee and his manager had been 'quite aggressive' and threatened to get security involved. 'They basically gaslighted her, and made her feel as if she was in the wrong. They kept denying everything and said they hadn't been into her photos, but we just wouldn't leave until we'd got to the bottom of what had happened,' Ms Erin said. The woman saw an alert that an AirDrop of a nude photo she had on her phone had failed (stock image pictured) Ms Erin said although her friend was feeling 'better' since the incident she was still 'disturbed, violated and just uncomfortable about the whole thing'. 'She's been left wondering if he's accessed any of her other photos, but wants to raise awareness about what happened,' Ms Erin said. Ms Erin said she has since learned you don't need to share your passcode when get a phone repaired. The Mobile Planet management team told Stuff they took 'immediate action' when informed about the incident and had notified police. 'We understand the gravity of the situation and are committed to upholding our responsibility to all parties involved,' they said. Store management also claimed they had contacted the woman to offer their 'sincerest apologies and support during this time'. However, Ms Erin said her friend hadn't received such a message. Police are investigating the incident, a spokesperson told the outlet. A thief freed early from an overcrowded prison went on burglary and theft spree - after serving just four months of his 18-month jail term. Joshua Bassett, 26, carried out 23 new crimes within weeks of being released less than a quarter into his sentence. A judge heard he was freed due to 'pressures on the prison estate' after being jailed for burglary of a hotel. But the judge it was clear he still poses a risk to the community after hearing about his crime spree after being released. The news came as the Prime Minister last night warned the nation's prisons were in a 'shocking' state, with Keir Starmer saying they were 'worse than I thought'. Criminal Joshua Bassett, 26, carried out 23 new crimes within weeks of being released less than a quarter into his sentence - with crimes including theft and burglary A judge at Swansea Crown Court (pictured) heard he was freed due to 'pressures on the prison estate' after being jailed for burglary of a hotel From his release in February to May, career crook Bassett carried out a spate of shoplifting offences at shops in Swansea. He targeted supernarkets including the Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Aldi stores and stealing almost 700 worth of meats, chocolate, jars of coffee. Francesca Parry, prosecuting, said he confronted an Aldi shop security guard and threatened to stab him. He burgled the Boutique Student Living building in St Helen's Road and stole two bicycles and a motorbike from the cycle storage area. Bassett stole goods to the value of more than 6,000 during the burglaries. He told officers he was addicted to heroin and alcohol and had been given no help with those issues when released from prison. Bassett also said he owed 4,500 to London drug dealers. Bassett, of Mount Pleasant, Swansea, pleaded guilty to 23 charges of theft and burglary. Megan Williams, defending, said he was freed from prison early 'due to pressures in the prison estate'. After his arrest was recalled back to prison to serve another four months of the original sentence. She said when he was released from custody the defendant had not received help which he feels he needs to address his alcohol issues. Recorder Bruce Gardiner said it was clear that the defendant continues to pose a risk to the public. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison at Swansea Crown Court. Sir Keir Starmer last night claimed the situation in jails across England and Wales is 'worse than I thought' and branded Conservative ministers 'reckless' for not tackling the crisis when they were in power. Sir Keir Starmer revealed the situation in jails across England and Wales is 'worse than I thought' and branded Conservative ministers 'reckless' for not tackling the crisis when they were in power Sir Keir confirmed that his new administration will within days introduce drastic measures to reduce the pressure but insisted that the risk of dangerous criminals being let loose will be addressed (stock image) He confirmed that his new administration will within days introduce drastic measures to reduce the pressure but insisted that the risk of dangerous criminals being let loose will be addressed. It is understood that those convicted of sex crimes and serious violence will not be eligible for early release. Asked by reporters about the state of Britain's public finances as he travelled to the Nato summit in Washington DC, Sir Keir said: 'Some of what we've 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. 'I'm pretty shocked that it's been allowed to get into that situation. It's reckless to allow them to get into that place. We'll be saying more about that in short order.' And pressed on whether he could guarantee that high-risk prisoners would not be set free early as he had asked of his predecessor Rishi Sunak before the election Sir Keir replied: 'We will make a statement in relation to this in the coming days. 'We're going to have to set out the state of affairs; what we intend to do about it, but it will include this question for risk categories.' He insisted: 'You know from my question to Mr Sunak, when he was Prime Minister, where I stand on this.' The PM insisted his new administration will within days introduce drastic measures to reduce the pressure but insisted that the risk of dangerous criminals being let loose will be addressed (stock image) Before the election Tory ministers agreed for low-level offenders to be freed up to 70 days early to reduce pressure on the prison population, which currently stands at 87,453. But amid warnings that there are now only 700 spare spaces in adult male jails, new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood will be forced to introduce a more radical policy by the end of the week. It is expected to mean that criminals given standard determinate sentences of less than four years are released after serving 40 per cent of their terms rather than at the usual halfway point. Missing Jay Slater's mother has spoken in depth for the first time about her missing son almost four weeks after he disappeared in Tenerife and described her 'living hell'. Apprentice bricklayer Jay, 19, vanished after being driven to a remote Air BnB by two men at the end of an after party in a nightclub on the Spanish party island on June 17 leaving mum Debbie Duncan, 55, fraught with worry. On Monday it will be four weeks since he was last in contact with friends calling them to say he was 'lost in the mountains, thirsty and with one per cent battery'. A 13-day search by police using drones, dogs and a helicopter failed to find any trace of Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, in the barren wilderness of the Teno National Park close to the village of Masca. Police have said they are 'continuing with the investigation and have lines open' but refuse to disclose them leaving school finance officer Debbie and the rest of his family in the dark. Missing Jay Slater's mother has spoken in depth for the first time about her missing son almost four weeks after he disappeared in Tenerife and described her 'living hell' Jay's father Warren and brother Zak on the mountain track where Jay's phone was last located The dog Caperucita listens to the instructions of the Civil Guard agents alongside her owner searching for Jay in the Masca ravine on June 29 Jay's mother Debbie said her life is a 'living hell' with her teenage son still missing Speaking exclusively to MailOnline from Tenerife where she has been with Jay's father Warren, 58, and brother Zak, 24, Debbie described her nightmare ordeal of waiting for news. She said:' My life is a living hell at the minute, we are normal family from Lancashire, I'm breaking down, I'm losing my mind here. 'I can't even bear the thought of my life carrying on without Jay, I just can't, he were my everything, he were my sidekick. 'Me and his dad split up years ago, so I brought him up, my mind is racing but I'm being distracted with loads of nonsense conspiracy theories and it's not helping.' Warren and Zak have spent days combing through the area around the Juan Lopez gorge in the Teno Park, northwest Tenerife where Jay's mobile last pinged in scorching 25c heat. Debbie added:' 'Warren and Jay's brother have been up there, and it worried me I've told them not to do 'owt stupid as it's dangerous up there, and I've said not be going down any paths. 'I can't bring myself to go there, I just don't think my brain would cope, I would collapse.' Apprentice bricklayer Jay, 19, vanished after being driven to a remote Air BnB Volunteers search for Jay in Masca as the teenager remains missing Masca is an hour from the Papagayo nightclub in the heady resort of Playa de las Americas where Jay was last seen with the two British men following the conclusion of the New Rave Generation three-day festival. One was later exclusively identified by MailOnline as convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, 31, but the second men has still not been located although Spanish police insist they are irrelevant to the disappearance. When approached by MailOnline at his east London home, Qassim, who was jailed for nine years for drug trafficking, said 'He arrived alive and he left alive' - but refused to go into any further details. Jay called friends Lucy Mae Law and Brad Hargreaves, both 19, at around 8.50am on June 17 to say he was lost and had left the AirBnB to try and catch a bus home but had missed one and was instead walking a journey that would have taken ten hours. But with no trace of him in the valley lost the family are growing increasingly convinced he is not up there and are turning to the possibility he may have been taken away by someone else. Jay called friend Lucy Mae Law, 19, at around 8.50am on June 17 to say he was lost A search team member with a search dog near to the village of Masca A volunteer firefighter searches for Jay in the Juan Lopez ravine near Masca Debbie said: 'All I can do is stay here and go to the police station, but we are as much in the dark as anyone, we really don't know anything, I just don't know any more. 'I've asked Lancashire police for help but they can't tell me anything, it's just so frustrating. 'I've screamed and ranted at police but we're just not getting anywhere, I think they were talking about contacting Interpol. 'I just don't know what to think, my head is a jumble of what could be and what couldn't be. 'All I know is that Jay is missing and we don't know anything. He's a nice decent lad, he comes from a good home, it's just so frustrating. 'My son is missing, and we need answers, that's all I know. I just need to know if he has fallen up there and why he went up there. 'My child is missing top and bottom line, that's it, we've just got to put our trust in the investigators and not nonsense conspiracy theories.' This is the jarring moment a Los Angeles man dropped his seven-month old puppy over the side of an apartment stairwell, the dog miraculously survived but suffered massive injuries. Joeboury Coleman, 27, was arrested on Sunday and now faces charges of animal cruelty and as of Tuesday was being held without bond, according to the LAPD. Police were tipped off by 'concerned citizens' who saw the disturbing footage on social media that show a shirtless Coleman grabbing the dog by his neck and tossing him over the stairwell. When police went to Coleman's apartment complex located at 4000 block of Oakwood Avenue in the Koreatown neighborhood, he was detained in an alleyway, ABC7 reported. Joeboury Coleman was seen on video committing the heinous abuse A close-up of the 7-month-old female pup 'Concerned citizens had provided information about videos posted on social media showing a dog being abused at the location, including being kicked and thrown from a multi-story stairway by a male individual,' the LAPD said in a news release. According to a report, the dog ran back up the stairwell after the horrific abuse. When officers went back to Coleman's apartment and confirmed it was the same dog that appeared in the video, he was taken into custody. Miraculously, the unnamed female dog survived despite suffering a broken hind leg, which may require surgery. Police also noted that the pup was malnourished. Last month, an Alabama man and a juvenile were charged with animal cruelty after a video of them using a missing dog as target practice went viral. Cops received a social media tip about a pup being mistreated June 29 prompting investigators to identify the suspect and recover the weapon that same day, according to Sheriff Jonathon Horton from Etowah County, Alabama. Coleman was arrested on Sunday and now faces charges of animal cruelty and is being held without bond, according to LAPD The viral clip shows dog Bullet, who had been missing from his owner, tied to a tree with one of the suspects shooting at him. In July 2023, Thomas Hardy, 32, punched his Cockapoo five times before strangling her, compressing her chest between his legs and swinging her around by the neck. In one clip, he was caught throwing the terrified Cockapoo into a lift, before kicking her and then smashing the security camera. In a separate incident, ten days later, Hardy was seen grabbing another dog by the neck before violently putting him on a lead, dropping him to the floor and yanking him off his front feet. He pled guilty to two charges of unnecessary suffering by inflicting blunt force trauma, physical violence and intimidatory behavior. He was given a 12-week prison sentence for each offence suspended for 24 months during his April sentencing. He was also banned from keeping animals for 12 years. A Sukhoi Superjet passenger plane crashed in the Moscow region on Friday and three crew members were presumed killed, the Russian emergencies ministry said. It said the plane had crashed in woodland near the city of Kolomna and there had been no casualties apart from those three crew members on board. The cause of the crash was not clear. Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russian law enforcement, said the plane had been on a test flight after repairs and belonged to Gazpromavia, an airline owned by gas giant Gazprom that operates passenger and cargo charters. The plane was manufactured in 2014 and was solely operated by Gazprom, TASS reported citing 'aviation services'. The aircraft was reportedly flying from the Voronin Production Center outside Moscow to the capital's Vnukovo Airport. A Sukhoi Superjet passenger plane crashed in the Moscow region on Friday and three crew members were presumed killed, the Russian emergencies ministry said It crashed near the village of Apraksino, some 12 miles from where it took off, according to Russian media It crashed near the village of Apraksino, some 12 miles from where it took off, according to Russian media. The Sukhoi Superjet-100 crashed just three hours after undergoing maintenance, Telegram news channel Baza reports. Baza added that the aircraft sent a distress signal and unsuccessfully attempted to circle around to burn off fuel before crashing to the ground. The pilot is believed to have diverted the aircraft away from built up areas - the villages of the villages of Apraksino and Maloe Karasevo - areas and it crashed in a forest. The aircraft exploded on impact triggering a column of black smoke. Footage showed the plane flying low but steadily in the sky shortly before the crash. The dead crew were named as Yevgeniy Bulavko, the captain, and Maxim Lukmanov, co-pilot, and Vladislav Kharlamov, flight attendant. The pilots were working for the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company, according to TASS. The plane disappeared from radar screens around 3pm Moscow time. The reason for the crew's mayday signal was not immediately disclosed. Earlier the aircraft - built in 2015 - had been used on routes to Siberia. A criminal case has been opened regarding the plane crash in the Moscow region. This type of aircraft has been involved in two major crashes. On May 5, 2019, 41 out of 78 people were killed after Sukhoi Superjet-100, was struck by lightning shortly after takeoff from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. The plane, suffering electrical failure, returned to the airport and bounced on the runway causing a fire. A long court case blamed the captain for the scale of the losses. The plane disappeared from radar screens around 3pm Moscow time. The reason for the crew's mayday signal was not immediately disclosed (pictured: smoke from the crash) A Sukhoi Superjet passenger plane crashed in the Moscow region on Friday and three crew members were presumed killed, the Russian emergencies ministry said (file image of a Sukhoi Superjet-100) On May 9, 2012, a Sukhoi Superjet-100 crashed into Mount Salak in Indonesia during a promotional tour. All 45 people on board, including crew and prospective clients, died in the crash, which was also blamed on pilot error. Superjets are widely used in Russia, but have become vulnerable due to sanctions preventing the supply of Western parts. Vladimir Putin is seeking to expand use of a new Superjet based entirely on Russian-made parts, but he does not use the planes himself. There have been several safety incidents with Sukhoi Superjets since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, which triggered sanctions from the West. Key Biden ally Rep. Jim Clyburn suggested the president could still drop out of the running after his momentous NATO press conference. Clyburn told the Today Show's Savannah Guthrie that he takes Biden 'at his word' with his decision to stay in the race. 'That's why I'm all in, I'm riding with Biden, no matter what direction he goes, no matter what method he takes, I'm with Joe Biden,' Clyburn said. 'And if he were to change his mind, I just answered the question that I will be all in for the vice president.' Three more Democrats called on Biden to drop out after his news conference. That brought the number up to 17 public calls for Biden to step aside from congressional Democrats - and many more behind closed doors. Key Biden ally Rep. Jim Clyburn suggested the president could still drop out of the running after his momentous NATO press conference Clyburn said it should be Biden's own decision on what he does with his future. 'The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative to his election and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions about his future,' said Clyburn. 'He's earned that right, and I am going to give him that much respect.' The South Carolina Democrat said the conversation around Biden's fitness for office should focus on 'substance' and his 'record.' 'He has one of the best minds that I've ever been around,' Clyburn said. He added that Biden 'sometimes mangle words and phrases' and reminded the host Craig Melvin Biden has a stutter. 'Those of us who are real close watchers of Joe Biden, we do know that he sometimes mangles words and phrases. But all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering, and they do focus a little more,' Clyburn said. 'And when you focus a little more, you tend to lose the flow.' Clyburn propelled Biden to the Democratic nomination in 2020 with an endorsement. 'If he decides to change his mind later on, then we will respond to that,' Clyburn said. 'We have until the 19th of August to open our convention. And so I would hope we'd spend our time now focusing on the record we would lay out for the American people.' Clyburn himself is years older than Biden at 84. He serves as assistant Democratic leader and a key member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), which is divided over how to move forward with Biden as their leader. Clyburn later insisted the conversation around Biden getting out of the race should cease. The longtime Democratic powerhouse was asked if Biden were to step down, would he show the same support for Vice President Kamala Harris. 'Absolutely, no question about that,' he said. Biden had at one point in the press briefing called Vice President Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump' 'She has acquitted herself well in the job as vice president, and he never would have picked her in the first place if he didn't think that she was capable of being president. I think that she's demonstrated, especially in these recent weeks, when all of this microscope has been focused on her and him, and she has acquitted himself famously.' Biden had at one point in the press briefing called Vice President Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump' and just before it he called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky 'President Putin.' While some Democrats publicly praised Biden's debate performance - and the Biden team took a victory lap - others worry that they've hit a point where Biden's performance was decent enough to convince him he doesn't need to drop out but not good enough to quell concerns about his cognitive decline. San Francisco police say an Australian businessman who was found unconscious on a San Francisco street on July 4 was not beaten or robbed. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle San Francisco police said Thursday they have determined that an Australian businessman who was found unconscious on Market Street was not robbed or beaten but they have not explained how he ended up injured and hospitalized. Colin Bettles, the CEO of Grain Producers Australia who was visiting San Francisco, was reported missing after going out for dinner on July 4. According to police, he was discovered lying on the 1000 block of Market Street about 11 p.m. Paramedics took him to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. The incident prompted speculation and widespread media reports citing accounts from Bettles family and friends, who believed he was attacked and robbed. Friends said his wallet and phone were stolen and that he suffered a fractured eye socket along with head trauma. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But officers said they never received a report about any attack or crime. They nonetheless reviewed surveillance footage of the location where Bettles was found and found no indication that Bettles was assaulted or the victim of a crime, police department officials said in a statement. He was carrying his wallet and phone when he arrived at the hospital, a department spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the hospital was not immediately available to comment on Bettles condition as of Thursday afternoon. Bettles worked for years in media and communications before joining Grain Producers, a trade group for grain, pulse and oilseed producers. The police department asked anyone with additional information about the case to call 415-553-0123. Officials wished Mr. Bettles a speedy recovery. The recent storms linked to Hurricane Beryl that drenched the northern Mexican border cities across from Texas sparked a crocodile invasion. Authorities have so far captured and relocated more than 200 reptiles that were wandering across urban areas after heavy rains last week, according to Attorney General's Office for Environmental Protection. The torrential rains caused water levels to rise in coastal lagoons, allowing the reptiles to crawl into Tamaulipas and the nearby cities of Ciudad Madero and Altamira. Data released by the federal agency on Tuesday showed that following Tropical Storm Alberto during the first week of July and Beryl, inspectors, firemen and Civil Defense agents captured 135 crocodiles in Ciudad Madero and Tampico and an additional 30 in Altamira. At least 40 were capture in the area in June. All of the animals have since relocated to their natural habitats, away from residential neighborhoods. A crocodile was recently spotted crawling across a road in Tampico, a city in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas. Heavy rains tied to Hurricane Beryl last week and Tropical Storm Alberto in June have displaced the reptiles from their natural habitats. Federal authorities have so far captured and relocated at least 205 crocodiles Karina Lizeth Saldivar, who oversees Tamaulipas state Urban Development and Environment Ministry, stressed the importance of controlling the crocodile population while adhering to environmental protocols while disregarding public safety. A lot of the lagoons are connected to drainage systems, which has displaced animals into public streets, where they search for food. Video footage of the showed traffic coming to a standstill after a crocodile was spotted crossing the road and stopping in front of a fence next to a sidewalk before it was captured and removed. Last week, two children went viral after they were each seen carrying two crocodiles bounded with ropes in a Ciudad Madero neighborhood. Mexican authorities said that crocodiles have made their way to urban areas since most of the lagoons in the northern border state of Tamaulipas are connected to drainage systems Two young boys were brave enough to carry a pair of crocodiles that were captured in the Tamaulipas city of Ciudad Madero Crocodiles are a protected species in Mexico. While attacks are rare, some have been reported According to Mexico's Attorney General's Office for Environmental Protection, 135 crocodiles in the Tamaulipas cities of Ciudad Madero and Tampico and an additional 30 in Altamira. At least 40 were capture in the area in June Environmental agents captured a giant crocodile recently in the Tamaulipas municipality of Tampico The Attorney General's Office for Environmental Protection fears 'as the water levels go down in places like streets and drainage canals that were flooded, crocodiles will turn up and sightings will certainly increase.' Crocodiles are a protected species in Mexico. Attacks by them in Mexico are rare but have occurred. In August 2022, a giant crocodile was spotted dragging the body of a lifeless man in the Tampico town of Laguna del Carpintero after he ignored signs prohibiting swimming at a lagoon. In June 2022, a man under the influence of alcohol was nearly dragged into a lagoon by a crocodile after he was seen attacking the reptile's egg nest. Joe Biden's verbal abilities have 'unraveled' so sharply that one of America's top linguists has likened the president's current speech to Pidgin English. Biden committed two major flubs in Washington Thursday alone accidentally calling Volodymyr Zelensky 'President Putin' and referring to Kamala Harris during his high-wire press conference as 'Vice President Trump.' And these quick slips (Biden corrected the first one but not the second) are forming part of a worrying and fast-declining problem, it has been claimed. New York Times columnist and Columbia University linguist John McWhorter says the 81 year-old president's garbled speech reminds him of pidgin - a mix of two or more languages. 'Ive been reminded of that as the nation tries to process President Bidens jumbled syntax during his debate with Donald Trump and in his subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos,' writes McWhorter, an expert in creoles, pidgins, and other 'vehicular' languages who teaches at Columbia University's Center for American Studies. A top linguist is comparing Biden's short sentence chunks and missing cues on 'social levels' of English to compare the way he speaks to pidgin languages McWhorter says he is struck by 'how far (Biden's) sentences had strayed from the complexities and subtleties he once controlled effortlessly,' pointing to interviews from four years ago. 'It is alarming to see someone who is asking to be elected president of the United States someone who already serves as president of the United States communicate in such an ineffective manner. But what is actually going on there, linguistically? One way to understand what is happening is to think of it as unraveling,' he writes in a New York Times op-ed. McWhorter points to Biden's use of 'chunks' of language, like using clipped fragments in his recent ABC interview, such as 'Large crowds, overwhelming response, no slipping.' Biden's bizarre statement that he would be okay so long as 'I did the goodest job as I know I can do' a comment that was disputed and changed in an ABC transcript also drew McWhorter's notice. He said it made him think of pidgin languages. McWhorter observed comparisons between Biden's speech and Pidgin English Linguist John H. McWhorter was alarmed by some of Biden's speech uses The president also mixes up word tenses that show his command of the language's color 'seems to be fading,' writes McWhorter. These displays appear to be distinct from Biden's driving language issue, his childhood stutter that he mostly overcame. Ally Rep. James C. Clyburn (D-South Carolina) leaned on that as being behind some of Biden's train wreck performances. 'I've been around that condition for a long time, and I know exactly how it operates, but he has one of the best minds that I've ever been around," Clyburn said on the NBC's 'Today' show Friday. 'The people who've been around him will tell you that, and so I would hope that we will focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes misspoken words and phrases, and how he has run this country.' Biden's Thursday night press conference also featured use of his trademark whisper to underline a point, with some of his comments rising to a near shout. Biden, 81, isn't the only candidate who boils down ideas to the very basics. During his own bizarre debate statement, bragging about water quality and environmentalism during his own term, former President Donald Trump, 78, said simply, 'H20.' But in the case of Biden, McWhorter is concerned about the 'rapid decline of complex sentence structure.' 'Pidgins do a basic job but arent designed for detail, grace or suasion. Increasingly, Bidens speech submits to an alarmingly similar judgment,' he wrote. McWhorter also conceded that while Trump is known for his own verbal gaffes, he does a much better job of coming across as coherent and in control of his thoughts than Biden. The first pictures have emerged of a child killed by Vladimir Putin in his missile attack on a Kyiv hospital. Little Yehor Zavadetskyi, seven, was in the famous Kyiv clinic Okhmatdyt suffering serious kidney problems after he fell off his bicycle on June 20. On Monday the hospital was blitzed by a Russian bomb which killed a kidney doctor and another person. Now it is revealed that Yehor lost his fight for life following the Russian missile, which Ukraine says was deliberately targeted at the hospital. Yehor Zavadetskyi, seven, (pictured) was in the famous Kyiv clinic Okhmatdyt suffering serious kidney problems Pictured, bereaved mother Anastasia Zavadetska whose son sadly after 12 days in a coma The moment the Russian Kh-101 missile struck Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest medical centre which treats children with cancer Another view of the missile, which Ukraine says was deliberately targeted at the hospital 'My son has died. Yehor has fallen asleep forever. Just seven years old,' said his bereaved mother Anastasia Zavadetska. He was on dialysis at the time of the attack and seriously ill on the seventh floor of the Hospital. 'I was just bending over my son to pray, and there was this rapid-fire,' she said. 'Two windows in the ward blew out 'All life support devices were turned off, the doctors fussed around trying to help the sick. 'There was a lot of dust, smoke, blood and screams in the corridor. 'Many newborn children injured.' Yehor was from a family displaced by the war, forced to leave their home in Kherson Yehor had been in a coma and undergone several surgeries but there were hopes he would survive - until the rocket attack 'I was just bending over my son to pray, and there was this rapid-fire,' heartbroken mother Anastasia said Yehor Zavadetskyi was suffering a serious kidney problems after he fell off his bicycle on June 20 Among the two killed at the hospital was 30-year-old kidney doctor Svitlana Lukyanchik (pictured) Svitlana Lukyanchik was an orphan from Lviv who became a leading doctor after graduating from Ukraine's National Medical University Svitlana Lukyanchik said she wanted to 'help the most defenceless - kids'. She was among two killed at the hospital Hospital walls crumbled and her boy's treatment was disrupted due to the Russian missile strike. 'We immediately lay on the floor, then they took us to the ground floor, but there was a fire there.' Her boy had been in a coma and undergone several surgeries but there were hopes he would survive - until the rocket attack. Yehor was transferred to the Kyiv Cardiocentre where he died this morning. The boy was from a family displaced by the war, forced to leave their home in Kherson. Among the two killed at the hospital was kidney doctor Svitlana Lukyanchik, 30. She was an orphan from Lviv who became a leading doctor after graduating from Ukraine's National Medical University. She wanted to 'help the most defenceless - kids'. Labour was accused of taking a 'dangerous gamble with public safety' today as the government unveiled plans to release thousands of prisoners early. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a series of measures designed to ease overcrowding in jails and avert a 'total breakdown of law and order'. Offenders will be automatically freed after serving 40 per cent of their sentence, rather than the current 50 per cent. She stressed the rule would not apply to violent offenders serving more than four years, sex offenders or those in prison for crimes connected to domestic abuse. Dangerous offenders serving extended or life sentences would also be exempted from the scheme. But Keir Starmer's new justice minister Lord Timpson fuelled fury at the 'anti-prison' approach as he suggested that courts should be handing out shorter sentences in the first place. The peer, a long-time campaigner for reform who has argued that two-thirds of inmates should not be in prison at all, said the authorities should be 'less focused on the length of a sentence' and more focused on rehabilitation. The aunt of Zara Aleena, who was murdered by a man who had been out on licence for nine days, raised concerns that Labour was 'gambling with public safety' and convicts will not be 'supervised adequately'. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to unveil a series of measures later designed to ease overcrowding in jails and avert 'unchecked criminality on our streets' Ms Mahmood is given a tour of HMP Bedford in Harpur by the prison's governor Sarah Bott Keir Starmer (pictured at the NATO summit) was warned he is taking a 'dangerous gamble with public safety' as ministers prepare to unveil plans to release thousands of prisoners early A graph showing the maximum capacity of prisoners in comparison to the prison population The aunt of Zara Aleena (pictured), who was murdered by a man who had been out on licence for nine days, raised alarm that convicts will not be 'supervised adequately' In a speech at HMP Five Wells, in Northamptonshire, Ms Mahmood said prisons were 'on the point of collapse', with barely 700 places left in the adult male estate and jails operating at 99 per cent capacity since the start of 2023. If prisons ran out of cell space, she warned, the country faced the prospect of 'van-loads of dangerous people circling the country with nowhere to go', police officers unable to arrest criminals and 'looters running amok'. She said: 'In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system and a total breakdown of law and order.' The change is expected to come into force in September, with the Justice Secretary also announcing the recruitment of 1,000 additional trainee probation officers by March and an end to the previous government's early release scheme, which saw 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early. Ms Mahmood said there was now 'only one way to avert disaster', adding that the measures would 'give us the time we need to address the prisons crisis'. The Cabinet minister firmly pointed the finger at Rishi Sunak and his 'gang in No 10' as 'guilty men' responsible for the crisis. 'Time and again, they ducked the difficult decisions that could have addressed this challenge. Instead, they kept the public in the dark about the state they had left this country in,' she said. 'They were too weak to heed the warning signs that were flashing. They chose instead to put the country at risk.' Referring to a report from Bishop James Jones titled Making Sense of Sentencing, Lord Timpson told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: 'The question is, do longer sentences fulfil the five purposes of sentencing, which are to punish, to protect, to reduce crime, to reform and rehabilitate? 'And the public rightly is outraged when there's a serious crime. They're entitled to be morally outraged, but we have to go beyond punishing and protecting society and think about 'how do we reform and rehabilitate those offenders?' Because unless we do, then we will not have a safer society. 'Everybody wants a safe society. You can only get that safety through reducing reoffending. And what our report in essence was proposing is that we should be less focused on the length of a sentence and concentrating more on the content of the sentence.' By content of the sentence, he said he meant programmes in prison that would rehabilitate inmates, for example training, education or therapy to overcome addiction. He added: 'The question over our prisons is this: are they simply to be warehouses for the incorrigible or become green houses for the redeemable?' The PM teed up the move as he gave a press conference at the NATO summit overnight, insisting there were 'far too many prisoners for the prison places that we've got'. Pointing the finger at the previous government, he said: 'We knew there was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought.' However, Conservatives accused the Government of deploying scare tactics. A senior Tory source said: 'This is shameless scaremongering from the Labour Party that risks causing mass panic. 'Labour have come into government with hundreds of prison places available but they've lost their nerve, and are now stoking public panic for political gain.' Tory leader hopeful Suella Braverman said she had helped blocked a similar plan when they were in power, warning it 'put the public at risk'. In a message to her prospective rivals, the ex-home secretary said: 'We've all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons.' Keir Starmer 's new justice minister Lord Timpson fuelled fury at the 'anti-prison' approach as he suggested that courts should be handing out shorter sentences in the first place Tory leader hopeful Suella Braverman said she had helped blocked a similar plan when they were in power, warning it 'put the public at risk' Ms Aleena's aunt Farah Naz told BBC Breakfast: 'If the system cannot deal with those people being released into the community, then those people are not going to be supervised adequately. 'And when people, perpetrators, even thieves are not supervised adequately, crime can escalate. It doesn't always escalate, but it can. 'Then we've got unsupervised people because of a poor probation service in the community and people become emboldened 'well I can do what I like if nobody is supervising me' and that's what happened in our situation. 'It was a man that was emboldened because he was not supervised, he was not assessed, he was constantly allowed to do what he wanted to do, and therein lies a dangerous gamble with public safety with this move right now.' In the case of Ms Aleena's killer Jordan McSweeney, Ms Naz said the probation service was 'not fit to deliver supervision' or 'act in a timely way' when he broke his licence conditions. Overall, 20,000 inmates could be released early in the next few months. Answering questions at the NATO summit, Sir Keir said: 'The crux of the problem we face at the moment, and it is a terrible problem, is that we've got far too many prisoners for the prison places that we've got and we soon will have. 'That is gross irresponsibility of the outgoing government. It is a basic function of government that you should have enough places for your prisoners that judges are sending to prison. 'And for that to have failed I think tells you something material about the last government that we have to pick this up and we have to fix it. 'I can't build a prison in the first seven days of a Labour government.' Sir Keir added: 'We knew there was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought. 'And the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book, having worked in criminal justice, to have allowed your criminal justice system to get to a state where you simply haven't got the prison places for prisoners. 'This is a predictable problem it's shocking. And I think that when further details are released of this, you'll have plenty of extra questions for those that came before us.' Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said plans to release some prisoners early were 'the least worst option'. He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'The Government have got a situation where there's no easy solution. 'Prisons are very, very close to full and filling up day in day out. The worst possible thing would be for the system to block, because the system blocks in prisons if they get completely full. That kicks back into the courts and into what we do. And that's really dangerous for the public. 'So the Government are forced into making a rapid decision to avoid that risk. So it's going to be the least worst option they're going to have to find, so I understand what they're trying to do, however not ideal it is.' One senior police source said a failure to free up prison cells risked moving into 'uncharted territory' (stock image) It is understood that senior figures in the criminal justice system fear it could trigger looting, opportunistic crimes and brazen breaches of bail conditions by offenders living in the community. Former Conservative justice secretary Alex Chalk who lost his seat last week said Labour's reported plan 'will buy you 18 months, but it won't buy you any more'. Asked if former PM Rishi Sunak had blocked similar measures, Mr Chalk refused to disclose private discussions but added: 'It is reasonable to say there were a variety of views about what could be got through Parliament.' Tory MP Neil O'Brien said: 'The idea that we would be safer if lots of criminals are let out of jail is absolute nonsense. 'We already know the new prisons minister James Timpson thinks that only one third of prisoners should even be there. 'Both he and the Prime Minister are fundamentally anti-prison.' A North Carolina man posed for a haunting photo in front of the plane he was about to skydive from just hours before a fatal tragedy struck. Devin Hutchinson was celebrating his bachelorette party on Sunday when he was pictured smiling in front of a single-engine Cessna 182 at the Johnson County Airport in Mountain City, Tennessee. Hutchinson told WLOS that his group of friends had to split because of the small plane's size, so he flew with pilot Adam Plummer, 59, and instructors Scott George, 54, and Charles Mather Jr, 37. The bachelor had a great time skydiving - but the experience took on a dark turn the next morning when Hutchinson was watching the news. Hutchinson learned on Monday that same plane had crashed about 30 miles east of Asheville, NC, killing the pilot and instructors he had just met. Devin Hutchinson was celebrating his bachelorette party when he was pictured smiling in front of a single-engine Cessna 182 at the Johnson County Airport in Mountain City, Tennessee 'I told my friends, and it crushed us,' Hutchinson told the local news outlet. 'Those were the people that we had just met less than 12 hours ago, and now they're not here.' Hutchinson added: 'You could tell they were full of joy and they had a great time doing what they were doing.' The plane had taken off Sunday at about 8.30pm and was headed to Rutherfordton, North Carolina, when it crashed. Hutchinson is seen on Sunday with his two friends, who he went skydiving with The plane had taken off Sunday at about 8.30pm and was headed to Rutherfordton, North Carolina, when it crashed The wreckage was found on Monday morning after the plane was reported missing. An obituary for pilot George partly reads: 'He spent his professional career at JTEK, Boeing, and ATS, where he was well-liked and respected by his colleagues. 'Beyond his professional life, Scott was passionate about sky-diving. He was not only a tandem-skydiving instructor but also an avid enthusiast of sky-diving and occasional BASE jumping. 'Scott leaves behind his loving wife of 31 years, India Vaughan George, and their two sons, Landon Blaise George, 27, and Maveric Vaughn George, 18.' An obituary for pilot George partly reads: 'He spent his professional career at JTEK, Boeing, and ATS, where he was well-liked and respected by his colleagues' Skydiving instructor Charles Mather Jr, 37, is pictured with his mother. He was one of the crash's three victims Instructors Scott George, who was also killed on Sunday, is pictured The National Transportation Safety Board will be in charge of the investigation and will provide further updates, according to the FAA, which is also investigating. An NTSB investigator was traveling to the scene to document and examine the wreckage, officials said. The agency is expected to issue a preliminary report within 30 days on the initial phase of its investigation. A final report with a probable cause and any contributing factors is expected to take one to two years. The EU has ordered France to save more than 12billion a year or face punishment for breaking fiscal rules about deficits, raising fears of even more economic and political turmoil following the election upset earlier this month. Bloomberg reported that the European Commission has told Emmanuel Macron's government that it needs to save 15 billion a year, as it has run too high a deficit. The EU's rules state that member nations cannot have a deficit any higher than 3% of their GDP. Earlier this year, France's statistics institute, INSEE, announced that the public deficit was 5.5% of GDP in 2023, a rise of 0.7% from 2022. The EU's demand comes just a few months before France is set to present a medium-term monetary plan for Brussels to scrutinise. France has asked the EU for more time, seven years instead of four, but says it still plans to reach the 3% limit by 2027. The new crackdown is bad news for Macron, who already had to suffer a defeat at the hands of the leftwing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition, leading to a hung parliament. Bloomberg reported that the European Commission has told Emmanuel Macron's (pictured) government that it needs to save 15 billion a year The new crackdown is bad news for Macron, who already had to suffer a defeat at the hands of the leftwing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon (pictured) Participants wave French national tricolours during an election night rally following the first results of the second round of France's legislative election at Place de la Republique in Paris on July 7, 2024 His possible coalition partners all want to reverse many of his money-saving reforms and boost public spending, which could put France in a fraught position. Bruno Le Maire, Mr Macron's outgoing finance minister, has already admitted that tough decisions will need to be made in the near future. 'Either we continue with savings and repairing public finances, or we massively increase taxes on French people,' Mr Le Maire, who is expected in Brussels next week, said. 'It's the only alternative, failing which we would expose ourselves to a very strong market reaction.' France's wealthiest have already been spooked by the economic decisions that the NPF might make, the Straits Times reported. Supporters of the left wing union, New Popular Front, gather at the Place de la Republique on July 7, 2024 Bruno Le Maire, Mr Macron's outgoing finance minister, has already admitted that tough decisions will need to be made in the near future Some of the richest people in the world call France home, including LVMH luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault and LOreal cosmetics heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. Before the rise of the left in France, the number of billionaires was expected to rise by 16% over the next five years, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024. But the NPF has already promised to reinstate a wide wealth tax, raise income taxes for the richest to 90% and overhaul inheritance taxes. Xenia Legendre, a Paris-based managing partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, told the outlet: 'Some people are considering whether they should stay in France. 'There is a lot of international mobility now, people move around, so the question becomes whether moving can help them optimise their fiscal situation.' She added that the wealthiest are considering moving to tax-friendly locations like Dubai or Singapore. President Joe Biden ends his fightback week by flying to Detroit, Michigan, on Friday in an effort to shore up key support and turn the focus on to Donald Trump amid a growing wave of calls for him to end his reelection campaign. He arrives after hobnobbing with world leaders at the NATO summit in Washington and speaking at a press conference on Thursday evening, where he mixed foreign policy with flubs for an hour. He insisted that he plans to remain in the race despite a disastrous debate performance that raised questions about the 81-year-old's fitness for office. Since then he has been on a non-stop effort to reassure lawmakers and donors that he can still do the job. But a string of interviews, visits to key states and a rare single-handed press conference have done little to stem calls for him to step aside. President Joe Biden appeared for his first solo press conference since November on the sidelines of a NATO summit to quell criticism that he is no longer up to the job His campaign said the Detroit event would allow him 'to contrast the dangers of Trump's Project 2025s agenda with the promise of what America can accomplish in the first 100 days of a second Biden term.' Project 2025 is a roadmap for a new Trump administration drawn up by his allies, although the former president has tried to distance himself from it. The guest list, including key black activists and union leaders, illustrates the task at hand: Show that he retains grassroots support while the 'elite', as Biden called them this week, loses their nerve. At the same time, his reelection campaign has indirectly admitted that his path to the White House has narrowed. It said that the 'blue wall' of states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin offers the 'clearest pathway' to winning the electoral college. And so he returns to the blue-collar, blue wall city of Detroit. It is his third trip to the city this year and his fourth to the state of Michigan. The speakers will include Academy Award winning actress Octavia Spencer, alongside a pastor, the city's mayor and the state party chairman. Other key figures will not be there. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is also co-chair of Biden's, campaign is out of state. And Biden won't have far to look for reminders of the challenge ahead. Biden did what he needed to do on Thursday evening and lives to fight another day Last weekend Biden visited Mount Airy Church of God in Christ in Philadelphia Democrats calling on Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Texas Rep. Raul Grijalva, Arizona Rep. Seth Moulton, Massachusetts Rep. Mike Quigley, Illinois Rep. Angie Craig, Minnesota Rep. Adam Smith, Washington Rep. Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey Rep. Pat Ryan, New York Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Rep. Hillary Scholten, Michigan Rep. Brad Schneider, Illinois Rep. Greg Stanton, Arizona Rep. Ed Case, Hawaii Rep. Jim Himes, Connecticut Rep. Scott Peters, California Rep. Eric Sorensen, Illinois Rep. Brittany Pettersen, Colorado Advertisement Rep. Hillary Scholten, who faces a difficult reelection fight in western Michigan, went public with her concerns on Thursday and called on Biden to stand aside. 'With the challenges facing our country in 2025 and beyond, it is essential that we have the strongest possible candidate leading the top of the ticketnot just to win, but to govern,' she said. She was the first member of Congress from the state to break ranks. Trump won Michigan in 2016, but Biden won it back by three percentage points. Rolling averages of state polls suggest Trump has a very narrow lead this time around. At his press conference, Biden said the polling data was 'premature.' 'The campaign really hasn't even started,' he said. 'I mean, it hasn't started in earnest yet. Most of the time, it doesn't start till after September after Labor Day. 'So a lot can happen.' The president will spend the weekend at his Delaware beach home. On Monday it's Austin, Texas, where Biden will speak about the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and lay out proposals to address the role of the Supreme Court. Then it is on to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he will outline proposals to make housing more affordable. XL Bully dogs have been banned in Ireland just a month after a 23-year-old woman was mauled do death by one of her pets after returning home from celebrating her birthday. The new regulation announced by Ireland's Department for Rural and Community Development means that the importing, breeding, selling and re-homing of XL bullies will be prohibited from October 1. The ban was announced by the Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys. Setting out the measures Humphreys said she understood that many people would oppose the ban. 'We must be mindful however that no dog's life is worth more than human life,' she said. XL Bully owner Nicole Morey was killed by her dog when she had just come in from a night out. Now Ireland has banned the dog breed under a new law Pictured: Nicole Mosey, 23, before she was brutally killed by her dog The XL Bully ban in Ireland comes after the UK government announced a ban last year in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland and Scotland, which followed suit earlier this year in response to a wave of horrific incident 'If we do not take action now the number of these dogs in the country will grow and my fear is that these attacks will become more frequent,' she added. It will also be illegal to own an XL bully without a certificate of exemption from February of next year. Current owners of XL bullies will be required to neuter their dogs to obtain a certificate of exemption by February 1, 2025 in order to keep them. Once the legislation is enacted, any person in breach of the regulations will face a fine of up to 2,500 euros ($2,700), up to three months in prison, or both. The ban comes following a wave of recent attacks involving the animal, including that of 23-year-old Nicole Morey, from County Limerick, who was brutally killed by her dog after returning home from celebrating her birthday. Ms Morey is pictured with two pets. It is not known if either of the dogs pictured were involved The 23-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene following the attack last month Heartbreaking video has emerged of her with her pet in happier times, dancing together Investigators believe that Ms Morey had just opened her front door when she was mauled by the dog. Another dog, understood to be a Staffordshire Terrier, also joined in attacking Ms Morey. The harrowing incident was captured on CCTV, and the footage has been leaked online, with Gardai urging the public not to share it. The XL Bully that attacked its owner had to be shot four times by police in order to stop the dog. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Ms Morey had previously posted on a dog behaviour Facebook group seeking advice on how to control the animal. Heartbreaking videos also emerged of the young woman with her pets. One TikTok video captioned 'my boy' shows the owner dancing in her kitchen with her dog and laughing. The overlaying audio hauntingly plays: 'This is my son, and I don't give a f*** if you think he looks aggressive.' Posted in December, the footage with the audio continues: 'I don't give a f*** if you don't like the look of him, and I certainly don't give a f*** if you think the breed should be banned.' At the time of Mosey's death, Humphreys, who had recently set up a group to examine dog control, had said she was 'appalled' by the 'deeply shocking incident'. In a statement she said: 'I have consistently said that more action is required in relation to dog control. 'That's why I have set up a cross-governmental stakeholder group, chaired by the retired deputy garda commissioner John Twomey, to examine this whole area.' She said she has asked the group to examine the restricted breeds list and whether Ireland should follow the example of the UK and Northern Ireland. 'If they recommend to me that we should ban a particular breed, I'm happy to do that. But I want to let them carry out their work because there's a number of different views and different approaches on this and I want to make sure we get it right.' The decision to ban XL bullies in Ireland comes after the UK government announced a ban last year in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland and Scotland, which followed suit earlier this year in response to a wave of horrific incidents. The UK government announced a ban last October for England and Wales and XL bullies now have to be muzzled in public. That ban came after a number of recent incidents in the UK, including that of 10-year-old Jack Lis, who was killed by an XL Bully named 'Beast' after he went out to play at a friend's house in November 2021. Many owners defended the powerfully-built dogs and stressed the importance of good training. Critics, however, said the dogs had been specifically bred to be highly aggressive and even responsible ownership could prevent them from attacking on occasion. There are several restricted breeds in Ireland, including German shepherds, rottweilers and various bull terriers, as well as some crosses. Restricted dogs must be kept collared with their owner's information on a tag, muzzled in public and on a short, strong lead with someone over the age of 16 who is able to control them. A successful businessman has been jailed for five years after it was revealed he put a young girl through a 'thunderous deluge of sexual abuse' when he was a child himself. Aidan Treglown, now 32, did not show any emotion as a judge described his behaviour as 'manupulative and callous' in front of his whole family who filled the public gallery in support. The court heard how he had not only abused the girl in his childhood but tried to silence her by attempting to take his own life to 'gain sympathy'. Treglown, who is now married and the founder of a successful property management company based in Cornwall, was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the victim when she was between the ages of eight and 12 years, and he was aged between 11 and 15 years old. Judge Emma Nott, sentencing at Reading Crown Court, told the defendant that despite his young age at the time, he knew full well his behaviour was unwanted. She said: 'Sometimes, the passage of time highlights the severity of the harm caused - and this is one such case. Aidan Treglown (pictured) was sentenced to five years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting a young girl when he was a child himself 'You successfully groomed your victim not only into sexual abuse - but into keeping silent about it. 'It was a consistent and predatory course of conduct that your pursued and pressed when she made it clear that your behaviour was unwanted and she did not consent. 'When she was finally able to stop you, she was just a few months younger than you when you began to abuse her - at the age approaching 12, she told you that she knew what you were doing was criminally wrong. 'She consented to nothing that you did to her - and even as a young teenager you knew she was complying and not fully consenting.' The court heard from prosecutor Jollyon Robertson that the abuse began in the spring of 2008, when the girl was only aged eight years and Treglown was aged just 11 years. The sexual abuse began with 'kissing' and 'touching' and escalated over the years. The abuse stopped when the victim approached the age of 12 and began to threaten to reveal what Treglown was doing, Judge Nott told the court. The defendant, who appeared in court via video link, freshly shaved and sporting a blue polo shirt, had previously denied one count of rape and two counts of assault by penetration. During his trial at Reading Crown Court and even after his conviction by the jurors, he claimed the sexual activity began with 'kissing' and that it was 'reciprocal' - an instance of 'childhood sexual experimentation.' However, the jury and the judge rejected his claims after the victim, now an adult woman, told the court Treglown's actions against her when she was only a young child, made her feel as though she was 'trapped in a waking nightmare'. She told the judge during the sentence hearing: 'His actions have forever altered the course of my life. He not only robbed me of my innocence, but of what my life could have been. 'Over three agonising years, I was trapped in a waking nightmare.' Treglown (pictured) appeared at the trial via video link Treglown (pictured) claimed the sexual activity began with 'kissing' and that it was 'reciprocal' - an instance of 'childhood sexual experimentation' The court heard that years passed and whilst the victim's mental and physical health deteriorated, Treglown went on to move to Cornwall where he founded a successful business, House Management Group, and to get married. When the victim reached out to him years later to let him know of her intentions to reveal the abuse he put her through, Treglown purposefully made an attempt on his life to 'gain sympathy' - taking pills and whiskey at his home where he 'knew he would be discovered in time' to be saved, the court heard. The judge told the defendant: 'You knew the extent to which she was suffering and you were in a position to help by putting your hands up to what you had done - but you had built a successful business, you had a girlfriend and you did not want to risk losing what you had. 'She had become a problem - so you seized the narrative, took an overdose and stole from her the opportunity to tell her story. 'After this single incident of self harm from which you recovered well, you were treated with compassion and understanding - and she was even more powerless.' Treglown, from Tregolls Road in Truro, Cornwall, was finally reported to the police and interviewed in 2021 - well over a decade after the victim managed to put an end to the abuse by threatening to come forward. In his interview to police, he admitted touching her - but insisted that it was 'mutual' and later he admitted two counts of sexual assault on a child under 13, and two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. He denied one count of rape and two of assault by penetration - but jurors convicted him of those offences after a trial at Reading Crown Court. He was sentenced to five years behind bars - a much lesser sentence than he would have got as an adult, as the court had to reflect the fact that he was a child at the time of the offences. Passing sentence, Judge Nott did not hold back from making more scathing remarks, calling Treglown 'callous' - and praising the victim for having sought 'justice for herself.' Judge Nott told the defendant before sending him to jail: 'You claimed that you were only a child and did not know better, that it was mutual childhood sexual experimentation. 'Of course, as the jury found, it was no such thing: it was rape. 'Your offending was less about teenage sexual experimentation on your part and more about the excitement and the potency that you gained from being able to coerce and control a girl. Judge Emma Nott, sentencing at Reading Crown Court (pictured), told the defendant that despite his young age at the time, he knew full well his behaviour was unwanted 'Your attitude was detached and callous. You lacked any empathy and took no real responsibility. 'Having victimised and abused your victim as a child, as an adult you reversed the narrative. Your behaviour since then has been selfish and self-protective. 'It is to be hoped that now, she has her voice back.' Private investigator Mark Williams-Thomas has given 'significant new information' to police investigating the mystery disappearance of raver Jay Slater in Tenerife. Former Met Police officer Mr Williams-Thomas claimed he had passed the find on to British and Spanish police who have been left baffled by the apprentice bricklayer's vanishing act. Jay, 19, was last seen on June 17 after leaving a nightclub in Playa de las Americas in the company of two British men and driven to a remote AirBnB an hour away in the village of Masca. A massive 13-day search involving dogs, drones and helicopters has failed to find any trace and speculation is growing that he may not even be in the remote Teno National Park fuelling more heartache for his family. In an update on his X profile Mr Williams-Thomas said the new intelligence 'strongly supports' that Jay 'is most likely to be in or around' the mountainous area 'some distance' away from his last known location. It is the latest development in the search for the missing teenager which come as: Private investigator Mark Williams-Thomas has given 'significant new information' to police investigating the mystery disappearance of raver Jay Slater in Tenerife Jay Slater, 19, is pictured with his mother Debbie Duncan, who flew out to Tenerife with other family members when he went missing This graphic shows the last known movements of Jay Slater before he disappeared on June 17 Mr Williams-Thomas said: 'On the morning of the 17 June on arrival back to the rental Jay spoke to a number of different people on his phone and they would describe him as very much awake and still buzzing. 'As a result of information we have received we know now that Jay took certain actions whilst at the rental because he was clearly worried about his own safety and this was shortly before he decided to leave. 'In the last few days, I have received a significant new piece of information which I have shared with to the British and Spanish police, this provides some clarity as to why he may have left in a hurry and didn't want to return to the rental in a hurry even though his phone was about to go flat. 'I know the internet is wash with theories, some are massively wild speculation, others have elements of the truth but overwhelmingly many are just made up. 'We are uniquely placed having spoken to nearly all the key witnesses to cross check their accounts and evidence thus building the clearest picture. 'We now know that Jay was on his phone and alone at 8:50am walking on a track just off the main road, about 30 minutes walk from the apartment, it was a cold damp morning, only 18C with a high that day only reaching 20C. 'The evidence we have been able to collect including the significant new intelligence strongly supports that Jay is therefore most likely to be in or around the mountains, we suspect some distance from the last phone location drop. Spanish police called off the hunt for the missing 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer 14 days after he went missing An external view of the two-bedroom holiday cottage where Jay Slater stayed before he went missing The property is listed as a holiday home or chalet and offers free WiFi and a fully equipped kitchen Jay Slater posted this Snapchat of himself standing on the steps of the Airbnb villa before he went missing 'Even after extensive searching done by highly experienced personnel, the rugged and dangerous areas it's just not possible to rule out that he isn't still there. 'We have still not found evidence of a third-party criminal involvement in Jay's disappearance although we have opened up links with dangerous criminal underworld of drugs and associated crime. 'We remain open minded with our investigation and would appeal like to for any parties involved in their own searches to share their data so we can compile an accurate map for those areas that still need searching.' Mr Williams-Thomas, 54, who hit the big time after exposing TV paedophile Jimmy Savile, did not give any further information about what the new clue is and it is not known if he has shared it with Jay's family. Last week he claimed that during his car journey with the two men to the property, Jay posted a video on social media boasting about the theft of a 12,000 Rolex watch. MailOnline was the first media outlet to identify the man who rented the AirBnB as convicted drug dealer Qassim Ayun, 31, who when approached said Jay had 'arrived alive and left alive' but he has since refused to make further comment. Jay was last seen on June 17 by a local woman as he left the Casa Abuela Tina, 40 a night AirBnB heading the wrong way up the mountain instead of down towards Playa de las Americas an hour away by road. Mr Williams-Thomas joined the hunt for Jay, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancs, after reaching out to Jay's mum Debbie Duncan, 55, offering his help free-of-charge, which she accepted. Mr Williams-Thomas, 54, did not give any further information about what the new clue is and it is not known if he has shared it with Jay's family Jay travelled to the Canary Islands for a musical festival with his friends Jay's friend Lucy Law shared this Instagram post of Jay and a crying face and heart emoji And he travelled to the island on June 24, where he was seen carrying out inquiries at the holiday rental, as well as at Papagayo nightclub, where Jay had been seen shortly before he vanished. The investigator has also been given access to Jay's family and friends, including close pals Brad Hargreaves, 19, and Lucy Mae Law, 18, who were both with Jay on the holiday. Mr Williams-Thomas said his 'thoughts remain with Jay's family and friends'. In his update he added that many had been in touch with tip offs they had read or seen on social media and Mr Williams-Thomas said these were being followed up and he had 'received valuable information.' He also asked again for people who had 'been in touch with or spoken to Jay in the 48 hours before he vanished' to get in touch and he also revealed how some of the accounts he believed were not credible. Mr Williams-Thomas said: 'We are aware that not everything they have told us will be the truth, there are a number of reasons for this including their own involvement in criminal activity. 'However, it must also be said that some of Jay's closest friends have fully engaged with us and discussed things that could cause them to be unfairly judged by the public.' Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao says the timing of the raid could improperly influence her chance of surviving a recall effort. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao pushed back against federal authorities on Friday, releasing a statement through her lawyer that questioned the timing of an FBI raid of her house, and said the Justice Department was unduly influencing the recall election process. Attorney Jeff Tsai, who represents Thao, said he was confident that the Mayor is not, and will not be, a target of whatever investigation the government is conducting, and that she had not undertaken any unlawful conduct. [T]he Justice Departments dramatic step without any public explanation or justification just months before a major recall election has unquestionably affected the election and unfairly influenced the decision voters will have this November, Tsai said in a statement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Justice Departments own internal principles of federal prosecutions specifically warn prosecutors against undertaking investigations, or selecting the timing of investigative steps, to affect an election or otherwise influence a candidate or campaign. Through its actions here, though, the Justice Department has done that very thing it has made itself an improper central feature in Novembers election. The FBI raid of the house Thao lives in with her partner, Andre Jones, has sent a jolt through Oaklands political establishment, complicating the citys work on critical business and creating a haze of misconduct questions around City Hall. Thao has expressed frustration, saying she doesnt know why her house was raided and that she is innocent, while asking what probable cause agents had to obtain a search warrant. The mayor has not been accused of or charged with any crimes, and investigators have been largely silent about the case. The raid came just two days after the recall election was certified in the city, and was part of a series of coordinated raids that also included three locations connected to the Duong family, which runs California Waste Solutions, the citys curbside recycler. Thao now faces what is essentially a re-election fight in November, when the recall question will be on the ballot. The Justice Department has specific guidelines that govern investigations involving elected officials, particularly those in the midst of election fights like Thao. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its rulebook, the Justice Manual, says that federal prosecutors and agents may not purposefully affect an upcoming election, while stipulating that any local action likely to raise an issue or the perception of an issue under this provision requires consultation with officials in Washington, at the departments Public Integrity Section. That office may then move a case higher up the ladder to the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney Generals office. Ismail J. Ramsey, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District, which is overseeing the case, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including questions about whether officials higher up at the Justice Department were consulted before the raid at Thaos house. While the FBI and U.S. Attorneys office have released little information about the case, a subpoena sent to city staffers for documents relevant to the probe was made public by the Oakland City Attorney in response to requests from reporters. The subpoena indicates that investigators are seeking information about California Waste Solutions as well as Evolutionary Homes, a venture to build container homes involving the Duongs, and appointments to various city posts. They also sought all city communications about Jones, as well as Thaos daily calendar. An Oklahoma mother allegedly tried to burn her daughter's cat alive on a grill before the animal was rescued after her daughter heard raucous meowing. Veronica Carrillo was arrested on animal cruelty charges and remains in jail on a $100,000 bond. On June 26, Carillo's 16-year-old daughter called 911 to report that her mother allegedly tried to burn her cat on the barbecue grill, according to a news release from the Moore Police Department. Her daughter, who is a minor and whose name was not disclosed, told officers she was looking for the cat when she suddenly heard her pet's cries, court documents revealed. When she rushed to the backyard, she saw a 'black trash bag wrapped around an animal carrier on top of the grill with visible flames underneath,' the records showed. Veronica Carrillo was arrested on animal cruelty charges and remains in jail on a $100,000 bond The barbecue grill where the innocent cat was burned Carillo escaped the home through a window and was found on a neighbor's front porch hiding under a rug when officers arrived, KFOR News reported. Bodycam footage captured the sickening details Carillo told officers telling them, 'I was cooking out and the cat got burned.' 'Had to be done, you know, I'm sorry,' she sad. The innocent cat survived the terrifying ordeal thanks to her owner's quick-thinking actions that saved her from death's door. The tortoise-colored cat was rescued by her beloved owner The pet carrier and trash bag that the animal was placed in Traumatized but alive, the tortoise-colored cat sustained burns to her paws and whiskers, police said. The plastic bag had also melted onto the pet carrier in places. A department spokesperson said, 'thankfully, the animal was walking around, appearing to have avoided serious injury, and is expected to make a full recovery,' The Kansas City Star reported. In the video, the officer is heard asking Carillo, 'What had to be done?' She responds, 'I mean I had to cook.' Although the officer then asks, 'What were you cooking?' Carillo doesn't respond. Her family has placed a protective order against her, according to the news outlet. Despite being thrown into a trash bag and placed over a barbeque flame, the cat survived Meanwhile, neighbors were horrified upon hearing the news. 'Its just heartbreaking to hear this,' Lynn Davis told the news outlet. She called Carrillo's alleged act 'inhumane' and said she was 'totally disgusted.' 'We need to send a message to anyone abusive to any animal, and this is horrific. She needs time in jail, possibly prison,' she said. Carrillo is due back in court later this month, KFOR reported. Scientists probing a mass stranding of whales are looking at whether sonar or other acoustic disturbance could have led to the tragic event. A pod of 77 pilot whales died after washing ashore on a beach in Orkney. It happened almost exactly a year after another large stranding of long-finned pilot whales on the Isle of Lewis. It is known that in both events seismic surveys for offshore windfarms were being conducted off the islands. Dr Andrew Brownlow, director of the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, said mass strandings of this scale are becoming more common in Scotland - and we need to know why. Scientists are trying to find out what led to the mass stranding of pilot whales on Orkney None of the 77 pilot whales which stranded on an Orkney beach survived the incident He his team were seeking answers over what acoustic activity may have been happening off Orkney. Pilot whales can form very large groups, superpods of many tens, when they are subject to disturbance such as noise or the threat of killer whales, he said. We want to know what acoustic activity was taking place in the hours and days before this latest stranding. Man has made our oceans noisier and these activities are having an affect - so we need to get a better understanding at whats happening and the impact on creatures like whales. Dr Brownlow added that he was still awaiting information from an acoustic buoy that may contain vital clues over last years mass stranding at Tolsta Beach on the Isle of Lewis. Then an entire pod of 55 pilot whales died. Only 15 were alive when they were washed ashore. One was successfully re-floated while the rest had to be euthanised. A large pod of pilot whales stranded in July, 2011, at the Kyle of Durness, Sutherland, in what was then believed to have been Scotlands largest ever such event. Some 19 of the 70 whales died. Four large bombs exploded underwater by the Royal Navy were later blamed by government scientists for the mass stranding. It is also thought that the sonar waves can frighten deep-diving whales, forcing them to surface too quickly and leading to symptoms similar to decompression sickness, also known as the bends, in humans. But a spokesman for the MoD has said the Navy does all it can to ensure sonar is not damaging marine life. Dr Brownlow added: It used to be quite unusual to have a mass stranding event, certainly of this size on Orkney. But over the last ten years or so we have seen an increase both in the number of mass stranding events around Scotland and also the size of the mass and the number of animals that it involves. So that is slightly concerning and that might be because there are just more animals out there, or it could be that there are more hazards that these animals are exposed to. In the latest incident, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) had established 12 of the animals at Tresness Beach on the island of Sanday were still alive when they came out of the water. However, the decision was taken to euthanise them after refloating efforts failed. The pod included male whales up to 22ft long as well as females, calves and juveniles. Dr Andrew Brownlow says similar mass strandings are becoming more common and is keen to find out why Members of the public are being asked to stay away from the area as post mortem examinations are carried out. Experts from the BDMLR, the Scottish SPCA and marine vets from the Scottish mainland travelled to Sanday to assess whether any of the whales could be saved. The whales needed to be moved back into an upright position as quickly as possible if there is to be any chance of saving them. Rescuers attempted to keep the whales alive by pouring sea water over them, but the decision was later taken to euthanise them. A spokesperson for Orkney Islands Council said discussions were taking place on how best to dispose of the bodies. A female prison officer allegedly filmed having sex with an inmate in a Wandsworth jail cell has broken her silence and insisted that people do not know her side of the story while the whole incident has left her 'heart broken.' Linda De Sousa Abreu revealed in a video on social media that attempts had also been made by others to financially benefit from her 'misfortune' and accused the media of 'sensationalising' the shocking alleged video which went viral. She said: 'I hope that you can appreciate that this is going to be an awkward and uncomfortable conversation to have. I just thought I really needed to come on here and clarify a lot of things. 'First thing being there has been a lot, and I mean a lot, of tremendous amount of fake profiles of me that have been monetising off of my misfortune. 'The scandal that the entire world has somehow managed to be involved in. I have not managed monetised one f***ing bit at all. This is my only social media platform and I only just activated it.' Linda De Sousa Abreu broke her social media silence for the first time since appearing in court over the alleged incident Ms De Sousa Abreu appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court earlier this month charged with misconduct in public office The video of a prison guard allegedly having sex with an inmate at HMP Wandsworth She added: 'So if you do come across fake profiles of me, asking for money, please don't fall for it there's been a lot of fake GoFundMes and OnlyFans accounts of me that are not me and I do apologise if you have fallen for it. 'Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I apologise. 'But I really want to clarify that this is my only social media account, and I just came back on. 'I thought it was very important for me to address this very distasteful subject of OnlyFans creators pretending to be me and recreating the scenario of said scandal which I am involved in.' Sounding emotional and angry, Ms De Sousa Abreu added in the video posted on Instagram: 'Very, very distasteful for you to advertise or monetise yourselves as me for OF content. 'It does interfere with my trial but furthermore it is incredibly distasteful. 'Please if you are an OF creator refrain from tagging said prison. We all know the name of the prison. 'Please refrain from tagging HMP Wandsworth in your stupid videos. There are other prisons in the world, you don't have to pretend to be me.' Ex-prison officer Ms De Sousa Abreu was seen carrying a large suitcase and hiding her face as she left court earlier this month Ms De Sousa Abreu, 30, (drawn in court) who worked as a guard at HMP Wandsworth Ms De Sousa Abreu, 30, tried to cover her face as she left Uxbridge Magistrates' Court Staring intensely at the camera, she insisted: 'Lastly, I wanted to tell you all that you do not know my side of the story. 'The media has a great way of getting a narrative and twisting it for its own benefit. 'The media love any story to be salacious and sensational and they sensationalise everything. 'You don't know my side of the story and we will leave it as that for now.' As Ms De Sousa Abreu appeared to be finishing her statement, she then decided to continue and slammed people she thought were friends who 'had her back.' She fumed: 'Actually, whilst I'm here, this also needs to be addressed. You don't know who has you, who your real friends are until s**t hits the fan. 'Honest to God, family, friends, you need to pick them very carefully, very carefully. 'Obviously everybody knows my mobile phone number was leaked, there has been people going behind my back. 'The media have been literally following me everywhere, I can't even go into Greggs or Primark without getting papped, it's very annoying.' She cried: 'A lot of the time it's people who you thought had your back and they just don't. 'That's been really heart breaking. On top of all of this, on top of everything, that's been really heart breaking too. 'So, that's just advice for everybody to pick very carefully who you have around you.' Ms De Sousa Abreu has been charged with misconduct and appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court earlier this month. The shocking clip sees the 30-year-old wearing uniform and begins with her apparently performing a sex act on an unidentified prisoner at the Category B jail in south-west London. The footage, which MailOnline understands to be recent, then appears to show her having sex with the prisoner while his cellmate films on a mobile phone. Footage of the cell shows a TV and piles of clothes heaped over a bunk bed. A friend who is smoking while recording says: 'Guys we've made history, this is what I'm telling you.' The prison officer's radio, left on a side table, crackles constantly with her colleagues heard on the other channels above the din of prisoners on the landing unaware of what is going on in the cell. At one point, someone appears to try to come into the cell, at which the man filming, can be heard saying to the person on the other side of the door 'give me a minute, one second.' The prisoner filming tells his friend to carry on and then pans the camera round momentarily and, grinning, says: 'This is how we roll in Wandsworth.' He then tells his friend having sex: 'You know you're gangster innit!' After the video went viral, MailOnline revealed that the woman in the video was Ms De Sousa Abreu who is understood to have recently quit her job as a prison officer in the South London jail following the scandal. The rebellion against Joe Biden's presidential candidacy is growing and now Bill and Hillary Clinton are joining the behind-the-scenes plotting with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Well-connected aides for Obama and the Clintons are commissioning polls and lobbying Democratic donors to hold onto their dollars in an effort to pressure Biden out of the competition. But the president's allies are fighting back, joining their boss in digging in their heels about staying in the competition. Biden, his White House and his re-election team have said repeatedly he is in the race to stay. The coup , however, is born out of concern that Biden, after his disastrous debate performance, can't beat Donald Trump in November. But it has it roots in the decades-long simmering resentments between Obama, the Clintons and Biden. They have long, interconnected ties among one another - they've shared staffers, passed legislation and campaigned for one another but they're also longtime competitors who take turns getting annoyed at the attention and credit the other receives. As Biden digs in his heels and the whispers against him grow, the interparty fighting shows no signs of stopping with plots and twists coming in at machiavellian levels. It's a question of how long it can continue before the whole thing implodes. 'Something's got to give, because we're in hell right now,' said Democratic strategist Jim Manley, a well-connected former staffer who knows all the players in this modern Shakespearean drama. Joe Biden said the only way he would drop out of the presidential race is if his staff told him 'there's no way you can win' Biden has made it clear he's in the race to stay. At his press conference on Thursday evening he said the only way he would drop out is if his staff told him 'there's no way you can win.' The rebellion has focused on showing him just that, plotting to use poll numbers and money pressures to force him out. Obama's former campaign manager David Axelrod has long been skeptical of Biden's chances of winning a second term. The debate - where Biden fumbled for words and stared into the camera - was a breaking point for many who worried the president would never recover from the damage. 'If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Biden's team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim,' Axelrod wrote on X after Biden's press conference. The rebellion is a 'growing' network of 'ruthless' aides, Axios reported, calling it the 'unofficial Committee to Unelect the President.' The aides have worked for Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton - using their combined experience and rolodexes to rally party members against Biden. 'The Super Friends are assembling,' a House Democrat told Politico. 'There's a group of people who are going to go make their case to whomever they can get to at the White House that he needs to step aside and we're going to get our asses kicked if he doesn't.' Democrats are growing more and more terrified that not only Biden will cost them the White House, he will drag down his fellow candidates, handing Republicans control of the House and Senate too. Additionally, some major Democratic donors have told Future Forward - the largest pro-Biden super PAC - that roughly $90 million in pledged donations are on hold as long as Biden remains on top of the presidential tickets, the New York Times reported. Biden's re-election team, however, argues there is a path to victory in what they are calling the blue wall: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And, they argue, if they can make it through the past two weeks they can make it through anything. 'If we can get through these two weeks that we're living through, we can get through anything,' Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon told staffers on call Thursday per Axios. 'What you are seeing in the public polling in the last couple days is what we are seeing in our polls. What we are seeing is that this is still a margin of error race,' she said. And former Obama aide Tommy Vietor called the reports of a coup 'totally inaccurate' and 'a little crazy.' 'Someone is pushing around a conspiracy theory that there's a coordinated effort by former Obama staff to push out Biden. It is totally inaccurate (and a little crazy),' he wrote on X. Barack Obama is said to be one of the Democratic elders plotting to get Biden out of the race Bill and Hillary Clinton aides are said to be joining the rebellion against Biden But the chatter continues that the best decision for the Democratic Party is having someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. With Biden stubbornly staying in the race - backed by family members Jill, Hunter and Valerie - the only way to get him out may the combined of pressure of the donors whose money keeps the party in play and an intervention by the party elders: Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. If Biden can be convinced his candidacy would destroy Democrats on Capitol Hill and hand Trump unlimited power, he may step aside. But Hillary Clinton and Obama may not be the right messengers to make that point. Biden, Obama and Clinton have long been competitive - they all ran against one another for the 2008 Democratic nomination that Obama eventually won. Publicly they would all stand together, as Obama and both Clintons stood behind Biden after his debate debacle. Privately it is a different story. Biden is said to still harbor anger at the duo over the 2016 election. Obama talked him out of running that cycle, clearing the path for Clinton, who lost to Trump. Meanwhile, Obama is said to be frustrated that Biden has passed legislation he could not - such as the infrastructure act - and Clinton is resentful that Biden beat Trump. But all of them remain concerned about Biden's low poll numbers. Trump has been in the led of the race for months and Biden's debate performance didn't help seal confidence in his candidacy. The rebellion is 'a little bit of score settling, but I think for a majority, they truly believe that Donald Trump poses an existential threat, and that's something's got to change,' Manly said. The best chance to talk Biden out of running could be Schumer and Pelosi. If they can convince Biden their lawmakers are worried that - with him leading the party they will lose re-election - it could cause the president to have second thoughts. Nancy Pelosi, seen above with Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the White House in 2022, is one of the few people who could tell Biden to step down Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama in April 2007 when they were all running for the 2008 presidential nomination Pelosi has been at the center of the story for a while. She is the one that lawmakers have gone to with their worries about the president. And she has a strong relationship with Biden, strong enough she could deliver the death blow. Plus she has the cojones to tell him to step down. 'She's the f***ing power-broker. She's the hatchet,' a Democratic lawmaker told Axios of the former speaker. Already Pelosi has publicly urged Biden to rethink he stance about staying in the race. '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. The issue isn't whether President Biden should withdraw from the race. It's why he hasn't been removed from office. As Thursday night's excruciating NATO press conference proved, Biden is not remotely fit to serve. Earlier in the day when he's at his sharpest, we've been told he introduced Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin'. To the first question at his 'Big Boy' press conference a few hours later, Biden called Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump'. Friday morning, the largest Biden super PAC announced that they've frozen $90 million as long as Joe remains at the top of the ticket, per the New York Times. Seventeen elected Democrats, as of this writing, have called for Biden to cede the nomination. At least half a dozen more are reportedly preparing to join that call. Nancy Pelosi has signaled that she agrees. Former president Barack Obama is reportedly on board; among other indicators, he gave the nod to George Clooney's scathing op-ed in the New York Times calling for Biden to drop out. The issue isn't whether President Biden should withdraw from the race. It's why he hasn't been removed from office. Seventeen elected Democrats , as of this writing, have called for Biden to cede the nomination. At least half a dozen more are reportedly preparing to join that call. This all leads to the only real question: If Joe Biden, ailing and flailing at age 81, isn't fit to run for office, how can he spend one more minute as president? To anyone who thinks sentiment is driven by partisanship, listen to Democrats themselves. 'I doubt [the President] is the one making important decisions about our country,' wrote Washington State Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez on Thursday. How is this not a five-alarm fire? Here is but one mangled thought from Biden last night: 'I was told not to go over to Europe -- I mean, to Asia -- including Europe, but Asia.' Another: 'Our military is worki- ---- I'm following the advice of my commander-in-chief' Joe Biden, as president, is the commander-in-chief. Ukraine is fighting for its existence, as is Israel. World leaders at the G7 the same world leaders Biden hosted this week have reportedly expressed grave concerns over his cognitive decline. As Thursday night's excruciating NATO press conference proved, Biden is not remotely fit to serve. Earlier in the day, when he's at his sharpest, we've been told, he introduced Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin'. We learned, days ago, that a Parkinson's specialist has been to the White House at least eight times, in eight months, between last summer and late spring. Until last night, Biden hadn't given a press conference in about that same time span eight months. This is inexcusable. As that fateful debate showed, now we all know why: The media, in collusion with Biden's staff and party elders, were hoping to keep Biden, and his critical condition, hidden until Election Day. They all knew. They all have blood on their hands. This is a Watergate-level scandal. We have a sitting president who is not capable of doing the job. But too many in the media can't admit it, because to do so would expose themselves for the glorified White House stenographers they've become. So instead, they turn around after the debate and express shock shock! at the president's decompensation while conceding, with seemingly little self-awareness, that they've been privy to this crisis for quite some time. NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd revealed, on Wednesday, that a senior Biden cabinet secretary told him the president 'can't run again like this' two years ago. New York magazine's Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi wrote, post-debate, that she'd been hearing of the president's steep decline for at least the past six months. She and her colleagues, she wrote, shared the same reaction to Biden at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April: Nancy Pelosi has signaled that she agrees. Former president Barack Obama is reportedly on board; among other indicators, he gave the nod to George Clooney's scathing op-ed in the New York Times calling for Biden to drop out. 'The group of reporters not instigated by me, I should note made guesses about how dead he appeared to be, percentage wise. 'Forty percent?' one of them asked.' Biden used the word 'moving' a lot in his NATO remarks, as if he was advised to subliminally urge us to see him as active. He also trailed off a lot, using the word 'anyway . . .' at least nine times before abandoning a train of thought. He used his infamous cheat sheet to call upon reporters he's known for years, slurred his words, and answered with a long-winded ramble about the economy when asked about repeated Dem calls to drop out. He mentioned China and the spy balloon (there was more than one, but who cares about details?) before assuring us that all is well, even if he'd reportedly rather head to bed by 8 pm and can only clock a 6-hour work day As his own press secretary said, if there's an emergency call in the middle of the night, Biden's staff lets him sleep. Remove this man, now. He can't be too dangerous to run against Trump but safe enough to run the world. It seems like such an obvious thing to say, except for one niggling fact: No one is saying it Perhaps because it leads to very uncomfortable questions. Such as: Who is really running the country? Is it Dr. Jill, who we now know has been sitting in during high-level Oval Office meetings? Is it Hunter, the once drug-addled, unscrupulous son who has relied on his father's power for his own personal wealth, and may very well need a presidential pardon to avoid prison? And what of Kamala Harris, Biden's actual veep, who upon Biden's removal would become the first black, female president of the United States? Isn't that the kind of DEI feather the Dems would otherwise relish? What do they know that we don't? Or is it down to Jill's personal grudge, as DailyMail.com exclusively reported? Seventeen elected Democrats, as of this writing, have called for Biden to cede the nomination. At least half a dozen more are reportedly preparing to join that call. If it's the latter, this makes removal of the President even more urgent. The Bidens clearly care about one thing and one thing only: Holding on to power at all costs, national security be damned. It's way past time to invoke the 25th amendment to the Constitution and remove the president d from office. It can be executed in one of three ways. Biden could resign with a written declaration that he is 'unable to discharge the power and duties of his office.' Or he could 'temporarily' step aside and make Harris the acting president. If he refuses either, the VP and a majority of the Cabinet could declare him unfit, and if he still refuses to go, he could be removed by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress. If the Dems are true patriots, now is the time to leverage this threat: Go with dignity, or we'll force you out and ruin your legacy. We are post-Orwellian. This distorted reality field only serves to make America, and the world, a far more dangerous place. How can we be asked to sacrifice so much for one man's ego? Plans to build a 2.3billion Venice of Britain on the south coast have been scrapped as they are 'not viable'. In 2017, remarkable proposals to build one of the 'most beautiful new towns in England' were unveiled, with a stunning canal running through the heart of it. The landmark project promised a state-of-the-art waterside town with driverless cars, 1,500 charming homes, grazing donkeys and ponies, a marina, and even its own amphitheatre. Involved in the designs for the new town - Fawley Waterside - were some of King Charles' favourite architects, who have worked on projects for the monarch and his estates. However, the planning applications for its redevelopment have now been formally withdrawn and the future of the site is unknown. General view of Fawley Power Station near Southampton, Hants as it looks now View from Northern Quarter. Artists impression of the new development planned Southern Quayside. Artists impression of the new development planned at Fawley The proposed 300-acre site in Fawley is located on the water at the edge of Hampshire's celebrated New Forest National Park. In a statement, a Fawley Waterside spokesperson said: 'The decision to withdraw the applications has not been taken lightly but multiple assessments of the current scheme have shown that it is not viable. 'Fawley Waterside will continue working closely and collaboratively with both New Forest District Council and The New Forest National Park Authority to consider the most appropriate development strategy for the site.' In a statement issued by the developers, Leader of New Forest District Council, Councillor Jill Cleary, added: 'The council had been waiting for the signature of the applicant on the legal agreements for over a year, while the viability of the proposed vision for the site from Fawley Waterside Limited evidently became more at risk. 'As leader of the council, I am pleased that there is now clarity as to the state of play. 'We look forward to working with Fawley Waterside, and their newly appointed team, to consider viable alternative development options for the site, that help us deliver on our Corporate Plan aspirations for People, for Place, and for Prosperity. 'Recognising the Freeport designation of the site, and the recently committed review of the New Forest District Council local plan, it is timely for us all to be able to consider how best this site can help to deliver benefits to the New Forest community, economy and environment'. At the site previously was Fawley Power Station, however its 650ft chimney was blown up in 2021 as part of the plans to 'transform a rich part of our industrial heritage into a thriving residential and commercial waterside community'. Aldred Drummand, Chief Executive Fawley Waterside Ltd Southern Quarter. Artists impression of the new development planned Fawley Waterside was the vision of wealthy businessman Aldred Drummond, who owns the neighbouring Cadland Estate. In 2017 there was celebration when it was announced a new town would come to the south coast, promising modern homes, a school a hotel, a new nature park, and thousands of jobs. There was even talk of a revolving restaurant 650ft in the sky at the top of Fawley's chimney while it still existed. Fawley Power Station - where scenes from Han Solo and Mission Impossible 5 were shot - has been demolished to make way for the town. In 2020, the New Forest National Park Authority and New Forest District Council gave it the go-ahead on the condition legal agreements were signed. Businessman Mr Drummond - dubbed one of the 'Leaders of Great Britain' - has had ties to the area since the 1950s, when his family's manor house was knocked down to make way for the power station. As well as being CEO of Fawley Waterside, he is the owner of the Cadland Estate. A Las Vegas mother and her sister sobbed in court as they were sentenced for the killings of two toddlers in a horror DUI crash that left one of the children decapitated. Raenysa Washington's daughters Rose and Taylor, 2 and 3, were killed in 2022 when her sister Kaleah Manning, 27, lost control of a van while speeding and drunk. On Thursday, prosecutors revealed the children were not wearing car seats because 25-year-old Washington, who was also in the van, had sold them just a week before their deaths, as reported by 8 News Now. Manning and Washington's mother sobbed in court as she pleaded for mercy for her daughters, with a relative leading her out of the courtroom as she wailed. Manning was sentenced to three-to-ten years in prison for the two deaths and Washington, who is currently pregnant, was sentenced to 364 days in jail and five years of probation for felony child abuse or neglect. Raenysa Washington's daughters Rose and Taylor, 2 and 3, were killed in 2022 when her sister lost control of a van while speeding and drunk Kaleah Maning, 27, was sentenced to three-to-ten years in prison for the two deaths Washington asked to begin her sentence on Monday so she could spend the day with her son, who was born after her daughters' deaths, but judge Erika Mendoza ruled that she begin her sentence immediately. 'The problem is Im not sure that all of these mistakes are things that could happen to a responsible parent,' Mendoza said. The sisters must also pay a victims fund $10,000 that helped pay for the childrens funerals in addition to a mandatory $2,000 fine. Manning's blood alcohol level after the crash was found to be 0.191, more than twice the legal limit in Nevada. Little Taylor, three, and Rose Wilmer, two, were both killed in the crash on Scott Robinson Boulevard at around 9.15pm Washington, right, asked to begin her sentence on Monday so she could spend the day with her son, who was born after her daughters' deaths. Manning, left Horrific photos show that the van was heavily damaged, with police reports revealing that night of the incident, both girls were not in childrens car seats She allegedly veered off the road and struck the curb before sideswiping trees and striking a light pole and wall, before colliding head-on with a large palm tree. Manning admitted guilt to two counts of DUI resulting in death, and Washington confessed to two counts of child abuse. The drunk driver was reportedly 'slurring' her words and had a strong odor of alcohol coming from her mouth every time she opened it to speak according to Las Vegas police. Manning admitted guilt to two counts of DUI resulting in death, and Washington confessed to two counts of child abuse Washington (right) and Manning (left) were charged in connection with the toddler's deaths. Manning was drunk behind the wheel at the time of the collision Cops also said her eyes were bloodshot, and she kept repeating herself. Rose died at the scene, while Taylor was rushed to the University Medical Center but eventually succumb to her injuries. Both women were rushed to hospital, where they were handcuffed to their beds while recovering from their injuries, which were critical at first. Manning and Washington lived together at the same address with the two little girls. A social worker tried to sue for discrimination after her boss called her 'passive aggressive' for eating a packet of crisps during a disciplinary hearing. Lucy Singleton's behaviour - which included her repeatedly turning away from the camera while her boss spoke - was branded 'disrespectful' by management who were sanctioning her for falsifying records in relation to a child under her supervision. The council worker, who fell pregnant during the investigation, claimed she tucked into the snack because she felt 'nauseous' and said she did not 'deserve' to be called passive aggressive. After 'serious concerns' were raised about her work, Ms Singelton was sacked resulting in her bringing claims of harassment, sex discrimination and pregnancy discrimination to an employment tribunal. But these were all dismissed by an employment judge who said none of her complaints were well-founded - and that she was called 'passive aggressive' as a result of her behaviour and not her pregnancy. Lancashire County Council social worker Lucy Singleton sued after her boss called her 'passive aggressive' for eating crisps during a disciplinary hearing. Pictured: Lancashire County hall The tribunal in Manchester heard Ms Singleton was employed as a social worker in Lancashire County Council's Emergency Duty Team in early 2015. The Preston-based team work out of hours to respond to situations that arise after social workers who work during the days finish their shifts. They deal with child protection and adult safeguarding issues and work through the night on weekdays, and weekends. A disciplinary hearing arose as a result of concerns raised by Sue Scotland - practice manager of the team - regarding Ms Singleton's conduct during a weekend shift in October 2019. The social worker had arranged a strategy discussion with the police on a childcare case to agree on a safeguarding plan, but this meeting did not happen. Ms Singleton made a record on the system that she had attempted to call the police, but Ms Scotland could find no evidence that this had been done. The matter was escalated and it was decided that the concern should be looked at under the disciplinary procedures. An investigation into the matter found Ms Singleton to be 'persistently dishonest' in her explanations as to why no call was made. The tribunal said Ms Singleton was not pregnant when the disciplinary investigation began, but was expecting by the time of the disciplinary hearing. A disciplinary hearing was held in July 2020 by video conference and was conducted by Andy Smith, the Head of Service for Safeguarding Inspection and Audit for the local authority. The tribunal accepted evidence that during the meeting, Ms Singleton 'purposely' turned sideways and looked away when Ms Scotland came online to give evidence. The panel noted that every now and then, the social worker would turn her head back towards the camera to challenge what was being said. Mr Smith perceived this as 'aggressive behaviour' while Ms Scotland found it to be 'disrespectful'. The tribunal said: 'At one point, whilst Sue Scotland was giving evidence and [Ms Singleton] was turned away sideways, [Ms Singleton] started eating a bag of crisps. 'Mr Smith told [her] that she should turn around and listen to what was being said.' After the meeting, Ms Singleton alleged the reason why she was eating the bag of crisps was because she felt nauseous due to her pregnancy. But, this was written some time after the hearing and the panel said she did not say anything about feeling nauseous or unwell during the meeting itself. In an email to her trade union representative, the social worker said 'I don't think I deserved to be called passive aggressive' in relation to a comment made by Mr Smith during the disciplinary hearing. While the head of safeguarding could not recall using these words, the tribunal found he did call Ms Singleton 'passive aggressive' due to 'the behaviour he observed at the meeting'. The social worker was handed a written warning. Seniors at the local authority asked to meet with Ms Singleton days after the hearing in the hopes of 'drawing a line' under the matters. During this meeting, Ms Singleton said she was being 'bullied' by Ms Scotland and the social worker said it was here that she was 'cruelly informed' that her colleagues did not like to work with her. It was heard that management described Ms Singleton as being 'challenging and confrontational' when offering feedback and that the social worker's colleagues believed she recorded information about them to put 'a negative slant on team practice'. In March 2022, a fact-finding meeting was held into Ms Singleton's conduct after colleagues complained she was uncontactable at times during night shifts. The hearing was also held to explore 'serious concerns' over another case the social worker oversaw during a weekend shift. This escalated to another disciplinary meeting in which the social worker was dismissed with immediate effect in September, 2022. A number of allegations were upheld including how Ms Singleton failed to follow management instructions in supporting service users in crisis, would make 'disparaging remarks' about management, and was dishonest in her actions. They said her behaviour had the potential to place service users at risk of harm. The social worker took the local authority to an employment tribunal, alleging pregnancy discrimination, harassment and sex discrimination among other claims. In relation to the 'passive aggressive' comment, Ms Singleton - who represented herself - argued in her closing submissions that her behaviours during the July 2020 meeting were as a result of her pregnancy. Employment Judge Hilary Slater said: 'We were satisfied, as a matter of fact, that calling [Ms Singleton] 'passive aggressive' was in response to [her] conduct. 'There was nothing to alert the [local authority] that the turning away from the camera and eating crisps during the meeting was related to the [Ms Singleton's] pregnancy. 'She did not inform [the panel] she was tired and nauseous and needed a break' Ms Singleton's claims of harassment related to sex and direct sex discrimination were dismissed. Her complaints of pregnancy discrimination and harassment relating to the 'passive aggressive' comment were presented out of time meaning the tribunal were unable to make a judgment on them. But, the tribunal noted that had this been presented in time - the 'complaint would have failed on its merits' as she did not prove the comment was made in relation to sex. What is the point of the SNP? In the wake of the worst election result in the partys history, it ought to be the future of the Conservatives under examination. However, it is the spectacular implosion of the Scottish Nationalists that is prompting questions about where that party goes next. The Scottish results on July 4, an electoral reversal dubbed the Independence Day Massacre, marked the SNPs poorest performance at the ballot box since 2010. But in number of seats conceded, the partys drubbing was much more stinging. Last Thursday, the SNP lost more seats in one night than in every previous general election put together. Now, the Nationalists have turned on each other. Their faces say it all. Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the current one, John Swinney, realise voters have abandoned the party as elections came in last week Joanna Cherry, defeated in Edinburgh South West, took Nicola Sturgeon to task on ITVs election night results programme, complaining about her leadership style. Former deputy leader Jim Sillars branded the ex-First Minister Stalins wee sister. Toni Giugliano, the loser in Falkirk, blamed the handling of the Michael Matheson iPad scandal, saying: An MSP found to have breached rules on parliamentary expenses must never again be protected quite the opposite, they must be removed from office. Alyn Smith, who lost in Stirling and Strathallan, described the backing of Matheson as the defence of the indefensible and precisely the sort of issue we used to destroy Labour for. While this might resemble the usual finger-pointing and bitterness seen after an election defeat, the cracks below the surface run deeper. It was Sturgeon who decided to make this election a de facto referendum on independence, and while she was long gone when the time came to draw up the SNPs manifesto, John Swinney decided to put the issue on page one, line one, with the declaration: Vote SNP for Scotland to become an independent country. Others questioned whether this was prudent. Equating a vote for the party with a vote for independence might motivate pro-independence electors to turn out, but it also gave a hostage to fortune. A particularly low vote share would be seized on as proof that enthusiasm for independence had dissipated. In the event, this is exactly what happened, with almost two-thirds of Scots voting for pro-Union parties. The de facto referendum strategy was a desperate roll of the dice by a desperate party, one conditioned by the poor strategic calls made during the Sturgeon years. Her Supreme Court gambit put beyond doubt that only Westminster has the legal authority to hold another referendum. Unable to be candid with their voters and say that the party would have to wait for another 2014-style opportunity to arise, the Nationalists pretended that they could force the UK Parliaments hand if Scots just sent another squad of Nationalists to the Commons. July 4 was the day that fantasy collided with cruel political reality. Incapable of delivering for their hardliners on the constitution and yet too fixated on it for floating voters, the SNP put itself in the worst of all positions. In effect, its platform was: Vote for us and well bang on some more about that thing we have no control over. They were no longer talking about independence as viable, but discussing it the way Trekkies do their favourite starship, with an obscure single-mindedness decipherable only by fellow fans. We now know how much support that approach can command: less than a third of the vote. What happened to the SNPs heaving electoral coalition, which brought in disaffected Labour voters, countryside Conservatives and middle-class public sector workers more interested in competence than ideology? After three straight victories at Westminster and four at Holyrood, that coalition is crumbling. The Labour Party has dragged itself out of the political wilderness. Its former heartland voters in Scotland have decided to give it another chance. Centre-Right voters in the Borders and the North-East have the Scottish Tories, who arent really centre-Right at all but less centre-Left than the other parties. If youre fed up with the SNPs disregard for rural Scotland, you can scrawl your cross next to the Scottish Tories knowing theyll direct the occasional swipe at the Nationalists. Where the SNPs stock has really plummeted is with Barratt-dwelling millennials, those aged between late twenties and mid-forties and living in a new-build estate. These are the devolution generation and many have no memory of a time before the Nationalists came to power. They voted SNP in 2015, having voted Yes the year before, and there was a frisson of rebellion to it. They were defying the habit of their intergenerationally Labour families. Sturgeon was down-to-earth, relatable not like those robotic Westminster politicians. Now they are a decade older and a bit more cynical. Their wages have stagnated but they are paying more in tax. They already have a kid, or are thinking about it, but fret over whats happened to education under the SNP. Their mums have been waiting long and weary for a hip or knee operation with no sign of a date yet. Going private goes against mums principles, and will wipe out her savings, but she cant wait much longer on the NHS. They believe in doing their bit for the climate but reckon this Just Stop Oil mob need their heads examining. It cant be a just transition if thousands of workers get dumped on the scrapheap. They are chilled out about social issues but think some people take the woke stuff too far. They are fiercely patriotic, would never conceive of themselves as British, and are instinctively for independence. But unlike a decade ago, they are more mindful of its financial costs. The devolution generation are now the largest cohort within Middle Scotland, but the party no longer has anything to say to them. Most are not political animals, but they intuit from their everyday experiences that things are on the wrong track in Scotland. This lot have been in for ages and theyre not getting the job done. Maybe its time for a change. The SNP is losing these aspirational and practical-minded voters, people who just want to do well by their family, get their bins emptied regularly and not have to cover a Cabinet ministers iPad bill. Without this demographic, the Nationalists cannot win in 2026. Party strategists know this, but they are painfully aware that it will not be easy to regain these voters. They are in the market for competent, effective, drama-free government and the SNP has lost its knack for that. Advising ministers to just run the country better is like shouting score some goals at a striker. If they could, they would have already. Scottish voters go to the polls in two years time and the clock turns faster when youre in trouble. It is unlikely the SNP government will be able to turn things around sufficiently so that voters notice improvements in their finances and public services come spring 2026. Besides, there comes a point in the life of every long- running government when the voters just stop listening. By 1997, the economy was going gangbusters but voters had simply lost patience with John Majors Conservatives. They had made their minds up: the Tories had to go. The election results are an indication that voters are beginning to make up their minds about John Swinneys Nationalists. While a turn-around is not impossible, especially if Sir Keir Starmers Government becomes very unpopular, it is more likely that the SNP is bound for the Holyrood Opposition benches. In the soul-searching-cum-civil-war we are now seeing, a tremor of desperation is not hard to detect. Like a high street retailer heading for bankruptcy, the SNP realises it cant rely on brand recognition and is now just chucking any old tat at the customers in the hopes of being able to keep the lights on for another month. The party can blather on about visions and values, hopes and ambitions but its 17-year record has become a millstone dragging down its lofty rhetoric. You cant sell voters on what you aim to do next when they ask to see a sample of your work and your portfolio is as threadbare as the SNPs. And the more scrutiny that is applied to the two decades of Nationalist government, the more that voters will wonder what exactly the SNP has been doing all this time. A powerhouse parliament. A divided opposition. A 59billion annual budget. And this is all they have to show for it? Which brings us back to our opening question: what is the point of the SNP? It cant deliver independence. It cant govern at Holyrood. It is too marginal to hold the new Westminster Government to account. It has not distinguished itself in local government, as its lacklustre management of Glasgow attests. Its quest to supplement secession with other causes gender identity, Net Zero has cleaved the party along cultural and regional lines. Its claim to the mantle of social justice is debunked by its actions in government. Its leading lights seem not to like each other and dont agree on much beyond a constitutional dream receding into the distance. The SNP does not look like a party which has suffered a bad election result. It looks like a party struggling to remember why it exists in the first place. The rot can be traced to one person. How different things might be if Nicola Sturgeon had seen the SNPs post-referendum hegemony as an opportunity to do something other than flatter her own vanity. If she had used her cult of personality not for Vogue photoshoots and TV appearances but to impose a new strategic discipline on her party. To say that the Nationalists accepted Scotlands No vote and would now set independence aside for a decade to focus on governing, transforming public services and outcomes enough to give the voters a tantalising taste of what more might be done with sovereignty. It would have taken self-control, hard work and iron determination but it could have upended the constitutional debate. Support for separation might now be at that 60 per cent mark she dreamed about. But she was too readily tempted by the siren call of soft-Left semi-celebrity; too eager to ingratiate herself with Guardian columnists, big-name broadcasters and blue ticks on pre-Elon Musk Twitter. If there is any characteristic that distinguishes the new SNP from the old SNP it is a profound longing for honorary membership of the London metropolitan elite. It is this mindset that drove Sturgeon to embrace causes barely fathomable to most Scottish voters. Yet while promising her core vote that independence was coming, Sturgeon did vanishingly little to build a fresh case. The Growth Commission came and went. Some civil servants were tasked with drawing up the odd pamphlet. Ten years on from the referendum, we still dont know what currency an independent Scotland would use, how it would plug its fiscal deficit, how it would fund current spending plus pensions and defence, or what a hard border with the UK would mean for trade. This political and intellectual indolence is hard to reconcile with slapping the constitution on page one, line one of an election manifesto. Unless, that is, you recognise that the SNP has lost its purpose and its direction. That it no longer sounds like even it believes what it says about independence. That what it urgently needs is some time out of government to regroup and rethink. If it continues in its current vein, the voters are going to give the SNP all the time it needs, and then some, on the Opposition benches at Holyrood. At the Ferguson Marine shipyard chief executive David Tydeman is gamely accentuating the few positives to be found when the only two vessels under construction there are six years behind schedule and running at triple their original budget. To see Glen Sannox in the next few weeks starting trials with her own propulsion, thats a huge milestone, he enthuses. Shes becoming a ship. Shes coming to life. He points out that the ceilings are now installed on the ships bridge a measure of just how close she is to completion. You dont do that until all the piping, wiring and ventilation are in place. As for her sister ship Glen Rosa, she is already on the slipway, due for launch on Clydeside in a few short months. Itll be a very exciting day, says Mr Tydeman. Years overdue and millions over-budget, MV Glen Sannox has become a symbol of SNP government ineptitude Shipyard boss David Tydeman was given his marching orders earlier this year Not that she will be ready for service in CalMacs chronically overstretched ferry fleet by then. Once she is in the water, outfitting her interior begins. The shipyard boss estimates the Glen Rosa is only halfway to completion. The scenes were filmed last December when Mr Tydeman was still the man running Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow. Although he did not know it when he was showing a BBC Scotland documentary crew around the infamously unready vessels last winter, he had only weeks left in the job. The board of the Scottish Government-owned shipyard sacked him in March, a month before Glen Rosa slid into the water for the next phase of her construction. The fascinating behind-the-scenes insight into the yard at the heart of a national scandal comes in the second series of Island Crossings, which examines the crucial role of CalMac ferries in Scottish life. The viewer is taken on board both ferries where the monumental scale of the task still lying ahead remains all too apparent. The windows, at least, are in on the Glen Rosa. When the Glen Sannox first took to the water in 2017, they were crudely painted on. Yet the interior still surrounded by scaffolding is not even structurally complete and more closely resembles a building site than a passenger ferry. Work is further advanced on the Glen Sannox but visitors from the government agency which will take ownership of the vessel still have to be shown where the passenger seating will be and which part of the ship will house the bar and retail area. In December 2023, the fixtures and fittings could only be seen in a 3D computer simulation. The tour was great really good to see in situ the whole passenger experience, the journey that our customers will go on, says Diane Burke, commercial director for Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), which procures ferries for CalMac. With wires hanging from open ceilings, boarded up corridor walls, unfinished stairways and even the main passenger access doors represented by sheets of polythene, clearly much of that experience still required a leap of imagination. Mistakes were made, Mr Tydeman tells the BBC crew, in the construction of this vessel and, in fairness to him, the biggest ones came well before he took over in 2022. He says: Theres a lot of media coverage already about the Glen Sannox being launched with painted windows and an empty hull. What that then created for the yard for the following years, we had to carry everything on to the ship, we had to put everything in through small doorways, in through smaller spaces. Pipes had to be shorter because you had to handle them differently and the costs go up and the man hours go up and its a good example of doing things in the wrong sequence. To exacerbate matters, the launch came even before a final design was agreed the ship entered the water with the wrong bow in place which further added to the delays. Searching questions have been asked ever since about the fake launch attended by then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Was it a politically motivated PR stunt? Why did it go ahead with such enormous amounts of work yet to be done? How many millions extra did it cost the taxpayer? But they were not questions for Mr Tydeman in late 2023. He was focused on ensuring the errors in the Glen Sannox construction were not repeated on the Glen Rosa. W E see an aft mast about to be fitted on the latter vessel while it remains on dry land. Its an example of what we call advanced outfitting, he says pointedly. And not enough of this was done on the Glen Sannox. Elsewhere in episode three, we drop in on a managerial meeting at CMAL where progress reports on the six vessels the agency has on order are exchanged. Work is charging ahead on the four CalMac vessels farmed out to a Turkish shipyard several years after Ferguson Marine received its orders for the Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa. All four are still understood to be on schedule and on budget. As for the Scottish-built vessels which were meant to cost 97million but are now approaching 300million, they remain the twin elephants in the room. Its been a good few months progress over in the yard, says CMAL technical manager Michael Sinclair sketchily before notebooks are snapped shut and the meeting is adjourned. And yet the implications of the disastrously late and over-budget order are seen almost everywhere on the CalMac network. With 30 routes serving 26 islands, and just 35 ships at its disposal, the ferry operator has no room for slack. And yet several vessels in the fleet are on their last legs. The MV Isle of Arran turns 40 this year, while the MV Hebridean Isles is 39. A further 10 of them are older than 30 and their life expectancy was supposed to be 25-30 years. No other transport company in the world operates like that so its a big frustration, says network resilience manager Tommy Gore. But thats not for the want of people in this office trying their best to improve the service. The reality, of course, is the service is only as reliable as its ageing vessels are seaworthy and increasing numbers of repairs mean cancelled sailings and frequent interruptions to lifeline services for island communities. In a single week in March, seven ferries were placed out of action at various points, forcing CalMac to shuffle its pack of depleted resources across the network and, inevitably, disrupt the travel plans of thousands. The scenes are almost comical in episode two of Island Crossings as car passengers on the 37-year-old MV Loch Ranza which operates between the Isle of Gigha and Tayinloan in Argyll are forced to drive on the ferry in reverse. Hydraulic problems mean one of the ships ramps cannot be opened, which makes a mockery of its roll-on, roll-off design. But the story of the Hebridean Isles, which normally serves the Isle of Islay, flirts with tragedy. By the time the documentary was filmed she had been out of action for eight months with a major propeller fault and attempts to repair it in docks at Greenock, Ayr, Troon and Birkenhead on Merseyside had all failed. Now she was in dry dock in Aberdeen and, her captain Roddy MacLeod feared, bound for the scrapyard. It would mean not just the end of her days at sea, but his and several of his crew too. All of them 60 or over, they didnt have another challenge in them, he reflected. Theyll probably go when the boat goes. There seems little scope for positivity. Shes getting every effort that we can give her to put things right, says technical superintendent Gareth Jones gently, as if talking about an intensive care patient he doesnt expect to pull through. Theres no such thing as new parts for these, he adds. The technology is no longer around. Theres no spares anywhere, chips in her chief engineer Gordon Pollock. Hasnt been spares for it for years. Its 50-50, says the ships captain. The toss of a coin, basically. He is painfully aware costs are spiralling. Harsh economic realities, ultimately, will decide the ships future and his. More than 400 sailings had been cancelled across the network since this ferry went out of action, prompting CMAL to charter a replacement vessel, the MV Alfred catamaran, at a cost of 9million for nine months. I would expect our repair bill to be between four and six million pounds, says the captain. So its an awful lot of money. Such is the specialised nature of the task the propeller shaft is sent in pieces to Denmark for repair and, on arrival back in Aberdeen, there are fears a decades old design flaw lies at the root of the problem. Yet the shaft is fitted, fingers are crossed and the outmoded ferry sails to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis where her apprehensive captain is waiting to conduct a series of docking trials. If she fails, she is finished and so, he has decided, is his career after 30 years at sea. She passes and, after an unprecedented ten months out of action, the Hebridean Isles returns to service. It would have been a shame for three or four of us because we were thinking that would be it for our careers, says Mr MacLeod, awash with relief. Multiple storylines featuring those dependent on CalMac are seen across the eight episodes. They include the challenges faced by GP Simon Willetts, who left his practice in Dumfries to become the only doctor on Colonsay, as well as its pharmacist. Im also officially the undertaker and, until recently, the dentist, he adds. Doubling up is necessary on an island of 140 people. Cafe owner Gavin Clark is also one of the ambulance drivers. While the most urgent cases are airlifted off the island, the Lord of the Isles ferry transports those with more routine complaints along with all medical supplies. Cancellations or the fear of them make this the most exacting of challenges. Attending hospital appointments from Colonsay can be logistically incredibly complicated, says Dr Willetts. I think last winter the record was a nine-night absence for a 15-minute appointment. Over on Tiree, the CalMac ferry is the only way onto the mainland for injured and orphaned wildlife rescued by the ranger service. Without it, abandoned seal pups would be put to sleep rather than transported to Scotlands only wild animal hospital in Hessilhead, Ayrshire. In one week, ranger Hayley Douglas rescues three and asks hauliers to take them across the water in the backs of their trucks. They nearly always oblige. Island life is all about pulling together. As the ferry crisis puts the squeeze on what is possible, communities bind all the more closely. As Gavin Clark puts it over on Colonsay: All of us are proud to be able to help our community and help anybody that needs our help and its a great privilege to be able to do such a thing on a small island like this. Former shipyard owner Jim McColl with Nicola Sturgeon at the Glen Sannox ferry launch In the period since filming finished, much has moved on. John Petticrew was installed as Ferguson Marine interim chief executive. He has travelled from his home in Canada to oversee construction on the two unfinished ships at the taxpayers expense, naturally. There has been further slippage on the delivery date for the Glen Sannox and, in April, CalMac chief executive Robbie Drummond joined Mr Tydeman in being removed from his post. In stark contrast to the shipbuilding, the bloodletting has been fast and furious. The plight of islanders dependent on a viable ferry service has not changed a bit. Episode 1 of Island Crossings is on BBC Scotland at 9pm on Sunday, July 21. All other episodes will be available on iPlayer from then. People dance at the open-air club Dolores during the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 2023. The stage features queer and trans performers, including drag artists, curated by Fake and Gay, SF Oasis and Hard French. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle The art of drag, a major cultural component of the LGBTQ+ community, is still under attack, with discrimination and miseducation all too common. Proudly, San Francisco shines bright with brave queens and kings fighting back in loud, artistic and colorful protest as queer communities and their allies stand up for all of our rights to freedom of personal expression and civil liberties. International Drag Day is Tuesday, July 16, so lend your advocacy to the movement and enjoy the wealth of world-class drag artistry around the Bay Area. Heres the Chronicles guide to related events. Donna Sachet brings Sundays a Drag to the Club Fugazi through September. Andy Berry Sundays a Drag with Donna Sachet The legendary local queen presents a new stage production of her iconic Starlight Room show celebrating the history of drag in San Francisco and a brunch menu created by chef Auden Golder. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 11 a.m.-1:45 p.m. Sundays. Weekly from July through September. $75.90-$86.90, reservations recommended. Club Fugazi, 678 Green St., S.F. 415-273-0600. www.clubfugazisf.com Lips & Lashes Drag Brunch Mr. David Glamamore performs at Oasis in San Francisco in 2022. Jana Asenbrennerova/Special to the Chronicle 2022 Carnie Asada hosts a weekly drag variety show with brunch, cocktails, and a rotating cast of drag illusionists, burlesque artists, musicians and dancers. Seatings at noon Saturday, July 20, 27, and Aug. 3; additional 2 p.m. seatings on Saturday, July 27, and Aug. 3. $5, reservations recommended; 21 and older. Lookout, 3600 16th St., S.F. www.lookoutsf.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Shamrocks and Stilettos drag show Drag artists Kiki Fierce, Euphoria Mont, Chai Auntea and Mia Fierce will impress you with refined lewks and live performance skills. 7:30-9:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 17. $5, reservations recommended. Alhambra Irish House, 831 Main St., Redwood City. 650-366-4366. http://alhambra-irish-house.com Golden Hour Sunset Seaside Drag Show: The Seattle Sirens Seattle-based queens Censored Titz, Kylie Mooncakes and Viper Fengz are set to perform a live drag and ephemeral burlesque show celebrating the sunset on the beach. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 20. Free, donations encouraged. Lobos Creek, Baker Beach, S.F. www.goldenhourdrag.com Cake Hole Drag Show Enjoy the July installation of the monthly show featuring drag audacity and opulence from Kai Kai Bee Michaels and Phoebe Cakes. 7:30-10 p.m. Saturday, July 20. $15, reservations recommended. Gilman Brewing Co., 912 Gilman St., Berkeley. 510-556-8701. https://gilmanbrew.com Johnnies Hotties Drag Brunch Jonathan Young opened his Castro neighborhood restaurant in 2021, which specializes in house-made pastrami and barbecue. A spicy monthly drag show held there offering a rotating cast of performers and brunch with lots of meaty options. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 12:30-2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 21. $5 admission, reservations recommended. Hot Johnnies, 4077 18th St., S.F. 415-624-3171. www.hotjohnnies.com The audience applauds to 9 to 5: Live!, a drag show at the Oasis nightclub in San Francisco in January 2023. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle The Show Who Shagged Me The Tortured Angels Revue will present an Austin Powers influenced variety show featuring burlesque, drag, go-go dancers and groovy drinks. 7-11 p.m. Sunday, July 28. $15, reservations recommended; 21 and older. The Golden Bull Bar, 412 14th St., Oakland. https://goldenbullbar.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Wednesday Drag Bingo Tinsel Tease hosts weekly evening shenanigans featuring bingo, prizes and a live drag lip-sync performance. Food and drinks available. 7-10 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, 24, and 31; Aug. 7. Ongoing, reservations recommended. Free admission; cash tips are encouraged; 21 and older. The Detour, 2200 Market St., S.F. 415-872-5310. www.detoursf.com Drunk Drag Dizney on Broadway The dynamic duo of Chyna Maykit as DrinkerBell and Elsa Touche as the Fairy Grog Mother will whisk you away on a musical drag romp through your favorite Disney classics with live singing. 7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, July 17-19. $30-$150, reservations recommended; 21 and older. Oasis, 298 11th St., S.F. www.sfoasis.com Olivia Hart Presents: Drag-o-Licious The ginger-haired queen hosts a drag show at Gingers set to feature live drag from Kelly Rose, Gregg Starr and Nikita Vega. 7 p.m. Thursday, July 18. Free. Gingers, 86 Hardie Place, S.F. 415-969-9525. www.gingers.bar Juanita More wears a sparkly ring in San Francisco. She will give an audience member a full-fantasy drag makeover at Powerblouse on Aug. 3. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle 2023 Drag Queen Party Bus Get set for an exhilarating 90-minute tour around San Francisco with a drag queen for your guide. There will be live onboard drag performances and a club stopover halfway through for cocktails and bathroom breaks. 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday, July 19-21, 26-28; Aug. 2-4, and 9-11. $50, reservations required. 2470 San Bruno Ave., S.F. www.thedragqueenpartybus.com Haus of Cream Gingers Takeover Join the fun after a day at the office with a live drag show from Haus of Cream, cocktails, mocktails and a food pop-up by Bettes Parm. Beaux SF Drag Brunch Kick-start the weekend enjoying live drag and a Taco Boys brunch with cocktails and mocktails in the heart of the Castro district. Upcoming charming hosts scheduled include Bionka Simone, Afrika America, Mahlae Balenciaga and Carnie Asada. 12:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. performances Saturday-Sunday, July 20-21, and 27-28; Aug. 3-4, and 10-11. Ongoing. $8 admission; reservations required; food and drinks available. Beaux SF, 2344 Market St., S.F. www.beauxsf.com Jubilee performs as Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5: Live! in 2023. Jubilee will be featured at El Rios Daytime Realness party on July 21, in San Francisco. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle Daytime Realness DJs Carnita and Stanley Frank, along with guest queen Mary Vice, host an afternoon dance party on the patio with live sets from SanFranDisko DJ Paul Goodyear and featuring live drag performances from Die Anna, Jubilee and Hennessy Williams. 2-8 p.m. Sunday, July 21. $15, reservations recommended. El Rio, 3158 Mission St., S.F. 415-282-3325. www.elriosf.com Elektra Vandergeld of Drag Race Mexico There are two chances to see a live show from one of the fierce queens competing in the current season of the Mexican reality TV drag show based on RuPauls Drag Race. She is scheduled to perform in San Francisco on Saturday night and in Oakland on Sunday. Both performances are for age 21 and older. 9 p.m. Friday, July 26. Free-$30, reservations recommended. At Beaux SF, 2344 Market St., S.F. www.beauxsf.com 9 p.m. July 27. $15-$25, reservations recommended. At Que Rico, 381 15th St., Oakland. www.quericonightclub.com Rollin With the Homos Strap on your wheels for the July edition of the monthly fourth Sunday community celebration thats part live drag show on skates and part roller-skating dance party. 4-7 p.m. Sunday, July 28. Free-$7. Oakland Township Commons, Ninth Avenue and Embarcadero, Oakland. Drinks, drag and bowling will be at Mission Bowling Clubs Queen Pin party in San Francisco on July 29. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle Queen Pin Enjoy an evening of bowling and live drag hosted by Camille Tow with DJ DanniBoi spinning 90s hits. Food and drinks available. 6-10 p.m. Monday, July 29. $10; 21 and older. Mission Bowling Club, 3176 17th St., S.F. 415-863-2698. www.missionbowlingclub.com Paris 75 Presents: Hats Off! Cabaret Drag Show Mexican drag artist Carlota Di Carlo, San Francisco drag king Oliver Branch and San Francisco-based burlesque artist/musician Paige Turner present a nostalgic, multidisciplinary drag tribute to historical characters through music and fashion. 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 30. Free, reservations recommended. Paris 75, 515 Broadway, S.F. 415-936-3266. https://lppsf.com Chappell Roan Drag Tribute Arrive on the early side and flaunt your best lewks as Princess Presents hosts a dance party and drag tribute to the pop diva scheduled to headline at Outside Lands this year who is currently taking both music and drag art scenes by storm. Chappell Roan is set to perform as part of this years Outside Lands Music Festival. There will be a drag tribute performance for her on Aug. 3, at Oasis in San Francisco. Amy Harris/Associated Press Powerblouse Juanita More! and Glamamore will invite a lucky attendee to the stage for a full-fantasy drag makeover. The new queen will then get her chance onstage for a live lip-sync performance. With live dance sets from DJ Rolo. 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3. Powerhouse, 1347 Folsom St., S.F. www.powerhousebar.com Clutch the Pearls Drag Show A rotating cast of live Bay Area drag performers strut their stuff on the first Sunday of each month. 7-10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4. $10. The Makeout Room, 3225 22nd St., S.F. 415-647-3997. www.makeoutroom.com Juanita More, left, and Mr. David Glamamore are photographed in San Francisco in 2021. Bronte Wittpenn/The Chronicle Xena: Warrior Parody Short and Tall Productions presents a drag send-up of the classic TV series starring one of the greatest queer she-roes of all time. 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Aug. 8-10, and 15-17. $20, reservations recommended. Eclectic Box SF, 446 Valencia St., S.F. www.eclecticboxsf.com Outside Lands Dolores stage People are gathered around the Dolores dance stage during Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 2023. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Support the rich history of queer parties, performance and activism in San Francisco at the wildly popular Outside Lands event in Golden Gate Park. Enjoy open-air dance club vibes in the festivals Dolores stage area, which features queer and trans performers, including drag artists, curated by Fake and Gay, SF Oasis and Hard French. Prince William will travel to Berlin for England's Euro 2024 final against Spain on Sunday - with Kate tipped to appear at Wimbledon on the same day. The royal attended the Three Lions' quarter-final victory over Switzerland last Saturday and will be in the stands for England's first ever final on foreign soil. Meanwhile back in the UK, Wimbledon officials remain 'hopeful' that the Princess of Wales may feel well enough to hand out their own trophies on Centre Court over the weekend. Last weekend, the future king displayed a whole gamut of emotions as he roared in response to Bukayo Saka's skillful opening goal against the Swiss before placing his head in his hands as the referee blew the final whistle to confirm that the game was to be decided from 12 yards. Once Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold sealed victory with an emphatic penalty kick, however, the Prince of Wales leapt from his seat and punched the air in a moment of unconfined joy. Prince William celebrates England's equaliser against Switzerland last Saturday. The royal will be in Berlin for Sunday's final The Princess of Wales pictured holding the winner's trophy after the men's singles final at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships. She is tipped to appear at this Sunday's final The Prince of Wales had his head in his hands after Swiss striker Breel Embolo put the Swiss ahead last Saturday But he was jumping for joy after Bukayo Saka revived England's Euros hopes with a stunning late goal The royal previously described England's 2-1 extra time win over Slovakia in the last 16 as an 'emotional rollercoaster' but the Three Lions' last two matches have arguably been even more tense with a last minute Ollie Watkins winner sending Gareth Southgate's men through to the final against the Netherlands. England reached Sunday's final in dramatic fashion after Watkins's 90th minute strike secured the victory, with Harry Kane earlier cancelling out Xavi Simons's first half opener. It was the third successive knockout game at the tournament that the Three Lions have won following substantial drama. Southgate's squad will now attempt to go one step further than Euro 2020, when they also reached the final but lost to Italy on penalties at Wembley. Nervous England fans suffered early heartbreak when Simons opened the scoring with a thunderbolt shortly after kick-off. But their agony turned into euphoria when Kane equalised from the spot in the 18th minute. With the game heading to extra-time again, Watkins - who had only been on the pitch nine minutes - clinched a historic winner in the 90th minute, prompting England's substitutes to run onto the pitch, as pints flew across pubs and fan zones at home. Kane's penalty was controversially awarded by VAR after he went down from a Denzel Dumfries challenge in the aftermath of blazing a strike over the crossbar. But the England captain was not going to complain - and made no mistake in dispatching the penalty into the corner. In a much-improved England performance, the Three Lions then nearly doubled their lead as Phil Foden danced around several defenders in the box before rolling the ball under the keeper only to see his effort hooked off the line by Dumfries at the critical moment. A last minute winner from Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins (pictured) secured a 2-1 win over the Netherlands and a first ever final on foreign soil Watkins dramatically sent England into the final of the European Championship with a sensational strike The substitute scored just minutes after coming onto the pitch, prompting England's substitutes to flood onto the pitch An emotional Gareth Southgate celebrates at the full-time whistle after leading England to another final The heavily-involved Dumfries almost made amends for giving away a penalty minutes later as he crashed a header off the bar from a corner. But an electric England pushed for another and Foden came inches away from doing so, curling a stunning effort against the woodwork himself, before the break. In the second-half, England carried on from where they left as Saka drove to the byline and pulled the ball back, but had no support with him. With 30 minutes remaining, the Netherlands came back into the game, seeing more of the ball as the semi-final became more even as England fans watched the game through their fingers. Their pressure almost paid off as Virgil Van Dijk forced a smart save out of Pickford to keep the scores level in the 65th minute. England fans were sent into raptures again with 11 minutes to go as Saka gave the Three Lions the lead, finishing off a brilliant team goal. But their cheers soon turned to despair as the offside flag ruled that Walker - who cut the ball back for Saka - was offside in the lead-up. Moving into the final seven minutes, Marc Guehi brilliantly intervened to block Wout Weghorst from scoring at the other end. And the memory of Saka's goal being ruled out was all forgotten about when Cole Palmer played Ollie Watkins in, who swiveled his body and fired a strike into the bottom left corner with seconds to go to send England to Berlin. Harry Kane celebrates after scoring a penalty against the Netherlands In the previous round, Trent Alexander-Arnold scored the winning penalty to see England through to the semi-final Prince William congratulates Arsenal's Bukayo Saka after England's stunning penalty win in the quarter final The Prince also met with penalty hero Trent Alexander-Arnold after the match Shortly after full-time, King Charles and Queen Camilla congratulated the team, with a statement. His Majesty said: 'My wife and I join all our family in wishing you the warmest congratulations on reaching the final of the U.E.F.A. European Championship - and in sending our very best wishes for Sunday's match. 'If I may encourage you to secure victory before the need for any last minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama, I am sure the stresses on the nation's collective heart rate and blood pressure would be greatly alleviated! Good luck, England. Charles R.' Prince William, the president of the FA and a lifelong Aston Villa fan, tweeted: 'What a beauty, Ollie! Congratulations England! #EURO2024 Finalists. W.' The Three Lions are now one step closer to ending the men's team's run without a major tournament trophy. Prince William's appearance last week came after he was spotted at England's group stage game against Denmark on June 20 which ended in a 1-1 draw after an early goal scored by captain Harry Kane. The Prince was incredibly animated throughout the Euros clash last month, including when he launched out of his seat and cheered after the opener in the 18th minute. But by the end of the game, William - like most of the nation - had his hands on his face after a far from convincing performance saw England pegged back to a 1-1 draw thanks to a wonder strike from Danish midfielder Morten Hjulmand. Despite the lacklustre performance, the prince showed his sportsmanship by shaking hands with Denmark's King, Frederik X, at the full-time whistle - with both countries still on track to advance in the tournament. The pair appeared to have a jokey exchange as Frederik X, who only acceded to the throne following his mother's shock abdication in January, celebrated with a fist pump in front of William's face when he left the stadium. Long-time football fan William was photographed laughing with Frederik in the crowd and the pair were filmed having an enthusiastic conversation as they sat together on the same row. William was wearing a suit and striped tie and Frederik an open-collar white shirt and blazer at the Frankfurt Arena in Germany. The Prince of Wales celebrates an early Harry Kane goal against Denmark on June 20 The Prince of Wales, who made the trip to Frankfurt without the Princess of Wales despite her recent public appearance, was also spotted chatting to former Manchester United CEO and UEFA treasurer David Gill and FA CEO Mark Bullingham. After the game, the future king spoke to the England squad at the Waldstadion, aiming to raise spirits immediately after the final whistle by telling Southgate's side not to overreact to the frustrating display. 'He was just trying to keep us all positive,' disclosed England midfielder Adam Wharton. 'He was saying it's not the end of the world. We were thinking we're still top of the group, we didn't lose, we got a draw, we've just got to reflect on the game - to see how we can get better and look forward to the next game. 'That's all you can do in tournament football.' A newly elected Reform UK MP was once jailed for attacking a former girlfriend, MailOnline can reveal. James McMurdock pleaded guilty to one charge of assault at Chelmsford Crown Court after initially denying any wrongdoing. McMurdock, 38, was elected MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock by just 98 votes last week after a nail-biting recount on Friday - which saw him join Nigel Farage as one of the new party's team of five in Westminster. But now it has emerged that the merchant banker from Essex has a violent past that left a former girlfriend with both injuries and lasting mental scars. McMurdock, who was working as a barman at the time - almost 20 years ago - launched the attack on his victim outside a nightclub during an alcohol-fuelled night out in Chelmsford. McMurdock pictured with Nigel Farage. The newly elected Reform UK MP was once jailed for attacking a former girlfriend Reform UK MP McMurdock (furthest right) pictured arriving at the House of Commons with (L-R), Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and Richard Tice The attack was brought to a halt by two doorman who pulled him off and called the police. McMurdock was arrested and charged with assault. At first he denied the assault forcing his victim and witnesses to give statements to the police before eventually admitting the offence as he was about to go on trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. McMurdock was sentenced to a short prison term. A former acquaintance said: 'I've got no idea what they were arguing about. And to be fair I'm pretty sure nor does he. There was a lot of alcohol involved. 'He told everyone he hadn't done anything and pleaded not guilty until right at the last moment before the trial when he pleaded guilty. 'After that he disappeared. No one around here ever saw him again.' His former girlfriend, who has since married and, is now a mother-of-two, declined to comment on the horrific attack. But her mother told of her disbelief that McMurdock has been elected to parliament. She told MailOnline: 'McMurdock is a monster. He left marks on her body. 'It took two security guards to pull him off her. 'There is no way he should be an MP in the House of Commons representing people.' McMurdock is now a married father-of-four and lives in a smart, four-bedroom, detached house in South Ockendon, Essex. McMurdock pictured on Tuesday. He pleaded guilty to one charge of assault at Chelmsford Crown Court after initially denying any wrongdoing He resigned from a well-paid job at City of London bank Standard Chartered when he was elected to parliament. Reform UK has confirmed McMurdock was jailed for assaulting a former girlfriend, but disputed the details of the attack. The MP himself described the incident as 'the biggest regret of my life'. In a statement, he said: 'While I absolutely deny the horrific details in this tale, there is one truth in it that I cannot, nor will not deny or hide from. 'A generous person might call it a teenage indiscretion, but I do not expect everyone to be so kind. 'Nearly 20 years ago, at 19 years of age, at the end of a night out together, we argued and I pushed her. 'She fell over and she was hurt. Despite being 38 now and having lived a whole life again I still feel deeply ashamed of that moment and apologetic. 'Despite us both being very drunk, I handed myself into the police immediately and admitted my fault. 'I was charged for what I did, not for what has been claimed, and I faced the consequences then and paid for my action in full. 'This is the biggest regret of my life and I wish I could go back in time and fix things.' When asked if Reform UK was aware that McMurdock had a conviction that resulted in a jail sentence before he was adopted as a prospective parliamentary candidate, a Reform UK spokesman replied: 'Yes. Reform UK was aware of James McMurdock's previous conviction and jail sentence. The spokesman went on to say that reporting the attack and McMurdock's prison sentence was a breach of his privacy. They added that Reform UK 'believes strongly that people can change their lives.' 'Mr McMurdock absolutely rejects allegations that he either kicked, stamped or punched the victim, though he accepts that he pushed her, she fell and was injured. McMurdock (pictured, right, on July 6) was elected MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock last week which saw him join Mr Farage as one of the new party's team of five in Westminster Reform UK has confirmed McMurdock was jailed for assaulting a former girlfriend, but disputed the details of the attack 'He handed himself in, and pleaded guilty to Common Assault, about which he continues to be deeply ashamed. 'Reform UK believes strongly that people can change their lives. The young Essex teenager of 20 years ago is one that learned from that mistake and has become a role model for his peers. Happily married hard working and grounded. 'Mr McMurdock was entirely honest with us when he applied to become our candidate for his hometown and his life shows that one can change, for the better.' A family of five-year-old boy who died after being sent home from hospital with tonsillitis antibiotics have won their battle for a new independent review. NHS boss Amanda Pritchard has granted a new investigation into the tragic death after the family blasted the initial review as a 'cover-up'. Yusuf Mahmud Nazir, who had asthma, was taken to A&E at Rotherham General Hospital after struggling to drink, swallow, talk and breathe. His family say they waited six hours to be seen, before spending five minutes with a doctor who said the youngster had tonsilitis and prescribed oral antibiotics. However, his condition continued to worsen and three days later his family took him to Sheffield Children's Hospital where he tragically died five days later, on 23 November 2022, after developing pneumonia. A new independent investigation has been launched into the death of five-year-old Yusuf Mahmud Nazir Yusuf was taken to A&E at Rotherham General Hospital after he was struggling to swallow and breathe, but was sent home with prescribed antibiotics after being seen by a doctor for five minutes. He died just over a week later after developing pneumonia A report finding that Yusuf's care was 'appropriate' was rejected by his family. Zaheer Ahmed, Yusuf's uncle, said bosses were 'trying to cover it up and not admit what went wrong' After submitting a complaint about their son's treatment, an independent report found his care was 'appropriate' and 'an admission was not clinically required'. His family rejected the report's findings, and met with the now Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Victoria Atkins, the now shadow Health Secretary, in March 2024. Speaking today, his uncle Zaheer Ahmed, 40, from Rotherham, said: 'We know what they've done wrong. 'We know they've made mistakes and errors all through his care - we know they're responsible for his death. 'We were with Yusuf all the way through his care and know what went wrong. 'They're trying to cover it up and not admit what went wrong. 'If you're not going to admit what you've done wrong, and can't see or address failings, then you can't do anything to prevent it happening again to another child. 'Tell us what went wrong and where and do something about it, to stop it happening to another family and stop another child's life from being taken. 'If you don't see there's a problem there's never going to be a solution' The new investigation was given the go ahead after the national clinical director for children and young people highlighted five major concerns with the initial report. The concerns included that Yusuf had not been seen by a consultant paediatrician and criticised redactions in the report released to the family. They claim the first investigation left out 13 pages of evidence they believe was relevant to the case - saying it excluded footage, messages, videos, pictures and witness testimonies. 'We initially met with Wes Streeting in March, he went through the reasons we were saying the report was incorrect and a cover up,' said Zaheer. Yusuf's family claim that the initial investigation left out 13 pages of evidence including witness statements, footage and pictures Five concerns were raised with the initial investigation into Yusuf's death, including that he had not been seen by a consultant paediatrician 'He agreed with us and backed another independent investigation, and called for The Health Secretary at the time Victoria Atkinson to meet with us too. 'She discussed the case directly with Amanda Pritchard, who then sent professor Simon Kinney to speak to us and see what our concerns were. 'He picked out five major concerns that prompted him to request a full investigation into Yusuf's death and care. 'A new investigation was authorised last week - a full independent investigation led by Peter Carter OBE at Birmingham University involving clinical scientists and doctors. 'We want to come to closure as soon as we can - this is consistently on our minds all the time and we just want it to be over and the truth to come out.' Dr Jo Beahan, medical director at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, previously said: 'All of us were incredibly saddened by Yusuf's tragic death. Our thoughts and sympathies continue to be with Yusuf's family. 'We fully cooperated with the independent investigation into Yusuf's death which was published in October, which found the medical care provided to Yusuf in Rotherham's Urgent and Emergency Care Centre was appropriate, and there was nothing that could have been done differently that would have changed the tragic outcome.' The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust said: 'Our thoughts and condolences remain with Yusuf's family. We fully cooperated with the original independent inquiry, and we will continue to cooperate fully with any further investigations.' This video is no longer available This video is no longer available An idyllic ferry ride towards a Greek beauty spot descended into chaotic scenes when holidaymakers were told to disembark the vessel and enter the sea with their luggage. Bizarre footage shows throngs of tourists wading through the dazzling blue neck-deep water while holding their bags over their shoulders to make their way to a beach in Crete. Local reports said they were forced to enter the water after officials banned the use of a floating platform due to fears of overtourism - but following authorities' viewing of the footage, they have agreed to install a platform next week. The platform would have helped the passengers disembark more simply - but instead, tourists of all ages found themselves having to swim to get off the ferry and back onto land. With the help of a rope and ferry crew, the passengers were forced out of the hatch and into the crystal waters to reach the beach - but the reason behind the passengers having to disembark the ferry remains unknown. Hundreds of terrified tourists are being forced to disembark from their ferry into the sea and wade slowly through neck-deep water to reach a natural beauty spot in Balos, Crete Passengers can be seen disembarking from the ferry hatch and making their way through water According to local reports, the small children and the elderly were forced to stay on the ships as they were deemed unable to reach the shore. In shock footage of the incident, some passengers in the water can be heard nervously laughing, and according to witnesses many were too frightened to even attempt the jump. A report by zarpanews stated one American tourist said it was an 'unacceptable situation' for the passengers on board the ferry - which can carry up to 900 people. 'People have to walk through neck-deep water to reach the edge of the sea. Elderly people are unable to walk,' they said. The tourist added: 'Most people stayed on the ship out of fear. 'Only about 40 people got off and everyone came back angry and disappointed.' According to Greek news outlet in.gr, the Ministry of Shipping and Island Policy imposed the ban of the floating device to protect the beach from overtourism. They have now however reversed this decision since seeing the shocking footage, with a floating platform due to reopen again shortly, according to the report. A floating platform is a large structure structure that is designed to float on water, rather than being anchored to the ground. The lagoon is renowned in Crete for its pristine white sand and exotic turquoise waters and boasts rare animals and plants that have protected status, including Eleanora falcons, monk seals and loggerhead sea turtles. Just two weeks ago, one tourist took to TripAdvisor to share a similar experience that had happened to him. 'I recently went on a day excursion from Rethymno to Balos, and unfortunately, it was a major disappointment,' he wrote. 'Unlike my previous experience in 2021, this time I was not informed that the boat no longer docks at Balos. Instead, it stops 10 meters away from the shore, forcing passengers to disembark into deep water'. 'Disembarking was chaotic and frustrating, taking over 1 hour and 45 minutes to get everyone off the boat. 'Many people struggled because they couldn't swim, adding to the chaos. It's baffling that the government prohibits boats from docking in Balos Bay but allows them to stop 10 meters away. This rule seems nonsensical and severely impacts the experience'. According to research site Statista, there were more than 800,000 visitors to Crete from the UK in 2023, the second highest after Germany, which sent 1.2million tourists to the Greek island. It comes after Greece also targeted tourists in fears of overtourism after graffiti was seen spread across the country saying: 'No tourists, no hipsters'. In May, furious protesters took to the streets of the Greek capital to voice their outrage at the rising numbers of tourists flooding their home. On the footage, some people can be heard nervously laughing at the situation but according to witnesses many passengers are too frightened to even attempt the task The lagoon at Balos is renowned in Crete for its pristine white sand and exotic turquoise waters and boasts rare animals and plants that have protected status Greece issued a plea for 'no more tourism' because the stunning city - and home to iconic landmarks such as the Acropolis - is becoming increasingly swamped with British holidaymakers. The anti-tourist sentiment has manifested in several forms including graffiti targeting foreigners, public demonstrations, and even instances of vandalism and arson, since last year. Huge signs sprayed onto the sides of buildings and other walls across the sun-soaked city present a chilling warning to visitors, with one reading: 'Tourists Go Home! Greek State Kills'. The strong anti-tourism drive and surge in demanding graffiti messages comes after a series of similar crackdowns that have erupted around Europe - most notably Spain. In Menorca, graffiti sprung up on walls telling tourists to 'go home', while in Marbella last year, tyres on cars with British number plates were slashed. On April 20, thousands of protestors took to the streets of the Canary Islands to protest against the problems caused by mass tourism and demand their politicians take action. The protestors chanted the slogan: 'Canarias tiene un limite', which in English translates as 'The Canary Islands have a limit.' Majorcan-based hotel chief Joan Pla warned recently the mass tourism protests in the Canary Islands could be repeated in the Balearics. He claimed the number of homes built for local residents that were being purchased instead by foreigners as holiday properties was a problem. And he complained islands like Majorca where he is based were having to cope with the influx of too many people at certain times of the year. Ibiza also became the latest Spanish holidaymaker hotspot to join in with growing anti-tourism protests that have erupted around the country. 'We welcome anybody who wants to enjoy our local culture, gastronomy, local traditions, beautiful beaches and covers,' said Xaquelina Ana Perry, a spokeswoman for an activist group by the name of Prou Eivissa (Enough Ibiza). 'We are only against the massification of the type of tourism attracted to our island. The island is saturated, especially with illegal renting and our 572 square kilometres cannot take anymore,' she added. A Florida mother has been charged with inciting a riot of upwards of 400 people at a skating rink after owners cancelled her daughter's 18th birthday party. Shocking video footage emerged back in May showing the moment the riot broke out at Astro Skate in the Tampa Bay area, leading to the arrest of 26 people. Cops confirmed Thursday that Stephanie Pedroso, 36, has been arrested after she reportedly used her daughter's Instagram to encourage as many people as possible to turn up to the rink. Pedroso was said to be seeking revenge on staff after they cancelled the private party when they discovered it was a larger event than she originally told them. She has now been charged with unlawful use of a cellphone, inciting a riot and driving with a suspended or revoked license. Cops confirmed Thursday that Stephanie Pedroso, 36, (pictured) has been arrested after she reportedly used her daughter's Instagram to encourage as many people as possible to turn up to the rink Pedroso was said to be seeking revenge on staff after they cancelled the private party when they discovered it was a larger event than she originally told them Astro Skate reportedly asked that Pedroso sign a contract stipulating she would hire an off-duty officer for security - which she failed to do. She also allegedly broke the rink's rules by reselling tickets and posting unauthorized advertisements depicting something other than a kids' party. According to owner Chris Maganias, Pedroso became angry and started a livestream on her daughter's Instagram urging people to come to the rink and confront law enforcement. 'We were within our rights to cancel her party and that's what we did,' he said. 'She came in, flipped out, cussed and screamed and posted nonsense about [coming] to the skating rink the next night.' Sheriff Chad Chronister condemned Pedroso's actions Thursday. Pedroso has now been charged with unlawful use of a cellphone, inciting a riot and driving with a suspended or revoked license. When roughly 500 people descended upon the skating rink and surrounding businesses, deputies issued warnings but ultimately arrested 23 juveniles and 3 adults for the ensuing chaos He said: 'Using social media to weaponize our youth is absolutely deplorable,' said Chronister at the press conference. 'As a parent, I cannot fathom what went through this woman's mind when she put lives at risk to provoke this mayhem.' The live video allegedly showed Pedroso making violent threats and offering money to those who participated in the riot. 'For y'all, if y'all still go up there, tear the f*** out of them. I've got some money for y'all, and I'll pay y'all a**,' Pedroso allegedly said in the live video. When roughly 500 people descended upon the skating rink and surrounding businesses, deputies issued warnings but ultimately arrested 23 juveniles and 3 adults for the ensuing chaos The riot caused damage to five businesses, including a barber shop where a 16-year-old girl was reportedly thrown through the glass, resulting in $1,200 worth of damages. Chronister said it took deputies six hours to disperse the crowd. He emphasized the seriousness of the situation and Hillsborough County's stance against such acts. He added: 'This is a stark reminder of how quickly situations can spiral out of control and shows the importance of responsible behavior and the consequences of inciting violence.' Florida's recent law tightening penalties for inciting a riot could mean up to five years in prison for Pedroso if convicted. State Attorney Suzy Lopez said: 'Make no mistake, this case is not about free speech. This case is not about peaceful protesters. This case is about rioters and in Hillsborough County, we will prosecute rioters.' A teacher who went on the run after having sex with a student inside a middle school classroom has agreed to plead guilty to the charges. Caitlin Thao, 24, a substitute at St Paul City School in Minnesota, sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy after school hours in an empty classroom. She was charged with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and a nationwide warrant was issued for her arrest by the Ramsey County District Court in May. Thao agreed a plea deal this week where she will serve no more than six months in jail and register as a predatory offender, according to the Star Tribune. Teacher Caitlin Thao, 24, who went on the run after having sex with a student inside a middle school classroom, has agreed to plead guilty The substitute at St Paul City School in Minnesota sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy after school hours in an empty classroom The teenage victim told police on March 13 that he had sex with Thao in the classroom where she taught about six weeks earlier. She resigned in late February and allegedly told a social worker at the Regions Hospital mental health unit where she was being treated. Thao agreed to plead guilty in Ramsey County District Court this week and will serve up to six months in prison before she is put on probation. She will also have to undergo a psychosexual examination and register as a predatory offender. Her sentencing is scheduled for September 10. St Paul City School sent a letter to parents on May 10 explaining the alleged illicit sex was with a 17-year-old boy after school hours in an empty classroom. DailyMail.com has contacted the Ramsey County District Attorney's Office for comment. A young Ryanair pilot who was killed along with his colleague on the way to the airport in a collision on the M62 has been pictured. Senior First Officer Jamie Fernandes, 24 and his colleague Captain Matt Greenhalgh were travelling to Liverpool airport by taxi when a crash involving two lorries occurred at around 5.30am on Thursday morning. Both men died at the scene of the incident between Junctions 7 and 8 on the westbound carriage of the transpennine motorway. Mr Fernandes joined the airline in June 2022 and had served as first officer since May, having previously been a junior first and second officer, according to his Linkedin profile. He graduated with a BSC in air transport management from Buckinghamshire New University before obtaining his pilot's licence at Canadian firm CAE, based in Quebec. Ryanair first officer Jamie Fernandes, 24, was travelling to the airport with his colleague Captain Matt Greenhalgh when the pair were killed in a fatal collision on the M62 Two Ryanair pilots have been named as victims of a crash involving two lorries and a car on the M62 (file photo) The Ryanair captain and first officer were travelling in a taxi to Liverpool Airport when the collision occurred (file photo) He attended Bolton School, where he did A-Levels in Maths, English Language and Geography. The first picture of the pilot shows Mr Fernandes in his first officer's uniform and wearing a headset in the cockpit of an aircraft. Ryanair cabin crew member Abbie Layfield paid tribute to her colleague. In an online post she wrote: 'RIP Jamie so glad i had the pleasure of flying with you. You will be missed by many.' 'My thoughts are with all families effected. Life is so cruel.' Eli White, another cabin crew member who had flown with the pair, wrote: 'Absolutely heartbreaking. Had the pleasure to fly with such nice ,lovely people.' Another colleague, Kara Edwards, said: 'Life is truly unfair. R.I.P to the most loveliest people on this earth.' Marty Chiara Iannone, who also flew with the two pilots, wrote: 'I am in shock. Flying with you has been a privilege.' The car driver was rushed to hospital where he remains with serious injuries. Pictured: Traffic queueing on the M62 on Thursday morning following the fatal accident involving two lorries and a car Mr Fernandes had joined Ryanair in June 2022 where he progressed up the ranks before becoming a senior first officer in May this year (file photo) A driver of one of the two lorries, a 61-year-man, has been arrested on suspicion of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving. The victims' next of kin are receiving support from specialist officers. Anyone with information or dash camera footage should contact Cheshire police on 101 or via www.cheshire.police.uk//tell-us quoting IML 1867786. MailOnline has approached Ryanair for comment. A speeding motorist who ran over and killed a superhero-loving 13-year-old boy who was out buying sweets for his friends has been jailed for 12 months. Craig Griffiths, 36, was driving his silver Vauxhall Astra Estate in Liverpool when he struck schoolboy Harry Kinney-Ryan. Harry, who was described as having 'a perfect smile', had a fear of being struck by a car and always crossed at green traffic lights but chose not to on December 7, 2022. As he ran over East Lancashire Road in Croxteth at 7.20pm he was struck by Griffiths's car which was travelling at around 55mph in a 40mph zone. Griffiths got out of his car and attempted to help Harry along with other witnesses who carried out CPR, but the teenager died in Alder Hey Hospital two days later from head injuries. Judge David Aubrey, KC, told Griffiths today that although there was no doubt he was 'immersed in remorse' he would be jailed for 12 months for causing death by careless driving. Craig Griffiths (pictured), 36, was driving his silver Vauxhall Astra Estate in Liverpool when he struck schoolboy Harry Kinney-Ryan Harry, who was described as having 'a perfect smile', had a fear of being struck by a car and always crossed at green traffic lights but chose not to on December 7, 2022 As Harry ran over East Lancashire Road in Croxteth at 7.20pm he was struck by Griffiths's car which was travelling at around 55mph in a 40mph zone Liverpool Crown Court heard that Griffiths, who was on his way home after a 12-hour shift in Runcorn as a machine operator, was in the third lane of the westbound carriageway at the traffic lights by the Showcase cinema. When the lights changed to green he accelerated quickly away and overtook a car to move into the middle lane before then moving into the inside lane intending to turn left at the next junction with Lower Lane. Meanwhile Harry and his friend had crossed the eastbound carriageway after going to a service station for sweets and were on the central reservation. They both stepped into the next carriageway but though his friend then stepped back Harry ran across the road, said prosecutor Callum Ross. Former soldier Griffiths, who was travelling at between 53-58 mph along the 40 mph road, slammed on his brakes and swerved but struck Harry. He stopped nearby and went to help as did witnesses who gave the victim CPR until paramedics arrived. The defendant, of Frinsted Road, Norris Green, pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving. Harry and his friend had crossed the eastbound carriageway after going to a service station for sweets and were on the central reservation The East Lancashire Road is a major road through Liverpool and can get busy with traffic. Pictured: The road and the Showcase cinema nearby to where Harry was hit Griffiths got out of his car and attempted to help Harry along with other witnesses who carried out CPR, but the teenager died in Alder Hey Hospital (pictured) two days later from head injuries Judge Aubrey told the court, crowded with friends and family of Harry, that he was satisfied that Griffiths was making one continuous manoeuvre at excess speed. 'It may be that your concentration was at that time focussed to ensure that you turned left at that junction.' He said that 'multiplicity of factors contributed to this tragic collision'. Judge Aubrey also said that Harry may have misjudged the speed at which Griffiths was travelling. Poignant impact statements were read from Harry's mum, stepmum and older sister and Judge Aubrey said that Harry, who was autistic, had 'that perfect smile and sense of humour. He was kind and caring, a best friend and big brother. 'The family's loss is immeasurable and incalculable. There will be that void within them for the rest of their lives and their worlds crumbled down.' He said that the friend who had been with Harry at the time of the tragedy described him as 'amazing'. She said he had 'the most gorgeous smile in the world' and was always there for her. His older sister said she was besotted with her brother who loved Superheroes and was usually dressed as Spiderman. His mum said that Griffiths 'made an error of judgement which will live with him for the rest of his life.' Judge Aubrey told Griffiths: 'There is no doubt whatsoever that you are immersed in remorse.' The case was heard at Liverpool Crown Court (stock photo) As well as being jailed Griffiths was banned from driving for 18 months. Defence barrister Paul Woods said that Griffiths, a dad-of-one, who has no motoring convictions, had indicated his intention to turn left and had not travelled a great distance at speed. He said the incident has 'impacted on his everyday life and he cannot stop thinking about what happened.' He wanted to apologise to Harry's family. Following the crash, Harry's great-uncle Teddy Williams posted on Facebook: 'This lovely young guy is my nephew Harry. He would have been just 14 on January 12, 2023. 'On Wednesday he was knocked down on the East Lancs Road and the life support machine has now been turned off and Harry has gained his wings. My whole family are naturally absolutely devastated. Harry is my sister's grandson. He added: 'I do not know how we go on from here but we have to be strong and our lives must go on. Harry will be forever young.' Detective sergeant Andy Roper, from Merseyside Police's matrix serious collision investigation unit, said at the time: 'Harry's family are being supported by specially trained family liaison officers as our enquiries continue and our thoughts are with them at this sad time. 'If you were travelling on the East Lancashire Road around the time of the incident and have any dashcam footage that could help us with our investigation, or you have any CCTV or information please come forward. A fundraiser for Harry's family was also set up in his memory. A carer who walked into a freezing river with two babies and threatened to drown them before brave passers-by rushed to the rescue, walked free from court today. Rhonda Micetich, 31, was suffering from 'mental trauma' and 'wanted to end her life' after receiving a letter from the Home Office alerting her to the expiration of her visa before the shocking incident, a court heard. The woman - who moved to the UK from India in 2021 - told by-passers not to rescue her and to just 'just live your life and leave me here' as she had ended up in the 'worst situation' and couldn't 'find any help from anyone'. The 'distressed' carer and the two infants were rescued by members of the public who were praised by a judge was their 'extraordinary' bravery after two schoolgirls spotted the woman edging deeper into the water. Today she was pictured walking free from Winchester Crown Court after she was handed a two year community order while the judge said the case exemplifies how 'vulnerable' those who take out visas and rely upon sponsors are. Pictured: Rhonda Micetich, 31, outside Winchester Crown Court, Hants, today Pictured: Rhonda Micetich and her husband outside Winchester Crown Court, Hants. The 31-year-old carer walked into a freezing river with two babies in October and threatened to drown them Pictured: Winchester Crown Court, where Micetich was handed a two year community order following the shocking incident Winchester Crown Court, Hants, heard on October 26 last year, Micetich entered the Itchen River, near the Cobden Bridge in Southampton, with two young children. Prosecuting, Maria Karaiskos KC, said: 'Members of the public saw the defendant carrying [the children] into the water up to their shoulder depth and heard her saying that she was going to kill herself and [the] children. 'On the edge of the waters, the defendant left a suicide note which stated that she wanted to kill the children.' The note was addressed 'To all the higher officials!', the court heard. 'I don't know any other way because I am in mental stress of my firm,' Micetich wrote. 'I don't find any help from anyone. My husband will explain everything to all about the worst situation.' It was heard that two 12-year-old schoolgirls witnessed Micetich going deeper into the water. Ms Karaiskos KC said: 'The schoolgirls saw the defendant proceed further into the water to her shoulder height, with the water up to the babies' necks, although they noted that the defendant was keeping the babies heads up quite high. 'They heard the babies screaming and sounding distressed. 'The weather was cold that day and the babies were described as being really scared.' Simon Ling, a member of the public, watched the events unfold and proceeded to grab a life ring and informed police officers that he would go into the water. The bypasser was a 'strong swimmer' and was able to reach Micetich. The prosecutor said one of the children was 'shivering heavily'. The carer passed the children - who are not identified for legal reasons - over to him and Mr Ling recalled Micetich saying 'do not bother coming back for me'. Terence Dyer, Simon Tipper and Samuel Liscoe noticed the police running towards a female in the water and decided to assist by slowly rowing a boat towards her. Ms Karaiskos KC said: 'They paddled out slowly across the water so as not to frighten the defendant who by this stage was stood in the middle of the river. 'When they reached her, she no longer had the children with her.' Mr Liscoe tried to speak to a 'distressed' Micetich who told him 'You don't need to rescue me, just live your life and leave me here'. He said she was 'discombobulated and stressed' and in that moment, 'not right in the head'. The prosecutor told the court: 'Mr Liscoe said to the defendant that this was a bad day but that it was not over, he was there to rescue her.' Eventually, Mr Liscoe managed to get hold of her hand, pull her towards the boat and assist her in getting out of the water. Pictured: The scene on Cobden Bridge in Southampton, Hants, October 2023 Pictured: The scene on Cobden Bridge in Southampton, Hants, October 2023 Mr Liscoe said the carer went into 'immediate shock' so he put her into recovery position. She was later arrested. The carer told the emergency services that she had been suffering 'mental trauma'. At the hospital, Micetech told doctors she had received correspondence from the Home Office 'unexpectedly', regarding the expiry of her visa. The prosecutor said: 'Her stress levels increased and she could not face going through the visa application or losing her UK status.' In later interviews, Micetech said her employer had told her she had to pay 20,000 for her sponsorship. The carer received a visa in 2021 for two and a half years which she explained to her boss but he said if she did not give him the money - in cash - he would cancel her visa. Micetech said she was being 'threatened by blackmail'. In September 2023, Micetech received an email from Home Office informing her that her employer had cancelled her sponsorship and that she had to return to India by 14th November 2023. The carer pleaded guilty to two counts of child neglect. Sentencing Micetech, His Honour Judge P Dugdale said: 'I want to tell you this straight away, you are not receiving a prison sentence today and you will be released from custody today. 'You came to this country with your husband a few years ago and you came here having applied for a visa. 'You came to undertake further education and you came here also to work and do an important job.' Judge Dugdale said the occupation of a carer is an 'important job' and a role which 'this country lacks'. 'One of the matters that came comes out of this case is actually how vulnerable these people are who come to this country on visa's with sponsorship,' he said. The judge said the carer was experiencing 'pressure' to pay her employer money. 'That exemplifies how vulnerable people can be when they come to this country under a visa and rely upon a sponsorship,' he added. 'I don't think it's something that those who live in this country are proud of.' Despite this, Judge Dugdale said Micetich could have easily 'lost grip' of the children who were 'totally innocent and deserve to live their life in full'. He highlighted how Micetech was suffering from 'acute stress' and a 'moderate depressive episode'. 'You did something that in other circumstances you would never have done,' he said, 'you decided the only exit strategy for you is to end your life.' The judge commended the 'brave and humane' actions of the community - in particular Mr Dyer, Mr Ling and Mr Liscoe - who jumped to action on the day last year. Judge Dugdale wrote: 'The behaviour and the reaction of the community around the Cobden Bridge on the 26th of October was extraordinary. 'The behaviour that all of us would hope for from members of the community.' He said the actions were 'highly commendable so far as the court is concerned'. ARio de Janeiro school principal was dragged down the street after she asked a driver to move from a school parking spot. Surveillance footage from the June 18 was released to the public for the first time Thursday and shows the driver of a SUV parked near the school sidewalk before Raquel Schwab walked over. The driver places the car on reverse and briefly stops as Schwab engages the woman behind the steering wheel in a conversation over the parking rules. The principal can be seen talking to the woman for about 45 seconds before she slowly starts to pull away. The driver accelerates as Schwab hangs on to the door with her hand stuck in the window and is nearly struck by a vehicle coming down the opposite lane. Rio de Janeiro school principal Raquel Schwab approached the driver of an SUV to tell her that she could not park on the school sidewalk moments before the motorist sped off and dragged Schwab down the street Rio de Janeiro school principal Raquel Schwab said that she asked the driver to move on two occasions and was ignored before she approached her and was dragged down the road and fell to the ground She then crashes to the ground as her husband runs over to help her. Somehow, he was also able to prevent the driver from escaping. Schwab told Brazilian news outlet G1 that she has asked the driver to move, but decide to disregard her request. 'I spoke to her from the backyard twice, and she pretended she couldn't hear me, so I left,' she explained. 'She seemed nervous and partially rolled down the window. I stood in front of her and rested my hand on the window.' To prevent from being hit by the incoming car and falling to the ground, Schwab said that she tried to move her feet to the pace of the car. 'Instead of slowing down, she sped up. It was a shocking situation for those who saw it,' she said. Brazilian school principal Raquel Schwab suffered multiple bruises after she was dragged by a driver, whom she asked to not park on the school sidewalk The school principal was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she received stitches for a head injury and was diagnosed with a fracture foot Schwab hit her head on the ground and briefly lost consciousness. She was rushed to Evander Freire Hospital, where she was treated for a fracture foot. She was also left with visible bruises on her body and had to receive multiple stitches on her head. The incident sidelined Schwab from her principal duties for several weeks. 'Even though I was worried about what could happen, I had to go back. At no point did she (the driver) worry or ask how I was recovering,' she said. 'It was a trauma for me and my family. I couldn't even take a shower by myself, and I still have difficulty moving around.' Hayden Christensen, a cast member in the Disney+ series Ahsoka, poses for a portrait at the London Hotel. Chris Pizzello/Associated Press Fan Expo San Francisco 2024 has unveiled its initial guest lineup, featuring a blend of cult heroes and a few curious figures. Announced celebrities include Hayden Christensen of Star Wars; Vincent DOnofrio, known for starring in Full Metal Jacket and more recently as Kingpin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; Bruce Campbell from the Evil Dead film series; Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad and Francis Ford Coppolas forthcoming epic Megapolis; Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek; and animator Butch Hartman, creator of Nickelodeons The Fairly OddParents. The annual three-day pop culture convention, scheduled for Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 at Moscone Center West, also plans to feature controversial actors Randy Quaid, known for roles in Independence Day and the National Lampoons Vacation films, and Richard Dreyfuss, star of Jaws and Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Randy Quaid and his wife Evi Quaid, are shown after their arrest on charges of felony residential burglary and entering a non-commercial building without consent. Anonymous/AP Quaid made headlines after being detained by Canadian authorities in 2015 and fleeing the U.S. with his wife, Evi, citing persecution and claiming threats from Hollywood Star Whackers. Recently, he has made appearances at events for former President Donald Trump and defendants of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. As for Dreyfuss, the Oscar-winner caused a stir at a Jaws-themed event in May when he made demeaning remarks about women, LGBTQ+ people, the #MeToo movement and the Academy Awards diversity efforts, saying they make me want to vomit. In May, Richard Dreyfuss showed up in a dress at a Jaws-themed event and made comments that were demeaning to women and the LGBTQ community. Richard Shotwell/Associated Press The stars are among nearly 20 celebrities scheduled to meet fans, sign autographs and participate in live panels. Additional guests and details about panels and gatherings will be announced in the coming months. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tickets starting at $35 are available on the Fan Expo website, with autographs and photo opportunities generally costing extra. A man has been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in the grounds of Hereford Cathedral in the early hours of this morning. The 31-year-old suspect was arrested following a CCTV appeal to trace a man who police said may be able to help with their inquiries. The victim was attacked on the grounds of the 8th-century cathedral in the city centre at around 3am. West Mercia Police cordoned off the main entrances to the cathedral while officers carried out a fingertip search of the area. The force also appealed for drivers with dash-cam, who may have been in the area at the time, to come forward. The 31-year-old suspect was arrested following a CCTV appeal to trace a man who police said may be able to help with their inquiries The victim was attacked in the grounds of the 8th century cathedral in the city centre at around 3am West Mercia Police cordoned off the main entrances to the cathedral while officers carried out a fingertip search of the area The force also appealed for drivers with dash-cam, who may have been in the area at the time, to come forward A police car parked near the cathedral following the rape on July 12 West Mercia Police said in a statement: 'Officers were called following a report that a woman had been raped on the grounds of Hereford Cathedral at around 3am. 'The man is in custody whilst inquiries are ongoing.' In recent years the cathedral has been a major focal point for military services and funerals of servicemen. In April Prince William attended a memorial service at the cathedral to honour the life of SAS navigator and intelligence officer Major Mike Sadler. In 2017 the then Duke of Cambridge was greeted by hundreds of well-wishers and SAS soldiers at the cathedral commemorating the military regiment. Prior to the suspect's arrest, Detective Inspector Ben Pearson said: 'I understand that this incident will cause significant concern within the local community, but I'd like to reassure the public that we are carrying out a thorough investigation. 'There will be an increased police presence near to the cathedral as we carry out enquiries, and the victim is been supported by specially trained officers. 'Anyone who was in the area at the time of the incident, and may have seen anything or have information or dash-cam footage, which may help with the investigation is asked to contact police immediately.' An Ohio teacher died saving her son's life after a carjacker tried to steal the car the six-year-old was sleeping in. Alexa Stakely, 29, a speech-language pathologist, threw herself onto the hood of the vehicle as the thief sped away before falling off leaving her with fatal injuries. Police said the mother had loaded her sleeping boy into her Honda CR-V but ran back to the babysitter's apartment to pick something up. That's when the carjacker jumped into her car, which was turned on, and drove away, reports WSYX. Stakely chased after the suspect and tried to stop him before throwing herself onto the car. The suspect fled on foot from the scene and has yet to be taken into custody. An Ohio teacher died saving her son's life after an armed carjacker tried to steal the car the six-year-old was sleeping in. When police arrived, they found the parked vehicle with the child still sleeping inside the vehicle. Columbus Division of Police officers responded to the White Oak Park Condominiums north of Canal Winchester in southeast Columbus at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday. When officers arrived, they found Stakely was critically injured. She transported her to Mount Carmel East Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Canal Winchester Schools posted a heartfelt tribute on Facebook to Stakely, a dedicated speech-language therapist who worked with the preschoolers at Winchester Trail Elementary. 'Ms. Alexa' as she was called by her students, had been with the district for five years. 'Ms. Stakely's family shared that she died heroically while trying to save her 6-year-old son during a carjacking. Thankfully, her son was not injured and is now with family. Please keep Alexa's son, family, and friends in your prayers during this difficult time,' the district wrote in the Facebook post. Alexa Stakely, 29, speech-language pathologis, was picking up her 6-year-old son from a babysitter's apartment after getting off shift for her second job 'Alexa was passionate about children and speech-language therapy,' the post read. 'She was smart and compassionate, and she cared so much about helping children develop their ability to communicate. She was a great mom who was incredibly dedicated to her son. Ms. Stakely made a difference in the lives of the students and families she worked with and will be missed by so many in our community and beyond.' An outpouring of emotion filled the comments section of the post, as parents recounted the ways Stakely had made a difference in their children's lives. 'She poured into all three of my younger boys and is a huge reason for my youngest two having such clear speech today. She will be deeply missed,' one mom wrote in a comment. 'This is absolutely devastating and heartbreaking,' one mom said. 'My son adored her the last 2 years, seeing her almost everyday at school. She was an amazing speech-pathologist and person and helped my son so much. Sending prayers upon prayers for her son and family.' Police urge anyone with information or surveillance footage to come forward as they continue to track down the suspect. President Joe Biden has been making gaffes for years and will continue to do so, one of his top aides warned on Friday. 'Joe Biden has been making gaffes for 40 years. He made a couple of last night. He will probably continue to do so,' Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said. He was asked about the brutal gaffes Biden made a NATO on Thursday, including introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin' and calling Vice President Kamala Harris 'Vice President Trump.' The admission that there are more gaffes to come is either brilliant political strategy or simply acquiescing to reality. Biden has made mistakes since he entered the White House and shows no signs of changing. President Joe Biden's campaign said the 81-year-old would continue to make gaffes The White House didn't address other controversial topics when it briefed reporters traveling to Michigan on Friday for the president's campaign event in the critical battleground state. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn't save if Biden has spoke to former President Barack Obama since his disastrous debate performance. Former Obama aides are among those working to pressure Biden to exit the presidential race and Obama is said to have gotten a head's up from George Clooney that the actor was writing an op-ed calling for Biden to step down. The campaign also wouldn't address questions about Biden's work habits after a report the president told governors he would stop working at 8 pm. 'Nobody is going to work harder to beat Donald Trump than the President of the United States Joe Biden,' Tyler said. 'We're gonna continue to sit down for interviews,' Tyler added. Biden, himself, pushed back on that report at Thursday's press conference. Thats not true, he said, laughing. Look, what I said was instead of my every day starting at 7 oclock and going to go to bed at midnight, itd be smarter for me to pace myself a little bit more, Biden said. He said it would be better, for example, to push forward a fundraiser by an hour. Start at 8 people get to go home by 10, Biden said. Gaffes, however, remain a central issue for Biden's campaign. They have a way of sticking in voters' minds that could erase any other message. By embracing them, the campaign could be turning to a 'that's Joe Biden' strategy. And they're an unfortunate stumble for the 81-year-old president who is trying to convince voters he has the mental capacity for a second term in office. Several senior Biden advisers were in the front row of his press conference when he called Harris 'Trump' and had a sharp, visible reaction. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were on camera when the president made the flub. Sullivan put his hand to his mouth and Blinken allowed his gaze to drop dolefully as if staring off into space as the president poured gasoline on his chances of re-election. Only Austin appeared to control his gaze, staring unblinkingly at the commander-in-chief and even attempting a slight nod of agreement. But Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, has a history of making gaffes throughout his more than 40 years in politics. He has mixed up world leaders before. In February, Biden mistakenly claimed to have met Francois Mitterand, who died in 1996, at the G7 summit in 2021. The same week, he said that he had spoken to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, about the January 6 riots, which happened in 2021. In September 2022, Biden, at a White House event, called out to Rep. Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car accident in the previous month. 'Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie?' The White House defended him by saying Walorski was on his mind. At other times, the president has mumbled and fumbled for words, as he did in the first presidential debate. The gaffes go back to his years as vice president. In September 2008, Biden was at an event in Missouri where he called out a state senator. 'I'm told Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up Chuck, let 'em see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about. I'll tell you what, you're making everybody else stand up, though, pal,' he said. Graham was in a wheelchair. The White House wouldn't say if President Biden has spoken to Barack Obama (above) since the presidential debate Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left), defense secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan struggled to contain their reactions at a Biden flub White House aides have been accused of carrying out a plot over three-and-a-half years to hide Biden's deficiencies from the press and the world. Staff closest to the ailing 81-year-old deployed a multitude of tactics to hide his deficiencies - limiting reporter access to him, giving the president smaller stairs for Air Force One and physically surrounding him in public to hide his stiff walk, a former Biden aide tells DailyMail.com. Biden has also been given large-print notecards with the most basic of instructions written on them for almost every event and kept to a tighter daily schedule so he can get more sleep. There was even staff charged with devising strategies to keep the president from falling down, the source said. But, at his press conference on Thursday night, Biden made it clear he's stay in the race. He noted the only way he'll leave is if his staff 'came to me and said there's no way you can win.' Frightened passengers escaped an American Airlines plane at San Francisco International Airport Friday after a fire broke out on board. The interior of the Airbus jet erupted in flames around 12:15pm PT Friday. Its emergency slides were deployed with passengers quickly exiting the plane, which was parked at a gate at the time. There were no reports of injuries and the cause of the fire is unclear, NBC Bay Area reported. Multiple fire crews responded to the scene of the blaze, which has since been extinguished. Passengers were seen congregated on the runway after evacuating the plane, with bags filled with belongings also seen strewn nearby. Developing story, check back for updates. An American Airlines Airbus plane is pictured being evacuated at San Francisco International Airport Friday after a fire broke out on board An overhead shot shows the American Airlines Airbus after it had been evacuated at San Francisco International with its emergency escape chutes deployed Scotland is being flooded with fake money as the amount of counterfeit cash seized reaches record levels. Banks have confiscated illegal notes worth at least 5million, with the number detected doubling and values at new highs. Forgeries of 20 and 50 notes have shot up, according to the latest figures from the Committee of Scottish Bankers (CSB), and make up the majority of the 171,593 fraudulent notes taken out of circulation last year. The Federation of Small Businesses yesterday said the high number of counterfeit notes in circulation is a clear risk to small businesses. And retail industry leaders warned that ultimately the cost of such crime is borne by customers. It is a criminal offence to possess or use a bank note that is known to be a forgery. The 20 note was the most forged last year with 115,166 seized from circulation Counterfeiters and banks are locked in a constant battle, with designers of notes inventing ever more elaborate security features and materials to stay ahead of criminals trying to print their own money. While only a fraction of the money circulating in Scotland is fake, the amount seized last year was the highest on CSB records going back to 2014. Last year, just over 5.1million of fake currency was removed from circulation by the banks. In 2022, 3.2million was taken out of supply, the second highest figure on record. The amount of counterfeit money identified has grown significantly within the past decade. In 2014, only 1.3million was detected by banks. Despite the rapid rise in digital payments, cash still makes up around one in every five transactions. In Scotland, some 500,000 people are still reliant on physical money. Stacey Dingwall, head of policy and external affairs for Scotland at the Federation of Small Businesses, said the organisation viewed cash as an essential part of the economy despite an increase in digital payments. She added: Many small businesses rely heavily on cash; it provides a form of commerce to less digitalised businesses, acts as a check on pricing fees of card transactions and as a back-up for when digital methods go down. While there are signs of recovery, margins remain extremely tight, and a high number of counterfeit notes in circulation is a clear risk to small businesses, including those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, who continue to face significant trading challenges. David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said that despite an uptick in counterfeit notes, these account for less than one in every 2,000 notes in circulation. He added: Ultimately the cost of such crime is borne by customers. Last year, a record 171,593 counterfeit notes were detected by banks, with the number more than doubling from the year before when there were 85,236 illicit notes. In 2023 the most common forgery was a 20 note, with 115,166 seized, worth 2.3million . Meanwhile, there were 56,092 illegal 50 notes withdrawn, worth 2.8million. A specialist unit in the National Crime Agency is tasked with tackling the counterfeiters, but it has warned that sophisticated gangs are operating in linked networks to produce fake currency. While one group may produce notes, another will finish them by adding security features such as foil, with another gang doing the distribution. A Clydesdale Bank spokesman said: There are lots of ways to identify counterfeits by checking them against genuine features such as the hologram and colour-shifting inks. If in doubt, we recommend consumers or retailers check the note against another that they know is genuine and if they suspect a fake note, to hand it in at a police station or their bank. The Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland, and the National Crime Agency were approached for comment. As MPs swore their allegiance to the King in the Commons this week, Sir Keir Starmer looked on approvingly at the record intake of 231 Labour newcomers. Strikingly, nearly a quarter of them had been endorsed by a Socialist group dedicated to overturning Brexit. The hugely influential Labour Movement for Europe (LME) its president is the former EU commissioner and Brussels fanatic Lord Kinnock who was warmly embraced by Starmer at his choreographed arrival in Downing Street last week - not only supports re-joining the EU but also backs the return of free movement of people, which would potentially open the door to millions more migrants. Moreover, it supports a common defence policy for all EU countries, which would be the first step to a European army. Starmer - who, remember, demanded a second referendum on Brexit - has insisted that the UK will not rejoin either the EU, the single market or the customs union within his lifetime. But can we take him at his word? Because many prominent members of the LME are now in a very strong position to persuade him to change his mind. Starmer's new chief whip in the House of Lords, Lord Kennedy, is a patron of the LME for example. Sir Keir Starmer embraces former Labour leader Lord Neil Kinnock as part of his highly choreographed arrival in Downing Street last week Lord Kinnock not only only supports re-joining the EU but also backs the return of free movement of people and is president of the Labour Movement for Europe (LME) Liam Conlon, the new MP for Beckenham and Penge who has been endorsed by the LME, is the son of Sue Gray. (To be endorsed the website states they must be a 'fully paid-up member' of the society and 'uphold and promote the values and vision of the LME'.) She, of course, is Starmer's influential Downing Street chief of staff and former 'impartial' senior civil servant whose excoriating Partygate report triggered the downfall of Boris Johnson. Gray shares her son's passion for all things EU. An even more influential new MP endorsed by the LME, potentially, is Imogen Walker who won the Scottish constituency of Hamilton and Clyde Valley with a 9,000 majority. A former actress, she is married to Morgan McSweeney, the No 10 head of strategy and Labour's former director of campaigning, who is seen as the most powerful figure in Starmer's operation. McSweeney, 47, himself a passionate Europhile, ran Starmer's leadership campaign and masterminded the general election which consigned the Tories to their worst defeat in modern history. His desk is outside Starmer's No 10 study. As one senior Labour source said: 'Morgan has such an aura of power you have to resist the temptation to genuflect when he walks before you. 'Morgan and Imogen are a formidable political couple. If she backs the Labour Movement for Europe, which wants to take us back into the EU, so does he. Which tells you everything about Starmer's agenda. Starmer and McSweeney think as one.' The new intake of MPs in the LME make no secret of their contempt for Brexit and its supporters. Take Kirith Entwistle, MP for Bolton North East which voted Leave, who said in 2019: 'Some free life advice, which I plan to take myself: don't spend your Saturday following developments on Brexit. You deserve to live your life. Maybe. Unless you voted Leave.' Steve Race, the newly elected MP for Exeter, whom Starmer described as an 'excellent candidate', is an unapologetic champion of returning to the EU. 'I wanted to remain, I campaigned to remain, I would like to see us rejoin in my lifetime... I will make the case within the Labour Party and continue to make the case in the country... ' Lord Kinnock's LME has over 80 MPs on its books and is already pushing its agenda on the new government Every one of Starmer's cabinet members voted to remain in the EU and 11 of them pushed for a second referendum Another LME member is Lord Livermore, the newly appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who is also campaigning to go back. Bizarrely, he argues that because London didn't vote for Brexit, it should seek independence from the UK so it can remain part of the EU. 'Independence for London within the EU should now be our goal. We would have a GDP twice as large as Singapore.' But it is not just these 50 or so new entrants who are endorsed by the LME. The organisation has at least 80 more MPs on its books in addition to them and is already pushing its agenda on the new government. And don't forget that in Starmer's Cabinet every MP voted to Remain and 11 of them demanded a second referendum. The LME, which boasts on its website that it's the 'only pro-EU society affiliated to the Labour Party', is quite simply determined to overturn Brexit and will take every opportunity to influence events as the new government embarks on its plan for 'closer ties' with the EU. This determination to cuddle up to Europe was there for all to see on Starmer's trip to Washington this week for the Nato summit, his first official overseas visit as PM. He was accompanied by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, who is so passionate about the EU he likened hardline Brexiteers to Nazis and white supremacists. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Paymaster General, whose brief includes EU relations and Brexit, was also in the official party. Starmer held a one-to-one meeting with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, on the margins of the Nato summit where he called for the 'widest possible co-operation' between the two countries. With Thomas-Symonds, he also met Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister. But these meetings were just the start. Next week, more than 40 senior representatives of European countries will meet at Blenheim Palace, hosted by Starmer, who will put his plans to 'improve' Boris Johnson's Brexit deal to French, German and EU leaders. Were he still PM, Rishi Sunak would have used the gathering at Churchill's Oxfordshire birthplace to discuss illegal migration. But Starmer intends to seize the opportunity for an extensive renegotiation of Britain's free-trade deal with the EU - despite the fact that experts warn nothing can be extracted from the EU without paying a price in exchange, such as accepting free movement or financial penalties. One senior figure in the Remain movement who has strong links to Labour, told me the EU is a huge issue for the new government. 'The easy, low-hanging fruit will be picked off first such as a security pact,' a senior figure said. (Ahead of the Washington summit, Starmer said he thought 'there is scope for a significant improving of our defence and security relationship with the EU. I think this is complementary with Nato.') The senior figure also said: 'They are also looking at signing up to EU rules in sectors like agriculture, food and chemicals.' He added: 'The Government will junk the Boris Brexit deal, although free movement may be too much. The problem will be if we get much closer to the EU, and they start dictating rules because we are outside the EU, the Government will have no power to influence any rules and regulations. Then there will be a huge push back from the Tories and Nigel Farage.' And yet the LME wants Starmer to go much further. Its mission statement could not be clearer about why free movement of people has to be brought back. Sir Keir Starmer with German chancellor Olaf Scholz at the NATO 75th anniversary summit. The prime minister called for 'widest possible co-operation' between the two countries 'From fruit pickers and the fishing industry to scientists, artists and doctors, the freedom to work is not only essential for the UK economy, it also allows our citizens to work around the world. 'To help ensure all can access these opportunities, especially those in our creative industries and service sectors, Labour could commit to negotiating a new visa and passport system, and securing a Visa Waiver Programme which could ensure greater mobility for our citizens and protect their future job opportunities.' It goes on: 'The whole of the UK deserves the opportunities [that] access to the single market, a customs union and working with Europe offers. . . Membership of the EU was a proven engine for progress and social justice for the people of the UK. The EU is a bulwark against regressive governments, and over-mighty corporations.' In short, there is no doubt that whatever Starmer says now, the LME will keep up the pressure on Labour to rejoin the EU. Only in September Richard Corbett, one of its vice presidents, declared: 'It's not too late for them (politicians) to change their mind, it's in their own electoral interests and in the national interest for them to do so. Join me in getting that message across.' As one Labour source told me: 'They want action now and will demand a vote on it.' The sheer size of the LME, which is chaired by arch-Remainer MP Stella Creasy, already makes it a formidable force within Parliament. And the arrival of dozens more hardline, LME-endorsed Remain MPs makes that prospect more likely by the day. The widower of the cinematographer who was killed by Alec Baldwin in a horror film set shooting has demanded justice after the actor's case was dismissed. Matthew Hutchins, who was married to victim Halyna Hutchins for 16 years, said in a statement after the shock ruling that he 'respects the court's decision' but hoped proceedings against the actor were not done for good. 'We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna', he said. It comes after Baldwin, 66, broke down in tears and hugged his wife as his involuntary manslaughter case was sensationally dismissed. The judge at the court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said that there had been errors by the prosecution in the handling of evidence, which she said 'impacted the fundamental fairness of the case'. Alec Baldwin broke down in tears and hugged his wife Hilaria as his involuntary manslaughter case was sensationally dismissed The actor, 66, grew emotional as he heard that the case against him was being thrown out Matthew Hutchins, who was married to victim Halyna Hutchins for 16 years (pictured with their son Andros), said in a statement after the shock ruling that he looks forward to 'holding Mr Baldwin accountable for his actions' The extraordinary decision came after a day-long hearing without the jury present over bullets that should have been in evidence, which Baldwin's lawyers claimed were 'concealed' from them and 'buried' in another case file. The issue had upended the trial for Baldwin who pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter as he was accused of negligence for accidentally firing a live round on the set of the movie Rust in October 2021. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set of Rust, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year. She was later jailed for 18 months, a sentence Baldwin had faced if found guilty. Now her elderly father has welcomed the sudden dismissal of Baldwin's manslaughter case and says his daughter's conviction should now also be overturned. Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, legendary Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, 81, said Hannah has been made a 'scapegoat' over the tragic shooting death of producer Hutchins, 42, in October 2022. Reed said: 'Well, I think that's good [Baldwin's dismissal]. I think Hannah's case should also be dismissed. Gutierrez-Reed, 27, was given an 18-month jail sentence in April after being convicted of a single charge of involuntary manslaughter. She is currently serving her sentence at the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility and had been due to be called to the stand to testify in Baldwin's case. Reed told DailyMail.com he hopes the tossing of Baldwin's case would now give his daughter grounds to appeal her own conviction and said she has been made a scapegoat by prosecutors. He added: 'It should [be grounds for an appeal]. She didn't do anything wrong. They've absolutely made her a scapegoat.' Baldwin holds hands with his wife Hilaria as he exits the courthouse on Friday, moments after his manslaughter case was dismissed by a judge Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling on the Rust film set in October 2021 The film set's armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed poses for mugshot after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter Shortly after the decision to throw Baldwin's case out was read, his brother Stephen Baldwin shared on his Instagram a cryptic religious message, showing a speaker talk of how 'the whole court system can condemn you for the rest of your life.' During the ill-tempered and chaotic hearing on Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer asked for the bullets to be brought into court where - in unusual scenes - she put on gloves and inspected them herself. Baldwin's lawyer Luke Nikas told the court that the bullets were brought to police in Santa Fe in March this year by former police officer Troy Teske, who claimed they were the same kind that were used to shoot Hutchins. Mr Nikas claimed that prosecutors 'buried' the bullets as evidence by giving it a different case number to the main Rust investigation. As a result, when Baldwin's lawyers went to the police to view all the Rust ammunition in April, they were not shown it, a breach of evidentiary rules. Moments before the ruling from the judge, the court heard that one of the two special prosecutors, Erlina Johnson, had quit the case. In her ruling Judge Mary Marlow Sommer said that dismissal with prejudice was a 'very extreme sanction', but the threshold had been met. She said that the 'suppressed evidence' had 'impacted the fundamental fairness of the case', and that prosecutors were 'highly culpable' for the errors and had 'unilaterally withheld' the details about the ammunition. The judge said that the 'wilful withholding of information was intentional and deliberate', which was 'so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching prejudice' and there was 'no way for the court to right this wrong'. Photos taken by detectives with Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office show the aftermath of the incident in October 2021 The case was sensationally thrown out on Friday due to a disagreement over bullets admitted into evidence Baldwin's attorneys successfully had the case thrown out as the judge agreed that the mishandled evidence 'impacted the fundamental fairness of the case' Prosecutor Kari Morrissey countered that they had interviewed Teske last year and were sceptical of him because he is close friends with Thell Reed, the father of Gutierrez-Reed. Morrissey said they concluded Teskey was sending them on a 'wild goose chase' to point the blame at somebody other than Gutierrez-Reed. She said: 'It's a man (Thell Reed) trying to protect his daughter and providing information that doesn't even match the evidence that was found at the scene'. In November last year Teske offered to send them the ammunition but he was in Arizona so Morrissey asked him to send a photo. They didn't look like the live rounds taken from the set of Rust so Morrissey didn't ask for the bullets to be collected by a local police force, the court heard. But Judge Marlowe Sommer expressed frustration during the hearing and pressed Cpl. Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office about why the bullets were not put with the Rust file. Cpl Hancock said that the decision was made after discussion with prosecutors At one point Morrissey herself gave evidence in bizarre scenes where nobody had requested her to do so. She insisted the ammunition from Teske were not similar to those found on the set of Rust, which is why she didn't want them analyzed further. Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's offices on the day of the shooting, was had the charges against him brought twice Friday's hearing grew contentious after the judge dismissed the case, as Baldwin's lawyer Alex Spiro pressed special prosecutor Kari Morrissey on her prejudice towards Baldwin. She rejected this idea and said she actually 'appreciated Mr Baldwin's movies', adding: 'I appreciated the acting he did on Saturday Night Live and really appreciate his politics'. Spiro asked if Morrissey had called Baldwin a 'c***sucker' and she said she didn't recall saying that, and said she didn't recall branding the actor an 'arrogant p***' to a witness. Spiro said: 'You said you would teach him a lesson?' Morrissey responded: 'I never said I would teach him a lesson... I made every effort to resolve this case in a very favorable way for him'. The former head of the police watchdog yesterday denied raping a girl of 14. Michael Lockwood told of his shock after he was accused of abusing two teenage girls, saying the allegations forced him to quit his job as Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Lockwood, 65, denies raping a 14-year-old girl in the storeroom of a leisure centre near Hull, where he was working as a lifeguard 40 years ago. Michael Lockwood, 65, is on trial at the Old Bailey in London He also denies indecently assaulting a girlfriend eight times when she was aged 14-15 and he was in his 20s. Yesterday he told the Old Bailey: 'I would never ever have engaged in sexual activity, sexual intercourse with someone under 16. I would never take advantage of anyone.' The trial continues. Just a few short days ago, it felt as though we were living in a stable, civilised society. We've had our ups and downs in recent times, of course, but the streets seemed generally safe to walk. What deluded fools we were. Little did we know we were on the edge of a crime apocalypse. Or so new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told us yesterday. In language tipping into hysteria, she claimed that because of a critical shortage of prison accommodation, we were facing 'a total breakdown of law and order'. With barely any cells available to detain them, criminals would have complete licence to roam free. 'We could see looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight,' she said. And who's to blame for leading us towards this Mad Max-style dystopia? You guessed it it's the Tories, for locking up too many crooks and not building enough prisons. DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood used rhetoric that bordered on hysteria as she said we were facing 'a total breakdown of law and order' because of a shortage of prison space Ms Mahmood on a visit to HMP Bedford. The government plans to free thousands more inmates after they have served just 40 per cent of their sentence And how does Ms Mahmood propose to avert this orgy of crime? Give early release to thousands of criminals, of course, because that's how to maintain law and order. This kind of feverish scaremongering really does insult the intelligence. Just imagine if Suella Braverman or Priti Patel had used similar language to justify a dubious and unpopular policy. The broadcast media would be after their heads. Is this kind of panic-stricken rhetoric really what we have to look forward to for the next five years? It may be just about acceptable in opposition, but government calls for cool heads and hard logic. In its manifesto, Labour criticised the Tories for releasing some prisoners up to 70 days early to ease overcrowding, saying it was 'a potential risk to the public'. Yet now Ms Mahmood plans to free thousands more after serving just 40 per cent of their sentence. It's ludicrous. Previous amnesties have led to huge increases in offending, not least because they sent out the message to perpetrators that they can act with impunity. The Tory release scheme saw re-offending rates of up to 50 per cent. The Starmer manifesto also said: 'Victims must have faith that justice will be delivered, and criminals will be punished.' What a sick joke that has become. As ever with Labour, it's soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime. Channel toll rises Of all the empty promises made during the election campaign, perhaps the least plausible was Labour's pledge to 'smash the gangs' who profit from trafficking migrants across the Channel. For years, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has castigated the Government for failing to tackle the problem. Now she is the Government, and the problem is hers. The bodies of four migrants picked up off the French coast yesterday were a stark reminder of its scale and urgency. And it won't be solved by her shiny new quango. Labour's pledge to 'smash the gangs' whop profit from trafficking migrants across the Channel was one of its most empty of the campaign. The bodies of four migrants rescued by a vessel off the French coast yesterday were a stark reminder of the scale of the problem Labour has now scrapped the Rwanda scheme, and with it the only real deterrent to the small boats. So far, the party has offered no fresh ideas and is suggesting nothing which hasn't already been tried without success. Since 2018, more than 200 men, women and children have died in the capricious waters of the world's busiest sea-lane. Without decisive action, that grim toll is sure to go on rising, with all the grief and human misery it entails. Ms Cooper must understand that promises and platitudes are no longer enough. With power comes responsibility. The ranks of Australia's millionaires are set to swell by 400,000 within five years, a Swiss bank predicts. The UBS Global Wealth Report is forecasting a 21 per cent surge in the number of millionaires due to rising property values, wealth inheritance and a booming share market. That would mean Australia having 2,334,015 millionaires by 2028, up 397,901 from 1,936,114 in 2023 - or one in every 10 adults based on wealth measured in US dollars. Per capita, Australia has more millionaires than the U.S., New Zealand, the Netherlands or Singapore - but still lags behind Luxembourg and Switzerland. For the purposes of the survey, which is measured in US dollars, an Australian would have to have $A1.478million in assets, including the family home, minus any debts. Someone who owned outright a median-priced Sydney house, worth $1.466million, and a car would be classed as a millionaire in the UBS rankings. When it came to median or middle wealth, Australia was second behind only Luxembourg, with the typical Aussie worth $US261,805 or $A386,858. But Australia was fifth on the average scale of overall wealth divided by the number of people, with the average Aussie owning $US546,184 or $A806,811 in assets - putting them behind Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and the United States. Australia's millionaire ranks are set to swell by 400,000 within five years, a Swiss bank predicts (pictured are swimmers in Bondi) While 10 per cent of Australian adults are millionaires, in Luxembourg it's 16 per cent compared with 15 per cent in Switzerland. On the league table of new millionaires, Australia ranked 16th on UBS's list of 36 nations in the G20. It was one spot behind Canada, which was also forecast to see a 21 per cent surge in millionaires, taking their number to 2,402,200 - a number similar to Australia's. Taiwan, the key producer of the world's computer chips, was ranked first with its millionaire ranks tipped to soar by 47 per cent despite China's veiled threats to forcibly invade the island. The top 10 list also included Turkey, Kazakhstan and Indonesia, which had a lower base of millionaires, along with Japan, South Korea, Israel, Mexico, Thailand and Sweden. India, Brazil, Norway and Russia were ahead of Australia. While the Australian share market only grew by 7.8 per cent during the past financial year, UBS is expecting a recovery in global markets to drive wealth creation in coming years. 'The generally positive performance of financial markets across much of the world in recent years is one reason behind the observed growth in USD millionaires in our sample of markets, but it is far from being the only one,' UBS said. 'As most asset classes have seen their value rise over the past few years, the sheer effect of steady economic growth is instrumental in the increase in USD millionaires. 'This applies to the past as much as it does to projections into the future.' The UBS Global Wealth Report is forecasting a 21 per cent surge in the number of people classed as millionaires because of rising property values, wealth inheritance and a booming share market (pictured is a house in Vaucluse in Sydney's east) UBS noted those with wealth owned their own home and included this in its definition of someone's worth. 'Net worth or wealth is defined as the value of financial assets plus real assets (principally housing) owned by households minus their debts,' it said. Inheritance was also expected to play a key role in wealth creation as baby boomers died, with the eldest of this post-war generation this year turning 78. 'It is often overlooked that before being transferred from one generation to another, wealth is frequently passed on within the same generation between spouses,' UBS said. 'Life expectancy varies between men and women, and quite frequently couples have an age gap, therefore the inheriting spouse will typically own and hold onto this wealth for an average of four years before passing it on.' Wealthy nations in Europe, associated with colonialism, were tipped to have fewer millionaires by 2028 with a 17 per cent decline forecast for the United Kingdom and a 4 per cent drop for the Netherlands. Director Francis Ford Coppola poses for photographers at the photo call for the film Megalopolis at the 77th international film festival in Cannes, France. Megalopolis is set to open Sept. 27 in U.S. theaters. Scott A Garfitt/Associated Press Francis Ford Coppola wanted to take his mind off filming his $120 million passion project Megalopolis. So he renovated a Days Inn motel. The Napa Valley filmmaker, best known for directing The Godfather trilogy, plans to open All-Movie Hotel, a nearly all-inclusive moviemaking resort complete with post-production facilities and luxury lodging fit for Hollywood stars, in Peachtree City, Ga. Coppola and his crew stayed in the city while filming Megalopolis and moved into the hotel to complete the films post-production. Advertisement Article continues below this ad All-Movie Hotel features 27 rooms that include accommodations with queen, king and bunk beds as well as six types of suites, all personally designed by Coppola. It also houses a recording studio, editing suites and a sound stage, where parts of Megalopolis was filmed. The hotel, at 976 Crosstown Drive, is 24 miles from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and near several film studios, the closest being Trilith Studio at only 9 miles away. I dont think theres another place in the world where you can live and and intimately connect (to the filmmaking process), Coppola said in a video that included a trailer to Megalopolis. Laurence Fishburne, director Francis Ford Coppola and Giancarlo Esposito pose for photographers at the world premiere of Megalopolis at Cannes. Millie Turner/Associated Press Highlights among the All-Movies unique amenities include a Green Room, where actors relax together before filming, and the Dorothy Theater, which accommodates up to 30 guests for screenings. Coppola said he named the theater after his UCLA professor Dorothy Arzner, the first woman to direct a Hollywood sound film. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I know people who have come and experienced this from Canada and other places, and they all said, We want to come and make our next film here, Coppola said, adding that he expects filmmakers will come in droves to use its facilities after watching his latest epic. Megalopolis, distributed by Lionsgate and scheduled to hit theaters in the U.S. and Canada on Sept. 27, marks the 85-year-olds directorial return after a 13-year hiatus. The present-day spin on an ancient Roman tale stars Adam Driver as architect Cesar Catilina, who goes head-to-head with Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), the conservative mayor. The mayors daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), in love with Cesar, finds herself caught between the two. While built with movie stars in mind, the hotel will be open to the public on July 25. Guests can stay at All-Movie Hotel in rooms starting at $170 per night. For a premium price, they can also book the Francis Ford Coppola suite, which features a living room with velvet directors chairs, a full kitchenette and an ultra-luxe cinema screen. The property is the first and only U.S. hotel under the portfolio of the Family Coppola Hideaways, Coppolas hospitality group, which owns locations in Belize, Guatemala, Argentina and Italy. Visitors from our other hideaways can come here and just be shoulder to shoulder with people who are making a movie and get to experience what thats like, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She displayed both her elegance and her thriftiness at this year's Trooping the Colour by opting to re-wear her stunning ensemble from the King's Coronation. Lady Louise Windsor, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, chose the same Suzannah London floral dress that turned heads at Westminster Abbey last year. Now, leading celebrity stylist Alex Longmore - who has worked with Joan Collins, Jerry Hall and Louise's cousin Zara Phillips - has said the 20-year-old is an 'English rose that is blossoming'. She added to MailOnline: 'Lady Louise isn't trying to make statement, she is aristocratic and not fashion conscious. 'It is intimidating stepping out as a member of the royal family and she has been doing it tactfully with a slow progression as she gains confidence.' Her Trooping the Colour outing was just one example of how Louise is emerging as a new fashion icon of the Royal Family. The young royal, once seen in simple frocks and sensible shoes, now often dazzles in chic dresses and elegant ensembles that highlight her blossoming sense of style - as I highlight below. Trooping the Colour 2024 Lady Louise embraced the art of a royal re-wear at this year's Trooping the Colour by choosing the floral Suzannah London dress she was first seen in at King Charles' and Queen Camilla's Coronation last year She swept her blonde locks into an elegant up-do and accessorised with a Jane Taylor hat previously worn by her mother the Duchess of Edinburgh Lady Louise embraced the art of a royal re-wear at this year's Trooping the Colour. She swept her blonde locks into an elegant up-do and accessorised with a Jane Taylor hat previously worn by her mother the Duchess of Edinburgh. Indeed, her mother has been one of the most notable influences on Lady Louise's fashion. Ms Longmore said: 'There is a sensitivity that we see in her style that plays on her interests, dressing in her comfort zone but not shouting from the rooftops that she is a style icon which is very similar to her mother's style. 'She is slowly gathering the reins as she does carriage driving.' Indeed, her mother has been one of the most notable influences on Lady Louise's fashion. Above: Lady Louise alongside her father the Duke of Edinburgh and mother Sophie, the Duchess, on the Buckingham Palace balcony at Trooping the Colour Sandringham Horse Driving Trials - 2024 Lady Louise made a sparkling debut at the Sandringham Horse Driving Trials in June, racing her way to a silver medal alongside her close university friend Felix da Silva-Clamp. For the appearance, Lady Louise swapped her tweed jacket and riding hat for a cap and Royal Windsor gilet. The relaxed outfit showed the down to earth attitude she has when it comes to fashion. Lady Louise made a sparkling debut at the Sandringham Horse Driving Trials in June, racing her way to a silver medal alongside her close university friend Felix da Silva-Clamp Royal Windsor Horse Show - 2024 Lady Louise was the picture of elegance when she competed at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in May. She embraced the equestrian theme with a sharp ensemble fit for the spring occasion. Louise wore a ME + EM blazer with a silk scarf at her neck. Her wide brimmed hat was tied in with a taupe-colour silk band. Lady Louise was the picture of elegance when she competed at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in May. Louise wore a ME + EM blazer with a silk scarf at her neck. Her wide brimmed hat was tied in with a taupe-colour silk band Christmas Day - 2023 Lady Louise looked effortlessly elegant as she joined her family for the Christmas Day church service in Sandringham last year. She opted for a a navy wool coat by London-based brand The Fold, paired with nude suede heels by royal-favourite LK Bennett and a Jane Taylor Millinery trilby hat. The outfit was completed with a stylish check scarf which was gifted to her by King Charles. Lady Louise looked effortlessly elegant as she joined her family for the Christmas Day church service in Sandringham last year. She opted for a a navy wool coat by London-based brand The Fold, paired with nude suede heels by royal-favourite LK Bennett and a Jane Taylor Millinery trilby hat King's Coronation - 2023 Lady Louise made a style splash at King Charles's Coronation in May last year by wearing a delicate printed long-sleeved maxi dress by Suzannah London. Blooming in her floral frock which fell to just above her ankles, Louise accessorised with LK Bennett heels and a bespoke periwinkle-coloured Jane Taylor hat. Beneath the headpiece her hair was styled into loose waves. Lady Louise made a style splash at King Charles's Coronation in May last year by wearing a delicate printed long-sleeved maxi dress by Suzannah London University of St Andrews Party - 2024 Attending a student theatre party at St Andrews University with her friend Felix da Silva-Clamp in April, Lady Louise opted for a little black dress and glamorous gold accessories. The dress itself was simple, but her geometric golden Zara choker was a statement, giving a stylish edge to the plunging silk dress. Louise was pictured with her university friend Felix when she was photographed wearing this simple black dress accesorised with a Zara choker giving the outfit a very stylish edge Royal Windsor Horse Show - 2023 Lady Louise participated in a carriage driving competition at the Royal Windsor Horse Show last year. It is a hobby she inherited from her late grandfather, Prince Philip. For the event, she wrapped up in an oatmeal-coloured riding jacket by ME + EM with a cream coloured blouse beneath and a delicate floral and foliage decorated scarf. Keeping with the palette of soft neutrals, Louise topped the outfit with a beige trilby hat by Hicks & Brown that featured a decorative feather band. Lady Louise participated in a carriage driving competition at the Royal Windsor Horse Show last year. For the event, she wrapped up in an oatmeal-coloured riding jacket by ME + EM with a cream coloured blouse beneath and a delicate floral and foliage decorated scarf Christmas Day - 2022 For the Christmas Day service at Sandringham in 2022, Lady Louise chose an elegant navy Roland Mouret coat which had previously been worn by her mother Sophie on numerous occasions. It was layered over a Ralph Lauren dress and perfectly coordinated with a Jane Taylor trilby hat. For the Christmas Day service at Sandringham in 2022, Lady Louise chose an elegant navy Roland Mouret coat which had previously been worn by her mother Sophie on numerous occasions Queen Elizabeth's funeral - 2022 At Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral in September 2022, Lady Louise looked sophisticated and poised in a form-fitting black dress by Theory. The maxi dress featured feminine flutter sleeves, a trumpet-style skirt, and a deep v-neckline. It was paired with velvet heels and a leather hairband by Jane Taylor. The young royal's jewellery carried a special sentiment, giving a nod to the late monarch's lifelong love of all things equestrian. At Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral in September 2022, Lady Louise looked sophisticated and poised in a form-fitting black dress by Theory Platinum Jubilee - 2022 At the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022 Lady Louise stepped out in an ethereal silk dress that was elegant without being too mature. The cream coloured frock, designed by Ghost, was accessorised with a standout coral Sophie Habsburg cylindrical clutch and a boucle hairband by Jane Taylor. At the Thanksgiving service during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022 Lady Louise stepped out in an ethereal silk dress that was elegant without being too mature. Above: Louise wearing the dress at the National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral Lady Louise seen alongside her mother Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, at St Paul's Cathedral Royal Windsor - 2021 At the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 2021, Lady Louise sported a tailored navy blazer with gold button detailing and wide leg trousers. Slung over her shoulder was her Chloe shoulder bag that showed her fashionable side. Prince William has vowed to do, not just preach, by building dozens more homes for the homeless on his own Duchy of Cornwall estate. The heir to the throne is currently marking a year since he launched his Homewards project to end the scourge of rough sleeping, sofa surfing and families living in often sub-standard temporary accommodation in six key areas across the UK. He is already working with the charity St Petrocs in Cornwall to provide 24 homes with wrap-around support for local people experiencing homelessness at Nansledan. And now sources have told the Mail that William is taking an 'active role' in developing additional housing projects across his estate, which accounts for 52,449 hectares across 20 counties in the UK. It is understood that he strongly believes he must lead from the front given his position of immense privilege as Prince of Wales. Prince William (pictured on Thursday) has vowed to build dozens more homes for the homeless on his own Duchy of Cornwall estate The heir to the throne is currently marking a year since he launched his Homewards project to end the scourge of rough sleeping in six key areas across the UK He is already working with the charity St Petrocs in Cornwall to provide 24 homes with wrap-around support for local people experiencing homelessness at Nansledan While his decision to build more affordable homes is not a political one, it does chime with the new Labour government's mission on house building. In a speech during a visit to Brixton, south London, William argued that for too long homelessness had been seen as 'inevitable'. 'Homelessness is a complex societal issue and one that touches the lives of far too many people in our society. However, I truly believe that it can be ended,' he said. Local experts - ranging from house builders and local authorities to private rental firms and charities - are being helped to work together to find solutions to ultimately eradicate homelessness in all its forms. The Prince told guests at the event, who were drawn from the charity sector, local authorities, as well as those who have experienced homelessness, that their success so far was a 'powerful reminder to everyone of what can be achieved when we work together towards a shared goal'. Prince William told guests that their success so far is a 'powerful reminder to everyone of what can be achieved when we work together towards a shared goal' In a speech during a visit to Brixton, south London, William argued that for too long homelessness had been seen as 'inevitable' The Prince said of people who apparently slip through the system: 'We've got to make sure we don't overlook them' 'So many people are doing brilliant work and have been doing it for years and years. We want you to feel that this [Homewards] is a resource and support for you,' he said. The Prince also spoke of his concerns about people slipping through the cracks in society, saying: 'We've got to make sure we don't overlook them. Find families early enough and work with them. 'If you're parenting on our own without a village, you're set up to fail.' The event included a 'fireside chat' with Homewards advocate Sabrina Hatton Cohen, and Chris Lynam from the Sheffield coalition who shared his story of childhood abuse, followed by PTSD from his time in the Navy and his journey from being a 'homeless heroin addict eating from bins' to one of Homewards' 'lived experience advocates'. William added: 'I created Homewards because I wanted us to look at the issue of homelessness through a different lens: to inspire a movement to prevent people from ever experiencing homelessness in the first place. 'I know this will take a huge effort. And I know that demonstrating that homelessness is not an inevitable part of our society will take time. 'I have, though, been struck by the scale of the work that has been carried out since the launch of Homewards and I hope it is a powerful reminder to everyone of what can be achieved when we work together. 'The energy and enthusiasm that each individual and organisation is bringing to the programme, and to showing that it is possible to end homelessness in their local area, is inspiring and I know, together, we can do this.' It's one of the most basic laws of physics what goes up must come down. And for the tens of thousands of objects currently orbiting Earth, this simple rule is becoming an increasingly dangerous problem. In May alone, the UK Space Agency monitored 56 'uncontrolled re-entries' in which satellites and other objects fell back to Earth - an increase of 155 per cent on April. From a house in Florida to a farm in North Carolina, this interactive map reveals some of the most dangerous incidents in which space debris has crashed back down to Earth. It comes as scientists warn there is a 10 per cent chance that an out-of-control rocket or spacecraft could kill someone within the next decade. Your browser does not support iframes. The interactive map shows both the launch and landing points for some of the most shocking space debris crashes in history. The records date as far back as 1978 with the crash of the Soviet spy satellite Kosmos 954 right up to the re-entry of Chinese rockets this June. To learn more about any of the incidents simply tap on the red line connecting the launch and crash site to bring up more details. You can also pan and zoom in on the map to see more by clicking and dragging. It is worth noting that the lines representing the flight of these objects have been simplified as many spent months, if not years, in orbit around the planet. You may notice that many of the pieces of space debris come from similar locations. A series of crashes have been caused by the re-entry of Chinese Long March rocket systems. These very powerful multistage rockets are the workhorse of the Chinese space programme and are frequently used to launch satellites for civilian and military purposes. However, as the stages are jettisoned some undergo uncontrolled re-entry into Earth's orbit. While many burn up in the atmosphere, large pieces of rocket chassis have recently fallen on areas around China and India. Most recently this June, what appeared to be a large piece of a Long March rocket fell over a populated village in rural China. And on June 24, dramatic video showed large pieces of equipment falling to the sky falling from the sky trailing thick clouds of yellow smoke. Last month, video appeared to show as the core of a Chinese Long March-2C rocket segment fell over a village in Sichuan, China HOW MANY ITEMS ARE THERE IN ORBIT? Rocket launches since 1957: 6,200 6,200 Number of satellites in orbit: 13,100 13,100 Number still in space: 8,410 8,410 Number still functioning: 5,800 5,800 Number of debris objects: 31,500 31,500 Break-ups, explosions etc: 630 630 Mass of objects in orbit: 9,900 tonnes 9,900 tonnes Prediction of the amount of debris in orbit using statistical models Over 10cm: 36,500 36,500 1cm to 10cm: 1,000,000 1,000,000 1mm to 1cm: 130 million Source: European Space Agency Advertisement This occurred shortly after a Long March 2C carrier rocket launched from the nearby Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan. This incident was particularly worrying due to the fact that Long March rockets use a liquid propellant consisting of nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. These compounds produce a signature yellow smoke which is toxic and carcinogenic, Markus Schiller, a rocket expert from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNN at the time. However, looking at this graphic you will also see that there are a large amount of debris originates from America particularly from Florida. A number of these are debris from rockets and capsules used in Elon Musk's SpaceX mission. In May, huge chunks of debris were found in a farmer's field in rural Saskatchewan, Western Canada. The fragments were huge, measuring six feet (two metres) across and weighing more than 40kg (90lbs). It is believed that these were produced by the uncontrolled re-entry of a SpaceX Crew Dragon 'trunk' (storage) section which had been launched in February. Since the beginning of the space race, there have only been a handful of incidents in which falling space debris harmed a person or damaged property. In 2002, a six-year-old boy in Shaanxi, China, became the first person to be injured by a direct strike from space debris. A large fragment of a SpaceX Dragon Crew spaceship was found in a field in Saskatchewan in June after the rocket broke up in the atmosphere The UK Space Agency has noted a 115 per cent month to month increase in the number of monitored uncontrolled re-entries of space debris Large pieces of a SpaceX Crew-1 have also been found in a field in Australia in 2022. This piece was made of carbon fibre and studded with metal bolts The boy, named Wu Jie, reportedly suffered a fractured toe and swelling on his forehead after a block of aluminum, weighing 10 kilograms struck the tree he was sitting beneath. In 1992, an Oklahoma woman, named Lottie Williams, was hit, without injury, in the shoulder by a piece of a Delta II rocket that had launched the previous year. And earlier this year, a cylindrical object weighing almost 1kg smashed through the roof of a home in Naples, Florida. This was later determined to be part of a battery pallet jettisoned from the International Space Station which had failed to burn up in the atmosphere. Yet despite these terrifying incidents, the actual danger of space debris currently remains fairly low. A spokesperson for the UK Space Agency told MailOnline: 'Since January, the UK has monitored an average of 23 re-entering space objects per month. Earlier this year, in an extremely rare incident of property damage, a home in Naples, Florida was damaged by a piece of space debris According to UKSA data, there are now 28,850 objects in space, around 9,000 of which are active satellites. Starlink alone has put almost 7,000 satellites in orbit 'Statistically, debris from re-entering objects presents a low risk to both life and property because most of the Earth is covered by water and the majority of land is unpopulated.' The spokesperson adds: 'There are no recorded instances of serious injuries caused by re-entering space debris.' Jake Foster, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, told MailOnline: 'The vast majority of space debris that falls to Earth is so small that it burns up entirely in the atmosphere on its way down, posing no threat to human life. 'Since around 70 per cent of the Earth's surface is covered in water, most larger pieces that do make it down to the surface usually end up splashing down into the oceans.' But, while Mr Foster maintains you are 'far more likely to be struck by lightning than to be hit by a chunk of space debris', that risk is increasing. According to data from the UK Space Agency (UKSA), 274 new objects were put into orbit in May of this year bringing the total to 28,850. By 2030, some estimates predict that there could be as many as 60,000 objects in space not even counting the thousands of pieces of debris which litter Earth's orbit. Mr Foster says: 'Over the past two decades, the amount of space debris (or junk) orbiting the Earth has increased substantially.' As UKSA notes, this has largely been driven by a 95 per cent reduction in the cost of putting objects in space falling from $65,000 per kilogramme to $1,500 per kilogramme. The object which fell through the roof was determined to be a piece of a battery pallet jettisoned from the ISS Although the risk of space debris falling to the ground is very low, as more objects enter orbit the risk becomes increasingly high Coupled with our increasing dependence on satellite communications, this has led to a boom in private companies placing their own small satellites in orbit. 'A lot of this debris will end up plummeting towards the Earth, sometimes of its own accord and sometimes as part of a deliberate deorbit manoeuvre to dispose of them,' Mr Foster added. 'More debris in space has inevitably led to more of it being seen returning to Earth thanks to gravity.' One of the biggest risks sources of that risk comes from Elon Musk's Starlink satellite constellations. Out of the 25,000 objects in space, 6,673 of those are Starlink communications satellites more than two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit. Starlink satellites (Pictured) make up two thirds of all active satellites in orbit. The more material in space the higher the risk of an uncontrolled re-entry causing harm UKSA notes that the 155 per cent monthly increase in falling space debris was largely driven by 'planned re-entries of 'designed-to-demise' small communications satellites'. If a collision occurred in a densely populated orbit, the debris could hit other satellites, creating more debris and more collisions in something called the Kessler Effect. Musk's company has already faced heavy criticism after China reported two 'close encounters' between Starlink satellites and Beijing's space station in 2021. Mr Foster says: 'Space debris poses a serious threat to other space-bound objects, including astronauts. 'While a lot of the debris is tiny, it is often travelling at speeds of around 7 kilometres per second, making it faster than a speeding bullet. 'Only two weeks ago, astronauts on board the International Space Station were instructed to take shelter in their respective spacecraft as a precaution due to a defunct Russian satellite breaking up that was on a near collision course with the ISS.' Elon Musk has faced criticism for the risk posed by his satellite constellations (pictured). China complained of two 'close encounters' between Starlink satellites and the Chinese space station The biggest risk of space debris is faced by those already in orbit, but if large satellites fall out of orbit they can cause serious problems. One of the most serious cases, which you can examine more closely in the interactive graphic, is the disastrous re-entry of the Kosmos 954 in 1978. As the satellite burnt up in orbit over Canada, radioactive material from the onboard nuclear reactor was scattered over miles of ecologically sensitive countryside. The disaster triggered a years-long clean-up operation for which the Canadian government billed the Soviet Union CA$3 million for. This is also the only time that the United Nations' Outer Space Treaty, known as the Space Liability Convention, has ever been triggered. This makes nations liable for any damages caused by or damages caused by their property in space. And while the law has rarely been used so far, as the risk of space debris increases it is not inconceivable that we may see it triggered again in the near future. Nearly all of AT&T's 110 million wireless subscribers were subjected to a massive data breach, leaving them wondering what information may have been leaked. The data breach, which occurred over five months in 2022, included records of calls and texts that would expose people's personal communications. Hackers could have also accessed the geographic location by using identification numbers attached to cellular towers associated with account phone numbers. Although the exposed data did not include customer names, there are 'publicly available online tools' capable of connecting numbers with people's identities, AT&T said. AT&T suffered America's largest data leak that exposed 'nearly all' of its customers information on a third-party platform. The information revealed customers call and text data that could reveal their geographic location What AT&T information was leaked? AT&T revealed the data breach on Friday, noting the stolen data contained records from May 1 through October 31, 2022, as well as some from January 2, 2023. The data showed which phone numbers AT&T customers called during that period, including how many calls and texts were made to a specific person and the total duration of the calls. But the information obtained did not include time stamps of calls and text messages, nor did it reveal names, dates of birth or social security numbers. AT&T said that one or more cell site identification numbers were attached to calls and texts, which could reveal the general location of one or more of the parties. If the records were to leak, the information would reveal who AT&T customers called and texted, putting high profile individuals like politicians and executives at risk. That is because the phone numbers would be linked, allowing bad actors to find the name associated with a specific telephone number. AT&T explained that the information was downloaded from to a third-party cloud platform from AT&T's workspace on Snowflake - a cloud-based data warehouse that allows companies to manage, store and process customer data and files. Brad Jones, chief information security officer at Snowflake, told CNN that they have not found evidence that the cyberattack was not 'caused by a vulnerability, misconfiguration or breach of Snowflake's platform.' How do you know if you were impacted? AT&T has already taken cybersecurity measures to close off the point of access breached by the hackers and plans to notify impacted customers in the near future. A website will also be set up where customers can determine if their data was compromised in the attack - AT&T has not specified when it will go live. The company said as of Friday, the breach hasn't impacted AT&T's operations and sought to assure customers that it ' does not believe that the data is publicly available.' Cybersecurity expert Collin Walke told DailyMail.com that the silver lining in the attack appears to be that 'no actual text content has been accessed.' However, he warned people about the consequences of hacks like this, saying it should serve as a reminder to everyone that everything you do online leaves a digital footprint. 'The consequences of hacks like this ... should heighten our awareness to the problems we face in the future. This hack didn't access content, but we don't know when the next one will,' Walke said. AT&T reported that the cyberattack compromised information for 'nearly all' of its 110 million US landline and cellphone customers Why did AT&T take three months to notify customers? AT&T said it learned a 'threat actor claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs' on April 19. The company claimed it 'immediately' hired experts to investigate the attack which determined that hackers had stolen the 2022 files between April 14 and April 25. The FBI is investigating the cyberattack and at least one person has been arrested in connection with the hack. Walke said the delay is 'extremely concerning,' and called on regulators to act and ensure people are informed more quickly. 'And while content had not been taken in this hack, what if it had? Consumers would not have known about this for months!' he said. AT&T allegedly did not notify customers immediately because the US Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that 'a delay in providing public disclosure was warranted.' The FBI told Dailymail.com that AT&T contacted the agency to report the incident shortly after it identified a potential breach. 'AT&T, FBI, and DOJ worked collaboratively through the first and second delay process, all while sharing key threat intelligence to bolster FBI investigative equities and to assist AT&T's incident response work,' the FBI said. 'The FBI prioritizes assistance to victims of cyber-attacks, encourages organizations to establish a relationship with their local FBI field office in advance of a cyber incident, and to contact the FBI early in the event of breach.' A DOJ spokesperson told DailyMail.com that AT&T's delay in notifying customers aided the department's ability to conclude that revealing the cyberattack 'would pose a substantial risk to national security and public safety.' How many times has AT&T been hacked this year? During the same time that AT&T allegedly found out about the cyberattack, it was dealing with a separate breach where customer records from 2019 or earlier were leaked on the dark web. The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that requires a specific browser to access that allows users to hide their identity and location from others, including law enforcement. The attack included leaked social security numbers and other personal information that forced the company to reset the passwords of 73 million accounts. It impacted 7.6 million current AT&T customers and roughly 65.4 million former account holders. In March, AT&T notified customers that a marketing vendor it used was hacked in January, exposing the private information of wireless account holders. This breach exposed Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) of roughly 9 million AT&T users, which included first names, wireless account numbers, wireless phone numbers and email addresses. In the wake of the cyberattacks, AT&T is facing dozens of class-action lawsuits, claiming the company knew of the breaches but failed to act. A famous serial killer profiler with 50 years of experience has revealed the steps women should take to avoid becoming the next victim. Dr Ann Burgess, who spent decades studying the minds of serial killers, has found these individuals always search for women who are unprotected, appear weak and are living alone. This has been the case in many infamous examples including the victims killed by Ted Bundy from 1974 through 1978 and the 'Co-ed killer' who went on a murdering spree from 1972 to 1973. While those are decades-old cases, Burgess has warned that there are still serial killers among us and has shared four actions that will deter them from choosing you for the next horrendous crime. Dr Ann Burgess studied the methods of 36 serial killers to understand why they committed the heinous acts and the trauma that led to it. She has now revealed what women can do to protect themselves from becoming victims Dr Burgess joined forces with the FBI in 1978 to consult with its Behavioral Science Unit, which developed the first-of-its-kind psychological profiling for serial killers. They studied the methods and motives of 36 serial killers including Edmund Kemper ('The Co-Ed Killer') who murdered his grandparents, six young female college students, as well as his own mother and her friend in the 1970s. The team examined how past trauma impacted the killer's crimes and found that all serial killers had similar mental patterns from abusive mothers and absent fathers. Burgess's work with the FBI led to the arrest of high-profile killers including the Menendez brothers who murdered their parents Jose and Kitty at their Beverly Hills home in 1989. She has recently shot to fame again in a new Hulu three-part docu-series titled 'Mastermind To Think Like a Killer.' 'There is this misogyny that develops or this acting out against women due to these mommy issues, more or less,' the show's director Abby Fuller told PEOPLE. 'Oftentimes they were victimized, so it's like there's this idea the victim becomes a victimizer and the kind of the scene is played out, only this time they're the one in control rather than the victim.' 1. Trust your gut If something feels wrong, Burgess said it probably is and you should immediately remove yourself from that situation or area. Too many times, women feel something is off and think 'Geez, I'm just overreacting,' Burgess told PEOPLE, but by ignoring these thoughts, 'they found themselves in very tight positions.' When you feel that tight, clenching feeling in your stomach, 'that's your limbic system reacting,' Burgess said. 'It's an involuntary system that is set in us to alarm us and you should pay attention to it. I just think that's only good sense to listen to it, and not to override the system.' Dr Ann Burgess (pictured) joined forces with the FBI in 1978 to consult with its Behavioral Science Unit where they were developing the first-of-its-kind psychological profiling for serial killers 2. Get a German Shepherd Protection dogs, especially larger breeds like German Shepherds, have an intimidating appearance that could deter people from invading your home, Dr Burgess explained. In particular, German Shepherds are naturally protective because they're born with a gene that makes them form a strong bond with their owner. They are also the most loyal, intelligent and courageous dogs in the canine family and have a sense of alertness that allows them to keep watch over the home for hours and can quickly notice any changes in their environment. German Shepherds are very vocal and often whine, growl and bark - making themselves known to a possible serial killer and alerting you to the invader's presence. 'Get a German Shepherd. That's the one thing I always say get a German Shepherd,' Dr Burgess said. 3. Put a 'Beware of Dog' sign outside your house Dr Burgess advised that a 'Beware of Dog' sign could stop serial killers from entering your home out of fear that they could be attacked. They're looking for an easy victim, someone that is alone and vulnerable, and this type of sign could stop serial killers from targeting you. However, homeowners should be warned that 'Beware of Dog' signs can entice burglars to enter the residence out of curiosity over what valuables might be inside, according to researches at the University of Pennsylvania. 4. Put workman's boots outside your door Dr Burgess said she often puts workman's boots outside her front door if she's home alone to make it look like her husband is there. Having these masculine boots outside the house could scare off serial killers who don't want to fight someone to execute their plans. 'A lot of killers seize opportunity,' Dr Burgess said. 'So if they ... think that a man is there who could possibly fight them, they're going to move to the next house for the easier victim.' A new course at Harvard will revisit the Byzantine Empire with a focus on medieval gender identity, promising to cover 'genderless angels' and 'trans monks.' The Fall 2024 class, called Gender in Byzantium, is said to explore 'the entire spectrum of binary and non-binary conceptualizations, representations and performances of gender in Byzantium' that reigned from 476 to 1400 AD. The university, which costs $60,000 a year, plans to cover text and art on medieval eunuchs, men who were castrated, teaching them as a possible 'third gender.' It will also explore the history of women who disguised their sex to join monasteries, describing them as transgender. But word of the course is already provoking controversy, with critics claiming that the course promotes a 'woke' political agenda by 'making up history.' The dust-up follows a punishing year of similar accusations for the elite school, which was ranked the worst school for free speech in the United States in 2023 by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). A course at Harvard this fall will revisit the Byzantine Empire with a focus on medieval gender identity, promising to cover 'genderless angels' and 'trans monks.' Above, freshly mowed community space at the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts In addition to angelic beings, the course will cover medieval eunuchs, born-male but castrated members of Byzantine royal courts, as a possible 'third gender.' Above, angels depicted in an early piece of Byzantine art - the 6th century Apse mosaic in Basilica of San Vitale The Byzantine Empire was the successor to the Roman Empire and inaugurated by the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine I in 330 AD. Constantine I also legalized Christianity, which had previously been persecuted in the Roman Empire, making the religion a major element of the culture. The Harvard course will use 'textual and visual material alongside recent scholarship on gender and sexuality' from the empire for its teachings, according to the syllabus. The topics said to be discussed will also include 'normative concepts and representations of masculinity and femininity,' 'same-sex desire and relationships (homosociality)' and 'cross-dressing (trans monks?)' 'They made up enough fake genders, might as well make up history as well,' a person shared on X following news of the course. The class will also examine the gender identities of supernatural beings depicted in theological or religious texts, 'incorporeal/genderless angels,' Harvard's course description continued. News of the course has provoked heated and dismissive responses from culture warriors since Tuesday, when Campus Reform, a project of the conservative nonprofit the Leadership Institute, first wrote about the class. 'They made up enough fake genders,' one user of Elon Musk 's social site X posted, 'might as well make up history as well' (above) 'Just read Satyricon to get your jollies and move on to actual history,' one X user posted in criticism of the course. The Satyricon, written in Latin several centuries before the rise of the Byzantine Empire in the 1st century AD, is considered an early and classic example of parodic literature for its ironic depiction of sexual mores, decadence and the style of romantic writing in ancient Greece and Rome. One of the assigned texts for Harvard's 'Gender in Byzantium' class, titled 'Byzantine Intersectionality,' casts the 5th century Catholic saint Marina the Monk as a transgender person. '[S]cholars repeatedly have shied away from referring to these figures as "transgender," instead calling them "transvestite nuns," "cross-dressing" saints, or women in "disguise,"' the assigned class text reads. 'These pejorative terms, which are pervasive throughout the historiography, negate these subjects' identification as transgender persons,' the text states. Also, known as Marinos, Pelagia and Mary of Alexandria, this historical figure is also honored by the Arabic Druze and the Eastern Orthodox Churches for a life of monastic worship in modern day Lebanon. DailyMail.com has reached out for comment to Harvard's Medieval Studies department, which is offering the course to undergraduate students. Harvard's bottom-most ranking of on campus on free speech, according to FIRE, was calculated based on factors like the strength of its policies protecting free speech as well as how many professors, students and visitors to campus have been targeted by the school for their publicly held political beliefs. Harvard's woke wars have been at their most heated over the bloody conflict in Gaza. Above, a recent protest encampment at Harvard University is shown In the last five years, some of Harvard's free speech incidents have included its decision to revoke conservative activist Kyle Kashuv's acceptance because of racist comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, for which he apologized. Since 2019, Harvard has sanctioned four scholars, and three of those saw the institution terminate their employment, according FIRE. Harvard's woke wars have been at their most heated over the bloody conflict in Gaza, which has seen the International Criminal Court issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and three Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh. Outrage over Harvard President Claudine Gay's handling of pro-Palestine student protestors, made worse by 'anti-woke' criticism and a plagiarism scandal, hastened the university leader's resignation late last year. Archaeologists have uncovered secrets of a Biblical city that sat within the 'Promised Land' where the Israelites settled after Moses led them out of Egypt. The Israeli Antiquities Authority recently shared their findings from Zanoah, which is mentioned in the Old Testament, revealing stone walls, pottery and other artifacts that date back more than 3,200 years. The Bible states that the Israelites reached the Promised Land, also known as Canaan, around 1406 to 1407 BC after wandering 40 years in the desert. The team also uncovered a broken jar handle that featured the name of a king described in the Bible, providing more evidence to the Biblical story of Moses. Archaeologists have discovered ancient artifacts that may coincide with Moses leading the Israelites from Egypt to the Promise Land. Researchers found retaining walls for farming terraces that are used to create level areas for planting and to protect steeper soil from erosion The Israeli Antiquities Authority recently shared their findings from Zanoah which is mentioned in the Old Testament, revealing stone walls, pottery and other artifacts that date back more than 3,200 years The Exodus story is spread over the biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It begins with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, before the Pharaoh - coerced by 10 terrible plagues - agrees to release them and Moses leads them across the miraculously-parted Red Sea. Once they reached the Sinai Peninsula, scripture says they traveled to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the 10 commandments. The group then headed to the southern border of Canaan, but being too scared to enter, were condemned to spending decades in the wilderness by God. After passing the years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea, the Israelites then traveled to the eastern border of Canaan, where Moses died and was buried on Mount Nebo. In the subsequent Book of Joshua, Joshua takes over the leadership of the Israelites, leading them into the Promised Land across the River Jordan and conquering Jericho - and Zanoah is mentioned in the Book of Joshua. Joshua 15:34,56 outlines the boundaries and cities within the tribal allotment of Judah once they entered the Promised Land, which includes Zanoah. Archaeologists also recovered well preserved pottery, complete with an LMLK stamp on the jar handle which is very rare in the Judah foothills. These markings are ancient Hebrew seals meaning 'of the King' The shard had a wide rim with three concentric bands in a grid-like pattern and featured a rope decoration Archaeologists uncovered several stone walls throughout the ancient city Researchers excavated the area in 2019 but released their findings in March. The team uncovered walls fashioned with rows of large, white rocks, which they believed were retaining walls for farming terraces used to create level areas for planting and to protect steeper soil from erosion. Preserved pottery was also pulled from the ground, with one featuring a stamp on the handle that read 'of the King,' which was to honor King Hezekiah's reign in Judah in 701 BC. The life of Hezekiah is described in the Bible book of 2 Kings, chapters 18-20. In 2 Chronicles, the king is said to have reopened the Temple of Solomon, known as 'the First Temple' and built on the spot where God created Adam. Hezekiah also smashed the bronze snake statue God commanded Moses to make, which is mentioned in Numbers 21:8-9: 'Then the Lord said to Moses, Make a snake image and mount it on a pole.' The Biblical story of Moses starts with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, before the Pharaoh - coerced by 10 terrible plagues - agrees to release them and Moses leads them across the miraculously-parted Red Sea Pottery fragments littered the landscape, with about 20 percent dating to the time the Israelites were said to have arrived after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness- the rest were fashioned over the next 900 years. A decorated fragment of a cosmetic bowl made of white limestone. 'It has a wide rim adorned with a decoration of three concentric bands separated by gaps: the external and internal bands are narrow and feature a rope decoration, while the central band is wide and features an intermittent grid pattern,' the researchers shared in the study. Other findings included bowls and jugs, one of which had perforations that suggested it may have been used as a lantern, and metal objects were also discovered. However, the researchers did not specify when they were made, only that they were bronze jewelry such as a ring and earring fragment. Other remnants that ancient humans once lived in the region included iron tools, nails of various sizes and bronze strips used for welding iron. 'While it is likely that some of the finds originated in the ruin and were subsequently washed down the slope over the years, the majority of the finds, especially those dating from the early Byzantine period, relate to farming activities conducted on the hill slopes,' the researchers said. They added that the large number of finds indicates the importance of the site 'and highlights [its] potential significance.' SHOPPING Contains affiliated content. Products featured in this Mail Best article are selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, DailyMail.com will earn an affiliate commission. Click here for more information. Today is a big day if you love Charlotte Tilbury makeup and skin care. While the iconic beauty brand's products are so popular that they rarely go on sale, there's a huge opportunity to score six products for an incredible 50 percent off. The goodies are all tucked inside the Mystery Box of Dreams, a phenomenal collection of the brand's best worth $257 and reduced to a shocking $128. You'll love the way they brighten your complexion and give you that gorgeous summer glow, leaving your skin flawless and ready for summer selfies and close-ups! Charlotte Tilbury Mystery Box Of Dreams Prepare to fall in love at first sight! Whether it's your first foray into the world of Charlotte Tilbury or you're a longtime fan, you'll absolutely love this mystery box packed with SIX products. We can exclusively share that you will receive the absolutely gorgeous Hollywood Glow Highlighter in Champagne Glow to bring radiance to your complexion. 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Robert (great as DI Salisbury in Sherwood not too long ago) in particular has a calm, furrowed intensity thats explored to the maximum in Channel 5s dark four-parter. Im not sure Ive ever seen a camera linger closer for longer on someone who is by no stretch of the imagination pretty and indeed is often bloodstained. In The Night Caller, Glenister R plays Liverpudlian night-shifting cabbie Tony, a former teacher whose sad and sorry back story is eked out so slowly that we only get the big reveal (the why-is-Tony-like-Tony?) right at the end. You'll be rooting for a Happy Ending in My5's The Night Caller, says TV writer Kathryn Flett Whether or not you chose/choose to get that far will depend on your taste for stories about lonely (and Tony is bafflingly unencumbered by either friends or family) men in their 50s taking the law into their own hands in the words of Tonys local late-night talk radio host Lawrence Brightway. Brightway is a perfectly cast king-of-the-voiceovers Sean Pertwee. His famously dulcet tones keep Tony company on his night drives, and so he becomes someone Tony both trusts and confides in. However, when the latters life stumbles into a metaphorical badly lit cul-de-sac, things turn darker and the potential for Tonys life to be leavened by an evolving romance and cuppas with the local all-night cafe waitress Rosa (Suzanne Packer) appears to be a non-starter. Before long theres a death and a hostage situation, with a knife, and close-ups of bloodshot eyes and popping veins and, suddenly, Glenister is in an altogether different movie, which may (or may not, no spoilers here) be a Scouse talk radio version of Play Misty For Me. Glenister is highly watchable throughout the four episodes, even when it turns out that the event Tony is so tortured about is something he really neednt have tortured himself over at all (and, indeed, in real life he probably wouldnt have). If I have a criticism of the way his character has been written/directed its that as a tortured cabbie Glenister ticks all the boxes; as an inspirational teacher fallen on tough times, not so much. Also, while the teaching profession is always under the cosh (as Tony makes clear to Lawrence during their late-night chats), Im pretty sure things havent gone so completely to hell in Liverpools educational handcarts that they are depriving the local St Kevins of their rightful apostrophes! Nonetheless, aside from an on-screen grammar crisis at the fictional secondary school, I was always rooting for a happy ending and, whether or not Tony gets it, you probably will too. GUY MARTINS LOST WW2 BOMBER Stream on Channel 4 Rating: Moving... But more Guy please! Fans of irrepressible Guy Martins on-screen enthusiasm for a challenging engineering project will have found much to love in this moving film. Due to the scale of the project though, there was less of the hands-on Martin than we usually enjoy. You can stream Guy Martin's Lost WW2 Bomber on Channel 4 (file image) Lancaster Bomber ED603 was on its way home from a mission on 13 June 1943 when it was shot down by the Luftwaffe, ending up at the bottom of Lake IJssel in The Netherlands with the loss of its seven-man crew. Four bodies were subsequently recovered, identified and buried, but three remained lost. So, in 2023, marking the 80th anniversary, an extraordinary recovery operation was put in place. The Dutch government considers this a debt of honour and a duty of care, explained forensics expert Lieutenant Els Schiltmans, hoping to be able to identify the remains of Raymond Edward Moore, Arthur Smart and Charles Sprack. Martin inevitably put it more bluntly: The lads getting on them planes their chances of coming back was next to none Fair play! Fact: while the average life expectancy in their unit was just 12 missions, the missing men had flown at least 40. Powerful stuff. Due to the scale of the project though, there was less of the hands-on Martin than we usually enjoy Pip (Emma Myers) is a teenage amateur sleuth but theres no other obvious reason why A Good Girls Guide To Murder (BBC iPlayer) is aimed exclusively at youngsters. And while Id never heard of the 22-year-old American, Myers has 10.5 million followers on Instagram! Her pitch-perfect accent makes for a convincing British teen, while the fabulous Anna Maxwell Martin (just 75.2k Insta followers) plays Pips mum and shes nothing like her other famous mum role, Motherlands Julia. In Spent (Mondays, BBC2), model-turned-stand-up-turned-actor Michelle de Swarte mines her own past for comedy gold Not just a pretty face In Spent (Mondays, BBC2), model-turned-stand-up-turned-actor Michelle de Swarte mines her own past for comedy gold. As Mia, shes a sofa-surfing former catwalk star who runs from looming bankruptcy in Brooklyn (Youve got to spend the poverty out of your system, she explains) to start over back in south London. The humour isnt for everyone, but Spent is full of wit, pathos and great lines proving de Swartes not just a pretty face. A quarter of a century later, Winona Ryder is reflecting on a look that has recently made a comeback. After Kendall Jenner claimed to be the first person to wear an archival Givenchy look created by Alexander McQueen in 1999 at this year's Met Gala, Ryder, 52, has confirmed she modeled the style 25 years ago for Flaunt Magazine. 'I heard about that,' Ryder told Harper's Bazaar after Jenner, 28, said on the red carpet in May that she's the 'first human' to wear the dress. 'I do remember that photo shoot. It was with my dear friend [and makeup artist] Kevyn Aucoin' said Ryder. 'And I did wear it. I have pictures,' she added. 'The photographer gave me some prints. I'm in a tartan in one of them, and I'm in that dress.' After Kendall Jenner claimed to be the first person to wear an archival Givenchy look created by Alexander McQueen in 1999 at this year's Met Gala, Winona Ryder has confirmed she modeled the piece back then for Flaunt Magazine 'I heard about that,' Ryder told Harper's Bazaar after Jenner said on the red carpet in May that she's the 'first human' to wear the dress Jenner previously told Vogue that the dress was 'literally a sleeping beauty,' keeping with the Costume Institute Benefit's 'Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion' theme. 'It's been sleeping for the last 25 years,' said Jenner, adding: 'It's such a special moment. I feel extremely honored that they're allowing me to wear it.' Givenchy clarified at the time that Ryder wore a replica in her 1999 Flaunt shoot, meaning Jenner was the first person to wear that specific dress. Photographer Warwick Saint, who shot the Flaunt cover of Ryder, previously shared the photos after Jenner's Met outing. 'I shot this image of Winona Ryder back in 1999, wearing this authentic Givenchy dress,' Saint wrote on Instagram. 'It was captured at Milk Studios for Flaunt Magazine, with makeup by Kevin Aucoin, hair by Ward, and styling by Kithe Brewster,' he recalled. Saint continued, 'Interestingly, Kendall Jenner claimed she was the first to wear this dress and a few people have reached out to me asking if it was authentic ~ it definitely was the authentic Givenchy dress for sure.' Others were quick to call out Jenner over seemingly misleading fans about the authenticity of her look. 'What a scam, turns out Kendall Jenner is not the first person to wear this Givenchy by McQueen gown!' wrote one person on X. What a scam, turns out Kendall Jenner is not the first person to wear this Givenchy by McQueen gown! Winona Ryder in Flaunt Magazine, 1999, wearing the same dress https://t.co/KIvFUzvr2r pic.twitter.com/n2W5pGhLVf La Mode Unknown (@LaModeUnknown) May 7, 2024 'And I did wear it. I have pictures,' added Ryder. 'The photographer gave me some prints. I'm in a tartan in one of them, and I'm in that dress' Givenchy previously clarified that Ryder wore a replica in her 1999 Flaunt shoot, meaning Jenner was the first person to wear that specific dress 'Not sure why Kendall said shes the first person to wear it, she may not have known it was worn before unless Winona's version isnt the original,' another added. Others spoke up in defense of the Kardashians star. 'I'm sorry but there's no way y'all think Winona who is 5'3 is going to fit into a piece where the model is like 5'10. It's obviously a replica,' one person wrote. 'Some of y'all have some vendetta against Kendall that isn't making y'all use your brain correctly (not targeted to the op),' they added. Actor and filmmaker Robert Redford is scheduled to join classical music and culinary stars at Festival del Sole, returning to Northern Californias Wine Country next month. George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival Actor and filmmaker Robert Redford is scheduled to join classical music and culinary stars at Festival del Sole, returning to Northern Californias Wine Country next month. Scheduled for Aug. 1-4 in Sonoma County, the event is set to feature international musicians, wine events, plus a gala dinner and auction attended by Redford and his wife, multimedia environmental artist Sibylle Szaggars Redford. Festival del Sole, founded in Italy by entrepreneur and pianist Barrett Wissman and his wife, cellist Nina Kotova, began as an intimate gathering for music enthusiasts at a 19th century theater in Cortona, Tuscany, which the couple frequented for weekly movie screenings. Officially launched in 2003, the festival featured concerts, art exhibitions, culinary events, wine tastings and literary gatherings. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It gained popularity quickly, thanks to its artist-centric focus, and Wissman brought the festival to Napa Valley in 2006, rebranding it as Festival Napa Valley in 2016. This August marks its revival as Festival del Sole. The festival opens with performances by instrumentalists Kotova, Olga Kern and Viktoria Mullova, marking their first collaboration. On Aug. 2, celebrated violinist and violist Pinchas Zukerman will perform with cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Michael Brown. The third day of the event features a performance by tenor Joseph Calleja. Actor Robert Redford, left, and wife Sibylle Szaggars Redford. Evan Agostini/ASSOCIATED PRESS The festival concludes with the environmental film, The Way of the Rain: Hope for Earth A Symphony for Our Planet, which captures an October 2023 live performance at Dallass Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Hall, narrated by Redford with music by American composer Tim Janis. More Information Festival del Sole: 7:30 p.m. Aug. 1-3; 6 p.m. Aug. 4. $40-$80. Green Music Center at Sonoma State University, 1801 E Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. www.festivaldelsolearts.com Redford, a longtime Bay Area resident and the star of classic films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Out of Africa, is expected to attend the screening. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Buena Vista Winery and French vintner Jean-Charles Boisset plans to host the gala dinner benefiting the Way of the Rain, a nonprofit founded by Szaggars Redford to promote environmental awareness through art. Bringing back the original essence of what the Festival Del Sole represented both in Italy and in Napa has been a dream of mine, Wissman said. The Bay Area has one of the most stunning performing arts venues in the country, the Green Music Center. It has been an honor to work with them and all the other local wineries and culinary talent to build this ambitious new arts endeavor. Kristen Wiig looked lovely at the premiere of the animated Amazon Prime Video series Sausage Party: Foodtopia on Wednesday night. The Bridesmaids star, 50, stunned in a pink and green floral print on a white background tank dress, which made her blue eyes stand out. The Despicable Me 4 star who said she'd never do a Bridesmaids sequel paired the classic silhouette with a pair of gold pumps and layered gold necklaces. The Saturday Night Live alum wore her short hair parted on the side and casually windblown. Her co-star Seth Rogen, 42, looked dapper in a brown plaid jacket and pants with a white shirt. Kristen Wiig looked lovely at the premiere of the animated Amazon Prime Video series Sausage Party: Foodtopia on Wednesday night The Bridesmaids star, 50, looked stunning in a pink and green floral print on a white background tank dress, which made her blue eyes stand out Wiig and Rogen are reprising their roles as Frank the hotdog and Brenda Bunson the bun from the 2016 animated film Sausage Party in the series for Amazon Prime. Edward Norton as Sammy and Michael Cera as Berry will also return for the spin-off series which adds Will Forte, Natasha Rothwell and Sam Richardson to its cast. The full series dropped on Amazon Prime on Thursday, July 11 and continues the war against the humans as Rogen's hot dog leads the rest of his edible friends to a safe haven. Things quickly go awry and the gang has to keep running from hungry humans. Rogen announced his involvement in the series last month, posting the trailer for the series on Instagram. 'Nobody asked for this, but they're getting it anyway! Sausage Party: Foodtopia is COMMING!,' he captioned the post. The series picks up where the raunchy film left off in 2016. Rogen created both. At the premiere on Wednesday, Rogen told The Hollywood Reporter: 'We always hoped to do more, honestly.' She was joined by co-star Seth Rogen at the event in LA The Despicable Me 4 star paired the classic silhouette with a pair of gold pumps The Saturday Night Live alum wore her short hair parted on the side and casually windblown She had on layered gold necklaces Seth Rogen, 42, looked dapper in a brown plaid jacket and pants with a white shirt He had on vintage-inspired brown seeing glasses Kristen and Seth were also joined by Sam Richardson and Sugar Lyn Beard Wiig and Rogen are reprising their roles as Frank the hotdog and Brenda Bunson the bun from the 2016 animated film Sausage Party in the series for Amazon Prime 'We kept thinking about it, we kept making jokes about it; it was a thing we kind of never stopped talking about and never stopped enjoying the idea of.' 'I think television is so different than when we made the first movie and it allows for so much more in a lot of ways,' he explained why he didn't opt to make a sequel rather than a spin-off. 'I think for especially things like this, we can take much bigger swings with the show than we probably could with a movie creatively in a lot of ways and we have a lot more freedom and money than we would have in a movie version of this.' 'This whole thing is like a labor of love for us, we work very hard on it, which is very sad given what it's about and what happens in it. The amount of thought and energy and time that very lovely and smart people put into this show is, again, at times embarrassing,' Rogen admitted. Love Island's latest bombshell Lolly Hart ruffled feathers during Thursday night's show but viewers are convinced that ITV producers are controlling the 'narrative'. During the episode, flight attendant Lolly, 30, chose three of the guys - Joey Essex, 33, Ciaran Davies, 21, and Konnor Ewudzi, 28 - for a date in the hideaway. However, fans believe producers 'told' the new bombshell who to pick to create 'drama' between the islanders and their couples as Ciaran and Joey are happily coupled up with Nicole Samuel and Jessy Potts. Joey was first up on the date with Lolly, leaving Jessy less than impressed as the TOWIE star went to get to know the bombshell. Lolly instantly didn't hold back her feelings about Joey's current couple with Jessy. Love Island's latest bombshell Lolly Hart ruffled feathers during Thursday night's show but viewers are convinced that ITV producers are controlling the 'narrative' During the episode, flight attendant Lolly, 30, chose three of the guys - Joey Essex, 33, Ciaran Davies, 21, and Konnor Ewudzi, 28 - for a date in the hideaway She said: 'I think your personality and my personality would go together to a tee, but I have got something to say you've kinda gone back in your shell a little bit from the beginning, please correct me if I'm wrong. 'I feel like you're jokey, laughy and fun but since you've been with Jessy, she's a gorgeous, gorgeous girl, she's naturally beautiful but I don't know if there's something missing between you both' In the villa, Jessy was left questioning how Joey's date was going with the new bombshell. She said to the girls: 'Karma's a b**** and she's called Lolly if she can take him, then she can have him'. Next up was Konnor who had a very flirt date with the bombshell from Leicestershire before her final date was with Ciaran who completely shut down a romantic connection with her straight away. However, Welsh beauty Nicole was left questioning why the new girl would pick Ciaran as they have been closed off for a while. Viewers quickly took to X - formerly known as Twitter - to say 'producers told Lolly to pick Ciaran and Joey to cause tension'. 'The producers pushing this narrative to make Joey seem loyal to Jessy. You cant trick me! #loveIsland'. However, fans believe producers 'told' the new bombshell who to pick to create 'drama' between the islanders and their couples as Ciaran and Joey are happily coupled up with Nicole Samuel and Jessy Potts Joey was first up on the date with Lolly leaving Jessy less than impressed as the TOWIE star went to get to know the bombshell Next up was Konnor who had a very flirt date with the bombshell from Leicestershire before her final date was with Ciaran who completely shut down a romantic connection with her straight away However, Welsh beauty Nicole was left questioning why the new girl would pick Ciaran as they have been closed off for a while Viewers quickly took to X - formerly known as Twitter - to say 'producers told Lolly to pick Ciaran and Joey to cause tension 'The producers told her to pick Ciaran to add some drama Im convinced lol #loveIsland'. 'The producers clearly told Lolly to choose Ciaran, she wants a husband and she definitely does not want someone who has just entered adulthood #loveIsland'. 'Feel like the producers told Lolly to pick Ciarian to cause tension. Feel bad for her #loveisland'. Ahead of entering the villa Lolly explained how she is looking forward to getting to know Konnor and is interested in Joey as they are a 'similar age'. She said: 'Joey is a similar age to me and has a good sense of humour so I think we will get on well. I worry that we are the same height but I need to stop being so picky. Konnor is also great.' Lolly regularly posts to social media with content from her jet set lifestyle, visiting locations like Dubai and Washington, as well as sharing sweet snaps of her Dalmatian called Humphrey. She studied for a BA Hons Fashion Buying and Retailing at London Metropolitan University. Lolly went on to work at Monarch Airlines, before landing a role as cabin crew at Virgin Atlantic in 2015 and has worked at the company for nearly 10 years. She is mutual friends with a number of ex Love Island lads including Wes Nelson and Chris Hughes. Lolly regularly posts to social media with content from her jet set lifestyle, visiting locations like Dubai and Washington, as well as sharing sweet snaps of her Dalmatian called Humphrey She studied for a BA Hons Fashion Buying and Retailing at London Metropolitan University and went on to work at Monarch Airlines, before landing a role as cabin crew at Virgin Atlantic in 2015 She is followed on social media by EastEnders legend Dean Gaffney and Gary Lineker's son George. It comes after a surprise dumping saw four people sent packing during Wednesday's episode. In a decision made by the public, Casa Amor Islanders Emma Draper, Hugo Godfroy and Blade Siddiqi were the latest to be dumped. But the most shocking turn of events was original Islander Jess White being among those to receive the least votes and therefore also dumped, leaving Nicole Samuel and Mimii Ngulube in tears. After a dramatic kissing challenge, Ayo Odukoya later received a text saying for the villa to gather around the firepit. 'Islanders, the public have been voting for their favourite girl and favourite boy, those with the fewest votes will be at risk of being dumped from the island tonight ,' a text sent to Grace Jackson read. 'As Josh and Reuben are the newest Islanders, they are not included in the vote.' It was then revealed the three boys to receive the least amount of votes were Blade, Hugo and Ayo, while the girls were Jess, Emma and Jess Spencer. The final decision as to who would leave was left to those at home, and ultimately Blade, Hugo, Emma and Jess were dumped. Of her exit, Jess later said: 'It's a bittersweet moment, I always said if I made it past week one Id be proud of myself, so to make it to week five is amazing. 'It was nothing like I expected, it was everything and more.' Jess threw support behind her Welsh bestie Nicole, as she said: 'The relationships you form are so special, I'm so proud of everyone and think we will all be friends for life. 'I was like everyone's big sister but Samantha, Nicole and Uma were so lovely and people I hope to have in my life for a very long time. Nicole for the win, she's my little sister and best friend.' Dishing the dirt on his connection with Grace, Blade admitted that while they were attracted to each other, the romance fizzled out. The Love Island villa was in for a shock on Wednesday when a surprise dumping saw four people sent packing The most shocking turn of events was original Islander Jess White being among those to receive the least votes and therefore also dumped, leaving Nicole Samuel (pictured) and Mimii Ngulube in tears Of her exit, Jess later said: 'It's a bittersweet moment, I always said if I made it past week one Id be proud of myself, so to make it to week 5 is amazing He said: 'Grace is a great girl and although things fizzled out a bit towards the end, it was all good with us. 'In the end, we were slightly different people, as attracted as we were to each other we could only go so far, it was something we needed to find out and explore naturally, and thats what we did. We had a great time.' Australian influencer Indy Clinton has revealed she 'accidentally' removed 38,000 Instagram followers. Taking to the social media platform on Thursday, the 26-year-old explained the slip-up. Looking down at the camera with disheveled hair and covering her mouth in shock, the mother-of-three wrote, 'I accidentally just removed 38,000 followers because Instagram told me they were flagged for review.' The social media star, who has over 600,00 followers on Instagram and 1.9 million on TikTok, claimed Instagram gave her an option to 'remove all', an action she decided to take. '[Instagram] didn't tell me how many there were until I clicked the button,' she added, explaining that she didn't realise how many followers she had deleted from her account. Australian influencer Indy Clinton has revealed she 'accidentally' removed 38,000 Instagram followers Looking down at the camera with disheveled hair and covering her mouth in shock, the mother-of-three wrote, 'I accidentally just removed 38,000 followers because Instagram told me they were flagged for review' It comes as the mummy blogger recently shared a very relatable video to social media of her chaotic household before mysteriously deleting it. She posted a one-minute clip that offered a glimpse into dinner time at her household with three children. Things quickly turned chaotic as Indy and her husband Ben Azar had a hard time controlling their youngsters. The social media star, who has over 600,00 followers on Instagram and 1.9 million on TikTok , claimed that Instagram gave her an option to 'remove all,' an action that she decided to take Two of the couple's kids - Navy and Bambi - were seen climbing across furniture and screaming while their youngest, Soul, six months, sat in a high chair. Ben appeared well and truly over it and loudly exclaimed: 'Sit down at your table!' Indy, unimpressed with her older kids' attempts at finishing their dinner, caused upset as she declared: 'No, you cannot have custard, you did not eat your dinner.' The clip was deleted from Indy's account but has since been reposted to influencer.updates.au's TikTok. Social media users showed their support for the relatable young family with one person writing: 'This is our house too and you all stayed way calmer then we would.' 'Glad someone shows breakdowns are okay and normal in parenting. We can't know it all,' another commented. Sunrise viewers have slammed the top rating breakfast show's 'terrible' new look after Seven's recent layoffs. A number of regular watchers of the program have posted to the Media Spy forums to criticise the show's revamped graphics. One forum poster shared a screenshot of a graph used on the show to demonstrate the affordability of dental procedures in Bali relative to Australia. However the confusing pie chart showed Australia with the visibly smaller portion than Bali, seeming to indicate local dentistry was in fact cheaper. 'This graph is supposed to show that dental procedures are 2/3 cheaper in Bali than Australia,' the puzzled poster wrote, leading to several comments. 'Were their graphic artists also made redundant recently? Those graphics look terrible,' said one commenter, referring to the recent round of redundancies at the network. 'Well, probably. It's a brand new young and fresh team now remember?' quipped another. 'They've let their Adobe subscription lapse and now use [free design software] Canva,' wrote another post, followed by a cry laughing emoji. Sunrise viewers have slammed the top rating breakfast show's 'terrible' new look after the network's recent layoffs. Pictured: Natalie Barr and Michael Usher A number of regular watchers of the program have posted to the Media Spy forums to criticise the show's revamped graphics. One forum poster shared a screenshot of a graph used on the show to demonstrate the affordability of dental procedures in Bali relative to Australia Users also critiqued the show's graphics explaining recent Melbourne train delays, however one user defended Sunrise staff by claiming those images were 'provided by Metro Trains'. The Seven Network has undergone upheaval in recent weeks with a raft of job cuts, as well as the ongoing fallout from the network's controversial Spotlight interview with Bruce Lehrmann. Spotlight boss Mark Llewellyn left the company after ex-producer Taylor Auerbach disclosed the network's alleged role in facilitating cocaine and prostitutes for interviews with Lehrmann. Veteran journalist Robert Ovadia has also launched legal action against Seven after he was sacked by the network. Those departures - plus many in digital division - have made some journalists fearful that many more are to follow. 'This graph is supposed to show that dental procedures are 2/3 cheaper in Bali than Australia,' the confused poster wrote, to which many critics replied Up to 150 jobs are set to be axed, with Seven's chief executive Jeff Howard expected to announce cuts across the television and print divisions, sales and marketing teams. On Tuesday, Seven described planned redundancies as 'unfortunate', but added: 'We are not discussing the detail.' Disgruntled TV staff fear there may be no other options for them if they leave Seven now with other TV networks, including Nine enduring their own cuts. One staffer admitted: 'There isn't anywhere else to go.' Many months after soap opera General Hospital paid tribute to the late Jackie Zeman in a tribute episode, another show is honoring her. Zeman passed away in Thousand Oaks, California at age 70 back in May 2023 after a short battle with cancer. General Hospital - where she played the iconic Bobbie Spencer for more than four decades - paid tribute to her in two January episodes. The Peacock soap opera The Bay - where she played Sofia Madison off and on from 2010 to 2023 - has also announced a tribute episode, via Variety. The special episode of The Bay will stream on Peacock in September, with many of her former General Hospital co-stars set to guest star. Many months after soap opera General Hospital paid tribute to the late Jackie Zeman in a tribute episode, another show is honoring her. The Peacock soap opera The Bay - where she played Sofia Madison off and on from 2010 to 2023 - has also announced a tribute episode, via Variety The special episode of The Bay will stream on Peacock in September, with many of her former General Hospital co-stars set to guest star 'The special episode titled Sofia will be a celebration of both the Sofia character and Jackie Zemans life, with several special guest stars that meant something to Jackies legacy,' showrunner and head writer Gregori J. Martin said in a statement. Dee Wallace (E.T.) will guest star as Sofia's sister, who moves to Bay City to launch a fragrance line in honor of her sibling. Leigh McCloskey, who played one of Bonnie Spencer's ex-husbands on GH, will play Hank Henderson, Sofia's first husband and father of her two daughters. The special episode will feature a gala launch of the fragrance line, which will features a speech by McCloskey's Henderson... with a unique twist. The words he'll be saying are words written by Zeman's actual daughters, Cassidy and Lacey Rose. Another one of Zeman's GH co-stars - Tamara Braun - who played Bonnie Spencer's daughter Carly Corinthos - will also guest star. She will play Rita 'Elise' Kennedy, described as, 'a blind woman who is given the gift of sight after receiving Sofias donated corneas.' 'Knowing how special Tamara was to Jackie, I created the role of Elise specifically for her, says Martin. 'The special episode titled Sofia will be a celebration of both the Sofia character and Jackie Zemans life, with several special guest stars that meant something to Jackies legacy,' showrunner and head writer Gregori J. Martin said in a statement The words he'll be saying are words written by Zeman's actual daughters, Cassidy and Lacey Rose Martin and Wendy Riche will serve as executive producers, with episodes expected to debut daily this fall on Popstar! before VOD releases Martin also reached out to Michele Val Jean, the showrunner of the upcoming CBS soap The Gates, for advice on what to name the character. She suggested that Brauns character was named after Zemans mother, Rita, and her two granddaughters. 'I also knew whatever name we gave this character had to be something extra special to Jackie,' Martin added. Real Andrews, James Preston and Kym Whitley will be back as series regulars alongside Darnell Williams (All My Children) in a recurring role as psychiatrist Dr. Josef Givens. Martin and Wendy Riche will serve as executive producers, with episodes expected to debut daily this fall on Popstar! before VOD releases. Andrew Lincoln has been spotted back filming in the UK as he takes to set for a new thriller series. The Love Actually star, 50, returned to British shores for filming ITV's six-part series Cold Water. Andrew was sporting a blue hoodie as he filmed scenes with his co-star, Game of Thrones actor Indira Varm, on Thursday. He was also seen having a joke around with two child actors on set in between takes on the streets of Dennistoun, in Glasgow's east end. The role will be The Walking Dead star's first television role in the UK in 15 years. Andrew Lincoln was spotted back filming in the UK as he took to set for a new thriller series in Glasgow on Thursday Andrew will be joined by the likes of big names Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Indira Varma (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Eve Myles (Keeping Faith) for the show. He plays a middle-age man living in London who is 'secretly raging at his life as a stay-at-home dad'. The synopsis reads: 'When his failure to intervene in a violent confrontation in a playground brings his identity crisis to a head, John ups and moves his family to the rural idyll of Coldwater, as far away from London as possible.' Upon his arrival in the fictional Scottish village of Coldwater, John is quickly befriended by next-door neighbour Tommy (Bremner), a charming, confident man, devoted husband to the local vicar Rebecca (Myles). He is a man of faith, a pillar of the community and self-appointed leader of the village's all-male book group. John is both impressed and slightly fascinated by Tommy but his wife Fiona (Varma) despises him. As a successful former chef hoping to launch a new venture in Coldwater, Fiona sees the move as an opportunity to leave the past behind them. To not only re-build their lives as a family but re-ignite the long-lost spark in their fading marriage. The Love Actually star, 50, returned to British shores for filming ITV's six-part series Cold Water The role will be The Walking Dead star's first television role in the UK in 15 years (Pictured in 1997) Andrew will be joined by the likes of big names Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Indira Varma (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Eve Myles (Keeping Faith) for the show (Pictured in February) When her husband's relationship with their enigmatic new neighbour becomes increasingly intense, Fiona's suspicions are aroused. She is unconvinced Tommy is all he seems to be. Writer and creator David Ireland has said of the series: 'Cold Water started with a question I was asking myself. Where do I want to live the countryside or the city? 'Such an innocent beginning, but from it came this dark, funny, twisted thriller. I was delighted when Sister loved the script and thrilled when ITV decided to commission it. 'And I'm amazed we've managed to attract such a peerless cast, led by the formidable Andrew Lincoln. I hope viewers will be find it intoxicating.' Writer and creator David Ireland has said of the series: 'Cold Water started with a question I was asking myself. Where do I want to live the countryside or the city?' (Pictured in February) Head of Drama at ITV said: 'We are very excited for ITV to be the home for this brilliant new thriller exploring masculinity, religion and ultimately murder. 'David's scripts are wonderful, and original and have attracted an incredible cast led by Andrew Lincoln. 'It promises to be a really unmissable drama and I am delighted to be working with Jane Featherstone again and her brilliant team at Sister.' DaBaby will not serve any jail time in a 2020 felony battery case, as his legal team agreed to a plea deal in a Los Angeles County courtroom Thursday. The rapper, 32, who was not present in person but represented by lawyer Blair Berk, entered a guilty plea to misdemeanor battery, Rolling Stone reported Thursday after reviewing court docs. He received a sentence of a year's probation on top of time served from Judge Ray Jurado, according to the outlet. The Cleveland-born musical artist in the case had been accused of sucker punching a Los Angeles homeowner named Gary Pagar, 68, whose mansion he was shooting a video at, the outlet reported. DaBaby, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, was ordered to pay Pagar $10,000 in restitution over the incident, and remain at least 100 yards away from him, according to Rolling Stone. DaBaby, 32, will not serve any jail time in a 2020 felony battery case, as his legal team agreed to a plea deal in a Los Angeles County courtroom Thursday. Pictured in New Jersey in 2021 DaBaby will not be permitted to 'possess, buy or sell any deadly weapons, including firearms' while he is on probation in connection with the plea deal. The musical artist had previously served one day in jail in connection with his arrest in the incident in 2021, according to the outlet. Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Heather Brel said that her office opted to let go of the charge of felony battery with serious bodily injury 'due to problems of proof of proving serious bodily injury at trial,' according to Rolling Stone. Kirk faced as many as four years in prison if he had been convicted on the felony charge. During Thursday's proceedings, the judge had read a victim impact statement Pagar had provided the court with in the case. The Rockstar artist remains in litigation with Pagar, who has sued him for battery, fraud and breach of contract in connection with the December 2, 2020 incident, in which Pagar says DaBaby assaulted him amid a conflict over a video being shot at the home Pagar was renting him. Proceedings in that case are slated to go to trial in September, the outlet reported. Pagar said in legal docs reviewed by the outlet that he initially rented his six-bedroom home to DaBaby during the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in November of 2020. The musical artist had been accused of sucker punching an LA homeowner named Gary Pagar, 68, whose mansion he was shooting a video at. Pictured in Atlanta in September of 2021 DaBaby was ordered to pay Pagar $10,000 in restitution over the incident, and remain at least 100 yards away from him. Pictured last year in LA Pagar said that he mandated in the rental agreement that a maximum of 12 people could be on the premises at any given time. Pagar told the court that Kirk breached the arrangement in having 40 people on the premises to make a music video for the song Play U Lay, which also featured rapper Stunna 4 Vegas and Jake Paul. Pagar said in legal docs that DaBaby and his associates turned off security cameras at the home, at which time he said that they could not continue to film a 'commercial' production on the premises. Pagar told the court that Kirk 'sucker-punched [him] in the face, knocking out his tooth and leaving him bruised and bloodied' when he arrived to the property to confront him about the breached agreement. Pagar said DaBaby and his associates began 'pushing him, shoving, spitting on him, threatening him, and taunting him' in front of the home, 'tossed' his phone around and keyed his vehicle. DaBaby said that Pagar used racial slurs and spat on him when he showed up to the home, TMZ reported in 2022. Jack Quaid the son of superstars Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan has no problem owning up to the 'nepo baby' label. At the age of 31, the actor has racked up over 60 TV and film credits and is currently starring on the hit Amazon Prime Video series The Boys. And he acknowledges that being a Hollywood offspring has put him in a 'privileged' position. 'I am an immensely privileged person, was able to get representation pretty early on, and that's more than half the battle,' Jack told the Daily Beast in a new interview on Thursday. 'I knew the door was open for me in a lot of ways that it's just not for a lot of actors. And I've just tried to work as hard as I possibly can to prove that I deserve to walk through that door.' Jack Quaid the son of superstars Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan has no problem owning up to the 'nepo baby' label. In a new interview, the actor, 31, admitted that he's in a 'privileged' position Jack is also aware of his privilege when he's up for a role in a romantic comedy, considering his mom Meg is the 'undisputed Queen of Rom-Coms.' 'So if that's in the rom-com space, it's got to be different enough, and I need to work my a** off,' he told the outlet. Quaid made his film debut in The Hunger Games (2012), alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, and has since gone on to build an impressive Hollywood resume. More recently, he starred in the Scream (2022) reboot, the biographical thriller Oppenheimer (2023), and three seasons of the satirical superhero series The Boys. He currently has no less than three different films in some phase of post-production that includes the sci-fi thriller Companio with Sophie Thatcher; the action thriller Novocaine co-starring Amber Midthunder and Ray Nicholson, and action-comedy Heads Of State starring Idris Elba, John Cena and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Ironically, it was Ryan who tried to defend her son from the nepo baby moniker by shining a light on how the term discounts the work her son has put in to his career. 'That nepo stuff is so dismissive of his work ethic, his gifts, and how sensitive he is to the idea of his privilege,' Ryan, 62, told the outlet at the time. While Jack more than appreciated his mother having is back, he made a point of admitting that he has benefitted from having famous parents. 'I am an immensely privileged person, was able to get representation pretty early on, and that's more than half the battle,' Jack told the Daily Beast in a new interview on Thursday; Jack seen with mom Meg in 2004 when he was just 11 Jack is also aware of his privilege when he's up for a role in a romantic comedy, considering his mom Meg is the 'undisputed Queen of Rom-Coms'; Meg seen in March 'My first thought was like, she's being a mom. She's being a loving mom. But I don't think she's trying to say that I'm not a nepo baby. I think she's just trying to say that, in her opinion, it undermines my talent,' he told the Daily Beast. 'I don't think it undermines my talent. I know that I work hard, and I know I've heard 'no' way more than I've heard 'yes.' But I also know that this industry is insanely hard to break into, and I had an easier time doing that than most. Both things can be true.' Ryan, 62, actually remembers the time when she and her newly divorced husband came to the realization that their son was destined for stardom when they saw him in a middle school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. 'I was newly divorced from his dad, and he was seated at the other side of the gym. I had my head in my hands and was like, 'Oh, no. He's good. He's really good,' the When Harry Met Sally... actress explained. 'I leaned forward, and I see Dennis, and he's also leaning forward with his head in his hands. I just knew,' she recalled. Dennis and Meg were married from 1991 to 2001 and Jack is their only child. In 2022, Jack was among the celebrity children who were named in a New York Magazine piece last year with the headline She Has Her Mother's Eyes. And Agent: Extremely Overanalyzing Hollywood's Nepo-Baby Boom. 'I knew the door was open for me in a lot of ways that it's just not for a lot of actors. And I've just tried to work as hard as I possibly can to prove that I deserve to walk through that door,' said Jack; Jack seen with dad Jack At the age of 31, the actor has racked up over 60 TV and film credits and is currently starring on the hit Amazon Prime Video series The Boys The piece delved into the seemingly growing phenomenon of kids born to famous people who themselves seek a career in show business. Along with other famous kids, Jack was pictured on the cover with his adult head superimposed on an infant's body. The other young stars on the cover include Dakota Johnson (daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith), John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington and Pauletta Washington), Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman), Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet), Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis), and Maude Apatow (daughter of Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann. She's had a difficult few months amid a boot camp giveaway drama which saw her lose thousands of dollars. But Roxy Jacenko, 44, was smiling again as she continued to enjoy a luxury European holiday in the South of France with her husband Oliver Curtis and their children Pixie, 13, and Hunter, 10, on Thursday. The couple were spotted on a rare outing together, enjoying ice-cream with their kids on a jetty in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Roxy showed off her slender figure in a $761 Mattheau white mini dress paired with Christian Dior slides and sunglasses. The PR guru wore her blonde locks up in a bun and glowed in minimal makeup. Tech guru Oliver also flaunted his own holiday glow in a pair of boardshorts and an unbuttoned shirt that showed off his muscular frame. The happily family tucked into their sweet treats before boarding a small boat to take them to the private yacht they sailing around the South of France. Roxy and her family are currently living it up in France after paying out $76,000 in refunds to disgruntled entrants of her failed $10million house lottery. Roxy Jacenko, 44, is enjoying a luxury European holiday in the South of France with her husband Oliver Curtis and their children Pixie, 13, and Hunter, 10 The PR guru had a difficult few months amid a boot camp giveaway drama which saw her lose thousands of dollars Roxy recently paid 10 per cent of what she claimed to have put aside for refunds following her highly-controversial failed lottery. She had partnered with businessmen Youssef Tleis and Kassim Alaouie on her Brand Boot camp online business course and the trio launched a promotion offering new customers the chance to win three epic prizes. The prizes included a $10million waterfront Cronulla home - owned by Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie - a Birkin bag and a Rolex timepiece. The promotion was due to be drawn last month before it was halted. The couple were spotted on a rare outing together, enjoying ice-cream with their kids - Pixie, 13, and Hunter, 10 - on a jetty in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on Thursday Roxy showed off her slender figure in a $761 Mattheau white mini dress paired with Christian Dior slides and sunglasses Tech guru Oliver also flaunted his own holiday glow in a pair of boardshorts and an unbuttoned shirt that showed off his muscular frame Roxy and her husband have been married for 12 years after tying the knot in 2012 Roxy took to social media at the time to claim she was leaving after discovering a 'shortfall' in the prize money pool and insisted she would offer customers' refunds out of her own pocket. 'I stand by my offer to refund customers and as a result of this, $684,000 of my own personal funds remain in my solicitor's trust account,' she told Daily Mail Australia at the time. Roxy has since issued $76,019 in refunds to entrants of the aborted giveaway, just more than 10 per cent of the money she claimed to have set aside for the repayments, The Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday. Roxy had a giggle as the family chatted away on the jetty The kids tucked into their sweet treats before boarding a small boat to take them to the private yacht they sailing around the South of France A total of 7,489 people had paid between $29 and $499 to sign up for the boot camp, but it has been estimated that some 90 per cent of participants remain out of pocket after the refunds. Only participants who lodged a refund request within a seven-day window from June 9 until June 15 were eligible to receive any refund from Roxy. After Roxy came under fire for the brief refund window, she clapped back at critics on social media, claiming she wasn't even required to offer it. 'I'm now processing refunds from my personal bank account. As you know, I entered into a partnership with two others, which was a dismal f**king failure,' she began. Roxy and her family are currently living it up in France after paying out $76,000 in refunds to disgruntled entrants of her failed $10million house lotter 'If you're an honourable person, you put your hand in your pocket and refund people, which is what I am doing commencing this week. Refunds remain open until today. 'One thing about the refund window, you don't go to Woolworths and buy Nutri-Grain and then in three months time suggest they should take it back and swap it or give you a full refund. 'A seven-day window is not an unusual offer, it is not even something I had to do. I chose to refund those who applied from my own pocket.' It has been claimed Roxy is pushing to have the $76,000 in refunds repaid from liquidators - after Roxy's Bootcamp was ordered to be wound up last week. Roxy's lawyers have reportedly also informed her former business partners that she plans to keep the Birkin bag and Rolex watch she purchased as part of her investment in the giveaway. Roxy also posted a photo of her husband and her best friend as they explored the sights After the failed business venture, the NSW Supreme Court has called in liquidators to wind up the company - from which Roxy resigned as a director last month. Roxy originally sought the appointment of provisional liquidators due to, among other reasons, allegations that Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie had engaged in 'misleading conduct' during the promotion, due to a sub-clause which stated the prizes would only be delivered if the competition achieved more than $11.5million in revenue. But the conditions were never made public by Roxy during a whirlwind of publicity and the clause was also missing from the competition's formal terms and conditions on the Roxy's Bootcamp website. In another update in the highly-publicised saga, Supreme Court Justice Anthony McGrath last week reportedly rejected Jacenko's bid to have her legal costs paid. 'I do not consider it was unreasonable conduct of the proceedings by Mr Tleis to have opposed the application for a provisional liquidator on the basis the reputation of the company and Tleis Investments might be harmed,' Justice McGrath said. She also lapped up the sun onboard their yacht in a leopard print bikini 'Nothing done by Mr Tleis in opposing the appointment of provisional liquidators and subsequently consenting provides justification for a finding that their conduct was unreasonable.' Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie previously argued the promotion should proceed with a $250,000 cash prize, a Birkin handbag and a Rolex watch - after not reaching the $11.5million minimum for the house giveaway. Last month, Roxy said she committed to personally refunding all 7,489 people who signed up to her highly-publicised brand boot camp after the bitter dispute. 'The company account did not have enough to pay the First Prize winner, so I personally loaned the company money so that it could pay off substantial creditors and so that sufficient funds were held in the company's accounts to pay out the $250,000 prize,' she said at the time. 'I loaned the company in excess of $100,000 in order to ensure that sufficient funds were available to the company. 'I could not issue refunds from Shopify as Mr Tleis is the only one with access to the NAB account which holds funds he revoked my access to the company bank account.' While Roxy expressed her regret at entering the business venture, Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie also issued an apology to social media at the time of the failed giveaway. 'Our primary concern has always been you, the public, especially those who participated and purchased an entry into this promotion,' they stated. 'We sincerely apologise to you all. We fought as hard as we could and were even willing to give personal undertakings to support our fight. And posed for happy snaps with her son Hunter 'We want to express our deepest regret for entering into this partnership with Ms Jacenko. It has been an incredibly challenging and eye-opening experience. We sincerely apologise.' Upon adopting provisional liquidator Cathro & Partners to the company last month, Justice McGrath described the promotion scheme as 'highly questionable'. 'The competing interlocutory applications arise in the extraordinary circumstances of the rapid creation and almost equally rapid deterioration in the relationships between Ms Jacenko, Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie over a business venture involving the promoting of training courses offered by Ms Jacenko to the public using a highly questionable promotion scheme,' he said. 'On any view, the promotion has attracted significant adverse publicity this has led to online commentary which has been extremely derogatory about the promotion itself and those involved in it.' Veteran Channel Seven presenter Sharyn Ghidella has been axed from the network, after almost four decades working in the news industry. Ghidella, 58, the face of Seven News in Queensland since 2007, confirmed the news in a fiery Facebook post on Friday. She said her 'tap on the shoulder' finally came while she was at the salon, admitting it was a 'relief' of sorts after several anxious weeks of media job cuts. But she was determined not to go quietly as she took aim at the failing network for prioritising gimmicks like astrology readings over keeping veteran talent. 'When you work in TV for as long as I have, not a day goes by when you aren't expecting the proverbial tap on the shoulder... After 38 years, my shoulder tap has finally come,' Ghidella began. 'It wasn't quite how I expected it to end at Channel Seven. 'I was actually sitting at the hairdressers for work, when I got the call informing me, that after 17 years with the network, my time was up.' Ghidella then said her recent time at the network had been 'miserable' and she was glad to be heading out the door. 'While somewhat saddened by this decision, there is also some sense of relief. As has been widely reported, the past couple of weeks in TV has, sadly, been a miserable affair,' she wrote. 'A long list of talented, loyal and dedicated employees have been shown the door, in what seems to have been an interminable process of pulling the Band-Aid off slowly when it comes to removing what has been deemed excess stock. Veteran Channel Seven presenter Sharyn Ghidella (pictured) has been axed from the network, after almost four decades working in the news industry 'These people are some of the best content creators in the business. They are good people and it's been heartbreaking to watch.' Ghidella added she was not a fan of the network's rebranding of its news programming, which will see comedian Mark Humphries doing a comedy skit at 6.57pm tonight, and 'Astro Tash' start an astrology report next week. 'I'm also not one to have my evening news served up with humour and horoscopes either, so, to be honest, it is time to go,' Ghidella sniped. 'As I'm known to say, the caravan moves on. There is certainly plenty of talent left in the building and I wish them nothing but the best moving forward.' Ghidella (centre) said her 'tap on the shoulder' finally came while she was at the salon getting ready for work, admitting it was a 'relief' of sorts after several anxious weeks of media job cuts She ended her take-no-prisoners post by thanking the many friends she had made throughout her long career with the network. 'A sincere thank you to everyone who has made this possible, so far, including past employers like the Stokes, Packer and Gleeson families and the news directors, executive producers and station managers who saw fit to give a kid from Babinda [in rural Queensland] a go. I owe you so much. 'Then there are the viewers... You will never know how much your kindness and support means. What a privilege it is to be welcomed into your homes to present you the news of the day,' she added. Ghidella's fiery Facebook post took aim at the network for prioritsing gimmicks like astrology readings over keeping veteran talent. (She is seen in 2006 while employed at Channel Nine) Daily Mail Australia has obtained a supportive email addressing Ghidella's axing by Seven Queensland's director of news Michael Coombes. 'For 17 years, Sharyn has been a welcome guest in loungerooms across Queensland always professional, always reliable, always warm,' Coombes wrote. 'But for all of us, she is so much more. A mentor, a colleague, a friend. 'I am sad that the team and our viewers wont have the opportunity to give her the send-off she deserves, but I absolutely respect and understand her wishes. I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for Sharyn. And I know you will all join me in wishing her the very best for the future,' he concluded. Anthony De Ceglie - the controversial blow-in from Seven's WA newspaper business who now runs the television news division - added: 'Sharyn has made a significant contribution to Seven over the past 17 years. 'We are grateful for her hard work and are sorry to see her go. She leaves with sincere thanks from everyone at Seven and our very best wishes for the future.' Sharyn said her recent time at the network had been 'miserable' and she was glad to go Ghidella worked for Ten, Nine and Seven during her lengthy media career. The North Queensland native was a newsreader on the Today show at Nine before joining Channel Seven in 2007. In January 2013, Ghidella began presenting Seven News Brisbane from Sunday to Thursday and was also appointed presenter of Today Tonight Queensland prior to the show's axing in February 2014. Her partner is freelance cameraman Paul Croll, and the couple share two sons. The news comes amid industry rumours Seven may be sold off. The Australian speculated 'you can almost bet the Seven television network is right now for sale. Its all just a matter of price' There has been a cost-cutting bloodbath at Seven as the network's news division comes under new management. Three major names to go at the network recently include veterans Robert Ovadia, Andrew Frampton and seasoned Melbourne crime reporter Cameron Baud, who is known among friends as the 'Harvester of Sorrow' due to his grim news beat. On the Sydney front, Ovadia - perhaps the most high profile of all the figures axed up until Ghidella's - has announced he will take Seven to the Fair Work Commission for unfair dismissal. Daily Mail Australia revealed Ovadia allegedly sent a series of strange, doctored images to a young female reporter before he was dumped. Melbourne crime reporter Cameron Baud (pictured) was recently let go by the Network Sonja Verdugo lost her 46-year-old husband, Jesse Baumgartner, in June 2023 to complications from an opioid addiction. Now a community organizer for Ground Game LA, Verdugo advocates for policies to address addiction and homelessness. Arlene Mejorado/KFF Health News Sonja Verdugo lost her husband to an opioid overdose last year. She regularly delivers medical supplies to people using drugs who are living and dying on the streets of Los Angeles. And she advocates at Los Angeles City Hall for policies to address addiction and homelessness. Yet Verdugo didnt know that hundreds of millions of dollars annually are flowing to California communities to combat the opioid crisis, a payout that began in 2022 and continues through 2038. The money comes from pharmaceutical companies that made, distributed or sold prescription opioid painkillers and that agreed to pay about $50 billion nationwide to settle lawsuits over their role in the overdose epidemic. Even though a recent Supreme Court decision upended a settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, many other companies have already begun paying out and will continue doing so for years. Advertisement Article continues below this ad California, the most populous state, is in line for more than $4 billion. You can walk down the street and you see someone addicted on every corner I mean, its just everywhere, Verdugo said. And Ive never even heard of the funds. And to me, thats crazy. Across the nation, much of this windfall has been shrouded in secrecy, with many jurisdictions offering little transparency on how theyre spending the money, despite repeated queries from people in recovery and families who lost loved ones to addiction. Meanwhile, theres plenty of jockeying over how the money should be used. Companies are lobbying for spending on products that range from medication bottles that lock to full-body scanners to screen people entering jails. Local officials are often advocating for the fields they represent, whether its treatment, prevention or harm reduction. And some governments are using it to plug budget gaps. In California, local governments must report how they spend settlement funds to the states Department of Health Care Services, but theres no requirement that the reports be made public. Advertisement Article continues below this ad California Healthline obtained copies of the documents via a public records request and is now making available for the first time 265 spending reports from local governments for fiscal year 2022-23, the most recent reports filed. The reports provide a snapshot of the early spending priorities, and tensions. Naloxone an early winner As of June 2023, the bulk of opioid settlement funds controlled by California cities and counties more than $200 million had yet to be spent, the reports show. Its a theme echoed nationwide as officials take time to deliberate. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The city and county of Los Angeles accounted for nearly one-fifth of that unspent total, nearly $39 million, though officials say that since the report was filed, theyve begun allocating the money to recovery housing and programs to connect people who are homeless with residential addiction treatment. Among local governments that did use the cash in the first fiscal year, the most popular object of spending was naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses and is often known by the brand name Narcan. The medication accounted for more than $2 million in spending across 19 projects. One of those projects was in the Bay Area in Union City. The community of nearly 70,000 residents had five suspected fentanyl overdoses, two of them fatal, within 24 hours in September. The opioid settlement money was invaluable, Corina Hahn, the citys director of community and recreation services, said in her report. Having these resources available helped educate, train and distribute the Narcan kits to parents, youth and school staff. Union City bought 500 kits, each containing two doses of naloxone. The kits cost about $13,500, with an additional $56,000 set aside for similar projects, including backpacks containing Narcan kits and training materials for high school students. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Union City also plans to expand its outreach to homeless people to fund drug education and recovery services, including addiction counseling. Among local governments that did use the cash in the first fiscal year, the most popular object of spending was naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses and is often known by the brand name Narcan. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Those are the sorts of lifesaving services that Verdugo, the Los Angeles advocate, said are desperately needed as deaths of people living on the streets pile up. She lost her 46-year-old husband, Jesse Baumgartner, in June of last year to an addiction that started after he was prescribed pain medications for a high school wrestling injury. He tried kicking his habit for six years using methadone, but each time prescribers lowered his dosage, the cravings drove him back to illicit drugs. It was just this horrible roller coaster of him not being able to get off of it, Verdugo said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad By then the couple had survived 4 years of being homeless and had been in stable housing for about two years. Fentanyl use, particularly among homeless people, is just rampant, she said. People sometimes are initially exposed to the cheap, highly addictive substance unknowingly when it is mixed with something else. Once they start using it, its like they just cant backtrack, said Verdugo, who works as a community organizer for Ground Game LA. So she leaves boxes of naloxone at homeless encampments in the hope of saving lives. They definitely use it, because its needed right then they cant wait for an ambulance to come out, she said. Cities backtrack on spending for law enforcement By contrast, the cities of Irvine and Riverside listed plans to prioritize law enforcement by buying portable drug analyzers, though neither city did so in the first fiscal year 2022-23. Their inclination mirrored patterns elsewhere in the country, with millions in settlement funds flowing to police departments and jails. But such uses of the money have stirred controversy, and both cities backed away from the drug analyzer purchase after the Department of Health Care Services issued rules that opioid settlement funds may not be used for certain law enforcement efforts. The rules specifically excluded equipment for the purpose of evidence gathering for prosecution, such as the TruNarc Handheld Narcotics Analyzer. In Hawthorne (Los Angeles County), the police department had already spent about $25,000 of settlement funds on an initial installment to buy 80 BolaWraps, devices that shoot Kevlar tethers to wrap around a persons limbs or torso. After the state said BolaWraps were not an allowable expense, the city said it would find other funding sources to pay the remaining installments. In the Bay Area, Santa Rosa spent nearly $30,000 on police officer wellness and support. The funds allowed the police department to boost its contracted wellness coordinator from a part-time to a full-time position and to buy a mobile machine to measure electrical activity in the brain, said Sgt. Patricia Seffens, a spokesperson. The goal is to use the technology on police officers to help assess the traumatic impact of responding to the increasing overdose calls, Seffens said in an email. Sonja Verdugo regularly distributes naloxone, clean needles and drug-smoking pipes, medical supplies, and other products aimed at reducing risk among those living in homeless encampments around Los Angeles. Arlene Mejorado/KFF Health News In Dublin, officials are using part of their $62,000 in settlement cash for a DARE program. DARE, which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, is a series of classes taught by police officers in schools to encourage students to resist peer pressure and avoid drugs. It was initially developed during the Just Say No campaign in the 1980s. Studies have found inconsistent results from the program and no long-term effects on drug use, leading many researchers to dismiss it as ineffective. But on its website, DARE cites studies since the program was updated in 2009, which found a positive effect on fifth graders and statistically significant reductions in drinking and smoking about four months after completing the program. The DARE program when it first came out looks a lot, lot different than what it looks like right now, said Nathan Schmidt, the Dublin police chief. Schmidt said additional settlement money will be used to distribute naloxone to residents and stock it at schools and city facilities. Other local governments in California spent modest sums on a wide range of addiction-related measures. Ukiah (Mendocino County) spent $11,000 for a new heating and air conditioning system for a local drug treatment center. Orange and San Mateo counties spent settlement funds in part on medication-assisted treatment for people incarcerated in their jails. The city of Oceanside (San Diego County) spent $16,000 to showcase drug prevention art and videos made by middle school students in local movie theaters, in public spaces, and on buses and taxis. Advertisement Natalie Portman made a striking arrival at the Lady in the Lake premiere in New York City on Thursday night. The 43-year-old actress who wore a pink mini dress for a promotional event on Wednesday night stunned in a strapless mesh mini dress with a black belt, black corset, and black shorts underlay. The Black Swan sensation's mini frock boasted a split opening at the center, which flashed the second layer. She showed off her toned legs in the fashion-forward getup, which was punctuated with a pair of simple, open-toe black heels. in the forthcoming AppleTV+ limited series, Portman plays Maddie Schwartz, a 60s housewife living in Baltimore who is stirred by an unsolved murder. Natalie Portman made a striking arrival at the Lady in the Lake premiere in New York City on Thursday night The 43-year-old actress stunned in a strapless mesh mini dress with a black belt, black corset, and black shorts underlay Portman pulled her hair back into a sleek chignon with a center part and face-framing pieces left out at the front. She looked beautiful as she stepped onto the red carpet with expertly applied smokey eyeshadow that brought out her hazel eyes. Her cheeks were dusted in soft pink blush and she completed her cosmetics look with a matte, mauve-tone lipstick. The silver screen siren wore diamond earrings and showed off a short, glossy, red manicure. Ahead of the movie screening, she posed alongside 30-year-old co-star Moses Ingram. Ingram plays Cleo Sherwood in the mini series, a mother juggling multiple jobs, who collides with Natalie's Maddie. Ingram arrived to the event in an ivory gown with bows on the straps and vertically places flower accoutrements lining the front. Moses complemented her eye-catching dress with pointy-toe white heels, and her dark hair was pulled up into a big bun and styled with face-framing bangs. The Black Swan sensation's mini frock boasted a split opening at the center, which flashed the second layer Tin the forthcoming AppleTV+ limited series, Portman plays Maddie Schwartz, a 60s housewife living in Baltimore who is stirred by an unsolved murder Natalie posed with 30-year-old co-star Moses Ingram Ingram arrived to the event in an ivory gown with bows on the straps The actresses leaned in for an affectionate embrace on the red carpet Moses complemented her eye-catching dress with pointy-toe white heels. Her dark hair was pulled up into a big bun and styled with face-framing bangs Also at the star-studded affair was 35-year-old Insecure alum Y'lan Noel. The Brooklyn native stepped out in style, hitting the step-and-repeat with his colleagues in a textured light brown suit. The coord's double-breasted jacket was buttoned and layered over a white scoop neck shirt. The fashion-forward ensemble was rounded out with brown leather boots and the actor accessorized with a long gold necklace with a pendant. His dark hair was styled in a neat brush cut and his beard was neatly trimmed, giving him a picture-perfect finish. Ingram, 48-year-old Lady in the Lake director Alma Har'el, and Portman L-R Y'lan Noel, Natalie, Moses Ingram, and Josiah Cross Also at the star-studded affair was 35-year-old Insecure alum Y'lan Noel The Brooklyn native stepped out in style, hitting the step-and-repeat with his colleagues in a textured light brown suit Natalie and Y'lan struck a pose on the red carpet Production designer JC Molina made a fashion statement in a red jersey, which was tucked into his pleated, wide-leg black trousers. He added shiny black dress shoes and walked the red carpet with his brown hair cropped above his ears as he also rocked a mustache. Back in June, the Illinois native used his Instagram platform to promote the series, which is based on the 2019 novel by Laura Lippman. Sharing a trailer of the show, he wrote, 'After a year of hard work in Baltimore and a year and a half of post, its finally here. The trailer for Lady in the Lake.' He added, 'Thank you to everyone who was apart of making my vision of 1960s Baltimore into a reality. 'A special thanks to @francobavtista for keeping the wheels on this fast locomotive and for always being by my side assisting me.' Production designer JC Molina made a fashion statement in a red jersey, which was tucked into his pleated, wide-leg black trousers He added shiny black dress shoes and walked the red carpet with his brown hair cropped above his ears as he also rocked a mustache Actor Mark Feuerstein, 53, wore dark, indigo blue jeans and a navy vest to the premiere Josiah Cross, 23, wore a sleek black suit with a white shirt, white shoes, and a lacy white bow brooch British actor Noah Jupe, 19, sported a black and white color palette. His lustrous head of dark curls were neatly styled and trimmed above his ears and the star tucked his button-up shirt into his trousers. Both his shirt and pants featured thin, stitched, vertical stripes in inverted color schemes his shirt had black accents and his pants had white. The fashionable entertainer accessorized with a thick, black leather choker as well as a hanging cross earring. His eye-catching look was punctuated with a pair of black leather footwear. Actor Tyrik Johnson, 15, was also present at the event, arriving in an all-black outfit that consisted of a suede jacket and long, silver-toned chain with a cross. His light brown mop of curly hair fell over his eyes as he walked the red carpet and posed for snapshots. British actor Noah Jupe, 19, sported a black and white color palette Tyrik Johnson, 15, was also present at the event, arriving in a black outfit Actor Samir Royal Corbin, nine, wore a royal blue suit to Thursday night's premiere The cast and director Alma Harel gathered for a photo op; L-R Jennifer Mogbock, Byron Bowers, Tyrik Johnson, Samir Royal Corbin, Moses Ingram, Alma, Natalie, Y'lan, Bianca Belle, Josiah Cross, Dylan Arnold, Mikey Madison and Noah Jupe Speaking with People in June, Portman explained why Lady in the Lake appealed to her. 'The basis of just a woman wanting to be free is [a] theme that's interesting to me. Another is just being a Jewish woman in Baltimore in the 1960,' the Israeli actress shared. 'My grandmother was from Baltimore, and so there was a lot of imagination for me about what that time was like. 'And then the other thing that was interesting to me was exploring how someone who's oppressed can also be an oppressor,' she added. A protester with the animal rights organization PETA interfered during Thursday's premiere of the motion picture Twisters in Los Angeles, as director Lee Isaac Chung and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell were speaking to the audience prior to the screening. The incident took place amid a protest which occurred at the Westwood Regency Village Theatre, aimed at a rodeo sequence in the action-adventure film, according to PETA. A staffer for The Hollywood Reporter who was inside the venue told the outlet that 'the demonstrator ran down the aisle and rushed the stage' ahead of the motion picture being screened. A female protester made her way up to the front of the theater once the audience was seated and waved a sign while yelling, 'Theres no excuse for animal abuse, the film needs a disclaimer,' a witness told People. Security tackled the protester onto the ground and she was placed in handcuffs by police and led away, according to the outlet. A protester with the animal rights organization PETA interfered during Thursday's premiere of the motion picture Twisters in Los Angeles in an incident which took place amid a larger protest at the Westwood Regency Village Theatre The movie's stars Glen Powell, 35, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, 26, and were speaking to the audience prior to the screening, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The stars were pictured during entrances on Thursday Once the protester was led away, Powell finished his speech ahead of the film; he gave the microphone to costar Anthony Ramos, 32, who acknowledged the incident, saying, 'That was a wild intro - I had to say it,' People reported. PETA on its X/Twitter on Thursday shared images of the protest at the venue, saying, 'We demand a disclaimer! @universalpics, it's time for a reality check. @Twisters rodeo date scene glorifies torment, violence, and death of animals.' Protesters were seen in multiple social media posts demonstrating at the premiere, saying, 'There's no excuse for animal abuse,' while toting signs reading, 'Stop Glamorizing Rodeos' and 'Lasso Tornadoes, Not Animals.' PETA issued a news release on Tuesday advertising the demonstration in an effort 'to blast the film for forcing animals to stage distressing scenes that glorify rodeos.' The organization said its members were calling 'on Universal Pictures to include a disclaimer in the movie's credits about the real-life cruelty inherent in the events - in which cows (including calves), horses, and other animals are tormented, maimed, and often killed - and to discourage audiences from attending them.' In a previous statement on its website, the organization said it wanted moviegoers 'to consider the exploitation behind the troubling rodeo scenes staged for the movie. Said PETA: 'Rodeos provoke and terrorize normally docile animals into appearing fierce and aggressive, using cruel electric prods, flank or bucking straps, and spurs - which burn, wound, or dig into their skin and sensitive tissue. Injuries and death are common for animals in these events. 'Every reputable animal protection organization opposes rodeos, which is why this summers biggest movie should condemn, not glamorize, this blood sport.' (L-R) Twisters stars Anthony Ramos, 32, Edgar-Jones and Powell, and director Lee Isaac Chung, 45, were pictured during entrances, and were in front of the audience during the interruption Ramos acknowledged the incident, saying, 'That was a wild intro - I had to say it!' Ramos and Powell were seen making their way into the venue on the busy evening PETA on its X/ Twitter on Thursday shared images of the protest at the venue Protesters were seen in multiple social media posts demonstrating at the premiere One demonstrator held a sign that read, 'Rodeos are waking nightmares for animals' The motion picture - a standalone sequel to the 1996 movie - also stars Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormack and Kiernan Shipka. According to a logline from the film, 'Two storm chasers on the brink of divorce must work together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes.' Twisters opens in theaters nationwide July 17. Daisy Ridley stunned in a rather chic look while presenting at the 2024 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday. The 32-year-old Star Wars actress skipped the red carpet at the ceremony, held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. She did take the stage, though, to present an award with Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin during the telecast. The outing came exactly one month after she spoke out about her experiences with sexism throughout her Hollywood career. Ridley took to the stage wearing a sleeveless cobalt blue gown for the event, which flowed all the way to the floor. Daisy Ridley stunned in a rather chic look while presenting at the 2024 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday She did take the stage, though, to present an award with Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin during the telecast. The outing came exactly one month after she spoke out about her experiences with sexism throughout her Hollywood career The actress had her hair pulled back into a tight bun as she accessorized with stunning blue gem earrings. She completed her look with black heels that were seen as she walked to the stage with Hamlin. The outing comes just a month after her appearance on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, where she opened up about her experiences with sexism in Hollywood. 'I did a job and I was doing something physical in the same way that the male character was doing something physical,' she said. 'And one of the stunt team was coming over to pat the man on the back and it got to a point where I said, "Are you not gonna do the high fives and all the stuff to me?"' Daisy said the stuntman was 'really thrown' by her comment. She said: 'I think it was really difficult for him because it was not badly intended he was just... they were doing the "The male thing" that they're comfortable doing and that didn't include me even though I was doing exactly the same thing as the man that he was congratulating. 'Then of course it's deeply uncomfortable because when you do speak up, the person that's speaking up feels really uncomfortable.' The actress had her hair pulled back into a tight bun as she accessorized with stunning blue gem earrings 'I did a job and I was doing something physical in the same way that the male character was doing something physical,' she said. The Young Woman and the Sea actress described the behaviour as something that was 'learnt', while she was disappointed the person in question didn't apologise for his actions The Young Woman and the Sea actress described the behaviour as something that was 'learnt', while she was disappointed the person in question didn't apologise for his actions. She added: 'It's behaviour that's learnt it was just one of those things that I really, really noticed because it happened again and again. 'And then when I said it to the person - I think being able to apologise is really important. 'If you do speak up for something, it takes a lot of bravery for the other person to say, "I'm really sorry. I actually did not realise I was doing that. I see you both in the same way," and the person couldn't do that. 'But you know, maybe on the next job he does, which would be great.' Advertisement Daisy Edgar-Jones was the picture of classic Hollywood glamour as she hit the red carpet in Los Angeles for the premiere of her new thriller sequel Twisters. The 26-year-old British actress was joined at the premiere by her costar Glen Powell, who was dressed in a stylish suit. The two are starring in the highly anticipated sequel to the 1996 disaster thriller Twister, which starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. In the new film, Daisy stars as a Kate Cooper, a young woman traumatized by a tornado who is lured back when her friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) shows her a new system to map the paths of the deadly storms. But the two clash with Tyler Owens (Powell) a flashy storm chaser who risks his life to get close to tornadoes for lucrative social media content. Daisy Edgar-Jones was the picture of classic Hollywood glamour as she hit the red carpet in Los Angeles for the premiere of her new thriller sequel Twisters. The 26-year-old British actress was joined at the premiere by her costar Glen Powell, who was dressed in a stylish suit In the new film, Daisy stars as a Kate Cooper, a young woman traumatized by a tornado whose friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) lures her back with a new system to map the storms' paths. But they clash with Tyler Owens (Powell) a storm chaser who risks his life for social media content; still from Twisters Daisy highlighted her delicate physique in her off-white dress, which hugged her figure. The sleeveless number showcased her trim arms, and she turned on the red carpet which was designed to look like a rural field besieged by an approaching tornado to show off its backless design. The Normal People star showed off a bit of side boob in the revealing-yet-elegant dress, which had a plunging cutout on one of her sides. The other featured more modest coverings, which culminating in two straps across her back that draped in front of her throat as a soft ruffle. She accessorized the gorgeous look with a thick gold armlet just below her elbow and she also wore gold earrings that framed her elegant made-up visage. She completed her ensemble with white open-toe shoes, and she wore her long brunette locks tied back in a ponytail while her bangs were parted to expose her forehead. Daisy's costar Glen showed off some of his own style sense with a chic slate gray suit. The Hit Man star had on a double-breasted jacket with wide peaked lapels, and he left it unbuttoned to drape in a more relaxed manner. Daisy highlighted her delicate physique in her off-white dress, which hugged her figure. The sleeveless number showcased her trim arms, and she turned on the red carpet to show off its backless design The Normal People star showed off a bit of side boob in the revealing-yet-elegant dress, which had a plunging cutout on one of her sides She accessorized the gorgeous look with a thick gold armlet just below her elbow and she also wore gold earrings that framed her elegant made-up visage She completed her ensemble with white open-toe shoes, and she wore her long brunette locks tied back in a ponytail while her bangs were parted to expose her forehead Daisy's costar Glen showed off some of his own style sense with a chic slate gray suit The Hit Man star had on a double-breasted jacket with wide peaked lapels, and he left it unbuttoned to drape in a more relaxed manner. He made it into a monochrome outfit by wearing a tie-free shirt in the exact same shade, and he sported a silver luxury wristwatch with a black leather band Glen appeared to wear shiny black boots with the suit, and he sported shaggy hair and a well-trimmed beard Glen looked sweet as he brought his father Glen Powell Sr. and mother Cindy Powell on the red carpet with him He made it into a monochrome outfit by wearing a tie-free shirt in the exact same shade, and he sported a silver luxury wristwatch with a black leather band. Glen appeared to wear shiny black boots with the suit, and he sported shaggy hair and a well-trimmed beard. Glen's Hit Man costar and on-screen love interest Adria Arjona set temperatures soaring at the premiere as she showed her support. The Irma Vep actress who took her relationship with Jason Momoa Instagram official in May was dressed in a burgundy dress that traced her curves and featured a single flared sleeve that was connected to her skirt. Country singer and Yellowstone actress Lainey Wilson who recorded a song for the Twisters soundtrack opted for a black Nudie suit with colorful designs running up her lapels and sleeves and down her flared pants. American Honey star Sasha Lane, who plays a drone operator in Twisters, wore a playful short-sleeve tux with cropped pants. Sasha posed on the red carpet with her costar Nik Dodani, who wore an oversize cream linen suit with baggy pants and a long jacket with sleeves that completely swallowed up his hands, along with chunky boots in the same shade. Country singer Tanner Adell who is also featured on the Twisters soundtrack wore a striking pale pink off-the-shoulder dress that had a voluminous, almost spherical skirt decorated with pink and purple floral embroidery. Glen's Hit Man costar and on-screen love interest Adria Arjona set temperatures soaring at the premiere as she showed her support The Irma Vep actress was dressed in a burgundy dress that traced her curves and featured a single flared sleeve that was connected to her skirt Country singer and Yellowstone actress Lainey Wilson opted for a black Nudie suit with colorful designs running up her lapels and sleeves and down her flared pants. American Honey star Sasha Lane, who plays a drone operator in Twisters, wore a playful short-sleeve tux with cropped pants Sasha posed on the red carpet with her costar Nik Dodani, who wore an oversize cream linen suit with baggy pants and a long jacket witth sleeves that completely swallowed up his hands, along with chunky boots in the same shade Country singer Tanner Adell who is also featured on the Twisters soundtrack wore a striking pale pink off-the-shoulder dress that had a voluminous, almost spherical skirt decorated with pink and purple floral embroidery The dress had an angular, plunging bodice that emphasized her trim figure and was decorated with silver spider weblike threads The dress had an angular, plunging bodice that emphasized her trim figure and was decorated with silver spider weblike threads. Twisters star Anthony Ramos long brown overcoat with peaked lapels and a brown suede collar. He paired it with lighter brown relaxed-fit pants, chunky black-and-white sneakers, and a white satin shirt with coral illustrations. CSI star Marg Helgenberger looked summery in a white knee-length dress covered with floral designs, and she accessorized with a boxy beige handbag while wearing white mesh heels with pointy toes. She was joined by her husband Charles Haugk, who looked smart in a grayblue sport coat with navy pants. James Paxton, the sone of the late Twister lead Bill Paxton, wore a sleek navy plaid suit with a tie-free black shit. James has as small role in the film as a tribute to his late father, who died in 2017 from complications of heart surgery. Twisters star Anthony Ramos long brown overcoat with peaked lapels and a brown suede collar. He paired it with lighter brown relaxed-fit pants, chunky black-and-white sneakers, and a white satin shirt with coral illustrations CSI star Marg Helgenberger looked summery in a white knee-length dress covered with floral designs, and she accessorized with a boxy beige handbag while wearing white mesh heels with pointy toes She was joined by her husband Charles Haugk, who looked smart in a grayblue sport coat with navy pants James Paxton, the sone of the late Twister lead Bill Paxton, wore a sleek navy plaid suit with a tie-free black shit. James has as small role in the film as a tribute to his late father, who died in 2017 from complications of heart surgery TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe and comedian and actor Paul Scheer both favored blue suits. Tunde, who appears in Twisters, wore a lighter suit over a black shirt, while Paul, who is also in the film, favored a navy suit with a tie-free white shirt Daryl McCormack, who is featured in Twisters, wore a black chore coat with a dangling belt, black pants and matching loafers Lee Isaac Chung, who previously directed the acclaimed Minari, helmed Twisters. He wore a chic charcoal double-breasted suit with black cowboy boots TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe and comedian and actor Paul Scheer both favored blue suits. Tunde, who appears in Twisters, wore a lighter suit over a black shirt, while Paul, who is also in the film, favored a navy suit with a tie-free white shirt. Daryl McCormack, who is featured in Twisters, wore a black chore coat with a dangling belt, black pants and matching loafers. Lee Isaac Chung, who previously directed the acclaimed Minari, helmed Twisters. He wore a chic charcoal double-breasted suit with black cowboy boots. Matthew Broderick enjoyed spending some quality time with his three children as he attended the Oh, Mary! opening night at Lyceum Theatre on Thursday night. The actor, 61, looked every inch the doting father as he posed for a snap with James, 20, and twin daughters Tabitha and Marion, 15. But despite the family putting on their best glad rags for the evening, the children's mother and Matthew's wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, was nowhere to be seen. For the sweet appearance, Matthew looked dapper as always in a maroon and blue plaid blazer which he layered over some jeans. He finished off his smart ensemble with a crisp white shirt and a blue tie. Matthew Broderick enjoyed a dad's day out with his three children as he attended the Oh, Mary! opening night at Lyceum Theatre on Thursday night (L to R: Matthew, Marion, Tabitha, and James) The actor, 61, looked every inch doting father, but despite the family putting on their best glad rags for the evening, the children's mother and Matthew's wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, was nowhere to be seen His son, James, equally put on a strapping display as he stepped out in a black two-piece suit, which he paired with a white shirt and a space grey tie. Matthew's daughters looked lovely in a pair of stylish summer dresses. Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy starring Cole Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincolns assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of a fool (Cole Escola). One of the last times Sarah and Matthew posed with all three of their children on a red carpet was in December 2022. They were seen at the star-studded world premiere of Some Like It Hot on Broadway. Matthew and Sarah, 58, who he married in 1997, are currently staying in the UK capital while they both star in their play Plaza Suite at the Savoy Theatre. The American performers made their debuts as Karen and Sam in the romantic comedy earlier this year. One of the last times Sarah and Matthew posed with all three of their children on a red carpet was in December 2022. They were seen at the star-studded world premiere of Some Like It Hot on Broadway The power couple spotted on the opening of Plaza Suite in New York City in 2022 Plaza Suite is the West End revival of Neil Simon's play of the same name which debuted on Broadway in New York City in 1968. They were originally announced to star in the play back in September 2019, though the opening night was delayed nearly two years due to COVID-19. The play is set in suite 719 of New Yorks Plaza Hotel, with the production's website stating: 'A delightfully witty exploration of love and marriage, Plaza Suite had New York City audiences enchanted with its charm and its starry cast.... 'Now, from January 2024, Londons West End gets the chance to witness two world-class performers and Hollywood icons transform into three unique couples, each finding themselves entangled in hilariously outlandish situations within the walls of the legendary Plaza Suite hotel room.' Chloe Meadows and Courtney Green were the ultimate beach babes while filming for the upcoming series of The Only Way Is Essex in Cyprus on Thursday. TV personality Chloe, 32, flaunted her ample assets in a leopard print skimpy bikini, which featured stylish gold squares. She showcased her washboard abs in the animal-print two-piece and paired it with a white beach wrap and a matching scrunchie. To accessorise, Chloe - who is staying at Cap St Georges Hotel in Paphos - added some chunky gold hoops and sunglasses, while carrying her belongings in a straw knit clutch. Meanwhile, Courtney, 29, looked incredible in a blue toned blur halterneck bikini which she paired with a matching beach skirt and bottoms. Chloe Meadows (right) and Courtney Green (left) were the ultimate beach babes while they filmed for the upcoming series of The Only Way Is Essex in Cyprus on Wednesday TV personality Chloe, 32, flaunted ample assets in a leopard print skimpy bikini which featured stylish gold squares Adding a hint of glam to her look, she wore beige Chanel sandals and a rose gold watch. Jodie Wells put on a very colourful display as she wore a rainbow crochet bikini top, which she paired with matching bottoms and micro skirt. She teamed her fun look with a quirky gold bag, trendy pink sunglasses and gold sandals. Jodie, 32, appeared in top spirits for the filming as she posed with her boyfriend Diags, 33, who kept his look casual in a shirt, shorts and sliders. Ella-Rae Wise, 24, looked incredible for the day of filming as she stepped out in a white crochet bikini top which featured a myriad of fruit detailings. She paired her skimpy top with some matching bottoms and beach skirt. Meanwhile, Sophie Kasaei, 34, exuded elegance as she cut a glamorous figure in a bright yellow summer dress. She was joined by boyfriend Jordan Brook, 29, who stepped out in some white shorts and a black shirt. She showcased her washboard abs as paired her animal-print two-piece with a white beach wrap and a matching scrunchie Alongside her also filming was Courtney, 29, who looked incredible in a blue toned blur halterneck bikini which she paired with a matching beach skirt and bottoms Adding a hint of glam to her look, she wore some beige Chanel sandals and a rose gold watch Meanwhile fellow cast member Jodie Wells put on a very colourful display as she wore a rainbow crochet bikini top which she paired with matching bottoms and micro skirt Jodie, 32, appeared in top spirits for the filming as she posed with her boyfriend Diags, 33, who kept his look casual in a shirt, shorts and sliders Ella-Rae Wise, 24, looked incredible for the day of filming as she stepped out in a white crochet bikini top which featured a myriad of fruit detailings She paired her skimpy top with some matching bottoms and beach skirt Amy Childs had two scenes of the day as she headed to the beach with her hubby Billy Debosq & the twins to catch up on the gossip with Dan Edgar and Ella. Amy then headed to a shady spot to catch up with Harry Derbidge, Joe Blackman, Elma Pazar, Junaid & Saffron. Harry spent the afternoon on a date day with his boyfriend Joe as they went snorkelling for the afternoon. Later in the evening Harry joined Jordan Brook and his girlfriend Sophie Kasaei at Viklari Castle Restaurant for a catch up and some food. It comes after reports that filming for the TOWIE wrap party was thrown into chaos in April when a massive row erupted between two of the show's lead cast members. Insiders claimed Ella Rae Wise and Harry Derbidge, who is one of the last remaining original stars of the show which has been on-screen for 14 years, were at loggerheads in a huge argument in front of their staggered co-stars. Ella was at the forefront of the series' storyline thanks to her previous romance with Dan Edgar, after he split from Harry's pal Amber Turner. Sources claimed at the time the root of the issue stemmed from Harry's growing friendship with the 'Girl Band' - the self-Christened name for Amber and her long-time pals Chloe, Courtney Green and Elma Pazar. A source told The Sun: 'Ella and Harry's relationship has become strained ever since he grew friendly with girl band and she started dating Dan. The row had been building up for a while and after a discussion was brought up, it ended badly.' Ella's romance with Dan began in Bali after Amber accused the pair of sharing a flirtation in the late stages of her relationship with Dan, which ended last year. The pair protested claims of acrimony at the time, however, accusations of cheating plagued the duo and things remained tense. Ella's romance also impacted her friendship, as the insider went on: 'There were a lot of things said in the heat of the moment, with Ella questioning Harry's loyalty...' 'It even split up their friends who took sides in the clash. Now no one's sure if they'll be able to make up and go back to how they were before.' Meanwhile, Sophie Kasaei, 34, exuded elegance as she cut a glamorous figure in a bright yellow summer dress She was joined by boyfriend Jordan Brook, 29, who stepped out in some white shorts and a black shirt Amy Childs had two scenes of the day as she headed to the beach with her hubby Billy Debosq & the twins to catch up on the gossip with Dan Edgar and Ella Saffron cut a classy figure as she wore a floor-length black dress and some platform sandals Freddie Bentley cut a casual figure in a white shirt, blue shorts and some black flipflops Roman Hackett also opted to step out in a relaxed look as he wore a yellow tank top and trainers for the evening Dan Edgar looked strapping as always in a blue striped shirt and white shorts Junaid Ahmed looked sensational as he wore a black sheer beach dress and some black Hermes sandals Harry Derbidge spent the afternoon on a date day with his boyfriend Joe Blackman as they went snorkelling for the afternoon Chloe previously opened up to her Instagram followers about her skin pigmentation issue which started five years ago, leaving her 'self conscious' and worried about the marks being visible during filming of The Only Way Is Essex. The blonde beauty has previously struggled with low self esteem and has admitted to considering surgery for other reasons. She wrote in an Instagram post: 'Ok so I get so many questions about my pigmentation on my face as I know I've mentioned it on here a few times... 'So I thought lets open a conversation and start talking about it because its something I've always felt self conscious about and as I've gotten older I've realised there isn't a reason to be. 'So if this helps us all talk about it a bit more then that's got to be a good thing right! I only started getting pigmentation maybe 5 years ago when these pictures were taken and it's something that really bothered me to start with! 'It used to look like I had a moustache if I'd been in the sun which obviously for any girl is horrible!' MasterChef Australia fans have delivered a verdict on the cooking shows new line up of judges featured on the current season. And many appear to want to dump the food gurus for a new cast. The surprising top choice from fans for the prized gig on the ratings hit is former MasterChef judge Shannon Bennett. Sharing their thoughts on a MasterChef Australia Facebook fan site, viewers suggested that the celebrity chef and restaurateur, 48, would be 'better' than one of the current line-up including MasterChef veteran Andy Allen. Shannon is known for running Melbourne's renowned Vue de monde restaurant. Andy was the only judge to return to the show this year, after Melissa Leong was dropped and Jock Zonfrillo tragically died in April last year. He was joined on the 2024 panel by MasterChef season one runner-up Poh Ling Yeow, food writer Sofia Levin and French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. 'Ok. I'm going to put it out there. After a long enough time to analyse, I still think that Shannon Bennett would have made a better judge than any of those current,' suggested one fan. MasterChef Australia viewers took to a Facebook fan site this week to declare celebrity chef Shannon Bennett (pictured) as their preferred judge on the cooking show for 2025 They continued: 'And (I'm sorry - I know there will be haters) I don't think that Sofia makes a great food critic. 'Mel [Leong] would describe the food to the point that I could almost taste the texture and flavour! 'Anyone can taste food and say it's delicious - or not - but (in my opinion only) some better ''explanation words'' should be expressed for someone critiquing food at this level.' The provocative post created a lengthy discussion among the cooking competitions fans, with many backing up for Shannon who was a one time regular on the cooking competition. Fans appear to still be struggling with the new line up after the sudden death of MasterChef favourite Jock Zonfrillo (pictured) last year Andy was joined on the 2024 panel by MasterChef season one runner-up Poh Ling Yeow, food writer Sofia Levin and French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli (all pictured) Andy was the only judge to return to the show this year, after Melissa Leong was dropped and Jock Zonfrillo's tragic death 'Shannon Bennet was my first choice,' messaged one fan and added: 'But looks like he's not included at all now. What a shame.' 'Andy could have gone and Shannon put in his place,' suggested another viewer, while another fan agreed: 'I would have loved to see Shannon Bennett as a judge.' Others were equally enthusiastic for the well-known chef: 'I would of [sic] preferred Shannon.' Still, a number of MasterChef Australia fans felt that the current judges had done a terrific job this season. 'Okay guys it's the first year with the new judges, they're finding their feet in the kitchen and feeling their way around Andy. 'Of course it's not going to be the same show without Jock BUT then the show must go on,' wrote one viewer on the post. Added another fan: 'I wish people would stop complaining, I'm enjoying the show and love the judges.' Renee Zellweger was spotted filming new Bridget Jones scenes in Hampstead on Thursday, 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 wrapped up in a dusky pink coat as she filmed a picturesque Christmas scene during summertime. She teamed the stylish coat with a burgundy scarf and sported a black cross-body bag and a blue rucksack as she waited patiently for her cue. Renee added inches to her frame with a pair of knee-high leather boots and sported a sweet Christmas tree broch. Renee Zellweger was spotted filming new Bridget Jones scenes in Hampstead on Thursday, 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 as she filmed with her onscreen daughter Renee completed her look by styling her locks up and showcased her natural beauty with a minimal makeup look. The star was pictured with her onscreen daughter who looked adorable in a red tutu and a snowflake headband for the scene. The new Bridget Jones sequel is reportedly driving celebrities mad with its filming schedule in London. Stars including Harry Styles and Rami Malek who live near the North London streets where filming is taking place 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. Renee wrapped up in a dusky pink coat as she filmed a picturesque Christmas scene during summertime She teamed the stylish coat with a burgundy scarf and sported a black cross-body bag and a blue rucksack as she waited patiently for her cue Renee added inches to her frame with a pair of knee-high leather boots and sported a sweet Christmas tree broch The star was pictured with a little girl who looked adorable in a red tutu and a snowflake headband for the scene Renee appeared in high spirits as she beamed while filming During a break on set, Renee was pictured strolling through a snowy street with staff and her on-screen daughter In one sweet scene, Bridget and her daughter seem ecstatic as they head to the shops for a spot of Christmas shopping Her on-screen daughter looked adorable in a large puffer coat and a red tutu The pair both beamed at each other as they ran towards a hot chocolate stand They then watched a brass band perform and Bridget seemed entranced as she watched on A staff member from the set then stepped in to give his directions Renee was also spotted chatting with another staff member as they took a quick break from filming 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. 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. 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 Sharon Stone has recreated her iconic interrogation scene from the erotic classic Basic Instinct in a sexy lingerie shoot. The actress, 66, took to Instagram to share a jaw-dropping image clad in red lace lingerie, 32 years after she famously starred as the sexy killer Catherine Tramell. The famous interrogation scene in Basic Instinct saw Sharon's character Catherine quizzed by police, including Michael Douglas. Amid the bombardment of questions, Catherine distracts them when she uncrosses the recrosses her legs, leaving the men flustered seeing as she was underwear-free at the time. The scene was highly controversial at the time, and now has gone down as one of the most infamous in movie history. Sharon Stone has recreated her iconic interrogation scene from the erotic classic Basic Instinct in a sexy lingerie shoot The actress famously starred as the sexy killer Catherine Tramell in the 1992 film, where she uncrossed her legs during an interrogation, despite being underwear-free at the time And the actress proudly showcased her incredible figure in the sexy lingerie from Bloomers Intimate, posing with her legs crossed in an ode to the legendary scene. Despite the moment turning Sharon into an overnight sensation, the Academy Award nominee has maintained in the past that she was 'tricked' into exposing herself for the cameras. In her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice, Sharon described how she slapped her director Paul Verhoeven in fury and walked out of a preview of the erotic thriller after discovering his assurances that it wouldn't show up on screen had been a lie and that the audience could as she put it 'see all the way to Nebraska'. For his part, Verhoeven has vehemently dismissed her claims that she was taken by surprise in the leg-crossing scene. He said: 'Any actress knows what she's going to see if you ask her to take off her underwear and point there with the camera.' But the Hollywood veteran has also been adamant she didn't have any regrets about making the film. 'Regrets are like farts, you can't get them back. Once they're out, there's stinky and gone,' she quipped previously. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, Sharon 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. The 1992 film starred Michael Douglas as Nick Curran, a disgraced homicide detective and Sharon Stone as Catherine, a wealthy heiress who Curran believes has murdered her ex Despite the moment turning Sharon into an overnight sensation, the Academy Award nominee has maintained in the past that she was 'tricked' into exposing herself for the cameras It comes after Sharon claimed she lost 18million when she was left unable to work after suffering a near-fatal stroke in 2001 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 once 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 haemorrhage. '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.' Channel Seven presenter Sharyn Ghidella has garnered support from big names in the industry after she was axed from the network. The veteran was dropped after almost four decades working in the news industry. Ghidella, 58, the face of Seven News in Queensland since 2007, confirmed the news in a fiery Facebook post on Friday. She was inundated with supportive comments, including from journalist Tracey Spicer. 'Darling, these are beautiful but heartbreaking words. We're devastated to hear that after all these years of loyal, professional service, you've been treated like this,' Spicer wrote. 'It's awful to see what's happening at Channel 7. However, you're right: we don't need news with horoscopes. Thinking of you and the family with much love and support.' Melissa Hoyer also chimed in: 'When I met you many many years ago you have never, ever changed since then. As a journalist steadfast, credible and authentic. As a person compassionate, interested and interesting. 'It is a tragedy that so many people with strong experience, mentor and who stayed totally relevant are 'moved on'. Pointless. Good luck with the next chapter SG. Sending love'. Channel Seven presenter Sharyn Ghidella (pictured) has garnered support from big names in the industry after she was axed from the network Queensland Deputy Premier Cameron Dick also commented, writing: 'You've been a familiar and comforting face for so many Queenslanders. Thank you Sharyn. Very sad to see you go'. 'Oh Sharyn - this is devastating news. Not only are you one of the more trustworthy and credible journalists this country has, you have demonstrated your genuine care for others in the mountain of charity work you have undertaken over many years' said cartoonist Steve Panozzo. 'The accountants in charge of TV these days routinely show their ignorance of the assets they have and your dismissal is just another example of that tone deafness, inability to "read the room" and the complete failure to recognise the value of experience in delivering the news.' Ghidella said in her post that her 'tap on the shoulder' finally came while she was at the salon, admitting it was a 'relief' of sorts after several anxious weeks of media job cuts. She was inundated with supportive comments, including from journalist Tracey Spicer But she was determined not to go quietly as she took aim at the failing network for prioritising gimmicks like astrology readings over keeping veteran talent. 'When you work in TV for as long as I have, not a day goes by when you aren't expecting the proverbial tap on the shoulder... After 38 years, my shoulder tap has finally come,' Ghidella began. 'It wasn't quite how I expected it to end at Channel Seven. 'I was actually sitting at the hairdressers for work, when I got the call informing me, that after 17 years with the network, my time was up.' Ghidella then said her recent time at the network had been 'miserable' and she was glad to be heading out the door. 'While somewhat saddened by this decision, there is also some sense of relief. As has been widely reported, the past couple of weeks in TV has, sadly, been a miserable affair,' she wrote. 'A long list of talented, loyal and dedicated employees have been shown the door, in what seems to have been an interminable process of pulling the Band-Aid off slowly when it comes to removing what has been deemed excess stock. Ghidella (centre) said her 'tap on the shoulder' finally came while she was at the salon getting ready for work, admitting it was a 'relief' of sorts after several anxious weeks of media job cuts 'These people are some of the best content creators in the business. They are good people and it's been heartbreaking to watch.' Ghidella added she was not a fan of the network's rebranding of its news programming, which will see comedian Mark Humphries doing a comedy skit at 6.57pm tonight, and 'Astro Tash' start an astrology report next week. 'I'm also not one to have my evening news served up with humour and horoscopes either, so, to be honest, it is time to go,' Ghidella sniped. 'As I'm known to say, the caravan moves on. There is certainly plenty of talent left in the building and I wish them nothing but the best moving forward.' She ended her take-no-prisoners post by thanking the many friends she had made throughout her long career with the network. Ghidella's fiery Facebook post took aim at the network for prioritsing gimmicks like astrology readings over keeping veteran talent. (She is seen in 2006 while employed at Channel Nine) 'A sincere thank you to everyone who has made this possible, so far, including past employers like the Stokes, Packer and Gleeson families and the news directors, executive producers and station managers who saw fit to give a kid from Babinda [in rural Queensland] a go. I owe you so much. 'Then there are the viewers... You will never know how much your kindness and support means. What a privilege it is to be welcomed into your homes to present you the news of the day,' she added. Daily Mail Australia has obtained a supportive email addressing Ghidella's axing by Seven Queensland's director of news Michael Coombes. 'For 17 years, Sharyn has been a welcome guest in loungerooms across Queensland always professional, always reliable, always warm,' Coombes wrote. 'But for all of us, she is so much more. A mentor, a colleague, a friend. Sharyn said her recent time at the network had been 'miserable' and she was glad to go 'I am sad that the team and our viewers won't have the opportunity to give her the send-off she deserves, but I absolutely respect and understand her wishes. 'I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for Sharyn. And I know you will all join me in wishing her the very best for the future,' he concluded. Anthony De Ceglie - the controversial blow-in from Seven's WA newspaper business who now runs the television news division - added: 'Sharyn has made a significant contribution to Seven over the past 17 years. 'We are grateful for her hard work and are sorry to see her go. She leaves with sincere thanks from everyone at Seven and our very best wishes for the future.' Ghidella worked for Ten, Nine and Seven during her lengthy media career. The North Queensland native was a newsreader on the Today show at Nine before joining Channel Seven in 2007. The news comes amid industry rumours Seven may be sold off. The Australian speculated 'you can almost bet the Seven television network is right now for sale. It's all just a matter of price' Melbourne crime reporter Cameron Baud (pictured) was recently let go by the Network Robert Ovadia (pictured) has announced he will take Seven to the Fair Work Commission for unfair dismissal In January 2013, Ghidella began presenting Seven News Brisbane from Sunday to Thursday and was also appointed presenter of Today Tonight Queensland prior to the show's axing in February 2014. Her partner is freelance cameraman Paul Croll, and the couple share two sons. There has been a cost-cutting bloodbath at Seven as the network's news division comes under new management. Three major names to go at the network recently include veterans Robert Ovadia, Andrew Frampton and seasoned Melbourne crime reporter Cameron Baud, who is known among friends as the 'Harvester of Sorrow' due to his grim news beat. On the Sydney front, Ovadia - perhaps the most high profile of all the figures axed up until Ghidella's - has announced he will take Seven to the Fair Work Commission for unfair dismissal. Daily Mail Australia revealed Ovadia allegedly sent a series of strange, doctored images to a young female reporter before he was dumped. Two years after his highly publicized, messy split and subsequent defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp is back in his element with a stunning new blonde in his life. The Hollywood star, 61, was snapped traveling out of a London Heliport on Thursday where he was seen looking cozy the Russian beautician named Yulia, after being snapped together at a Jeff Beck concert in Prague in 2022. Depp has been mostly based in the UK since his infamous 2022 legal battle, keeping busy with new film projects and touring with his band. And on Thursday the actor was living up to that edgy rock star image, walking on the heliport tarmac flanked the glamorous beauty and with his guitar in tow, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show. Johnny Depp was seen looking cozy a Russian beautician named Yulia Thursday while traveling out of London Heliport with his entourage The 61-year-old actor was living up to the rock star image, carrying his guitar while being flanked by the glamorous blonde Yulia appeared charmed by the actor-musician, smiling and at times stroking her hair as the two laughed and talked on the tarmac They were first snapped together at a Jeff Beck concert in Prague in 2022 He looked cool and grungy in a red beanie, baggy jeans, sneakers, and sunglasses and holding his six-string to perhaps serenade his potential new love. Meanwhile Yulia, who is believed to own her beauty salon business in Czech Republic matched his vibe, sporting an all black casual but chic outfit, baring her midriff and clutching a handbag, accessorising with rectangle frame sunglasses. She appeared charmed by the actor-musician, smiling and stroking her hair as the two laughed and talked on the tarmac. The film star is reported to be in a good place following a dark period of legal troubles and allegations that culminated into a high-profile defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, who had accused him of abuse, in Virginia in 2022. He has managed to rehabilitate his image and move forward with his career, landing new film roles and going on tour with his band since then. In fact, Depp was seen getting mobbed by fans while leaving a music venue in London with his entourage earlier this week. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, who turned 61 last month, even kissed the hands of a superfan waiting for him outside a venue in the capital this week. Yulia matched his vibe, sporting an all black casual but chic outfit, baring her midriff and clutching a handbag, accessorizing with rectangle frame sunglasses He looked cool and grungy in a red beanie, baggy jeans, sneakers, and sunglasses and holding his six-string guitar Depp has been renting an art studio in London's West End and has also spent the last two years as a gigging guitarist, appearing on stages around the UK and around the world Johnny's bodyguard stepped in when a woman refused to let go of him. But the megastar, who is living in London to paint, told his protection to step back before kissing her hand, causing squeals in the crowd, who had pictures, artwork and even limbs signed by the American. 'Johnny Depp's very public rehabilitation is going strong - while Amber has vanished and is living in Madrid', one senior figure with links to London and Hollywood told DailyMail.com this week. His London appearance was hours after Paul Barresi, the private eye hired by Amber Heard when she split from Johnny to find dirt on him, released a new book where he claims his investigation found Depp to be too generous with a 'respect and adoration for women'. And it came as the Depp v. Heard Channel 4 documentary began trending on Netflix Netflix, reflecting the continuing fascination with the couple's relationship as well as their divorce and legal battles in the UK and US. It has been quite the turnaround for Depp - four years after he lost a libel case in the UK against the publisher of The Sun over a story that described him as a 'wife beater'. Depp, who has been mostly based in the UK since his infamous 2022 legal battle, has kept busy working on new film projects as well as touring with his band The Pirate of the Caribbean star has managed to rehabilitate his image after a dark period that saw him dogged by allegations of abuse and other legal troubles Depp's loyal fan base stood by the actor as he fought the abuse allegations leveled against him by ex-wife Amber Heard during their explosive defamation trial in Virginia in 2022 He did then sue Amber in the US for libel over similar allegations - and won $15million in damages. The former couple have gone in different directions. Amber is understood to have quit Hollywood and settled in the Spanish capital with her three-year-old daughter - born thanks to a surrogate. Her ex-husband, however, now has four careers. Currently he is renting an art studio in London's West End to create new art - having not painted seriously for years. He is in the middle of a three-year $20million contract as the face of Dior's Sauvage men's perfume. He is also a gigging guitarist, appearing on stages around the world including at the Royal Albert Hall with friends including Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton. Earlier this week he was mobbed by fans in London. At one point he allowed a fan waiting for him in the British capital this week to kiss his hand The star's security stepped in when the woman wouldn't let go of him, but the actor told his bodyguard it was 'ok' and he kissed her hand And his acting is back up and running. He was the star of last year's Cannes Film Festival because of his role in the French-language biopic Jeanne du Barry, where he played King Louis XV. He is also directing his first movie in 25 years. Depp is working with Al Pacino on a biopic of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. Screenwriter and producer of the swashbuckling franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, Terry Rossio, has told DailyMail.com that now that Depp has cleaned up his act he would be welcomed back as Jack Sparrow with open arms. Previously Depp said he would never work for Disney again as sources said he felt harshly treated by them. It will remain to be seen if his stance has softened. While he could not escape the shocking court cases involving Amber Heard untarnished, his fans have remained loyal to him - as proved by the scenes in London this week. Sam Phillips has revealed that he was left feeling a tad uncoordinated after a dramatic scene on the set of Bridgerton. The English actor, 40, who plays Lord Debling in the period drama, saved Nicola Coughlan's character Penelope Bridgerton from an errant hot air balloon. It didn't go to plan, Sam told Australian current affairs show The Project on Friday night. 'I had to do a scene where I had to dive into a hot air balloon. I had to sort of do this very heroic swoop in to save Nicola's character, Penelope' he explained. 'Most of the time I looked like I was getting her in a wrestling headlock' he added with a laugh. 'We had to do six or seven times, maybe more. I was just surprised at how unsmooth I looked, basically' he said. Nicola, 37, previously described the scene as fairly difficult and said the pair had to learn stunt work to achieve it. 'The hot air balloon scene was wild because initially it was scripted not as intensely as it was' she told Teen Vogue. Sam Phillips (right) has revealed that he was left feeling a tad uncoordinated after a dramatic scene on the set of Bridgerton. Sam appeared on The Project alongside his co-star Jessica Madsen (left) on Friday night The English actor, 40, who plays Lord Debling in the period drama, saved Nicola Coughla 's character Penelope Bridgerton from an errant hot air balloon (pictured) 'It was sort of like, it came in Penelope's direction, and Lord Debling was going to whisk her away. But then they were like, No, we're going to make this a full stunt.' She continued: 'I was like, you are kidding me! And we had to head off and do full stunt rehearsals for it. I had to, like, throw myself onto a crash mat. 'Sam Phillips fully rugby tackled me, like at one point, he went in so hardcore that his coat stuck to my wig and we were attached to one another.' Sam appeared on The Project alongside his co-star Jessica Madsen, who plays Cressida Cowper in the series. 'Most of the time I looked like I was getting her in a wrestling headlock. We had to do six or seven times, maybe more. I was just surprised at how unsmooth I looked, basically' he said 'Sam Phillips fully rugby tackled me, like at one point, he went in so hardcore that his coat stuck to my wig and we were attached to one another' Nicola previously explained The pair are visiting Australia to attend Metro Comic Con on the 13th and 14th of July in Melbourne. The actor told the show that he has also had his first experiences of being photographed in public. 'I just had that the other week. I was dressed - I looked appalling. Had a big horrible T-shirt on. Just going for a stroll' he explained. 'And they were like, click. It's now all over the internet. There we go.' Rebel Wilson has confessed she feels 'down' as she tackles a dispute with the producers of her new film The Deb. The Australian actress, 44, posted two sweet images to Instagram Stories on Friday, in which she laughed as she cuddled up to her daughter Royce, one, and fiancee Ramona Agruma. 'Royce always makes me smile, no matter how down I am feeling on the inside' Rebel wrote in her caption. In the photos, she posed alongside a pool with her toddler in her arms and a beaming Ramona by her side. The Isn't It Romantic star showed off her slimmed down figure in a white dress with polka dots throughout. The post comes amid Rebel's claims that producers of her new film The Deb are blocking the movie from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Rebel alleged in an Instagram video her movie was set to premiere on the closing night of the 2024 TIFF, but producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden are trying to prevent the comedy's debut at the prestigious event. She also accused the producers of 'bad behaviour' on set. Rebel Wilson has confessed she feels 'down' as she tackles a dispute with the producers of her new film. The Australian actress, 44, posted sweet images to Instagram Stories on Friday, in which she cuddled up to her daughter Royce, one, and fiancee Ramona Agruma. All pictured The producers of Wilson's film have claimed the allegations are 'false'. 'RW's allegations are false, defamatory, and disappointing,' a spokesperson for the producers told Deadline. 'Her self-promotional claims are clearly intended to cause reputational harm to the individuals who have supported her directorial debut film The Deb a joyous movie that we're very proud of and are looking forward to sharing with audiences. 'For her to promote a false narrative to advance her own agenda undermines the film and all the people who worked on this project.' Wilson claimed in her video: 'You know sometimes you try so hard in life and you don't know what to do, well that is the situation. You might have noticed I did a post a week ago about the first film that I directed, that I am so proud of, The Deb. 'Royce always makes me smile, no matter how down I am feeling on the inside' Rebel wrote in her caption 'It is a little Australian musical which is awesome. It got selected for closing night of the Toronto Film Festival which is the best platform to be a first time female director, it's huge. 'To have the joy of the movie being selected is one thing but to have the business partners turn around and say the movie can't premiere is beyond devastating. Why are they saying this? Why are they stopping it?' Wilson then claimed: 'This dates back to October last year where I discovered bad behaviour by these business partners. They are producers of the film, their names are Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden.' 'I reported their bad behaviour when I found out.' Wilson claimed since reporting the problems, she has been met with 'absolute viciousness and bad behaviour.' She said she managed to finish the film but alleged the producers have told her she can't release it. 'This is work of hundreds of people and this behaviour is absolutely vile and disgusting,' Wilson continued. 'I will speak the truth and warn people about people in the industry that are not behaving ethically. That is my dilemma if that movie doesn't play at Toronto, it's because of these absolute f**kwits.' The post comes amid Rebel's claims that producers of her new film The Deb are blocking the movie from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The producers of Wilson's film have claimed the allegations are 'false' The Deb, which stars Wilson and comedian Shane Jacobson, centres on a country school girl getting ready for her debutante ball. The film will also feature actress Natalie Abbott from the ABC series Aftertaste, as well as newcomer Charlotte McInnes. Locations include country towns such as Carcoar, Blayney, and Orange, as well as Sydney. Last October, Rebel revealed that she turned down major offers in the States, so she could make her directorial debut Down Under. 'If I was directing a movie it was only going to be in Australia because that's authentic to me,' Rebel told The Daily Telegraph at the time. 'I didn't want to do the studio ones I was offered in America because I didn't feel like I had that heart connection,' she explained. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has fired back at the wild rumors that her boyfriend Ken Urker is not really the father of her baby. The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, left her husband Ryan Anderson in May to reunite with her ex-boyfriend Ken, before falling pregnant. After TikTok trolls suggested Ryan may actually have fathered Gypsy's baby, she posted a detailed sex timeline in order to prove the child is Ken's. She staunchly stuck to her story in a new interview, explaining that she parted ways with Ryan in the middle of this March. 'So this is absolutely, 100 percent Ken's baby. There was never any question of paternity,' she insisted on Good Morning America. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has fired back at the wild rumors that her boyfriend Ken Urker is not really the father of her baby, in a new interview on Good Morning America (pictured) Anchor Juju Chang asked Gypsy how she thought Ryan was coping with the pregnancy news, in light of their ongoing divorce proceedings. 'I'm hoping that he's okay emotionally and I wish him the best emotionally,' Gypsy said. 'But right now, I have not even had a moment to stop and think about anybody else except for: "Am I taking my prenatals in the morning? Am I drinking enough water?" Like I have so much to focus on, making sure that I'm healthy for this baby.' Her remarks aired after she posted the timeline of her current relationship - from her split with Ryan through to her steamy sex life with Ken. 'Left Ryan March 23rd, had a period April 17th, made love with Ken and only him April 27, 28, 29, 30, conceived on May 4th and positive test on May 24th. KEN IS THE FATHER,' she wrote. Despite her clarification, some fans in the comments were still confused by the backstory of Gypsy's pregnancy. 'Her math ain't mathing,' commented one, while another wrote, 'Don't believe anything that comes out of that girl's mouth.' However, some fans chose to defend her, with one writing, 'Y'all are mad about her being TMI, yet you are the ones questioning the father and sticking your nose in it.' Gypsy has admitted that the timing of her shock pregnancy to boyfriend Ken is 'not where we wanted it to be,' due to her current parole situation and ongoing divorce from husband Ryan. 'So this is absolutely, 100 percent Ken's baby,' she insisted: 'There was never any question of paternity'; Gypsy is pictured with Ken Gypsy Rose Blanchard has fired back at online trolls who are questioning the paternity of her unborn child The Munchausen-by-proxy victim, 32, left her husband Ryan Anderson (pictured) in May to reunite with her ex-boyfriend Ken Urker, before falling pregnant The Life After Lockup star 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. '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. Gypsy recently 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. Gypsy announced that she and Ken were expecting their first child together in a YouTube video on Tuesday 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 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 a nine-minute-long YouTube clip, the felon detailed 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 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.' 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 'All the things that I wanted in a mother, I want to give to this baby,' Gypsy said in the video. 'I just want to be a good mother to my child, I want to be everything my mother wasn't' 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. 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 married teacher Ryan in 2022, while she was still incarcerated for murder 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.' 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. Theo James' wife looks set to receive even more support after new pictures of her husband passionately kissing Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti emerged online. But there is no need to spare a thought for the Oscar winner, 49, who is said to be entirely unbothered by his partner's steamy interactions with James, 39, in sun-drenched Italy. As someone who has filmed more than his fair share of raunchy scenes, DiCaprio knows it is nothing more than a job and is said to be happy that 26-year-old Ceretti's career is thriving. 'The steamy interactions that Vittoria is having with Theo have no bearing on her relationship with Leo, they both know it is work and it is a complete non issue,' one insider told DailyMail.com exclusively. Ceretti and James sent temperatures soaring on Monday when they were pictured putting on a raunchy display while filming a new campaign for Dolce & Gabbana on the island of Capri. New pictures of Theo James have emerged online showing him passionately kissing Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti for a Dolce & Gabbana campaign in sun-soaked Italy DiCaprio's bikini-clad girlfriend, 26, was draped across the British star, 39, as he held her head in his hands as they kissed. As someone who has filmed more than his fair share of raunchy scenes, DiCaprio, 49, knows it is nothing more than a job and is said to be happy that Ceretti's career is thriving The British actor left little to the imagination - stripping down to just a pair of tiny white Speedos which showed off his gym-honed muscles as he cozied up to Ceretti in snaps shared online by DeuxMoi. On Thursday night, more images were posted, showing the pair getting hot and heavy onboard a white dinghy. DiCaprio's bikini-clad girlfriend was draped across the actor as he held her head in his hands while they kissed. James is also seen relaxing onboard the vessel with his hands behind his head and his toned torso on full display. 'Leo is not the least bit bothered by Vittoria's photo shoot,' a second insider insisted. 'He supports her career and he loves to see her succeed. She was incredibly successful before dating Leo and this is what she does.' The source also addressed claims that DiCaprio could be gearing up to end their relationship as Ceretti has surpassed his alleged penchant for dumping women once they're over 25. 'Regarding her turning 26 and being out of Leo's range, that is just ridiculous,' they continued. 'They are in love and her age does not matter to him at all. Before he met her he was looking for a mature love and he has found just that. 'They are very happy together.' James and Ceretti sent pulses racing as they shot scenes in Italy with their arms wrapped around each other The pair were dressed in matching white swimwear as they shot scenes on the waters edge 'The steamy interactions that Vittoria is having with Theo have no bearing on her relationship with Leo - it is a complete non issue,' one insider told DailyMail.com exclusively 'Leo is not the least bit bothered by Vittoria's photo shoot,' a second insider insisted The insider added that DiCaprio and Ceretti are 'in love' and that the actor has finally found the 'mature' love he was looking for DiCaprio and Ceretti during a sightseeing tour of London in November 2023 Ceretti has been dating DiCaprio since August 2023, two months after the pair met during the premiere of Killers Of The Flower Moon at the Cannes Film Festival. Their romance came weeks after insiders told DailyMail.com that DiCaprio was 'not pleased' with the ongoing jokes and speculation about his love life - and was desperate to 'ditch' his image of only dating women under the age of 25. Ceretti was previously married to Italian DJ Matteo Milleri from 2020 to 2023 and has also been linked in the past to fellow model Nathan Westling. James first met his wife, Ruth Kearney, at Bristol's Old Vic Theatre School, and the couple appeared on stage in The Man of Mode. They got married in 2018 after almost 10 years together and tied the knot over two weddings - one low-key civil ceremony and one lavish affair in Italy. They now have two sons, aged three and one. Hunky Brit James also shot solo scenes in a pair of tight white speedos Ceretti, who has been dating DiCaprio for close to a year, looked stunning in a white bikini James was also seen relaxing onboard a dinghy with his hands behind his head and his toned torso on full display James' wife Ruth Kearney received an outpouring of support in the wake of the images as people joked she is 'sooo strong' (pictured in 2022) The images of James and Ceretti prompted an outpouring of sympathy for Kearney, with some people joking she must be 'stronger than Superman' to cope with seeing her husband in such a raunchy embrace with another woman. 'His wife is a stronger woman than I could be,' one user wrote. 'Hollywood is so weird. Imagine your husband coming home after doing this all day at "work"...,' someone else commented. 'His wife is sooo strong,' another user asserted. 'Spouses of these actors and models are god's strongest soldiers istg,' a fourth exclaimed. Bethenny Frankel landed in hot water once again after posting a TikTok about the residents of the Hamptons. The former Real Housewives of New York star, 53, took to her social media on Thursday to share her thoughts on the popular seaside community in Long Island, New York, claiming it's not only for 'rich people' but also for minorities. 'Hamptons is an amazing place, there's all kinds of people here, its not only rich people,' the Skinny Girl mogul began. 'There is a big Latin community, there is an African American community here on the beach. Beautiful houses. I had a house there once summer.' Followers swiftly condemned the racially charged remarks, with The View cohost Ana Navarro leading the pack. 'News flash: White people are not the only ones capable of having money. There are rich Black people and rich "Latins,"' Navarro posted. Bethenny Frankel landed in hot water once again after posting a TikTok about the residents of the Hamptons The former Real Housewives of New York star , 53, took to her social media on Thursday to share her thoughts on the popular seaside community in Long Island, New York, claiming it's not only for 'rich people' but also for minorities One fan wrote, 'I guess us Asians and South Asians dont get to be Hamptons rich. Meanwhile we are the highest earners in the country, but what do I know?' Another added, 'This woman has been snowing her white privilege for YEARS, This is nothing new and is just who she is.' And another chimed in, simply stating, 'Bethenny needs to seriously put her phone down for a long time. She needs to stop.' The backlash comes merely two weeks after the reality star faced criticism for buying a luxury car to match her dress. Standing in front a a new blue Ford Bronco while wearing a blue maxi dress in snaps posted to Instagram, she wrote, 'When you buy a car to match your outfit' 'People can't even afford groceries right now and you're posting this?' asked one fan. Another posted, 'So tone deaf do u really need to show off ur in the Hamptons & got a new car?' 'Wow. That's so relatable,' added one sarcastic commenter. 'Hamptons is an amazing place, there's all kinds of people here, its not only rich people,' the Skinny Girl mogul began. 'There is a big Latin community, there is an African American community here on the beach. Beautiful houses. I had a house there once summer' Followers swiftly condemned the racially charged remarks, with The View cohost Ana Navarro leading the pack In September 2023, Bethenny was also slammed for giving away 'leftover makeup' to T.J. Maxx employees which she filmed in a TikTok video. She was labeled 'out of touch' by one social media user while fellow Bravo star, Carole Radziwill, called the action as 'white savior complex.' In the clip, the TV personality explained that, 'the women who work here are so nice and they're always complimenting me on what we buy...' 'So I wanted to bring them some of the leftover makeup that I just tried, opened up, and put in a giveaway pile,' Bethenny stated, and then insisted that, 'It's all brand new.' After taking a quick look at some of the designer items at the store, she then cut the clip to show bags filled with makeup products. The reality star explained that the makeup items in the bags 'are all things that have been opened once, and then not used. But, they're good and fancy and expensive.' However, the employee expressed concern about accepting the makeup and stated that there was a possibility for 'getting in trouble' due to not being able to accept 'any gratuity or gifts.' Social media users quickly flocked to the comment section to share their reactions to the video, with one writing, 'why film her. she looks scared. is this for clout?' The backlash comes merely two weeks after the reality star faced criticism for buying a luxury car to match her dress One angry fan posted, 'So tone deaf do u really need to show off ur in the Hamptons & got a new car?' One follower added, 'she's so out of touch. she really thinks she did some thing there #entitledpeople...' Former Real Housewives Of New York City castmate, Carole Radziwill, slammed Bethenny on X, and also reposted the same reel. Bethenny and Carole were once close on the Bravo series, but their friendship unraveled during the show's 10th season. 'Who sent this to me? Lol. I mean stop this nonsense. So much to unpack but I'm not getting paid to do this any longer. But hereone word: #whitesaviorcomplex,' Radziwill wrote. Matthew McConaughey was seen at the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association on Friday in Salt Lake City, Utah. The movie star's eye seemed to be fully healed after a bee sting left him with a very swollen eye just two days ago. While at the meeting he talked politics. He had a chance to sit on a panel with Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, a Republican, and Governor Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, to discuss how to promote civility in politics. And the Dallas Buyers Club star, 54, also talked about his own political ambitions. 'I'm on a learning tour and have been for probably the last six years,' McConaughey told New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, per ABC News. 'Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good for it. You know, would I be useful,' Matthew who posted a sweet 16th birthday tribute to his on Levi last month said. Matthew McConaughey was seen at the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association on Friday in Salt Lake City, Utah. The movie star's eye seemed to be fully healed after a bee sting left him with a very swollen eye just two days ago While there, he had a chance to sit on a panel with Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, a Republican, and Governor Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, to discuss how to promote civility in politics He added that he was learning a lot at the annual summer meeting of the governors. 'I learned a lot from you last night through that tequila, sir,' he joked to Murphy. Earlier, the governor had talked about drinking McConaughey's tequila with him. But Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat from Hawaii encouraged him to run someday and had some solid advice for him. 'Dont fall into the trap to think you should be just one thing,' Green said. 'A lot of Republicans will want you to be Republican and a lot of Democrats will want you to be a Democrat, just be you because that might be something special for all of us.' On the panel, the A Time to Kill actor talked about how these days, politicians' need to drive social media interactions can lead to extreme viewpoints. McConaughey said that a form of the same extreme polarization the political arena has seen has also taken hold in Hollywood. 'My industry has to watch its tongue out of the gate because its coming from the left. We have to open that conversation with our opening statements and not invalidate a moderate or conservative at the gate, which were guilty of to an extent,' McConaughey said about actors and directors weighing in on politics. Back in 2022 McConaughey danced around the idea of running for governor of Texas. And the Dallas Buyers Club star, 54, also talked about his own political ambitions 'I'm on a learning tour and have been for probably the last six years,' McConaughey told New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, per ABC News 'Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good for it. You know, would I be useful,' Matthew said. Pictured with Utah governor Spencer Cox He added that he was learning a lot at the annual summer meeting of the governors The Academy Award winner has been very outspoken on gun control particularly after the shootings in Uvalde, which is where he grew up. His appearance at the meeting comes after The Wedding Planner actor got stung by a bee in his eye. The brutal bee sting caused his right eye to swell and shut completely. Matthew posted the alarming snap to his 9.8M Instagram followers with the simple caption: 'bee swell,' offering no other explanation. Eminem has been branded 'sick and tasteless' over referencing Alec Baldwin's Rust shooting on a track from new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace). Baldwin, 66, is currently on trial in New Mexico after the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, on October 21, 2021 - with new Eminem track Fuel including lyrics about the killing. In Fuel, Eminem, 51, raps: 'But it's in a holster, I proceed to bust it/ F**k around and get popped like Halyna Hutchins 'Like I'm Alec Baldwin, what I mean is buckin' you down, coup de grace then.' Fans quickly took to social media to blast the lyrics and the timing of the track's release - days after Baldwin's trial began. Eminem has been branded 'sick and tasteless' over referencing Alec Baldwin's Rust shooting on a track from new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) - pictured last month Baldwin, 66, is currently on trial in New Mexico after the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins , 42, on October 21, 2021 - with new Eminem track Fuel including lyrics about the killing Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling One wrote: 'Are you still listening to this loser? If so, stop it. One wrote: 'Are you still listening to this loser? If so, stop it.' Others penned: 'awful' and 'tasteless' about the track while another wrote: 'Eminem dissing Halyna Hutchins and Alec Baldwin was not on my 2024 Bingo card.' Some fans lauded the typically controversial star for his bold lyrics on his first album since 2020's Music to Be Murdered By. They wrote: 'you wild for that alec baldwin bar lol...thank you for being you' and 'Eminem is proving that cancel culture doesnt exist.' 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. 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. Eminem - real name Marshall Mathers - also shocked with album track Antichrist - which saw Diddy, Megan Thee Stallion, Kim Kardashian and Jeffrey Epstein name-dropped. The star also references mass murderer Nikolas Cruz - who shot and killed 17 people in the 2018 Parkland High School shooting. Referencing rapper Lil Uzi Vert - who has been accused of promoting Satanism - Eminem raps: 'Stickin a clip into Uzi, Ive been itchin and use, lookin like Nikolas Cruz 'My triggers happy, truth, Travis too, we gettin rude.' In Fuel, Eminem, 51, raps: ' But it's in a holster, I proceed to bust it/ F**k around and get popped like Halyna Hutchins 'Like I'm Alec Baldwin, what I mean is buckin' you down, coup de grace then' 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 Fans quickly took to social media to blast the lyrics and the timing of the track's release - days after Baldwin's trial began. Some fans lauded the typically controversial star for his bold lyrics on his first album since 2020's Music to Be Murdered By The star also name-dropped Caitlyn Jenner - who was previously known as Bruce Jenner before her transition, saying: 'Wheres Bruce Jenner at? I wanna f**k that ho' before mentioning the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion by Tory Lanez. 'Wheres Megan Thee Stallion at? I wanna suck that toe.' Slamming Kanye West - who has seen his career implode amid a series of anti-Semitic rants, he rapped: 'They wanna see me goin off the deep end like Ye, ayy (Nah) 'Rather see me do like Kim Kardashian they say (Yeah, yeah).' And find a way to get rid of all of this rage, ayy (Hahaha).' Making a sexual reference to Megan and Nicki Minaj, he said: 'Cross between Nas and GZA, Biggie Smalls, and RZA/So hard, Megan Stallion and Nicki Minajll scissor (Cut it out). Diddy's latest controversies were put on blast in several new tracks, referencing the 2016 surveillance footage of Diddy beating up ex-girlfriend Cassie along with allegations the music executive blew up Kid Cudi's car. The footage of Diddy assaulting Cassie back in 2016 was referenced in the track Antichrist, with Eminem rapping, 'next idiot ask me is gettin' his a** beat worse than Diddy did. The rapper also put disgraced Diddy's latest controversies on blast Diddy and Eminem pictured at the 45th Grammy Awards The star also references mass murderer Nikolas Cruz - who shot and killed 17 people in the 2018 Parkland High School shooting Eminem also mentioned the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion by Tory Lanez. 'Wheres Megan Thee Stallion at? I wanna suck that toe.' 'But on the real, though/She prolly ran out the room with his f**kin dildo/He tried to field goal punt her, she said to chill/Now put it back in my a** and get the steel toe,' the lyrics continue. Diddy's alleged altercation with Kid Cudi is raised in the track Bad One. In her explosive 2023 lawsuit against her ex, Cassie claimed Diddy blew up Kid Cudi's car around February 2012 in retaliation for the brief relationship she had with Cudi when she was on the outs with the Making The Band alum. Cudi agreed with Cassie's claims about the car bombing, telling the New York Times, 'This is all true.' The claim was among one of many made in Cassie's 2023 lawsuit against Diddy. She sued Combs last year alleging rape and a range of other offenses. They settled out of court in November for an undisclosed amount. Bringing up the alleged car bombing, Eminem rapped in Bad One: 'The f**king bomb with the Puffy on/Im blowing up for Kid Cudis car/In front of his house where all his buddies are.' Diddy has been under fire as of late with numerous lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault and more filed against him. He has denied all the allegations made against him. His homes in Miami and Los Angeles were also shockingly raided by federal agents as part of a sex trafficking investigation earlier this year. The video of him viciously beating his ex Cassie came to light in May. Late sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was also referenced on the track - with Eminem mentioning his infamous jet - dubbed the 'Lolita Express' which he used to shuttle underage girls and carried the likes of Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew onboard The rapper took to Instagram to apologize, saying: 'I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses. So difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, sometimes you got to do that. I was f***ed up.' 'I mean I hit rock bottom, but I make no excuses, my behavior in that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video, I'm disgusted.' Late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was referenced on the track - with Eminem mentioning his infamous jet - dubbed the 'Lolita Express' which Epstein used to shuttle underage girls and carried the likes of Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew onboard. A shock line Eminem raps is: 'Try not to get seen with Ben Affleck, me, and Seth Green 'Hangin on to the left wing to Jeffrey Epstein, jets screamin (Hey! Dont forget me, haha).' He announced he would be releasing his 12th studio album in April - just over a month after the rapper who discovered him, Dr. Dre, hinted at a new album dropping this year. Dr Dre (born Andre Young), 59, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live in March, where he teased a new album from Eminem. 'Let me explain something to you right now. Eminem is working on his own album which is coming out this year and I actually talked to him and he said it was okay for me to make that announcement right here on this show,' Dre explained. Dre added: 'I've got songs on it and it's fire. I'm actually going to hear the entire album for the first time tomorrow. 'He holds his music close to his chest so I haven't heard complete [that he has produced on the album] but I'm going to hear and he's putting out an album this year'. Ella Morgan has issued a health update after taking a break from social media for the sake of her health. The Celebs Go Dating star, 29, previously told how she had 'never been so ill' with a mystery illness. In a post to her Instagram, she said: 'Hi everyone. I want to update you following my recent illness and hospital stay. 'Since the start of last year, my overall health and weight for some time has not been something I have treated as a priority but that has now changed. 'I have been taking this time to rest and recover as advised by my medical team. I also want to take this opportunity to also thank the NHS and Weston General for looking after me. Ella Morgan has issued a health update after taking a break from social media after undergoing a 'mystery illness' The Celebs Go Dating star, 29, previously told how she had 'never been so ill' with a mystery illness but did not go into details about her sudden health issues 'Whilst I am usually an open book, on this occasion when it come to my medical recovery, I will take my time before giving more details as I am still awaiting some test results and would request privacy during this period. 'To reassure everyone, I am slowly on the mend and on the path to recovery. 'I want to thank you all for the supportive words, flowers cards and kind messages (My DMs are always open).' Ella, who became the first transgender bride on the UK version of Married At First Sight UK, admitted that she was missing work and would continue her Pride commitments that she is 'so passionate about'. She said: 'I cannot wait to get back to work full-time and of course filming, CGD! 'I am taking a few more days to rest and recover but I will be attending Bristol Pride tomorrow for my speech at 4pm, something I am so passionate about and cannot wait to see many of you there to celebrate my hometown Pride! 'Thank you again and Love you all, Ella x'. Earlier in the month, the reality star, who is in the middle of filming series 13 of E4's Celebs Go Dating, admitted that pursuing romance in front of the cameras had 'triggered' her. In a lengthy post she shared to her Instagram stories, she gave her followers an update about her hospital stay, thanking the staff and letting them know she was grateful for the support but that she hoped they respected her privacy Earlier in the year, the reality star, who is in the middle of filming series 13 of Celebs Go Dating, admitted that pursuing romance in front of the cameras had 'triggered' her Ella shot to fame when she appeared onMarried At First Sight in 2023, and made history as the first transgender bride on the UK version Taking to her Instagram Stories, she said: 'I'm really excited about this journey, but I nearly quit the other day. It was just getting so much. 'It was quite triggering. I don't know what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a bit of a breeze and a walk in the park. Ella explained that taking part in the E4 dating show is more of a 'solo' experience than MAFS but doesn't want to use her platform to only talk about her transition, which she began at the age of 16. She continued: 'This is definitely more of a solo journey than MAFS. With Celebs Go Dating you're working out what you do right, what do you wrong, what you need to work on.' She concluded: 'Now I'm going to have to be fully vulnerable and be myself, which isn't just crazy, loud, fun Ella. I'm obviously a lot more serious and tame.' Ella made history as the first transgender participant on Celebs Go Dating, and her time on MAFS famously saw her couple up with JJ Slater, who is the current boyfriend of Katie Price. Ella was left 'betrayed' by Katie when when the ex-glamour model stole her ex and Katie is now said to be nervous about what Ella will reveal. Other stars who may join the show are Coronation Street's Helen Flanagan and Love Island OG Chris Taylor. Eastenders star Jamie Borthwick has reportedly signed up for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing. The actor, 30, is said to be gearing up to get his dancing shoes on for the BBC competition which kicks off in September, having had a taste for it last year, when he won the Christmas special with pro dancer Nancy Xu. According to The Sun, he is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Bobby Brazier, who narrowly lost to ex-Coronation Street star Ellie Leach in the Strictly final last year. A source said: 'Although an EastEnders actor is on Strictly every year, this is the first time a performer on the festive special has gone directly into the competition. 'Producers and viewers were blown away by Jamies dancing. Eastenders star Jamie Borthwick has reportedly signed up for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing (pictured with dancer Nancy Xu at the Strictly Christmas Special 2023) A source told The Sun that although an EastEnders actor appears on Strictly every year, 'this is the first time a performer on the festive special has gone directly into the competition' 'Its not clear yet whether he will take a break from the soap or if hell juggle dance rehearsals with doing scenes for the soap.' MailOnline has contacted the BBC for comment. Jamie who has starred on the soap for 18 years, could be joining other rumoured celebrities; Nicola Roberts, Dave Fishwick, Chris McCausland, Gladiator Nitro, Coronation Street actress Helen Worth, Olympian Laura Kenny and 80's icon Toyah Willcox. Strictly Come Dancing has been rocked by scandals as of late as the series has seen a number of complaints about professional Giovanni Pernice. A male celebrity has joined the group of women making complaints about his behaviour during their time on Strictly Come Dancing, according to reports. Last month, it was confirmed three women, including Amanda Abbington, had hired 700-an-hour lawyers at leading London law firm Carter Ruck to pursue claims against Giovanni and the BBC. The BBC have launched an investigation after the dancer, 33, was accused of 'threatening and abusive behaviour' while working with Amanda, 52, Good Morning Britain presenter Ranvir Singh, 46, and former Love Island host Laura Whitmore, 39, on the show - something which he vehemently denies. Despite the furore, head judge Shirley Ballas has stood by the under-fire pro and will join him in hosting a number of dance classes in London this month. The actor is said to have impressed producers and blew away viewers with his performance last year on the Christmas special Jamie who has starred on the soap for 18 years, plays Jay Mitchell and it is not known if he will take a break from the soap or juggle dance rehearsals with filming Strictly has been rocked by scandals as of late as the series has seen a number of complaints about professional Giovanni Pernice (pictured with his dance partner Amanda Abbington in October 2023) Despite the furore, head judge Shirley Ballas has stood by the under-fire pro and will join him in hosting a number of dance classes in London this month Named Ballando, the one day event is led by Shirley, Giovanni and Anton Du Beke as they share their expertise with fans. In the latest twist of the bitter legal battle, the unnamed star, who worked with Giovanni during his time on the show, is said to have shared his experiences with the law firm. 'After three women came forward, a man has now joined their ranks. He personally reached out to the women at the heart of this unfolding crisis, offering them his support and full backing,' a source told The Sun. 'He has also been in touch with Carter Ruck and told them what he knows, and shared his experiences. These experiences were, at times, very tricky.' Giovanni launched a fightback by hiring rival law firm Schillings. His case is being handled by Joelle Rich, 39, who represented Johnny Depp in his libel trial in 2020. Nurses employed by the city of San Francisco are often hired on a temporary basis before becoming full-time workers. They are the only class of city workers who cannot buy back pension time when they become permanent employees. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle Regarding S.F. is facing a $790 million deficit. Supes still want to hand out new pension benefits like Tic Tacs (Editorial, SFChronicle.com, July 8): As a registered nurse for 14 years with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, I support Supervisor Asha Safais charter amendment. Currently, nurses who are mostly women are the only classification of city workers not allowed to buy back pension time when they become permanent employees. The Chronicles misleading editorial missed this crucial point. By extending this right to nurses that other city employees have, the amendment would correct a glaring inequity and encourage temporary nurses to commit to San Franciscos critically short-staffed public hospitals and clinics for the long term. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The proposal would allow nurses hired into temporary positions as often happens due to the citys broken hiring process to buy back up to three years of pension time when they become full-time employees. The buyback would require nurses to contribute $30,000 to $60,000, meaning the $4.4 million price tag cited by the editorial is far above the actual cost of the measure. When a pension is one of the only advantages the city offers over private hospitals, this amendment is needed to secure San Franciscos public health workforce. Jennifer Esteen, Ashland App wont help alcoholics Regarding Alcohol abuse ran rampant in my family for generations. Mindful drinking helped break the cycle (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, July 4): Its a dangerous temptation for an alcoholic to think that mindful drinking is a workable solution to their problem. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As a long-time member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe I can say unequivocally that alcoholics cannot reliably control or moderate their drinking. Maybe for a little while, but not for long, and an app or a spreadsheet wont help. I base this on countless horror stories of vain attempts by alcoholics to control their drinking. Many of them die before they make it into (or back into) AA. And for those who do have an honest desire to completely stop drinking, Ill note how beneficial the 12 steps are for personal growth and a new way of life. Brian Wright, Belmont Keep bus line Regarding Big changes could be coming to Bay Areas largest bus agency. Heres how it would impact riders (Bay Area, SFChronicle.com, July 5): Ive been an AC Transit rider for 70 years. Im among those who are outraged by the plan to remove the 51A bus route from Alameda despite feedback from riders. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The 51A is a robust legacy route that runs from the central Alameda corridor to downtown Oakland and BART. AC Transit wants to replace the line in Alameda with the 19 on the north shore, literally one block from the Estuary. Line 19 has a frequency of every 60 minutes and a cut-off of 10 p.m. This is not an appropriate change. I urge all stakeholders to give feedback at www.actransit.org/realign. Alys Mainhart, Alameda Ruling without precedent Perhaps what is most troubling about the Supreme Courts presidential immunity ruling is a level of dishonesty not expected from Chief Justice John Roberts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The language he relied on to conclude that some presidential immunity could be conclusive and preclusive comes from Youngstown v. Sawyer, a case that limited rather than expanded presidential power. In Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson did not say that a president has conclusive and preclusive immunity. He said that a presidential claim of such immunity should scrutinized by courts with caution, presumably, in context, meaning skeptically. Justice Jackson was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. He would have put Hitler on trial for war crimes had Hitler survived World War II. Jackson knew well the dangers of giving the head of state too much power. Roberts perverted Jacksons words, violated Jacksons principles and stated a doctrine with no legal precedent. Jay Chafetz, Walnut Creek Advertisement Article continues below this ad Commanding presence 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 Regarding Bill Clinton among those to laud Willie Mays during public celebration of Giants greats life (Giants, SFChronicle.com, July 8): Two, count em, two former U.S. presidents offer personal tributes at the mans memorial (Barack Obama via video). Chalk up another record for Willie Mays. Rebel Wilson is being sued for defamation after accusing the producers of her new film The Deb of blocking the movie from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. This week Wilson, 44, alleged in an Instagram video her movie was set to premiere on the closing night of the 2024 TIFF, but claimed producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden are trying to prevent the comedy's debut at the prestigious event. She also accused the producers of 'bad behavior' on set, embezzling funds from the film and branding them 'vile and disgusting'. In turn the producers of Wilson's film have claimed the allegations are 'false'. Now, Ghost, Cameron and Holden have launched a lawsuit against the actress, accusing her of 'bullying', vindictive behavior, 'shirking her responsibilities' as a director by disappearing from set for extended periods and repeating a fictitious claim Ghost had sexually harassed a lead actor in the film. The trio are represented by Johnny Depp's former attorney Camille Vasquez and seeking more than $35,000 in damages. Rebel took to Instagram on Friday to lambast the suit - sharing a snap from filming and writing: 'Its not defamation if its the TRUTH (those producers who I mentioned in my last post have just filed a defamation suit against me... Rebel Wilson is being sued for defamation after accusing the producers of her new film The Deb of blocking the movie from premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September (pictured July 2) This week Wilson, 44, alleged in an Instagram video her movie was set to premiere on the closing night of the 2024 TIFF, but claimed producers Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden are trying to prevent the comedy's debut 'Let our cool movie play at Toronto and stop messing about with a rubbish defamation suit against me!' The complaint for defamation obtained by DailyMail.com reads: '[Wilson] has a history of fabricating false and malicious lies to hide her own lack of professionalism and advance her own self-interest. 'This lawsuit is about holding Rebel accountable for her attempts to bully Plaintiffs into conceding to her unreasonable demands by spreading vicious lies without regard for the irreparable damage her reckless words would cause on the hard-earned personal and professional reputations of Plaintiffs.' 'For years, Rebel has played the affable funny girl on the big screen and, off screen, portrayed herself as a champion of other female artists and whistleblower against abusive conduct within the film industry. 'This public persona, however, is a farce. Rebel is a bully who will disregard the interests of others to promote her own.' Another shock claim levied by the producers is that Wilson hired a young writer - Hannah Reilly - to develop a screenplay for The Deb - before attempting to steal credit for herself. The suit reads: 'She granted a young artist a scholarship to develop a screenplay for The Deb (the Film), and then tried to claim writing credit for herself. 'And, when Rebel did not get her way in business negotiations with the Plaintiffs concerning The Deb (including the writing credit), Rebel tried to intimidate Plaintiffs into giving her what she wanted by leveraging her persona and platform, with many millions of followers, to spread malicious lies about the Plaintiffs.' The plaintiffs allege they 'took a chance on Rebel' who is a 'novice' to directing and producing but claim 'she flatly refused to collaborate with Plaintiffs' and exhibited 'reckless conduct.' Now, Ghost, Cameron and Holden have launched a lawsuit against the actress, accusing her of 'bullying', vindictive behavior, 'shirking her responsibilities as a director and repeating a fictitious claim Ghost had sexually harassed a lead actor in the film Rebel in a scene from the musical comedy which was filmed in NSW and Sydney last year The complaint says: '[Wilson] absconded from the Film for months at a time, behaved unprofessionally with employees of the Film, and repeatedly made unauthorized and improper disclosures about the Film. 'But, because Rebel shirked her professional obligations to the Plaintiffs, the Film, and everyone dedicated to its success, she started flailing and inventing problems to obfuscate her own failures.' The lawsuit claims the dispute between Wilson and the producers erupted when Wilson 'sought to seize writing credit for the Film from Reilly, a young, upcoming writer and Rebels own scholarship recipient, notwithstanding a binding decision from the Australian Writers Guild that such credit belongs to Reilly.' Reilly was awarded full credit by the Australian Writers Guild on the The Deb following an appeal, the suit says. Wilson was granted an 'additional writing by credit' on the script, which she was allegedly left dissatisfied with. 'Rebel also fought for credit with the writers of the music for the Film, and demanded that Plaintiffs provide her a record label with an external music group (a demand which was well outside of Plaintiffs power to provide). 'Rebels goal in these several disputes was to get credit for work she did not do, and to overshadow young, upcoming artists who truly deserved the credit.' A demand letter sent by Wilson to the producers in June and obtained by Variety sees the actress claim she was forced to sign over rights under 'duress' by the producers, who she says 'resorted to physical intimidation and threats of sabotage throughout production.' The producers have denied in their defamation suit. The suit further alleges that when Wilson 'did not get her way in these disputes' she 'revived a fictitious story about Ms. Ghost sexually harassing a lead actor in The Deb that has absolutely no basis in reality, as the actor that is the subject of this defamatory tale has repeatedly confirmed. Another shock claim levied by the producers is that Wilson hired a young writer to develop a screenplay for The Deb - before attempting to steal credit for herself The film will also feature actress Natalie Abbott from the ABC series Aftertaste, as well as newcomer Charlotte McInnes. Pictured: The cast perform a musical number 'In addition, Rebel claimed, without any basis, that Ms. Ghost and Mr. Cameron were embezzling from the Films budget. These statements are false, and Rebel knew they were false at the time she made.' The plaintiffs claim Wilson knew the actress at issue had 'repeatedly and unequivocally denied any form of wrongful conduct by Plaintiffs, but Rebel doubled down on her false story to promote her own selfish interests in her disputes with Plaintiffs, without regard for the Plaintiffs or the young, upcoming lead actress who she dragged into the center of her malicious scheme.' They state $22million had been invested in The Deb by the summer of 2024 and it was selected to premiere at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival. The suit reads: 'but Plaintiffs had to consider carefully whether to proceed with marketing the Film while it was embroiled in numerous credit and licensing disputes instigated by Rebel.' The suit states the producers 'continuously attempted' to resolve their issues with Wilson but claim she 'attempted to force the issue and bully them into capitulating to her other unreasonable demands by leveraging her popularity on social media to spread these malicious and baseless lies about Plaintiffs to her 11 million Instagram followers. 'This was a vindictive attempt to destroy Plaintiffs reputations with what she knew were demonstrably false statements.' The producers claims Wilson's alleged conduct has caused 'severe financial, professional, and reputational harm' to them and jeopardized the success of the film. 'Additionally, taken with her prior spurious allegations against Ms. Ghost, Rebel's recent statement also carries the unmistakable defamatory implication that Ms. Ghost committed sexual harassment against the lead actress of the Film, and that Ms. Ghost has a history of doing this kind of thing. The producers said Wilson 'has run this playbook one time too many' and had 'jeopardized the success of the film, as Rebels statements carry the clear and unmistakable defamatory meaning: that [the producers] criminally embezzled funds from the film.' 'Each and every one of these insinuations is patently false and easily disproven, for instance, by the examination of the Films financial records and the sworn testimony of the Films female lead.' The suit concluded: 'Rebel must be held accountable for her outrageous conduct.' DailyMail.com has contacted Wilson's representatives for comment. Wilson had claimed in her video: 'You know sometimes you try so hard in life and you don't know what to do, well that is the situation. You might have noticed I did a post a week ago about the first film that I directed, that I am so proud of, The Deb. 'It is a little Australian musical which is awesome. It got selected for closing night of the Toronto Film Festival which is the best platform to be a first time female director, it's huge. 'To have the joy of the movie being selected is one thing but to have the business partners turn around and say the movie can't premiere is beyond devastating. Why are they saying this? Why are they stopping it?' Wilson then claimed: 'This dates back to October last year where I discovered bad behaviour by these business partners. They are producers of the film, their names are Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron and executive producer Vince Holden.' 'I reported their bad behaviour when I found out.' Wilson claimed since reporting the problems, she has been met with 'absolute viciousness and bad behaviour.' She said she managed to finish the film but alleged the producers have told her she can't release it. 'This is work of hundreds of people and this behaviour is absolutely vile and disgusting,' Wilson continued. 'I will speak the truth and warn people about people in the industry that are not behaving ethically. That is my dilemma if that movie doesn't play at Toronto, it's because of these absolute f**kwits.' 'RW's allegations are false, defamatory, and disappointing,' a spokesperson for the producers told Deadline. 'Her self-promotional claims are clearly intended to cause reputational harm to the individuals who have supported her directorial debut film The Deb a joyous movie that we're very proud of and are looking forward to sharing with audiences. 'For her to promote a false narrative to advance her own agenda undermines the film and all the people who worked on this project.' The Deb, which stars Wilson and comedian Shane Jacobson, centres on a country school girl getting ready for her debutante ball. The film will also feature actress Natalie Abbott from the ABC series Aftertaste, as well as newcomer Charlotte McInnes. Locations include country towns such as Carcoar, Blayney, and Orange, as well as Sydney. Last October, Rebel revealed that she turned down major offers in the States, so she could make her directorial debut Down Under. 'If I was directing a movie it was only going to be in Australia because that's authentic to me,' Rebel told The Daily Telegraph at the time. 'I didn't want to do the studio ones I was offered in America because I didn't feel like I had that heart connection,' she explained. Devon Windsor proved that she is still model material. The Victoria's Secret vet, 30 who frequently flaunts her post-baby body showed off her incredibly toned body while enjoying a family vacation on Friday. She looked angelic in a barely-there white bikini that flashed her chest and slender legs. The Vogue cover girl's signature short blonde locks were tucked behind her ears, underneath a teal bandana. 'It was a good day!' she captioned the carousel of photos. Devon Windsor showed off her incredibly toned body while enjoying a family vacation She looked angelic in a barely-there white bikini that flashed her chest and slender legs The mother-of-two accessorized with a pair of dark sunglasses and various bracelets. She also modeled a chic white waist chain that clung to her frame, displaying her long torso. The post was a hit with her 4.7million followers, racking up over 2.6k likes as fans rushed to the comments to pen their support for the model. One wrote, 'Beautiful indeed.' While another chimed in, 'Wow!' The five foot eleven looker posted photos of her vacation to paradise while accompanied by her husband and two children. Windsor and Johnny Dex Barbara said 'I do' on November 16, 2019 after three years of dating. The pair welcomed their first child, Enzo Elodie Barbara, in 2021 and daughter Celine Blue Barbara in May of 2023. The St. Louis, Missouri native began modeling at the age of fourteen and has gone on to model for Chanel, Dior and Victoria's Secret. In 2019, she decided to bring her runway talents to the fashion industry and launched a swimwear line, Devon Windsor Swim. 'Being in the fashion industry, I was always interested in expanding my brand outside of just modeling,' she told V Magazine. She explained to the outlet: 'I loved the aspect of design and the creativity and freedom in being able to have your own line. Swimsuits have always been a passion of mine because I love the ocean it is where I feel most at home. 'Over the past couple of years, I have noticed a gap in the market for a swimsuit that is more than your average basic bikini, without breaking your bank,' she added. The five foot eleven looker posted photos of her vacation to paradise while accompanied by her husband and two children Her signature short blonde locks were tucked behind her ears, underneath a teal bandana The pair welcomed their first child, Enzo Elodie Barbara, in 2021 and daughter Celine Blue Barbara in May of 2023 The St. Louis, Missouri native began modeling at the age of fourteen and has gone on to model for Chanel, Dior and Victoria's Secret Windsor and Johnny Dex Barbara said 'I do' on November 16, 2019 after three years of dating 'For me, swimwear is a strong form of self-expression and something that you should feel confident and powerful in. With this in mind, I decided to create an affordable line of statement swimsuits,' she said. The blonde beauty explained that she wanted her brand to stand out: 'I wanted this line to be a reflection of my personal style, while also being a collection and brand that everyone could find something they love. 'I also wanted the collection to be affordable, and something that carries a lot of design details. The range offers a large variety of versatile silhouettes, colors, patterns, textures and hardwareall with an immense amount of detail that went into selecting each,' she finished. Emma Corrin looked amazing in a black halter neck mini dress as they joined Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman at a Deadpool & Wolverine photocall at IET London on Friday. The actor, 28, paired the edgy dress, which uniquely featured a buckle at the neck, with knee-high black boots also adorned with buckles. Emma's outfit exposed subtle tattoos on their right thigh and right arm and they accessorised with silver jewellery. The star, who rose to fame portraying Princess Diana in The Crown and identifies as non-binary using they/them pronouns - portrays antagonist Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine. Emma, Ryan, 47, and Hugh, 55, were joined in their photos by Pug and Chinese Crested Dog cross Peggy, who received the title of Britain's Ugliest Dog in 2023. Emma Corrin, 28, looked amazing in a halter neck mini dress as they joined Ryan Reynolds, 47, (left) and Hugh Jackman, 55, (right) at a Friday Deadpool & Wolverine photocall at IET London The actor, 28, paired the dress, which uniquely featured a buckle at the neck, with knee-high black boots also adorned with buckles Emma's outfit exposed subtle tattoos on their right thigh and right arm and they accessorised with silver jewellery Peggy, six, makes her film debut in Deadpool & Wolverine, and Ryan pushed to have her involved, telling Empire this was because Peggy 'feels like the animal manifestation of Wade Wilson'. Wade Wilson, better known has Deadpool, is Ryan's character in the film and he proudly carried Peggy at the photocall. Peggy plays Dogpool, Deadpool's four-legged partner in crime. At a press conference the night before, Ryan said of Peggy: 'She won Ugliest Dog In Britain, but we're not telling her that. 'Because she is a 10 in our hearts, isn't she? And that tongue, by the way, is real. 'And I have tasted it and I'm sorry for that. Yeah, she loves to lick. Loves to get right in there. 'She is really, truly amazing, this dog went through more training than Hugh Jackman did in the gym every single morning. 'And we love her very, very much, yes we do.' Ryan wore a beautifully designed dark green shirt with a white vest and a silver chain underneath. He paired the shirt with a khaki pair of chinos, which he slipped a hand into the pocket of, and a bright white pair of Converse. Finishing the Deadpool & Wolverine's main cast is Hugh, who last played Wolverine, real name James 'Logan' Howlett, in 2017's Logan. In Logan, Wolverine, without his famous healing powers, got stabbed in the heart and impaled by a branch by his evil clone X-24. He was then buried by his mutant daughter Laura and the other Transigen children beneath a wooden X to honour his time with the X-Men. Peggy plays Deadpool's four-legged sidekick Dogpool and Ryan joked she went through more training than Hugh Jackman in the gym The star, who rose to fame portraying Princess Diana in The Crown, portrays antagonist Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine Emma, Ryan, 47, and Hugh, 55, were joined in their photos by Pug and Chinese Crested Dog cross Peggy, who received the title of Britain's Ugliest Dog in 2023 Peggy, 6, makes her film debut in Deadpool & Wolverine, and Ryan pushed to have her involved because Peggy 'feels like the animal manifestation of Wade Wilson' Wade Wilson, better known has Deadpool, is Ryan's character in the film and he proudly carried Peggy at the photocall Ryan wore a beautifully designed dark green shirt with a white vest and a silver chain underneath He paired the shirt with a khaki pair of chinos, which he slipped a hand into the pocket of, and a bright white pair of Converse Finishing the Deadpool & Wolverine's main cast is Hugh, who last played Wolverine, real name James 'Logan' Howlett, in 2017's Logan Hugh wore a long-sleeved navy shirt over a white T-shirt and finished his look with navy jeans and lighter blue trainers In Logan, Wolverine, without his famous healing powers, got stabbed in the heart and impaled by a branch by his evil clone X-24 Explaining why he decided to bring Wolverine out of retirement , Hugh told Variety in 2022: 'I went to a screening of Deadpool. I was 20 minutes in, and I was like: 'Ah, damn it"' Hugh continued: 'All I kept seeing in my head was 48 Hours with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So, its been brewing for a long time. It just took me longer to get here' He added that Ryan had been pleading with him 'daily' to join forces for a Deadpool film, saying: 'I think, actually, hed given up [when I agreed]. I think it was a big shock to him' Also at the photocall was Rob Delaney. He plays Peter Wisdom, a member of Deadpool's X-Force team Rob joined Emma, Ryan, and Hugh and laughed heartily Hollywood producer Shawn Levy looked great in a marron jumper and maroon trousers and brown shoes Shawn posed with Ryan and Hugh, resting his arms on their shoulders Then, they were joined by Emma, Rob, and Wendy Jacobson, who is an executive producer on the film Explaining why he decided to bring Wolverine out of retirement, Hugh told Variety in 2022: 'I went to a screening of Deadpool. I was 20 minutes in, and I was like: 'Ah, damn it." Hugh continued: 'All I kept seeing in my head was 48 Hours with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So, its been brewing for a long time. It just took me longer to get here. He added that Ryan had been pleading with him 'daily' to join forces for a Deadpool film, saying: 'I think, actually, hed given up [when I agreed]. I think it was a big shock to him.' Ryan had not only been calling Hugh constantly in a bid to get him to 'unretire' Wolverine, he also sent him dozens of cupcakes. Interestingly, Hugh told ScreenRant in 2017 that if the X-Men were a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he might have reconsidered retiring. He said: 'If that was on the table when I made my decision, it certainly would have made me pause. Thats for sure. 'Because I always love the idea of him within that dynamic, with the Hulk obviously, with Iron Man but theres a lot of smarter people with MBAs who cant figure that out [laughter]. You never know.' Hugh revealed he decided to stop playing Wolverine after 17 years and nine films because of something American comedian Jerry Seinfeld said to him. Jerry ended his hugely successful sitcom Seinfeld after nine series even though could have carried on, because, as he told Hugh, it's important to 'leave the party before it gets too late'. Hugh used this to confirm his decision to step away from Wolverine for seven years. As the sun rose in the sky Hugh took off his outer shirt and slipped on a pair of sunglasses, looking every bit the film star He grinned as he walked to the next destination, flanked by staff Elsewhere, Emma was still feeling a bit nippy and put on black shirt But, though their arms were now covered, the shirt did little to protect Emma's bare legs Emma is in a relationship with American actor Rami Malek and the two are thought to be engaged Producer Wendy looked beautiful in a white top and trousers over which she wore a gorgeous pink cropped tweed jacket Also at the photocall was Rob Delaney. He plays Peter Wisdom, a member of Deadpool's X-Force team. Hollywood producer Shawn Levy looked great in a marron jumper and maroon trousers and brown shoes. Then, they were joined by Wendy Jacobson, an executive producer on the film. Producer Wendy looked beautiful in a white top and trousers over which she wore a gorgeous pink cropped tweed jacket. As the sun rose in the sky Hugh took off his outer shirt and slipped on a pair of sunglasses, looking every bit the film star. Elsewhere, Emma was still feeling a bit nippy and put on black shirt. But, though their arms were now covered, the shirt unfortunately did little to protect Emma's bare legs. Emma is in a relationship with American actor Rami Malek and the two are thought to be engaged. The Cambridge Footlights alum began dating Rami, 15 years their senior, sometime in 2023 after he split from English actress Lucy Boynton. Inside the event, Ryan spoke to Hugh enthusiastically and Hugh appeared enthralled It was then Emma's turn to speak and they smiled at Hugh who looked pleased Shawn then gave some insight on the production side of things An amused Wendy gazed on as Rob, who had his back to her, engaged Hugh and Emma who laughed Focusing on what was important amid all the excitement, Hugh reached down to pet Peggy who had sat in a Deadpool-themed doggy bed Britain's Ugliest Dog Peggy had arrived in style, carried by one smiling lady while two more watched out Deadpool 3 follows Deadpool 2 in 2018 and Deadpool in 2016. The franchise's first sequel is among the highest-grossing R-rated films in history, R-rated meaning unsuitable for those under 17. Development on Deadpool 3 began at 20th Century Fox in 2016, but was placed on hold after the studio was acquired by Disney in 2019. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's first R-rated film at Disney, Deadpool & Wolverine hits UK cinemas on July 25 and US cinemas the day after. The photocall comes after the MCU chief said the existing friendship between the two leading actors alleviated the 'pressure' that comes with making such a huge film. Kevin Feige told Variety: 'Sequels and big-budget franchise films have a lot of pressure and money and expectations. They work best when most of that subsides to the background and it's just a bunch of friends making something cool.' Answering the big question of whether fans can expect The X-Men to enter the MCU, Kevin said: 'I wouldnt say when but weve already hinted over the past few years at certain people possessing what will one day be known as the mutant gene. 'Well be very excited when we tap into it.' School of Advanced Sciences, VIT-AP University and University of Southern Denmark jointly organizing 2nd International Conference on Advanced Nanomaterials and Applications (ICANA-2024) from 10 12 July 2024 [Virtual Mode]. This conference was incepted jointly by the School of Advanced Sciences, VIT-AP University and the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), USA in the year 2022. Chief guest Prof BS Murty addressed the participants of the ICANA-2024. He emphasised the importance of collaboration for Indias development. While layoffs are challenging, there is room for improving how they are managed Layoffs are never easy. The impact on the affected employees will be deep and most often devastating; it is a turning point in their professional and personal livesa stressful one, of course. But what the majority of people are not aware of is that those tasked to deliver the messagethe HR professionalsalso carry an emotional burden. It may be the senior leadership making tough decisions, but HR bears the heart-wrenching job of communicating them. HR professionals are often the stoic face of the company during these times. But behind the professionalism of that stone exterior is a very real understanding of the weight of their actions. They, too, are humans. They also carry the burden of those decisions. The difference lies in their need to balance empathy with the requirement of upholding company policies and procedures, often concealing their feelings in the process. When an HR professional sits down with an employee to discuss a layoff, how complicated the emotions in that moment can be is beyond measure. They know they are delivering news that will change a life. However, how that news is conveyed does indeed have an impact. There are no ideal words to cushion the blow, but compassion can help ease the transition. Difficult situations present an opportunity for HR professionals to think of effective strategies. They can understand and relate to the challenges faced by their staff, while also providing a positive outlook and potential for growth. They could say, "I do appreciate that this job may be a priority to you, but on the other hand, this could be one of those opportunities for upskilling to do something you are passionate about." I mean, such words, though they don't diminish the hardshipcan usher in a glimmer of positivity. This compassionate attitude toward the situation epitomises how such initiatives can give hope and dignity to the employees during this painful process of transition. It is important to keep in mind that neither the employee nor the organisation wants to end their relationship on a sour note. By approaching layoffs with professionalism laced with humanity, HR can help ensure a transition to be as respectful and supportive as possible, even while it remains painful. That being said, while layoffs can be one of the more challenging aspects of corporate life, there is certainly room for improvement in how these transitions are handled. Showing empathy, fostering clear communication, and providing support can greatly improve the experience for those undergoing layoffs. In times of uncertainty and change, it's important to remember that even small acts of kindness can make a difference. Moreover, providing outplacement services, career counseling, and job search assistance can help laid-off employees find new opportunities more quickly. Encouraging networking and offering workshops on resume writing and interview skills can also make a significant difference. HR departments can collaborate with local businesses and employment agencies to create a support network for those affected. By taking these extra steps, companies can demonstrate a genuine commitment to the well-being of their employees, even in difficult times. This holistic approach not only aids in the immediate transition but also helps maintain a positive company reputation in the long term. (The writer is a motivator; views are personal) The meeting underscored India's strategic balancing act between global powers while prioritising its own economic and security needs Just when there was a growing perception that ties between India and Russia were losing momentum, even stagnating, the summit-level meeting between PM Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin should help impart a fresh impetus to bilateral relations. Held after a gap of over two years, amid the ongoing geopolitical churn, the 22nd summit saw the two sides resolve to unlock the full potential of their strategic partnership. The summits outcomes conveyed New Delhis intent to continue to forge closer ties with Moscow, notwithstanding the widespread Western opprobrium Putin has drawn after Russia invaded Ukraine and the consequent sanctions slapped on his country. With Putin preoccupied with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, now into its third year, the summit-level meetings had fallen by the wayside. The last summit was held in New Delhi in December 2021. The summit indicated eagerness on the part of both sides to not just reinvigorate the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, but also make economic cooperation the lynchpin of the relationship. This was reflected in a separate joint statement spelling out nine key areas for economic cooperation, with a new bilateral trade target of $ 100 billion being set for 2030. While the Modi-Putin Summit left Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressing disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the worlds largest democracy hug the worlds most bloody criminal, its unlikely to hurt New Delhis close ties with Kyiv. India may not have condemned the invasion, but Modi did tell Putin there is no peace on the battlefield while reiterating Indias position on the need for dialogue. While Washington also expressed its displeasure over the Modi-Putin meeting, it is unlikely that will allow this to impact the trajectory of its ties with Moscow, propelled as they are by Indias strategic imperatives. One of them, of course, is the tightening Russia-China embrace. The thrust on closer ties with Russia will also help address Moscows concerns over New Delhis decidedly pronounced tilt towards Washington. India has so far managed to do a fine balancing act between the two geopolitical rivals and should continue to do so. India sees Russia as a time-tested trusted partner. Much as the Western world would like to keep a sanctions-hit Russia isolated over the Ukraine war, Indias push for broader and deeper economic linkages reflects its own strategic needs.Indias purchase of Russian oil despite the sanctions will not just continue but is expected to increase further. Crude imports from Russia have increased from 2.5 million tonnes in 2021 to 90 million tonnes in 2023, with India being clear this is vital for its energy security. Investments in the energy sector by both sides also remain a top priority. Fertilizer imports from Russia, too, are seen as vital for Indias agriculture sector. Russian oil imports have helped push the bilateral trade figures to $65.70 billion. But while Indian imports were worth $61.44 billion, its exports accounted for a mere $4.26 billion. While happy to import Russian oil at discounted rates, New Delhi will need to address this trade imbalance by widening the trade basket with Russia. Among the major export items from India are pharmaceuticals, organic chemicals, iron and steel and electrical machinery. That the two sides agreed to look at the possibility of eliminating non-tariff trade barriers and the setting up of a Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)-India Free Trade Area shows the seriousness of intent to promote bilateral trade. The nudge to begin full negotiations for a free trade agreement between India and the EAEU too should lend a fillip to trade ties. Connectivity too remains a priority for both sides. It would mean access for Indian goods to the Eurasian markets. However, the proposed INSTC (International North-South Transport) Corridor is still a long way away from becoming a reality. While there is renewed interest between the two sides to establish a Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor, which was first mooted in 2019, it also remains to be seen whether it will fructify. The summit, of course, also emphasized the importance of robust cooperation in the defence sector, which is an important element of Indias security paradigm. Russia remains Indias biggest arms supplier despite New Delhis continuing efforts to diversify by turning to others like the US, France and Israel to meet its requirements. India would have undoubtedly sought to address its concerns over the delays in the supply of Russian military hardware and spares owing to the Ukraine war.The Modi-Putin Summit may have left the West fulminating, but its fairly obvious New Delhi will plough its furrow so long as it serves its strategic priorities. The writer is a senior journalist who writes on foreign affairs. (The writer is a senior journalist; views are personal) Despite denials by Taliban officials, the bravery of Afghan women coming forward underscores the severe and dehumanising treatment they endure A piece in The Guardian, bylined Zahra Joya, Chris McGreal, Khodadad Poladi, Annie Kelly and Tom Levitt, datelined July 6, 2024, and published under the heading Video appears to show gang-rape of Afghan woman in Taliban jail, makes horrifying reading. According to the report, the video recording, seen by The Guardian and Rukhsana Media, an online news agency focused on covering issues affecting women in Afghanistan, shows a young woman, a human rights activist, being gang-raped and tortured in a Taliban jail by armed men. It shows her being told to take off her clothes and then raped multiple times by two men. She is seen as standing naked, her face visible, and is identifiable during the attacks. The report cites the woman as saying that she was arrested for participating in a public protest against the Taliban and was raped in a Taliban prison. The video was sent to her after she had fled Afghanistan and spoken out against the Taliban, with the threat that it would be shown to her family and released on social media if she spoke against the Islamic Emirate in public. It also cites other examples of sexual abuse, beatings, and torture, including by electric shocks, of not only those protesting against the Talibans squelching of womens rights but of young women and teenagers accused of violating hijab rules. Zabihullah Mujahid, Chief Spokesman and Deputy Minister of Information and Culture of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has, according to The Guardian report, denied the allegations of widespread sexual assaults on incarcerated women. While he could not have done otherwise, one can hardly doubt the womens versions, given the stigma attached to victims of sexual violence in countries like Afghanistan. It takes a massive amount of courage and resolve for a woman, or her relatives, to state that she had been raped or molested in custody. Even the UN has commented on the arrests and detentions. Under the heading Permanent Darkness, Ajit Kumar Singh has written in the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATPOR, Volume 22, Number 18) dated March 11, 2024, that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) had expressed grave concern over the arrest and detention of women and girls for alleged non-compliance with the Islamic dress code. He has quoted Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and head of UNAMA, as observing that enforcement measures and physical violence were especially demeaning and dangerous for Afghan women. Detention, she continued, carried an enormous stigma that put Afghan women at even greater risk.The Talibans war on women--perhaps the most diabolical feature of their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001continues in their second innings with rape and molestation as a part of it. The process started in September 2021 when the Taliban removed the signboard of the Ministry of Womens Affairs in Kabul and replaced it with that of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the earlier incarnation of which had earned widespread notoriety during their first stint in power, for arbitrary and savage enforcement-- with particular harshness towards women--of the governments obscurantist diktats.A series of measures has followed. Women are not allowed to travel more than 70 kilometres without a male escort who is her husband or a mahram, a close blood relativefather, son brother, grandfather, great-grandfather, nephew with whom marriage is prohibited and, in whose presence, she need not wear a hijab. They are to wear proper hijabs, loose black garments, covering their bodies and faces, in public places and their male relatives have been made responsible under pain of punishment. They are excluded from education above the primary level and virtually every kind of employment. Worse, in a voice message broadcast by Afghanistans state television on March 23, 2024, the Talibans supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had said, We will flog the women we will stone them to death in public [for adultery].The Taliban had started flogging women even before the announcement, administering at least 30 strokes for offences like using cell phones, talking to men or being in love or relationships. All this was not unexpected given the Talibans obscurantist beliefs and record in power during its first coming from 1996 to 2001. What is surprising is the silenceto say nothing of the absence of effective action--of the rest of the world, even the Western democracies, in the matter. The UN too seems to be falling in line. This is suggested by its surrender in the case of the recent conference of global envoys, held in Doha, Qatar, and attended by envoys of 25 countries including the US, Russia, China and the European Union. The conference, to promote engagement with the Taliban on a variety of issues, was the third of its kind. The Taliban, which had not attended the earlier two, attended it only after the organisers accepted their condition that women would not attend it.The UNs capitulation has been widely condemned by human rights organisations which rightly believe it would encourage the Taliban to further trample on womens rights. But who cares? (The author is Consulting Editor, The Pioneer. The views expressed are personal) Maintaining a tight vigil in the upper reaches of Kathua, Udhampur Reasi, and Doda districts a joint team of security forces continued to hunt down the suspected foreign terrorists behind the ambush in which five soldiers of the Indian army sacrificed their lives on July 8. A team of the National Investigation Agency has visited the scene of the ambush and it is assisting police in the probe. The search and combing operations were also carried out in the Ghadi Bhagwah forest area, which is around 35 km east of Doda town and borders Kishtwar district. After reporting an initial exchange of fire late Tuesday evening no fresh firing was reported till late Wednesday evening. Fresh searches were also launched in the Lala Chack area of Samba, Manjakote area of Rajouri, and Surankote of Poonch on Wednesday morning to rule out the presence of the fresh group of terrorists. Meanwhile, to track down the whereabouts of the perpetrators of the terror attack the security forces have detained around two dozen people for questioning in the Kathua district. Local reports suggested some of the villagers in the area had spotted the suspicious movement of gunmen but failed to tip off the security forces. All possible routes of escape have been covered by the security forces with additional deployment of troops in the area. The Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police has also joined search operations with the teams of the Indian army. Compared to similar strikes on the security forces this time the terrorists faced tough resistance from the injured soldiers. Despite losing some of their colleagues in the heavy exchange of initial gunfire and grenade attack the soldiers from the Garhwal regiment of the Indian Army repulsed the attack forcing them to flee the scene before reinforcements arrived to evacuate them to a nearby hospital. In the backdrop of the ambush in Badnota in Kathua, residents of Badnota village and its adjoining villages said they were concerned about their safety. hey have demanded that village defence groups be sanctioned for their self-defence and to effectively tackle threats posed by terrorists. The government should provide weapons and training to us, we are ready to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with our forces against the terrorists, Jagdish Raj, a local, said. Mohit Kandhari n Jammu Maintaining a tight vigil in the upper reaches of Kathua, Udhampur Reasi, and Doda districts a joint team of security forces continued to hunt down the suspected foreign terrorists behind the ambush in which five soldiers of the Indian army sacrificed their lives on July 8. A team of the National Investigation Agency has visited the scene of the ambush and it is assisting police in the probe. The search and combing operations were also carried out in the Ghadi Bhagwah forest area, which is around 35 km east of Doda town and borders Kishtwar district. After reporting an initial exchange of fire late Tuesday evening no fresh firing was reported till late Wednesday evening. Fresh searches were also launched in the Lala Chack area of Samba, Manjakote area of Rajouri, and Surankote of Poonch on Wednesday morning to rule out the presence of the fresh group of terrorists. Meanwhile, to track down the whereabouts of the perpetrators of the terror attack the security forces have detained around two dozen people for questioning in the Kathua district. Local reports suggested some of the villagers in the area had spotted the suspicious movement of gunmen but failed to tip off the security forces. All possible routes of escape have been covered by the security forces with additional deployment of troops in the area. The Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police has also joined search operations with the teams of the Indian army. Compared to similar strikes on the security forces this time the terrorists faced tough resistance from the injured soldiers. Despite losing some of their colleagues in the heavy exchange of initial gunfire and grenade attack the soldiers from the Garhwal regiment of the Indian Army repulsed the attack forcing them to flee the scene before reinforcements arrived to evacuate them to a nearby hospital. In the backdrop of the ambush in Badnota in Kathua, residents of Badnota village and its adjoining villages said they were concerned about their safety. hey have demanded that village defence groups be sanctioned for their self-defence and to effectively tackle threats posed by terrorists. The government should provide weapons and training to us, we are ready to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with our forces against the terrorists, Jagdish Raj, a local, said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reaffirmed India's commitment to seven-nation grouping BIMSTEC and stressed on its role as an engine for economic and social growth. The foreign ministers of the BIMSTEC member states made a joint call on Modi on the second and final day of their retreat in Delhi. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), brings together seven countries of South and Southeast Asia for multifaceted cooperation. Besides India, the BIMSTEC comprises Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan. Glad to meet BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers. Discussed ways to strengthen regional cooperation, including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people-to-people exchanges. Conveyed full support to Thailand for a successful Summit,Modi said in a social media post.A readout by the Prime Ministers Office(PMO) said Modi reaffirmed India's commitment to a peaceful, prosperous, resilient and safe BIMSTEC region and highlighted its significance to India's 'Neighbourhood First and Look East Policies as well as in its SAGAR vision. The PM had fruitful discussions with the group of ministers on further strengthening the regional cooperation in diverse areas including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people to people exchanges,it said. He stressed on the role of BIMSTEC as an engine for economic and social growth,the readout noted. It said Modi expressed India's full support to Thailand for the upcoming BIMSTEC Summit to be held in September. India hosted the BIMSTEC foreign ministers' retreat to review various initiatives to expand cooperation among the grouping's member nations. In his inaugural address at the retreat, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called on the grouping to infuse new energies, resources and a fresh commitment to bolster cooperation. India has been making concerted efforts to make BIMSTEC a vibrant forum for regional cooperation as initiatives under SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) were not moving forward for a variety of reasons. India has been cooperating with the countries of the Indian Ocean region under the broader policy framework of SAGAR or Security and Growth for all in the Region. Taking a swipe at the Centres decision on Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas, the Congress said from now on, every year on November 8, the day when demonetisation was announced in 2016, the people of India will celebrate Aajivika Hatya Diwas and a gazette notification will also be issued soon. Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh said the move is yet another headline grabbing exercise in hypocrisy by the non-biological Prime Minister who has imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years before the people of India handed him a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat on June 4, 2024 which will go down in history as ModiMukti Diwas. This is a non-biological PM who has subjected the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to systematic assault. This is a non-biological PM whose ideological parivar had rejected the Constitution of India in November 1949 on the grounds that it did not derive inspiration from Manusmriti. This is a non-biological PM for whom democracy means only demo-kursi, the Congress leader said. West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said times associated with Emergency were being seen most during the tenure of Modi. The West Bengal CM said no one was consulted when the three recent laws replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure(CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act. It was passed when a large number of MPs were suspended. We do not support Emergency....(but) charity begins at home, she asserted. Another Opposition leader and a Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi sought to know from Home Minister Amit Shah whether he is aware that emergency was applied on basis of a constitutional availability of the clause to declare emergency. Response to Fort Liberty Training Claiming Operation Rescue is a Terrorist Group Not Only is it an Outright Lie, it Violates the 1878 Federal Law, Posse Comitatus Act NEWS PROVIDED BY Operation Rescue July 12, 2024 WICHITA, Kan., July 12, 2024 /Christian Newswire/ -- On Thursday, a post on X by Sam Shoemate, described on his profile as an analyst, watchdog, and advocate for service members seeking justice, posted about an anti-terrorism brief held on Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), a U.S. army installation in North Carolina. He posted a photo of a slide (above) included in the training, listing several pro-life organizations as terrorist groups. Shoemate stated the slide followed another slide about ISIS and prominently featured Operation Rescues logo under the title TERRORIST GROUPS. The slide contained bullet points, including one stating Operation Rescue Opposes Row v. Wade. Apparently, the creator of the slide was unaware of what the vast majority of Americans know the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Operation Rescues opposition to the 1973 case and completely overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The person who created the slide was obviously uninformed and could not even manage to correctly spell the word Roe, said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. Fort Liberty was extremely irresponsible to allow this nonsense into its training material. Its absurd when you consider that we are like-minded in our work. We are all working to save innocent lives. Our fight, which, of course, is done through peaceful, legal means, just starts earlier from the moment of conception. It is utterly ridiculous that Operation Rescue and other groups that work to defend innocent babies would be put in the same category as groups like the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda that carried out the September 11 attacks. WRAL News of Raleigh, North Carolina, interviewed Operation Rescue's Anne Reed concerning the slide (click on image below to watch). WRAL also interviewed a Fort Liberty representative by phone who stated these presentations typically take place every 2-3 weeks. It is, therefore, unclear how many times this slide was used before a whistleblower made it public. Though Fort Liberty released a statement explaining its mistake, it stopped short of an apology. The training, according to Fort Libertys statement, was provided to soldiers who would be manning entry points. Pro-life organizations have absolutely nothing to do with those responsibilities, said Newman, therefore, the only perceived purpose for disparaging pro-life organizations in such a training would be to satisfy a political agenda and indoctrinate our soldiers. It is truly a disgrace and clearly violates the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the powers of the U.S. government to use the military to enforce domestic policies. It is a shame that the proper authorities were either not aware of the slide or allowed it to be included in multiple trainings, asserted Newman, We await an answer, after Fort Libertys investigation is complete, that assures us this will not happen again! Click HERE to view in your browser and see all supporting images and video. Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the U.S. Our goal is to expose abortion abuses, demand enforcement, save innocent lives, and build an Abortion-Free America. Click here to support Operation Rescue. SOURCE Operation Rescue CONTACT: Troy Newman, President, 316-683-6790 ext. 111 Anne Reed, Senior Policy Advisor, 316-683-6790 Peng Liyuan meets with UNAIDS, WHO officials Xinhua) 10:46, July 12, 2024 Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping and a goodwill ambassador of the World Health Organization (WHO) for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, meets with Winnie Byanyima, under-secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) and executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and Jerome Salomon, assistant director-general of WHO in Beijing, capital of China, July 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Ding Lin) BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping and a goodwill ambassador of the World Health Organization (WHO) for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, met on Thursday with Winnie Byanyima, under-secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) and executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and Jerome Salomon, assistant director-general of WHO. Noting that eliminating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis is crucial for safeguarding human health and welfare, as well as promoting sustainable global development, Peng said that UNAIDS and the WHO have accomplished a number of proactive and fruitful endeavors in relevant fields. Peng briefed them on China's practices and experience in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. She also expressed her willingness to continue to fulfill her duties as a goodwill ambassador and make more contributions to the global efforts in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. It is believed that with the joint efforts of all parties, China's cooperation with UNAIDS and the WHO will yield greater outcomes, Peng said. Byanyima and Salomon spoke highly of the positive achievements of the Chinese government and people in their fight against tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, as well as in the development of healthcare. They also deeply appreciated Peng's outstanding contributions since taking on the role as the WHO's goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. They expressed their willingness to further strengthen cooperation with China in relevant fields, and promote the continuous development and progress in global health for the benefit of people worldwide. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) President Joe Biden greets supporters at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta before he debated with Donald Trump on June 27. Derek White/Getty Images for DNC As the Democratic Party pulls itself out of the rubble left over from President Joe Bidens debate performance, theyre whistling Bobby McFerrins Dont worry, be happy. In California, the epicenter of much of the action in the national party, its almost painful to watch senior Democrats not say what they actually think. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Adam Schiff, Sen. Alex Padilla and most of the congressional delegation are whistling the same tune, right past the graveyard. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This time, the graveyard is the consequence of their reticence: The possible wipeout of American democracy. If former President Donald Trump, a twice-impeached sociopathic felon wins, the tune theyre whistling now will be a dirge. Oddly, the only major California Democrat calling it correctly is the actor George Clooney, who wrote a candid, heartfelt appraisal of President Biden and his debate performance on Wednesday for the New York Times Opinion section. In the piece, Clooney said that the one battle he (Biden) 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. O Biden, where art thou? Advertisement Article continues below this ad Why is Clooney, an actor from Kentucky, more courageous and prescient than most of the California delegation? Well, hes on the tip of the sword. Money talks, and he can hear the money is going to go silent if Biden doesnt get out. To be sure, hardly any California Democratic members of Congress have called for Biden to stand down, and they are not legion: Rep. Mark Takano seems to be the ballgame at this point, and he hasnt issued a public statement yet. Rep. Jared Huffman told the Chronicle that his last meeting with Biden on Feb. 7-9 was controlled and different. He said a few congressional members were given questions written on cue cards instead of the usual free-wheeling Q&A. Rep. Schiff, the likely next U.S. senator, was actually rather vague on Meet The Press last Sunday. This is about whether this country remains a democracy, whether we veer off into some kind of pseudo dictatorship. Everythings riding on this, Schiff said. Schiff also said there were legitimate questions about Bidens continued presence in the presidential race. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Legitimate questions has been the comfy My Pillow of most Democratic officeholders, along with Its up to Joe, and We need to have a national conversation. Pelosi has tiptoed into the fray with a few not-very-concealed hints. Were all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short, Pelosi told MSNBC on Wednesday. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And thats the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with. This is Pelosi-speak for, Buddy, hang it up. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Biden has said hes running. Until hes not. The first-week post-debate disaster bounce was, Biden should make his own decision. This week is, hey, get the hell out. Gov. Newsom was the first responder on the scene moments after the debate in Atlanta, with a live interview on CNN. I will never turn my back on President Biden. I dont know a Democrat in my party that would do so, Newsom said immediately after the Biden meltdown. We gotta have the back of this president, Newsom said. You dont turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that? Advertisement Article continues below this ad I like Newsom, but the kind of party that would do that is one that sees the threat to American democracy. Political considerations are one thing; an existential calculation about the Project 2025 dystopia is quite another. Newsom is also in what a chiropractor would call an awkward position. His push-me-pull-you dynamic with Vice President Harris in California doesnt allow him to jump in the race in any event. He has already said if Biden drops out, hell support Harris. Here hes showing true party loyalty. Sen. Padilla isnt remotely in the same position that Newsom is in. Its rather easy for him to be staunchly for Biden. He has no imminent reelection bid (thats in 2026, and its not going to be a heavy lift if we have free and fair elections, which I do not presume to assume). To me, its a no-brainer. Padilla gamely offered to the Washington Post. I continue to be all in, OK. Is the collapse of American democracy also a no-brainer, or is it just fingers crossed, and maybe California will secede in 2025? Reading between my MSM lines, Im thinking virtually every sentient Democrat above Marin County supervisor wants Biden to go away. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why these folks are all publicly stonewalling this. Wait. I can. Theyre politicians. Whither Harris? What would you expect her to say? Shes there because Biden picked her, a kind of act of grace after she kicked him in the grill in a 2019 Democratic presidential debate. There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day, then Sen. Harris observed. That little girl was me, Harris said, tartly, when suggesting that Biden was, well, someone who shouldnt be president. Maybe she was right. 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 she will pick up the pieces, regardless. Lets hope there are pieces to pick up in 2025. The Centre has initiated a thorough probe into the induction of probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who is at the centre of a controversy over alleged misuse of power and privileges, and that her services may be terminated. They said all documents presented by her to secure her candidature in the Civil Services examination and then for selection in the service will be re-examined by a single-member committee constituted by the Centre on Thursday. The officer may be terminated from the service if found guilty. She may face criminal charges also in case she is found to have misrepresented a fact or done any sort of manipulation in documents relied upon for her selection, sources said. Khedkar, a 2023 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, is under probation and currently posted in her home cadre Maharashtra. The 34-year-old officer is in the eye of storm over for allegedly misusing the disability and Other Backward Class quota to secure a position in the IAS. The single-member probe committee of Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Additional Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training, has been asked to submit its report within two weeks, the sources said. In the meantime, Khedkar had on Thursday assumed her new role as Assistant Collector at the Washim District Collectorate in the Vidarbha region after being transferred from Pune where she allegedly bullied everyone around and also placed a red beacon atop her private Audi (a luxury sedan) car. Khedkar has been under intense scrutiny for allegedly manipulating benefits under the physical disabilities category and OBC quota to secure her position in the Indian Administrative Service. The controversial officer was shunted out to Washim after Pune District Collector Suhas Diwase wrote to State Additional Chief Secretary Nitin Gadre requesting him to consider giving a posting to Khedkar in another district to avoid administrative complications. Diwase had sought action against Khedkar for her behaviour, including alleged aggressive treatment of junior staff, illegal occupation of the ante-chamber of Additional Collector Ajay More, and violations pertaining to sporting a red beacon on the Audi and flashing it during the day, among others. Also, a video showing Khedkars mother threatening a group of men with a gun has gone viral has added to the woes of the controversial bureaucrat. A Pune Rural police official later in the evening said a probe would begin to ascertain facts, including if she possessed a licence for the firearm. An official said the incident in the video was about a land parcel bought by Pujas father Dilip khedkar, a retired Maharashtra Government officer, in Dhadwali village in Punes Mulshi tehsil. Locals had claimed the Khedkars had encroached on the land of neighbouring farmers. The two-minute video shows Khedkars mother Manorama Khedkar, accompanied by her security guards, engaged in a heated argument with the neighbours. Manorama can be seen yelling at a man with a pistol in her hand. She walks up to him and waves the gun in his face before concealing it in her hand. We have taken cognisance of the video that is circulating on social media platforms. Once facts are ascertained, we will start a probe. We will investigate if Manorama has a licence for the firearm, a senior Pune Rural police official said. In connection with the episode, farmer Kuldeep Pasalkar claimed Manorama was forcefully trying to usurp his land. She has been threatening other farmers as well. She visited my plot along with some security guards and started threatening us while holding a firearm in her hand, Pasalkar alleged. In a startling development that has rocked Punjabs political scene, Harpreet Singh the brother of pro-Khalistan ideologue and jailed Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh was apprehended at a checkpoint in Phillaur, Jalandhar, on the charges of drug possession. The arrest has ignited a fierce debate, with accusations of political conspiracy flying from the family and supporters of Amritpal Singh, who is known for his controversial and radical stance. The dramatic arrest unfolded during a routine check when Harpreet Singh, accompanied by his associate Lovepreet Singh from Cheema Bath village, was found in possession of four grams of methamphetamine, commonly referred to as ice. Jalandhar Rural Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ankur Gupta, confirming the arrests, revealed that both individuals tested positive for drugs and had allegedly procured the substance from Sandeep Arora a Ludhiana resident who was also taken into custody. The immediate aftermath of the arrest saw a vehement denial from Tarsem Singh, father of Amritpal and Harpreet Singh, who condemned the charges as a deliberate attempt to smear their familys reputation. The Government is trying to tarnish our image because of our anti-drug campaign in Punjab, alleged Tarsem Singh, while further accusing the authorities of targeting Harpreet to stifle their efforts against drug abuse in the State. Amritpal Singh, currently lodged in Assams Dibrugarh jail facing the stringent National Security Act (NSA), first rose to prominence for his strong anti-drug stance under his outfit Waris Punjab De. He opened a de-addiction center in his village, Jallupur Khera, and launched several initiatives against substance abuse. However, his activities took a controversial turn when he began making provocative pro-Khalistan statements, which escalated tensions with the state authorities. Last year, Amritpal and his supporters clashed with police at the Ajnala police station while attempting to free an associate from custody. This incident led to his arrest and the filing of multiple charges, including anti-national activities. Currently, Amritpal is detained Assams Dibrugarh jail under the NSA. Despite his incarceration, he won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate from Khadoor Sahib, defeating Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira by a significant margin. The legal proceedings following Harpreet's arrest have added fuel to the controversy. During a court hearing, the Phillaur court denied the police's request for a three-day remand and instead sent Harpreet, Lovepreet, and Sandeep Arora to 14-day judicial custody. This decision has further bolstered claims of a political conspiracy, with many questioning the motives behind the arrests. Amritpals lawyer, Imaan Singh, has been vocal about the alleged political pressure behind the case. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party is engaging in vindictive politics to undermine Amritpals influence in Punjab, he said, while criticizing the polices focus on what he described as a minor drug seizure, highlighting that the case against Harpreet Singh was built on just four grams of methamphetamine. The implications of Harpreet Singhs arrest are far-reaching, especially given Amritpals contentious position in Punjab's political arena. Known for his radical pro-Khalistan rhetoric, Amritpals actions have often placed him at odds with the authorities. His anti-drug campaigns, which gained significant traction among the youth, have now come under scrutiny due to his brothers arrest on drug charges. SSP Gupta said that at the time of arrest, the accused were found preparing to consume the drugs in a vehicle with tinted windows, and the seizure included paraphernalia such as lighters and foil. Adding to the controversy, Amritpals family has publicly decried the arrest as a government stunt. They argued that the timing and circumstances of Harpreets detention are suspicious, pointing out that Harpreet was supposed to attend a protest march for the release of Bandi Singhs (Sikh prisoners) in Moga on the day of his arrest. They question how he ended up in Phillaur and suggest that the arrest was orchestrated to prevent his participation in the march. Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva on Friday hit out at the AAP leaders for celebrating Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's interim bail by the Supreme Court in the alleged excise policy linked money laundering scam, demanding his resignation. The AAP leaders who have been celebrating Arvind Kejriwal's interim bail since morning should read the order given by the court. If they do it they will be forced to introspect instead of celebrating, Sachdeva stated.Demanding Kejriwals resignation, he said, The order clearly states that Arvind Kejriwal can no longer go to the Secretariat, sign any files, or fulfil any duties as Chief Minister. After the court's order, if Arvind Kejriwal has any morality left, he should consider whether he has any right to remain in the Chief Minister's position. Further, the Delhi BJP chief claimed that now even the court has raised doubts about whether Kejriwal can continue as Chief Minister. He questioned whether Kejriwal has the right to receive government allowance, use a government car, or live in the palace home which is a prime example of corruption, when he cannot fulfil any duties as Chief Minister. Kejriwal, who always talks about morality, emerged from a movement but has now become obsessed with salary, facilities, and the palace, he said, adding that getting interim bail does not exonerate Kejriwal from his crimes. He called Kejriwal a criminal and a corrupt person and claimed that he has committed fraud in the liquor policy. Arvind Kejriwal is a fraudster in the liquor policy case, embezzling 100 crore with a money trail of 45 crore revealed by the CBI. Just like Lalu Yadav, who received interim bail but was later sentenced and had to go to jail, Arvind Kejriwal will also go in and out of jail repeatedly, he said. Rs 5.87-cr penalties recovered under Punjabs Bill Liyao Inam Pao scheme Chandigarh: Punjab Finance, Planning, Excise and Taxation Minister Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday announced a significant crackdown on vendors issuing invalid bills under the 'Bill Liyao Inam Pao' scheme, with penalties totaling Rs 7.63 crore imposed and Rs 5.87 crore already recovered. Highlighting the schemes success, Cheema said that out of 1604 notices issued to vendors for billing discrepancies, 711 have been resolved leading to 123 new GST registrations, indicating improved tax compliance. Prizes worth Rs 1.37 crore have also been awarded to 2353 'Bill Liyao Inaam Pao' scheme winners to date. Govt should arrange permanent housing for displaced families: MP Selja Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader and Sirsa MP Kumari Selja on Friday alleged that the BJP Government has made the lives of Sirsa Ther displaced families miserable. These 730 displaced families have been temporarily settled in Housing Board flats, where they are deprived of basic amenities and are troubled by issues related to electricity, drinking water, and sewage. Selja said that she has written a letter to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, requesting permanent housing for the displaced families. The High Court has also ordered to provide permanent housing, not temporary, she added. Punjab to release Rs 45-cr margin money to ration depot holders Chandigarh: Punjab Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak on Friday said that to support depot holders, Rs 45 crore will be deposited in their bank accounts as margin money for the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. Over the past year, Rs 61.45 crore in margin money or commission has already been disbursed under NFSA. Kataruchak emphasized the states commitment to depot holders welfare, highlighting initiatives like dedicated ePOS machines and upcoming Electronic Weighing Machines for efficient foodgrain distribution. Govt claims tourism accessible in HP despite heavy rains Shimla: A spokesperson from Himachal Pradesh's Tourism and Civil Aviation Department reassured on Friday that recent reports of extensive road blockages due to heavy rains and landslides are overstated. While some areas have been affected, most roads across the state remain open for tourists and the public. The government remains committed to ensuring safe travel and enjoyable holidays in popular destinations like Shimla, Manali, and Dharamshala, with ongoing efforts to clear any disruptions promptly, added the official. PU reserves 25% supernumerary seats for international students** Chandigarh: Panjab University, Chandigarh, has revised its seat reservation policy in line with UGC guidelines, replacing the previous five percent quota for Foreign National students with 25 percent supernumerary seats in all undergraduate and postgraduate courses (except BDS/MDS course or any other course governed by a regulatory body which does not allow additional seats) from the academic session 2024-25. These seats are exclusively for students holding foreign passports, aimed at enhancing international diversity and the university's global stature. HP CM directs immediate restoration of landslide-hit area near DDU Hospital Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, after conducting an on-site inspection of the landslide-affected area near Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital Shimla on late Thursday night, directed the authorities to expedite restoration work and ensure the smooth flow of vehicular movement in the area. He said that the circular road was the lifeline of Shimla city and adequate police personnel should be deployed to facilitate both local residents and tourists. Punjab Police launches plantation drive to welcome monsoons Chandigarh: A day after Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann gave a clarion call to enhance green cover in the State, Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav on Friday planted a Bottle Palm sapling at Punjab Police Headquarters (PPHQ) to commence a state-level tree plantation drive under slogan Aao Rukh Lagayiae, Dharti Maa nu Bachayiae. Terming the initiative as an environment-friendly approach to fight global warming, DGP Yadav said that thousands of saplings of different species including Bottle Palm, Maulsari, Amaltas, Teak, Terminalia Arjuna, etc will be planted across all the Police Districts/Units under this plantation drive initiated by the Punjab Police. DGP also directed all the concerned authorities to ensure proper care of all the trees and plants they have planted in their concerned Districts/Units. MCC organizes health camp for sanitation workers Chandigarh: To support the health of its sanitation workers, the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh on Friday organized a comprehensive health camp under Safai Apnao Bimaari Bhagao campaign in collaboration with the TCI Foundation and Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (HBCHRC) at Pink MRF Centre, Sector-25. The health camp aligns with SBM and MCCs mission for the welfare of the Safaimitras. The health camp was open to all sanitation workers employed in collecting garbage from households and commercial areas, as well as those working at the MRFs for Solid Waste Management processing. 35 BLOs suspended in Gurugram for negligence in election work Gurugram: Gurugram District Election Officer (DEO) and Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav has ordered the suspension of 35 booth-level officers (BLO) for negligence in special campaign being run to add and remove names from the voter list on Friday. This includes 22 BLOs of the Gurgaon Assembly, seven of Pataudi Assembly, four of Sohna Assembly, and two of the Badshahpur Assembly. Yadav said that as per the guidelines of Haryana Chief Electoral Officer, the BLOs had to complete the work of home-to-home verification according to their booth by July 4, but 35 BLOs related to the four assemblies have been negligent by not completing the election work on time. Earlier, when we fell ill, we mostly relied on government hospitals and doctors, trusting that we would be cured and treated with humility and humanity. Although government hospitals had fewer doctors and limited resources, the belief and trust in the health system were very high. Doctors were seen as saviours and gods. After liberalization and mushrooming of the private hospitals and healthcare industry, people fear doctors, hospitals, the medical insurance industry, and their nexus designed to exploit and impoverish people. They entice us through medical advertorials, highlighting packages, facilities, and doctors qualifications. However, common people, particularly those belonging to the underprivileged and lower middle class, do not have medical insurance coverage are scared to go to them. It is not only the high cost and affordability but also the loss of faith and trust in the system. The increasing commercialization of healthcare has led to practices prioritizing financial gain over patient care. Private healthcare providers often engage in aggressive marketing tactics, promoting expensive treatments and procedures that may not be medically necessary. Doctors in private hospitals are given targets, forced to write unnecessary tests, hospitalize patients needlessly, prescribe costly medicines, and perform operations to extract more money. They have become part of this dirty business, forgetting their Hippocratic Oath. They do not understand the harm they are doing to their fraternity and this noble profession. The shift from a patient-centered approach to a profit-driven model has significantly eroded trust in doctors. In this profit and market-driven medicine, which forces medical overuse, doctors have become daily wage earners in India, paid based on the business they bring to a hospital. They are forced to become part of this malice, not following standard protocols for surgery adherence, and performing surgeries even when unnecessary. Discrepancies in opinions (between the patients doctor and the second opinion giver) and poor adherence to surgery guidelines across all specialties are serious concerns. Such malpractices and monetization of medical services have led to second-opinion services in many cities. People have lost their faith in doctors and are searching for Good Doctors who still have humanity, are knowledgeable, and trustworthy. This loss of faith has led people to seek multiple consultations compelling them to spend more. The definition of a Good Doctor has changed. Earlier, a doctor with good education and diagnostic skills was considered a good doctor in his field and among people. The criteria have shifted to owning a hospital, nursing home, clinic, and diagnostic center. The parameters are wealth, business, and turnover. In this race, medicos have forgotten who they are. This greed has taken over the profession forcing them to become salespeople for the medical industry by joining hands with pharma companies and diagnostic centers. In 1938, Bertolt Brecht (18981956), a German dramatist, poet, theatre director, and practitioner, beautifully reminded us with his poem "A Workers Speech to a Doctor," that every doctor should read: We know what makes us ill. When we are ill, we are told That it is you who will heal us. When we come to you Our rags are torn off us. And you listen all over our naked body. As to the cause of our illness One glance at our rags would Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out Our bodies and our clothes. The silence over such malpractices by the Medical Council of India and Professional bodies such as the Indian Medical Association is a serious concern. They must come forward to address such malice. The unregulated loot and greed of the private healthcare industry are impoverishing people. Governments and regulatory bodies must enforce stricter regulations to ensure transparency, accountability, and ethical practices in private healthcare. This includes clear pricing policies, oversight of medical recommendations, and penalties for fraudulent practices. Only through these efforts can private healthcare regain its reputation as a trusted and essential component of the healthcare ecosystem. The state should address the above and regulate the private healthcare industry. Strengthening and creating state-of-the-art government hospitals that can compete with private healthcare is another solution to address this issue in the long run. Bridging the gap between private and public healthcare systems through collaboration and integration can help address inequalities. Many government hospitals face problems of adequate financing, health human resources, and supplies that need to be addressed. Ayushman Bharat is a good initiative to provide medical coverage to the poor and the marginalized. Nevertheless, the state should revisit Ayushman Bharat and reinvest its money to strengthen the government's healthcare system and infrastructure to provide quality healthcare services to all. The author is a Professor at Xavier Institute of Social Service, Ranchi. The views expressed are personal. Views are personal Email: pandeyanant@hotmail.com Himachal Pradesh State Cabinet, chaired by the Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, on Friday approved the land acquisition and compensation plan for families affected by the Kangra airport expansion on Friday. At the same time, the Cabinet sanctioned the states share of capital costs for constructing the Bulk Drug Park in Haroli, Una district, and greenlit the tender process. The Cabinet also rationalized the Zero Electricity Bill scheme, limiting subsidies to One Family One Meter, and excluding high-ranking officials and income tax payers, emphasizing equitable resource distribution. The Cabinet also extended the Shimla Development Plan to encompass additional green areas, including Retreat, Mashobra, Band Tukda Andri, and others, reinforcing environmental conservation efforts. In a nod to administrative efficiency, the pending results for Junior Office Assistant posts (post codes 903 and 939) were delegated to HP Rajya Chayan Aayog Hamirpur for final declaration. Significant strides were made in education and public safety. The Cabinet approved the creation and filling of 486 Lecturer Physical Education posts and 157 Principal School Cadre posts. Additionally, 245 Special Educator positions were sanctioned to support children with special needs, demonstrating a commitment to inclusive education. The Home Department saw a boost with the creation of 53 fire officer posts and 60 police personnel posts for heliport deployment, enhancing emergency response capabilities. To ensure smooth functioning, the Cabinet approved 30 new posts for HP Rajya Chayan Aayog Hamirpur and 30 JOA (IT) posts in the Public Works Department. The cadre strength for Block Development Officers was increased to 123 with 27 new posts. Education received further attention with the regularization of 18 Grameen Vidya Upasaks as Junior Basic Teachers, honouring their dedication and compliance with the National Council for Teachers Education norms. A new Department of Cardiology was established at Dr Radhakrishnan Government Medical College, Hamirpur, with key medical positions created for its operation. The Cabinet also prioritized consumer affairs and revenue departments, approving direct recruitment for two District Controller posts and restructuring the cadre system for Patwari, Kanunago, and Naib Tehsildar roles. Employee welfare was addressed with the introduction of a three percent annual emolument enhancement for staff at Aryabhatta Geo-Informatics and Space Application Centre and the provision of up to 730 days of child care leave for female government servants caring for children with significant disabilities. Recognizing the contributions of educators, the 'Himachal Pradesh State Award for School Teachers Scheme, 2024' was launched. A State Fund for the welfare of persons with disabilities was also established, reflecting the government's inclusive policy approach. Additionally, the premature release of 16 life-term prisoners was recommended to the Governor. In transport, the HP Motor Vehicles Rules, 1999, were amended to mandate the submission of purchase receipts for BIS-certified protective headgear when registering two-wheelers. A ropeway from taxi parking to Baba Balak Nath Temple in Hamirpur was approved to aid pilgrims, and the procurement of advanced medical equipment, including PET and Spect Scan Machines for IGMC Shimla and Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Tanda, was sanctioned. The MoU for operating daily flights between Shimla and Dharamshala was also extended, ensuring consistent air connectivity. An alumnus of the Jodhpur University was arrested by the Delhi Police from Jodhpur for allegedly duping a 34-year-old engineer of almost Rs 12 lakh on the pretext of providing good returns by investing in the share market and cryptocurrency through online platforms. According to the police on Friday, the victim Ankit was impressed after receiving high returns in a short time. The accused has been identified as 24 year old Subhash Bishnoi , who worked for an online media firm, and is a part of the nexus which cheated the victims. Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast) Joy Tirkey said, "On January 2, a complaint was received from Ankit, who is an engineer by profession, regarding cyber fraud of almost Rs 12 lakh." Ankit told police that on October 31, he received a proposal on social media to earn high profits in a short time by trading in the share market and cryptocurrency. "As he showed his interest, he was initially advised to invest Rs 10,000, for which he received Rs 15,000 after a few days... He again invested Rs 15,000 and received Rs 20,000 as return in lieu of that. Now, as his trust was established, on the advice of the fraudster, he invested Rs 11.93 lakh within three days, but this time he didn't get anything," said the DCP. Police said that an FIR was registered under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and further investigation was taken up. During the course of investigation, the team followed the money trail and it was found the whole cheated amount was deposited in four different banks, out of which Rs 9 lakh was credited in a private bank in Jodhpur, said the DCP, adding that the amount was further transferred in other bank accounts and withdrawn. "On a detailed analysis, the team managed to procure details of the bank account and one person was identified, who accessed the account online through net banking credentials in Jodhpur. A raid was conducted and accused Bishnoi was apprehended," said the DCP. The officer further said that Bishnoi allegedly confessed his crime and disclosed that he is a postgraduate from the Jodhpur University and works for an online media firm. "He further revealed that he is a part of a gang that used to cheat innocent people, using social media applications on the pretext of (providing) high returns within a short time. We have freezed four bank accounts with 8.66 lakh cheated money. Bharatiya Janata Party president JP Nadda will address the opening session of the first state executive meeting of the party on July 14 after the less than expected results in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will address the closing session. The meeting will see the participation of around 3,600 delegates, said to be the biggest contingent and 10 times more than the previous such party conclave. Usually around 300 to 400 delegates attend the state executive meeting. But this time, around 3,000 delegates will participate in the meeting due to circumstances arising out of the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls in the state, a BJP leader said. The partys below par performance in Uttar Pradesh is one of the reasons for the BJP failing to reach the 272-mark in the Lok Sabha on its own. Along with the BJPs sitting MLAs and MPs, all Lok Sabha candidates who lost the poll have also been invited to the meeting. Besides MLCs, zila panchayat and nagar palika chairpersons, district presidents, and all office-bearers of the party will also attend the meeting at the auditorium of the Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University in Lucknow. According to the BJP leader, one or two political proposals will be passed at the meeting. In addition, issues relating to farmers and women and membership drive will also be discussed at the day-long state executive meeting. The partys programmes for the year ahead will also be discussed along with by-elections to 10 assembly seats in the state. This will be the BJP national presidents first visit after the formation of the National Democratic Alliance government 0.3 at the Centre. After the poll results, the BJP had constituted 40 teams of two members each, which visited all 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in UP with a focus on those seats that the party lost. Over a dozen passengers were injured after a high speed passenger bus going from Bhopal to Bankhedi overturned at a turn near 34 mile intersection, about 10 km ahead of Goharganj in the evening on Thursday. The passengers in the bus panicked after the bus overturned as there were about 55 to 60 people in the 53 seater bus who tried to escape from the bus which met with an accident. Among the passengers 41 sustained injuries. On receiving the information, the police station, SDM Chandrashekhar Srivastava Tehsildar reached the spot. The injured were taken to Goharganj and Obedullaganj by ambulance. From here, the seriously injured have been referred to Hamidia and AIIMS. Prashna Travels bus bearing registration number MP39P0218 going to Garhwara, Bankhedi, met with an accident 34 mile under the police station, about ten kilometers from Goharganj. Tehsildar Hemant Sharma said that 41 people were injured due to the overturning of the bus. They were brought to the Community Health Center in Obedullaganj by ambulance. Civil Hospital in-charge Dr. Amrita Jivne said that 39 people were brought to the hospital, 16 of them are seriously injured, 9 of them were sent to AIIMS and 7 to Bhopal Hamidia for treatment. Currently 3 to 4 people are being treated at Obedullaganj Hospital. The rest of the people have been given first aid and sent home. Meanwhile once again a case of alleged hooliganism has been reported in a low floor city bus in the state capital Bhopal, two youths attacked bus driver and conductor over a minor issue. This incident was recorded by the CCTV installed in the bus. A youth was sitting on the reserved women's seat in the city bus. The bus driver asked the youth to get up from the women's seat. Angered by this youth along with his friend started beating the driver and conductor. This city bus bearing registration number MP04PA4319 was passing through Suraj Nagar Tiraha at 5 pm in the state capital Bhopal, when two youths came on a bike and stopped the bus and boarded it. After this, both the accused boarded the bus and started abusing the driver in front of the women passengers. When the conductor stopped them, they started beating the driver and conductor. This incident of assault was captured on the CCTV installed in the bus. Driver Krishnapal Singh and conductor Muni Mahesh were injured in the fight by the miscreants. Driver Krishnapal's nose started bleeding and conductor Mahesh was also injured. The driver and conductor injured in the fight reached the hospital and got treatment. Passengers terrified due to the fight The passengers in the bus were terrified due to this incident that happened in Bhopal City Bus. Men, women and children were also travelling in the bus. Seeing the fight, the children got scared and started screaming. According to bus driver Krishnapal, a person was sitting on the women's reserved seat in the bus, whom he had asked to get up from there. After this, two youths started beating him near Suraj Nagar a short distance. In a strong push towards ensuring law and order in Punjab, Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav on Friday directed all the district police chiefs to prioritize the registration of First Information Reports (FIRs) for all crimes, including petty offenses like snatching and theft. It has come to my notice that field officers usually show reluctance in registering FIR, especially in petty crimes. There should be a free registration of FIRs in all the districts which will help in maintaining law and order in the state, said the DGP, while chairing a state-level crime review meeting via video conference. He emphasized the importance of free FIR registration to maintain law and order. It has come to my notice that field officers usually show reluctance in registering FIRs, especially in petty crimes. There should be free registration of FIRs in all districts to help maintain law and order in the state, he stated. The meeting, held at Punjab Police Headquarters (PPHQ), included senior field officers and heads of operational wings to assess the performance of all 28 police districts and review efforts against organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism. Among the attendees were Special DGP, Special Task Force (STF), Kuldeep Singh; Special DGP, Internal Security, RN Dhoke, ADGP Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) Promod Ban, Commissioners of Police (CPs), Range IGPs/DIGs, and Senior Superintendents of Police (SSPs). Among the key directives and focus areas were FIR registration and crime arrests; performance review; anti-drug campaign; and village level defense committees (VLDCs). DGP Yadav urged all the CPs and SSPs to ensure timely arrests in heinous crimes and the swift production of challans in the court. He emphasized the importance of holding weekly meetings to review under trial cases and improve the conviction rate. The DGP also lauded districts performing well and urged underperforming districts to improve. He stressed the need to arrest proclaimed offenders (POs) and absconders, highlighting the importance of reducing pending investigations and enhancing investigation quality. DGP Yadav also instructed the district police chiefs to focus on drug suppliers and peddlers to reduce street-level drug availability. He emphasized the need for sustained follow-ups and establishing forward and backward linkages in all drug cases to catch major offenders. He also directed the freezing of illegally acquired properties under section 68F of the NDPS Act. The state police chief also highlighted the formation of VLDCs, setting a target of establishing at least 12,000 committees statewide. Currently, there are 6,500 VLDCs aiding security forces by providing real-time information to disrupt drug networks. Special DGP STF Kuldeep Singh commended the ongoing anti-drug drive and encouraged district officers to maintain momentum by increasing public meetings and awareness activities. He emphasized the importance of qualitative public feedback. Special DGP Internal Security RN Dhoke reported that Punjab Police had arrested 35 terrorists and busted five terror modules this year, underscoring the success of ongoing operations. ADGP AGTF Promod Ban advised field officers to monitor activities of bailed-out criminals and gangsters to prevent potential criminal activities in their districts. DGP Yadav concluded the meeting by soliciting feedback from CPs and SSPs to understand ground-level challenges. He directed them to hold weekly crime review meetings with sub-divisional DSPs and station house officers (SHOs) and ensure frequent inspections of police stations. Before becoming vice president, Kamala Harris Harris was elected as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator. Her qualifications are on par with other recent vice presidents. Susan Walsh/Associated Press The other day a friend phoned me in a panic concerning the possible decision by President Joe Biden not to seek a second term because of growing criticisms of his mental acuity brought about by aging. Biden is 81 years old. If he decides not to run, would (Vice President Kamala) Harris become the nominee? he asked. I assume shed run for the nomination at the Democratic convention, I answered nonchalantly. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But cant she just remain vice president for someone else instead of running for president? he asked, with rising urgency in his voice. Why should she? I responded. After all, she is the vice president. And then came the familiar refrain. Its not because shes Black, South Asian or a woman. Its just that theres something about her What? Advertisement Article continues below this ad I cant quite put my finger on it Of course, he had put his finger on it! Sometimes what people feel and what they say are very different, and nowhere has that been more the case than with some conversations about Vice President Harris, whom Biden endorsed for the presidential campaign Sunday when he pulled out of the race. For many Harris opponents who desperately want Biden to remain in office, their concern is more about her race and gender than Bidens health. They dont like it but they wont say it. After all, it wouldnt be politically correct. Many of us think of racism as occurring when someone says a slur or physically attacks a person of color as a hate crime. They point to sexism when someone says a woman just cant do a mans job. Of course, these are overt racist and sexist statements and acts, which are easily spotted. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But the real problems with discrimination against people of color and women are far more subtle and incredibly more prominent in America than we might acknowledge. These instances are known as covert racism and sexism. Theyre much more difficult to quantify because they are so easily deniable. Consider a situation where a white person boards a crowded train and comes across an open seat next to a Black person but instead walks far down the car in search of a seat next to a white person. Or the common circumstance where women with the same education and experience as a man earn 84% of the mans salary. These are everyday conditions in which Americans practice discrimination without even thinking about it. They occur far more often than blatant discrimination and they are part of American society. For Harris, we often hear that shes not really qualified for the presidency. Not qualified compared to what? Before her selection as Bidens vice presidential candidate, Harris was the San Francisco district attorney, the California attorney general and a U.S. senator. All of these were elected positions. In the Senate, Harris was a member of the judiciary, intelligence and homeland security committees, hardly lightweight assignments. There, she was a consistent and powerful voice for equality and justice. During the Democratic presidential debates in 2020, you might remember the way then-candidate Harris took on her opponents, including Biden, with vigor, intelligence and logic. She was a force, no doubt that was part of the reason that Biden chose her as his running mate. Compare Harris qualifications with recent vice presidents and she holds her own. Dan Quayle (under George H.W. Bush, 1989-1993) was a little-known congressman from Indiana; Al Gore (under Bill Clinton, 1993-2001) was a respected member of the House and then the Senate from Tennessee; and Dick Cheney (under George W. Bush, 2001-2009) served in the House between 1979-1989. Oddly enough, the most distinguished vice president during this period was Joe Biden, who had a storied career lasting 36 years in the Senate. Matched against these names, Harris does just fine. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Then theres the refrain, But what has she done as vice president? The biggest job for the vice president is being prepared to assume the presidency if the need occurs. There is no transition period. They are not decision-makers nor leaders of much of anything. They do what the president asks them to do, which is often highly symbolic. They often represent the president or sometimes speak for the president, but they arent the president. On this front, Harris the experienced leader, is ready. 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 As vice president, Harris has had her ups and downs. Theres no doubt in the first year or so, she had problems finding her voice. But in the past two years, especially since the Dobbs decision, Harris has been a powerful proponent for reproductive freedom. Shes also spoken firmly on health care and climate change. No matter what anyone thinks of Harris race or gender, she is clearly qualified to be president. Shes experienced and seasoned. You may disagree with her political positions, which is reason enough to reject her as a candidate. But to view her as unqualified for the presidency is to deny reality. And that reality is the one that some Americans with racist and sexist attitudes refuse to accept. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav emphasized the crucial role public representative's play as a bridge between the public and the administration. He urged them to be more effective, transparent, and efficient in their duties, maintaining constant communication and better coordination between the general public and the administration. He encouraged representatives to strive to make their constituencies exemplary and to prepare a vision document for their assembly constituency, focusing on improving citizens' lives through advancements in education, health, agriculture, sanitation, infrastructure, and other vital sectors. Yadav instructed the preparation and implementation of an action plan, formulated in consultation with public representatives and tailored to local conditions, to regulate nighttime activities in all cities, including Indore. Additionally, he highlighted the need for doctors to remain in contact with district collectors to provide immediate PM Shri Air Ambulance services to affected individuals in case of a disaster. The Chief Minister conveyed these directives during a meeting with MLAs from the Indore division at Samatva Bhawan, discussing the action plan to achieve comprehensive development goals over the next four years. In the meeting, Urban Development and Housing Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, Forest Minister Nagar Singh Chauhan, MP VD Sharma, former minister Archana Chitnis, former minister Usha Thakur, former mayor of Indore Malini Gaur, MLAs and officials were present. Yadav emphasized the need to launch a campaign to resolve revenue cases within a set timeframe. To address the shortage of revenue staff in the districts, he suggested hiring retired Patwaris and Revenue Inspectors on a contract basis, providing relief to the public by clearing pending cases. Collectors have been instructed to ensure that the general public does not face issues due to pending revenue cases at any level and to guarantee that Patwaris are available at their headquarters. Dr. Yadav also highlighted the importance of proper management of livestock. He directed to establish cow sheds in place of the previously built Kanji houses, ensuring proper care for the animals, especially during the rainy season. Additionally, he advised increasing the capacity of cow sheds in large municipal corporations to accommodate more animals. The Chief Minister emphasized the importance of organizing discussions, seminars, and similar events at the police station level to educate the general public about the provisions of the three new laws recently implemented on July 1. He announced that 7,500 policemen will be recruited soon, and the recruitment process for two lakh vacant posts will begin shortly. He urged MLAs to make arrangements for the preparation of competitive examinations for the youth in their areas and to provide them with the necessary encouragement. Additionally, Dr. Yadav stated that the operation of soil testing laboratories in the districts will be entrusted to the local youth. It is the responsibility of the state government to provide the benefits of Ayushman Yojana to the eligible beneficiaries Yadav said that it is the responsibility of the government to provide the benefits of Ayushman Yojana to the eligible beneficiaries. MLAs and administrative officers should conduct surprise inspections of hospitals in their areas and check the arrangements. Also ensure that the benefits of government schemes are made available to the general public. CSR funds should also be used to improve the system of hospitals. Yadav said that MLAs should be aware of the quality of food being provided in hostels, Anganwadis and Deendayal kitchens and should also keep testing them. The functioning of institutions related to common people like schools, colleges, fair price shops etc. should also be inspected. AAP on Friday expressed happiness over the Supreme Court granting interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the alleged excise policy linked money laundering scam, stating that the truth has won and the conspiracy of the BJP has lost. Senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Atishi said, Truth can be troubled but cannot be defeated. This bail of Arvind Kejriwal makes it clear to the entire country that Arvind Kejriwal stood with the truth, is standing with it and will continue to do so. She claimed that whether it is the decision of the Rouse Avenue court or the decision of the Supreme Court, it proves that the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, the witch hunt of the AAP leaders and ministers for the last two years, the investigation of this fake liquor scam that has been going on for the last two years is a conspiracy of the BJP only. The BJP is conspiring to stop the work of the AAP, the Delhi government, the people of Delhi and hence they put the elected Chief Minister of Delhi in jail in a fake case, without any evidence, the minister stated. AAPs General Secretary (Organisation) and Rajya Sabha MP Dr. Sandeep Pathak said, This decision of the Supreme Court is historic for the entire country. Some decisions of the court are such that they determine the direction of the country. The court's order has demolished the so-called liquor scam hatched by the BJP.Further, he claimed, This entire case is fake. Also, the court has also significantly raised questions on the intentions of the ED, which is a big thing. When an agency deals with a party with malicious intent, it becomes a serious matter. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Friday, held a Janata Darshan at his official residence in Lucknow and addressed the grievances of hundreds of people from various districts. The chief minister instructed officials to carefully listen to complaints, communicate effectively with complainants and take appropriate action. During this, citizens presented a range of issues, including problems with the police, land encroachments and transfer requests. Chief Minister Yogi listened to each complaint and assured the attendees that their concerns would be addressed promptly. He emphasised the importance of satisfying the complainants in all valid cases. Among the attendees was a teacher who requested a transfer due to personal issues. The chief minister forwarded the application to the Directorate of Education for necessary action. Another petitioner sought a job under the deceased dependent quota, and Chief Minister Yogi assured him that the application would be sent to the department concerned for relevant action. The chief minister personally reached out to each attendee, listened to the complaint, and handed over the application to the officials for further action. He also directed officials from the respective districts to take action on issues related to the police and land encroachments, reinforcing his commitment to addressing public grievances and ensuring their safety, prosperity and happiness. The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Delhi Police not to harass a city resident who has filed a contempt plea against the DDA over "illegal" tree-felling in the Ridge forest. A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan issued notice on the plea filed by the petitioner alleging harassment. "We make it clear for all the authorities that no one will make any attempt to cause harassment to the petitioner only because she has filed a contempt petition and brought to the notice of this court about breach of orders of this court," the bench said. Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the petitioner, had informed the court that city police officers have been making enquiries regarding the other petitioner, New Delhi Nature Society, as well. Sankaranarayanan had claimed the police have also approached their bank and sought detailed information about their accounts. The bench took note of Sankaranarayanan's submission and issued notice in the matter. In her contempt plea, Bindu Kapurea alleged that trees were cut despite a March 4 court order denying permission to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for it and that the fact about the felling of trees was suppressed from the court. The apex court has initiated suo motu (on its own) contempt proceedings against the vice chairman of the DDA over alleged cutting of 1,100 trees in the Ridge forest for a road widening project. The AAP on Friday described the Supreme Court order granting interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the ED's money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam as a "victory of truth" and "defeat of the BJP's conspiracy" against him. The BJP, however, said the Supreme Court order was not a victory for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as the court has put its "seal of approval" on Kejriwal being guilty in the excise policy case. Even after the apex court order, Kejriwal, the national convenor of the AAP, will remain in jail as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested him in a corruption case related to the alleged excise policy scam. In a joint press conference, AAP leaders Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Sandeep Pathak termed the Supreme Court order "historic" and a "victory of truth". Earlier, the party in a post in Hindi on 'X', said "Satyameva Jayate (truth alone triumphs)". Kejriwal was granted bail last month by the Rouse Avenue court in the excise policy-linked money laundering case but the order was stayed by the Delhi High Court. Atishi claimed the decisions of the Rouse Avenue Court and the Supreme Court prove the arrest of Kejriwal and the "witch hunting" of AAP leaders and ministers for the last two years in the name of the "so-called" liquor scam is only a conspiracy hatched by the BJP. "The BJP has hatched this entire conspiracy to stop the work of Delhi's Aam Aadmi Party government. That's why it put the chief minister in jail in a false case without any evidence," she alleged. The Delhi cabinet minister noted that while granting bail to Kejriwal, the trial court had said that the ED "has no evidence against him" and the agency is adopting a "biased attitude" in the case. "Today, the Supreme Court approved the lower court's decision and granted bail to Kejriwal in the ED case. The BJP was aware that since the lower court has granted bail to Kejriwal, the Supreme Court will also do so. That's why they used another political tool of theirs -- CBI -- to get Kejriwal arrested," Atishi claimed. She said the country's judiciary has "exposed the conspiracies of the BJP one after the other". "The BJP should put an end to its arrogance and stop conspiring against opposition parties. Truth may be troubled but it cannot be defeated. With the bail of Arvind Kejriwal, it has become clear to the country that he stood with the truth earlier, is standing with it today and will continue to do so in the future also," the Delhi Cabinet minister asserted. Terming the apex court's order "historic" for the entire country, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak noted there are some decisions of the court that determine the direction in which the country will move. "The court order has demolished the so-called liquor scam created by the BJP. Earlier, the order of the PMLA Special Court also exposed the truth of this case before the country," he opined. While granting interim bail to Kejriwal, the top court said it is up to Kejriwal to decide if he should continue as chief minister. "We are conscious of the fact that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader," a bench of Supreme Court Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta said while noting that Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days. It also referred the questions pertaining to the legality of his arrest in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case to a larger bench. The court said since the matter is concerned with the right to life and the issue of arrest has been referred to a larger bench, Kejriwal be released on interim bail. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Pathak said, "The court has studied this case and sent it to a larger bench. We believe that whatever the Supreme Court does, it will be good for the country and will give direction to the country in the future." Bharadwaj said the court has considered that Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), under which ED has arrested Kejriwal, is "subjective". "Bringing Section 19 into effect in this case is only the perception of ED officers. It is worth noting that the PMLA law under which the bail provisions are so strict, the rules of arrest will also be of high standard. "It is not possible that you arrest someone on every small issue and then do not grant bail. Similarly, if bail is easy in any law, then arrest is also easy in it," said the minister. The AAP is hopeful that Kejriwal will also be granted bail in the excise policy case filed by the CBI, Bharadwaj said. President Joe Biden holds news conference at the 2024 NATO Summit on Thursday, July 11, in Washington, D.C. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images WASHINGTON President Joe Bidens high-stakes news conference Thursday went better than his disastrous debate performance two weeks ago, but more Democratic lawmakers urged him to leave the race soon after it was over. In one moment, Biden displayed the mastery of foreign policy that led Barack Obama to tap him as vice president, and at another, he bungled his own vice presidents name a moment former President Donald Trump immediately seized on. Biden defended Vice President Kamala Harris during the news conference but also insisted he will remain in the race. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didnt think she was qualified to be vice president, Biden said, mistakenly saying Trump instead of Harris. Earlier in the day, Biden mistakenly called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy President Putin. The 81-year-old presidents poor performance in a June debate against 78-year-old Trump kicked off a panic about his ability to win in November. Biden has repeatedly insisted that he plans to stay in the race, but it has yet to stop Democrats from speculating and discussing whether he is the best candidate for their party. Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears, let them see me out there, Biden said, referring to lawmakers. Weve never been here before, and thats the other reason why I didnt, as you said, hand off to another generation. Ive gotta finish this job. If I slow down and cant get the job done, thats a sign I shouldnt be doing it. But theres no indication of that yet. None, Biden said. Biden responded to several complicated foreign policy questions with thoughtful and lengthy answers, an area thats long been a strong suit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But for the first time since the episode began, Biden appeared to open the door to another candidate. He vigorously defended Harris, shared the criteria that would cause him to decide to drop out of the race and gave democratic delegates permission to vote their conscience. Biden referenced Harris handling of reproductive rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and her ability to handle almost any issue on the board. I wouldnt have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president, Biden said. Shes qualified to be president. Thats why I picked her. If his team showed him data that Harris would fare better against Trump, Biden said he wouldnt reconsider running unless they came back and said, Theres no way you can win. Biden opened the door to other candidates late in the conference, giving delegates permission to do whatever they want, and adding that he was overwhelmingly successful in the Democratic primaries (a situation where he didnt have serious challengers). Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tomorrow, if all of a sudden, I show up at the convention and everybody says, We want somebody else, thats the democratic process, Biden said. But, Its not going to happen. Just seconds after ending the nearly hourlong news conference, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, called for Biden to leave the race. A few minutes later, Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, did the same. Soon after, Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Illinois, called on Biden to step aside. One California lawmaker said Bidens performance wasnt bad, but was unlikely to end the crisis the party is mired in. Biden had no fatal mistakes, but nothing changed much, Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, said. Bera said his impression was that Biden is willing to look at objective data, and if he cant win, then the door is open to look at other candidates. Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000. His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage. The X logo is seen being installed on the top of the companys San Francisco headquarters in 2023. Previously known as Twitter, the company is listing the entire building for lease, clouding Xs future in the city. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle When X Corp., once known as Twitter, leased a converted furniture mart covering the length of a city block on Market Street in 2011, the deal ushered in a new era for a long undervalued San Francisco neighborhood. Mid-Market, a notoriously blighted stretch between downtown and Civic Center, became flush with office workers, added gourmet eateries and grew a crop of shiny new apartment towers its surging values were fueled in part by a tax break given to the social media giant and other companies moving in. But, more than a decade later, the neighborhoods resilience is being put to the test as the anchor tenant that helped it transform now plans its exit. S.F. Bay Area property map: Heres who owns every building in the region Advertisement Article continues below this ad Real estate firm JLL has confirmed to the Chronicle that it has been hired to market Xs roughly 800,000-square-foot headquarters complex at Ninth and Market streets for sublease. The new listing, which has yet to officially hit the market, is for roughly 460,000 square feet of office space that X occupies inside of a hulking, near-century-old Art Deco building at 1355 Market St. It also includes an attached, roughly 330,000-square-foot building at 1 10th St. that the company previously made available for subleasing. The partially disassembled Twitter sign is seen on the companys headquarters on 10th and Market streets in San Francisco in 2023. Now known as X, the tech company is listing its headquarters for lease. Michaela Vatcheva/Special to the Chronicle While the new sublease listing indicates that X has more space than it needs in Mid-Market, the companys plans for the neighborhood, and San Francisco, are not known. X did not respond to the Chronicles inquiry about the listing on Thursday. Landlord Shorenstein Properties, which owns the Market Square buildings with JPMorgan Chase, also did not respond to a message seeking comment. The JLL brokers who are marketing the properties Mike Sample, Brittan Hawken and David Churton declined to disclose whether X is actively searching for office space elsewhere in the city. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The companys 2022 sale to Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal initially sparked questions about whether it would remain rooted in San Francisco. Musk relocated himself and the headquarters of his car company, Tesla, from California to Texas in the prior year. Musk launched the X rebrand and implemented cost-saving measures following the Twitter acquisition, including laying off half of the companys staff and slashing other costs in a bid to find financial stability. A lawsuit claiming that Musk refused to pay at least $500 million in severance to thousands of fired employees was dismissed by a U.S. court on Wednesday. Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and promptly changed the companys name to X. Though he and X declined to comment, brokers involved in the listing say X is putting its entire San Francisco headquarters up for sublease. Benjamin Fanjoy/Associated Press Even before the companys sale was completed, Musk who is known to be a staunch critic of remote work floated converting Xs Mid-Market headquarters into a homeless shelter. The suggestion appeared to be a jab at the citys struggles with addressing homelessness, and at the companys then-lax remote working policies. In 2022, the company scrapped a lease it signed less than a year before at 1330 Broadway in Oakland for a 66,000-square-foot satellite office, and was sued last year by Shorenstein for allegedly falling behind on rent payments at Market Square in San Francisco. That lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Musk also ran into trouble with the city after converting some of Market Squares office space into bedrooms for employees, removing the buildings iconic Twitter sign and installing a giant, illuminated X metal structure at the property all without proper permits. The JLL team is advertising Market Square as one large headquarters opportunity, but indicated that X may choose to continue to occupy some of its office. But the hope is that another user a growing artificial intelligence startup, or the city government, for example will take over the companys excess space. X, one of the greatest technology companies in the world, has spared no expense on the design of their headquarters, Sample said. The company that steps up and acquires this real estate will have Class A office at an incredible value and attract the Bay Areas top talent. In the near term, Xs contraction in Mid-Market comes as a big blow to the neighborhood and the citys larger downtown business ecosystem, which has struggled with rising vacancies, quality-of-life issues and dropping real estate values in the wake of the pandemic. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This would be the largest block of sublease tech space in San Francisco, said Derek Daniels, director of research with real estate firm Colliers, adding that Xs sublease will push the citys total sublease availability to the record high of 9.8 million square feet set one year ago. The amount of office space that sits vacant in San Francisco has been on the rise for four years amid a shift to remote work, reaching a historic 37% last quarter. While overall office market trends remain grim, Hawken, of JLL, said that her team is encouraged by the uptick in potential-client touring activity it has seen in recent months. She added that Market Squares location on the edge of the Hayes Valley and Mission neighborhoods which have attracted clusters of artificial intelligence startups but come with limited space for expansion provides a rare real estate opportunity for growing companies. Daniels agreed. 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Try this website: http://www.bbwdating123.com Laurene Powell Jobs purchased a home in San Franciscos Pacific Heights for a record-breaking $70 million. Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media Entrepreneur and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs purchased a home in San Franciscos Pacific Heights for a record-breaking $70 million. The property was sold off-market by lawyer and author Sloan Lindemann Barnett, daughter of billionaire art collector George Lindemann, and her husband, Roger Barnett, CEO of a health supplement company, according to anonymous sources cited by the Wall Street Journal. The Barnetts acquired the Spanish Renaissance Revival Palacio at 2840 Broadway for $33 million in 2011 through a limited liability company, records show. The grand estate features white onyx-paneled walls, mirrored ornamental columns and sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Initially, the Barnetts sought more than $100 million for the property, the sources said. This transaction surpasses the previous record for the most expensive home sale in San Francisco, a Pacific Heights property sold for $43.5 million in 2021. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, left, leans his forehead against wife Laurene Powell Jobs forehead after delivering the keynote address to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at Moscone West in San Francisco on June 6, 2011. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle 2011 Architectural Digest, in a January 2021 article, said the mansion at 2840 Broadway has been described, with good reason, as the most beautiful house in America. However, scrutiny followed when it was revealed that interior photographs had been edited to obscure 33 ancient Khmer statues, reportedly looted Cambodian artifacts held by Lindemann Barnetts parents. This led the family to return the sacred relics, as reported by the Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The property is positioned next to the former estate of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison and adjacent to the home of Apple designer Jonathan Ive, on San Franciscos renowned Billionaires Row. Previously owned by international society hostess and haute couture collector Dodie Rosekrans, the mansion was originally built in 1916 and underwent renovations under the Barnetts ownership. Laurene Powell Jobs, 60, is the founder of the Emerson Collective, an organization focused on investment, philanthropy and advocacy. She married Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1991 after meeting him during a lecture at Stanford Business School, where she was a student. The couple had three children before he died in 2011. The Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, left; Laurene Powell Jobs, and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., attend a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony, the nations highest civilian honor, ceremony at the White House in July 2022. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images Powell Jobs made headlines earlier this year with the purchase of a $94 million oceanfront property in Malibus Paradise Cove, adjacent to her existing property there. She previously purchased a $16.5 million home in San Franciscos Russian Hill neighborhood in 2018. Reflecting on her wealth, Powell Jobs once remarked, My relationship with money is that its a tool to be self-sufficient, but its not something that is a part of who I am. Advertisement Article continues below this ad San Francisco installed speed bumps at Divisadero and California streets last week to discourage disruptive late-night sideshows. Carolyn Stein/The Chronicle San Francisco police seized this car they say was involved in a sideshow in May 2023. San Francisco Police Department City crews installed a set of speed bumps on Tuesday morning at Divisadero and California streets with the aim of thwarting increasingly noisy, disruptive car sideshows that have irritated neighbors for more than two years. The sideshows typically begin anywhere between around 12:40 a.m. and 1:20 a.m, and usually last about a half hour, according to one nearby business owner. Two to three cars take over the intersection at a time, spinning doughnuts and screeching across the pavement, leaving dozens of tire marks, neighbors told the Chronicle. Sometimes, local businesses get hit with graffiti in the process. In one June 30 sideshow alone, two businesses at the intersection got tagged. Advertisement Article continues below this ad ANOTHER SIDESHOW I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE POLICE DOING NOTHING, one user wrote on the San Francisco 311 app following the June 30 street takeover at Divisadero and California. Sally Fay, who lives near the intersection, rejoiced at the news of the speed bumps going in. Similar speed bumps have been installed in the past at other intersections in the city plagued by sideshows. The important thing is that there was action taken, Fay said, emphasizing the sideshows threat to safety. Enough is enough. Sideshows, referred to by SFPD as stunt driving, are illegal and an ongoing challenge around the entire Bay Area, SFPD spokesperson Allison Maxie wrote to the Chronicle. Unfortunately, people who participate in these illegal events occasionally come to San Francisco. In the past week alone, the citys 311 app received three complaints about sideshow incidents in different locations. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Typically, sideshows draw hundreds of revelers who block traffic and throw fireworks while vehicles spin in circles. In some instances, sideshows have shut down part of the Bay Bridge, and in other cases theyve resulted in injuries to participants. The unsanctioned gatherings, which break a variety of laws including those against reckless driving, have prompted city leaders throughout the region to take action. Last year the Oakland City Council approved penalties of up to six months in jail or a $1,000 fine or both for anyone who starts or facilitates a sideshow. Soon after, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors took similar action, approving a law that can fine sideshow spectators $1,000 and lead to three months of jail time. San Francisco passed legislation in 2020 allowing officers to impound the cars of sideshow participants, and soon after created a police unit to deal specifically with sideshows. Still, the department has met criticism for not being more aggressive in stopping the events. The police department has not done enough, Board of Supervisors member and mayoral candidate Ahsha Safai, who wrote the impound legislation, told the Chronicle. In June, Safai asked the police department for data on how many vehicles have been impounded for sideshows in recent years, and he said he learned Tuesday that SFPD impounded only six vehicles for sideshows in 2023 and five so far this year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We have a sideshow abatement unit for a reason. It should be a priority. All of these things add up, Safai said. San Franciscos image suffers as a result of not leaning harder on the problem, he said. Neighbors described the illegal gatherings at Divisadero and California as both a disturbance to their residences and a threat to the safety of their neighborhood. I didnt know if it was a bomb going off, Judy Mandelbaum said, referring to the most recent sideshow at the intersection. She was visiting relatives nearby, but to her it felt like the sideshow was right outside her window. Jay Parekh, who moved to the area about 2 years ago, said he was jolted by a sideshow at that intersection two weeks after he moved in. Since then, he remembers at least three more sideshows, with the din of fireworks and squealing tires filling the air. Its been frustrating and disrespectful, Parekh said, who can hear the ruckus from his home and worries about the noise waking his 4-year-old and 6-month-old children. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The speed bumps drew what appeared to be universal praise from neighbors living not just at the intersection, but for several blocks around, and one woman fist-pumped the air when she noticed them. Props to the city for doing something about it, said Griffin Lee, who lives a few blocks away. Parekh also expressed delight at the arrival of the speed bumps, but he worries that it wont be enough to solve the root of the issue. I dont know what the solution is, he said. I also feel bad that it will push the problem elsewhere. Its eventually gonna cause injury to people. Neighbor Amy Hephner feels similarly. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Imagine waking up every day, not knowing whether you are going to be dragged along a motorway hanging onto a car door at high speed or end up shot in the back by some 10-year-old ghetto kid with an AK-47 machine gun? These are the perils of working in America as a policeman. These brave men and women of the police should be commended for the bravery they display in a wild jungle of insanity where each moment of life could be their very last. One moment everything is supposedly calm, the next requires quick thinking and agility of actions. If the policeman acts to save his life, or the lives of others, some States will even attempt to prosecute officers simply for doing their jobs. Being a policeman in America these days is a hazard only the few come away from unscathed. Buffalo, New York On July 10, 2024, at about 12:30 a.m., Buffalo Police Officers initiated a traffic stop in the area of Kensington Avenue at Poultney Avenue for an apparent speeding violation and tinted windows. During the stop, officers noticed a 6-year-old boy in the front passenger seat without a seat belt. When asked for his driving licence, 25-year-old Daevon Roberts admitted he did not have it with him but provided another form of identification. Upon checking the ID, officers found no record of a valid driving licence for Roberts. When asked to step out of the vehicle, Roberts instead sped away, with one officer hanging onto the car door. As the vehicle accelerated to over 60 MPH, the officer drew his weapon and shot Roberts multiple times. Both the officer and Roberts fell out of the vehicle. The officer immediately ran to the car and safely pulled the 6-year-old boy from the front seat. The child was unharmed. Officers on the scene administered first aid to Roberts, who was then transported to Erie County Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. The officer involved was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital. A subsequent search of the vehicle, which was not registered to Roberts, revealed a 9 mm Taurus handgun under the drivers seat. Roberts was identified as the half-brother of Jaylen Griffin, a 12-year-old boy who went missing in 2020 and whose remains were discovered in April 2024. Records show that Roberts was recently indicted in June on charges of firing gunshots following a vigil for his brother on April 22. Although no one was injured in that incident, Roberts faced felony charges of attempted assault and weapons possession. He had pleaded not guilty and was released under supervision. The Storm Prediction Center forecasts a risk of dry thunderstorms across the Sierra Nevada on Saturday. Storms are expected to produce cloud-to-ground lightning and gusty winds with little to no precipitation. Baron/Lynx A historic early July heat wave has left Californias landscape parched, contributing to a fast start to the fire season. But fire conditions are likely to deteriorate even further this weekend with dry lightning in the forecast. Red flag warnings are now in place for a large portion of the Sierra Nevada through Sunday evening, including Sequoia National Park, Yosemite and Tahoe. Active fire and heat advisories are listed below. Thunderstorm chances will increase in the higher elevations of Central and Southern California on Friday as a surge of monsoon moisture pushes into the state. Saturday will likely feature the most widespread thunder and lightning across the Sierra. The threat is expected to continue Sunday before waning Monday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The thunderstorms will likely be dry, producing little to no precipitation. Because of this, the National Interagency Fire Center predicts a high risk of significant fire potential across portions of California from Friday through Sunday. The main focus is along and east of the Cascade-Sierra crest where the lightning should be more prolific, said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist with the Northern Operations Predictive Services unit. Lightning-ignited wildfires accounted for nearly half of the acres burned in Northern California in the last two decades, mostly in remote mountains. Human factors, such as power lines, lawn mowing, dragging trailer chains and gunfire, have also sparked highly destructive and deadly fires in recent years. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The three-day lightning threat should provide few large fires, especially driven by (thunderstorm) outflow winds, Wachter said. The odds are highest that thunderstorms will pop up in the Sierra, southern Cascades, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains and Antelope Valley. However, a stray lightning strike or two cannot be ruled out in the Central Valley, Diablo Range and coastal mountains. Dry lightning is unlikely near the Bay Area this weekend. Scattered thunderstorms are expected across the Sierra Nevada on Saturday afternoon. Some precipitation may reach the ground, but plenty of lightning is expected outside the rain cores, raising the risk of wildfire ignitions. Baron/Lynx Lightning can create new fire starts and may combine with strong outflow winds to cause a fire to rapidly grow in size and intensity before first responders can contain them, the weather service office in Reno warned. The Lake Tahoe basin is also at risk of dry lightning this weekend, according to Dawn Johnson, the warning coordination meteorologist at the weather service office in Reno. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Because it is so hot and dry that tilts the odds toward dry thunderstorms Friday, Johnson said. Well start to transition to a hybrid of wet and dry storms Saturday, and it should be more wet by Sunday. The recent heat wave has pushed small, dead vegetation such as grasses and shrubs to record dry levels. Dead fuel moisture is near or below all-time minimums across, including in the Sacramento Valley and Northern Sierra. The extreme dryness makes the fuels extremely flammable. Moisture in living plants such as trees is near normal, but recent fires in the Siskiyou and Tahoe national forests suggest tree canopies are now flammable. Wachter believes the ongoing heat wave is putting stress on forests and other living plants. A persistent high-pressure system, also known as a heat dome, has locked itself over California since the beginning of July, resulting in hot, dry and sunny weather. The intense heat has sucked moisture out of vegetation and contributed to drought development in Siskiyou County. The heat dome will finally begin shifting to the east this weekend, and California will gradually cool off. As the clockwise spinning high-pressure system drifts eastward, it will interact with a counterclockwise spinning low-pressure system to the west and pull monsoon moisture from the subtropics toward California. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Monsoon moisture is expected to spread into California, drawn northward by a low-pressure system off the coast and a high-pressure system over the Four Corners region. Baron/Lynx When monsoon moisture moves into California, thunderstorms are more likely, particularly over the mountains, according to Alex Tardy, the warning coordination meteorologist at the weather service office in San Diego. On the back edge of that heat dome, you still have weather disturbances they cant go through the heat dome, so they go up and over it, Tardy said. Those are patterns weve got to watch closely. Those have led to thunderstorms and lightning on the West Coast when we otherwise wouldnt expect it. Senior newsroom meteorologist Greg Porter contributed reporting. Ulster University has announced the graduation of the first cohort of students from its Community Scholarship Programme this summer, marking a milestone in the university's commitment to accessible higher education, offering these students a brighter start to their future. Launched in September 2021, Ulster Universitys Community Scholarships programme was created to offer everyone the opportunity to experience higher education without the financial burden of tuition fees, as often financial barriers can be the only reason that people cannot progress to university. These scholarships aim to address this inequality by supporting those students, who have faced challenges on their educational journey, with potential and ambition who may be discouraged from going to university simply due to financial barriers. Ulster University partnered with a network of local businesses across Northern Ireland who act as donors awarding these students a chance to access higher education. These businesses are committed to funding scholarships supporting more people on their university journey, to ensure that they graduate with the qualifications, experiences, and skills they need to secure a better future. With the support of generous donors, the programme offers access to higher education for new students entering first-year full-time degrees based on one of Ulster University's three campuses in Belfast, Coleraine or Derry. Claire Mulrone, Head of Widening Access and Participation explains, Our Graduating class of 2024 will include our first Community Scholarships students, we are delighted to celebrate their achievements and to recognise the generosity of our donors. This partnership has provided real opportunities for students to realise their potential at Ulster and will have a lasting impact on their lives and their futures. Leighann McConville, Schools Outreach Coordinator, Widening Access and Participation said: "Community Scholarships are intended to remove financial barriers to access, progress, and succeed at Ulster University. The financial help coupled with mentoring and academic support provided allows students to thrive. "This single point of contact also connects students with other special support at Ulster. Our Community Scholars are an integral part of our Ulster student community." Megan Farrelly, BSc Hons Sociology with Criminology graduating Scholarship student outlines the impact the scholarship had on them: "Being a recipient of a Community Scholarship has made a significant difference to me, I didn't have to worry about working extra hours, and I was able to focus on degree. "Regular meetings with the Co-ordinator provided support for all aspects of university life, including career planning and post-graduate opportunities. Accessing this additional guidance has enhanced my university experience and I am so grateful. Creating a better future for her children, a current Scholarship student shared her personal journey, she said: "Receiving a Community Scholarship has relieved financial pressure on me, I have been able to care for my mum, my two children and not have to worry about working more hours to make ends meet. The mentoring support has been invaluable to me over the last academic year. Thank you for providing this opportunity." ABOVE: Pictured at the recent Churches Trust event are front from left, Mary Holmes, Chief Executive Officer, Churches Trust, Jenny Quinn, Department of Foreign Affairs and Diana Rudd, Churches Trust. Back from left, Orla Hasson, Facilitator, Laura Brown, Fiona Fagan, Wendy McCloskey and Jack McLaughlin, Churches Trust. A sizeable attendance witnessed some fine performances at the recent Churches Trusts TrACE to Transform conference at the Maldron Hotel, Derry. TrACE to Transform is an intergenerational programme funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and the aim of it is to strengthen community capacity through strengthening families, removing barriers to reconciliation and standing against coercive control. Developed by the Churches Trust, the programme works across communities using Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Approaches. This approach is transformational in achieving goals that recognises how important childhood experiences are across the life course of us all. Last week's conference began with a rehearsed reading presented by the young people who participated in the TrACE to Transform project, followed by an overview of the whole project by Laura Brown from the Trust. Orla Hasson then completed proceedings with the journey of shared learning. Special guest at the conference was Jenny Quinn, Joint Director from the Reconciliation Fund at the Department of Foreign Affairs; and also attended by Fiona Fagan, instrumental in bringing the TrACE to Transformation project into being, board members, local community groups and all those who took part in the TTT project. During the project, the Churches Trust team worked with 23 women, 13 from Derry and 10 from Carndonagh in County Donegal as well as 20 young people from the city and district. The programme used group sessions and mentoring sessions to explore personal development topics that encourage introspection followed by self-reflection. From this the group developed capacity to have a greater understanding of those who have shaped their lives, such as parents, grandparents, educators and clergy, as well as the communities they live in, strengthening their ability to positively influence change for a better future. Speaking at conference, Mary Holmes, CEO Churches Trust praised all who took part in the programme and also thanked those who put up a great performance on the night for all in attendance. "In taking part in this successful project, TrACE to Transform, youve allowed yourselves to be human, vulnerable - youve opened your minds, and your hearts to become more aware of each others journeys and experiences across all stages of life. This project is such a healthy foundation to build good relations not just within ourselves, but with our families and with our communities. "TrACE To Transform has encouraged and facilitated positive behavioural change towards people from different backgrounds by: Challenging stereotypes and prejudices; Developing an awareness of the trauma that has influenced their views, feelings and behaviours; Developing an understanding that there can be more than one viewpoint and respect others views; Developing positive relationships between people from different backgrounds. Well done to all of you." Group pictured at the Churches Trust 'TrACE to Transform Conference held at the Maldron Hotel. Front from left, Sharon Rasmussen, Tammie Farrell, Orla Hasson, Facilitator, Miles Doran, Jenny Quinn, DFA, Daniel Gamble, Wendy McCloskey, Churches Trust and Samuel Warnett. Back from left, Laura Brown, Churches Trust, Denise Doherty, Mary Doherty, Aedan McLaughlin, Annie Burns, Adam Armstrong, Patricia Coyle, Kenzie Carnwath, Kathleen Rodgers, Sophie Carnwath, Mary McFarland, Pamela Lynch, Samantha Higgins, Jack McLaughlin, Churches Trust, Susan Bailey, Mary Holmes, CEO, Churches Trust, Beverley Watson, Eilish Murray and Pamela McAllister, Facilitator. (Photos: Jim McCafferty Photography) Ms. Holmes ended by thanking the Department for Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for again funding the project for a second year. "Your funding means we can continue to work collaboratively with young people, women, schools and communities to promote inclusivity. Ensuring everyone regardless of background, has access to transformational resources and support." Anyone wishing to learn more about the TrACE to Transform programme for your group or you would like to participate in the next year please contact Laura at 028 7131 1322 or email info@thechurchestrustorg.uk. New Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged to listen to the voice of unionism as Twelfth of July parades take place across Northern Ireland. Orange Order Grand Secretary Rev Mervyn Gibson made the plea as tens of thousands of loyal order members and 600 marching bands took part in the annual festivities. The largest parades were in Belfast, as well as the Co Antrim coastal town of Carrickfergus, which boasts historic links to King William of Orange, who triumphed over King James II at the Boyne in 1690. Ballymena, Newtownstewart, Derry and Killylea were also among the 18 locations hosting processions to mark the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Mr Gibson delivered the main speech at the demonstration in Derriaghy, Co Antrim, where he urged members to give the new government a chance. He said: There will without doubt be decisions we dont like, times we will clash with their thinking, but they cannot be any worse than the Conservatives who not only failed to strengthen the Union, but damaged the Union, who failed to deliver meaningful celebrations to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland; who failed to deliver Brexit for all of the UK; who failed to deliver on many promises made. In essence, the Tories failed the people of Northern Ireland So, lets see if this union-promoting Labour government will perform any better. We would encourage our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism, which is still united against the (Northern Ireland) Protocol deliver us from this iniquitous legislation deliver truly frictionless trade within UK. Honour the promises the Tories failed to keep, promises which you indicated you would keep when in power. New Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn visited a Twelfth demonstration at Irvinestown Co Fermanagh. He also met with PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher in Belfast where he was briefed on the policing operation. The Twelfth parades come after the traditional burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland on Thursday night. There was criticism as politicians election posters were placed on some of the bonfires. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it dealt with more than 100 emergency 999 calls. Brian Stanfield, assistant chief Fire and Rescue officer said: It has been a relatively quiet 11th night. Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. During Fridays parades, the Orange Orders Grand Master Edward Stevenson told the demonstration in Newtownstewart that membership of the loyal orders is on the rise. Delivering his speech, he said: One of the most encouraging aspects of the last 12 months has been the resurgence in the junior Orange movement. The growth must be treated as a beacon of hope for the future. This year already they have formed six new lodges. They have attracted hundreds of new members and are working to see that more follow. I also recognise that the junior girls movement is experiencing an increase in membership, with new lodges formed and new members joining existing lodges. He added: These are not the actions of a people who have given up, they are the actions of people who have stood up, and who are investing in the future of their lodges, of their young people and their community. As Orangemen and women, we must strive to be more confident and assertive in our identity and culture. We have a proud heritage and a great story to tell. And while we rightly cherish our history, we have every reason to look to the future with much positivity, optimism and with a clear sense of direction ensuring that our cultural traditions remain relevant and continue to prosper in a contemporary world. Saturday will see another gathering, this time organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh. The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James. The routes of certain Orange parades became intense friction points during the Troubles, often leading to widespread rioting and violence. The number of flashpoints has reduced significantly in the peace process years. July 11 and 12 remain the busiest days of the year for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two-thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million. New Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged to listen to the voice of unionism as Twelfth of July parades take place across Northern Ireland. Orange Order Grand Secretary Rev Mervyn Gibson made the plea as tens of thousands of loyal order members and 600 marching bands took part in the annual festivities. The largest parades were in Belfast, as well as the Co Antrim coastal town of Carrickfergus, which boasts historic links to King William of Orange, who triumphed over King James II at the Boyne in 1690. Ballymena, Newtownstewart, Londonderry and Killylea were also among the 18 locations hosting processions to mark the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. Police carried out what they called a public safety operation across the day. There had been some concern around a former flashpoint in north Belfast after the Ligoniel Loyal Order applied to complete a return route along the Crumlin Road past the Ardoyne shops. An agreement had been made in 2016 that the lodge would walk the full route on the morning of July 12, and there would be no protest by nearby nationalist residents, but not complete the return parade in the evening. The application was refused by the Parades Commission, who ordered that the procession should stop at the junction of Woodvale Road and Woodvale Parade. The Ligoniel orange lodge has abided by the Parades Commission ruling and stopped on the Woodvale Road. All dispersing peacefully now. pic.twitter.com/abMkVQT7PF Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) July 12, 2024 Police maintained a presence in the area on Friday, however the procession stopped short of police officers marking the limit and dispersed peacefully. On Friday evening, Orange Order Grand Master Edward Stevenson hailed the day as a great success. He said extraordinary numbers of people turned out, including visitors from Scotland, England, Wales, Australia, Canada and the United States, to celebrate the largest annual festival in Northern Ireland. I trust everyone involved the participants, supporters, onlookers and traders have had a wonderful day. Whether you attended your first Twelfth or have been attending for many years, there is no doubting that this is a very special event indeed, he said. While I am sure everyone is ready for a well-earned rest, we are already looking forward to doing it all over again next year. Earlier Mr Gibson delivered the main speech at the demonstration in Derriaghy, Co Antrim, where he urged members to give the new government a chance. He said: There will without doubt be decisions we dont like, times we will clash with their thinking, but they cannot be any worse than the Conservatives who not only failed to strengthen the Union, but damaged the Union, who failed to deliver meaningful celebrations to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland; who failed to deliver Brexit for all of the UK; who failed to deliver on many promises made. In essence, the Tories failed the people of Northern Ireland So, lets see if this union-promoting Labour government will perform any better. We would encourage our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to listen to the voice of unionism, which is still united against the (Northern Ireland) Protocol deliver us from this iniquitous legislation deliver truly frictionless trade within UK. Honour the promises the Tories failed to keep, promises which you indicated you would keep when in power. New Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn visited a Twelfth demonstration at Irvinestown Co Fermanagh. He also met with PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher in Belfast where he was briefed on the policing operation. The Twelfth parades come after the traditional burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland on Thursday night. There was criticism as politicians election posters were placed on some of the bonfires. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it dealt with more than 100 emergency 999 calls. Brian Stanfield, assistant chief Fire and Rescue officer said: It has been a relatively quiet 11th night. Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. During Fridays parades, the Orange Orders Grand Master Edward Stevenson told the demonstration in Newtownstewart that membership of the loyal orders is on the rise. Delivering his speech, he said: One of the most encouraging aspects of the last 12 months has been the resurgence in the junior Orange movement. The growth must be treated as a beacon of hope for the future. This year already they have formed six new lodges. They have attracted hundreds of new members and are working to see that more follow. I also recognise that the junior girls movement is experiencing an increase in membership, with new lodges formed and new members joining existing lodges. He added: These are not the actions of a people who have given up, they are the actions of people who have stood up, and who are investing in the future of their lodges, of their young people and their community. As Orangemen and women, we must strive to be more confident and assertive in our identity and culture. We have a proud heritage and a great story to tell. And while we rightly cherish our history, we have every reason to look to the future with much positivity, optimism and with a clear sense of direction ensuring that our cultural traditions remain relevant and continue to prosper in a contemporary world. Saturday will see another gathering, this time organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh. The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James. The routes of certain Orange parades became intense friction points during the Troubles, often leading to widespread rioting and violence. The number of flashpoints has reduced significantly in the peace process years. July 11 and 12 remain the busiest days of the year for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two-thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million. HIGHLIGHTS NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeings new Starliner capsule early last month. Originally planned for an eight-day test flight ending on June 14, the mission faced delays. During their first news conference from space, the astronauts said they expect to return once tests on the thrusters are completed on Earth. Two astronauts who were supposed to return to Earth weeks ago expressed confidence on Wednesday that Boeings space capsule can bring them back safely, despite encountering several technical issues. NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeings new Starliner capsule early last month, the first people to ride it. However, helium leaks and problems with thrusters almost prevented their arrival at the International Space Station (ISS) and have prolonged their stay. They now may not return until the end of July, officials said. Also read: NASA astronauts stuck on space station due to Starliner issues: All you need to know During their first news conference from space, Wilmore and Williams said they expect to return once tests on the thrusters are completed on Earth (via The Associated Press). They expressed satisfaction with the extra time in orbit, enjoying their roles in assisting the station crew. Both astronauts have previous experience on the ISS. I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem, Williams told reporters. Originally planned for an eight-day test flight ending on June 14, the mission has faced delays. Steve Stich, NASAs commercial crew program director, indicated that the earliest return window for the Starliner astronauts is now the end of July. The goal is to bring them back before SpaceX sends a new crew in mid-August, though this timeline is subject to change. Also read: Incident on ISS: Astronauts took shelter after Russian spacecraft broke up in Orbit This week, NASA and Boeing are conducting tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to replicate the thruster issues experienced by the Starliner. The problems, which affected five thrusters as the capsule approached the ISS on June 6, have since seen four thrusters reactivated. Wilmore expressed confidence that the remaining thrusters and backup engines can safely bring them back to Earth. The investigation is crucial as the service module of the capsule will be discarded before landing. Tests so far have not recreated the high temperatures experienced during flight, complicating efforts to understand the thruster issues fully. Boeings Mark Nappi emphasized that Starliner and its crew could return immediately in an emergency. However, thorough testing is needed to ensure the thrusters are fully operational and undamaged. Sanofi partners with OpenAI to become the world's first AI-driven pharma giant In May 2024, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced a three-way collaboration with Formation Bio and OpenAI to develop AI software for drug research. William Tsai, Sanofi's Head of Public Affairs, Communication, and Market Access for Hong Kong and Taiwan revealed that this partnership aligns with the company's ambitious digital transformation goals for 2030. Sanofi, the world's sixth-largest pharmaceutical company, operates over 70 locations globally with 86,000 employees. Its product range includes vaccines and treatments for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and rare diseases. In Taiwan, where Sanofi has been operating since 1982, the company employs around 310 people. Digital transformation 2030: accelerating drug research with OpenAI Tsai highlighted that drug development is often time-consuming, costly, and high-risk, with a success rate as low as one in ten thousand. In 2023, Sanofi's research and development expenditure reached EUR 6.7 billion. The company hopes digitization and AI technology will enhance research efficiency and shorten development timelines. AI can potentially revolutionize various stages of drug development, including disease target identification, drug creation, and clinical translation. Tsai revealed Sanofi's digital transformation goals for 2030, which include becoming the world's first large-scale AI-driven pharmaceutical company, halving research timelines, and allocating 50% of its resources to innovative projects. Achieving these aspirations requires cross-disciplinary partners to effectively implement AI, hence the partnership with OpenAI. At the time of the announcement, Sanofi stated that it would provide its data to create customized applications using OpenAI technology. OpenAI's COO, Brad Lightcap, expressed optimism about AI's potential to accelerate drug development, hoping the collaboration would lead to new drugs that benefit patients and their families. Formation Bio will contribute its expertise in drug development and AI applications. Digitizing healthcare globally In Taiwan, Sanofi has been collaborating with Health2Sync for several years on insulin management software for diabetes and is conducting clinical trials. The company has different strategic partners in other countries. Tsai noted that digital healthcare is flourishing in countries like Iceland, Spain, Sweden, and Austria, which are not traditionally known as pharmaceutical powerhouses. These digital healthcare companies often collaborate with multiple pharmaceutical firms and have numerous cross-disciplinary or international partnerships, indicating a growing trend. Sanofi's initiatives in Taiwan are also being implemented in Japan and South Korea. With 70 locations worldwide, the company aims to strengthen cooperation with local healthcare professionals. 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. BYD to invest US$1 billion in Turkish EV factory, targeting EU market BYD reached an agreement with the Turkish government to invest $1 billion in building an electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle factory in the region. The new factory is set to start production by the end of 2026. It will have an annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles, making it the first foreign-owned Electric Vehicle (EV) plant in Turkey. According to reports from Reuters, Nikkei Asia, and Financial Times, BYD will invest US$1 billion in Turkey to construct a factory with an estimated annual production capacity of 150,000 EVs and an R&D center. BYD's official statement noted that the goal is to meet the growing demand for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in the European market. When the investment plan for the new BYD plant was still being rumored, external estimates suggested the factory's annual capacity could be between 100,000 and 125,000 vehicles. At that time, AFP quoted analysts estimating that BYD could sell about 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles annually in Turkey and export 75,000 to the EU. Strategic Positioning in the Turkish and EU Markets According to 2023 statistics, Turkey's annual EV sales were about 65,000 units, with the local manufacturer Togg holding a nearly 30% market share, followed by Tesla at 18.5%. BYD entered the Turkish market in October 2023, but its Atto 3 model sold less than a thousand units and only captured a 1% market share. The EU has recently increased import tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect domestic industries. If BYD exports EVs to the EU, it will face a total tax rate of 27.4%. Turkey has also taken steps to protect local manufacturers, including a recent 40% tariff on all Chinese imported vehicles. According to UBS analysts, imposing tariffs could attract car manufacturers to set up production lines within the EU. BYD's first move into Europe, investing in a plant in Hungary, was also based on this reasoning. This plant is expected to start production in 2025, and BYD is considering building a second plant in Hungary. Although Turkey is not an EU member, it has been a member of the EU Customs Union (EUCU) since 1995, enjoying preferential access to the EU market. The EU is also Turkey's most important automotive export market. The Marmara region around Istanbul has become one of the world's most important automotive industrial centers, with well-known manufacturers such as Hyundai Motor, Toyota, Renault, and Ford having manufacturing and export bases in the country. Emerging Trends in Turkey's Automotive Sector BYD's new plant will be the first foreign-owned EV factory in Turkey. The Turkish government revealed it is still in close investment negotiations with other European and Asian car manufacturers. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to set up a factory during a meeting in September 2023. Recent reports indicated that China's Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) and Togg are in talks to establish a manufacturing joint venture. As investing in production capacity in Turkey can exempt companies from the additional 40% tariff, it is speculated that Chinese EV manufacturers such as Chery and Geely might also set up factories in Turkey. BYD has not disclosed the location of the new plant, but it is rumored to be in Manisa Province, near the Aegean port city of Izmir. Volkswagen had planned to build a factory in Manisa in 2019 but canceled the investment plan in 2020 due to Turkey's military actions in Syria and the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese health authority releases typical instances of misusing medical insurance funds Xinhua) 14:12, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China's National Healthcare Security Administration released a list of more than 60 typical instances of misusing medical insurance funds on Friday. The instances were unveiled in an inspection carried out without notice, launched in April of this year. The released instances consisted of practices of misusing medical insurance funds in six medical specialties such as cardiovascular medicine, orthopedics and rehabilitation medicine. The practices included repeatedly charging fees and using the funds to pay for expenses on medicines and services not covered by medical insurance. In late June, the administration announced that the inspection found four hospitals in Henan and Liaoning provinces involved in suspected medical insurance fraud activities. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Tributes have flooded in for a man in his seventies following his death in a road traffic collision on the Ring of Kerry on Thursday night. Traolach Sweeney was named locally today, and was said to be a beloved member in his adopted community in Caherdaniel where he had lived for many years. Traolach tragically lost his life in a collision on the Ring of Kerry at Coad near Caherdaniel shortly after 6pm on Thursday. Gardai said he was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later. He is survived by his wife Ina, as well as his two children Aisling and Peter. Sweeney was an established member of the Defence Forces, having worked his way up the ranks from Captain to Commandant. He was a member of the 45th battalion and served for a time as a Commanding officer in Ballymullen in Tralee. In his military career he was an Army Ranger and a French Interpreter. He was also a distinguished mountaineer have braved some of the toughest climbs around the world. He spent much of his life in Kildare but growing up had spent time in Kerry too. His late father was a Colonel in the Army and the family holidayed in The Glen. Traolach was also a skilled abseiler and scuba diver, both skills which served him well in the Defence Forces, as well as a talented violin player. Diarmuid O'Briain, a former defence forces member, described Traolach as a "visionary pioneer in local broadband", as he was well-known locally in Kerry as a founder of SCC broadband (Sneem Castlecove Caherdaniel), providing broadband to the rural area many years before multi-nationals were doing so. Describing Traolach's hard work and dedication to his community, O'Briain described how the former army commandant took on the task of addressing the problem, "suffering the frustration of no broadband on the Iveragh Peninsula and having little to no knowledge of broadband or telecoms". "He was determined to learn and this determination and quick learning enabled him to build a local network. He built a remarkable wind and solar-powered radio gateway on a Kerry mountain as a backhaul to another provider on the Beara Peninsula. This groundbreaking project brought broadband to the previously unconnected peninsula. His military background proved invaluable as he "pushed the boundaries of what was achievable", meticulously carried every component up the mountain over several weeks. Traolach was remembered fondly by those who knew him as a "gentleman with a big heart". A Belgian woman who worked with Traolach in a team of election observers in Chad recalled that the pair work in "very difficult conditions", but said Traolach "was so kind and helpful to me". Many others remembered the "great times" spent with the character, who was said to be "a truly heartwarming person". Diarmuid O'Briain said his contributions to the community "will be deeply missed", as will "his camaraderie with former military colleagues". "His duty, both to the Defence Forces and to the community on the Iveragh Peninsula is done. Rest easy soldier." Funeral details are yet to be announced. Community and agency partners across Limerick and North Cork gathered at Griston Bog, near Ballylanders, for the launch of the Ballyhoura Trails Masterplan. The masterplan, a 15-year framework aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of recreational trails, focuses on three overarching themes including partnership working, product development, and marketing and promotion. The region covers South and East Limerick and North Cork, deriving its name from the Ballyhoura Mountain range. It overlaps with the Munster Vales, a marketing region promoting trails, attractions, and experiences across five mountain ranges through Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. Trails have become an integral part of the Ballyhoura area over the past 30 years, providing a recreational experience for thousands and becoming a significant driver of local social, environmental, and economic activity. The development of the masterplan has been a community-driven process, engaging 450 individuals including community groups, volunteers, trail users, and local businesses alongside collaborations with the steering group agency representatives. The projects officer for Irelands Hidden Heartlands at Failte Ireland, Marie Healy, said: Failte Ireland welcomes the launch of the Ballyhoura Trails Masterplan. Ballyhoura is an important part of Irelands Hidden Heartlands, and this masterplan will help enhance its tourism offering by integrating the various trail types into a cohesive visitor and community experience. The plan will also support Failte Irelands Destination Experience Development Plan process for Ballyhoura country, which will commence later this year. This plan will ensure that tourism development in Ballyhoura will have a sustainable and regenerative focus, with benefits accruing to the local community and nature. Waiting lists for autism assessments are four times longer than they should be, according to a Cork North Central TD. People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Mick Barry said families in Cork city are being told they have to wait 24-30 months for an assessment, despite the Government having an obligation to provide appointments within six months. A letter sent to a Cork couple, seen by The Echo, told the parents: The waiting time for autism assessment is approximately 24 to 30 months. Mr Barry said in the Dail on Tuesday: For autistic kids, early intervention is key thats what all the experts say. The Disability Act places a legal obligation upon the State to determine within three months whether assessment is appropriate then to assess within a further three months. I have here a letter sent last week by the HSE to parents of a child just under two years of age in Cork city, he said, explaining that the letter highlights a waiting time of 24-30 months. Mr Barry mentioned that autism campaigner Cara Dermody is requesting a commitment that the State will be in a position to meet its legal obligations in full within a year, asking: Are you prepared to meet that commitment?. Taoiseach Simon Harris said he and minister of State Anne Rabbitte are working intensively on this, saying: Weve already allocated additional funding of 6.89m to provide for an assessment of need waiting list initiative, this will provide a further 2,500 private appointments to be delivered within the next six months. A key issue is trying to recruit, he explained. We ran a recruitment campaign, 145 job offers have now been made for successful candidates to work in this area, 53 of those people are in the final stages of recruitment, well run another recruitment campaign very shortly. Speaking to The Echo after the interaction, Mr Barry said: Im pretty sure that the parents who were told that their child will have to wait up to two-and-a-half years for an assessment will not be impressed with the Taoiseachs reply. A HSE spokesperson said: We deeply regret the distress experienced by children, young people, and their families with any delays in accessing healthcare supports. There is a significant demand for assessments for children presenting with disability or developmental delay. They explained that access to childrens disability services is prioritised based on needs, and many children require lengthy diagnostic ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) assessments but reinstated the Taoiseachs assurance that they have commissioned a number of private providers to provide diagnostic ASD assessments. A Cork university has issued an open call for nominations of trailblazing women to feature in a new series of portraits recognising pioneering achievements. The series, Accentures Women On Walls, will be displayed at University College Cork (UCC) and is aimed at enhancing the visibility of women leaders from, or with links to, the Munster region through commissioned portraits. Members of the public are invited to submit their suggestions for the artworks, including subjects who are both living or deceased. When completed, the new artworks will join the UCC Art Collection and will be permanently exhibited on campus. This is the first time that the campaign has commenced with people encouraged to nominate women from groups who are currently underrepresented. All applications will be considered on the merits, experience, and qualifications of the proposed subjects as these relate to the requirements and specifications of the commission. The closing date for nominations is August 6, with selected subjects to be announced in October. An open call for the commissioning process of artists will run later this year through Business to Arts. Professor John OHalloran, president of UCC said: It is important the diverse talents and contributions of women are recognised and that their stories are visible and celebrated. We hope the trailblazing women we will spotlight as part of this campaign will inspire and encourage our students, staff, alumni, and the wider community to pursue their dreams and realise their full potential. Dr Michelle Cullen, managing director and inclusion & diversity lead, Accenture Ireland said: 25 extraordinary women have been recognised in commissioned portraits since Women on Walls began in 2016. It has been a privilege to shine a light on their stories and create a lasting cultural legacy. As we embark on this next chapter with UCC, we look forward to recognising the outstanding achievements of a new group of women leaders. People are invited to submit nominations by visiting www.accenture.com/womenonwalls. The presiding judge in the Tralee cemetery murder trial told the jury today that they would be in a position to commence their deliberations on Tuesday. The judge said she was going into some detail on reviewing the evidence of the witnesses present in the graveyard because of its importance and the fact that it had been about a month since they heard it. Ms Justice Ellen Rings address to the jury went into its third day today, the 28th day of the trial. The Central Criminal Court will not be sitting in Cork on Monday July 15, so the jury was told to return at 10am on July 16. The judge said this afternoon as she concluded the trial for the day: I am near you will be happy to hear the end. We are getting close but we are not there yet, ladies and gentlemen. "I will, on Tuesday morning, come hell or high water, conclude my summary of the evidence and you will be in a position to commence your deliberations. The jury now consists of eleven men and two women. It will not be until the jury retire to commence their deliberations that the 13th juror the last remaining substitute will be discharged. All six accused face the same charge of murdering 43-year-old Tom Dooley from Hazelwood Drive, Killarney, at New Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, on October 5 2022. All six of the accused who are on trial deny the charge of murder. Five defendants in the case all with the surname Dooley Patrick, 36, from Arbutus Grove, Killarney; Thomas Sr., 43, from the halting site, Carrigrohane Road; Thomas Jr., 21, from the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork; Michael, 29, of the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork, and Daniel, 42, of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, County Kerry, are on trial, as is the sixth defendant who is a teenager. Only 21-year-old Thomas Dooley Jr faces the second charge of assault causing harm to Siobhan Dooley, the wife of the deceased man. July 11, 2024: Russian forces still control Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and its major port of Sevastopol. Thats where the Russian Navy is hiding one of their Kilo Class submarines that was damaged during a September 2023 Ukrainian missile attack. The Ukrainians have been systematically destroying all the dry dock facilities in Sevastopol ever since to prevent repairs being made on the Kilo class sub trapped in the port. Currently the Russians are trying to keep the Kilo safe from Ukrainian attack by covertly moving it around and keeping it hidden or camouflaged. Despite that, the Kilo has suffered additional damage and is now believed to be irreparable. The Ukrainians are taking no chances, continue to attack it and will keep that up until they are sure the submarine is destroyed. The reason for this is that an operational Kilo class submarine operating out of Sevastopol could threaten Ukrainian control of the Black Sea around Crimea and the Black Sea west coast. This enables Ukraine to use their major ports to continue exporting Ukrainian goods and importing needed commercial and military items. In 2023 the Ukrainians used locally made Sea Baby USVs (Unmanned Surface Vessel) to gain control of the waters around Crimea and the Black Sea west coast, where NATO countries like Romania occupy most of the coastal areas. Sea Baby carries 859 kg of explosives and has a range of 1,000 kilometers. These new USVs are cheap, costing $216,000 each. Ukraine used USVs for the first time in 2022 when one was used to attack ships in Crimeas Sevastopol Bay. An optional weapon for the new Sea Baby USV is six launching tubes for RPV-16 thermobaric rockets. These rockets have a range of 600 meters. The warhead detonates when it hits a target creating a cloud 2,500 degree heat that can kill or injure personnel within 80 meters of the detonation. First used by Ukrainian ground troops, in one case an RPV-16 warhead hit the room of a single story building, detonated, and destroyed the entire building. At sea, if one of these warheads landed on the deck of a warship the damage to any nearby personnel or weapons would be catastrophic. A hit against the hull could sink the ship, or at least put it out of action because of a hole at the waterline. Thermobaric explosives dont work underwater, only in the atmosphere. Because of Ukrainian attacks since 2022 with USVs, UAVs, and missiles, the Russian Black Sea Fleet lost 14 ships with several others badly damaged and towed to more distant portions of the Black Sea, including the Sea of Azov extension in the northeast and the more distant naval base at Novorossiysk on the Black Seas eastern coast. The remaining ships of the Black Sea Fleet include six guided missile cruisers, one corvette, seven diesel attack submarines, seven landing ships and dozens of high-speed landing craft, sea-going minesweepers, anti-saboteur boats, missile boats and anti-submarine ships. These ships rarely leave their well-guarded ports, even for a few days, because of the Ukrainian USVs that might be waiting for them. Ukrainian USVs are low in the water and are difficult to detect during the day and impossible to see at night. Ukraine has several USV models, including the original Sea Baby, Mother, Malyuk and MAGURA. Sea Baby and Mother were developed by the Ukrainian Navy with assistance from the SBU secret service organization. At the end of 2023 Ukraine revealed an updated Mother USV with a top speed of 100 kilometers an hour. Manufacture of these USVs is done in underground production facilities to avoid Russian missile and guided bomb attacks. Malyuk was used in a mid-2023 Kerch Bridge attack, carrying 850 kg of explosives to inflict significant damage on the bridge. MAGURA carries 320 kg of explosives while Mamai carries 450 kg. These USVs are no longer used just for delivering explosives against a target, as they can also be used for reconnaissance when equipped with video cameras that broadcast what they see back to the USV operator. Some USVs have been armed with small rocket launchers. Malyuk has a range of over 700 kilometers, which means they are suitable for operations on the high seas. Endurance is about 60 hours, and top speed is over 70 kilometers an hour. MAGURA has similar characteristics. Mamai was used in the long range attack at the distant naval base at Novorossiysk on Russias Black Sea eastern coast, which is a thousand kilometers from Crimea. Five people have been nominated to go forward for possible selection to contest the next general election to replace Simon Coveney on the Fine Gael ticket in the Cork South Central constituency. The deadline for nominations was yesterday evening and the candidates chosen will go forward to the partys local selection convention, which will be held in the International Hotel at the Airport Business Park on Tuesday, July 23. Taoiseach Simon Harris had predicted candidates would be lining up to replace Mr Coveney, and the local party faithful has proven Mr Harris correct. The five candidates include a long-time senator, three councillors, and a businessman who unsuccessfully ran for the European Parliament at last months elections. First elected to Cork City Council in 2004, senator Jerry Buttimer, Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, is one of the five people hoping to be a Fine Gael candidate in Cork South Central. Former lord mayor of Cork, south-east ward councillor Des Cahill, told The Echo he was probably the one candidate who is offering the most. Shane OCallaghan, who topped the poll in the Cork City South Central ward in last months local elections, said he believed he was the candidate best placed to maintain his partys seat in the constituency. Rochestown native and Carrigaline resident Una McCarthy who was co-opted onto the county council last October, replacing John Paul Murtagh is also running. John Mullins, who ran unsuccessfully for Fine Gael in Ireland South in last months European elections, is also hoping to be chosen by the selection convention. First elected as a TD for Cork South Central in 1998, Mr Coveney announced on Wednesday his intention not to seek re-election at the next general election, which must take place by March next year, but many suspect it will occur in late October or early November. On a week where I attended one of the best gigs Ive seen in a long time, by Sza, I couldnt help but reflect on the disappointing show by Nicki Minaj, who seems to have a disregard for her adoring fan base here in Ireland. Having previously cancelled an Irish show hours before it was due to start, on Saturday last, Nicki arrived two hours late for her show and performed a severely curtailed set that was dominated by costume changes and lip syncing. Many of her fans, who travelled long distances, expressed their disgust with having waited for hours in the rain for such an anti-climatic show, but its not the first time American artists have treated us so poorly here. From the earliest days when hip-hop artists used to travel to Europe, theres been mixed reports about some of the performance levels. I remember in the early 90s, there was a big debate from UK hip-hop fans about some of the short sets that Americans would perform over there. I think some of this was a cultural situation, as back home, many of the rappers were more used to performing in bigger line-ups with small PA performances that mainly encompassed their hits of the day. And on the other hand, there were acts who gave it all and always blew people away. Public Enemy were notably amazing live, and I saw Gang Starr, Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest in their heyday in the mid 90s. Out of these shows, Gang Starr was the only one I saw in Ireland, but Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, House of Pain and others played here during that era, and always met with a positive response. I also saw the Fugees at their peak in 1996 and they were incredible. The 2000s was a decade when much more of the best rap acts played in Ireland, and thanks to venues such as the Savoy, many of them came to Cork. I hosted my Jam night there for many years and we were visited by the likes of Public Enemy, Gil Scott Heron, De La Soul, Roy Ayers, Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC and Jazzy Jeff, to name but a few. I was also DJing there for the legendary Wu Tang Clan, who provided a good example of how sometimes Americans dont take the Irish audience seriously. The Wu Tang arrived late, had one of their road crew do the soundcheck, and then complained that the sound was crap. Method Man was on fire that night and he saved the show from being a shambles. They were nice guys and still rocked the joint, but Ive often felt that some visitors to Ireland dont treat us with the same respect as they would treat audiences at home. As both a DJ and promoter of shows, Ive seen multiple acts turn up late, be rude and be unprofessional. A famous rapper who I will not mention by name refused to travel from his Dublin show by air and was about two hours late to the stage, while others, such as 50 Cent, just went through the motions in Cork. On the plus side, legends such as Kanye, Kid Cudi, Jay Z, Snoop, De La Soul, Jazzy Jeff and many more, were super professional and delivered the goods in a big way. I feel that sometimes, since we are not a well established market such as London or Paris, some artists can be a big slack over here. Nearly every hip-hop artist Ive dealt with was blown away by the Irish crowd and were surprised at the musical knowledge. Maybe they had preconceptions beforehand and just felt they could go through the motions here? Im not sure. But lets get back to Nicki. Her fans are some of the most passionate around and represent all thats good and sometimes bad about stan culture. These days some artists have obsessive online fanbases who will attempt to challenge anything thats said about their favourite star. Thus, we had a situation where many fans defended the shambles that was her Dublin show, but some of them also understandably made the best of a bad situation. Ultimately, the promoters and the venue and the fans did everything to make it a great night, but sometimes the artist simply doesnt respect the situation. The truly great ones will do their best every time, and thats how they ensure longevity forever. Sean McCarthaigh A former student who secretly placed mobile phones in the bathroom of a house he shared with other students with the camera facing towards the shower and the toilet has been given a suspended sentence. Luke Shaw (22), of Cork Street, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty at a sitting of Naas Circuit Criminal Court to a charge of offensive conduct of a sexual nature which was likely to cause fear, distress or alarm contrary to Section 45 (3) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017. The offence occurred at an address in Maynooth, Co Kildare on dates between June 1st, 2021 and August 31st, 2021. Sergeant Aoife Lacey gave evidence that gardai became aware of the offence when Shaw arrived at Maynooth Garda Station with several of his housemates. She told prosecution counsel, Daniel Boland BL, that the accused had placed a mobile phone in the bathroom of the house unknown to his other housemates. The court heard that three of the students five housemates two males and one female had at different times discovered a mobile phone belonging to Shaw hidden in different locations in the bathroom including in the shower and facing the toilet. Factory reset Sgt Lacey confirmed that no evidence of any recordings had been found on the phone which the accused had handed over to gardai as he had admitted applying a factory reset to the device. She recalled being told by one housemate that he had asked Shaw to unlock the phone but the accused would not allow him to check the device himself. Sgt Lacey said the male was disappointed and angry with his housemate and said he would go to the gardai about the matter. However, she said Shaw said he would go to the gardai himself. The court heard the female housemate felt terrified about the invasion of her privacy after finding a phone pointing towards the shower in the bathroom. She told Sgt Lacey that Shaw said he could not undo what he had done but begged her not to go to gardai. When arrested in November 2021, Shaw told gardai he got on well with his housemates and he considered them his best friends at college. However, Sgt Lacey recalled that he was not keen to talk about the events before the court. Victim impact statement In a victim impact statement, the female housemate said she was always told to be careful about who she trusted and what happened had impacted terribly on her ability to feel safe. She said what the accused did had a terrible impact on her mental health and college work. She described how the house was really silent after Shaw had moved out and while they were all crying they also had a sense of relief. Another housemate said he had developed a heightened sense of paranoia, while his ability to trust others had been profoundly shaken". He claimed the accuseds actions not only affected his mental health and emotional wellbeing but also financially as he had to move to different accommodation where he had to pay more rent. The third housemate said he was unable to continue his studies for an entire year because of the breach of trust caused by Shaws insidious behaviour". He explained that he felt everywhere he went he was being filmed without his consent. The student said he regarded Shaws apology as hollow and insincere as he had to be coerced into going to the gardai. The court heard that the accused, who now works for a call centre, has no previous convictions. Cross-examined by defence counsel, Aisling Murphy BL, Sgt Lacey said she believed Shaws apology was genuine. Ms Murphy told the court that her client, who had a very difficult childhood, was in the first year of college at the time of the offence. She said Shaw had felt pressure to go to college but had realised just prior to the events before the court that it was not for him. Ms Murphy accepted it was concerning that the accused had been assessed by a probation officer as being at a high risk of reoffending. She noted that Shaw was shocked at such a finding and pointed out that he had recently been diagnosed with a condition which had come as a relief". The barrister also acknowledged that he had struggled to deal with the hurt he had caused. She told Judge Martina Baxter that Shaw had been taught an incredibly valuable lesson and he had admitted he would have a feeling of regret for the rest of his life and a sadness that he would carry forever. Ms Murphy said he was a very young man aged 19 at the time, although age was not an excuse for his behaviour. Letter In a letter read in court, Shaw expressed sorrow for the effect of his actions and stressed he never intended to upset anybody. He said what he had done would be the biggest source of shame in my life". In reply to questions from the judge, Mr Murphy accepted that Shaw had not followed through on plans to seek counselling, despite offers to help with the cost from his parents. Judge Baxter described the accuseds offence as a gross breach of privacy and trust whose effect was long-lasting and which had occurred in the most private of places". Sentencing Shaw to two years in prison, she suspended the sentence in full subject to a number of conditions. They include that he keeps the peace and places himself under the supervision of the Probation Service for a period of two years and to follow all appointments and directions of a probation officer as well as engage with treatment for his mental health. The judge also ordered Shaw to reside at an agreed address and to notify the authorities of any changes to where he is living and to make his mobile devices available for inspection at any time. Paul Neilan A former male model and airport police officer who is believed to have laundered millions in organised crime cash has been surrendered to the North, where he was sentenced to 20 months for having 180,000 in his luggage at Belfast International Airport. Serial launderer Mark Adams (44), who booked close to 500 flights in and out of the UK in a four-year period, was previously jailed here after he was caught laundering over 1 million for criminals. At Laganside Crown Court in Belfast in January 2022, Mark Adams pleaded guilty to attempting to remove criminal property and to arranging to remove criminal property by carrying 180,550 through Belfast International airport to board a flight to Alicante in May 2018. He admitted that he attempted to remove the money from the North on May 9th, 2018, knowing or suspecting the money to be proceeds of crime. He also pleaded guilty to entering into an arrangement, namely the attempted removal of criminal property from Northern Ireland, knowing or suspecting that this arrangement would facilitate the retention, use or control of such criminal property, by persons unknown, between May 13th, 2013 and May 10th, 2018. The offences each carry a maximum penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment. In May 2022, Adams, with a last address at Castleheath, Malahide, Co Dublin, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, with a further 10 months to be served on licence. This sentence was to run consecutively to a prison term he was already serving in the Republic that expired in December last year. Adams was given a five-year jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 2020 for his role in laundering approximately 1.2 million in cash that was the proceeds of crime. Adams had pleaded guilty to engaging in handling 582,045, the proceeds of criminal conduct, at Dublin Airport on September 11, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to 227,130 at Bank of Ireland, Dublin Airport; 298,280 at PTSB, Main Street, Malahide and 78,990 at Bank of Ireland Credit Card Centre on dates between January 2012 and March 2017. In passing sentence, Judge Martin Nolan said, as an airport policeman for 13 years, Adams knew the ways of the world and would have been under no illusions that he was aiding and assisting criminal enterprises. In August 2021, Adams was temporarily surrendered by the High Court here so that he could attend his court proceedings in the North. He was returned to the Republic in June 2022 after being in custody there for 10 months. The warrant for his surrender stated that Adams was stopped by UK Border Force officers in May 2018 and asked about two brown envelopes he concealed in his hand luggage. Adams confirmed to Border Force officers that he had packed the bag himself, and when asked whether anyone had given him anything to take out of the country, he replied: Yes, 180,000. The respondent had booked 497 international flights into or out of the UK between May 14th, 2014, and May 9th, 2018. On 64 occasions, the outward and return flights were within a matter of hours, the warrant states. Lawyers for Adams had objected to his re-surrender to the North on humanitarian grounds, arguing that he may be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment while in prison based on his past experience there. At the High Court on Friday, Mr Justice David Keane said it had been submitted that Adams had been subjected to threats of violence and when this was coupled with his medical needs it amounted to inhumane or degrading conditions, should he be surrendered to serve time in Maghaberry Prison. Adams had submitted that he had previously been wrongly identified as a member of An Garda Siochana in a media article, leading to a letter being passed under his prison door by those he claimed were paramilitaries, telling him to leave the landing or he would be harmed. In his order surrendering Adams, Mr Justice Keane noted that while Adams had submitted that he struggled with his mental health no documents regarding his mental health difficulties had been put before the court. Mr Justice Keane said that prison reports on Maghaberry Prison noted that inter-prisoner violence had been decreasing since 2008 and that Adams had not himself been the subject of physical attack in the 10 months he was in custody there. Mr Justice Keane said a systemic failing in the prison system in the North had not been established. The judge said a real risk of inhumane conditions or degradation had to be established in order for the High Court to refuse surrender. He said that the "mere possibility" of such treatment did not establish a real risk of ill-treatment that would be sufficient to breach his fundamental rights. His own evidence says he was not subject to physical or ill-treatment, other than threats. The possibility of such is not enough, said Mr Justice Keane, who ordered Adams surrender. In the warrant for Adams surrender, money-laundering expert Detective Sergeant Adrian Ward of South Yorkshire Police opined that Adams travel arrangements were consistent with the act of someone transporting or delivering something between one place and another and that there were elements of a money laundering system identified within the evidence consistent with Adams acting as part of that system, attempting to smuggle cash as a cash courier. In the UKs National Crime Agency's statement welcoming Adams' sentence in the North in May 2022, the agency said: "Working with our Irish colleagues we were able to spot a pattern of him regularly travelling out of airports in both the Republic and the UK, and returning home shortly afterwards. "Each time he is likely to have taken tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros and may have been responsible for laundering many millions of criminal money in total," the agency said. The jail term was also welcomed by the Northern Ireland Border Force Command, who said the sentence was a result of the "hard work and dedication from Border Force, the NCA and our partners in the Republic of Ireland to tackle dirty money". Fiona Ferguson A victim of an aggravated sexual assault bit off part of her attacker's tongue during the incident, the Central Criminal Court has heard. Gerard Ward (48) was jailed for five years on Friday for the attack. The court heard Ward threatened to rape the woman, who was giving him a lift, before she was sexually assaulted. She bit down on his tongue as he kissed her before escaping the car. Ward, with an address at Galtee Drive, Southill, Limerick, was convicted by a jury following a trial, of aggravated sexual assault at Raheen Business Park, Limerick on August 25th, 2020. Ward has previous convictions for robbery, road traffic and drugs offences. He was given a six-year sentence in 2016 for robbing a taxi driver during which he made threats to cause serious harm. He also received a seven-year sentence in 2001 in connection with kidnap and robbery charges. Evidence in this case was previously heard at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick. The court previously heard the woman and Ward had been socialising with others, and she was giving him a lift. Ward directed the woman, who was new to the area, to the business park where he told her to turn off the engine. Ward made a threat to rape her before placing his hands on her throat and touching her vaginal area outside her clothing. As he was kissing her, she bit down on his tongue and a significant amount of his tongue was bitten off. Ward pulled her hair in an effort to get her to release the bite, leaving a bald patch, the court heard. The woman escaped the car, spat out the piece of tongue and managed to ring emergency services. The woman was also subjected to an assault by Ward in which she received bite marks and scratches to her body, the court heard. Life-changing injuries Ward claimed the kissing was consensual and that he had not made any threats. Gardai accepted that Ward answered all questions they put to him and that he had suffered life-changing injuries. They also accepted there had been no penetration and all the touching was outside the woman's clothes. Defence counsel told the court at an earlier hearing that Ward was remorseful. The loss of part of his tongue was significant, and he had to relearn how to speak, the court was told. Counsel asked for his injuries to be taken into consideration. The court heard he had a difficult bringing and has lost five family members in recent times. Passing sentence on Friday, Mr Justice Michael MacGrath commended the bravery and courage of the woman. He said he was acutely conscious of the trauma she had endured and hoped the effects of the ordeal will lessen in time. Mr Justice MacGrath said Wards culpability was high. He said the threat of rape had been taken seriously, and the woman was vulnerable and new to the area. Ward had asked her to drive to a remote area and taken advantage of her good nature, the judge noted. The judge said the aggravating factors included Wards prior convictions, which included violent behaviour or elements of violence, but acknowledged some were historical and committed while he was a much younger man. Mr Justice MacGrath set a headline sentence of seven years before considering mitigation, which included Ward's age, his domestic and family situation, his recent employment history and medical issues. He reduced the sentence by 18 months and imposed five and a half years' imprisonment. He suspended the final six months in light of Wards acceptance of the jury verdict and general expression of remorse. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. 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 research team has documented a pair of lion brothers crossing an African river filled with predators at night in a record-breaking 1.5-kilometer swim. The team, led by Dr. Alexander Braczkowski from the Griffith University Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, filmed the two lions Jacob and Tibu on their night swim across Ugandas Kazinga Channel using drones equipped with high-definition heat detection cameras, a press release from Griffith University said. The Uganda Wildlife Authority supervised the teams work. Jacob has had the most incredible journey and really is a cat with nine lives, Braczkowski said in the press release. Jacob is a 10-year-old local icon famous for surviving multiple life-threatening events, one of which resulted in an amputated leg. 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, Braczkowski said. The fact that he and his brother Tibu have managed to survive as long as they have in a national park that has experienced significant human pressures and high poaching rates is a feat in itself our science has shown this population has nearly halved in just 5 years. Braczkowski said the female lions in the park had been especially impacted, The Guardian reported. Previously reported swims by lions in Africa have been from roughly 10 to 200 meters in length. Some of them ended in the lions being killed by crocodiles, the press release said. 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 in the press release. So why did Jacob and Tibu undertake this long and perilous swim at night? Its likely the brothers were looking for females. 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, Braczkowski explained. There is a small connecting bridge to the other side but the presence of people was probably a deterrent for them. Braczkowski said it was just sad that the lions were being pressured by humans in this way, reported The Guardian. This population is skewing two males to one female and thats the reason we suspect these lions have swum across the Kazinga Channel because theyre searching for females, Braczkowski said, as The Guardian reported. Braczkowski, the current scientific director of the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trusts Kyambura Lion Project, has been conducting a long-term study of predators in Queen Elizabeth National Park and several other national parks in Uganda, the press release said. Since 2017, Braczkowski has been building scientific capacity in the Ugandan governments wildlife department to census predators like lions. Jacob and Tibus 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, Braczkowski said in the press release. The research paper, Long-distance swimming by African lions in Uganda, was published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. WCC File photo: Neighborhood in rubbles near as-Shifa hospital in Gaza, April 2024. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has said it is "monitoring, with grave concern, the news of raids apparently launched by the Israeli army against the Holy Family School at Al-Remal in Gaza." In the town of Abbasan in southern Gaza, an Israeli air attack on the al-Awdah school killed at least 30 people and wounded 53, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian medics, Al Jazeera reported on July 9. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday's strike hit next to the gate of al-Awda school in Abasan al-Kabira, east of the city of Khan Younis, the BBC reported. One eyewitness described the number of casualties as "unimaginable." The Israeli military said it had used "precise munition" to target a "terrorist from Hamas' military wing" who had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. It also said it was "looking into the reports that civilians were harmed" adjacent to the school. "The Latin Patriarchate condemns in the strongest terms the targeting of civilians or any belligerent actions that fall short of ensuring that civilians remain outside the combat scene," it said in a statement on July 7. It cited footage and reports from the Holy Family School showing scenes of civilian casualties and destruction in the compound. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is a diocese of the Catholic Church whose territory includes Cyprus, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. PLACE OF REFUGE The school was, it said, "a place of refuge for hundreds of civilians." The statement said: "We continue to pray for the Lord's mercy and hope that the parties will reach an agreement that would put an immediate end to the horrifying bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe in the region." Alistair Dutton, secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, condemned the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) bombardment of the site. "After nine months of war, the atrocities continue," he said. "Nowhere is safe in Gaza." The European Union and Germany condemned the attack. "People seeking shelter in schools getting killed is unacceptable," the German foreign ministry said in a statement on X. "The repeated attacks on schools by the Israeli army must stop, and an investigation must come quickly." The attack came a week after the Israeli military ordered civilians to evacuate Abasan al-Kabira and other areas of eastern Khan Younis, prompting tens of thousands to flee. Luxembourg urges complying with measures to combat ASF Luxembourg's Veterinary and Food Administration (ALVA) has called for compliance with precautionary measures to reduce the spread of African swine fever in order to prevent infection amongst the country's pig and wild boar population. Although there have been no confirmed cases of African swine fever in the Grand Duchy to date, several cases have been detected amongst pigs and wild boar in Germany's Hessen and Rhineland-Palatinate. Measures include the disposal of food waste into bins provided for this purpose; they should never be disposed of in nature. This is particularly important for areas where wild boar may have access. It is also not recommended to bring back meat products from infected countries of unknown origin. Access to pig farms is strictly limited to those with authorisation, in compliance with biosecurity measures. Any wild boar carcass detected in the wild must be reported to the Luxembourg Veterinary and Food Administration for analysis at the Veterinary Medicine Laboratory. - RTL Today July 11, 2024: The Israeli government has for the past 4-5 months only pretended to try to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. Its problem is purely political and self-inflicted. They cant agree on how to rule Gaza after eliminating Hamas because their choices are all bad, worse and horrible, and so are slow rolling the elimination of Hamas. This dithering has caused many problems in and for the United States, and for Israel in the United Nations. Most Palestinians live in or immediately adjacent to Israel. Two million of Israels 9.8 million population are Palestinians. The Gaza Strip contains 365 square kilometers of territory and 2.1 million Palestinians. The West Bank contains 5,655 square kilometers and 4.1 million Palestinians. Gaza has had many rulers over the last century. A century ago Gaza was administered by British officials and occupied by British troops. After 1945 Gaza was ruled by Egyptian officials. In 1956 a war between several Arab states and Israel was won by the Israelis, who also captured Gaza but then withdrew. The 1967 Arab Israeli war saw Gaza once more captured by the Israelis and administered by them until 2005 when, after an 11 year process, Israeli forces withdrew and a local Palestinian government (Al Fatah, which also ruled the West Bank) took over. In 2006 Hamas, a radical Palestinian group that had taken refuge in Egypt, won Palestinian elections for a united Palestinian government. The West Bank Palestinian leaders refused to accept Hamas rule and there was fighting between Fatah and Hamas factions. Israel did not want this violence to spread into Israel and blockaded Gaza, only letting people in or out who were unarmed and had a good reason, like medical care or visiting relatives the Israeli knew about. Hamas continued to recruit Palestinian men to join their force and obtained weapons to arm them. Hamas completely took over in Gaza in 2007 while Fatah remained in control of the West Bank. By 2023 Hamas forces in Gaza had ground to about 30,000 men though there were also other rival armed Palestinian and non-Palestinian terrorist groups, and there had been several mini wars between Hamas and Israel since 2007. In October 2023, most of the armed Hamas fighters attacked Israel. About half of the 3,000 attacking Hamas fighters were killed while attacking Israeli forces. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) lost 376 troops and 767 civilians were killed as well. Having failed to advance, surviving Hamas gunmen stayed in Gaza and waged a guerilla war against the attacking IDF. Hamas also took 251 Israeli civilians and soldiers captive and is trying to bargain with Israel to get thousands of imprisoned Palestinians freed in return for their Israeli captives. So far Israel is not willing to release thousands of convicted Hamas and other Palestinian killers to get 251 soldiers and civilians back. Instead IDF forces have been searching for the hostages and fighting Hamas gunmen who are guarding them. Hamas has been much less of a problem in the West Bank where Fatah security forces, with some assistance from the IDF, have kept Hamas out. Hamas leaders, especially Ismail Haniyeh, have lived in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for several years and control $11 billion dollars donated to Hamas by various western and charitable groups and Arab governments as well several hundred million dollars a year from Iran. In theory this money should be used to make life easier, or at least bearable, for Palestinians living in Gaza. That does not happen because Hamas steals the money as well as foreign aid from Western countries. Israel sends food aid, accompanied by a military escort that fights armed Hamas members seeking to steal the aid. As of mid-2024, this remains the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The European Union has published the full and final text for the EU AI Act in its Official Journal, as reported by TechCrunch. Since the new law will come into force 20 days after its publication, that means it will be enforceable starting on August 1. All its provisions will be fully applicable in two years' time, but some of them will be implemented much earlier than that. Six months from now, the bloc will start implementing bans on prohibited applications for AI, such as the use of social credit ranking systems, the collection and compilation of facial recognition information for databases, as well the use of real time emotion recognition systems in schools and workplaces. In nine months, the EU will start implementing codes of practice on AI developers. The EU AI Office established by the European Commission will work with consultancy firms to draft those codes. It also plans to work with companies that provide general-purpose models deemed to carry systemic risks. As TechCrunch notes, though, that raises concerns that the industry's biggest players will be able to shape the rules that are supposed to keep them in check. After a year, makers of general purpose AI models, such as ChatGPT, will have to comply with new transparency requirements and have to be able to demonstrate that their systems are safe and easily explainable to users. In addition to all those, the EU AI Act includes rules that apply to generative AI and manipulated media, such as making sure deepfakes and other AI-generated images, videos and audio are clearly labeled. Companies training their AI models will have to respect copyright laws, as well, unless their model is created purely for research and development. "Rightsholders may choose to reserve their rights over their works or other subject matter to prevent text and data mining, unless this is done for the purposes of scientific research," the AI Act's text reads. "Where the rights to opt out has been expressly reserved in an appropriate manner, providers of general-purpose AI models need to obtain an authorization from rightsholders if they want to carry out text and data mining over such works." The COPIED ACT is a bipartisan effort to combat and monitor the rise of AI content and deepfakes. Three US Senators introduced a bill that aims to rein in the rise and use of AI generated content and deepfakes by protecting the work of artists, songwriters and journalists. The Content Original Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media (COPIED) Act was introduced to the Senate Friday morning. The bill is a bipartisan effort authorized by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), according to a press alert issued by Blackburns office. The COPIED ACT would, if enacted, create transparency standards through the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) to set guidelines for content provenance information, watermarking, and synthetic content detection, according to the press release. The bill would also prohibit the unauthorized use of creative or journalistic content to train AI models or created AI content. The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general would also gain the authority to enforce these guidelines and individuals who had their legally created content used by AI to create new content without their consent or proper compensation would also have the right to take those companies or entities to court. The bill would even expand the prohibition of tampering or removing content provenance information by internet platforms, search engines and social media companies. A slew of content and journalism advocacy groups are already voicing their support for the COPIED Act to become law. They include groups like SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Industry Association of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Songwriters Guild of America and the National Newspaper Association. This is not the Senates first attempt to create guidelines and laws for the rising use of AI content and it certainly wont be the last. In April, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) submitted a bill called the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act that would force AI companies to list their copyrighted sources in their datasets. The bill has not moved out of the House Committee on the Judiciary since its introduction, according to Senate records. X is the latest notable tech company to land in trouble with the European Union . The European Commission , the blocs executive arm, has revealed the preliminary findings of an investigation. It claims that X has violated the Digital Services Act (DSA) in a number of ways. The platforms approach to paid verification has come into the EUs crosshairs. Officials say that the practice does not correspond to industry practice and deceives users. It added that, since anyone can pay to get a blue checkmark, its difficult for folks to determine the authenticity of accounts (a browser extension can tell you which accounts are verified because of notability and which paid for a checkmark). The EU also said theres evidence of bad actors using checkmarks to hoodwink people. X's problems with verification stem back several years. But at least when it was known as Twitter, the blue check was a ( reasonably ) reliable form of assurance that an account was the real deal. Paid checkmarks, and the increase in visibility that Premium users get, seems to have led to an increase in scams and spam just as many predicted . Next up, the EU took issue with Xs alleged lack of advertising transparency. It claimed the company doesnt have a reliable, searchable ad repository that enables researchers to look into emerging risks brought about by the distribution of advertising online. In addition, the EU said X is violating the DSA by failing to give researchers sufficient access to public data. In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service, the bloc argued in a statement. In the EUs view, researchers are either dissuaded from carrying out projects or forced to pay disproportionately high fees to do so given the way that X has set up its application programming interfaces (APIs). "Back in the day, Blue Checks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA," Thierry Breton, the EU's internal market commissioner, said in a statement. "We also consider that Xs ads repository and conditions for data access by researchers are not in line with the DSA transparency requirements. X has now the right of defense but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes." If X is found guilty, it will face fines of up to six percent of its global annual revenue so we may get a sense of just how much money the now privately held company is making these days. The EU may also direct X to take steps to ensure compliance with the DSA and impose further periodic fines if the company does not do so. July 12, 2024: In Ukraine the Russians use a large number of S-400 SAM (Surface to Air Missile) systems to protect their forces and the bases located on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border. In theory, S-400 should be able to protect itself from any aerial threat, including high-speed ballistic missiles. Ukrainian tactics against S-400s involve use of the ATACMS missiles they received from the United States. Most ATACMS have a range of 300 kilometers while some have a range of 165 kilometers. Ukrainians are using the 300 kilometer version which is capable of changing its trajectory after launch, and deploys hundreds of bomblets over the target. The ATACMS long-range versions mid-flight change of trajectory breaks any target lock Russian SAM radars, including the S-400, have on them so those have too little time to reacquire the ATACMS warhead and lock on to it. Plus the S-400 radar does not notice the bomblets because they are too small for the radar to bother with. The bomblets land in a large area and manage to destroy the S-400 radar, the fire control operators truck as well as several missile launchers, each containing four missiles, The ATACMS also manages to avoid getting shot down by an S-400 missile by at least a dozen drones being sent in first and, as the S-400 was shooting down drones, at least five ATACMS were launched to release 300 or 800 bomblets over the target area, where the S-400 battery was deployed. These tactics managed to destroy an S-400 system that was situated too close to the Ukrainian border. Normally S-400 batteries are based further to the rear but the Russians wanted to take out aerial targets farther inside Ukraine and positioned this S-400 battery too close to the front line to protect itself from Ukrainian tactics. Russia began the war with fifty S-400 batteries. By mid-2024 about a quarter of those batteries were destroyed or severely damaged. Russia has had to remove S-400 batteries protecting areas deeper inside Russia and move them in closer to prevent Ukrainian warplanes, especially the new American F-16s, from being a problem, and to shoot down the growing number of missiles being fired at Russian targets. This led the Ukrainians to develop tactics that would reduce the number of operational S-400 batteries making Ukrainian air space dangerous for Ukrainian aircraft or Ukrainian missiles fired at Russian targets. Ukrainians were not the first to discover how to deceive and destroy S-400 air defense batteries. In 2018 Russia announced that the last component of the S-400 SAM system, the 40N6 long 400 kilometer range missile, had been accepted into service and that there were plans to build a thousand of them. Russia currently has 41 battalions/batteries, both terms are used, with at least 330 operational truck-mounted launchers. What makes a group of launchers, usually 4-8, a battery is the search radar and command center. After twenty years of development, all the initially specified components of the S-400 system are in service. The S-400 is advertised as the most modern and cost-effective SAM system available. An S-400 battery sells for about half what a comparable American Patriot battery does. The major difference between Patriot and S-400 is not cheaper price or much more impressive specifications but combat experience. The S-400 has none and the Patriot has lots and is gaining more every month in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The S-400 is attractive to buyers because it looks good and costs a lot less than combat-proven systems. Another major factor is the quality of the crews and the training they receive as well as the capabilities of air defense commanders who decide how the SAM systems are used, and the ability of the commanders and their crews to quickly adapt to enemy capabilities and tactics. Patriot export customers get experienced and demanding instructors. If their students do not try or are not trainable for one reason or another, the Americans will make an issue of it because the performance of the Patriot depends on crew effectiveness. Russia is more understanding of such problems. Russia can provide skilled and exacting instructors but will back off if the customer is not interested in paying for that degree of instruction. If crews end up poorly prepared to handle S-400 in action, Russia will also quietly provide Russian crews who will be called something else like maintenance advisors but stand ready to take charge if the S-400 has to perform well. Russia is also accommodating when it comes to paying large sales commissions as bribes to get the sale and handle follow-up training and maintenance support. So for many reasons, few of which a buyer would want to be publicized, the S-400 is a more attractive purchase than Patriot. These sales tactics are nothing new for Russia and were common during the Cold War, especially when Russia was offering high tech weapons to corrupt dictatorships who appreciated a supplier who understood their needs. Historically the ineptest users of Russian SAMs have been, and apparently still are, the Syrians while the most effective users of similar Western systems are the Israelis and Americans. The Saudis are building quite a record with their use of Patriot systems against Iranian supplied ballistic missiles fired by Yemen Shia rebels. The Saudi Patriots have shot down nearly all the 100 or so Iranian, and some older Russian ballistic missiles, fired at Saudi Arabia. The only success the Syrians have had using the older S-200 system is to shoot down a slow, four-engine Russian maritime reconnaissance aircraft off the coast. The S-200 entered service in the 1960s and has been updated since. The S-300 entered service in 1978 and has had no combat kills. The S-400 entered service in 2007 and is also without any combat experience. The Syrians didnt mean to shoot down the Russian aircraft. They were aiming at Israeli aircraft which were already back in Israel. Russia, to demonstrate how attentive it is to customer needs, agreed with the Syrians and blamed Israel even though the Russians knew exactly what happened. Syria also holds the dubious distinction of having their Russian air defense system wiped out in 1982 by the Israelis, who suffered no losses while doing so. Those Russian air defense weapons are not really that ineffective. In 1999 Serbian crews, using some of the same systems the Syrians had, managed to avoid destruction and even shoot down an F-117 stealth aircraft by being adaptive and more imaginative than the Syrians in 1982. Two other factors are important. After the Cold War ended in 1991 the United States was able to purchase some S-300 systems, tear down some of them and get others operational and actually use them in realistic testing. This data was shared with the Israelis. This showed that the S-300 was a potentially effective system, but a lot depended on the crews and their commanders. The Russians have also learned from experience and because of that the S-400 and later post-Cold War S-300 systems use a lot more automation for the operators, making the systems less dependent on crew skill. But there is still the question of commander quality and the ability of the commanders to adapt to combat conditions. Finally, there is the fact, it is no secret, that post-Cold War Russian weapons suffer from serious quality control problems during manufacturing and several of the new Russian missile and electronic systems have suffered embarrassing failures when put to use. No wonder the S-400s are so cheap. They are priced to sell, not actually work in combat. But in the hands of competent and adaptive users, the S-400 and other Russian systems can be a lot more effective than those operated by poorly trained and led operators. An S-400 battalion/battery has eight launchers, each with two or four missiles, plus a control center and radar and 16 missiles available as reloads. All equipment is mobile. S-400 was originally known as the S-300PMU3, SA-21, and was renamed S-400 because it turned out to be far more than just another upgrade of the S-300 and was considered sufficiently different to warrant a name upgrade. The S-400 entered service in 2007 when the first units were deployed around Moscow. Russia claimed the S-400 could detect stealth aircraft, implying that the hypothetical enemy was the United States. Russia also claims the S-400 can knock down short-range ballistic missiles, those with a reentry speed of up to 5,000 meters a second, in the same way the similar U.S. Patriot system does. Russia immediately offered the S-400 for export, an effort that is hampered by a lack of combat experience for the system. Patriot has knocked down aircraft and ballistic missiles, S-400 has not. Moreover, Russia anti-aircraft missile systems have a spotty history, especially when confronted by Western electronic countermeasures. The first S-400s were based around Moscow as part of a project to rebuild the Soviet-era air defense system, which has fallen apart since the early 1990s. During the first six years of use, between 2006 and 2012, Russia put 12 S-400 battalions into service. Before the crash in oil prices and sanctions over attacking Ukraine hit in 2014, Russia was planning to have 56 S-400 battalions in service by 2020. That was not hurt much by budget cuts as there were about 40 battalions in service by mid-2017. Even before then, the Defense Ministry ordered more of the older S-300V system in 2012. This seems to indicate that the S-400 was having problems; it has certainly encountered many delays but these were apparently cleared up. The S-400 appears to have not only matured technically but has undergone frequent upgrades and modifications. Nevertheless, the S-400 had not yet experienced any actual combat although it has performed well in tests. The S-400 claims to be superior to the U.S. Patriot and is expensive by Russian standards. By 2012 Russia was pushing the S-400 as an export item, despite all the advanced technology in it. Most S-400 missiles weigh 1.8 tons each, are 8.4 meters long, and about 50cm in diameter. There are actually four different missiles, each with a different range; 9M96E is 40 kilometers, the 9M96E2 is 120 kilometers, 48N6 is 250 kilometers and 40N6 is 400 kilometers. All missiles can reach targets as high as 30 kilometers. The missile has a 145.5 kg warhead. The target acquisition radar has a range of 700 kilometers. S-400 missiles can hit short range ballistic missiles up to 60 kilometers away. Belarus and Algeria already had some S-400 equipment delivered and active. China ordered six battalions, India five and Turkey four. Several other countries were negotiating purchase deals. The S-400 has more range than the 160 kilometers of the American Patriot, weighs twice as much, and claims far more capabilities. The S-400 anti-missile capability is limited to shorter range, under 3,500 kilometers an hour incoming speed, ballistic missiles. That would mean a warhead coming in at about 5,000 meters a second. The longer the range of a ballistic missile, the higher its re-entry speed. The S-400 system actually has two types of missiles, one of them being smaller with a shorter range of 40 and 120 kilometers and two larger missiles with much more range of 250 and 400 kilometers. The 40/120 kilometers range missiles are deployed four to a launcher, like S-300 systems. The S-400 has no experience against Western countermeasures but U.S. intelligence believes that tests these systems have undergone indicate it is a capable air defense weapon. Just how capable won't be known until it actually gets used in combat. None of the S-300 series systems have any combat experience either but some models have performed well in tests. The S-400 is to be complemented and eventually replaced by the S-500. This system was perpetually stuck in development, and also had several embarrassing delays announced. In 2009 S-500 was declared on track to enter service in 2012. That deadline was missed and the service date was moved to 2014, then 2015 and currently 2020 or the early 2020s. The original S-300 was known to NATO, during the Cold War, as the SA-10. This system entered service in the late 1970s and was subsequently upgraded several times. One major upgrade came to be called the SA-12 and it entered service in the late 1980s. The Lake Lanier swimmer who went missing but didn't know he was being looked for has been found. On Monday, 21-year-old Zachary Rutledge went to Burton Mill Park with friends. Rutledge dove into Lake Lanier and swam out to a small island located inside the body of water at the Georgia park. According to 'PEOPLE,' the swimmer's friends were not sure where he had gone by the end of the night. They looked for him, but ultimately concluded that he must have gone home. When Rutledge finally returned to shore, his friends were nowhere to be found. He also did not have a cellphone. With no other choice, he spent the night in the park. RELATED : Royal Carribean Cruise Ship Passenger With Dementia Vanishes Minutes After Disembarking Vessel During Vacation A press release from Hall County Sheriff's Office reported how the swimmer "flagged down a Hall County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) deputy patrolling the park just before 9 a.m. Tuesday. HCSO deputies were called to the park around 8:30 p.m. by friends of Mr. Rutledge when they lost track of him while they were swimming in the lake. At the time, they were unsure if Mr. Rutledge was in the water or if he had left the park on foot." Helicopters were dispatched to look for Rutledge who did notice the helicopters, but, safe in the park, did not realize that the helicopters were looking for him. "Both the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Hall County Fire Rescue conducted water searches in the area," the press release said. "The Georgia State Patrol conducted aerial searches with negative results." The press release went on to explain that Rutledge had been found and used the incident as an opportunity to remind the public about park safety. "While this incident had a positive outcome, it serves as a good reminder to be cautious while swimming in Lake Lanier," the release continued. "That includes not swimming alone, communicating clearly with fellow swimmers and keeping track of those who may be in your group. The Hall County Sheriff's Office is thankful Mr. Rutledge is safe!" Prince Louis would have had a very different official name and title had his late great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II not stepped in and changed a historic royal rule. Upon his birth on April 23, 2018, Prince William and Kate Middleton's third and youngest child was formally known as His Royal Highness Prince Louis of Cambridge. His parents went by Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the time. Prince Louis' full name is Louis Arthur Charles, and he has no surname. However, if a rule established by Queen Elizabeth's grandfather King George V in 1917 had been followed, Prince Louis' official title and name would have been Master Louis Cambridge or Master Louis Windsor, according to Mirror U.K. Under King George V's 1917 rule, titles were automatically given to only the royals closest to the top of the line of succession. Those who could automatically use the style HRH and the title of prince or princess were limited to the children of the monarch and the children of the sons of the monarch, according to the ruling. The eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales also enjoys this privilege, according to etiquette and behavior coaching company Debrett's. As the great-grandson of then-monarch Queen Elizabeth II and second son of his father Prince William, Prince Louis did not meet these requirements upon his birth. However, Queen Elizabeth overturned the royal title rule for Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, allowing Prince William and Princess Kate's two youngest children to be styled prince and princess like their older brother Prince George. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's children Archie and Lilibet did not automatically receive the titles of prince and princess when they were born in 2019 and 2021, respectively. As great-grandchildren of the monarch, they were formally known as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor. But after Queen Elizabeth's death and King Charles' accession to the throne in 2022, they became grandchildren of the monarch and therefore entitled to royal titles. In March 2023, the children's names were updated on the British royal family's website to reflect their new titles: Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex. Queen Elizabeth's passing also caused changes in the titles of Prince William and Princess Kate's family. The couple officially became the Prince and Princess of Wales, while their three children are now formally known as Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and Prince Louis of Wales. Prince Harry delivered a compelling acceptance speech Thursday at the 2024 ESPY Awards, where he notably honored Pat Tillman's mother, despite her earlier harsh criticisms of him. ESPN announced weeks in advance that the Duke of Sussex would receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the annual ceremony. However, just days later, Pat's mother Mary Tillman publicly criticized both Harry and the network for their decision. She expressed her surprise and labeled the royal as "controversial and divisive." However, when Harry, 39, addressed the audience at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, he chose to address the honor with grace. During his acceptance speech, he paused to specifically recognize Mary Tillman. "Her advocacy for Pat's legacy is deeply personal and one that I respect," he said. "The bond between a mother and son is eternal and transcends even the greatest losses." Harry also expressed gratitude to Pat's widow, Marie Tillman Shenton, before discussing the reason behind receiving the award his involvement in establishing The Invictus Games Foundation, which supports veterans who are wounded or injured. Harry, who served two tours in Afghanistan, expressed heartfelt appreciation for the sacrifices made by men and women in service over the years. "This award belongs to them," he stated. "Not to me." The audience, which included Harry's wife Meghan Markle, gave him a standing ovation both before and after his speech. Following the event, former Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III commended Harry for his impactful words on stage. RELATED : Ben Affleck Snapped With His Pants Unzipped And Unbuttoned While Strolling Around LA Although Mary initially expressed dissatisfaction with the award choice, past recipients voiced their support. U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Israel Del Toro Jr., who received the Tillman honor in 2017, described Harry as a deserving recipient. ESPN stood by its decision in response to Mary's criticism, issuing a statement on July 1 affirming that Prince Harry and his foundation contribute significantly to important causes, which ESPN considers worthy of recognition and celebration. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told NATO allies that they needed to lift all restrictions on his country conducting long-range strikes on targets inside Russia if they want Kyiv to win the war against Moscow. Plymouth, MI"TikTok has become a major hot spot for influencing in a range of different fields," says Book Publicist Scott Lorenz, President of Westwind Book Marketing. "When it comes to the literary world, influencers use this digital platform to promote different books and authors in the TikTok community known as BookTok." "Read more about BookTok and its benefits in an article I wrote here," said Lorenz. "BookTok's influence has been taken to the next level with "The Shadow Work Journal," written by Keila Shaheen. This journal is a spiritual guide based on the concept of "the shadow self" by psychoanalyst Carl Jung. It is meant to help readers acknowledge and repair their deep-rooted emotional wounds," says Lorenz. "The debut, self-published book is now a bestseller thanks to TikTok. So how exactly did Shaheen rise to BookTok fame?" An Influencer's Influence According to Lorenz, "TikTok influencer Kohn Glay (@girldadsos) played a critical part in the book's success. Glay passionately promoted Shaheen's work, telling his viewers that they needed Shaheen's workbook to shepherd them in their spiritual journey." "Glay's viewers began to purchase Shaheen's journal directly through TikTok Shop. According to The New York Times, "Shaheen went on to sell more than a million copies," of which almost 700,000 were sold through TikTok Shop," says Lorenz. Targeting the Audience "Shaheen promotes shadow work on her TikTok profile with aura cleansing and sound healing, as well as leading viewers through some of the exercises in her journal." Lorenz stated, "The escalation of Shaheen's sales further proves a point that I made in my article on BookTok, which is that "many users, especially the younger generations, are drawn to organic promotions directly from their source rather than traditional advertising." TikTok users want to see videos that are short and straight to the point. If a video drags on baiting the audience for too long, they'll lose interest and scroll." Lorenz continues, "TikTok influencing is about catering to short attention spans, which is why influencers like Glay were so effective in their promotion of "The Shadow Work Journal," diving right in at the beginning of his videos to get people hooked on the topic. Not only was Glay strategic about his marketing, but his endorsement of Shaheen's work is authentic and real. It is evident that he truly cares about his viewers discovering shadow work in order to better themselves, and this is what made his influence so impactful." TikTok Sells "As stated in The New York Times," relays Lorenz, "Shaheen has made history with TikTok "by fully harnessing its potential not just for marketing, but for direct sales." Glay's viewers were directly influenced by his videos on Shaheen's work, which caused them to switch tabs and purchase it immediately through the app." "This is a true testament to the ability TikTok has not only to market and promote, but to actually sell a book," said Lorenz. "With over 1 billion users, TikTok has the potential to not only reach a wide market, but its rapid and convincing format has proven to convert leads to meaningful sales." Bending the Rules of Becoming a Bestseller "Shaheen signed with publisher Simon & Schuster after her book became a bestseller. She was able to reach this point solely because of the way the app launched her into success," says Lorenz. "Agent Albert Lee of United Talent Agency told The New York Times, "It breaks all the rules of what makes a best seller," because the book was self-published by an unestablished author with no expansion beyond the United States. Shaheen is a prime example of the truly revolutionary things TikTok is doing for authors," says Lorenz. "For advice on jumping on the TikTok train," Lorenz says, "check out David Alan Arnold's Facebook Group called How to Grow on TikTok. He is the author of Help From Above as well as the Deadliest Catch helicopter cameraman, and he has 1.8 million followers on TikTok (@davidalanarnold). "I will show you the good and the bad," Arnold says, "Let's help each other grow."" "The bottom line," said Lorenz, "Start growing a profile on TikTok now! Use the app to your book's advantage, and you could be the next author to go from debut to bestseller." About Book Publicist Scott Lorenz Book publicist Scott Lorenz is President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that has a special knack for working with authors to help them get all the publicity they deserve and more. Lorenz works with bestselling authors and self-published authors promoting all types of books, whether it's their first book or their 15th book. He's handled publicity for books by CEOs, CIA Officers, Navy SEALS, Homemakers, Fitness Gurus, Doctors, Lawyers and Adventurers. His clients have been featured by Good Morning America, FOX & Friends, CNN, ABC News, New York Times, Nightline, TIME, PBS, LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Woman's World, & Howard Stern to name a few. Learn more about Westwind Book Marketing at https://www.WestwindBookMarketing.com or contact Lorenz at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or 734-667-2090. Follow Lorenz on Twitter @aBookPublicist. Want help titling a book? Check out Scott Lorenz's new award-winning, bestselling book: Book Title Generator- A Proven System in Naming Your Book www.BookTitleGenerator.net. July 12, 2024: Poland is the largest and most militarily powerful NATO country in Eastern Europe. It achieved this status by spending many billions of dollars on new weapons for its ground, naval and air forces. Polands efforts have encouraged neighbors like Finland to do the same. For Poland the buildup has been going for five years. In 2019 Poland began negotiating with the United States to obtain 32 F-35 fighters and in 2020 the deal was made. This cost Poland $4.6 billion and the first aircraft are arriving by the end of 2024. Finland ordered 64 F-35s and expects the first of them to arrive by 2026. Missiles and bombs that the F-35 is equipped to carry include air-to-air missiles like the AIM-9X Sidewinder, AIM-120 AMRAAM, AIM-132 ASRAAM, AIM-260 JATM, and MBDA Meteor. Air-to-surface missiles include AGM-88G AARGM-ER, AGM-158 JASSM, AGM-179 JAGM, SPEAR 3, and the hypervelocity Stand-In Attack Weapon. Anti-ship missiles include the AGM-158C LRASM and Joint Strike Missile. Bombs include the Joint Direct Attack Munition, Paveway precision-guided glide bomb, AGM-154 JSOW, GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, GBU-53/B Stormbreaker and the B61 mod 12 nuclear bomb. Pilots benefit from several features that make their job easier and much more effective. The cockpit where the pilot sits features a bubble canopy providing excellent views of what is outside the aircraft. Cockpit controls have been reduced and made easier to see and use. This is done by using a 50 by 20 cm (20 by 8 inch) touch display that shows flight instruments, stores management, CNI information, and integrated caution and warnings. Pilots can customize the arrangement of the information. Below the main display is a smaller stand-by display. Pilots also have a helmet-mounted visor, a display that enables the pilot to look at an enemy aircraft and fire a missile at it. This point and shoot capability is an enormous advantage in air-to-air combat. The F-35 electronics also provide a better view of ground targets and the ability to quickly select the most suitable ground attack weapon carried and use it. Poland has been worried about Russian aggression since 2014 and sped up its long-range 2013-2022 military modernization plan. This cost $43 billion so accelerating some of the purchases required borrowing money or making cuts in the non-defense parts of the budget. Given the popular fear of Russian aggression, the money was found and a decade later the Russian threat had gotten worse. In 2014 the military wanted to get some weapons quickly. These included several versions of the JASSM smart bombs with ranges varying from 400 kilometers to 1,900 kilometers. Poland already has the locally developed WR300 rocket system, which is similar to the U.S. MLRS, but includes a 300 kilometer long range version. Poland is purchasing large Predator class type UAVs and a second coast defense battalion armed with Norwegian NSM anti-ship missiles as well as new attack helicopters. Poland found the Americans eager to cooperate on upgrading Polands arsenal of advanced weapons. The most recent order for JASSM missiles included over 800 missiles of various JASSM models. Given Polands long history of oppression by Russia, including invasions, occupations and double-dealing of all sorts, the U.S. found Poland eager to confront any Russian moves to the west. Poland has often been left high and dry by the West in the past when it came to Russian aggression. In 1939 there were only promises of aid from a few West European nations. Poland remembered 1939 and, by 2014, when the Russian threat returned, Poland was more closely connected to the rest of Europe and North America because Poland was now a member of NATO. This was not the case in 1939 and a decade later, after World War II, NATO was founded. In 1939 Poland was conquered by Germany and Russia and was not completely free of Russian interference until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Poland joined NATO in 1999, having shed nearly all its Soviet era weapons and replaced the old weapons with new western models. The buildup of military weapons continues. Once free of Russian control, Poland established a free market economy and prospered. Poland can now afford the most modern weapons. They built and purchased lots of them to demonstrate their ability to successfully resist future Russian threats. The Russians have noticed and their only response is complaints in the Russian mass media that Poland is now a threat to Russia. Thats the kind of reaction Poland likes to hear. Constantly purchasing more new weapons, Poland seeks to keep the Russians on the defensive for a change. Poland is supported by other East European nations that used to be threatened by Russia before NATO membership became an option. The collapse of the Soviet Union was prompted by growing unrest over Russian domination by East European countries during the 1980s and then their de facto rebellions against it. This triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was under great strain because of ongoing economic collapse due to the wonders of communism and a brilliant economic warfare campaign by the Reagan administration. The Soviet Union then unraveled into fourteen new countries, including the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Russias 2014 and 2o22 invasions Ukraine in 2014 reminded all other former Soviet subjects that Russias centuries-old attitudes about neighbors are still at work. Poland, the United States and about half of all the NATO countries have become major supporters of Ukraine in its fight to oust the Russian invaders. The Americans do it because they have the largest economy in the world and have long been the largest member of NATO. Poland has bitter memories of past Russian aggression and learned from bitter 20th century experience that the best place to fight a war is someplace else. Ukraine is a great place for Poland to fight the Russians. A Russian attack on Poland would trigger the mutual defense clause of the NATO agreement. Russia would then be at war with 32 other nations, including the United States and most of Europe. One reason Russia gave for invading Ukraine was the Ukrainian efforts to join NATO. That was interrupted by the Russian invasion and Ukraine and NATO agree that once the Russian invasion is defeated, Ukraine will become the 33rd member of NATO. Russia insists that will never happen, but its enormous losses in Ukraine say otherwise. Russia cannot keep this up and is trying to negotiate a peace deal that will leave them in possession of Crimea and two nearby provinces they conquered in 2014. Ukrainian forces are on the offensive, have retaken some Russian-occupied territory and insist their offensive will not end until all of 1991 Ukraine is free of any Russian occupation. An upland farmer is growing his income from lamb sales by performance recording his closed flock of Welsh Mountain ewes. In five years, the average weight of lamb produced per ewe in Elfyn Owens flock has increased by 9.3kg, to 47.6kg. Mr Owen recognised the value of achieving genetic gains driven through estimated breeding values (EBVs) long before he started recording the pure-bred Welsh Mountain Cernyw flock in 2019. He had been performance recording his Cernyw Bluefaced Leicester flock since 1997 and, at 36.7mm, that flocks EBV for muscle depth is the highest ever recorded in the breed. It was a natural progression to record the Welsh ewes when we had the chance to join the Hill Ram Scheme in 2019 and then Tier 1 of Farming Connects Welsh Sheep Genetics Programme (WSGP)," says Mr Owen, who is chair of the Bluefaced Leicester Sheep Breeders Association. He runs a flock of 480 Welsh Mountain ewes and 70 Bluefaced Leicesters near Llanrwst, producing lambs solely from grazed grass and marketing recorded sires and replacement ewes at breed sales while also selling fat lambs into the liveweight and deadweight markets. He has been breeding the Llandovery Whiteface-type ewe since the end of the 1970s as it is well matched to the conditions at his farm, Ffrith Arw. The sheep have good skins, good wool on them, they suit our system of producing lamb entirely from grass," he says. Two hundred of the Welsh ewes are recorded using DNA parentage techniques because of the extensive nature of the system. This technique is 50:50 funded by the WSGP and Mr Owen. The ewes are condition scored and weighed in the autumn before the tups are turned in in December, at a ratio of one ram to every 50 sheep. Pregnancy scanning in the 2023 breeding season showed a scanning percentage of 160%, but Mr Owen says he is aiming for 180%. For us recording is about prolificacy too, we are not a mountain farm, we are an upland farm with improved land, and want as many lambs as possible. We are working on getting two lambs per ewe with improvements in muscle depth, conformation and weight, we have the type of sheep that can make it work." The Welsh ewes lamb outdoors in May. At lambing, the twin-bearing ewes are drafted into one field and their progeny are EID tagged and DNA samples taken from their ears. The analysis of the DNA is matched to that of the ewes and allows parentage to be assigned. Lambs are weighed at eight weeks and again at 20 weeks of age. Having EBVs, which indicate exactly where an animal ranks within the breed for specific traits of economic importance, play an important role in flock profitability, says Mr Owen. Having those figures allows him to make better breeding decisions, both within his own flock and when breeding rams and replacements for his customers. Since Mr Owen started recording the flock in 2019, eight-week weights have increased from -0.19kg to 0.62kg and muscle depth from -0.12 to 0.22; scanning weights have increased by 1.71kg. Something is working," he says. A major development in June 2023 saw a change to how the hill index is expressed, as as the expected annual return per ewe, to provide a way of ranking animals based on the economic merit of their genetics. Mr Owens figures show that in 2020 his flocks average index was 5.16. Performance recording had increased this to 10.11 in 2023. He says: We are getting better weights and muscle depth; it is making the ewe more efficient and making her work for us without any concentrates." The value in recording is also evident in his sale of stock with his yearling tups averaging 1,000 at the 2023 Prohill sale. We appreciate and value the custom of forward-thinking progressive buyers who come to Aberystwyth in search of performance recorded rams," says Mr Owen. Each year he uses more of his own recorded tups on his commercial flock too. Recording is not only helping him to improve his commercial ewes but it is helping the sheep industry overall become more efficient, Mr Owen suggests Progress is what you would call it," he says. Livestock farming is so important for Wales, we are grateful that the Welsh Government recognises this and is supporting us with the Farming Connect programme, and the WSGP in particular." He sees recording in Welsh hill breeds as one of the tools that will help the industry address some of the challenges ahead. Recording may seem time consuming to some but it is time well spent and worth the investment. We can only keep sheep or beef on the type of land we have and it is sheep that I am passionate about." The new government has been urged by rural campaigners to maintain the progress on action to reverse the decline of the UK's local abattoir network. Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) has called on the new Defra ministers to announce 'considered and robust support' for small, family-run abattoirs. For livestock farmers, access to a local abattoirs is a major priority, but numbers of them have declined significantly in recent years. Rising distances and journey costs have made some family-run abattoirs unviable. According to the most recent estimates, there are only roughly 50 small abattoirs left in England, Wales and Scotland. With each closure, campaigners warn that farmers are forced to go further afield, putting pressure on remaining abattoirs trying to accommodate increasing numbers. High on the agenda for the new Labour government must be action to boost take-up of the Small Abattoir Fund, introduced by the previous government last December, RBST said. The scheme should be reviewed as a matter of urgency to ensure it is fully accessible by those abattoir owners it is designed to help," said the body's chief executive, Christopher Price. He added that many of them did not have the cash flow to afford significant up-front costs, and many lacked farmers' practical experience of filling in Rural Payment Agency paperwork. The rural campaigning group has also urged the new Defra team to ensure a quick roll-out of the 3 million investment in new abattoirs announced in May. Mr Price said: "There are now many parts of the country entirely lacking a local abattoir and if sustainable livestock farming is going to survive in those areas, this loss must be reversed urgently." He added that ministers should continue to press the EU to agree to similar 'lighter touch' regulation for UK smaller abattoirs that is seen in much of mainland Europe. "Post Brexit, we need specific permission from the EU if we are to continue to trade with Europe," he said. The closure of the only small abattoir in the Yorkshire Dales 'spells disaster' for the rural community, landscape and local food, campaigners warned earlier this year. McIntyre Meats shut down for good on 27 March after 23 years in business, serving 1,800 customers representing a range of businesses. The family-run firm, which was located in ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks own constituency in Wensleydale, cited low returns for its reason to close down. McIntyre Meats customer Graham Bottley said the closure of the abattoir would have a significant knock on effect on his small business. "I use the abattoir to kill my mutton wethers that I supply direct to customers," he said, "The mutton is popular and ships all around the country. "Without a local abattoir, that element of my business would be far more difficult and I may be forced to stop doing that entirely." Police have urged farmers to be extra vigilant for hare coursing activity after a recent incident saw a farmer being threatened with a catapult. Hare coursing has started already in some areas of the country, with Hampshire Constabulary saying it had already dealt with numerous incidents. Suspicious vehicles, suspected to be involved in coursing, were spotted on farmland in areas including Kingsclere, Hannington, and Herriard. During one incident in Kingsclere on 5 July, a farmer was threatened with a catapult, the force explained. And an incident in Herriard reported on 9 July saw an offending vehicle narrowly avoid colliding with a victims dog. This vehicle was later located and seized by police in Liphook, and a Lurcher dog was seized by police in Herriard. Coursing not only involves the poaching of hares, but often sees significant damage caused to the farmland by individuals and vehicles trespassing. A single incident of hare coursing can cause thousands of pounds worth of damage to land and crops. In addition, farmers and landowners often face intimidation and threats of violence. A spokesperson for Hampshire Constabulary said: "We anticipate seeing further incidents elsewhere in the county, and urge people to be aware and to report coursing and associated damage to us. "We would like to remind people to never approach the individuals involved in this type of crime your safety is priority. "If it is safe to do so, you can consider obtaining any photos or video/Dash Cam footage to provide to the police." Legislation passed in 2022 makes it an offence to go equipped for, search for, or pursue hares with dogs, and an offence to trespass with intent to search for or pursue hares with dogs. Earlier this year, four men were ordered to pay out nearly 20,000 after they destroyed a farmers field while being equipped to go hare coursing. They were also given a 10-year criminal behaviour order not to enter Lincolnshire with longdogs, and they were disqualified from keeping dogs for a decade. An increased public engagement secured a greater turn out for this year's Open Farm Sunday, which saw visitor numbers increase by over 9,000. Open Farm Sunday, managed by LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming), set a new benchmark with a surge in media reach and number of visitors. Marking its 18th anniversary, the annual initiative, which was held on 9 June, welcomed over 180,000 visitors to 241 events across the UK, surpassing last years visitor numbers by 9,100. David Webster, LEAF chief executive, said Open Farm Sunday was 'a positive and celebratory moment' in the farming calendar. "It was fantastic to see such strong public support on the day with thousands of people travelling to visit farms across the UK," he said. Promoting how farmers are farming with nature and connecting the public with the origins of their food is of vital importance to engage the public constructively around farmers as custodians of the land. "The increase in visitor numbers to Open Farm Sunday events and uplift in consumer media engagement this year underscores the public's genuine interest in sustainable farming and desire to form deeper connections with farm businesses in their local community." Key statistics show that 241 events were held on farms across the UK this year, averaging 747 visitors per event, up from an average of 665 visitors in 2023. And there were 5% more visitors overall in 2024 compared to last year, with 180,000 attending Open Farm Sunday events. In the lead-up to this year's Open Farm Sunday, the campaigns media coverage reached a new high, with a broadcast reach of over 18 million. The planned radio day alone secured 44 interviews, reaching a consumer audience of 4.3 million. Veteran host Michael Sly of Park Farm, Thorney, in Cambridgeshire, has participated since the first ever Open Farm Sunday in 2006, and this year attracted 12,000 visitors. He emphasised the events enduring appeal: The enthusiasm and curiosity from visitors, both young and old, affirm the importance of these interactions in fostering a better understanding of farming and food production. Farm leaders have told the Welsh government to 'listen to the voice of the industry' following a swell of responses to the Sustainable Farming Scheme consultation. The Welsh government has today published an independent analysis and response to the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) consultation. The consultation, which ran earlier this year, received 12,000 responses, of whom the vast majority were farmers. Representing the most significant change to Welsh farming policy in a generation, the proposals have been the source of widespread concern and anxiety since their publication. Now an analysis of the consultation's responses points to continuing concern from the agricultural community, with one issue being the perceived complexity of the SFS. A desire for there to be a focus on food production is also a concern frequently highlighted, as is a clear opposition to the woodland requirements of the scheme. NFU Cymru President Aled Jones said the consultation's responses were a 'clear indicator' of the need for a 'major overhaul' of the SFS. The SFS must move beyond a scheme focussed predominately on the delivery of environmental outcomes and instead become a genuine agricultural policy that underpins food production in an increasingly volatile world," Mr Jones said. "Changes to the SFS are needed to ensure that the universal baseline payment is practical and achievable for all farm types, sectors and locations. "It must provide equal access to all active farmers in Wales, including tenants and commoners. "The universal baseline payment must go beyond costs incurred / income foregone calculations and incentivise the actions that Welsh Government asks Welsh farming to deliver for society. "The scheme must include a long-term stability mechanism to underpin the continued supply of safe, high quality, affordable food from Wales. The Welsh government recently confirmed that the SFS will not begin until 2026 and that a preceded preparatory phase will take place next year. But the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) warned that the industrys voice had now been 'loud and clear' on the proposals. It comes as no surprise that the consensus from the mammoth 12,000 farmers and organisations who responded to the consultation calls for significant changes to the scheme proposals," said FUW President, Ian Rickman. We welcome the remarks made by the Cabinet Secretary today as he commits to introducing the scheme only when it is ready. "This needs to be an agricultural support scheme that provides stability for our food producing family farms in Wales and considers economic, social and environmental sustainability on equal footings. Office gossips are seen as less competent at their jobs. Office gossips could be harming their careers A new study has found that those who love chatting about workplace matters were more likely to be trusted when it came to organising social events but their input was less valued regarding ethical issues. Nahid Ibrahim, co-author of the research at the University of Leeds Business School, explained that there are both pros and cons to being a gossiper at work. She said: "Gossip is a valuable form of information exchange. "It often helps people navigate the workplace by offering information typically unavailable through formal channels. For example, as a newcomer, you would probably like to know what working with your other colleague is like, who gets along with whom and who to avoid." Ibrahim continued: "However, gossiping is also seen as a form of moral transgression as gossipers often share private and sensitive information about others, with or without an explicit intention to harm their reputation. "Moreover, gossiping comes with certain labels such as 'idle talk', 'chit chat', etc, suggesting that gossiping at the workplace can be considered a waste of time - the time that could be otherwise devoted to pursuing more meaningful and productive activities. "Hence, although gossipers are seen as more sociable than someone who does not gossip, they are also seen as less moral and competent." Eddie Murphy and Paige Butcher are married. Eddie Murphy and Paige Butcher have married The Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F actor, 63, and 44-year-old Australian model who have eight-year-old daughter Izzy Oona and five-year-old son Max Charles got hitched after getting engaged in September 2018. The pairs wedding snaps are being carried by People magazine, which said on Friday (12.07.24) the couple seen head to toe in white in the publications images tied the note on Tuesday (09.07.24) in Anguilla. It added it was a small private ceremony in front of family and close friends, with Paige wearing a corseted gown adorned with lace designed by Mira Zwillinger, while Eddie was kitted out in a white Brioni suit. It is Eddies second marriage and the first for Paige, and comes less than a month after the pair were seen together during the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F premiere in Los Angeles on 20 June. The pair were also joined by Eddies other children Bria, 34, Shayne Audra, 29, and 22-year-old Bella Zahra whom he has with his 56-year-old former wife Nicole Mitchell. Eddie is a father of 10 who also has kids Eric, 34, Christian, 33, Myles Mitchell, 31, Zola Ivy, 24, and 17-year-old Angel Iris. He started dating Paige in 2012, and the pair had their first child Izzy in 2016, with Max following two years later eight weeks after they got engaged. Eddie called the model his wife twice in June when he was a guest on The New York Times podcast The Interview sparking speculation they had secretly married. Paige spoke about how sweet and romantic Eddie is in rare remarks about him on the red carpet at the 2020 Golden Globes. When asked what he whispered to her on the red carpet, Eddie told Extra: I told her how wonderful she looks. Paige added: He actually says that kind of stuff all the time. He's very, very sweet and romantic. 'Rust' director Joel Souza was desperate to know if Halyna Hutchins had survived her injuries when he came round in the hospital. Rust director asked if Halyna Hutchins 'was OK' after he woke up in the hospital The cinematographer was killed on the set of neo-Western movie Rust in New Mexico in 2021 when actor Alec Baldwin discharged a live round from a revolver he was using as a prop and now never-before-seen footage obtained by RadarOnline has shown Joel - who was injured during the incident - questioning the wellbeing of his tragic colleague as soon as he was conscious when he recalled what he could to medics. He said: "There was a very loud bang, and it felt like somebody kicked me in the shoulder and then I was down on my a**. [I then saw[ the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with blood coming out of her back. "She was between me and I think where the gun went off and i think it went through her and into me? o you know anything about what's going on with her? Is she ok?" The 66-year-old actor faced his first day in front of a jury on Wednesday (10.07.24) in New Mexico, and stands accused of involuntary manslaughter of the cinematographer, who died at the age of 42. Looking distressed and tired, at one point he put his hand on his forehead as jurors were shown body cam footage captured by Santa Fe County Sheriffs deputy Nicholas LeFleur who was called as the first witness in the case. The clip showed Halyna lying on her back following the shooting, with tubes coming out of her body as medical teams tend to her. Deputy LeFleur is heard saying: One female shot in the chest, male shot in the stomach. Although we live in a society that encourages and promotes healthy eating, which is really good for all of us, indulging with the odd piece of chocolate is something most people take enjoyment from. Chocolate But theres so much more to chocolate than just its deliciousness. Here are some of the most interesting facts about chocolate for you to share. Theres more than one chocolate celebration day! Make sure you put National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day in your calendar for the 7th November, along with plenty more. A farmer can wait four to five years for a cacao tree to grow its first ever beans so that chocolate can be made. The chocolate chip cookie was created by accident in 1930 by Ruth Wakefield. She was out of bakers chocolate and used broken pieces of a chocolate bar instead, expecting it to absorb and make a chocolate cookie. When it didnt, she sold the chocolate chip cookie idea to Nestle for a lifetime supply of chocolate! The river of chocolate featured in the original Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory film was real! It was made by mixing 15,000 gallons of water with chocolate and cream. White chocolate isnt technically a chocolate because it doesnt contain any cocoa solids or chocolate liquor. That means it doesnt count towards your daily chocolate allowance! Just one piece of chocolate gives your body enough energy to run 500 feet The worlds largest chocolate bar was created by Thortons to celebrate its 100th birthday, and it weighed an incredible 5,792.50kg! Chocolate can actually kill you! But you would have to eat about 22lb of the stuff all at once. The mere smell of chocolate encourages theta brain waves, which make you feel relaxed. If we laid all the Toblerones we ate every year end to end, they would reach 62,000km longer than the circumference of the Earth. Kylie Minogue enjoys dark chocolate every day. Be like Kylie, eat plenty of dark chocolate! The blood used in the dramatic and iconic shower scene in Psycho was chocolate syrup. Chocolate gets your heart beating faster than if you were kissing. At one point, Nazis were plotting to kill Churchill with an exploding chocolate bar. The first ever chocolate bar was invented in 1847 by Joseph Fry. Brussels Airport sells the most amount of chocolate in the world more than 800 tons of chocolate every year! Did you know that chocolate actually means food of the gods? Well, technically its the scientific name for the tree that chocolate comes from, Theobroma cacao. Chocolate helped to invent the microwave! It is said that Percy L. Spencer, an engineer, was walking through a radar test room with a chocolate bar in his pocket. When he got close to a running magnetron, the chocolate melted. He then went on to experiment with microwaving kernels of corn and eggs! When you eat chocolate, youre also eating insects! One chocolate bar contains approximately 8 insect parts due to the way the beans are processed. Apparently anything over 60 insect parts per 100gms is unsafe, so you can carry on with the chocolate munching. Every second, 100 pounds of chocolate are eaten by Americans collectively. And there you have it. Chocolate really is a special source of sustenance for a variety of different reasons. Not only is it irresistible but its interesting too! Kebab Day, celebrated on July 12th, originated as a lighthearted social media trend that quickly gained popularity. It began as an unofficial holiday among food enthusiasts and social media users who celebrated the diverse and delicious world of kebabs. The day serves as a reminder of the cultural significance of kebabs, which are a staple in many Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and South Asian cuisines. Kebabs are not just a meal but a culinary tradition that brings people together over flavorful skewers of grilled meat or vegetables. Whether enjoyed at home, in a restaurant, or at a festive gathering, Kebab Day celebrates the joy of sharing good food and the rich cultural heritage behind it.Purani Dilli ki mutton seekh kebab is a delectable dish that combines finely minced mutton with a blend of aromatic spices and seasonings. The keema is meticulously mixed with traditional spices like elaichi powder, garam masala, and roasted jeera powder, each lending its unique flavor profile. A touch of green chili paste adds a subtle heat, while black salt enhances the overall taste. These ingredients are carefully combined with mutton fat to create a rich and succulent texture. Once mixed, the kebab mixture is molded onto skewers and grilled to perfection, ensuring a smoky aroma and tender, juicy kebabs bursting with flavor.Ililis Lamb Adana Kebab is a tribute to the vibrant flavors of Mid-Eastern cuisine, carefully crafted with hand-minced lamb, finely chopped onions, and tomatoes. Each kebab is infused with traditional spices, including cumin, sumac, and coriander, adding depth and character to every bite. Grilled to perfection over a charcoal fire, the kebabs acquire a tantalizing smokiness that enhances their tender texture and rich flavors. Served alongside fresh herbs and complemented by a side of yogurt sauce, this dish embodies the artistry and authenticity of Turkish culinary tradition. Experience the essence of Lamb Adana Kebab at ilili, where every skewer represents a harmony of quality ingredients and centuries-old techniques, inviting you to indulge in a true taste of Turkey.Savor The Little Easy's mouthwatering Mutton Kebabs, crafted from tender mutton and bursting with delicious flavors. These kebabs are grilled to perfection, giving them a smoky taste that brings out the juiciness of the meat. Each bite offers a harmonious blend of spices and seasonings, meticulously balanced to enhance the natural richness of the mutton. The aroma of grilled meat fills the air, tempting your taste buds with every savory skewer. Bangladesh and China recently agreed to enhance cooperation in financial regulation and encourage more local currency settlements in bilateral trade, according to a joint statement issued after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's three-day official visit to Beijing. Bangladesh welcomed Chinese banks to set up branches in Bangladesh and vice versa. Bangladesh and China recently agreed to enhance cooperation in financial regulation and encourage more local currency settlements in bilateral trade, according to a joint statement issued after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's three-day official visit to Beijing. Bangladesh welcomed Chinese banks to set up branches in Bangladesh and vice versa. The two sides had in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and international and regional issues of mutual interest, and reached extensive consensus. China expressed continued support for Bangladesh's graduation from the least developed country (LDC) status in 2026, according to Bangladesh media reports. Hasina returned to Bangladesh yesterday after holding talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Vietnam imported 766,000 tonnes of cotton worth $1.53 billion in the first half (H1) this yearan increase of 21.6 per cent in volume and 9 per cent in value year on year (YoY), according to the general statistics office. Import prices averaged $1,995.5 per tonne during that period. Vietnam imports cotton from 11 markets. These include Brazil ($443 million in H1 2024up by 111 per cent YoY), the United States ($400 milliondown by 18 per cent YoY), Australia ($196 milliondown by 23 per cent YoY) and India ($85 millionup by 116 per cent YoY). Vietnam imported 766,000 tonnes of cotton worth $1.53 billion in the first half (H1) this yearan increase of 21.6 per cent in volume and 9 per cent in value YoY, according to the general statistics office. Import prices averaged $1,995.5 per tonne during that period. Cotton imported from China had the highest average price of $3,832.3 per tonne. Cotton imports from Pakistan saw the strongest rise of 3,380 per cent to 5,186 tonnes in the first five months this year, with revenues increasing from $0.2 million to $9.1 million during the period. Imports from the South Korea dropped by 72 per cent YoY to 324 tonnes during the period, a Vietnamese media outlet reported. Cotton imported from China had the highest average price of $3,832.3 per tonne, followed by that from South Korea, with $2,179 per tonne; the United States, with $2,098 per tonne; and Australia, with $2,092 per tonne. Cotton imported from Indonesia had the lowest price of $1,360 per tonne. Global cotton prices will be on upward trend over this year due to recovering demand and drops in output, the International Cotton Advisory Committee forecast. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Filmfare (@filmfare) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Filmfare (@filmfare) Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are set to tie the knot in a beautiful wedding ceremony today. The couple had previously hosted two grand pre-wedding celebrations, followed by a sangeet event, a beautiful haldi ceremony and a Shiv Shakti puja. Now, several Bollywood and Hollywood A-listers are scheduled to attend the grand wedding.Deepika Padukone was recently photographed at the wedding as she entered the venue with her mother. The actress, who is also pregnant, flaunted her baby bump in an extravagant red traditional ensemble with golden details. She looked stunning as she went inside the venue to congratulate the couple of the moment, Anant and Radhika.Take a look at her video below:She also interacted with a couple of other guests, including superstar Rajinikanth and his wife Latha Rajinikanth. They spoke heartily while Deepika hugged the couple.Check out this video:The actress also shared some stunning photos of her look on social media. As for Ranveer Singh, the actor attended the wedding early and has been photographed dancing with other stars like Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas after arrival. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 11, 2024) - Telescope Innovations Corp. (CSE: TELI) (OTCQB: TELIF) ("Telescope" or the "Company"), a developer of advanced technologies and services for the global pharmaceutical and chemical industries, reports financial results for the fiscal quarter ended May 31, 2024. The Company generated revenues of $1.2 million during this period (Q3, 2024). Telescope's corresponding fiscal year-to-date revenues exceed $3.4 million and surpass the amount for the entire previous fiscal year (Figure 1). Figure 1. Revenue and net income chart for FY 2022, 2023, and 2024 to date. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8923/216272_cb5faa0894683be1_001full.jpg FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FISCAL QUARTER ENDED MAY 31, 2024 All values are represented in CAD. Revenues of $1,224,351 for fiscal quarter and $3,415,408 year-to-date (versus $1,012,999 for fiscal quarter and $2,340,392 year-to-date for comparable period in FY 2023) (versus $1,012,999 for fiscal quarter and $2,340,392 year-to-date for comparable period in FY 2023) Expenses of $1,424,650 for fiscal quarter and $3,941,921 year-to-date (versus $945,152 for fiscal quarter and $2,531,466 year-to-date for comparable period in FY2023) (versus $945,152 for fiscal quarter and $2,531,466 year-to-date for comparable period in FY2023) Positive cash flow from Operating Activities of +$40,023 for the fiscal year-to-date period (versus -$1,745,535 for the fiscal year-to-date comparable period in FY2023) "This quarter has seen an uptick in sales of Telescope's DirectInject-LC product, as well as customer engagement through high profile conferences and technology demonstration events," commented Jeff Sherman, Telescope COO. Readers are encouraged to review the full financial statements and accompanying management discussion and analysis for the quarter ended May 31, 2024, both of which are available under the profile for the Company on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). About Telescope Telescope is a chemical technology company developing scalable manufacturing processes and tools for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. The Company builds and deploys new enabling technologies including flexible robotic platforms and artificial intelligence software that improves experimental throughput, efficiency, and data quality. Our aim is to bring modern chemical technology solutions to meet the most serious challenges in health and sustainability. On behalf of the Board, The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216272 SOURCE: Telescope Innovations Corp. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 11, 2024) - good natured Products Inc. (TSXV: GDNP) (OTC Pink: GDNPF) (the "Company" or "good natured"), a North American leader in eco-friendly food packaging, bio-based plastic extrusion and plant-based products, announced today that pursuant to the order (the "Initial Order") obtained from the Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice (the "Court") under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (the "CCAA") on June 28, 2024, the Company sought and was granted by the Court on July 11, 2024 an extension of the associated stay of proceedings (the "Stay Extension") up to and including October 25, 2024. The Stay Extension is intended to allow the Company to operate in the ordinary course under the protection of the Initial Order and implement a sale and investment solicitation process (a "SISP"). The Company's board of directors has selected Capital West Partners (the "Sales Agent") to assist with the SISP, under the oversight of Alvarez & Marsal Canada Inc. as monitor of the Company (in such capacity, the "Monitor"), with a view to completing an investment or sale transaction as contemplated by the SISP (a "Transaction") for the benefit of the Company's stakeholders. The Company has also entered into a debtor-in-possession financing agreement (the "DIP Financing") with Wells Fargo Capital Finance Corporation Canada to fund operations and restructuring efforts, including the CCAA proceedings, implementation of the SISP and any Transaction arising from the SISP. The material terms of the DIP Financing are as follows: DIP Financing - Summary of Key Terms Lender Wells Fargo Capital Finance Corporation Canada Maximum amount under the DIP Financing DIP Financing shall be utilized in accordance with the applicable approved cash flow forecast and availability will not exceed the Petitioners' operating cash flow requirements as set out in the applicable approved cash flow forecast The maximum amount of the revolving loan limit is the US dollar equivalent of Canadian $15,100,000 Applicable Margin (i) 3.50% for SOFR Loans, CORRA Loans and Letter of Credit Fees; and (ii) 2.50% for Canadian Base Rate Loans and Base Rate Loans. Maturity Date Earlier of: (i) September 27, 2024, provided that the date shall be extended to October 25, 2024 provided at least one Phase 2 Bid acceptable to Wells Fargo is received on or before the Phase 2 Bid Deadline (each as defined in the SISP discussed above); and (ii) the occurrence of a Terminating Event. Additional information regarding the CCAA proceedings - including all of the Court materials filed in the CCAA proceedings - may be found at the Monitor's website: https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/goodnatured Since the date of the Company's press release announcing the Initial Order on June 28, 2024, there have been no changes to the Company's transfer agent or to its board of directors, and the Company continues to comply with all of the disclosure requirements under the NEX Policy. The good natured corporate profile can be found at: goodnaturedproducts.com/pages/investor About good natured Products Inc. good natured is at the forefront of North America's shift toward sustainability, showcasing over 90 plant-based packaging designs and an extensive portfolio of more than 400 products and services. These offerings are purposefully designed to reduce environmental impact by using more renewable materials, less fossil fuel, and eliminating chemicals of concern. Manufactured locally in the US and Canada, good natured engineers and distributes a diverse range of bio-based products across various sectors, including grocery, restaurant, electronics, automotive, and pharmaceutical via both wholesale and direct channels. The Company is dedicated to providing an industry-leading customer experience in order to encourage the transition to renewable alternatives. By making it easy and affordable for businesses to adopt bio-based products and packaging, good natured aims to empower them to reach their sustainability objectives. Neither the NEX Board of the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the NEX Board of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibilities for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "budget," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "scheduled," "forecast," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "to be," "could,", "would," "should," "will" and similar references to future periods or the negative or comparable terminology, as well as terms usually used in the future and the conditional. Specific forward-looking statements in this press release may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the filing by the Company and its subsidiaries of the Stay Extension, the outcome of the CCAA proceedings and the DIP Financing, the implementation and outcome of the SISP and any Transaction arising from the SISP, the future success, plans and objectives of the Company, and the intended operations of the Company and any disruptions to Its products and services. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, changes in circumstances and other factors that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of the Company's control 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. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on our current estimates, expectations and projections regarding, among other things, operating In ordinary course under the protection of the Interim Order, the ability to implement the SISP and any Transaction arising from the SISP, funding under the DIP Financing, future plans and strategies, projections, future market and operating conditions, supply conditions, end customer demand conditions, anticipated events and trends, general market conditions, the economy, financial conditions, sales volume and pricing, expenses and costs, all necessary court orders and approvals are obtained to permit the Company to implement its restructuring plans, and other future conditions which we believe are reasonable as of the current date. Important factors that could cause actual results and financial conditions to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: delay or failure to receive required approvals with respect to the CCAA proceedings, future capital needs and uncertainty of the SISP and any resulting Transaction, risks relating to general economic, market and business conditions and unforeseen delays in the realization of the Company's plans, risks related to the loss of key manufacturing equipment, capability or facilities, the performance of plant-based materials and the ability of the Company's products and packaging to meet significant technical requirements, changes in raw material supply and costs, labour availability and labour costs, fluctuations in operating results, and other related risks as more fully set out in the Annual Information Form dated April 29, 2024 of the Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.sedarplus.com. The reader should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. All forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable based on currently available information, but cautions the reader that its assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, may ultimately prove to be incorrect since they are subject to risks and uncertainties that affect the Company and its businesses. When relying on the Company's forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company has assumed that the material factors referred to above will not cause such forward-looking statements and information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors. Other than as required under securities laws, the Company does not undertake to update this information at any particular time. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216271 SOURCE: good natured Products Inc. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 11, 2024) - Advanced Gold Exploration Inc. (CSE: AUEX) ("AUEX" or the "Company") has issued the following press release in response to the worldwide interest in copper, a very important metal in EV development and Greenhouse Gas emission reduction. We believe the future of copper lies in projects in friendly jurisdictions - like Ontario and are continuing to develop and expand our very exciting copper project - Buck Lake Property ("Buck Lake" or the "Property"), see May 8, 2024 Press Release for further details. Highlights: Acquired 81 Claims adjacent to Buck Lake Property. Approximately 1,800 Hectares (Ha) added to bring total area of Buck Lake to 6,150 Ha. New claims host indications of altered volcanic rocks and areas of past drilling where massive sulphides were encountered. Other similar areas with geologic potential are present on the newly acquired claims. Report by Sault Ste Marie OGS Resident Geologist Barun Maity credited with indicating the potential of the areas acquired in the new claims. The Company is pleased to announce the addition of 81 Claim Units (approximately 1,800 Hectares or 2,600 Acres) to its Buck Lake Property in the Batchawana Greenstone Belt (BGB) of Northern Ontario. Buck Lake is a Copper/Zinc Volcanic Massive Sulfide (VMS) - Type of Deposit similar to others in the Abitibi-Wawa Greenstone Belt. The acquisition is in response to a recent Ontario Government report which highlighted the potential of the areas. The report by Sault Ste Marie Resident Geologist Barun Maity titled "Mineral Prospectivity Mapping in the Batchawana Greenstone belt" is in the volume "Recommendations for Exploration 2023-2024" - Reference (Dorland, G and Dorado-Troughton, M 2024. Resident Geologist Program Site Visits in Ontario Geological Survey, Resident Geologist Program, Recommendations for Exploration 2023-24). The study outlined several areas of highly altered volcanic rocks in the vicinity of the Buck Lake Property. Comparing the alteration patterns in the area where AUEX has discovered known VMS-type mineralization to the alteration patterns outlined by the OGS study pointed to other areas of potential. The additional claims bring the area of opportunity on the Property to over 6,150 Hectares (15,000 Acres) and expands the potential of the Property. Mr. Jim Atkinson, CEO of AUEX commented "We are grateful for the effort by Barun, using the publicly available OGS Database of rock samples (MRD 250 Haus and Pauk 2010) to evaluate the lithogeochemical characteristics of samples collected by OGS geologists in the Buck Lake area. The work by Barun pointed to several areas of anomalous values and shows the critical part that the OGS Resident Program can play in mineral exploration in Ontario. As part of our focus on VMS Deposits of copper and zinc at Buck Lake we quickly staked the areas indicated as having potential. We are excited about the new areas and the Buck Lake project overall and will expand our upcoming exploration program to include these new claims. We intend to further the identification of altered volcanic rocks using similar lithogeochemical and statistical methodology". ABOUT BUCK LAKE The Property is located approximately 62 linear km northeast of Sault Ste. Marie in the Province of Ontario in within the Batchawana Greenstone Belt ("BGB") that comprises a small portion of the Wawa-Abitibi Subprovince. The Property now consists of a total of 260 single-cell mining claims that covers 6,150 hectares located in Lunkie and Gapp Townships. The BGB is an arcuate-shaped, expansive belt located in the southern-central part of the Wawa-Abitibi Subprovince on the eastern shore of Lake Superior. The BGB is an Archean-aged greenstone belt consisting of a thick succession of supracrustal rocks. The property is situated in the Batchawana Volcanic Domain which hosts prospective sequences of felsic and mafic volcanics with sulphide mineralization. The Property contains at least 8 areas of VMS potential based on the presence of Base Metal Mineralization identified in historical or recent activities. Including areas of copper and zinc mineralization. An extensive stripping and channel sampling program over one of the zones in (the Noranda Trend) on the Buck Lake Property in 2022 identified several mineral horizons and provided invaluable clues to the geological environment of Cu-Zn mineralization. Highlights of the channel sampling include 4.94% Zn, 367 ppm Cu, 0.77% Pb and 45.6 g/t Ag over 1.0 m at trench G and 0.01% Zn, 1.58% Cu and 27.4 g/t Ag over 1.1 m. These programs were followed-up by diamond drilling in 2022 consisting of 15 diamond drill holes totaling 2,545 m. The objective of the drilling was to test sulphide mineralization documented on surface at depth and along strike of the Noranda trend. The VLF anomalies outlined along the Noranda trend in 2022 were also tested. Highlights of the drill program include 1.51% Cu over 11.75 m in hole BL-22-06 and 2.38% Cu over 2.95 m in hole BL-22-15. Lower grade copper and zinc mineralization was encountered in 13 of the 15 drillholes. The success of this program prompted the expansion of the property to cover known airborne anomalies and other areas of past drilling which had identified base metal mineralization. Mr. Jim Atkinson CEO of AUEX notes that "The Author of the 43-101 Technical Report has reviewed the available information on the property and has stated in the Report 'that the following salient features of the Buck Lake Property makes this a property of high merit for VMS-type Cu-Zn deposits: A greenstone belt hosting supracrustal Archean-aged rocks within the metal endowed Wawa-Abitibi Subprovince. A geological environment consistent with other VMS deposits of the Wawa-Abitibi Subprovince which includes felsic to intermediate volcanics, dacitic flows, tuffs and breccias and sediments in an extensional arc environment. Confirmed Cu-Zn bearing massive sulphide mineralization in surface channel sampling and diamond drilling. Cu-Zn bearing +/- massive pyrite-pyrrhotite mineralization stratigraphically proximal to cherty exhalative horizons. Limited modern-day VMS-deposit model exploration. This is very positive for the project. The author goes on to say. "It is of the Author's opinion that the Property be continued to be explored for VMS-type massive sulphide deposits as indications are favorable for success." QUALIFIED PERSON James Atkinson M.Sc., P. Geo., a Qualified Person ("QP") as such term is defined in NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the geological information reported in this news release. The Qualified Person supervised the work completed by AUEX but has not completed sufficient work to verify all historic information on the Property, particularly with regards to historical sampling, drill results, and technical work provided by others. The Qualified Person assumes that past sampling and analytical results were completed to industry standard practices. The information provides an indication of the exploration potential of the Property but may not be representative of expected results. ABOUT ADVANCED GOLD EXPLORATION INC. Advanced Gold Exploration (Formerly Advance United Holdings Inc.) is a Canadian mineral exploration company. We've acquired a portfolio of undervalued gold and copper properties and are increasing their value through the application of modern technology, new ideas and systematic exploration. We have a growing pipeline of similar properties that we are looking to acquire. We are involved exclusively in the acquisition and advancement of past projects - with no intent to bring them back into production or to mine them ourselves. Our expertise is in identifying and acquiring undervalued properties with significant historical work, which were uneconomic at the time. We believe we can enhance their economic value at today's prices. We fund the re-working historic data and applying modern technology to underwrite new qualified reports, document quantifiable resources and reserves to current standards, thereby recognizing the current value. Our purpose is to bring immediate and long-term value to our partners and shareholders while seeking to reduce exploration risk, so that we can all advance in the shortest possible time frame. For additional information about us, our projects, or to find out how we can assist in the advancement of your project contact our CEO. Forward-Looking Information and Cautionary Statements This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is provided, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, unless required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216274 SOURCE: Advanced Gold Exploration Inc. A world-leading and absolutely unique long neck dinosaur consisting of 97% genuine bones all in one piece. The long neck dinosaur species is a Sauropods and was among the largest animals to have ever walked the Earth. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240712480395/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) Owner, count Christoffer Knuth, Knuthenborg Safari Park, who has been a part of the process states: "This dinosaur lived about 150 million years ago in what is today Wyoming. And one of the unique features about this dinosaur was that it was found articulated." When paleontologists refer to a skeleton or set of dinosaur bones being "articulated," it means that the bones are still connected in the right order as they would have been when the animal was alive and on top, 97% of the bones are real. The display is truly leading in the world and provides researchers with an exceptional opportunity to study the anatomy and behavior. The species is a sauropod called a Camarasaurus Grandis, also known as the long-necked dinosaur, and was the most widespread dinosaur species during the Jurassic period. It lived in Wyoming around 150 million years ago and weighed up to 10 tons. When it died, it sank to the bottom of a calm river and was found exactly in the same position on a cattle ranch in Ten Sleep, Wyoming in 2017. After excavation and restoring, the long-necked skeleton was meticulously transported to Denmark. It took more over 12,000 hours of meticulously restoring and scientific research. The goal of the collection of dinosaurs is to be the world's best dinosaur museum. The museum already houses an impressive collection of genuine fossils, including the world's best-preserved Allosaurus, the only Lokiceratops, the world's largest horned dinosaur, the world's largest skull of any land-dwelling animal, Torosaurus, and the 8th specimen of the first bird, Archaeopteryx Knuthenborg Safari Park started in 1969 by the Knuth family and is open in the summer. The Museum of Evolution opened in 2022 and is open all year. Links: See video with dinosaur and Wyoming(3,38 min): https://vimeo.com/vnrtv/review/977481238/12367baf66 Press release, museum: LINK Full media release, English version(download as PDF) Pictures LINK: https://adobe.ly/4ewxIHL Video material LINK Video shot list etc. (PDF) View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240712480395/en/ Contacts: Museum of Evolution, Knuthenborg Safaripark. Anna Lisa McBride almb@knuthenborg.dk +45 42 42 05 60 For video: Producer Anders Garde Kongshaug anders@vnr.TV +45 23 10 30 58 MALSCH, Germany, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nordic Capital has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority share in Sensio to further accelerate the company's growth, international expansion and to continue enhancing its technology platform and products. Sensio is a leading provider of technology for social care and the investment is made in close partnership with the Company's management. The previous majority owner since 2018, Longship, will invest alongside Nordic Capital as a significant minority owner. Sensio is a leading provider in smart monitoring technology for elderly and social care settings in the Nordics, addressing challenges in care for citizens, patients, care personnel and society at large. Today's societal challenge of an aging population driving an increasing need of care, makes Sensio technology particularly important today and in the future. Sensio is headquartered in Norway and provides its solutions to several hundred care providers and operators across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK, supporting care for circa 70 000 care recipients through its technology platform. Since 2014, the company has dedicated itself to providing innovative solutions to care homes and home care providers. The company's flagship offering, includes leading products such as the Sensio 365 software platform, the integrated Sensio Care wireless nurse call platform and RoomMate, a multisensory monitor for detecting and preventing falls. The platform improves quality of care, including significant reductions in fall incidents, while also generating operational efficiencies that frees up more time for care and reduces costs of care meaningfully for society. Sensio employs circa 200 dedicated individuals and has grown rapidly during the last couple of years on the back of increased implementation of its solutions in the Nordics and UK. "We are on a mission to help transform the care sector and enable a new way of working through the use of our technology. Partnering with Nordic Capital for our next growth phase will enable us to strengthen our value proposition and extend our offering to more markets and people across Europe. We are equally delighted that Longship will continue to be part of our journey," said Torbjrn Aamodt, CEO at Sensio. "We are deeply impressed with the team at Sensio, the company, and the platform they've created over the past 10 years. Sensio's combined solution of software and IoT devices can increase care quality, while freeing up significant resources and drive efficiencies within elderly care. Nordic Capital has strong sub-sector focus areas within healthcare technology and IoT, and is thrilled to offer, expertise, network and capital to fuel Sensio's next growth phase," said Erik Otto Nyborg, Managing Director, Nordic Capital Advisors. "We are incredibly proud of the development in Sensio since our investment in 2018. Sensio's innovative solutions are making a meaningful impact on the quality of care for the elderly and those in social care settings. We look forward to continuing this journey alongside Nordic Capital, the management team and all the skilled employees of the company, as it continues to expand and meet the growing demands of the healthcare sector," said Kai Jordahl, Managing Partner, Longship. The global market for elderly care is transitioning from analog to digital and smarter solutions like mobile-based and wireless nurse call systems and sensors based on AI technology. In many countries, this transition is driven by an aging population, increasing prevalence of dementia, an increased global shortage of care staff, and increasing digital maturity of the social care sector. In light of these trends, Sensio sees great potential for its solutions to support the healthcare system in the face of growing demands and needs. As a leading tech and healthcare investor with three decades of experience in fostering growth and international expansion, Nordic Capital is primed to support Sensio into the future. Nordic Capital will leverage its sector and operational expertise together within its expert networks to facilitate Sensio's continued growth. Sensio marks the tenth investment made by Nordic Capital Evolution since 2021. With a committed capital of EUR 1.2 billion, Nordic Capital Evolution targets investments in mid-market growth companies across Northern Europe, applying Nordic Capital's proven sector model. Through this transaction Longship will realise the investment from its Fund I and make a new investment from its latest Fund III. Longship will continue to apply their active ownership involvement and will in cooperation with Nordic Capital support the company in the next stage of Nordic and international expansion. It has been agreed that the terms of the transaction shall not be disclosed. Completion of the transaction is expected in Q3 2024 and is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions. Media contacts: Nordic Capital Katarina Janerud Communications Manager, Nordic Capital Advisors +46 8 440 50 50 katarina.janerud@nordiccapital.com Longship Kai Jordahl Managing Partner +47 909 82 271 kai.jordahl@longship.no Sensio Torbjrn Aamodt CEO +47 92026727 torbjorn.aamodt@sensio.no About Sensio Sensio is a leading provider of healthcare technology, solving today's and tomorrow's care challenges for the benefit of both residents, patients, relatives, healthcare personnel and society. The company offers pioneering software and products such as Sensio365 (IoT Health platform), RoomMate (digital supervision with passive fall notification) and Safemate (mobile safety alarms). Sensio is a Norwegian company that was founded in 2009 and today has several hundred care facility customers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and the UK. Sensio has 200 employees with a strong commitment to creating and implementing sustainable products and services that simplify the everyday life of healthcare personnel, to have MoreTimeForCare for residents and patients. Sensio owns and develops the products Sensio365, Sensio Care, RoomMate, Safemate, IKOS, Smartvakt, Flexiblink and Vox. www.sensio.io About Nordic Capital Nordic Capital is a leading sector-specialist private equity investor with a resolute commitment to creating stronger, sustainable businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Nordic Capital focuses on selected regions and sectors where it has deep experience and a long history. Focus sectors are Healthcare, Technology & Payments, Financial Services, and Service & Industrial Tech. Key regions are Europe and globally for Healthcare and Technology & Payments investments. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested EUR 25 billion in over 145 investments. The most recent entities are Nordic Capital XI with EUR 9.0 billion in committed capital and Nordic Capital Evolution with EUR 1.2 billion in committed capital, principally provided by international institutional investors such as pension funds. Nordic Capital Advisors have local offices in Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and South Korea. www.nordiccapital.com. "Nordic Capital" refers to, depending on the context, any, or all, Nordic Capital branded entities, vehicles, structures, and associated entities. The general partners and/or delegated portfolio managers of Nordic Capital's entities and vehicles are advised by several non-discretionary sub-advisory entities, any or all of which are referred to as "Nordic Capital Advisors". About Longship Longship is a Norwegian private equity firm established by a group of experienced investment professionals in 2015. Longship invests in companies with significant growth potential in the Norwegian lower mid-market and are applying a transformational growth approach. Longship manages three funds with a total of approx. NOK 5.2 billion in committed capital. www.longship.no This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/r/nordic-capital-to-acquire-a-majority-stake-in-sensio--a-leading-provider-of-care-technology,c4014294 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/2166/4014294/2913481.pdf Nordic Capital to acquire Sensio_press release_2024-07-12 https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/4014294-0-jpeg,c3319368 4014294_0.jpeg https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/4014294-1-jpeg,c3319369 4014294_1.jpeg https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/4014294-2-jpeg,c3319370 4014294_2.jpeg https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/erik-nyborg2-low-res,c3319371 Erik-Nyborg2 low res https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/sensio-photo-morten-munthe-766-2,c3319372 Sensio Photo Morten Munthe 766-2 https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/kai-jordahl-167553-web,c3319373 Kai Jordahl 167553 WEB https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/torbjorn-ellingsen-aamodt-1-foto-ingar-sorensen,c3319374 Torbjrn Ellingsen Aamodt 1 foto Ingar Srensen https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/sensio-photo-morten-munthe-1081-2-enhanced-nr-edit,c3319375 Sensio Photo Morten Munthe 1081-2-Enhanced-NR-Edit View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nordic-capital-to-acquire-a-majority-stake-in-sensio-a-leading-provider-of-care-technology-302195597.html Boston, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - CyberActive, doing business as Driver's Ed to Go, is a leading provider of online driver's education. Today, the company has announced accessibility to all U.S states through its interactive learning platform - offering educational tools to schools and driving institutions. Photo Credit by CyberActive This platform enables private driving schools and high schools to seamlessly integrate state-approved online driver education courses into their existing curricula, providing a flexible and engaging learning experience for students. Apart from meeting the needs of institutions, CyberActive has also included state-specific lessons meant to meet the varied legal requirements of differing legal jurisdictions. Alongside standard federal driving laws, the company has made sure to comply with all regulations in all operating states. CyberActive's educational platform and SaaS software meet the growing demand for digital driver education, allowing institutions to deliver comprehensive and interactive courses tailored to the specific requirements of each state. "We want to make driver education accessible, engaging, and effective for all students," said Sharon Ourian, founder and CEO of CyberActive. "By expanding our state-approved courses nationwide, we are ensuring that students everywhere have access to high-quality driver education that fits their schedules and learning preferences." The surge in online education demand is evident, driven by its convenience and accessibility. CyberActive's platform incorporates multimedia elements such as videos, animations, and simulations to create an enriched educational experience. This aligns with the projected growth of the global digital education market, expected to reach $240 billion by 2034. In the U.S. specifically, the automobile driving schools industry is expected to grow at an annualized rate of 3.2% over the next five years, reaching $2.2 billion by 2027. The market is rife with opportunity, one CyberActive is ready to meet with its services. The company's technology allows schools to integrate online driver education courses into their existing systems, maintaining brand identity with minimal oversight. The platform features interactive multimedia content, including videos, animations, and simulations, making learning more engaging and effective. CyberActive's platform is responsive and can be accessed from any device, allowing students to complete their courses at their own pace, from anywhere. The courses are also available in multiple languages and include an audio read-along feature to accommodate diverse learning needs. Courses are tailored to meet the unique requirements of each location, ensuring students are well-prepared for their licensing exams. The self-paced nature of the courses allows students to progress at their own speed, fitting lessons into their schedules. "Our advanced learning and content management platform enables schools to offer state-specific, state-approved driver's education effortlessly," added Ourian. "We are dedicated to educating even the most inexperienced drivers effectively." For schools and educational institutions interested in implementing CyberActive's technology, further information can be found on their website or by contacting their team directly. About CyberActive CyberActive is a leading provider of online driver's education courses, delivering state-approved programs for teens and adults across multiple U.S. states. Emphasising convenience, flexibility, and engaging multimedia content, CyberActive empowers students to learn at their own pace and effectively prepare for their licensing exams. The company's innovative white-label technology platform allows schools and educational institutions to offer customised driver's education courses under their own brand, ensuring a seamless and comprehensive online learning experience. Contact Information: To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216279 SOURCE: Baden Bower INVESTOR NEWS no. 49 - 12 July 2024 Ferry - freight: Total volumes in June 2024 were 5.8% above 2023 and up 0.9% adjusted for the addition of Strait of Gibraltar routes in 2024 and closure of the Calais-Tilbury route in 2023. North Sea volumes were below 2023 as higher volumes on the Swedish routes were offset by lower temperature controlled volumes, mainly food, between the Continent and the UK. Mediterranean volumes were also in June above 2023 driven by higher volumes on all routes. Channel volumes continued in June to be above 2023 as did volumes on the Baltic Sea routes. For the last twelve months 2024-23, the total transported freight lane metres increased 2.8% to 40.2m from 39.1m in 2023-22. The increase was 1.0% adjusted for the addition of Strait of Gibraltar routes and the Calais-Tilbury route closure. Ferry - passenger: The number of passengers in June 2024 was 46.2% above 2023 and up 11.1% adjusted for the addition of the Strait of Gibraltar routes. The adjusted increase continued to be driven mainly by higher Channel volumes. The number of cars were 26.2% above 2023 and up 3.6% adjusted for Strait of Gibraltar. For the last twelve months 2024-23, the total number of passengers increased 26.2% to 5.5m compared to 4.3m for 2023-22. The increase was 8.6% adjusted for Strait of Gibraltar. DFDS ferry volumes June Last twelve months Freight 2022 2023 2024 Change 2022 2023 2024 Change Lane metres, '000 3,698 3,426 3,626 5.8% 43,832 39,053 40,165 2.8% Passenger 2022 2023 2024 Change 2022 2023 2024 Change Passengers, '000 349 416 608 46.2% 1,935 4,341 5,480 26.2% DFDS reports monthly ferry volumes for freight and passengers to provide insight into the development of volume trends in our European route network enabling trade and travel in and around Europe. The July 2024 volume report is expected to be published on 14 August 2024 at around 07.30am CET. Contact Torben Carlsen, CEO +45 33 42 32 01 Sren Brndholt Nielsen, IR +45 33 42 33 59 Dennis Kjrsgaard Srensen, Media +45 42 30 38 47 About DFDS We operate a transport network in and around Europe with an annual revenue of DKK 28bn and 14,000 full-time employees. We move goods in trailers by ferry, road & rail, and we offer complementary and related transport and logistics solutions. We also move car and foot passengers on short sea and overnight ferry routes. DFDS was founded in 1866 and headquartered and listed in Copenhagen. This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 the Norwegian Securities Trading Act Attachment STOCKHOLM, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Strategic highlights - taking proactive action in a challenging market environment Delivering on network technology leadership strategy; externally recognized as 5G leader for 4th consecutive year. Further progress to build out Global Network Platform for network APIs; two additional partnerships in Q2. New 5G patent licensing agreement signed; on track to deliver the SEK 12-13 b. IPR revenue target for 2024. Financial highlights - strong gross margin expansion, partly offset by targeted R&D investments Sales declined -7%* YoY, but market area North America grew by 14%*. Reported sales were SEK 59.8 (64.4) b. Adjusted [1] gross income increased to SEK 26.3 (24.7) b. driven by strong gross margin expansion. Reported gross income was SEK 25.8 (24.1) b. gross income increased to SEK 26.3 (24.7) b. driven by strong gross margin expansion. Reported gross income was SEK 25.8 (24.1) b. Adjusted [1] gross margin was 43.9% (38.3%) supported by higher IPR licensing revenue and cost actions. Networks adjusted gross margin was 46.1% (39.3%). Reported gross margin was 43.1% (37.4%). gross margin was 43.9% (38.3%) supported by higher IPR licensing revenue and cost actions. Networks adjusted gross margin was 46.1% (39.3%). Reported gross margin was 43.1% (37.4%). Adjusted [1] EBITA was SEK 4.1 (3.7) b. with a 6.8% (5.7%) margin, with higher gross income partly offset by increased R&D investments in Networks for technology leadership. EBITA was SEK 2.4 (0.5) b. EBITA was SEK 4.1 (3.7) b. with a 6.8% (5.7%) margin, with higher gross income partly offset by increased R&D investments in Networks for technology leadership. EBITA was SEK 2.4 (0.5) b. Net income (loss) was SEK -11.0 (-0.6) b., including a SEK -11.4 b. impairment impact. EPS diluted was SEK -3.34 (-0.21). Free cash flow before M&A was SEK 7.6 (-5.0) b. benefiting from a strong improvement in working capital. Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, said: "In Q2, we maintained our leading market position, returned to growth in North America, and delivered strong gross margin expansion and free cash flow. We remained focused on matters in our control, to optimize our business amid a challenging market environment, with industry investment levels unsustainably low. Vonage remains foundational to build out a global platform for network APIs. This is critical for the digitalization of enterprises and society, and will drive future growth in the telecoms industry. We recorded an impairment charge in Q2, as market growth in the current business has slowed, and we must now refocus on improving performance. Our results highlight our competitiveness, and we will continue to take proactive steps to position the business for longer-term success. We expect market conditions to remain challenging this year, as the pace of India investments slow, however our sales will benefit during the second half from contract deliveries in North America." SEK b. Q2 2024 Q2 2023 YoY change Q1 2024 QoQ change Jan-Jun 2024 Jan-Jun 2023 YoY change Net sales 59.848 64.444 -7 % 53.325 12 % 113.173 126.997 -11 % Organic sales growth[2] - - -7 % - - - - -10 % Gross margin[2] 43.1 % 37.4 % - 42.5 % - 42.8 % 38.0 % - EBIT (loss) -13.519 -0.312 - 4.100 - -9.419 2.734 - EBIT margin[2] -22.6 % -0.5 % - 7.7 % - -8.3 % 2.2 % - EBITA[2] 2.426 0.542 348 % 4.893 -50 % 7.319 4.390 67 % EBITA margin[2] 4.1 % 0.8 % - 9.2 % - 6.5 % 3.5 % - Net income (loss) -10.999 -0.597 - 2.613 - -8.386 0.978 - EPS diluted, SEK -3.34 -0.21 - 0.77 - -2.57 0.25 - Free cash flow before M&A 7.595 -4.992 - 3.671 107 % 11.266 -13.008 - Net cash, end of period 13.133 1.892 - 10.807 22 % 13.133 1.892 - Adjusted financial measures[2] Adjusted gross margin 43.9 % 38.3 % - 42.7 % - 43.4 % 39.0 % - Adjusted EBIT (loss) -11.891 2.821 - 4.305 - -7.586 6.847 - Adjusted EBIT margin -19.9 % 4.4 % - 8.1 % - -6.7 % 5.4 % - Adjusted EBIT excluding impairments[3] 3.229 2.821 14 % 4.305 -25 % 7.534 6.847 10 % Adjusted EBIT margin excluding impairments[3] 5.4 % 4.4 % - 8.1 % - 6.7 % 5.4 % - Adjusted EBITA 4.054 3.675 10 % 5.10 -20 % 9.152 8.503 8 % Adjusted EBITA margin 6.8 % 5.7 % - 9.6 % - 8.1 % 6.7 % - *Sales adjusted for the impact of acquisitions and divestments and effects of foreign currency fluctuations. [1] Adjusted metrics are adjusted to exclude restructuring charges. This is a change in nomenclature only, compared with previous reports. [2] Non-IFRS financial measures are reconciled at the end of this report to the most directly reconcilable line items in the financial statement. [3] Excluding the non-cash impairment recorded in the second quarter 2024, relating to the impairment of intangible assets mainly attributed to the Vonage acquisition. NOTES TO EDITORS You find the complete report with tables in the attached PDF or on?https://www.ericsson.com/en/investors/financial-reports/interim-reports Video webcast for analysts, investors and journalists President and CEO Borje Ekholm and CFO Lars Sandstrom will comment on the report and take questions at a video webcast at 10:00 AM CEST (9:00 AM BST London, 4:00 AM EDT New York). Join the webcast?or please go to?www.ericsson.com/investors To ask a question:?Access dial-in information here The webcast will be available on-demand after the event and can be viewed at www.ericsson.com/investors. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Contact person Daniel Morris, Head of Investor Relations Phone: +44 7386657217 E-mail: investor.relations@ericsson.com Additional contacts Stella Medlicott, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Relations Phone: +46 730 95 65 39 E-mail: media.relations@ericsson.com Investors Lena Haggblom, Director, Investor Relations Phone: +46 72 593 27 78 E-mail:? lena.haggblom@ericsson.com Alan Ganson, Director, Investor Relations Phone: +46 70?267 27 30 E-mail: alan.ganson@ericsson.com Media Ralf Bagner, Head of Media Relations Phone: +46 76?128 47 89 E-mail: ralf.bagner@ericsson.com Media relations Phone: +46 10 719 69 92 E-mail:?media.relations@ericsson.com This is information that Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and the Swedish Securities Markets Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 07:00 CEST on July 12, 2024. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/ericsson-reports-second-quarter-results-2024-302195667.html 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! BRUSSELS, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sungrow, the global leading PV inverter and energy storage system provider, is happy to announce the supply of its state-of-the-art liquid-cooled BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) solution, the PowerTitan, for the 800MWh Vilvoorde BESS project in Belgium. The project will be developed by ENGIE, an international utility group who is a global reference in low-carbon energy and services. The system will be one of the largest ever installed in Europe with a power capacity of 200MW/800MWh and is the first BESS project Sungrow will supply in Belgium. Set for a grid connection in 2025 this project will deliver power to up to 96.000 households. Sungrow will supply 320 units of its cutting-edge liquid-cooled energy storage system PowerTitan for the ENGIE BESS project in Vilvoorde. The PowerTitan is an efficient, safe, and innovative storage solution that supports ENGIE to deliver energy. Due to the compact design and the pre-assembled delivery, the PowerTitan saves 50% of on-site installation time. Moreover, due to its back-to-back installation scheme, the small footprint makes the system especially efficient for large ESS plants. The liquid-cooled technology also ensures a longer battery life as it offers an intelligent temperature control system, enabling a maximum battery temperature difference of up to two and a half degrees Celsius. All the above elements, provides optimized CAPEX and OPEX costs, leading to a successful and sustainable in every aspect project. Sungrow's ESS Director Europe, Dr. James Li, said: "Sungrow is delighted to begin this new project together with ENGIE and to deliver our first BESS project in Belgium - one of the first storage projects of this size in mainland Europe. Energy storage is at the very forefront of enabling a secure and clean energy transition, and we at Sungrow are supporting a better, cleaner future for all and remain eager to build the bridge to a sustainable future together with our partners." The PowerTitan ESS series, having achived remarkable shipments in 2023 of over 10,5GWh worldwide, supporting the adoption of utility-scale storage systems across the energy industry. With a full range of innovative energy storage solutions and zero security incidents, Sungrow is on the path to becoming the world-leader in supply of ESS equipment and integrated system solutions. About Sungrow Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. ("Sungrow") is a global leading PV inverter and ESS provider with over?515?GW of power electronic converters installed worldwide as of?December?2023. Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and ESS for utility-scale, commercial & industrial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions, NEV driving solutions, EV charging solutions and renewable hydrogen production systems. With a strong 27-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow's products power over 170 countries worldwide.?For more information about Sungrow, visit www.sungrowpower.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2459912/Sungrow_liquid_cooled_energy_storage_system_PowerTitan.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2439560/Logo_Sungrow_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sungrows-powertitan-to-equip-the-vilvoorde-bess-800mwh-project-by-engie-in-belgium-302195729.html Corky Taylor Recognized Amongst Individuals That Have Made a Significant and Transformational Impact on Bourbon's Stature, Growth and Awareness LOUISVILLE, KY / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. is honored to share that R.M. Corky Taylor, 4th Generation and Chairman/CEO of Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co., has been included in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame's 2024 class. Corky Taylor is a respected businessman throughout the country. A tireless Bourbon entrepreneur by birth, Corky came out of retirement to focus on a lifelong dream to resurrect Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. with his son Carson. Corky Taylor, Chairman/CEO, Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. Corky Taylor to be Inducted Into 2024 Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame He built back the family legacy in Louisville along historic Whiskey Row, gaining national recognition - and national awards - by patiently waiting for his whiskey to age, living up to the original Peerless quality standards his ancestor first set in 1889. He continues his goodwill in supporting his local community. His personality shines as he happily greets customers visiting the distillery. When you meet Corky Taylor, you make a friend for life. "I am honored and humbled to accept this Hall of Fame induction. This honor goes back to my great-grandfather who started Peerless in 1889. My son Carson and I built the distillery from the ground up, and it is the employees who have helped resurrect the Peerless brand, as well as built a company that is known in all 50 states. It takes a team to be successful and I am proud of our history and the people who helped build Peerless to what it is today. Thank you for this honor," Corky Taylor, Chairman/CEO, Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co., said. Eric Gregory, longtime president of the Kentucky Distillers' Association that created and operates the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, lauded this year's visionary class and said, "Our signature Bourbon industry would not be what it is today without these distinguished honorees. Each put the industry before self, helping Kentucky cement its place in history as the international and undisputed home of Bourbon. And now we are honored to honor them. On behalf of our signature industry, we offer congratulations - and a heartfelt thank you - to these Bourbon heroes." The KDA created the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2001 to recognize individuals and organizations that have made a significant and transformational impact on the Bourbon industry. It is the highest honor given by the signature industry. Candidates are nominated each year by the KDA and its member distilleries. A blue-ribbon committee - including all living recipients of the Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award - painstakingly reviews and selects up to five applicants a year for induction. This year's class, in alphabetic order, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in September: Elmer Lucille Allen, Dee Ford, Ken Lewis, the late Peter T. Loftin, and R.M. Corky Taylor. The invitation-only ceremony will be held Tuesday, Sept. 10, at The Legacy at Log Still in Nelson County, Kentucky. The intimate event is held annually in conjunction with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown. About Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. The family-owned and operated craft distillery is located in Louisville, Kentucky. The distillery is known for its commitment to producing handcrafted, sweet mash bourbon and rye whiskey using traditional methods and the finest ingredients. Today, Peerless operates under the same distilled spirits number, DSP-KY-50, with the same historically superlative standards. It has opted to craft entirely in-house without outsourcing or comprising. Contact Information Cadie Tucker Marketing cadie@kentuckypeerless.com (502) 566-4999 Christina Vassallo Marketing Manager christina@kentuckypeerless.com 50244421892 SOURCE: Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. View the original press release on newswire.com. Der Goldpreis haussiert und schwingt sich von Hoch zu Hoch. Getrieben von geopolitischen Unsicherheiten sowie der Aussicht auf eine lockere Geldpolitik der FED gehen Experten aktuell von weiter steigenden Notierungen bis sogar in den Bereich von 3.000 US-Dollar je Unze Gold aus. Im Schatten des Basispreises notieren Goldproduzenten aus der zweiten Reihe sowie Explorationsunternehmen noch weit weg von ihren historischen Hochststanden entfernt und bieten dadurch erhebliches Aufholpotential. In diesem kostenlosen Report geben wir Ihnen Favoriten an die Hand, die aufgrund von Sondersituation die Chance auf eine Kursvervielfachung besitzen. Handeln Sie Jetzt! Fordern Sie jetzt den brandneuen Spezialreport an und profitieren Sie von dem weiter steigenden Kurs des Edelmetalls. Sichern Sie sich jetzt Ihren kostenfreien Report. EQS Post-admission Duties announcement: Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd. / Third country release according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 of the WpHG [the German Securities Trading Act] Haier Smart Home Co.,Ltd.: Announcement on the Completion of the Non-trading Transfer of Shares for the 2024 A-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan 12.07.2024 / 13:00 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Post-admission Duties announcement according to Article 50 Para. 1, No. 2 WpHG transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Announcement on the Completion of the Non-trading Transfer of Shares for the 2024 A-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan Qingdao / Shanghai / Frankfurt / Hong Kong, 12 July 2024 - Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. (the "Company" or "Haier Smart Home", D-share 690D.DE, A-share 600690.SH, H-share 06690.HK) today published an announcement in accordance with applicable trading rules of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and applicable PRC laws in relation to the Completion of the Non-trading Transfer of Shares for the 2024 A-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The announcement is fully available at: https://smart-home.haier.com/en/dggg/P020240712649055121227.pdf?appdesc=Announcement%20on%20the%20Completion%20of%20the%20Non-trading%20Transfer%20of%20Shares%20for%20the%202024%20A-share%20Core%20Employee%20Stock%20Ownership%20Plan IR Contact: Haier Smart Home Hong Kong T: +852 2169 0000 Email: ir@haier.hk Press Contact: CROSS ALLIANCE communication GmbH Sara Pinto pi@crossalliance.de T: +49 89 1250903 35 About Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd.: Haier is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household appliances with a focus on smart home solutions and customized production. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. develops, produces and distributes a wide range of household appliances. These include refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, water heaters, kitchen appliances as well as small household appliances and an extensive range of intelligent household appliances. The Company distributes its products through leading household brands such as Haier, Casarte, Leader, Candy, GE Appliances, AQUA and Fisher & Paykel. Haier Smart Home Co., Ltd. has launched Smart Home Experiential Cloud in the Chinese market, which connects homes, users, enterprises and ecosystem partners, and facilitates the integration of Haier's online, offline and micro-store businesses and supports user interaction to further optimize the user experience. 12.07.2024 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com OXFORD, England, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Theolytics, a clinical stage biotechnology company harnessing viruses to combat disease, announced that Charlotte Casebourne Stock, Co-Founder and CEO, has decided to transition into an advisory role with the company. Mike Grey, Executive Chair of the board of directors will assume overall leadership responsibility until further notice. Charlotte Casebourne Stock shares: "It's been extremely rewarding leading Theolytics from idea at inception in 2017 to dosing the first ovarian cancer patient with our lead oncolytic virus candidate THEO-260 this year. I set out on my entrepreneurial journey to drive equitable access to healthcare innovation, and to create sustainable companies. With the progress made, and our investors' support for Theolytics' lead clinical program, it is the right time for me to embark on a new chapter, in line with my personal mission." Mike Grey commented: "On behalf of the board and Theolytics' investors we would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to Charlotte. Without her, Theolytics wouldn't be in the strong position the company finds itself in today. Under Charlotte's leadership, over $40m of dilutive and non-dilutive capital was raised, and in only seven years the company has advanced into the clinic. We respect her decision to pursue new entrepreneurial endeavors, and wish her the very best. I look forward to working with her as an advisor, alongside Theolytics' Board and team to execute on the promising strategy defined." About Theolytics Theolytics is working to develop next generation oncolytic viral therapies, pioneering a new approach to develop efficacious, targeted candidates suitable for systemic intravenous delivery. The company is focused on the clinical development of its lead program, with the ambition of providing better outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer. Theolytics is backed by international life sciences investors M Ventures, Taiho Ventures, Epidarex Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises, Sound Bioventures and The University of Oxford. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2455984/Theolytics.jpg CONTACT: enquiries@theolytics.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/charlotte-casebourne-stock-moves-on-from-theolytics-to-next-entrepreneurial-endeavour-302192046.html 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. Wahrend Aktien wie Nvidia von der ersten Aufwartsentwicklung stark profitieren konnten, versprechen aussichtsreiche Player aus der zweiten Reihe noch enormes Aufwartspotenzial. Im kostenlosen, exklusiven Spezialreport prasentieren wir ihnen 5 innovative KI-Unternehmen, die bahnbrechende Entwicklungen in diesem Sektor pragen konnten. Warum sollten Sie dabei sein? Trotz der jungsten Erfolge steht die Entwicklung der kunstlichen Intelligenz noch am Beginn eines neuen Superzyklus. Experten gehen davon aus, dass der Sektor bis 2032 global auf 1,3 Billionen US-Dollar explodieren wird, wobei ein groer Teil auf Hardware und Infrastruktur entfallen wird. Nutzen Sie die Chance! Fordern Sie sofort unseren brandneuen Spezialreport an und erfahren Sie, welche 5 KI-Aktien das grote Potenzial zur Vervielfachung besitzen. Dieser Report ist komplett kostenlos und zeigt Ihnen die aussichtsreichsten Investments im KI-Sektor. Handeln Sie jetzt und sichern Sie sich Ihren kostenfreien Report! Myriad Uranium holds a 75% earnable interest in the Copper Mountain Uranium Project which saw US$78m (2024$) in exploration and development expenditures by Union Pacific during the 1970s. Union Pacific drilled approximately 2,000 boreholes, discovered 7 uranium deposits, and developed a 6-pit mine plan at Copper Mountain, estimating resources of between 15.7 and 30.1 Mlbs eU3O8 and estimating the further potential of known and speculated targets within the project area to be over 65 Mlbs. These estimates are historical and not yet current under NI 43-101. Myriad Uranium intends to bring these historical estimates current under NI 43-101 and if possible, go beyond them, initially focusing on the 'High Grade Zone' of the Canning Deposit (see Figure 1), which hosts the largest estimated historical resources at Copper Mountain. In a key step, the accuracy of important historical drill hole locations in the Company's data set was recently confirmed during a site visit by George van der Walt, member of the Company's Technical Committee, and Thomas Lamb, CEO. It is anticipated that this will enable more efficient confirmation of the historical resource estimates. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Myriad Uranium Corp. (CSE: M) (OTCQB: MYRUF) (FSE: C3Q) ("Myriad Uranium" or the "Company") is pleased to report on a recent site visit to the Copper Mountain Uranium Project (the "Project"), located in Wyoming, USA. The site visit was conducted by Thomas Lamb, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and George van der Walt, a Qualified Person and member of the Company's Technical Committee. Myriad Uranium's flagship asset, the Copper Mountain Uranium Project, underwent US$78m (2024 dollars) worth of exploration and development expenditure by Union Pacific in the 1970s. During this time, Union Pacific drilled more than 2,000 boreholes and discovered 7 uranium deposits and numerous prospects. This culminated in the development of a 6-pit mine plan focused on the Canning Deposit (Figure 3), based on estimated historical resources across the 7 uranium deposits (excluding other historical prospects and past producing mines) of 15.7 to 30.1 million pounds ("Mlbs"). Union Pacific had also estimated the aggregate potential of known and speculated targets could be over 65 Mlbs, based on extensions to existing targets and similar geological models for the surrounding area. These estimates are historical and not current under National Instrument 43-101. Figure 1: Copper Mountain Uranium Project, Wyoming, USA To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6301/216259_myriad1_550.jpg The objective of Myriad Uranium's recent site visit was to confirm the location of Union Pacific's borehole positions; inspect the terrain and site access; visit the past-producing Arrowhead Uranium Mine near the center of the Project area; and engage with potential contractors, all in preparation for upcoming geophysics, drilling, and other field activities. Figure 2: General Arrangement diagram for a large scale mine concept developed by Union Pacific based on a Phase 2 Pre-feasibility Study by Golder Associates concluded in August 1979 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6301/216259_myriad_550.jpg Thomas Lamb, CEO, commented "During our site visit we were able to confirm the accuracy of borehole locations in our data set. In particular, the borehole locations we have relating to the "Area of Special Interest" or "High Grade Zone" at North Canning, where Union Pacific drilled mineralized intercepts of up to 291 feet with grades of up to 3850 ppm, appear to be easily locatable with a hand-held GPS. This will greatly assist the planning and targeting of our upcoming drill program. While very few of the boreholes drilled during the 1970s were left intact or open after drilling, wooden pegs were found on surface with the borehole numbers stamped into metal tags which we've been able to cross reference with Union Pacific's historical drill data. Mr. van der Walt and I also visited the past-producing Arrowhead Uranium Mine in the centre of the Copper Mountain Uranium Project. During its operation in the 1950s, Arrowhead produced 500k lbs of uranium at 0.15% and may contain significant additional uranium, none of which was included in Union Pacific's historical feasibility studies. Measurements at Arrowhead taken with an RS 230 spectrometer (uncalibrated) during the site visit show readings of up to 750 ppm uranium in sediment between conglomerate boulders located on surface (Figure 3)." Figure 3: A) A view over part of the Canning area; B) Borehole with closed steel cap in the Canning area; C) Borehole with only a wooden peg in the Canning area; D) Borehole with solar water pump installed in the Fuller area; E) A view over the old Arrowhead Mine; F) Portable spectrometer and RadEye measurements in boulder material at Arrowhead Mine (readings up to 750 ppm U). To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6301/216259_0b91e62f94f4ebbe_004full.jpg George van der Walt, Qualified Person and a member of the Company's Technical Committee, commented that "the ability to locate the historic borehole positions on the ground at Copper Mountain gives us the opportunity to plan future activities, such as drilling, in a much more efficient manner. This was a very positive outcome from our site visit." Historical Estimates While Myriad Uranium has determined that the historical estimates described in this news release are relevant to the Copper Mountain Project area and are reasonably reliable given the authors and circumstances of their preparation, and are suitable for public disclosure, readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these historical estimates as an indicator of current mineral resources or mineral reserves at the project area. A qualified person (as defined under NI 43-101) has not done sufficient work to classify any of the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves, and Myriad Uranium is not treating the historical estimates as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. Also, while the Copper Mountain Project area contains all or most of each deposit referred to, some of the resources referred to may be located outside the current Copper Mountain Project area. Furthermore, the estimates are decades old and based on drilling data for which the logs are, as of yet, predominantly unavailable. The historical resource estimates, therefore, should not be unduly relied upon. Inherent limitations of the historical estimates include that the nature of the mineralization (fracture hosted) makes estimation from drill data less reliable than other deposit types (e.g. those that are thick and uniform). From Myriad Uranium's viewpoint, limitations include that the Company has not been able to verify the data itself and that the estimate may be optimistic relative to subsequent work which applied a "delayed fission neutron" (DFN) factor to calculate grades. On the other hand, DFN is controversial, in that the approach is viewed by some experts as too conservative. Nevertheless, it was applied in later resource estimations by Union Pacific relating to Copper Mountain. In order to verify the historical estimates and potentially re-state them as current resources, a program of digitization of data is required, followed by re-logging and/or re-drilling to generate new data that is comparable with the original data that can be used to establish the correlation and continuity of geology and grades between boreholes with sufficient confidence to estimate mineral resources. More details on this planned work will be provided in future updates. Qualified Person The scientific or technical information in this news release respecting the Company's Copper Mountain Project has been approved by George van der Walt, MSc., Pr.Sci.Nat., MGSSA, a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. It is based on the Qualified Person's initial review of historical reports which were recently obtained by the Company. The information did not include original data such as drilling records, sampling, analytical or test data underlying the information or opinions contained in the written documents. Therefore, the Qualified Person has not reviewed or otherwise verified the information and has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimates as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. The Qualified Person considers the information to be relevant based on the amount and quality of work undertaken and reported historically. A more thorough review of any available original data will be undertaken and reported on in more detail in future releases. Mr van der Walt is employed by The MSA Group (Pty) Ltd (MSA), a leading geological consultancy providing services to the minerals industry, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has more than 20 years industry experience and sufficient relevant experience in the type and style of mineralisation to report on exploration results. About Myriad Uranium Corp. Myriad Uranium Corp. is a uranium exploration company with an earnable 75% interest in the Copper Mountain Uranium Project in Wyoming, USA. Copper Mountain hosts several known uranium deposits and historic uranium mines, including the Arrowhead Mine which produced 500,000 lbs of eU3O8. Copper Mountain saw extensive drilling and development by Union Pacific, which developed a mine plan and built a leach pad for one of the deposits at Copper Mountain. Operations ceased in 1980 before mining could commence due to falling uranium prices. Approximately 2,000 boreholes have been drilled at Copper Mountain and the project area has significant exploration upside. Union Pacific is estimated to have spent C$117 million (2024 dollars) exploring and developing Copper Mountain, generating significant historical resource estimates which are detailed here. A recent detailed update with Crux Investor can be viewed here. The Company's presentation can be viewed here. Myriad also has a 50% interest in the Millen Mountain Property in Nova Scotia, Canada, with the other 50% held by Probe Metals Inc., and an 80% interest in uranium exploration licences in Niger. For further information, please refer to Myriad's disclosure record on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca), contact Myriad by telephone at +1.604.418.2877, or refer to Myriad's website at www.myriaduranium.com. Forward-Looking Statements Mineralization hosted on adjacent or nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the Company's properties. This news release contains "forward-looking information" that is based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. This forward-looking information includes, among other things, the Company's business, plans, outlook and business strategy. The words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "likely", "expect," "anticipate," "intend", "estimate", "plan", "forecast", "project" and "believe" or other similar words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect, including with respect to the Company's business plans respecting the exploration and development of the Company's mineral properties, the proposed work program on the Company's mineral properties and the potential and economic viability of the Company's mineral properties. Forward-Looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, but are not limited to: changes in economic conditions or financial markets; increases in costs; litigation; legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; and technological or operational difficulties. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect our forward-looking information. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this news release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216259 SOURCE: Myriad Uranium Corp. Penn Park Capital Management Announces Temporary Closure of the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund to New Investors Following Unprecedented Demand and Record-Breaking Performance in the First Half of 2024. Penn Park Capital Management Limited, a leading European fund manager with offices in London and Luxembourg, is pleased to announce a significant milestone for the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund. The fund has experienced extraordinary demand over the past 12 months, driven by massive interest in the digital asset landscape following ETF approvals in the sector. Over the last three months, the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund has achieved record-breaking returns, marking one of its most successful quarters to date. This remarkable performance underscores the fund's strategic approach and the growing confidence in digital assets among investors. In light of this exceptional demand and the fund's impressive performance, Penn Park Capital Management has made the strategic decision to temporarily close the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund to new investors. This measure is taken to ensure the fund continues to deliver high levels of performance and to manage the liquidity challenges associated with digital assets, which tend to have lower liquidity compared to traditional asset classes. The fund will be capped at $500 million until further notice. This decision will be reviewed periodically, considering improvements in liquidity or withdrawals by existing investors. At such time, Penn Park Capital Management will evaluate the potential to reopen the fund to new investors. "We are thrilled with the performance of the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund and the overwhelming interest from the investment community," said Daniel King, Senior Analyst at Penn Park Capital Management Limited. "Our primary goal is to maintain the integrity and performance of the fund for our current investors. By capping the fund, we can ensure that we continue to manage it effectively and capitalize on the exciting opportunities within the digital asset space." Penn Park Capital Management remains committed to delivering exceptional investment solutions and will continue to monitor market conditions closely. The firm looks forward to providing updates on the status of the Penn Park Digital Growth Fund and potential opportunities for new investors in the future. About Penn Park Capital Management: Penn Park Capital Management is a leading investment firm specializing in fund management, dedicated to delivering long-term returns for its clients. Concentrating on disruptive industry sectors and robust risk management, Penn Park Capital Management employs a disciplined approach to investment. By leveraging extensive market expertise and rigorous research, the firm identifies compelling opportunities across global markets. For media enquiries, please contact: Mrs. Esme Mcalley-Burnside (Public Relations Officer) Penn Park Capital Management Ltd Email: esme.burnside@pennparkcapital.com Web: www.pennparkcapital.com Tel: +44(0)20 3468 0662 Address: 8 St James's Square, London, SW1Y 4JU, England SOURCE: Penn Park Capital Management View the original press release on accesswire.com The leading creative high-tech company launched the newest HTVRONT Manual Heat Press on 28th June and will set the machine on pre-sale on 23rd July with an early-bird offer. SACRAMENTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / HTVRONT, a well-known handicraft machine brand, announced its self-designed new manual heat press, exclusive to household scenarios and small businesses. It will be on pre-sale with a 15% discount perk on 23rd July. Developed in collaboration with higher security and convenience, the HTVRONT Manual Heat Press aims to tackle the traditional heat press machines' most pressing challenges, including uneven and slow heating up, hard press-down, heat hovering above hands, shell with sharp corners, and more. HTVRONT Manual Heat Press To address these challenges, the HTVRONT product team is turning to intelligent solutions that harness the power of heat distribution, stability, and safety. The Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) thermistor technology, along with the attached improved soleplate, is a crucial element of the household manual heat press machine, ensuring a fast and uniform heat emission. HTVRONT leverages such impressive heating combinations to accelerate the ironing process so as to optimize the efficiency of creative activities. "Even with the long and hard challenge along the journey, we never consider compromising the quality and affordability and undermining our customers' interests. All those unpredictable hardships can only serve as a stimulus to march us forward for better products with unrelenting work," stated Amy, the product's chief designer and chairman of HTVRONT, "And the newest device is built upon such a principle. With the added weight component for higher stability, a 180-degree rotatable plate, and an independent control pad for enhanced security, customers are expected to enjoy a more soothing and hassle-free DIY experience." In addition to improving security, the pad has proven its effectiveness in household and professional use, enabling real-time intelligible observations via the easy-to-adjust heat settings and intuitive digital screen. Such a comprehensive approach empowers crafters to proactively optimize the most suitable ironing temperature and time for diverse materials and substrates of different brands. To facilitate certain pressure adjustments for masterful projects, the HTVRONT Manual Heat Press is born with a pressure regulator and press-down handle in a more modern and concise look compared to the existing industrial ones. This enables greater craft perfection and ensures safety under the improvement of round shell corner designs. This machine, designed to cater to the needs of household and commercial massive production and convenience, is released at $189.99 on 23rd July on the official website with around 15% off and will be sold on Amazon on 8th August. Details on pricing and more information about HTVRONT Manual Heat Press are available at https://shrsl.com/4ltwx. For regular updates on HTVRONT, follow us on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/htvront Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/htvront TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@htvront Contact Information Kimberly Xiong Brand PR kimberly@htvront.com +8619542807347 SOURCE: HTVRONT View the original press release on newswire.com. Prismo Metals Inc. (the "Company") (CSE:PRIZ)(OTCQB:PMOMF)(FSE:7KU) is pleased to announce that it has received permit approval from the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") for ten drill pads, at the Hot Breccia copper project in Southern Arizona. The drill pads will allow for drilling to test the prospective stratigraphy below the cover volcanic rock over a wide area, and in particular the large conductive anomaly identified by Prismo's 2023 ZTEM survey. Ground mapping, prospecting and sampling conducted earlier this year has supported the targeting process and target selection. A bond has been posted with the Bureau of Land Management as the final step required before proceeding. Preparatory work in advance of drilling will be expedited by Prismo through the utilization of existing road infrastructure built in the 1970's, which requires only minor repair and maintenance. Upon confirmation and acceptance of the bond by BLM, road upkeep and maintenance will start to enable drilling to commence in Q3 2024. Steve Robertson, President, commented "Getting the permit approval to proceed with this important drill program is a defining event for Prismo Metals as it marks the first time in five decades that exploration on this attractive target can be activated on a property where historical drillings reported several copper intercepts that exceeded 1% copper and elevated zinc .This 5,000-metre program will provide critical information on the vectoring needed to lead us to the heart of the yet another mineralizing system in one of the most prolific copper districts on the planet." The Company has established a budget of $3.0 million to complete the proposed five drill hole, 5,000 metre program. Each drill hole is intended to drill through the entire Paleozoic carbonate stratigraphy and Prismo anticipates 1,000 metres per drill hole although the exploration team will take advantage of the geological information provided by each drill hole to determine if any holes require extended drilling. Robertson added "The most recent exploration of this mineralized target was over 50 years ago. Since then, discovery of one of the world's most significant copper deposits 40 km away at Resolution has changed the "Art of the Possible" for exploration in the region. This amplifies our eagerness to initiate drilling in order to continue advancement of the exploration process." Figure 1. Location ofthe Hot Breccia Project in the Arizona Copper Belt. Figure 2.View of the subsurface looking northeasterly showing the conductive body from the ZTEM survey and cross sections of the Christmas deposit and the Hot Breccia area. Historic drill holes are shown with copper assays as disks within the red ellipse; the magenta color indicates > 1% Copper. About Hot Breccia The Hot Breccia property consists of 1,420 hectares 227 contiguous mining claims located in the world class Arizona Copper Belt between several very well understood world-class copper mines including Morenci, Ray and Resolution. (Figure 1) Hot Breccia shows many features in common with these neighboring systems, most prominently a swarm of porphyry dikes and series of breccia pipes containing numerous fragments of well copper-mineralized rocks mixed with fragments of volcanic and sedimentary derived from considerable depth. Prismo ran a ZTEM survey last year that identified a very large conductive anomaly directly beneath the breccia outcrops. Sampling at the project has shown the presence of copper mineralization associated with polymictic breccia that has brought fragments of sedimentary rocks and mineralization to the surface from depths believed to be 400-1,000 meters below the surface, so drilling of deep holes, possibly including a twin of an historic hole, is planned. Figure 3. Plan view of the surface geology showing the hot breccia land boundary in black and the cross sections from Fig. 2. The surface projection of the conductive body shown in Fig. 2 is roughly outlined in red. Assay results from historic drill holes are unverified as the core has been destroyed, but information has been gathered from memos, photos and drill logs that contain some, but not all, of the assay results and descriptions. QA/QC Dr. Craig Gibson, PhD., CPG., a Qualified Person as defined by NI-43-01 regulations and Chief Exploration Officer and a director of the Company, has reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in this news release. About Prismo Metals Inc. Prismo (CSE:PRIZ) is mining exploration company focused on two precious metal projects in Mexico (Palos Verdes and Los Pavitos) and a copper project in Arizona (Hot Breccia). Please follow @PrismoMetals on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube Prismo Metals Inc. 1100 - 1111 Melville St., Vancouver, British Columbia V6E 3V6 Contact: Alain Lambert, Chief Executive Officer alambert@cpvcgroup.ca Steve Robertson, President steve.robertson@prismometals.com Jason Frame, Manager of Communications jason.frame@prismometals.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its 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. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things: the timing, costs and results of drilling at Hot Breccia. These forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: delays in obtaining or failure to obtain appropriate funding to finance the exploration program at Hot Breccia. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that: the ability to raise capital to fund the drilling campaign at Hot Breccia and the timing of such drilling campaign. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor. SOURCE: Prismo Metals Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com BERLIN, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Silkland, a tech brand specializing in cables and accessories, has once again raised the bar with its new 1.2m USB-IF Certified USB4 Cable. This latest cable delivers unmatched speed and convenience, and works seamlessly with all Thunderbolt 4 / 3 / Type C devices, making it an essential tool for professionals and everyday users alike. Silkland's latest offering stands out as the longest USB-IF certified USB4 cable, measuring at 1.2m. This means users can now enjoy a longer reach without compromising speed and efficiency compared to the standard 1m cables. Fully supports the latest features to future-proof your setup. Backward compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2. One of the unique features of this USB4 cable is its small interface. Unlike the bulky designs of others, it ensures compatibility with cased devices. Moreover, its Netbraid-48 construction enhances both softness and durability, promising longevity and sustained quality through extensive use. Beyond convenience and durability, the Silkland 1.2m USB4 Cable is 2x faster than the previous generation USB4 cable, delivering up to 40Gbps bandwidth. With this speed, users can copy 14 hours of high-definition video or 25,000 photos in just one minute, saving valuable time and effort. In addition to its data sync capabilities, the Silkland 1.2m USB4 Cable offers rapid charging up to 240W (48/5A) power supply. It is also backward compatible with 100W, 140W, and 180W in Extended Power Range (EPR), making it a versatile and reliable charging solution. Equipped with an E-Marker chip, it ensures safety, stability, and battery protection for worry-free use. For professionals, the cable offers a single 8K@60Hz/5K@60Hz/4K@144Hz or dual 4K@60Hz display support. This feature allows users to connect their laptop or dock to a monitor and get a crisp detail and full-color gamut view. The cable also supports MST Daisy Chain, improving work efficiency and project professionalism. For more information, please visit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1VFF7HP About Silkland Founded in 2019, Silkland integrates design, R&D, and sales, specializing in high-end cable development. With a focus on cutting-edge technology products, it leads the high-end cable market across the US, Europe, Japan. As a member of VESA and USB-IF, Silkland has demonstrated its commitment to quality and innovation by developing certified DP 2.1 cables, USB4 cables, HDMI 2.1 cables. TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@silkland_official YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsiWyZZJFoDLRGvfs0ETNqw Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2454248/U4_1_2P.mp4 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/silkland-releases-1-2m-usb4-cable-40gbps-data-sync-240w-rapid-charging-8k6k5k-302195810.html North Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Lion One Metals Limited (TSXV: LIO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) (ASX: LLO) ("Lion One" or the "Company") is pleased to report Q2 CY2024 gold production for the Tuvatu Gold Mine in Fiji. Highlights: 3,551 oz of gold recovered during Q2 2024 3,251 oz of gold poured during Q2 2024 32,100 tonnes milled during Q2 2024 Quarterly Production Results Lion One Metals has produced 3,551 oz of gold during the three-month period ending June 30th, 2024. This marks an increase from the prior three-month period ending March 31st, 2024, during which 1,394 oz of gold was produced, and represents a ramp-up of mining and processing activities during the pilot plant phase of operations (Figure 1). The increase in production is due to the introduction of mechanized production in May and June, as well as the increased mill throughput from February to May (Figure 2). A total of 32,100 tonnes of mineralized material was processed during Q2 CY2024, compared to 20,751 tonnes in Q1 CY2024. Lion One Chairman and CEO Walter Berukoff commented: "We're pleased with the production results at Tuvatu this quarter. Commissioning of the processing plant was only completed in January, with some components only installed in April and May." "This quarter represents a milestone for the company as it is the first quarter in which the plant has been operating at full capacity. It is also the first quarter in which we have had mechanized production. We are just beginning to see the potential at Tuvatu and we're excited as we look forward to doubling the plant capacity from 300 TPD to 600-700 TPD, and to advancing towards the ultra-high-grade Zone 500." Figure 1. Tuvatu Monthly Gold Production. Gold recovery and production has increased steadily at Tuvatu as mining and processing activities have ramped up during the pilot plant phase of operations. A step change increase in production occurred in May and June following the introduction of mechanized production. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/216269_fceea7e8a47f4916_001full.jpg Figure 2. Tuvatu Monthly Mill Throughput. Mill throughput at Tuvatu has steadily increased since the first gold pour in October 2023. The second quarter or 2024 is the first quarter in which the Tuvatu processing plant has been operating at full capacity. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2178/216269_fceea7e8a47f4916_002full.jpg Board of Directors Mr. David Tretbar has resigned from the company's Board of Directors. Mr Tretbar has resigned due to his increased management responsibilities at San Cristobal Mining, for which he is the founder, Senior Vice President of Exploration, and Director. Mr Tretbar was appointed to the Board of Directors in June 2020 and helped guide Lion One Metals through a period of tremendous growth, including the discovery of the Zone 500 feeder zone, the construction and commissioning of the Tuvatu underground gold mine and processing plant, the first gold pour at Tuvatu, and the ramp-up of gold production during the 300 TPD pilot plant phase. Lion One CEO Walter Berukoff commented, "We're grateful for all the contributions David has made to the success of Lion One over the past four years. The Tuvatu gold project has benefitted greatly from David's technical knowledge and experience, and we wish him all the best in his work with San Cristobal Mining." Competent Persons Statement The information in this report that relates to mineral exploration at the Tuvatu Gold Project is based on information compiled by the Lion One team and reviewed by Alex Nichol, who is the company's Vice President of Geology and Exploration. Mr Nichol is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and has sufficient experience that is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration, and to the activity being undertaken, to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 edition of the 'Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves' (JORC code). Mr Nichol has read and approved this news release and consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on the information in the form and context in which it appears. About Lion One Metals Limited Lion One Metals is an emerging Canadian gold producer headquartered in North Vancouver BC, with new operations established in late 2023 at its 100% owned Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project in Fiji. The Tuvatu project comprises the high-grade Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Deposit, the Underground Gold Mine, the Pilot Plant, and the Assay Lab. The Company also has an extensive exploration license covering the entire Navilawa Caldera, which is host to multiple mineralized zones and highly prospective exploration targets. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Walter Berukoff, Chairman & CEO Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Service Provider accepts responsibility or the adequacy or accuracy of this release This press release may contain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "proposed", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. This forward-looking information reflects Lion One Metals Limited's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Lion One Metals Limited and on assumptions Lion One Metals Limited believes are reasonable. These assumptions include, but are not limited to, the actual results of exploration projects being equivalent to or better than estimated results in technical reports, assessment reports, and other geological reports or prior exploration results. Forward-Looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Lion One Metals Limited or its subsidiaries to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: the stage development of Lion One Metals Limited, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of current research and development or operational activities; competition; uncertainty as to patent applications and intellectual property rights; product liability and lack of insurance; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation, affecting mining, timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; not realizing on the potential benefits of technology; conclusions of economic evaluations; and lack of qualified, skilled labor or loss of key individuals. Although Lion One Metals Limited has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Lion One Metals Limited 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/216269 SOURCE: Lion One Metals Limited Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Nova Pacific Metals Corp. (CSE: NVPC) (OTCQB: NVPCF) (FSE: YQ1) (WKN: A3DMP6) (the "Company," or "Nova Pacific") is pleased to announce that it has qualified for trading on the OTCQB Venture Market (the "OTCQB") in the United States operated by the OTC Markets Group Inc. The Company's common shares commenced trading today on the OTCQB under the symbol "NVPCF". Nova Pacific 's common shares will continue to trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "NVPC". "We are delighted to initiate trading on the OTCQB. The U.S. market has shown considerable interest in companies involved in critical and precious metal exploration, and our presence on the OTCQB is set to enhance our visibility and reach," J. Malcolm Bell, Nova Pacific CEO commented. "As we continue to make positive strides within our project portfolio, we are excited about the opportunity to connect with a wider investor base." The OTCQB offers investors transparent trading in entrepreneurial and development stage in the U.S. and international companies. To be eligible, companies must be current in their reporting and undergo an annual verification and management certification process. The OTCQB quality standards provide a strong baseline of transparency, as well as the technology and regulation to improve the information and trading experience for investors. Investors can find real-time level 2 quotes and market information at https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/NVPCF/overview. Additionally, the Company granted an aggregate of 210,000 incentive stock options to certain directors, each of which vests immediately, is exercisable into common shares of the Company at a price of $0.25 per share for a period of five years, and is governed by the terms of Nova Pacific's stock option plan. About Nova Pacific Nova is a Canadian exploration and development company focused on pursuing projects with a significant discovery providing a viable pathway to development. The key projects owned by the Company are its Deer Musk West Lithium project located in Clayton Valley, Nevada and its recently acquired Lara Project located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Company intends to continue its exploration and development efforts on its mineral projects with a view towards maximizing shareholder value. For additional Information please visit: www.novapacificmetals.com. On behalf of the Board of Directors J. Malcolm Bell Chief Executive Officer The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the matters referenced herein and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forward-looking information. Forward-Looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions. Forward-Looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of regulatory decisions, competitive factors in the industries in which the Company operates, prevailing economic conditions, changes to the Company's strategic growth plans, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof, and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216273 SOURCE: Nova Pacific Metals Corp. Duke Energy teams up with Buncombe County, N.C., to serve more customers with renewable energy NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Duke Energy By Gina DiPietro | illumination Staff Writer In the rolling hills of Asheville, N.C., a transformation is underway. As the community announced a goal to power all of Buncombe County with 100% renewable energy by 2042, Duke Energy set out to construct another solar facility as part of the Western Carolinas Modernization Plan. The challenge? To find enough space - 20 to 30 acres - to build a 5-megawatt (MW) solar plant in a region with smaller parcel sizes, mountainous terrain and a high cost of buildable land. Larry Watson, a business developer at Duke Energy who originated the project, saw an opportunity to collaborate with Buncombe County, which wanted to find a way to repurpose a solid waste facility near Interstate 26 and the French Broad River. The answer: Duke Energy's first solar plant on a municipal landfill. "It presented some challenges," Watson said, "like constructing a solar facility without penetrating the cap, the landfill's surface. But it also offered new acreage in the North Carolina mountains where open space and flat land is hard to find." To offset the higher cost to build Woodfin Solar Facility, Watson's team drew up an equally creative lease agreement where Buncombe County is compensated in renewable energy certificates (RECs) rather than cash. One REC is issued when 1 MW-hour of electricity is generated and delivered to the grid from a renewable energy source. They can be bought, sold or traded to organizations or individuals who want to offset their carbon footprint and support clean energy. It's a creative regulatory solution that moves both parties forward, said Jennifer Bennett, Duke Energy's government and community relations manager in the Asheville region. "It just adds to the uniqueness of this project," Bennett said. "And I think it's worth highlighting that it's taken a lot of people thinking creatively and working incredibly hard to pull this off." As owner and operator of the 5-MW facility, Duke Energy will generate enough solar energy to power about 1,000 customers annually, while furthering the county's renewable energy goals by about 20%. "Meeting our ambitious goal requires creative thinking and collaboration," said Buncombe County Sustainability Director Jeremiah LeRoy. "This project is a terrific example of both as it will supply our community with renewable energy for decades to come." Also tangible, said Duke Energy Project Manager Nisha Strain, was the opportunity to bring renewed purpose to a site that couldn't be used for anything else. "Solar is land-intensive, so the adaptive reuse of this property is key," Strain said. "It required a lot of creativity in how we'd construct it on an uneven surface, but it also shows the company's effort to repurpose existing infrastructure as we transition to a zero-carbon future." Her role included regular site visits to Woodfin, N.C., where crews constructed a system that's similar to what you'd see on a rooftop. Concrete ballast blocks, gravel and adjustable racking were brought in to level out the surface, creating a steady foundation for solar panels that suspend above the landfill so as not to penetrate its cap. "We also needed to keep the cable trays above ground," Strain said of equipment that carries solar power to the grid to serve customers, "while creating access points for maintenance and vegetation management." While the landfill's been closed since 1996, municipal employees need access to perform state-required monitoring activities. The county retains this responsibility under the 25-year lease agreement, with options for renewal. They also take ownership of any subsurface risks, including waste buried below the surface. "We are encouraged to see this project come to fruition," said Dane Pederson, Buncombe County solid waste director. "It's both a productive use of the closed landfill space and an innovative solution for integrating solar panel systems while protecting the existing cap layer over the landfill, with no surface penetrations." Woodfin Solar Facility is backed up by the 560-MW Asheville Combined Cycle Station, a cleaner-burning natural gas plant that is 75% more efficient than the coal plant it replaced (previously at the same site). The grid needs dispatchable resources like natural gas, which can generate electricity in any type of weather, to support greater integration of renewables (like solar, available only when the sun is shining) to maintain reliability for customers. While this infrastructure is geographically in the Asheville region, energy is fed to the grid to benefit communities in both North Carolina and South Carolina. Duke Energy believes solar, and energy storage, will play an important role in how more diverse, clean energy is delivered to Carolinas customers. North Carolina is already fourth in the nation for solar and the company is targeting to have more than 6,400 MW of new solar on the system by 2031. The company is also targeting solar procurement in the Carolinas of over 1 gigawatt annually later this decade. Woodfin also delivers on Duke Energy's commitment to deploy 15 MW of solar and at least 5 MW of battery storage as part of the Western Carolinas Modernization Plan, which aims to meet the region's growing power needs with safe, reliable and affordable energy. And at each step of the process, public input laid the foundation for what came next. "From letters of support," Bennett said, "to advocating for the construction of projects, the Asheville region was active in bringing this plan to life. And that kind of grassroots community advocacy still remains for Duke Energy's infrastructure investments in the region." 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 We Are China Black-tailed gulls attract visitors to east China's coastal city People's Daily Online) 14:54, July 12, 2024 Tourists flock to a coastal scenic spot in Rongcheng, east China's Shandong Province, July 6, 2024. (vip.people.com.cn/Li Xinjun) Tourists flock to coastal scenic spots in northern Rongcheng, east China's Shandong Province, where the splendid seascape, adorable black-tailed gulls, and distinctive folk-art performances provide great enjoyment. (Intern Xing Yawen contributed to this story.) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Hudnell Law Group is pleased to announce that its founder Lewis Hudnell has been selected to the 2024 Northern California Super Lawyers List - his 10th consecutive selection. HLG Super Lawyers 2024 Hudnell Law Group founder Lewis Hudnell has been included on the Northern California Super Lawyers List for the 10th time. Lewis Hudnell is an intellectual property attorney specializing in patent litigation. He is committed to providing outstanding client service and to helping clients achieve favorable results in complex patent disputes. Hudnell has served as lead counsel on numerous patent lawsuits in federal court. He has successfully represented clients at trial and obtained numerous settlements and dismissals in his clients' favor. He has also successfully represented clients in post-grant proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Hudnell earned a B.S. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell in the area of patent litigation. "Being selected to the Northern California Super Lawyers List for the 10th consecutive year is an incredible honor," says Lewis Hudnell. "This milestone is a testament to the unwavering dedication and exceptional talent of the Hudnell Law Group team. Their relentless commitment to excellence continues to drive our success, and I am profoundly grateful for their invaluable contributions." Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area. The result is a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of exceptional attorneys. No more than five percent of the lawyers in the Northern California region are selected by Super Lawyers. The Super Lawyers lists are published nationwide in Super Lawyers Magazines and in leading city and regional magazines and newspapers across the country. The complete Northern California Super Lawyers list has been published in Super Lawyers Magazine. For more information on Hudnell Law Group, go to hudnelllaw.com. For more information on Super Lawyers, go to superlawyers.com. Contact Information Melissa Young Chief Marketing Officer melissa@hudnelllaw.com 650-564-7720 SOURCE: Hudnell Law Group View the original press release on newswire.com. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - GREAT ATLANTIC RESOURCES CORP. (TSXV: GR) (the "Company" or "Great Atlantic") is pleased to thank the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and Rhiana Henry (a post-doctoral research fellow) for Rhiana's recent research visit to the Company's South Quarry Property, located in south-central Newfoundland. The visit focused on an area where Great Atlantic confirmed beryl crystals and is evaluating emerald potential. Rhiana Henry of Gemological Institute of America in the middle, with Great Atlantic Representatives Victoria McConnell & Mervin Dolland (July 3rd, 2024) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_002full.jpg Rhiana Henry visited the South Quarry Property on behalf of the GIA on July 3rd to meet Great Atlantic representatives and Art Gardiner (a well-known Newfoundland based prospector) and to collect rock samples as part of on-going emerald-related research. The visit was conducted in an area where the Company has sampled green beryl crystals for emerald potential evaluation. Emerald gemstone is a variety of the mineral beryl. Rhiana Henry is a post-doctoral research fellow who studies mineralogy and geology for gem purposes. Beryl Crystals from South Quarry To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_003full.jpg Beryl Crystals from South Quarry To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_004full.jpg Rhiana Henry of GIA and Prospector Art Gardner To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_005full.jpg Great Atlantic's primary exploration focus at the South Quarry Property is tungsten. The Company confirmed tungsten mineralization in various regions of the property including high grade tungsten mineralization in samples in the northern region of the property in the area of two quarries. Numerous 2015 Great Atlantic samples from these two quarries exceeded 1% WO3 (see Company news release of November 19, 2015). To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_006full.jpg The South Quarry Property consists of six mineral licences covering an area of 2,550 hectares, located in south-central Newfoundland. Access to the property is excellent with a paved road transecting the property. David Martin, P.Geo. (New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador), a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and VP Exploration for Great Atlantic, verified beryl crystals during 2015 and 2024 field work at the South Quarry Property. On Behalf of the board of directors "Christopher R Anderson" To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_007full.jpg About Great Atlantic Resources Corp.: Great Atlantic Resources Corp. is a Canadian exploration company focused on the discovery and development of mineral assets in the resource-rich and sovereign risk-free realm of Atlantic Canada, one of the number one mining regions of the world. Great Atlantic is currently surging forward building the company utilizing a Project Generation model, with a special focus on the most critical elements on the planet that are prominent in Atlantic Canada, Gold, Copper, Zinc, Nickel, Cobalt, Antimony and Tungsten. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3027/216231_0e39c12354bc7a82_008full.jpg This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities and events or developments that the Company expects, 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 or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. 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. Great Atlantic Resource Corp. 888 Dunsmuir Street - Suite 888, Vancouver, B.C., V6C 3K4 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216231 SOURCE: Great Atlantic Resources Corp. Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - E-Power Resources Inc. (CSE: EPR) ("E-Power" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on exploration completed and planned on the Company's Tetepisca Graphite Property and to announce the appointment of Dr. William Pfaffenberger to the Board of Directors. Exploration Update During June, the Company collected a total of 1,037 kilograms (1.037 tonnes) comprising 4 bulk samples from 3 graphite showings located on the southern claims of the Tetepisca Graphite property. The samples, shipped from Baie-Comeau, have been received at Volt Carbon Technologies Inc. ("Volt" or "Volt Technologies") Scarborough, Ontario dry separation facility. Volt will be completing metallurgical test work, including production of graphite concentrates and graphite flake size distribution analysis, from each of the samples. The Company is also initiating preliminary mineralogy and geochemistry studies from field replicates and representative cuts of the bulk samples. During June, the Company also initiated a geological and geophysical prospecting program on the northern claims of the Tetepisca property. Prospecting is evaluating targets prioritized from the Company's 2022 high-resolution magnetic-electromagnetic airborne survey. Graphite mineralization was located at several locations in the target areas with visual graphite concentration estimates ranging from trace to 20%. Thirty-three outcrop grab samples have been submitted to ALS Laboratories for graphite carbon analyses. Field geologists, prospectors, and technicians currently on a break will be returning to the Tetepisca property during the middle of July and will resume prospecting at selected target areas across the property. Pending reception of the required permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests, the Company will be completing a 20 to 30 tonne bulk sample at 2 locations to be determined based on the results of metallurgical, mineralogy, and geochemical work in progress. Board of Directors Update The Company is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr William Pfaffenberger to the Board of Directors. Dr. Pfaffenberger has over 40 years of active involvement in several mining companies both in management and on their boards of directors. He served previously as CFO of Teuton Resources (TSXV: TUO) and CEO of Volt Carbon Technologies (TSXV: VCT). He is President of a private mineral exploration company, Fundamental Resources Corp, with properties in British Columbia. Dr. Pfaffenberger is a retired professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Victoria. He served as Chairman of the Board of Pension Trustees for 11 years overseeing more than $400 million in assets. The company also announces the resignation of Thomas Langley from the Board of Directors due to his increased career commitments. Mr. Langley will continue to serve the Company as the first member of the newly formed Advisory Board. Other appointments to the Advisory Board will be announced in due course. Qualified Person Jamie Lavigne, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration and a director of E-Power, is a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release. About E-Power Resources Inc. E-Power Resources Inc. is an exploration stage company engaged principally in the acquisition, exploration, and development of graphite properties in Quebec. Its flagship asset, the Tetepisca Graphite Property, is located in the Tetepisca Graphite District of the North Shore Region of Quebec, approximately 215 kilometers from the Port of Baie-Comeau. For further information, please refer to the Company's disclosure record on SEDAR (www.sedarplus.ca) or contact the Company by email at info@e-powerresources.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors 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 are "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company based on information currently available to it. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, which may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the contents of this news release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216286 SOURCE: E-Power Resources Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - The Kidney Foundation of Canada is seeking input from people with lived experience of kidney disease to help inform the development of a national Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Framework. Patients and caregivers are encouraged to take 10 minutes to complete an anonymous survey to share their personal experiences. "Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is not considered a priority public health issue in Canada," said Carrie Thibodeau, National Director of Programs & Public Policy. "Recognizing CKD as a chronic disease in its own right is necessary to drive innovative research and improve kidney care for the 4 million Canadians affected by kidney disease. A properly funded and nationally recognized system for comprehensive kidney care is essential." To improve kidney care in Canada, The Kidney Foundation is working in collaboration with health professionals, patients, families, and many other partners to develop the framework. It will outline key priorities for the actions needed to transform kidney disease prevention, detection, and treatment in Canada. The online survey is available in English, French, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Punjabi, and Tagalog at kidney.ca. Canadians with lived experience are being asked to complete the survey by July 28. "Our commitment is to ensure that every Canadian has access to quality kidney care," said Ms. Thibodeau. These are the facts driving our commitment to advocate for change: There is no cure for kidney disease 1 in 10 Canadians is affected, and those numbers are rapidly rising Kidney disease disproportionately affects the most vulnerable people in our society Most people don't know that they're at risk, because symptoms don't usually appear until the disease is advanced Kidney disease is preventable and treatable, especially in its early stages Those who progress to kidney failure face devastating physical, emotional, and financial hardships CKD costs the Canadian economy billions of dollars annually - 30 - Contact: About The Kidney Foundation of Canada Excellent kidney health, optimal quality of life, and a cure for kidney disease. For 60 years, this vision has guided us to be a focused leader in the development of programs, services, research opportunities and awareness campaigns. The Kidney Foundation has a positive impact on millions of Canadians impacted by kidney disease. The Foundation's national research program has grown to become one of the most important sources of funding for scientists conducting kidney-related research. The Foundation is committed to providing education, information and support about kidneys and kidney disease. For more information, visit kidney.ca. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216204 SOURCE: The Kidney Foundation of Canada Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Over the past two days, St. Kitts and Nevis warmly welcomed esteemed citizens and industry leaders to the 2024 inaugural Investment Gateway Summit. The Summit, a first for St. Kitts and Nevis, for the region and for the world, is a platform for economic citizens, prospective investors and government to share ideas. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10480/216284_stkittsnevisimage.jpg Setting the Stage for Connection and Excellence The Summit, held at the prestigious St. Kitts Marriott Resort, commenced with an energetic morning as the Summit's Master of Ceremony, His Excellency Larry Vaughan, led the remarkable welcome - setting the stage for a series of engaging and relevant discussions and valuable networking opportunities. The launch was a resounding success with attendees registered from across the globe under the invitation to 'Connect, Collaborate and Celebrate.' The event organisers commented that: "the event was oversubscribed which is a testament of the relevance and importance of such a gathering." Fostering an Environment for Collaboration The Summit is designed in a way that is intimate enough to forge impactful and lasting connections while being big and bold enough to encourage forward-thinking and trending conversations that are vital to both the St. Kitts and Nevis and global economies. The Hon. Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew Focuses on the Huge Impact of CBI on St. Kitts and Nevis' Success Story The highlight of the morning was the Prime Minister's compelling and heartfelt keynote speech, giving sincere thanks to the economic citizens and industry leaders for their contributions to Citizenship by Investment (CBI). He noted how CBI has contributed, directly and indirectly to many facets of St Kitts and Nevis. Dr. Terrance Drew highlighted St. Kitts and Nevis' exceptional human development index and emphasised the importance of collaboration and integrity within the CBI Programme. "This Summit theme connect, collaborate, celebrate, is more than just a gathering. It is a testament to our collective vision of forging a prosperous future through innovation, partnership and shared success. As I stand before you, I am filled with immense pride for our nation's rich heritage, dynamic culture, and the boundless opportunities that lie ahead." The keynote address was preceded by a speech from the CEO of the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU), Mr. Michael Martin. Mr. Martin shared insight on the new Act passed in June that will turn the CIU into a statutory body. He also introduced the revised pricing announced earlier in the week. "We continuously look for ways to innovate and strengthen our already watertight Programme because we take seriously our position as a spearhead of the Citizenship by Investment industry. The protection, adaptability and resilience of our Programme is paramount, and so we continue to evolve it."- Mr. Michael Martin. The Honourable Dr. Terrance Drew - Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis delivers the keynote address at the Investment Gateway Summit 2024 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10480/216284_917ddffd44b89a38_002full.jpg Leading a Culture of Ethical Practices By adhering to ethical citizenship practices and introducing innovative and robust layers to its already strong CBI Programme, St. Kitts and Nevis sets a benchmark for responsible and sustainable investment, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct within the CBI industry. In addition to vibrant discussion and the active exchange of ideas, attendees of the Investment Gateway Summit were treated to a vibrant drumming session by the Royd Phipps Drummers showcasing the lively spirit of St. Kitts and Nevis. The 2024 inaugural Investment Gateway Summit in St. Kitts and Nevis delivered its promise of being a groundbreaking event, showcasing the country's commitment to innovation, collaboration, and excellence. The next few days are set to continue to explore the opportunities in St. Kitts and Nevis - a country that continues thriving. Delegates, who have commented on the energy and dynamism of the Summit, have been overwhelmed by the nation's warm welcome and beautiful country. Tonight, the Prime Minister will host his exclusive gala dinner for his economic citizens and tomorrow the delegates will hop over to Nevis for an excursion. Click the image above to view and extract from the Prime Minister's keynote address Cannot view this video? Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at9yUGbQkZU To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216284 SOURCE: St. Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit PUNE, India, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Stellar Market Research, a leading Healthcare business research firm has published a report on the "PPG Biosensors Market". The market size for the PPG Biosensors Market was USD 470.49 Mn in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.4 percent through the forecast period, reaching USD 1001.73 Mn by 2030. The report on PPG Biosensors provides a detailed analysis of the approaches of the top players in the market with an in-depth analysis of the market segments and regions. A wide-ranging analysis of market dynamics including drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges is provided in the PPG Biosensors Market report. It also includes statistics for import/export consumption, supply and demand, price, cost, revenue, and gross margins which makes it an investor's guide. The information for the PPF Biosensors Market report was collected using primary and secondary research methods, which were combined to make the report reliable. The primary research conducted includes the questionnaire distribution, surveys, and phone interviews with industry experts, market leaders, marketing professionals, and entrepreneurs. The bottom-up methodology has been used to estimate the global and regional market size. SWOT analysis was used to provide the strengths and weaknesses, while PESTEL analysis to deliver micro-economic factors of the key players in the market. Get your Sample PDF: https://www.stellarmr.com/report/req_sample/PPG-Biosensors-Market/1491 PPG Biosensors Market Scope Market Size in 2023 USD 470.49 Mn Market Size in 2030 USD 1001.73 Mn CAGR 11.4 Percent Forecast Period 2024-2030 Base Year 2023 Number of Pages 229 No. of Tables 138 No. of Charts and Figures 193 Segment Covered By Product Application, and Distribution Channel Regional Scope North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, South America Report Coverage Market Share, Size, and Forecast by Revenue | 2024-2030, Market Dynamics, Growth Drivers, Restraints, Investment Opportunities, and Key Trends, Competitive Landscape, Key Players Benchmarking, Competitive Analysis, MMR Competition Matrix, Competitive Leadership Mapping, Global Key Players' Market Ranking Analysis. What's New: Recent Additions and Updates A detailed analysis of updates on recent regulatory approvals for PPG biosensors, focusing on key markets like the US, Europe, and Asia. Discuss the effects of these approvals on market growth and adoption. Highlight recent introductions of advanced PPG biosensors with improved accuracy, reliability, and user-friendliness. Include examples from leading companies and innovative startups. Details on new market growths, partnerships, and collaborations within the PPG biosensors industry. Include strategic alliances between technology providers, healthcare institutions, and consumer electronics companies. PPG Biosensors Market Dynamics Continuous evolution in the advanced PPF biosensor technology has resulted in the development of many devices that increase the accuracy and efficacy of biosensors. The advanced sensors can detect multiple wavelengths, increasing the precision of metrics like heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and stress indicators. For instance, the incorporation of green, red, and infrared light in the advanced PPG Biosensors has improved the heart monitoring efficiency by about 20%, which has further resulted in fueling the demand with about 50 million PPF-incorporated wearables distributed globally in 2023. Advanced PPG sensors with artificial intelligence are included in products made by companies like Apple and Fitbit, which provides insight into the strong market performance. For Instance, the Apple Watch Series 9 is equipped with the S9 chipset. This watch offers advanced health monitoring features such as ECG, blood oxygen levels, and REM sleep tracking. It also includes an enhanced version of Siri for health-related queries. Additionally, Masimo received FDA approval in 2023 for over-the-counter and prescription use of its new "W1" smartwatch. The Masimo W1 watch combines an integrated optical sensor and electrocardiogram (ECG) electrode pads that can be used to detect physiological signals. The advancement in technology and the non-invasive nature of PPG biosensors are further expected to drive the growth of the PPG Biosensors Market. PPG Biosensors Market Regional Insights In 2023, North America dominated the PPG Biosensors Market and is expected to grow significantly during the forecast period. The growing incidence of chronic diseases such as cardiac disorders and diabetes increases the need for continuous health monitoring thereby increasing the demand for the PPG Biosensor Market. According to SMR, around 836,546 Americans lose their lives to cardiovascular disease (CVD) each year, and 92.1 million Americans have some kind of CVD. As low-cost wearable sensors become more widely available, PPG's high-accuracy continuous arrhythmia tracking helps doctors and cardiologists save time and money by reducing the risk of misdiagnosis. The United States and Canada have an advanced healthcare infrastructure providing a strong base for the acceptance and incorporation of PPG Biosensors in medical applications. In 2023, the healthcare expenditure in the United States was about USD 4.3 trillion showcasing the huge market potential for medical technology. The region also has leading healthcare institutes and research facilities which drive the innovation of advanced technologies. The import and export dynamics in the region also support the PPG biosensor market growth. For instance, the United States imports a huge volume of biosensor components from China, and exports the finished devices globally, underlining the efficient supply chain and connectivity. Additionally, the regulatory environment in the region provides fast-track approvals of the devices accelerating the adoption of the PPG Biosensors. For an in-depth analysis of Import-Export Dynamics Request for a Sample Report: https://www.stellarmr.com/report/req_sample/PPG-Biosensors-Market/1491 PPG Biosensors Market Segmentation By Product Pulse Oximeters Smart Watches Smart Wrist Bands Others By Application Heart Rate Monitoring Blood Oxygen Saturation Blood Pressure Others By Distribution Channel Hospitals and Clinics Retail Stores Online Channels PPG Biosensors Manufacturers include: Apple Inc. Fitbit, Inc. Garmin Ltd. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Xiaomi Corporation Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Withings (formerly Nokia Health) BioTelemetry, Inc. Others Access a Free Sample Report: https://www.stellarmr.com/report/req_sample/PPG-Biosensors-Market/1491 Key questions answered in the PPG Biosensors Market are: What are PPG Biosensors? What is the current growth rate of the PPG Biosensors market? Who are the key players in the PPG Biosensors Market? What are the factors affecting growth in the PPG Biosensors Market? Who held the largest market share in the PPG Biosensors Market? What is the demand pattern for the PPG Biosensors Market? What are the key trends in the PPG Biosensors Market? What are the growth prospects in developing countries for the PPG Biosensors Market? Which segment is expected to witness the fastest growth and why in the PPG Biosensors Market? Key Offerings: Past Market Size and Competitive Landscape (2018 to 2022) Past Pricing and price curve by region (2018 to 2022) Market Size, Share, Size & Forecast by Different Segment | 2024-2030 Market Dynamics - Growth Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities, and Key Trends by Region Market Segmentation - A detailed analysis by Product Application, Distribution Channel, and Region. Competitive Landscape - Profiles of selected key players by region in a strategic perspective Competitive landscape - Market Leaders, Market Followers, Regional player Competitive benchmarking of key players by region PESTLE Analysis PORTER's analysis Value chain and supply chain analysis Legal Aspects of business by region Lucrative business opportunities with SWOT analysis Recommendations Stellar Market Research a leading Healthcare research firm, has also published the following reports: Blood Glucose Monitoring Devices Market: The market is worth USD 12.27 Billion and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.7% in the forecasted period. The forecasted revenue hints at a growth of around 24.42 billion USD by 2029. Wearable Smart Device Market: The market is expected to reach US$ 524.89 Bn. in 2030 from US$ 162.44 Bn. in 2023 at a CAGR of 18.24%. Biostimulants Market: The market size was valued at US$ 3.06 Bn. in 2023 and the total revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.65% through 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly US$ 6.22 Bn. Biomedical Temperature Sensor Market: The market is likely to grow to a CAGR of around 7% between 2024 and 2030. The Biomedical Temperature Sensor Market size was worth around USD 12.84 Bn. in 2023 and is estimated to hit approximately USD 20.61 Bn by 2030. Smartphone Sensors Market: The market size was valued at USD 82.96 Bn. in 2023 and the total Global Smartphone Sensors revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.3% from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly USD 269.01 Bn. by 2030. About Stellar Market Research: Stellar Market Research is a multifaceted market research and consulting company with professionals from several industries. Some industries we cover include medical devices, pharmaceutical manufacturers, science and engineering, electronic components, industrial equipment, technology and communication, cars and automobiles, chemical products and substances, general merchandise, beverages, personal care, and automated systems. Contact Stellar Market Research: S.no.8, h.no. 4-8 Pl.7/4, Pinnacle Memories Fl. No. 3, Pune, Maharashtra, 411029 sales@stellarmr.com +91 9607365656 Follow us: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2458342/Stellar_Market_Research_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/ppg-biosensors-market-to-be-dominated-by-smartwatches-segment-to-reach-usd-1001-73-mn-by-2030--says-stellar-market-research-302195701.html WESTFORD, Mass., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- According to SkyQuest, the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Manufacturing Market size was valued at USD 2.58 Billion in 2022 and is expected to grow from USD 3.20 Billion in 2023 to reach USD 64.63 Billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 45.6% during the forecast period (2024-2031). Artificial intelligence helps boost factory productivity and efficiency in manufacturing industry and is therefore getting adopted at a rapid pace. The objective of optimizing manufacturing processes and the increasing adoption of Industry 4.0 is driving the demand for AI in manufacturing. The global market for AI in manufacturing is categorized by components, technology, applications, end-users, and regions. Download a detailed overview: https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/artificial-intelligence-in-manufacturing-market Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Manufacturing Market Overview: Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $ 3.20 Billion Estimated Value by 2031 $ 64.63 Billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 45.6% Forecast Period 2024-2031 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Component, Device Type and End User Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Latin America Report Highlights Development of new AI in manufacturing hardware and software solutions remains prime focus of companies Key Market Opportunities Demand for predictive maintenance slated to create new business scope Key Market Drivers Computer vision and machine learning technologies to improve automation capabilities drive market growth Segments covered in Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Manufacturing Market are as follows: Component Network, Module Device Type Wearables, Tracker, Smart Lighting, Smart Parking, Alarm & Detector, Others End-User Automotive Industry, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Manufacturing Industry, Others Request Free Customization of this report: https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/artificial-intelligence-in-manufacturing-market Hardware Plays a Vital Role in Adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Manufacturing Legacy infrastructure and systems of manufacturing facilities are not compatible with advanced artificial intelligence technology thereby driving the demand for novel hardware solutions. This sub-segment covers components such as sensors, devices, processors, integrated circuits, etc. designed especially for AI in manufacturing going forward. The need for better computing power and demand for faster hardware configurations will also help this segment bolster artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing market growth in the future. Software plays a crucial role in incorporating advancements of AI technology in artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing applications. High investments in the development of novel AI software solutions and integration of edge and cloud computing are also creating new opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing providers going forward. Machine Learning in AI Applications for Manufacturing will help Promote Growth Machine learning algorithms help to examine extensive datasets for providing immediate insights into manufacturing equipment and processes. Such insights help players improve their market position by optimizing operations and utilizing resources. Predictive maintenance is also largely enabled by the deployment of machine learning algorithms. High investments in machine learning technology development are also expected to alter the global artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing market growth trajectory vastly in the future. Computer vision technology is projected to witness robust demand over the coming years. The growing need for automation across all kinds of manufacturing facilities is slated to create an opportune setting for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing companies going forward. This technology helps machines to interpret and process visual data to make informed decisions in real time that enhance the productivity of manufacturing operations. View report summary and Table of Contents (TOC): https://www.skyquestt.com/report/artificial-intelligence-in-manufacturing-market Predictive Maintenance Takes Crown When It Comes to AI Application in Manufacturing Space Downtime is the worst nightmare of any manufacturing operation, and this is why predictive maintenance is the best companion for any manufacturing company. A growing number of manufacturing facilities deploying predictive maintenance solutions to reduce downtime allow this segment to lead global artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing adoption. Meanwhile, the use of AI for quality control and inspection of finished goods is also expected to rise at a robust CAGR over the coming years. Use of AI for production planning also offers lucrative opportunities for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing providers in the long run. Artificial intelligence (AI) in the manufacturing market is slated to largely benefit from the predictive maintenance sub-segment across the forecast period. Upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing companies should target the services sub-segment and established providers should focus on the hardware sub-segment to get the best returns in the long run. Context awareness and natural language processing technologies have a lot of untapped potential for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing companies to experiment with. Related Report: AI Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robots Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market Mobile Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hardware 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-ai-in-manufacturing-market-valued-at-usd-64-63-billion-by-2031--skyquest-technology-302195681.html Finsbury Growth & Income Trust PLC - Transaction in Own Shares PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, July 12 For immediate release 12 July 2024 FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC (the "Company") MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES The Company announce that it has today purchased 144,911 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 853.85 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 48,786,176; 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 176,205,127. The figure of 176,205,127 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 Key Highlights: Strategic Acquisition and Exploration Progress: The acquisition of the Jupiter Project, located just 3 km north of Energy Sands, completed on July 10, 2024, features over 100 historical drill holes. This positions Pegasus to rapidly advance toward developing a uranium resource estimate and to deepen our understanding of the area's potential. Advancing Geological Understanding: Our 2024 exploration efforts began with a successful ground sampling program at Energy Sands in January, which demonstrated a favourable environment for uranium mineralization. Subsequent acquisition of historical drilling data and analysis by Dahrouge Geological Consulting USA Ltd. revealed trends indicative of paleochannel-hosted mineralization, refining our target areas for potential resource development. Permitting and Preparations for Drilling: We have initiated the permitting process and submitted all necessary documents to commence a comprehensive summer drilling program at both projects, aiming to explore and expand known mineralization zones. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Pegasus Resources Inc. (TSXV:PEGA)(Frankfurt:0QS0)(OTC Pink:SLTFF) (the "Company" or "Pegasus") is excited to enter the third quarter of 2024 with significant developments in our exploration initiatives, particularly with the recent acquisition of the Jupiter Project and ongoing activities at our established Energy Sands project. As we advance these projects, we are positioned to significantly enhance shareholder value through strategic exploration and development. "We are entering an exciting phase of exploration with the recent acquisition of the Jupiter Project and the work completed on the Energy Sands projects," stated Christian Timmins, CEO, "The strategic integration of these projects allows us to leverage extensive historical data and modern geological techniques to maximize our exploration potential. Our dedicated team is focused on advancing these projects rapidly, aiming to enhance our understanding of the mineral resources and expand our operational scope. With our upcoming drill program set to commence this summer, we are confident in our ability to deliver substantial value to our shareholders and reinforce Pegasus Resources' position as a leader in the uranium sector." Figure 1: Utah Area Map 2024 Overview: The year commenced with a successful ground sampling program at Energy Sands in Utah in January 2024. The significant results, announced on March 25, 2024, indicated a favourable environment for uranium mineralization. Following this, we added to our geological understanding by acquiring historical drilling data of the area, which further defined the area's potential. As detailed in our June 04, 2024 news release, analysis conducted by Dahrouge Geological Consulting USA Ltd. identified a trend indicative of paleochannel-hosted mineralization. This significant discovery, aligning with structural measurements and the identified mineralization trends, aids in targeting potential mineral-hosting paleochannels across the property. We have initiated the permitting process and have submitted all necessary documents to launch a summer drilling program. Adding to our portfolio, the recent acquisition of the Jupiter Project (July 10, 2024), located 3 km north of Energy Sands, marks a pivotal expansion. Jupiter, boasting over 100 historical drill holes, is an exciting project that uniquely positions Pegasus to expedite the development of a uranium resource estimate. This strategic proximity to Energy Sands and Jupiter provides a significant opportunity for us to use the available historical drill logs and future company drilling programs to better understand the uranium mineralization in the area while looking to find the next discovery. The strategic significance of this acquisition is immense, and we are poised to begin work at Jupiter once we have secured the required permits and funding, and completed the tendering process to acquire the necessary equipment and crews for a summer drilling program, with expectations set on rapidly advancing our exploration and resource development objectives at Jupiter. Exploration Update: As we progress through 2024, Pegasus Resources is actively advancing our exploration initiatives at both the Jupiter Project and Energy Sands, leveraging historical data and recent geological studies to guide resource development. Jupiter Project: Our exploration approach at the Jupiter Project is comprehensive, involving the twinning of historical drill holes, detailed logging of old drill holes, and the identification of new drill targets. These efforts are crucial not only for expanding the known resource base but also for discovering new mineralization zones. We are developing a robust geological model for the Jupiter Project that will substantially enhance our resource development plans. Utilizing extensive historical drilling data, our goal is to refine our exploration strategies and produce a resource estimate that meets the current CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. The wealth of historical data available underscores the considerable potential for uranium mineralization, laying a strong foundation for our ongoing exploration efforts. Energy Sands: Following a successful ground program in January 2024, which involved a detailed review of historical drill logs, we have moved forward with securing the necessary drilling permits for the Energy Sands project. Once permits are in place, our next steps include initiating the tendering process to source the essential equipment and skilled crews required for a comprehensive summer drilling program. This upcoming program is designed to build upon the insights gained from recent mapping conducted by Dahrouge Geological Consulting USA Ltd. Our focus will be on targeting and further investigating potential mineral-hosting paleochannels that have been identified across the property, aiming to delineate and expand these mineralized zones. Integrated Exploration Strategy: By synchronizing our exploration strategies at both Jupiter and Energy Sands, Pegasus Resources is effectively harnessing synergies between the two projects. This integrated approach not only streamlines our operational efforts but also enhances our ability to quickly adapt and respond to geological findings as they emerge. The proximity of Jupiter to Energy Sands offers unique opportunities for operational efficiencies and resource sharing, ensuring that our exploration programs are both cost-effective and strategically aligned. These combined efforts at Jupiter and Energy Sands underscore our commitment to advancing these projects toward their full potential, with the aim of significantly enhancing shareholder value through the discovery and development of valuable uranium resources. As we continue to progress with our drilling and exploration programs, Pegasus Resources remains dedicated to upholding the highest standards of resource estimation and sustainable mining practices. Pine Channel: Located on the north side of the Athabasca Basin, Pine Channel is slated for a gravity survey this summer. This survey will enhance our understanding of the property and refine targets for future drilling operations. The gravity survey will play a crucial role in our strategic exploration efforts. The company also announces an agreement with Fairfax Partners Inc. dated July 9th, which will provide social media marketing communication support for a two-month period for a fee of C$75,000 plus goods and services tax, then C$10,000 plus goods and service tax for the following 6 months. The services include content development, social media campaign and analytics. The total term of the Fairfax agreement is for a period of 8 months ending March 9th, 2025. Fairfax and its principals are arm's length to the company. As we continue to advance our strategic projects, Pegasus Resources is uniquely positioned in the uranium sector to capitalize on both established and emerging opportunities. Our recent agreements and exploration advancements underscore our commitment to leading the industry in discovery and resource development. For more information and regular updates, investors are encouraged to visit our website or contact our investor relations team. NI 43-101 Disclosure The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Jacob Anderson, CPG, MAusIMM, who is a Resource 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. 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 New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Socially responsible Palestinian-owned soft drink brand DrinkPalestina has officially been launched. The brand, currently being manufactured in North America, was started after seeing a strong demand from a large community of people looking for alternatives to traditional soft drink providers. The company has pledged a portion of the proceeds from every single can to be donated to reputable charities and causes dedicated to providing services such as healthcare, education, and disaster relief. DrinkPalestina To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8846/215837_picture1.jpg In a statement to the press, a senior representative for DrinkPalestina said, "We are delighted to announce the launch of DrinkPalestina. Our inaugural line of beverages, crafted with the highest quality standards, offers a refreshing experience with various flavours. Moreover, each beverage is made with ethically sourced ingredients, reflecting our commitment to responsible business practices." During the start-up phase, they will only be selling 12 FL OZ (355mL) cans that come in flavours of cola, lemon-lime, and orange, as well as a Sugarfree Cola. The drink's branding has been crafted to represent the culture of Palestine and has been started by a group of three native Palestinian and Yemeni friends. DrinkPalestina To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8846/215837_picture2.jpg He went on to add, "At DrinkPalestina, we believe that businesses are responsible for giving back to society. With this principle at the heart of our operations, we have pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from every single can to a selection of reputable charities and causes. We aim to provide customers with a product that satisfies their taste buds and enables them to be a part of something greater. The official launch of DrinkPalestina marks the beginning of a new chapter where consumers can make a positive impact with every purchase. We invite people to join us in this journey towards making a meaningful difference, one can at a time." The team is researching new flavours and will add them to their portfolios. Soon, people can shop for Drink Palestina's beverages on Amazon and in their local stores. If they have any queries, they can also check out their website, drinkpalestina.com or IG @drinkpalestina. About DrinkPalestina DrinkPalestina is a socially responsible beverage brand based in North America, and a group of native Palestinians and Yemenis started it. Media Contact To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/215837 SOURCE: Media Feature Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Alma Gold Inc. (CSE: ALMA) ("Alma Gold" or the "Company") announces that it has closed the previously announced debt settlement agreements (the "Settlement Agreements") to settle outstanding debts owed to creditors totaling $154,537.90, which includes outstanding fees owed to directors and contractors working for Alma Gold (the "Debt Settlement"). Pursuant to the Settlement Agreements, the Company has issued an aggregate of 1,545,379 Common shares at a deemed price of $0.10 per Common share. Securities issued pursuant to the Settlement Agreements have a statutory hold period which will expire on November 13, 2024 in accordance with applicable securities laws. MI 61-101 Disclosure The Debt Settlement transaction with directors of the Company constitutes a "related party transaction" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") as the CEO and two directors of the Company received Common shares in connection with the Debt Settlement. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, as the fair market value of the Debt Settlement transaction with the insider does not exceed 25% of the market capitalization of the Company, as determined in accordance with MI 61-101. About Alma Gold Inc. Alma Gold Inc. is a gold-focused exploration company based in Bedford, Nova Scotia. Alma Gold Inc. through its subsidiary Karita Gold Corp. is exploring the Karita West Project and Dialakoro Project (in application process) in Guinea and owns the Clarence Stream North Gold Project in southwest New Brunswick, Canada. For more information on Alma Gold Inc., please visit our website at: https://almagoldinc.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors "Gregory Isenor" The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Information 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", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. 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, and includes those risks set out in the Corporation's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Corporation's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Corporation 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 Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216380 SOURCE: Alma Gold Inc. Top Atlanta Construction Firms are facing significant challenges in recruiting new talent, impacting building project timelines and job productivity. They are getting outside help with an "old school" recruiting strategy. ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Leading construction firms in Atlanta are facing significant recruitment challenges, leading to project delays and reduced productivity. The construction sector, a vital component of Atlanta's booming economy, is currently grappling with a shortage of skilled workers, affecting both residential and commercial projects. This shortage has become a critical issue as the demand for construction continues to rise, driven by both private and public sector investments. The lack of skilled labor is causing significant bottlenecks, slowing down the progress of many projects. Construction companies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet deadlines, which is affecting their reputation and client satisfaction. Atlanta construction companies are turning to traditional recruiting methods as they face difficulties in hiring new talent, affecting project timelines and productivity. Image Credit: Mudkung / 123RF. "Leading construction firms in Atlanta are facing significant recruitment challenges, leading to project delays and reduced productivity. Many of these companies have been quietly engaging our firm for outside help. Our proven 'old school' headhunting strategic approach is helping them find the right talent to keep their projects on track. Although many of our client companies have their own in-house recruiting and talent acquisition teams and publicly claim they do not use outside recruiting firms, they often turn to us in private when a key hire is needed fast," said Josh Rae, CEO of JPI Executive Search , one of the most highly-sought after Atlanta Construction Recruiters in Georgia and the Southeast Region, for commercial construction recruiting and talent acquisition. Growing Construction Talent Gap Shortage The talent gap in the construction industry is widening, with many companies struggling to find qualified candidates to fill essential roles. This shortage is not only slowing down ongoing projects but also hindering the commencement of new ones, ultimately impacting the city's growth and development. The issue is exacerbated by an aging workforce, with many experienced professionals retiring and not enough young talent entering the field. Educational institutions are struggling to produce graduates with the necessary skills and experience to meet industry demands. As a result, the competition for skilled workers is fierce, driving up wages and making it even more difficult for companies to attract and retain talent. Outside Help: An "Old School" Construction Recruiting Strategy To address these pressing issues, many construction firms in Atlanta are turning to external recruitment agencies for assistance. Despite having their own in-house recruiting and talent acquisition teams, these companies are seeking outside help to expedite the hiring process and secure top talent swiftly. These external agencies bring a wealth of experience and a vast network of contacts, enabling them to identify and recruit candidates that might otherwise be overlooked. This strategic move allows construction firms to fill critical positions quickly, minimizing project delays and maintaining productivity. The decision to seek external help, though often kept confidential, highlights the severity of the recruitment challenges faced by the industry. The "Old School" Construction Recruitment Approach JPI Executive Search (JPI) employs a traditional headhunting strategy, which involves personalized recruitment techniques and an extensive network of industry contacts. This approach allows them to identify and attract candidates who might not be actively seeking new opportunities but are highly qualified and experienced. By leveraging relationships built over years of industry involvement, JPI can tap into a hidden talent pool that is often inaccessible through standard recruitment channels. This method also includes thorough vetting and background checks to ensure that the candidates presented are the best fit for the roles. The personalized touch of the "old school" approach ensures a higher success rate in placements and reduces the likelihood of turnover. The Impact of New Hires on Construction Project Timelines The inability to fill critical positions promptly has led to significant project delays. Construction timelines are being extended, and the pressure on existing staff is increasing, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. These delays can have a cascading effect, causing contractors to miss important milestones and incurring financial penalties. The extended timelines also impact the broader community, delaying the availability of new housing, commercial spaces, and infrastructure improvements. By leveraging the expertise of firms like JPI Executive Search, construction companies can mitigate these issues and maintain their project schedules. Swift hiring solutions enable firms to allocate resources more efficiently and keep their projects on track. Productivity Concerns on Construction Operations Reduced productivity is another major concern. With a limited workforce, the efficiency of construction operations is compromised. Tasks that require specific skills and expertise are often left uncompleted, affecting the overall quality and progress of the projects. This can lead to increased costs as companies may need to hire temporary workers or subcontractors, who might not have the same level of commitment or expertise. The stress on existing employees can also result in higher rates of absenteeism and lower morale. Addressing these productivity concerns through effective recruitment strategies is essential for maintaining high standards of workmanship and ensuring project success. Confidentiality in Construction Recruitment Despite the reliance on external recruitment agencies, many construction firms prefer to keep this collaboration confidential. Publicly, they maintain that their in-house teams handle all recruitment needs, but privately, they acknowledge the necessity of external assistance for critical hires. This confidentiality helps protect the companies' reputations and maintains the confidence of their stakeholders. It also allows them to continue presenting a strong image of self-sufficiency and competence. However, the use of external recruiters is a pragmatic decision that reflects the realities of the current job market and the urgent need for skilled labor. The Role of JPI Executive Search in Atlanta Construction Market JPI Executive Search has established itself as a leading recruiter in the construction industry, particularly in the Southeast region. Their reputation for delivering high-caliber candidates swiftly and efficiently has made them a preferred partner for many top firms in Atlanta. JPI's deep understanding of the construction industry and its specific needs enables them to provide tailored recruitment solutions. They offer a comprehensive service that includes sourcing, vetting, and presenting candidates who not only meet the technical requirements but also fit the company culture. This holistic approach ensures long-term success for both the employer and the employee. Future Outlook on Construction Recruiting in Atlanta and the Southeast As the construction industry in Atlanta continues to grow, the demand for skilled workers is expected to increase. Companies will need to adopt more proactive and innovative recruitment strategies to attract and retain top talent. The collaboration with specialized recruitment firms will likely become more common, despite the desire for discretion. The industry may also see an increased focus on training and development programs to build a sustainable talent pipeline. Furthermore, leveraging technology in recruitment, such as using AI for candidate matching and virtual reality for skill assessments, could become standard practice. Importance of Talent Acquisition to Ensure Success of Atlanta Construction Companies The challenges faced by Atlanta's construction firms in recruiting new talent underscore the critical role of effective recruitment strategies in maintaining project timelines and productivity. As the industry evolves, the blend of in-house and external recruitment efforts will be essential in addressing the talent gap and ensuring the continued growth and success of the construction sector in Atlanta. The reliance on firms like JPI Executive Search highlights the importance of experienced recruiters in navigating the complex job market. For more information on JPI Executive Search and their recruitment services, visit their website or contact them directly. For more information on JPI Executive Search and their Atlanta area commercial and industrial construction recruiting services, visit their website or contact them directly. Construction Headhunter and Recruiter Josh Rae's firm gets called on by construction companies building projects in Atlanta, GA and other Southeastern states. Image Credit: Vitold3212 / 123RF. Photo Illustration by: JPIExecutiveSearch.com About Atlanta, Georgia Construction Recruiters and Headhunters at JPI Executive Search JPI Executive Search prides itself on being one of the most highly sought-after construction recruiters in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Southeast Region. Led by 25-year industry veteran Josh Rae , CEO, the firm is committed to excellence, demonstrated through a selective approach to candidate placement that prioritizes long-term stability and commitment. Understanding that client companies value consistent employment histories, the JPI Executive Search Team strives to match them with candidates who share this dedication. Specializing in identifying and pursuing the most elusive and highly skilled construction professionals in Atlanta , JPI Executive Search takes on the challenge of attracting candidates who are often content in their current roles. This relentless pursuit of top talent ensures that clients have access to the best individuals capable of driving their construction projects forward. As frustration mounts among Atlanta's leading construction companies due to recruitment challenges, many are turning to JPI Executive Search for innovative headhunting solutions. The firm is dedicated to addressing these critical needs by leveraging cutting-edge strategies to secure the right talent, ensuring that clients' Atlanta building projects remain on schedule and within budget. JPI Executive Search's proven "old school" headhunting and recruiting approach has been instrumental in staying ahead of construction trends and in helping Atlanta's top construction firms overcome significant recruitment hurdles. Despite having their own in-house recruiting teams, many companies, including Top ENR Contractors , discreetly rely on JPI's expertise to fill key roles quickly and effectively. This strategic partnership has been vital in maintaining project timelines and productivity. In a bold move to support Atlanta's Construction Industry , JPI Executive Search has introduced an unprecedented offer to work for free upfront for select client companies facing significant hiring challenges. This initiative underscores the firm's commitment to building long-term partnerships and demonstrating the ability to deliver top-tier talent essential for project success and company growth. JPI Executive Search is dedicated to making a tangible difference in the Atlanta construction industry , one successful placement at a time. Schedule Your Strategy Call To Find Exceptional Construction Talent to Drive Your Projects Forward. CONTACT: JPI Executive Search Josh Rae CEO 404-220-7705 josh@jpiexecutivesearch.com Atlanta, Georgia (GA) SOURCE: JPI Executive Search - Atlanta Construction Recruiters View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Plata Latina Minerals Corporation (TSXV: PLA) ("Plata Latina" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Letitia Wong as President and CEO, effective July 15, 2024. Ms. Wong will lead the Company through its strategic review process and will continue to serve on the Board of Directors. Mr. Clausen, formerly interim CEO, will remain with the Company as Executive Chair. Ms. Wong has been with Plata Latina since its inception, initially in management roles and most recently as a member of the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee. She brings 20 years of experience in strategy, corporate development, strategic transactions, capital markets, finance, and corporate governance within the mining industry. Most recently, she served as Chief Financial Officer at Copper Mountain Mining Corporation before its acquisition by Hudbay Minerals Inc. in 2023. Previously, she was Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Corporate Secretary at Brio Gold Inc., which was acquired in 2018. Ms. Wong has also held the position of Vice President of Investor Relations at Augusta Resource Corporation (acquired in 2014) and Ventana Gold (acquired in 2011). She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Finance from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and is a CFA Charterholder. About Plata Latina Minerals Plata Latina Minerals was a Canadian exploration company which was in the business of exploring and evaluating mineral property assets, principally in Mexico. The Company has since sold or relinquished its interests in four Mexican mineral properties and is undergoing a strategic review process, which includes capitalizing on the value of the Company as a clean listed shell with modest cash and cash flow. Following the completion of an option agreement in 2020 where the Company sold its Naranjillo Property to Fresnillo for a total of US $2,150,000 over three years, Plata Latina currently receives advance royalty payments of US $100,000 until the earlier of (i) US $1,000,000 of advance royalty payments have been paid, or (ii) Naranjillo commences commercial production of minerals. The Company also was granted a 3% net smelter return royalty. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216381 SOURCE: Plata Latina Minerals Corporation Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - C21 Investments Inc. (CSE: CXXI) (OTCQX: CXXIF) ("C21" or the "Company"), a vertically integrated cannabis company, is providing a default status report in accordance with the alternative information guidelines set out in National Policy 12-203 - Management Cease Trade Orders ("NP 12-203"). As previously announced on May 31, 2024 (the "Announcement"), the Company applied for a management cease trade order ("MCTO") from the British Columbia Securities Commission (the "BCSC") due to an expected delay in filing of the audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended January 31, 2024 (the "Annual Financial Statements"), annual management's discussion and analysis for the same period and management certifications of annual filings (collectively, the "Annual Filings") beyond the deadline of May 31, 2024 prescribed by Canadian securities laws. The MCTO was granted by the BCSC on May 31, 2024. The MCTO prohibits the Company's management from trading in the securities of the Company until such time as the Annual Filings are filed. The MCTO does not affect the ability of any other shareholders of the Company to trade securities of the Company. As disclosed in the Announcement, the delay in filing the Annual Filings is due to the Company's auditors requiring additional time to complete their audit of the Annual Financial Statements due, in part, to the Company having changed its financial year end from January 31 to March 31, as well the Company's recent change of auditors which occurred at the beginning of this calendar year. C21 and its auditors continue to work diligently and expeditiously towards completing the Annual Filings, which is expected to occur on or around July 19, 2024. Upon completion of the auditors' internal review process, the Annual Filings will be filed on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca). The Company confirms that since the date of the Announcement: (i) there has been no material change to the information set out in the Announcement that has not been generally disclosed; (ii) the Company is satisfying and confirms that it intends to continue to satisfy the provisions of the "alternative information guidelines" under NP 12-203 and issue bi-weekly default status reports for so long as the delay in filing the Annual Filings is continuing, each of which will be issued in the form of a news release; (iii) there has not been any other specified default by the Company under NP 12-203; (iv) the Company is not subject to any insolvency proceedings; and (v) there is no material information concerning the affairs of the Company that has not been generally disclosed. About C21 Investments Inc. C21 Investments Inc. is a vertically integrated cannabis company that cultivates, processes, and distributes quality cannabis and hemp-derived consumer products in the United States. The Company is focused on value creation through the disciplined acquisition and integration of core retail, manufacturing, and distribution assets in strategic markets, leveraging industry-leading retail revenues with high-growth potential multi-market branded consumer packaged goods. The Company owns Silver State Relief and Silver State Cultivation in Nevada, including legacy Oregon brands Phantom Farms, Hood Oil and Eco Firma Farms. These brands produce and distribute a broad range of THC and CBD products from cannabis flowers, pre-rolls, cannabis oil, vaporizer cartridges and edibles. Based in Vancouver, Canada, additional information on C21 can be found at www.sedarplus.ca and www.cxxi.ca. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information and Statements: This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, "Forward-Looking Statements"). Forward-Looking Statements in this news release include, but are not limited to: the Company satisfying the information guidelines set out in NP 12-203 and the filing of the Annual Filings on or about July 19, 2024 upon completion of the auditors' internal review process. Such Forward-Looking Statements represent the Company's beliefs and expectations regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Forward-Looking Statements are based on assumptions, estimates, analyses and opinions of management of the Company at the time they were provided or made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, including: (i) the expected filing of the Annual Filings; (ii) the Company's continued ability to satisfy the information guidelines set out in NP 12-203; (iii) the duration of the MCTO; (iv) achieving the anticipated results of the Company's strategic plans; and (v) general economic, financial market, regulatory and political conditions in which the Company operates. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond the Company's control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the Forward-Looking Statements in this news release. Such factors include, without limitation: risks and uncertainties arising from any delay in filing the Annual Filings; the Company's ability to satisfy the requirements of NP 12-203; the revocation of the MCTO and replacement with a cease trade order; the inability to effectively manage growth; inputs, suppliers and skilled labour being unavailable or available only at uneconomic costs; the adequacy of the Company's capital resources and liquidity, including but not limited to, availability of sufficient cash flow to execute the Company's business plan (either within the expected timeframe or at all); changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; changes in applicable laws generally and adverse future legislative and regulatory developments involving medical and recreational marijuana; the risks of operating in the marijuana industry in the United States, and those other risk factors discussed in the Company's 20F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Annual Information Form filing on SEDAR+. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the Forward-Looking Statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such Forward-Looking Statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. 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 Forward-Looking Statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company does not undertake to update any Forward-Looking Statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216396 SOURCE: C21 Investments Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Rome Resources Ltd. (TSXV: RMR) (FSE: 33R) ("Rome" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, at its special meeting (the "Meeting") of the holders (the "Rome Shareholders") of common shares ("Rome Shares") held earlier today, Rome Shareholders approved a special resolution (the "Arrangement Resolution") authorizing and approving the previously announced arrangement (the "Arrangement") under section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) among Rome, Pathfinder Minerals Plc ("Pathfinder") and 1475033 B.C. Ltd., pursuant to which, among other things, Pathfinder will, subject to satisfaction of the conditions set out in the arrangement agreement dated May 7, 2024, as amended, relating to the Arrangement, acquire all of the issued and outstanding Rome Shares for consideration consisting of 19.54 Pathfinder ordinary shares in exchange for each Rome Share held. The Arrangement Resolution required approval from at least 66 2/3% of the votes cast by Rome Shareholders present at the Meeting or represented by proxy and entitled to vote at the Meeting. The Arrangement also required a simple majority of the votes cast by Rome Shareholders, excluding the votes cast by certain persons as required by Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). Rome Shareholders also approved the Mont Agoma Term Sheet Resolution, the MRDC Term Sheet Resolution and the Exercise of Rights Under Palm Option Resolution each of which required disinterested shareholder approval; i.e. approval from a simple majority (i.e., more than half) of the votes cast on each of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet Resolution, the MRDC Term Sheet Resolution and the Exercise of Rights Under Palm Option Resolution, respectively, by Rome Shareholders present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote at the Meeting, excluding for this purpose the votes attached to those Rome Shares that are held or controlled by those Rome Shareholders who, with respect to each such resolution, are related parties of Rome. Voting Results Arrangement Resolution Of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the Arrangement, an aggregate 71,226,000 Rome Shares were voted in favour of the Arrangement Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. Of the votes cast excluding certain persons as required by MI 61-101, an aggregate 22,053,720 Rome Shares were voted in favour of the Arrangement Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. Mont Agoma Term Sheet Resolution Of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the Mont Agoma Term Sheet, an aggregate 71,226,000 Rome Shares were voted in favour of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. Disinterested Rome Shareholders voted an aggregate 47,476,000 Rome Shares in favour of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. MRDC Term Sheet Resolution Of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the MRDC Term Sheet, an aggregate 71,226,000 Rome Shares were voted in favour of the MRDC Term Sheet Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. Disinterested Rome Shareholders voted an aggregate 47,476,000 Rome Shares in favour of the MRDC Term Sheet Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. Exercise of Rights Under Palm Option Resolution Of the votes cast at the Meeting with respect to the exercise of rights under the Palm Term Sheet and the assignment of such rights to Pathfinder under the Assignment and Assumption Agreement, an aggregate 71,226,000 Rome Shares were voted in favour of the Exercise of Rights Under Palm Option Resolution, representing 100.0% of the votes cast. All votes cast with respect to the Exercise of Rights Under Palm Option Resolution were held by disinterested Rome Shareholders. Final Order Rome intends to seek a final order of the Supreme Court of British Columbia to approve the Arrangement at a hearing expected to be held on or about July 17, 2024. Assuming the timely receipt of all necessary court, third-party approvals and the satisfaction of all other conditions, closing of the Arrangement is expected to occur on or about July 26, 2024. Further information about the Arrangement is available in Rome's management information circular dated May 27, 2024 (the "Rome Information Circular") and related continuous disclosure documents, which are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca under Rome's profile. Capitalised terms used in this news release have the meanings defined in the Rome Information Circular, unless otherwise defined herein. About Rome Resources Rome Resources Ltd. is a mineral exploration company that has entered into two option agreements and a binding term sheet where it has acquired 51% indirect interests in two contiguous properties situated in the Walikale District of the North Kivu Province in eastern DRC, which are collectively referred to as the "Bisie North Tin Project". Rome has completed an initial phase of drilling on the project where it is responsible to fund exploration up to the completion of a definitive feasibility study. Contacts Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements The information in this news release may include certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward-looking statements. Although Rome Resources Ltd believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, Rome Resources Ltd disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise. Neither 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. Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/216412 SOURCE: Rome Resources Ltd. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 12, 2024) - Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. (CSE: HPSS) (OTCQB: HPSIF) (FSE: E092) ("Hybrid" or the "Company"), announces a renewal agreement with MIC Market Information & Content Publishing GmbH ("MIC") (Address: Gerhart-Hauptmann-St. 49b 51379 Leverkusen; email: contact@micpublishing.de; phone: +49 2171-7766628) for marketing services which will begin July 18th and continue to September 18th, 2024 or until budget exhaustion. MIC will utilize their online programs with the aim of increasing investor awareness and interest in the company through various online platforms and methods of engagement in consideration of EUR 325,000. The marketing activity will occur by email, Facebook, and Google. MIC does not have any prior relationship with the Company other than previous marketing engagements and will not receive any shares of the Company as compensation. About Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. is a Canadian clean energy company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "HPSS". Hybrid specializes in the development of sustainable energy solutions, offering products that redefine how industries approach access to power and energy storage. With a focus on innovation and environmental responsibility, HPS continues to lead the way in providing scalable, cost effective power solutions. Forward-Looking Statements Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will", "will be", "intends", "expected" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by management of the Company, they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different, including receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. Although management of the Company have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws. The Canadian Securities Exchange does not accept 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/216288 SOURCE: Hybrid Power Solutions Inc. F1 Arcade, a Chicago, IL-based F1 experiential hospitality brand, raised $130M in growth funding. Backers included Cheyne Capital, Liberty Media Corporation, Permira Credit and OakNorth. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Led by CEO and Founder Adam Breeden, F1 Arcade is a F1 experiential hospitality brand featuring full-motion racing simulators, reaction games, huge viewing screens, food, and cocktails, with an electric atmosphere. An in-house tech team worked in collaboration with Formula 1 and Studio 397, a subsidiary of Motorsport Games, to create a new gaming experience leveraging Studio 397s racing simulation platform rFactor 2. F1 Arcade opened its first venue in London in 2022, followed by Birmingham and in April 2024 the brand launched its first US site in Boston Seaport. As part of a roll-out plan, F1 Arcade is set to open in Washington D.C in Fall 2024 and a flagship site in Las Vegas in 2025. FinSMEs 12/07/2024 Nordic Capital, a German sector-specialist private equity investor, acquired a majority share in Sensio, an Oslo, Norway-based company which specializes in monitoring technology. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Completion of the transaction is expected in Q3 2024 and is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions. The previous majority owner since 2018, Longship, will invest alongside Nordic Capital as a significant minority owner. Through this transaction Longship will realise the investment from its Fund I and make a new investment from its latest Fund III. Longship will continue to apply their active ownership involvement and will in cooperation with Nordic Capital support the company in the next stage of Nordic and international expansion. Sensio is a provider of smart monitoring technology for elderly and social care settings in the Nordics, addressing challenges in care for citizens, patients, care personnel and society at large. Its flagship offering includes products such as the Sensio 365 software platform, the integrated Sensio Care wireless nurse call platform and RoomMate, a multisensory monitor for detecting and preventing falls. The company provides its solutions to operators across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK, supporting care for circa 70 000 care recipients through its technology platform. Nordic Capital is a sector-specialist private equity investor with a resolute commitment to creating businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested EUR 25 billion in over 145 investments. FinSMEs 12/07/2024 The incident took place on Wednesday afternoon (local time). But it was already evening by the time they realised they had been looted, the Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actor added read more Indian television actors Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya, in Florence for a holiday, lost their passports, cash and cards when thieves smashed the window of their vehicle while they were at a resort close to the Italian tourist town. They are in the process of getting an FIR registered and are awaiting help from the Indian Embassy, Tripathi told PTI over the phone from Florence on Thursday. The incident took place on Wednesday afternoon (local time). But it was already evening by the time they realised they had been looted, the Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actor added. Advertisement We were inside the hotel property. We were hungry and the hotel knew that we had stuff inside the car We were checking into the hotel the same day. They told us we can leave our things in the car while we had our food. We thought it was all safe since its a resort property and not on the street, Tripathi said. The resort is about half an hour away from Florence. According to the actor, either her husband and she were followed or incidents like this happen regularly. The thieves broke the window, took all the stuff that was in the rear seat whatever we had brought from India passports, cards, cash, everything is gone. I was stunned. The hotel people are helping us. The property didnt have CCTV, so we made a video and took photos for proof, Tripathi said. After 6 pm, she claimed, no one can get a report filed anywhere in Italy. So if anything happens between 6 pm to 9 am, you cant do anything about it. We are going to the police station to file the report, we are hoping thereafter things get easier and we manage to get in touch with somebody from the Indian Embassy, she said. We are avid travellers We are hopeful that we come back with better memories. We are pareshan, we are penniless, but we are keeping our spirits high. The situation is not great but we are smiling, Tripathi said. Kamal Haasans Indian 2 is directed by Shankar known for helming blockbusters like Anniyan, Enthiran, 2.0, Nayakan and others read more Cast: Kamal Haasan, Siddharth, S. J. Suryah, Rakul Preet Singh, Bobby Simha, Vivek, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Gulshan Grover, Samuthirakani, Piyush Mishra and Nedumudi Venu Director: S. Shankar Back in 1996, when Indian (Hindustani) was released, Kamal Haasans character Senapathy became everyones instant favourite. The freedom fighter turned vigilante, whose mission was to eradicate corruption from his state became relatable along with his swag and Varma Kalai martial art making him a part of emulation. Advertisement After 28 years, director Shankar has brought back his Senapathy and this time his mission is bigger, broader and tougher. While the trailer and songs have garnered immense response, does it fulfil the sky-high expectations of the cinegoers? Lets find out Just like the first part, the Hindustani 2 aka Indian 2 deals with societal issues highlighting corruption, loopholes in the education system and others. However, this time it is shown across the country. Chitra Aravindhan highlights all corruption stories around him through his YouTube Channel Barking Dogs along with friends. Pissed with all the wrongdoings in the state, he and his friends trend #ComeBackIndian on social media, which turns out to be a social media revolution. Chitras friend discovers that Hindustani aka Indian is in Japan and asks him to return as corruption has become the biggest problem in the country. Hindustani agrees and comes back to the country and starts assassinating all the corrupt personalities. Impressed by his actions, youth soon makes him an icon. Later, Hindustani tells his community to check whether there are any corrupt people in their homes in the form of their parents or relatives. Chitra along with his friends discovers that their close ones are doing corruption. Keeping the country above their bond with parents and relatives, Chitra and others register complaints against them to government officials. However, due to this Chitras life takes a tragic turn, which changes his emotion to hatred for Hindustani. Soon, he and his community friends trend #GoBackIndian. So, will Hindustani win his community all over again while cleaning the country from corruption and other evil things? Shankar is an amazing filmmaker and his filmography is enough to prove that, however, Hindustani might turn out to be his weakest movie as the topic itself is very dated. With a runtime of 3 hours, there are several scenes which make you feel absurd. While the film is strong in all the technical aspects, it fails to create high points or elevations. Advertisement Talking about the performances, Kamal Haasan is a legend and its commendable that after 28 years, he reprised the role of Senapathy with ease and finesse. Not to forget his charismatic charm on the big screen. Siddharth has done a fine job while Priya Bhavani Shankar and Rakul Preet put their best foot forward in the limited role. It was sad to see actors like Gulshan Grover and Piyush Mishra getting wasted with negligible roles. While there is blink and miss appearances of Akhilendra Mishra, Brahmanandan and SJ Suryah, I am hopeful that the audience will see more of them in the third part. Advertisement Hindustani 2 is long and marred by a disjointed screenplay but I hope the third part, which will release in 2025 will be crisper and sharper. Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars) Hindustani 2 is playing in cinemas Amid controversy over compensation to Agniveers who die while in service, the heads of various Central Armed Police Forces have announced a 10 per cent reservation for vacancies as well as exemptions in physical examinations for former Agniveers, once they quit the Armed Forces read more Agniveer Vayu trainees during their 'Combined Passing Out Parade' at Tambaram Air Force Station, in Chennai. The Centre has declared 10% reservation for ex-Agniveers in vacancies within the CAPFs. File image/PTI Amid the controversy of compensation to the families of Agniveers who have died while in service, the heads of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have announced that they have set aside posts and made exemption rules for former Agniveers, in line with the Home Ministrys directive. On Thursday (July 12), the Home Ministry reiterated a 10 per cent reservation for vacancies within Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) for ex-Agniveers. The announcement by the heads of the different CAPFs comes amid the row over the Agnipath recruitment scheme, with the Opposition and even some BJP allies attacking it, questioning what will happen to the 75 per cent of Agniveers who are not retained after their four-year tenure. Advertisement Exemptions, quotas for Agniveers On Thursday, the chiefs of several central forces announced that they had made preparations to accommodate ex-Agniveers into their fold, stating that the forces would benefit by getting trained and disciplined manpower. Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Director General Nina Singh said on Thursday: The Union Home Ministry has taken an important decision regarding the recruitment of ex-Agniveers. Accordingly, the CISF is also preparing the process of the recruitment of ex-Agniveer. Singh said that the CISF will reserve 10 per cent of jobs for ex-Agniveers in all future constable appointments. She further added, In physical tests also, they will be given exemption along with the relaxation on the age. In the first year, the age relaxation is for five years and in the subsequent year, the age relaxation will be three years. Ex-Agniveers will be able to take advantage of this and the CISF will ensure that. This will be beneficial for the CISF too as the force will get trained and disciplined personnel, Singh said. Youngsters do physical exercises for the Agniveer recruitment rally at Morhabadi ground in Ranchi. The heads of CAPFs say that the induction of former Agniveers will be beneficial to them. File image/PTI Border Security Force (BSF) Director General Nitin Agrawal also stated that the BSF will reserve 10 per cent of jobs for former Agniveers, and this is very good for them. We are getting ready soldiers, nothing can be better than that. All forces will benefit from it. Ex Agniveers will get 10 per cent reservation in the recruitment. Advertisement The chiefs of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Railway Police Force (RPF) also made similar announcements of quotas for ex-Agniveers, saying the move will give new strength, energy and boost the morale of the force. The SSB also announced that the first batch of Agniveers inducted into the force will be given five years age relaxation. They will not be required to undergo any physical efficiency test. Governments directive Thursdays announcement by CAPF chiefs is in line with what the Modi Sarkar had promised in December last year. Then Minister of State Nityanand Rai had said that the government was creating a new category of Ex-Agniveer in the recruitment to the post of constable in Central Armed Police Forces and Assam Rifles (CAPFs and AR) with provisions. Advertisement The provisions created in recruiting ex-Agniveer to the post of Constable (General Duty)/ Rifleman include reservation of 10 per cent of vacancies for them and three years relaxation in the prescribed upper age limit, MoS Home Nityanand Rai had said. He had also announced that they would be exempted from the Physical Efficiency Test (PET). An army personnel puts a stamp on a candidate to qualify him during physical examination for recruitment in the Indian Armed Forces under the Agniveer scheme, in Patna. The Agnipath scheme since its induction has seen fierce opposition, even leading to massive protests in some states. File image/PTI Row over Agnipath scheme The Agnipath scheme, which rolled out in June 2022 and provides recruitment between the age groups of 17.5 and 21 years for four years, has become a flashpoint between the opposition and the Centre recently. In the recently-concluded Parliament session, the opposition came down heavily against the government over the recruitment scheme, with Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi accusing the Centre of considering the Agniveers as use-and-throw labourers. Advertisement Responding to the accusations, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had said that the Congress shouldnt mislead the country and that an Agniveer who lays down his life in the line of duty gets a compensation of Rs 1 crore. The Indian Army later rebuffed Rahuls claim, saying the next of kin has already been paid Rs 98.39 lakh out of the amount due. Ex-gratia and other benefits amounting to approximately 67 lakh, as applicable according to the provisions of the Agniveer Scheme, will be paid on Final Account Settlement shortly post due Police verification, it added as per The Print. The country has seen many protests over the Centres new recruitment scheme, Agnipath. File image/AP Earlier, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) emerged victorious in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, cracks emerged in the coalition when the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United (JD{U}) and Chirag Paswan asked for a review of the Agnipath scheme. Advertisement The Agnipath scheme since its induction has seen fierce opposition, even leading to massive protests in some states such as Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and Rajasthan. Critics argue that the scheme creates a lesser cadre of soldiers, who work on the same tasks as those with full commission, but with lesser pay, benefits, and prospects, reports Indian Express. Even veterans of the Armed Forces have raised concerns about the scheme one of them being Major General GD Bakshi (retired). He had then tweeted: Was flabbergasted by the Agniveer scheme. I thought initially it was a trial being done on a pilot basis. This is an across the board change to convert Indian armed forces to a short-tenure quasi-conscript force Like the Chinese. For Gods sake PLEASE DONT do it. Lieutenant General Raj Kadyan (retired), former Vice Chief of the Army Staff, had also been quoted by The Frontline as saying: I only hope and pray there is no war. If theres [going to be a] war, you dont expect a man who is already looking beyond four years to be committed to the extent that he can lay down his life. With inputs from agencies The French legislative elections saw an unexpected outcome as the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) emerged as the largest bloc, with Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally (RN) placing third. The campaign period was marked by a surge in hate speech, racism, and antisemitism, with the RN targeting Muslim influences and France Unbowed facing accusations of antisemitism read more Despite a coalition of centrist and left-wing parties winning the election, concerns about hate speech increasing in France persist. Reuters The recent French legislative elections, which many anticipated would propel Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally (RN) to significant power, ended unexpectedly with the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) emerging as the largest bloc. The anti-immigration RN ultimately placed third, as centrists and leftists strategically united, often withdrawing candidates in three-way races to support the contender most likely to defeat the far-right. Even after the coalition winning the snap elections, fears of increase in hate speech in France continue to exist. We explain why. Advertisement Election campaign and hate speech Leading up to the elections, there was a marked increase in hate speech, as well as incidents of racism and antisemitism. The RN has long campaigned against what it describes as the encroachment of Muslim religious and cultural influences in France, frequently targeting Muslim women who wear headscarves and linking them to Islamist extremism. Their campaign manifesto, under the section Preserving French civiliastion, promises legislation aimed at Islamist ideologies, which they deem a totalitarian threat of modern times. Marine Le Pen, member of parliament and French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National - RN) party leader, arrives at the RN party headquarters in Paris, France, July 1, 2024. Reuters Support for the eurosceptic National Rally has surged over the past decade. Many observers noted a significant rise in hate speech and intolerance during the heated campaign period. Dominique Sopo, head of the civil society group SOS Racisme, remarked, The essential message of the National Rally is that French people would be better off if they strike, one way or another symbolically, legally immigrants and their children. A viral video featuring two RN supporters verbally assaulting a black woman further inflamed the political climate in the days leading up to the election. Conversely, the hard-left France Unbowed party has vocally condemned Israels actions in its war against Hamas, accusing it of pursuing genocide against Palestinians. This stance has intensified the countrys divisions, particularly among Frances Jewish community, which numbers around half a million. The contentious debate over the Hamas-Israel conflict thrust the Jewish community into the electoral spotlight, with accusations of antisemitism being traded across the political spectrum. France Unbowed (LFI) leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. Reuters Despite these allegations, France Unbowed does not explicitly endorse generalized hatred towards Jews in their manifesto and has consistently denied accusations of antisemitism. Nonetheless, the electoral campaign has laid bare the persistent issue of racist hate speech and sporadic violence, which many fear will not dissipate with the new parliament. Overall rise in hate speech in France Advertisement A human rights panel reported a sharp increase in complaints about racist and antisemitic acts, with Frances National Consultative Commission on Human Rights noting a 32 per cent rise in racist incidents in 2023 and a staggering 284 per cent surge in antisemitic acts compared to 2022. These figures likely underrepresent the true extent of the problem, as many victims do not report incidents. Fear of growing hate speech The RNs failure to secure a leading position, despite initial polling advantages, may fuel a sense of marginalisation and resentment among its supporters. This sentiment can potentially lead to increased xenophobic rhetoric and actions. Historically, far-right factions have reacted to electoral setbacks with heightened hostility towards immigrants and minorities, often leveraging social media and public protests to voice their grievances. Marine Le Pen has characterized the loss as a temporary setback, emphasising that their support base remains robust and motivated for future political endeavors. Advertisement On the opposite end of the spectrum, the left-wing coalition, particularly France Unbowed led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, faces persistent allegations of antisemitism. This has created unease among many French Jews, who feel threatened by the partys rhetoric. The coalitions contentious stance on international issues, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, further complicates Frances internal dynamics, exacerbating tensions within its diverse communities. Frances Representative Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF) had said in January that it recorded four times as many anti-Semitic acts last year as in 2022, at 1,676, with an explosion in numbers after October 7. Reuters The entrenched political polarisation in France suggests that both far-right and far-left factions may continue to engage in inflammatory discourse, each accusing the other of fostering hate. This ongoing antagonism risks perpetuating a cycle of provocation and retaliation, escalating the overall level of hate speech in the country. Advertisement With inputs from agencies From gaffes to stuttering, President Joe Bidens wobbly debate performance against his Republican rival Donald Trump on June 27 has raised calls for the 81-year-old to bow out of the presidential race. While donors and columnists have criticised his debate now even some democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns over Bidens health and his ability to race against Trump. However, Joe Biden has decided to stand firm read more Calls for President Joe Biden to step down from the presidential race have been heard louder recently. This comes shortly after the 81-year-old President Joe Biden'wobbly debate performance against his Republican rival Donald Trump on June 27. However, Biden stands firm. File image/AP Calls for President Joe Biden to step down from the presidential race have been heard louder recently. This comes shortly after the 81-year-old President Joe Bidenwobbly debate performance against his Republican rival Donald Trump on June 27. Donors called it his performance a disaster and held frantic calls to discuss next steps. Columnists, and even some Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns over Bidens ability to race against Trump, citing his health. Two weeks later, Biden remains resolute. Advertisement While acknowledging that at 81, he is no longer a young man and blaming exhaustion for his performance, he failed in a defiant follow-up televised interview to quell concerns it was more than just one bad debate night. On Thursday during a signing ceremony on the final day of the Nato Summit, Biden made goof ups again. While refered to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump" shortly after making a gaffe while introducing Ukraininan President Volodymr Zelenskyy. He called him President Putin. On Thursday during a signing ceremony on the final day of the Nato Summit, Biden made goof ups again. It is gaffes like these that now more of his own party members are expected to ask Biden to leave the race in coming days. But for now, the White House says it plans to turn the page on the debate incident, despite some opinion polls showing Trumps lead widening and swing states leaning Republican. Why is Biden ignoring fellow Democrats and remains steadfast on beating Trump in the November 5 election? Lets take a closer look Biden exudes confidence Bidens decision to run for reelection in the first place, despite his age, centered around his belief that he was the best Democratic candidate to defeat Trump, officials and allies told Reuters. Biden was skeptical about the ability of his vice president, Kamala Harris, to win over middle-of-the road voters, especially in critical swing states, and also of the ability of any of the deep bench of Democratic governors and lawmakers who are likely to be the partys future leaders, these sources said. Advertisement Explaining his decision to stay the course, Biden told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News last week: Im the most qualified person to beat him (Trump). He later added that only the Lord almighty could convince him differently. Explaining his decision to stay the course, Biden told George Stephanopoulos of A defining principle of Bidens grief-stricken personal life and long political career has been perseverance, which he says he learned from his parents. My dad, who fell on hard times, always told me, though, Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up, he told the 2008 Democratic National Convention when he accepted the nomination as Barack Obamas running mate. Reflecting on his mothers teachings, Biden emphasised, Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. Advertisement Actor George Clooney echoed the concerns of many Democrats about this principle, writing in a New York Times opinion piece on Wednesday that it was time for Biden to leave the race. Clooney said that the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. Closest allies shielding Biden? Bidens inner circle of top aides has reinforced his determination to hold on, according to sources close to them. Biden has surrounded himself for decades with a small cadre of senior aides, such as political adviser Mike Donilon, counselor Steve Ricchetti, and deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, who have steered him through previous crises and urged him to hang on. Advertisement That dynamic has only been amplified since the fallout from the debate. I have heard that Steve and Bruce and Mike are more dug in than he is, said one former Biden aide with ties to the White House. They have grown roots and are not moving. A White House official confirmed that characterisation and said the dug-in approach applied to Bidens full senior staff. Many of his aides, including senior adviser Anita Dunn, reinforce a sense of grievance and resolve around Biden: that he has been treated unfairly by the media, that he does not get the credit he deserves for toppling Trump in 2020, and that he has been underestimated before and proven his critics wrong. Advertisement Many people in Bidens orbit feel that way, the White House official said. A memo circulated on Thursday by Jen OMalley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Bidens campaign chair and manager, respectively, said there was no better alternative to Biden. Surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden, they wrote. Fear of clash with Harris Bidens ability to withstand pressure from fellow Democrats urging him to withdraw from the race seems tied not just to his own candidacy but also to reservations about potential replacements. In interviews, about a dozen Democrats, including elected officials and activists, many of them in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, all expressed deep concerns about Bidens mental fitness and ability to beat Trump. But they also had little trust in a bench of Democrats led by Harris. If Biden were to step down, they believe the party could not bypass Harris the nations first Black vice president and first woman vice president without risking the diverse coalition needed to win the White House. While some say, Harris could bring new enthusiasm to the party and reenergise youth and Black voters. AP If Biden were to step down, they believe the party could not bypass Harris the nations first Black vice president and first woman vice president without risking the diverse coalition needed to win the White House. It has to be Harris and I dont think that puts us in a better position to win than with a hobbled Joe Biden, said one senior Democrat in Pennsylvania. On the other hand, some Democrats say Harris could bring new enthusiasm to the party and reenergise youth and Black voters. I wish more people were less scared Following Bidens debate, statements of support from leaders of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus came swiftly, which seemed to stem the tide of criticism. With these endorsements, rank-and-file Democrats found themselves hesitant to publicly withdraw support from Biden in recent days. As of Thursday, only 11 out of 213 House Democrats and one out of 51 Senate Democrats had urged the president to reconsider his candidacy. However, several House members predicted more voices would emerge, anticipating Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to convey internal criticisms to Biden. I wish more people were less scared, remarked Democratic Representative Seth Moulton, who has called for Biden to suspend his campaign. With input from Reuters Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwals judicial custody is ending in the money laundering case linked to the excise policy case. Nepal PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda will face a flood test. Heres what else to expect during the day read more Thank God its Friday! The weekend is almost upon us but before getting into the party mode, there is work to be done. It is going to be a major news day. Several important developments are waiting to be unfolded during the day. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals judicial custody ends today (July 12) in the alleged excise policy scam. Nepal prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda will face a floor test. Its a big day for the Ambani family. Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambanis youngest son Anant Ambani is getting hitched to Radhika Merchant, daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant. Advertisement Heres what is expected to make headlines during the day. Delhi CMs judicial custody ends Delhi CM Kejriwals judicial custody was extended by a Delhi court until July 12 in a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped excise policy. He was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 26 June. Kejriwal has been in Tihar jail since April 1. He was first arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the money laundering case linked to the excise policy on March 21. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court will hear the EDs plea challenging the bail granted to Delhi CM on July 15. The court had previously stayed a trial courts order grating bail to the politician. Maharashtra MLC elections Elections will be held for 11 Members of Legislative Council (MLC) seats in Maharashtra. These polls are semi-finals ahead of the Assembly elections slated later this year. The ruling Mahayuti alliance, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde camp) and the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction), has fielded nine faces and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) three candidates for the biennial election. The BJP has given tickets to five candidates, while Ajit Pawars NCP and Eknath Shindes Sena to two candidates each. Advertisement Among the MVA allies, Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) have fielded one candidate each, while NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) is backing Peasants and Workers Party of India nominee Jayant Patil. Results will be announced on the polling day only. Anant-Radhikas wedding Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are tying the knot after a series of pre-wedding festivities. The couple are getting married in a grand ceremony at Jio World Centre, Mumbai. The guest list includes several bigwigs from different walks of life. Indian politicians such as Rajnath Singh, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, Tamil Nadus MK Stalin and Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu have been invited. Advertisement Anant and Radhika will tie the knot in a grand ceremony in Mumbai. Reuters Celebrities like Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Adele, Lana Del Rey, Drake, David Beckham and his wife Victoria are expected to attend the big fat Indian wedding. Many global politicians have also been invited, including former United Kingdom prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, Americas John Kerry, and ex-Canadian PM Stephen Harper among others. Several business leaders, including Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Lee, Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet and HSBC Group Chairman Mark Tucker, are also likely to mark their presence. Imran Khans Iddat case A court in Pakistan will announce the verdict on appeals of Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi against their conviction in the Iddat Nikkah case or illegal marriage case. Advertisement Days before the general elections in Pakistan in February, an Islamabad court convicted the former PM and his wife. The case is based on a complaint filed by Bibis ex-husband, Khawar Fareed Maneka, who claimed she married the politician during her Iddat period. Islam does not allow a woman to remarry before four months of her divorce or the death of her husband. Nepal PMs vote of confidence Nepals embattled PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda will face a floor test today. He is seeking a vote of confidence from the House of Representatives after losing the support of two of his major coalition partners. He requires 138 votes for his government to survive the vote of confidence in the House. However, he enjoys the support of just 63 members of the HoR, in addition to 10 members of CPN-Unified Socialist (CPN-US). Advertisement Nepals PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal will face a vote of confidence. File Photo/Reuters Prachanda had previously said he would not resign and instead face a vote of confidence. This came after Nepali Congress (NC) president Sher Bahadur Deuba and Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) chairman K P Sharma Oli inked a power-sharing deal to form a new NC-UML coalition government. RSS annual prant pracharak meet The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will kickstart its annual meeting of prant pracharaks, or province in-charges, in Jharkhands Ranchi. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will also be present. The three-day event will see prant pracharaks discuss the report and review of RSS training camps held in May-June, RSS all India publicity head Sunil Ambekar said earlier. The travel plan of Sarsanghchalak ji (RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat) for the year 2024-25 will be discussed. Also, there will be a discussion on the RSS centenary year (2025-26), he was quoted as saying by PTI. They will deliberate on implementing the organisations plans for the coming year. PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel has become the latest billionaire to sign up for cryogenic freezing a process in which a persons body is preserved at an extremely low temperature in the hope that it can one day be revived by science. Around 500 people have already been cryogenically preserved and another 5,500 people are making plans to do so. But what is it? How does it work? read more Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel has signed up to have his body cryogenically frozen at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. For some US billionaires, death is only the beginning. The rich and powerful are signing up for cryogenic freezing having their bodies preserved at an extremely low temperature in the hopes that they can one day be revived by science. The latest to join the ranks of the hopeful is billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Thiel, interviewed by Bari Weiss on her podcast last week, said I think of it more as an ideological statement. Advertisement Im not convinced it works. Its more, I think we need to be trying these things. Its not there yet, he added. But what do we know about it? And how are they going about it? Lets take a closer look: First, lets briefly examine cryogenic freezing. Cryonics is practice of freezing a person who has died. It is aimed at bringing the person back to life at some unspecified time in the future. The world itself, cryonics, comes from the Greek kryos which means icy cold. As per BBC, science cryogenics was invented by French biologist Jean Rostand during the 1940s. The concept of cryogenic freezing was first proposed by Robert Ettinger in 1962 in a work called The Prospect Of Immortality. Ettinger, a physics teacher and war vet, was inspired by Rostand as well as science fiction. In 1967, professor James Hiram Bedford became the first person to be frozen. As per QZ, Bedford was an ex-psychology professor at the University of California-Berkeley. Bedford had died of renal cancer in January 1967. The Cryonics Institute near Detroit charges $28,000 for the procedure. Image courtesy: cryonics.org As per Science Focus, in the 1980s, company began freezing peoples heads. The idea was that the deceaseds brains could be hooked up to computers and thus brought back to life in the distant future. Advertisement As per BBC, in 1991, Bedfords body was taken out of storage. Though the evaluation found the body to be preserved, the skin was discoloured. Frozen blood was coming out of its mouth and nose. Scientists made steady progress over the next few decades. The first baby from frozen eggs was born in 1999 and the first complete organ was frozen, thawed and then reinserted into a rabbit, as per Science Focus. Advertisement According to the National Post, scientists even managed to revive 46,000-year-old roundworms from the Siberian permafrost. How does it work? Freezing is technically a misnomer. As per QZ, back in the 1970s, Bedfords body was first injected with solvent dimethyl sulfoxide. It was then placed in a Styrofoam box of dry ice. Finally, it was placed in liquid nitrogen. But thats very different from what happens now. These days, bodies are vitrified. Advertisement The process begins after a person is declared legally dead. As per Britannica, the body is first packed in ice and then sent to a cryonics facility. Now, the body is drained of its blood. Then, antifreeze and chemicals that protect the vital organs and which are designed to prevent the formation of damaging ice crystals are pumped into the body. The body is then placed into a liquid nitrogen-filled chamber at a temperature of -196 degrees Celsius. The institute also has the option to preserve just the brain at a far cheaper $80,000. What are billionaires doing? As per Bloomberg, around 500 people have already been cryogenically preserved. Another 5,500 people are making plans to do so. Advertisement For billionaires and even regular millionaires, the cost is less than a drop in the bucket. As per The National, the Cryonics Institute near Detroit charges $28,000 for the procedure the same as it did in 1976. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation charges around $200,000 for full body cryopreservation. It defines its work as the practice of preserving life by temporarily halting the dying process through the use of subfreezing temperatures, with the intention of restoring good health with advanced medical technology in the future. They are also creating what is known as revival trusts a version of perpetual trusts which keeps a lumpsum on hand to pay for the person who was revived. Alcor Life Extension Foundation defines its work as the practice of preserving life by temporarily halting the dying process." Image courtesy: alcor.org Steve LeBel, a retired hospital executive in Michigan, told Bloomberg he will put $100,000 into a revival trust. I really want to figure out a solution, otherwise Ill be in there with my fingers crossed, hoping theres money left over, 200 years from now, to pay for the resurrection process, LeBel said. But George Bearup, a senior legal trust adviser at Greenleaf Trust, said revival trusts dont seem to make sense. I would probably run the other direction, Bearup said. How do you draft for something that could take place in 1,000 years from now? Who knows what the rules will be? There is also debate about what constitutes a revival. As Peggy Hoyt, a Florida-based estate planner, told Bloomberg, Some people will say they consider revival only if theyre the same person they are today with all their memory intact. Some people are content to say that a human clone would be equivalent of revival. Others said they dont care if they have a body if their brain is uploaded to a computer, she added. False hope But some scientists are openly sceptical about the promises made by the industry. McGill University neuroscientist Michael Hendricks wrote in MIT Technology Review. [R]eanimationis an abjectly false hope that is beyond the promise of technology and is certainly impossible with the frozen, dead tissue offered by the cryonics industry. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan told the National Post it is next to impossible to believe that anybody, no matter how advanced the science, could create much out of a bunch of and Im sorry to put it this way damaged mush. Any damage to a brain from freezing and defrosting is going to create something horrible for the person that experiences that. The outcomes for adverse events are just huge, Caplan added. But others remain true believers. Lebel told Bloomberg, I believe the aging process is going to be cured. Its a disease. The technology isnt there yet, but I can bridge that time gap with cryonics. With inputs from agencies A chorus of calls for US president Joe Biden to exit from the presidential race is growing day by day. Several Hollywood A-listers, who are also among his top donors, are asking him to make way for a younger candidate read more George Clooney has called on Joe Biden to quit the US presidential race. File Photo/AP United States president Joe Biden is under pressure to bow out of the November presidential race. From the Hollywood elite to many Democrats, the 81-year-old is being called to step aside and make way for a younger candidate. Bidens disastrous performance in the the first presidential debate last month sparked concerns about his age and ability to win against his Republican rival Donald Trump. Several Hollywood A-listers, who once endorsed the Democrat, are now leading the calls for Biden to quit the race. Advertisement For his part, the US president has refused to listen. He has consistently maintained he will stay in the race and that he is the only candidate who can defeat Trump in the November election. But why has Hollywood turned its back on Joe Biden and will it hurt his chances? Lets take a closer look. Hollywood turns back on Biden Even before George Clooney wrote a damaging Opinion piece calling on Biden to step aside, a chorus of voices against the Democrats candidature had begun to rise. Screenwriter and novelist Ayelet Waldman stopped donating to liberal Democrat candidates up and down the ballot to protest against Bidens candidature. Ive always donated. Ive always donated more than I can afford. But this is the first time I have ever decided to stop donating up and down the ballot as a means of indicating my - I think displeasure isnt the right word - absolute, gut-curdling panic, she told the BBC. Clooneys recent op-ed for The New York Times (NYT) was a scathing disapproval of Biden for whom the Oceans Eleven star headlined a fundraiser last month. I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him, Clooney wrote in the piece. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, hes won many of the battles hes faced. Advertisement But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can, he added. 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. Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024," he concluded the piece by saying. George Clooney is one one of the high-profile supporters of Joe Biden. File Photo/Reuters Clooney is a major Democratic donor and one of the high-profile supporters of Biden. The fundraiser, which saw Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jimmy Kimmel, sing praises of the US president raised a whopping $30 million (Rs 250 crore) more than any Democratic fundraiser ever, as per CNN. Advertisement When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner backed Clooneys views, writing on X, My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside. Actor and producer Michael Douglas, who hosted a fundraiser for the US president in April, told BBC he was disappointed in Bidens inability to challenge all the lies of Trump in the presidential debate hosted by CNN. While he did not explicitly ask Biden to end his campaign, the Last Vegas actor expressed doubts about Biden serving a full term if he returns as president. I am worried, he said. Advertisement Disney heiress Abigail Disney has said she would withhold donations until Biden steps aside. Hailing the US president as a good man who had served his country admirably, she said Trump might win in November if Biden did not end his campaign. Serendipity actor John Cusack has also called for a new Democrat candidate. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has also urged Biden to exit from the race. He told NYT in an email, Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous. This is a major shift for Hastings, who along with his wife Patty Quillin, donated $1.5 million to Bidens campaign in 2020 and over $20 million to the Democratic Party, according to The Times. Advertisement Bestselling horror author Stephen King wrote in a post on X this week that while Joe Biden has been a fine president it is 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 In an article on his website, filmmaker Michael Moore asked Biden not to run, saying your body is begging you. Speaking to MSNBC, Moore accused the Democratic party of committing elder abuse by pushing Biden to continue with his candidacy. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof wrote a piece for Deadline, saying Biden has to go. He also asked others to stop giving money to all Democrat candidates until Biden drops out of the race. Is it misguided to punish the entire team for the stubbornness of the pitcher? Maybe. But its also common sense that if he stays in, they will also lose. A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling Biden sinks them, he wrote. A high-profile Hollywood donor told Variety, With all the text chains Im on, people are basically like, If he doesnt drop out, were not giving any more money to Democrats or the Democratic Party. Its like super intense. ALSO READ: Can US First Lady Jill Biden save husband Joes election campaign? Will Hollywoods withdrawal of support hurt Biden? Hollywood has always thrown its weight behind the Democratic Party, especially financially. Now, the growing discontent among Hollywood A-listers, including some of the biggest donors of the party, has raised questions about whether it would dent Bidens chances against Trump. Hollywood is an influential bloc. Bidens campaign needs celebrities to fill its coffers. Joe Biden has refused to drop out of the US presidential race. Reuters As per Politico, Clooneys op-ed has the potential to sway the average American voter. It will get into the pop culture. TMZ will talk about it. TikTok influencers will talk about it, Brian Goldsmith, an LA-based Democratic consultant who has worked in the media industry, told the American digital newspaper company. Fai Nelson, a human resources worker, told Associated Press (AP) in June that celebrities can make a difference if they can touch the audience. Its whether the message is relevant. Biden needs Hollywoods enthusiastic support, given the shift of some Silicon Valley donors to Trump in recent months, noted Variety. But is Hollywoods support enough to get Biden re-elected? Speaking to AP, David Schmid, an English professor at the University of Buffalo who studies popular culture, said that celebrities can influence what fans consume and their aspirations. But, he added, that their influence over peoples voting habits has been really exaggerated. The Biden campaign has been calling Hollywood supporters to ensure they do not leave the US president in this tumultuous period, CNN reported. As The Guardian mentioned, Bidens A-list endorsers still comprise older Hollywood celebrities. Younger celebrities may judge the US president for his handling of Israels war in Gaza and attendant failure to stop the bloodshed which means they may not have been endorsing him to begin with. Biden may not need celebrities to win, or for his sense of worth. But he does need actual support, and Clooneys op-ed helped make him seem more like a cause than a candidate, the British newspaper piece read. Moreover, it is unlikely that these Democratic Party supporters will vote against Biden if he remains in the race. For them, Trumps second term is the more scary option than Bidens. With inputs from agencies A 2023-batch IAS officer Pooja Khedkar is surrounded by controversy over the use of a beacon on her private car and disability claims. Questions are also being raised over her declaration of OBC non-creamy layer in the UPSC candidature read more Probationary IAS officer Pooja Khedkar is embroiled in a major controversy. She came to the limelight after reports of her unauthorised use of a beacon on her private car, and demands for a separate office and official car emerged. Now, questions have arisen over her allegedly availing of Other Backward Class (OBC) benefits for her appointment as a trainee IAS officer while belonging to a well-to-do family. Only non-creamy layer OBC candidates are eligible for reservation benefits in jobs and educational institutions. Advertisement The 2023-batch IAS officers disability claim of suffering from blindness and mental illness which gave her concessions under the Persons with Benchmark Disabilities category is also being questioned. Whats the controversy? What is a non-creamy layer? 1. Khedkars appointment under the OBC non-creamy layer has come under the scanner. She is the daughter of Dilip Khedkar, who contested Lok Sabha elections on a Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) ticket. 2. According to Pune RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar, Dilip Khedkars poll affidavit showed an estimated wealth of Rs 40 crore and an annual income of Rs 49 lakh, reported Times of India (TOI). 3. Pooja owns five plots of land and two apartments across Maharashtra worth Rs 22 crore, NDTV reported citing her statement of immovable property for the year 2023. 4. She is the owner of two plots of land in Pune districts Mahalunge valued at nearly Rs 16 crore, one in Dhadawali worth Rs 4 crore, two in Ahmednagars Pachunde and Nandur a gift from her mother worth Rs 25 lakh and Rs 1 crore, respectively, as per the NDTV report. Advertisement 5. Pooja has one apartment in Ahmednagars Savedi has been pegged at Rs 45 lakh and Punes Kondhwa worth Rs 75 lakh. All of these assets, which were obtained between 2014 and 2019, give her an earning of Rs 42 lakh every year, the report added. 6. Pooja, who used the Government of Maharashtra" sticker on her private vehicle an Audi sedan, had declared she belonged to the OBC non-creamy layer in her Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) candidature. But what is it? 7. A non-creamy layer (NCL) certificate is issued to individuals on the basis of their parents status. For those who want to qualify as an OBC non-creamy layer candidate, their parents annual income or the yearly income of the family should not be more than Rs 8 lakh. Advertisement 8. Any one of the parents should be employed as a Group C or Group D officer by the Central government. If the husband is a Central government employee and the wifes parents do not have a stable income, she can apply for an OBC NCL certificate. 9. Those in the OBC (non-creamy) list get 27 per cent reservations in government jobs and educational institutes. They also get age relaxation in various exams, including UPSC. There is also relaxation in cut-off marks in exams. 10. Meanwhile, the Centre has formed a single-member panel to verify the candidature claims and other details submitted by Pooja. An additional secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will look into the matter and submit a report within two weeks. Advertisement 11. Amid the controversy, Pooja has been transferred from the Pune district collectors office to Washim. Earlier this month, Pune district collector Suhas Diwase said in a report that she sought special privileges, which were not allowed to an IAS probationary officer. He also flagged Pooja and her fathers objectionable behaviour to the state government. With inputs from agencies Its geographical proximity to Gaza and control over the Rafah crossing the only border with Gaza not under Israeli controlposition Egypt as a crucial player in ceasefire talks. Cairos role as a mediator is not new. But it is more invigorated now than perhaps ever before read more Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has taken significant efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Hamas leaders and Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Agencies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office announced on Thursday that Israel will send a delegation to Egypt for further talks with mediators on a proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. This move is the closest the two parties have come to bridging their differences after months of intense negotiations facilitated by US, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators. Egypts role as a mediator is not new. But it is more invigorated now than perhaps ever before. And its not altruism driving their involvement. Advertisement We explain what is motivating Cairo towards brokering a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Strategic interests Egypts involvement in the mediation efforts is driven by several strategic interests. The only country (apart from Israel) that Gaza shares a border with, is Egypt. One of the primary concerns for Cairo is the potential mass exodus of Palestinian refugees into the Sinai Peninsula. Maintaining a close relationship with Hamas is key for Egypt to preserve its regional influence and minimize the impact of competitors like Turkey and Qatar in Gaza. Calls by some ultra-nationalist Israeli officials to displace Palestinians into Egypts Sinai Peninsula have further fueled Cairos efforts to mediate the conflict. Egypt has categorically rejected these suggestions as a red line that would undermine its national security, highlighting the high stakes involved in the mediation process. Diplomatic clout Egypts unique historical relationship with Israel has given it a lot of clout in the region, especially in the context of arbitration. Mediation can be seen as a part of its efforts to reclaim its role as a heavyweight in Arab diplomacy, too. Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel in 1978, Egypt has a lengthy history of diplomacy with the Jewish state. This means it has greater diplomatic leverage ahead than countries like Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain, which only normalised relations with Israel in 2020. Moreover, Egypts shared border with Gaza gives it additional leverage over Hamas, allowing Cairo to influence Hamas policies by controlling the border crossing. Advertisement For instance, in February 2021, Egypt opened the Rafah crossing indefinitely after Hamas pledged to accept the results of the long-delayed Palestinian elections. This move was part of an effort to create better conditions for negotiations between the Palestinian factions, demonstrating Egypts ability to use its control over the border to shape outcomes. Economic imperatives Beyond its political and strategic interests, there are economic imperatives powering Egypts arbitration efforts, too. Recently, several global shipping companies suspended shipping through the Suez Canal due to security concerns, adding to Egypts economic woes. The country is grappling with an acute foreign currency shortage and a staggering foreign debt amounting to $164.73 billion by the end of June 2023. Resolving the Israel-Gaza conflict and preventing it from escalating into a wider war is crucial for Egypts economic stability. Advertisement Potential outcomes and benefits for Egypt The outcome of the conflict could deliver several benefits for Egypt. One of the primary goals for Cairo is the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the governing authority in Gaza. The PA is seen as more willing to engage in diplomacy and negotiations compared to Hamas. A scenario where Hamas is significantly weakened could pave the way for the PAs return, leading to a more pragmatic neighbour for Egypt and Israel. If Hamas loses power, Egypt is expected to play a crucial role in the government transition phase. Egypt has historically been the conduit through which aid and funds from Arab countries and the international community are transferred into Gaza. The country is likely to participate in Gazas reconstruction process and be a dominant influencing factor in shaping its future, according to an essay in The Conversation. Advertisement The challenges ahead Despite the potential benefits, the path to a ceasefire is fraught with challenges. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the nine-month offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are returned home. He has also demanded that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypta condition that conflicts with Hamass position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire. Hamas has accused Israel of using delaying tactics to sabotage the truce efforts, claiming it has not been informed of any new developments from the latest talks. These conflicting positions highlight the tough task ahead for the mediators in Cairo. Advertisement In a nutshell The country has been involved in mediating between Israel and Hamas and in the reconstruction efforts of Gaza for several years. Its geographical proximity to Gaza and control over the Rafah crossing the only border with Gaza not under Israeli controlposition Egypt as a crucial player in these talks. Joe Biden at the Nato meet mistakenly called Ukraines Volodymr Zelenskyy Vladimir Putin. Hours later, he referred to his vice president as Donald Trump instead of Kamala Harris. These recent gaffes and his disastrous debate performance have made many wonder if the US president is mentally fit to run the country. But what do experts note on the 81-year-olds verbal slips: Are they a sign of old age or something worse? read more Amid concerns of his mental acuity, US President Joe Biden referred to Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy as Vladimir Putin during the Nato summit. Reuters Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden declared at the Nato summit in Washington while introducing Ukraines Volodymr Zelenskyy. President Putin! At the announcement of Ukraine Compact, a new initiative to bolster aid to Kyiv in its ongoing war with Russia, US President Joe Biden welcomed Zelenskyy when he said: I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination please welcome President Putin. Advertisement On the same night, President Biden flubbed again at his big boy solo press conference when he referred to his vice president as Donald Trump. Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if] I think shes not qualified to be president, Biden said. Joe Biden misidentifies Vice President Kamala Harris as Donald Trump, during a high-stakes press conference, saying: "Look I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there" This comes hours after Biden pic.twitter.com/t2ZcpUEbtl TRT World (@trtworld) July 11, 2024 While Zelenskyy laughed off the mistake, the fumbles are part of a long list of gaffes Biden has committed, making many question if he is indeed well enough to run for president again and secure a second term against Donald Trump. Its a question that many, if not all, are asking: When does a verbal flub become a cause for genuine cognitive concern? Advertisement Bidens many, many flubs On Thursday, in an attempt to calm concerns about his mental acuity, Joe Biden held a press conference which was closely watched by all. Apart from the Trump-Harris flub, he had many more similar instances. One was when the commander-in-chief said, Im following the advice of my commander-in-chief. Sometimes, his voice also trailed off with an anyway. He also defaulted to his strange whispering habit. And this isnt all. He has a long list of howlers, making many question if he is capable of running the country again. At the first presidential debate on June 27, he was seen losing his train of thought and even stumbled on some issues. At one point, his opponent, Donald Trump, said: I really dont know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I dont think he knows what he said either. Advertisement US President Joe Biden gestures as he speaks at a press conference during Natos 75th anniversary summit, in Washington. Amid his address, he told reporters, Im following the advice of my commander-in-chief. This is while he, in fact, is the commander-in-chief. Reuters Earlier on June 18, at an immigration event, the 81-year-old US president seemed to temporarily forget the name of Secretary of Homeland Security only to recover a bit later. In September last year, Biden was rambling mid-sentence in Hanoi. It was then that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre intervened and told reporters: Thank you, everybody, this ends the press conference. Moments earlier, the president had quipped: I dont know about you, but Im going to go to bed. Similarly, in June last year, he referred to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as president, then corrected himself with a joke: I just promoted you. Advertisement When Biden visited Israel in 2022, he said at Jerusalems famed Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Centre: I will once more return to the hollow ground of Yad Shav Vashem to honour the six million Jewish lives were stolen in a genocide. And continue which we must do every, every day continue to bear witness, to keep alive the truth and honour of the Holocaust before correcting himself to say horror of the Holocaust instead. During his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden tried to give a ringing rhetorical boost to embattled Ukraine, but accidentally praised Iran instead. Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, the president declared, less than a week after Russia launched its invasion. But he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people. Advertisement Concerns over Biden While the earlier flubs were laughed off or ignored, the recent instances of Biden mispronouncing or rambling have become a concern for Democrats, Biden supporters as well as American voters. US President Joe Biden, at the first presidential debate with Republican candidate, former US President Donald Trump. His performance at the debate has caused concern among the Democrats, donors as well as American voters if he is capable of the job. Reuters Several Democrats have called on President Biden to drop out of the race against Donald Trump, starting with Lloyd Doggett, a 15-term Texas congressman, who said that it was time for Biden to make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. He has since been followed by others, including Democrat senator, Peter Welch of Vermont, who said: We need him to put us first, as he has done before. I urge him to do it now. Other prominent names have also joined in the chorus, asking Biden to vacate the race to the White House, including donor and Hollywood superstar George Clooney. Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, also said, I want him to do whatever he decides to do, adding that time is running short for him to make that call. Many have even called for President Joe Biden to take a cognitive test to determine the level of his mental acuity. Several donors have also expressed concern over Joe Biden and are publicly withdrawing their support and calling for him to be replaced. Among the many donors, Abigail Disney who is an heiress to the Disney family fortunes has said that she intends to stop her funding to the Democratic party, if Biden does not step down. Supporters of US President Joe Biden have expressed concern if he is the right man for the job. File image/Reuters Experts speak But is Bidens flub just a sign of old age or something more? Some dementia experts say such slips, on their own, are no cause for concern. Dr Zaldy Tan, who directs the Memory and Healthy Ageing Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told NPR: Weve all had them. Its just that we are not public figures and therefore this is not as noticeable or blown up. Additionally, memory lapses become more common with age, even in people whose brains are perfectly healthy. Dr Sharon Sha, a clinical professor of neurology at Stanford University concurs with this assessment, saying the temporary inability to remember names, in particular, is very common as we get older. Other neurologists are also of the opinion that forgetting names or having difficulty remembering dates from the past are just a part of ageing. Dr Paul Newhouse, clinical core leader for the Vanderbilt Alzheimers Disease Research Centre, speaking to NBC News said, If you asked me when my mother passed away, I couldnt necessarily tell you the exact year because it was many years ago. He added that this type of forgetfulness doesnt actually predict who ends up having memory disorders. Dr Dennis Selkoe, co-director of the Ann Romney Centre for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, was quoted as saying, Naming proper nouns is not an adequate basis to make a conclusion about whether an individual has a more consistent and more concerning substantive progressive memory disorder. US President Joe Biden takes a selfie with a supporter in, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Despite concerns, Joe Biden insists he is the best man to run against Trump in the 2024 presidential elections. File image/Reuters Other neurological experts note that they tend to worry less about a patients ability to remember remote memories from many years ago and more troubled by an inability to recall more recent events. This is because, in their opinion, dementia first affects the part of the brain thats responsible for short-term memories, as opposed to long-term memories. Dr Elizabeth Landsverk, a geriatrician and dementia expert, told DailyMail.com that Bidens mishaps tend to be short and severe such as tripping up stairs or memory-blanking. And he usually catches his mistakes, however embarrassing they may be, which she claims is a sign of his very senior years. Daniel J Stone, an internist and geriatrician in Beverly Hills, in a report for the Los Angeles Times wrote that most older people suffer from age-associated memory impairment. Its a nuisance but not disabling. He wrote that he believes that Biden shows no signs of Alzheimers disease. At news conferences, he references new events and obviously creates new memories efficiently. He speaks slowly and pauses to find words like others with benign age-associated memory impairment. Andrew Budson, a Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine professor of neurology, told Boston University: When one is talking spontaneously in public, it uses that type of high-speed cognitive ability that is done in their head. As mentioned, older adults are just not as good at this type of activity, and are therefore more likely to make errors. However, not all share the same opinions. Representative Dr Greg Murphy, who has been a physician, said many individuals succumb to cognitive decline. Tragedy, two weeks ago, when we saw the president of the United States exhibit those qualities of decline of cognition. Even forensic psychologist Carole Lieberman told the Washington Examiner that based on her observations of Biden on television, she believed that dementia is a strong possibility. If I had to take a guess, I would say that it is vascular dementia because he has long had cardiovascular problems, Lieberman said. He had a brain bleed years ago from an aneurysm. He had atrial fibrillation. Another commentator, Robert Howard, a geriatric psychology specialist at the University College of London, however, observes that Bidens gaffes appear to be more aligned with Parkinsons because they appear more sporadically. Hes fine 98 per cent of the time, but there are occasions when he appears to have lost his train of thought and others where he cant stop himself from rambling. These fluctuations and dips in attention are key symptoms of Parkinsons, Howard told Washington Examiner. Whatever the case be, calls for Biden to step aside are growing louder and it remains to be seen if the 81-year-old commander-in-chief accedes to them or does he continue in the race to the White House. With inputs from agencies Maharashtra witnessed the return of resort politics ahead of todays legislative polls with the ruling Mahayuti alliance and the opposition Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena putting up its MLAs in five-star hotels. The parties made the move out of fears of cross-voting in what political watchers have dubbed the semi-final ahead of the Maharashtra state Assembly polls read more Members of Chief Minister Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena gathered in Vidhan Bhavan complex on Wednesday morning for a meeting and then shifted to a five-star hotel in Bandra ahead of the polls. ANI Maharashtra is witnessing high political drama. Ahead of todays legislative council polls, the state witnessed a return to resort politics with the ruling Mahayuti alliance comprising the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar NCP shifting its MLAs to hotels. But whats do we know What do we know about the polls? The polls comes after the 2024 Lok Sabha election in which the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won a staggering 30 of 48 seats in Maharashtra. Advertisement The ruling Mahayuti, meanwhile, won just 17 seats losing more than half the 41 seats it had won in 2019. They also come months ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls leading many political watchers to dub them the semi-final ahead of the big final. The biennial elections to 11 council seats are being held at the Vidhan Bhavan complex in south Mumbai between 9 am and 4 pm today. The counting of votes will begin at 5 pm. There are 12 candidates in the fray for the 11 seats in the upper house of the state legislature where the 274 members of the 288-member legislative Assembly form the electoral college. As per Indian Express, the Assemblys strength has come down to 274 after because seven MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha, four died, two resigned, and one was been disqualified. The polls are being held to fill the vacancies of 11 members of the upper house of the state legislature who serve six-year terms retiring on July 27. Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes. The BJP has fielded five candidates Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe Sadabhau Khot and its ally Shiv Sena two former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali. Advertisement Another Mahayuti ally NCP has given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar. The Congress has re-nominated Pradnya Satav for another term, while its Maha Vikas Aghadi partner Sena (UBT) has fielded Milind Narvekar, a close aide of party president Uddhav Thackeray. The third MVA constituent, NCP (SP), has not fielded its nominee and instead extended support to Jayant Patil of the Peasant Workers Party. The Congress has excess votes since it has fielded only one candidate. The BJP is the largest party in the Assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), NCP (42), Congress (37), Shiv Sena (UBT) 15 and NCP (SP) 10. Advertisement Uddhav Thackeray last week expressed confidence that all three candidates of the opposition MVA will emerge victorious in the council polls. Other parties with a presence in the lower house include the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (3), Samajwadi Party (2), AIMIM (2), Prahar Janshakti Party (2), MNS, CPI(M), Swabhimani Paksh, Jansurajya Shakti Party, RSP, Krantikari Shetkari Paksh and PWP (one each). There are also 13 independent MLAs. Whats going on? As per Indian Express, the ruling Mahayuti has shifted its MLAs to five-star hotels. According to NDTV, Ajit Pawars NCP has put up its MLAs in a five-star hotel near the airport. Assembly members of Chief Minister Eknath Shindes Shiv Sena gathered in Vidhan Bhavan complex on Wednesday morning for a meeting and then shifted to a five-star hotel in Bandra. Advertisement A meeting of the BJP legislature party took place in Vidhan Bhavan complex on Wednesday night. From there, the MLAs were taken to a five-star hotel. Leader of Opposition in the assembly Vijay Wadettiwar of the Congress, a constituent of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), has organised a dinner meeting for his party MLAs at a city hotel on Thursday night. The Congress has issued a whip to its MLAs asking them to vote as per the party directive. As per the directive issued by Congress Legislature Party leader Balasaheb Thorat, it is mandatory for all party MLAs to vote for the MVA candidates. Advertisement Necessary instructions regarding the voting process will be given to Congress MLAs before the polling starts at 9 am, as per the party directive. Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, also a member of the opposition bloc MVA, held a dinner interaction with his MLAs at a five-star hotel in central Mumbai on Wednesday night. Eleven Shiv Sena (UBT) MLAs attended the dinner and they stayed back in the hotel. On Thursday, four remaining legislators joined them, a party leader informed. Thackeray, an MLC, told the MLAs they have stayed loyal to him and he need not tell them what they should be doing during the voting, said the party leaders. The Sharad Pawar NCP has not put up its MLAs in a hotel. Jayant Patil, the Maharashtra president of the NCP, said, We have full faith in our MLAs and dont feel the need to keep them in five-star hotels. Why is this happening? These moves are being made because both the ruling alliance and the opposition are worried about cross-voting. Over the last few days, the NCP (SP) has claimed that some MLAs of the rival camp led by Ajit are in touch with the opposition party for a possible return. Ajits NCP performed poorly in the recent Lok Sabha polls winning just one seat. The NCP (SP) has claimed that some MLAs of the rival camp led by Ajit Pawar are in touch with the opposition party for a possible return. Ajits NCP performed poorly in the recent Lok Sabha polls winning just one seat. PTI Cross voting will take place only if MLAs voting for a different side have an assurance of getting MLA ticket three months later, a senior NCP leader told Indian Express. While the Mahayuti alliance is set to win seats thanks to its numbers in the House, the MVA is likely to win two. The 11th seat remains up for grabs. The MVA does not have numbers on its side to get the third candidate elected but is banking on some MLAs of the NCP and the Shiv Sena, both constituents of Mahayuti, to cross-vote in their favour. As per Indian Express, there are also reports that three Congress MLAs are unhappy. Uddhav last week expressed confidence that all three candidates of the opposition MVA will emerge victorious in the council polls. When pointed out that the opposition bloc does not have the numbers in the assembly to ensure the victory of its third candidate, the former chief minister had remarked, We would not be doing it (fielding 3rd nominee) had we not been confident (of winning). With inputs from agencies New Yorks long-awaited new trash cans have finally been unveiled, nearly two years after the city spent $1.6 million on a contract with consulting firm McKinsey in 2022. On Monday, NYC mayor Eric Adams showcased the wheeled bins alongside NYC Department of Sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch, who symbolically placed a black bag from his official residence, Gracie Mansion, into one of the containers read more NYC mayor Eric Adams and sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch unveiled New York Citys first official trash bin on Monday (July 8). The event, held at Gracie Mansion (NYC mayors official residence), showcased the new NYC Bina wheeled container with a secure latching lid, designed to replace the traditional loose trash bags that have long cluttered the citys sidewalks. Today, we are tossing even more black bags into the dustbin of history and taking the next step forward in our Trash Revolution, Adams proudly declared. The goal is to containerise approximately 70 per cent of the citys annual 14 billion pounds of trash, a move expected to improve public spaces and reduce rat infestations. Advertisement Time to Get (EVEN MORE) Stuff Clean! Join us right now in Manhattan as we kick off the next phase in our trash revolution: https://t.co/AEDRQNXmUT NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) July 8, 2024 Where is the controversy? The announcement, however, sparked controversy over the $1.6 million paid to consulting firm McKinsey & Company for their role in the project. Originally, the contract had a maximum value of $4 million in 2022, but the consultancy was ultimately paid $1.6 million to develop a citywide pilot program and provide recommendations on trash management. Social media reacted to the news with shock, as well as humour, with many users wondering why it took NYC decades to realise that instead of throwing its trash in bags on the streets, it could put the bags in containers. One user posted on X regarding the money spent on the project: The next time you have imposter syndrome at work, just remember: pic.twitter.com/8QzqgNycQV Chris Bakke (@ChrisJBakke) July 10, 2024 Advertisement Local councilwoman Sandy Nurse, former chair of the committee on sanitation and solid waste management, questioned the necessity of spending millions on outside consultants. There was a body of work done [with] a lot of these ideas that is sitting there, and could easily be looked at again, she told New York-based website Gothamist back in 2022 Hiring McKinsey seems a little unnecessary at best. The city should be developing this kind of expertise in-house, at city agencies. How will the move be implemented? Starting in November 2024, all buildings with one to nine residential units will be required to use these official NYC Bins. The bins are priced below $50 for the most common size, making them affordable for most property owners. The new rules will be enforced with fines ranging from $50 for a first offense to $200 for subsequent offenses. Advertisement Effective June 1, 2026, these buildings will be required to use the official NYC Bin to facilitate faster, safer, and cleaner mechanised collection with rear-loading tipper garbage trucks. The trash revolution requires all of us! Hate the leaky smelly summer trash? Get a new bin & help us #getstuffdone, 1-9 unit building containerization mandates get us to 70% of the citys total trash off our streets! https://t.co/zAYUSleAUS Meera Joshi (@MeeraCJoshi) July 8, 2024 NYC deputy mayor for operations Meera Joshi highlighted the significance of this step: NYC-branded wheeled containers, custom designed to work with our trucks, are the key to keeping our most precious real estate New York City sidewalks clear. How did the Trash Revolution begin? The Trash Revolution began in October 2022 with changes to trash set-out times, moving from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM to reduce the time trash sits on the streets. This change, along with the introduction of containerised collection at midnight in high-density areas, marked the first major shift in the citys approach to waste management. Advertisement In August 2023, containerisation requirements extended to all food-related businesses, and by September, commercial containerisation rules covered chain businesses with five or more locations. March 1, 2024, saw all businesses in the city mandated to use secure bins for their trash. Once this newest change goes into effect this fall, we'll have containerized 70% of our city's 14 BILLION annual pounds of trash in just TWO years. And that's how we will win the war on rats in our city.https://t.co/ITtT1lRhtv pic.twitter.com/6yYhVPa6Gw Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) July 8, 2024 The final phase will commence in the spring of 2025, with the installation of stationary on-street containers in Manhattan Community Board 9. This area will serve as the first full-district containerisation pilot, supported by new automated side-loading trucks. Will the revolution solve NYCs trash & rat problem? While the implementation of these new trash bins is a significant step forward, questions remain about the broader impact on waste reduction and environmental sustainability. The NYC Bin adds another instrumental tool in New York Citys rat mitigation toolkit, said Kathleen Corradi, Director of Citywide Rodent Mitigation. However, the ultimate goal is not just to manage trash more effectively but to reduce waste production altogether. A rat jumps into a puddle in the snow in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, US, December 2, 2019. File Image/Reuters Critics argue that the $1.6 million spent on consulting fees could have been better utilised. However, the administration maintains that the investment will pay off in the form of cleaner streets and fewer rat sightings. New Yorkers can hold their heads high instead of holding their noses, said BJ Jones, Executive Director of New New York. Also Read: New York City reigns supreme as the worlds wealthiest city; Mumbai, Delhi also in the list of top 50 Even though New York Citys Trash Revolution is meant to represent a significant shift in how the city handles its waste, it remains to be seen how well New Yorkers adapt to the official NYC Bin. With inputs from agencies A few days after their martyred son received Indias second-highest peacetime gallantry award, Kirti Chakra, parents of Captain Anshuman Singh have called for modifications in the Indian Armys next of kin (NOK) policy. Calling the criteria incorrect, father Ravi Pratap Singh said after the demise of their son, his widow Smriti Singh moved out of the house and is currently receiving the majority of the entitlement read more Captain Anshuman Singh served in the Indian Army's 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 A few days after their martyred son received Indias second-highest peacetime gallantry award, Kirti Chakra, the parents of Captain Anshuman Singh called for modifications in the Indian Armys next of kin (NOK) policy. The policy entails providing financial assistance to family members in case of an army personnels death. Captain Singh died in a major fire incident in Siachen in July last year. Criteria for NOK not correct In an interview with a news outlet, Ravi Pratap Singh and his wife Manju Singh stated after the demise of their son, his widow Smriti Singh moved out of the house and is currently receiving the majority of the entitlements. Advertisement A picture of their son hanging on the wall is all thats left of them, he said. Speaking to TV9 Bharatvarsh, Singh said, The criteria set to NOK is not correct. I have also spoken to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh about this. Anshumans wife doesnt live with us now, the marriage was just five months old and there is no child. We only have a photo of our son hanging on the wall with a garland on it." That is why we want that the definition of NOK be fixed. It should be decided that if the wife of the martyr stays in the family, who has how much dependency, he added. Captain Singhs mother said they want the government to revisit the NOK rules so that other parents dont have to suffer. The NOK rules The term next of kin refers to a persons spouse, closest relatives, family member, or legal guardian. A persons parents or guardians are listed as NOK when he enlists in the Army. According to Army rules, when a cadet or officer gets married, their spouses name is listed as their next of kin rather than their parents. The rules say the ex-gratia amount is given to NOK if something happens to an individual while serving. Captain Singhs death Captain Singh was stationed in the Siachen Glacier with 26 Punjab as a medical officer. Around three in the morning on July 19, 2023, an Indian Army ammunition depot caught fire due to a short circuit. Advertisement When Captain Singh noticed a fibreglass hut on fire, he moved quickly to save the people within. He was able to save four or five people, but not before the fire quickly spread to a nearby medical investigation room. Captain Singh returned to the burning building. He tried to get out of the fire but was unable to do so, and passed away inside. On July 22, 2023, he was cremated with full State honours in Bihars Bhagalpur. Kirti Chakra awarded Posthumously, Captain Singh received the Kirti Chakra, the second-highest gallantry honour in India. On July 5, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, his mother Manju Singh and wife Smriti accepted the award from President Droupadi Murmu. Advertisement With her mother-in-law by her side and a mournful expression on her face, the young wife of the deceased officer recalled her late husbands remarks while wearing a white saree. I would die with a brass on my chest. I would not die an ordinary death, Captain Singh had said. On July 5, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Captain Anshuman Singhs mother Manju Singh and wife Smriti accepted the posthumous Kirti Chakra award from President Droupadi Murmu. News18 The Ministry of Defence spokesperson shared a video on X in which Smriti broke down in tears as she talked about their relationship and their marriage. Advertisement 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. 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. Advertisement She claimed that up to this point, she has not been able to accept the loss. 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. 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, she said. With inputs from agencies From sleeping on the streets in her childhood days to becoming a top firefighter and now Prince Williams homelessness adviser, Sabina Cohen-Hattons story is inspiring hundreds of people in the United Kingdom. Meet the 41-year-old read more From sleeping rough in childhood to becoming a top firefighter and now Prince Williams homelessness adviser, Sabina Cohen-Hattons, 41, story is inspiring hundreds of people in the United Kingdom. I sit in front of you now with a job, a home, a family and a PhD, she shared her story with the royal at Windsor Castle as proof that homeless people should not be written off. Lets take a closer look. Sleeping rough to Prince Williams advisor Advertisement After a tragic upbringing in which her father passed away when she was nine years old, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton turned to living on the streets of Wales when she was just 15 years old and preparing for her GCSEs. In the Big Issue, Cohen-Hatton shared her experience of living on the streets, saying, My father died when I was nine and I was in a single-parent household with a mum who found it incredibly difficult to cope and struggled terribly with her mental health. We lived in abject poverty for several years as a result. When somebody goes to war with their demons, everyone around them gets hit by the shrapnel. We were in a really volatile situation by the time I was 15, a crisis point where it was just too much. My mum loved me dearly but she didnt have the capacity to be able to look after me properly. It was then that I started to sleep rough, she said, adding that she was at the time in the middle of her GCSEs. Even with the support of her loyal dog, Menace, she claims it was difficult for her to get assistance and that she was forced to live in constant danger and violence on the streets. Fearing that asking for a school locker would alert social services and throw her family into more difficulties, she would hide her books in a box in an abandoned structure after studying on the streets. Advertisement Eventually all my books were ripped up in that building by a proper neo-Nazi skinhead he saw my surname Cohen on my grammar book and he attacked me. He put out a cigarette out on my arm. He really went to town on me. It was a horrible experience. After that, I kept my books in a box in the Big Issue office. And I kept studying. I think I saw qualifications as a ticket out of there," Cohen-Hatton said. The single mother said that the Big Issue saved her life since it helped her get a job and eventually join the fire department. Advertisement At the age of 36, she was appointed West Sussexs fire chief in 2019. She was the youngest of just six women who held the position in the United Kingdom. The 41-year-old also has a doctorate and honorary fellowship at Cardiff University in behavioural neuroscience. Inspiring others Cohen-Hatton continues to inspire others by sharing her own lived experience. Recently, as a Homewards advocate, she said that Prince William had an immense amount of empathy for homelessness, which she believed was a reflection of the trauma of his early life his mother Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris when he was only 15. Advertisement When you dont have enough to eat, let alone to think, it is hard to reach out and take those services. When you have someone who loves you very deeply but doesnt have the physical or mental resources to look after you, you are raised to treat any kind of authority figure with mistrust. You are desperately trying to hold it together. I carried the stigma with me every day. Prince Williams efforts to end homelessness Her story comes during the first anniversary of Prince Williams 3 million Homewards initiative. Britains Prince William looks on during a visit to Lambeth to mark the first year of the homelessness initiative Homewards, in London, Britain, July 11, 2024. Reuters The five-year initiative aims to eradicate the problem of sofa surfing, rough and itinerant sleeping, and inadequate temporary family housing in six key areas across the country, including Newport, South Wales, where 15-year-old Sabrina used to sleep outside due to issues at home and the death of a parent, as per Dailymail. Advertisement William has formed local coalitions in Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Lambeth, Newport, Northern Ireland, and Sheffield throughout the past 12 months. The late Princess Diana of Wales, who started visiting her son to shelters when he was a small child, served as an inspiration for Prince William. Meeting Homewards representatives in Brixton, according to BBC, he said, Homelessness is a complex societal issue, and one that touches the lives of far too many people in our society. However, I truly believe that it can be ended." In an expected address today, the future king will say that he is now more confident than ever that homelessness can be permanently eliminated. Homelessness in Britain The number of homeless persons has increased dramatically in the last several years, with approximately 4,000 people sleeping on the streets every night and 100,000 families living in temporary housing, which affects 144,000 children, as per Dailymail. However, those who are trying to address it think it can be overcome by taking a coordinated strategy that prevents individuals and families from initially slipping through the gaps. For the first time, prominent companies like Homebase, as well as private landlords, local government agencies, builders, charities, and churches, are collaborating. Nearly 100 houses for those who are homeless or soon to become so have already been supplied. Additionally, 500 jobs with Pret A Manger and a 1 million donation of home starter kits have been provided. With inputs from agencies Finland has accused neighbouring Russia of weaponising migration by encouraging migrants from countries like Syria and Somalia to cross the border as its parliament votes on a bill on Friday that would give border guards the authority to turn back asylum seekers crossing from Russia. This comes after over 1,300 people entered the Nordic country, prompting Helsinki to close its border read more A Finnish border guard and their dog patrol the Finnish-Russian border which is marked by a narrow clearing in the forest near Hoilola village, in Eastern Finland, June 5, 2024. File Image/Reuters Finlands parliament is set to vote on a controversial bill aimed at granting border guards the authority to turn back asylum seekers crossing from Russia. In late 2023, Finland witnessed a significant influx of migrants at its borders, predominantly from countries such as Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. Between August and December last year, over 1,300 asylum seekers crossed from Russia into Finland, with a notable peak of 900 arrivals in November alone. Advertisement This surge prompted Helsinki to shut its land borders with Russia, citing concerns over national security and societal stability. The Finnish government has accused Russia of weaponising migration, a claim Moscow denies. Interior Minister Mari Rantanen had highlighted the severity of the situation in February, stating, We have information that thousands of people on the Russian side are waiting to get to Finland, and described this as a threat to society. However, she did not disclose how Finnish authorities obtained this information. Will the bill pass? The Finnish government, led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpos rightwing coalition, introduced a bill to empower border guards to reject asylum seekers at the Russian border. This proposal, while seen as essential by supporters to prevent future mass migrations, contradicts Finlands international human rights commitments. The bill is expected to pass, albeit with a tight majority, as it requires a five-sixths majority in the initial vote to be deemed urgent and a two-thirds majority in the final vote. Advertisement Finlands Prime Minister Petteri Orpo attends an inauguration ceremony of a factory to produce Patria wheeled military vehicles in Valmiera, Latvia, May 24, 2024. File Image/Reuters Ben Zyskowicz, a lawmaker from the ruling National Coalition Party, highlighted the necessity of the bill, stating, Should Russia want to, it has the ability to mobilise and push hundreds, thousands of so-called asylum seekers to our borders in a matter of days or weeks. On the other hand, Sofia Virta, leader of the opposition Green Party, urged lawmakers to hold on to the rule of law and respect Finlands international commitments, arguing that there is no guarantee this will effectively counter Russias influence, reported Reuters. Is Russia complicit? Helsinki asserts that Moscow is orchestrating these crossings as a retaliatory measure for Finlands decision to join NATO, an alliance that supports Ukraine against Russias invasion. Advertisement This allegation is strongly denied by the Kremlin, which insists it is not using migration as a weapon. The Finnish Interior Ministry has stated its intention to draft legislation swiftly to strengthen border security and counteract any attempts by Russia to pressure Finland through instrumentalised migration. The international border between Finland and Russia stretches 1,340 km (830 miles) from north to south, passing mainly through taiga forests and sparsely populated rural regions. This border also serves as an external boundary of the European Union and Nato. Arent there concerns around human rights? Despite the proposed laws alignment with emergency measures under exceptional circumstances, it faces significant criticism for potentially breaching international human rights agreements. Advertisement Heikki Vestman, chair of the Finnish parliaments constitutional committee, told a press conference in June that this conflict but justified the law as a temporary emergency measure. Vestman also insisted that the legislation must include a procedure allowing those rejected to appeal the decision. A Finnish border guard and their dog patrol the Finnish-Russian border which is marked by a narrow clearing in the forest near Hoilola village, in Eastern Finland, June 5, 2024. File Image/Reuters Since the border closure, the number of new arrivals has significantly decreased, with no new asylum seekers reported since March. Finlands immigration authority noted that out of the migrants who arrived last year, approximately 160 individuals could not be located and are believed to have moved on to other European countries. This situation is part of the broader challenges facing the European Union in managing migration and asylum seekers. Advertisement Rantanen had pointed out that existing EU legislation does not adequately address the type of situation Finland is currently facing. With inputs from agencies The World Health Organizations cancer agency has classified talc as probably carcinogenic for humans. The decision was based on limited evidence that the mineral could cause ovarian cancer in humans, but sufficient evidence that it was linked to cancer in rats. Should you be worried? read more Talc is classified under Group 2B, which comprises compounds with significant evidence from animal research but little proof of causing cancer in humans. Representational Image/Pixabay Talc is frequently used in blush, eye shadow, powders, and other cosmetic items. However, the World Health Organizations cancer agency on Friday classified the mineral, mined from the Earth, as probably carcinogenic for humans. While some who frequently use talcum powders are concerned about the most recent statement, an outside expert cautioned against mistaking it for a smoking gun. Lets take a closer look. WHO classifies talc as cancer-causing Talc is classified under Group 2B, which comprises compounds with significant evidence from animal research but little proof of causing cancer in humans. Advertisement The decision was based on limited evidence that talc could cause ovarian cancer in humans, sufficient evidence that it was linked to cancer in rats and strong mechanistic evidence that it shows carcinogenic signs in human cells, the WHOs International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said, according to AFP. The classification calls for more research and is not a final verdict. The announcement comes just weeks after US pharmaceutical and cosmetics giant Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $700 million to settle allegations it misled customers about the safety of its talcum-based powder products. Johnson & Johnson did not admit wrongdoing in its settlement, even though it withdrew the product from the North American market in 2020. The link between talc and cancer Talc is a naturally occurring mineral which is mined in many parts of the world and is often used to make talcum baby powder. Most people are exposed to talc in the form of baby powder or cosmetics, according to the Lyon-based IARC. In the Earth, naturally occurring minerals called talc and asbestos are found close to one another. Because of this close connection throughout their growth, asbestos contamination of talc during mining and processing is a possibility. Advertisement The IARC, which employs a meticulous approach based on expert assessments and peer-reviewed research to determine if a substance has the potential to cause cancer, said there were numerous studies that consistently showed an increase in the rate of ovarian cancer in women who use talc on their genitals. However, it could not rule out that the talc in some studies was contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos. A causal role for talc could not be fully established, according to the agencys findings published in The Lancet Oncology. A summary of studies published in 2020 covering 250,000 women in the United States did not find a statistical link between the use of talc on the genitals and the risk of ovarian cancer. Advertisement The American Cancer Society has drawn attention to this difference, stating that while certain studies indicate a marginal risk increase, most of the data is inconclusive, according to Indian Express. Additionally, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) evaluated cosmetics containing talc for asbestos, a known carcinogen, and found that most products had no measurable quantities. This does not prove that talcum powder is a carcinogen. Expert opinion Kevin McConway, a statistician at the UKs Open University not involved in the research, warned that for the IARCs evaluation, the most obvious interpretation is actually misleading. The agency is only aiming to answer the question of whether the substance has the potential to cause cancer, under some conditions that IARC do not specify, he said, according to AFP. Advertisement Because the studies were observational and so could not prove causation, there isnt a smoking gun that the talc use causes any increased cancer risk, he added. As per Dr Manish Singhal who wrote for Indian Express, the difference between talc containing asbestos and talc free of asbestos is to be understood. Deposits of natural talc may be contaminated by asbestos, a recognised carcinogen. In contrast to asbestos-free talc, talc containing asbestos is classified by the IARC as carcinogenic to humans. He says, today, the majority of cosmetic-grade talc is asbestos-free. Regulatory agencies like the FDA routinely evaluate the safety of items containing talc. Health Canada discovered a potential relationship between talc and ovarian cancer in 2020, but they did not suggest outright banning the product. Advertisement Other announcements Also on Friday, the IARC classified acrylonitrile, a chemical compound used to make polymers, as carcinogenic to humans, its highest warning level. It cited sufficient evidence linking acrylonitrile to lung cancer. The polymers made with acrylonitrile are used in everything from fibres in clothes to carpets, plastics and other consumer products. With inputs from agencies Earlier today, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who is among the other international guests invited for the celebration, arrived in the financial capital of India. read more US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti and British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron on Friday arrived in Mumbai to attend the grand wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant later in the evening. VIDEO | US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti (@ericgarcetti) arrives at Mumbai airport to attend Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding later today. (Full video available at PTI Videos - https://t.co/dv5TRARJn4) pic.twitter.com/gIa2Q7rqNA Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 12, 2024 Advertisement VIDEO | US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti (@ericgarcetti) arrives at Mumbai airport to attend Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding later today. (Full video available at PTI Videos - https://t.co/dv5TRARJn4) pic.twitter.com/gIa2Q7rqNA Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 12, 2024 Earlier today, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who is among the other international guests invited for the celebration, arrived in the financial capital of India. Meanwhile, former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also landed in Mumbai ahead of the ceremony. The upcoming Anant-Radhika wedding promises to be a grand celebration of Indian heritage encompassing culture, spirituality, folk art, craftsmanship, music, and cuisine. Advertisement The wedding decor theme, titled An Ode to Varanasi, pays homage to this ancient city renowned for its traditions, spirituality, arts, and crafts, and exquisite Banarasi cuisine. The wedding venue at Jio World Centre will be transformed into a vibrant rendition of Varanasis streets, offering guests an immersive experience to engage with the citys rich traditions, flavors, and spiritual essence. Carefully curated stalls and specialized guest services will ensure attendees not only enjoy the event but also depart with enduring memories of their journey through Varanasis ghats. Guests can indulge in Banarasi delicacies such as chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas. Advertisement Traditional arts like brasswork, pottery, Banarasi & Kanjeevaram sarees, Polki jewelry, and rosewood furniture will also be on display. Additional attractions include astrology readings, fragrances at the attar shop, floral arrangements, vibrant bangles, puppet shows, and professional photo studios. The attire for the wedding will showcase the artistic prowess of Indias couturiers and artisans, featuring a dazzling array of colors, fabrics, textures, and techniques that exemplify the nations rich cultural heritage. The Anant-Radhika wedding promises to be a grand celebration of Indian heritage encompassing culture, spirituality, folk art, craftsmanship, music, and cuisine read more Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday arrived at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai to attend the grand wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. He was accompanied by his wife and three children. Your browser does not support the video tag. The Anant-Radhika wedding promises to be a grand celebration of Indian heritage encompassing culture, spirituality, folk art, craftsmanship, music, and cuisine. Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants main wedding events kicked off on July 12 with the auspicious Shubh Vivah ceremony later in the evening. On July 13, the celebrations will continue with Shubh Aashirwad, featuring an Indian formal dress code. July 14 will culminate in Mangal Utsav, the wedding reception, where guests are invited to attire themselves in Indian chic fashion. Advertisement Named An Ode to Varanasi, the wedding decor theme honors the ancient city celebrated for its rich traditions, spirituality, arts, crafts, and delightful Banarasi cuisine. The venue at Jio World Centre will be artfully redesigned to resemble Varanasis bustling streets, providing guests with an immersive opportunity to explore the citys cultural heritage, flavors, and spiritual ambiance. The upcoming Anant-Radhika wedding promises to be a grand celebration of Indian heritage encompassing culture, spirituality, folk art, craftsmanship, music, and cuisine read more Former US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday arrived in Mumbai ahead of the grand wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. #WATCH | Former US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at Mumbai airport to attend Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's wedding pic.twitter.com/m6oSftqwjH ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 Advertisement The upcoming Anant-Radhika wedding promises to be a grand celebration of Indian heritage encompassing culture, spirituality, folk art, craftsmanship, music, and cuisine. Among other guests who have arrived in the financial capital are West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav, US Envoy to India Eric Garcetti and British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron. The primary wedding festivities of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are set to commence on July 12, beginning with the auspicious Shubh Vivah ceremony. July 13 will feature the Shubh Aashirwad celebrations with an Indian formal dress code. Finally, July 14 will mark the Mangal Utsav, the wedding reception, where guests are encouraged to dress in Indian chic attire. The wedding decor theme, titled An Ode to Varanasi, pays homage to this ancient city renowned for its traditions, spirituality, arts, and crafts, and exquisite Banarasi cuisine. The wedding venue at Jio World Centre will be transformed into a vibrant rendition of Varanasis streets, offering guests an immersive experience to engage with the citys rich traditions, flavors, and spiritual essence. Carefully curated stalls and specialized guest services will ensure attendees not only enjoy the event but also depart with enduring memories of their journey through Varanasis ghats. Guests can indulge in Banarasi delicacies such as chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas. Hours after the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Arvind Kejriwal, Delhis Rouse Avenue Court on Friday extended the chief ministers judicial custody in the corruption case registered by the CBI over the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy read more Hours after the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Arvind Kejriwal, Delhis Rouse Avenue Court on Friday extended the chief ministers judicial custody in the corruption case registered by the CBI over the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy. Earlier today, the top court granted interim bail to the Aam Aadmi Party leader in the money laundering case linked to the alleged liquor policy scam. While Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21, he faced another case against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation which led to a second arrest on June 26 while he was already in judicial custody. Advertisement What is the CBI case against Kejriwal? A double whammy for Kejriwal, apart from facing a case of money laundering, the chief minister was also slammed with a case of corruption by the CBI. The central probe body has accused Kejriwal of being one of the key conspirators behind the irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy. The CBI has argued that Kejriwals close aide and AAPs former media-in-charge were in close contact with various liquor manufacturers and traders and demanded kickbacks since 2021. The Bombay High Court granted Rahul Gandhi relief by quashing a magistrate court order allowing belated evidence in the RSS defamation case against him for alleged remarks implicating the organisation in Mahatma Gandhis assassination read more The Bombay High Court has granted relief to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the defamation case filed against him by an RSS worker. The case centres on Gandhis alleged statement, RSS killed Gandhi, made during an election rally in 2014. On Friday, the court allowed Gandhis plea to quash an order by the Bhiwandi magistrate court that had permitted an RSS functionary to present certain documents belatedly in the ongoing defamation proceedings. The courts decision is seen as a significant development in the long-standing legal battle. Advertisement Justice Prithviraj K Chavan, who presided over the single-judge bench, quashed the magistrate courts order and directed the lower court to proceed with the trial according to the law. The high court emphasised the need for both parties to cooperate in disposing of the matter expeditiously. Gandhis plea, filed in 2023, argued against the magistrate courts allowance for Rajesh Kunte, an RSS functionary, to introduce documents related to Gandhis 2014 speech. The speech, in which Gandhi allegedly implicated the RSS in Mahatma Gandhis assassination, has been at the heart of the defamation case. According to The Indian Express, the case history dates back to March 2014, when Gandhi, then Congress vice-president, made the controversial statement during an election rally in Thane district. This led to Rajesh Kunte filing a defamation complaint. In March 2015, the Bombay High Court dismissed Gandhis plea to quash the case, prompting him to approach the Supreme Court. Gandhi later withdrew his Supreme Court plea, opting to face trial without issuing an apology. In June 2018, a Bhiwandi court framed charges against Gandhi, to which he pleaded not guilty, setting the stage for the trial. With the latest high court ruling, the case will now continue in the magistrate court, adhering to the high courts directives to ensure a swift and fair trial. Kejriwal did not step down as Delhi CM after his arrest in March, unlike Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, now out on bail, who gave up his post to Champai Soren before his arrest. The Delhi chief ministers decision to continue holding the office drew the ire of the Bharatiya Janata Party with many leaders questioning its legality read more Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in March in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor excise policy scam. AFP The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Arvind Kejriwal in the money laundering case linked to the alleged liquor policy scam case, giving huge relief to the Delhi chief minister. While Kejriwal would not walk out of jail immediately after getting interim bail as the CBI also arrested him in a corruption case, the question of whether the AAP leader should continue to hold the chief ministers chair came up during the hearing. Advertisement Kejriwal did not step down as Delhi CM after his arrest in March, unlike Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, now out on bail, who gave up his post to Champai Soren before his arrest. The Delhi chief ministers decision to continue holding the office drew the ire of the Bharatiya Janata Party with many leaders questioning its legality. On Kejriwals post as CM In its judgment, the apex court said, We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the Chief Minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. We have referred to the allegations. While we do not give any directions as we are doubtful whether a Court can direct an elected leader to step down or not to function as a Chief Minister or a Minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to make a call. The larger bench, if deemed appropriate, can frame questions and decide the conditions that can be imposed in such cases, it added. Earlier in May, when he was granted interim bail owing to the Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal said, When I was in jail, some people raised this issue that why doesnt Arvind Kejriwal resign from the post of Delhi CM? I have not come to become CM or PM. He said that in 2015 AAP formed the government in Delhi with the most historic majority and that no other party could win in any state with such a huge margin. They knew could never defeat AAP, so a conspiracy was hatched to send Kejriwal to jail and the government would fall but we did not fall into their trap, the chief minister added. Advertisement On legality of EDs arrest The Supreme Court also referred the questions about the legality of his arrest in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case to a larger bench. The court said since the matter is concerned with the right to life and the issue of arrest has been referred to a larger bench, Kejriwal be released on interim bail. The top court framed three questions related to power, the necessity of arrest under section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the policy of arrest by the ED. It said Kejriwal will be released on interim bail in terms of the conditions in the order of May 10. Advertisement With inputs from agencies According to The World Population Prospects 2024 report, Indias population in 2024 is projected at 1.45 billion and this will peak to 1.69 billion in 2054. After this, Indias population is projected to decline to 1.5 billion by the end of the century in 2100, but the country will still remain the most populous nation on Earth read more Indias population is projected to peak in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion and then decline by 12 per cent, but the country will remain the worlds most populous throughout the century, the United Nations has said. The World Population Prospects 2024 report, released here on Thursday, said that the worlds population is expected to continue growing over the coming 50-60 years, reaching a peak of around 10.3 billion people in the mid-2080s, up from 8.2 billion in 2024. After peaking, the global population is projected to start declining gradually, falling to 10.2 billion people by the end of the century. Advertisement India, which surpassed China as the worlds most populous nation last year, will continue to hold that position through 2100. The population of India, which is expected to remain the worlds largest throughout the century, will likely decline by 12 per cent after reaching its peak in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion, the UN report published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Population Division said. According to the report, Indias population in 2024 is projected at 1.45 billion and this will peak to 1.69 billion in 2054. After this, Indias population is projected to decline to 1.5 billion by the end of the century in 2100, but the country will still remain the most populous nation on Earth. Responding to a question by PTI on population projections for India, Senior Population Affairs Officer, Population Division, UN DESA Clare Menozzi said at a press conference that India is currently the largest country in the world in terms of population, and it is projected to stay so throughout the century. The population is currently estimated at 1.45 billion, and its supposed to increase further to 1.69 billion. Its supposed to peak around the 2060s in size and then it starts to slightly decline. So by the end of the century, India is projected to be around 1.5 billion, but still the largest country in the world by a large margin. The report said that Chinas population, currently 1.41 billion in 2024, will fall to 1.21 billion in 2054 and further decline to 633 million by 2100. Advertisement It is anticipated that China, the country currently with the worlds second-largest population, will likely experience the largest absolute population loss between 2024 and 2054 (204 million), followed by Japan (21 million) and Russia (10 million). Longer-range population projections are more uncertain for China, it said. However, due to its large size and sustained low level of fertility, China is also likely to record the largest population decline of any country through the end of the century (786 million people). is projected to have lost more than a half of its current population and to have returned to a population size comparable to that recorded in the late 1950s (50 per cent probability). Responding to a question on the significantly low population projection for China, Director of the Population Division at UN DESA John Wilmoth said that it really relates to the level of fertility thats observed currently in China. The current number is right around one birth per woman on average over a lifetime. Given that you need 2.1 births to maintain the current population without migration, if fertility levels remain at such a low level, even if they come up slightly, any fertility level if its below two, or especially below 1.8 or below 1.5, youre really getting into low levels of fertility and it produces a long run decline thats quite significant. And thats true for China. Its true for some other countries in this analysis, Wilmoth said. Advertisement Currently, nearly one-fifth of all countries and areas, including China, Italy, the Republic of Korea and Spain, are experiencing what is sometimes referred to as ultra-low fertility, with fewer than 1.4 live births per woman over a lifetime. The report added that the global fertility rate currently stands at 2.25 live births per woman, down from 3.31 births in 1990. More than half of all countries and areas globally have fertility below the replacement level of 2.1 live births per woman. This is the level required for a population to maintain a constant size in the long run (without migration), with each generation being followed by another of roughly equal size, it said. Advertisement Pakistan is projected to overtake the US as the third-largest country in the world, with a population of 389 million in 2054. Currently, the US is the third largest country in the world with a population of 345 million and in 2054, it will be the fourth largest with 384 million people. Pakistan will remain the third largest country in the world, with a population of 511 million people in 2100. The report said that the estimated likelihood that the worlds population will peak within the current century is very high, with a probability of 80 per cent, a major change in UN projections from a decade ago, when this probability was around 30 per cent. The size of the worlds population in 2100 is now expected to be 6 per cent smaller or about 700 million people fewer than anticipated a decade ago. Advertisement In about 126 countries and areas, the population is likely to continue growing through 2054, potentially reaching a peak later in the century or beyond 2100. This group includes several of the worlds most populous countries: India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United States of America. In 2023, the global number of deaths among children under age 5 fell below 5 million for the first time in recent history. However, 95 per cent of such deaths took place in the 126 countries with populations that are still growing, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. The report added that globally, life expectancy at birth reached 73.3 years in 2024, an increase of 8.4 years since 1995. Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in an average longevity of around 77.4 years globally in 2054. Since 2022, life expectancy has returned to levels observed before the emergence of the coronavirus disease in nearly all countries and areas. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021, global life expectancy at birth fell to 70.9 years, down from 72.6 in 2019. The report said that by 2080, persons aged 65 or older will outnumber children under 18. 2070s, the number of persons at ages 65 years and higher globally is projected to reach 2.2 billion, surpassing the number of children (under age 18). it is projected that there will be 265 million persons aged 80 years or older, more than the number of infants (1 year of age or less), it said. The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam read more New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. Despite this, Kejriwal will remain in gaol due to a subsequent arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a related matter. The top court stated that it is up to Kejriwal to decide whether he should continue as chief minister. We are conscious of the fact that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader, remarked a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, noting that Kejriwal has been incarcerated for over 90 days. Advertisement The Supreme Court has referred questions regarding the legality of his arrest in the ED case to a larger bench. Emphasising the significance of the right to life and the issues surrounding his arrest, the court ordered Kejriwals release on interim bail. Three key questions have been framed by the court concerning the power, necessity of arrest under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and the policy of arrest by the ED. Kejriwal will be released on interim bail under the conditions specified in the courts May 10 order. On May 10, the court had released Kejriwal on interim bail for electioneering during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, imposing conditions that barred him from visiting his office or the Delhi Secretariat and restricted him from signing official files unless absolutely necessary with the Lieutenant Governors sanction. The court reserved its verdict on May 17 on Kejriwals plea challenging the legality of his ED arrest on March 21. Earlier, on April 15, the apex court sought a response from the ED on Kejriwals plea challenging his arrest. The Aam Aadmi Party chief has contested the April 9 Delhi High Court order upholding his arrest, which found no illegality and justified the EDs actions due to Kejriwals repeated non-compliance with summons. On June 20, a trial court granted Kejriwal bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh in the case. However, the ED appealed to the Delhi High Court, which imposed an interim stay on the bail order and subsequently passed a detailed order on June 25 staying the trial courts decision. Advertisement Kejriwal was also arrested by the CBI on June 26 in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. His plea challenging this arrest is pending before the Delhi High Court. The case involves alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi governments excise policy for 2021-22, which has since been scrapped. Allegations have surfaced regarding irregularities and kickbacks in the policys creation and implementation, prompting investigations by both the ED and the CBI. Key Aam Aadmi Party leaders, including Kejriwal and former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, are under scrutiny. Kejriwal, currently held in Tihar gaol, faces accusations from both the ED and the CBI, with the CBI emphasising the need for his custody in the interest of investigation and justice. Advertisement Earlier, on June 29, a court sent Kejriwal to judicial custody till July 12 in the excise policy case. Theres a threatening undertone in Garcettis remark. Not clear who is cynical in its calculations. Double standards are based on cynicism. US /NATO policy towards Russia is based on cynical geopolitics. India is not taking the US for granted. Our past experience cautions us against that, former diplomat Kanwal Sibal wrote on X read more A day after US envoy Eric Garcetti said strategic autonomy cannot apply in times of conflict in a swipe against Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent visit to Russia, experts on Friday underscored several critical aspects that the US diplomat overlooked, with former diplomat Kanwal Sibal saying that there was a threatening undertone in Garcettis remark. Taking to X, Kanwal said its not clear who is cynical in its calculations referencing to US/Nato policy towards Russia which is based on cynical geopolitics. Advertisement "Double standards are based on cynicism. US /NATO policy towards Russia is based on cynical geopolitics. India is not taking the US for granted. Our past experience cautions us against that," he wrote in a post on X. Theres a threatening undertone in Garcettis remark. Not clear who is cynical in its calculations. Double standards are based on cynicism. US /NATO policy towards Russia is based on cynical geopolitics. India is not taking the US for granted. Our past experience cautions us https://t.co/tAkbvOminF Kanwal Sibal (@KanwalSibal) July 11, 2024 Kanwal said US should not overplay its hand vis a vis India. India wants very good relations with the US but they should not be based on efforts to restrict our foreign policy choices when the US accepts no such restriction at all on its choices. USs China policy is not based on Indias concerns, nor is its Russia policy based on our concerns. Lets avoid using terms like cynicism, he added. Advertisement Reacting to Garcettis remarks, Geopolitical Analyst Colonel Rohit Dev said that India and USA have a bilateral relationship and a strategic 2+2 going for mutual gains and the relationship between the two countries doesnt hinge on any military or geopolitical alliance. India doesnt have to agree with any of the Wars which USA gets into. India has its own Geopolitical Commitments and National Interests to cater to and it, like USA, will always keep that in mind. We Vote differently at times on global platforms like UN etc and thats keeping our National Interests first, he wrote on X. Let's put a lens to it Ambassador @ericgarcetti @USAmbIndia 1. India and USA have a Bilateral Relationship and a Strategic 2+2 going for mutual gains 2. Our Relationship doesn't hinge on any Military or Geopolitical Alliance 3. India doesn't have to agree with any of the Wars pic.twitter.com/Aliwur6cXX Colonel Rohit Dev (RDX) (@RDXThinksThat) July 11, 2024 Advertisement He further said that USA went to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan etc. in military capacity but India did not and it need not in the future. USA hasnt gone in With Boots into Ukraine but is seemingly playing a War through Proxy with Russia and surely India is retaining its relationships with Russia and Ukraine the way it wants to and Indo-USA Relations should NOT be held to ransom, he said. Advertisement He said India is nor part of Nato and asked if USA will supply for all energy needs of India at a competitive price as a long-term commitment. It cant, he added. He asked if US will commit to fighting militarily alongside India and against China or will US support all calls of India in UN, WTO etc. It cant, he added. He said US wont detach itself from Pakistan forever and neither will USA stop all trade with China, if India requests. He said, historically, USA has not supported India on many contentious issues, while Soviet Union had been an all-weather friend. Today, post fragmentation of Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine are seeking some neo-alignments and India has separate Bilateral Relationship with them; just like it has with USA, he added. Advertisement In his address at a defence news conclave in New Delhi on Thursday, Garcetti said that he respects that India likes its strategic autonomy, but in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy, even as he pitched for forging a stronger partnership between New Delhi and Washington. He also said that in an interconnected world, no war is distant anymore and asserted that one must not just stand for peace, but also take concrete actions to make sure those who dont play by peaceful rules, their war machines cannot continue unabated. The US envoy said that is something the US needs to know and that India needs to know together. His comments come in the backdrop of multiple ongoing conflicts in the world, including in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. Garcettis remarks follows the Biden administration on Tuesday saying that India will continue to be a strategic partner for the US despite concerns over its ties with Russia. 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. The event was held at the Unites Services Institution (USI), Delhi, and attended by many defence experts. I know that India and I respect that India likes its strategic autonomy. But in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy. We will, in crisis moments, need to know each other. I dont care what title we put to it, but we will need to know that we are trusted friends, brothers and sisters, colleagues that in times of need be acting together, Garcetti said. The envoy in his address described India-US ties as deep, ancient and increasingly broad, but urged to not take this relationship for granted. Underling whole areas of cooperation, including in defence, the joint military exercises and Indias naval prowess in the western Indian Ocean in combating piracy and other challenges, he envisioned the US and India together as an unstoppable force for good in the world. He described the US-India defence partnership as one which stands among the most consequential in the world. We dont just see our future in India and India doesnt just sees its future with the US, but the world can see great things in our relationship. In other words, there are countries on the sidelines hoping this relationship works. Because if it works, it doesnt just become a counterbalance, it becomes a place where we are developing our weapons together, integrating our training together, Garcetti said. In times of emergencies, whether that be a natural disaster or god forbid, a human-caused war, the US and India will be a powerful ballast against the waves that will sweep over Asia and other parts of the world, he asserted. And I think, we all know that we are interconnected in the world, no war is distant anymore. And we must not just stand for peace, we must take concrete actions to make sure those who dont play by peaceful rules, that their war machines cannot continue unabated. And that is something the US needs to know and that India needs to know together, the envoy said. In the past three years, we have witnessed countries which have ignored sovereign borders. I dont have to remind how important borders are, its a central principle to peace in our world, he added. With inputs from agencies The officer may be terminated from the service if found guilty. She may face criminal charges also in case she is found to have misrepresented a fact or done any sort of manipulation in documents relied upon for her selection, a source said read more Probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who is at the centre of a controversy over alleged misuse of power and privileges, may be terminated from service if found guilty, official sources said on Friday. They said all documents presented by her to secure her candidature in the civil services examination and then for selection in the service will be re-examined by a single-member committee constituted by the Centre on Thursday. The officer may be terminated from the service if found guilty. She may face criminal charges also in case she is found to have misrepresented a fact or done any sort of manipulation in documents relied upon for her selection, a source said. Advertisement Khedkar, a 2023 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, is under probation and currently posted in her home cadre Maharashtra. The 34-year-old officer is in the eye of storm over for allegedly misusing the disability and Other Backward Class quota to secure a position in the IAS. The single-member probe committee of Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, Additional Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training, has been asked to submit its report within two weeks, the sources said. In the meantime, Khedkar had on Thursday assumed her new role as assistant collector at the Washim District Collectorate in the Vidarbha region after being transferred from Pune where she allegedly bullied everyone around and also placed a red beacon atop her private Audi (a luxury sedan) car. Khedkar has been under intense scrutiny for allegedly manipulating benefits under the physical disabilities category and OBC quota to secure her position in the Indian Administrative Service. The controversial officer was shunted out to Washim after Pune district collector Suhas Diwase wrote to state additional chief secretary Nitin Gadre requesting him to consider giving a posting to Khedkar in another district to avoid administrative complications. Diwase had sought action against Khedkar for her behaviour, including alleged aggressive treatment of junior staff, illegal occupation of the ante-chamber of additional collector Ajay More, and violations pertaining to sporting a red beacon on the Audi and flashing it during the day, among others. This is a strategically prudent chance for the West to engage with Iran and reduce Tehrans embrace of Beijing and Moscow, whose expanding influence in the region is hurting the US position and interests there read more Irans president-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, vowed to be the leader of all Iranians has created tremendous interest in the Middle East, as Iran is an important actor in the region, and the future course of the Gaza crisis largely depends on Iranian policy, its approach, and its support for Axis of Resistance. The election of an unlikely reformist leader in Iran is bound to have implications and, at least, expectations of change. But a lot depends on the position and powers of the president in the Iranian political system, its national interests for its policies in the region, its geopolitical imperatives in relation to its global partnersRussia and Chinaand the overall global geopolitical changes. Equally, the policies of the West and US in particular would determine Irans policy direction in the region and world. Advertisement The election of a reformist president has generated huge expectations at home and abroad. But it must be noted that in the power structure of Iran, the president has to function under the authority of the Supreme Leader and with such powerful institutions as the Guardian Council and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). However, this election of Pezeshkian is a sure manifestation of numerous positive changes and hopes. First, the approval of a reformist candidate as well as his winning the election with such a margin bring credibility to the Iranian system on the global stage. The pouring of congratulatory messages from the world leaders is telling evidence. This is sure to enhance Irans capacity to deal with Western criticism. The 50 per cent turnout in the second round compared to the 40 per cent turnout in the first round clearly signifies the expanding support and endorsement of Iranians for liberal reformist policies and the breaking of its international isolation. The huge margin of almost three million exhibits that Iranians want change and hope to move in the right direction by voting for Pezeshkians broad thrust of an election campaign based on reforms at home and engagement abroad. It portrays hope for the easing of sanctions through constructive engagement with the West. Advertisement Pezeshkians campaign on the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) and economic development appealed to the voters and matched their perceived direction to better their lives. Besides, it also shows that the popular mood is to protect Iran from further sliding under conservative Saed Jalili. Iran-Saudi normalisation in March 2023 has expanded into a broad Iran-Arab normalisation. The reactions and messages from Gulf and wider Arab countries were significant and notable. King Salman of Saudi Arabia expressed hope for the continued development of relations that link our two countries and our two brotherly peoples. He further wished for coordination and dialogue to strengthen regional and international peace and security. Advertisement Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman said, I affirm my keenness on developing and deepening the relations that unite our countries and peoples and serve our mutual interests. Similar expressions were made by other Gulf states like Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait. These reactions in the region are unprecedented signs of the receding of Iran phobia and a hope for potential wider and deeper cooperation and peace in this conflict-ridden region. The popularity of the Palestine issue in Arab society has ameliorated perceptions of Iran with the Gaza war underway. The Arab Leagues recent removal of Iran-supported Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organisations is a clear manifestation of deepening Iran-Arab unity. Advertisement The reformist president of Iran, therefore, will not have any significant change in Tehrans Israel policy or and in the existing affinity to Palestinian cause. But the emphasis of the new president on engagement with the West can have a moderating impact on Israels pursuits in the Gaza war and Western support. The US policy, which sometimes involves contacting Iran through Oman behind the scenes and indirect nuclear talks in Vienna, can assume a direct and formal negotiation framework irrespective of the outcome. This possibility is very likely in the face of the growing great power challenge to the US in the West with the increasing expansion of China and Russia, which is part of the global contest between Russia and China with the West. The reformist Iranian presidents willingness to engage with the West is a huge opportunity for the US to manage its global rivals and retain its primacy in the region. Advertisement Despite political and constitutional limitations, the Iranian president and his government ministers represent the popular mood and can make coordination and broad consensus on matters of national interest with other institutions like the IRGC, the Guardian Council, the National Security Council, and the Supreme Leader. The president-elect has already met Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), who congratulated him and assured that the SNSC will utilise all its capacities to support the incoming administration. The US reaction foretold a mood of strategic caution at this stage. We have no expectation that this election will lead to a fundamental change in Irans direction or its policies," said the White House spokesperson, John Miller. In response to a question on US willingness, he added, We have always said that diplomacy is the most effective way to achieve an effective, sustainable solution with regard to Irans nuclear programme." Thus, the window of engagement and negotiation is open, and the new Iranian presidency can bring about a change in the policy of the West. This is a strategically prudent chance for the West to engage with Iran and reduce Irans embrace of China and Russia, whose expanding influence in the region is hurting the US position and interests in the region. It can also be helpful to reach a sustainable peace in Palestine by easing Israels approach towards Iran. Combined with growing Iran-Arab engagement, this would be helpful for regional security and stability. But a lot depends on how the US responds and how it can manage Israels war in Gaza, and its Irans policy that is dead against the JCPOA. Iran has been strategically important for India with its long-term political, security, and economic ties. India has maintained strategic neutrality in Iran-GCC and Iran-Israel rivalries and conflicts. India and Iran have a shared vision for Afghanistans peace and maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean and Central Asia. With the non-renewal of the sanction waiver in 2019, India was forced to stop buying oil from Iran. But the continuation of the Chahbahar project has been the symbol of India-Iran shared strategic imperatives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Prsident-elect Pezeshkian on his election and added that he was looking forward to working closely with you to further strengthen our warm and long-standing bilateral relationship for the benefit of our people. The possible Iran-West engagement will benefit India in multiple ways. Lifting sanctions would boost Indias trade with Iran, energy security, enhanced cooperation on maritime security, and continental security with sustained central Asian connectivity. Above all, closer relations with India will provide Iran with a strategic option in its Look to the East policy. The change has produced hopes, and it must be tried and promoted by all concerned. But a lot depends on the calming of conflict in Gaza and Ukraine as well as the simmering tensions in the Indo-Pacific, as all have geopolitical linkages in the globalised, multi-polar world. Manish Dabhade is Associate Professor of Diplomacy, JNU & Founder of The Indian Futures, an independent think tank in New Delhi; X: @imanishdabhade. Khushnam P N is Director of Research (Honorary), The Indian Futures based in Bengaluru & focuses on Middle East; X: khushnamn. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. The Reciprocal Access Agreement is a welcome step between Japan and the Philippines, it underscores how key US allies in the region may want to move out of the security umbrella architecture guaranteed by America, and partake equally in regional defence and deterrence read more Japan and the Philippines signed a key defence pact on July 8, 2024, that has brought about dynamism in the regional and global politics surrounding the South China Sea dispute and addressed a belligerent China at the helm. Starting with last years visit of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the Philippines, negotiations were already underway on a Reciprocal Access Agreement with his Filipino counterpart, President Ferdinand Marcos. The reciprocal agreement, as stated, would make provisions for the entry of troops into each others territories for joint military exercises and further bolster defence cooperation. The visit also asserted that Japan would lend patrol vessels, defence equipment, and radars that would strengthen the Philippines strategic and lawful enforcement in the South China Sea. Both Japan and the Philippines share a common trajectory of sharing disputes with China in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, respectively. Advertisement Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa and Philippine Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro signed the Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) during a ceremony in Manila. The RAA, as stated in the official statement, was key to enhancing joint combat training and further bolstering defence cooperation between the two countries. Additionally, the statement also carried the undertones of confidence expressed by the two countries in shaping such a significant pact, reiterating back to the US-Philippines-Japan Summit, which took place in April this year. The RAA arrives at a crucial juncture against the backdrop of escalating tensions between the Philippines and China over the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Other key elements of the pact include the exchange of defence equipment and technology, mostly related to air and coastal surveillance, and shall build upon Japans Official Security Initiative. The RAA can be almost viewed as a convergence to uphold the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. However, this pact needs to be ratified by both countries legislatures to come into effect. The Growing Grey Zone Warfare Asias location, as well as the importance of the seas in regional security and ties, have allowed for the emergence of unique indigenous grey zone strategies. In this view, China prefers unorthodox measures in sovereignty conflicts where the US casts a shadow while projecting military supremacy to dissuade regional states. The best example would be the South China Sea dispute and cross-strait relations with Taiwan. China claims possession of the infamous nine-dash line, which covers approximately 90 per cent of the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, and Scarborough Shoal. These island chains are equally claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines. Over the last decade, Beijing has implemented a carefully planned grey zone strategy that includes the use of civil and maritime militias, the construction of dual-use infrastructure that can be repurposed for military enclaves such as ports and airfields, information tactics, and the reinterpretation of international laws. Chinese fishermen, purportedly unrelated to the government or military forces, have been harassing foreign vessels and denying access to territorial seas and economic activity under the guise of acting on their own initiative to ultimately enforce laws. These tactics help to exert psychological pressure and gradually test the boundaries and responses of rivals. Advertisement Concurrently, China has also attempted to legitimise these territorial claims through information strategies such as disseminating the map with its interpreted nine-dash line. While Beijing remains in conformity with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it disregards the 2016 arbitration in favour of the Philippines. China and Japan have had a longstanding disagreement over islands in the East China Sea, with Japanese officials accusing Chinese coast guard vessels of straying over their claimed territories numerous times this year. Meanwhile, Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy vessels have engaged in a series of increasing incidents in the South China Sea in recent months. Advertisement The latest escalation occurred last month when Chinese Coast Guards detained and destroyed two Philippine ships while resupplying an outpost on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, injuring military personnel. Last month at the Shangri La Dialogue, the Filipino President warned China not to cross the red line, which could amount to major escalation in the region. The warning came against the backdrop of several grey zone tactics being deployed by China in the region. Implications of the RAA The reciprocal agreement is key to understanding the evolving security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific and taking actions to mitigate a full escalation of a war-like situation in the region against a belligerent China. Japan, although not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, has now enticed itself to not only protect its allies but to pursue a more proactive foreign policy under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Advertisement After the successful Japan-US-Philippine Summit in April this year, the three countries pledged to oppose and resolutely respond to any attempts by China to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the South China Sea and East China Sea. The RAA is monumental in accelerating cooperation between Japan and the Philippines. Much of the attention has been placed on the Philippines rapid development of security ties with its key ally, the United States, but Japan has also played an essential role in the Philippines strategy. Japans first RAA with a member of ASEAN will reduce limits on personnel transfers between the Japan Self-Defence Forces (SDF) and the Philippine military for cooperative drills and disaster relief operations in their respective countries. Advertisement After the RAA takes effect, Japan will be able to participate as a full member in the large-scale Balikatan military exercise, which the Philippines and the United States conduct annually in the Southeast Asian nation. The SDF has previously joined in an observer capacity. Additionally, it will promote interoperability between the two countries forces. Another perspective on the implementation of the RAA resonates with the Taiwan factor. Both Japan and the Philippines share close proximity to Taiwan and also express perturbed concerns about the use of potential kinetic force by China in the likelihood of the island countrys invasion. The RAA sends a clear message to Beijing about emerging dynamics and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. The Chinese response to the RAA referenced Japans history as a colonial power in South Asia. Lin Jian Spokesperson responded, During World War Two, Japan was responsible for invasion and colonial rule of Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines. Japan should seriously reflect on its history of aggression and be cautious in words and deeds in the field of military security. Although the RAA appears to be a welcome step between Japan and the Philippines, it also underscores an important element of how key US allies in the region may want to move out of the security umbrella architecture and partake equally in regional defence and deterrence. It is the time that countries like Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea should realise that solely relying on the US may not be a viable option as Washington is engulfed in other conflicts in other regions. Arijita Sinha Roy is Research Assistant with the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Apart from the signing of nine MoUs and agreements in areas of trade, economics, and investment in the Russian Far East for the period 20242029, the visit of PM Modis to Moscow was crucial for optics read more Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a two-day visit to Russia from July 8 to 9 at the invitation of Russian President Putin. The prime minister participated in the 22nd India-Russia annual summit, which had been due for the past three years. PM Modi reiterated Indias position: Peace cannot succeed amid bombs, guns, and bullets. For a bright future for the new generation, peace is essential. I assure you and the world community that India is on the side of peace. To underline the importance of this visit, PM Modi was conferred Russias highest civilian honour, the Order of St Andrew the Apostle, by the Russian president, being awarded for outstanding civilian and military merit. Advertisement The Context This visit was at a critical juncture as the world is in the vortex of ongoing conflicts, be it Israels onslaught in Gaza against Hamas or the seemingly unabated conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The world opinion is divided over these conflicts, and concerted efforts are being made by the collective West to galvanise international opinion in Ukraines favour and to isolate Russia on the global stage. The visit comes as a breeze of fresh air for Russia, which is facing the heat of Western isolation. India has so far adopted a balanced approach in the Ukraine conflict, neither publicly condemning Russian adventurism nor endorsing Russian aggression in principle. India remained neutral in the conflict, which effectively helped Russias cause. It abstained from successive UN resolutions condemning Russia for invasion. Speaking on Indias position, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar opined: We have been clearly against the conflict in Ukraine. We believe that this conflict does not serve the interests of anybody. Neither the participants nor indeed the international community. Strategic Imperatives Behind Indias Position Indias strategic imperatives in the Ukraine conflict have three dimensions: Continue a close strategic partnership with the US for its development needs and counter Chinas bellicosity in the Indian Ocean region; maintain strong ties with Moscow; and avoid any perception of proximity to the emerging Sino-Russian axis. The intricate relationship triangle between China, Russia, and India and the evolving power balance between them and the outside world is the primary justification for Indias current position on the Ukraine conflict. Over the last two decades, Indias relationship with the USA has improved significantly. India is part of the Quad grouping, and the US has been instrumental in ending Indias non-inclusion in different international nuclear regimes. There is growing military-to-military and strategic cooperation between the two countries in the wake of the rising Chinese power profile vis-a-vis the US. India and the US share common strategic goals in the Indo-Pacific. Advertisement The shared goal of containing Chinese belligerence in the Indian Ocean region brought the two countries strategically closer. Despite growing bonhomie, they have different global visions, especially the US concept of its leadership role and its notion of alliance, and Indias long-cherished commitment to strategic autonomy and furthering the cause of the Global South. There is a tinge of suspicion among a section of the Indian strategic community about US intentions due to historical and other reasons. With a diminution in US global influence and stiff competition from China, globally in general, and Indo-Pacific in particular, Indias response in Ukraine is in tune with Indias vision and foreign policy choices to balance its regional and global relationship. India has been averse to being a part of any block. Advertisement India, Russia, and China Intricate Relation Triangle India has historically looked at its relationship with Russia through the prism of the latters capacity and willingness to balance China. Russia and India share common strategic interests and are on the same page on the issue of multipolarity. Russia and India seek a multipolar world and a multipolar Asia without a hegemon. India can ill afford Russian international isolation, which, in turn, is pregnant with the possibility of the complete Russian embrace of Chinas strategic vision. The tense situation along the LAC, declining Russian economic and military prowess, and its possible irreversible enmesh into the Chinese strategic embrace have necessitated the nurturing of close relations with Moscow despite sustained US pressure to take sides in the Ukraine conflict. Advertisement India remains the largest importer of Russian arms globally and is highly dependent on Russia for its defence systems and maintenance. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 2016 and 2020, India absorbed 23 per cent of Russias arms exports. Moscows power in this domain derives from its sheer volume of sales and its willingness to provide weapons systems and technologies that no other country will export to India. To hedge against overdependence on Russia for arms requirements, India has diversified its acquisition of military hardware from the US, France, and Israel. In the face of the growing Russia-China strategic alliance against a common adversary, the US, and the fear of Russia becoming a junior partner to China, securing critical military hardware and ensuring Russian neutrality in the eventuality of an India-China confrontation is a cause of concern for India. Advertisement Taking advantage of the Western sanctions, India quickly became one of the largest importers of cheap Russian energy. The war deepened India-Russia economic ties, particularly in the energy sector. As per the report of ICRA, a rating agency, Indian oil purchases increased more than 20 times compared to 2021, exceeding two million barrels per day. India managed to save approximately $13 billion by importing cheaper crude oil from Russia since Western sanctions were imposed on it. In sum, apart from the signing of nine MoUs and agreements in areas of trade, economics, and investment in the Russian Far East for the period 20242029, this visit is crucial for optics. When all eyes are on a much-vaunted Indian PM visit, India has been able to underscore the importance of the long-held doctrine of strategic autonomy. Its strategic and development requirements dictate Indias foreign policy choices and its global preferences . So far, India has been able to manage the pressure on its diplomacy despite the great tension surrounding the war in Ukraine. Managing triangular relationship dynamicswith India, Russia, China, and India, Russia, and the USwill test the ingenuity of Indian diplomacy. Amitabh Singh is an Associate Professor at Central for Russian and Central Asian Studies, JNU. Ankur Dixit is a Research Scholar at Central for Russian and Central Asian Studies, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. NATO is increasingly considering the European and Indo-Pacific theatres as interdependent, especially considering the China factor. Projecting unity and unanimity remains the priority for the alliance after 75 years read more US President Joe Biden hosted the annual 32-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 2024 summit from July 9 to 11, 2024, amid continuing wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Yemen and political capriciousness in many member states. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to pitch for membership. Meanwhile, competition, edging towards confrontation with China, remains a concern and demands action. Managing expectations remains the theme. NATO Historical Perspective NATO (30 European and 2 North American), with headquarters in Brussels, was established in April 1949, immediately after World War II. It is a collective security system where independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. Its initial aim was to defend the member countries from the expansion of Soviet Union, and curbing the spread of communism. Advertisement The Soviets responded by signing the Warsaw Pact in May 1955. It was formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. A collective defence mechanism that included the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe. NATO and Warsaw Pact countries remained pitted against each other until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991, and many of these countries later joined NATO. The combined militaries of NATO members include around 3.5 million soldiers and personnel. Their combined military spending constituted around 55 per cent of the global military spend. In 2024, members have agreed to reach or maintain the target defence spending of at least two percent of their GDP. Having started in 1949 with just 12 members, it today has 32 members, with Sweden joining in March 2024. As many as 18 additional countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program. Another nineteen countries are involved in institutionalised dialogue programmes with NATO. NATO currently recognises Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members. The enlargement has led to tensions with Russia. NATOs post-Cold War interventions have included Bosnia (1992) and Yugoslavia (1999). Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. Post-Russian Annexation of Crimea In 2014, Russias annexation of Crimea led to strong condemnation by all NATO members and was one of the seven times that Article 4, which calls for consultation among NATO members, has been invoked. Prior times included the Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War. At the 2016 Warsaw summit, NATO countries agreed on the creation of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence, which deployed four multinational battalion-sized battle groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Several NATO countries sent ground troops, warships, and fighter aircraft to reinforce the alliances eastern flank. Advertisement In March 2022, NATO member states agreed to establish four additional battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, and elements of the NATO Response Force were activated for the first time in NATOs history. NATO today has around 40,000 troops deployed along its 2,500-kilometre-long eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. Ukraines NATO Membership Ukraines relationship with NATO began with the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan in 2002. In 2010, under President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine reaffirmed its non-aligned status and renounced its aspirations to join NATO. During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Russia occupied Crimea and supported armed separatists in eastern Ukraine. As a result, in December 2014, Ukraines parliament voted to end its non-aligned status, and in 2019, it enshrined the goal of NATO membership in the Constitution. At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders affirmed that Ukraine would eventually join the Alliance and supported Ukraines right to self-determination without interference. Advertisement On November 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine would join NATO, and the deployment of missile defence systems or long-range missiles in Ukraine would be crossing the red line. The Russian Foreign Ministry drafted a treaty that would forbid Ukraine or any former Soviet state from ever joining NATO. NATO responded by saying that the decision was up to Ukraine and NATO members and that Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbours. NATO offered to improve communications with Russia and discuss missile placements and military exercises, as long as Russia withdrew troops from Ukraines borders. Advertisement Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 after Russia proclaimed it had annexed the countrys southeast. Russia continues to politically oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with the informal understanding between the two sides. NATO Defence Expenditure Member states pay for NATOs three common funds (the civil and military budgets and the security investment programme) based on a cost-sharing formula that includes per capita gross national income and other factors. In 20232024, the United States and Germany were the biggest contributors, with 16.2 per cent each. Member states also pay for and maintain their own troops and equipment. They contribute to NATO operations and missions by committing troops and equipment on a voluntary basis. Since 2006, the goal has been for each country to spend at least 2 per cent of its gross domestic product on its own defence. This was reaffirmed more strongly in 2014. On June 17, 2024, prior to the 2024 Washington summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that a record 23 of 32 NATO member states were meeting their defence spending targets of 2 per cent of their countrys GDP. Advertisement NATO Partnerships with Other Countries Additionally, NATO cooperates and discusses its activities with numerous other non-NATO members. The Mediterranean Dialogue was established in 1994 to coordinate in a similar way with Israel and countries in North Africa. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was announced in 2004 as a dialogue forum for the Middle East along the same lines as the Mediterranean Dialogue. The four participants are also linked through the Gulf Cooperation Council. In June 2018, Qatar expressed a wish to join NATO, which was ruled out, saying that only additional European countries could join according to Article 10 of NATOs founding treaty. Qatar and NATO had earlier signed a joint security agreement in January 2018. Political dialogue with Japan began in 1990, and since then, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact with countries that do not form part of any of these cooperation initiatives. Australia and New Zealand, both contact countries, are also members of the AUS-CAN-NZ-UK-US strategic alliance, which maintains links with NATO. NATO is trying to address the rise of China by closely cooperating with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. Colombia is NATOs latest partner and has access to the full range of cooperative activities offered; it is the first and only Latin American country to cooperate with NATO. Political Dynamics at the NATO Summit 2024 The very strong NATO supporter, US President Joe Biden, has a political crisis on his plate after a disastrous debate two weeks ago. Many of his own party members dont support his nomination for the forthcoming presidential election. And Donald Trump is a known NATO-sceptic. The shadow of Trump thus looms over the NATO summit. A Trump victory in November could mean a decline in US aid to Ukraine and pressure on Kyiv to bow to Russian demands in any peace talks. There is no country in NATO with the ability to replace a more distant United States, economically or militarily. Further, French President Emmanuel Macron is facing political headwinds after parliamentary elections left a hung National Assembly. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Ukraine for a quick ceasefire to speed up peace negotiations, drawing a frosty response from Kyiv. Clearly, there are growing political distractions. Support for Ukraine Will the allies unanimously reaffirm increasing NATOs military, political, and financial support for Ukraine? Will they openly state their support for Ukraines entry into NATO? Will there be a strong signal to Putin? Clearly, Ukraine needs more modern equipment. The F 16s are on their way. More M1 Abrams tanks are required. More crucial are many more air defence batteries. The most important is the huge supply of ammunition for various systems, which is being expended very quickly. This Ukraine Defence Contact Group has helped raise and direct around $100 billion in aid. A fool-proof organisation has to be in place to steer aid utilisation and dissemination. During Bidens summit meeting with Zelenskyy, nearly two dozen allies and partners who have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine will be present. The Baltic States also want some NATO assurance, as they are worried they will be the next targets of Russia. Key Topics on the Agenda While NATO leaders will address a wide variety of issues facing the Alliance, Ukraine is unlikely to receive a formal invitation to join the NATO alliance in Washington. Yet NATOs greater defence integration with Ukraine will be discussed. It is important to help Ukraine win, or else it will risk kicking off a US losing streak. Ukraines partners would link wartime aid to continued reform progress. The Washington summit will focus on boosting allied defence and deterrence, which are NATOs core business. This will be achieved by boosting forward defence, increasing high-readiness forces, modernising command and control, and transforming joint defence exercises. This would mean getting NATO ready to fight now. Over and above increased defence budgets, military capability building in air and missile defence, long-range fires, military mobility, cyber defence, and space-based capabilities will be discussed. Energy security will be on the table. The US-led Ukraine Defence Contact Group of 50 nations, is already manned by around 300 soldiers at the US Armys European headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany. It may be upgraded to a new NATO command in Wiesbaden, with nearly 700 allied personnel. Irrespective of the final agreed language of the summit document, NATO allies may commit in Washington a five-year, $100 billion commitment of military aid to Ukraine. Some are suggesting around $40 billion annually. The effort will be to make Ukraine a militarily capable partner with interoperability so that when the political moment comes, Ukraines forces can seamlessly integrate into NATO, just like Finland and Sweden before them. NATO proposes to encourage technology sharing to enhance interoperability between member countries. The US has announced that it will provide $2 billion to Poland for the purchase of F-35s, Patriot systems, and Abrams tanks. This deal will further strengthen NATOs Eastern Flank. Strengthening NATOs global partnerships, especially in the Indo-Pacific, will be discussed in detail. As much as 40 per cent of Europes trade passes through an increasingly contested South China Sea. On the other side, Russias war in Ukraine is being propped up by imports of North Korean munitions. China is sharing high-end technologies like semiconductors and other dual-use items. Last year, Russia imported 90 per cent of its microelectronics from China, used to produce missiles, tanks, and aircraft. China is also working to provide Russia with improved satellite capability and imagery. NATOs strategic goals have started mentioning the security challenges posed by China. Taiwans security and the North Korean nuclear issue will be discussed. NATOs four established Indo-Pacific partnersAustralia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Koreahave already become regular participants at allied summits. The security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific is becoming closely connected. Increased Russia-North Korea military cooperation is bringing Seoul closer to Brussels too. Many analysts believe that NATO members positions on China-related issues are still inconsistent. Developing a clearer strategy towards China will be an important discussion. There may be a joint statement on preserving freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. But there may be no statements on meaningful deterrence in the South China Sea. NATO is still not ready to bring in countries in the Indo-Pacific region as members. Yet, the summit is expected to send a tougher signal than ever to China. As Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have significantly increased ammunition production, and keeping supply chain issues in mind, there is a proposal to increase ammunition production by European nations. For Ukraine to win the war against Russia or even defend itself, NATO must make up for its previous shortcomings. The leaders would have to evolve declaration language to show some progress from last year. Some want to mention that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to membership. NATO is increasingly considering the European and Indo-Pacific theatres as interdependent, especially considering the China factor. Lastly, projecting unity and unanimity remains the priority for the alliance after 75 years. PM Narendra Modis visit to the G7 and a more recent one to Russia continues to maintain that all nations must respect the UN Charter, including territorial integrity and sovereignty. There is no solution on the battlefield. India must be noting every word being spoken at the NATO summit as it continues to practice strategic autonomy. The writer is former Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has not only delivered justice but is also seen to have done so, at least as far as Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf party is concerned read more Though a big boost to the PTI, the judgement will not threaten the parliamentary majority of the ruling alliance of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, supported by the Peoples Party of Pakistan (PPP) and the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). Image: AP In a landmark 8-5 split majority judgement read out by senior judge Mansoor Ali Shah, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled on Friday (July 12) that 80 members of the National Assembly (NA) who contested the February 8, 2024, general elections as Independents were entitled to be recognised as members of Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf (PTI), which remained a valid political party despite the ban on its election symbol, bat, imposed by the Supreme Court by its January 13 order. Advertisement It further ruled that the PTI would be entitled to give lists for reserved seats in the National and Provincial Assemblies (PAs) within 15 days and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) would have to re-assign reserved seats under Article 51 of the 1973 Constitution and Section 104 of the Election Act, 2017. Relevant parts of the March 4 order of the Peshawar High Court and the ECPs March 1 order were ruled ultra vires. In a separate short order, Justice Yahya Afridi deemed the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) as not fulfilling conditions of being a political party. A total of 22 reserved seats of the NA and 55 seats in PAs had become controversial, leading to appeals against the Peshawar High Court and ECP orders by petitioners belonging to the PTI and SIC. This order will adversely affect some women and minority MNAs already appointed and functioning as MNAs, though their votes for the Presidential election and Senate seats already concluded will not be affected. Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa was not part of the majority judgement. In a separate order read out by Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, with which he concurred, it was stated that the ECP misinterpreted the CJs January 13 order mere deprivation of a partys election symbol should not have led it to deem all PTI candidates as Independents. CJ Isas main concern during the prolonged 9 sessions of the full court from May 2024 onwards appeared to be to contain dissent and disunity within the 13-member full court bench, as also to redeem his own position after the adverse criticism he faced for his January 13 judgement depriving PTI of its bat symbol. A big boost to the PTI, the judgement will not threaten the parliamentary majority of the ruling alliance of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, supported by the Peoples Party of Pakistan (PPP) and the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). It will prevent grandiose ambitions though, to acquire two-thirds majority in Parliament to steamroller out of the box decisions including the much talked about plan to increase the tenure of sitting judges of the higher judiciary by three years. Advertisement According to jubilant PTI supporters, this was a favourable judgement beyond expectations. They, however, reiterated that their struggle to get the peoples verdict of February 8 elections recognised fully had not yet concluded. Forty-one of their 80 MNAs will now have to file fresh affirmatory notifications of belonging to the PTI before the ECP within 15 days. Thirty-nine others had already given notifications to this effect. Speaking to the media after the judgement, Law Minister Ataullah Tarar reiterated that his government faced no immediate threat of losing power, either at the Centre or in Punjab. He claimed, PTI had benefited without having been a party in the case while the SIC suffered adversely. Hinting that political considerations may have weighed more heavily than those purely legal, he however, hedged bets on whether a review petition would be filed against this judgment. Advertisement Saner counsels in Pakistan suggested that the judgement could impel polarised political forces to abjure confrontation and move towards conciliation or dialogue to ensure that political stability is gradually restored. While the ruling party may be willing to move forward in this regard, given the proclivities of a recalcitrant but still incarcerated PTI leader, Imran Khan, who is inclined to gloat but not yield an inch from his narrative of victimhood, such moves do not look likely to reach early fruition. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that facing a plethora of complicated constitutional issues and treading delicately a fragile wall of brinkmanship, the Supreme Court full court has not only delivered justice but is also seen to have done so, at least as far as PTI is concerned. Advertisement The writer is a former special secretary, Cabinet Secretariat. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Essentially, the Thirty Metre Telescope is a massive telescope designed to answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. With significant contributions from India, it stands to make groundbreaking discoveries about our universe read more The project initially aimed to build the telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, a top spot for astronomy. However, this plan faced opposition from indigenous Hawaiians who see the site as sacred. Image Credit: TMT International Observatory India, the United States, Canada, China, and Japan are working on a major international project for studying space and the universe. Called the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT), the project represents an ambitious international collaboration which aims to revolutionise the way we study space. The TMT, with its enormous 30-meter primary mirror and advanced adaptive optics, will let scientists see cosmic objects in incredible detail, pushing the boundaries of our knowledge. What is the Thirty Metre Telescope? Essentially, the Thirty Metre Telescope is a massive telescope designed to answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. Advertisement It will help us understand how the first galaxies and stars formed after the Big Bang, how galaxies evolve, the relationship between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, the formation of stars and planetary systems, and even the characteristics of planets outside our solar system. The project initially aimed to build the telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, a top spot for astronomy. However, this plan faced opposition from indigenous Hawaiians who see the site as sacred. Because of this, other locations like the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos in Spains Canary Islands are also being considered. The equipment The TMT will be equipped with high-tech instruments such as the Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) and the Wide-Field Optical Spectrograph (WFOS). These instruments are designed to carry out a wide range of observations, enhancing the telescopes ability to achieve its scientific goals. A standout feature of the TMT is its mirror system. The primary mirror made up of 492 hexagonal segments, spans a whopping 30 meters in diameter. Theres also a secondary mirror composed of 118 smaller hexagonal segments and a tertiary mirror, which is 3.5 meters by 2.5 meters, positioned centrally within the primary mirror. This sophisticated system is essential for capturing detailed images of distant cosmic objects. Advertisement The TMTs Adaptive Optics System, called the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS), uses deformable mirrors and laser guide stars to correct for atmospheric turbulence, significantly boosting image clarity. Indian scientists have been instrumental in developing a tool that generates an all-sky catalogue of Near-Infrared (NIR) stars for this system, ensuring the TMT can deliver top-notch images. Indias key role in the TMT project Indian scientists have played a big role in this effort. Theyve developed an open-source tool that creates an infrared star catalogue for the TMTs Adaptive Optics System (AOS). This tool is key to the telescopes ability to produce sharp and clear images by compensating for distortions caused by the Earths atmosphere. Advertisement Indias involvement in the TMT project is significant. Institutions like the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru, the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, and the Aryabhatta Research Institute for Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital have all contributed hardware, instruments, software, and funding totalling $200 million. The tool created by Indian researchers helps the TMTs Adaptive Optics System deal with atmospheric distortions by creating an all-sky NIR star catalogue. This catalogue is crucial for the telescopes optimal performance. Researchers at the IIA in Bengaluru, led by Dr Sarang Shah, developed an automated code to generate this catalogue, allowing the TMT to use Natural Guide Stars (NGS) to correct atmospheric effects and ensure successful operation. Advertisement The TMT project is a remarkable example of international collaboration and scientific innovation. With significant contributions from India, it stands to make groundbreaking discoveries about our universe, offering a clearer and more detailed view of the cosmos than ever before. Despite the Vision Pro being marketed as a groundbreaking spatial computing device, there are only around 2,000 apps available for it. This limited app ecosystem is seen as a major hurdle for the Vision Pros adoption read more New content for the Vision Pro has been slow to arrive, with major developers like Google, Meta, Tencent, Amazon, and Netflix yet to bring their apps to the device. Image Credit: Apple Apple is expected to sell fewer than 500,000 units of its Vision Pro VR headset in 2024. The company is searching for a killer app that could attract new customers to the $3,500 device, which has been struggling to gain traction due to its high price and limited app availability. Despite the Vision Pro being marketed as a groundbreaking spatial computing device, there are only around 2,000 apps available for it, significantly fewer than the tens of thousands of apps available for the iPhone and iPad shortly after their launches. This limited app ecosystem is seen as a major hurdle for the Vision Pros adoption. Advertisement George Jijiashvili, an analyst at market tracker Omdia, noted that the Vision Pros launch has been slower than expected, with most developers focusing on platforms with larger user bases. Omdia predicts that Apple will sell 350,000 Vision Pros this year, with a projected increase to 750,000 next year and 1.7 million in 2026. These numbers are far below the nearly 20 million iPads sold in their first year. Estimates from IDC, a tech market researcher, suggest Apple shipped fewer than 100,000 units of Vision Pro in the first quarter, less than half the number of Meta Quest headsets sold. Despite capturing more than 50 per cent of the VR headset market by dollar value due to its high price, the Vision Pros success hinges on the availability of compelling content. New content for the Vision Pro has been slow to arrive, with major developers like Google, Meta, Tencent, Amazon, and Netflix yet to bring their apps to the device. Steve Lee, CEO of AmazeVR, reported an increase in downloads of his app following the Vision Pros launch in China, but the numbers were significantly lower than the initial US launch. Bank of America equity analyst Wamsi Mohan pointed out that the Vision Pro has not yet captured the consumer imagination, leading to one of the slower starts for a new Apple product category. Apples management is emphasizing the Vision Pros potential in enterprise applications, with some developers betting on long-term returns from early investment in the platform. Advertisement Anthony Geffen, CEO of Atlantic Productions, believes the Vision Pro represents a significant milestone for VR, comparing its potential impact to that of the smartphone. However, for content production to be economically viable, the device needs to reach a wider audience, which may require a more affordable version in the future. Developers like Tim Davison of CellWalk and Werner Jainek of Cultured Code see potential in Vision Pro and have already experienced positive returns from their apps. However, porting apps from other VR platforms to the Vision Pro can be challenging, as noted by Arturo Perez of Kluge Interactive, who had to adapt his game Synth Riders to the new hardware. Advertisement Despite the current challenges, Perez believes that Apples long-term commitment to the Vision Pro will eventually pay off, comparing the current stage of VR to the early days of the PC era. Apples ability to play the long game gives developers confidence in investing in the platform. Following the disastrous performance in us presidential debate and amid continuing gaffes, more and more Democrats are urging US President Joe Biden to withdraw from the election to make way for a younger candidate read more US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, July 9, 2024, in Washington. AP Former US President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have privately discussed the questions around President Joe Bidens candidacy in the presidential election, according to a report. Following last month disastrous presidential debate with Trump in which Biden could not complete sentences multiple times while appearing to sporadically freeze through the debate and losing his train of thoughts, calls have mounted for him to withdraw from the race and make way for some younger candidates. Bidens physical and mental health to see through another term is under serious questions as his gaffes continue and his public appearances fail to shun the questions. Advertisement On his part, Biden has said that he is in the race till the very end and he may only consider quitting if God comes down to Earth to tell him so. Now, amid such circumstances, the CNN has reported that Obama and Pelosi have discussed the prospects of Bidens candidacy and how difficult it is at this point to beat Trump. Of the six polls on election news and data website FiveThirtyEight, Trump is leading in three, Biden in one, and they are tied in two. It further reports that Bidens approval rating is 36.8 per cent compared to Trumps 40.2 per cent at this time in his presidency. Democrats want clarity from Obama & Pelosi Since the debate, Democrats have been divided whether to forcefully push Biden to quit or rally around him with the singular goal to beat Trump. The fact that the election is less than four months away and any replacement will have a disadvantaged start has complicated any decision for them. Amid such concerns and growing calls from donors for Biden to step down, the Democrats have turned to two senior Democrats who hold enough sway to influence Bidens decision-making. The CNN has reported that Democrats are not just looking up to them to convince Biden to step down but are looking up to them to provide clarity whether the party should push Biden or rally around them. Advertisement Those feel Biden has a chance to winning told CNN that Obama and Pelosi need to say that clearly as soon as possible before even more damage is done to the campaign. The critics of Biden, however, said that the end of campaign is a matter of when, not if. Can Obama & Pelosi convince Biden to step down? The Democrats have turned to Obama and Pelosi as other senior Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dont have the relationship deep enough to tell Biden to step down, as per CNN. Both Obama and Pelosi have long relationships with Biden. Advertisement So far, Obama has not spoken much about Bidens candidacy except for a post on X (formerly Twitter) after the debate that bad debate nights happen. He has neither spokes in favour of the candidacy nor in opposition to it. The CNN reported that even the post on X was a result of efforts from the aides of Biden and Obama. Even though Obama has not said anything publicly, Obama has deepening scepticism of Bidens ability to win the election, as per CNN, which called it one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington DC. The report also said that some Biden loyalists think that Obama was behind an article in The New York Times by actor and Democrat donor George Clooney that called upon him to withdraw from the race. The report quoted them as dubbing them a mark of deep betrayal. They died after their inflatable boat capsized off the coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in northern France. The French coast guard rescued sixty-three people, the prefecture responsible for the north of France said in a statement read more Four migrants have died while trying to cross the English Channel from France to the U.K., French authorities said Friday. They died after their inflatable boat capsized off the coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in northern France. The French coast guard rescued sixty-three people, the prefecture responsible for the north of France said in a statement. A navy patrol boat went to the site after being alerted that several migrants had fallen into the sea while trying to cross the Channel, maritime police told AFP. Advertisement Four people winched out of the water by helicopter were dead but others were rescued alive, the police added. This takes to 19 the number of people who have died this year trying to cross over to Britain from France on often overloaded boats. Five migrants died on April 23 off the French coast while trying to make the perilous journey. Migrants trying to reach the U.K. risk drowning as they try to cross the busy English Channel, often aboard crowded boats. An estimated 30,000 people made the crossing in 2023, according to U.K. government figures. Finland has accused neighbouring Russia of weaponising migration by encouraging scores of migrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia to cross the border, an assertion the Kremlin denies read more Finnish border guards and their dog Nita patrol the Finnish-Russian border which is marked by a narrow clearing in the forest near Hoilola village, in Eastern Finland. Reuters File Finlands parliament is set to vote on a bill on Friday granting border guards the power to turn back asylum seekers crossing from Russia, after more than 1,300 people arrived in the country forcing Helsinki to close its border. Finland has accused neighbouring Russia of weaponising migration by encouraging scores of migrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia to cross the border, an assertion the Kremlin denies. Helsinki believes Moscow is promoting the crossings in retaliation for Finland joining NATO, which backs Ukraine against Russias invasion. Advertisement The rightwing government of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has said the bill is vital to stop future arrivals, despite the law being at odds with its international human rights commitments. There have been no new arrivals by asylum seekers since March. Finland shut its land borders with Russia late last year. The bill is expected to pass as a majority of lawmakers in the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, will back it, according to party officials. Still, some Social Democrats could break with their party line, so a majority will be tight. For the bill to pass, parliament must first agree, with a five-sixths majority, that the legislation is needed urgently. In a second vote the proposal needs to be approved with a two-thirds majority. Supporters of the bill said it was needed so authorities could stop Finland being put under pressure by waves of migrants. Should Russia want to, it has the ability to mobilise and push hundreds, thousands of so-called asylum seekers to our borders in a matter of days or weeks, said Ben Zyskowicz, a lawmaker for the ruling, conservative National Coalition Party. Advertisement There is no guarantee this will be an effective way to neutralise Russias hostile influence, she added. The left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NPF) has won the French parliamentary elections, but new prime minister has been appointed read more Despite a coalition of centrist and left-wing parties winning the election, concerns about hate speech increasing in France persist. Reuters Suspense continues in France as parties have so far not been able to arrive at a consensus for the post of the prime minister. In the French parliamentary elections held in two rounds on June 30 and July 7, the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NPF) secured the most seats and relegated the far-right National Rally (RN), which was widely expected to win the elections, to the third post. In shock results, the NPF came first by winning 188 of 577 seats, Macrons centrist Ensemble (ENS) bloc came second with 161 seats, and the RN came third with 142 seats. The shock results were produced by the tactical voting arrangement between NPF and ENS in the second round of polls. Under the arrangement, more than 200 leftist and centrist candidates withdrew to consolidate all non-right voters and prevent the break-up of all non-right votes. Advertisement Even though the NPF came first, the bloc has not yet announced the prime ministerial candidate. Moreover, the nomination by the bloc is not enough. In the French political system, the president appoints the prime minister who is then approved by the parliament. So far, there is no certainty on the name of the next French premier. Macron rejects far-lefts PM candidacy While the leftist NPF and centrist ENS formed the ad-hoc Republican Front to keep the far-right RN out of power, they had no actual alliance regarding the formation of the government. As the three blocs have won roughly a third of seats, the negotiations to reach the majority-mark could take a while as deals are struck and coalition partners concessions are made and demands are addressed. Meanwhile, Macron has rejected the prime ministerial candidacy of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI), which emerged as the single-largest party with 78 seats, according to AFP. The party chief Jean-Luc Melenchon carries the baggage of allegations of antisemitism and an unpopular economic agenda that includes hiking taxes for high income-earners to up to 90 per cent. Separately, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is from Macrons centrist bloc, has echoed Macrons position and said he would seek to guard against any government that has extremists whether far-right RN and far-left LFI. Attal, the caretaker prime minister, has acknowledged the ENS bloc had narrowly escaped extinction in the elections, as per AFP. Advertisement Attal said that he would completely revise our methods and our organisation. Attal said he hoped to contribute to the emergence of a majority concerning projects and ideas in the future parliament. NPF may not be able to name PM candidate this week Even though the NPF said it would name the prime ministerial candidate this week, it has indicated that the naming may get delayed. Id rather not set a deadline, said LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard to TF1 channel. Bompard further said that more time may be needed for discussions. There are also indications that there is infighting in the bloc. Green party leader Marine Tondelier said the problem was that everybody claims that they are the biggest group which she said showed that vote size was perhaps not the most important criterion to name PM candidate, as per AFP. Advertisement A source from the Socialist party told the channel that LFI, the single-largest party, had put forward four names for the most, including extremist leader Melenchon. The channel said that he is unacceptable to all other parties of the bloc and is controversial even among LFI members. SFJs general-counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on Thursday announced that Calgary Municipal Plaza, which is owned and operated by the city of Calgary, will host the referendum, according to a report read more The NIA is investigating half a dozen cases against SFJ and Gurupatwant Singh Pannun, a US national. Representational Image The secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has announced that it will hold the next phase of Khalistan referendum at a government facility in Calgary on July 28. According to a Hindustan Times report, SFJs general-counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on Thursday announced that Calgary Municipal Plaza, which is owned and operated by the city of Calgary, will host the referendum. Pannun said the referendum is expected to be thronged by pro-Khalistan Sikhs in thousands, added the report. Advertisement If the referendum goes ahead as planned, it will be the first time since September 2022 that a referendum will be held at a government location. Interestingly, the Calgary Municipal Complex Atrium and Plaza site shows no event listings. The atriums schedule is blank, while the Plaza is marked as closed for resurfacing on that day, reported Hindustan times. Booking the atrium is limited to registered non-profits, charities, and school groups, with reservations required at least 30 days in advance. The plaza, however, is available to any group or individual from 7 am to 11 pm. While a permit is not required, users can secure exclusive use of the plaza by registering their events. According to the report, the last time a government facility was registered for the referendum was at Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia. However, a week before the scheduled date, on September 3 last year, a spokesperson for the Surrey District School Board announced in a release that they had cancelled a community rental of one of our schools due to a violation of our rental agreement. The stated reason for withdrawing permission was that the promotional materials for the event featured images of the school alongside images of a weapon. The referendum poster actually displayed both an AK-47 machine gun and a kirpan, added the report. Despite repeated attempts to address the issue, the event organisers failed to remove these concerning images, and materials continued to be posted throughout Surrey and on social media, the release said. Advertisement That referendum was ultimately held on September 10 last year at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. Prior to that on September 18, 2022, it was organised at the Gore Meadows Community Centre, a municipal property in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). India and Canadas relations strained after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was investigating credible allegations about the potential involvement of Indian government agents in the murder of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June. India completely rejected the allegations, calling them absurd. India has time and again raised the issue of Canada government giving space to separatist elements in the name of freedom of speech. Advertisement In May, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that Canada allowing space to separatist elements reflects the vote bank politics of the Trudeau-led government rather than law of the land. Your vote bank is more powerful than your rule of law, said Jaishankar, adding. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to support separatism. We cannot for good relations overlook that. Jaishankar said India respects and practices freedom of speech, but that does not equate with freedom to threaten foreign diplomats, extend support to separatism or allow political space to elements advocating violence. Jaishankar said Canadas response to Indias concerns has been that it has freedom of speech. Advertisement Whenever we have taken this up with the Canadians..it is not a new issue It has been going on almost for 10 years and they keep saying, oh we have freedom of speech, Jaishankar said. We also have freedom of speech in our country. But freedom of speech does not mean freedom to threaten foreign diplomats, freedom of speech does not mean the kind of positions and the kind of activities which people in Canada are doing which does harm to our country because of its support for separatism, Jaishankar added. The external affairs minister also wondered how people with dubious backgrounds are being allowed to enter and live in Canada, referring to Khalistani supporters among the Sikh migrants from Punjab. Advertisement With inputs from agencies On a self-described peace mission, Hungarys PM Viktor Orban met former US President Donald Trump at the conclusion of the Nato Summit. Details of the meeting are not available but Orban claimed Trump would find the ways to peace" read more Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is on a self-declared peace mission a series of foreign trips that have upset several nations of the European Union, whose presidency Hungary assumed this month. After visiting Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Beijing to call on Xi Jinping, Orban met former US President Donald Trump, who is running for the American presidential election again. Orban travelled to Florida after the Nato Summit ended in Washington to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property on Thursday. What they discussed was not made official but media reports quoting sources have said that Russias war with Ukraine was very much on their agenda. Advertisement Orban endorsing Trump as US president? Right-wing Orban, whose country took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and last met the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful in March. In a cryptic post, Orban said, We discussed ways to make peace. Orban announced this with a picture of him with Trump, declaring, The good news of the day: hes going to solve it! The post did not elaborate further. Orban took over the six-month presidency of the European Unions Council of Ministers on July 1. Since then, he has met with Putin and Xi Jinping as part of what he calls peace mission meetings that have angered his fellow Nato members. An extension of Russias foreign policy? Orban sparked uproar in the EU by jetting to Moscow to hold talks with Putin on what the Hungarian leader described as a peace mission over the war in Ukraine. His Russia visit followed a trip to Kyiv for talks with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky. The 27-nation EU bloc has condemned Russias invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. Foreign Policy quoted Peter Kreko, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis as saying, Hungary is the extension of Russian foreign policy. At the moment, Orban is Putins most useful idiot. Advertisement Who all are angry with Orbans visits Viktor Orban has no mandate from the alliance, nor from the European Union, to conduct any form of negotiations, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the NATO summit. He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose." Speaking to reporters Thursday, US President Joe Biden, set to face Trump in November, said that I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now theres not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behaviour." How it impacts Nato Advertisement Orbans meeting with Trump came a day after the US presidential hopeful said he would not pull the United States out of the alliance. But Trump reiterated that he wants other Nato nations to pay more. Politico has reported that Trump is considering reducing the United States intelligence-sharing with Nato members if he is reelected in November. Orban, like Trump, has expressed scepticism about the role Nato countries are playing in support of Ukraine, and refuses to send Kyiv weapons saying it would fuel the conflict. His meeting with Trump, who has been critical of the central role played by the United States in Nato, came after Biden sought to rally the alliance at the Washington summit. Advertisement The president was also seeking to reassure Nato counterparts and US voters about his leadership and fitness for office in the wake of a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate last month rekindled concerns about his age. Biden is 81, Trump 78. (With inputs from agencies) The program will continue to support Papua New Guineas reform agenda, help protect the vulnerable and foster inclusive growth, with a focus maintained on strengthening debt sustainability, the IMF said. read more The International Monetary Fund will provide Papua New Guinea with immediate access to about $125 million, the IMF said in a statement on Friday following its executive boards second review that cited authorities strong commitment to reforms. The program will continue to support Papua New Guineas reform agenda, help protect the vulnerable and foster inclusive growth, with a focus maintained on strengthening debt sustainability, alleviating FX shortages, and enhancing governance and anti-corruption frameworks, the IMF wrote. Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party candidates contested the Feb. 8 election as independents after it was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but the election commission said independents were ineligible for the grant of 70 reserved seats, meant for political parties only read more Pakistans Supreme Court ruled on Friday that jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khans party was eligible for over 20 extra reserved seats in the national legislature, ramping up pressure on the countrys weak coalition government. Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party candidates contested the Feb. 8 election as independents after it was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but the election commission said independents were ineligible for the grant of 70 reserved seats, meant for political parties only. Advertisement The commission had ordered the reserved seats instead to be distributed among other parties, mostly to those in the ruling coalition. As a political party, the PTI is entitled to its reserved seats, said Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa while reading out the order, which was supported by eight judges and opposed by five of the 13-member full court bench. The granting of 23 reserved seats does not affect the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs coalition government. Under Pakistans election rules, parties are allocated 70 reserved seats 60 for women, 10 for non-Muslims in proportion to the number of seats they win. This completes the National Assemblys total strength of 336 seats. The decision does however bolster the political position of Khans supporters, whose rallying cry has been that the election commission and a pro-military caretaker government that oversaw the polls indulged in electoral fraud to deprive it of a victory. The commission and military deny the charges, but questions have been raised in the West about the transparency of the polls. The U.S. House of Representatives, as well as European countries, have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected. Khan was ousted from power in 2022 after he fell out with the countrys powerful military generals. The military denies it interferes in politics. United Nations: India has abstained in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted the resolution on Thursday with 99 votes in favour, nine against and 60 abstentions, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Those voting against the resolution included Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia and Syria. Advertisement The resolution titled Safety and security of nuclear facilities of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders. It also demanded that Russia urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately return the plant to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine to ensure its safety and security. It called for the immediate cessation of the attacks by Russia against the critical energy infrastructure of Ukraine, which increases the risk of a nuclear accident or incident at all nuclear facilities of Ukraine. The draft resolution was introduced by Ukraine and was sponsored by over 50 member states, including France, Germany and the United States. It called upon Moscow, until it returns the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant of Ukraine to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine, to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia with timely and full access to all areas at the plant that are important for nuclear safety and security to allow the Agency to report fully on the nuclear safety and security situation at the site. In the explanation of the vote before the vote on the resolution, Russias First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said the General Assembly has unfortunately adopted many documents that are non-consensual, politicised and do not reflect reality. Make no mistake: votes in favour of todays draft will be regarded by Kyiv, Washington, Brussels and London as evidence of support for their policy of further escalating the Ukrainian conflict to the detriment of steps taken by a sensible part of the international community to find a peaceful, sustainable and long-term solution to the conflict, he said. In the Friday verdict, the court made it clear that the withdrawal of an election symbol can not cannot disqualify a political party from contesting in elections. read more In a major legal victory for the Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the countrys Supreme Court accepted the plea of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and ruled that the party is eligible to allocate reserved seats. According to Pakistani news outlet Dawn, the verdict was announced by a 13-member bench of the top court and the proceeding was headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa. [The] withdrawal of election symbol cannot disqualify a political party from elections, the verdict said. The PTI was and is a political party, the court averred. Advertisement In the Friday verdict, the court made it clear that the withdrawal of an election symbol can not cannot disqualify a political party from contesting in elections. In March, a 4-1 verdict by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ruled that PTI-backed SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats. At that time, the court ruled that SIC could not allocate candidates due to having non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats. The timeline of the whole ordeal The issue first emerged after over 80 PTI-backed independent candidates emerged victorious in the February 8 poll and subsequently joined the SIC in a bid to claim seats that are reserved in the parliament for minorities and women. In the March 4 ruling, the ECP cited Article 51(6), saying that the article clearly mentions that the reserved seats would be allocated to the political parties who contested elections and won general seats based on a proportional representation system. After giving out its judgement against the PTI, the commission decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) turning out to be the major beneficiaries. On March 6, SIC approached Peshawar High Court which upheld the ECPs verdict on the matter in a March 14 ruling. Subsequently, the SIC moved to the Supreme Court on April 2, seeking to set aside the PHC verdict. The council asked the court the permission to allocate 67 women and 11 minority seats in the assemblies. Advertisement It is pertinent to note that due to the ECP ruling, the PTI lost as many as 77 reserved seats in NA and provincial assemblies. Meanwhile, the seats helped PML-N and PPP coalition to secure a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. Furthermore, the PML-N also submitted its written argument over the matter in which it claimed that SIC is not entitled to the reserved seats as it neither contested the February 8 polls nor provided the list of candidates. None of the members of SIC contesting for the reserved seats filed their nomination papers let alone with the mandatory requirement of filing them with the list, the court filing mentioned. Advertisement Meanwhile, immediately after the verdict, PTI took to X, formally known as Twitter and demanded the immediate resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja for violating [the] Constitution of Pakistan. Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja must IMMEDIATELY resign after violating constitution of Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/HH85BzMyel PTI (@PTIofficial) July 12, 2024 Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja must IMMEDIATELY resign after violating the constitution of Pakistan, the party wrote on X. The ceasefire proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden seeks to end of war in the Gaza Strip in three stages starting with a six-week ceasefire read more Israel and Hamas have agreed to the framework of the US-endorsed ceasefire proposal, said US President Joe Biden. Last month, Biden had outlined a proposal backed by the United States and endorsed by Israel that sought to end the war in Gaza Strip in three stages. The plan starts with a six-week ceasefire in lieu of return of hostages held in Gaza and release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Biden said while there is still a lot of work to be done on complex issues, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the proposals framework. Advertisement Six weeks ago I laid out a comprehensive framework for how to achieve a ceasefire and bring the hostages home. There is still work to do and these are complex issues, but that framework is now agreed to by both Israel and Hamas, said Biden. Six weeks ago I laid out a comprehensive framework for how to achieve a ceasefire and bring the hostages home. There is still work to do and these are complex issues, but that framework is now agreed to by both Israel and Hamas. My team is making progress and I'm determined to President Biden (@POTUS) July 12, 2024 In recent weeks, the talks had picked up pace as the United States had submitted a revised proposal to Hamas. The reports said Hamas had replied positively to the proposal. As per the proposal, the first phase will include a six-week ceasefire in which women, the elderly, the wounded hostages held by Hamas will be released in lieu of the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli. Displaced Palestinians will also return to their homes as the Israeli military will withdraw from Gazas populated areas. Advertisement The six weeks of ceasefire will be used for negotiations to reach phase two in which the war will permanently end and all remaining hostages will be released. If the talks last longer than six weeks, then the ceasefire will continue for as long as talks continue. Then, in the third phase, the reconstruction of the war-ravaged Gaza will start. The ceasefire is also expected to apply to Israels northern border where Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, another Iran-backed anti-Iran terrorist group in the Middle East, are locked in war-like fighting for weeks. Hezbollah had said that Hamas negotiates on behalf of the entire Axil of Resistance, which is a term for all Iran-backed armed groups in the reason that share Irans opposition to the existence to the State of Israel. Hamas terrorists killed more than 130 and abducted more than 30 people in the border community of Kibbutz Beeri during the October 7 attack read more The Israeli investigation into the deadliest Hamas massacre during the October 7 attacks has revealed a series of systematic as well as battlefield- and commander-level errors that enabled terrorists to kill and abduct more than 100 people. On October 7, 2023, around 3,000 terrorists from Hamas and allied terrorist groups like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) invaded Israel and went on a rampage across the southern part of the country. The waves of terrorists attacked border communities, towns, and even overran military bases and outposts. Overall, they killed at least 1,200, injured more than 6,000, and abducted 251 people. Advertisement In the deadliest attack at the kibbutz of Beeri, the terrorists killed a total of 132 people and abducted 32 people and took them to Gaza as hostages. Those killed included 101 civilians and 31 security personnel. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on Thursday released the report into the investigation conducted into attack and the response. The investigation found glaring lapses in both the security planning prior to the attack and the response once the attack had begun. Cowardice of commanders as well as a slew of tactical mistakes by soldiers were also found. IDF failed in its mission The investigation concluded that the IDF failed in its mission to protect the residents of Kibbutz Beeri, according to The Times of Israel. The investigation found that there were systematic failures that led to the massacre at Beeri. The probe found that the Israeli military had never prepared for an attack like the one that occurred on October 7 as their entire approach to border security and the defence of the region was based on the idea that terrorist could only mound single intrusions and never the massive attack that they did on October 7, according to the newspaper. Advertisement Such a lack of preparedness was there despite the Israeli military possessing intelligence that Hamas was preparing for widespread terrorist attack. The newspaper further reported that the report found that the local security team of Beeri was not give appropriate warnings. It further indicted the military for not being able to piece together the complete picture of the crises at Beeri in the initial hours of the attack even as the local security team had informed the military of the attack. No coordination, no leadership, no battlefield plan The investigation further found that the military could not establish a functional command and control system in the first hours. Advertisement A number of units started converging at Beeri as there was little coordination between troops, according to the investigation reported by the paper. The investigation further found that these troops kept accumulating outside of the Beeri but did not immediately engage in fighting. This delayed the fighting with the terrorists and gave them more time to carry out their attacks. Some of the troops did not fight terrorists as they were ordered to evacuate civilians and others originally fought inside Beeri but then retreated to evacuate the wounded, said the report, adding that soldiers also waited for their commanders to arrive in some cases before entering Beeri to fight the terrorists. Advertisement Such a chaotic response continued till evening as commanders were briefing troops before entering to avoid friendly fire, which also caused a large build-up outside Beeri, according to the paper. The Jerusalem Post separately reported that the investigation found that Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, the commander of the Gaza division, fled the battlefield and that meant there was no one left to coordinate the response to the attack by Hamas. The probe also criticised units that retreated and emphasised the need for a spirit of risking ones life to confront enemy forces to protect civilians, according to the paper. On Friday, the Defence Ministry said that it had punished 218 SDF members and senior bureaucrats, with 11 dismissals, two demotions and 83 suspensions read more Amid a spate of scandals, Japan dismissed the top navy officials on the same day the countrys defence ministry released an annual defence report. On Friday, the Defence Ministry said that it had punished 218 SDF members and senior bureaucrats, with 11 dismissals, two demotions and 83 suspensions, The Straits Times reported. Not only this, top navy officer Admiral Ryo Sakai, was sacked as well. The countrys defence sector is currently embroiled in a spate of scandals involving financial improprieties and corruption as well as accusations of mishandling state secrets and workplace harassment. Advertisement Along with the latest purge on the staff, the Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara said that he would voluntarily give up one months salary. The incidents are a betrayal of the publics trust and should never have happened. I am deeply sorry," he said while announcing the move. PM apologises for the militarys misdemeanour The move came hours after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologised for the scandal but made it clear that he would not replace Kihara. I must apologise for the concern that has been caused to the public by the defence ministry and the Self-Defense Forces, Kishida said in Washington DC where he attended a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders. I recognise that the situation is extremely severe, and in that context, I understand there is no room for error, he added. The scandal has threatened the already tarnished image of the SDF as it struggles to meet the recruitment quota. The Defence Ministry said on July 8 that the SDF hired just 9,959 people in 2023 or a record low 51 per cent of the targeted 19,598 personnel. Meanwhile, the 548-page Defence White Paper Report noted that the world was facing its greatest trial since 1945 and raised alarm over Chinese actions around Taiwan. The report went on to describe Chinas no-limit cooperation with Russia as unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge to which Japan should respond with its comprehensive national power and in cooperation with its ally the United States and like-minded countries. Advertisement With inputs from agencies. Kenya has seen three weeks of unrest in which protesters stormed into parliament on June 25 after a finance bill that increased taxes was passed. More than 30 people died in the protests, which have morphed into calls for the president to resign. read more Protesters scatter as Kenya police spray a water canon at them during a protest over proposed tax hikes in a finance bill in downtown Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, June. 25, 2024. File Photo- Reuters A day after President William Ruto on Thursday dismissed all of his Cabinet ministers, Kenyas police chief Japhet Koome resigned on Friday following intense criticism of officers conduct during recent anti-government protests that left at least 39 people dead. The office of President William Ruto announced Koomes resignation the day after Ruto sacked nearly his entire cabinet, bowing to the demands of protesters. Deputy Inspector-General Douglas Kanja has been appointed acting police chief with immediate effect, the presidency said. Advertisement On Thursday, the president also dismissed the attorney general and said ministries would be run by their permanent secretaries. He said the move affects all ministers but excluded prime cabinet secretary and foreign minister Musalia Mudavadi and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. Kenya has seen three weeks of unrest in which protesters stormed into parliament on June 25 after a finance bill that increased taxes was passed. More than 30 people died in the protests, which have morphed into calls for the president to resign. The US at the Nato summit in Washington announced the decision to station long-range weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, in Germany as a deterrent. However, the move has angered Russia, saying it could provoke a Cold War-style direct confrontation read more On the sidelines of the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit in Washington, the United States and Germany revealed that the US military would begin positioning SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as developmental hypersonic weapons, in Germany by 2026. The decision, which involves the first such deployment since the 1980s, has sparked a heated debate among Nato allies, German politicians, and international security experts. According to a joint statement, these deployments are part of a broader plan to eventually station these capabilities permanently. The missiles, which have significantly longer ranges than current land-based systems in Europe, are seen as a critical enhancement of Natos integrated deterrence capabilities. Advertisement The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, the statement by Washington & Berlin read. This deployment is intended to demonstrate the United States commitment to Nato and its contributions to European security. How has Russia reacted? The announcement has not been well-received in Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned of a military response to the new threat, describing the move as just a link in the chain of a course of escalation. He argued that Nato and the US are attempting to intimidate Russia. US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71) fires a tomahawk land attack missile in Mediterranean Sea which US Defence Department said was a part of cruise missile strike against Syria on April 7, 2017. File Image/Reuters Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov echoed these sentiments, stating, This poses a very serious threat to our national security. All of this will necessitate thoughtful, coordinated, and effective responses from us to counter-deter Nato. The Tomahawk is a 5.6-metre (18.4-foot) long missile which has a range of up to approximately 2,400 km (about 1,500 miles) and can reach speeds of 885 km (550 miles) per hour. How have German politicians reacted? The decision to host US long-range missiles has elicited mixed reactions within Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended the move as a necessary measure for deterrence and securing peace. Its something of deterrence and its securing peace, and it is a necessary and important decision at the right time, Scholz stated. Advertisement However, the move has sparked significant controversy among German politicians. Members of Scholzs ruling coalition, particularly from the Greens, criticised the lack of communication and clarity surrounding the decision. Germanys Chancellor Olaf Scholz gestures during a press briefing during Natos 75th anniversary summit in Washington, US, July 11, 2024. Reuters Sara Nanni, the Greens spokeswoman on security, expressed frustration over the absence of detailed explanations. It can even heighten fears and leaves room for disinformation and incitement, she told the Rheinische Post newspaper. Ralf Stegner, a Social Democrat, voiced concerns about triggering a new arms race, while far-left and far-right politicians cautioned that the deployment could turn Germany into a potential war zone. This will not make the world safer. On the contrary, we are entering a spiral in which the world is becoming increasingly dangerous, Stegner told the Funke media group. Advertisement How has the US justified the move? In response, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan downplayed Russias concerns, stating that the deployment is purely defensive. What we are deploying to Germany is a defence capability like many other defensive capabilities weve deployed across the alliance over the decades, Sullivan stated. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks at the US Chamber of Commerce Nato Summit Defence Industry Forum in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. File Image/Reuters So more Russian saber-rattling obviously is not going to deter us from doing what we think is necessary to keep the alliance as strong as possible. Does international law allow this? The planned missile deployment comes in the aftermath of the 2019 collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This landmark 1987 agreement between the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union had banned all nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Advertisement The treatys dissolution, triggered by mutual accusations of violations, removed more than 2,600 weapons from Europe. Also Read | NATO@75: The military alliance grows in relevance, also in expectations Former US President Donald Trump justified the withdrawal by accusing Russia of developing the 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the treaty, a claim Moscow denied. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a moratorium on deploying intermediate- and short-range ground-based missile systems if the US refrained from similar deployments in Europe or Asia. If American-made medium- and shorter-range missiles appear somewhere, then we reserve the right to have a mirror response, Putin stated last week at the SCO conference in Kazakhstan. Advertisement Are we looking at another arms race? Security experts have expressed fears that the missile deployments could ignite a new arms race reminiscent of the 1980s. Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote, First Russia develops/fields an INF missile in violation of the treaty. Then the US withdraws from the treaty and deploys INF missiles as well. Then Russia will respond by deploying more INF missiles. Then Does anyone have a plan here or is everyone on autopilot? First Russia develops/fields an INF missile in violation of treaty. Then US withdraws from treaty + deploys INF missiles as well. Then Russia will respond by deploying more INF missiles. Then Does anyone have a plan here or is everyone on auto pilot?https://t.co/UR3uhvUyLm Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat) July 11, 2024 Joachim Krause, a political scientist and international policy expert, spoke to German public radio station Deutschlandfunk and suggested that the presence of these advanced missiles in Germany could act as a deterrent but also warned of the potential for significant escalation. What else has Nato done to up the ante against Russia? The Nato summit, which marked the alliances 75th anniversary, saw several significant announcements aimed at bolstering security in response to Russias actions. Among these were pledges to have donated F-16s operational over Ukraine by the summer and the establishment of additional facilities and logistics hubs in Europe, particularly in Black Sea cities. Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shake hands following a press conference at the Nato summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. AP The episodic deployment of US missiles is part of a broader Nato strategy to enhance its defensive capabilities in response to perceived Russian aggression. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius highlighted the importance of addressing the very serious gap in Europes missile capabilities, noting that Germany currently lacks long-range ground-based missiles. Speaking to Deutschlandfunk, Pistorius also stated the need for long-term investment in European missile capabilities, urging Nato allies to develop and procure their own systems. The European Long-Range Strike Approach (Elsa), a collaborative effort among France, Italy, Poland, and Germany, aims to bolster Europes missile defences. Also Read | A worry as big as Putin: How to Trump-proof Nato? While the US and Nato view the deployment as a necessary measure for deterrence, Russia perceives it as a direct threat, potentially escalating tensions to Cold War levels. With inputs from agencies Prachanda lost the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (HoR) earlier in the evening as he received only 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) with 194 votes against the motion. At least 138 votes are needed to win the vote of trust. read more President Ram Chandra Paudel on Friday started consultation with constitutional and legal experts following Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda failure to secure a trust vote in Parliament and asked him to hold the fort as a caretaker till a new government is in place. The development is expected to pave the way to forming a new coalition government led by former prime minister K P Sharma Oli, 72. Prachanda lost the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (HoR) earlier in the evening as he received only 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) with 194 votes against the motion. At least 138 votes are needed to win the vote of trust. Advertisement A total of 258 HoR members participated in the voting while one member chose no vote. Prachanda, 69, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPN-MC), faced the trust vote as Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) withdrew support from his government last week after inking a power-sharing deal with the largest party in the House the Nepali Congress (NC) led by Sher Bahadur Deuba. As HoR Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire informed the President that the Prime Minister lost floor test in the house on Friday, the President asked him to continue as caretaker Prime Minister as per Article 77-3 of the Constitution, according to sources at the Presidents office. President Paudel has started consultation with constitutional and legal experts in the wake of Prachandas failure to secure a trust vote, thereby creating constitutional responsibility on the former to summon political parties for the formation of a new government. In this regard, President Paudel held consultations with legal experts on how constitutional provisions could be employed towards the formation of a new government, the sources added. In the meantime, NC and CPN-UML are busy in preparation for submitting their claim to form a new coalition government as soon as the President calls for the formation of a new government. The NC has 89 seats in the HoR, while CPN-UML has 78. Their combined strength of 167 is much more than the 138 required for a majority in the lower house. Advertisement Deuba has already endorsed Oli as the next prime minister as per the 7-point deal both parties agreed upon on Monday before toppling Prachanda-led government. According to the agreement, Oli and Deuba will share the premiership during the remaining period of the House of Representatives; in the first phase Oli will become the Prime Minister for one and a half years and then, Deuba will take the seat for the rest of the period. Prachanda had become the Prime Minister of Nepal in December 2022. A month ago, the parliamentary elections did not throw any clear winner. Even though Prachanda had contested the elections with NC led by Sher Bahadur Deuba, the then-prime minister, he switched sides after the results and joined the rival faction of CPN-UML of Oli and became the prime minister. Advertisement This was the fifth time that Prachanda had undertaken a floor test in the parliament since forming the government more than a year and a half. The first of the tests came when he had to prove the majority for the first time. Then, just three months after the formation of the government, he again faced a floor test as Oli withdrew the support and Prachanda had to join ranks with NC to form the government and prove his majority. The third test came in March as he broke ranks with NC and joined hands again with CPN-UML. A split in may in the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP) forced the fourth test. Advertisement Nepal became a democracy in 2008. In the 16 years of electoral democracy in the country, no government or prime minister has completed their term so and political instability remains an issue in the country. Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) Chairman Oli on Friday staked his claim to lead a new majority government by presenting his claim before President Ramchandra Paudel with the support of 165 lawmakers, including 77 from his party and 88 from the Nepali Congress. read more K P Sharma Oli is set to become Nepals prime minister once again after incumbent Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on Friday failed to win a trust vote in Parliament after surviving four times in the past, amidst frequent political turmoil in the Himalayan nation. Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) Chairman Oli on Friday staked his claim to lead a new majority government by presenting his claim before President Ramchandra Paudel with the support of 165 lawmakers, including 77 from his party and 88 from the Nepali Congress. Advertisement Although fringe parties, including the Janata Samajbadi Party (JSP), JSP-Nepal, Loktantrik Samajbadi Party, Janamat Party and Nagarik Unmukti Party are in favour of the Congress-UML coalition government, Oli staked a claim showing the support of only UML and Congress to the President. We have staked a claim for the new government before the President. Now, its up to him to decide when to make the appointment, said Ramesh Lekhak, Congress chief whip. Prime Minister Prachanda, also the chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPN-MC), faced the trust vote as Oli-led CPN-UML withdrew support from his government last week after inking a power-sharing deal with the largest party in the House the Nepali Congress (NC) led by Sher Bahadur Deuba. Prachanda, 69, lost his position on Friday, over 18 months after his appointment, as he failed to secure a vote of confidence during a floor test in the House of Representatives. He failed to secure the 138 votes required to endorse the trust motion as only 63 lawmakers voted in his favour in the 275-strong House of Representatives. A total of 194 lawmakers voted against him, over 18 months after becoming prime minister on December 25, 2022. Fridays trust vote was the fifth time Prachanda tested himself on the floor after he was appointed prime minister some 18 months ago. During the first confidence vote on January 10, 2023, he received strong support with 268 votes. Advertisement In the second floor test on March 20, 2023, after the UML-Maoist alliance broke, he secured 172 votes in Parliament. In the third vote of confidence held on March 13, 2024, after forming a new alliance with the UML, Prachanda received 157 votes. On May 21, 2024, following the JSP split, he secured 157 votes with no opposition votes registered. With Prachanda the trust vote on his fifth attempt, CPN-UML Chairman Oli is now expected to become the prime minister for a fourth time with the support of the Nepali Congress. Oli is known for his pro-Beijing stance and it would be interesting to see how he maintains ties of equi-proximity with both India and China. Advertisement Ties between India and Nepal came under severe strain in 2020 after Kathmandu published a new political map that showed the three Indian territories Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh as part of Nepal. Oli who was prime minister then had attempted to use the issue to fend off increasing domestic pressure and challenge his leadership. Nepals President had earlier called on political parties to stake claim to form the new government with a Sunday evening deadline to prove the majority. President Paudel called on members of the House of Representatives (HoR) to stake a claim for the post of prime minister showing a majority with the support of two or more political parties in the lower house, a statement from the Office of Paudel said. Advertisement The President has called on the House members to present the majority through the support of parties represented in the lower house by 5 pm on Sunday, it added. The NC has 89 seats in the HoR, while CPN-UML has 78. Their combined strength of 167 is much more than the 138 required for a majority in the lower house. Deuba has already endorsed Oli as the next prime minister as per the 7-point deal both parties agreed upon on Monday before toppling Prachanda-led government. According to the agreement, Oli and Deuba will share the premiership during the remaining period of the House of Representatives; in the first phase Oli will become the Prime Minister for one and a half years and then, Deuba will take the post for the rest of the period. Advertisement Nepal has had 13 governments in the last 16 years, indicating the fragile nature of the Himalayan nations political system. Earlier, Prachanda sharply criticised the alliance formed between the NC and the UML and accused the two largest parties of forming their coalition out of fear rather than shared principles. If the NC and the UML were united by common beliefs or goals, I would not be concerned. Instead, they are bound by a fear of good governance, he said. While questioning if the public had approved this alliance, he voiced concerns about potential regression and autocracy, asserting that the NC and the UML had joined forces as good governance began to take root in the country. He argued that, in a healthy democracy, the main opposition party should not form the government, accusing the NC and the UML of pushing the nation toward regression. NC Chief Whip Ramesh Lekhak responded to Dahals accusations by defending the partys commitment to safeguarding the constitution and democracy. It is a party that has made history by aligning the most prominent anti-democrats in the history of democracy. We should refrain from making comments based on imagination and assumptions, he said. Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane, who is also the chairman of Rastriya Swatantra Party, questioned the legitimacy of the overnight agreement between the NC and the UML. We will only know who is being protected in the name of safeguarding the Constitution once the agreement is made public. However, my party and I cannot accept that it is an agreement to safeguard the Constitution. The Philippines and China have for months accused each other of dangerous manoeuvres involving their ships at the contested Second Thomas Shoal, an atoll within Manilas 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea read more China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.Reuters File The Philippines rejects any attempt to undermine its national interests, especially by the use of force in the disputed South China Sea, National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said on Friday. The Philippines and China have for months accused each other of dangerous manoeuvres involving their ships at the contested Second Thomas Shoal, an atoll within Manilas 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Advertisement We reject any attempt to deny our strategic agencies, especially by the use of force that seek to coerce and subordinate the national interests of the Philippines, Ano told a forum marking the 8th anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitrations ruling that Chinas South China Sea claims have no legal basis. However, Ano said the Philippines is committed to the cause of peace. We are committed to address and manage difficult issues through dialogue and through diplomacy, he said. China does not recognise the 2016 court ruling. On Friday, the European Union (EU) issued a statement to mark the anniversary of the ruling, saying all parties must respect and honour the award which was legally binding. China rebuked the EU for its statement, saying the latter ignored historical and objective facts and blatantly endorses what it called the Philippines violation of its sovereignty. United States State Secretary Antony Blinken, in a statement on the rulings anniversary, said his country remains deeply concerned about Chinas actions in the disputed waters. We continue to call on the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) to abide by the 2016 arbitral ruling, to cease its dangerous and destabilising conduct, Blinken said. Prachanda lost the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (HoR) earlier in the evening as he received only 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) with 194 votes against the motion. At least 138 votes are needed to win the vote of trust. read more President Ram Chandra Paudel on Friday started consultation with constitutional and legal experts following Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda failure to secure a trust vote in Parliament and asked him to hold the fort as a caretaker till a new government is in place. File Photo- PTI Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda approved a deal to link Nepal with China by rail under Beijings ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, a day before he lost a vote of confidence. The decision carries more operational than political significance and aligns with Nepals participation in Chinese President Xi Jinpings multi-billion-dollar pet infrastructure project, the MyRepublica news portal said quoting government sources. The Cabinet meeting held on Thursday decided to approve the Strengthening the Development Cooperation in Building the Trans-Himalayan Multidimensional Connectivity Network agreement between Nepal and China, the report quoted Communication Minister and the governments spokesperson Rekha Sharma as saying. Advertisement However, a minister downplayed its immediate impact, stating, This is an initial decision; details of project implementation and BRI modalities are yet to be finalised. President Ram Chandra Paudel on Friday started consultation with constitutional and legal experts following Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda failure to secure a trust vote in Parliament and asked him to hold the fort as a caretaker till a new government is in place. The development is expected to pave the way to forming a new coalition government led by former prime minister K P Sharma Oli, 72. Prachanda lost the vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (HoR) earlier in the evening as he received only 63 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives (HoR) with 194 votes against the motion. At least 138 votes are needed to win the vote of trust. A total of 258 HoR members participated in the voting while one member chose no vote. Prachanda, 69, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre (CPN-MC), faced the trust vote as Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) withdrew support from his government last week after inking a power-sharing deal with the largest party in the House the Nepali Congress (NC) led by Sher Bahadur Deuba. The BRI has raised global concerns over Chinas debt diplomacy of extending huge loans to smaller countries for unsustainable infrastructure projects. The Hambantota port, which was funded by a Chinese loan, was leased to Beijing in a 99-year debt-for-equity swap in 2017 after Sri Lanka failed to pay off the debt. Advertisement India has protested to China over BRIs $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor flagship project as it is being laid through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Under the draft law, people helping to arrange an abortion, for example by providing abortion pills, and doctors performing terminations in the early weeks of pregnancy or due to foetal anomalies would no longer have faced charges. read more Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk takes part in voting on sending four bills on the liberalisation of abortion laws to be analysed by a special commission, at the parliament in Warsaw, Poland, April 12, 2024. Image- Reuters Polands lower house rejected a bill on Friday that sought to scrap penalties for people who help someone to get an abortion, highlighting deep divisions in the ruling coalition over easing one of Europes most restrictive abortion laws. Under the draft law, people helping to arrange an abortion, for example by providing abortion pills, and doctors performing terminations in the early weeks of pregnancy or due to foetal anomalies would no longer have faced charges. Advertisement Reproductive rights and healthcare are high on the agenda in Poland, which under the previous nationalist government introduced a near-total ban on abortion in 2021. Since taking power in December, Prime Minister Donald Tusks broad coalition encompassing the moderate left and right has reinstated public funding for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and voted to change rules on accessing emergency contraception. One of his partys pre-election promises was to grant access to abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, but progress on such bills has stalled because of disagreements within the ruling coalition. Under the current law, abortion is only legal in cases involving rape or incest, or when a womans health or life is at risk. In April, lawmakers sent four bills on easing abortion restrictions to a special bipartisan committee for consideration. Fridays bill was the first of the draft laws to be voted on by the lower house. It was rejected by almost half of the lawmakers belonging to the Christian Democratic Third Way party, which forms part of the government, as well as members of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) and Confederation parties. Abortion rights advocates said the result of the vote was a blow. Doctors will still be afraid to perform abortions, and friends can be sent to prison for helping their friend. Women will continue to fear for their health and lives, Deputy Family Minister Aleksandra Gajewska wrote on the X social media platform. Advertisement Work on the other bills continues. Two of them would allow abortion until 12 weeks and the third, proposed by the Third Way, reinstates the right to abortion in cases of foetal anomalies, returning to the situation before a constitutional court ruling in 2020. President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the PiS party and staunchly anti-abortion, had vowed to use his presidential veto to stop Fridays bill from becoming law if it passed. He is due to leave office late next year. The US announced on Wednesday during a NATO summit that it would station long-range weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany as a deterrent. The Kremlin criticised the move, accusing US of taking a step towards a new Cold War. read more Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and his US counterpart Lloyd Austin held a telephone call where they discussed lowering the risk of possible escalation, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday. The call, which was initiated by Moscow, comes as tensions between the two sides flare over Washingtons plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, a decision the Kremlin warned could spell a return to Cold War-style confrontation.The issue of preventing security threats and reducing the risk of possible escalation was discussed, Russias defence ministry said in a statement on the talks. Advertisement The two sides have managed to organise sporadic phone calls despite raging tensions over the conflict in Ukraine, including a recent call at the end of June where Moscow chided Washingtons arms supplies to Kyiv. The White House announced on Wednesday during a NATO summit that it would station long-range weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany as a deterrent. The Kremlin criticised the move, accusing Washington of taking a step towards a new Cold War and of directly participating in the conflict in Ukraine. Israel is worried that if its troops leave the border zone, referred to by Israel as the Philadelphi corridor, Hamas armed wing could smuggle in weapons and supplies from Egypt into Gaza via tunnels that would allow it to re-arm and again threaten Israel read more Israel started its assault on the Gaza Strip last October after Hamas terrorists rushed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies Image Courtesy Reuters Israeli and Egyptian ceasefire negotiators are currently discussing the installation of an electronic surveillance system along the GazaEgypt border, which could enable Israel to withdraw its troops from the region in the event that a ceasefire is reached. According to media reports, one of the obstacles to a possible ceasefire agreement is the subject of whether Israeli forces remain on the border. Egypt, the mediator in the negotiations, and Hamas, the Palestinian organization, both against Israel maintaining its forces there. Israel is worried that if its troops leave the border zone, referred to by Israel as the Philadelphi corridor, Hamas armed wing could smuggle in weapons and supplies from Egypt into Gaza via tunnels that would allow it to re-arm and again threaten Israel. A surveillance system, if the parties to the negotiations agree on the details, could therefore smooth the path to agreeing on a ceasefire - though numerous other stumbling blocks remain. Advertisement Discussions around a surveillance system on the border have been reported before, but Reuters is reporting for the first time that Israel is engaging in the discussions as part of the current round of talks, with a view to pulling back forces from the border area. The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the discussions are about basically sensors that would be built on the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi (corridor). The idea is obviously to detect tunnels, to detect any other ways that theyd be trying to smuggle weapons or people into Gaza. Obviously this would be a significant element in a hostage agreement. Asked if this would be significant for a ceasefire deal because it would mean Israeli soldiers would not have to be on the Philadelphi corridor, the source said: Correct. The two Egyptian security sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israeli negotiators had spoken about a high-tech surveillance system. Egypt was not opposed to that, if it was supported and paid for by the United States, according to the two Egyptian sources. They said that Egypt would not agree to anything that would change border arrangements between Israel and Egypt set out in a prior peace treaty. Advertisement At a military event on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he could only agree to a deal that preserved Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border, but he did not spell out if that meant having troops physically present there. Talks are underway in Qatar and Egypt on a deal, backed by Washington, that would allow a pause in the fighting in Gaza, now in its 10th month, and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Israel started its assault on the Gaza Strip last October after Hamas terrorists rushed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Advertisement Since then, its forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to medical authorities in Gaza. Israeli officials have said during the war that Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypts Sinai region to smuggle arms. Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling. Israels advance into southern Gazas Rafah area in early May led to the closure of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and a sharp reduction in the amount of international aid entering the Palestinian territory. Egypt says it wants aid deliveries to Gaza to resume, but that a Palestinian presence should be restored at the Rafah crossing for it to reopen. The TTP, which is estimated to have a strength around 6,000-6,500 fighters, is now the largest among the two dozen or so such groups that enjoy freedom to manoeuvre, under the oversight of the Taliban regime, according to a report, citing United Nations monitoring document read more The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been carrying out regular attacks against the Pakistan Army. AFP File The proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is now the largest terrorist group in Afghanistan, enjoying operational and logistical support from both the Afghan Taliban and factions of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. According to Dawn, citing United Nations monitoring report, the TTP, which is estimated to have a strength around 6,000-6,500 fighters, is now the largest among the two dozen or so such groups that enjoy freedom to manoeuvre, under the oversight of the Taliban regime. Advertisement The Taliban do not conceive of TTP as a terrorist group: the bonds are close, and the debt owed to TTP significant, Dawn quoted the 15th report of the ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaeda/Taliban Monitoring Team, submitted to the UN Security Council, as saying. This lends credence Islamabads position that Kabul shows reluctance to take action against terrorist groups targeting Pakistan, a stance reiterated by officials like Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on multiple occasions, reported Dawn. The report highlights that the TTP remains active on a substantial scale in Afghanistan and carries out terrorist activities into Pakistan from there, frequently employing Afghan nationals. TTP has intensified attacks against Pakistan, significantly increasing from 573 in 2021 to 715 in 2022 and 1,210 in 2023, with the trend continuing into 2024, Dawn quoted the report, updated until May 28, as saying. This further corroborates Islamabads assertions regarding the participation of Afghan nationals in several recent terrorist incidents, including the Bisham bombing that tragically resulted in the deaths of five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver. The report specifically references this event. Moreover, it underscores Pakistans concern that TTP has received sophisticated NATO-grade weaponry, including night vision capabilities, since the Taliban assumed control, intensifying the threat posed by terrorist assaults on Pakistani border installations. Advertisement The report raised doubts about the Afghan Talibans commitment to curbing the TTP threat to Pakistan, citing historical ties. It highlighted the Talibans sporadic support and tolerance of TTP activities, including weapons supply and training support from Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). AQIS assists TTP in conducting terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, with Tehreek-i Jihad Pakistan (TJP) claiming responsibility so as to relieve pressure on the de facto [Afghan] authorities, said the report. A notable incident in September 2023, termed the largest TTP attack of the year, involved Afghan fighters supporting TTP against Pakistani military posts in Chitral, with significant assistance from Al Qaeda. Advertisement The report noted Al Qaedas presence across Afghan provinces, mainly in the southeast, focusing on training local and TTP fighters. This support includes Afghan fighters and training camps for TTP operations. Regarding IS-K, the report highlighted the groups recent expansion and attacks, noting its estimated 4,000 to 6,000 fighters. IS-K has infiltrated Afghan ministries and seeks to embed members in groups like TTP. Kabuls operations against IS-K have pushed key personnel across borders, posing security concerns for Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia. Due to high attrition rates, IS-K has reduced its presence in Afghanistan and increased external operations, focusing on skilled operatives and suicide attacks in Europe, Russia, and neighboring countries. The report underscored deficiencies in Taliban counter-terrorism capabilities against such threats. Advertisement With inputs from agencies Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, has said he would allow Russia to attack NATO allies if they dont hike defence spending to their liking read more As the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gathered in Washington DC to mark its 75 years, US President Joe hailed it as the most important alliance in the world. In sharp contrast, former President Donald Trump termed the NATO member-states delinquent and slammed them for not spending enough on their militaries. This is not the first time Trump has railed against NATO. While he has been an unabashed critic of the bloc from his presidential days, he announced in February that he would allow Russia to attack NATO allies if they would not hike their defence spending to his liking. Advertisement Trumps main contention is that the United States is bankrolling the NATO and the European security. He has accused European nations part of NATO of taking undue advantage of the US resources and has claimed that the burden of funding the bloc falls on the United States disproportionately. The criticism has increased since the Russian invasion of Ukraine as he has been saying European allies should fund Ukrainian war efforts more. While every American president in recent decades has urged allies to spend more and spending has indeed increased more, Trump is the first one to say he would allow Russia to attack allies and the only one known to come close to quitting the bloc. What are Trumps issues with NATO? All member-states of NATO are expected to spend at least 2 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. Trump has repeatedly said over the years that allies are not following this spending target. Trump has also claimed that the allies owe money to the United States for security provided under the framework of NATO. Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years, said Trump in 2017. When he was in office, Trump also claimed that the disproportionate US spending within NATO was not fair to American taxpayers. Moreover, Trump has lately echoed the Russian line on Ukraine that it was NATOs misconstrued policy that led to the conflict. As per the Russian reasoning, it is the expansionist NATO that forced Russia to take military action. In June, Trump said that the NATOs promise of membership to Ukraine was a mistake and it was really why this war started. Advertisement As Biden was hosting NATO leaders in Washington DC, Trump in a post on his social media platform Truth Social said Europe owed the United States 100 bullion regarding the support to Ukraine. He also took credit for the survival of NATO and said there would be no NATO today if not for him. The U.S. is paying most of the money to help Ukraine fight Russia. Europe should at least EQUALIZE! They owe more than 100 Billion to do so. Crooked Joe has never even asked them to do so (sic), said Trump in a post. In a rally that took place while the NATO leaders were in Washington DC, Trump further said, I didnt know what the hell NATO was too much before, but it didnt take me long to figure it out, like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they were not paying. We were paying, we were paying almost fully for NATO. And I said thats unfair. Advertisement Underscoring the contrast between the worldview and personalities of the two men, while Trump derided NATO, Biden hailed the alliance it the bulwark of global security. The fact that NATO remains the bulwark of global security did not happen by accident. It wasnt inevitable. Again and again, at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion, progress over retreat, freedom over tyranny and hope over fear. Again and again, we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful and prosperous trans-Atlantic community, said Biden. How correct is Trumps tirade against NATO? The financial aspects of NATOs functioning are at the core of Trumps issues with the bloc. He has said that the United States is paying disproportionately and other members are not paying obligations. But is that really the case? Not exactly. Advertisement The oft-cited 2 per cent defence spending target is not enshrined in NATOs rules but is merely an aspirational target, according to The New York Times. Moreover, NATO members are not supposed to pay the United States. NATO does not have a standing military so they do not have to pay to fund a central military. Instead, they have to spend on their own militaries. The member countries deploy personnel from their respective militaries under the command of NATO in Europe. There is no central military as such. The Times noted that the NATO has a budget to cover common civilian and military costs and only some assets are owned by NATO and are funded from this budget. Otherwise, rest of all assets and personnel are funded by respective countries as part of spending on their own militaries. The newspaper further reported in 2017 that none of the NATO allies were falling short on contributing to the budget for commonly-funded assets. Advertisement Additionally, Trump is incorrect to say that the NATO members owe money to the United States regarding NATO. This is not a matter of members failing to pay dues. The allies arguably may have less capable militaries than they should have, but none of them owe anyone anything, noted Peter Baker of The Times. Contrary to Trumps claim that he is the only American president to raise the issue of spending, most president in recent decades, including immediate predecessors Barak Obama and George W Bush, have urged NATO partners to increase their defence spending. The only point where Trump is correct is that the extent of American defence spending takes away funds that could be spent elsewhere. Experts have long said that the higher standards of living in European countries are partially creditable to the security guarantees that they enjoy from the United States, which allows them to spend more on development programmes and less on defence as the United States is paying to cover their security needs as well. The summit in Washington produced announcements including F-16 transfers to Ukraine and a US plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, with Russia warning of a response to the very serious threat from NATO read more Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Thursday against conflict between NATO and Russia, telling an alliance summit aimed at bolstering Ukraine that diplomacy must also be an option. The summit in Washington produced announcements including F-16 transfers to Ukraine and a US plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, with Russia warning of a response to the very serious threat from NATO. I shared my views candidly here that NATO should never be allowed to be a party to the war in Ukraine, Erdogan told a news conference after the 75th anniversary summit. Advertisement Erdogan said that Turkey, a rare NATO member not to join sanctions on Russia, supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. I also emphasized that diplomacy should not be excluded and that negotiations do not necessarily mean surrendering, he said. White House candidate Donald Trump, who in his previous term forged a close if complicated relationship with Erdogan, has spoken of forcing a settlement on Ukraine if he defeats President Joe Biden in November. Biden used the summit to rally Western allies to defend Ukraine through a steady flow of weapons and promises of a path for Kyiv to join NATO a prospect that is anathema to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in comments published by Russian news agencies, said that NATO was now fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine. Balancing act Turkey has sought to balance ties between its two Black Sea neighbors Russia and Ukraine since Moscows full-scale invasion in 2022. Ankara has sent drones to Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow. Last year, Erdogan said Ukraine undoubtedly deserved NATO membership when he met President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Thursday, Erdogan also played down the influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional bloc that Moscow and Beijing have promoted as a counterweight to US hegemony. Advertisement We do not think that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an alternative to NATO, Erdogan said. Turkey has been an SCO dialogue partner since 2012 and Erdogan said at its summit earlier this month he wanted full membership. Namik Tan, a lawmaker for the opposition CHP party who previously served as Turkeys ambassador to the United States, called out the government for its friendly relations with Russia. We were the only NATO country that attended the 24th SCO Summit last week, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Isnt it a contradiction? Erdogan, who has roots in political Islam and is an outspoken critic of Israel, also called for more NATO involvement in the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Advertisement Israels threats and attempts to spread the conflict must come to an end, he said. Otherwise, our region will face the risk of deeper conflicts and even a war. Indonesia is looking to countries such as India, Japan and China as it aims to implement a nationwide free school meals scheme proposed by President-elect Prabowo Subianto amid concerns about its potential impact on Indonesias finances read more Indonesia is looking to countries such as India, Japan and China as it aims to implement a nationwide free school meals scheme proposed by President-elect Prabowo Subianto amid concerns about its potential impact on Indonesias finances. According to a South China Morning Post report, his team is exploring lessons from countries like Japan, China, and India, which have successfully implemented similar programs while managing costs effectively. However, analysts caution that Indonesia faces significant economic and logistical challenges that could complicate the adoption of these models. Advertisement A cornerstone of his election campaign promises, 72-year-old Prabowo, set to assume office in October, views the program, which includes free lunches and milk for schoolchildren, as essential to combating child malnutrition. According to Indonesian health ministry data, 21.6 per cent of children under the age of five suffer from stunting, a consequence of malnutrition leading to growth and developmental problems. Prabowo aims for the program to reverse this trend, covering 83 million underprivileged children. It is projected to cost $4.35 billion in 2025 and up to $27 billion by full implementation in 2029, potentially boosting economic growth by 2.6 percentage points. To fund the initiative, Prabowos administration is considering measures such as stricter tax enforcement and reducing spending, including on President Joko Widodos $32 billion capital relocation project. Critics, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, argue the program could escalate Indonesias budget deficit, though Prabowos team pledges to adhere to legal debt limits, with Jakarta targeting a deficit of 2.3 per cent of GDP this year. Models implemented by India, Japan, China Indonesia is expected to examine cost management by regional countries that have implemented such programs. Advertisement During his visit to Beijing in March, Prabowo reportedly visited a school in the capitals Dongcheng district to learn about its free lunch program for students. In April, vice-president-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka told state news agency Antara that an Indonesian team was sent to India to understand the countrys free lunch program. Gibran said the Indian ambassador to Indonesia, Sandeep Chakravorty, informed him that Indias program costs 11 US cents per child per day because of logistical efficiencies. In comparison, the Prabowo team estimates a cost of 94 US cents per child per day for the Indonesian program. Josua Pardede, chief economist at Permata Bank in Indonesia, told the South China Morning Post that the Chinese and Indian programs are tailored according to local requirements and factors. Advertisement Chinas free meal policy began in 2011 and is not universal, it is very well-targeted, aimed only at the poor in remote rural areas, South China Morning Post quoted Pardede as saying. Its program started in several remote villages before it was expanded over the years, he added. Pardede said in India, funding for the program to provide daily lunches to over 100 million students was shared between the central and local governments. First launched in 1995, Indias program cost about $2.6 billion in 2023, with the central government and state governments paying 60 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively. India and China run their programs successfully as they grow much of the food for domestic consumption. However, Indonesias food production typically fluctuates from year to year, and any shortfall would have to be met through imports. Advertisement In Japan, government data shows nearly 99 per cent of primary schools provided lunch to students in 2023. The meals are not always free of charge, with some students paying an average of $300 annually, but many municipalities fully subsidise these costs. In September, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will host Indonesian officials in Nagasaki prefecture to train and help them understand Japans century-long experience of providing school meals. Nagasaki shares the island characteristic with Indonesia, making it an ideal setting, JICA said in a statement to This Week in Asia. Through this initiative, JICA seeks to support Indonesia in addressing its nutritional challenges, drawing on Japans extensive experience while respecting Indonesias unique needs and circumstances. Advertisement Indonesia is ranked 84th out of 113 countries in terms of food availability, way behind India in 42nd place and China in 2nd place, according to the 2022 Global Food Security Index. Concerns about Indonesias capacity to fund the program were valid due to Indonesias weak financial position and heavy economic dependence on commodities, whose prices were typically volatile, Pardede said. This situation alarms investors because the policies to boost state revenue and reduce the current account deficit remain inadequate," he added. With inputs from agencies The chances of Dahal losing his prime ministerial post reached an all-time high after CPN-UML, the largest coalition partner in the Dahl administration withdrew its support on July 3 read more While Nepals Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal managed to secure the vote of confidence in four consecutive tries, many believe that he is almost certain to lose it on the fifth try when the no-confidence motion goes to the floor on Friday. The chances of Dahal losing his prime ministerial post reached an all-time high after CPN-UML, the largest coalition partner in the Dahal administration withdrew its support on July 3. After getting elected on December 25, 2022, Dahal has been leading the minority government since then. Advertisement Immediately after the UML withdrew its support, the Janata Samajbadi Party, led by Ashok Rai also pulled the plug. While UML had 77 seats, the relatively new party led by Rai contributed 7 seats to the alliance. On July 5, Dahal announced that his government underwent a floor test after UML withdrew its support. Where does Dahal stand right now? The Nepalese Prime Minister opted for the floor test in accordance with Article 100(2) of the constitution. If the political party which the prime minister represents is divided or a political party in coalition government withdraws its support, the prime minister shall table a motion in the House of Representatives for a vote of confidence within thirty days," the Article reads. When Dahal went to the floor test for the first time, he garnered the support of 268 lawmakers and saved his seat. However, in his fifth-floor test, his votes are likely to be slashed by almost 200 this time. With Dahals key alliance partners leaving the coalition, Dahal is likely to get 32 votes from his CPN (Maoist Centre), 21 from the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and 10 from the CPN (Unified Socialist). Interestingly, RSP has called for a parliamentary meeting on Friday. However, they have maintained that they will continue to support the Nepalese premier. Since we have been continuing in the government despite being in a minority, we are morally bound to give the vote of trust to Prime Minister Dahal," a party lawmaker told Kathmandu Post. Advertisement Shifting alliances in Dahals turbulent regime Dahals government has to get 138 votes to secure a majority in the 275-strong House. The Congress and UML have 88 and 77 seats respectively, and have decided to vote against the Nepalese Prime Minister. Likewise, the Rashtriya Prajantra Party, which has 14 seats, has also decided to vote against Dahal. After Dahal won the election in 2022, he notoriously exploited the support of both the Congress and the UML. Dahal first became the prime minister with UMLs support. When Dahal decided to support Congress candidate Ramchandra Paudel in the presidential election, the UML withdrew its support. Advertisement In the second-floor test, the prime minister was supported by Congress. However, on March 4 this year, Dahal broke its coalition with the Congress to join hands with UML again. In the third-floor test, he was supported by UML. In the fourth floor test in May, Dahal had to seek the parliaments confidence after a group of seven lawmakers from his coalition partner Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal left the party and formed a new outfit under the leadership of Rai. As per the understanding between the UML and Congress, UML supremo KP Sharma Oli will lead a national consensus government for a year and a half if Dahal fails in the fourth-floor test. Advertisement With inputs from agencies. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterress personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, invited delegations from the army and the RSF for talks in Geneva, focused on humanitarian aid and protecting civilians, UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told a media briefing read more The conflict in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead and displaced more than 10 million people, according to the United Nations Delegations from both warring parties in Sudan are present in Geneva for talks with a UN envoy, though one side has yet to turn up to meetings, the United Nations said Friday. War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese regular army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterress personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, invited delegations from the army and the RSF for talks in Geneva, focused on humanitarian aid and protecting civilians, UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told a media briefing. Despite being present in the Swiss city, one side did not show up for Thursdays first day of discussions, she said, without identifying which party. Advertisement The talks are taking place under the so-called proximity format, whereby Lamamra will separately meet with one delegation at a time, in different rooms. The two delegations are not scheduled to meet each other. The personal envoy has started the discussion, yesterday; indeed one of the parties didnt show up, but they are here in Geneva, Vellucci said. I cant give you the details on which warring party has showed up or not, she told reporters. We urge both parties to participate in the discussions. The talks are in Geneva, with some of them taking place at the UNs Palais des Nations headquarters, said Vellucci. No end date has been scheduled. Local ceasefire options The talks come on the back of two UN Security Council resolutions on Sudan passed earlier this year. The focus is based on the resolutions: measures to be undertaken to ensure the distribution of humanitarian assistance to all the Sudanese population in need, and options to ensure the protection of civilians across Sudan, said Vellucci. The discussions seek to identify avenues for the advancement of the identified humanitarian and protection of civilians measures, through possible local ceasefires, as requested by the Security Council. Vellucci said the two delegations were comprised of senior representatives of the warring parties and included humanitarian, security and military experts. The humanitarian situation in Sudan is deteriorating by the day, so we really need to look at the devastating impact this has on the civilian population and we urge the delegations to rise up to this challenge and engage in constructive discussions, she said. Advertisement Lamamra, 72, is a former deputy prime minister of Algeria and was also the foreign minister. He was previously the African Unions commissioner for peace and security between 2008 and 2013. The conflict in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead and displaced more than 10 million people, according to the United Nations. A recent UN-backed report said nearly 26 million people, or slightly more than half of the population, were facing high levels of acute food insecurity. Indkal Technologies has announced a partnership with Acer Incorporated to launch Acer-branded smartphones that will be designed, manufactured, and distributed in India. The company has already licensed Acer branding for Acer TVs in India. The Acer smartphones will be priced between 15,000 to 50,000 rupees, and will launch later this year. The company said that it aims to launch premium-quality products to Indian consumers, featuring robust specifications, cutting-edge hardware and advanced software technologies. Acer-branded smartphones will be manufactured in India, aligning with the Governments Make in India initiative. These devices will be available for purchase through both e-commerce platforms and offline retail stores across the country, said the company. Anand Dubey, CEO of Indkal Technologies, said: Acer smartphones are something we have been working on for a couple of years and we are ecstatic to finally announce the foray. With Acer smartphones, we are certain that Indian consumers are in for a treat. Our customers will experience exceptionally well-designed smartphones with high end processors, top-notch camera technology and a host of premium features across the range. The best part is that all Acer-branded smartphones will be designed and manufactured in India, which is also a unique achievement for Indkal. Jade Zhou, VP of Global Strategic Alliances at Acer Incorporated, added: Since its establishment in 1987, the Acer brand mission has always been to break barriers between people and technology. We are excited that Indkal Technologies will further this mission in India by providing a wide range of smartphones under the Acer brand that expands end-user choices and enrich their experience in the Indian market. NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) has announced a partnership with QNB to enable QR code-based Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments across Qatar through the QNB merchant network. This comes after the UAE got UPI QR payment last week. This partnership will provide Indian tourists the option to use their preferred payment method across retail stores, tourist attractions, leisure sites, duty-free shops and hotels. Indians rank as the second-largest group of international visitors to Qatar in FY 2023. By adopting UPI payments, merchants in Qatar will also be able to offer a faster and more convenient payment and checkout process, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and opening up numerous opportunities for businesses across the country. This, in turn, will open up new opportunities for merchants to attract and serve the growing number of international travellers visiting Qatar, further boosting sales and business growth. Commenting on this, Anubhav Sharma, Deputy Chief Partnerships and Business Development, NPCI International said: We are happy to collaborate with QNB to bring UPI payments to Qatar. We believe that enabling UPI acceptance in Qatar will offer substantial benefits to the large number of Indians visiting the country, simplifying their transactions, and ensuring a hassle-free travel experience abroad. Additionally, merchants in Qatar will greatly benefit from UPI, gaining access to a wider customer base and more efficient payment and collection processing. Adel Ali Al-Malki, Senior Executive Vice Present, QNB Group Retail Banking, said: We are thrilled to embark on this pioneering journey with NIPL to bring UPI payments to Qatar, setting a new standard in innovation in the region. With this new digital payment solution acceptance, we are revolutionizing the way transactions are conducted, enhancing the travel experience like never before. We are confident that the strategic initiative will not only elevate the travel and hospitality sectors but also empower local merchants to thrive in a dynamic and increasingly digital marketplace. China, Russia hold joint exercise Xinhua) 17:00, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Russian armed forces started a joint exercise in the waters and airspace near Zhanjiang city in south China in early July, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense on Friday. "Exercise Joint Sea-2024" is conducted according to China-Russia annual military engagement plan and bilateral agreement, and scheduled to last until around mid-July, said Zhang Xiaogang, the spokesperson, at a press conference. It aims to demonstrate the resolve and capabilities of the militaries in jointly addressing maritime security threats and preserving global and regional peace and stability, he said. It will further deepen China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era, Zhang said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Explore the rich history and architectural beauty of Trinity Episcopal Church in this captivating tour given by Reverend Jimmy Abbott. Join J.R., Lisa, Erika, and Reverend Jimmy in uncovering the layers of history, from its founding in 1841 to its role in wartime and natural disasters. Tue Tuesday 80 /53 More sun than clouds. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the low 50s. Fri Friday 86 /53 Mostly sunny. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the low 50s. US, allied forces soar for Arctic Defender Published July 10, 2024 By Master Sgt. Hailey Staker Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Public Affairs JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AFNS) -- An estimated 500 personnel from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain and France kicked off exercise Arctic Defender at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Eielson Air Force Base July 8. Arctic Defender is a German air force-led field training exercise in which fighter pilots from multiple nations practice air war operations in Alaska, following NATO standards. This joint effort serves as a demonstration of the alliance's commitment to collective defense and a free and open Indo-Pacific. "The Department of the Air Force is optimizing for Great Power Competition and preparing to win in a conflict should deterrence fail," said Col. Kevin Jamieson, 3rd Wing commander. "Exercises like Arctic Defender are just one way we can integrate with our allies and partners to share tactics, techniques, and procedures in a realistic, simulated combat environment. As we continue to train and operate in the Pacific, the U.S. and our allies and partners will resolve shared challenges by relying on each other's strengths to collectively evolve airpower - together, we will deter aggression." As lead planner for Arctic Defender, the German air force planned a NATO Article 5 scenario to be executed in Alaska airspace. Article 5 states that if a NATO ally is the victim of an armed attack, every member of the alliance will consider it an act of violence against all members and take actions necessary to assist. "The Arctic Defender 2024 exercise is the first of five individual exercises during our Pacific Skies deployment together with our European partners from Spain and France," said Chief of the German air force Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz. "We use the excellent conditions here in Alaska to realistically practice a NATO Article 5 scenario with our jet crews and the entire team. Together with the U.S. and Canadians, this exercise provides us with everything we need to further increase our operational capability." French Maj. Gen. Franck Mollard, commander of the European Air Transport Command, echoed Gerhartz's sentiment. "The experience of working together with NATO partners... is of utmost importance when it comes to operations in times of crisis." Additionally, in a first for European Air Transport Command, European Air-to-Air Refueling Training will be conducted outside of Europe in conjunction with Arctic Defender. This event trains tanker crews, planners, taskers and engineers, including maintenance personnel, in air-to-air refueling operations. The training offers a unique opportunity to the nations participating in Arctic Defender and other Pacific Skies exercises to train their tanker and fighter crews in planning and executing missions within a realistic and multinational framework. "I'm looking forward to this premiere edition in Alaska with five tankers from France, the Multinational MRTT Unit and Canada," Mollard said. "It has been a challenge for my team to organize the training more than 7,000 kilometers away from our headquarters in Eindhoven. They did an excellent job, also thanks to the great support from our host, the U.S. Air Force." Participating aircraft include: the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II; the U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet; French air and space force Rafale, Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport and A400M Atlas; German air force A400M Transport, Eurofighter, H145M Special Forces Helicopter, and PA-200 Tornado; Spanish air force Eurofighters; and Royal Canadian Air Force CC-130H Hercules. Arctic Defender training spans from individual skills to complex, large-scale joint engagements in the more than 77,000 square miles of airspace in the Joint Pacific-Alaska Range Complex, which is the largest combat training range in the world. Training in this airspace provides aircrew, maintenance and support personnel training in sustainment of large-force deployed air operations to enhance our capabilities to defend U.S. interests, deter aggression and counter coercion against U.S. territory and its allies and partners. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Background Press Call Previewing the New Trilateral Icebreaker Arrangement July 10, 2024 Via Teleconference 3:02 P.M. EDT MODERATOR: Hey, everyone. Thank you all for joining today's call. This is Michael Feldman with the NSC Press team. Today's call is to preview the new trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort between Canada, Finland, and the United States. On today's call we have Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, Daleep Singh, who will provide opening remarks on the record. Following Daleep's opening remarks, we will move into the Q&A portion of the call, which will be on background, and speakers will be attributed as senior administration officials. Today's call will be held under embargo until 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. And by participating in the call today, you are agreeing to these ground rules. With that, I will turn the call over to Daleep to do opening remarks. MR. SINGH: Thanks, Michael. And thanks, everybody, for joining. Tomorrow, the leaders of the United States, Finland, and Canada President Biden, Prime Minister Trudeau, and President Stubb will announce their intent to form a trilateral arrangement to collaborate on the production of icebreakers. We're calling this partnership the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact. The objective is to advance a shared and strategic interest. That is, each of our countries want to strengthen our shipbuilding and industrial capacity. And by collaborating on this effort together, we'll deepen our economic and security ties. The pact has three components. First, enhanced information sharing on polar icebreaker production, as well as on Arctic and other polar capabilities. Second, collaboration on workforce development so workers and experts can train in yards across all three countries. And third, an invitation to our allies and partners to take advantage of the significant investments we're making in highly complex shipbuilding capacity by purchasing polar icebreakers from American, Finnish, or Canadian shipyards for their own needs. For the United States, what's the value proposition? Well, it's to bring world-class expertise and experience to our shipyards that helps them attract demand, scale up their capacity, and compete on the world stage. As the President has emphasized, we're committed to revitalizing our capacity to build American ships in American shipyards with American sailors. And to repeat, this is a strategic imperative. Polar icebreakers are exactly the kind of high-complexity, high-tech market segment in which America is well positioned to thrive and lead, particularly with added expertise in technology. And this will help build out our industrial capacity but also provide benefits to our Allies, consistent with the message you've been hearing this week at the NATO Summit. There's also a signaling benefit. The ICE Pact will reinforce the message to Russia and China that the United States and its Allies intend to, number one, doggedly pursue collaboration on industrial policy to increase our competitive edge in strategic industries like shipbuilding. Two, to build a world-class polar icebreaking fleet at scale. And three, to project power into the polar regions to enforce international norms and treaties that promote peace and prosperity in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Said differently: Without this arrangement, we'd risk our adversaries developing an advantage in a specialized technology with vast geostrategic importance, which could also allow them to become the preferred supplier for countries that also have an interest in purchasing polar icebreakers. So we're committed to projecting power into the high latitudes alongside our allies and partners, and that requires a continuous surface presence in the polar regions, both to combat Russian aggression and to limit China's ability to gain influence. In terms of next steps, we intend to sign a formal memorandum of understanding by the end of the year with Finland and Canada, and then implementation will begin. Once we've signed the MOU, we'll consider adding additional allies and partners to the ICE Pact. I'd be happy to take your questions. MODERATOR: Thank you, Daleep. We'll now move into the Q&A portion. And as a reminder, again, this portion will be on background and attributed to senior administration officials. If you have a question, use the "raise hand" feature, and I will unmute you. And then when I call on you, please state what outlet you're with as well. Thank you. Our first question will go to Dan. You should be able to unmute yourself. Q Yes, thank you. Dan Lamothe with the Washington Post here. For some of us who have spent time on these ships, who have spent time around this, we've heard for years concerns about a growing gap, particularly with Russia. There has been plans to build more polar icebreakers for the Coast Guard for some time, but they seem to continue to slide back to the right. Do you see this concrete (inaudible) creating a schedule that people can stick to? How quickly might we see more icebreakers actually come online? Thanks. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. Thanks, Dan. I mean, for the first part of your question, you're right. I mean, taking Russia in particular, they're an Arctic nation. They have a fleet of over 40 icebreakers; they have more in production. And we know Russia and the PRC signed an MOU last year to strengthen their collaboration and their joint operations in the region. And actually, Russia conducted two combined naval patrols with the PRC in the Bering Sea in recent years, and as you know, that's right along our maritime border. And then, on China and I think it was in 2018, the PRC declared themselves, as well, a near-Arctic state. They set out the ambition to launch what they called a Polar Silk Road. And since that time, they've also increased icebreaker production. They've sought investment opportunities in many Arctic nations. And they've increased collaboration and partnership with Russia, as I mentioned before. So we intend to scale up our capacity using the expertise and the know-how from Finland and Canada. I can't give you a specific timeline, Dan, but right now, you know, we have only two polar icebreakers, and they're reaching the end of their usable life. And we intend to scale up by multiples of the current amount as soon as we can. Q Relatedly, can you speak at all to the need to get after shipyards on the American side and, you know, create more opportunities to build these things quickly? And also, just as we're looking at this, those shipyards have run into a lot of problems over the years, and there aren't very many of them. Do you see increased investments in shipyards here? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, so we've you may know, Dan, we've already appropriated almost $2 billion to our icebreaker program of record, the Polar Security Cutter Program. And, you know, the shipbuilder for that program has made additional capital expenditures on top of that. So, we look, the scale that we want to build out, it could cost as much as $10 billion to fully deploy the fleet that we want. Part of the effort here is going to require interoperability of vessels between the U.S., Finland, and Canada. So that could involve operational interoperability, communications, maintenance. We think that's important because it'll increase the incentive for Finnish and Canadian companies to invest in American shipyards but also to train American workers. We have tentative agreements with them to fund a workforce development exchange. We've also made tentative suggestions from our Coast Guard and Navy to sponsor personnel exchanges of the officers who lead shipbuilding for the U.S. We think that kind of collaboration is going to speed up and accelerate our deployment at scale. And that's what this is all about, is you know this is an industry that requires heavy upfront investment. Being competitive requires generating economies of scale, and so that's why we can't do this alone. And Finland and Canada are best in class. That's why we've chosen to partner with them. MODERATOR: Thank you. Our next question is going to come from Cal. Q Can you hear me? MODERATOR: Yeah, I could hear you before. I think you just muted yourself. Q Okay, now you can hear me? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes. Q (Laughs.) What a klutz I am. All right, you said $10 billion investment, $2 billion already made. And I think the $2 billion funds the first two polar security cutters. And I think the program record is three, maybe four. So what numbers are we talking about in terms of polar security cutters and/or polar security cutters slash I think they call the other one the medium-type icebreaker that would replace the Healy. So if you could start with that. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah. Again, I think Dan had a similar question. I can't give you a specific number that we're targeting. You're right, we have two working icebreakers. They're both past their usable service life. So we need to build we need to build the problem we're trying to solve is we need to build our icebreaking fleet faster and more efficiently than we can right now. And, you know, look, we'd originally appropriated funds. You mentioned a third ship that is still being built. There's a long lead time associated with it, especially for the materials. And so, funding has been difficult to come by. But we think with this announcement, we're going to be able to scale up much faster with private investment and potentially demand coming in from countries other than Canada and Finland. And that's what's going to allow us to meet our targets. I mean, I would just say the targets are multiples of what we currently have in our fleet. Q Okay, so the I guess I mean, I know we're already working some with Canada; we have used their test facilities on polar security cutter designs, if you will. I'm not sure what we've done with Finland, although I thought the original contract was based on, at least, a European design. I'm not sure why would somebody other countries that have, I think, have maintained a more robust industrial base for building icebreakers want to buy from the U.S.? And are we open to buying foreign-made icebreakers? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, so just to clarify on, kind of, the mechanics of how this will work: Each government is going to identify participating yards in their own country; Canada and Finland have already done so. And then we'll refer allies and partners to the shipbuilders themselves. And so, that's the way this is going to work. We're going to basically have a consortium of shipyards across all three countries in this pact. And the idea is let's pull demand from governments and partners all across the world so that we can create a stable order book. And if you have a stable order book, if you have a demand signal that's large enough, we think the investment will come and will generate the scale that we want. MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Our next question is going to come from Suzanne Kelly. You should be able to unmute yourself. Q Thanks, everyone. Suzanne Kelly from the Cipher Brief. This might be somewhat of a stupid question, but as I kind of get my head around this story I haven't been following for years but I really want to augur in a little bit on the funding with private investment. Is it correct to assume that once you identify the shipyard partners, that the funding will come to those shipyard partners to be able to get the facilities, the materials they need to produce these faster via private investment? Is that am I kind of on the right track with understanding that? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, you're on the right track. I mean, we want to attract private investment in order to build American icebreakers in American yards. And we think if we have a big enough demand signal that really comes from beyond our borders, that's going to create a different equilibrium in the market than we have now. Right now, it's too small, it's taking too long, and we're not generating the production that we need. So we're trying to break that current equilibrium. Yep. Q Okay, got it. Sorry, just as a very quick follow-up, any idea on kind of a timeline for when you, you know, kind of need this to happen from a national security perspective? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, I mentioned some of the activities that are taking place in the Arctic from Russia and China. So we view this as an urgent strategic priority. I mean, I can go back a little bit to your first question and just give you a bit of a sense. I mean, if we're trying to build a long-term order book to create the demand signal we need to have the investment that's required to generate scale, really, like what we're trying to do is to leverage the global order book. And our sense is if we look at Allied nations that are trying to purchase icebreakers over the next decade, it's 70 to 90 vessels. And so, what we want to do is have American yards compete for a sizeable share of that total order book. And if we do so you know, we think we have the requisite expertise and experience to really thrive. This is a specialized portion of the icebreaker of the shipbuilding market. And once we generate economies of scale, we'll also be able to have an ecosystem in which our design, our construction, our delivery, they all work together and we generate a leading position along with our partners. That's what we're trying to do here. MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Our next question will go to Michael Martina. You should be able to unmute yourself. Michael, you can go ahead. Q Hi, can you hear me? MODERATOR: I can hear you. Q Okay, thanks. So, just so I'm clear: Allies and partners will have a choice of country from which to procure, you know, different models of ship? Or are we talking about a consortium that's together going to create, you know, a similar model? And if I could ask a second: You mentioned China's self-labeling as a near-Arctic state. I'm wondering if you see that as a legitimate framing for China's role in the region. Thanks. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah, I mean, I'll leave them you know, I won't comment on their label of what their activities are on the Arctic, but certainly their activities are ramping up. Their collaboration with China [Russia] is also intensifying. And we do view this as a strategic challenge. In terms of, you know, how our efforts will be compatible with Finland's and Canada's, I mean, maybe I can give you a bit more detail. The first part of this is we're going to have an increase in information exchange on our polar icebreaker production. And again, the idea is to increase interoperability across icebreaking platforms for all three countries. That's going to improve joint operations. It should lower the cost of vessel repair. It should also reduce the cost of design and construction. The second piece is workforce development. And the idea here is to train workers that can operate in each of the three countries. So American workers might take advantage of opportunities to learn from Finnish or Canadian shipbuilders, and then Finnish and Canadian designers could be sent to the U.S. to learn from American shipbuilders. That's what helps to create the interoperability I was just referencing. And then, the last bit is we're going to encourage Allies outside of the pact to build really to help us build economies of scale in American, Finnish, or Canadian shipyards to create polar icebreakers. As I mentioned, the global order book from Allied countries is quite large, and it's very difficult for each country to develop their own industry of this kind. We're offering that opportunity to our partners now, as we think they'll be quite interested in taking advantage of it. MODERATOR: All right, and our last question is going to go to Daniel Olin. You should be able to unmute yourself. Daniel, I think you're on mute. Okay, we will go to Robert Delaney. You should be able to unmute yourself. Q Hey there. Can you hear me okay? SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can hear you. Q Great. Yes. Thanks for doing the call. This is Robert from South China Morning Post in Washington. Could you comment just a little bit on the timing of this? Obviously, this announcement is coming out during the NATO Summit. Could you give us a sense of how much to what extent this particular initiative was discussed in the broader NATO Summit context? Or is it something that you know, that we should consider sort of like a sideline initiative attached to NATO? Or is it more accurate to characterize this as just something completely separate from the goings-on at NATO? And then, one of the questions was just you mentioned when you said "we" have only two polar icebreakers, I'm assuming that's just the U.S. Can you give us and my apologies if you mentioned this before, but how many do Canada and Finland have? Thank you. SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Sure. So, I mean, it is important that this announcement is happening during the NATO Summit because I mean, I think the message you're probably getting from the proceedings, really, it's military collaboration and our defensive alliance are always going to be at the forefront of the Alliance, but also economic security and industrial capacity are key, increasingly prominent themes coming out of this week's discussions. And so, this initiative actually fits very nicely. We want to enhance our shipbuilding capacity. We want to reduce the costs of building scale. We know we can't do that alone. Finland and Canada have world-class expertise and experience that we want to leverage. And we think we can attract investment that will benefit our partners as well. We're trying to put all that together really in the context of a blurring line between economic security and national security. In terms of your I think your first question as to how directly does this fit into the NATO conversation: The President has discussed with Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister [President] Stubb on the margins of the summit, this deal. But it's occurring on the sidelines rather than this being a direct deliverable from the summit itself. And in terms of the number of icebreakers that Canada and Finland have in operation, Canada has about 20 icebreakers and plans to build more, and then I believe Finland has 9 icebreakers. But I would refer you to both countries to confirm. MODERATOR: Okay, thank you, everyone. Thank you [senior administration official] for doing this. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Just a reminder that today's call will be held under embargo until 10:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. And if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to myself or the NSC Press team distro and we will get back to you. Thank you very much. Have a great afternoon. 3:23 P.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks by President Biden and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Dinner with NATO Allies and Partners July 10, 2024 East Room PRESIDENT BIDEN: Good evening. This is a big night at the White House, celebrating 75 years of the greatest alliance the world has ever known. Jill and I are honored to have so many close Allies and close friends all in the same room. Seventy-five years ago, when our nations created NATO, former President Truman said, and I quote, "We are about what we're about to do here is a neighborly act." A neighborly act. The Allies in this room not only share a common language don't share a common language, we do not share a common border, but we are neighbors. We're neighbors because we all share common beliefs in dignity, equality, democracy, and freedom. And we're all neighbors because we're there for one another. In the neighborhood I grew up in, that's what you do. When a neighbor needed help, you pitched in. When the bullies threatened the block, you stepped up. When a bad snowstorm hit, you shared supplies and made sure everyone was safe. When a new family moved into the neighborhood, you welcomed them with open arms. And why did we do this? Because we knew we were in it together. We knew that our own house was safer when the entire neighborhood was as well. This simple yet profound idea lies at the heart of our Alliance. Over the last 75 years, it has allowed our people to reach for new possibilities. It's allowed our nations to meet any threat with strength and resolve. And above all, it allowed women and men of generations to know the live of freedom, security, and democracy. So, please join me in raising your glasses. You got one for the boss? (The president gestures to Secretary-General Stoltenberg.) To NATO and to our neighborhood of nations. May we continue to grow stronger and closer in all the years ahead. Now I'd like to invite my friend Secretary Stoltenberg. But before, to NATO. (President Biden offers a toast.) It's all yours, boss. SECRETARY-GENERAL STOLTENBERG: Thank you. President Biden, dear Joe; Madam First Lady, dear Jill, thank you so much for hosting all of us here tonight at the White House. This is an historic building. This is a special place with a lot of history and many decisions have been taken here that has shaped not only this nation but also shaped the North Atlantic Alliance, NATO. So, it's great for all of us to be here tonight. But this is more than an important political building. This is also your home, the place you live. So, thank you for having us over for dinner tonight. (Laughter.) And as you know, in all cultures, at all time, sharing a meal being together, having a dinner is is one of the strongest expression of trust, of friendship, and of family. And tonight, we are a family the big transatlantic NATO family with our closest friends, with our friends from Ukraine, with our friends from the Asia-Pacific. So, therefore, this is really a big extended family dinner. And we are so happy also because we are here together with our spouses and our partners. And it's not always easy to be married to a politician. But, therefore, we are extremely grateful that you have joined us tonight and during the summit and that we can spend this evening together. We are not a normal family with totally normal friends and partners because we are a military alliance with close partners that we work together with every day. So, therefore, a toast for the most successful, the strongest, and the longest-lasting alliance in history. Yeah. Okay. A toast, then. (Laughter.) Thank you so much. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Thank you. Okay. So, cheers for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. (Secretary-General Stoltenberg offers a toast.) PRESIDENT BIDEN: All right. Hear! Hear! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address G7 foreign ministers' statement on situation in West Bank Global Affairs Canada Statement July 11, 2024 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada "We, the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union, join the UN and the European Union in condemning the announcement by Finance Minister of Israel Smotrich that five outposts are to be legalized in the West Bank. We also reject the decision by the Government of Israel to declare over 1,270 hectares of land in the West Bank as 'state lands'the largest such declaration of state land since the Oslo Accordsand the decision to expand existing settlements in the occupied West Bank by 5,295 new housing units and to establish three new settlements. The Government of Israel's settlement program is inconsistent with international law, and counterproductive to the cause of peace. "We reaffirm our commitment to a lasting and sustainable peace in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, on the basis of a two-state solution. We have therefore consistently expressed our opposition to the expansion of settlements and, as in previous cases, we urge the Government of Israel to reverse this decision. "Further, maintaining economic stability in the West Bank is critical for regional security. In this context, we take note of the latest transfers of parts of clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority, but we urge Israel to release all withheld clearance revenues in accordance with the Paris Protocols, to remove or relax measures that exacerbate the economic situation in the West Bank and to take the necessary measures to ensure that correspondent banking services between Israeli and Palestinian banks remain in place with proper controls." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 11, 2024 Release Artificial Intelligence Defense Technical Review Explores Scalability and Federation The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) held its second annual Artificial Intelligence (AI) Defense Technical Review (DTR) on July 8 and 9 at the University of Maryland (UMD) in College Park. The event, focused on "Scalability and Federation of AI," aimed to review and set a course for intelligent decision making and strategic coordination across joint and multinational interconnected forces. The DTR event was open to the public and attracted nearly 300 registrants from government, industry, and academia. Speakers included experts, researchers, and leaders from organizations such as Google, Microsoft, AWS, IBM, and CENTCOM. Dr. Radha Plumb, the Pentagon's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, provided opening remarks on the first day of the conference, followed by a fireside chat with Mr. Maynard Holliday, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies, and Dr. Michael Foster, the Chief Data Officer of CENTCOM, to discuss the practical applications and challenges of federated AI. University President, Dr. Darryll Pines, also joined to emphasize academic and government collaboration. Sessions covered an overview of each of the military service and DARPA AI portfolios, mitigating challenges and finding opportunities of federated AI, federated learning, and scaling AI responsibly while balancing innovation and ethics. The conference also included interactive breakout sessions on distributed C2 at the tactical edge, AI orchestration at operational scale, trust in federated AI, and the future of federated AI in defense. "One of significant outcomes from this year's event included the roll out of the AI Passport concept as a new distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) federation framework, which enables multi-party software co-development," said Dr. Kim Sablon, Principal Director for Trusted AI and Autonomy at OUSD(R&E). "AI Passport seeks to enable collaboration between diverse toolchains by sharing metadata that comply with the AI Passport Metadata Standards." Additionally, the conference rolled out a multi agent-based C2 on-demand architecture to support joint and coalition C2 AI capabilities and highlighted the need for continuous loop monitoring and updating of AI models. The event also emphasized the importance of designing for modularity and security from the start, as well as the co-design of hardware, network, and software. "DTR provided an opportunity for the community to participate in a discussion on the future of AI integration in defense operations and implementing a networked force powered by scalable AI solutions," said Sablon. "The discussions are of critical importance to national security, informing the development of responsible and ethical use of AI in defense operations." https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3835190/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 11, 2024 Speech Remarks for Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner 2024 CSIS South China Sea Conference Track Record and Trajectory: U.S-Philippine Defense Ties Since 2021 (As Prepared for Delivery) Thank you, Greg, for that introduction. And thanks as always to CSIS for bringing together the South China Sea Conference, and to all of you for being here today. This continues to be one of the most important gatherings of experts on security issues in the Indo-Pacific not just here in Washington, but across the country, and indeed the whole region. And I've always gained a lot of valuable insights from discussions with the people here, whether as a think tanker or in my current role at the Department of Defense. When I last spoke at this conference in 2022, I devoted a significant portion of my remarks to a major concern of ours at the time, which was the sharp increase in coercive and risky PLA operational behavior against U.S. assets in the South China Sea. A lot has happened since then, and I'd welcome the chance to discuss that further during our question-and-answer session in a few minutes. But if the biggest headlines from those remarks two years ago were about one of the issues that most concerned us at the time . . . today I want to talk about an aspect of the Department's track record in the region that we're particularly proud of. . . and that's the historic progress we're seeing in the alliance between the United States and the Philippines. Now, observers have used a variety of adjectives to describe what Washington and Manila have delivered together in the past three-and-a-half years. But I believe that historians will record this period in the alliance as truly transformative and decisive, as emblematic of broader strategic changes across the Indo-Pacific, as the direct result of leadership by both President Biden and President Marcos, and as a central feature of Secretary Austin's legacy in the region. That's because over the course of this Administration, we have elevated the U.S.-Philippines alliance to stand among our most vital defense partnerships in the world. We have raised the profile of alliance engagements. We have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Manila in the midst of a changing security environment. We have delivered major agreements for U.S. rotational presence in the Philippines and sought unprecedented funding to support these agreements. We have taken major steps to increase interoperability with the Philippines and our support for the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. And we have pursued new opportunities together with the Philippines to cooperate multilaterally with likeminded partners across the Indo-Pacific in support of a shared vision for a free and open region. Of course, sometimes when you're following these issues day-to-day, it can be difficult to step back and take stock of the totality of what we've achieved in the U.S.-Philippines alliance over the past several years. So today, I wanted to walk through each of these key areas of progress to give you all a fuller picture of how we at DoD are thinking about the alliance right now as well as where we see opportunities in the months and years ahead. First, we've seen unprecedented senior-leader engagement between Washington and Manila since the start of the Biden Administration, including and especially by Secretary Austin. He has invested countless hours in this relationship, and that has directly resulted in greater personal trust as our two countries push forward major defense priorities. As some of you know, I was actually sworn in by Secretary Austin as he was flying out to the region in the summer of 2021. And one of the most important elements of that trip involved a stop in Manila, where he met with then-President Duterte. I'll never forget that engagement, which marked a key turning point at a critical time in the alliance. In the wake of that meeting, we saw a renewed commitment to the alliance on both sides. And that trajectory picked up considerable momentum under the leadership of President Marcos, who Secretary Austin has hosted at the Pentagon on multiple occasions. In fact, when President Marcos was back at the Pentagon this April, Secretary Austin repeated something that he says frequently both in public and private, which is and I'm quoting here - "that our two countries are more than allies. We're family." And I think you've seen that sense of conviction at the core of Secretary Austin's engagements with his counterparts from the Department of National Defense, including most recently with Secretary Teodoro. The two of them have met together here in Washington, in Hawaii, in Jakarta, and in Singapore. They speak regularly on the phone. Together, they participated in April's historic 3+3 meeting with their diplomatic counterparts and the national security advisors from our two countries. And they're poised to meet again soon with Secretary Blinken and Secretary Manalo for another 2+2 ministerial. And that kind of personal investment has yielded enormous dividends for our defense and security cooperation with the Philippines. This brings me to my second point about how we've continued to stand with our ally as Manila defends its lawful rights in the South China Sea. . . including at Second Thomas Shoal, which is a low tide elevation beyond any lawful territorial sea, on the Philippines' continental shelf, and well within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. I know that's a lot of legalese. But I also know there are a lot of experts here today and around the world who understand exactly what I'm describing. Let me be clear that the PRC's claim to the Shoal has no more credibility today than it did when the Arbitral Tribunal issued its unanimous ruling in 2016. And the kind of revisionism and coercion we've seen there from the PRC is both destabilizing and dangerous. This aggressive PRC behavior stands in sharp contrast to the remarkable leadership by President Marcos and his team in protecting the well-being of the Philippine troops on the BRP Sierra Madre and in defending the rights of the Philippines under international law. All the while, the United States has acted in support of the Philippines and made clear that our alliance commitments are ironclad. . . and that all nations should be able to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows. Importantly, our cooperation with the Philippines extends beyond our support for their lawful operations at Second Thomas Shoal and other parts of their Exclusive Economic Zone. That's my third point today, which is about the significance of what we've delivered together in terms of force posture. Looking back, 2023 was a transformative year for making U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific more mobile, distributed, resilient, and lethal. Secretary Austin said in December that it was a decisive year in a decisive decade for our defense priorities with allies and partners in the region. And our decision with the Philippines in February 2023 to expand U.S. rotational access to four new strategic sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement was a highlight in a year that saw a series of major announcements. And we're committed to continuing to invest in infrastructure improvements at all nine EDCA sites to strengthen combined training, exercises, and interoperability between our forces, as well as to support humanitarian assistance and disaster response efforts. In fact, the Biden Administration's budget request this year includes more than $120 million for these efforts which in just one year is more than double what we've invested in EDCA infrastructure to date. We've seen strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for the U.S.-Philippines alliance, and this year's budget is a historic opportunity to keep delivering. And as we've reached new agreements with the Philippines on force posture, we have also undertaken a range of other efforts to modernize our defense cooperation, deepen our interoperability, and accelerate the Philippines' capability development. And that's my fourth point. On these issues, the Department's track record with the Philippines since the start of this Administration has been defined by historic mosts, firsts, and first-evers. The first combined maritime exercises in the South China Sea in years. The largest-ever Balikatan exercise, and the first-ever to involve HIMARS and cyber defense elements. The first-ever visit of fifth-generation U.S. fighter jets to the Philippines. Our first-ever combined air patrol, and our first-ever combined UAV engagement. And new Bilateral Defense Guidelines to provide strategic direction and focus for all of these initiatives. And we're poised to deliver so much more together in the future. As you've seen publicly, the United States and the Philippines are discussing the conclusion of a General Security of Military Information Agreement or GSOMIA that will strengthen and expand our information sharing. We are also working together on a Security Sector Assistance Roadmap to help prioritize shared investments in the modernization of Philippine forces. And while I don't have anything to announce today regarding the Foreign Military Financing included in the Indo-Pacific National Security Supplemental that Congress passed this spring... let me just say that we recognize Capitol Hill's sense of urgency and prioritization when it comes to our support for Manila. . . and we'll have more to say on that soon. And I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the continued work of the Quad partners in support of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative or IPMDA and the benefits that effort will yield for partners across the South China Sea region, including the Philippines. Fifth and finally, the historic growth in the alliance between the United States and the Philippines has helped enable a growing community of minilateral cooperation across the region. At this year's Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Secretary Austin described this growing trend as a "new convergence around nearly all aspects of security in the Indo-Pacific." This is not a single coalition or institution, and it's certainly not like any other arrangement in any other region. Instead, it's unique to the opportunities and challenges of the Indo-Pacific comprised of likeminded countries who share a vision for what the region can and should look like. Two months ago in Hawaii, the defense ministers from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States held their first-ever joint press conference after a long day of meetings together and for me, that event really captured the spirit of this new convergence, our shared sense of momentum, and, yes, the vital role of the Philippines. The future we're striving toward is one with greater interoperability and cooperation among likeminded Indo-Pacific partners, and this means enhanced reciprocal access, more participation in larger and more complex regional exercises, greater investment together in advanced capabilities. . . and Manila stands at an intersection of all of that. Now, the new convergence in the Indo-Pacific won't always start with or include the United States. Nor should it. That's why, for example, we are really encouraged by the important opportunities that will emerge from the reciprocal access agreement announced this week between Japan and the Philippines. In closing, I'll just say again that the recent growth of the U.S.-Philippines alliance has been nothing short of remarkable. In fact, some of what we have achieved together would have been simply unimaginable during that flight out to the region three years ago. And yet here we are today with a future trajectory that is as clear as it is promising. We have delivered historic results together, and we have more achievements still to come. So thank you again to Greg Poling and to CSIS for the opportunity to talk about this Administration's track record with the Philippines since taking office - and I'm looking forward to our discussion. https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3836245/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Summit: Press remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell upon arrival European External Action Service (EEAS) 11.07.2024 Washington DC EEAS Press Team Check against delivery! During 75 years [of its existence] NATO has been ensuring peace and protecting the free world. Today, we have a big threat, a big challenge in Ukraine - and I know that for Ukraine to prevail against the aggression of Russia, we have to continue supporting Ukraine. We, at the European Union, have been [doing] that. We have provided almost 40 billion in military support, training 60,000 soldiers from Ukraine, increasing our military capacity, [and] increasing the production capacity of our defence industry. For the ones who say that supporting Ukraine will prolong the war, for the ones who say that peace has to come quickly even if it means that Ukraine has to surrender, we oppose the idea. We have to make Ukraine prevail against Russia's aggression. We have to continue supporting Ukraine in order to save the sovereignty [and] independence of this country and ensure the security of the free world. Also, we will discuss with the Indo-Pacific partners. We have to look at a strategic continuum between Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, because China is supporting Russia in the name of this "Unlimited Friendship". [Democratic People's Republic of] Korea (DPRK) is one of the most important suppliers of war material to Russia. Attempts against international law, and in particular maritime law, in the Indo-Pacific puts a threat to the stability of the whole region. We will discuss with our partners in the Indo-Pacific area in order [to explore] how NATO and the European Union countries can engage in ensuring stability in the region. At the G7 Ministerial meeting we will discuss about the situation in the Middle East - in Gaza and in the West Bank. It is awful. It is worse than ever. Nine months after the terrorist attacks by Hamas, the humanitarian situation on the ground is much worse - unbearable. In the West Bank, the Israeli government is seizing land. I am sure the G7 Ministerial meeting will condemn this seizing of land - which is against international law - by the Netanyahu government. They have declared "Israeli land" the biggest portion of the West Bank since the Oslo Agreements. They have been withholding the [tax] revenues of the Palestinian Authority. I think [that] the voice of the humankind has to prevail: to release hostages, to cease fire, to provide humanitarian support to the people in need in Gaza, and to look for a political solution based on the two-state solution. Thank you. Q&A Q: Prime Minister [of Hungary, Viktor] Orban, right before this Summit, has been a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine. How concerned are you about this divide? Are there steps that the European Union can take? I think I already said [it]. For the ones who complain that supporting Ukraine will only prolong the war, I would tell them: If we stop supporting Ukraine, the war certainly will finish - and finish soon. But how? With the Ukrainian surrender, with a 'puppet government' in Kyiv, with the Ukrainian people being crushed by an aggressor. Is that the way we want the war to end? No. If we do not want the war to end like this, if we do not want Ukraine to have to surrender because it does not have the capacity to continue fighting, we have to continue supporting Ukraine. This is the position of the European Union. The whole European Union is supporting this position. And for the European Union, there is no [other] plan than the Zelenskyy plan. It is the only peace plan in town for us, for the Europeans. Link to the video (starting from 0:12): https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-259222 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address South China Sea: Statement by the Spokesperson on the anniversary of the Award rendered in the arbitration between the Philippines and China European External Action Service (EEAS) 11.07.2024 EEAS Press Team 12 July marks the eighth anniversary of the award issued by the tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the arbitration instituted by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China concerning the South China Sea. This award represents a significant milestone in the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea. Dispute settlement mechanisms provided under UNCLOS contribute to the maintenance and furthering of the international legal order based on the rule of law. The EU views the 2016 Arbitral Award as legally binding upon the parties to the proceedings, including the important finding that the Second Thomas Shoal is within the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines. All parties involved must respect and honour the award. Upholding the freedoms, rights and duties established in UNCLOS, in particular the freedoms of navigation and overflight, is of paramount importance for reducing tensions in the region. It is also essential for maintaining, strengthening and deepening peace and security, while ensuring safe, free and open sea supply routes worldwide. The EU reiterates its support for efforts by ASEAN and China to finalise negotiations on an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, as well as any other dialogue to resolve tensions, fully consistent with UNCLOS and other obligations under international law. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Minister Tsahkna: Decisions of NATO's summit are a great contribution to reinforcing the security of Allies Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs 11.07.2024 Yesterday 10 July, the NATO summit declaration was adopted in Washington, and its decisions constitute crucial steps on helping Ukraine to victory, Ukraine's NATO membership and reinforcing the Alliance's defence and deterrence posture, Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. "Going to Washington, Estonia had three clear goals and the joint statement of the summit marks all three," the foreign minister said. Most importantly, a robust support package for Ukraine was adopted, with Allies reaffirming continued long-term military assistance and NATO's leadership in coordinating this assistance. It was agreed in Washington that the military assistance of Allies to Ukraine will be at least 40 billion a year, NATO would assume a leading role in training Ukrainian soldiers, and the interoperability of Ukraine and the Alliance would be improved. It was also affirmed that Ukraine was on an irreversible path towards NATO membership. "All these decisions will contribute to Ukraine's victory in the war and their advance on the path to NATO accession," Tsahkna said. "We are sending a clear message to Moscow that our support to Ukraine remains unwavering, that the Alliance's open door policy will continue and Ukraine has the right to choose its security arrangements." Tsahkna said that by fighting Russia's aggression, Ukraine was directly contributing to the security of the Euro-Atlantic region and therefore, every decision that the Allies take on supporting Ukraine reinforced their own security. It was also reaffirmed at the summit that since Russia posed a direct and long-term threat to the Alliance, NATO would remain focused on blocking and fighting Russia's aggressive actions. The decisions of the summit also concern the prioritisation of the rapid development of NATO capabilities and the reinforcement of transatlantic defence industry cooperation to ensure the applicability of NATO's defence plans. "All the decisions of the summit ensure the reinforcement of the security of Estonia and the entire Alliance," Foreign Minister Tsahkna said. "NATO has been able to ensure the security of Allies for 75 years and we can be sure the Alliance can meet any security challenge in the future." Representing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the summit, Undersecretary Kyllike Sillaste-Elling said that in Washington, Estonia repeatedly raised the need for increased defence spending, and we would continue to work towards setting the new target of the Alliance at a minimum of 2.5 percent of GDP. "We do not have the luxury of waiting," Sillaste-Elling said. "NATO must reinforce its defence posture and this requires an increase in defence spending." The Washington summit will continue tomorrow, when NATO will hold a meeting with the EU and with the NATO's Indo-Pacific partners. There will also be a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Icebreaker initiative means significant opportunities for Finnish industrial policy Finnish Government Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment Publication date 11.7.2024 Press release On 11 July 2024, Finland, the United States and Canada published a trilateral declaration concerning cooperation in the production of icebreakers (ICE). The initiative was signed by the Presidents of Finland and the United States Alexander Stubb and Joe Biden and Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau. By this initiative Finland, Canada and the United States make a commitment concerning deeper collaboration in building icebreakers in each country by sharing expertise, knowledge and competence. The initiative gives Finland the opportunity to strengthen its position in the North American supply chain of critical infrastructure. The ICE initiative is a highly significant opportunity in terms of Finland's economic, employment and industrial policy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment believes that the agreement will provide a long-lasting boost to the Finnish maritime industry cluster and its leading shipyards. "The declaration gives Finland the opportunity to offer, in a very concrete way, top-class Arctic expertise to be used by our allies and partners. At the same time, we can effectively respond to the common critical needs in the Arctic region," Minister of Economic Affairs Wille Rydman says. Next, Finland, the United States and Canada will start negotiations on the concrete implementation plan of the declaration. In Finland this work will take place under the lead of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and in cooperation with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence. Finland has strong maritime cluster and top-class icebreaker expertise From the perspective of the geopolitical situation and strategic autonomy, it is important that Finland has a viable maritime industry cluster in future as well. Finland's NATO membership and the increased opportunities for international cooperation related to icebreakers and other special purpose ships this has brought along can significantly improve the operating conditions and growth of the Finnish maritime industry. "The future of the Finnish shipyards mainly depends on the development of the cruise and other passenger ship markets. Because of the geopolitical situation, completely new opportunities could open for Finnish icebreaker expertise, where we are among the best in the world," Minister Rydman says. Once the initiative is realised, the opportunities offered by the agreement to be negotiated can be substantial. The estimate for the need of the western allies and partner countries for the next decade is in the order of several tens of ice-class government vessels. The building capacity of Finland's maritime industry over the next decade is also estimated to be significant. Potential of Finland's Arctic expertise known for long time in North America The potential of Finnish shipyards as suppliers of icebreakers to North America has been discussed for a long time. A step closer to making this a reality was taken in November 2023 with the change of the owner of the Helsinki shipyard. The State of Finland was not a party to the transaction but adopted a positive position on the arrangement from the very start of the negotiations and participated in the negotiation process. Minister of Economic Affairs and Employment Rydman contributed to the change of ownership by negotiating with the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy of Quebec Pierre Fitzgibbon, and since the transaction was completed he has supported the export efforts related to the icebreaker industry. Finland's strong maritime industry, port and ship-building expertise was also showcased during Minister Rydman's visit to Canada and the United States in March. He was accompanied by a business delegation of 30 people from 20 different companies and organisations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Report outlines fallacies, damaging effect of S.China Sea Arbitration Award Global Times Politically motivated ruling 'no panacea' for dispute resolution By Hu Yuwei, Zhao Yusha, and Leng Shumei Published: Jul 11, 2024 10:59 PM Chinese institutions released a report on Thursday outlining the fallacies of the South China Sea Arbitration Award and the damage it does to the international rule of law. The report criticizes the unfairness of the Hague Tribunal and the illegitimacy of the Philippines' claims in the South China Sea. It argues that the ruling, released on July 12, 2016, has only complicated the already intricate issue in the region without offering a viable solution. The report reaffirms China's position of "non-acceptance, non-participation, and non-recognition" of the ruling, and rejects any claims or actions based on it. The report also condemns the worship of the ruling by certain external forces, accusing them of trying to provoke tensions in the South China Sea and create discord between China and ASEAN countries. The report was released by the Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance, National Institute for South China Sea Studies and Chinese Society of International Law. Experts say the arbitration award has become a "troublemaker" for peace and stability in the South China Sea, and a "spoiler" for bilateral relations between China and related parties. Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said at a press conference for the report's release on Thursday that the ongoing legal dispute between China and the Philippines has escalated. The recent "biggest-ever" conference to be held in Manila on Friday to mark the 8th anniversary of the arbitral award is a clear indication of this intensification. Despite the ambitious efforts and heightened attention surrounding this issue, it is likely that these endeavors will ultimately prove futile, said the expert. Why are Philippines' claims illegal? The report pointed out that Nanhai Zhudao (South China Sea islands) are China's inherent territory. The activities of the Chinese people in the South China Sea date back over 2,000 years. China is the first to have discovered, named, explored and utilized Nanhai Zhudao and its relevant waters, and the first to have continuously, peacefully and effectively exercised sovereignty and jurisdiction over them. Nansha Qundao has never been part of Philippine territory. The Philippines' territorial claim over part of Nansha Qundao is groundless from the perspectives of both history and international law, according to the report, which gives a detailed rebuttal against the typical excuses the Philippines has concocted to cover its invasion and illegal occupation in pursuit of its territorial claims. For instance, the claim that "Kalayaan Island Group" is "terra nullius" discovered by the Philippines is groundless. In fact, the geographical scope of Nansha Qundao is clear, and the so-called "Kalayaan Island Group" is actually part of China's Nansha Qundao, which has long been an integral part of China's territory and is in no way "terra nullius." The territorial scope of the Philippines has already been defined by a series of international treaties. The US, administrator of the Philippines during the colonial era, was clearly aware of these facts, read the report. Anthony Carty, an Irish scholar of international law and author of "The History and Sovereignty of the South China Sea Islands," stressed in a recent interview with the Global Times that the Philippines has no right to claim sovereignty over the South China Sea and archival evidence supports China's claims over the islands. "I don't see why on Earth or how the Philippines can claim any sovereignty over any islands in the South China Sea. The archives from France, Britain, China, the US, and Japan all agreed that the Filipinos have no territorial claim," said Carty. The expert in international law called the so-called South China Sea arbitration of 2016 a "chaotic and manipulative use of international law," "a case of double standards," and "a legal trick." Why can't arbitration resolution be accepted? The report first stressed that the Arbitral Tribunal has no jurisdiction over the claims made by the Philippines, as they involve the handling of issues of territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation. The former does not fall within the application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which the resolution primarily relied on; the latter has been excluded from the arbitration proceedings by China. The report, in a response to the Hague Tribunal that rejected China's claims citing that the "nine-dash" line contravenes UNCLOS, said that the "historic title and historic rights of China in the South China Sea have been long established under the rules of customary international law." The report also questioned the political background of the 2016 tribunal's membership. In the South China Sea arbitration, the five arbitrators are from Germany, Poland, France, the Netherlands and Ghana, and none from Asia. This constitution resulted in a tribunal that took little account of Asian cultures, diplomatic and legal traditions, and other regional factors which should have informed its decision making. "These judges appointed by countries may not be in any way consciously biased, but inevitably they're colored by the countries that they come from. So the whole idea of international adjudication is problematic," Carty told the Global Times, noting that he does not believe the international judiciary behaved objectively. "If China followed such an unfair ruling, it could be a disaster for international law," Wu told the media on Thursday. "The Arbitration Award is not a panacea for dispute resolution. The goal of international judicial and arbitral institutions is to settle disputes effectively. However, this objective cannot be reached by an ill-founded ruling issued by an arbitral tribunal without legitimacy that was politically motivated, manipulated and rejected by the other party based on sound and sufficient legal grounds," said the report. Replay of legal farce doomed to fail Local media reported that the Philippines is considering initiating a second international arbitration against China on environmental challenges. Experts pointed out that these are nothing more than a cognitive assault under the guise of legislation and a replay of the arbitration farce of 2016. Wu believes that China could take multiple countermeasures in different sectors to deal with the arbitration proposals. "Launching a new arbitration against China on environmental issues is a new direction of the Philippines' cognitive war against China, or a new battlefield. Considering that the Philippines has not gained much advantage in its sovereignty claims and recent engagement with China Coast Guard, its latest attempt is to label China as an environmental destroyer. But Philippines' attempt is doomed to fail," Peng Nian, director of the Hong Kong Research Center for Asian Studies, told the Global Times. Wu underlined that rebutting the 2016 arbitration award and countering the erroneous statements of countries within and outside the region are not intended to provoke a new round of legal battles, but to make a rightful response to actions and forces that disrupt peace and stability in the South China Sea, interfere with China-Philippines relations and profit from the award. He called the arbitration award a "troublemaker" for peace and stability in the South China Sea, a "spoiler" for bilateral relations between China and relevant parties, and a "roadblock" for the effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. The scholar called on the parties concerned to return to the correct track of "resolving disputes through negotiation, bridging the gap through cooperation, and managing crises through rule-building." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New Delhi, July 12 (UNI) How can the State block a highway? the Supreme Court on Friday asked the Haryana government, directing it to remove barricading at the Shambhu border near Ambala where agitating farmers have been camping since February 13. A bench comprising Justice Surya Kant and Justice Ujjal Bhuvan upheld the Punjab and Haryana High Court order which on July 10 directed the state government to open within a week the Shambhu border near Ambala that was locked down in February to prevent protesting farmers from marching towards Delhi. The Supreme Court bench remarked, "How can State block a highway? It has a duty to regulate traffic. We are not only saying open but regulate it." The Haryana government had set up barricades at AmbalaNew Delhi National Highway in February, when Samyukta Kissan Morcha (SKM) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) had announced to march towards Delhi in support of their various demands, including a legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for crops. The Apex Court also adjourned the hearing on Haryana governments plea which had sought a judicial probe into the death of a 22-year-old youth protesting during the farmer's agitation. A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court comprising Justice G S Sandhawalia and Justice Vikas Bahl had on July 10 directed Haryana to remove the barricade at Shambhu border and the general public is not put to inconvenience. The Supreme Court held that the border should be opened forthwith and suggested the Haryana Government to have talks with the farmers and hear their grievances. Why are you shying away from having talks with the farmers? Talk to them and if they still want to protest regarding their demands provide them with facilities, the SC bench orally remarked. The High Court had also clarified that its direction to open the Shambhu border which connects Haryana and Punjab is meant for all citizens, and not restricted to any particular class. The petitioner, Advocate Vasu Ranjan Shandilya, had filed a petition in the High Court seeking clarification and directions to open the Shambhu border for the general public, especially businessmen, departmental store owners and street vendors who are providing essential commodities to Ambala. He said another petitioner, Uday Pratap, had sought the opening of the border for farmers, I am requesting to open for business man, street vendors, " the petitioner pleaded. To this, the High Court clarified that their directions are for everybody not just farmers. Shandilya also submitted that the "Khanauri border (another border entry point from Punjab to Haryana) is also closed". However, the High Court said, "Let them open Shambhu first, we will ask to open Khanauri also." The Haryana Government then moved the Supreme Court against the High Court order with a plea that they were undertaking a judicial probe into the death of a 22-year-old youth protesting during the farmers agitation. UNI SNG RC Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari- July 11, 2024 IDF Press Release July 11, 2024 11.07.24 IDF Good evening, Today we began the process of presenting the military inquiries regarding the events of October 7th. On that day, the IDF failed in its mission to protect the civilians of Israel. We were not prepared for the murderous Hamas terror attack involving thousands of terrorists who infiltrated the country at dozens of points simultaneously and began a killing spree, massacre, and abduction in the southern communities and IDF military outposts. It is our responsibility and duty to examine what happened, understand where we failed, and what we need to correct. To learn the necessary lessons and immediately implement them in our defense methods and operational plans. This responsibility and duty led us to initiate a series of operational inquiries a few months ago, during the ongoing war - while combat continues- with the aim of examining the events of October 7th and the preceding events. As we promised, we intend to present the findings in the coming months with transparency and humility. The public deserves answers, and it is our responsibility to look the residents and bereaved families in the eye and answer the most difficult and painful questions. Today we presented the inquiry of the battle in Kibbutz Be'eri. We presented the findings this morning to the residents of the kibbutz who were evacuated from their homes for nine months and are staying by the Dead Sea, and to the bereaved families. I know some of you are asking why we are presenting this inquiry first. It is important for me to explain - we are in the midst of a comprehensive inquiry process that deeply examines the IDF's operational and intelligence perceptions, the senior command's conduct on the night of October 7th, and the management of the battles in the southern communities. We are presenting the inquiries according to their level of completion, as quickly as possible to provide answers to the residents, the bereaved families, and the families of the hostages, who want to know what happened that day, and also to immediately adapt our operational and defensive methods. This inquiry is not the end of the process, it is the beginning. Kibbutz Be'eri is home to one of the largest communities in the western Negev area. The kibbutz lost 101 members, 30 members were abducted, and two additional hostages who sought refuge from the Nova party were abducted from the kibbutz area. Of them, eleven are still held in Gaza. The kibbutz was attacked by dozens of terrorists from several infiltration points, with their number reaching approximately 340 terrorists by midday on October 7th. In the fighting that lasted three days, our forces overcame the terrorists but at a very heavy price. 31 members of the security forces - members of the rapid response team, IDF soldiers, and Israel Police officers fell in the battle. The forces fought valiantly, displaying exceptional bravery and courage. There is almost no unit that participated in the battles that did not lose a soldier or commander. Alongside acts of heroism and bravery, serious mistakes and errors were made, which were examined in the inquiry and must be acknowledged. I will outline the main points this evening. The Kibbutz Be'eri inquiry was led by Major General (res.) Mickey Edelstein. Mickey and the members of the inquiry team spent hundreds of hours with members of the Kibbutz Be'eri rapid response team, kibbutz residents, security forces, and the commanders who operated in the field. Additionally, thousands of pieces of evidence and materials regarding the battle in the kibbutz were collected. The inquiry's conclusions are clear - October 7th was one of the hardest days Israel has known since its establishment. The IDF failed in its mission to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri. It is painful and difficult for me to say this: the IDF was supposed to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri, but unfortunately, we were not there for many hours of the fighting. For hours, the residents of Be'eri protected their families with their bodies, facing the terrorists alone. The extraordinary heroism and resourcefulness of the kibbutz residents stabilized the defensive line in the first hours of the fighting, and prevented the expansion of the terrorists' attack to other parts of the kibbutz. Alongside the rapid response team, the community emergency team also acted heroically, which guided the forces, formed an operational situational assessment, and assisted the residents. After examining the findings, the inquiry team presented a series of insights and conclusions. This evening I want to briefly describe to you the main conclusions of the inquiry team. The full findings were published this evening on the IDF website and are accessible to every citizen directly and without mediation. The conclusions indicate that in the first seven hours of the fighting, the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri fought almost alone against the enemy. Many mistakes by IDF commanders and security forces stemmed from a lack of understanding of the event's magnitude, the absence of an operational assessment, and a deployment of forces built in relation to the scenario the forces trained for that did not match the harsh reality on the ground. The inquiry found that despite the accumulation of security forces, which at some point reached approximately 700 IDF and security personnel, the fighting in the area suffered from a lack of command and control until the late afternoon, and a lack of coordination and order occurred between the various forces and units. This resulted in several incidents where security forces gathered at the entrance to the kibbutz and did not immediately engage in combat. This lack of order characterized many combat points on October 7th and is being examined in the ongoing general inquiry, which will also be presented to the public later. I want to address the hostage event at the home of Pessi Cohen z"l - an incident that received significant coverage in the Israeli media - an extreme hostage incident in which dozens of terrorists were holding many hostages in the heart of a combat zone, an event we have not faced before. The hostages were held by ruthless terrorists who planned to abduct them, and the terrorists who failed were debating whether to kill the hostages and commit suicide. The inquiry team determined that under the complex and harsh circumstances, the Yamam, ISA, and IDF personnel operated professionally and orderly, making professional and responsible decisions. They exhausted all negotiation efforts with the terrorists. Only after the situation deteriorated and negotiation attempts were exhausted - attempts to negotiate the rescue of the civilians - did the forces carry out tank fire, in a joint decision to try to apply pressure to the terrorists. The decision to attempt a rescue under fire was made after all negotiation attempts to rescue the hostages had been exhausted, and after a long burst of gunfire from inside the house that raised suspicions that the hostages were being executed. We conducted a thorough and joint inquiry with the Israel Police, Yamam, and the ISA, after which we presented our assessment of the circumstances of the hostages' deaths to the families. The team determined that from the information examined so far and to the best of our assessment, no civilians inside the building were hit by tank fire. The team noted that it appears that most of the hostages inside the house were murdered by the terrorists. Additionally, one incident involved hostages outside the building being hit by tank shrapnel, and it is highly likely that one of them was killed as a result. The families asked tough questions and raised additional incidents that we will need to inquire, and we will do so together with the families to clarify all circumstances. Regarding the conduct of the senior commanders at the scene, the inquiry team found that they acted in a coordinated and professional manner under particularly harsh circumstances and did everything - everything - to save civilians, and unfortunately, the event ended with painful results. These are just some of the conclusions. As mentioned, any civilian who wants to can read the findings themselves. It is important to emphasize that this is a developing inquiry. This means that any new information added will be examined and checked. We understand there will be further questions, and answers will need to be provided. We will be there to provide answers. At this stage, the IDF is implementing the lessons learned from the inquiry. The inquiry's findings remind us of the supreme and clear duty of every IDF soldier to prioritize protecting civilians, to initiate contact, and to act as a barrier between civilians and terrorists. We must review and implement this in the best possible way throughout the IDF. It is important to reiterate that there was bravery from commanders, soldiers, and Israel Police officers in close-quarters battles with the terrorists, sacrificing their lives to save the kibbutz residents. We will publish all the inquiries transparently while ensuring the security of our forces and the security of information where necessary. Although this is only the first of many inquiries, it is the beginning of a long and important process of correction - to repair and rebuild trust between the IDF and the public. At the end of the inquiry processes that will allow a complete description of the events, decisions will be made, and implications drawn in addition to the operational conclusions that will be implemented immediately. What stands in front of us is the public's trust, reaching the truth, and the duty to create good defense - better defense - that the civilians of Israel deserve. Even at this moment, the IDF is in the midst of a multi-front, complex war - in the north, Gaza, Judea and Samaria, on land, in the air, and at sea. The inquiries and the pursuit of truth are central values in the IDF in order to avoid past mistakes and to operate in the best way both now and in the future. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister's Office Statement Israel - Prime Minister's Office Press Releases The 37th Government 11.07.2024 The Prime Minister's Office, today: The negotiating team returned last night from a four-way summit with the mediators in Doha. Discussed at the meeting were the clauses of the deal on returning the hostages and ways to implement the outline, while ensuring all the objectives of the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held meetings with the negotiating team this morning. A delegation led by the Director of the ISA, together with IDF representatives, is due to leave for Cairo this evening for the continuation of the talks NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Excerpt from PM Netanyahu's Speech at the IDF Officers Course Graduation Ceremony Israel - Prime Minister's Office Events and Speeches The 37th Government 11.07.2024 Following is an excerpt from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech today, at the IDF Officers Course Graduation Ceremony, at IDF Training Base #1: "One hundred and twenty of our brothers and sisters, who are being held hostage by Hamas, are constantly before our eyes. We have a moral obligation to bring them all back to Israel - the living and the deceased. This is a sacred mission. As of now, we have returned 135 hostages - thanks to a combination of military pressure and diplomatic pressure, and standing steadfast on our principles. Without the military pressure, we would not have the necessary intelligence for the operations we have carried out. Without the military pressure and standing steadfast on our demands, we could not have reached the first release - and only with this pressure and this stand will we reach the second release. Ambiguity and hesitation did not bring about our achievements up to now, neither will they bring future achievements. Only clarity and determination will lead to the release of our hostages and the achieving of the rest of our objectives in the war. I would like to emphasize that I am committed to the outline for the release of our hostages; however, the Hamas murderers are still continuing to cling to demands that contravene the outline and endanger the security of Israel. As the Prime Minister of Israel, and out of national responsibility, I am unwilling to agree to these demands. Therefore, I strongly uphold four principles which are essential for the security of Israel, which are in the outline: 1. Any outline must allow Israel to return to fighting until all the objectives of the war are achieved. 2. We will not allow the smuggling of weapons to Hamas from Egypt, first and foremost through Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah Crossing. 3. We will not allow the return of armed terrorists and the entry of war materiel to the northern Gaza Strip. Only this way will the achievements that we have made by an unyielding fight and with the precious blood of our soldiers be preserved. 4. I insist that the maximum number of living hostages be released in the first stage of the outline. These are our ironclad principles. I am certain that if we insist on them we will achieve a deal that will both free our hostages and ensure that we will continue to fight until all of our objectives have been achieved. The way to free our hostages is by continuing to pressure Hamas with full force." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister of National Defence met with Minister of Defence of the Netherlands in Washington Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence 2024-07-11 International cooperation On July 10 Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas met with Minister of Defence of the Netherlands Ruben Brekelmans on the margins of the NATO Summit. Lithuanian Minister thanked the Netherlands for the Netherlands for the substantial contribution to Baltic security. The Dutch contingent in the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group in Rukla is one of the most voluminous contributions in terms of troop number and equipment, while air detachments of the Royal Netherlands Air Force is constantly manning the NATO Air Poling Mission in the Baltic states. Cooperation between the two countries is also expanding in the areas of cyber security and special operations forces. This week Lithuania welcomed the Patriot air defence system from the Netherlands deployed for the Baltic Connection '24 training cycle to practice air defence alongside the Lithuanian NASAMS units. "This serves as a strong basis for urgent implementation of the NATO Rotation Air Defence Model in Lithuania. The Patriot deployment sends a strong message to other Allies to join the NATO initiative," said Minister L. Kasciunas inviting the Netherlands to deploy the Patriot system in Lithuania on a regular basis. Ministers also discussed defence financing and plans of increasing defence capabilities. L. Kasciunas presented the commandant's headquarters system introduced in Lithuania and solutions adopted to promote development of the national defence industry. Another topic of discussion was the NATO deterrence and defence. Minister underscored the importance of implementing the defence plans and underlined the necessity to increase Allies' capabilities. In a discussion on assistance to Ukraine Minister L. Kasciunas invited the Netherlands to join the Demining Coalition led by Lithuania and Iceland, already joined by 23 partners. The Netherlands is rendering some of the most substantial assistance to Ukraine, therefore Minister noted Lithuania would highly appreciate its contribution to the Ukraine Demining Coalition. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President called on NATO allies in Washington to increase defense investment President of the Republic of Lithuania July 11, 2024 President Gitanas Nauseda is visiting Washington for the NATO Summit. On Wednesday, the President attended the meeting of the North Atlantic Council. Addressing allied leaders, Gitanas Nauseda stressed that the ongoing war in Europe and Russia's plans for further confrontation with NATO makes it necessary to strengthen the Alliance's forward defense and deterrence more quickly and efficiently. According to the President, time is not on the side of the allies, so we need to act faster. "Russia is in full war economy mode. The aggressor is receiving significant outside support from Iran, North Korea and China. Russia aims to confront NATO - this will not change unless our decisive actions change the situation," the President said. He stressed that it is crucial to immediately begin implementing last year's Vilnius Summit decisions on strengthening collective defense. According to Gitanas Nauseda, it is essential to ensure that NATO's defense plans do not contain any critical vulnerabilities and that the necessary capabilities are adequately provided for, especially on the front line of NATO's eastern flank. The President noted the successful cooperation between Lithuania and Germany in preparing for the deployment of a German brigade in our country. According to the President, this is a flagship project of forward defense and proof of European leadership in collective defense. Gitanas Nauseda also emphasized the importance of implementing the rotational air defense model. He thanked the Netherlands for the Patriot system deployed in Lithuania and called on the Allies to participate more actively in this initiative. "Adequate funding is needed to strengthen our collective defense. The club of NATO countries that spend more than 2% of GDP on defense is growing, but this figure is no longer sufficient. We must raise the bar. Lithuania will reach 3.03% already this year and is aiming for more," the President said. The President also reminded the Allies that Russia's unconventional operations on the territory of NATO countries are becoming more frequent. "It is no longer about playing with the minds of our societies by manipulating information. We are now talking about the physical destruction of property and infrastructure and violence against regime opponents abroad. It is only a matter of time before these attacks claim the lives of NATO citizens," the President said. According to Gitanas Nauseda, Russia's actions require a joint and coordinated NATO response and an algorithm for responding to various kinetic attacks. Referring to the situation in Ukraine, the President emphasized that only Ukraine's victory can return peace and stability to Europe. "Allied agreement on long-term military support for Ukraine is essential. Our assistance must be effective and timely. We must also make clear that Ukraine's future in the Alliance is irreversible. Russia must understand the irreversibility of these words," the President said. The NATO Summit in Washington marks the 75th anniversary of the Alliance and is the first to be attended by Sweden as a full member. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Secretary General concludes landmark 75th Anniversary Washington Summit NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 11 Jul. 2024 On Thursday (11 July 2024), Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrapped up NATO's 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C. At the Summit, Allies made decisions to further strengthen deterrence and defence, bolster long-term support to Ukraine and deepen global partnerships. In the morning, Allied leaders met with leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the European Union to address shared security challenges and further deepen cooperation. Faced with the growing alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, NATO is working ever more closely with partners in the Indo-Pacific and with the European Union to help preserve peace and protect the rules-based international order. Mr. Stoltenberg also highlighted that China is a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine. The Washington Summit declaration refers to the strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing as a "cause for profound concern." In the afternoon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined Allied leaders for a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of Heads of State and Government. The Secretary General indicated that Allies continue to support Ukraine on its irreversible path to NATO membership. Yesterday (10 July), Allies agreed to establish NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, to coordinate the provision of military equipment and training for Ukraine. They also announced a pledge of long-term security assistance to Ukraine with a minimum baseline of 40 billion euros within the next year. "This pledge will ensure greater burden-sharing of military support," said Mr Stoltenberg. "It will also provide Ukraine the reliable support it needs to deter and defend against future Russian aggression now and in the future." The Secretary General welcomed that more Allies have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine, bringing the total to 20. He also highlighted that Allies have agreed to establish a NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre in Poland. The 2025 NATO Summit will be held in The Hague, the Netherlands. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Opening remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of Heads of State and Government NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 11 Jul. 2024 (As delivered) Good afternoon all of you and welcome to this meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. And a warm welcome to President Zelenskyy. Volodymyr, it is great to have you here with us once again. At this Summit we are putting in place the foundations for Ukraine to prevail; to defend today and deter tomorrow. Yesterday, NATO Allies adopted a robust package of practical support for Ukraine, including a pledge of long-term security assistance. Today, we will take further decisions together with Ukraine. Making clear that NATO's support is built to last. And affirming that Ukraine's future is in NATO. This concludes the public part of the meeting. I thank the media for joining us at the top of the meeting. And I ask you kindly to leave. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US plan to deploy missiles in Germany sparks outcry, Russian warning Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 7:46 PM The US plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany has sparked outcry from German parties, with Russia pledging to counter it. On Wednesday, Washington and Berlin declared their intention to deploy long-range firepower in Germany starting in 2026. The agreement includes deploying capabilities from 2026, such as SM-6, Tomahawk, and advanced hypersonic weapons with greater range than those possessed by European powers. This would be the first time since the Cold War that the European continent became home to the most potent US weapons. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) far-right party, which is against German weapons deliveries to Ukraine, warned that Washington's missile decision made "Germany a target." "Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not acting in Germany's interest," said AfD leader Tino Chrupalla. "He is allowing Germany's relationship with Russia to be permanently damaged and we are falling back into the pattern of the East-West conflict." The leftist Die Linke party also denounced the missile move "highly problematic", saying it could cause a fresh arms race under the cover of so-called deterrence. Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance political party, better known as BSW, condemned the missile deal as "highly dangerous." The most intense reaction came from the Kremlin which vowed to give a response to the missile plan. "The North Atlantic alliance has once again very clearly confirmed its essence. It is an alliance created in an era of confrontation with the aim of maintaining confrontation. Tensions on the European continent are escalating" as a result, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov He added that Moscow was watching as NATO's military infrastructure crept closer. "We see the decisions taken in NATO to create separate logistics hubs in Black Sea cities, the opening of additional facilities in Europe, and we see that in fact NATO's military infrastructure is constantly and incrementally moving towards our borders," Peskov said. "This obliges us to analyze very deeply the decisions taken in the discussion that took place. This is a very serious threat to the national security of our country. All of this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated, effective responses to deter NATO, to counteract NATO," he added. Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed that Russia had anticipated the US-German missile move, slamming the move as being designed to frighten Russia. He said the provocative plan destabilizes regional security and strategic relations. "The necessary work on the preparation of balancing countermeasures by the relevant Russian state agencies was started well in advance and is being carried out on a systematic basis," Ryabkov said in a statement on his ministry's website. "Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop a military response, first of all, to this new game," he stressed. This is while Scholz praised the deal as a means to help "securing peace." It is "something of deterrence and it's securing peace, and it is a necessary and important decision at the right time," the German leader stressed. "We have long been grappling with the question of how we can ensure a deterrent that secures our own alliance territory, but also Germany, with conventional options," Scholz further told reporters in Washington. He added that the decision had been in the works for quite some time and came as expected to those involved in security and peace policy. Nils Schmid, a spokesperson for Scholz's Social Democrats, said, "This is a necessary step to deter Russia." Since Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February 2022, Kiev has become far and away the top recipient of US weapons. The US alone has provided approximately $51.4 billion in military assistance to Kiev, the US State Department said in early July. In a speech to NATO leaders on Wednesday US President Joe Biden announced plans to supply new patriot missile batteries to Ukraine, as Russia intensifies its military campaign against its neighboring country. Moscow has time and again warned that the West's military support of Ukraine will only prolong the war. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hamas dismisses imminent breakthrough in Gaza ceasefire talks Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 7:01 PM The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has dismissed US media reports that a breakthrough is imminent in negotiations with Israel over a ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip. Sources in Hamas rubbished reports on Thursday that claimed a framework for the ceasefire had been agreed upon by the parties. They said there was "nothing new" to report and there was no impending "breakthrough" in negotiations. Several obstacles remained and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was obstructing the process as mediators again pushed for a deal, the sources added. On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed US official, that the framework for the ceasefire had been "agreed" upon and that the parties were "negotiating details of how it will be implemented". However, the sources from Hamas said that "contrary to what David Ignatius [the Washington Post columnist] wrote, [there is] no progress in negotiations". "Parts of what was mentioned in David Ignatius's article were discussed and we did not reach an agreement on, some weren't discussed at all, and others mentioned in the piece are not even up for negotiations or discussions with the Israelis," one of the sources was quoted as saying by the Middle East Eye website. Israel and Hamas have been engaged in indirect talks since January to reach a deal that ends the war on Gaza and swaps Israeli captives with Palestinian prisoners. The two sides have been back and forth over a three-phased proposed outline for the agreement presented by mediators. The process involves a six-week pause in fighting, in which Hamas will release some Israeli captives it has held since October 7. In exchange, Israel is expected to release several Palestinian prisoners, withdraw its troops from certain regions of the Gaza Strip and allow Palestinians to travel from the south of the territory to the north. During the second phase, there would be a direct announcement of a permanent cessation of Israeli military operations before the remaining Israeli captives are exchanged for more Palestinian prisoners. Hamas has accepted a UN Security Council resolution passed last month which said: "If the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will continue as long as negotiations continue." The public masses in the US, Israel's closest ally and biggest arms supplier, have become sharply critical of the huge death toll in Gaza and the destruction wrought by the nine-month Israeli offensive. Despite attempts to end the conflict, which has displaced 90 percent of Palestinians more than once, Israeli forces have continued to attack Gaza and issued new forced displacement orders for Palestinians The orders, seen by Palestinians as an attempt to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza, come amid intensifying Israeli aerial and ground attacks in the besieged Palestinian territory. Several Palestinians in Gaza City shrugged off the latest displacement orders, saying they would rather die in their destroyed homes than flee. "We will remain steadfast in our homes. We will stay in them," Fatima Shaheen, in her 70s, was quoted as saying. "We die here or we triumph." Israel's war on Gaza, now nearing its tenth month, has destroyed large swaths of the besieged territory. More than 38,300 people have been killed, the great majority of them women and children. Thousands more are missing or presumed to be dead under the rubble. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, recently called for the enforcement of a ceasefire in Gaza where people are trapped in a hell without comparison. The war rages while ceasefire talks have been going on in Cairo and Doha. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warns that heavy Israeli strikes can torpedo the talks. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Houthi: US, UK naval forces terrified of Yemen's ballistic missiles Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 5:33 PM The leader of the Ansarullah resistance movement says the US and its allies are unable to stop Yemen's maritime operations against Israeli-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. "US and British naval forces dread Yemeni Armed Forces' ballistic missiles," Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech Thursday, noting that Western naval units are leaving Yemen's territorial waters. Yemeni naval units have struck 166 merchant vessels linked to Israel, the US and Britain so far, he said, stressing that Israeli officials are also fearful of Yemen's military capabilities. Israel's so-called Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) has admitted that the regime incurs exorbitant economic costs due to Yemeni forces' operations in the Red Sea, Houthi said. The US, he said, is doing its utmost to stop Yemen's anti-Israeli operation but all to no avail. He also warned Saudi Arabia against working with Washington to put a halt to such retaliatory strikes. "The Americans cannot stop Yemeni Armed Forces' operations as they have their roots in our religious beliefs. Thousands of Yemenis are willing to join the battle against the Zionist enemy," Houthi said. The Ansarullah leader finally called on the Yemeni people to pour into the streets on Friday to reiterate their solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian nation. Houthi describe the ongoing onslaught against Palestinians as a difficult and demanding test for the entire international community. "Israel's genocidal war and horrendous crimes against Palestinians are a litmus test of conscience and common human values for the entire international community," he said. "Silence on the ongoing genocide in Gaza means the loss of human dignity and the right to life," he said. "What the Israeli enemy is doing is in flagrant violation of bedrock principles, and founded on a poor and impaired vision for human societies." The Ansarullah chief referred to pro-Palestine student protests on college campuses across the United States and Europe, stating that the ongoing tragedy against the Palestinians had a significant impact on fostering awareness and unmasking the facts that Zionists had long been concealing. Houthi said US police treated pro-Palestine campus protesters like war criminals. He lamented the indifference and apathy of some countries towards the continued developments in Palestinian territories, saying the parties that collaborate with the Tel Aviv regime intend to ensnare Muslims. Houthi touched on Israeli forces' torture and execution of three elderly Palestinians from the same family in Gaza this week, saying the crimes "should awaken the human conscience and arouse a sense of responsibility". The Ansarullah leader said Palestinian refugees are targeted by US-built smart bombs, which are normally used in confrontations with professional armies. Elsewhere in his remarks, Houthi pointed to closures of the Rafah crossing and said the Zionist enemy prevents essential aid including food and medical supplies from entering Gaza as part of its targeted starvation campaign. He hailed Moroccan and Bahraini nations' solidarity with Palestinians amid the Gaza war, stressing that their unwavering support for the oppressed nation comes despite fierce opposition from the ruling regimes. The Ansarullah called upon all world nations to join a boycott campaign against Israeli products over the war in Gaza. Houthi then praised the resilience and perseverance of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, in the face of relentless Israeli offensives. The Palestinian resistance fighters have beefed up their military capabilities, and are employing subtle tactics to fight off invading Israeli troops, he said, adding the Israeli military has failed to recruit enough soldiers for its Gaza onslaught. Anti-Israeli retaliatory operations by Yemeni, Iraqi and Lebanese resistance fighters have also inflicted substantial losses on the occupying regime, he added. Houthi also lauded joint operations by Yemen's Armed Forces and fighters from The Islamic Resistance in Iraq against Israeli interests as highly effective. He said operations by Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement on Israeli military positions have seriously disrupted industrial activities in the northern Israeli occupied territories. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sanaa, July 12 (UNI) U.S. forces destroyed five Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea late Thursday. According to U.S. Central Command, the forces also destroyed two Houthi uncrewed aerial systems over the Red Sea and one system in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. "It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region. These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters more safe and secure," it said in a statement. Israel expands invasion after 'horrific massacres' in Gaza's Shujaiya Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 5:10 PM A trail of destruction is left as Israeli forces partially pull out of Gaza City's Shujayea district after a bloody two-week onslaught. Witnesses on Thursday said tanks and troops had moved into other Gaza City areas, and clashes between Israeli forces and persistent fighters were occurring. Explosions, artillery shelling and gunfire could be heard, they said. Plumes of smoke were seen rising over parts of the city. The Hamas resistance movement reported 45 airstrikes in the Gaza City area, as well as in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah. Several Palestinians lost their lives in fresh Israeli attacks on areas of al-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. At least 50 others were also killed in Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, where Israel had issued an evacuation order. Witnesses say people were shot dead by Israel's military while fleeing Gaza City. Other parts of the Palestinian territory have also seen new strikes. Israeli troops had pulled back from Gaza City's eastern district of Shujaiya leaving behind "more than 300 residential units and more than 100 businesses destroyed," Hamas said. The images showed Palestinians gathered around a destroyed and burned armored vehicle beneath a blackened building on a street carpeted with rubble. Mohammed Nairi said he and other residents returned to "immense destruction that defies description. All the houses were demolished." Another displaced resident said the district "lies in ruins." A spokesperson for the civil defense agency says more than 85 percent of the buildings in Gaza City's Shujayea neighborhood have become uninhabitable, making more than 120,000 residents now homeless. "We recovered more than 60 martyrs [bodies] and there are dozens of martyrs under the rubble of homes in the Shujayea neighborhood. We do not have an accurate number," said the spokesperson. "The occupation destroyed a medical clinic that provided health services to more than 60,000 Palestinians in Shujayea," he added. "Documented testimonies" have been taken that Israeli forces opened fire on residents in the neighborhood despite being in designated evacuation routes, he said. Israeli forces are now invading Gaza City's southern neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa and "destroying all aspects of life", said the spokesperson. Dozens of Palestinians reportedly lost their lives in Israeli attacks on the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City. Intense ground battles are also underway in the neighborhood. Hamas has released footage of its fighters hitting Israeli targets there. The regime has ordered Palestinians to evacuate. Gaza officials have called the order a form of psychological warfare against civilians because they have nowhere to go. On Wednesday, the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning "everyone in Gaza City" that the area would "remain a dangerous combat zone". The leaflets ordered residents to flee and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said up to 350,000 people were staying. The United Nations said the latest evacuations "will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times", and who face "critical levels of need". The escalation comes as a new round of ceasefire talks have got underway in Qatar and Egypt. Hamas says the increased Israeli military activity can torpedo the talks. Nearly 38,350 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in early October. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah launches drone strike against Israeli artillery position in occupied territories Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 1:46 PM Hezbollah fighters have launched a retaliatory drone strike against an Israeli artillery position in the northern flank of the occupied territories in response to the ongoing onslaught against Gaza. Hezbollah announced in a statement on Thursday that the group struck the newly installed headquarters of the Artillery Battalion Command of the Israeli military's 146th Division in the Western Galilee region, with a squadron of kamikaze drones. The statement highlighted that the aerial attack targeted command posts, the positions of the fire control crew as well and artillery positions, stressing that the targets were precisely hit. The drone strike also inflicted casualties on Israeli soldiers. The Lebanese resistance movement said the operation was in support of steadfast Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and resistance fighters in the coastal sliver, and was in retaliation for the Israeli shelling and airstrikes against southern Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters also targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of Hanita outpost with a barrage of rockets, achieving a direct hit. The resistance group said in a separate statement that it had shelled the newly developed technical equipment at the Israeli al-Malikiyah and Hadab Yarin military sites, hitting the designated targets accurately. Furthermore, Hezbollah launched a missile from southern Lebanon at the Israeli Hadab al-Bustan outpost, destroying the designated targets. Hezbollah has been carrying out almost daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions in retaliation for the regime's aggression against Lebanon and in solidarity with Palestinians. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 10: 'Axis of Resistance' operations against Israeli occupation Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 10:07 AM By Press TV Website Staff Amid Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 38,300 Palestinians so far, including around 17,000 children, resistance groups in Palestine and across the region continue their operations against the Tel Aviv regime and its Western backers. The major operations carried out by the Palestinian and regional resistance groups on Monday, July 10, are as follows: Al-Qassam Brigades' operations on July 10: Targeted three Israeli Merkava tanks with two Shuath explosives and an Al-Yassin 105 shell in the industrial area around the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in southern Gaza City. Detonated an anti-personnel explosive device on an Israeli engineering infantry force near the Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Mosque in the Brazil neighborhood, east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Sniped an Israeli soldier in the industrial area of the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Detonated two anti-personnel "Television" explosive devices on an Israeli military contingent in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, killing all personnel. Al-Quds Brigades' operations on July 10: Engaged in fierce clashes with a special Israeli military force inside a house in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, west of Gaza City, causing several casualties. Detonated several explosives on Israeli military vehicles and engaged in close-range combat with Israeli soldiers in the incursion areas of the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Sniped an Israeli soldier near Al-Mintar Hill, east of the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Targeted a group of Israeli soldiers with mortar shells in the industrial area of the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Targeted a group of Israeli soldiers and a convoy of military vehicles near Metro Mall on Shuhada Street, west of Gaza City, with mortar shells. Targeted gatherings of Israeli forces in Yabna camp, south of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, with mortar shells. Detonated explosives on three Israeli military vehicles using pre-planted ground explosives in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades' operations on July 10: Targeted a D9 military bulldozer with a pre-planted Asif explosive device west of Tal Al-Hawa in Gaza City. Targeted positions of Israeli forces and their military vehicles with a barrage of mortar shells in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers and military vehicles stationed at the Rafah crossing gate and its surroundings with two 107mm rockets and heavy mortar shells. Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades' operations on July 10: In a joint operation with Al-Quds Brigades, targeted the command headquarters of the Israeli military at the "Nahal Oz" military site with a barrage of 107-type rockets. Targeted Israeli military gatherings around the industrial headquarters in Gaza City with 60mm mortar shells. Mujahideen Brigades' operations on July 10: Targeted a gathering of Israeli forces advancing in Tal Al-Hawa with mortar shells. Al-Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades' operations on July 10: Targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers and a convoy of military vehicles penetrating the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood with 60mm mortar shells. Martyr Abdulqader Al-Husseini Brigades' operations on July 10: Targeted a gathering of Israeli forces near Al-Saleh Tower and Al-Aseel Roundabout in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood with mortar shells. Martyr Omar Al-Qasim Forces' operations on July 10: Targeted the invading Israeli forces near Burj Al-Salih and Al-Aseel Roundabout in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood with mortar shells. Hezbollah's operations on July 10: Targeted artillery positions in Zaoura in Syria's occupied Golan with dozens of Katyusha rockets. Targeted military buildings in the Shtola settlement with appropriate weapons. Targeted the headquarters of the Artillery Regiment of the 210th Division in Yardun Barracks with a barrage of drones. Targeted Israeli soldiers positioned between the Ramtha and Al-Samaqa sites in Lebanon's Kafr Shuba with missiles. Islamic Resistance in Iraq's operations on July 10: Targeted the Orot Rabin power generation station in the occupied Palestinian territories with a barrage of drones. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN warns Israel's Gaza evacuation order will cause 'mass suffering for Palestinian families' Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 8:27 AM The United Nations has warned that Israel's new Gaza evacuation order will exacerbate "mass suffering for Palestinian families", as more than 300,000 Palestinians are estimated to reside in the north of the besieged territory. In remarks at a news conference on Wednesday, UN secretary general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric described the level of fighting and destruction in Gaza in recent days as "truly shocking." "OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) warns that Israel's instruction for people to leave Gaza City will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced again and again," he said. Dujarric once again reiterated the world body's demand on the Israeli regime to "respect international humanitarian law." The UN official also gave an update from the humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, Muhannad Hadi, saying that aid deliveries "fall far short of the needs in Gaza" despite aid workers' efforts. Israel has now issued three evacuation orders for Gaza City and one for the south of the Palestinian territory. Gaza City residents have now been told to move to the central district of Dayr al-Balah, which is highly overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip. Hadi "witnessed firsthand" troubling scenes of public disorder, particularly at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Dujarric said, adding, "He saw groups of men with sticks waiting for trucks to leave the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza. All trucks he passed were badly damaged, with broken windshields, mirrors and hoods." Israel, which continues to flout a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, faces international condemnation amid its barbarous campaign in Gaza. Although the regime designated Dayr al-Balah and Zawaida as safe zones, the military continues to attack the areas. During the past 10 days, the occupying regime has issued instructions for hundreds of thousands of people in Khan Yunis in the south, Shujaya in central Gaza and several neighborhoods of Gaza City to leave. As a result, there has been an increase in the total number of the displaced from 1.7 million in May to an estimated 1.9 million now, according to the UN. OCHA said on Monday that 90 percent of Gazans had been displaced over the past months. Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians. Israel has killed over 38,000 Palestinians so far, including around 17,000 children. The regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S., NATO Allies Criticize Orban Amid Reports Of Trump Meeting By RFE/RL July 11, 2024 WASHINGTON -- The United States and NATO allies criticized Viktor Orban's secret meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, as the Hungarian prime minister prepared to travel after the NATO summit to visit with the presumptive Republican nominee in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump. Orban's unexpected visit to Russia, which in February 2022 launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine that NATO has opposed, was seen as a rogue move by the leader of a NATO country. Orban's opposition to Ukraine's NATO bid has been watched closely during the summit, but allies said on July 11 that they did not see it denting Kyiv's eventual alliance membership. The Hungarian leader, who took over the six-month rotating EU Presidency at the start of July, made a secret trip to Moscow to discuss with Putin an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine without informing the bloc or NATO allies. The visit came on the eve of the July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. "The U.S. position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians' consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States," Biden's national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters July 11 on the sidelines of the summit. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis criticized Orban's visit to Moscow, telling reporters at the summit on July 11 that the Hungarian leader does not represent the opinion of the European Union or NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olah Scholz also expressed frustration with Orban. Macron said it was legitimate for Orban to travel to Russia as the Hungarian prime minister, but not on behalf of the European Union. Orban, Landsbergis, Macron and Scholz were among the leaders and top officials from all 32 NATO countries taking part in the annual summit, where the main topic of discussion was military aid for Ukraine. On July 10, Orban said he would not sign on to the so-called Ukraine Compact, a shared pledge among more than 20 NATO to support Ukraine both now and for the long-term. In a video statement posted to his X account, the Hungarian prime minister said that NATO was "behaving more and more like a war organization," citing the alliance's military support for Ukraine. Orban is reportedly flying to Florida after the summit to meet with Trump. The Republican contender has claimed that, should he win the election, he would negotiate a deal between Ukraine and Russia before his January 2025 inauguration. He has not given any details about his alleged peace plan. The Hungarian leader, who recently met Trump in Florida in March, has made clear that he backs the Republican candidate in the 2024 election. The possible return of Trump to the presidency has partially overshadowed the 2024 summit. During his four years in the presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump repeatedly criticized NATO members for their failure to meet the defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and even raised the idea of pulling the United States out of the alliance. During a campaign rally on July 10, Trump took pride in having grilled NATO members and spoke of his first days in office in 2017. "I didn't know what the hell NATO was too much before. But it didn't take me long to figure it out -- like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they were not paying. We were paying. We were paying almost fully for NATO. And I said that's unfair," he said. Last month during a podcast interview, Trump blamed the war on Ukraine's possible NATO membership, raising concerns that he may block the country from joining the alliance as part of a peace deal. Hungary has also raised doubts about Ukraine's membership in the alliance, saying it risks open conflict with Russia. "Ukraine's admission wouldn't strengthen but weaken the alliance's unity, as there are completely different viewpoints on their membership," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on July 11. In the communique reached during the summit, NATO members said that Ukraine's path into NATO was "irreversible." When asked about the potential Orban-Trump meeting, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it "doesn't undermine or reduce the importance of what we have agreed" at the summit. Stoltenberg also said he did not think a change in leadership in Washington would result in the United States leaving the alliance, especially as the threat from China grows. "The reality is that NATO makes the United States stronger and safer, and this is a strong argument for the United States to continue to support and remain a loyal and committed NATO ally," Stoltenberg said. The NATO chief also said that Trump's biggest complaint -- that of allies' failure to meet defense spending targets -- has been significantly addressed, with 23 members now spending 2 percent or more of GDP. Just 9 members were at the target when Trump left office. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/orban-trump-nato-russia- ukraine-war/33032890.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bosnia Again Divided Over Srebrenica Commemoration By RFE/RL's Balkan Service July 11, 2024 POTOCARI, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Thousands of people have marked the 29th anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre -- Europe's only acknowledged genocide since World War II -- with the burial of the remains of 14 victims identified over the last year. The ceremony on July 11 saw victims -- whose ages ranged from 17 to 68 when they died -- laid to rest in the 24th collective funeral in the village of Potocari, just north of Srebrenica to commemorate the more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb forces in the closing months of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. More than 6,750 of the estimated 8,300 victims have been interred at the Potocari Memorial Center. Ramiza Hasanovic told RFE/RL that she identified the remains of her relative, 17-year-old Beriz Mujic, that "the truth can't be hidden" over the July 1995 massacre, which has been ruled an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). So far, more than 50 individuals have been sentenced to a total of some 700 years in prison for their roles in the Srebrenica genocide. Still, the country remains divided over the commemoration. July 11 has been designated a day of mourning in the Bosnian entity of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Federation. Two days earlier, the country's Council of Ministers failed to agree on a resolution to observe a day of mourning throughout the country, as ministers from the ethnic Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, voted against the proposal. A national day of mourning has not been observed to commemorate the victims of Srebrenica since 2019. A commemoration will also be held at the United Nations in New York. The General Assembly in May designated July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Srebrenica. The resolution had sparked protests and a lobbying campaign by Serbia's president and the Bosnian Serb leadership to block the adoption of the resolution, which was sponsored by Germany and Rwanda with 32 co-sponsors, including the United States, France, Britain, and Italy. More than 50 individuals have been sentenced by various courts to a total of 700 years in prison for genocide and war crimes in connection with the events in Srebrenica. An international tribunal in The Hague convicted former Bosnian-Serb military commander Ratko Mladic of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in 2017, sentencing him to life in prison. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/bosnia-srebrenica-genocide- serbs-massacre/33030521.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Eighth Anniversary of the Philippines-PRC South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal Ruling US Department of State Press Statement Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State July 11, 2024 Eight years ago, a unanimous Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention determined that the People's Republic of China's (PRC) expansive South China Sea maritime claims are inconsistent with international law. In its ruling, the Tribunal firmly rejected any PRC territorial or maritime claim to areas determined by the Tribunal to be part of the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. As provided under the Convention, the 2016 arbitral decision is final and legally binding on the PRC and the Philippines. Over the past year, the PRC's use of water cannons, dangerous maneuvers, and destructive tactics - including ramming, forcible towing, and boarding that has resulted in damage to Philippine vessels and injury to Philippine service members - has routinely interfered with the lawful exercise of high seas freedoms in areas where the Arbitral Tribunal determined the PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claims. The PRC's actions reflect a blatant disregard for international law as well as the safety and livelihoods of Filipinos. The United States remains deeply concerned about the PRC's assertion of "territorial sovereignty" over vast areas that are clearly within the maritime jurisdiction of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei, and where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply under international law. Upholding the international law of the sea, as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, is in the interest of the entire international community and remains vital to the peace, security, and prosperity of all nations. We continue to call on the PRC to abide by the 2016 arbitral ruling, to cease its dangerous and destabilizing conduct, and to comport its conduct as well as its territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea to the international law of the sea as reflected in the Convention. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sanctions on Individuals and Entities Contributing to Violence and Instability in the West Bank US Department of State Press Statement Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson July 11, 2024 The United States has consistently opposed actions that undermine stability in the West Bank and the prospects for peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Today, we are imposing sanctions on three Israeli individuals and five entities connected to acts of violence against civilians in the West Bank. One of the targets of today's sanctions action is Lehava, an organization led by U.S.-designated Ben Zion Gopstein that has been involved in acts of violent extremism. Lehava's members have engaged in repeated acts of violence against Palestinians, often targeting sensitive or volatile areas. Additionally, we are imposing sanctions on four outposts that are owned or controlled by U.S.-designated individuals who have weaponized them as bases for violent actions to displace Palestinians. Outposts like these have been used to disrupt grazing lands, limit access to wells, and launch violent attacks against neighboring Palestinians. The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel's own security. 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 financial sanctions actions were taken pursuant to Executive Order 14115, "Imposing Certain Sanctions on Persons Undermining Peace, Security, and Stability in the West Bank. The Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) concurrently issued an alert related to the financing of Israeli extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. This alert supplements the one issued February 1, 2024 and provides additional red flags to assist U.S. financial institutions in identifying and reporting suspicious activity that finances West Bank violence. For more information, please see the Department of State's fact sheet and FinCEN Alert. Financial institutions with questions about the content of today's supplemental alert should contact the FinCEN Regulatory Support Section at frc@fincen.gov. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Designation of Individuals and Entities Contributing to Violence and Instability in the West Bank US Department of State Fact Sheet Office of the Spokesperson July 11, 2024 The United States continues to act against those who undermine peace, security, and stability in the West Bank to hold them to account. The Department of State is imposing sanctions on the individuals and entities below, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14115 , for being involved in violence or threats of violence targeting civilians, seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, or actions that threaten the peace, stability and security of the West Bank; or being owned or controlled by an individual designated under this order. ISASCHAR MANNE (MANNE) is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(1) of E.O. 14115 for being a foreign person who is responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in an act of violence or threat of violence targeting civilians, affecting the West Bank; and pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(4) for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, affecting the West Bank. MANNE FARM OUTPOST (MANNE FARM OUTPOST) is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(iv) of E.O. 14115 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, MANNE; and pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(4) for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, affecting the West Bank. MANNE founded and established MANNE FARM OUTPOST in the South Hebron Hills in 2020 after seizing 150 hectares of land, this number has nearly doubled. MANNE FARM OUTPOST was established on pastureland belonging to the Palestinian community, and settlers from this outpost regularly attack community shepherds and prevent their access to pastureland through acts of violence. LEHAVA is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(iv) of E.O. 14115 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, BEN ZION GOPSTEIN, a person whose property and interests in property is blocked pursuant to E.O. 14115; pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(A) of E.O. 14115 for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, any of the following actions including directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing, or failing to enforce policies that threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank, and; pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(1) for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in an act of violence or threat of violence targeting civilians, affecting the West Bank. LEHAVA is a nonprofit organization whose Hebrew name translates to "flame" but is an acronym for "preventing assimilation in the Holy Land." LEHAVA has grown into the largest violent extremist organization in Israel, with chapters in every city and more than 10,000 registered members. LEHAVA's members have engaged in acts of violence against Palestinians, affecting the West Bank. MEITARIM FARM is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(iv) for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, YINON LEVI, a person whose property and interests in property is blocked pursuant to E.O. 14115 and pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(4) for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, affecting the West Bank. MEITARIM FARM is expanding into plots of land and dispossessing the areas from local Palestinian families through activities aimed at expelling residents. YINON LEVI is responsible for the daily operations of MEITARIM FARM and the actions of his employees in the surrounding area. HAMAHOCH FARM is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(iv) for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, NERIYA BEN PAZI, a person whose property and interests in property is blocked pursuant to E.O. 14115. NERIYA'S FARM is being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(iv) for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, NERIYA BEN PAZI, a person whose property and interests in property is blocked pursuant to E.O. 14115 and pursuant to section 1(a)(i)(B)(4) for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, affecting the West Bank. NERIYA BEN PAZI owns and controls HAMAHOCH FARM and NERIYA'S FARM and their operations. NERIYA'S FARM was established adjacent to the lands of the Palestinian village of Taybeh, taking up hundreds of acres of land and preventing Palestinian farmers from using their fields. Settlers from NERIYA'S FARM have prevented access to pasturage and water sources, destroyed crops, approached houses and threatened Palestinian residents, and disturbed the peace in the area. HAMAHOCH FARM was established by NERIYA BEN PAZI and other violent settler activists around 2023. REUT BEN HAIM (BEN HAIM) and AVIAD SHLOMO SARID (SARID) are being designated pursuant to section 1(a)(ii)(A) for being or having been leaders or officials of U.S.-designated TZAV 9, an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, actionsincluding directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing, or failing to enforce policiesthat threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank, relating to their tenure. BEN HAIM and SARID are leaders and co-founders of TZAV 9. TZAV 9 is a violent extremist organization that opposes aid being sent to Gaza and has previously blocked humanitarian aid convoys travelling towards the Gaza strip. BEN HAIM is also a chairperson of TZAV 9 and SARID is responsible for volunteer coordination and building new departments within the movement. Financial Sanctions Implications As a result of today's action, and in accordance with E.O. 14115, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Additionally, all individuals or entities that have ownership, either directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. All transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons are prohibited unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC or exempt. These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. Additionally, the entry of designated individuals into the United States is suspended pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 8693. Petitions for removal from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List may be sent to: OFAC.Reconsideration@treasury.gov. Petitioners may also refer to the Department of State's Delisting Guidance page. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The UK remains concerned about persistent levels of violence in Colombia: UK statement at the UN Security Council Statement by UK Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on Colombia. 11 July 2024 President Petro, first let me thank you and all our interlocutors in Colombia for hosting the Security Council's very valuable visit in February. We welcome your continued commitment to full implementation of the 2016 Agreement and to build sustainable peace in Colombia. The next two years of your Government will be critical. So we thank you for you report and your update on your fast track proposals. The 2016 Agreement is a blueprint to transform Colombia and its territories which requires a whole of society effort. Now is the time to build consensus and accelerate efforts across all three pillars. We welcome the reinvigoration of high-level coordination mechanisms of the Agreement and we urge collective action between the Government and the State entities to demonstrate that commitment to peace delivers for all Colombians. We welcome Colombia's continued focus on addressing the root causes of conflict. We remain concerned about persistent levels of violence and threats, particularly in Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Caqueta, and reports that areas for training and reintegration are closing due to insecurity. We strongly condemn the targeting of peace signatories, of human rights defenders, women and social leaders and indigenous communities. We call on Colombia to ensure their safety and security, as well as bringing the perpetrators to justice. We encourage Colombia to use the security guarantee mechanisms established in the Agreement and we look forward to the implementation of the public policy to dismantle illegal armed groups. As you take forward building peace through dialogue, civil society participation is essential. We welcome the agreement with the ELN on the 25 May for their inclusion in the process. We also call upon the ELN to re-commit to ending the use of kidnapping and take concrete steps to protect communities. We note the recent divisions within the so-called EMC. And we welcome and recognise that some entities remain committed to the ceasefire. We call upon the EMC to refrain from violence and demonstrate their commitment to peace through dialogue. President Petro, SRSG Ruiz Massieu, members of the Council, the United Kingdom will continue to partner and support Colombia along its path to sustainable peace. Now is the time to drive forward implementation to achieve lasting change. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza: WHO chief highlights health risks of latest evacuation orders 11 July 2024 - More Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza are further threatening the health of people in the embattled enclave, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said during a media briefing in Geneva on Thursday. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists the Al-Ahli and Patient Friendly Hospitals in northern Gaza are the latest facilities unable to function due to fighting nearby. He said patients from Al-Ahli have been evacuated to the Indonesian Hospital which is now operating at three times its capacity. Thousands awaiting evacuation "Over 10,000 patients still need medical evacuation for treatment that cannot be provided in Gaza," he said, stressing that "multiple evacuation corridors are needed urgently to the West Bank, Egypt and Jordan." Tedros noted that almost the entire population of Gaza is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with nearly one in four at risk of starvation. Meanwhile, very few supplies are entering the enclave, and only five WHO trucks were allowed in last week. Aid stuck at the border Tedros said more than 34 trucks are waiting at the El Arish crossing with Egypt, 850 pallets of supplies are awaiting collection, and a further 40 trucks are standing at Ismailiya, also in Egypt. He called for restrictions on supplies entering Gaza to be lifted immediately, saying "the people of Gaza who have nothing to do with this conflict must not be the ones who pay the price for it." 'Perfect breeding ground for diseases' The WHO Director for the Eastern Mediterranean region, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, also briefed reporters on her 11-day visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, describing the situation in Gaza as "very concerning on both a human and humanitarian level." Lack of fuel is compromising all health and humanitarian operations there, she said, with running sewage and garbage in the demolished streets and the smell of fermented waste permeating the air. "This situation is providing the perfect breeding ground for diseases to spread, leading to an increase in cases of acute watery diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections among many others," she said. Breakdown in law and order "Ongoing violence and the breakdown of law and order are devastating an already crippled city and creating an extremely high-risk environment - not just for aid workers, but for everyone in Gaza," she added. The breakdown of law and order also makes it nearly impossible to manage gender-based violence, exposing displaced Palestinians to additional life- threatening risks. Although WHO has expanded its medical supply chain for Gaza to respond to the increasing hostilities and soaring needs, much of this aid remains "stuck on the wrong side of the borders", she said, echoing Tedros. "And even when supplies do enter the breakdown - again, I repeat - of law and order makes it challenging for our teams to deliver them to hospitals that urgently need them," she added. Open the borders Dr. Balkhy also spoke about her visit to the IMC Field Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, which has been relocated twice and tripled its capacity over the past few months. She met a severely malnourished seven-year-old girl who had been evacuated from the north three months ago and is among the 10,000 patients awaiting further evacuation outside Gaza so they can receive specialized care for conditions such as trauma injuries and chronic diseases. While in the region, the senior WHO official also held meetings with the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, and UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland, and they all agreed on the need to address the suffering in Gaza. "We need Member States to swiftly fulfill their global diplomacy mandate and expedite an immediate truce," she said, speaking from Cairo, Egypt. "We need all borders, including Rafah border, to open and allow fuel, medical supplies and other essential humanitarian aid to flow in, and we need those who require medical care to be able to exit." West Bank attacks continue Dr. Balkhy also travelled to the West Bank and witnessed the rapidly worsening health situation there. She visited the Jenin General Hospital and the clinic run by UN Palestine refugee agency UNRWA, and learned about health workers who were killed or injured in repeated attacks. She also saw extensive damage to infrastructure and medical equipment. In the face of damaged roads and access restrictions, WHO and partners, including the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, have set up mobile medical services to reach people at the point of injury, she said. The UN agency has also supported mass casualty management training and response planning at the Jenin General Hospital and six other hospitals in the West Bank. "Our goal is seamless and effective trauma care across all levels, based on lessons from Gaza," she said. Support regional health systems Dr. Balkhy also stressed the need to strengthen the already fragile health systems in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. She voiced extreme concern over the escalation of violence along the border between Lebanon and Israel, which has resulted in increased deaths and injuries amongst civilians and health workers, as well as displacement and damage to health infrastructure. "In our region entire generations have grown up knowing nothing but conflict and deprivation," she said. "Addressing the root political causes of these emergencies is not just a humanitarian necessity, but a strategic investment in regional stability and security." Food rations reduced The UN and aid partners continue their response efforts as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza wears on. The World Food Programme (WFP) has assisted about a quarter of a million people so far this month and provided rations to over a million people in June, said UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, speaking in New York. "However, limited food stocks in central and southern Gaza forced WFP to reduce rations last month, with some areas only receiving wheat flour," he said. Supplies running short WFP has also worked with dozens of community kitchens to provide roughly 1.8 million hot meals to people in central and southern Gaza, as well as Gaza City, since the start of July. "But the agency warns that the supplies needed for this assistance will be depleted in just days unless additional stocks are received," Mr. Dujarric said. Meanwhile, humanitarians are providing critical support to displaced people crossing from northern to southern Gaza in the wake of the latest Israeli order for people to leave Gaza city. This includes water, hot meals, food parcels, and health and nutrition support. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address World News in Brief: Concern mounts over fate of El Fasher, call for consensus over South Sudan elections, indigenous rights in Brazil 11 July 2024 - UN humanitarians "remain gravely concerned" over the daily fighting that continues to rage in and around the Sudanese city of El Fasher, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday. Residential areas, markets, hospitals and sites holding displaced people are all being impacted, he told reporters at the daily briefing in New York. As many as 329,000 people were displaced during the past three months from the last remaining city under Government control in Darfur, according to the UN migration agency (IOM). Civilians must be protected and those fleeing the fighting must be afforded safe passage, said Mr. Dujarric. "It is critical that the parties de-escalate to prevent further suffering for civilians and to enable the unimpeded delivery of life-saving assistance", he stressed. Response continues "Meanwhile, we and our partners continue our efforts to respond to those needs, including by trying to get health kits to areas around El Fasher, including in gathering sites for civilians." The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is also strengthening nutrition support at displacement sites in El Fasher, as well as the towns of Tawila and Dar As Salam in North Darfur state. Conflict is also intensifying in Sennar state - close to the border with Ethiopia - causing further civilian suffering and more serious rights violations, UN humanitarians have warned. According to the UN aid coordination office (OCHA), more than 136,000 people have been displaced as clashes between the rival Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia spread across the state. Civilians are facing multiple protection risks, including widespread looting. Reports indicate that the RSF has occupied Sinja Teaching Hospital, using patients and staff as human shields and disrupting medical services. Forced displacement has spread to neighbouring states including Gedaref, Blue Nile and Kassala, where humanitarian partners are scaling up their response. But aid teams have warned that the rainy season has begun and conditions at displacement sites are dire. OCHA is already working with state authorities and humanitarian partners to address the crisis. But it warned that the situation is getting worse as protection concerns grow, with civilians reporting looting of shops and markets, leaving them without basic needs. UN Mission in South Sudan calls for consensus on electoral roadmap The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) published a joint statement on Thursday urging the parties to the long-delayed peace agreement "to reach consensus" on the best way forward for holding free and fair elections across the world's youngest nation. UNMISS, the African Union Mission in South Sudan, and the regional bloc known as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) began their statement by congratulating the country on its 13th anniversary of independence. But they urged the Government and political rivals who six years ago signed the so-called Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict to "provide clarity on the electoral roadmap." Reflect 'will of the electorate' They noted the numerous different positions being adopted and expressed on transition measures, saying that while it was "the sovereign prerogative" of South Sudanese leaders to decide, the pathway to successful elections must happen "in accordance with agreed processes, procedures, and timelines." National elections are due to be held in December but there is no agreement yet on the basic ground rules for moving forward. Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese died and millions were displaced during the 2013-18 war between Government forces and rival militia but although some issues have been resolved, many remain outstanding. The AU mission, IGAD and UNMISS appeal for everyone to work collectively: "In this regard, the partners reiterate their full support for all efforts to ultimately deliver peaceful, free, fair, and credible elections that reflect the will of the electorate." Rights expert calls on Brazil to protect indigenous rights amid controversial new law The UN is calling on the Brazilian Supreme Court and Senate to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples to lands, territories and natural resources. UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent rights expert Jose Francisco Cali Tzay is urging immediate action to suspend the new law that can dispossess or evict indigenous communities. Mr. Cali Tzay praised the Brazilian Supreme Court for rejecting the 'Marco Temporal' doctrine that requires Indigenous Peoples to prove they were occupying their lands on October 5, 1988. But he said he was very concerned over the hasty passage of the new law by Congress that effectively brings back the doctrine. Beyond the bounds The rights expert argued that the law goes against international human rights standards that protect indigenous rights without time limits. He stressed the importance of indigenous lands for biodiversity and climate balance and warned that mining, gold exploitation and cattle breeding can cause significant environmental damage. He also called on the Supreme Court to suspend the law until it's declared constitutional. Special Rapporteurs and other Human Rights Council-appointed rights experts are independent of any government, receive no salary for their work and serve in their individual capacity. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS San Diego to Forward Deploy to Japan US Navy - Press Release 11 July 2024 The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD 22) will move to Sasebo, Japan, to join the Forward Deployed Naval Forces Japan (FDNF-J), the U.S. Navy announced today. This will be executed as a permanent change of station for the crew and family members. San Diego will replace USS Green Bay (LPD 20), which has been forward deployed to Sasebo for a decade. Green Bay will return to the United States at its new homeport of San Diego. The forward presence of San Diego supports the United States' commitment to the defense of Japan, enhances the national security of the United States and improves its ability to protect strategic interests. San Diego will directly support the Defense Strategic Guidance to posture the most capable units forward in the Indo-Pacific Region. The United States values Japan's contributions to the peace, security and stability of the Indo-Pacific and its long-term commitment and hospitality in hosting U.S. forces forward deployed there. These forces, along with their counterparts in the Japan Self-Defense Forces, make up the core capabilities needed by the alliance to meet our common strategic objectives. The security environment in the Indo-Pacific requires that the U.S. Navy station the most capable ships forward. This posture allows the most rapid response times possible for maritime and joint forces and brings our most capable ships with the greatest amount of striking power and operational capability to bear in the timeliest manner. Maintaining an FDNF capability with the most advanced ships supports the United States' commitment to the defense of Japan and the security and stability of the vital Indo-Pacific region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO, Pacific partners strengthen ties at summit By Carla Babb July 11, 2024 NATO set out Thursday to deepen relations with key Indo-Pacific partners, meeting with leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea a day after all 32 NATO allies called out China for its support of Russia's illegal war against Ukraine in a sternly worded communique. During a working session, NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners strengthened plans and developed strategies to face growing threats in the Pacific region, including North Korean missile launches and China's steady stream of technology and raw materials to Russia that have allowed President Vladimir Putin to replace his losses on the battlefield. U.S. officials said the Indo-Pacific partners' attendance sent a message to China that democratic alliances will stand up for the rule of law, no matter where an aggressor tries to break it. "NATO also recognizes that threats from the Indo-Pacific, whether it's the DPRK [North Korea] or the PRC [China] supporting Russia in their aggression against Ukraine, we cannot avoid," Jason Israel, National Security Council senior director for defense policy, Israel told VOA. In a final communique signed by all 32 allies, NATO called China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war and urged Beijing to cease its support. "The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the leaders wrote. They also expressed concerns about Beijing's space capabilities and nuclear arsenal. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday told reporters that "China is propping up Russia's war economy" and "increas[ing] the threat Russia holds to Europe and NATO security." "China provides dual-use equipment, microelectronics and a lot of other tools which are enabling Russia to build the missiles, to build bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they're using to attack Ukraine," he added. Asked by VOA whether the statement was a strong enough message to deter China from continuing to support Russia, Stoltenberg replied in the news conference that Wednesday's declaration was "the strongest message that NATO allies have ever sent on China's contributions to Russia's illegal war against Ukraine." Some allies on Thursday cautioned the alliance against using the narrowly worded communique as a springboard to make NATO appear "anti-China." "NATO is a defense alliance. ... We can't organize it into an anti-China bloc," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungarian state television on the sidelines of the summit. However, defense expert Bradley Bowman, the senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Military and Political Power, said calling out China was long overdue for the bloc. "Europeans are dying in Europe in a war of aggression from the Kremlin with the support of Iran, North Korea and China, period," he said. U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said NATO must counter Russia's ramping up of defense production made possible by help from China, North Korea and Iran by continuing to invest more in Ukraine's and NATO's own defense production. "We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind," Biden said. China insists that it does not provide military aid to Russia, despite maintaining strong trade ties with Moscow. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian accused NATO of "breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address West preparing for arms race with Russia, its backers By Jeff Seldin July 11, 2024 While much of the focus at this week's NATO summit in Washington has been on providing additional support for Ukraine, some Western officials are equally intent on confronting another challenge unleashed by Russia's invasion: a nascent arms race with global implications. The officials argue it is no longer enough to try to ensure Ukraine has the weapons and systems it needs to keep pace with Russia's unrelenting attacks. They say NATO must simultaneously prepare to outspend, outpace and outproduce the fledgling alliance that has kept the Russian military on the move. "There is no time to lose," a NATO official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the growing defense cooperation among Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. "This must be a key priority for all our allies, because it is not just about spending more," the official said. "It is also on getting those capabilities." Officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia's military by sending Moscow raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems. In April and May, the United States and Britain levied new sanctions against Iranian companies and officials involved in the production of drones for the Russian military. And declassified U.S. intelligence has noted Russia's use of North Korean ballistic missiles, while South Korean officials said earlier this year that Pyongyang has so far sent Russia at least 6,700 containers that could contain more than 3 million artillery shells. The NATO official who spoke to VOA said the support from China, Iran and North Korea has significantly altered Russia's posture on the battlefield, rendering intelligence assessments that Russia's military "will require years of rebuilding" obsolete. "When you look at the assessments of the pace of reconstitution of the Russian armed forces and the Russian defense industrial and technological base, those assessments were made without taking into account how much China would be stepping in," the official said. And there are concerns this is just the beginning. The prospect for increased cooperation between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran "essentially underlines the urgency of the task at hand," the official said. Even the White House, late Thursday, acknowledged the need to take on the growing alliance. "It is a concern. It is a concern that you have both China, North Korea, Russia, Iran - countries that are not necessarily coordinated in the past - looking to figure out how they can have impact," U.S. President Joe Biden said during a news conference. The president also said a strategy to disrupt their efforts is being put into place, but he declined to share details publicly. Already though, some U.S. officials have taken to calling Russia, China, North Korea and Iran a new "axis of evil." "We ought to act accordingly," Admiral John Aquilino, former commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, told lawmakers in March. Some analysts have also sounded alarms, pointing to signs that the defense relationship between Russia and the other countries is moving beyond a series of bilateral efforts to support Moscow's war in Ukraine. "What we are seeing now is ... an intensification, a deepening of these strategic partnerships," said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "Whether or not they're 100% aligned all the time, every day, what's important is that on the strategic capabilities that they're building in partnership, they are aligned," Goldberg, a U.S. National Security Council official under former President Donald Trump, told VOA. "Our response has to view them as an axis, not individual parts." But how quickly that axis evolves into a true rival to NATO is less certain. "There are still significant tension points between the four countries that prevent the formation of a more cohesive alliance," said Michelle Grise, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. "Within the Russia-Iran relationship, for example, friction points include competition for energy markets and for influence in the Caucasus, as well as at least historically divergent approaches to Israel," Grise told VOA. "The Russia-China-North Korea-Iran axis poses a serious threat to U.S. and NATO interests, but I don't think this axis is an unsurmountable rival," she said. "To form a more cohesive alliance, they'll have to translate their shared opposition to the Western-led international order into a coherent, shared vision for the future, which I expect they'll struggle to do." NATO allies, however, are not ready to take such struggles by the evolving Russian-Chinese-North Korean-Iranian axis for granted. The U.S., Germany, Spain and others have already begun to produce interceptors for Patriot air defense batteries in Europe while the U.S. and Turkey have embarked on an effort to produce 155 millimeter artillery shells in the southern U.S. state of Texas. On Thursday, Biden said based on discussions during the NATO summit, more is coming. "We talked about how both the EU [European Union] as well as NATO has to be able to begin to build their own ammunition capacity, has to be able to generate their own capacity to provide for weapons," he told reporters. "We're going to be in a position where the West is going to become the industrial base for it," Biden added. "We will have the ability to have all the defensive weapons that we need." The U.S. president said some European allies are also preparing to impose costs on China and disengage economically for as long as Beijing provides Moscow with the components and materiel it needs to continue its war against Ukraine. But even before Biden's comments, some Western officials said based on the efforts already underway, there is reason to believe the West can retain an upper hand. "I think that the steps and the progress we're making are really delivering results," the NATO official told VOA, adding, they "wouldn't be overly pessimistic." "On issues like ammunitions, you're starting to see the ramping up actually materializing," the official said. "And I think if we look at the year to come, we're going to have much better, much better numbers." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel sends negotiators to Cairo for cease-fire talks By VOA News July 11, 2024 Israeli officials announced on Thursday that negotiators will be sent to Cairo for additional discussions surrounding a proposed cease-fire deal in Gaza. Mediators from the U.S., Egypt and Qatar have been pushing for a cease-fire deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict, with news reports saying the parties are moving closer to an agreement. Hamas agreed that Israel wouldn't need to commit to a permanent end of the war in Gaza as a part of a cease-fire agreement, a previously key demand of the militant group. The U.S.-designated terror group is advocating for mediators to promise to take part in further negotiations until a permanent cease-fire deal is agreed upon. This would be done in return for releasing Israeli hostages taken October 7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he won't agree to a deal that would require the country to stop its military campaign before Israel can eliminate Hamas. "The negotiating team returned last night from a four-way summit with the mediators in Doha. Discussed at the meeting were the clauses of the deal on returning the hostages and ways to implement the outline, while ensuring all the objectives of the war," read a statement from the prime minister's office, which also said an Israeli delegation was heading to Cairo for continued talks. The negotiations come as fighting continued Thursday in Gaza City, in northern Gaza, a day after Israel issued an evacuation order calling on civilians there to leave. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said Wednesday the latest evacuation "will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times." "These civilians must be protected, and their essential needs must be met, whether they flee or whether they stay," Dujarric said. The World Food Program posted on X Wednesday that there was "intensified military action" in Gaza City, resulting in "escalating humanitarian needs." WFP said the situation is "unpredictable and volatile." Also Thursday, the Israeli military carried out airstrikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah targeting what it said were militants who had fired rockets from the area. The Israel Defense Forces said it successfully intercepted about five rockets launched from Rafah. Israeli forces also intercepted "suspicious aerial targets" that crossed into Israeli territory from southern Lebanon on Thursday, while two drones following the same path fell in Israel's Galilee area. Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah have been clashing across the border throughout the war in Gaza, raising fears of an expanded conflict in the region. 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 that the military says are dead. Israel has since responded with an air and land assault on Hamas-governed Gaza, which both sides agree has killed more than 38,200 people. Israel says the majority of the dead are combatants. The Hamas-run Health Ministry says 38,000 have died, the majority of them women and children, but it does not estimate how many of the dead were combatants. Nearly three-quarters of Gaza's 2.3 million population is displaced, and nearly the entire population is at risk of famine, according to the U.N. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Regional court: Nigeria violated human rights during police brutality protests By Timothy Obiezu July 11, 2024 A regional African court has ruled that Nigerian authorities violated the rights of protesters during mass demonstrations against police brutality in 2020. The protests, dubbed End SARS, called for disbanding the Special Anti-Robbery Squad after allegations of torture, extortion and extrajudicial killings. A coalition of human rights activists and organizations sued in late 2021. Applicants Obianuju Udeh, Perpetual Kamsi and Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka alleged severe human rights violations by state agents as they put down the street protests. In its verdict issued Wednesday, a three-member panel of the Court of Justice - linked with the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS - determined that Nigerian authorities had used disproportionate force in their response to the protests. The panel said security agents had violated the African Charter on Human and People's Rights as well as several international human rights laws. Bolaji Gabari, lead counsel representing the applicants, welcomed the verdict. "Justice is finally achieved and obtained. ... What we were really looking for was to get an affirmation that this really happened," Gabari said. "This judgment just affirms what we have been saying. The other applicants that came forward initially considered their safety and withdrew." The ECOWAS court ordered the Nigerian government to compensate each applicant with $6,400, or about 10 million naira; to investigate the rights abuses; and to show progress on holding offenders responsible within six months. The court also stated that the use of live rounds against protesters at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020, caused fear, and that the Nigerian government did not present evidence refuting those allegations. Authorities have not responded to the court ruling, and a national police spokesperson did not take VOA's calls for comment. But human rights groups like Amnesty International and some activists welcomed the court's decision as a significant victory for human rights in Nigeria. Nelson Olanipekun, a human rights lawyer and founder of Citizens' Gavel, a civic organization that seeks to improve the pace of justice delivery through the use of technology, said, "The ECOWAS court judgment came at a right time, especially now that Nigerians are going through tough times. And there's also a regional move where Africans largely are recognizing their power as citizens. For example, what happened in Kenya people demanding accountability from their government was also similar to what happened during End SARS." Olanipekun said, however, that more work needs to be done. "What is the next move? Since End SARS, even though the police have tried, there has been reoccurrence of incidents of police brutality in the country," he said. "It has not abated. There's no sufficient accountability and oversight over government organizations. Also, the Nigerian court has been weak, inefficient and corrupt. They're not independent enough." Thousands of young Nigerians poured into the streets in October 2020 to demand the dissolution of the SARS unit, but the protest soon expanded to call for better governance before it was forcefully quelled on October 20. Last October, Amnesty International said at least 15 End SARS protesters languished in a Lagos jail while activists marked the third anniversary of the protests. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Readout of President Biden's Meeting with NATO's Indo-Pacific Partners July 11, 2024 On the margins of the NATO Summit, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. briefly met today with President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of New Zealand, and Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles of Australia. The leaders discussed the increasing connectivity between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security, noting that challenges in one region affect the other. They strongly condemned Russia's war against Ukraine, and each pledged to continue to support Ukraine in its self-defense. President Biden welcomed the courageous support to Ukraine offered by each of NATO's Indo-Pacific Partners. The leaders also strongly condemned the unlawful arms transfers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to Russia, which undermine peace and stability in both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions. They expressed grave concern over the increasing military and economic cooperation between Russia and the DPRK, which violates multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. The leaders also discussed their shared concerns over the People's Republic of China's support to Russia's defense industrial base. President Biden welcomed the growing contributions of NATO's Indo-Pacific Partners to global security, including their investments in defense, support to Ukraine, and strong leadership in the Indo-Pacific. The leaders welcomed the four new flagship projects between NATO and its Indo-Pacific Partners, focused on support to Ukraine; cyber defense; exchanging information on the challenges posted by disinformation; and artificial intelligence. They agreed to further build on these efforts in the months and years ahead. The leaders welcomed that Secretary Blinken and the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea intend to meet later this year to advance further cooperation among our countries. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Polar Partnership "ICE Pact" Alongside Finland and Canada July 11, 2024 Today, the leaders of the United States, Canada, and Finland announced their intent to create the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact, which is a trilateral arrangement to collaborate on the production of polar icebreakers and other capabilities, alongside United States' allies and partners, labor, and industry. This collaboration is intended to strengthen the shipbuilding industry and industrial capacity of each nation - and build closer security and economic ties among our countries through information exchange and mutual workforce-development focused on building polar icebreakers, as well as other Arctic and polar capabilities. Components of the Arrangement This arrangement will consist of three initial components: enhanced information exchange between the United States, Canada, and Finland; collaboration on workforce development; and an invitation to allies and partners to purchase icebreakers built in American, Canadian, or Finnish shipyards. Due to the capital intensity of shipbuilding, long-term, multi-ship orderbooks are essential to the success of a shipyard. The governments of the United States, Canada, and Finland intend to leverage shipyards in the United States, Canada, and Finland to build polar icebreakers for their own use, as well as to work closely with likeminded allies and partners to build and export polar icebreakers for their needs at speed and affordable cost. As yards in the United States, Canada, and Finland make significant investments in their domestic capacity to build these vessels for their own needs, ICE Pact invites allies and partners to purchase vessels from American, Canadian, and Finnish shipyards with experience building polar icebreakers. Through diplomatic collaboration, shipyards focused on building polar icebreakers can reach the scale needed to reduce costs for allies and partners that need access to the polar regions. Implementation of the Arrangement By the end of the year, the United States, Canada, and Finland will develop a joint memorandum of understanding that will outline a framework for how this arrangement will be implemented within each country - and a mechanism for adding or including additional allies and partners as participants. The process to develop this non-binding arrangement will be conducted through a regular trilateral consultation process during this period. Strengthening America's Polar Capabilities The U.S. Coast Guard requires polar icebreaking capabilities to support the country's economic, commercial, maritime, and national security needs in the Polar regions. The U.S. Coast Guard is working to build new heavy icebreakers under the Polar Security Cutter (PSC) Program. These ships will be national assets that ensure access to both polar regions - and will be capable of executing key Coast Guard missions, including defense readiness; marine environmental protection; ports, waterways, and coastal security; and search and rescue. The ships will operate worldwide, alongside the polar icebreakers of America's allies and partners, and face the range of extreme environmental conditions found in the polar, tropical, and temperate regions. The Coast Guard is working with Bollinger Shipyards to build the first Polar Security Cutters. The Louisiana-based shipbuilder will continue its effort to deliver new American-made icebreakers to the U.S. Coast Guard's polar icebreaking fleet. These vessels will be the first American-built heavy icebreakers in over 50 years - and the foundation of the American effort to enhance our surface presence in the polar regions. ICE Pact will continue to support their efforts, and the President's commitment to build more ships in American shipyards. Under this trilateral arrangement, Canadian, Finnish, and American capacity and know-how for building polar icebreakers will help deliver a fleet of new polar icebreakers for ourselves, our allies, and other partners. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address On-the-Record Press Gaggle by APNSA Jake Sullivan July 11, 2024 Walter E. Washington Convention Center Washington, D.C. 11:33 A.M. EDT MODERATOR: Hey, everyone. Thank you for joining this on-the-record gaggle with Jake Sullivan. We have only a short amount of time, so we probably have time to take questions from the room, but we're going to turn to Jake now. MR. SULLIVAN: So, we obviously feel very good about the NATO Summit and its outcomes. I think you've seen a tremendous display of unity. Genuinely, concrete progress on everything from the defense investment pledge to the contributions that to 2 percent that 23 out of 32 Allies are making. And, in fact, Canada, the final Ally that doesn't have a plan in place for 2 percent, is getting one in place. So we've got all 32 Allies now on track to get to 2 percent. And, of course, later today, we'll have the Ukraine session, where we will see the concrete building blocks in the bridge to NATO that we've talked about before, with full agreement from all Allies and full buy-in from Ukraine as well. You may have heard from Andriy Yermak earlier today. You know, their view that we are delivering for them is holding significant at this summit, both in terms of the NATO outcomes and the commitments on F-16s and air defense. So we're feeling good about where we are. And I think the broad message coming out of this summit is not just unity, but purpose and resolve and strength from the NATO Alliance on our 75th anniversary. So with that, I'd be happy to take your questions. Q Jake, obviously this is taking place in the context of the President's domestic political situation. He's talked a lot about how America is back on the world stage. Have you or the President had any conversation with any world leaders or any of your counterparts expressing concern about the President's standing here at home and the potential return to a Trump administration? MR. SULLIVAN: I haven't heard that in the President's conversations with his counterparts. What I have heard is they went around the table yesterday in the North Atlantic Council session, the session just with the NATO Allies was a drumbeat of praise for the United States but also for President Biden personally, for what he's done to strengthen NATO, especially as president but also over the course of his entire career. And leaders really made a point of reinforcing their gratitude to him on that. The President met with Prime Minister of the UK yesterday. That conversation was extended and substantive, particularly on Ukraine, on the situation in the Middle East, and on how we carry forward the special relationship under a new leadership in the UK. So the focus here really has been on the substance. It's been on what we're trying to deliver for the defense of the Alliance and deliver for Ukraine and deliver in our partnerships with the Indo-Pacific. It hasn't been about politics. Q Jake, Ukraine has called for Allies to lift all limits on the use of their weapons. Is that something the United States would consider or support? MR SULLIVAN: We've made our position clear, which is, you know, we have a common-sense policy about cross-border strikes when Russia is attacking from the other side of the border. We've seen that play out in Kharkiv; it could potentially play out in other areas of that border like in Sumy. But we have not authorized the use of ATACMS for deep strike into Russia. And I don't have any announcements for you all today. Q Just to be clear, though not having an announcement, does that mean your policy hasn't changed? MR. SULLIVAN: Our policy has not changed. Q May I ask about Viktor Orban's so-called peace mission? He went to Moscow, Kyiv. He met with President Xi. Do you have any reason to believe that this is coordinated with former President Donald Trump? He will be meeting him. MR. SULLIVAN: I'm not going to speculate on that. All I'll say is that it certainly isn't coordinated with the Ukrainians. They've indicated that they have grave misgivings about any effort to negotiate some kind of fake peace with Russia without the Ukrainians being at the heart of that effort. And the U.S. position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainian's consent or support, you know, is not something that's consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States. But I can't speculate as to what Orban is up to exactly or what other people are up to. Q Jake, one more. The White House keeps saying that the Allies know President Biden, they trust him, they've seen him on many occasions. But what's your message to U.S. enemies who may misread President Biden's performance at the debate? MR. SULLIVAN: I would say look at this summit. Look at NATO having added two very strong and capable Allies in Finland and Sweden. Two countries that were historically neutral, avowedly neutral, have now said we're going to be part of this defensive alliance. Look at what we've gotten the Alliance to do in terms of stepping up on burden-sharing. Look at what we've gotten them to do in terms of investments in their own defense industrial bases. The capacity and strength of this Alliance should send a clear message to any of our adversaries anywhere in the world. And as we speak right now, we've got Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand sitting in that room, confirming that we will coordinate closely with our closest democratic allies in the Indo-Pacific so that there is a network, a latticework of allies, globally, standing up for democracy and standing against the kind of aggression we've seen from Putin and the support for that aggression from some of these other dictators. Q Can we ask a bit about the F-16s that are being provisioned? Anything you can say about how many might be available for Ukraine this year, for instance? MR. SULLIVAN: I think it's a completely fair question to ask for details on numbers, exact dates, exact places. And those are just things I can't share for operational reasons. What we have said is that the transfer is underway and that Ukrainian pilots will be operating in theater this summer in F-16s. Beyond that, in order to ensure that there is sufficient operational security for them to be able to use this capability effectively, we have to be careful about what we say. Q Can you just speak broadly to why the President the U.S. authorized this? What do you think the upside is for Ukraine? What does it mean for Ukraine to have the F-16s made available? MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, just for context, the President first announced his authorization for the transfer third-party transfer of F-16s. It's the Danes and the Dutch actually providing the aircraft. The U.S., of course, is central to this because it's a U.S. platform back in Hiroshima, at the G7, in May of last year. So, more than a year ago. So this has been a work in progress because we've had to get Ukraine to produce pilots. Those pilots have had to get trained. All of the capabilities to support an F-16 squadron or a set of squadrons had to get in place. And that is a laborious and time-intensive process, as we said at the outset and we've been very clear about. But once in place the F-16 is a fourth-generation fighter aircraft it will provide capability to Ukraine to be able to help defend the forces on the frontline and also help Ukraine as it seeks down the road to take back territory as well, territory that Russia currently occupies but that is sovereign Ukrainian territory. So, it is an important and sophisticated capability, but the ramp-up period to get it operational has been considerable. Q Our friends at the AP are also saying $225 million in need and weapons being announced for Ukraine. Is there anything you can say about that? MR. SULLIVAN: The President will have something to say today about that, so I won't get ahead. Q Jake, can I ask you about the situation in Gaza? I have two questions. One is: I just wanted to get confirmation that a portion of the bombs that were paused have been restarted. Can you explain that? MR. SULLIVAN: As the President said a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. policy on this has been clear. We paused the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs. That is what we have held, because we believe that they are not able to be effectively used in densely populated areas without causing undue civilian harm. Two-thousand-pound bombs. The President has stood by that. That continues to be our policy. There's been no deviation. We have had shipments where other capabilities that are not 2,000-pound bombs were mixed in. And this is just a simple logistical matter of unmixing them. So there's never been a policy of a pause on capabilities other than 2,000-pound bombs. And there's not a policy on that today. Q Can you give us an update on talks towards a potential pact of some kind to cease hostilities or pause (inaudible)? MR. SULLIVAN: We see progress. We see the possibility of reaching agreement. Obviously, can't guarantee that because there's a lot of details to be hammered through. Our teams in the region, as we speak, are working through many of those details. We think that the remaining issues can be resolved, should be resolved. And we're going to keep driving until we actually get a deal. And President Biden will say a few words about this later today. Q Do you think you're more optimistic than you were the last few weeks, since (inaudible)? MR. SULLIVAN: "Optimistic" is always a hard word to use in a sentence around this tragic conflict. But I think the signs are more positive today than they have been in recent weeks. Yes. Q Moving back briefly to Russia, sorry. There's an ODNI report that talks about Russians targeting specific demographic groups in its war. Can you you must be aware of that report. Is that of particular concern for the U.S.? MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, I would just say that this is out of the Russian playbook from past elections as well. So they are repeating a lot of the tactics and tradecraft they've used, targeting particular populations in the United States to try to influence the outcome of our election. And, yes, this is of serious concern to the United States and to me personally. It's not a matter of politics; it's a matter of national security. This is a hostile foreign power trying to interfere in American democracy, and it should be intolerable to every American. Q Another on Russia. Do you have anything to say about Russia vowing military response to the U.S. deployment of missiles to Germany? MR. SULLIVAN: I did not actually see what they said, so I will have to take a look at that before I respond. You said they vowed a military response? Q Yeah. "Without nerves, without emotions, we will develop a military response, first of all, to this new game." MR. SULLIVAN: Okay. I mean, I can't interpret that sentence. But what we are deploying to Germany is a defensive capability like many other defensive capabilities we've deployed across the Alliance across the decades. So, you know, more Russian saber-rattling obviously is not going to deter us from doing what we think is necessary to keep the Alliance as strong as possible. And beyond that, we'll have our opportunities to understand better what the Russian position is on this, and we will respond accordingly. Q Jake, just back to the F-16s. Without getting into operational questions, in terms of basing for those aircraft for operation missions, they would not be taking off from NATO airbases or NATO nation air-bases if they're carrying out operational fights against Russian forces? MR. SULLIVAN: The F-16s will be based in Ukraine. Q And then, sorry, just one other follow-up. You were asked about the Orban meeting. Is the U.S. government aware of his plans to meet with former President Trump? And do you have any specific response to that piece? MR. SULLIVAN: I have not heard directly from anybody about this meeting. I have heard indirectly about it, as many of you have. So, that's basically all (inaudible). Q But there hasn't (inaudible) diplomatic engagement of that that you're aware of? MR. SULLIVAN: Not that I'm aware of. Q Can I just quickly go back to talks in the Mideast? Impossible to tell, but can you give a sense whether a deal could be reached in days? Or is this just a holding pattern in the negotiations? MR. SULLIVAN: Always impossible to handicap, but, you know, these are this is a complex negotiation with a lot of moving parts and a lot of details to be worked through. So I think there's still miles to go before we close, if we are able to close. So I don't want to say that it's immediately around the corner, but it does not have to be far out in the distance if everyone comes at this with the will to get it done, because the deal is there for the doing. Q And you announced today this pact, ICE Pact, as it's being called? MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. Q This is in response in part to collaboration between Russia and China, obviously. I wonder if you could say a few words about what the U.S. will get under this. MR. SULLIVAN: I think this is a very exciting initiative. The ICE Pact is a pact between the U.S., Canada, and Finland, about enhancing the collective capacity of our three countries to build icebreakers at a time when we are seeing an increasing need for those icebreakers from partners around the world who want to operate in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions and can operate there with greater freedom than before because of the impacts of climate change. And, yes, there are authoritarian nations that are making or offering the icebreakers to the world, want to corner the icebreaker market. We're determined to have democracies be in the lead in producing icebreaking capabilities. Both Canada and Finland have considerable experience in shipyards and producing icebreakers. The U.S. is currently producing icebreakers for our Coast Guard, but we would like to expand that to include building icebreakers here in the United States, American-made with American jobs, to sell to countries around the world as well. All three of us stand to benefit from this. But beyond that, we then will have the industrial base for a capability that has both economic and strategic purposes. And democracies need that, and the U.S. is happy to be at the center of it. Also, if we can make this work and I believe we can make it work then it becomes a model for other forms of shipbuilding as we go forward. Other types of capabilities that we can partner with democracies on it becomes a new model for how the United States can both rebuild its own shipbuilding industry and also ensure that we have the industrial base as the West to be able to produce the necessary types of every kind of ship needed for economic and security purposes in the future. Q Can you speak to geopolitical risks of it? Is it that the Chinese will start shipping in the Northwest Passage, and the U.S. and Canada would (inaudible)? What is the risk? MR. SULLIVAN: I think the biggest geopolitical risk is the same kind of supply chain chokepoint that you see in a lot of other industries, where if the capability to build this atrophies in the West and a country that does not share our interests or our vision for the world corners the market and they've got leverage on us that is undue but not just on us, the United States, but democratic nations around the world. And we also believe that having an inherent capacity that is scalable and sustainable to build ships, not just icebreakers, but (inaudible) ships, has deep both strategic and direct military purposes in the future. The ICE Pact is not about military, but the broader spillover effects of this can have that kind of impact. Q Jake, can I ask one more on the Middle East? I just want to ask you about the pier. We're hearing reports that the pier off the coast of Gaza will be permanently removed. I wanted to, A, confirm that that's accurate. And, B, I just wanted to know what happened. I know this was touted quite a bit by the administration as a possible route to getting humanitarian aid in. MR. SULLIVAN: Well, first, it was a route to getting humanitarian aid in. And I don't have the numbers in front of me, but we unloaded a significant number of pallets that have provided lifesaving assistance. And our view has always been all of the above: Every route we can get aid in, including a maritime pier, if we can do it, we should do it. And some of that food over days and weeks that it was being delivered has made a difference in trying to deal with the heartbreaking humanitarian situation in Gaza. I don't have an announcement for you today. I'll let CENTCOM speak about their plans with respect to the pier. But I do anticipate that in relatively short order we will wind down pier operations. And the reason for that is because if we now look at the sustained supply of aid getting in through many of the crossings that, frankly, President Biden got opened the Zikim crossing and Kerem Shalom crossing the real issue right now is not about getting aid into Gaza, it's about getting aid around Gaza effectively. That's partly why Israel announced this daily humanitarian pause to try to create better conditions to move aid around. But there are a lot of things that we need to work through, including lawlessness; armed gangs; in some cases, Hamas itself trying to disrupt and derail the delivery of humanitarian assistance. And that is really, chiefly, the obstacle to ensuring that the people of Gaza, the innocent people of Gaza get the lifesaving food, water, medicine that they need. It's distribution within as opposed to distribution from without, into Gaza. And so that's had an impact on our thinking about the duration of the pier remaining (inaudible). Q Did you see the pier as a success? MR. SULLIVAN: Look, I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods getting to the people of Gaza as a success. It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing. It is an unalloyed good thing, from my perspective, that we were able to get thousands of metric tons worth of food into Gaza. And if the pier hadn't happened, if that food wouldn't have gotten in, for me it's hard to think about why one would object to that. Q Can we have one more? AIDE: We have time for one. Q Just one more. Ukraine asked Poland to shut down Russian missiles over western Ukraine. There was some confusion initially about Poland's response. But two days ago, Polish defense minister told me that Poland will not be unilaterally shutting down those missiles, that it needs to be decided by NATO. So what's your position on that? MR. SULLIVAN: Our position is let's get that air defense into Ukraine so Ukraine can shoot them. That is the most effective way to protect the skies of Ukraine. So that's why we've been going around to every Ally and saying, "Any system you can spare, spare it," because we want as many strategic air defense systems inside of Ukraine, operated by Ukrainians, defending their skies. And we think that's by far and away the best method of stopping the Russian aerial attacks. This is the last one? AIDE: This is the last one. Q There's a CNN report that I'm wondering if you would say anything to it that the U.S. has uncovered a Russian government plot to assassinate the CEO of a German arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall. The CEO, Armin Papperger. A foiled plot, obviously. Is there anything you can say about that whether the U.S. has intelligence about that? MR. SULLIVAN: I don't have anything to say about that today because I'm actually not sure what it is that Q Okay. MR. SULLIVAN: Yeah, so I'll just leave it at: Let me go find out not about the underlying story, but about, you know, what we could say on that (inaudible). Q And in (inaudible) earlier, the President was trying to put on a show, in part for his domestic audience, on what he sees as the importance of NATO. How is he viewing this domestically in terms of the stakes for the U.S., given that there are two pretty different visions for NATO on the ballot? MR. SULLIVAN: Well, look, there are voices in our country who say what's the value of NATO, and the President does believe that it's his job as the Commander-in-Chief and as the leader of the nation to remind the American people of what NATO has delivered in terms of security and prosperity for the United States over 75 years, and then what the lack of NATO would mean for us going into the future. But, you know, he doesn't believe that that's an uphill battle. He believes that he is reinforcing preexisting goodwill on a bipartisan basis by a vast majority of the American people. But he does think the 75th anniversary is a good opportunity for everyone to take a pause and collectively remind ourselves that we are extremely lucky to have NATO, and we would be very unfortunate if we were to leave it or if it were to fall apart. Q (Inaudible.) Since I know you were at Camp David with the President (inaudible), when you saw the President on stage, were you surprised by that performance? At any point, have you had any concerns about the government's decision-making capacity or anything along those lines? Were you surprised? Was that the person that you saw on the stage unlike the person you had seen days before at Camp David? MR. SULLIVAN: I do not have concerns. He said he had a bad night. Thanks. Q Thank you, Jake. MODERATOR: Thank you, everyone, for joining. And thank you to our poolers in the room. They have recorded very artfully, and we'll send around an audio to the group. So thank you, everyone. 11:54 A.M. EDT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russo-Ukraine War - 11 July 2024 - Day 869 Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal] The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that so far, since the beginning of the day, there have been 103 combat encounters. Ukrainian defenders counter numerous attempts of the enemy to attack and advance deep into Ukrainian territory, giving them an effective fire effect, exhaustion across the entire line of combat. Russian forces launched 49 air strikes (dropped 101 KABs) and carried out 486 kamikaze drone strikes, carried out 3109 shelling positions of Ukrainian troops and settlements. In the Kharkiv direction, the Russian occupiers four times unsuccessfully attacked Ukrainian positions in the areas of deep and vovcans ka. According to preliminary information, Russia has lost 105 people in this direction, 36 of them are irreversible. Eight cars, two artsystems, one BBM, BPLA control point, special equipment unit and three ammunition warehouses were destroyed. Damaged tank of rappers. The losses are in the making. In the Kupans komu direction, tension is maintained in the areas of berestovogo and synkivka, where currently three attacks have been played and one battle is ongoing. The situation is under the control of Defense Forces units. In the Lymans komu direction, Russia was active in the area of makiivka and nevs kogo - spent eight storms. Ukrainian defenders firmly hold positions and do not let the Russian occupiers move forward, the battles continue. Heading to the north. Since the beginning of the day, Russia has made three attempts to infiltrate the combat order of Ukrainian units in the areas of Rozdolivka and Verkhnyokamans kogo The situation is controlled - the battle is sharpening. Since the beginning of the day in the Kramatorsky direction, Russian occupiers have attacked Ukrainian positions four times in the areas of Chasovoye Yar and Ivanivsky. Success has not been attained. The situation is tense in the Toretsky direction. Russian forces attacked near Northern, Toretsk and New York 18 times unsuccessfully. The hottest situation today was in the Pokrovsky direction, where Russian forces attacked 32 times Ukrainian positions in the areas of Novooleksandrivka, Vozdvizhenka, Progresa, Sokola, Novoselivka Pershoi, Kalinovoye and Karlivka. 27 attacks were carried out by Ukrainian defenders. The situation near novooleksandrivka and progressa remains tense, where there are still five boezitknen . Ukrainian defenders keep the Russian enemy down. During the day, previously, Russian forces lost 219 people dead and injured. A tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, an artillery system, five vehicles and two motorcycles were also destroyed. 16 more units of military equipment were damaged, including six cannons and mortars. In the Kurakhiv direction, there are currently nine Russian attempts to approach Ukrainian positions in the areas of Krasnogorivka, Paraskovievka and Georgievka. All attacks have been stopped. There were 13 enemy attacks in the vremivs komu direction. Near Vodyany and Konstantinivka, four were imprinted. Fighting continues in five locations near Urozhynogo, and four Russian attempts to advance here are completed. In the direction of Gulyaipils komu, the situation has not experienced significant changes. A single attack has been made. Losing positions is unacceptable, the situation is controlled by Ukrainian defenders. In the Pridniprovsk direction, Russian forces do not leave hope to push out Ukrainian defenders from placzdarmiv on the left bank of the Dnieper. Two Russian offensive actions failed. In the rest of the directions, the situation has not experienced significant changes. Today, the soldiers of the 118th separate mechanized brigade, who firmly hold positions in southern Ukraine should be noted. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 115th Mechanised Brigade, 106th, 117th, 125th territorial defence brigades, and 13th National Guard Brigade bear Basovka, Novenkoye, Veselovka (Sumi region), Volchansk, and Liptsy (Kharkov region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 355 Ukrainian troops, one tank, and six pickup trucks. In the course of counter-battery warfare, one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer, one Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled artillery system, one 152-mm D-20 howitzer, one 152-mm Msta-B howitzer, two 122-mm D-30 howitzers, one 100-mm MT-12 Rapira gun, and one U.S.-made AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery warfare station were neutralised. Units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and inflicted losses on formations of the AFU 14th, 44th, 116th mechanised brigades, and 1st National Guard Brigade near Sinkovka, Berestovoye (Kharkov region), Olivovskiy Yar and Serebryansky forestry. The AFU losses amounted to up to 460 Ukrainian troops, one tank, three armoured personnel carriers, including two U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, 11 motor vehicles, one U.S.-made 155-mm M-198 howitzer, two 152-mm Msta-B howitzers, one 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, two 122-mm D-30 howitzers, and one Anklav-N electronic warfare station. Units of the Yug Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front lines as well as inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 24th, 72nd mechanised brigades, 46th Airmobile Brigade, and 79th Air Assault Brigade near Konstantinovka, Kurakhovo, Iliynka, and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People's Republic). The AFU losses amounted to up to 700 Ukrainian troops, one tank, two Kozak armoured fighting vehicles, two motor vehicles, one UK-made 155-mm AS-90 self-propelled artillery system, four 152-mm D-20 howitzers, two 122-mm D-30 howitzers, one U.S.-made 105-mm M119 howitzer, and two UK-made L-119 howitzers. Moreover, one BM-21 Grad MLRS combat vehicle, two Anklav electronic warfare stations, and two U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery warfare stations were destroyed. Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and liberated Voshod (Donetsk People's Republic). Losses were inflicted on formations of the AFU 31st, 41st, 47th mechanised brigades, 109th, and 129th territorial defence brigades near Progress, Rozovka, Novgorodskoye, Novosyolovka Pervaya, and Toretsk (Donetsk People's Republic). Five counter-attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 31st, 32nd, and 47th mechanised brigades were repelled. The AFU losses amounted to up to 335 Ukrainian troops, two infantry fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, two motor vehicles, one 152-mm Msta-B howitzer, one U.S.-made 105-mm M119 howitzer, four 100-mm MT-12 Rapira guns, and one AN/TPQ-36 U.S.-made counter-battery warfare station. Units of the Vostok Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 58th Motorised Infantry Brigade and 110th Territorial Defence Brigade near Prechistovka, Urozhaynoye (Donetsk People's Republic), and Gulai Pole (Zaporozhye region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 155 Ukrainian troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, eight motor vehicles, one UK-made 155-mm FH-70 howitzer, and one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer. Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 141st Infantry Brigade and 128th Mountain Assault Brigade near Pyatikhatki, Zherebyanka, and Kamenskoye (Zaporozhye region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 85 Ukrainian troops, seven motor vehicles, one U.S.-made 155-mm M777 howitzer, one U.S.-made 105-mm M119 howitzer, one Anklav-N electronic warfare station, and one Plastun electronic reconnaissance system. Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces engaged AFU manpower and hardware clusters in 127 areas during the day. Air defence units shot down 24 unmanned aerial vehicles and five U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles. In total, 627 airplanes and 277 helicopters, 27,520 unmanned aerial vehicles, 545 air defence missile systems, 16,551 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,374 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 11,718 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 23,551 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Up to $12 Million in Reward Offers for Information Leading to Arrests and/or Convictions of Three Leaders of the Tren de Aragua Transnational Criminal Organization US Department of State Media Note Office of the Spokesperson July 11, 2024 The Department of State, in coordination with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is announcing reward offers totaling up to $12 million under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions in any country of Tren de Aragua leaders HActor Rusthenford Guerrero, a/k/a "NiAo Guerrero" (up to $5 million), Yohan Jose Romero, a/k/a "Johan Petrica" (up to $4 million), and Giovanny San Vicente, a/k/a "Giovanny," a/k/a "Viejo Viejo," a/k/a "El Viejo" (up to $3 million). These State Department rewards are offered in coordination with the Government of Colombia and are also announced in coordination with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's designation of Tren de Aragua as a Significant Transnational Criminal Organization pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13581, as amended by E.O. 13863. Tren de Aragua is a transnational criminal organization that began as a prison gang in the TocorAn Prison in the state of Aragua in Venezuela. Over the past six years, Tren de Aragua leader NiAo Guerrero has expanded the group's criminal network throughout South America and recently extended north into Central America and the United States. Through collaboration with the Colombian National Police (CNP), the United States believes Tren de Aragua leaders NiAo Guerrero and Giovanny are in Colombia. Investigation and intelligence further identified Tren de Aragua co-founder Johan Petrica as another Tren de Aragua leader believed to be in Venezuela. The Colombian National Police have been very successful over the past year in apprehending many Tren de Aragua leaders and violent members in Colombia, including the June 27 arrest of SalomAn FernAndez Torres, alias "El SalomAn," one of the leaders of Tren de Aragua in BogotA and Soacha. The following week, the Colombian National Police arrested TdA co-founder Larry Alvarez NuAez, alias "Larry Changa." After the arrest of FernAndez, the mayor of BogotA, Carlos Fernando Galan, announced the primary objectives in BogotA would be to locate and arrest alias Giovanny and overall Tren de Aragua leader NiAo Guerrero. Today's reward offers are authorized by the Secretary under the Department of State's Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program, which supports law enforcement efforts to disrupt transnational crime globally and bring fugitives to justice. If you have information, please contact the FBI and CNP by phone (voice, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, or text) at +57 323 273 2168. If you are located outside Colombia or the United States, you may also visit the nearest U.S. or Colombian Embassy or Consulate. If in the United States, you can also contact the local FBI field office. ALL IDENTITIES ARE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Government officials and employees are not eligible for rewards. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Exercise Pitch Black 2024 takes off Issued by Defence Media 11 July 2024 Australia's biggest international air combat training activity, Exercise Pitch Black, will take to the skies over the Northern Territory from 12 July to 2 August. With approximately 140 aircraft and over 4000 personnel from 20 nations participating, this year's iteration of Exercise Pitch Black is the largest participation in its 43-year history. This exercise exposes participants to complex scenarios whilst utilising some of the most advanced aircraft and battlespace systems, in one of the biggest areas of military training airspace in the world. For the first time, aircraft and personnel from Philippines, Spain, Italy, and Papua New Guinea and embedded personnel from Fiji and Brunei will participate in the exercise. In addition, aircraft from France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States; and embedded personnel from Canada and New Zealand will also participate. Aircraft will operate from RAAF bases Darwin and Tindal in the Northern Territory, with additional tanker and transport aircraft at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland. "Exercise Pitch Black is our premier activity for international engagement, held every two years to build stronger ties with like-minded nations," Exercise Director Air Commodore Peter Robinson said. "Training with our partner nations throughout Exercise Pitch Black demonstrates our commitment to the shared value of sustaining peace and stability across the region. "The Northern Territory is a big part of what makes this exercise a success, and allows visitors a unique opportunity to experience Australia." "Air Force will show its sincere thanks to our local community through the Mindil Beach flying display on 18 July, and the RAAF Base Darwin Open Day on 20 July." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Belarus's Tsikhanouskaya Urges West To Show Unity, Decisiveness In Resisting Russia By Margret Johnston July 11, 2024 WASHINGTON -- The exiled leader of Belarus's democratic movement, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has urged Western leaders to be "united" and "decisive" in their resistance to "the imperialistic ambitions of Russia." Speaking to RFE/RL on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, Tsikhanouskaya argued that the people of Ukraine are not just fighting for their own country, but also "for the values that democratic countries are based on." "Believe me, if we allow Ukraine to lose this war, the democratic world - powerful Europe or the U.S.A -- will be the next to be attacked by dictatorship," she said. Tsikhanouskaya, 41, is a former teacher who ran for president in Belarus in 2020 after her husband, popular blogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski, was barred from doing so and imprisoned. She was forced to flee to Lithuania during a brutal crackdown on a wave of pro-democracy protests that erupted after strongman leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka was awarded a sixth presidential term following an election widely viewed as deeply flawed. "The fates of Belarus and Ukraine are intertwined," she told RFE/RL. "We fully encourage NATO countries to support Ukrainians and to give Ukraine everything they need to win this war. But don't overlook Belarus." Tsikhanouskaya said that "dictators" like Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin perceive Western sluggishness and indecisiveness as "weakness." "And they think that they can cross red line after red line," she said, adding that they are challenging the Western world to see how far they can go before there is a response. "That is why all possible tanks and equipment for Ukraine had to be [there] already yesterday," she said. "We don't have time." "I am waiting for NATO countries' unity and decisiveness because that is what the people who are fighting against tyranny, against the imperialistic ambitions of Russia, against the dictators of the world, are waiting for," Tsikhanouskaya said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-nato-ukraine- war-russia-tyranny/33030879.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement from Defence Minister Bill Blair on Canada's work to reach the NATO defence investment pledge by 2032 National Defence Statement July 11, 2024 a Washington, D.C. The Minister of National Defence, the Honourable Bill Blair, issued the following statement today: "Seventy-five years ago, Canada helped to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an Alliance based on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. Today, NATO ensures the security of over one billion citizens, including Canadians, by providing a security guarantee that an attack on one Ally is an attack on all. NATO is more vital than ever to the defence of Canada - and Canada's commitment to the Alliance is ironclad, including its principles of collective defence and burden-sharing. "At the 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Allies agreed to invest at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually on defence. Canada is committed to meeting its pledges a and to doing its fair share. "Today, the Prime Minister and I announced that Canada expects to spend two percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence by 2032. I believe that this represents a credible, responsible, and achievable target date, which will allow Canada to ramp up its spending and procurement capacity on a realistic timeline, in line with commitments by several allies who have made comparable pledges. "Today's announcement reflects the statements that the Prime Minister and I have made over the past year: Canada must do more on defence - and we will. The coming decades will be more competitive and challenging than those that came before - and our country must be prepared. "Since a previous government cut defence spending to less than 1% of GDP, our government has made historic investments in our military. In 2017, Canada released Strong, Secure, Engaged which laid out Canada's plans to boost defence spending by over seventy percent - but as the security situation deteriorated, it became clear that more investment was necessary. In 2022, we went even further - announcing Canada's NORAD Modernization Plan - a $38 billion investment to deliver Canada's largest upgrades to NORAD in a generation. "Most recently, in April 2024, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and I released Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada's Defence, which focuses on the security of the Canadian Arctic and North, and makes historic investments to deliver new capabilities and to strengthen the foundations of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. "With the funded initiatives in these plans, Canada is on track to almost triple its defence spending between 2014-15 and 2029-30 - and we will not stop there. "Our North, Strong and Free also identified ten capabilities for which Canada will explore options, including: renewing and expanding our submarine fleet acquiring new vehicles adapted to ice, snow and tundra enabling our Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels to embark and operate our maritime helicopters at sea making further contributions to the integrated air and missile defence of Canada and North America acquiring ground-based air defences to defend critical infrastructure acquiring long-range air- and sea-launched missiles modernizing our artillery capabilities upgrading or replacing our tank and light armoured vehicle fleets establishing a light armoured vehicle production program acquiring a suite of surveillance and strike drones and counter-drone capabilities "To reach the 2% target by 2032, Canada will invest in the right mix of these additional capabilities outlined in Our North, Strong and Free on the right timeline, implementing the vision outlined in this policy. "This investment will ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces have the tools, training, and personnel required to protect Canada's sovereignty from emerging security challenges. It is a significant investment - but a necessary one to ensure Canada's security and prosperity in a changing world, in which our country must forge even closer ties with our NATO Allies. "Canada must and will do its part." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister strengthens defence and security partnerships at the NATO Summit Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau July 11, 2024 Washington, D.C., United States of America The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today concluded his participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Washington, D.C., United States of America. A cornerstone of transatlantic security for 75 years, the NATO Alliance has a critical role in upholding democracy, peace, security, and the rules-based international order. Today, the Alliance stands stronger and more united than ever. Canada was a founding member of NATO in 1949. Since then, we have deepened our role in the Alliance by participating in nearly every NATO operation. Since 2015, Canada is among the top five NATO Allies when it comes to absolute spending increases on defence. In 2017, we released a plan to ensure long-term, predictable funding for investments in new capabilities like warships, aircraft, and armoured vehicles, along with a strong focus on supporting and caring for Canadian Armed Forces members. As we move forward, one of the most urgent and important tasks we face is in the Arctic and Northern regions, where the changing physical and geopolitical landscapes have created new threats. To tackle these threats, assert Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic, and uphold continental defence, we invested around $38 billion in modernizing NORAD, in partnership with the United States. Building on our continued investments, Canada released Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada's Defence earlier this year, which invests $73 billion in defence and security over the next two decades, including significant investment in the Arctic. One of the main areas of investment identified in Our North, Strong and Free was underwater surveillance capability. With the longest coastline in the world, underwater surveillance capability is crucial to Canada's national security. That is why, while at the Summit, Canada announced its first step toward the procurement of up to 12 conventionally powered, under-ice capable submarines, and the launch of the process to formally engage industry on this acquisition. This procurement is an important step in implementing Canada's renewed vision for defence, and this investment will help keep our three coastlines safe and secure. Canada also signed a trilateral letter of intent with Germany and Norway to establish a strategic partnership aimed at strengthening maritime security co-operation in the North Atlantic in support of NATO's deterrence and defence. As we continue to implement Our North Strong and Free through further investments, Canada expects to reach NATO's 2 per cent of GDP spending target by 2032. We have also committed to a regular cycle of review of Canada's defence policy, including a new defence policy update in 2028. Through that process, we will continue to explore opportunities to further increase defence spending in a manner that protects Canada and advances our strategic interests. Canada and NATO have also long recognized that climate change risks global stability, security, and defence - including in the warming Arctic - opening a new arena of competition that our adversaries are eager to exploit. On the margins of the Summit, Prime Minister Trudeau announced an enhanced trilateral partnership with the United States and Finland, called the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact). This new partnership builds on the world-class expertise of our three countries and will further strengthen our abilities to produce best-in-class polar capable vessels. This increased co-operation will ensure peace and prosperity in the Arctic and polar regions, create good-paying jobs, foster scientific research, and help meet emerging defence and security challenges.This partnership will provide the basis for like-minded nations to increase their polar capabilities to uphold international rules, norms, and standards in the Arctic and Antarctic regions for generations to come. Allies were joined by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. Building on Canada's longstanding support for Ukraine, the Prime Minister committed further assistance so that Ukraine can continue to defend its freedom, including over $500 million in additional military assistance funding. Our support is as follows: Committing an additional $500 million in military assistance to Ukraine, as part of NATO's pledge of long-term security assistance for Ukraine . This includes almost $444 million to Canada's Department of National Defence to support the costs of military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine's Armed Forces as well as over $56 million for the NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) Trust Fund for Ukraine to help rebuild the Ukrainian security and defence sector and advance Ukraine's transition toward full interoperability with NATO. Canadian funding through the CAP also provides equipment for women in Ukraine's Armed Forces. These additional funds complement Canada's existing military assistance to Ukraine, for a total of $1.1 billion this year. . This includes almost $444 million to Canada's Department of National Defence to support the costs of military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine's Armed Forces as well as over $56 million for the NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) Trust Fund for Ukraine to help rebuild the Ukrainian security and defence sector and advance Ukraine's transition toward full interoperability with NATO. Canadian funding through the CAP also provides equipment for women in Ukraine's Armed Forces. These additional funds complement Canada's existing military assistance to Ukraine, for a total of $1.1 billion this year. Supporting the launch of NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine , which will co-ordinate the provision of military training, equipment, and logistical support. , which will co-ordinate the provision of military training, equipment, and logistical support. Allocating up to $389 million to enhance F-16 pilot training through the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Air Force Capability Coalition. Sourced through previously announced military funding, this commitment will support training for pilots in Ukraine's Armed Forces as well as provide critical equipment to support Ukraine's safe operation of F-16s. Canada also signed the Ukraine Compact, a joint statement with G7 countries and partners, that reconfirms enduring support for Ukraine's self-defence and deterrence capabilities. During his visit, Prime Minister Trudeau also advanced Team Canada efforts to promote the Canada-United States relationship. On the margins of the Summit, he met leaders of the United States Senate, members of the House of Representatives, state governors, as well as American business leaders to strengthen our bilateral partnerships, including to increase trade and investment, scale up our cross-border supply chains, support our manufacturing sectors, create good middle-class jobs, and accelerate the transition to clean energy. Team Canada is promoting and defending Canada's interests in and with the United States - working to build a better, fairer, and more prosperous future for Canadians and Americans alike. While in Washington, Canada and the United States also marked a key milestone in the negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty. Our two countries have reached an agreement-in-principle that will enable us to draft the terms of a modernized Treaty that will protect communities from flooding, advance clean energy, and promote Indigenous priorities, including the environment. Canada, in partnership with the Province of British Columbia, the Ktunaxa, the Secwepemc, and the Syilx Okanagan Nations, will continue to work toward a modernized Treaty that supports a healthy and prosperous Columbia River Basin. Throughout the Summit, the Prime Minister met with numerous Allied leaders to collaborate on mutual priorities and reaffirm Canada's commitment to strengthening shared defence and security partnerships. Along with collective defence and security, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and partnerships with the Indo-Pacific and the European Union, there were also discussions about the importance of countering the rise of mis- and disinformation, addressing threats from emerging technologies, strengthening climate change security, and integrating the Women, Peace and Security Agenda into collective work. With fellow Allies, Canada pledged to expand the defence industrial capacity, including by encouraging joint procurement of military equipment, accelerating the adoption of new technologies, and more. Prime Minister Trudeau also thanked the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, for his leadership and collaboration over the past 10 years and wished him the best in his future endeavours after his term as Secretary General comes to an end this fall. The Prime Minister welcomes his successor, Mark Rutte, and looks forward to working with him to further strengthen the Alliance. Quote "For 75 years, NATO has been a cornerstone of transatlantic security - an Alliance united by the values of freedom, justice, and the rule of law. As threats to peace and security become increasingly complex, Canada and our government stand ready to step up. As we wrap up this year's NATO Summit, we will strengthen our work to defend peace, protect democracy, and build a better, fairer, and more prosperous world for everyone." The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada Quick Facts At the Summit, NATO Allies were joined by international partners, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union. In Washington, Prime Minister Trudeau had bilateral meetings with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, the President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkevics, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dick Schoof, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon, the President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister also provided opening remarks at an event to celebrate the newly accredited NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE) located in Montreal, Quebec, for which Canada is the host nation. Climate change is a defining challenge for Canada, NATO, Allies, and other partners, and CCASCOE will serve as an international hub for cutting-edge applied interdisciplinary climate change research. The modernized Columbia River Treaty will ensure continued flood risk management and co-operation on hydropower for the Columbia River, while incorporating important provisions that were not considered in the original agreement, such as ecosystem health and Indigenous cultural values. Seventy-five years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1949, establishing the NATO Alliance, of which Canada is a founding member. Current Canadian contributions to NATO include: Supporting NATO assurance and deterrence measures in Central and Eastern Europe through Operation REASSURANCE. With approximately 1,500 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members currently deployed, it is Canada's largest international military operation. Canada has been leading the NATO multinational Battlegroup, soon-to-be Brigade, in Latvia since 2017. In July 2023, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the renewal and expansion of Operation REASSURANCE, committing $2.6 billion to a three-year mandate, with up to 2,200 CAF troops continuously deployed. Deploying His Majesty's Canadian Ship Charlottetown to join and assume flagship duties of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) as part of Operation REASSURANCE in the Mediterranean Sea. The Royal Canadian Navy's involvement in SNMG2 demonstrates Canada's continued participation in NATO and strengthens military co-operation with our Allies and partners in the region. Hosting the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, in Montreal, Quebec, and NATO's North American Regional Office of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Continuing to support training and capacity-building efforts in the Middle East under Operation IMPACT, including through NATO Mission Iraq, which was set up under Canadian command, and contributing to lasting security and stability in the country. Providing CAF personnel support to the NATO-led international peace support operation in Kosovo through Operation KOBOLD. Since 2022, Canada has committed over $19.5 billion in multifaceted support to Ukraine. This includes $4.5 billion in military aid and equipment donations, such as Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks and an armoured recovery vehicle, armoured combat support vehicles, anti-tank weapons, and other arms and equipment. Other assistance includes $12.4 billion in financial assistance, $352.5 million in humanitarian assistance, $442 million in development assistance, and over $210 million in security and stabilization programming. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Aircraft carrier Shandong spotted launching far seas drill amid China-Russia joint maritime patrol Global Times By Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan Published: Jul 10, 2024 08:32 PM China's Shandong aircraft carrier group reportedly started its first far seas exercise of the year after it was spotted on Tuesday operating in the West Pacific, where another group of Chinese and Russian warships are conducting a joint maritime patrol. Amid Taiwan Straits and South China Sea tensions, as well as the US-led RIMPAC 2024 exercise that blatantly targets China, Chinese naval activities, not aimed at any other country, serve to enhance combat capabilities and deter unstable security factors, experts said on Wednesday. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's aircraft carrier Shandong, the Type 055 large destroyer Yan'an, the Type 052D destroyer Guilin and the Type 054A Yuncheng were spotted sailing in the Philippine Sea on Tuesday, the news website of the US Naval Institute reported on the day, citing a news release from Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff. The Japanese news release said that the Shandong was observed conducting flight operations with its fighter aircraft and helicopters. The Chinese aircraft carrier group was spotted sailing in the South China Sea near the Philippines in June, and analysts said that the carrier likely sailed from the South China Sea via the Bashi Channel to the south of the island of Taiwan into the Philippine Sea in the West Pacific. A release by the defense authority on the island of Taiwan said that it spotted 37 PLA aircraft of various types around the island conducting air-sea joint training along with the carrier Shandong and other PLA Navy vessels on Wednesday. It marks the first time the Shandong has embarked on a far seas exercise beyond the first island chain this year, observers noted, further mentioning that they are looking forward to seeing if the carrier will make new breakthroughs in terms of training intensity, new tactics practiced and new locations reached. The aircraft carrier Shandong and its escorts are not the only PLA Navy warships currently operating in the West Pacific. Citing the Russian Pacific Fleet, Russian News Agency Tass reported on July 4 that the Russian corvette Sovershenny joined the PLA Navy's Type 052D destroyer Yinchuan, Type 054A frigate Hengshui and Type 903 replenishment ship Weishanhu at a designated meeting point to commence the fourth joint Russia-China maritime patrol in the Asia-Pacific region since 2021 to bolster naval cooperation and maintain peace and stability. The joint group is set to conduct anti-submarine and air defense drills and practice search and rescue measures at sea during their joint patrol, Tass reported. The China-Russia joint group was spotted entering the West Pacific from the East China Sea via the Osumi Strait from July 4 to 5, according to Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff. Additional PLA Navy warships, including the Type 055 large destroyer Lhasa, the Type 903A replenishment ship Kekexilihu, the Type 052D destroyer Kaifeng and Type 054A frigate Yantai, also entered the West Pacific by July 1. They first entered the Sea of Japan from the East China Sea via the Tsushima Strait, then entered the West Pacific via the Tsugaru Strait, two separate news releases by Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff said. China has yet to officially announce these naval activities. Observers wonder if there is a link between the aircraft carrier Shandong's far seas exercise and the China-Russia joint patrol, reflecting on possible training objectives, and where the warships would travel to, considering the ongoing security tensions over the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issue, and that the Chinese and Russian naval activities are coinciding with the US-led RIMPAC exercise being held around Hawaii Islands, with China believed to be set as an imaginary enemy. Zhang Junshe, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the China-Russia joint maritime patrol has become regular occurrence, and such activities can further consolidate the strategic mutual trust between the two countries and the two militaries. It is not impossible that the Shandong carrier group and the China-Russia joint group join force in the West Pacific waters to conduct mock confrontation drills or joint defense drills, Zhang said. In addition to traditional areas such as the East China Sea, the West Pacific and the North Pacific, it cannot be ruled out that the groups could sail to regions farther away, such as the East Pacific and South Pacific, which completely conforms to the international law and practices, Zhang said. The Chinese drills combined with the China-Russia joint patrol are completely different from the US-led RIMPAC exercise, as they are not targeted at any other country. The RIMPAC, on the other hand, is obviously simulating a scenario in which the US militarily interferes in the Taiwan question in case of a conflict, analysts said. Another Chinese military expert, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Wednesday that while the PLA Navy's exercises and drills are prescheduled and are not related with the ongoing situations, they contribute to regional peace and stability by deterring unstable factors and provide strategic power balancing. The goal of any exercise should be enhancing combat capabilities and safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and development interests, the expert said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China rebuts NATO declaration as 'defamatory, provocative, belligerent' Global Times NATO's shift in rhetoric toward China driven by its own dilemma: experts By GT staff reporters Published: Jul 11, 2024 10:53 PM China voiced strong opposition and lodged stern representations on Thursday with NATO after the Cold War mentality-driven bloc issued a direct warning to China for the first time regarding the so-called support to Russia in the Ukraine crisis, which, some experts said, is essentially another attempt to shift the blame and smear China. The NATO Washington Summit Declaration exaggerates tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, which is filled with Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric, containing prejudiced, defamatory, and provocative content regarding China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a press conference on Thursday. NATO's so-called security comes at the expense of others' security, and much of the security anxiety NATO peddles is of its own making. The so-called success and strength NATO boasts of pose a significant threat to the world, the spokesperson said. Establishing imaginary enemies to maintain existence and expand power is NATO's usual tactic. Its persistence in the erroneous positioning of China as a systemic challenge and smearing of China's domestic and foreign policies are exactly that, the spokesperson added. The Chinese Mission to the EU also refuted NATO's claims on Thursday, emphasizing that China's position on Ukraine is open and above board, and it is known to all that China is not the architect of the Ukraine crisis. China aims to promote peace talks and seek political settlement, and this position is endorsed and commended by the broader global community. After decades of viewing China as a distant threat, NATO on Wednesday accused Beijing of becoming "a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine," and demanded that it halt shipments of "weapons components" and other technology critical to the rebuilding of the Russian military, the New York Times reported. The US media also called the statement "a major departure for NATO," which until 2019 never officially mentioned China as a concern, and then only in the blandest of language. "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 secretary general Jens Stoltenberg was quoted as saying in a report by The Guardian. Stoltenberg also called the statement an important message. "NATO's shift in rhetoric toward China is partly driven by the US and partly due to NATO's own difficulties as it is struggling with the Ukraine issue, and the more they struggle, the more they look for excuses," LA Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday. From the beginning, the US and NATO's narrative was that Russia would fail quickly, and they have been talking about launching a counteroffensive, whose effects we have not seen, LA said, noting that as the conflict drags on, "they need to find an excuse, and the ready-made excuse now is that China is supporting Russia, backing it from behind." Baseless accusation Besides NATO's accusation against China on the Ukraine crisis, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed at a public forum at the NATO summit that China is being "the major contributor to Russia's defense industrial base." The Chinese Foreign Ministry also voiced strong opposition, saying that the US has been spreading false information. "Most countries have not participated in sanctions against Russia or cut off trade with it, so the US cannot blame China for its own actions. The US has passed large-scale aid bills for Ukraine while baselessly accusing China and Russia of normal economic and trade exchanges. This is blatant hypocrisy and double standards," Lin said. The China-Russia cooperation is important as it acts as a balance force against the reckless actions of the US and the West, ensuring the world operates fairly and orderly, Cui Heng, a scholar from the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday. "The China-Russia cooperation is mainly in energy production chains and agricultural sectors, which is normal cooperation. The US-led West severed its cooperation with Russia while forcing others to do the same, which only demonstrates its arrogance, narrow-minded and self-centered mindset," the expert added. Some experts also pointed out that NATO is essentially a military alliance that maintains its functionality and reinforces its existence through crises, conflicts, and even wars. The recent escalation in NATO's rhetoric toward China indicates that NATO is eager to achieve a globalized functional and institutional framework with global influence. They are attempting to achieve NATO's globalization by hyping the so-called "China threat" and inciting challenges against China, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday. The more they talk about China and the more aggressive their rhetoric, the more it indicates that NATO is using the China issue to showcase its role in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, Li noted. "The hype and intensification of the China issue serve as a catalyst for NATO to accelerate and strengthen its presence, influence, and actions globally, especially in the Asia-Pacific region," the expert said. Washington's strategic tool Although the US President Joe Biden did not name China in his address at the NATO Summit, experts believe that the escalated rhetoric of the bloc toward China was pushed by Washington as NATO has been serving as a strategic tool for the US. Such a NATO will inevitably be pushed by the US onto the track of the US-planned global strategic competition with China, therefore, the increase in NATO's current rhetoric and foreseeable actions against China is being orchestrated under the US' direction, Li noted. "Also, by pulling NATO into the Asia-Pacific region to engage in geopolitical competition against China, the US is likely to adopt a strategy of 'gathering allies to confront opponents' or forcing parties to take side," the expert said. NATO forges closer ties with Asia partners to counter China, some US media reports said, and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan was quoted as saying in a Fox News report that NATO allies and the Indo-Pacific partners will launch four new joint projects, which will be on Ukraine, artificial intelligence, disinformation and cybersecurity. However, some experts said the likelihood of European military forces being projected into the Pacific remains quite low. "Many European countries within NATO do not share the same view as the US. While NATO may issue strongly worded statements against China, truly pivoting to contain China is something NATO is neither capable of nor likely to achieve," a Beijing-based military expert who preferred not to be named told the Global Times on Thursday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA Navy's second 10,000 ton-class hospital ship starts South China Sea medical rounds Global Times By Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan Published: Jul 11, 2024 06:36 PM The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's second 10,000 ton-class hospital ship recently embarked on a voyage to islands and reefs in the South China Sea to conduct medical rounds and rescue exercises, with experts saying on Thursday that the vessel will enhance the PLA Navy's logistics capabilities and provide extra public security goods to the international community. The hospital ship Silkroad Ark set out from a naval port in Zhanjiang, South China's Guangdong Province on Wednesday to conduct medial rounds in the South China Sea, including islands and reefs of Xisha Qundao (also known as Xisha Islands) and Nansha Qundao (also known as Nansha Islands) such as Yongxing Dao (also known as Yongxing Island) and Yongshu Jiao (also known as Yongshu Reef), as well as islands and reefs along the southern coast of the mainland, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Thursday. During the voyage, troops stationed on islands and reefs will board the hospital ship to receive diagnoses and treatment, and the ship's medical staff will also disembark from the ship to make rounds of visits to the troops' combat positions, CCTV reported. The vessel will also conduct exercises for rescuing the wounded at sea, the report said. The mission demonstrates that the Silkroad Ark is now in active service with the PLA Navy, observers said. The Silkroad Ark is the second 10,000 ton-class far-seas capable hospital ship domestically developed by China, after the Peace Ark. The Silkroad Ark shares the same design as the Peace Ark but has a larger displacement and a longer endurance, according to CCTV. In wartime, it will conduct maritime rescue and evacuation missions, while in peacetime, it will engage in medical rounds for residents and troops on islands and reefs, deliver international humanitarian aid services, join major disaster relief and emergency medical rescue operations, as well as participate in foreign military medical exchange and cooperation missions, CCTV reported. Amid tensions in the South China Sea, the Silkroad Ark's voyage will provide strong logistics support and boost the morale of Chinese frontline personnel, a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Thursday. The move will also demonstrate China's actual jurisdiction and control over the islands and reefs in the South China Sea, the expert said. Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe told the Global Times on Thursday that the Silkroad Ark and the Peace Ark will enable the PLA Navy to deploy two hospital ships in two different regions, contributing to overall combat readiness. Both vessels are far seas-capable, meaning that they can sail to other parts of the world and provide humanitarian aid, fulfilling China's international obligations as a responsible major country, Zhang said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Meeting with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China Zhao Leji President Vladimir Putin met with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China Zhao Leji on the sidelines of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum. July 11, 2024 15:00 St Petersburg On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko and State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Zhao Leji, I am delighted to see you, this time in St Petersburg, Russia. Quite recently, we met with our friend, President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Astana. We discussed the most important issues of our interaction once again. Everything that we agreed on is working properly. Please, convey the best and most friendly wishes to the President of the People's Republic of China. Speaking of the parliamentary dimension of our cooperation, I consider it to be extremely important because it focuses on the most important aspects of our interaction and creates a favourable atmosphere for achieving our goals and accomplishing high-priority objectives, including the economy, cultural and humanitarian ties. Parliamentary activities can overlook nothing because, one way or another, all spheres require parliamentary and legislative formalisation. We therefore pay great attention to this, and we are grateful to you for this joint work. Our interparliamentary commission is working actively, members of both parliaments pay special attention to our cooperation, and we would like to thank them all for this. In turn, we will do our best to make sure that this aspect of activities retains its due status. I know that you have met in Moscow with the State Duma Speaker and Ms Matviyenko, the head of the upper house of the Russian Parliament. I am happy that you are here with us today, and I am confident that this work, within the framework of today's events, will become a very good contribution to strengthening our bilateral ties, and that it will consolidate our strategic partnership. Welcome. hairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhao Leji (retranslated): Mr President, I am very glad to meet with you in your native city, St Petersburg. In fact, St Petersburg is a very beautiful city. First of all, let me convey warm greetings and best wishes from President Xi Jinping. Since the beginning of your new presidential tenure, the people and the Government of Russia have been protecting national security and stability and ensuring socio-economic development under your leadership. Your country is confidently following the path of its own development. We sincerely welcome these achievements and express our firm support. This year marks the 75th anniversary of Chinese-Russian relations. The complicated history of our relations proves, in full measure, that the right path to peaceful coexistence and joint development between different countries lies through mutual respect, equality, trust and mutually beneficial cooperation. Under the strategic leadership of President Xi Jinping and Mr President, Chinese-Russian relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation in the new era have maintained the high-quality vectors of development and brought real and tangible benefits to the peoples of our countries. As you have correctly noted, recently, you and President Xi Jinping held another meeting in Astana and reached a number of strategically important agreements. I reaffirm the readiness of the National People's Congress of China together with the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, to implement at the legislative level the important agreements reached by the leaders of our two countries and to contribute to strengthening political mutual trust, practical cooperation and friendship between our countries. I will convey your greetings and the best wishes from you to President Xi Jinping. I will also inform him about everything that took place at this meeting. Thank you. Vladimir Putin: Please, tell him that we are waiting for the President of the People's Republic of China to attend the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 22-24. I hope that you will be able to get acquainted with St Petersburg closer during your current visit. As far as I know, you were in this city several years ago, but you had too little time back then. Hopefully, now you will manage to take a closer look at the beauty of St Petersburg. Please, convey my best wishes to the President. <...> NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian's Regular Press Conference on July 11, 2024 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China 2024-07-11 21:46 Global Times: It's reported that NATO yesterday released the Washington Summit Declaration, criticizing that "China continues to challenge our interests, security and values," "China has become a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine" and "this increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security." NATO says it is boosting its shared awareness, enhancing preparedness, and protecting against China's coercive tactics and efforts to divide the Alliance. Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO said taking "China seriously when it comes to the challenges it poses for our security" meant engaging more with Indo-Pacific nations, and NATO plans to launch programs in AI, cybersecurity, disinformation, and deterring China with Australia, New Zealand, the ROK and Japan this week, and to support allies to seek more naval exercises with Asia-Pacific partners. What's China's comment? Lin Jian: NATO's Washington Summit Declaration is a scaremongering piece about the Asia-Pacific, a product of the Cold War mentality and full of belligerent rhetoric. Its paragraphs on China contain a load of biases, smears and provocations. We strongly deplore and firmly oppose it, and have lodged a serious protest to NATO. Part of the summit agenda is to mark NATO's 75th anniversary. To make a case about NATO's necessity, before the summit began, the US and NATO trumpeted the "glory" and "solidarity" about the alliance and glossed over it as "an organization for peace." That, however, does not hide the fact that NATO is a vestige of the Cold War and a product of bloc confrontation and bloc politics. The NATO forces bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in the name of "preventing further humanitarian disaster." The tragedies of Afghanistan and Libya make it clear that wherever NATO shows up, turmoil and chaos will follow. NATO's so-called security is more often than not built on others' insecurity, and a lot of its security anxieties are self-made. The "success" and "strength" boasted by NATO means enormous danger to the world. To create imaginary enemies to justify its existence and act out of area is NATO's go-to tactic. To falsely picture China as a "systemic challenge" and vilify China's domestic and foreign policies is a case in point. On Ukraine, NATO insists that China is responsible. That is ill-motivated and makes no sense. China's objective and just position on Ukraine and the constructive role we've played are widely recognized by the international community. NATO has been spreading disinformation created by the US and blatantly smearing China to undermine China's relations with Europe and hamper China-Europe cooperation. To this day, there's still no end in sight for the Ukraine crisis. Who exactly is fueling the flames? Who exactly is "enabling" the conflict? The international community is not blind. We urge NATO to reflect on the root causes of the crisis and NATO's own behavior, listen to the voice for good from the international community and contribute to deescalation, instead of shifting blames onto others. NATO's reach into the Asia-Pacific, strengthening of its military and security ties with China's neighboring countries and US allies, and collaboration with the US to implement the Indo-Pacific Strategy harm China's interests and disrupt peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. This has already been questioned and rejected by regional countries. China urges NATO to discard the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation and zero-sum approach, form the right perception of China, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and vilifying China and stop disrupting China-Europe relations. Don't bring instability to the Asia-Pacific after it has done so to Europe. China will firmly uphold its own sovereignty, security and development interest, and through its own development and cooperation with other countries, inject more stability and positive energy to world peace and stability. Polish Press Agency: On the China-Belarus joint army training. The Polish Foreign Ministry said that Poland is paying close attention to the ongoing military cooperation between Belarus and China, which is a factor with potential implications for Poland's security. Poland is concerned about China stepping up military cooperation with Russia and Belarus. What is China's comment? Lin Jian: On specific questions about the China-Belarus joint army training, I'd refer you to competent authorities. We hope that relevant parties will settle differences through dialogue and consultation on the basis of mutual respect. Shenzhen TV: Recently there have been media reports about Indonesia imposing high tariffs on goods imported from China. Indonesia's Coordinator for Cooperation with China and Coordinating Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan made a public clarification a few days ago, saying that China is one of Indonesia's most important strategic partners in terms of trade and investment, the two countries share the same fate, and in the midst of an uncertain global geopolitical situation, Indonesia does not want to simply follow other countries. Indonesia's Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan also said in an interview that the Indonesian Trade Ministry is conducting a trade remedy investigation into seven types of products, including ceramics and textiles, and it will decide on whether to impose tariffs based on the result of the investigation. The safeguard tariffs are applied to all imported goods without distinguishing between countries of origin. What is the Foreign Ministry comment on this? Lin Jian: We noted the reports, especially the clarification by Coordinating Minister Luhut and Minister Zulkifli on the statement about Indonesia's planned high tariffs on Chinese imports, saying that even if the safeguard tariffs are levied, they apply to all countries and are not targeting a particular country, especially China. China will closely follow possible safeguard tariffs Indonesia may impose on specific products, and take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies. Both China and Indonesia benefit from our cooperation. Both countries firmly support free trade, oppose protectionism, and are committed to the sound and stable growth of bilateral trade and investment cooperation. China is ready to work with Indonesia on the basis of mutual benefit to improve bilateral trade and economic cooperation, and realize robust, balanced, inclusive and mutually sustainable trade. We would also like to work with Indonesia to jointly uphold the free and open international trade order. AFP: The location of the China-Belarus military drill is only a few kilometers away from the boundary of Belarus and Poland, which means only a few kilometers away from the boundary of NATO. Does China understand that this may be seen as a provocation or threat from China? Lin Jian: We have repeated our position on the China-Belarus joint army training. This is normal military exchange and cooperation between China and Belarus that does not target any particular country. On the specifics you mentioned, I'd refer you to competent authorities. AFP: You just said that China believes the joint army training between China and Belarus is normal, but China accused the US and the Philippines of their military exercise in the South China Sea at the end of April. China-Belarus army training is normal whereas US-Philippines military exercises are criticized. Why is it different?a Lin Jian: We stated China's position on the military exercise between the US and the Philippines. Let me stress that cooperation between countries, including military and security ties, should not target any third party or harm their interests, or undermine regional peace and stability. On China-Belarus army training, China's Ministry of Defense released relevant information, which you may refer to. This army training is normal military exchange, which does not target any country. CCTV: Yesterday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the NATO Public Forum that there has been a massive buildup of Russia's weaponry over the last year and a half, and that's the product of a defense industrial base being fueled by China. He said that China can't claim to be for peace and want to have better relations with Europe while at the same time fueling what is arguably the most significant threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. What's China's comment? Lin Jian: China made clear its position more than once. We firmly oppose the US spreading disinformation about so-called China's support for Russia's defense industry, to which there is no supporting evidence. We deplore and reject the wrongful remarks of the US side. Right after the Ukraine crisis broke out, the US falsely claimed that China was providing military support to Russia. Till this day, the US has not offered any substantial evidence. Even US military chiefs admitted that China did not provide military assistance to Russia in the Ukraine crisis. Statistics actually show that over 60 percent of Russia's imported military components and dual-use items come from the US and other Western countries, 95 percent of Russia's key components destroyed by Ukraine come from the West, and 72 percent of Western parts of Russian-made weapons come from US companies. How does the US explain that? What is more, the US and its allies have yet to stop trading with Russia. Last year, their trade with Russia reached over US$ 130 billion, accounting for 18 percent of Russia's foreign trade. Most countries in the world don't engage in the sanctions against Russia or stop their trade with Russia. China is anything but US's scapegoat. It is hypocritical and double standard for the US to falsely accuse China of our normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia, while passing legislation to provide massive aid to Ukraine. The US has often claimed itself to be the so-called champion of justice, human rights defender and world policeman, but what it has done is to fan the flames, sow discord and create confrontation and rivalry. Who is the culprit of the Ukraine crisis? Who is behind the regional conflicts and wars and protracted crisis? Who is the biggest source of instability of global peace and stability. The world is clear-eyed. Let me make clear once again that China is not the creator of the Ukraine crisis nor a party to it. That said, we have not just sat by and watched the crisis unfold. Instead, we have worked actively to enable talks for peace and a political solution. We've never sought to fuel the flames, never profiteered from the crisis and still less given weapons to any party to the conflict. This position is clear and consistent. On that basis, there is normal, legitimate trade and business cooperation between Chinese companies and other countries, including Russia, in line with WTO rules and market principles, which is not for certain countries to judge. The US might as well reflect on the root cause of the crisis and do something for peace rather than being an unfair judge in this crisis. The US must never expect China to pay for the mistake the US has made, and China will never accept US blame-shifting, bullying and coercion. China will continue to take resolute measures to safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights. Bloomberg: I have two questions. Germany's ruling coalition has agreed on a compromise proposal with German companies to remove Huawei components from the nation's 5G mobile network by the end of 2026 for national security reasons. 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 people familiar with the plan. We are wondering if the Foreign Ministry has any comments on this. And the second one, just to follow up on NATO. Bloomberg has also reported that NATO will be describing China as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine, according to the latest draft of the communiquA set to be released. The draft details China's supply of dual-use materials such as weapon components, equipment and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia's defense sector. Does the Foreign Ministry have any comments on this? Lin Jian: Huawei and other Chinese telecom companies have operated in Europe for many years. They have provided high-quality telecom infrastructure and created significant jobs and tax revenue for Europe. There is no evidence indicating that they are a danger to European countries' national security. Politicizing trade and tech issues will only disrupt normal exchanges and cooperation in technology and does not serve anyone's interests. We hope Germany will respect facts, rationally decide, independently come to a decision that conforms with its own interests and international rules, and provide a fair, transparent, open and non-discriminatory market environment for companies from all countries, including China. On your second question, I have elaborated on China's position. Let me reiterate that NATO's claim that China is responsible for the Ukraine crisis is ill-motivated and has no basis. China's objective and just position on Ukraine and the constructive role we've played are widely recognized by the international community. NATO has been spreading disinformation created by the US and blatantly smearing China to undermine China's relations with Europe and hamper China-Europe cooperation. We urge NATO to reflect on the root causes of the crisis and NATO's own behavior, and contribute to deescalation, instead of shifting blames onto others. Dragon TV: At the recently concluded 2024 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance, many of China's large-scale model applications came under the spotlight. We noted some comments saying that China is breaking new ground in AI technologies on its way to the top of global AI development. What's your comment? Lin Jian: We noted as well that many Chinese companies' large-scale model applications made their debut at the 2024 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance. Some are capable of generating a HD video clip based on the input of one sentence. Some can accurately identify specific farmland plots and crop distribution. Some can analyze images and texts within several seconds. These applications give us a glimpse of the future in which industries and sectors are empowered by innovative technologies. Innovation is a shining feature of China's economy and a robust engine of the global economy. In recent years, China's innovative manufacturing and technologies have played a key role in meeting domestic demand, offering international consumers more choices, and contributing to the global economy's green transition and the growth of emerging sectors. Among the World Economic Forum's 2024 cohort of Technology Pioneers, China ranks second with 11 companies on the list. On the latest global list of 153 lighthouse factories, China tops other countries with 62 companies on the list, including those from PV, new energy vehicle and other high-tech areas. Innovation shall not be the trophy of one single country and cannot be achieved by one single country. New challenges require joint response and innovation results should be shared by all. In recent years, with its mega-size market and full-fledged industrial system, China has expanded market access, facilitated the flow of innovation factors, aligned with high-standard international trade rules, and built 30 national-level manufacturing innovation centers to create conditions for international cooperation on innovation. We have carried out cooperation on green energy projects with more than 100 countries and regions, setting fine examples of green development with innovative technologies. We believe that innovation cooperation offers a stage for countries to grow and succeed together, rather than a wrestling ground for vicious competition and zero-sum games. Decoupling and building fences may make one look strong for a while, but in the long run, it will only box oneself in and hurt one's own future. China will embrace the good opportunities arising from the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, accelerate high-quality development and work with the rest of the world to innovate, boost world economic growth and contribute to global development. AFP: The "defense ministry" of Taiwan said today it detected 66 Chinese military aircraft around the island in a 24-hour window, a record high in recent years. Does it have anything to do with the NATO Summit? Lin Jian: I'd refer you to competent authorities on the specific question. Let me stress that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory and there is no such thing as "Taiwan's defense ministry." The Chinese people will never waver in our will and resolve to uphold China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Beijing Sends Message To NATO With Chinese-Belarusian Military Drills On Alliance's Eastern Flank By Reid Standish July 11, 2024 As NATO leaders gathered in Washington for a landmark summit and issued "irreversible" support for Ukraine and deep criticism of Beijing for its support of Russia, China was holding maneuvers with Belarusian troops on the alliance's eastern edge. The 11-day joint military exercises named Eagle Assault 2024 kicked off on July 8 -- the eve of the NATO summit -- and are under way near the Belarusian city of Brest, some 5 kilometers from the Polish border. The first of their kind between China and Belarus, the drills reflect growing defense ties between the two countries and are designed to send a message of resolve toward NATO, analysts and officials say. "The timing is hardly a coincidence," Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL. "There are lots of elements coming together here to send a clear message that China is deepening its ties with a like-minded country in Europe that supports its broader aims." At a July 5 briefing ahead of the drills -- which the Belarusian and Chinese Defense Ministries have billed as anti-terrorism exercises -- Vladimir Kupriyanyuk, the deputy head of the General Staff of the Belarusian armed forces, said the maneuvers were a response to the "West's aggressive foreign policy toward Belarus" and to "Ukrainian provocation." "The NATO grouping on the border with Belarus is growing rapidly, which leads to an increase in tension in the region," the Belarusian Defense Ministry said in a post on Telegram, as it warned of a "harsh reaction" should anyone "cross Belarusian borders." The ongoing exercises take place just days after Belarus became the 10th member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional defense bloc helmed by China and Russia. At the NATO summit in Washington, the alliance moved from blander comments made previously about China and openly accused it of supplying Russia's war effort against Ukraine. The joint declaration by all 32 NATO members called Beijing "a decisive enabler of Russia's war" and warned about unspecified consequences to "its interests and reputation" for enabling "the largest war in Europe in recent history." Beijing promptly called the accusations "lies and smears," and said that the exercises were not aimed at any country. But the declaration and the ongoing drills are likely to contribute to rising tensions between China and NATO. "There's been a slow update for Western allies when it comes to what China's game with Russia and countries like Belarus actually is," said Arho Havren. "But there is a growing recognition to focus on what China does and not what it says." NATO's Eastern Flank The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that as part of the joint exercises, Belarusian and Chinese troops will practice airborne assaults, a river crossing, and residential-area combat. The Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement that the forces will also practice hostage-rescue and counterterrorism operations. "What's being done now in Belarus is fairly limited as military exercises go, but for Minsk it's a valuable and convenient message to show that the regime doesn't only depend on Russia," Katia Glod, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told RFE/RL. Belarus has been one of Russia's closest allies following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, providing logistical support and air bases for the war while recently deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on its territory. For Belarus's authoritarian leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the exercises come as he continues to rely heavily on Russia -- his main sponsor and ally -- since becoming a pariah in the West in 2020 following a crackdown triggered by his disputed reelection that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged. Since then, Lukashenka has become increasingly antagonistic toward the West and NATO in particular. In addition to offering a springboard for Russia's war effort, Poland has accused Minsk of letting thousands of undocumented migrants into Belarus and directing them towards their shared border, an entry point to the European Union. "There is a hybrid war ongoing on the Poland-Belarus border, as well as on the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian borders," Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said prior to the start of the Belarus-China drills. The exercises, along with Minsk's close military ties with Russia, have also raised tensions with NATO's Baltic members. "Lithuania is in a dangerous neighborhood," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on July 9 at the Hudson Institute in Washington. "Any attack on NATO in our region would happen through Belarus. There's no other way around it. It's plain geography." Warming Relations China has become another key element -- and an increasingly important economic player -- of Lukashenka's geopolitical calculus in recent years as he navigated between Beijing, Brussels, Moscow, and Washington to leverage strategic gains and secure much needed loans and investment. Previously a very active investor in Belarus, China has not offered a new project or loan to Minsk since 2019 and seemed to have stepped back from the country amid its domestic crisis that cut Lukashenka off politically from Europe and made him a less appealing partner for Beijing. That has left Lukashenka politically and financially dependent on Russia, though still eager to bolster ties with China. One area where cooperation has continued to grow is the two countries' military ties, which Belarus and China have a history of, especially around technology transfers. In 2015, Minsk announced the completion of its Polonez multiple-rocket-launcher system, which military experts say uses modified Chinese designs and was developed with China's help. The development of the Polonez came after Moscow refused to sell its Iskander missile system at a discount to Belarus, leading Lukashenka to turn to Beijing in a bid at the time to gain strategic distance from Russia. "Once Lukashenka lost his ability to maneuver with the West, he needed another option to diversify away from a major reliance on Russia," Glod said. "China has given room to be this partner for Belarus." Belarus's entry into the SCO is seen as part of this trend and something of a new role for Minsk as it secures its footing between China and Russia amid their own deepening partnership since Moscow launched the full-scale war against Ukraine. Navigating that new terrain was also the topic of discussion in Washington amid the NATO summit. The Western military alliance invited Indo-Pacific partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea to Washington, where they discussed how to deepen cooperation and coordinate pushback against potentially expansionist designs from Beijing in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the region. In addition to concerns raised by Poland and Lithuania, other NATO countries close to the Ukraine war also warned how a Ukrainian defeat could embolden China. A Russian victory "doesn't only mean that the security in Europe will be worse," Czech President Petr Pavel said at a NATO Public Forum on July 10. "It will be much worse globally, because it will also encourage China to be more assertive and aggressive." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/china-belarus- military-exercises-nato-ukraine-russia/33031032.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO leaders condemn North Korea's arms exports to Russia They warn the North's military support to Russia undermines the global non-proliferation regime. By Taejun Kang for RFA 2024.07.10 -- NATO leaders condemned North Korea's weapons exports to Russia, voicing "great concern" over the two countries' deepening partnership. "We strongly condemn the DPRK's 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 the DPRK and Russia," the leaders said in a declaration at their summit in Washington on Wednesday. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea's official name. The leaders added that both North Korea and Iran were "fuelling Russia's war of aggression" against Ukraine by providing direct military support, which "seriously impacts" Euro-Atlantic security and undermines the global non-proliferation regime. "Any transfer of ballistic missiles and related technology by Iran to Russia would represent a substantial escalation," they said. The NATO summit came weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed under a new partnership treaty to offer each other military assistance "without delay" if either were attacked. The United States says North Korea has supplied Russia with large amounts of weapons for its war in Ukraine, in particular artillery rounds and ballistic missiles, although both Russia and North Korea deny that. Separately, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who were invited to the NATO summit as leaders of the four Indo-Pacific partner nations alongside Australia and New Zealand, pledged to bolster security cooperation amid the deepening military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. "The recent moves by Russia and North Korea are causing serious concern not only in East Asia but also for global security," Yoon said at the start of the talks with Kishida. "I hope that South Korea and Japan will cooperate closely with NATO member countries and reaffirm that the security of the North Atlantic and Northeast Asia cannot be separated," he said. Yoon added Russia's close alignment with North Korea highlighted the importance of trilateral security cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan, as outlined at their Camp David summit in August 2023 Kishida also said the security of the two regions was closely linked. "The security of the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific is inseparable. This summit provides an opportunity to deepen cooperation between NATO and our Indo-Pacific partners," Kishida added. Edited by Mike Firn. Copyright 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content July not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Germany to remove 2 Chinese firms' components from 5G networks By VOA July 11, 2024 A top security official in Germany said Thursday that starting in 2026, the European nation will begin removing key components made by Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE from its 5G core networks. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany aims to have the components removed by the end of 2026. After that, Huawei and ZTE components will be banned. Additionally, "critical management systems" from those manufacturers in 5G access and transport networks are mandated to be substituted by the conclusion of 2029. The Interior Ministry said the decision follows recent discussions with the operators of Germany's 5G networks a Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica. Agreements with all three companies are set to be signed, the ministry said. Today's risks underscore the importance of resilient telecommunications infrastructure, especially "with a view to dangers from sabotage and espionage," Faeser said. The action gives network operators time to replace essential components. "We are protecting the central nervous systems of Germany as a business location aand we are protecting the communication of citizens, companies and the state," said Faeser. China and Germany, ranked as the second- and third-largest economies globally, have historically maintained strong economic ties. However, Berlin has been seeking to lessen its economic reliance on China, especially since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine and subsequent energy crisis, which highlighted Germany's vulnerabilities and dependence on Russia. In recent years, the United States has effectively urged European allies such as Britain and Sweden to impose bans or limitations on Huawei equipment in their telecommunications networks, citing concerns that Beijing could exploit it for cyber espionage or disrupt vital communication systems a accusations repeatedly denied by Huawei. On Wednesday, NATO allies, including Germany, labeled China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war and expressed concerns over Beijing's nuclear arsenal and space capabilities. Beijing responded by accusing NATO of prioritizing its security interests at the expense of others and warned against bringing instability to Asia. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address DRDO sanctions seven new projects to the private sector under Technology Development Fund scheme India - Press Information Bureau Ministry of Defence Aim is to nurture industries, especially MSMEs & start-ups, in defence and aerospace sectors Posted On: 11 JUL 2024 12:39PM by PIB Delhi Providing impetus to Aatmanirbharta, Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has awarded seven new projects to industries under the Technology Development Fund scheme for various requirements of the Armed Forces and aerospace & defence sectors. These project sanctions are a testimony to the continuing endeavour of DRDO in nurturing Industries, especially MSMEs & start-ups, in defence and aerospace domains. The indigenous development of these technologies will strengthen the military industrial ecosystem. The details of the sanctioned projects are given below: Indigenous Scenario and Sensor Simulation Toolkit The project involves development of an indigenous toolkit for simulator training of pilots in realistic scenarios. This will help in full mission planning and large force engagement. The project has been awarded to start-up, Oxygen 2 Innovation Pvt Ltd, Noida. Underwater Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The project relates to a versatile marine battlefield accessories which can be deployed in multiple combat roles. The objective is Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). The project has been awarded to Sagar Defence Engineering Pvt Ltd Pune. Long-range Remotely Operated Vehicles for Detection & Neutralisation The vehicles are dual-use systems that will enable detection, classification, localisation & neutralisation of underwater objects while keeping the key assets away from the suspected operational area. The project has been awarded to a start-up, IROV Technologies Pvt Limited, Kochi. Development of Ice Detection Sensor for Aircraft The project aims to develop detecting icing condition inflight, caused by super cooled water droplets that freezes after their impact against the aircraft external surfaces and is utilised by the aircraft for turning on the aircraft Anti-icing mechanism. It has been awarded to Craftlogic Labs Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru. Development of Radar Signal Processor with Active Antenna Array Simulator The project will enable deployment of multiple target system for test and evaluation of multiple short range aerial weapon system. It serves as the basic building block for larger radar systems. The project has been sanctioned to Data Pattern (India) Limited, Chennai. Development of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System-based Timing Acquisition & Dissemination System The project has been sanctioned to Accord Software & Systems Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru. It aims to enable indigenisation of timing acquisition and dissemination system, use of Indian Constellation for acquiring time & development of customised and flexible timing system as per range requirements. Development of Graphene Based Smart & E-textiles for Multifunctional Wearable Applications The start-up, Alohatech Private Limited, Coimbatore has been sanctioned the project. It will develop a conductive yarn and fabric-making processes using graphene nanomaterials and conductive inks. The outcome will be advanced nanocomposite materials-based E-textiles utilising the inherent advantages for practical clothing applications. ****** ABB/Savvy (Release ID: 2032334) NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Meeting with Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on the sidelines of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St Petersburg. July 11, 2024 16:00 St Petersburg Taking part in the meeting were Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko and Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. * * * President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Ghalibaf, friends, I am delighted to welcome you to St Petersburg. I am sure that your work at this event, BRICS' interparliamentary dimension, will be very useful. More importantly, it comes at the right moment. Iran is beginning its work as a full member of this association. This makes us happy. We worked together to organise Iran's accession. Russia and Iran are making considerable progress in their relations. Iran recently held a presidential election. I hope and I have no doubt that Russia-Iran relations will develop at the same steady pace as they did under Mr Raisi, whose passing we all mourn. The inauguration of the President-elect of Iran will be held soon. Your colleague, Mr Volodin, will lead the Russian delegation at that event. I am happy to see you, and I would like to ask you to convey our best wishes to the spiritual leader of Iran and to the Iranian nation as a whole. Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (retranslated): Good afternoon, Mr President. I would like to thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to have a brief meeting with me. Thank you very much. We would also like to convey the Supreme Leader's best wishes to you. I would like to note the importance of the ongoing developments. The Supreme Leader emphasises the importance of continuing every major project that you and us have agreed upon, which were outlined in the first written message that [...] handed over to you during previous visit. We have received your answer to the Supreme Leader's message. So, everything has come together, and we will continue to work. I would like to assure you and our Russian colleagues that the Iranian Parliament and the new Iranian government will continue to expand cooperation with the Russian Federation at the same pace as before. We initiated major projects under late President Raisi. We realise that this tragic event strongly impacted our country. I would also like to thank you in person for the timely support that you accorded to us that very night. I am certain and there is no doubt that we will put in even more effort into expanding bilateral relations as they apply to the bilateral projects and other projects that we are pursuing as part of BRICS, among others. We have been working successfully on major interregional projects for more than a decade mow. We see how illegal activities of the United States adversely impact our region. However, we are cooperating and acting as a team, and Iran and Russia have been successfully countering these threats and challenges. We cooperate not only in matters of security, but in other important regional issues, including economic projects, as well. We need to further up our cooperation. Today, you spotlighted critically important issues in your remarks. I am certain that the necessary ground for this has been prepared as well. True, there are occasional bureaucratic obstacles, but they are fairly inconsequential. Rest assured that we can make these obstacles disappear as we move into the future. Your special envoys and representatives often go to Iran. They monitor the status of the implementation of the projects, and we discuss project details with your colleagues. We should be more serious about our major projects, especially the North-South project, energy projects, and regional projects. The Iranian parliament has adopted a five-year programme, and the North-South project tops the list of the region's major projects. We are quite serious about implementing the existing agreements. I am confident that bureaucratic hurdles will not hinder the implementation of this project. Today, we are all determined to implement everything we have agreed upon with the Russian Federation. As you noted in your remarks, we must properly address the areas, in which the Americans are acting against us. We will join our efforts in addressing these matters. Our military-technical cooperation is making strides. I think we can establish similarly effective cooperation on issues other than military as well. Once again, rest assured that the successful implementation of these projects is beyond doubt. Thank you very much once again. <...> NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President Putin: Iran-Russia cooperation to expand further Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 5:58 PM Russian President Vladimir Putin has highlighted his country's willingness for promotion of mutual cooperation with Iran, calling for further expansion of bilateral relations between Moscow and Tehran in various spheres. During a meeting with Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf on the sidelines of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg on Thursday, Putin emphasized that cooperation between the two countries will continue to grow. The Russian leader expressed satisfaction over Iran's accession to the BRICS group of emerging economies, stating that his country had supported the Islamic Republic's membership. Iran officially became a member of the BRICS at the beginning of this year, five months after it announced its acceptance as full member into the group along with Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. BRICS was formed by and initially consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which collectively represent around 40% of the global population and a quarter of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). Iran was among dozens of countries that sought membership in BRICS and had submitted a formal application to join the body. Putin also hailed growing relations between Moscow and Tehran, stressing that their mutual cooperation will continue to develop under the upcoming Iranian administration led by president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian. "Presidential elections were held in your country. I am hopeful and have no doubt that relations between Iran and the Russian Federation will be developing", Putin said, adding that the two sides will be boosting their ties as they did so under late Iranian president Ebrahim Raeisi. He also said that chairman of Russia's State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin will head a delegation to Iran to take part in Pezeshkian's swearing-in ceremony, which is set to take place on July 30. Earlier, Qalibaf had a meeting with Volodin and two sides exchanged viewpoints on a host of issues regarding mutual ties as well as regional and international developments. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran dismisses NATO allegation it supplies ballistic missiles to Russia to be used in Ukraine war Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 10:55 AM Iran has categorically rejected allegations it is providing ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia, raised by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to be used in the military campaign against Ukraine. In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani said NATO has made "totally baseless and politically-motivated" claims. In their declaration issued on Wednesday, the NATO leaders claimed that North Korea and Iran were fuelling Russia's military operation against Ukraine by providing direct military support to Moscow, such as munitions and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), which they said impacted Euro-Atlantic security and undermined the global non-proliferation regime. They said any transfer of ballistic missiles and related technology by Iran to Russia would represent a substantial escalation. The Iranian spokesman, in reaction, said the ongoing developments in Ukraine are the result of NATO's "provocative" policies and measures led by the United States. Kan'ani added that any attempt to link the war in Ukraine to the cooperation between Iran and Russia is "politically-motivated" with the aim of legitimizing the West's interference and their military aid to Ukraine. He once again reiterated Iran's unwavering strategy to play a constructive role in promoting endurable security in the region and across the world. Iran has never provided Russia with any type of drones during the military conflict in Ukraine and still emphasizes the importance of settling the crisis and establishing lasting peace through political channels, the diplomat pointed out. Iran has repeatedly rejected accusations that it has supplied weapons to Russia for direct use in the war in Ukraine. It has also discarded allegations of supplying weapons to anti-Israeli and anti-US groups in the region. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly warned that a flow of Western weapons to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the US, alone, has provided approximately $51.4 billion in military assistance to Kiev, the US State Department said in early July. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Exclusive: Iran struggled to arrange US ballot stations for presidential election runoff By Michael Lipin July 11, 2024 Iran struggled to arrange absentee voting in the U.S. for the second round of its presidential election Friday, as a VOA investigation found that Tehran's U.S. ballot stations suffered more setbacks than those it organized for the election's first round a week prior. Tehran declared relative moderate former Iranian Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian the winner of the July 5 runoff against ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Iran's interests section office in Washington began the absentee voting operation on U.S. soil by setting up ballot stations for the election's first round on June 28. That first-round operation suffered some setbacks, according to an initial VOA investigation. Three of the 33 ballot station addresses listed online by the interests section office just hours before voting started quickly canceled their voting events under pressure from Iranian American activists and protesters who oppose Iran's authoritarian Islamist rulers. VOA's new investigation found that Iran's U.S.-based agents encountered deeper problems with organizing ballot stations for the July 5 runoff. The findings conflict with Iran's assertion, published by state news agency IRNA, that those agents were able to "increase" the number of ballot stations for the runoff, thanks to the "welcome" of Iranians living in the U.S. Almost half of the June 28 ballot stations were not relisted for use in the runoff, indicating difficulties for the organizers in rebooking some of the first-round venues. VOA also assessed that for the runoff, the locations where voting was canceled doubled, while ballot stations whose addresses were hidden to keep protesters away increased. Those addresses were accessible only by contacting a listed phone number or email address. A VOA review of the July 5 ballot station list, which was updated multiple times that day, found that it included street addresses of 32 venues. One additional venue near Boston had been exposed by activists online after they apparently accessed its unlisted address via email. The listed addresses included those of 16 hotels, six Islamic centers, and a variety of other venues. VOA assessed that voting events proceeded in at least 17 venues on the July 5 list, based on verbal confirmations from venue staff who answered phone calls that day and on images of the sites posted by activists on social media and deemed to be credible. Fifteen of the identified July 5 ballot station locations had not been listed for the election's first round, while 18 locations from the first round were relisted for round two. One of them was the main ballot station, in Iran's Washington interests section office. That is where a VOA Persian reporter observed about 90 to 100 people entering the venue in a 10-hour period on July 5. Three of them told the reporter that most of the visitors were filling out passport applications or other paperwork rather than voting. One man was at the office with his wife on July 5 specifically to vote. He told the VOA Persian reporter that voting is a pillar of democracy and could lead to positive change for Iran. Many diaspora Iranians denounced Iran's presidential election as a sham, while the State Department called it neither free nor fair. The Islamic republic's ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues. Iranian American activists opposed to Tehran's U.S. ballot stations protested peacefully on June 28 outside two venues that canceled voting events, and those activist told VOA they successfully appealed to a third to do the same. None of the three venues were relisted for the July 5 vote. One of them was the Congregational Church of Weston near Boston. Pastoral Resident Megan Strouse told VOA in an interview that those who rented the church on June 28 identified themselves as from Boston's Iranian American community. "We thought their intention was to hold an election event for their local community, for a board or something of that nature," Strouse said. "That morning, we realized what the event was, and our senior pastor made the call to ask the renters to stop their event, as it did not align with our mission and purpose as a religious organization." VOA emailed the independently owned Biltmore Hotel Oklahoma in Oklahoma City on July 3, requesting confirmation of its use as a June 28 ballot station after Iran had identified it as such, and asking whether the hotel would host a voting event for the runoff. There was no response from the hotel, and it was left off the second-round ballot station list published on July 5. In another sign of the difficulties that Iran faced in its U.S. ballot station operation for July 5, VOA determined that voting was canceled in three of the 33 identified venues. Hotel staff who answered the phones at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Seattle North Lynnwood in Washington and at Marriott's The Westin Tysons Corner in Virginia confirmed that the runoff voting events were called off following protest activity. Protesters also found the unlisted address of a second-round mobile ballot station that briefly operated out of a police station parking lot in the Boston suburb of Woburn. They posted social media images indicating the event was called off after they showed up at the site. Three additional U.S. cities initially appeared in Iran's July 5 list as numbered voting precincts, but they were removed in updated versions of the list with no ballot station addresses having been displayed, indicating that voting plans for those locations had been canceled as well. These were Ontario, California; Oklahoma City; and Sterling, Virginia. Iran also hid the addresses of July 5 mobile voting stations that it listed for three parts of Los Angeles and for New York's Manhattan borough and the Boston area, forcing both prospective voters and protesters to use the listed contact information for those stations to find their addresses. For the June 28 vote, only the mobile station for Manhattan had an unlisted address. U.S. advocacy group National Iranian American Council, which has adopted a positive view of Pezeshkian, Iran's incoming president, decried what it called the protesters' intimidation and harassment of Iranian Americans who voted at U.S. ballot stations on June 28. "We cannot be a community that stands for voter suppression and attacks against Iranians who dare to express their political agency," NIAC said in a July 2 statement. Andrew Ghalili, a senior policy analyst with National Union for Democracy in Iran, an Iranian American advocacy group that opposes the Islamic republic, told VOA that those who organized and participated in the U.S. voting events were helping the Iranian government boost its legitimacy at home and abroad. But Ghalili said the boycott of the vote by most diaspora Iranians and protest actions by some of them showed that they have lost faith in the Islamic republic's ability to reform itself through elections. "Some of the protesters' goals were accomplished, in terms of making Iran struggle with its election messaging, so I think they should be pleased with their efforts," he said. Soran Khateri of VOA's Persian service contributed to this report from Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address READOUT: Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen's Meeting with Foreign Minister Israel Katz of Israel U.S. Department of the Treasury July 10, 2024 WASHINGTON -- Secretary Yellen met with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz today, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington DC. Secretary Yellen reaffirmed Treasury's strong commitment to Israel's security. Secretary Yellen also emphasized the need for Israel to maintain economic stability in the West Bank by regularly transferring clearance revenues to the Palestinian Authority and ensuring that correspondent banking relations between Israeli and Palestinian banks remain uninterrupted. Secretary Yellen also raised Treasury's February Executive Order 14115, holding individuals and entities accountable for perpetrating, inciting, or financially supporting violence throughout the West Bank. During the meeting, Secretary Yellen outlined Treasury actions to disrupt Iran and its proxies including Hizballah and Hamas. Secretary Yellen welcomed additional information sharing with Israel and noted that ongoing collaboration to combat terrorist financing has yielded fruitful results with respect to countering Iranian financial and military support to Hamas, Hizballah, and its other regional partners and proxies. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US to resume shipment of heavy bombs to Israel despite rising civilian deaths Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 9:45 AM The administration of US President Joe Biden is set to resume shipping heavy bombs to the Israeli regime in defiance of international calls against the move, in line with Washington's untrammeled support for the occupying entity in its months-long genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Speaking on condition of anonymity on Wednesday, a US official said Washington would resume shipping 500-pound bombs to Israel. The official added, however, that the US would continue to hold back on supplying 2,000-pound bombs over what he claimed to be "concerns" about their use in the densely populated city of Rafah in southern Gaza. "We've been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs, particularly for Israel's Rafah campaign which they have announced they are concluding," the official said. "Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000 lb bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza ... because our concern was not about the 500 lb bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process," the official added. The US media also confirmed that the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel is getting underway. The bombs "are in the process of being shipped" after a two-month pause and are expected to arrive in Israel in the "coming weeks," The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an administration official. "Heavier 2,000-pound bombs that were meant to be part of the same shipment are still on hold." In May, the Biden administration paused a planned shipment to Israel of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs amid concerns about Israel's plans for a possible ground assault on Rafah, where 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Washington in June for "withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel" in recent months, adding that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had assured him that restrictions would be lifted on arms transfers to Israel. During his latest visit to Washington, Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said there had been significant progress on the issue of US munitions supply to Israel, adding that "obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed." The US has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid for Israel. This has accelerated since the start of the regime's barbaric aggression on Gaza in October last year. In defiance of international condemnation, the regime has flouted a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as its genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian territory lingers on for the 10th month. Israel unleashed its bloody Gaza offensive on October 7, 2023 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime's intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 38,295 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza, and injured 88,241 others. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Myanmar insurgent allies capture strategic Shan state town from junta Nawnghkio lies on the main road between Mandalay and the Chinese border. By RFA Burmese 2024.07.11 -- An alliance of insurgent forces battling to end army rule has captured a major town in northern Myanmar, a spokesperson for the main group told Radio Free Asia, in the latest setback for the junta that seized power in a 2021 military coup. The Ta'ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, and allied forces seized the last base in Shan state's Nawnghkio town from junta troops on Wednesday, after two weeks of fighting, the spokesperson said. "We were able to capture the junta's missile battalion in Nawnghkio town at around 3 p.m.," the spokesperson told RFA. The junta has not released any information on the battle, and Shan state's junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, did not answer inquiries from RFA. The TNLA, which is part of an alliance of three ethnic minority insurgent forces known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, ended a five-month ceasefire with the junta on June 25. Since then, the group has been fighting for territory in Shan state's Nawnghkio, Kyaukme, Mongmit and Hsipaw townships, as well as in Mandalay region's Mogoke township. The alliance has since claimed to have captured at least 26 bases across the north. The alliance launched an offensive last November, codenamed Operation 1027 for the date it began, and pushed back junta forces in several regions, including along northeastern Myanmar's border with China. Insurgent forces in other parts of the country have stepped up their attacks since then too, posing the biggest challenge the military has faced in years of conflict. China, concerned about its economic interests, according to Myanmar sources, brokered peace talks in Shan state in January that brought a halt to the conflict there. But the truce collapsed late last month and fighting has surged since then. Nawnghkio, about 85 km (52 miles) northeast of Mandalay, is on the main road between Myanmar's second city and the Chinese border. The insurgents are also trying to capture Lashio, the main city in northern Shan state, which is about 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Nawnghkio. Retaliation by air TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo said Nawnghkio was captured by fighters from the TNLA, the Palaung State Liberation Front, Mandalay People's Defense Force and Danu People's Liberation Army. The insurgents captured several junta administrative offices and 10 military bases around the city including the headquarters of three battalions, along with 600 weapons, the groups said in a joint statement. The insurgents posted pictures on social media of their fighters with a captured multiple rocket launcher, two double barrel anti-aircraft guns, as well as rows of captured rifles and other weapons. Junta retaliation has been fierce, with its forces launching more than 100 airstrikes in Nawnghkio town, the TNLA said. None of the insurgent groups released any figures for casualties amongst their forces. Ten residents of the town were killed and nine were wounded, the TNLA said, adding that nine houses and two monasteries were destroyed. The group blamed the deaths on the junta's heavy weapons, but RFA wasn't able to confirm this independently. Nawnghkio has a population of more than 16,000 people but most have fled because of the fighting, residents said. A TNLA spokesperson confirmed to RFA last week that China recently pressured the group to stop its recent renewed offensive. But political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA this week that Beijing is unlikely to press very hard for another ceasefire. "China doesn't like the junta," he said. "The Chinese government hasn't recognized the leaders of the junta. Therefore, if the junta was removed from power, China would support the remaining forces so as to not affect its interests in Myanmar." 'The offensives are getting closer' Rebel forces have also begun an attack on junta outposts in Mandalay region's Singu and Madaya townships, which are directly north of Mandalay city, according to Maung Maung Swe of the shadow National Unity Government. Singu is about 88 km (55 miles) north of Mandalay while Madaya is just 40 km (25 miles) north of the city along a highway that connects Mandalay to Bhamo in Kachin state. "The Shan-Mann (Mandalay) Operation has begun to penetrate into Mandalay which is the gateway to the central plain area," Maung Maung Swe said. Insurgents this week said they have captured 11 junta outposts in Singu township and 25 outposts in Madaya township, according to Osmond, a spokesperson for the Mandalay People's Defense Force, or the MDY-PDF. "Clear targets and military objectives have been made by our forces and the allied ethnic armed groups," he said. "We are implementing our mission step-by-step." Maung Maung Swe added that junta troops have been ineffective on the ground and have mostly responded to the offensive with airstrikes and artillery attacks. National junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told state-owned newspapers on Wednesday that special attention would be paid to ensuring the safety of civilians in the renewed fighting. If junta troops can't stop the MDY-PDF and their allied forces in Singu and Madaya, then insurgents will move their offensive southward toward Mandalay city, according to a former military officer, who asked not to be named for security reasons. "The offensives are getting closer, and they would attack Mandalay at least," he said. "If it cannot be controlled, the battle will reach Mandalay." Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. This has been updated with details from fighting in Singu and Madaya townships. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content July not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Transcript of the Press Briefing by the Spokesperson on Thursday, 11 July 2024 Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Assalam-o-Alaikum, Welcome and thank you for joining us. At the invitation of Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev will today arrive in Pakistan on a two-day official visit. President Aliyev will meet with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif. The two sides will engage in wide-ranging discussions on areas of mutual interest to further strengthen bilateral strategic cooperation between Pakistan and Azerbaijan. The Fourth Round of Bilateral Political Consultations between Pakistan and the Republic of Estonia was held yesterday in Islamabad. Additional Foreign Secretary (Europe), Ambassador Shafqat Ali Khan led the Pakistan side, while Director General of the Department of Asia, the Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, Ambassador Kristi Karelsohn, headed the Estonian side. The two sides expressed satisfaction at the trajectory of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Estonia and reaffirmed their commitment to further enhance bilateral engagement and dialogue. The two sides also extensively reviewed the ongoing bilateral cooperation and agreed to further intensify collaboration in trade and economy, information and digital technology and education. Regional and global developments of mutual concern were also discussed. The two sides agreed to consult closely on all issues of mutual interest including at the various multilateral forums. During her visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director General Karelsohn also called on Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi. Pakistan strongly condemns this week's indiscriminate attacks by Israeli occupation forces on four schools in Gaza resulting in the massacre of dozens of women and children who were taking shelter there. These attacks are yet another piece of evidence of Israel's genocidal campaign against the people of Gaza. The indiscriminate targeting of civilian populations and facilities is a grave violation of international law and constitutes war crimes. With its latest actions, Israeli occupation forces have once again demonstrated their contempt for international law and the basic tenets of decency and acceptable international behaviour. These flagrant violations of international humanitarian law must not be permitted to become the new norm. We call on the international community to take urgent measures to bring an immediate end to Israel's campaign of terror and the genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people. The time has come to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and its flagrant violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. The 93rd 'Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir' (Kashmir Martyrs Day) will be observed on the 13th of July. This day commemorates the martyrdom of 22 Kashmiris, who sacrificed their lives in Srinagar in 1931 braving the indiscriminate firing of Dogra forces of the erstwhile 'Maharaja' (Prince) of Jammu and Kashmir. We salute their valour, which kindled a valiant movement for the rights and freedoms of the Kashmiri people, and for their right to self-determination. This movement continues to this day. On a pattern similar to the Dogra forces, the Indian Forces have killed thousands of Kashmiris over the last few decades, simply for demanding their rights. The iconic Kashmiri youth leader Burhan Muzaffar Wani was one of the hundreds of Kashmiri youth, who have fallen victim to extra-judicial killings in IIOJK. His eighth martyrdom anniversary was observed on the 8th of July. In this week of 'Youm-e-Shuhada-e-Kashmir', we once again urge the Government of India to bring an end to its campaign of extra-judicial killings and indiscriminate use of lethal force against the Kashmiri people. Pakistan will continue to extend political, diplomatic and moral support to our Kashmiri brothers and sisters for the just and peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolutions. Thank you! *** (Anas Mallick, Capital TV): Starting from Kashmir, you mentioned about Burhan Wani. On the eighth of July, I mean precedent-wise, we see that every year there's a statement made by the Foreign Minister, by the President, by the Prime Minister. When the martyrdom really happened, the then Prime Minister and then federal cabinet declared the day as a "Black Day". But contrary to the precedent, there was no statement, even ceremonial statement made this year. Is this a policy shift on the part of Islamabad? That's number one. Second question, at the SCO meet, since Pakistan joined the SCO as an observer in 2005 and then going on to becoming a full member in 2017. The least number of bilaterals by any Pakistani Prime Minister on the sidelines of the SCO was this year. The most meetings were held by Mr. Shehbaz Sharif in Samarkand in 2022 where there were 13 bilateral, structured bilateral. This year, there were just three structured bilaterals. Do you see that as a failure of diplomacy or as a failure of policy? And number three, the Iranian President Elect Masoud Pezeshkian, is all set to be inaugurated on the 28th of this month. Will there be any level of participation in his oath-taking? Because last time when President Raisi was being inaugurated, the then Chairman Senate attended his inauguration. Thank you. Spokesperson:aRegarding your last question, at this stage, we are awaiting details of the ceremony, and the Government of Pakistan will take any decision on this matter in due course. Your second question, I think, is based on an inaccurate understanding of the need for holding bilateral meetings on the sideline of various multilateral events. These bilateral meetings are held with various countries depending on the need and the availability of both sides on the sidelines of any particular conference that is taking place. I'm very surprised to hear the terminology that you have used about Pakistan's diplomatic failure. Only a few weeks ago, Pakistan was elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council with overwhelming votes, and that reflects the strength of our diplomacy and robust relations that Pakistan has with countries around the world. Similarly, your first question is based on inaccurate information. I would advise you to peruse the previous statements over the last several years. And more importantly, I have just made a statement about the Youm-e-Shohda Kashmir and remembering Burhan Wani as an icon of freedom movement in Jammu and Kashmir. (Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): Two three days back, the spokesman of the State Department, Matthew Miller, condemned 9th of May incidents in Pakistan. And when the US Congress passed a resolution on 8th of February election, you have termed it interference into Pakistan's internal affairs. So now the State Department statement, what do you think it's a positive. Does the government of Pakistan welcome it as they have condemned the violence, any act of violence? And second part of my question is also about the statement by Matthew Miller that having a hot pursuit bombing inside Afghanistan against TTP is Pakistan's own decision. How do you perceive it? Is it a tacit support from the United States, as the two countries are partners in counter terrorism? Spokesperson: aRegarding your first question, I would reiterate what we said earlier regarding the arson and looting that took place in Pakistan on 9 May 2023. Pakistan is a country of laws and Constitution, and Pakistan remains committed to its constitutional obligations to protect the rights and property of its citizens. Secondly, we are committed to upholding our laws and to holding those responsible for May 9 events to account and ensuring public safety and protecting public property. These cases are being considered in Pakistan in pursuance of our domestic laws and constitution. As for your second question I do not understand its framework. You have said that the Americans have made a statement with regards to Pakistan's Foreign Policy and Pakistan's relations with Afghanistan. Of course, that is Pakistan's prerogative to conduct its bilateral relations with countries around the world, including with Afghanistan. (Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): What is the update on extension of residence permits for those Afghan Refugees who are residing in Pakistan? Spokesperson: As you know, there are different categories of Afghan nationals based in Pakistan. There are Afghan nationals who enjoy refugee status in Pakistan, and then there are Afghan nationals, who are in possession of ACC cards and POR cards. You may have seen that the Cabinet of Pakistan has decided to extend the POR cards for another year. (Siyar Ali Shah, Khyber News): Madam, you have issued an explanatory statement during the visit of UNHCR's head. You said that the operation against illegal foreigners, the repatriation process is ongoing. It can be seen that the speed of this process has apparently been reduced. What are the reasons? Because when the process of repatriation started, it was rapid. Can you give latest figures? Secondly, Foreign Minister said that he will visit Afghanistan. What is the nature of this visit? Has he been invited by Afghan side or is he visiting by himself? What is the importance of this visit? (Naveed Siddiqui, Daily Dateline): Ma'am, after the fall of Kabul, thousands of Afghans came to Pakistan and worked with Allied Forces. They were said to be in thousands and were to be repatriated to the UK, America, and Australia. Special flights were operated for them as well. What is their status? Spokesperson: Okay, first of all, I would like to respond to Siyar Shah's second question. The visit of any dignitary, including the Foreign Minister, to a foreign country, takes place by mutual consultations of the two governments. The Foreign Minister, will undertake a visit to Afghanistan or to any other country, after bilateral consultations and mutual agreement on the dates by the two sides. With regards to Siyar's first question. Yes, indeed, the Illegal Foreign Repatriation Plan is being implemented, as per its provisions in different phases, in an orderly and phased manner. And we have seen the first phase has progressed in a fast manner. It is near completion. The number of illegal foreigners, including Afghan nationals, who have been repatriated to their home countries, were higher in the initial months of its implementation. These numbers are gradually coming down as more and more individuals have been returning to their home countries. The second phase, as you would recall, pertains to Afghan nationals who possess ACC cards and for that, a mapping exercise is taking place. Implementation and initiation of Phase two will be announced by the Government of Pakistan. At this stage, I do not have a date to share with you. Third category is that of the POR card holder Afghan nationals. That category is not being considered for repatriation at this stage. For them, the POR cards have been extended for one year. And lastly, with regards to Afghan refugees in Pakistan, we have said repeatedly that the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan does not apply to individuals who enjoy refugee status in Pakistan. Yes, you are right. Pakistan engaged with certain governments, and these governments include Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, United States and Italy. These countries agreed to take certain number of Afghan nationals. We have remained engaged with them, and have urged them to expedite the approval and visa issuance process for these individuals, so that they are relocated as early as possible. (Ijaz Ahmed, GNN): Pakistan had a strong reaction to the resolution which was passed by the US. The National Assembly then and the Punjab Provincial Assembly also passed resolutions rejecting the US resolution. This shows apparent fissures in relations between Pakistan and America. In his press conference that Mr. Piracha talked about, David Miller reiterated concerns about the investigation of human rights violations. Are Pakistan and America relations in recovery phase? What is the situation? Spokesperson: I think this question was asked last week as well, and I responded that Pakistan and United States have a multifaceted and robust relationship, and Pakistan is interested in further strengthening this relationship and strengthening the dialogue that exists between the two countries. We have remained engaged with the United States, trying to understand each other's perspectives, expressing and sharing with each other, our mutual concerns, and identify areas of cooperation. We believe that this relationship should move forward on the basis of mutual trust, mutual benefit, sovereign equality and non-interference in each other's domestic affairs. (Aghar Ali Mubarak, The Daily Mail International): Ma'am, when Indian Prime Minister was elected, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif congratulated him on social media. Has Government of Pakistan officially sent him any message through the Foreign Office? And has there been any back channel diplomacy between Pakistan and India or have there been any indirect contacts between Pakistan and India including during the recent SCO conference? Spokesperson: I am not aware of any informal back channel communications between Pakistan and India. (Zain Zaman, AFP): Regarding this third category of Afghan nationals who arrived in Pakistan after recent takeover of Kabul, a leading newspaper said that their number is 70,000 and only 9,000 have been settled in Western nations. Only 9,000 were granted visas. So, can you confirm these numbers? Do you have any idea that how many of them have been granted visas and how many are still in Pakistan? Spokesperson: Okay, this question pertains to number of individuals who have been approved for relocation to third Countries. According to our information, this figure is in thousands. Individuals who have been pre-approved for relocation and are currently in Pakistan include around 9000, who are to go to Australia, around 6000 who would go to Canada, around 3000 to Germany, 1127 to the United Kingdom and some to France and Italy. There is a large number of Afghan nationals who are to be resettled by the United States and the list which was provided to us is of around 25,000 individuals. (Mateen Haider, GTV): The Government of Pakistan is planning to host All Parties Conference to review its strategy towards counter terrorism. So, it is established that most of the terrorist attacks comes from across the border, from Afghan territory. So what option Pakistan has right if Afghan authorities do not respond positively despite repeated requests and communications from Islamabad to Kabul. Just yesterday, there were two counter-terrorism operations in which more than five soldiers and one officer lost life. So, your comments on cooperation from Kabul on Pakistan's request to hand over those TTP militants who have been involved, and if there is no response, what options Pakistan has? Spokesperson: Pakistan and Afghanistan have been discussing this very serious issue for the last several months. Pakistan is concerned about the terror threat that we face from individuals and entities which have support and sponsorship from across the border in Afghanistan. We have conveyed our concerns to the Afghan authorities on multiple occasions. We urge Afghanistan to take concrete and effective action against these entities and to ensure that the Afghan territory is not used to foment terror attacks inside Pakistan. (Changez Khan Jadoon, Daily Payam-e-Khyber): Afghan migrants who are holding dual identities i.e. Pakistan and Afghan passports, they come through Kabul to Pakistan with Pakistani passport and go back to Afghanistan with the Afghani passport. Is there any coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan regarding the number of people holding dual nationality and how to counter it? Spokesperson: First of all, I must underline that under Pakistan's Citizenship Act, a dual nationality with Afghanistan does not exist. With regards to possession of any Pakistani documents that Afghan nationals may have, I would advise you to contact the Ministry of Interior for clarity. (Anas Mallick, Capital TV): On the sidelines of Doha conference during the bilateral between Pakistan and Afghanistan, reportedly and also confirmed by the Afghan officials who were present there, the Afghan side emphasized the need for dialogue and negotiations with TTP. Would Pakistan be open to dialogue through Afghanistan's interim government with terror linked elements, those who are possibly on their soil as you have been pointing out? (Kiran Butt, Khorasan diary): The Afghan spokesperson has also come on record and said that they are ready, if Pakistan asked them to mediate between Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Pakistani authorities to start the negotiations again. He has added that if Pakistan tries to attack the Afghan soil, it will be an aggression, and Afghanistan will not accept it. So, what's the take of Pakistan's side on it? Spokesperson: Pakistan has said that we respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a neighbour of Pakistan. We expect the Afghan authorities to uphold their sovereignty and take action against those terror groups which have found sanctuaries inside Afghanistan and are using Afghan territory to attack Pakistan. I would also like to reiterate that Pakistan has no designs of entering into any talks with a terror group that has been involved in killings of Pakistani citizens, Pakistani and foreign citizens in Pakistan. This is what Pakistan has said and I have repeated several times from this podium. And in that respect, any statement that may have come from any side, I think should be taken in the proper context of Pakistan's position with regards to dialogue with TTP. (Anas Mallick, Capital TV): My next question is with regards to a series of attacks in the IIOJK followed by a lot of Indian media commentary that we are seeing. They are habitually linking Pakistan to these attacks. Your take on the matter? Spokesperson: Pakistan has said time and again that India has a habit of blaming Pakistan for anything that happens under its watch, especially in IIOJK. We reject such accusations and concocted stories. (Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): Ma'am what are the updates on Pakistan-Russia trade? As in recent meeting many things were discussed, what is the latest situation with Russia? Spokesperson: Pakistan and Russia have a positive trajectory of relations. We are encouraged with the dialogue and cooperation that is taking place between the two countries. The latest meeting between the leaders of our two countries on the sidelines of the SCO Summit, was an important occasion for the two countries to reaffirm their commitment to further enhance cooperation in various domains, including in economic and trade matters. (Abdullah Momand, Dawn News): This week, Pakistan and the United States conducted joined military exercises in Peshawar. There were a lot of speculation on social media regarding US military bases. Is there any commitment between Pakistan and America regarding terrorism or what is the importance of these joint exercises? Spokesperson: Okay, Pakistan and United States have a long history of cooperation in the security and defence field, including cooperation in training and joint exercises in the domain of counter terrorism. We believe these joint exercises are useful in sharing of expertise and learning from each other in combating terrorist threat that we face. Further details may be sought from the relevant departments. (Munir Ahmed, AP): A couple of questions. How many Afghans have gone back to their country since November when Pakistan started this crackdown? You have mentioned the second phase that will be starting. Do you think it will be starting this year against the (ACC) Afghan citizen card holders? How many Afghans are living in Pakistan? Also the UN Refugee Agency Chief made a statement appreciating Pakistan's suspension of this crackdown, and you have refuted it. Could you share why the UNHCR chief issued this statement, and who gave him this understanding or assurance that Pakistan has suspended this crackdown against these Afghans, who are living in Pakistan? Lastly since you have been mentioning repeatedly that this crackdown is against foreigners living in Pakistan, and how many other foreigners have gone back, other than from these Afghans? Spokesperson: I would like to first disagree with the word that you have used of "crackdown". I would like to underline that the IFRP, the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan, is a plan to implement Pakistan's laws, immigration laws. Just like any other country, Pakistan has the sovereign right to implement its laws with regards to individuals who are present in Pakistan in violation of our immigration laws. The laws of Pakistan are clear. Those individuals can face fines, they can be imprisoned and they can be deported, as per their particular case. At this stage, no decision has been taken regarding initiation of the second phase. Secondly, as I have stated earlier, Pakistan has not given any indication to UNHCR that IFRP has been suspended or will no longer be implemented. What is the basis of the statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees may be sought from their Spokesperson. Thirdly, we have been implementing this IFRP without discrimination with regards to the nationality of individuals who are present in Pakistan illegally, and individuals from various nationalities have been deported. Many of them have left voluntarily, as per the IFRP's conditions and these individuals belong to different nationalities. I do not have the statistics, so you may seek these figures from the Ministry of Interior. (Anwar Abbas, 24 News): Ma'am, my question is regarding the appointment of Mr. Asim Iftikhar Ahmed in the United Nations Permanent Mission. What was the need of appointing him as an additional PR when there is already a Permanent Representative? He is also being given the perks and privileges when other officials there can act as the substitute of Ambassador Munir Akram. Can you tell us the background or the reason? Spokesperson: I would not like to engage in this discussion. The government of Pakistan has taken this decision to appoint an Additional Permanent Representative with full rights and privileges as an Ambassador of Pakistan. As I said last time, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar will in due course will take over as the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. (Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): Thank you for the clarification, but my simple question is whether in the entire Foreign Service of Pakistan, there is no capable officer of representing Pakistan at the United Nations, except a retired person, rather retired again and again, who is of an age where he should take rest, not attend meetings? Spokesperson: First of all, I would like to disagree with the premise of your question. Our Ambassador in New York, Ambassador Munir Akram is a seasoned diplomat who has served Pakistan with distinction over the last several decades. His experience as Pakistan's Permanent Representative has helped Pakistan in promoting its national interests at the United Nations. At the same time, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar, is also a distinguished Pakistani diplomat with extensive experience in the United Nations and the Government of Pakistan is confident that he will be taking the Pakistan's flag forward in a very positive direction. (Anas Mallick, Capital TV): In response to Anwar's question, you mentioned that Ambassador Asim Iftikhar, the Additional PR, will have complete privileges. Would you want to clarify how would it be administratively possible? Spokesperson: Let's not engage in this debate. The most important thing that we should remember is that Government of Pakistan has taken a decision with regards to the future direction of its leadership at our Permanent Mission to United Nations and Ambassador Asim Iftikhar has been chosen as the future Permanent Representative of Pakistan, in light of his extensive experience and expertise and his immense contributions to Pakistan's diplomacy. (Abdul Hadi Mayar, Hum Pashto 1): Ma'am, you said that the second phase of repatriation of illegal Afghans has not started as yet. There were reports in international media that the second phase has already started earlier this month. Yesterday, there were reports that, following the visit of United Nations High Commissioner's visit, Pakistan has decided to temporarily call off that process. What are your comments? (Kiran Butt, Khorasan diary): Focusing on UNHCR's press statement, a press release from Afghan embassy Islamabad has also been issued in which it was said that this decision of Pakistan was political, quoting UNHCR's Ambassador and it should be refrained from. That is on Twitter. They issued this statement after meeting Sardar Shakib. So, now these are three different statements coming on this issue that whether they have been stopped or they haven't been stopped or should we take the stance of Afghanistan that the decision of repatriation of Afghan refugees was Pakistan's politically driven decision? Spokesperson: First of all, as I said earlier, Pakistan is committed to implementing the IFRP in a humane and phased and orderly manner, and this is what we have been doing for the last several months. Secondly, as I said earlier, we have given no such understanding to the UNHCR that IFRP stands suspended. Thirdly, as I said just now, the first phase of IFRP has been continuing for the last several months, and it pertains to individuals who do not possess any legal documents to stay in Pakistan and this process will continue. We will continue to take action against individuals found to be in Pakistan in violation of our immigration laws, without any legal documents. Fourthly, with regards to individuals who possess POR cards, the Cabinet of Pakistan has taken a decision to extend the validity of those POR cards because those cards had expired on 30th of June, and to facilitate or legalize the stay of those individuals for one year pending further decisions. I will not go into the origins of the IFRP. You would recall that this was a consensus decision of the Government of Pakistan. This plan has been implemented over the last several months. Details of the IFRP and the various considerations behind its origin can be obtained from the Ministry of Interior. *** NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN: Afghan Taliban increase support for anti-Pakistan TTP terrorists By Ayaz Gul July 11, 2024 A new United Nations report says the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an alliance of extremist groups, is "the largest terrorist group" in Afghanistan and receives growing support from that country's Taliban rulers to conduct cross-border attacks in Pakistan. The U.N. sanctions monitoring team released the assessment late Wednesday amid a dramatic surge in TTP-led terror attacks against Pakistani security forces and civilians, killing hundreds of them in recent weeks. "TTP continues to operate at a significant scale in Afghanistan and to conduct terrorist operations into Pakistan from there, often utilizing Afghans," the report read. It noted that the globally designated terrorist group, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is operating in Afghanistan with an estimated strength of 6,000-6,500 fighters. "Further, the Taliban have proved unable or unwilling to manage the threat from Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, whose attacks into Pakistan have intensified," the document said. "Taliban support to TTP also appears to have increased." The deadly violence has strained relations between Islamabad and the de facto Taliban government in Kabul, which denies allegations of the presence of any terrorist groups or that it allows the use of Afghan soil to threaten neighboring countries. "The Taliban do not conceive of TTP as a terrorist group: the bonds are close, and the debt owed to TTP is significant," the U.N. report said. TTP emerged in Pakistan's volatile border areas in 2007, providing recruits and shelter to the Afghan Taliban as they intensified insurgent attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in the years that followed. The international forces withdrew from the country in August 2021, clearing the way for the Taliban to reclaim power from the then-U.S.-backed Afghan government in Kabul. Al-Qaida links The U.N. report said regional al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan, who have long-term ties to the Taliban, are assisting TTP in conducting high-profile terrorist activities inside Pakistan. The Taliban have not immediately responded to the latest U.N. findings, but they have previously rejected such reports as propaganda meant to malign their government, which they call the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The U.N. assessment quoted member states as noting that TTP operatives, along with local fighters, are being trained in al-Qaida camps that the terrorist outfit has set up in multiple border provinces such as Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kunar, and Nuristan. Al-Qaida's support for TTP also involves sharing Afghan fighters for military staffing or attack formations. The report quoted one U.N. member state as expressing concern that "greater collaboration" with al-Qaida could transform TTP into an "extra-regional threat." US weapons and TTP U.N. member states reiterated that NATO "caliber weapons, especially night vision capability, that have been provided to TTP since the Taliban takeover add lethality to TTP terrorist attacks against Pakistani military border posts." Officials in Islamabad have also repeatedly attributed the increasing number of casualties among security forces to the modern U.S. weapons that were left behind by international forces and have fallen into the hands of TTP. The U.S. Department of Defense responded to the allegations in a quarterly report made public in late May, saying that Pakistani intelligence forces recovered a few U.S.-manufactured small arms, including M-16 and M-4 rifles, following counterterrorism operations earlier this year. "Militants, including the TTP, are probably using only a limited quantity of U.S.-origin weaponry and equipment, including small arms and night vision goggles, to conduct attacks in Pakistan," the U.S. report said. It added, however, that "the amount of U.S.-origin weaponry that Pakistani sources allege is in the hands of anti-Pakistan militants is likely an exaggeration." Islamabad has repeatedly called on Kabul to rein in TTP-led cross-border terrorism, apprehend its leaders, including Mehsud, and hand them over to Pakistan. The Taliban's response has been that TTP is an internal security issue for Pakistan to handle instead of blaming Afghanistan. TTP has gradually intensified the number of attacks against Pakistan from 573 in 2021 to 1,203 in 2023, with the trend continuing into 2024, according to the U.N. report. Pakistani officials also attribute the spike in violence to the "greater operational freedom" the terror outfit has enjoyed in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power almost three years ago. The Taliban's spy agency, the General Directorate of Intelligence, facilitated three new guest houses in Kabul for TTP leaders and reportedly issued passes to senior TTP figures to facilitate ease of movement and immunity from arrest, as well as weapons permits, according to the U.N. report. The assessment noted that the Taliban are concerned that "excessive pressure" might lead TTP to collaborate with the Afghanistan-based Islamic State affiliate, known as IS Khorasan, which routinely plots deadly attacks on Taliban security forces and members of the Afghan Shiite minority. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 11, 2024 Release Joint Press Statement on the Signing of the Nuclear Consultative Group Guidelines U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Dr. Vipin Narang and ROK Deputy Minister of National Defense Policy Dr. Cho Chang Lae, co-chairs for the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), met at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on July 11, 2024, to sign the "United States and Republic of Korea Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula." The Guidelines provide principles and procedures to assist Alliance policy and military authorities in maintaining an effective nuclear deterrence policy and posture. The two defense leaders also noted the recent joint statement by President Biden and President Yoon commending and endorsing the tremendous progress achieved during the first year of the NCG. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3835633/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Joint Statement by President Joseph R. Biden of the United States of America and President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea on U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula July 11, 2024 President Joseph R. Biden of the United States of America (U.S.) and President Yoon Suk Yeol of the Republic of Korea (ROK) met on July 11, 2024 to reaffirm the advancements in U.S.-ROK security cooperation on extended deterrence since their announcement of the U.S.-ROK Washington Declaration in April 2023. The progress made since the establishment of the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) demonstrates the truly global, comprehensive, strategic alliance between the two countries, the ever-stronger mutual defense relationship, and our shared interest in peace, stability, and the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The NCG was established as an enduring bilateral consultative body that has implemented the U.S.-ROK Washington Declaration, directly strengthened U.S.-ROK cooperation on extended deterrence, and managed the threat to the nonproliferation regime posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The NCG has facilitated joint U.S.-ROK nuclear and strategic planning with a focus on ensuring the continued safety and security of the people of the ROK, as well as the U.S. servicemembers deployed to the Korean Peninsula, in the face of the advancing nuclear threat posed by the DPRK. The NCG contributes to the efforts by the U.S-ROK Alliance to enable joint planning and execution for ROK conventional support to U.S. nuclear operations in a contingency. The NCG also facilitates continuous improvement to U.S.-ROK combined exercises and training activities, including through regularized table-top exercises and whole-of-government simulations. President Biden and President Yoon commend and endorse the tremendous progress that the U.S.-ROK Alliance has achieved in the first year of the NCG, as evidenced by the signing of the U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula ("Guidelines document") by the U.S. Department of Defense and the ROK Ministry of National Defense. The Presidents underscored that the Guidelines document provides a solid foundation for enhancing U.S.-ROK extended deterrence cooperation in an integrated manner. The Guidelines document provides guidance to Alliance policy and military authorities in maintaining and strengthening a credible and effective nuclear deterrence policy and posture. The Presidents reiterated the need to continue to make swift progress on NCG workstreams, including security protocols and expansion of information sharing; nuclear consultation processes in crises and contingencies; nuclear and strategic planning; ROK conventional support to U.S. nuclear operations in a contingency through conventional-nuclear integration; strategic communications; exercises, simulations, training, and investment activities; and risk reduction practices. The Presidents reaffirmed their commitments in the U.S.-ROK Washington Declaration and highlighted that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response. President Biden reiterated that the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence to the ROK is backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear. President Yoon reiterated that the ROK's full range of capabilities will greatly contribute to the Alliance's combined defense posture. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New Jersey Man Charged with Soliciting Destruction of Energy Facilities Thursday, July 11, 2024 For Immediate Release Office of Public Affairs Note: View the criminal complaint here. Andrew Takhistov, 18, of East Brunswick, New Jersey, was arrested yesterday and made his initial appearance in court today for allegedly soliciting another individual to destroy energy facilities. "Andrew Takhistov was allegedly on his way to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps when we arrested him on charges of recruiting an individual to destroy an electrical substation here in the United States in order to advance his white supremacist ideology," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. "I am grateful to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for their exceptional work disrupting this dangerous plot." "This complaint alleges that the defendant's posts referenced Adolf Hitler, encouraged violence against Black and Jewish communities, praised mass shooters, and discussed causing death and destruction on a large scale," said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger for the District of New Jersey. "The defendant was allegedly enroute to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, which he described as specializing in assassinations, attacks on power grids, and other infrastructure sabotage, so that he could act on his violent plans. We will not tolerate these kinds of alleged terroristic threats, and working with our partners, we will always be ready to root out and bring to justice anyone who attempts to carry out these acts." According to court documents, in January, Takhistov began communicating on a social messaging platform with an individual who, unbeknownst to Takhistov, was an undercover law enforcement employee. Takhistov had previously posted on the messaging platform (often posting in racially/ethnically motivated extremist [RMVE]-aligned channels), requesting advice about weapons, disseminating manuals on how to construct homemade weapons, and expressing interest in traveling overseas to engage in paramilitary-style training. Throughout these posts, Takhistov referenced Adolf Hitler, encouraged violence against various ethnic and religious communities (including Black and Jewish individuals), and praised mass shooters. Throughout Takhistov's communications with the undercover employee, Takhistov repeatedly referred to his RMVE ideology and his desire to advance that ideology through violent means. In May, Takhistov informed the undercover employee that he was planning to travel to Ukraine in July to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, explaining that he chose this organization because it was openly National Socialist and, more importantly, specialized in assassinations, attacks on power grids and other infrastructure sabotage. Takhistov discussed infrastructure sabotage, specifically how to damage an electrical substation using Mylar balloons or Molotov cocktails, which Takhistov explained how to make. Takhistov told the undercover employee that, while Takhistov was in the Ukraine, the undercover employee needed to carry out at least one event of serious activism. On two occasions in June and July, at Takhistov's direction, Takhistov and the undercover employee drove to two different electrical substations in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey. During these visits, Takhistov instructed the undercover employee on numerous aspects of how to conduct an attack on an electrical substation. On July 5, during one of these meetings, Takhistov directed the undercover employee to take several photographs of the electrical substations so that Takhistov could send them to his Russian friend for additional advice on how to best sabotage the stations. Takhistov was arrested Wednesday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport where he was planning to travel to Paris on his way to Ukraine. Takhistov is charged with one count of soliciting another individual to engage in criminal conduct that involved destroying a public service enterprise group circuit breaker and substation. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine. The FBI is investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Vera Varshavsky for the District of New Jersey and Trial Attorney James Donnelly of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case. A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Topic: National Security Components: Office of the Attorney General Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Division (NSD) USAO - New Jersey Press Release Number: 24-869 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia bans Dutch-based Moscow Times as 'undesirable' Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 6:49 PM Russian prosecutors have banned The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" news outlet, ruling the Dutch-based organization is spreading false information. The prosecutors said the news organization was part of an ecosystem of foreign-funded and foreign-based NGOs hostile to Moscow. The organization which originated as a newspaper for English-speakers in the Russian capital has been designated "undesirable" in Russia, the Russian prosecutor general's office said. The Moscow Times aims to "discredit the decisions of the leadership of the Russian Federation domestically and internationally," it added. Access to the Moscow Times website has already been restricted in Russia "due to systematic publication of articles that included false information of public interest," including regarding the Ukraine conflict. The prosecutor general wields authority in Russia to blacklist foreign NGOs. Dutch businessman Derk Sauer founded The Moscow Times news organization in 1992. It was originally an ads-funded free newspaper reporting about Russia to English-speakers such as expats and tourists. In 2017, the paper went out of print and became fully online, and in 2020, it started a Russian-language operation. In 2022, as Western nations and Russia imposed tit-for-tat restrictions on each other's media following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, the Moscow Times moved its newsroom to Amsterdam. Russian prosecutors said The Moscow Times has long been receiving funds from the Dutch government and other Western agencies, noting that it is a key media partner of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US government. The latter has also been designated "undesirable" in Russia. An organization that is designated "undesirable" is banned from conducting most operations in the country, including publishing news. Meanwhile, the "collective West" has been extending all-out support to Kiev by engaging in a media war against the country since February 2022. In addition, the US-led Western countries have slapped a slew of economic sanctions on Russia while supplying unlimited shipments of arms and ammo to Ukrainian forces to fight against Russian troops. To give Ukraine support, the West provided Kiev with funds to maintain its government and help it manufacture its own weapons, shared Western intelligence sources, and even sent mercenaries from Western countries to fight for Kiev. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Helicopters practise deck landing during Russia-China joint patrols in Philippine Sea 11.07.2024 In the Philippine Sea, shipborne helicopters of the Pacific Fleet and PLA Navy conducted actions to organise mutual deck landings on each other's ships as part of joint naval patrols. At the beginning of the training, a joint detachment made up of the Pacific Fleet's corvette Sovershenny, destroyer Yinchuan, frigate Hengshui of the PLA Navy regrouped into a special battle formation. After taking the assigned course and speed, the deck helicopters took off from the Russian and Chinese ships. The helicopters of the Pacific Fleet and PLA Navy made flights around the ships and carried out deck landings simultaneously clockwise on each other's vessels. At that time, the air groups practised receiving helicopters on their decks and guided the pilots by radio communication. Moreover, without shutting off the engines, the helicopters took off from the ships and following the approved procedure returned to their ships. During this training, the helicopters stayed on the specified altitude of 200 metres. The joint patrols are intended to strengthen naval cooperation between Russia and China, to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, to monitor offshore zone and to protect the facilities of the Russian Federation and People's Republic of Chine. The first Russian-Chinese joint naval patrol was conducted in 2021. Press Service of the Eastern Military District NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ulan-Ude hosts final planning conference on Selenga 2024 Russian-Mongol military exercise 11.07.2024 In Ulan-Ude, representatives of the Eastern Military District and the Armed Forces of Mongolia held the final planning conference to discuss preparations and organisation of the Selenga 2024 Russian-Mongol joint exercise. The Russian delegation was headed by Colonel Mikhail Nikitin, the head of the Combat Training Department of the Eastern Military District's Combined Arms Army stationed in the Republic of Buryatia. During the planning conference, the parties decided on the dates for the exercise, reached an agreement on issues of crossing the state border by Russian troops, transportation and deployment of units of the Eastern Military District, comprehensive logistics support, as well as cultural, recreation, and sporting events. In addition, on the day of the 85th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet and Mongolian troops on the Khalkhin Gol River, a number of official events are scheduled, including concerts in Mongolia gathering performance groups from the Republic of Buryatia at the State Music and Dramatic Theatre in Choibalsan, as well as at the training ground in the field camp for participants of the exercise. The Selenga joint exercise is conducted annually. The military of the two countries practise various tactics of modern warfare as well as countering mock illegal armed groups. Press Service of the Eastern Military District NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Cultural Silk Road: Win-win cooperation between China and Malaysia People's Daily Online) 10:03, July 12, 2024 Chinese culture first took root in Malaysia over two millennia ago, carried by traders along the ancient Maritime Silk Road. This cultural exchange blossomed into a lasting friendship when, more than 600 years ago, the renowned Chinese explorer Zheng He made five historic voyages to Malacca, Malaysia. Since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, cultural exchanges between the two countries have reached new heights. Recently, a People's Daily Online film crew, working on the "Cultural Silk Road" program, explored Malaysia's rich multicultural landscape. The team engaged with local artists and cultural professionals, toured the Han Culture Centre Malaysia, and visited Xiamen University Malaysia (XMUM). To round out their experience, they joined local students for a Chinese language class at the China Cultural Centre in Kuala Lumpur. A Malay proverb states, "Tak kenal maka tak cinta," meaning "You can't love what you don't know." This wisdom underscores the importance of cultural understanding. The deepening friendship between China and Malaysia is rooted in the interweaving of languages, arts, literature and education. As the BRI continues to promote bilateral cultural exchanges, both nations are poised not only to reap mutual benefits but also to contribute significantly to global prosperity and development. (Web editor: Hongyu, Wu Chengliang) NATO's Steps at Summit Will Force Russia to Take Deterrence Measures - Kremlin Sputnik News 20240711 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - NATO's steps at the summit in Washington will force Russia to take deterrence measures, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. "It is obvious that the alliance pursues one of its main goals - the suppression of Russia, inflicting strategic defeat on Russia. This obliges us to analyze very deeply the decisions of the discussion that took place, to analyze very carefully the text of the declaration that was adopted. This is a very serious threat to the national security of our country. All this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated, effective response measures to deter NATO," Peskov told reporters. The NATO military infrastructure is constantly moving toward the borders of Russia, the spokesman said. "NATO is de facto fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine," Peskov said. Moscow is ready to discuss all aspects related to security on the continent in a comprehensive manner, Dmitry Peskov said. "It is very important to remember that we will not discuss individual elements taken out of the general security context. This was said by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that we are ready and willing to discuss in a comprehensive manner the whole situation, all aspects related to security on the continent, with the security of our country, with security guarantees for other states. But all this should be discussed in one complex," Peskov told reporters. There are leaders in the West who have an objective point of view on the situation in Ukraine, Peskov added. "We see that there are leaders who hold more objective views, more promising views, from our point of view, we see the pressure they are under," Peskov told reporters, adding that it very difficult for them to get through the huge amount of confrontational statements made by other leaders. India is a supporter of peace and dialogue on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman said, adding that it corresponds to Russia's approach. "India is a supporter of peace, India is a supporter of dialogue. And this, in fact, completely corresponds to our vision, to our approach. We are also supporters of peace and supporters of dialogue," Peskov told reporters. The possibility of Kiev holding a second "peace conference" is currently unclear, Peskov said. "The publications of Bloomberg and other respected agencies in our time cannot be the basis for any estimates, because we do not know to what extent they are credible. Today, even the most respected mass media often post fake news... There is no exact substance on this issue right now," Peskov told reporters. Russia's opponents in Europe and the United States are not supporters of peace and dialogue on Ukraine, the spokesman added. "We see that our opponents in Europe and in the United States are not supporters of dialogue. And judging by the documents adopted at the NATO summit, they are not supporters of peace," Peskov said. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Kiev would like to convene a second "peace conference" before the election in the United States in November. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Presidential visit to allies and stopover in U.S. in the works: MOFA ROC Central News Agency 07/10/2024 10:49 PM Taipei, July 10 (CNA) A visit to diplomatic allies by President Lai Ching-te () and possible stopover in the United States is currently being planned, said Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung () Wednesday. The minister made the comment when asked at a meeting with media. The president will visit Taiwan's diplomatic allies, and in accordance with precedent, a stopover in the U.S. is part of the plan, Lin said, adding that an itinerary will be announced by the Presidential Office when confirmed. It is election year in the U.S. and an evaluation is still being made as to how the president can make foreign visits "but at the same time not trigger unnecessary reactions," the foreign minister added. He did not elaborate on a possible date. The foreign minister also spoke on the solidity of the relationship between Taiwan and its 12 remaining diplomatic allies when asked whether China has intensified efforts to poach those allies since Lai's inauguration in May, after Nauru broke ties with Taiwan in January. However, "there is no room to lower our guard," he said, stressing that the ministry is also looking through existing cooperation projects with each ally and adjusting them according to their needs. Talking about non-diplomatic allies, Lin said Taiwan will continue to work with like-minded countries including the U.S. -- with whom Taiwan has its "best ever" relationship -- Japan, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. "Taiwan's foreign cooperation strategy will resemble a 'grid-like strategic structure,' going from bilateral cooperation to regional, multilateral ones," he added. Lin also noted that there is a plan for Taiwan to be included in the U.S. defense supply chain as part of its friend-shoring policy. (By Alison Hsiao) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Constitutional Court weighs injunction on oversight law amendments ROC Central News Agency 07/10/2024 11:27 PM Taipei, July 10 (CNA) A lawyer representing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus on Wednesday urged the Constitutional Court to grant an injunction halting the enforcement of controversial amendments to executive oversight laws. Speaking to 15 justices at the Constitutional Court, DPP caucus attorney Chen Peng-kwang () argued that the amendments were unconstitutional, as they violated the principle of the separation of powers and infringed on people's rights. The amendments to the Law Governing the Legislative Yuan's Power and the Criminal Code grant the Legislative Yuan new investigative powers, including the power to subject public officials to fines or jail time if they refuse to attend hearings or provide information when asked to do so by legislators, or if they present false information. Opposing an injunction halting the enforcement of the amendments, Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Weng Hsiao-ling () told the court that there was no "urgent" need for such an injunction given the fact that the Legislature is set to end its current session on July 16 and will not start a new one until September. The opposition lawmaker was suggesting that it was unlikely that the Legislature would take substantive action based on the amendments that took effect on June 26 before the Constitutional Court ruled on the constitutionality of those revisions. Countering Weng's argument, Chen said opposition lawmakers were planning to apply the updated laws in the near future to investigate the Executive Yuan's handling of the egg import scheme and the National Communication Commission's license approval for Mirror TV. The DPP caucus attorney added that if the court denied an injunction, the "damage" resulting from the Legislature's planned application of the controversial amendments could be "wide-ranging" and "substantial" for government agencies as well as the public. According to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act, an injunction may be granted "as a last resort" to "prevent the basic rights protected under the Constitution and public interest from being irreparably and materially impaired." The decision to grant an injunction in the current case requires the approval of more than half of the 15 justices of the Constitutional Court. However, there is no fixed timetable for the presiding justices to decide on the matter, and injunctions have only been issued in three cases throughout the country's history. The DPP caucus, along with President Lai Ching-te (), the Executive Yuan and the Control Yuan have also separately petitioned the Constitutional Court for a ruling on the constitutionality of the amendments passed by KMT and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) lawmakers on May 28. The court ought to make a judgment on the constitutionality of the amendments within three months after the conclusion of oral arguments, but this deadline may be extended by two months if necessary, according to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act. (By Teng Pei-ju) Enditem/JT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 6.8 mm-caliber rifles set to be ready by year-end: Defense minister ROC Central News Agency 07/10/2024 08:14 PM Taipei, July 10 (CNA) The development and testing of larger-caliber rifles are set to be completed by the end of this year, Defense Minister Wellington Koo (ece) said Wednesday. Koo was responding to a question from ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (cZasa), who asked the minister to comment on information that the Armaments Bureau is developing 6.8 mm-caliber rifles to be issued to members of the armed forces. Development of 6.8 rifles will begin this year, and it is set to complete operational test and evaluation before year-end, Koo said. According to Wang, the adoption of 6.8 rifles would align Taiwan's armed forces with international standards, noting that U.S. and China both use rifles of this caliber. Although the larger-caliber bullets used in 6.8 rifles would mean each rifle is loaded with fewer rounds, the new rifles will be more lethal and adept at immobilizing enemies than the 5.56 mm-caliber ones currently used by Taiwan's military, Wang said. Wang also asked whether XTS112 optical gun sights will become a standard issue for all services of Taiwan's armed forces, to which Army Chief of Staff Chen Chien-yi (eac) said that according to current planning, the sights will first be issued to special forces and ground combatants. The XTS112 is designed to be used on Taiwan's upgraded T112 assault rifles, which the Army expects to receive in a first batch of 25,000 units next year. Wang said that the optical sights, with a 4x magnification and a field of view of seven degrees, are a vast improvement over previous models and should be issued to members of all services. Koo said that the Defense Ministry will allocate funding in several stages to supply the sights to combatants across all services gradually. (By Sean Lin) Enditem/ASG NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New AIT director pledges continued support for Taiwan's self-defense ROC Central News Agency 07/10/2024 03:59 PM Taipei, July 10 (CNA) The United States will continue to help Taiwan strengthen its ability to defend itself, Raymond Greene, the new director of the American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) Taipei office, pledged in a meeting with Taiwan's president on Wednesday. Greene, who assumed the role of de facto American ambassador to Taiwan on Monday, told President Lai Ching-te (ea) in Taipei that the U.S. would "continue to strongly support Taiwan" as it strives to boost its self-defense capabilities. This support, he said, was in line with Washington's longstanding policy guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three CommuniquAs and the Six Assurances. Greene, who delivered his remarks in Chinese, stressed the need to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, describing it as a common and long-term interest of both Washington and Taipei and as extremely important for global security and prosperity. He also said he was "confident that with the support of the global democratic community, we can safeguard Taiwan's democracy." Calling Taiwan "a key partner" in promoting trade and the global supply chain resilience, Greene said he was looking forward to working with the Lai administration to advance bilateral economic, cultural and technological cooperation. In his remarks, Lai thanked the U.S. for showing its commitment to supporting Taiwan's efforts to strengthen its security, mentioning in particular the 15 announcements of arms sales to Taiwan under the government of President Joe Biden. Lai reiterated his pledge to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait despite increasing challenges posed by China, and expressed the hope of working closely with the U.S. and other like-minded countries in support of the prosperity and development of the Indo-Pacific region. As a career diplomat, Greene has previously been posted to Taiwan twice, including serving as deputy AIT director from 2018 to 2021. Before coming to Taiwan to take charge of the AIT, which represents U.S. interests in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties, Greene was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Japan. (By Lai Yu-chen and Teng Pei-ju) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 36 PLA aircraft fly near Taiwan, headed to Western Pacific: MND ROC Central News Agency 07/10/2024 11:56 AM Taipei, July 10 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense (MND) detected a relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels in Taiwan's vicinity Wednesday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the Western Pacific. In a statement, the MND said 36 People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. They were headed toward the Western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise there alongside the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong, the MND said. Speaking to reporters before going into a legislative meeting, Defense Minister Wellington Koo (ece) was asked about the PLA aircraft carrier and said the MND had a "full grasp" of the Shandong's movements. The aircraft carrier transited the Balintang Channel north of the Philippines and was sailing toward the Western Pacific, Koo said. The MND statement on the 36 PLA aircraft was separate from the standard daily description of PLA aircraft incursions into Taiwan's ADIZ in the previous 24 hours issued every morning. In that separate standard alert Wednesday, the MND said in the 24-hour period from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday, 19 PLA aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, while seven others flew into the southwestern and southeastern parts of Taiwan's ADIZ. An ADIZ is an area in which a country claims the right to identify, locate, and control approaching foreign aircraft, but it is not part of the country's territorial airspace as defined in international law. Those seven aircraft, all drones, flew as close as 39 nautical miles (72.1 km) to Cape Eluanbi on Taiwan's southernmost tip, flight paths released by the MND showed. The MND deployed combat air patrol aircraft, coastal missile defense systems, and Navy ships in response to the situation. (By Sean Lin) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address MAC urges China to release detained fishing vessel and crew ROC Central News Agency 07/11/2024 09:09 PM Taipei, July 11 (CNA) The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday called on China to release a fishing boat and crew that were detained earlier this month, saying that the incident should be considered "a matter for Chinese law enforcement." Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh () said that crew members found to be fishing illegally should be released as soon as procedures such as payment of fines have been completed. Da Jin Man No. 88 (88), a Taiwanese fishing vessel registered in Penghu, was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel at a location east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay 17.5 nautical miles outside Taiwan-controlled "restricted waters" off the Kinmen Islands on July 2, according to Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The vessel, along with its two Taiwanese and three Indonesian crew members, were detained by the Chinese authorities for illegally operating in Chinese territorial seas, the CGA said. Fishing vessels are prohibited from operating in China's territorial seas during the closed fishing season, according to Chinese law. As of Thursday evening, Da Jin Man No. 88 and its crew have been detained for nine days, and it is not known when they may be released. "We consider this a matter for Chinese law enforcement," Liang said, adding that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should respect each other's approaches to enforcing their respective laws. "We promptly release detained Chinese fishing vessels after completing relevant procedures," Liang added, implying that the Chinese authorities should similarly release the boat and the five crew members as soon as possible. On Tuesday, a Chinese fishing boat and its four crew members seized by the CGA late last month in waters off an islet belonging to Taiwan's Penghu County was released after paying a fine of NT$300,000 (US$9,230) for poaching. Before the incident involving Da Jin Man No. 88, Taiwanese vessels were detained by the Chinese authorities for fishing during China's closed fishing season on two occasions in the past 21 years: five boats were seized in July 2003 and six more were seized in July 2005. In both cases, all 11 of these Penghu-registered ships were released after paying fines and returned to Penghu within two days after being seized, according to the CGA. When asked by CNA if the Chinese government had political reasons for prolonging the detention of the five crew members, Liang did not answer directly, but said that the two previous cases had been resolved relatively quickly. He also pointed out that it has been nearly 20 years since a similar case has occurred. "The laws and regulations set by the Chinese Communist Party, as well as their law enforcement procedures, may have changed, so we cannot make generalizations," he said. Liang did not say whether there has been any actual progress on releasing Da Jin Man No. 88's five crew members. (By Sunny Lai) Enditem/JT NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 56 Chinese warplanes cross Taiwan Strait median line, extension: MND ROC Central News Agency 07/11/2024 05:03 PM Taipei, July 11 (CNA) A total of 56 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or its extension between 5 a.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday, according to Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND). The planes flew into the northern, southeastern, and southwestern parts of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the MND said in a statement Thursday. The planes were part of a larger fleet of 66 aircraft detected around Taiwan, the MND said. Of the 56 aircraft, some flew as close as 33 nautical miles (61 km) from Cape Eluanbi on Taiwan's southernmost tip, flight paths released by the MND showed. An ADIZ is an area in which a country claims the right to identify, locate, and control approaching foreign aircraft, but is not considered territorial airspace under international law. According to the MND, the armada of planes that passed through Taiwan's ADIZ were en route to join the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong for a drill in the Western Pacific. As of Wednesday morning, the Shandong had transited through the Balintang Channel north of the Philippines, the MND said. However, Su Tzu-yun (ece), a research fellow at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, said that the flight paths taken by some of the planes were unusual. He was referring to 26 aircraft comprising unspecified types of fighter jets and drones that flew southwest-northeast through Taiwan's southeastern ADIZ before again changing direction and leaving the area. The flight path was unusual, as Balintang Channel is located southeast of Taiwan. The planes likely took this unusual path deliberately, in response to the inauguration of American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene earlier this week and his scheduled meeting with President Lai Ching-te (ea) on Wednesday, Su said. Greene, who assumed the role of de facto American ambassador to Taiwan on July 8, told Lai during the meeting in Taipei that the U.S. would "continue to strongly support Taiwan" as it strives to boost its self-defense capabilities. Sudden increases in Chinese military activity are often a way for Beijing to show its displeasure at international affairs, Su noted. For example, he said, China sent 57 military aircraft to the airspace above the South China Sea in response to the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group transiting the South China Sea on Jan. 23-24, 2021, less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden took office. Similarly, China's decision to stage military drills in the Western Pacific was likely a response to the ongoing U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, he added. This year's RIMPAC involves 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, and over 150 aircraft from 29 countries. (By Sean Lin and Matt Yu) Enditem/ASG NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Keir Starmer Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau July 11, 2024 Washington, D.C., United States of America Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, on the margins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Washington, D.C., United States of America. Prime Minister Trudeau looked forward to working with Prime Minister Starmer, following his recent election, and both leaders welcomed the opportunity to advance shared priorities, including deepening our national security partnership, fighting climate change, upholding democratic institutions and the rules-based international order, and improving economic growth for people in Canada and the United Kingdom. The prime ministers reiterated their unity and solidarity with Ukraine and its people as they continue to resist Russia's ongoing war of aggression, including increased attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure. They discussed the global implications of Russia's brutal and unjustifiable war, while underscoring President Zelenskyy's efforts toward a just and sustainable peace. The leaders also commended the progress made by Ukraine as it continues on its path toward Euro-Atlantic integration. The leaders expressed deep concern over the ongoing dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. They reiterated their support for the proposal for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, a significant and sustained increase in humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, and an enduring end to the crisis, with Israel's security interests and the safety of civilians assured. Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Starmer reaffirmed the strong bond between Canada and the United Kingdom and highlighted the importance of the Commonwealth as a forum to work together on pressing global issues. They also highlighted the importance of continuing to strengthen the NATO Alliance in its efforts to uphold global peace and security and agreed to remain in regular contact. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PM meeting with President Biden of the United States: 10 July 2024 The Prime Minister met President Biden at the White House yesterday evening. 11 July 2024 The Prime Minister met President Biden at the White House yesterday evening. The Prime Minister congratulated President Biden for hosting an excellent NATO summit so far. Both leaders agreed that in its 75th year, NATO is stronger and more united than ever. They reflected on the importance of the NATO alliance and the special relationship in the context of current geopolitical challenges, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. They agreed we must continue to do whatever it takes to support Ukraine and ensure aggressors like Putin do not win. Moving on to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza, they discussed their shared ambition for an immediate ceasefire to get hostages out, get humanitarian aid in and make progress towards a two-state solution. The President welcomed the Prime Minister's recent comments on establishing closer relationships with our European counterparts, as well as the UK's commitment to AUKUS. They reflected that at a time when we face growing challenges across the world, we are at our strongest when we unite and work together. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PM meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada: 11 July 2024 The Prime Minister met Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada at the NATO summit this afternoon. 11 July 2024 The Prime Minister met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the NATO summit this afternoon. They agreed on the importance of a strong UK-Canada relationship based on our shared values, and warmly welcomed the opportunity to deepen the partnership between our two countries. The Prime Minister welcomed Prime Minister Trudeau's leadership on Ukraine, including Canada's significant financial support so far. Both leaders agreed we must continue to stand alongside Ukraine for as long as it takes. Discussing the situation in Israel and Gaza, they both agreed an immediate ceasefire is vital in order to get hostages out, get humanitarian aid in and make progress towards a two-state solution. The two leaders agreed to work more closely together on what we can do to strengthen our relationships with the Commonwealth, and agreed to keep in touch ahead of the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting later this year. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China calls on parties involved in Ukraine conflict to exercise rationality and restraint: Chinese envoy to UN Global Times By Global Times Published: Jul 10, 2024 04:53 PM China reiterated its call for all parties involved in the Ukraine conflict to exercise rationality and restraint, effectively comply with international humanitarian law, and avoid attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, said on Tuesday. Since the crisis in Ukraine escalated in February 2022, the ongoing conflict has led to a large number of casualties among innocent civilians and destruction of infrastructures, triggering a dire humanitarian crisis and generating a huge spillover effect, which is a source of deep concern for China, Geng said at the UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine, the Xinhua News Agency reported. China remains deeply concerned that the war has not ceased, but rather intensified, and that vicious attacks have occurred from time to time, resulting in serious casualties, Geng added. There are no winners in conflict and confrontation, and military means cannot bring lasting peace. Geng stressed that an early ceasefire and political settlement is in the interests of all parties, and the priority is to cool down the situation by observing the "three principles" of no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no fanning of the flame by any party. On the Ukraine issue, China has always maintained that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected, the purposes and principles of the UN Charter should be adhered to, the legitimate security concerns of all countries should be taken seriously, and all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the crisis should be supported. China calls on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate political will, meet each other halfway and start peace talks at an early date. Geng also urged the international community, based on an objective and impartial position, to create conditions conducive to putting an early end to the fighting and play an active role in this regard. China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue in its own way, and will make unremitting efforts and play a constructive role in promoting a political settlement of the Ukrainian issue, Geng said. Russia on Tuesday rejected claims of the country's alleged attacks on a children's hospital in Kiev, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Peskov said Russian strikes are carried out against critical infrastructure and military targets related to Ukraine's military potential. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Tuesday that "many eyewitnesses and other sources" have confirmed that the hospital had been hit by a Western-made surface-to-air missile from the Ukrainian air defense system that went off course. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday on Telegram that the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kiev was hit by a Russian missile on Monday, adding that the strikes had killed 38 people and injured 190, according to preliminary reports. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Australia's largest single military assistance package for Ukraine The Hon Richard Marles MP Deputy Prime Minister Minister for Defence 11 July 2024 The Albanese Government continues its steadfast support for Ukraine, with the announcement of Australia's largest single military assistance package, worth nearly $250 million. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Leaders' Summit in Washington DC, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, met with Ukraine's President Volodomyr Zelenskyy alongside Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) partners, where he reaffirmed Australia's commitment to standing with Ukraine in its defence against Russia's illegal and immoral invasion. As part of this, the latest military assistance package includes: Air defence missiles. Air-to-ground weapons, including guided weapons. Anti-tank weapons. Artillery, mortar, cannon, and small arms ammunition. A shipment of boots, ensuring the men and women of Ukraine's armed forces are able to continue their vital efforts on the front line. Today's announcement by the Albanese Government takes Australia's military assistance to Ukraine to more than $1.1 billion since the start of Russia's fullascale invasion, and overall assistance to more than $1.3 billion. Building on Australia's reputation as a highly regarded partner, Australia will also join NATO's new security and training initiative for Ukraine as an operational partner. This is in addition to the training of Ukrainian recruits being undertaken by Australian Defence Force personnel in the United Kingdom, as part of Operation KUDU. During his visit to Washington, the Deputy Prime Minister also joined other partners in signing the Memorandum of Understanding on the Drone Capability Coalition. This follows the Albanese Government's $30 million commitment to provide drones to Ukraine, as part of this important Coalition. Quotes attributable to Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon Richard Marles MP: "Australia is proud to stand with its partners at this historic NATO Summit to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to the Government of Ukraine. "I was pleased to join IP4 partners in Washington DC to meet with President Zelensky and announce $250 million in additional military support. "The delivery of highly capable air defence capabilities and air-to-ground precision munitions represents Australia's largest single support package for Ukraine, and will make an enormous contribution to its efforts to end the conflict on its terms. "Russia's illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine stands as an affront to international law and the rules-based order." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau July 11, 2024 Washington, D.C., United States of America Yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the margins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Washington, D.C., United States of America. The Prime Minister reiterated his condemnation of Russia's increased indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including Russia's recent abhorrent attack on Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, and he offered further support in the wake of these attacks. He also underscored how these horrific attacks have only served to further strengthen NATO's unity and resolve in support of Ukraine as Russia continues its unjustifiable war of aggression. Prime Minister Trudeau reaffirmed Canada's ongoing and unwavering support for Ukraine. He noted Canada's commitment to provide an additional $500 million in military assistance to Ukraine as part of NATO's Pledge of Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine, as well as further support to enhance F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots through the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Air Force Capability Coalition. The leaders also exchanged views on Ukraine's efforts toward a just and sustainable peace. They noted the need to continue building on the success of the recent Summit on Peace in Ukraine in Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 15 to 16, 2024, including Canada's commitment to host a Ministerial event on Working Group Four to discuss the return of prisoners of war, unlawfully detained civilians, and illegally deported children. The leaders discussed progress that has been made to provide critical assistance to Ukraine, including at this year's NATO Summit. They also noted Ukraine's progress as it continues on its path toward Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO membership. Prime Minister Trudeau and President Zelenskyy reaffirmed their intention to remain in close and regular contact. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 11, 2024 By David Vergun, DOD News National Security Advisor: Ukraine Is Successfully Defending Against Russia A few months ago, Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines were running out of artillery shells and were having to ration them, said National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan today at the NATO summit in Washington. "The situation looked extremely grim," he said. Then, security funding for Ukraine passed in Congress after a delay. Since then, the picture has changed considerably. Russia's offensive in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv stalled out. Russia is continuing to throw wave after wave of men into the fight, making incremental gains at astonishing human and financial cost. By and large, the front lines have stabilized," Sullivan said. Ukrainian mobilization efforts have improved. Ukrainian units are building stronger fortifications and defensive lines, and day by day, they're pushing back, he said. "This is due to the people of Ukraine, to their sheer courage and commitment to their country and its freedom. But it's also due to the support of the United States and nations around the world, including NATO allies," Sullivan said. The national security advisor said over the last few months, the United States has surged air defense systems, artillery rounds and long-range missiles. The Ukrainians are employing these weapons with good effect in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including in Crimea," he said. Allies have committed to collectively providing Ukraine with at least 40 billion euros worth of security assistance over the next year, including tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery, missiles, and a range of other capabilities that Ukraine needs to be able to affect effectively fight and win, Sullivan said. The U.S., in partnership with allies, will provide Ukraine with air defense missiles and systems that are especially relevant to help protect Ukrainian forces on the front lines, civilians and the energy grid, he said. Also, the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands have begun the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukrainian forces, which will be operating in Ukraine this summer, according to a White House statement yesterday. Sullivan said Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he can outlast Ukraine and its supporters, and he's taken steps to put Russia's entire economy on a wartime footing with help from Iran, North Korea and China. Russia's unsustainable war spending masks underlying weakness and fragility, and the economic costs for Russia are mounting and will compound over time, he said. Meanwhile, NATO allies have been making historic investments in their own defense industrial bases, he said, as well as increasing defense spending. This year, Ukraine, with the support of the United States and other allies and partners, has made remarkable diplomatic progress as well, he said, including bilateral defense security cooperation agreements between Ukraine and some 20 allies, designed for long-term assistance. "The road ahead will be challenging. President Putin is determined to keep trying to take over Ukraine, and countries like Iran, North Korea and China are cheerleading him. We're clear eyed about all of that, but we are also clear eyed about Ukraine's strengths and resilience," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address July 11, 2024 By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News Stoltenberg: Ukraine Can Count on NATO For Long Haul Military and political leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization today capped off a three-day summit in Washington with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. During the council meeting, participants renewed the alliance's commitment to Ukraine's self-defense and discussed in greater detail what that commitment would look like going forward. "At this summit, we are turning a corner and putting in place the foundations for Ukraine to prevail," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said following the conclusion of the council meeting. Part of that effort, Stoltenberg said, involves an agreement to launch NATO security assistance and training for Ukraine out of a command based in Germany, with logistic hubs located in the eastern part of the alliance. It's expected around 700 personnel will be involved in that effort. NATO allies also agreed to coordinate the training of Ukrainian forces at facilities in allied countries, Stoltenberg said, and will also manage the transfer and repair of equipment. Also agreed to by NATO allies is a minimum baseline funding of 40 billion Euro within the next year a just over $43 billion. "We will review this level at forthcoming summits to ensure that our support continues to meet Ukraine's needs," Stoltenberg said. Also this week at the NATO summit, Stoltenberg said, NATO allies have announced their own independent efforts to assist Ukraine, including pledges of air defense systems. "More allies have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine, bringing the total to more than 20," he said. As part of the Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine, NATO has advanced efforts to help Ukraine become more interoperable with NATO, and also help build Ukraine's defense industry, Stoltenberg said. The NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre in Poland, agreed to by allies, will benefit Ukraine by identifying and applying lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine. "All of this support will make Ukraine stronger and more capable," Stoltenberg said. "This serves as a bridge [for Ukraine] to NATO. Allies have agreed that as Ukraine continues necessary reforms, we will support them on their irreversible path to membership. Today, we send a strong message of unity and resolve to Moscow that violence and intimidation do not pay, and that Ukraine can count on NATO now and for the long haul." In advance of the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the support provided by NATO would go a long way toward helping Ukraine defend itself. "All this will help curb Putin's appetite for aggression," he said. Regarding NATO membership, Zelenskyy pledged to do what was necessary to become a partner. "We are doing, and will continue to do, everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member," he said. "I am confident we will achieve this." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Norwegian Government to provide NOK 1 billion for air defence in Ukraine Government of Norway Press release | Date: 11/07/2024 Norway is providing an additional NOK 1 billion in funding for air defence systems in Ukraine. 'The Ukrainians need more air defence to protect the population against Russian bombs and missiles,' said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr StAre. Russia has recently bombed various cities across Ukraine, striking hospitals and causing a large civilian death toll. 'The brutal attacks we have seen this past week show why it is so vital for the Ukrainians to have greater protection from Russian air attacks. In cooperation with Germany, Norway will donate a compete IRIS-T air defence battery to Ukraine this autumn,' said Prime Minster StAre. For Ukraine, support for air defence has long been a top priority. 'The Ukrainians themselves have the best insight into what is needed, so we are in close contact with Ukraine when determining how we should target our support to the country,' said Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide. This donation is being financed under the Norwegian Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine. In addition to increasing its allocation to Germany's Immediate Action for Air Defence initiative, Norway is providing funds for the international effort to repair and maintain air defence equipment in Ukraine. This support is being carried out via third countries. Norway is co-chair of the Maritime Capability Coalition for Ukraine and a member of both the Air Force Capability Coalition and the Integrated Air and Missile Defence Capability Coalition. 'A great deal of excellent work is being done in the three coalitions that Norway has chosen to give priority. One of the most important things we can do in the air defence coalition is get military equipment to Ukraine quickly. Norway is a major contributor to air defence in Ukraine, and is also the developer of the NASAMS air defence system,' said Minister of Defence BjArn Arild Gram. In the revised national budget, the Government has designated that up to NOK 4 billion under the Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine will be used to fund air defence measures through 2024. A large part of this funding will be channelled to Germany's Immediate Action for Air Defence initiative. The new measures are included in the funding allocated during the revised national budget process. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sweden to join a drone cooperation for Ukraine Government Offices of Sweden 11 July 2024 Sweden will enter a coalition together with eleven other countries, which, through joint procurement, will support Ukraine's armed forces with unmanned aerial vehicles - drones. Systems training may also be included. On 10 July, Minister for Defence PAl Jonson signed the agreement on behalf of Sweden, in connection with the NATO Summit in Washington DC. "Drones have become an important part of modern warfare and are of great importance for Ukraine to be able to stop Russia's attacks, primarily on the ground, and to gather information on the battlefield. Together with other countries, we will support Ukraine in the coalition on drones with regard to purchasing, procurement and drone pilot training. Sweden's engagement adds important experiences and knowledge to Swedish defence capability development in this area," says Mr Jonson. Besides Sweden, the coalition includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. It is jointly led by Latvia and the United Kingdom. Sweden has previously donated EUR 10 million to Ukraine for the purchase of drones. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lithuania transferred to Ukraine ammunition, anti-drones and field beds Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence 2024-07-11 International cooperation Lithuania continues rendering uninterrupted military assistance to the war-torn Ukraine. On July 11 the Armed Forces of Ukraine received drone jamming equipment, 5.56x45mm ammunition and field beds. Responding to Ukraine's requests, this year Lithuania has delivered to Ukraine 155 mm ammunition, M577 armored personnel carriers, drone jamming equipment, power generators, cold season gear and warm clothing sets, Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle ammunition, RISE-1 long-range smart initiation system, disassembled L-39ZA Albatros aircraft and other aid so far. Lithuania's enduring assistance to Ukraine has reached a billion euros to date, while the military assistance this far amounts to over EUR 641 million. Over this year approx. EUR 115 million of assistance has been provided already and the dynamic is planned to hold. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO pledges $43 billion in assistance to Ukraine, guarantees 'irreversible path' to membership Iran Press TV Thursday, 11 July 2024 11:14 AM NATO has pledged $43 billion in military assistance to Ukraine and guaranteed an 'irreversible path' for the ex-Soviet republic toward membership in the US-led military alliance once the current war with Russia is over. The binding assurance of protection was made after the 32-member bloc formally declared on Wednesday that it would ultimately grant Ukraine membership but only after the conclusion of the ongoing war. The alliance also pledged to supply Ukraine with at least $43bn in military aid within the next year to boost its defenses against Russia. NATO member nations, both individually and collectively in their summit statement in Washington, outlined measures to strengthen Ukraine's defense. As part of the pledge to bolster Ukraine's military, the United States, the Netherlands, and Denmark announced that Ukrainian military pilots would receive NATO-provided F-16s as soon as this summer. Furthermore, NATO declared a lasting pledge of security aid to Ukraine and affirmed the creation of a new NATO center to ensure a consistent supply of weapons and training to Ukraine from the bloc's members. This is while Kiev argues that these commitments do not provide the military capability necessary to defeat the Russian forces. Washington said it would be deploying longer-range missiles in Germany in 2026, a major step aimed at countering what the bloc claims to be Russia's growing "threat" to Europe. This would be the first time since the Cold War that the European continent becomes home to the most potent US weapons. "Ukraine's future is in NATO," NATO members said in their final communiquA following the alliance's summit, stressing, "We will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." They also welcomed Ukraine's economic and security reforms needed to join the alliance, stressing that Kiev would get an invitation "when Allies agree and conditions are met." Since Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February 2022, Kiev has become far and away the top recipient of US weapons. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the US, alone, has provided approximately $51.4 billion in military assistance to Kiev, the US State Department said in early July. In a speech to NATO leaders, Biden announced plans to supply new patriot missile batteries to Ukraine, as Russia intensifies its military campaign against its neighboring country. Moscow has time and again warned that the West's military support of Ukraine will only prolong the war. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Chief Says Support For Ukraine Shows Russia That 'Violence And Intimidation Do Not Pay' By Margret Johnston July 11, 2024 WASHINGTON -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the alliance was "putting in place the foundations for Ukraine to prevail" in its effort to defend itself against Russia. Referring to Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Stoltenberg said on July 11 during his final press conference of the NATO summit that the alliance "cannot and will not allow this to happen again." "Violence and intimidation do not pay," he said. NATO leaders had come together to make Ukraine "stronger and more capable" and to "build a bridge" for eventual Ukrainian NATO membership," Stoltenberg said, giving assurances that the alliance would "meet Ukraine's needs" in the future. On the last day of the summit, intended to underscore NATO's support for Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pressed NATO leaders to lift all restrictions against Kyiv using their donated weaponry to launch long-range strikes on Russian territory if they want to see Ukraine defeat Russia's invading forces. "If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country, and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations," Zelenskiy said on July 11 at a press briefing alongside Stoltenberg. Zelenskiy's comments came a day after NATO announced a major aid package to support Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion, including the delivery of long-awaited U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets and the provision of $43 billion in military assistance within the next year. The alliance also stressed Ukraine's right to defend itself against foreign aggression and to choose its own security arrangements, declaring that Ukraine's "future is in NATO" and that Kyiv would continue to receive support "on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration." On July 11, the United States announced it would be sending $225 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine, part of a $61 billion aid package approved in April. The tranche includes a Patriot missile battery, anti-aircraft systems and munitions, as well as artillery ammunition and rockets. Stoltenberg said in his press conference with Zelenskiy that while Russia has tried "to intimidate us from providing support," if anything the opposite has happened and NATO allies are "actually stepping up their support for Ukraine." Zelenskiy, speaking shortly before he was to participate in a session of the NATO-Ukraine Council, called the aid offered at the summit "a success." He has repeatedly called on partners to boost Ukraine's air defenses. But Zelenskiy stressed that Ukraine needs more control to hit military targets deep inside Russian territory -- specifically, aircraft used to strike Ukraine with glide bombs. Some air bases that house the planes, he said earlier this week, are located up to 500 kilometers from Ukraine's border. Prior to the day's discussions, Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy's administration, said that lifting restriction on how Ukraine uses donated weapons would be a "game-changer." "It is just impossible to fight when the enemies don't have any restrictions," Yermak told the NATO Public Forum on July 11. Stoltenberg on July 10 said that Ukraine had the right under international law to defend itself against invading Russian forces, including with strikes against legitimate military targets in Russia. The issue of how Ukraine uses their donated weaponry is up to individual NATO members to decide. Some have said Kyiv can use them to strike Russian territory, while others have said their donated weapons can only be used within Ukraine. The United States in early May dropped its ban on Kyiv using U.S. weapons to strike Russian territory. Britain likewise loosened restrictions in early May. Germany has expressed opposition to allowing the use of NATO-provided weapons to strike inside Russia and has refused to send Ukraine its long-range Taurus cruise missile. Berlin did say in late May, however, that Ukraine could use weapons it supplies to defend itself against strikes from positions just inside Russia. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told RFE/RL on May 31 that allies need to change how they are looking at the war in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to use weapons to a fuller extent. At the NATO summit on July 11, Landsbergis called for the restrictions to be lifted so that Ukraine could strike those targets from where Russia is firing into Ukraine. When asked by journalists if he agreed to lifting restrictions, German Chancellor Olah Scholz said there have been no changes to Berlin's position. U.S. President Joe Biden, in a meeting with Zelenskiy earlier in the day, said he was pleased to announce the new aid allocation. "We will stay with you, period," Biden said ahead of bilateral talks. In a subsequent statement announcing the aid package, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that "as President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine." White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking to reporters on the sideline of the summit, said that Ukraine's position on the battlefield had improved since the aid package was passed in April. Sullivan said that Russia is "grinding away and not breaking through," suffering significant casualties in the meantime. However, he warned the days ahead for Ukraine "will be difficult." A joint declaration issued by NATO leaders on July 10 in which it called China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war effort received a sharp rebuke from Beijing. In response to the declaration, which also said China posed systemic challenges to transatlantic security, Beijing on July 11 accused NATO of spreading false information and undermining cooperation between China and Europe. NATO has acted on its concerns by showing increased interest in forming bonds with four Indo-Pacific countries -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea -- whose leaders were scheduled to meet with NATO leaders on July 11 to discuss security challenges and cooperation. Stoltenberg highlighted the meeting in his news conference on July 10, telling reporters that the NATO leaders agreed to continue to strengthen their partnerships, especially in the Indo-Pacific, amid rising concerns that China might attack Taiwan and worries about Russia's stepped-up security ties with China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. "In this dangerous world, friends and partners are more important than ever, so today we agreed to continue to strengthen our partnerships, especially in the Indo-Pacific. Security is global; it's not regional. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's war is fueled by those who do not share our values," he said. Iran and North Korea are providing direct military support to Russia, while China is propping up Russia's war economy, he added. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-leaders-to-meet- with-zelenskiy-summit/33030558.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO To Bring Ukraine Closer To Alliance By Establishing Operations In Germany, Poland By Margret Johnston and Erin Osborne July 11, 2024 WASHINGTON -- NATO officials have agreed at a summit in Washington to take further steps to bring Ukraine closer to the alliance and to counter the growing security threat posed by Russia by taking over the coordination of training and weapons deliveries from the United States. The moves, announced by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a news conference on July 10, include the launch of a centralized command in Germany and the establishment of a training and analysis center in Poland. They come with Russia making incremental gains on the battlefield in the wake of monthslong lags in aid and weapons supplies from the United States and Europe. Those delays highlighted Ukraine's vulnerability in trying to repel invading Russian forces. Stoltenberg said the security assistance center will be located in Wiesbaden, Germany, and will be led by a three-star general overseeing around 700 personnel from across the alliance. They will be responsible for the coordination and provision of most of the international security assistance that is sent, he said. NATO countries until now have coordinated support to Ukraine through an informal, U.S.-led body called the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The new center, which was approved by NATO defense ministers in June, will be formally known as the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) and will be part of Ukraine's "irreversible path" to NATO membership. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it will be the first time NATO has dedicated a command to helping a country join NATO. The operation in Poland will be known as a joint training and analysis center (JTAC), which will focus on improving NATO interoperability with Ukraine and studying the way the Ukraine war has changed warfare. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said the JTAC, which will be built in his hometown of Bydgoszcz, will examine the use of drones and other modern aspects of the Ukrainian war, which he said are causing NATO to reevaluate its assumptions. "The role of drones has been transformational in this war, and we need to study it and learn [from] the lessons," Sikorski said, speaking at a panel discussion on the sidelines of the summit. He envisions it becoming a state-of-the-art war analysis center that examines how drone warfare is changing the battlefield. And he predicted that Ukrainians eventually will take on major roles at the JTAC. "In the future it won't be us training the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians will be teaching us. And I hope JTAC will serve that," he said. Stoltenberg said NATO's plans to establish these two support facilities are within the elements of the "robust" security support package agreed during the summit along with providing Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid for next year, bilateral agreements, and more equipment, including air-defense systems. He said the decisions were "major" and would further strengthen NATO's support for Kyiv and help Ukraine uphold its right to self-defense but would not make NATO a party to the conflict. "We are not doing this because we want to prolong the war. We are doing this because we want to end the war as soon as possible," Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg said that it's important for NATO to show commitment and resolve at this point in the war. "The more credible and enduring our support the quicker Moscow will realize it cannot wait us out and the sooner the war can end," he said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-shows -commitment-and-resolve-for-ukraine-by-establishing- operations-in-germany-poland/33030566.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Netherlands, Other NATO Members Moving To Provide Air Defenses, Fighter Jets To Ukraine By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service July 11, 2024 The Netherlands will begin supplying Ukraine with promised components of Patriot air-defense systems "very soon," the country's defense minister told RFE/RL on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. "As for the parts of the Patriot system that we are supplying, I can say that we will supply them very soon," Defense Minister Ruben Bekelmans said on July 10. "As for the F-16s...I can't announce any specific dates. We know that the Russians and [President Vladimir] Putin are also interested in when these F-16s will be delivered." Bekelmans added the advanced fighter jets will be provided "as soon as possible." He also said his country and NATO allies were "working hard to open a European training center in Romania" to prepare Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16s. Norway on July 10 said it would begin providing the six F-16s it has pledged to Ukraine "in 2024." On July 10, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that "the transfer of F-16 jets is under way." On July 9, the Netherlands joined the United States, Germany, Italy, and Romania in a pledge to provide much-needed air-defense capabilities to Ukraine. Daily Russian drone and missile attacks have pummeled the country and caused considerable damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the pledges "a clear signal that Russia's ability to terrorize Ukrainian people, cities, and communities will continue to reduce." Zelenskiy told a conference in Berlin on June 11 that Ukraine needs at least seven additional Patriot systems to protect its urban population centers. When Zelenskiy arrived in Washington for the July 9-11 NATO summit, he told journalists his delegation would focus on acquiring additional air defenses and fighter-jet capabilities. The summit is expected to discuss a proposal to provide Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid in 2025 after member states could not agree on a multiyear military-aid package proposed earlier by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-nato-patriot- fighters/33030473.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia's Zakharova Calls Drone Strike That Injured Children Deliberate Terrorist Attack Sputnik News 20240711 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday described a Ukrainian drone strike that injured children in the Belgorod Region as a deliberate terrorist attack. Earlier in the day, Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that the attack on a playground in Shebekino injured five children. "Another terrorist attack by the Kiev regime. In Shebekino, a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device on children playing in the courtyard ... A deliberate terrorist attack against children! 'Bloody creatures' from the Bankova [street] must be immediately subjected to international condemnation!" Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. Medical personnel is doing everything possible to save the lives of the children who were wounded in Ukraine's attack in Shebekino, Belgorod Region Health Minister Andrei Ikonnikov said on Telegram late Thursday. "We are doing everything we can to save the children whom our enemies have deliberately tried to kill. Five kids, two of them are now in operating rooms in serious condition. Just out of the hospital myself, pointing a drone at defenseless children cannot be justified," Ikonnikov said. He added that multidisciplinary teams, including intensive care specialists, vascular surgeons, trauma surgeons, pediatric surgeons, nurses and anesthetists, are providing all the help needed and fighting for the lives of the children. Consultations with federal centers will be held after the surgeries, the regional health minister said. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Sending to Ukraine 'Older' Patriot Battery, Valued at $100Mln - Pentagon Sputnik News 20240711 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is providing Ukraine an older Patriot battery valued at $100 million in its latest security assistance package, a Defense Department spokesperson told Sputnik on Thursday. Earlier in the day, the United States announced it is providing Ukraine with a new $225 million aid package that includes one Patriot battery. The price tag on a new Patriot battery system is about $1 billion. "We are drawing down older equipment that does not have the same value as a new procurement," the spokesperson said. "$100M [million] is the depreciated/PDA value of the Patriot battery that was transferred." The new aid package was authorized through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Defense Department to donate to Ukraine from US military stockpiles. The package also provides Ukraine with NASAMS munitions, Stinger missiles, HIMARS ammunition, artillery rounds, TOW equipment, and missiles, Javelin and AT-4 systems, small arms ammunition, demolitions munitions, various spare parts and maintenance items, according to the Pentagon. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Loses Up to 700 Soldiers in Battles With Russia's Battlegroup Yug - Moscow Sputnik News 20240711 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 700 soldiers in battles with Russia's Battlegroup Yug in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday. "The Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 700 servicepeople, a tank, two Kozak armored combat vehicles, two cars, a UK-made 155-mm AS-90 self-propelled artillery unit, four 152-mm D-20 guns, two 122-mm D-30 howitzers, a US-made 105-mm M119 gun, two UK-made howitzers L-119," the ministry said. Russia's Battlegroup Tsentr have repelled five Ukrainian counterattacks and taken control of the Voskhod settlement in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), the ministry said. "Enemy losses amounted to up to 335 military personnel, two infantry fighting vehicles, including a US-made Bradley BMP, two cars, a 152-mm Msta-B howitzer, a US-made 105-mm M119 gun, four 100-mm MT-12 Rapier guns, a US-made counter-battery radar station TPQ-36," the statement read. Ukraine has lost up to 460 soldiers in battles with Russia's Battlegroup Zapad and another 335 in fighting with Russia's Sever (North) group of forces, the ministry said. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Air Defenses Destroy, Intercept Five Drones Above Four Regions - MoD Sputnik News 20240711 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Over the past night, Russian air defenses destroyed and intercepted five Ukrainian drones over four regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. The ministry said a number of attempts by the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks using aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on targets in Russia were stopped. "Air defense systems on duty destroyed and intercepted five UAVs, two of which were over the territory of the Bryansk Region and one over the Tambov, Tula and Moscow regions each," it said. Ukraine has been sending drones and missiles into Russia almost daily since it launched its counteroffensive in early June 2023. The United Nations said in August last year, following a botched drone strike on Moscow, that it did not want to see any targeting of civilian infrastructure. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Moscow Not to Take Part in New Summit on Ukraine - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sputnik News 20240711 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told Sputnik, commenting on the topic of a new summit on Ukraine, that Moscow does not accept ultimatums and is not going to participate in such events. "We know the intentions of the Kiev regime and its Western mentors to 'rehabilitate themselves' for the failed 'peace summit' in Burgenstock, Switzerland in mid-June this year and try to hold a similar event," he said, adding that "they are even thinking of inviting Russia." "The specific location has not been determined. However, geography is not of fundamental importance. What is more important is the content, with which everything is extremely clear," Galuzin said. He said Russia hears the rhetoric that it has already heard in the hope of pushing through the ultimatum 'Zelensky formula', and also sees a deliberate disregard for other initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. "We do not accept such ultimatums and are not going to participate in such 'summits'," Galuzin said. The summit in Switzerland was nearly universally declared a failure after China refused to attend and several countries that did attend declined to sign the final document. The event was such an embarrassment that two countries, Iraq and Jordan, asked for their signatures to be removed from the document shortly after the conference. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President Putin's preconditions are incompatible with the OSCE Decalogue: UK statement to the OSCE, July 2024 Ambassador Holland sets out how President Putin's preconditions for negotiations with Ukraine flagrantly violate OSCE principles. 11 July 2024 Thank you, Madam Chair. Last month, President Putin delivered a statement to senior Russian officials on the settlement of his war in Ukraine. He did so as leaders from around the world prepared to travel to Switzerland for the Peace Summit to discuss the foundations of a sustainable peace in Ukraine. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the statement, and its timing, was an unsuccessful attempt to try to undermine the Peace Summit. But since the proposals and themes in it continue to be repeated, we in this room should assess and judge them against the principles guiding relations between participating States - also known as the Decalogue - since these are the foundational principles of this organisation to which we all committed in the interests of our shared security. President Putin stated that there was no plan to storm Kyiv. In his words, this was "nothing else but an operation to coerce the Ukrainian regime into peace". This is in direct contravention of Article Two of the Decalogue. This says: "No such threat or use of force will be employed as a means of settling disputes". Madam Chair, peace cannot be achieved down the barrel of a gun. Among the preconditions for beginning peace negotiations stated in the speech are that Ukraine withdraws its troops completely from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. These are all regions that, in addition to Crimea, fall within Ukraine's internationally recognised borders. Article Three of the Decalogue says States should "refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State." And Article Four says they should "refrain from making each other's territory the object of military occupation or other direct or indirect measures of force". Another of Russia's conditions for peace is that Ukraine "abandons its plans to join NATO". Article One of the Decalogue on sovereign equality provides for: "the right to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance." Madam Chair, there are many more such examples, not to mention factual inaccuracies. The point is that this set of proposals is incompatible with the principles which we have all agreed to abide by, including the imperialistic threat that "Ukraine's existence in the future" depends on its response to Russian aggression. No matter what our geography or political allegiances are, we should all be deeply concerned at how seriously Russia treats its commitments when those commitments become inconvenient. It is for Ukraine to determine its own path to peace. The only peace in Ukraine that will last is one that respects the UN Charter and the OSCE's principles, a point the global community underlined in Switzerland. If President Putin wants to deliver that peace, he can do so today by bringing Russia back into alignment with the OSCE Decalogue, which Russia helped draft, and withdrawing from Ukraine. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address We Have Strong Wording Regarding the Irreversibility of Ukraine's Movement Toward NATO - Volodymyr Zelenskyy President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 23:25 Important decisions were made at the NATO Summit to strengthen Ukraine's air defense and Armed Forces. This was announced by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington. The Head of State thanked Jens Stoltenberg for all the years of cooperation and emphasized that the Alliance has indeed become stronger. "We appreciate the decision on air defense, five Patriots for Ukraine and dozens of other systems. And we expect them to be delivered as soon as possible so that as many lives as possible can be saved," the President said. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also mentioned the adoption of the G7 Joint Declaration last year, which has already been joined by 32 states. "Today, we will endorse the Ukraine Compact, and this document is a success for Ukraine, as it develops our security architecture. We will definitely implement every point - we have more than enough energy for this," he noted. The President emphasized that Ukraine would do everything possible to receive an invitation to NATO. "We have strong wording regarding the irreversibility of Ukraine's movement towards NATO - every step truly brings us closer to membership. We are doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member," the Head of State said. Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg noted that NATO member states have taken a decision on long-term support for Ukraine. "The NATO structure is providing security and training assistance to Ukraine. NATO will take over the coordination and provision of most of the security assistance," he announced. Jens Stoltenberg also emphasized that the Alliance is setting up a separate command to coordinate the assistance provided to Ukraine. "NATO Allies have pledged a minimum baseline of EUR 40 billion in military assistance to Ukraine over the next year and are committed to maintaining our support for Ukraine's victory," the Secretary General said. According to Jens Stoltenberg, the Alliance will strengthen cooperation with Ukraine's Armed Forces and defense industry. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New Defense Package and Strengthening Ukraine's Air Defense: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Met with Joseph Biden President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 22:32 As part of the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Joseph Biden. At the beginning of the meeting, Joseph Biden announced a new defense package for Ukraine. "I am grateful to you, your team, your administration, Congress - both parties, both chambers - and the entire American people for the vital and strong support of the people of Ukraine. Together we are saving the lives of our people," said Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The President of Ukraine noted that aid from the United States enabled Ukrainian defenders to hold back the Russian advance in the Kharkiv region. He also highlighted the support for Ukraine's energy system from the US. The Ukrainian President thanked President Biden for his personal statement following the Russian strike on the children's hospital "Okhmatdyt" and for the decision by the US and its partners to bolster Ukraine's air defenses with five new Patriot systems and dozens of other systems. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also emphasized the importance of combating Russian guided aerial bombs. "We need swift actions to lift all restrictions for our military," he said. During the meeting, the leaders also discussed restoring a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. "For peace to be restored as soon as possible, we need a second Peace Summit this year. We very much count on America's support in this matter," said the President of Ukraine. Joseph Biden stressed that Ukraine had stopped the Russian advance in the Kharkiv region and inflicted significant losses on them. "You have made it clear that Russia will not prevail in Ukraine. Ukraine will prevail. And I want you to know that we will be with you every step of the way," he added. The US President noted that the defense package announced today is the eighth one he has authorized since signing the national security bill. "And we are working with our NATO allies to ensure Ukraine is flying F-16s this summer, and we will show the world that we stand with Ukraine now and in the future," stated Joseph Biden. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President of Ukraine Met with Leaders of NATO's Indo-Pacific Partner States President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 19:45 In Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held his first meeting in the five-party format with the leaders of NATO's Indo-Pacific partner states: President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol, Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Japan Christopher Luxon and Fumio Kishida, and Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Defense of Australia Richard Marles. "This format of cooperation is new for us. With each of your countries, we have special relations and specific areas of cooperation. But today, together, we can discuss global issues of common interest," noted the President of Ukraine. The Head of State thanked the partners for their unwavering solidarity and support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, as well as for the participation of these countries in the first Peace Summit. During the meeting, they discussed the accession of other Indo-Pacific countries to the Joint CommuniquA. In light of Russia's constant attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians, the President emphasized that Ukraine urgently needs to bolster its air defenses with air defense and electronic warfare systems. Volodymyr Zelenskyy also thanked Australia and New Zealand for their announced defense packages. In particular, Australia allocated $170 million, which is the largest amount of assistance from this country since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Head of State invited the Republic of Korea, Australia, and New Zealand to join the G7 Vilnius Declaration of Support for Ukraine and to consider the possibility of concluding bilateral security agreements with our country. He also thanked Japan for the recent signing of the relevant document. The leaders discussed the rapidly changing situation in the Indo-Pacific region, which requires unity on security issues, and condemned the recent comprehensive strategic partnership agreement between Russia and North Korea. Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine is interested in closer cooperation with regional organizations such as ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum, and joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The leaders agreed to work on holding meetings in the Ukraine + Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) format on a regular basis. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Patriot System and Strengthening Security in the Black Sea Region: Ukraine and Romania Signed a Security Agreement President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 17:10 In Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President of Romania Klaus Iohannis signed an Agreement on Security Cooperation between Ukraine and Romania. Romania will transfer a Patriot system to Ukraine, continue to support our country with the same dynamic as in 2022-2024, and facilitate the swift transit of all necessary equipment through its territory to Ukraine. A key feature of this agreement is specific points of cooperation to strengthen security in the Black Sea region. Romania will assist Ukraine in demining the Black Sea and provide support through EU and NATO tools. Official Bucharest, along with its partners, will also support the F-16 training center for preparing Ukrainian pilots, thus contributing to the Air Force Capability Coalition. Romania will support our country's defense industry. Separate sections of the document cover intelligence and counterintelligence, cybersecurity, information security, humanitarian demining, sanctions, and the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine. Additionally, the agreement includes a 24-hour emergency response mechanism in case of renewed Russian aggression against our country or significant escalation. Ukraine and Romania signed the security agreement in line with the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine dated July 12, 2023. Overall, our country has already signed 23 bilateral security agreements: with the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Latvia, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Japan, the USA, the EU, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Luxembourg, and Romania. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Agreement on Security Cooperation Between Ukraine and Romania President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 17:09 Introduction Ukraine and Romania, hereinafter jointly referred to as "the Participants", Reaffirming the principles of the United Nations Charter (UN Charter) and the Helsinki Final Act, including the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, and the inviolability of international frontiers, which are the backbone of European and worldwide security, Considering Russia's illegal and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine to be a direct threat to international peace and security, a flagrant violation of international law, and a breach of the UN Charter, Underlining the unwavering support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders as of 1991, including the territorial sea, and acknowledging the legitimate right of Ukraine to self-defence according to Article 51 of the UN Charter, Affirming that the security of Ukraine is integral to the security of European continent and a wider Euro-Atlantic region, and thus that security of Ukraine and security of Romania are closely linked, Fully supporting Ukraine's efforts to achieve just, lasting, and sustainable peace, based on Ukraine's Peace Formula, Confirming joint commitment to strengthen efforts to facilitate full-fledged integration of Ukraine into the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and reiterating the right of every state to freely choose its own security arrangements, Emphasising that Romania will continue to support Ukraine's implementation of the reforms necessary for its full integration into the EU and NATO and in the benefit of all its citizens, and commends Ukraine for the significant reform progress made to date; Recalling the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine adopted by the Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) on the margins of the NATO Vilnius Summit on 12 July 2023 (G7 Joint Declaration), which was officially joined by Romania, and recognising that bilateral security commitments are not a replacement for Ukraine's membership in NATO but complement and support Ukraine's future membership; Committing to further support Ukraine's reform agenda in view of its European integration and in the benefit of all its citizens; Underscoring their commitment to contribute to Ukraine's ability to defend itself, to resist future coercion, to choose its own future, and to prosper; Reaffirming all elements of the Joint Declaration of the President of Ukraine and the President of Romania on the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, signed on 1 June 2023 in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, and Joint Statement by the President of Romania and the President of Ukraine, signed on 10 October 2023 in Bucharest, Romania, including the commitment to raise the bilateral relations to the level of Strategic Partnership; have jointly determined to strengthen their security cooperation by pursuing the following bilateral long-term security commitments and measures, and have decided as follows: Paragraph 1. Scope This Agreement is intended to further the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine. The Participants have decided to continue their cooperation to assist Ukraine in defending itself against Russian aggression until Ukraine prevails, and decided to: provide support to Ukraine in continuing its legitimate self-defence in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter against the ongoing Russian aggression, military escalation and to deter aggression in the future; strengthen Ukraine's recovery, economic stability and resilience; promote accountability for the violations of international law, including international crimes, committed in or against Ukraine and its citizens, and raise the costs to the Russian Federation of its ongoing aggression; commit and support the sustainable and comprehensive implementation of the reforms necessary for Ukraine to advance towards its EU and NATO membership; deepen mutually beneficial cooperation to enhance security in the Black Sea region. Paragraph 2. Emergency Consultation Mechanism The Participants recognise that any future Russian invasion of Ukraine would violate the UN Charter and fundamental principles of international law, and would undermine Euro-Atlantic security, including the security of Romania. In the event of renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine or in the event of significant escalation, at the request of either Participant, the Participants will consult within twenty-four (24) hours, bilaterally or via other channels they both deem suitable, to determine appropriate measures needed to counter or deter the aggression or escalation. Romania affirms that in those circumstances and acting within its means and capabilities and in accordance with its constitutional and other national legal provisions, as well as in accordance with international and European Union law and procedures, will provide Ukraine, as appropriate, with swift and sustained security assistance, military equipment across all domains, and economic assistance, to seek agreement in the EU to impose economic and other costs on Russia, and consult with Ukraine on its needs as it exercises its right of self-defence enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. In order to ensure the widest and most effective collective response to future armed attack or significant escalation, the Participants may amend these provisions in order to align with any mechanism that they may subsequently agree with its other international partners, including the participants of the G7 Joint Declaration of 12 July 2023. Paragraph 3. Political support and just peace The Participants recognise that Ukraine and the entire Europe will not be secure until there is a just and lasting peace that respects Ukraine's rights under international law and the UN Charter. Romania welcomes Ukraine's efforts to create just, lasting and sustainable peace based on the principles of Ukraine's Peace Formula. Romania is participating in the working groups of Ukraine's Peace Formula's points, being actively involved into the implementation of the radiation and nuclear safety and food security points. As part of the implementation of Ukraine's Peace Formula, Romania already contributes and will continue to contribute to the strengthening of food security, in particular by securing the maritime and river logistics, including but not limited to, through Romanian Black Sea and Danube ports. Romania will remain fully engaged in cooperation with Ukraine to ensure as wide international participation as possible in Ukraine's Peace Formula, including involvement of the Global South countries to implement the Peace Formula and participate in the Peace Summit. The Participants seek to work even more closely in the future in the political, defence, security, trade, economic, maritime, scientific and cultural spheres. To this end, Ukraine and Romania will further deepen their bilateral relations on the level of strategic partnership. Paragraph 4. Supporting the European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine The Participants acknowledge the importance of international coordination regarding support and security commitments for Ukraine. NATO and the EU both play key roles in Ukraine's long-term security. The Participants commend the commitment of Ukraine in advancing its reform agenda, especially in the context of its legitimate fight against Russia's war of aggression. The Participants underscore the relevance for Ukraine to pursue in a sustainable manner the reform process in view of advancing its integration into the Euro-Atlantic community. In this respect, they particularly note the importance of implementing deep and wide-ranging reforms in Ukraine to strengthen the rule of law, the fight against corruption, corporate governance, to improve transparency and ensure level-playing field for economic operations. They stress the importance of continuous and sustained efforts by Ukraine to promote, protect and uphold the respect for basic freedoms and human rights, including full and sustainable exercise of rights of persons belonging to national minorities. These efforts should also include advancing defence reforms and defence modernisation including by strengthening democratic civilian control of the security sector, including the military and the intelligence, as well as by improving transparency across Ukraine's defence institutions and industry. Romania reaffirms its commitment to further extend to Ukraine political and practical support, both bilaterally and within the EU and NATO. NATO The Participants recall that Ukraine's future is in NATO and that Ukraine will become a member of NATO in the future. Recalling the Joint Declaration of President of Romania Klaus Iohannis and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine as of June 1, 2023 the Participants will continue to support and review Ukraine's progress on democratic and security sector reforms as well as interoperability through Ukraine's adapted Annual National Programme (ANP) on its path towards future membership. Romania will continue to contribute to the delivery of support to Ukraine via NATO's Comprehensive Assistance Package (UCAP). The aim of short-term non-lethal support is to help with the sustainment of Ukrainian operations. The aim for the medium- to long-term support is to help with rebuilding the Ukrainian security and defence sector and to help Ukraine with its transition towards full interoperability with NATO on its road to the full-fledged membership in the Alliance. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance. Ukraine has made substantial progress on its reform path and will join NATO when conditions allow. European Union With regard to Ukraine's future accession to the EU, the Participants reaffirm that Ukraine is part of the European family and has a future within the EU. The Participants reaffirm their commitment to work on Ukraine's accession negotiations with the EU. Romania acknowledges Ukraine's efforts thus far to implement necessary reforms under extremely challenging circumstances and will continue to support Ukraine's reform efforts. Romania, as a member of the EU, contributes to the continuation of credible and effective support, including in the framework of the EU's security commitments for Ukraine. Romania will advocate fostering opportunities for cooperation in the framework of relevant EU initiatives, including those aimed at ramping up defence production capacity and enhancing cooperation with the Ukrainian defence industry. This cooperation will benefit both countries. Paragraph 5. Fostering Black Sea region security The Participants recognise that Ukraine's security is integral to the security and stability of the Black Sea region. Romania contributes to ensuring maritime security in the Black Sea region, including through the Maritime Security Capability Coalition. The Participants will coordinate their efforts on strengthening international cooperation and coordination in the domain of maritime security, including in the context of the existing or new instruments, mechanisms and initiatives, with the aim of ensuring regional security by eliminating threats and increasing the level of maritime security in the Black Sea region, thus contributing to global security. Aiming at fostering security and ensuring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, the Participants will stand for extensive cooperation among partners and Allies, including by promoting a wider NATO presence in the Black Sea region. Romania will cooperate with Ukraine to implement efforts on the Black Sea demining, including efforts to jointly tackle drifting sea mines, within, but not limited to, the Mine Countermeasures Task Group Black Sea (MCM Black Sea), as and when appropriate, in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the creation of this Task Force. Romania will contribute to the capacity building of Ukraine's maritime domain through cooperation with Allies and partners. The development of Ukraine's maritime fleet will be achieved through capacity building efforts, industrial cooperation and training efforts as well as donations. The Participants will seek to strengthen their multilateral cooperation with other countries of the region, including the Republic of Moldova, to improve regional security and counter Russia's attempts to destabilise it. The Participants acknowledge the importance of trilateral cooperation with the Republic of Moldova for the advancement of the EU integration process for both countries. Paragraph 6. Defence cooperation Ensuring a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and in the future From the beginning of the full-scale war, Romania has provided multi-dimensional and comprehensive support to Ukraine, including: humanitarian assistance; managing the refugees flow and their sustainable and dignified stay in Romania; military and security assistance; support in the field of energy security; ensuring reliable transit and transport corridors for Ukrainian exports, notably grains and other agricultural products; ensuring accountability for the crimes committed in Ukraine by the Forces of the Russian Federation. Romania will continue its multifaceted support to Ukraine for the duration of this Agreement, with the same dynamics as in 2022-2024. Romania will continue to support Ukraine, for as long as it takes for Ukraine to prevail, maintaining the current dynamic level of assistance, including packages of military assistance agreed between the two Ministries of Defence. In 2024, further support provided by Romania will be driven by the needs expressed by Ukraine, in coordination with our partners, and in accordance with existing procedures between the Ministries of Defence of the two countries. Romania will donate to Ukraine a PATRIOT system, in accordance with the decision of the National Supreme Defence Council of Romania on 20 June 2024. As part of defence cooperation, Romania will facilitate transit of all the necessary equipment through its territory to Ukraine, as swiftly as possible. The Participants will continue the bilateral dialogue and with other partners in order to exchange views and lessons learned regarding the threats posed by missiles and UAVs. To ensure the above mentioned objectives, the Participants will hold annual senior-level Strategic Defence and Security Policy Dialogue, where all security and defence related matters of interest for any of Participants will be discussed, also with a view to strengthen regional security. The Participants will explore ways to provide assistance to the Ukrainian system of military medical support in treating and rehabilitating Ukrainian service members. The Participants will work together, and with other international partners of Ukraine, to assist the security and defence forces of Ukraine and to increase Ukraine's resilience and capacity to deter and defend against future attacks and prevent the escalation of the ongoing aggression, through the continued provision of security assistance. Romania is also committed to continue its support to Ukraine, through the instruments developed by the European Union and NATO, such as European Peace Facility and NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package, with the aim of strengthening interoperability of Ukraine security and defence forces with NATO and to rebuild Ukraine's defence sector. Ukraine Defence Contact Group and Ukraine future force capabilities The Participants will coordinate their efforts in the development of military capabilities through the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) as well as other bodies, platforms and institutions. Romania will contribute to the building up of Ukraine's future security and defence forces (according to the Future Forces Concept), capable of deterring and repelling any armed aggression, including through training activities. The comprehensive assistance to build up the Future Forces of Ukraine also requires sufficient military stockpiles necessary for repelling future aggressions. Therefore, Romania will seek ways to increase collaboration and explore options to assist Ukraine in accumulating these strategic resources. Romania will support plans and governance structures for Capability Coalitions in the framework of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, and other formats pending political agreement, by contributing to the Air Force Capability Coalition and Maritime Capability Coalition, both to deliver the future force and to bring more coherence to the provision of capability in the current war. Training and exercises The Romanian military support will facilitate a modernisation of the security and defence forces of Ukraine and a greater degree of their interoperability with NATO. Romania will provide individual and collective trainings to the security and defence forces of Ukraine, including train-the-trainer programs. The training will also promote increased interoperability with Euro-Atlantic partners. Training will be provided in close cooperation with partners within the EU and NATO. Ukraine and Romania will continue to share lessons learned in order to be implemented in their future operations/tactics especially related to the usage/countering of modern weapons and technologies, while also focusing on the way new technological developments are influencing armed conflict, especially considering the use of unmanned aerial systems and artificial intelligence. Romania, together with partners, will actively provide the capabilities of the F-16 training centre (FTC) hosted by the Romanian Armed Forces to train the Ukrainian pilots as its tangible input into the Air Force Capability Coalition. Romania will continue to contribute to training activities under the framework of the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM), as well as in the framework of Operation INTERFLEX. At the same time, the Ministry of National Defence of Romania will carry on specific and specialised training on a bilateral or multilateral basis, in close coordination with the EUMAM and the Security Assistance Group - Ukraine (SAG-U). Paragraph 7. Defence industry cooperation The Participants recognise that Ukraine's defence industry has the potential to become a powerful asset for Ukraine, regional, and wider Euro-Atlantic security, to enable Ukraine to restore its territorial integrity, and to contribute to the effective deterrence of future aggression. Romania will provide long-term assistance and sustain Ukraine's defene industry, in achieving its goal of meeting the needs of the security and defence forces as outlined in the Future Forces Concept. Romania will collaborate with Ukraine to identify strategies that mitigate the existing supply chain bottlenecks, impeding the development of manufacturing capabilities for critical weapons and ammunition. Additionally, the Participants may consider opportunities for establishing joint industrial production lines for essential types of ammunition. Romania will work with Ukraine to enhance information exchange, share experiences, remove barriers to cooperation, implement required reforms in Ukraine's defence industry, and bolster the protection of transferred technologies and intellectual property rights. These partnerships will allow both Participants to expand the capacity of their defence industries. Romania will work with Ukraine to identify potential funding sources, that may include among others investments and financial assistance, for the development of Ukraine's defence industrial base. This initiative is designed to go on beyond nowadays wartime conditions to address also the postwar recovery effort. Romania will, where possible, support Ukraine's efforts to integrate its defence industry into NATO and EU defence and security frameworks. Ukraine and Romania will work to enable effective functioning of the Joint Ukraine-Romania Commission on Military and Technical Cooperation. Paragraph 8. Cooperation in the security field and non-military security threats Countering hybrid threats The Participants acknowledge that state and non-state actors use non-traditional ways of exerting power, either covertly or on the basis of a hidden agenda, referred to as hybrid threats. The Participants will cooperate in countering any hybrid attacks from the Russian Federation and any other hostile nations, in particular in the current regional context, exacerbated by the Russian Federation pursuit of (re)gaining and extending influence and economic control outside its borders, as well as of discrediting and undermining the rules based international order. The Participants reaffirm their commitment to defending their open and democratic societies against these malign activities. The Participants remain united in their efforts to defend themselves against and counter hybrid threats. Romania will continue to support initiatives to counter hybrid threats within the EU, NATO and relevant international coalitions. Cooperation in the sphere of combating serious and organised crime The Participants will, where possible and opportune, provide legal assistance under existing instruments for international criminal cooperation in order to combat serious and organised crime (SOC), amongst others illicit finance, aimed at undermining Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as its internal stability and the process of recovery. The Participants will work together to support Ukraine to detect, deter and disrupt transborder organised crime through actions such as, but not limited to: Support Ukraine in setting up a national focal point on arms; Enhance cooperation to prevent and combat drug trafficking through actions that will reinforce Ukraine's capacities and capabilities, including by applying the EU standards in the field; Promote border protection, monitoring and surveillance, including by further carrying out joint mixed patrols at the common border; Increase the efficiency of the Ukrainian and Romanian Border Police in the fight against illegal migration, trafficking in human beings and drugs by developing common instruments and capabilities. Such cooperation may include, but is not limited to, joint activities, information sharing and analysis, the identification of assets that may be seized in respective criminal proceedings, the creation of joint working groups, and the facilitation of training and best-practices sharing. Intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation The Participants will continue and will strive to deepen their cooperation in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence in accordance with the framework based on bilateral agreements, to the extent of their own possibilities, without prejudice to their national interests and in compliance with the legislation of each Participant. The Participants will take measures, within their applicable legal and policy frameworks, to enable Ukraine to detect, deter and disrupt Russian and other hostile States intelligence and subversive activities, including espionage, and sabotage actions to secure Ukraine and Romania from such malign activities, while supporting the enhancement and reform of Ukraine's security and intelligence architecture. In accordance with the stipulations of the previous point regarding intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation, Romania is willing to support the Ukrainian intelligence services in their process of alignment to European standards, as well as in facilitating their cooperation with other like-minded services in the intelligence community. D. Cooperation in the sphere of cybersecurity The Participants will work together - through competent institutions - to enable Ukraine to detect, deter and respond to Russian cyber operations, including cyber espionage, sabotage, including through greater cyber resilience and critical infrastructure protection. This will be achieved through information and experience exchange, conducting joint operations and providing technical assistance to Ukraine, within the legal boundaries and upon the availability of information and expertise. The Participants will work together to identify and deter the irresponsible and malicious use of cyber capabilities by the Russian Federation and other hostile state and non-state actors against the Participants. The Participants will work towards deepening Ukraine's cooperation with EU and NATO structures on cybersecurity. E. Information Security The Participants will collaborate to improve Ukraine's capabilities to counter foreign interference and manipulation of information, primarily Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns, exchange experience and promote the development of joint educational and training programmes for information integrity professionals. In order to counter Russian information manipulation and propaganda globally, the Participants will increase their collaboration, in order to: support Ukraine in joining collective instruments for countering threats to information security, primarily from the Russian Federation; exchange lessons learned on communication strategies to counter disinformation; promote the development of joint educational and training programs within international institutions, including regular sharing of experiences and providing technical assistance. The Participants recognise that the Russian Federation acts in order to manipulate the information space, aiming at justifying the illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, and therefore the Participants deem necessary to cooperate in order to dismantle and reveal the real facts and action of the Russian Federation. For this purpose, the Participants: will cooperate to counter the information manipulation and Russian propaganda; will ensure, in cooperation with other partners, international communication as efficient as possible, in order to dismantle the disinformation campaigns of the Russian Federation and in order to dispatch the real facts and actions of the Russian Federation; will permanently ensure the communication between the competent public institutions with the relevant actors of the civil society, academia, mass media and social media, in order to foster programs dedicated to improving education, increasing citizens' awareness capacity regarding the danger of the Russian propaganda, enhancing skills of fact-checking and critical thinking, aimed at consolidating the resilience of society; will ensure permanent training of the human resources of the public institutions in the area of STRATCOM and combating Russian disinformation. Romania will assist Ukraine in developing a set of instruments in order to detect the information manipulation and foreign interferences (FIMI). F. Countering CBRN risks The Participants intend to further expand their existing bilateral cooperation to strengthen Ukraine's resilience against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons-related risks. Romania intends in particular to explore avenues of its support to Ukraine in developing its civil protection capabilities and resilience against CBRN-related risks. G. Humanitarian demining The Participants recognise the importance of efforts aimed at protecting the population and territories of Ukraine from the negative consequences caused by mines and explosive remnants of war as a result of the Russian war of aggression and alleviating the devastating consequences after its completion. Due to Russia's massive contamination of Ukrainian soil through mines, ammunition and other explosive ordnance, Romania will support humanitarian demining efforts alongside partners. Romania will provide assistance for the humanitarian demining of the territory of Ukraine, including but not limited to financial, logistical and training support. H. Resilience of critical infrastructure Romania will contribute to the development of Ukraine's critical infrastructure protection capabilities. Romania will continue to support Ukraine to enhance the protection, resilience and restoration of critical infrastructure, including through grant programs within the EU, NATO and relevant international coalitions. The Participants intend to explore areas for enhanced international cooperation with a view to exchanging knowledge and best practices in the realm of critical infrastructure capabilities in various sectors as well as through launching joint educational and training programs for critical infrastructure protection specialists. Paragraph 9. Promoting accountability The Participants reaffirm their commitment to holding the Russian Federation accountable for causing losses or damage to individuals and entities, as well as to Ukraine, as a result of its internationally wrongful acts in or against Ukraine, including its aggression in violation of the UN Charter. The Participants will seek to hold to account those responsible for war crimes and other international crimes, committed in or against Ukraine in the context of Russia's war of aggression, consistently with international law, including by supporting the work of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the International Criminal Court to ensure that alleged international crimes are fully and fairly investigated through independent, effective and robust legal mechanisms. The Participants reaffirm that that there must be no impunity for international crimes, including the crime of aggression, and other atrocities committed by Russia and its proxies on Ukraine's territory, and the Russian Federation must bear the legal responsibility, including by making reparation for any damage caused by such act, which will also help deter future attacks and support Ukraine's recovery. The Participants note that the immediate release and return of all unlawfully detained, forcibly transferred and illegally deported civilians, including children, are among the principles supporting a comprehensive, just and lasting peace. Ukraine and Romania will exert all possible efforts to facilitate international efforts to bring those responsible for organising the illegal deportation and displacement of Ukrainian children to justice according to the norms of international law and decisions of international judicial institutions. The Participants share the conviction on the need to ensure accountability for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and the establishment of a tribunal to ensure effective accountability. The Participants will continue their engagement in the "Core Group on options for the establishment of a tribunal on the crime of aggression against Ukraine" Paragraph 10. Compensation for damage, loss or injury caused by Russian aggression The Participants reaffirm the Russian Federation must pay for the long-term reconstruction of Ukraine. Consistent with Romania's legal system, Russian sovereign assets in Romania's jurisdiction remain immobilised until the Russian Federation has paid for damage it has caused to Ukraine. Romania, working with its partners, will continue to explore all lawful routes consistent with applicable contractual obligations and in accordance with EU and international law through which Russian assets could be used to support Ukraine. As a priority, the Participants will continue to work together, along with G7 states and others, towards the establishment of a compensation mechanism to provide compensation for damage, loss or injury caused by Russian aggression, as envisaged by the Statute of the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine adopted by the Resolution of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe CM/Res(2023)3. The Participants will explore appropriate options for the financing of a compensation mechanism to provide prompt and adequate compensation to victims of Russian aggression, and to support Ukraine's reconstruction, including options with regard to seizure and repurposing of Russian sovereign assets. Paragraph 11. Sanctions The Participants recognise the value of sanctions in restricting the Russian Federation's and other aggressor-states' access to the finance, goods, technology and services it is utilising in its aggression, in bearing down on Russia's revenue streams, and to deter future attacks. The Participants will continue to work to ensure that the costs to Russia of its aggression continue to rise, including through sanctions and export controls. While the Russian Federation's aggression towards Ukraine continues, Romania will remain committed, in the European framework, to pursuing robust sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy and those in the Russian Federation and outside who are supporting or profiting from the war, or assisting in sanctions circumvention in third countries. Romania will also take determined action with partners to tackle all forms of sanctions circumvention as well as to reinforce its own domestic resilience against Russia-linked illicit finance and elites. The Participants will provide each other with up-to-date appropriate information on the grounds for sanctions and other relevant information, in compliance with relevant obligations and national laws. Paragraph 12. Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction The Participants will continue their cooperation to strengthen Ukraine's economic stability and resilience through support for the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine. The Participants intend to stimulate the participation by their respective private sectors in the recovery and reconstruction efforts. The authorities of Ukraine will ensure that the support received for the purposes of recovery and reconstruction is spent in a manner that is efficient, transparent and accountable. Romania will seek to deliver a maximum usage of its transport and logistic routes in order to facilitate both short-term, mid-term and long-term projects of Ukraine's reconstruction process. As Ukraine continues early recovery and reconstruction, the Participants will seek to ensure the continuation of well-coordinated life-saving humanitarian aid where it is needed. The Participants will work together to ensure targeted humanitarian response which delivers to those most in need, including in hard-to-reach areas. The Participants will direct their efforts to extend their cooperation to such areas as the development of entrepreneurship, improvement of the regulatory environment, encouragement of investments in specific projects that meet the interests of both sides (e.g. green technology, digital transformation) and financial support for the recovery of small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For increasing societal resilience, the Participants will enhance cooperation in the field of civil protection through the dedicated framework that will be established after the finalisation and signing the draft Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of Romania on cooperation in the field of prevention, limitation and mitigation of emergency situations consequences. Paragraph 13. Bilateral relations Ukraine and Romania will further develop their close and friendly relations in all areas, on the basis of shared values and an unshakeable solidarity in the face of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and of common threats and challenges. The Participants reaffirm their commitment to raise the bilateral relations at the level of Strategic Partnership and to accelerate the negotiations to this end. The Participants seek to work together even more closely in the future in the political, defence, economic, scientific, education and cultural spheres. Ukraine and Romania will further deepen their bilateral relations by strengthening regular consultation formats. Paragraph 14. Framework of Cooperation The Participants will use the framework for cooperation described in this Agreement to develop concrete projects in accordance with their international and national obligations. Representatives of the Participants intend to hold annual meetings to review the progress of activities jointly carried out under this Agreement. Such meetings will be held on an alternating basis in Ukraine and Romania or at another location to be jointly decided upon. No information, either classified or non-classified, exchanged under this Agreement, will be released by one of the Participants to any third entity (including third States, international organisations and national administrations that are not the original intended addressee of the information) without the prior written consent of other Participant. Paragraph 15. Implementing, Executive and Technical Arrangements The Participants will, if necessary, designate authorised bodies for the development, conclusion and implementation of bilateral agreements/arrangements regarding the areas of cooperation specified in this Agreement. The authorised bodies of the Participants may conclude executive and technical arrangements on specific areas of cooperation within the framework of the implementation of this Agreement or supplements to this Agreement. Paragraph 16. Final Provisions This Agreement comes into effect upon signature and will is valid for ten (10) years from the date of its signature. At the same time, in accordance with the G7 Joint Declaration of 12 July 2023, the Participants intend this Agreement to remain in effect, as Ukraine pursues its path to future membership in NATO. In the event that Ukraine becomes a member of NATO before the expiry of this Agreement, the Participants will decide on its future status. The Agreement may be terminated by either Participant by giving written notice of its intention to terminate the Agreement to the other Participant. This Agreement will be terminated six months from the date of receipt of such notice. The termination will not affect the implementation of ongoing activities or projects which have been decided prior to the date of its termination, unless the Participants decide otherwise. This Agreement may be amended and supplemented, including by adding annexes thereto, by mutual agreement of the Participants, which will be submitted in writing. Any difference in the interpretation and implementation of this Agreement will be settled amicably through direct consultations between the Participants. Signed in Washington D.C., on 11 July 2024, in two original copies, in the English, Ukrainian and Romanian languages. In case of any discrepancy, the text in English will prevail. For Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President For Romania: Klaus Werner Iohannis, President NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President of Ukraine Met with the President of the Czech Republic in Washington President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 03:53 On the sidelines of the NATO Summit, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel. The Ukrainian leader praised Petr Pavel's efforts to bring Ukraine closer to NATO membership and to ensure our country's victory in the war. The leaders coordinated their positions ahead of the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, meetings of the Air Defense Coalition and the Fighter Jets Coalition. They also discussed the implementation of the Czech initiative to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition and new sources of financing, the realization of the results of the first Peace Summit and the involvement of as many countries of the Global South as possible in the restoration of a just peace in Ukraine. Special attention was paid to our country's path to EU accession. Ukraine hopes for a speedy negotiation process with the EU and expects bilateral screening meetings on Ukrainian legislation to begin. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Canada Announced New CAD 500 Million Military Assistance Package for Ukraine President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 03:47 During a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau condemned the recent Russian missile attack on Ukraine. The Prime Minister of Canada emphasized his country's willingness to provide the necessary medical support to the victims of the Russian strike on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv and announced a new, additional package of military assistance to Ukraine worth CAD 500 million. "It is very important for our people to hear this. Thank you for your help, for the additional defense package. It will strengthen our heroes on the battlefield," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The leaders discussed Ukraine's defense needs and coordinated cooperation within the coalition of fighter jets. The President spoke about the need to expand training missions for Ukrainian pilots. The parties exchanged views on the possibility of additional training of Ukrainian pilots on Canadian flight simulators and holding one of the thematic meetings in Canada following the first Peace Summit. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President of Ukraine Met with Representatives of American Defense Companies President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 03:14 At the Embassy of Ukraine to the United States, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with top executives of leading American defense companies, continuing the dialogue initiated in Washington last December. The meeting was attended by representatives of BAE Systems, Day & Zimmermann, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Company, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, D&M Holding, AeroVironment, Amentum. "We are extremely grateful for your cooperation and assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war. You have greatly helped us to defend our freedom, democracy, our people, our families and children," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The Head of State also thanked U.S. President Joseph Biden, his administration and the U.S. Congress for an important bill supporting Ukraine and our warriors on the battlefield. Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited American defense companies to work in the Ukrainian market and to cooperate with domestic enterprises. He noted that Ukraine has significantly increased its own production of ammunition and weapons. At the same time, there is a need for increased international cooperation. During the meeting, the parties discussed the prospects of joint defense production, in particular, of ammunition, air defense systems, guns, armored vehicles and drones, and ensuring the repair and maintenance of military hardware. In addition, in the presence of the President of Ukraine, JSC Ukrainian Defense Industry and Northrop Grumman signed an agreement to establish a new medium-caliber ammunition production facility in accordance with NATO standards. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Volodymyr Zelenskyy Discussed Humanitarian Cooperation and Prospects for Joint Projects with the New President of Slovakia President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 02:21 On the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the new President of the Slovak Republic, Peter Pellegrini. The leaders condemned the large-scale shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian Federation, which, among other things, caused damage to the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv. The Presidents discussed the possibility of treating some of its patients in Slovakia. Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about the fight against Russian air terror and stressed the need for additional air defense systems. During the meeting, the leaders also praised the results of the joint intergovernmental meeting held in Bratislava in April; they also discussed humanitarian cooperation between the two countries and prospects for joint projects in the energy sector and border infrastructure. The Head of State thanked Slovakia for supporting Ukraine's future accession to the EU. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President Met with Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Led by the Democratic Leader President of Ukraine 11 July 2024 - 01:29 In Washington, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, U.S. Representative Pete Aguilar, Honorable Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Appropriations Committee Co-Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, Armed Services Committee Co-Chairman Adam Smith, Foreign Affairs Committee Co-Chairman Gregory Meeks, and Intelligence Committee Co-Chairman Jim Himes. Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the President of the United States, both chambers and both parties of Congress, as well as all the American people for their continued support of Ukraine. "I am very glad to be here, thank you for the invitation. We are grateful to the United States for taking strong decisions in support of our country from the very beginning of the war," he said. The President emphasized that Russia continues its missile terror against the civilian infrastructure and energy facilities of Ukraine. The strike on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv has once again demonstrated the importance of strengthening Ukrainian air defense and expanding permission to use American weapons against military targets in Russia. The Head of State noted that it is important to speed up the delivery of F-16 fighter jets and defense assistance from the already approved packages. Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized the role of Congress in limiting the resources of the aggressor state to continue the war against Ukraine, supporting the sanctions pressure intensification, and recognizing the need to continue these measures. The President of Ukraine awarded Hakeem Jeffries with the Order of Merit, I class. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address General Assembly demands immediate end to Russian aggression in Ukraine 11 July 2024 - The UN General Assembly on Thursday demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all military forces from Ukrainian territory. The Assembly also called for an immediate end to attacks against Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure, following weeks of escalation. The resolution entitled Safety and security of nuclear facilities of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was adopted with 99 countries in favour and nine against (Belarus, Burundi, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria). Sixty Member States abstained. Nuclear demand The resolution demanded that Russia "urgently withdraw" its military and other unauthorized personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and "immediately return" the plant to full Ukrainian control - to ensure its safety and security. "[The Assembly] calls upon the Russian Federation, until it returns the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant...to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia with timely and full access to all areas at the plant that are important for nuclear safety and security in order to allow the Agency to report fully on the nuclear safety and security situation at the site," the resolution said. The draft resolution was introduced by Ukraine, and was sponsored more than 50 other countries, including France, Germany and the United States. Ukraine: Radiation knows no borders Introducing the text, Ukrainian Ambassador and Permanent Representative Sergiy Kyslytsya said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been deliberately made an integral element of Russia's military strategy and warned that the repercussions of an incident there would be catastrophic. "Radiation knows no borders," he stated, adding that radioactive fallout can travel great distances and affect regions far removed from the site of the incident. He said the draft resolution fully supported the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and reinforces the importance of the seven indispensable pillars of nuclear safety and security outlined by the IAEA Director-General. He urged all nations to vote in favour the resolution, stressing "we owe it to future generations to ensure that the horrors of nuclear disasters are not repeated." Russia: A pseudo nuclear package Explaining his country's position before the vote, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said the draft resolution was harmful, heavily politicized and had nothing to do with nuclear safety. "The true goal is to use this pseudo nuclear package to sneak in political elements that have nothing to do with the stated problem, even a cursory glance at the text is enough to make this clear," he said. He also said that the sponsors of the draft resolution resorted to non-inclusive and non-transparent methods of work, "flatly refusing" any amendments from a number of delegations that sought to depoliticize it. He accused Ukraine of being the real threat to nuclear safety and security and carrying out regular and reckless attacks on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, its related infrastructure and the nearby city where plant employees and their families live. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zelenskyy optimistic about wider use of Western arms By VOA News July 11, 2024 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed optimism Wednesday that his forces will be given more freedom to use Western-supplied arms to strike Russian targets, something Ukrainian officials have pleaded for to better defend against Russia's invasion. As Zelenskyy visited Capitol Hill in Washington to meet with congressional leaders, VOA's Ukrainian Service asked him if he thought all restrictions on the Ukrainian military will be lifted. "We count on it," Zelenskyy said. His talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit included sessions with House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. "I explained that the will of the Congress was to allow them the flexibility to use the weapons and assistance that were sent to prosecute the war as they see fit," Johnson told VOA's Ukrainian Service. "I believe that's what Congress intended." Jeffries described talks with Zelenskyy as "very positive." "We made clear that we stand strongly with the people of Ukraine in their brave and courageous fight against Russian aggression," he told VOA's Ukrainian Service. Thursday attacks Ukraine's military said Thursday that Russian forces attacked the Sumy region overnight with two ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian air force also said the country's air defenses shot down all six aerial drones launched by Russia, with intercepts taking place over the Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv and Mykolaiv regions. Vitaliy Kim, the regional governor of Mykoaliv, said debris from a downed drone sparked a fire, but that there were no injuries from the attack. Officials in Khmelnytskyi and Lviv reported no damage or casualties in their areas. Russia's Defense Ministry said it destroyed two Ukrainian aerial drones over the Bryansk region, as well as one drone over each of the Tambov, Tula and Moscow regions. VOA Ukrainian Service contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO, Ukrainian leaders to meet Thursday at Washington summit By Carla Babb July 11, 2024 NATO and Ukrainian leaders are to meet Thursday in Washington, a day after NATO allies bolstered support for Ukraine to join the alliance. The NATO summit's final day will also include talks with leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the European Union addressing security challenges and cooperation. A NATO communique released by the 32-member bloc Wednesday said Ukraine's path to NATO membership is "irreversible." "It's not a question of if, but when," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday. The United States was once deeply concerned about whether Ukraine was ready for NATO membership but now appears resolved to ensure Kyiv eventually joins the alliance. "We're providing that bridge to membership for Ukraine. It's really a significant deliverable," Michael Carpenter, the senior director for Europe at the National Security Council, told VOA. Stoltenberg said that when fighting stops in Ukraine, NATO will need to ensure that halt will be the final end to violence there. The way to ensure it stops for good, Stoltenberg said, is NATO membership for Ukraine. Otherwise, he said, Russia could continue its aggression. Unlike the European Union, which began negotiations with Ukraine to join its ranks on June 25, there is no consensus yet about Ukraine joining NATO. F-16 transfer under way Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the first American-made F-16 fighter jets are currently being delivered to Ukraine and are expected to patrol Ukrainian skies in coming weeks. "The transfer of F-16s is officially under way, and Ukraine will be flying F-16s this summer," he said at the summit. In a statement Wednesday, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the Dutch and Danish governments were providing the F-16s, while Belgium and Norway had committed to send more aircraft to Ukraine. NATO member heads of state held their first working session of the summit Wednesday as they sought to boost the alliance's support for Ukraine and enhance their own defense and deterrence efforts. At the start of the session, Biden said Russia was ramping up its defense production with Chinese, North Korean and Iranian help. To counter their efforts, he said, NATO members must continue to invest more in defense production. "We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind," Biden said. China called out In the NATO communique, all 32 allies on Wednesday also called on China to cease its support for Russia's war effort against Kyiv, including its transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment and raw materials that aid Russia's defense sector. "The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the leaders wrote. Asked by VOA whether the statement was a strong enough message to deter China from continuing to support Russia, Stoltenberg replied in the press conference that Wednesday's declaration is "the strongest message that NATO allies have ever sent on China's contributions to Russia's illegal war against Ukraine." A spokesperson for China's mission to the European Union rejected the NATO statement, calling it "filled with Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric." NATO allies invited Indo-Pacific partners from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to also attend this week's summit. Officials say their inclusion reflects their importance during growing Chinese, North Korean, Russian and Iranian aggression. Iulia Iarmolenko contributed to this report. Some information for this report was provided by Reuters NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Biden announces new $225 million military aid package for Ukraine By VOA News July 11, 2024 President Joe Biden announced a significant new military aid package for Ukraine Thursday at the NATO summit in Washington. The president made the announcement about the $225 million package during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Presidential Drawdown Authority package will include capabilities to help Ukraine to repel Russian forces. Among the items included are a Patriot missile battery, munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS); and 155-millimeter and 105-millimeter artillery rounds. Zelenskyy thanked the president and added that Ukraine also needs some "quick steps ... to lift limitations for our Ukrainian soldiers," a reference to the restrictions that the U.S. places on the use of its weapons. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy expressed optimism that his forces would be given more freedom to use Western-supplied arms to strike Russian targets, something Ukrainian officials have pleaded for to better defend against Russia's invasion. As Zelenskyy visited Capitol Hill in Washington to meet with congressional leaders, VOA's Ukrainian Service asked him if he thought all restrictions on the Ukrainian military will be lifted. "We count on it," he said. His talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit included sessions with House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. "I explained that the will of the Congress was to allow them the flexibility to use the weapons and assistance that were sent to prosecute the war as they see fit," Johnson told VOA's Ukrainian Service. "I believe that's what Congress intended." Jeffries described talks with Zelenskyy as "very positive." "We made clear that we stand strongly with the people of Ukraine in their brave and courageous fight against Russian aggression," he told VOA's Ukrainian Service. Thursday attacks Ukraine's military said Thursday that Russian forces attacked the Sumy region overnight with two ballistic missiles. The Ukrainian air force also said the country's air defenses shot down all six aerial drones launched by Russia, with intercepts taking place over the Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv and Mykolaiv regions. Vitaliy Kim, regional governor of Mykolaiv, said debris from a downed drone sparked a fire, but that there were no injuries from the attack. Officials in Khmelnytskyi and Lviv reported no damage or casualties in their areas. Russia's Defense Ministry said it destroyed two Ukrainian aerial drones over the Bryansk region, as well as one drone over each of the Tambov, Tula and Moscow regions. VOA Ukrainian Service contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'Putin shall not prevail' in Ukraine, Norway's foreign minister tells VOA By Tatiana Vorozhko July 11, 2024 This week's NATO summit in Washington marks 75 years of alliance among countries all over the world. Among the founding members is Norway. Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide spoke with VOA regarding the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, expressing full support for the country in its attempt to join the alliance. Eide also touched on Norway's struggles bordering Russia. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity. VOA: Russia hit Ukrainian civilian targets, including a children's hospital, right before the NATO summit started. What kind of signal do you think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin tried to send by doing that this way? And what did he receive in the result? Did he influence the decisions of the NATO summit, and how? Espen Barth Eide, Norwegian minister of foreign affairs: Well, if it influences the decisions, that will just help us to be even bolder and stronger in our messaging that Putin shall not prevail. We cannot accept that kind of behavior in Europe. It breaks international law; it breaks the U.N. Charter. It's a gross violation of international humanitarian law. But his entire behavior is a deep breach with also the European security architecture that was developed many years ago and which all countries signed up to, which is that we should respect the invariability of borders. And all these rules are being broken, and we cannot let him prevail, so we support Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with the proud and very dedicated people of Ukraine, but we also do this because we cannot allow this kind of behavior in Europe. VOA: The Ukrainian delegation is calling for and has discussions about removing all red lines on striking with weapons provided by Western countries on Russian territory. What is Norway's position on this? Eide: Our principal position is that as long as the military operations of Ukraine are in line with international law, with the U.N. Charter, they should be able to use weapons to the best effect for defending Ukraine. The international law is very clear: If you are attacked, you can fight back at the attacker, also on the territory of the attacker. So, for instance, if an attack on Kharkiv is happening from Russian soil, it is perfectly within international law to fight back at the base of that attack. VOA: Ukraine is trying to become a member of NATO. Norway joined NATO as one of the founding members and not everyone was happy about that, and you had your own struggle. Can you tell us if there are any lessons from Norway that Ukraine can apply in this situation, given it's also about Russia? Eide: We were among the 12 countries that started NATO here in Washington 75 years ago and since then our border with Russia has been very stable because we were a NATO member. We have been very clear toward Russia that we are not threatening Russia from Norwegian soil, but we have the biggest military power in the world as our ally, and if they [the Russians] threaten us, we will respond collectively. That has been extremely important. VOA: Aren't you threatened by Russia now, because of its possible attacks on infrastructure grid, oil, gas, undersea infrastructures and fiber optics? Eide: Since relations between Europe and Russia broke down, Norway is the number one energy provider to Europe. We are the biggest exporter of oil, gas and also of electricity because we have deep interconnections of electricity. All this goes through the North Sea and down to the continent. So, of course, we are very eager to make sure that our undersea infrastructure is safe. And we're working with NATO allies, particularly Germany, on patrolling and looking after, both over subsea and on sea, what is happening around our infrastructure. In the Nordic-Baltic cooperation where the five Nordic and three Baltic states are cooperating particularly closely, all of them now being NATO members after also Sweden joined, this is the topic that we are putting frequently on the NATO agenda: the hybrid threats stemming from Russia, potential threats, and real threats to critical infrastructure, internet cables, telephony, electricity and so on. VOA: Can a cyberattack be a reason to invoke Article 5 [of the NATO treaty, which says an armed attack against one NATO ally is considered an attack against all the allies]? Eide: In principle there is nothing in Article 5 precluding, saying that it cannot be so, because this is the allies who define what is an armed attack on one or more of its members. And I would say that a cyberattack that has physical consequences that, for instance, lead to death and destruction - which is possible, because, for instance, if you turn off the energy to the hospital in the north Norwegian winter, of course that could lead to death and destruction - that could be seen as an attack that will invoke Article 5. This is frequently being discussed, and where the threshold is not necessarily defined, but it's up to the allies to define what is a breach that will invoke Article 5. VOA: Norway took the lead in helping Ukraine restore its energy infrastructure. How much can you help with that because it is such a dire situation right now? Eide: It is a very dramatic situation. I was in Ukraine last time a few months ago, and I visited both Kyiv and its surroundings, but also Odesa and surroundings, and obviously some of the power plants that had been bombed. I also visited some of the replacements that are being established, and I think Ukraine, on the energy front, needs two things. First, it needs repairs, so existing infrastructure can be put on the line again. And we contribute to that. Norway is a very electrified country, so we have a lot of competence on exactly that, that we can share with Ukraine. But also, it needs - and here I spoke to the leadership at the Ministry of Energy in Kyiv - it also needs to have more distributed energy production, so that the impact of one hit becomes less important. Because today you have a very Soviet style energy of a few very big energy production plants, which means if there is a hit, a lot of the energy falls out. If you have a more distributed system, where you spread it around, then the effect of a single hit will be slower. VOA: The Russian war against Ukraine became a stress test for Europe, and they realized that they don't have enough ammunition, enough artillery shell production. Norway plays a certain role here. How much can it help to remedy the situation? Eide: If you look at Western European or European ammunition and weapons production, Norway is actually quite big. We have Kongsberg and Nammo and a few hundred companies that are basically sub-deliverables to Kongsberg and Nammo. And just yesterday, together with the head of Nammo, which is this big Nordic ammunition company, we announced the massive support packet from the Norwegian state to Nammo to distribute to much broader production lines, so they can really produce more at the same time. Because, generally speaking, Western equipment is much better than Russian equipment. However, we had transformed our ammunition production to peacetime, which meant that we made very good stuff in small quantities over time. What we're seeing now is that with Russia back in the war economy, we need to be able to still produce high-quality equipment, but more at the same time. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Modi engages Austrian leader on Ukraine conflict, offers support for peace By VOA News July 11, 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday in Vienna that India supports efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. He held talks with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, in what he described as the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Austria in 41 years. Modi's trip to Austria followed a visit by the Indian leader to Russia, which was criticized by Kyiv. Nehammer said it was important for Austria to understand India's stance on Ukraine and that it was an "important and significant signal" that India took part in a recent peace summit in Switzerland. Nehammer said Austria would be able to play a role as a mediator in advancing peace initiatives for Ukraine. Modi told reporters in Vienna: "This is not an age of war. Problems cannot be solved on the battlefield." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized a photo of Modi hugging Putin earlier in the week, describing it as "a devastating blow to peace." Modi's trip to Moscow, where India has longstanding ties, marked his first visit there since the onset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While in Moscow, Modi reaffirmed India's neutrality regarding the invasion. He referred to the Monday attack in which Russian missiles hit multiple locations in Ukraine, including the largest children's hospital in Kyiv, and which resulted in the deaths of at least 42 people, including children, across the country. "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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address President Joe Biden Launches the Ukraine Compact July 11, 2024 Today, President Biden launched the Ukraine Compact at an event with 32 allies and partners as part of our commitment to Ukraine's long term security. This Compact fulfills the promise President Biden and these countries made in Vilnius in 2023 to negotiate long-term bilateral security agreements with Ukraine to support Ukraine as it defends itself now, and to deter aggression against Ukraine in the future as part of its bridge to NATO membership. Leveraging each of our agreements, this historic Compact creates a unified and comprehensive security architecture to support Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace. Together, will achieve our collective goal: a Ukraine that is free, sovereign, democratic, independent, and prosperous, and able to defend itself and deter future aggression We the leaders of the United States of America, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, together with the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission, and the President of Ukraine: Commend the security agreements and arrangements finalized with Ukraine by 20 countries and the European Union (EU) under the framework of the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine (Joint Declaration) released on the margins of the 2023 Vilnius North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit, and welcome all the remaining Joint Declaration signatories finalizing their respective security agreements and arrangements with Ukraine in the near future; Affirm that the security of Ukraine is integral to the security of the Euro-Atlantic region and beyond, and that we intend to support Ukraine until it prevails against Russia's aggression; Emphasize our unwavering commitment to a free, independent, democratic, and sovereign Ukraine capable of defending itself and deterring future aggression, and reaffirm Ukraine's sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements as well as political, social, economic, and cultural systems; Underscore that Russia's illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a threat to international peace and security; a flagrant violation of international law, including the United Nations (UN) Charter; and incompatible with our security interests; and Recognize Ukraine's commitment to reforms strengthening democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights and media freedoms, as needed to advance its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and emphasize our shared values and interests, including respect for the principles of the UN Charter such as sovereignty and territorial integrity. Today, we announce the Ukraine Compact (Compact) with a view towards coordinating and accelerating our collective efforts to meet Ukraine's comprehensive security needs, as outlined in the Joint Declaration and in the security agreements and arrangements each of the signatories (Compact Signatories) has completed with Ukraine. Through this Compact, we declare our enduring intent and commitment to ensure Ukraine can successfully defend its freedom, independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity today and deter acts of aggression in the future. To meet these vital objectives, as outlined in our respective bilateral security agreements and arrangements and consistent with all applicable laws and our respective legal systems, Compact Signatories pledge to: (1) Support Ukraine's immediate defense and security needs, including through the continued provision of security assistance and training, modern military equipment, and defense industrial and necessary economic support, working bilaterally and through existing multilateral mechanisms, including the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) and its Capability Coalitions, NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), and the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine); (2) Accelerate efforts to build a Ukrainian future force that maintains a credible defense and deterrence capability, including by convening within 6 months at the level of Defense Ministers through the UDCG to review and approve roadmaps prepared by the leaders of the Capability Coalitions a each a Compact Signatory a on future force development through 2027, in coordination with and EUMAM Ukraine, with a view to continue strengthening the force into the 2030s; and (3) In the event of future Russian armed attack against Ukraine following the conclusion of current hostilities, convene swiftly and collectively at the most senior levels to determine appropriate next steps in supporting Ukraine as it exercises its right of self-defense as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, including the provision of swift and sustained security assistance and the imposition of economic and other costs on Russia. We intend to uphold these commitments with unwavering determination by leveraging the multilateral security architecture that supports Ukraine, consistent with our respective national laws and security and defense policies. Compact Signatories plan to take these commitments forward while Ukraine pursues its pathway towards future membership in the EU, NATO, and the broader Euro-Atlantic community. Other countries that wish to contribute to this effort to ensure a free, democratic, independent, and sovereign Ukraine may join this Compact upon completion of a bilateral security agreement or arrangement with Ukraine. Endorsed at Washington, this 11th day of July, 2024, by the leaders of: The United States of America Latvia Belgium Lithuania Canada Luxembourg Czechia The Netherlands Denmark Norway Estonia Poland The European Union Portugal Finland Romania France Slovenia Germany Spain Iceland Sweden Italy Ukraine Japan The United Kingdom ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release publication, distribution, or dissemination, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alaska Energy Metals Corporation (TSX-V: AEMC, OTCQB: AKEMF) (AEMC or the Company) is pleased to announce the closing of the previously announced side car offering of 2,275,000 units (the Units) of the Company issued at the price of $0.15 per Unit for gross proceeds of $341,250 (the Offering). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a Share) and one common share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to acquire one Share at a price of $0.20 per Share for a period of three years following the date of issue. The Company paid aggregate cash finders fees of approximately $23,887 to a certain finder, being 7% of the gross proceeds raised by such finder. As additional compensation the Company issued an aggregate of 159,250 non-transferable broker warrants (each a Broker Warrant) to such finder. Each Broker Warrant is exercisable for one Share at the exercise price of $0.20 for a period of three years. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for Canwell prospect drilling at the Nikolai Nickel Project in Alaska, metallurgical studies, working capital, and marketing purposes. The securities issued under the Offering are subject to a four-month hold period expiring November 12, 2024, in accordance with securities laws. For additional information, visit: https://alaskaenergymetals.com/ About Alaska Energy Metals Alaska Energy Metals Corporation is an Alaska-based corporation with offices in Anchorage and Vancouver working to sustainably deliver the critical materials needed for national security and a bright energy future, while generating superior returns for shareholders. AEMC is focused on delineating and developing the large-scale, bulk tonnage, polymetallic Eureka deposit containing nickel, copper, cobalt, chromium, iron, platinum, palladium, and gold. Located in Interior Alaska near existing transportation and power infrastructure, its flagship project, Nikolai, is well-situated to become a significant domestic source of strategic energy-related metals for North America. AEMC also holds a secondary project, Angliers-Belleterre, in western Quebec. Today, material sourcing demands excellence in environmental performance, carbon mitigation, and the responsible management of human and financial capital. AEMC works every day to earn and maintain the respect and confidence of the public and believes that ESG performance is measured by action and led from the top. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Gregory Beischer Gregory Beischer, President & CEO FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Sarah Mawji, Public Relations Venture Strategies Email: sarah@venturestrategies.com Forward-Looking Statements Some statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation), including, without limitation, the statements as to the use of proceeds, to drill exploratory drill holes at the Canwell prospects, and to perform metallurgical studies and marketing. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date those statements are made. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guaranteeing of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include regulatory actions, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or to publicly announce the results of any change to any forward-looking statement contained or incorporated by reference herein to reflect actual results, future events or developments, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting the forward-looking statements. If the Company updates any forward-looking statement(s), no inference should be drawn that it will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements. This news release does not constitute an offer for sale, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, in the United States or to any U.S Person (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 1933 Act)) of any equity or other securities of the Company. The securities of the Company have not been, and will not be, registered under the 1933 Act or under any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person absent registration under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws or an applicable exemption therefrom. 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. New York, United States , July 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Concentrating Solar Power Market Size is to Grow from USD 52.98 Billion in 2023 to USD 290.49 Billion by 2033, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.55% during the projected period. Get a Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-sample/4954 Concentrating solar power is a method of producing solar electricity by directing sunlight onto receivers using mirrors. The technique is gaining popularity in the global market for concentrated solar power. Solar energy may be collected, converted into thermal energy for power generation, and then stored to provide electricity when needed with the usage of CSP technology. As a result, baseload or flexible power supply might be made use of CSP systems. Additionally, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same or lower cost, CSP technology may be used to hybridize or supplement fossil fuels, making non-renewable energy sources run cleaner. Several countries have set high goals for renewable energy as part of their climate change mitigation strategies. A certain percentage of solar energy is occasionally included in these objectives, which might promote technical advancements and increase demand for concentrating solar power facilities. Governments may provide long-term power purchase agreements with fixed energy rates or appealing feed-in tariffs to developers of concentrated solar power projects. These devices enable concentrating solar power facilities to generate profits and ensure income. Condensing solar power plants need a large initial infrastructure investment, which includes the construction of towers, mirrors, and thermal storage devices. Browse key industry insights spread across 200 pages with 110 Market data tables and figures & charts from the report on the " Global Concentrating Solar Power Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Technology (Solar Power Tower, Linear Concentrating System, and Dish Stirling), By Operation Type (Stand-Alone and Storage), By End-User (Utilities and EOR), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 2033." Buy Now Full Report: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/checkout/4954 The solar power tower segment is Expected to hold the largest market share over the projected timeframe. On the basis of technology, the global concentrating solar power market is segmented into solar power tower, linear concentrating system, and dish stirling. Among these, the solar power tower segment is expected to hold the largest market share over the projected timeframe. The market for solar power towers is being driven by the steam cycle's greater efficiency and ability to reach high temperatures for power-generating activities. The storage segment is estimated to hold the largest market share over the projection period. On the basis of operation type, the global concentrating solar power market is segmented into stand-alone and storage. Among these, the storage segment is estimated to hold the largest market share over the projection period. The market for the storage industry is driven by the need to constantly produce power during the night and the ability to run the plant for extended periods. The utilities segment is projected to hold the largest share of the market over the estimated timeframe. On the basis of end-user, the global concentrating solar power market is segmented into utilities and EOR. Among these, the utilities segment is projected to hold the largest share of the market over the estimated timeframe. The utilities industry is driven by two factors, the ability to store energy for later use and the growing need for energy. Inquire Before Buying This Research Report: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/4954 Asia Pacific is Expected to hold the largest share of the global concentrating solar power market over the forecast period. Asia Pacific is expected to hold the largest share of the global concentrating solar power market over the forecast period. Around Asia Pacific, the building of concentrating solar power plants is expanding. Growing investments in concentrating solar power technologies for grid relief in countries such as China are driving the market's expansion. The need for energy is being driven by several factors, including the decrease in carbon emissions, rapid industrialization, and rapid urbanization, as well as rising pollution levels. The government's policies that encourage the use of clean and green energy are contributing to the growth of the concentrated solar power sector in Asia Pacific. North America is predicted to grow at the fastest pace in the global concentrating solar power market during the projected timeframe. The market for concentrated solar power has expanded as a result of increased awareness of solar energy's benefits and a shift in focus toward clean, green energy sources. Additionally, the growing costs associated with implementing the newest technologies have played a significant role in the growth of the concentrating solar power market in North America. Competitive Analysis: The report offers the appropriate analysis of the key organizations/companies involved within the global market along with a comparative evaluation primarily based on their product offering, business overviews, geographic presence, enterprise strategies, segment market share, and SWOT analysis. The report also provides an elaborative analysis focusing on the current news and developments of the companies, which includes product development, innovations, joint ventures, partnerships, mergers & acquisitions, strategic alliances, and others. This allows for the evaluation of the overall competition within the market. Major vendors in the Global Concentrating Solar Power Market are Abengoa Solar, TSK Flagsol Engineering, Acciona Energy, GE Renewable Energy, Enel Green Power, Suntrace, Shams Power, BrightSource Energy, Inc., CSP Services, ACWA Power, Atlantica Yield PLC, Therminol, SolarReserve, Chiyoda Corporation, Siemens and Other Key Vendors. Get Discount At @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-discount/4954 Recent Developments In May 2023, The Redstone CSP IPP project in South Africa was completed by ACWA Power. With a 100 MW capacity, the project stored thermal energy for up to 12 hours using molten salt technology. Market Segment This study forecasts revenue at global, regional, and country levels from 2023 to 2033. Spherical Insights has segmented the Global Concentrating Solar Power Market based on the below-mentioned segments: Global Concentrating Solar Power Market, By Technology Solar Power Tower Linear Concentrating System Dish Stirling Global Concentrating Solar Power Market, By Operation Type Stand-Alone Storage Global Concentrating Solar Power Market, By End-User Utilities EOR Global Concentrating Solar Power Market, Regional Analysis Europe Germany Uk France Italy Spain Russia Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India South Korea Australia Rest of Asia Pacific South America Brazil Argentina Rest of South America Middle East & Africa UAE Saudi Arabia Qatar South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa US Canada Mexico Browse Related Reports: Global EV Solar Modules Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Solar Panel Type (Monocrystalline and Polycrystalline), By Battery Type (Lithium-ion, Lead-Acid, and Lead-Carbon), By Application (Passenger Vehicles and Commercial Vehicles), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033. Global Remote Power Panel Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Floor-standing, Wall-mounted), By Application (Commercial Buildings, Data Centers, Hospitals), By End User (BFSI, IT & Telecom, Healthcare, Government & Defense), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033. Global Carbon Offset/Carbon Credit Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Voluntary Market, Compliance Market), By Project Type (Avoidance/Reduction Projects, Removal/Sequestration Projects [Nature-based Projects and Technology-based Projects]), By End User (Energy, Power, Transportation, Industrial, Others), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033. Global Hydrogen Fueling Station Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Fixed Station and Mobile Station), By Size (Small & Medium Size and Large Size), By End User (Railways, Marine, Commercial Vehicle and Aviation), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033. Spherical Insights & Consulting is a market research and consulting firm which provides actionable market research study, quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight especially designed for decision makers and aids ROI. Which is catering to different industry such as financial sectors, industrial sectors, government organizations, universities, non-profits and corporations. The company's mission is to work with businesses to achieve business objectives and maintain strategic improvements. CONTACT US: For More Information on Your Target Market, Please Contact Us Below: Phone: +1 303 800 4326 (the U.S.) Phone: +91 90289 24100 (APAC) Email: inquiry@sphericalinsights.com, sales@sphericalinsights.com Contact Us: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/contact-us Follow Us: LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter NANJING, China, July 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2024 SHOW JIANGSU Photography Project, hosted by the Information Office of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government, themed "China, An Opportunity: Jiangsu Open and Welcoming," recently invites journalists and professional photographers from 29 leading international media outlets. Over five days, they visited Nanjing, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou, and Nantong - five cities each with a GDP exceeding one trillion yuan -to capture a fresh perspective on Jiangsu's high-level openness to the world and share China's development opportunities globally. A Media Snippet accompanying this announcement is available by clicking on the image or link below: The final stop of the event, Nantong, is a coastal open city in China. Guided by the Belt and Road Initiative and the Yangtze River Economic Belt strategy, Nantong is striving to become a renowned city of modern industry in China. On the last day, the journalists and photographers explored the intelligent, eco-friendly full industrial chain smart factory in Hengli (Nantong) Industrial Park, observed the iterative upgrades of electric tools at Jiangsu Dongcheng Power Tools Co., Ltd., discovered the smart operations of the "2+2" terminal at Lyusi Port Area, and immersed themselves in the Tang Dynasty-style cultural industry project at Qitang City, experiencing the charm of open Nantong. Throughout the journey, the journalists and photographers listened to vivid stories of Jiangsu, capturing the province's openness to the world and gaining a deeper understanding of Jiangsu and China. A journalist from the Dominican Republic was impressed by the manufacturing of tools in Nantong, stating, "Reporting on this topic could open a door to investors." Since its inception in 2018, the "SHOW JIANGSU" photography project has invited journalists and photographers from over 80 leading international media outlets. The event has generated over 1,000 related reports from major international media, reaching nearly 400 million people worldwide. Source: Information Office of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government Dublin, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Industrial Drain Cleaner Machines Market - Outlook & Forecast 2024-2029" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global industrial drain cleaner machine market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.40% from 2023 to 2029, to reach $977.87 million by 2029. Key questions answered in this research report include: 1. What are the significant industrial drain cleaner machine market trends? 2. How big is the global industrial drain cleaner machine market? 3. Which region dominates the global industrial drain cleaner machine market share? 4. What is the growth rate of the global industrial drain cleaner machine market? 5. Who are the key players in the global industrial drain cleaner machine market? Growing Demand for Automatic Drainage Cleaning System The market for automatic drainage cleaning systems, particularly industrial drain cleaner machines, is experiencing a significant surge in demand. This trend is primarily driven by several factors that underscore the importance of efficient and reliable drainage maintenance solutions in various industrial sectors. In addition, industries are increasingly recognizing the critical role that proper drainage systems play in ensuring operational efficiency and compliance with environmental regulations. As such, there is a growing emphasis on implementing proactive measures to prevent clogs, blockages, and contamination, which can disrupt operations and lead to costly downtime and environmental hazards. Rise of Rental and Subscription Services The industrial sector has witnessed a significant rise in the adoption of rental and subscription services for specialized equipment, such as industrial drain cleaner machines. This trend has been fueled by several factors contributing to a shift in how businesses approach equipment acquisition and management. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness of rental and subscription models is a key driver behind their popularity. Instead of making large upfront investments in purchasing equipment outright, businesses can opt for rental agreements or subscription services, spreading the cost over time. This is particularly advantageous for companies operating on tight budgets or those looking to allocate resources more efficiently. Lack of Skilled Labour The industrial drain cleaner machine market faces a significant challenge due to a shortage of skilled labor. These machines are crucial for maintaining the functionality of plumbing systems in various industrial settings, including manufacturing plants, commercial facilities, and municipal infrastructure. However, the operation and maintenance of these machines require specialized skills and training. The shortage of skilled labor in the sector can be attributed to several factors, such as economic growth and proper training. Moreover, formal education and training programs tailored specifically to industrial drain cleaning are lacking. Many individuals may not be aware of the career opportunities or the technical skills required for this field. In addition, the physical demands and potential hazards associated with operating industrial drain cleaner machines may deter potential workers from pursuing careers in this industry. INSIGHTS BY PRODUCT The global industrial drain cleaner machine market by product is segmented into power tools and hand tools. In 2023, the power tool segment accounted for the highest share of the product segment. This remarkable segmental share can be attributed to several key factors, foremost among them being the increasing awareness and adoption of sustainable practices. The demand for power tools has surged as industries seek alternatives to harsh chemical cleaners, recognizing their adverse environmental impacts. By utilizing power tools for maintenance tasks, companies can significantly reduce their reliance on such cleaners, thereby minimizing their ecological footprint and fostering a more sustainable operational approach. Furthermore, the rise in preventive maintenance practices has fueled the demand for power tools in industrial settings. Segmentation by Product Power Tool Hand Tool INSIGHTS BY POWER SOURCE The diesel/gasoline power source segment accounted for the highest revenue share of the global industrial drain cleaner machine market in 2023. This surge in demand can be attributed to the machine's ability to deliver higher power output, enhanced effectiveness in tackling tough industrial drain blockages, and its portability, which enables versatile use across various settings. Also, their mobility is the primary factor driving the demand for diesel/gasoline drain cleaner machines. Such factors collectively drive the preference for diesel/gasoline-powered industrial drain cleaner machines among professionals seeking reliable and efficient solutions for drain cleaning tasks. Segmentation by Power Source Diesel/Gasoline Electric INSIGHTS BY END-USER The global industrial drain cleaner machine market by end-users is segmented into manufacturing industries, healthcare, food and beverage, and others. The manufacturing end-user segment dominated the global market share in 2023. The demand for drain cleaner in the manufacturing segment is rising, driven by various industries such as pharmaceutical, oil & gas, and personal care production. These sectors often meet issues with clogged drains due to the nature of their operations, necessitating effective drain-cleaning solutions. As production activities increase, the need to maintain efficient drainage systems makes drain cleaners indispensable for ensuring smooth operations and minimizing disruptions caused by blockages. Moreover, the rising demand for automobiles leads to a higher demand for drain cleaners due to the prevalence of oil and grease buildup in industrial drains. As more vehicles are manufactured, the likelihood of oil leaks and residue entering drainage systems rises. Consequently, this uptick in automotive activity amplifies the need for effective drain-cleaning solutions to address clogs and maintain proper drainage flow. Segmentation by End-User Manufacturing Industries Healthcare Food and Beverage Others GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS The demand for industrial drain cleaner machines is rising in Europe, with factors such as increasing pharmaceutical product production and automobile manufacturing driving this trend. Europe held the largest global industrial drain cleaner machine market share, valued at over USD 184.5 million in 2023. In Europe, strict environmental regulations and a heightened emphasis on sustainability have propelled the demand for eco-friendly drain-cleaning solutions. Industrial drain cleaner machines equipped with advanced technologies that minimize water consumption and chemical usage are particularly sought after in this region. Furthermore, Germany and France experienced high revenue in 2023, largely attributed to manufacturing plants and hotels. The North American industrial drain cleaner machine market is projected to grow substantially during the forecast period. North America has witnessed increased demand, driven by stringent environmental protection and public health regulations. With aging infrastructure in many urban centers, there's a growing need for industrial-grade drain cleaners capable of addressing complex issues such as grease buildup and root intrusion. In the APAC, rapid economic growth, rising infrastructure development, and industrial expansion have fueled the growth of the industrial drain cleaner machine market. Latin America experiences increased demand driven by tourist destinations and rising automobile production. Further, demand for drain cleaner machines is driven by oil & gas production, healthcare facilities, and commercial establishments in the Middle East and Africa. Segmentation by Geography Europe North America APAC Latin America Middle East & Africa COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE The global industrial drain cleaner machine market is characterized by diverse players ranging from established international corporations to smaller, niche-focused manufacturers. Industry giants such as RIDGID, General Pipe Cleaners, Spartan Tool, and Electric Eel Manufacturing are at the forefront of this landscape. These companies boast extensive product portfolios, spanning various drain cleaning solutions, including handheld drain augers, motorized drain snakes, and high-pressure jetters. Their longstanding market presence, robust distribution networks, and strong brand recognition position them as formidable competitors. In addition to these established players, there is a growing presence of innovative startups and smaller manufacturers offering specialized drain-cleaning equipment. These companies often focus on niche segments of the industrial drain cleaner machine market, such as eco-friendly drain cleaners or compact, portable machines tailored for industrial use. Despite their relatively smaller scale, these firms leverage agility and innovation to carve out a competitive edge, appealing to specific customer needs and preferences. Key Company Profiles DURACABLE General Wire Spring ROTHENBERGER Werkzeuge Spartan Tool Other Prominent Vendors BLUEROCK Tools BrassCraft Clog Hog CAM Spray DCD Electric Eel Manufacturing Gorlitz Sewer & Drain Goodway Homewerks Worldwide Hangzhou Hongli Pipeline Machinery Hangzhou Welping Machinery Equipment Harben Ken-Way KAM-AVIDA Ken-Way Milwaukee Tool MyTana RIDGID Tools REX Rioned Renssi Finland Oy Sendhamarai Tools Super Tech Engineers Quadra Plex Inc. VEVOR Wohler Technik Water Cannon Zhengzhou Guangyuan Cleaning Equipment Key Attributes Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 272 Forecast Period 2023-2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $637.24 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $977.87 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.4% Regions Covered Global For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/q2445e 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 WHITEHORSE, Yukon, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Victoria Gold Corp. (TSX-VGCX) (Victoria or the Company) provides a further update on the heap leach facility (HLF) incident that occurred at the Eagle Gold Mine on June 24, 2024 (see Company News Releases dated June 24, 2024 and July 4, 2024). Victorias focus continues to be on the safety of its employees and mitigation of harm to the environment. As previously reported, the Company has and will continue to liaise with the Government of Yukon, the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun (FNNND), the Village of Mayo, the Yukon Workers Safety and Compensation Board and other regulatory authorities. Mitigation With respect to environmental mitigation, as previously disclosed, within hours of the incident a pumping system was established to return water from the HLF material to lined containment ponds. Diversion systems have also been installed for the management of both non-contact and contact water and material. Water Sampling Victoria is actively sampling water daily from multiple sample locations at the Eagle mine. Several of these sample locations are located downstream from the location of the HLF incident. Final results received subsequent to the Companys News Release dated July 4, 2024, showed one trace detection of cyanide in one of the downstream sample results from Haggart Creek collected on July 2, with the sample measuring 5.7 parts per billion total CN. Prior to July 2, and subsequently on July 3 and July 4, samples collected at this sample location did not detect any cyanide. Other than this one sample, there has been no other detection of cyanide in final results at any of the water quality objective sampling locations received as of July 10, 2024 by the Company, which include samples collected up to July 4, 2024. For further clarity, as of July 4, 2024, based on final sampling results received by the Company, the Company has not exceeded its Downstream Water Quality Objectives pursuant to its Water Use License. Heap Leach Facility and Infrastructure Since the start of production, approximately 38.9 million tonnes of ore has been stacked on the HLF. Based on an independent survey of the HLF, the Company estimates that approximately 4 million tonnes of ore, representing about 10% of the total ore tonnes within the HLF, moved during the HLF incident. Of this 4 million tonnes, the Company estimates that approximately half, or 2 million tonnes of ore, representing about 5% of the total ore tonnes within the HLF, moved beyond the HLF embankment. The Company has developed a plan to stabilize the HLF which is under review by an independent third party. The majority of on-site infrastructure was not affected by the HLF incident. The Eagle open pit, associated mining infrastructure and mobile equipment, primary crusher, secondary and tertiary crushers, main overland conveyor, ADR plant, lined water containment ponds, water treatment plant, warehouse facilities, and camp and office complex were unaffected by the incident. Based on observations to date, on-site infrastructure on or near the HLF that has been impacted includes the HLF embankment, piping, pumping, liner, two short lengths of fixed conveyors, as well as a small amount of electrical infrastructure. Root Cause Analysis Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the incident. The Company has engaged with its engineer of record for the HLF and is cooperating with 3rd party technical experts retained by the Yukon Government and the FNNND. Production operations remain suspended and may not restart without authorization from the Yukon Director of Mineral Resources. Victoria will continue to work to minimize impacts to the environment, with the safety of employees as a foremost priority. There can be no assurance that the Company will receive authorizations necessary to restart production, or that the Company will have the financial resources necessary to repair damage to equipment and facilities or remediate impacts caused by the incident or restart production. The Company will provide further updates in due course. Aerial view of Eagle Gold mine - extent of June 24, 2024 HLF incident outlined in yellow Qualified Person The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul D. Gray, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About the Dublin Gulch Property Victoria Gold's 100%-owned Dublin Gulch gold property (the Property) is situated in central Yukon Territory, Canada, approximately 375 kilometers north of the capital city of Whitehorse, and approximately 85 kilometers from the town of Mayo. The Property is accessible by road year round, and is located within Yukon Energy's electrical grid. The Property covers an area of approximately 555 square kilometers, and is the site of the Company's Eagle and Olive Gold Deposits. As at December 31, 2023, and adjusting for mining depletion through this date, the Eagle and Olive Deposits include Proven and Probable Reserves of 2.3 million ounces of gold from 114 million tonnes of ore with a grade of 0.63 grams of gold per tonne. As at December 31, 2023, and adjusting for mining depletion through this date, the Mineral Resource for the Eagle and Olive Gold Deposits are estimated to host 234 million tonnes averaging 0.59 grams of gold per tonne, containing 4.4 million ounces of gold in the "Measured and Indicated" category, inclusive of Proven and Probable Reserves, and a further 36 million tonnes averaging 0.63 grams of gold per tonne, containing 0.7 million ounces of gold in the "Inferred" category. Cautionary Language and Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Except for statements of historical fact relating to Victoria, information contained herein constitutes forward-looking information, including any information related to and the HLF incident, health, safety and environmental impact matters relating to the HLF incident, the results of Victorias engagement efforts with the Government of Yukon and applicable regulatory authorities, as well as the FNNND, the results of the ongoing investigation into the causes of the failure at the heap leach facility, plans for remediating the impact of the HLF incident and other related matters. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as plan, expect, budget, target, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may, will, could or should occur, and includes any guidance and forecasts set out herein (including, but not limited to, production and operational guidance of the Corporation). In order to give such forward-looking information, the Corporation has made certain assumptions about its business, operations, activities relating to the HLF incident, the economy and the mineral exploration industry in general. In this respect, the Corporation has assumed that production at the Eagle Gold Mine will remain suspended indefinitely pending the results of the investigation into the causes of the failure at the heap leach facility and the successful conclusion of ongoing engagement and discussions with the Government of Yukon, the FNNND and the Corporations other stakeholders, no unusual geological or further technical problems occur, no material adverse change in the price of gold occurs and no further significant events occur outside of the Corporation's normal course of business. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates of management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made, and are inherently subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other known and unknown factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in, or implied by, the forward-looking information. These factors include the impact of the HLF incident on the Corporations business and financial condition, risks related to liquidity and credit availability resulting from the indefinite suspension of production at the Eagle Gold Mine, the values of assets and liabilities based on projected future conditions, potential resumption of metals production, fluctuating metal prices, currency exchange rates, estimated ore grades, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, changes in economic model as a result of unanticipated costs associated with the HLF incident, changes in accounting policies, changes in Victoria's corporate resources, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, changes in development and production time frames, the possibility of cost overruns or further unanticipated costs and expenses, uncertainty of mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates, higher prices for fuel, steel, power, labour and other consumables contributing to higher costs and general risks of the mining industry, further failures of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, final pricing for metal sales, unanticipated results of future studies, seasonality and unanticipated weather changes, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, requirements for additional capital, permitting time lines, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, unanticipated reclamation expenses, title disputes or claims, limitations on insurance coverage and timing and possible outcomes of pending litigation and labour disputes, risks related to remote operations and the availability of adequate infrastructure, fluctuations in price and availability of energy and other inputs necessary for mining operations. Although Victoria has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in, or implied by, the forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. 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. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein is presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding Victoria's expected financial and operational performance and Victoria's plans and objectives and may not be appropriate for other purposes. All forward-looking information contained herein is given as of the date hereof, as the case may be, and is based upon the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management of the Corporation as at the date hereof. The Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information contained herein and the documents incorporated by reference herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws. For Further Information Contact: John McConnell President & CEO Victoria Gold Corp Tel: 604-696-6605 ceo@vgcx.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/28a712e0-9415-4115-ad7f-21904acf81e5 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 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 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 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 Companys inventory levels, debt covenant compliance, and financial performance. Specifically, Defendants repeatedly assured investors that the Companys 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 Companys 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. NEW YORK, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Community Health Systems, Inc. (Community Health or the Company) (NYSE: CYH). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at newaction@pomlaw.com or 646-581-9980, ext. 7980. The investigation concerns whether Community Health 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 June 19, 2024, Community Health issued a press release provid[ing] an update on the planned divestiture of two North Carolina hospitals[.] The press release stated that [o]n June 18, 2024, Novant Health, Inc., a North Carolina non-profit corporation (Novant), informed [Community Health] that Novant has decided not to move forward with the acquisition of two North Carolina hospitals. The transactions were contemplated by an Asset Purchase Agreement dated February 28, 2023 (as amended, the Purchase Agreement), by and among Novant and certain subsidiaries of the Company[.] The press release further stated that Novants decision follows a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a temporary injunction blocking the sale to Novant Health, pending final resolution of an appeal by the Federal Trade Commission. The injunction prevented completion of the transaction until the Court of Appeals decides whether to uphold or overturn a previous District Court decision that allowed the sale to proceed. On this news, Community Healths stock price fell $0.33 per share, or 9.48%, to close at $3.15 per share on June 20, 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: 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 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 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 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 Companys 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, Toyotas 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 Toyotas 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. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5e848124-9c14-4bab-ba13-256ecec0c433 Dubai, UAE, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CoinW, the world's pioneering cryptocurrency trading platform, is thrilled to announce its exclusive partnership with the Superteam Founders Villa, powered by Solana. This collaboration underscores CoinW's dedication to driving innovation within the Solana ecosystem and reaffirms our commitment to enhancing market liquidity. Three Key Collaborations at Founders Villa The Superteam Founders' Villa is an annual, immersive workshop designed for founders building on Solana. Over a one-month co-living period, founders, developers, venture capitalists, and policymakers collaborate in various workshops, including Pitching Workshop, Dev Workshop, and VC Demo Day, to foster ideas and innovations. This year, CoinW, a seasoned crypto exchange with a seven-year history and thousands of assets listed, will leverage its cutting-edge research facility to actively participate in project evaluation on Demo Day. Our team of experts will provide guidance on token listings, sharing valuable insights and strategies to enhance projects' tokenomics. Additionally, CoinW's support for the Founders Villa extends to the developer community, with a $50,000 prize pool to be awarded to invigorate the hackathon. This exclusive collaboration will also extend online, with CoinW and Superteam co-hosting a "bounty video" online campaign within their respective communities to enhance brand awareness and mutual impressions. A New Partnership Milestone Between CoinW and Solanas Superteam Notably, this is not the first collaboration between CoinW and Solanas Superteam. In March of this year, CoinW launched its Expedition Trek at the Museum of the Future in Dubai, where Superteam participated as one of the panelists, sharing insights on Web3 education. Later on, mutual support was fostered between the two parties. In March, CoinW sponsored a Solana hackathon to energize the builder community. Meanwhile, Solanas Superteam provided hands-on experience in CoinWs educational program, CoinW Academy. Their ongoing collaboration aims to pave the way for mass adoption of Web3, continuously exploring and implementing new initiatives. Collaborations between blockchains and centralized exchanges have long focused on token listings and liquidity. However, our exclusive partnership with CoinW extends far beyond these aspects. It is our shared vision of democratizing crypto access through strong communities that brought us together. We are excited to have CoinW deeply involved, sharing their insights on listing and regulation based on their extensive local market experience and 10 million user base," says Alex Scott, Member of Solanas Superteam. "Solana has shown remarkable resilience and adaptability, re-establishing itself as a top-tier blockchain. Solana's advancements in DePIN, AI, and memecoins (like Bonk and Wif) have secured its position among the top three blockchains. Moreover, Solanas robust DeFi ecosystem and consumer-friendly applications like Phantom, Solflare, and Jupiter are rivaling those on Ethereum with respect to trading volumes and user experience, highlights Sonia Shaw, President of CoinW. "We are delighted to partner with Solana to explore future possibilities and drive innovation together." HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ELCORA ADVANCED MATERIALS CORP. (TSX.V:ERA | Frankfurt:ELM | OTCQB ECORF), (the "Company" or "Elcora"), announces today that, as a result of delays to its audit, the Companys annual financial statements and accompanying management's discussion and analysis for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 (the Annual Filings) may not be finalized by July 29, 2024, being the date that such filings are due under applicable Canadian securities law requirements. Accordingly, the Company will apply to the Nova Scotia Securities Commission for a management cease trade order (the "MCTO"). The Companys inability to finalize its Annual Filings on time is due to additional time being required to audit transactions carried out by the Companys subsidiary located in Morocco, along with the enhanced quality controls by the Company's auditors. If the MCTO is granted, the Company will comply with the alternative information guidelines set out in National Policy 12-203 Management Cease Trade Order for issuers who have failed to comply with a specified continuous disclosure requirement within the times prescribed by applicable securities laws. The guidelines, among other things, require the Company to issue bi-weekly default status reports by way of a news release so long as the Annual Filings have not been filed. During the MCTO, the general investing public will continue to be able to trade in the Company's listed common shares. However, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and directors will not be able to trade in the Company's common shares. The Company will provide an update on its application of the MCTO in an upcoming news release. About Elcora Advanced Materials Corp. Elcora was founded in 2011 and has been structured to become a vertically integrated battery material company. Elcora can process, refine, and produce battery related minerals and metals. As part of the vertical integration strategy, Elcora has developed a cost-effective process to purify high-quality battery metals and minerals that are commercially scalable. This combination means that Elcora has the tools and resources for vertical integration of the battery minerals and metals industry. For further information please visit the company's website at: http://www.elcoracorp.com For further information please contact: Troy Grant, Director, President & CEO, Elcora Advanced Materials Corp., T: +1 902 802-8847 Qualifying Statements: Klaus Leiders P. Eng., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, approves the technical information contained in this news release. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 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. No stock Exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. This News Release includes certain forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and reserves, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of Elcora, 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. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Elcoras expectations are exploration risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by Elcora with securities regulators. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the filing statement prepared in connection with the transaction, any information released or received with respect to the transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release publication, distribution, or dissemination, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 11, 2024 -- Alaska Energy Metals Corp. (TSX-V: AEMC, OTCQB: AKEMF) ("AEMC" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of the previously announced side car offering of 2,275,000 units (the "Units") of the Company issued at the price of $0.15 per Unit for gross proceeds of $341,250 (the "Offering"). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company (a "Share") and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to acquire one Share at a price of $0.20 per Share for a period of three years following the date of issue. The Company paid aggregate cash finder's fees of approximately $23,887 to a certain finder, being 7% of the gross proceeds raised by such finder. As additional compensation the Company issued an aggregate of 159,250 non-transferable broker warrants (each a "Broker Warrant") to such finder. Each Broker Warrant is exercisable for one Share at the exercise price of $0.20 for a period of three years. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for Canwell prospect drilling at the Nikolai Nickel Project in Alaska, metallurgical studies, working capital, and marketing purposes. The securities issued under the Offering are subject to a four-month hold period expiring November 12, 2024, in accordance with securities laws. For additional information, visit: https://alaskaenergymetals.com/ About Alaska Energy Metals Alaska Energy Metals Corporation is an Alaska-based corporation with offices in Anchorage and Vancouver working to sustainably deliver the critical materials needed for national security and a bright energy future, while generating superior returns for shareholders. AEMC is focused on delineating and developing the large-scale, bulk tonnage, polymetallic Eureka deposit containing nickel, copper, cobalt, chromium, iron, platinum, palladium, and gold. Located in Interior Alaska near existing transportation and power infrastructure, its flagship project, Nikolai, is well-situated to become a significant domestic source of strategic energy-related metals for North America. AEMC also holds a secondary project, 'Angliers-Belleterre,' in western Quebec. Today, material sourcing demands excellence in environmental performance, carbon mitigation, and the responsible management of human and financial capital. AEMC works every day to earn and maintain the respect and confidence of the public and believes that ESG performance is measured by action and led from the top. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Gregory Beischer" Gregory Beischer, President & CEO FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Sarah Mawji, Public Relations Venture Strategies Email: sarah@venturestrategies.com Forward-Looking Statements Some statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation), including, without limitation, the statements as to the use of proceeds, to drill exploratory drill holes at the Canwell prospects, and to perform metallurgical studies and marketing. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date those statements are made. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guaranteeing of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include regulatory actions, market prices, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or to publicly announce the results of any change to any forward-looking statement contained or incorporated by reference herein to reflect actual results, future events or developments, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting the forward-looking statements. If the Company updates any forward-looking statement(s), no inference should be drawn that it will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements. This news release does not constitute an offer for sale, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, in the United States or to any "U.S Person" (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act")) of any equity or other securities of the Company. The securities of the Company have not been, and will not be, registered under the 1933 Act or under any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person absent registration under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws or an applicable exemption therefrom. 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. Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc. (TSX:ASCU | OTCQX:ASCUF) ("ASCU" or the "Company"), notes that its annual and special meeting of shareholders (the "Meeting") will be held at 10:30 am Eastern Time, on September 17, 2024. The Meeting will be held in person at 100 King Street West, Suite 3400, Toronto, Ontario, M5X 1A4. Shareholders are encouraged to attend in person as ASCU plans to host a short corporate presentation afterwards and senior executives of the Company are expected to be present in person at the Meeting. The Notice of Meeting is available under the ASCU SEDAR+ profile page, as well as on the Company's website. The management information circular providing details of the matters proposed to the raised and discussed at the Meeting will be available on ASCU SEDAR+ profile page in due course. For shareholders and interested parties who are unable to attend, the presentation material will also be available on the Company website (www.arizonasonoran.com) following the Meeting. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") nor the regulating authority has approved or disproved the information contained in this news release. The Company has received an extension from TSX to hold its 2024 annual meeting of shareholders on or before September 17, 2024. About Arizona Sonoran Copper Company (www.arizonasonoran.com | www.cactusmine.com) ASCU's objective is to become a mid-tier copper producer with low operating costs and to develop the Cactus and Parks/Salyer Projects that could generate robust returns for investors and provide a long term sustainable and responsible operation for the community and all stakeholders. The Company's principal asset is a 100% interest in the Cactus Project (former ASARCO, Sacaton mine) which is situated on private land in an infrastructure-rich area of Arizona. Contiguous to the Cactus Project is the Company's 100%-owned Parks/Salyer deposit that could allow for a phased expansion of the Cactus Mine once it becomes a producing asset. The Company is led by an executive management team and Board which have a long-standing track record of successful project delivery in North America complemented by global capital markets expertise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240712780065/en/ Contact For more information Alison Dwoskin, Director, Investor Relations 647-233-4348 adwoskin@arizonasonoran.com George Ogilvie, President, CEO and Director 416-723-0458 gogilvie@arizonasonoran.com Back in February, OnePlus responded to Google and Samsung offering seven years of software support for their flagships by saying anything over five years doesn't make any sense financially. Five months later, the Chinese company seems to have changed its tune. OnePlus COO Kinder Liu just told Digital Trends that the upcoming Nord 4 will get six years of security patches from its launch. Sure, one extra year isn't overly that much on top, but still - what ever happened to "no one needs more than five"? Additionally, we're wondering what's going to happen to OnePlus' flagships like the 12, which have so far only been promised five years of updates. We assume they will also get six, but will that apply to already launched devices or only to the OnePlus 13 going forward? These are still unanswered questions, but what we do know now is that the Nord 4 will get four major Android updates, just like the OnePlus 11 and OnePlus 12. Interestingly, the Nord 4 will be supported for one extra year compared to Samsung's Galaxy A55 and A35, which only get five. The A55 could be one of its main competitors, so the Nord 4 will have an advantage here, for those who care about such things. The Nord 4 also brings a very unique design, using a metal unibody construction that has been missing from the mobile world for a few years - we fondly remember HTC's One M series for it, but that's long been dead. According to OnePlus' Liu, this was chosen for "durability, beauty, permanence, and strength". Asked why metal phones went the way of the dodo, Liu says it all had to do with 5G and the insane number of antennas required, since metal interferes with signals. The Nord 4's antennas are 50% smaller than before, and are placed strategically so that the body doesn't impede the signal. The device also has plastic inserts in places like the bottom of the back in order to let the signal through. The Nord 4 was tested by TUV SUD simulating 72 months of use and is certified to remain as fluent after such a period as it was on day one. The phone will become official on July 16. Qualcomm schedules 'Snapdragon For India' event on July 30 for 'two historic announcements' Qualcomm has announced it's hosting the "Snapdragon For India" event in New Delhi, India on July 30 where it will make "two historic announcements." Qualcomm didn't get into the specifics, but the image posted by the chipmaker on X has an Indian-style artwork with 5G and AI written on it. There's also the Snapdragon logo and laptops with AI on their screens. Guess whats coming? Hint: Next-level connectivity and performance, engineered for you. Stay tuned! #Snapdragon pic.twitter.com/vuYhaLBc9y Snapdragon India (@Snapdragon_IN) July 11, 2024 This suggests we could see Qualcomm announcing a Snapdragon chip enabling 5G connectivity on budget phones for the masses. Microsoft's Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus-powered Surface Copilot+PC laptops were launched in India yesterday, so it remains to be seen if we'll get more laptops with those Snapdragon chips at the helm at the event or if we are in for a surprise. Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra yesterday at its Unpacked event. They are both missing the Wireless PowerShare feature, as it turns out. This allowed you to wirelessly charge past Galaxy Watches on the back of your phone. But now you can't do that anymore with these new watches. The culprit is be the new BioActive sensor array that Samsung developed for its latest generation smartwatches, which has a new design that made Samsung change the shape of the back glass on the new watches. This change increased the distance between the internal wireless charging coil of the watch and the wireless charger, and it's too big of a distance for the feature to keep working with your phone. On the flip side, Samsung explains that the new sensor array features improved accuracy over previous models, allowing you to "assess health-related data points that were not previously supported as well as take more reliable measurements during prolonged or specialized exercises". If you're wondering whether you can charge the Watch7 and Watch Ultra on a traditional wireless charging pad, the answer is yes but due to the aforementioned increased distance between the coil and the glass, charging will be slow and heat-generating. Thus, Samsung suggests you only use the wireless charger that it includes in the box for best results. Source A beloved Abbeville, Louisiana, business is working desperately to rebuild after a car plowed through the restaurant on the evening of July 7. The owners of Cajun Claws report that the restaurant was closed at the time and that the incident could have been so much worse if we had patrons in our bar. The high-speed pursuit began shortly after 7 p.m. Sunday evening, when Abbeville police were called to Walmart for a report of shoplifting. Suspect Kevin Collins allegedly fled the scene, speeding through the intersection of Charity Street and South John M Hardy Drive, before apparently losing control and plowing into the building, police said. The interior of the restaurant, including the seating area, was demolished by the impact.Jodi Choate The restaurant, located at 1928 Charity St., sits on the corner of a busy intersection in Abbeville.Jodi Choate Jodi Choate, one of the owners of Cajun Claws, said police informed her that Collins hit the building at speeds of 90-100 mph. According to KATC3, Collins has a warrant for attempted murder in New Iberia and was detained in Vermilion Parish. I beg all of you to be kind ... we really never know what one is going through, Choate wrote on Facebook. Its going to take a long hot minute but never will we let our dream die. A GoFundMe page has been created to assist the family with rebuilding their business, with a goal of $30,000. They would never ask for help but it will take a village to assist them in rebuilding what was demolished, said CJ Frederick, the organizer of the fundraiser. Smart manufacturing drives development of toy industry in Chenghai, Shantou city People's Daily Online) 13:49, July 12, 2024 Toys are displayed at a cultural and tourism industrial park in Chenghai district of Shantou city, south China's Guangdong Province, Dec. 1, 2021. (Xinhua/Deng Hua) During the 20th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair (ICIF), which was held in late May 2024, 18 robots made from building blocks performing the Yingge Dance, a form of folk dance popular in south China's Guangdong Province, caught the attention of spectators. "We try to infuse more technological and cultural elements into the toys, add new luster to the Yingge Dance, an intangible cultural heritage, and explore a path for the toy industry to transform from being able to manufacture to intelligent manufacturing," said Chen Ruifeng, president of Guangdong Qunyu Interactive Technology Co., Ltd., which developed the building block robots displayed at the 20th ICIF. The company, located in Chenghai district, Shantou city, Guangdong, has created a range of smart mecha products using building blocks. By combining smart programming with building blocks, users can design customized movements for the mecha products through programming, enabling personalized interaction, Chen explained. The toy industry in Chenghai began to flourish in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 21st century, Chenghai has embraced new technologies such as numerical control machine tools and fully-automated numerical control injection molding machines to further develop the toy industry. As a result, Chenghai has established itself as a well-known production and export base for gift toys, gaining recognition both domestically and internationally. "In recent years, the toy industry in Chenghai has undergone a digital transformation," said Lin Kuan, chief engineer of the bureau of industry and information technology of Chenghai district. Through the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Chenghai has upgraded its industrial chain, evolving from a toy manufacturer to a producer of high-quality toys, and ultimately achieving smart toy manufacturing. Six years ago, Xie Weichun, a veteran in the toy industry with almost 20 years of experience, faced a significant crisis. She encountered challenges in recruiting employees and ensuring product quality within the traditional manual manufacturing processes. Guangdong Yuxing Technology Industrial Co., Ltd., founded by Xie, establishes "movable building blocks are more fun" as its theme. Acknowledging that each set of building blocks requires a significant amount of manual labor, Xie was determined to tackle this challenge. With a strong resolve, she set out to enhance the automation and intelligent production of building blocks. In 2018, Guangdong Yuxing Technology Industrial Co., Ltd. collaborated with Shantou Gooders Precision Technology Co., Ltd. to establish an automated smart production line. The automated smart production line operates around the clock, resulting in the reduction of production costs by over 40 percent. With the implementation of smart manufacturing, the company has expanded its toy product sales to 29 European countries, leading to consistent revenue growth. Today, the toy industry in Chenghai is experiencing a widespread shift towards intelligentization and digitalization. Shantou is actively supporting this transition by organizing events where companies can access the latest technologies and innovative solutions. This has boosted the digitalization of the industry, particularly in the areas of building blocks and Rubik's cubes, which have realized smart manufacturing. Moreover, more than 100 toy enterprises in Chenghai have undergone a digital transformation this year, resulting in a 30 percent increase in production efficiency and a significant improvement in the overall digitalization level of the industry cluster. Chenghai accounts for nearly half of the national production of plastic toys. It boasts the highest number of toy brands and authorized patents in the country. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) (CNBC) Microsoft has given up its observer seat on OpenAIs board. Apple, which was reportedly expected to take a similar observer position, will no longer pursue one, according to the Financial Times. But whatever clarity this weeks changes were intended to provide, many of the same concerns persist. To read this article: The Boeing Starliner must remain docked to the International Space Station (ISS) to be able to carry out tests on the spacecraft from the control station on the ground. According to statements made by NASA at a press conference on Wednesday, a return to Earth will not be possible until the end of July at the earliest. Anzeige The Starliner mission, which was launched on June 5, was originally only supposed to last eight days. However, engine problems forced a longer stay at the ISS. Five engines failed, four of which could be put back into operation. In addition, five helium leaks occurred, one of them before the launch. Engineers now assume that the leaks are related to the engine activities. In addition, the docking of the spacecraft to the ISS was shaky and only succeeded on the second attempt. The two astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been on board the ISS ever since. Tests on the spacecraft repeatedly delayed their return. Although NASA has assured that the two astronauts can return at any time, they would rather not take any risks. According to NASA, the Starliner could undock and return to Earth at any time. Both astronauts confirmed on Wednesday that they could bring the spacecraft back "home" at any time. "I have a really good feeling that the spacecraft will get us home without any problems", said Williams from the ISS. Exact time of return uncertain NASA and Boeing, the manufacturer of the Starliner, are currently testing a new Starliner unit at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to understand the engine issues that have occurred. However, the data collected is contradictory. "The temperatures we were able to achieve are not quite what we had hoped for based on the flight data," said Steve Stich, head of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The data will now be analyzed further to determine the next steps. Stich is optimistic that it will be possible to undock the Starliner from the ISS at the end of July. However, the right time still has to be found. However, NASA is also feeling a certain amount of time pressure: the ISS crew is due to be replaced in mid-August. Crew-9 is then due to be launched into orbit on board SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft to dock with the ISS. The Starliners with the two astronauts, Wilmore and Williams should have left the ISS by then. Anzeige (olb) Katarina Wakonen from Visit Finland estimated in an interview with the public broadcasting company last month that the number of foreign visitors will increase by about 10 per cent from last summer. The visitors, she added, are expected to spend around 1.4 billion euros on accommodation, restaurant, cultural and experience services between June and August. SOME 1.8 million foreign visitors are expected to make a summer trip to Finland in 2024, reports YLE. The average foreign visitor spends five to seven nights in Finland. The country, though, accounts for only about seven per cent of tourism flows to the Nordics, according to Wakonen. Theres room for summer tourism to grow, she said. While the competition for foreign visitors is intense, she pointed out that international travel companies are constantly looking for new destinations. Finland could increase its share of the pie by leaning more on the appeal of the midnight sun and relatively cool summer weather. Heinola, a roughly 18,000-resident town located some 20 kilometres north-east of Lahti, was listed as one of the best heatwave-proof holiday destinations in June by The Times. Also Helsinki has noticed the appeal of lower temperatures. Already last summer we had several people tell at tourist information points that theyd gone to Finland and Helsinki because of the cooler climate, Nina Vesterinen, the director of tourism at the City of Helsinki, stated to YLE in June. Finland is also attracting tourists with its offering of nature and urban experiences. Our asset has been and will be going forward that nature is easily accessible wherever you are, declared Wakonen. Vesterinen agreed, telling that the Finnish capital is lauded by foreign visitors for its compact size and proximity to nature. The number of visitors to the city rebounded close to pre-pandemic levels early in the summer season. We have plenty of different events that are interesting. Flight bookings to Helsinki have increased 15 per cent from the corresponding period one year ago, she told YLE. Air travel to Finland is common especially from large countries in Europe, such as France, Germany and Great Britain. Bookings from the US are also increasing as the result of several developments, said Wakonen: Finlands recognition in the US has increased following its accession to Nato. Finnair, the majority state-owned airline, has increased its transatlantic capacity. The US dollar is strong relative to the euro. These factors explain why Americans are our largest group of foreign visitors from long-distance markets. Before the [Covid-19] pandemic, Chinese were at the top of tourism statistics among long-distance travellers. Wakonen told YLE that Finland was experiencing faster tourism growth than other Nordics until early 2020, but the situation turned on its head as a consequence of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Previously many tourists combined a visit to Finland with one to St. Petersburg, for example. Destinations in Eastern Finland, meanwhile, have been hit particularly hard by the drop of visitors from Russia. While Russian visitors accounted for 28 per cent of all foreign visitors in Finland in 2013, the share has fallen under one per cent. Aleksi Teivainen HT BRCC offers plenty of degree programs for in-demand jobs With fall enrollment underway and classes starting Aug. 15, Blue Ridge Community College students have more program options than ever, providing learners of all ages a boost toward the workforce. Blue Ridges newest programs include practical nursing, civil engineering technology, environmental engineering technology, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, elementary education residency, and medical office administration. The college will also offer respiratory therapy for the first time this fall in partnership with Southwestern Community College. Future students can visit www.blueridge.edu/admissions to begin the enrollment process. At Blue Ridge, we are dedicated to preparing students for rewarding careers in high-demand workforce sectors, President Laura B. Leatherwood said. Our most recent program additions allow students to choose from more strategic areas of study than ever before, ensuring the skills and knowledge necessary for success in a variety of professions. Blue Ridge carefully chooses new programs in high-wage high-demand sectors that support the needs of the local and regional economy. Before their approval by the North Carolina State Board of Community Colleges and addition to the colleges curriculum, each proposed new program undergoes a rigorous feasibility study to ensure a robust demand for program graduates and a promising long-term career outlook. For example, respiratory therapy employment is projected to grow 13 percent in the decade through 2032 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In response, Blue Ridges Transylvania County campus will offer a respiratory therapy program for the first time this fall in collaboration with Southwestern Community College. The program is quickly filling, and students should apply by July 30. Also under the healthcare umbrella, practical nursing is forecast to experience a worker shortage of 50 percent by the year 2033 by the Program on Health Workforce Research and Policy at the Cecil G. Sheps Center. The practical nursing program at Blue Ridge Community College allows entry-level nurses to enter the workforce sooner, helping to reduce the current and predicted staffing challenges in healthcare, especially in nursing, said Heather Stewart, chair of BRCC's allied health programs. This entry-level nursing position also allows students to make a liveable wage while continuing to pursue other educational goals." Importantly, the new one-year practical nursing program prepares students to take the next step into Blue Ridges popular two-year associate degree nursingprogram, which prepares students for highly-employable careers as registered nurses. Similarly, North Carolina is the fourth largest employer of civil engineering technicians nationally according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Graduates of Blue Ridges new civil engineering technology program will therefore be highly employable, qualified for technician-level jobs within both public and private engineering, construction and surveying agencies. With the goal of assisting K-12 education partners in solving the current teacher shortage crisis, Blue Ridge recently added the new elementary education residency program. April Wright, teacher preparation and licensure faculty member, explained that the new program is enrolling teaching residents that hold a bachelor's degree in a non-education field and who are currently employed with a local school system. Over a two year period, the courses will prepare teaching residents to obtain their North Carolina K-6 Educators license that will allow teachers to instruct in a kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth grade classroom, Wright said. In addition to Blue Ridges newest programs announced this past year, students can choose from more than 200 degree, diploma and certificate programs in 30 areas of study. Enrollment information is available at www.blueridge.edu/admissions, and assistance is available by emailing admissions@blueridge.edu or by calling the Colleges One Stop Center at 828-694-1800 in Henderson County or 828-694-1900 in Transylvania County. HDFC Bank is conducting a system upgrade on July 13 aimed at enhancing customers' banking experience by improving performance speed, it said. The scheduled downtime is on Saturday and will begin from 3:00am and end at 4.30pm on the same day. The headquarters of India's HDFC bank is pictured in Mumbai. (Reuters) HDFC Bank said, To minimise disruption, HDFC Bank advises customers to withdraw sufficient funds before 7:30 PM on Friday, 12th July 2024, and to plan all fund transfers in advance. The upgrade is scheduled from 3:00 AM to 4:30 PM on 13th July 2024, during a bank holiday to reduce inconvenience. For further details and updates, please visit the HDFC Bank website or contact customer service. Which services will not be available during HDFC scheduled downtime? Cash deposit, fund transfer, mini statement, enquiry/Billpay services and cardless cash withdrawal will not be available during HDFC scheduled downtime. NetBanking and MobileBanking: These will be available during the system upgrade. Fund transfer: All fund transfer modes, including IMPS, NEFT, RTGS, HDFC Bank account-to-account online transfers, and branch transfers, will also be unavailable throughout the upgrade period. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chief HR Officer Milind Lakkad said that almost 70 per cent employees of the company who were working from home are back in office as the IT giant brought the new policy of linking variable pay to attendance. Although the measure is a temporary move and should be seen that way, he said. Milind Lakkad, EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announces the Q1 financial results 2024-25 during a press conference, in Mumbai.(PTI) TCS linked its quarterly variable payout to employees with their attendance in the office in April 2024. Under the new rule, those with less than 60 per cent attendance in office wont be eligible for the quarterly bonus. The rule followed another policy update as per which the IT services giant mandated employees to work from the office five days a week. Therefore, in order to receive full quarterly variable pay, employees were required to have a minimum of 85 per cent attendance in the. Employees with 75-85 per cent work from office attendance will receive 75 per cent of their variable pay and those with 60-75 per cent attendance will only get 50 per cent of their variable pay as per the changes that TCS brought in order to make more and more employees work from office. Milind Lakkad said, Today almost 70% of our employees are back in the office. I am not too much worried about the quantum or number of people not coming to the office and getting affected by this. This number is increasing every week I would say." He explained, I am not worried about that, people are realising the value of coming to office. Some of them are coming for the first time because they had joined during the pandemic. Everybody has to look at it positively. These aspects are temporary in nature from our standpoint and need to be looked at from that angle by everyone. TCS reported a 9 per cent year-on-year increase in net profit at 12,040 crore and 5.4 per cent rise in revenue from operations to 62,613 crore for the quarter. Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal backed Infosys founder Narayana Murthys 70-hour work week advice again as he said that he is not a supporter of the concept of work- life balance. The Ola boss said in a podcast, When Mr Murthy said that (70-hour work week), I was publicly in support of that and I got trolled on social media for that. But, I dont care because I have a strong belief that one generation will have to do tapasya so that we can build the number 1 country in the world, the largest economy. Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal speaks at the 12th edition of INSIGHT: The DNA of Success, held at the Isha Foundation in Coimbatore.(X/Sadhguru Academy) Bhavish Aggarwal also said, I dont agree with the work-life balance concept because if you are enjoying your work, you will find happiness in life also and work also, and both of them will be in harmony. Earlier, Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy said that youngsters need to work 70 hours a week in order for India to compete with economies that have made tremendous progress in the past 2-3 decades. After his comment sparked a huge debate in the country, Narayana Murthy explained his comment, asserting, I used to work 85-90 hours a week till I retired. I received a scholarship right from my pre-university in 1961. All my friends who went to engineering college received a lot of help from the government in terms of their fees - a highly discounted figure." He added, "Therefore, my view has always been that those of us in India who have received so much benefit from the country from the taxpayer have an enormous responsibility to work very hard to bring a chance for the betterment of life of the poorer sections of the society. Therefore I don't regret it. Sensex and Nifty hit their fresh record high levels today (July 12) amid heavy buying in IT stocks after TCS announced its June quarter earnings. BSE Sensex zoomed 996.17 points to hit all-time high of 80,893.51 while NSE Nifty jumped 276.25 points to a new lifetime peak of 24,592.20. Among Sensex, Tata Consultancy Services rose nearly 6 per cent after the country's largest IT services player reported 8.7 per cent growth for the June quarter and net profit at 12,040 crore. Other major gainers included Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Axis Bank and Bajaj Finance while among the laggards were Maruti, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints and ITC. Stock market today: A bird flies past a screen displaying the Sensex results on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai.(Reuters) Expert view on stock market V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, The positive domestic cue is the better-than-expected numbers from TCS and positive management commentary which can lift most IT stocks. What about global stock markets? In Asian markets, Shanghai and Hong Kong quoted higher while Seoul and Tokyo traded lower. US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday. Oil prices Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.59 per cent to USD 85.90 a barrel. FII data on July 11 'Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth 1,137.01 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data. Stock market on July 11 The BSE benchmark closed lower by 27.43 points or 0.03 per cent at 79,897.34 on July 11 while The NSE Nifty edged down 8.50 points or 0.03 per cent to settle at 24,315.95. An emergency meeting of the Water Resources Department has been called on Friday at Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's residence after the Cauvery Water Control Committee recommended releasing 1 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu every day. Cauvery panel directs Karnataka to release 1 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu everyday Also Read - Top 5 areas in Bengaluru that are prone to waterlogging every monsoon when it rains Karnataka Dy CM and Water Resources Minister DK Shivakumar, senior officials of the department, Minister of Cauvery Valley will participate in the meeting. The meeting will be held at Chief Minister's Home Office Krishna at 3 pm. Earlier, after facing a severe water shortage, the Karnataka Government had said that it will not be in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu even if the centre asked it to do so. Denying allegations by the BJP that the Karnataka government is releasing water from the Cauvery River to Tamil Nadu, the Karnataka Chief Minister said, "That's all lie what BJP is saying, we can release water only if we have water. That's a lie. When we don't have water to release, we don't even give a single drop of water to Tamil Nadu or any others. Even Tamil Nadu didn't ask for water." Siddaramaiah further said that his state will not be releasing water to Tamil Nadu even if the Center directs it to do so. "We don't have water to release. There is no question of releasing water. Even if Tamil Nadu asks or the Center tells us to release (water) we'll not release. We will not give water to whoever it may be," the Chief Minister said. The governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been locked in a protracted tussle over the sharing of Cauvery waters. The river is seen as a major source of sustenance for the people in either state. The Centre formed the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) on June 2, 1990, to adjudicate disputes between Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Puducherry with respect to their individual water-sharing capacities. (ANI) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Thursday dismissed accusations that "guarantee schemes have not been a burden on the state's exchequer." Karnataka Congress president and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar. (File Photo) Speaking to reporters at the KPCC office, he said, "The state government is not facing any financial burden due to the guarantee schemes. We had given our word and we have kept it. Guarantee schemes are not draining any resources and we will continue them." Also Read - Cauvery panel directs Karnataka to release 1 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu everyday, Siddaramaiah calls for meeting He was replying to the statement of Basavaraja Rayareddy that the guarantee schemes are draining out the finances. "We have not introduced these guarantee schemes for votes, it is meant to improve the lives of people, who are badly affected by the price rise. The people are watching all these and they will support us," Shivakumar said. When asked about the CRWC meeting on the release of water to Tamil Nadu, he said, "The water storage in our dams is not as per our expectations yet. I do not want to comment on this yet, let's pray for good rains." While replying to a query on the AICC fact-finding committee meeting, the deputy CM said, The fact-finding committee collected the opinions of MLAs and office bearers today. It will meet the defeated candidates and other leaders tomorrow to gather their feedback. The committee will submit a report to the AICC. The Bengaluru police arrested Kannada news presenter Divya Vasantha on Thursday for her alleged involvement in the extortion from a spa owner in Indiranagars 100 feet road. She was reportedly arrested in Kerala and police brought her back to Bengaluru. Kannada news anchor Divya Vasantha arrested for allegedly extorting a spa owner(Linkidin/DivyaVasantha) Also Read - Top 5 areas in Bengaluru that are prone to waterlogging every monsoon when it rains Earlier in this case, a person named Rajanukunte Venkatesh, who claimed to be the CEO of a local Kannada channel, and Divya Vasanthas brother, Sandesh Vasantha, were arrested. According to reports, the three accused decided to extort money from the owner of Tree Spa and Beauty Parlour in Indiranagar. They hired a woman from northeast and made her join as a masseuse in the targeted spa by the accused. Later, Sandesh Vasantha, the brother of Divya Vasantha visited the spa and recorded a video along with hired masseuse to make it look like the spa is running a prostitution racket. Also Read - Bengaluru airport elevated corridor flooded after rain, commuters angry: How in the world Divya Vasantha then approached the spa owner with the video and demanded 15 lakh. She also allegedly threatened the owner with telecasting the video on the local news channel if he did not give money. However, the owner claimed that he had only 1 lakh, but the accused demanded at least 8 lakh to delete the video. On 1 July, the owner approached Jeevan Bhima Nagar police and filed a police complaint. It was also found that Rajanukunte Venkataesh is not associated with any news channel and three accused created a WhatsApp group to extort money from various business owners. Popular Kannada actress and voice behind Namma Metros announcements Aparna Vastarey, 57, passed away on Thursday. She was reportedly suffering from lung cancer and took her last breath yesterday. Voice of Bengaluru's Namma Metro, Aparna Vastarey, dies due to ill health Though Aparna acted in many television shows and even worked as a radio jockey in All India Radio, she is well known for her crisp announcements in Namma Metro. Her, Dayavittu Gamanisi, Mundina Nildana.. voice is popular among metro commuters of Bengaluru. Aparna also hosted many governments events and known for her flawless Kannada hosting. Also Read - Cauvery panel directs Karnataka to release 1 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu everyday, Siddaramaiah calls for meeting Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah took to social media and paid condolences to her family. He wrote, Saddened to hear the news of the death of actress and famous presenter Aparna. It is sad that a multifaceted talent who was a household name in the country by presenting in the Kannada language very elegantly in the shows of major Kannada channels, including government functions, has left us very soon. Also Read - Top 5 areas in Bengaluru that are prone to waterlogging every monsoon when it rains He sent his message to the family members of Aparna and asked them to be strong in tough times. I pray that the departed soul of Aparna rest in peace and her family members find strength to bear their grief, he added. Aparna is survived by her husband, and she resided in Banashankari. Many of her colleagues from the TV and radio industries are expected to participate in the final rites. Four members of a family from Faridkot were killed after a collision on Highway 3 in British Columbia province of Canada on Wednesday. Four members of a family from Faridkot were killed after a collision on Highway 3 in British Columbia province of Canada on Wednesday.Three of the victims were identified as (from left) Sukhwant Singh Brar, Rajinder Kaur and Kamal Kaur. (HT file photo) The deceased were identified as Sukhwant Singh Brar of Rori Kapura village in Faridkot district, his wife Rajinder Kaur and daughter Kamal Kaur and sister-in-law Shinder Kaur. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the incident involved three vehicles, a semi-truck and two cars. The crash, involving two cars and a tractor-trailer, near Becks Road in Keremeos shut Highway 3 for eight hours on Wednesday. The police said four members of the family, all in the same vehicle, were found dead at the scene of the terrible tragedy that took place around 11.30am. The victims were residents of Abbotsford city in British Columbia. They were on their way to meet a family friend in Kelowna city when the accident took place. Khadoor Sahib member of Parliament Amritpal Singhs elder brother Harpreet Singh was among three people arrested with 4gm of ICE (Methamphetamine) on the Jalandhar-Panipat national highway near Phillaur on Thursday night, police said on Friday. Radical Sikh preacher and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singhs brother Harpreet Singh (in pic) has been arrested by Jalandhar police in a drug case. (File photo) While Harpreet, alias Happy, belongs to Jallu Khera village in Amritsar district, Lovepreet Singh is from Cheema Bath village in Amritsar district and Sandeep Arora from Ludhiana. Jalandhar Rural senior superintendent of police Ankur Gupta said police intercepted a Hyundai Creta (PB-02-CX-3808) parked along the highway near Phillaur in Jalandhar district at 11pm. During checking of the vehicle, the police team, which was on routine surveillance, recovered 4gm of ICE, a digital weighing scale and two mobile phones from Harpreet and Lovepreet. Following the recovery, senior officials rushed to the spot. The accused told the police that they had brought the contraband from Ludhiana-based Sandeep Arora, Gupta said. The accused confessed that there had transferred 10,000 digitally to Sandeep and bought the drugs for consumption. Following their confession, Sandeep was taken into custody. According to initial medical reports, the dope test of both Harpreet and Lovepreet was found to be positive. We are going to take the accused into police custody for detailed investigation to establish backward and forward linkages, the SSP said. A senior police official said both the accused were caught consuming the drugs in the car. We have also recovered a lighter, half burnt 20 note and foil papers being used by the accused for consuming drugs. The contraband was recovered from the pocket of Harpreet, who was driving the car, the official said. Sandeep is a drug peddler is booked in several drug smuggling cases. The SSP said the police are tracing the criminal background of Harpreet and Lovepreet. A case was registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act at Phillaur police station. Amritpal dubbed himself anti-drug crusader in polls Ironically, radical Sikh preacher and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, who is lodged in Assams Dibrugarh jail for offences under the National Security Act, had dubbed himself as an anti-drug crusader and vowed to end drug abuse in Punjab. He was flown to Delhi on July 5 for taking oath as the Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha member. Amritpal had defeated Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira. The Waris Punjab De outfit head, who has styled himself after slain Sikh militant Sikh preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, is jailed along with nine of his accomplices under the NSA. Amritpal was arrested in Mogas Rode village after he and his supporters barged into Ajnala police station, breaking barricades, brandishing swords and guns, and clashed with police personnel in an attempt to free one of his aides from custody on February 23 last year. Parents allege govt conspiracy to defame Amritpal Reacting to the arrest, Harpreets father Tarsem Singh said, This is a conspiracy against our family, aides and supporters of Amritpal Singh. We had apprehended that the government could hatch this conspiracy to defame us. Governments are doing this to hide their failures. This is aimed at derailing the mission of Amritpal Singh of saving youngsters and creating hurdles in the release of the Bandi Singhs (Sikh prisoners who have completed their jail terms). Today, a march was scheduled at Baghapurana in Moga district to seek the release of Bandi Singhs. Harpreet was to take part in the march. However, the government does not like these activities. So, the conspiracy has been hatched, he claimed, adding This is not a new thing. The governments have already indulged in registering such false cases. They have already killed Sikhs in fake encounters. The Union Budget 3.0 is likely to be a combination of continuity and change. In continuity, the budget will be guided by the vision of the budgets since 2014, including fiscal prudence, high growth trajectory, world-class infrastructure and welfarism. The change will be necessitated by two factors, namely, Indias goal to become a developed nation by 2047 and rising regional aspirations reflected in the Lok Sabha election results. The Union budget 2024 is scheduled to be presented on July 23 by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who will become the first finance minister to present seven consecutive Union budgets in a row, surpassing Morarji Desai, who presented six consecutive budgets. Parliaments budget session is from July 22 to August 12. (HT Photo) In the pre-budget meeting with Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, state finance ministers demanded a higher share in goods and services tax (GST), share in cess and surcharges and increased funds for infrastructural projects. Some states also sought special packages. Two coalition partners in the government, namely the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United) are also in the process of seeking substantial central funds for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, respectively. In his speech after getting elected as leader of the parliamentary party by NDA allies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that regional aspirations and national interests should be so closely interwoven that even air does not pass through them. In this backdrop, the finance minister while allocating resources needs to accommodate growing regional aspirations for the betterment of federal equilibrium. Viksit Bharat and Viksit States Different agencies have estimated different rates of growth of the Indian economy, averaging 7% per annum. However, for attaining the status of a developed economy, India needs to sustain a higher rate of growth. According the Reserve Bank of Indias India @ 100 study for achieving the International Monetary Fund (IMF) benchmark of an advanced economy ($49,069 billion GDP), the Indian economy needs to grow at a rate of growth of 9.1% from 2023-24 to 2047-48. The rate of growth as per the World Bank benchmark of a developed country ($35,025 billion GDP) works out to be 7.6%. Keeping both benchmarks in view, an average required growth rate works out to be 8.35%. The goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047 can only be achieved by developing all states simultaneously, thereby setting another goal, Viksit States, by 2047. Disparities in development The present disparities in development across states do not augur well for achieving the target of Viksit Bharat by 2047. Some states have grown faster than others and one can find a huge gap in the highest and lowest state per capita incomes. For example, major states such as Gujarat (8.36%), Karnataka (7.46%), Andhra Pradesh (6.72%), Telangana (6.53%), Odisha (6.53%), Madhya Pradesh (6.46%), Haryana (6.4%) Tamil Nadu (6.02%) and Chhattisgarh (6%) have grown faster than the Indian economy (5.66%) from 2011-12 to 2021-22. The remaining states have registered a rate of growth below the national average. West Bengal with 4.34% (almost half of Gujarat) has experienced the lowest rate of growth. Regional variations in terms of per capita state income are also huge. Goa had the highest triennium average per capita Net State Domestic Product worth 3,05,200 for the period 2019-20 to 2021-22. On the other hand, Bihar had the lowest average per capita income of 28,432, which was 10 times less than Goa. Further, the difference ( 2,76,768) was more than any developed states per capita NSDP, such as Gujarat ( 1,63,595). Convergence vs divergence Regional disparities have been studied by testing convergence hypothesis across India states. In economics, the convergence hypothesis, also known as catch-up effect, enunciates that less developed countries per capita income under certain conditions has potential to grow faster than that of developed countries. This hypothesis has been tested at the sub-national level, including India. A number of studies, which have been conducted covering Indian states, have rejected the convergence hypothesis and found divergences in the levels of development across states. Further, studies reveal that the process of divergence has become more pronounced after the economic reforms of the 1990s. The tendencies of growing gap between developed and backward states during the post-reform period suggest that only effective government intervention can reverse the process as market forces exacerbate regional disparities. The forthcoming budget is the most appropriate opportunity to initiate the process of convergence among states. For identifying backward states along with the level of per capita income, indicators like people below poverty line, percentage of SC and ST population, human resource development index, industrial development, infrastructural development, investment as percentage of gross state domestic product, distance from main market and landlocked states can also be considered. Policy instruments The Union finance minister has many policy instruments at her disposal to lay the foundation for correcting regional imbalances and accommodating aspirations for fostering federal equilibrium. The major ones include special financial packages, fiscal transfers, central sector schemes fully funded by the Union government, centrally sponsored schemes having joint funding of central and state governments, public investment, dedicated infrastructure projects, such as the Bharatmala Pariyojana, railway corridors and extension of the Sagarmala project to landlocked states for the development of dry ports, UDAN-RCS (a regional airport development programme), digital connectivity, industrial corridors, special economic zones (SEZs), tax holidays and subsidies, investment in social sectors, like health, education including skill development, and aspirational district programme to develop the most underdeveloped districts. Indias aspiration to become a developed country by 2047 necessitates inclusive participation from all states. The Lok Sabha election mandate underscores accommodating regional aspirations. Empirical evidence, however, suggests that the achievement of the twin objectives of Viksit Bharat and Viksit States cannot be left exclusively to the market as it perpetuates regional disparities. Effective public policy intervention, thus, is the most appropriate prescription. The Union Budget 3.0 is the first policy opportunity available with the Government of India to steer the Indian economy along with the states to become a developed economy by 2047. It is suggested that the finance minister should leverage policy instruments at her command to promote balanced regional development on long-term basis. ghumanbs54@gmail.com BS Ghuman is former V-C of Punjabi University, Patiala. (HT file) The writer is a former vice-chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala.Views expressed are personal. The Delhi BJP protested at the Secretariat on Friday against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governments price hike of electricity bills, alleging that AAP-supported discoms were charging consumers hefty amounts under the guise of power purchase adjustment charge (PPAC). BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva was also detained by Delhi Police during the protest on Friday.(X/@Virend_Sachdeva) Led by state BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, the party's Delhi unit held a protest at Shahidi Park in ITO. In a post on X, the Delhi BJP said, Foot march under the leadership of State President Mr Virendra Sachdeva to the Delhi Secretariat in protest against the increase in electricity prices by the Kejriwal government. According to the news agency PTI, Virendra Sachdeva claimed, The Delhi government and discoms have colluded to increase PPAC by 8.75 per cent, resulting in higher electricity bills for the consumers. Sachdeva was also detained by Delhi Police, as shown in a video he reposted on his X account, which captured him being taken into a police van. Sharing pictures from the protest on X, Sachdeva wrote, The goal of the Kejriwal government in Delhi is only to fulfill personal interests; the AAP government never thought beyond this. The Delhi Traffic Police had earlier in the day issued an advisory in light of the BJP's protest. "In view of a protest by a political party near Shaheedi Park, BSZ Marg Delhi, traffic will remain heavy at BSZ Marg, IP Marg, and BSZ Marg may be closed for traffic movement between 10.30 AM to 12.30 PM. Kindly avoid these roads and plan your journey accordingly," the Delhi Traffic Police said in a post on X. Meanwhile, Delhi's power minister and AAP leader Atishi criticised the opposition party for misleading the public by spreading rumours that electricity prices were raised due to the PPAC. Electricity bills went up by 6 to 8% Electricity bills for domestic consumers in Delhi have risen by 6-8%, attributed to adjustments in the power purchase adjustment charge (PPAC) by discoms, news agency PTI reported citing officials on Wednesday. However, the households receiving subsidies will remain unaffected by these changes. Discoms in the city have adjusted the PPAC by 6.75% to 8.75%, influenced by the recent surge in the costs of coal and other fuels used in power generation. Officials confirmed that the revision took effect in February this year. Delhi's power minister Atishi claimed that according to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) order, the current PPAC will remain unchanged with no further adjustments planned. However, she defended the PPAC revision by stating that discoms have the legal provision under the Electricity Act 2003 to increase PPAC by up to 10% from the DERC's prescribed rate in cases of high power purchase costs. The Jawaharlal Nehru University has announced the establishment of a Centre for Hindu Studies, along with centres for Buddhist and Jain studies, as reported by news agency ANI citing an official notification. These three new centres will be created under the School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies, in line with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, according to a notification. The Executive Council of JNU approved the decision to establish these centres during a meeting held on May 29. (HT file) The Executive Council of JNU approved the decision to establish these centres during a meeting held on May 29. The Executive Council in its meeting held on 29.05.2024 has approved the recommendation of the committee constituted to explore and recommend on NEP-2020 and Indian Knowledge System and its further implementation in the University, and establishing of following centres within the School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies: 1. Centre for Hindu Studies; 2. Centre for Buddhist Studies; 3. Centre for Jain Studies This issues with the approval of the Competent Authority, the notification released on July 9 said. JNU formed a committee to explore and recommend ways to implement the NEP 2020 and the Indian Knowledge System at the university. Last year, Delhi University (DU) established a Centre for Hindu Studies, which currently offers a masters degree and plans to introduce undergraduate courses. DU also has a department for Buddhist Studies and, in March, received approval from the central government to establish a Centre for Advanced Studies in Buddhism, with an estimated budget of 35 crore. National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 - According to the Ministry of Education, the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) envisions a profound transformation in education through an education system rooted in Indian ethos that contributes directly to transforming India, that is Bharat, sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society by providing high-quality education to all, thereby making India a global knowledge superpower. - NEP 2020 is built upon the five foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability, and Accountability. It aims to equip the youth to tackle a wide range of national and international challenges both now and in the future. - This new policy replaces the former National Policy on Education of 1986. It aspires to make pre-primary education universal and specialises in achieving foundational literacy and numeracy for all children in primary school and beyond by 2025. - The policy recommends a variety of reforms at every level of school education aimed at ensuring the quality of schools, including: The Delhi high court on Friday rejected the bail plea of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals aide, Bibhav Kumar, in the case related to Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwals alleged assault. Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said Kumar wields influence as Kejriwals personal secretary, and thus the possibility of him influencing witnesses and tampering with the evidence cannot be ruled out. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar. (ANI) Kumar moved the high court on June 11, saying the accusations against him were unbelievable and false. He argued there was no scope for him to tamper with the evidence as the Delhi Police had collected the entire evidence and CCTV footage of the alleged incident. Senior advocate N Hariharan, who appeared for Kumar, said no incident had happened and that there was no motive for the entire exercise. He argued that Maliwal barged into Kejriwals house without an appointment. Hariharan said she filed the first information report (FIR) in the case after deliberation and in ego because Kumar did not let her meet Kejriwal and asked her to wait. Hariharan argued Kumar was arrested pursuant to the collection of the entire evidence and CCTV footage on the day of registration of the FIR. He added his clients custody amounted to pretrial punishment. Hariharan said his client was in no position to influence the witnesses, who are government officials working under the Delhi Police. He added the Delhi police were in charge of the CCTV and the security of Kejriwals residence. Senior advocate Sanjay Jain, who represented the Delhi Police, opposed the bail, saying Kumar exercised enormous power in the precinct of the chief minister. He added Kumar had the propensity to tamper with the witnesses working in Kejriwals office and influence the investigation. Jain said releasing Kumar while police were in the middle of their investigation and about to file the charge sheet before July 16 might impact the probe. He referred to the evidence and said it was provided on a pen drive. He added that it surfaced that the recording of the alleged assault period was missing. Maliwals lawyer, Nikhil Rohatgi, said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) released two edited and doctored videos related to the incident to paint her client in a poor light. Maliwal addressed the court in person and urged it not to release Kumar on bail. She alleged she was brutally assaulted and Kejriwal protected Kumar. Maliwal urged the court to give her justice by rejecting the petition, saying that she was subjected to victim shaming. She added AAP ministers held press conferences to portray her as a liar. The MP/MLA court of Basti on Thursday rejected the application of former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi seeking an anticipatory bail in the 2001 Rahul Madhesia kidnapping case, said Basti police and prosecution officials on Friday. he court fixed July 20 as the next hearing in the case. (For Representation) They said Judge, Basti MP-MLA court, Pramod Kumar Giri dismissed the former ministers anticipatory bail plea, stating no relaxation could be granted to absconding proclaimed offenders. They said the court declared him a proclaimed offender and ordered attachment of his property on December 2, 2023, in the case related to the kidnapping of Basti businessman Dharamraj Guptas son Rahul Madhesia. A senior police official said the court noted his role in providing protection to kidnappers and facilitating access to vehicles and money. He said the court said Amarmani Tripathi deliberately avoided appearing in the court, causing continuous delays in the case. The court fixed July 20 as the next hearing in the case. The police official said Amarmani Tripathis lawyer filed an interim bail application on July 3, 2024, arguing that he was falsely implicated in the case. As per the lawyer, his client wasnt initially named in the FIR but was later included as a co-accused during the investigation. He said the defence lawyer stated the complainant in the case had died while Rahul Madhesia himself had submitted a settlement saying that Amarmani Tripathi was not involved in his kidnapping. However, theres an outstanding arrest warrant against him, prompting the appeal for the bail. Amarmani Tripathi was arrested on December 19, 2001, in Lucknow and presented in Basti court for custody remand on December 21, 2001. It was mentioned that a bail order was issued on February 1, 2002, the lawyer mentioned in his application. On December 6, 2001, Dharmaraj Guptas son was kidnapped from Gandhi Nagar locality in Basti city police station limits by some unidentified persons when he was going to his school. UP Special Task Force (STF) recovered him safely seven days later from Lucknows residence of Amarmani Tripathi. Earlier, the Prisons Administration and Reform Services department on August 24, 2023, issued an order for the premature release of Amarmani Tripathi and his wife Madhumani Tripathi, citing the states 2018 policy on remission, since they had completed 20 years of imprisonment in the 2003 murder case of poet Madhumita Shukla in Lucknow. The basic education department has waived off the 8:30 am restriction for uploading attendance, a day after chief minister Yogi Adityanaths intervention to resolve the deadlock between government school teachers and basic education department over digitalisation of attendance. For representation only (HT File Photo) Teachers can use the Digitize Register App throughout the entire school day. Until the process for recording teacher attendance is fully established, the Digitize Register App is available all through the school day, said director-general, school education, Kanchan Verma. District level field officers visited various schools between 7:30 am to 10:30 am to help and encourage teachers to make use of the Prerna app to upload relevant information related to mid-day meal, students attendance, etc without pressuring teachers attendance. It was found that the app requires updating. A number of government school principals attended the orientation related to registering digitisation done in different districts of UP. In a concerted effort to remove shortcomings related to the education system, as per chief ministers directives, the basic education department has commenced the digitisation of 12 school registers. This digital initiative began a year ago and teachers are being continuously updated and trained at every level. Last July, the department mandated the digitisation of all registers, marking the beginning of extensive training sessions for teachers through both physical and online platforms. Teachers have been briefed on the practical use of digital registers and the time-saving benefits they offer. The departments digital campaign seeks to establish an optimal educational environment by rectifying systemic shortcomings in the education sector. In a statement issued by the state secretariat of the Communist Party of India, the state secretary of the party and senior labour leader Arvind Raj Swaroop said that for the last two-three days, primary teachers of the entire state are agitating and they are teaching in their schools by wearing black bands. The teachers were forced to agitate because the Uttar Pradesh government did not consider the pending demands of the teachers and they are being forced to implement digital attendance in the name of technology. The state secretary of the party has demanded from the government that teachers problems be solved immediately and no pressure should be put on them. First the problems should be resolved, then digital attendance should be discussed with the teachers unions. It was also said in the statement that teachers are also state employees, so when recording the attendance of all state employees is not digital, then why is this restriction being imposed only on teachers? With the aim of minimising loss of human life and livestock due to frequent incidents of lightning strikes during the monsoon, the state government has decided to establish Uttar Pradesh Lightning Alert Management System in all 75 districts in association with the India meteorological department (IMD). In the first 12 days of July alone, lightning has claimed 83 lives in Uttar Pradesh. (For Representation) With the start of the monsoon, the state is witnessing surge in the incidents of deaths due to lightning, drowning, snake bites and heavy rainfall. In the first 12 days of July alone, lightning has claimed 83 lives. Expressing concern over deaths due to lightning every year, CM Yogi Adityanath had directed the officers of the revenue department and the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) to set up a lightning forecast system in the state. People in large numbers die due to lightning strikes in the state. Despite the unpredictable nature of a lightning strike, we must try to minimise the loss of life by sending alerts to users who are in areas that are likely to be struck by lightning, he said. After the CMs instruction, the government departments started working on the establishment of a robust warning system to tackle natural calamities and prevent damage and loss of life. The focus was on using technology to implement lightning safety system to warn people about lightning strikes in advance, he said. The Uttar Pradesh government zeroed in on the state-of-the-art lightning detection system time of arrival (ToA)technology that is more time and location accurate. The state government plans to spend 276 crore on the lightning alert management system. Uttar Pradesh relief commissioner GS Naveen Kumar said, The lightning alert management system will be implemented in three phases in the state. In the first phase, the system will be launched in 37 districts, in second phase 20 districts and in the third phase, it will be implemented in 18 districts. Dr Manish Ranalkar, director, meteorological department, Lucknow, said, The IMD has assessed the need for installation of 50 sensors and 3,600 early warning public address system for the entire system. In the first phase, 30 lightning detection sensors will be established in the state. There are two types of lightning namely cloud-to-cloud lightning and cloud-to-ground lightning, he added. The cloud-to-ground lightning is fatal for people. To protect the life of the people, we have to them give a forewarning, he said. The cloud-to-cloud lightning starts around 30 minutes earlier of the cloud to ground lightning during the thunderstorm. The system will assist us in studying the movement of the thunderstorm. After the cloud-to-cloud lightning, we will have 30 minutes to alert people about the cloud-to-ground lightning through multi-hazard warning system, the IMD director added. Once we have data in IMD system, it will trigger nearby sirens and hooters to alert the people working in fields. The siren covers 1.5 km radius. The farmers will take precautionary measures to protect themselves from lightning when it strikes the ground. The ToA technology will also give exact location of the lightning and height of the cloud- to-cloud lightning, he said. At present, the IMD is using radar to give lightning alerts. The data from ToA technology will strengthen the lightning forecast system. The tendering process is almost complete and within six months, Uttar Pradesh Lightning Alert Management System will be implemented, Dr Ranalkar added. MUMBAI: Investigating officers of Worli police station revealed on Thursday that on the day of the accident Mihir Shah, 23, prime accused in the BMW hit-and-run case, consumed copious amounts of liquor in two phases before crashing his luxury car into a scooter at Dr Annie Besant Road, that took the life of a woman who was riding pillion and injured the scooterist. After whiskey binge, Mihir Shah guzzled beer on Marine Drive joyride An officer privy to the investigation said, on Saturday night Mihir and three of his friends ordered 12 large pegs of Jack Daniels at Vice-Global Tapas Bar, on Juhu-Tara Road. While three of them drank four pegs each, one settled for Red Bull, running up a cumulative bill of 18,730. As one of the friends was a regular at the bar and is 32 years old liquor was served to all. The legal drinking age in Maharashtra is 25. As the evening came to a close, Mihir dropped his friends to their respective homes and headed for Borivali, where he resides with his family. He drove a Mercedes that evening; and on reaching home decided to go on a joyride in his BMW and headed for Marine Drive, along with his driver, Rajrishi Bidawat, who was at the wheel. On the way they stopped at Sai Prasad Bar, in Malad, and purchased four 500 ml cans of Budweiser Magnum. We have recorded the statement of Rajiv Shah, the waiter at the bar, who gave them the beer cans, said a police officer. Thereafter, they proceeded towards Marine Drive, drinking along the way. While he had evaded questions related to drunk-driving on Wednesday, when confronted with statements of his friends and waiters of the Juhu bar, and other technical evidence, Mihir accepted that he was drunk at the time of the accident, the officer said. On Thursday, the two were taken to the accident spot to recreate the scene. They showed us the point near Girgaon Chowpatty where they had swapped seats and Mihir drove till the Worli Sea Link T-junction after the accident, said the police officer. We have also learnt that after the accident several cars followed them and tried to stop the BMW, but they kept on speeding, said the police officer. Repentance after crime Cops said Mihir expressed remorse on Thursday, realising the suffering he had caused for many. It is one of the reasons why he accepted being drunk while driving the vehicle when the accident took place. He said he did not realise that the pillion rider was stuck beneath the car, said the officer. The accused told the police that after the accident, the scooterist Pradip Nakhwa fell on the bonnet of the BMW, as a result of which the windshield broke. As it was raining hard, they thought the broken wiper was making the noise and did not realise that the woman, Kaveri, Pradips wife, was stuck under the vehicle. They stopped when the vehicle started malfunctioning slightly. When they got down to inspect if anything was broken, they found the woman stuck between one of the tyres and the bumper, and removed her. Panicking, Mihir called his father, who shocked by the incident, told the driver to take the wheel. They removed the deceased and put her on the side of the road. But when the driver reversed, he ran over the deceaseds legs again, said another police officer. The probe has also revealed that Mihir was in touch with his girlfriend, after he left her house in Goregaon and fled towards Thane on Sunday morning. We have questioned her and spoken to her in detail, said the police officer. Driver in judicial custody The Dadar Metropolitan Magistrate court on Thursday remanded Bidawat to judicial custody for 14 days, rejecting polices plea for an extension of police custody. Public prosecutors Ravindra Patil and Bharti Bhosale had asked the court to extend Bidawats police custody till July 16, like Shah, but the court rejected their plea. They threw away the beer cans after the accident. We need to find them and also seize their clothes which they wore at the time of the crime. The number plate of the car which was destroyed also needs to be recovered, Patil told court. Meanwhile, Ayush Pasbola who appeared for Bidawat told the court: Bidawat has said he did not drink any beer, and as the statements of the people who sold the beer have been recorded, much of the investigation is already complete. They dont need to keep him in custody till the missing numberplate is recovered. The police said they are trying to complete the investigations swiftly and have also asked the forensic department which has Mihirs blood and urine samples to submit report soon. MUMBAI: The state government, in collaboration with Maharashtra Mandal of London, will introduce Marathi language curriculum for students in London. The government has appointed a committee, chaired by the director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), to develop the curriculum. The state government, in collaboration with Maharashtra Mandal of London, will introduce Marathi language curriculum for students in London. (Representative Photo) As per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between SCERT and Maharashtra Mandal, London, during the Vishwa Marathi Samelan (World Marathi Festival) in Navi Mumbai in January, students residing in London will be able to study Marathi as an additional language course. To implement the MoU, the state issued a government resolution (GR) on July 10. According to the GR, a government-appointed committee will finalise the curriculum for the Marathi language course for students in London. The GR also mentioned that language training, planned for class 1 to 5 levels, will be modified by 20% by the Maharashtra Mandal for their convenience. The GR also noted that besides providing the required books for Maharashtra Mandal, the state government will also conduct examinations and provide certification to the students. A 10-member committee, including five members from Maharashtra Mandal, London, will finalise the implementation policy soon and execute the MoU to facilitate the process for students in London. Vrushal Khandke, president of Maharashtra Mandal, London, said, We have second, third generation Marathi people living in London. To connect them with our culture and language, we have been organising various programmes at our level, but to formalise this effort, we decided to collaborate with the state of Maharashtra. This is the oldest Maharashtra Mandal, founded by B. R. Ambedkar and scholar N. C. Kelkar in 1932 during their stay in London. Over the past eight to nine decades, we have been trying to instill Marathi values in our generations. But now we are formalising it. In the UK, UCAS points are considered for university admissions. Learning Marathi will help students earn these points, Khandke said. Under the UK education system, students who acquire additional language skills other than English can earn UCAS points, which are considered during university admissions. Khandke also said that currently, in London, apart from other foreign languages, Gujarati and Punjabi languages are available. With this initiative, Marathi language training will also be introduced. This training is not only for students. It is open to any individual who is willing to participate, said Khandke. Mumbai: The Khedkar family's troubles have deepened following the emergence of a video showing Manorama Khedkar, mother of IAS probationary officer Puja Khedkar, threatening individuals with a firearm in Mulshi. In response to this development, the state police headquarters has requested a comprehensive report on the incident. The date on which the video was recorded is yet to be determined. Screen grab from an undated video of IAS probationary officer Puja Khedkar's mother, Manorama, brandishing a small weapon. Director General of Police Rashmi Shukla told Hindustan Times, "I have asked the superintendent of Pune rural police to get details." This latest controversy adds to a growing list of issues surrounding Puja Khedkar, who has already faced criticism for her allegedly imperious behaviour and misuse of privileges. Her demands for an ante-chamber in the Pune district collectorate and her habit of driving an Audi equipped with a red-blue beacon and Maharashtra government board had previously raised eyebrows. Moreover, allegations have surfaced that Khedkar improperly utilised benefits under the physical disabilities category and other backward class (OBC) quota to secure her position in the Indian Administrative Services. The situation has escalated further with the Navi Mumbai police submitting a report to Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik, who also oversees the home department. The report alleges that Khedkar, recently transferred from Pune to Washim by Pune collector Suhas Divase, had exerted pressure on Navi Mumbai Deputy Police Commissioner Vivek Pansare to release a transporter, Ishwar Arjun Uttarwade. Uttarwade had been arrested in connection with a steel theft case by Panvel police in May 2024. MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday upheld the validity of three Government Resolutions (GR) that increased lease rent of government lands allotted mainly for housing societies in Bandra from 400 to 1,900 times. The bench heard several petitions filed by co-operative housing societies from Bandra West, most of which are in Bandstand. Representational Image(NoBroker) The division bench of justice BP Colabawalla and justice Somasekhar Sundaresan, however, struck down a clause in one of the GRs issued in 2012 that sought to revise the lease rent every five years. Now, the upward revision would be made every 30 years, at the time of renewal of the leases. The bench heard several petitions filed by several co-operative housing societies from Bandra West, most of which are in Bandstand. The societies had challenged three Government Resolutions issued in May 2006, December 2012 and May 2018. While the May 2006 GR introduced a policy of linking the ready reckoner value of the land with the annual lease rent, the 2012 GR introduced the method of calculating the lease rent. Under the 2012 GR, the housing societies and charitable bodies were required to pay lease rent at the rate of 2% of the 25% ready reckoner value of the government land allotted to them, industrial establishments were to pay 4% and the lease rent for commercial and mixed-use entities was fixed at 5%. The petitioner societies challenged the increase, contending that the state government was prohibited by earlier judgements from linking lease rent with the ready reckoner value of the lands. They also challenged the GRs on the grounds of arbitrariness and therefore claimed those were violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. They argued that the rent was sought to be increased by 400 to 1,900 times and this increase can hardly be justified as being fair and reasonable in the eyes of law. They added that the state must act in a fair and reasonable manner and not like a private landlord with a profit motive. The argument, however, failed to impress upon the bench, which held that the earlier high court orders on the issue did not prohibit the state government from linking the lease rent with the ready reckoner value of the lands but required the government to act fairly while dealing with its lessees. As regards the argument of arbitrariness, the court said a perusal of the ready reckoner discloses a great deal of detailing wherein rates are fixed even street wise and at times different rates are provided for different areas, depending on its peculiarity. Once this is the case, we find that there is nothing wrong in the government looking to the ready reckoner rate as a reasonable benchmark of value for the purposes of calculating the revised lease rent, the court observed. Besides, the court also considered that individual members of the housing societies would not be required to pay more than 6,000 per month towards lease rent. When one takes these figures into consideration and especially the fact that the properties of the petitioners are located at Bandra Bandstand (a very sought-after, and high-end real estate area in Mumbai), one can hardly call this increase exorbitant, extortionate and/or manifestly arbitrary, the bench said. It clarified that when the law mandates the Government must be fair and reasonable in dealing with its citizens, it does not mean that the Government must do charity. Though it is indeed true that the Government should not act as a private landlord where profit would be the prime motive, it is still entitled to a reasonable return on its land, the bench added. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said that he was unaware of the incident wherein a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was removed in Doomdooma town of Tinsukia district two days ago. The statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Assams Doomdooma town before being removed using an excavator crane on Wednesday. (Sourced image) The incident, which took place on Wednesday, sparked a massive controversy as videos of the statue being carried away by a crane circulated on social media, even as reports of it being replaced by a clock tower did the rounds. I am not aware of this decision taken by the district administration. Let me verify the facts. Assam owes so much to Mahatma Gandhi. He stood firmly with Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi when the Congress party led by (Jawaharlal) Nehru wanted to include Assam in Pakistan under the Grouping Plan, Sarma wrote on X. Protests erupted in Doomdooma following the removal of the 5.5-feet-tall statue using an excavator crane from Gandhi Chowk area. Durga Bhumij, the former Congress MLA from Doomdooma, led the agitation and claimed that the incident hurt the sentiments of locals. Sitting MLA and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rupesh Gowala disapproved the claims and told HT, This is a politically motivated controversy. The old statue was in a dilapidated state with its nose broken, the walking stick replaced by a bamboo stick and the spectacles missing. The area where the statue was placed was also not in good shape. Thats why the local municipal body decided to carry out a beautification project and the removal of the old statue, which was to be replaced with a new one, was part of that. Gowala said that since the old statue was made of marble, repairing it was not feasible. He said the new statue would be taller (6.5 feet) and placed in the same place along with a clock tower. He further stated that locals were consulted and informed about the move through a public meeting and the foundation stone for the project was laid in March this year. The new statue, which will also be of marble. It is being sculpted in Rajasthan now and as soon as its completed and brought to Doomdooma, it will be installed in the same area with due respect and honour, Gowala said. However, Tushar Gandhi, author and great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, criticised the development, and said on X, Not surprising that the BJP government in Assam decided to replace Bapus statue with a clock tower... Their slavish colonial hangover persists. The results of Class 11 board examinations are yet to be announced in Jammu and Kashmir even after the passage of 48 to 72 days depending on the culmination of the exam in weather-dependent soft and hard zone areas. Delay in Class 11 results causes distress among students in Jammu and Kashmir. (Satish Bate/HT file/For representation) The delay in the announcement of results by the J & K Board of School Education (JKBOSE) has caused distress among students while attendance in the schools has gone down. Currently, the schools are closed for summer vacation for 10 days from July 8. Also read: GATE 2025 exam dates: IIT Roorkee announces GATE examination schedule, check important details here The authorities changed the academic calendar a couple of years back but they have done nothing to bring efficiency in the examination system. What are they waiting for? Our children are very stressed and anxious, said Mohammad Hanief, a parent of a student waiting for her results. The teachers are also worried saying that the overall delay affects the number of academic days. We already have fewer academic days than the rest of the country owing to a prolonged winter. When class 10 and 12 results are out, what had led to delay in class 11 results, said a government teacher not wishing to be named. Also read: NEST 2024: Results declared on nestexam.in, direct link to download and other important details here Besides the students are waiting for the results and have not yet joined the next class, bringing down the overall attendance in schools, she said. The class 11 exams for soft zone areas were conducted between April 2 and May 1 and for hard zone areas with harsh weather conditions between April 22 and May 26. The results were to be declared in 40 days. Also read: Strict visa regulations students need to know before applying for US, UK, Australia and Canada Despite repeated attempts to contact examination authorities of JK BOSE including secretary Manish Sarin yielded no response. In the same way as higher education dynamics are shifting worldwide, so are the guidelines for student visas. Since most students seek scholarships to study in other countries, it is vital to be updated with new visa regulations and conduct. Many countries that attract international students, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States, have recently introduced many changes to visa regimes. (File) Many countries that attract international students, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States, have recently introduced many changes to visa regimes. This moderation is in an attempt to protect the sanctity of their systems of education while at the same time catering to international students. Before students apply for study visas to a country, there is a lot they need to know as they are impacted by the new visa reforms: United Kingdom Starting in January 2024, the UK has implemented stricter rules for student visas: Dependent Visas: Except for PhD and postgraduate research students, dependent visas are no longer permitted for other international student categories. Work Visas: International students can now only apply for a work visa after completing their program and securing a job with a start date post-course completion. Theres positive news for Indian students. It was confirmed in May that the duration of the Graduate visa route in the UK will not change until the UK parliament concludes its session. This means that the Graduate visa route remains intact for the immediate future, allowing international students (except PhD and doctoral students) to work in the UK for two years post-study. PhD and doctoral students can work for up to three years. The Migration Advisory Committee also pointed out some of the practices of recruitment agents for international students. As a result, the UK government has designed stringent compliance rules for educational establishments related to these agents. Also, the TOEFL iBT score is recognised by all the universities in the United Kingdom. Canada Canada has made significant changes to its student visa regulations for 2024: Intake Cap: There is now a cap on international student permit applications. Provincial Attestation Letter (PAL): Undergraduate students must submit a PAL from a province or territory with their study permit application. Open Work Permits: These are now available only to spouses of overseas students marked in master's, doctorate and professional courses. Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC): The required GIC amount for living expenses has increased from C $10,000 to C $20,635. These changes may limit the number of Indian students pursuing undergraduate programs in Canada but benefit those opting for masters, doctoral, and professional programs, who can now obtain three-year post-study work permits. Furthermore, IRCC recently endorsed four new language tests, TOEFL iBT for SDS applicants. The SDS route has a higher visa approval rate, and also thats why it guarantees visa decisions within the three-week period. Australia Australia is implementing stricter policies concerning international students. Some key changes include: Genuine Student (GS) Requirement: Students must now make a mandatory appearance to fulfil this requirement. Increased Financial Requirements: Students must show proof of savings amounting to AUD 29,710 (roughly 16.3 lakh) to cover living expenses throughout their studies. Work Hour Limits: International students can work up to 48 hours per fortnight during study terms and semesters. In addition, the Australian government has also raised new application rates for future students from 1st July 2024 onwards for student visas. Applicants will also be charged AUD 1,600 as their application fee, up from AUD 710, indicating an increment of 125%. On a bright note, the Australian Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has now resumed the acceptance of TOEFL tests taken at the testing centre for all visa-related applications starting from 05 May 2024, after the department had suspended them last July for some reviews that were being conducted. United States The US has also introduced critical updates affecting international students: Document Authenticity: The US embassy has advised students against bringing any forged documents for the visa interview. Work Opportunities: The US has a system known as OPT that lets foreign students work for up to three years after they complete their course. Indian students like OPT because the programme offers a chance to gain work experience worldwide. Visa Processing: The US consular team in India is making significant efforts to reduce wait times for student visas. The team expects a rise in student visa applications for 2024, having issued a record 130,000+ student visas in 2023. The most recent SEVIS data reveals that over 350,000 Indian students are presently enrolled in US institutions, positioning India as the leading source of international students comprising nearly 30% of the total international student body. In 2023, for the first time in the GREs 80-year existence, India superseded the USA in terms of GRE test-takers, though Indian students' persistent desire to study in the US remains robust. Growing Destinations for studying abroad Countries such as France, Germany, the European Union, and Ireland are becoming increasingly attractive to international students due to: Strong Public Higher Education Systems: The above-mentioned countries have sound systems of education. English-Taught Programs: English is now used in teaching programs more than ever in the past. Lower Cost of Living: On the issue of cost of living it is also considerably lower in these countries as compared to other conventional study destinations. (Author Vaibhav Gupta is CO-founder & CMO, iSchoolConnect. Views expressed here are personal.) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) National President and the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati on Friday welcomed the decision of the Delhi University Vice Chancellor to reject a proposal to include 'Manusmriti' in the syllabus of its Law Faculty stating that strong opposition was natural and the decision to cancel this proposal was a welcome step. BSP chief and former UP Chief Minister Mayawati has welcomed the decision of the Delhi University Vice Chancellor to reject a proposal to include 'Manusmriti' in the syllabus of its Law Faculty. (HT File Photo) "Strong opposition to the proposal to teach Manusmriti in the Law Department of Delhi University, which goes against the honour and dignity of the Indian Constitution and its egalitarian and welfare objectives, is natural and the decision to cancel this proposal is a welcome step," she said in a post on social media platform X. She further stated that the Manusmriti doesn't match the principles on which Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar composed the Indian Constitution and such attempts to include the Manusmriti in the curriculum were not appropriate. "His Holiness Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar composed the universally accepted Indian Constitution, especially keeping the self-respect of the neglected people and women as well as humanism and secularism at the core, which does not match with Manusmriti at all. Therefore, any such attempt is not appropriate at all," Mayawati further stated. Also read: No 'Manusmriti' for LLB students: DU VC issues clarification, says proposal rejected On Thursday, Delhi University Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Yogesh Singh, announced that the proposal to include the Sanskrit text 'Manusmriti' or Laws of Manu, which belongs to the Dharmastra literary tradition of Hinduism, in the LLB curriculum was rejected. Also read: Vocabulary Made Easy series: Word hard to taste success in competitive exams "Yesterday, some information came to us that Manusmriti will be part of the Law Faculty course (in DU). I inquired and talked to the Delhi University Vice Chancellor. He assured me that some law faculty members have proposed some changes in the jurisprudence chapter. But when the proposal came to the Delhi University administration, today there is an Academic Council meeting. There is no endorsement of any such proposal by the authentic body of the Academic Council. Yesterday itself, the Vice Chancellor rejected that proposal. We are all committed to our Constitution and to a futuristic approach. The government is committed to upholding the true spirit and letter of the Constitution. There is no question of including any controversial portion of any script," said Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Following reports that a proposal to teach 'Manusmriti' to Delhi University's LLB students is placed for approval, the varsity's Vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh on Thursday clarified that the suggestions have been rejected and the students will not be taught the manuscript. Delhi University Vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh on Thursday clarified that the suggestions on 'Manusmriti' have been rejected and the students will not be taught the manuscript. (File photo) "Today a proposal by the Faculty of Law was submitted to the Delhi University. In the proposal, they had suggested changes in the paper titled Jurisprudence. One of the changes was to include readings on Manusmriti. We have rejected both the suggested readings and the amendments proposed by the Faculty. Nothing of this sort will be taught to students," said Singh in a video message shared by the varsity. A proposal to teach 'Manusmriti' (Laws of Manu) to Delhi University's LLB students was slated to be discussed in a meeting of its Academic Council on Friday, a move which drew criticism from a section of teachers. The Faculty of Law had sought approval from the highest decision-making body of the Delhi University (DU) to revise the syllabus of its first and third-year students to teach them 'Manusmriti'. Also read: UPSC Civil Services Main Exam 2024: Last date to fill DAF I at upsc.gov.in, link here The changes in the syllabus of the jurisprudence paper pertained to semesters one and six of LLB. According to the revisions, two readings on Manusmriti -- Manusmriti with the Manubhasya of Medhatithi by G N Jha and Commentary of Manu Smriti - Smritichandrika by T Kristnasawmi Iyer -- were proposed to be introduced for the students. Also read: JNU to establish centres for Hindu, Buddhist, Jain studies, details inside The decision to suggest the revisions was unanimously approved in a June 24 meeting of the faculty's Course Committee headed by its dean Anju Vali Tikoo, according to the minutes of the meeting. Objecting to the move, the Left-backed Social Democratic Teachers Front (SDTF) had written to the vice-chancellor stating the manuscript propagates a "regressive" outlook towards the rights of women and the marginalised communities and it is against a "progressive education system". In a letter to Singh, SDTF general secretary S S Barwal and chairperson S K Sagar said recommending Manusmriti to the students as a suggested reading "is highly objectionable as this text is adverse to the progress and education of women and marginalised communities in India". Also read: WBJEEB JECA & JELET 2024 answer key to be released today at wbjeeb.nic.in, details inside "In Manusmriti, in several sections, it opposes women's education and equal rights. Introduction of any section or part of Manusmriti is against the basic structure of our Constitution and principles of the Indian Constitution," the letter read. The SDTF demanded that the proposal be immediately withdrawn and it should not be approved in the Academic Council's meeting scheduled to be held on July 12. It further requested the vice-chancellor to issue an order to the law faculty and the concerned staff members to continue teaching the paper jurisprudence based on the existing syllabus. The Office of the Coordinator, Rajasthan is expected to release soon the DElEd entrance examination (BSTC Pre DElEd entrance examination, 2024) results. Candidates who took the examination will be able to check the BSTC Rajasthan pre-DElEd result on the official website at predeledraj2024.in when released. To check the results, candidates will need to enter details such as application number and date of birth as login credentials....Read More Notably, the Rajasthan pre-DElEd exam answer key has already been published, and the window to file objections closed on July 7. The results will be prepared based on the final answer. The BSTC Pre DElEd entrance examination, 2024 was conducted on June 30. After the exam was over, the candidates were allowed to take the question paper and carbon copy of the OMR booklet along with them. Follow the live blog for the latest updates on BSTC Rajasthan pre-DElEd result 2024. What Sonakshi said During the interview when Sonakshi was asked if it can be challenging for actors if there is less work to do in mainstream films, she said, Toh acchha hai na (It is good then)! I would like to do big roles, important roles. It is a good thing. Akira (2016), where I was the hero, it was like tasting blood. I never want to go back to doing two songs and four scenes in a film. So, I am enjoying this phase. Bring it on! About Kakuda She went on to add, Kakuda came to me and I just found it to be such a fun read. I was very entertained while reading the script. Although I dont like horror films, there was so much humour in this film. Aditya (Sarpotdar) is someone who has understood this genre so well. I think his grasp on it is fantastic. He kind of knows where to scare people, where to make them laugh, the punches, the beats, he gets it bang on. It was a pleasure to work on a genre like this for the first time with a director like him who is so well versed with it. So, I had a blast. It was me stepping out of my comfort zone, trying out something I hadnt done before. Id love to do it again because it was so much fun. Kakuda is directed by Aditya Sarpotdar, who made Munjya. The horror comedy also stars Riteish Deshmukh and Saqib Saleem. It is Sonakshi's second release of the year after Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Netflix India series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. Zeenat Aman's new Instagram post is all about Daku Hasina, the 1987 release directed by Ashok Rao, also starring Rakesh Roshan, as well as Rajinikanth in a special cameo appearance. The veteran actor shared a few pictures from the shoot, and recalled how she became pregnant during the beginning and the crew had to come up with creative ideas to hide her baby bump. (Also read: Zeenat Aman recalls being intimidated in the presence of Rajesh Khanna, would mug up her lines: He was a phenomenon) Zeenat Aman shared the memories of shooting Daku Hasina. Zeenat on starring in Daku Hasina In one of the pictures, Zeenat was seen in a still of the film, where she played a female dacoit. She carried a big gun and looked directly at the camera. In the caption, she began by talking about the plot and wrote, Daku Hasina was your classic story of vengeance. Roopa, orphaned when her parents are killed by powerful village overlords, seeks the help of infamous dacoit Mangal Singh (The iconic Rajinikanth in one of his few Bollywood cameos) to extract revenge. Under his guidance, she transforms into the ruthless Daku Hasina, and so begins her reign of terror. The police scramble to apprehend her, but ah! There is a twist in the tale. What is the relationship between SP Ranjit Saxena (played by none other than @rakesh_roshan9 ) and the lady dacoit? I wasnt nervous about my own safety Then, Zeenat went on to add that she became pregnant when she was still shooting, and wrote, This was one of the last films I did before my extended hiatus. I became pregnant early on in the shoot, and by the end of filming was well into my third trimester! My svelte figure had naturally ballooned, so to hide my belly the crew came up with various creative shots. Some of these involved me riding a horse, which brought its own concerns. I had had a scare on horseback during a previous shoot, when the poor animal had bolted because of the artificial rain and blaring speakers on set. I wasnt nervous about my own safety, but the safety of the child in my womb was of utmost importance. Luckily, we were able to shoot these scenes without any incident. Zeenat also said how the film matched the growing sense of awareness and activism around the issues of feminism, which were rising at that time. She shared two more posters of the film, which had Rajinikanth on them. Zeenat will be seen next in Bun Tikki, which also stars Shabana Azmi and Abhay Deol. The film is directed by Faraz Arif Ansari. Marvel Studios' Captain America: Brave New World's teaser trailer has finally dropped, and it sees Anthony Mackie wielding the iconic shield as the new Captain America. The Red Hulk makes a thrilling appearance in the Captain America: Brave New World trailer - don't miss it!(Marvel) Directed by Julius Onah, Captain America: Brave New World boasts a screenplay penned by Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, and Matthew Orton. This marks the fourth instalment in the beloved franchise and the first since Chris Evans' Steve Rogers hung up his superhero suit in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Chris Evans' portrayal of Steve Rogers spanned three previous Captain America films and four Avengers movies. At the end of 2019's Avengers: Endgame, Steve Rogers chooses to return to the past to live out his days with his love, Peggy Carter. Before leaving, he entrusts his iconic vibranium shield to Sam, who vows to honour the legacy. In the new trailer, viewers see Sam interacting with Harrison Fords character, US President Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross. ALSO READ| Kim Kardashian in India for Ambani wedding: Old video of her calling Indian food disgusting surfaces Watch the Captain America: Brave New World trailer here: Ross proposes making Captain America a US agent. The trailer quickly escalates, showcasing Sam thwarting an assassination attempt at the White House. It concludes with a tantalizing glimpse of the Red Hulk, a gamma-irradiated monster who, in the Marvel comics, is the alter-ego of Thunderbolt Ross. Sam first donned the Captain America suit in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In this series, Sam teams up with Bucky Barnes, aka Winter Soldier, played by Sebastian Stan. Together, they face off against a group of super-soldier terrorists. The show secured five Emmy nominations. Captain America: Brave New World marks Mackie's return to the MCU. He is joined by several familiar faces, including Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, Shira Haas as the Israeli superhero Sabra, and Giancarlo Esposito in the role of a mysterious villain. ALSO READ| Hailey Bieber flaunts baby bump in style, swears by casual denim fashion in summer so far Harrison Ford steps into the role of Thunderbolt Ross, previously portrayed by the late William Hurt. The film will feature Liv Tyler reprising her role as Betty Ross and Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader from The Incredible Hulk. The film is slated for a theatrical release on February 12, 2025. Hailey Bieber is not one to compromise on her casual fashion days. The pregnant Rhode founder and model, who is expecting her first baby with husband Justin Bieber, seems to have sworn by denim overalls during her summer pregnancy. First-time mother-to-be Hailey Bieber previously shared another snap, wearing denim overalls, in May 2024. (Instagram/@haileybieber) The 27-year-old mom-to-be took to her Instagram feed on Thursday, July 11, to share her summer slideshow via a new carousel. The pictorial montage especially shared a glimpse of her growing bump, which the socialite bared in an unbuttoned pair of denim overalls. Hailey appeared to be striking a laid-back pose in the back of a car, sporting a white T-shirt and a snuggly red beanie. Her latest social media post, captioned summer so far, also got love from her longtime BFF Kylie Jenner, who quickly rushed to the comments section to gush about her bestie. r u kidding me !!!!!!!! Also read | Eminem brutally torches Diddy twice in new album: Hardest diss targets sexual assault allegations Check out Hailey Bieber's summer slideshow: Earlier this month, Hailey celebrated the Fourth of July by sharing a sun-kissed snap of herself outdoors, again showing off her baby bump on her Instagram Stories. The first picture of her brand-new carousel focusses on her growing bump. A beaming Hailey Bieber is seen pouting her lips, wearing an oversized navy blue Fila tee. The strawberry girl makeup creators summer-love post recalled a familiar throwback she posted on her Instagram Stories feed in June. Her dainty, freshly manicured look inspired by the farmers market presented a colourful vision backed by a clear base while featuring the main show - various vibrant fruits and vegetables. Another snap on the post shows her pet pooch, Oscar, behind the wheel. Elsewhere on the carousel post, she shared a Pinterest-esque sunset view of an aesthetic picnic setup. Also read | Alec Baldwin's family reality show move is a terrible PR blunder amid Rust shooting trial, industry expert says Filled with wholesome vibes, Haileys Instagram post ends with another beautiful selfie, but not before sharing a sneak peek of a new video featuring a duck family. The Baby hitmaker is heard pointing out a mother duck with her ducklings to his wife, Thats you, baby! She responds in laughter lovingly. The Rhode founder was already over six months pregnant when she and her pop star husband publicly announced they were preparing to welcome a new family member on May 9. The couple also revealed their vow renewal ceremony in Hawaii. Hailey seems to be enjoying some alone downtime while her husband became the life of the party at a pre-wedding ceremony for Indian billionaire business leader Anant Ambani and his fiancee Radhika Merchant in Mumbai, India, on July 5. Weeks after Stray Kids teased that they were cooking something special with besties Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman amid their Deadpool & Wolverine South Korea tour, the K-pop group's epic collab with the former has officially been revealed. Ryan Reynolds makes a surprise appearance as TV news anchor in Stray Kids' latest music video teaser. On Saturday, June 13 (KST), the eight-piece K-pop band dropped their first music video for their upcoming comeback, Chk Chk Boom! The highly anticipated video for the lead single for their forthcoming mini-album, ATE! will arrive on Friday, July 19, at 1 p.m. KST. Beckoning the arrival of the octet's new comeback next week, the Chk Chk Boom MV teaser again captures them in their usual hard-hitting signature style. All members of the group - Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N - are seen donning charismatic personas for their cinematic video, boasting the commonly featured high-production design value. However, this time, Stray Kids are not alone. Also read | BTS Jungkook's coming soon to cinemas update leaves ARMYs dumbfounded: Explain yourself Their dear friend, Ryan Reynolds, comes along for a surprise appearance as a TV news anchor in his blink-and-you-miss-it cameo for the video's opening. Another easter egg, you ask? Seungmin appears to be holding a weapon that shares a striking resemblance with the Time Variance Authority's pruning baton, as seen in both seasons of Marvel's Loki TV series. Catch a glimpse of Ryan Reynolds in Stray Kids' new music video teaser Bang Chan and Felix, the group's Australian members, introduced Reynolds and Jackman as Stray Kids' besties following their broadcast together. We're so excited to show you all the awesome things we have in store! Stay tuned, the duo fired up alarming anticipation. The fandom was lost to an exhilarating frenzy as netizens dove into deep speculations about what was coming ahead. Eventually, the Deadpool star also shared a short video, calling Bang Chan and Felix two of his favourite Australians. His social media posts hilariously poked fun at his longtime friend and co-star Hugh Jackman, as he wrote: I successfully negotiated a trade. Wolverine will be the newest and only member of Stray Kids. And the entire band will join the MCU. We wish Hugh Jackman all the best on his K-pop journey. Also read | Eminem brutally torches Diddy twice in new album: Hardest diss targets sexual assault allegations But guess what? It turns out Ryan had already dropped the bombshell on us, and we never noticed. As they say in Seoul: Chk Chk Boom!," he captioned his initial video post on July 5. The beloved Hollywood duo landed in South Korea on July 3 for Deadpool & Wolverine promotions. As part of one of their first buzzworthy events, Reynolds, Jackman and the movie's director Shawn Levy came out for an interview in the traditional Korean attire hanbok. The interviewer instantly divulged the praiseworthy fact that their outfits were actually designed by the same artist who curated BLACKPINK's Coachella outfits. Just hearing them say that, the Deadpool actor exclaimed, Love BLACKPINK and Stray Kids, we love Stray Kids." Reynolds first met the Stray Kids leader, Bang Chang, via video call in 2021 for a Free Guy interview. The Marvel actor has expressed his love for the group on several occasions, so it was about time that he and the K-pop idol finally met. Fans were in utter disbelief when Marvel Korea's official social media page shared a glimpse of the new Deadpool movie's stars with Bang Chan and Felix. Theories instantly took flight as fans mulled over the possibility of a Stray Kids OST for the forthcoming July 26 premiere. Others also speculated if the group members would strike a starry cameo in the upcoming movie. However, now it appears to be the opposite case. It remains to be seen if fellow Australian actor Hugh Jackman will feature in the video alongside Reynolds. As far as the first Chk Chk Boom preview goes, Ryan seems to be going it alone for this K-pop side quest. Possibility of Stray Kids' Marvel connection? Call it destiny or a pre-meditated game plan, Ryan's repeated interactions with Stray Kids over the years now seem to be a part of something bigger. While it could just be a heartfelt reflection of the actor's admiration for the group, one can't ignore the years-old Marvel-Stray Kids easter eggs now. Back in November 2022, the Miss Minutes X/Twitter page welcomed Deadpool to the ever-expanding universe of the MCU, but on Disney's side this time. The cryptic tweet read, Hey there @Deadpool, it said, Love, Miss Minutes." Reynolds subsequently responded, Hello, Miss Minutes. Following this initial interaction with the actor who's endlessly professed his love for the K-pop group, the same page name-dropped Stray Kids: Looking for song recommendations for the TVA, anyone know any good songs by Stray Kids? These networking transactions again push one to question if Stray Kids' potential appearance (in whatever shape) in the Marvel universe is still up for debate. It might as well be another bombastic card reveal up the stars' sleeves, especially since Ryan Reynolds already pointed out thatthe entire band will join the MCU, even if so jokingly. After all, he did spoil his own Chk Chk Boom cameo, so what's stopping another one of his unpredictable spoilers hiding in plain sight from coming true? Colourful bright packages of smokeless tobacco are prominently displayed in shops and on the street in kiosks across India. Cigarettes in attractive packaging are sold almost everywhere including by retailers near schools. Tobacco companies take branding very seriously and have developed product logos and use attractive colours to make their products appealing. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls tobacco packaging a mobile billboard that promotes the consumption of these products. Tobacco litter (Representative file image) Tobacco products are addictive substances that cause the death of millions of Indians each year. After these tobacco products are consumed, their packaging often turns into litter, and this discarded packaging can be seen on footpaths and streets. Our study, conducted by the Institute of Global Tobacco Control, established that tobacco litter is ubiquitous in urban environments and that this litter may serve as a form of post-consumption marketing - advertising that continues after a product is used. The study identified and then classified 17,261 pieces of tobacco product litter found in nine Indian cities (Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai and Patna). In each city, we conducted observations along 15 different routes, each approximately 250 metres in distance, for a total of 135 observational routes. Data collectors classified each piece of tobacco litter (product/packaging) and recorded if the litter had visible branding, such as brand names and/or logos. We found each type of tobacco product litter on each of the 135 routes, highlighting how relevant this type of litter is to environmental pollution across the country. Smokeless tobacco packaging comprised the largest proportion of our sample of tobacco litter (62%), followed by cigarette butts (26%), bidi butts (8%), cigarette packaging (3%) and bidi packaging (1%). Across the sample, 81% of the litter had branding. A brand was visible on most packaging for cigarettes (98%), bidis (97%) and smokeless tobacco (86%), and present on 82% of cigarette butts and 26% of bidi butts. Eliminating littering is clearly an important environmental priority. The ultimate goal should be to eliminate litter entirely. As we work on broad efforts to address this type of pollution, there are things that can be done to make tobacco product litter less effective at advertising these products. Governments can require tobacco manufacturers to remove their colourful branding by implementing plain packaging. This is not a new idea. Australia first implemented this policy in 2012 followed by many other countries including Canada, New Zealand and Singapore. The WHO recommends that plain packaging be used as part of a comprehensive approach to reduce tobacco use. India is a party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which recommends that countries consider adopting plain packaging, including requiring manufacturers use a standard font size, style, and location for the brand name and that packaging be the same colour for the brand portion of each package. Research shows that plain packaging eliminates the effect of tobacco packaging as a form of advertising and reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products. It is likely that plain and standardised packaging will have a greater impact on younger people. Studies that have measured the impacts of plain packaging show these measures also increase the noticeability and effectiveness of health warning labels. India has served as a world leader in health warnings on cigarette packaging and can continue to lead the region by adopting policies that limit the industrys ability to advertise their product through littered packaging. The tobacco industry also uses the cigarette as a valuable marketing tool, printing brand logos or names on the filters. Filters, made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, are present in most cigarettes and some bidis. These littered filters can reside in the environment in perpetuity. We know that these filters have a significant impact on the environment because the toxins present in the filters can end up in surface waters like lakes and rivers. These do not filter all the dangerous constituents in tobacco smoke, making their presence doubly harmful. India has made strides to reduce single use plastic products, and filters represent another opportunity to fight plastic pollution. Regulations could require the removal of filters from tobacco products. This would make the products less appealing, particularly at a time when some cigarettes include flavoured capsules in filters to appeal to young adults and adolescents. India has been at the forefront of so many innovations in tobacco innovations in tobacco control and it's time to consider further policies that will make these products less attractive. This article is authored by Ryan David Kennedy, associate professor, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, US and Nirmalya Mukherjee, director, Centre For Public Health Research, Manbhum Ananda Ashram Nityananda Trust, Kolkata. Over the past two decades, Thailand's political landscape has been characterised by significant turmoil and instability, marked by frequent changes in leadership, military coups, and contentious legal battles involving prominent political figures. This period has witnessed a series of power struggles between various factions, with the military and judiciary playing pivotal roles in shaping the country's governance. From the ousting of elected governments to the imposition of military rule, Thailand's political scene has been a battleground for competing ideologies and interests, leading to widespread protests and social divisions. The interplay of political power, legal controversies, and public dissent has created a complex and often volatile environment, reflecting the deep-rooted challenges in establishing a stable and democratic political order in the country. Thaksin Shinawatra, former prime minister of Thailand. HT Photo/Ajay Aggarwal This period of upheaval began with the rise of former prime minister (PM) Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon who came to power in 2001. Thaksin's tenure abruptly ended in 2006 when he was ousted in a military coup. Despite his exile, Thaksin's influence persisted through his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who became prime minister in 2011. However, her administration faced a similar fate when she was removed from office by another military coup in 2014. Both Thaksin and Yingluck have faced numerous legal challenges, often perceived as politically motivated, including charges of corruption and abuse of power. The legal pressures on Thaksin escalated further when he was formally charged with royal defamation under Thailands strict lese-majeste laws. These charges stem from a 2015 interview in South Korea, during which Thaksin alleged that king-appointed privy councillors supported the 2014 coup that ousted Yingluck from power. This accusation could result in a prison sentence of up to 15 years, adding to the complex and often volatile environment that has marked Thailand's recent political history. Thaksin's legal troubles are part of a broader wave of political and judicial actions in Thailand. He returned to the country last year after spending 15 years in self-imposed exile, primarily in Dubai. Upon his return, he was jailed on separate corruption and abuse of power charges, although he was released on parole in February 2024 due to medical reasons. The lese-majeste laws in Thailand are among the strictest in the world, criminalising perceived insults or defamation of the monarchy with severe penalties, including long prison sentences. These laws are rigorously enforced, often leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals who are perceived to have made statements or engaged in activities that could be construed as disrespectful to the royal family. The penalties can be harsh, with offenders facing up to 15 years in prison for each count of defamation, which serves as a powerful deterrent against criticism of the monarchy. In addition to these charges, Thaksin Shinawatra also faces accusations under the Computer Crimes Act. This law, which is similarly stringent, criminalises the inputting, alteration, or dissemination of data that could be deemed a threat to national security or public order. The charges against Thaksin under this act stem from allegations that he inputted information into a computer system that was considered dangerous to the state. This law has been criticised for its broad scope and potential for misuse, as it allows the government to target political opponents and suppress dissent by framing their online activities as threats to national security. The combined impact of these laws highlights the significant legal and political challenges faced by those who oppose or criticise the Thai government and monarchy. This development occurs amid several other high-profile political cases in Thailand, including potential legal challenges to PM Srettha Thavisin and efforts to disband the opposition Move Forward Party, which has advocated for changes to the lese-majeste law. The political climate has had significant repercussions on the country's economy, with the stock market experiencing notable declines. Despite these challenges, Thaksin remains a significant figure in Thai politics, with his party, Pheu Thai, continuing to play a crucial role in the country's political dynamics. The indictment of Thaksin Shinawatra on royal defamation charges highlights the persistent volatility and complexity of Thai politics. The intertwining of legal and political battles underscores the deep-rooted issues within the country's governance structure. As Thailand navigates these challenges, the impact on its political stability and economic health remains a significant concern for both domestic and international observers. This article is authored by Ananya Raj Kakoti and Gunwant Singh, scholars, international relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani are going all out as doting parents for son Anant Ambanis wedding to Radhika Merchant. They hosted a pre-wedding bash in Jamnagar, Gujarat earlier this year followed by a European cruise for their family and celebrity friends. Ahead of the big day, they were joined by several stars for other pre-wedding celebrations such as haldi, mameru ceremony, a garba night, sangeet and mehendi. This wedding is definitely the event of the year. But despite being one of the richest families in the country, the Ambanis have their relatable moments. See for yourself: Ambanis at their relatable best Anant and Radhikas wedding menu Every Indian shaadi has a designated chaat counter, and why should the Ambani wedding be any different? Well, the famous Kaashi Chaat Bhandaar of Varanasi is catering at Anant and Radhikas wedding today. They will be serving tasty treats including palak patta chaat, aloo tikki, chana kachori and kulfi to the guests. Are you drooling yet? Nita enjoying chaat and shopping for sarees A few weeks before the wedding, Anants mother Nita travelled to Varanasi to pray for the bride and groom. During her trip, she also shopped for sarees at a showroom and enjoyed chaat at a local restaurant. This is the same chaat bhandaar that she selected to cater at Anant and Radhikas wedding today. Her incredibly relatable videos soon went viral on social media winning hearts Mukesh and his Aadhaar card During Lok Sabha Elections 2024, a video of Mukesh arriving at a poll booth went viral on the internet. In his hand, the countrys richest man was carrying his Aadhaar card, safely kept in a transparent pouch. Many social media users lauded the billionaires simplicity and down-to-earth attitude Mukesh and Nita Ambani at a poll booth Mithaai aur namkeen ka dabba Employees working at Reliance got a gift box from the Ambani family to celebrate Anant and Radhikas big day. Several pictures of the red and gold gift box surfaced on social media. Inside were four packets of Haldirams namkeen including aloo bhujia and lite chiwda along with a silver coin and a box of sweets Billionaire sipping on 31 ORS tetra pack Back in June, Mukesh attended Prime Minister Narendra Modis oath-swearing ceremony. He was seated next to his good friend and Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. Well, pictures of the two sipping tetra packs of ORS aka oral rehydration solutions worth 31 went viral on social media. Mukesh and SRK not only reminded fans to stay hydrated but also left them gushing over their simplicity. This was definitely the most relatable Ambani moment, especially during the heat wave While not all of us are invited to Anant and Radhikas wedding, at least we can relate to the richest man of India. Radhika Merchant and Anant Ambani's pre-wedding festivities, culminating in their wedding today, July 12, has seen the who's who of every major industry mark their presence at one event or the other. Be it business, showbiz or politics, the Ambanis have played gracious hosts to a series of keynote personalities the world over. Adding their name to the celebrations now, are American reality television stars and entrepreneurs, Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian. As if the duo's Mumbai arrival at the Kalina Airport was not enough to send the already buzzing city into a tizzy, Kim and Khloe have now taken to the streets of Mumbai to explore its vibrant culture. Their choice of vehicle? An auto. Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian tour Mumbai streets in an auto(Instagram) Kim and Khloe take the Mumbai streets in an auto Clearly committed to extracting an authentic experience when it comes to their seemingly brief Mumbai stay, Kim and Khloe wasted no time in kickstarting their day. Shortly after being welcomed with a shower of flowers at the city's cornerstone Taj Mahal Hotel, the duo switched into comfortable yet chic outfits before jumping into an auto, heading out to explore the city. Clearly a first for them, Kim and Khloe looked rather excited to kickstart their Mumbai exploration before they make it to Anant and Radhika's wedding later in the day. The Kardashian sisters received a grand welcome in Mumbai Never mind the hoards of paparazzi awaiting their arrival at Mumbai's Kalina airport, Kim and Khloe were greeted by a procession of the staff once they arrived at Taj Mahal Hotel. They were adorned with tikas, handed bouquets, greeted with Namastes and led to their rooms. What designers Kim and Khloe opt to wear for the big evening now remains to be seen. Circling back to the bride and groom, Anant and Radhika's three-part pre-wedding festivities kicked off with a gala in Jamnagar spanning three days back in March. The end of May saw the billionaire family host an elaborate Mediterranean cruise in honour of the bridegroom-to-be. Finally, the week running up to their wedding saw the Ambanis host several star-studded events such as Radhika's Mameru, the couple's sangeet, haldi, graha shanti puja and garba night. Anant and Radhika will be tying the knot today, July 12. Are you excited to see what Kim and Khloe wear to the Ambani wedding? Is there possibly anything more gratifying than diving into a tray of crisp French fries? Be it plain salted, peri peri tossed, cheese coated, meat loaded or garlic spiced there is hardly anyone out there who hasn't zeroed in on their perfect fry order. Though the origin story of French fries is actually rather contested, with some attributing it to France and others attributing it to Belgium, these delicious bites of carbs have easily nestled their way into the hearts and palettes of people the world over. This French Fry Day, celebrate one of the world's most beloved appetisers with fry-shaped snacks that pair great with it. Chicken tenders to mozzarella sticks: The best fry-shaped nibbles to munch on(Well Plated by Erin, Freepik) French fries(Taste) Chicken tenders Juicy chicken tenders are the perfect accompaniment to a plate of crispy fries making for one of the most popular combination of orders at fast food restaurants. With there being dime a dozen recipes on the internet helping you replicate the flavour of your favourite fast food chain, we instead recommend going back to basics with this recipe from Once Upon a Chef which balances out the spice with buttermilk, giving your chicken tenders the juiciest kick. Chicken tenders(Freepik) Ingredients: chicken tenderloins - 1 kg; for the marinade buttermilk - 1 cup, salt - 1 1/2 tsps, cayenne pepper - 1/4 tsp, garlic powder - 1/4 tsp, paprika - 1/4 tsp; for the breading all purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups, baking powder - 1 1/2 tsps, salt - 1 tsp, black pepper - 3/4 tsp, garlic powder - 3/4 tsp, paprika - 3/4 tsp, buttermilk - 3 tbsps; cooking oil for frying - 3 to 4 cups Method: Mix all the marinade ingredients and let the chicken tenderloins marinate in it between 4 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. When ready, mix all the breading ingredients together and whisk in the buttermilk. Coat the chicken tenders and fry on medium high heat for a few minutes per side, till golden brown. Mozzarella sticks The easiest way to go about this is just grabbing a bag of frozen mozzarella sticks from the nearest supermarket and flash frying them before diving right in. If you're feeling experimental in the kitchen, try your hand at this Sugar Spun Run recipe instead. Mozzarella sticks(Recipe This) Ingredients: panko breadcrumbs/breadcrumbs - 1 1/2 cups, mixed herbs - 1 tsp, garlic powder - 1/4 tsp, black pepper - 1/2 tsp, salt - 1/4 tsp, eggs - 2, all purpose flour - 2 cups, a whole milk mozzarella block, oil for frying Method: Crush your panko breadcrumbs by putting them in a Ziploc bag and flattening them with a rolling pin. Crack the eggs and keep aside. Mix the remaining dry ingredients together except the flour. Chop your mozzarella block into at least 15 lengthy pieces or so. Dredge these in flour, dip in egg and coat with breadcrumbs. Fry these sticks on medium heat two at a time, for a minute per batch. Ensure the sticks are firm and remain in the refrigerator till you put them in for frying. This will maintain the structure of the sticks. Mozzarella sticks are best had with some marinara sauce though any condiment will taste as good. Jalapeno poppers Jalapeno poppers are the next best thing on cafe menus after loaded fries or nachos. The musky yet tangy after-taste with each bite, coupled with your favourite assortment of stuffings, makes this elite appetiser absolutely unputdownable. Take a look at this recipe from Love and Lemons. Jalapeno poppers(The Pioneer Woman) Ingredients: jalapenos - 12, Greek yoghurt or hung curd - 1 cup, grated cheese - 1/4 cup, chopped spring onions - 3 tbsps, grated garlic cloves - 2, onion powder - 1/2 tsp, smoked paprika - a pinch, panko breadcrumbs/breadcrumbs - 6 tbsps, extra virgin olive oil for drizzling, salt to taste Method: Preheat the oven to 204C and line your baking tray with parchment paper. Slice your jalapenos in half and removed seeds. Mix the remaining ingredients except the olive oil and stuff into the jalapeno halves. Drizzle with olive oil and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Tip: If you want a salty, meaty kick, simply wrap some bacon around each popper and fix in place with toothpicks. Discard toothpicks before eating. Fish fingers You can head to the freezer section of the nearest grocery store for fish fingers and you will not be disappointed. That being said, fresh fish hits different. Always. Let this Whisk Affair recipe prove us right. Fish fingers(Tesco Real Food) Ingredients: boneless fish fillets - 500 gms, for the marinade freshly squeezed lemon juice - 2 tbsps, turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp, red chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp, pepper - 1/2 tsp, ginger-garlic paste - 1 tsp, salt to taste; for the batter all purpose flour - 2 tbsps, rice flour - 1 tsp, cornstarch - 2 tsps, eggs - 2, baking soda - 1/4 tsp; panko breadcrumbs/breadcrumbs - 1 cup, oil for frying Method: Wash and dry your fish fillets and cut them into 1/2 inch-wide and 2 inch-long strips. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and massage into the fillets. Keep aside for at least 10 minutes. Mix all the batter ingredients together and add the fish to this. Coat in breadcrumbs and drop into oil on medium high heat. Vegetable sticks Before you scoff at this list concluding with this humble option, hold up. Have you ever had a fresh emphasis on fresh bite of a cold crunchy carrot stick lathered in hummus, or pesto, or tartar sauce, or mayonnaise, or literally any dip that suits your fancy? If you don't like vegetable sticks you simply have a phobia of healthy greens, or, aren't buying your veggies fresh. If you are yet to be converted, we suggest you try a baby carrot slathered with your favourite dip. An absolute game changer! Vegetable sticks with hummus(Freepik) What do you usually pair your fries with? Agartala: Ten Bangladeshi nationals, including four women and a child, were arrested from different parts of Tripura in the last 24 hours for illegally entering the country, according to officials. Of the total, seven were held from Agartala railway station in West Tripura district and three from South Tripura district, said police. (Representative Photo) Police said they have identified seven of the arrested individuals as Ibrahim Hossain (24), a resident of Kalaroa in Bangladesh, Safikul Islam (32), Musamed Salina Begum (22), along with her son Samim Reze (7) and Mohammad Shimul Hossain (28), residents of Satkhira, Nur Nahar Juma (23), a resident of Pabna district, Taslima Kanum (24), a resident of Narail and Meenu Khatun (19) of the Khulna district in Bangladesh. Police said they entered the state without legal documents with the intention to move to other states. A complaint was lodged at the Government Railway Police Station (GRP) and the arrested persons were forwarded to the court on Friday, said a police officer. In a separate case, three Bangladeshi nationals were apprehended from Sarom railway station in a joint operation of the Border Security Force (BSF) and Sabroom police. In the preliminary interrogation, they nationals revealed the name of an Indian tout, identified as Thakai Mog (26), involved with human trafficking in the area. Later, Mog was apprehended from Doulbari village in Sabroom on Thursday, said police. Tripura shares a total 856 km long international border with Bangladesh, parts of some patches are yet to be fenced. Imphal: The Manipur government on early Friday released 42 prisoners belonging to the Kuki community from Central Jail, Sajiwa, officials aware of the matter said. Earlier in May 15 Kuki prisoners were released from the Manipur Central Jail (Representative Photo) Police said all the prisoners were arrested under various cases, mostly under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, including one under the POCSO Act. Some of the prisoners were also involved in extortion, blackmailing, and attempted murder. Officials said that the state government released the 42 prisoners as they had completed their jail terms. On the release paper signed by the jailor of the Foreigners Detention Centre, it was mentioned in the remarks that no family member turned up to receive the undertrial prisoners (UTP) due to the prevailing law and order situation in the state. Most of the UTPs were arrested during 2022 and 2023, and among the 42 UTPs, 34 were related to drug cases. The prisoners were released with the help of the Indian Army due to the prevailing situation in the state, said another official. Later, the UTPs were handed over to Kangpokpi police station for further transit. Earlier, on May 12, 15 prisoners, all from the Kuki community, were released from the Manipur Central Jail. They were arrested in 2022 for cases related to drugs, extortion, blackmailing, attempted murder, and other charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. On July 3, the Supreme Court asked chief minister N Biren Singh-led government to make immediate arrangements for the prisoners staying in the central jail to be taken to Gauhati Medical College in Assam for their health examinations. The court has ordered all expenses to be borne by the state government and set a deadline of July 15 for concerned officials to place the relevant details on record. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday hailed the Supreme Court order granting interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, calling it the victory of truth even as he will remain in jail in the separate Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case in the excise policy matter. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. (REUTERS) AAP general secretary Sandeep Pathak called the order historic and said the Supreme Court has demolished the so-called liquor scam by granting the bail. Now the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] should close the case and not waste the time of the people. The BJP puts Opposition leaders in jail when it fails to defeat them in the elections. Delhi minister Atishi said the judgement makes it clear that the investigation into the fake excise scam is just a conspiracy of the BJP. She maintained Kejriwal was arrested without evidence. When the Rouse Avenue [trial] court gave bail to Arvind Kejriwal, it made it clear that the ED does not have any evidence against Kejriwal and that the ED is working with a bias against him. The Supreme Court has put its stamp on the Rouse Avenue court verdict. Atishi said the BJP arrested Kejriwal through the CBI so that he can be kept in jail. The interim bail makes it clear that Kejriwal is standing with truth and will continue to do so. AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi, for how long will you keep the truth imprisoned by filing false cases? The whole country is watching your dictatorship. Be it...the Supreme Court, everyone believes that Kejriwal has been falsely implicated by ED. The decision of the Supreme Court is the victory of truth. Down with dictatorship, Sanjay Singh said in a post on X. ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21 in its money laundering case related to alleged irregularities in the implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22. The Supreme Court granted interim bail to him on May 10 for campaigning in the Lok Sabha elections. The trial court granted Kejriwal bail on June 20 before the high court stayed it. The CBI arrested Kejriwal on June 26 at the Rouse Avenue Court complex. Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said that the interim bail does not mean that Kejriwal has been absolved of corruption. . The matter is still under the consideration of the court, said Sachdeva. BJP lawmaker Vijender Gupta said AAP is celebrating as if Kejriwal has been absolved. Even in [murder cases], the accused get bail. The Goa Police have arrested actor and activist Gaurav Bakshi a day after an alleged confrontation with the chauffeur of Goa fisheries minister Nilkanth Halarnkar over parking in a narrow lane in north Goa. Actor Gaurav Bakshi was arrested by Goa police. (PTI) The row broke out after Bakshi, around 4pm on Wednesday, allegedly wrongfully restrained the minister by parking his vehicle in front of the government vehicle Despite repeated requests, he refused to move his vehicle, thereby restraining the complainant and ministers movement and deterred the complainant from performing his lawful duties, said North Goa Superintendent of Police Akshat Kaushal. Rahul Parab, the ministers personal security officer, filed a police complaint on Wednesday evening. The incident took place at Revora in North Goa, within the boundaries of the Tivim constituency, which Halarnkar represents, outside the Panchayat office that the minister was visiting for work. Bakshi has been booked under sections 126 (2), 221 and 132 of the BNS and is in police custody. Halarnkar, who spoke to the media, said he wasnt involved in the confrontation and didnt engage with Bakshi. Bakshi was arguing with my driver and my PSO (personal security officer. My PSO told him to move his vehicle, but he refused and instead started arguing with him, he started filming the incident. My PSO later filed a complaint and the police have registered a case, Halarnkar said. A video of the incident reveals that the Ministers car was already parked on the narrow road when Bakshi arrived at the scene and asked him to move. However, according to Bakshis telling of the event, he had arrived at the panchayat office to submit an application for a construction licence but saw a vehicle parked right on the narrow road outside the panchayat and asked the driver to move, which he refused, leading to the altercation. The elder brother of Khadoor Sahib MP and jailed pro-Khalistani leader Amritpal Singh was apprehended on Thursday evening with 5 grams of ICE (Methamphetamine) drug in Phillaur. The Jalandhar Rural Police arrested Harpreet Singh along with another individual, identified as Lovepreet Singh alias Luv, while they were en route to Ludhiana. Radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh has been detained under the National Security Act (NSA) at Dibrugarh jail in Assam along with nine of his accomplices since April last year. (HT file photo) Harpreet Singh is aged between 30-35 and was into some dispatching work in transport, reported PTI quoting an official. Police said that further investigations are on in the matter. Reacting to the arrest, Amritpal Singhs father Tarsem Singh said, This is a conspiracy against our family, aides and supporters of Amritpal Singh. We have already apprehended that the government could hatch this conspiracy to defame us. Governments are doing this to hide their failures. This is aimed at derailing the mission of Amritpal Singh of saving the youth and creating hurdle in the release of the Bandi Singhs. Today, a march was scheduled at Baghapurana in Moga district to seek release of the Bandi Singhs. Harpreet Singh was to take part in the march. However, the government does not like these activities. So, the conspiracy has been hatched, he said. He added, This is not a new thing. The governments have already indulged in registering such false cases. They have already killed Sikhs in fake encounters. Amritpal Singh is currently lodged in a prison in Assam's Dibrugarh district for offences under the National Security Act. He was flown to New Delhi last Friday by special aircraft for his swearing-in as a Lok Sabha member. Amritpal Singh fought the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as an independent from the Khadoor Sahib seat and defeated Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira by nearly two lakh votes. The pro-Khalistani leader heads the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit and has styled himself after slain Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The Khalistani sympathiser was allowed to meet his family in Delhi during his temporary release for taking oath as MP. Read: Amritpal Singh's sharp reaction after mother says he is not Khalistani supporter Amritpal Singh's mother, Balwinder Kaur, said her son is not a Khalistani supporter and demanded that he be released immediately so that he can work on the issues on which he fought the elections. Speaking to reporters in Amritsar, Kaur thanked god and said the 'Sangat' (community) is happy and celebrating after he has administered the oath. "We demand that he be released immediately so that he can thank supporters and work on the issues on the basis of which elections were won," said Kaur at her residence. She said her son's supporters kept asking when he would come out of the jail. "We urge the government that he should be released immediately," she said. Amritpal Singh was arrested in Moga's Rode village after he and his supporters on February 23 last year barged into the Ajnala police station breaking barricades, brandishing swords and guns, and clashed with police personnel in an attempt to free one of his aides from custody. With Bureau inputs Arvind Kejriwal news highlights: In a major development, the Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Arvind Kejriwal in the matter related to his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the agency's money laundering probe in the larger Delhi liquor policy case. The three-judge bench also referred Kejriwal's plea against his arrest to a larger bench....Read More However, the Delhi chief minister will remain jailed due to his judicial custody in a separate case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the same matter. Earlier, the apex court reserved its verdict on the plea by Kejriwal, who is represented by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, on May 17. The Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) national convenor was arrested by the ED on March 21, having skipped all nine summons sent by the federal agency. In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Kejriwal argued that the his arrest after the announcement (March 18) of the General Elections was "motivated by extraneous considerations". The Delhi chief minister approached the apex court against the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court that upheld his arrest in the case. The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in the money laundering probe by the Enforcement Directorate. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. (PTI) A bench of Justices Sanjv Khanna and Dipankar Datta referred Kejriwal's petition challenging his arrest by the ED to a larger bench, noting that the legal scope of reading need and necessity to arrest and the doctrine of proportionality in ED cases where investigating officers have been given much discretion to make arrests should be determined by a larger bench. The top court framed three questions related to power and policy of arrest by the ED, and said Kejriwal will be released on interim bail in terms of the conditions in the order of May 10. The AAP leader, however, will remain incarcerated since he is presently in custody due to a separate case being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the excise policy matter. The court also said it can't direct the Delhi chief minister to step down because of his arrest, adding that it is for Arvind Kejriwal to take a call. Satyameva Jayate, Aam Aadmi Party posted from its official X handle after the court's order. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who is out on bail in the same case, claimed that everyone including the trial court and Supreme Court believes that Arvind Kejriwal has been falsely implicated by ED. Modiji, for how long will you keep the truth imprisoned by filing false cases? The whole country is watching your dictatorship, he posted on X in Hindi. The decision of the Supreme Court is the victory of truth. Down with dictatorship. Kejriwal was arrested in March by the financial crime-fighting agency over alleged corruption in the now-scrapped liquor sales policy. A trial court granted bail to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo on June 20 but the Delhi high court later stayed the order. Earlier today, Delhi minister and AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj stressed that the Supreme Court's verdict will prove to be a very big milestone for the misuse of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) if Arvind Kejriwal's arrest is declared illegal. Many people are waiting for this judgment and we hope that this judgment will strengthen the constitution of our country, he said. The Supreme Court, while granting interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy case, observed that mere interrogation isn't a ground for arrest. Arvind Kejriwal was taken to court by CBI officials in New Delhi on June 29. (PTI) Arvind Kejriwal got relief in the Enforcement Directorate's money laundering case linked to the Delhi excise policy scam. However, he will remain in jail because he was arrested by the CBI last month. "We have also held that mere interrogation does not allow you to arrest. That is not a ground under Section 19," Justice Sanjiv Khanna, reported TOI. The court said it was Kejriwal's call to decide if he wanted to continue as the chief minister of Delhi. The bench said that the court was "doubtful whether a court can direct an elected leader to step down". Also read: Delhi court extends Arvind Kejriwals judicial custody till July 25 in case registered by CBI The bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said the court is conscious of the fact that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader. It added that Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days. It also referred the questions about the legality of his arrest in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case to a larger bench. The court said since the matter is concerned with the right to life and the issue of arrest has been referred to a larger bench, Kejriwal be released on interim bail. Also read: Arvind Kejriwal granted interim bail in ED probe, to remain in jail in CBI case It said Kejriwal will be released on interim bail in terms of the conditions in the order of May 10. The Supreme Court in its previous bail order had asked Arvind Kejriwal to not visit his office or the Delhi Secretariat. It had also asked him to steer clear of administrative work and not sign any files before obtaining the Lieutenant Governor's sanction. Last month, Arvind Kejriwal was granted bail by a trial court in the ED's case. However, the agency moved the Delhi high court, which later paused the court's order. The high court later stayed Kejriwal's bail. He was later arrested by the CBI. The agencies have accused Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders of accepting kickbacks amounting to 100 crore to provide undue benefits to a group of businessmen in the Delhi excise policy. With inputs from PTI, ANI BJP MP and Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut on Thursday told reporters that she would only meet her constituents from Mandi if they showed her their Aadhaar cards. The Bollywood actress and BJP MP from Mandi sparked controversy after she asked her constituents to bring their Aadhar card if they wanted to meet her (ANI Photo)(Jai Kumar ) Also Read: Emraan Hashmi roasts Kangana Ranaut for calling award shows useless: Kyunki milna band ho gaya? While launching her Jan Samvad Kendra, the Mandi MP said that she needed people to show her their Aadhar cards as Himachal Pradesh had a lot of tourists and she wanted to confirm who was a resident of the area before she offered help, reported The Times of India. Also Read: Kangana Ranaut's brother gets hitched: Check out glimpses of the grand Himachali affair Ranaut said the move would reduce inconvenience for the local people. She added that people should also write down the purpose of their visit on paper beforehand. Also Read: Kangana slapgate: Mohali cops get video evidence Ranaut told reporters that as a Lok Sabha MP, it was her job to address national-level issues and not just local assembly or panchayat matters. She asked her constituents to bring matters to her attention that fall within the scope of her role, so she can address broader issues as well. Ranaut's remarks drew criticism from Congress leader Vikramaditya Singh, who contested against her for the Mandi seat. Singh said, We are people's representatives. So, it is our responsibility to meet people from every section of the state. He added that if people wanted to meet him to talk about their problems, they don't need to bring their Aadhar card. The newly-elected MP was slapped last month at the Chandigarh airport by a CISF personnel, who took issue with Ranaut's remarks about women protesting in solidarity with farmers in 2020. Ranaut will also be returning to her career as an actor, with her upcoming film Emergency, an Indira Gandhi biopic. With the "billionaire tax" issue being discussed by G20 countries, the Congress has questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's position on the matter and India's stance at the upcoming G20 meet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman address a meeting with economists ahead of the Union budget which will be presented on July 23, in New Delhi on Thursday. (ANI)(HT_PRINT) Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said that there is a global consensus that billionaires should pay their fair share of taxes. ALSO READ- Sam Pitroda's inheritance tax remarks spark huge row, Congress responds; BJP hits back "As proposed by Brazil -- which now holds the annual rotational G20 Presidency -- and endorsed by France, Spain, South Africa, and Germany, the world is moving towards a 2 per cent wealth tax on these billionaires," he said in a post on X. ALSO READ- PM Modi's zindagi ke saath bhi dig at Congress over Sam Pitroda's 'inheritance tax' remarks; Kharge reacts Ramesh added that India, with 167 billionaires, could generate 1.5 lakh crores annually from such a tax, funding essential public services like schools, hospitals, and renewable energy. He asked PM Modi to clarify India's position on this issue at the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro later this month. "What is the non-biological PMs position on a 'billionaire tax'? What will be India's position when it will be discussed at the G20 meet in Rio de Janeiro later this month?" the Congress leader said. Former presidents and prime ministers have sent an open letter to the leaders of the world's 20 largest economies, urging them to support a global tax on billionaires. This initiative, proposed by Brazil during its G20 presidency, aims to gain backing at the upcoming finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The letter, signed by 19 Club de Madrid members, praised US president Joe Biden's billionaire income tax proposal and said that there is the need for global cooperation to combat tax evasion by the wealthiest. ALSO READ- Indias rich list: Gargantuan numbers reveal the real story The signatories include prominent figures like Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Sweden's Stefan Lofven, and Spain's Felipe Gonzalez. Brazil's proposal, crafted by French economist Gabriel Zucman from the EU Tax Observatory, suggests an annual 2 per cent levy on fortunes exceeding $1 billion, potentially raising up to $250 billion annually from about 3,000 people. New Delhi The Supreme Court on Thursday condemned the practice of higher courts casually staying bail orders granted by trial courts, particularly when the accused is neither a terrorist nor considered a threat to society. The Supreme Court. (HT PHOTO) What is this happening? A person is granted bail, you (Enforcement Directorate) approached the high court and merely on your asking, the order granting the bail remains stayed for one year. This is shocking, observed a bench of justices Abhay S Oka and AG Masih. The apex court underscored that such stays should not be granted merely at the behest of investigating agencies, especially when detailed reasons for granting bail have been provided by the trial courts. How can a bail be stayed as a matter of course? Just on the asking of the agency? This is about liberty after all... Where is the question of staying a bail order unless the accused is a terrorist or is a threat to society? the bench asked EDs counsel Zoheb Hossain. The court indicated its intention to deliver a comprehensive judgment that would establish clear guidelines and deterrents against the casual staying of bail orders. Lets say something about the casual manner in which an order granting bail was stayed. We will have to say something on this practice by courts. It cannot be like this... What signals we are sending. We are not only blaming you (ED), but we are blaming us as well. Notably, the top courts stance comes against the backdrop of a recent controversy involving Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is in judicial custody in connection with alleged illegalities in the framing of the 2011-22 excise policy. On June 21, the Delhi high court stayed the bail granted to Kejriwal by a trial court in the money laundering case linked to the excise policy case. The trial court cited a lack of direct evidence against Kejriwal and suggested potential bias in the EDs approach. Following EDs appeal, the stay came in less than 24 hours after the order of bail by the trial court, but the high courts initial stay order by a vacation bench did not provide any reasons, raising significant legal and ethical questions. On June 23, the CM moved the Supreme Court, assailing the initial stay order. The plea before the top court alleged procedural irregularities in the way the high court handled the case, ruing that an unreasoned order had curtailed his liberty in violation of the basic fundamental threshold on which the bail jurisprudence is premised in the country. Two days later, the high court delivered a detailed order on staying Kejriwals bail, prompting the CMs legal team to withdraw their plea from the Supreme Court with the liberty to file a fresh petition to challenge not only June 21 but also June 25 order of the high court. In the present case, Parvinder Singh Khurana was granted bail by a Delhi court on June 17, 2023, in connection with a money laundering case. After ED filed an appeal, the Delhi high court on June 23 stayed the bail order but did not give any reason. Khurana moved the Supreme Court against the stay order, prompting a vacation bench to direct on June 7 that Khurana will be released forthwith. As the matter was taken up by the regular bench on Thursday, Hossain, representing ED, defended the high courts stay order by pointing out the contradictory nature of the trial courts orders. He pointed out that 39 days before the impugned bail order, another judge had denied Khurana bail, and without any change in circumstances, bail was later granted. We have a good case on merits, Hossain argued, highlighting the alleged involvement of Khurana in a 1800 crore fraud. But the bench was not convinced by Hossains defense. Can you defend such orders as an officer of the court? Why was this matter transferred to another judge? Why did the judges recuse? One judge recused after reserving the judgment. And the bail remained stayed all this while without any reasoned order, it said. Hossain responded that high court judges recused from the case, adding the agency cannot be blamed for not courts not penning detailed orders or judges recusing from cases. The court, however, expressed its discontent with the casual way a detailed bail order was stayed by a one-line order from the high court. There was a reasoned order for granting bail. Can that be stayed by a one-line order? And then the order of interim stay remains valid for one year. When the accused moves the high court, he is asked to seek temporary bail for urgent reasons, the court lamented. The bench went on to reserve its judgment in the matter, allowing ED to file written submissions within two days, and suggesting that it would deliver a comprehensive ruling on the issue. Later in the day, Hossain returned to court, requesting the bench to allow a law officer to appear and argue in the matter for ED if the court were to lay down certain guidelines on staying bail orders. Any judgment laying down guidelines will have huge ramifications. It should not come on me that I did not assist the court properly. There is no affidavit by ED in the matter either. A law officer was supposed to appear in the matter, but he was indisposed today. Please, give us one more opportunity. Its a mercy plea, Hossain submitted. Responding, the court remarked: This is a case where on the first day, the bail was stayed. The law is clear that in normal cases, such orders cannot be stayed. It can be stayed only in exceptional cases...Look at the shocking state of affairs. We are going to lay down guidelines on the casual manner in which bail orders are stayed. In view of Hossains repeated requests, the bench eventually agreed to hear a law officer on behalf of ED for 10 minutes on Friday. The case is particularly relevant for setting a precedent on how bail orders are handled by higher courts. The Supreme Courts upcoming judgment is expected to address the casual nature of stay orders on bail and outline the responsibilities of investigating agencies and the judiciary in ensuring fair and transparent legal proceedings. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and chief of the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) Jagan Mohan Reddy along with two IPS officers and two retired officials have been booked in an attempt to murder case. The case was registered by Andhra Pradesh Police following a complaint lodged by the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA from Undi assembly constituency, K Raghurama Krishna Raju. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy(ANI file photo) Meanwhile, the IPS officers have been identified as PV Sunil Kumar and PSR Sitaramanjaneyulu and the retired officials include R Vijay Paul, who was a police officer and former Guntur Government General Hospital superintendent G Prabhavati. Raju sent his police complaint through mail one month ago and after taking legal opinion, I registered a case at 7 pm on Thursday against the former CM and others, an official told PTI. Read: Actor Gaurav Bakshi arrested over parking row with Goa minister Raju in his complaint had also alleged that he was subjected to custodial torture, the official added. The five accused have been booked under IPC Sections 120 B, 166, 167, 197, 307, 326, 465 and 506 read with 34. Police invoked the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as the case is three years old. The case was registered at Nagarampalem police station in Guntur. TDP leader Rajus 2021 arrest case came to the fore in Andhra Pradesh after he lodged a complaint against Reddy and some officials over it on June 10. He has accused the former CM and the senior officials of allegedly plotting a criminal conspiracy against him. The 62-year-old politician has also made accusations that senior IPS officers Sunil Kumar and Sitaramanjaneyulu, police officer Vijaya Paul and government doctor Prabhavathi were part of that alleged conspiracy. He was arrested in May, 2021 in the middle of the Covid-19 second wave. A false case was registered against me by the CB-CID of the Andhra Pradesh government. On May 14, 2021, I was arrested without due process, I was bullied, unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle, and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night, Raju alleged in the complaint. When Raju was arrested, Kumar was heading the CID, Sitaramanjaneyulu the Intelligence wing chief, Paul was ASP CID and Reddy was the chief minister. The MLA said though he had undergone an open-heart surgery few weeks before his arrest, Raju claimed he was abused. Also, he alleged there were threats to kill him for criticising the former chief minister. I was arrested without due process, including the absence of a medical examination or adherence to proper legal procedures...I was kept in the CB-CID office, Guntur from 9:30 pm onwards (May 14, 2021). I was not given my medicine despite having had an open heart bypass surgery,Raju, who was an YSRCP MP from Narasapuram, claimed. Raju also alleged that when the magistrate had sent him to Guntur Government General Hospital, the then superintendent of the hospital, Prabhavathi, had colluded with Sunil Kumar to create false medical reports that no injuries were inflicted on his person. Due to police brutality, I was shifted from Guntur to Secunderabad Army Hospital by the orders of the Supreme Court and thereafter I was granted bail by the Supreme Court, said Raju. The bail came a week later. Among other allegations, he demanded that a case be registered against all the accused persons and said in his complaint that these criminal offences must be addressed promptly and justice be done. (With inputs from PTI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) took former Karnataka minister and Congress leader B Nagendra into custody in connection with the Valmiki Corporation scam case. The Congress MLA was taken to the ED office in Bengaluru from his residence for questioning, reported PTI quoting people aware of the development. Former Karnataka minister B Nagendra.(Facebook) "I'm being brought from my home...I don't know anything," Nagendra told reporters as he was being taken to the ED office. This development follows days after the ED conducted extensive searches at the former minister's premises as part of a money laundering probe linked to the alleged scam, which came to light following the death of Chandrasekharan P, the accounts superintendent of the Corporation, on May 21. Read: How B Nagendras resignation is a significant setback for the Karnataka Congress A purported suicide note left by Chandrasekharan accused several officials of orchestrating illegal money transfers from the Corporation's accounts to various other bank accounts. Subsequently, two officials were suspended, while B Nagendra, who was Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister, resigned from his ministerial post on June 6 under mounting pressure. The Congress government then formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter, which has since resulted in the arrest of 11 individuals connected to the case. Read: BJP demands Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah's resignation over Valmiki Corporation scam Chandrasekharan's suicide note alleged the unauthorised transfer of 187 crore from the state-run Corporations bank account. 88.62 crore was reportedly funnelled illegally into the accounts of several IT companies and a Hyderabad-based cooperative bank. The Central Bureau of Investigation is also probing it simultaneously based on a complaint by the Union Bank of India. "We welcome ED raids on Nagendra and Daddal," State BJP chief B Y Vijayendra said on Wednesday. "This is probably a big scam unheard of in the state's 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. Senior BJP leader B Sriramulu on Thursday alleged that the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation scamsters honey-trapped government and bank officials to misappropriate money. The former minister claimed that high-end luxury cars were purchased with the money meant for the welfare of tribal people. The money was laundered and used in different elections, including the Lok Sabha election, he further claimed. A stormy monsoon session of the Karnataka assembly is on the cards as the BJP plans to lay siege to Vidhana Soudha to protest against the policies of the Congress government. "This is the government of scams -- with MUDA scam, Valmiki corporation scam, SCSP TSP scam, Labour department scam -- this government has a chain of scams to its credit. This is a zero development government," state BJP General Secretary Sunil Kumar said. Had Mamata Banerjee not broken ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance in 2001, she might have become the chief minister of West Bengal the same year, former Governor of Tripura and former state unit president of the BJP, Tathagatha Roy has claimed in his book Desires, Dreams and Powers. The book which details Roys journey in politics, offers a view of how the equation between Banerjee and the BJP changed from one-time allies to political opponents. ...She broke away from the Congress to establish her own party, the Trinamool Congress, successfully taking the bulk of the Congresss support base [n West Bengal] with her. She was essentially a fiery street fighter, unmatched in this role. Additionally, she made a point of showcasing her simple lifestyle, often seen wearing blue-and-white cotton sarees and inexpensive Hawaii chappals. With all these attributes, she emerged as the undisputed leader of the Opposition in West Bengal, Roy says in the book. Referring to her decision to split from NDA as a significant mistake, he says, had she not quit the NDA following a sting operation on the then BJPs all-India president Bangaru Laxman, she might have become the chief minister of the state in 2001! Banerjee was sworn in as first woman chief minister of West Bengal in May 2011. Tracing the events that led to her snapping ties with the NDA, Roy writes, It all started with a sting operation in 2001 by the magazine Tehelka, with Tarun Tejpal as its editor. An undercover agent, posing as the representative of a fictitious UK-based arms dealer, approached the BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, offered him some money for an order for infra-red binoculars and secretly videographed it. Bangaru was seen taking the money and putting it in a drawer. The video was then telecast over the portal tehelka.com. Bangaru had to resign his post as the party president and was later convicted by a special CBI court to rigorous imprisonment. Banerjee, who was the union minister for Railway in the Atal Bihari Bihar Vajpayee cabinet resigned following the scandal. This was a chance to prove her unimpeachable integrity and her disdain for her ministerial berth, and she used her rubber Hawaii slippers as a prop. In front of the media, she flapped her slippers and said she regarded her ministers post as no more valuable than her Hawaii slippers, which cost 45. Then she formally resigned, severed connections with the ruling coalition called the NDA, forged ties with the Congress, which she had left just four years back, and returned to Kolkata, he writes. Pointing out that the decision to resign was grandstanding and for optics, Roy writes that she later realised her mistake and was back in the NDA fold, In terms of practical politics, she had no earthly reason to resign. Bangaru Laxmans malfeasance concerned neither her party nor her department. No other coalition partner of NDA resigned, except her. She chose to do it solely to emphasize her commitment to honesty in public life, inadvertently overplaying her hand in the process. Little did her state know the kind of corruption that awaited it after she ascended the throne. Roy claims, desiring a ministerial berth to wield some influence in the state, she approached the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to rejoin the cabinet she had left abruptly. However, Atalji, this time, was not so pliable and initially kept her as a minister without a portfolio for quite some time. After she had cooled her heels, Atalji appointed her as the minister for coal. Banerjee subsequently tied up with the BJP for the Panchayat election of 2003. Referring to the 2001 state elections that Banerjee was confident of winning, Roy says her calculation of storming to power in the state by taking on the CPI (M)-led Left Front proved wrong. The CPI (M) was not confident of victory in the 2001 elections, given the baggage of anti-incumbency and the unpopularity of Jyoti Basu, who had just been replaced by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Mamatas resignation from the ministry and the NDA was like a boost for them. I have it on good authority that many branch and local committees celebrated the occasion and honoured their members with a sumptuous feast of mutton curry and rice. The CPI (M)s calculations were proven to be correct, and they emerged victorious. Mamata Banerjees party secured just sixty seats, while the Congress obtained twenty-six, he writes about the 2001 poll. The author also claims he first mooted the idea of partnering with the TMC leader. From the very beginning, even before I became the president, I was in favour of forging an alliance with Mamata Banerjee, who had by then emerged as the main force in anti-Left politics in the state. I reasoned that we must join forces with Mamata so that we could fight the CPI (M) together and not split the anti-Left votes, he says. He claims he saw an alliance with her as a means of breaking into the state which had become entirely binary over the years, and any third party stood no chance. Recalling the strain in ties between the BJP and the TMC post the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Roy says after the defeat of the NDA, Banerjee insidiously began to widen the gap between her party and the BJP and even snubbed the then party chief Rajnath Singhs request for allocating winnable seats in the 2006 state polls. In the 2006 elections to the West Bengal assembly, it became quite apparent that she was on her way to severing connections with the BJP. I was still the state president of the party then and haggled with her for a few winnable seats for the BJP...She was unyielding. At one stage, the all-India president Rajnath Singh came to Kolkata and pleaded with her to give the Krishnanagar assembly seat to Jolu (Satyabrata) Mukherjee. I overheard the conversation and was filled with anguish at the cavalier, even rude, manner in which she treated our all-India president. The Left Front won, with CPI (M) alone getting 176 seats while the TMC secured just 30, the Congress won 21 seats and the BJP drew a blank. The author claims although Banerjee distanced herself from the BJP, she maintained ties with LK Advani and Sushma Swaraj. Thereafter, she increased the distance with the BJP but took full advantage of Advaniji and Sushmajis trip to Nandigram. Her supposed hunger strike in protest against the forcible acquisition of land in Singur for the Tata Motors factory saw Rajnath Singh visiting her, but it made little difference. By 2008 or 2009, she was completely away from the BJP, preparing for the 2011 polls on her own, taking advantage of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjees arrogance, he says. The author is also unsparing of his party colleagues for handling the electoral issues in the state in 2021 for the assembly polls and sidelining many old party workers. The BJPs campaign in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections can serve as an instruction manual on how not to contest an election, he writes. Taking swipes at the team led by the then national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, Roy writes the election machinery was firmly controlled by the Kailash-led quartet that was determined to run it with complete newcomers, a few paratroopers and a Hindi-speaking crowd. They even organized a Yogdaan Mela ( Joining Fair), a celebration where turncoats from other parties joined the BJP en masse, disregarding their basic political beliefs, if any. The other members of the team were national joint general secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash and Arvind Menon who was co-in-charge of the state. India has abstained in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. India has abstained in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that demanded that Russia cease its aggression against Ukraine and urgently withdraw its military(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File) Also Read: No war is distant: Eric Garcettis blunt message to India over PM Modis Russia trip The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted the resolution on Thursday with 99 votes in favour, nine against and 60 abstentions, including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Those voting against the resolution included Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Russia and Syria. Also Read: India always emphasised solution to Ukraine conflict cant be found on battlefield The resolution titled Safety and security of nuclear facilities of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders. Also Read: Stop enabling Ukraine war or face consequences, Nato warns China It also demanded that Russia urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorised personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately return the plant to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine to ensure its safety and security. It called for the immediate cessation of the attacks by Russia against the critical energy infrastructure of Ukraine, which increases the risk of a nuclear accident or incident at all nuclear facilities of Ukraine. The draft resolution was introduced by Ukraine and was sponsored by over 50 member states, including France, Germany and the United States. It called upon Moscow, until it returns the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant of Ukraine to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine, to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia with timely and full access to all areas at the plant that are important for nuclear safety and security to allow the Agency to report fully on the nuclear safety and security situation at the site. In the explanation of the vote before the vote on the resolution, Russias First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said the General Assembly has unfortunately adopted many documents that are non-consensual, politicised and do not reflect reality. "Make no mistake: votes in favour of today's draft will be regarded by Kyiv, Washington, Brussels and London as evidence of support for their policy of further escalating the Ukrainian conflict to the detriment of steps taken by a sensible part of the international community to find a peaceful, sustainable and long-term solution to the conflict, he said. Indian techie, Siddhant Vitthal Patil, texted his mother hours before he drowned in Glacier National Park in the United States, according to his uncle. Indian techie Siddhant Patil, who is presumed dead from drowning in the US, texted his mother hours before the incident, according to his uncle (HT File)(HT_PRINT) Also Read: Another Indian student tragically dies in US, Sai Surya Avinash Gadde drowns at Barbervilley Falls in New York On Friday, Pritesh Chaudhari, Siddhant's maternal uncle, told news agency PTI, Last Friday, Siddhant called up his mother Priti from the Park and told her that he has been in the Park for three days with six other Indian friends and is enjoying the trip. Also Read: Indian-origin woman's final moments before dying on plane in Australia: 'She kept staring at parents' photo on phone' 26-year-old Siddhant worked at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose since 2023. He had gone to the US in 2020 for an MSc from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also Read: Indian student spoke to brother 30 minutes before being shot dead in Canada: Chirag Antil was very happy According to Chaudhari, who resides in Pune, Siddhant had texted his mother two hours before his presumed death, stating that he would return to San Jose in three days. His friends got his iPhone's International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers and gave it to park rangers in Montana and other authorities to help search for him, but there have been no results yet, Chaudhari said. Helicopters are conducting aerial searches for his body and officials suspect that the body is being held down by submerged obstacles like trees or rocks. His personal items are slowly being recovered by rangers, as they wash downstream. However, his body has not been located yet even after using a drone to find it. Siddhant's father Vitthal, a recently retired government official from Maharashtra's irrigation department, and his mother Priti are not able to speak about the situation due to shock. Chaudhari said,"Suresh Sharma from the Indian consulate in Seattle called me after the incident as he had given my number as a contact to the US authorities. I have been in touch with the consulate since Monday." Sharad Pawar, Devendra Fadnavis and other leaders from Maharashtra have written to the government seeking its help, Chaudhari said. Further, Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol, who is from Pune, has been in touch with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar regarding the search operation. A little more than four and half decades after the Ratna Bhandar or the treasury of the Jagannath Temple was opened for audit and inventorisation, the storehouse of several valuables of the three deities would be opened on Sunday in the presence of members of the snake helpline and some doctors. Jagannath Temple in Odishas Puri (File Photo) The 16-member committee headed by retired high court judge Biswanath Rath that would supervise the inventorisation of the valuables inside the treasury is still working on the standard operating procedure of the opening process, but some members of the committee said the assistance of snake helpline officials would be sought when the Ratna Bhandar is opened. As there is a possibility of snakes inside, we will take all possible steps including keeping snake helpline members on standby. Adequate lighting arrangements have been made so that we can see through the valuables clearly. A team of doctors have also been kept ready in case any of the committee members feel sick after entering it, said a member of the committee. As many of the valuables are present in wooden boxes, we have to check in what conditions they are in as there is a possibility of rainwater seeping inside it, he said. Also Read: Ratna Bhandar of Jagannath temple in Puri to open on July 14: Audit panel chief The members of the committee, who would enter the Ratna Bhandar, have turned vegetarians for over a week. All would wear dhoti and gamchha like servitors of Jagannath temple wear before entering the Ratna Bhandar. Lord Lokanath who is considered as presiding deity of the treasury would be worshipped before the committee members enter it, said the member. Justice (retired) Rath said after the Ratna Bhandar is opened, a group of goldsmiths and meteorologists would be called to identify old ornaments. The temple management has identified a designated place inside the temple where the ornaments will be shifted and then counted. We will see the nature of the ornaments, the character of the ornaments (whether 22 or 24 carat), nature of the gems. The digital cataloguing of the valuables of Ratna Bhandar would be done and the process would be videographed, he said. A member of the supervisory committee said during the opening of Ratna Bhandar, devotees can continue to visit the temple though they may have to be content with seeing the Lord from a distance during that period. The Ratna Bhandar, located near the Jagamohana of the Jagannath temple, appears like a small temple and stands at a height of 11.78 metres. It has two chambers Bahara Bhandar (outer chamber) and Bhitara Bhandar (inner chamber) containing the jewels of the deities. The inner chamber of the Ratna Bhandaar is much larger than the outer one. Former deputy administrator of the temple Bhaskar Mishra said kings of several dynasties who ruled Odisha over the last several centuries and even the rulers of Nepal have donated valuable treasures like gold, silver and diamonds to the temple. Also Read: Jagannath temple Ratna Bhandar to be opened for inspection after July 7: ASI The first official account of the Ratna Bhandar came in 1805 in a report prepared by the then Collector of Puri, Charles Grome. The report spoke of 64 gold and silver ornaments studded with gems and pure gold and silver as well as 128 gold coins, 24 different kinds of gold mohar, 1,297 silver coins, 106 copper coins and 1,333 kinds of clothes being present in the Ratna Bhandar. When the the Shri Jagannath Temple Administration Act and Shri Jagannath Temple Administration Rules came into being after 1950 a Record of Rights (RoR) was prepared, which mentioned 150 gold ornaments in the Bahara Bhandar and 180 kinds of jewellery and 146 items of silver articles in the Bhitara Bhandar, said Mishra. The report prepared by Charles Gnome said some of the gold ornaments were shaped like peacock feathers, moon, sun, large crown, golden disc, lotus and tiger nails. During the last inventory of the Ratna Bhandar in 1978, 454 gold articles with a net weight of 128.380 kg and 293 silver articles weighing 221.530 kg were found in both chambers of the treasury. While the inner treasury had 367 gold items weighing 43.640 kg and 231 silver items weighing 148.780 kg, the outer treasury had gold items of 84.74 kg and silver items of 73.64 kg. After 1978, the inner chamber was opened twice in 1982 and 1985, but there was no audit done. During those two occasions, some silver and gold were taken out for silver cladding of the main door of the sanctum sanctorum as well as repair of the golden Chita of Lord Balabhadra. The opening of Ratna Bhandar had become a major poll plank during the recent assembly elections, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 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 had in its elections manifesto promised an audit and inventorisation of the treasury if voted to power. The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Enforcement Directorate (ED)s case against him in the excise policy matter, saying he has suffered incarceration for over 90 days and that the issue involves the right to life and liberty of an individual. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal at a Delhi court. (HT/File ) A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta issued the order for interim bail since it referred one of the issues involved in the matter to a larger bench. The bench noted that the legal scope of necessity to arrest and the doctrine of proportionality in ED cases where investigating officers have been given much discretion to make arrests should be determined by a larger bench. Pending the adjudication of the larger issue, the court deemed it appropriate to order Kejriwals release on interim bail. It added that courts cannot direct Kejriwal to step down as the chief minister because of his implication in the present case and that it is for him to take a call. The verdict marks a crucial legal victory for Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), providing a much-needed boost to the partys political narrative. Kejriwal will remain in custody due to a separate case being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the excise policy matter. While the challenge to his ED arrest remained pending before the Supreme Court, the AAP chief was arrested by CBI on June 26 on charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy in the excise policy case. He has been in judicial custody in both ED and CBI cases. The court on May 17 reserved its judgment on Kejriwals petition that sought invalidation of his arrest by ED on March 21 in connection with a money laundering probe about alleged irregularities in the now-cancelled Delhi excise policy 2021-22. After his challenge to the ED arrest was nixed by the Delhi high court on April 9, Kejriwal moved the Supreme Court, painting a picture of a politically motivated witch-hunt orchestrated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre. He emphasised the wider implications of his arrest for democratic governance and the rule of law. Kejriwal was the third AAP leader to be arrested in the case. His former deputy Manish Sisodia was arrested in this case on February 23, 2023, and remains incarcerated. AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh was released on bail on April 2. The Supreme Court asked the ED why should Singh be kept behind bars after serving six months in jail, considering that there does not appear to be any concrete evidence against him, and no money has been recovered linking him to the alleged money laundering offence. The Supreme Court on May 10 granted Kejriwal temporary bail until June 1, rejecting EDs argument that his release for poll campaigning would imply preferential treatment for politicians, and highlighting the significance of elections in a democracy. When the Supreme Court on May 16 heard Kejriwals petition, it refuted EDs contention that granting interim bail to Kejriwal and agreeing to examine the legality of his arrest was an exceptional exercise, underlining that all individuals, irrespective of their status, are entitled to pursue the same legal recourse and remedies. Stating that the right to seek judicial review of an arrest are fundamental legal entitlement available to every citizen, the bench maintained that the Constitution gave people the right to approach constitutional courts directly assailing arbitrary or illegal detention. The court on that day reiterated its May 10 order, clarifying that Kejriwal would have to surrender on June 2 after the completion of the 21-day interim bail granted to him for political campaigning. During the hearing of this matter on May 17, ED informed the court that it has uncovered chats between Kejriwal and hawala operators, which the agency claims are crucial in linking the proceeds of crime in the Delhi excise policy case to the AAPs 2022 Goa election campaign and Kejriwals role in the conspiracy. This came on the day the agency filed a fresh supplementary charge sheet in a Delhi trial court, naming Kejriwal and AAP as accused for the first time in the money laundering case related to the excise policy. The Supreme Court delved into the sufficiency of evidence in Kejriwals case, besides raising questions about the fairness of the investigative process and the weight accorded to exculpatory materials that Kejriwal claimed the agency purposely hid from the court to target him. New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday slammed Arvind Kejriwal for celebrating his bail victory in the excise policy case by the Supreme Court even as it demanded that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief should resign as the chief minister of Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday hailed the Supreme Court order granting interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal (Reuters Photo) Because of their stubbornness, Delhi is witnessing a policy paralysis. The citizens of Delhi are suffering because of him. He should resign immediately, said BJP MP and partys national spokesperson Bansuri Swaraj. The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to the Delhi chief minister in the EDs case against him in the excise policy, saying he has suffered incarceration for over 90 days and that the issue involves the right to life and liberty of an individual. Kejriwal still will remain in jail in a separate Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case in the same matter. The AAP hailed the Supreme Courts decision and called it the victory of truth. The bail conditions, however, remain unchanged, prohibiting Kejriwal from visiting the CMs office or signing any files unless forwarded to the Lieutenant Governor. The bench of justices Sanjeev Khanna and Dipankar Datta determined that the ED has sufficient evidence against Kejriwal as it transferred the matter to a three-judge bench to be appointed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud. Swaraj remarked that Kejriwal is the prima facie criminal in this case, as per the Supreme Court, which has transferred the case to a larger bench. She explained that cases transferred to larger benches take time to start hearings, hence the interim bail. He got bail not because he is clean, but because the case is now transferred to a larger bench. Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 while the CBI arrested him on June 26 on charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy in the excise policy case. Swaraj further accused Kejriwal of accepting Rs.100 crores from liquor mafias, with Rs. 45 crores allegedly spent on the 2022 Goa elections, referring to the EDs charge sheet against Kejriwal, containing evidence allegedly proving his role as the kingpin of the Delhi liquor policy scam. Also Read: Arvind Kejriwal interim bail: SC says mere interrogation not ground for arrest She highlighted that Kejriwals arrest was under Section 19 of the PMLA Act, which allows ED officials to arrest individuals based on material possession and reason to believe, recorded in writing, that the person is guilty. She added that the Supreme Court hinted that any constitutional functionary found involved in such crimes should resign. However, Kejriwal has allegedly tried to confuse investigative agencies and involve his associates in the case, refusing to step down. This, according to Swaraj, has led to policy paralysis and a constitutional crisis in Delhi. BJP Delhi chief Virendra Sachdeva said that getting interim bail does not mean he is not a criminal. Sachdeva remarked, CBI has shown the trail records of Rs.45 crores. The investigation is ongoing. Kejriwal is not with the truth but a scamster. He was and would remain a scamster, involved in the liquor policy scam. He added that Kejriwal will be punished for his actions. The poor of Delhi will never accept his betrayal. He must face the consequences of his deeds. Responding to BJPs claims, AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said they (BJP) have adopted many tactics to hinder work in Delhi. She noted that the PMLA court has mentioned there is no evidence against Kejriwal. ED did not find any evidence and seems to be working with bias. This is also written in the same order. We thank the court for granting bail to Arvind Kejriwal. We hope he will get bail in the CBI case too, she said. You can harass the truth but in the end, truth and honesty will prevail. Supreme Court grants bail to CM Arvind Kejriwal in ED case, AAP MLA and cabinet minister Imran Hussain wrote on X. The Madras High Court on Wednesday questioned Union Minister of State (Mos) Shobha Karandlaje on her public claim that the bombers involved in Bengalurus Rameshwararm Cafe blast had been trained in Tamil Nadu even before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted searches in Chennai. The Union MoS for labour and employment allegedly blamed people from Tamil Nadu for the March 1 blast at the Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru. (PTI) Justice G Jayachandran made the remarks while hearing Karandlajes petition to quash the First Information Report (FIR) filed against her by Tamil Nadus Madurai cyber crime police on March 20. You (minister) made the statement even before the NIA (National Investigation Agency) held searches in Chennai, Justice Jayachandran said as quoted by BarandBench. It means you are aware of the facts, you know who the trained persons are, who trained them, and what they have done. If you have got some information about the offence, you should have disclosed it to the police. As a responsible citizen, the minister has not done it. In a video which had gone viral, the Union MoS for labour and employment allegedly blamed people from Tamil Nadu for the March 1 blast at the Rameshwaram Cafe in Bengaluru. People from Tamil Nadu come here, get trained there, and plant bombs here. They placed a bomb in the cafe, she said, alleging that the bomber was trained in Tamil Nadus Krishnagiri forests right under chief minister MK Stalins nose. The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of Tamil Nadu had complained to the Election Commission of India (ECI) while the model code of conduct was on in view of the Lok Sabha elections which concluded in June. Karandlaje later on March 19 apologised for her remark. In her petition, Karandlaje said that her intention was to raise concerns about internal security and that she didnt pit Kannadigas against Tamils which she alleged was the imagination of the complainant. While the petitioners advocate R Hariprasad said that the case was politically motivated, the Tamil Nadu governments advocate KMD Muhilan urged the court to watch the video. The justice did not grant interim relief to the petitioner as sought. The court adjourned the hearing to July 12. The Mamata Banerjee government on Friday approached the Supreme Court accusing governor CV Ananda Bose of not approving eight bills. West Bengal government's petition mentions that eight bills passed since 2022 have been left without any action from governor CV Anand Bose. (PTI) The state government in its plea on Friday has alleged that the Raj Bhavans delay is affecting the welfare of the people for whom the bills were passed in the House, ANI reported. The plea was filed by lawyer Astha Sharma for an urgent listing, and Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has agreed to consider an early hearing. The petition claims that eight bills passed since 2022 have been left without any action, making the State Assemblys efforts ineffective. West Bengal government has also argued that it was compelled to approach the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, citing a constitutional crisis caused by the governors actions and inactions regarding eight key bills. The state has alleged that the governor has withheld assent under Article 200 of the Constitution without valid reasons, violating constitutional mandates. The petitioner has urged the Supreme Court to declare that the governor CV Ananda Bose through his secretary has acted unconstitutionally, illegally, arbitrarily, and unreasonably by not considering and granting assent to bills passed by the State Legislature as well as by failing to consider files, government orders, and policies forwarded by the State Government for his approval. The conduct of the governor not only threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundation of our Constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance, but further proceeds to infringe upon the rights of the people of the State to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the bills, thereby leading to the state failing in its duties as the parens patriae, said the petitioner. Read: Water levels in country's main reservoirs rise to 26% of total live storage capacity, says Central Water Commission The petitioner requested the court to issue appropriate directions to the governor of West Bengal to dispose of all pending bills, files, and government orders forwarded by the State Legislative Assembly and government within a specified timeframe. The eight bills are the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, The West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the West Bengal Private University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the West Bengal Krishi Viswavidyalaya Laws (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022, the West Bengal University of Health Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Aliah University (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the West Bengal Town and Country (Planning and Development) (Amendment) Bill, 2023, and the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2023. (With inputs from ANI) New Delhi: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday assured that no controversial portion of any religious text will be included in Delhi University (DU)s undergraduate law programme amid a controversy over a proposal to include parts of the Manusmriti in the jurisprudence course. The assurance came a day after DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh said he rejected the proposal. Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan (File Photo) ...the vice chancellor rejected the proposal and an academic council meeting will be held today [Friday], Pradhan said. Pradhan said he inquired about the issue with Singh, who informed him that the proposal had been rejected. He added that the government is committed to upholding the Constitution and there is no question of including any controversial portion. We all are committed to a futuristic approach. The government is also committed to upholding the true spirit and letter of the Constitution, Pradhan said. A section of teachers opposed the proposal to teach Manusmriti (the Laws of Manu) to law students. The proposal was slated to be discussed at the academic councils meeting on Friday. Manusmriti prescribes a set of obligations for the four varnas (social classes). Bhimrao Ambedkar, the head of the constitutions drafting committee, called Manusmriti antithetical to social equality. On Thursday, Singh issued a video message saying no portions of Manusmriti will be included in the curriculum. DUs law faculty earlier sought approval to revise the syllabus of its first and third-year students to teach them Manusmriti. The affidavits filed by Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah over the last three assembly elections revealed inconsistencies in assets regarding a 3.16-acre agricultural land parcel in Mysore gifted to his wife, B M Parvati Siddaramaiah, 14 years ago, according to The Indian Express. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah (PTI) This land, which was gifted to her in 2010 by her brother, has become the focus of a political controversy. The BJP has planned protests in Mysore, Siddaramaiah's home district, on July 12, questioning the lands 2021 transfer to the state in exchange for 14 housing plots developed by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) under a controversial 50:50 alternate site scheme. Read: Amid MUDA scam, Karnataka govt transfers Mysuru Deputy Commissioner A comparison of affidavits submitted by Siddaramaiah for the Assembly polls in 2013, 2018, and 2023 with public land records showed discrepancies regarding the 3.16-acre agricultural land under survey number 464 in Kesare village of Kasaba Hobli, reported The Indian Express. The 2013 affidavit, filed three years after the land was gifted, did not indicate ownership by Siddaramaiahs wife, despite land records showing a mutation record created on October 20, 2010, for a gift deed from B M Mallikarjunaswamy to his sister B M Parvati, according to the report. In 2018, Siddaramaiahs affidavit acknowledged his wifes ownership of the land, valued at 25 lakh, noting it was a gift from her brother in 2010. By 2023, the affidavit detailed the allotment of 37,190.09 sq ft of land by MUDA in exchange for the Kesare village land, valued at 8.33 crore. Read: Karnataka BJP to hold massive protests in Mysore against Siddaramaiah govt in alleged MUDA scam These inconsistencies are central to a complaint by activist T J Abraham, alleging Siddaramaiah filed a false affidavit in 2013. On Thursday, Siddaramaiah alleged that he was unnecessarily being targeted in the case, claiming that a conspiracy is being hatched against him out of heartburn as he belongs to a backward class community and has become the chief minister for a second time. Noting that in 2014, the MUDA, despite the 3.16 acres of his wife's land not belonging to it, made sites on it and allocated them to people, Siddaramaiah said, "what should we do? Should we keep quiet? Alternate sites were sought by us, but we did not seek them in any specific locality -- Vijayanagara." "If MUDA committed the wrong when BJP was in power, how can Siddaramaiah be responsible for it?" he questioned. As per the land acquisition act, his family is entitled to compensation from MUDA for taking over the land, Siddaramaiah said. "MUDA will have to pay 62 crore (as compensation). Let them take back the alternate sites allotted. We had not asked for it in Vijayanagar...it was done while BJP was in power," he said. To a question about activist T J Abraham filing a complaint with the Election Commission against him alleging that he had failed to disclose his wife Parvathi's ownership of 3 acres and 16 guntas land in his election affidavit, Siddaramaiah said, "If the Election Commission gives notice, I will respond to it. Will give whatever answer has to be given in accordance with law." The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has asked for a detailed report from the Karnataka government regarding the diversion of funds allocated under the Karnataka Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) to fulfil election promises made by the Congress, within seven days. On July 6, Leader of the Opposition R Ashoka accused Congress of having an anti-Dalit agenda and alleged that the government diverted 14,730 crore meant for the development of SC and ST communities to fund its guarantee schemes (PTI) The commission took cognizance of a report published by the Hindustan Times on Tuesday, which included allegations raised by the BJP. Suo-moto cognizance has been taken by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes on a news item appearing in Hindustan Times dated 9.7.2024 under the caption, Row After KTaka Govt Diverts SC/ST Funds to Welfare Schemes as enclosed, the notice issued by the commission stated. The commission has requested a detailed report on the matter from the state government within seven days. The notice further mentioned the report published by HT as stating that the state government decided to utilise funds allocated under the SCSP and TSP for implementing the Five Guarantees Schemes. The government has decided to divert 14,730.53 crore from SCSP and TSP allocations to these guarantee schemes. Also Read | Siddaramaiah appeals to Karnataka MPs to work together for welfare of state Emphasising its role, the commission stated that it is mandated to monitor issues pertaining to the development of Scheduled Castes in the states, especially with reference to the Special Component Plan (SCP) and Special Central Assistance (SCA), in pursuance of the power conferred upon it under Article 338 of the Constitution. The Congress had promised five guarantees during the assembly polls in 2023. These included Gruha Jyothi, which provides free electricity up to 200 units in all houses in Karnataka; Gruha Lakshmi, which promises 2,000 to each woman head of the family; Anna Bhagya, which provides 10kg of food grains per month to every person in Below Poverty Line (BPL) families; Yuva Nidhi, which provides 3,000 per month to unemployed graduates and 1,500 to unemployed diploma holders; and the Shakti scheme, which offers free travel to all women throughout the state in regular KSRTC/BMTC buses. On July 6, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the assembly R Ashoka made allegations against the state government through a post on X. He accused the party of having an anti-Dalit agenda and alleged that the government diverted 14,730 crore meant for the development of SC and ST communities to fund its guarantee schemes. Also Read | Amid MUDA scam, Karnataka govt transfers Mysuru Deputy Commissioner He further alleged that Siddaramaiah had looted 187 crores of Dalit funds from the Valmiki ST welfare board and is now diverting 14,730 crores from SCSP/TSP funds meant for the development of Dalits. Arent you ashamed of looting Dalits for your greed for power? Why should Dalits fund your guarantee schemes at the cost of their welfare? he questioned the government. On Wednesday, the BJP leader questioned Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, and Siddaramaiah after the notice by the commission. He posted on X, Does LoP Rahul Gandhi have the courage to raise his voice against the anti-Dalit regime of CM Siddaramaiah in Karnataka? He further appreciated the NCSC for taking cognizance of the matter, adding, I sincerely appreciate the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for taking suo-moto cognizance regarding the diversion of 14,730.53 crore from SCSP and TSP allocation to guarantee schemes by Karnataka government. In the report on the said date, HT reported that the Siddaramaiah administration approved allocating 37% of the action plan worth 39,121.46 crore set aside for SC/ST welfare. For this fiscal year, the government has earmarked 27,673.96 crore under the SCSP and 11,447.51 crore under the TSP. Of this, 14,730.53 crore will be used to fund the guarantee schemes, with Siddaramaiah asserting that the allocation will benefit SC/ST beneficiaries under these schemes. The government stated that funds from the SCSP-TSP have been allocated as follows: 7,881.91 crore for the Gruhalakshmi scheme, 70.28 crore for the Bhagyalakshmi scheme, 2,585.93 crore for the Gruhajyoti scheme, 448.15 crore for the Annabhagya scheme, 2,187 crore for the direct benefit transfer of the Annabhagya scheme, 1,451.45 crore for the Shakti scheme, and 175.50 crore for the Yuva Nidhi scheme. The government stated that sections 7(a), (b), and (c) of the SCP TSP Act allow for a portion of the funds to be allocated for specific developmental projects for SC and ST communities. This practice has been implemented in the past, exemplified by initiatives like the Bhagyalakshmi scheme, which provides insurance for girl children and free bicycles for girl students. Responding to the commissions notice, deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar said, It is a shame on the national commission. Whatever money we are spending it is being spent for the same community, as per the law. After Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, we introduced the law in order to use the funds for the welfare of the SC/ST communities. What is wrong with it? An all out political war has erupted after the Narendra Modi government announced that June 25 every year will be marked as Samvidhan Hatya Diwas'. The Murder of Constitution Day is being observed on June 25 to mark the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi-led Congress government on that day in 1975. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said,"In the history of Indian democracy, the circumstances that arose due to the Emergency and the kind of repression that was carried out are still fresh in the memory of the countrymen." ALSO READ: 'Congress unleashed dark phase': PM Modi on Samvidhan Hatya Diwas To remind us of the attempt to strangle the Constitution by imposing an Emergency in India and to pay tribute to the revolutionaries who protected democratic rights, the Government of India has declared 25th June #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas . The contribution of those who spent time in jail and suffered torture during the Emergency can never be forgotten, the minister added. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan posted on X,"I welcome the decision taken by the Government of India to observe June 25th #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas every year to remember those who endured the hardships of the Emergency and to honor those who fought for the re-establishment of democratic values." Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (RV) president Chirag Paswan said,"On June 25, 1975, the dictatorial policy of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi strangled democracy, imposed emergency and forcibly imprisoned lakhs of people, thus killing democracy. Modi government has decided to make people aware about 25th June every year as "Constitution Murder Day". Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and defence minister Rajnath Singh INDIA bloc hits back at NDA Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge shared a long post on X, saying,"In the last 10 years, your government has celebrated Constitution Murder Day every day. You have snatched away the self-respect of every poor and deprived section of the country every moment." ALSO READ: Congress's first reaction to Centre's Emergency move: 'June 4 Modi-Mukti Diwas' Aam Aadmi Party leader Priyanka Kakar lashed out at the BJP, saying the ruling party murdered the Constitution every day since 2014. Recently, during the Chandigarh mayoral elections, Anil Massi murdered the Constitution on camera and free and fair elections were not taking place. In Delhi, after a 9-year-long fight, the Delhi government got services under it, but the BJP brought a law and negated the SC order. This is the murder of the Constitution, she said. Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh also echoed similar sentiments and said while the Emergency episode was an "event in history," the BJP is trying to play this "old card" to its advantage. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MP Mahua Maji said,"BJP which had raised the slogan of crossing 400 could not get 400 and had to limit itself to 200...INDIA got the mandate that they got because the Constitution was in danger...We should talk about what development are you (BJP) doing at present, in which direction are you taking the country, are you able to maintain communal harmony here as per the Constitution or not." (With ANI inputs) The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Haryana government to open the barricaded Shambhu border and regulate traffic, and in a stinging remark, asked Haryana how any state government could block a highway. The barricaded Haryana border at Shambhu. How can a state block a highway? It has a duty to regulate traffic. We are saying open it but regulate (movement of vehicles), Justice Ujjal Bhuyan asked the counsel representing the Haryana government. The observation by the bench of Justice Bhuyan and Justice Surya Kant, came after it was informed by the counsel that Haryana was in the process of approaching the Supreme Court against the July 10 order of the Punjab and Haryana high court which directed the state to resume traffic within seven days at Shambhu. The border between Punjab and Haryana has been heavily barricaded and closed since February 13, when various farmer organisations from Punjab began moving towards Delhi in support of various demands, including a legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for crops. Also Read: Sigh of relief for Ambala traders as HC orders opening of Shambhu border However, clashes with Haryana Police and central security forces followed, and farmers were unable to cross the border, and have been camping there since then. However, welcoming the high court's order, the farmers stated that they will resume their march to the national capital. It is now clear that it was Haryana that had blocked the national highway and caused inconvenience to both us and lakhs of people. We will meet on July 16 after barricades are removed as ordered by the high court, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) said. According to Ramandeep Singh Mann of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM), the Delhi Chalo call was never called off. We will ask the authorities concerned to designate a venue in Delhi to allow us to protest peacefully, said Mann. (With PTI inputs) The Vizhinjam international seaport in Kerala received its first mothership on Thursday with a cargo vessel named San Fernando from China berthing at the countrys largest trans-shipment port. Chief minister claimed that the state government spent around 100 crore for the rehabilitation of fishermen and their families who would be affected by the port. (HT) The 300-metre-long cargo vessel, which set sail from Xiamen port in China, reached the outer sea off the coast of Vizhinjam near Thiruvananthapuram in the early hours of Thursday before being navigated with the help of tugs into the berth and safely moored to the port. The ship was also given a water salute by the four tugs as it approached the port. The process of unloading around 1930 containers from the ship, bound for Vizhinjam and other ports in the country, began around 2pm on Thursday. The ship will be formally welcomed by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the presence of Union ports minister Sarbananda Sonowal, state ministers, central officials, MLAs, MPs and other dignitaries. The vessel will then set sail for Colombo. The dream is approaching the shore. The first mothership is reaching Keralas Vizhinjam port. San Fernando will be officially welcomed on behalf of Kerala tomorrow, the chief minister wrote on Facebook. Work on the countrys first deepwater container trans-shipment terminal at Vizhinjam began in December 2015 and was expected to be completed by 2019. However, repeated floods and the pandemic led to the major infrastructure project missing several deadlines. The 8867 crore port, being built in a public private partnership mode with investments from the Kerala government, Centre and the Adani Group, is expected to be commissioned later this year. The chief minister said about the works on the port, A special action calendar was prepared, and monthly reviews were conducted. Even a special mobile app was prepared for daily reviews. The construction work was carried out ensuring the availability of construction materials from within and outside the state. The timely completion of each component of the project was ensured. Adani Group has worked to complete this project in a time-bound manner. He also claimed that the state government spent around 100 crore for the rehabilitation of fishermen and their families who would be affected by the port. When the port becomes a reality, Kerala will become the hub of container business in India, he added. Ahead of the formal welcome for the mothership at the port, a political fight for credit between the left democratic front (LDF) and united democratic front (UDF) fronts broke out. The Congress protested against the lack of invitation for its leader of the opposition, VD Satheesan, at the ceremony on Friday and claimed that the port project was the baby of the UDF and the vision of its late former chief minister, Oommen Chandy. The government may have declined to invite the UDF for the formal ceremony, fearing that it will have to give the credit for the project to us. The people are seeing everything. When the port project was being brought in, LDF put up so many obstacles and even claimed that it was a real estate deal. The then CPM state secretary who alleged 6000 crore fraud is the chief minister today, Satheesan said. Former Congress president and Lok Sabhas Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday urged people to refrain from using derogatory language against former Union minister Smriti Irani. Irani was defeated by Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma, with the latter winning by over 1.5 lakh votes. (ANI photo) Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter. Humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength, he wrote on X. Gandhi lost to Irani from Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, but she lost to Congress leader Kishori Lal Sharma this year as the party reclaimed its old bastion. Also Read:HT Interview: People of Amethi gave me much more than I asked for, says Kishori Lal Sharma BJP leader Amit Malviya, however, called Gandhis post a disingenuous message. This is the most disingenuous message, ever. After unleashing Congress leaders, like a pack of wolves, on the woman who defeated him in Amethi and smashed his arrogance to smithereens, this is rich. All this gibberish doesnt take away from the fact that Smt Smriti Irani forced Balak Buddhi to abandon Amethi, Malviya posted on X. According to people aware of developments in Congress, several party supporters had targeted Irani after her defeat. Gandhi had maintained for a long time that derogatory remarks against political adversaries must be avoided. In our internal meetings too, Gandhi had often cautioned leaders in this aspect, said a senior Congress functionary. Irani was defeated by Sharma, with the latter winning by over 1.5 lakh votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Irani defeated Gandhi in Amethi, by over 55,000 votes. On Wednesday, Irani vacated her official bungalow at 28 Tughlak Crescent in Lutyens Delhi. The Delhi high court has ordered the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to remove all encroachments and illegal construction along the Yamuna riverbank, riverbed, and drains flowing into the river. The Delhi high court has ordered the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to remove all encroachments and illegal construction along the Yamuna riverbank. (HT Archive) This court directs the vice chairman, DDA, to remove all encroachments and illegal construction on the Yamuna riverbank, riverbed and drains flowing into river Yamuna. He is also appointed as the nodal officer and shall coordinate with officials of MCD [Municipal Corporation of Delhi], Delhi Police, DMRC [Delhi Metro Rail Corporation], irrigation and flood control department, PWD [Public Works Department], Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCB) and forest department. The vice chairman, DDA shall convene a meeting of all the concerned officials within a week, a bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and justice Tushar Rao Gedela, said in its July 8 order, uploaded on Wednesday. The court directed for removal while dealing with a plea seeking directions to DDA to demolish the unauthorised construction that was being carried out on the riverbank and to further prevent the same in future. The petition filed by one Shabnam Burney, underscored that illegal construction was going on without any permission which was endangering the ecologically fragile plain. It went on to add that the same was also causing air pollution in the area and leading to respiratory problems for the people living around the same. The Centre, represented through standing counsel Apoorv Kurup, meanwhile, admitted that the encroachment in the floodplain leads to diversion of water leading to floods in adjacent areas. Kurup also pointed out to the fact that many experts believe that floods in the Capital were primarily being caused due to encroachment of drains, riverbanks, and riverbeds as the same restricted the flow of water to and in Yamuna. The Delhi government and the Delhi Police, represented through advocate Avishkar Singhvi, stated that they had forwarded several representations pertaining to illegal and unauthorised construction on the riverbank to DDA and MCD for appropriate action. The counsel further urged the court to pass directions for removal of illegal constructions and encroachments in the entire Yamuna riverbank, riverbed, drains and floodplains area while assuring that the authorities would provide all the required assistance. Advocate Ajay Arora, representing MCD, suggested that the court to appoint DDA vice chairman as the nodal officer while issuing directions for removal of unauthorised constructions. He said that it would be appropriate to appoint the chairman as the nodal officer since he is the senior-most officer among the heads of MCD, PWD, irrigation and flood control department and DMRC. The counsel further assured that the agency would render full cooperation to DDA and DMRC in the matter. The Supreme Court on Friday described the Hathras stampede, which claimed 121 lives on July 2, a very disturbing incident even as it directed a petitioner who filed a public interest litigation (PIL) to approach the jurisdictional high court first for the appointment of an expert committee under the supervision of a retired judge to investigate the tragedy. The Supreme Court of India. (PTI Photo) You file it in the high court. These are obviously very disturbing incidents. At the same time, high courts are robust courts and they are competent to deal with these cases. It does not have to come here directly under Article 32, a bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, told advocate-petitioner Vishal Tiwari. Tiwari sought to point out that his petition has made all states and Union territories as parties and seeks extensive guidelines for the entire country. But the bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, retorted that Tiwaris petition largely hinged on the Hathras stampede which could be looked into by the jurisdictional high court at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. The court then proceeded to close the matter in the Supreme Court giving Tiwari liberty to move the high court concerned. The tragic incident occurred on July 2 during a prayer meeting led by self-styled godman Narayan Saakar Hari in Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh. The large crowd at the event led to a stampede, resulting in the loss of 121 lives. The petition highlights several lapses, including the failure of state and municipal authorities to maintain supervision and control the crowd. Several questions brew up from this horrific incident of stampede thereby questioning the duty and lapse of State Government and Municipal Corporations. Apart from the failure of maintaining and administering the supervision, the authorities have also failed in controlling the crowd gathered for the event, the petition submitted. The petition urges the court to direct the Uttar Pradesh government to submit a status report and initiate legal action against those who acted negligently regarding safety and crowd control measures. It also calls for states to issue guidelines to prevent stampedes and ensure public safety during large gatherings, and to submit reports on the medical facilities available to handle such incidents. The petition references past stampede incidents that have claimed lives, such as the 1954 Kumbh Mela stampede, the 2007 Mecca Masjid stampede, the 2022 Mata Vaishno Devi shrine stampede, the 2014 Dussehra celebrations stampede at Gandhi Maidan in Patna, and the deaths of around 104 Sabarimala devotees at Pulmedu in Idukki. An FIR was lodged on July 3 under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 223 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by the public servant), and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence). Narayan Saakar Hari was not named in the FIR, and his whereabouts remain unknown. In a video statement to news agency ANI on July 6, Hari expressed his depression over the stampede incident and urged the affected families to have faith in the judiciary. This statement came hours after Dev Prakash Madhukar, a close aide of Hari and the main accused in the stampede, surrendered to the police in New Delhi. Madhukar, the mukhya sevadar of the satsang where the stampede occurred, is currently in the custody of Uttar Pradesh Police. The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the hearing in the NEET-UG 2024 case after noting that some of the parties had not yet received the latest affidavits filed by the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA). The case will now be heard on July 18, further delaying a decision on a clutch of petitions demanding the re-conduct of the countrys premier medical examination because of alleged paper leaks and other malpractices. New Delhi: Students and others at the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi, Monday, July 87, 2024. The apex court has begun the hearing for a number of petitions regarding the alleged irregularities in the administration of NEET UG 2024 exams. (PTI Photo/Ravi Choudhary) (PTI07_08_2024_000069A)(PTI) A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, deferred the hearing while putting on record that some of the advocates appearing for the petitioner candidates have complained about not receiving the affidavits filed by the Centre and NTA on Wednesday night. The bench, which also comprised justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, noted that the parties would need to go through the affidavits to apply their mind to the points raised in them before proceeding with the matter. Also Read | CBI arrests Rakesh Ranjan in NEET-UG leak case, gets 10 days custody Following a plea from solicitor general Tushar Mehta, who represents the Centre in the dispute, citing his non-availability on July 15 and 16, the court scheduled the matter for hearing on July 18. The CJI also remarked that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was handed over the probe in the matter on June 23, has also submitted a status report that would be considered on the next date. In its affidavit submitted on Wednesday night, the Centre firmly opposed the demand for a re-test of the NEET-UG 2024, citing a comprehensive report from IIT-Madras that refutes allegations of widespread malpractices or illicit benefits to candidates at select centres. The Centre highlighted key findings from the IIT-Madras data analysis to assert the integrity of the NEET-UG 2024 examination process. According to the affidavit, the Department of Higher Education had requested IIT-Madras to conduct a detailed data analysis of the NEET-UG 2024 results to identify any suspected cases of malpractice and evaluate the spread of top-performing candidates. Also Read | Dharmendra Pradhan meets NEET aspirants, assures necessary measures IIT-Madras conducted an exhaustive analysis of the top 1.4 lakh ranks for both 2023 and 2024 to detect any abnormalities. The Centre reported that this analysis aimed to determine if any centres or cities showed signs of undue advantage to a large number of students due to malpractices. The report, dated July 10, revealed no indications of mass malpractice or any localised set of candidates benefiting unduly. The distribution of high marks was consistent across various cities and centres. The analysis shows that there is neither any indication of mass malpractice nor a localised set of candidates being benefitted leading to abnormal scores. There is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically in the range of 550 to 720 (total score). This increase is seen across the cities and centres. This is attributed to a 25% reduction in syllabus. In addition, candidates obtaining such high marks are spread across multiple cities and multiple centres, indicating a very low likelihood of malpractice, stated the affidavit. The IIT-Madras report, endorsed by its director, maintained that the analysis of the 2023 and 2024 NEET UG data could lead to an inference with confidence that there has been no abnormality, which has affected the results. Supporting the Centres stance, NTA, which conducts NEET, also filed a separate affidavit in the Supreme Court on Wednesday night. It stated that so far, only 47 candidates 17 in Patna and 30 in Godhra have been suspected of involvement in paper leaks and irregularities relating to OMR sheets. NTA affirmed it would rely on the findings of the IIT-Madras report during the court proceedings. NTAs affidavit also addressed a video showing a purported leak of the NEET-UG exam paper on Telegram on May 4, declaring it as fake. Discussions within the Telegram channel indicate that members identified the video as fake. The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak. Comments and discussions on social media further corroborate that the images in the video were edited, and the date was intentionally modified to suggest a May 4 leak. The screenshots highlight the fabricated nature of the claims made in the video, the affidavit said. The Supreme Court had on July 8 directed the Union government and NTA to provide comprehensive details about the nature and extent of the leak. This included the time between the leak and the conduct of the exam, the manner of the leak, dissemination of the leaked question papers, steps taken to identify the beneficiaries of the leak, and measures adopted to secure the integrity of future examinations. The Centres affidavit emphasised that the ministry of health & family welfare oversees the counseling process for UG seats, which will begin in the third week of July 2024. Any candidate found guilty of malpractice will have their candidature canceled during or after the counseling process. The timing of such cancellations will affect seat allocation, but vacant seats could still be offered in subsequent rounds if necessary. To further strengthen the examination process, the government has established a high-level committee of experts, headed by Dr K Radhakrishnan, former Chairman of ISRO and Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Kanpur, said the Centre. This committee will recommend measures to enhance transparency and robustness in future examinations conducted by the NTA. The committee consists of experts with extensive experience across various fields, demonstrating the necessary domain expertise required for undertaking such an exercise, highlighted the affidavit, adding that the committee has also co-opted two more members professors from IIT-Kanpur. The Centres affidavit also underscored the governments legislative efforts to ensure examination integrity. Parliament enacted the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, which came into effect on June 21. This Act provides stringent punishments for offenses related to unfair means in public examinations, ensuring a robust legal framework to deter malpractices, said the Centre. NTA, on its part, submitted that the options being considered is to replace the mode of conduct of examination from pen and paper mode (OMR based) to computer-based test (CBT) mode. Further options are also being explored simultaneously so as to perfectly obviate the occurrence of any malpractices that may affect the sanctity and integrity of the exam. In respect of modalities to be followed for identification of beneficiaries, it is submitted that the investigation by CBI is already going on and NTA would make inquiries from the city coordinators and other exam functionaries by seeking further information and take appropriate action, it said. NTA added that based on the progress of investigations, as and when the names of suspicious candidates become available, it can also initiate an administrative process for debarring such candidates. It also pointed out that not 67 but only 61 candidates had scored the perfect marks of 720 because six of them were given grace marks due to a loss of time and after the re-test, those six candidates were not able to score 720. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre for declaring June 25 as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' to commemorate the imposition of the Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government nearly 50 years ago. He defended the Emergency, stating that while it was undemocratic, it was not unconstitutional. Shashi Tharoor, a senior member of the Indian National Congress, during an interview in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.(Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg) ALSO READ- 'Congress unleashed dark phase': PM Modi on Samvidhan Hatya Diwas "It's a bit bizarre to declare a date as "Samvidhan Hatya Diwas". First, the Samvidhan is alive and well and strongly supported by the electorate. No hatya (murder) has occurred," the senior Congress leader said in an X post. "What happened on that date (June 25, 1975) was entirely in accordance with the provisions of the Samvidhan. It was undemocratic, but not unconstitutional," Tharoor said. The Thiruvananthapuram MP shared an article of Hindustan Times from June where he defended the imposition of Emergency by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi. "I think arresting opposition politicians, censoring the press, and a number of steps taken during that period were undemocratic, but, sadly, not unconstitutional, he remarked in response toPresident Droupadi Murmu address to a joint sitting of Parliament where she condemned Emergency. Union home minister Amit Shah announced that the government will observe June 25, the day the Emergency was declared in 1975, as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' to honour those who endured the hardships of that period. The Congress criticised the government's decision, calling it another "headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress General Secretary (In-charge, Communications), Jairam Ramesh said, "Yet another headline grabbing exercise in hypocrisy by the non-biological PM who had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years before the people of India handed him a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat on June 4, 2024 - which will go down in history as Modi Mukti Diwas." Shiv Sena MP Milind Deora on Thursday urged the Maharashtra chief secretary to hold an impartial' probe into allegations against a probationary IAS officer, accused of demanding a private cabin and staff, despite only being a trainee. Trainee IAS officer Puja Khedkar was shunted on Monday (HT Photo) Earlier this week, Puja Khedkar, a 2022-batch IAS officer who was posted in Pune, was transferred to Washim, where she will complete the remaining term of her training, serving as a supernumerary assistant collector till July 30, 2025. The allegations against #IAS officer Puja Khedkar are a serious reputational hazard to the service. Are you in government to serve or due to a sense of entitlement? Deora posted on X (formerly Twitter). I urge Maharashtra's Chief Secretary to conduct a comprehensive & impartial investigation into these allegations without delay. Ensuring justice & preserving trust in our administrative service is crucial, he added. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which recruits officers to the All India Services, is known for producing high-caliber officers', the Rajya Sabha member further stated, adding that people without merit and ethics' are not fit to hold important public offices. Also Read: IAS Puja Khedkar had put pressure on police to release steel thief Khedkar is also under scrutiny for having lied about suffering visual and mental disabilities to secure a posting despite a relatively low qualifying score. The 32-year-old passed her UPSC exam under the Visually Impaired Category and submitted a certificate claiming mental illness. With concessions granted thanks to the certificate, she was elevated in the IAS selection merit list despite an all-India rank of 821. Also Read: WhatsApp chat reveals new details about Maharashtra IAS officer Puja Khedkar I cannot comment on the questions as rules do not allow me to speak, she said after joining duty in Washim. The central government has now formed a panel to look into the claims against her candidature. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday announced that the Vizhinjam Port in Kerala will complete its second, third and fourth phases by 2028, 17 years ahead of its schedule. Vijayan made the announcement while welcoming the first mothership, San Fernando, at the seaport. San Fernando vessel is currently anchored at the port as part of a trial run of the seaport's commercial operations which will continue for two months.The commissioning of the seaport is expected by October (ANI Photo) Welcomed with a water salute, San Fernando, a vessel carrying over 1000 containers owned by SFL Corporation Ltd and chartered by Maersk, a Denmark-based company, entered the port at 7am on Thursday and was berthed by 9:50 am on the same day, ANI reported. ALSO READ | Kerala's Vizhinjam port receives first mothership ahead of trial run The vessel is currently anchored at the port as part of a trial run of the seaport's commercial operations which will continue for two months. The commissioning of the seaport is expected by October, reported ANI. In a gathering attended by Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, the Kerala CM described the vessel's entry as a proud moment for the country and added that India has entered into the global map through Vizhinjam. The biggest ships in the world can berth in Vizhinjam. The operation is starting through a trial run. And will start completely functioning soon. This is becoming the mother port and it is a proud moment, said Vijayan at the gathering. Adani Ports MD Karan Adani was the chief guest at the ceremony. Vijayan also announced that phases two to four of the port will be completed by 2028, 17 years earlier than scheduled. The international port built by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, (APSEZ) with a total investment of 8,867 crore is India's first deep-water container transhipment port. "This is the largest port project in the Public-Private Partnership mode in the country which is designed, built, Finance, Operate and Transfer, the project outlay is 8,867 crore with a state government contribution of around 5,595 crore" said, K S Srinivas, Principal Secretary Port Department during the event. The project was allotted to APSEZ on December 5, 2015 after the state government signed a concession agreement with Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Ltd. (AVPPL) on August 17, 2015. Sarbananda Sonowal, Union minister said this port will be a remarkable one in India's economic growth of the country. Minister Sonowal also attended the stakeholder's meeting at Vizhinjam lighthouse on Thursday. Gautam Adani, chairman and founder of the Adani group, called the welcoming of the mothership a historic occasion. The preparations for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding are in full swing, with glimpses of the celebrations going viral on social media. From designer clothes and sparkling jewels to the arrival of international stars, people are enthralled by the wedding festivities of India's wealthiest family. Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are marking their wedding celebrations with a grand 40-day Bhandara. (Instagram) Recently, a grand bhandara in Mumbai has become a hot topic on social media. Organized by Anant Ambani, this charitable event feeds9,000 people daily. Reports indicate that the bhandara is being held at Antilia, the Ambani family's residence in Mumbai. It will continue for 40 days leading up to Anant and Radhika's wedding, with meals served to thousands every day. Scroll down to know more about it. (Also read: Nita Ambani wears rare rangkat Banarasi saree by Manish Malhotra. Here's why it's so special ) Ambanis organise 40-day bhandara A recent viral Instagram video reveals that the last day of the bhandara is July 15, indicating it began on June 5. The video shares details about the food served and features the supervisor of the mass feast, who disclosed that the bhandara is open to the public and has been distributing meals twice daily. Nearly 3,000 to 4,000 people can eat at a time. The supervisor also mentioned that everyone attending the feast is offering blessings and congratulations to Anant Ambani for his upcoming wedding. The footage also showcases a variety of dishes, including vegetable pulao, gatte ki sabji, paneer sabji, raita, and dhokla. What is the significance of this practice? In Hinduism, feeding the less fortunate is considered a virtuous deed, and bhandaras are commonly held during significant events like weddings. This bhandara can be seen as a way for the Ambanis to share their happiness with the community. Weddings are joyful events, and organizing a bhandara allows the couple to extend their joy to the less fortunate and show gratitude for their blessings. Additionally, it highlights the importance of charity and social responsibility as the couple embarks on their married life. The bhandara's menu reflects these values by offering nutritious and wholesome meals. A well-balanced vegetarian spread, rich in whole grains, legumes, and vegetables, provides essential nutrients while minimizing processed foods and added sugars to promote healthy eating habits. In some families, organizing charitable activities before weddings is a tradition that strengthens family ties and honours their heritage. The bhandara menu can thus showcase the family's culinary traditions while providing a nutritious and balanced meal for all. After a series of celebrations, Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are set to marry on July 12th at Mumbais Jio World Convention Centre in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). Their wedding will be attended by friends, family, Bollywood stars, and politicians. Through their Bhandara, which serves people from all walks of life, Anant and Radhika highlight that true wealth is defined not by possessions but by the generosity we show. As Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are all set to tie the knot today, the bejeweled wedding preparation journey, that began in March this year, is coming to a grand, star-studded conclusion. It started with pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar, followed by a four-day European luxury cruise, and now has culminated in the much-anticipated wedding day at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. Anant Ambani's pre-wedding lion brooch represented his love for animals. (Instagram/@lorraineschwartz) The wedding festivities were an absolute gilded affair with head-turning lavish outfits and jaw-dropping trinkets and accessories. With massive emeralds and dangling rubies, the Ambani wedding is a masterclass in gemology. But buckle up, for this gem piece will certainly blow you away. During the pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar, the groom, Anant Ambani wore a lion-shaped brooch, which had an enormous 50-carat diamond. ALSO READ: Anant Ambani, Radhika Merchant wedding live updates: John Cena, KGF star Yash land in Mumbai The Lion Brooch The majestic lion brooch set itself apart with its unique design and massive diamond. Made by jewellery designer Lorraine Schwartz, the custom lion brooch was embellished with intricate yellow diamonds for the lions body and mane. The lions eyes were made of emeralds, a stone known for spiritual healing. The 50-carat diamond dangling from the lions mouth became the highlight of the brooch. In an interview with Forbes about the making of the jewellery, the designer emphasised the attention to detail that went into it. The yellow diamonds were in different shades to add texture and depth to the lions mane. The lion sat on a pedestal-like structure made of white diamonds with an Asscher cut, signifying being grounded and humble. ALSO READ: 5 extravagant possessions of Anant Ambani: Luxurious Dubai villa, rare watches, swanky cars and more Significance Since the inception of the wedding preparations, all the celebrations were rooted in culture. This is reflected in their attires as well, donning masterpieces of Indian craftsmanship or pieces with personal connection. Anant Ambani founded an animal rehabilitation center called Vantara. The brooch was symbolic of the Anant's love for animals which prompted him to launch the wildlife preservation project. It also stood for the couples love for each other. The designer said the groom shared all the distinct traits of a lion, including a loving heart and strong determination. The designer Lorraine Schwartz shared behind-the-scenes pictures of the brooch's making. She captioned, So excited for the upcoming wedding of this amazing couple Radhika & Anant. I especially enjoyed working on the vivid yellow diamond lion brooch for Anant at their pre-wedding celebration in Jamnagar. It was spectacular, and their love for the animals at their incredible animal sanctuary #Vantara was inspiring. I was truly in awe! It was a once in a lifetime " ALSO READ: Woman claims Radhika Merchants flower dupatta is inspired by this Instagram reel Faced with extreme weather events, people living in parts of India are "losing the ability to cope" and are forced to flee their homes, experts warn. Climate emergencies in India are growing more frequent and more dangerous (David Talukdar/ZUMA Press/picture alliance ) Weather-related disasters such as extreme heat, droughts and massive flooding are increasing in frequency and intensity in India. While the suffering they cause is immense and wide-reaching, it usually vulnerable, impoverished communities that suffer the most. A study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based public interest research and advocacy organization, tracked extreme weather events that occurred in India last year and found that the country, overall, experienced such events on 314 out of the 365 days. The CSE said 2,923 people died, almost two million hectares of crops were ruined, 80,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 92,000 animals were killed. But these numbers could be even higher because the data was not complete, according to the organization. The environmental crisis is also causing displacement and forcing people to migrate to already overcrowded megacities, Sunita Narain, head of the CSE, told DW. She said human-induced climate change is impoverishing farmers and others in the agricultural sector. "With increasing frequency of extreme weather events, people are losing the ability to cope and have no alternative but to migrate. The challenge is for all countries, particularly the rich, to take climate change targets seriously," Narain stressed. ALSO READ: Battling urban heat islands in India Migration challenge getting worse India already records some of the highest numbers of population displacements in the world every year. The vast majority of is triggered by disasters. The "State of India's Environment-2022" report puts country fourth in the world when it comes to climate change-induced migration. The study revealed that over three million people were forced to leave their homes in 2020-2021 due to environment-related catastrophes. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) in India estimates there are currently about 14 million people in total who have been forced out of their homes due to climate change. While the state is willing to provide immediate support for disaster relief and rehabilitation, there is little long-term institutional support for the needs of those affected by these disasters. A report published by ActionAid and Climate Action Network South Asia estimated that India alone will see 45 million people being forced to migrate from their homes by 2050 due to climate emergencies three times the current number of people on the move as a result of extreme weather events. The summer of 2024 has already taken its toll on parts of India, which are experiencing heavy rainfall and devastating floods. The heavy rain followed an unbearable heat wave, which caused temperatures to hit as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in places like New Delhi and the northern states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Even though the main summer months from April to June are always hot in India, temperatures have grown more extreme in the past decade. The intensity of rain and floods has also increased. About 80% of India's population, meanwhile, lives in regions that are considered vulnerable to disasters such as heat waves or severe flooding. Extreme weather and carbon emissions Scientists say extreme weather and the disasters associated with it are set to worsen as the planet grows warmer with emissions of greenhouse gases on the rise. They have called for drastic measures to reduce the emissions to control the fast-rising global temperatures. India is currently the third-highest emitter of planet-warming gases. But its per capita carbon footprint is far lower compared to Western industrialized nations. According to the World Bank, India emits on average about two tons of CO2 per person every year, compared to around seven tons per person in the European Union and 15 in the United States. And as part of India's climate change efforts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration has vowed to cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2070. Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said India needs to develop a long-term plan to tackle the problem of climate-induced migration. "India is experiencing a rapid pace of migration from areas with intensive agriculture, which are impacted by declining rainfall and droughts," he said. "The affected people are moving to heavily populated megacities like Mumbai, where they face a different set of increasing climate risks, including heavy rains, cyclones, and rising sea levels," he added. "These migrants often occupy low-elevation land susceptible to floods and may lack proper housing and resilient mechanisms, making them vulnerable to heavy rains, cyclones, and heat waves." Call for 'climate-proofing' agriculture and rural areas Abinash Mohanty, sector head of climate change and sustainability at IPE Global, an international development organization, said these events will cause massive unemployment. Heat stress alone "will cause India to lose more than 34 million jobs, denting the GDP by about 4.5% by 2030. These numbers speak volumes," he told DW. Mohanty believes that India needs to map the impacts of climate change sector by sector, in particular the issue of climate-induced migration. Other experts have also called for "climate-proofing" agriculture and other rural economic activities to limit environmental displacement and migration. "Many migrants are moving not only because of climate change but instead due to a combination of hard economic circumstances, further sharpened by climate change," said CSE's Narain. She noted that policies aimed at supporting vulnerable climate migrants are currently "severely lacking." Narain also underscored the need to invest in building local climate resilience and protecting economies. This view is shared by Mohanty. "While India has a robust climate action plan both at the national and sub-national level, it hardly encompasses climate-induced migration as a pivotal issue," he said. Leh Ladakh, 12 July - In a thrilling display of adventure and astronomical awareness, the second edition of the Astro Car Rally, aptly named "Sprint to Stars," concluded its exhilarating journey across the breathtaking terrains of Leh Ladakh. From June 21st to June 29th, participants navigated a challenging yet awe-inspiring circuit starting from Delhi and passing through Manali, Sissu, Leh, Hanle, Pangong, and Nubra Valley, before returning to Leh. Pie Matrix's Astro Car Rally: Sprint to Stars Where Astronomy Meets Adrenaline on Challenging Trails. This year's rally, organized to raise awareness about astronomy and identify prime locations for stargazing, was nothing short of spectacular. It combined the rush of off-roading with the serene beauty of the night sky, creating an unforgettable experience for all involved. The Route: A Journey Through Majestic Landscapes The rally kicked off in Delhi, with participants eager to embark on their adventurous journey. The first leg took them to Manali, a popular hill station known for its stunning landscapes and adventurous trails. From there, the convoy moved to Sissu, a picturesque village in the Lahaul Valley, offering a perfect blend of nature's beauty and challenging off-road tracks. The drive from Sissu to Leh was nothing short of extraordinary. Navigating through the rugged terrains, the participants experienced the thrill of off-roading amidst the majestic Himalayas. Leh, with its unique blend of culture and natural beauty, served as a perfect pit stop before the journey continued to Hanle, one of the best locations in India for stargazing due to its clear, unpolluted skies. Pie Matrix's Astro Car Rally A Stellar Experience: Hanle and Beyond Hanle, home to the Indian Astronomical Observatory, provided the participants with a rare opportunity to observe the night sky in all its glory. The rally's emphasis on astronomy was evident as enthusiasts and experts shared knowledge about celestial bodies and the importance of dark sky preservation. From Hanle, the rally moved towards the stunning Pangong Lake, known for its ever-changing hues and serene surroundings. The journey continued to Nubra Valley, famous for its sand dunes, double-humped camels, and breathtaking views. The return leg to Leh marked the end of a thrilling, fun-filled, and educational adventure. Beyond the Thrill: Raising Awareness About Astronomy The concept of the Astro Car Rally goes beyond the adrenaline rush of off-roading. It aims to educate participants and the general public about the importance of astronomy and the preservation of dark sky sites. The rally highlighted various locations across the circuit that are ideal for stargazing and astronomical studies. Fun, Adrenaline, and Dangerous Roads The rally was a perfect blend of fun and adrenaline, with participants tackling the dangerous roads of LehLadakh, known for their steep inclines and sharp turns. The challenging terrain tested their driving skills and endurance, making it a true test of grit and determination. Conclusion The second edition of the Astro Car Rally organized by Pie Matrix: Sprint to Stars was a resounding success, leaving participants with unforgettable memories and a deeper appreciation for the night sky. The event not only provided an adrenaline-pumping adventure but also emphasized the importance of astronomy and the preservation of our natural heritage. As the rally came to a close, participants and organizers alike celebrated the spirit of adventure, camaraderie, and the shared goal of raising awareness about astronomy. The "Sprint to Stars" has set a new benchmark for off-roading events in India, promising even more excitement and enlightenment in future editions. Website - https://thepiematrix.com. Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. 1.Soleil Da Paris Streamlining your Skincare in a World Overrun by Choices!!! In the world of overwhelming skin care choices, Soleil da Paris aims to simplify your routine. They stand out by emphasising quality over quantity, providing a small selection of essential products like Tendre (facewash), Imperishable & Immaculee (serums) Nuage (moisturisers), and Lueurdivine (sunscreen) for basic skincare routines,and solution-based products that cater to a variety of skincare issues. They focus on a streamlined regimen for effective results, drawing inspiration from the minimalist French beauty philosophy of "less is more." 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Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. The Ambanis have been in the limelight for their business ventures, philanthropist endeavours, and luxurious lifestyle. This is true for the youngest scion of the Ambani family, known for his penchant for the finer things in life. Besides his impressive and rare watch collection, he owns several other expensive things, including luxury cars and villas in foreign lands. Anant Ambani wears a rare watch for a temple visit ahead of his wedding to Radhika Merchant. (HT Photo/Varinder Chawla) Here are 5 expensive items owned by Anant Ambani: 1. Villa in Palm Jumeirah According to GQ, in 2022, Anant Ambani received a sea-facing villa in Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, as a gift from his father, Mukesh Ambani. Reportedly, it cost around $80 million ( 640 crores). The villa has ten bedrooms and an artificial archipelago. It is one of the most expensive properties in Dubai. The villa also has a salon, a large dining area, a private spa, and a 70-metre-long private beach. 2. Rare watch from Richard Mille Anant Ambanis love for watches is no secret. One such watch from his collection went viral after he was spotted wearing it during an event. It is a rare RM 52-05 from Richard Mille. Valued at nearly 12.5 crore, there are only 30 pieces of this item worldwide. Anant Ambani's luxurious watch. (File photo) 3. Roll-Royce Phantom It is the most expensive car that Anant Ambani owns, reported GQ. This luxury car can generate a power output of 453 bhp and 720 Nm of torque. The car starts at 9.5 crore. 4. Bentley Continental GTC Speed The Bentley Continental GTC Speed, a British-designed marvel, is the next on the list, valued at 4.5 crore in India. This model, owned by Anant Ambani, is reportedly highly customized to his specifications. 5. Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime The youngest Ambani son was spotted wearing this ultra-rare watch by a Swiss watchmaker at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) opening in Mumbai. Released as a part of the Patek Philippes 175th anniversary celebration in 2014, there are only six pieces of this complicated watch. Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, got married to Radhika Merchant, daughter of Viren and Shaila Merchant, at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai's Bandra-Kurla Complex. The couple earlier had their two star-studded pre-wedding celebrations, first one in Jamnagar and second in a cruise around Europe, which included performances from world-renowned artists. Its the wedding of the year, and theres no doubt about it! As Anant Ambani, son of Asias richest man Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambani, is tying the knot with his childhood friend Radhika Merchant, people want to keep themselves updated with the tiniest of details - at least this is what the online search trends show. Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani's youngest son, Anant Ambani, will marry childhood sweetheart Radhika Merchant in Mumbai today, July 12. (AFP) Catch live updates on Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding here. Hot keyword on Google: Anant Ambani Wedding Anant Ambani is the talk of the town, or rather, the internet! The keyword Anant Ambani Wedding is currently the third most searched term on Googles daily search trends in India on Friday, July 12. Back in March, when the couples pre-wedding festivities kicked off in Jamnagar, Gujarat, searches for the wedding skyrocketed. Now, with the wedding happening today, July 12, user interest is expected to hit another peak. Indians are searching the web for the tiniest of details on Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding, from the ceremony to the guest list, food and decor. Ambanis are dominating the trends on X The excitement surrounding Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding has spilt over to X (formerly Twitter), where wedding-related hashtags are dominating the trends. One of the hashtags that is at the third spot on the microblogging platform is AnantwedsRadhika. Another hashtag, Anant Ambani, which is in Hindi, is at number 17, closely followed by another Hindi hashtag that has the bride Radhika Merchants name. Mukesh Ambani and Ambani Parivaar are also among the top 30 trends on X in India on Friday, July 12. People are not only congratulating the couple but are also saying that it is a dream wedding. An X user said that is a grand celebration of love. Another individual said that the grand wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Many even wished the couple endless joy. Author JK Rowling recently reacted to the story of a Kerala man who stole a Harry Potter book from a bookstore when he was in school and 17 years later, how he returned to the same store as a newly-minted, with the copy of his own book as well as the stolen Harry Potter book. Reese Thomas with Devadas (R), the owner of the book shop from where he stole a copy of JK Rowling's Harry Potter when he was a student. Reese Thomas was in Class 9 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling's seventh and last book in the iconic series, hit the stands in 2007. A student from humble beginnings in the riverside town of Muvattupuzha in Kerala's Ernakulam district, Thomas's parents told him they were not planning on buying the tome for him. He was advised to rely on the local library instead. Around the same time, the then-teenager's friends at school challenged him to steal the book from a bookshop if he was that desperate to read it. Inspired by hit movies "Dhoom" and "Don", Thomas took up the challenge and managed to steal a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from a bookshop in Muvattupuzha. "I felt heroic," he told Hindustantimes.com, adding that he thought he got by as there were no CCTV cameras in the shop at that time. However, he was caught by the shop's owner a few days later when he visited the store to buy another book as the man had his suspicions on the student after the book went missing. "I did not ever go to that bookshop again. It was a dark episode in my life," Thomas said Seventeen years later, Reese Thomas narrated the episode in his debut Malayalam book "90s Kid". The newly-minted author mustered up the courage to visit the bookstore in his hometown with a friend last month. He made sure to carry a copy of his new book as well as the copy of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows he had stolen in 2007. Devadas, the owner of New College Book Stall in Muvattupuzha, had long forgotten the episode of confronting a teenager over a Harry Potter book. Thomas reminded him of the incident and said that he is now an author himself. "He sweetly welcomed me and we had a heartfelt conversation," Thomas said. So did he return the stolen book to the bookshop owner? "I will never return that book. I want to keep it with me," he said, adding that the shop owner refused to take money for the book 17 years later. Instead, he made Thomas sign copies of his own book which were displayed in the store. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), JK Rowling reacted to Thomas's story published in The Hindu. "I know I'll be accused of encouraging book stealing by sharing this, so please don't steal books, book stealing is bad. Anyway, this is the loveliest thing and made me really happy," the British author, who has over 14 million followers on X, said. Take a look at JK Rowling's post on X: Emma Watson was a childhood crush "It is an unexplainable feeling. I did not expect it all. I was telling my friends how I wish JK Rowling had read my story. And it actually happened," Thomas told Hindustantimes.com. He said he ardently followed the Happy Potter series in his teenage years mainly because of actor Emma Watson, who played Hermoine in the films, is a "childhood crush". Several companies in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) have asked their employees to work remotely from July 12 to July 15 due to the traffic restrictions in the area for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding. Jio World Plaza on One Big fashion Brand has leased space inside Jio World at BKC, Bandra, in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Sep 01, 2023. (Photo by Vijay Bate/HT Photo) Roads near the wedding venue, the upmarket Jio World Convention Centre owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance conglomerate in BKC, will be open only for "event vehicles" between 1 pm and midnight between July 12 and July 15. The extensive traffic restrictions have sparked outrage among locals and on the internet. According to police, the celebration has been deemed a "public event" due to the presence of high-profile international and Indian celebrities. The big fat Indian wedding is a culmination of months of extravagant pre-wedding celebrations held both in India and abroad. Mukesh and Nita Ambani hosted two lavish galas - first over a weekend in Gujarat's Jamnagar in March and the second, on a luxury cruise in Europe. Anant Ambani will tie the knot with Radhika Merchant on Friday following a string of events in Mumabi in the last two weeks. The glitzy celebrations this weekened will see global personalities such as Kim Kardashian and her sister Kloe Kardashian, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-Yong, former British prime minister Boris Johnson. (Also Read: Kim, Kim, welcome to Mumbai: Kardashians get a grand welcome from paps for Ambani wedding) Last week, Justin Bieber performed for hundreds of guests at Sangeet ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Room rents for hotels in BKC have shot up to as high as 91,000 for a night for this weekend. See Mumbai traffic restrictions from July 12 to July 15 On these dates, there will be no entry for vehicular traffic on the Kurla MTNL Road from Laxmi Tower Junction through Dhirubai Ambani Square Avenue Lane-3, Indian Oil Petrol Pump, and Diamond Junction to Hotel Trident. Instead, vehicles from One BKC should turn left at Laxmi Tower Junction, proceed to Diamond Gate No. 8, then turn right at NABARD Junction, continue to Diamond Junction, and head towards BKC via Dhirubai Ambani Square and the Indian Oil Petrol Pump. There will be no entry at Dhirubai Ambani Square Avenue/Indian Oil Petrol Pump for vehicles coming from Kurla, MTNL Junction, Platina Junction, and Diamond Junction towards the BKC connector bridge. These vehicles should take a left at NABARD Junction, proceed from Diamond Gate No. 8, turn right at Laxmi Tower Junction, and continue to BKC. (Also Read: Ambanis give Haldirams aloo bhujia, sev and more to Reliance employees for Anant Ambani wedding) Days before Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding, Nita Ambani flew to Varanasi and tried local delicacies at a chaat shop. She loved the lip-smacking food and said that her husband Mukesh Ambani would have loved it, referring to the billionaires love for chaats. Apparently, the flavours were so good that Nita decided to bring a taste of Varanasi to her sons wedding feast. Nita Ambani greeting Rajesh, who put up a chaat stall at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding. (Instagram/@nmacc.india) Auspicious beginnings: An ode to Kashi, reads the caption to the video shared on Instagram. It added, In line with our Founder & Chairperson, Mrs Nita Ambanis vision of sharing Indias rich cultural heritage with the world, the Ambani family will be paying homage to the holy city of Kashi or Varanasi at the much-awaited wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Resting in the sacred embrace of Ganga, Varanasi is the cradle of Indian civilization. Leading up to the nuptials, Mrs Nita Ambani paid a visit to the ancient seat of culture to seek the blessings of Kashi Vishwanath for the new couple. Her deep reverence for the Eternal City is manifested in thoughtful thematic details of the wedding, where its beauty, positivity, light, and purity will be reimagined in spectacular ways, it further said. In the video, she says, Namaskar. Jai Kashi Vishwanath. For me and my family, it has always been important to seek the blessing of our Devis and Devtas before any auspicious beginning. A few weeks back, I went to Varanasi to pray for my children, Annat and Radhika before their wedding. Ive always been fascinated by Kashi - the oldest living city, the city of lights, the cradle of Indian civilisation. She added, Throughout Anant and Radhikas wedding celebrations, we have tried to pay a tribute to Indias glorious culture and heritage brought alive by thousands of Artisans, karigars, weavers, and craftsman. I am delighted to proudly reimagine and present the purity, positivity and beauty of our legacy at the wedding. The grace of our gods and goddesses, the blessings of our priests and saints, the piousness of our rituals and traditions. In the video, she also greets the chaatwala from Varanasi and said, Namaste Rajesh ji. Achcha laga aapko yahan dekh kar. He replied, Bahut achcha laga. Aapne hamko yahan bulane ka wada kia tha, wo pura aapne kia. Watch the entire video here: Anant Ambani, the youngest son of billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita Ambani, is marrying Radhika Merchant, daughter of industrialist Viren Merchant and businesswoman Shaila Merchant, today, July 12, at the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai. The couple had their roka ceremony in Rajasthan in 2022 and engagement in 2023 at Antilia - the palatial bungalow of the Ambani family. This year, the couple had two pre-wedding celebrations - one is Jamnagar, Gujarat and another aboard a cruise in Europe. A landslide on the Madan-Ashrit Highway in Nepal early this morning swept two buses carrying 63 people into the Trishuli River. The incident, involving the Kathmandu-bound Angel bus and Ganpati Deluxe, occurred around 3:30 am amid heavy rainfall in the region. People watch the flooded Bagmati river in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, July 6, 2024.(AP/Representational Image) Indradev Yadav, the Chief District Officer of Chitwan, told ANI that the buses were travelling along the highway when the landslide struck, pushing them off the road and into the raging river below. "As per the preliminary information both the buses were carrying a total of 63 people including the bus drivers. The landslide swept the buses at around 3:30 am. We are at the incident site and a search operation is underway. Incessant rain is hampering our efforts to search for the missing buses," Yadav confirmed to ANI. Read: Nepal: 11 killed, 8 missing in flash floods and landslides amid heavy rain Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda directed all government agencies to search and rescue the passengers. I am deeply saddened by the reports of about five dozen passengers that are missing after the buses were washed away by a landslide on the Narayangadh-Muglin road section and the loss of properties due to floods and landslides in different parts of the country. I direct all agencies of the government, including the home administration, to search and effectively rescue the passengers, Dahal posted on X. Nepali Army shared a video of the search and rescue operation. Meanwhile, all the flights from Kathmandu to Bharatpur have been cancelled for the day as the weather remains inclement, reported ANI. Read: Nepal PM Prachanda to face floor test on July 12 after key ally's withdrawal of support Since the onset of the monsoon season, at least 62 people have been killed, and 90 others sustained injuries in rain-related incidents in Nepal, home ministry officials informed last week. While 34 people were killed by landslides, 28 succumbed to floods resulting from incessant rains. Seven individuals are reported missing due to these natural calamities. The heavy rains have caused substantial property damage, with at least 121 houses inundated and 82 others damaged. The natural disasters have displaced a total of 1,058 households across the country. At least 60 people including seven Indians are believed to be missing after a monsoon-triggered landslide swept two buses into a river in Nepal on Friday, according to multiple reports. Two buses were swept into the Trishuli River by the landslides at Simaltal area along the Narayanghat-Mugling road in Chitwan district (PTI) Two buses were swept into the Trishuli River by the landslide at the Simaltal area along the Narayanghat-Mugling road in Chitwan district. Here are the latest updates on Nepal landslides The two buses were swept into the river at around 3 am. Three passengers were reportedly able to escape the landslide before it swept the buses into the Trishuli River. They are currently under medical treatment, AFP reported. Authorities have mobilised search and rescue personnel combing the area where they found the survivors in the central district of Chitwan which is around 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of the country capital Kathmandu, reported AFP. An official source told Reuters, There were 41 people in the bus travelling from Kathmandu to Gaur, and 24 people in the bus travelling from Birgunj to Kathmandu. On Friday morning, a third bus was hit by the landslide killing the driver, said government administrator Khima Nanada Bhusal, reported AP. Police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told Reuters, landslides washed away three houses in Kaski district, which is 150 km away from Kathmandu claiming the lives of 10 people. On Thursday night, near the resort town of Pokhara, a family of seven was killed in a landslide. The hut in which the family was sleeping was crushed by the landslide and damaged three other houses in the area as well, reported AP. Since mid-June, landslides and floods have killed at least 91 people in Nepal, reported Reuters. According to PTI, over 1,800 people have lost their lives in a decade due to monsoon disasters with about 400 people missing and more than 1400 injured. Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed his grief and concern over the flood situation in the country. In a post on 'X', he said the government agencies are searching for the missing. (with inputs from news agencies) Alec Baldwin's trial for involuntary manslaughter was paused Friday as his lawyers claimed police "buried" evidence about the fatal shooting on the set of the Western film "Rust," and called for the case's dismissal. Baldwin trial paused as lawyers file to dismiss over 'buried' bullets Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, presiding over the trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sent jurors home until Monday as she weighed the defense's request, which was described by prosecutors as irrelevant. Hollywood A-lister Baldwin was holding a gun in the direction of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal in October 2021 when the weapon fired, killing Hutchins and wounding the film's director. The movie's armorer Hannah Gutierrez, who loaded the fatal weapon, is already serving 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin is now facing the same charges. Prosecutors claim he ignored basic gun safety laws and acted recklessly on set. Baldwin's celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro has argued the actor had no responsibility for checking the weapon's deadly contents. But the defense's case has also rested heavily on discrediting the police investigation. And Spiro on Thursday introduced evidence that live bullets potentially linked to the shooting had been handed to police, but not disclosed to Baldwin's lawyers. The bullets were handed into police by a "Good Samaritan" earlier this year, more than two years after the "Rust" tragedy. The "Good Samaritan" was a former police officer and a family friend of Gutierrez, the armorer. He told police the bullets matched the rounds that killed Hutchins. Spiro accused police of having "buried" evidence by not filing it under the "Rust" case, depriving the defense of a chance to see it. "Which was a perfect plan," he told the court. Crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, under questioning from Spiro, said she had catalogued the bullets, but had been told not to file them under the "Rust" case. Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey scrambled to respond, telling the court she had never seen or heard of the bullets before this week. But she insisted they were not relevant to Baldwin's case, since it is the actor's behavior on set while handling weapons that is at stake. And Poppell told the court that in any case, the bullets did not match the live ammunition that killed Hutchins. Sommer is expected to hear further evidence on Friday, in the absence of the jury, before deciding if the case will proceed. Hutchins was originally from Ukraine, and grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle. She moved to the United States, and her career as a Hollywood cinematographer was thriving when she was killed at the age of 42. Baldwin, 66, could face up to 18 months in prison if found guilty. amz/st This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. London, A British Indian art dealer and activist, who recently reopened his gallery in central London, is planning a major exhibition so that part of its proceeds can go towards continuing his fight for LGBTQ rights across India. British Indian art dealer to raise funds for LGBTQ rights in India Amar Singh, the London-born member of a Kapurthala royal family, relaunched Amar Gallery in Fitzrovia last month with a solo exhibition of the works of French photographer and painter Dora Maar a muse of celebrated Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso. In September, it will become the first gallery to host a solo exhibition of the paintings of American abstract painter Lawrence Calcagno and much of its proceeds are ear-marked for Singh's India-focussed campaigns. Im proud to be Indian; at the end of last year the Indian Supreme Court banned conversion therapy and Im currently working with human rights lawyers to enforce this ban across all Indian states, said Singh. My ultimate message is equality matters for all people, even those we might disagree with; we are all equal human at the end of the day. In September 2024, Amar Gallery London will be the first gallery to host a solo exhibition of LGBT artist Lawrence Calcagnos incredible paintings. Calcagno was the student of Mark Rothko but was a true legend in his own right painting meditative works. Part of the proceeds from this exhibition will go towards continuing my fight for LGBT rights across India, he said. It was as a little boy when his parents would take him to museums that his love of works of art was nurtured. Art can be a powerful tool for change and also a form of great therapy. It is one of the greatest cultural assets we have. My all-time favourite story is from around 20 years ago with my parents in the south of France, we came across a group of paintings being exhibited in a church. The organisers directed us to the artists home as he lived nearby and that was S H Raza, who went on to become not only one of the most important artists in Indian but world history, recalls Singh. For Singh, the city of London is an art form in itself, bursting with diversity and colour, and therefore he decided to reopen Amar Gallery in the UK capital. But over time he plans to hold exhibitions around the world, including India. I reopened Amar Gallery in June 2024 with a solo exhibition of Dora Maars work. She was Picassos muse and lover. More importantly she was an amazing artist in her own right admired by the other leading artists such as Man Ray, Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali. Im thrilled to reopen Amar Gallery celebrating this overlooked artist who was often overshadowed by her relationship with Picasso, he added. The ethos of Amar Gallery is that nothing matters more than the art, but the reality is many fine artists were overlooked because of their gender, sex or race. It hopes to help correct this imbalance and give overlooked artists the spotlight they deserve. In 2022, Londons National Portrait Gallery acquired a portrait of Amar Singh by artist Howard Tangye for their permanent collection as a celebration of diversity. He got into the world of dealing art in 2014 and is a patron of the Tate and Whitechapel Gallery in London. He is also a patron of anti-trafficking organisation Shakti Vahini and We Power, which provide dignified employment opportunities for women survivors of human trafficking in India. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Toronto: The secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has announced it will hold the next phase of its so-called Khalistan referendum at a government facility in the city of Calgary in the province of Alberta later this month. Sikhs march in a parade to mark Khalsa Day celebrations in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 28. (AFP) The venue, announced on Thursday by SFJs general-counsel Gurpatwant Pannun is the Calgary Municipal Plaza which is owned and operated by the city of Calgary. Pannun said the referendum, slated for July 28, is expected to be thronged by pro-Khalistan Sikhs in thousands. If the referendum does go ahead at that particular venue, it will be the first time since September 2022 that it has been held at a government location. Interestingly, the site for the Calgary Municipal Complex Atrium and Plaza shows no event listing. Listings for the Atrium are blank while those for the Plaza show that it is closed on that day for resurfacing. Booking of the Atrium is limited to registered non-profits, charities and school groups and space has to be reserved at least 30 days before the event, while the Plaza is available to any group or person between the hours of 7am and 11pm. A permit is not required for this space, but users can secure exclusive use of the Plaza by registering their events. Calgarys local government is headed by an Indo-Canadian mayor Jyoti Gondek. A flyer for the referendum states that to obtain a ballot paper, the person must be a Sikh living in Canada and over 18 years of age with valid ID. The last time a government facility was registered for the referendum was the Tamanawis Secondary School in the town of Surrey in British Columbia. However, on September 3 last year, week before the scheduled date for the referendum, a spokesperson for the Surrey District School Board said, in a release, that it had cancelled a community rental of one of our schools due to a violation of our rental agreement. The ostensible reason for withdrawing permission was that promotional materials for the event featured images of the school, alongside images of a weapon. The poster for the referendum actually featured both an AK-47 machine gun as well as a kirpan. Despite repeated attempts to address the issue, the event organisers failed to remove these concerning images, and materials continued to be posted throughout Surrey and on social media, the release noted. That referendum was ultimately held on September 10 last year at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey. Prior to that on September 18, 2022, it was organised at the Gore Meadows Community Centre, a municipal property in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). BEIJING, - China on Thursday criticized a communique from the NATO summit in Washington that described it as decisive enabler of Russia's war effort in Ukraine as biased and 'sowing discord'. China says NATO statement about its role in Russia-Ukraine conflict are 'malicious' Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security, the planned communiques also said. "On the Ukraine crisis, NATO hyped up China's responsibility. It makes no sense and comes with malicious intent," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press briefing. "We urge NATO to reflect on the root cause of the crisis and what it has done, and take concrete action to de-escalate rather than shift blame," Lin added. His comments follow remarks from a spokesperson for the Chinese mission to the European Union who described the declaration as "full of Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric, and China-related content full of provocations, lies, incitement and smears." "China's core position on the Ukraine issue is to promote peace talks and political settlement, which has been widely recognized and appreciated by the international community," said the spokesperson. Beijing put forward a 12-point paper more than a year ago that set out general principles for ending the war, but did not get into specifics. It received a lukewarm reception at the time in both Russia and Ukraine. For its part, China has repeatedly lashed out at NATO criticisms and has warned against its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, saying it disrupts the prosperity and stability of the region. Leaders of Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, in attendance at NATO, have forged stronger ties with the security alliance amid rising concerns over China's aggressions in the South China Sea. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. By Virginia Furness Former SBTi employee files complaint with British charity watchdog LONDON, - A former employee of the Science-Based Targets initiative has filed a complaint with Britain's charity regulator accusing the non-profit, which the world's biggest companies use to audit their carbon emission targets, of acting against its mission. In the complaint, which was submitted last month and was reviewed by Reuters this week, the former employee wrote that SBTi's board of trustees acted "recklessly" in announcing plans in April to allow companies to use carbon credits in their targets, arguing they discourage companies from reducing their own emissions. The SBTi had previously rejected the use of offsets in setting targets, and the U-turn sparked a backlash among its staff that led to its board saying it would not change the rules for now and would simply explore whether it should adopt carbon offsets. Luiz Amaral, SBTi's CEO who the staff called to resign over the matter, stepped down earlier this month citing personal reasons he did not disclose. The complaint with the Charity Commission alleges that SBTi's board trustees repeatedly breached company rules and ignored expert opinion in announcing it would seek to allow carbon offsets. The former employee who passed on a copy of their complaint to Reuters requested anonymity, citing fear of potential retribution. Reuters shared the contents of the complaint with SBTi and a spokesperson said the non-profit could not comment without reviewing it itself. They reiterated that SBTi still does not allow carbon offsets. "We will be providing more detail on this in due course, including an extensive consultation process, and we look forward to the contributions made from civil society, business and government," the spokesperson said. Charity Commission spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. Companies under pressure to curb their emissions can buy credits from developers of projects that absorb carbon, such as through reforestation. The market for offsets has remained small due to a limited number of projects that can verify their climate benefits. The complaint claims SBTi's board did not consult staff or its advisers on moving ahead with carbon credits. It also alleges that several board trustees have ties to the carbon offset industry. SBTi is partly funded by the Bezos Earth fund, a charity set up by billionaire Jeff Bezos that is a big investor in voluntary carbon markets, and the former employee wrote this creates a conflict. If the Charity Commission decides to investigate a complaint, its inquires can have a range of outcomes, from removing trustees to appointing interim managers or, in very rare cases, taking away charitable status, said Chris Priestley, a partner at Withers LLP specializing in charity law. Holger Hoffman-Riem, a member of the SBTi's technical advisory group that advises SBTi on the development of standards and guidelines, said an investigation was warranted. "An external review should be in the best interest of the board, so that they can demonstrate compliance with principles of charity law and governance," he said. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. In the dead of the night, wearing bullet-proof vests, their faces masked, scores of armed Spanish police staged a stealthy pre-dawn raid on homes in a small Catalan town this week. Guns n' ganja: Weapons flood Catalonia's cannabis trade Despite being armed to the teeth, this wasn't an anti-terror operation: they were raiding marijuana plantations which are increasingly run by gangs with serious weaponry. With its eight million residents, this wealthy northeastern region of Spain has in recent years morphed from being a transit route for drugs to becoming a notorious European production hub, mainly of marijuana. And as a result, guns are becoming increasingly visible and instances of armed violence are on the rise. In their pre-dawn raid in Constanti, which lies 100 kilometres down the coast from Barcelona, police burst into seven homes that had been taken over by squatters. Inside, they found 2,000 marijuana plants growing under powerful lights in rooms equipped with large fans. "We're fighting to stop this whole area from turning into a mini narco-state," said Tarragona police chief Inspector Ramon Franques, referring to police efforts across the region. Regional police say there has been a worrying rise in gun violence brought on by the growing presence of drug gangs. "The trafficking and cultivation of marijuana is worrying, but mostly because of the associated increase in violence," explained Carlos Otamendi, head of criminal investigations at the Mossos d'Esquadra regional police. On June 23, gun violence exploded into the public eye when a man pulled out a weapon, allegedly a Kalashnikov, and shot dead two people during an argument on the outskirts of the northern city of Girona. Initial indications suggest the argument was not drug-related but the alleged perpetrator who is still at large belonged to a gang involved in marijuana trafficking. In a separate incident around the same time, police seized five weapons, two of them military-grade, while breaking up a group that had smuggled hashish into the region by boat, an increasingly common practice. "Gang violence didn't start now with drug trafficking, nor with the establishment of organised crime networks smuggling marijuana. But this use of military-grade weapons is new," said Gerardo Cavero of the anti-trafficking arm of the Barcelona prosecutor's office. According to the EU's Drugs Agency , cannabis is the most widely-consumed illegal substance in Europe, be it in the form of hashish, marijuana or derivatives. In 2022, 69 percent of all cannabis resin seizures across the EU was in Spain, along with 47 percent of weed and 81 per cent of cannabis plants, EUDA's latest report says. The findings highlighted Spain's "significant role" as both a transit country for cannabis and a production area, it said. In 2022, Spanish police seized more than 36,700 kilogrammes of marijuana from Catalonia alone, interior ministry figures show. And there are a growing number of gangs in the region who are "setting up plantations and then distributing the plants across Europe," the office of Spain's public prosecutor said in its latest national report. For those running these lucrative operations, which are also prevalent in the southern Andalusia region, protection is essential. "If there is one thing that characterises organised crime in respect to drug trafficking, it is the use of violence," said Cavero. Last year, police seized 1,171 weapons in Catalonia, an increase of 28 percent from 2022. During that period, armed attacks in marijuana plantations rose by 78 percent, while the related number of deaths in such incidents rose to five. Four more were linked to the booming hash trade. In 2022, just one person died. But with a murder rate lower than the European average, the Catalan authorities insist that the region is "safe", with levels of criminality far lower than in other parts of the world. In the latest regional survey, respondents were asked to identify issues which caused them concern, and only 7 percent spoke of personal safety. But something is changing. "I don't want to say we're getting used to it but it's a type of violence that is becoming more normalised," said journalist Fatima Llambrich, an expert on the subject. rs/hmw/gv This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Singapore, India and Southeast Asia are well positioned to create a new era of opportunity, equity and sustainability, despite the resurgence of industrial policies among the major economies, Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on Thursday. India, Singapore well positioned to create new era of opportunity: President Shanmugaratnam Working with other responsible middle powers, both regions have the ability to strengthen multilateralism, which, despite its imperfections, has been an arrangement that has served nations both rich and poor well for decades, he said at a dinner celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Institute of South Asian Studies , a think tank of the National University of Singapore. Tharman also expressed optimism that Singapore-India relations will continue on an upward trajectory. Industrial policies such as tax breaks and subsidies to promote specific industries domestically are returning at a rate not seen since the 1960s and 1970s, despite having largely failed then, Tharman noted. For instance, the International Monetary Fund tabulated 2,500 industrial policy interventions in 2023, two-thirds of which were intended to discriminate against foreign interests. Such interventions by governments are being made not because of any powerful new evidence or a cogent reappraisal of what brings about prosperity, but by way of drift and tit-for-tat actions, he told about 180 guests who analyses Singapores diplomatic-commerce relations with South Asia with a focus on India as a large investment destination and consumer-driven market. The result is a world where competition is unstable, and the trade and investment environment is shifting and unpredictable, he said. In other words, it is both a reaction to heightened geopolitical contestation and a further source of weakening of the global economic order, Tharman said. But India and this region have the agency to respond and shape global reality in a way that secures both national interests and the global good, he said. The event was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, who is ISAS patron, and Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who helped establish the autonomous institute at the National University of Singapore and promoted ties with India and South Asia during his tenure as Prime Minister of the city state. For one thing, neither region is caught in the largest geopolitical conflicts of the times, nor are they involved in todays major tensions, Tharman said. Both the regions also have societies where the majority of ordinary people are hopeful they can achieve a major uplift in their lives a rarity today, he said. India and Southeast Asia also account for over a quarter of the global population and 15 per cent of its gross domestic product, and are the fastest-growing regions in the world, the Singapore President said. We have to make the most of this positioning of the two regions in the decade ahead, he said. Tharman made three suggestions on how they can respond to this global trend of growing industrial policy. First, focus on policies that develop ones own capabilities, instead of seeking to crowd out other countries. We have to remind ourselves that innovation remains the fundamental driver of long-term growth in every country, Tharman said. We either spur innovation through a competition of capabilities or stifle innovation by cutting out the competition. Second, recognise that developing every individual and continually upgrading skills is a complex endeavour, and deepen collaboration between government, companies, unions, community groups and training institutes. Even as this is done, investments must be made to keep society inclusive so that the political consensus for open economic policies is maintained, Tharman underscored. Third, India and Southeast Asia should strive to work with other responsible partners to build coalitions that can tackle complex global issues, such as energy transition to mitigate climate change. Singapore and India should be able to build greater depth and breadth in their bilateral relations in the coming years, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a third term at Indias general election in June, which is a remarkable feat in a massive and robust democracy, Tharman said. The result also spoke of how millions of Indians have seen their lives uplifted under Modis leadership, especially by gaining basic amenities and services that had eluded them for decades, he said. We can expect broad continuity in Indias domestic and foreign policies, Tharman added. Certainly, we should expect our bilateral relations, which are deep and enduring, to remain on an upward trajectory. He noted that the new industrial interventionism has found favour among not only politicians but also many economists. Tharman cited economist John Maynard Keynes, who observed that politicians who believed themselves exempt from intellectual influences were usually the slaves of some defunct economist. The equal danger we run today is of economists and commentators, not least those in the advanced economies, despite protestations of independence, being in the service of the political temper of the times, he said. Im sure ISAS will continue to bring outstanding minds from India, Southeast Asia and others in East Asia to help advance honest thinking on our long-term interests and to help build robust partnerships in a troubled world. Over the past 20 years, ISAS has evolved into a reputable and respected institute studying contemporary South Asia, providing insightful research and analysis to foster a deeper understanding of the complexities and dynamics of the region and their implications for Singapore and Southeast Asia, said ISAS Chairman Prof Tan Tai Yong in his welcome speech to the guests. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. WASHINGTON A New Jersey man who authorities say was on his way to Ukraine to join a volunteer fighting unit has been arrested in an alleged plot to attack a U.S. electrical substation to advance his white supremacist views, the Justice Department said Thursday. Man plotted electrical substation attack to advance white supremacist views, prosecutors say Andrew Takhistov, 18, was arrested Wednesday at the Newark Liberty International Airport, where he was headed to Paris before going to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a pro-Ukrainian group fighting Russian forces, officials said. Authorities say Takhistov began talking in January with the person he did not realize was an undercover agent, and he began discussing a plan to attack an electrical substation. They drove together to two electrical substations in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Takhistov provided information on how to construct Molotov cocktails, the type of clothing to wear and where to park to avoid detection, authorities said. He also discussed various strategies for terrorist attacks, including rocket and explosives attacks against synagogues," and expressed a desire to bring back illegal supplies from Ukraine in order to carry out attacks that would threaten the U.S. government, a law enforcement official wrote in court papers. An attorney for Takhistov didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment from The Associated Press. A person listed as a relative also didn't immediately respond to a message from the . Takhistov espoused white supremacist views in his conversations with the undercover agent, and in posts encouraged violence against Black and Jewish communities, praised mass shooters, and discussed causing death and destruction on a large scale," according to New Jersey U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger. Takhistov discussed during a meeting in June a three-step plan for white domination:" ending the war in Ukraine, invading Russia and then starting "political activism in Europe and America, supporting National Socialist political parties," the official wrote in court papers. Takhistov explained that rallies and protests would not work; rather, people were waiting for a big event, such as the Oklahoma City bombing," authorities allege. Takhistov told the undercover agent that while he was in Ukraine the person had to carry out at least one event of serious activism, they said. Takhistov said his ultimate dream was to attack a synagogue with a Hamas-style rocket, officials said. We will not tolerate these kinds of alleged terroristic threats, and working with our partners, we will always be ready to root out and bring to justice anyone who attempts to carry out these acts, Sellinger said. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. On Thursday, Los Angeles skies saw a mysterious message aimed at Prince Harry, who was in the city for the ESPY Awards alongside Meghan Markle. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex accepts the Pat Tillman Award onstage during the 2024 ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre on July 11, 2024 in Hollywood, California (Photo by Frazer Harrison / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)(Getty Images via AFP) One towed banner read: PRINCE HARRY: INVESTIGATE MUMIS DEATH. The identity of the pilot and the individuals behind this message remains unknown. A X user @CulixiPriestess first posted the image on the platform wit the caption, Can someone explain the plane flying over LA that says prince harry : investigate mumis death Ive seen it twice now in downtown and Hollywood. The American news outlet Newsweek also reported the same. Prince Harry was in LA to receive the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the prestigious event. The cryptic message seemingly referenced the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana. In his 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry frequently referred to Diana as mummy. Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 at the age of 36, a tragedy that has since been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. These range from claims of a state-orchestrated murder to speculations about her being pregnant at the time of her death. ALSO READ| Prince Harrys heartfelt tribute to Pat Tillmans mom, despite her previous criticism, invokes Princess Diana's memory What is Princess Diana's Operation Paget? In response to these theories, an 800-page report known as Operation Paget was compiled in 2006, examining 20 central conspiracy theories proposed by Mohamed al-Fayed, the father of Diana's companion Dodi Fayed, who also died in the crash. Operation Paget was comprehensive, featuring interviews with those closest to Diana, including Prince William and her friends, as well as forensic analysis of the crash site and CCTV footage. The findings informed a formal inquest into Diana's death, which concluded in 2007. By April 2008, the inquest attributed the fatal accident to several factors: primarily the reckless driving of Diana's chauffeur and the paparazzi in pursuit. It also noted that none of the car's occupants were wearing seat belts. In his memoir, Prince Harry described the report as a joke, an insult, and revealed that Prince William shared his sentiments. ALSO READ| Royal scandal: Did the UK media delete articles on Prince Williams alleged affair with Rose Hanbury? In an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes, Harry said, William and I had already been told, The event was like a bicycle chain. If you remove one of those chains, the result would not have happened. And the paparazzi chasing was part of that. But yet, everybody got away with it. William and I considered reopening the inquest. Because there were so many gaps and so many holes in it, which just didn't add up and didn't make sense. At least 21 people were killed, mostly students, and scores more injured on Friday when a school in central Nigeria collapsed on pupils taking exams, the Red Cross and witnesses said. Nigeria school collapse kills 21, scores injured Trapped students cried for help under the rubble as desperate parents looked for help after the Saint Academy school in Jos North district of Plateau State fell in on classrooms, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene. Rescue workers tried to reach the victims with heavy machinery and images from the scene showed crowds gathering round a caved-in concrete building and heaps of debris. Red Cross spokesman Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji told AFP there were "21 fatalities, and 69 injuries all in admission at various hospitals". Earlier, AFP saw 16 dead bodies in two hospital morgues in Jos. All were wearing school uniforms. With his mother at his hospital bedside, injured student Wulliya Ibrahim told AFP: "I entered the class not more than five minutes, when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here." "We are many in the class, we are writing our exams," he said. Earlier, the National Emergency Management Agency said the two-storey building housing Saint Academy collapsed killing "several students." Chika Obioha, a resident at the scene, told AFP he saw at least eight bodies at the site and that dozens more had been injured. "Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people," he said. AFP's correspondent said he saw 11 bodies in the morgue at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital and that five dead were taken into the mortuary at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital in Jos. At least 15 rescued and injured students were admitted, officials at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital said. Officials at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital did not comment. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse but residents said it came after three days of heavy rains. Building disasters are fairly common in Africa's most populous nation because of lax enforcement of construction standards, negligence and low-quality materials. At least 45 people were killed in 2021 when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district in Nigeria's economic capital Lagos. Ten people were killed when a three-storey building collapsed in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos the year after. Since 2005, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos, according to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters. Bad workmanship, low-grade materials and corruption to bypass official oversight are often blamed. pma/lcm/jm/giv/gv This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. A school in central Nigeria collapsed on Friday killing at least 21 people, mostly pupils as they were sitting their exams, the Red Cross and witnesses said. People and rescuers gather at the scene of a collapsed two-storey building in Jos, Nigeria, Friday, July, 12, 2024.(AP) Trapped pupils cried for help under the rubble as desperate parents looked for their children after the Saint Academy school in Jos North district of Plateau State fell in on classrooms, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene. Rescue workers tried to reach the victims with heavy machinery and images from the scene showed crowds gathering around a caved-in concrete building and heaps of debris. Red Cross spokesman Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji told AFP there were "21 fatalities, and 69 injuries all in admission at various hospitals". Earlier, AFP saw 16 bodies in two hospital morgues in Jos. All were wearing school uniforms. With his mother at his hospital bedside, injured pupil Wulliya Ibrahim, 15, told AFP: "I entered the class not more than five minutes, when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here." "We are many in the class, we are writing our exams," he said. Earlier, the National Emergency Management Agency said the two-storey building housing Saint Academy collapsed killing "several students". Chika Obioha, a resident at the scene, told AFP he saw at least eight bodies at the site and that dozens more had been injured. "Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people," he said. AFP's correspondent said he saw 11 bodies in the morgue at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital and that five dead were taken into the mortuary at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital in Jos. At least 15 rescued and injured pupils were admitted, officials at the Our Lady of Apostles Hospital said. Officials at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital did not comment. It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse but residents said it came after three days of heavy rains. "Devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy," UNICEF Nigeria representative Cristian Munduate wrote on X. "Children, full of dreams were writing exams when the school building collapsed. Deepest condolences to families affected." Building disasters are fairly common in Africa's most populous nation because of lax enforcement of construction standards, negligence and low-quality materials. At least 45 people were killed in 2021 when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district in Nigeria's economic capital Lagos. Ten people were killed when a three-storey building collapsed in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos the year after. Since 2005, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos, according to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters. Bad workmanship, low-grade materials and corruption to bypass official oversight are often blamed. Islamabad, Pakistan's Supreme Court on Friday awarded reserved seats to an ally of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan in a keenly awaited judgment on the issue of apportioning seats reserved for women and minorities among political parties. Pak SC rules in favour of Sunni Ittehad Council in reserved seats case The Sunni Ittehad Council had filed a plea challenging the Peshawar High Court decision upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan's move to deny its share in reserved seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies. A 13-member full bench headed by Chief Justice Isa and comprising justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Ayesha Malik, Athar Minallah, Syed Hasan Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Irfan Saadat Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan heard the case. Chief Justice Isa had announced after the proceedings on Tuesday that the panel decided to reserve the verdict for mutual consultation, which it announced on Friday. A majority of eight judges ruled in favour of the SIC by overturning the judgment of Peshawar High Court. The judgment was announced by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. Earlier, after concluding the hearing on Tuesday, the 13 judges spent two days in mutual consultations before announcing the verdict. The court initially announced that a three-member regular bench headed by the chief justice would announce the verdict at 9 am, but shortly after that, the timing was changed and the bench announcing the verdict was changed when it was announced that the original 13-member bench would issue the judgment at noon. The dispute about the reserved seats was related to the rejection of a SIC plea by the ECP to award its share in the 70 reserved seats in the National Assembly and another 156 in the four provincial assemblies. Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf could not contest the February 8 elections as the ECP rejected its intra-party elections and deprived it of the bat symbol for contesting the elections as a party. Hence it was not eligible to claim the seats reserved for women and minorities that are awarded to the winning parties based on proportional representation. So its candidates, who had won independently but with the support of PTI, were asked by the PTI leadership to join a SIC to form a parliamentary party to claim reserved seats. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Prince Harry continues to be one of the most talked-about royals globally, particularly following their relocation to Montecito, California. Now, the duke is set to sit for an interview in the coming weeks, per Us Weekly. Prince Harry continues fight against phone hacking in ITV documentary (REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye)(REUTERS) Reports have emerged that Prince Harry will be interviewed again, this time focusing on the issue of phone hacking. The interview will feature in ITV's upcoming documentary, Tabloids on Trial, which also includes appearances from Hugh Grant, Charlotte Church, and Paul Gascoigne. Despite stepping down from their royal duties and leaving the UK in 2020, they dropped several bombshells about the royal family through Prince Harry's 2023 memoir Spare, a tell-all Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, and several interviews. ALSO READ| Prince Harry's ESPY speech cut short, but why is Joe Biden to blame? Prince Harry has been particularly vocal about phone hacking, having filed four lawsuits against UK tabloid publishers over allegations of phone hacking and other unlawful activities. According to ITV royal editor Chris Ship, Prince Harry's interview will detail why he is fighting to expose what he says are the illegal activities of Britain's tabloid newspapers. His participation in Tabloids on Trial shows his commitment to addressing these issues and seeking accountability from the press. Prince Harry's memoir and interviews keep the royal rumor mill churning From their recent Invictus Games tour in Nigeria to the launch of Meghan Markle's American Riviera Orchard brand, and updates about their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, they remain at the forefront of public attention. Their enduring presence in the media is partly due to their numerous TV appearances since moving to the United States. ALSO READ| Mysterious Los Angeles banner urges Prince Harry to investigate Their first major interview, a two-hour special with Oprah Winfrey, was explosive and widely viewed, as the couple shared their side of the story regarding their departure from royal duties. This interview made headlines worldwide and fueled ongoing discussions about their lives and decisions. Two years after the Oprah interview, Prince Harry participated in an ITV interview with Tom Bradby ahead of the release of his memoir. The next documentary is set to air on July 25 on ITV. Foreign ministers of the four Quad member states are expected to meet in Japan at the end of this month to take stock of initiatives and projects in diverse fields and to prepare for the summit meeting of leaders, people familiar with the matter said. Aircraft carriers and warships from India, US, Japan and Australia during a joint exercise in the Northern Arabian Sea. (AP File Photo) Planning for the meeting, expected to be held in Tokyo on July 28, has been underway for some time and the process was linked to the conclusion of Indias general elections, the people said on condition of anonymity. Besides the work being done by several Quad working groups, the foreign ministers will review the situation across the Indo-Pacific, the people said. The foreign ministers of Quad, comprising India, Australia, Japan and the US, last met on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly last September. Ahead of the meeting in Tokyo, senior officials of the four countries met by video conference on July 3 to review progress made by various working groups since the Quad Summit in May 2023 and several meetings of foreign ministers held last year. The officials discussed new ideas to take forward Quads collaboration in the Indo-Pacific in enhancing maritime domain awareness, countering terrorism, enhancing telecommunication resiliency through undersea cable connectivity, health security, digital public infrastructure and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. The focus is practical cooperation in different fields among the four countries to realise the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, one of the people cited above said, referring to Chinas continuing aggressive actions across the region. In this context, the people referred to the growing confrontation between Chinese maritime forces and the Philippines in the South China Sea since last year. Chinese vessels have been accused by the Philippines of unsafe behaviour on a dozen occasions, often within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). India has backed the Philippines in recent weeks, saying it opposes destabilising actions that seek to change the status quo by force. The people, however, said uncertainty continues to surround the date for this years Quad Summit, which is to be hosted by India. After inviting US President Joe Biden to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations on January 26, New Delhi had originally planned to hold the Quad Summit the following day. This plan fell through when Biden declined the invitation. The Indian side was keen to hold the summit by August, but the people said this now appears unlikely because the US administrations main focus is the presidential election. Australia and Japan have indicated their flexibility regarding the summit being held in the coming weeks or months, but it is really up to the US, a second person said. The people said it was now looking more likely that the summit will be held sometime after the US presidential election on November 5. A Russian passenger jet crashed Friday while flying empty, killing its crew of three, officials said. A Russian passenger jet crashed Friday while flying empty, killing its crew of three, officials said.(REUTERS) The Sukhoi Superjet went down in the Moscow region, according to Russian emergency officials. The authorities said the plane belonged to Gazprom Avia, a carrier owned by the Russian state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom. ALSO READ| India abstains on UN resolution demanding Russia immediately ends its Ukraine offensive They said the plane was heading to Moscow's Vnukovo airport following repairs when it crashed. The Investigative Committee, the country's top state criminal investigation agency, has launched a probe into the crash. SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina Thousands of people from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica on Thursday for the annual ritual of commemorating the 1995 genocide which Serb officials continue to deny, fueling ethnic tensions and deep divisions within the war-ravaged state. Thousands mark 1995 Srebrenica genocide which is denied by Serbs, fueling ethnic tensions in Bosnia Twenty-nine years after they were murdered in Europes only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust, the bodies of 13 men and one teenage boy were laid to rest Thursday at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery just outside Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia. They join more than 6,600 massacre victims already reburied there. Ajla Efendic buried two of her uncles on Thursday. Two older men who were not carrying weapons, two men who were defenseless," she said. "My grandfather, a pensioner, who did not pose any danger to anyone was also killed. His body was found in a mass grave. More than 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were estimated to have been killed in the shooting spree by the Bosnian Serb army and police over several days in July 1995. Relatives of the victims can bury only partial remains of their loved ones as they are typically found scattered over several different mass graves, sometimes miles apart. The Srebrenica killings were the bloody crescendo of Bosnias 1992-95 war, which came after the breakup of Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that set Bosnian Serbs against the countrys two other main ethnic populations Croats and Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim. The commemoration Thursday came only weeks after the United Nations General Assembly voted to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption, wrongly claiming it portrays all Serbs as genocidal people. Serb leaders insist the massacre is not genocide, but a terrible crime." They have also downplayed the number of those killed. The genocide in Srebrenica did not happen, and if it did, there would be no need to constantly impose this topic, Bosnian Serb separatist President Milorad Dodik has repeatedly said. President of the Board of Directors of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Hamdija Fejzic, said that the genocide denial must stop. For a full 29 years, the policy of covering up and denying the genocide was carried out by those forces who designed and planned the genocide, and who for years provided shelter to those suspected and accused of the most serious war crimes, he told the gathering on Thursday. In an op-ed piece in Bosnian media, European Union High Representative Josep Borrell said Srebrenica remains a deep scar in the history of Europe. The failure to prevent this genocide is a burden we continue to bear, he wrote. Both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice have indisputably determined that this crime is genocide. We promised that we would never forget neither the victims, nor the lasting pain of their families and loved ones," he added. Their memory drives us to work every day to ensure that history does not repeat itself, in a world where peace seems increasingly fragile. On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a U.N.-protected safe area in Srebrenica. They separated more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters and slaughtered them. Those who tried to escape were chased through the woods and over the mountains around the ill-fated town. The perpetrators then dumped their victims bodies into hastily made mass graves, which they later dug up with bulldozers, scattering the remains among other burial sites to hide the evidence of their war crimes. The Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic were both convicted of genocide in Srebrenica by a special U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. In all, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced close to 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the Srebrenica killings. However, most Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials still celebrate Karadzic and Mladic as national heroes. They continue to downplay or even deny the Srebrenica killings and offend the massacre victims and survivors. Associated Press Writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this story from Belgrade, Serbia. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. A threat alert has been issued for the anti-encroachment police in Pakistan's Karachi, warning of possible terrorists attack during Muharamul Haram, reported ARY News. It has been reported that 502 locations in Punjab have been identified as 'sensitive areas', prompting the deployment of army and Rangers personnel. (Image used for representational purpose only)(REUTERS) Deputy Superintendent of Police, Karachi, Tariq Islam issued guidelines for the officials and said that the anti-encroachment police personnel have been warned against going alone on official duty during Muharramul Haram in the wake of recent attacks. The notification further warned that government officials could be targeted in Karachi during Muharram. The officials were directed to use police vans for official assignments and avoid wearing uniforms and shoes while returning home after finishing duties. Earlier on Monday, the federal government approved the deployment of armed forces across the country to ensure security during the month of Muharram, as reported by ARY News. This comes following the request of the authorities in Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad to deploy military to control the law and order situation. The Pakistan government under Article 245 of the Constitution, authorised the "deployment of army troops/assets and civil armed forces troops/assets" to ensure peace, according to ARY News. Pakistan's Interior Ministry clarified that the deployment of the army will be based on the ground situation and that the provinces will have the authority to determine the deployment locations. Earlier, Pakistan's Punjab government requested country's interior ministry for a 'temporary suspension' on social media platforms from July 6-11 during Muharram processions, Dawn reported. Heightened security measures are currently underway across various regions of the Islamic Republic, as reported by Pakistani media. It has been reported that 502 locations in Punjab have been identified as 'sensitive areas', prompting the deployment of army and Rangers personnel. Muharram holds profound significance for Shia Muslims. However, Pakistan has faced recurrent sectarian violence during this period between Sunni and Shia communities. NEW ORLEANS The use of strip searches by police in Louisiana's capital city was reined in Friday by a federal judge who said the policy under which Baton Rouge officers perform such searches on people who haven't been arrested is unconstitutional on its face. A US judge is reining in the use of strip searches amid a police scandal in Louisiana's capital city U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick's order came in litigation filed last year alleging police abuses including severe beatings and invasive searches of people detained at an obscure warehouse called the Brave Cave. The lawsuits led to an ongoing federal civil rights investigation. The search policy in question allowed officers to perform strip searches on "non-arrestees based on individualized articulable reasonable suspicion" that they might be armed or carrying illegal material. Citing Supreme Court precedent, Dick said a higher standard probable cause is needed for a search involving more than a pat-down or frisk. In her ruling, Dick acknowledged safety concerns expressed by police officials who defended the policy. In no way does the Court wish to reduce the tools available to police officers to achieve this safety," she wrote. "However, these tools must be used and applied in a constitutional manner. City officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. After the first of the abuse complaints was filed last year, the city ordered the warehouse facility closed and the police department disbanded its street crimes unit. One police officer resigned and was arrested on a simple battery charge. Last month, four officer s associated with the now-disbanded police unit were indicted by a Louisiana grand jury on charges alleging that they covered up the beating of a suspect in custody. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. On Friday, US telecom giant AT&T revealed that nearly all call and text message records from mid-to-late 2022 of tens of millions of its cellphone customers, as well as many non-AT&T customers, were exposed. The AT&T logo is positioned above one of its retail stores in New York, Oct. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)(AP) The telecom giant stated that the compromised data includes the telephone numbers of nearly all of its cellular customers, along with those of wireless providers that use its network, covering the period between May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022. The stolen logs contain records of every number AT&T customers called or texted, including customers from other wireless networks, detailing the frequency of interactions and call durations. The telecom giant larified that the breach did not include the contents of calls and text messages, nor the specific times of these communications. ALSO READ| Democratic donors freeze $90 million cash, demanding Joe Biden to step down from the race AT&T is investigating the breach Not only the primary affected period, AT&T disclosed that the records of a very small number of customers from January 2, 2023, were also compromised. We have an ongoing investigation into the AT&T breach and we're coordinating with our law enforcement partners, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on X. AT&T attributed the breach to an illegal download from a third-party cloud platform, which the company discovered in April. This incident occurred simultaneously as AT&T was dealing with an unrelated major data leak. Despite concerns, AT&T assured that the exposed data is not believed to be publicly available. The company also noted that the stolen data did not include international calls, except for those made to Canada. Alex Byers, an AT&T spokesperson, informed CNN that this breach was entirely separate from another incident disclosed in March, where personal information such as Social Security numbers of 73 million current and former customers was released onto the dark web. ALSO READ| Russia: Empty passenger jet crashes near Moscow, crew of three killed We sincerely regret this incident occurred and remain committed to protecting the information in our care, the company stated regarding the latest breach. As of the end of 2022, AT&T had approximately 110 million wireless subscribers. US elections has taken a very shocking turn with new claims being made that former President Barack Obama is secretly working to ensure Joe Biden drops out of the race to White House. And this resentful treatment is making Biden dig in further. US election: Biden campaign feels Barack Obama working to force Joe Biden to step down, new claims US TV host(AFP) In his show, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough asserted that Joe Biden's election campaign believes Barack Obama is orchestrating a silent campaign to push Joe Biden out. Whats going on behind the scenes is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this, Scarborough said. After Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance and sequence of embarrassing moments in public rallies Obama's key aides have denounced him publicly. Recently, Jon Favreau, a former Obama aide who hosts Pod Save America, echoed actor George Clooneys New York Times op-ed alleging Biden is in cognitive decline. David Axelrod, Obamas chief campaign strategist, called the op-ed devastating. Now Biden's campaign and some Democratic officials feel Obama has a role to play in these statements. And if Joe Biden believes that, thats not going to get him out of the race any faster. Any time David Axelrod attacks him, David Axelrod ensures that Joe Biden will dig himself in another day. Any time the pod bros say something nasty about Joe Biden, which they have repeatedly said nasty things about Joe Biden, before the debate, after the debate. Every time they do that, he digs in a little bit further, Scarborough continued. Despite deepening fears of his cognitive decline, ability to win the high stakes election and decreasing donor confidence Joe Biden is asserting his claim to the throne. At his first press conference after the debate Biden declared, Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears. He even downplayed the winnability of other Democrats in the party by calling himself the most qualified candidate by adding, Other people could win, but they have to start from scratch right now. However Scarborough feels, the pathway to Joe Biden graciously stepping aside does not go through the Obamas or the Clintons. It just doesnt. Again, as I said, because some people dont understand. Im not talking about what ought to be. Im talking about what is. And this is the reality Joe Biden is deeply resentful of his treatment under not only the Obama staff but also the way he was pushed aside for Hillary Clinton. Hes deeply resentful of those trying to shove him out of the way. Hes always felt like an outsider, always felt like people have looked down upon him. WATCH: Joe Scarborough says Biden campaign feels Barack Obama working against president Donald Trump seized the opportunity to mock President Joe Biden's slip-up during his 'Big Boy' press conference. Following Biden's earlier gaffe of mistakenly referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as 'President Putin', the POTUS sparked another round of internet mockery with yet another embarrassing moment. As he began to take questions, the president stumbled almost immediately. This time, Biden left the crowd baffled by referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as 'Trump'. Bidens lead has shrunk over the last few days, as Trump and his family have virtually carpet bombed the key battle ground states, including as many as 15 rallies by the president.(AP Photo) Biden refers to Kamala Harris as 'Trump' at Big Boy conference Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think shes not qualified to be president, Biden said. The President was said to be discussing concerns regarding Vice President Kamala Harris's capacity to win against Donald Trump should she be the main contender. Also read: Bidens Blunder: Refers to Ukraine's Zelensky as 'President Putin' in front of NATO leaders; watch She is "qualified to be president that's why I picked her, Biden fumbled again when asked about his VPs qualification. First of all, the way she's handled the issue of freedom of women's bodies," he said. "Secondly, her ability to handle over any issue on the board, this is a hell of a prosecutor, the POTUS added. Donald Trump mocks Joe Biden Taking to Twitter, Trump reacted to the viral Oh Joe trend and said, Crooked Joe begins his Big Boy Press Conference with, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president. Taking a brutal jab at the ability of his opponent to run for the second presidential bid he added, Youre doing great Joe. However, the chaotic meeting didn't end there. When reporters questioned Biden about Trump mocking him for his blunder, he responded by saying, "Listen to him." This Big Boy train wreck just keeps better and better, a user commented on the video. I can barely get myself to even look at the screen, wrote another stressing, this is elder abuse. Big Blunder on the Big Boy Presser Doesn't know who his VP is ....President Trump has to be Rolling on the floor over this one, one more added. Also read: Italian PM Giorgia Meloni seen rolling eyes and checking nonexistent watch as Biden runs late for NATO meeting Joe Biden responds to Trump's mockery Biden replied to the social media post by Trump that mocked him for the mistake during tonight's press conference. "By the way: Yes, I know the difference. Ones a prosecutor, and the others a felon," Biden wrote on X, referring to Harris' past as California's attorney general and Trump's recent conviction in his New York hush money case. Democrats calling out Biden to step aside Amid mounting pressure for the president to withdraw from the race and potentially hand over the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden appears resolute in his decision not to step down. Currently, fourteen House Democrats and one Democratic senator have urged Biden to relinquish his presidential nomination before the November election. Despite these calls, Biden remains steadfast, emphasising his commitment to running not for legacy but for the responsibilities of the job. When asked about the impact on his legacy if he perseveres and possibly faces defeat by Trump, Biden stressed his concentration on the current duties he must address. "Well look, I'm not in this for my legacy," the president responded. "I'm in this to complete the job I started." President Biden has announced that he recently underwent and passed three cognitive tests, reassuring the public about his mental acuity. The declaration came during his Big Boy press conference held on Thursday evening, where he faced a barrage of questions about his cognitive health and physical readiness for a second presidential bid. This followed moments where he confused Ukrainian President Zelensky with Putin and his own VP Kamala Harris with Trump. FILE PHOTO: Democratic presidential candidate U.S. President Joe Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder//File Photo(REUTERS) Biden says he is in good shape "They say Im in good shape," the President stressed, highlighting that he has undergone three "significant and intense neurological exams," the most recent being in February. He also mentioned that he would be subjected to additional examinations should the medical professionals advise it, allaying worries regarding his well-being and capacity to perform strenuous tasks during his second term. Im tested every single day about my neurological capacity by decisions I make every day, he added. Also read: Biden declares listen to Trump after being mocked for mixing up Kamala Harris with Donald Trump Joe Biden defended his overall health and mental sharpness while acknowledging a minor issue with his left foot, which he explained was due to a previous injury where he opted not to wear a boot. "But I'm doing well," The President expressed his commitment to running in the upcoming November elections, confidently stating that he believes he is the most capable candidate to defeat Donald Trump, who currently holds a lead in surveys and polls. This declaration comes at a time of increasing public doubts about Biden's fitness for office. Im determined on running, but I think it is important that I allay fears, that people see me out there, he said. Biden says can deal with China and Russia When questioned about his ability to handle Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in three years, Biden said he is ready. Im dealing with Xi Jinping right now and in direct contact with him, he responded before adding, I have no good reason to talk to Vladimir Putin right now. Also read: Italian PM Giorgia Meloni seen rolling eyes and checking nonexistent watch as Biden runs late for NATO meeting There is not much he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behaviour, but there is not any world leader I am not prepared to deal with. Biden was asked how he could make Americans feel better that he wouldn't have "more bad nights" like last month's debate against Donald Trump, where he made mistakes and struggled. Biden replied that the best way to reassure them is to see if he is "getting the job done." Giorgia Meloni was captured on camera rolling her eyes as President Joe Biden arrived late for a NATO meeting. On Thursday, amid calls for a high-stakes press conference, the President of the United States and NATO's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, delayed their presence, leaving Italian and Finnish President Alexander Stubb visibly frustrated. The video has since gone viral, sparking criticism of the White House's tardiness. On Thursday, amid calls for a high-stakes press conference, the President of the United States and NATO's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, delayed their presence Italian PM Giorgia Meloni rolls her eyes as Biden arrives late The Italian PM gained attention during the G7 summit for guiding a distracted and lost Biden back to the group. In a new video, Meloni appeared thoroughly exasperated, rolling her eyes and theatrically checking her nonexistent watch as the clock ticked past the scheduled 10 a.m. start time for the summit. Reports suggest Biden left the White House a good 20 minutes after the event was supposed to kick off, which might just explain why Meloni looked so unamused. Also read: Bidens Blunder: Refers to Ukraine's Zelensky as 'President Putin' in front of NATO leaders; watch Another person joined the conversation between the Italian leader and the Finnish President who then took out his phone to check time. At that moment, she rolled her eyes and frowned again, only to notice the cameras focused on her. While the video was too distant to capture any audible conversation, it was clear that the trio appeared visibly disgusted. There were rumours on social media that Meloni might have been copying Biden's actions before deciding against it. This isn't the first instance she's become famous for her famous eye roll. Remember the iconic G7 handshake with French president Emmanuel Macron? Biden calls Zelensky as President Putin Joe Biden participated in a meeting, and immediately upon his arrival, he was involved in another embarrassing slip-up. This occurred when he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. Also read: Biden advisers explore exit options amid polling on Trump-Harris matchup And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, Biden said. Ladies and gentlemen, President [Vladimir] Putin. He then promptly acknowledged his error and said it occurred because he was "so concentrated on defeating" the Kremlins strongman. Kate Middleton faced a very unusual request concerning the spelling of her name due to a conflict involving King Charles III and Queen Camilla. What was royal family's unusual request for Kate Middleton(Reuters) While most people may associate her by her more familiar moniker, Kate, her official name is Catherine, which is similarly to the name most of the members of the Royal Family have including her husband Prince William. It seems that her given name once caused a bit of a stir with her father-in-law Charles and Queen Camilla. In his 2023 memoir Spare, Prince Harry disclosed that there was a suggestion from the King and Queen for Kate to change the spelling of her name to avoid confusion. ALSO READ| Kate Middleton heartbroken as she arguing with Prince William over What was the unusual request? This unusual request was made because there were already two royal cyphers with the letter C in them, representing Charles and Camilla. They were concerned that adding another C for Catherine could lead to confusion. There were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. 'Make it Katherine with a K,' they suggested. I wondered now what came of that suggestion, Prince Harry wrote. I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said, 'You listening to this?' His face was blank. Despite the suggestion not being implemented, Kate is reported to continue to have a warm relationship with Charles and Camilla. ALSO READ| Royal scandal: Did the UK media delete articles on Prince Williams alleged affair with Rose Hanbury? Earlier this year, the monarch was diagnosed with cancer. Now, after months-long following the news that King Charles will soon be resuming his public duties. Former BBC Royal expert, Jennie Bond told OK!, This news will be a great relief for William to have his father not only back in health, but also in action, relieving some of the pressure on the Prince to be out and about when he has his own young family and wife to take care of. As for Kate, The King's news will come as a huge relief. Not only because she has great affection for her father-in-law, but because it relieves the pressure on her and on William. King Charles III has reportedly purchased a luxury condo in New York City for $6.63 million, making waves on Billionaires Row in Manhattan. This condo, situated at 111 W. 57th St. in the Steinway Hall section, marks the final sale in this iconic building. The transaction was finalised in June, as per city records. This move is notable given that Prince Harry, now residing in the US, will be living just hours away from his father's new, amenity-rich home, bridging the distance across the Atlantic. Report reveals rift between Prince Harry-Meghan Markle and King Charles over security and funding(AP) King Charles invests in $6.63M condo An entity connected to the UKs monarch seems to have snagged a 3,600-square-foot fancy apartment. The person who paid for it is mentioned in the closing papers as "His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as per NY Post. Robert McCubbing, whose LinkedIn mentions him as the leading trade commissioner and the chief of trade and investment at the Canadian Consulate General in New York, signed the documents. Also read: Biden declares listen to Trump after being mocked for mixing up Kamala Harris with Donald Trump However, it is currently unclear who will reside in the apartment or if the King himself plans to use it. Buckingham Palace has not provided any clarification despite requests by the outlet. The purchase of this three-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom condo coincides with rumours about the King's potential visit to America. While no official confirmation has been made for the same, multiple reports and expert opinions suggest that such plans might be in the works. The Condo boasts a royal touch Imagine stepping onto the 11th floor of 111 West 57th Street. This ultra-thin skyscraper grazes the southern edge of Central Park, but inside this modern marvel awaits a world of opulent luxury. King Charles III became the ruler of Canada, a constitutional monarchy and part of the British Commonwealth after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away in September 2022 and the unit seems to be the newest high-end residence in the city linked to the Commonwealth. Also read: Italian PM Giorgia Meloni seen rolling eyes and checking nonexistent watch as Biden runs late for NATO meeting Meanwhile, King Charles youngest son Harry and his wife Meghan live in a $14.7 million mansion in Montecito, California. The couple purchased the house after moving to the US following their decision to step down from royal duties. This new California residence, where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex filmed their new Netflix documentary, is no less than royalty. Meanwhile, Harry is all about sorting out the details for the opening of the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver, Canada, which is happening in February 2025. WELLINGTON, - Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai has asked the Bank of China to set up operations in the Pacific Island nation, his office said in a statement on Friday. Vanuatu Prime Minister asks Bank of China to open branch in Port Villa The statement, posted on Facebook, said Salwai had made the request during a visit to bank officials in China. A decision has yet to be made on the Port Villa branch, which could be used as a clearing bank for yuan, it added. Bank of China did not respond to a request for comment. The announcement comes as the United States and Australia scrabble to devise a plan to improve financial access in the strategic Pacific Island region, which global banks have been steadily leaving due to small populations and vast distances that mean little prospect of profit. Many countries also lack the resources to find and prosecute financial crime, raising the risk that banks get embroiled in embarrassing and expensive scandals. Earlier this week, The United States and Australia co-hosted a meeting in Brisbane to find solutions to improve financial access in the region in which China is also jockeying for influence. The Vanuatu government statement said a yuan clearing facility would help reduce prices of Chinese-made goods, as these were currently being paid for by a strong U.S. dollar. Bank of China has offices in New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Earlier this year, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Nauru to explore banking solutions. Salwai, who travelled to Shanghai on Tuesday, is visiting China before attending a Pacific Island leaders meeting in Japan next week. Earlier this week Salwai visited technology company Huawei in Shenzhen. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Russia's attempt to assassinate a German weapons CEO for sending arms to Ukraine was thwarted by U.S. intelligence officials, according to reports. The failed plot to kill Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger was one of several efforts by Russia to murder European defense industry executives who are sending guns, ammo and military tanks in support of Ukraine, five U.S. and western officials with intel on the situation told CNN in a report published Thursday. When the U.S. learned of Russia's plans, they tipped off Germany, and German security forces were able to safeguard Papperger and derail the assassination attempt. Rheinmetall is the largest manufacturer of particular artillery shells Ukraine has used against Russia, and the company plans to open a military vehicle plant in Ukraine, making Papperger a clear target, officials said, according to CNN. Russia has reportedly spent the past six months conspiring against European nations that have aided Ukraine in its weapons defense. "We're seeing sabotage, we're seeing assassination plots, we're seeing arson. We're seeing things that have a cost in human lives," a senior NATO official said Tuesday, according to the network. "I believe very much that we're seeing a campaign of covert sabotage activities from Russia that have strategic consequences." National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson would not confirm the assassination attempt on Papperger, but told CNN, "Russia's intensifying campaign of subversion is something that we are taking extremely seriously and have been intently focused on over the past few months." "The United States has been discussing this issue with our NATO Allies, and we are actively working together to expose and disrupt these activities. We have also been clear that Russia's actions will not deter Allies from continuing to support Ukraine," said Watson. Hungary's nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, is traveling to Florida on Thursday to meet with former President Donald Trump following a NATO summit in Washington, despite unease from the White House. Orban publicly endorsed Trump's candidacy in this year's presidential election and hopes that the Republican can finally bring a close to Russia's war in Ukraine. The meeting in Mar-a-Lago, Orban's second since March, is the last stop on what he's declared a "peace mission" directed at finding a path to end Russia's war in Ukraine. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan signaled concern that a Trump-Orban meeting would run counter to Ukraine's interests, saying: "The U.S. position-the Biden administration position-is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine." "Whatever adventurism that is being undertaken without Ukraine's consent or support, you know, is not something that's consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States," Sullivan told reporters, adding that he "can't speculate as to what Orban is up to exactly." The European Union's longest-serving leader has become somewhat of an icon to conservative populists for championing what he calls "illiberal democracy," which includes restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, according to ABC News. During the NATO summit on Thursday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb chastised the Hungarian Prime Minister for his visits to Russia and China. EU leaders rushed to clarify that the trips were not endorsed by other European leaders. "I'll say it out loud; I don't think there's any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law," Stubb said. "He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree with doing that. I simply do not see the purpose." All the while, Orban revealed his firm belief that a new Trump presidency is the "only serious chance" for an end to the war in Ukraine. Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres predicts President Joe Biden won't find "political salvation" in his solo press conference Thursday evening. Following last month's catastrophic debate performance, the 36-year-old New York representative did not directly call on Biden to drop out of the race, but instead criticized the President's "continuing pattern of denial and self-delusion." "The President did not just have one 'bad debate,'" Torres wrote on his personal X account earlier in the day. "The reality we saw with our own lying eyes is evidence of a deeper challenge." The narrative that the President simply had one bad debate performance reflects a continuing pattern of denial and self-delusion. The President did not just have one bad debate. The reality we saw with our own lying eyes is evidence of a deeper challenge. The notion that Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) July 11, 2024 "The notion that the President is going to be saved by this interview or that press conference misses the forest for trees." Torres said that while he plans to tune in to Biden's speech, "the ability to survive a single public appearance is the bare minimum of what should be expected of a Democratic Nominee. Neither the press conference tonight nor the NBC interview on Monday evening will offer the President the political salvation he seems to be seeking." If Biden refuses to quit his campaign and formally accepts the Democratic nomination in August, the congressman suggested "we will have no choice but to make the best of a complicated situation." So far, 12 House Democrats and one Senate Democrat have publicly called on Biden to bow out of the race. Biden continues to maintain he is mentally and physically capable of seeing the election through, insisting in a letter he wrote to congressional Democrats on Monday that it's time to "end" the pressure on him to drop out, reported Axios. Biden will speak to the American people after talking to NATO leaders Thursday at 6:30 p.m. You can watch it here. Ahead of his make-or-break post-NATO press conference Thursday evening, President Joe Biden mistakenly referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" as Democrats call for him to step down amid concerns over his fitness to serve another term. In the press conference later Biden referred to Donald Trump as "Vice President Trump" as he was discussing Vice President Kamala Harris. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if] I think she's not qualified to be president," Biden told reporters. Biden's unforgettable fumble in his comments at the NATO event earlier in the day was met by audible gasps in the room, according to the Associated Press. Biden, 81, was at the podium announcing a compact that would unite NATO allies in Ukraine's war against Russia, when he made the flub. After referring to Zelenskyy as "President Putin," Biden quickly added: "President Putin he's going to beat President Putin... President Zelenskyy." "I'm so focused on beating Putin," Biden explained. "I'm better," Zelenskyy responded, the AP reported. "You're a hell of a lot better," Biden agreed. Watch Zelensky's reaction as Biden calls him Putin pic.twitter.com/TfVoAoryDX Censored Men (@CensoredMen) July 11, 2024 Joe Biden mistakenly calls Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. pic.twitter.com/VVSuMfCQRH Pop Base (@PopBase) July 11, 2024 Biden's brief but shocking confusion over the Ukrainian president's name and the Trump stumble comes as questions continue to swirl around his age, health, and capacity to lead the U.S. for four more years, following his high-profile June 27 debate fiasco. His problematic performance on the Atlanta stage has since prompted 13 House Democrats and one Senate Democrat to call on the President to quit his campaign. Biden over the weekend defended his wobbly performance, chalking it up to a cold and sleep deprivation, and has repeatedly declined to withdraw from the race. In a letter to Hill Democrats Monday, he swore, "I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump." Donald Trump couldn't wait to jump on Joe Biden's major bloopers after the president referred Thursday to Urkaine President Vladimir Zelenskyy as Vladimir Putin at a NATO event and called Trump his "vice president" at a press conference later. Trump mockingly referred to Biden's "Big Boy press conference" and shared clips of the president's gaffes in posts on Truth Social. "Great job, Joe!" he taunted in one post. Trump attacked another stumble in which Biden said he was following the advice of his "commander in chief" on military assistance to Ukraine. Biden is the U.S. military's commander in chief. The president quickly corrected himself saying that he had consulted the "chiefs of staff of the military, as well as the secretary of defense and our intelligence people." Trump stumbled, however, when he misquoted Biden on a gaffe in Truth Social. He claimed Biden said Vice President Kamala Harris was "not fit to be president." In fact Biden said she was qualified to be president, though he initially mistakenly referred to Trump as his vice president. Trump also boasted about his meeting with hard-right Hungarian President Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, reposting a tweet from Orban saying the men talked peace and that Trump is "going to solve it." It was a reference to the war in Ukraine, launched in what Trump has called a "genius" move by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he frequently praises. The meeting was apparently Trump's way of staging an international huddle to rival Biden's appearance at NATO's 75th Summit in Washington, D.C., Thursday. As a convicted felon, Trump is currently not allowed to travel outside of the U.S. Biden stumbled Thursday in appearances he was no doubt hoping would help erase his disastrous performance debating Trump earlier this month from the public's mind. Biden was at the podium at the NATO announcing a compact that would unite allies in Ukraine's war against Russia when he referred to Zelenskyy as "President Putin" before quickly correcting himself. Later at a press conference Biden called Trump his vice president. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if] I think she's not qualified to be president," Biden told reporters before correcting himself and naming Harris. Officials are still working to assess and repair damage after historic flooding across parts of New Hampshire and Vermont this week caused by remnants of Hurricane Beryl. A video shared by Amber Kay on Facebook shows a road in Lancaster, N.H., washed out by floodwaters on Thursday. The road, Elm Street, is split in two, with a rushing river of floodwater slicing through the gap. Lancaster city officials said in a notice on the town's website Thursday that "rebuilding the roads will take some time." "Local officials are working hard to assess and address damage to the town after last evening's storm. DOT crews are working on state roads and access to roads may be restricted while work is being conducted. Your dedicated Lancaster town crews are working on town roads and hope to have town roads passable before the end of the day," the city said. "Neighbors help neighbors." Numerous water rescues were conducted amid historic flooding Wednesday and into Thursday, especially in areas where the Connecticut River breached roads. Damage was reported in several towns, including Lancaster, Dalton, Littleton, Whitefield, and other communities in Coos and Grafton counties. In nearby Littleton, Fire Chief Chad Miller told New Hampshire Public Radio Thursday that "most of our major roads in and out of town are closed." "I would check before traveling anywhere in this area - Monroe, Dalton, Whitefield, Lancaster, and on the other side of the Connecticut River in Vermont," Miller told the outlet. -With reporting from TMX. Actress Ashley Judd issued a passionate plea to "deeply decent" President Joe Biden on Friday to drop his campaign for a more effective candidate because "we can't risk a Trump presidency." She faulted Biden in an op ed in USA Today for his utter inability to do anything to stem his opponent's "unchecked firehose of galling lies" in the 81-year-old president's stumbling debate last month against Donald Trump. Judd, who grew up in Kentucky, noted Trump's powerful persuasion among the American public, including among her many friends and family members in the South who "feverishly love" the former president. Biden's debate pratfall and her loved ones' regard for Trump "activated in me profound alarm," Judd noted, because she cannot not face the possibility of Trump bringing his "incalculable cruelty" to the White House again. "I now ask President Joe Biden to step aside," Judd wrote. Judd added her voice to an increasing chorus of long-time Biden supporters, including several top Democrats, after his troubling debate behavior and repeated stumbles and gaffes since then. He introduced Ukraine President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" at the 70th NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, and referred to his own vice president as Donald Trump before correcting himself in both cases. Judd's fellow actor George Clooney also pleaded with Biden in an op ed earlier this week in the New York Times to step out ot the race, warning him that he "cannot win his fight against time." Biden's superpac donors have now threatened to withhold some $90 million in donations until the president is no longer in the race, the Independent reported Friday. Biden has so far remained adamant that he is in the campaign til the end. "I'm in this to complete the job I started," he declared Thursday. Politico reported in 2019 that while Biden was running against Trump in the 2020 election, he indicated to aides he would be only a single-term president because of concerns then about his age. He also referred to himself then as a "transition president," presumably to a younger candidate once his term was up. A man who plotted to abduct, rape and kill a U.K. TV presenter was sentenced Friday to life in prison following his arrest in 2023 by Essex Police. Gavin Plumb, 37, was sentenced in Chelmsford Crown Court to life in prison, and was ordered to serve at least 16 years before becoming eligible for parole. He was convicted by a jury of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby since 2021. Essex Police's Major Crime Team said Plumb developed an obsession with Willoughby, one of the U.K.'s most famous television personalities, over a "number of years," collecting thousands of images of her. He joined online forums, including one called "Abduct Lovers," and detailed his plans to kidnap her from her family home. On the forum, Plumb discussed what equipment he would purchase to carry out the abduction, including metal cable ties, ropes and chloroform, and described how he would restrain Willoughby. In conversations with a user named "Marc," Plumb "discussed graphic detail about sexual and violent offenses they plotted to carry out against the victim." Judge Edward Murray said Plumb's plans were so "horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail" that they were not shared in open court, and only the jury were shown evidence of the conversations. Plumb had claimed the plans were only a fantasy, though he had told an undercover Minnesota police officer who infiltrated the forum that he was "definitely serious." Plumb also had previous convictions for kidnap and attempted kidnap of women, according to Essex Police. The undercover detective with the Owatonna Police Department in Minnesota gathered information from Plumb in early October 2023 and forwarded his concerns to the FBI within just a couple of days. The FBI in turn contacted their counterparts in the U.K. Plumb was arrested by Essex Police at his home on Oct. 4. Murray said Plumb's plans were "particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading" and he had no doubt they were "considerably more than a fantasy." Willoughby, 43, left her role presenting ITV's "This Morning" after 14 years soon after Plumb's arrest. She did make an impact statement, though it was not shared publicly, and the judge indicated Plumb's plot had a "catastrophic" and "life-changing" effect on her. "Today Gavin Plumb starts a life sentence, with a minimum of 16 years behind bars, and the streets of Essex are safer for woman and girls as a result," Essex Police's Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood, said in a statement. "He is a dangerous individual with a history of kidnapping, attempting to kidnap and plotting to kidnap women and girls. In this case he went further and intended to rape and murder his victim," Wood said. "He tried to claim throughout the trial that he was an obsessive fan and a fantasist - that is simply not true. He planned this attack on Ms Willoughby over a two-year period, scoping her movements, seeking to elicit help from others to carry out his wicked plan, buying chloroform and other items to incapacitate, restrain and inflict violence upon her. He is no fantasist - he's a calculated, violent, sexual predator who has spent his adult life inflicting or plotting to inflict harm on women." This is the moment a dangerous sexual predator who plotted to murder Holly Willoughby, was arrested by Essex Police. Gavin Plumb, 37, had been plotting an attack on the television presenter since 2021, planning how he would carry out his plan & even purchasing a kidnap kit. pic.twitter.com/nEv4Ylxz7l Essex Police (@EssexPoliceUK) July 4, 2024 --with reporting by TMX Russia has issued a threat that it will take counter measures to news that the U.S. will deploy long-range missiles in Germany. The U.S. and Germany announced at the 70th NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that they would deploy long-range missile capabilities in Germany in 2026 to reconfirm their commitment to NATO while Russia is battling Ukraine, Reuters reported. Ultimately, the move would reportedly lead to longer-term deployment that would include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons with a longer range than current capabilities in Europe, according to Reuters. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov angrily responded to the announcement, accusing NATO of "once again very clearly confirm[ing] its essence: It is an alliance created in an era of confrontation with the aim of maintaining confrontation." This is a "very serious threat to the national security of our country. All of this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated, effective responses to deter NATO, to counteract NATO," Peskov warned. NATO also announced Wednesday that a new American defense system in northern Poland to intercept ballistic missile attacks was "mission ready." A fleet of drones deployed to surveil New York City beaches for sharks and swimmers in distress have been under attack by angry avian perpetrators. The drones first took flight in May and were immediately met by "very annoyed" birds who responded to the interruption of their air space by swarming and swatting at the foreign devices. "They will fly at it, they'll swoop at it, they'll be vocalizing," Veronica Welsh, a wildlife coordinator at the New York City Parks Department, said, according to the Associated Press. "They think they're defending their chicks from a predator." In response to a lifeguard shortage, the NYPD announced the implementation of drones at its beaches earlier this year. The idea is to rescue struggling swimmers by dropping a flotation device from the drone which immediately inflates once it hits the water. Despite four drownings at city beaches so far this summer, there have been no rescues to date. However, the drones did alert their first shark sighting Thursday, prompting officials to close an NYC beach, the outlet reported. No birds have been harmed, but New York avian experts and conservationists pointed out the intrusive technology could potentially push out the beach's bird population specifically, American oystercatchers. "We don't know a lot about what sort of distance is required to protect the birds," David Bird, a professor of wildlife biology at McGill University pointed out, according to the AP. "But we do know there are birds on this beach that are highly endangered. If they abandon their nests because of the drones, that would be a disaster." As a result, the police department agreed to launch its drones further from nesting areas, after the city's emergency management department brought the concern to the attention of drone operators. "We pointed out that there's a nest here and there's two angry parents who don't want you anywhere near their eggs or their babies," Natalie Grybauskas, the agency's assistant commissioner, said. New York isn't the only city to implement drones as part of its beach safety protocols. Officials in Long Island, New York and Australia also deploy similar devices for monitoring. Transforming the former In and Out Military Club, Auberge continues strategic growth in Europe. Auberge Resorts Collection, the award-winning portfolio of one-of-a-kind luxury hotels, resorts and residences, has been appointed by Reuben Brothers, London-based global leaders in real estate, to manage Cambridge House, the former In and Out Military Club, in Mayfair, London. The imaginative renewal of this historic property at 94 Piccadilly will capture the spirit of London like no other hotel to provide a magnetic new Mayfair destination for Londoners and international visitors alike. Set to open in late 2025, Cambridge House, Auberge Resorts Collection will introduce the award-winning hospitality brand's experiential luxury, unsurpassed personal service, vibrant and unique dining and a destination Auberge Spa to the global capital. The hotel is part of Reuben Brothers' 1 billion regeneration of 1.3 prime acres of the Piccadilly Estate, including the super-prime residential development of One Carrington and the cobblestone streets of Shepherd Market. Poised between the serenity of Green Park and vibrant Shepherd Market, the 102-room hotel, together with its private members' club, will be both retreat and social hub. Classically English yet drawing on the eclectic influences that have made Great Britain what it is today, it will appeal as much by day as by night. Their debut hotel in the UK, two leading designers will bring the property's intriguing duality to life: Jean-Louis Deniot overseeing the transformation of the hotel, and Laura Gonzalez designing the club's bars, dining venues, spa and nine members'-only club rooms. Encompassing several historic properties, it is the Georgian mansion at the heart of the hotel that is a London icon - the gracious, Grade 1-listed, Palladian-style townhouse commissioned by the 2nd Earl of Egremont in 1756. Built to entertain the political and social elite of the age, the property has been at the centre of London life ever since, hosting Queen Victoria, serving as PM Lord Palmerston's proxy No.10, home to the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Cholmondeley, and the Naval and Military 'In and Out' Club from 1865 to 1999. The lively dining scene at Cambridge House, Auberge Resorts Collection will reflect the diverse allure the property has always exuded, with patrons able to dine almost anywhere they choose. Bringing a new energy to South Mayfair, the hotel will offer a kaleidoscope of venues - from its unique open-air jasmine courtyard, a truly one of a kind venue in this part of London, to the brasserie-style restaurant in its elegant, Georgian ballroom setting. An exciting culinary partnership will be announced in due course. Inspired by Britain's healing lore and informed by its Roman bathhouses, the double-level spa will introduce Auberge's unmatched holistic wellness offering to London. Extensive hydrotherapy facilities, two heated swimming pools and seven treatment rooms will be complemented by a circular relaxation lounge, centred by a fire pit. The gym, activity studios, wet zones, heat rooms and bathhouse will all encourage an element of social connection integral to the spa's wellness concept. As a new social centre, the hotel will feature event spaces suited to every occasion. Channeling the Georgian Era's opulence, the ballroom makes an incomparable setting for receptions, while the property's restaurants, bars and private rooms can accommodate events of every size and concept. This announcement comes at an exciting time of thoughtful and strategic expansion in urban and European markets for Auberge Resorts Collection. Later this year, the brand will open Collegio alla Querce, Auberge Resorts Collection in Florence, Italy, which joins two existing Auberge properties in Europe, Domaine des Etangs, Auberge Resorts Collection in France and Grace Hotel, Auberge Resorts Collection in Santorini, Greece. Auberge will also soon open several additional urban locations including The Shore Club, Auberge Resorts Collection in Miami Beach, FL, The Knox, Auberge Resorts Collection in Dallas, TX and The Hearst Hotel, Auberge Resorts Collection in San Francisco, CA. Hotel website Holiday Inn & Suites Kuwait - Salmiya has announced the appointment of Saif Eddin Mohammed as its new general manager. Mohammed's career spans over two decades in the hospitality industry, including leadership roles at Marriott Hotels in Kuwait and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dubai. Mohammed joins Holiday Inn & Suites Kuwait - Salmiya from Safir Fintas Hotel, Kuwait, where he served as general manager since August 2012. At Safir Fintas, he successfully positioned the hotel in the competitive Kuwaiti market, driving sales, marketing, and brand management strategies to achieve revenue and market positioning. His tenure was marked by numerous achievements, including leading the market share among competitors for three consecutive years and receiving the Best Guest Satisfaction awards multiple years. In his new role, Mohammed will oversee the operations of the property that features 189 rooms, 92 residential suites, six F&B venues, a fitness centre, 22 meeting rooms, and banqueting services. His extensive experience in business strategy development, customer relations, and team leadership will be instrumental in enhancing guest experiences, says the property. Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa, Surf City's most iconic beachfront resort, today announces the appointment of Jason Abrams as Director of Rooms. Abrams will direct the daily accommodation operations of the 519-room property, bringing over a decade of hospitality leadership and management experience to the resort. With over 20 years of hospitality across the United States, Abrams has held positions at multiple resorts within the Hyatt portfolio for more than a decade. He comes to Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach from Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine, where he served as Director of Operations since April 2022. Starting his career in food and beverage as an Assistant Executive Steward at Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa,he quickly ascended to the roles of Executive Steward, In-Room Dining Manager and eventually Outlet's Director. Abrams then assumed the position of Food & Beverage Manager at Grand Hyatt San Francisco and later the Convention & Sales Manager at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. He returned to Hyatt Hotels to serve at Director of Operations at Andaz West Hollywood before his most recent role at Hyatt Regency La Jolla. Abrams' achievements include Leader of the Quarter at Hyatt Regency Maui, Grand Hyatt San Francisco and Andaz West Hollywood. He brings a strong expertise in hospitality management, hotel, food and beverage operations, events, profitability, budgeting and forecasting to Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach. Joining The St. Regis Atlanta team with over two decades of hospitality management experience, Gorina oversees all day-to-day hotel operations ensuring the reflection of The St. Regis brand's world class service and traditions. His responsibilities include driving innovation, promoting business growth and establishing strong internal communication between teams aiming for high employee satisfaction. Gorina is native to Spain and throughout his childhood would make visits to a prestigious hotel owned by his grandmother, which inspired him to embark on his hospitality career at the age of 16 as a busboy in the restaurant business. He went on her earn his Upper Professional degree in Tourism and Hospitality from At Lluisa Cura in Barcelona, which equipped him with invaluable industry knowledge, customer service proficiency and a deep understanding of operations and revenue management. Throughout his professional career thus far, Gorina has held significant roles within Marriott International, being named Leader of the Year on multiple occasions, including leading the Rooms Division, Guest Experiences and Housekeeping at select Ritz-Carlton properties and overseeing openings with EDITION Hotels. He remains actively involved in LGBTQ+|ONE Associate Resource Group by Marriott, reflecting his commitment to inclusive leadership. Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel Athens is delighted to announce the appointment of Jann Kaiser as General Manager. Jann brings a wealth of expertise in luxury hospitality to his role, with over two decades of experience working across five countries, six cities and seven Four Seasons properties, including London, Chicago, Istanbul and Beirut. Jann's journey in the hospitality industry began at the Hotel School The Hague in Holland, where his first tenure was secured with Four Seasons and his career began at the renowned Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills. He then progressed to Restaurant Manager and Director of Food & Beverage at Four Seasons properties in Istanbul, Beirut, Chicago and London where his leadership and dedication propelled him to the role of Hotel Manager at Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square. While Hotel Manager, the property secured its first Forbes Five Star rating, a second Michelin star for La Dame De Pic, and AA Hotel of the Year London 2018-2019. In 2021, Jann arrived at Four Seasons Astir Palace Athens located within the Greek Riviera as Hotel Manager, driven by a desire to advance sustainability and set a visionary strategy. Jann revised the way the hotel empowers its 1000+ staff to embody the traditional hospitality "filoxenia" at the heart of Greek culture and inspire a dynamic, diverse and inclusive culture, boosted by team members from around the world. In 2023, the hotel took the 35th spot in the World's 50 Best Hotels and was awarded its first Forbes Five-Star designation. Hyatt Hotels Corporation is pleased to announce the appointment of Abhishek Arora as the new Revenue Manager. Abhishek is a distinguished professional with more than 11 years of experience in revenue management, inventory management, and competitor analysis. He brings extensive expertise and a proven track record to his new role. Abhishek holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Applications and has held various leadership positions in prominent hotel brands such as Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Accor Group of Hotels, and Oberoi Hotels & Resorts. His proficiency in budgeting, forecasting, and trend analysis has been instrumental in driving revenue growth and enhancing profitability. His ability to set up and manage revenue management systems, coupled with his experience in handling large hotel operations, makes him a valuable asset. As the Revenue Manager at Hyatt Regency, Chennai, Abhishek will oversee all revenue management operations, develop and implement strategies to maximize revenue and profits, analyse market trends, manage pricing and inventory, and collaborate with various departments to ensure effective revenue management practices. He will leverage data and technology to inform decision-making and will be accountable for achieving revenue targets and driving growth. Hyatt Regency Chennai is excited about the valuable contributions he will bring to his new role and look forward to working with him. London, UK - Introducing Flexkeeping Assistant: A first-of-its-kind AI tool to help hotel teams communicate, manage tasks, and feel empowered in their jobs. Simply say the task out loudand Flexkeeping Assistant does the rest. Flexkeeping Assistant Automatically Understands, Structures, and Assigns Tasks Picture this: star housekeeper Santiago is cleaning room 208 when he discovers a broken AC unit. He wants to fix the issue ASAP before the next guest arrives. Santiago opens Flexkeeping Assistant on his smartphone. He creates a new task, hits the record, and says what the issue isin Spanish, his native language. Flexkeeping Assistant instantly listens, understands, and structures the task with all the key details. It then assigns the task to the maintenance teamtranslating it to English so they can easily understand. The maintenance team gets notified and heads to room 208 to fix the unit. The next guest arrives to a refreshingly cool room after a long day of travel. Successall thanks to Santiagos 30-second voice memo. Break Language Barriers Multilingual hotel teams often struggle to communicate with each other clearly and effectively. Fortunately, Flexkeeping Assistant can understand and translate over 44 languages. This makes it easy for team members to speak with confidence, get their message across, and collaborate with other departments. Avoid Mistakes and Miscommunications Human error is inevitable, no matter how totally awesome your team is. Manually typing, translating, and assigning tasks creates even more opportunity for errorsespecially for the less tech-savvy staff. Flexkeeping Assistant hears the task and instantly coordinates it, reducing the risk for mistakes or missed information. Boost Efficiency and Productivity Coordinating and scheduling tasks takes valuable minutessometimes even hours. Flexkeeping Assistant saves time by automating task management and communication. What might have taken someone several minutes to complete can now be done in a 30-second voice note. Empower Team Members and Impress Guests Hotel teams are pros at what they do. Roadblocks like language and tech errors shouldnt stand in the way of that. With Flexkeeping Assistant, team members can confidently communicate, collaborate, and take pride in delivering top-tier service to guests. A First-Of-Its-Kind Operations Solution Flexkeeping Assistant is the first-ever AI tool designed for hotel operations. It represents a new era in hospitality innovationand an entirely new philosophy for how back-office teams work. We're not just innovating. We're shaping the future of hospitality. Our mission: Empower hotel teams with the most advanced technologies out there so they can deliver impeccable guest services. Luka Berger, CEO About Flexkeeping Flexkeeping is a hotel operations platform designed to streamline operations and enhance guest experiences. From housekeeping to maintenance and beyond, Flexkeeping empowers hoteliers with innovative solutions to thrive in today's dynamic hospitality industry. Ines Oliveira Marketing Manager In response to the evolving needs of modern professionals, hotel and lifestyle brand citizenM is expanding its innovative membership program to include co-working benefits across its portfolio of 34 hotels (and counting) worldwide. Designed to serve the growing demand for flexible co-working space and on-the-go solutions, this initiative embodies citizenM's commitment to fostering creativity and connection in the heart of urban landscapes. In a world where the hybrid working setup has become the norm, citizenM recognises an opportunity to further serve modern professionals by providing a healthy dose of creativity, collaboration and community in its signature stylish spaces. Across its global locations, citizenM living rooms have been a popular place for hotel guests to work from, and the experience is now being extended to locals or those who arent overnight guests (yet). Thanks to this new co-working benefit, freelancers, entrepreneurs, hybrid workers, and cafe culture enthusiasts can now work seamlessly at any citizenM hotel. Whether it's a quick meeting or a full afternoon of productivity, citizenM's affordable co-working spaces offer an inspiring alternative to home offices or crowded cafes. With an extensive portfolio and central locations in the most important business, tech, and creative hubs of the world, citizenM hotels worldwide can also serve as a homebase for on-the-go workers, hybrid teams, or founders looking to scale their businesses in a new market, thanks to discounted room rates (and other benefits) offered through the membership. The hotels provide a place to stay and work, and allow for networking opportunities and the chance to create future partnerships. Co-working the citizenM way: Inspiring spaces citizenM hotels are thoughtfully designed for comfort and functionality, with designer furniture from Vitra and layouts that provide flexible use. Real art and fun styling items provide a creative and inspiring atmosphere, paired with natural daylight and the convenience of ordering food and drinks while you work. citizenM hotels are thoughtfully designed for comfort and functionality, with designer furniture from Vitra and layouts that provide flexible use. Real art and fun styling items provide a creative and inspiring atmosphere, paired with natural daylight and the convenience of ordering food and drinks while you work. Premium amenities the membership not only provides access to co-working, but also discounts on food & beverage, and societyM meeting rooms not to mention superfast, free WiFi. the membership not only provides access to co-working, but also discounts on food & beverage, and societyM meeting rooms not to mention superfast, free WiFi. Global locations citizenM hotels are based in prime locations in the worlds business, tech and creative hubs, with a growing portfolio of 34 hotels (17 in Europe, 14 in USA, 2 in Asia) and more to come. citizenM hotels are based in prime locations in the worlds business, tech and creative hubs, with a growing portfolio of 34 hotels (17 in Europe, 14 in USA, 2 in Asia) and more to come. Affordable luxury at just $120 / 100 / 90 a year, citizenMs membership offers incredible value for money, with benefits to work, sleep and play in hubs around the world; We are seeing increasing demand for remote work and flexible working environments, and citizenM hotels are perfectly designed to serve these needs. Whether youre a local seeking a more inspiring, dynamic place to do your work, or a founder looking to scale their business to a new market and needing a homebase, our new co-working proposition, available through an accessible membership program, offers solutions for any type of guest or traveller. Robin Chadha, Chief Brand Officer, citizenM Co-working at citizenM can be accessed by becoming a mycitizenM+ member. Additional member benefits include 15% off hotel rooms, free late checkout and free upgrade to premium view room (both subject to availability), 15% off societyM meeting rooms, 15% off F&B, early access to discounts, and members-only events. As citizenM continues to expand its portfolio with new openings later this year in Miami South Beach (a third hotel in the city) and Boston Back Bay (the brands second hotel in the city), the next generation of creators, founders, entrepreneurs and small business owners can choose to work from their local citizenM or travel to any of citizenMs 34 hotels worldwide. Co-working at citizenM is now available for all via the mycitizenM+ membership program to learn more and join the future of work, visit www.citizenm.com/membership/work. About mycitizenM+ In March 2022, citizenM launched the worlds simplest hotel membership program: mycitizenM+. There are no points to collect, no bronze-silver-platinum levels to achieve, no stale club-lounge muffins, no silly welcome gift. Members simply sign up to enjoy all the perks without the points. Guest feedback showed that most travellers want simplicity, value and flexibility. With the mycitizenM+ membership, citizenM guarantees a room - with 15% off the basic rate - even during busy periods, for all member reservations made at least 48 hours in advance. Additional perks include: free co-working, 15% off food & beverage, 15% off societyM meeting rooms, free late check-out and a free upgrade to a premium view room (both are subject to availability), a first in queue chat service, early access to discounts including 30% off new hotel openings, and members-only events. Superfast free Wi-Fi is available at all hotels plus, guests can use the free citizenM app to check in, create a room key and much more. The cost of the membership is $120 / 100 / 90 a year. For more information visit www.citizenm.com/my-citizenm-plus. About citizenM citizenM was launched in 2008 with a purpose to disrupt the traditional, stale hotel industry. Rattan Chadha the founder of the global fashion brand Mexx was inspired by his employees to create a hotel for today's frequent travellers, giving them everything they need and nothing they don't. This means central locations in the world's most exciting cities, but at an affordable price. Not just a place to sleep, but somewhere to work, relax and play just like home. Somewhere with superfast free Wi-Fi, tech that makes life easy, and world-class art that isn't "hotel art'. A room with an ultra-comfortable XL bed to crash in, and a powerful rain shower to wake-up in. Rattan Chadha called this "affordable luxury for the people'. The first citizenM opened at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in 2008. As of May 2024, citizenM's portfolio has 34 hotels in 21 exciting cities: London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, Rome, Zurich, Geneva, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Menlo Park, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur. www.citizenM.com | @citizenM Travelodge, the UKs first budget hotel, has launched a recruitment drive to fill over 300 jobs across its business. The company operates over 600 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Spain, with 47,000 rooms, employing more than 13,000 people. Travelodge is committed to flexible, secure employment, reflected in its Find where you Belong company initiative, which ensures inclusivity, support and flexibility for all its colleagues to be their true self at work and belong. The jobs available cover a wide variety of positions across Travelodge which also includes jobs at the companys newest hotels to open and newly created roles across the company. Roles include full time and part time Hotel Manager and Assistant Manager positions, Bar Cafe Team Members, Housekeeping Team Members, Reception Team Members and Hotel Supervisors. Roles at Travelodges head office in Thame, Oxfordshire include positions in Procurement, IT, Customer Services and Sales. There has never been a better time than now to join one of the most dynamic and diverse sectors in the world the UK hospitality sector. A sector that employs around three and a half million people and gives many young people their first experience of work. It is also an economic, social and cultural powerhouse, delivering opportunity, investment and social mobility across the UK as well as being one of the biggest revenue generators for the British economy. In its latest Better Future report, Travelodge highlighted and committed to offering more employees 24+ hour contracts, providing its colleagues with greater security and predictability in working hours. This flexibility allows its team members to thrive, and is especially helpful to students and parents, offering parents to work around school run times and students the ability to transfer to a hotel closer to their hometown during the university holidays. Travelodge is also a Disability Confident Committed employer, a Government-backed scheme which encourages employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions. To further support its colleagues, Travelodges Aspire programme allows colleagues to gain a nationally recognised qualification in hospitality funded through its apprenticeship levy. This comprehensive programme provides a clear pathway of development and career mapping for hotel and maintenance colleagues to progress from entry level roles through to Manager level. Aspire demonstrates Travelodges commitment to being a place where colleagues can get in and get on, irrespective of background, or educational attainment. There has never been a better time than now to join Travelodge, one of the UKs biggest hotel brands. Our colleagues are at the heart of our business and we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace with opportunities to learn more and earn more, where everyone can be their true self, and belong. We are currently looking to fill over 300 positions across the UK and we are looking for enthusiastic people that have a passion and determination to deliver excellent customer service In addition to a strong network of hotels across the UK, we offer flexible working hours that can be a win-win solution for parents and students. We offer parents flexible working hours to help them work around the school run, so they can raise their family and have a job that allows them to develop a career when the time is right for them. Students can work in a Travelodge whilst studying at University and then transfer to a different hotel when they return home in the holidays. The opportunities at Travelodge are endless and can open a door to a great career in a fast growing global industry. Katharine Gourley, Travelodge, Director of People Operations For further details on all positions at Travelodge and to apply, please visit: https://www.travelodge.co.uk/careers/ Travelodge offers a great range of employee benefits and these are available to new employees from their first day of employment. These benefits include: 50% off Travelodges UK hotels Room discounts for family and friends Work anniversary complimentary booking voucher Pension scheme Discounts at a range of retailers Employee Assistance Programme Life Assurance Wellbeing Programme Better Me About Travelodge Founded in 1985, Travelodge is Britain's very first budget hotel chain and today is one of the largest budget hotel chains in the UK, with a portfolio of over 600 hotels and over 46,000 bedrooms across the UK, Ireland and Spain. In Spain, Travelodge has an established profitable presence and as of April 2024, its portfolio doubled to 12 hotels, having recently acquired a further six properties. Travelodge has ambitious growth plans within this market and has identified the top 20 key locations where it would like to open additional hotels in Spain. Welcoming over 22 million guests annually across the UK, Ireland and Spain, the majority of Travelodge hotels are located in major cities, towns and holiday hotspots as well as by airports and key business hubs. With 90% of its hotels rated 4* or above on TripAdvisor, Travelodge is proud to offer guests across its diverse customer base a good value experience whether they are travelling for business or leisure. In 2023, approximately 50% of rooms were sold for less than 60. Whether out celebrating a birthday, going to a concert or sporting event, visiting friends and family, taking a business trip, working away from home, or taking a short break, we help people to go and do their thing by Being the Brilliant Base. Travelodge continues to invest in its ongoing hotel refit programme which is expected to see 50% of the Travelodge room estate upgraded to its new design by the end of 2024. The brand is also continually evolving its quality offering to deliver a better experience for its diverse mix of business and leisure guests such as its new look Bar Cafe design, 85 Bar Cafe, which has been rolled out to selected UK hotels as part of the refit programme. Travelodge is focussing on its environmental and social impact, with sustainability integral to its business strategy. It's Better Future sustainability plan aims to build a more sustainable future for its customers, colleagues and the planet, and it is underpinned by three core pillars: Inclusive ensuring we are accessible, inclusive and well-priced to our customers and colleagues; Caring creating a caring and healthy environment for our colleagues and customers and ensuring their wellbeing; and Conscious Travelodge is conscious of its impact on the planet, taking into account the waste it produces, the energy and other resources it consumes and the carbon emissions it generates. For further information visit travelodge.co.uk or the Travelodge Hotels Limited LinkedIn page. The Travelodge Press Office +44 1844 35 8703 Travelodge A recent discussion on LinkedIn prompted this post. There is a noticeable and growing trend to charge customers paying by credit card an additional fee. Yesterday, the restaurant I had lunch at, had a 4% surcharge if you paid by credit card. Last week, a popular barbecue place I visit, had a printed menu with two price columns: one for cash and the other for credit card payments. The difference was 11.75% - guess which column was more expensive! Restaurant owners and business owners of any size should encourage their customers to pay via credit and debit cards, not discourage them. Here is why: Alienating 88% of customers: less than 12% of payments in the United States today are cash payments. This percentage will drop to less than 10% by 2027. By imposing a mandatory credit card payment surcharge, you are punishing 88% of your customers. See the Extinction of Cash graphic below. People tend to splurge more when paying by credit card. Back in the day, when I worked with American Express, we did a study which proved that point: people paying by credit card splurged 30% more than people paying cash. Bigger tips: When paying by credit card at restaurants people tend to leave bigger tips, which will greatly be appreciated by your employees. Cash is expensive, since handling it requires special oversight to prevent theft, securing it in safes, contracting with a Brinks type of a cash management company, etc. If I were a restaurant owner, I would introduce a surcharge for payments in cash! No wonder Sweden removed cash as a payment option in the whole country! Max Starkov NYU View source AI's Flight Path: The Emergence of the Chief AI Officer (CAIO) in the Hotel and Airline Industries The "Chief AI Officer" - or CAIO - is one of the hottest new job titles in the corporate circuit, and both the hotel and airline industries are embracing this role to stay competitive in the digital era. LinkedIn reports that the number of companies with a Head of AI position has more than tripled in the last five years. When IBM and Dell cut the ribbon for their Chief AI Officers last year, the race was on, and it wasn't long before Accenture, Arizona's renowned Mayo Clinic, and WPP heard the call and announced their very own CAIOs. In 2023, President Joe Biden pulled all the federal agencies into the AI race, necessitating the hiring of a Chief AI Officer (CAIO) that sparked an AI revolution. This set the ball rolling for larger organizations like the Department of Justice and SAP, which quickly followed suit and saw the introduction of the first CAIO into their systems. The DOJ, for example, appointed Jonathan Mayer - not just as the Chief AI Officer but also their first Chief Science and Technology Advisor, proving the importance and relevance of AI and technology expertise in the face of the future. However, finding a CAIO who checks all the boxes can be as elusive as finding... well... a unicorn! You need someone who has the technical chops, sees the bigger picture strategy-wise, and has an undeniable knack for convincing the top-tier decision-makers. It seems like quite a feat, doesn't it? AI is a disruptive force, and every executive leader might need to reckon with the question, "Is CAIO a hat I need to wear to transform my business function? Are Hotel and Airline CAIOs Necessary? AI is paving the way to uncharted territories of innovation for both hotels and airlines. Research shows that AI's potential in the hospitality sector is vast, from personalized guest experiences to efficient operational management. For instance, AI can streamline front desk operations, optimize energy management systems, and provide personalized recommendations for guests based on their preferences and behaviors. Similarly, in aviation, AI can enhance customer service, optimize flight operations, and improve safety protocols. But let's not sugarcoat it. The sheer magnitude of AI's potential is accompanied by a labyrinth of complexities. Having a wise guide to navigate this maze is more than useful; it's crucial. Enter the Chief AI Officer (CAIO), the captain at the helm, flying smoothly forward in this digital wave. Trust me when I say this - industry transformations brought on by the digital renaissance are about as straightforward as navigating a labyrinth blindfolded. A CAIO isn't just another cog in the corporate machinery of hotels and airlines; they're the cartographers of commerce, laying out the roadmap that'll guide businesses from the 'Now' of necessity to the 'Next' of AI-fueled innovation and persistent growth. Some hotels might wonder, "Do we really need one?" but should be asking, "Can we afford not to have one?" Thanks to AI advancements, every aspect of the customer journey in hotels and airlines can be as unique as the individual traveling, from customized offers to personalized in-room and onboard services. The guiding force behind these AI-propelled strategies is the hotel and airline CAIO staying the course and navigating through the winds of change. And let's not forget about risk and safety - they can predict and soften the blow of potential problems, such as equipment failures or security threats in hotels and weather or mechanical failures in airlines. That's more peaceful stays and flights and fewer unexpected disruptions for everyone. Now, you're probably thinking, 'That's all well and good, but what about the business side of things?' The hotel and airline CAIO could revolutionize revenue management with dynamic AI-based pricing strategies, considering factors like demand, competition, and meticulous data management. The result? A healthy bottom line and data-driven insights. Sounds like a day well spent, doesn't it? High-Flying Leadership: Finding the Right Fit The hotel and airline Chief AI Officer needs a bucket load of technical know-how - science, data science, or a sibling field. They should also be experts in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics. Oh, and let's not forget the verbiage of Python, R, and Java - those favorite AI dialects. The right person must be in tune with the dynamic landscape of the travel and hotel industry in order to predict trends, analyze customer behaviors, and sail smoothly through potentially turbulent regulatory issues. Beyond just overseeing and executing AI strategy, they also need to connect with the human team, explaining those complex ideas in language we all understand - a cultural translator, if you like. And no, we don't want to hear 'ticker tape' or 'floppy disk.' This role is like that of an air traffic controller, guiding huge, critical AI projects from take-off (that's the bright idea stage) through the turbulent development phase and into smooth running operations. You've got to love a well-executed flight plan! As we venture further into the AI cosmos, we stumble upon numerous ethical and legal gray areas. Think of data privacy concerns and unconscious AI biases - the list goes on. The Chief AI Officer must scan the AI skies to issue directives and ethical guidelines to ensure we always maintain a responsible and legal flight path. Let's avoid those storm clouds, shall we? Charting a Course for AI in Hospitality and Aviation AI wasn't born yesterday. Well before the advent of ChatGPT, machine learning was doing its magic - fine-tuning AI for a myriad of uses, from gauging financial risks to diagnosing health conditions. But then along came comprehensive language models and generative AI, triggering a wave of interest that laid the groundwork for swift adoption and daring experimentation. This speedy acceptance of modern AI technology is projected to upheave all industry sectors quite similar to the Industrial Revolution, albeit at a more rapid pace and with more looming uncertainty. This rapid pace of development means it would be tough for anyone, let alone an airline or hotel CIO who's already responsible for managing day-to-day IT operations, to oversee the rollout of AI. So, isn't it obvious that both airlines and hotels need someone in the captain's seat to guide their AI journey? At a time when AI is the buzzword du jour, the presence of a CAIO ensures that actual strategic implementation complements AI posturing - leading the way towards enhanced efficiency, personalized customer experiences, improved safety, and robust data compliance. As AI's horizon continues to expand, will this role morph from a luxury to a necessity? I'd bet my last flight's upgrade on it - even though we may feel some turbulence along the way! About the Author As the CEO and co-founder of Puzzle Partner, Ivana leads a consulting agency that collaborates with some of the world's most innovative travel, aviation, and hospitality companies to help them outperform the competition, achieve highly profitable exits, and expand into the Americas. With an innate ability to identify growth opportunities, Ivana has earned an outstanding reputation as a hands-on start-up advisor and a trusted partner for her clients. She is a visionary brand strategist, influential thought leader, podcast producer, and prolific writer. Her insights are regularly featured in Forbes.com, Travel Industry Wire, and other prominent media outlets. She is a member of the elite Forbes Agency Council and contributes to Expert Panels(R), showcasing her knowledge and perspective on the interplay of technology and travel. About Puzzle Partner Ltd. Over the last 10 years, Puzzle Partner has grown to become a leading marketing consulting firm and trusted advisor to the hospitality and travel technology segment. The company has had the privilege of working side by side with some of the most innovative change-makers on the global stage and maintains the highest level of client advocacy in the industry. With exceptional domain expertise, an influential network, and decades of experience, Puzzle Partner's team of experts understands the interplay between travel, hospitality, and technology branding better than anyone else. As a partner that prides itself on providing customized solutions to its clients and building strong relationships, Puzzle Partner consistently delivers results that amplify brand visibility and drive sustainable growth. Since its founding in 2014, Puzzle Partner has helped clients outperform the competition, achieve highly profitable exits, expand into the Americas, and achieve extraordinary outcomes. Puzzle Partner Ltd. is a privately held company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. For further details, please visit puzzlepartner.co. Futuristic robot with glowing circuits in a science laboratory . Cyberspace and technology concept Workers can stop worrying about being replaced by generative artificial intelligence. Wharton experts Valery Yakubovich, Peter Cappelli, and Prasanna Tambe believe it isn't going to happen as drastically as many predict. In an essay published in The Wall Street Journal, the professors contend that AI will most likely create more jobs for people because it needs intensive human oversight to produce useable results. The big claims about AI assume that if something is possible in theory, then it will happen in practice. That is a big leap, they wrote. Modern work is complex, and most jobs involve much more than the kind of things AI is good at - mainly summarizing text and generating output based on prompts. Yakubovich recently spoke to Wharton Business Daily, offering several key facts he hopes will allay people's fears of robotic replacement. (Listen to the podcast.) First, while generative AI has advanced rapidly, it still has a long way to go before it can function autonomously and predictably, which are key features that make it reliable. Second, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are capable of processing vast amounts of data, but they cannot parse it accurately and are prone to misleading information, known as AI hallucinations. You get this output summary - how accurate is it? Who is going to adjudicate among alternative outputs on the same topic? Remember, it's a black box, said Yakubovich, who is executive director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management. Third, companies are risk-averse and need to maintain a high degree of efficiency and control to be successful. So, they won't be rushing to lay off all their people in exchange for technology that still has a lot of bugs to work out. The risk for companies is very high, and they are not going to move very fast. Valery Yakubovich If we are thinking 40, 50 years ahead, that's wide-open ended, Yakubovich said. The issue we are discussing now is very the specific [needs] for business. The risk for companies is very high, and they are not going to move very fast. The Imperfection of AI Despite its shortcomings, generative AI has been touted for its ability to handle what many consider to be mundane communication at work - interacting with customers online, producing reports, and writing marketing copy such as press releases. But the professors point out that many of those tasks have already been taken from workers. For example, chatbots handle customer complaints, and client-facing employees are often given scripted language vetted by lawyers. Yakubovich said most office interaction is informal communication, and a lot of useful organizational knowledge is tacit. While digital tools are increasingly capable of capturing both, nobody wants their emails, Slack chats, or Zoom transcripts freely parsed by an LLM, and the quality of extracted information is hard to verify. I haven't seen any company yet that dared to feed their emails into the models, because you can learn a lot about the company from that. Who wants to give open access? he said. It's very hard to control what the model will produce and for whom. That's why the models are very hard to use within the organization. Companies also don't want AI involved in politically sensitive matters, especially if there are legal concerns. What I see so far in talking to senior leaders of companies is that they try to avoid completely using models in politically charged cases because they know they will have more work to do adjudicating among the different parties, he said. Data science has been around for years, Yakubovich said, yet many companies still lack good infrastructure to organize the tremendous information that the technology is capable of collecting. Even if they built it, humans are still an indispensable part of making sense of it all. If you want to curate everything, it's a lot of work, and this is where more jobs will emerge, he said. This article is reprinted with permission from Knowledge@Wharton. Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sabadell - Image Credit IHG Hotels & Resorts IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) yesterday announced the signing of four new properties in Spain, adding over 500 rooms across key mature markets in desirable destinations. (Mrs) Willemijn Geels, Vice President, Development, Europe, IHG Hotels & Resorts, commented: We are thrilled to expand our presence in Spain with these four outstanding properties in key tourist and business destinations across the country. The addition of over 500 rooms in Spain, alongside the recently announced 1,000 rooms in Portugal, will contribute a 10% increase in our room count across Iberia, emphasising our commitment to growth in the region. The continued growth in the Spanish market demonstrates the strong demand from owners and investors in our diverse brand portfolio, and in IHG delivering unique experiences and high-quality service to our guests. We look forward to a successful partnership with our Spanish owners, who share our commitment to excellence and delivering true hospitality. The new additions to Spains pipeline include: Luxury & Lifestyle Hotel Indigo in Jerez de la Frontera: The hotel will be the fifth Hotel Indigo in Spain and expected to open in spring 2026. Signed in partnership with Senator Hotels & Resorts, this 82-room hotel will uniquely combine two independent buildings (Plaza Arenal and Calle Larga) in the city centre of Jerez. Each building will feature Hotel Indigos distinctive neighbourhood design, providing a gateway to discover the citys most inspiring localities. The hotel will include a ground floor bar, top floor bar and restaurant, an exterior terrace, and a rooftop swimming pool. Premium voco Granada: Also set to open in spring 2026, the hotel will signify IHGs market debut in Granada and will be the second voco property in Spain. Opening in partnership with Senator Hotels & Resorts, voco Granada will feature 167 rooms in a prime location near to the historic centre of Granada, close to well-connected transport links and the convention centre. Essentials Holiday Inn Express Seville City: The 148-room converted hotel is the third property signed with Senator Hotels & Resorts and is set to open in Spring 2026. The hotel will feature the brands hallmarks, including the Express Start Breakfast, providing hot fresh breakfast, as well as a fitness area, rooftop terrace, and swimming pool, making it an ideal stay for guests looking for a simple, smart travel experience. Conveniently located within a shopping centre in a residential area, the hotel serves as an ideal location between Seville's city centre and the international airport perfect for both business and leisure travellers. The 148-room converted hotel is the third property signed with Senator Hotels & Resorts and is set to open in Spring 2026. The hotel will feature the brands hallmarks, including the Express Start Breakfast, providing hot fresh breakfast, as well as a fitness area, rooftop terrace, and swimming pool, making it an ideal stay for guests looking for a simple, smart travel experience. Conveniently located within a shopping centre in a residential area, the hotel serves as an ideal location between Seville's city centre and the international airport perfect for both business and leisure travellers. Holiday Inn Express & Suites Sabadell: Set to join the IHG portfolio in late 2025, the hotel will bring IHGs first & suites offering to Spain as it boasts 130 rooms including 20 long-stay suites catering to the needs of mid-to-long-term guests as well as families. Signed as part of a franchise agreement with Gestion T3 Hoteles, the hotel will also feature the brands signature Express Start Breakfast, a restaurant, meeting rooms, a fitness centre, and an outdoor swimming pool. Conveniently located near Sabadell and main ring roads, the property offers easy access to Barcelona, which can be reached within a 25-minute car ride. IHG currently has 55* hotels operating under eight* brands in the country, including Six Senses, InterContinental, Kimpton, Hotel Indigo, voco, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn Express, and Holiday Inn. Over the last five years, the company has opened more than ten hotels in Spain including Kimpton Vividora, InterContinental Barcelona, Six Senses Ibiza, and voco Madrid - Retiro. This also includes a strong pipeline of 12 properties, including Staybridge Suites Malaga, which is set to open later this year and mark the brands debut in Spain. In 2022, IHG signed a long-term commercial agreement with award-winning Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, making it the companys 18th brand and significantly boosting its footprint in resort and all-inclusive hotels a high-growth market segment where there is clear demand from guests and IHG One Rewards members. Up to 70 hotels (24.3k rooms) join IHGs system under the Iberostar Beachfront Resorts brand and IHG guests can look forward to memorable stays in award-winning hotels*, ranging from family friendly premium offerings to adult only luxury, in leading resort destinations, including: Iberostar Grand Paraiso (Riviera Maya, Mexico); Iberostar Selection Hacienda Dominicus (Bayahibe, Dominican Republic); Iberostar Grand Rose Hall (Montego Bay, Jamaica); and Iberostar Selection Anthelia (Tenerife, Spain). *Numbers as at 31 March 2024 Louella Brezovar-van Veen - Image Credit Ritz-Carlton The Ritz-Carlton, Turks and Caicos welcomes Louella Brezovar-van Veen as the new general manager of the luxury Caribbean hotel. With an esteemed career across various markets and spanning more than 30 years in hospitality, Brezovar-van Veen will oversee the operations for the 147-room oceanfront resort with 69 residences, located directly on the iconic Grace Bay beach. Brezovar-van Veen's extensive career in hospitality has taken her from her island roots to properties in the United States and across the Caribbean. During the past seven years, Louella has operated as the Hotel Manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba where she has successfully led renovations as the only luxury-branded hotel on the island. Under her guidance, the property has experienced significant revenue and ADR growth along with stellar employee engagement results among other achievements. "I am honored to assume leadership at The Ritz-Carlton, Turks & Caicos and lead a talented team, enhancing operational and commercial performance whilst creating a sublime experience for the most discerning traveler," said Brezovar-van Veen. I look forward to writing a new chapter and welcoming travelers from around the world, while showcasing everything that makes the resort so very special, along with the exceptional service from our Ladies and Gentlemen." Having destination focused experience in luxury hotels with The Ritz-Carlton brand assertively positions Brezovar-van Veen to take the helm of this luxury resort. Music isnt getting worse; genres are [MIDiAs Mark Mulligan] What if music isnt getting worse, but instead, the limitations of traditional genres are what is holding back creatives? by Mark Mulligan of Music Industry Blog A couple of weeks ago, Rick Beato put out a video titled The real reason why music is getting worse. The core arguments centre around too many people making music, and tech making it both easier to make music and for people to be lazy creators. And while Beato followed his original argument with an old man yells at cloud video (this time titled I know youre angry, so am I), he stood his ground. The problem is, what constitutes good music is entirely subjective. If it was only about technique then the majority of popular music would consistently lose against classical or jazz. Music is good when it moves us. And it tends to move us most when we are young. Hence most generations thinking that the best music was made when they were young. Of course there is a lot in Beatos arguments, but the problems he identifies are also the positive trends that underpin the tectonic shifts in todays music business and culture. But (and I know you shouldnt follow a but with a but, but) there is also a lot more going on. The tech and democratization trends are merely responding to and catalyzing wider cultural shifts in music with fragmentation and genre the prime movers. There has been plenty written about genre coming to an end; that we are in a post-genre world. The truth is more complex. In some respects, genre was only ever intended as a way for audiences to navigate their way through music, signposts to what they will probably like. Genres still play this role, though mood and activity playlists are fast becoming an alternative architecture for categorising music. Nonetheless, genre remains the primary way we understand music. The canon of music genre was established years ago (pop, rock, metal, dance, hip hop, jazz, country, blues, classical, etc). Each of those meta-genres came to prominence with underpinning cultural movements and at specific periods in time, especially popular music: pop 60s, rock 70s, dance, hip hop and metal 80s, dance late 80s / 90s. The last chapter of the genre cannon dance was the 90s (and yes, that is a statement that is asking to be disagreed with). All other genres since have formed within the now-canonised meta-genres. The new genres of this millennium fall into four groups: 1. Regional interpretations: amapiano, Brazilian funk, reggaeton 2. Scene-driven sub-genres: hyper pop, drill, trap 3. Genre reinvention: mumblecore, dovecore 4. Genre revival: shoegaze, post-punk Each one of these meta-genres push music in new directions but still claim membership to one of the genre canon. The fact that meta-genres have become canonised is a reflection of the post-mainstream nature of music. Fandom has fragmented, and genre fragmentation is really the music manifestation of this foundational behavioural shift. All of which means that the meta-genres are actually less important and useful than they were. They have always referred to the mainstream end of music fandom, with sub-genres being traditionally where the more tribal end of music fandom lives. While that tribalism still exists, the subtle-but-foundational shift is that the fragmentation of fandom means that many of todays niche sub-genres are built around listening patterns more than tribal music scenes. Crucially, niche does not inherently mean small, it just means not mainstream (and just to complicate matters further, has itself become niche). Perhaps the best way to think about music genre in the 2020s is less in genre terms and instead through the lenses of sound and culture. Music today is shaped in six key ways: Technology: Music production technology is innovating at a rapid pace, not just in terms of what tech is being made but also how creators are using it. AI is accelerating and amplifying this. New, unexpected sounds are working their way into music and changing its shape and sound. Think hyper pop (auto tuned vocals, pitch shifted instrumentation), and neurostep (a dubstep sub genre that uses lots of hypergrowls and neurotic sound design). Cultural interplays: Regions fusing their local sounds with international sounds to create something new. Think Reggaetons fusion of dancehall, Latin music, and hip hop. User modification: Music fans speeding tracks up or down, boosting the bass, or creating mashups all flow back into musics creative melting pot. A TikTok user creating a trap / grindcore / ambient mashup could accidentally create an entirely new wave of sound. This will become increasingly widespread, especially when you put gen AI in the hands of music fans. Scenes: Music used to create scenes. Now, music is often the soundtrack to scenes, especially online ones. As a consequence, music has the potential to evolve much more because it is not tightly bound by genre rules. Nightcore as the soundtrack to online games and manga communities was an early example, with its sound shifting over the years. Context: Physical spaces used to shape music (think Paradise Garage, late 80s warehouse raves, etc). As we spend ever more time online, it is only natural that online spaces are becoming the places that shape music. Whether that be TikTok-core, Spotify-core or Roblox-core. TikTok-core is so meta that it is often referred to as core core. Even social media is reshaping music look no further than technos shift to Instagram-friendly, fast BPMs and big drops. If / when the metaverse finally becomes a thing, this effect could explode. Take a look at VR club Shelter to get a sneak peek of what the future may hold. Genre fluidity: All of the above factors lead to genre fluidity, with artists increasingly happy to throw together elements of many different genres. In the old world, the genre-police would have angrily shouted down these efforts (and to be fair, some still do) but there is much more willingness to straddle genres old boundaries. The walls are coming down. The music business, and music critics, are often too keen to identify new genres. But simply putting core after a word does not invent a genre. Most often it explains a sound phenomenon, with music responding to one or more of the above six factors. Spotify-core is one such example. And because the digital world is forever changing, the nature of music is forever changing. If the 2010s was characterised by artists trying to make music that works on Spotify with big intros, drops and hooks the 2020s is seeing music with a more aesthetic and mood based approach. This is music responding to its surroundings rather than the creation of music genre. Some of the change is truly innovative, some of it entirely reductive. And the reductive change is not simply driven by the long tail of enthusiast creators learning their way. The biggest artists and songwriters are just as culpable: of the 960 songs from the US Billboard Top 40 in the entirety of the 21st century just 32 diverged from 4/4 time. In the era of fragmentation, creators big and small will do whatever it takes to cut through. In this paradigm, genre can be a barrier rather than a signpost, confining a song to just one lane of music cultures highway. Genre is not going away, but while it was once the only place music could go, it is now just one part of a much more nuanced and complex picture. And thats a good thing. Share on: The Retired Investor: Tariffs Can Only Do So Much Tariffs in America have been used to accomplish specific goals throughout history. Until the Civil War, tariffs were a revenue generator for the government. After the Civil War, they were used to protect U.S. industries and during the Great Depression, tariffs evolved as a negotiating tool between nations, especially after World War II. In the postwar years, tariffs built stronger trade relations between nations. Reciprocity rather than protectionism or revenue was the guiding principle behind our trade negotiations with other countries and economic regions. That idea still holds sway under certain circumstances, but tariffs have become an offensive policy tool as well. I remain convinced that tariffs are simply another tax that corporations and consumers pay to finance the policy goals of the government. Many may believe that tariffs are worth the price if it means more jobs for Americans but that has not been the case. The overall loss of jobs because of tariffs far outweighs the gains in tariff-protected industries, especially in a situation where retaliatory tariffs are levied on the U.S. Tariffs in today's world are being used by both political parties to accomplish an even greater spectrum of goals than simply job protection. Under the former administration, tariffs were both a weapon to help revive the domestic manufacturing sector as well as to reduce American dependence on China in a variety of economic sectors. Since then, under President Biden, the goals of tariffs have been broadened further to include national security, and self-sufficiency, and to support our efforts in the green energy transition. His approach is better, he claims, because it is targeted and selective. It also involves convincing allies to join him to coordinate tariffs on Chinese goods. He argues his tariffs on foreign electric vehicles and solar panels allow our U.S. producers to gain a foothold in this area. The restrictions on semiconductor imports are both an attempt to build up the country's self-sufficiency in an area that is important to both military defense and increase made-in-America manufacturing in areas such as artificial intelligence. He has also restricted what U.S. industries can sell to China, especially in the technology sector. Former President Trump has doubled down on his first-term tariffs. He has advanced ideas that would include a new 60 percent tariff on all Chinese imports, plus a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on imports from around the world. He has also reached back into America's past when tariffs were revenue generators. His idea is to use tariff revenue to replace the income tax. I do applaud him for a novel idea. However, it would require a huge increase in tariffs to accomplish such a feat. To put this into perspective, when tariffs were the main source of government revenues, federal spending was about 2 percent of GDP. Today that number is 23 percent. Total individual income generates more than $2.2 trillion in federal revenues while total import revenues are less than $100 billion. The required increase in tariffs would stifle trade and likely precipitate a worldwide recession. I also suspect that Trump may be using the threat of higher across-the-board tariffs to exact concessions from both China as well as the rest of the world. He has done it before and could do it again and our trading partners know it. In any case, all these tariff efforts by both parties are playing well with American voters whether Republican, Democrat, or independents. It appears that few care that we are already paying $230 billion in tariff-related price increases. A further 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods would increase prices by another $230 billion. On an individual level, the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculates if Trump carried through on his promises the average middle-income family would pay $1,700 a year in higher prices on top of the $1,000 per annum they are already paying. I don't think Preside Biden's tariff schemes are any better despite his selective approach. However, what I think isn't important. It is up to an informed electorate to decide if tariffs are the way to go. State Awards $1.25M To Cooper Hill Farm Project SHEFFIELD, Mass. The state awarded the Trustees of Reservations, She?eld Land Trust, and MA Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) a $1.25 million grant to support the Cooper Hill Farm Project. The funds will help protect 538 acres that are part of a broader, regional e?ort to conserve 1,130 acres of critical ecological habitat, forestland, and active agricultural landscapes in She?eld and Salisbury, Conn. "Investments in land conservation are critical to strengthening climate resilience in our communities. Thoughtfully conserving our natural landscapes is also essential for reducing emissions and safeguarding the diversity of our ecosystems," said EEA Secretary Rebecca Tepper. "Successful partnerships between agencies and organizations such as these can have a profound impact on enabling residents to enjoy the outdoors." The Project will purchase an Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) from Pine Island Farm, one of the largest dairy farms in Massachusetts, ensuring the farm remains in agricultural use in perpetuity. The project will also extend protection to 40 acres of NHESP designated Priority Habitat for Rare Species and expand public enjoyment of Bartholomew's Cobble which is managed for passive recreation and habitat values by The Trustees of Reservations. The Healey-Driscoll Administration awarded over $3 million in grants to conserve large acreages of essential land across Massachusetts. Through the Landscape Partnership Program, the Executive O?ce of Energy and Environmental A?airs (EEA) awarded three grants to expand public recreational opportunities, improve water supply protection, support agriculture, and promote healthy ecosystems. The grants from the program will also support the Forests as Climate Solutions Initiative to protect high-quality forested land. The Landscape Partnership Grant Program was established in 2011 to facilitate large-scale projects that foster healthy ecosystems, protect the viability of farm and forest economies, and expand public outdoor recreational opportunities via state, municipal, and non-profit partnerships. This year's awards will conserve over 1,300 acres in Berkshire and Plymouth County. The implementation of these grants will support the administration's e?orts toward building climate resilience and safeguarding critical natural landscapes. 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 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 The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The heartbreaking death of The Shining star Shelley Duvall has been met with an outpouring of tributes from fellow actors and colleagues. Duvall, who starred as the wife of Jack Nicholsons ax-wielding maniac in Stanley Kubricks 1980 Stephen King adaptation, died in her sleep from complications of diabetes. Her death on Thursday (July 11) comes just days after her 75th birthday on July 7. My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us, her longtime partner Dan Gilroy told The Hollywood Reporter. Too much suffering lately, now shes free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley. Prolific horror author Stephen King remembered her as a wonderful, talented, underused actor, tweeting: Very sorry Shelly Duvall has passed. Despite being dogged with exaggerations of her treatment on set, Shelley was always vocal about her experience filming The Shining saying she wouldnt trade it for anything because working with loveable Stanley was a fascinating learning experience, the official X account of the late director Kubrick posted. Our thoughts are with Shelleys friends and family. Shelleys career was varied and long, the Stanley Kubrick estate posted on X ( Stanley Kubrick X account ) Over the years, Duvall repeatedly debunked claims that she struggled after filming The Shining or held a grudge against Kubrick. She previously said that it was so difficult being hysterical for that length of time, and described making the film as almost unbearable. However, she was also complimentary about the experience, adding: But from other points of view, really very nice, I suppose. Scott Goldberg, who directed Duvall on her final film, 2023s horror-thriller The Forest Hills, told People: Shelley leaves behind an amazing legacy and will be missed by so many people, myself included. I am proud of her for overcoming adversity to act again and will always be forever grateful for her friendship and kindness. Ginny & Georgia actor Sabrina Grdevich commented on The Hollywood Reporters Instagram post about Duvalls death: Ohhhh how I adored her. Rest sweet Shelley. This absolutely sucks, actor and playwright Halley Feiffer wrote. Ill always be grateful for the memories I created with her and that I was able to give her comfort and companionship, Shelley Duvalls friend, Sarah, tweeted ( sarahlovesthat on X ) Shelley Duvall was such a massive talent and played such a huge role in developing my imagination as a kid. Gonna watch this on loop today. RIP, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon writer Mike Drucker tweeted alongside a link to a video compilation of Duvall introducing herself over the years. 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 Ive seen the news about Shelley Duvall. Im doing ok. Shelley was having difficulties with her health over the past few months and I visited with her often, a young woman, Sarah, who befriended Duvall in her later years posted on X: Ill always be grateful for the memories I created with her and that I was able to give her comfort and companionship. The beloved actor went on to star in seven of Robert Altmans films, including McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974) and Nashville (1975), which was considered her breakthrough. She also appeared in Jane Campions 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady. Born the eldest daughter of Bobbie Ruth Crawford and Robert Duvall in Fort Worth, Texas, Duvall had three younger brothers: Scott, Shane and Stewart. She is survived by her partner Gilroy. 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 A group of animal rights demonstrators descended on the Hollywood premiere of Twisters on Thursday (11 July) to protest rodeo scenes in the film. Anyone But You actor Glen Powell, 35, stars in the forthcoming sequel to the original 1996 film Twister set for UK release on 17 July alongside Normal Peoples Daisy Edgar-Jones, 26, as a social media star stormchaser who attempts to track tornadoes for the thrill. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) shared photos of their protestors at the films Los Angeles premiere to X/Twitter, holding signs with slogans reading calves necks are twisters at rodeos and rodeos are waking nightmares for animals. The activists were seemingly objecting to the films depiction of a rodeo, and demanding that Universal Pictures feature a disclaimer about the torment of animals at such events. A statement from Peta posted on X/Twitter said: Dont get it twisted: rodeos are cruel! We demand a disclaimer! Its time for a reality check. Twisters rodeo date scene glorifies torment, violence, and death of animals. In photos and videos shared by Peta, Powell is seen posing for pictures with the protestors and dancing to their chants of Shame on you. Signs were also held up by people wearing cow masks that read animals have heart attacks at rodeos. Once the cast were brought on stage by the films director, Lee Isaac Chung, to introduce the film ahead of the screening, a protester reportedly ran down the aisle and rushed the stage, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The female protester rushed towards the stage while shouting theres no excuse for animal abuse, the film needs a disclaimer, a witness told People. 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 Security then tackled the demonstrator to the floor and she was placed in handcuffs by police, the outlet reported. open image in gallery Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell in Twisters' ( Warner Bros ) A spokesperson for Peta said: While tornado chasers voluntarily risk their lives, the terrified animals who are mercilessly bullied in rodeo arenas and forced to recreate distressing scenarios for movies have no choice. PETA is calling on Universal Pictures to at least give viewers of this inhumane film the facts, which are that animals endure grievous injuries and agonising deaths just so humans can play cowboy. The Independent has contacted representatives at Universal Pictures for comment. Additional reporting by PA For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails 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 Andy Samberg has revealed he quit Saturday Night Live in 2012 because the weekly sketch comedy show was so demanding that he hadnt slept in seven years. The comedian and actor, 45, became one of the shows biggest stars after joining alongside his Lonely Island collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone in 2005. The trio created a number of viral shorts including Dick in a Box, with Justin Timberlake, and Natalie Rap, with Natalie Portman. Speaking to Kevin Hart on the interview series Hart to Heart, Samberg said that behind the scenes he was falling apart. Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me and I got to a place where I was like I hadnt slept in seven years basically, said Samberg. We were writing stuff for the live show Tuesday night all night, the table read Wednesday, then being told now come up with a digital short so write all Thursday, all Thursday night, dont sleep, get up, shoot Friday, edit all night Friday night and into Saturday, so its basically like four days a week youre not sleeping, for seven years. So I just kinda fell apart physically. open image in gallery Samberg starred on SNL for seven years ( Getty Images ) Schaffer and Taccone departed the show in 2010, which meant Samberg was left to create digital shorts alone for two years. I was basically left in charge of making the shorts, which I never pretended like I could do without them, Samberg explained. We made stuff Im really proud of in my last two years, but theres something about the songs that I can only do with Akiva and Jorm. Its just how it is, were just a band in that way. 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 Samberg added that despite the workload, it took him time to decide to leave because he feared losing his creative outlet. I was like, once I go, when I have an idea, I cant just do it, he said. The craziest thing about working there is once you get going, if youre just in the shower and you have an idea that shit can be on television in three days, which is the most, like, intoxicating feeling. He said the shows producers pushed back against his eventual departure. They told me straight up, We prefer you would stay, and I was like, Oh, that makes it harder, he said. But I just was like, I think to get back to a feeling of like mental and physical health, I have to do it. So I did it and it was a very difficult choice. After leaving SNL, Samberg found further success as the lead of police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine from 2013 to 2021. 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 Scarlett Johansson has joked that one Saturday Night Live tradition scared her so much that it made her experience temporary amnesia. The Fly Me to the Moon actor, 39, has been married to the comedy segments co-host Colin Jost for more than four years and has suffered many jokes being made about her on the show. In one segment, Jost and his fellow presenter Michal Che have an annual joke swap where they read jokes written by the other man. Che has historically pranked Jost by tricking him into cold-reading offensive material about his wife, which left Johansson terrified. Speaking on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Johansson said she blacked out during this years annual joke swap and can barely remember anything that was said, but knows it was so bad. We need to go into witness protection after that night, the Black Widow star said. I am absolutely terrified were gonna be like, targeted. Its so bad. I black out for that period of the night. I dont I actually dont remember it. Jost and Johansson first met back in 2010, when the Lost in Translation actor hosted SNL for the first time. The pair sparked up a relationship in 2017, following Johanssons divorce from French journalist Romain Dauriac, and announced their engagement in 2019. In October 2020, the couple tied the knot during an intimate ceremony amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Jost announced they had welcomed their first child, a son named Cosmo, less than a year later. open image in gallery Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson at the Asteroid City premiere ( Getty Images ) Back in May, Jost made a joke on the show about artificial intelligence (AI) software stealing Johanssons voice: ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johanssons AI character in Her, he said. Which Ive never bothered to watch, because without that body, whats the point of listening? Thats like a tame version, Johansson said, reflecting on her husbands material, adding that SNLs annual joke swap segment is brutal. 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 I feel like every year it gets worse, its just terrible, she said. open image in gallery Jost on Saturday Night Live ( YouTube ) It comes after Johansson recently made a quip of her own about her comedian husband on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Speaking to the chat show host, the Her star joked Jost makes a small cameo in her forthcoming film Fly Me to the Moon because hes legally bound to do so. Greg Berlanti, whos our director, is a huge fan of Colins. And Colin, like, I think he had to do it because its, like, in our prenuptial agreement, she said. If I ask him to do something, he has to be there to support me. He has to be in every one of my films. Chinese parents are booking more domestic and outbound research as well as study tours this summer compared to the same period last year, and the market is set to embrace a golden period of growth, industry players said. However, parents have become more cautious while choosing research and educational travel products, and are paying more attention to quality, said Qunar, a Beijing-based online travel agency. The United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore are the most popular destinations for research and study tours. Such trips mainly include taking international classes abroad, and in-depth tours of museums and famous universities. In addition to time-tested experiences of visiting renowned universities in Europe and the US, some niche destinations in northern Europe that focus on natural landscape sightseeing, such as Finland and Norway, have also become popular for research and learning trips this summer, Qunar found. More parents are choosing routes that emphasise humanities, history, nature, and aesthetic education, as well as projects that are highly experiential and interactive. Tourists check out the Macao Special Administrative Regions famous tourist spot, the Ruins of Saint Pauls, in May ( ZHANG JINJIA / XINHUA ) People born in the 1980s and 1990s young parents now are the main consumer groups in the parent-child travel market, and they are more willing to pay for high-quality parent-child travel experiences, industry observers said. For example, participating in a turtle conservation project in Bali, Indonesia, and an elephant conservation project in Thailand, have seen significant increases in bookings this year. Since children can do something by themselves, this makes it more meaningful, said Yan Lanru, director of research and study tours at Qunar. For domestic study trips, several travel agencies have launched cultural tours equipped with experienced research mentors and experts in Xian, Shaanxi province. They will help children deeply experience and understand the culture and historical heritage of the ancient capital, Yan said. Summer vacation is the peak season for parent-child travel. Last summer, Chinese consumers undertook trips amounting to some 1.84 billion person-times, significantly higher than during the same period of 2019, or before the COVID-19 pandemic, and many scenic spots received a record number of tourists, according to the China Tourism Academy. Based on summer travel product orders so far, nearly half of the tourists who plan to travel domestically are families with children, and this group accounts for 53 per cent of the total for outbound travel, according to Trip.com. Among those that have booked travel products this summer, consumers born in the 1980s and 1990s form the backbone, and each accounts for 50 per cent and 18 per cent of the total, respectively, Trip.com said. Bookings made by those who were born after the year 2000 grew the fastest, and the booking volume has jumped about 80 per cent year-on-year, indicating that students are playing an increasingly important role in the summer tourism market, said Fang Zexi, an industry analyst at the research institute of Trip.com. For instance, taking a 12-day tour of the UK and Ireland has been popular this summer. This includes tours of Cambridge University and Oxford University, the British Museum and Windsor Castle, according to Tuniu Corp. For short-haul outbound products, taking a study and research tour in Hong Kong and Macao has been sought after. It will include a visit to renowned colleges in the two cities and the Hong Kong Palace Museum, said Fan Dongxiao, director of short-haul outbound tours at Tuniu Corp. A booming travel market has also driven demand for air transportation this summer. During July and August, domestic airports are expected to handle 1.08 million takeoffs and landings, up 12.65 per cent year-on-year, and 13.87 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic level of 2019, according to an estimate by aviation data provider VariFlight. In addition, more than 2,100 international and regional flights are expected to take off and land in China each day this summer. This is expected to grow 62.42 per cent year-on-year, and is forecast to rebound to 80 per cent of the pre-pandemic level seen in 2019, according to VariFlight. Standing under a giant LED dome, visitors to Hunan Museum in Changsha, Central Chinas Hunan province, immerse themselves in a journey of the immortals dominated by mythical creatures imagined by people from about 2,100 years ago. In the underground world, two colossal whales swim in dark waters while a towering giant hoists the entire earthly plane. Above, in the human realm, mourners gather for solemn burial rites, praying for the departed to transcend into celestial beings. Meanwhile, in heaven, mythical guardians stand vigilant, illuminating the path forward. Welcome to the digital exhibition, The Art of Life: Multimedia Exhibition of Mawangdui Han Culture, where you can experience the vivid imaginations and artistic expressions regarding the universe and life of people from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24). Its an innovative, digital endeavour by Hunan Museum to showcase its archaeological findings of the Mawangdui Han Tombs, where 3,000 pieces of treasured artefacts and a well-preserved female body dating back over 2 millennia were unearthed in 1972. Recognised as one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in China in the 20th century, it has attracted widespread attention both domestically and internationally. The exhibition, opened on June 8 and running until next February, uses technologies such as naked-eye 3D and holographic projections to offer an immersive experience and a visual feast inspired by artefacts found in the tomb of the Marquis Dais wife, Xin Zhui, whose un-mummified body was so well-preserved that medical experts were able to perform a full checkup, gynecological examination and autopsy. Many exquisite items, such as embroidered silk, lacquerware, musical instruments and wooden figures, were also unearthed from the tomb. Lacquerware items from the Mawangdui Han Tombs helped inspire the exhibition ( WANG KAIHAO / CHINA DAILY ) I think its an exploration for a museums future archaeological exhibitions. Transforming from viewing real relics to an immersive, theatrical and virtual experience, digital exhibitions can break the boundaries of time and space, says Duan Xiaoming, director of Hunan Museum. Its easy for such exhibitions to tour across the world. The exhibition took three years to prepare and is co-organised with the Digital Library of China and US Massachusetts-based Harvard FAS CAMlab, an art team established by Eugene Y. Wang, an art professor at Harvard University. Life is a question that humanity has been pondering for thousands of years. The Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) peoples concept of the cosmos and life, to some extent, are from the same perspective as those in the 21st century, says Wang, explaining why they chose life as the theme of the show. The tomb of Xin Zhui offers a glimpse into the funerary practices and cosmological beliefs of the Han Dynasty. The elaborate burial goods and the design of the tombs reflect the importance of the afterlife and the desire for immortality. Apart from the painting on the T-shaped funeral banner mapping out an ascending journey to heaven, symbols, patterns and paintings on the four nested coffins also show vivid imagination regarding a safe passage to the afterlife. The painting on the third coffin used bright colours to depict the sun, mountains and auspicious animals, such as the dragon, tiger and deer. It illustrates the journey of a soul travelling through darkness into the eternal realm. The innermost coffin is adorned with feathers, symbolising the hope that they would aid the deceased in ascending to immortality. The exhibition used all these elements and turned them into a visual feast, an artistic and abstract way to tell the stories of the Han Dynasty tombs, says Lyu Chenchen, associate director of Harvard FAS CAMlab. It is a distillation of the Western Han Dynastys cosmology and view of life. We aim to enable audiences to look beyond the surface and engage more deeply with the conceptual world of early Chinese civilisation, to glimpse the spiritual world of the people of that era and their artistic imaginations, Lyu says. 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 }} An online gaming company in China confined an employee inside a small dark room for four days in an attempt to make him resign, sparking a legal battle over labour rights. Guangzhou Duoyi Network has challenged a court ruling telling the company to compensate the former employee, South China Morning Post reported. Amid protracted negotiations over his resignation from a Guangzhou subsidiary in Sichuan province, Liu Linzhu arrived at work one day in late 2022 and found that he could no longer log into the system or use his entry pass. The company told Mr Liu he was required to attend training and put him in a small room on a different floor, away from his workstation. The room had no power supply and was completely dark. And it was sparse save for a table and a chair. Although Mr Liu was allowed to leave the room freely over the next four days and go back home after work, he was not assigned any tasks and his mobile phone was confiscated, the Post reported citing court documents. On the fifth day, Lius wife went to the police. That is when the company issued an official notice laying him off. To avoid paying compensation Guangzhou claimed that Liu was let go because he violated company policies. In May this year, a court in Sichuan asked the company to pay Liu 380,000 yuan (40,500) as compensation for mistreating him. The firm openly disagreed with the ruling and published the full court document on its Weibo account. We believe that there are many problems with the labour laws which severely hinder economic development and are arbitrarily enforced by judges who distort the facts, it said. The records of the trial are yet to be made public on the courts website. The company accused Mr Liu of viewing nude pictures and browsing unrelated websites during working hours. Mr Liu argued that, as a game art editor, he viewed the images for work purposes. The court agreed with him. It ruled that confining Mr Liu to the dark room was illegal under the labour contract law, which mandates employers provide proper working conditions for employees, the Post reported. The company has made no further comment on the matter. 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 Taiwanese court has ordered the detention of a former vice premier who is under investigation in the islands highest-profile corruption case in over a decade. Cheng Wen-tsan, who served in the previous administration of president Tsai Ing-wen, is being held because of the risk of collusion with the other accused, a court in Taoyuan city said on Thursday. He is also considered a flight risk due to the felony charges against him. A senior member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Mr Cheng was in office from early 2023 to May this year and was seen as a potential presidential contender. He stands accused of taking bribes using his position in the government and was summoned for questioning by prosecutors on Friday. He subsequently resigned as the head of the Straits Exchange Foundation under the Mainland Affairs Council which deals civil issues between Taiwan and mainland China Mr Cheng, who is known for his moderate stance on Taiwans relations with mainland China and advocacy for normal exchanges, served as the mayor of Taoyuan between 2014 and 2022. Mr Cheng denied any wrongdoing in a statement issued through his lawyer and released by the foundation. "I have not committed any illegal acts and I will cooperate with the judicial investigation. I hope to clarify the truth and prove my innocence as soon as possible," he said. The investigation against Mr Cheng has caused embarrassment to the ruling party, which pledged to combat corruption when Lai Ching-te became its leader in 2023 and won the presidency in the January election. The presidential office said it respects the judiciary and hopes investigators will clarify the matter as soon as possible. The investigation against Mr Chang is the highest-profile graft case since former president Chen Shui-bian was convicted on corruption charges and handed a prison sentence of 20 years. Mr Chen, who was president from 2000 to 2008, was released from jail on medical grounds in 2015. 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 Indias supreme court on Friday granted interim bail to jailed opposition politician Arvind Kejriwal in a corruption case. It was not immediately clear if, and when, he would be released from jail as federal police have arrested him in another case. Mr Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi and head of the Aam Aadmi Party, was arrested on 21 March by the Enforcement Directorate, an agency controlled by prime minister Narendra Modis federal government. He is lodged in the capitals notorious Tihar jail. The Modi critic is accused of accepting bribes to favour certain private retailers in a now-scrapped liquor policy. He denies wrongdoing and calls the case politically motivated. Mr Kejriwals arrest, just weeks before the national election, sparked protests by opposition parties which denounced it as political vendetta by the Modi government. His lawyers challenged his arrest in the top court, which referred the matter to a larger bench while giving him temporary relief on Friday. Given that right to life and liberty is sacrosanct and Arvind Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days, the court said, we direct that Arvind Kejriwal will be released on interim bail. The court said Mr Kejriwal was an elected chief minister, a post that held importance and influence. While we do not give any directions as we are doubtful whether a court can direct an elected leader to step down or not to function as a chief minister or a minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to make a call," it said. The top court ruled that mere interrogation could not be grounds for arrest. Mr Kejriwal was granted bail by a Delhi court in June after it found the federal agency had failed to provide any direct evidence against him. The bail was stayed five days later by the states high court, which said the lower court had granted it without going through EDs entire material. The same day, Mr Kejriwal was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Indias equivalent of the FBI, in connection with a corruption case related to the alleged excise policy scam. His lawyer Vivek Jain said he would move the Delhi high court for bail in the CBI case on 17 July. A Delhi court, meanwhile, extended the chief ministers judicial custody in that case until 25 July. Mr Kejriwal was let out on bail by the supreme court in May to campaign for the general election. He returned to jail on 2 June. Mr Kejriwal is among three leaders of his party to have been arrested on corruption charges. He is also the first serving chief minister to be arrested in independent India. His arrest and incarceration has deepened fears of a constitutional crisis under the Modi government and sparked protests in Delhi and the northern state of Punjab, which is also ruled by Mr Kejriwals party. 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 court in India has ordered the customs department to pay Rs1m (9,250) to a Chinese woman stuck in the country since being wrongly arrested in 2019. Cong Ling, 38, a mother of two children, was arrested at the Mumbai airport in 2019 for allegedly smuggling gold worth 277,524 into the country. She was acquitted in October 2023 but remained stuck in India after the customs department refused to give her a no-objection certificate while it challenged the lower courts ruling. open image in gallery Representational. A Chinese woman was wrongly arrested for smuggling gold by Indian customs in 2019 ( AFP via Getty Images ) On Friday, the Bombay high court directed the customs department to issue a no-objection certificate so Ms Cong could obtain an exit permit to leave India within a week. The court said the unnecessary victimisation and harassment" of Ms Cong would "reflect in bilateral relations between two countries. It said the compensation amount shall be recovered from the salaries of the customs officials responsible, The Indian Express reported. "This is nothing but victimising the petitioner without any reason," the court said. The conduct of the customs officials was wrongful, vindictive, reprehensible and amounted to gross abuse of their powers, it added. The ruling noted that the "state has an obligation to protect the liberty of such foreigners who come to this country and ensure that their liberty isnt deprived except in accordance with the procedure established by law". "Notwithstanding the said guarantee under Article 21 of the constitution, in this case, the customs department acted in a most brazen and perfunctory manner." Ms Cong said she took a flight to Delhi from Beijing on 12 December 2019 but the aircraft was forced to land in Mumbai due to bad weather in the capital. She was intercepted by customs officials at the Mumbai airport who examined her baggage and allegedly found 10 bars of 24-carat gold. She was arrested shortly after on charges of smuggling. She was acquitted of the charges by a magistrate court on 10 October 2023. The acquittal was later upheld by a sessions court. But the customs department denied Ms Chongs application for an exit permit, forcing her to spend nearly five years in India away from her daughters. In 2017, a former Chinese army surveyor was allowed to go home after being trapped in India for more than 50 years. Wang Qi claimed he had accidentally crossed the border into India in 1963 and was unable to leave because he wasnt given the correct exit visa. 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 filmmaker from Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra has proposed to his girlfriend using the crossword of The Indian Express newspaper. The man, who chose to stay anonymous, got in touch with the dailys puzzle editor to place the message Marry Me in last Thursdays crossword, with the clue reading, Words with a nice ring to them? He also requested the word champa, Hindi for the Frangipani flower, which is of significance to the couple. I wanted the proposal to have something thats part of our everyday life. I also wanted it to be intimate, rather than in a public space. And since IEs crossword is something we have done together many times, it would be an unexpected surprise, he told the newspaper. The woman described being in shock throughout. The couple, who are in a long-distance relationship, did the crossword regularly together over Whatsapp which gave the man the idea to incorporate it in his proposal. Anant Goenka, executive director of the newspaper, shared the story on his social media, writing: The girlfriend, a puzzle-loving historian, could not go a day without doing the Express crossword with her morning chai. The boyfriend emails the Express puzzles team enlisting our help to have marry me in our mini crossword. The day of the proposal, 4 July, the man recalled getting anxious as his girlfriend struggled with a few of the clues. When she clicked on 7-Across, the pivotal clue, the answer did not strike her. So she moved on. Meanwhile, I kept fidgeting with the ring in my pocket. Seven minutes later, with more letters filled in, Juhi finally had her eureka moment, he said. As soon as she said the words Marry me out loud, he pulled the ring out and proposed. The moment she said it, everything started moving very fast. I pulled the ring out of my pocket and went down on one knee. Of course, she said yes! The crossword enthusiasts spent the next few minutes solving the rest of the crossword together, and called it one of their slowest attempts, clocking in at 12 minutes and 57 seconds. open image in gallery The crossword puzzle used in the proposal ( Indian Express Puzzles & Games/Instagram ) The Internet reacted very happily to the sweet story, with several people praising the daily and the puzzles editor for going along with the idea and many joking this would induce them to start reading the newspaper and solve the crossword as well. What an absolutely endearing tale! Finding love between the lines, literally! said one user 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 Japan has sacked its navy chief and ordered a mass disciplinary action against over 200 military officials who mishandled classified materials and have been charged with misconduct, the defence ministry said on Friday. Members of the defence ministry and the Self Defence Forces have been accused of violating the sensitive information protection law, falsely claiming allowances for special assignments and wrongfully taking free meals at base cafeterias. The ministerial staff has also been accused of abuse of power. At least 218 people have been disciplined, with 11 senior officials dismissed, two demoted, 14 forced to take pay cuts, and dozens suspended. The defence minister has admitted to lack of discipline and issued an apology. The problems are significantly damaging to the public trust for the ministry and the military, Minoru Kihara said. Admiral Ryo Sakai, head of the Maritime Self Defence Force, has been asked to resign and will be replaced on 19 July by Akira Saito, commander-in-chief of the Self Defense Fleet. An investigation conducted by the defence ministry found that classified information was mishandled on 38 destroyers and submarines, Mr Kihara said, but no sensitive information was leaked outside or caused harm. People without appropriate clearances were routinely assigned to duties that involved sensitive information. Mr Kihara said he is giving up a months salary but that his responsibility is to stay on and continue to reform the organisation instead of stepping down. It is my responsibility to do everything to rebuild the defence ministry and the Self Defense Force under my leadership as quickly as possible and regain the public trust, he said. He has pledged to quickly and thoroughly carry out preventive measures so that we will not breach trust with other countries. The scandal has erupted at a time when Japan is seeking to establish itself as a trusted military ally of the Western nations, especially the US. Tokyo has accelerated its military cooperation with the United States, Australia, UK and other western countries in recent years. 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 877,000 homes and businesses remain without power in the Houston area after Hurricane Beryl struck earlier this week, leaving residents extremely vulnerable as a record-breaking heat has persisted across the US. A heat advisory was issued for the region on Friday by the National Weather Service. It warned of the heat index, which combines heat and humidity, of temperatures that will feel as severe as 103 degrees, levels where those without air conditioning face the risk for heat-related illnesses, conditions believed to have killed at least 37 people nationwide during the heatwave. Frankie Thibideaux, 57, told CNN her Houston home had been swamped with water, then went moldy in the heat, prompting her to stay in a hotel. We cant live in a place like that, she said. I wont even let my dog live like those people are. open image in gallery Thousands remain without power in the Houston, Texas, area, almost a week after Hurricane Beryl made landfall. ( Getty Images ) Others have taken to sleeping in their cars to avoid the heat, though spending extended time in a running, parked car comes with its own risks from exhaling exhaust fumes. Pretty much everybody in my neighborhood is sleeping in their cars right now because its just unbearable, Crystal Krest, 41, told USA TODAY earlier this week. We cant sleep in our houses. The heat and lack of electricity have also prompted fears of food shortages for vulnerable residents. "Ive lost all my foods but these noodles; all of my meat spoiled," Menifee Lucy of Houston told Fox Weather. "No power for four days now, I dont know what to do ... I cant cook, all I have are these noodles." The mass power outages have decimated local infrastructure. Boil water notices are in place across eight Texas counties, and 135 waster water treatment plants are offline, according to Texas officials. Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd has described hospitals in a state of internal disaster, as Houston-area facilities are backed up, some because they feel discharging patients to homes without electricity is too unsafe. Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick has argued CenterPoint, the Houston areas main electric utility, underestimated Beryl, as critics suggest that the city as a whole needs to build a more resilient electric grid. Bruce Race, director for the University of Houstons Center of Sustainability and Resilience, told Houston Landing on Friday that the city could be prepared by burying more of its powerlines, a process known as undergrounding. Part of the local and regional solution might be strategic investment and undergrounding, he said. Records obtained by E&E News show the Biden administration rejected a request from CenterPoint last year for $100m in funding as part of a Department of Energy Program for strengthening electic poles and wires against high winds and other risks of climate change. Temperatures across the Houston area are expected to stay above 90 degrees through the next week, according to AccuWeather, even as the center of the heatwave itself is expected to move to the central and eastern US. This long-duration heat wave remains extremely dangerous and deadly if not taken seriously, according to the federal Weather Prediction Center . Record-breaking heat has persisted across the US since the Fourth of July holiday. Last Sunday, Las Vegas experienced its hottest day ever, at 120 degrees, as did Palm Springs, California, two days before, at 124 degrees. On Wednesday Las Vegas also hit its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures hitting 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 Celsius) or greater. Such extreme heat and weather Beryl was the earliest hurricane of its strength on record will only grow more common as the climate crisis persists and humans continue to pump greenhouse gasses into the air. We scientists have known for a long time for decades that as the world gets warmer, were going to see our temperature extremes [increasing], Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist for The Nature Conservancy, told NPR this week. Climate change is already affecting the people we love, the places we love, and the things we love. 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 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 Independent Climate email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The Three Gorges Dam, Chinas largest, is on high alert as floods triggered by torrential rains wreak havoc in the southwestern part of the country. Record rainfall in Chongqing has caused flooding in a dozen districts and counties since Thursday, raising the water levels in 29 rivers, state news agency Xinhua reported. Six people have died in the region which has received over 250mm of rain, according to the Chongqing Hydrological Monitoring Station. An aerial drone showed a township submerged in muddy waters. Dianjiang county in Chongqing received 269.2mm of rain on Thursday, the highest in a single day ever. The rains have affected over 40,000 people, forced the evacuation of several areas and damaged 1,800 hectares of crops, CCTV reported. An aerial photo shows residents being evacuated from a flooded area in Dianjiang in southwestern China's Chongqing municipality on 11 July 2024 ( AFP via Getty ) The rains and subsequent flooding have also disrupted operations at the Chongqing railway station, leading to the suspension of 26 train journeys on Thursday. The Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Thursday raised the flood emergency response to level 3 in the four-tier response system in which level 1 is the most severe. As flood preparedness and response enter a critical period, we should strengthen warnings and monitoring and timely evacuate people in areas at risk of geological disasters, Chongqings mayor, Hu Henghua, said on Thursday. Its better to be extra careful to prevent any potential losses. Rescue workers move residents out of a flooded area in Dianjiang, Chongqing ( AFP via Getty ) Authorities are also facing challenges along the Yangtze river basin as the water level in the Three Gorges Dam reservoir has risen to 161.1 metres, the highest ever in July, according to Chinas Ministry of Water Resources. Heavy rainfall is anticipated in the upper reaches of the river over the next 10 days, with a new round of floods expected to flow into the reservoir around 16 July, Changjiang Water Resource Commission said. A flood with a peak flow of 45,000 cubic metres per second is forecasted to enter the reservoir on Friday, and two other significant water surges are expected in mid-July. 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 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 Independent Climate email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A desperate search and rescue operation is underway in Nepal after a landslide swept two buses carrying 66 people into a swollen river. The buses were travelling on a highway from Madan to Ashrit amid torrential monsoon rain when they were struck by a landslide near Simaltal, about 120km west of the capital Kathmandu, at around 3am on Friday. One bus had started with 24 people on board and the other with 42. But more passengers could have boarded along the way. Government administrator Khima Nanada Bhusal said three passengers reportedly jumped into the Trishuli river and swam to safety. They were rescued by local residents and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Mr Bhusal said landslides blocked the road leading to the site of the disaster, hindering search and rescue work. Nepals prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, said he had directed all agencies to search and effectively rescue the passengers. I am deeply saddened by the loss of nearly five dozen passengers and the loss of property due to floods and landslides in different parts of the country, he said. Rescue workers at the disaster site in Simaltal, Nepal ( EPA ) The Nepali army shared videos of the search operation showing rescuers attempting to navigate the gushing waters of the Trishuli river in rafts. A series of landslides in the South Asian country have caused at least seven deaths in recent days. In a separate incident on the same highway, a bus was knocked by a landslide. The driver was injured and died in hospital later. Nepal, nestled in the Himalayas, experiences severe weather conditions during the monsoon season from June to September. The rains bring flash floods, lightning strikes and landslides, killing dozens of people nearly every year. This year, at least 62 people were killed in rain-related incidents in June alone, the home ministry said on 7 July. Nepals topography and extensive river network make it highly susceptible to disasters, a situation that is likely worsened by climate change. According to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the number of disasters worldwide is projected to rise by 40 per cent from 2015 to 2030. 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 Christina Applegate has a bone to pick with the summers hottest dating show, Love Island. The 52-year-old Vacation actress is unapologetically part of the cult-following audience obsessed with the series that watches a group of contestants confined to a villa in search of love. But while Applegate willingly tunes in to watch the dramatic spin every night, shes seen a few behaviors she cant stand to watch. On July 3, the Hollywood star penned a passionate message on X, formerly known as Twitter, confessing her love for the show while airing out some grievances. I adore Love Island. Have watched every season, she started before adding: I have a beef with production and contestants. To the contestants, she asked: Can you pls stop making weird sounds with your water bottles? Like holding straw in mouth and chewing it and not sipping, Applegate explained. The Dead To Me actresses also begged the girls with long, acrylic nails to tone down the clicky clackety sounds. She didnt stop there, though. In a follow-up post on X, Applegate admitted she also had an issue with the contestants choice of deodorant. White deodorant on the armpits in the heat is gross, she wrote. Now you all are very attractive people, please use clear deodorant!!! This is just me helping you be the best version of you. Haha. Based on the commentary that followed her posts, Applegates sentiment seemed to match issues other show fans have been thinking about, too. Fellow X users flooded her page, admitting they couldnt stand watching the deodorant dry under the contestants arms either. I hate when it curdles, one fan agreed, while another wrote: I think curdled deodorant is absolutely disgusting, but I have never said it. So nasty. Thank you for opening that door of discussion. A third commented: Its the long nails for me every time. Love Island originated in the UK, debuting its first season in 2015. Since then, the franchise has grown to launch renditions of the dating show in Australia, South Africa, and the US. This year, Love Island USA has amassed a new level of popularity with the shows viewership doubling from season five to season six, according to IMDb. Enamored viewers have been dialed into the drama since day one of season six. Filming in Fiji, contestants Leah, Rob, Kaylor, Aaron, Serena, Kordell, and more have kept fans on their toes with heartwarming moments followed by nail-biting cliffhangers and devastating splits. Love Island USA is available for streaming on Peacock every night except Wednesdays. 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 Gypsy Rose Blanchard has opened up about some of the concerns that have arisen from her being pregnant. Blanchard first announced that she was pregnant on July 9 and was expecting her first child with her former fiance Ken Urker. On Friday July 12 during an interview with Good Morning America, the 32-year-old media personality revealed that there were some people who questioned how fit she is to be a parent. I understand that with my past, theres gonna be a lot of people that kind of question if I even should be a mother or even have children in my care, she told the outlet. Blanchard served more than eight years in Chillicothe Correctional Center in Missouri after plotting to murder her mother, Clauddine Dee Dee Blanchard, with then-boyfriend Nicholas Nick Godejohn before being released in December 2023. Despite her criminal background, Blanchard said that she hopes her past isnt any indication of her future. I know that Im not perfect. I know that I have made mistakes in the past. And I will probably make minor mistakes going forward, she said. But at the same time, I do know right from wrong. And learning from past mistakes is a growth that comes with time. We are proud to announce we are expecting our first child in January 2025, Blanchard captioned her Instagram announcement, which featured several photos of the rekindled couple posing under a tree. Blanchard and Urker had first met in 2018 in the middle of her prison sentence. The two were engaged in 2019 before Urker called it off in 2020. Blanchard had later moved on to her pen pal Ryan Anderson and the two got married in 2022 at the Correctional Center. However, three months after her release from prison she announced their separation andTMZ reported that she and Urker were back together. Talking about their current relationship with the outlet in April, Blanchard said: After reconnecting earlier this month, we realized that our love for each other is simply undeniable, and life is too short to not take a chance. She added: We have a history that made for the perfect foundation for a new beginning. We are together and in a wonderful place in our relationship. We know it is going to be a long road ahead but are excited for the future. Her pregnancy announcement had also included a YouTube video, acknowledging that there were rumors that she was pregnant ahead of the announcement. I know the rumors have been flying around for quite some time now and Im happy to announce that I am 11 weeks pregnant, her video began, noting that her pregnancy was not planned at all. She also took the time to address critics of the situation. I know that there are going to be people that feel like Im not ready to be a mother, and I dont know if anyones really ready to become a mother, Blanchard said. I dont know anyone that said, OK, Im ready. Im doing this. 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 }} Complaints about the banking sector have reached the highest level in at least a decade, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Consumers raised 80,137 cases with the free resolution service about banking and payment products in the financial year 2023-24, compared with 61,995 in 2022-23. Concerns about current accounts and credit cards and worries about frauds and scams were behind the increase, the service said. Themes included admin and customer service as well as perceived unaffordable or irresponsible lending by financial firms. Current accounts were the most complained-about product, with 30,635 gripes. Consumers brought 24,402 credit card complaints, of which 13,584 were due to perceptions around unaffordable or irresponsible lending. In 2022-23, there were 14,504 credit complaints and 3,723 were about this complaint issue. Fraud and scam cases generated 27,312 complaints in 2023/24, around half being around authorised push payment scams, where someone is tricked into sending money online to a fraudster posing as a genuine payee. Where things go wrong firms will always look to put it right. UK Finance spokesperson A UK Finance spokesperson said: The financial services sector takes complaints seriously. Where things go wrong firms will always look to put it right and provide good outcomes for customers. Credit card companies and lenders must comply with strict regulatory rules to assess whether lending is affordable and they also provide a wide range of support to anyone concerned about their finances or repayments. Meanwhile, the financial services industry prevents over 1 billion of fraud taking place every year, and is currently the only sector which reimburses victims. The ombudsman said it is seeing more cases across the board, with 198,798 new complaints in 2023-24 compared with 165,149 the previous year. Indications suggest the trend is continuing into the current financial year, it added. It's always concerning when you see cases rise so significantly, particularly when so many people are struggling in the current economic climate. Abby Thomas, chief ombudsman The service said the way it categorises complaints has changed over the years, but its figures show the number of banking complaints in 2023-24 is the highest in at least a decade. Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief ombudsman at the FOS, said: Its always concerning when you see cases rise so significantly, particularly when so many people are struggling in the current economic climate. Whether someone is the victim of a fraud, struggling with credit card debt, or having issues with their overdraft, they deserve support and understanding from their financial provider. It is imperative that all businesses treat their customers fairly and in a timely manner. If consumers dont feel theyve been treated fairly, they should contact our free, independent service and well investigate their complaint. Across all categories, complaints are increasingly being brought by claims management companies and professional representatives, the service said. They accounted for a quarter of cases in 2023-24 compared with less than a fifth (18 per cent) the previous year. We are committed to making our service as accessible as possible, while ensuring it remains free for all customers and that those with upheld complaints can keep all of any reward we make. James Dipple-Johnstone The FOS said it has seen examples of good and bad practice by professional representatives. It highlighted concerns about mass claims submitted by some, and others failing to respond to requests for evidence, slowing down investigations. When complaints are upheld, professional representatives can take a chunk of the redress awarded to their clients, but consumers can take their case directly to the FOS and keep all the compensation. In recent months, the service has been consulting on a proposed case fee for professional representatives, aiming to make the fee model fairer. Professional representatives would be charged up to 250 to bring a case, reduced to 75 if the outcome is determined in favour of the consumer. James Dipple-Johnstone, deputy chief ombudsman at the FOS, said: A quarter of all cases coming to the ombudsman were brought by professional representatives in the last financial year. While they have an important role to play in resolving financial disputes, they can also gain financially from our service without contributing to the running costs. There is sometimes little evidence of due diligence by some representatives to ensure claims they advance have merit. We are committed to making our service as accessible as possible, while ensuring it remains free for all customers and that those with upheld complaints can keep all of any reward we make. Our proposed charges aim to ensure we cover the costs associated with resolving disputes while reflecting a fairer allocation of those costs. Across all financial products, the FOS upheld 37 per cent of the complaints it resolved, which is slightly higher than the 35 per cent recorded in 2022-23. Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: These damning figures show how consumers are being badly let down by their banks in important everyday areas including credit cards, current accounts and insurance. It is particularly concerning to see such an increase in the number of complaints about fraud. This underlines the importance of new rules due to come into force soon that will make it mandatory for the vast majority of scam victims to be reimbursed and treated more fairly and consistently. 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. 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 from a live feed from Alec Baldwins Rust trial on Friday, 12 July, as the case was thrown out by a judge. The Hollywood actor was on trial in Santa Fe almost three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed in a tragic shooting while filming Western movie Rust. During a rehearsal of a shooting scene in 2021, a prop gun Mr Baldwin was holding went off, striking and killing Ms Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Mr Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, though is appealing the verdict. She had been expected to testify Friday, but her testimony was delayed. Mr Baldwin previously said he did not pull the trigger on the firearm and did not know it contained a live round, claiming it fired accidentally. The case was dismissed after it was found that the state had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto the set. 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 }} Albanias Supreme Court on Friday upheld a verdict of the lower courts keeping a former elected mayor from the countrys Greek minority in prison after he was convicted of buying votes. A Supreme Court statement said that it upheld the verdicts of the court of first instance and the court of appeal which had sentenced Freddie Beleris, 51, to two years in prison. Beleris, who has dual citizenship, is also a member of the European Parliament. He won a Greek seat in the EU legislature in elections last month, representing the governing conservative New Democracy party. Beleris office in Athens said Friday that prison authorities have granted him leave for five days to attend the opening session of the new Parliament in Strasbourg on July 16-21. In Albania, prison department spokeswoman Fernanda Cenko said Beleris' leave request was still being considered. European Parliament lawmakers enjoy substantial legal immunity from prosecution, even if the allegations relate to crimes committed prior to their election. In the case of Beleris, that rule is unlikely to affect the outcome, as he is serving time for a crime committed in a non-EU member country. Last year Beleris was elected mayor of Himare, 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital, Tirana. He was arrested two days before the vote, accused of offering 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euro at the time) to buy eight votes. Beleris was never sworn in because he was under arrest and later sentenced to two years imprisonment. Beleris has denied the charges, and Athens has described his detention as politically motivated. After the appeal court verdict, Albanian election authorities stripped Beleris of his post as Himaras mayor and a new election will be held Aug. 4. Beleris case has strained ties between Tirana and Athens, with Greece saying the case could harm Albanias application to join the European Union. Albania, a candidate country, is in the process of negotiating full membership. Albanias government said it could do nothing while the case was in court. Albania, a former communist country and a current NATO member, has a historically tense relationship with Greece, largely over issues of Greek minority rights and the sizable Albanian community in Greece. ___ Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini 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 }} Still flush from her role in Onegin, La Scala prima ballerina Nicoletta Manni received the surprise of her career last fall: The 32-year-old dancer was named La Scalas first Etoile, or star principal dancer, chosen from the storied ballet company in nearly 40 years. Now, months later, she capped her first whirlwind season as La Scala Etoile this week in the femme fatale role of Manon, receiving the loudest applause during a nearly 9-minute curtain call for her melding of technical precision and abandon. She is a stupendous ballerina. At the top of her career. Since Onegin, every time she dances, she gets better, said Manuel Legris, director of La Scalas ballet company and former Paris Ballet Etoile chosen by the great Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. It was the same for me,'' Legris recalled. "Once you get the title, not just doors open, but also the vision and the trust. It can make you afraid. But it can also push you to fly. Manni arrived at La Scalas academy at age 13 from her small town in Italy's southern Puglia region, where she started dancing in her mothers ballet school a decade earlier. After completing the academy, she spent four years at the Berlin Staatsballet before returning to La Scala in 2013. A year later, she became prima ballerina, or principal dancer. The fact that she was chosen as the first Etoile from La Scalas company is meaningful to Manni, and sets her apart from La Scalas other Etoile principal dancer, Roberto Bolle, who has held the title as a guest dancer for two decades. Etoile is a ballet honorific taken from the French word for star, and bestowed on dancers whose prowess is deemed superior. She had just finished performing with Bolle last November when La Scala's general manager, Dominique Meyer, announced her promotion. Meyer said he chose that moment to create a communion between the audience and the dancer. It was completely unexpected, not just for me, but for everyone, because it was truly years since anyone from the company was named Etoile, Manni said after a recent rehearsal for Manon. Praised for her technical skills, Manni says it is the minimum she can bring to a role. When a dancer manages to not show the technical difficulty, then you can play with the interpretation, the expression of an emotion, of something that you want to tell, that is the difference between a dancer, and an artist, Manni said. It is important to be able to communicate through the body, through the arms, the fingers, the gaze, the head. Even if sometimes, something can go wrong because we are humans, and that is how the show goes. With her new title, Manni has been embraced on and off the stage, sitting in the front row for Giorgio Armani and Tods runway shows during Milan Fashion Week and posing on the red carpet for La Scalas opera gala premiere. Most recently, she received the highest order of the Italian Republic in June for her contributions to the arts. Her new artistic recognition is opening doors, which she will have to balance with her duties at La Scala. Already in her career, she has danced on stages from Tokyo to Mexico City, Moscow to Toronto. She said she dreams of dancing as a guest with the biggest European companies, like the Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet and the American Ballet. Nicoletta is the Etoile of the moment. When we have an Etoile like this, we need to let her be seen and shine on other stages. It is not always easy because we need to prepare the new ballets. She knows that. But I want to let her go, and go with great joy, Legris said. This season she traveled with the La Scala ballet to China, where she danced Giselle in Shanghai and Legris production of Le Corsaire in Hong Kong. She will travel to Australia later this summer for a gala with her Latvian-born husband, La Scala principal Timofej Andrijashenko, who fittingly proposed to her on the stage of the Arena di Verona two years ago, getting a roar of approval from the crowd. At La Scala, she is most often paired with her husband or Bolle, who was best man at their wedding last August. For the role of Manon this week, she danced with Royal Ballet principal Reece Clarke, who stepped in on short noticed after Andrijashenko was injured. It was her first performance of Manon in seven years, and during a recent rehearsal, she worked on the second act solo, which she described as a delicate moment balancing the seduction of a wealthy suitor and embarrassment in front of her true love, the Chevalier des Grieux danced by Clarke. With just 10 days to prepare with Clarke, she traveled to London to start rehearsals while he finished other commitments. The principal roles in the Kenneth MacMillan choreography require an intimate pairing to trace the euphoric inception of a love story through worldly temptations that lead to disgrace, exile and death. If the couple doesnt work, it can be a disaster, Legris said. Instead, Manni and Clarke quickly found unity, he said, calling it a testament to Mannis artistic growth. Clarke said dancing with the new La Scala Etoile was easy from the beginning. From day one, with Nicoletta, it worked. Proportion-wise, it works physically. And story, we were able to read each other. The trust was there, he said backstage, after he huddled with Manni and Legris to exchange notes on the performance. Manni's injured husband stood discreetly nearby, dressed in a suit and tie, and dress shoes. Andrijashenko said it was painful for him to watch his wife dance with Clarke in scenes the two had prepared together. Its very emotional, 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 }} Finnish lawmakers on Friday narrowly approved a controversial bill that will allow border guards to turn away third-country migrants attempting to enter from neighboring Russia and reject their asylum applications because Helsinki says Moscow is orchestrating an influx of migrants to the border. The governments bill, meant to introduce temporary measures to curb migrants from entering the Nordic nation, is a response to what Finland sees as hybrid warfare by Russia. It believes Moscow is funneling undocumented migrants to the two countries border. The temporary law, valid for one year, was approved by 167 lawmakers the minimum needed for it to pass in the 200-seat Eduskunta, or Parliament. Lawmakers of the Left Alliance and the Green League were among the 31 who voted against the bill. Citing national security, Prime Minister Petteri Orpos center-right government had said the law was needed to tackle Russias maneuvers of deliberately ushering migrants to the normally heavily guarded Russia-Finland border zone that is also the European Unions external border to the north. Opponents, including several academics, legal experts and human rights groups, say it clashes with the Constitution of Finland, international rights commitments set by the United Nations and pledges by the EU and international treaties signed by Finland. Michael OFlaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, had earlier expressed concern about the draft law and urged against its adoption. The Commissioner emphasises that the relationship between national security and human rights is not a zero-sum game, a Council of Europe statement said in June. The Commissioner also raises concerns that the (Finnish) draft law, if adopted, would set a worrying precedent for other countries and for the global asylum system. Finland closed the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia last year after more than 1,300 migrants without proper documentation or visas an unusually high number entered the country in three months, just months after the nation became a member of NATO. Most of the migrants that arrived in 2023 and early this year hail from the Middle East and Africa, including from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Under the new law, pending approval from President Alexander Stubb, Finnish border guards can under certain circumstances reject migrant asylum applications at the crossing points. They will not, however, refuse entry to children, disabled people and any migrants deemed by border guards to be in a particularly vulnerable position. Finance Minister Riikka Purra, chair of the nationalist far-right Finns Party that forms the Cabinet's core together with Orpos conservative National Coalition Party, said that nothing can take precedence over maintaining national security. We cannot allow Russia to exploit weaknesses in our legislation and international agreements, Purra said. Pushbacks the forcible return of people across an international border without an assessment of their rights to apply for asylum or other protection violate both international and EU law. However, EU members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have previously resorted to the controversial measure when dealing with migrants attempting to enter from Belarus. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have all introduced laws similar to the one proposed in Finland. ___ Follow APs global migration coverage 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 }} A teenager who was found stabbed to death in a car in north London has been named by police as 19-year-old Ahmed Habib. A murder investigation was launched after Mr Habib, from Islington, was discovered fatally injured inside the vehicle on Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, at around 2.50am on Thursday. Detectives from the Metropolitan Police formally identified the victim on Friday as they continue to appeal for witnesses and information on the violent incident that also left the male driver of the car wounded. London Ambulance Service and Londons Air Ambulance attended the scene on Thursday, but Mr Habib was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers. The male driver of the vehicle was also taken to hospital for treatment for unspecified injuries but has since been discharged. The Met believes the pair were attacked in Seven Sisters Road, near Yonge Park, before driving to Stroud Green Road and stopping. There have been no arrests so far. The forces enquiries continue. A post-mortem examination is set to take place on Saturday. Detective Chief Inspector Tony Kirk, leading the investigation, said: Firstly I want to offer my condolences to Ahmeds family I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through. A young man has lost his life in violent circumstances and as a team we are committed to finding out what happened to Ahmed and bringing those responsible to justice. We have established that the two men sustained their injuries in Seven Sisters Road close to Yonge Park before driving to Stroud Green Road where the car came to a stop. Anyone who was driving through that route from Seven Sisters Road to Stroud Green Road and Tollington Park please check your dashcam footage in case you have captured anything that could help our investigation. Likewise, any residents in the area please get in touch as a matter of urgency if you notice anything out of the ordinary captured by your doorbell camera. Superintendent Annmarie Cowley, who is responsible for policing in Islington and Camden, said: My thoughts are with this young mans family and friends as they struggle to come to terms with their loss. I know that news of this incident will cause a lot of concern in the local community. That is of course understandable and I share that concern. Residents can expect to see officers in the area over the coming days and I would encourage you to speak with them should you have any concerns. We are also working closely with local partners to ensure support is there for those who need it. The police has asked anyone with information to call 101 with the reference 873/11July, or to provide information anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. 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 }} Inside a cramped, grubby two-bedroom flat filled with Ghostbusters memorabilia, Gavin Plumb hatched a plan. He would kidnap, repeatedly rape and murder the object of his obsession television personality Holly Willoughby as he plotted to live out his ultimate celebrity fantasy. But weighing in at almost 30 stone and having tried and failed to kidnap women twice before, he knew he could not do it alone. So in the dark world of encrypted chat groups and online forums, where people shared details of their most sordid sexual obsessions under the cover of anonymity, he looked for like-minded individuals to join his crew. In hundreds of depraved messages shown to the jury, many too graphic to be published, he set out in shocking detail to his potential accomplices how he would ambush the former This Morning presenter at her home and tie up her husband, before taking her to an abandoned building to abuse. Afterwards, he planned to slit her throat and dispose of her body. It was here chatting to a man he had met in a forum called Abduct Lovers that he unwittingly revealed his plan to an undercover US police officer. The officer was so concerned about the immediate danger facing the mother-of-three that he alerted the FBI, who contacted the UK authorities. On Friday, Plumb was jailed for life for the depraved and vile plot. He must serve a minimum of 15 years and 85 days before he can be considered for parole. Inside the flat in Harlow, Essex, where Plumb devised an elaborate plot to kidnap Holly Willoughby ( Crown Prosecution Service ) But neighbours in Plumbs suburban road in Harlow, Essex, where mothers and young children play on the green opposite his block of flats, had no idea the man living on the ground floor had been carefully assembling his kidnap kit complete with knife, shackles, metal cable ties and chloroform to stupefy his victim. Nor did they know he already had serious convictions for attacking women. Flynn Greenslades, 18, said he rarely saw the isolated security guard, who was only ever spotted waiting for a taxi to take him to work. He was really isolated from everybody else, he told The Independent. He wasnt really part of the community, I would say. The only time you would see him walk was from his flat to a cab. Other than that, he was just sat shut indoors with the curtains drawn. I remember when he got arrested and me and my girlfriend were walking down the road here. He was just in handcuffs being put in the back of the car. A mother with a newborn child living next door said she rarely heard anything from the other side of the wall apart from when his team Liverpool FC were playing. Holly Willoughby was the alleged victim of the plot ( PA Archive ) An elderly couple across the road revealed it was frightening to discover the man they would sometimes see smoking by his bins was plotting a sinister attack. Theres lots of children round this area, the woman added. He kept a similarly low profile at his last address too, it seems, telling jurors he spent 99.9 per cent of his life online. A man who lived next door to him in a second-floor flat in a housing estate in Waltham Abbey said he had only seen him twice in almost two years, when he dropped him a Hermes parcel. Giving evidence from a chair in the witness box, Plumb admitted the messages he exchanged about Ms Willoughby were dark but insisted it was only a fantasy. Sasha Wass KC, defending, said he was an isolated and lonely individual who lived out his fantasy life online. Although his messages were vile and misogynistic, his excessive weight prohibited from seeing through his plan, she claimed, repeatedly noting the state of his dimensions rendered the idea he could hop the outer wall of Ms Willoughbys home all but impossible. Plumb was arrested at his Harlow flat in October 2023 after the FBI contacted UK police ( PA Media ) The former Pizza Hut worker had previously revealed in an interview with the BBC that he had been all but housebound for four years after his weight ballooned to 35st as he guzzled 36 pints of a cola a day, until he had NHS weightloss surgery in 2018. He said the gastric sleeve operation was his last resort as his weight left him suffering chest pains and struggling with everyday tasks, adding: My parents are absolutely fantastic. They come over and help tidy up but I know they worry. At the time of his arrest last October, he estimated he weighed between 25-30st. But this was not the first time Plumb had found himself in the dock for crimes against women. Jurors were told how aged 19 he had tried to kidnap two Ryanair stewards on the Stansted Express as he travelled between car parks servicing ticket machines. He passed a note to one victim, warning: I will do anything, so keep quiet and get off with me at the next station. Otherwise I will shoot you and everyone on this train. Two days later he tried again, only this time he had an imitation firearm in his pocket. After receiving a 12-month suspended sentence, he struck again two years later. By now in his early twenties and working in a shop, he held two 16-year-old girls in a stock warehouse threatening them with a Stanley knife as he tried to tie them up. A picture of an alleged abduction kit gathered by Plumb ( PA Media ) Explaining the crimes to the jury, he acknowledged he did have a stewardess fantasy but insisted the attacks were a cry for help as he needed to escape a toxic relationship with his ex-partner. He railed over his difficult teenage years as he struggled with his fluctuating weight, adding he was regularly in the friend zone and nothing more, only for his first serious relationship to become dysfunctional. He and the former partner now share two children, including a 15-year-old son. Plumb also told the jury he had carried out internet searches of what does it feel like to be raped? in order to comfort a female friend who had been abused, but refused to tell the prosecutor who she was. He was also adamant he had purchased two bottles marked chloroform to tackle a particularly stubborn stain on his living room carpet with jurors shown pictures of a watermark on his dingy brown carpet in his cluttered living room. Testing later discovered the bottles contained mostly ethanol and water after he purchased highly diluted concentrates from a homoeopathic website. Plumb previously told jurors his alleged plans were a fantasy ( PA Wire ) But Alison Morgan KC, prosecuting, hit back, branding him a prolific liar who had targeted real women in her closing remarks. He has terrified, subdued, threatened and detained real women against their will, she said. He has carried weapons for that purpose. He has carried ropes for that purpose. Real people exist in the world now who were threatened and touched by this man and he was looking to learn how to avoid those mistakes again. Looking to make sure that he didnt fall into the errors that led to women being able to get away from him. Ms Morgan said the boring detail in Plumbs online messaging as they discussed alleged stakeouts and logistics of carrying out an attack around his work schedule is what tells you its real. One man known as Marc with whom Plumb shared hundreds of depraved messages about Ms Willoughby, claimed to have previously been jailed for stalking television presenters in Ireland. In one message, he shared a news report from 2014 about a man who had been jailed for three and a half years for stalking a woman and later talking about raping her young son. In another conversation about the star, Marc told Plumb: True shell look good wearing a paper bag. And even dead. Details of Marcs messages with Plumb have been passed to police in Dublin, Essex Police confirmed. A spokesperson said: An Garda Siochana has commenced a criminal investigation following information received from a UK Police Force through Interpol. As this is an ongoing investigation, An Garda Siochana is not confirming any further details. 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 obsessed security guard who purchased items for a kidnap kit including shackles and chloroform has been handed three life sentences for plotting to abduct, rape and cut the throat of TV personality Holly Willoughby. Loner Gavin Plumb, 37, must serve a minimum of 15 years and 85 days after he was unanimously found guilty of masterminding a depraved scheme to target the former This Morning presenter who was his ultimate fantasy in a home invasion. The plot had a life-changing impact on the star, who waived her right to anonymity. Ms Willoughby chose to keep her victim personal statement private as Plumb was sentenced on Friday, but prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. Plumb, who had attacked women twice before, was caught after he unwittingly revealed details of his kidnap plot to an undercover US officer in a chatroom called Abduct Lovers. The officer was so concerned about the immediate danger facing the mother of three that he alerted the FBI, who contacted the UK authorities. After Plumb was arrested, officers later found more than a million images of women on his devices including 10,322 of Ms Willoughby. The shopping centre security guard, whose weight once ballooned to 35 stone, sobbed in the dock as he was found guilty of soliciting murder, incitement to rape, and incitement at Chelmsford Crown Court earlier this month. The trial heard how Plumb revealed to the undercover officer his plans to invade Ms Willoughbys home and tie up her husband before taking the star away to enjoy her. Plumb was arrested at his flat in Harlow in Essex after information from a US undercover officer was passed to UK police ( PA ) At various points, Plumb and a potential accomplice discussed taking the mother of three to an abandoned building. Locations they mentioned included a disused stud farm with 15 cells, his flat in Harlow, Essex, or a dungeon-type room where no one would hear her screams. Afterwards, Plumb said, he would slit her throat and dispose of her body. He also shared pictures of items he had purchased for his kidnap kit including shackles, metal cable ties, handcuffs and a ball gag in hundreds of depraved messages with the undercover officer and another online user known as Marc. Plumb claimed that the messages were a fantasy and that he could never have enacted the plan because of his excess weight. Handing him three concurrent life sentences, with a minimum term of 15 years and 85 days, Mr Justice Edward Murray said: I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you. His plans for Ms Willoughby were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail that they were not shared in open court, the judge said, warning that Plumb posed a significant risk to all women. The judge continued: Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons including your poor physical health but you clearly thought it was feasible. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men the right crew as you sometimes called it to help you do it. The judge also imposed a restraining order to stop Plumb from ever contacting the television presenter. Holly Willoughby waived her right to anonymity ( PA ) During the two-week trial, it emerged that the father of two had previously terrified, subdued, threatened and detained real women and that he had tried to kidnap two air stewards from a Stansted Express train in 2006 while carrying an imitation firearm. After receiving a suspended sentence, he struck again two years later, this time threatening two 16-year-old girls with a Stanley knife in a warehouse stockroom. The girls were screaming and crying as he tried to tie them up, before they managed to escape and raise the alarm. He bragged about his previous attacks in messages with a potential accomplice he met online, later telling the undercover officer: I got 16 months. Our justice system is s*** tbh. One of his previous victims revealed that she was paralysed with fear when he tried to kidnap her on a train in 2006 armed with an imitation firearm and rope. Plumb was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday ( PA ) Speaking out before Plumb was jailed for the plot against Ms Willoughby, she said that the lenient sentence he received had only encouraged his offending. I believe that lack of punishment was only encouragement, the survivor told the BBC. He could go unpunished doing whatever he did if he got away with it, why not try again? She said the isolated loner, who told the court he spent 99.9 per cent of his life online, had nothing in life. It makes him in a way more dangerous, you know, a person who has nothing to lose, she added. One of the 2008 shop attack victims revealed she felt a permanent sense of worry that she would bump into him when he was released from prison. Ms Morgan told the sentencing hearing on Friday: Hearing of these matters has made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away from him, thankful as she is it didnt turn out worse. In mitigation, Sasha Wass KC, defending, said Plumb worshipped and was obsessed by Ms Willoughby for a period of years, admittedly in a warped and bizarre manner. She said Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed and that he had always expected that the online conversations that formed the focus of the trial would remain private. In a statement after Plumbs conviction, Ms Willoughby said: As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own homes. 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 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 man captured by police after a mother and two daughters were killed in a crossbow attack was a former soldier with a brother serving life in prison for murder, it has emerged. Kyle Clifford, 26, served briefly in the armed forces having, it is understood, been a member of the Queens Dragoon Guards before dropping out in 2022. Police launched a manhunt for Clifford, who had worked as a security guard, after the wife and two daughters of BBC racing commentator John Hunt were killed in their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday. Kyle Clifford, 26, was captured by police following a major manhunt ( PA/Supplied ) Mr Hunts wife Carol, 61, beautician Hannah, 28, and dog groomer Louise, 25, died in the targeted attack which involved a crossbow. Clifford was reported to have been in a relationship with Louise and police have confirmed he was known to the victims. He was being treated in hospital after armed police tracked him to a cemetery in Enfield, north London, where he was found injured on Wednesday afternoon. Hertfordshire Police located Kyle Clifford on Wednesday ( PA Wire ) Born in Enfield in 1998, Clifford is understood to be the third of four children. His eldest brother Bradley Clifford was jailed for life in 2018 after mowing down a moped and beating a teenager to death in a rage after his prized red Ford Mustang was damaged. He was handed a minimum term of 23 years in prison following a trial at Londons Old Bailey, which heard he relentlessly pursued the moped carrying Soban Khan, 18, and his friend Jahshua Francis. Kyles older brother Bradley Clifford, 24, of Rendlesham Road in Enfield, north London, has been found guilty of murder ( Metropolitan Police ) Mr Francis weaved into oncoming traffic and tried to mount the pavement in a bid to escape, but he and Mr Khan, riding pillion, were thrown into the air when Bradley Clifford crashed into them in the early hours of 5 August 2017. As Mr Khan lay dying in the road, he then leapt out of his car and beat him to death. The brutal attack followed a confrontation between two groups of young people outside a bar shortly after 3am that morning, the court heard. Bradley Clifford's red Ford Mustang after he crashed it into the moped carrying Soban Khan and Jahshua Francis in Enfield ( Metropolitan Police ) Police raided Bradleys former address in Rendlesham Road, Enfield, in the hunt for Kyle on Wednesday. A former army boss described Kyle, five years Bradleys junior, as immature when he served as a trooper - the equivalent of a private with the Dragoon Guards. The British Army website states that the regiment has specialised in reconnaisance since its formation in 1685. Aerial footage appeared to show Kyle Clifford being stretchered from a cemetery in Enfield ( Sky News ) A picture of Kyle from his military career shows him dressed in army fatigues carrying a weapon, with camouflage paint on his face. An army source told The Sun: Clifford joined the Army in 2019 and I was with him in Basic Training. When he joined the Army he was immature for his age and had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He struggled to grasp basic military concepts but managed to reach the standard to pass out from training. I hear he was [later] working in private security so would indicate that he is no longer in the military, the source said. After the army he briefly worked at a fire and security installation company, but left in July last year. The firm Amthal, based in St Albans, Hertfordshire, said in a statement: Kyle Clifford was employed from February 22, 2023 to July 20, 2023. Since he departed from Amthal in July 2023, we have had no further communication with Mr Clifford. 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 }} England fans will enjoy a weekend of warm weather at home ahead of Englands game against Spain in the Euro 2024 final. Those planning to watch the match outside on a big screen should expect a dry and sunny day on Sunday, with highs of 23 degrees Celsius in parts of southern and eastern England, according to the Met Office. England secured a place in the final after Ollie Watkins scored a last-minute goal on Wednesday night securing a 2-1 victory against the Netherlands. And weather conditions are finally set to improve after a disappointing start to July including long spells of rain and thunderstorms. Met Office forecaster Greg Dewhurst said Sunday evening will feel quite warm in the sunshine, adding any showers that are around should fade away. Saturday is set to be a mild day with a chance of scattered showers across England and Wales. Temperatures will peak at 18C in southern England while northern parts of the country will reach around 16C. Sunday will continue to be dry and sunny with the mercury hitting 24C in Greater London and parts of southern England. The day is expected to begin mild and cloudy before sunny intervals break through in the afternoon. This sunny weather will continue into the evening as Gareth Southgates side get ready for kick-off at 8pm. Heading to Monday, those starting later for work following post-match celebrations will see temperatures reach 25C in southern England. The Midlands will see temperatures into the low twenties including in parts of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. This warm weather will continue into next week with temperatures expected to hit 24C across southern England for much of the week. New prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has faced calls for an extra bank holiday if England win - but he would not commit, saying he didnt want to jinx anything. 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 }} A Metropolitan Police officer who beat an elderly Black man may face criminal charges over the incident, The Independent can reveal. Errol Dixon, 72, who has mild dementia and lives with cancer, was stopped in his car by police officers in Bromley, southeast London, on 13 September 2021. During the incident, Met Police officer PC Read struck Mr Dixon, and the pensioner says he suffered a broken nose, a fractured cheekbone and eye socket, and a displaced septum, which led to his hospitalisation. Now, following a High Court challenge brought by Mr Dixon, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) plans to refer a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by the end of July so that it can consider pressing assault charges against the police officer. An IOPC spokesperson said: At the conclusion of our investigation in September 2022, we decided not to refer a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. Errol Dixons family requested a review of this decision under our victims right to review process in February 2023. A new decision maker was appointed and, in July 2024, we decided to refer a file of evidence to the CPS to consider a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. It will be for the CPS to decide if the officer should be charged. The parties involved have been notified of this development. The pensioner says he suffered a broken nose, a fractured cheekbone and eye socket, and a displaced septum, which led to his hospitalisation ( Supplied ) Speaking exclusively to The Independent, Mr Dixon, who described how his nose is still disfigured following the incident, said: I feel satisfied that things are working in my favour. I really dont think we should have had to fight so hard for things to reach this stage. I believe the officers treated me in that way because I was Black. The officer needs to be charged and fired. If any member of the ordinary public did something like this, the police wouldnt hesitate to press charges. Mr Dixon, who was born in Jamaica and moved to Britain aged 12, said: What they did to me was unnecessary; I did nothing to deserve that beating. My face is damaged and my confidence is damaged. The Londoner added: Im scared of the police now, where I never used to be. Every time I see an officer, I keep thinking something is going to happen. I dont trust them. PC Read is currently on restricted duties while this matter remains ongoing, the Met Police told The Independent. Obviously, the fight is not over yet but, as a family, were happy with how things are going at the minute, said Mr Dixons son, David. Seeing what they had done to my dad wasnt nice. Straight after they attacked him, I went to the scene and saw the damage. I literally thought that my dad was gonna die, and also knowing hes not a well man, it was very scary. The police officer shouldnt be on duty where he could potentially do this to other people; hes dangerous. The Met have confirmed that their officer remains on restricted duties ( PA ) Following an investigation by the IOPC, which concluded in November 2021, it was claimed that PC Read had been acting in self-defence against the pensioner, that the force used had been reasonable, justified and proportionate, and that no officer had a misconduct case to answer. This prompted Mr Dixon to launch a judicial review through the High Court in February 2023, which was won in July 2023. The IOPC then issued an apology to Mr Dixon, before launching a fresh investigation into the incident. Sophie Naftalin, partner at Bhatt Murphy, told The Independent: All Mr Dixon has ever wanted was for PC Read to be held accountable for the brutal force that he inflicted upon him in September 2021. After an independent investigation, the IOPC unlawfully cleared PC Read of any wrongdoing, and to challenge that, Mr DIxon had no option other than to take it to the High Court. It has been a long process, but the fresh decision of the IOPC that PC Read must face a gross misconduct hearing and that the case will be referred to the CPS for a charging decision entirely vindicates Mr Dixons battle. We very much hope, also, that this is a lesson to the IOPC in discharging its function to hold police officers to account. The latest Home Office figures show that Black people are more than three times as likely to experience forceful policing than their white counterparts. A spokesperson for the Met said: We are aware of the outcome of the judicial review, and the IOPC has informed the Met of their redetermination for one of the officers and that he has a case to answer for gross misconduct in relation to his use of force. A file will be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. The officer is currently on restricted duties. 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 }} Four people have died while trying to cross the English Channel to the UK from France in a boat. Overnight a boat capsized off the northern French coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer, where several people were reported as being in the water at around 4.30am on Friday morning. Four people found unconscious could not be saved by parademics and a further 63 were rescued and returned to Boulogne to be attended to by emergency services. Posting on X, home secretary Yvette Cooper said the loss of life was truly awful and that criminal gangs were making vast profit from putting lives at risk. Refugee charities said the deeply upsetting deaths in the Channel were avoidable and urged the Labour government to open safe routes for migrants to stop the dangerous crossings. An HM Coastguard spokesman said assistance was offered to the French coastguard on Friday, adding: An RNLI lifeboat from Dover and Border Force vessel were initially sent to provide support, but were not required to attend the scene. The deaths come after more than 14,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel. Home Office figures 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. 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). Graphic showing cumulative arrivals of people crossing the English Channel in small boats ( PA Graphics ) Last year, 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the journey, down 36% on a record 45,774 in 2022. The latest crossings on Tuesday meant 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. Earlier this week Sir Keir warned that the number of migrants crossing the Channel cant be changed overnight and said the situation could get worse before it gets better. Asked by reporters if his vow to smash the gangs means stopping the boats and if the situation could get worse before it gets better, he said: 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 year. That unfortunately is what weve inherited we cant change that overnight. Pressed again on whether the situation will deteriorate before it improves, he added: It cant be changed overnight. What we can do is set up our first steps straight away. The Border Security Command will lead on smashing the 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. Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais said it was deeply upsetting that more lives had been lost in the English Channel. He added: Every life lost in the Channel is avoidable, and politicians have the power to end these tragedies. Channel crossings are fuelled by a lack of safe routes to claim asylum in the UK, and as a refugee charity that operates in both northern France and the UK we know the only way to stop crossings and save lives is to open safe routes. Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: This devastating loss of life in the Channel highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new Government. Preventing more deaths which are now happening too often is a critical and urgent task. We need to bring an end to men, women and children who have fled war and oppression in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iran being driven into the arms of the smuggling gangs by opening safe routes so refugees wanting to be with their families are not forced to take deadly risks. We also need to put in place cooperation agreements with our European allies to provide safe passage from France and trial the use of refugee visas. At the same time there is much more the UK can do to to address conflict and oppression in refugee producing countries. Additional reporting by PA 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 }} A plaque is set to be laid on the seabed next to the Titanic in honour of one of the victims of last years Titan submersible disaster. French expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, made 37 successful dives to the worlds most famous shipwreck and was on board the first-ever manned mission. Known as Mr Titanic, he is credited with the recovery of numerous artefacts that have helped keep the tragic story of the ill-fated liner alive. He was one of five men who lost their lives when the experimental and uncertified Oceangate Titan submersible lost contact with the surface an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the Titanic. What followed was an intense, international search and rescue mission to attempt to locate the uncertified tourist sub before its limited oxygen supply ran out. Also aboard was the co-CEO of the company behind the operation Stockton Rush, 61; British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani billionaire businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his 19-year-old student son, Solomon Dawood. The men will be honoured as part of a memorial service on the first mission to the wreck since the disaster, which will set off from Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday. As reported by the BBC, the service will also be held in honour of the 1,500 people who lost their lives in the original sinking. This years mission is being carried out by the company RMS Titanic Inc, which owns exclusive salvage rights to the liner which sank in 1912. The first expedition to the Titanic since the Titan submersible disaster begins today. ( AP ) In a Reddit Ask Me Anything, the company confirmed it is not using manned submersibles on this mission, but will spend 20 days on a ship above the wreck. We arent using manned submersibles this time around, so thankfully we dont have to worry about that, just the cabin fever of being stuck on the ship, it wrote. RMS Titanic Inc explained the purpose of this mission is to obtain the most detailed photographic evidence of the wreck site on record. We want to see the wreck with a clarity and precision thats never before been achieved, co-expedition lead David Gallo told the BBC. The firm plans to identify objects of historical significance for potential recovery as the Titanic continues to deteriorate. There is a particular interest in the Marconi wireless system that was used to send the SOS signal after the ship hit an iceberg that fateful night in April 1912. RMS Titanic Inc has recovered 5,500 objects from the wreck, which lies 3,800m (12,500ft) below the North Atlantic Ocean, many of which were recovered in consultation with Nargeolet, who was the director of underwater research for the Atlanta-based company. A plaque will be placed on the ocean floor near the Titanic in honour of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77 ( Getty ) James Cameron has repeatedly expressed his shock that his friend was even aboard the doomed Titan submersible but acknowledged that Nargolet was not an engineer. PH was an explorer at heart, he told 60 Minutes Australia. The Titanic director, who has also visited the wreck more than 30 times, admitted he wished he had spoken up more about concerns within the submersible community about OceanGates actions. While he had concerns about the subs carbon-fibre hull, it was not until the disaster that he realised it was uncertified. I may even go back to the Titanic in that sub just to prove the point that if its done right, it can be done safely, Mr Cameron said. These guys broke the rules, Mr Cameron added of OceanGate, which charged $250,000 a trip to the wreck. Its that simple. They should not have been legally allowed to carry passengers. It is believed that the submersibles controversial use of a carbon-fibre hull, which was deemed not suitable for use at depth, slowly weakened over time and resulted in last years catastrophic implosion. Mr Nargeolet previously acknowledged that if something goes wrong in a submersible, death will occur before you realise something is happening. If you are 11 metres or 11 kilometres down, if something bad happens, the result is the same. When youre in very deep water, youre dead before you realise that something is happening, so its just not a problem, he said in 2019. The LARS A-frame holds an #ROV on the DINO CHOUEST. The ROV will be used during #TITANICExpedition2024 to gather images and map data during RMS Titanic, Inc.'s ninth expedition to the #TITANIC wrecksite. #CInnovation #RMST #Oceanography pic.twitter.com/rGvPmia4mw RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) July 11, 2024 The investigation into last years disaster remains ongoing, with the US Coast Guard admitting it has taken longer than anticipated. Mr Nargeolets daughter, Sidonie Nargeolet, said that despite the tragedy, she believes that expeditions to the wreck should continue. I think its good that people go on the sub and its good to take artifacts from the Titanic, but just not to play with security, the lives of people, she told Pen News. My dad could spend all day long talking about the Titanic, she added to 60 Minutes Australia. He really loved it. Mr Titanic. Nargeolets daughter believes dives to the wreck should continue. ( 1912 AP ) Following last years disaster, OceanGate suspended all commercial operations. A spokesperson for the Coast Guard told The Independent: The Titan Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) remains in the fact-finding phase of the investigation and is collecting all relevant evidence and information. A projected completion date is not available. The latter part of the fact-finding phase will include a public hearing, and the MBI will provide at least 60 days notice ahead of the public hearing. The Independent has reached out to RMS Titanic Inc for more information. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails 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 }} Sir Keir Starmer has defended Joe Bidens leadership of the Nato summit despite the US President confusing Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. The prime minister, who earlier insisted President Biden was not senile and was on good form, faced questions about the presidents mental ability just moments after the US leaders gaffe. President Biden introduced Ukrainian president Mr Zelensky as president Putin at an event attended by Sir Keir at the Nato summit in Washington. Keir Starmer urged critics of Joe Biden to look at the substance of what the Nato summit achieved ( PA ) He immediately corrected himself, saying: President Putin? Hes going to beat president Putin. President Zelensky. Im so focused on beating Putin, weve got to worry about it. At a press conference at the conclusion of the Nato summit, Sir Keir repeatedly dodged questions about President Bidens blunder. Responding to questions about President Bidens mental capacity, the prime minister told journalists I would urge everyone to look at the substance of whats been achieved over these two days over support for Ukraine. He said: When we think of the global threats, that is the best possible outcome we could have had today and so I think he deserves credit for that, as does the team that worked with him. We close this council with renewed confidence and resolve to meet the challenge of Russian aggression. That is the outcome we all hoped we would get to and President Biden led us through that. Sir Keir sidestepped a question about whether President Biden was capable of serving four more years in the White House, instead again focusing on the outcomes of the Nato summit. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden at the Nato summit (Stefan Rousseau/PA) ( PA Wire ) President Bidens leadership credentials have been cast into doubt amid questions about his cognitive health, which have intensified since criticism of his performance in a TV debate against Donald Trump. The President, 81, is seeking re-election in November despite discontent within the Democrat ranks about his suitability. Sir Keir, who met the president for their first bilateral talks at the White House on Wednesday as Nato leaders gathered in Washington to discuss the challenges facing the bloc, said President Biden had been across all the detail. Before President Bidens latest slip-up, Sir Keir had told a US broadcaster that their one-to-one discussions had happened at pace and Mr Biden seemed on really good form. We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour, he said. Joe Biden mistakenly referred to the Ukrainian president as Vladimir Putin ( Sputnik ) He was absolutely across all the detail. We were going at pace through a number of issues. Asked whether the President was senile, Sir Keir told the BBC: No hes shown incredible leadership. The President has stood firm against suggestions he should drop his candidacy and appealed for an end to the row over how the party moves forward in a sharply worded letter to Democrats. Legislators and fundraisers including Hollywood actor George Clooney have since joined calls for President Biden to step aside, after he appeared flustered and stumbled over his words in the presidential debate with Mr Trump last month. 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 Duke of Sussex was honoured at this years Espy awards in the US, for using his platform to change the world through the creation of the Invictus Games. Harry received the Pat Tillman Award for Service during the annual ceremony. Speaking on stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, Harry delivered his speech with his wife Meghan watching on. He said: Id like to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude to everyone at the Pat Tillman Foundation, led by Marie Tillman Shenton, who Im so honoured is here tonight. Id also like to acknowledge The Tillman family, especially Mrs Mary Tillman, Pats mother. Her advocacy for Pats legacy is deeply personal and one that I respect. The bond between a mother and son is eternal and transcends even the greatest losses. The truth is, I stand here not as Prince Harry, Pat Tillman Award recipient, but rather a voice on behalf of the Invictus Games Foundation and the thousands of veterans and service personnel from over 20 nations who have made the Invictus Games a reality. This award belongs to them, not to me. That said, it is of great importance to me to highlight these allies, athletes and their amazing families for their achievements, their spirit, and their courage at every opportunity, especially on nights like this, in front of people like you. Moments like these help us reach those that need Invictus the most, and reduce the more than 20 veterans a day taking their own lives, in this country alone. For those who may not know, Invictus comes from Latin, meaning undefeated or unconquerable. Nelson Mandela credited the poem of the same name, written by the poet William Ernest Henley, for giving him the strength to endure nearly 30 years of imprisonment. Like that poem, the spirit of the Invictus Games transcends race, time, and borders. It is born from unity, and exudes purpose. This year, we are celebrating 10 years of witnessing life-changing impact and healing through sport. And while so much progress has been made since those first games, the world outside seems to be in an even more precarious state. We live in an age marked by polarisation and division. Conflicts rage around the globe. Anger and resentment towards those who are different seem to pervade societies everywhere. Our community challenges that. Our community proves that unity is not just possible, but formidable. The beauty of the Invictus Games lies in how it brings people together, no matter ones nationality, background, or personal struggles. It is a collective built from courage and mutual respect, where athletes discover time and time again, the common denominator of their humanity. Having survived the crucible of armed combat and forged through the challenge to rebuild bodies and minds impacted by conflict, they form a family. They exemplify the very best in all of us. There is a military expression that dates back to Roman times. Ill spare you another Latin lesson but the phrase translates roughly to leave no one behind. They hold particular significance for the US Armys Rangers, and I have no doubt Pat Tillman and his comrades lived by those words. So, it is fitting that I end with them and make a promise on behalf of all of us at the Invictus Games Foundation. No matter the road ahead, we are here for you. We will leave no one behind. 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 }} The fallout of last weeks general election has led to renewed calls for electoral reform from both sides of the political spectrum. The Liberal Democrats have long advocated for proportional representation, arguing it would make seats won match votes cast and facilitate politicians having to work together. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is also calling for change, as his partys dispersed voter base meant that 14% of the national vote share only translated into five seats. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems 72 seats were won with just 12% of the vote. When we asked for views, Independent readers emphasised the need for comprehensive electoral reform, but couldnt agree on what form that should take. Several options were floated, including multiple forms of proportional representation, compulsory voting, and better political education. While some insisted that first-past-the-post (FPTP) is democratic as it provides clear choices and stable governance, critics asserted that FPTP disenfranchises large portions of the electorate and often results in governments elected by a minority of voters. Heres what you had to say: Primary choice matters most If there are a lot of different party candidates (as there were in the recent UK General Election) the winner will achieve victory from a smaller number of votes specifically for them than would be the case where only two or three different parties put up candidates to be elected. There is nothing undemocratic about having many different candidates. Nor is the current Labour win in any way undemocratic. The fact is that First Past the Post is very democratic precisely because it is so clear for whom each elector is voting. To arrange a few candidates in order of preference is neither especially wise nor in any serious way more democratic. It may seem to be a fair way of deciding. But in reality a system of voting that asks electors simply to choose one candidate is MORE democratic (not less) than any other system, because it reflects voter choice perfectly. The primary choice of voters is what matters most! Swayne We vote for parties It is clearly madness that any chamber of parliament can be filled with members of a party that two-thirds of the electorate voted against. That, whatever the technicalities and traditions that produce it, is an outrage frankly and it morally diminishes any claim that said chamber is "democratically elected". As for PR, some variant (possibly a bespoke one yet to be devised?) must surely be the morally right solution. For me, the argument against some forms of PR that are 'party-driven' rather than 'named-candidate' misses a crucial reality: we vote for parties! In hundreds of constituencies, you could put a certain rosette on a donkey and they'd still get in. So letting voters pick a party and those parties divvy up the jobs between their lists doesn't offend my understanding of democracy. If your area gets an individual MP who is rubbish at constituent business, you should be able to raise a petition for another, albeit from the same party. RadicalCentrist Dictatorial powers It cannot be doubted the current UK FPTP system disenfranchises a large part of the electorate. If you are remotely politically aware you can be sure your vote will add up to nothing, and nothing will ever change. The recent 60% turnout is nothing short of pathetic. There are many kinds of better and more representational voting systems. In the UK you do not have to look further than the Welsh and Scottish elections to the Senedd or Holyrood. But the UK democratic problems do not stop at the botched FPTP system. You never had the courage to demand a strong written constitution, and powers to uphold it. So, whoever snatches a Parliament majority with a minority vote hold almost dictatorial powers, and can change the societal contract on a whim, and often do it without any checks and balances, just for profit to themselves and their cronies. old dane We cant claim to be a democracy Of course any of the various forms of PR would produce a fairer, more democratic result. We can't actually claim to be a democracy at all if a majority of the votes go to parties that do not form part of the government. I have supported PR ever since Mrs Thatcher won an election with less than a majority of those voting, though the problem is far older than that. It's high time we had governments made up of various parties that are required to work together collaboratively, rather than the usual yah-boo politics that leaves many to despair of politicians. RichardHankins PR just the first step Many have been calling for electoral reform including a form of PR way before Farage. Why does the media give him the platform? But, the motivation for PR is to be fair to voters, to make every vote count, not to favour any particular party. If approx. 14% of voters voted for Reform UK they should be represented in the same way that the nearly 7% who voted Green should be - whether or not you personally agree with their politics. Far better to debate and discuss issues within parliament than have extreme views pull parties to the extremes - usually rightwards. But a move to a proportional electoral system is only the first step - we also need a change in culture from confrontation to debate, co-operation, consensus / compromise - not 100% power to one party that thinks it has all the answers. So bring on coalitions. But we also need far more deliberative democracy to involve the electorate in decision making, coupled with proper political education...and so much more! TTTern There is no perfect electoral system We have to be very careful about changing the rules. There is no perfect electoral system, FPTP and PR both have benefits and downsides and I wont even mention presidential elections. I am a fan of the principle of the House of Lords but it does need word to maintain its independence, mainly by restricting the number of people elevated to the house. My instinct would be to limit the number of people in the upper house and PMs are only allowed to elevate someone to a vacancy. The great strength of the upper house is that it is not elected and has no direct power, what it does have is experience and influence on the lower house without the participants need to consider being re-elected, they can vote on their own personal views. The other major problem with electing the upper house is that if you do that then you will have to give them power, which would have to come from the lower house devaluing their ability to govern the country. (Look at other countries that have two elected houses like the US where it is very difficult to get anything through and the political make-up swings almost on an annual basis ) I am in favour of the FPTP system because we decide who represents us in the house, not the head office of political parties deciding who they will be. Additionally we end up with parties that are strong enough to run the country. If we go for PR what we will end up with is coalition governments and that will just strangle progress and parties doing deals behind closed doors (I refer you to the current situation in France) to get a government. PR would also see the end of independents and I would like to see more independents standing. MaccaVIII FPTP is necessary for asserting control over the fringes of society FPTP is necessary for asserting control over the fringes of society. The stability of the state must come first and foremost to the emotional outbursts of the masses. The stable hierarchy must be preserved to ensure prosperity. tl;dr Kier in, Corbyn and his loonies out TipYourLandlord PR does not absolve voters from their responsibility Proponents of FPTP usually state that it delivers a more stable government and then point to the unstable governments of the pure proportional systems produced in countries like Italy. Given the events of the last seven years, that hardly applies anymore. Countries with mixed member proportional systems (half elected by FPTP electorates and half from party lists to balance out the seats) such as Germany, Scotland and New Zealand, actually do deliver very stable governments with the coalition fetter on some of the more extreme policies of the major parties. NZ managed to bring about a change from FPTP to MMP by first having a Royal Commission in the mid-80s which recommended it be put to the vote, followed by two referendums in the early 1990s and the first MMP election in 1996. A further referendum confirmed the move to MMP was to stay in 2012. It can be done and should be done. But please note that PR does not absolve voters from their responsibility, in fact it increases the responsibility of the voter to assess their choices appropriately, NZ and I believe Germany, do not have the outrageously biased press that we have in the UK (that is not to say some cloaked bias does not exist) so the UK needs to sort out the media, particularly the Daily Fail and GB News. I would say the UK needs several Royal Commissions, one on the holding of the Brexit Referendum (which was nothing short of a disgrace), One on the voting system, One on the bias within media and freedom of the press, plus several others for good measure. Kiwi Clearly broken Any system that allows a party to take two-thirds of seats with just one-third of votes is clearly broken and should be replaced as soon as possible. Starmer should establish a modern, streamlined version of a Royal Commission (incorporating citizens assemblies and online public consultation) to establish which form of PR best meets the needs and expectations of modern voters. That Commission should report back in time for its recommendations to be implemented in 2028, the centenary of democracy's last great upgrade in 1928, when women finally got the vote. Not only would that ensure that the people of this country finally had proper representation in Parliament, it would give Starmer a place in history and ensure there was no prospect of the far-right sweeping into power in 2029 on one-third of the vote. MarkKieranUK Chaos First-past-the-post has never produced a single-party government with a voter majority in my lifetime of 70 years. In recent decades it has failed to produce the fabled 'strong' government, instead we have had chaos. But some proportional systems transfer choice from the voter to the party. So if we are to change our voting system we need to ensure that a new system moves the power of choice towards the voter. In our current system the parties choose the candidate the electorate is allowed to vote for. A Single Transferable Vote in Multi Member constituencies can allow voters to choose between candidates from the same party and is more likely to reflect the party shares of the vote than FPTP. While not strictly proportional this would be a significant improvement. PeteP Hardly surprising that so many voters are disillusioned I am very pleased to see the back of the last government, but any voting system which allows a party to achieve an overwhelming majority on the basis of 33.7% of the popular vote cannot be considered truly democratic. That proportional representation would allow entry of what some may see as unsavoury parties is not an argument for depriving two-thirds of the electorate of a say. It is hardly surprising that so many voters are disillusioned. With its present majority, this Labour Government could actually go down in history as the one which deepened democracy in this country. Bubbler Bold and dramatic action Labour needs to make a bold and dramatic action to secure a second term. PR, already proven to work in the regions and previously for the mayoral elections, would be just that kind of immediate and bold change. Benefits: It will increase legitimacy and trust in politics, show that Labour can be fair and representative, even when it has a majority under first-past-the-post, costs next to nothing to implement, doesn't require a referendum (the Tories proved that when they changed the rules for mayoral elections overnight) and furthermore it will go down in history as one of the great political achievements of the 21st century. On the other hand, if Labour don't deliver this, then expect it to be a Brexit-level plank of Reform UKs future campaigning and framed by them as a war on the Westminster elite. My advice: the time is NOW. There has never been so much public thirst for electoral reform. robinlayfield FPTP is inherently elitist I agree with what Ed Davey said at the weekend. Democracy is about the fair representation of votes. That includes electing people who you disagree with. Ironically for once, the Lib Dems have 72 seats which is very close to the number they would have got under PR. FPTP is inherently elitist. No party in my lifetime has got 50% or more of the popular vote. This time 34% of the vote elected 69% of the seats, and 43% elected 56% of teh seats in 2019. You either believe in representative democracy or you do not. Personally, I believe in it. 49niner Its time for change If the number of seats parties won reflected the share of the vote, the 2024 result would be roughly 219 Labour, 154 Tory, 93 Reform, 79 LibDem and 44 Green. Having a parliament that reflects how people vote would likely encourage more people to take part (though it should be compulsory) and would mean votes for smaller parties were not 'wasted' as they are now. With proper PR (not the alternative vote system rejected in the dodgy 2011 referendum) tactical voting is reduced. FPTP is a stitch-up that has allowed Tories and Labour to share power for a century, usually governing more people who didn't vote for them than did. It's time for change, but it might not be a change Starmer would want as he's a beneficiary of the status quo. Bazerby Permanent coalition It's always the same cry from the right when an election doesn't go their way, the system is broken. They didn't think it worth changing in 14 years of Tory dominance but now it has advantaged labour, it's in need of reform. Truth is, few English voters would accept the PR system. The outcry at having to bring photographic ID to prove your right to vote should highlight the strange relationship the English have with electoral reform. Photo ID has been mandatory in all Northern Ireland elections for over 30 years and PR in the form of STV is the main form of voting in all their elections with the exception of a GE. Of course, the system should be reformed but it is likely to lead to permanent coalition government in the UK and their citizens won't want that. In my view, it would lead to better government, and fairer and more accountable legislation. Under STV, Reform on 14% may have picked up more seats if the transfers went their way but equally, the Labour and Lib Dem transfers might just as likely kept them out. The right might just regret it if they get their wish. Hypernormalisation Something better, not just different Yes, we need a revised voting system. Something better, not just different. The Scottish Parliament has PR. (proportional representation, which the Tory party fiercely rejects but is happy to take seats in Holyrood?) What we need in the UK is separate elections for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Unicorn Incredibly undemocratic We do need something different to what we have now. FPTP is the worst system. Whether it's AV, PR, STV, MMP or any number of other acronyms. FPTP is literally the worst one of them all in terms of getting a government that the majority of the country can get behind. I am happy that Labour are in, but 34% votes, 63% of seats and 100% power to implement their manifesto based on the backing of a third of the country, just seems incredibly undemocratic and wrong to me. No wonder 40% of the country didn't bother voting when there is such little choice (in terms of where casting your vote could influence the make up of Parliament). Someone182 A package of reform Changing the FPTP voting system could be done within a package of constitutional reform. That would need to include scrapping Lords and replacing with an elected second chamber, increasing devolution and considering alternative PR approaches. Just transplanting PR onto what we have now could give us something even worse. Maybe we even need to look at the role of our head of state. Thinkingallowed Compulsory voting Compulsory voting would be a start. However something does need to change, Reform getting more votes than the Lib Dems but only a fraction of the seats does seem unjustifiable. (Deffo not a Reform voter myself tho!) Godricson82 Make voting a legal responsibility The FPTP is one of the worst methods of electing representatives. At its most extreme, it can come down to a form not unlike "best of three". And when it's been well established, as it is in many countries, there will be little or no enthusiasm for the party in power to change it. As for the other methods of electing a government, they can be, or at least, tend to be more truly representative - e.g. proportional representation, single transferable vote. But none are ideal as they often result in the need to form alliances, which can prove to be unstable or shortlived, and often obstructive to efficient governance. So, yes, our FPTP method needs replacing, but doing so will be all but impossible. One thing that can be done, and which would make even FPTP more representative, is to make it a legal responsibility to cast one's vote, even if the vote is for "none of the above". DesPear Two caveats for PR PR with two caveats: 1) A minimum threshold of the public vote to participate in parliamentary discussion. This stops time being wasted by tiny vote-holding parties. 2) A higher threshold of the public vote to participate in parliamentary voting. This stops parties with a relatively low vote percentage from having an undue influence through vote selling. Get the numbers on those right and that should solve most of the issues PR can have. Aimeryan PR wont work I do not think proportional representation in any form will work. If a minority government needs votes to pass new legislation like tax reform, they may need a party with very few MP's to vote with them. They would then want concessions in order to agree to vote with the government meaning a small number of MP's from a party very few people voted for would have a greater influence over parliament than other parties with greater representation. Also, because Labour were predicted to have a large majority and the Tories have become unelectable, people knew they could use Reform as a protest vote. If they thought Reform would have significant influence in parliament, they would not vote for them. We saw this in France. Lastly, all parties need to understand the low turnout and find a way to get more people to the polls. Spenced Scrap the Lords Parliamentary systems do not work well with proportional representation. You end up with governments beholden to minority parties, and these are often extremists. Look no further than the Knesset to see how screwed up that can get. Preferential voting works well, since it allows for a protest vote without wasting a vote. Although, unlike here in Australia, the preferencing should be optional. And scrap the House of Lords. That nonsense doesn't belong in a modern democracy. Wordee Not fit for purpose The biggest problem in the UK is the ignorance of the public as to how other systems work and really how undemocratic we are. We have been brainwashed with 'mother of parliaments etc. etc.' In fact the UK 'democratic' system is not fit for purpose in the 21st century. The upper house is anything but democratic, religion should be kept out, the lower house is not much better. A written constitution is a must and here we should study that of Germany which was written as the result of national political disaster. There will be no levelling up until we adopt a federal system, again as in Germany. We must rid ourselves of feudal practices of 'honours', these only encourage a class-ridden society. If we retain the monarchy, this must be transparent i.e. no more keeping their finances and just where they keep their money and invest, secret. By the way, I'm a liberal! Pateleylad Some of the comments have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article. All you have to do is sign up, submit your question and register your details - then you can then take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking log in on the top right-hand corner of the screen. 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 }} Nigel Farage is set to return to GB News next week after being elected as an MP on his eighth attempt, the channel has confirmed. The Reform UK leader, 60, formally took his seat in the House of Commons as the representative for the Essex seaside constituency of Clacton after he was sworn in on Thursday. He cancelled his GB News show, which he hosted Monday to Thursday each week, in May to free up time to help with the general election campaigning for Reform UK. Nigel Farage will return to the right-wing channel after being elected to the House of Commons ( GB News ) But the channel announced on Thursday Mr Farage is planning to broadcast from its studios in Westminster three times a week from next week. It is not known how much Mr Farage will be paid by GB News, but his election to parliament means he will be forced to reveal the figure in his register of financial interests. Ofcom has repeatedly found that GB News has breached broadcasting rules on impartiality, which allow politicians to present current affairs programmes but not act as newsreaders. The media watchdog has investigated programmes presented by former Tory MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg as well as former Conservative minister without portfolio Esther McVey and former backbencher Philip Davies. Married couple Ms McVey and Mr Davies are no longer part of the channels line-up. In May, GB News said it was beginning a challenge against Ofcom after the broadcasting regulator warned the channel that it is considering enforcement methods that could include a fine or revoking its licence. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was sworn in to the House of Commons as the representative for Clacton (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA) ( PA Wire ) Their backlash came after the regulator ruled that GB News broke broadcasting due impartiality rules following the airing of the programme, Peoples Forum: The Prime Minister, where Rishi Sunak was questioned by the public. Ofcom said it did not feature an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints and called compliance by the channel wholly insufficient. After initially saying he would not run as a candidate, Mr Farage changed his mind and announced he would stand in Clacton in early June. Ofcom has repeatedly found that GB News has breached broadcasting rules on impartiality (Yui Mok/PA) ( PA Wire ) He also took over as leader of Reform UK, representing the party within the major multi-party broadcasting debates held on BBC and ITV. He first contested a parliamentary election 30 years ago, the 1994 by-election in Eastleigh, Hampshire, where his UK Independence Party came fourth. He later contested seats throughout southern England as the Ukip candidate before his Clacton win for Reform UK, with 21,225 votes, ahead of the Tories Giles Watling on 12,820. 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 }} Labours plans to release thousands of prisoners early is a dangerous gamble with public safety, the aunt of Zara Aleena has said. Farah Naz, whose niece was murdered by a man who had been out of prison on licence for nine days, warned of the potential consequences if the probation service was unable to cope. She said that in the case of Ms Aleenas killer Jordan McSweeney, the probation service was "not fit to deliver supervision" or "act in a timely way" when he broke his licence conditions. Zara Aleena was murdered while walking home from a night out by Jordan McSweeney ( PA Media ) She told BBC Breakfast: If the system cannot deal with those people being released into the community, then those people are not going to be supervised adequately. "And when people, perpetrators, even thieves are not supervised adequately, crime can escalate. It doesnt always escalate, but it can. "Then weve got unsupervised people because of a poor probation service in the community and people become emboldened - well I can do what I like if nobody is supervising me - and thats what happened in our situation. "It was a man that was emboldened because he was not supervised, he was not assessed, he was constantly allowed to do what he wanted to do, and therein lies a dangerous gamble with public safety with this move right now." Farah Naz told the BBC the measures being announced were a dangerous gamble ( BBC ) Law graduate Ms Aleena was killed by McSweeney as she walked home from a night out in June 2022. Her aunts intervention comes as the new justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, prepares to announce a string of measures to ease the overcrowding crisis in Britains prisons. Among the expected measures are the automatic release of prisoners on standard determinate sentences after they have served just 40 per cent of their time. The current threshold is 50 per cent - but exemptions for serious violent and sexual offenders are expected. There are fewer than 700 places remaining for adult men in UK prisons, which would be filled within weeks without action - with particular fears around the August bank holiday. The usual buffer for prison places is more than double the current level, and if spaces fall below 300, they will have to stop accepting prisoners sent from courts. "Were operationally in trouble at less than 300 spaces left, a senior prison source said. The new justice secretary Shabana Mahmood is to announce the measures at Wellingborough prison ( Reuters ) Meanwhile police officials have warned that if prisons filled up, it would take just days for police cells around the UK to reach capacity as well. This would lead to a situation in which police were unable to arrest criminals, with sources fearful it could lead to unchecked criminality, with civil order potentially breaking down and widespread looting. Ms Mahmood is expected to announce the emergency measures from a prison in Wellingborough on Friday afternoon, with officials having warned the crisis could not wait any longer. The chairman of the Prison Officers Association has said the measures would give prisons around 12 to 18 months before further measures were needed, freeing up 4,000 to 5,000 spaces. Asked if a potential move by the government to release certain inmates after serving 40% of their sentences was dangerous, Mark Fairhurst told BBC Breakfast: "We would hope it wouldnt be, but what is more dangerous to the public is if we dont act, so if were clogging up police cells theyre unable to arrest people because theres nowhere for them to go. "Thats more (of a) danger to the public. "What were doing is releasing people early who are going to get released anyway at some point." Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said the Conservatives left behind a broken prison system ( PA Wire ) Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said the Conservatives had left Labour to inherit a broken prison system and described his shock at the scale of the crisis. Speaking to Channel 4 while attending the Nato summit in Washington, DC, Sir Keir said: Im shocked to be in this position, particularly having worked in criminal justice. It is a basic function of government that there should be enough prison places for the number of people that courts are sending to prison. That basic premise broke down under the last government, that is beyond irresponsible, and were going to have to pick up that mess and they ignored it. I cant build a prison in seven days with the best will in the world. It is clearly a problem left by the last government. We cannot be in this terrible state and they ignored the problem, didnt fix the problem, we are going to have to fix it. We have to make short-term measures that we will announce in due course and then of course well have to do even further measures. I simply cant build a prison in seven days. This is a terrible failure of the last government. 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. 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 revealed his partys approach to smartphones for children aged under 16 amid growing concerns about their effects on mental health. The prime minister was pressed on the issue after the previous Tory government promised to ban mobile phones from schools. When Rishi Sunak announced the ban previously, he was mocked by Labour. Europe Kids Without Phones ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) But despite growing calls for a ban overall for children, Sir Keir has revealed he plans to resist the demands. Asked by LBC about the issue he said: In relation to simply banning phones for under 16s, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think that's a practical way forward. But I do think I will sit down with anyone to look at how we'll put in place better protections because all parents and everybody across the country is concerned about what can actually be accessed on a phone. Previously, the Childrens Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has raised concerns about the effect of mobile phones on children. She was responding to concerns raised by Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered trans teenager Brianna, about the effects of mobile phones on promoting violence among children. Dame Rachel said: "The thing with Brianna's mother's vision for a phone for under-16s, there is something really smart there.. "Can we really lean on the Apples and Googles to create phones with access that is safe by design?" She always thought that a ban was unlikely. Ms Ghey told BBC Breakfast she "would like to see mobile phone companies take more responsibility". Former Tory MP Miriam Cates has pushed for an outright ban before losing her seat last week. Responding to an inquest into a 14-year-olds suicide linked to harmful content on smartphones, she wrote: Stories like these are every parents worst nightmare, but they are becoming more and more frequent. In the UK the suicide rate for 15-19s has doubled for boys since 2010 and trebled for girls. Of course, successful suicides are still mercifully rare, but by every conceivable measure of wellbeing incidences of self-harm, prevalence of negative or depressive feelings, loneliness, feelings of failure teenage happiness is following a steep downward trend. She went on: Whether its the lonely nine-year-old who finds himself with no one to play with because his friends spend their evenings on TikTok, the 14-year-old boy with a devastating porn addiction, the 15-year-old girl groomed bullied into uploading explicit pictures that are sent round the school, or the 13-year-old girl finding 101 ways to become anorexic, smartphone and social media are robbing our children of their childhood. No sane society can let this continue. None of these trends are plateauing the steep lines plotting the misery of our children are still following an upward trajectory. Smartphone ownership continues to rise with 20 per cent of three- to four-year-olds and 55 per cent of 8 to 10 year olds now owning their own phone. Just this week it was reported that British children use TikTok on average for more than two hours a day, a doubling since just 2020. It is thought that an astonishing 60 per cent of young men suffer problematic pornography consumption (average age of first exposure is 13), and half of child sexual abuse is now perpetrated by another child. 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 }} Suella Braverman launched a bizarre attack on her own partys policies, urging the Conservatives to admit they shamefully did not build enough prisons while in office. As Labour announced a series of measures to ease the overcrowding crisis facing UK jails, the ex-home secretary said the Tories needed to take responsibility for what we left undone. Sir Keir Starmers newly appointed justice secretary Shabana Mahmood warned on Friday that without immediate action to address overcrowding, prisons would run out of space within weeks leading to "a total breakdown of law and order". Suella Braverman said the Tories had shamefully failed to build enough prisons ( GB News ) Ms Mahmood blamed the Conservatives failure to build enough prison spaces as she set out plans to reduce the proportion of the sentences most prisoners must serve in jail from 50 per cent to 40 per cent for at least 18 months. Tory former justice secretary Alex Chalk said he had proposed the same measures announced by Labour while in office - but they were shelved to avoid a political backlash. Responding to the policy on X, Ms Braverman said she had opposed the plans both inside and outside government. In a stunning attack on the Conservative Party, Ms Braverman wrote: We managed to stop the government doing it. Labour is picking up Tory ideas and putting the public at risk. And the backbench MP, who is expected to run to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, said: Everyone and his mother should run to be leader. But weve all got to start taking responsibility for what we did. And for the things we shamefully left undone. Such as not building enough prisons. The attack will be seen as a gift to Sir Keir Starmer, with Labour likely to sieze on the admission of Conservative failings ( Getty Images ) The attack will be seen as a political gift to Sir Keir, and has been compared to the infamous note left by former Treasury minister Liam Byrne when Labour last left office declaring that there was no money left. The note was repeatedly used to paint Labour as financially irresponsible, and Ms Bravermans admission is likely to be relied on by Labour figures to attack the Tories record in government. The post came just days after a public spat between the former home secretary and her leadership rival Kemi Badenoch, who accused Ms Braverman of 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. Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch became embroiled in a public spat just days after the general election ( Getty ) Ms Mahmood set out in a speech on Friday at HMP Five Wells how prisons were "on the point of collapse", with barely 700 places left in the adult male estate and jails operating at 99% capacity since the start of 2023. If prisons ran out of cell space, she warned, the country faced the prospect of "van-loads of dangerous people circling the country with nowhere to go". Ms Mahmood said: "The police would have to use their cells as a prison overflow, keeping officers off the streets. Soon, the courts would grind to a halt, unable to hold trials. "With officers unable to act, criminals could do whatever they want, without consequence. We could see looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight. "In short, if we fail to act now, we face the collapse of the criminal justice system. And a total breakdown of law and order." 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 worlds first hydrogen-powered commercial passenger ferry will start operating on San Francisco Bay as part of plans to phase out diesel-powered vessels and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, California officials said Friday, demonstrating the ship. The 70-foot (21-meter) catamaran called the MV Sea Change will transport up to 75 passengers along the waterfront between Pier 41 and the downtown San Francisco ferry terminal starting July 19, officials said. The service will be free for six months while it's being run as part of a pilot program. The implications for this are huge because this isnt its last stop," said Jim Wunderman, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, which runs commuter ferries across the bay. "If we can operate this successfully, there are going to be more of these vessels in our fleet and in other folks fleets in the United States and we think in the world. Sea Change can travel about 300 nautical miles and operate for 16 hours before it needs to refuel. The fuel cells produce electricity by combining oxygen and hydrogen in an electrochemical reaction that emits water as a byproduct. The technology could help clean up the shipping industry, which produces nearly 3% of the worlds total greenhouse gas emissions, officials said. Thats less than from cars, trucks, rail or aviation but still a lot and its rising. Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association, said the ferry is meaningful because its hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vessels. The real value of this is when you multiply out by the number of ferries operating around the world, he said. Theres great potential here. This is how you can start chipping away at the carbon intensity of your ports. Backers also hope hydrogen fuel cells could eventually power container ships. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates commercial shipping, wants to halve its greenhouse gas releases by midcentury. As fossil fuel emissions continue warming Earths atmosphere, the Biden administration is turning to hydrogen as an energy source for vehicles, manufacturing and generating electricity. It has been offering $8 billion to entice the nations industries, engineers and planners to figure out how to produce and deliver clean hydrogen. Environmental groups say hydrogen presents its own pollution and climate risks. For now, the hydrogen that is produced globally each year, mainly for refineries and fertilizer manufacturing, is made using natural gas. That process warms the planet rather than saving it. Indeed, a new study by researchers from Cornell and Stanford universities found that most hydrogen production emits carbon dioxide, which means that hydrogen-fueled transportation cannot yet be considered clean energy. Yet proponents of hydrogen-powered transportation say that in the long run, hydrogen production is destined to become more environmentally safe. They envision a growing use of electricity from wind and solar energy, which can separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. As such renewable forms of energy gain broader use, hydrogen production should become a cleaner and less expensive process. The Sea Change project was financed and managed by the investment firm SWITCH Maritime. The vessel was constructed at Bay Ship and Yacht in Alameda, California, and All-American Marine in Bellingham, Washington. ___ Associated Press journalist Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island. 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 }} As the first week of Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico comes to a close, the actors defense is hoping to make a tricky argument stick with the jury. The 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live star has claimed he did not pull the trigger on a gun that went off on the set of the film Rust, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but his lawyers argue that even if the actor did, he still wouldnt be guilty because he had no reason to think he was using live rounds. On a movie set, youre allowed to pull the trigger, his attorney Alex Spiro said in opening statements. Even if he intentionally pulled the trigger that doesnt make him guilty of homicide. He did not know, or have any reason to know, that the gun was loaded with a live bullet, he added. Thats the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element. The lawyer also claimed the weapon had a hair trigger and that the owners manual suggests the gun can fire accidentally if loaded with a live primer. In a 2021 interview with ABC News, the actor was adamant the gun went off on its own. Alec Baldwin attends his manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie Rust, in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Thursday, July 11, 2024 ( AP ) The trigger wasnt pulled. I didnt pull the trigger, he said, claiming, "Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasnt even supposed to be on the property. Three years later, the prosecution in the case is seeking to make the case in the Santa Fe courtroom that Baldwin did fire the gun on the set of the Western film. The evidence will show this gun functioned and worked just fine, special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said. Prosecutors have also painted Baldwin as recklessly playing with weapons on set. A still from a video clip played in court shows actor Alec Baldwin during Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's involuntary manslaughter trial at the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February, 29, 2024 ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images ) You will see him using this gun as a pointer to point at people, point at things, Johnson said during opening statements. You will see him cock the hammer when he is 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. During testimony on Thursday, Alessandro Pietta, whose company manufactures the replica gun used in the film, said its not possible for the pistol to fire without an intentional trigger pull. This gun cannot fire without pulling the trigger because of the mechanics and design of the trigger was made to work in this way, Pieta said, describing quality checks by US and Italian authorities on the weapon. The case may hinge on which interpretation of the guns technical specifications prevails. Spiro has argued that Baldwin wasnt given the chance to test the pistol for evidence in its original form, due to damage sustained as the FBI tested the weapon. Set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has already been convicted in the shooting and sentenced to 18 months in prison. 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 retired police detective involved in the arrest 20 years ago of the husband of Canadian Nobel laureate Alice Munro, said Friday he was disturbed by the writer's reaction 20 years ago when she learned her husband would be charged for sexually assaulting her daughter. Retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sam Lazarevich remembers a very angry Munro accusing her daughter of lying when he visited Munros home in 2004 to inform the husband that he was going to be charged. In an interview with The Associated Press, Lazarevich said Munro was furious, defended her second husband and the detective recalls being quite surprised by her reaction. 'Thats your daughter. Arent you going to defend your daughter?' he recalls. The Toronto Star first reported what the now retired detective thought at the time. Andrea Robin Skinner, Munros daughter with her first husband, wrote in an essay published in the Toronto Star that she had been sexually assaulted at age 9 by Munros second husband, Gerard Fremlin. She alleged that he continued to harass and abuse her for the next few years, losing interest when she reached her teens. In her 20s, she told her mother about Fremlins abuse. But Munro, after leaving Fremlin for a time, returned and remained with him until his death, in 2013. She would explain to Skinner that she loved him too much to remain apart. Fremlin was Skinner's stepfather. When Munro died in May at age 92, she was celebrated worldwide as a genius whose short stories documented rare insight into her characters secrets, motivations, passions and cruelties, especially those of girls and women. Munro was a source of ongoing pride for her native Canada, where a reckoning with the authors legacy is now concentrated. Obviously this tarnishes her legacy, Lazarevich said. Lazarevich said he couldnt wrap his head around Munro's reaction at the time of Fremlin's arrest. He said he was fully aware of who she was, noting she was a local celebrity. If I would have had her book at home I would have thrown it into the garbage, Lazarevich said. Shortly after The New York Times magazine published a 2004 story in which Munro gushed about Fremlin, Skinner decided to contact Ontario Provincial Police and provided them letters in which Fremlin had admitted abusing her, the Toronto Star reported in a companion news story also published last Sunday. At 80, he pleaded guilty to one count of indecent assault and received a suspended sentence one that was not reported for nearly two decades. Lazarevich said he has no idea why the arrest didnt receive media coverage back then and that the prosecutor at the time should be asked that. The news stunned and grieved the literary world this month. Munros alma mater said Friday it has paused the endowed chair program that bears her name over the revelations the writer protected her husband after learning he had sexually abused her daughter. Western University said Andrea Robin Skinner had the schools unwavering support after coming forward about her stepfathers abuse and mothers silence. At this time, we are pausing the Chair appointment as we carefully consider Munros legacy and her ties to Western, said a short statement posted on its website Friday. 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 }} Three days after a 4-year-old boys body was pulled from a southwest Louisiana lake, and two days after the child's 1-year-old brother was rescued while crawling beside an interstate highway, Louisiana authorities announced a murder charge against the children's mother. Aaliyah Jack, 25 was arrested earlier this week in Mississippi on a Louisiana charge of failure to report a missing child. On Thursday, the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office added charges including cruelty to a juvenile and second-degree murder. She remained in custody in Mississippi after her arrest in the city of Meridian. It was unclear when she would be extradited. She did not appear in online booking records, and there was no information available on whether she had an attorney who could comment on her behalf. A Louisiana judge set bond at $9.1 million, according to the sheriff's news release. Although we have upgraded charges on Jack, our detectives still have a lot of work to do, Calcasieu Sheriff Gary Stitch Guillory said in a news release. The investigation will continue while we wait for the autopsy results of the victim." Authorities have not stated a suspected cause of death for the 4-year-old. Guillory said at a Tuesday news conference that the baby was covered with insect bites but otherwise appeared in good condition. Guillory called the boy a miracle baby, having been spotted crawling in a ditch beside Interstate 10 after two days alone in sometimes stormy weather. Authorities had recovered the dead child's body Monday after getting a report of a body in a lake behind a Louisiana welcome center. An investigation led police to search for Jack, who was arrested in Meridian while the search continued for her missing baby. Workers were preparing to search the water behind the welcome center Tuesday morning when a 911 call came in from a truck driver who spotted the baby, Guillory said. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US 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 }} A New Jersey teenager, who allegedly sought to sabotage energy stations in the US, was arrested on his way to Ukraine to fight for the Russian Volunteer Corps. Andrew Takhistov, 18, of East Brunswick, New Jersey, was detained on his way to the airport on Wednesday and made his initial court appearance on Thursday, according to the US Justice Department. Takhistov was arrested on charges of recruiting an individual to destroy an electrical substation in the United States in order to advance his white supremacist ideology. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine. According to court documents, in January, Takhistov began communicating on a social messaging platform with an individual who, unbeknownst to him, was an undercover law enforcement employee. Takhistov had previously posted on the messaging platform requesting advice about weapons, disseminating manuals on how to construct homemade weapons, and expressing interest in traveling overseas to engage in paramilitary-style training. Andrew Takhistov, 18, of East Brunswick, New Jersey, was detained on his way to the airport on Wednesday according to the US Department of Justice ( Getty Images ) Throughout the posts, he referenced Adolf Hitler, encouraged violence against various ethnic and religious communities including Black and Jewish individuals, and praised mass shooters. In May he told the undercover operative that he was planning to travel to Ukraine in July to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a right-wing paramilitary unit of Russian citizens in Ukraine. He said he chose the organization in part because it specialized in assassinations, attacks on power grids and other infrastructure sabotage. Takhistov discussed infrastructure sabotage, specifically how to damage an electrical substation using Mylar balloons or Molotov cocktails, which he explained how to make. He also told the undercover employee that while he was in Ukraine, the undercover operative needed to carry out at least one event of serious activism, the DOJ said. The pair had visited two different electrical substations in North Brunswick and New Brunswick, New Jersey in June and July. During these visits, Takhistov instructed the undercover employee on numerous aspects of how to conduct an attack on an electrical substation. On July 5, during one of these meetings, he directed the undercover operative to take several photographs of the electrical substations so that Takhistov could send them to his Russian friend for additional advice on how to best sabotage them. Takhistov was arrested Wednesday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport where he was planning to travel to Paris on his way to Ukraine. The defendant was allegedly enroute to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, which he described as specializing in assassinations, attacks on power grids, and other infrastructure sabotage, so that he could act on his violent plans, said US Attorney Philip R Sellinger for the District of New Jersey. We will not tolerate these kinds of alleged terroristic threats, and working with our partners, we will always be ready to root out and bring to justice anyone who attempts to carry out these acts. 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 }} After nearly four decades, the mystery of what happened to a young mother who vanished after the Parade of Boats festival in Louisiana has been solved. Russell Lee and Judith Judy Weiser have been charged with the August 1986 murder of 22-year-old Paula Boudreaux, the Lafourche Sheriffs Office announced on Wednesday. It was almost the worst kept secret in Golden Meadow, Lafourche Sheriff Craig Webre told WWLTV. Judith Lee (now remarried as Weiser) was married at the time to Russell Lee, and Russell was alleged to have been romantically involved with Paula, and Judith became enraged by that. She and, or Russell would have killed Paula. The mystery began on August 3, 1986 when Boudreaux was last seen at her parents home in Golden Meadow, Louisiana. She left the Parade of Boats festival, an annual event that marks the start of shrimping season, around 10.30pm and was dropped off at her parents home, family members told investigators at the time. It was the last time she was seen alive. On August 6, she was reported missing by her sister. She left behind a four-year-old son, Eric. In January 1989, skeletal remains were found in Slidell, Louisiana, but they were not identified as Boudreaux until 2023. The St. Tammany Parish Coroners Office had submitted details to the LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) Lab in 2013 and a possible image of the victims face was rendered. An anonymous tipster provided Boudreauxs name which led Lafourche Parish Sheriffs Office investigators to collect DNA evidence from one of Boudreauxs surviving relatives. In January 2023, the remains were identified as Boudreaux. Russell Lee, who has a violent criminal past, was arrested on July 9 in Missouri ( Lafourche Sheriff's Office ) Armed with a positive ID on the remains, investigators reopened the case and Lee and Weiser were named persons of interest after police learned Lee was in relationships with both Boudreaux and Weiser at the time of the 22-year-olds murder, according to the sheriffs release. Investigators found statements and evidence implicating both Lee, who had a violent criminal past, and Weiser, in Boudreauxs murder. The pair are believed to have killed Boudreaux, dismembered her body, and dumped the remains in a piney marsh in Slidell, where she was later found by hunters, according to police. In Golden Meadow, Boudreauxs distant relative Michelle Chouest, whose DNA helped solve the case, was speechless when she heard the news. I couldnt contain it, she told WWLTV. I just cried. Its an emotion I cant understand myself. Just closure, but justice. Judith Weiser was taken into custody in Tennessee with the assistance of the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office ( Lafourche Sheriff's Office ) Chouest is no stranger to tragedy after she lost her 20-year-old son in an accident. Hearing that these parents didnt know what happened to their daughter, and never found her, and died that way not knowing it, touched me, Chouest said before Boudreaux was identified. When the Lafourche Sheriffs Office released the composite, she was compelled to alert them that it looked like Boudreaux. Well a huge catalyst,Sheriff Webre said about Chouest. We were then able to find her (Paulas) sister Lillian, and her son, Eric, and get DNA from them for St. Tammany to confirm. Lee was taken into custody on July 9 in Missouri with the help of the Mountain Grove Police Department. On July 10, Weiser was taken into custody in Tennessee with the assistance of the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office. Both Lee and Weiser were charged with second degree murder and obstruction of justice. They will be transported to Louisiana where they are being booked at the Lafourche Parish Correctional Complex each on a $1.1 million bond. 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 }} An Ohio woman who was accused of fatally stabbing her former best friend will spend no more than three years behind bars after taking a plea deal this week. After initially being charged with murder, Bryanna Barozzini, 20, pleaded guilty last month to involuntary manslaughter in the death of her former friend Halia Culbertson, 17, last year in Northland, Ohio. Columbus police said Barozzini stabbed the ex-pal at a convenience store on March 26, 2023, after the pair got into a heated argument that swiftly turned violent. Nothing has scarred me so badly as losing Halia, the victims sister, Kaelyn Culbertson, told the court. How can someone be so cruel? How can someone be so vicious? Someone who was supposed to be my sisters best friend killed her and left her to bleed out. A sentencing memo filed by the defense revealed that Barozzini and Culbertson were once friends but had a falling out. On the night of the stabbing, Barozzini walked into the convenience store, not knowing that Culbertson was there, and an argument ensued, WBSN reports. Culbertson was reportedly removed from the store by an employee but remained outside while Barozzini was still in the store, surveillance video showed, according to court documents seen by local outlets. When Barozzini left the store with a man, Culbertson approached them in the parking lot and confronted her former friend, who she threatened, pushed, and then struck, according to court records. Meanwhile, Barozzini repeatedly backed away, insisting she did not want to fight. As the argument escalated, Barozzini swung a knife at Culbertson, who only noticed she had blood on her chest after the fight ended, the defense team claimed. While prosecutors said it was reasonable for Barozzini to be upset over Culbertsons aggression, her actions did not justify using a knife on her. "None of those actions justify Bryanna Barozzini taking a knife and plunging it into Halias clavicle. Rather, that is an act of unjustifiable rage," prosecutors said, WBSN reports. While Barozzini was at first handed a murder charge, the state ultimately accepted an involuntary manslaughter plea, with the 20-year-old now sentenced to up to three years in prison for the knife attack. It feels like a betrayal of my daughters memory and the justice she was promised, Culbertsons mother, Haley Culbertson, said in comments reported by The Columbus Dispatch. She wished my daughter to hell. She was clearly mad. Swore on her whole family her intent, so how does she end up in the same place at the same time? At her sentencing hearing on Thursday, the convicted woman spoke briefly about the incident at Culbertsons death. I will be living with this guilt the rest of my life, she said. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy 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 reports that travelers are avoiding Paris ahead of this summer's Olympics, and their aversion to the French capital is costing the company $100 million. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC this week that tourists and business travelers were flying elsewhere this summer. Unless youre going to the Olympics, people arent going to Paris ... very few are, he said. Business travel, you know, other type of tourism is potentially going elsewhere. Delta has felt the brunt of the tourist snub because it services more American travel to France than any other US airline, in a joint venture with Air France. The carriers have a combined 70 percent market share in nonstop service between France and the US, CNBC reports. Air France has also noticed the summer downturn. The airline's parent company, Air France-KLM, reported a revenue loss of as much as 180 million euros approximately $195.5m between June and August due to the Olympics. This years Summer Olympics in Paris runs from July 26 through August 11. Delta Air Lines reports that travelers are avoiding Paris ahead of this summers Olympics, and their aversion to the French capital is costing the company $100 million ( Getty Images ) International markets show a significant avoidance of Paris, the company said. Travel between the city and other destinations is also below the usual June-August average as residents in France seem to be postponing their holidays until after the Olympic Games or considering alternative travel plans. This year's Summer Olympics in Paris runs from July 26 through August 11. Some 15 million visitors are expected to attend the events, including 2 million from overseas, Le Monde reports. Despite the summer lull, both Delta and Air France-KLM say they are confident travel to Paris will pick back up once the Olympics have ended. Delta president Glen Hauenstein said during an earnings call on Thursday that despite the dip in France-bound flights, the company has seen a boom in travel to Japan. He attributed the increased travel to a favorable exchange rate. 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 helicopter crash off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii on Thursday has left one person dead and two people missing, according to authorities. The crash was reported around 1.20pm, a quarter of a mile off the north shore of Kauai near the Na Pali coast. When rescuers reached the wreck site an hour later, they found one of the occupants dead, according to the Kauai Police Department. A search is underway for the missing passengers. The identities of those on board have not been released to the public. Authorities learned of the crash thanks to hikers walking on the nearby Kalalu Trail. The hikers witnessed the helicopter crash into the water, and immediately called for help, according to police. It's unclear what caused the crash. The National Weather Service in Honolulu had issued a forecast on Thursday warning of strong trade winds and low cloud cover across most of the Hawaiian islands. The mountainous terrain near Kauai, Hawaiis Na Pali coast. A helicopter operated by Alii Kauai Air Tours and Charters crashed off the Na Pali coast on July 11, leaving one person dead and two others missing (stock image) ( Getty Images/iStockphoto ) The Robinson R44 helicopter was operated by Ali'i Kauai Air Tours and Charters, according to police. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have launched an investigation. According to the company's website, Ali'i Kauai Air Tours, based in Lihue, offers hour-long helicopter tours along the Na Pali coastline on Kauais northern edge. The last fatal helicopter crash in Hawaii was on Kauai in 2019, according to the NTSB's database, when a pilot and all six passengers died. The NTSB determined that the pilot had proceeded with a tour despite worsening weather conditions, and had lost sight of the mountainous terrain before crashing the helicopter. Mayor Derek Kawakami of Kauai County offered his condolences to concerned loved ones and assured them first responders were working to find the missing passengers. We are incredibly sad to hear of the life tragically lost today, and the two other individuals who are still missing after a helicopter crashed into waters off Kauais Na Pali Coast. While we do not know all the details surrounding the incident at this time, we do know that our first responders are doing everything they can in this emergency operation, he said. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all involved. Acting Governor Sylvia Luke also issued a statement regarding the crash. We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those involved in this terrible incident, she said. As search and recovery operations continue, the State stands fully prepared to work in tandem with the County of Kauai and our Federal partners. We thank all responders and agency partners for their assistance during this difficult time. In addition to the Kauai County first responders, the US Coast Guard and crews from Hawaii Emergency Management were dispatched to assist with the search effort. The FAA has issued a temporary flight restriction over the search area, according to Kauai County officials. 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 }} Red Roof Inn, one of the largest budget hotel chains in America, is set to face lawsuits from hundreds of sex trafficking victims who claim the company turned a blind eye and profited from their abuse for years. An investigation by The Independent has found that at least 42 federal lawsuits are underway against the hotel chain and its franchisees. Hundreds more victims are in the process of filing legal action, according to attorneys working on their cases. The victims, some of whom were underage at the time, accuse the company of allowing its rooms to be rented on a grand scale to sex traffickers who forced them into commercial sex work and controlled nearly every aspect of their lives. They claim the signs of their trafficking were so obvious they could not have been missed by the company. The lawsuits are littered with references to malnourished and underage girls and women under the control of pimps who conducted their business in front of hotel staff, renting numerous hotel rooms where male customers came and went, night after night. The lawsuits, and those yet to be filed, span the length and breadth of the country, across 39 states and at least 117 Red Roof Inn hotels. As part of this investigation, The Independent has plotted those locations on a map to show the scale and spread of the alleged incidents. The lawsuits also revealed that a senior Red Roof Inn employee joked about the presence of pimps and hos at one of the hotels under his management. Steven Babin, an attorney who is representing close to 1,000 sex trafficking victims in cases involving Red Roof Inn, told The Independent that sex trafficking had reached an epidemic level across the hotel chain, and estimated the true number of victims to be in the many thousands. Sex trafficking is the crime of using force, fraud or coercion to induce another individual to sell sex. Red Roof Inn intentionally ignored the problem of human sex trafficking in its hotels and completely failed to put any meaningful policies and procedures in place. Instead, their focus was on one thing: money, he claimed. Red Roof Inn is only one hotel chain among many facing similar allegations, but a trial in which the company is defending itself against 11 alleged victims of sex trafficking in Atlanta, Georgia, made history last month as the first of its kind against a national hotel chain. That trial offered a rare and disturbing close-up view of how trafficking operations were run from two Red Roof Inn hotels in the city, and precisely what the company knew. I still have scars The Atlanta courtroom fell silent as Tiffeny entered. She was visibly pregnant and nervous as she took her seat in the witness box. Over the course of the next hour, she described in detail how she was brutally trafficked at a Red Roof Inn hotel when she was 17 by two men named Bless and Bags, between December 2010 and May 2011. We had to take customers morning, lunch, dinner, midnight, after club hours, she told the court, at times breaking into tears. It was just around the clock. We had to make a quota of a minimum $1,000 a day if we wanted to eat. Tiffeny and the rest of the plaintiffs filed their lawsuits under a 2008 law that allows victims of sex trafficking to seek civil damages against any entity or individual that knowingly profited from the trafficking activities. Her testimony was historic: She is the first victim of sex trafficking to ever testify at a trial seeking damages from a national hotel chain accused of profiting from the crime. They were told about it, their employees knew about it, the front desk people knew about it, housekeeping, everybody knew about it Jonathan Tonge, attorney for the 11 plaintiffs in the Atlanta case Eight days into the trial, Red Roof Inn agreed to an undisclosed settlement with the victims. But even though the trial was cut short, the testimony shone a light on what sex trafficking conducted from hotels really looks like. Tiffeny described how the pimps would travel in groups and gather in the parking lot of the hotel to coordinate customers while the women worked inside the rooms. Her trafficker would decide when she slept and when she ate, although she said she didnt remember much eating. If she refused to see a customer or disobeyed him she would be choked or beaten. Throughout this time, she said no Red Roof Inn employees ever asked if she needed help. Should they have? the attorney for the plaintiffs asked during the trial. I think its just pretty suspicious to see teenage girls dressed in club wear at 9:00, 10:00 in the morning paying for a hotel room during the week, she replied. The harrowing court testimony continued with Melissa, who was trafficked in 2015 and 2016 after dropping out of college. She described being forced to have sex with eight men a day, for days at a time at the Red Roof Inn. She spoke about witnessing a pregnant woman being beaten to a bloody pulp by her trafficker in the bathroom and how housekeeping staff came each morning to remove garbage cans filled with condoms and bloody towels. Its hard to explain because I had to be so numb to the experience, she said. Having random people inside of me every single day, and the pain that my body had to go through of having sex every it never stopped. It did not stop. Alexa was 17 years old and in a relationship with her trafficker before he threatened her family with violence if she did not obey him. She has scars on her forehead and her midsection from violence meted out against her by him. She testified that she was forced to get a tattoo of an eye on her leg a brand her trafficker used to claim ownership of her. The Red Roof Inn was chosen by the trafficker because of its lax attitude towards what was going on," she said. If things were slow, she could go out into the parking lot to find dates and bring them back to her room. The Smyrna Red Roof Inn, where some of the plaintiffs in the Atlanta trial say they were trafficked. ( Google ) Each of the victims who testified that day told a similar story. The trafficking was so blatant, they argued, that Red Roof Inn employees could not have missed it. Dozens of lawsuits filed against Red Roof Inn across the US and reviewed by The Independent tell a similar story. In each of the cases, women were allegedly lured or pressured into a situation where traffickers controlled every aspect of their lives, where they were abused and trafficked for months at a time. In one lawsuit centered on a Red Roof Inn in Kentucky, a 16-year-old girl said she was forced to have sex with at least 10-12 paying customers a day at the hotel, while enduring brutal physical abuse, rape, exploitation, psychological torment, kidnapping, and imprisonment. If these girls and women are being trafficked at a hotel, you will see the malnourished body, the way that they are dressed, the demeanor in which they walk, the lack of eye contact Anique Whitmore, expert witness at the Atlanta trial Another victim was trafficked for three years at Red Roof Inn hotels in Washington, DC, and Maryland, where she claimed staff witnessed her physically and verbally abused by her captors in public areas of the hotel. Yet another woman, who was trafficked for three years at a Red Roof Inn in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, said in her lawsuit that she encountered many of the same hotel staff repeatedly. Those employees witnessed her trafficker being frequently violent with her and loud sounds of abuse could often be heard from the room, the lawsuit alleges. The hotel chain, which has some 624 properties across the US, has repeatedly denied that it ignored sex trafficking at its hotels. In some of the cases, Red Roof Inn cast doubt on victims claims that they had been trafficked at all. During cross-examination in the Atlanta trial, the defense team highlighted instances where they argued that the women were able to escape from their traffickers and subsequently went back to them. The warning signs The testimonies of the plaintiffs in the Atlanta case, and in lawsuits across the country, leave little doubt that sex trafficking took place at Red Roof Inn hotels. But the question at the center of all of these lawsuits is whether the hotel chain should be held liable for it especially when the location in question was owned by a franchisee. Red Roof Inn has been moving further towards the franchise model in recent years by reducing the number of properties it owns directly. Because no cases had gone to trial, it was unclear how that might impact liability. But in denying a summary judgment motion in the Atlanta trial, the judge agreed with an earlier court ruling that said the evidence shows that the Red Roof Defendants and their employees were aware that they were profiting from renting rooms to those pimps and prostitutes, and that even after the Atlanta location in question was sold to a franchisee, there is evidence that the Red Roof Defendants continued to participate in this venture, although to a lesser degree. Red Roof Inn contends that trafficking is by its very nature an illicit activity, conducted in secret. For that reason, the company has argued that it could not be expected to identify it, and therefore should not be held responsible. But experts in the Atlanta case testified that although much of the control exerted over sex trafficking victims is psychological, there are clear red flags. Anique Whitmore, an expert witness in the Atlanta trial who has trained police departments across Georgia on how to recognize trafficking, said the crime is often clear enough so that you can see it with a naked eye. These are women, men, children who are being forced into selling their bodies for sex. That money is handed over to somebody, and you receive zero. Your compensation might be some french fries the next day, she told the court. If girls and women are being trafficked at a hotel, you will see the malnourished body, the way that they are dressed, the demeanor in which they walk, the lack of eye contact the inability to have their own voice and speak without permission, she said. To be frank, youd be quite ignorant if you didnt see it, she added. The victims lawyers contend that the scale of prostitution was so great across Red Roof Inn properties that by turning a blind eye, the company created the conditions for sex trafficking to take place. Anyone who set foot on the Smyrna and Buckhead Red Roof Inn properties witnessed an open-air prostitution market, the Atlanta lawsuit claimed. It added that those hotels did not just tolerate prostitution, they knowingly chose to profit from it. my pimps and hos love them some snacks to go with their smokes Jay Moyer, then-regional vice president of operations for Red Roof Inn Alan Borowsky, an attorney who has taken on dozens of cases relating to sex trafficking at Red Roof Inn, told The Independent that the scale and signs of prostitution were so obvious that the law required action to be taken. Even if you have an instance where sex trafficking may not be outwardly distinguishable from non-coerced sex work, you still have situations where clearly there is some type of commercial sex venture, and it can be discovered through the course of reasonable expectations of observation and investigation that a sex trafficking venture is afoot, he said. And thats where the liability comes in, he said. Tonge, the lawyer in the Atlanta case, put it succinctly: If you get rid of all prostitution, then you get rid of all sex trafficking. So just do that. The claims of widespread prostitution are supported by testimony from former staff and reviews of the hotels posted online by customers. An analysis of customer reviews of Red Roof Inn hotels by The Independent found that customers mentioned prostitution at 176 properties. This information is publicly available, and evidence presented in the trial showed that Red Roof Inn employed an outside company to monitor reviews. The reviews, the content of which could not be verified by The Independent, show that customers saw visible signs of prostitution at Red Roof Inn locations across the country for years. Aaron, a former night manager at several Red Roof Inn hotels, told The Independent prostitution was heavy at the locations where he worked. While I was with Red Roof, all three of the properties had problems with prostitution, he said in a phone interview. Aaron said he didnt knowingly witness any sex trafficking, but the scenes he described fit the description of a sex trafficking operation. They would bring girls in, he said, referring to the men who were managing the operation. Theyd be there two weeks, sometimes. And then theyd send those girls away and bring in some more. Aaron added that the men who appeared to be running the operation would sometimes pay for the rooms, rather than the girls themselves. Like other employees who were cited in the lawsuits, he said he received no training on how to identify sex trafficking from Red Roof Inn and that the company prioritized profits over everything else. Its heads in beds, he said. They want every door sold. They dont care how you do it. Your manager has that pressure of having to do that consistently, so if you can get prostitutes and drug dealers to come in there and keep them in order, youre selling out. My pimps and hos It wasnt just the hotel staff that knew about the sex trafficking, but all the way up the Red Roof Inn corporate management chain, according to the lawsuits. The Atlanta lawsuits contained depositions and internal communications between hotel staff and corporate Red Roof Inn employees that attorneys for the plaintiffs argue show a clear awareness that sex trafficking was taking place. In one email, Jay Moyer, the then-regional vice president of operations responsible for both Atlanta hotels, joked about a vending machine being introduced to one of the properties, writing that my pimps and hos love them some snacks to go with their smokes. Moyer claimed in a deposition that he was quoting customer reviews, but lawyers for the plaintiffs said that even if that were true, the email confirms that he was aware that the [...] property regularly rented rooms to suspected prostitutes and pimps, which would also indicate knowledge of sex trafficking. Numerous former Red Roof Inn employees testified in depositions that they passed their concerns about prostitution and sex trafficking to Moyer and other managers. The law says you dont have to be Superman, you dont have to go rescue trafficking victims to follow the law, you dont have to send traffickers to jail. You just need to exercise reasonable diligence to not make money from human trafficking Steven Babin, an attorney with hundreds of clients who claim to have been victims of sex trafficking at Red Roof Inn Vanessa Cole, a general manager at one of the hotels between 2011 and 2012, said in her deposition that prostitution was a consistent problem that she reported up the chain, including to Moyer. She said Moyer responded by saying: yes, we understand we have to, you know, clean up the place, but we also need to sell rooms. Another former employee, Michael Thomas, testified that Moyer told him to book suspected sex workers in the back of the hotel, where they would be less visible to other guests. On at least one occasion, reports of sex trafficking made their way to the president of the company, Andy Alexander. In December 2015, a former board member of an international anti-trafficking organization, Michele Sarkisian, called Alexander to tell him a known sex trafficker was trafficking women at one of the Atlanta hotels, according to the Atlanta lawsuit. Red Roof Inn did not disclose what action they took in response. Employees at both Atlanta hotels testified that they did not receive any training on safety and security, prostitution or sex trafficking during the time in question. The company introduced sex trafficking training in August 2014, but it was only for general managers. A lot of people dont have the power to stop trafficking, but when youre a multi-million dollar corporation with control or at least significant influence over the place where people are being trafficked, you can, and should, be held liable if you consciously disregard the safety of others Emma Hetherington, director of the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation (CEASE) Clinic Jonathan Tonge, an attorney for the 11 victims in the Atlanta case, told The Independent that the entire company knew women were being trafficked. What we accuse them of doing is just blatantly allowing not just prostitution, but sex trafficking. They were told about it, their employees knew about it, the front desk people knew about it, housekeeping, everybody knew about it, he said. And because of that our clients got hurt. Our clients were trafficked there because Red Roof allowed sex trafficking, he alleged. According to Babin, Red Roof Inn had significant knowledge of sex trafficking at its properties, and what they did with that knowledge is the key question here. The law says you dont have to be Superman, you dont have to go rescue trafficking victims to follow the law, you dont have to send traffickers to jail. You just need to exercise reasonable diligence to not make money from human trafficking, he said. A reckoning The rise of the internet moved prostitution, and with it sex trafficking, from the streets to hotels and behind closed doors. An estimated 80 percent of sex trafficking takes place at hotels today. Anti-trafficking signs with phone numbers for hotlines for people to report suspected trafficking are now routinely hung up in hotel rooms. Red Roof Inn itself conceded during the trial that hotels are on the frontline of combating sex trafficking, but it didnt introduce training for years after the problem was widespread. Following the settlement in the Atlanta case, Red Roof Inn said in a statement that it denies all allegations and condemns prostitution and sex trafficking in all forms. It also claimed to have taken steps to mitigate criminal activity at Red Roof properties, without clarifying further. Emma Hetherington, director of the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation (CEASE) Clinic and an associate professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, attended the Atlanta trial for seven days and concluded that the company failed to respond in a reasonable or appropriate manner to the many reports of sex trafficking. A sign displaying the phone number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline on the back of a door at a New York City hotel. ( Richard Hall / The Independent ) A lot of people dont have the power to stop trafficking, but when youre a multimillion-dollar corporation with control or at least significant influence over the place where people are being trafficked, you can, and should, be held liable if you consciously disregard the safety of others, she added. A verdict in the trial would have answered key questions about the legal liability of national hotel chains and sex trafficking. Although the exact terms of the settlement in the Atlanta case are confidential, Hetherington said the very fact it got to trial is a step forward for the 11 victims who testified. Most survivors never get their day in court, Hetherington said. Several of the survivors described feeling relieved after testifying, being able to get a good nights sleep for the first time in years, and feeling free for the first time. Civil lawsuits can be a powerful vehicle for healing and can provide a sense of empowerment for people whose autonomy and self-worth were stolen from them. Babin, the Ohio lawyer with almost 1,000 cases, also believes the trial demonstrated progress. Trials no matter what will help you determine the value of a case. Trials win, lose or draw show that the cases have facts that are sufficient to get to trial, he said. Babin said he foresees a reckoning for the hotel industry for its involvement in sex trafficking. The industry has stuck their head in the sand for a very, very long time. They knew that this was gonna come. At conferences, way before any cases were filed, they were alluding to the fact that they might one day actually have to take responsibility for whats going on in these hotels, he said. One of the big hotel chains will end up going bankrupt as a result of this litigation. And they deserve way worse. This article was made possible by the generosity of our readers. If you would like to support future special reports and investigations, please make a contribution. If you or someone you know is experiencing human trafficking and is in need of support, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline by calling 1-888-373-7888, by texting 233733, or online via webchat at humantraffickinghotline.org . The hotline operates 24/7 and help is available in 200 languages. All calls are confidential. 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 father-of-five pastor has been found dead in his car submerged in the Des Plaines River near Chicago one week after he vanished without a trace. And now, a fellow pastor is claiming that it could be foul play. Warren Beard, 53, who was an assistant pastor at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, was last seen on July 2 when he went to Joliet, Illinois, to visit friends. He failed to return home that night and didnt show up to work with the Preservation of Affordable Housing Wednesday morning. His wife Wanda said, prior to his body being found, that it was unlike him not to come home. My husband goes to work. He comes home, he goes to work out and he goes to church. For the most part, thats thats what he does, she told Fox32. To not come home, hes never done that in all the years. Weve been married 16 years. Beards Aunt, Theresa Boss-French, also told NBC Chicago: We are all hurting right now. We all know Reverend Warren Beard is not someone who would just disappear without saying a word to his family. The family said that Beard, a married father-of-five and a beloved member of his church community, often visited Joliet because he had friends in the area. On Tuesday, Rockdale officials revealed at a press conference that Beard had been found dead. 53-year-old Warren C. Beard was found dead inside his submerged vehicle ( Chicago Police Department ) The 53-year-olds body was located in the front seat of his car underwater just after 2.45pm that afternoon, just hours after officials discovered video footage of the car entering the Des Plaines River around 150 yards West of Brandon Road in Rockdale. The Rockdale Fire Protection District said in a statement it had been contacted by the Brandon Road Lock Master shortly before noon after reviewing security footage from a week earlier. The footage showed a vehicle going into the water at around 10.47pm on July 2. According to authorities, the footage shows the vehicle going around a barricade and through a 5.5-foot gap beneath a raised drawbridge before entering the river. 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, said Rockdale Police Department Chief Robert Bake. The vehicle was located and was found using sonar. The Will County Coroners Office confirmed in a press release that Beard was pronounced dead at 6.20pm. An autopsy was set to be performed on Wednesday to determine cause and manner of death. New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Chenier Alston, who served with Beard at the church on Chicagos South Side for 18 years, has insisted that Beard was not suicidal and has theorized that foul play could be involved. At a press conference, Alston said: What I want answered is, Who did this? The fact that his car launched off that bridge, [there] were barricades there that had to be driven around, he said, Church Leaders reported. Authorities searched the Des Plaines River after video footage of the car heading into the water was found ( WGN ) 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 added: This is not like him. He would not abandon his family and not come home. "He was the greatest person, one of the greatest men Ive ever met in my life, and this is painful," Alston told WLS. "We want answers. Words cant even begin to describe how we feel." The Illinois State Police continues to investigate the incident. 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 }} A firefighter pilot died while tackling a Montana wildfire on Wednesday. Juliana Turchetti, 45, was killed when her plane crashed northeast of Helena during the Horse Gulch fire. The pilot died when her single-engine, water-scooping Air Tractor AT-02, hit a mountain and landed in Hauser Lake, according to the Daily Montanan. She was employed by Dauntless Air, an Idaho-based firefighting aircraft company that has state and federal contracts. Turchetti, who is from Brazil, was working in the US on a visa. She leaves beind a 17-year-old son. Juliana Turchetti, 45, died while fighting a Montana wildfire when her plane crashed into the side of a mountain ( LinkedIn ) We offer our sincere condolences to the family, the poor service partners and the aviation community, the local sheriffs office said. The Horse Gulch wildfire has spread to nearly 2,000 acres and is 0 per cent contained. Evacuation orders are in effect for people living from Cave Gulch to Magpie Gulch and north and south of Canyon Ferry Road. Several roads have been closed within the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Red Cross has opened an evacuation center. Authorities are working to stop the fire from spreading onto private land west and south. Aircraft were fighting the southern edge of the fire. The Horse Gulch fire in Montana has spread to 2,000 acres near Helena and is 0 percent contained ( Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Taken by Helena Ranger District Law Enforcement Officer Tony Fedele ) The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and will issue a preliminary report in about 30 days. The sheriffs office is also investigating the death along with the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities are working on stopping the fire from spreading onto private land west and south. On Thursday, officials expected dry conditions with erratic wind gusts. However, there was a chance of thunderstorms scheduled for the afternoon. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte and Idaho Governor Brad Little said they were both deeply saddened to hear about Turchettis 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, the statement said. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US 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 }} Passengers on an American Airlines plane were evacuated on Friday afternoon at San Francisco International Airport after a fire broke out inside the cabin, according to the local fire department. Officials said the fire was extinguished, and that three people suffered minor injuries during the incident. One of the injured was hurt while exiting the plane on an inflatable slide, NBC Bay Area reports. American Airlines Flight 2045 was scheduled to depart from San Francisco bound for Miami around 1.05pm when staff onboard reported seeing smoke inside the cabin, according to fire officials. The incident occurred while passengers were boarding the aircraft. An investigation into the the fire is still ongoing. Firefighters were spotted by ABC7s news helicopter placing a laptop into a tub of water at the scene of the incident. An American Airlines Boeing 737 departing Los Angeles International Airport. An American Airlines Airbus plane departing from the San Francisco International Airport had to be evacuated on July 12 after a fire broke out inside the planes cabin (stock image) ( Getty Images ) American Airlines confirmed in a statement that the fire was caused by an overheating laptop brought on board by a passenger. During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA), smoke was reported from inside a customers bag, the airline said in a statement. The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. The passengers who were evacuated from the plane were taken back to the terminal. The aircraft involved in the incident was an Airbus A321neo, according to Flight Aware. Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent 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 The Race Report email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A California schoolteacher has been banished from his classroom after giving freshman students a biology final filled with racist and offensive questions that called out individual students by name. Biology instructor Alex Nguyen was placed on administrative leave last month by the Sacramento City Unified School District, according to district spokesman Al Goldberg. Nguyen has taught at Luther Burbank High School for the past decade, Goldberg told The Sacramento Bee , which obtained a copy of the exam from shocked parents. Nguyen did not immediately respond to The Independents request for comment on Friday. The test covered human reproduction and the effects of dominant amnd recessive genes on offspring. In it, students were provided with examples of situations that could ostensibly occur if various pupils were to reproduce with one another although Nguyen noted in a bizarre disclaimer that he did not condone young teenagers engaging in sexual activity. Many of the questions involved students of color; Luther Burbank is 97 percent non-white, according to the Bee. In high school, there are individuals who are cross-eyed like [name redacted] and [name redacted], which is a dominant trait, one question read. We call those individuals weirdoes [sic]. So, if you crossed two weirdoes [sic] that are heterozygous for being cross-eyed, what is the offspring that would result? Another question notes Luther Burbanks highly diverse student body, and says that African-American culture, [f]or some reason has influenced most of them. Luther Burbank HS biology teacher Alex Nguyen. ( Sacramento City Unified School District ) In African-Americans, they have a gene for the pimp walk, which is dominant, the question goes on. What is the result if you cross [students name redacted]s homozygous dominant Latina with a homozygous recessive Hmong like [students name redacted)? A third question on the final read, Here at the wonderful school of LBHS, we have certain students who love to sleep in class. I even see students fall asleep during exams! Can you believe that?! I dont like it when students sleep in class its rude! So, WAKE THE #$%K UP! Well, through much study, I have concluded that the gene for falling asleep is dominant. Not only that some students sleep, they snore in class. This too is a dominant trait. What are the possible offspring if you cross a homozygous sleeping, heterozygous snoring student [students name redacted] with a homozygous attentive, non-snoring [students name redacted] student? The exam had reportedly been taken by students in three separate classes and was being administered to a fourth when the school principal intervened about 10 minutes into the two-hour testing period. When the principal gathered each final from the students desks and left the room, Nguyen simply projected the same questions onto a screen and told the kids to carry on as normal. Nguyen didnt show up for the last day of school, when the graded exams were returned. Given the unusual nature of the questions, Goldberg said there were challenges with the grading process, the Bee reported. One honors student received a zero, giving him a D in the class for the semester, for which he will now be attending summer school. According to one parent, Nguyens behavior has been problematic in the past, as he allegedly failed to accomodate their learning-disabled child until a resource specialist finally stepped in and forced the issue. One student told the Bee that Nguyen had once called a Black pupil boy, lashing out at him for not having done his work. Luther Burbank Principal Jim Peterson reportedly apologized personally to the parents of each student who took the exam. 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 }} On July 6, 2012, Skylar Neese vanished. At first, police believed the 16-year-old honors student had run away after sneaking out of her apartment window in Star City, West Virginia, to meet up with her two best friends. But she was never seen again. The friends, Rachel Shoaf and Sheila Eddy, told investigators they had picked Skylar up at 11 p.m., and that they later dropped her back at home. Both teens feigned shock and dismay over Skylars disappearance, helping the Neeses hang missing posters around town. But cops realized their stories didnt add up. Eventually, the pressure became too much to bear for Shoaf, who suffered a mental breakdown three days after Christmas that year, and she confessed, leading police to Skylars body in January 2013. She and Eddy had stabbed Skylar to death with kitchen knives, dumping her body in the woods just over the Pennsylvania state line, Shoaf revealed. In 2014, Shoaf was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Eddy received life. As Shoaf would divulge at her first parole hearing in May 2023, the pair had been arguing with Skylar, and they just wanted it to stop. On Monday, the West Virginia Parole Board denied Shoaf, now 28, her second shot at early release which is exactly the way Dave Neese, Skylars dad, had hoped it would go. I hate her with my whole body and soul, he told The Independent. And I know Im not supposed to hate people. Im supposed to be over that. After being denied parole for a second time, convicted murdered Rachel Shoaf remains at West Virginias Lakin Correctional Center. ( West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation ) Neese said Shoaf and Eddy are dangerous animals who belong in cages. Skylar certainly didnt get any [second] chances, he said. Why should they? Shoafs July 9 parole hearing was originally scheduled for May 1, Neese said. However, it was pushed back several times for an unspecified violation Shoaf allegedly committed behind bars. Neese called into the hearing, which was held remotely, to listen to the proceedings and give his own impassioned argument against Shoaf being freed. In a prepared statement Neese read to the board and shared afterward with The Independent, he said that Inmate Shoaf, thus far, has shown herself has proven to be both a narcissist and liar attempting to manipulate the system in which she resides. It has been proven without any uncertainty that she cannot follow the ordinances and statutes within the maximum security prison in which she has been ordered by our judicial system to be confined to, Neese said in his statement. Her insubordination and deluded belief that she can scheme her way out of any situation is why we find ourselves at this place today and not two months ago. Although Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, she and Eddy both confessed to having spent the better part of 12 months planning Skylars killing. (Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.) Sheila Eddy, convicted of first-degree murder, will be eligible for parole in 2028. ( West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation ) At her 2023 parole hearing, Shoaf told the board that Skylars murder was a mistake she made, and that it doesnt make me a bad person. However, Neese, in his statement, called Shoaf a malicious monster who very clearly made a choice that was calculated, premeditated and willful. She and her accomplice planned my only childs vicious murder for upwards of a year, Neese continued. A year! That gave this evil monstrosity almost 365 days to change her mind, almost 52 weeks to say no to this murderous attack, almost 8,760 hours in which to realize this decision to take anothers life was irrational, and almost 525,600 minutes to to save my beloved daughters life. But instead, she made the choice to murder my Skylar. Shoafs actions devastated my life, Neese said, beseeching the board not to grant her parole. After all, if Shoaf slaughtered someone she called a friend, can you imagine what she will do to her enemies? Speaking on her own behalf from West Columbia, West Virginias Lakin Correctional Center, Shoaf told the parole board that she has been productive while inside, earning a bachelors degree and obtaining a cosmetology license. She said she leads an inmate prayer group, participates in a prison drama club and that she believes she can become a productive member of society. After roughly 10 minutes of deliberation, the board denied Shoafs early release, saying her recent violation, along with a lack of an appropriate home plan , had sunk her chances. She will get another chance at parole in June 2025. Neese told The Independent that he never imagined Shoaf and Eddy could possibly have been responsible for Skylars murder, and remains incredulous at his ever having given the teens the benefit of the doubt. Even after Shoaf came clean to police, Eddy tried to keep up appearances. In March 2013, she tweeted , rest easy skylar, youll ALWAYS be my bestfriend [sic]. i miss you more than you could ever know. To think I went to bat for both these girls, Neese went on, his tone vacillating between unadulterated outrage and profound melancholy. You know, I even went to the police and told them, Leave them alone. Theyre both missing their best friend as much as we are. And then I come to find out theyre the reason my daughter was not here. Before hanging up the phone on Tuesday, Neese offered a few final thoughts. Skylar, he said, was a good kid. And she never deserved this at all. Even if she is never granted parole, Shoaf will only serve half of her 30-year term, according to West Virginia sentencing guidelines. Her projected release date is April 30, 2028. Eddy will first become eligible for parole the following month. 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 }} Actress Ashley Judd has joined the strengthening chorus of voices which now includes several celebrities calling on President Joe Biden to step aside. In a deeply personal and heartfelt op-ed for USA Today, she wrote that some of her beloved chosen and biological family ... feverishly love Donald Trump, but she cant imagine the former president bringing his cruelty to the White House for a second term. She added that during the disastrous June 27 debate where Biden appeared confused and frail, losing his train of thought and making several gaffes the president was unable to counter Trump as he gushed a firehose of galling lies. I now ask President Joe Biden to step aside, she wrote. Judds op-ed, which argues that we cant risk a Trump presidency, comes as an increasing number of elected Democrats and activists are calling on the president to leave his race for re-election. Despite the mounting pressure, Biden has remained resolute about his decision to press on with his re-election bid, stating in no uncertain terms during his solo press conference Thursday night that hes in it to win. President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. He said hes staying in the race ( AP ) After making several noteworthy gaffes, like referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Putin earlier in the day and Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump during the press conference, Biden reaffirmed that hes running, saying I think Im the most qualified. I beat him once and I will beat him again. He insisted: Im not in this for my legacy. Im in it to finish the job Ive started. Judd is not the first actor to call on Biden to go. In a damning op-ed for The New York Times, George Clooney wrote on Wednesday that the one battle Biden cannot win is the fight against time. His plea to Biden and the Democratic party comes just weeks after Clooney hosted a fundraiser in Los Angeles that pulled in almost $30 million for the president. 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, Clooney said. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Judd, an outspoken activist on reproductive rights, wrote in her Friday op-ed that The defense of our cherished rights and freedoms, the moral imperative that we do better by more people, and our bodies, cannot be left to voters who see and are frightened of the consequences of President Bidens obvious limitations, or who are now not going to vote. Ashley Judd attends the "Lazareth" Special Screening at Crosby Street Hotel on May 09, 2024 in New York City. Shes calling on Biden to step aside ( Getty Images ) She added: We take the risk of an off night and minimize the warning signs at our gravest peril. The actress went on to say that if Trump returns to the White House, millions of people will face hurt, devastation and loss. He would wield the power of the presidency with unprecedented, incalculable cruelty and unfairness, she wrote. Judd noted that she was fired by a company and lost a life-altering paycheck after reading the I am a Nasty Woman poem at the Womens March in 2017. That is the double standard of American life for women under Donald Trump. And for all who disagree with him. Towards the end of her op-ed, she wrote, Where I sit in rural Tennessee, it is clear that Americans have already made up their minds against President Biden, on top of the majority who love to vote for Donald Trump. 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 }} After weeks of mounting pressure from within his own party, Joe Biden has now announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. In a letter posted on X on Sunday, the president said that it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President and that, though he intended to seek reelection, he now believes it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term. I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America cant do - when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America, he said. In a follow-up post, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on top of the Democratic partys ticket. Bidens announcement came after 37 Democratic and Independent lawmakers, including five senators, publicly called on him to drop out of the race for the White House while Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent Democrats privately expressed their doubts he could continue as the partys candidate. Here are the 37 lawmakers who publicly called for the president to stand aside: Biden reaffirmed his commitment to his re-election bid on Monday in a letter he shared on his X account ( EPA ) 1: Lloyd Doggett Texas Doggett, 77, became the first senior party member to break rank on July 2 and call for Biden to give up the Democratic ticket to make way for a new generation of leaders. It came just days after the presidents disaster debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, which thrust his mental fitness under the spotlight. 2. Raul Grijalva Arizona A day after Doggett called for Biden to step down as nominee, Grijalva did the same. His rationale: Democrats need to be able to put up a fight against Trump, he told The New York Times. 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 76-year-old said. 3. Seth Moulton Massachusetts On July 3, Moulton, 45, raised alarm bells that Biden would lose out to Trump come November. By Thursday he released a fully fledged statement calling for the president to bow out. After praising the presidents service to the country, he urged Biden to step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump, he said in an interview with WBUR. Later he said the president had failed to recognize him at a D-Day event in June. 4. Mike Quigley Illinois Quigley, 65, spoke with MSNBC following Bidens ABC interview on the evening of July 5 where he declared only the Lord almighty could usher him away from office. Quigley retracted his support for Biden and called for him to step aside. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this, he told host Chris Hayes. 5. Angie Craig Minnesota Bidens ABC interview was also a nail-in-coffin moment for Craig, 52, who gave the call on July 6. She maintained that she respected the incumbent president, however, she does not believe he will be able to beat Trump come election time. If we truly believe that Donald Trump and Maga Republicans must be stopped, there is only a small window left to make sure we have a candidate best equipped to make the case and win, she said. 6. Adam Smith Washington After privately calling for Bidens resignation on Sunday, 59-year-old Smith finally declared that the president should drop out in a CNN interview on July 8. He cited the inability of the incumbent to hammer home the partys message to be the tipping point. Heres the thing, we have an incredibly strong message the president has shown he is not capable of delivering that message, he told the outlet. Smith also said he grew tired of the White Houses be quiet, fall in line message, which he added isnt working. 7. Mikie Sherrill New Jersey Sherrill, 52, joined the chorus of congressional Democrats calling on the president to step down to allow another person to run for the nomination on July 9. 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 said in a statement. The representative said the consequences of a Trump presidency are too grave to stay silent. 8. Pat Ryan New York On July 10, New York Representative Pat Ryan added to the growing list of Democratic House members to call on Biden to step aside. As one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Democratic caucus, Ryan told The New York Times that Id be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall. He added: 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. 9. Earl Blumenauer Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer, 75, is the latest House Democrat to call for Biden to withdraw from the race for the White House on July 11. After giving praise to the president for his unprecedented achievements, he delivered a damning final blow in a statement on Wednesday. While this is a decision for the president and the first lady, I hope they will come to the conclusion that I and others have: President Biden should not be the Democratic presidential nominee, he said. 10. Ed Case Hawaii Hawaii Democrat Rep Ed Case of Hawaii called for Biden to drop out on July 11. My guidepost is what is the best way forward for our country. I do not believe President Biden should continue his candidacy for re-election as President, Case says. 11. Brad Schneider Illinois Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois, a leading New Democrats member, says Joe Biden should heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership. In a statement released on July 11, before listing Bidens accomplishments, he writes: If the history books were to be closed today, he would unquestionably be recorded as one of our great presidents. I fear if he fails to make the right choice, our democracy will hang in the balance. 12. Greg Stanton Arizona One of Bidens earliest 2020 supporters says it is time for him to step aside, Democrat Congressman Greg Stanton, who represents Arizonas 4th district and was formerly the mayor of Phoenix, added his name to the roster of lawmakers calling on Joe Biden to drop out for a younger generation of candidate. He wrote on X: I was one of President Biden's earliest supporters in 2020, and I'm proud of the progress we've made for Arizona. However the stakes in this election could not be higher. For our country's sake, it is time for the President to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. 13. Peter Welch Vermont The first senator to come forward, Welch wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post that the stakes could not be higher in this years presidential race against Trump and that valid questions raised following the presidents diastrous debate performance could not be ignored or dismissed. 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, he wrote. In my view, he is not. For the good of the country, Im calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race. 14. Hillary Scholten Michigan Rep Hillary Scholten of Michigan also came out against a continued Biden candidacy on July 11. She wrote on X alongside a full statement: President Joe Biden has served his country well, but for the sake of our democracy, he must pass the torch to a new candidate for the 2024 election. 15. Jim Himes Connecticut Seconds after Biden finished speaking at his post-Nato summit solo press conference, at which he at times stumbled, Rep Jim Himes the lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee joined the calls for the president not to run again. He wrote on X: Joe Bidens record of public service is unrivaled. His accomplishments are immense. His legacy as a great president is secure. He must not risk that legacy, those accomplishments and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump. 16. Scott Peters California Also responding to Bidens NATO press conference was the San Diego representative, who shared a statement in which he said: Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign. Peters argued that the stakes are high, and we are on a losing course and added: My conscience requires me to speak up and put loyalty to the country and to democracy ahead of my great affection for, and loyalty to, the president and those around him. The debate raised real concern among elected leaders, supporters, and voters that the president will not be able to wage a winning campaign. This was not a blip. And while the Biden campaign claims the post-debate national polls remain relatively unchanged, polling in the swing states has worsened alarmingly. Peters concluded: We must find a candidate from our deep bench of talent who can defeat Donald Trump... [who] must be selected through a fair and transparent process. 17. Eric Sorensen Illinois Aslo issuing a statement after Bidens Nato presser was the Illinois Democrat, who represents parts of Rockford, Bloomington-Normal, Peoria and the Illinois side of the Quad Cities region. In a post on X, Sorensen wrote: President Joe Biden is a good man who has spent the bulk of his life in service to our country. His work has been devoted to growing the middle class and building opportunity for all people. In 2020, Joe Biden ran for president with the purpose of putting country over party. Today, I am asking him to do that again. It is more important than ever that our neighbors have a candidate for president who will communicate a positive vision for every person in this country. Someone who can demonstrate the strength and wisdom needed to lead us through the worst storms. A leader who will stand up to the present threats against democracy. I believe our best days are still ahead. And today, I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for president. 18. Brittany Pettersen Colorado The freshman representative became the 18th congressional Democrat to call on the president to drop out. In a statement on July 12, he said: Joe Biden saved our country once, and Im joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again. Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, who is the greatest threat to the foundation of this country that we have ever faced. 19. Mike Levin California On Friday 12 July, the battleground Democrat became the fifth member to call on Biden to go since his Thursday press conference at the end of the NATO summit. First, let me say that President Biden has been an outstanding leader, not only of our nation, but of the entire free world. Making this statement is not easy, Levin said. He added: I have deep respect for President Bidens five plus decades of public service and incredible appreciation for the work weve done together these last three and a half years. But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch. Once again, our national mettle must be forged in the crucible of history. It is time to move forward. With a new leader. Together. 20. Adam Schiff California The high-ranking California Democrat, who is running for a Senate seat this fall, told The Los Angeles Times that while the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Bidens alone, it is time for him to pass the torch. Schiff added that he would support whoever replaced Biden should he step down. A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November. 21. Jon Tester Montana A senator whose seat is looking extremely vulnerable right now, Tester came forward publicly to call on Biden to make way on July 18. I have worked with President Biden when it has made Montana stronger, and Ive never been afraid to stand up to him when he is wrong, he wrote in a statement posted to X. And while I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek reelection to another term. 22. Sean Casten Illinois Representative Sean Casten penned an op-ed that appeared in The Chicago Tribune on July 19 calling on the president to pass the torch. It is with a heavy heart and much personal reflection that I am therefore calling on Joe Biden to pass the torch to a new generation, Casten wrote. To manage an exit with all the dignity and decency that has guided his half-century of public service. To cement his legacy as the president who saved our democracy in 2020 and handed it off to trusted hands in 2024 who could carry his legacy forward. 23. Jim Costa California The California Democrat told CBS Thursday that it is time for Biden to leave the race and said that more Democrats may follow. I am proud of the work we have done to pass monumental legislation that is leading to the first real investments in our communities in decades, he wrote in a statement. For the good of the country, I think it is time for the President to pass the torch to the next generation to carry on the legacy he started. 24-27. Jared Huffman California; Marc Veasey Texas; Chuy Garcia Illinois; Marc Pocan Wisconsin In a joint message to Biden Friday morning, Representative Huffman and three other congressional Democrats called on the president to step aside from the race. Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders, they wrote. We must have the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign Passing the torch would fundamentally change the trajectory of the campaign. 28. Martin Heinrich New Mexico The New Mexico Democrat became the third senator to call on Biden to drop out of the race, writing in a statement Friday that while the decision to withdraw from the campaign is President Bidens alone, I believe it is in the best interests of our country for him to step aside. The return of Donald Trump to the White House poses an existential danger to our democracy. We can defeat him in November, and we need a candidate who can do that. 29. Greg Landsman Ohio Democrat Greg Landsman, who represents Ohios first congressional district, joined the growing chorus of lawmakers Friday calling on Biden to drop out. Landsman wrote on X: After weeks of consideration and hundreds of conversations with constituents, I have come to the conclusion that Joe Biden is no longer the best person to make that case. I respect Joe Biden. He saved our democracy in 2020. He cares deeply about our country, he cares deeply about our democracy, he cares deeply about freedom, and he cares deeply about working people, he added. It is time for President Biden to step aside and allow us to nominate a new leader who can reliably and consistently make the case against Donald Trump and make the case for the future of America. 30. Zoe Lofgren California Representative Zoe Lofgren, a close Bay Area ally of Nancy Pelosi who served as a member of the January 6 committee, joined Democrats Friday urging the president to step aside. In a letter sent to Biden, Lofgren wrote your candidacy is on a trajectory to lose the White House and potentially impact crucial House and Senate races down the ballot. I urge you to step aside from our Partys nomination to allow another Democratic candidate to compete against and beat Donald Trump in the November election. 31. Kathy Castor Florida Representative Kathy Castor, the former chair of the House select committee on the climate crisis, joined the growing list on Friday. I think its an exciting time to possibly pass the torch, Castor told local outlet WFLA. Kamala Harris is a fighter and I have full confidence in her, she continued. 32. Betty McCollum Minnesota Representative Betty McCollum called for Biden to drop out of the race and called for Kamala Harris to run alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Winning in November and defeating Trumps dangerous, hate-filled agenda must be Democrats sole focus, McCollum said, per local outlet Fox 9. To give Democrats a strong, viable path to winning the White House, I am calling upon President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice-President Harris to step forward to become the Democratic nominee for President. If she becomes our Democratic nominee, Vice-President Harris will need a strong Midwestern running-mate and I encourage her and the Democratic delegates to consider a successful leader who has been a teacher, soldier, football coach, former-member of Congress, and a proven winner Minnesotas Gov. Tim Walz. 33. Morgan McGarvey Kentucky Representative Morgan McGarvey praised Bidens policy record but said the president should not be our nominee in November. But the stakes of this election are too high and we cant risk the focus of the campaign being anything other than Donald Trump, his MAGA extremists, and the mega-wealthy dark money donors who are prepared to destroy our path toward a more perfect union with Trumps Project 2025, McGarvey said in a statement. Project 2025 a blueprint for Trumps presidency spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and more than a dozen former Trump administration officials is essentially a wishlist for his future administration. The 900-page document includes plans to expand his executive authority, replace civil servants with ideologically aligned appointees, crush abortion rights and impose an anti-immigrant agenda. 34. Gabe Vasquez New Mexico Representative Gabe Vasquez was among the 13 lawmakers who called for Biden to step down on July 19 alone. President Joe Biden is an honorable public servant who has dedicated his career to bettering the lives of all Americans, Vasquez said in a statement. However, I believe too many of our fundamental freedoms and the wellbeing of our nation are at risk under a Trum presidency and President Biden should step aside to give Democrats the best opportunity to win this November, he continued. 35. Sherrod Brown Ohio Sherrod Brown is now the fourth Democratic senator to call on the president to quit the 2024 race. Over the last few weeks, Ive heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban, Brown told NBC News. I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me, Brown continued. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign. 36. Mark Takano California Representative Mark Takano echoed rhetoric used by many of his Democratic colleagues, calling on Biden to pass the torth to his vice president. President Bidens greatest accomplishment remains saving democracy in 2020. He can and must do so again in 2024by passing the torch to Vice President Harris as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee, Takano said. It has become clear to me that the demands of a modern campaign are now best met by the Vice President, who can seamlessly transition into the role of our partys standard bearer. 37. Joe Manchin West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat for many years before switching to Independent in 2024, called on Biden to drop out on July 21. He announced last year he will not seek re-election after finishing his term. I came to the decision with a heavy heart that its time to pass the torch to a new generation, Manchin said. Manchin is the fifth senator to make this plea. Gustaf Kilander, Oliver OConnell, Joe Sommerlad and Katie Hawkinson contributed to this report 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 }} President Joe Biden is under growing pressure from Democratic officials to end his re-election campaign and we want to know if you think this is the right move. At a high-stakes press conference on Thursday, Biden mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. Moments earlier, he introduced Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky as president Putin. The slips came as Biden, 81, faces intense scrutiny over his fitness for office and viability against Republican rival Donald Trump. Arriving on stage, Biden aimed to reassure both party officials and voters of his capability to campaign effectively over the next four months. But, addressing a series of questions, Biden asserted: I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump if shes not qualified to be president, before correcting his error. When asked if he would consider stepping down if polling showed Harris had a better chance against Trump, Biden whispered, No ones saying that. Biden remained defiant about his candidacy, citing his track record and international accomplishments, especially highlighted during the recent NATO summit. Im the most qualified person to beat Trump. I beat him once, Ill beat him again, he stated. But we want to know what you think. Is Biden best placed to run in November? Should Harris take his place? Share your thoughts by adding them in the comments well highlight the most insightful ones as they come in. You can also have your say in the poll below: All you have to do is sign up and register your details then you can take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking log in on the top right-hand corner of the screen. Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines , which can be found here . For a full guide on how to comment click here. Join the conversation with other Independent readers below. 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 }} Joe Biden delivered his much anticipated big boy press conference on the sidelines of the Nato summit on Thursday night, marking his latest attempt to put mounting fears about his fitness to serve another term to rest. In Thursday nights high-stakes briefing, the president spoke to reporters for just under an hour, answering 19 questions from 10 journalists, and once again insisting that he is the best person to take on Donald Trump in November. I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once and I will beat him again, he said. Theres a long way to go this campaign and so I Im just gonna keep moving. The press conference comes at the end of a crucial two weeks for the 81-year-old president to reassure American voters, donors and House and Senate Democrats that he should remain in the 2024 presidential race, following his abysmal performance in the first presidential debate last month. Biden has sought to counter that nights performance where he stumbled over his words, appeared frail and lost his train of thought with a string of public appearances and high-stakes interviews. But, rather than prove the debate was a one-off, the president has simply added to his list of gaffes. Heres a look at Bidens latest gaffes since the disastrous debate: Biden confuses Kamala Harris with Trump The president has a long and occasionally glorious history of blunders in his public statements, cheerily describing himself as a gaffe machine in the past. During Thursdays press conference at the Nato conference, he managed to confuse his own deputy, Vice President Kamala Harris, with Trump. I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think shes not qualified to be president he said. It was quickly seized on by Trump, who took to Truth Social to say: Crooked Joe begins his Big Boy Press Conference with, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president. Great job, Joe! Trump wrote. Biden calls Harris Vice President Trump in slip up at NATO news conference Introduces Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin And that wasnt his only stunning mix-up on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as his nemesis Russian President Vladimir Putin. And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine who has as much courage as he does determination. Ladies and gentlemen, president Putin, Biden said. The president caught his mistake quickly and corrected himself: President Putin? Hes going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. Im so focused on beating Putin. Zelensky generously brushed the matter aside with a quip, saying simpy: Im better. Youre a hell of a lot better, Biden added. Biden mistakenly calls Zelensky 'Putin' while introducing him at NATO summit Ill beat him again in 2020! At a rally in Madison, Wisconsin on July 5, the president told a raucous crowd: Let me say this as clearly as I can, I am staying in the race. Ill beat Donald Trump. Ill beat him again in 2020! Again realising his blunder with the years, he backpedalled swiftly, adding: ...Oh, and by the way, Ill do it again in 2024! First Black woman to serve with a Black president On Independence Day, the president gave an interview to Philadelphias WURD radio station where he claimed he was the first Black woman to serve with a Black president. By the way, Im proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman to serve with a Black president, he said. Biden appeared to be highlighting his appointment of Harris, 59, as the first Black vice president as well as first woman to hold the job. To add to the confusion, Biden was himself vice president to the first Black president, Barack Obama, serving from 2009. Joe Biden says he is first black woman to serve with a black president We finally beat Medicare During the debate itself in Georgia, which sparked the current state of crisis within th Democratic party, Biden appeared frail and spoke in a hoarse and rasping voice. But the exchange that caused most concern was when Biden lost his train of thought and trailed off into incoherence during a rambling answer about healthcare provision. Biden freezes mid-answer during presidential election debate Wed be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that were able to make every single solitary person eligible for what Ive been able to do with the Covid excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with Look, if we finally beat Medicare, he said. The White House later explained he had meant to say Big Pharma but the mistake opened the door to Trump, who pounced with the improvisation: Hes right: He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death. 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 }} After a competent but stumbling appearance at a high-stakes press conference on the worlds stage Thursday evening, President Joe Bidens campaign is hoping to end a weekslong crisis as he faces calls to end his re-election campaign over growing concerns about his viability and fitness for office. But the campaigns been unable to stop a deluge of lawmakers, prominent celebrities, and donors calling on him to quit, with potentially $90 million worth of donations now at stake if he remains atop the ticket. Barack Obama has even reportedly spoken privately with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about concerns that he may not be up to the task of defeating Donald Trump, adding to fears that the president will spend the next several months heading into an election he cannot win. According to multiple reports, Obama and Pelosi are still unsure of how to make the case to Biden that he needs to stand down. Obama appeared with Biden at a fundraiser last month, before the 81-year-old presidents floundering performance in his first 2024 debate against Trump. He initially spoke up in Bidens defense in a post-debate social media post, but he hasnt spoken on the matter since, and appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach in the hopes that Biden will make a decision on his own. Biden has insisted on staying in the race, most recently during his closely watched press conference at the close of the annual NATO summit in Washington. Speaking to a packed house of high-ranking officials and reporters on July 11, Biden used the opportunity to underscore what he described as the global stakes of the 2024 election while warning against the threat of his predecessor fracturing long-held alliances. Yet at the same time he was hoping to calm nerves and demonstrate his continued fitness, he was leaving supporters holding their breath. Joe Biden and Barack Obama appear at a fundraiser in Los Angeles on June 15. ( AFP via Getty Images ) Having mixed up the names of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin during an event just hours before the news conference, he did nothing to assuage concerns when he then mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump as he answered a question from a reporter about her qualifications. Within 12 hours after his press conference ended, at least four more House Democrats called on him to step aside and let a younger candidate enter the race against Trump. At least 19 Democratic members of Congress have now called on Biden to leave the race, including one sitting senator. Actors and major Democratic donors George Clooney and Ashley Judd have also written newspaper op-eds urging him to end his campaign. Meanwhile, several major donors have reportedly told the largest pro-Biden political action committee that roughly $90 million in pledged donations could be at risk. House Democrats are also furious that the White House and Bidens campaign have appeared to brush aside fears that their own campaigns could be compromised with the failure of an unelectable candidate leading the ticket. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Biden the evening of the press conference to discuss a path forward for 2024. Bidens campaign has also acknowledged a shrinking path to victory on the Electoral College map. A recent memo states that the campaign is now focused on securing the blue wall of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It is unclear how the Democratic Party will compete in other battleground states that Biden won in 2020, and how down-ballot races will be affected in the shuffle. Bidens press conference intended to affirm Americas strengthened relationships with allies in the face of Russias war in Ukraine and an emboldened Vladimir Putin in an age of Trumps nationalism. But Biden was asked about whether he can realistically beat his rival, if he will commit to a neurological exam before Election Day, and if he would even agree to step aside if polls showed he would definitively lose. Im not in this for my legacy, he said. Im in this to complete the job I started. The next day, he returned to the campaign trial in Detroit appearing at the same high school where he pledged to be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders during his 2020 campaign. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters at a press conference in Washington DC on July 12. ( REUTERS ) In campaign rallies in the aftermath of the June 27 debate, Biden has suggested that elites are plotting against him, and that the push to end his campaign is coming from powerful unseen opponents. But concerns about Bidens age and fitness have been an issue since before the debate, and reports have suggested that his staff has been actively covering up signs of the presidents decline. While Biden was addressing his political future, Trump was meeting with Hungarys far-right prime minister Viktor Orban, who had recently met with Putin and China President Xi Jinping. Orban had ditched NATO to visit Trumps Mar-a-Lago compound. Trumps campaign has exploited news of Bidens fitness by deflecting from questions about his own competency as he continues to hold his own hard-to-follow and lie-filled campaign rallies. 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 }} Just hours before the big boy press conference that was intended to reassure us all, President Joe Biden made a catastrophic mistake. Inviting Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to the stage at a NATO event, he accidentally referred to him as President Putin. It was a nail-biting moment and groans could be heard in the room as it happened. Bidens seconds-later excuse that he was just so focused about beating Putin while he was talking that he slipped up was hardly reassuring. Hours later, The Independent joined a small number of reporters allowed to attend the hour-long press conference on Thursday night. The White House had asked us to RSVP in advance, presumably to filter through names, and I only received confirmation that I could actually attend on Thursday morning. Planned for 5.30pm, we then received emails letting us know the presser was delayed first by an hour, then a little longer. In the end, it didnt start until after 7pm. President Joe Biden departs after speaking at a news conference following the NATO Summit in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2024 ( AP ) And then the president opened by making the same kind of mistake hed committed with Zelensky hours before. Biden spoke mostly from a teleprompter for the big boy press conference, only going off-script when reporters posed questions. Early on, he concluded some remarks delivered from that prepared, teleprompter-borne script about the success of the NATO summit and the strength of the 75-year-old alliance by allowing a question about Vice President Kamala Harriss qualifications. I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to serve, he said, if he didnt think she was qualified. It was an awkward moment; this time, the groans were subdued a couple under peoples breaths, but not much more. Normally, as a reporter attending a press conference, one sits in a densely packed scrum with other journalists from varied publications, and one raises their hand and tries to get the speakers attention. The speaker points, you ask your question, you hopefully get an answer. But it became clear that Thursday night wasnt going to be that sort of press conference within minutes of entering the room. White House press office staffers moved reporters around, making sure certain journalists were near the aisles or the outer ends of the rows of seats. And sure enough, despite the promise of a big boy press conference, Biden the man who can single-handedly order a nuclear strike that could snuff out millions in an instant called the names of those his assistants had picked out for him. The usually much more free and open style of a White House press conference was transformed: things felt extremely choreographed. After Biden finished speaking, one TV correspondent with a booming voice was able to get him to address the fact that hed mixed up Harris and Trump earlier. But White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre quickly took up a microphone to cut off any other reporters effort to ask him anything else. For the most part, however, its fair to say that Biden delivered a one-hour, four-minute performance on Thursday night that was unremarkable, in a good way. He responded to detailed foreign policy questions with equally detailed answers that went on for minutes at a time, demonstrating a command of facts one would expect from a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and ex-vice president. Biden also defiantly continued to say he will be staying in the presidential race, and told another reporter who asked about his cognitive status that his doctors have seen no reason for him to undergo any more neurological exams than the three he has already taken since entering the White House. At the end of the event, when The Independent noted to a White House press office staffer that Bidens press conference had been choreographed, she responded that that view of the conference was negative. The last time Joe Biden made even a token effort to appear as if he was taking questions from the entire White House press corps was 610 days ago, in 2022. That was just days after Republicans had taken control of the House of Representatives and ended the Democrats unified control over Washington. Nearly two years later, this highly-touted question-and-answer session was meant to prove that Biden is still up to the rigors of a campaign by holding the sort of freewheeling back-and-forth with reporters that Trump has engaged in on multiple occasions. The more controlled and stage-managed interactions that have characterized his presidency just arent going to cut it any more. But if Bidens job was to convince voters and skeptical Democrats in Congress that hes still up for running and winning against Trump a second time, the deluge of statements calling for his withdrawal within moments of the press conference ending is a strong indicator that he didnt pull it off. Nevertheless, the fact that the president mainly held his own for over an hour marks this out as one of the lesser disasters of the past two and a half weeks. 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 }} Following weeks of pressure and speculation, Joe Biden announced in a letter on Sunday, July 21, that he would drop out of the race for the White House and was backing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his place. Following a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, when he appeared confused and frail, made several gaffes, and lost his train of thought, more than 30 Democratic lawmakers publicly called for him to end his candidacy in favor of a younger candidate. Senior voices behind the scenes like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were said to be encouraging him to step aside. Insiders had previously told The Independent that they believed there was no question Vice President Kamala Harris would receive the baton if and when Biden chose not to run in November. But how would replacing Biden actually work? Heres the process: The clock is ticking The partys nominee will be officially chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago between 19 and 22 August. Almost all of the nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates are currently pledged to Biden after he swept the primary races. But during a press conference earlier this month, Biden had already said of the delegates: Theyre free to do whatever they want. President Joe Biden bowed to weeks of pressure and decided to step off the Democratic ticket ( AP ) Tomorrow, if all of a sudden I show up at the convention and everyone says we want someone else, thats the democratic process. Its not going to happen. But its a bit more complicated than that. During the roll call vote to officially select the nominee, delegates who choose not to back the acknowledged candidate would have to vote present rather than vote for a different candidate. Now that he has stepped aside, delegates will have to vote for someone else. Brookings senior fellow Elaine Kamarck told CNN that the rule for electing nominees, in place since the 1984 convention, states that delegates should in all good conscience vote for the person they were selected to represent. But she added: Its never been tested. Theres no legal history on what in all good conscience means ... Weve never had a convention where a lot of people voted against the person that they got elected with. Now Biden has stepped aside Now that Biden is no longer a candidate, Democrats will have to pick a new presidential nominee. And the logistics surrounding that are not simple. The modern primary campaigning and nominating process began in earnest during John F Kennedys 1960 run for president. Before that, nominating a candidate bore more resemblance to proverbial smoke-filled rooms where party elders selected the nominee away from the eyes and ears of the public. Thats infeasible at this moment, particularly for a party that bills itself as a defender of democracy. At the same time, Democrats would risk a battle royale if too many candidates were to emerge in the race. With Biden out, the process will have to be carefully handled to make sure this didnt scupper the partys chances against Trump in November. A process that is open, transparent, and energizing Enter James Zogby, member of the Democratic National Committee, who worked on Jesse Jacksons campaigns and whom Bernie Sanders nominated to serve on the party platform committee in 2016. Zogby recently sent a memo, seen by The Independent, to DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison laying out how to replace Biden in the event that he would step down. The central idea is to create a process that is open, transparent, and energizing, while, at the same time, legitimate and democratic, the memo reads. And it is one that is deeply respectful of the president and his accomplishments. The plan would require that any prospective candidate secure the endorsement of 40 committee members since most members are elected officials and that they must include four members from each region. Kamala is seen as the top candidate to replace Biden ( AFP via Getty Images ) After the deadline, candidates would appear during televised events to make their case to voters. That would culminate in a nominating process at the Democratic National Convention in August. It is not a coronation, the memo says. ...For at least one month, national media will be focused on our candidates and their exciting process, drawing sharp contrast with the antics of GOP nominee. Given that we can likely predict the pool of potential candidates (Vice President Harris, Governors, Senators, Members of Congress) the debate they will have will no doubt be respectful and substantive. Zogbys proposal is an audacious one. It would require TV networks to comply and broadcast the debate. And despite his optimism, there is no guarantee that the contest for delegates would be a clean fight. Indeed, the old ways were rife with kickbacks, corruption, and back-scratching. And Republicans would make hay of the disarray that Democrats face. But it might be one of the few options the party has. In 2020, Democratic primary voters chose Biden almost as soon as he won in South Carolina, and then, as a way to prohibit a challenger, the party moved the state up the calendar in 2024. Democrats ostracized heretics like Representative Dean Phillips who suggested something different, even if he was an admittedly imperfect messenger for his cause. Many Democrats might now want to take a look at Zogbys proposal. A question of cash There are a number of reasons that party leaders think Harris will now be handed the nomination one of them being the campaign cash. Biden and Harris have raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the last couple of years. The money has been divided between the Democratic National Committee, the Biden campaign, almost all state Democratic parties, as well as a number of joint fundraising committees that send cash around all those groups. Those entities had collectively about $240m in cash in hand as of June 30. While most of the funds, such as those controlled by the Democratic National Committee, wouldnt be affected by changing the top of the ticket, the most valuable cash is held by the Biden-Harris campaign committee, which had a $91m war chest as of May 30. Those funds have been raised by, and belong to, the Biden-Harris ticket, and which follow those two candidates. Harris will be able to access those funds. However, if Harris isnt chosen as the partys nominee, the funds would have to be refunded or, as is more likely, transferred to a federal Super PAC. But those funds would then no longer be directly controlled by the campaign. 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 }} Actor George Clooney wasnt the only Democrat who became worried about President Joe Biden after a swanky fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles last month. Just two weeks before the June 27 debate that set off a crisis within the Democratic party, a frail Biden tripped over his words at the star-studded event even as it raised more than $30 million for his campaign coffers. Jon Favreau, a speechwriter in the Obama White House and Pod Save America co-host, told The Washington Post: I said to my wife, either hell do great at the debate, and well realize he was just tired tonight, or hell perform like this and then the whole country will be talking about it. He added that Biden was slow, halting, and hard to follow. A number of donors told the paper the president appeared slow and frail, his words trailing off during small talk with attendees as he greeted them to take photos, at times speaking too silently to be heard. The debate confirmed the worries of many voters and donors that Biden was not the same man who appeared on the stage next to Donald Trump four years previously. But the reporting now also casts doubt on why some didnt speak out sooner. George Clooney, Joe Biden, Julia Roberts, and Barack Obama ( X/@mmpadellan ) Biden had arrived in Los Angeles from Italy that same morning, meeting with donors and other allies for more than two hours before joining former President Barack Obama and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel on stage for an event that lasted about 36 minutes. Attendees told The Post that the president at times didnt make sense and frequently struggled to speak clearly. It felt like he was still the smart, witty guy weve all followed for many years, but the volume and speed are turned way down to an alarming level, one backer who donated $100,000 told the paper, adding that Biden appeared to miss a joke shared with Obama as they prepared for a photo. She said Biden later tried to respond in a barely audible voice after the photo had been taken and others had moved along. A Biden campaign spokesperson noted toThe Post that Several reporters were present for the Presidents interview with Jimmy Kimmel at the L.A. fundraiser. None of them reported out anything like this at the time. The anonymous donor told the paper that she struggled to answer them honestly, when friends asked about Bidens state. We were worried that if we told the truth, that President Biden was stiff, slow and dare we say it, fragile, that we risked losing their support for the president, she said, adding that It was painful to be deceptive. Now, we realize we were not alone in withholding what we experienced. Access to the most exclusive parts of the fundraiser, such as the photo line, reception, and the after party, cost attendees $500,000, according to The Los Angeles Times. The cheapest ticket cost $250. In an op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday, 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. One Democratic lawmaker who attended the soiree told The Post: Ive been with him. I know what to expect, adding that Its hard to think hes our best chance to beat Trump. 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 }} Senator Joe Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, told The Independent maybe I made a mistake when he voted on amendments that would restrict gender-affirming care for US servicemembers and their families. Earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would cover Fiscal Year 2025. The NDAA provides authorization to appropriate money for the Department of Defense, the Department of Energys nuclear weapons programs and other defense-related activities. Republicans recently have sought to include conservative policy priorities into the bill because of its must-pass nature. Earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the bill as it prepares for a full Senate vote. But tucked into the bill are two amendments that would restrict gender-affirming care. One amendment would prohibit the coverage under the TRICARE program of certain medical procedures for children that could result in sterilization. TRICARE is the health care program for active duty US service members, their families, members of the US National Guard and Reserves, their families, retirees and their families as well as certain former spouses who were married to US service members. Around 9.6 million people use the program. A second one would prohibit the performance by the Department of Defense of sex change surgeries. Manchin, formerly a Democrat who recently became an independent, announced last year he would not seek re-election. The senator voted with every Republican on both amendments while every Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee voted against the amendments. But when asked about the amendments, Manchin said he did not know he did. I better check on that, huh? Maybe I made a mistake, he told The Independent. The Independent reached out to Manchins office for clarification. Senator Manchin believes that Americans who want to serve our country and can meet the standards should have the chance to do so, a spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent. However, taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for any services or treatments that are associated with gender transition. The spokesperson did not clarify why Manchin said he might have made a mistake hours earlier. The US Armed Forces is the largest employer of transgender people in the United States, according to the International Center for Transgender Care. The ACLU criticized the the inclusion of the two amendments in the defense bill. This is a dangerous affront to the rights and freedom of transgender servicemembers with no financial, legal, political, or medical justification, Ian Thompson, the ACLUs senior legislative advocate, said in a statement. These treatments serve as the foundation of the lives transgender people lead, lives that trans servicemembers have offered in service to the United States armed forces. Democrats have feared that gender-affirming care might be at risk under a Trump presidency, especially considering provisions listed in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations proposed agenda for a future Republican administration. A longtime Democrat from the conservative state of West Virginia, Manchin announced in late May that he had re-registered as an independent. But for committee purposes, he continues to caucus with the Democrats. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed its version of the NDAA last month. That legislation specifically includes an amendment to prohibit coverage of certain gender transition procedures and related services under TRICARE program. I don't think that taxpayers dollars should be used for surgeries that change the physical appearance, Representative Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana who authored the amendment, told The Independent. The Senate has yet to vote on their version of the NDAA. But if it were to pass, the House and Senate would go to conference to create a compromise bill. Manchins vote almost increases the likelihood that any final version of the defense bill includes restrictions to gender-affirming care for US servicemembers and their families. 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 }} A federal judge has thrown out cash-strapped Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy case, opening the door for election workers he defamed to recover tens of millions of dollars owed to them for his baseless allegations surrounding the 2020 election. Giuliani also failed to change his case from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 in an attempt to liquidate his assets. A decision from bankruptcy court judge Sean Lane on Friday came days after Giuliani himself moved to dismiss his case, and after lawyers for the two election workers and other people the disgraced former New York City mayor owes money to had agreed that the move was the best path forward. The end of his attempts to get bankruptcy protection does not let him off the hook for his mountain of debts. His creditors will still be able to rely on the courts to collect what theyre owed, including pressing for court orders to seize his properties and other assets. Giulianis lawyer Gary Fischoff told the court on Wednesday that dismissing the case would give him the best chance of appealing the defamation verdict. Lawyers for the creditors committee asked the court to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee instead, which would mean Giuliani would relinquish control of his finances for the most equitable outcome for the creditors, many of whom have not yet resolved their litigation against him. Those cases have been on pause since Giulianis bankruptcy case began. The stays will now be lifted. Rudy Giuliani is pictured leaving a federal courthouse in December 2023 after he was ordered to pay $148 million to election workers he defamed. ( REUTERS ) In his order on Friday, Judge Lane said the courts record reflects Mr. Giulianis continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession. The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case, the judge added. It has been impossible to determine whether his financial arrangements are appropriate when Mr. Giuliani has completely failed to provide information about them, Judge Lane added. Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December in the wake of a nearly $150 million defamation judgment for his election lies. A bizarre monthslong behind-the-scenes courtroom drama that followed has laid bare his financial state as he battles criminal indictments across the country. The defamation verdict is among a growing list of legal obligations for Giuliani, including criminal charges in Georgia and in Arizona for his efforts to reverse Donald Trumps election loss in those states. He also is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal criminal case surrounding Trumps attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Former Georgia election workers Wandrea Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation and were awarded a $148m verdict. Giuliani later filed for bankruptcy protection to navigate his debts, a case that was dismissed on July 12. The women can now try to collect from him directly while he tries to appeal. ( AP ) A creditors committee navigating his bankruptcy case has repeatedly complained about his deficiencies in his financial reporting and disclosures, like discrepancies related to payments on his Florida condo; his unauthorized payments to his alleged girlfriend; and his failure to comply with discovery requests. Giuliani also is being sued by voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for defamation. A former Dominion executive has separately sued Giuliani. Creditors have also separately asked a judge to impose sanctions against him after failing to comply with document requests. This week, the committees lawyers accused him of treating the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man. Wednesdays hearing was nothing short of chaotic. Giuliani, who was in attendance via Zoom, interrupted the proceeding after a lawyer for the election workers suggested she would seek jail time for Giulianis alleged bankruptcy crimes. Would someone get them on the phone? Giuliani yelled, prompting the judge to request he mute his microphone. But Giuliani didnt listen and instead insisted the lawyers comments were highly defamatory, your honor. In a statement on Friday, Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said Giuliani was unfairly denied the ability to appeal the grossly unfair $148 million judgement and claimed that the whole bankruptcy case was burdened with many of the same voluminous and overly broad discovery requests and other actions including regular leaks of information intended to harm the mayor and destroy his businesses. We will continue to pursue justice and we are confident that in the long run our system of justice will be restored and the mayor will be totally vindicated, he added. 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 was meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington, DC, on Thursday as part of the latest NATO summit to discuss ending Russias invasion of Ukraine, his presidential rival Donald Trump was hosting Hungarys Kremlin-friendly authoritarian leader Viktor Orban at his home in Florida. Orban branded his visit peace mission 5.0 in a tweet, posting a picture of himself posing beside the American at Mar-a-Lago as both men grinned and made the thumbs-up sign. We discussed ways to make peace, the Hungarian prime minister wrote. The good news of the day: hes going to solve it! Trump replied to that with a message of his own that read: There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started! The presumptive presidential nominee has repeatedly claimed that Vladimir Putins invasion of his western neighbour state in February 2022 would never have happened if he had remained in power, promising to resolve the conflict quickly should he win back the White House while also expressing confidence he can secure the release of imprisoned American journalist Evan Gershkovich with minimal diplomatic fuss. Before heading south for his latest reunion with Trump in Palm Beach, Orban attended the DC summit as his country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, although the PM is something of an outlier on the issue of Ukraine, given his friendly relations with Putin, opposition to supplying Kyiv with weapons and rejection of sanctions against Moscow. Orban met Putin in person in Moscow on July 5, just three days before brutal Russian air strikes hit a childrens hospital, but did not sit down for bilateral talks with Biden at the summit, having endured an inevitably frosty relationship with the Democrat given their opposing positions on the war. That was unlikely to ease after the Hungarian told German media earlier this week that he believed a Trump victory in Novembers US presidential election would be good for the world politics and might provide an end to the deadlock in Ukraine, commenting: I think new leadership will provide new chances. Last month, Trumps eldest son traveled to Hungary, where he also met with Orban and gave a talk entitled The World According to Donald Trump Jr. Orban was last at former president Trumps home in March, after which he came away claiming his good friend would not give a penny to Ukraine if he returned to the Oval Office and posted on X: We need leaders in the world who are respected and can bring peace. He is one of them! Come back and bring us peace, Mr President. Trump returned the favor by sending a short video message to the Hungarian leg of the Conservative Political Action Conference in April in which he called Orban a great man and said he was honoured to address so many patriots in Hungary... proudly fighting on the front lines of the battle to rescue western civilisation. Donald Trump welcomes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 11 2024 ( Zoltan Fischer/X/AFP/Getty ) Together were engaged in an epic struggle to liberate our nations from all of the sinister forces who want to destroy them. Responding to news of the latest Trump-Orban meeting, Bidens National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, pointedly, on Thursday: The US position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians consent or support is not something thats consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States. Trumps friendship with Orban was explained to The Independent in March by Robert Benson, a senior policy analyst with the Center for American Progress, who said the two men were bonded because they see themselves in a civilizational battle, which is steeped in anti-immigrant xenophobia, in right-wing nationalism, and in tropes about the nation-state. Kim Scheppele, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, said, more bluntly, that the two self-styled strongmen recognized a kinship in one another because they are both just opportunistic, transactionalists looking to cut a deal whenever it happen. Former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who also met with Putin in Moscow earlier this year, is another American right-winger in thrall to Orban and released a documentary in 2022 in which he naively presented Hungary as a model conservative state under the latters iron grip. 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 }} An Australian soldier and her husband have been charged with spying for Russia amid its escalating war in Ukraine. Army private Kira Korolev, 40, and Igor Korolev, 62, were arrested from their Brisbane home on Thursday. They were accused of collecting information about the Australian military to share with Moscow. They were scheduled to appear before a Brisbane court on Friday, said federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw. The couple migrated from Russia over a decade ago. Ms Korolev became an Australian citizen in 2016 and her husband in 2020. They are the first Australians to be charged under the countrys sweeping espionage laws enacted in 2018. They face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted. Ms Korolev, who was an "information systems technician" in the army, undertook "non-declared" travel to Russia in 2023 while on leave, the police commissioner said. The husband, a labourer, allegedly accessed Ms Korolevs work account from their Brisbane home and sent requested classified information to her in Russia. "We allege her husband would access requested material and would send to his wife in Russia. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities," Mr Kershaw said. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation. Mike Burgess, director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said the couple were held after a "lengthy and complex investigation". If sufficient evidence is found that they indeed shared the classified information with Russia, the charges could be upgraded. In that case, the potential maximum prison sentence upon conviction would be 25 years or life. Mr Burgess said spying was not a "quaint" notion and could have "catastrophic consequences". "Espionage is real. Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australia's secrets, he said. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said he had been "briefed extensively" about the matter and that the charges showed law enforcement agencies were continually vigilant. It was reported last year that Australia had quietly expelled a suspected Russian spy ring comprising embassy and consular staff. Moscow last year accused Australia of Russophobic hysteria for cancelling the lease on land where it wanted to build a new embassy. The Australian government judged the site to be a security risk because it was close to parliament. 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 }} Ukraines top prosecutor has urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russia over a missile strike on a childrens hospital that killed or wounded dozens of doctors and civilians. Prosecutor general Andriy Kostin, who was in The Hague where the ICC is based, for meetings with legal officials, said the strike was worth lifting to the court in part because Kyiv seeks to demonstrate the systematic nature of Russias attack on civilians. For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC, he said. At least 44 people were killed and around 200 wounded by the Russian strikes on Monday in what one United Nations aid worker described as one of the worst attacks they had seen since February 2022, when the full-scale invasion began. The attacks hit cities across the country, killing 10 in Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskys hometown of Kryvyi Rih, but three quarters of the fatalities came from the capital. The strike on Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in central Kyiv killed two adults and injured around 90 people, according to the citys military administration, while another 31 died in six other districts of the city. Ukraines health ministry said the childrens toxicology ward was completely destroyed and another dozen departments were damaged, forcing hundreds of patients in need of urgent care to relocate for further treatment. A part of the countrys only oncology and haematology laboratory was also damaged. In a written response to questions from The Independent, they added that they were aware of several cases of injuries to children who were operated on by splinters of glass broken by an explosion. The ICC does not publicly comment on what it is investigating but confirmed that one of its teams had visited the site of the hospital strike, and it has warned that anyone deemed responsible for attacking civilian sites could be prosecuted. They have issued six arrest warrants for alleged Russian crimes in Ukraine already, including one against president Vladimir Putin. Mr Kostin said an investigation could help establish a pattern of attacks that show Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Last month, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russias chief security advisor Sergei Shoigu and armed forces chief Valery Gerasimov in relation to alleged attacks on civilians. Moscow denies attacking the hospital and has blamed Ukrainian anti-missile fire for the destruction at the clinic, which is one of Europes largest and treats patients with serious conditions such as cancer and kidney disease. But a UN rights mission has said there is a high likelihood the hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile, and Ukraines security service said it had unequivocal evidence the medical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. Mr Kostin said the decision to prosecute lies with the ICCs prosecutor alone, adding that Ukraine was ready to share any physical evidence or details of its investigation with the court. Its important to show that Russia itself, at the moment, is a criminal state, 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 Spanish far-right Vox party has said it is pulling out of five power-sharing deals across Spain in protest at national migration policy. The Vox Party, which runs Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Aragon and Murcia, in partnership with the centre-right Peoples Party (PP), said it would resign and go into opposition. The PP on Wednesday backed a plan by Spain's central Socialist-run government to move around 400 under-18 migrants from the Canary Islands to the peninsula. The vice-presidents - in the regional governments - will announce their resignation and Vox will go into opposition, Vox Party leader Santiago Abascal said. Without Voxs support, these regions may not be able to approve a budget for 2025. Founded in 2013, Vox has become the third-largest party in Spain. The Spanish far-right will pull out of power-sharing deals across the country in protest of national migration policy. Pictured: Vox Party supporters in May ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ) Around 19,000 migrants, mostly from West Africa, arrived on the islands off sub-Saharan Africa in the first six months of 2024, a 167 per cent increase from the same period a year earlier, according to government figures. Around 6,000 unaccompanied minor migrants are currently on the archipelago and the central government has urged other Spanish regions to take in arrivals as it seeks to ease pressure on infrastructure. The PP regional leaders affected by the decision said they would try to govern alone. While far-right parties saw a strong performance in this years European Parliament elections, Vox saw its share of the vote in Spain fall compared with the national election in July 2023. Under-18s who migrate alone to Spain are entitled to government protection and aid under Spanish law. In 2022, Spain offered more funding to regions that volunteered to host unaccompanied young migrants. Vox Party leader Santiago Abascal with Italy's right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni last year ( LaPresse ) But, to date, few conservative-run regions have accepted more than a handful. The central government says it is now considering making transfers compulsory once the numbers in reception centres in the Canaries reach a certain level. PP spokesman Borja Semper rejected VOXs position on Thursday mornin and accusedthe far-right party of looking for excuses to break the bilateral agreements that have been in force since the local and regional elections on 28 May. The PPs support for the measure promoted by the government was an exercise in solidarity with the Canary Islands, which is also Spain, Mr Semper added. Spanish minister for Integration, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz called on Vox to stop instrumentalising migrants. Reuters 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 }} The German government said Friday that it won't be intimidated" by Russian attempts to undermine the country's support of Ukraine, but refused to comment on a report that Moscow planned to assassinate the chief executive of a leading defense company. CNN reported Thursday, citing five unidentified U.S. and Western officials, that American intelligence discovered earlier this year that Russia planned to kill Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger. It said the U.S. informed Germany, whose security services were able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. Rheinmetall is a major supplier of military technology and artillery rounds for Ukraine. Neither Rheinmetall nor the German government would comment on the report. Interior Ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall said his ministry can't comment on individual threat situations, but added that more broadly we take the significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously." We know that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government won't be intimidated, Kall said. He noted that German security measures have been increased significantly since 2022, and that the threats range from espionage and sabotage, through cyberattacks, to state terrorism. In April, German investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets including U.S. military facilities in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine. Germany has become the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. CNN reported that the alleged Papperger plot was one of a series of Russian plans to kill defense industry executives across Europe supporting the Ukrainian war effort. 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 18-month investigation by The Independent uncovering fresh evidence of potential war crimes committed by Russia against Ukrainians with disabilities is a really important part of creating more awareness, more visibility of the devastating impact of the invasion on the disability community, a special advisor to the Biden administration has said. Sara Minkara, the US State Department special advisor on international disability rights, heralded the three-part series which revealed that at least 500 people with disabilities, including children, have been forcibly removed to Russian-held territory and into Russia itself. In many instances, people have been held incommunicado, in squalid conditions, and even forced into adopting Russian passports in order to secure treatment or care. The multi-part series also documented other potential crimes committed by Russian soldiers, including that disabled Ukrainians were used as human shields, and others were deprived of food and critical medicine, resulting in death. Ms Minkara said the research was important as across the world the disability community feels that they are an acceptable loss in conflict, due to a lack of information and reporting. In the disability community, we say were an acceptable loss, and a big reason behind all of this is data collection and telling the story. When we dont count persons with disabilities, were not counted then. I think thats a really important point when you look at the crisis and the disability lens. She added that she wants to see a future where society feels the cost and the loss by not including the disability community across all policymaking. I think this reporting is really important for creating that awareness and mainstreaming this. Her comments echo remarks by Gerard Quinn, the UNs special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities until November, who has extensively worked on Ukraine. He said The Independents investigation was an important step in a wider debate and paints a damning picture of the vulnerabilities that people with disabilities face in the Ukraine war. For 18 months, The Independent tracked the disappearance of at least 500 people with disabilities, ranging from children to the elderly. They were taken from facilities in occupied Ukraine by Russian officials, either deeper into Russian-held territory or Russia itself. The 500 only include the cases The Independent was able to independently verify, but Ukrainian officials believe that the true numbers could be in the thousands. The cases, which took place between October 2022 and the summer of 2023, were verified through interviews with those who were illegally taken, family members of those who remain missing, staff members of the institutions targeted, and charities trying to locate missing people. The Independent also tracked official Russian Telegram groups of the occupation administration that have boasted of the attempts to move hundreds of people from institutions. We used open-source tools, like satellite imagery, to confirm alleged locations. Russia has denied breaking international law. In many instances, the people taken were misled or lied to about what was happening. They were held incommunicado in squalid conditions and forced into adopting Russian passports in order to secure treatment or care. I think this reporting is really important for creating that awareness and mainstreaming this Sara Minkara, United States Special Advisor on International Disability Rights The fate of the vast majority remains unknown, but there is evidence that some of the children have been sent to re-education camps to learn the Russian language, culture, and the Kremlins version of history. The targeting of people with disabilities, Ukrainian officials argue, is part of a broader and coordinated Russian effort to annihilate the Ukrainian identity and could amount to ethnic cleansing. The Independents series hopes to spark a paradigm shift in attitudes towards people with disabilities both in Ukraine where there are now tens of thousands of new amputees and across the worlds conflicts, where international law and protections appear to be failing the most vulnerable. Ms Minkara said people with disabilities in crisis are between two to four times more at risk, not because of their disabilities, but because systems around the world are not thinking about us and our needs. When a crisis happens, there is always a lag in the initial weeks, days, and months of the response in terms of evacuation, humanitarian assistance, and reaching out to the disability community, she said. Bomb shelters are not accessible, evacuation buses are not accessible. There are challenges on the borders. We saw this in Ukraine, but you see this in every single crisis all over the world. The official number of people registered with disabilities in Ukraine is 2.7 million, but the United Nations estimates the true number to be more than double that. The Russia's appointed administration in the occupied south of Ukraine shares images of people with disabilities they have removed from institutions in the southern region of Kherson ( Telegram ) Tens of thousands live in institutions across the country where conditions have been described by United Nations experts as appalling. The epidemic of boarding houses, orphanages, and residential homes is a devastating holdover from the Soviet Union where no support was given to families. Instead, they were encouraged to institutionalize their children with intellectual, physical, and psychosocial disabilities. Many have lived their entire lives in these institutions often with little contact with their familiesa system that disability rights advocates want to have dismantled as swathes of Ukraine are rebuilt. Ms Minkara called on the world to make sure the disability community is an integral part of the reconstruction plan of Ukraine, particularly after a recovery conference was held in the German capital of Berlin last month. During the meeting of representatives from dozens of countries, over 6 billion euros worth of agreements were signed and pledged, including support for the reconstruction of critical infrastructure. Ms Minkara urged every government leader to support building a green and accessible Ukraine. Its a missed opportunity if we dont look at the recovery reconstruction ensuring that across the board accessibility is baked in, she added. Right now you hear a lot of words like sustainable Ukraine, green Ukraine. I would love for there always to be an accessible Ukraine too. 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 }} A British tourist has died after falling from a balcony on the Greek island of Zante. The 23-year-old man was at a hotel in Laganas when he reportedly plunged from a 1.5m high balcony which he was trying to climb. The Foreign Office said it was unable to confirm the identity of the tourist following the fall at about 3pm local time on Wednesday. Local media reported the man was taken to hospital, where he later died. Zakynthos Police Department is investigating the incident but does not believe there was any third-party involvement. Late last year a British 18-year-old also died after falling from a balcony while on a family holiday to Lanzarote. David Alexander was staying with his parents at the Galeon Playa Apart-Hotel, in Costa Teguise, when he fell from the balcony. The teenager, who was said to have been studying computing and game development at the City of Glasgow College, died of his injuries in hospital. His family described him as the kindest young man you could ever meet. 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 }} Dozens of bodies have been found inside Gaza City in the wake of the Israeli military pulling out of a number of districts, Palestinian officials have said, as part of an offensive that had already forced tens of thousands to flee. The Israeli military issued a sweeping instruction for the entire population in Gaza City in northern Gaza to evacuate south earlier this week, in a directive the United Nations said would only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families. The assault, which began in late June, has sent some 80,000 people fleeing the area. Gazas civil defence organisation told the AFP news agency that about 40 bodies have been found in an initial search of two Gaza City districts after Israeli troops pulled out of the area. Workers say they continue to recover the dead from destroyed streets and buildings. We constantly see bombardment. Every day we see it, today I felt it shake my house. My bathroom window came down on me three days ago, a mother-of-three who wished not to be named for fear of reprisals told The Independent from her home in the al-Shati neighbourhood, known as Beach camp. Dr Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital, told charity ActionAid in a voice note: We do not know how long the [Israeli forces] will remain in Gaza City and the number of casualties we will receive at Al-Awda Hospital. Since this morning, [Friday] [we] received 12 injured people and one person who has been killed. Israeli soldiers sit on their vehicle near the Israel-Gaza border ( AP ) Israels military said it had found drones and other weaponry in what is called a Hamas combat complex inside the former headquarters for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA in Gaza City and had evacuated civilians from the area before attacking. The troops engaged in close-quarters combat with terrorist cells that had fortified themselves inside the UNRWA compound, it said, adding that it had also found an important Hamas tunnel nearby and weapons production under a university building. The war in Gaza was triggered by a Hamas attack inside southern Israel during which aound 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage according to Israeli totals. In response, Israel launched an air and ground offensive and a blockade, which health officials in the Hamas-run strip say has killed more then 38,000 people. Home to more than a quarter of Gazas residents before the war, Gaza City was largely razed to the ground in late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to homes in the ruins before Israel once again ordered them out. Much of Gazas population of 2.3 million has been forced to leave their homes at least once during the war, with many now sheltering in the south of the strip. But some in Gaza City say they will not leave. We will not go anywhere, people are dying in the south and in the north, war is everywhere. There is nothing we can do but stay here and pray, 17-year-old Lina told The Independent from the besieged city. She also said they dont have enough money to evacuate as fuel or transportation will cost them most of their money. The mother-of-three in Gaza City said: My brother and father said they wish they died before leaving Gaza City. The south is hell. They might have food, we dont, we are eating flour. But they are living in tents and we have the relative safety of our home. Its comfortable even though its basic. it is something you cannot put into words when you have to leave your house, it is humiliating and degrading. Hamas said the heavy Israeli assault on Gaza City this week could ruin efforts over a ceasefire. Mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, have been desperately trying to finalise a ceasefire deal that would free some of the Israelis still held hostage by Hamas in return for Palestinians held in jail by Israel. 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 }} Thousands of Palestinians have been reported as missing since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC said up to 6,400 Palestinians are feared to be trapped under debris, buried without identification, or held in Israeli detention, since the war was triggred by Hamass attack inside Israel on 7 October. Since April this year, 1,100 new cases of missing people in Gaza have been registered and remain unsolved, the organisation said. Each week we can receive anywhere between 500 and 2,500 calls to our hotlines, and the majority of these are requests for missing family members, Sarah Davies, an ICRC spokesperson, said. The level of requests fluctuates, sometimes depending on the situation in areas of Gaza if there are hostilities close to large numbers of people, or evacuation instructions issued, our hotline operators receive more calls with tracing requests in the hours and days that follow. The ICRC said up to 6,400 Palestinians are feared to be trapped under debris, buried without identification, or held in Israeli detention, since 7 October Unfortunately, in such chaotic situations, people can be separated easily. People are panicked, sometimes it is dark and difficult to see, if there are explosions nearby people flee and lose one another. Since 7 October, the ICRC has reported more than 8,700 missing Palestinians in Gaza and has engaged with 7,429 Palestinian families to gather information. About 2,300 cases have been resolved, meaning families have found their relatives, either alive or dead, the ICRC reported. It comes after Israeli forces retreated from some Gaza City districts overnight after a fierce, week-long military offensive, leaving dozens of dead. Since 7 October, the ICRC has reported more than 8,700 missing Palestinians in Gaza ( AFP via Getty Images ) The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected around 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week. The Israeli military had said on Thursday that its forces were working to dismantle Hamas capabilities in Gaza City, and that it follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. It said the same was not true of Hamas. In the 7 October attack, hamas killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israels forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say, in the nine months since. 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 US has imposed new sanctions on an Israeli settler group and four unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, in the latest effort by the Joe Biden administration to confront land grab and instability in occupied Palestinian territories. The sanctions target Lehava, an umbrella group for Israeli settlers sanctioned by the UK, and members of Tsasv9, a group that blocked aid from reaching the starving Palestinians in Gaza. The sanctions also hit four illegal Israeli settler outposts that have been "weaponised" for violence to displace Palestinians by disrupting their grazing lands, limiting access to wells and conducting attacks on the residents. One of the outposts is a farm owned by Isaschar Manne. "It was established on pastureland belonging to the Palestinian community, the State Department said, and settlers from this outpost regularly attack community shepherds and prevent their access to the pastureland through acts of violence. It described Lehava, which has over 10,000 members, as the largest violent extremist organisation in Israel. The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israels own security, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday. 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. Sanctions by the Biden administration against Israeli settlers have upset members of Benjamin Netanyahus coalition government. They support the expansion of Jewish settlements to ultimately annex the West Bank, making a Palestinian state unviable. The Israelis targeted by the latest sanctions include Lehava founder Ben-Zion Gopstein, a close associate of Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who himself lives in a West Bank settlement. The sanctions include an updated red flag alert that will warn financial institutions about potential suspicious activity. Americas Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will raise an alert in case a sanctioned individual or an entity tries to circumvent the controls. Human Rights Watch, which has campaigned to highlight settler violence in the West Bank, welcomed the US measures as the most far-reaching to date. The rights group, however, called for direct action against the Israeli government for its support of the settlers. In this case we are pleased that the Biden administration is going farther than before with the alert, Sarah Yager, Washington director of the Human Rights Watch, said. Now its time for sanctions against the Israeli authorities that are approving and inciting. We want to see the US, UK, Canada and others focus on power behind all this in the West Bank. All settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, while outposts, a subset of the settlements, are considered illegal even under Israeli law. According to the activist group Peace Now, there are about 200 outposts scattered throughout the West Bank. Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the IndyTech email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Astronauts on future Nasa missions could be drinking recycled urine from inside their spacesuits after researchers came up with a novel approach to waste management. Scientists at Cornell University in the US unveiled a prototype filtration system that filters wastewater into potable water within just five minutes. Modelled on the stillsuits in the sci-fi series Dune, the researchers say the spacesuit could be deployed in Nasas Artemis programme, which aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Current methods for dealing with human waste while wearing a spacesuit is through an uncomfortable and unhygienic adult diaper-style garment. The new system uses the process of osmosis to filter out contaminants from urine and transform it into potable water. The design includes a vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit, providing a continuous supply of potable water with multiple safety mechanisms to ensure astronaut wellbeing, said Sofia Etlin, a research staff member at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University. Additionally, astronauts currently have only one litre of water available in their in-suit drink bags. This is insufficient for the planned, longer-lasting lunar spacewalks, which can last ten hours, and even up to 24 hours in an emergency. A prototype of the urine collection garment that could be worn by astronauts on future space walks ( Luca Bielski ) The researchers now plan to test the design in simulated microgravity conditions before deploying it on actual space missions. The new spacesuit design was detailed in the journal Frontiers in Space Technology on Friday, in a paper titled Enhanced astronaut hygiene and mission efficiency: a novel approach to in-suit waste management and water recovery in spacewalks. In response to difficulties astronauts have faced with personal hygiene and performance and work efficiency during EVAs [extravehicular activities], we designed a novel urine collection and filtration system for the next-generation of spacesuits, the researchers noted in the paper. With an understanding of the space and battery capacity limitations of spacesuits, we argue that the trade-off for improved performance and sufficient water in case of a contingency scenario is well worth it. In a major slip on stage at the NATO summit in Washington, DC, President Joe Biden called Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky President Putin while introducing him. Biden quickly recognized his mistake, returning to the podium to correct himself, President Putin? Hes going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. Im so focused on beating Putin. After turning it over the the Ukrainian president, Zelensky said, Im better, in response to the slip. Youre a hell of a lot better, said President Biden. The High Court has overturned a decision by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman to order the reinstatement of payments under an income protection insurance policy for an Irish Rail train driver. Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell said the decision requiring Utmost Paneurope DAC to reinstate the benefits was flawed "by serious and significant errors". He said it should be set aside and sent back to the ombudsman for fresh consideration. Utmost claimed the insurance policy could run to around 730,000 by the driver's retirement date in 2041. The driver, who is not named, was a member of a group income protection policy provided by Utmost to Irish Rail. He made a claim under the scheme in November 2014 after he encountered mental health difficulties following a back injury. The claim was accepted and he was paid from December 2014. The policy provided that after 24 months of payments, the definition of a disability changes and Utmost would only continue to pay the benefit if the illness or injury also prevented the person from performing "the duties of any rail operative occupation" within Irish Rail. Just before the 24 months ran out, Utmost initiated a review and asked the Irish Rail chief medical officer if the driver was able to perform the duties "of any rail operative occupation". The doctor said he was unfit to work as a driver or for "any role within a railway setting, due to the nature and severity of his symptoms and his medication. Todays News In 90 Seconds - July 12 2024 Utmost got its own doctor to examine him, who diagnosed him as suffering from personality disorder with paranoid narcissistic traits. He expressed the view that there was no reason, from a work mental health perspective, "that he would not be able to engage in other work as a railway operative. Utmost informed the driver his payments would cease at the end of February 2017. The driver lodged a complaint with the ombudsman. In 2019 the ombudsman issued a preliminary decision that ceasing of payments was wrongful, largely because of the absence of a more comprehensive assessment of the driver's ongoing symptoms and a detailed consideration of the duties of any alternative rail operative occupations. In 2020, the ombudsman made a final decision upholding his preliminary finding. Utmost appealed the decision to the High Court. In his ruling, Mr Justice O'Donnell said that in the ombudsmans decision there was no reference to or reliance on any code of conduct, best practice or other reliable objective measure for the finding that the conduct was unreasonable, particularly where the ombudsman did not appear to make a finding on the contractual obligations. Case involving Killybegs fishermen and watchdog is referred to EU court The Court of Appeal (CoA) has decided to refer to Europe a dispute between the sea fisheries watchdog and fishermen over a requirement that the weighing of some catches in Killybegs, Co Donegal, should take place on landing and not after they had been transported a kilometre to a processing factory. Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, as a member of a three-judge CoA, said if the final decision, which related to the implementation of EU rules, was left to the Irish court he would have rejected the appeal brought over one such inspection at the centre of the dispute. However, he said, he had nevertheless concluded that the CoA should make a reference on this point to the Court of Justice of the EU under Article 267 on the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU which deals with the interpretation of treaties and the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions, bodies, offices or agencies of the EU. A final decision of the CoA would be adjourned pending the outcome of the reference, he said. Last year, the High Court found against the master of a vessel at the centre of one such weighing dispute along with two associated companies, and the Killybegs Fishermens Organisation who had brought a challenge over the matter against the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA). The SFPA ensures compliance with the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The High Court found that a derogation allowing the weighing to take place in the factory did not impact on the power of the SFPA to also require monitored weighing on landing. The court heard fish are weighed to ensure compliance with the CFP but Ireland had a derogation since 2012 which permitted weighing at an authorised premises after the fish was transported from the quayside. The derogation was rescinded in 2021. In 2019 the SFPA announced a change in practice amid concerns expressed by the EU Commission about how the derogation was operating. As a result, the SFPA announced that a percentage of inspections would be carried out on landing. In October 2020, the MFV Atlantic Challenge was selected for inspection and boarded by fisheries officers on its arrival at Killybegs where a pier-side weighing took place under protest from the vessels master Noel McDowell and Killybegs Fishing Enterprises Ltd, which holds the Atlantic Challenges sea fishing licence. Fishermen had argued that post-transport weighing was the best way to preserve the quality, freshness and value of the fish. The SFPA argued it was possible to mitigate these effects when weighing does not take place at a factory premises and it installed equipment at Killybegs pier for this purpose. The figures sent in when the fish were later weighed in the factory showed a differential of some 11-12pc between the weight for mackerel recorded from the pier weighbridge and on the flow scales at the factory. The SFPA notified Mr McDowell of the commission of two suspected offences relating to the landing declaration. In February 2021, Mr McDowell, Killybegs Fishing Enterprise, Killybegs Seafoods and the Killybegs Fishermens Organisation Ltd, brought a High Court challenge seeking to quash the notice to weigh on landing which had been used to carry out the inspection on October 12, 2020. The fishermen/factory applicants argued the Atlantic Challenge was unlawfully selected for monitored weighing on landing as at that time weighing ought properly to have occurred at the factory premises under the terms of the derogation. They also contended that the system of weighing using the state-owned weighbridge at Killybegs Port was not fit for purpose and the factory weighing scales were more accurate and less damaging to the fish. The SFPA opposed the challenge. It argued, among other things, that where the SFPA requires weighing on landing the derogation from the general rules did not apply. The High Courts Ms Justice Siobhan Phelan said the power to require a monitored weighing on landing was not a new power and it had co-existed with the derogation, albeit that the SFPA did not in practice exercise that power prior to 2020. She also said no infirmity had been established with the selection of the Atlantic Challenge for monitored weighing on landing. Company has fully repaid the excess from EWSS payments Dublin Aerospace was a beneficiary of the EWSS payments during the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years The directors of Dublin Aerospace have blamed a clerical error for the companys over-claim of Government Covid-19 Employment Wage Subsidy Supports (EWSS) during the pandemic, which has resulted in a 1.7m correction in its accounts. In new accounts filed, the directors for Dublin Aerospace Ltd state the company was a beneficiary of the EWSS payments during the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years. They state that after the 2022 financial year end, it was determined that the value of EWSS supports claimed exceeded the value which the company had been eligible to claim due to a clerical error. The company said it has fully repaid the excess claimed and there are no further matters arising from the companys participation in the EWSS. Dublin Aerospace said that as a consequence, certain values in the prior periods comparatives in the 2022 financial statements have been restated. The 2021 accounts initially showed the company claimed 6.65m in EWSS and following the 1.74m correction, the restated figure is 4.9m. As a result, the companys corporation tax charge for 2021 has reduced by 218,290 to 422,846. New 2022 accounts show the company recorded pre-tax profits of 2.2m for the 12 months to the end of September 2022 which were down 53pc on the 2021 pre-tax profits of 4.86m. The firm recorded the drop in pre-tax profits as revenues increased by 21pc, or 7.56m, to 44.37m. The directors state that when compared with pre-Covid-19 revenues of the 2019 financial year, turnover had declined by 6.58m. Its 2022 performance was delivered against the backdrop of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which impacted trading for some of the 2022 financial year. The company received 1.84m in EWSS in 2022 and the funding was used by the company to secure employment and underpin salaries during the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, the company retained all its staff without lay-offs, pay cuts or redundancies. The company protected its skill base as well as its aggregate expertise and experience while also securing its capacity to respond quickly when its customers eventually resumed operations. The directors state that the supports gave the company the confidence to recruit 45 more aircraft engineering apprentices over the course of the pandemic thereby ensuring the organisation has sufficient expert staff resources to address its future needs and supports its future plans. Numbers employed in 2022 decreased by 11 to 381 as staff costs increased from 15.82m to 16.4m. Pay to key management personnel totalled 2.4m. The profits take account of 1.29m in non-cash depreciation costs and lease costs of 1.59m along with a gain of 400,215 in foreign exchange and a gain of 249,619 through the sale of fixed assets. At the end of 2022, the firms shareholder funds totalled 33.5m that included accumulated profits of 26.89m. The companys cash funds increased from 2.67m to 3.47m. Dublin car ban will slash retail spending in the city and lead to loss of 1,787 jobs, claims report Businesses warn of devastation for capitals trade if council goes ahead with traffic plan Dublin City Council hopes the plan will ease traffic congestion in the city centre. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins John Burns Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 03:30 An economic impact assessment of Dublin City Councils new transport plan, commissioned by businesses opposed to the changes, claims it will lead to a reduction of 141m in retail spending in the city centre in 2028. Irish SMEs lost almost 10m through email scams last year according to the latest figures from FraudSmart, the awareness initiative led by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI). The number of email scams recorded by BPFI increased by almost a quarter last year, while the average loss for a company was around 12,000. The majority of cases in Ireland last year were invoice redirection scams, while BPFI also recorded a number of incidences of chief executive impersonation scams. Invoice redirection scams involve an email from a supplier who is known to a business which includes new bank details for upcoming payments. However, this company has been hacked or their email activity has been copied by those involved in the scam. A business is not immediately asked for money in the email but instead receives a request to update bank details on its own systems for future payments. As a result, businesses can end up transferring money related to a legitimate invoice sent by the supplier to a new account controlled by fraudsters. Often, companies impacted by the scam only realise they have been targeted when they receive a payment reminder from a supplier after they have already paid. FraudSmart has now teamed up with the Irish SME Association (ISME) to urge SMEs to introduce new measures to protect their operations. Both groups called on small businesses to contact a supplier directly on the phone if they receive an email requesting a change of bank account details for payment. Companies who suspect they are victims of a scam should also contact their bank and gardai as soon as possible. Unfortunately, while fraudsters target businesses of all sizes, SMEs can be particularly vulnerable compared to larger companies due to more limited resources, less investment in security infrastructure as well as lower financial buffers to withstand any losses, BPFIs head of financial crime Niamh Davenport said. Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Peter Burke noted SMEs account for two-thirds of employment in Ireland, with 92pc employing fewer than 10 people. It is vitally important that business owners and employees are aware of the risks that fraudsters pose and put the necessary measures in place, he said. ISME chief executive Neil McDonnell said: I would also encourage businesses to put training in place for employees to ensure they are constantly aware of current fraud risks. Bank of Ireland has appointed Gavin Kelly as the head of a new wealth and insurance division, which combines two of its wholly owned subsidiaries Davy and New Ireland Assurance. As well as leading the division, Mr Kelly will take on the position of chief executive of Davy. He will also join the Davy board and have oversight of New Ireland Assurance. Davy, which offers investment and wealth advisory services, had assets under management of 25.9bn at the end of March this year. The wealth-management firm employs more than 900 people across five locations in Ireland and the UK. Todays News In 90 Seconds - July 12 2024 Bank of Ireland purchased Davy in 2021 in a deal valued at 427m. Davy opted to put itself up for sale in March 2021 after it was fined 4.13m by the Central Bank for breaching market rules, the biggest ever fine levied on a broker in Ireland. New Ireland Assurance offers life assurance, pensions and investment solutions to individual and corporate customers. It had assets under management of 23.6bn at the end of March. Both Davy and New Ireland serve a combined total of 650,000 customers across Ireland. Mr Kelly first joined Bank of Ireland in 2007 and has held a number of senior management positions, including interim group chief executive and Retail Ireland chief executive. He is set to remain on the group executive committee of the bank. His appointment is being seen as part of a move by Bank of Ireland to exert tighter control over Davy, which has previously had a considerable degree of independence. Davys wealth and capital markets capability is an extremely important part of the Bank of Ireland group, offering excellent services that command very high levels of client trust and satisfaction, and New Ireland is absolutely core to our business, Bank of Ireland chief executive Myles OGrady said. Gavin brings significant experience which will support Davy as we seek to deepen the value we offer corporate and private clients of the firm, added Davy chair Vincent Crowley. Davys current chief executive Bernard Byrne announced late last year that he planned to step down at some stage in 2024. He joined Davy in 2019 and became chief executive in March 2021, overseeing the sale to Bank of Ireland. Ex-male model believed to have laundered millions in criminal cash surrendered to Northern Ireland Mark Adams was given a five-year jail term in 2020 for his role in laundering approximately 1.2m in cash that was the proceeds of crime Mark Evans jetted throughout Europe Paul Neilan Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 20:10 A former male model and airport police officer who is believed to have laundered millions in organised crime cash has been surrendered to the North, where he was sentenced to 20 months for having 180,000 in his luggage at Belfast Airport. An Irish woman who had been under a travel ban in Dubai after being charged with attempted suicide has praised the Irish Government for its swift work on her case. The travel ban against Tori Towey, a 28-year-old flight attendant from Co Roscommon, was lifted and the charges dropped on Wednesday. It followed a strong focus on her case from Government and opposition politicians. Ms Towey arrived home on Thursday and said she was relieved and delighted to be back home in Ireland. Speaking on a live discussion on the social media site X, she said she attended a dinner at her cousin's house after arriving back home. "There was a time where I didn't think it was even possible that I was going to be able to come back at all," she said. "So I'm just relieved and I suppose over the next few weeks I'm just going to rest and spend time with family and friends and then just go from there." Tori Towey (centre) at Dublin Airport with her aunt Ann Flynn (left) and her mum Caroline. Photo: Collins Ms Towey thanked Detained in Dubai founder Radha Stirling for her help with her case, as well as Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon-Galway Claire Kerrane, who raised the case with her party leader, Mary Lou McDonald. "Mary Lou, within minutes, was on the phone to me and so I told her my story. She said 'Look, I'm going to take it to the Dail, I think, in one hour'," Ms Towey said. Any time there was an update, they were phoning us "So then we were watching the Oireachtas live and she brought it to the Dail and then Simon Harris called me after they had a private meeting and they were straight on it. "They kept in touch with us. Any time there was an update, they were phoning us, I know Micheal Martin was doing a lot behind the scenes as well. Tori Towey at Dublin Airport on Thursday after leaving Dubai. Photo: Sam Boal/Collins "They all just worked as a team and they were amazing. I'm so grateful to all of them." She said once the Irish Government got involved, embassy officials worked "day and night" on the case and were updating her constantly, sometimes at night. Ms Stirling praised the Irish Government's handling of the case and the embassy escort of Ms Towey to the airport in Dubai. She said: "I think what was different about Ireland is they reacted so quickly. Todays News In 90 Seconds - July 12 2024 Beautiful to see the support coming from all of the Irish people and the media It wasn't even two days or three days, it was within hours of me contacting other local political representatives and suddenly it's already all the way up the chain within just a few hours. "That was amazing to see. "Beautiful to see the support coming from all of the Irish people and the media. "I think it just helped her get through the time." Ms Stirling said she had been contacted by another Irish woman, following the high publicity of the case, who appeared to be in a similar situation to Ms Towey . Tori Towey after arriving into Dublin Airport from Dubai. Photo: Collins She criticised Dubai's legal system as "old-fashioned" and said there needed to be greater awareness around the world of what constitutes an offence. Ms Stirling said: "It just hasn't caught up with the buildings and with the shopping malls and the glitz and the glamour. "So that's something that they absolutely need to focus on or every couple of months there is just going to be another big viral story like this that outrages the world." She added: "I do believe that the travel warnings absolutely should be increased on the Irish embassy website because they're insufficient. "I haven't seen a single country that has been sufficient in explaining to citizens what is actually illegal." Ms Towey spoke about the way she was treated by Dubai police and how she never felt discriminated against due to being a woman in Dubai before. Its such a mixed country. There are so many expats, so many different cultures. I never found I was discriminated against because I was a woman, with people living there. It was more the police. When I went in after that night I was beaten up, I went to the police station. Everyone's different because there was one policeman who was very lovely to me. "But there was another guy he walked into the room, now, I have my forehead completely swollen, my shirt is ripped, I have blood, I have bruises everywhere and he came in and he started pointing and laughing at me. And he was like: Ha ha, what happened to you, did you hit your head on the ground when you were praying?, she said. Radha Stirling confirmed she heard of similar cases of police laughing or joking at people, especially women. Tori Towey said she was in the police station with many women, and some of them were detained there for several months for minor things. "There's so many girls there, the girls that I met were lovely. Some of them were there for seven months in this tiny little corridor with mattresses on the floor. They've never gone outside, they've never been told what's happening to them. "They're there from a very wrong place, wrong time very minor things. That's when I started to panic and I was thinking I could be here for months. I remember saying to the girls that were there at that time, I said: I don't know how I'm going to get through this. "I keep thinking about the other girls that are stuck in there for months and months. I've never been able to stop thinking about that, she said. On the day when she was taken to the police station, she called her mom because she was hysterical, she said. I was like: I'm in a police station and I don't know why I'm here. I won't have my phone anymore. No one's going to know what's happened to me, no one's going to know how to contact me. Then, they just strip searched me, they took all my jewelry off. I had a bellybutton piercing and they were struggling to take it out. "They were pulling it out and ripping it out and hurting me and I was saying: Look, it's okay, I'll take it out myself. Just kind of aggressive, they don't speak to you, they don't tell you what's happening to you. They don't tell you anything, she added. Law change comes after fatal mauling of Nicole Morey last month, but exemption certs can be issued to those who can show animal is neutered, microchipped and has a licence XL Bully dogs to be banned in Ireland after spike in attacks The Government is to ban XL Bully dogs after a spike in the number of attacks in Ireland, including the fatal mauling of 23-year-old Nicole Morey in Limerick last month. From October 1 this year, breeding, selling, rehoming or importing an XL Bully will be illegal. Then, from February 1, it will be a criminal offence to own an XL Bully in Ireland, unless you have an exemption certificate. The ban will be brought in through changes to regulations. Exemption certs will be issued only to owners who can prove their XL Bully has been neutered, microchipped and has a dog licence. Owners flouting the new regulations could be fined or jailed for up to three months, or both, if they do not have the correct documents, under new plans from Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys. The change in regulations follows a similar move in the UK, which banned the dog last year following a number of high-profile incidents. Minister Humphreys wants to send a clear message that the XL Bully is dangerous, causes serious harm and a ban is now necessary to protect public safety, a source said. Last month, Ms Morey was mauled by two XL Bullies in her home in Limerick and suffered catastrophic injuries. Despite the efforts of emergency services, she was pronounced dead at the scene. Two years ago, Alejandro Mizsan, then aged nine, was left with serious facial injuries after being attacked by an XL Bully while outside playing on a green with his friends. A man and a woman were jailed as a result of the attack. The owners of the XL Bully, named Boss, were jailed for two years in March. The court was told how the same dog had attacked another young boy a few days before the incident involving Alejandro. The Government has come under increasing pressure in recent months to clamp down on dangerous dogs and specifically XL Bullies. The two-stage ban is being brought in after consultation with the Attorney General by the Government. Ms Humphreys previously announced measures to clamp down on dangerous dogs, including increasing fines for dogs that are out of control, plus funding of 2m to dog wardens on local councils for vans and other equipment. The Government also recently launched a drive on responsible dog ownership, with adverts on national and local media in recent months. Currently, no dog breed is banned in Ireland. In the UK, it is a criminal offence to own an XL Bully unless the owner has a valid exemption certificate. At least a dozen deaths have been linked to XL Bullies in the UK. In Ireland, there are a number of dog breeds on the restricted list. These include American, English and Staffordshire bull terriers, bull mastiffs, dobermans, German shepherds, Japanese akitas and tosas, Rhodesian ridgebacks and rottweilers. The Government earlier this year set up a dog control stakeholder group to look at restricting certain breeds. Former deputy garda commissioner John Twomey was appointed as the chairman of the group. Every time Instagram sees a female breast or nipple on my page, I get banned artist Cliodhna Doherty Cliodhna Doherty from Newry talks to Chrissie Russell about her social media censorship battle while championing body positivity through nude portraits Cliodhna Doherty with one of her portraits Chrissie Russell Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 03:30 Artist Cliodhna Doherty has featured in two international exhibitions in the past 12 months, shes passionate about inspiring body positivity in women, and is one of very few female artists in Ireland creating paintings of female nudes. Experts say that the average Irish home interior is influenced by the styles of at least three countries that weve visited What do you look for in a holiday destination? Some want tropical beaches, cheap beer, and epic nightlife. Others travel to experience inspiring interiors. According to recent research, more than half (58 pc) of Irish respondents said theyd choose a holiday destination based on a countrys interior design heritage. Italy and Sweden came top of the list, closely followed by Japan. Were a nation of design seekers. Who knew? The research was commissioned by DFS, a company that makes sofas. Over the last few years, wed become aware that interiors trends were increasingly influenced by destinations, says Claire Rushton of DFS. But we didnt know if it was true for customers or just an industry thing. The survey indicates people actually do travel to places that inspire them and try to bring some of that inspiration back home. This isnt always successful. Of the 1,000 Irish participants, 62 pc said theyd like to restyle their home to reflect their favourite places, but 41 pc admitted they didnt have the skills to do so. Holiday destinations can be inspiring in themselves, but also because holiday makers are in a receptive frame of mind. DFS Mya Three-Seater Sofa in Simply Wool Look in Indigo Blue Your own surroundings become mundane because youre seeing the same thing every day, Rushton says. When youre on holiday, youre more open to whats around you. You slow down and have the time to take things in. You cant bottle a holiday experience, but the desire to do so is as old as the souvenir shop. Almost three-quarters (72 pc) of respondents confessed to displaying souvenirs from their travels at home. Aesthetically, this is thin ice. People start with the desire to evoke a sense of escapism at home but end up amid clutter and confusion. If you bring back something from every trip, theres a danger your home could become a mismatch of styles, Rushton says. You want to bring back a feeling or a colour palette rather than a lot of knick-knacks. According to the survey, the average Irish home shows the influence of three different countries as reflected in: choice of colour (36 pc); furniture (34 pc); accessories (30 pc); and prints (30 pc). Popular design styles included Alpine cabin and Romantic French. I think were having an era of romance in interiors. Rushton says. Bridgerton has a lot to answer for. American-style decor from Jonathan Adler You dont have to physically go to the country to be influenced by a style. Even those who dont travel themselves take inspiration from other peoples holidays, as seen on social media or television. Take, for example, a British prefab, based on the fantasy of an Alpine hunting lodge and built with Canadian cedar on Achill Island, Co Mayo. Now, its been carefully renovated, and equally carefully documented on Instagram. The cabins owner, Darran Heaney, is known for posting about his Dublin renovation project, Old Victorian New, on Instagram. Likewise, he documented the cabin renovation. People are very invested in the journey. Its something theyd love to do themselves and they enjoy watching the process. Theres a romantic idea of a cottage in the west of Ireland. Darran Heaney in his Achill Island cottage He bought the cabin with his husband, Eoin Callaghan, in December 2022. Its a bit different alright, he says. Our original idea was to look for a traditional Irish cottage, but we couldnt afford one. Then we got a bit romantic about the idea of the cabin. The building was in a delicate condition and another winter could have been the death of it. Its a prefabricated building brought in from the UK in the 1960s, one of the first of its kind in Ireland, but it hadnt been maintained. The back part was built like a normal house, but the front part was prefabricated, the ceiling was done in cedar with timber internal and external walls. "It had a really nice flow to it, so we didnt change the layout. We salvaged and reinstalled the original cedar ceiling and hope to put in a log burner before the winter. French Romantic-style from the French Bedroom Company The architecture sets the scene for cabin-style interior that combines Irish tradition with influences from elsewhere. In my mind, cabin style is rustic and relaxed, Heaney says. Its about how you feel when youre there. The colours come from the Dulux Heritage range. I chose them because they match the landscape beige, brown and khaki green. I used a lot of green in this project. Scandi decor with furniture from Design House Stockholm, available from Nordic Elements In the kitchen, a dresser purchased from Petes Antiques in Fairview was painted in Red Sand from Dulux Heritage (around 52 for a 2.5 litre tin). Its a nod to traditional Irish cottages which would have had free-standing furniture in their kitchen. But its not your traditional colour. It was originally painted white. The furnishing combines salvaged and antique furniture with new pieces. Since comfort was a priority, the bedrooms are carpeted in a sisal-type carpet from Des Kelly Interiors Primo Textures range. The beds are traditional cast iron frames purchased second-hand on Adverts but the mattresses are comfortable and new. They come from Respa, an Irish brand based in Co Meath. The sofa is a four-seater Huxam from DFS Grand Designs range (2,339). The sofas a new addition but the majority of the furnishings were bought second-hand, Heaney says. Italian-style Maggiore Panorama Wall Mural from Feathr Theres a kind of nostalgia to it. We bought a beautiful oak table from Petes Antiques in Fairview. It dates from around 1910 and has a lot of wear and tear. That was a lucky purchase. And we bought a four-metre Aztec print rug in dark burgundy and orange from the Vintage Shop in Phibsborough. Other pieces were rescued, much like the cabin itself. I found a table in the cabin and believe it was made on the island, so I kept it. Now, he describes the cabin as a house for all seasons. It seems to work no matter what the weather. Theres a big picture window to look out when the weathers not great and there are lots of books and board games. In summer or winter, it has that feeling of escape and peace. A few months ago, he received an unexpected message. The woman who originally owned the cabin got in touch because shed seen it on Instagram. Her father built it and she lived there for a while before selling up and moving on. Now, shes in her 80s and living in New Zealand. She was really happy to see someone take it on. See dfs.ie, dulux.ie, deskelly.ie and mountaincabinachill.com History judges harshly those who assume the passenger role when great harm is being done, and it passes them by. As the obliteration of Gaza continues, 38,345 Palestinians have been killed and 88,295 injured. Residents of Gaza City were trapped in houses and bodies lay uncollected in the streets, reports claim. An intense new Israeli assault has been unleashed after an order from Tel Aviv for people to evacuate. Israeli authorities issue these orders and people have, in a matter of minutes or hours, to leave to wherever they can, the UN said. Yet no place is safe in Gaza and no one is safe, UNWRA director of communications Juliette Touma added. The Red Crescent Society also claimed: Operation room teams are receiving dozens of humanitarian distress calls from Gaza City, but our ambulance teams are unable to reach them due to the danger and the intensity of the bombardment. It is said the hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. The civilians of Gaza, currently living through their own apocalypse, might well agree. Washington is now pushing for a peace deal at talks in Egypt and Qatar. Hamas militants said the massive assault on Gaza could wreck efforts to end the war. It is believed negotiations have entered the home stretch. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he remained committed to the Gaza ceasefire framework being negotiated, but accused Hamas of making demands that contradict it. I am committed to the framework deal for freeing our hostages, but the Hamas murderers are sticking to demands that contradict the framework, that endanger Israel, he said. However, he also said any deal to free the Israeli hostages must allow Israel to resume fighting afterwards and achieve all its war goals. Talking about peace while insisting on pursuing war is also inconsistent. Hamas is said to have yielded ground on hostage releases without a permanent ceasefire. Little wonder the deadlocked talks have been allowed to drag on for months. Yet Washington still believes a deal to release the 120 hostages is the most realistic way to end the war and de-escalate regional tensions. US president Joe Biden has pushed a tiered plan. It would begin with an initial six-week pause in hostilities and the release of women, the elderly and the wounded held captive. An extended ceasefire would follow in which the remaining hostages would be freed. The final step would be for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners. Residents of Gaza City are said to be running short of food, water and medicine. The scale of horrors seems endless. Emergency services cannot reach the sick and wounded. With such levels of suffering and disregard for civilian life, massive international pressure must be brought on all sides to stop the carnage. Whatever outstanding issues remain, a forever war will never be the answer. Two-and-a-half years ago, the tragic death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs in Brisbane, Australia, provoked both anguish and outrage in the local community. That sentiment would later spread far and wide as her passing developed into an international news story. At the center of the storm a deeply devoted religious sect known as The Saints, 14 of whom including Elizabeths mother and father, are currently standing trial in connection with her death. The prosecution alleges that the familial faction withheld life-saving medication from Elizabeth as her health rapidly deteriorated and she lay dying in front of them, with The Saints said to be steadfast in their believe that God would heal the ailing child. When the trial started at the Queensland Supreme Court this week, the defendants, dressed in prison uniforms, entered a specifically designed courtroom altered to accommodate them all. Due to the case's notoriety, the trial will be heard without a jury and is expected to continue for about three months. Today on the Indo Daily, Fionnan Sheahan is joined by Patrick Billings, court reporter at the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, to get the latest from the opening days at Queenslands supreme court, and to profile the complicated cult in the dock. Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board (ETB) bosses have been given the green light to undertake a large-scale extension of Colaiste Dun and Ri in Kingscourt. A secondary school in Cavan has been approved plans to undertake a major extension of its campus in Kingscourt. Plans to carry out those plans at Colaiste Dun an Ri had been lodged with Cavan County Council in May in order to allow the school cater for up to 1,000 students. Follow Independent Cavan on Facebook Itss anticipated the development will span across two to four storeys and provide a connection via a new link bridge to the existing schools first floor. The proposals, which are earmarked across a seven acre site, received the green light from local authority planning bosses subject to 25 conditions. In a traffic and transport assessment report, Dublin based consultancy firm ORS, reveal how the proposed extension will see 23 new classrooms being incorporated together with a Special Educational Needs (SEN) base classroom alongside a plethora of supplementary educational facilities. Additionally, the extension will house facilities such as a multimedia room, a DCG (Design and Communication Graphics) room, science labs, preparation areas, a home economics room, an art room, a construction studies room, an engineering room and a tech prep room. A number of other essential amenities like project storage facilities, a staff room, and a GP/dining room to support the overall functioning of the school, are also included. Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board (ETB) officials have similarly provided for a series of recreational and associated siteworks including an additional ballcourt, student outdoor areas as well as car parking and bicycle parking provisions. Cork county councillors appealed for more funding for roads throughout the county under the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) and the Community Involvement Scheme (CIS) at a recent full council meeting. Numerous councillors sought an increase in funding and in the delivery of completed projects after a letter from the Department of Rural and Community Development to the local authority outlined that Cork County Council was allocated 1,704,965 last year under the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS). This figure includes 140,000 in funding towards repair works on island roads under LIS. Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) administered by the Department of Rural and Community Development supports the improvement of non-public rural roads and laneways not usually maintained by local authorities. Community Involvement Scheme (CIS) is a scheme funded by the Department of Transport and administered by local authorities. Independent Ireland councillor Danny Collins said the money allocated to Cork County Council for 2024 is far off what the local authority sought for works throughout the county. For 2024 we got 1.7 million when Cork County Council put in for 5.5 million for the local improvement scheme. It is far off what we looked for. I know one lady who is waiting since 2016. Fine Gael councillor John Paul OShea suggested completing the necessary works earlier in the year. I dont think there are any LIS or CIS schemes done yet this year. We as a council tend to do them last which isnt very beneficial for the LIS in particular. We get a CIS amount at the start of the year and we do it. The last number of years we have got extra funding at the end of the year for more LIS schemes but it is based on what we have drawn down to date in terms of it. Read more Cork War of Independence hero commemorated at event in Waterfall It is important that we get the LIS and CIS schemes done as quickly as we can at the start of the year before our own roads programme. We might be in a better position then to go back to the department for more money. Maybe we can have a discussion on this at a Roads Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) meeting, he added. Independent councillor William OLeary said there is a huge backlog in the Fermoy municipal district for the CIS schemes. We have come to a stage in the Fermoy MD where there is a huge backlog in the CIS schemes. It is definitely a programme that is underfunded. What is difficult is when somebody wants to join the scheme but you have to tell them it could be five years before the scheme is rolled out to them. We are only getting four or five done in each municipal district every year. With the next general election expected to be called in the coming months, Cllr OLeary suggested the allocation of funding for the two schemes be included in a potential programme for government. We need an increase in funding and we need to get more schemes done each year. We need to put this in the programme for government in a few months. Fianna Fail councillor Michael Looney queried if works for the scheme could be completed by contractors. There isnt time to do it in Macroom. I have had 12 in over the past five years and I got none done. We are still arguing for ground staff. It is a fright if the money is there and we cant get to the jobs. Could it be contracted out? Chief Executive of Cork County Council, Ms Moira Murrell said: They are good and very welcome schemes. There is a two year allocation which allows us to plan better. We will look at the delivery of the schemes on the ground. There is a long list and a lot of priorities. There is a two year allocation which allows us to plan better. It is a difficult one to contract out as there is a lot of unpredictability, said the Divisional Manager for North Cork Kevin Morey. In general local improvement scheme works can be very varied in the nature of the work being carried out. The two year programme is very welcome and should help in the delivery. Funding is the significant limitation. Joseph McStay was among those to sign up to the D24 Reads campaign at Tallaght library A Tallaght man who never read as a child and struggled in school, now loves having his nose stuck in a book and goes to the local library almost every day. In February, Joseph McStay signed-up to the D24 Reads campaign. The aim is to read 24 books in 2024 and collect stamps for every book read along the way. Theres lots of rewards, including a book voucher when you make it to 24, and he has already completed the challenge. Ive been in the library for a long time. It must be over 10 years. I think its a great outlet. It gets me out of the house and theres so much going on down there, Mr McStay told the Irish Independent. As a child I didnt read, I was terrible in school. I come from a big family of seven brothers and six sisters. They all went on and got degrees, but I wasnt very academic. I left school when I was 15. I couldnt wait to get out, I was gone when I finished the Inter Cert. I wanted to get out and work, Id no interest in education. Now, I love reading non-fiction. Its funny, I just love to know whats going on in someones head and what makes a person do the things they do. It fascinates me. I love the smell of the paper too, its the simple things, he added. The library in Tallaght has really changed the way Joseph lives and now hes incredibly involved in his community. I mostly read newspapers before I joined the library. But now I read everywhere, on the Luas, if Im waiting in a queue. Sometimes I might be a bit embarrassed because people are using their phones, he said. The library keeps me grounded. I meet new people down there. I read the papers from start to finish then I move onto the books. They have DVDs and CDs too. They have a free movie night once a month and they have free Internet. The staff are brilliant; you can ask them anything. Theyre so polite. If I see a book in the shop and I cant afford it, I go into the library and most of the time, theyll order it for you. With so many new people in the country coming in, you can see more and more people joining and getting library cards. If youre interested in signing up for the D24 Reads campaign, anyone can sign up at the libraries in Tallaght and Castletymon For years, antique dealers in Dublin travelled the length and breath of the country and the world to bag bargains to sell on for a tidy profit, but many are now taking to social media to source something with a story behind it. Professional eater Randy Santel has taken on his latest Irish food challenge in Dublin a giant 3kg plate of fish and chips. The American, who has millions of followers on social media, has won restaurant challenges in all 50 US states, along with 40 countries around the world. This includes smashing the Worlds Largest Breakfast Challenge in The Hard Boiled Egg Cafe in Cavan and the breakfast roll challenge in Crumlins Pips Cafe. Yesterday, he posted his trip to Davy Byrnes pub and restaurant on Duke Street where he had one hour to consume a 1.5 kilo piece of cod, as well as chips, deep fried gorgonzola bites, and mushy peas. Todays News In 90 Seconds - July 12 2024 Im hoping to become the very first person to dominate Davy Byrnes giant Irish Fish and Chips Challenge. Ive got one hour to finish everything here, he said. This is a 1.5 kilo piece of cod along with about maybe a pound of chips, weve got a thing of mushy peas, tartar sauce and weve 10 deep fried gorgonzola cheese bites each covered with pear soaked in red burgundy wine. Along with that, we have a glass of burgundy wine and the Guinness I have here is optional. If I fail this challenge within the one hour time limit, its going to be 75. But if I win, Ill get my entire meal for free, a sweet t-shirt and Ill be the very first person with my name and photo up on the wall of fame. Throughout the challenge, Irish fans were chanting Randys name while he scoffed 3kg or 6.5 pounds worth of food in just 19 minutes and 18 seconds. He finished off with the Guinness and said Slainte. I was not sure how today was going to go because the 1.5 kilo piece of cod is massive. I still loved all of my fish, the chips with it, I enjoyed the mushy peas, he added. This fish is so good, it was caught locally. They get fresh seafood every morning here. A hoedown at Ireland's highest pub Top of Coom is set to be the event of the summer. Left to right Jamie O'Halloran, Maire O'Keeffe and Daniel Creedon. Ireland's highest pub Top of Coom is getting ready to host a Hoedown in aid of the Irish Cancer Society. Left to right: Medb Ni Chionnfhaolaidh, Tim and Eileen Creedon, Daniel Creedon, Jamie OHalloran, Marie OKeeffe and Ella Healy. Billed as one of the highlights of the summer an an evening of music, dancing, and community spirit will take place at Irelands highest pub, the renowned Top of the Coom. This charming and unique venue will host a barn dance fundraiser on the Cork/Kerry border that is a night out not to be missed this Saturday, July 20. The event aims to raise thousands of euros for the Irish Cancer Society and its Night nurse service which provides critical services for those most in need. The event is being organised by four Masters students from University College Dublin (UCD) Conor Patterson, Ed Neenan, Marie OKeeffe and Michael OCallaghan who are working closely together to make a significant impact on the lives of those affected by cancer. Cancer has touched all of our lives in one way or another, and we are passionate about supporting the Irish Cancer Society and the Night Nurse Service, said Marie OKeeffe whose sister and brother-in-law run the Top of Coom. Cork and Kerry may often be rivals but both sides of the border have come together to host this fundraising event at the landmark pub. The event promises to be an unforgettable night of entertainment with two bands with Patrick and Conor OSullivan and The Hillbillies. The barn dance will feature live music from local bands and a picturesque setting of the Top of the Coom pub, adds a unique charm. The Night Nurse service provided by the Irish Cancer Society offers critical support to cancer patients and their families. Night Nurses offer professional care and comfort during the night hours, allowing family members to rest while ensuring that patients receive the compassionate care they need. This service is particularly vital for those in the final stages of cancer, providing a sense of dignity and peace during a profoundly challenging time. Organising an event of this scale requires substantial resources, and organisers are calling on local businesses and community members to step forward as sponsors. We have already received incredible support from some local businesses, but we need more to reach our fundraising goals and ensure a great night for all attendees, said Michael OCallaghan. A crucial aspect of this event is that all proceeds raised will be donated to the Irish Cancer Society. To ensure this, all coordination costs will be covered by our generous sponsors. The response from the local community has been overwhelmingly positive. The Top of the Coom pub, a beloved local landmark, has generously offered its space for the event. We are thrilled to host this barn dance. It is an honour to support the Irish Cancer Society and to help the Night Nurse service. Like many houses, our family have been touched by cancer and the care and support we received from the daffodil night nurses was everything in difficult moments, said Eileen Creedon. Organisers are encouraging everyone to participate in any way they can. "Whether you are dancing the night away with us or supporting from afar, your contribution makes a difference, added Eileen. Sponsorship/donations can be made through Revolut with the Account Number: IBAN: IE15REVO99036004437731. The names on the account are Marie Grainne OKeeffe and Conor Patterson. Tickets can be purchased via https://eventmaster.ie/event/bq2Yi9AHjr?bcrFallback=bcrFallback The start of the children Fancy Dress parade in Sneem during the 2023 festival. The village of Sneem is set to come alive this week with the annual Sneem Summer Festival kicking off. The five day event has a a spectacular line-up of events, performances, and activities. And among the highlights this year will be social media stars James Kavanagh and William Murray hosting a cooking demonstration using Sneem Black Pudding - the product the village is most famous for. The family-friendly Sneem Summer Festival running from July 17 to 21 is set to be unforgettable this year with a range of interactive activities for kids, parents and grandparents; with highlights including The Rising, live in the marquee; Turbetts Funfair; Forest school; summer market and storytelling and concerts in the Sneem Story house Families are in for a treat with a host of events tailored for children - including face painting, fancy dress parade, Lego workshops, nature crafts, astronomy shows, cookie decorating and Sensory Morning as well as BBQ and activities on Sunday afternoon including Sumo wrestling, Dunk tank & The Bucking Bronco. Master the craft of axe throwing or take part in paint and sip with Art House Killarney. Kerry wellbeing event organisers Quest & Thrive will be bringing their signature move - breathe - eat - swim to the White Strand beach on Saturday, along with yoga with Karin & Sound bath Meditation on Thursday. Let's not forget the broad tapestry of cultural events such as Sheep Shearing and Sheep Tossing; traditional craft demonstrations by our local blacksmith Tom and wood turner Kevin, beekeepers, poetry events, historical talks and nature walks. Youll learn everything from old traditional crafts to more about the civil war in Kerry and the moon and sky in July, says organisers/ Food tastings and drink tastings are also on the cards with tapas and wine on Wednesday, Cider tasting and local bites on Friday along with whiskey tasting on Thursday and gin tasting on Saturday. PRO Cadhla OSullivan says We are really excited to welcome everyone back to Sneem this year for a spectacular and fun filled week of festivities with activities for all to enjoy. Sneem Summer Festival not only aims to entertain but also to foster community spirit and celebrate the rich cultural heritage of the region. Festival organisers have ensured a packed schedule that will appeal to both residents and visitors alike, providing a perfect opportunity to experience the warmth, hospitality and craic for which Sneem is famous. A community in Roscommon has vowed to fight to keep a much-loved local priest who is facing relocation as part of diocesan changes. More than two hundred people attended a public meeting in Drum in South Roscommon on Tuesday night to protest against the decision to relocate Fr Michael Hickey. Fr Hickey, who is in his eighties, has served the Drum/Clonown community for seven years. Follow Independent Roscommon on Facebook However, in a letter to parishioners, Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran confirmed that the priest would be returning to his religious order, the Holy Ghost Missionaries in Dublin , at the end of August. In the letter, Bishop Doran said, I am very grateful to all the priests who have generously agreed to accept these changes and I wish them every blessing as they take up their new assignments. "I take this opportunity to thank Fr Michael Hickey who has served generously in the Parish of Saints Peter and Paul, Athlone for seven years, and well beyond the normal age of retirement, said Bishop Doran. During the meeting, many local people shared heartfelt stories of his invaluable support and help he has contributed towards the community. A local committee has been formed and a petition was circulated for return to Drum Parish Hall by next Monday evening July 15, at 8pm. It is believed that the committee will also seek a meeting with Bishop Doran to discuss the situation and urge him to reconsider the Fr Hickeys relocation. The local community hope that Fr Hickey will be allowed to continue serving in County Roscommon for as long as he desires. A spokesperson for Drum Community Centre said, "Michael's presence and unique pastoral care has helped them and so many others in our community, particularly attending to people at times of isolation, sickness or bereavement. "There was overwhelming support and agreement from the meeting that Fr Michael should be allowed to continue living and serving in the parish for as long as he is willing and able to do so, rather than being forced out with nowhere to go. "A small committee was formed to pursue the matter urgently and a petition was circulated for return to Drum Parish Hall next Monday evening, July 15 at 8pm. The Elphin Diocese has been contacted for a comment on the matter. Teagasc is inviting Wicklow farmers and landowners to an online seminar focusing on how animal health can positively impact climate change targets on Friday, July 19, at 9.30 a.m. Part of Teagascs Signpost Series - a series of weekly environment webinars aimed at the Irish agri industry the webinar will discuss how animal health can positively impact broader climate change targets. The webinar will feature guest speaker Lance Woods from MSD Animal Health Ireland, who is a Nuffield Scholar. Lance will conduct a questions and answers session to conclude the webinar. The Signpost Series Podcast provides knowledge and information to farmers and the agriculture sector on maintaining and improving the environment. Topics covered include greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, biodiversity and soils. To register for the July 19 webinar, visit teagasc.ie The Irish Writers Centre has selected two Wicklow-based writers to receive a mentorship under the National Mentoring Programme. The Irish Writers Centre offers a minimum of 35 mentorships across Ireland each year under the programme, which is supported by Wicklow County Arts Office and the Arts Council. Following a national callout, 14 applications were received from Wicklow writers for the 2024 Mentoring Programme, with Ben McGuire and Ali McGuire emerging as the two successful candidates. Bray resident Ben was the winner in the 2023 Coast to Coast to Coast Journal Prize, and his poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Stand and The Irish Times, and have been commended in the Troubadour Prize. A writer of fiction, poetry and essays centred on what it means to be human (particularly a woman), south Wicklow resident Ali was a 2024 IWC Novel Fair finalist. She has been featured in The Independents New Irish Writing and made the Fish Short Story and Poetry longlists in 2023, and also holds a first-class masters in creative writing from DCU. Ali and Ben will now receive sustained creative and professional mentoring from an established Irish writer of their choosing, with four meetings spread over approximately six to eight months. Their mentors will read up to 10,000 words/180 lines of poetry in advance and will give creative feedback and advice at each meeting, and may also provide professional information and advice. Last year, following a national callout where more than 300 applications were received, three Wicklow-based writers were selected by the Irish Writers Centre to receive mentorship, including Abbie White, Eleanor OReilly and Noline Foley. Milliner Sarah McGahon focused on making biodegradable plastic and turning and upcycling it into jewellery and fabric. Local Wicklow and Ukrainian women taking part in the summer camp at the Ukrainian Hub in Wicklow town. The Wicklow Ukrainian Hub is hosting a womens summer camp in association with Mary Millet, County Wicklow Partnerships Croi Rath Naoi Community Development Project Coordinator in Rathnew, who also manages the Womens Network. The network represents the lived experiences of women from a social justice perspective. It holds a yearly summer project exclusively for women, which traditionally has taken place in the Rathnew Community Centre. Speaking about the inspiration to change venue and hold this summers camp in the hub in Wicklow town, Mary said: With the ongoing Ukrainian War, many womens lives have changed. We are acutely aware of the dismantling of our Ukrainian sisters family support and community systems since relocating to Ireland for refuge. Our Ukrainian sisters are regular attenders of the Network events particularly our last two international womens events in the Rathnew Community Centre. Ukrainian women attend Rathnew Rathdrum womens group on a Tuesday morning and one is a member in our Rathnew Womens Craft Fair, a social enterprise project. Occasionally one has attended our Rathnew Womens Shed Wednesday night group. We would like to see more women attend our groups and all women are welcome to attend. As the war has shown little chance of a solution to date, Mary has collaborated with her SICAP colleague Tanya Antanova who is based in the Wicklow Ukrainian Hub to run the second womens summer camp in the hub. Last year they ran a two-week camp with renowned Wicklow milliner Sarah McGahon and this year they are continuing with Sarah with a focus on making biodegradable plastic and turning and upcycling it into jewellery and fabric. The main objective of the womens summer camp is to create a safe warm and welcoming environment to build strong community connections where Ukrainian women integrate with other local women through friendships into the Wicklow community, added Mary. Croi Rath Naoi and the Wicklow Ukrainian Hub is an integral part of County Wicklow Partnership and its SICAP programme. The Womens camp is 100pc funded by SICAP through County Wicklow Partnership. The SICAP programme is funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and overseen by the Wicklow Local Community Development Committee LCDC. For further information on the Women Of Wicklow Social Inclusion Network you can contact Mary Millett at mary_crn@wicklowpartnership.ie. The trailer for Captain America: Brave New World shows Anthony Mackie battling villains as the superhero for the first time. The film sees Mackies character Sam Wilson take on the role of Captain America, having previously been the superhero The Falcon since the Winter Soldier movie. It also sees Harrison Ford, 81, make his Marvel debut as General Ross, a role played previously by the late William Hurt. In the movie, Fords character asks Wilson to take up an official military position, after becoming president, in an attempt to uncover a nefarious global plot. The trailer sees Fords character telling Wilson work with me Sam, well show the world a better way forward, before showing clips of him taking up the Captain America shield. Mackie, 45, can then be seen battling villains including Red Hulk, who makes a brief appearance in the trailer, picking up Captain Americas shield and slamming it into the ground. It comes after Civil War actor Chris Evans last in the role of Steve Rogers, Wilsons predecessor in the role, with the trailer showing General Ross telling Wilson you may be Captain America, but youre not Steve Rogers. Captain America: Brave New World will be the fourth in the series to feature the hero as the main character after Civil War, Winter Soldier and The First Avenger. The film will be released in UK cinemas on Friday February 14. Man arrested in London after human remains found in suitcases in Bristol Human remains found in suitcases thought to be those of two men, police say Sam Hall, Natasha Leake and Claire Hayhurst Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 23:44 A man has been arrested in London amid a major hunt for a key suspect after the remains of two men were found in two suitcases near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. The man captured by police after a mother and two daughters were killed in a crossbow attack was a former soldier with a brother serving life in prison for murder, it has emerged. Kremlin describes Kyivs conditions as an ultimatum Russia will not attend a follow-up to last months Ukraine peace summit, state news agency RIA quoted deputy foreign minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying yesterday. Russia was not invited to the initial summit in Switzerland, which was attended by representatives of 92 countries, and said discussing the war in its absence was a waste of time. Wish you werent here! Holidaymakers face a backlash against overtourism Tourists are increasingly unwelcome in key destinations such as Barcelona, with locals angered by short-term apartment lets pushing people out of their homes Barcelona residents protest over mass tourism by squirting tourists with water guns Kim Bielenberg Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 03:30 They may have escaped the rainy Irish summer and the after-effects of the Aer Lingus pilots industrial action. but holidaymakers going abroad should be prepared for a cool or even hostile reception in some destinations. Irish News LATEST | We will evaluate it when it comes closer Tanaiste responds to soldiers concerns they may not be able to come home at end of Lebanon tour President Biden 'needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to beat Trump' 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. A growing number of Democrats in Congress are publicly calling on Democratic President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid after the 81-year-old incumbent's halting debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump. While many politicians have expressed unease with Biden's continued candidacy - and others have steadfastly backed the incumbent's plans - here is a list of those who have directly called for Biden to not run again. What to expect if Donald Trump gets back into the White House The former president will be rubber-stamped as the Republican candidate next week. Win or lose the November election, he will cast a long shadow over US politics Imperious influence: Trumps Maga legion believes what he says, including his claims the 2020 election was rigged. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Robert Schmuhl Fri 12 Jul 2024 at 03:30 When Donald Trump becomes the Republican candidate for US president next week, the festivities at the partys convention in Milwaukee will resemble a coronation. New Delhi/IBNS: Jio Financial Services on Thursday (July 11) received the Reserve Bank of India 's (RBI) approval to become a Core Investment Company (CIC) from a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), the company said in an exchange filing. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a conglomerate that focuses in energy to telecom, split out to form Jio Financial Services. Jio Financial Services, in November 2023, submitted an application to the RBI to convert from an NBFC to a CIC, and in order to incorporate the firm, the company applied to the central bank following the demerger of RIL' financial services division, as per reports. As per media reports, a CIC is a specialised NBFC with assets larger than Rs 100 crore. According to the RBI circular of December 20, 2016, a CIC's primary responsibility is to purchase shares and securities subject to specific restrictions, and at least 90 percent of the CIC's net assets must be invested in bonds, debentures, equity shares, preference shares, debt, or loans made to group firms. All CICs with assets more than Rs 100 crore are subject to the country's apex bank's regulations. Jio Financial Services, on August 21 last year, officially debuted on the stock exchanges. Jio Financial Services' parent firm Reliance Industries Limited will release its June quarter financial results on July 19. According to reports, Jio Financial Services, due to an improvement in income, recorded a 6 percent increase in consolidated net profit for the fourth quarter that ended in March 2024, totaling Rs 311 crore, while the financial services firm declared a profit for the quarter ending in December of Rs 294 crore. Besides investment and lending, Jio Financial Services also offers payment gateway, bank, and payment aggregator services. Image Credit: unsplash Kolkata: West Bengal witnessed loss of as many as 3 million jobs from 2015-16 to 2022-23, while Maharashtra gained 2.4 million workers in unincorporated enterprises, making them the worst- and best-performing states, respectively, media reported, citing government data. The National Statistical Office published the latest Annual Survey on Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) report for 2021-22 and 2022-23 on Friday, reported Business Standard. Comparing this data with the National Sample Survey's 73rd round for 2015-16 revealed that 13 of 28 states and three Union Territories experienced a decrease in informal sector workers between 2015-16 and 2022-23. Besides West Bengal, other states that lost jobs include Karnataka (1.3 million), Tamil Nadu (1.2 million), Uttar Pradesh (791,000), Andhra Pradesh (677,000), Kerala (640,000), Assam (494,000), and Telangana (344,000). Among Union Territories, the number of workers in unincorporated enterprises in Delhi decreased by nearly 300,000, falling from 2.3 million to 1.99 million during the same period. Chandigarh saw a decline of 51,000 workers, and Puducherry lost 32,000 workers. Comparable data for the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are not available. Conversely, Maharashtra, Gujarat (762,000), Odisha (761,000), and Rajasthan (756,000) experienced an increase in the number of workers in the informal sector. Earlier in June, Business Standard reported, based on a fact sheet for ASUSE, that the total number of workers employed in India's vast informal sector declined by 1.7 million, from 109.6 million in the pre-pandemic period of 2015-16 to 2022-23. Labour economist Santosh Mehrotra explains that states with a larger non-farm sector or a relatively larger industrial base have more unincorporated enterprises. The decline in employment opportunities provided by these units is significantly linked to successive policy-induced shocks in recent years. In the non-farm sector, these unincorporated units are the biggest providers of employment. While the total number of establishments may have increased after the pandemic, it is primarily due to an increasing number of own-account enterprises. These units do not generate jobs, so the total number of workers employed remains low, he was quoted as saying by Business Standard. In the Indian context, the unincorporated sector is important because of the large number of establishments in this sector and the magnitude of employment it provides to unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled persons, besides its contribution to the gross domestic product of the country. These enterprises typically include small businesses, vendors, hawkers, sole proprietorships, partnerships, and other businesses that are not incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, or the Companies Act, 2013. Photo Courtesy: PIB New Delhi: The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has made a big move towards bolstering India's self-reliance in the defence sector by approving seven new projects under the Technology Development Fund (TDF) scheme, media reported. This initiative is designed to promote innovation and technological progress within the country, particularly among Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups, which are essential to the defence and aerospace sectors, reported Financial Express. The TDF scheme is a key element of DRDOs efforts to achieve Aatmanirbharta, or self-reliance, in defence technology. By granting these projects to private industries, DRDO not only stimulates the development of advanced technologies but also enhances the military industrial ecosystem in India. The participation of MSMEs and start-ups in these projects highlights the focus on nurturing domestic talent and resources, ensuring that the defence sector benefits from the flexibility and innovation of smaller enterprises. Indigenous Scenario and Sensor Simulation Toolkit has been awarded to Oxygen 2 Innovation Pvt Ltd, Noida. This toolkit for pilot simulator training offers realistic scenarios for comprehensive mission planning and large force engagements. As a domestically developed tool, it will significantly enhance pilot training and operational readiness. Underwater Launched Unmanned Aerial Vehicle awarded to Sagar Defence Engineering Pvt Ltd, Pune. A multifaceted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of underwater deployment for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). This initiative aims to revolutionize marine battlefield equipment. Long-Range Remotely Operated Vehicles for Detection & Neutralisation to IROV Technologies Pvt Limited, Kochi. The company will create dual-use remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) that can detect, classify, locate, and neutralize underwater objects, ensuring the protection of key assets from operational threats. These ROVs will improve underwater security and boost operational efficiency. Development of Ice Detection Sensor for Aircraft to Craftlogic Labs Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru. The company will create sensors to detect in-flight icing conditions, triggering the aircraft's anti-icing mechanisms. This technology is essential for improving flight safety and performance in adverse weather conditions. Development of Radar Signal Processor with Active Antenna Array Simulator to Data Pattern (India) Limited, Chennai. They will develop a radar signal processor combined with an active antenna array simulator. This system will enable the testing and evaluation of multiple short-range aerial weapon systems, acting as a foundational component for larger radar systems. Development of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System-based Timing Acquisition & Dissemination System to Accord Software & Systems Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru. The company aims to localise timing acquisition and dissemination systems by leveraging the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). This project seeks to develop a customizable and adaptable timing system suited to specific range needs, thereby advancing the adoption of indigenous satellite technology. Development of Graphene-Based Smart & E-textiles for Multifunctional Wearable Applications to Alohatech Private Limited, Coimbatore. The company will develop conductive yarn and fabric manufacturing processes utilizing graphene nanomaterials and conductive inks. This initiative aims to produce advanced nanocomposite materials-based E-textiles suitable for practical clothing applications. The project underscores the potential of integrating cutting-edge materials into wearable technology for defense purposes. Representative image/ credit: Pixabay New Delhi/IBNS: The Rouse Avenue court Friday granted bail to one Gangadhar Gunde whose counsel claimed that he was wrongly arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) due to mistaken identity in an NEET paper-leak case linked to Maharashtra's Latur. The CBI had arrested the accused Gunde on June 26 from Dehradun. This case was initially registered by the Latur Police at Shivaji Nagar Police Station. Later on, the FIR was taken over by the CBI. Special CBI judge Ankit Singla granted bail to Gangadhar Gunde after hearing arguments of counsel for CBI and the accused. He has been granted bail on furnishing a bail bond of 25,000 and a surety bond of the same amount. Advocate Kailash More counsel for Gangadhar Rangnath Gunde argued that Gunde had been arrested by the CBI on June 26 from Dehradun due to mistaken identity. He is not the actual man for whom CBI was looking for. It was submitted that an FIR was lodged by the CBI about the NEET UG exam 2024 against a person whose name is also Gangadhar but the full name was not revealed. N Gangadhar Appa Nanjuthappa was arrested by the CBI later on. Advocate More also submitted that Gangadhar Gunde's name surfaced during the investigation as he met one Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav on October 2. Gunde met him in Osmanabad about his daughter's matrimonial dispute at her in-law's house. There Gunde and Jadhav exchanged their mobile numbers. Gunde made a call to Jadhav on October 3, the bail plea stated. On the other hand, the counsel for the CBI disputed the submissions of the defence counsel. She argued that one suspect Irenna Konagalwar is on the run and only knows who is actual Gangadhar agency was looking for. So as far now, it can't be said with surety that the present accused is not the same Gangadhar agency was looking for. Relying upon the statement of arrested teachers Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav and Jalil Umar Khan Pathan, CBI submitted that Konagalwar knew Gangadhar. CBI counsel also submitted that Gangadhar has been arrested in the initial FIR registered on June 23, 2024. His name surfaced during the interrogation of Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav and Jalil Umar Khan Pathan, the FIR named the accused persons. Counsel for CBI submitted in the court that Gandhar has been arrested on the basis of complaint given by the Inspector ATS Maharashtra police against four persons including Gangadhar. On Thursday, the CB arrested the alleged mastermind of the Bihar NEET-UG case, Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky, from Patna. Following his arrest, the CBI conducted searches at multiple locations in Patna and Kolkata, recovering several incriminating documents. A local court has granted the CBI 10-day custody of Rocky for interrogation. Sources revealed that Rocky, earlier, who ran a hotel in Ranchi, Jharkhand, was responsible for leaking the NEET-UG question paper. He allegedly sent the leaked paper to an associate named Chintu, who further distributed and printed it with answers for students. Rocky is also the nephew of Sanjeev Mukhia, another accused in the case. Support Our Journalism We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news. Support objective journalism for a small contribution. Photo Courtesy: Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets US President Joe Biden. Photo Courtesy: Volodymyr Zelenskyy X page Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met US President Joe Biden , has urged the United States to approve the use of long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia . Speaking at the end of this week's NATO summit in Washington DC, Zelenskyy praised the alliance for its pledges of military support to Ukraine as it fights Russia, but said battlefield restrictions must be lifted if his country is to succeed, reported The National News. If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations, Zelenskyy said. A statement released by the White House said Joe Biden and Zelenskyy met and discussed the state of the battlefield and ongoing US efforts to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to defend itself. Additional package During the meeting, President Biden announced an additional package of security assistance for Ukraine, which includes a Patriot air defense system, air defense interceptors, and artillery and HIMARS ammunition, the White House said. This is the eighth security assistance package authorised by President Biden since he signed the national security supplemental. "The leaders reviewed the concrete outcomes for Ukraine at the NATO Summit, including announcements on F-16s, air defense, and the Ukraine Compact, a shared pledge among more than 20 countries to support Ukraine both now and for the long-term," the White House said in a statement. Newly elected UK PM promises USD 3.87 bn aid a year to Ukraine Meanwhile, newly elected British PM Keir Starmer has said his government will spend at least 3bn (USD 3.87 bn) every year on military support for Ukraine for as long as is it takes in its conflict with Russia. Following his first meeting with Zelenskyy, the PM said military aid would continue until at least 2030-31. The UK has to date promised almost 12bn in support to Ukraine since February 2022, of which 7.1bn is for military assistance. The rest is for humanitarian and economic support, The Guardian reported. UN General Assembly demands immediate end to Russian aggression in Ukraine The UN General Assembly on Thursday demanded that Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all military forces from Ukrainian territory. The Assembly also called for an immediate end to attacks against Ukraines critical energy infrastructure, following weeks of escalation. The resolution entitled Safety and security of nuclear facilities of Ukraine, including the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was adopted with 99 countries in favour and nine against (Belarus, Burundi, Cuba, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria). Sixty Member States abstained. In image Jeremy Skibicki/credit: X/@komodeefrog Winnipeg/IBNS: Serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has been found to be guilty of four counts of first-degree murder by a Manitoba judge. During an hours-long interview following his arrest in May 2022, Skibicki confessed to police by saying I killed four people. Skibicki described the graphic ways he killed and defiled the women in a video, portions of which formed a key piece of evidence in the trial. The statement was really the starting piece after Miss Contois body was found, and it really helped to prove the case the crown had to prove," said Crown prosecutor Renee Lagimodiere. During the trial, the defence had relied on the evidence of a U.K.-based psychiatrist, who testified Skibicki had been suffering from schizophrenia and had been hearing voices at the time of the killings. But Chief Justice Glenn Joyal rejected this evidence and it was also determined that when he mercilessly killed four Indigenous women he was not suffering from a mental disorder. A second psychiatrist, called by the Crown, testified instead that Skibicki's actions were racially motivated, and he did not have a major mental disorder, to which Joyal agreed. The accused did not have a mental disorder such as schizophrenia, Joyal said while reading his decision Thursday. When a summary of decision was delivered Thursday by Joyal in Manitobas Court of Kings Bench, Skibicki, who sat in the prisoners box, remained quiet and showed no emotion while people in the gallery cheered. Today is a significant day in the history of ManitobaI thank Chief Justice Glenn Joyal for showing respect to the victims, their families and the context of MMIWG2S+ in which the verdict was delivered," Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said in a statement. Joyal added that a full and lengthy written decision will be released next week followed by a sentencing hearing at a later date. First-degree murder convictions come with an automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years. Skibicki has now been convicted of first-degree murder in the killings of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified woman Indigenous leaders have named Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe or Buffalo Woman. Skibicki preyed on his victims at homeless shelters, argued the Crown, invited them back to his apartment where he abused them, often sexually, and killed them, defiled their bodies and disposed of them in nearby garbage bins and dumpsters. Getting stuck in traffic in Mumbai is no big deal. Is that why Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding guests Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian took an auto-rickshaw ride? No, we are not kidding. The American socialite were seen enjoying an auto ride in people are freaking out! Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian take auto-rickshaw ride! Instagram After posting videos of their warm welcome in India with flowers and Tikka at the Taj Hotel, Khloe and Kim Kardashian stepped out for an auto-rickshaw ride. Still sporting the Tikka on their forehead, they were seemingly enjoying the monsoon weather. In the video, Khole says, "Kim and I are in a rickshaw in India." The clip ends with Kim striking her signature pout pose. Without further ado, watch the video below. Also Read: Kim Kardashian reacts to being mobbed in India, fans excited to see her in a saree Kim Kardashian and Khole Kardashian take auto rickshaw in Mumbai #KimKardashian #kholekardashian pic.twitter.com/XnUrvg4uc2 TraditionsTrove (@TraditionsTrove) July 12, 2024 Kim Kardashian to shoot Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's wedding for The Kardashians season 6 As per a report on India Today, the sisters will shoot their experience at the wedding for Hulu reality show titled The Kardashians. They have arrived with their team, including hairstylist Chris Appleton and filming producers as well in Mumbai. And fans are freaking out. Also Read: Kim in India for Ambani wedding: Remember when the Hollywood star said Indian curry is disgusting? "But rickshaws don't drive around the area where they're staying. What are they trying to show," one of the users wrote. "Did they just crossed to sealink to ride in a rickshaw lol?" said another user. "The viewership for this episode is going to be great," added another user. International celebrities at the Ambani wedding Apart from Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian, American actor and rapper John Cena, Nigerian rapper Rema best known for his song Calm Down, futurist Peter Diamandis, artist Jeff Koons, British author Jay Shetty, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, former US Secretary of State John Kerry, former Canadian PM Stephen Harper will join the wedding celebration. Meanwhile, Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding spans three days. The Shubh Vivaah is slated for July 12. The Shubh Aashirwad will take place on on July 13, and a grand reception is scheduled for July 14, followed by another reception on July 15. For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. After two grand pre-wedding celebrations that saw the presence of the world's most powerful leaders, businessmen and celebrities among others, the youngest son of India's richest man and chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani and chairperson and founder of the Reliance Foundation Nita Ambani, Anant Ambani is all set to get married to the love of his life Radhika Merchant, daughter of pharmaceutical tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant. Do you know how childhood friends fell in love? Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's love story X As per multiple reports, Anant and Radhika have been childhood friends. Growing up, they shared the same friend circle. After completing their schooling, they went their own ways. While Anant went to Brown University, Rhode Island for his graduation and Radhika on the other hand went to New York University. The rumours of them dating started in 2018 after a viral picture of them lost in each other's eyes took the internet by storm. They were both wearing olive green robes. The rumours grew strong when they both walked hand in hand at Isha Ambani's engagement ceremony in Lake Como. Radhika was also spotted at Akash Ambani's wedding with Shloka Mehta. She was also seen bonding with the Ambani family during Prithvi Akash Ambani's first birthday celebrations. Ambanis held Radhika Merchant's Arangetram ceremony in 2022 at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai, which is also their wedding location. Instagram They officially got engaged at the Roka ceremony held in Srinathji temple at Nathdwara on December 29, 2022 followed by an engagement ceremony at Antilia on January 19, 2023. The lavish party was a star-studded affair attended by many Bollywood stars. 'I am 100% lucky one': When Anant Ambani declared his love for Radhika Merchant In his speech at Jamnagar celebrations, Anant had confessed his love for Radhika. He said, "I am 100% the lucky one. There is no doubt about that. I dont know how I got Radhika. I am definitely the luckiest here. Radhika has been with me for the last seven years, and I feel that I met Radhika yesterday. But every day, I fall more and more in love with her. Like my brother-in-law says, when he used to see my sister, he had volcanoes and fountains going up in his heart, and I would say I have earthquakes and tsunamis going on in my heart when I see Radhika. So, thank you, Radhika, for everything." Also Read: Radhika Merchant opens up about Anant's love letter on gown: 'I want my kids & grandkids to see it' Instagram When they were locked down in Jamnagar during Covid-19 In her speech during the first pre-wedding celebrations, Radhika Merchant had revealed why Jamnagar was special for both of them. "For Anant and me, Jamnagar is where our heart is. This is where we grew up, where we became friends, where we fell in love and where we built our relationship. Now as we begin our future together, we will be doing it here and we are so thankful that you get to see the beginning of it." Instagram She also revealed that during the Covid-19 pandemic, they were both locked down in the city. "In March of 2020, Anant and I got locked down here and couldnt go back to see our family for months. Although it was hard to stay away, we learned to appreciate the small joys of life. It offers more than just romantic moments. Its a crucial phase for building a foundation based on mutual understanding and shared experiences. Studies have shown that couples who invest in quality time pre-marriage report higher levels of relationship satisfaction and are less prone to divorce. This is attributed to the opportunity to delve deeper into each others values, communication styles, and conflict resolution approaches." Also Read: This is what Anant Ambani wrote for Radhika Merchant in a love letter that she wants to show to her grandkids For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. The Uttar Pradesh Police may have seen all kinds of criminals behind bars in their jails but weren't prepared for an unusual inmate spotted in a jail in Ghaziabad District. Cops at the Madhuban Bapudham police station in UP's Ghaziabad were left shocked on Thursday when a venomous black cobra was found inside one of the lockups there. Screengrab Cobra inside police lockup A sweeper found the black cobra in a corner of the lockup, which thankfully was not occupied at the time. In a video that has gone viral on social media, the cobra can be seen with a raised hood, coiled among some discarded disposable glasses. Also read: Nightmare come true! Live Indian spectacled cobra found slithering inside flush Video goes viral In the video, some voices can be heard trying to chase it away, while someone else can be heard warning others not to get closer to the cobra. Snake rescued, released The tense episode ended with the intervention of the Forest Department, who, after being alerted by the cops, rushed to the police station and rescued the cobra. According to the Forest Department, the juvenile cobra was rescued from the lockup and released into the Dasna jungle. Cops said that the cobra could have taken shelter inside the lockup after being chased by a group of people from a nearby area. Increase in snake sightings in Monsoon While this particular incident ended event-free, the presence of poisonous snakes close to humans is a matter of concern during the monsoons. Also read: Meet Aaliya Mir, A Kashmiri Woman Rescuing Snakes, Bears And Other Dangerous Wildlife Unsplash It is very common for snakes to slither into residential areas or take shelter inside vehicles to escape the rains. Wildlife experts say that one should not leave items, including shoes and helmets, outside during the rainy season, as snakes could find them a comfortable shelter. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. In an attempt to force an employee to quit, a Chinese company locked him in a "small dark room" for four days during a labour dispute. What's more disturbing is that the incident came to light after Guangzhou Duoyi Network Co. Ltd. contested a court verdict in the case, according to sources. Who was the employee who was forced to resign? Liu discovered he couldn't use his entry pass or access the company's computer system | Image: Pexels It all started in December 2022, when an employee named Liu discovered he couldn't use his entry pass or access the company's computer system. This came after lengthy conversations about his resignation. Later, the firm took Liu to a room on a different floor than his usual job and informed him that he needed to partake in "training." Also read: The strangest food combination from China: 'Golgappas' served with live eel, dare to try? There was no power supply, so the room was completely dark. According to the South China Morning Post, there were no computers or coworkers in the office, and the only furniture was a table and chair. What did the company do with the employee? He was charged with seeing photographs of naked persons and surfing irrelevant websites while at work | Image: Canva The outlet also reported that Liu was not given any assignments for four days and that his phone was seized, despite the fact that he was allowed to leave the room "freely" and return home after "work." On day five, following Liu's wife's police report about the company's abuse of her husband, an official termination notice was issued. Guangzhou Duoyi Network said Liu violated business guidelines during the layoff to avoid paying compensation. He was charged with seeing photographs of naked persons and surfing irrelevant websites while at work. Also read: China's youth embrace 'naked resignations', here's why it matters However, Liu, a game art editor, stated that the images he viewed were necessary for his profession. The lower court found in favour of Liu. It ruled that Liu's incarceration in the "dark room" violated the Labour Contract Law, which requires employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace. How did the situation end? The court decided in Liu's favour, awarding him 380,000 yuan | Image: Pexels According to the South China Morning Post, the corporation publicized the complete court record on its official Weibo account and openly disputed with a May 2024 ruling issued by a district court in Sichuan province, southwest China. The court decided in Liu's favour, awarding him 380,000 yuan (US$52,200) in compensation for the company's activities during the labour dispute. Nevertheless, the business replied: "We believe that there are many problems with the labour laws which severely hinder economic development and are arbitrarily enforced by judges who distort the facts." What do you think about this? Tell us in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. A billionaire husband treated his wife to an extravagant birthday surprise, spending Rs 60 lakhs on gifts. According to The Sun, Saudi Al Nadak, 26, who lives in Sussex, enjoyed an opulent birthday celebration from her husband, Jamal Al Nadak, 32. Where did the couple meet each other? The couple met while attending a university in Dubai and have been together for seven years | Image: Instagram The couple met while attending a university in Dubai and have been together for seven years, three of which they have been married. Saudi is now a housewife, whilst Jamal has become a millionaire in Dubai. Also read: Viral video: Indian couple marks 36th wedding anniversary with celebration at Wimbledon When it's the wife's birthday, the husband's role doubles: first, he makes her day special and unforgettable, and second, he buys her gifts to make her happy. The first duty may be simple, but it is difficult to locate a gift that will truly make someone happy and satisfied. However, a millionaire husband accomplishes both things. What did the husband spend Rs 60 lakhs on? To make his wife's day special, the husband spent Rs. 60 lakhs on exquisite gifts | Image: Instagram To make his wife's day special, the husband spent Rs. 60 lakhs on exquisite gifts. Despite having been married for three years, he adores his wife and throws a lavish birthday party for her. Saudi just posted a video on her Instagram account detailing how much money her spouse spent on her birthday. He spent $15,000 in Saudi Arabia shopping for Miu Miu. Also read: Viral video: Man makes a special umbrella for couples, internet loves it Following that, she and her spouse had a Rs 1 lakh meal. Then she went to a Hermes showroom and was given gifts worth Rs. 29 lakh. She is also known to spend a lot of money on beauty procedures such as spas and facial fillers. How did people on the internet react? The recent viral video has received over 3.4 million views and 51,000 likes. Many people have left input in the comments area. Many individuals argue that it is a waste of money, and that it is all about showing off to others. A woman with the Instagram account @jennl_d_u wrote that it's such a pointless life; I come from an affluent family, but I'd rather go climbing or have fun with friends than go shopping. Check the viral video here. What do you think about this? Tell us in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. In addition to the mobility corridor, Romania and Bulgaria signed a memorandum to establish a regional special operations command centre. This centre will plan and manage NATO's special operations forces in the Black Sea region, further bolstering regional security The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Thursday, welcomed the Supreme Courts judgment affirming financial autonomy for Local Government Areas (LGAs) across the country. Recall that the Supreme Court declared that it is unconstitutional for State Governors to hold funds allocated for LG administrations. The seven-man panel, in the judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, declared that the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves. Advertisement The apex court held that the power of the government is portioned into three arms of government the Federal, the State and the Local Government. The court further declared that a state government has no power to appoint a caretaker committee and a local government council is only recognisable with a democratically elected government. Reacting, NLCs President, Joe Ajaero, via a statement, said the apex courts ruling is a restoration of hope in the countrys democracy and judiciary. According to him, the apex courts verdict is both courageous and salubrious. Recalling the tortuous journey to the local governments freedom, he said, Its an epochal pronouncement on Thursday, July 11, 2024, directing that financial allocations be made directly to Local Governments as well as divesting state governments of the power to remove local government executives is both courageous and salubrious. READ ALSO: Borno Govt Reintegrates 8,490 Repentant Boko Haram Members The Supreme Court, through this landmark judgment, has not only restored our democracy but possibly hope in democracy. For years we had watched with dismay and discontent the remorseless and mindless erosion of the powers of the local governments and had embarked on a series of national protests as workers, he said. Ajaero also commended the 9th National Assembly, the administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for their efforts leading to the ruling. He added, We also note the effort made by the Buhari Administration to prise off the strangle-hold of governors on local governments. We must also mention the commendable role on this matter by the 9th Assembly. This statement will not be complete without paying tribute to the Tinubu government for its presence of mind to institute this action at the Supreme Court. We specifically commend the President and the Attorney General of the Federation. Ajaero, however, wants the Supreme Court ruling implemented and questions the conduct of local government elections by state electoral commissions. Should SIECS be allowed to conduct elections or should NEC take over (even as they are over-burdened and are not exactly the best example)? Should there be a regulatory agency or commission with oversight over SIECs? We will find the devil in the details through a stakeholder conversation, he said. The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Katsina State Command has apprehended three alleged transformer and power cable vandals. DSC Buhari Hamisu, the commands spokesman, told reporters this while parading the suspects in Katsina on Thursday. According to him, on July 4, 2024, the Bakori Local Government Area (LGA) Division received a written report of vandalism and theft. Advertisement He explained that Shortly after receiving the complaint, the special Anti-vandal team attached to the division swung into action and apprehended two suspects. Hamisu said, Usman Usman, aged 29, of Unguwan Tofa quarters of Bakori LGA, is the primary suspect and Usman Lawal of Mai Ruwa Road Funtua LGAs of the State. The primary suspect specialises in vandalizing public infrastructure and theft. During the investigation, he confessed to committing the crimes and revealed that in committing the crime, he conspired with one Aliyu Umar, now at large. According to an NSCDC spokesman, the accused confessed to vandalising a transformer in Bakori LGA. READ MORE: Joke Silva Celebrates Husband, Olu Jacobs On His 82nd Birthday Days After Death Rumour Hamisu further stated that the prime suspect revealed that he planned with Usman Lawal to sell the vandalised items to Wanka and Kolom, who are also at large. He also revealed that the command was able to seize 350mm riser transformer cable and 75mm copper wire from the suspects. The Lagos State Police Command has detained a couple attempting to sell their two-year-old son to fly to Canada. SP Benjamin Hundeyin, the commands spokesperson, verified this to the Nigerian News Agency in Lagos on Thursday. Hundeyin stated that the couple (names withheld), ages 28 and 22, were caught on Tuesday while trying to do the sale. Advertisement He stated that about 2.45 p.m. on Tuesday, the Isolo Divisional Police Officer received information that the couple had gone to Isolo General Hospital and declared that they want to sell their baby son. READ MORE: May Edochie Makes Nollywood Debut, Appreciates Omoni Oboli For Opportunity Upon receipt of the information, operatives from the station moved swiftly to the hospital where they were about to sell their child. The babys age is two and he has been rescued. Upon interrogation, the couple confessed that they decided to sell the baby to enable the man to travel to Canada for a greener pasture. However, the investigation is ongoing, he said. NAN Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, has urged State Governors to comply with the Supreme Courts verdict granting full autonomy to Local Governments Areas (LGAs). He made this known in a post via X on Thursday. Advertisement Following the Supreme Courts verdict that mandates that LGAs should receive their monthly federal allocations directly into their accounts, he advised the Governors not to wave aside the financial autonomy granted to the local councils. Recall that apart from ordering that monthly allocation should be sent directly to the LGs, the Supreme Court also ruled that LGAs being administered by non-democratically elected chairmen should not receive allocation. With the verdict, several LGAs spread across 21 states would not receive July allocation from the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC. They include Jigawa, Rivers, Anambra, Kwara, Imo, Zamfara, Benue, Bauchi, Plateau, Abia, Enugu, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Yobe, Ondo, Osun, Delta, Akwa-Ibom, and Cross River. READ ALSO: Rivers: Dont Cause Crisis, 2024 Budget Already Signed Into Law PDP To Pro-Wike Lawmakers While some of the States had before now fixed dates for LG polls, some others have no immediate plan to put up democratically elected chairmen. However, Onanuga said: The Nigerian state governors should not see the Supreme Court judgement granting financial autonomy to the local councils as an affront. The governors must allow the councils to breathe and flourish again. It is in their best interest to ensure that the judgement is fully implemented in their domains. He pointed out that although Local Government is a crucial tier of government, State Governors have undermined and made them ineffective in the past 25 years. The local council is a very important third tier of government, and its emasculation by the governors in the last 25 years has been at the root of the poverty and insecurity we have all over our country, Onanuga added. The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, ordered the remand of a former Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, over money laundering to the tune of N33.8 billion. The court ordered his remand in Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja, after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned him on 12 counts. Advertisement Mamman, who served as the Minister of Power from August 2019 till September 2021, when he was unceremoniously removed from office by President Muhammadu Buhari, denied all the charges read to him in court. Prior to the court decision, EFCC detained Mamman in May 2023, about 20 months after his removal from office and less than three weeks before the end of Buharis tenure. The Presiding Judge, James Omotosho, ordered Mammans remand in prison after he entered a not-guilty plea to all the 12 counts against him. Defence lawyer, Femi Ate, informed the judge that he already filed a bail application on behalf of his client. EFCCs prosecution counsel, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, also acknowledged service of the bail application on him at about 12.30 p.m. However, Omotosho, said the application had yet to reach the courts file. READ ALSO: Arraignment Stalled As Ex-Power Minister Standing Trial For Fraud Collapses Outside Court Mr Ate then prayed to the court to allow him return to argue the bail application on Friday, of which the EFCC lawyer did not oppose the request. Information Nigeria had reported that the arraignment stalled earlier after his lawyer reported that Mamman slumped within the court premises while waiting for the court session to commence. The ex-minister walked into the courtroom and entered the dock with part of his clothes drenched when his case was called. When asked about his look by the judge, the defendant said water was poured on him, apparently to resuscitate him when he collapsed earlier. The former minister explained that he collapsed outside the courtroom because of the drugs he took on an empty stomach. He also said his blood pressure dropped while waiting outside for his case to be called. Mr Ate also said Mamman, upon being brought into the premises of the court, collapsed and had to be resuscitated and treated by the medical personnel of the Federal High Court. The judge asked Mamman if he was fit enough to take his plea, and he responded in the affirmative. This however prompted the arraignment to be postponed till 1 p.m. Following the Supreme Courts judgement granting financial autonomy to the 774 Local Government Areas in the country, Anambra Governor, Charles Soludo and his Cross River counterpart, Bassey Otu, gave positive reactions. The apex court, in a landmark judgement, ruled that it is unconstitutional for Governors to hold onto funds meant for local governments. Advertisement The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision by a seven-member panel of justices, barred Governors of the 36 states of the federation from receiving, withholding, tampering or utilizing funds that stand to the credit of the local government areas. Soludo who described the judgment as great and final, said this while speaking with State House correspondents after meeting with Tinubu, alongside chairman of Nigerias Governors Forum, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq of Kwara State, Governor Usman Ododo of Kogi State and Prince Bassey Otu of Cross River State at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. He said: Thats great. I mean, the Supreme Court is supreme, the final authority and Im a democrat. I believe in the rule of law. Once the Supreme Court has spoken, it has spoken. I think the Governors Forum is meeting to review this. I havent seen the document myself. Ive been extremely, very busy all through the day but Ive seen snippets of it. But at a fundamental level, yes, we need resources to get down to the grassroots and we need the peoples money to work for them at all levels, whether at the federal or the state and the local government. READ ALSO: Rivers: Dont Cause Crisis, 2024 Budget Already Signed Into Law PDP To Pro-Wike Lawmakers Otu, on his part, said the Governors had taken the judgement in good faith. About the Supreme Court judgement, Nigeria is a democratic country, and we know very well that President Tinubu and the Renewed Hope Agenda is a democratic one. I believe the judgment is taken in very good faith. All Nigerians should be happy about it. I dont think anybody is against development in the local governments. I dont think so. Also reacting, the Senator representing Abia North, Orji Uzor Kalu, said: The Supreme Court judgement is one that should be hailed and applauded, especially for the courage and independence shown by the judiciary. The Supreme Court, being a policy court, did what is right and beneficial to the society. While it may look like interference in the states, we should accept that all the calls for end of insecurity, kidnappings and banditry has just begun with this autonomy granted to local governments. When the local governments are in total control of their funds, there is flow of resources and activities in the local areas. For instance, when I was governor between 1999-2007, the autonomy of my local government chairmen was a major breakthrough to the success of my administration. The local government chairmen built roads and gave contracts to local contractors. The chairmen were able to take full responsibility of what happened in their local government and crime was reduced to the barest minimum. Meanwhile, efforts to get the NGF Chairmans reaction proved abortive as he evaded questions from State House correspondents after meeting with the President. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says the judgment of the Supreme Court affirming fiscal autonomy to Local Government councils is a win for the people of Nigeria. The apex court had ruled that the Federal Government should henceforth pay allocations directly to Local Government councils from the federation account. It also ordered the Federal Government to withhold allocations of LGs governed by unelected officials appointed by the Governor. Advertisement Reacting in a post via X on Thursday, Abubakar commended the Supreme Courts judgment, describing the ruling as step in the right direction for national development. Nonetheless, he criticized the decision to consolidate local council revenues into state government accounts, calling it a politics of hasty compromise. The judgment of the Supreme Court earlier today affirming fiscal autonomy to local government councils in the country is a win for the people of Nigeria. The courts ruling is a step in the right direction and a major corrective action in greasing the wheels of national development across the country. READ ALSO: Borno Bombing: North-East Must Not Fall Back Into Terrorism Atiku To FG The decision by the Federal Government to consolidate disbursements of local councils revenues into the state government accounts was a decision that was borne out of politics of hasty compromise. I align with the decision of the Supreme Court that the structure of the Nigerian government is portioned in three layers, and of these, the local governments should be centres of development, he wrote The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party further asked for the local governments fiscal autonomy to include internally generated revenue other than revenues from the federation accounts. I also share the belief that fiscal autonomy to the local governments should not be limited to revenues from the Federation Accounts, but indeed, should apply to Internally Generated Revenue from the respective local government authorities. Many of our states, especially those in the ultra urban areas with high density economic activities, have become notorious in muscling local councils from generating revenue on items that border on motor parks, outdoor advertising, rents and many more. The verdict of the court is in tandem with the core functions of the Supreme Court as an arbitration court between and among governments. -AA President Bola Tinubu has renamed Lagos national theatre in honour of Wole Soyinka. The announcement was made in a birthday message to the Nobel laureate, who turns 90 on July 13. The president emphasised the importance of recognizing and celebrating him while hes still alive. Advertisement It is also fitting we celebrate this national treasure while he is still with us, Tinubu said. I am, accordingly, delighted to announce the decision of the Federal Government to rename the National Theatre in Iganmu, Surulere, as the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts. We do not only celebrate Soyinkas remarkable literary achievements but also his unwavering dedication to the values of human dignity and justice. The president added that Professor Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Literature Prize in 1986, deserves all the accolades as he marks the milestone of 90 years on earth. Having beaten prostate cancer, this milestone is a fitting testament to his ruggedness as a person and the significance of his work, he said. The professor was on the editorial board of advisors for Encyclopaedia Britannica in 2005. When demonstrators fought the military to establish democracy, Soyinka was likewise in the proverbial trenches. READ MORE: #EndSARS: Justice Was Served DJ Switch Reacts To ECOWAS Court Ruling Beginning from his 20s, he took personal risks for the sake of our nation, the president said. His courage was evident when he attempted to broker peace at the start of the civil war in 1967. Despite deprivation and solitary confinement, his resolve to speak truth to power and fight for the marginalized was further strengthened. His early writing, such as The Lion and the Jewel, Death and the Kings Horseman, not only testified to his mastery of language, his innovative storytelling, but also his unflinching commitment to enthroning a fair and just society. Our paths crossed during our just struggle for the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. When faced with a trial in absentia and death sentence by the military regime at home, he galvanized opposition in exile through NALICON and NADECO. His global stature made him the face of our struggle to validate June 12 and restore democracy in Nigeria. Tinubu hailed Soyinka as a Nigerian whose impact extends beyond his home nation, citing his criticisms of South Africas apartheid regime and racism in the United States. I wish Professor Soyinka an incredibly happy 90th birthday, Tinubu said. May he continue to inspire us all to build a nation where people are free from oppression and our teeming youths can live up to their dreams without being a wasted generation. The Rivers State Police Command said its operatives had busted a criminal organisation that used tricycles known as Keke to rob victims and perpetrate other crimes in Port Harcourt and its surroundings. According to the command, 14 individuals were arrested in connection with the crime, including a female, and are assisting police in their investigation. Grace Iringe-Koko, spokesperson for the State Police Command, confirmed this in a statement on Thursday, adding that some of the suspects were active in the city and surrounding states. Advertisement Iringe-Koko stated that the feat followed a recent order from the state Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu, to all divisions and tactical units to crack down on these offenders. While noting that the apprehended defendants, who are mostly in their early twenties and thirties, typically committed these offences between March and July. The statement reads, On April 4, 2024, the Rivers State Police Command arrested a four-man gang specialized in terrorising residents in various parts of the state, especially Eliozu, and Rumuodara in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, this gang posed as drivers or commuters of tricycles (Keke Napep) to rob innocent citizens of their valuables starting from 7 pm daily. In a bid to rob a victim of her belongings, two of them were arrested by the Elimgbu Division; Arinze Onovo, 32 from Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State and Bright Okere, 29, a native of Ndoki Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State. Exhibits recovered are one tricycle and one kitchen knife. She stated that attempts were ongoing to apprehend the remaining gang members and recover their operating weapons. On March 8, 2024, operatives of the command while on a routine patrol along Igbo/Etche in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State intercepted one Terry Monday M aged 22, a native of Akwa Ibom State and Chile Sunday, 24, a native of Abia State. They confessed to belonging to a gang resident in Abia State who constantly stole tricycles in Rivers State and diverted them to Abia for sale. They were in the process of diverting a stolen tricycle when they were apprehended. Continuing, the state police image maker said the Anti-kidnapping unit of the command received a complaint on 10th June, 2024, from a man identified as Olisa Chukwu and some members of National Union Task Force for tricycle riders, claiming to be the owner of the recovered tricycle. READ MORE: Joke Silva Celebrates Husband, Olu Jacobs On His 82nd Birthday Days After Death Rumour After discreet investigations, it was revealed that the documents of the Keke bore a different name from the declared owner. The police continued investigations and proceeded to arrest one Nnamdi Eze, 27, a native of Ezza-South LGA of Ebonyi State, who confessed to the crime that he was the driver of an armed robbery gang at Rumuokoro and Eliozu axis of Obio/Akpor LGA of Rivers State. Investigations are still ongoing, she said. Disu encouraged the commands personnel for their efforts to make the streets of Port Harcourt and its surrounds safer, and urged them not to give up in the fight against all types of crime. Davids Bridal, the wedding dress retailer, is moving its headquarters from Conshohocken to King of Prussia. The CEO of the company, Jim Marcum, confirmed the move to The Inquirer on Thursday after it was initially reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal. The move to the new headquarters comes a year after Davids Bridal was sold to business development company CION Investment Corp, following the company filing for bankruptcy in April 2023. Advertisement Weve had a very long relationship with Whitemarsh and Conshohocken and its been a very pro-business community. We cant say good enough things about it, Marcum said in an interview with The Inquirer on Thursday. Its kind of unfortunate that were relocating, although I think King of Prussia is going to be terrific and convenient to our associates. Were excited. Marcum told The Inquirer in July 2023 that the company was looking to relocate its headquarters but that it would stay local. The new headquarters will be located at 630 Allendale Rd. in King of Prussia, and Davids Bridal will be leasing the space. Marcum said the company had been open to either buying or leasing a space. The company has had its headquarters at 1001 Washington St. in Conshohocken since January 2000. Davids Bridal sold the building for $3.05 million in May to Hightop Development. The real estate development firm has plans to develop the area into townhouses, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. Collaborative spaces and amenities Employees from the Davids Bridal Conshohocken office will move into the new headquarters, and it will be up and running in August. No one will be laid off, and around 200 employees will work out of the new headquarters, Marcum said. The company is still operating on a hybrid policy, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, he said. Its important to get the teams back engaged together and cross-functional, but ... we recognize in todays world, there are areas and opportunities where people can work and be very productive hybridly, said Marcum. We are maintaining that balance right now. The new office is smaller than the one in Conshohocken, but its more modern in feel, with collaborative space, he said. The building also provides amenities such as a fitness center and cafeteria for employees. The new office is 59,000 square feet compared to over 70,000 square feet in Conshohocken. Marcum noted that not all of the old office was really usable, and accessible, or efficient. The Conshohocken building was located along the Schuylkill and had experienced a pretty significant flood in the building during the pandemic, he said. As we thought through long-term what was the best decision to do, we kind of came to the conclusion that it was best to start fresh and in a nice, exciting, vibrant space, said Marcum. When Davids Bridal filed for bankruptcy in April 2023, the business was dealing with a post-COVID environment and uncertain economic conditions, Marcum said at the time. It was the second time in five years that the company had filed for bankruptcy. The wedding industry took a hit during the pandemic as gatherings were restricted and weddings were put on hold or reduced in size. Dating was also impacted, said Marcum. You were either in a relationship or you werent in a relationship at the time COVID hit, and if you werent in a relationship, it was probably pretty hard for you to be out developing a relationship so you went through a kind of a trough there of engagements, he said. Thats changing, he says. Now, were starting to move beyond that period, and were starting to see some good tailwinds. Were pretty happy. A West Oak Lane man was sentenced this week to 3 -to-10 years in state prison for holding a 14-year-old girl against her will at the Willow Grove Mall last summer. Khalilh Evans, 45, was convicted of false imprisonment of a minor after a two-day trial in April before Montgomery County Court Judge Wendy Rothstein. Advertisement As part of his sentence, handed down Wednesday by Rothstein, Evans is barred from going to the mall and must register as a sex offender with the state for 15 years. Evans attorney, Danton Moyer, declined to comment Friday. The victim testified that Evans and another man approached her at the mall last July while she was shopping. Evans introduced himself to her as Alex, asked her to walk with him, then grabbed her arm and led her through the mall. Evans told the girl he wanted her to put his phone number into her cell phone, and tightened his grip on her arm when she tried to pull away from him, according to her testimony. She said she was frightened during the encounter, and told him she was 13, hoping that by pretending to be younger, she might persuade him to release her. As the two walked, the other man who was with Evans led them through the mall and appeared to help clear a path for them, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Evans arrest. That man was not charged with any crimes. Eventually, the girl was able to break free from Evans when he momentarily loosened his grip, investigators said. He and the other man then fled. As Abington Police investigated the case, another woman reported that her daughter, also 14, had been approached by Evans that evening in the mall. Evans gave her daughter a phone number matching a WhatsApp account with the name Khalil Himm, the affidavit said. Evans surrendered to police after media reports that included his picture. After Evans arrest, Abington Police Chief Patrick Molloy criticized what he called the failed policies of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, saying Krasner has created a revolving door, where dangerous felons are let back onto the streets to prey upon our citizens. Molloy said Evans never should have been on the street and free to commit the crime at the mall because he had been arrested on gun charges in Philadelphia in 2018 and 2022. But he was freed on bail to await trial in both cases. Later in 2022, Evans pleaded guilty to theft in Montgomery County and was sentenced to 18-to-23 months, but was paroled in January 2023 by a county judge. Maurice Byrd Jr. is escorted outside of district court in Hatboro after his preliminary hearing on murder and related charges Thursday. Read more Lawyers for a Hatboro hair salon owner accused of murder in the shooting of a man who lived above his business said Thursday that he acted in self-defense, protecting himself from an out-of-control, aggressive instigator. But Montgomery County prosecutors disputed that, saying Maurice Byrd Jr., 41, had a clear intent to harm Steven Strassburg on June 8 after Strassburg, who is white, called him a racial slur. Advertisement The victims words were absolutely offensive and horrible, Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman said at Byrds preliminary hearing. But that doesnt give anyone the reason or justification to kill someone. Relatives of the two men said Thursday that they had a history of altercations, and that the police had been called to intervene before. Byrds attorney, James Lyons, implored District Judge Todd Stephens to dismiss the first-degree murder charge his client faces. His actions were justified. He was under attack, Lyons said, adding that his client is a disabled Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was not in a position to get into a physical altercation with someone like that who was totally out of control. But Stephens was not swayed, and held the case over for a county judge. Investigators were called to Razor Reeses Salon, Byrds business on North York Road, about 6 p.m. on the day of the shooting. Hatboro Police Sgt. Brett Paul testified Thursday that when he arrived, Strassburg, 37, was lying on his back with gunshot wounds to his cheek and back. A card from his family and jar of candy bars, an early present for his June 11 birthday, were found near his body. Strassburg was taken to Jefferson Abington Hospital, where he later was pronounced dead. Byrd was also at the scene and was cooperative with police, admitting to Paul the shooting and showing him where he had left his 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun, according to testimony. In a 911 call played during Thursdays hearing, Byrd is heard telling a dispatcher that Strassburg verbally assaulted him and called him a dirty n during an argument outside his shop. He asked the dispatcher to send an officer to come intervene. Despite warnings from the dispatcher to stay away from Strassburg, Byrd walked back outside while on the call, according to evidence presented during the hearing. Strassburg can be heard saying What are you gonna do? Are you gonna shoot me, n? In response, a series of gunshots can be heard in quick succession, and Byrd tells the dispatcher he just had to shoot him. Surveillance video from a nearby nail salon captured portions of the shooting, showing Strassburg chasing Byrd, and then Byrd firing at him as he walks backward toward his salon. Cauffman, the prosecutor, said that another video, from a camera within Byrds shop, recorded him telling Strassburg to come inside, during the argument before the 911 call. He also said, to himself, that he was going to shoot Strassburg, according to the prosecutor. Those actions, Cauffman said, were an attempt to lure Strassburg into a conflict and clashed with his self-defense claim Byrd could have stayed in his shop and waited for police to arrive, following the instructions from the 911 dispatcher, she said. His actions show his intent in this interaction, she said. He had a gun and he wanted to use it. Strassburgs cousin, Lauren Wicker, said after Thursdays hearing that he had told his family he was afraid of Byrd, and that Byrd had left threatening notes for him on his front door. The two men had argued in the past over a parking spot in the lot next to the salon, according to Wicker. Before the shooting, Strassburg told relatives he wanted to move out of the apartment, Wicker said. She said he had called the police in the past, but that he thought that nothing had been done to address his concerns. Hatboro police had responded to three verbal disputes between Byrd and Strassburg since December 2022, according to court documents, and had issued warnings to the men to avoid contact with each other. From what I see, this is two stubborn men who wouldnt back down and negotiate, Wicker said. For this to happen over a parking spot was ridiculous. Byrds father, Maurice Byrd Sr., said that his son is a nonviolent person and a hardworking business owner. We are sorry that someone has lost his life, and we are here to support Maurice, he said. Byrd will be arraigned in Montgomery County Court in August. Drexel Universitys board of trustees on Tuesday plans to vote on naming one of its members, Denis P. OBrien, former president of Exelon Utilities, as its interim president, according to a source close to the process. He would replace John A. Fry, who was hired earlier this month as Temple Universitys next president. Advertisement Reached by phone, OBrien, 64, declined comment and referred a reporter to Drexels communications team. Drexel did not respond to a request for comment. Fry, 64, who has led Drexel for 14 years, said at the time he would stay at Drexel until the board hired a new president. READ MORE: As Drexels John Fry gets voted in as Temples next president, heres what he plans to do My commitment to the [Drexel] board is to stay while they run a search, Fry said earlier this month. Im not going to shortchange my transition from Drexel. I need to make sure we find a great new person. Its unclear how the Drexel boards potential decision will impact Frys start date at Temple. Fry could not be reached for comment. Drexels board intends to launch a national search for a new president. There probably will be some overlap, perhaps a month or two, before Fry leaves and the new interim starts at the 21,700-student West Philadelphia university, said the source, who didnt want to be named because they were not authorized to speak about it. OBrien, who has served on Drexels board for more than 20 years, worked for Exelon and affiliated companies for more than 37 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He got his bachelors degree in industrial engineering from Rutgers University New Brunswick and has an MBA from Drexel. He also previously had served as chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. In college, he dug trenches in the gas gangs of the old Philadelphia Electric/Peco, he told The Inquirer in 2014. READ MORE: Making an exception, taking a new role The guys were great, he said at the time. I loved the work because you are outside in the sun. Its physical. At lunch, [theyd] say, You love the work today, but you wont love this work in January, and you wont love being out here 35 years from now. Theyd all say, Go back to college. Get your degree. Fry, a Brooklyn native, said earlier this month his decision to leave Drexel was agonizing. This is not a moment of elation for me, he told The Inquirer in an interview. This is... difficult. ...On the one hand, Im looking forward to leading this great, amazing university, and on the other hand, I already lead a great, amazing university. So its poignant. The thing that gives me a lot of comfort, though, is staying in Philadelphia. William Hite, then the superintendent of the Philadelphia School District, stands with kids during a 2022 school funding rally held by the Children First advocacy group outside City Hall. Read more Public education advocates claimed a win in Pennsylvanias new budget: a formal recognition by the state that schools need an additional $4.5 billion to adequately educate students. But whether Pennsylvania will supply that money in the years to come and whether it will be enough to fix the states unconstitutional school funding system was an unresolved question. Advertisement While the deal signed by Democratic Gov. Shapiro on Thursday puts $500 million toward that $4.5 billion gap winning applause from districts such as Philadelphia, which will get more than a quarter of that money it whittled down the scope of what advocates said was needed by using a different measure of poverty than what Democrats had proposed, alarming some experts. It also stretched out the timeline for how long it might take for the state to reach adequate school funding from the seven years proposed by Democrats, to nine years with no commitment to a funding plan in future years. Heres what to know about the education budget, and why some public education advocates are still concerned. Theres a recognition that current school funding is inadequate. After the landmark Commonwealth Court ruling last year that found Pennsylvania has been shortchanging students in poorer school districts which cant raise as much money through property taxes to fund their schools as more affluent communities advocates have pushed the state to calculate just how much funding is needed to provide students an adequate education. An expert for the plaintiffs that brought the successful lawsuit calculated targets for adequate spending for every school district, based on what districts that meet state standards are spending, and the specific needs of each communitys student populations. The deal passed Thursday requires the Pennsylvania Department of Education to calculate each districts adequacy gap. Advocates parsing the budget language said it amounted to $4.5 billion in total. Donna Cooper, executive director of the pro-public education advocacy group Children First, said the states recognition through law of what theyve been arguing for decades that students receive unequal and inadequate education based on their ZIP codes is really amazing. Were not arguing about that anymore, she added. But theres no multiyear school funding commitment. What was missing Thursday was any longer-term plan to closing the gap. While House Democrats had passed a bill with a seven-year timeline, the budget deal ultimately agreed upon by lawmakers didnt include any language binding the state in future years, as Republicans expressed concern about committing to a plan without knowing the states long-term fiscal outlook. Lawyers who brought the successful school funding lawsuit who warned earlier this week that they might go back to court over the lack of a long-term plan said Thursday that the states constitution requires more. Students need public schools that provide the support they need to reach meaningful opportunities today, not someday in the far future, the Education Law Center and Public Interest Law Center said in a statement. And the same budget legislation that admits the scope of the Commonwealths constitutional shortfall still leaves nearly 90% of that hole to be filled by some undefined date in the future, or not at all. The lack of a multiyear plan also drew pushback from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. While I doubt anyone would have expected the General Assembly to address decades of inadequate funding in a single budget or two, said Nathan Mains, the associations CEO, school boards want a commitment from the General Assembly that the state will continue investing more in public education and relieve the burden on so many communities to fund their local schools. Democrats defended the budget as a down payment toward meeting those needs. This is really historic, said State Rep. Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia), who chairs the House Appropriations committee. Listen, Im no millionaire, Im no billionaire, so half a billion dollars is still a big number to me. In a late-night news conference Thursday, Shapiro called the education funding a huge win as he signed the new $47.6 billion budget and said hes committed to building on that progress for many years to come. Poverty calculations will mean stunning losses for some districts. While the budget acknowledges a $4.5 billion adequacy gap, its less than the $5.1 billion Democrats had tallied in their proposal the product of a change in the final language in how school district needs were calculated. To assess how much money schools need, the budget formula takes into account a school districts level of poverty; experts agree that poor students have greater needs and cost more to educate. But while Democrats had used data that school districts report on low-income students, the method pushed by Republicans and ultimately adopted in the budget uses census estimates of community poverty. Brooks Bowden, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, said the American Community Survey measure is less accurate its a yearly estimate, with a margin of error than the data reported by districts, which are built on multiple measures of hardship, Bowden said. For instance, students are certified as low-income if theyre in the foster care system, or their household receives food stamps; districts report that data to the federal government to qualify for funding under the Title I program. Theres very strong regulations around ensuring those funds are allocated correctly and fairly, Bowden said, adding that districts sometimes draw on the ACS estimates as part of their data. While the district data isnt perfect, its far better than using one flawed measure. Though some districts will see gains from the ACS measure, it will mean pretty stunning losses in funding for districts where the survey underrepresents poverty, Bowden said noting that in some districts, particularly in rural parts of the state, the ACS measure is more than 100% off the poverty levels reported by districts. In Philadelphia, the district reports 71% of students are low-income, while the ACS estimates about 55% of students fall in that category. (Another factor in the differing figures: the ACS estimates poverty for all students ages 5-17, not just the ones attending public schools.) Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said Senate Republicans pushed to use the ACS measure because census data is used to drive out other education funds. Weve put in this a degree of taxpayer protection, Pittman added in floor remarks Thursday night. Theres not smoke and mirrors here. Theres transparency and accountability. School districts are celebrating funding gains at least for next year. Overall, the budget includes a more than $1 billion increase for K-12 schools: $525 million to bring underfunded districts closer to adequacy, and reimburse high-taxing districts; $285 million distributed among all school districts; and $93 million distributed among all districts for special education. Districts are also slated to get $134 million as a result of changes around cyber charters which are funded by school districts, based on enrollment and what districts spend per student. The budget establishes a $100 million reimbursement fund for districts, and saves them additional money by curbing cyber charter tuition rates for special education students. But it doesnt include the flat $8,000 tuition rate for cyber students that was sought by districts, which currently spend between $8,600 and $26,000, depending on the districts per-pupil spending. Describing the budget as falling short of transformational reform, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Arthur Steinberg said in a statement that the wild west of underregulated cyber charters also went untouched. Still, we are relieved to see a strong one-year increase for the School District of Philadelphia, Steinberg said. The district will receive an additional $231.9 million crucial as federal COVID relief funds run out, said Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. This budget takes the first step toward closing the adequacy gap... and ensuring that students in Philadelphia have the same access to high-quality public education as their peers in Lower Merion, Watlington said. The money will allow the states largest school system to prioritize school safety, facility improvements and accelerating learning gains, he said. More armed school police could be coming to Pennsylvania schools with the passage of Pennsylvania's budget, which now mandates at least one security officer be trained and licensed to carry a firearm. The law leaves up to districts whether the officer actually carries a gun in schools. Read more More armed school police officers could be coming to Pennsylvania districts and charter schools this fall under a state budget deal signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro late Thursday night. The controversial move was first championed by state Sen. Mike Regan (R., Cumberland), who has introduced versions of the bill for the past several years. Advertisement Regans legislation initially called for districts to have at least one full-time, armed school security personnel on duty during the school day. But the bill was ultimately changed and added to an omnibus education bill, requiring one full-time security personnel who is licensed and trained to carry a gun, but it would be up to individual districts whether that person would be required to actually carry a firearm in schools. Districts would be able to apply for a waiver if they cannot hire such an officer, or dont have a police department that can provide one. Each district who has an officer would receive a $50,000 grant, per the budget deal. Regan had previously called for an armed officer in every school. Cost considerations caused that proposal to be scaled back. The bill had strong opposition from some lawmakers. Shapiro has, in the past, signaled his opposition to the legislation when it mandated armed officers. But since it only requires officials be trained to carry a gun, if the district so chooses, it faced little opposition when passing through the Democrat-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate. Police officers vs. mental health support State Sen. Lindsey Williams (D., Allegheny), the minority Senate Education committee chair, said the state should be more concerned with addressing student mental health, rather than allowing armed security personnel in schools. (Lawmakers set aside $100 million for school safety and mental health.) Somehow, we came to a deal on that, Williams added in her floor remarks Thursday. Donna Cooper, executive director of the nonprofit Children First, said the idea of armed officers was alarming. You have a school district with seven buildings and they say, OK, were going to make you safe because you have one guy with a gun? Thats not what keeps schools safe. Mental health services save children, not more guns. Cooper pointed to school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Fla., where armed officers did not save students from dying at school. In Philadelphia, the states largest district, safety officers do not carry guns; in fact, they were rebranded as school security officers under the leadership of Kevin Bethel, current city police commissioner and former district safety chief. Bethel wanted the force to focus less on law enforcement functions and more on mentoring and guidance. Some city schools, however, do have Philadelphia police officers present at arrival and dismissal. Some activists have called for the total abolition of any school police force. An October Franklin & Marshall College poll found that 69% of Pennsylvanians surveyed were in favor of requiring armed security officers in every district. Twenty-eight percent were opposed to armed officers, and 3% were undecided. Asked if schools would be safer if every one had an armed officer, 73% said they felt schools would be safer, and 25% said they didnt think schools would be any safer. A view of Jefferson Frankford Hospital in Philadelphia. The hospital this month is to open a secure ward that can house nine incarcerated patients from the city jails. Read more Later this month, the Philadelphia Department of Prisons will open a secure ward inside Jefferson Frankford Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia, equipped to accommodate up to nine incarcerated people in need of hospital care that the city jails cannot offer. Its part of an ongoing effort by the department to address the impact of short staffing that has plagued the jails for years and has contributed to delays in medical care. Advertisement The arrangement was detailed in court filings submitted as part of a class-action lawsuit filed in April 2020 over conditions in the city jails. On Thursday, a federal judge said he planned to hold the city in contempt of court in that suit, concluding that it had not fulfilled the conditions of an agreement it entered into to improve staffing and other conditions at the jails. Currently, people in the city jails who require hospital care must be accompanied by two correctional officers at their bedside at all times, court records show. The secure ward will be staffed with three to five correctional officers on 12-hour shifts, plus one supervisor, allowing more staff to remain on-site at the jails. Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick disclosed the details in court filings presented as evidence that the city is working to improve conditions in its jails. In creating the hospital ward, the city aims to improve the staffing crisis inside jails by cutting down on the numbers of officers who leave the jail to monitor incarcerated people getting hospital care. A spokesperson for his department declined further comment about the Frankford Hospital ward. At Thursdays court hearing, Resnick said he could not comment on the contempt ruling. In a statement, Jefferson Health spokesperson Damien Woods said that Frankford Hospital already treats incarcerated patients and that a secure unit would enhance both patient care and staff preparedness. He said the wards opening is part of a larger move to expand services at the Frankford Hospital campus and that discussions with potential partners about that expansion are ongoing. The ward will open on July 22, according to court filings. Fixing understaffing in the city jails A nine-patient ward may not be enough to accommodate the number of people the jails must send out for inpatient hospital stays on a regular basis. In May of this year alone, Resnick wrote in court filings, about 30 people at the jail required non-trauma-level care in a hospital inpatient setting. Collectively, those people spent 63 days in the hospital which meant that correctional officers spent 252 shifts observing them, away from their shifts at the jail, Resnick wrote. There are 45 correctional officers assigned to transport and monitor patients at the hospital, Resnick wrote. If more incarcerated people require hospital care than the transport unit can handle, other corrections officers from the citys various jails pick up the slack. The new ward could free up as many as 26 correctional officers, Resnick wrote. Philadelphia jails do provide some medical care on-site, but the staffing crisis there there is a shortage of about 800 correctional officers has made it difficult for jail physicians to deliver that care on time. Patients hoping to enter its addiction medication treatment program, for example, regularly wait 15 days for their first dose. And contraband drugs that make their way into the prison in part because of understaffing have fueled a number of overdoses. In his court filing, Resnick outlined other efforts the jails are taking to mitigate its staffing crisis, including recruiting efforts and increasing salaries. He said he has also been regularly meeting with District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and a judge overseeing local prison reform plans to reduce the population of incarcerated people in the city. Nha Nguyen and Kathy Le posed for a portrait at their shop, Sunday Teahouse in Brigantine, NJ on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Sunday Teahouse is located at 1018 West Brigantine Avenue. Read more BRIGANTINE Kathy Le, 40, is brimming with ideas, and right now, theyre all pouring out into her lovely new Sunday Teahouse, a bubble tea shop on West Brigantine Avenue. The teahouse, serving boba teas, Vietnamese iced coffees, and Vietnamese street food, such as BBQ pork Vietnamese hoagies, dumplings, edamame, waffle pops, mochi ice cream, and doughnuts, has proven to be a popular addition to the central business strip of the Jersey Shore town Le grew up in. Advertisement A resident now of Egg Harbor Township, Le hopes to move back to Brigantine one day. For now, she wants to spend as much time as possible on the island. She cant say enough good things about Brigantine, the one-way-on, one-way-off Shore town just north of Atlantic City. I love Brigantine, she said. My heart is in Brigantine. Her back was stiffening from 20-plus years in her familys nail salons, though she says she loved working in the salons, and misses her mani-pedi clients. But she had other ideas. She envisioned a modern Asian kitchen with the relaxed vibe of Sundays spent at home with her family. She saw a survey that rated the banh mi, which she is calling a Vietnamese Hoagie on the Teahouse menu, as the best sandwich in the world. Now she and her husband, Nha Nguyen, a craps dealer at the Borgata, have found success at 1018 W. Brigantine Ave., and Le is already thinking about expanding to other Shore towns. Born in Vietnam, Le and her family moved to California when she was 6, and then, when she was in fifth grade, to Brigantine, close to Atlantic City where her grandmother had a nail salon called Perfect Nails, near the old Trump Taj Mahal on Virginia Avenue. I really wanted to introduce Vietnamese coffee and Vietnamese street food, said Le, who graduated from Atlantic City High School. So we snatched this location. Shes across the street from Soul Berri and a block from Teal Tail Boutique, where Love Her Madly by the Doors was wafting out one recent afternoon. The boutiques owner goes live on Instagram every Tuesday to sell the latest merchandise. At the Teahouse, Le is striving for that Sunday family day feeling, she said. I am a family woman, she said. I love my weekends with my kids and my husband. When I hear Sunday, you just hear relaxing. You hear family, you hear chill day. I want that vibe. We have three coffee places on the island. I figured [mine should be a] teahouse. She had worked in her familys nail salons since she was 16 and the timing seemed right for her new venture. After COVID, Brigantine just bloomed. New York people came here and bought a bunch of properties. Shes using the word hoagie to describe the banh mi, because I feel like Brigantine doesnt know what that means and they wont come in to try it. But once they do, theyre coming back for more, she said. The boba teas are popular with the teenagers, and shes stocking the store with other merchandise aimed at the younger demographic, like mini-bubble tea covers for their Stanley Cup straws. Her Vietnamese coffee is made with a base of Cafe Du Monde chicory coffee and condensed milk, and is available in several varieties, including a sea salt foam-topped black coffee. She offers eight varieties of boba milk tea, and seven varieties of fruit tea. People love our Vietnamese coffee, she says. We try to introduce the most authentic Vietnamese coffee. Its strong, but you dont taste the bitterness of the bean. We use something else to calm down that bitterness. What that is, she wouldnt say. She loves being in business. I love working, she said. In my head, Im always thinking about how to make things, sell them, how to make money. She says while it was time to give it up, she misses the salon life. If you build up your own clientele, you have your ladies. Its like a friendship. I miss doing nails, I really do. And now a few rapid-fire questions for Le, slam book style: Favorite beach: We go down right down to 11th street in Brigantine. Its so close to our place. We have our bathroom here. Parking. Its so clean in that area. Favorite summer breakfast: I have to say Pirates Den. I get the lox Benedict. And I have to throw in Velo Cafe in Ventnor, where I get the Orale Benedict, with roasted sweet potato. Perfect beach day: My Vietnamese hoagie for lunch with our coffee. The girls will bring their strawberry refreshment. I honestly go around like 2, 3:00 oclock when the sun is not as strong. Clean up here and head out like 4-ish. Sit there until like 8, 8:30 p.m. Perfect night at the Shore: I think La Scalas beach house. Weve been hanging out there. Never leave Brigantine. Im telling you, its perfect. Well leave our beach stuff and walk over to the restaurant. Walk right back to our setup at the beach. Best Shore sandwich: The Vietnamese BBQ pork hoagie at Sunday Teahouse. At Sandy Jacks, the veggie delight. When summer approaches, I feel Excited. Its alive. The whole vibe is so happy. Its like a happy time. The kids are out of school. Everyone is just happy, not grumpy. It wouldnt be the Jersey Shore without the boardwalk, the shops, and food. Funnel cake maybe. Best thing for kids to do at the shore: Beach and then ice cream. Surfing or fishing? Surfing. Sunrise or sunset? Sunset. Shore pet peeves? I dont. Im just happy that Im healthy, my family is healthy. I cant complain.I do have one. The driving. Its so dangerous for the kids. They need to calm down. Youre on vacation. Where are you going? Its very nerve wracking. The Shore could be improved if everyone would just slow down and just be happy. Take in the beautiful weather and the beach. Youre on vacation, just calm down. Theres no rush. The Sunday Teahouse is at 1018 W. Brigantine Ave. in Brigantine and is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Old Main on Pennsylvania State's University Park campus in State College. Penn State, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh will be subject to performance-based funding under the state budget deal. Read more Following years of struggles acquiring money from the legislature, three of Pennsylvanias state-related universities were funded without issue under the state budget signed Thursday. But there is a catch: The universities future funding will depend on their performance. A new funding process for Pennsylvania State University, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh will be based on the findings of a council that will study the schools affordability, transparency, graduation rates, and career outcomes. Lincoln University, Pennsylvanias fourth state-related school, will not be subject to the change. Advertisement The performance-based funding agreement is among a number of changes made to higher education in this years budget, as Pennsylvania universities struggle with declining enrollment. State-related institutions are quasi-public and rely on state funding to offer in-state tuition discounts to their students. Republican lawmakers in the House have held up state-related university funding in recent years, citing issues such as transparency concerns, opposition to fetal tissue research at Pitt, and gender-affirming care for minors offered by Penn States health system. Campus protests over the war in Gaza raised Republican eyebrows anew this year. State Rep. Jesse Topper, (R., Bedford), the top Republican on the House Education Committee and a longtime proponent of performance-based funding, said that the performance metrics could help improve trust between the state and universities. These are flagship universities in the commonwealth that bring students from all over the world, but thats just what we hear, Topper said. We need to see that reflected if were going to continue to support tuition through tax dollars. The council tasked with reviewing the schools performance will include appointees of the governor and legislative leaders, and the universities presidents will join as non-voting members. The council is a watered-down version of a system Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed in his February budget address. He said a new performance-based funding system should apply to all schools under a newly consolidated board of education, which includes state-owned community colleges and universities. The state-owned schools, instead, will have to provide some enrollment and performance data to the state education department under the funding deal. Unlike state-related schools, funding for state-owned schools will not be contingent on their performance. Temple University spokesperson Steve Orbanek said the school has been an active participant in the discussion surrounding a performance-based funding model and looks forward to working with legislators more when the council is established. Penn States president, Neeli Bendapudi, wrote an op-ed last year that touted performance-based funding as a way to grow the funding pie. About 30 states have a form of performance-based funding, with varying results. All but one of Penn States 19 satellite campuses have seen enrollment drop since last year. The university slashed its budget and offered buyouts to many of its employees earlier this year, a trend that some believe could be slowed with performance-based funding. Supporters of overhauling Pennsylvania's school funding rally on the steps of the Capitol Building in Harrisburg in November 2021, on the first day of a landmark school funding trial. Read more A budget deal reached by lawmakers Thursday would inject more than $1 billion of new money into Pennsylvanias public schools next year but scale back plans to address inequities between rich and poor school districts that were ruled unconstitutional last year. Under the agreement, more than $500 million would be distributed through a new formula favored by Democrats to bring K-12 schools closer to adequate spending levels and reimburse high-taxing school districts. Much of that money would be steered toward lower-wealth districts, which cant raise as much money through property taxes to fund their schools as more affluent communities. Advertisement But Democrats had proposed sending more than $850 million through that formula, in the first step of a seven-year plan to raise school funding levels by more than $5 billion. It wasnt immediately clear whether the agreement included any multiyear commitment a plan Republicans had objected to. The push to overhaul Pennsylvanias school funding follows a landmark Commonwealth Court ruling last year that found the state had failed to provide a constitutionally guaranteed thorough and efficient system of education, depriving students in poorer districts of needed resources. Following the trial, an expert for the school districts who won the funding lawsuit told lawmakers that Pennsylvania schools needed to spend an extra $6 billion to provide students with an adequate education based on what districts that meet state standards are spending. But Republicans pushed back on that number, along with a subsequent proposal by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats to increase state aid to schools by $5.1 billion over the next seven years a 65% increase over the $7.9 billion Pennsylvania currently spends on basic education funding. The deal appears to have shifted those adequate spending targets downward by incorporating a different method of calculating a school districts poverty than what Democrats had proposed. Rather than using data reported by school districts on how many low-income students they enroll, Republicans pushed to use census estimates of each districts level of poverty. Advocates said earlier this week that the GOP data projected fewer students living in poverty statewide than what districts have reported and would reduce the calculation of how much money districts need by $700 million. Rather than put more money toward the adequate spending targets, the deal includes new pots of spending including $60 million for districts that lose out because of the states hold harmless policy. That policy has shielded districts with shrinking enrollment from funding cuts, while growing districts many in Southeastern Pennsylvania havent seen a corresponding increase in state aid. The agreement also makes some changes related to funding for cyber charter schools but less than what Democrats had proposed. The deal includes $100 million to reimburse school districts for payments to cyber charters, which are funded by districts at the same rate as brick-and-mortar charters. Because school district spending varies widely between communities, those per-pupil rates range from $8,600 to more than $26,000. Democrats proposed a flat rate of $8,000 per cyber-charter pupil part of a proposal they said would save districts more than $500 million. Cyber charter advocates said the proposal would mean massive cuts for their schools. The deal reached Thursday would save districts $69 million, by reducing what districts pay cyber charters for special education students. Also under the agreement, lawmakers will increase funding for programs that give tax credits to businesses that fund private school scholarships by $75 million. Pennsylvania currently spends more than $470 million on those programs, which supporters have touted as an essential form of school choice, but public education advocates have criticized as lacking transparency, and routing money to private schools instead of bolstering the public system. The main spending bill and its accompanying code bills that define how the state can spend its money still needed to pass the chambers Thursday evening but were being fast-tracked through the legislature. It was then expected to head to Shapiro for his signature. The Philadelphia prison system's complex on State Road in Northeast Philadelphia. A federal judge said Thursday he would hold the system in contempt of court over its failure to address understaffing issues. Read more A federal judge said Thursday he would rule that Philadelphias prison system is in contempt of court for failing to follow an agreement in a long-running lawsuit over conditions in the city jails. U.S. District Court Judge Gerald A. McHugh acknowledged that the city had taken steps to mitigate a staffing crisis in the jails causing prolonged lockdowns, mounting chaos on housing units, and delays in access to services including medical care. But he said those efforts were insufficient. Advertisement McHugh said he would file an order declaring the city in contempt later, and then decide what sanctions to impose on the city at a later date. The city had committed to address those issues in an April 2022 settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of the roughly 4,500 people incarcerated, awaiting trial or serving short sentences, in the jail complex on State Road in Northeast Philadelphia. Twice since the lawsuit was filed, at the start of the pandemic in 2020, the city agreed to pay $125,000 to Philadelphias nonprofit bail funds to avoid contempt findings. But now, on two core issues staffing levels, and the amount of time people incarcerated there can spend outside of their cells McHugh said that it was virtually undisputed that we dont have compliance with the terms of the agreement. A monitor appointed by McHugh reported in March that the city had taken a course of half measures steeped in bureaucratic and political rigidity with devastating consequences for both prisoners and staff. Michael Resnick, the citys prison commissioner, declined to comment Thursday at a court hearing where McHugh announced his intention. McHugh said the city was operating in good faith in its efforts, outlined by city lawyers in court, to fix understaffing issues by recruiting more officers, with better pay and more incentives to join the prisons staff. But, he said, the city must do more to address the problem. Correctional officer staffing is currently just over half of the number needed to safely run the jails. Thats an even higher vacancy rate than when the case was settled, amid a national corrections staffing shortage. The decision should compel the city to quickly to fix issues in the jails, said Su Ming Yeh, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project and one of a team of lawyers representing Philadelphia prisoners in the class-action suit. During this time, people have been suffering, she said. There have been many deaths, people not getting medical care, and a lot of violence. READ MORE: 29 people died in Philly jails in the pandemic. City officials say they did a good job. An effort to recruit more corrections officers In an affidavit filed this week, Resnick said the jails had increased salaries and hired the former correctional officers union president to focus on recruiting efforts. He said he has also been regularly meeting with District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and a judge overseeing jail reform plans to reduce the population of incarcerated people in the city. Resnick also outlined plans to curb inefficiencies around transporting prisoners to off-site medical appointments including outsourcing some of that work to a contractor. The city is also partnering with Jefferson Health to open a secure ward for up to nine incarcerated patients at Jefferson Frankford Hospital, to reduce the number of corrections officers needed to accompany prisoners receiving hospital care. Many of the efforts make sense to David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer who is also representing Philadelphia prisoners in the lawsuit. But, he said, theyre too little, too late. For example, he said, the city has a shortage of some 800 corrections officers, but the plan to open a secure ward at Frankford Hospital would free up only 26 officers. It should have been done three years ago, Rudovsky said. READ MORE: Drug deaths and overdoses plague Philly jails, raising concerns about plans to step up Kensington arrests Delays in medical care at the citys jails People incarcerated in the city jails have missed medical appointments because no correctional officers are available to drive them from the facilities, Rudovsky said. And short-staffing has interfered with the jails ability to administer medications for opioid use disorders. A recent Inquirer investigation found that 29 people have died in Philadelphia police or jail custody since 2018 from accidental overdoses, from complications of withdrawal, or from suicides completed while withdrawing from illicit drugs. Staffing issues have left patients waiting up to 15 days before entering the jails medication-assisted addiction treatment program, the jails medical director, Bruce Herdman, said in an interview last week. Staffing shortages have also enabled a brisk market in contraband to flourish, internal reports show. In May and June, at least eight incarcerated people received medical care for overdoses, seizures or other adverse reactions to drugs obtained inside the jails, the reports showed. And just this Tuesday, two more prisoners were rushed to the hospital after being revived with Narcan from apparent overdoses, according to an incident report obtained by The Inquirer. It is unclear what sanctions McHugh would impose on the city. Great care and deliberation needs to go into forming the remedy, he said. Rudovsky had requested that the city be made to pay $5 a day to each person incarcerated in Philadelphia as long as the city was in contempt of court about $8.3 million per year. A lawyer for the city, Anne Taylor, said that remedy was both inequitable, since it would go to only those currently incarcerated, and impracticable, given the challenge of calculating and disbursing the fees due to each individual class member. Rudovsky said a substantial fine is necessary to call everyones attention to it in city government. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman and his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman (right) stand in the crowd as President Joe Biden greets volunteers at a campaign office in Roxborough on Sunday. Read more As President Joe Biden campaigned in Roxborough on Sunday, part of a damage control tour to save his teetering reelection campaign, he stopped mid-sentence and pointed to Sen. John Fetterman. By the way, I got John Fetterman, Biden said. I dont need much else. Advertisement Fetterman, who hit the trail with Biden last weekend, has been an ardent defender of the president on social media, cable news, and in the hallways of the Capitol. There is only one person in the country thats ever kicked Trumps ass in an election, and that is your president, Fetterman said in Roxborough. Thats our president. Thats your president. Thats my president. Fettermans political brand has always been blunt and bullish. But supporting Biden may also be personal: Two years ago when Fetterman had a stroke, he encountered similar scrutiny in the heat of a campaign and ran on a comeback slogan echoing Bidens strategy. The Pennsylvania Democrats outspoken defense of Biden comes at a moment when the president needs support within his party. Although Biden has remained adamant that he will remain his partys nominee, Democrats in Congress have been slow to collectively rally around him, wary of his ability to beat former President Donald Trump or serve another four years. A handful of House Democrats and one senator have called on Biden to drop out of the race, and many are reportedly weighing what to do, given their concerns. Pennsylvanias delegation appears split, with several representatives, such as U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle and Madeleine Dean, appearing beside Biden in recent days, and some others who are facing difficult reelections indicating that they still have reservations. Sen. Bob Casey, perhaps Bidens closest ally in the Pennsylvania delegation, has said he thinks Biden should remain the nominee and also appeared with him this past weekend. With a reelection campaign of his own, Casey has been a more quiet supporter. Asked on Tuesday in Washington whether he had become more skeptical of Bidens abilities, Casey said: How could I have been skeptical if I was with him? Asked whether he is fully behind Biden, Casey said, I am. Fetterman has defended Biden more forcefully and delivered the kind of irreverent soundbites hes known for: Im gonna suggest maybe we can encourage Joe Biden to bang a porn star or maybe he could become consumed with revenge and say crazy things and have a plan for 2025, Fetterman told Punchbowl News, referencing Trumps hush money conviction in New York and Project 2025, a set of conservative proposals for a second Trump presidency that have come under scrutiny. Comeback campaigns Fettermans support for Biden may also come from knowing what its like to have a bad debate that results in scrutiny about your health and fitness for office. Fetterman built a campaign in 2022 as a tough-looking, atypical politician who could relate to voters across Pennsylvania. Six months after he suffered a pre-primary stroke that could have killed him, he took a debate stage against celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz. The effects of the stroke greatly impacted his ability to articulate his thoughts, and the debate did not go well for him, prompting questions, largely from Republicans, about whether he was fit to serve. Fetterman has said the comments that followed that debate scathing rebukes on social media and in the news, contributed to severe depression that he sought treatment for months later. Fetterman went on to win that race handily, something hes emphasized to stress that Bidens bad debate June 27 might not mean a bad election outcome (though hes also said he thinks the election will be close). I know what its like to have a rough debate, Fetterman said in Roxborough. And Im standing right here, you know, as your senator. While the circumstances are extremely different Fetterman is 54 and Biden is 81 some of the questions over Bidens fitness for office echo concerns Fetterman faced in 2022. Fetterman also got calls, as Biden has, to release proof of his mental acuity in 2022. The campaign published doctors notes and stressed that speech impediments, in his case auditory processing challenges, did not necessarily indicate cognitive damage. Fetterman has continued to recover from his stroke and questions surrounding his fitness are now a distant memory, while Biden remains in the midst of a pivotal campaign moment. The narrative the two men aimed to rebound after their debates is also similar. After his stroke, Fetterman shamed Oz for mocking a stroke survivor and capitalized on the moment to appeal to other Pennsylvanians whove faced health challenges by casting himself as a resilient underdog who got knocked down but got back up. Biden, in his first rally following the debate, told supporters in Raleigh, N.C.: Like millions of Americans, I know when you get knocked down, you get back up. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris campaign at Girard College in May for an event focused on Black voters. Harris will return to Philadelphia Saturday at an event aimed at boosting turnout among Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. Read more The organization hosting Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia on Saturday released a poll this week that shows President Joe Bidens support among Asian American voters has declined since 2020. Harris will be the keynote speaker for a presidential town hall on Saturday held by Asian Pacific Islander American Vote, a civic engagement group focused on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Advertisement Harris, whose mother immigrated from India, made history as the first Asian American vice president in addition to being the first female and Black person to hold the role. Shes leading the campaigns efforts to both Black and Asian voters ahead of the November election. The poll surveyed just under 2,500 Asian Americans and divided that data into six subgroups based on ethnicity. The poll from APIAVote and AAPIData showed Bidens support among Asian Americans has dropped from 54% in 2020 to 46% an 8 percentage point drop. That includes a dramatic 19-point drop among Indian Americans from 65% to 46%. The data underscores the critical role Harris could play in restoring Bidens appeal to Indian Americans and other Asian voters. The poll, however, found Harris overall favorability rating among Asian Americans was lower than Bidens; 51% of respondents viewed Biden as favorable or somewhat favorable, while 44% had the same view of Harris. Harris visit her sixth to Pennsylvania this year comes at a critical time for Bidens campaign, as Democrats continue to sound the alarm about whether the 81-year-old president is capable of beating former President Donald Trump and spending another four years in office. Harris own name has repeatedly been floated as a potential replacement candidate and Biden said in a news conference Thursday that she could take on the presidency if needed, even as he insisted he will stay in the race. Harris has remained loyal to Biden, campaigning on his behalf in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Greensboro, N.C. While Biden retains a strong lead over Trump in polling among Asian Americans, the former presidents numbers with this voter group have been more steady than Bidens 31% of voters in this years poll said they planned to vote for Trump as compared to 30% in 2020. The polling showed an increasing number of undecided and third-party voters within the demographic group a population that could be key in a race that is expected to be close. The poll showed that, in general, respondents thought higher of Biden and Harris than they did of Trump, creating a potential opening for Biden to pick up voters in that demographic. According to the U.S. Census, Asian Americans make up roughly 6% of Pennsylvanias population. In a Zoom call with reporters announcing the results, Christine Chen, the executive director of APIAVote, said the data showed that many Asian American voters were up for grabs, and that the major parties were not doing enough to reach them. Half of the respondents to the poll said the Democratic Party had not yet reached out to them this cycle while 57% said they had not been contacted by the Republican Party. Despite this, 90% of the just under 2,500 registered voters surveyed said they planned to vote in November. This lack of engagement is essentially suppressing turnout, Chen said. Harris visit comes amid a flurry of political events in the state. On the same day, first lady Jill Biden will campaign in Pittsburgh in an effort to appeal to Italian Americans and Trump will hold a rally in Butler County, where he could announce his running mate. Last week, Biden visited Philadelphia and Harrisburg as he sought to salvage his campaign and California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Bucks County on Bidens behalf. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks at a May news conference. Krasner's office will launch a team focused on investigating election interference crimes ahead of the November election. Read more Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasners office is in the beginning stages of creating an elite team to target election interference crimes surrounding the 2024 election, should they occur. Matthew Stiegler, senior adviser to the DA, has been tasked with launching, building, and leading a team that aims to identify and prosecute serious election interference crimes. Advertisement The team will focus on investigating threats against elected officials and other intimidation efforts, and serve as expansion of the DA Offices current Election Task Force, which has primarily focused on day-to-day complaints that unfold at polling locations. Our efforts are absolutely nonpartisan, Stiegler said. Were firmly committed to protecting the democratic rights and safety of every Philadelphian. Were significantly expanding our efforts in the face of increasing threats to democracy nationally. While the expanded team will most likely not be a permanent fixture of the office, the group would continue to work until all reported interference crimes are prosecuted. The most significant incident of election interference in U.S. history was the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, fueled by former President Donald Trumps false election fraud claims. In the months leading up to that day, Philadelphia encountered interference attempts during the 2020 election. Two illegally armed men were arrested outside of the Pennsylvania Convention Center after traveling from Virginia to Philadelphia to attempt to disrupt the vote counting process. Secretary of State Al Schmidt, then a city commissioner, and his family began receiving threats after refusing to back Trumps unfounded claims of election fraud. One message sent to Schmidts family members threatened to fatally shoot them and their children, Schmidt told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Philadelphia is currently in the best shape in terms of maintaining election integrity, said Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan civic leadership organization, thanks to the experience levels of city commissioners and voters increasing comfort level with the citys voting machines and mail-in ballot process. Phillys elections are secure, but the prominent role the city could play in choosing the next president raises the possibility of someone interfering with the results, Cristella added, also noting that she doesnt believe there will be an exact repeat of the incidents from 2020. I think the rhetoric and the temperature and the stakes and the role that Philadelphia plays in deciding who the next president will be are so high that attention naturally turns here, Cristella said. The DAs election interference crimes team will continue to be developed in the weeks moving forward and the office expects there to be an ongoing effort to notify the public of their endeavors throughout the voting and vote counting processes. Stiegler placed a callout to join the team on X Tuesday morning, noting that litigious power is needed in the biggest city in a battleground state. Lets not kid ourselves, Stiegler wrote. Were in real danger of election interference from hate groups at war with democracy. Help is not on the way. To get through this, we need to turn our alarm into action. During the November 2023 election, Krasner warned that anyone who participated in election interference would be prosecuted. We got a pair of handcuffs, we got a jail cell, and we got a Philadelphia jury, Krasner said at the time. The reason we havent had problems here is that the enemies of democracy wouldnt dare. Its important for the DAs Office to communicate with the general public about what constitutes an election interference crime and how they will respond to such crimes, Cristella said. Nothing could be more important to our elections than ensuring that theyre free, fair, safe, and secure, Cristella said. Our law enforcement officials play an important role in that, as well as our election officials and everybody you would assume has a strong role to play. The DAs Office most recently activated its current election task force during the primaries in April. Voters were directed by the DA to use the task forces hotline to alert the team of any polling location complaints or violations of Pennsylvania Election Code. Federal and Pennsylvania laws prohibit election officials and poll workers from discriminating against voters and conspiring with others to strip someone of their right to vote. Its also illegal for any person or corporation to intimidate or coerce an individual to vote or refrain from voting for a candidate or issue through various tactics including force, violence, and infliction of injury, damage, harm, or loss. Penalties for depriving or attempting to deprive someone of their right to vote includes a fine of up to $5,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years. Those who intimidate voters can be fined the same and face up to two years in prison. Conduct that discriminates or intimidates may include violations under other federal or state laws that could bring additional criminal penalties. Philadelphia-born TV star Amber Rose had a lot to say about her recent endorsement of former President Donald Trump and Philly voters on Lara Trumps podcast, The Right View, ahead of Roses speaking engagement at the Republican National Convention next week. In a roughly 20-minute interview that aired Thursday evening, Rose told Trump, RNC co-chair and the daughter-in-law of the former president, her reasons for deciding to support the senior Trump, calling him an alpha male. Advertisement Im a single mother of two. Im an American, I was born in Philadelphia. And for me, Donald Trump is the epitome of an alpha male, said Rose, a model, TV personality, and author. Hes there to protect, provide, make sure the citizens of the U.S. are in a good economy, protecting us. I feel protected by Donald Trump. The host later asked about Philadelphians support for the former president. Rose, who grew up at Broad and Ellsworth Streets in South Philly, but felt that she never quite belonged in the city, believes more Philadelphians will be casting their ballot for Trump in November, pointing to her friends and familys attendance at his rally at the Liacouras Center last month. They got to take pictures with him, and so yeah, I talk to people in Philly all the time, Rose said. Everyone I know is voting for Donald Trump Philly needs Donald Trump. Rose officially expressed her support for Trump in a May Instagram post of Rose with the former president and former first lady Melania Trump, captioned Trump 2024 with three American flag emojis. Earlier this week, she said on X, formerly Twitter, that she would be speaking at the convention in Milwaukee where Trump will officially be chosen as the Republican Partys presidential nominee. Shes been vocal about her support for the former president as well as her opposition to President Joe Biden by sharing her excitement for Bidens poor debate performance and appearing in a pro-MAGA video on X. Eight years ago, however, Rose was singing a much different tune. Hes just such an idiot. Hes so weird. I really hope hes not president, Rose said of Trump in an August 2016 interview with The Cut. Seen as an advocate for womens empowerment through her organizing of a SlutWalk in Los Angeles to combat womens equality issues, Rose told Lara Trump that she feels safer with [Trump] in office. The former president was found liable in May 2023 for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Until recently, Rose said she believes she was misinformed about Trump, but then she did her research by going down a rabbit hole of right wing media that managed to dispel her initial concerns, as a biracial woman, of Trump being a racist. The Trump campaign has been making an effort to reach more Black voters, including voters in Philadelphia, and Roses speech at the RNC may be yet another part of that strategy. A spokesperson for the convention did not return The Inquirers request for comment on Roses speech, and details about the event have yet to be added to the conventions master calendar. President Biden stands during a musical number with Bishop Ernest C. Morris, Sr., at Mt Airy Church of God in Christ Sunday, July 7, 2024. Read more President Joe Biden chose to hold one of first public appearances after his disastrous June debate performance at a Philadelphia church. There, he received a much-needed and widely broadcast morale boost as part of his campaigns media offensive. But the Internal Revenue Service, (IRS) which provides tax exemptions to houses of worship and other nonprofits, prohibits these organizations from campaigning for candidates. Advertisement Its common for candidates and presidents to visit houses of worship. Former President Donald Trump spoke at a church in Detroit last month as part of his attempt to appeal to Black voters. The rarely enforced law that draws the lines between houses of worship and politics is called the Johnson Amendment, and its really about taxes. Heres what to know about how the law does and doesnt apply to the presidents visit. What is the Johnson Amendment? The 1954 Johnson Amendment, named after Lyndon B. Johnson, prohibited all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from campaigning for or against any candidate for public office, which extends to houses of worship like churches. Churches automatically fall under this categorization unless the organization specifically decides to operate as a business instead. According to the IRS, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. These nonprofit organizations are tax-exempt and people who donate to them can write off their contributions. Churches have even more leeway, as they arent required to report to the IRS in the same way other nonprofits are. That means if this law didnt exist, people could make opaque and tax-exempt political donations through churches. Religious leaders can talk about issues from the pulpit that are deemed political, such as abortion and gay rights, and they can advocate for ballot measures; but they cant support or oppose specific candidates, according to reporter Jeremy Schwartz, who investigated churches who skirt the rule for ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. Theyre also allowed to educate voters about elections in a nonpartisan way, such as through get-out-the-vote initiatives. How did the church present Biden? Comeback kid, fighter, champion, and a winner, were all terms Bishop J. Louis Felton, the senior pastor at Mount Airy Church of God in Christ, used to describe Biden during his Sunday service before the president made a seven-minute speech. He also compared the president to Joseph in the Bible. Its a tough race, its a tough battle but were coming out of the pit, Felton said to the congregation on Sunday. Weve been hurt, weve been slandered, but were coming out of the pit. Go, Joseph. You can make it, Joseph! Felton lauded the presidents record, and even contrasted him to Trump, saying he doesnt know why people are taking issue with Bidens stutter and speaking skills while another person lies fluidly and you never challenge his lies. He said Biden doesnt sell Bibles, he actually reads the Bible, in another jab at Trump, who has urged followers to buy $59.99 Bibles that use his licensed image. We love you President Biden, the pastor declared. Be encouraged! Though Biden didnt name Trump in his speech, he said hes never been more optimistic about the future if we stick together. As the president left the church, congregants shouted four more years! READ MORE: In desperate need of a boost, President Biden went to a Philly church to feel the love Are candidates allowed to speak at churches? Biden is legally allowed to speak on behalf of his campaign at a church if his opponent was given the same opportunity, as required by the tax code, or if he speaks in his capacity as president. For example, Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, a nonprofit hosting Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday, noted that a representative from Trumps campaign was also invited to participate in the town hall event. Last Sundays church event was organized by Bidens campaign, not his administration, and the Biden campaign declined to comment for this article on how it works with houses of worship. Felton confirmed the church is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but did not seem to be aware that the service would be considered a campaign event. The president has a right to go to church, Felton said over the phone on Thursday. " and so that was not a campaign event, it was a worship event in which we ministered to the leader of our nation and the leader of the free world. The Secret Service and White House contacted the church on short notice saying the president wanted to worship with us after Bidens original plans for the day were canceled, Felton said. Is the Johnson Amendment enforced? Public statements for or against a candidate clearly violate the rules against political campaigning for tax-exempt organizations, according to the IRS. Breaking the rule could infringe on an organizations tax-exempt status. But in practice, the lines are fuzzy when it comes to what pastors can say from the pulpit, and the law isnt consistently enforced, according to Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Centers Elections and Government Program. A July 2020 Pew Research Center survey found 9% of adults who attended services in the month prior heard sermons expressing support for Trump, and 6% said the same about Biden. Additionally, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica reported on 18 churches that violated the amendment across two years, with some pastors even calling certain candidates demonic, and the investigation found that the IRS has largely abandoned its enforcement responsibilities on the matter. The two publications found more violations than the total number of churches the IRS even investigated for political campaigning over the past decade. Saying nice things about the president is acceptable, but even an implicit contrast with an opponent starts to get closer to the line, and the closer you get to what sounds like a campaign endorsement, the more youre potentially raising eyebrows, Weiner said. Its very, very common for both conservative and liberal religious leaders to push on the edges of the Johnson Amendment when politicians visit due to the lack of enforcement, he said. I think pastors can and do comment on public affairs, and that sort of commentary is intimately intertwined with commentary on public officials, he said. During Bidens visit on Sunday, the pastor acknowledged questions raised about the presidents appearance at the church. Some people are wondering why the president is even here, Felton said to the crowd. We are firm believers in the separation of church and state, and we are separated but we are not divorced. And since we are not divorced, we still have visitation rights. The president has a right to be here. Have there been efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment? Donald Trump vowed to eradicate the amendment, and has lied about doing so through an executive order. A change to the rule, in reality, would have to go through Congress. Republicans in Congress have made unsuccessful attempts to weaken or repeal the amendment but there has been no significant movement in that direction. The ACLU described the executive order Trump portrayed as reversing the law as an elaborate photo-op with no discernible policy outcome. And despite some religious advocates painting the topic as a free-speech issue, most people want their houses of worship to stay out of politics, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center analysis. A woman walks with a sign supporting legalizing marijuana during the Democratic National Convention in 2016 in Philadelphia. Read more Legalized recreational-use marijuana is not included in Pennsylvanias budget, delaying a deal that cannabis advocates had hoped lawmakers would strike before the summers fiscal deadline. Medical-use marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania, though the state falls behind neighbors such as New Jersey, where the adult-use cannabis industry flourished since its 2021 legalization. Advertisement A legal cannabis industry could net Pennsylvania $41 million in tax revenue during its first year and bring in hundreds of millions per year before the end of the decade, studies say, and both advocates and lawmakers have heralded legalization as an untapped economic driver. Lawmakers had until June 30 to finalize a bill before the budget deadline. But while the passage of the $47.6 billion spending package was delayed by over a week, House members who support such a proposal said there still wasnt enough time for representatives to agree on what a bill should include. We are listening to all the stakeholders, including within our caucus, said Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny), who chairs the House Health Committee. There are a lot of members who have different priorities. A final bill would have not only legalized recreational marijuana, which would be for adult use only, but would have included provisions that take public health, criminal, and social justice into account, Frankel said. Democratic lawmakers have floated proposals that prioritize creating opportunities for Black and brown entrepreneurs to enter the industry, for example, reducing fees and offering interest-free loans for those who make under $75,000 per year. Previous proposals have made sense, Frankel said, but ultimately represent the industrys interests. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has promised to sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, going as far as to include it in his 2024 budget proposal in February. Barring West Virginia, all of Pennsylvanias neighboring states have legalized cannabis. Legislation legalizing marijuana would need to pass both the House, where Democrats hold a one-seat majority, and the Republican-controlled Senate, where many members have long opposed legalization. Still, Frankel suggested that a deal could be made across the aisle. My Republican colleagues have participated in our hearings and I would say by and large that theyre very thoughtful about this, Frankel said. Many of them, I would not say all of them, have a realistic view that the toothpaste is out of the tube as other states legalize. Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) said legalizing recreational marijuana was one of several things Shapiro highlighted in his budget address but did not advocate for at the negotiating table. He talked about it in his budget address, Ward said. We never heard another word about it. Its a lot of show, but not a lot of go, as far as Im concerned. However, Senate Republicans quickly rejected marijuana legalization after Shapiros budget address. And Shapiro said Thursday night at a news conference he would not discuss the private conversations that didnt end up in the budget. As I said before, everybody had to compromise and we didnt always get what we wanted, but we all are going to come back and continue to fight for the things that we believe in, Shapiro added. The things that I laid out in my budget I still believe in and were going to continue to fight for in the future. Meredith Buettner Schneider, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, said she hopes lawmakers can agree on a bill during their fall session. Extended budget negotiations in 2023 left little room for them to come to agreement on a bill, she said, contributing to this years delay. Trying to put together a piece of comprehensive legislation that can be successful in two different chambers controlled by two different parties, its certainly an uphill battle, Buettner Schneider said. [Shapiro] coming to the table over the next couple months would be really critical to getting something done, she said. Meanwhile, lawmakers with the Houses Black caucus met in Harrisburg Wednesday to call for a cannabis bill that would include investment into communities which have experienced disproportionate levels of incarceration due to past drug policies. Rep. Napoleon Nelson (D., Montgomery), the caucus chair, said that to legalize recreational marijuana while thousands of Pennsylvanians have their lives, livelihoods, and even freedoms disrupted by a heavy-handed war on cannabis was unconscionable. Nelson said the caucus would not accept a bill that does not include provisions for the exoneration and expungement of prior cannabis charges, including parole violations, as well as compensation for those who have been wrongly convicted for cannabis-related crimes. St. George's Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 250-256 S. 8th Street would be included in the proposed Washington Square West Historic District. The Philadelphia Historical Commission decided Friday to grant opponents' request to delay its consideration of the district. Read more The Philadelphia Historical Commission has again delayed its vote on whether to create a historic district in Washington Square West, a district that would be the largest the city has created in decades. On Friday, the commission voted to wait until its Sept. 13 meeting to consider the proposed district, granting requests from property owners for a delay. Advertisement The commission had been scheduled to consider the nomination at its meeting last month, but too few commissioners were present to take any action. READ MORE: A historic district designation could be coming to Washington Square West The proposed district in Washington Square West would include 1,441 properties across roughly 26 city blocks. Opponents of the district have said the proposal is overly broad and includes too many properties. Owners of properties that are included in historic districts need the commissions approval to make changes to the outside of buildings, and properties are shielded from demolition. The nomination is the result of a yearslong effort by the Washington Square West Civic Association and preservationists, who said the area is culturally significant to Black, immigrant, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ communities. And the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia said the district shows Philadelphias development westward and highlights the neighborhoods architectural styles and development trends. A homeowners association and individual property owners formally and informally requested delays. Some asked for at least 90 days and others asked for a shorter delay until September, said Jon Farnham, executive director of the Historical Commission. On Friday, the commission did not open the meeting to any public comment about the proposed district or the decision to postpone its consideration until September. Farnham and Robert Thomas, the commissions chair, said that decision was an internal scheduling matter that does not require public comment. READ MORE: Historical Commission pushes off decision on Washington Square Wests historic district Before the vote to postpone consideration of the district, Thomas said the commission has heard from quite a few people who have shared their thoughts in writing, and no action is being taken on any property if we do a continuance, so theres no loss of opportunity to bring more material to us when we do in fact hear it. Thomas said that in the next two months, commission staff can further educate property owners about what designation means, answer questions, and hear concerns. This is a large, important district, he said. My own feeling over the years is that sometimes having more participation can help in the long term, because when a district gets added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, property owners already are aware of the resources available to them. The second phase meant becoming more structured and formalised, a move which saw Fonseca become chairman and CEO. Still, he was conscious of industry perception. From the beginning, it was very important for the DNA of Brokerslink not to be seen as being led by a Portuguese broker just because it was started in Portugal, he said. We are very different to our competitors in the US or the UK because we dont have a centre and that works very well for us, because it means our members dont see us as a threat or someone looking to control and lead them. Jasmin Sarin, a Kamilaroi and Jerrinja woman from NSW Joanne Cassady, a descendant of the Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta Nations Sonya Edney, an Yinggarda-Wadjim woman from Western Australia Kevin Kropinyeri, from the Ngarrindjeri Nation of South Australia Seeing my artwork on big billboards is amazing. Im really taken aback and grateful for the opportunity to create something beautiful, Kropinyeri said. To have our artistic expression on these billboards seen by thousands of motorists driving past, with a positive message about driving respectfully and hey, youre on Ngarrindjeri Country, is a gentle but solid reminder to non-Indigenous people that this is our country. The best place to start for us moving forward in this country is with the truth. AM Best reported: Gallaghers acquisition of Cadence Insurance in October was among the largest broker transactions of the year, adding an estimated 2022 revenue of US$152 million, according to Optis. Gallagher also acquired Eastern Insurance Group, perhaps helping to boost the company to third in the global broker rankings. I made many decisions in my career, but joining Chedid Re was a straightforward one, Vandendael said. Their talented teams, the values they live by, their unwavering integrity, and their corporate social responsibility are most compelling. I look forward to this exciting new chapter in my career, helping them realize their vision and expand their market-leading position in the Middle East and Africa. McKeegan, who formed Tara Hill in 2023 with the backing of Ambacs insurance distribution division Cirrata Group, noted: Rich is an exceptional underwriter who has built profitable books of business across the commercial and financial institutions spaces. As the first venture studio entirely focused on the employee benefits ecosystem, Zoe Foundry employs a structured, data-driven approach to develop and launch startups within the insurtech field. Since its inception, the studio has been backed by experienced founders and advisors, marking a period of robust growth and successful company launches between 2012 and 2022. A recent survey by Gradient AI indicated that the industry is rushing headlong into the new tech, with 90% of insurers planning to increase their investments in AI, highlighting its strategic importance. A majority in the survey (75%) are prioritizing AI for underwriting and claims management. The technology aids in optimizing policy pricing, reducing quote turnaround times, efficiently triaging claims, and minimizing both the duration and cost of claims. Additionally, about 25% of insurers are exploring Generative AI, which generates new content based on learned patterns, automating tasks such as summarizing medical notes, drafting routine correspondence, and processing simple applications and claims. For example, will they respond to alleged antitrust violations, BIPA violations, intellectual property disputes, regulatory investigations, and claims of discrimination, conflicts of interest, and AI washing? she said. Do they contain express coverage for these areas, or do they have exclusions or limitations that might restrict or remove coverage altogether? How do the various policies coordinate with one another if a claim implicates multiple policies at the portfolio company level, or at the port company and fund level? A new Vermont-based captive insurer is promising to provide insurance for New York affordable rental housing buildings at a time when advocates say coverage is difficult to afford or obtain. The Milford Street Association Captive Insurance Co. will be owned by its member premium payers and will provide insurance only to New York affordable rental buildings that have a regulatory agreement limiting rents and receive public financing. According to a New York Housing Conference March 2024 report, premiums for these landlords have been increasing at an annual rate of 21% over the last five years. Affordable housing advocates are concerned that rising insurance costs are restricting the development of new affordable housing and causing current operators to defer maintenance. This new collaboration offers a solution to the broken insurance market, a critical step to making sure New York encourages the creation and preservation of more affordable housing statewide, said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference. Supporters of the idea contend that affordable housing properties with regulatory agreements have higher levels of maintenance and better risk mitigation programs than market rate and traditional rent regulated buildings, resulting in fewer and less expensive claims. According to the founders announcement, they believe that by changing the focus from profit to stability, simplifying overhead and operations and instituting tailor-made risk management controls, Milford will be able to lower liability insurance premiums. The captive aims to provide both primary (up to $1 million) and excess (up to $5 million above that) coverage. Milford Street says its premiums will be significantly lower than what is available in the current market. Insureds will also have to pay will be a one-time per unit returnable capital contribution and a small per unit association fee for startup and administrative costs. Elliot Kroll and Huhnsik Chung, partners at the law firm ArentFox Schiff, served as advisors to the captive, which they say is a first-in-the-nation. This is precisely the purpose of an association captive to provide the most cost-effective insurance solution for those who understand their risks and employ the best risk management practices, said Kroll. Founding members of the Milford Street Association include affordable housing advocates Peter Davis, J Cubed Residential; Susan Camerata, Wavecrest Management; John Crotty, J Cubed Residential; Ruben Diaz, former City Councilor and state Assembly member; Nicole Ferreira, nonprofit mortgage lender CPC Mortgage; and John Murphy, private equity investment Murphy & Partners. The creation of Milford was a necessity if our industry is to survive, said Crotty of the Work Force Housing Group and a founding member of Milford Street. Milford Street is domiciled in Vermont and will be regulated by that states insurance regulator. The announcement said that the program has been reviewed by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). Avid Solutions Insurance Management of East Montpelier is the captives manager. S&P Global Ratings said in a new report that the high-cost structure within the rental housing sector in 2023 remained consistent with 2022, with maintenance and repair, insurance premiums, and payroll-related expenses representing the largest share of operating costs. In some regions, insurance premiums and limited coverage pressured margins, particularly for stand-alone projects more exposed to natural disasters and physical climate risks. The announcement of the new captive insurer comes about two weeks after New York DFS regulators issued guidance to insurers regarding affordable housing properties. Under the guidance, commercial insurers are prohibited from inquiring about or making coverage decisions based on a propertys status as an affordable housing development or a tenants source of income. The guidance is in a circular letter that implements a new law signed in April by Governor Kathy Hochul. The new law is part of the states efforts to build more affordable housing and prevent unfair discrimination in real estate sales and rentals. In November 2022, DFS and the state housing agency, Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), published a report concerning property/casualty insurance for buildings with affordable or subsidized housing units. Developers of affordable housing indicated they had experienced significant premium increases or difficulty obtaining policies for affordable housing developments. Topics Carriers New York A workers compensation insurer is entitled to continue to receive reimbursements from the Massachusetts second injury fund even after it stops writing business in the state, the states high court has ruled in an opinion reversing itself on the issue. The court said insurers are eligible for reimbursement so long as the employer pays the assessments that supply the revenues for the fund through its new insurer. In a 2015 ruling the same court had found that insurers that are no longer collecting assessments from employers for the Workers Compensation Trust Fund are not eligible for reimbursements from the fund. This time, however, the Supreme Judicial Court reasoned that while the insurer in run-off is no longer collecting assessments from the employer, the employer is still contributing to the second injury fund through its new insurer. Thus the trust fund is not losing any revenue by the exiting insurer continuing to receive reimbursements. The court also stressed that the plain language of the statute only excludes self-insurers, group self-insurers or municipalities that choose not to be subject to the assessments from receiving reimbursements. The statute does not prohibit insurance companies that are in run-off periods from receiving reimbursements. The Workers Compensation Trust Fund is the states statutorily created entity that reimburses insurers for certain workers compensation benefits, including a portion of the benefits paid to previously injured employees who suffer further work-related injuries. Revenues for the trust fund come from assessments on employers that are based on premiums and collected by their insurers. In the case before the high court, a worker sustained a back injury in 1994 and another in 2001 while working at Scully Signal Co. Despite receiving treatment, the combination of injuries rendered him unable to return to substantial gainful employment and resulted in a substantially greater disability than that which would have resulted from the second injury alone. Following the second injury, Scullys insurer, Arrowood Indemnity Co., began paying workers compensation benefits to the worker. For as long as Arrowood was doing business in the state, it collected premiums as well the fund assessments from its insured employers including Scully. In 2003, Arrowood stopped issuing new policies in Massachusetts. Once Arrowood did not have any premiums to collect, it also did not have any assessments to collect from Scully. However, during its run-offf period, Arrowood continued to service claims under previously issued policies, and it has continued to pay workers compensation claims under previously issued policies including paying benefits to Scullys injured worker. Throughout the time that Arrowood has paid benefits to Scullys employee, the insurer has requested second-injury reimbursements from the trust fund. For a time, the trust fund approved those requests. Then, in 2014, the funds reviewing board decided another case involving an insurance company, Home Insurance, that was in a run-off period. The reviewing board concluded that Home became ineligible for reimbursement once it ceased collecting assessments. In its 2014 decision, the reviewing board stated that there was no material difference between an insurance company that, as a result of being in a run-off period, did not have any premiums or assessments to collect and employers that choose not to pay the assessments. According to the reviewing board, the end result was the same because the insurance company did not participate in the assessment provisions. The reviewing board concluded that, because the assessments provide the revenues for the trust fund, the insurance company was ineligible for reimbursement. The Supreme Judicial Court deferred to the board and upheld that decision in 2015. The trust fund then applied the reasoning in Home to Arrowoods case and began to deny Arrowoods requests for reimbursement. Arrowood sued and the high court took up the appeal as an opportunity to revisit Home because it recognized there is a critical difference between the roles that employers and insurers play with respect to the trust fund and because the statutory language governing the trust funds administration does not support the interpretation adopted by the board and affirmed in Home. The court noted that employers pay the assessments that provide the revenues for the trust fund, while insurers merely transmit those payments to the trust fund. When an employer chooses not to pay the assessments, that deprives the trust fund of revenues; when an insurance company enters a run-off period and no longer has any premiums or assessments to collect, that does not deprive the trust fund of revenues. By its own terms, the statutory exception to reimbursement applies only to employers that choose not to pay the assessments, the court wrote. In the case before the court, Scully continued to pay assessments through its new insurer, OneBeacon Insurance Co. In other words, Arrowoods actions did not deprive the trust fund of any revenues, and the logic behind the narrow exception to reimbursement does not apply to Arrowood, the high court determined. The court also noted that public policy considerations support allowing insurance companies that are in run-off periods to receive reimbursements. The purpose of the second-injury reimbursements is to encourage employers to hire persons with disabilities. The reimbursements reduce the amount of the loss and improve the employers experience modification factor, which is used in determining the employers premium. As a result, the employers premium is reduced. An employer that has contributed to the trust fund should be able to receive this benefit, even if its insurer has stopped issuing new policies and therefore does not have any premiums or assessments to collect, the opinion states. Topics Carriers 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. 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. Read More: Bob Menendez Jurors Held Gold Bars, Saw Secret Video, Eyed Cash 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. Insurance Broker in Menendez Corruption Case Allegedly Got Senators Help With Fraud Case Insurance Agent Pleads Guilty, Will Testify in Bribery Case Against Senator Menendez 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). Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Topics Agencies Illinois-based specialty insurance broker Origin Specialty Underwriters Agency announced it has acquired Agricultural Insurance Management Services (AIMS), an agribusiness insurance-focused managing general underwriter based in Bow, New Hampshire. AIMS does most of its business in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast regions and is currently licensed in more than 30 states. It helps agents place insurance for farms, ranches, equine operations, estate farms, and commercial growers of agricultural products. AIMS offers a variety of farm-related coverages, including homes, barns, farm equipment, auto, and liability from national carriers. Industry veteran Clark Lindley founded AIMS in 2000 and serves as president. Clark and the firms underwriting manager, Tammy Hooker, have more than 50 years of underwriting and carrier experience in the agriculture sector. Origins approach to program underwriting, carrier and reinsurance partnerships and products, strong distribution relationships, and unique operational platform will allow us to expand the distribution of our existing product offerings while adding innovative solutions for our clients and agents, said Lindley in the announcement. Great American, Travelers, The Hartford-Mortality and Assurant Specialty Property are among the carriers AIMS currently represents. Origin Specialty is an MGU that targets small and mid-sized risks including restaurant, hospitality, excavation, and workers compensation risks. Origin is a partner company of Beyond Risk, an independent risk management services provider. Marsh, Berry & Co. acted as financial advisor for AIMS. Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Excess Surplus Talent Underwriting Agribusiness Insurance Wholesale Human Resources Greece is fighting a deadly fire on the island of Lesvos, as temperatures in some parts of the country exceed 40C (104F). A person died in a burned-out car on Lesvos, where authorities are investigating whether the vehicle was scorched by a wildfire, or if it was involved in an accident that triggered the blaze. Elsewhere, almost 100 firefighters supported by 11 planes and five helicopters are trying to contain a forest blaze in Korinthia, a region in the northeast of Peloponnese. Authorities are also battling a fire in Evros, a region thats on very high alert for Friday. Wildfires have been a risk across Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean for decades, but global warming is turbo-charging the threat they pose. Climate change is putting 2024 on track to be the worlds hottest year on record, intensifying extreme weather events such storms, floods and fires. Todays #EFFIS Fire Danger Forecast shows Very High to Extreme Danger levels in large areas of several countries surrounding the #Mediterranean Sea and the #BlackSea Very Extreme Danger levels are present in areas of More athttps://t.co/XL7jHVJ8Mv pic.twitter.com/yZ1OXEyrpJ Copernicus EMS (@CopernicusEMS) July 11, 2024 Greek authorities have placed several regions of the country on high fire alert, with hundreds of outbreaks since early June destroying properties and businesses. Under a European Union initiative, Greece has also dispatched planes to help fight fires in Albania. Albanian Defense Minister Niko Peleshi reported 23 fires in the past 24 hours, but just two remain active in the south of the country. Daily map: Wildfires in Albania and the #EUCivilProtection Mechanism response. pic.twitter.com/HjpUXxooWN EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid (@eu_echo) July 10, 2024 Photograph: Firefighters work to extinguish a wildfire near Stamata, Greece on June 30, 2024; photo credit: Nick Paleologos/Bloomberg Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Abbott Laboratories hid the risks of its premature-infant formula causing a potentially fatal bowel disease from parents even though company officials acknowledged the peril in internal documents, a lawyer told a Missouri jury. The company was accused of putting profits over safety by an attorney for the mother of a premature baby girl who developed necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, and suffered brain damage after being fed Abbotts Similac Special Care 24, a cows milk-based formula. The trial that kicked off this week in state court in St. Louis is the first of more than 1,000 such claims against Abbott and other formula makers to be presented to a jury. Abbott officials didnt mention the NEC risks on the product label and didnt inform parents that their children could face brain damage or death from being fed the formula, Jake Plattenberger, Margo Gills lawyer, said Tuesday in opening statements that were broadcast on Courtroom View Network. He said Abbott spends more than $100 million a year marketing the product. Its okay to market your product, but you have to tell people the truth, and Abbott never did that, Plattenberger said. In Abbotts defense, a lawyer for the company argued that the formula doesnt cause NEC and that Gills baby had pre-existing health issues. Abbott and Enfamil-formula maker Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc face more than 1,000 suits in courts across the US accusing the companies of failing to warn parents about NEC risks. In March, an Illinois jury ordered a unit of UK-based Reckitt to pay $60 million to the family of a premature baby that died after being fed its cows milk-based product. Reckitts shares plunged 15% in the wake of the verdict. The company said at the time it would appeal. St. Louis courts are considered to be plaintiff-friendly and have produced large verdicts in the past. In 2019, a St. Louis jury awarded 20 women $4.7 billion in damages against Johnson & Johnson over claims its baby powders caused their cancers. If I were the head of Abbott, I absolutely would not want to try this case in that particular venue, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond professor who teaches about mass-tort law. Its fairly well-known that judges and juries in St. Louis tend to be inclined toward plaintiffs. I cant think of a worse place for a company to try its first case. Holly Froum, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who has been following the formula litigation, said she expects about 3,000 cases to be filed and manufacturers may face as much as $1.5 billion in exposure. Lawyers for families with premature babies allege Abbott knew for at least 15 years and never disclosed the threat that premature infants fed their Similac Special Care product were at higher risk of developing NEC than those who were fed breast milk from donors. James Hurst, Abbotts lead defense lawyer, told jurors that Gills daughter, Robynn Davis, had a host of medical issues when she was born in 2021 at just 26 weeks and developed NEC before she had a single drop of Similac Special Care. He said Abbotts formula has been on the market for 45 years and is backed by research showing it doesnt cause NEC. He said that breast milk also has been found to cause NEC in some babies. Hurst also defended Abbotts marketing of the formula, saying that because its not an over-the-counter product, the company focused on educating doctors and hospital staff about its risks and not parents. The case is Gill v. Abbott, 2322-CC01251, Missouri 22nd Judicial Circuit (St. Louis). Photo: The Abbott Laboratories headquarters in Illinois. Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. A federal judge in Texas said on Wednesday he would block the National Labor Relations Board from pursuing claims that Elon Musks SpaceX forced workers to sign illegal severance agreements, pending the outcome of the rocket makers challenge to the agencys structure. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright in Waco, Texas, at the end of a 40-minute hearing said he would grant a temporary block on the NLRBs administrative case after SpaceX argued it would be irreparably harmed by having to face an unconstitutional proceeding and cover the legal costs of defending itself. Albright, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, did not explain his decision and barely spoke during the hearing, but said he would issue a written ruling. In an April lawsuit, SpaceX said the NLRBs in-house enforcement proceedings violate the U.S. Constitution because its administrative judges and five board members appointed by the president cannot be removed without cause. To issue a preliminary injunction as Albright said he would on Wednesday, a judge has to find that a plaintiff is likely to succeed in their case. SpaceX and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An NLRB spokeswoman declined to comment. A lawyer for the board argued at Wednesdays hearing that under decades of U.S. Supreme Court precedent, officials at agencies such as the NLRB that were designed to be independent from political influence can be insulated from at-will removal by the president. But two lawyers for SpaceX countered that more recent rulings, including a pair of cases involving the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, have made clear that officials with the power to enforce federal laws must be accountable to the White House. SpaceX initially sued the labor board in a different Texas court in January, one day after the NLRB general counsel issued a complaint alleging the company had fired eight engineers for circulating a letter criticizing Musk, its CEO. The lawsuit before Albright, which makes similar claims against the board, came after the agency in March issued a separate complaint claiming severance agreements signed by ex-SpaceX employees unlawfully barred them from disparaging the company and joining class-action lawsuits against it. Amazon.com, Starbucks, Trader Joes, and a hospital operator in Michigan are among the other companies that have brought challenges to the NLRBs structure, either in administrative cases or in federal court. An administrative judge in a May ruling in a case involving Starbucks punted on the issue, saying he lacked the power to rule on constitutional claims and that the claims were ultimately a matter for the federal courts to decide. Topics Aerospace Days after Hurricane Beryl crashed through the city, Houston is still grappling with the aftershocks. Large swaths of Americas fourth-largest city are still without power, shutting stores and snarling traffic at non-functioning lights. Gas stations are either closed or swamped with long lines of people desperate to fuel their cars and home generators. More than 1 million homes and businesses face another day sweltering without air conditioning as the US National Weather Service warns of heat-related illness. About 500,000 customers will remain in the dark into next week as the citys main utility, CenterPoint Energy Inc., rebuilds parts of its system that were damaged by the storm, according to a company representative. Rimsha Aslam, 28, moved to the city just three months ago from Thailand. She and her father had to leave the apartment they shared after it was flooded, finding refuge in a neighborhood YMCA thats been transformed into a cooling center. There are no restaurants open, all the shops are closed everybody is still struggling, Aslam said of her neighborhood in west Houston. Im totally new here: This is my first experience of a storm in Houston, she said, adding its not like this in Thailand. Its a humbling feeling for a city that markets itself as the Energy Capital of the World. Roughly 1.3 million homes and businesses were still without power in Texas on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. The majority of the problems are concentrated in Houston, with CenterPoint accounting for more than 80% of those outages. CenterPoint said it expects to have an additional 400,000 customers restored by the end of the day on Friday and a further 350,000 customers restored by the end of the day on Sunday. Still, that means that nearly a week after the storm, half a million will remain under blackouts. A CenterPoint representative said Beryl was clearly unpredictable and that Houston was to the right of the eyewall, which meant the city was pummeled by storms most destructive winds. We have to rebuild large spans of infrastructure, with poles snapped in half laying on the ground, Jason Ryan, CenterPoints executive vice president of regulatory services and government affairs, said at a Public Utility Commission of Texas meeting Thursday. There will be small pockets throughout the 5,000 square miles of our service territory that have some prolonged outages, he said. The utility will start providing those customers facing extended outages with estimates for restoration times on Thursday afternoon. CenterPoint pre-positioned 3,000 mutual assistance crews in the Greater Houston area after July 4 as Beryl approached, Ryan said. That number grew to more than 10,000 as the storms path shifted to the worst-case scenario for the utility, he said. While the blackouts are down from the peak at the worst the CenterPoint outages topped 2.2 million its still a major hardship for Texans baking under intense conditions. The regions heat index values a measure of how hot it feels when humidity is factored in are forecast to be as high as 106F (41C). Some 72 hours after the storm, Houston is divided between those who have power and those who dont. For the lucky ones, life is getting closer to normal, but for everyone else, its a brutal waiting game. Read More: Houston Had to Use Burger App to Track Post-Beryl Blackouts Tensions Rise Bill Hudgens, 80, bought a generator for his son at a Lowes Cos Inc. store near Houstons Energy Corridor, a few miles from US headquarters of BP Plc and Shell Plc. The inside of his house is now approaching the high 80s, he said, waiting for store assistants to load the 6500-watt Generac onto his truck. His mother-in-law is 90 years old, and no ones happy. Tensions rise when the temperature rises. The continued outages are provoking ire from residents and some officials. I hope theyre doing their best but so far its not enough, Mathurin Oulai, 63, said of the utilitys efforts. Oulai is concerned about how hell secure enough gasoline and supplies to last through the next few days. To find gas you have to drive 30 minutes, 40 minutes, he said. Everything is closed, and Im a disabled man. I tried to contact social security, but its closed. I drove over there, and they just let me know all the social security offices are closed. Not all areas are being hit the same. Gasoline is available and grocery stores are open in large parts of the sprawling city. Read More: Abbott Rips Biden Over Beryl Call: He Just Flat Out Made It Up Beryl struck the city on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. AccuWeather Inc. estimated the storms cost in the US, counting both damages and economic losses, could reach $28 billion to $32 billion. Drew Dickert from north-west Houston lost power for 30 hours, but as soon as it returned his thoughts turned to a friend with severe asthma who relies on an oxygen machine. Hes got these generators, but one of them went down, said the 65-year-old geologist. I picked up some gas and am getting some hardware to keep him going. The utilitys inability to restore power more quickly is creating a public health crisis, wrote Representative Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat from Texas, in a letter to CenterPoints chief executive officer that was posted on her X account. 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. Less than two months ago strong winds known as a derecho left thousands without power, some for days. 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. Photo: A downed power line burns on the side of a building in Houston on July 9. Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. Insurers losses from Hurricane Beryl will be low and readily absorbed and the storm is not expected to change pricing conditions in the property/casualty and reinsurance sectors, Moodys Ratings said. Beryl made landfall along the Texas coast as a category 1 hurricane, bringing strong winds and storm surge to much of the Texas Gulf Coast. Parts of east central Texas received 10 to 15 inches of rainfall. Catastrophe modeling company Karen Clark & Co. said on Thursday that insurers may take a hit of about $2.7 billion from damage caused by the storm. Related: Hurricane Beryl Caused $2.5-$4.5B in Estimated Insured Losses, Says Moodys CoreLogic estimated insured wind losses in Texas of between $2.5 and $3.5 billion. The estimated losses include damage to residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural properties, including damage to contents and business interruption, CoreLogic said. The estimate includes demand surge. Most Texas homeowners have deductibles between 1% and 5%. A shift towards the purchase of a higher deductible amount could significantly reduce the losses paid by insurers, CoreLogic said. Over 31,000 commercial real estate properties in Texas were expected to be exposed to winds of at least 50 mph, according to Natalie Ambrosio Preudhomme, associate director-commercial real estate, Moodys. The cumulative estimated value of those properties is over $160 billion. This demonstrates that while major damage to many assets is likely to be minimal, it is also likely that thousands of properties face minor repairs, some of which may not be severe enough to meet their insurance deductibles, said Preudhomme. Beryl is the earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. The storm battered the Grenadines on July 1 before passing Jamaica on July 5. The storm caused caused minimal damage to central Yucatan Peninsula as a landfalling category 2 hurricane. Beryl then emerged into the Gulf of Mexico and regained hurricane status just before landfall at Matagorda, Texas on Monday morning. Related: Hurricane Beryl Triggers Record Payout for Caribbean Insurer As Beryl progressed northward, the storm tracked directly over Harris County, home to 4.7 million residents. Only five hurricanes since 1960 have tracked within 30 miles of the county seat of Houston, according to Guy Carpenter, a global risk and reinsurance specialist. Remnants of Beryl spawned tornadoes and flooding from Louisiana up through the Great Lakes and Northeast regions. Shreveport, Louisiana reported a one-day record 67 tornado warnings on July 8. At least 28 tornadoes spanned from Texas to the Northeastern U.S. have been confirmed by the National Weather Service. The most severe tornado observed was an EF-3 tornado that hit Mount Vernon, Indiana. To the east of Beryls inland progression, an environment conducive to tornadic development was in place; high levels of atmospheric instability promoted ongoing severe thunderstorm development and shifting winds with height helped to induce rotation within these storms, Guy Carpenter said in a post event summary. Active season ahead Beryl is the first major hurricane of what forecasters expect to be extremely active Atlantic Hurricane season. The presence of unusually warm water is a major intensifier of hurricanes and likely contributed to Beryls strengthening into a Category 5 storm. As seen from pre-season forecasts, oceanic conditions in the North Atlantic were primed for storm activity, said Sarah Hartley, Director-Moodys RMS Event Response. With both sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and oceanic heat content at or near record levels across much of the tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea, these environmental conditions were favorable for Beryls development. In the aftermath of Beryl, researchers at Colorado State University updated their forecast for the Atlantic Hurricane Season, now calling for 25 named storms, 12 hurricanes and 6 major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or more. The groups forecast of 6 major hurricanes is double its original projection in April. The next few weeks are expected to bring a more unfavorable period for tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic, Guy Carpenter said, with the storm season ready to pick back up in early August. The current El Nino phase is expected to transition to a La Nina phase later this summer, which tends to create more favorable conditions for hurricanes to develop, Moodys said in a post-storm comment. While insurers largely escaped Beryl intact, the aggregation of all events in an active hurricane season could lead to significant losses for P/C insurers, Moodys said. Photo: A person looks out towards the flooded interstate after Hurricane Beryl swept through the area on July 08, 2024 in Houston, Texas. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Carriers Hurricane 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. Gibsons 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. It was not clear if the inmates were covered by workers compensation insurance. Thomas received more than $181,000 in pay, 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. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Profit Loss Tennessee John OGrady, a Limerick native, enjoys a particularly unusual distinction. He is the only county council rate book inspector to have been honoured with a commemorative monument in his home city, although his memory is celebrated for historic sporting achievements rather than his bureaucratic excellence. OGrady, born in Ballybricken in 1892 grew to be a gentle giant of 6ft 4in and 20st, the perfect physique for a seven-time Irish champion shot-putter and holder of three world records. His enduring place in the Irish sporting annals was sealed at the Paris Olympics of 1924 when he became the first flag bearer at the games for his newly independent country. Since OGrady first broke the ice, 23 compatriots have walked in his deep footprints and carried the Tricolour at the summer games. Six different sports are represented on the roll of honour. A boxer has carried the flag on seven occasions, followed by five athletes, four equestrians, and team officials who have selflessly burdened themselves with the honour on three occasions. Swimming, rowing and sailing each make one appearance. Three competitors won gold medals at their flag-bearing games, hammer thrower Pat OCallaghan (1932) and boxers Katie Taylor (2012) and Kelly Harrington (2021) while Sonia OSullivan hit the bar when she collected a silver at Sydney in 2000. Ronnie Delany carried the flag in Rome, in 1960, four years after his Melbourne heroics and Michelle Smith was chosen at Barcelona, the games before her controversial gold medal hat-trick in Atlanta in 1996. At those Atlanta games, Irelands flag had its most memorable bearer, when the boxer Francie Barrett carried both his countrys colours and the pride of the Irish Travelling community when he beamed his way through the opening ceremony. Heather Boyle of the Irish Olympic Federation says that she is still unsure exactly when this years flag bearer will be nominated but confirms that it will likely be close to the opening ceremony. The world has changed since the days of OGrady and unlike Paris a century ago the honour is unlikely to fall to a county council rates inspector. But another monument is certainly not out of the question. The Irish regulator may face the task of holding social media giant X and its owner Elon Musk to account, after the European Commission revealed the former Twitter could be facing multi-million-euro fines. X has been told by the commission that it has breached Europes landmark legislation aimed at regulating tech giants, the Digital Services Act, including around how it designates verified accounts with blue checks to deceive users. Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a verified status, it negatively affects users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with, it said. There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the verified account to deceive users. In response, in a post on X, Mr Musk claimed the commission of offering his company an illegal secret deal". "If we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us," he said, adding X did not accept. While X now has a chance to offer a defence of the claims made against it, if the commission follows through and rules that it has breached the law, fines of up to 6% of global turnover could be dished out and an order issued to change its practices. Given Twitter enjoyed revenues of $5bn in 2021, before it was taken over by Mr Musk, any financial sanction could be severe. It is understood the Irish regulator, Coimisiun Na Mean, while not directly involved in this investigation as it dates from before it assumed its powers under the Digital Services Act, could play a role in overseeing how X makes any changes required as a result of the investigation. This is because X has its European headquarters in Dublin, making it fall under Coimisiun na Means remit. If X does not live up to any commitments it makes, this could lead to further investigations from either the European Commission or Coimisiun na Mean, and further fines dished out. The Irish regulator will have a major role to play in regulating large tech giants going forward, given over half of the large online platforms covered by these laws are based here. After Mr Musk bought Twitter in 2022, it started issuing verification marks to anyone who paid $8 per month (7.35) for one. A premium account that offers a checkmark can now be obtained for 8.61 a month when paid annually. Before Mr Musks acquisition, the ticks mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians, and other influential accounts. Given Twitter enjoyed revenues of $5bn in 2021, before it was taken over by Elon Musk, any financial sanction could be severe. European commissioner Thierry Breton said: Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information. Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the Digital Services Act. The commission also charged X with failing to comply with requirements on ad transparency. Under the Digital Services Act, platforms must publish a database of all digital advertisements they have carried, with details including who paid for them and their intended audience. But Xs ad database has design features and access barriers that make it unfit for its transparency purpose, the commission said. The company also falls short when it comes to giving researchers access to public data, as required by the Digital Services Act, the commission said. Creative craft workers will engage with people looking to buy unique ethical, handcrafted goods during Cork Craft Month in August, the 15th annual creative platform hosted by Cork Craft & Design. Last years events attracted over 20,000 visitors, with over 80 exhibitions, studio trails, and Meet the Maker sessions. Cork Craft & Design represents over 110 specialist makers and artists, whose 3,000 handcrafted items from furniture to ceramics, to jewellery and prints can be viewed at corkcraftanddesign.com and at the Makers Collective Shop in Douglas Woollen Mills. Cork Craft Month in August will feature free and paid events across Cork city and county, including markets, family-friendly demos and workshops. Ahead of the Cork Craft Month launch party at Douglas Woolen Mills on Saturday, July 28, and the EMERGE graduate exhibition launch on Friday, August 2, we put questions to James McConville, recently appointed managing director of Cork Craft & Design. With significant branding and marketing expertise and a passion for empowering entrepreneurs, James brings prior experience in higher education, corporate IT global SME e-commerce and floristry. Why has the public appetite for craft products grown to the point that 20,000 people are expected to attend Cork Craft Month in August? People are increasingly drawn to the authenticity and stories embedded in handmade craft products made here in Cork. The allure of quality craftsmanship, often steeped in tradition and skill, far surpasses that of mass-produced items. I see it as a yearning for connection to the maker, to heritage, and to a more sustainable way of living. Beyond the tangible appeal of unique creations such as our textiles or woodworking, there's a growing recognition of the impact our choices have on the local and environmental economies. Supporting local artisans fosters a thriving craft community here in Cork, which furthers our work to be a supportive network. Secondly, choosing handcrafted goods often translates to a smaller environmental footprint. Furthermore, the rise of craft markets and events like Cork Craft Month in August offers a refreshing opportunity to explore a good old-fashioned market experience an opportunity to engage with makers, witness their passion firsthand, and discover one-of-a-kind pieces that express individuality. The spotlight on craftsmanship has also been amplified by social media platforms, where artisans can now showcase their talent and reach a global audience. This visibility has fuelled the burgeoning interest in handmade creations, turning what was once considered niche into a mainstream movement. Cork Craft Month is the jewel in the crown of the Cork Craft & Design calendar and is a testament to our thriving craft culture. It's a celebration of talent, a showcase of skill, and a testament to the enduring power of human creativity. Tell us about the people working in this creative community, including the 110 makers and artists who are members of Cork Craft & Design. Cork's creative community is a vibrant mix of passionate makers and crafters. At its heart are the 110 members of Cork Craft & Design's Makers' Collective Shop in St. Patrick's Woollen Mills in Douglas. Each maker and designer executes meticulous craftmanship over each piece they produce. These pieces, which have been handcrafted with care, are things that will be enjoyed for years to come. Our talented individuals represent diverse disciplines, from ceramics and jewellery to woodwork and textiles. United by a shared commitment to quality, sustainability, and traditional techniques. The Cork Craft & Design Shop is a platform for these artisans to showcase and sell their work, fostering a sustainable livelihood and connecting them with a wider audience nationally and internationally. It's a vibrant hub of creativity where visitors can discover unique, handcrafted pieces that reflect Cork's rich artistic heritage, and even participate in workshops and demos to learn about the creative process firsthand. Where do the direct selling opportunities of Cork Craft Month events fit into the ways that makers and artists now promote, sell and distribute their products? Cork Craft Month events are a vital component of our makers calendars. The sheer span of events offers a direct line between customers and makers, fostering personal connections and showcasing unique products. The markets, demonstrations and workshops build brand awareness and create networking opportunities. While our online platform (launching soon) is essential in todays e-commerce world, the tangible experience of craft markets complements our makers digital presences, creating a well-rounded approach to marketing and sales. In essence, Cork Craft Month is more than just a sales channel; it's a dynamic platform that empowers our members to thrive in today's competitive landscape. How are the Craft Month pop-up events important in spreading the reach for these events? Cork Craft Months pop-up events serve as strategic outposts, extending the reach of the festival by attracting new audiences and generating excitement. These temporary showcases in high-traffic areas offer a curated preview of the month's diverse offerings, sparking curiosity and driving footfall to other events and our makers Collective shop in Patrick's Woollen Mills in Douglas. Our pop-ups create a sense of urgency, amplifying social media engagement and word-of-mouth marketing, ultimately broadening community awareness and fostering a thriving ecosystem for local crafters. Read More Business movers: People starting new jobs in Ireland James, in what ways do you plan to leverage your branding and marketing expertise to help talented artists grow their businesses? 2024 marks 15 years of Cork Craft Month and 19 years of Cork Craft & Design. That makes me incredibly proud, but I am already looking to the future. I plan to leverage my experience to showcase the incredible talent of our local makers on a global stage, by highlighting the legacy of exceptional craftsmanship to an international audience. I also want to ensure that people who might be considering joining the network know that we foster a thriving, supportive community of Cork-based creators, where collaboration, innovation, and mutual growth are paramount. I specifically hope to elevate craftspeople to national and international recognition through Cork Craft Month's EMERGE programme, which celebrates the work of graduating makers and embraces them as part of the community of Irish craft and design. EMERGE's core exhibition features selected works from graduate makers of the Crawford College of Art & Design, Colaiste Stiofain Naofa, St. Johns Central College, West Cork Campus Skibbereen subsidiary of the Cork College of Commerce, and Kinsale College. Cork Craft Month brings the work of these new, exciting craftspeople into the limelight and focuses on nurturing and supporting their creative career to ensure they have the tools to create a sustainable practice that continues to go from strength to strength. Boeing has notified some 737 Max customers in recent weeks that aircraft due for delivery in 2025 and 2026 face additional delays, another reminder that production of its cash-cow jetliner faces a long road to recovery. The planemaker has cautioned that delivery timelines continue to slip by three to six months on top of already-late handovers, according to people familiar with the matter. In some instances, deliveries scheduled for next year have spilled into 2026, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are confidential. A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment, noting that the company is in a quiet period ahead of its July 31 earnings release. Delays have become the norm in aerospace as planemakers and engine manufacturers grapple with disrupted shipments of parts and raw materials, worker turnover and other market turmoil still lingering from the pandemic. The shortage of new jets is expected to be a hot topic when the Farnborough International Airshow kicks off on July 22, a departure from the splashy sales announcements that typically dominate trade expos. Two airlines warned Friday that late-arriving jets are taking a toll on airline operations and finances. Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA said its growth next year will be affected by Boeing delivery delays ranging from eight to 11 months. Deutsche Lufthansa trimmed its profit outlook for this year while pointing to inefficiencies in its flight operations caused by delivery disruptions. Airbus has also been warning airlines of potential delays over the next two years, Bloomberg reported last month, after alerting investors that it would miss its 2024 target for deliveries. The constraints have forced airlines to dial back expansion plans, and spurred a run on used jets that typically would be headed for desert storage yards. One frustrated customer, Steven Udvar-Hazy, the co-founder of Air Lease, noted that nearly half the Boeing and Airbus aircraft that the lessor was due to receive in the first quarter never arrived. And the aircraft that did deliver were all late, he said during a May earnings call. I repeat, the aircraft that did deliver were all late. Boeing has curbed its production following a harrowing near-catastrophe involving a 737 Max jetliner in January. The Federal Aviation Administration wont allow Boeing to hike output of its narrowbody beyond a 38-jet monthly pace until its convinced quality controls are in place and the supply chain can keep pace. Output has risen a little at the US planemaker, which delivered its highest monthly total in June since the January incident. Increased deliveries are vital for Boeing to bolster finances that have been battered by a production slowdown as it retrained workers and stepped up supplier inspections. - Bloomberg Europe has given the thumbs up to Ireland for helping farmers recognise the cultural value of traditional buildings. The country was chosen for a European Heritage Award in recognition of a scheme co-funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the Rural Development Programme. Administered by the Heritage Council, the scheme supports participants in acquiring skills to enable them to carry out repairs to return the buildings to functional use on the farm. Over 1,000 buildings have been repaired under the scheme since it was introduced in 2008. Minister Charlie McConalogue said the European Heritage/Europa Nostra awards celebrate the outstanding contribution of the scheme to preserving and enhancing Irelands agricultural vernacular heritage. The scheme protects farm buildings, which are heritage assets that may sometimes be under-appreciated, and we are proud to work with the owners who feel a sense of guardianship for these buildings, he said. The scheme also acknowledges the important role of farm buildings in shaping the cultural landscape and actively contributes to the continuation of traditional crafts in modern society. This award is a tribute to the ongoing stellar work of the Heritage Council and the teamwork between it and my own Department, he said. The awards honour up to 30 outstanding heritage achievements every year, from which up to five Grand Prix winners will be selected for a Public Choice Award a monetary award of 10,000 each. Heritage Council chief executive Virginia Teehan said the traditional farm building scheme in Ireland, now in its 15th year, perfectly embodies the commitment to natural, built, and cultural heritage. By protecting wildlife habitats during works, restoring these beautiful old buildings using traditional skills, and preserving the stories and history they carry, the scheme has revived numerous structures that might otherwise have been lost. The recognition it is receiving now on a European scale is a testament to its success and can hopefully offer inspiration to others, she said. The awards jury described the scheme as commendable for its wide-reaching, high-impact and holistic approach, which demonstrates integrated policies at work. Its emphasis on peer-to-peer learning has brought together diverse stakeholders, including owners, local communities, conservationists, craftspeople and ecologists, creating meaningful connections and mutual understanding, the jury added. The awards jury was composed of 12 heritage experts from across Europe, who evaluated the 206 eligible applications from organisations and individuals in 38 countries. Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: Our cultural heritage is our collective treasure, a bridge connecting our past, present and future. It holds a special place in our hearts and daily lives, fostering a sense of belonging and identity, she said. Awardees will be celebrated at the European Heritage Awards Ceremony in Bucharest on October 7. The Public Choice Award winners chosen online will also be announced. Voting continues until September 22. Minister McConalogue urged members of the public in Ireland to cast their vote for Irelands Traditional Farm Buildings Scheme on vote.europanostra.org. Every year, when The War of Independence is commemorated, Neil Jordan hears government ministers utter a famous quote from Michael Collins. Give us the future; weve had enough of your past. And he laughs at the irony. That is truly weird, he says. Michael Collins didnt say that. I wrote it. Were sitting near the seafront in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, discussing Jordans recent memoir, Amnesiac, and Ive just asked him if the controversy around that standout movie irritated him. He said that it came from academics, and that he found it odd. Gore Vidal used to say, never give up the opportunity to have sex or go on TV, and I realise that people on campuses dont get out very much, and a movie like Michael Collins gave them a great opportunity to take to the airwaves. And believe me they took it. When the publisher Neil Belton first approached Jordan asking for a memoir, he wasnt sure he could do it. When you read celebrity memoirs and I suppose Im sort of a celebrity it can be so boring. You read things like, Then I met Liza Minelli and then I met the Pope. But I said Id try my hand and began writing the opening chapter about my mother and I thought, this is interesting, and I kept going. And then they said, could you put in more about movies?. In his memoir Neil Jordan writes of the brilliance of Cillian Murphy as Kitten in 'Breakfast on Pluto'. So, he has. He writes of the fairytale element of in The Company of Wolves, of Cillian Murphys brilliance as Kitten in Breakfast on Pluto. He tells of John Bormans generosity when he made a documentary of the making of Excalibur and how that experience taught him so much about filmmaking. He writes of his friend, the late Sinead OConnor whose contributions to Michael Collins and as the Virgin Mary in The Butcher Boy made such an impact. He tells of a dream he had when Graham Greene appeared to comment on some of the liberties he had taken with his adaptation of The End of The Affair. We hear stories of Stanley Kubrick and of the meanness of Weinstein. But it never reads like a name-dropping document of self-congratulation. Jordan is too modest for that. It is a wonderful read part memory part conjecture part analysis. Some people say they have total recall when they put pen to paper, but I found that wasnt the case at all. I wasnt sure what was my memory, what was family rumour and what was Chinese whispers, or a photograph? I realised my memories were not reliable, so I started to write about that. Jordan has led an eventful life. Son of a school inspector he says he was a bad student. At 12 or 13 he was a brilliant classical guitarist whose teacher wanted him to attend the Julian Bream school in London. He hated English at UCD because of the analytical approach taken to works that he responded to emotionally. He spent a time, homeless, in London, and was once sold for sex by a pair of hippies. And back in Dublin, life wasnt much better. I was literally unemployable, he says. Every time I attempted to become a teacher I was fired. Id walk into a classroom, and it would immediately erupt into chaos. I applied for a part-time job at my old school, St Pauls Raheny, and a priest who used to teach me said you are the kind of person who should never be teaching in a school, ever. He writes of growing up in a rough Ireland, one of feral gangs and abuse. But he doesnt quite buy in to the public outrage over the churchs worst demeanours. The famous quote from Michael Collins uttered by many a government minister, give us the future; weve had enough of your past, was actually written by Neil Jordan. I was taught by John McGahern, he says. He disappeared one day, and nobody explained anything to us. John assumed that the parish priest or the headmaster had demanded his removal, but my father told me you can only be removed for a criminal conviction in gross immorality. It was the parents who came to the parish priest and demanded that he go. It seems half the society, maybe more than half, were complicit with the church. In 1972, when Jordan and his friend Jim Sheridan produced a play about a boy in Artane, Dublin, it caused a furore, but when, later, he was asked to direct Philomena, The Secret Scripture, and The Magdalene Sisters, he refused, wondering why they werent written at the time. Retrospective outrage is kind of useless really, isnt it? he says. Jordans writing career was stratospheric. His first book, Night in Tunisia, published in 1979, won three major awards including the prestigious and lucrative Rooney Prize for Literature. He was already an important member of the literary elite; in his early 20s he had set up a writing co-operative to publish Irish writers such as Desmond Hogan. But life as a full-time writer did not suit his overactive brain. I wanted to do something else. It was a time when writing was seen almost as a vocation. So, when I had published Nights in Tunisia and a novel called The Past, people like Brian Friel said that the entry into movies was the ultimate disgrace. But I just liked making them. Along with his movies, Jordan has published 10 novels, and written many film scripts that have never been made. He was at a festival in Korea recently where he met producers who had all the unproduced scripts he had written. I couldnt believe it. I was about to make a movie once called the Killing of Carnival Row to be turned into a TV series. My version wasnt made but they said, we loved your version. Bring it to Korea. It strikes me that in the memoir, Jordan is attempting to get to know himself. Perhaps, yeah, he says. Im convinced we never, really, know ourselves. And has it helped? No, actually. He pauses. I know more things that Ive gone through. I understand more things that Ive done myself and I understand certain obsessions that have remained with me throughout the years that I wouldnt have been aware of. I never met a grandfather. Never. Its a strange thing, he says. I have these mythical beings Ive never come across and Ive often wondered what it would be like to know them. Im now a grandparent, and kids seem to give you this totally unearned affection. At 74, with no thought of retiring, he is trying to make a movie of his latest novel, The Well of St Nobody. Im shooting in September but Im not sure well have the budget by then, but we will make it. Hes also hoping to film his favourite novel, The Drowned Detective, a thriller based in Budapest, Hungary, that he wrote when he was making The Borgias for TV. Is there anything left that he yearns to do? Id love to do a Disney movie a version of Puss in Boots or something like that. He laughs. But its not going to happen. Meanwhile, he keeps writing: Something he claims to find incredibly difficult. You never know what it is you are writing, he says. Im writing something at the moment and Ive no idea what it is. It may be utter nonsense. And Ive written a science fiction novel. Im not sure if its utter folly or genius. He pauses. I do like treading in an untrammelled world. As we leave , I remark that he really does have a remarkable mind. He seems nonplussed. Really? he says. You think? Im just me. One night during lockdown, Christos Tsiolkas was woken from a dream by his partner, Wayne, who told him to get out of bed and start writing. He was at the early stages of a novel, working out what he wanted to say, and how to say it. And in his sleep, he was miming a man shuffling through his wardrobe, feeling his ties. Wayne knows me very well, says the Australian, on Zoom from his friends apartment in London. It mustve been 3.30 in the morning, and Id dreamed the image. I went into the kitchen, grabbed a notepad, and scribbled down three or four lines. Then I could go back to sleep. Now 58, Christos met Wayne when they were both 19 and theyve been together since, but he was wondering what it would be like if you had to start a new relationship in your 50s. Ive got dear friends who have had, maybe, three relationships or maybe theyve had one, and never more, but theyve all experienced love, and also heartbreak, and that risk of love: Its a dangerous emotion. You can really hurt your partner and they can hurt you. I was thinking about love, he says, and of us, as a group of friends, wondering: If youve been rejected, can you trust again? Wayne and I often laugh and say we never could. But if you had to, what would it be like? The book opens as Australian-Greek Perry is getting ready for an internet date. A returnee from France, hes been badly hurt by his French lover, a married man, and hes nervous. Theres a spark between him and his date, Ivan but when, later, theyre in a taxi, Ivan makes a derogatory remark about the woman in a rape case, and Perry, shocked, wonders if the two of them have a future. He almost lets the moment go. But, taking a risk, he admits the comment offended him, and when Ivan divulges the horrific event that prompted his attitude, Perry understands, and the relationship between the two deepens. The two men are very different: Ivan was married and has a daughter, and now a granddaughter. Hes led a more insular life, and a much less comfortable one, than his new lover, but he shares the deep hurt of recent rejection. Perry seems uncomfortable back in Australia. As someone whose parents migrated from Greece, does Christos share his cynicism? He is my alter ego, agrees Christos. He took a choice I might have taken, long ago, to live somewhere else. When I was younger, I had a romance about Greece and London; I thought, this is where culture happens; this is where life and arguments happen. And there is still an element of that. When my country is being reactionary or racist or ugly, I am Perry. But Australia is home, he says. I love the weather and the landscape. A playwright and screenwriter, Christos has written nine novels but he is best known for his fifth, The Slap, which became a hit television show. On March 9, 2020, celebrating 35 years together, Christos and Wayne arrived in London at the start of a six-week odyssey around Britain and Ireland. It was a dream, he says. On March 16, we were on the Isle of Bute, when we looked at the news and realised we had to get out. After a deal of panic, they got home to a very strict lockdown in Melbourne. And though that time was devastating for many, Christos enjoyed the sheer space it gave him. I hadnt read like I did since I was 15, he says, when you had those summer holidays where you picked up a book and were reading all day. And it gave me an opportunity to go back to a lot of the cinema I love. I watched the director Erik Rohmers films, that I didnt know well when I was younger. In films like Claires Knee, he gives the relationships space. You realise that he trusts the audience to be patient and silent, and trust that things are going to be gradually revealed. Inspired, he took from this for the novel. Its structured in five chapters, each one a year apart and consisting of a day and a night, and this works brilliantly, showing the reader all they need to know about the developing relationship. A playwright and screenwriter, Christos has written nine novels but he is best known for his fifth, The Slap. When he wrote it, he had accepted that he would be a part-time writer, that he would never hit the big time. (He was also working as a vet nurse, writing three days a week.) When success hit, he was 45, and he didnt, immediately, enjoy the moment. There was a stumbling, he says. A confusion. I remember wondering, Should I write something thats like The Slap, part two a kind of child of The Slap or should I put something out that was experimental and unreadable? Barracuda, a brilliantly wide-ranging novel, about a swimming prodigy, gained rave reviews, confirming Tsiolkas as a writer to reckon with. Grappling with the issue of success and failure Its about success and failure, and I dont think its accidental that its about success and failure, says Christos, who was grappling with the issue. A key scene in The In-Between is a dinner party. at which Perry is introducing his lover to his best friends, Cora, and her partner, Yasmin. Hes anxious about the encounter, and his fears seem justified when a toxic atmosphere develops. A heterosexual couple, Jed and Evelyn, make up the party, and the obvious attraction between Cora and Evelyn adds to the tension. The conversation, inevitably, turns to children one that Ivan contributes to, leaving Perry adrift. Im a very proud uncle, and Im very happy not being a parent, but what does it mean for Ivan, as a father and grandfather, in a group that parenting is part of the experience of life? He says that this was the hardest scene in the book to write but hes done it beautifully, with an innate understanding of all the female characters. Years ago, a Turkish writer said, if you dare to be a writer, you have to be bisexual. I dont mean who you sleep with, I mean you have to be able to occupy the feminine and the masculine. You have to be able to write men and women. That stayed with me. Back in the 1990s, Christos became involved with a company called Melbourne Workers Theatre, and he loved it. Those actors taught me some of the methods actors use to get into parts. I found that revelatory. When I was writing that dinner party scene, I was actually thinking, how is Yasmin sitting? How does Cora laugh, and how does Jed hold a cigarette? They seem like small things, but its a way of getting me into a character. Christos is working on a project in the State Library in Victoria, in Melbourne, based around his mothers generation of women. I want to tell their story without sentimentality, though not in a deliberately ugly way. I just want to tell it honestly. Theres also that postponed trip to take across Britain and Ireland. This morning, I did a long walk up to Greenwich. Its close to where Im staying. I saw the observatory, but thought, I wont go now. Ill wait until next time and Wayne and I can do it together. I love John Boyne, he says. I think hes a wonderful writer and an amazing human being. I want to spend time with him in Ireland, and Ive got wonderful friends in Scotland too. Its four months since the cast and crew of Poor Things rounded off a busy awards season that included a second Oscar nomination for cinematographer Robbie Ryan. With the tuxedoes barely tucked away, the Poor Things team have another film, Kinds of Kindness, in cinemas already. Dublin-born Ryan believes his latest creation with director Yorgos Lanthimos and Irish production company Element Pictures snuck under the radar during production. "We filmed Poor Things in 2021. It had such a long VFX [visual effects] post-production schedule that we could simultaneously shoot Kinds of Kindness without people realising," says the graduate of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Kinds of Kindness, which stars Lanthimos regulars Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, as well as Jesse Plemons and Margaret Qualley, is a tryptic drama with the actors playing different roles. Control plays a big part in the three stories. In the first, a boss exerts sinister control over an employee. In part two, a husband thinks a doppelganger has replaced his wife, and in three, a woman is so attached to a sex cult that she gave up her family to be with them. While Poor Things brimmed with elaborate sets, Kinds of Kindness is set in modern-day America and is much more stripped back. What did the more natural visuals mean for Ryan? "The big difference for me is that Poor Things was made in the studio, and we had thousands of lights, whereas Kinds of Kindness was filmed on location. It was much more natural and more like the work I was used to doing. It was much quicker, too; we only had about two and half weeks to shoot each story in the film." Emma Stone in Kinds Of Kindness. Ryan says Lanthimos is a natural cinematographer and that, at times, he is following his lead rather than the other way around. "Yorgos really knows what he wants. I follow his cue because he is such a good cinematographer. I facilitate as much as I can, but I am always catching up with that guy. He sets the pace." This is Ryan's third time working with Lanthimos. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 2018 hit The Favourite. The Dubliner says he is becoming more attuned to how Lanthimos works and knowing what he wants from a scene. "Yorgos is very much the orchestrator of the visual, and he drives it. I'm sort of tuned into what he's trying to get, which is, I guess, why he hires me." It is difficult not to get the sense that Ryan is doing that Irish thing of not fully recognising his contribution to Lanthimos's work. Perhaps it's Ryan's humility, plus his undeniable talent, that makes such top-name directors want to work with him again and again. The 54-year-old has worked with director Andrea Arnold six times, including on the eagerly anticipated Bird, starring Barry Keoghan. He has six Ken Loach films under his belt. Bugonia, his fourth outing with Lanthimos, is set to be released next year. Lanthimos's films give the word bizarre a run for its money. Ryan jokingly admits that it can be hard to visualise the Greek director's concepts and translate them into his own head. "Don't try. That is the key. He'll tell you what he's trying to do; he has a great, collaborative sense about him. Yorgos knows what he might get, but he likes to try and get more than he thinks he can get. That's where improvisation comes in. That is why his cinema is so fresh; he pushes it." Push it; he does. The fisheye lens in The Favourite, hyper-reality in Poor Things, and close-ups in Kinds of Kindness where skin pores are in focus. How does he handle the sorts of intimate scenes in Kinds of Kindness? "I don't think too much about it. It's a bizarre world, but you focus on the technical aspects, on getting the framing right, and getting it done because you have another shot to do afterwards. I'm always thinking two shots ahead. You don't have time to think about how mad it is." Most films shoot out of sequence, but Ryan says the one time he does feel more connected to what he is shooting is working on an Andrea Arnold film (Red Road, Fish Tank, etc). "Andrea shoots in sequence, so you are drawn into the story and the characters differently. By the end of that film, you feel close to the characters and more emotional than if you shoot out of sequence." Robbie Ryan and director Yorgos Lanthimos. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) It is easy to imagine that spending your life shooting stories through lenses might skew how you see the world in your downtime. Does a cup of coffee become more than just that? Ryan says it doesn't skew things but makes you more curious. As it happens, he has a coffee in his hand as he conducts the interview from his boat in London, where he has lived for over 20 years. "As a cinematographer, you've got a curious eye. You're always looking at things. I like the idea of images creating a story; in the case of Kinds of Kindness, it's 2 hours and 45 minutes of those images telling stories." After the success of Poor Things, Ryan says he does not think about the weight of expectation that subsequent films such as Kinds of Kindness might carry. "When we were doing Kindness, there was no pressure. Poor Things wasn't out yet, and nobody knew how it would go. It was a bunch of people making a film, but now we're doing another film, and there's been a huge amount of press. Everyone is talking about it, but it's no different on set; it's just a good bunch of people who like making films and are very lucky to be in a situation where we can make them." Ryan says working with great directors has made one thing clear to him: he would never want to do their job. "It's made me realise I never want to be a director because I see how much work they do. Their hands are on everything. It's an exciting thing to do, but it's overwhelming. I need a bit of balance." Directing may not be for him, but the vagabond world of the filmmaker is where Ryan belongs. "I'm a circus freak. It has its pros and cons. Home life can be a bit of a mishmash of a mess, but life is for a living, and filmmaking is a way of fully living your life." Kinds of Kindness is in cinemas now As an introvert, I love spending time alone. Extrovert family members and friends often despair when I run out of steam three hours into a party. Too much chat and I get cranky. For me, theres nothing better than being alone with a good book on the deck in the sunshine or tucked up in my study with my laptop, a cup of coffee, and my thoughts. In the 1920s, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung coined the terms extrovert and introvert to explain why some people are energised by social situations and others find loud, rowdy environments exhausting. Businessman and investor Elon Musk is reportedly an introvert. In an interview, his father Errol said: Elon has always been an introverted thinker so where a lot of people would go to a great party and have a great time, and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the persons library and was going through their books. Study after study has made sociability a prerequisite for good health, along with low cholesterol and physical activity. However, being the most talkative person in the room doesnt necessarily mean you have the best ideas. Susan Cain, author of the bestselling book Quiet The Power of Introverts in a World that Cant Stop Talking, suggests that the hidden benefits of the introverted temperament are often overlooked for workplaces, personal relationships, and society as a whole. Introverts may be able to fit all their friends into a large closet, but those relationships tend to be deep and rewarding. Introverts are more cautious and deliberate than extroverts, but that can result in thinking things through more carefully and, ultimately, making smarter decisions. Introverts are better at listening too which, after all, is easier to do if youre not talking and that in turn can make them better business leaders, especially if their employees feel empowered to act on their own initiative, Cain told Time Magazine in 2012. Simply by their ability to sit still and focus, introverts find it easier to spend long periods in solitary work which turns out to be the best way to come up with a fresh idea or master a skill. There is evidence that temperament is strongly inborn and inherited, influencing our behaviour from the very early days after we leave the womb. Dr Catherine Conlon, of Ballyphehane, a public health doctor in Cork In a series of experiments in 1989, Harvard developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan gathered a sample of 500 four-month-old infants and exposed them to new experiences in the lab including popping balloons, colourful mobiles, and the smell of alcohol on cotton swabs. Twenty per cent of the infants reacted intensely to the stimuli, crying and pumping their arms. Forty per cent stayed relatively quiet, and the remaining 40% fell between the two extremes. Kagan predicted that the infants with the most intense response would likely be introverted as adolescents, whereas those who stayed relatively quiet would likely be extroverted. As the subjects grew older, his hypothesis proved to be true: highly reactive babies matured into more introverted teenagers. In the Time Magazine interview, Cain explained the impact of temperament: Hell for an introvert isnt other people not exactly but people are stimuli, and a cocktail party or brainstorming sessions can blow their neural circuits. Meanwhile, extroverts are a little bit like addicts who are always in search of a high, seeking out stimuli in the healthier form of social situations that would make an introverts head ring. More recent evidence identifies a number of brain features associated with personality types. The brains of introverts look and react differently than those of extroverts. Introverts have a thicker prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain associated with deep thought. There is a good reason why introverts often feel overwhelmed and it relates to the neurotransmitter, dopamine. This brain chemical is often referred to as the feel good chemical, because it regulates our pleasure and reward centres. One of its roles is to motivate us to pursue rewards and reduce the effort needed to do so. Socialising requires energy because it involves paying attention, listening, thinking, speaking, and moderating our emotional reactions. Psychotherapist Dr Marti Olsen Laney, in The Introvert Advantage, outlines how introverts are more sensitive to the effects of dopamine requiring less of it to feel its pleasant effects. Too much dopamine, she noted last April in an interview with Jenn Granneman for introvertdear.com, can lead us quiet ones to feel overstimulated. Extroverts may be less sensitive to dopamine, meaning they need more of it to feel happy. Social activities and stimulating environments increase dopamine production, which helps explain why extroverts love meeting people and being on the go. Laney describes how introverts may also use a different brain pathway that is activated by another neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. This neurotransmitter is linked to the ability to stay calm, along with long-term memory and perceptual learning. She suggests that acetylcholine can produce a sense of happiness for introverts when they engage in inward-focused activities, such as quiet reflection or enjoying hobbies. The next time an introvert needs time alone, remember that its not personal. Introverts need time alone because of the way their brains are wired. Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork and former director of human health and nutrition at Safefood Patients can now see how busy their local hospital is and how many other patients are being treated for their condition around the country in an expansion of how the HSE and Department of Health share data. Consultants have already warned there are so many differences in supports that it is not fair to compare hospitals in this way. The outpatient attendance dashboard on the HSE website covers 21 public hospitals which can be viewed by name or by health region. For hospitals in the South West region, covering Cork and Kerry, nephrology (kidney treatment), and orthopaedics (bones treatment) are the busiest with an average of over 3,200 patients seen each month. At University Hospital Limerick, orthopaedics and ophthalmology (eye treatment) are the busiest with an average of over 2,300 patients seen monthly. The new HSE dashboard lets us see how busy the various departments in Ireland's hospitals are. You can click into the link at the foot of this article. Orthopaedics are also the busiest department at University Hospital Waterford where an average of over 2,900 patients are seen monthly. Dermatology is another popular speciality with on average 5,244 out patient appointments given each month nationally. Total of 3.7m outpatient appointments in 2023 Last year across the health services, upwards of 3.7m outpatient appointments were given; 650,000 inpatient appointments and 1.2m day case discharges. Emergency departments saw 1.7m presentations in all. Responding to the publication, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) welcomed the transparency but said further examination is needed. It is important to note that the kind of blanket approach of comparing hospital sites is of little value in terms of understanding what is happening at individual hospital level, said IMO consultants committee chairman Matthew Sadlier. Complex causes of how busy a hospital is This can be influenced by access to clinics as well as how complicated treatment is or access to scans, beds and operating theatres. The IMO discussed this with the HSE in June, and said it was accepted that differences between hospitals or between specialities will appear. Professor Sadlier said: The trend identified in this report needs further analysis so that all the factors at play are understood and appropriate supports put in place. Blaming consultants is not the solution. He called for a properly funded plan to address the gaps: Our chronic shortage of bed capacity and the ongoing recruitment freeze have resulted in ever-lengthening waiting list numbers which in many cases are resulting in poor patient outcomes. The Irish Patients Association welcomed the move towards more transparency. The focus on productivity and accountability is long overdue and holds significant importance for improving the healthcare system and ensuring the best possible outcomes for all patients regardless of ability to pay, co-founder Stephen McMahon said. He acknowledged there may be many barriers to optimum performance and called for these to be addressed. This is especially important, he said considering the allocation of an additional 1.5bn increase in funding this week to address overruns in the health system. Meanwhile, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced a National Clinical Trials Oversight Group which is expected to bring more trials to Ireland. Read More We need more staff to conduct more clinical trials and improve care, says CUH cancer expert This could be good news for patients, particularly those who are unable to take part in trials for new medicines abroad. Among the group are two oncologists from Cork University Hospital as well as patient advocates Rare Diseases Ireland. In April, a group of cancer doctors and academics wrote an open letter to the Government calling for improved access to trials among other issues. The group warned: We are falling far short of the already modest target of 6% of cancer patients participating in clinical trials. You will find a link to the new outpatient attendance dashboard on this page on the HSE website. Tens of thousands of loyal order members and 600 marching bands are to take to the streets of Northern Ireland for the annual Twelfth of July festivities. It comes after the traditional burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across the region on Thursday night. Politicians election posters appeared on some of the bonfires. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said it dealt with more than 100 emergency 999 calls since 6pm on Thursday evening. Brian Stanfield, Assistant Chief Fire and Rescue Officer said: It has been a relatively quiet 11th night. Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. The NI Fire and Rescue Service said it had been a quiet night (Brian Lawless/PA) During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. The largest Orange Order parades on Friday will happen in Belfast, as well as the Co Antrim coastal town of Carrickfergus, which boasts historic links to King William of Orange, who triumphed over King James II at the Boyne in 1690. Ballymena, Newtownstewart, Derry and Killylea are also among the 18 locations that will host processions to mark the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. A mock police car is set alight on top of a bonfire in Moygashel, Co Tyrone (Niall Carson/PA) The Orange Orders Grand Master Edward Stevenson, who is to take part in a parade in Newtownstewart, said it is an event like no other. Across the 18 venues, we will have tens of thousands of men, women and young people taking part in an event which has been faithfully maintained for well over 200 years, he said. Many thousands more will line the streets of host cities, towns and villages. There is simply no other event on these islands that can bring such vast numbers of people on to the streets as our processions, either by taking part or simply to watch them go by. DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the traditions of the Twelfth as spanning generations and intrinsic to who we are. It is about publicly expressing our faith, our culture, our heritage. It is about celebrating, respectfully, our identity, he said. In an increasingly diverse Northern Ireland, it is important that the Orange culture is celebrated positively, and afforded respect by all as we build a truly shared, tolerant society. Gavin Robinson (Liam McBurney/PA) As the leader of unionism, I will work across government in London and Stormont, as well as local council, to ensure this cultural celebration is supported and its potential harnessed for Northern Ireland. I wish all those taking part in or attending parades across Northern Ireland today, and indeed tomorrow at Scarva, a very enjoyable day. July 13 will see another gathering, this time organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh. The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James. The routes of certain Orange parades became intense friction points during the Troubles, often leading to widespread rioting and violence. The number of flashpoints has reduced significantly in the peace process years. July 11 and 12 remain the busiest days of the year for the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is expecting to deploy 4,000 officers and staff, about two-thirds of the force, in a public safety operation. The cost of the policing operation is expected to be about 4.5 million (5.4m). An Irish woman who had been under a travel ban in Dubai after being charged with attempted suicide has praised the Government for its swift work on her case. The travel ban against Tori Towey, a 28-year-old flight attendant from Co Roscommon, was lifted and the charges dropped on Wednesday after the Irish governments and opposition politicians focus on her case. Ms Towey arrived back in Ireland on Thursday and said she was relieved to be back on home soil. Speaking on a live discussion on the social media site X, Ms Towey said she attended a dinner at her cousins house after arriving back home. There was a time where I didnt think it was even possible that I was going to be able to come back at all, she said. So Im just relieved and I suppose over the next few weeks Im just going to rest and spend time with family and friends and then just go from there. Ms Towey thanked Detained in Dubai founder Radha Stirling for her help with her case, as well as Sinn Fein TD for Roscommon-Galway Claire Kerrane, who raised the case with party leader Mary Lou McDonald. Then Mary Lou within minutes was on the phone to me and so I told her my story and she said Look, Im going to take it to the Dail, I think, in one hour, Ms Towey said. So then we were watching the Oireachtas live and she brought it to the Dail and then Simon Harris called me after they had a private meeting and they were straight on it. They kept in touch with us. Any time there was an update, they were phoning us, I know Micheal Martin was doing a lot behind the scenes as well. They all just worked as a team and they were amazing. Im so grateful to all of them. She said embassy officials were updating her constantly on her case, sometimes through the night. Ms Stirling praised the Governments handling of the case and the embassy escort of Ms Towey to the airport in Dubai. She said: I think what was different about Ireland is they reacted so quickly, it wasnt even two days or three days, it was within hours of me contacting other local political representatives and suddenly its already all the way up the chain within just a few hours. That was amazing to see. Beautiful to see the support coming from all of the Irish people and the media. I think it just helped her get through the time. Ms Stirling said she had been contacted by another Irish woman who appeared to be in a similar situation to Ms Towey as a result of the high publicity of the case. She criticised Dubais legal system as old-fashioned and said there needed to be greater awareness around the world of what is an offence. Ms Stirling said: It just hasnt caught up with the buildings and with the shopping malls and the glitz and the glamour. So thats something that they absolutely need to focus on or every couple of months there is just going to be another big viral story like this that outrages the world. She added: I do believe that the travel warnings absolutely should be increased on the Irish embassy website because theyre insufficient. I havent seen a single country that has been sufficient in explaining to citizens what is actually illegal. Tori Towey woke up in a haze in her bathroom, surrounded by police speaking Arabic and paramedics giving her oxygen. Earlier that night, after being the victim of domestic violence and terrified she was going to be killed, she escaped to the bathroom and at her lowest ebb, tried to take her own life and lost consciousness. But instead of being rushed to hospital, she was taken by police straight to a police station. I didn't know what was going on, Ms Towey said, speaking on an X live broadcast organised by Radha Sterling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, who was instrumental in ensuring that Ms Towey would eventually get safely home to Ireland. They made me blow into this thing and took my fingerprints. I called my mother because I was hysterical. I was like, I'm in a police station and I don't know why. And then they just took me. They strip searched me. They took all my jewellery off. She was taken upstairs to the detention centre, a tiny corridor with individual cells and mattresses on the floor. One Filipino woman ordered another woman off a mattress so that Ms Towey could sit down. She brought me coffee, offered me food. She's been there 10 years. She's a lovely person. I was obviously very anxious. I was very worried. She kind of calmed me down and told me everything was going to be OK. There were a lot of people from Nigeria and a lot of people from the Philippines. The ones from the Philippines, they'd been there a very long time. And I think that's just due to the fact of just having no one on the outside that can help them and not having any financial help to help get them out. So they just ended up staying there for years. Ms Towey said the girls she met were lovely but added: They never got outside. They've never been told what's happening to them. And they're there for very wrong place, wrong time, very minor things. That's when I started to panic. I was thinking. I could be here for a month'. I remember saying to the girls that were there how do you do it? I don't know how I'm going to get through this. Because even the lights in there, it's like a surgical room. They're so bright. And they don't turn the lights off when you try to sleep. You don't have toothbrushes. They don't give you clothes. You need money in there to pay for everything." She said there were a lot of children in the cells. Tori Towey had gone to police before having been allegedly severely beaten by her South African husband. Picture: Detained in Dubai It's a really horrible place. I just feel so sorry for those people. I feel like they will spend their whole entire lives there and never get out. And they're good people and definitely don't deserve to be there. Making that one call to her mother before her mobile phone was seized is what saved her from being detained for longer, she believes. It would have just looked like I completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Because I managed to call my mother before I got in there, she was phoning people, phoning the embassy. She was calling the police. Ms Towey was brought into custody at 4am and released at 11am. She had been charged with attempted suicide and alcohol consumption. But she had gone to police before having been allegedly severely beaten by her South African husband. During that earlier alleged assault, she managed to escape the house, neighbours were outside and they called the police and the ambulance. The police then took both Ms Towey and her husband to the police station. At the station, Ms Toweys husband made a vexatious complaint against her of assault. Ms Towey said that she never felt discriminated against as a woman in Dubai until she went to the police station badly injured that night. My forehead was completely swollen, my shirt was ripped, I had blood and bruises everywhere. He [one police officer] started pointing and laughing at me and he was like what happened to you did you hit your head on the ground when you were praying?! Ms Towey was sent to a hospital to make a medical report. The day after that I received calls from his family begging me to drop the case, that he was in jail. "He was calling me from jail, crying, begging me. I spoke to the prosecutor and then that's when they told me, he has a case against you. A case against her meant she would have a travel ban on her passport so she could not work as an airline attendant or return home. The travel bans on both her and her husbands passports would only be lifted if the cases were dropped, she was told. She told the criminal investigator that she may not be safe if she dropped the case and he returned to their home. Tori Towey with her mother, Caroline, in Dublin Airport. Picture: Sam Boal She was told that he would most likely be kept in detention for a few days and this might be a wake up call for him". But when she got home, he had already been released and he arrived with men to change the locks on their home. She got him to calm down and they later went to the police and dropped the charges against each other. Ms Towey said she felt that she had no choice because with a charge against her she could not work on airplanes and she could not afford a legal battle. Ms Stirling said that police often encourage people to drop cases of domestic abuse. That's why abusers always take a case against their victim, because it gives them that leverage to push for those cases to be dropped, she said. People can easily manipulate and weaponise the system against victims, she said. Speaking on Friday, Ms Towey said that she was just so relieved to get home. There was a time where I didn't think it was even possible that I was going to be able to come back at all, she said. Ms Toweys mother first got in contact with the Irish embassy when her daughter was detained in Dubai, where she had been working as an airline stewardess. But the embassy initially just gave her a list of lawyers she could contact and said there was not much they could do, Ms Towey said. But once the Irish Government pushed for the case to be resolved, the embassy worked night and day, keeping Ms Towey regularly updated and informed at all times. Embassy officials even drove from Abu Dhabi early in the morning to escort her onto her flight home. They later told her that they had been working behind the scenes before pressure arrived from Government on her case. In the end, you know, they did their best, Ms Towey said. But things had only really started to move once she contacted Ms Stirling, she said. Ms Stirling contacted Ms Towey's local Roscommon TD, Sinn Fein's Claire Kerrane, who quickly told Mary Lou McDonald, who immediately contacted Ms Towey and raised the hugely emotive case in the Dail. Taoiseach Simon Harris immediately pledged his support and Tanaiste Micheal Martin pushed for the case to be resolved. They worked as a team. They were amazing. I am so grateful to all of them, she said. Foreigners are viewed as cash cows by many lawyers in Dubai who charge extortionate fees for legal representation, sometimes $50,000 to $100,000. Fighting the case legally would have been left Ms Towey stuck in Dubai unable to work as a flight attendant with the travel ban imposed on her passport, while racking up huge legal fees that may get her into debt which could in turn incur further civil and criminal charges. Fighting the case legally would have been left Tori Towey stuck in Dubai unable to work as a flight attendant with the travel ban imposed on her passport. Picture: Detained in Dubai So if I went the legal route and had a lawyer I think the situation might have ended up even worse because I would have been stuck over there for a longer time, being in more debt. Civil debt cases can be difficult to resolve diplomatically because they are taken by an institution like a bank, Ms Stirling said. But debt can also be misrepresented as fraud and become a criminal case. And people go to jail for their debt. Ms Stirling called for upgraded warnings about the dangers in the UAE and the judicial system there which can jail you for being raped, issuing a bounced cheque, getting into debt, insulting someone online, or having a CBD product. She believes that travel warnings should be increased on the Irish embassy website. The warnings that are there are insufficient, she said. I haven't seen a single country that has been sufficient in explaining to citizens what is actually illegal," she said. And people from countries that do not have strong ambassadorial or government support or without money can be left trapped in appalling conditions in Dubai police stations and prisons on minor alleged offences indefinitely, Ms Stirling said. Ms Stirling is aware of one person who has been in jail for more than 10 years for owing money to a bank. And its at the banks discretion to extend that sentence, she said. The Apprentice TV star Selina Waterman-Smith was abducted on the street by three men, bundled into a car, taken to the desert, and gang raped. The embassy told her to leave the country in case she gets charged with sex outside marriage, Ms Stirling said. But she did push, and she pushed extremely hard and eventually had those men convicted and jailed. "So that was probably the first example of progress in that department that I've seen. But it's disturbing." Since Ms Towey was freed, Ms Stirling has already been contacted by another Irish citizen detained in Dubai under similar circumstances to the 28-year-old Roscommon woman who arrived safely back in Ireland on Thursday. Plainclothes police officers can intimidate tourists, grabbing them without identifying themselves as police, Ms Stirling said. They think theyre being assaulted and attacked and suddenly theyve got charges for disrespecting a police officer. Its really difficult to protect yourself, she said. Read More 41435080/readmore] A park ranger who said he was "on a mission from god" after being found wandering naked through a field having killed his wife was not suffering from a mental disorder and did not meet the criteria for detention under the Mental Health Act, a psychiatrist has told his murder trial. James Kilroy (51) has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murdering his wife Valerie French Kilroy, who died at their home from strangulation, blunt force trauma and a stab wound to the neck. The Central Criminal Court jury hearing his trial has been told that Mr Kilroy accepts that he killed his wife. After the killing he was seen walking naked in a field near his home and gardai took him to Mayo University Hospital to be assessed under the Mental Health Act for admission to a psychiatric unit. Consultant psychiatrist Dr Camilla Curtis on Friday told prosecution counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC that she assessed Mr Kilroy on June 14, 2019, at about 2.40pm. During her assessment, gardai found Ms French Kilroy's body in a camper van to the rear of their home. Dr Curtis noticed that Mr Kilroy had lacerations and bruises on his forearms and back. He said his wife had stabbed him in the back but Dr Curtis found no stab wound. 'Mission from god' He told Dr Curtis that he was "on a mission from god to kill his wife". He said he did not question god's commands and couldn't remember if he had fulfilled his mission. He spoke of being watched by body guards, said that he believed the year was 2024 (it was 2019) and that he felt he had lived 50 years in one day. Dr Curtis said confusion about time can be seen in schizophrenia but is more often a sign of delirium or intoxication. When pressed further about his relationship with god, he said that he didn't hear god's voice talking directly to him but that he "followed his heart" and that god spoke through him. He told her that following his heart had "led to the worst", that he had stabbed his wife with a kitchen knife to the throat. He said his wife was "turning into a zombie" and that he felt the dead were going to get him. Dr Curtis said Mr Kilroy was able to respond coherently to questions and when asked about drug use, he said he smoked cannabis about 10 days previously. He told Dr Curtis he used to grow his own cannabis in a polytunnel beside his home. He denied having suicidal thoughts or problems sleeping and eating and said there had been no change in his mood over the previous 10 days. When asked if he thought killing his wife was right or wrong, he said he had no choice. When asked if he regretted it, there was "no apparent response", Dr Curtis said. Following her assessment, Dr Curtis found that Mr Kilroy did not have a mental disorder and did not meet the criteria for detention under the Act. He was discharged from the unit into the custody of gardai. Mr Kilroy has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the charge of murdering Ms French Kilroy (41) at their home at Kilbree Lower, Westport, Mayo, between June 13 and 14, 2019. The pathologist concluded that Valerie French Kilroy (pictured) died from ligature strangulation combined with blunt force trauma to the head and a stab wound to the neck. The prosecution has told the jury that psychiatric testimony will be in conflict over whether the defendant was insane at the time of the killing. Patrick Gageby SC, defending, has previously told the jury that the defence accepts that the accused killed his wife. Michael Hourigan BL, for the prosecution, also told the jury on Friday that State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan carried out a post-mortem on Ms French Kilroy and noted ligature marks to the deceased's neck and a stab wound to the throat. Multiple injuries to the face and head were in keeping with repeated blunt force trauma while incised wounds on both hands were suggestive of defence type injuries, she said. The pathologist concluded that Ms French Kilroy died from ligature strangulation combined with blunt force trauma to the head and a stab wound to the neck. Blood loss from the wounds to her hands would have contributed to her death. The trial continues in front of Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of eight women and four men. A 33-year-old woman was arrested on Friday and charged with 22 counts of theft following an investigation into the use of another womans bank card at various locations throughout Cork City over several months. Totalling the amounts alleged stolen across the transactions detailed in the 22 charges, they make up over 4,000. Roisin Treasa Keegan of Mount Brosna, Mayfield, Cork, made no reply to any of the charges put to her by Detective Garda John Barry. She was represented in Cork District Court by Eddie Burke, solicitor. The theft charges refer to a number of premises, including Tolisons garage on Old Youghal Road, Circle K on Blackrock Road, Mace at Mayfield shopping centre, AIB on 66 South Mall, Supervalu, Old Youghal Road, AIB at Blackpool retail park, Circle K on Lower Glanmire Road, Centra on Shandon Street, and Applegreen, North Ring Road, Ballyvolane. The individual amounts vary from less than 10 to several hundred euro. Bail Det. Garda Barry said there was no objection to bail being granted to the accused woman. However, conditions were required. The first requirement was to stay away from the injured party and any witnesses and not to have contact with them directly or indirectly and that included social media, Judge Mary Dorgan warned. Other conditions require Ms Keegan to stay out of shops referred to in the charges, abstain from intoxicants and to provide a number at which she can be contacted by An Garda Siochana at all times. The judge said it was a condition of bail in all cases that there would be no other offending. On the application of Sergeant John Kelleher, Judge Dorgan adjourned the case until September 19 to allow time for directions to be obtained from the Director of Public Prosecutions. No details were given on the background investigation that gave rise to the 22 charges being brought against the accused. A team of engineering students from the University of Limerick (UL) is competing in Europes premier rocket design competition, the Mach-24 Conference, held at Spaceport Machrihanish in Argyll, Scotland. The UL Aeronautical Society (ULAS) will launch its newly developed rocket, Morrigu, capable of reaching altitudes up to 3km. Launched in late 2022, the ULAS High-Powered Rocketry (HiPR) division provides students with hands-on experience in rocket building and launching. The team, consisting of more than 35 students from various disciplines, works on projects such as Sionna, Sionna 2, TVC, and Mach-24. The Mach-24 conference, organised by Discover Space UK, is a leading university-focused event that promotes collaboration and innovation in aerospace technology. It allows university teams to showcase their rocket designs and compete, driving advancements in the field. Supported by Atlantic Aviation Group, the Morrigu rocket features a 100mm body diameter, a deployable mini-satellite, an AI-powered onboard camera, and weighs 8kg. With the rocket Morrigu are Susan Keating, chief commercial officer, Atlantic Aviation Group, David Ward, training development specialist, Atlantic Aviation Group, Sean Reynolds, Karl Gilmartin, and Ben ODriscoll. Susan Keating, chief commercial officer of Atlantic Aviation Group, praised the innovative and ambitious HiPR team. Their dedication to advancing aerospace engineering and providing hands-on experience to students aligns with our commitment to fostering the next generation of aviation and aerospace professionals," Ms Keating said. "We look forward to seeing the team launch Morrigu and continuing their work into the future. Daire OSullivan, ULAS-HiPR captain, said: We are extremely grateful to have Atlantic Aviation Group supporting ULAS HiPR. "Through Mach-24 and our other projects, HiPR is creating opportunities and capabilities in space science and engineering for students in UL and nationwide. "Partnering with AAG enables these ambitions and provides important exposure. Taoiseach Simon Harris wishes for Ireland to be the best place in the world to be a child. Its a fine wish, possibly the finest. Wishing things for our children reminds me of one of my favourite poems, Born Yesterday, by Philip Larkin. It was written on the birth of Kingsley Amis daughter, Sally, for whom Larkin wishes not the usual stuff, but that she be ordinary. Ordinariness, he writes, offers her the best chance of catching happiness. Its a bit uninspiring when you think about it. To be happy, Sally must duck beneath the radar. I love the poem, but would he have written the same for a boy? I also hate that I find myself at least partly agreeing with it. The inevitable abuse of women in the public eye is proof that Larkins is a solid game plan. From athlete Rhasidat Adeleke to artist Sinead OConnor, we know that when women dare to be brilliant, they are made to suffer. Be ordinary, my daughters. What a bleak thing to wish for not that theres anything wrong with being ordinary. No, but there is something wrong with wishing to be ordinary above all else. And then, an even darker thought arrives on the back of Larkins wish. A true horror of a thought knock, knock, knocking louder, demanding entry. One Im ashamed to admit and even more reluctant to share. Somewhere, bubbling up from my subconscious I find myself making another, vicious little wish that my daughters might have small breasts. Be ordinary, my daughters, and have small breasts. How awful, how sad, and how unjust. In 'Born Yesterday', Philip Larkin offers an 'uninspiring' wish for Kingsley Amis newborn daughter, Sally: Be ordinary. But Jennifer Horgan goes on to say: 'I also hate that I find myself at least partly agreeing with it.' I am a feminist, and yet I find myself wanting my daughters to have smaller chests to make their lives easier, to keep them safe. A woman should never have to change to fit the misogynistic moulds of our society. And yet, the thought is there. Ringing as clear as a bell the truth of it. I know why I think it too, as much as I may wish now to unthink it. Or rephrase that as much as I wish my life hadnt caused me to think it, even for a second. Feelings of inadequacy... At 13, I didnt understand the burden of a big chest because it wasnt my reality. I saw my small chest only in terms of deficit. I performed the usual magic tricks to give myself a fighting chance among better endowed friends. I stuffed my bra with toilet roll until I understood to buy padded ones, more pad than space for actual cleavage. I felt inadequate. Boys seemed to find girls with bigger chests funnier, more interesting, fascinating in fact. It took a few decades before I realised what my friends had gone through. My jealousy clouded my empathy. I understand now that they often struggled to find clothes and underwear that offered them enough coverage or support, and that they were often made to feel self-conscious. ...or unwanted attention Yes, of course they got plenty of attention, but a great deal of it was unwanted. A big chest carried the bigger weight of other peoples assumptions. In the 1990s, certainly, if you had a big chest you were deemed up for it in a way that flat-chested girls werent. It was as if nature and, in turn, society, had decided what you were for, and it had very little to do with your intelligence or your acumen. Of course, big breasts are beautiful and attractive, but boys in the 90s expected and demanded more from girls with curves, and far earlier too. Too often, big busts propelled people into a sexual maturity they werent ready for. That male gaze was a spotlight that never went out, a bulb fizzing throughout our puberty and beyond. And it must have been exhausting for the girls beneath it. Men's and women's assumptions about breast size It was not something I imagined. Science reveals peoples assumptions based on chest size. Psychologist Krzysztof Koscinski revealed the truth of how we respond to bigger-breasted women. As part of an experiment, his team recruited 163 young women who were willing to undergo a battery of physiological and psychological assessments. They found no correlation between breast size and fertility or sexual activity. They then invited 500 men and women to examine images of women with small to large breasts. This is where things got interesting. Reporting on the experiment in Psychology Today, David Ludden, PhD, describes how the 500 rated the large-breasted version as most sexually attractive and also more open to casual sex than when the womans breasts were medium or small. "They believed large-breasted woman to be less faithful, less intelligent, and less diligent than either the medium or small version." Breasts, super-sexualising, and body shaming Relating breasts to character, morality, or intelligence is repulsive. Its not something we hear much about in the media, but writer Jackie Adedeji spoke out about it last year. She said: From about 11 years old I was super-sexualised. I remember vivid experiences of walking to school and having grown men walking past me licking their lips. She also shared how as a child her teachers separated her from her class when changing for sport at school. They explained that her body was too mature for the boys to handle, leaving her feeling like she was abnormal, that her body was at odds with the world. There are even darker shades to the issue of the female shape navigating the world. In certain cultures, the mothers of young girls carry out painful procedures on their daughters to flatten their chests. They physically abuse their loved ones. Why? To save their daughters from harassment and rape, from men noticing the onset of puberty too soon. Changing our body shape Other women, more and more women it seems, are choosing to change their natural shape by surgery. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) says breast reductions are the second most popular aesthetic procedure. It says there were 5,270 breast reductions in 2022, up 120% from the year before and higher than pre-covid. I wish it were different, and Ill end this by hoping it is different now, for young girls and women out there. Its possible that more open sex education in our schools, and in our homes, is helping young boys to develop more respectful attitudes to girls, whatever their shape. It is possible girls are more confident in themselves regardless. Philip Larkin wished for Sally Amis to be ordinary. I understand the sentiment, but I am ultimately going to disagree. He may be right, and the poem is wonderful, but wishes should be aspirational and that wish is too depressing to bear. Larkin describes the world as it is, not as it should be. Love and respect for girls and women, boys and men I wish for respect and kindness to be ordinary, a given, so girls and women, boys, and men, can be whoever they want to be. I wish this as part of what Harris wishes for that Ireland will soon be the best country in which to be a child. Larkin also penned the line, What will survive of us is love. What forms us is love too. Lets make that our starting part, our very first wish, our most constant thought and go from there. BRINGING a sixth Cork shop premises the long-time home of Munster office suppliers Ronnie Moore to market in the space of a couple of years, and with five of them sold, the selling agent of the central 28 Marlboro Street expects both investor purchaser and end-user interest for this owner-occupied building. However, while the sales of the last five premises were primarily due to retirement, No 28 Marlboro Street is being sold as the 1978-founded business selling retail stationery, supplies, office furniture and home office items and in its second generation of family ownership is concentrating its activities at its second, far larger premises and fleet of delivery vans at suburban Vicars Road. Still carrying the name of its founder, the well-know Ronnie Moore, it says its the largest Irish and independently-owned business in the sector in Munster. The arrival of No 28 via agent Rob Coughlan of Cohalan Downing come on the back of five other premises sales hes had, many with as well-known previous operators. Made the cut: brothers Simon and Patrick OFlynn. of John O'Flynn & Brothers with Jackie Falvey, and Tom Collins. The shop closed January 2023. Pic; Larry Cummins Included are the former John OFlynn & Sons Butchers at 36 Marlboro Street on the other side of Oliver Plunkett Street, with the family business run by brothers Patrick and Simon moving there 40 years ago after a fire in the English Market. The premises, which made around its guide price of 450,000 had previously been a bookshop, Fallons, and is now due to be a chocolatiers, with an advanced fit-out under way. Sold too was Kellehers Newsagents, at 55 North Main Street, due to the retirement of owners Aiden and Ann Kelleher, bought by an investor for close to its 450,000 AMV. Barry Kilgrew, Kyle St., retiring from the bikes business. Also long-established, Kilgrews Cycles at 6/7 Kyle Street, sold to an investor for a price in the mid 300,000s, at 6/7 Kyle Street, set between North Main Street and the Coal Quay, by new student accommodation and the former Dunnes/North Main Street Shopping Centre, likely to face redevelopment. Nearby, Dekor-8, at 18 North Main Street, also was acquired by an investor for c 450,000 (in late 2021) and has since subsequently been refurbished for residential use. John Coffey of the Uneeda Bookshop in 2020. the shop is now to become part of the Brog bar complex. Pic: Larry Cummins Also in the mix highlighted by agent Rob Coughlan was the sale of the long-held and much-cherished Uneeda Bookshop at 71 Oliver Plunkett Street. It was was put for sale with a 350,000 AMV for owner John Coffey, retiring aged 90 after 50 years selling on the street at several locations. Former Ronnie Moore Premises, 28 Marlboro Street, Cork City is next to Clancys Bar near AIB HQ on South Mall Cohalan Downing guide the three-storey 28 Marlboro Street at 330,000, noting it has profile next to Clancys Bar, facing the side of AIBs Munster HQ at 66 South Mall as well as Houstons office supplies at l0 Marlboro Street (in business since 1921, and now in a third generation of family hands), mid-way between the Mall and Oliver Plunkett Street. No 28 also faces the elegant brick facade of the 1890s-founded YMCA at 11/12 Marlboro Street. The building (not a protected facade/structure) has 18 street frontage and over 1,000 sq ft at ground level, and a further 1,900 sq ft on the next two overhead levels. This was somewhat surplus to requirements for the vacating occupier Ronnie Moores, and presents scope and opportunity to refurbish, remodel and renew this under-utilised space. The upper floors may also have residential potential, says Mr Coughlan, adding its a renowned property of almost 3,000 sq ft and is a revered part of Cork citys retail history. DETAILS: Cohalan Downing 021-4277717 www.cohalandowning.ie IN the space of a hundred years this scenically situated stone cottage in the Bonane Valley has gone from being the home of an Irish revolutionary to a base for a globe-trotting Australian couple. The Captains House, a recent market arrival with a guide of 385,000, has, while maintaining its traditional facade, been transformed into a stylish contemporary home with glass box extension at the rear. Captain's House Bonane Kerry Its original owner was Captain John Jack Flynn a veteran of the First World war who fought at Flanders and the Dardanelles and later became a training officer of the IRA Kerry No 2 Flying Column. What the cottage used to look like In March 2021 he took part in one of the largest War of Independence engagements in Kerry, the Headford Ambush. This involved an hour-long attack on a weapons train in which nine British soldiers as well as three civilians and two IRA volunteers were killed. A pro-treatyite who subsequently became a Captain in the Free State army, Jack Flynn is believed to have built this property at Garrymore in the 1920s. Two years ago a documentary entitled Captain Flynn and Irelands War of Independence was made by local documentary maker Matt Sullivan focusing on the war in Kerry and showing events involving Captain Flynn and the local Flying column. When the current owners, an Australian couple who wanted to travel in Europe and America, came across The Captains House in 2013 it had, after some years of dereliction, been comprehensively modernised. We looked at a few other places but loved this one - the modern interior was nothing like a traditional Irish cottage and the views were amazing observes the owner. Captain's House Bonane Kerry Being fifth generation Australians with no Irish connections whatsoever, they wondered if it had belonged to a sea captain. But once they had settled in, locals gave them a little bit of a history lesson and told them about Captain Jack Flynn. They had come to Europe because they wanted a base in the northern hemisphere. We chose Ireland because it was easier for a foreign national to buy here than in some other countries we looked at. Since moving here we have been all over Europe, South and North America and parts of Asia, travelling in motorhomes and also trekking, says the owner, adding that they always loved coming back to the peace and splendour of Bonane. She says they have particularly enjoyed sitting in the sunroom and looking out on the valley. Being able to sit up in bed and watching sheep, pheasants as well as hares and rabbits has been a great joy. The interior of the Captains House is pretty much as they found it in 2014 a stylish ultra-modern home with a traditional exterior and 108 sq m of living space. The ground floor has an open plan kitchen/dining/living room with grey gloss kitchen units with a centre island, tiled flooring and an insert fire in the living area. An archway leads to the sunroom which has glass walls on three sides and panoramic views of green countryside, rolling hills and woodland. A contemporary open tread timber staircase with glass balustrades leads to the first floor which has three bedrooms. Two have en suites with high tech shower cubicles and windows overlooking the valley at the rear while the third is small and could be a home office. The owners have done some landscaping to the grounds and added a patio at the rear. It was just a sheeps paddock when we bought it, says the owner, explaining that their biggest change was to build a detached garage and studio. My husband uses it to paint and I use it for craft work we built it with tall windows so we get lots of natural light. Captain's House Bonane Kerry After ten years of alternating their time between travelling the world and returning to their Kerry home, the owners are returning to Australia drawn back by the birth of their seventh grandchild and the desire to travel more in Asia. Selling agent Tadhg OSullivan of DNG OSullivan says hes been getting an extremely high level of interest in the Captains House especially from overseas buyers. Captain's House Bonane Kerry Located 12 km from Kenmare,The Captains House is 17.5 km from Glengarriff, which can be reached by travelling the winding scenic route through the Caha Pass. VERDICT: Scenic, stylish and historic not a combination you see very often https://www.facebook.com/188759031195299/photos/kenmare-1916-to-1923-captain-jack-flynn-bonane-in-1923-jack-flynn-was-in-the-bri/5246457738758711/?paipv=0&eav=Afa_VS4EWSHhtGaLWZtpksRih-YP17x2o82Q05l9UPy-9g2GCFp_7FocvtIQpAcQKlI&_rdr https://www.carnegieartskenmare.ie/event/captain-flynn-documentary/ Joe Bidens position appeared shaky on Thursday, amid reports that his aides and advisers were discussing how to persuade him to leave the presidential race while his own campaign was secretly testing Kamala Harriss popularity, suggesting it was preparing for that very scenario. Then just before the US president was scheduled to face journalists at a potentially pivotal news conference marking the end of Natos 75th anniversary summit, he spoke to reporters there and mistakenly referred to Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as President Putin. Biden quickly realised he had mixed up one of his international allies, who was there, with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and corrected himself, but the gaffe could not have come at a worse time. Earlier, two separate New York Times reports suggested his efforts to keep his candidacy for re-election afloat were close to foundering. The Times reported on its website that his campaigns analytics team was quietly testing the strength of Harris, the vice-president, among voters in a match-up against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. President Joe Biden walks from the podium after a news conference Thursday July 11, 2024, on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington. Picture: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Biden has consistently argued that he has the best chance of beating Trump, citing polling evidence. A separate report suggested that unnamed longtime aides and advisers to the president had become convinced in recent days that his campaign to beat Trump in the election was doomed and were trying to find ways of persuading him of their argument. The story was met by denial by the White House and the Biden campaign, which respectively called it unequivocally not true and patently false. But the picture of diminishing support for the president even within his own camp was further strengthened by an NBC report suggesting that three people involved in his re-election campaign had written off his chances. He needs to drop out, the networks website quoted one Biden campaign official as saying. He will never recover from this. The glut of damaging stories followed a number of Democratic party members calling on him to step down and as senators from the party prepared to meet key members of Bidens staff at the White House to air their concerns about his electability following last months disastrous debate performance with Trump. On Thursday afternoon, three more House Democrats called for Biden to withdraw, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Ed Case of Hawaii and Brad Schneider of Illinois. Schneider said in a statement: I fear if he fails to make the right choice, our democracy will hang in the balance, while Stanton posted a statement on Twitter/X effusively praising Bidens record and his character but saying he should step aside as the nominee amid the need to save US democracy from the existential threat of Donald Trump. The Nato-related press conference set for Thursday evening was seen as crucial as a test to compare Bidens performance with the dire one he displayed in the debate, followed by a less than convincing performance in a TV interview with ABC the following week. The event is the kind of unscripted set piece that Bidens staff stand accused of shielding him from, and any repeat of the calamitous debate display could turn the steady trickle of public calls for Biden to stand aside into a flood. President Joe Biden arrives to attend Working Session II of the NATO Summit in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2024. From left are British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Portugal Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, Biden, and NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana. Seated is Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg. Picture: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Some of Bidens most loyal acolytes at the top of the Democratic party have issued less than full-throated statements of support in recent days. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, who has repeated the mantra Im for Joe throughout the crisis, was reported to have signalled openness to having the president replaced at the top of the presidential ticket. Axios reported that Schumer had been taking close account of the feelings of party donors and fellow senators in the 12 days since Bidens meltdown in the 27 June debate, when he plunged the viability of his candidacy into doubt by abjectly failing to defend his own policies or counter Trumps lies. As I have made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensuring Donald Trump is defeated in November, Schumer said, in comments that fell short of a ringing endorsement. On Wednesday, Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Democratic senator to publicly tell Biden to step aside. Nine members of the House of Representatives have already done so. 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 in a Washington Post opinion piece. The president ostensibly retains the support of Democratic governors, senators in the vital swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, the Black congressional caucus, key progressive House members including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and many others. But a meeting between senators and Biden staff on Thursday apparently did not go particularly well, with reports that things got heated as the lawmakers complained Biden was not taking control of the situation and that they were in a very difficult situation. It took place against the backdrop of backstage manoeuvring. The former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, placed added pressure on Biden on Wednesday by telling MSNBC that it was up to the president to decide, and we are encouraging him to make that decision. Behind the scenes, Pelosi has reportedly told Democratic Congress members that Biden cannot win the election and should step aside, according to Politico. She has also reportedly encouraged Democrats in swing districts threatened with losing their seats in November to do whatever is necessary to defend themselves, including calling on Biden to stand aside. Crucially, she is also said to have advised members to wait until the end of the Nato gathering before going public. A fresh Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed 56% of Democratic voters agreeing that Biden should end his campaign, against 42% who said he should stay put a finding that undermined the presidents assertion that the effort to oust him was led by elites in the party. Biden has held fewer news conferences with journalists in his three and a half years in office than any president since Ronald Reagan. A previous press conference at the White House in February to counter criticisms by Robert Hur, a special prosecutor who criticised the presidents poor memory, backfired somewhat when Biden referred to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as the president of Mexico. The Guardian The German government has said it will not be intimidated by Russian attempts to undermine the countrys support of Ukraine, but refused to comment on a report that Moscow planned to assassinate the chief executive of a leading defence company. CNN reported that American intelligence discovered earlier this year that Russia planned to kill Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger. The report said the US informed Germany, whose security services were able to protect Mr Papperger and foil the plot. Rheinmetall is a major supplier of military technology and artillery rounds for Ukraine. Neither Rheinmetall nor the German government would comment on the report. German interior ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall said his ministry cannot comment on individual threat situations, but added that more broadly we take the significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously. Authorities were able to thwart the plot, according to reports (dpa via AP) Mr Kall added: We know that (Russian President Vladimir) Putins regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government wont be intimidated. He noted that German security measures have been increased significantly since 2022, and that the threats range from espionage and sabotage, through cyber attacks, to state terrorism. In April, German investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets including US military facilities in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine. Germany has become the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. CNN reported that the alleged Papperger plot was one of a series of Russian plans to kill defence industry executives across Europe supporting the Ukrainian war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report. All of this is again presented in the fake style, so such reports cannot be taken seriously, he told reporters on Friday. A security guard has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years after hatching depraved and vile plans to kidnap, rape and murder TV star Holly Willoughby. Chelmsford Crown Court was told Gavin Plumbs plot had a catastrophic and life-changing impact on the former This Morning presenter. Plumb was unanimously convicted of soliciting murder and inciting rape and kidnap following a trial at the same court. Sentencing the 37-year-old on Friday, Mr Justice Edward Murray told him: There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action. The judge sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years, minus the 280 days he had spent on remand taking the total to a minimum jail term of 15 years and 85 days. Mr Justice Murray described some of the plans Plumb had discussed online as particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. Continuing to give his reasons for imposing the prison term, he continued: Over a number of years, you pursued an unhealthy sexual obsession with Holly Willoughby that led you ultimately to plan over that period to kidnap, to rape and to murder her. You intended to harm her husband and her children as part of your plan. You discussed with Marc and David Nelson and no doubt others in hideous and revolting detail the prolonged sexual violence that you intended to inflict on Ms Willoughby once you abducted her and had her under your control. You had previously been convicted of terrifying offences involving the threat of sexual violence against four different young women I found you to be dangerous. Mr Justice Murray dismissed Plumbs defence that his plans were just a fantasy, saying: I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men the right crew as you sometimes called it to help you do it. Holly Willoughby. File picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images The judge added: The jury saw through your various lies that you told at the trial, and convicted you of these offences. Wearing a grey prison-issue jumper, Plumb apparently muttered 15 years to kill myself after he was jailed. The defendant, who stood as the sentence was read out, initially showed no reaction but as he was led to the cells he made the comment to the dock officer and made an exasperated gesture raising both his hands. Plumb was snared after a US undercover police officer infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers and became so concerned about Plumbs posts that evidence was passed to the FBI. US law enforcement in turn contacted police in the UK, and when Essex Police officers raided Plumbs flat in Harlow they found bottles of chloroform and an abduction kit complete with cable ties. During his sentencing hearing, prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said Ms Willoughby wished for her victim personal statement to be private but said it set out the catastrophic impact of these offences. She continued: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. Indeed, being informed of the consequences, the intentions, and the detail of the evidence in this case it is inevitable that that has exacerbated the trauma for this victim. Ms Morgan said Ms Willoughby had made every effort to avoid attention being drawn to herself in this matter after making a short public statement following Plumbs convictions. The prosecutor continued: We say, more broadly, that offending of this type, as Ms Willoughby said in her public statement, has a broader impact on women. Women should not feel unsafe when going about their daily lives. The trial was told that Plumbs plans were foiled when a potential accomplice who he spoke to online turned out to be an undercover officer from the Owatonna Police Department in the US state of Minnesota. Plumb told the officer, who was using the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was definitely serious about his plot to kidnap Ms Willoughby, leaving the officer with the impression that there was an imminent threat to her. When he was arrested on October 4 last year and officers told him that the allegations concerned Ms Willoughby, the defendant told them: Im not gonna lie, she is a fantasy of mine. The Dancing On Ice star waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape. Alleged victims of sex offences or targets of sex offence conspiracies have a right to automatic anonymity for life from the moment an allegation is made by them or anyone else. Plumbs kidnap plans involved attempting to ambush Ms Willoughby at her family home even discussing taking time off work in order to organise the attack. He told others he would then take the presenter to another location, which he suggested would be a dungeon-type room. Prosecutors described Plumbs plot as carefully planned pointing to the items he had purchased and the lengths to which he had gone to find out when Ms Willoughby did not have security. Plumb had argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy. A man has been arrested in London amid a major hunt for a key suspect after the remains of two men were found in two suitcases near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. The 36-year-old who was arrested in Greenwich, south-east London, on Friday is not the same man as the one subject of a police appeal, the London Metropolitan Police said. Detectives from the Met are leading the investigation and police carried out searches in Shepherds Bush, west London, on Friday. The human remains were discovered on Wednesday evening after police were called to reports of a man with a suitcase acting suspiciously on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The victims have not yet been formally identified but both are believed to be adult men, with the results of one post-mortem examination inconclusive, while a second post-mortem examination is ongoing. A police officer at an address in Shepherd's Bush, west London. Picture: Lucy North/PA Wire On Friday, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: A man, aged 36, was arrested at an address in Greenwich early on Friday 12 July. He has been taken into custody where he remains. This is not the same man we are appealing for. Neighbours named the men who lived at an address that police were searching on Friday in Scotts Road, Shepherds Bush, as Paul and Albert. Rebecca, who lives opposite the couple, said: Ive been here for 26 years so theyve been here my whole life. They seemed quiet, they seemed happy, cheerful, waving at everyone. The smaller one, Albert, rode a bike. She said police smashed the door down at the address early on Friday morning. All I heard was that this morning my mum was up at 4.30am, she told the PA news agency. My mum woke up to dogs barking, and she came out and theres policemen dressed in riot gear going into the building. Martha, a resident who lives next door to the two men, said: I have been living here for 11 years. They were a very nice couple, very polite, nice, quiet. Another resident, who did not wish to be named, said: Ones called Paul, they were just lovely guys. The suspect is thought to have travelled to Bristol from London on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police said. It is understood that he was picked up by a taxi near The Mall pub in Clifton before exiting the vehicle on the Leigh Woods side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a distance of around 0.4 miles. The force has released two pictures of him, showing a black man with a beard, wearing a black Adidas baseball cap, black jeans, a black jacket and black trainers with thick white soles and carrying a black backpack. A police officer by a cordon in place near an address in Shepherd's Bush, west London, after human remains were found in two suitcases near the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Picture: Lucy North/PA Wire Witnesses have described how the man, who arrived at the bridge in a taxi, was challenged after the tatty suitcase was seen to be leaking blood. He left the scene, reportedly chased by a cyclist, and made off in the direction of Leigh Woods, leaving the suitcase behind. Avon and Somerset Police said officers arrived at the scene within 10 minutes and discovered that the suitcase, along with a second located a short distance from the bridge, contained human remains. Police also confirmed that a taxi had been seized and said the taxi driver was helping officers with the investigation. Other witnesses described seeing two men with suitcases in the Clifton area of Bristol, a short distance from the bridge, on Wednesday evening. Giles Malone told ITV News West Country he had been waiting for an Uber near The Mall pub when he saw two men lifting suitcases across the road shortly after 10.30pm. He said: We were stood there waiting for our car and a man and another man got out of another car across the street and they were lifting these suitcases across the road for some reason, right by us. Searches, including with the police helicopter and the Coastguard, have continued since the incident but the suspect is yet to be located. Anyone who sees the suspect, or has information about his location, is urged to call 999, quoting reference 5224180010 to the call handler. People with information should submit it through Avon and Somerset Polices major incident public portal, or by calling the major incident room on 0800 056 0944, if calling from the UK, or 0207 158 0010 from abroad. 1371138342::cfb49c8e-2422-11e5-99a3-d7f5c6e8b241 A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More ( Tomdispatch.com ) Former president Donald Trump often finds himself on the defensive against accusations of racism. He regularly denies the charges, distorting his record and resorting to his Black friends defense, while attempting to throw the allegations back at liberals. However, he never explains why he is the favorite son of the one group in society about whose racial bigotry there can be no debate: avowed racists. Since Trump emerged as a public political figure, they have been resolute in their loyalty to him. Are Trumps African American allies like Senator Tim Scott or Representative Byron Donalds, or Latino ones like Senator Marco Rubio, truly ignorant of his unapologetically racist champions? Or is their blind ambition to share a ticket with him (or be close to power) simply more important to them? In 2016, when Donald Trump first ran for president, just about every self-declared white nationalist, white supremacist, Klansman, neo-Nazi, and fascist in the country supported his candidacy. And thats no exaggeration. One of the longest-running white nationalist journals in the United States, American Renaissance, is edited by notorious racist Jared Taylor. In January 2016, during the primary race in Iowa, he circulated a robocall that stated, I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We dont need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated White people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump. Trump was also cheered on by the Ku Klux Klans official newspaper, The Crusader, which calls itself the Political Voice of White Christian America. Though it said that it wasnt necessarily endorsing Trump, its urge to ally with him was all too clear. Under the front-page headline banner Make America Great Again, Pastor Thomas Robb wrote, While Trump wants to make America great again, we have to ask ourselves, What made America great in the first place? The short answer to that is simple. America was great not because of what our forefathers did but because of who our forefathers were America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great. And then there was the David Duke crisis. On February 24, 2016, Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, stated to his white radio audience, Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage. When Trump was later asked on CNN about his support from the then-most-famous racist in the nation, his reply was, Well, just so you understand, I dont know anything about David Duke. OK? I dont know anything about what youre even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I dont know. Not exactly an unequivocal denunciation. And not true in the least. Trump, who claims the best brain and greatest memory on earth, suddenly got amnesia when it came to the way he had spoken out against Duke in 1991 when that figure ran for governor of Louisiana, and, in 2000, when Trump rejected affiliation with the Reform Party in part because of its links to Duke. At the time, he called Duke a bigot and a racist. Trump conveniently forgot that past history of his during that CNN interview, as he clearly calculated the nature of his base and where it overlapped with Dukes. After blaming a faulty earpiece (which, curiously enough, seemed to work fine for the rest of the interview) and evidently fearing swift blowback, Trump rejected Dukes support the next day. Duke, however, was undeterred and continued to back him in an enthusiastic fashion. After the election, he even tweeted, Make no mistake about it, our people played a HUGE role in electing Trump! Other racists celebrated as well. At a gathering in Washington, D.C., Richard Spencer, leader of the white supremacist alt-right movement, declared: Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! He was speaking to a crowd of nearly 200, many of whom responded with Nazi salutes. You wont be surprised to know that they expressed no confusion about what Trump represented. Stand Back and Stand By In August 2017, within months of being in office, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, produced a clear opportunity for Trump to denounce racists, Neo-Nazis, and Klansmen who marched to the chants of White lives matter and Jews will not replace us. Instead, unlike nearly every other elected official on the national scene, Democrat or Republican, he flubbed his response. After a press conference or two, where he equivocated and went off-script to wax admiringly about very fine people on both sides, he ultimately denounced the far-right racists. However, he pointedly agreed with their demand that generated the march in the first place their objection to the removal of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park. Trump has decried the dismantling of Lee statues on a number of occasions, including in Charlottesville, where he called it sad and so foolish. In 2020, after four years in office, he arguably received even stronger and more violent support from his far-right and white nationalist backers. Those years included his anti-(that is, non-white) immigrant fight to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, his rejection of immigrants from the shithole countries of the Global South, the aspersions he cast on Black-dominated cities, and his endless racist statements about Black athletes, elected officials, women, and protesters. Then, of course, during the 2020 election campaign, far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Boogaloo Boys, and others many with openly racist members in their ranks rallied around Trump and became his frontline soldiers after he lost. He famously told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by, but not to stand down. They showed up at most Stop the Steal events and were front and center during the January 6th insurrection, where Black police officers reported being called the n-word. Trump now refers to that same crew as warriors and patriots, ignoring the Confederate flags, anti-Semitic symbols, racial slurs, and nooses that were ubiquitous that day. In 2020, some in the racist community were smarter in signaling their support for Trump without formally endorsing him. David Duke, however, once again unabashedly came out for him, while suggesting that disgraced media propagandist and ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson be added to the ticket as his vice-presidential choice. Carlson seemed like a particularly sensible possibility to Duke because, even while at Fox, he had been a proponent of the white replacement theory, the argument that undocumented (and even documented) immigrants of color are part of a larger conspiracy by unidentified liberals and Democrats to supplant white Americans and white American culture with something distinctly (and all too literally) darker and more disturbing. Of course, Trump subscribed to that thesis as well. The Anti-White-Feeling Former President In 2024, there is little doubt who the nations racists will once again be backing for president. Only recently, Trump spewed lies and misrepresentations at a yes! white-dominated gathering in an obscure Black church in Detroit, while denouncing that city as hell and totally corrupt, and describing black communities as dangerous and depressed. He did not, however, repeat for that crowd and representatives of the national media present that day his pledge to address so-called anti-white racism or to make it a priority should he become president again. As he said in a Time magazine interview, If you look right now, theres absolutely a bias against white (people) and thats a problem. He offered no examples of that problem, but it fit in squarely with the belief of 58% of his supporters that racial minorities are favored over whites in the United States. Trump also claims that he is a victim of anti-white racism from radical vicious, racist prosecutors in Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C. They are going after him, he insists, simply because hes a white man and not because he committed any actual crimes. Trump will undoubtedly continue to claim again and again, all too disingenuously, that I dont have a racist bone in my body, but the folks who unabashedly support him to the hilt certainly think otherwise. The Trump campaign faces the awkward and inconvenient truth that he has never lost the full-scale support of the nations most hardcore racists. And no wonder! No matter how often he pretends to be free of bigotry, his racist worldview manifests itself at every turn. In his recent debate with President Joe Biden, Trump made his usual hateful statements against immigrants (of color) and added that they are taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. Theyre taking black jobs and theyre taking Hispanic jobs and you havent seen it yet, but youre going to see something thats going to be the worst in our history. By black jobs and Hispanic jobs, of course, he was referring to his belief that only certain kinds of work define those communities. It should be taken for granted that he wasnt referring to engineers, lawyers, office managers, professors, veterinarians, or any positions of a professional or middle-class nature. He sees Black Americans and Latinos as nothing but the lowest-paid, lowest-status workers in America. In fact, Trump never has anything genuinely positive to say about the Black community, which he sees just to start down a list as crime-ridden, dirty, and rodent-infested. Nor does he ever identify any of the groups or individuals in such communities who are working on solutions to the issues they face. That doesnt fit the view of the former president and many of his followers that communities of color are linked only to dysfunction, decay, and (implicitly) inferiority. Naturally, Trump was wrong on all counts. First, there is no evidence (and, of course, Trump didnt present any) that immigrants are taking jobs from Black and Latino Americans. As the Washington Post noted, The Black unemployment rate remains near historic lows and wage gains are at all-time highs. In fact, the lowest Black employment on record occurred under President Biden when, in April 2023, it fell to 4.8%. In addition, unlike Trumps implication that Black people only occupy low-level manual labor jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost half of all African Americans work in professional, management, or office jobs. That would undoubtedly be a revelation to Trump, since in the dozens of businesses hes started, very few Blacks and Latinos are ever found in high-level or professional positions. Rather than let Trump get away with his endless series of canards on race in America, interviewers should ask him some pointed questions that are simply never asked in Trump-friendly or Trump-fearful media venues. Three come to mind: Why do you continue to receive such wholehearted support from avowed racists? What is the anti-white racism (or anti-white feeling) that you so often talk about and why do you consider it more of an issue than racial discrimination against communities of color? Why should Black voters in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, among other places, vote for someone who spent weeks after the 2020 election desperately attempting to disqualify their votes? Trump does not deserve a single Black or Hispanic vote. Nada. None. His ongoing gaslighting about his record and his appeal to extremists and racists should doom him to the lowest Black and Hispanic vote support in the last 100 years in election 2024. Copyright 2024 Clarence Lusane Via Tomdispatch.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Prismo Metals Inc. (the "Company") (CSE:PRIZ) (OTCQB:PMOMF) (FSE:7KU) is pleased to announce that it has received permit approval from the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") for ten drill pads, at the Hot Breccia copper project in Southern Arizona. The drill pads will allow for drilling to test the prospective stratigraphy below the cover volcanic rock over a wide area, and in particular the large conductive anomaly identified by Prismo's 2023 ZTEM survey. Ground mapping, prospecting and sampling conducted earlier this year has supported the targeting process and target selection. A bond has been posted with the Bureau of Land Management as the final step required before proceeding. Preparatory work in advance of drilling will be expedited by Prismo through the utilization of existing road infrastructure built in the 1970's, which requires only minor repair and maintenance. Upon confirmation and acceptance of the bond by BLM, road upkeep and maintenance will start to enable drilling to commence in Q3 2024. Steve Robertson, President, commented "Getting the permit approval to proceed with this important drill program is a defining event for Prismo Metals as it marks the first time in five decades that exploration on this attractive target can be activated on a property where historical drillings reported several copper intercepts that exceeded 1% copper and elevated zinc .This 5,000-metre program will provide critical information on the vectoring needed to lead us to the heart of the yet another mineralizing system in one of the most prolific copper districts on the planet." The Company has established a budget of $3.0 million to complete the proposed five drill hole, 5,000 metre program. Each drill hole is intended to drill through the entire Paleozoic carbonate stratigraphy and Prismo anticipates 1,000 metres per drill hole although the exploration team will take advantage of the geological information provided by each drill hole to determine if any holes require extended drilling. Robertson added "The most recent exploration of this mineralized target was over 50 years ago. Since then, discovery of one of the world's most significant copper deposits 40 km away at Resolution has changed the "Art of the Possible" for exploration in the region. This amplifies our eagerness to initiate drilling in order to continue advancement of the exploration process." Figure 1. Location ofthe Hot Breccia Project in the Arizona Copper Belt. Figure 2.View of the subsurface looking northeasterly showing the conductive body from the ZTEM survey and cross sections of the Christmas deposit and the Hot Breccia area. Historic drill holes are shown with copper assays as disks within the red ellipse; the magenta color indicates > 1% Copper. About Hot Breccia The Hot Breccia property consists of 1,420 hectares 227 contiguous mining claims located in the world class Arizona Copper Belt between several very well understood world-class copper mines including Morenci, Ray and Resolution. (Figure 1) Hot Breccia shows many features in common with these neighboring systems, most prominently a swarm of porphyry dikes and series of breccia pipes containing numerous fragments of well copper-mineralized rocks mixed with fragments of volcanic and sedimentary derived from considerable depth. Prismo ran a ZTEM survey last year that identified a very large conductive anomaly directly beneath the breccia outcrops. Sampling at the project has shown the presence of copper mineralization associated with polymictic breccia that has brought fragments of sedimentary rocks and mineralization to the surface from depths believed to be 400-1,000 meters below the surface, so drilling of deep holes, possibly including a twin of an historic hole, is planned. Figure 3. Plan view of the surface geology showing the hot breccia land boundary in black and the cross sections from Fig. 2. The surface projection of the conductive body shown in Fig. 2 is roughly outlined in red. Assay results from historic drill holes are unverified as the core has been destroyed, but information has been gathered from memos, photos and drill logs that contain some, but not all, of the assay results and descriptions. QA/QC Dr. Craig Gibson, PhD., CPG., a Qualified Person as defined by NI-43-01 regulations and Chief Exploration Officer and a director of the Company, has reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in this news release. About Prismo Metals Inc. Prismo (CSE:PRIZ) is mining exploration company focused on two precious metal projects in Mexico (Palos Verdes and Los Pavitos) and a copper project in Arizona (Hot Breccia). Please follow @PrismoMetals on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube Prismo Metals Inc. 1100 - 1111 Melville St., Vancouver, British Columbia V6E 3V6 Contact: Alain Lambert, Chief Executive Officer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Steve Robertson, President This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Jason Frame, Manager of Communications This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its 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. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the expectations or beliefs of management of the Company regarding future events. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forwardlooking statements", are not historical facts, are made as of the date of this news release and include without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, estimates and forecasts and statements as to management's expectations and intentions with respect to, among other things: the timing, costs and results of drilling at Hot Breccia. These forwardlooking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things: delays in obtaining or failure to obtain appropriate funding to finance the exploration program at Hot Breccia. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that: the ability to raise capital to fund the drilling campaign at Hot Breccia and the timing of such drilling campaign. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. We seek safe harbor. A court in Ukraine's Russian-controlled Donetsk region on Friday jailed a member of the OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine for "espionage" in a judgement condemned by the European security organisation. The Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic found Vadym Golda, 56, guilty and sentenced him to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony, Russia's Prosecutor-General's Office said in a statement. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) condemned it as "a grave violation of participating states' commitments under international law" and called for the immediate release of Golda and two other jailed OSCE officials. Three Ukrainian nationals who were members of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine -- Golda, Maxim Petrov and Dmytro Shabanov -- have been in detention in Russian-controlled Ukraine since 2022. The OSCE ran a special monitoring mission in Ukraine from 2014 until shortly after Russia's 2022 military intervention when Moscow blocked its extension. The unarmed civilian mission was tasked with observing and reporting on the security situation and facilitating dialogue between parties in the conflict. The OSCE has issued several reports on possible crimes linked to the conflict and alleged crimes against humanity Russian armed forces are accused of committing in Ukraine. Shabanov and Petrov were sentenced in September 2022 to 13 years in prison for alleged treason after closed-doors trials in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic. The OSCE has repeatedly called for the men's release from "illegal detention", stressing they "still enjoy their functional legal protection as OSCE staff" and their detention "is incompatible with OSCE commitments arising in respect to Russia", which is a member. OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid said Friday: "I will not relent in my efforts and do everything possible to bring Vadym, Maxim and Dmytro back home to their families and loved ones." Russian prosecutors said Golda, a security assistant to the mission, "carried out reconnaissance activities in the interests of foreign intelligence". The statement on social media claimed he "gathered data on industrial facilities that were subsequently hit with missile strikes, causing damage amounting to almost 100 million rubles ($1.1 mn)". The Donetsk court also "confiscated" 43 armoured vehicles used by the mission, prosecutors said. On Friday, Russia's FSB security service also arrested a suspected Ukrainian military agent in Moscow-annexed Crimea who allegedly informed Kyiv on troop movements, Russian news agencies reported. What is hate speech and can it be prosecuted as an international crime? In Ukraine, Russian propaganda has targeted Ukrainians as Nazis, pigs or dogs and its been used to justify crimes. In this podcast by our partners at Asymmetrical Haircuts, Ilya Nuzov, Head of Eastern Europe & Central Asia at the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), shares some of his findings after studying 500 hours of Russian TV and radio broadcasts, social media, and other material that were the basis of a submission by FIDH to the International Criminal Courts prosecutor to consider this propaganda as a crime against humanity for persecution. He is joined by Anna Vyshniakova, a Ukrainian expert on hate speech crimes and head of LingvaLexa, an NGO that works with Ukraines Office of the Prosecutor. They cover the historical context of the Russian campaign to vilify Ukraine, the motives behind it and the main challenges in prosecuting speech crimes in Ukraine. Potential suspects for these alleged crimes are not only senior Russian politicians but also senior media figures. Nuzov and Vyshniakova explain how Russias state-run media outlets are issued temniki or talking points regularly, aimed at keeping the Russian people interested in the war and the Russian military motivated to commit atrocities. Jung Young Joo opened up about an unforgettable experience she had when she was a student that caused her to have a partial hearing impairment. Viewers often see the 53-year-old actress portray mother roles in numerous K-dramas, among which is the hit series "Lovely Runner," where she received overwhelming love as Kim Hye Yoon's on-screen mother. Apart from that, Jung Young Joo is a musical actress. She earned her bachelor's degrees from the Seoul Institute of the Arts, Department of Dramatic Art, and from the Myongji University Department of Vocal Music. However, behind it, the actress struggles with hearing loss. Jung Young Joo Talks About Struggle With Hearing Loss During her guest appearance on MBC's "Radio Star," Jung Young Joo opened up about the incident she experienced during high school. Involving her male Korean teacher, the actress, who was a class president at the time, responded to the teacher, requesting to summarize the main points of the midterm exam. READ MORE: Jung Young Joo Spills Tea on Byeon Woo Seok, Kim Hye Yoon's Chemistry: 'He Gazes at Her With...' However, the teacher got angry and responded negatively by hitting her face with a kettle. "He came to me and then disappeared from my sight, but I don't remember that moment. He swung the kettle behind me. I passed out, opened my eyes, and I was in the infirmary." The incident caused Jung Young Joo to have partial hearing loss after damaging part of her eardrum. "I didn't know at the time. I wondered if it was hurt because it was bleeding a little, but as time passed, I couldn't hear anything. My eardrum was torn." As she grew older, she realized that she only had 20 to 30% of her hearing left. From Being Kim Hye Yoon's Mom to Jung Eun Ji's Mother in 'Miss Night and Day' Jung Yoo Joo captivated viewers with her remarkable role in "Lovely Runner." In a previous interview with a local media outlet, the actress shared a glimpse of their lives during the filming of the series. "Filming ended every day at 2 AM, and then we would have to be back at the shop by 6 AM. It was a repetitive process." Due to the jam-packed schedules, there was even a point where they had to visit hospitals for IV drips. "Sometimes, we would literally be out of tears because we cried so much." Following the rom-com series, Jung Yoo Joo joined the cast of "Miss Night and Day." In a fantasy romance series headlined by Jung Eun Ji, Lee Jung Eun, and Choi Jin Hyuk, she portrayed Im Cheong, the super supportive mom of Lee Mi Jin, played by the APINK member. The weekend K-drama depicts the story of a mid-20's woman, Lee Mi Jin, who struggled to land a job despite her experience. However, things get more bizarre after she wakes up one day being trapped in the body of a 50-year-old woman. "Miss Night and Day" airs every Saturday and Sunday via JTBC, TVING, and Netflix. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Jung Eun Ji Dramas: Must-Watch Series Featuring the 'Miss Night and Day' Star For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article Written by Geca Flores Moon Ga Young and Choi Hyun Wook will be headlining the upcoming drama "Black Salt Dragon." After months of discussion, the duo has officially confirmed their appearance to headline the webtoon-based TVN series. The news was announced by tvN, teasing fans with an exciting team-up between Moon Ga Young and Choi Hyun Wook. In addition to this, the upcoming K-drama is scheduled to premiere in the first half of 2025. Moon Ga Young, Choi Hyun Wook to Play Long-Lost Lovers in 'Black Salt Dragon' As mentioned, "Black Salt Dragon" is based on a webtoon that centers around the romance between a man and woman who met virtually. During their high school days, they were into playing online games and became close because of it. 16 years later, they met in real life after working for the same company. However, the catch here is that one of them is the boss, while the other is an employee. For her K-drama comeback, Moon Ga Young will transform into an ordinary employee, Baek Soo Jung. Despite being a hard-working and talented employee, she has a challenging working relationship with her boss, Baek Soo Jung, played by Choi Hyun Wook. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Moon Ga Young Reveals One Thing That Surprised Her After Moving to South Korea: 'Everything was so flamboyant' As for Choi Hyun Wook's character, he is a chaebol heir who works at the Yongsung Department Store, owned by their family. He is the director of the strategic planning division, not to mention a perfectionist. Other than his work, his first love was really traumatic for him because, after confessing his first love to the woman he met online, he got rejected and sees this as his painful past. Meanwhile, Moon Ga Young and Choi Hyun Wook's new drama "Black Salt Dragon" will be directed by Lee Soo Hyun of the hit rom-com K-dramas "Shooting Strs" and "Delightfully Deceitful," as well as the fantasy series "The Witch's Diner." Moon Ga Young Returns to the Big Screen After leaving her longtime agency, KeyEast, and transferring to Peak J, Moon Ga Young is booked and busy with back-to-back projects in 2025. Other than the upcoming webtoon-based series, she is also set to headline the romance film "Us and Them." Moon Ga Young will be teaming up with award-winning actor Goo Kyo Hwan as they play lovers who undergo a bad breakup. Helmed by actress-director Kim Do Young, "Us and Them" is a story of love lost and found after the duo got reunited years later by fate. The upcoming drama, slated to premiere in 2025, will be Moon Ga Young's first movie after nine years. READ MORE: Moon Ga Young Begins New Stage as Actress By Doing THIS For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article Written by Geca Flores Lee Jong Suk delivered good news to fans as he marks his 14th debut anniversary in show business. Curious about what he prepared for the fans? Then read on! Lee Jong Suk Marks 14th Anniversary Since Debut + Prepares Exhibition for Fans On July 12, Lee Jong Suk surprised the public with his announcement. Based on the news delivered by his agency, the "Big Mouth" star will host the '2024 Lee Jong Suk Exhibition' in Seoul - 'Invitation to With' to look back on the time he has spent with his fans in celebration of his 14th debut anniversary. His label Ace Factory announced through their official social media account that the actor's exhibition will be held from September 4 to 8. The released photo caught attention as it is reminiscent of an invitation, befitting the exhibition title. In this upcoming event, 'With' is said to be Lee Jong Suk's official fan name. It has been reported that this project was planned by the actor to repay his fans who have shown him consistent love for a long time. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Lee Jong-Suk Faces Backlash for 'Too Close' Interaction With 'Bridgerton' Actor Expectations are high that it will be an event to share memories with fans and express his gratitude. In addition, the exhibition is said to have not only contained gifts he received from his fans for the past 14 years but also unreleased pictorials and messages from Lee Jong Suk himself for the fans. Lee Jong Suk Update The "Pinocchio" star has been in a public relationship with IU since December 2022 and has been consistently creating opportunities to communicate with his fans since his first fan meeting in 2014. In particular, he had a meaningful time in 2023 by meeting international fans from 11 countries through the world tour 'Dear. My With.' In addition to the meet and greet, he also held a bazaar where he shared his favorite items and made a surprise appearance at the event to meet fans more intimately. Lee Jong Suk's 'Invitation to With' will be available at K-Town COEX for five days in September ahead of his birthday on September 14. More details will be announced later on ACE Factory's social media account. Meanwhile, he was supposed to headline a romance drama with Go Min Si titled "My Relationship That I Also Oppose." Unfortunately, he turned down the offer due to scheduling conflicts. As of this writing, the male star has no confirmed acting projects yet but fans are hopeful to see him again with a new drama. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Ji Chang Wook, Lee Jong Suk, Lee Je Hoon Were Selected for THIS K-drama That Officially Went to Im Siwan What can you say about the news? Share your thoughts/replies in the comments! For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article. Shai San Miguel wrote this. Seoul, July 12, 2024 - Actor Ryu Soo Young light-heartedly shared his playful complaint about his wife, actress Park Ha Sun, during his guest appearance on SBS POWER FM's "Cine Town" radio show today. Ryu Soo Young, who recently returned from filming his upcoming television show "Jungle Food" in the South Pacific, discussed his experience exploring food culture in remote locations. "I visited a beautiful island in the South Pacific for 'Jungle Food.' It was an incredible experience working with local ingredients to create various dishes," -Ryu Soo Young However, the conversation took a humorous turn when Park Ha Sun, the host of the show, asked him about being away from family for an extended period. "I have some sort of separation anxiety. I always want to come back home wherever I go." -Ryu Soo Young READ MORE: Park Ha Sun Update 2023: Fan-Favorite Star Returns To Silver Screen This Year "He only contacted me about once a day. Whenever I messaged him, he'd blame bad Wi-Fi. And when I replied to that, he wouldn't reply back. I didn't realize how much I relied on his presence at home until he was gone. It was so frustrating." -Park Ha Sun In response to his wife's comments, Ryu Soo Young explained, "We had issues with Wi-Fi, and my phone charger got wet, so I couldn't charge my phone for two days.It was frustrating for me too, not being able to contact my family." Then, with a mischievous smile directed at Park Ha Sun, he added, "But you know what? There were no 'I miss you' texts from her. Just messages asking where things were." His playful jab drew laughter from the studio and the audience. ALSO READ: Park Ha Sun To Make Silver Screen Return + Here's What We Know KdramaStars owns this article. Written by Joan Cabigas. Friday, July 12, 2024 - A source close to Moses Kurias office has revealed that his former boss could have been aware that President Ruto was planning to dissolve the Cabinet when he addressed the nation from State House on Thursday afternoon. Kuria was reportedly in the office when Ruto addressed the nation and announced that all Cabinet Secretaries should vacate office. The former CS packed his things and left immediately after Ruto started reading his speech. He packed things and left immediately the president started reading his speech, an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity told a local daily. A day before Kuria was sacked, he was in his usual element bragging how he had been assigned the role of streamlining the coffee sector, allegedly due to DP Gachagus incompetence. While addressing mourners during the burial of his aunt Mary Njeri at Kairi village in Gatundu North, Kiambu County, Kuria revealed that Ruto had assigned him the role of spearheading reforms in the coffee sector. Ruto said he was forced to fire the Cabinet Secretaries after listening keenly to the people of Kenya and after a holistic appraisal of the performance of the Cabinet and its achievements and challenges. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, July 12, 2024 - Charlene Ruto has expressed empathy for some of the victims of protests who were injured during the anti-government protests that rocked most parts of the country. Taking to her X account, Charlene consoled and thanked all those who donated blood to the innocent Gen Zs who were brutalized and maimed by Rutos government as they stormed the streets to push for radical changes in the governance structure. "I believe it's time to reflect and heal as a nation as we search our deepest postures of patriotism, forgiveness, and integration as one people! God bless Kenya! WE ARE ONE!" read part of the tweet. Charlene visited the victims and expressed her deep empathy for those injured in the recent weeks of protests. "It was a very emotional day visiting some young people and members of the public who found themselves as unfortunate victims of demonstrations." She took part in a blood donation drive in Nairobi. The campaign drive was aimed at cushioning those who lost blood as a result of intense bleeding. She also thanked healthcare providers and human rights organizations for their service to humanity. During protests, medical personnel staged camps in various areas to provide first aid to those who were injured in the protests. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Four suspected drug traffickers were arrested at their hideout in the Fisheries area of Bamburi, Mombasa County, and cannabis worth Sh16,621,500 was recovered. Doris Achieng, 46, Brenda Achieng, 20, Rhoda Vonza, 47, and David Omondi, 26 were arrested following an intelligence-led operation by detectives from the DCI anti-narcotics unit (ANU) coast region, RCIO coast operations team and officers from Bamburi Police Station. Responding to a tip-off from vigilant citizens, detectives located the suspects house and while therein conducted a meticulous search that unearthed eight green polythene gunny sacks, eight multi-coloured Nigerian bags, and a small white polythene bag all containing big khaki rolls of Cannabis sativa weighing 554.05kg. Also detained was a Toyota ISIS found parked outside the house and believed to be proceeds of crime. The suspects together with the recovered narcotics and the motor vehicle were escorted to the Coast Regional Police Headquarters for further legal action. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, July 12, 2024 - Nyeri Governor, Mutahi Kahiga, has celebrated after President William Ruto sacked all his cabinet secretaries on Thursday. While dismissing the cabinet, Ruto said that after listening to the voices of young Kenyans, he decided to fire all his cabinet members and appoint a leaner, more efficient team. In a statement following Rutos cabinet purge on Thursday, Kahiga, who is a close ally of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, said he had been vindicated. "Nilisema aje? Vindicated! Anguka nayo....," he wrote. During the county's Annual Department Performance Contracts Signing ceremony, Kahiga urged the head of state to fire his Cabinet. In his address, Kahiga stated that if Gen Z had asked Ruto to dissolve his Cabinet, then he should have heeded their demand. The county boss claimed that millions of Kenyans are qualified and ready to take up roles in the Cabinet. "They have clearly told you we don't want you to do this, they want you to do this; it is that simple. "If they say you reorganise your Cabinet, kindly do. If they say you sack it, do it. There are 50 million Kenyans who can fit in those offices," he said The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has said the government of national unity is the worst type of government and warned President William Ruto against embracing it. Speaking on Thursday, when he attended the Pan African Youth Convention in Nairobi, Kalonzo who is also the Wiper Democratic Movement party leader, said that anyone intending to form a government of national unity should do it immediately after elections. He said pursuing it after two years does not look well, as he lauded South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for taking the same route. "What President Ramaphosa has done, Government of National Unity is a way to go but not in Kenya. Not now. "We can think of the Government of National Unity going forward but immediately after an election," Kalonzo said. "Not waiting for two years, people are dead then you come and say the government of national unity. I don't think it looks well." The former Vice President added that he will continue to be in the opposition. "In my case, I'm very clear I want to do opposition until we remove dictatorship in this country," he said. Kalonzo's remarks come ahead of the planned national dialogue that is set to begin on Monday, July 15. President William Ruto and Azimio leader Raila announced a 6-day dialogue under the National Multi-Sectoral Forum scheduled for next week. The forum will foster national dialogue and seek lasting solutions to Kenya's pressing issues. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Nominated senator Karen Nyamu supported President Ruto's decision to fire his Cabinet secretaries. Nyamu, who was nominated by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), praised the head of state for listening to citizens and making bold decisions for the country's future. Nyamu, however, urged the president to reconsider former Interior CS Kithure Kindiki for his energy and zeal. "Of all the skills of leadership, listening is the most valuable. You spoke and the president is executing one action at a time. "Mr President, if you do anything for the sake of Kenya and our common good and future, you know your number one supporter. "I wish that gentleman Kindiki Kithure could be put to good use. We still need his energy and exemplary zeal," Nyamu wrote on her Instagram page. Kindiki was among 21 cabinet secretaries who were fired by Ruto on Thursday after Gen Z protests pressured him to do so. Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi survived the axe. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - A man was arrested after he pulled down his pants and urinated in the aisle of a flight to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. Neil McCarthy, 25, of Oregon, was told by flight attendant on July 3 that he had to wait till the seat belt sign was off before going to the rest room. However, he refused to wait and chose instead to expose himself as he pulled down his pants and urinated in the aisle of the plane. American Airlines told News 9 that American Eagle flight 3921, operated by Envoy Air, from Chicago O'Hare to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport diverted to Buffalo due to a disruptive passenger. According to federal court documents, a police officer boarded the plane and spoke with a flight attendant who said the man exposed himself and urinated on the flight. McCarthy was arrested and escorted off the plane, court documents said. "Passengers, maybe young children, are on board at the unfortunate experience of observing and watching this person in this lewd you know, performance here," said Tom Kinton, president of Kinton Aviation Consulting. The officer obtained a passenger's cellphone photo of McCarthy urinating in the aisle of the plane and exposing himself, court documents said. According to court documents, McCarthy told police he was flying from Portland, Oregon, to Manchester, with a layover in Chicago and stated he likes to have "Jack and Cokes." McCarthy told police he had several before boarding his flight in Oregon, had more during his layover in Chicago, and several more after boarding in Chicago. Kinton said these unruly incidents are happening more and more often just based on the sheer number of people who are traveling by plane. "A lot of people fly, which is setting records every day. And you know, you got some bad actors in those numbers," Kinton said. American Airlines said the flight re-departed shortly after. In a statement, American Airlines said in part, "We thank our team members for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding." McCarthy was released on recognizance, and an attorney appointment hearing is scheduled for later this month. Friday, July 12, 2024 The bad blood between President William Ruto and his Deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, has taken another twist. This is after Gachagua incited Mt. Kenya MPs to abandon Ruto ahead of the 2027 General Election. This was revealed by Mathira MP Eric Wamumbi who claimed that Gachagua urged Mount Kenya MPs to abandon their support for Ruto and regroup ahead of the 2027 General Election. Speaking during an interview, Wamumbi also shed light on the intrigues surrounding Gachagua's decision to back Ruto before the 2022 polls. He claimed that Gachagua entered into the 2022 deal without a power-sharing agreement with his boss. The MP, who represents Gachagua's home constituency, recounted a confidential conversation with the DP that went on for hours, discussing Mount Kenya politics and the relationship with his boss, President Ruto. "I was the only person he met that day; we talked for hours, and I tried to tell him that his advisers were misleading him, just as they had misled another president," Wamumbi disclosed. Wamumbi claimed that Gachagua was not willing to formalize his political pact with President William Ruto because he trusted him. Wamumbi also highlighted Gachagua's strategic plans following their election victory in the August general election. "He told us that after we won the election, he would then go to the President with a list of seats that would benefit the Central Kenya people," he said. He stated that the deputy president was aiming to secure nine key positions that he believed would be advantageous for the GEMA community. However, Wamumbi urged a different approach. "I begged him that we stay in government since we already have enough seats; we should work using what we have," he added. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - A 1-year-old "miracle baby" survived two days of sometimes stormy weather before a truck driver spotted him crawling along a roadside the day after his 4-year-old brother was found d3ad and his mother was arrested in Mississippi. Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary "Stitch" Guillory said the baby had numerous bug bites but otherwise appeared to be in good condition. Autopsy reports were pending on the 4-year-old who was found Monday, July 8, Guillory said during a news conference in Lake Charles, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) west of New Orleans. The body had been found in a lake behind an Interstate 10 welcome center near the Texas state line. Authorities investigating the 4-year-old's d3ath learned that he had last been seen Saturday, July 6, with his mother, Aaliyah Jack, 25, of Lake Charles, and the 1-year-old. Fearing the 1-year-old was dead, authorities prepared Tuesday morning, July 9, to search the water where the dead child was found. Then a truck driver called 911 after spotting the baby. "We look at this 1-year-old as our miracle baby because he was still alive," Guillory said. Hurricane Beryl had struck east Texas early Monday, and the search for the child played out amid intermittent, heavy rain and high wind gusts. "This kid spent two days out in the weather on the side of the highway," Guillory said. "Thank God that trucker seen him." An alert for law enforcement agencies was issued for Aaliyah Jack on Monday night, and a Louisiana judge issued a warrant for her arrest. Jack was arrested in Meridian, Mississippi, more than 350 miles (563 kilometers) from where her children were found. Meridian police said she was arrested sometime Tuesday, July 9. "She was located in Mississippi, without the 1-year-old, by the Meridian Police Department and taken into custody," the Calcasieu Sheriff's Office said. The search for the baby continued until the trucker reported seeing a baby in a ditch along Interstate 10. "When deputies arrived, they were able to positively identify the child as the missing 1-year-old," the sheriff's news release said. She was to be extradited to Louisiana, where she faced a charge of failure to report a missing child. The judge who issued the warrant set bond at $300,000, Guillory said. Kayla Vincent, a spokeswoman for the sheriff, said no other charges were pending as of Wednesday afternoon, July 10, and that the investigation was continuing. Friday, July 12, 2024 - A 22-year-old college student was found b3aten to death and wrapped in a sheet in the backseat of her car days after her father warned a judge that if her boyfriend was let out of jail, he would kill her. Lauren Johansens b0dy was discovered mutilated and wrapped in trash bags and a sheet on July 3 in the Wolf River Cemetery in Harrison County days after her boyfriend, who was detained for assaulting her, was released on bond. Her father says that the man charged in her murder, boyfriend Bricen Rivers, had just bonded out of jail days earlier after he was held for aggravated kidnapping for brutally beating her and holding her hostage during a December trip to Nashville. "You can see what happened when he hit her 100 times back in December so just imagine what he did to her when nobody was around to save her," her father, Lance Johansen, told the Daily Mail following his daughter's brutal murder. "I sat in the courtroom in Nashville and told the judge that if they let him out, he was going to kill her," the slain students father, Lance Johansen, told WLOX. "He had assaulted her this was probably the fifth or sixth time where they would get into a fight and he would beat her." Rivers, 23, faces a murder charge and is being held on a $1 million bond. He was arrested last Thursday, July 4, following a six-hour manhunt, NOLA.com reported. Lauren Johansen, who was originally from Gulfport, was attending the University of Southern Mississippi to get a nursing degree, her father, who is an orthopaedic surgeon, said. The 22-year-old was first reported missing early July 2 when her sister woke up alone in their shared Hattiesburg apartment with the front door wide open and their security camera smashed. Lance Johansen That same morning, her father woke up to a notification that her Life360, a location-tracking app, had been turned off. He reported her missing to the Hattiesburg Police Department and the next day, officers informed him that they located her car in a nearby cemetery. "I knew she was dead," Lance Johansen told WLOX, detailing how she was found wrapped up in trash bags in the backseat of her car. "She was basically beaten to death. Her face was smashed in, her head was smashed in, she was brutally beaten to the point she couldnt see out of either eye when she finally died and there were multiple h0les in her head," he said. He continued: "I helped the coroner lift her body out of the car. It was just mutilated." The heartbroken father slammed the criminal justice system in Tennessee for failing his family, saying Rivers bond should have never been reduced. Rivers, who initially was held on $251,000, had his bond lowered to $150,000 after he had been in jail for seven months. Before Rivers arrest in December 2023, police officers found Lauren Johansen badly beaten and trying to escape a rental vehicle as Rivers reached for a firearm. "I think the criminal justice system in Nashville, Tennessee, failed my daughter and our family. The world shouldnt work this way," the bereaved father told WLOX. "She was really beautiful, super, super smart. She had dreams and hopes that were larger than life. Everything she did, everything she touched." Friday, July 12, 2024 - Rogue Chinese contractors are reportedly building a palatial house for dismissed Transport Cabinet Secretary, Kipchumba Murkomen, at his Kamendi Farm, which he reportedly grabbed. The 1000-acre farm was formerly owned by the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) and the Government but has been idle for quite some time. Murkomen used his connection with the powers that be to grab the land. The state-of-the-art house is allegedly being built by the Chinese contractors as a gift for the corrupt deals he made as the transport minister. Murkomen was one of the most corrupt ministers in the dissolved cabinet. It is alleged that he used to demand a 10% cut for every tender secured by contractors in the transport ministry. See photos of the house that is under construction. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, July 12, 2024 President William Ruto has been dealt a severe blow. This is after a three-judge bench declared the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) as unconstitutional. This decision effectively halts the implementation of SHIF, a project designed to replace the beleaguered National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). In the ruling, the court declared all laws enacted by Rutos administration to overhaul the health care system as "null and void." The court has also suspended any further actions undertaken under SHIF, including the ongoing registration. A declaration is hereby issued that the entire Social Health Insurance Fund Act 2023, the entire Digital Health Act 2023, and the Primary Health Act 2023 are all unconstitutional and therefore legally null and void. Within that period, the Acts shall remain suspended, the judges asserted, sending the matter back to Parliament for rectification, the judges declared unequivocally. Lawmakers have been given until November 20 to amend the legislation. The Social Health Insurance Act, No. 16 of 2023 (SHIFA), which received presidential assent on October 19, 2023, and became effective on November 22, 2023, aimed to establish the Social Health Authority. This body would manage social health insurance, fulfilling Article 43(1)(a) of the Constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to health care services. This ruling comes just 81 days before the scheduled rollout of SHIF, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the transition. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah is fired up and will not rest until there is a regime change in Kenya. In a statement, Omtatah has called for the ouster of President William Ruto, accusing him of presiding over a failing government. His remarks came in the wake of escalating criticism over the administration's handling of various national issues, including economic management and public safety. Omtatah trivialized the firing of Cabinet Secretaries, saying it was not enough to solve the countrys problems. According to the Busia Senator, for the country to regain its lost glory, Ruto must go. "Firing Cabinet Secretaries is not enough," Senator Omtatah asserted. "What needs to happen is that the entire Kenya Kwanza government led by President Ruto must vacate power. The call that Ruto must go is not an idle call, it is a call whose time has come." Omtatah pointed out that Ruto's assertions about criminal activities by Gen Zs on national TV have yet to be substantiated. "Ruto told us that criminals were in the streets; he has not produced any criminal. We cannot be told lies every day," he stated emphatically. Omtatah's demand for Ruto's resignation is rooted in a series of perceived governmental failures. "I am demanding that President Ruto vacate office as the only honorable thing to do because he is unable to balance a budget, it has collapsed, and everything around him is collapsing. He cannot say that his juniors should bear the burden. The buck stops with him," Omtatah declared. He highlighted the recent tragedy involving the deaths of some protestors, criticizing the president's response. "Justice is crying out, our children have died. Something that has never happened in this country. "The president has called them criminals so the president cannot sit in power when the children have died," Omtatah said. "Anything less than that (ouster of Ruto) will not avenge the blood that has been spilt on our streets," he added. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - The United States government has told President William Ruto to start screening all the Chinese nationals working in Kenya. The Joe Biden-led government raised concerns over the trafficking of Chinese nationals working in Kenya. In its 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. State Department revealed that there were instances of forced labour among Chinese workers. In particular, Chinese workers undertaking various infrastructure projects were alleged to be experiencing forced labour. Therefore, through screening, the US noted that the government would identify those who have been trafficked and take action against the perpetrators. Some of the projects undertaken by the Chinese include the Standard Guage Railway (SGR) and the Nairobi Expressway. "Peoples Republic of China nationals employed in Kenya at worksites affiliated with the PRCs Belt and Road Initiative were vulnerable to forced labour, particularly in construction," read the statement in part. On the other hand, the proposal on screening was extended to other foreign nationals and Kenyans who are returning to the country from abroad. "Systematically and proactively identify trafficking victims by screening vulnerable populations such as refugees, asylum-seekers, individuals in commercial sex, Kenyan migrant workers returning from overseas, and all foreign national workers," read the report in part. Notably, Kenya is ranked among countries that have not tamed human trafficking incidents despite recent government efforts to combat the vice. In particular, the report highlighted child trafficking and sex trafficking as major issues facing the country. Equally, tracking of Kenyans to other countries remains a concern. Specifically, Kenyans deployed to work in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia were still being harassed and mistreated. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Moses Kurias younger brother, Aloise Kinyanjui, is among the millions of Kenyans who are celebrating after President William Ruto dissolved the Cabinet on Thursday. Kinyanjui, who unsuccessfully vied for Juja MP Seat on Jubilee ticket during the last election, hilariously told the sacked cabinet secretaries, including his brother, to join the affordable housing project as casual laborers after losing their jobs. Wakuje tujenge affordable housing mahali wanatwambiaga kazi ziko, he posted on his Facebook account, shortly after Ruto dissolved the Cabinet. Aloise and his brother Kuria dont see eye to eye. While Kuria has been an ardent supporter of Ruto, his brother is an Azimio fanatic and supported Raila Odinga during the last election. Aloise has been criticizing President William Rutos government on his social media pages, despite his brother being a close ally of the president. Check out his post. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, July 12, 2024 The U.S. Government has given Kenyan Police officers deployed in Haiti an assortment of equipment and resources to aid in their fight against the gangs in the war-torn Caribbean nation. According to reports, the officers received a shipment including military equipment through the foreign power's embassy in Port-au-Prince on Friday. This includes weapons and a military Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) designed to transport personnel and equipment during combat. Besides receiving military equipment, the officers also received a wide array of resources to facilitate their mission including; a fully equipped restaurant, washing machines, and a flurry of other essentials. The Kenyan police base in Haiti has also been equipped with a medical camp that was well-stocked to cater to medical emergencies. Kenyan officers will also have Wi-Fi connections within the base for ease of communication between them and their families back in Kenya. Speaking on the contentious matter where Kenyan police officers were captured standing guard outside the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince earlier this week, Commander of the mission, Godfrey Otunga clarified that at the time, the troops were escorting him and other leaders to a meeting where they were also supposed to collect donated equipment from the American Embassy. Otunga explained that the troops stood guard outside the Embassy while the leadership attended the meeting, ready to escort them back to their base once it was concluded. He further clarified that the standard protocol should not be misconstrued as a permanent or primary assignment at the Embassy. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has confirmed the arrest of five girls following a viral video showing the assault and unclothing of a young girl. The video, which sparked outrage online, depicts the victim on the ground, unclothed, as a group of approximately five girls in school uniforms take turns hitting her. One of the girls recorded the incident while others jeered. The victim, visibly distressed and injured, repeatedly pleaded for mercy. In response to the public outcry, the ZRP issued a statement acknowledging the video and urged the victim and anyone with information to come forward. The arrested girls from Wedza are Vimbai Mike (19), Rudo Manjere (17), Lilly Rose Munyoro (16), Lillian Chido Munyoro (16), and Sandra Vhumbunu (17). They face charges of aggravated indecent assault. Police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi provided details of the incident: On July 4, 2024, at 11:00 AM, Rudo Manjere, Lilly Rose Munyoro, and Lillian Chido Munyoro lured the victim, Mavis Mada (18), to Vimbai Mikes homestead in Mupfuuri Village, Wedza, under the guise of giving her vegetable seedlings. The suspects locked the victim in one of the huts, stripped her, and took turns assaulting her with switches. They also inserted objects into the victims private parts while recording the video. The victim lost consciousness, and the suspects poured water on her before releasing her at 3:00 PM. Vimbai Mike is in police custody, while the other four are under the supervision of their parents due to their juvenile status. Friday, July 12, 2024 - Former Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has spoken after President William Ruto fired him along with 21 other cabinet secretaries. Duale was shown the door and President William Ruto announced that he would appoint competent, lean, and efficient CSs who would help him deliver his agenda to Kenyans. In a statement, after he was fired from Cabinet, Duale thanked President William Ruto for entrusting him with such a post in government. The former Garissa Town MP and one-time National Assembly Majority Leader took pride in being part of the president's immediate team in his inaugural term after his election in 2022. Duale referenced an excerpt from the Quran holy book to console himself. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to His Excellency President William Ruto for entrusting me with the role of Cabinet Secretary for Defence in the first Kenya Kwanza Administration. "I am deeply honoured and will forever be indebted to him and the people of Kenya for this opportunity to serve our great nation. "As the Quran says, But they plan, and Allah plans. And Allah is the best of planners (Quran 8:30), "Duale posted on his X. The Kenyan DAILY POST Friday, July 12, 2024 - Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump urged the judge in his New York hush money case to dismiss his conviction following the Supreme Courts ruling on presidential immunity last month, according to a new court filing. Trumps lawyers argued in a 55-page filing that the jurys guilty verdict should be vacated because the district attorneys office relied on evidence at trial related to Trumps official acts as president, which Trumps lawyers asserted should not have been permitted in light of the Supreme Courts recent immunity decision. In order to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine, and protect the interests implicated by its underpinnings, the jurys verdicts must be vacated and the Indictment dismissed, Trumps attorneys wrote to Judge Juan Merchan. The Manhattan district attorney violated the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause by relying on evidence relating to President Trumps official acts in 2017 and 2018 to unfairly prejudice President Trump in this unprecedented and unfounded prosecution relating to purported business records, Trumps attorneys wrote. Much of the unconstitutional official-acts evidence concerned actions taken pursuant to core Executive power for which absolute immunity applies. Just last week, Merchan postponed Trumps sentencing to allow Trump to file his motion to dismiss the guilty verdict. The district attorneys office will respond later this month, and Merchan said he will decide the matter in September, with a potential sentencing scheduled on September 18, if necessary. Merchan had initially set Thursday as the day that Trump would be sentenced following his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, when Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. But that schedule was scrapped after the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity last month. The ruling saud that presidents have absolute immunity for core official acts. In their filing, Trumps lawyers pointed to testimony at trial including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout they argued should not have come before the jury, as well as tweets he sent while president. All of Hickss testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on core Article II authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity, Trumps attorneys argued. Trump specifically forbids prosecutors from offering testimony from a Presidents advisers for the purpose of probing the official act. The filing says Westerhout was forced to testify about national security matters and her work for Trump, calling prosecutors questioning invasive. This invasive compelled testimony included information regarding President Trumps official-capacity work habits, preferences, relationships and contacts, and social media practices at the White House, Trumps lawyers argued. Trumps attorneys pointed to a March 2018 text message that Westerhout sent Hicks while they were White House advisers working on Trumps behalf: Hey- the president wants to know if you called David pecker again. In addition, Trumps lawyers wrote that Trump, while president, used his Twitter account as one of the White Houses main vehicles for conducting official business. More broadly, permitting prosecutors to use a Presidents public statements on matters of public concern in criminal proceedings would chill the Presidents willingness and ability to communicate with the public, they wrote. That would result in an impermissible intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch and the enfeebling of the Presidency. Trumps attorneys also criticized the district attorneys office for not waiting for the Supreme Court before taking the case to trial. At bottom, the pressure campaign theory turned on DANYs efforts to assign a criminal motive to actions that President Trump took in 2018 as the Commander in Chief responsible for the entire Executive Branch, his lawyers wrote. Friday, July 12, 2024 - Wanda Nara has confirmed her marriage with Galatasaray striker Mauro Icardi is over Nara, 37, married Icardi, 31, in May 2014, less than a year after she divorced his former Argentina team-mate, Maxi Lopez. Nara and Icardi's relationship has always made the headlines, with the couple going their separate ways on multiple occasions, and getting back together. Now, the model who also acted as Icardi's agent has now confirmed they have split for good. She told America TV: 'For personal and health reasons, I tried once more, but it didnt work. Let everyone talk. I've saved my silence for the last. 'I know how hard endings are and what they cost. There are things on TV and the internet that aren't true, but I accept it as part of the bad and who I am. 'I decided to end it, but Mauro and I will still be a family. It wasnt a mistake to try more when there was love. I regret nothing; these years were the best of my life, but now I must be alone. 'There is no villain or third party; our relationship was always stronger than it seemed from the outside. My priority has always been my children, and now more than ever. Thank you for your respect.' According to Ciudad Magazine via Daily Sabah, Nara has filed for divorce after mulling over the decision for some time. Rumours of a rift between the couple surfaced iSpn recent weeks when Nara unfollowed Icardi on social media. Icardi is still following Nara, but their relationship now looks to be over. They share two children - Francesca, 9, and Isabella, 7. This is not the first time that Nara has claimed her marriage to Icardi is over. She made the same statement in September 2022, but they ended up getting back together. Friday, July 12, 2024 - Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) students on Friday protested along the Thika Superhighway following the mysterious death of Denzel Omondi, a third-year student who died after participating in the anti-Finance Bill protests. A video shared online shows the protesters removing other students from class to go and protest along Thika Road. Omondi was found dead in a swamp in Juja, two days after storming Parliament on June 25, 2024. The protesting students demanded justice for Omondi, believing he was murdered by authorities. Watch the video. JKUAT students removing other students from class to demonstrate pic.twitter.com/awKrbcfYRF Cyprian, Is Nyakundi (@C_NyaKundiH) July 12, 2024 The Kenyan DAILY POST. Friday, July 12, 2024 - A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after worshippers at a Sikh temple in the UK were attacked on Thursday evening, July 11. In a video shared online, injured worshippers were seen outside the Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend, Kent as huge number of police officers raced to the scene. An air ambulance was also seen flying overhead as victims were left with cuts to their hands and arms. The suspect was pinned to the floor by police and arrested in dramatic scenes. A police cordon was put in place on a nearby road, close to the Holy Trinity primary school. A spokesman for the force said: Kent Police was called at 8.10pm to a report of a disturbance at a Gurdwara on Saddington Street in Gravesend. It was reported that two people had sustained injuries that were not considered to be life threatening and are being treated locally. A 17-year-old male was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Officers are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident but remain on scene while enquiries are ongoing. Friday, July 12, 2024 - City lawyer, Kibe Mungai, has reacted to the firing of Attorney General Justin Muturi, who was dismissed by President William Ruto on Thursday alongside all cabinet secretaries. Speaking on Friday, Mungai said it was wrong for President William Ruto to fire AG Muturi, as the country, currently in a constitutional crisis, will be without a legal advisor. Though he has State counsel, they are supposed to assist the AG. "They are not Attorney General and the Solicitor General is basically a Principal Secretary. "The AG is a constitutional officeholder under Article 156. "That office cannot be vacant, particularly during a time of a serious constitutional crisis, Mungai said. He added that as long as the government is there and operating, it must continuously base its arguments on the legal advice of the AG. The President has created this vacuum and indicated that he will form a broad-based government. It means he might engage leaders from the Opposition. "The question that would then arise is on whose advice will the decisions be based on, he further explained. He added that whereas the President has powers to remove an AG, it would not be advisable to do it in the middle of a crisis. Decisions with a lot of legal and constitutional implications are made during a crisis, he stated. In response to youth-led anti-government protests, Ruto fired all Cabinet Secretaries, including AG Muturi, on Thursday. Only Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who also is the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary was spared. The Kenyan DAILY POST When demand exceeds supply, a resource is limited. Allocating those resources involves a tension between efficiency and equity. The market has several ways to allot those limited resources, beginning with cost. For example, frequent flyer miles, a form of resource allocation, may not seem controversial, except to those getting on last, where there is no room for their carry-on. Health care is a limited resource for many reasons, and equity raises more significant ethical concerns. Resource allocation involves hurdles to overcome, often termed frictions or pain points. Health cares traditional frictions involved cost, time, and the moat created by office staff between you and your physician. While government insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid, have leveled costs somewhat, time spent getting an appointment and then being seen, as well as the staff moat and automated telephone chains, remain significant frictions. Concierge medicine is a new, small, roughly 7 percent practice style in the U.S., growing at 3 to 4 percent annually. Heres the deal: in exchange for a retainer fee, most of the frictions concerning time and access are removed. You get the undivided attention of your primary care physician whenever you want no waiting for appointments, no telephone waiting, no nurse practitioner physician assistant intermediaries. Given the increased demands on health care as the Boomers age out and the increasing physician shortage in different specialties and geographic locations, it helps to understand the impacts of concierge medicine. Welcome to the Club Concierge care requires a membership fee the patient pays as an out-of-pocket expense. The physician continues to bill the patients insurance for care but waives the out-of-pocket and deductibles that the patient is responsible for paying. With membership or retainer fees in the $2,000 annually range, physicians can significantly reduce the size of their practice from roughly 2,500 to less than 600. With fewer patients, care is, in economic terms, non-rivalrous; you can be seen at your convenience. A physician has created a substantial baseline income with an upfront cash membership fee. The ability to pay and the need for care influence how patients select in or out of concierge care. Income may serve as a proxy for the ability to pay, and need, at least for health issues, can be measured by visits and co-morbidities. To see the impacts, a new study in the Journal of Health Economics examines concierge cares costs, participants, and health outcomes. The data set The researchers looked at over 800 physicians transitioning from traditional practices to concierge medicine, all affiliated with a single large company managing these transitions. Physicians retain ownership of their practice and generate revenue from insurer billing [1] and a retainer fee, on average $2400, with the company charging a percentage for administrative services. Patient panels are limited to 600, and the study was limited to Medicare beneficiaries, who had the most readily available health data. 28,000 Medicare beneficiaries were joining the concierge practice, stayers, and 123,000 were leavers. The graph shows how the proportion of visit length changed from before to after the transition to concierge care. 15-minute visits declined, and 25-minute visits increased. Interestingly, 40-minute visits also declined. However, this may reflect the impact of more frequent, shorter visits for follow-up and concerns. There was double the number of leavers as stayers. Both stayers and leavers experience increased spending, with the magnitude greater for the stayers even without including the concierge fee, a large component of the additional cost. Prescription drug costs declined for stayers, as more consistent care resulted in deprescribing, while outpatient and inpatient care costs rose. As the researchers write, the magnitudes of the differences are not economically large. The stayers are slightly older, have slightly fewer chronic conditions diagnosed They have more income as measured by living in higher-income zip codes and being unlikely to receive a low-income subsidy for drug costs. This graph depicts the probability of a patient joining concierge care based on income and expected health care costs. As income rises, as measured by higher-income zip codes, the likelihood of participating in concierge care rises from a baseline of 28 percent in the lowest-income decile to a nearly 50 percent likelihood in the highest-income decile. Costs do not show a similar steady rise. When adjusted for income, only those in the 6th decile of expected cost were more likely to seek concierge care. The patients with the greatest expected costs were disinclined to seek concierge care. Let me add a limitation to those findings that the researchers did not mention. The largest of the concierge management groups assisting a practice in transitioning to concierge care carefully reviews and determines the best candidates to invite into the concierge care patient panel. They optimize for patients with the best possible insurance and the fewest medical problems, what we might call the concerned well. A physician may include some additional patients of their choosing in the invitation to the concierge practice. The findings regarding who opts into concierge care may reflect a selection bias attributable to concierge management rather than a patients free will. The graph shows the five-year survival of those patients with concierge care, the stayers, vs. those of the same physician who did not participate in concierge care, the leavers. Over the five-year interval, concierge medicine increased survival by less than two days. A deeper dive suggested that the risk to survival for those patients with the greatest co-morbidities was worse with concierge care, but the numbers were too small to identify any statistical, let alone clinical, validity. It is reasonable to argue that the five-year window, one-quarter of the life expectancy of a 65-year-old Medicare recipient, is insufficient to see a clinical difference For physicians, the goals of concierge medicine are clear and easily achieved. The concierge fee places a guaranteed lower bound on their income; they will see fewer patients more engagingly and may find a better work-life balance. To the extent that it can extend the professional career of older physicians who might have otherwise dropped out of the workforce or increase income in primary care to the point that it is competitive with specialty care, it can improve access to care. [2] The findings for patients are more ambiguous. Patients receive more time and attention, and while it is not measured in the study, the frictions of waiting and appropriate referral are reduced. However, concierge medicine does not appear to reduce these frictions for people in worse health and those living in lower-income areas, exacerbating disparities already present. Additionally, with fewer patients per physician, concierge care shifts more patients into already stressed practices. Concierge medicine offers a tantalizing promise of premium health care service. For those who can afford it, the benefits of immediate access and personalized care are apparent. However, the model raises significant concerns about equity in providing care to those most in medical need. The real question is whether this exclusive club can coexist with a system that should strive for both efficiency and fairness. Charles Dinerstein is a surgeon. Putting one foot in front of the other: Mary Cody on how the magic of walking the Camino draws her back time and time again I first discovered the magic and mysticism of the Camino in 2012 and over the years I find myself drawn back there time and time again and I am always happy to return there. There is something humbling and satisfying about packing a small bag and carrying it on your back with only the bare necessities (the less, the better) and walking from morning until evening, day after day. The simple repetition is a powerful tonic for the mind, body and soul and there is no doubt that it brings healing to many people. The Camino is an ancient pilgrim path and is also known as The Way of St James which stretches over 750 kilometres across the north of Spain. The most popular starting point is St Jean Pied de Port in the Basque region of France. The first day or two of walking is a baptism of fire of sorts as you hike over the Pyrenees with the highest point at Col de Lepoeder at 1,450 metres, some 409 metres higher than Carrauntoohill (Irelands highest peak). The physical feat and intoxicating natural beauty of this area is a potent antidote for most of lifes ailments or worries. After that first few days of walking and enduring and enjoying you feel and know you have arrived on the Camino. Even a short stint feels like a positive reboot offering fresh and new perspectives to contemplate as you put one foot in front of the other. At the beginning, when I first started to come out to do various stages of the Camino, I did not refer to my time out there as being on a pilgrimage but over the years everytime I venture back out there it feels more and more like one to me. Maybe it is that I am getting older, that the spiritual side to this experience seems more real to me than before. There is something special and sacred about being by yourself, walking through wild countryside with only birdsong and the elements for company most of the time. However there are challenges, there are physical pressures, from blisters to sore limbs and general fatigue from walking 25 to 30 kilometres day after day, to missed turnoffs leading to lengthy detours, sometimes at the end of the walking day, teaching you the importance of paying attention. Then there are the people from all over the world and all walks of life who are searching for solace or seeking to push themselves to their physical limits. Each night most pilgrims stay in often basic hostels and share in a communal meal and while the camaderie can be fun, tolerance is key, people can challenge your beliefs or irk you but knowing that we are walking the same path and may meet again means that there is an unspoken understanding that people are kind to each other. Over the years I have walked on the Camino with many people, some for a short while and others for days or even weeks. Nowadays I cherish time walking alone and enjoy the company of others during the shared pilgrims meal in the hostels each evening. The benefits of nature and walking are well-established so it makes perfect sense that walking the Camino provides a welcome respite from the busyness of daily life. What becomes apparent within days of returning to the simple routine of walk, eat, sleep, repeat is that this way of living in some ways feels very real, it is in essence what humans have done since time began. There are so many lessons to be learned from living in this way, how very little we need and the less we literally carry with us the more liberated and free we become, the importance of kindness and not judging others and most importantly to take care and be kind to yourself. At a time of turmoil across the world where more and more people are becoming polarised it feels like returning to simple values is a wise way to live. Walking the Camino shows us how to live and how joy and peace often emanates from tough times and suffering and how we should strive not to judge others and to kinder to each other and ourselves. There is no giving up when the path stretches out in front of you and the only way to reach your destination is to often slowly put one foot in front of the other and to keep going and who knows what joy and beauty you might encounter along the way. Xi Story: The magic key to China's success Xinhua) 08:05, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- On December 18, 2018, attendees at a grand gathering commemorating the 40th anniversary of the launch of China's reform and opening up were all moved by a simple, heartfelt gesture by President Xi Jinping. Xi, sitting in the first row on the rostrum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, stood up, turned around and clapped his hands, congratulating the representatives in the back rows who were awarded for their outstanding contributions to the reform and opening up, as they were presented with flowers. Inspired by Xi, the rest of the attendees at the ceremony gave the awardees a standing ovation. Among the awardees was Yan Junchang, then a 77-year-old farmer from Xiaogang Village of Anhui Province, dubbed the cradle of China's rural reform. In 1978, Yan and his fellow villagers took risks in secretly signing an agreement to contract collective land to individual households. The household contract responsibility system that was derived from Xiaogang's pioneering initiative was spread across the country in a few years and fueled farmers' enthusiasm for agricultural production. Presenting an award to Yan at the ceremony, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, held Yan's hand and said cordially: "Take care." The 2018 event was the first of its kind since China established Party and state systems of awards and honors. Unlike previous awarding ceremonies, representatives of the awardees were seated on the rostrum, instead of under it. Yan was deeply impressed by the event's unusual arrangements. "We had the household contract just to make a living, but years later we are inspired by the value the country places on us," he said. A reformer himself, Xi is no stranger to Anhui and rural reform. In 1978, when he was studying at the prestigious Tsinghua University, Xi conducted on-site research into the province's household contract responsibility system. He filled an entire notebook with notes, and kept that notebook for many years. In April 2016, during an inspection trip in Anhui, Xi paid a visit to Xiaogang and dropped by the former site where the villagers had signed the land-contracting agreement with their fingerprints. He said that what they did in 1978 put their lives and possessions at risk, but today it is cherished as a hallmark of China's reform. On the same day, Xi chaired a symposium in the village, where he discussed rural reform with local officials and villagers of Xiaogang. He stressed dividing farmers' contracted land-use right into contract right and management right, a measure deemed as another major institutional innovation in rural reform. "The remarks made by General Secretary Xi resonate with us," recalled villager Yan Jinchang, another initiator of the household contracts who participated in that symposium. Over the years, Xi has made an array of remarks emphasizing the importance of reform and opening up. "Socialism cannot make progress without reform and opening up," Xi said at a meeting in 1987, when serving as vice mayor of Xiamen, a special economic zone in east China's Fujian Province. After assuming the Party's top post in 2012, Xi conducted his first domestic inspection in Guangdong, a province at the forefront of the country's reform and opening up. He laid a flower basket beneath the bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening-up, in a park in Shenzhen, declaring a firm commitment to reform: "Reform will not stop, and opening-up will not cease!" At the 2018 gathering in Beijing, Xi said that reform and opening up is "a path that must be taken to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics." He has matched his words with actions, placing great weight on reform throughout his political career. Among his numerous reform initiatives is the one concerning collective forest tenure. He led this reform after he became the governor of Fujian. This initiative was later expanded nationwide and is known as another revolutionary step for China's rural areas after the household contract responsibility system. The third plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee, convened in 2013 under Xi's leadership, ushered in an era of comprehensively deepening reform. Over the past decade, more than 2,000 reform measures have been implemented, enabling the country to eliminate extreme poverty, promote integrated urban-rural development, fight corruption, support businesses, boost innovation, and push forward a "green revolution." Under the leadership of Xi, China has also become increasingly integrated with the rest of the world by making tenacious efforts to push for high-level institutional opening up, including the launch of negative lists for foreign investment and the promulgation of the Foreign Investment Law. Thanks to these measures, tremendous changes have taken place across the country. Take Xiaogang for instance. In 2023, the village's collective economic income reached 14.2 million yuan (about 2 million U.S. dollars). Villagers' per capita disposable income rose from 10,200 yuan in 2012 to 34,900 yuan in 2023. In retrospect, Yan Junchang said that for him, the life he is living today is beyond his wildest dreams. "This fully proves that the reform and opening up policy is the right way forward." (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) The Gum Litter Taskforce (GLT) took to the streets of Kilkenny today as a part of its summer roadshow. The interactive Roadshow works with local authorities and communities across the country to carry out fun and engaging education and awareness initiatives that demonstrate the proper means of gum disposal and raise awareness of the environmental and fiscal impacts of gum litter. Now in its seventeenth year, the campaign is a collaboration between Food Drink Ireland, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, the chewing gum industry, and local authorities. One in seven people continue to drop their gum on the ground, according to new findings from the Gum Litter Taskforce (GLT), the national awareness campaign which aims to make gum litter an issue of the past. This accounts for 19% of men and 9% of women, showing a higher tendency in men to not properly dispose of their gum. READ MORE ECO NEWS HERE Attitudes towards gum litter continue to change, as children are educated on the negative environmental and fiscal impacts of gum litter. The GLT 2023 campaign had a positive impact on both attitudes and behaviour regarding gum disposal, with a 5% increase in those reporting always or usually putting their chewed gum in the bin, bringing the figure to a record high of 92%. The latest results of the National Litter Pollution Monitoring report (2022) also reflect this behavioural change, showing a continuous decline of percentage of gum as a proportion of litter at 8.6%. The GLT research also found that the biggest deterrent of gum litter is peer pressure, however one in four state they have changed their behaviour as a result of the educational messaging from the Bin-it campaign. The findings highlight the continued impact of the GLT, a joint initiative of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, Food Drink Ireland, and the chewing gum industry, which has played a key role in promoting proper gum litter disposal, since its launch in 2007. Now in its 17th year, the GLT campaign travels across the country, working with local authorities to host its Summer Roadshow, which promotes responsible gum disposal by highlighting the environmental impacts of gum and general litter. This is supplemented by the Bin It! school roadshow and a social media campaign to target 1624-year-olds. A further positive impact of the campaign is evident from the 16% of young people who reported having stopped the habit of dropping or spitting gum recently post campaign. Welcoming the Roadshow to Kilkenny, Mayor of Kilkenny Andrew McGuinness said: Kilkenny is a popular and attractive destination for tourists all over the world with over 1 million people visiting each year. It has a unique blend of history, culture and natural beauty to offer. As Mayor of Kilkenny, and as a resident myself, I want to stress the importance of keeping our streets and public spaces clean and free of litter. Gum litter is a particular problem that not only harms our environment, but it also badly impacts the appearance of our beautiful city. That is why I fully support efforts to reduce gum litter and promote proper disposal of it. We all have a part to play and in working together, we can make sure that we create a cleaner, healthier and attractive destination not only to visit, but to live and work. Cathaoirleach Mick McCarthy added: "We are extremely proud of our city and county here in Kilkenny. We recently retained our position of fourth out of 40 cities and town in the Irish Businesses Against Litter (IBAL) survey which demonstrates our continued hard work and commitment to keeping our streets and public areas litter free. A clean environment which is chewing gum free and litter free, not only makes Kilkenny a more attractive place, it creates a sense of civic pride and responsibility". Gum Litter Taskforce Executive, Avril Donlon of Food Drink Ireland said: We are delighted to launch the 2024 Gum Litter Taskforce campaign, with the support of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, today in Dublin. The results of the campaign are evident, and we are thrilled that 1 in 4 people state the GLT campaign as the reason for deterring them from littering gum. Last year we delivered significant results, with a record number of schools participating in the Bin It! Education programme, and we really look forward to what the 2024 campaign has in store. Katrine Grytter, Corporate Affairs Director, Mars Wrigley Northern Europe and Ireland said: We are very proud of the continued success of Gum Litter Taskforce campaign at Mars Wrigley and delighted with the continued support from the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications and Food Drink Ireland. The campaign helps to teach younger generations about the negative impacts of gum and other litter and promotes an eco-conscious mindset. We look forward to the continued success of GLT campaign and its supporting bodies in 2024. This years campaign will see representatives from the Gum Litter Taskforce working with local authorities and communities to carry out education and awareness initiatives that demonstrate the proper means of gum disposal and raise awareness of the environmental and fiscal impacts of improper disposal. Then, in September, the Gum Litter Taskforces Bin It! education programme will travel across the country and deliver 60 performances a year to primary and secondary schools nationwide, with the ambition to visit 180 schools by 2025. This is in addition to useful lesson plan material that has been made available to almost 730 schools across Ireland. Hollywood A-lister Kevin Costner is one of many celebrities whose ancestors hail from Ireland, in particular, Co Kilkenny. As the film legend presented his newest directorial masterpiece Horizon: An American Saga to audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in May - and in local cinemas now - we take a look at his Irish roots, and how he ended up as one of the greatest legends of the silver screen. Michael Costner, Kevin's great-great grandfather was born in Graignamanagh in Kilkenny in 1855 before his family emigrated to the United States as a result of the Great Famine, that caused widespread devastation across the country from 1845 to 1852. Settling in California, Michael Costner eventually married and raised a family, including his son William, who would be Kevin's grandfather. William instilled a love of Ireland and Irish heritage into his grandson, and never forgot where his family came from. William was a successful businessman in California, but his connections to the Emerald Isle remained strong, leading him to visit Ireland on occasion and passing on his love for the country to his family, including Kevin. Kevin has also retained a love for Ireland, and spoke of his connection to the country on one of his many visits. In an interview with the Irish Times back in 2016, Costner said, "I have a lot of friends in Ireland, and I feel a connection to the people and the landscape. "I love the way the country has preserved its history and traditions, and I always feel at home when I'm there. During his visits, Costner went to several historic sights around the country including The Rock of Cashel in Tipperary and Glendalough in Co Wicklow. He even stayed in West Cork researching the life of Michael Collins for a potential film project, adding to the love he shared, just like his grandfather, for Irish history. "I wanted to make the Michael Collins story, I still do", Costner said in an interview with Joe.ie in 2020. "I know it was made by another director", referring to the classic biopic Neil Jordan directed in 1996 with Liam Neeson playing the role of Michael Collins, "but that's not the story I was going to make2, he said. "I love the epic notion of Michael Collins. I'd still like to make that movie someday", he added, "I found him to be an incredible person that was compromised by politics. "His story is coming up more and more now. He was a dynamic person that was caught in politics. "For me, Michael Collins is a large reason why I lived in Ireland." Reflecting on the would-be film project, which was written by Irish writer Eoghan Harris, that would surely cement Costner's place in Ireland, he said, "There was a final line in the script that said 'God Ireland, I love you' and that was his final line in it. "While it is a fictitious line in the movie, I think it encapsulated who he was. That always affected me. "I thought the script from Eoghan Harris was just superior, It was an epic. It was like a real Lawrence of Arabia look at Collins." Kilkenny Sinn Fein TD, Kathleen Funchion has addressed Dail Eireann for the final time before assuming a role as an MEP for the Ireland South constituency in the European Parliament next week. The TD who has represented the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency since 2016 joins Independent Michael McNamara and Fianna Fails Cynthia Ni Mhurchu in Europe representing an area which comprises of ten counties including Kilkenny. "For the past eight years I've had the honour and the privilege of representing that (Carlow-Kilkenny) constituency and it's been a real honour," Deputy Funchion said. "Sometimes that word is overused and sometimes it sounds a bit cliched but it genuinely has been and as a lot of people who would know me well know, I never imagined I would end up in this chamber or the council chamber and certainly not having the huge honour that lies ahead in becoming a member of the European Parliament," she added. "I want to thank everybody who have always been there the people who support us and vote for us, the people who campaign, families, friends, in this role as we all know regardless of what party you are or independent you need a support structure in place," the Kilkenny TD and recently elected MEP stated. The Sinn Fein TD also recalled some of our highlights and achievements while a member of Dail Eireann. "The one that always stands out for me is the Repeal the Eighth Referendum. I will never forget being in the count centre in Kilkenny on May 26 in 2018 when the results were announced and for me it was one of the greatest I've ever had the opportunity to be involved," commented Ms Funchion, noting she was the only TD in Carlow-Kilkenny supporting a yes vote at the time. The former Kilkenny Borough Council and County Council representative also reflected positively on her work in the areas of children and disabilities. "I want to mention the area of disabilities, it's always been a passion of mine and in 2019 we passed a motion here unanimously that I put forward in relation to setting up an autism committee and we actually that come to fruition in this past Dail term and it has made huge inroads in relation to us talking about having an autism strategy which is really important," she added. FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE "I really thoroughly enjoyed chairing the children's committee, a fantastic committee, really great members, everyone worked really well together and I particularly think of all the survivors that we dealt with when it came to the mother & baby institutions and how they came before us and told us their stories. Not an easy thing to do and it was during Covid as well which made it extremely difficult for people." "I'm very much looking forward to getting into the role next week and representing the full ten counties of Ireland South to the best of my ability," Ms Funchion concluded. Ireland is to ban the XL bully breed following the death of a woman in an attack involving one of the dogs. It will be illegal to import, breed or re-sell XL bullies from October 1, while a ban on ownership of the dogs will come into force from February 1. In June, two members of An Gardai Siochana in Kilkenny and The Dog Warden responded to an incident in the early hours of Tuesday morning where two XL Bullys were found wandering in the Castlecomer area and warned local dog owners that they must fulfill their 'obligations'. "There are many legal obligations that come with dog ownership. These include microchipping, keeping under effective control in a public place, licensing, fouling and last but not least their welfare," a post to the Kilkenny Gardai social media account read following the incident. READ MORE: Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys said she was making the decision in order to protect public safety. "With recent and indeed tragic news and publicity, the control of dogs is once again in the media both here and further afield. One possible byproduct of this is that many owners of Restricted breeds including XL Bullys are surrendering them to shelters or in some cases 'dumping' them. This is illegal and indeed reprehensible," the statement added. Gardai are reminding the public that restricted breeds must wear a muzzle in a public place and be under the control of someone 16 years or older, physically capable of controlling the animal and a lead of 6ft or less. FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE Current owners of XL bullies will be required to neuter their dogs to obtain a certificate of exemption between those two dates in order to keep them. Once the legislation is enacted, any person in breach of the regulations shall be guilty of an offence and be liable to a fine of up to 2,500 euros, up to three months in prison, or both. Ireland is to ban the XL bully breed following the death of a woman in an attack involving one of the dogs. It will be illegal to import, breed or re-sell XL bullies from October 1, while a ban on ownership of the dogs will come into force from February 1. Current owners of XL bullies will be required to neuter their dogs to obtain a certificate of exemption between those two dates in order to keep them. Once the legislation is enacted, any person in breach of the regulations shall be guilty of an offence and be liable to a fine of up to 2,500 euros, up to three months in prison, or both. The ban was announced by the Minister for Rural and Community Development on Friday. It follows a number of horrific attacks involving XL bullies, including the death of Nicole Morey in Limerick last month and an incident in which a nine-year-old boy was left with serious facial injuries in Co Wexford. Minister Heather Humphreys said she was making the decision in order to protect public safety. The Department said exemption certificates will be subject to strict criteria, including a requirement for licensing, microchipping and neutering. From February, any owner not compliant with the new regulations will have their dog seized and euthanised. Similar measures have been recently announced in both the UK and Northern Ireland. Ms Humphreys said: I know a lot of people will not agree with this decision. Im a dog owner myself and I know people love their dogs. We must be mindful however that no dogs life is worth more than human life. Ultimately that is what guided me in making this decision. The XL bully was responsible for the horrific attack on Alejandro Mizsan in Wexford last year and it was also the breed which killed a young woman in Limerick recently. If we do not take action now the number of these dogs in the country will grow and my fear is that these attacks will become more frequent. It is my strong view that Ireland should not be out of step with neighbouring jurisdictions in Northern Ireland and the UK on this matter. The Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) said it would wait to see how the changes would work in practical terms, but warned: As a charity our fears are that people will panic and abandon their pets or look at already full rescue centres to rehome them. The Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO) is encouragingcommunity groups in Kilkenny to apply under the Water Heritage Day Grants Scheme 2024 to celebrate Water Heritage Day on Sunday, August 25. LAWPRO is a national shared service working on behalf of the 31 local authorities in Ireland coordinating efforts to achieve good water quality across the country. To make an application see: LAWPRO Small Grants and Events Scheme 2024 | Online Consultation Portal of the Waters and Communities Office Speaking about the 30,000 grants scheme Anthony Coleman, Director of Services at LAWPRO said: We are delighted to once again invite community groups in Kilkenny to organise a water related event for Heritage Week. The theme of Heritage Week 2024 is Connections, Routes and Networks, and our rivers play a big part in the connectivity of our island. In historic times they were networks for movement, trading and exploration. READ MORE ON LAWPRO Water Heritage Day gives communities a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our heritage through water whether it be hosting a river safari, a talk at the riverside or launching a booklet on a local waterway there are ample ways to get involved. You are asked to consult with your local Community Water Officer in advance of making an application. Their contact details are on our website here: Communities Team - Local Authority Water Programme (lawaters.ie). The deadline for making an application is Tuesday, 16th of July 2024. Virginia Teehan, CEO of the Heritage Council welcomes LAWPROs grant programme. READ MORE LOCAL NEWS Water Heritage Day continues to be a significant highlight during National Heritage Week every year, showcasing the creative and ingenious ways communities celebrate the impact of canals, lakes, rivers, and the sea on our local heritage," she said. "This year, particularly given the theme of Connections, Routes, and Networks, I am excited to see what kinds of events we see for Water Heritage Day. This LAWPRO grant scheme will enable people to explore and highlight our water-based connections, emphasising how vital they are to our natural heritage. It's a wonderful opportunity for event organisers to avail of supports that will encourage them to dive into our shared history and appreciate the incredible resource our waters provide." LAWPRO works in partnership with the Heritage Council, and to run a Heritage Week event you are encouraged to register your event on their website here: www.heritageweek.ie/get-involved/organise-an-event George Clooney writes: Im a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that. Im proud of what my party represents and what it stands for. As part of my participation in the democratic process and in support of my chosen candidate, I have led some of the biggest fund-raisers in my partys history. Barack Obama in 2012. Hillary Clinton in 2016. Joe Biden in 2020. Last month I co-hosted the single largest fund-raisersupporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Bidens re-election. I say all of this only to express how much I believe in this process and how profound I think this moment is. 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. This is speaking truth to power. He is saying the Joe Biden on the debate wasnt an aberration. It is the Joe Biden who is now 81, and wants to stay President until he is 86. Clooney is one of their most prolific fundraisers and of course an iconic screen star. His op ed is having far more impact than a mere member of Congress or Senator would have. 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, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question. A strategy of gaslighting 51 million people wont work. 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 who Ive spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly. I think it is a matter of when, not if, Biden withdraws. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr By Lee Kyung-min Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Rhee Chang-yong will attend the annual meeting of central bank leaders in the East Asia and Pacific region, scheduled to kick off on Sunday, the BOK announced, Friday. The three-day conference will be held in Penang, Malaysia. During the 29th Executives' Meeting of East Asia and Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP), Rhee will take part in discussions of recent economic and financial trends, as well as explore strategies for intra-country currency settlements related to trade and investment. Also high on the agenda are reviews of EMEAP subsidiaries, including the Monetary and Financial Stability Committee (MFSC) and its five working bodies. Their fields of specialty include financial markets, payments and settlements and banking supervision. A group of IT directors and financial institution planning research groups will hold a meeting. The financial supervisory authorities of five countries Korea, China, Japan, Australia and Indonesia will join the meeting, as part of the BOK's efforts to lead an integrated discussion on developments in the global financial system. The invitation was extended to the five countries in July 2011 when Korea's central bank chaired the 16th EMEAP on Jeju Island. Rhee will attend a meeting with EMEAP participants and supervisory authorities to discuss the challenges of and strategies for regulating and supervising financial innovation amid digitization, as well as the implications of new global regulations for regional financial conditions. EMEAP was established in 1991 to fortify cooperation and information sharing among central banks in the East Asia and Pacific region. Current 11 members are Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. One of the three suspects extradited from Cambodia earlier this week attended a court hearing on Friday on an arrest warrant sought for him over the murder of a Korean tourist in Pattaya, Thailand. The 27-year-old was extradited Wednesday on charges of killing a Korean traveler in his 30s and abandoning his body in Pattaya in early May in collusion with two other Koreans. He 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. Police said the man remained tight-lipped during the investigation, citing the right to refuse to make a statement. Upon arriving at a court in the southeastern city of Changwon, he did not answer questions from reporters. The court is expected to decide whether to issue the arrest warrant later Friday. (Yonhap) Insurers, card firms remain at odds over payment commission fee rate By Jun Ji-hye Credit cards are an everyday life in the digital era, but the insurance industry lags behind as most insurance firms do not accept credit card payments, citing high credit card fees as a reason. This practice has sparked complaints from customers, especially from younger generations who are more comfortable using digital forms of payment rather than cash transactions. Attention is now focused on whether a bill aimed at obliging insurers to accept credit card payments can be passed at the 22nd National Assembly, which commenced at the end of May. Under the current law, insurance companies are not obliged to accept credit card payment for insurance premiums, and many firms have been reluctant to allow their customers to pay premiums via card. According to the Korea Life Insurance Association, the ratio of the life insurance premium paid through credit cards stood only at 3.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter. When it comes to non-life insurance premiums, the figure was tallied at 30.5 percent, but car insurance, which has a relatively short window of payment annually, accounted for the highest percentage of payments. According to industry officials, Hanwha Life Insurance and Kyobo Life Insurance do not accept credit card payments at all, while Samsung Life Insurance accepts payments only from Samsung Card. We are well aware of customer complaints over the unavailability of credit card payments, and we know this unavailability restricts customers rights and interests to some extent. But it cannot be helped under the current payment commission rate, a Seoul-based insurance company official said. The current commission rate is around 2 percent, while insurers claim that the figure should be lowered to around 1 percent. This has caused years-long conflict between insurers and credit card businesses, as the latter say that the 1-percent range is more than they can shoulder. The credit card industry also points to equity and fairness issues, saying that it is inappropriate to apply the lower commission rate only for the insurance industry. Amid differing opinions from various stakeholders, relevant bills designed to mandate the acceptance of credit card payments have been consistently submitted to the Assembly over the last 10 years, but to no avail. As the 22nd Assembly began its tenure recently, Rep. Lee Jung-mun of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea also submitted the bill to revise the Insurance Business Act. This bill is aimed at penalizing insurers that refuse to accept credit card payments. It remains to be seen whether the bill will be able to get parliamentary approval this time. But many in the credit card industry said that there is only a slim chance as it is difficult to adjust the commission rate system. While the bill remains stalled, customer inconvenience will continue to grow, an official from one of the major credit card companies said. The minimum wage for next year was set at 10,030 won ($7.30) per hour Friday, marking the first time the compulsory hourly minimum wage has surpassed the 10,000 won level. The rate reached during the 11th plenary meeting of the Minimum Wage Commission marks an increase of 170 won, or 1.7 percent, from this year's 9,860 won. The increase rate is the second lowest on record. The 2025 hourly wage translates to 2.1 million won per month, based on a 40-hour workweek. The management side and a majority of the public interest members adopted the 10,030 won minimum wage in a vote after some labor representatives of the commission walked out, protesting that the increase was too low. Labor members had initially proposed 12,600 won as the 2025 minimum wage, while management had suggested a freeze. The 2025 minimum wage marks the first time it has exceeded 10,000 won since Korea introduced the minimum wage system in 1988. The rate surpassed the 5,000 won mark in 2014. The rate of increase at 1.7 is the smallest since the 1.5 percent rise in 2021. According to data from Statistics Korea, the national statistics agency, about 3 million workers are estimated to be affected by next year's minimum wage. After the commission submits its determination of the latest minimum wage, the labor ministry is required to publicly pronounce it by Aug. 5 for it to take effect at the beginning of 2025. Either the labor or the management side can submit a formal objection to the new minimum wage. The labor ministry will then assess whether the objection is reasonable and, if deemed valid, ask the commission to reconsider the rate. But no such reconsideration has taken place so far. Protesting labor members associated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the more militant of the country's two biggest umbrella unions, strongly denounced the result and said they cannot accept it. Of the nine labor members, four affiliated with the KCTU boycotted the vote, while the remaining five and four of the nine public interest members were estimated to have voted in favor of another 10,120 won proposal that was put to a vote alongside the 10,030 proposal. (Yonhap) The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang has hosted a banquet to mark the 63rd anniversary of the signing of a bilateral treaty, North Korea's state media reported Friday, amid North Korea's deepening ties with Russia. Participants in Thursday's event included China's top envoy in Pyongyang, Wang Yajun, and Kim Sung-chan, the president of Kim Il-sung University, and other officials, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a brief dispatch. No senior North Korean officials attended the banquet, compared with last year when Kang Yun-sok, vice chairman of North Korea's standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, attended an anniversary banquet hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang. That could be seen as an indication of the North moving increasingly closer to Russia and away from China at a time when Pyongyang and Moscow have been significantly bolstering military cooperation since last month's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "While China may definitely be uncomfortable with the recent closer ties between Russia and North Korea, opinions are still divided among experts on whether they directly influenced such attendance," said Hyun Seung-soo, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification. Hyun said such attendance could signal somewhat different relations between Pyongyang and Beijing, while others say there is still strong bilateral trust between the two. China is North Korea's most important trading partner, giving Beijing significant leverage over Pyongyang. The two countries signed the treaty on July 11, 1961, under which they are obliged to provide military and other assistance to each other, a deal seen as the bedrock of their strong alliance for decades. (Yonhap) By Kwak Yeon-soo First lady Kim Keon Hee condemned the widespread human rights abuses in North Korea during a meeting with defectors and human rights activists at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Kim, who accompanied President Yoon Suk Yeol on his official trip to Washington to attend the 2024 NATO summit, met with defectors for the second consecutive year to draw attention to human rights violations in the reclusive state. Recent reports claim that North Korea publicly executed about 30 middle school students for watching South Korean dramas. This highlights the cruel reality of North Korea, Kim said. She emphasized that the Yoon administration is committed to improving the human rights situation of the North Korean people more than any previous administration. We will never turn a blind eye to the suffering of the North Korean people, Kim said. Lets work together with non-governmental organizations and civic activists in the international community to raise awareness and amplify the voices of North Korean escapees to improve human rights situation in North Korea. Kim held talks with Cindy Warmbier, mother of Otto Warmbier who died in 2017 after being imprisoned in North Korea for more than a year for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster during his trip to Pyongyang. She also met North Korean human rights activist Dr. Suzanne Scholte and several defectors including Ji Hanna, who shared her story of being sent to a political prison camp for studying the Bible, and another defector surnamed Kim, who fled by sea with his entire family last year. After listening to defectors about their ordeals, the first lady said they are a beacon of hope to people seeking freedom and their bravery could change North Korea in the future. Established in 1983, the NED is a non-profit organization that has been supporting North Korean defectors as part of its efforts to spread democratic values around the world. A day prior, Kim participated in a 2024 NATO Summit Spousal Program Event. On Monday, she visited the Korean Christian Church founded in 1918 by Syngman Rhee in Honolulu and thanked overseas Koreans in Hawaii for their contribution to the South Korea-U.S. alliance. The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Friday launched a task force to prevent activists in South Korea from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets to North Korea. The DPK will also propose a bill that bans the distribution of leaflets in a measure intended to prevent provoking the North after it sent thousands of trash-carrying balloons to the South since late May. "(The government and the ruling party) are hiding behind the rhetoric of freedom of expression while ignoring the anxiety and fear felt by residents in the border areas and the public," DPK floor leader Park Chan-dae said during a ceremony at the National Assembly celebrating the launch of the group. Lawmakers in the relevant standing committees will "actively support" measures that ban the "harmful and useless" distribution of leaflets, he added. Rep. Yoon Hu-duk, head of the task force, also said he will come up with all possible measures to prevent activists from sending the leaflets at the scene. For years, North Korean defectors in South Korea and conservative activists have sent to the North balloons carrying leaflets critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed Thursday to strengthen cooperation with the United States, Japan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to address deepening military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which he called a "collusion of convenience." Yoon made the remarks during a NATO public forum in Washington amid growing concerns over the security implications of a growing military alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang. He was in the U.S. capital to attend a NATO summit. "The South Korean government will continue to strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance and also Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation and the partnership with NATO to thwart and neutralize illicit Russia-North Korea military and economic cooperation," he said in remarks interpreted into English. "We will also closely analyze the potential impact of Russia-North Korea cooperation on the security of our country and international peace and we will take steps to devise corresponding countermeasures," he added. Yoon described the Moscow-Pyongyang alignment as a "collusion of convenience driven by their own pressing needs." "Russia wants North Korea to actively engage in anti-American, anti-Western rhetoric while serving as its arsenal," he said. "North Korea hopes that Russia will provide it with advanced military technology and energy resources and also help them weaken the monitoring of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions." Yoon was apparently referring to Russia's veto in March of a UNSC resolution whose passage would have extended the mandate of a U.N. expert panel monitoring the enforcement of anti-Pyongyang sanctions. In his keynote speech, Yoon criticized "new and challenging forces" that reject an "international order based on universal values and norms." He did not specify who those forces are. "Autocratic regimes maintain their power by restricting freedoms of their own citizens and subjecting them to constant surveillance. The collusion of those who advocate for altering the status quo through force directly challenges the peace and prosperity established by the free world," he said. "At this moment, the security of both Europe and Asia is a simultaneously under threat. This is why IP4 countries have attended the NATO summit for the third consecutive year." IP4 refers to NATO's four Indo-Pacific partners South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He stressed that "freedom is never given for free." "The only way to block and thwart the attempt to change the status quo through a coercion is for our allies and friends to stand together and united with overwhelming strength." (Yonhap) By Kim Hyun-bin Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon met with Japanese Ambassador to Korea Koichi Mizushima to discuss mutual exchange and cooperation between Busan and Japan, Thursday. The meeting, which took place at Busan City Hall, was aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and exploring new avenues for collaboration. The ambassador was in Busan for the first time to attend the "US-ROK-JAPAN Trilateral Global Leadership Youth Summit 2024." "I hope this event will deepen the bond between the two countries and serve as a great opportunity for young people to grow into global leaders," Park said, highlighting the recovery of tourism in Busan, noting that the number of visitors has returned to about 67 percent of pre-COVID levels. Park emphasized the need for the embassy's assistance in attracting more Japanese tourists and actively promoting exchanges between Busan and Japan. Mizushima responded positively, acknowledging the significance of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan. "Next year marks a milestone for our countries, and since Busan is a city with deep ties to Japan, let's cooperate even more closely," Mizushima said. President Yoon Suk Yeol returned home Friday from his five-day trip to the United States that was focused on bolstering security against rising threats posed by deepening military ties between North Korea and Russia. Yoon attended the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday as South Korea was invited to the summit for the third consecutive year as one of four Indo-Pacific partners alongside Japan, Australia and New Zealand. During the main session and a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings, Yoon expressed concerns over North Korea's forging of a sweeping mutual defense pact with Russia last month, stressing the interlinked security between Europe and Asia. On Thursday, Yoon held a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the summit to adopt a statement on updating the guidelines for the Nuclear Consultative Group, which outlines the allies' planning and coordination of a joint nuclear response in case of North Korea's nuclear attacks. Ahead of the summit, Yoon visited Hawaii on Monday and Tuesday to meet U.S. military commanders at the Indo-Pacific Command, which oversees the U.S. Forces Korea and other key strategic posts in the Indo-Pacific region. (Yonhap) A senior South Korean military official has visited the U.S. unit in charge of the country's nuclear arsenal to discuss the allies' guidelines for nuclear deterrence and operations, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Friday. Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung, the JCS' chief director of strategic planning, made the two-day visit to the U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska from Tuesday, amid joint efforts to better deter evolving North Korean nuclear threats. On Thursday, the two countries signed the guidelines document designed to provide the principles to strengthen the allies' deterrence efforts in an integrated manner, after completing its review last month. During the visit, Jin held talks on ways to integrate South Korea's advanced conventional forces with U.S. nuclear operations in line with the guidelines, according to the JCS. The visit came ahead of South Korea's launch of its own "strategic command" later this year. Jin is tasked with setting up the command, which will oversee operations of key military assets, such as ballistic missile submarines. The JCS said it expects deterrence against North Korean nuclear threats to be "greatly" enhanced through the nuclear operations guidelines and the planned launch of the new command. (Yonhap) By Lee Hyo-jin South Korea and the United States have signed a landmark agreement to integrate Seoul's conventional forces with U.S. nuclear capabilities, marking a significant enhancement in their security alliance in response to North Korea's escalating nuclear threats. The document, titled "Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula," was signed by senior defense officials of both nations in Washington, Thursday (local time), shortly before a summit between President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden, held on the sidelines of the annual NATO summit. This marks the first time the two sides have formalized operational guidelines in a document stating that the U.S. may retaliate with nuclear weapons if North Korea employs nuclear arms against South Korea. "The Guidelines document provides crucial guidance to Alliance policy and military authorities in maintaining and bolstering a credible and effective nuclear deterrence policy and posture," read a joint statement issued by Yoon and Biden. It added, "President Biden reiterated the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence for South Korea, backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear. President Yoon highlighted that South Korea's full range of capabilities will significantly contribute to the Alliance's combined defense posture." The two leaders also hailed the progress of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) which was launched following the Washington Declaration in April 2023, saying that the NCG has facilitated joint nuclear and strategic planning with a focus on ensuring the continued safety and security of South Koreans, as well as U.S. troops deployed in the East Asian nation. "This marks the first explicit statement in a document that U.S. nuclear assets will be assigned to missions aimed at deterring and responding to North Korean nuclear threats," said First Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo. A South Korean senior defense official said on condition of anonymity that the new guidelines will notably increase the frequency and intensity of U.S. nuclear asset deployments to the Korean Peninsula. "Previously, U.S. extended deterrence was based solely on decisions and support by the U.S. Now, with the joint guidelines, the two countries have established a unified extended deterrence system," the official told reporters, Friday. "Now, both countries will jointly assess, operate, coordinate and conduct training related to U.S. nuclear operations," he said. The official declined to elaborate specifically on how the new guidelines will be reflected in future joint military exercises between South Korea and the U.S., citing the sensitivity of nuclear assets. The signing of the major military document between Seoul and Washington comes about a month after North Korea and Russia forged a military pact to offer mutual military assistance if either is attacked. During a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 19, the two sides upgraded their military ties to a de facto alliance level. The knife attacker of opposition leader Lee Jae-myung has appealed the 15-year prison term he received for the January stabbing in Busan that left Lee hospitalized, saying the punishment is too heavy. The Busan District Court sentenced the 67-year-old attacker, surnamed Kim, to 15 years in prison earlier this month, condemning his knife attack as a "serious attempt to undermine" the election system and representative democracy. Posing as a supporter asking for a signature, Kim approached the Democratic Party of Korea chair and stabbed him in the neck during Lee's visit to the southeastern port city of Busan on Jan. 2. He has since said he committed the attack to prevent Lee from becoming president. Lee was hospitalized for eight days for blood vessel reconstruction surgery and recovery. Kim and his lawyer submitted their respective appeals against the sentence to the Busan court on Thursday and Friday, arguing that the term is unfairly heavy. Prosecutors, who had demanded a 20-year prison term for Kim, have also filed an appeal against the sentence. (Yonhap) Prime Minister Han Duck-soo called Friday for preparing against summer season natural disasters "to the point it seems excessive." Han's remark came as record downpours drenched the country this week, leaving at least five people dead and forcing thousands to evacuate, especially in the southern regions. "Showers and heat waves are forecast to hit various parts of the nation alternately next week," he wrote on his Facebook page. "In order to minimize loss of lives, there is no other way than to prepare to the point it seems excessive." Han inspected a neighborhood with semi-basement apartments Thursday and learned about the installation of flood-prevention screens on their windows. He also visited a fire station to speak with emergency responders and learn about their operations. "As climate disasters have become routine, the government will do its best to protect the lives and safety of the people," he wrote. "I ask all public servants to attend to their duties with the attitude 'I am protecting my family.'" (Yonhap) Korea strongly protested Friday after Japan restated its territorial claims to Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as the foreign and defense ministries called in senior officials at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to lodge a complaint. The move came as the Japanese government adopted the 2024 defense white paper at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day, in which it reiterated the argument that Takeshima, the Japanese name for Dokdo, is part of its own territory and the issue over the territorial claims to the set of outcroppings "still remains unresolved." Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the two neighbors, as Tokyo continues to make the sovereignty claims in its policy papers, public statements and school textbooks. Korea maintains a small police detachment on the islets, effectively controlling them. Kim Sang-hoon, director general for Asian and Pacific affairs, called in Taisuke Mibae, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to protest against Tokyo continuing to make false claims about Dokdo. Earlier in the day, the defense ministry summoned a defense attache from the embassy to protest Japan's move and called for the immediate correction and future prevention of such actions. "We strongly protest against Japan's unjust claims to Dokdo, which is clearly our inherent territory historically, geographically and by international law, and we urge Japan to retract the statement immediately," Lim Soo-suk, foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a commentary. Korea will take stern action against any action by Japan in relation to Dokdo and Tokyo's claims to the islets do little to change the fact that it belongs to Korea, Lim said. Lim added that Japan also should realize that its Dokdo claims do not help efforts to move bilateral relations forward in a future-oriented manner. Last month, Korea's foreign ministry dismissed Japan's protest over Korea's routine maritime survey around the rocky islets. (Yonhap) The new commander of U.S. Space Forces Korea on Friday called for forging "greater ties" with South Korea in space as the allies seek to bolster their space-based capabilities against evolving North Korean threats. The two countries' militaries have stepped up efforts to bolster space-related operations, such as missile warning, to better deal with threats from the domain. The U.S. military launched U.S. Space Forces Korea in December 2022, while South Korea's Air Force upgraded its squadron-level space unit into the Space Operations Group last month. "It is important to continue to forge greater ties with the U.S. Space Force and the ROK in space," Col. John Patrick said during a change-of-command ceremony at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, referring to the acronym of the South's official name, the Republic of Korea. "It is critical that we move as one." Patrick last served as the director of the Space Operations Centre at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. (Yonhap) By KTimes Famous YouTuber Tzuyang is known to have consistently supported a Seoul orphanage for more than five years without interruption, even after being defrauded of more than 4 billion won ($3.1 million) by her former manager and ex-boyfriend. The total amount she has donated to Sangrok Orphanage in Gwanak District, Seoul, is around 200 million won. According to the orphanage, Tzuyang has been donating 3.15 million won, on average, every month since May 2019. Although she had no prior connection to the orphanage, she felt moved after seeing a donation request on their website. Boo Chung-ha, the orphanage's director, said in a phone interview with the Hankook Ilbo, "At that time, we had 29 children under our care, and the government support was insufficient. We posted a request for 3.15 million won on our website, and Tzuyang came to the orphanage and said, 'I will donate that amount every month.'" Over the following months, Tzuyang visited the orphanage with four companions, helping with cleaning and spending time with the children. She even invited famous chefs she knew through her broadcasts to cook meals for them. Boo added, "She quickly became close with the children, who would cling to her and ask her to play." Even during a three-month hiatus from broadcasting in 2020, due to a controversy over undisclosed sponsored content, Tzuyang continued to donate 1 million won each month. When it was revealed that several prominent YouTubers had been making paid promotional videos without proper disclosure, Tzuyang decided to take a break from the public eye amid the controversy. During this time, the children at the orphanage sent her letters of encouragement, to which Tzuyang personally replied. After returning to broadcasting, Tzuyang increased her monthly donation to 4.2 million won. Director regrets not knowing Tzuyang's struggles On Thursday, during a YouTube live broadcast, the famous "mukbang" (eating show) YouTuber revealed that she had been violently abused and financially exploitation by her ex-boyfriend over a period of four years. Boo expressed regret over not realizing how difficult Tzuyang's life had been despite knowing her for several years. "Tzuyang never showed any signs of distress, so I didn't notice. I hope those who tormented such an angelic person are properly punished," he said, seemingly unaware that legal proceedings were nullified due to the death of the alleged perpetrator. Netizens have also expressed sorrow that they failed to notice signs of abuse in Tzuyang's past videos. Many of her videos show what appear to be bruises on her arms that she could have incurred during the alleged abuse. There were frequent instances where she appeared on camera with bandages or patches. Some international subscribers even left concerned comments in English, asking if someone had grabbed her arm tightly and if everything was okay. The prosecution is currently investigating allegations that some "cyber wreckers" (YouTubers who profit from exposing negative issues) have blackmailed Tzuyang with threats of exposing her past. This article from the Hankook Ilbo, sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by generative AI and edited by staff of The Korea Times. Prosecutors on Friday raided two politicians close to former President Moon Jae-in on suspicion of interfering in the employment process of a former senior official of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office sent prosecutors and investigators to the houses of former presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min and former Land Minister Kim Hyun-mi and land ministry offices to secure evidence related to their business obstruction charges. Noh and Kim are suspected of exerting influence on CJ KIFT, a logistics affiliate of CJ Group, through land ministry officials to facilitate the appointments of two people, including Lee Jung-geun, a former deputy secretary-general of the DPK, in the company's advisory positions in 2020. Lee worked as a full-time adviser at CJ KIFT for a year starting in August 2020 at the recommendation of the land ministry after unsuccessfully running for the National Assembly earlier that year. CJ KIFT is a private company but has appointed people recommended by the land ministry as full-time advisers. The prosecution has widened the probe into Noh and Kim after detecting suspicions of their business obstruction in the process of investigating Lee's bribery case. Lee has been imprisoned after the Supreme Court confirmed her sentence of four years and two months on charges of bribery and political fund law violations late last year. Prosecutors are expected to summon Noh and Kim after analyzing materials seized in the raids. (Yonhap) A former chairman of the underwear manufacturer Ssangbangwool Group was sentenced to prison on Friday on charges including illegally remitting $8 million to North Korea in 2019 on behalf of the Gyeonggi provincial government while opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was governor. The scandal centers on allegations that Ssangbangwool illegally transferred the U.S. dollars to North Korea in 2019 as expenses for the Gyeonggi government's inter-Korean smart farms project as well as then Gyeonggi Gov. Lee's envisioned trip to North Korea. Prosecutors indicted Lee in June on charges including third-party bribery in connection with the scandal, one of several cases in which Lee is currently standing trial. Then Gyeonggi Vice Gov. Lee Hwa-young was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison last month as a regional court determined that some of the remittances to North Korea were illegal, a ruling expected to influence the trial of the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. Former Ssangbangwool Chairman Kim Seong-tae was accused of spearheading the remittance in return for favors from the Gyeonggi government in future business projects with North Korea. Kim was also charged with providing hundreds of millions of won in illegal political funds and bribes to the former vice Gyeonggi governor between 2018 and 2022, including corporate credit cards, a vehicle and others. The Suwon District Court on Friday sentenced Kim to two and a half years in prison, with an additional one-year prison term suspended for two years, issued separately on the illegal political funding charges. "By attempting inter-Korean projects without (the compulsory) approval from the unification minister, the remittance resulted in damage to inter-Korean projects that are supposed to be conducted transparently under government supervision," the court said. Kim is also highly culpable for "causing diplomatic and security problems by transferring a large sum of money to North Korea," the court added. (Yonhap) By Kwak Yeon-soo Han Dong-hoon, the former interim leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), is currently leading public opinion polls for the partys leadership role, even as he faces allegations of having ignored Telegram messages from first lady Kim Keon Hee earlier this year. Along with Han, five-term lawmaker Rep. Na Kyung-won, former Land Minister Won Hee-ryong and five-term lawmaker Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun are vying for the PPP chairmanship, which will be decided at a national convention on July 23. Gallup Korea surveyed 1,000 Korean adults from July 9 to 11 to gauge the popularity of candidates for the PPPs new chairperson, and 36 percent of the respondents picked Han as most preferred party leader, followed by Na at 17 percent, Won at 10 percent and Yoon at 7 percent. Over half of the PPP supporters said they plan to vote for Han as the next party chairman. The allegations regarding the first ladys text messages have emerged as the latest hot-button issue for PPP leadership contenders, who are intensifying their attacks on Han as his popularity continues to rise. Kim reportedly sent several messages to Han in January, offering to make a public apology for accepting a luxury handbag in 2022, which was causing problems for the PPP ahead of the April 10 general elections. Hans failure to respond to her messages is now criticized as a missed opportunity that could have potentially altered the election outcome. Won, Na and Yoon have escalated their criticism against Han, claiming that his failure to address the first ladys apology offer was a serious mistake that contributed to the PPPs overwhelming defeat in the April 10 parliamentary elections. The party now holds 108 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the PPPs election management committee issued warnings to Won and Han, saying both candidates should refrain from making ferocious attacks. The PPP hopefuls are scheduled to hold four more TV debates before the July 23 national convention. Rival parties clash over planned Assembly hearing on president's impeachment By Lee Hyo-jin President Yoon Suk Yeol faces a range of daunting issues at home as he wrapped up his trip to the annual NATO summit in Washington, Thursday (local time). The issues include the looming specter of a potential National Assembly impeachment hearing where his wife, Kim Keon Hee, has been called to testify. Yoon is also under increasing pressure from the rising infighting within the People Power Party (PPP) amid the ongoing leadership race. The conflict, ignited by the first ladys controversial text messages sent to Han Dong-hoon Yoons former right-hand man threatens to further complicate matters for the presidential couple. Earlier this week, the Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jung Chung-rae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), decided to hold two hearings on July 19 and 26 to discuss the impeachment of the president. The decision follows an online petition on the Assembly website calling for Yoon's impeachment for his policy blunders and ongoing controversies surrounding his wife. The petition has amassed around 1.4 million signatures as of Friday. The legislation committee has requested the first lady to testify at the second hearing, where the opposition lawmakers seek to scrutinize scandals surrounding her, including the alleged illegal acceptance of a Dior handbag from a Korean American pastor in 2022 and involvement in stock manipulation that occurred in 2009 and 2012. Several DPK members visited the presidential office, Friday, to express their discontent over the administrations uncooperative attitude toward the impeachment hearing. The lawmakers tried to deliver letters asking senior officials to attend the hearing as witnesses, but their efforts were blocked by security guards stationed at the entrance. The ruling party has declared the decision to hold the impeachment hearings unconstitutional, arguing that the motion was railroaded through by DPK members of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. On Friday, PPP lawmakers filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, seeking to have the hearing nullified. However, the PPPs unified effort to support the president might be compromised by growing internal tensions within the partys leadership race. Han, a prominent candidate for the PPPs leadership in the July 23 national convention, is embroiled in controversy over allegations that he deliberately overlooked text messages from the first lady. Last week, it was revealed that Kim sent five Telegram text messages to Han back in January while he was serving as the PPP's interim leader during the party's April 10 general election campaign. In those messages, Kim apologized for the controversies surrounding herself and expressed her willingness to issue a public apology. But Han did not respond to any of them. Some PPP members criticized Han's behavior, arguing that if the first lady had apologized at that time, it could have changed the course of the general elections, which saw the ruling party suffer a crushing defeat. Opposition parties have labeled Kim's text messages as interference in the party's internal affairs and a potential exertion of influence on state matters. Meanwhile, the president should also deal with the fallout from a veto decision he made earlier this week. On Tuesday, Yoon vetoed a special counsel probe bill seeking to investigate the death of Marine Corps Cpl. Chae Su-geun, who died during a search and rescue mission in July 2023. Yoon approved the veto electronically while visiting Hawaii before attending the NATO summit. The probe bill, pushed through by the opposition bloc, aims to investigate the government's alleged interference in the military's investigation into Chae's death. It also includes a sweeping investigation into senior presidential aides based on speculation that Yoon's office may have exerted pressure in the military's internal probe. This was the 15th parliament-passed bill vetoed by Yoon since he took office in May 2022. The DPK warned that the latest veto would be the "beginning of the collapse of the Yoon government," asserting that it goes against widespread public support for the bill. By Kim Chae-ri Ever wondered what lies behind the doors of HYBE, the K-pop powerhouse behind A-list stars including BTS and SEVENTEEN? Join POPKORN, the K-pop channel from The Korea Times, as we take you inside HYBE's headquarters in Yongsan District, Seoul, for an exclusive tour of the skyscraper! From the sleek offices to the buzzing cafeterias, our guest got the full HYBE experience and even took a quiz to test what he learned on his tour. How well did he perform? Did the food in HYBE's in-house cafeteria impress him? What beverage did he pick at the cafe with a view on the 19th floor? If youre curious, please watch our video! Kim Chae-ri, a K-pop team intern video producer at The Korea Times, produced this video. By Park Jae-hyuk Samsung SDI signed a memorandum of understanding with Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Thursday, to establish an academic department dedicated to raising future experts on battery engineering, the company said, Friday. Named as the Department of Battery Engineering, the department will be run as a four-year undergraduate program at SKKUs College of Engineering from March 2026. The program is planned to accept a pool of some 30 students annually for the next 10 years. Students admitted to the department will undergo a holistic range of catered battery education covering areas from materials and cells to modules and packs. Samsung SDI will offer jobs to those earning bachelors degrees from the department. The battery maker explained that the departments establishment is aimed at securing experts in the battery industry, which is growing rapidly amid the increasing demand for electric vehicles. Securing and nurturing top talent is Samsung SDIs future competitiveness, Samsung SDI CEO Choi Yoon-ho said. Through this MOU with SKKU, we will secure a pool of key talent that will lead the battery market, thereby bolstering our super-gap technological competitiveness as a global top-tier company. SKKU President Yoo Ji-beom said, With the rising importance of battery technologies, SKKU and Samsung SDI will together strive to achieve sustainable advances based on mutual trust and collaborations. Since 2021, the battery manufacturing unit of Samsung has been operating programs to nurture battery experts in collaboration with various universities, including POSTECH, Seoul National University, KAIST, Hanyang University, SKKU and UNIST. The company plans to establish more departments specializing in battery technologies in its industry-academia partnerships. Samsung Electronics said Friday it has participated in a Series D investment round for the U.S. biotech company Element Biosciences, Inc. as a strategic investor, expecting to create synergy in the potential medical and digital health care sectors. Samsung Electronics joins other investors, including Fidelity and Foresite Capital, in the U.S. company's $277 million Series D round. The Korean tech giant said the investment will help it explore new business opportunities in a wide range of fields, from medical devices to digital health, by combining Element Bioscience's DNA analysis technology with its AI capabilities, medical devices and digital health technologies. "Their products set a new industry standard and are foundational to the next wave of biological innovation," said Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee of Samsung Electronics. "We are incredibly excited about Element's vision to make precision medicine affordable and are impressed with the team they built together." Founded in 2017, Element Bioscience is known for disruptive DNA sequencing and multi-omics technologies for the research market. It posted $25 million in sales last year. DNA sequencing is a technology that determines the exact sequence of nucleotides, or bases, in a DNA molecule. The sequence of the bases, often called the blueprint of life, encodes the biological information that cells use to develop and operate. In the future, DNA sequencing data will be combined with clinical data from hospitals and everyday life data, such as sleep and exercise, to enable personalized health care. (Yonhap) By Park Jae-hyuk Investors are up in arms against Hanwha and Doosan, after the two business groups recently announced their plans to reorganize their corporate governance structures, according to industry officials, Friday. Their protest resulted mainly from concerns over the possibility that the proposed restructurings may cause financial damage to minority shareholders of Hanwha and Doosan affiliates. On Thursday, the Korean Corporate Governance Forum (KCGF) denounced Hanwha Energys plan to spend 180 billion won ($130 million) from July 5 to 24 to acquire an 8 percent stake in Hanwha Corp., the groups de facto holding firm, for 30,000 won per share, which is slightly higher than its current stock price. The forum consists of capital market insiders and legal experts who seek to improve corporate governance in Korean companies. Hanwha Energy cited responsible management and improvement in shareholder value as the reasons for its tender offer. However, its move is interpreted as an attempt to enable Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youns three sons to exercise bigger influence over the conglomerates affiliates, because the heirs hold the entire stake in Hanwha Energy. Once Hanwha Energy succeeds in the acquisition deal, the company will be Hanwha Corp.s second-largest shareholder with 17.7 percent stake, following the Hanwha chairman, who holds a 23 percent stake. The chairmans oldest son also owns a 5 percent stake in Hanwha Corp. at this moment, while his two younger brothers each have a 2 percent stake. The controlling shareholders are trying to buy shares from minority shareholders for an extremely low price, KCGF Chairman Lee Nam-woo said in a statement. It is unfair and does not live up to the companys motto, responsible management. Hanwha claimed that the acquisition has been conducted in compliance with laws. There is no risk of infringing upon the interest of minority shareholders, the conglomerate said. Doosan is facing backlash over its plan to spin off Doosan Bobcat from Doosan Enerbility and delist the lucrative construction equipment maker from the benchmark KOSPI market to make it a fully-owned subsidiary of money-losing Doosan Robotics. Doosan Enerbility has an ownership stake of 30 percent, so obtaining shareholder approval may not be straightforward, said Park Sang-hyun, an analyst at SmartKarma, a Singapore-based investment research firm. In particular, theres also concern about possible controversy over transferring value from Doosan Enerbility to Doosan Robotics, especially with the National Pension Service holding a 7 percent stake and its vote at the shareholder meeting being uncertain. KB Securities analyst Jeong Dong-ik expects Doosan Bobcat to face difficulties in getting a shareholder approval for the share swap deal. Doosan Bobcat attracted investors with its brand awareness, solid earnings and stable dividends, Jeong said. In contrast, Doosan Robotics investors paid attention to its growth potential. By Park Jae-hyuk Companies that depend heavily on migrant labor are intensifying their efforts to improve communication with foreign workers to prevent fatal industrial accidents that have been exacerbated by language barriers, according to industry officials, Friday. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE), an HD Hyundai subsidiary supervising its shipyards, recently developed a translation service named AI Agent and started using it based on generative artificial intelligence (AI) at HD Hyundai Samho in Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province. Through a large language models (LLM) learning of 13,000 shipbuilding terms and 4,200 sentences used at shipyards, HD KSOE launched the AI Agent, as existing translation apps failed to handle terminologies and dialects of countries where foreign workers come from. The company plans to use the AI Agent at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai Mipo later this year. It will also support translation of 11 languages, including Vietnamese, Uzbek, Nepalese and Thai. Precise instructions are important for the safety of foreign workers, an HD KSOE official said. We will do our best for foreign workers to adapt to their workplaces more easily. Daewoo E&C launched a new initiative by distributing video clips that outline safety guidelines in English and 10 other languages to construction sites nationwide. The construction firm previously trained foreign workers by using an English-language video clip, translation programs and human interpreters. However, it was difficult for the company to explain detailed guidelines in Vietnamese, Kazakh and Uzbek, which are used widely among construction workers here. With the new video clips, we hope foreign workers become more cautious about their safety and work in safer environments, a Daewoo E&C official said. After it was revealed that 18 out of 23 workers, who died from a battery factory fire last month, were foreign nationals, the government urged manufacturers and construction firms to take all possible measures for the safety of their foreign workers. For foreign workers to be informed of safety guidelines, please use pictograms and interpreters, Employment and Labor Minister Lee Jung-sik told construction firm CEOs, Tuesday. The labor ministry also plans to announce measures to strengthen industrial safety for foreign workers later this month. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, foreign workers accounted for 86 percent of 14,400 workers who started working at shipyards last year. Data compiled by the Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association also showed that the number of foreign construction workers rose to 118,735 in March this year from 94,567 in March 2021. Boeing is nearing a potential sale of some two dozen 777X jets to Korean Air in a roughly $4 billion to $6 billion deal that could be finalised as early as July's Farnborough Airshow, industry sources said. South Korea's largest carrier has been in talks over a potential return to its traditional supplier of long-haul aircraft for months after placing a surprise order for 33 A350 jets from Boeing's European rival Airbus in March. The sources said the potential new order could involve as many as 20 to 30 of the 777X aircraft, which are worth some $198 million each after typical market discounts, according to estimated delivery prices from Cirium Ascend. "We are discussing with manufacturers but nothing has been confirmed yet," an airline spokesperson said. Boeing said it does not comment on commercial discussions and referred any queries on Korean's intentions to the airline. The fleet review comes as Korean plans to purchase nearly two-thirds of smaller domestic rival Asiana for about $1.4 billion. The European Union approved the tie-up in February and the airline has indicated it expects U.S. approval by the end of October. Following the breakthrough by Europe's Airbus, Reuters reported in April that Korean was also discussing a new Boeing order focused on the 777X, an upgrade of the 777 mini-jumbo. Asked in April about Boeing's ongoing corporate crisis, Korean Air Chairman Walter Cho told CNBC that Korean was a "satisfied customer of their 777s and that's what I'm looking at right now". In June, Cho told Bloomberg News the airline was weighing a choice between the smaller Boeing 787 or more A350s. Since then, talk of a potential Boeing deal once again has focused mainly on the 777X, industry sources said. Details still have to be ironed out and there is no guarantee talks will conclude by the July 22-26 air show in Britain. The 777X is the industry's largest twin-engined jet with around 400 seats but its entry into service has been delayed by five years due to problems including certification delays. An order for the delayed 777X would be a boost for Boeing though Farnborough is not expected to produce a major slew of orders for manufacturers this year, industry analysts said. (Reuters) Germany said Thursday it will phase out the use of components from Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE in its 5G networks in the coming years due to national security concerns. It was the latest move by Berlin to reduce economic reliance on Beijing that some fear have left it vulnerable, and follows warnings from the EU that the firms pose a risk to the bloc. Parts from Huawei and ZTE will no longer be used in "core" 5G mobile networks by the end of 2026 at the latest, the interior ministry in Berlin said. In 5G access and transmission infrastructure, the systems of the telecom firms must be replaced by the end of 2029. "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," said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. "We must reduce security risks and, unlike in the past, avoid one-sided dependencies." The ministry said that 5G networks form part of Germany's "critical infrastructure" and are important for the functioning of sectors ranging from health to transport and energy. Telecoms networks must be protected from cyberattacks, which could be an "existential threat", it added. Officials have reached agreements with Germany's 5G network operators, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica, on banning Huawei and ZTE. Government sources had already indicated in September last year that Berlin was considering such a move, although the dates announced are later than those originally envisaged to give companies time to adopt the new measures. Faeser would not be drawn on whether she feared retaliatory measures from China, although she said that Beijing had been informed about the bans. "For me, as interior minister, it is a matter of finding regulations for telecommunications networks, for critical infrastructure, and I have done that," she told a press conference. In response to the ban, Huawei insisted there was "no specific evidence" that the firm's "technology has cyber security risks." "Huawei has developed into a continuously innovative, secure, and reliable telecom equipment supplier in the German market," a spokesperson said. Beijing's embassy in Berlin also said the move was driven by "groundless accusations". "There is no evidence indicating that these Chinese companies are a danger to any country," the embassy said, according to state news agency Xinhua. "Whether Germany can handle this issue fairly and justly will be a touchstone for its own business environment," it added. Fraying economic ties Factors that authorities looked at when deciding on the ban included whether the manufacturer was directly or indirectly controlled by the government, or whether they had been involved in activities that had a detrimental impact on Germany or other EU states. China and Germany have long had close ties, with Germany's crucial manufacturers from auto companies to machine-tool makers exporting vast quantities of products to the world's number two economy. But Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis triggered soul-searching in Europe's top economy about an over-reliance on authoritarian governments and led to Berlin seeking to "de-risk" by cutting its reliance on China. It unveiled a strategy for managing ties with Beijing last year, in which it sought to strike a balance between competing interests, with China described as a "partner, competitor and systemic rival." There have been growing signs of the government's new tougher approach. Last week, Berlin blocked the sale of a gas turbine unit belonging to a subsidiary of the Volkswagen group to a Chinese investor after media reports suggested it had close links to the Chinese armaments industry. EU countries are becoming increasingly wary of using tech from Huawei or other non-EU vendors that may not comply with EU data protection laws. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, last year described Huawei and ZTE as a risk to the bloc and called on EU member states to exclude the companies' equipment from their mobile networks. After the UK in the summer of 2020, Sweden became the second country in Europe and the first in the EU to explicitly ban Huawei from almost all of the network infrastructure needed to run its 5G mobile network. There has also been growing pressure from the United States to take action against Huawei amid a technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington over U.S. fears it could be used for Chinese espionage operations. (AFP) The European Union on Thursday accepted Apples pledge to open its tap to pay iPhone payment system to rivals as a way to resolve an antitrust case and head off a potentially hefty fine. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, said it approved the commitments that Apple offered earlier this year and will make them legally binding. Regulators had accused Apple in 2022 of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to its mobile payment technology. Apple responded by proposing in January to allow third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers access to the contactless payment function in its iOS operating system. After Apple tweaked its proposals following testing and feedback, the commission said those final commitments would address its competition concerns. Today's commitments end our Apple Pay investigation, Margrethe Vestager, the commissions executive vice-president for competition policy, told a press briefing in Brussels. The commitments bring important changes to how Apple operates in Europe to the benefit of competitors and customers. Competition watchdogs on both sides of the Atlantic have been investigating Apples payment tech. A sweeping Justice Department lawsuit filed in March accuses the company of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones, including charges that it limits access to contactless payment for third-party digital wallets. The EU deal promises more choice for Europeans. Vestager said iPhone users will be able to set a default wallet of their choice while mobile wallet developers will be able to use important iPhone verification functions like Face ID. Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip to wirelessly communicate with a merchants payment terminal. The commission had charged the company with denying others access to Apple Pay, which it said is the biggest NFC-based mobile wallet on the market. Analysts said there would big financial incentives for companies to use their own wallets rather than letting Apple act as the middleman, resulting in savings that could trickle down to consumers. Apple charges banks 0.15 percent for each credit card transaction that goes through Apple Pay, according to the Justice Departments lawsuit . "The main advantage to the issuer bank of supporting an alternative to Apple Pay via iPhone is the reduction in fees incurred, which can be substantial," said Philip Benton, a principal analyst at research and advisory firm Omdia. To encourage iPhone users to switch away from Apple Pay to another mobile wallet, the fee reduction needs to be partially passed onto the consumer" through benefits like cashback or loyalty rewards, he said. Banks and consumers could also benefit in other ways. If companies use their own apps for tap-and-go payments, they would get full visibility of their customers transactions, said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. That data would allow them to build brand loyalty and trust and offer more personalised services, rewards, and promotions directly to the user," he said Apple must open up its payment system in the EU's 27 countries plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein by July 25. As of this date, developers will be able to offer a mobile wallet on the iPhone with the same tap and go experience that so far has been reserved for Apple Pay," Vestager said. The changes will remain in force for a decade and will be monitored by a trustee. Apple said in a prepared statement that it is "providing developers in the European Economic Area with an option to enable NFC contactless payments and contactless transactions" for uses like car keys, corporate badges, hotel keys, and concert tickets. Breaches of EU competition law can draw fines worth up to 10 percent of a companys annual global revenue, which in Apples case, could have amounted to tens of billions of euros. (AP) Elon Musk's social media platform X is in breach of EU digital laws due to deceiving users and transparency failures, the European Commission announced on Friday in a preliminary finding. The commission said that X's verification system for users, known as the blue checkmark system, was open to abuse by "motivated malicious actors" since anyone may purchase the status. Before, the blue checkmark system "used to mean trustworthy sources of information," EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. "Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users," he said. "X has now the right of defence but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes," he added. Blue check mark symbols used to be awarded to user accounts of prominent public figures and companies by Twitter, the previous name for X before Musk's takeover of the platform, after the company verified the identity of the applicant. However, Musk decided to allow blue check mark symbols for all users who purchased a subscription, leading to confusion as non-verified fake accounts looked similar to real ones. Under an EU set of laws called the Digital Services Act (DSA), social media platforms with more than 45 million active users like X are subject to far-reaching content moderation rules. Infringements of the DSA can result in fines. For designated companies, financial penalties can be up to 6% of global turnover. In exceptional circumstances, with a court order, a company can be temporarily shut down. This is the first time the commission has published preliminary findings under the DSA and has stressed that the result is not yet final. X is now able to respond in writing to defend itself. The social media giant was not initially available for comment. If the final outcome finds that X does breach the DSA, financial penalties are to follow and the EU executive arm can order the social media company to address the breaches. The commission may also supervise X to ensure compliance with the solutions offered to solve the issues. Further periodic fines may also follow to compel the company to comply. X may appeal the final outcome before the EU's courts. The preliminary findings against X were reached after consultations with national authorities, interviews with experts and the analysis of internal company documents, the commission said. Other failures from X in "key transparency areas" included blocking access to data for researchers, and not providing enough information about the advertising shown on the platform, European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said. "The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation," she said. (dpa) aespa Winter had MYs (aespa's fanbase) in shock after she asked them if she could get married! On July 11, 2024, a post titled "Winter said she wants to get married" was shared with Nate Pann, a South Korean online community forum that is popular among netizens in the country. In the post, the author included a screenshot from Winter's Bubble. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: aespa Giselle Unrecognizable? Fansite Criticized for Over-Editing Stunning Idol's Photos In her messages, the female idol shared a selfie of her wearing a veil. Previously, Winter dressed up as a bride for her solo stage during one of the concerts of "SYNK: PARALLEL LINE." The idol looked stunning in a white and pastel-toned gown and matching veil. Some fans joked that Winter looked like she was their bride! Im late but Winter looks like a (my) bride here pic.twitter.com/4cJTos5ZjO Jazz (@mjkmwntr) July 11, 2024 Along with her selfie were several messages sent to fans. She informed MYs that she was a bride today and would be getting married first. She then asked fans if she could get married, but expressed her shock when her fans didn't hold her back or try to stop her! YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: 5th aespa Member? Actress Gains Attention for Visuals, Dance Skills Matching K-pop Group Her messages read, "I am a bride today." "I will be getting married first." "Can I get married?" "Why are you guys not holding me back?" Netizens, both in South Korea and internationally, found Winter's statements hilarious. International fans joked that she was already engaged to them and that other fans should back off. Others offered themselves up to Winter, saying that if they were looking for a fiance, they were available! shes getting married to me guys sorry https://t.co/dfHMSQFkGK (@nationshamc) July 11, 2024 lets go winter im so ready for you https://t.co/WTVnSkNyRJ pic.twitter.com/8ejxmi8a8j (@stupidcheesecat) July 11, 2024 IN OTHER AESPA WINTER NEWS: aespa Winter & LE SSERAFIM Yunjin Reportedly Spotted on 'Dinner Date' in Japan Korean netizens reacted similarly. Many were shocked at how beautiful the idol looked as a bride. They joked that they wanted to marry Winter, gushing over her face. Some even stated they would do anything to be able to end up with some as gorgeous as Winter! Some comments from Korean netizens read, "Winter is so pretty!" "Winter is so cute... What kind of stage did she perform?" "I would do anything to be in a relationship with someone who has that face." "Yes, please marry me!" What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below! CHECK THIS OUT: aespa Winter's 'Too-White' Makeup Receives Backlash, MYs Defend Idol In other news, aespa made their official Japanese debut on July 3, 2024, with the single "Hot Mess." Currently, they are embarking on their world tour. KpopStarz Owns This Written by Alexa Lopez The United States Department of State has announced that it has imposed sanctions against a gang from Venezuela known as Tren de Aragua. The gang has reportedly infiltrated American communities, attacked police officers, and engaged in human trafficking. Tren de Aragua has now been officially designated as a transnational criminal organization, which means it is now banned from doing business in the United States. It joins the El Salvador street gang, MS-13, and the Mafia-style gang from Italy known as Camorra in that already-infamous list. "Tren de Aragua poses a deadly criminal threat across the region," said the US Department of Treasury in a statement. "When victims seek to escape this exploitation, Tren de Aragua members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others," it added, talking about the gang's tendency to prey on vulnerable populations such as migrant women and girls for sex trafficking. According to the Associated Press, the gang started out a decade ago, inside an infamously lawless prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. It has since expanded out of the state and then out of the country as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled President Nicolas Maduro's dictatorial and repressive rule that has plunged the country's economy into a crisis. The gang has since expanded its operations in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, which all have large populations of Venezuelan migrants. These countries have blamed the group for being behind a spree of violent crimes. However, the group now seems to have infiltrated the US. It has also been warned that Tren de Aragua has also teamed up with Primeiro Comando da Capital, a notorious organized crime group from Brazil that was also sanctioned by the US government. US Offering a Total of $12 Million for the Arrest of Venezuela Gang Tren de Aragua's Leaders A total of $12 million has been set as a reward for information on the capture of three of the gang's leaders with a $5 million reward for the gang's leader, Hector Guerrero Flores, also known as Nino Guerrero. Another $4 million has been offered on the capture of leader Johan Jose Romero, and $3 million for the capture of Giovanny San Vicente. READ MORE: Border Patrol Agents Rescue 23 Migrants Trapped Inside Train Car in Searing Heatwave According to KTSM, the gang is responsible for posing as legitimate asylum-seekers and has already committed various criminal acts in the United States, including murder. It is also suspected to be behind the killing of a former police officer in South Florida and attacks against police in New York. What Is the Venezuela Gang Known as Tren de Aragua? The gang was founded by Hector "Nino" Guerrero inside the Tocoron prison in Aragua. When he and other gang leaders escaped, the gang immediately spread, going after nearby countries such as Chile first before going to other countries, including in Europe. Reuters noted that Venezuelan authorities have tried to arrest Guerrero during a raid in Tocoron. However, he and the other leaders managed to escape via a vast tunnel network. The gang usually extorts migrants and often helps in human trafficking operations. Females who cannot afford to pay them are often forced into prostitution. They have also been tied to drug trafficking and other smuggling of contraband. 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: NYPD confronting Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in NYC- FOX 5 New York President Joe Biden is confronting mounting isolation within his inner circle, where a faction of longtime aides and advisers now believes he should withdraw from his 2024 presidential election campaign. This revelation, disclosed by sources familiar with the matter, highlights a pivotal moment in Biden's presidency following a disastrous debate performance in Atlanta, according to the New York Times. A group of White House and campaign aides are strategizing on how to persuade the closest Biden advisers to encourage the President to reconsider his candidacy. Despite their efforts, there remains a significant divide between Biden's immediate circle and senior campaign officials who are increasingly concerned about the trajectory of his campaign. READ NEXT: George Clooney Urges Joe Biden to Withdraw from 2024 Presidential Race Political Turmoil on Capitol Hill Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are oscillating between tepid support and outright calls for Joe Biden to step down, reflecting a broader unease within the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, influential donors are also signaling reservations, further complicating Biden's re-election prospects. Central to this unfolding drama is Biden himself, who remains steadfast in his belief that he is the only candidate capable of defeating former President Donald J. Trump for the 2024 presidential election. Insulated by his inner circle, which includes family members and close Biden advisers, the President appears resolute despite mounting external pressures, Politico reports. Behind closed doors, senior aides continue to hold daily meetings to navigate the political fallout and strategize to maintain momentum. Discussions have intensified following recent setbacks, including unfavorable polls and wavering party support. Future Considerations, Post-Biden Scenarios Amid the turmoil, conversations about potential successors, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, have surfaced within Democratic circles. While these discussions remain speculative, they underscore growing uncertainties about Joe Biden's political viability. Joe Biden's campaign is focusing on key battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, aiming to secure the Electoral College votes needed for victory. Despite challenges, Biden's team remains optimistic, emphasizing a data-driven approach to counter adversities. Despite external pressures, Biden's family, including First Lady Jill Biden and his son Hunter, continue to express confidence in his candidacy. However, internal discussions reflect a growing awareness of the need for a potential course correction. Senior campaign officials are actively engaging with lawmakers, donors, and the media to bolster support and address concerns. Evening strategy calls underscore the campaign's commitment to navigating the current political landscape. Joe Biden prepares for critical public appearances, including a recent NATO summit, the stakes are high. A Democratic official noted a shift in tone, suggesting Biden might consider stepping aside, per ABC News. Aides expect more defections post-NATO summit as concerns about Biden's age persist. Biden's senior team is addressing political issues, with key aides focused on lawmakers, governors, donors, and media strategies. His ability to navigate these challenges, beginning with a pivotal press conference, will likely shape the future trajectory of his campaign and the Democratic Party's prospects in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. READ MORE: Joe Biden Declares He Won't Step Down: 'I Don't Care About Big Names' This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Biden facing fresh signs of doubt in re-election bid - From CNN Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro may be in even more legal hot water as he is now accused of using the country's intelligence agency for his personal use, particularly to spy on the judiciary, lawmakers, and journalists while he was still president. Newly-released court records have sown that Bolsonaro used the intelligence agency to spy on individuals such as Chamber Speaker Arthur Lira, Supreme Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the former governor of Sao Paulo Joao Doria, and even members of the environmental agency Ibama. He also had the intelligence agency look into three senators who led a parliamentary inquiry into his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Brazilian president, known as the "Trump of the Tropics," also had the agency spy on well-known journalists Monica Bergamo of Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper and Vera Magalhaes of O Globo newspaper, according to the Associated Press. "The criminal organization also illegally accessed computers, telephone devices, and telecommunications infrastructure to monitor people and public officials," said police in its statement. On Thursday, Brazilian police carried out preventive arrest warrants to dismantle a "criminal organization" that allegedly illegally "monitored public authorities and produced fake news using systems" from Brazil's intelligence agency, ABIN. The arrest warrants were issued to the Secretariat of Social Communication Mateus de Carvalho Sposito, businessman Richards Dyer Pozzer, influencer Rogerio Beraldo de Almeida, federal police officer Marcelo Araujo Bormevet, and military officer Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues. Jair Bolsonaro Used Intelligence Gathered from Spying Activities to Spread Disinformation What Bolsonaro did, which is using a government agency to spy on his political opponents, is considered illegal. He also used ABIN as a tool to spread disinformation to hurt the reputations of his political opponents and discredit corruption accusations against himself, his family, and his allies. READ MORE: Jair Bolsonaro Used Crime Ring To Sell $1.2 Million Worth of Luxury Gifts, Brazil Police Say According to The Guardian, Brazilian Federal Police have stated that under the watch of Alexandre Ramagem, Bolsonaro's spy chief, they have set up a "criminal organization of high offensive capability" within ABIN. This was then used to target Bolsonaro opponents, including g Internal Revenue Service officials who were investigating suspicions of corruption involving President Bolsonaro's senator son, Flavio Bolsonaro. A screenshot from a WhatsApp message sent back in 2020 showed that Ramagem told a colleague that "We need to find dirt" on one of their target Bolsonaro opponent. Another message showed a policeman sending a member of the spy group some information about three environmental protection officials who were "causing trouble for the administration." The Brazilian Report noted that they also used spyware on their intended targets. Jair Bolsonaro Spying Targets React to Report One of those named to be targets of the spying condemned Bolsonaro's actions as "the behaviour of a totalitarian and criminal government, typical of the worst of dictatorships." Meanwhile, Randolfe Rodrigues, who was the vice-president of a congressional inquiry into the Bolsonaro's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, stated that the former president's actions were "tragic," adding, "While Brazilians were dying, the previous government - instead of using its time to buy vaccines - used its time to persecute and monitor the regime's political adversaries." 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 spy probe reaches Jair Bolsonaro's son | REUTERS Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Beryl ravaged the southeastern Caribbean as a Category 4 storm, communities in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are facing a dire humanitarian crisis, pleading for urgent international aid amounting to at least $9 million, AP News reports. The aftermath of Hurricane Beryl has left a trail of destruction across Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, resulting in widespread homelessness and infrastructure devastation. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves described the situation as "Beryl's Armageddon," with entire islands reduced to rubble and critical facilities like hospitals and airports severely damaged. READ NEXT: Colorado State University Forecasts Increased Hurricanes Following Hurricane Beryl's Impact Urgent Plea for International Assistance Caribbean officials from affected nations urgently appealed for financial aid, highlighting the need to support over 43,000 affected individuals who are grappling with the loss of homes and livelihoods. The United Nations has echoed these calls, emphasizing the immediate need for $5 million for Grenada and additional funds for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Hurricane Beryl's rapid intensification to near Category 5 status has underscored concerns about climate change's role in exacerbating storm severity. With warmer Atlantic waters fueling faster and stronger hurricanes, experts warn of increased vulnerability for small island nations. Beryl rapidly intensified, becoming the earliest storm to jump wind speeds by over 63 mph in 24 hours, reaching Category 4 in 48 hours due to warm Atlantic waters. Scientists debate climate change's role in such intensification, expecting a busy 2024 hurricane season with up to 25 named storms. The economic toll on Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, a burden that threatens long-term sustainability. Caribbean officials have criticized international lenders for inadequate disaster relief financing, emphasizing the need for sustainable and just recovery efforts. The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) has allocated $44 million in payouts, but leaders stress that this is insufficient given the scale of devastation, according to Reuters. Immediate priorities include providing food, water, and shelter while planning for long-term recovery efforts that could span decades. Hurricane Beryl's Path of Destruction Continues Hurricane Beryl's rampage extended beyond the Caribbean, impacting regions like Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the southern United States, per Aljazeera. Despite being downgraded, the storm caused significant damage and displacement, exacerbating ongoing recovery efforts across multiple countries. In Mexico, Beryl caused widespread power outages and flooding in cities like Tulum, affecting tens of thousands and prompting emergency evacuations. The storm's arrival in Texas as a Category 1 hurricane left communities grappling with power disruptions and infrastructure damage amid sweltering conditions. The extensive damage inflicted by Hurricane Beryl underscores the daunting task of rebuilding communities and restoring livelihoods. From shattered homes in the Caribbean to flooded streets in Mexico and Texas, the path to recovery will require substantial international support and resilience in the face of future climate-related challenges. READ MORE: El Salvador Human Rights Reports 261 Inmate Deaths Amid Nayib Bukele's Anti-Gang Crackdown This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Hurricane Beryl lashes Caribbean as a powerful Category 5 storm - From CBS Mornings The Omaha community is reeling after the tragic death of 5-year-old Nebraska boy Dionicio Perez, found unresponsive in a vehicle on Wednesday, leading to the arrest of his foster mother. Juanita Pinon, 40, has been arrested and charged with child abuse by neglect, resulting in death, after Dionicio was discovered in an SUV parked near a strip mall at 93rd and Binney streets, according to 6 News. Police responded to the scene after reports of an unresponsive child around 5:11 PM on July 10, 2024. Dionicio was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. READ NEXT: Nebraska Shooting: White Man Targets 7 Guatemalan Immigrants in Possible Bias Crime Investigation and Speculation on Circumstances Police suspect the Nebraska boy had been left unattended inside the vehicle for an extended period, likely in the sweltering heat, though official confirmation awaits autopsy results. The day's high temperature in Omaha had reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit, adding urgency to understanding the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. Dionicio was the youngest of six children, with his biological mother relinquishing custody of him and his two younger siblings to Pinon due to concerns about her ability to care for them safely. Nebraska foster mom Pinon is described as a family friend who became a foster parent. She assumed responsibility under a power of attorney granted by the children's mother, navigating Nebraska's foster care regulations, which mandate background checks for eligibility. Rising Hot Car Deaths Across the US The tragedy in Omaha echoes a disturbing trend across the United States, with Dionicio's death marking the tenth reported hot car fatality of the year. Data from Kids and Car Safety underscores the persistent danger exacerbated during heat waves. In Marana, Arizona, a 2-year-old girl tragically died after being left alone in a vehicle amid scorching temperatures, The Kansas City Star reports. A father left his daughter in the car with the air conditioner on for 30 minutes to an hour while he went inside after running errands. When he came back, the car had stopped, and the girl was unresponsive. Her mother was also out running errands. The temperature soared to 111 degrees at Pinal Airpark near Marana by 4 PM, as reported by the National Weather Service. Police are investigating why the father left the girl in the car. Two weeks ago in California, a newborn baby girl named Diana Sofia Aleman Roman died tragically after being left alone in a hot car at her family's home in Santee, San Diego, per Daily Mail. She was found unconscious around midnight on June 13, having been in the car for several hours. Despite immediate medical attention, she did not survive. Detectives are investigating how Diana was left in the car and who did it, with no charges filed yet. Studies show that on a 70-degree day, a car's temperature can quickly rise to dangerous levels, potentially causing organ failure at 107 degrees. Diana's parents, Romer and Jayson De Los Santos, took her home on April 11 after meeting her in an Arizona hospital for the first time. READ MORE: Chicago: Missing Pastor Found Dead in Submerged Car in Des Plaines River This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Ross Key WATCH: Omaha police say 5-year-old found inside SUV dies - From KETV NewsWatch 7 WWE has made a very big international signing, as the company has now welcomed Stephanie Vaquer, a superstar from Chile who made a name for herself in Mexico's CMLL and Japan's NJPW. However, this new WWE signing also did not make AEW very happy as it was also trying to land the Chilean. Before she went with WWE, her status with CMLL had been in serious question as the two top promotions in the world, AEW and WWE, had been reportedly trying to sign her. However, a report from the Wrestling Observer noted that the Mexico-based promotion, as well as its partner, NJPW, knew that she was negotiating with both AEW and WWE. CMLL had asked her to work the upcoming NJPW/CMLL Fantasticamania show in San Jose, California, according to Wrestling Inc., as she had already been advertised to appear in the show prior to her WWE signing. The company reportedly asked her to lose her CMLL Women's title on her way out. However, Stephanie Vaquer was unable to commit to the original Fantasticamania show, so she vacated her title. This led to the event featuring a Three-Way match for the vacant CMLL Women's title. Her not competing in the event also signaled that she went to the WWE, as AEW would have allowed her to compete. AEW had been expressing its interest in Vaquer after her match with Mercedes Mone, previously known as Sasha Banks in WWE, during the AEW-NJPW Forbidden Door event, where she lost her NJPW title. The match was considered her star-making performance. READ MORE: John Cena Retirement Tour: WWE Legend Says 2025 Wrestlemania Will Be His Final Match Stephanie Vaquer's WWE Signing Angered AEW, NJPW, CMLL Wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer reported that Vaquer's decision to sign with the Connecticut-based promotion made AEW angry as it offered Vaquer a massive deal only for her to reject it. However, Meltzer did note that the Chilean's signing with WWE was no surprise at all. According to Pinkvilla, Meltzer noted that while she was growing up in Chile, she always watched WWE and has always wanted to work for the promotion, saying, "AEW wasn't happy because they did want her, and they made an offer to her, but she went with WWE, and it's not a surprise because she grew up in Chile, and when she grew up wanting to be a wrestler there was no such thing as AEW." Who Is Chile-Born Wrestler Stephanie Vaquer? Born in San Fernando, Chile, Stephanie Vaquer made her wrestling debut in 2009 at the age of 16 under the name Dark Angel. She said in an interview that she realized she wanted to be a wrestler when she was 13 and began raising money to move to Mexico so she could become a wrestler herself. Once in Mexico, Vaquer trained under the likes of Paul Slandering, Ricky Marvin, Gran Apache, Villano IV, and Ultimo Guerrero. As there is little pro wrestling in Chile, Vaquer had to move to Mexico, and this is where she signed with CMLL before cutting her international chops over at NJPW. The rest is history. READ MORE: Latino WWE Superstars Who Will Breakout in 2024 This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: STEPHANIE VAQUER DISCUSSES HER FIRST WWE TRYOUT - Denise Salcedo Former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is washing his hands off his connections to the controversial Heritage Foundation plan called Project 2025, which outlines some radical conservative agendas and grants more power to Donald Trump, with a lot of controversial policies such as dismantling the Department of Education. "I have no idea who is behind it," he claimed in a post on Truth Social. This is despite the fact that six of his former Cabinet secretaries were responsible for writing or collaborating in the making of the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation. Also part of Project 2025 are four of the ambassadors he nominated, as well as several enforcers of his controversial immigration crackdown, according to CNN, with the first 20 pages of the document being credited to his first deputy chief of staff. While Trump says he denies knowing anybody involved in Project 2025, It was noted that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025. This includes over half of the people listed as authors, editors, and contributors to the project's manifesto, which aims to overhaul the executive branch and grant more powers to Donald Trump should he win the presidency. There are nearly 240 people who have ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump, and this includes people with positions ranging from day-to-day foot soldiers in Washington to people in the highest levels of his inner circle, with CNN noting that the number is likely higher. Project 2025 is planning to purge independent positions and replace them with Trump loyalists, therefore eliminating more checks and balances to presidential power. It also aims to have stricter immigration policies. There are also plans to ban pornography, reverse federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, exclude the morning-after pill and men's contraceptives from coverage mandated under the Affordable Care Act, make it harder for transgender adults to transition, and eliminate the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service. What Is Project 2025 and Why Is it Bad for Donald Trump The Trump administration had been hampered by these checks and balances and had been infamous for its various incompetencies. Project 2025 aimed to remedy that and place loyalists into positions where Donald Trump would have been challenged by more independent appointees. READ MORE: Donald Trump Connections to Jeffrey Epstein Remain Underreported by Media, Critics Say The document that laid out the plans was made by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, which Donald Trump has repeatedly praised in the past despite saying he does not know who is behind Project 2025. It was unveiled back in 2023, with over 100 conservative organizations contributing to the document. Some of the proposals in Project 2025, such as the ban on pornography and unchecked power on the president, as well as the dismantling of the Department of Education, are proving to be very unpopular. Donald Trump Wants Porn Star Hush Money Conviction Thrown Out on Basis of Presidential Immunity Meanwhile, Trump is now trying to have his porn star hush money trial conviction thrown out on the grounds that he has absolute presidential immunity as granted to him by the Supreme Court. However, critics point out that many of his crimes, in this case, happened while he was not 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: What is Project 2025? | To The Point - ABC10 Tyler and Ashley Meyers beside the incubator of one of their five newborn babies. (Photo submitted) Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a series of bills late Thursday enacting the states 2024-25 budget 11 days late. The last fiscal year ended in June. Lawmakers in both the state Senate and House of Representatives worked at a rapid pace Thursday to vote through the necessary legislation, often keeping their remarks brief and moving to suspend timetable rules in order to vote on bills shortly after they passed out of committee. The core of the budget is a $47.6 billion appropriation from the general fund - the states main operating account that comes in about $750 million less than what Shapiro had requested in his budget pitch earlier this year, but is about $2.7 billion more than what was appropriated for 2023-24. Listen, when we do make progress, when we move the ball down the field, we should celebrate that. We should be proud of that, Shapiro said after siging the budget around 11 p.m. Particularly in these polarized times where a lot of folks feel like nothings getting done, here in Pennsylvania we are proving that we can make progress, Shapiro continued, acknowledging that no one in the room got everything that they wanted during budget negotiations. The deal includes a billion-dollar boost to K-12 public education which may or may not, depending on who you ask, satisfy the terms of last years landmark court ruling that found Pennsylvanias education funding unconstitutionally inequitable. The agreement also funds a number of Shapiros requested enhancements to social spending and economic development, but does not include any of the broader tax changes that both the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House had sought. This is not a budget, if I were crafting it unilaterally, that I would have designed, said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, but we accept the realities of what it means to be in the majority in a divided government. The budget also does not include revenue from legalized recreational marijuana or the regulation and taxation of so-called skill games, which have thus far skirted classification under Pennsylvanias gambling laws. Shapiro had pitched both measures in his budget request. Also notably absent are provisions for school vouchers, which would allow students in low-performing public schools to use tax dollars toward private school tuition. A deal to include vouchers favored by Republicans fell apart during budget negotiations last year, touching off a major impasse. The new budget package consists of more than a dozen pieces of legislation, including a general appropriation bill as well as several code bills spelling out how the appropriated money is to be disbursed. Most of the negative votes on the bills came from the minority party in either chamber House Republicans saying the budget was fiscally irresponsible, and Senate Democrats saying it did not do enough to help working families and public schools. The budget is expected to run a deficit of around $3 billion, spending down the states $14 billion surplus and reserves at a rate House Republicans have said is unsustainable. Ultimately well find ourselves in a situation where the programs initiated in this budget will lack the funding to continue in future years once the cash balance has been spent, Rep. Torren Ecker, R-Adams County, said on the House floor. The tax code accompanying this years budget also features an increase to the amount of prior years operating losses that corporations can carry forward to reduce their tax liability in future years, with Pennsylvanias current limited carry-forward seen as a hamper to startup businesses. This could be the difference between a new business picking Pennsylvania over Ohio, said Sen. Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland County, given that most startups operate at a loss in their first years. The corporate net income tax rate will also drop another half-point on Jan. 1, to 7.99% for 2025, as part of a rate reduction schedule brokered several years ago. All together, these corporate tax cuts represent a trickle-down approach to Pennsylvanias economy, argued Sen. Art Haywood, D-Philadelphia, and we know these trickle-down theories have some significant limitations. Haywood noted the budget deal does not include a state-level earned income tax credit, one of several tax cuts targeted toward working families that Democrats have pitched. It also includes a one-time transit boost of $80 million, rather than a dedicated portion of sales tax worth $283 million that Shapiro had requested to shore up the states public transportation systems. But the tax code does feature a $40 million boost to the states tax credit for affordable housing, along with additional credits for rehabilitating distressed properties. A new credit will also be created for employers who help their employees with child care costs, a rising expense that is seen as a major drag on the workforce. New credits and deductions are also included for everything from restaurant grease trap cleaning to student loan interest, college savings, and certain expenses for medical marijuana growers. The budget also includes an extra $261 million for the Medicaid waivers that fund supports for Pennsylvanians with autism and other developmental disabilities, an increase of 11.4%. That amount that will nearly double with federal matching, raising providers reimbursement rates and hopefully reducing wait lists and increasing staffing levels. Stipends for student teachers, intended to get more college students into a profession that faces shortages, are doubled to $20 million in the new budget. A new Main Street Matters program - pitched by Shapiro to subsidize downtown revitalization projects statewide - is also funded at $20 million. The budget package also puts into motion some changes in higher education. Both the states community colleges and the state-run university system will see 6% funding increases but the two systems will also be required to coordinate more closely with each other, and a joint strategic planning board will be formed as part of Shapiros partially-realized pitch to merge the systems. Similarly, three of the states independent but state-subsidized universities Pitt, Penn State, and Temple are flat-funded in the new budget, with a commission being formed to develop a performance-based funding model for later years. Another bill in the budget package also devotes $25 million to a new scholarship program for students in high-demand fields who remain and work in Pennsylvania for at least a year after graduation. Weve done things that will help Pennsylvania keep our kids here, said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland. While the increase to K-12 education is significant, the $526 million in new money intended to close the states unconstitutional shortfall is less than what was originally envisioned in the wake of last years court case. Further, those dollars are to be driven out with a formula that uses poverty data from the U.S. Census, not from the states own survey, which some Democrats said was a deliberate attempt to short-change the system. This bill uses Census data which the court specifically rejected as being misleading, said Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County, noting that the bill contains several highly specific carve-outs for certain districts. Those schools get an extra pot of money to make up for the fact that were not using accurate data, Williams said, and once again we are allowing inadequacy and inequity to run rampant. Overall, however, there appeared to be a bipartisan consensus that Shapiros core budget concept using the states surplus to keep the economy hot and reverse Pennsylvanias population decrease was valid, with some conditions. The new budget framework will start turning the tide for Pennsylvanias demographic growth, said Senate Appropriations Chair Scott Martin, R-Lancaster County. But the spending of reserves, Martin added, means there are future battles ahead as we try to maintain fiscal solvency. St Clares Hospitality Kitchen, a lifeline for many in the Laois and Carlow communities, is urgently appealing for public support to continue its vital services. Despite the generosity of local residents, businesses, and schools, the food kitchens cash reserves are only sufficient to operate for another eight weeks. CONTINUE READING BELOW PHOTO Fr. John Dunphy (founder) St Clare's Hospitality Kitchen with Michelle Maddock-Conaghan (manager). This is the most important public appeal in almost ten years in existence, said a director of St Clares Hospitality Kitchen, Fr John Dunphy. "The cost-of-living crisis and global events have significantly increased the demand for the food kitchens services. Costs have surged, while the number of families needing food has doubled increasing the demand from 70 meals per day to 140. People fall on tough times for many reasons; ours is never to judge. St. Clares Hospitality responds and does so because its the right thing to do, continued Fr Dunphy. Located at The Waterfront, Mill Lane, Carlow, St Clares Hospitality Kitchen will celebrate its tenth anniversary in May 2025. The service provides hot meals free of charge to those in need, relying almost entirely on fundraising and donations. A dedicated team of staff and volunteers serves lunch from 12:30 to 14:30, Monday to Friday. The service addresses those who are food poorpeople who can pay their rent, mortgage and utility bills but must cut back on food to do so. From serving 30 food parcels per week in 2013, today St Clares Hospitality Kitchen distributes an average of 65 food parcels weekly delivered by volunteers to those families in need in our local community. We serve a nutritious hot meal every weekday, each meal providing nourishment to those who may otherwise go without. As the hospitality developed, so did the volunteers, inspired by Brother Kevins Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin. With the support of Bobby and Mary Quinn, a premises was secured, and St Clares Hospitality Food Kitchen opened its doors. Carlow should be really proud. We survived until now on the goodwill and generosity of the public. We are here to assist families going through difficult times & whose who might other wise go to bed hungry or without proper nourishment in our local community, We cant thank the community, local businesses, and schools enough, especially the youngsters who held so many fundraisers and donated food over the years, said Fr Dunphy. "However, the service is now forced to plead with the public to keep its doors open and continue feeding those in need. We have enough resources to stay open for another two months at least, but we have never been at this juncture before. We desperately need help to keep the service going, Fr Dunphy added. We know we are making a really positive difference in our community and want to continue to do good work. We think its important to tell people that some people in Carlow are going to bed hungry and we must never forget that. That is why we exist, to help families who are in that situation. PRO Nora Meaney highlighted the critical need for support: We are seeing an unprecedented level of demand for our services, and we urgently need the community's help to keep providing meals to those in need. Our expenses for food and energy have skyrocketed, making it extremely difficult to meet the increased demand. We need financial contributions to continue our mission. We welcome any fundraising efforts from local clubs or organisations and are ready to collaborate with anyone willing to support us. MORE BELOW PHOTO The food kitchen is open to the public for weekday lunches, where there is a donation box for contributions. Its astonishing how much our costs have risen, and we urgently need the communitys assistance, said Nora. No donation is too small and every contribution will be warmly accepted and very much appreciated. To donate, bank details for St Clares Hospitality Food Kitchen Ltd are BIC BOFIIE2D and IBAN IE65 BOFI 9065 3169 3735 69. Online donations: https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/thekitchen Donations can also be left at the parish office in Graiguecullen, Carlow. People living in a residential area in Naas are complaining about a proposal to encourage young children to walk to school. The Safe Route to School Programme is designed to encourage pupils and students to walk and cycle to primary and secondary schools. The programme was launched in March 2021 and is open to all schools in Ireland to apply for active travel funding and delivery. Its an initiative of the Department of Transport and supported by the Department of Education. The programme proposed for Scoil an Linbh Iosa national school in Ballycane in Naas, which is adjacent to the houses in Lacken View. Cllr Anne Breen told a Naas Municipal District meeting that there are concerns among some residents there. Kildare County Council engineer Donal Hodgins said that there is some concern and comment about road safety generally. He said everyone should expect that initiatives will be undertaken with the aim of improving road safety. Read more Kildare news And he refuted a claim by Cllr Evie Sammon that KCC had done the minimum to ensure that there was adequate information made available about how the community could make suggestions about the proposal. He said the public consultation part of the process was advertised in a number of ways and people are entitled to make their views known. Construction work will take place over six weeks and includes the reconstruction and widening of the path outside the school to promote safe active travel, four uncontrolled pedestrian crossings, one controlled crossing along Lacken View at the school entrance and pencil bollards. Ramps will be built on either side of the school and kerbs will be tightened at adjoining T junctions to reduce traffic speed. Bollards, road markings and signs will be provided outside the school to enhance greater safety for vulnerable road users. A resident said that widening paths and making the roads narrow will have a negative impact on traffic flow and there was criticism of the loss of parking spaces - though a widening of the paths and resurfacing work would be acceptable.. The resident predicted that residents will be left fighting for parking spaces. It was claimed that road markings there have not been updated since 1979. There is concern too about how fire tenders or ambulances will negotiate the new road layout. An Irish soldier who assaulted a woman in a random attack is to be discharged from the Defence Forces on Thursday. Cathal Crotty, with an address at Parkroe Heights, Ardnacrusha, Co Clare, pleaded guilty to assaulting Natasha OBrien in Limerick in 2022. Ms OBrien said his dismissal was the bare minimum she expected and said it was too little too late. Crotty, 22, walked free from court after being given a three-year suspended sentence for the attack in a case that prompted protests across Ireland and put pressure on the Irish Government to tackle violence against women. The Irish military confirmed in a statement that Crotty was being discharged on Thursday. The Defence Forces unequivocally condemns any actions by serving personnel that are contrary to military regulations or that do not reflect our values, it said in a statement. Speaking to the PA news agency, Ms OBrien said Crottys dismissal was the bare minimum of what she expected. Realistically its too little too late, she said. Im extremely dissatisfied and disappointed that it has taken this enormous level of media focus and national uproar for the bare minimum to be done. Had I not spoken up, I dont believe this would have happened and I cannot help but feel for all the victims that are in the same position that I am, that are watching their attackers continue in the Forces and this is not just exclusive for the Defence Forces, this goes across all important positions and positions of power. Ms OBrien said after being put through the wars, she has had to put her entire life and soul into speaking up about the attack for the bare minimum to be done. She added: To the Defence Forces: what are you doing to ensure this doesnt happen again? Irelands director of public prosecutions has lodged an appeal against the sentence given to Crotty on the basis of undue leniency. Researchers have found that Taylor Swift triggered seismic activity during the three nights of her Eras Tour at Dublins Aviva Stadium recently, with activity from fans 'shaking it off' being tracked more than 100km away. Researchers at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) found that during fan favourite song 'Shake It Off', seismic activity from the Dublin crowd could be identified as far away as Wexford, with the observed frequency (2.66Hz) matching with the songs beats per minute (BPM) of 160. Seismic activity is a vibration generated by an earthquake, explosion, or similar energetic source that travels within the Earth or along its surface. READ ALSO - Cavan auction goes 'All Too Well' as heifer 'Taylorswift' fetches top price 21 seismometers, instruments which measure ground vibrations to track earthquakes, were placed outside the Aviva Stadium by DIAS researchers to measure seismic activity generated during the concerts for a purpose-made Eras Tour seismic study labelled the 'Swift Quake programme'. The 50,000-strong Friday night crowd a Taylor Swift danced, cheered and stomped the loudest of the three gigs according to DIAS, with particular impact coming as fans danced to Love Story. Eleanor Dunn, PhD candidate at DIAS and lead researcher on the 'Swift Quake programme', said her goal for the research was "to create a greater understanding of seismic activity". "The engagement with fans has been great so far with lots of people sharing their concert videos with us. The videos help us to enhance our understanding of the seismic impact of each concert and the research data has revealed some fascinating insights into the energy generated by Swifties. While the results of the distance travelled by the Swiftie-seismic activity are astonishing, Dunn stressed that its important to note "the movement generated by the concert was unlikely to have been felt by anyone other than those in the immediate vicinity". While it may not have been felt, the distance was still a surpries to the lead researcher. Fans took Swifts encouragement to Shake It Off to a new level with it being detectable over 100km away in Wexford! Its amazing that weve been able to measure the reaction of thousands of Swifties through our data," Dunn said. "The opportunity to explore a seismic activity created by a different kind of phenomenon has been really interesting and shows how seismicity happens every day without us knowing. Were still working on analysing data from the concert and wed love if fans could continue to send us their videos from each night of the concert via our social media channels and website. READ NEXT - WATCH: We challenge fans to 'finish that Taylor Swift lyric' ahead of Aviva gig Ireland could be hit with an unseasonable summer storm next week, according to one weather forecaster. The system is a long way off and is not guaranteed to result in a storm but it is being monitored by meteorologist Cathal Nolan from Ireland's Weather Channel. He made the prediction while also saying Ireland will enjoy a few more settled and sunny days over the weekend. He said: "Settled weather is expected this weekend across the country with a weak area of high pressure keeping Atlantic rain bearing systems away from Ireland. "There will however be some showers during the afternoons, especially so on Sunday with some sharp showers possible. Temperatures will be around average at best for the time of year." Looking ahead to next week, he said things will turn more unsettled "with the best weather likely initially across the south and east of the country, but generally its an unsettled picture with a mixture of wet days interspersed by showery conditions." READ NEXT: Warning to Irish tourists heading to Spain amid 'high' terrorist threat He added: "Our winds will be more from the southwest next week with temperatures rising as a result, and feeling pleasant in any drier periods in between the various unsettled spells. "Its interesting to take note of the strength of the jet stream pushing across the Atlantic next week, with the GFS weather model indicating the risk of some potentially unseasonably windy, even stormy conditions close to Ireland. "Before the headlines begin to write themselves this is just one model around a week away indicating that theres favourable conditions for the deepening of areas of low pressure, however that is no guarantee and were not predicting an Atlantic storm. "But the possibility isnt negligible and well remain vigilant." Met Eireann is so far not predicting stormy conditions but agree that the picture for next week is very "unsettled." Their outlook for the coming days says: "Generally cloudy conditions with showers or outbreaks of light rain at times over the coming days in mainly light winds." For next week, they add: "Cloudy on Monday with showery outbreaks of rain spreading across the country from the south, possibly turning heavy and thundery at times. Highest temperatures of 16 to 19 degrees in light easterly veering westerly or variable breezes. "Rain and cloud will continue to push northwards with clear spells and drier conditions following the clearance over much of the southern half of the country early on [Monday night]. Showers will move into Atlantic coastal counties later in the night. Lowest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees in a light westerly breeze. "Tuesday is likely to see scattered showers moving in from the west and spreading across the country. After a mostly cloudy start some sunny spells will develop through the day. Highest temperatures of 15 to 18 degrees in a light to moderate west to southwest wind." They conclude: "Current indications suggest that it will be largely unsettled next week with further showers and rain." 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. CREACT4MED program for the Mediterranean, Africa concludes with aid to over 400 people BARCELONA, Spain, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The CREACT4MED program, co-financed by the European Union, held its closing event in Barcelona, Spain, highlighting the project's achievements in training over 400 individuals to establish businesses in the cultural and creative industries of Mediterranean and North African countries. Additionally, 23 entrepreneurs have received direct funding in six different countries?Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia?and support for six business incubators or accelerators promoting regional cooperation, with a budget of nearly half a million euros. Rym Ayadi, director of CREACT4MED and president of the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), stated that the main conclusion drawn is that culture and creativity are pillars for economic and social transformation, as well as for the well-being of the region. "I think it's important to start building and investing in entrepreneurship in the cultural creative industries, so to make it an economy that is vibrant and that also allows specifically youth, women, and all segments of the population to develop their own activities, their own works," she said in an interview with Agencia EFE. Meanwhile, Maria Ruiz de Cossio, the project's lead coordinator and EMEA member, highlighted that the networks they have created, both physical and virtual, have generated a community of more than 1,200 "creative minds" in the region. She expressed pride in the connections between countries with "a rich cultural heritage" and especially in the "beautiful dialogue" between people from Morocco and Palestine or Jordan and Egypt. The closing event of CREACT4MED, attended by EFE as a collaborating media outlet, was held at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site in the Catalan capital. It gathered more than 100 participants, including project partners and beneficiaries, financial agents, business development experts, and startups from international chambers of commerce. Throughout the day, various members of EMEA, as the main partner, and the other coordinating partner, the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed), detailed the work done over the four years of the program. This included mapping the cultural and creative industry of each country, resulting in individualized reports with economic and social data. Finally, CREACT4MED beneficiaries exchanged experiences in a cooperative working session about the development of their businesses and how the training programs they received helped them acquire necessary skills, manage their finances, and build a network of contacts. EFE Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2459565/CREACT4MED__Closing_Event.jpg 12 july 2024 at 03:00 News published onand distributed by: NW Natural Holdings Schedules Earnings Release and Conference Call for Friday, Aug. 2 Northwest Natural Holding Company (NYSE: NWN) (NW Natural Holdings) announced today it will issue its second quarter and year-to-date 2024 earnings release and conduct an analyst conference call and webcast to review results at 8 a.m. Pacific Time (11 a.m. Eastern Time) on Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. To hear the conference by webcast, log on to NW Natural Holdings' corporate website at ir.nwnaturalholdings.com. To hear the conference call by phone, please dial 1-833-470-1428 within the United States and enter the conference access code 247925. For international callers dial 1-404-975-4839 with access code 247925. To access the conference replay, please call 1-866-813-9403 within the United States and enter the conference identification access code 540828. To hear the replay from all other locations, please dial +44-204-525-0658 with access code 540828. About NW Natural Holdings Northwest Natural Holding Company, (NYSE: NWN) (NW Natural Holdings), is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and has been doing business for over 165 years. It owns Northwest Natural Gas Company (NW Natural), NW Natural Water Company (NW Natural Water), NW Natural Renewables Holdings (NW Natural Renewables), and other business interests. We have a longstanding commitment to safety, environmental stewardship and the energy transition, and taking care of our employees and communities. NW Natural Holdings was recognized by Ethisphere for three years running as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. NW Natural consistently leads the industry with high J.D. Power & Associates customer satisfaction scores. Learn more in our latest Community and Sustainability Report at nwnatural.com/about-us/the-company/sustainability. NW Natural is a local distribution company that currently provides natural gas service to approximately 2 million people in more than 140 communities through more than 800,000 meters in Oregon and Southwest Washington with one of the most modern pipeline systems in the nation. NW Natural owns and operates 21.6 Bcf of underground gas storage capacity in Oregon. NW Natural Water provides water distribution and wastewater services to communities throughout the Pacific Northwest, Texas and Arizona. Today NW Natural Water serves over 180,000 people through approximately 74,000 meters and provides operation and maintenance services to an additional 20,000 connections. Learn more about our water business at nwnaturalwater.com. NW Natural Renewables is a competitive business committed to leading in the energy transition by providing renewable fuels to support decarbonization in the utility, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors. Learn more at nwnaturalrenewables.com. Additional information is available at nwnaturalholdings.com. "World's Most Ethical Companies" and "Ethisphere" names and marks are registered trademarks of Ethisphere LLC 12 july 2024 at 06:05 News published onand distributed by: Essent Group Ltd. Schedules Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call for August 2, 2024 Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE: ESNT) today announced that it will hold a conference call on Friday, August 2, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss the Company's second quarter 2024 results, which will be announced prior to the market open on the same day. The conference call will be broadcast live over the Internet at http://ir.essentgroup.com/events-and-presentations/events/default.aspx. The call may also be accessed by dialing 888-330-2384 inside the U.S., or 240-789-2701 for international callers, using passcode 9824537 or by referencing Essent. A replay of the webcast will be available on the Essent website approximately two hours after the live broadcast ends for a period of one year. A replay of the conference call will be available approximately two hours after the call ends for a period of two weeks, using the following dial-in numbers and passcode: 800-770-2030 inside the U.S., or 647-362-9199 for international callers, passcode 9824537. In addition to the information provided in the Company's earnings news release, other statistical and financial information, which may be referred to during the conference call, will be available on Essent's website at http://ir.essentgroup.com/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx. About the Company Essent Group Ltd. (NYSE: ESNT) is a Bermuda-based holding company (collectively with its subsidiaries, "Essent") offering private mortgage insurance, reinsurance, and title insurance and settlement services to serve the housing finance industry. Additional information regarding Essent may be found at www.essentgroup.com. Source: Essent Group Ltd. 12 july 2024 at 06:35 News published onand distributed by: Yiren Digital's First ESG Report Highlights at a Glance BEIJING, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yiren Digital Ltd. (NYSE: YRD), an AI-powered platform providing financial and lifestyle services in China, recently released its first ESG report. The report underscores Yiren Digital's mission of "Better Lives Through Digital Innovation," highlighting its commitment to environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Here are the highlights at a glance. ***Technological Innovation Enhances Customer Experiences*** Yiren Digital has developed a business strategy based on "AI + Diversified Scenarios" and launched the "AI Lab" program. Applying AI models across various business scenarios, Yiren Digital has made its services safer, more efficient, and more intelligent. In 2023, Yiren Digital provided over 2.1 million intelligent customer services, significantly enhancing efficiency and user experience. With AI integrated into all operations and a focus on user-centric service practices, the company achieved high customer satisfaction rates across its three business lines: 94% for financial services, 96% for insurance brokerage, and 95% for consumption and lifestyle services. Moreover, Yiren Digital prioritizes user information security and privacy protection. The company enhanced its security capabilities through system building, safety protocols, emergency management, and security audits. In 2023, Yiren Digital's products obtained ISO 27001 Information Security Management System Certification and National Level 3 Classified Protection Certification. Furthermore, the company developed the Hawkeye anti-fraud model, identifying and tagging over 20,000 clients from potentially dubious sources during the year by using a joint mechanism of "AI automatic identification + manual assistance," thereby contributing to safeguarding the financial industry ecosystem. ***Empowering Customers through Inclusive Financial Solutions and Societal Contributions*** Yiren Digital has focused on financial inclusiveness over the past decade, meeting the comprehensive financial service needs of individuals and small businesses and ensuring equal financial service access for all via technology innovations. In 2023, the company facilitated RMB 3.6 billion in loans through its Yixianghua platform, providing inclusive and flexible financial solutions to individuals underserved by traditional financial services. This included unsecured credit loans to over 460,000 micro and small business owners coming from over 300 prefecture-level and 2,600 county-level regions. Yiren Digital's insurance brokerage business actively fulfills social responsibilities and contributes to society. In support of workers in emerging forms of employment, the company provided accident insurance protection to 100,000 flexible workers in Wuhan through its "New Resident Care" project. These services extend to online ride-hailing drivers, delivery workers, and couriers, who are traditionally underserved by social security due to their employment status. Additionally, Yiren Digital integrates insurance with public welfare, offering financial education and public welfare insurance protection for families of the mentally challenged. ***Leading Green and Low-Carbon Development*** The company advocates for green finance and continues efforts in environmentally friendly and low-carbon development, guiding funds towards industries like environmental protection, energy conservation, and clean energy. Yiren Digital restricts loans to businesses in high-energy consumption, high-pollution, and excess capacity industries, rejects the funding applications of customers who have touched the "red line" of environmental protection. In 2023, the company facilitated RMB 12.55 million in credit to 483 business owners in the environmental protection monitoring industry while rejecting applications from 327 business owners with environmental violation records. Over 100 environmental protection indicators were integrated into its risk control model. Additionally, Yiren Digital integrates environmental protection principles into daily operations. By the end of 2023, over 90% of electrical equipment in Yiren Digital's Beijing offices had energy-saving labels. The company prioritizes leasing data centers with green building designs and low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), aiming for an average PUE of 1.3 by 2024. The full report is available at: https://ir.yiren.com/ESG-Reports SOURCE Yiren Digital 12 july 2024 at 07:07 News published onand distributed by: Protecting wild Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland and Labrador through restoration GRAND FALLS-WINDSOR, NL, July 12, 2024 /CNW/ - Canada's oceans and waterways are home to diverse ecosystems that play an important role in the health of Canadians and the environment. Climate change, pollution, and shipping activities can impact marine life. Through Canada's Oceans Protection Plan, the Government of Canada is increasing protections and further preserving these important marine ecosystems. Today the Honourable Gudie Hutchings, Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, on behalf of the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced $1.2 million in funding, under the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund (AERF), to support wild Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland and Labrador. The funding is going towards the Environment Resources Management Association (ERMA) - Exploits River Atlantic Salmon Collaborative Watershed Restoration Approach. A collaboration between ERMA and Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador (MUNL), the project will investigate strategies to improve the productivity of wild Atlantic salmon in the province, by focussing on the species' spawning areas and food resources, and supporting watershed-specific restoration plans. As part of the Oceans Protection Plan, AERF supports projects that contribute to restoration priorities in coastal and upstream areas that have a direct impact on coastal aquatic ecosystems; contribute to the development and implementation of aquatic restoration plans; and stimulate partnership with Indigenous Peoples, conservation groups, and academia to address threats to Canadian aquatic species and habitats. Activities funded under AERF help to address the root causes of impacts on those environments, and help protect and restore aquatic habitat for Canada's coastline, estuaries, and inland regions. The Oceans Protection Plan is a Canadian success story. When Indigenous Peoples, industry, communities, experts, academia, and government work together to protect our environment, grow our economy, and support good jobs across the country, we deliver real results. Canada's Oceans Protection Plan is keeping our oceans and coasts healthy, advancing reconciliation, and building a clean future for our children and grandchildren. Quotes "The Government of Canada is committed to taking action to restore and safeguard the health of our ocean and freshwater ecosystems. We are proud to help fund the work of these recipients in restoring and enhancing priority coastal and upstream aquatic areas. Working together, we can enhance our abilities to combat climate change through aquatic restoration activities." The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard "Canada's Oceans Protection Plan's Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund will protect and restore aquatic environments across Newfoundland and Labrador. This important funding will improve productivity for wild Atlantic salmon and grow our economy." The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Transport "Newfoundland and Labrador has some of the best wild Atlantic salmon rivers in the world. They support our communities through tourism and are important part of our way of life. We are making sure they are part of our future, too." The Honourable Gudie Hutchings, Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency "Funding provided by DFO through the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund will provide ERMA with 1.2 million dollars over three years to investigate bottlenecks that limit the freshwater productivity of wild Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland and Labrador. A collaborative team from ERMA and Memorial University of Newfoundland will examine strategies to improve productivity of Atlantic salmon. The Exploits River is the largest producer of wild Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland and our project will assist in providing a sustainable run for future generations" Kevin Sheppard, vice chair of ERMA Board of Directors. Quick Facts Since 2016, the Government of Canada has dedicated $3.5 billion to the Oceans Protection Plan, making it the largest investment Canada has ever made to protect its coasts and waterways. has dedicated to the Oceans Protection Plan, making it the largest investment has ever made to protect its coasts and waterways. In December 2022 , the Government of Canada announced an investment of $75 million over five years for the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund, as part of the expanded Oceans Protection Plan, to support projects that conserve and restore priority coastal and upstream aquatic areas. , the Government of announced an investment of over five years for the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund, as part of the expanded Oceans Protection Plan, to support projects that conserve and restore priority coastal and upstream aquatic areas. The Government of Canada made significant investments in the Restoration Community under the Coastal Restoration Fund in 2017, and the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund continues to bring Indigenous groups, resource users, community organizations and other groups together to encourage local capacity to support aquatic habitat restoration, maintenance and revitalization. made significant investments in the Restoration Community under the Coastal Restoration Fund in 2017, and the Aquatic Ecosystems Restoration Fund continues to bring Indigenous groups, resource users, community organizations and other groups together to encourage local capacity to support aquatic habitat restoration, maintenance and revitalization. The project will provide four full-time positions, two summer students and two seasonal technicians over the three-year span of the work. Associated Links Stay Connected SOURCE Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada 12 july 2024 at 11:57 News published onand distributed by: SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust to Release 2024 Second Quarter Results and Host Conference Call TORONTO, July 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust ("SmartCentres") (TSX: SRU.UN) announced today that it will be reporting its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2024 after the market closes on Thursday, August 8, 2024. Management will hold a conference call on Friday, August 9, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. (ET). Interested parties are invited to access the call at least 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the call by dialing 1-855-353-9183 and then keying in the conference access code 75488#. A recording of this call will be made available Friday, August 9, 2024, through to Friday, August 16, 2024. To access the recording, please call 1-855-201-2300 and enter the conference access code 75488# and then key in the playback access code 0114493#. Recordings of SmartCentres' current and previous conference calls can be found at www.smartcentres.com/investing. About SmartCentres SmartCentres is one of Canada's largest fully integrated REITs, with a best-in-class and growing mixed-use portfolio featuring 193 strategically located properties in communities across the country. SmartCentres has approximately $11.9 billion in assets and owns 35.1 million square feet of income producing value-oriented retail and first-class office properties with 97.7% in place and committed occupancy, on 3,500 acres of owned land across Canada. For more information, visit www.smartcentres.com or please contact: Mitchell Goldhar Peter Slan Executive Chairman and CEO Chief Financial Officer (905) 326-6400 ext. 7674 (905) 326-6400 ext. 7571 [email protected] [email protected] 12 july 2024 at 13:55 News published onand distributed by: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrap up a joint press conference at the NATO summit in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2024. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / AP President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, July 11, he was confident Ukraine would eventually join NATO after the alliance said the Russian-invaded country had an "irreversible" path to membership. "We have strong wording regarding the irreversibility of Ukraine's movement towards NATO. Every step truly brings us closer to membership," Zelensky told a news conference at a NATO summit alongside the alliance's chief Jens Stoltenberg. "We are doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member, and I am confident we will achieve this," he said. Zelensky's reaction was significantly warmer than a year ago at the NATO summit in Lithuania where he was visibly upset that there was not a firmer promise on membership. NATO, formed in the Cold War, is a collective defense pact in which an attack on one ally is an attack on all. The United States and Germany have led concerns about quickly bringing Ukraine into NATO, believing it would effectively put them at war with nuclear-armed Russia. A declaration issued Wednesday at the 75th anniversary NATO summit in Washington said leaders supported Ukraine on "its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited Ukraine's NATO aspirations as a reason to attack the former Soviet republic, rejecting the idea that the country has a separate historical identity. Cold War-style confrontation Meanwhile, the United States' plan to periodically station long-range missiles in Germany will lead to Cold War-style confrontation between Russia and the West, the Kremlin said Thursday. The White House announced the decision on Wednesday during a NATO summit in Washington, arguing the stationing of long-range weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles in Europe acts as a deterrent. "We are taking steady steps towards the Cold War," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a state TV reporter. "All the attributes of the Cold War with the direct confrontation are returning," he said. He added Washington's decision gave Russia "a reason to pull together" and "fulfil all the goals" of its military campaign in Ukraine. NATO countries spearheaded by the United States have bolstered their defences in Europe in the wake of Russia's 2022 offensive against neighbouring Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed the planned deployment of the US weapons in his country, calling the move a "necessary and important decision at the right time". You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close A COUNTY Limerick juvenile, who was involved in a burglary in 2023, has been told by the court to re-engage with education and training opportunities. The 15-year-old, who cannot be named, was involved in a house burglary, which resulted in a broken window causing 1,000 worth of damage on October 6, 2023. Solicitor for the minor, Michael ODonnell, told the court a comprehensive probation report had been handed in for his client and that he accepts that a window was broken, but its unclear whether or not he was a party to that or not. He accepts he was in the property and he should not have been - he was trespassing, Mr ODonnell told Newcastle West District Court. He added that his client accepts that he was in the house without consent but added that he asserts there was no one in the house at the time. Mr ODonnell said that there has so far been a lack of engagement with education and training, as well as a lack of structure and routine. READ MORE: Shannon Airports new app features smartwatch updates and bag scanning technology Probation and welfare services have agreed to engage with the teenager, on the condition that he engages with training or embarks on any that is offered. The court heard that the boy has been, along with his family, engaging with a homeless action group and that they have effectively been moved from A to B to C, Mr ODonnell said. Judge Carol Ann Coolican said its in his interest to engage with the Probation Services and re-engage with education and training. The judge acknowledged the comprehensive probation report and adjourned the case to July 23, remanding the minor on bail. A LIMERICK man who was in a leadership role in a national voluntary body in the course of its operations in the Mid-West region has been sentenced to six years in jail, with the final six months suspended, for grooming, sexually assaulting and exploiting a then teenage girl. Before Limerick Circuit Court, the man who was also working as a postman at the time of the offences, pleaded guilty to seven counts including defilement of a child, sexual exploitation and sexual assault, as sample counts representing 21 charges. In sentencing, Judge Dermot Sheehan said there was a significant age difference and a breach of trust and he put the man on the sex offenders register for life. All of the incidents occurred on dates in 2007 and 2008 and the abuse happened between 50 and 100 times in that period. At the time, the man who is now 44-years-old would have been 27 or 28, while the woman, whose identity has been protected by anonymity, was then only 14 or 15. The incidents happened at the house the man shared with his wife at that time, at the girls family home while her parents were out and in the mans car. He sometimes collected her from school. In sentencing, Judge Dermot Sheehan remarked that the accused did not seem concerned about being caught. He added that the abuse led to the victim now in her thirties missing her chance to have normal teenage years. The judge acknowledged that the man used his lawful position as a postman as a cover, planned the interactions with the underage girl and recognised his victim as a child through the remarks he made about her bedroom in the family home. He was described as being an instructor, a leader and that he knew how young the victim was. The girl would attend meetings for the voluntary organisation she had joined, in which he was a leader and the man would give a few of the young people a drive home, orchestrating that the girl be the last one in the car. The abuse started with touching and kissing, and progressed onto sexual intercourse and oral sex. Prosecuting barrister, John OSullivan BL, told the court that the man took advantage of his position as a leader. He said that he led the victim to believe at her young age that she was in a relationship with an older male. The man's behaviour was described to the court by Mr OSullivan as predatory. In November 2008, the abuse was reported through the channels of the voluntary organisation and was investigated by the HSE, however it did not go any further, as the victim was scared of her father finding out and she denied the claims and didnt pursue it. The garda investigation started ten years later when the victim reported alleged historical sexual abuse to Henry Street garda station. The man was arrested in June 2020 and he was interviewed by gardai four times. Initially, he denied all allegations, before admitting to kissing and touching the girl in the third and fourth interviews. He was described in court as being vague in his replies. Mr OSullivan said: Grooming is very much a feature of this case as the accused was in a position of trust. During one incident when the older man was at the girls house, and was in her bedroom, he picked up some of her things and remarked that she was a real little girl. The court heard that between September and November 2008, the man would abuse the girl every time they were in his car together, which was most Saturdays. The man would put his hand inside the girls pants and the court heard she was nervous and didnt know what he was doing and that these incidents happened up to 100 times. Mr OSullivan said the accused used his position to groom and manipulate the teenage girl. In an emotional victim impact statement, the victim said that when she joined the voluntary organisation, she thought it would be a safe and fun place, unfortunately that was not the case. She said the man's attention made her feel special and wanted. The victim said she would wake up every morning to a text message saying good morning beautiful and it felt like a fairytale, she didnt realise she was being groomed. She said that nothing can take away the memories of being abused in her own home. The victim told the court she feels like her life has been on hold and that she gets nightmares and flashbacks. In mitigation, Brian McInerney SC said his clients guilty plea saved the victim from the trauma of having to give evidence and be cross examined in a trial. He said his client wants to unreservedly acknowledge his guilt and wrong doing. Mr McInerney said that while his client was not seeking to provide excuses for what happened, a number of things were going on in his own life at that time. This led to a situation where his judgement was completely unsafe, he told the court. READ MORE: PICTURES: Down Syndrome fundraiser releases balloons into the Limerick sky The court heard that the man has no previous convictions and the court advised that he will have no unsupervised contact with minors. Judge Sheehan acknowledged that the guilty plea saved the victim from being cross examined and giving evidence in a full trial. Judge Sheehan imposed a sentence of seven years in jail, but reduced this down to six years and suspended the final six months on his own bond of 250 on the condition that the accused keep the peace and be of good behaviour, be available for the Probation and Welfare Services and he will consider the need for supervision post release. The sentence was backdated to May 15, when the man first went into custody after a sentencing hearing. LIMERICK is set to be a kaleidoscope of colour and celebration this week for the annual Limerick Pride Festival. HSE Mid-West are highlighting the importance of embracing sexual identity, but also the importance of making sexual health and testing a priority. The annual pride parade takes place tomorrow (Saturday, July 12) and will feature members of the Gender Orientation, Sexual Health and HIV (GOSHH) team as the parades grand marshalls. GOSHH are celebrating ten years in the Mid-West with a diverse range of support services across the region. Their staff provide a safe, confidential and welcoming environment for everyone. As well as the parade, there will be free rapid HIV, Hepatitis C and syphilis testing from the GOSHH team outside The Hunt Museum on Saturday. The HSE also offers free home testing packs to test for gonorrhoea and chlamydia, which can be ordered free-of-charge at www.sh24.ie. The uptake of this free service has been encouraging following a localised awareness campaign in late 2023. Dr Kenneth Beatty, Specialist in Public Health Medicine, Public Health HSE Mid-West, and chairperson of the Mid-West Sexual Health and Wellbeing committee, said: While Pride is a brilliant opportunity to celebrate diversity and empowerment its also an opportunity to promote safe sexual health. READ MORE: Liam Gallagher will Definitely Maybe be late for Limerick gig due to Euro final In the first five months of the year, we have seen over 380 cases of chlamydia and over 160 cases of gonorrhoea in the Mid-West, so its more important than ever to make sure you practice safe sex, are aware of the symptoms of STIs and get tested (either through SH24, local STI clinics or your GP) if youre worried about any symptoms. Verena Tarpey, GOSHH CEO, said: We are fortunate to have such an excellent working relationship with HSE Mid-West. The Sexual Health and Wellbeing committee allows us to share data, knowledge and to work collectively to promote good sexual health for all. We widely promote the free home testing packs services in partnership with our funders. We are also extremely proud to be an NGO partner of the National Condom Distribution Scheme. Equally, we work with communities who are not as empowered to access these vital services without our assistance. LAY ministers are gaining confidence and self-assurance in their roles, which will be key to meeting the needs of the faithful going forward, the leader of a cross-diocesan Programme of Formation for lay ministry has stated. Over 80 people from the Cashel & Emly, Kerry, Killaloe and Limerick dioceses, who have completed the course, recently gathered to give feedback in Patrickswell on their experience as lay ministers. And, according to Fr Eamonn Fitzgibbon, who heads up the programme, the consensus to emerge was one of participants becoming more relaxed in their roles and their ability to impact as lay ministers. This programme is offered as a means of preparing lay people to take on roles of ministry and leadership in the life of the church. Those who have completed the course have taken up voluntary roles across parishes and communities. These include leading public prayer, assisting with funeral liturgies, engaging in ecological concerns, music ministry, praying with the Bible and reaching out to those who may be distanced from the faith. The programme includes a Certificate in Pastoral Ministry, which is accredited by Mary Immaculate College through the Irish Institute for Pastoral Studies. A new intake of participants will take place this autumn for the 30 month programme, which includes an initial period of discernment and reflection followed by two years of study on a Level 6, 30 Credit course. The programme is part-time and takes place over one weekend per month. READ MORE: Words fall short when trying to describe Lourdes - Fr Chris O'Donnell Speaking following the recent review, Fr Fitzgibbon said that lay ministers are also getting a deeper understanding of their own faith through their work. Ultimately, the beneficiaries of this are parishes and local communities where we simply no longer have clergy available to deliver what we could 20 years ago. However, what very much emerged from our gathering in Patrickswell was a sense of hope and optimism, that even though there is a dramatic decline in the number of vocations to priesthood and the religious life, something new is emerging and opening up. There are many lay people able and willing to be involved if they get the necessary formation and support. What this is saying to us is that we need to run more programmes as others will undoubtedly follow these early adopters, not least given their positive experience, said Fr Fitzgibbon. The ultimate motivation for those participating in the programme is their desire to contribute, to ensure that Gods word continues to be spoken and we are really encouraged not alone by the numbers that have come forward but also their commitment and, indeed, spirituality. So many people have so much to offer, and this is their time to give, he added. Those interested in participating in the next programme can email Eamonn.Fitzgibbon@mic.ul.ie A JUDGE has jailed well known anti-vaxxer activist, Antonio Mureddu, aged 47, for two years and eight months for the motorway assault of a garda sergeant three years ago. At Ennis Circuit Court on Thursday, Judge Francis Comerford imposed the 32-month prison term on businessman, Mr Murredu - who used to operate a restaurant in Limerick - for the assault on Sgt James Hanley at the slip way on exit 13 at Knockanean, Ennis off the M18 Limerick to Galway motorway on August 10, 2021. In court, Sgt Hanley in his victim impact statement stated: I genuinely believe that the defendant sought to take my life on August 10, 2021 - or at the very least cause me serious harm. He said: He did not succeed thanks to the actions of the Good Samaritans who came to my aid. I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to them. Sgt Hanley was off work for 233 days as a result of injuries sustained in the assault and he told the court the impact of the defendants actions in assaulting me cannot be overstated, both professionally and personally." He said: I take great pride in my profession and I consider it a privilege to be able to continue serving as I have done for the last 17 years. Dramatic garda dash cam footage shown to the court showed Mr Mureddu sweeping Sgt Hanley with a leg movement to the ground on the slip way and putting him in a choke hold where Sgt Hanley was losing consciousness. Sgt Hanley tried to access the emergency channel on his Tetra radio to call for garda assistance but was prevented from doing so by Mr Mureddu who took possession of it and placed it out of reach. The footage shows six other motorists - three men and three women - come to the aid of Sgt Hanley and Judge Comerford said that the motorists effectively apprehended Mr Mureddu until other Gardai arrived. Judge Comerford said that the intervention of the passers-by underlines the respect the community has for gardai. Sgt Mark Murphy said that one witness believed that Sgt Hanley was suffering a heart attack as he was breathless on the ground and losing consciousness. Another said that Sgt Hanley was distressed with blood on his face and hands. A private LifeLine ambulance came upon the scene and brought Sgt Hanley to University Hospital Limerick for treatment. The 'Good Samaritans' put Sgt Hanley into the recovery position until assistance arrived. The assault took place at around 6.30pm after a high speed car chase on the M18 near Ennis where Sgt Hanley clocked Mr Mureddus red Alfa Romeo going at a speed of 174km at Crusheen heading south towards Limerick. One eye witness described Mr Mureddus car travelling like a bullet and in pursuit, Sgt Hanleys Garda patrol car reached a speed of 204kmph. In evidence, Sgt Mark Murphy said that Mr Mureddu's Alfa Romeo braked suddenly a number of times and after exiting the motorway stopped his car on the Knockanean slipway. Sgt Hanley - who was by himself on patrol - got out of his garda car and pushed at Mr Murredu as the Italian national walked towards him. Sgt Murphy said that Sgt Hanley did this for his own personal safety and counsel for Mr Murredu, Patrick Barriscale BL (instructed by solicitor, Colum Doherty) said that his client then over-reacted when putting Sgt Hanley to the ground and placing him in a choke-hold. Mr Barriscale said that Mr Murredu did this as he was concerned for his own safety. Mr Mureddu had prior to the assault only two previous convictions for motoring offences. READ MORE: Throwback Thursday: Pictures from the Limerick Leader archives Mr Barriscale told the court that the Italian national came to Ireland in 2006 and has operated restaurants at Tuam, Limerick and most recently Headford in Co Galway. Mr Barriscale said that at garda interview after the assault, he expressed regret for his actions and said that he wanted to apologise to Sgt Hanley. Along with pleading guilty to the assault charge on Sgt Hanley, Mr Mureddu also pleaded guilty to a dangerous driving charge and Judge Comerford imposed a three-year driving ban for that offence. Judge Comerford backdated Mr Mureddus prison term to March 12 when he was initially brought into custody. A VICTIM of an aggravated sexual assault bit off part of her attacker's tongue off during the ordeal, the Central Criminal Court has heard. Gerard Ward, aged 48, was today (Friday, July 12), jailed for five years for the attack. The court heard that Ward threatened the woman, who was giving him a lift, with rape before she was sexually assaulted. She bit down on his tongue as he kissed her before escaping the car. Ward, with an address at Galtee Drive, Southill, Limerick, was convicted by a jury following a trial, of aggravated sexual assault at Raheen Business Park, Limerick on August 25, 2020. Ward has previous convictions for robbery, road traffic and drugs offences. He was given a six-year sentence in 2016 for robbery of a taxi driver in which threats to cause serious harm were made. He also received a seven-year sentence in 2001 for kidnap and robbery charges. Aggravated sexual assault is a sexual assault that involves serious violence or the threat of serious violence or is such as to cause injury, humiliation or degradation of a grave nature to the person assaulted. The maximum sentence for this offence is life imprisonment. Evidence in this case was previously heard at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick. The court previously heard the woman and Ward had been socialising with others and she was giving him a lift. Ward directed the woman, who was new to the area, to the business park where he told her to turn off the engine. Ward made a threat to rape her before placing his hands on her throat and touching her vaginal area outside her clothing. As he was kissing her she bit down on his tongue and a significant amount of his tongue was bitten off. Ward pulled her hair, leaving a bald patch, and during the trial said this was an effort to get her to release the bite. The woman escaped the car and spat out the piece of tongue. She managed to ring the emergency services. She was also subjected to an assault by Ward in which she received bite marks and scratches to her body. Ward claimed that the kissing was consensual and that he had not made any threats. Gardai accepted at the sentence hearing that Ward answered all questions they put to him and that he had suffered life changing injuries. They accepted there had been no penetration and all the touching was outside the woman's clothes. Defence counsel told the court at an earlier hearing that Ward was remorseful. The loss of part of his tongue was significant and he had to relearn how to speak. Counsel asked for his injuries to be taken into consideration. The court heard he had a difficult bringing and has lost five family members in recent times. Passing sentence today in Dublin, Mr Justice Michael MacGrath commended the bravery and courage of the woman. He said he was acutely conscious of the trauma she had endured and hoped the effects of the ordeal will lessen in time. READ MORE: Normailte: Mapping 50 years of the LGBTQ+ movement in Ireland Mr Justice MacGrath said Wards culpability was high. He said the threat of rape had been taken seriously and the woman was vulnerable and new to the area. Ward had asked her to drive to a remote area and had taken advantage of her good nature. The judge said the aggravating factors included Wards prior convictions, which included violent behaviour or elements of violence, but acknowledged some were historical and committed while he was a much younger man. Mr Justice MacGrath set a headline sentence of seven years before considering mitigation, which included Ward's age, his domestic and family situation, his recent employment history and medical issues. He reduced the sentence by 18 months and imposed five and a half years' imprisonment. He suspended the final six months in light of Wards acceptance of the jury verdict and general expression of remorse. BUS services in one Limerick area have been temporarily stopped while a garda investigation is carried out in the wake of a female bus driver being assaulted by a number of youths during her work this afternoon (Friday, July 12). A garda spokesperson told Limerick Live that investigations are ongoing and that the driver did not require immediate medical attention. The injuries have been described as minor, but she was taken to hospital as a precaution. The driver has only been working for the company for two weeks. Some reports on social media suggest she was shot in the face with a pellet gun. The incident happened on the route 303 (Kilmallock Road to Pineview) in the O'Malley Park area of Southill just after noon. A spokesperson for Bus Eireann said they will be making any CCTV available to gardai for their investigation. The spokesperson said: "Bus Eireann services have currently been removed from the area as gardai investigate. Intending passengers are encouraged to check the services update section of our website for updates." They added that any antisocial or criminal behaviour towards staff or customers is not tolerated by the bus company. Customers can report any incidents to gardai, to the bus driver or to the customer care team in Bus Eireann on 0818 836611 or customercare@buseireann.ie. In a statement from the National Bus and Rail Union, they described the incident as being "disgraceful and extremely dangerous." READ MORE: Furious: Limerick councillor deems XL bully dog ban outrageous They said that a gang of youths refused to pay the fare and threatened the driver, who let them on board and that one of the youths shot her in the face just below her eye as they were disembarking. Senior national executive member Stephen Nugent said: "This appalling incident, once again, demonstrates the immediate requirement for the longstanding call from the NBRU for a dedicated garda public transport unit to be established, our politicians, particularly those in government need to move immediately to protect frontline transport workers and those that use public transport." People can check available buses here. Irelands deputy premier has said he is positive and optimistic about future relations with the UK. Micheal Martin also suggested there could be a friendly settlement to the interstate case which Ireland took against the UK over the controversial Legacy Act aimed at addressing Northern Irelands troubled past. The Tanaiste was speaking to the media as he met new Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn at Hillsborough Castle following Labours victory in last weeks General Election. He said he expected a wide-ranging discussion, including the stability of the Stormont Assembly and the opportunity to reset British/Irish relations. Speaking after the meeting, Mr Benn said they discussed the UK Governments commitment to economic growth, peace and stability in Northern Ireland, and to foster renewed, close relations with our nearest neighbour. Our relationship with Ireland is of great importance and I look forward to continuing to work closely with the Irish Government to reset and strengthen the relationship between our two countries, he said. Earlier Mr Martin said they had had a very good phone call last week following the UK General Election. We know each other. We have a good understanding of each others perspective, British/Irish relations and how to advance reconciliation in Northern Ireland, he said. There has been tension between the UK and Irish administrations in recent years following Brexit as well as the Conservative governments controversial legacy Bill on dealing with Northern Irelands troubled past. Asked for his view on the British/Irish relationship going forward, Mr Martin said he is positive and optimistic about the future relationship between the British and Irish governments. But also I realise the challenges and Im realistic in terms of how we meet those challenges, but what I am particularly focused on is to re-establish both governments working hand in hand as anchors of the Good Friday Agreement into the future. I think progress was made under Prime Minister Sunak and former secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris in many areas, particularly in terms of the Windsor Framework, but I do believe we have an opportunity to advance the situation on a wide range of issues, to deal with the legacy issue on an amicable basis, to work through that. I am positive and I believe there are opportunities here the British and Irish governments can exploit, and I am confident that if we work together we can advance reconciliation, which is my key agenda in the time ahead. Asked whether the Irish government intends to continue an interstate case against the UK over the Legacy Act, Mr Martin said he and Mr Benn will explore the issue. There are mechanisms within the framework of the case which allow for, if you like, a friendly settlement but that will obviously depend on how the British Government is going to deal with that Legacy Act and the core issues, he said. Above all, we believe the pressing issue on legacy is to restore trust in the legacy framework for the victims and families of those who lost their lives in atrocities. It is about the families, the survivors and victims. We have to restore trust. Irelands President Michael D Higgins has called for a meeting of his advisory body to discuss the constitutionality of the Governments Defence Bill. The Council of State will meet on Monday afternoon to discuss whether the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024 should be referred by the President to the Supreme Court on whether specific provisions are repugnant to the constitution. Mr Higgins intends to ask the council about sections 11 and 24 of the Bill in particular and whether the interference with constitutional rights is disproportionate. Section 11 prohibits a member of the Permanent Defence Forces from making a public statement or comment in relation to political matters or Government policy while they are in uniform or otherwise identifiable as a member of the Defence Forces, without prior authorisation from their commanding officer. It would also prohibit them from attending a protest under the same circumstances as well as stop them from canvassing for a political organisation or addressing a meeting of such a society. While Section 24 would now allow the Defence Forces to associate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, it would prohibit associated bodies like ICTU from calling for or encouraging industrial action within the military. PDFORRA, the representative body for enlisted personnel serving in the Defence Forces, welcomed the development. The organisation has raised concerns that rights of members would be eroded and expressed a willingness to mount a legal challenge to the legislation. Appearing before the Defence committee earlier this year, PDFORRA said: Transparency, an ability to speak freely, accountability and the freedom to associate are some of the core values necessary in any democracy. It added: Measures designed to gag, or inhibit freedom of speech, undermine confidence, give rise to bad actors and result in diminishing recruitment and retention figures. Those who sit on the council include the Taoiseach, Tanaiste, Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal, President of the High Court, Ceann Comhairle, Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, and the Attorney General. It will be the fourth time that Mr Higgins has convened the Council of State to consider a piece of legislation over the course of his terms in office. The President previously convened the Council of State on July 29 2013 to consider the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, on December 29 2015 to consider the International Protection Bill 2015, and on October 11 2023 to consider the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022. Since 1940, the Council of State has been convened to consider the potential referral of 29 previous Bills to the Supreme Court. Fifteen Bills have been referred to the Supreme Court following such meetings. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will meet Irish premier Simon Harris at Shannon Airport on Saturday. It will be the first bilateral meeting with Mr Zelensky on Irish soil and will focus on Russias ongoing invasion of Ukraine. While discussing the future of the conflict, Mr Harris is expected to express his condolences for the citizens whom Ukraine has lost in the war including the bombing of Ukraines largest childrens hospital earlier this week. He will also express Irelands full support for Ukraines bid towards EU membership. Mr Harris, who became Taoiseach in April, will offer further Irish assistance for thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly relocated to Russia and Belarus and entered into Russian re-education programmes since the war began. He will confirm Irelands membership of an international coalition for the return of the estimated 20,000 children. The two leaders last met on the fringes of the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland in June. Mr Zelensky is stopping at Shannon Airport, Co Clare, on his way back from a summit marking the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington. Ireland has provided 250 million euro in non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine under the European Peace Facility and the country has welcomed over 108,000 Ukrainians under the EU Temporary Protection Directive. Irish Defence Forces members have trained 455 Ukrainian personnel in demining, battlefield casualty care and the use of non-lethal mine clearance equipment. OpenAI has introduced a five-tier system to measure its progress toward developing artificial intelligence (AI) capable of surpassing human performance, reported Bloomberg. This move aims to provide clearer insight into the companys approach to AI safety and its vision for the future. The classification system was unveiled to employees during an all-hands meeting, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed. Reportedly, the tiers range from the current conversational AI (Level 1) to advanced AI that can operate an entire organization (Level 5). OpenAI, widely regarded as a frontrunner in the quest for more powerful AI systems, plans to share these levels with investors and other external stakeholders. Currently, OpenAI considers itself at the first level, but nearing the second, known as Reasoners. This stage refers to AI systems capable of basic problem-solving tasks comparable to a human with a doctorate, but without access to additional tools. During the same meeting, OpenAI's leadership showcased a research project involving its GPT-4 model, demonstrating new capabilities that exhibit human-like reasoning. As per Bloomberg, an insider who requested anonymity, mentioned that OpenAI continually tests new functionalities internally, a standard practice in the AI industry. OpenAI has long aimed to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), which entails developing computers that outperform humans on most tasks. Although AGI does not currently exist, CEO Sam Altman has expressed optimism that it could be achieved within this decade. The criteria for reaching AGI have been a topic of debate among AI researchers. In November 2023, researchers at Google DeepMind proposed a five-level framework for AI, including stages such as expert and superhuman, akin to the system used in the automotive industry for self-driving cars. OpenAIs newly introduced levels also feature five ascending stages towards AGI. The third level, Agents, refers to AI systems capable of performing tasks over several days on behalf of users. The fourth level involves AI that can generate new innovations, and the highest level, Organizations, signifies AI that can operate autonomously within an organization. These tiers were developed by OpenAIs executives and senior leaders and are still considered a work in progress. The company intends to collect feedback from employees, investors, and its board to refine the levels further. Nashik (Maharashtra) [India], July 9: KBC Global Ltd ( Previously known as Karda Construction Limited ) BSE - 541161, a prominent player in the construction and real estate development sector has handed over possession for 100 plus residential cum commercial units in its various ongoing projects in Nashik, Maharashtra. The group has handed over possession for total of 109 units from April 2024. Company handed over 76 units of Hari Kunj Mayflower Project, 19 units of Hari Krishna Phase IV project Highlights:- Appointed Mr. Muthusubramanian Hariharan, as Executive Director and CEO of the Company w.e.f 9 July Company has been awarded a sub contract worth of USD 20 Million for soft infrastructure segment from CRJE Ltd Companys wholly owned subsidiary, Karda International Infrastructure Ltd received this contract KBC Global has taken its first step in becoming a key part of Africas Infrastructure development. Company has also announced a strategic plans for expansion in both domestic and international markets. Out of the total units handed over during the period, the company has handed over possession of 76 units of the project Hari Kunj Mayflower (MAHARERA Reg no: P51600020249), a residential cum commercial project situated at Karmayogi Nagar, Nashik ,Maharashtra - 422 009. In Hari Krishna Phase IV project, company has handed over 19 units while remaining from the other projects. Board of Directors at its Meeting held today i.e. July 08, 2024, approved the appointment of Mr. Muthusubramanian Hariharan, as Executive Director and CEO of the Company with effect from 09 July 2024 to hold office upto the date of the ensuing general meeting Established in 2007, company has made significant strides in the real estate industry, specializing in the development and sale of residential and residential-cum-office projects in Nashik, India. The company operates primarily in two segments: construction and development of residential and commercial projects, and contractual projects. Notable projects of the company include Hari Gokuldham, Hari Nakshtra-ll Eastext Township, Hari Sanskruti ll, Hari Siddhi, and Hari Samarth, among others. The company has also announced a strategic plans for expansion in both domestic and international markets. In the month of April 2024, board of directors considered and approved conversion of total 60 bonds into equity shares as per the terms and conditions of the issue of FCCB. The real estate sector is poised for continued growth, driven by factors such as supply and demand dynamics, regulatory frameworks, and overall economic conditions. Government initiatives like "Housing for All" and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana further underscore the growth potential in the industry. Additionally, infrastructure megaprojects such as highways, airports, and metros are contributing to the expansion of the real estate market. Recently, company has been awarded a significant subcontract worth approximately US $20 million by CRJE (EAST AFRICA) Ltd. CRJE is a modern enterprise with a rich history in constructing railways and five-star hotels across Africa. This substantial contract focuses on the civil engineering segment of soft infrastructure and represents a major milestone for KBC Global. The contract was secured through KBC Globals wholly-owned Kenyan subsidiary, Karda International Infrastructure Limited, underscoring the companys expanding footprint in the African market. The contract award highlights KBC Globals growing capabilities and reputation in international infrastructure development. This project is a testament to the companys commitment to contributing to Africas infrastructure growth, marking its first major step in becoming a key player in the continents development. With this achievement, KBC Global is poised to make significant contributions to East Africas infrastructure landscape, aligning with the regions ambitious growth and development goals. Originating from the TAZARA Construction Aiding Team of the Jianchang Engineering Bureau under the China Ministry of Railways, CRJE is also part of the prestigious China Railway Construction Group company, established to drive business development in East Africa. In the financial year 2022-2023, Karda Construction Limited reported revenues of Rs. 10,818.56 Lakhs. Reliance Industries Ltd, the energy-to-telecom conglomerate, will announce its earnings for the first quarter of FY25 on July 19. The companys board of directors will meet and approve standalone and consolidated financial results for Q1FY24 on Friday, July 19. ...meeting of the board of directors of Reliance Industries of the Company is scheduled to be held on Friday, July 19, 2024, inter alia, to consider and approve the standalone and consolidated unaudited financial results of the Company for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, Reliance Industries said in a regulatory filing. A presentation to analysts and media on financial results of the Company for the quarter ended June 30, 2024 shall be made on the same day after the meeting, it added. The billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Q1 results will include the June quarter earnings of its O2C business, Jio and Reliance Retail business. Heres what to expect from Reliance Q1 results on July 19: Reliance Q1 Results Preview Reliance is expected to deliver a modest year-on-year (YoY) growth in revenue for the quarter ended June 2024, but the companys topline, bottomline and operating profits are expected to decline on a sequential basis. Also Read | Jio Financial Services gets RBI green light to become a core investment company RIL Q1 consolidated revenue is expected to rise 10% to 2.27 lakh crore from 2.07 lakh crore in the year-ago quarter. However, it is expected to fall 4% from the March quarter, according to estimates by Nuvama Institutional Equities. Reliance Q1 net profit is expected to be at 15,987 crore, flat YoY and registering a drop of 16% from 18,951 crore in the previous quarter. At the operational level, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in Q1FY25 is expected to rise 4% to 39,418 crore from 38,093 in Q1FY24 on account of relatively strong performance across ONG, retail and JIO partially offset by weak O2C. EBITDA is likely to fall 3% from 42,516 crore, QoQ. We expect O2C EBITDA to fall 11% YoY (-19% QoQ) on weak refining and petchem. Benchmark Singapore GRMs have fallen 16% YoY (- 50% QoQ) on weak global product cracks. We expect RIL ONG's EBITDA to rise ~30% YoY (-8% QoQ) on increased production from KGD6 block offset by 20% YoY dip in deepwater gas prices (flat QoQ), Nuvama Equities said. Retail EBITDA is likely to remain strong (up 20% YoY and 3% QoQ) on higher footfalls. JIO's EBITDA is likely to surge 11% YoY and 3% QoQ on a high subscriber base (up 8% YoY/1% QoQ). Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) shall likely rise by 2% YoY/ 1% QoQ. At 9:25 am, Reliance shares were trading 0.05% higher at 3,165.05 apiece on the BSE. (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG has resolved a 500 million ($545 million) claim from a Spanish hotel chain over losses suffered on foreign-exchange derivatives sold by the lender. Responding to Bloomberg questions about the status of the lawsuit from Palladium Hotel Group, the German lender said it has resolved the matter. Palladium had claimed in its suit that the company was sold products by Deutsche Bank that it didnt understand and, as a result, piled up derivatives with a notional amount as high as 5.6 billion. Palladiums lawyers had said if the hotel chain had understood the risks involved, it would not have entered into any restructuring and would have unwound its outstanding trading portfolio with the bank sometime in 2015. The Ibiza-based hotel chain is one of between 50 and 100 companies to say they have taken a hit from attempts to mitigate exchange-rate risks after buying complex FX derivatives from Deutsche Bank, Bloomberg has previously reported. Deutsche Bank did not disclose the charge related to the Palladium settlement, but indicated it is included in net litigation charges of about 200 million that it has put aside for a number of legacy cases. The impact of the settlement is fully reflected in the guidance on litigation costs we provided for the second quarter, the bank said in its statement. The bank, which had previously said it would vigorously defend its position, added that it did not expect any additional impact in the third quarter or beyond. Palladium didnt immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside of normal office hours. Deutsche Bank has previously said that it has been reviewing parts of its sales activities in structured FX derivatives. As we and our regulators would expect, we are improving our processes and enhancing our controls, the lender said. The German lender still faces large legal challenges. In April, it announced it will book legal provisions of as much as 1.3 billion after a court indicated that it may partially side with claimants in a lawsuit filed by shareholders of Postbank AG, a competitor it took over 14 years ago. The chances of the firm carrying out a second share buyback this year have become less likely, Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke said at its AGM several weeks later. --With assistance from William Shaw. (Updates with additional comments from Deutsche Bank) More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com SpaceX is pushing to sharply increase rocket launches in Texas as it races to demonstrate its massive new vehicle can fly as designed. The company has proposed to launch Starship rockets up to 25 times annually from its complex east of Brownsville, Texas, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. SpaceX has permission to conduct up to five orbital flights there under a plan the agency approved in 2022. SpaceXs latest plan will likely draw scrutiny from some residents and environmental groups, who have said launches and related operations damage natural areas. Repeated beach closures for Starship operations have also generated frustration. Supporters of SpaceX, including many elected officials in southeast Texas, have lauded the company for generating jobs and economic opportunities. The rocket maker has been transforming a corner of the state near the Gulf of Mexico through its development of what it calls Starbase, home to a large Starship factory and other facilities. Standing nearly 400 feet tall on the launchpad, Starship is an important part of NASAs plans to return astronauts to the surface of the moon. The company plans to use Starship for satellite deployments, including its own Starlink satellite-internet business. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk hopes to one day use the vehicle to send people to Mars. For now, SpaceX is still testing Starship, which hasnt flown any satellites yet and faces technical hurdles. In addition to its Texas proposal, the company is seeking to fly the vehicle dozens of times each year from Florida. Musk has talked about making Florida the companys primary location for Starship missions. Environmental reviews for those proposals are under way. Stepping up Starships flight rate in Texas requires a new environmental assessment overseen by the FAA, which regulates commercial-space launches. In 2022, the FAA required SpaceX to carry out dozens of steps to mitigate the effects of Starship launches. Environmental groups have said that effort wasnt enough. FAA Deputy Administrator Katie Thomson said in an interview the aviation-safety agency would work with other government agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to analyze SpaceXs Texas launch plans and gather public feedback. SpaceX has poured resources into the Starship program, spending on new engines, ground infrastructure and staff. In a court filing from May 2023, the company said that over time it had invested more than $3 billion at Starbase and into the vehicle. During its first flight from Texas last year, the Starship booster destroyed the launchpad during liftoff, spraying debris over a 385-acre area and starting a fire. That damage generated criticism from environmental advocates and was folded into a lawsuit that several organizations filed against the FAA last year, claiming the agency failed to fully study and address the impact of Starship launches. The FAA has denied those claims and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, according to a court filing. Starship hasnt destroyed the launchpad on three subsequent flights, after changes SpaceX made to improve it. Thomson said the FAA had serious concerns about what happened during the first launch and required SpaceX to make changes before Starship could fly again. The information from that incident, as unfortunate as that incident was, will be a major consideration in how we evaluate and analyze the new environmental assessment," she said. In addition to proposing as many as 25 Starship launches from South Texas, SpaceX wants permission to land both the vehicles booster and its spacecraft at the site the same number of times. The company is working to make the rocket fully reusable. Susan Pulliam contributed to this article. Write to Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal took to the microblogging site X on Friday to give advice to EV companies that invest heavily in marketing and advertisements. Bhavish Aggarwal asked companies to save money on cute ads and rather invest in supply chains to boost sales. I see some EV companies trying to make cute ads in a bid to grow their stagnant sales, he posted. He added that investment in technology and supply chains would lower product costs. Pro tip for them: Electric vehicles is a supply chain and manufacturing business. Save the marketing and sales and invest it into supply chains and tech to lower your product costs, Bhavish Aggarwal posted. Bhavish Aggarwals comments come after Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath took a light-hearted dig at Ather Energys marketing strategy. Kamath appreciated Ather products for their quality but called out their inefficient marketing strategy. Everyone of us has pluses and minuses, Ather has sh*t marketing but great product (sorry Tarun), Kamath posted on X. Kamath, however, stated that product quality takes precedence over marketing. Will pick great products with terrible marketing every time, sales I hope can be solved for easier than product, he said. India's EV sector has major players such as Ola Electric, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy, TVS Motor Co and Hero Moto Corp. According to a Mint report on March 11, Ola Electric is the biggest market player in the sector, with a share of 42.3 percent. Other players include TVS Motor Co, with a share of 17.5 percent, Bajaj Auto, with a share of 15.2 percent, and Ather Energy, with a share of 10.4 percent. However, the electric two-wheeler market in India has seen subdued volumes in the last three months. Registrations for high-speed electric two-wheelers declined by 27 percent in May compared to the previous year's high base, according to a Mint report on June 11. Also Read | New EV policy may allow ongoing investments for incentives, Vinfast to benefit Orios Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital investor, plans to start raising capital for its fifth fund in the middle of next year and deploy $150 million-200 million ( 1,253 crore-1,670 crore) in Indias burgeoning startup ecosystem, a top executive told Mint . The Mumbai-based firm, which has invested in MobiKwik, PharmEasy, and Country Delight, among others, is open to all sectors including software-as-a-service (SaaS), agritech, and healthtech, as it doubles down on early-stage startups with cheque sizes of $1-2 million, Sukhmani Bedi, a partner at Orios, said in an interview. So far, almost half of the $150 million fourth fund has been invested in startups including climate-tech firm Varaha and fixed-income lender Lendbox. We want to finish deploying from the current fund by early next year and start fundraising for the fifth fund by June 2025. Well continue focusing on the domestic ecosystem because we have faith in Indias consumption story," Bedi said. While the size of the fifth fund may change based on interest from limited partners (LPs), Bedi said $150 million-200 million is a good number to generate strong multiples. We have seen some funds get large cheques from LPs and looked beyond the Indian markets to generate hyper returns. But as a domestic fund, we know that a fund size of $150-200 million is sufficient to invest in the Indian ecosystem to generate good returns," she noted. Abundant opportunities Orios launched its first fund in 2014 and closed it at 300 crore the following year. It backed 18 companies including dairy startup Country Delight, e-pharmacy company PharmEasy, and shared accommodation firm Zostel. The fund is said to have returned 1x to its LPs and increased returns are expected in 2024 and 2025, it said in January. Looking back to Fund I, we can see that opportunity for startups has grown manifold. Tech has reached across India and into the hinterland. It has gone beyond consumer internet to B2B, SaaS, EVs, climate-tech, and to hardware," Rehan Yar Khan, managing partner of Orios, had said. In 2021, Orios set up an opportunities fund of $30 million to re-invest in emerging winners such as Country Delight and PharmEasy. Orioss fourth fund was rolled out shortly after two partners, Anup Jain and Rajeev Suri, moved out. Given the seniority and importance of the roles, the firm will look to hire replacements soon, according to Bedi. Recently, Orios faced turbulence after portfolio companies GoMechanic (founder admitting to financial misreporting) and PharmEasy (massive drop in valuation) stirred chaos. However, Bedi said these incidents led the firm to evaluate its portfolio companies more carefully and put stricter emphasis on corporate governance. In the middle of two funding rounds, we now do more frequents audits than we did before," Bedi said. Quick commerce support Over the past few years, building from India for the world has emerged as a major theme attracting investors, especially in technology-centric sectors like deep tech and climate. However, Orios wants to stick by its thesis of supporting domestic startups, especially those that are solving problems pertinent to the country, Bedi said. While we will look closely at cross-border startups and SaaS bets that have global interest at play, we dont want to jump into anything because of FOMO (fear of missing out)," Bedi added. According to Bedi, Indias evolving consumption patterns led to the phenomenal growth of quick commerce, proving the initial premise of many venture capital investors wrong. Quick commerce grew 10-fold from 2021 to 2023, driven by the need for convenience by urban consumers, according to a report by JM Financial. However, instead of investing in quick commerce companies, Orios will look at backing associated entities such as logistics companies and technology-enablers, both as part of its current fund and the next fund, Bedi said. A SMALL NUMBER should haunt the sleep of Chinas leaders: 1.1. That is the number of children that, given prevailing trends, each Chinese woman is expected to have on average during her child-bearing years. Chinas total fertility rate (TFR), to use the demographers term, has fallen far below the 2.1 children needed for a stable population. Sure enough, in 2023 Chinas population declined for the second year in a row. Communist Party bosses may cling to a (thin) comfort. This disaster has many causes, only one of which is their one-child policy, the harsh system that between 1980 and 2016 limited most urban families to a single child, and many rural folk to two. Most of Chinas fertility decline happened in the 1970s, as a result of such forces as urbanisation and womens education (Mao-era calls for large families also stopped). Similar forces saw birth rates plunge across East Asia. Japans TFR has fallen below 1.3 and in South Korea, catastrophically, it is below 0.8. The rapid ageing of Chinas population also follows patterns seen region-wide. Even so, pangs of remorse should trouble party chiefs dreams. The one-child policy is not the sole reason for this crisis, but its legacy will make it exceptionally hard for China to escape demographic doom. Chinas population structure has been left permanently skewed. Brutal, often corrupt officials enforced rules with propaganda, fines and tens of millions of abortions and sterilisations, many of them involuntary. There are about 150m one-child families today. Worse, many parents who wanted sons chose to abort girls, leaving China with 30m fewer women than men. The policy was both cruel and a blunder. Family-planning officials assumed that birth rates would spring back once controls were abolished. Alas, they re-educated parents too well. One child became the norm, certainly in cities. Consider another figure that should haunt leaders: 1.7. That is the number of children that, on average, Chinese women of child-bearing age call ideal. Chinas ideal is one of the worlds lowest, far below the number given in Japan or South Korea. Chinese women born after 1995 want the fewest of all: 48.3% of them told the Chinese General Social Survey of 2021 that they desire one or no children. There is growing evidence that such attitudes are powerfully shaped by how people, and those around them, experienced the one-child policy. When asked why they want small families, Chinese parents usually cite the costs of child-rearing. In fact, there is no neat link between fertility rates and average incomes. Birth rates are very low in Chinas richest city, Shanghai, but also in its post-industrial north-east. Those very different places do have something in common. Shanghai enforced childbirth rules sternly. So did state-owned firms that employed millions in the north-east, notes Yu Jia of the Centre for Social Research at Peking University. Another revealing variation involves the roughly one in 11 Chinese who are from ethnic minorities. The policy was enforced (a bit) less strictly for minorities, allowing larger families to remain the norm in isolated places like Tibet, but also in diverse rural regions home to the Bai, Miao, Yi, Zhuang and other peoples. Distinctive effects may be seen to this day. Even after controlling for education and degrees of social contact with Chinas dominant Han majority, many ethnic groups stand out for wanting larger families. One consistent factor, says Ms Yu, is that minority households had different one-child rules applied to them. Intrigued, Chaguan headed to Guizhou, a province in Chinas south-west with many minorities and the highest birth rates of any region outside Tibet. Locals offered varied explanations for high fertility rates and vivid memories of family-planning rules. Heading into the mountainous heartland of the Miao people, a first stop was the township of Zhou Xi. Locals thronged an open-air fair marking a Miao festival, Lusheng. Stalls sold tangerines, sugar cane and roast dog. Mr Wang, a father in his 30s, watched two sons playing on a bouncy castle. One of three siblings himself, he recalled how his own mother hid from officials enforcing her villages two-child limit. Rule-breakers braved fines and the confiscation of cows, chickens or pigs to have larger families. We Miao are more hospitable in every way, we prefer to have lots of relatives and friends, Mr Wang explained. Next, a winding road led to Puzi, a wood-smoke-scented mountain hamlet. Many working-age villagers are Miao, but toil in faraway Han Chinese towns. Some have picked up big-city views. Mr Mu has worked in a factory in Dongguan, a southern coastal city, for almost 12 years. He returned to Puzi for the recent Spring Festival and stayed on to attend a funeral. He has two sons and cited Miao beliefs that one child is not enough. But his neighbours in Dongguan with a lone child enjoy an easier life, he ventured. Faced with the prospect of helping his sons buy cars and homes so that they can marry, he sighed: Im under a lot of pressure. Beware officials claiming to plan for the long term The final stop was Guiyang, the sleepy provincial capital where Han Chinese and minorities live side by side. In a park outside a childrens hospital, your columnist met a Han couple in their late 30s from Hunan province, Mr Luo and Ms Yang. They had a first child 13 years ago, while working in the wealthy eastern province of Jiangsu, and feared more would be too tiring. If they had stayed in Jiangsu, they would still have one, they said. But after moving to Guiyang to open a shop, Miao neighbours convinced them that solo children are lonely. They ended up with three, laughed Ms Yang, as a pair of small children tugged at her sleeves. Even here, 20-something locals are converging with national norms, marrying later and wanting just one or two children, reported Ms Yang, adding: Probably we are the generation who will have the most children. Words to haunt Chinas leaders. 2024, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. The Patna High Court sent 13 accused arrested by the Bihar Police in the NEET-UG paper leak case to the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) custody on Friday. The central probe agency will now be able to question these accused in custody and also confront them with kingpin Rockey alias Rakesh Ranjan. The CBI had sought the custody of the 13 accused earlier. However, the agency's plea was turned down by the Exclusive Magistrate, CBI, Patna on July 2 on the grounds that the statutory period seeking police custody within the first 15 days since the arrest had elapsed. The CBI later challenged the order in the high court, arguing that it had taken up investigation in June and should be given a chance to examine the suspects arrested by the state police. The agency had said the accused arrested by the state police had not even undergone 15 days of police custody. Sources told news agency ANI that the accused were in the custody of the Patna Police and Economic Offence Units of the Bihar Police for just two to four days and sent to judicial custody. The CBI argued that it may be given the custody of these accused for the remaining period of their police remand which could be from 11-13 days which was granted by the high court. "Considering the seriousness of the case and in the interest of justice, the operation of the order...passed by the the Exclusive Magistrate...shall remain stayed," Justice Sandeep Kumar was quoted as saying. Justice Kumar directed the Exclusive Magistrate to grant the custody of the 13 accused to the CBI on Friday itself. The NEET-UG exam, held on May 5, 2024, has been mired in controversy, with allegations of cheating and impersonation. NEET-UG examination, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), is the pathway for admissions into MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. On Thursday, the CBI arrested accused Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky from Bihar's Nalanda in connection with the NEET paper leak case. Ranjan is believed to be a one of key player in the NEET paper leak network. He was taken into custody following a planned operation by the CBI, news agency ANI reported. Amid headline-grabbing reports of Indian species being rejected overseas because of excess residual pesticide, it turns out that India has also been turning back consignments of food shipments from several countries. India has rejected consignments of as many as 1,500 imported food products over the previous two financial years because they failed to meet quality and safety parameters laid down by the countrys food regulator, according to two officials. The rejected consignments came from different countries or trade blocks, including developed economies with tight food regulatory regimes, one of them said. To be sure, several Indian food items have also been rejected by other countries in the recent past. Recently, spices from India were banned by Singapore and Hong Kong for alleged presence of ethylene oxidea cancer-causing pesticideabove the permissible limit. Also Read: Indian spices products hurt by too many, not too few standards Taking cognizance the matter, Indias top food regulator, in May ordered a probe and comprehensive testing of all brands of spices in India. The first official mentioned above said the Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) rejected 1,000 imported food items including cheese, almonds, milk and milk products, alcoholic beverages like whisky, dates, apples, coffee, sea food, and chocolates in 2022-23. Another 550 were rejected in 2023-24 for not conforming to Indian food safety standards, the official said. Also Read: Stringent domestic food safety standards essential to boost consumer confidence: Govt official Mint couldn't independently verify which food items from which country were rejected by Indian authorities. The department of commerce has prepared a list of countries with the names of food items that have been rejected on safety parameters to take further steps," said the second official mentioned earlier. Both the officials requested anonymity. India imports food from more than 100 countries. The FSSAI-established under Food Safety and Standards, 2006, lays down science-based standards for food products and regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import to ensure the availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption. The standards for both safety and quality are equally applicable for domestic and imported food. A spokesperson for the commerce ministry said the ministry is aware that food consignments from other countries do fail mandatory testing many a times. "FSSAI as the food regulator, implements the import regulations and associated testing, market surveillance and consequential measures. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is not involved in any import check or implementation of import regulations at the ports etc," said the commerce ministry spokesperson. There was no response to queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson till press time. Three-tier system Any food item, when referred to FSSAI for import clearance by the Customs Authorities, is subject to a three-tier system of verification scrutiny of documents, visual inspection, and sampling and testing. "In order to regulate the imported food items for their safety and quality, FSSAI has notified Authorized Officers for various Points of Entry, through which Import of food item is allowed by Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT)," said FSSAI spokesperson. If a sample is found conforming to FSSAI standards, then No Objection Certificate (NOC) is issued for import of any article of food for human consumption in the country. If sample is found not conforming, then Non-Conforming Report (NCR) is issued by FSSAI and in such cases Food is not allowed to enter the Indian market," the spokesperson said. Similarly, a food recall may be ordered by authorities or self-initiated by Food Business Operators (FBOs), including importers, if there is reason to believe that a food product they have imported or distributed is not in compliance with the Act, or the rules and regulations made thereunder. For import of food items, FSSAI has its own Risk Management System (RMS) based on parameters like importers profile, imported products, country of origin, manufacturers history of compliance etc. The RMS is integrated with the Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT). Challenges faced by the food regulator All food that is imported to India have to follow Indian standards. Sometimes, there were challenges that the food standards of the exporting country may not match with our standards. So, there used to be a mismatch of those standards. Secondly, food comes through more than 100 ports of entry and all ports must ensure imported food is safe. So, food samples are collected for testing. However, testing facilities are not available at all the ports and samples are sent to the accredited laboratory. Therefore, we restricted the import of food items to a certain number of ports so that food testing can be done more effectively. The third challenge was testing protocol was not robust enough," Pawan Agarwal, CEO of Food Future Foundation and Indias ex-food regulator. He added the issue of traceability is another issue to make sure that only safe food is coming to India. The food regulator also keeps a close watch on international food alerts. "We largely import apples, pulses, edible oil, high-risk food, fresh foods such as sea food, meat etc. which have a propensity to get spoilt due to microbial contamination and poor temperature control," Aggarwal said. Gireesh Chandra Prasad contributed to this story. NEW DELHI : Bundled tariff plans that include access to content-streaming apps are in vogue. They generate additional revenue for the telecom operators as users tend to upgrade to higher-paying plans for more data. And for consumers, they mean sheer conveniencethey get only one bill for mobile services, internet and all over-the-top (OTT) app subscriptions. But the bundled offering has raised a question: Should content providers still give a fair share" of their revenues to telecom firms that have invested billions into the network needed for users to stream the content? Mint examines: Why are telecom service providers bundling OTT packs in your monthly tariff plans? For starters, it's additional revenue for telecom players. As streaming requires more data, users are likely to upgrade to higher-paying plans that provide more or unlimited data usage. The latest tariff hikes have already made the starting unlimited 5G data plans costlier by at least 46%. Bundled plans also increase consumer stickiness, or in other words, consumer retention. It is also an attractive selling point to gain new customers as they would have to manage fewer subscriptions if they switch. Also Read: Mint Explainer: Why SpiceJet repeatedly struggles to announce earnings on time Does it benefit consumers? For consumers, it's a matter of convenience as their service provider gets billed for all subscriptions, and they get one bill. Bundled plans can sometimes be cheaper than subscribing to mobile data and OTT services separately. This is because telecom companies might negotiate bulk discounts with OTT platforms and may pass on some of the savings to customers. In June, Vodafone Idea introduced its new subscription plan with access to 17 OTT apps, including Disney+ Hotstar, SonyLiv and Zee5, and 350 live channels through its Vi Movies & TV Plus app at 248. It claims the proposition is cheaper by almost 50% than subscribing to 17 OTT platforms separately. These plans are being offered not only to the higher-paying postpaid consumers but also to the prepaid consumers, who make up 95% of Indias nearly 1 billion smartphone users. But does this not dilute telecom firms' demands for a fair share of OTT platforms revenues? Though some might say telecom operators are already getting a share of OTTs' revenue through the bundled plans, industry executives believe OTT apps should give telecom firms a fair share" of their revenues as they invest trillions of dollars to build 4G and now 5G networks. This network has to be beefed up regularly so that users can smoothly stream the content. And with the advent of 4K resolution, which requires high-speed internet for streaming, telecom firms have to keep investing in upgrading the network technology. Yet, OTTs do not pay the carriers anything to compensate for this investment. The debate has also intensified in other parts of the world, like the US and Europe. A precedent has been set in South Korea with such a revenue-sharing agreement. When hospitalization becomes a bureaucratic battlefield, patients are the ones who suffer. Traditionally, they face the hassle of pre-authorization from insurance companies and delays during discharge as hospitals wait for insurers to verify medical bills. Hospitals accuse insurers of unnecessary claim rejections, while insurers blame hospitals for conducting avoidable tests. Now, imagine a world where your healthcare provider and insurer are one and the same. This could become a reality thanks to Bengaluru-based private healthcare provider Narayana Health. By establishing Narayana Health Insurance as a subsidiary, theyve launched Aditi Insurancea hospital-owned insurance product exclusively covering treatments within its hospital network. While coverage outside this network is limited, the plan aims to provide comprehensive care without the usual bureaucratic hurdles. Currently a pilot project, Aditi Insurance is available in five districts in Karnataka: Mysuru, Chamraj Nagar, Coorg, Mandya, and Hassan, with plans for a nationwide rollout in the coming months. Mint brings you the lowdown. 1 crore coverage at 10,000: The real cost Narayana Health markets Aditi Insurance as offering 1 crore coverage for a premium of 10,000. However, the actual premium may vary based on age, risk profile, and whether the plan covers an individual, multiple individuals, or a family. According to the company's premium illustration table, a family of four (with the oldest member aged 45) would pay 13,819 and 14,107 for Plan 1 and Plan 2, respectively. For individual coverage of each family member, the premiums rise to 20,454 and 20,898, respectively. "While no similar product is available in the market, we can compare it with 5 lakh base premium, along with a super top-up plan totalling 1 crore coverage. Such a combination is available in the market in the range of 10-16,000," said Aayush Dubey, co-founder and head of research at beshak.org. And this: Why selling your insurance policy is better than surrendering The headline 1 crore coverage applies only to surgical treatments, while non-surgical medical treatments are capped at 5 lakh. Both plans have a daily deductible of 2,000 for non-surgical treatments, with Plan 2 offering no deductible on surgical procedures. For instance, if a patient incurs 2 lakh in surgical costs over a five-day hospitalization, Plan 1 requires the policyholder to pay 10,000 out-of-pocket, whereas Plan 2 covers the full amount. View Full Image (Graphics: Pranay Bhardwaj/Mint) Eligibility and benefits Most insurance plans impose a waiting period of 15-30 days during which no coverage is provided, except in cases of accidental hospitalization. Additionally, specific diseases often come with their own waiting periods, and pre-existing conditions typically require a waiting period of 2-3 years. Aditi Insurance, offered by Narayana Health, stands out with its zero waiting period for all diseases, including specific illnesses. Also, this plan is open to anyone willing to undergo a mandatory, free pre-policy medical check-up. However, for pre-existing conditions identified during the check-up or self-declared, there could be a waiting period of up to three years, depending on the assessed risk. Coverage limitations and exclusions Aditi Insurance restricts day-care treatment coverage to 280 specified treatments, compared to the more extensive coverage provided by comprehensive health plans. "Most comprehensive health insurance plans usually cover all daycare treatments, while some cover around 500 treatments. However, Aditi Insurance has listed only 280 treatments," as per Dubey of beshak.org. Another key limitation is room type coverageonly general ward stays are fully covered. If a policyholder opts for a higher category room, the insurer will only cover a pro-rated portion of the total expenses based on general ward rates, according to the company's policy document. Coverage at non-network health providers will only be considered in emergency cases, when treatment is unavailable at a Narayana Health facility, or if the insured person is in a location where the Narayana Health Network is not accessible due to travel or relocation. However, a 10% co-payment will be required in all scenarios if the policyholder fails to notify the insurance company 48 hours prior to admission or within 24 hours after admission, as applicable. This means the policyholder must cover 10% of the medical bill if they do not inform the insurer within the stipulated time. Is Aditi Insurance right for you? It is generally recommended to purchase a comprehensive health plan without restrictions or room rent limits. While Aditi Insurance has several restrictions, limited features, and room rent limits, it offers notable advantages such as zero waiting periods, free annual health check-ups, consumables coverage, and higher coverage for surgical treatments. These positives can be beneficial for policyholders. "Dr. Devi Shetty, founder of Narayana Health, has made the plan affordable for the missing middle who may not be eligible for Ayushman Bharat but cannot afford other plans either," said Hari Radhakrishnan, expert member of Insurance Brokers Association of India. The premium is notably lower than similar products from traditional health insurers, he said. The future The success of Aditi Insurance could pave the way for more hospitals to offer similar plans. Radhakrishnan explained that, unlike traditional insurance companies, hospital-owned insurance companies can control both costs and treatment outcomes, thereby avoiding inherent conflicts of interest between insurers and providers. He noted that while policyholders might have limited choices for hospitalization within network hospitals (unless referrals to other tie-up hospitals are allowed), they benefit from lower premiums. "The success of this product depends largely on (1) scale and (2) delivery of the quality patient outcomes. If that can be achieved, it can be disruptive for the traditional insurance companies," he added. In the US, models like this have found success with companies such as Kaiser Permanente and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Mint take Aditi Insurance from Narayana Health Insurance is a pilot project targeting the middle-class population. Among the positives, it offers higher coverage of 1 crore for surgical procedures while maintaining a base premium at 5 lakh, which is typically not possible in low-premium plans. However, coverage outside the Narayana network is severely limited. A comprehensive plan with fewer restrictions, albeit at a higher premium, could make it more appealing to a larger audience, providing the scale needed for hospital-owned insurance plans to gain popularity. Budget 2024: Date for the presentation of the Union Budget 2024 has been fixed on 23rd July 2024. This means we are just six sessions away from the budget presentation, and hence, intraday traders are expected to remain extra cautious in the coming week. According to stock market experts, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present a growth-oriented budget; hence, infrastructure, banking, auto, and consumer durable segments will be in focus. As company results are also underway for the Q1FY25, they advised intraday traders to maintain a stock-specific approach with a particular emphasis on the above-mentioned segments. Stock market tips before Budget 2024 date Before the Budget 2024 date, Amit Goel, Co-Founder & Chief Global Strategist at Pace 360, advises caution due to the expected volatility. While averages show a slight decline before the budget, significant volatility can create opportunities but also heighten risks. In this pre-budget period, it's advisable to buy stocks in sectors that could benefit from the budget, anticipating a post-budget rise. Increased volatility can present opportunities for short-term options traders, who are advised to use strategies like straddles or strangles to capitalize on price swings in either direction. On segments where a stock-specific approach may yield higher returns, Avimash Gorakshkar, Head of Research at Profitmart Securities, said, As the Indian economy has delivered stellar performance in FY24 and Modi 3.0 Government is committed to achieving $10 trillion target by the end of next five years, FM Sitharaman is expected to remain focused on keeping the fiscal deficit under control. In that case, the government's earnings are expected to shoot up, which qualifies banking and auto segment stocks as highly attractive. In the wake of rising income, one's expenditure is expected to shoot up, which is expected to benefit consumer durable companies. Gorakshkar said that FM Sitharamn is expected to push job creation as well. In that case, the infrastructure segment will continue to focus on the BJP-led NDA government in New Delhi. One should monitor the quality of stocks in the abovementioned segments ahead of the Union Budget 2024 date, fixed on 23rd July 2024. Buy or sell stocks for today: Despite strong global market sentiments, the Indian stock market traded range-bound and ended flat on Thursday. The Nifty 50 index ended marginally lower at 24,315, while the BSE Sensex shed 24 points and finished at 79,897. The Bank Nifty index gained 81 points and closed at 52,270. After rising for three straight sessions, the India VIX Index crashed over 3 percent and ended at 14. Cash market volumes on the NSE were down 5.5 percent to 1.40 lakh crore. The broad market indices ended positively, even as the advance-decline ratio rose to 1.52:1. Vaishali Parekh's stocks to buy today Vaishali Parekh, Vice PresidentTechnical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher, believes that the Nifty 50 index has been consolidating in the narrow range of 24,150 to 24,450 for the last week. The Prabhudas Lilladher expert said that the next leg of the bull trend on Dalal Street can be expected once the 50-stock index breaks through the 24,450 hurdle decisively. On breaching this hurdle, Parekh said, the Nifty may touch the 24,900 mark. Stock market today On the outlook for Nifty today, Vaishali Parekh, Vice President Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher, said, Nifty has been consolidating since the last six sessions finding resistance near 24,450 zones moving within a narrow range maintaining the support near 24,150 zones as of now. The overall bias has been maintained positive, and a decisive breach above the 24,450 zone is necessary to carry on with the positive move further ahead with the next target of the 24,900 level expected. "The Bank Nifty has witnessed a gradual slide in the last six sessions and witnessed a decent recovery from the low made near the 51,750 zone to end on a flat note, maintaining the bias intact as of now. The index has resisted near the 53,200 level and would need a clear breakout above the zone to anticipate further upside move with the next target of the 55,100 level visible," said Parekh. Parekh added that the Nifty today has immediate support at 24,200 while the resistance is at 24,500. The Bank Nifty will have a daily range of 51,900 to 52,700. Vaishali Parekh's stock recommendations today 1] Coal India Ltd: Buy at 500, target 530, stop loss 488; 2] NIIT: Buy at 116, target 123, stop loss 113; and 3] Balrampur Chini Mills: Buy at 445, target 468, stop loss 436. Dolly Khanna portfolio: Famed Indian stock market investor Dolly Khanna had a stake of about 1.03 per cent in small-cap stock Tinna Rubber and Infrastructure at the end of Q1FY25, according to the company's latest shareholding pattern data on BSE. The Chennai-based investor is renowned for her knack for selecting lesser-known small-cap stocks that yield superior returns. This attracts many retail investors to closely monitor her portfolio. They track the ace investor's portfolio by analyzing the latest shareholding patterns of Dolly Khanna's portfolio companies. Also Read | Multibagger stock hits lifetime high after Dolly Khannas stake buying news The June-quarter shareholding pattern data of Tinna Rubber and Infrastructure reveals that Khanna held a stake in the company last quarter. Tinna Rubber is a diversified company that deals in rubberized asphalt and recycled rubber material. Dolly Khanna shareholding According to Tinna Rubber and Infrastructure's shareholding pattern for Q1FY25, Khanna held 1,76,289 company shares or a 1.03 per cent stake. Dolly Khanna's name was not included in the company's shareholding pattern for the January to March quarter of the last fiscal year. This means the eminent investor bought fresh shares in the company during the first quarter of the current financial year. However, this data alone cannot prove whether she bought all these shares of the company for the first time. Also, it cannot be said she bought them in an upfront one-time payment or accumulated them gradually. This is because of the exchange rule. The rule says a listed company must share the names of all shareholders who own one percent or more stake in the company. However, if the stake is less than a per cent, the names of shareholders are not required to be disclosed. This means Khanna might have had some shares of the company at the end of Q4FY24, but her stake was below one per cent of the company's total paid-up capital. Also Read | Ashish Kacholia portfolio: Balu Forge shares hit new peak on fundraise buzz So, there are two possibilities- one, Khanna already had a stake in the company, which was below one per cent, so it was not revealed in the company's shareholding pattern earlier, and two, she bought a fresh stake in the company in Q1FY24. In both cases, one thing is certain she bought some fresh shares of the company in Q1FY25. Tinna Rubber and Infrastructure share price trend Tinna Rubber share price has seen strong gains this year so far. Year-to-date (YTD), the stock has gained by a whopping 208 per cent. The stock hit hits a 52-week high of 2,179.20 on June 28 this year and a 52-week low of 350 on July 13 last year. Also Read | Crompton Greaves gains after Antique upgrades stock to buy, raises target price On Friday, July 12, the stock rose over 4 per cent to the level of 1,823.80. At this price, the stock has surged 421 per cent from its 52-week low level. The current market capitalisation of the stock on the BSE is about 3,097 crore. Read all market-related news here Multibagger alert: Shera Energy share price has surged by 223.2% since its NSE SME debut on February 17, 2023, making its owners quite affluent. The investors who allottedshares would have earned 3.68 lakhs today over a 16-month period. On Friday's session, Shera Energy share price opened at 185 apiece on NSE, the stock touched an intraday high of 186.50, and an intraday low of 183.20 apiece. Technical analysts believe that there is no major traction in this counter, and prices are gyrating within the 175195 range. The next momentum move would be visible only on a range breakout beyond the same. The Shera Energy stock had significant increases in April of last year (51%), August of last year (44%), and October of last year (36%). This year, the stock climbed 46% in April. In just 14 months after listing, Shera Energy share price has risen beyond 200, marking an incredible 256% growth from the IPO price of 57. Also Read | Dolly Khanna buys a stake in THIS multibagger smallcap stock in Q1FY25 Shera Energy is a Jaipur-based company that specialises in producing non-ferrous metals, with a particular emphasis on copper, brass, and aluminum wrapping wires and strips. The firm guarantees quality, client satisfaction, and innovation being the only Indian company producing all three metals under one roof. The company's establishment as Shera Zambia Limited in Central Africa was a critical turning point in theirglobal reach. The firm saw remarkable growth in the second half of FY2024 across key financial measures, highlighting our resiliency and ongoing momentum. In comparison to the same quarter previous year, total sales increased by 37.33% to 491.91 crores, demonstrating robust market demand and successful business plan implementation. Also Read | Multibagger Azad Engineering hits 5% upper limit on 5 yrs contract with Siemens The firm recently inked a deal worth USD 87,000 to provide conductors, which is the first time it has entered the African market. This accomplishment demonstrates Shera Energy's rising presence in Africa and its dedication to providing top-notch goods and services to new areas. The company expects a significant boost to its export operations with many infrastructure projects in the works in Zambia and Shera Energy's strategic presence there through its subsidiary. Its export business is anticipated to increase by about 60 crores as a result of this accomplishment for FY25. Four years ago, Sonata Software shares were trading at 89 each. Since then, they have surged by 630%, reaching the current level of 724 per share. Looking back over a longer period, the company's shares have seen significant growth, rising by 7950% over the past 11 years. The year 2023 was particularly notable for Sonata Software, with the stock finishing 11 out of 12 months in positive territory, resulting in a cumulative gain of 163%. However, the stock underwent a decline from March to May 2024, resulting in a total decrease of 36%. Despite this, the stock quickly rebounded, now trading 25.66% higher than its March lows. According to projections by domestic brokerage firm Dalal& Brocha Stock Broking, the stock is likely to maintain its upward momentum. In its latest report, the brokerage has initiated coverage on the stock with a 'buy' rating, setting a target price of 919. This target suggests a potential upside of 47% from the stock's closing price of 624 per share on Thursday. The brokerage's optimistic outlook is based on Sonata Software's strong relationship with Microsoft and a robust deal pipeline. It highlighted that the company's focus on two significant areas this yearGen AI and Microsoft Fabricaccounts for about 10% of its pipeline and is poised for growth. The brokerage said the company's focus on platform-related services, particularly those based on Microsoft Dynamics, demonstrates a strategic alignment with industry needs. Microsoft partnership generates over 50% revenues The brokerage highlighted that Sonata has solidified its position as one of Microsoft's top implementation partners worldwide, showcasing its expertise and reliability through a robust partnership spanning two decades. This alliance not only drives significant revenue through license sales but also provides a strong foundation for Sonata's continued growth. Microsoft is poised to drive substantial expansion for Sonata. By closely collaborating with Microsoft, Sonata has been at the forefront of initiatives like Microsoft Fabric, being one of the seven global launch partners. These advanced technologies have been pivotal in securing key deals for Sonata. The brokerage emphasised that Microsoft plays a dual role: as a direct customer, contributing 20% of revenue, and as a strategic partner for implementation services, making up roughly 30% of the business. Overall, Microsoft's involvement accounts for a significant 50% of Sonata's international operations, underscoring the profound impact of this partnership on Sonata's global presence. Large deal pipeline In addition to Microsoft Fabric, Sonata has a substantial pipeline of approximately $65 million in artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The company anticipates that AI services will contribute 20% of its revenue within three years. Actively developing solutions using Microsoft Fabric, Sonata has over 300 data engineers dedicated to this effort. As a featured launch partner for Microsoft Fabric, the brokerage pointed out that Sonata has built a pipeline worth about $42 million across 75+ clients since the platform's launch three quarters ago. The brokerage noted that the company's large deal pipeline increased by 34% quarter-over-quarter in Q4 FY24, witnessing a 3.2x jump during FY24 and closing 14 large deals throughout the year. In the most recent quarter, Sonata secured a significant deal with a major U.S. banking firm. This project involves developing a customer 360 platform across all lines of business (LOBs) for the client, consolidating and aggregating customer data to create a unified platform. The banking client is among the top 10 asset management banks in the United States, according to the brokerage. MUMBAI : The high risks involved in options trading havent deterred individual investors from dabbling in the market despite regulators expressing concerns over their excessive participation in an instrument with a low scope for profitability. Retail investors have been net buyers of index options over the past four fiscal years through 2023-24, when their volumes surged five-fold, shows aMintanalysis of data from NSE. The exchange commands 90% of the market share in such instruments. Option buyers face limited risks, unlike option sellers, whose risks are unlimited. Besides, index options cost a fraction of futures, and option contracts expire four out of five days in a week on NSE. Index options are a cheap instrument (relative to futures) and you have an expiry almost every day of week, which is why retail participants have latched on to it," said Deepak Shenoy, founder of portfolio management service firm, Capitalmind. Also read |Budget may hike tax on F&O trading. Here's what it could mean For instance, to trade a Nifty futures contract a retail investor would need to place a margin of around 1.5 lakh with the clearing corporation, while a buyer of a Nifty 24300 call option contract expiring on 11 July would pay just 1,675. Also, Nifty Midcap Select options expire on Mondays, the Finnifty on Tuesdays, Bank Nifty on Wednesdays, and Nifty on Thursdays. The trend of retail investors buying options became more pronounced during the pandemic lockdowns as individuals with more time on their hands took to trading in the stock markets. This has left both the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India worried about excessive retail participation in options trading given the potential high risks involved. Shenoy suggested that rather than denying access to a particular class of participants, Sebi would do well to increase the lot size of index options of, say, Nifty from 25 to 100, and increase the margins on option selling from 15,000-20000 to 70,000-80,000 to prevent any systemic risk. A losing proposition Retail investors net purchased between 160 billion and 500 billion of index options between financial years 2020-21 and 2023-24, NSE data show. In the current fiscal year through May, they have net purchased 110 billion of index options. The number of active individual investors participating on NSEs equity derivatives segment rose from about 6.7 million in FY23 to 9.57 million in FY24. Though NSE hasnt segregated how many participated at least once in a year on index options or index futures, analysts such as Rajesh Palviya of Axis Securities Ltd say a large number would have participated in the index options segment. Also read | Why Sebi and RBI want retail investors to stay away from derivatives But option buyers generally lose money, as the probability of options turning profitable is low, say analysts. Retail tends to buy cheap out-of-the-money options whose chance of becoming in-the-money are pretty low," said Palviya, senior vice president and headtechnical and derivatives research, at Axis Securities. More often than not, they are unaware of options pricing terminology like delta and theta, which reveal the probability of the position yielding profit to them," he added. NSE data show that the counterparty to retail traders tends to be proprietary traders, who are brokers trading on their own account. In 2023-24, proprietary traders net sold index options worth 245 billion, exchange data show. In FY25 (Apr-May), they net sold index options worth 48 billion. Delta and Theta Delta measures the change in the price of an option for every change in the price of an underlying index such as the Nifty or the Bank Nifty. Theta measures the loss in the value of an option for every day that its held. A call option with a delta of 0.3 means there is a 30% chance of it turning profitable. Out-of-the-money here refers to an option whose price is higher (in the case of a call) or lower (in the case of a put) than the current market price of the underlier. In-the-money for a call is when the option price is lower than the current market price of the underlier, while for a put is when the option price is higher than the current market price. TCS Q1 Results: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) kicked off the April-June quarter results for fiscal 2024-25 (FY25) on Thursday, July 11, reporting a rise of 8.7 per cent in its consolidated net profit at 12,040 crore, compared to 11,074 crore in the corresponding period last year. India's largest information technology (IT) services provider has beaten most D-Street estimates regarding net profit and segment revenue growth during the quarter under review. The Tata Group IT giant, the first among the Indian IT majors to declare the first quarter earnings of the current fiscal, reported revenue growth of 5.4 per cent to 62,613 crore, compared to 59,381 crore in the year-ago period. On a quarter on quarter (QoQ) basis, TCS revenue grew 2.2 per cent in the June quarter, which was driven by its growth in the India business segment. Also Read | With one mega hit on home ground, TCS kicks off first quarter on the front foot TCS Q1 Results - Key Metrics TCS reiterated that it feels FY25 will be better than the previous fiscal year for the business. K Krithivasan, TCS's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director (MD) said that the IT major will create new capabilities in emerging technologies and invest in innovation, including a new artificial intelligence (AI)- focused TCS PacePort in France and an IoT lab in the US. TCS revenue from North America declined by 1.1 per cent, leading to the share of the largest market slipping to 49.5 per cent in the pie. Revenue from India grew 61.8 per cent, driven by the 4G network rollout work that TCS is doing with the state-run telecom operator, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Responding to a question on three-fourths of the incremental revenue growth coming from BSNL in the June quarter, TCS CEO Krithivasan said that while BSNL did grow well, non-BSNL revenues had a substantial part in this growth when compared to the preceding March quarter of FY25. TCS reported new deal wins of $8.3 billion in the June quarter, out of which $4.6 billion were from North America and $2.7 billion came from the BFSI vertical. The new wins or total contract value (TCV) were much lower than in the quarter-ago and year-ago periods, but the CEO said the company is comfortable with a quarterly figure in the range of $7-9 billion. On the headcount front, TCS added employees at a net level for the first time in multiple quarters, with the overall strength going up by 5,452 to nearly 6.07 lakh professionals. The IT services giant also announced an interim dividend of 10 per equity share and kept August 5 as the record date for the same. TCS Q1 Results: D-Street experts eye positive returns from IT pack Regarding TCS results, Manish Chowdhury, Head of Research at the domestic brokerage Stoxbox, said the TCS numbers are a "mild surprise" on the upside. They added that they will monitor BSNL deal ramp-up, demand trends for the industry in the medium term, and deal wins going forward. The lowering of attrition and net headcount addition are major positives and augur well for the companys utilization levels and, subsequently, its EBIT margin. Despite wage hikes in the quarter, TCS reported a beat on EBIT margin estimates. These positives are bound to lead to an upward revision in EPS estimates, but not so much on the revenue side,'' said Chowdhury. Sanjeev Hota, Head of Research at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, called it a "solid" quarter with strong revenue growth. "Expecting an overall demand recovery in second-half of FY25 (for the Indian IT sector) as most of the headwinds are bottoming out, while FY26 will be a full-blown recovery," Hota said. With the wage hike behind, TCS management believes the EBIT margin trend will move towards the aspirational 26-28 per cent band. The management commentary indicated order pipeline continues to stay healthy and current moderation was in line with normalized order TCV of $7-9 billion, according to Hota. TCS Q1 numbers augur well to improve the sentiments for IT stocks, according to the analyst, and the brokerage expects positive rubs off on the overall sector. We have a Buy rating on the stock, said Hota on TCS. Indian IT companies, which earn a significant share of their revenue from US, stand to benefit from a likely early rate cut in the world's biggest economy, according to analysts. Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, also responded to TCS results and said, All major markets and verticals have returned with sequential growth. Overall, the frontline numbers look like the worst is behind us, and we may see a revival in the IT sector from Q1 earnings. According to analysts, the key monitorables for TCS going forward are as follows: -Updates on the BSNL deal ramp-up -Medium-term industry demand trends and the impact of macro headwinds on demand -Deal wins and deal pipeline -Revenue growth and margin outlook for FY25 -Investments in GenAI partnerships. Technical View Technically, TCS stock is trading significantly above its anchor VWAP support mark of 3,900.00 on its daily time frame charts. With the stock making higher highs and remaining well above its immediate support level, it appears poised to reach the 4,030.00 and 4,050.00 levels, according to Tapse. The RSI (14) around 51 indicates potential momentum in the upcoming sessions. We advise traders to maintain a strict stop loss at 3,875.00, aiming for potential targets of 4,030.00 and 4,050.00,aid Tapse. Analysts' comments suggest that the TCS share price will likely open higher on Friday, July 12. Ahead of the announcement of Q1 results on July 11, shares of TCS settled 0.33 per cent higher at 3,922.70 apiece on the BSE. In the last month, shares of TCS have given investors 1.68 per cent returns and 19.92 per cent in the last one year. Indian 2 In Shankars 1996 Tamil film Indian, Kamal Haasan plays an ageing freedom fighter, Senapathy, who fights against corruption, as well as his wayward son. The sequel, which is also releasing in a dubbed Hindi version, has Senapathy returning to help anti-corruption activist Chitra Aravindhan played by Siddharth. (In theatres) Longlegs Longlegs is being touted as the scariest film to release in a while. A green FBI agent (Maika Monroe) revives a dormant case involving a Satanic killer (Nicolas Cage). As she investigates, she discovers a personal link to the killer. Directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoats Daughter). (In theatres) A still from 'Longlegs' directed by Osgood Perkins Also read: Mirzapur Season 3 review: The battle rages but the show treads water Shrooms Jorge Jacomes trippy short is a great way to welcome the weekend. Dan, a Venezuelan man in Lisbon, harvests magic mushrooms in the forest and distributes them in the city. Jacomes film is playful and hallucinatory than scientifically rigorous. (MUBI) Financial investments are often planned around life goals you could be investing to fund your childrens education, for retirement, or to meet other short-term goals like buying a home, etc. They are also made to secure your loved ones, in case something were to happen to you. But, very often primary caregivers end up not informing other family members about the investments they make. In our new video series Money Shots, Neil Borate, Deputy Editor at Mint explains why adding nominees to investments is key, and how to go about it. It may be a good idea to list down all your investments in one place and let a close family member know about them. But be sure to update this file at regular intervals with any corrections that you may make to your portfolio. This will ensure the financial wellbeing of your family in the event of your demise. Read on to know what a nomination is, why it is important, and how you can add a nominee to your mutual fund investment in case you havent already done so. What is a nomination? Each time you fill out a form to sign up for an investment, you are prompted to add nominee details. Nomination is the process of appointing a person to take care of your assets in case something were to happen to you. The nominee can be anyone your spouse, child, sibling, or any other person who you trust with your assets. Remember, the nominee that you choose is only a custodian of your money. They do not get to inherit your investments. Their role is to fairly distribute your wealth among your legal heirs they are allowed a share of your assets only if they are legal heirs. You can choose up to a maximum of three nominees for every mutual fund investment that you make. While the process is not mandatory when you are signing up for a mutual fund, it is highly recommended by financial experts. The good thing is that once a nomination is done, it holds until the investment is live or until you make a request to change the nominee. What happens if I dont have a nominee? Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has mandated that every investor must fill out details for nomination at the earliest possible time. But, in case you cannot do so at the time of completing the initial paperwork when you make the investment, you need to take the decision by June 30. If you dont do it by the deadline, your account will get frozen unless you declare that you have opted out of the nomination process. Remember that if you don't have a nominee for your mutual fund investment, the transfer of your assets in the event of death will become a long-drawn process. In certain cases, it has also been seen that the family does not even know about the investments. It may be a good idea to create a list of all your investments in a notebook or a digital file and tell your family about it. In the event that you have not added nominee details, financial institutions can reach out to nominees if your assets remain unclaimed for a long time. It means sharing nominee details along with their contact numbers will ensure hassle-free transfer of investments to your legal heirs. How can I add a nominee? There are different ways to do this. You can approach your asset management company or the mutual fund house where you have your MF scheme running. Simply download the nomination form from their website and get it printed. Fill it up, scan it, and send it to the fund house via email. Some fund houses will ask you to visit the office physically to submit the form. You can also add a nominee using a Registrar and Transfer Agent (RTA). For this, you can opt for CAMS or KFintech. You need to open the portal and go to the service requests feature. Once you click on it, look for the nomination tab. The nomination page will ask you to provide your PAN number. After that, you will receive an OTP on your registered mobile number and email ID. Enter the OTP and it will open the nominee form. You can add up to three nominees along with their nomination share. Providing your nominee's name and age, along with your relationship with him or her, is important. You can also add their PAN, contact number, and address, but this is not mandatory. Alternatively, you can also update nominee details on the MFCentral website. The process is the same as CAMS and KFintech. The Indian mutual fund industry has seen significant growth in recent times, captivating the countrys masses and becoming a major avenue for investments. In fact, in just the first two months of the current fiscal year (FY25), the mutual fund (MF) sector has added an astounding 81 lakh investor accounts. According to the latest reports from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), the total mutual fund folios of the industry reached a monumental 18.6 crore at the end of May. These numbers paint a vivid picture: the Indian MF sector is flourishing and reaching unprecedented milestones. Now, as MFs become the talk of the town, drawing attention from every corner of Indias thriving population, its imperative for investors to gain a clearer understanding of holding MF units.In Mints new video series, Money Shots, Neil Borate, Deputy Editor at Mint, explains two ways of storing MF units: in a statement of account (SOA) or a demat account.As we dive into this further, well take a closer look at the distinct features of the two methods, discuss their advantages and drawbacks, and help investors make informed choices. SOAvs. Demat: Understanding the Two Methods When it comes to holding mutual fund units, investors have two clear choices: the Statement of Account (SOA) with an asset management company (AMC) or a demat account with depositories such as Central Depository Services Ltd (CDSL) or National Securities Depositories Ltd (NSDL). The SOA is the more traditional, paper-based record-keeping system, more commonly known as the physical format. On the other hand, demand is the electric format for holding MF units. A Closer Look: Key Features, Benefits, and Drawbacks The two different MF unit storage methods come with individual characteristics and qualities. Understanding both can be the key to making sound financial decisions based on personal investment strategy and convenience. In an SOA, you can redeem MF units by specifying the exact amount in rupees, based on the value of the unit, that you want to withdraw. Whereas in a demat account, investors can buy or sell only in terms of units. This can prove to be troublesome for investors since a unit's value can change daily. For example, if the value of 10 units is 10,000 today, it could rise to 12,000 or fall to 8,000 depending on market fluctuations. Similarly, another drawback of the demat format is that it does not support systematic transfer plans (STP) or systematic withdrawal plans (SWP). STP allows investors to shift seamlessly from one mutual fund to another of the same AMC without redeeming the funds, such as from a specific liquid fund to a mid-cap fund. SWP enables investors to withdraw money at defined intervals, as opposed to a systematic investment plan (SIP), where you invest a particular amount monthly or quarterly. Another critical distinction between the two methods can be made in terms of fees and charges. When it comes to additional expenditures, SOA is simply the more cost-friendly option. Maintaining an SOA account is free, whereas a Demat account may involve account opening fees, transaction fees, and even annual maintenance charges. However, a Demat account has its own unique benefits. Investors can use the demat method to hold a list of key assets such as bonds, shares, and ETFs. While an SOA allows you to download an electronic consolidated account statement (e-CAS) of all your holdings in one place, a demat account enables you to track your assets in real-time. Furthermore, a significant advantage of demat accounts is the ease of transferring assets. A single nomination works for the entire gamut of assets in a demat account. In contrast, with an SOA, you must enter a nomination for each AMC. Transferring units is also easier if they are held in a demat format. Whats more, keeping mutual funds in a Demat account is highly convenient for short-term traders. Traders can pledge MF units and obtain a margin loan against them, which can only be used to buy securities for the demat account. On the other hand, SOA is the better choice for investors regarding loans. Investors can take loans against MF units even if they are in SOA form, and the money can be used for any purpose. This offers greater flexibility compared to loans against demat accounts. Lastly, the SOA method makes such shifts irrelevant if an investor changes brokers or distributors. The same SOA continues, and only the distributor code changes. However, MF units held in a particular demat account cannot be easily transferred to another demat account linked to a different broker, as this involves considerable paperwork and effort. Hours after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal faced a setback on Friday as Delhi Rouse Avenue Court extended his judicial custody till July 25 in a corruption case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Both cases are similar yet different. They pertain to the alleged irregularities in the formation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. However, Kejriwal's case in the Supreme Court challenged his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the money laundering case related to the excise policy. Meanwhile, the CBI case, heard in Delhi court on Friday, concerns the alleged corruption related to the excise policy scam. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to the Delhi Chief Minister in the excise policy case registered by the Enforcement Directorate. A bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna referred to his petition challenging his arrest by the ED to a larger bench. "The Supreme Court has granted him interim bail, and the issue of Section 19 and necessity of arrest has been referred to a larger bench. CM Kejriwal will remain in custody as his bail in the CBI case is still pending. This is a big victory," Kejriwal's lawyer, Rishikesh Kumar, told newswire ANI. While granting interim bail to Kejriwal, the Supreme Court observed that the Delhi Chief Minister suffered incarceration for 90 days, and the court is conscious that he is an elected leader. Netizens reacted hilariously after a post on Reddit revealed that the cost of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding was 5,000 crore, which is only 0.5% of Mukesh Ambanis worth. The user took a dig by saying that expectations were for around 1,000-2,000 crore, but 5,000 crore was mind-blowing. The post added that such an amount was enough to keep five generations of a family happy. Anant-Radhika will tie the knot today, July 12. Celebrities from across the globe, including former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Kim Kardashian, and Samsung CEO Han Jon, arrived in Mumbai today for the wedding. The comments on this Reddit post are pure gold. Several users are dropping hilarious comments on generational wealth. I just read an article which said that if the Ambanis spend 3 crores..yes 3 croresevery day, their wealth will last them 962 years [sic], commented one user. To this, another commented, Hume 3 crore dede to generational wealth ka base ban jaega at least. Meanwhile, another user joked about starting a petition for Garibo ko 1 crore daan yojana. A user commented that 5,000 crore, equivalent to $600 million, is a significant amount of money, enough to host 10 Oscar ceremonies in the US. He explained that the Jamnagar pre-wedding event was not a personal function of the Ambani family but an investment by Reliance and other stakeholders, implying minimal personal expenses. The user also said that a cruise party in Italy does not cost 1,000 crore, nor do 10 functions at their home. Therefore, a wedding of 5,000 crore was highly impossible. Businessmen arent fool to spend that kind of money without getting anything in return. Everything is an investment and a promotion to expand their empire. Even their kids relationships (according to lots of rumours). Its no way 5000 crores [sic], he added. Also Read | Ambanis host mass weddings for underprivileged couples in Mumbai Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy was booked in connection with an attempt to murder case on Friday, following a complaint lodged by ruling party Undi MLA K Raghurama Krishna Raju. The state police have also booked two senior IPS officers and two retired officials based on the complaint. Raju sent his police complaint through mail one month ago, and after taking legal opinion, I registered a case at 7 pm on Thursday against the former CM and others, an official told PTI. The police also booked senior IPS officers PV Sunil Kumar and PSR Sitaramanjaneyulu, retired police officer R Vijay Paul, and former Guntur Government General Hospital superintendent G Prabhavati. Sunil Kumar headed the CID in 2021, while Sitaramanjaneyulu led the Intelligence wing, and Vijay Paul served as ASP CID. The TDP lawmaker was arrested in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and allegedly faced custodial torture. Raju filed a complaint against Reddy and other officials on June 10, claiming that he had been nabbed without due process and unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle. A false case was registered against me by the CB-CID of the Andhra Pradesh government. I was arrested without due process on May 14, including the absence of a medical examination or adherence to proper legal procedures. I was bullied, unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle, and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night. I was kept in the CB-CID office, Guntur, from 9:30 pm onwards. I was not given my medicine despite having had an open heart bypass surgery, wrote the former YSRCP Lok Sabha MP Krishna Raju in the complaint. He said that he had also faced death threats for criticising the chief minister. Also Read | Jagan Reddy vs Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra as YSRCP office building demolished The development also comes mere weeks after Reddy clashed with newly elected Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu following the demolition of the under-construction YSRCP central office in Tadepalli. "Chandrababu took vendetta politics to the next level. Like a dictator, he got YSRCP's central office demolished with excavators and bulldozers, which was almost complete," Reddy had accused in a social media post. He also claimed that the demolition was carried out in complete disregard of High Court orders. IAS Puja Khedkar controversy: IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who is in the eye of a storm over alleged misuse of power, on Friday said she is not authorised to comment on the controversies she and her family are involved in. The probationary assistant collector said she would give her submissions before the committee and follow the procedure. I am not authorised to say anything to the media. I will give my submissions before the committee. I will follow the procedure, Khedkar told media. The 2023-batch IAS officer, on probation, courted controversy after pictures of an Audi car with a Maharashtra government board and a red-blue beacon went viral on social media platforms. She reportedly raised demands for separate house and car privileges not available to junior officers and is also accused of illegally occupying the chamber of an additional collector. Now, she faces more severe charges that raise questions about her selection process in the civil services. She allegedly misused benefits under the physical disabilities category and Other Backward Class (OBC) certificate. Raising questions about Khedkar's appointment, Vijay Kumbhar a Pune-based RTI activist alleged that the trainee IAS officer did not fall under the OBC non-creamy layer, as she mentioned during the recruitment process. Kumbhar alleged that her father has assets worth 40 crore. Centre forms probe panel The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions said that a committee chaired by a senior officer of the rank of Additional Secretary to the Government of India will verify the candidature claims. The government said the committee would submit its report in two weeks. Also Read | Agnipath scheme to stay, tweaks likely in the upcoming budget or later Khedkar has now been shunted to Washim after the Pune District Collector, Suhas Diwse, requested that she be posted in another district and sought action against her. Indias population will most likely peak at 1.7 billion in the early 2060s and is projected to decline after that by 12 per cent. However, according to UN estimates, India will remain the world's most populous country for the entire century, newswire PTI reported on Friday, July 12. The worlds population is expected to grow in the next 50-60 years, reaching its peak of 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. However, according to the World Population Prospects 2024 report released on July 11, the population is expected to decline to 10.2 billion people by the end of this century. According to the report, India's current population is at 1.45 billion and will reach 1.69 billion in 2054. "India is currently the largest country in the world in terms of population, and it is projected to stay so throughout the century. The population is currently estimated at 1.45 billion, and it's supposed to increase further," the PTI report said, citing Senior Population Affairs Officer, Population Division, UN DESA Clare Menozzi. Also Read | Population decline is not a problem but hungry kids are The report said that China's population, 1.41 billion in 2024, will fall to 1.21 billion in 2054 and further decline to 633 million by 2100. The report added that China will witness absolute population loss between 2024 and 2054, followed by Japan and Russia. The report added that by 2100, China is projected to have lost more than half of its current population and to have returned to the population size it had in the late 1950s (50 per cent probability). Also Read | Why Chinas Population Decline Will Deepen Their Economic Woes On China's significantly low population projection, PTI quoted Director of the Population Division at UN DESA John Wilmoth as saying, It relates to the level of fertility that's observed currently in China. The current number is around one birth per woman on average over a lifetime. Presently, it takes 2.1 births to maintain the current population without migration. If fertility levels remain at a lower level, the population will most likely decline over time, as has been the case with China and some other countries, Wilmoth said. A Delhi court granted bail to Gangadhar Gunde on Friday after he was wrongly arrested by the CBI in connection with the NEET paper leak case. The development came mere hours after the probe agency nabbed key accused Rakesh Ranjan alias Rocky from Bihar during a planned operation. The CBI had also lodged a case against an individual named N Gangadhar Appa who was later arrested in Bengaluru over a separate case. The agency had allegedly arrested Gunde due to mistaken identity as he had the same name. The ongoing investigation has so far led to the arrest of more than a dozen suspects each allegedly playing a role in the leak and distribution of the NEET exam papers. The central agency recently led a series of coordinated raids at multiple locations (including Patna and Kolkata) to dismantle the intricate web of individuals involved in the scandal. According to reports, special CBI judge Ankit Singla granted bail upon furnishing of a bail bond of 25,000 and a surety bond of the same amount. A lawyer appearing for Gunde submitted that his name had surfaced during the CBI probe as he had met with an individual named Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav on October 2. Gunde met him in Osmanabad about his daughter's matrimonial dispute at her in-law's house and the two exchanged numbers. As per the bail plea, he had made a call to Jadhav the next day. The CBI however contended that it was not possible to confirm the true identity of Gangadhar (the indivual the agency was searching for) as the only suspect who knew him was absconding. The probe agency cited the statement of arrested teachers Sanjay Tukaram Jadhav and Jalil Umar Khan Pathan to contend that the absconding Irenna Konagalwar knew Gangadhar. (Adds Representative Mike Levin) By Moira Warburton WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - A growing number of Democrats in Congress are publicly calling on Democratic President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid after the 81-year-old incumbent's halting debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump. Democrats hold 213 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and control the U.S. Senate with 51 seats, including three independents who caucus with the party. While many lawmakers have expressed unease with Biden's continued candidacy - and others have steadfastly backed the incumbent's plans - here is a list of the 19 Democratic U.S. lawmakers who have directly called for Biden to not run again. REPRESENTATIVE EARL BLUMENAUER "While this is a decision for the president and the first lady, I hope they will come to the conclusion that I and others have: President Biden should not be the Democratic presidential nominee." REPRESENTATIVE ED CASE "I do not believe President Biden should continue his candidacy for re-election as President." REPRESENTATIVE ANGIE CRAIG "Given what I saw and heard from the president during last week's debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the president himself following that debate, I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump." REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD DOGGETT "President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not." REPRESENTATIVE RAUL GRIJALVA "If he's the candidate, I'm going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere." REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES "The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump's promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden." REPRESENTATIVE MIKE LEVIN "I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch." REPRESENTATIVE SETH MOULTON "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." REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT PETERS "I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign." REPRESENTATIVE BRITTANY PETTERSEN "I have deep admiration and love for Joe Biden and all he has done for our country ... Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump." REPRESENTATIVE MIKE QUIGLEY "Mister President: Your legacy is set ... Step down and let someone else do this." REPRESENTATIVE PAT RYAN "Joe Biden is a patriot but is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump." REPRESENTATIVE BRAD SCHNEIDER "The time has come, however, for President Biden to heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership to guide us to the future he has enabled and empowered us to pursue." REPRESENTATIVE HILLARY SCHOLTEN "For the good of our democracy, I believe it is time for him to step aside from the presidential race and allow a new leader to step up." REPRESENTATIVE MIKIE SHERRILL "Because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he won't run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee." REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SMITH "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." REPRESENTATIVE ERIC SORENSEN "I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for President." REPRESENTATIVE GREG STANTON "For the sake of American democracy, and to continue to make progress on our shared priorities, I believe it is time for the President to step aside as our nominee." SENATOR PETER WELCH "For the good of the country, I'm calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race." Heavy rain across swathes of India has crippled civic life, but the downpour has eased the pressure on power demand. Plentiful rains could also replenish water reservoirs, in a relief for hydropower generation and farmers requiring irrigation. The southwest monsoon hit the Kerala coast and northeast India two days and six days earlier than the scheduled date on 30 May, but lost momentum after 9 June. It reached northwest India on time by 29 June, before unleashing Delhi's highest single-day June rainfall in 88 years. Mumbai was no different. A record in May Peak power demand hit a record 250 GW on 30 May and remained elevated through most of June; however, it has eased and has largely remained below the 220 GW mark in July. According to the latest data from the Grid Controller of India, on Thursday, the peak demand surpassed the 220 GW mark for the first time this month and stood at 221 GW. On 6 July, it fell below the 200 GW mark to reach 198 GW. Falling temperature has reduced cooling demand that boosted consumption in May-June amid a prolonged heatwave across north and northwest India. "Not just the cooling demand, the demand from agriculture sector in the form of use of heavy pumps for irrigation with underground water has also reduced. With the rains coming in farmers would be able to irrigate from canals and other overground sources, Further on the supply side, both wind and hydro power projects would have gained momentum," said Vikram V, vice-president & co-group head, corporate ratings, ICRA. Reservoirs filling up The Central Water Commission on 11 July said live storage in 150 reservoirs was 46.311 bcm (billion cubic metre), which is 26% of their total live storage capacity. However, this is still below 58.864 bcm at the same time last year, as well as the 10-year average of 51.724 bcm. The live storage in these reservoirs now stands at 79% of the live storage a year ago, and 90% of normal or 10-year average storage. With the rains coming in farmers would be able to irrigate from canals and other overground sources, Further on the supply side, both wind and hydro power projects would have gained momentum It remains to be seen how far rains replenish water reservoirs in the rest of monsoon. "It is too early to comment on. The performance of agriculture and other key sectors like energy will depend on how monsoon rainfall is, and how it impacts water reservoirs for three months. Southwest monsoon ensures water for domestic use, animal consumption and agriculture by filling up water reservoirs for the entire year," said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda. Hydropower projects which are largely rainfed and based on reservoirs would benefit from recent rains. Last financial year, amid weak monsoons, hydropower generation failed to take off. Adequate supply of coal Despite steep demand, availability of coal at power plants has largely been adequate this year. Currently, domestic coal-based power plants have stocks for around 16.5 days of operations. Further on July 10, these domestic coal-based plants received 2.36 million tonne coal, about the same amount as what was required as per their consumption. "Along with the effect of monsoon rains this year, due to a high base effect, India may witness a year-on-year decline in demand growth in the second and third quarter of FY25. The demand in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal was high due to delayed monsoons," Icra's Vikram said, adding demand in FY25 is expected to be around 6.5%. Heavy rainfall likely in July The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on 1 July said India could experience above-normal rainfall in July, with heavy rains potentially leading to floods in the western Himalayan states and river basins in the central parts of the country. This is partly because the El NinoSouthern Oscillation (ENSO) has returned to neutral, and the cooler phase, known as La Nina, is expected to be formed in the second half (August-September) of the monsoon season. Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday urged people to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards former Union minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani and other leaders. Taking to microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter), the former Congress president wrote: Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter. Humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength," he added. It is important to note that in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, former Union minister Irani lost the Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh to veteran Congress worker and Gandhi family confidant Kishori Lal Sharma by a margin of 1.5 lakh votes. In 2019, Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi in his stronghold, Amethi, by a margin of over 55,000 votes. After losing the polls in Lok Sabha elections, Irani thanked those who supported her. I express my gratitude to all the BJP party workers and supporters, those who have worked in the service of the constituency and the party with utmost dedication and fidelityI congratulate those who win. I will continue to be in the service of the people of Amethi. Also Read | Agnipath scheme to stay, tweaks likely in the upcoming budget or later In another post on X, she wrote: Such is life... A decade of my life going from one village to another, building lives, nurturing hope & aspirations, working on infrastructure - roads, naali, khadanja, bypass, medical college and more. To those who stood by me through loss and victory, I am forever grateful. To those celebrating today, congratulations. And to those asking, 'How's the josh?' I say- it's still high, Sir. HCL Technologies reported a 20.4% rise in consolidated net profit to 4,257 crore on Friday as dozens of business leaders and celebrities from across the world descended in Mumbai for the Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding. Meanwhile the Supreme Court of India granted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal interim bail in the ED case related to excise policy scam. HCL Tech sees Q1 net profit rise to 4,257 crore IT services company HCL Technologies on Friday reported a 20.4% rise in consolidated net profit to 4,257 crore for the June quarter and gave a revenue growth guidance of 3% to 5% for FY25. HCL's top brass exuded confidence in attaining "decent growth in the coming quarters", which would position the company to deliver on the revenue guidance for the year. For fiscal's first quarter ended June 2024 (Q1FY25), the revenue came in at 28,057 crore 6.6% more than in the year-ago period. Seen sequentially, it was 1.6% lower than the March quarter. TOKYOJapans Ministry of Defense on Friday reprimanded more than 100 people including some top officers for mishandling classified security information, in a case that comes amid concern about the countrys exposure to hacking by adversaries such as China. The ministry said it wasnt aware of any security information leaking outside the military as a result of the lapses, but it described widespread flouting of rules about who can access secrets. Japan is nearly doubling military spending over a five-year span and has stepped up cooperation with the U.S. in preparing for possible regional conflicts. At the same time, it faces issues such as difficulty recruiting personnel, and U.S. officials have said they are concerned about Tokyos cyber defenses. Japans space agency was hit by cyberattacks last year. The agency said this month that hackers accessed information about its work with other institutions and may have stolen personal information about agency employees. It didnt identify the hackers. Many of the cases involved in Fridays reprimands took place on ships in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, or navy. Defense Ministry officials described situations in which personnel with proper security clearance were handling secret information in the ships tactical center and brought in others without clearance to help out. I believe we have big problems in our organizational culture, said the Maritime Self-Defense Forces chief of staff, Ryo Sakai, who is resigning in light of the findings. Even when people are aware of improprieties, they are failing to report them or letting them pass. In one such case earlier this year, a radio operator without clearance was serving as an operational specialist in a destroyers tactical center because of a shortage of specialists, the ministry said. It said senior officers assumed such situations were acceptable so long as the personnel without clearance didnt look at screens or listen to conversations in the room involving information designated as secret. Takeshi Iwaya, a former defense minister who leads a parliamentary committee on protecting state secrets, said the committee had been warning the Defense Ministry that it needed to apply the rules more strictly. It is truly regrettable that such cases happened again, and in considerable numbers, he said. Some of the vessels were Aegis destroyers equipped with an American integrated weapons system, which uses computers and radar to guide weapons to destroy enemy targets. The ministry said it would fix the problem and get security clearances for everyone who might be in an area where secrets were handled. The lapses identified Friday involve secrets designated under a 2014 law that covers the entire government. Separately, Japans military has long had a system for security clearance under an agreement with its main ally, the U.S. Retired Vice Adm. Toshiyuki Ito said dealing with two clearance systems was burdensome. We might need to streamline this a bit, he said. Sakai, the maritime forces chief of staff, said it was difficult to separate personnel with and without clearance in the cramped space of a ship. He said he wished he had tried harder to modify the rules so they could work in practical situations. The mishandling of secrets is one of several problems arising recently in the Japanese military. On July 3, the Defense Ministry said it has created a panel to investigate allegations that submarine builder Kawasaki Heavy Industries gave money and presents to Maritime Self-Defense Force members using a fund created through fictitious transactions. Kawasaki Heavy Industries said it reported the situation to the ministry in April and incurred additional taxes equivalent to about $4 million after tax authorities questioned the transactions. The companys chief executive said he wanted to bring all of the facts to light and would work to improve compliance. Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said, If the facts are confirmed, the matter must be strictly dealt with. Mumbai BMW hit-and-run case update: Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the BMW hit-and-run case, was inebriated at the time his luxury car crashed into a scooter on Dr Annie Besant Road, according to Investigating officers from Worli police station. The 23-year-old consumed large amounts of alcohol in two phases before the incident, HT reported. The accident resulted in the death of a pillion rider and injured the scooterist. On Thursday, an officer involved in the investigation stated that on Saturday night, Mihir and three of his friends ordered 12 large pegs of Jack Daniels at Vice-Global Tapas Bar on Juhu-Tara Road. While three of them consumed four pegs each, one opted for Red Bull, resulting in a total bill of 18,730. Since one of the friends was a regular customer at the bar and is 32 years old, "liquor was served to all." The legal age to consume alcohol in Maharashtra is 25. Later, the accused dropped his friends home in his Mercedes. On reaching his home in Borivali, he decided to take his BMW to Marine Drive with his driver, Rajrishi Bidawat. On the way, they purchased four 500 ml cans of Budweiser Magnum from at Sai Prasad Bar in Malad and drank all along the way. We have recorded the statement of Rajiv Shah, the waiter at the bar, who gave them the beer cans, HT quoted a police officer as saying. The police officer said Mihir Shah expressed remorse while confessing that he was drunk while driving the vehicle when the accident took place. The officer added, "He said he did not realise that the pillion rider was stuck beneath the car, reported HT. Shah had reportedly hinted a day before to cops that he was driving the car at the time of the accident and police had hinted that Shah was very much aware that the pillion rider was stuck under one of the tyres. Cops say now that the scooterist, identified as Pradip Nakhwa, fell on the bonnet of the car following the crash, and as a result, the windshield broke. The vehicle began to make noise as Shah drove further ahead, not realising that Pradips wife, Kaveri, was stuck under the vehicle. He assumed that the noise arose from the broken wiper, Shah told the cops, as per the HT report. Also Read | Mumbai BMW hit-and-run: Main accused Mihir Shah confesses to crime Another police officer said Mihir panicked and called his father" who shocked by the incident, told the driver to take the wheel. They removed the deceased and put her on the side of the road. But when the driver reversed, he ran over the deceaseds legs again, HT reported. Radical Sikh preacher and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh's brother Harpreet Singh has been held by Jalandhar police in a drug case. A senior official told news agency PTI that four grams of ICE (methamphetamine) drug was recovered from him during checking of the car in which the duo was travelling. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ankur Gupta, Jalandhar Dehat Police said, Three people identified as Lovepreet, Harpreet and Sandeep Arora have been arrested. They were arrested last night, as quoted by ANI. Singh, aged 30-35, "was into some dispatching work in transport", he said as quoted by PTI. Calling it a conspiracy, Amritpal Singhs father Tarsem Singh told PTC News, This is a conspiracy against our family, aides and supporters of Amritpal Singh. We have already apprehended that the government could hatch this conspiracy to defame us. Governments are doing this to hide their failures. This is aimed at derailing the mission of Amritpal Singh of saving the youth and creating hurdle in the release of the Bandi Singhs. Also Read | Amritpal Singh, Engineer Rashid take oath as Lok Sabha members He added, This is nothing new. We already knew that the Punjab police have a history of involvement in fake encounters and false charges. Meanwhile, Amritpal Singh is currently lodged in jail in Assam's Dibrugarh district. In the recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Singh had contested and won as an independent candidate from the Khadoor Sahib parliamentary seat in Punjab. He posted a massive margin of 1,97,120 votes, defeating his nearest rival, Kulbir Singh Zira of Congress. Singh was arrested by Punjab police in April last year, weeks after he evaded police and a stringent National Security Act was invoked against him. On July 5, the Jailed Waris Punjab De activist was taken to New Delhi by special aircraft on for his swearing-in as an MP. A 26-year-old IT professional from India's Maharashtra drowned in the famous Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana while on vacation with friends, according to park authorities. He worked in California. According to the statement of National Park Service, the victim has been identified as Siddhant Vitthal Patil. Patil, a technology professional, was reportedly hiking above the gorge on June 6 on Avalanche Lake Trail, where he fell off a large rock into the Avalanche Creek. It is not clear if Patil slipped on a wet portion of the rock or lost his balance. Friends who were with him saw Patil go underwater and resurface before being swept up by the current into the gorge. According to the statement, Patil's body has not been found, but he has been presumed dead. Helicopters conducted aerial searches, but officials suspected the body was being held down. Also Read | Indian student from Telangana dies after drowning in US Barberville Falls Rangers suspect that the body is being held down by submerged obstacles such as fallen trees or rocks. Rangers are continuously monitoring the area and have begun recovering personal items that have washed downstream. The water in the gorge is unsearchable due to its depth and turbulence, creating whitewater conditions. Rangers flew a drone to try and determine the location of the body, but the effort was unsuccessful. Ground search efforts continue from the gorge to the bridge on Trail of the Cedars. Also Read | Four Indian students drown in Russia, incident captured on video call to family Patil lived and worked in California and was on vacation with friends. He texted his mother two hours before the tragic incident, telling her that he would be returning to San Jose, where he worked with Cadence Design Systems, in another three days. His friends got his iPhone IMEI numbers from the phone box in his room and gave them to the Park rangers in Montana and other authorities to help in the search work, Chaudhari said. This hasn't yielded results yet, his maternal uncle Pritesh Chaudhari, who is based in Pune, told PTI. His mother Priti and father Vitthal, who retired from the Maharashtra government's irrigation department in May, are in shock and not in a position to speak, Chaudhari said. Patil went to the US in 2020 to do his MS from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He joined Cadence in 2023. The WhatsApp messages of probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar, who is embroiled in controversy over demands for a cabin and staff, have gone viral on social media platforms. Khedkar, who has now been transferred from Pune to the Washim district in Maharashtra, came to the limelight after photos of her private Audi car using a red-blue beacon and a Maharashtra Government board went viral. She is also facing scrutiny for allegedly lying about visual and mental disabilities and her Other Backward Class (OBC) background. In one of the messages exchanged with the Pune collector's office, Khedkar demanded details about her office and a government car. She was told that things would be discussed with the "collector sir. According to an NDTV report, on May 23, Khedkar messaged, "Any update about accommodation, travel, cabin, etc?" Kindly respond. It's important, she messaged the next day after getting no response. In one of the messages, after getting no response to her calls, she asked, If there was any problem in calling back? "Pls get the designated cabin n vehicle done before I join on 3rd. Later there will be no time. If it is not possible let me know, I will talk to collector sir accordingly," Khedkar said in another message sent four days later. On Thursday, July 11, she was transferred to Washim to complete the remaining term of her training. According to the official letter, the 2023-batch IAS officer will serve there as a "supernumerary assistant collector" till July 30, 2025. Khedkar secured an All India rank of 821 in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams. What RTI activist said Vijay Kumbhar, a Pune-based RTI activist, raised questions about her appointment alleging that she did not fall under the OBC non-creamy layer. Kumbhar alleged that Puja's father had assets worth 40 crore. What Pune collector said in his report In a report submitted to the General Administration Department, Pune collector Suhas Diwse stated that even before joining duty on June 3, Khedkar repeatedly demanded that she be provided a separate cabin, car, residential quarters and a peon. She was told that she was not entitled to these facilities on probation, and accommodation will be provided to her. It was not appropriate to allow Khedkar to continue her training in Pune, the report said. U.S. Republican lawmakers are seeking a probe into Microsofts $1.5 billion investment in artificial intelligence firm G42, citing concerns about the transfer of advanced technology and possible ties the Abu Dhabi-based company may have with China. Representatives Michael McCaul and John Moolenaar, chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, respectively, said in a letter to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan that the deal deserves continued special scrutiny as one of the most consequential investments by a U.S. technology firm in the Middle East in decades. They said they were concerned by attempts to move quickly to advance a partnership that involves the unprecedented transfer of highly sensitive, U.S.-origin technology, without Congressional consultation or clear regulations in place. The letter, released publicly on Thursday, highlighted recent talks between U.A.E. President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Chinese President Xi Jinping that Chinese state media said included discussions about cooperation on AI. The lawmakers requested that the National Intelligence Council assess any ties between G42 and China, as well as the risk of transfer of sensitive U.S. technology to China. Microsoft and G42 didnt immediately reply to requests for comment. The investment, announced in April, included Microsoft President Brad Smith joining the board of G42 and the Abu Dhabi company using Microsofts cloud services for its AI applications. The deal, coming at a time Washington and Beijing compete for influence in the Gulf, included an intergovernmental assurance agreement that the companies said was developed in consultation with the U.S. and U.A.E. governments to ensure AI security. Donald Trump asked a New York judge to toss out his hush money conviction because of the US Supreme Court ruling that presidents have at least some immunity from criminal charges, setting up a fresh fight with Manhattan prosecutors as his campaign to take back the White House heats up. Trumps guilty verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records was tainted by testimony and other evidence that shouldnt have been allowed at trial under the new standard set by the high courts landmark decision stemming from Trumps election fraud case, according to a filing that was provided by Trumps lawyer Todd Blanche Thursday. Blanche said the document had been filed with the New York state court judge whos presiding over the case and posted it on his law firm website Thursday afternoon. Bloomberg News couldnt immediately verify that the motion had been received by the court. The Supreme Court last week held that former presidents have at least some immunity from criminal charges related to official conduct, leaving them open to charges over private acts while in office. The majority held that presidents cannot be charged over official acts related to their core constitutional powers and that they have at least the presumption of immunity for acts within the outer perimeter of their presidential powers. The justices went a step further by finding that evidence of official acts cant be used to support charges over private conduct. The latter finding is what Trumps lawyers have zeroed in on, saying the verdict hinged on official acts evidence. Your Honor now has the authority to address these injustices, and the court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Courts decision, Trump attorney Todd Blanche said in the filing to Justice Juan Merchan in Manhattan. Crimes and Campaigns Trump, 78, is fighting to overturn the conviction as he campaigns for his Nov. 5 rematch against President Joe Biden. Trump, who faces as many as four years in prison, claims the hush money case and his three other criminal indictments are part of a witch hunt against him by Democrats. The 52-page filing explains in detail arguments Trump first raised in a letter to the judge last week. Merchan has already delayed the former presidents sentencing to Sept. 18 from this week to allow time to consider his request. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case last year and won the first conviction of a former US president, has until July 24 to respond to Trumps motion. Its unclear if Merchan will hold in-person arguments. A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Bragg elevated the acts to felonies from misdemeanors by proving Trump falsified the records in furtherance of election crimes. Trump denied any illegal conduct as well as the encounter. Tainted Verdict? The Supreme Courts immunity decision stems from Special Counsel Jack Smiths separate criminal case against Trump over his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election. The 6-3 decision along ideological lines held that a former president cannot be charged over acts related to their core powers under the Constitution and that they enjoy at least the presumption of immunity for act within the outer perimeter of a presidents discretionary authority. Trump argues the hush money verdict was tainted by extensive evidence related to his official duties, including social media posts and public statements about the scandal that he issued from the White House. He also says jurors shouldnt have heard testimony by former White House aides Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout about his alleged motive as the scandal was unfolding. The Supreme Court decision forecloses inquiry into those motives and places this evidence squarely within the category of official acts committed to the unreviewable discretion of the President, Blanche said in the filing. Trump also argues that jurors shouldnt have seen his response to Federal Election Commission complaints or his disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics, both of which related to the hush money scandal that evolved during Trumps first year in the White House. Those records, he says, were part of his official duties. Timing of Conduct In their response later this month, prosecutors will likely argue Trumps conduct took place before he took office and supports the verdict. They say the scheme was launched during a 2015 meeting between Trump and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who agreed to buy and bury salacious news about Trumps conduct with women to improve his chances of winning the election. Its unclear if Trump will succeed in his bid to overturn his New York conviction. Merchan and another judge have already rejected his immunity claims in the hush money case, although both decisions were made before the Supreme Courts ruling. A Manhattan appeals court has already upheld Merchans decision. If Trumps effort fails, his Sept. 18 sentencing will go ahead less than seven weeks before the November election. With assistance from Zoe Tillman. By Maria Martinez, Holger Hansen and Christian Kraemer BERLIN, - Germany is set to abstain in Monday's vote by European Union member states on imposing provisional tariffs on China-made electric vehicles, sources told Reuters on Friday, in the first test of support for Brussels' landmark trade case. The provisional tariffs of up to 37.6% on EVs imported from China do not require the member states' support, but the final tariffs could be blocked if a qualified majority of the EU's 27 members is opposed. An abstention in this first stage effectively means backing the Commission as it continues negotiations with Beijing over the EU's largest trade case yet. The EU's largest economy will abstain because the anti-subsidy investigation continues and negotiations between the EU Commission and the Chinese government are ongoing, the sources said. They declined to be named because the decision is confidential. Germany will abstain in the spirit of "critical solidarity" with the EU Commission, one of the sources said. German carmakers which made a third of their sales last year in China, oppose the tariffs. They worry about retaliation measures and fear a trade conflict with the country's second most important trading partner. France has been among the firmest backers of the case, while Hungary has condemned it. Other members have wavered about how to vote, the first official test of support for the Commission's tariff move. The EU initiated the probe without an industry complaint, the first such trade case of this kind. Asked late on Friday about the planned abstention, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany expected the EU executive would succeed in reaching an agreement with China on EVs, and that an agreement would be good for Europe's car industry. He declined to confirm how the country would vote. "These are globally competitive vehicles that have nothing to fear from competition," he told journalists after a meeting with Japan's premier. "But we must always make sure the conditions are fair on all sides." FIRST TEST This first vote which is made in writing and confidential is not binding. At the provisional stage, the Commission has full power to impose duties, although it consults EU members and is supposed to take their positions into account. This will be followed by a final vote at the end of the investigation, when the Commission can propose definitive duties, normally applying for five years. The Commission says duties are needed to counter cheap loans, land and raw materials and other subsidies and the goal is a level playing field, not shutting Chinese car makers out, as the United States' planned 100% tariff is likely to do. Its proposal could be blocked if a qualified majority of the European Union's 27 members is opposed. A qualified majority needs 15 EU members representing 65% of the EU population to be in favour. * His press conference performance seen as inconclusive * Biden talking with Hispanic, Asian lawmakers By Richard Cowan, Makini Brice and Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON, - President Joe Biden got a boost on Friday from two prominent Democrats who said he should stay in the White House race, as other members of his party said the 81-year-old incumbent is unfit for reelection. "I'm riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes," Representative James Clyburn said on NBC's "Today" program, the morning after Biden held a high-profile press conference to beat back doubts about his candidacy. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been floated as a possible successor, said he was sticking with Biden as well. "I'm all in. No daylight," he said in an interview excerpt released by CBS. Clyburn, 83, is a respected voice among Black Americans whose support is essential to Biden's 2024 campaign, while Newsom, 56, is one of several younger governors who are widely seen as the future of the party. But there were signs that Biden's support was weakening. Two congressional Democrats urged Biden to drop his bid on Friday, following at least three who called for him to drop out on Thursday night. At least 19 lawmakers have called on him to step aside so the party can pick another candidate following his halting June 27 debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump. "It is time to move forward. With a new leader," Representative Mike Levin said in a statement. Unlike many of Biden's most vocal supporters, Levin faces a competitive re-election battle of his own this year. Lawmakers are increasingly concerned that Biden's struggling campaign could complicate their efforts to retain control of the Senate and win back the House. As he worked to stem further defections, Biden held separate phone calls with groups of Hispanic, Asian and centrist Democratic lawmakers, according to aides. While the Hispanic group's top two leaders have endorsed Biden, some other members have not stated their positions. Democratic officeholders, donors and activists are trying to determine whether Biden is their best bet to defeat Trump in the Nov. 5 election and serve another four-year term in the White House. The New York Times reported that unnamed donors have told a pro-Biden Super PAC that roughly $90 million in pledges will remain on hold as long as he remains in the race. JEFFRIES MEETS BIDEN Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said he met with Biden on Thursday night to convey the range of thoughts his 213-member caucus held about Biden's candidacy. He did not say whether he personally thought Biden should stay in the race. "I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward," Jeffries wrote in a letter to colleagues. He did not say whether he personally thought Biden should stay in the race. With most U.S. voters firmly divided into ideological camps, opinion polls show the race remains close. Democrats are worried that Biden's low approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House. Thursday's press conference provided fodder for Biden supporters and doubters alike. At one point, Biden referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as "Vice President Trump." Hours earlier he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room. Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the press conference but also delivered detailed assessments of global issues that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage. Several Democratic strategists, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Biden's performance would not significantly shift the debate within the party. Biden will try to shift the focus back to Trump at an evening rally in Detroit. He and other Democrats have warned that a sweeping policy agenda crafted by conservative allies called Project 2025 would give Trump a blank check to pursue his whims. Trump has distanced himself from the project. Trump will be in the national spotlight next week, when the Republican Party holds its convention in Milwaukee to award him the presidential nomination. An NPR/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50% to 48%, a slight increase from his position before the June 27 debate. But some analysts have warned that Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election. "If current trends continue, Mr. Trump could rack up one of the most decisive presidential victories since 2008," Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik wrote in the New York Times. US President Joe Biden mistakenly confused his vice president, Kamala Harris, for his rival Donald Trump while answering his first question at a press conference on Thursday. The US President's confusing statement at the NATO press conference has renewed concerns about his age and acuity. As the series of high-profile gaffes made by Biden during the NATO summit revived concerns about his age, Republican party's candidate Donald Trump targeted the US President with Big Boy jibe. "Crooked Joe begins his Big Boy Press Conference with, "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president." Great job, Joe." wrote Donald Trump on social media website Truth Social. Also Read | Joe Biden mixes up Kamala Harris as Trump, Zelenskyy as Putin during NATO summit Joe Biden chose a small yet effective reply to Donald Trump's mockery. By the way: Yes, I know the difference. Ones a prosecutor, and the others a felon," wrote Joe Biden on X, in a reference to Donald Trump's conviction in the hush money trial case. Apart from mistakenly calling Kamala Harris as Trump, Joe Biden also mistakenly called Vladimir Putin as the Russian president. Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think shes not qualified to be president? Biden said. So lets start there. Number one, the fact is that the consideration is that I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. Several Democrats leaders have urged Joe Biden to step down and give opportunity to younger candidates, however, Joe Biden has maintained that he is not going to bow down from his re-election bid. While arguing his capability to lead the nation as President in another term, Joe Biden touted his decades of experience on the world stage which makes him uniquely qualified to defeat former President Donald Trump. "The only thing age does is creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention," said Biden, who is already the oldest person to ever serve as president. The US civil aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has launched a probe after two planes from major commercial airlines nearly collided mid-air at New Yorks Syracuse Hancock International Airport this week. The planes were within just 725 feet of each other. The dash camera of the North Syracuse Police Departments patrol car captured the nerve-wracking video on July 8. According to CBS News, the near mid-air collision stemmed from an apparent ATC error that cleared one plane to depart from the Syracuse airport while clearing the other to land on the same runway. The report said the ATC initially cleared the PSA Airlines Flight AA5511 to land on runway 28 and moments later gave the green light to Endeavor Airs Flight DL5421 to depart from the same runway. According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the planes were within just 700 feet of each other. According to Delta Airlines, which operates Endeavor Air, 76 passengers were onboard Flight DL5421, while the PSA Airlines flight had 75 passengers onboard. The harrowing video shows one plane descending while the other climbs up. Both planes appeared to be on a collision course, though the aircrafts avoided the mid-air collision. The error appears to have been caught first by the American Airlines pilot, and it veered to the side, so it was no longer on the same path as Endeavor Air. Also Read | Agnipath scheme to stay, tweaks likely in the upcoming budget or later According to CNN, the FAA has launched an investigation into the incident but has not classified it as a near collision. Meanwhile, Delta Airlines has said it is working with aviation authorities as we always do in our shared commitment to safety above all else. According to an FAA spokesperson, 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. Washington State Governor Jay Inslee joined the ranks of Democrats who are offering measured support for President Joe Bidens reelection campaign, emphasizing the importance of keeping Donald Trump from returning to office. When asked if Biden is the best challenger to defeat Trump in the November election, Inslee told the Bloomberg Green Festival in Seattle, He will make that decision. But I can tell you hes done some great work on climate change. I know theres questions. But again, I want to focus on beating Trump - thats what Im focused on. Bidens support from donors and key members of the Democratic party has waned following his disastrous performance in the debate against Trump on June 27, adding to uncertainty around his candidacy. I just focus on how horrific the former president was on this issue of climate change, Inslee said Thursday. To have any person in public life deny the existence of climate change is unbelievable he needs to be kept out of office. I believe President Biden has done some great work on climate but weve got to focus on keeping Trump out of office. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday declined to offer Biden a full-throated endorsement, saying on MSNBC that its up to the president to decide if he is going to run. Other Washington Democrats have been among the most vocal in questioning Bidens candidacy. Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, has said Vice President Kamala Harris should be the nominee. State Senator Mark Mullet, who is running to replace Inslee as governor, said the same. Inslee has been a close ally of the president and has been mentioned as a possible choice for a major job in a second-term Biden administration. When Biden was in Seattle for fundraisers in May, he joked that he wasnt going to let Inslee stay in Washington state after he steps down as governor at the end of the year. With assistance from Todd Woody and Ali Juell. NATOs European members have long thought they would prefer an ailing Joe Biden to an unpredictable Donald Trump. But now theyre coming to terms with the fact that whoever wins the election US priorities are increasingly going to shift elsewhere. At the same time as their summit in Washington was overshadowed by speculation on what the presidents decline means for his partys prospects of defeating Trump in November, there were noises off-stage sharpening the visitors focus on what comes next. At a rally this week Trump dug in on criticisms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, indicating he was prepared to ignore its central pillar: the clause on collective defense. But European officials say theyre expecting both he and his democratic counterpart to concentrate more on China at the expense of Europe. Europe should not be helpless, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview Friday. We need to get serious about defense of the EU because the US officially no longer has the capacity to fight two wars at the same time, he said, pointing at increasing American tensions with China. Prodded by French President Emmanuel Macron, who called NATO brain-dead five years ago, Europe has rushed to shore up its own defense capabilities. The continents lack of preparedness was laid bare by both Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine as well as Trumps time in the White House, when he lashed out at NATO members reliance on their most generous member. Even so, its not so much a Trump presidency as the international environment that are changing things for Europe, according to Camille Grand, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior NATO official. The difference could be the manner in which any retreat is brought about: With Biden it would be much more step-by-step, with Trump itd be more disruptive, Grand said. At his rally, Trump recounted a threat not to come to the aid of allies that dont meet their spending commitments. Acting on that behavior would flout how the alliance operates and create a huge crisis, according to a senior European diplomat, who wasnt authorized to give candid views so spoke on condition of anonymity. In the meantime, Washingtons focus on Beijing has prompted China to feature more prominently in European officials discussions with US politicians and think tankers on both sides of the aisle. In an interview on the NATO summits sidelines, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics appealed to the next US administration to keep troops in Europe and continue supporting Ukraine. He said rowing back those commitments would only hinder the USs China strategy by raising doubts among allies in its region. If there is no efficient response by NATO where the United States is part of it, Rinkevics said, Why on earth would anyone in Asia trust the United States? NATO has collectively started to focus more on China, in part to stay relevant to the US. On Wednesday, its leaders issued their starkest language yet toward Beijing. They accused it of being a decisive enabler of the conflict in Ukraine, after US officials briefed allies about the extent of Chinas aid to Russias war. The US pivot to counter China is already showing up in budget priorities. The Biden administration requested $9.1 billion for its Pacific Deterrence Initiative for this year, compared with $3.6 billion for the European initiative. With the US shifting focus to Asia, European nations keep underlining that theyre picking up the slack partly out of hope thatll keep Washington engaged. For Germany, the European Unions economic engine, the summit was a turning point, and prompted the realization that it will have to boost its defense capabilities irrespective of a Trump or a Biden White House, according to officials familiar with the governments thinking. For them, this was mainly due to the political volatility in the US. We have to understand that even if Biden wins another term, the USs attention will increasingly shift to the Indo-Pacific, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday. That means what they do more of there, theyll do less of in Europe. Around 23 out of 32 NATO allies will hit a goal of spending at least 2% of output on defense this year up from just 10 countries last year. But with Europe struggling to both arm Ukraine and rebuild its stocks, its still got a long way to go to be able to defend the region without American help. France, Germany, Italy and Poland took a step toward filling a critical military capability for which the blocs so far been relying on the US, when on Thursday the countries agreed to design and build their own long-range missiles. But its unclear whether those efforts will be enough to assuage the next White House, particularly if its Trump who wins a second term. Defense spending is not in and of itself something that Trump really cares about, said Sumantra Maitra, a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, which was founded by Russ Vought, a former official in Trumps cabinet. Fundamentally, he doesnt really like being in a situation where he thinks he is being taken advantage of. Theres a constant demand from eastern Europe for the US to spend more money in Ukraine, Maitra said, adding he doesnt speak for the Trump campaign: Those are fundamentally not American concerns. With assistance from Arne Delfs, Slav Okov, Piotr Skolimowski and Kasia Klimasinska. As Mint reported this week, India is weighing a new law aimed at fair compensation for news publishers from Big Tech platforms carrying their content. If enacted, Google and Meta would need to comply. From a news point of view, the rise of Googles search tool and Metas social media services (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) has been a mixed blessing, with content reach and visibility clearly amplified, but with this mix looking bleaker the closer one looks. At one level, attention spans have been put at the mercy of thumb swipes on handy gadgets, which has given the optics of every event such power that details of fact often seem like a lost cause. If the future of this planet can pivot on a stumble by a leader, as US poll-watchers fear, or even on a hug going viral on the internet, as Cold War II trackers wonder, then this optical turn is a serious cause for anxiety. At another level, online eyeballs have been affixed by a few winner-takes-all platforms that might possibly be addictive. While this has enriched Big Tech with advertising revenue, creators of quality content have been starved of funds needed to invest in the pursuit of truthour last line of defence against the risk of an optical takeover by AI-led deepfakery. Truth-focused publishers deserve a larger slice of Big Techs ad-revenue pie than the raw deal they get today. And since truth is a self-evident matter of public interest, a legislative remedy suggests itself. In 2021, Australia armed local news outlets with a legal code that enabled them to strike better payment bargains with Big Tech platforms conveying their content. Canberras move is being studied by Indias government in response to calls for a more equitable equation here too. In 2022, Canberra said over 30 pacts had been signed by local media with Google and Meta. Last year, transfers from the duo were placed at about $130 million, but Meta jolted recipients this year by saying it wouldnt renew such contracts. This has cast the ideas success in doubt, making public interest look weak in its clash with market forces. Canadas case has shown how unevenly they stack up. Last June, Ottawa passed the countrys Online News Act aimed at fairness in the Canadian digital-news marketplace," and while Google committed some $75 million a year to a state-run fund for local media, Meta did not budge. Instead, the social-media monopoly evidently ran a market test. It opted for a blackout of local news on its platforms, betting that news was too thin a sliver of their content-feed to matter. Facebook and Instagram barred news website links last August, forcing Canadian users to share local news by posting screen-shots. A recent study of the impact gave Meta a reason to gloat. Its user base held steady and revenues rose, while media outlets lost audiences. Canadas case is a reminder that its not easy to regulate the social media market. But it also showed people how hard it gets to identify fake news when peoples access to trusted websites is hobbled. The cause of truth took a blow. No wonder a media lobby wants to sue Meta for abuse of dominance. Any monopoly with such outsize influence over popular perceptions could potentially wreak havoc. Given that concentrated power is a sign of market failure, public interest in the fact-focused medias quest for truth must prevail over the dictates of data demand and supply. As an AI-led blur of reality looms on the internet, how exactly to ensure as much is the policy puzzle we must crack. Also read: Meet the digital David taking on the Google Goliath It is well on the cards that the central government is going to have to offer some carrots to Andhra Pradesh. Chandrababu Naidus Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which rules the state, is a key constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Last week, Naidu asked finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for lifelines from the union budget to steer Andhra Pradesh out of financial difficulties. Its public debt, according to the state government data, increased from 31.02% of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in 2019-20 to 33.32% in 2023-24. He also sought special assistance for the states backward regions, funds for the Polavaram irrigation project and support for the development of the new capital, Amaravati. The trouble is, if these demands are even partially met, Bihar and possibly other debt-burdened states, too, will start queuing up at North Block to demand financial support. The political configuration of the current Lok Sabha will make those demands more strident. Sitharaman simply does not have the spending leeway, given the fiscal deficit remains above 5% of GDP. And so, the Modi government must come up with alternative bargains that Naidu cannot decline. The first hint that the Modi government may be readying such an alternative came last week. Although Naidus discussions with Sitharaman made headlines, more significant was commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyals meeting earlier in the week with tobacco farmers in Hyderabad. This is the Modi governments first meeting with tobacco farmers and exporters since it joined office in 2014. Goyal assured the farmers that the Centre was ready to waive off the penalties on production of excess tobacco and financial assistance, including interest subvention, as well as help them with digital registration. Tobacco farmers are among the TDPs substantial agricultural support base. Naidu is quite sensitive to tobacco prices at state auctions. When prices plummeted in 2003, he severely reprimanded buyers from the industry, and threatened to burn all the stocks of tobacco to ensure better prices for farmers. ITC, a major buyer of tobacco, had promised to hold prices, yet the rates had crashed. And so, while Sitharaman and her team in North Block engage Naidu in discussions on financial assistance, and dig out alternatives for special status for states from long-forgotten reports like the GadgilMukherjee formula, if not the clincher for a political deal between the two sides, certainly a tactful bargaining chip may actually come from Udyog Bhawan. A comprehensive FDI policy review is reportedly underway. If FDI in tobacco is liberalised to allow more than just technology transfer, and instead opened up also for plain-vanilla expansion of existing units, or for greenfield ventures as 100 % export-oriented units, the domestic off take from the farmers of tobacco used for cigarettes, will rise, improving their earnings. The BJP is, of course, opposed to the expansion of the tobacco business, given the inherent health risks. That apart, India is a signatory to the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Any liberalisation of FDI in tobacco will have to sidestep the BJPs traditional position on tobacco. But ensuring stability of the government, and at the same time capping the squeezing of the exchequer by Naidu, requires a hard bargain with the TDP. Its in the nature of political compulsions to impose compromises and costs. An unintended beneficiary of a relaxed FDI policy for tobacco would be ITC Ltd and its investors, even though entrenched companies in this sector are protected against competition by entry restrictions. For ITC, liberalising tobacco FDI could shore up market appetite for its shares. Foreign institutional investors such as GIC Singapore, BofA Securities Europe, Citigroup Global Markets Mauritius and others showed up for British American Tobaccos sale of a 3.5% stake in ITC in March, when there wasn't even a murmur of a possibility of policy changes. A more benign FDI regime will benefit the company whose tobacco business accounts for 37% of its total revenue in FY23, and which is the market leader with over 70% share Supreme Court grants interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister and AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal in the Delhi excise policy case on Friday. The Apex Court refers his petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to a larger bench. The Supreme Court, while granting interim bail to Kejriwal in the ED case, observed that Arvind Kejriwal has been incarcerated for 90 days, and it is conscious that he is an elected leader. Also Read: Why Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal stays in jail despite interim bail by Supreme Court in excise policy case CM Kejriwal's lawyer Rishikesh Kumar said, The Supreme Court has granted him interim bail and the issue of section 19 and necessity of arrest has been referred to a larger bench. CM Kejriwal will remain in custody as his bail in the CBI case is still pending. This is a big victory. The chief minister, however, will remain in custody as he was subsequently arrested by the CBI in a corruption case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. BJP MP Kamaljeet Sehrawat said, Interim Bail is not a relief from the crime that one has committed. Interim Bail provides for one to stay out of jail as the case proceeds. But it doesn't mean that Arvind Kejriwal has not done a scam, that he was not involved in corruption... Perhaps Supreme Court has allowed him to be out and work as the people of Delhi are suffering. But the court has not acquitted him. A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta has referred questions regarding the legality of his arrest by the ED to a larger bench. Delhi State President AAP Legal Cell, Adv Sanjeev Nasair said, I thank the Supreme Court that today is a day of great relief. We have been saying from the very first day that this case of PMLA is completely baseless. There is no basis of any kind in it. Neither Arvind Kejriwal's name was there in the FIR, nor is there any evidence against Arvind Kejriwal. And till now the ED has not been able to prove anywhere under what circumstances the Chief Minister had to be arrested, because we have been saying from day one that this is a politically motivated case. Furthermore, Advocate Vivek Jain, counsel for Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said that there are very issues of law which the Supreme Court was grappling with. One of the issues was the necessity of arrest, we had argued before the Court that since the material was there with ED since July-August 2023, why was he arrested in March 2024... Court must have considered the argument... During the time that the matter is pending before the larger bench, the court has allowed Mr Kejriwal to be our on interim bail. As far as the ED case is concerned, he is out. As far as CBI matter is concerned, his matter is going to come up for hearing on 17th July before High Court where we would be praying the High Court to release him immediately because there are no strict conditions which are there in CBI, he added. AAP in a post on X said, Satyamev Jayate. The Supreme Court has outlined three questions concerning the authority and procedures of the ED's arrest and directed that Kejriwal be granted interim bail under the conditions specified in the May 10 order. Kejriwal was initially arrested on March 21 by the ED concerning a money laundering case. Subsequently, on June 26, he was arrested by the CBI for alleged corruption involving the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22, which has since been revoked due to allegations of wrongdoing and financial impropriety. The ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21 concerning a money laundering probe relating to alleged irregularities in the now-cancelled Delhi excise policy 2021-22. The Supreme Court will announce its verdict on Friday regarding Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's petition challenging his arrest and custody by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. As reported by ANI, Justice Sanjiv Khanna will lead the bench in delivering the verdict on July 12, following the court's reservation of judgment on Kejriwal's plea on May 17. Additional Solicitor General SV Raju informed the Supreme Court during the hearing that there was evidence indicating money being transferred to the AAP through hawala channels. Raju also stated that the ED had uncovered communications, including chats, between Kejriwal and hawala operators concerning the alleged proceeds of crime in the case. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Kejriwal, had contended that the material being cited by ED now to defend the Chief Minister's arrest was not present during his arrest. On May 10, the top court granted him interim bail till June 1 in the money laundering case registered by the ED in connection with the Delhi excise policy, however, ordered that he shall not visit the Office of the Chief Minister and the Delhi Secretariat. The bench had asked Kejriwal to surrender on June 2. He surrendered on June 2. The apex court's judgement will come from Kejriwal's appeal against a Delhi High Court judgement which dismissed his plea against arrest by the ED and his subsequent remand in the excise policy case. Kejriwal, while filing an appeal in the apex court had contended that his arrest after the announcement of the General Elections was "motivated by extraneous considerations". On April 9, the High Court dismissed his plea for release from jail and rejected his argument of political vendetta amid the looming Lok Sabha elections. The High Court had said that Kejriwal's absence from nine ED summons over six months undermined any claims of special privilege as Chief Minister, suggesting his arrest was an inevitable consequence of his non-cooperation. Kejriwal was arrested by ED on March 21 in connection with a money laundering probe relating to alleged irregularities in the now-cancelled Delhi excise policy 2021-22. Earlier on Thursday, BJP said the entire country is waiting for Arvind Kejriwal to resign on moral grounds for being jailed in the excise policy scam, while the AAP said the ED has made its national convener an accused only to keep him in jail. 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, the ED has claimed in its charge sheet filed against the AAP supremo, PTI reported. GREENSBORO, N.C.In the background of President Bidens decision on whether to continue his campaign against Donald Trump sits another crucial question: Would Kamala Harris do any better? Some Democratic lawmakers and donors have long fretted over Harriss potential political weaknesses, citing the rocky start to her tenure as vice president and the shortcomings of her own 2020 presidential bid. Now those vulnerabilities are under an intense spotlight, even as her poll numbers have improved and she is increasingly seen as a viable alternative to the 81-year-old incumbent. Democratic lawmakers, strategists, county chairs and donors say they are hearing more support and praise for Harris than ever before. Even if Biden doesnt bow out of the race, party leaders are pushing the campaign to elevate Harris more to counter concerns about his age and ability to effectively make the case against the 78-year-old Trump. Several Democrats also acknowledged lingering concern about whether she would be able to withstand intensified attacks from the GOP in either scenario. Some Democratic voters at a Harris stop in North Carolina on Thursday shared those fears. Y.C. Broadie, 47, a Democrat from Sedalia, N.C., said she came to the vice presidents event to see if she could reimagine" the Democratic ticket. When asked if she thought Harris could beat Trump, Broadie said: Thats the iffy part. Its going to be hard, but we just need to fall in love with her." Several voters said Hillary Clintons defeat in 2016 had convinced them that it was tougher for a female candidate to beat Trump. I just dont think the country as a whole is ready for a woman, though we are working on it," said Emma Shuford, 88, a retiree from Greensboro. Biden himself has made the claim that he is the best candidate to beat Trump a central part of his reasoning for staying in the race in the midst of calls for him to exit. Bidens top advisers have reiterated that message, even as speculation for Harris to replace him has mounted. Asked if he believed Harris could beat Trump if she was the nominee, Biden said at a news conference Thursday that he wouldnt have picked her as his running mate if she wasnt qualified to be president. Biden misspoke at one point and referred to Harris as Vice President Trump." A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Thursday found Harris leading Trump by 2 points in a hypothetical contest, while Biden trailed by 1 point. Both matchups were within the surveys margin of error. The poll found 70% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they would be satisfied with Harris as the partys nominee Harris, who remained a forceful defender of the president, has also tried to quell the Democratic panic, pushing voters and donors to look past Bidens debate performance. Some donors who spoke with her in recent days said she has shared that she and her team are closely watching the situation and that they dont want to do anything to be seen as unsupportive of the president, as questions continue swirling about Bidens status. A number of Biden donors who supported Harriss 2020 bid said they are keeping their options open in case she becomes the presidential nominee and they could have more influence by staying close to her. Harris, Democrats say, has come a long way in the past two years on a challenging task: changing her public perception and finding her footing in her role as the first female vice president. But the collapse of her 2020 presidential campaign, missteps in some early interviews and perception as being too liberalfostered by Republicans over the past four yearsgive Democrats some pause. Most polls also show her with low favorabilityin line with Bidens. A Wall Street Journal poll taken after the debate found some 35% of respondents viewed Harris favorably compared with 58% who viewed her unfavorably. A swing-state Democratic strategist said: The question is which Harris are we going to get? She has proven she can be different thingssome good, some not. If she continues what shes doing right nowshe could be a really dynamic candidate." The strategist added that he is resigned to Bidens replacement with Harris. Her appearances in recent months have inspired confidence in many Democrats that they said they were previously lacking. She has been traveling around the country campaigning on abortion rightsan issue that is essential to energizing the Democratic base on which she has more credibility than Biden. Lately, she has also articulated a contrast between Bidens record and Trumps agenda, as she rallies Black, young and progressive voters who polls show are frustrated with Biden. So ultimately in this election we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?" she said Thursday. Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate?We each have the power to answer that question." If Biden were to withdraw, Harris would have some built-in advantages over other Democrats who are considering a presidential bid. She has already been vetted and has high name recognition compared with alternatives. She is also uniquely positioned to inherit the Biden campaigns war chest and make for the most seamless transition. Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic strategist and adviser to billionaires, including the Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, said they would back Harris if Biden were to withdraw but he thinks she would have to work on shedding her liberal image to defeat Trump. Mehlhorn said Harris, whom he viewed as a centrist in California, was pushed to the left in the 2020 Democratic primary on several issues, which Republicans have been able to seize on to paint her as a radical leftist." Many said she could effectively lean into her background as a former prosecutor to present the case against Trump, who was convicted on 34 felony counts in May. Some Democrats, including some vulnerable lawmakers, worry that Harris would only highlight the chaos in the party after the debate and amplify the weaknesses of the Biden administration. Others are bracing for an increase in sexist and racist attacks against Harris by Trump and the right-wing media if she were to become the nominee. Republicans, who have made a concerted effort since Harris was first named as Bidens running mate to target her in a way that is unusual for a vice president, have labeled Harris the DEI vice president," referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. They have also been raising questions about whether Harris has been honest in responding to concerns related to Bidens age. 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," Trump said at a recent rally. Another politically problematic issue for Harris: immigration. Harris has already been a focus of GOP criticism of Bidens immigration policy, a top concern for voters. Facing record levels of illegal border crossings, the president tasked Harris in 2021 with addressing the root causes of migration. The vice president wasnt asked to lead border policy, but Republicans have cast her as the border czar" for the administration. Write to Tarini Parti at tarini.parti@wsj.com and Emily Glazer at Emily.Glazer@wsj.com If Europes cosseted political and media class had any senseimprobable, but bear with metheyd recognize the magnitude of the disaster that befell them this past weekend in France. Instead, they believe that the legislative election result constitutes a win. Superficially, it was a win. President Emmanuel Macron called the snap National Assembly election to try to stifle a challenge from Marine Le Pens National Rally on the insurgent right. Her party performed well in European Parliament elections in early June, and Mr. Macron hoped to discredit her with a defeat at the national level. His strategy has worked in one respect: Ms. Le Pens bloc has emerged as only the third-largest in Parliament. But to describe Ms. Le Pens loss as a victory for France or for Europe presupposes the alternative will be any better. Quite the opposite. Conventional wisdom holds that an election triumph for Ms. Le Pen, if or when one comes, will pose a mortal threat to the Continent. Her Euroskepticism, the theory goes, would undermine French support for European Union institutions such as the euro currency and the single-market trade bloc. Her xenophobia would challenge European values. Yet that parade of horribles is what France faces now from whatever left-leaning administration emerges following the election. The way in which the center and left defeated the National Rally is a major problem. Ms. Le Pen and her allies were by far the biggest vote-winners in Sundays second round, garnering around 37% of the vote compared with around 26% for the left and 25% for Mr. Macrons coalition. The last two blocked Ms. Le Pens party by targeting winnable districts, which is a smart tactic in such a system. But the strategic error is that this has produced a National Assembly split three ways with no obvious governing mandate. Whichever administration gets cobbled together from this chaos will govern from the left. Its a bad sign that these parties seem to agree on only a few issues: expanding the government workforce and imposing a new wealth tax. Mr. Macrons most important reforms to labor laws and pensions may be on the chopping block. The European Union economy cant function if its second-largest constituent (by gross domestic product, after Germany) has no realistic prospect of either growing or paying off its debts. Nor can France hope to contribute meaningfully to the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations common defense without an economic jump startif the left-leaning parties set to call the shots in Parliament even wanted to do so, which they dont. Ms. Le Pens opponents might retort that what was at stake in this election was Frances soul, not its economy. Ms. Le Pens party, theyd argue, with its hostility to immigrants and its history of antisemitism, poses an unacceptable threat to core Frenchand Europeanvalues. This would be more credible if, to squeeze out Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Macron and centrist allies hadnt been complicit in the success of Frances antisemitic far left. The embarrassing truth is that France Unbowed was the biggest election winner. That far-left partyfounded by Jean-Luc Melenchon, a sort of French Bernie Sanderssecured 74 seats, making it the largest party within the left-wing bloc. Mr. Melenchon is notorious for his antisemitic comments, particularly following the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel (which his party called an armed offensive by Palestinian forces" rather than a terror attack). Ms. Le Pens National Rally in the past was justifiably accused of antisemitism. Ms. Le Pen has launched a cleanup and has emerged as a vocal supporter of Israel. Perhaps she really means it. Perhaps she merely hopes to use a noisy display of philosemitism in her broader campaign to block Muslim immigration into France. But as a French sage once observed, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. If Ms. Le Pen is insincere, at least she knows where the virtue lies. Mr. Melenchon doesnt. Were Mr. Macron more imaginative, he might have found in Ms. Le Pen a grudging helper for some reforms (her party belatedly made its peace with his pension overhaul) and an excuse for others such as an abandonment of costly net-zero climate follies. The political fusion with most promise these daysin Spain, Italy, Greece and perhaps in Germany and the U.K.is a center-right thats tough on immigration and aggressive on economic growth. A Macron-Le Pen condominium, as awkward as it sounds, might have delivered both results and some degree of popular legitimacy. Instead, Mr. Macron continues to indulge a distaste for the insurgent right that looks increasingly aesthetic rather than ideological or practical. As a result, Europe may soon discover that a French government with Ms. Le Pen stuck on the outside is worse than an administration with her in it. Nepals prime minister lost a vote of confidence in parliament on Friday after the largest party in his coalition government withdrew its support, which would now force him to step down from office after 19 months in power. Pushpa Kamal Dahal failed to get the support of more than half the members of the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, on Friday which was required to win the vote. He had to move a confidence motion in parliament after his main ally in government, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) decided to pull out their support last week and join hands with the Nepali Congress the largest party in the country to form a new alliance. The alliance has agreed that Khadga Prasad Oli, the leader of the communist party will be the new prime minister. Dahal had been leading a shaky governing coalition since becoming prime minister in December 2022 following an inconclusive election where his party finished third. But he formed a new alliance and became its leader and the prime minister. He had to seek a vote of confidence in parliament five times since he became leader because of disagreements within his coalition partners. This was his third time as the prime minister of the Himalayan nation since his Maoist group ended an armed revolt and joined mainstream politics in 2006. Dahal, also known as Prachanda, or the fierce one, led a violent Maoist communist insurgency from 1996 to 2006. More than 17,000 people were killed and the status of many others remains unknown. President Joe Biden faced more calls from fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid on Friday, following a news conference in which he delivered nuanced responses but occasionally stumbled over his words. It was unclear whether Biden's performance would convince doubters in his party that he is their best bet to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election and serve another four-year term in the White House. At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out and allow the party to pick another standard-bearer, including some who announced their positions after the news conference on Thursday night. Democrats are worried that Biden's low public approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House. But Biden made clear that he did not plan to step aside. "If I show up at the convention and everybody says they want someone else, that's the democratic process," Biden said, before shifting to the stage whisper he often uses for emphasis to add, "It's not gonna happen." Biden perhaps did not reassure those who were spooked by his poor presidential debate performance against Trump on June 27. At one point, he referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as "Vice President Trump". That came just hours after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room. Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the news conference, yet he also delivered detailed assessments of global issues, including Ukraine's war with Russia and the Israel-Gaza conflict, that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage. Some Democrats were not reassured. "We must put forward the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump's promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden," said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who called on the president to end his campaign after the news conference. A senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity called the performance the "worst of all worlds. Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind ... It'll give some enough cover to back him publicly, only to say he's not up for it privately." Fundraiser Dmitri Melhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. "This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong," he told Reuters. Biden will hold a rally on Friday in Detroit, where his campaign says he will focus on the "dangers" of Trump's agenda. The Michigan city is also headquarters of the United Auto Workers labor union, whose leaders endorsed Biden but now are assessing their options, three sources told Reuters. Human lifespan has a limit and we might have reached it. S. Jay Olshansky, who studies the upper bounds of human longevity at the University of Illinois Chicago, believes people shouldnt expect to live to 100. Most, he contends, will reach between 65-90. Biology is holding us back, Olshansky said. Human evolution favors growth and reproduction, not living to excessive ages. As people grow older, their cells and tissues accumulate damage. Breakdowns of one kind or another happen more frequently and get increasingly difficult to repair. Scientists believe there are likely many genes that affect lifespan. Aging is a complex process that isnt well-understood. Olshansky knows his viewpoint isnt popular. The longevity business is booming. People are flocking to longevity meetings and taking compounds they hope will extend their lives. Investors are backing scientists researching techniques to reprogram cells to a younger state with the goal of restoring functions that diminish with age. Longevity influencers argue that if they can live long enough, scientific breakthroughs will keep them going indefinitely. We are going to start to understand how to rejuvenate and revitalize ourselves. This is what science does," said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, a 63-year-old entrepreneur who runs longevity trips for investors to meet scientists in the field. And yet, at 70, Olshansky is more confident than ever in his prediction. He and his colleagues have been studying demographic and mortality data from 1990-2019 in the U.S. and developed countries with the longest-living populations. Over those 30 years, they found that life expectancy slowed. Progress stopped even before the Covid-19 pandemic drove life expectancy rates down. We waited three decades to see what would happen," he said. I had a lot more hair back then." Generational change Certainly, the number of people 100 or older has grown. Olshansky said their ranks will increase most dramatically beginning in 2046, the 100th anniversary of the baby boom that followed World War II. But that demographic bump wont change average life expectancy. Olshansky predicted that under the best of circumstances, less than 10% of newborns will make it to their 100th birthday. Jan Vijg, chair of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, reached a similar conclusion from a different angle. He has studied the maximum verified age the oldest people died at in different countries. The maximum age at death increased gradually at least from the 1950s until the 1990s, when it appeared to plateau. He isnt surprised that Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 at 122, still holds the world record of the oldest verified age at death. There are now hundreds of millions more people who have reached old age under optimal conditionsbenefiting from clean water, antibiotics, improved treatments for top killers such as heart disease and cancer, and healthier lifestyles. If lifespan had no limit, some of those centenarians would have broken Calments record by now, he argued. It seems this is the end," Vijg said. Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan explained in May to a packed audience at Harvard University the many reasons, Why We Die," the name of his new book. Ramakrishnan doesnt believe current interventions will dramatically extend lifespan. Techniques to reverse aging would have to help every system in the body, including the brain, over a long period. It is more complicated than people think to engineer away the causes of aging," he said. Kaare Christensen, co-author of a paper predicting most newborns born in the 2000s would live to 100 if medical progress continued, said it is too soon to know who is right. Future advances could make up for stalled life expectancy gains. The setback could be temporary," he said. Christensen, who runs studies on very old people at the Danish Aging Research Center in Denmark, said people in their 90s have better cognitive function and healthier teeth over their lifetimes than counterparts of the same age born just 10 years earlier. I would say prepare for your 90s instead," Christensen said. Old-age debate Olshanskys foray into the limits of lifespan began in 1990 when he published a paper in Science stating that life expectancy wouldnt rise dramatically even if diseases including cancer and heart disease are eliminated. He has been fighting about it ever since. James Vaupel, a demographer, pushed back. In a 2021 paper, Vaupel pointed to statistics showing that since around 1840 life expectancy at birth has increased almost 2.5 years per decade in some countries. Vaupel and Olshansky published dueling papers over the decades until Vaupels death at age 76 in 2022. Steven Austad, a professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was asked at a 2001 scientific meeting when he thought the first person to live to 150 would be born. I think that person is already alive," Austad replied. Austad said he based his answer on optimism that scientists will figure out how to change the biology of aging. When Olshansky heard about the exchange, he bet Austad that wasnt true. In 150 years, he argued, there still wouldnt be a person alive at 150. The men wagered $150 each, which they put in a fund to pay out in 150 years, with the winners heirs to reap the profit. A decade ago, they each added another $150 to the account. Austad said he agreed with Olshansky that most newborns born now wont live to 100. But he thinks his optimism that someone will live to 150 is justified. He pointed to a study showing the compound rapamycin extended the lifespan of mice, even if they start getting it later in life. Some longevity enthusiasts are taking rapamycin themselves. Studies on other potentially antiaging compounds are under way. If any turn out to work," Austad said, they will win my bet for me." Olshansky thinks any intervention wont extend life that far. Not in these bodies," he said. The wealthy and well-educated already tend to live longer, a group that includes many of Olshanskys critics. Your chances of making it to 100 are better than anyone else," Olshansky said of his naysayers. But overall, your odds are still slim." Write to Amy Dockser Marcus at Amy.Marcus@wsj.com OnePlus' latest iteration in the Nord lineup, the OnePlus Nord 4 will debut at the company's Summer Launch Event in Milan, Italy on July 16. Ahead of the scheduled release of the device, OnePlus has stated that the Nord 4 will come with OnePlus's longest ever software support guarantee of 6 years. OnePlus has promised 4 years of Android updates and 6 years of security patch updates for the Nord 4. Apart from this, the company says Nord 4 is the first device to come with TUV SUD Fluency 72 Month A rating which should translate into the phone remaining fast and smooth for six years and also features technology to make sure its battery lasts longer than ever. During the July 16 event, OnePlus will also unveil a host of other products, including the OnePlus Pad 2, Watch 2r and Nord Buds 2 Pro. OnePlus Nord 4 price (expected): As per tipster Abhishek Yadav on X (formerly Twitter), the upcoming OnePlus Nord 4 could be priced at 27,999. However, the original price of the Nord 4 is likely to be around 31-32,000 and the company is expected to provide some launch offers to take the price under 30,000. To recap, OnePlus Nord 3 which was launched last year started at a price of 33,999 for the 8GB RAM/128GB price variant. So, if the leaked price does hold to be true, it would require OnePlus to sell the Nord 4 at a cheaper price than its predecessor. OnePlus Nord 4 specifications (expected): Rumors suggest that the OnePlus Nord 4 could be a rebranded version of the OnePlus Ace 3V which was launched in China earlier this year. It is likely to be powered by the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset, the same processor found on Realme GT 6T. It could feature a 6.74 inch 1.5K curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate On the optics front, the phone could featue a 50MP SonyIMX 882 primary sensor and a secondary 8MP ultra-wide angle shooter. The battery is also expected to get a massive boost, going from 5,000mAh on its predecessor to 5,500mAh on the Nord 4. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. 3.6 Crore Indians visited in a single day choosing us as India's undisputed platform for General Election Results. Explore the latest updates here! Google is all set to hold its annual Made by Google event to announce a slew of hardware related annoucement on August 13. During the event, Google is expected to launch its Pixel 9 lineup including the vanilla variant, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro fold However, in true Google fashion, the prices of all of the new Pixel devices have been leaked online. As per a report by French publication Dealabs, Pixel 9 series will be available in four colour variants: Obsidian (black), Porcelain (white), Cosmo, and Mojito. Pixel 9 series leaked price: As per the leak, the vanila variant will be priced at 899 for the 128GB storage variant and 999 for the 256GB storage variant. Meanwhile, the Pixel 9 Pro may be priced at 1,099 for the128GB variant, 1,199 for the 256GB variant, and 1,329 for the 512GB variant. Meanwhile, the Pixel 9 Pro XL will likely be priced at 1,199 for the 128GB strorage variant, 1,299 for the 256GB version, 1,429 for the 512GB variant and 1,689 for the top end 1TB variant. The report suggests that Pixel 9 Pro XL's top end variant will only be available in Obidian colur opton while the 128GB and 512GB models will come in Porcelain and Hazel finishes and 256GB variant will be the only one to be offered in Pink hue. Finally, Pixel 9 Pro Fold,the successor to last year's Pixel Fold, will likely be priced at 1,899 and 2,029 for the 256GB and 512GB variants, respectively. It will reportedly only be available in Obsidian and Porcelain finishes. Do note that all of these are European prices and it may differ in each country depending on the tax rates. Moreover, these are leaked prices and there has been no official word from Google regarding the Pixel 9 series yet. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. 3.6 Crore Indians visited in a single day choosing us as India's undisputed platform for General Election Results. Explore the latest updates here! NOT LONG ago a part of the British government asked RAND Europe, a think-tank in Cambridge, England, to conduct some research on undersea critical infrastructure. The think-tank studied publicly available maps of internet and electricity cables. It interviewed experts. It held focus groups. Halfway through the process Ruth Harris, the leader of the project, realised that she had inadvertently unearthed many sensitive details that could be exploited by Russia or other adversaries. When she approached the unnamed government department, they were shocked. The reaction, she recalls, was: Oh my god. This is secret." When they learned that Ms Harriss team was drawn from all over Europe, they demanded that it be overhauled, she says: This needs to be UK eyes only." Western governments have been quietly concerned about the security of undersea cables, which carry most of the worlds internet traffic, for many years. But only recently has the issue come into sharp focus, owing to a series of murky incidents from the Baltic Sea to the Red Sea and a wider realisation that infrastructure, of all sorts, is a target for subversion and sabotage. Across Europe, Russian spies and their proxies have attacked Ukraine-linked targets, hacking into water utilities, setting fire to warehouses and plotting to strike American military bases in Germany. The fear is that underwater communications could be crippled in a crisis or in wartime, or tapped for secrets in peacetime. And as America and China joust for influence throughout Asia, undersea cables have become a crucial part of their competition. More than 600 active or planned submarine cables criss-cross the worlds oceans, running for more than 1.4m kilometres in total, enough to go from Earth to the Moon more than three times, according to TeleGeography, a data company. These carry the vast majority of internet traffic. To take one example, Europe is connected to America by some 17 cables, mostly via Britain and France (see map). More than 100 cables are damaged each year around the world, very often by errant trawlers and ships dragging their anchors. View Full Image (The Economist) The trouble is that it is hard to distinguish accidents from sabotage. Take the damage inflicted on the Balticonnector gas pipeline and a nearby communication cable in the Gulf of Finland in October 2023. Regional officials suspected the involvement of the Newnew Polar Bear, a Chinese-owned container ship which had earlier swapped its crew in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave, and later turned up in Archangel with its anchor missing. Nine months later, Finnish authorities believe that the incident was probably a genuine accident. Other Western officials continue to suspect Russian malfeasance. Below the surface That is understandable. Russia has invested heavily in naval capabilities for underwater sabotage, primarily through GUGI, a secretive unit which operates deep-water submarine and naval drones. The Russians are more active than we have seen them in years in this domain," warned NATOs intelligence chief last year. A report published in February by Policy Exchange, a think-tank in London, claimed that since 2021 there have been eight unattributed yet suspicious" cable-cutting incidents in the Euro-Atlantic region, and more than 70 publicly recorded sightings of Russian vessels behaving abnormally near critical maritime infrastructure". In its annual report in February, Norwegian intelligence said that Russia had also been mapping the countrys critical oil and gas infrastructure for years. This mapping is still ongoing, both physically and in the digital domain [and] could become important in a conflict situation." The problem is not confined to Europe. In February three submarine cables running through the Red Sea were damaged, disrupting the internet across east Africa for more than three months. The cause was probably a missile strike on the Rubymar, a fertiliser ship, by the Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group that has been menacing shipping in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. When the Rubymar was abandoned by its crew, later sinking, its anchor is thought to have dragged along the seabed and cut the cables. In March similar disruption occurred across west Africa when another crucial cable system was severed off the Ivory Coast, possibly due to seismic activity on the seabed. American strategists worry about a potential Chinese threat to cables in Asia, too. Taiwan, in particular, is overwhelmingly dependent on undersea cables for international communications, and has a relatively small number of terminals, where they come ashore. In a war, writes Elsa Kania of the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), a think-tank in Washington, the Peoples Liberation Army would seek to impose an information blockade" on the island. Severing cables would almost certainly be a component of that campaign". In February 2023 a Chinese cargo ship and a Chinese fishing vessel were suspected of cutting the two cables serving Matsu, an outlying Taiwanese island, six days apart, disrupting its connectivity for more than 50 daysthough there is no hard evidence of skulduggery. Cable-cutting may also serve broader war aims. The best way to bring down the US drone fleet, or indeed to undermine the Five Eyes intelligence system, which is hugely dependent on internet surveillance," write Richard Aldrich and Athina Karatzogianni, a pair of intelligence historians, would be to attack submarine cables." War games run by CNAS in 2021 found that Chinese cable attacks often resulted in the loss of terrestrial internet connectivity on Taiwan, Japan, Guam and Hawaii and forced these islands to rely on lower bandwidth and more vulnerable satellite communications". (In contrast, the same war games found that Russia, with limited specialist cable-cutting units, could not quickly eradicate the dense cable communications between North America and Europe".) Western governments are scrambling to erect better defences. Their priority is to understand what is actually happening underwater. NATO states have already increased air and naval patrols near critical infrastructure, including cable routes. In May the alliance convened a new Critical Undersea Infrastructure Network for the first time, with the aim of sharing more information between governments and with the private firms which tend to operate the cables. A digital ocean concept" in October also envisaged a global scale network of sensors, from sea bed to space" to identify threats. A European Union initiative is contemplating a network of underwater stations" on the seabed which might allow drones to charge batteries and transmit data on what they have seen. Once damage occurs, repairing it is hard. The world has only 60 or so repair ships, which means that breaks may not be mended for months. Many are flagged neither to America nor one of its allies, notes Evan DAlessandro of Kings College London who studies undersea cables. The challenge would be compounded in wartime, where Chinese cable-cutting would focus on heavily contested areas near Taiwans coastline. Cable-repair ships had to be escorted by warships in the first and second world wars, observes Mr DAlessandro. In a Pacific war, he notes, America and allied navies would have few spare ships for that task. In part to mitigate that problem, the Pentagon established a Cable Security Fleet in 2021, in which American-flagged and crewed cable-ship operators received a $5m annual stipend in exchange for being on 24 hours notice in a crisis and being ready to serve in wartime. The concern is not just sabotage, however, but also snooping. America and its allies know the threat better than anyone, because for decades they have embodied it. In the 1970s America conducted audacious operations to tap Soviet military cables using specially equipped submarines that could place and recover devices on the seabed. As the internet went global, the opportunities for underwater espionage rose fast. In 2012 GCHQ, Britains signals-intelligence service, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables carrying phone and internet traffic, many of which handily came ashore on the countrys west coast. It also reportedly worked with Oman to tap others running through the Persian Gulf. The lessonthat the route and ownership of cables can be vital to national securitywas not lost on others. Indeed, fear of Chinese espionage is one reason why America has taken such a keen interest in Asias rapidly growing cable infrastructure. Between 2010 and 2023, about 140 new cables were laid in the region, compared with just 77 in western Europe. China has become an important player in the cable spree through HMN Technologies, a company which was previously known as Huawei Marine Networks. The firm boasts that it has laid more than 94,000km of cables across 134 projects. In 2020 America, alarmed by this trend, blocked HMNs involvement in a proposed $600m cable from Singapore to France, via India and the Red Sea, known as SeaMeWe-6, by offering grants to competing companies and threatening sanctions on HMN. These would have prevented American firms from using the cable. That was one of at least six cable deals in Asia disrupted by America between 2019 and 2023, according to a recent investigation by Reuters, a news agency. Trouble in paradise Americas regional allies are similarly keen to curb Chinese influence. In 2017 a Chinese effort to connect Australia and the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific was countered by Australias government, which established an alternative project involving Nokia, a Finnish firm. Australia is now funding two other cables to Palau and East Micronesia, a pair of archipelagoes where China, America and Australia have jostled with each other for influence in recent years. These efforts have dramatically slowed Chinas cable ambitions. HMN is still a minnow compared with Americas SubCom, Japans NEC Corporation and Frances Alcatel Submarine Networks, the trio of firms that dominate the global cable-laying market. Even with better undersea surveillance and more redundancy in routes, the threat is unlikely to abate. Deep-sea cable cutting once required large naval investments. Increasingly capable naval drones are changing that. The ability to operate at extreme depths may not be the sole preserve of major powers anymore," says Sidharth Kaushal of RUSI, another think-tank. The challenge for smaller powers, he says, will often be identifying the precise route of cables. That can take years of peacetime surveillance. It is no wonder, then, that many Western governments would rather keep such details tightly under wraps. 2024, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus), or water moccasins, are venomous snakes found in the southeastern United States. They're called cottonmouths because the insides of their mouths, which they display when threatened, are white. Cottonmouths are semiaquatic, so they're comfortable both swimming in water and basking on land. They are the only venomous snake in the U.S. that spends a lot of time in the water, Live Science previously reported. Other local names for cottonmouths include black moccasins, gapers, mangrove rattlers, snap jaws, stub-tail snakes, swamp lions, trap jaws, water mambas and water pilots. Cottonmouths are pit vipers, as are copperheads and rattlesnakes, Sara Viernum , a herpetologist based in Portland, Oregon, told Live Science. "Like all pit vipers, [cottonmouths] have heat-sensing facial pits between their eyes and nostrils," Viernum said. These specialized pits detect minute temperature differences in order to accurately strike the source of heat, which is often potential prey. Cottonmouths rarely bite humans and usually do so only when provoked. Sara Viernum Herpetologist Sara Viernum is a senior wildlife biologist, and for the last several years has provided professional consulting services to the power transmission and distribution, renewable energy, transportation, mining, and oil and gas sectors. Viernum is a certified wildlife biologist with The Wildlife Society. Viernum has a masters in biology and herpetology from Jacksonville State University, and a bachelors degree in wildlife biology from Murray State University. How to identify a water moccasin Cottonmouths are relatively large, ranging from 30 to 48 inches (76 to 122 centimeters)long, according to the Florida Museum . They have thick, muscular bodies covered in ridged scales, as well as blocky heads with large jowls. Their pupils are vertical, similar to a cat's, and they have dark stripes next to each nostril. Their colors range from dark brown or black to olive, banded brown or yellow. Cottonmouths are often confused with nonvenomous water snake species from the genus Nerodia. Cottonmouths and Nerodia species have similar coloring and patterns and are usually found near water. Even though water snakes are nonvenomous, they can still bite and are often killed by humans out of fear that the snakes are cottonmouths. There are a few ways you can tell a nonvenomous water snake from a venomous cottonmouth, according to the University of Florida. Water snakes are skinnier and lighter than cottonmouths. Water snakes also have longer, thinner tails, and their heads are as wide as their necks. Water snakes' pupils are round, not vertical. Water snakes also lack the facial pits that are characteristic of pit vipers, including cottonmouths. Cottonmouth taxonomy Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Squamata Family: Viperidae Genus & species: Agkistrodon piscivorus Source: ITIS When threatened, nonvenomous water snakes such as common water snakes (Nerodia sipedon) and banded, or southern, water snakes (Nerodia fasciata) often try to appear bigger than they are by flattening their bodies and heads. This flattening makes them look more like cottonmouths. A water snake's flattened head will look more triangular but not as blocky and thick as a cottonmouth's head. A water snake's head will also still be a similar width to the neck, even when flattened. Trying to kill a snake greatly increases the risk of being bitten by one, according to the University of Florida. Juvenile cottonmouths have more distinctive bands across their bodies and are lighter brown than adults. Juveniles also have bright-yellow tail tips that they use to attract prey. "They undulate the tail tip slowly back and forth to lure prey, such as frogs, within striking distance," Viernum said. The striking patterns on the juveniles fade with age. Young cottonmouth snakes have striking patterns that fade with age. (Image credit: cturtletrax via Getty Images) Cottonmouth vs. Water Moccasin Are they the same thing? Cottonmouth and water moccasin are interchangeable terms for the venomous water snake. Where do cottonmouths live? Cottonmouths' range extends from southeastern Virginia to Florida, west to central Texas and north to southern Illinois and Indiana, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They live primarily in aquatic and wetland habitats, including swamps, marshes, drainage ditches, ponds, lakes and streams. Cottonmouths can be seen year-round during the day and at night, but they primarily hunt after dark, especially in the summer, according to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. They can be found basking in the sun during the day on rocks, logs and stumps, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. There are three subspecies of cottonmouth recognized by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS): Florida cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti), found throughout Florida; western cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma), found in Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas; and eastern cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus piscivorus), found in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. Identifying the different subspecies is difficult. Their markings vary considerably, and the subspecies can interbreed where their ranges overlap. What do water moccasins eat? A water moccasin eats a leopard frog. The snake's diet consists of fish, small mammals, birds and amphibians; reptiles such as lizards, baby alligators and turtles; and other snakes, including smaller water moccasins. (Image credit: Ivan Kuzmin / Alamy Stock Photo) Cottonmouths hunt prey in water or on land. They eat fish, small mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, including other snakes and even smaller water moccasins, according to the University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web (ADW). Cottonmouths kill with a single, venomous bite, and then squeeze prey until it stops moving, before swallowing their food whole. Cottonmouths mate in the spring, usually from April to May. During the mating process, males slither around, waving their tails to lure females away from other male suitors. The males also fight each other when competing for females. Females have a gestation period of five months. Cottonmouths are ovoviviparous, which means that eggs incubate inside the mother's body. Females give birth to live young every two to three years, in litters of about 10 to 20 offspring, according to ADW. Baby cottonmouths go off on their own as soon as they're born. Most baby cottonmouths don't make it to adulthood because they are eaten by other animals, such as raccoons, cats, eagles and snapping turtles. Experts don't really know how long cottonmouths can live. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), cottonmouths live less than 10 years in the wild. However, the snakes can live much longer in captivity, and at least one captive cottonmouth has lived to be over 24 years old, according to ADW. Cottonmouths may hibernate in the winter in the colder, northern parts of their range. They hibernate in burrows made by other animals, including crayfish and tortoises, or under some other form of cover, such as rotting stumps, according to the IUCN. Are water moccasins aggressive? Cottonmouths rarely bite humans unless they are picked up or stepped on. They may stand their ground against potential predators, including humans, by using defensive behaviors. "When a cottonmouth feels threatened, it will coil its body and open its mouth wide to expose the white coloration of the inside of its mouth," Viernum said. The flash of white contrasts with the snake's dark body colors to create a startling display. "Exposing the white of the mouth serves as a warning signal to potential predators," Viernum said. Cottonmouths may also deter predators by spraying a foul-smelling musk from glands in the base of their tail, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. Cottonmouths can also shake their tails, a bit like rattlesnakes, and can make a vibrating sound by doing so. But they don't have an actual rattle like rattlesnakes do. A close-up of the snake's mouth. (Image credit: the4js via Getty Images) Cottonmouth bite Although cottonmouths rarely bite humans, cottonmouth venom can be deadly. Anyone who suffers a cottonmouth bite should seek medical attention immediately. The sooner antivenom can be administered, the sooner irreversible damage from the venom can be stopped, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC recommends that, after calling for emergency services, snakebite victims (or someone aiding them) should take a photo of the snake (from a safe distance) if possible, remain calm and apply first aid while waiting for emergency medical service personnel to arrive. Humans bitten by pit vipers, including cottonmouths, will almost always feel an immediate burning pain where they've been bitten, and these bite wounds usually begin to swell within five minutes, according to the TPWD. Skin discoloration around the wound is also common. Cottonmouth venom is composed mainly of hemotoxins that break down blood cells, preventing blood from clotting, according to Viernum. The hemotoxins lead to "hemorrhaging throughout the circulatory system wherever the venom has spread," she said. Being bitten and injected with cottonmouth venom can lead to "temporary and/or permanent tissue and muscle damage; loss of an extremity, depending on the location of the bite; internal bleeding; and extreme pain around the injection area," Viernum added. Around 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the U.S. each year, but only about five to six people die from their bites, according to the University of Florida. Cottonmouths have accounted for less than 1% of all snakebite deaths in the U.S., according to the TPWD. Conservation status Cottonmouths are categorized as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which means that across nearly all of its range, the species is at low risk of extinction. Cottonmouths have a wide distribution, and the IUCN presumes that the cottonmouth population is large and relatively stable. Many cottonmouths live in protected state and national parks, and the species is also protected by state law in some places. In Missouri, for example, all snakes are protected from being killed, including cottonmouths, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. Additional resources Read about the effects of cottonmouth venom in the book "Water Moccasin Snake Toxicity" (StatPearls Publishing, 2020), look at pictures of these colorful snakes in the Illustrated book "U.S. Guide to Venomous Snakes and Their Mimics" (Skyhorse, 2019), or get more information about cottonmouths from the Virginia Herpetological Society. Updated on Live Science Jul. 11, 2024. This story was originally published in our Daytripping section on May 19, 2022. Most of the backwoods gems in Clearwater County require a significant amount of time and effort to visit. But there are a few destinations that are relatively easy to reach. One such spot is Deer Creek Reservoir, a 65-acre body of water created in 2004 for the purpose of giving locals an accessible fishing hole. The road to the reservoir is all paved highway until the last 1-mile stretch, which is a well-maintained gravel road. At the site are two large docks, a boat launch, a vault toilet, plenty of parking and its handicap accessible. The lake is stocked with a variety of trout. The still waters are surrounded by a dense thicket of pine trees. Eagles and hawks glide overhear, and deer can be spotted on the banks of the reservoir. There arent hiking trials, but children will find plenty of areas to explore. The lake is open to fishing year-round, but the access road is closed to motorized traffic from October to early May. And on the water, a no-wake rule is always in effect for boats. No one would confuse this spot with the well-known and rugged North Fork of the Clearwater River, which is at least another hour of driving away and requires sure-footing for anyone planning to wet a line. For seniors or families with children, a Deer Creek Reservoir fishing trip might be a better option. The reservoir is 11 miles north of Pierce, most of which is traversed on State Highway 11. The lake is even closer to the former Potlatch Corp. company town of Headquarters, which was bustling in the mid-20th century but is now almost a ghost town. Deer Creek Reservoir was built on donated Potlatch land by the Idaho Fish and Game Department. Ms Siobhan Cullen has been appointed as the new Principal of Mean Scoil Mhuire, Longford and she will take up her position later this year. As a proud past pupil of the Sisters of Mercy in Lanesboro, Ms Cullen says that she looks forward to taking up her role in Mean Scoil Mhuire. Mean Scoil Mhuire was founded by the Sisters of Mercy who came to Longford from the Mother House in Baggot Street, Dublin in April 1861 to educate the girls of Longford. It is a school with a rich and proud heritage. I have no doubt that it also has a very bright future ahead as is evidenced every year in the high level of academic attainment of its students." Also read: Retiring Superintendent: 'I find it frustrating that we can't get the message across that Longford is a safe place to be' Ms Cullen added, "Having recently obtained DEIS status, Mean Scoil Mhuire is now also able to offer enhanced facilities to students with special needs and those in need of additional supports. I look forward to getting to know the whole school community and to working with the Board of Management, parents, the management team, staff and students over the coming months and years." Over the course of her career, Ms Cullen has previously held a number of senior management roles, in County Longford as both Deputy Principal and Home School Community Liaison Coordinator at Ballymahon Vocational School, and most recently as Principal at Elphin Community College, Co Roscommon. Also read: Criticism of first Longford county council meeting by unsuccessful Sinn Fein candidate blasted as 'sour grapes' The Mean Scoil Mhuire vacancy arose following the retirement earlier this year of Principal Ms Aoife Mulrennan, while Ms Mairead Lyons, who has held the position of Acting Principal for a number of years, is retiring after 25 years of dedicated service to the school. Chairperson of the Mean Scoil Mhuire Board of Management, Ms Karen Clabby said they are delighted to welcome Siobhan Cullen as the new Principal of the school. "She will no doubt bring much energy and enthusiasm to the school." Also read: 'Massive' Longford Agricultural Show is a fantastic day out for all the community Educated at University College Dublin and University College Galway, Ms Cullen has undertaken extensive Postgraduate studies in Education, most recently graduating with a Masters Degree of Education with a Specialism in Educational Management Leadership for Learning from the University of Ulster. Down Memory Lane | Host of top acts perform at 2016 benefit night dance in the Longford Arms Hotel In welcoming the new principal, Ms Clabby also thanked the management team and staff at Mean Scoil Mhuire for their hard work and dedication. As a Board of Management we are confident that our management team and teaching staff deliver an excellent standard of education to the girls of Longford which continues to be based on the core principles of Christian education in the Catholic tradition. In the spirit of its founding Congregation the Sisters of Mercy and as a Ceist school the welfare of our students and the promotion of excellence in education are our key priorities within the school and we look forward to the next chapter in our schools rich history," concluded Ms Clabby. Also read: Horrific! Two live kittens dumped from moving car on Longford / Roscommon road A Donegal man who told gardai that he was an ecclesiastical person 'just passing through life' after being caught with no insurance has been banned from driving. Charles Paul O'Neill was given a two-year driving disqualification after being convicted of driving without insurance. The case of O'Neill, a 58-year-old of Rooskey, Quigleys Point, was before Buncrana District Court. Garda Thomas Duggan told the court that he was on mobile patrol when the ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) alerted. The vehicle being driven by O'Neill had pulled in, but Garda Duggan returned to speak to him. The court heard that O'Neill told Garda Duggan that it wasn't a Garda matter and he didn't have to provide him with his name. Garda Duggan told how O'Neill was pulled in at a water well and he continued filling water as the garda attempted to obtain his details. The court was informed that O'Neill told Garda Duggan that he was ecclesiastical and just passing through life and don't need insurance and produced an ecclesiastical certificate. O'Neill then told Garda Duggan that his name was Paul before giving his proper details around 20 minutes later. Sergeant Sean McDaid told the court that O'Neill has no previous convictions. O'Neill faced a number of charges, including driving without insurance, driving without a licence, failing to produce a licence, failing to produce insurance and two counts of failing to give details to the garda. For driving without insurance, Judge Eiteain Cunningham disqualified O'Neill from driving for a period of two years. He was also fined 250 and given five months to pay. For driving without a licence, O'Neill was fined 150 and for failing to furnish the garda with his name he was fined 150. He was given five months to pay the fine. The other charges were marked as taken into consideration. Recognisance, in the event of an appeal, was fixed at 250. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: July 11 2024 Frank Pollaro Was Federally Convicted in 2016 for Possession of Child Pornography. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that cardiologist Frank Pollaro, 55, of Deer Park, pleaded guilty to two counts of Possessing a Sexual Performance by a Child. This defendants actions not only violated the law but also betrayed the sacred trust placed in medical practitioners. By possessing materials that exploit and harm children, he demonstrated a profound failure of ethics and human decency, said District Attorney Tierney. No matter ones profession or standing in society, those who engage in the exploitation of children will face the full force of the law. According to court documents and the defendants admissions during his guilty plea allocution, in September 2023, the Suffolk County Police Departments Digital Forensics Unit received notice that a user on Freechatnow.com was uploading images of child pornography. During their investigation they discovered that the user was Pollaro. On October 12, 2023, in conjunction with Task Force members from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a search warrant was executed on Pollaros residence where they found several electronic devices. In his laptop, they found thousands of images and videos depicting children, some as young as four years old, engaging in sexual acts with adults. Pollaro confessed to detectives and admitted to possessing those images and videos. Pollaro is already a registered level one sex offender, having been convicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in 2016 of one count of possession of child pornography. He was sentenced at that time to serve probation but the New York State Department of Health, Board for Professional Misconduct, afforded Pollaro the ability to retain his medical license and continue practicing medicine in New York State. On July 11, 2024, Pollaro pleaded guilty before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis, to two counts of Possessing a Sexual Performance by a Child, Class E felonies. He faces an indeterminate sentence in prison of four to eight years. Pollaro will also surrender his licensing at the time of sentencing. Pollaro is due back in court on August 14, 2024, and he is being represented by James Pascarella, Esq. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Kirsten Reilly of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau, and the investigation was conducted by Detective Michael Barr and Detective Steven DAgostino of the Suffolk County Police Department Digital Forensics Unit, as well as Detective Janine Musmacker of the Suffolk County Police Department Special Victims Section/FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. Local News By Chris Boyle Published: July 12 2024 Elijah Giron shot at a perceived enemy of the gang four times; was arrested in possession of more than 200 pressed fentanyl pills in January 2023. Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a Latin Kings gang member was sentenced today to 20 years in prison for the attempted murder of a perceived enemy of the gang in Westbury in January 2023 and the possession of more than 200 fentanyl pills upon his arrest. Elijah Giron, 21, was convicted on February 27, 2024, after a jury trial before Judge Howard Sturim, of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree (a B violent felony), two counts of Criminal Use of a Firearm in the First Degree (a B violent felony), two counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree (a B felony), Attempted Assault in the First Degree (a C violent felony), two counts of Criminal Use of a Firearm in the Second Degree (a C violent felony), two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree (a C violent felony), Criminal Possession of a Firearm (an E felony), and Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Seventh Degree (an A misdemeanor). The trial started on Thursday, February 22, 2024. The jury deliberated for approximately three hours before delivering their verdict. The defendant was sentenced today to 20 years in prison. NCDA recommended a sentence of 34 years in prison. Elijah Giron a known Latin Kings member hunted down and tried to kill a man because of social media posts that called out the gang for being responsible for causing a fentanyl overdose, said DA Donnelly. When Giron was arrested, he was carrying more than 200 homemade pressed fentanyl pills in his sock disguised to look like oxycodone. The Latin Kings are known dealers of dangerous fentanyl in communities throughout Nassau County and my office continues to investigate their illicit drug operation. Todays sentencing sends a message to the gang and anyone who would deal this poison on our streets: you will be caught, and you will be prosecuted. DA Donnelly said that on January 9, 2023, at approximately 11:17 p.m. on South Fulton Street in Westbury, defendant Elijah Giron stepped out of the drivers seat of a Dodge Challenger and fired four rounds from a 9 mm pistol towards a person standing outside a different vehicle. The victim was not struck by the bullets. The defendant then fled the scene. Giron and the victim, a perceived enemy of the Latin Kings gang, were in an argument on social media related to a fentanyl overdose that had occurred. On January 20, 2023, members of the Nassau County Police Departments Gang Investigations Squad arrested the defendant. While searching Giron, 200 pills were recovered from the defendants sock and three pills were recovered from his waistband. Upon testing it was revealed that the pills which were pressed to look like prescription pain medications were in fact fentanyl pills. One young fulla from South Africa moved to Aotearoa with his whanau, but watching his haka, it feels like he's been here all along. A TikTok posted by his mum shows young Joshua putting all his mana into performing a haka he learned at school. Their family moved to Aotearoa over a year ago, and the lil man's been loving being part of the kapa haka group at his school. "The way he is so passionate, I can tell he will go far. We love the culture and people, what a blessing to be here," his mama wrote. "Bro, this boy is doing the haka like he's been here his entire life. Welcome to your second home, young man," said one commenter. Another added: "Felt the mana in this one You are powerful, little buddy! " While a third wrote: "He sounds awesome, keep going, youngblood. Gave me haka chills Love to see our tauiwi whanau embracing Maori, just " He's not the only one embracing the haka. A group of Americans taught themselves 'Ka Mate' for their mate who couldn't make it home to Aotearoa for his grandmother's tangi. Jarom Ngakuru, a tane Maori living in America, shared the emotional moment, getting us all teary-eyed. "The hardest part about living in America is that we live so far away. I couldn't make it home for my nan's funeral and I was BROKEN! So my boys at work learned the haka without me knowing and brought home to me ," Jarom captioned the post. No matter the age, we love to see a slice of Aotearoa being celebrated by others. A pair of Boston Police officers are facing assault charges, one accused of pulling a handgun during a household dispute and the other, in a separate incident, accused of punching a family member in the face more than a half-dozen times. The first officer, Roland Robinson, was arrested on April 26 following a domestic incident at his Dorchester home, according to court records. He was charged with aggravated assault with a handgun. Officer Sean Flaherty, who according to his lawyer is a member of the Boston Police Harbor Unit, was charged on June 27 with attacking a family member the day prior. He faces a count of assault on a person over age 60, charging documents show. Walking up and down dusty paths pulling a wagon full of treasures is the kind of labor of love that builds up an appetite fast and for those spending the better part of a day scouring for deals at the Brimfield Flea Market, this rundown of all the places to eat during the six-day antique show will help you refuel for hours more shopping. Sure, you can bring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple to tide you over through lunch, but then youd miss out on the fair-favorite Pilgrim sandwich or the gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, not to mention the burgers, hot dogs, kettle corn, steak bombs, gyros, lemonades, doughnuts, soba noodles, gluten-free pizza and just about everything in between. The Brimfield Flea Market which is offered every year in May, July and September opens Tuesday, July 9 and wraps up Sunday, July 14. The antique show features more than 20 fields along a mile stretch of Route 20 in Brimfield, each offering dozens of vendors full of antiques, collectibles, vintage goods and flea market finds. Most fields offer food there are about 50 places to eat, mostly in the form of food trucks but, in some cases, under a pavilion or in a building. The list below is divided by field. Reference this map to locate a field. You can search the guide below simply by doing a CTRL-F search and plugging in a keyword, such as pizza, gluten-free, vegetable or coffee. You can also see a photo of each vendor in the gallery below. NOTE: This list, compiled at the May 2024 show, may not be comprehensive. Some food vendors may not have returned or may have moved fields. To update the list, email feedback@masslive.com. 53 1 / 53 Brimfield Flea Market 2024 food options Nicole Simmons/MassLive Starting on the east end of Route 20, on the same side of the street as First Congregational Church, and moving west, on the NORTH SIDE of the road. MAHOGANY RIDGE (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) No food options STURTEVANTS NORTH (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Uncle Mitchs Munchies (breakfast offers a breakfast sandwich; also offers chicken on a stick, steak and cheese sub, buffalo or BBQ chicken wrap, meatball or chicken parm sub, burgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, French fries, onion rings) The Toasted Roasters (coffee, hot or cold latte, tea, macchiato, americano, espresso, cappuccino, hot chocolate, cold brew, frozen lemonade, lemonade boba slush, iced green tea) SHELTONS (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Fork it Foods (breakfast offered until 11, including fruit bowl, tater tots, breakfast sandwiches, coffee, juice. Also offers wraps cranberry-apple chicken salad, chicken Caesar, BLT, egg salad, tuna salad pulled pork sandwich, burgers, hot dogs, chili dogs, tater tots and French fries with toppings such as chili, pulled pork, gravy) Sheltons lemonade stand (lemonade) CRYSTAL BROOK Ye Old New England Boiled Potato (potatoes with butter and parsley, bacon, pulled chicken, chili, mac & cheese or the works; also pulled chicken sandwiches with coleslaw, New York pretzels, popcorn, lemonade.) MAYS ANTIQUE MART (Field is open Thursday-Saturday.) Food Pavilion (breakfast is 7-10:45 a.m.; also offers shaved steak subs, jumbo hot dogs, cold sandwiches) QUAKER ACRES (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Jens Snack Shack cart near the street (breakfast, including a breakfast sandwich and iced coffee. Also offers hot dogs, burgers, meatball sub, Italian sausage, steak bomb, French fries, lemonade.) Jens Snack Shack Snack Bar in the barn (offers breakfast, including English muffins, croissants, Danish, muffins, coffee, tea, cocoa; also offers subs or wraps turkey, ham, tuna, chicken, meatball, hot dog, chili dog, sauerkraut dog chili, vegetable bowl) Food court seating at the New England Motel field in the Brimfield Flea Market in Brimfield, Massachusetts, on May 18, 2024.Nicole Simmons/MassLive NEW ENGLAND MOTEL (Field is open Wednesday-Sunday) Italian sausage stand (Italian sausage, Philly cheesesteak, cheesesteak Italiano, chicken tenders, onion rings) Vinnies roast beef sandwiches (roast beef, pulled pork, sliced turkey sandwiches) Greek food truck (gyros, falafel, salads) Roadhouse Grille Burger Bar (breakfast, including breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, egg platter, avocado toast, yogurt and granola. Lunch includes burgers, hot pastrami, black bean vegan burger) Roadhouse Grille (wraps and bowls with chicken and vegetables) Roadhouse Grille (hot dogs, including Reuben, bacon, chili and cheese) Pizza stand (pizza toppings include cheese, pepperoni, garlic pickle ranch, sausage, mushroom; also offers stromboli) Cookies by Ray (big cookies, flavors include chocolate chip, peanut butter, gluten-free chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin) BLACK SWAN MEADOWS Holy Donuts (breakfast offers powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, chocolate and plain doughnuts, hot or iced coffee, juice) Loop Hole Brewing (offering beer) STEPHENS PLACE (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday) The Deviled Egg (serves breakfast, including English muffin breakfast sandwiches, coffee, juice. Lunch includes fried chicken sandwich, cheeseburger, hot dog, popcorn chicken and French fries, mozzarella sticks, deviled eggs, fried Oreos.) BRIMFIELD BARN No food options COLLINS APPLE BARN (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Apple Barn Cafe (breakfast starts at 6 a.m., includes bagels, breakfast sandwiches, oatmeal, muffins, coffee. Also serves lunch.) GREEN ACRES (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) No food options BRIMFIELD ACRES NO. (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) No food options. Holy Donuts at Black Swan Meadows field on the north side of Route 20 in Brimfield, Massachusetts, offers doughnuts, coffee and drinks.Nicole Simmons/MassLive Starting back up on the east end, across the street from First Congregational Church, and moving west, on the SOUTH SIDE of the road. STURTEVANTS SOUTH (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) No food options BRIMFIELD AUCTION ACRES (Field is open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.) Off the Hook under the pavilion inside the field (breakfast 6-10 a.m., offers bagels, bagel breakfast sandwiches, muffins, breakfast burritos, tots, coffee, juice). Off the Hook Roadside Eatery truck on the street (lobster rolls, fish sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese, cranberry walnut chicken salad wraps, tacos, clam fritters, French fries, pasta salad) Bay State Brewing Food Truck (breakfast offers an English muffin breakfast sandwich; also offers smoked buffalo chicken egg rolls, chicken wings, smash burger, buttermilk chicken sandwich, French fries, ice cream) Faddys Donuts & Ice Cream (breakfast offers about a dozen doughnut options, including apple cider, maple bacon and chocolate frosted. Coffee, ice cream and kettle corn are also available.) HERTANS (Field is open Wednesday-Sunday) Kettle Corn (cider slushies, maple almonds, kettle corn, maple cotton candy) Zacks BBQ (brisket or pulled pork sandwiches, mac and cheese with brisket, pulled pork or plain, BBQ platters, sweet tea) The Bittersweet Shoppe (fresh-squeezed lemonade) Rachels Place (breakfast offers bagels, breakfast sandwiches, coffee; also offers pork roll, turkey club, sloppy joe, Rueben, Caprese sandwich, Philly cheesesteak, loaded fries, Italian hoagie, chicken fingers) Cousin Vinnies (soba noodles with vegetables, fried rice bowl, egg rolls, bubble tea) Macho Taco (offers tacos birria, street, fish, shrimp, empanada elote, esquites and churros) Twin Beaks Fried Chicken (chicken sandwiches, fried chicken, gluten-free fried chicken, grilled cheese, pork/egg/pimento cheese sandwich, French fries) Exhibit A Brewing Company (beer, hard seltzer and cider) Hardwick Vineyard & Winery (wines, sangria, and wine slushees) A Pilgrim Sandwich at Brimfield Flea Market.Nicole Simmons/MassLive CENTRAL PARK (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Pilgrim Sandwich (pilgrim turkey sandwiches, herbed chicken wraps, vegetarian wraps, blueberry lemon spritzers) Ben & Jerrys (ice cream, milkshakes, smoothies, root beer floats) Sophies Coffeehouse table near the street (cold-pressed espresso shots) Sophies Coffeehouse in the field (breakfast, including baked goods, smoothies; also offers coffee, espresso, latte, chai, matcha, tea.) Thai Place (crab rangoons, thai rolls, Bangkok ravioli, drunken noodles, pineapple fried rice, Thai iced tea) The Ice Cream Shoppe (sundaes and floats) Dels Soft Frozen Lemonade (soft frozen lemonade) Krazy Jakes (hot dogs, burgers, chicken tenders, fried fish, shrimp, lobster roll, onion rings, French fries, ice cream sandwiches) The Potato Caboose (loaded baked potatoes, including broccoli, bacon, chili, Greek-style, cheeseburger, Mexican) Bone Barrel (BBQ plates with two sides) Pizza Folks (Margherita, pepperoni, prosciutto pizzas, also pizza pastries) MIDWAY (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) One Love (Jamaican chicken or beef patties, curry goat, jerk chicken) Lucis Tacos (tacos, chicken or vegetable quesadilla) Say Cheese! Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (grilled cheese sandwiches, featuring caprese-style, blue cheese and bacon, dill pickles, goat cheese and fig; gluten-free bread available) Thai Chili (breakfast, including Thai breakfast, kai jiew, which is a fried egg with pork or chicken with scallion, onion, tomato over rice; also offers curry rice bowls, pad thai chicken, salad, three kinds of rice boxes, spring rolls, chive cakes, fried brussels sprouts, crab rangoon, Thai fries, strawberry shortcake) Food area in front of Brimfield Antique Center Ginger Love Cafe (Filipino street food, including chicken or pork and rice, vegan noodles and vegetables, cucumber salad, steamed buns, halo-halo dessert) Dads (kettle corn, fried dough, giant cookies, lemonade, lime rickeys) HEART O THE MART (Field is open Wednesday-Sunday.) Sassys on the Corner (breakfast 5-11 a.m., including doughnuts, muffins, danishes, yogurt cups, breakfast sandwiches; also offers hot dogs, roasted brats, chicken salad wraps, tuna salad on lettuce, baked beans, salads, key lime pie, cheesecake) GRAND TRUNK (Field is open Tuesday-Sunday.) Just Bite Me Mini Donuts (miniature doughnuts, including cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, vanilla or chocolate glaze or specialty flavors, including maple bacon, Oreo, strawberry) The Beer Guy (beer in cans and draft, hard seltzer, hard cider, spiked smoothies, sangria) LeLicous (gourmet waffles with maple syrup, Oreo, chocolate, hot honey and other toppings) DEALERS CHOICE (Field is open Tuesday.) No food options NOTE: To update the list, email feedback@masslive.com. New Bedford police rescued 21 dogs from the home of a man with an extensive criminal history this week, who is set to face 39 counts of animal cruelty and drug charges. On Monday, officers went to 184 Myrtle St. where they were struck by the pungent odor of urine and feces and heard multiple dogs barking. Inside the attic, where the temperature was above 100 degrees, police found 12 Cane Corso dogs in cages. Officers also found nine French Bulldogs in the 3rd-floor apartment, some of which were caged and some of which were roaming free, police wrote in a statement. None of the 21 dogs found inside the home had adequate access to food or water, according to police. Some also had overgrown nails and could not walk normally. Conditions in the cages were described as unsanitary, the statement reads. When animal control officers arrived, police say the man living in the Myrtle Street apartment, Derrick Ambrose, 35, fled the house. Inside the home, police found more than nine grams of fentanyl and more than 25 grams of crack cocaine, according to the statement. Officers also found Adderall, Oxycodone, mushrooms and marijuana. Police say Ambrose was in possession of vacuum sealers, packaging materials and digital scales, which are all used in the processing and packaging of illegal narcotics for street-level sales. A warrant has been requested charging Ambrose with animal cruelty and numerous drug charges, including trafficking over 18 grams of cocaine and possession with intent to distribute class A, B, C, D and E drugs, police said. Ambroses criminal history includes 67 arraignments as an adult and prior convictions for possession and discharge of a firearm and possession of a dangerous weapon, according to the statement. He has also been convicted of dealing cocaine, fentanyl and marijuana. When he was arrested this week, Ambrose had three open cases in Falmouth District Court and nine open cases in New Bedford District Court, police said. A group of people who police say robbed a Dorchester barber shop at gunpoint on Thursday afternoon were arrested after an hours-long standoff with police inside a home. Boston police learned of an armed robbery in progress at 479 Blue Hill Ave., the address for Edwards Barbershop, around 4 p.m. Thursday, Deputy Superintendent Joseph Gillespie told reporters outisde the Dorchester home where the arrests were made. When police arrived to the barbershop, individuals inside told them they had been robbed at gunpoint by masked individuals. A motor vehicle involved in the robbery was found outisde a home on Adams Street in Dorchester, and investigators determined the robbery suspsects had fled inside, according to Gillespie. A Boston police SWAT Team and negotiators went to the scene. Seven people were charged in connection with a shooting that left a woman injured near a McDonalds in Roxbury last year, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Haydens office announced. The following individuals were charged in connection with the shooting, according to Haydens office in a statement released on Thursday. Odanis Brea, 25, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm without a license, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and firearm violation with three prior violent or drug crimes, Haydens office said in a statement. Brian Ortiz, 24, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, carrying a loaded firearm without a license (second offense), and firearm violation with two prior violent or drug crimes. JaMori Williams, 19, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm without a license, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Orlando Diaz, 20, was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm without a license, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Machyus Battle, 19, was charged with carrying a loaded firearm without a license, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, carrying a firearm without a license (subsequent offense), unlawful possession of ammunition (subsequent offense). Ericka Peralta, 25, was charged with conspiracy, identity fraud, larceny over $1200, and credit card fraud. A 17-year-old boy was charged with carrying a firearm without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm without a license, assault and battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Ortiz, Williams, Brea, Diaz and the teenager were arrested in a sweep and arraigned Wednesday in Roxbury BMC. Ortiz, Williams, Brea and Diaz were ordered held without bail pending dangerousness hearings on July 15. The teen was arraigned in Boston juvenile court and was ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing on July 16. Battle was already in custody on an unrelated charge and is due to be arraigned at a later date. Boston police have issued an arrest warrant for Peralta, Haydens office said. At around 8:34 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2023, police arrived at the corner of Warren and Dale streets after a person was reportedly shot outside of a McDonalds, Haydens office continued. A woman, 20, was found with gunshot wounds, one to her left arm and another to her upper left torso. Police spotted a 2023 black Toyota Rav4 that belonged to a bystander with two young children in the back seat. While the Toyota had ballistic damage to the lower side of the driver-side front door, the children were not hurt. Police recovered seven 9mm cartridge casings from Sherman Street, along Dale Street, that had been fired, Haydens office said. Three men seen in black puffy coats jumped out of a white SUV parked off Washington Street and ran on foot to Thornton Street, police said a witness told them. Police then found a 2023 white Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on Oakland Street, less than a half a mile from where the shooting happened. The Jeeps front grill was still blowing heat from the engine, which suggested that someone just parked it, Haydens office said. Later, police were called about more ballistic damage to a home on Warren Street, with damage found to the third-floor apartment and one bullet recovered from an internal wall, Haydens office said. Investigators determined that the shots were fired from the Jeep, driven by Diaz with Williams as the front-seat passenger. The Jeep was fraudulently rented to Diaz by Peralta, a former Hertz employee, Haydens office said. Peralta then used another persons ID and credit card to rent a different vehicle to Diaz on Nov. 14. However, Diaz exchanged that vehicle for the Jeep the next day after he was pulled over by Boston police for an unrelated matter. A white Mercedes SUV was identified as a lookout vehicle to locate and monitor the person who was shot, Haydens office said. Odanis, Brea, Ortiz, Battle and the 17-year-old were inside the Mercedes SUV. During the search warrant sweep on Wednesday morning, police found clothing that was worn during the shooting, a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver containing six rounds, a Glock 24 loaded with 14 cartridges, a Glock-19 with a sear switch and a 24-round magazine loaded with 23 cartridges, an unattached sear switch, a firearm magazine, loose rounds of ammunition, and $10,000 in cash, Haydens office said. Sear switches are used to convert semi-automatic firearms to fully automatic, the district attorneys office continued. Under state law, owning an unattached sear switch is not prohibited. There are three takeaways here, Hayden said in the statement. First, great investigative work to identify these shooting suspects, get these guns off the street and take the people possessing them into custody. Second, we need increased national attention on guns flowing into Boston from easy-buy states such as New Hampshire, Georgia and Virginia. Haydens third point was for the state legislature to pass a pending measure that criminalizes the possession of unattached sear switches. These devices have only one purpose to make illegal firearms even more deadly than they already are, Hayden said. Stop & Shop is set to close 32 underperforming stores by the end of the year, eight of which are in Massachusetts, the company announced Friday morning. The closures come as the Quincy-based supermarket chain seeks to position the company for growth, according to a press release. Employees at the shuttering locations will not be laid off and will be offered other opportunities within the company, the release reads. The Massachusetts stores closing are located in Brockton, Raynham, Halifax, Shrewsbury, Newton, Springfield, Worcester and Pembroke. The company is also closing locations in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Stop & Shop is proud of the deep roots and community ties we have developed as a neighborhood grocer of more than 100 years, and we remain committed to nourishing our associates, customers and communities, Stop & Shop President Gordon Reid said in the statement. As we announced in May, Stop & Shop has evaluated its overall store portfolio and made the difficult decision to close underperforming stores to create a healthy base for the future growth of our brand. The release does not say when exactly the stores will close for good, only that they are anticipated to close on or before Nov. 2, 2024 and that specific store closing dates will be communicated well in advance. After closing the 32 stores, Stop & Shop will still operate more than 350 stores in the northeast. Read, the companys president, said Stop & Shop has remodeled nearly 200 stores since 2018 and those locations are outperforming older sites that havent undergone a remodel. Heres the full list of Massachusetts stores: Editors note: This story was updated on July 14, 2024, to correct the origin of allegations that Stoughton police officers groomed and assaulted Sandra Birchmore. The allegations are included in a civil lawsuit and are based on an internal affairs investigation by Stoughton police. The state attorney generals office confirmed its criminal investigation into the death of Sandra Birchmore, a woman who died in 2021 and whose estate is suing Stoughton officials in a wrongful death lawsuit, remains ongoing and argued that fact should exempt it from providing documents sought by Birchmores estate and the defendants in a civil lawsuit brought by her estate. The lawsuit claims that Birchmores death was the culmination of a near decade-long scheme of grooming and repeated sexual assault from a young age by certain members of the Stoughton police. During a hearing Friday morning on a motion to compel the AGs office to provide those documents, attorneys also confirmed that a separate federal investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys Office is underway, though they did not say what exactly the subject of that probe was. The attorney generals office took over an investigation that was being led by Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrisseys office. A federal probe surrounding the investigation of the Karen Read case also handled by Morrisseys office played a role in Reads trial. The status of the investigation remains unclear but federal authorities have not announced any arrests. The estate representing Birchmore, 23, who died in February 2021, filed a wrongful death lawsuit naming a trio of Stoughton police officers accused of grooming and sexually assaulting her, the town of Stoughton and the Stoughton Police Deparment. Another police officer who was named in the suit has since been dismissed from the case, records show. The documents in question concern anything related to [her] death or investigation that the office would be in possession of. Birchmore, first met former police officer Matthew Farwell as part of the youth explorers program in 2010 when she was 13. Farwell reportedly began an inappropriate physical relationship with Birchmore when she was 15, which is considered statutory rape under Massachusetts law. Farwell, 36, was a detective, former patrolmens union president, and a married father, according to The Boston Globe. Matthew Farwells twin brother, William Farwell and Officer Robert C. Devine were the other two Stoughton officers named in an internal affairs report commissioned by Stoughton police. Evidence uncovered in the Stoughton police investigation found that William Farwell had engaged in multiple inappropriate physical encounters with Birchmore and had sent explicit messages and photos to the girl while he was on duty. Birchmore was pregnant when she was found dead and had told friends the baby was Matthew Farwells, according to the wrongful death suit. All three men have since resigned from the department and Matthew Farwell was later decertified by the state board responsible for overseeing police departments. The board is seeking to decertify William Farwell and suspend or decertify Devine, The Boston Globe reported. After an autopsy, the Office of the State Medical Examiner determined Birchmores death was a suicide. But an expert hired by her estate determined her death may have been a homicide at Matthew Farwells hands, Attorney David Bae, who is representing William Farwell, confirmed during a hearing Friday. Bae filed the motion seeking documents from the AGs office, and Steven Marullo, the attorney representing Birchmores estate, joined it during Fridays hearing before Judge Claudine Cloutier. We have an exigent need for these records at this time so we can evaluate and analyze what liability William Farwell may have had, Bae said during the hearing, which was conducted virtually. Among the records sought by William Farwell are reports and witness statements from the welfare check conducted for Birchmore on Feb. 4, 2021, at her Canton apartment, when she was found dead. Lisa Maki, the general counsel for the attorney generals office, argued that disclosure of the records could compromise the ongoing investigation and that turning witness statements over to the defendants was not in the public interest. But Cloutier took issue with the categorization of the investigation as ongoing, noting that Birchmores death occurred more than three years ago. I have difficulty understanding how [an] investigation into incidents that extend to longer than three and a half years ago, are ongoing at this point and continue to be investigated, she said. Marullo, the lawyer for Birchmores estate, said her estate is looking for answers. All we want is the truth. We dont care what the truth shows, we want the truth, he said. Cloutier ultimately opted to give the attorney generals office 30 days to produce the documents for an in-camera hearing, where she will review them and determine whether they are to be provided to the rest of the parties in the lawsuit. A Boston man was arrested and charged in connection with three dogs found dead inside a U-Haul in Mattapan on Tuesday, the Boston Police Department said on Friday. Police arrested William Cobb, 33, of Boston, in the area of 148 Mediterranean Drive, in Weymouth, the department said in a statement. Cobb was charged with three counts of animal cruelty. Cobb is expected to be arraigned in Dorchester District Court. 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, according to a police report. Arriving officers found the van parked and unlocked with a horrible smell coming from it, with 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. The person told police they did not know who parked the U-Haul there but that it had been on Edgewater Drive for over a week, according to the report. The man told police everyone who walked by the van said something really smelled. Police found a 5-gallon water jug, three one-gallon water jugs, a gray tray and a bottle of bleach on the sidewalk in front of the van. Officers searched the van for paperwork but did not find any. An animal control officer arrived at the scene and found three dead dogs inside that were bloated, according to the report, which also notes the city is in the middle of a sweltering stretch of hot weather. The officer removed the three medium-sized dogs two females and a male from the van. The name of a motorcyclist killed in a crash on Boston Road in Groton was released on Friday by Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryans office. Cody Trudell, 27, of Ayer, died after he was seriously injured in a crash on Wednesday, Ryans office said in a statement. At around 4:21 p.m. on Wednesday, a car was driving westbound on Boston Road and veered into the eastbound lane. The car crashed into a motorcycle, driven by Trudell, in the other lane. A former Norwell pediatrician accused of sexually assaulting 18 young patients pleaded not guilty on Friday, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruzs office announced. Richard Kauff, 68, of Norwell, was indicted on nine counts of rape with a child with force and eight counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, according to a statement from Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruzs office. Kauff pleaded not guilty to all counts, the Boston Globe reported Friday. He was previously released on $50,000 bail since his arraignment in November 2023 in Hingham District Court. Under the terms of his current release, Kauff gave up his medical license and passport, must stay away from the South Shore Medical Center locations, have no unsupervised contact with children younger than 16, and to keep away from the victims, the Globe wrote. After the initial allegations were made in October 2023, Kauffs lawyer Kelli Porges told the Globe that the names and numbers of her clients accusers are unknown. Porges said Kauff is 100% innocent. For 40 years of a career treating generations of children, not a whisper of impropriety, Porges said in court, WCVB-TV reported. These allegations are spurned by civil suits that have been filed and complete hysteria. In recent months, Porges told the Globe that she received many calls and emails from generations of former colleagues and patients of Kauffs. These former colleagues and patients were shocked and upset by these allegations, she told the newspaper. In November 2023, Kauff pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape of a child with force and 12 counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. He worked since 1983 as a pediatrician and saw South Shore Medical Center patients in Kingston and Norwell until Kauff retired in 2022, Cruzs office said. On Oct. 4, 2023, an anonymous person posted on a Facebook group page that they thought they were sexually assaulted during an annual checkup, the district attorneys office said. The post was met with replies telling the user to report the incident to Norwell police. The next day, another person reported their own experience to Norwell police, resulting in the department seeking charges against Kauff, Cruzs office said. Over three dozen individuals came forward to report similar experiences with Kauff. An extensive grand jury investigation identified more victims and the viability of prosecution on charges based on the analysis of statute of limitations and other legal issues, Cruzs office continued. The grand jury returned with 17 indictments for 15 different victims spanning over 23 years. Hackers stole six months worth of text and call records from nearly all AT&T customers, the company said in a filing to the United States Security Exchange Commission Friday. However, the cell phone company also noted that as of Friday it does not believe any of the data breached is publicly available. AT&T said it first learned about the hack on April 19, according to the SEC filing. After an internal investigation, AT&T found that the hackers accessed the companys workspace on a third-party cloud platform between April 14 and 25. The hackers siphoned customer calls and text data that occurred between May 1 and Oct. 31, 2022, and on Jan. 2, 2023. The data breach doesnt include customers personal information such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, etc. but it does contain the telephone numbers of people AT&T customers interacted with during the hack, the numbers of AT&T customers and customers of other carriers, according to the filing. AT&T also said the hack contained the number of phone interactions its customers had and the duration of their calls for a day or month. A subset of the records that were breached also show one or more cell site identification numbers. Even though the data breach didnt include customers names, there are ways through online tools to find the name associated with a phone number, according to the filing. AT&T has taken additional cybersecurity measures in response to this incident including closing off the point of unlawful access, the company said in its filing. AT&T will provide notice to its current and former impacted customers. AT&T said that on May 9 and June 5, the U.S. Department of Justice determined that it was warranted to delay public disclosure of the hack. AT&T said it is working with law enforcement to arrest those involved in the April hack. At least one person, who was not identified in the filing, has been apprehended, according to information shared with the company. Happy Hour could be on track to make a comeback in Massachusetts after a 40-year hiatus in the wake of a state Senate vote on Thursday afternoon. Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Cape & Islands, proposed an amendment that would allow businesses with liquor licenses to sell alcoholic beverages or alcohol at a discounted price, in a manner as approved by the city or town. The amendment was adopted by the majority-Democrat Senate into its Economic Development Bill on July 11, to be voted on at the end of the day on Thursday. Opening the door to happy hour will once again help Massachusetts reset itself as being a place where people want to work and want to play, said Cyr in a phone interview with MassLive. By reinstating Happy Hour, Cyr hopes to bolster young peoples spirits and attitudes toward the entire Bay State. Boston is viewed as boring and expensive and would be better served with the amendment, he said, while businesses on Cape Cod would thrive with the additional business on the off-season. Cyrs amendment included stipulations for happy hour that businesses must abide by. These included no price change of drinks after theyd already been discounted, no discounts between 10 p.m. and the businesss closing time, and no less than three days notice of a happy hour discount given by the establishment. This ban was enacted in 1984, when Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to prohibit restaurants and bars from selling alcoholic beverages at a discounted price. Now Massachusetts is also the last state in the nation to have an absolute ban on happy hours, he said. Theres little compelling evidence currently that happy hours are linked with higher rates of alcohol- related deaths, the senator said. He cited the long-term, nationwide declining trend in alcohol-related driving deaths due to OUI and seatbelt awareness measures. He also brought up how these numbers stayed the same in previously-restrictive states like Illinois and Kansas during the mid-2010s after they eased their happy hour laws. Bay State watering holes have made do over the years by offering discounted foods to bring in customers, but Cyr noted this is one of the most expensive things you can discount in a restaurant as food has thin profit margins with labor and other costs. But bars and restaurants cant start celebrating just yet. This is just the first legislative step for Happy Hour. The House and Senate must reconcile the differences between their respective versions of the legislation. And it still has to get a signature from Democratic Gov. Maura Healey. The House, also controlled by Democrats, approved its version of the legislation last month. Editors note: This article was updated at 1:20 p.m. on July 12, 2024 to add more details from the motion. The Norfolk County District Attorneys office on Friday said claims by attorneys representing Karen Read that jurors had reached a unanimous verdict on two of the three charges Read faced in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend lack any merit or legal foundation. A Northampton man who is already facing charges appeared in court in connection with making death threats to a prosecutor, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivans office announced. Cody Malone, 28, pleaded not guilty to charges of stalking, criminal harassment, intimidation of a prosecutor and threatening to commit murder while in Northampton District Court on Thursday, Sullivans office said in a statement. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Thomas prosecuted Malone in Hampshire Superior Court on the charges of attempted murder and strangulation. Malone was accused of strangling his mother to the point of unconsciousness in August 2020, but was deemed incompetent to stand trial in that case, the district attorneys office said. Malone, Sullivans office said, made escalating and repeated threats against Thomas. Northampton police arrested Malone on Tuesday afternoon on Gothic Street while he was about to enter the Hampshire County Courthouse. During Malones arraignment on Wednesday, First Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne filed motions to revoke Malones bail in the Superior Court case, and to have him held without bail on the new charges. While he was held without bail pending his arraignment, Malone was ordered to undergo a 20-day inpatient competency examination at Bridgewater State Hospital, Sullivans office said. He was released and is expected to appear at his pretrial conference on July 30. After Malone is released from Bridgewater State Hospital, he will appear in court for a dangerousness hearing. In between the vendors selling clothes, furniture, art, and tools, behind UV-protected glass and a simple metal frame was a letter to a Virginia man signed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Lee Wright from Marlborough, moved to New England in 2005 and found the history of the area inspiring. Sometimes when you grow up with something, you take it for granted, Wright told MassLive. I came to [New England] with fresh eyes and I thought theres just such wonderful things here. In 2011, Wright launched The History List , which is a platform for publishing information about history-related sites and events. Later, Wright created The History List Store to cover the costs of the platform. In 2014, he created History Camp , a casual conference where all people, ranging from professionals to students and more, can learn more about all aspects and eras of history. In Fall 2023, Wright began selling rare finds , which are historical antiques from different parts of history. These items can be mirrors, paintings, books or political documents. These items give people a chance to connect with history in a different way instead of just reading a book. Wright said. These rare finds are normally sold online. However, when Wright was introduced to the Brimfield Flea Market during the May 2024 show by his friend, Michelle, he said that she suggested doing an exhibit for his rare finds and his history store during the summer show. So on July 9, the first day of the July 2024 Brimfield Flea Market show, Wright presented two of his rare finds. One was the Presidential Commission signed by President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison appointing Alexander Moore as Register of Wills effective Nov. 18, 1807. The selling price is $15,540, according to the Rare Finds website . Wright also presented a framed newspaper report from April 17, 1865, on Abraham Lincolns assassination and death. This item was sold for $2,755, according to the website . Its so fascinating to read because theres all this chaos and confusion, Wright said, describing the newspaper. Things are coming in by wire. The Daily Advertiser was Bostons first daily newspaper. So theyre getting the news from Washington D.C. and basically, as you read through it, what you discover is that they talk about the assassination and Lincoln is still alive. By the time you get to the bottom [of the paper], it reports his death. But while these items were interesting, Wright said that his current find was certainly one to stand out. Last weekend, I bought an auctioned lot of books and it included these leather-bound books from the mid-1800s, Wright told MassLive. One of the books contained a report on Gettysburg, including when the government was reporting on the creation of Gettysburg National Cemetery. It included information on what was spent, what was done, the order of procession, and so forth. The report belonged to William Saunders, the man who designed Gettysburg National Cemetery. His report also contained the earliest printing of the Gettysburg Address. The current price on the report is $4,955, according to the website . In Saunders handwriting, on the bottom of the page of the report with the original Gettysburg Address, it reads: When Mr.Lincoln gave this speech, I was standing within a few feet of him. Overall, Wright hopes that people will continue taking an interest in history and the antiques that help tell the story. Fundamentally I think people would just be better served being informed [and knowing their history]. Wright said. Boston police on Friday morning identified the three men who were arrested in connection with an armed robbery at a Dorchester barbershop that prompted an hours-long standoff inside a home. James Mendes, 32, of Randolph, Eric Hines, 32, of Roslindale and Hendrick Davis, 41, of Brockton, all face charges of armed robbery, larceny of a firearm, breaking and entering daytime for felony and carrying a firearm without a license in connection with the robbery, which took place around 4 p.m. Thursday. Mendes is also charged with kidnapping and assault with a dangerous weapon. Hines is also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Davis faces charges of possession with intent to distribute class A and class B drugs, Boston Police said in a statement. When police arrived at 479 Blue Hill Ave., the address for Edwards Barbershop, individuals inside told them they had been robbed at gunpoint by masked individuals. Using video surveillance from the barbershop, detectives immediately recognized two of the suspects. Police also obtained a partial plate of the vehicle that sped away from the barbershop, according to the statement. A watch stolen from inside the barbershop was tracked to the area of Adams Street and Lyon Street in Dorchester and officers found the suspect vehicle in the driveway at 86 Adams St. Police determined that the three suspects had entered the home on Adams Street. After hours of negotiations and de-escalation tactics, two of the suspects came out of the home and were arrested. A third suspect, a man, remained inside, prompting a SWAT team to enter the home and remove him, according to police. Police plan to search the Adams Street apartments once a search warrant is issued, police said. As the three men were arrested, police found two plastic bags containing a brown rock substance and five plastic bags of a hard rock substance, which are believed to be drugs, according to the statement. Mendes, Hines and Davis are expected to be arraigned in Roxbury District Court. (*This story was updated at 2:15 p.m. on Friday, July 12, 2024, with additional reporting.) Massachusetts will receive a $993 million federal grant from the Biden administration to help replace one of the two bridges leading to Cape Cod, senior elected officials said Friday. The infusion of federal cash will cover about half of the $2.1 billion thats needed to replace the aging Sagamore Bridge spanning the Cape Cod Canal, according to the the Boston Globe, which was first to report the news. In a statement, U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-9th District, whose Plymouth-based seat includes the Cape, told MassLive that the replacement of the 89-year-old Sagamore Bridge will be more than just a connection between the two sides of the canal. It will be a lifeline for the quarter of a million people who live on Cape Cod, and the economic driver that brings workers and tourists back and forth every day, Keating continued. In March, all 11 members of the states Capitol Hill delegation lined up behind Massachusetts bid for the critical, final piece of federal funding for the Sagamore Bridge. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., led the March 19 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reaffirming the lawmakers support for the states request for $1 billion in funding through the agencys Bridge Investment Program, arguing that it will deliver immense social, economic, public safety, and environmental benefits for a nationally significant and iconic region. In a statement on Friday, Warren called the federal windfall a billion-dollar home run for the state. Two years ago, we had zero dollars in funding for these bridges, Warren said. Now, thanks to my work with [U.S. Sen. Ed] Markey, Representative Keating, Governor [Maura] Healey, and the rest of the delegation, we have over $2 billion in state and federal funds to replace these bridges for our Cape Cod communities. Markey, D-Mass., said the grant award represented a momentous day for the Cape, the Islands, and all of Massachusetts. This federal funding is the missing piece to replace the Sagamore Bridge and launch Phase One of the project to replace both bridges, Markey said. Replacing these aging bridges will bring immense economic, environmental, and social benefits to the region and the entire Commonwealth. State officials have said they plan to replace the Sagamore Bridge first, before turning their attention to the Bourne Bridge, the second span across the Cape Cod Canal. Bay State lawmakers had earlier secured two tranches of federal funding at $350 million and $372 million for the long-sought bridge replacement effort. Warren and Markey, along with Healey, have consistently leaned on the feds as the state has pursued federal funding. This is a game-changing award for Massachusetts. Weve never been closer to rebuilding the Cape Cod Bridges than we are right now. This funding will be critical for getting shovels in the ground, Healey said in a statement. We promised the people of Massachusetts that we were going to bring home this funding and get these bridges built and were delivering, the Democratic governor continued. Im grateful for the partnership of the Biden-Harris administration, Senators Markey and Warren, and Congressman Keating, which made this all possible. The two, heavily traveled bridges are functionally obsolete and no longer meet the needs of the traveling public, according to a page on the Mass.gov website. It will cost $2.14 billion to replace the Sagamore Bridge and an additional $1.06 billion to replace the Bourne Bridge, MassLive previously reported. State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is halfway there on her year-plus fight to force the notoriously transparency-averse Massachusetts Legislature to open its books. But a final win? To borrow a phrase, the Methuen pol will be living on a prayer. Or at least the will of the voters. Earlier this week, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin gave the green light to a fall ballot question that could give DiZoglio, a one-time state lawmaker, the right to audit her former colleagues. According to Galvins office, DiZoglio nabbed 21,551 signatures to get onto the November ballot. Thats well above the minimum threshold of 12,429 certified voter signatures needed in the second round of signature-gathering. Shed already cleared an earlier threshold of 74,574 certified signatures. We are on the ballot!!! Today, we turned in the additional 13k signatures needed. THANK YOU! This is the time to let that sunshine in, DiZoglio posted to X on June 18, accompanied by a video of her wheeling a hand truck loaded down with boxes of petitions into Galvins office. DiZoglio, a Democrat, has long cast her effort to audit the Legislature as one of fundamental accountability for state government. This is a nonpartisan issue, it impacts all families in Massachusetts, regardless of bank balance or political background, she told MassLive last fall. ... Its about us as the people of Massachusetts, regardless of where we stand, about getting information. Its about how our tax dollars are being spent on Beacon Hill. So we can get a seat at the table. Legislative leaders, you likely wont be surprised to learn, dont see it that way. They say DiZoglio is overstepping her authority, with one senior lawmaker calling it a power grab. As the public turns more attention to it, theyll see the problems Im seeing with it, Rep. Michael Day, D-31st Middlesex, who serves on the Legislatures ballot review committee, told GBH radio in April. So far, though, DiZoglio has public opinion on her side. Fifty-five percent of registered voter respondents to a GBH News/CommonWealth Beacon poll this spring said they backed the effort. In an appearance on WBZ-TVs Keller at Large program, Galvin said he believes voters will stick with DiZoglio. Im assuming that it will pass, he said. It seems very popular. But where DiZoglio could run into trouble, assuming the question passes, is getting the Legislature to play ball. I think the bigger question that shes going to confront, and Ive discussed this with the auditor, is the constitutional restrictions on the various sections of our government, the branches of our government, Galvin told the station. And thats where shes going to probably have a challenge, as things go forward. State Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell who, like Galvin, is a Democrat, sent up a similar warning shot last year, concluding in a legal opinion that DiZoglio didnt have the constitutional authority to audit the Legislature, MassLive previously reported. Nor could DiZoglio sue the Legislature to force it to comply, Campbells office concluded in a densely worded, 17-page letter last November. Because DiZoglios office is a creation of the Legislature, it only has as much power as lawmakers are willing to give it. That means her authority does not include the power to audit the Legislature itself over the Legislatures objection, Campbells office concluded. Legal scholars, testifying at a hearing in March, offered a similar take. Whether intended or not, the auditors gambit would deeply damage the balance of powers between the Legislature and the executive branch, David King, of Harvards Kennedy School, said, according to GBH radio. And cloaked as an appeal to transparency and accountability, the gambit reads like an old-fashioned power grab. DiZoglio, as ever, remains undeterred. Speaking to WBZs Keller at Large last month, she said she was fed up with the opposition to her efforts. Im doing what other state auditors do, she told the station, noting that her colleagues in other states, such as Connecticut, routinely audit the Legislature. I campaigned on a platform of bringing the work of the auditors office to the next level and opening up Beacon Hill. The voters decided to support that platform, she said. Well find out in November whether thats still the case. Between now and then? Expect this very public political family feud to continue. BOSTON Red Sox second baseman Vaughn Grissom has missed 64 games over two IL during the first half. When he has played, he hasnt hit much. He spent the first 32 games on the IL with a left hamstring strain. He then went just 12-for-81 (.148) with one extra-base hit in 23 games before again landing on the IL with a right hamstring strain. He has missed another 32 games and counting. We actually had a meeting today with him, manager Alex Cora said. Kind of like the plan what its going to be, what its going to look like in the upcoming weeks whenever he goes on a rehab assignment. We need this kid to get stronger. Thats the most important thing. I dont think what we saw is the real Vaughn Grissom. I think theres more there. Cora is optimistic Grissom will play again this season but theres no timetable for his rehab assignment. In an interview with MassLive, Grissom discussed his difficult first season with the Red Sox. Boston acquired him in December from the Braves for Chris Sale. Grissom acknowledged he felt tightness this past offseason during his time in the Puerto Rican Winter League. He played 13 games down there. The offseason was different. I know he played down there at one point in Puerto Rico and at one point, I dont think he was healthy, which is a shame, Cora said. If your players get hurt in winter ball, your job (as the winter league team) should be to tell the organization thats whats going on. But thats another topic. Ill take care of that back home. Grissom has been taking batting practice and participating in fielding drills before home games. He said he feels close to 100%. Besides that, getting stronger, get the swing going, keep working at second base, Cora said. And whenever hes ready, hes ready. Casas update Triston Casas continues to take dry swings. He hasnt hit against the pitching machine or live pitching yet. Casas is on the 60-day IL with some fractured cartilage which connects his ribcage to his sternum. He was eligible to return June 21. He last played in a game April 20. Feeling better, Cora said. As far as like effort getting up there to like 70-80% and bouncing back well. Hopefully, in the upcoming days we can add a few things and then obviously the All-Star Break. Well see what that looks like. BetMGM BET UP TO $1,500! BONUS BET REFUND AFTER A LOSS CLAIM OFFER Promo code: MASS150 STATES: AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MI, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA. Visit BetMGM.com for Terms and Conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. MA Only. New Customer Offer. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. 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Le minsitre des Finances va presenter ce projet de loi qui va venir legaliser certaines mesures annoncees lors de la lecture du Budget 2024-2025 dans les diverses lois du pays. Cabinet has agreed to the introduction of the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill into the National Assembly. The object to the Bill is to provide for the implementation of measures announced in the Budget Speech 2024-2025 and for matters connected, consequential and incidental thereto. by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, July 11, 2024 New research from Clean Creatives has revealed that five more B Corp accredited communications agencies are working with fossil fuel clients. Clean Creatives Executive Director Duncan Meisel submitted a letter to B Corp earlier this week, detailing the findings of its latest research. advertisement advertisement The scope of the work we found involves serious allegations of greenwashing, lobbying against climate action, and promotion of activities that would otherwise be prohibited for B Corps, Meisel wrote. For example, Cullen Communications work for Applegreen was widely noted for its greenwashing, Edit is working to directly encourage more consumption of Shells fossil fuel projects, SEC Newgate is lobbying against national climate action. The letter also detailed the activities of Havas subsidiary Tinkle (promoting Spanish oil brand Repsol) and Total Media (working with gas distributor E.On). The companies did not respond to queries seeking comment by the time of this posting. The research by Clean Creatives is part of the groups effort for its annual F List report coming out in September detailing ad and PR agencies around the world working with fossil fuel companies. I believe these examples of fossil fuel promotion greatly strengthen the case for action to enforce B Corp standards to exclude agencies working from fossil fuel clients, Meisel wrote. The new research is part of an aggressive campaign by Clean Creatives and a group of B Corp agenciesincluding a letter to the B Corp certifier last October-- to convince B Lab to re-evaluate and possibly strip agencies of B Corp status that push pro-fossil fuel agendas. The campaign was sparked by Havas winning a new Shell Oil media account. B Lab responded in January that it had launched a formal inquiry looking at the B Corp status of several Havas agencies which had begun work on the Shell assignment at the start of the year. Havas then issued a response that in part stated, Our level of commitment towards sustainability at a group level remains unchanged. Our goal is to involve our clients, talents, and suppliers in a responsible communications approach, and to raise the standards of the profession...We greatly value and respect B-Lab and the rigorous B-Corp process. At the time the Lab said the formal probe might take six months but so far it has not issued a decision. by Teresa Buyikian , July 12, 2024 Absolut Vodkas 1985 Andy Warhol bottle and the accompanying ad campaign were nothing short of iconic. Done in classic Warhol pop art style, both the spirit and Absolut Warhol campaign were full of bright colors and 1980s style. Now 40 years later, following the rediscovery of a lost Warhol Absolut Blue painting, the brand has teamed up with the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to launch a new limited edition Warhol bottle. According to the brand, when Warhol was originally commissioned to paint the Absolut bottle, a second Absolut Warhol painting had been rumored to exist. Then Absolut blue was rediscovered at auction in 2020. The original contract was also unearthed, where the brand learned that originally two paintings had indeed been commissioned. advertisement advertisement Matt Foley, the companys vice president of marketing, noted Absoluts longstanding commitment to the arts, dating back to 1985 when we first worked with Andy Warhol on the iconic Absolut Warhol, and noting that Warhol was a big supporter of Absoluts mission. The brands aim to honor his legacy with this new bottle is also a way for consumers to have a piece of his art in their homes. The new collectable bottle uses Warhols classic layered screen printing technique, with both internal and external design components, bringing Warhols rediscovered Absolut blue painting from 1985 to life by the magnification of Absolut outlined within. The shades of blue used for the bottle match those used in the painting, along with an image of Warhol himself next to his signature. The limited-edition bottle will be available in U.S. markets this September. Marketing consists of online and social media executions, as well as a short online film depicting how the rediscovered painting inspired the new bottle. A scannable QR code on the side of the bottle leads consumers to an immersive, behind-the-scenes experience, along with the recipe for a new cocktail, inspired by Warhols well-known love of cornflakes. The Absolut Warhols Milk Punch contains a blend of Absolut Vodka, cocoa butter, banana liqueur, lemon juice and cornflake-infused milk. The painting is now part of the Absolut Art Collection and will be unveiled at Stockholms Spritmuseum this October as the centerpiece of a new exhibition called Andy Warhol, Money On The Wall. The original Absolut Warhol is part of the collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. About In recent years, the Zika virus has emerged as a significant public health concern in India, with an increasing number of cases being reported across the country. Originating in Africa, the virus has spread to various parts of the world, including India, causing outbreaks that have raised alarm among health authorities. Understanding the causes, symptoms, precautions, and treatment options for the Zika virus is crucial for managing and preventing its spread. Did You Know? The Zika virus was first discovered in a rhesus monkey in the Zika Forest of Uganda in 1947, and the name "Zika" comes from this forest! The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus primarily transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, particularly Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These mosquitoes are also responsible for spreading dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and has since caused outbreaks in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas(1 Trusted Source Zika Virus Go to source). The rise in Zika virus cases in India can be attributed to several factors: Mosquito Breeding Grounds: The presence of Aedes mosquitoes, which breed in stagnant water, is a significant cause of the spread. Poor waste management and water storage practices create ideal breeding sites for these mosquitoes. Climate Conditions: Indias tropical and subtropical climate provides a conducive environment for mosquito proliferation. High temperatures and humidity levels facilitate the breeding and survival of mosquitoes. Urbanization: Rapid urbanization and population density contribute to the spread of the virus. Overcrowded areas with inadequate sanitation are hotbeds for mosquito breeding. Global Travel: Increased international travel has facilitated the spread of the virus. Infected individuals traveling from Zika-endemic regions can introduce the virus to new areas. Advertisement The symptoms of Zika virus infection are usually mild and can last several days to a week. They include(2 Trusted Source About Zika Virus Go to source): Fever: Mild to moderate fever is a common symptom. Rash: A maculopapular rash that starts on the face and spreads to the body. Joint Pain: Arthralgia, particularly in the small joints of the hands and feet. Conjunctivitis: Redness and inflammation of the eyes, also known as pink eye. Muscle Pain: Myalgia or muscle aches. Headache: Mild to moderate headaches. Advertisement Severe Complications of Zika Virus Infection While most Zika virus infections are mild, severe complications can occur: Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS): A rare neurological disorder that can cause muscle weakness and paralysis. Congenital Zika Syndrome: Pregnant women infected with the Zika virus can transmit it to their fetus, leading to severe birth defects, including microcephaly (a condition where the baby's head is significantly smaller than expected). Advertisement Preventing mosquito bites is the most effective way to avoid Zika virus infection. Here are some precautions to take(3 Trusted Source Prevention and Control Strategies to Counter ZIKA Epidemic Go to source): Use Mosquito Repellents: Apply insect repellent containing DEET, picaridin, or IR3535 on exposed skin and clothing. Wear Protective Clothing: Long-sleeved shirts and long pants can help reduce skin exposure to mosquito bites. Install Screens and Nets: Use window and door screens to keep mosquitoes out. Sleep under mosquito nets, especially in areas with high mosquito activity. Eliminate Standing Water: Regularly empty, clean, or cover containers that hold water, such as buckets, flower pots, and tires, to prevent mosquito breeding. Use Mosquito Traps: Mosquito traps and insecticide-treated nets can help reduce the mosquito population. Stay Indoors During Peak Mosquito Activity: Mosquitoes that spread Zika are most active during early morning and late afternoon. There is no specific antiviral treatment for Zika virus infection(4 Trusted Source Zika virus: An overview Go to source). The focus is on relieving symptoms and providing supportive care. Here are some steps to manage the symptoms: Rest: Get plenty of rest to help the body fight off the infection. Hydration: Drink fluids to prevent dehydration caused by fever and sweating. Pain Relief: Over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen (paracetamol) can help reduce fever and alleviate pain. Avoid aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) until dengue can be ruled out, as they can increase the risk of bleeding. Medical Attention: Seek medical advice if symptoms worsen or complications arise, especially for pregnant women and individuals with preexisting health conditions. Zika Virus and Pregnancy Pregnant women are advised to take extra precautions due to the risk of congenital Zika syndrome. The virus can cause severe birth defects, including microcephaly and other brain abnormalities(5 Trusted Source Congenital Zika syndrome: A systematic review Go to source). Pregnant women should avoid traveling to areas with active Zika transmission and take stringent measures to prevent mosquito bites. The Indian government and health organizations have implemented several measures to control the spread of the Zika virus: Surveillance and Monitoring: Enhanced surveillance systems to detect and monitor Zika virus cases. Public Awareness Campaigns: Educating the public about preventive measures and the importance of eliminating mosquito breeding sites. Vector Control Programs: Initiatives to reduce mosquito populations through insecticide spraying and community participation in cleaning and eliminating standing water. Travel Advisories: Issuing guidelines for travelers to Zika-affected regions and advising pregnant women to avoid such areas. The rise in Zika virus cases in India is a cause for concern, but with the right knowledge and precautions, its spread can be controlled. Understanding the causes, symptoms, and treatment options is crucial for managing the virus effectively. Public awareness, combined with government and community efforts, plays a vital role in preventing Zika virus infections and protecting public health. By staying informed and taking proactive measures, we can reduce the impact of the Zika virus and safeguard the health of individuals, especially pregnant women and vulnerable populations. Stay vigilant, protect yourself from mosquito bites, and contribute to the collective effort to combat the Zika virus. Trusted Source Effect of a peer-led emergency department behavioral intervention on non-fatal opioid overdose: 18-month outcome in the Navigator randomized controlled trial Go to source Trusted Source Opioid Overdose Intervention: New Insights #Opioidoverdoses have become a significant public health crisis. In many countries, including the United States, opioid overdoses are a leading cause of accidental deaths. #drugabuse #drugaddiction Advertisement Effect of a peer-led emergency department behavioral intervention on non-fatal opioid overdose: 18-month outcome in the Navigator randomized controlled trial - (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16581) In Rhode Island, USA, over one in four emergency department (ED) patients at high risk of overdose experience a non-fatal opioid overdose within 18 months of discharge ().A recent randomized controlled trial involving over 600 ED patients at high risk of opioid overdose in Rhode Island revealed that peer recovery support specialistsindividuals with personal experience of addiction were equally effective in reducing opioid overdoses compared to licensed clinical social workers. This indicates that intervention techniques informed by lived experience are as effective as those informed by traditional social work theory and practice.The standard form of support delivered by certified peer recovery support specialists is different from the standard form of support delivered by licensed clinical social workers, though both are evidence-based. Both forms of support use evidence-based interviewing and intervention techniques and provide patients with referrals for post-ED support. But certified peer recovery support specialists also provide ongoing support in the community for up to 90 days after ED discharge.That support focuses on helping the patient to overcome barriers to treatment and recovery, educating the patient in overdose prevention, and promoting the patients retention in treatment. Support from licensed clinical social workers typically ends when the patient leaves the ED.This trial included 648 ED patients at high risk of opioid overdose , of whom 323 were randomized to receive support from a peer recovery support specialist and 325 from a licensed clinical social worker. Most participants (96.8%, n=627) completed the randomly assigned ED intervention.Within 18 months, 81 participants randomized to the peer recovery support specialist arm (25.1%) experienced a non-fatal opioid overdose compared with 95 who were randomized to the licensed clinical social worker arm (29.2%, p=0.24). The study also found no significant difference between the peer recovery support specialist arm and the licensed clinical social worker arm on fatal opioid overdoses.Lead author Dr. Laura Chambers, from the Brown University School of Public Health, says: Non-fatal opioid overdoses are an important predictor of future overdose death, so when someone presents at an emergency room with an overdose or a recent history of overdose, there is an opportunity to offer risk-reduction services to someone with a high risk of future overdose. Some emergency departments now use peer recovery support specialists to deliver some of those services, but were still finding out how well that works compared with more accepted sources of support. The results of our trial strongly suggest that trained peers, and the sort of sustained support they deliver, are just as effective at preventing opioid overdoses as the support offered by traditionally trained clinical social workers.Source-Eurekalert 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... Army personnel in charge of security at the gates of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, received an anti-terroism briefing Wednesday, training that typically gives a mundane rundown of how to identify potential threats. But this PowerPoint presentation had a glaring difference: It conflated mainstream lobbying groups, partisan organizations and non-violent political activism with terror groups such as the Islamic State and the Ku Klux Klan. A photo of the slide presentation went viral online and raised the ire of Republicans on Capitol Hill and far-right commentators online for highlighting two groups in particular as terrorist organizations -- National Right to Life and Operation Rescue, both anti-abortion lobbying groups that have no record of acting violently. Read Next: Hundreds of Soldiers Ordered to Recruiting School Were Promised Bonuses. So Far, Just 2 Have Been Paid. The Army repudiated the presentation, saying it will review such briefings in the future. The botched briefing comes as the Pentagon grapples with legitimate extremism in the military ranks and provides a snapshot of how educating the force on threats at the ground level can be mishandled. "The slides were developed by a local garrison employee to train soldiers manning access control points at Fort Liberty," an Army spokesperson told Military.com in a statement. "These slides will no longer be used, and all future training products will be reviewed to ensure they align with the current DoD anti-terrorism guidance." National Right to Life describes itself as the oldest and largest pro-life organization in the U.S., with 3,000 local chapters across the country. The group advocates for anti-abortion education and legislation, and opposes assisted suicide. "In a presentation that is deeply offensive to pro-life Americans across the nation, Fort Liberty promoted outright lies about National Right to Life in a demonstration of lazy scholarship," Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement. "In our over 50-year history, National Right to Life has always, consistently and unequivocally condemned violence against anyone." Operation Rescue is a Christian activist organization that says it uses "investigative techniques to expose deceit, neglect and abuse within the Abortion Cartel, while demanding enforcement of state and federal standards and statutes." But the briefing on threats also lumped in left-wing groups, according to a copy of the slides obtained by Military.com. Those included People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, a nonviolent animal rights group, which has long blasted the Army for using working dogs, as well as using animals as test subjects. The briefing noted PETA as an extremist group, seemingly conflating it with the Animal Liberation Front -- an international extremist animal rights group with a history of violence, including firebombing. PETA was investigated by the FBI in the early 2000s, but a Justice Department inspector general report later found that investigation to be inappropriate. Some information in the presentation appeared more accurate but was outdated. Earth First and the Earth Liberation Front, eco-terror groups with histories of arson and bombings, were listed in the slides, though such groups have lost much of their relevance in recent decades. The Weather Underground and Black Panthers, both listed as terrorist groups, were active decades ago. It did identify violent movements that are more current, such as neo-Nazis and the Christian Identity Movement, which was connected to the Oklahoma City bombing but may be having a resurgence. The Army kicked off a 15-6 investigation into the presentation amid the public outcry, one source with direct knowledge of the situation told Military.com. The investigations can be wide-ranging, often include dozens of interviews, and are tools that inform decisions on disciplinary action. The individual who gave the class did not create the presentation themselves, and it was not immediately unclear who made it and how it got into the formal training. The presentation was shared widely on social media, and quickly caught the attention of conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. A statement posted on X from the House Armed Services Committee noted that it was "demanding answers" from the Army on the matter. The service has struggled to articulate what is and isn't extremism, sometimes conflating partisan or political movements as radicalism. It recently issued a set of new policies that allow it to more easily hold soldiers accountable for expressing radical views -- even when off duty, when such views may otherwise be constitutionally protected. The policies generally bar speech and actions that side with violence against the government or systemic discrimination. Related: Soldiers Now Face Punishment for Sharing, Liking Extremist Content on Social Media Under New Army Policy Iraq War veteran Cynthia Daniels was working as a police officer in Delaware after leaving the Army when she began experiencing shortness of breath. Once an avid runner, she could barely walk from her patrol car to the other vehicle during a traffic stop. A civilian cardiologist who had read about deployment-related health conditions told her she might have respiratory problems related to the massive burn pits used to destroy garbage during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. She needed a lung biopsy to determine what was wrong because all other tests came back normal. Read Next: Hundreds of Soldiers Ordered to Recruiting School Were Promised Bonuses. So Far, Just 2 Have Been Paid. "I have constrictive bronchiolitis and all kinds of dust and metal particles embedded in my lungs," Daniels told a crowd assembled Thursday in the House Veterans Affairs Committee room in Washington, D.C., to mark the upcoming anniversary of the PACT Act, legislation that expanded health care and benefits to millions of post-9/11 veterans. Constrictive bronchiolitis is one of 23 diseases listed in the PACT Act as presumed to be caused by exposure to burn pits. As a presumptive condition, it is supposed to be fast-tracked in the Department of Veterans Affairs' disability claims system, with affected veterans having an easier time applying for and receiving compensation for their service-connected condition. But the condition is difficult to diagnose, with relatively few doctors understanding the scope of the disease. And of the PACT Act's listed presumptive illnesses, it is the only one without a proper medical code in the VA's claims system, presenting a roadblock that keeps sick veterans from receiving timely benefits. During the panel Thursday, hosted by the American Legion, veterans and physicians said this all must change. "We need a protocol and a system within the VA to help evaluate these people, and we need disability benefit structure for them as well," said Dr. Robert Miller, a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who was among the first physicians to diagnose constrictive bronchiolitis in combat veterans in the mid-2000s. Constrictive bronchiolitis, also known as obliterative bronchiolitis or bronchiolitis obliterans, is the narrowing or obstruction of the lungs' smallest airways -- the bronchioles -- by scarring or fibrous tissue. The scarring prevents oxygen exchange between the lungs and the bloodstream, causing extreme fatigue. Other symptoms include shortness of breath and unexplained wheezing or dry cough in the absence of a cold or allergies. The only current way of definitively diagnosing constrictive bronchiolitis is via a lung biopsy -- a painful procedure that many veterans fear and doctors are reluctant to perform because it is invasive. And even if veterans receive a diagnosis, Miller said, they face challenges getting disability compensation because the VA's disability claims system rejects the disease without a designated medical code. Since they display no other symptoms, the likelihood of getting approval for another malady is slim, according to Miller. "Unfortunately, the current patient who has a biopsy-proven diagnosis for constrictive bronchiolitis is not going to be eligible for disability benefits, because their X-rays and pulmonary function tests are normal," he said. The VA is currently working to create a constrictive bronchiolitis diagnostic code for its claims system through the federal rulemaking process, retired Army Col. Steve Miska, the VA's executive director for the PACT Act, said during the panel discussion. Even as the department works toward the change, affected veterans may still file a claim, he added. "If there's not a diagnostic code, we're not going to stop it. Sometimes, it requires your own advocacy ... or other[s] advocating on your behalf. And we recognize that should not be the case, and we're working to make sure that all our claims processors understand toxic exposure and how to adequately classify conditions," Miska said. Affected veterans also would like to see advancements in diagnostic tools, such as imaging, for constrictive bronchiolitis that are less invasive than a lung biopsy. Dr. Trishul Siddharthan, an expert in functional lung imaging at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, told the assembled crowd that state-of-the-art scans, which can detect lung function and capability in real time, can help. "Functional lung imaging can detect disease at a much higher rate than you can with traditional CTs. ... These modalities can be deployed in clinical settings and have the potential to screen larger [numbers of] patients," Siddharthan said. Still, affected veterans see functional lung imaging as a tool that the VA should invest in. Daniels, an advocate for the group Burn Pits 360, has made expansion of its use at VA a priority. "If you can use this type of technology and figure out what the veteran has without them having to go through the biopsy, why would we not do that?" Daniels asked. Danielle Robinson, whose husband, Ohio Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson, was the namesake for the PACT Act, said she is fully on board with the expansion of imaging and improved services for sick veterans. According to Danielle, Heath Robinson's complaints of fatigue and difficulties working out were dismissed by his doctors as low testosterone and a "changing body" as he aged. By the time he was diagnosed nine months later with lung cancer, his prognosis was terminal. A doctor later described his lungs following an autopsy as "obliterated." "If this imaging would have been there for Heath to do, who knows, he could have been here today," Danielle Robinson said. Miller, the Vanderbilt professor, said he also is pressing for a "network" of providers nationwide who are familiar with burn pit-related lung conditions. While Miska, the PACT Act executive director, said the VA has trained 90% of its providers about toxic exposures, has more advanced specialized training and operates six centers of excellence for toxic exposures, Miller said the centers don't have the "capacity to evaluate the population that we've taken care of." Miller did not provide any data on the number of patients he has seen with constrictive bronchiolitis or the numbers nationwide. "What I talked to senior [VA] leadership about today was to enhance the system so that when the local providers see somebody that they can't diagnose, they have a place to refer them to," Miller said, referring to a meeting before the event with veterans organizations and the under secretaries of health and benefits at the VA. "And then the second thing is that we need a structure to give them a disability [rating]." Miska said the VA is teaming with other federal agencies to conduct research on toxic exposures, assessing the technology, and standardizing protocols to treat veterans with environmental illnesses. "We're not going to stop until we get it right," he said. Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a quote by Siddharthan. Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the type of lung imagery described by experts and advocates. Related: Burn Pits Linked to Chronic Cough and Wheezing in Veterans, New Study Shows The Pentagon's troubled mission to move aid through a temporary pier in Gaza may already be over as officials are now wavering on the possibility of reattaching the pier in the war-torn region after weather forced its removal for a fourth time last month. The Pentagon's top spokesman, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, said that the military's efforts to reinstall the pier failed this week and that a "re-anchoring date has not been set." It was the latest in a series of setbacks for the monthslong, Army-led effort to offer relief to starving Palestinians caught in the middle of Israel's brutal offensive against Hamas. In speaking with reporters Friday, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh went further and framed the reinstallation as an open question. "If a re-anchoring does happen ... we would read that out to you," she said. Read Next: What Happens if the President Issues a Potentially Illegal Order to the Military? On Thursday, Ryder already confirmed that "the pier will soon cease operations." If it cannot be reinstalled, that means the mission -- which kicked off in April but quickly became mired in operational issues and, subsequently, political wrangling -- could already be over. The pier helped bring the first truckload of aid onto the shores of Gaza on May 17 and has been operable for a total of about 20 days since. "We are not shying away from the fact that there have been higher sea states that have, at times, disrupted delivery of aid and have made it harder to get aid in," Singh admitted to reporters. Shortly after the fleet of ships carrying all the equipment for the Army's Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, mission set off from the East Coast of the U.S. in April, one of the ships carrying supplies was forced to turn back to port after experiencing a fire in its engine room. Then, one of the small Army ships got held up in Tenerife -- a small island that is part of the Canary Islands cluster off the west coast of Africa -- leading to concerns about the readiness of the Army's fleet of watercraft. Then came the weather delays. High seas caused the first of the many weather-related delays as the pier was being set up, and experts noted that the pier was being asked to operate in an area and under conditions for which it wasn't designed. Once the pier was up and running in May, there were more issues. After about a week of operations, Pentagon officials conceded that some of the first truckloads of aid were not even making it to the Palestinians because the vehicles carrying the aid to local warehouses were being looted. Then, a storm broke apart the pier and forced its first removal for repairs. That storm also beached several Army boats on the Gaza shore for hours. By the end of June, the pier had been removed three times over weather and high seas. Yet, despite being repeatedly sidelined, Singh told reporters that nearly 20 million pounds of aid had been delivered to the beach at the end of June, making the pier the second-highest volume of aid from any entry point into Gaza at that point. While the amount of aid appears large, it is hardly enough to feed the more than 2 million Gaza residents for any substantial amount of time. Singh argued that the pier's mission, despite the problems and relatively low amount of aid delivered, managed to lay important groundwork for future aid deliveries. "The deployment of this pier has also helped secure Israeli commitment to opening additional crossings into northern Gaza," Singh stressed and noted that there have also been more trucks moving from Jordan directly into northern Gaza. The mission also developed the port of Cyprus so that aid can now be inspected there and delivered directly into Gaza through Israel's Ashdod port and crossings in the north, she added. Regardless of whether the pier is put back one last time or not, Signh also said that the Pentagon is committed to getting all the aid for the JLOTS mission -- aid that is currently waiting in Cyprus -- to the citizens of Gaza. "Whether that be through the port of Ashdod or through the temporary pier -- no matter what -- the aid that was assembled, we'll get to the people who need it most," she said. According to Singh, the Pentagon is also working on a plan that is "in a proof-of-concept stage right now" to get aid into Gaza through Ashdod, possibly using American vessels. "We're working that ... with the Israeli government. When we have more, we will certainly share whether that involves U.S. ships or commercial ships," Singh said. Related: Military Removes Gaza Aid Pier for Third Time as Lawmakers Call It a 'Failed' Operation The profanity-laced email that landed in thousands of Coast Guard inboxes this past May wasn't intended to foment a rebellion in the nation's most under-the-radar branch of the military. It wasn't meant to get cited in a congressional hearing. It was just sheer, scorching frustration. The 4,000-word screed from an anonymous, encrypted email account focused on alleged sexual misconduct at Sector Mobile in Alabama and claims the Coast Guard mishandled the investigation. Not long after firing off the email, the sender, who called themself Whistler McGee, also posted the letter on Facebook. "I was just going to make the Facebook account, post it, and then bail," McGee told The War Horse in an interview last month. "But within two, three hours, it just exploded." McGee started receiving hundreds of emails from Coast Guard members with similar experiences. Soon, current and former service members were publicly posting stories of alleged sexual assaults, many of them under the hashtag #ImWithWhistler, sharing how they also felt the Coast Guard had failed them. Leaked documents -- including internal guidance on how commands should respond to the social media activity -- soon followed. Now, two months after Whistler McGee's initial email, what started as a quest for vengeance has erupted into a rank-and-file reckoning over how the military handles sexual assaults and who should drive the conversation about whether leadership is doing enough to address the problem. "In my view, this is the worst sexual assault scandal we have ever seen" in the military, said Lindsey Knapp, a former Army victim advocate who now works with sexual assault survivors across all military branches. "It's just so pervasive. And then once one person felt safe enough to whistleblow, they all just kind of--we finally hit the tipping point." To report this story, The War Horse reviewed nearly a hundred social media posts and interviewed multiple people connected to anonymous pages. We granted anonymity to McGee and others so they could speak freely on the phenomenon, but are not quoting them about specific allegations. The Coast Guard has been under increasing public and congressional scrutiny over the past year after CNN revealed that Coast Guard officials investigated the handling of sexual assault cases at the Coast Guard Academy, and then declined to make public the final report. The investigation, called Operation Fouled Anchor, showed that many perpetrators of sexual assault at the academy in the 1980s and 1990s were not punished and continued to advance in the Coast Guard. But the explosion of outrage on social media has moved the conversation beyond the academy and toward a relentless push to force Coast Guard leaders to hold perpetrators accountable and confront what advocates say is an epidemic of sexual assault and toxic leadership in the ranks. "Leadership needs to realize that anything they put out is going to pop up" online, one junior officer told The War Horse. "When it comes down to it, it's information warfare." More Bombshells Fuel Scandal With Congress already scolding Coast Guard leadership over its handling of sexual assault allegations, another scandal arose in November when CNN revealed the Coast Guard had declined to release a second study, this one detailing a culture of racism, sexism, and toxic leadership in the service. Then, last month, another bombshell: The Coast Guard Academy's longtime sexual assault response coordinator, Shannon Norenberg, resigned from her position, issuing a public statement saying that she had been used to lie to sexual assault survivors and discourage them from speaking to Congress. (On Wednesday evening, Norenberg issued another statement reversing course and pledging to stay in her role until Coast Guard leaders "repair the damage done to victims of Operation Fouled Anchor.") For the most part, public attention has focused on misconduct in the officer corps, with senior leadership repeatedly vowing, internally and publicly, to stop sexual assault. But advocates are quick to point out that the problem doesn't end with officers. "This is an issue that is pervasive, that impacts every rank, every paygrade," says Kimberly McLear, a retired Coast Guard officer who has been advocating for the service to address internal sexism and racism since becoming a whistleblower in 2014. "It's not only happening at the Coast Guard Academy." Problems of sexual assault are endemic across all military branches, says Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who served as chief prosecutor of the Air Force. Distrust among the rank-and-file over leaders' ability to address sexual assault and toxic leadership is common. But sexual assault survivors have long struggled to force change through official military channels. "Ever since we had Tailhook and Paula Coughlin coming forward in 1991, that's how it goes," says Stephanie Bonnes, a sociologist at the University of New Haven who studies sexual misconduct in the military. "You report; nothing's done. You try the chain of command. You try the military system. It doesn't get anywhere." So victims turn to other avenues, like the media or the civil courts, to try to push for change from the outside, Bonnes says. But in recent years, this frustration has increasingly played out on social media. In 2017, after The War Horse broke the Marines United scandal, which exposed hundreds of male Marines posting nude photos of servicewomen in a closed Facebook group, female Marines took to social media to express their anger. In 2020, after Spc. Vanessa Guillen disappeared at Fort Hood and was later found murdered by a fellow soldier, military women posted about their experiences under the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen. Both scandals ultimately changed military law. "This is the Coast Guard's moment," Bonnes said. Why the Coast Guard Is Different The Coast Guard's #MeToo movement is unique in that survivors are sharing their experiences in graphic detail, sometimes directly naming the alleged perpetrators. The chorus of voices online also increasingly includes bystander accounts, where people who have not been directly involved are reporting cultural problems they say they've witnessed. "It's not just personal stories," Bonnes says. "It's stories of other people watching harassment unfold and talking about it. And that is really powerful." The unique nature of the Coast Guard also likely helped the movement gain traction, experts said. The service is small -- at about 50,000 people, it's smaller than the NYPD -- and service members are often stationed in tight-knit units where they directly know many of their shipmates, meaning news travels fast. "I think it's culturally different than the rest of the services," Christensen said. "There's more of a feeling that this is something they [survivors] can do and have their voice heard." The explosion of frustration is set against the backdrop of congressional hearings in which lawmakers have publicly accused Coast Guard leaders of covering up misconduct. But while the Operation Fouled Anchor scandal has focused on the officer corps, the growing movement online stems largely from the junior ranks of the Coast Guard, many of them savvy social media operators, who say they are tired of empty promises they've heard before. "The movement that you see, I think, has been in effect for a while," says the administrator behind The Pettiest Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard, a Facebook meme account that has become a central repository for accounts of sexual assault. "Now it's organized." The alleged misconduct spans decades, but the posts paint a picture of ongoing disarray, with certain patterns surfacing again and again. "My recruiter told me if I didn't do things for him, I would never be allowed in the Coast Guard," one post reads. "So I traded sex for my dream of being in the Coast Guard because I was 18-19 and didn't know any better." Other accounts accuse higher-ranking members of withholding things like training or qualifications needed for advancement in exchange for sex or as punishment for reporting misconduct. Women and men described being forced to work alongside their alleged abusers on ships or isolated units. Many of the posters say they reported the behavior to their chain of command, but it wasn't taken seriously or that perpetrators were not held accountable. Some say their attackers were allowed to "quietly retire" with benefits, while others posted that their abusers continued to serve in the Coast Guard. "My direct command wanted him kicked out," one poster wrote of her alleged assailant, but higher-ups dropped the charges. "[They] claimed he was probably just lonely." "Write My Own Narrative" This spring, the Coast Guard asked several survivors of sexual assault to tell their stories in videos it planned to release during Sexual Assault Prevention Month in April. But in mid-April, worried that the service was dragging its feet, Meghan Klement, one of the participants, published her video on her own. "I just had decided myself, because I'm not in the Coast Guard anymore, that I can write my own narrative now," said Klement, who served in the Coast Guard from 2012 to 2015 and currently works as a photographer in Oregon. "We really wanted people to see it." About a month later, Whistler McGee posted their letter. Around the same time, an internal Coast Guard memo appeared online referring to the delay in releasing the videos. "[The Office of Public Affairs] has concerns related to the use and distribution of the videos," the memo read. "This could continue to exacerbate the narrative being advanced by some that the Coast Guard is in a sexual assault crisis now. ..." Shortly after the internal memo appeared, the service published all the survivor videos. At a congressional hearing in mid-June, lawmakers raised Whistler McGee's letter as an indicator of culture problems in the service, and asked Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard, about the videos and the memo, arguing that it showed an unwillingness to confront sexual misconduct allegations. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that the committee had received reports from nearly 40 whistleblowers over the past several months attesting to an ongoing problem with sexual assault in the service. "I want to stop creating victims," Fagan said. "But for the victims that we do have in the organization, I am 100% committed to fully supporting them and their needs." She told lawmakers that the allegations in Whistler McGee's email were fully investigated, and the inquiry was still open. In a statement to The War Horse, the Coast Guard said that it was aware of recent social media posts regarding sexual assault. "The Coast Guard has and will continue to investigate reports of sexual assault involving Coast Guard members when we become aware of information that is sufficient to initiate an investigation," the statement said. However, the Coast Guard added that it cannot guarantee that it will see or be able to act on all social media posts or other informal reports, and encouraged survivors to report incidents to sexual assault response coordinators, victim advocates, or the Coast Guard Investigative Service. How Will This End? Where this all leads -- for the Coast Guard and every branch of the military -- is an open question. Officers and enlisted members who spoke with The War Horse said they were confident momentum would continue to build. "So many of us have been able to connect with each other," Klement said. "I think, with all of the survivors being so vocal, that it's continued to put pressure for accountability onto the Coast Guard." Online accounts of sexual assaults, spanning from the 1980s to just weeks ago, have now come from active-duty members, veterans, junior enlisted members, and high-ranking officers. People are crossing traditional military boundaries to compare notes on their experiences, speak with lawmakers and Department of Homeland Security investigators, and connect with outside nonprofits and organizations, some of which are new to the conversation around military culture and sexual assault. "Anytime stories are being collected in a somewhat organized way, it can be very effective," Bonnes says, and it's likely the Coast Guard will have to respond in some way. "But the effect of what they do really depends on advocacy, activism, and how organized the messaging about what needs to be done to address these things is." In early June, McLear's longtime advocacy organization, Right the Ship, published an open letter arguing that the wave of shared stories was evidence of a "woeful disregard for justice, accountability, safety, and dignity," and called for holding perpetrators and senior leaders accountable, pointing to the Feres doctrine -- the legal principle that prevents service members harmed in the course of their service from suing the military -- as a prime obstacle to accountability. The letter was co-signed by 12 civilian organizations that deal with issues from military sexual assault and government accountability to workplace bullying and countering nondisclosure agreements. Since the letter was published, McLear said, three additional organizations have partnered with her group. "The coalition-building at its heart is really about reminding all of us that we all have a duty to hold the Coast Guard accountable," she said. "If we're going to tackle the roots of a culture that is systemic, that means we need to have a diverse coalition that spans all of the ways that these systemic issues are showing up, from rape to racism to hazing to bullying." This War Horse investigation was reported by Sonner Kehrt, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines. A Navy detective pleaded guilty Thursday to using excessive force against a detained man and lying about his previous career with the El Cajon Police Department. Jonathan Christopher Laroche, 40, pleaded guilty to depriving the man of his rights in connection with an incident on Nov. 14 at Naval Base San Diego, federal prosecutors said. According to prosecutors, Laroche was working as a detective with the Navys Criminal Investigations Division when a man, identified in court documents only by the initials G.D., was detained by Naval officers. Prosecutors said Laroche did not know why the man had been detained but followed the military law enforcement officers into a room G.D. was being held in. Laroche admitted in his plea agreement that he entered the room and immediately took G.D. to the ground and used a carotid restraint for 17 seconds. The detained man then lost consciousness. After the man regained consciousness he was taken into a main room of the security building and handcuffed to a bench, according to the plea. During the interaction, Laroche grabbed G.D. by the throat and pushed his head into the wall, the plea states. Laroche admitted that during both of these incidents, he acted willfully and intentionally, depriving G.D. of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from the unreasonable use of force, under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prosecutors said in a news release. Court documents said that Laroche had applied to the Criminal Internal Investigation Division in 2022 but lied about why he left his prior employment with El Cajon police. According to the plea agreement, Laroche had resigned from the department four years earlier after he was told he would be fired for two separate excessive use-of-force incidents against citizens in 2017. In 2015, he had been reprimanded for a third use-of-force incident. Court documents said Laroche applied to be a detective with the Navy by lying and saying he had left El Cajon to work as a U.S. Department of Defense officer. Laroche told the Navy he had not been punished or reprimanded by the police department. This defendants violent acts against someone who posed no threat are reprehensible, said U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath. Today, we stripped of power and held accountable an outlier who abused his authority and tarnished his badge. As part of the plea agreement, Laroche, a Spring Valley resident, agreed to resign his position with the Navy and not seek employment with any law enforcement agency in the future. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 2. 2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Prince Harry addressed Pat Tillmans mom while accepting the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the ESPYs on July 11. After ESPN and the Pat Tillman Foundation made the decision to honor Prince Harry with the award, Tillmans mom, who is not involved in the foundation, spoke out against Harry receiving the honor. During his acceptance speech, Harry responded to Mary Tillmans statement, as he remembered his own mother, Princess Diana, as well. Id like to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude to everyone at the Pat Tillman Foundation. Id also like to acknowledge the Tillman family, especially Mrs. Mary Tillman, Pats mother. Her advocacy for Pats legacy is deeply personal and one that I respect, he said while on stage with his wife, Meghan Markle, watching from the audience. The bond between a mother and son is eternal and transcends even the greatest losses. Harry also thanked Tillmans widow, who started the foundation, for the honor. He then went on to talk about The Invictus Games. As the Miami Herald previously reported, on June 27, it was revealed that Prince Harry would be among those honored at this years ESPYs. As a result, Pat Tillmans mom, Mary, spoke out. In a statement given to the Daily Mail she said, I am shocked as to why they would select such a controversial and divisive individual to receive the award. There are recipients that are far more fitting. There are individuals working in the veteran community that are doing tremendous things to assist veterans, Mary continued. These individuals do not have the money, resources, connections or privilege that Prince Harry has. I feel that those types of individuals should be recognized. However, despite her push back, the Tillman Foundation and ESPN stood by their decision to honor the prince. ESPN, with the support of the Tillman Foundation, is honoring Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, specifically for the work of The Invictus Games Foundation as it celebrates its 10th year promoting healing through the power of sport for military service members and veterans around the world. While we understand not everyone will agree with all honorees selected for any award, The Invictus Games Foundation does incredible work and ESPN believes this is a cause worth celebrating. Prince Harry is a veteran of the British Army, who completed two tours in Afghanistan. He is the founder of The Invictus Games, which began in 2014 and offers a competitive outlet for wounded and sick soldiers, both active duty and veterans all over the world. The decision to honor Prince Harry with the prestigious award was met with mixed opinions. 2024 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. SEOUL, South Korea The U.S. and South Korea signed joint nuclear deterrence guidelines for the first time, a basic yet important step in their efforts to improve their ability to respond to North Koreas evolving nuclear threats. Meeting Thursday on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington, President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol commended what they called the tremendous progress that their countries alliance has made a year after creating a joint Nuclear Consultative Group. The two leaders authorized the U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula, which were signed by defense officials Thursday, according to South Koreas presidential office. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Koreas official name. Last year, the U.S. and South Korea launched the consultative body to strengthen communication on nuclear operations and discuss how to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons in various contingencies. The U.S. has long promised to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend South Korea if it is attacked, but faced suspicions that it lacks plans on how it would exercise its extended deterrence for its Asian ally. The consultative body was established as North Korea has sharply accelerated its missile testing activities and openly threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively in potential conflicts with its rivals. South Korea has no nuclear weapons. The presidents underscored that the Guidelines document provides a solid foundation for enhancing U.S.-ROK extended deterrence cooperation in an integrated manner, said a joint statement by Biden and Yoon. Du Hyeogn Cha, an analyst at Seouls Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the guidelines mark substantial progress in deterrence plans, but the allies will still need to fill in the details and conduct military exercises to test them. Kim Tae-hyo, a deputy national security director in South Korea, told reporters that South Korea and the U.S. will conduct joint military exercises to help implement the deterrence guidelines. He said the U.S. would commit specific nuclear assets to a role in deterrence plans, but experts added that this does not mean it would permanently place nuclear weapons in South Korea. Specifics of the guidelines, which Seoul called confidential, were not available, though the U.S. will certainly retain control of its nuclear weapons. The key is how to integrate South Koreas conventional weapons and Americas nuclear weapons to launch joint, massive retaliation to North Korea, when it carries out nuclear strikes on South Korea, said Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Koreas Korea Institute for Military Affairs. He said prospects for South Korea-U.S. coordination are bright if Biden is re-elected in the November election, but could suffer a setback if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House. North Korea is expected to respond angrily to the announcement, as it has previously accused its rivals of using the consultation group to plot a nuclear attack on the North. Worries about North Korea have further deepened since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signed a deal requiring each country to provide aid to the other if it is attacked, and vowed to boost other cooperation. Analysts say the accord represents the strongest connection between the two countries since the end of the Cold War. It's late on a weekday afternoon and a group of military officers -- the most senior leaders of every branch of the armed forces -- are sitting around a wide wood table under frosty overhead lights in a windowless conference room at the Pentagon. After days of intense protests in several cities across the country, the defense secretary says the president is getting ready to order a massive deployment of armed troops to replace local police and bring a stop to political opposition. As the group slowly begins to discuss the details of sending active-duty troops to quash protests on American soil, one of the officers stops the group with a question. "Is any of what we're discussing here even legal?" Read Next: Hundreds of Soldiers Ordered to Recruiting School Were Promised Bonuses. So Far, Just 2 Have Been Paid. The entire scenario is a work of fiction, but given presidential campaign rhetoric as Americans head to the polls in November, Military.com spent several months trying to unearth what existing safeguards and policies are in place to protect what has long been considered a hallmark of the U.S. -- an apolitical military that uses its power to fight the country's enemies, not its own citizens. In speaking with more than a dozen Pentagon officials as well as outside experts, what emerged was a landscape where few concrete legal protections exist to prevent an abuse of power by a president, especially if that president chooses to lean on the Insurrection Act, a vaguely worded law originally passed in 1792. Military.com reached out to the civilian and military leaders of every uniformed branch of service with a trio of direct questions: If a potentially unlawful order is received from the White House or issued by a defense secretary, what is the review process to determine whether the order is legal, who triggers the review, and who conducts the review? The requests made no mention of a specific president or the specifics of potential orders, but rather asked about existing policies. None of the services offered any comment on the record, and some didn't even reply to the inquiries. Military.com reached out to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also declined to comment. Finally, the office of the defense secretary, after several weeks of queries, provided a response. Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in an emailed statement that "lawyers are available to advise military leaders -- including the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and combatant commanders -- regarding the legal and prudential impacts of orders, as well as the legal effects and consequences such orders may have." Defense officials also said that, especially at those senior levels, legal reviews of most orders are part of the process, are conducted by lawyers assigned to the office of the commander or secretary, and do not need to be specifically requested. Experts say those lawyers do not have the authority to stop a commander from acting and may face extraordinary pressures, given they report to that commander, but they are available to provide a review. Uniformed commanders themselves also have a specific obligation to reject an order that's unlawful, if they make that determination. All military members swear to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Within that oath is the implication that service members hold allegiance to the rule of law. The oath of enlistment goes on to ask service members to follow orders, but adds that it must be done "according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice," or UCMJ. Both Article 90 of the UCMJ, the charge of willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, and Article 92, failure to obey an order, say that they apply only to lawful orders. Broader legal precedence holds that just following orders, colloquially known as the "Nuremberg defense" as it was used unsuccessfully by senior Nazis to justify their actions under Adolf Hitler, doesn't absolve troops. While the scenario painted at the opening of this story is imagined, indications of how former President Donald Trump might want to use the military on U.S. soil if he is elected again have begun to surface, despite the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that generally bars the use of federal troops in law enforcement actions. During a March 2023 rally in Iowa, Trump suggested that he would use federal troops in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, which he argued have become crime dens. "We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I'll do -- because you're supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in -- the next time, I'm not waiting," Trump said. Plans by groups aligned with Trump to potentially use the military in mass deportation efforts have also been released, and the concept itself was endorsed by Trump in interviews with Time magazine published in April. But troops aren't generally trained for law enforcement actions like those suggested by Trump and his allies, and military officials who spoke with Military.com voiced concern about how well they would handle being called upon to police fellow Americans. "Uniform personnel are very uncomfortable with doing missions that they're not trained for or equipped for," said a lawyer who was previously a senior judge advocate for the military and advised top officials about the legality of orders throughout the previous Trump administration. The service member was granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive topics. "We're uncomfortable with the notion of policing U.S. citizens." They also stressed that sending unprepared troops to police Americans risks a "'Kent State-like' outcome, referencing a 1970 incident in which 28 Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire on a group of unarmed, anti-war protesters, killing four and wounding nine others. After a later trial, the Guardsmen said they opened fire because they were fearful and anxious. The legal picture got murkier after a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that determined that a president is legally immune from prosecution for any actions that are deemed official, which seemingly covers military orders -- whether those orders themselves are legal or not. Ryder was pressed in public briefings after that ruling about the question of unlawful orders from a president, but the Pentagon's top spokesman told reporters that he didn't want to get into hypotheticals and that "every situation has to be assessed on its own merit" as well as "the context of the situation." But experts in military law who spoke with Military.com for this story noted that, when confronting the idea of a chief executive who is determined to employ active-duty forces on U.S. soil, and potentially against U.S. citizens, legality is not the right way to think about the issue. There's a legal mechanism that might allow the president to sidestep restrictions on using troops. The Insurrection Act Both Trump and a number of groups aligned with the former president have said that Trump, if elected, would invoke the Insurrection Act to allow him to use troops for his domestic agenda. The law was first passed in 1792 and largely cemented in 1871. It offers broad, sweeping and, critics say, ill-defined powers to the president. The law says that "whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws ... he may call into federal service such of the militia of any state, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary." An 1827 Supreme Court ruling found that the president alone can decide to invoke the law and courts may not review or second-guess that determination. The Brennan Center for Justice, a law and public policy research organization at the New York University School of Law, noted in a 2022 paper that "the Insurrection Act fails to adequately define or limit when it may be used and instead gives the president significant power to decide when and where to deploy U.S. military forces domestically." The lawyer who previously served as a judge advocate agreed with that assessment. "All of us as American citizens should have an uneasy feeling about any service members policing our country," the lawyer said. One scenario the lawyer laid out was an attorney general approaching the president with a concern that he or she doesn't have a sufficient number of federal law enforcement officers to deal with violence or unrest and making a request to bring in military forces. "[If] that order were to come to the Department of Defense ... I struggle to see where a lawyer in DoD would tell a senior DoD leader that the order was not lawful under the Insurrection Act," they said. Such a scenario would require only the agreement of another cabinet secretary. It was even planned out in an April 1969 memo to then-President Richard Nixon titled the "interdepartmental action plan for civil disturbance." Active-duty troops were deployed in 2020 amid the protests and demonstrations that came in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. In June of that year, around 1,600 soldiers, including elements of the 82nd Airborne Division, were deployed to the areas outside of Washington, D.C., but were never actually moved into the city. Troops from the 82nd Airborne Division were sent home fairly quickly but over the objections of the White House. The move was perceived by D.C. leaders as a heavy-handed effort by then-President Trump to tamp down on protests that he argued were not being dealt with severely enough. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser ended up forcing some troops out of their hotels over a dispute about whether D.C. or home states were paying for the accommodations. With the uncertainty surrounding how the Insurrection Act might be used, Congress could step in to narrow the scope of the law, though that appears unlikely. Some legal scholars have suggested changes such as adding provisions allowing Congress to be a check on the act's use and greatly clarifying what conditions give a president authority to invoke the law. "It is critical that the Insurrection Act specify what actions are permitted and what actions are prohibited, lest it become a vehicle for presidents to assert unlimited authority backed by military force," two scholars at the Brennan Center wrote in a 2023 legal journal article. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a senior member of the Homeland, Armed Services and Judiciary committees, started such an effort in 2020, but it foundered until he revived it again earlier this year. However, Congress has historically struggled to rein in the powers of the presidency. If Not the Lawyers, Then Who? Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, stressed in his emailed statement to Military.com that commanders and leaders in the military are "provided with training on the principles, requirements, and legal and ethical responsibilities associated with leadership and command to enable critical thinking and sound judgment when directing or implementing decisions, to include orders." A spokesperson for the Chief of Naval Personnel, in response to Military.com's query on procedures, noted that the service's officers receive ethics training "at various career points" and that admirals get more training as they are promoted from one star to four stars. "The training focuses on ethical concepts, impacts and understanding in a way that ultimately promotes and leads to ethical decision-making," the spokesperson said. However, despite that focus on ethical behavior and concern from leaders about what any given mission may mean for service members on the ground, experts say that the military is ill-equipped to be a bulwark against a president who aims to employ it in an unlawful way or for their own gain. Yale legal scholar Eugene Fidell told Military.com that he doesn't think that "the armed forces' officer corps [are] Praetorian guardians of American democracy." "They're the defenders of our country, but that's not an institution that was built to defend democracy as such," he added. Both Fidell and the former judge advocate said that, if an order is deemed lawful, a military commander who still has objections has little recourse but either to appeal to some higher echelon, carry out the order, or resign. However, Fidell said it's unlikely that the latter option will become popular. "We don't have a tradition of resignation in protest in the armed forces," he said. "It's happened so rarely that you could probably count the number of instances on one or maybe two hands." Instead, military officers often choose to express their displeasure or disagreement with an administration's actions through anonymous leaks to media or, in the case of the Trump administration, leaders at the Pentagon simply ignored orders they disagreed with in the hopes the mercurial president would forget, or treated them as musings rather than official proclamations. "We have a new array of forces, of political forces, in our country and so we're breaking, sadly, some new and scary ground," Fidell said. -- Steven Beynon, Drew Lawrence and Thomas Novelly contributed to this report. Related: What to Know About the Supreme Court Immunity Ruling in Trump's 2020 Election Interference Case The Phillies announced Friday that theyve released veteran infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield and recalled fellow infielder/outfielder Weston Wilson from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Merrifield signed a one-year, $8MM contract with the Phillies in free agency this past offseason. That guarantee came in the form of a $7MM salary for the current season and at least a $1MM buyout on an $8MM club option for the 2025 campaign. Merrifield, who has struggled to a .199/.277/.295 batting line in 174 plate appearances this season, is still owed about $3.01MM of his salary plus that $1MM buyout. Hell now be able to sign with any team, and a new club would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster or injured list. That amount would be subtracted from what the Phillies owe, but Philadelphia will remain on the hook for the majority of his remaining contract. While things with the Phillies clearly didnt pan out, the 35-year-old Merrifield was a decent hitter as recently as last season in Toronto, when he turned in a .272/.318/.382 slash with 11 homers, 28 doubles, a triple, 26 steals, a 6.1% walk rate and a 17.1% strikeout rate. His offense has tailed off since his peak seasons (age-29 and 30) when he led the American League in hits in consecutive seasons as a member of the Royals, but this level of decline was as unexpected as it was precipitous. To his credit, Merrifields contact skills remain excellent. Hes fanned in only 10.9% of his plate appearances, and this years 8.6% walk rate actually ties a career-high mark for the three-time All-Star. He hasnt hit the ball with any authority, however, turning in a bottom-of-the-barrel 83 mph average exit velocity and 17.4% hard-hit rate. Merrifield entered the 2024 season with a gaudy 24.8% line-drive rate in his career but has hit just 16.8% of his batted balls on a line this season. The late-blooming Merrifield didnt even reach the majors until his age-27 season in Kansas City, but he almost instantly became not just a fixture on the Royals roster but one of the most prolific hitters and base thieves in the league. From 2016-20, Merrifield batted .295/.342/.445 with 58 homers and 119 stolen bases. In addition to leading the majors in hits in 2018 and 2019, he also paced the American League in stolen bases in 2017, 2018 and 2021. Between that track record, the now minimal price tag and his defensive versatility he can play second base, third base and all around the outfield Merrifield should find a new opportunity before long. Grim as his 2024 production (or lack thereof) has been, there are several teams around the league looking for a veteran righty bat and/or help at second base/left field. The Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners are among the current postseason contenders whove received negligible production from second base this year and could speculate on Merrifield turning things around with a change of scenery. (WEEIs Rob Bradford tweets that Boston did not have interest in Merrifield this offseason, but circumstances change.) And, Merrifields former Kansas City club has been on the hunt for a bat that can play both the infield and outfield, as noted last month by general manager J.J. Picollo himself. Rockies starter Dakota Hudson was outrighted to Triple-A Albuquerque after clearing waivers, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com (X link). Hudson has the right to elect free agency while retaining his $1.5MM base salary, but Harding suggests the right-hander is likely to report to Albuquerque. Hudson signed a one-year free agent deal with Colorado after being non-tendered by the Cardinals. Colorado gave him 17 turns through the rotation, but Hudson didnt manage particularly strong results. He posted a 5.84 earned run average with nearly as many walks as strikeouts. The sinkerballer induced ground-balls at a solid 52.4% clip, but the lack of missed bats didnt play well at Coors Field. A former supplemental first-round pick, Hudson had some productive years early in his career with St. Louis. His velocity has trended down over the past few seasons. His sinker is averaging a career-low 90.3 MPH this year. That squeezed Hudson off the roster and likely back to the minors. The Rox could field trade offers on Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber, potentially opening a rotation spot or two after the deadline. DICKINSON COUNTY, MI An Upper Peninsula bridge will be closed after it was deemed unsafe following an inspection. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Kamichik Bridge over the Sturgeon River in Dickinson County has compromised bridge footings. The bridge is located on Cassidy Creek Road, about 5 miles north of Waucedah. While the bridge is closed, traffic will be rerouted north on Foster City Road 6.5 miles to the Browns Lake Road to the Norway Truck Trail and back to Cassidy Creek Road. Another available route would be south of the closure along Dickinson County Road 573 (Pine Creek Road) to the Norway Truck Trail and then Cassidy Creek Road. Inspectors from the Michigan Department of Transportation discovered the east abutment footing undermined over nearly its entire width. The average extent of abutment undermining is 17 to 24 inches from the vertical face, with that distance measuring as much as 40 inches in one location. The inspectors determined the bridge should be closed immediately to traffic The DNR is exploring costs and methods to repair the aging span that dates back at least several decades. WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- Nineteen months after the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners approved the Resilient Washtenaw climate plan, an officer has been hired to oversee it. During a Wednesday, July 10 meeting, commissioners unanimously approved hiring Beth Gibbons to oversee the countys Resiliency Office. For me this is absolutely an honor to be joining Washtenaw County in this new role, in a new office, Gibbons said. The opportunity to bring the experience that I have working regionally, nationally and beyond, back to focusing where I live, in my home is such an honor. Im so glad for the investment in this work, in this office and now to get to be part of the team, so thank you so much. Related: Washtenaw County leaders OK plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. Whats next? As part of her role, Gibbons will lead and coordinate the organizations and communitys climate activities. Gibbons is also expected to develop programming and policies to meet the various climate, sustainability, and environmental justice goals of the countys Resilient Washtenaw plan. Gibbons was recommended for the role after a lengthy search that began in January. Twenty-two qualified candidates applied for the position. Eight were interviewed by a selection committee that made a recommendation to County Administrator Greg Dill. Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, D-District 8, was on the committee that recommended Gibbons and one other candidate for the role. Dill made the final decision to offer the job to Gibbons as his department will oversee the Resiliency Office. Im very excited to be working with you as a member of the environmental council Rabhi said to Gibbons during Wednesdays meeting. I think this is an exciting opportunity for you to help get something going off the ground thats going to do really good work for our community. Prior to being hired in Washtenaw County, Gibbons worked as the National Resilience Lead for a national consulting firm that works with clients on climate change planning. Gibbons has a masters degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan and a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. The board was required to approve the hire as the requested salary of $147,235.66 was above the midpoint for the position. The salary is within the budget for the position and was recommended for approval based on the candidates experience. While Rabhi was enthusiastic about the hire, he also cautioned the board on the optics of making an above midpoint hire while the board is undergoing negotiations with other county workers. I just want to be sensitive to how that looks for our organization as we go into the negotiating room, Rabhi said, adding commissioners need to understand the frustration of workers who are negotiating contracts. I think we need to take care of our whole staff and make sure everybody feels that theyre getting adequately compensated for the work theyre doing Rabhi said. While discussing the hire, Rabhi also voiced hope that another position in the department will be filled soon, and asked his colleagues fund a third position. Im hoping that as commissioners, we can also roll up our sleeves and get a third position hired, which was ultimately our goal, Rabhi said. When the climate plan was originally created and proposed, it called for three positions to be created in the Resiliency Office. However, since being approved in 2022, Gibbons is the only person hired so far. Related story: Nearly 1 year in, Washtenaw County already behind on climate plan, advocates say 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. FLINT, MI Tim Sneller, a former Democratic State Representative who recently launched a campaign for the Michigan House of Representatives 68th district, has died. Sneller, 68, was running to represent a district consisting of Burton, Davison, Atlas Township, Goodrich, Grand Blanc and portions of Grand Blanc and Genesee Townships. He was the lone Democratic candidate challenging incumbent state Rep. David Martin, a Davison Republican. U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint Township) issued a statement about Snellers passing in a news release on Friday, July 12. Tim was a true public servant. He worked hard for the people of Michigan for more than 30 years, both as a legislative aide and state representative, and cared deeply about his community, Kildee said in a statement. As a leader and champion for the LGBTQ+ community in Michigan, Tim exemplified what it means to live a free and authentic life. His death is an incredible loss for our state. I extend my heartfelt condolences to Tims loved ones during this difficult time. Michigan is better off because of his leadership. Sneller previously served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2017 to 2022. Related: Tim Sneller wins in 50th state House race Burton City Councilman Steve Heffner described Sneller as a down to earth person who was a hard worker. He was the type of person that would do anything for anyone, Heffner said. Speaker of the House Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said Sneller was a fixture in Democratic politics for decades. He was the salt of the earth and known for his humor and indelible spirit, Tate said. No one worked harder for the residents of Burton and its surrounding communities than Tim, and his neighbors and friends are all better off as a result of his efforts. Tim was a true public servant who understood the value of relationships and the benefit of bipartisanship. He will be sorely missed. Martin also issued a statement offering condolences to Snellers family. Tim and I served together in the Legislature representing Genesee County, and while we found ourselves on opposite sides of the political aisle, I always respected his dedication to public service, Martin said. Tim devoted his life to serving the people of Genesee County, both as a legislator and as a longtime legislative staffer. His commitment and passion for our community were evident in everything he did. Genesee County Clerk-Register Domonique Clemons is meeting with the Secretary of States Bureau of Elections to determine how this affects the August ballot. Want more Flint-area news? Bookmark the local Flint news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Flint daily newsletter. JACKSON, MI -- There are 42 entrees, 16 sides and 10 appetizers on the menu at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Jackson. Its an expansive menu, but when youve seen it 439 times in 48 states, making a food selection is simplified. Do you guys need a minute? a Jackson waiter asked the two 71-year-olds. Oh no, we know what we want, they said. Judy and Mike McNamara stopped at the Jackson Texas Roadhouse, 1051 Boardman Road, on Thursday, July 11, as the 439th Texas Roadhouse theyve visited. The retired Virginia couple is attempting to visit every Texas Roadhouse in the United States. We base our vacations around the Roadhouse, Judy said. Its the best. You get more bang for your buck. The couple is from Franklin, Virginia, and began dating in 10th grade. Their inaugural Texas Roadhouse trip was in 2003, when Judys brother took them to one in Knoxville, Tennessee. After Judy retired in 2017 from her job at the Union Camp/International Paper Mill, their traveling increased. The two keep track of every location they visit on a spreadsheet. They plan trips to national parks, monuments and other landmarks around their visits to the restaurants. It takes a lot of time to plan these trips, Judy said. Mike estimates theyre gone three to four months a year and have traveled more than 25,000 miles. Theirs is not a marketing-based plan. At its core, the McNamaras just love Texas Roadhouse. Mike ordered a pork chop, a sweet potato and side salad in Jackson. Judy opted for a steak, a baked potato and a side salad. The McNamaras love the restaurant so much, theyve even named their new dog Andy after the chains mascot, Andy the Armadillo. Judy has large silver earrings in the silhouette of the state of Texas, with her name imprinted on them. Theyre sort of Texas Roadhouse celebrities, too. A number of Jackson employees introduced themselves and prepared a large gift basket for the McNamaras, with a variety of Texas Roadhouse merchandise. One of Mikes favorite encounters is with employees they see on their journey. A waiter supervisor now in Jackson said she saw the two when she worked in Marion, Indiana before transferring to Jackson. Its nice to be recognized, Mike said. The couple stays in their RV during their travels. They plan to visit Texas Roadhouse restaurants in Lansing on Friday, Ann Arbor on Saturday and Saginaw on Sunday. While in Michigan, they also hope to visit one of the Great Lakes shorelines to see a lighthouse. The two have been to Michigan before, even visiting the Henry Ford Museum and the accompanying Greenfield Village. I like Michigan because of the Great Lakes, Mike said. Next fall the McNamaras will fly to Alaska to complete their countrywide journey. The McNamaras journey has been popular with those on social media. If you want to keep up with their journey, you can do so on Facebook. 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. PORTAGE, MI -- A Portage man was convicted for a telemarketing scam that likely victimized more than 1,400 people nationwide, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten reports. Irfan Gill, 62, of Portage, was convicted by a jury of seven counts of mail fraud and 11 counts of money laundering on Thursday, July 11, Totten said. Gill was previously indicted for working with a call center in Pakistan, from as early as June 2018 through at least March 2022, in a telemarketing fraud scheme that targeted elderly victims across the U.S. Mr. Gill ran a multi-year, international telemarketing scam targeting American citizens, Totten said. Todays conviction secures a measure of justice for his unsuspecting victims. Gill claimed to operate several businesses: Cable Upgrade, D Network, D Tech, Direct Network, Dish, Dish Upgrade and Sky Satellite, according to allegations in the indictment. Telephone solicitors at a call center in Pakistan cold called victims with offers of upgrades and subscription discounts for their cable television, satellite television and internet services. The businesses did not provide any of those services, though the callers instructed victims to send payments to Gills post office boxes in Portage, Totten said. Gill deposited the payments in his bank accounts and used money transfer services like Remitly and Western Union to pay a portion of the proceeds to the telephone solicitors in Pakistan. Gill faces up to 30 years in prison on the mail fraud charges because the jury found he committed a telemarketing fraud that targeted or victimized 10 or more people over the age of 55. He faces up to 20 years in prison for the money laundering charges, Totten said. Sentencing will happen at a future date. Fighting elder fraud and abuse is a priority for his office, Totten said. Officials offered tips to avoid being a victim of a scam: 1. Be cautious of unsolicited phone calls, emails and mail. 2. Never provide any sensitive information (such as date of birth, account numbers or passwords), credit or debit card numbers or money to unverified people or businesses. 3. Resist the pressure to act quickly. Scammers create a false sense of urgency to try to get the victim to act. 4. Immediately end all communication with the caller if you recognize it was a scam attempt. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam Townshend and Stephen Baker tried the case on behalf of the United States. Want more Kalamazoo-area news? Bookmark the local Kalamazoo news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Kalamazoo daily newsletter. BAY CITY, MI Vacations cost money. They take time. These days, its rare for some people to find either. The Bay City area offers enough interesting places to visit that its easy to overlook some of them. It may be a good opportunity to be a tourist in the area even if its called home. MIDLAND, MI Attorneys representing a group of citizens who may be tasked with paying a portion of dam rebuilding and restoration efforts after a catastrophic 2020 flood have appealed a judges decision confirming Gladwin and Midland counties lake level special assessment to restore and maintain lake levels in the Four Lakes Special Assessment District. The Heron Cove Association filed a request asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to review Midland County Circuit Court Judge Michael Beales June 20 ruling, the task force said in a statement Friday, July 12. DETROIT, MI President Joe Biden has been here before. The Democrat will step into familiar territory when he visits Detroit Friday, July 12. Biden plans to deliver remarks at 6 p.m. to a crowd at Renaissance High School, campaign officials said. Its not his first time at Renaissance High, located about 10 miles northwest of Comerica Park. He last visited the school in early March 2020, days before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the discontinuation of such public gatherings for months. Back then, Biden was in need of a boost during a critical stretch of the 2020 campaign. Michigans presidential primary that year was scheduled the day after the Renaissance High rally. Four years later, Bidens return to the school comes during a critical stretch of his reelection campaign. Following a debate performance last month that left many top Democrats questioning his ability to defeat Republican opponent Donald Trump again, Biden over the last two weeks has urged supporters to stay unified as the November election approaches. Despite Bidens insistence he will remain in the race, calls for the president to step aside in favor of a new Democratic candidate continue. So far, one Democratic senator and 16 House Democrats have publicly called on him to step aside, with the latest statements from Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, California Rep. Scott Peters and Illinois Rep. Eric Sorensen coming as the presidents highly anticipated news conference ended Thursday, July 11. Earlier in the day, U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, of Grand Rapids, called on Biden to end his candidacy. Still, Biden retains key supporters, including in Michigan. Among his advocates: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who some Democrats consider a potential replacement for Biden on the November ballot. The day before Bidens scheduled trip to Detroit, 14 members of the Michigan legislatures Detroit Caucus including state House of Representatives Speaker Joe Tate signed a letter expressing unwavering support of the presidents reelection bid. The economic progress, health care expansion, and job creation we have seen under the leadership of Joe Biden and (Vice President) Kamala Harris are too important to jeopardize, the letter read, in part. Some of his political allies in the state plan to show up to the Friday event to throw their influence behind the president. Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, Rep. Haley Stevens, Rep. Shri Thanedar and AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler will all attend the Detroit event. Also planning to be there: Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer. Other notable Biden allies from Michigan do not plan to attend, officials said Whitmer, who is co-chair of Bidens campaign, will be out of the state in part to promote her new book. Sen. Gary Peters, a steadfast supporter of Biden, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is vying for Michigans open U.S. Senate seat, will also be absent from the event. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, whom Biden actively courted during last years strikes and who met with him and other union leaders earlier this week, is traveling for a conference. Biden enjoyed plenty of support from fellow Democrats the last time he stepped inside Renaissance High. The March 9, 2020 rally included Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield), and onetime 2020 Democratic presidential candidates such as Cory Booker. Also present during that Renaissance High event was Harris, another Democrat who challenged Biden as the 2020 Democratic nominee before she bowed out. Biden selected her as his vice president, although that choice came six months after the Detroit rally. At the time of his Renaissance High appearance back then, Biden was enjoying a surge in support but had yet to secure the Democratic nomination. His chief competition at that moment was Bernie Sanders, who bested Biden during two of the first three presidential primary elections of the 2020 campaign cycle. A week ago, the press and the pundits had declared this campaign dead, Biden told the Renaissance High crowd then. Then South Carolina spoke. Then super Tuesday spoke. The turnout was incredible ... Michigan, Im counting on you in a big way. Michigan voters delivered for him the next day. Biden received 52.9% of the states vote in the March 10, 2020 presidential primary for Democrats. Sanders finished as runner-up, with 36.3% of votes. Bidens momentum continued after that. He officially earned his political partys nomination in August 2020. The state then supported him during the November 2020 general election. After earning the majority of Michigan votes versus Democrat Hillary Clinton in November 2016, then-President Trump lost the states vote to Biden in November 2020. Still, it was relatively close. Biden bested Trump by 2.8 percentage points in Michigan. Political experts considered Michigan a key victory in Bidens successful bid for the presidency back then. Many predict the state will play a substantial role in the 2024 race. His planned visit Friday will represent the fourth time Biden has visited Michigan this year. Bidens last appearance there also was in Detroit, in late May, when he served as the keynote speaker at the Detroit branch of the NAACPs 69th Annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner. Two months earlier, Biden addressed supporters in Saginaw County, considered one of the key swing counties within Michigan. Biden first rallied Michigan voters this year in Detroit, three weeks before he won the states February presidential primary election for Democrats. The Associated Press contributed to this report. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- Of the 11 Ottawa County commission seats at stake in this years election, one of the marquee matchups is the District 5 race between two prominent Republican politicians. Ottawa County Board Chair Joe Moss, the leader of the boards majority faction known as Ottawa Impact, will face Hudsonville Mayor Mark Northrup in the Aug. 6 primary for the Republican nomination. Northrup has made it clear he thinks commissioners affiliated with Ottawa Impact have made poor decisions and that he wants to right the ship. Related: God, freedom and guns: Joe Moss blew up the political order, and no, he doesnt have a comment for the press Moss and the board majority, upon taking office in January 2023, made several controversial decisions that included firing then-administrator John Shay, dissolving the countys diversity, equity and inclusion office, changing the county motto and attempting to fire the countys health officer. The county faced four notable lawsuits in 2023 and spent $730,000 in legal fees -- $503,000 paid by the county and $228,000 by the countys self-funded insurance authority -- for legal services covering the lawsuits and routine daily work such as responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. Of the lawsuits, the most expensive for the county involved defending a wrongful termination complaint filed by Health Officer Adeline Hambley. The county spent $172,371 in 2023 on that lawsuit before a settlement was reached earlier this year to keep Hambley on the job. Moss has said that, for Ottawa Countys size and budget of $264 million, he considered $730,000 in legal fees extremely reasonable. Moss co-founded Ottawa Impact with Sylvia Rhodea, the county boards vice chair, and campaigned in 2022 on issues that included opposition to COVID-19 mandates such as masking as well as vaccine requirements. Moss, according to his web site, founded or co-founded three technology companies. MLive previously reported that Moss is involved in Freshphone, which advertises cloud-based phone and texting platforms and the software company Eclarian. He has degrees in accounting and marketing from Cedarville University. Northrup was a commissioned officer with the U.S. Coast Guard for 13 years and also worked 20 years helping lead production teams for companies such as Motorola, Siemens and Gentex. He received an M.B.A. from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. He has served as Hudsonvilles mayor since 2015. 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. RELATED: Michigan voter guide now live for August primary All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters or MLive, 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. Heres how the two Republican candidates responded to the Vote411 questions: Please indicate what, if any, affiliations and organizations assist you in decision-making. Joe Moss: I appreciate input from organizations that promote the Constitution, freedom, truth, and faith in the public square: The Heritage Foundation, Christopher Rufo, Charlie Kirk at Turning Point. I listen to parents and families involved with Ottawa Impact and speakers like Tucker Carlson. I find it very helpful to listen to my fellow Conservative board members. I value the teaching and input from my pastors at Wellspring and people who have taught me Gods Word. Also: Right to Life, Ottawa County Farm Bureau, Michigan State University, Michigan Association of Counties, GRAR, and more. Mark Northrup: Ive been a lifelong Republican and county delegate. I AM NOT OTTAWA IMPACT. Im my own person that has taken an oath to the US Constitution. Open minded but value driven. Please share your thoughts on how to work with the public and the media to communicate how the Board of Commissioners is meeting the needs of the county. Are there unmet needs at election time? Joe Moss: The county delivers core government services, especially in areas like law enforcement and community mental health. Board members work collaboratively with county administration, departments, local units of government, and community members to meet needs. By listening and working together, we all do our best to deliver services and Constitutional policies. Unfortunately, I have discovered reporters often write biased articles. I appreciate truthful citizen journalism by SimplyAmerican.com. Mark Northrup: Listen. Trust. Respect. Honesty. Empathy. Work the details, serve all, accomplish tasks. Avoid polarization politics. Dont preach. We have lost last two years of economic development opportunities due to petty vengeful politics. What is your view of good county governance (considering fiscal policies, hiring and firing practices, disciplinary processes and serving the needs of your constituents)? Joe Moss: The Board must protect the individual rights of the people living in Ottawa County. The best county governance prioritizes the Constitution, upholds the faith and values of the people, and treats everyone equally. Employees who ignore the Constitution and fail to protect individual rights should be replaced immediately. The current Board of Commissioners passed the Constitutional County Resolution and increased funding for the Veterans Department, prioritized law enforcement and body cameras, and passed the second largest health department budget. All of this was accomplished by passing a budget with the smallest increase in five years! As elected officials, good county governance also requires us to fulfill our campaign promises. Mark Northrup: Drive through my city or ask my city staff. I walk the walk, not talk. Disciplined, organized, cordial, professional. Live my faith by treating all with respect and by serving ALL the community, irrespective of race, gender, religion, party. What do you see as the function of public comments during County Commission meetings? Joe Moss: I love hearing from the public during County Commission meetings! As Chair of the Board, I have made it a top priority to allow people to speak for 3 minutes at the beginning AND the end of meetings about ANY topic. The former Board of Commissioners made it difficult to give public comments. They reduced speaking time from 3 minutes to 1 minute. The county vision statement is Where Freedom Rings. The current Board is prioritizing freedom for everyone! Ottawa County is filled with wonderful people who simply want to work hard, raise their families, and live their lives in peace. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve the people and promote faith, family, and freedom. Ottawa is truly one of the best places to live in Michigan! Mark Northrup: Listen politely. Take notes. Do not debate. Request those that comment to respect time. Follow up after the fact. MLive, separate from the League of Women Voters, sought to offer voters further insight into the candidates and asked additional questions. Those can be found here: Do you plan to sign the Ottawa Impact Contract with Ottawa? Why or why not? Joe Moss: The Contract is a promise to The People of Ottawa County, like the one Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich created in 1994. I promise to protect kids, defend parental rights, and uphold the Constitution. The Contract is not a contract with a group or person. As a co-author of the Contract, I am happy to sign it publicly, so everyone knows where I stand. I will always put The People of Ottawa County first and protect our God-given liberties. One important part of the Contract is integrity. Right now, people are lying and saying the new Board of Commissioners adopted $42 million in new spending since 2022. That is a lie. The prior board, led by Chairman Matt Fenske, adopted 78% of that increase. The new board adopted the SMALLEST budget increase in the past five years of only 3.59%. Honesty and integrity are an important part of the promise we make when signing the Contract with Ottawa. Mark Northrup: No. Only one oath elected officials take: we swear to uphold the US Constitution. Any other oath is divisive and not necessary. What are the most important issues facing Ottawa County? Joe Moss: Ottawa County must protect the kids, prioritize freedom, and use conservative fiscal policy. Our culture has lost the beauty of co-existing with others who have diverse beliefs and opinions. There is a growing demand for adherence to progressive DEI beliefs, requiring compelled thoughts and speech. When conservatives dont agree, we are publicly intimidated, maligned, and shamed. People should be free to live their lives without government overreach or the sexualization of kids. We need Christians and parents to engage in the public square to promote what is good, beautiful, and excellent. We need conservative local news so people can hear two perspectives. Liberal media calls the Christian parents who got involved in their communities disparaging pejoratives like extreme and far-right. These are false. Not only are soft Republicans running against the new Board of Commissioners in the Republican primary, but Democrats, who are literally running as Republicans, are running as well. Democrat voters are publicly being encouraged to cross over and vote in the Republican primary in an effort to manipulate the Republican primary outcome. Mark Northrup: Retaining and delivering world class services to the community as required by law, Health Services, Law Enforcement, Water Resource Management, Clerk. The County Commission needs to focus on economic development of the county and work to overcome workforce barriers: lack of affordable housing, poor transportation systems (need better roads and mass transit) Improve available day care for families to encourage raising children and discourage leaving the workforce. What do you view as the role of county government? Joe Moss: County government should preserve and protect the individual rights of The People. Please read the Contract with Ottawa to understand the Pro America, Pro Constitution principles I align with. County government should focus on core government services like law enforcement, infrastructure and water, serving our veterans, and community mental health. The county board should minimize taxes and regulations to promote business flourishing. The Ottawa County Board of Commissioners does not manage roads or schools, those are handled by separate government entities. County government should not be responsible for daycare, DEI, or corporate welfare. Leaders in Ottawa County should amplify the principles of American exceptionalism: limited government, individual responsibility, freedom of speech, freedom of association, religious liberty, and so on. Mark Northrup: Serve all citizens, protect resources, courts and law enforcement, economic development. Should faith play a role in county government? Joe Moss: Yes. All people have faith in something, so faith always plays a role in county government. Some people have faith in God, others have faith in themselves, or faith in government. County commissioners make decisions based on their own faith and worldview. I believe in God and use my Christian faith to inform my decisions. I will continue to use my faith in the public square and encourage other people to do the same. We live in a beautiful country that upholds religious freedom for all people and has a rich heritage of people using their faith in government, especially our Founding Fathers. Mark Northrup: No. Live faith by action, respect all. No more biblical teaching or scripture reading at county meetings. My God may not be your God. County meetings are not a church service. Stick to the business at hand -- no more proclamations or resolutions, just words without meaning or results. How do you plan on communicating and be transparent with your constituents? Joe Moss: When I ran for office in 2022, I made public promises to The People of Ottawa County before I was elected. After being elected, I did my best to fulfill my promises on Day 1, and throughout my term of office these past two years. We made firm decisions based on the knowledge we had at the time, and since then, I have learned even more how to best serve the people. I will continue to talk with constituents, Republican Party delegates, elected officials, business owners and others from Ottawa County and across Michigan. Mark Northrup: Do not cower from any press or media. Give honest answers. Be available at township and city meetings. Answer phone calls and emails. Why are you running for county commissioner? Joe Moss: I am running to protect the kids and continue the work we started in 2022. My mission is to keep Ottawa County a place Where Freedom Rings and families thrive! I ran in 2022 because Ottawa County (not the State of Michigan) threatened to put the parents of our local Christian school in jail for not following their unconstitutional Covid mandates. Then they closed our school by force. The county attorney said we had an ignorant conservative political agenda for making our own decisions to care for and educate our children during the pandemic. Another reason I got involved was to close the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department that was spreading divisive progressive ideology aligned with the Whitmer and Biden administrations. On Day 1, the Board voted to fire the county attorney. We also voted to close the DEI Department, which saves taxpayers $286,000 per year. I will continue to read grants and budgets carefully and use taxpayer dollars wisely. I will continue to vote against harmful grants with strings attached, like selling constituent data. I promise to promote Pro America, Pro Constitution policies to cultivate the beautiful county entrusted to us! Mark Northrup: Who else is there with a lifelong history of service to his country and being a good person with accomplishments who can stand up to the bully Joe Moss and his cult of tyranny? We deserve better than what Ottawa Impact has given us. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. GRAND RAPIDS, MI Incumbent U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids, is being challenged by a fellow Democrat in the Aug. 6 primary. Scholten faces real estate agent Salim Al-Shatel in her bid for a second term representing the 3rd Congressional District. That district encompasses portions of Kent, Muskegon and Ottawa counties, including the cities of Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Kentwood, Grand Haven and Muskegon. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will go on to the November general election, where they face the winner of the Republican primary. East Grand Rapids attorney Paul Hudson and Grand Haven financial advisor Michael Markey Jr. are competing in the Republican primary. Scholten won the seat in 2022 by 13 points over Republican John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official. She is the first Democrat to represent Grand Rapids in Congress since 1977. Related: Big-name donors rally around GOP attorney seeking to flip Grand Rapids U.S. House seat On Thursday, July 11, Scholten became the first member of Michigans congressional delegation to publicly call for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race this fall. Scholten is an immigration attorney who worked in the U.S. Department of Justice during President Barack Obamas administration. She earned her juris doctorate from the University of Maryland. Al-Shatel is a real estate agency who previously co-owned a wedding business and operated a nonprofit aimed at protecting the states natural resources. He previously ran an unsuccessful bid for the state Houses 82nd District in 2022, losing in the Democratic primary. Al-Shatel holds a bachelors degree in applied engineering sciences from Michigan State University. Related: Heres where you can vote early ahead of crowded August primary in Grand Rapids MLive has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund this year to provide voters with a Vote411 election guide that provides information about candidates running in local primary races across the state. Candidates were asked to fill out general information about their campaigns and answer a list of questions compiled by 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. Heres how the candidates in this race responded to the Vote411 candidate questionnaire. Why are you running for U.S. Congress? Al-Shatel: I am running for U. S. Congress because I lacked confidence in the other candidates and wanted to provide voters with a better option. In my race, there are two candidates backed by super PACs and the other was kicked off the ballot in 2022 for submitting fraudulent signatures. I want to serve my district and its needs rather than corporate interests. Scholten: As your Congresswoman, but more importantly, a fifth-generation West Michigander, a mom, a Christian, and a former attorney, I fight every day to lower healthcare costs, fix the broken immigration system, and work with both parties to pass commonsense solutions to the pressing issues facing our community. From rising costs to an assault on reproductive rights, we need a proven leader who will roll up her sleeves to help working families, and will do whats right, not whats easy. I am so proud of all we have accomplished during my first term, and I am running for re-election because were just getting started on the good work we have to do! How, and to what extent, would you negotiate and compromise with your colleagues to pass critical legislation? Scholten: Compromise isnt a bad word, its a bedrock principle of our democracy. In my first term, I have worked hard to ensure that every bill I introduce has a Republican cosponsor. I was recently named one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, and the second-most bipartisan member in the Michigan House delegation. I may not agree with my Republican counterparts on everything, but there is consensus that can be reached with thoughtful consideration and values-oriented communication. My constituents sent me to Washington to fight for them, and I am proud of the work my team and I have done. Al-Shatel: My district leans Democratic slightly, so I believe if I truly want to represent my district well I should be one of the most bipartisan politicians. I also consider myself more of a moderate and would be willing to seek common ground to make progress. What recommendations, if any, would you propose to change U.S. immigration policy? Al-Shatel: I would improve our H-2A temporary visa program to help farmers and set up a Working Holiday Visa (WHV) program similar to the one I worked in Australia and other commonwealth countries. Our seasonal small businesses need staffing support and the current H-2A program is too challenging for these businesses. With that said, we also need to ensure our borders are secure to prevent human trafficking. I would have voted yes on the End the Border Catastrophe Act something that my opponent voted against. Scholten: As a former immigration attorney, I dont just bring ideas on how to fix the system, I bring much needed experience and practicality to this issue. Politicians have passed the buck for too long, and as a member of Congress, one of my first actions was cosponsoring the Dignity Act a bipartisan immigration bill that addresses both our security and humanitarian needs at the border. Our broken system presents a national security, economic, and humanitarian crisis. There are three priorities: fix our borders, create pathways for individuals who want to come here legally and help grow our economy, and address the root causes of mass migration. What policies, if any, will you advance regarding reproductive health? Scholten: Despite Michiganders voting to safeguard reproductive health in 2022, our rights are still at risk with the prospect of a federal abortion ban. Im committed to fighting every single day for womens reproductive health and will continue to put action behind my words, so politicians and courts cannot interfere with a decision that should be between a woman and her doctor. As your Congresswoman, Ive cosponsored numerous bills on this issue, including the Womens Health Protection Act which would codify Roe v. Wade, the Right to Contraception Act which would protect birth control, and the Access to Family Building Act which would protect IVF. Al-Shatel: Generally speaking, I believe healthcare is a right and not a privilege. Therefore, I support increasing peoples access to healthcare. I support a womans right to bodily autonomy and the right to make decisions on her body. I do not celebrate abortion, and understand it is an incredibly difficult decision to make for all those impacted. With that said, my state resoundingly voted in 2022 that they support reproductive freedom; therefore, I believe our politicians should reflect our states vote. BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- On December 18, 2018, attendees at a grand gathering commemorating the 40th anniversary of the launch of China's reform and opening up were all moved by a simple, heartfelt gesture by President Xi Jinping. Xi, sitting in the first row on the rostrum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, stood up, turned around and clapped his hands, congratulating the representatives in the back rows who were awarded for their outstanding contributions to the reform and opening up, as they were presented with flowers. Inspired by Xi, the rest of the attendees at the ceremony gave the awardees a standing ovation. Among the awardees was Yan Junchang, then a 77-year-old farmer from Xiaogang Village of Anhui Province, dubbed the cradle of China's rural reform. In 1978, Yan and his fellow villagers took risks in secretly signing an agreement to contract collective land to individual households. The household contract responsibility system that was derived from Xiaogang's pioneering initiative was spread across the country in a few years and fueled farmers' enthusiasm for agricultural production. Presenting an award to Yan at the ceremony, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, held Yan's hand and said cordially: "Take care." The 2018 event was the first of its kind since China established Party and state systems of awards and honors. Unlike previous awarding ceremonies, representatives of the awardees were seated on the rostrum, instead of under it. Yan was deeply impressed by the event's unusual arrangements. "We had the household contract just to make a living, but years later we are inspired by the value the country places on us," he said. A reformer himself, Xi is no stranger to Anhui and rural reform. In 1978, when he was studying at the prestigious Tsinghua University, Xi conducted on-site research into the province's household contract responsibility system. He filled an entire notebook with notes, and kept that notebook for many years. In April 2016, during an inspection trip in Anhui, Xi paid a visit to Xiaogang and dropped by the former site where the villagers had signed the land-contracting agreement with their fingerprints. He said that what they did in 1978 put their lives and possessions at risk, but today it is cherished as a hallmark of China's reform. On the same day, Xi chaired a symposium in the village, where he discussed rural reform with local officials and villagers of Xiaogang. He stressed dividing farmers' contracted land-use right into contract right and management right, a measure deemed as another major institutional innovation in rural reform. "The remarks made by General Secretary Xi resonate with us," recalled villager Yan Jinchang, another initiator of the household contracts who participated in that symposium. Over the years, Xi has made an array of remarks emphasizing the importance of reform and opening up. "Socialism cannot make progress without reform and opening up," Xi said at a meeting in 1987, when serving as vice mayor of Xiamen, a special economic zone in east China's Fujian Province. After assuming the Party's top post in 2012, Xi conducted his first domestic inspection in Guangdong, a province at the forefront of the country's reform and opening up. He laid a flower basket beneath the bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening-up, in a park in Shenzhen, declaring a firm commitment to reform: "Reform will not stop, and opening-up will not cease!" At the 2018 gathering in Beijing, Xi said that reform and opening up is "a path that must be taken to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics." He has matched his words with actions, placing great weight on reform throughout his political career. Among his numerous reform initiatives is the one concerning collective forest tenure. He led this reform after he became the governor of Fujian. This initiative was later expanded nationwide and is known as another revolutionary step for China's rural areas after the household contract responsibility system. The third plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee, convened in 2013 under Xi's leadership, ushered in an era of comprehensively deepening reform. Over the past decade, more than 2,000 reform measures have been implemented, enabling the country to eliminate extreme poverty, promote integrated urban-rural development, fight corruption, support businesses, boost innovation, and push forward a "green revolution." Under the leadership of Xi, China has also become increasingly integrated with the rest of the world by making tenacious efforts to push for high-level institutional opening up, including the launch of negative lists for foreign investment and the promulgation of the Foreign Investment Law. Thanks to these measures, tremendous changes have taken place across the country. Take Xiaogang for instance. In 2023, the village's collective economic income reached 14.2 million yuan (about 2 million U.S. dollars). Villagers' per capita disposable income rose from 10,200 yuan in 2012 to 34,900 yuan in 2023. In retrospect, Yan Junchang said that for him, the life he is living today is beyond his wildest dreams. "This fully proves that the reform and opening up policy is the right way forward." On July 11, commencing at 10:40 a.m. local time (July 11, 11:40 p.m. JST) for approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio, during his visit to Washington D.C., USA, attended the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Heads of State and Government, Indo-Pacific Partners and the European Union (the Partners Session) of the NATO Summit. The overview of the meeting is as follows. Follow us on: BTS' Jimin and Jungkook's new travel variety show Are You Sure?! drops first trailer You are already a Moneycontrol Pro user. OK Rachita Prasad heads Moneycontrols coverage of conventional and new energy, and infrastructure sectors. Rachita is passionate about energy transition and the global efforts against climate change, with special focus on India. Before joining Moneycontrol, she was an Assistant Editor at The Economic Times, where she wrote for the paper for over a decade and was a host on their podcast. Contact: rachita.prasad@nw18.com Follow us on: Carmakers will take corrective action to cut inventory levels at their dealers: SIAM Jinit Parmar is a correspondent based out of Mumbai covering the banking sector, fintechs, NBFCs, insurance and more, tweets @jinitparmar10 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: MCA panel suggests raising to Rs 75 crore the threshold for businesses to maintain, audit cost accounts Danish Khan is the editor of Technology and Telecom. He was previously with the Economic Times and has tracked the sector for 13 years. OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All IPOs of Aelea Commodities, Sati Poly Plast, Prizor Viztech, Three M Paper Boards fully subscribed on Day 1 Follow us on: MFs bought HDFC Bank shares worth Rs 42,000 crore in the first half of 2024 OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All 43,409 'backdated' degrees issued by this private Rajasthan university under lens Follow us on: Anant Ambani wedding: Traffic curbs in Mumbai today; check out the roads to avoid Twelve visitors from Australia, the Netherlands, Argentina and Russia have become the first group of foreign tourists to take advantage of China's 144-hour visa-free transit policy to enjoy a complimentary one-day city tour of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Thursday. They started from Terminal 2 of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on 8:30 am and returned to the airport at about 2:30 pm to continue their trips. According to information released by the Guangzhou Bureau of Culture, Broadcast, Television and Tourism, the foreign guests visited Huacheng Square, Canton Tower, Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou Opera House and Guangzhou Library to appreciate the modern urban architecture style of Guangzhou and the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, Yuexiu Park home to the iconic five-ram statue, to sense the essence of Lingnan (South China) traditional culture during their six-hour city tour. The city tour, which is organized by Guangzhou-based GZL International Travel Service, also includes a free Cantonese-style dim sum lunch and English-speaking tourist guide, it said. Meanwhile the first group foreign guests to tour the city were also given a piece of Yue embroidery, also known as Guang embroidery, as a gift. Yue embroidery is a general name for embroidery products of the regions of Guangzhou, Shantou, Zhongshan, Panyu and Shunde in Guangdong province. And starting Thursday, the special transfer counter at the International Arrival Hall of T2 in Guangzhou Baiyun Airport has officially begun its services, said the news release. Passengers who hold foreign passports and make international transfers at Guangzhou can register for free city tour upon their arrival to enjoy the beautiful natural scenery and local customs of Guangzhou, known as a millennium commercial capital and the southern gateway of China, it said. As an important international aviation hub, Guangzhou, with a history of more than 2,200 years, has continuously enhanced the entry experience of foreign tourists by providing free one-day tours for international transit tourists and utilizes the firsthand experience of foreign tourists to promote "China Travel", enhancing Guangzhou's international communication influence and helping it build a world-class tourist destination. Guangdong province has offered travelers from more than 50 nations and regions to enjoy the 144-hour visa-free visit from May 2019, with an aim to further promote the province's tourism industry. And the provincial capital city Guangzhou, as one of the gateway cities implementing the visa-free transit policy, in the mainland, has now become a popular city for foreign tourist to enjoy the visa-free entry services in recent years thanks to the hub advantage of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport that has opened many international routes to link the city to the rest of the world, it added. If you have any problems with this article, please contact us at app@chinadaily.com.cn and we'll immediately get back to you. Follow us on: HAL may deliver first batch of new Tejas LCA by August amid IAF's concerns OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All India abstains on UNGA resolution demanding Russia immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Indian techie drowns in Glacier National Park in US Follow us on: India's rise in next 5 years will be like a gravitational force defying rocket, says VP Dhankhar OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Maharashtra govt to issue order banning sale of high caffeine energy drinks near schools: Minister Follow us on: Nutraceuticals may get cheaper, government looks to regulate prices: Report OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All PM Modi stresses on BIMSTEC's role as engine for economic, social growth Follow us on: PM Modi to launch multiple infra projects in Mumbai worth over Rs 29,400 cr on July 13 There was no need for ED probe into Valmiki Corporation irregularities, says Karnataka Deputy CM Shivakumar Bhartendu Kumar Singh is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service. 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Follow us on: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi 'privately' discuss Joe Biden's campaign amid calls for him to withdraw OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Jane street knocks out some millennium defenses in trade-secrets fight Follow us on: Oli stakes claim to become Nepal PM after Prachanda loses trust vote in Parliament OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Pakistan govt's decision gives ISI sweeping powers to snoop on citizens Follow us on: Seven Indians among 60 people believed to be missing after landslide in Nepal: Media reports OTHERS OTHERS Follow us on: My Account or or Hello, Login All Xi faces calls for relief from property slump at upcoming Communist Party conclave 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 At $12.7 billion, Swiggys valuation will be closer to the valuation it is eyeing during its public market in the months to come. US-based investor Invesco has marginally reduced the fair value IPO-bound food delivery platform Swiggy, according to its periodic update filed with the American regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As of April 30, Invescos stake in Swiggy was worth $219 million, down from $220 million in the previous quarter, filings showed. It translates to a valuation of $12.3 billion for Swiggy, down from Invescos previous assessment of $12.7 billion. Despite the markdown, for Invesco, Swiggy was worth more than One 25-year-old Kiwi is proving you're never too old to live your childhood dreams after becoming Lego NZ's newest ambassador. Jacob Hawkins shares his passion for all things Lego on his 'Kiwi Modulars' YouTube Channel, Instagram and TikTok accounts. While anyone can apply to be a Lego ambassador, Jacob explained that being Kiwi made him stand out. Jacob told us it all started with getting his first Lego set as a two-year-old saying "I got Lego sets for my birthday and Christmas up until I was 11." Although Jacob's passion for Lego dwindled throughout High School, a visit to the Auckland Lego store reignited his love for the popular toy and its more intricate 'modular sets' aimed at those of us who describe ourselves as big kids. "I just saw so many sets that were targeted to Adults, that I just fell in love with it again and the rest is history," he said. Explaining the appeal to adults, Jacob added: "They're very detailed interior and exterior buildings that look really nice on display." "Once you buy one, you realise there is another you need to collect," Jacob said. Jacob uploaded his first YouTube video back in May 2023 and has since gained a community of over 80,000 Lego lovers. Jacob recently took things to another level by creating as many Lego sets as he could in this year's World Vision 40-Hour Challenge. He built 18 sets in total and streamed the entire event on YouTube. We can't wait to see what the Kiwi Lego star builds next! 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 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. The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for the central Sierra Nevada, effective until 9 PM Sunday. There is a 20 to 30% chance of thunderstorms, including dry lightning, each afternoon from today through Sunday. There is less than a 10% chance of wetting rain with these storms. Thunderstorm potential is the greatest in the afternoon and evening on Saturday and Sunday. Terrain-driven winds will range from 6 to 12 mph. Stronger, erratic wind gusts are possible in thunderstorm outflow. The minimum daytime humidity levels will range from 15 to 25%. Any fires that develop will likely spread rapidly due to dry fuels. Outdoor burning is not recommended. A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly. A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity, and warm temperatures can contribute to extreme fire behavior. The Heat Advisory that is currently in effect for the western slope of the northern Sierra Nevada and the Excessive Heat Warnings for the Mother Lode and the northern San Joaquin Valley, have all been extended until 9 PM Saturday. The Heat Advisory for Yosemite National Park (outside of the Valley floor) and the Excessive Heat Warnings issued for the Yosemite National Park Valley floor, all of Mariposa County and the central San Joaquin Valley, have been extended until 10 AM Sunday. Dangerously hot conditions continue with high temperatures that will range from 90 to 115 degrees, depending on your exact location. Widespread areas of Major to Extreme HeatRisk continue to exist. Such well-above-normal temperatures continues to have a significant impact and is making outdoor activities more likely to cause heat-related illnesses than what most folks are used to, even in the upper Sierra Nevada. This level of rare, long-duration extreme heat with little to no overnight relief affects everyone, especially those without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration. Heat related illnesses increase significantly during extreme heat events, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities. Take extra precautions when outside. Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing. Try to limit strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Take action when you see symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 9 1 1. There will be impacts likely in most health systems, heat-sensitive industries and infrastructure. Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Do not leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles. Car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes. There is limited overnight relief with low temperatures ranging from the upper 60s to the lower 80s. Area waterways continue to run cold and fast, creating dangerous conditions for those seeking relief in rivers and lakes. Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay informed. Tuolumne County Health Fair celebrates 40 years wraps up Oct. 17 2018 View Photo Sonora, CA It was a popular event, attracting many in the Mother Lode, and now it is back. We are thrilled to announce the return of the Tuolumne County Health Fair this October at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds, stated county health department officials. The event brings the return of various free health screenings, low-cost lab draws, and interactive exhibits. COVID caused the cancellation of the event for the last four years. County health officials say that the event is all aimed at connecting Tuolumne County residents with resources to support their health and well-being all year long. County health officials provided these exhibits, which will include: Increasing Access to Care Caring for Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges Preventing and Managing Health Conditions Improving Social Well-Being Eating Well, with live cooking demonstrations The fair will run on Friday, October 25, with lab draws done only between 6:30 a.m. until noon. Then on Saturday, October 26, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., there will be exhibits, health screenings, a vaccine clinic, and lab draws. Questions can be directed to the county health department by calling 209-533-7428. Within a month, health care leaders in two other major U.S. cities would confront similar tests. On the West Coast, historic rainfall cut power to a hospital in Los Angeles, while in New York, torrential downpours caused a power outage and electrical damage at a hospital in Brooklyn both incidents prompting emergency evacuations. The recent hospital closures in the United States illustrate a larger trend thats already in motion. Human-driven climate change has increased the risk of damage to hospitals by 41% between 1990 and 2020, according to a December 2023 report published by XDI, or Cross Dependency Initiative, an Australian climate risk data company. Thousands of health care facilities around the world are buckling under the effects of climate change, a trend experts predict will worsen in the coming decades as extreme weather increases pressure on hospital infrastructure and simultaneously creates more demand for care. Expert Warnings In a May 2024 report, the United Nations Population Fund estimated that nearly 1,500 hospitals are located in low-lying coastal areas of Latin America and the Caribbean that already endure life-threatening storms and flooding. More than 80% of hospitals in Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Guyana, and Suriname are in these danger zones. Hundreds of hospitals in the U.S. are at risk from flooding, according to a 2022 study by Harvard researchers. Along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, hospitals in Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were most at risk of flooding caused by a Category 2 hurricane. On the other side of the globe, surging floods and landslides shuttered 12 health care facilities in five provinces in southern Thailand in 2023. The year before that, Pakistans devastating floods limited the function of at least 1,460 health care facilities, about 10% of the countrys total. Looking at the climate risk to roughly 200,000 hospitals from flooding, fires, and cyclones, the XDI researchers estimated that by the end of this century, one in 12 hospitals worldwide could be at risk of total or partial shutdown due to extreme weather. Some regions are more vulnerable than others. The report estimated more than 5,800 hospitals in South Asia alone an area that includes India, the worlds most populous country would be at high risk of shutting down under a 4.3 degrees Celsius global warming scenario. Other regions are not immune, however. Over half of hospitals in the Central African Republic and more than one-quarter of hospitals in the Philippines and Nepal would face the same fate. Compounding the Pressure with Extreme Heat Summer 2023 was the hottest on record. Scorching temperatures brought deadly heat waves and wildfires that tore through forests and surrounding towns and cities all potentially impacting human health as well as the hospitals and clinics where people seek care. The northern hemisphere just had a summer of extremes with repeated heat waves fueling devastating wildfires, harming health, disrupting daily lives, and wreaking a lasting toll on the environment, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. That summer, in Arizona, for example, extreme heat put pressure on power grids and spurred an influx of people in need of medical care for heat stress. A 2021 study found that heat-related emergency room visits in Taiwan rose by 50% on days that reached a wet-bulb temperature which accounts for both heat and humidity of at least 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At that level, its more difficult for sweat to evaporate and therefore harder for people to cool themselves. Looking Ahead to Future Risk In the coming decades, health care infrastructure will face increasing strain from the impacts of extreme weather and temperature rise power outages, hospital closures, and damage to buildings. At the same time, demand for care could grow. Climate change is expected to worsen more than half of known human pathogenic diseases over the next 25 years, expanding the range of fungal infections and increasing the risk of virusesand mosquito-borne diseases. Meanwhile, extreme heat will likely increasingly send people to the hospital. Making significant changes to the way hospitals operate may seem daunting, but facilities can start small in their adaptations and create solutions unique to their needs. An example of this approach can be found in Vietnam. About half of all hospitals in that country do not have a reliable source of water, whether thats due to droughts, floods, or creeping saltwater intrusion. A result: patients often have to bring their own. Faced with this major obstacle to care, three rural hospitals in Vietnam embarked on projects to get more climate resilient by addressing water availability. The institutions each found innovative ways to obtain more water using solutions like rainwater catchment and storage systems, saline filtration, and better infrastructure to capture nearby streamflows. Unfortunately, we can expect climate change to increasingly threaten water supplies at health care facilities throughout Vietnam, so it is critical to act quickly with adaptation measures, Angela Pratt, a WHO Representative in Vietnam, said in a news release. As climate change impacts push health care systems into higher levels of risk, its vital that hospital leadership teams globally begin shaping plans for climate resiliency related to infrastructure and personnel to safeguard health care on a changing planet. Countries right across the world are scrambling over how best to manage soaring levels of international tourism. This European hotspot may have just the answer. As travel hotspots around the world scramble over how to best manage soaring levels of international tourism, one European city has implemented a new scheme set to entice visitors into behaving by offering "rewards" for "doing the right thing". Europe is one of the most if not the most sought-after travel region across the globe. Particularly in the wake of the pandemic, people have been flocking to the continent by the tens of millions every year, and while for some countries that's been good for the local economy, in others, it's created deep-rooted and "complex" issues for residents. In Venice in Italy, day visitors have been subject to a trial where they pay an $8 entry fee during peak hours in a bid to preserve the city from overcrowding. In Bali in Indonesia, travellers are required to pay a similar tax on arrival. In Barcelona this week, thousands took to the streets in protest of mass tourism, that they said had worsened their quality of life. Under the CopenPay scheme people who prove they've undertaken an environmentally-friendly act will earn rewards. Source: Getty Copenhagen's bold new strategy to get tourists to 'behave' But in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, authorities are taking a very different approach. They're now offering incentives to travellers that help sustain the city and its environment through a bold new rewards program. Tourists and locals will be treated to a selection of "gifts" after performing "green deeds", which can range from arriving at a tourist attraction on a bike or picking up litter. Rewards for these climate-conscious visitors include free museum entry, complimentary glasses of wine, free meals, free kayaking tours and other local attractions. Climate-friendly acts that'll attract a reward include showing up with a piece of plastic waste at the National Gallery of Denmark (with people then able to see it turned into a piece of art), arriving at tourist attractions by train instead of driving and tidying up public spaces. The city tourism board said that while proof of completion of these green deeds is preferable, the CopenPay scheme will operate mainly on trust. A report from the Pew Research Center revealed Denmark has the highest level of personal trust in the world. Trial to run for one month Kristijan Svajnzger, Regional General Manager for Northern Eastern Europe at Intrepid Travel, said the scheme aims to educate rather than penalise. "I think travellers will be keen to try out this initiative," he said. "This is a great way to educate and reward people who are doing the right thing rather than penalise people who are doing the wrong thing when it comes to sustainability." According to Statista, revenue from tourism in 2021 was around 118.2 billion Danish kroner or about $25 billion AUD. Official statistics from the Danish government show the country welcomed an estimated 15 million tourists in 2023. Travel authorities in the country believe this new incentive which will run initially as a one-month trial will reduce tourism's environmental burden rather than attract more tourists to the region. The CopenPay scheme will begin on a trial basis on July 15 and run for one month. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Early voting begins Friday in Davidson County and will include the county general election as well as the state and federal primaries, which are to be held on Aug. 1. Polling locations are open at 8 a.m. Monday through Saturday until July 27. (See a complete list of polling locations at the bottom of this post.) In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Marsha Blackburn faces Tres Wittum as a challenger in the Republican primary. In the Democratic primary for Blackburn's seat, four candidates appear on the ballot: Marquita Bradshaw, Lola Denise Brown, Civil Miller-Watkins and state Rep. Gloria Johnson from Knoxville. Maryam Abolfazli Is Running for Congress Local activist will run against Republican Andy Ogles in District 5 U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles is running for reelection in the 5th Congressional District, with a Republican primary challenge coming from Metro Councilmember Courtney Johnston. Activist and founder of the nonprofit Rise and Shine Tennessee Maryam Abolfazli is the only Democrat running in the primary. U.S. Reps. John Rose and Mark Green are running in their districts with no Republican challengers. Rose's 6th District seat has three candidates on the Democratic primary ballot: Lore Bergman, Clay Faircloth and Cyril Focht. Green is likely to face former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry in the general election, as she is the only candidate for the District 7 seat in the Democratic primary. Megan Barry Announces Run for Congress Nashvilles former mayor faces an uphill campaign against incumbent Mark Green in Tennessee's 7th Tennessee's District 20 Senate seat is up for election. It is currently held by Sen. Heidi Campbell, who is unopposed as a Democrat. One candidate, Wyatt Rampy, is vying for the Republican nomination. Tennessee House of Representative districts up for election that include parts of Davidson County are 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59 and 60. District 60 is the contest to watch. With former Rep. Darren Jernigan moving to a job in Mayor Freddie O'Connell's administration, the field is wide open in both the Republican and Democratic primaries. Tyler Brasher, Shaundelle Brooks and John Parrish are competing for the seat. Republicans Chad Bobo and Christopher Huff are aiming for the Republican nomination and an attempt to turn the district red. +2 Primary Splits Democrats Near the Davidson County Line Shaundelle Brooks and Tyler Brasher face off in proxy party battle In another contest of note, Metro Councilmember Jennifer Frensley Webb is running in the Republican primary for District 50. The seat is currently held by Bo Mitchell, a Democrat who is running in that primary unopposed. District 51 is Democrat Aftyn Behn's seat she is running fully unopposed with no competition in either primary. Also unopposed in either primary in this election are District 54 Rep. Vincent Dixie, District 55 Rep. John Ray Clemmons, District 58 Rep. Harold Love Jr. and District 59 Rep. Caleb Hemmer. Rep. Justin Jones is running for reelection to his seat in District 52 with no Democrat opposing him in the primary. Laura Nelson is running for the Republican nomination. In District 53, Rep. Jason Powell is running for the Democratic nomination again and in the general race will presumably face Yog Nepal, a challenger who is the sole contestant for the Republican nomination. In the Democratic primary, Rep. Bob Freeman faces Nick Forster-Benson in the District 56 election. There is no Republican running so the primary will ultimately decide the seat's representative. After the Davidson County election primary in March, much of the county's general election is all but decided since many candidates are unopposed. Stephanie Williams is the Democratic nominee to fill the 20th Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Division IV seat with no Republican challenger on the ballot. Current assessor of property Vivian Wilhoite is the unopposed Democratic nominee for the position. Metro Nashville Public Schools board seats in Districts 3, 5, 7 and 9 are all single-candidate races. In District 1, Demytris Savage-Short is the Republican nominee running against Democratic nominee Robert Taylor. Oak Hill is also holding its municipal election to vote for two city commissioners. Only two people are running: David DeMarco and Winston Evans. This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post. Panicked Biden donors are asking for their money back after disastrous debate and cognitive catastrophe As liberals continue to lose faith in President Bidens ability to lead our country, numerous major Democrat donors have been asking for the donations theyve made to his campaign to be refunded. Although many in his party have been privately expressing reservations about his cognitive decline, it has now entered the public discourse in a big way following his embarrassing display of confusion during the presidential debate last week. Many donors are now seeking the return of their donations to what increasingly appears to be a sinking ship so they can be given to down-ballot races where they may have a bigger impact. In response to the influx of panicked donors asking for their money back, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a private call over the weekend with dozens of big donors in which she tried to reassure them, claiming that the campaign raised more than $33 million since the disastrous debate. However, one person who took part in the call told the media that many others who attended were frustrated and concerned, with some asking about the possibility of getting a refund. They told the media that while some in the call still stood behind their candidate, a lot of the participants are frightened. There were some tough comments from those on the call. Some were upset that they are just hearing campaign talking points, one source reported. Although she emphasized that Biden is unlikely to step down, she explained what would happen to the campaign's infrastructure if that does happen. She announced that the only person who would be able to access the funds would be Vice President Kamala Harris, which could create a complicated situation, while just a smaller pool of funds would remain with the Democratic National Committee. The campaign is said to have around $91 million in the bank at the moment. 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. One of the donors in the call said: "Some of us on that call have privately discussed if we should put our money somewhere else. The past few days have been very disappointing." The call was just one of many tense conversations that campaign leaders and advisers to the president have been having with Democratic donors and other officials about the president's questionable state of mind and who might be able to lead the ticket should he step aside. In another call held on Monday with a larger group of donors, Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks insisted that early polls indicate the debates were not overly damaging and outlined a plan to make Biden more visible in the coming days to reassure the public he can handle the job. Biden's public cognitive struggles are widening Trump's lead During the debate, Biden struggled to answer questions from the moderator coherently and could not hold his own against Trump. He lost his train of thought multiple times and at times made contradictory statements, leading to panic not only among those in his own party but among world leaders. Even the New York Times editorial board, which is generally very pro-Biden, has said he should step aside as the Democratic party's candidate. The situation is so bad that Trump is now leading Biden in New Hampshire, a state that has not seen a Republican win since 2000. Election polls taken after the debate also show Trump with a nationwide lead, with a poll conducted for CNN giving Trump a six percentage point lead over Biden and a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll showing Trump beating Biden by three percent on a ballot with six candidates in a marked shift from a month earlier, when they were tied. Sources for this article include: TheNationalPulse.com NBCNews.com Reuters.com UK MEDIA: Biden presidency a conspiracy against the world A leading British newspaper is describing the Joe Biden presidency as a conspiracy against the world. Timothy Stanley, a columnist and leader writer for The Telegraph, says the corporate media has been colluding with the regime in covering up the fact a zombie is running the United States. (Article republished from TheNationalPulse.com) Biden, Stanley writes, is a man in total denial, enabled by a system steeped in paranoid fantasy. The U.S. media, he adds, joined the administration in closing ranks around the narcissist who cant see his limitsand has been doing so since his 2020 campaign. Journalists gaslit America, Stanley continues, citing MSNBC host Joe Scarboroughs Pravda-like description of Biden as far beyond cogent and indeed better than hes ever been, intellectually [and] analytically. Following a debate etched on our memory as a symbol of national decline, the Briton observes, Scarborough has joined the Democrat pundit class suddenly penning a thousand articles against Bidens candidacy by calling on him to step down. First Lady Jill Biden also comes in for criticism, with Stanley comparing her to Edith Wilson, the wife of president Woodrow Wilson, who, when Woodrow had a stroke, locked her husband in the bedroom, pretended he was fine, and took over the management of the country. While The Telegraph is a notionally right-wing news outlet, Britains left-wing media is also souring on Biden. The Guardian has stated the Democratic Party cannot go on like this in an editorial setting out its position, and has begun tracking the Democratic commentators and powerbrokers turning against him. Read more at: TheNationalPulse.com Congress orders State Department to cover up Israels war crime death toll On June 26, the United States House of Representatives passed an amendment barring the State Department from citing the Gaza Health Ministrys death toll statistics for the Israel-Hamas war. Once signed into law, it will effectively halt discussions of the war's deaths. The House voted 269-144 for a revision to the Department of State appropriations bill proposed by a bipartisan group led by Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). A group of 62 Democrats joined all but two Republicans in voting for the measure. The provision "prohibits funds appropriated by this act to be made available for the State Department to cite statistics obtained from the Gaza Health Ministry." The health ministry has been cited by the department and news agencies for decades amid conflict in Gaza. Its daily death toll during the current conflict that began in October has served as a primary source for understanding the war's impact on Palestinians in the territory. It is the only official entity tracking death data in Gaza. Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed the vote in Congress, which critics allege is an attempt to hide the scale of the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel. "Since 1948, Mr. Speaker, there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence," Tlaib said in a speech addressing the House before the vote. "My colleagues want to prohibit our own U.S. officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll." The Michigan representative reminded her colleagues of the tens of thousands killed by Israel in Gaza, highlighting the number of children among those dead. "Six children are killed in Gaza every single hour. But Palestinians are not just numbers. Behind these numbers are real people, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who have had their lives stolen from them and their families torn apart and we should not be trying to hide it," she added and then slammed the anti-Palestinian racism in their chamber. 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. Its disgusting that my colleagues would support legislation to prohibit U.S. officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll. They want to erase the Palestinians who are living, and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead. This is genocide denial. pic.twitter.com/ZY3x0BIlQ0 Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 27, 2024 "My colleagues don't even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all. Not when they're alive, and now, not even when they're dead. It's absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial," she lamented. (Related: Genocide denial: U.S. Congress passes amendment denying Gaza death toll.) According to the health ministry's latest release, nearly 38,000 have died and 85,000 have been injured since Israel started its genocidal operations in Gaza last fall. Many of those injured have life-altering wounds. The United Nations Palestinian Aid Agency (UNRWA) estimates that over 2,000 children, or nearly ten per day, have lost legs since Oct. 7. The agency also noted that the figure is likely an undercount, due to Gaza's lack of medical infrastructure and those missing and trapped under rubble. Its daily death toll also does not include underlying data and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. President Joe Biden even attempted to cast doubt on the reliability of the Gaza death toll numbers, suggesting the possibility that Hamas may have been manipulating the data. "I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed," Biden said in October, prompting Gaza's health authorities to publish a detailed list of the names and ages of the Palestinians killed by Israel at the time. Israel silently annexing the West Bank as the world watches Gaza conflict closely Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been working on transferring legal authority over the West Bank from the military to a civilian entity led by Jewish settlers as Israel steps up its annexation of the Palestinian territory. The country is also legalizing settlement outposts, authorizing the building of thousands of units defunding the Palestinian Authority (PA) and stripping it of administrative powers, most recently in the so-called Area B. The Israeli government also signed off on a proposal to recognize five outposts as settlements and impose punitive new measures on the PA, including withdrawing some of its civilian authority in Area B of the West Bank. Under the Oslo Accords, that area is run jointly by the PA and the Israeli army. But in recent years, Jewish settlers have been seizing private Palestinian land in Area B for cultivation and settlement in a clear violation of the Oslo Accords. The PA has exclusive administrative control of Area A, which makes up about 18 percent of the total territory of the West Bank. Area B makes up about 22 percent. Together, they are home to some 2.8 million Palestinians. Previous governments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government had approved plans for expanding the building of settlements in Area C, which is home to about 300,000 Palestinians and makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank, including the entire Jordan Valley and land along the so-called Green Line. But under this government, Smotrich has launched plans to annex the entirety of Area C by transferring powers to a civilian administration, which is run by the settlers. This is being done without much fanfare. The plan was launched 18 months ago and parts have been incrementally implemented. According to Smotrich, the government has allowed the Defense Ministry to remain involved in the process so that it appears that the military is still at the heart of West Bank governance. Visit WWIII.news for more updates on the conflicts in the Middle East. Sources for this article include: News.AntiWar.com TheHill.com NewArab.com ArabNews.com Dozens injured after Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner hits extreme turbulence over Atlantic Numerous passengers on an Air Europa flight from Spain to Uruguay suffered serious neck and skull fractures after the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft they were flying in hit extreme turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean. Flight UX045 had to make an emergency landing in Natal, Brazil, a seaside city where 36 passengers in total had to be treated for injuries resulting from "heavy" turbulence. Of these, 23 had to be hospitalized. It seems the injuries and damages during the #turbulence happened aboard #AirEuropa #UX045 Madrid to Uruguay flight was NOT because of a sudden drop in altitude. The FlightRadar24 data shows a sudden drop in speed by 259kmph in 27 sec. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/JgKM5C0kFP Jacob K Philip (@JacobKPhilip) July 2, 2024 The flight path and data from the Madrid to Montevideo Air Europa flight, which experienced extreme turbulence, from Flightradar24. 2.32 am snapshot when the apparent call to divert to Natal International Airport, Brazil, was made. B789 / UX045#avgeek https://t.co/p94uPIG9Sc pic.twitter.com/dUlnjZ9Djz zenXV (@zenxv) July 2, 2024 (Related: Back in early 2020 right before the Wuhan coronavirus [COVID-19] "pandemic" was launched, a Boeing quality manager admitted that the Dreamliner is unsafe: "fly something else.") Air Europa Flight UX045 marked by "terror, feeling that you are falling and that it does not end" Telemundo reported after speaking to several passengers from the harrowing flight that at least one passenger flew out of his seat and hit the ceiling of the plane before getting stuck in the overhead luggage bins. The following video footage reveals more: Passenger Stuck in the Ceiling After Plane Hit Severe Turbulence A video has surfaced showing an Air Europa passenger being pulled out of the ceiling after the Boeing 787 hit severe turbulence. Flight UX045 was heading from Madrid, Spain, to Montevideo, Uruguay, when the captain pic.twitter.com/hXfF1szqjI marknehpets (@mapkpets) July 1, 2024 There was an incident involving an Air Europa Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (registration EC-MTI) flight UX045 from Madrid to Montevideo, Uruguay ?? ?? 1 July 2024 ?? The flight encountered severe turbulence while en route, causing injuries to 30 people on board. The aircraft pic.twitter.com/szkWmEPcgK DISASTER TRACKER (@DisasterTrackHQ) July 1, 2024 In a statement from Air Europa that was quoted by ABC News, the company explained away the flight's travail as a consequence of extreme turbulence. "Due to the nature of the turbulence and for safety reasons, it was decided to divert the flight to Natal International Airport in Brazil," the company said, adding that there were 325 passengers on the flight. One passenger told El Observador that the sensation he felt during the turbulence was horrifying and "one of terror, feeling that you are falling and that it does not end." "And you are aware that you are falling at an incalculable speed," he added. "And you felt that it ended there, and you died." While turbulence is a common occurrence during air travel, extreme events like this that result in emergency landings and serious injuries requiring hospitalization are much less common. The last time something like this occurred was about a month-and-a-half ago when a Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER flight suffered an abrupt drop that injured dozens of passengers. "There's nowhere in the world I want to go so bad that I'm willing to soar through the sky in an aluminum tube built by diversity hires," wrote one commenter about the downfall of Boeing ever since it embraced "woke" DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and opened a non-union assembly plant in South Carolina that is riddled with problems and corruption. "ALWAYS wear your seatbelt when flying except when you're using the bathroom," wrote another. "Doesn't even have to be tight, just buckled." How much longer will Boeing's reputation as a trusted company last? Find out more at Corruption.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com George Clooney the latest influential figure to call on Biden to step aside and urge Democrats to choose a new nominee Actor and influential Democratic supporter George Clooney has publicly called for the Democratic Party to select a new nominee for the upcoming presidential election In his op-ed article written for the New York Times, Clooney, fresh from co-hosting a star-studded fundraiser for President Joe Biden, expressed his deep respect and admiration for the president but stressed that time has taken its toll. He compared Biden's performance at the recent fundraiser, where he appeared alongside Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel, to his debate performance against former President Donald Trump. "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. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can," Clooney wrote. "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. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate." Clooney wrote that he was unpersuaded by Biden's explanations for his debate performance in his interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, so he urged the Democratic party to acknowledge the reality of the situation. "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. 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. 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," he wrote. 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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 actor also warned that the Democratic Party could lose both the House and the Senate if Biden remains the nominee. So, he called on top Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to ask Biden to voluntarily step aside. Although he refrained from endorsing any specific candidate to replace Biden, he encouraged other Democratic candidates to come forward and present their visions for the country. He called on leading potential replacements 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 "and others" to come together without attacking each other, "go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out." Clooney, one of the most influential celebrity supporters of the Democratic Party, helped the Biden campaign raise over $30 million at the fundraiser, with small-dollar donations flooding in from supporters eager to meet him and fellow actor Julia Roberts. But now that his op-ed has been published, contributions may slow down and make other celebrities more reluctant to campaign for Biden's reelection bid. Hollywood elites and high-profile personalities want a new Democratic nominee The Biden campaign has not yet issued an official response regarding the op-ed article, but a source has been gaslighting the public again about the real situation. The source claimed that "the president stayed for over three hours, while Clooney took a photo quickly and left." However, this is not just about Clooney. The actor's call followed similar appeals from prominent figures like actor Rob Reiner and author Stephen King earlier this July, who despite their prior vocal support, have expressed similar concerns. Even high-profile personalities have also joined the chorus. (Related: Two more Democrat megadonors confirm they are no longer supporting Bidens presidential campaign.) The latest stories about the 2024 presidential election can be found at BigGovernment.news. Watch InfoWars founder Alex Jones predicting that Joe Biden will drop out of the presidential race in two weeks' time. This video is from the Rick Langley channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Pelosi now claims its LEGITIMATE to question Bidens mental state after initially backing him. JOE BI-DONE: 25 House Democrats preparing to call for Biden to end reelection bid. DNC considering early nomination for Biden after clown show debate performance. After Bidens disastrous debate last week, Democrats are truly panicking and desperately looking to replace him. Bidens campaign claims his TERRIBLE performance during debate with Trump was a result of overpreparation. Sources include: Deadline.com NYTimes.com Brighteon.com India investigates tragic stampede during religious festival that resulted in 121 deaths India is investigating the tragic aftermath of a religious event in Uttar Pradesh state on July 2. Reports said at least 121 people were killed in a stampede. A police investigation was opened the next day against the organizers of the event in Hathras district, where local Hindu preacher Bhole Baba, real name Narayan Sakar Hari, delivered a sermon. The organizers allegedly sought permission for a gathering of around 80,000 people, but Indian media reported that at least 250,000 attended the event. Most of the attendees appeared to be women, many of whom brought children along with them. The police report said the crowd left the venue uncontrolled, resulting in those sitting on the ground being crushed. The first information report also noted that the organizers had tried to hide the actual attendance figures. According to reports, Bhole Baba worked as a police constable with the Uttar Pradesh police for 18 years before resigning to seek "spiritual enlightenment" and becoming a preacher. There are conflicting reports about his real name, with some suggesting that he was born originally Suraj Pal Singh, but he allegedly later changed his name to Narayan Sakar Hari. Bhole Baba has millions of followers across India, including in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh police said they were looking for the Hindu preacher who hosted the gathering. It was widely reported that the preacher went into hiding soon after the stampede. (Related: State Commission blames Netanyahu and three other high-ranking Israeli officials for 2021 Meron stampede.) 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. Bhole Baba is only seen in public in formal white clothes and is often accompanied by his wife at his sermons. Prior to the stampede, Bhole Baba held a similar event in the Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh. The stampede occurred during a "satsang" or a prayer meeting hosted by the preacher in the village of Rati Bhanpur in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras area. Thousands of devotees showed up to listen to him talk, with many people crowding under tents to avoid the harsh sun. Reports suggest that hundreds of devotees later chased after the preacher as he left the venue to collect the dust from under his feet. The crowding then turned into a deadly stampede where many attendees were trampled. The Uttar Pradesh Police Force confirmed in a statement that at least 121 people were killed in the stampede. In a video posted by human rights organization Article19 India on X, a car is shown driving away from the venue while being followed by hundreds of people. The police report said that some organizers armed with sticks attempted to stop the followers. Tragic incident sparks political storm in Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited Hathras to meet with officials and survivors of the stampede. He declared that they would thoroughly investigate the matter to "find out whether it was an accident or a conspiracy." On the other hand, public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the appointment of an expert committee to investigate the incident. The tragic incident has also resulted in a political storm in the state, with several opposition parties claiming it happened because of the governments "negligence." Leader of the Opposition Akhilesh Yadav of the left-wing Samajwadi Party said "the government did not take enough precautionary measures" and that many lives "could have been saved." Yadav also criticized the "politicization" of the incident, adding that it was "unfortunate." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the Uttar Pradesh state government will be helping the victims. Pawan Khera, the Opposition Congress party leader, blamed the state government, which is run by Modi's Bhartiya Janata Party, for being unprepared for the event. Khera also claimed that the hospitals where the injured were sent didn't have enough doctors or facilities to treat them. Sadly, stampedes at religious events in India are common because the gatherings are mostly managed privately. They are also often held without the proper safety or crowd control measures in place. One of India's deadliest stampedes at a religious event occurred in 2005 when more than 340 people died at the Mandhardevi temple in the western state of Maharashtra. In 2008, more than 250 people died at a stampede at Rajasthan state's Chamunda Devi temple. Also in 2008, more than 160 people died in a stampede at the Naina Devi temple in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. Visit Rioting.news for more stories like this. Watch the video below to learn more about the Seoul Halloween crowd crush at Itaewon in South Korea. This video is from the alltheworldsastage channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: ABSURD: IDF blames Palestinians for the deaths of 112 hungry civilians gathering around food aid trucks. 125 People dead, over 100 injured in Indonesia soccer stadium riot. Radical Muslim STABS Eastern Christian bishop and 3 others during church service in Australia. CRUELTY: Israeli drones play recordings of crying children to lure innocent Palestinians into IDF crosshairs. Sources include: RT.com Reuters.com CBSNews.com X.com Brighteon.com Comedian Jon Stewart exposes COVID-19 SCAMDEMIC in hilarious guest appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert American comedian, liberal political commentator and "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart had a hilarious guest appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," where he talked about how the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was caused and created by science and that it has scammed the public into believing that the virus came from bats. Stewart noted that he has a great debt of gratitude to science. He said science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of the pandemic, which was also more than likely caused by science. "What are you saying? So, there is a chance that this [virus] was created in a lab?" Colbert bantered. This was immediately responded to by Stewart with, "A chance?" He then hysterically recited a dialogue with an imaginary person saying, "Oh my God, there is a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do?" He comedically answered himself with: "Oh no, we can ask the Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab." He argued that the disease is the same name as the laboratory. "Thats just a little too weird, don't you think?" He continued by saying he "asked" a scientist how the virus spread to people. Stewart funnily answered himself again, "Well, a pangolin kissed a turtle?" He was on a roll as he continued saying "Maybe a bat flew in the cloaca of the turkey and then it sneezed into my chili and now we all have coronavirus." Colbert chimed in, volunteering a piece of information from the official narrative as to how COVID-19 originated: "It could be possible that they have a coronavirus laboratory in Wuhan to study the virus because, in Wuhan, there are a lot of novel coronavirus diseases because of the bat population there." 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. This "enraged" Stewart as he answered sarcastically: "Sure. It's the only place you find bats. You won't find bats anywhere else. Oh wait, Austin, Texas has thousands of them that fly in the caves every night." Stewart slams Dems for excusing Biden's obvious cognitive decline during the debate Meanwhile, in a recent commentary on his show, Stewart blasted Democrats and the White House for creating excuses for what he described as a "shocking display of cognitive difficulty" by President Joe Biden during the presidential debate late last month. "The point is, for a campaign based on honesty and decency, the spin about the debate appears to be blatant b-------, and the redemption tour hasn't gone that much better," Stewart said. Stewart played a compilation of Biden clips in which the president read "pause" and "repeat the line" from a teleprompter, along with other lapses in memory, including the time he claimed to have spoken to a long-dead former president of France. According to the Comedy Central host, Biden's poor performance was "recognizable to, unfortunately, anybody who's dealt with aging parents, and it's a hard watch." He then said that former President Donald Trump "delivered at the debate to expectation. We expect him to be f------ crazy. But Biden's performance and inability to articulate at times was stunning, like, I could not believe what I was watching." "But then it got worse," Stewart went on. "Rather than respecting the American people and having an honest, at least partial, conversation about what we had all seen, we were told immediately, 'These are not the droids you're looking for.'" He then streamed another compilation of Democrats making excuses for Biden's poor performance, blaming jet lag and a cold. Stewart noted that the president had been home from Europe for almost two weeks. Biden has been facing calls to step down after the catastrophic debate. His allies have argued that Biden is already the nominee and voters have no choice but to back him given the threat of authoritarianism under Trump. But Stewart isn't buying it. "'Get On Board Or Shut The F--- Up' is not a particularly compelling pro-democracy bumper sticker," he said. Stewart disagrees with some of Biden's supporters' argument that it's too late to change candidates since there are only four months until the election. "Four months is for-f-----g-ever," he said and put that timeframe into perspective, citing Britain which just held an election, and France, which had two in one month and even defeated fascism and "still had time to have an affair with Denmark." (Related: Prominent Democratic strategist says it's too late to talk about replacing Biden as party goes into full panic mode over disastrous debate performance.) He said he's not calling Biden to drop out but wants the nation to "stress test" the situation to see what options emerge. "Do you have any idea how thirsty Americans are for any hint of inspiration or leadership and a release from this choice of a megalomaniac and a suffocating gerontocracy," he said. "It is crushing our f------ spirits." The COVID-19 Wuhan laboratory received millions from ex-White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci. Watch this video. This video is from the InfoWarSSideBand channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: WHISTLEBLOWER: CIA bribed its own agents to change their position regarding COVID-19 origins. Fauci admits social distancing has no basis; Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis is not conspiracy theory. Three scientists from Wuhan lab identified as first carriers of COVID-19. Sources include: 100PercentFedUp.com X.com FoxNews.com Yahoo.com Brighteon.com The family of an Australian couple killed in a suspected murder at a luxury hotel in the Philippines have described the situation as a living nightmare, as police search for a man seen leaving the room hours before the bodies were found. David James Fisk, 57, his wife Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55, a Philippine-born Australian citizen were staying at The Lake Hotel south of Manila when a hotel worker found their bodies, as well as the body of a woman reported to be Cortez's daughter-in-law. Police said they were found with their hands and feet bound and packaging tape covering their mouths. Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan told The Associated Press Mr Fisks throat had been slit, while the women may have been suffocated with a pillow. Lucita and David. Mr Fisks family released a statement on Friday morning, sharing their grief and pleading for answers. The love we have for our Father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare, the statement read. We pray for answers and the truth in this horrific matter and just pray for their safe return to Australian shores. Police are searching for a masked suspect that was seen on CCTV exiting the victims' room hours before they were found. A GoFundMe page has been set up by the family. Medical experts call for Bidens immediate and thorough evaluation as he displays worsening symptoms of Parkinsons disease Following President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance with former President Donald Trump, medical experts have expressed their concern that the incumbent commander-in-chief is suffering from Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological condition. They are calling for Biden's immediate and thorough evaluation. Without purporting to make a formal diagnosis, the medical practitioners believe that the odds are high that Biden is suffering from some form of Parkinsonism, which is the cluster of degenerative neurological conditions of which Parkinson's disease is the best known. They believe that the 81-year-old top executive has been exhibiting various classic symptoms of the disorder, including a slowed walk, slight lurching inertia when starting a step or turn, flat face (hypomimia), a staring look with diminished blinking and a low raspy voice (hypophonia), all occurring together. "The pathologic elements seem fully aligned," one doctor who has treated many Parkinson's cases said. Blogger Paul Campos of Lawyers Guns Money said he spoke with two eminent medical academics, who are nationally known experts on Parkinson's and other movement disorders. In separate interviews, Campos asked each of the doctors to comment on Biden's White House physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor's claim back in February that Biden shows no signs of Parkinsons and therefore does not need to be tested for the disease. Dr. Kelvin Chou, a professor of neurology and associate chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said he has concerns about the neurologic condition of both major candidates and that "for President Biden, I think Parkinson's disease would be the top concern given the clips I have seen. Based on chats with my neurologist and movement disorders colleagues, they all agree as well." 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. As to the White House's claim that there's no need to evaluate Biden for Parkinson's, Chou explained that "the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease is made clinically, based on a detailed history and comprehensive neurological examination. Neurologists, who specialize in brain conditions, and movement disorders specialists, who specialize in Parkinson's disease, are much more likely to be able to recognize signs and make a diagnosis than a general physician." The second professor said, "a full neurological exam by a neurologist and ideally an expert in movement disorders, very well could reach a different conclusion." Biden, he added, "has displayed bradykinesia for a while." Bradykinesia is a slowness of movement which is one of the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's. According to the doctor, the debate also indicated a few other features of Parkinsonism. "With the caveat that I only would do so after performing a neurological examination, I would offer [Biden] a trial of standard dopamine replenishment therapy (levodopa/carbidopa) and likely perform a DAT scan to assess if the dopamine innervation of the brain has been reduced." A DAT scan is an imaging technique that uses a radioactive drug to evaluate the brain's dopamine system, which is what Parkinson's disrupts. He added that he "would imagine every movement disorders doctor would [after evaluating Biden] conclude parkinsonism [was the correct diagnosis] very quickly." Campos further said that he spoke with a medical malpractice attorney, who said that if a general practitioner encountered a patient with Biden's symptoms and then failed to refer that patient to a neurologist for evaluation of possible Parkinson's, that doctor would be guilty of malpractice. (Related: Conflict of interest EXPOSED after President's physician refuses to make Biden take a cognitive test.) Parkinson's specialist examined Biden for each of his annual physicals Meanwhile, the Biden regime may have already acknowledged the call for Biden's medical evaluation for Parkinson's disease. However, the White House is denying this as it released a letter from a Parkinson's specialist, denying that his visits to the president's office were to treat Biden. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced repeated questions at a briefing on the morning of July 8 about Biden's health and the possible treatment done to the president by Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert on Parkinson's disease. Visitor logs, details of which were first reported by the New York Post and New York Times, show that Cannard came to the White House eight times from last summer to this spring. The logs show Cannard met at least once with Biden's physician. "Has the president been treated for Parkinson's? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson's? No, he's not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson's? No," said Jean-Pierre. But at the time, the press secretary refused to confirm the doctor's visits, citing "security reasons." "That is what I'm sharing with you. So every time he has a physical, he has to see a neurologist. So that is answering that question," she claimed. "Did Dr. Kevin Cannard come to the White House specifically because of the president's condition?" CBS News' Ed O'Keefe asked. "For security reasons, we cannot share names," the press secretary said. "We cannot share names of specialists broadly, from a dermatologist to a neurologist." Later the same day, a memo was released indicating that Cannard was the neurological specialist who examined Biden for each of his annual physicals. Visit JoeBiden.news for more stories about the incumbent president. Watch the video below where Jean-Pierre denies Biden is being treated for Parkinson's disease. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Mainstream media claims Biden is still "sharp" at 81, just "forgetful." Biden campaign urged to use AI to make senile president appear more competent while labeling real videos showing his cognitive decline "deepfakes." Joe Biden allegedly admitted to key allies that he has only days to salvage his candidacy. Sources include: LawyersGunsMoneyBlog.com CBSNews.com WhiteHouse.gov Brighteon.com NATO will use Kiev hospital tragedy to escalate conflict Moscow A deadly missile incident at a prominent childrens hospital in Kiev will be used by Western nations to justify sending more weapons to Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to the US Antatoly Antonov has claimed. (Article republished from RT.com) The Okhmatdet (short for protection of motherhood and childhood) medical facility in the Ukrainian capital was seriously damaged by a powerful missile explosion that landed near it amid a Russian long-range barrage on multiple targets in Ukraine. Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of firing the projectile that damaged the facility. Antonov accused Western media of hiding some relevant facts about the tragedy that occurred from their audience, including the assessment of the Russian Defense Ministry that the missile came from a Ukrainian air defense system stationed inside Kiev. Instead, the press and the US government are whipping up hysterics, the diplomat claimed on Monday. The reality is that the incident with the destroyed hospital, which happened on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington, was apparently taken by Kievs backers as a perfect gift to justify further escalation of the conflict and continuation of hostilities to the last Ukrainian, the ambassador lamented. Senior Ukrainian officials have suggested that the Russian military deliberately targeted Okhmatdet. Vladimir Zelensky has declared that the missile hit and Moscows attribution of it to Ukrainian air defenses demonstrate the cynicism of ugly bastards in the Kremlin. Pro-Kiev media outlets have said that the weapon that struck the hospital was a Russian air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile. Critics of that claim allege that the projectile, which can apparently be seen in a video filmed from a distance by a witness, was probably an AIM120 fired by a NASAM missile system or an interceptor fired by the MIM-104 Patriot missile system. Western donors have provided those US-developed weapons to Ukraine. According to Ukrainian officials, two adults, including a doctor, were killed at Okhmatdet, while ten others were injured. Two storeys of the facilitys main building were reported destroyed. A three-day NATO leaders summit is scheduled to start on Tuesday. Ukraine will reportedly be offered a bridge to membership at the event, and a Germany-based permanent mission to aid the delivery of western weapons. Read more at: RT.com Satellite images show expansion of alleged CHINESE SPY BASES in Cuba Satellite images suggest that the growth of Cuba's electronic spy stations may be linked to China, including new construction at a previously unknown site located 70 miles from the United States' naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, follows reporting from 2023 that said China and Cuba were negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, along with establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility. According to U.S. officials who didn't disclose their locations, Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island. It is also unknown which of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report. Former officials and analysts are worried about the stations because China could be using Cuba's geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to spy on sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities and military and commercial shipping sites. Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University, warned that the Chinese facilities on the island could also strengthen China's "use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens." The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declined to comment on the matter. After reviewing a year's worth of satellite imagery, the authors of the CSIS report revealed that Cuba has noticeably upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and targeted four sites at Bejucal, Calabazar, El Salao and Wajay. (Related: NATO secretary general suggests putting more NUCLEAR WEAPONS on standby.) 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. Some of the sites described by CSIS, such as the one at Bejucal, have already been identified as listening posts. However, satellite imagery offers new information about their capabilities, growth over the years and possible links with China. Chinese spy facilities have "evolving mission set" Matthew Funaiole, a senior fellow at CSIS and the report's chief author, explained that these are active locations "with an evolving mission set." The report suggested that two of the sites near Havana, Bejucal and Calabazar, have large dish antennas that seem to be designed to monitor and communicate with satellites. The report added that while Cuba lacks satellites, the antennas would be useful for China, which has a substantial space program. According to the report, the newest dish antenna was installed at Bejucal in January. Additionally, the antenna and other infrastructure upgrades were discovered at the sites within the last decade. The most recent of the four sites, which is still under construction and was not previously known publicly, is at El Salao, located outside the city of Santiago de Cuba in the eastern part of the country and is near Guantanamo. Construction at El Salao started in 2021, and the site seems to be designed to hold a large formation of antennas known as a circularly disposed antenna array. These antennas can be used to find and intercept electronic signals, according to the report. Funaiole said that, when complete, the site could potentially monitor communications and other electronic signals coming from the Guantanamo base. Both the U.S. and Russia have stopped using this sort of antenna array and replaced it with newer technologies, but China has been building them at some militarized outposts in the South China Sea. China has played a more significant role on the island in recent years. According to a 2023 White House statement, China conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019. Meanwhile, Chinese officials claim that the U.S. has a global network of military bases and listening posts. In a statement, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China's embassy in Washington, wrote that America is "the leading power in terms of eavesdropping" and that it does not spare its allies. Pengyu also claimed that the U.S. constantly exaggerates China's "establishment of spy bases or conducting surveillance activities in Cuba." Go to WWIII.news for more stories about potential armed conflict between China and the rest of the world. Watch the video below as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg threatens to sanction China if it doesn't change its behavior toward Russia. This video is from The Prisoner channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Report finds more Chinese military-aged men are crossing the southern border than ever before. BREAKING: 2025 NDAA authorizes mandatory military draft of WOMEN across America as Pentagon pursues global NUCLEAR war with both Russia and China at the same time. Taiwanese president warns military cadets about Chinas relentless threat to Taiwans national sovereignty. Russia informs U.S. ambassador We are no longer at peace in chilling message following Crimea attack carried out with US-made weapons. Sources include: WSJ.com Features.CSIS.org Brighteon.com Once-vibrant Sicilian tourist hotspot now turning away visitors due to severe water shortage Agrigento, a wildly popular holiday destination in the southern Italian island of Sicily, has started turning tourists away due to a severe water shortage. A charming coastal city in central Sicily, Agrigento is renowned for its archaeological sites, notably the Valley of the Temples, a sprawling, 3,200-acre archaeological site with eight temples built by Greek settlers between 510 and 430 B.C. However, the arrival of thousands of tourists every year has made it difficult for the city's residents to maintain their water supplies, especially since the city of 60,000 people still heavily relies on an ancient aqueduct system for water. Agrigento's water shortage has become so severe that small hotels and guesthouses are now forced to turn tourists away. They can't provide basic amenities, such as flushable toilets or showers after a hot day of sightseeing. In February, Sicily declared a state of emergency due to a severe drought as the lack of winter rainfall has strained reservoirs and inhabitants, leading to enforced water restrictions. Many towns are rationing water, providing it only every other day for farming and household use. "Even making herbal tea or cooking pasta has become a chore," said Maria Maneri, a student and waitress, who often has to carry heavy bags of filled water bottles. "Water in Agrigento is like gold," said Antonio, another resident who regularly fills tanks and bottles with water at the closest city fountain. "Some people are now filling their bathtubs when water is available, so they have washing and cooking water ready when supplies are cut off," said Federico Castronovo, a restaurant owner. 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. Agrigento's old and leaky infrastructure makes the water problem worse. In Sicily, drinking water comes from underground aquifers, while water for crops is stored in large tanks were built after World War II. These systems depend on the winter rains that used to be common but are now rare. "Since 2003, and especially in recent years, Sicily's rainfall has dropped by over 40 percent. This has led to much less water being collected in our main reservoirs affecting distribution," says Giuseppe Luigi Cirelli, a professor at the University of Catania. Cirelli also pointed out that the irrigation network hasn't been maintained for 25 years, reducing reservoir capacity even when water is available. Adding to the problem, more people now live in the Catania area, Sicily's second-largest city. The crisis has lowered the water table, making it harder for water to seep into the aquifers and reducing the amount of drinking water, Cirelli explained. Over a million people across 93 communities in Sicily face water rationing orders, reducing consumption by up to 45 percent. Water supply is scheduled often shutting off completely overnight and making it a challenge to have enough drinking water during the day. Tourists are questioning whether visiting Sicilys drought-stricken areas is worth it. Hotels warn clients about potential water shortages and help rebook accommodations in less affected regions of the island. Historic water shortage threatening Sicilian agriculture As Sicily battles this severe drought, the island's economy and lifestyle are at significant risk. The water shortage affects not only tourism, but also the essential agricultural sector. The prolonged nature of the crisis has already become a disaster for agriculture, devastating crops and desiccating pastures. Farmers, like 42-year-old Alessandro Scire, owner of 80 hectares of orange trees, which is about 40,000 trees, face severe challenges. Scire's orange trees in the Plain of Catania are producing fruit too small to sell due to the lack of water. This problem threatens the entire citrus industry, which has deep historical roots in Sicily. Sicily's orange, lemon and mandarin trees, once grown to prevent scurvy among soldiers and exported worldwide, are now at risk. "We're angry and emotionally tested, but there's nothing to be done against the forces of nature. It's a disaster that grows and grows and grows. The oranges will probably be left on their trees. Too small for the market, they might yet be of interest to the processing industries, but they would have to be sold for less than their production cost. Thus, the fruits will continue to weigh down the branches, weakening their trees. The question is no longer how to limit the damage to this year's harvest, but how the trees will survive the summer," lamented Scire. This drought impacts more than just citrus fruits. Durum wheat, olive crops, vegetables and vineyards are also suffering and livestock farmers are running out of hay. The drought has already made it difficult for many farmers to continue their work. Donatella Vanadia, a veterinarian and agricultural business owner, has witnessed a severe drop in hay production due to the drought. Hay is crucial for cattle feed. "I estimate that hay production will be no more than 30 or 40 percent," she said. Harvesting weeds for hay is also difficult because of the unpredictable spring rains. The water shortages might result in cows producing less milk, having fewer calves, and, in extreme cases, more animals being sent to slaughter. "The impact is massive, especially when combined with the challenges of previous years. The animals' products are also affected since they don't have the proper conditions. It's a looming disaster," Vanadia added. The Sicilian government has recognized the water crisis and has plans to drill new wells, construct pipelines and restart desalination plants. However, they emphasize that more funds from Rome are needed to implement these solutions effectively. Recently, the Italian government provided 20 million euros ($22 million) to help Sicily tackle the drought emergency. Graziano Scardino, president of the Italian Farmers Confederation in Sicily, feels this funding is just a small part of what is needed. "As of today, unfortunately, the state of emergency and even what is outlined in the regional plan are completely insufficient. Sadly, there is nothing that can compensate for the farmers' losses; the damages verified today exceed one billion euros. We believe that, after the European elections, politics must intervene to ensure serious compensation measures and not just regulations that remain on paper," said Scardino. Watch this video discussing how Agrigento turns tourists away as the water crisis hits hard. This video is from the Daily Videos channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Idaho government shuts down water for 500,000 acres of farmland in latest effort to engineer mass famine in America. 8 Major U.S. water basins could be depleted by as much as 98% in the next 25 years. WATER CRISIS INCOMING: Mexico City only months away from totally running out of water. WATER WARS: Water is emerging as a focal point of conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East. Sources include: CNN.com News.com.au Reuters.com EconomicTimes.com EuroNews.com LeMonde.fr Brighteon.com Company rolls out AI-powered ammo vending machines that sell bullets 24/7 at grocery stores New company American Rounds has rolled out artificial intelligence-assisted ammunition vending machines at grocery stores. Known as Automated Ammo Retail Machines (AARM), the machines operate 24/7 and permit customers to conveniently buy ammunition without the restrictions of store hours. The company further noted that their machines use facial recognition and ID scanning technology to certify that buyers are 21 years old and above. Federal law requires a person to be 18 to buy shotgun and rifle ammunition and 21 to buy handgun ammunition. This means people can leave the store with milk, eggs and boxes of 9mm and .223 ammunition. (Related: Ammo prices skyrocket due to global gunpowder shortage caused by Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine conflicts.) "I'm very thankful for those who are taking the time to get to know us and not just making assumptions about what we're about," American Rounds CEO Grant Magers said. "We are very pro-Second Amendment, but we are for responsible gun ownership, and we hope were improving the environment for the community." The company has one machine in Alabama, four in Oklahoma and one in Texas, with plans for another in Texas and one in Colorado in the coming weeks. Magers said the company's AI-powered ammunition vending machines are also in the process of being distributed to other sites in two other states, with plans in place to expand to even more states. "We have over 200 store requests for AARM units covering approximately nine states currently and that number is growing daily," Magers said, adding that these vending machines promote "law-abiding, responsible gun ownership." 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. Currently, ammunition is sold off the shelf or online. "These situations result in unintentional sales to underage buyers and, in the case of retail businesses, a high theft rate," he noted. Critics say these machines belong in gun stores, not grocery stores The machines will have no ammo restrictions and will be refilled every week. However, some don't like the idea. "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," said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. "In a country awash in guns and ammo, where guns are the leading cause of deaths for kids, we don't need to further normalize the sale and promotion of these products." But Magers said grocery stores have actually contacted them about the idea of selling ammunition through automated technology. "People I think got shocked when they thought about the idea of selling ammo at a grocery store. But as we explained, how is that any different than Walmart?" Magers said. He's alluding to vending machines for other age-restricted materials. Corporations have created related technology to sell alcoholic beverages, and a company put automated kiosks to sell cannabis products in dispensaries in American states where marijuana is legal. There's also a company established by Pennsylvania police officer that puts bullet-vending machines in private gun clubs and ranges. Those machines do not have the age verification device of AARM, but are placed in locations with an age requirement to enter. Follow Guns.news for more stories about ammunition and guns. Watch the video below about the face-scanning technology of a vending machine. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Judge blocks California from requiring background checks to buy ammunition. 2A UNDER ATTACK: Democratic AGs call for the closure of Missouri ammo plant to deprive citizens of affordable, quality ammunition. Biden administration suspends issuance of export licenses for civilian firearms and ammunition in latest attack on gun industry. WWIII fears prompt panic buying of 5.56 ammo, triggering a 39% price surge within a week. 150K square-foot ammunition plant in Nebraska mysteriously EXPLODES is this another planned assault on vital U.S. infrastructure? Sources include: GreatGameIndia.com APNews.com Brighteon.com Anti-gun Supreme Court Justice Sotomayors bodyguards shoot alleged carjacker multiple times in self-defense Two members of the United States Marshals Service assigned to protect the Washington, D.C. residence of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor shot an alleged carjacker in an incident that observers have remarked stands in stark opposition to the liberal justice's notorious anti-gun stance. A report from the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC) noted that the shooting incident occurred at around 1:15 a.m. on July 5, and the person injured was Kentrell Flowers, an 18-year-old resident of the district. He allegedly tried to carjack a vehicle occupied by one of Sotomayor's security detail. The MPDC said in a press statement that Flowers approached the marshal's car and pointed a gun at the marshal. In reply, the marshal at the wheel drew his service weapon and fired multiple shots at Flowers. A second marshal left the vehicle and also started shooting at the suspect. The MPDC noted that Flowers was later moved to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after the shooting incident. None of the marshals were harmed, and Sotomayor was not in her home during the incident. Flowers is facing charges of armed carjacking, carrying a pistol without a license and possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device. Anti-gun Supreme Court justice requires armed guards for her safety Observers have pointed out the irony that the marshals foiled the carjacking attempt using firearms, despite Sotomayor's steadfast opposition to the Second Amendment and gun rights. The incident triggered criticism of Sotomayor's Second Amendment positions during her tenure on the high court, along with one decision where she co-signed a dissent that said the Constitution does not protect "a private right of armed self-defense." 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 the Supreme Court case McDonald v. City of Chicago, Sotomayor joined then-Justice Stephen Breyer in dissenting against the majority opinion that approved the right to armed self-defense under the Second Amendment. "The carrying of arms for [self-defense] often puts others' lives at risk," Breyer, with Sotomayor joining, debated. "In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self-defense." Similarly, in the case of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. (NYSRPA) v. Bruen, Sotomayor dissented against the majority decision that brought down a New York law requiring residents to show "proper cause" to acquire a concealed carry pistol license. (Related: Supreme Court strengthens Second Amendment by striking down restrictive NY "concealed carry" law.) "In my view, when courts interpret the Second Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary, for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun violence that lead States to regulate firearms," wrote Breyer with Sotomayor concurring. "Justice Sotomayor has aggressively opposed the individual right to self-defense in her dissenting opinions on several major Second Amendment cases over the years," Erich Pratt, senior vice president for Gun Owners of America, said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "So, it is incredibly ironic, even hypocritical, that her own private protective detail was forced to exercise this basic and universal right to protect themselves in a very dangerous situation. Hopefully, this incident will open her eyes, but we won't hold our breath." Sotomayor, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 by then-President Barack Obama, took criticisms from legislators who were worried about her Second Amendment ideology. In 2004, she joined an opinion that mentioned as precedent "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." Sotomayor also joined an opinion with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Second Amendment rights do not apply to the American states. Follow SecondAmendment.news for more stories about the gun rights of Americans. Watch the video below about the Supreme Court ruling in the NYSRPA v. Bruen. This video is from the Truth Health Freedom channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Michael Boldin: Americans must carefully watch people who are merely CLAIMING to protect the Second Amendment. Huge victory for gun owners as Supreme Court strikes down ATFs bump stock ban as unconstitutional. Poll in pro-gun control Washington, DC finds 75% OPPOSE measure against Second Amendment. New York passes law to skirt Supreme Courts pro-Second Amendment ruling that will unconstitutionally invade privacy. Leftists on 9th Circuit appeals court rule there is no right to carry concealed weapons in latest attack on Second Amendment. Sources include: HeadlineUSA.com MPDC.DC.gov FoxNews.com Brighteon.com California pushing radical LGBTQ+ propaganda on state employees, reveals mental health professional More than 250,000 people work for the state of California, meaning "We the People of the Golden State." And from now on, all of them are required to undergo "diversity, equity and inclusion" (DEI) propaganda courses showcasing LGBTQ+ perversion in order to remain employed. Elizabeth Jones, an employee for the California Department of State Hospitals (DSH), wrote an article for LifeSiteNews that explains what the forced indoctrination classes entail. DSH employs about 13,000 people whose job it is to provide mental health services to around 6,500 patients at five state-run hospitals: Atascadero, Coalinga, Metropolitan (in Los Angeles County), Napa and Patton. Jones spent about two hours clicking through a mandatory course within DSH called "DSH LGBTQ+ Training 2024" that instructs employees about what so-called "LGBTQ affirming care is, how to deliver it and why it matters." The beginning of the course features a psychologist and social worker at Napa State Hospital breaking down the difference between "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." "I was informed that 'sexual orientations' include 'heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual and pansexual,'" Jones writes. "Pansexual, according to my notes, 'means that the person's sexual behavior and attraction is rooted in connection with the other person, rather than the gender the other person chooses to adopt' denying our bodily reality." "'Gender identities,' on the other hand, describe 'the labels we put on ourselves regardless of our sexual orientation' and include woman, man, 'trans-man, trans-woman, cisgender, transgender, gender non-binary, gender fluid and gender queer,'" added Jones. 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. (Related: Far leftists in the state of California want parents who try to protect their children from LGBTQ+ perversion to be separated by force from their own families as punishment.) LGBTQ+ is evil through and through From there, the course delves into the so-called "gender unicorn" as presented by a social worker named David. The purpose of the unicorn is to illustrate even more made-up differences between concepts like "gender identity," "gender expression," "sex assigned at birth," and "sexual and romantic orientation." For far leftists, everything is seen through the lens of sexual activity. All forms of love from familial to brotherly to the charity spoken of in the Bible that applies generally have been reduced by the Cult of LGBTQ+ into perverse sexual deviancy. As such, DSH created an entire course that effectively destroys all innocence and true love by brainwashing California mental health employees and the patients they see into perverting it all into some form of sexual deviancy and abuse. The course features an additional layer of forced brainwashing in the form of quizzes that force employees to answer hypothetical questions and scenarios in the "correct" way as defined by the Cult of LGBTQ+. "The patient's legal name is Genisse Plant and records indicate that the patient was once in a sexual relationship with someone by the name of Patrick Gonzalez," one quiz question begins. "What do we truly know about this person?" The "correct answer" according to the Cult of LGBTQ+ is as follows: "We do not have enough information about Genisse's gender identity or sexual orientation." The rest of the course includes an array of additional brainwashing concepts such as "social and systemic oppression of the LGBTQ+ community" and the "unrelenting stress" that LGBTQ+s feel whenever someone does not fully embrace and promote their mental illness. In the comments, someone quoted the following from the great Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who warned long in advance of all this that: "The greatest mistake that Western societies make is in thinking that communism will never come to their shores." If We the People let them, far leftists will continue brainwashing the nation's children into LGBTQ+ perversion, destroying their innocence and creating a dysfunctional society full of broken people. Learn more at Evil.news. Sources for this article include: LifeSiteNews.com NaturalNews.com Polymarket: Odds of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance being picked as Trump running mate have increased by 287% 100 Percent Fed Up reported on this development, citing prediction market platform Polymarket. The platform posted on July 8 that the odds of Vance, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, being chosen increased by 287 percent. "His odds have shot up by almost 300 percent," 100 Percent Fed Up stated. "That puts him in the lead with a 31 percent chance of being selected and ahead of the other presidential candidates." Despite the Ohio senator's "sudden and dramatic rise" based on Polymarket's president, the outlet reiterated that it all comes down to who the former president meant to pick as his vice president if he wins the 2024 presidential elections. Trump's potential vice presidential picks have narrowed down to three Vance, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Meanwhile, Trump compared Vance to a "young Abraham Lincoln" during an appearance on Fox News. His remarks followed a report by the conservative-leaning website The Bulwark about Trump allegedly saying that Vance's facial hair was distasteful and could affect his chances of being picked. "No, I've never heard that one," Trump told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade. "He looks good. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln." (Related: Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance calls for mass civil disobedience in response to Joe Bidens tyrannical mandates.) As of press time, Trump's vice presidential pick remains a mystery. But during an earlier appearance on "Hannity," he said he would "probably" name his running mate "a little before" the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. The RNC is scheduled from July 15 to 18. 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. Use our decentralized, blockchain-based, uncensorable free speech platform at 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. "It could be even during the convention that we'd do it," Trump said. This followed his comment that the timing of the announcement could be "a little complicated." Vance much praised in the GOP Vance first rose to prominence in 2016 with the release of his best-selling memoir titled "Hillbilly Elegy." It touched on his chaotic childhood as the son of a drug-addicted single mother with no stable partner in an economically struggling steel town in southwest Ohio. "Hillbilly Elegy" offered a vivid explanation of the anger and despair of many working-class Americans attracted to Trump. Following stints in the legislative and judicial branches, Vance then jumped to the private sector, working in venture capital firms. He announced his senatorial run in 2021, bankrolled by $15 million provided by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel who happened to be the most prominent tech industry donor to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. He was elected to the Senate in 2022, eventually becoming the loudest opponent of Ukraine aid in the upper chamber of Congress. This put him at odds with the GOP leadership in the U.S. Congress and his colleagues belonging to the party's powerful strong-defense wing. Several personalities in the GOP have also praised Vance, including two of his fellow senators. Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall called him "a rising superstar" able to reach out to younger voters and suburban women in a way "maybe that somebody with gray hair wouldnt quite as effectively." North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who supports Ukraine, also praised Vance as a bright and personable lawmaker who wouldn't be divisive within the ideologically factious GOP. "He's a reasonable guy, he's got a great sense of humor," the senator for the Tar Heel State continued. Ohio GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou noted that Vance appeals to the working class voters who may previously have been Democrats, but shifted parties to back Trump. He added that Vance's upbringing helps the senator for the Buckeye State connect to the economic struggles of voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin critical swing states in the Rust Belt. Even Donald Trump Jr., the former president's eldest son, also lauded Vance. According to the younger Trump, the senator is "an all-star for the America First movement." "There isn't anyone out there who, I think, would be more loyal to my father and his agenda," Donald Jr. said in a statement. He praised Vance for "being able to deliver an effective message on the campaign trail and in front of TV cameras." Head over to VoteRepublican.news for similar stories. Watch Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow telling Larry Kudlow that J.D. Vance being picked as Trump's running mate is a "historic opportunity." This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Ohio Sen. Vance warns of an IMPEACHMENT TIME BOMB clause against Trump buried in Ukraine aid bill. Donald Trump Jr. says Tucker Carlson would be a good VICE PRESIDENT for his dad. Poll reveals Sen. Tim Scott the most favored vice presidential pick for Trump. Sources include: 100PercentFedUp.com MSN.com 1 MSN.com 2 Brighteon.com Israeli official says its clear Netanyahu doesnt want a deal with Hamas A senior Israeli official has told Al-Monitor that its clear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesnt want a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas after he released his list of non-negotiable demands ahead of sensitive negotiations. (Article by Dave DeCamp republished from News.Antiwar.com) Netanyahus demands included the condition that Israel would be allowed to resume military operations. Hamass main demand has been that any deal leads to a permanent ceasefire. While the group has reportedly softened on that stance a bit, Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear he wouldnt agree to end his genocidal campaign. Anyone wanting to succeed in fateful and difficult negotiations does not emphasize the gaps and difficulties twice a day, but tries to emphasize the agreements and the prospects. It is clear to all of us that Netanyahu simply does not want the deal, the unnamed senior official said. Israeli officials believe Netanyahu is trying to ensure a deal isnt reached before his address to the US Congress in Washington later this month. A ceasefire agreement could lead to a collapse of his coalition government as National Security Advisor Itamar Ben Gvir has threatened to quit. Officials also think Netanyahu wants to hold out until November in hopes that President Trump is re-elected. The Al-Monitor report said that Egyptian mediators were infuriated by Netanyahus non-negotiable demands, while Qatari mediators were puzzled, and US officials were the least surprised of all. The report said the US would have been surprised if Netanyahu had not thrown a spanner into the works. Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Egypt, Qatar, and the US are currently awaiting clarification from Mossad Chief David Barnea on how flexible Israel will be about Netanyahus demands. The report also cited sources who said Netanyahu was sabotaging the deal to stay in power. Read more at: News.Antiwar.com Philippine government reports 297,000 excess deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccines The Philippine government has reported 297,000 excess deaths correlated with the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines , which prompted a hearing from the Southeast Asian country's legislature. Two committees of the Philippine House of Representatives began their probe into the reported excess deaths based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA): the House Committee on Public Order and Safety (HPOSC) chaired by Rep. Dan Fernandez and the House Committee on Human Rights (HCHR) chaired by Rep. Bienvenido "Benny" Abante Jr. The HPOSC and HCHR convened a hearing in May regarding this alarming discovery from the PSA's data. According to InfoWars, it was also being undertaken pursuant to House Resolution (HR) 1481 filed by Fernandez. The actor-turned-congressman representing the at-large district of Santa Rosa City in Laguna province said the census agency's figure puts into question the overall safety and efficacy of the response of the Philippine healthcare system at the time of the pandemic. Fernandez pointed out in HR 1481 that when COVID-19 vaccination commenced in the country in 2021, there was a 43 percent surge in mortality rates compared to the two percent increase in death rate from 2016 to 2020. "It stands to reason that this very substantial increase in the number of deaths in 2021 could be attributed mainly to either two factors to (COVID-19) infection or to the vaccines themselves," the resolution stated. The HPOSC chairman said that deaths in 2020 were 40,147 lower than expected, but were 297,000 higher in 2021. To determine and compare the number of deaths during the pandemic and deaths under normal circumstances, the congressman used the concept of excess mortality or excess death. This is computed by subtracting the expected deaths from the actual number of deaths during the five years before the pandemic that is, the average annual number of deaths from 2015 to 2019. 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. Fernandez admits approving vaccine mandate was a mistake During the May 28 hearing, Fernandez also discussed the increase in deaths following the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines under the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte. He also acknowledged the House's past legislative mistake with regard to the injections. "We've been a part of that mistake because we approved the law that mandates the pharmaceutical [companies] to be responsible. And now we learn from that mistake." Australian journalist Sally Ann Clark, who is currently with the health freedom coalition Lunas Pilipinas, also testified during the hearing. She told Fernandez and other lawmakers present: "In 2021, when vaccination rolled out, the deaths went up in all age groups that were vaccinated." Clark also pointed out that the Philippines has had "a loss of babies every single year since the pandemic started." She lamented that 2019 was the last normal birth year in the country." Attorney Tanya Lat, also of Lunas Pilipinas, also testified before lawmakers. She pointed out that the Filipino population is getting upset with the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) for the harm it has caused with the COVID-19 injections. "There are Filipino people who are sick and tired of how the DOH has let us down," Lat said at the hearing. "[The DOH] has refused to admit that people are dying, turning a blind eye to the people who are getting sick turbo cancers, myocarditis, children who are suddenly sick as if they are 60-, 70-year-old people." Visit VaccineDeaths.com for similar stories. Watch this COVID-19 vaccine worldwide excess death update from Dr. John Campbell. This video is from the Prevent Global Genocide channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: New study links COVID-19 vaccines to autoimmune-related sudden hair loss. Pfizer is acquiring drug companies to profit from chronic diseases caused by their own COVID-19 "vaccines." Germany's health authorities aligned COVID-19 mandates with political directives, internal documents reveal. COVID jabs induce 723x more brain clots than flu shots, shocking study finds. Sources include: InfoWars.com Asia-PacificResearch.com Brighteon.com There are odourless chemicals in our environment which can make you sick. A leading expert wants Australian authorities to step up and regulate them.news Two days after a toxic explosion rocked a Melbourne suburb, residents are being reminded by the Environment Protection Authority to avoid areas where they can detect unusual odours or there is discolouration of the water. The fire at Derrimut in the city's west is the second major factory fire to impact the area in recent years another chemical explosion occurred at West Footscray-Tottenham just 11km away in 2018. Now one leading expert is warning such blazes can lead to water being contaminated for years by odourless toxins. And shes urging authorities to rethink their regulations, particularly when it comes to forever chemicals known as PFAS. Chemical 'not detectable until you get sick' After the West Footscray fire, toxic levels of PFAS persisted in nearby recreational waters for two weeks. They were around 16 times higher than the safe recreational water quality levels. Speaking generally about combatting large blazes, Monash University toxicity expert Dr Sally El Meragawi is warning its time for Australia to discuss its use of PFAS and related chemicals, which continue to be used in firefighting foams. She told Yahoo News there can be a diverse range of chemical contaminants in the water after large factory fires. While some chemicals can have a strong smell, PFAS are generally odourless, and are not noticeable without scientific testing. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of the kinds of things that would be detected following chemical analysis of the water and soil in the area, she said. Some solvents you may be able to smell, but a lot of these would not be detectable until you get sick. And unfortunately, because the impact of PFAS is more long-term, its often hard to connect them to illnesses. Related: There are forever chemicals in our drinking water. Should standards change to protect our health? Key PFAS facts you need to know PFAS are Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl synthetic chemicals designed to make substances non-stick. If you live in Australia, you most likely have detectable levels of PFAS in your blood. Chronic exposure in animals has been linked to several concerning health issues. While Australian authorities maintain the impact on humans is yet to be "well established", the US warns PFAS could lead to increased cancer risk, low birth weight, high cholesterol and liver enzyme changes. Development of filtration system to remove toxic chemicals Although Victoria doesnt manufacture PFAS, many of its lakes and rivers are badly contaminated. In November, bottlenose dolphins in Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay were found to have the highest concentrations of the chemical ever detected in the species. Melbourne's dolphins have been found contaminated with alarming levels of PFAS. Source: Marine Mammal Foundation In a statement Meragawi called for better regulation of PFAS chemicals, to stop ongoing contamination. Firefighting foams are also a common source of PFAS. Despite efforts to regulate their use, these foams have not yet been phased out, she said. Over the years, there have been numerous high-profile cases of PFAS contamination, particularly near military bases, airports, and firefighting training sites. Recently, there has been a push for stricter regulations, more research into alternative firefighting foams, and cleanup efforts at contaminated sites. Meragawi has been working at Monash Universitys Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering facility to develop new PFAS water filtration systems that use a membrane to help clean drinking water. Once in the environment, PFAS doesnt break down so it can accumulate in the food chain. Human health issues including cancer have been associated with their digestion. Meragawi hopes her system will soon be used to help rid Australias water of this chemical. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? Get our new newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories. Poland preparing military for World War III, NATO reveals World War III is closer than ever after government officials at the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Washington, D.C., revealed their next-step plans to throw more money, weapons and soldiers at trying to defeat Russia. Of note were statements made by Gen. Wieslaw Kukula, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, about how his country is preparing its soldiers for a full-scale conflict in the coming days. "Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not asymmetric-type conflict," Kukula told a press conference. "This forces us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of training in the army." Kukula's "border mission" comment was a reference to ongoing tensions with neighbor and Russian ally Belarus. Belarus is part of the "Union State" with Russia, and Poland recently launched a $2.5 billion initiative called the "East Shield" program that aims to better protect Poland's border with Belarus. In 2021 during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "pandemic," the European Union accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of intentionally flooding Poland's border with Middle Eastern migrants as a form of hybrid warfare. China also recently began conducting military exercises in Brest, Belarus, a city located just miles from the Polish border. "Speaking at the same event, deputy defense minister Pawel Bejda said that as of August, the number of troops guarding Poland's eastern border would be increased to 8,000 from the current 6,000, with an additional rearguard of 9,000 able to step up within 48 hours' notice," reports state about how Poland is beefing up patrol on its border with Belarus. 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. Sure looks like we're planning to invade Russia. Lot of American troops on the "Eastern flank" ... https://t.co/eUcA823BCl Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) July 10, 2024 (Related: A drone from the United States recently had to make an emergency landing in Poland following an incident allegedly involving a Russian GPS jamming weapon.) Poland doubling down on "muscular, hawkish posture toward Russia" Right now, Poland has about 190,000 personnel within its military. Over the next several years, the goal is to increase that number to 300,000 as NATO's "eastern flank" increasingly hitches its wagon to Ukraine's fate. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week to sign what the media is describing as an "unprecedented" military agreement. This treaty allows Poland to intercept Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory whenever such weapons threaten Poland and its population. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Poland has maintained what one media outlet described as "muscular, hawkish posture toward Russia" that has repeatedly involved Poland rejecting all attempts at a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Just this past week, Polish President Andrzej Duda reiterated statements previously made about how Ukraine must not cede any territory to Russia as a condition of peace. "If there is anyone who wants to give to Russia a piece of Ukrainian land and they are not Ukrainian, then let them give a piece of their land to Russia because it is easy to give away a piece of somebody elses land," Duda said. "I would like this war to end as soon as possible. However, it cannot end, it must not end in the victory of Russia because if it happened that way, we will have another war soon because Russia will attack again." President Joe Biden also talked a big game at the NATO summit in declaring that Ukraine will somehow prevail against Russia in the end, even though all available evidence right now points to Russia winning the war. "Ukraine can and will stop Putin," Biden declared from his script. More related news can be found at WWIII.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com STAGED: Biden campaign FED QUESTIONS to media ahead of Bidens interview, radio hosts reveal A radio host in Pennsylvania has revealed that the campaign team of President Joe Biden supplied her with questions ahead of the chief executive's appearance on her show. Andrea Lawful-Sanders, who hosts "The Source" on WURD Radio, disclosed to CNN: "The questions were sent to me for approval, [and] I approved of them." But she wasn't the only one who revealed this, as Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram also shared the same. According to Ingram, who hosts "The Earl Ingram Show" on Wisconsin radio network Civic Media, the Biden campaign gave him five "exact questions to ask" ahead of the interview. "There was no back and forth," he told the Associated Press. "I probably would never have accepted it, but this was an opportunity to talk to the president of the United States." Lauren Hitt, spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, confirmed the claims of both Lawful-Sanders and Ingram in a statement. "It is not at all uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer. These questions were relevant to news of the day," she said in the statement. "We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners" The revelations came days after Biden's disastrous June 27 presidential debate with his rival, former President Donald Trump, in Atlanta. The president made appearances on radio shows with largely Black audiences in the two states. But following the revelations of the two radio hosts, Biden's campaign said it will no longer feed media questions ahead of time for future interviews. A source familiar with Biden's booking operation for media outlets remarked: "While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions they please, moving forward we will refrain from offering suggested questions." 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. Radio show appearances to debunk doubts about Biden only reinforced them During the June 27 debate with Trump organized by CNN, Biden appeared frail and lost his train of thought on multiple occasions. This poor performance has left some Democrats unsure of his fitness for a second term and his future as the party's candidate. (Related: House Republicans declare Biden "unfit," accuse Democrats of mental decline "coverup.") The interviews with Lawful-Sanders and Ingram sought to show Biden's doubters, especially within his own party, that he is mentally and physically able for a reelection campaign and capable of discussing his record and answering questions coherently. But the same gaffes observed in the debate also appeared during these radio shows, further bolstering proof of the president's cognitive decline. Among other things, the president reportedly described himself as a "Black woman" forgetting that he is a White male. "By the way, I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman to serve with a Black president. Proud to be involved [with] the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. There's so much that we can do because look, we're the United States of America." According to a survey conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, one in three Democrats believes Biden should quit the race after his debate performance. Some key Democratic donors have reportedly demanded that the incumbent president be replaced on the party's ticket for the 2024 elections. But Biden rejected the possibility of stepping down in a July 5 interview with ABC News, insisting that he was "the most qualified person" to defeat Trump. Head over to JoeBiden.news for more similar stories. Watch George Stephanopoulos admitting that Joe Biden can't serve four more years in the White House in the clip below. This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Hunter Biden sues Fox News for mock trial series scrubbed months ago. Senate Democrats, European leaders want Biden OUT due to accelerated aging: "He cant win." Desperate Joe Biden lies about Supreme Court ruling and implores Americans to stop Trump. Conflict of interest EXPOSED after President's physician refuses to make Biden take a cognitive test. Since July 2023, a PARKINSON'S specialist has been secretly visiting White House to prop up Biden. Sources include: RT.com Brighteon.com THE STEAL: Survey finds that 1 out of 10 illegals is registered to vote this fall in federal elections The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project conducted a survey in which it was revealed that 10 percent of illegal aliens and non-citizens are registered to vote in the 2024 election. Pollsters interviewed dozens of people living at an apartment complex in Charlotte, N.C., that is primarily occupied by illegals. They brought a hidden camera to capture what non-citizen residents had to say about their voter registration status. The way it worked is the interviewers told the interviewees that they were part of an organization trying to help Hispanic people register to vote because of an upcoming election "in a few months" where they would be able to vote for governor or president. According to Anthony Rubin, the founder of Muckraker, all of the residents at the apartment complex were asked two questions: "Are you registered to vote and are you a citizen?" "Shockingly, four of the 41 people we asked confirmed that they were non-citizens and registered to vote," Rubin commented. "If this proportion holds true nationwide, the integrity of the 2024 election is in jeopardy." Watch the below video from the Oversight Project to see what they found: ? BREAKING: NONCITIZENS ADMIT TO BEING REGISTERED TO VOTE? Footage from @realmuckraker shows non-citizens admitting they are registered to vote A staggering 10% of the people surveyed admitted to this If this percentage holds, the 2024 election is in jeopardy pic.twitter.com/j8ux3ydwsH Oversight Project (@OversightPR) July 4, 2024 (Related: Did you catch our report detailing how Wisconsin rigged the vote in 2020 with plans to do it again this November?) Will illegals decide the 2024 election? Howell appeared on Real America's Voice's The War Room to discuss the shocking findings. He explained that America's wide-open borders paved the way for this scenario in which illegal aliens could end up deciding the future of the country. "The borders have been wide open," Howell said. "We've been told by the left and the mainstream media that poses no threat to the integrity of our election systems. We've been told that it's a conspiracy theory." Not only is all of this not a conspiracy theory; it is a tactic of the Democrat Party to ensure they "win" every time the next election arrives. They did it in 2020 and they are apparently planning to do it again in 2024. 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. "If that pattern holds, with the 10 million plus that have come across the border, you do the math for an election last go-around that came down to 40,000 votes in a few key swing states. The plan from this Biden administration is to refuse a peaceful transition of power by relying on illegal aliens to vote for them, and that's clear as day." Howell: Heritage Investigation Finds 10% Of Illegal Aliens Investigated Are Registered To Vote @MHowellTweets pic.twitter.com/hDL9dOGtdx Grace Chong ?? (@gc22gc) July 5, 2024 Oversight Project executive director Mike Howell addressed the findings as well in an Independence Day address. He warned that the future of America is at stake due to the problem of illegals being allowed to vote, which is why Republican members of Congress are pushing to pass the SAVE Act. "My fellow Americans, today we are calling on all of you to declare independence from foreigners deciding our elections," Howell said. "The evidence you are about to see relates to illegal aliens being registered to vote. This is a problem national in scale. The United States of America is for Americans, and our elections should only be decided by them." Early Vote Action responded to the Oversight Project's video by requesting evidence that the interviewed illegals are truly registered to vote on North Carolina's voter rolls. "If they are, my organization will immediately file an audit with the respective county," tweeted Scott Presler from the group. The latest news about the 2024 election can be found at Rigged.news. Sources for this article include: HeadlineUSA.com NaturalNews.com The nationwide 500,000 EV charger charade The word charade has several meanings, and including an act or event that is clearly false (Cambridge Dictionary), something done just for show (Vocabulary.com), or a situation in which people pretend that something is true when it clearly is not (Oxford Leaners Dictionary). (Article by Geoffrey Pohanka republished from AMGreatness.com) The charade I refers to is President Bidens $7.5 billion dollar investment to install 500,000 electric charging stations along Americas highways by 2030. A reliable and convenient public EV charging infrastructure is critical to achieve the Presidents goal of meeting the recent EPA CO2 emission regulation that require nearly 72% of U.S. new light vehicle sales to be fully electric or plug-in hybrid by 2032. Without diving deeper into the announcement, one would likely assume that $7.5 billion is sufficient to construct the 500,000 charging stations, one every 50 miles along the nations highways. To identify the charade, one must first, look at the math: 500,000 charging stations, each with a minimum of four chargers, accomplished with an investment of $7.5 billion dollars. But that is only $15,000 per charging station, installed. A single high capacity charger can cost $100,000 or more, and most stations have multiple chargers. We are now in the second year of the program and only seven stations have been opened so far. At this rate, it will require thousands of years to build all 500,000 charging stations, assuming there are sufficient funds to do so. Global consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates that the U.S. will need 28 million charging ports by 2030. There are just two million charging ports today. To meet the goal, about 12,000 new public and private charging ports will need to be added every single day to reach the goal by 2030. It is true that significantly more government funded charging stations are in the works and will be opened. The stations completed so far cost significantly more than what has been promised. With retailers contributing land to the projects opened so far, the cost of each station has averaged one-million dollars, with the government participation of 80% of the cost. Eight-hundred-thousand dollars for each station is significantly more than the 15,000 committed by the administration. At this rate, the 500,000 charging stations will cost the government $400 billion, not the $7.5 billion the President has promised. If the administration is so wrong with this program, one must consider how many government programs designed to bring electric vehicles to the masses are similarly defective. Read more at: AMGreatness.com Whistleblower says FBI abuses security clearance process to purge conservative agents The Security Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is abusing security clearance approval to oust agents believed to be politically conservative, according to a whistleblower complaint reviewed by the (Article by Calvin Freiburger republished from LifeSiteNews.com) The Post reported that the unidentified whistleblower alleges that the nations top law enforcement agency suspends or revokes clearances of agents on the basis of their political affiliations or lack of COVID-19 vaccination, because if an FBI employee fit a certain profile as a political conservative, they were viewed as security concerns and unworthy to work at the FBI. The allegations directly contradict sworn testimony denying the practice to Congress last year by Jennifer Leigh Moore, the Security Divisions assistant director. A nonprofit called Empower Oversight is representing the whistleblower and submitted his claims to the Department of Justices (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) on June 28. Empower president Tristan Leavitt also told Congress in a letter that the FBI is also retaliating against the agent for what he is trying to expose. The outcomes of clearance investigations and adjudications were often pre-determined by the Divisions acting Deputy Assistant Director and the acting Section Chief responsible for security clearance investigations and adjudications, who often overruled line staff and even dictated the wording of documents in the clearance process, Leavitt wrote. Over the last few years, the FBI has used the clearance process as a means to force employees out of the FBI by inflicting severe financial distress: suspending their clearance, suspending them from duty without pay, requiring them to obtain permission to take any other job while stuck in this unpaid limbo, and delaying their final clearance adjudication indefinitely even years. One victim of such practices was former FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen, who last year was revealed to have lost his security clearance for circulating news articles and opinion videos related to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot for situational awareness, according to an interim report by the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Because these open-source articles questioned the FBIs handling of the violence at the Capitol, the FBI suspended Allen for conspiratorial views in regard to the events of January 6th. The FBI responded to the latest news by claiming it takes seriously its responsibility to FBI employees who make protected disclosures under whistleblower regulations, and that the security clearance adjudication process requires multiple levels of review to ensure decisions are in compliance with applicable policies and procedures. Those policies and procedures do not allow actions to be taken for improper reasons such as an individual exercising First Amendment protected rights, to include an individuals political or security clearance, medical views, or ethnicity or any other protected class. Nevertheless, the story adds further detail to an ongoing picture of a federal law enforcement apparatus that critics say has been weaponized against the political opponents of the current administration and like-minded entrenched federal bureaucrats. The use of agencies such as the FBI to retaliate against political opponents while treating more ideologically aligned lawbreakers more softly has been one of the most alarming facets of Joe Bidens presidency, from prosecuting pro-life activists while neglecting pro-abortion violence and painting parents critical of left-wing classroom indoctrination as dangerous, to disproportionate prosecution of January 6 attendees for nonviolent offenses and retaliation against FBI agents who objected. Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com Photographed by People's Daily reporter Zhang Jun The ever-flowing Yangtze River runs from west to east, nurturing major automobile industry hubs like Chongqing, Wuhan, and Shanghai along its way. Today, a new auto city is emerging along the 800-mile stretch of the Wanjiang River. The automobile industry is the leading industry in Anhui, with Chery Group being its flagship enterprise. In 2023, Chery Group sold 1.881 million vehicles, with about two-thirds produced in Wuhu. In the same year, the group exported over 900,000 vehicles, marking the 21st consecutive year as the top exporter of Chinese passenger car brands. Photographed by People's Daily reporter Zhang Jun As the flagship enterprise drives the leading industry, Anhui's automobile production reached 2.491 million units last year, ranking second in the country. Currently, Wuhu hosts over 1,500 upstream and downstream automotive enterprises, including foreign-funded companies like Vitesco Technologies (Wuhu) Co., Ltd. Bearing half of Anhui's automotive industry and striving to become a world-renowned auto citythis is the mission and vision of Wanjiang Auto City. To achieve this goal, Wuhu is focused on three main strategies: expanding vehicle manufacturing, strengthening component support, and optimizing aftermarket services. In the crucial area of vehicle manufacturing, Wuhu fully supports Chery in achieving new breakthroughs in innovation, scale expansion, cross-industry integration, and market development, aiming to become a world-class car company by 2027. Photographed by People's Daily reporter Zhang Jun From January to June this year, Chery Group sold a total of 1.1006 million vehicles, setting a new half-year sales record. At the same time, they achieved growth in both new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles, as well as in both domestic and overseas markets. Source: People's Daily Whether you love or hate them, e-bikes are more than likely here to stay, but those for and against the controversial transport agree several challenges need to be overcome. Advocates say e-bikes are environmentally friendly and could reduce congestion, but opponents argue scenes like this one in Sydney are all too common. Source: Facebook Australians complaining about e-bikes being "littered" across our major city streets are being told that, love them or hate them, the controversial devices are here to stay but more regulation is needed to ensure they're safe, efficient and cost-effective. People taking aim at sharable electric bicycles in particular including the Uber-owned Lime bike and China's HelloRide say they go too fast and are "being dumped" on footpaths and roads in high volumes, as seen on a busy street in Surry Hills in Sydney. This often creates obstructions for those with accessibility issues. It's a problem across the country, and opponents argue not only are the huge, multinational companies behind the devices not being held accountable for what happens to them once they make their way onto our streets, they're often mistreated by the minority, forcing locals to clean up the mess left behind. This can includes fishing the bikes out of waterways, scraping them up off footpaths and roads and moving them out of the way for pedestrians, other cyclists and wheelchair users. Aussies say the devices are often 'dumped' en masse, creating access issues and generally becoming an eyesore. Source: Gold Coast Bulletin E-bikes have many benefits, but 'challenges' remain While these scenarios are undoubtedly "frustrating" to some, as City of Sydney Councillor Adam Worling put it, e-bike advocates and environmentally-conscious Aussies say the benefits still far outweigh the "challenges". The debate surrounding electric bikes, including those that are hireable and personally owned, has become a controversial topic nationwide, but in NSW, it appears the issue is particularly prevalent. In the state, as many as 5,000 bikes have been rolled out from the major players across the last few years, with critics claiming that number is far too high. On the other end of the spectrum, advocates argue the more cyclists we have, the less congested our roads stand to be, with air quality improving as a result in addition to lower carbon emissions. Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Peter McLean, chief executive officer of Bicycle NSW, said he supports the electric bike movement but agreed the industry needs much stricter regulation. "They're getting more types of people with different chronic injuries, arthritis and joint problems or whatever else riding bikes, which is really fantastic for physical and mental health," he said of the e-bikes, which require very little pushing and mostly run on motors. "From a mobility point of view, they're getting people from A to B, in a nice, sustainable manner. "It's also reducing the number of [car] trips that people are taking. Just in Greater Sydney alone, we do two million trips per day that are only less than a few kilometres in distance, a 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit found. While they're most likely here to stay, we need more regulation, authorities say. Source: Facebook/9News Safety a major concern, expert warns "The gap that it's filling in that space is very, very important for last mile transport reduction. And if we slowly plug that gap, and this is Australia-wide not just in Sydney, we'd be able to actually address a couple of percentage points in our transport emissions." McLean said the devices allow young people without licences to "be independent, autonomous and to go about socialising, to get to school, to the the gym or university" easily. He said that the devices do however travel at speed, which can pose safety hazards. "When they're in the hands of people who don't have a huge amount of experience, they are unsafe," he said. "The other issue is from a quality point of view, we're really concerned about the fire safety and lithium batteries. And the reason for that is that we have seen a number of fires caused from cheap, pretty poorly manufactured e-bikes. They're giving all the other ebikes a really bad name. "Shared bikes are proven to work quite well in a lot of cities around the world. We just don't have the framework right now in Australia for them. They are littered here, there and everywhere, and they get in people's way and they they block fire stairs and disability access ramps, and all sorts. Government inquiry into e-bikes nears completion McLean says working with government and Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW), will help produce a "consistent framework for that". "That will inevitably involve caps on the numbers of them and also, in my opinion, the implementation of geofencing," he said. Geofencing, McLean explains, is when bikes stop working outside of certain boundaries, meaning they're less likely to be dumped at inappropriate locations. He added that a user rating system would also be of benefit, as seen on rideshare apps, so that if people are caught doing the wrong thing on an e-bike, there's a record. The conversation around e-bikes and their place in society is currently the topic of a parliamentary inquiry in NSW, with final submissions due in mid-August. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Sorry, something doesn't look right. Something seems unusual about your device or browser. Please contact support. A group of Republican lawmakers is urging the Biden administration to investigate a $1.5 billion deal between Microsoft and G42 an AI and data center service provider based in the UAE. Their concerns center at the transfer of sensitive technology and G42s historical ties to China, a growing competitor of the US in the field of AI. Representative Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and John Moolenaar, leader of the Select Committee on China, sent a letter to the White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, requesting a briefing on the deal. Vizhinjam port: CM Vijayan applauds Adani Group for its sincere efforts to realise the dream K erala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Friday, applauded the efforts of Adani Group in realising the dream of a mother port at Vizhinjam, which will turn Kerala into the hub of India's container business. This port is the ultimate example of a successful public-private partnership model and with it becoming a reality, we applaud the sincere efforts of the Adani Group for having it done successfully, said Vijayan. Vijayan said this while delivering his address soon after officially receiving the first mothership at the countrys first trans-shipment port near Kovalam beach in Kerala, marking a momentous occasion in the port history of India. Present with him to welcome the mothership -- 'San Fernando', a vessel of the world's second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the port with over 2,000 containers on it -- were Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal and Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ) on Friday at 10.30 a.m. Vijayan said that this port has become a reality even after there were attempts by international lobbies to subvert it. The first phase of the port is now ready and it has cost Rs 8,867 crore, of which the state government's share is 63 per cent, the Adani Group bought in 27 per cent and 10 per cent is the viability gap funding share from the Centre, said Vijayan, and expected that the completion of the third and fourth phases of the project will be over by 2028-29. Vijayan also thanked the Adani Group for doing their best using their CSR funds for the community at the Vizhinjam port area. Vizhinjam port: CM Vijayan applauds Adani Group for its sincere efforts to realise the dream Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! 25 dead, 39 injured in 24 hours in Bihar lightning strikes A s many as 25 people lost their lives and 39 others were injured in lightning strikes across several districts of Bihar in the last 24 hours. Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, on Friday expressed condolences and directed officials to provide Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia to each of the families of the deceased. He also urged people to stay indoors during the rain and thunderstorms. Out of the 25 people who lost their lives, five died in Madhubani, four in Aurangabad, three in Supaul, three in Nalanda, two each in Lakhisarai and Patna, and one each in Begusarai, Jamui, Gopalganj, Rohtas, Samastipur and Purnea. According to the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority, 50 people have died due to lightning strikes in July alone. However, the unofficial figure may be more than that. The Authority has urged caution in the next few days as heavy rains, thunderstorms, and lightning strikes occurred in several districts of Bihar on Thursday and are expected to continue for the next two days. The Meteorological Department has forecast moderate to heavy rain with thunderstorms and lightning in many areas, including Patna, on Friday, and issued an Orange Alert for Kishanganj and Araria districts. On Thursday, 22 students in Barka Gaon Village, under Tarari police station, were injured when lightning struck a palm tree near their classrooms. They were admitted to Sadar Hospital Arrah. In other districts, 17 more people sustained burn injuries due to lightning strikes. The met department recorded 112.2 mm of rainfall in the Bahadurganj block in Kishanganj District. Patna received 52.8 mm of rain on Thursday. Apart from this, 102.0 mm of rain was recorded in Triveni block, 55.4 mm in Gaunaha and 42.6 mm in Lauriya in West Champaran District, 76.4 mm in Sahebpur Kamal of Begusarai, 60.2 mm in Narpatganj of Araria, 60.2 mm in Siwan, 54.2 mm in Narpatganj of Supaul, 43.2 mm in Sanjhauli of Rohtas and 42.8 mm in Suryagarha of Lakhisarai. 25 dead, 39 injured in 24 hours in Bihar lightning strikes Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Foreign Ministers from Bay of Bengal countries call on PM Modi V isiting Foreign Ministers of the Bay of Bengal countries jointly called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the final day of the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on Friday. "PM had fruitful discussions with the group of Ministers on further strengthening the regional cooperation in diverse areas including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people to people exchanges. He stressed on the role of BIMSTEC as an engine for economic and social growth," a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said after the meeting. PM Modi also reaffirmed India's commitment to a peaceful, prosperous, resilient and safe BIMSTEC region and highlighted its significance to India's Neighbourhood First and Act East policies as well as in its SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) vision. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or BIMSTEC, brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Bangkok in July 2023 as India continues to reiterate its commitment to promote connectivity and linkages in the shared Bay of Bengal region. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud, Thailand Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa (current BIMSTEC chair), Bhutan Foreign Minister D.N. Dhungyel, Nepal Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal, State Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka Tharaka Balasuriya and Myanmar's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister U Than Swe attended the meeting to bolster regional cooperation. During his meeting with the visiting foreign ministers, PM Modi also expressed India's full support to Thailand for the upcoming BIMSTEC Summit to be held in September, later this year. 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," said Thavisin. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval were also present during the PM's meeting with the visiting foreign dignitaries. Foreign Ministers from Bay of Bengal countries call on PM Modi Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Woolworths has defended its reasoning for introducing the new rule for staff. A worker has slammed Woolworths for introducing a new rule for staff breaks, calling it out as a "controlling" move which doesn't benefit staff despite claiming to. A notice explaining that staff will be required to clock on and off for breaks from July 8 onwards was recently put up for staff in a store in South Australia, meaning the duration of breaks will now be logged to the second. The flyer says the change is to 'ensure all team members are taking their entitled breaks' and to 'increase pay confidence', with the clocking system also used as a tool to help with staff rostering. However, the anonymous worker branded it "micromanaging bulls**t" and the union that represents supermarket workers echoes this view. "Just more controlling disguised as giving a f**k, if they cared about over worked employees missing breaks they'd have an adequate level of staff on at all time," they wrote on social media. The worker called it "malicious" and claims the new change has flaws in it, asking "what's stopping overworked employees just fudging their breaks?" The flyer detailing the new rules workers must carry out during staff breaks. Source: Reddit Workers divided over clocking for breaks After sharing the flyer online, some workers confirmed this has already been implemented in their stores, while others haven't heard a "peep" about it despite knowing it's coming. Yahoo News understands clocking for staff breaks is live nationwide across Woolworths Metro and Big W stores, however the rule has been newly implemented this week in 10 supermarket stores, with more to come. Online many people were divided on the system, with some welcoming it as others raged. "'To provide increased pay confidence', i.e. to ensure they are getting the bang for their buck," one wrote, while others criticised the idea of being treated like a "child". "I love the spin that is for OUR benefit," another wrote. However, many were hopeful this will help them get "fully enforced, full length breaks". "This means that they will have data on people not taking breaks. They can't pretend it's not happening. Could be a really good thing for workers," one wrote, while another echoed the sentiment. "I welcome this, means we will get the full allocated break not partial breaks, and if it is partial the timesheet will show it." Union calls out 'pernicious' strategy to squeeze more out of staff The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) is against the move, believing it will benefit the supermarket if staff feel like they are constantly being observed and are under "pressure". "When a worker is fearful about their employer knowing the second that they go on break, or come back from break, they end up taking shorter breaks so 30 minutes end up being 28," RAFFWU's secretary Josh Cullinan told Yahoo News. "They're not going to get those two or three or four minutes paid, they end up working more. It might not sound like much but that money adds up over 125,000 workers." "And if they have repeated 31 minute breaks, they will be called in to a meeting. It's that pernicious... this is about workers having shorter breaks," he said. Woolworths defends staff clocking for breaks Woolworths told Yahoo the move is to increase break "visibility" for staff members, to ensure correct pay and better rostering, defending its position that it's in the best interest of workers. "In a business as large and complex as ours, it's important that we make sure we always do the right thing for our team to ensure they are rostered and paid correctly," a Woolworths spokesperson told Yahoo News. "This solution is critical to ensure there is transparency for our team members, allowing them to have visibility of their meal breaks and confidence that they can take their entitled meal break, knowing that there is coverage for their department." "This type of system and rostering practices are very common across all parts of the economy in many other sectors." Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Vizhinjam Port to help put India on top of global maritime map: Sarbananda Sonowal C ongratulating the Adani Group for their commitment and perseverance for developing a world-class port in Kerala, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, said that the performance of Vizhinjam Port will set a new benchmark, helping position the country on the top of the global maritime map. Minister Sonowal officially welcomed the first mothership at the Vizhinjam Port on Friday, in the presence of Karan Adani, Managing Director, Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ), Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other dignitaries. "Vizhinjam International Seaport is India's first deep-sea international container transhipment terminal. I would also like to congratulate APSEZ for their valuable contribution towards creating a modern port infrastructure, enabling reduction of logistics costs, saving of transit time and reducing our dependence on foreign transhipment ports," said the minister. "This port project demonstrates how a successful Public Private Partnership between the Centre, the private sector and the State can unleash the tremendous potential of our maritime sector," Sonowal added. The minister pointed to how the Vizhinjam port is strategically located close to the international EXIM Trade lanes. "Its deep draught facility will offer many operational benefits to the users that will help in positioning the port as a preferred destination for the shipping lines and EXIM traders," he said. "I am sure that the Port's capability to service mega-size container vessels, with other services that it offers, will provide stiff competition to existing transhipment hubs like Colombo and Singapore. I look forward to a positive shift of international transhipment cargo from Colombo and Singapore to this Port at Vizhinjam," the minister noted. "In the emerging geo-political scenario, impacting maritime trade, this Port will offer a viable alternative and an option to the major shipping lines to mitigate disruptions in the global supply chain," Sonowal said. With the arrival of the first mother ship, Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port has catapulted India into the world port business as globally this port will rank 6th or 7th. The second and third phase of the project is planned to be completed in 2028 and will be one of the greenest ports in the world. "I congratulate the Adani Group for their commitment and perseverance to attain this remarkable feat of developing such an excellent port in Kerala. I am confident that the performance of the Vizhinjam International Seaport will set a new benchmark at par with the best in the world and help position the country on the top of the global maritime map," the minister emphasised. By 2028-29, when all four phases of this project are completed, the Kerala government and Adani Vizhinjam Port will have invested a total of Rs 20,000 crore in this outstanding example of a large-scale PPP project. Vizhinjam Port to help put India on top of global maritime map: Sarbananda Sonowal Post your comments Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Download Now The News-Gazette mobile app brings you the latest local breaking news, updates, and more. Read the News-Gazette on your mobile device just as it appears in print. In a recent study published in the journal BMC Public Health, researchers determined the incidence of anxiety symptoms in infertile men. Study: Prevalence of anxiety symptoms in infertile men: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Image Credit: Numstocker / Shutterstock.com The psychological effects of infertility Infertility can be defined as the inability to conceive after one year of unprotected intercourse. As a leading reproductive problem throughout the world, about 17.5% of the global population is affected by infertility, with the prevalence of infertility varying in different regions. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers infertility a significant public health issue, as it leads to negative physical, psychological, social, and financial stress. Couples experiencing infertility are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, fear, guilt, avoidance, and frustration. Previous studies estimate that the male factor is the primary or effective factor in 50% of couples experiencing infertility. Infertile men often suffer isolation, self-blame, feelings of sexual inadequacy, and anxiety, with many associating their infertility with incomplete identity and masculinity. The inability to have children induces many psychological problems, particularly in societies where fertility is highly valued and a prime goal of marriage. Infertility induces fear of divorce, rejection, remarriage, and other unwanted changes that trigger anxiety in men. About the study To date, no study has conducted a meta-analysis to understand the prevalence of anxiety in infertile men. This information could help clinicians design proper interventions to alleviate psychological stresses that may influence infertility treatment outcomes. For the current systematic review, all relevant data were obtained from Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Sciences, PsyINFO, Scopus, and Google Scholar. A total of 6,376 articles were initially identified, following which duplicates were removed and eligibility criteria were applied. This led to 27 and 24 articles included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, respectively, comprising 6,624 infertile men. The lowest and highest prevalence of male infertility was observed in Canada at 3.7% and Iran at 43%, respectively, thus confirming the global variability in the prevalence of male infertility. The selected studies assessed anxiety symptoms in infertile men through several standard tools including the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), Symptom Assessment-45 Questionnaire (SA-45), Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD), Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T). Study findings A total of fourteen studies used the HADS questionnaire to evaluate symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients who visited the clinics of public hospitals as outpatients, which indicated a 19.8% prevalence of anxiety symptoms in infertile men. The STAI-T questionnaire has been designed to assess state anxiety, which reflects the respondent's current temporary state, as well as trait anxiety, which is an individual's general tendency to experience anxiety. STAI-T questionnaire results estimated the pooled prevalence of anxiety symptoms in infertile men to be about 30.1%. The BAI questionnaire was developed in 1988 and includes 21 questions related to anxiety symptoms. Several studies have validated this tool and indicated its reliability. BAI analysis estimated the pooled prevalence of anxiety symptoms in infertile men to be about 7.1%. SAS estimated the pooled prevalence of anxiety symptoms to be 18.5% of infertile men. Moreover, the DASS questionnaire, which contains a total of 21 questions that are divided into depression, anxiety, and stress sections, estimated the pooled prevalence of anxiety symptoms to be 34.9% of infertile men. Previous studies have reported that cultural, religious, and individual factors influence the desire to have children in both men and women. As compared to infertile women, infertile men receive less social support, with most infertile men reluctant to discuss infertility with their family, friends, and even counselors, which contributes to their enhanced anxiety levels. The socio-economic situation and availability of healthcare facilities also influence the prevalence of anxiety in infertile individuals. Conclusions The current study highlights anxiety as one of the most common symptoms experienced by infertile men that impacts their health, quality of life, and response to treatment. The highest and lowest prevalence of anxiety in infertile men was 34.9% and 7.08%, respectively, using the DASS and BAI tools. These estimates were higher than the prevalence of anxiety in the normal population. Infertile men are more likely to seek emotional support from infertility physicians than from mental health professionals, friends, or self-help groups. Therefore, it is crucial to integrate psychological counseling into the infertility treatment process, as reducing anxiety levels could also improve treatment outcomes. Refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants were exposed to significantly higher health risks during the Covid-19 pandemic than other population groups. A new study shows a 84 per cent higher risk of infection and a 46 per cent higher mortality rate among migrants compared to the general population. The findings are the result of extensive research led by Bielefeld University and realized in cooperation with the UN Migration Agency IOM and researchers from Heidelberg University Hospital and the Swedish universities of Uppsala and Umea. The analysis, published in eClinicalMedicine as part of The Lancet Discovery Science, includes data from more than 53 million people, including both migrants and natives from 22 countries. According to the study, systemic barriers often lead to poorer health outcomes for migrants. These include crowded living conditions, precarious working conditions and limited access to healthcare and social security. Migrants persistently at higher risk 'Migrants have been at an increased risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 not only in the early phases, but throughout the entire pandemic,' says the principal investigator Professor Dr Kayvan Bozorgmehr from Bielefeld University. 'Migrants infected with SARS-CoV-2 were not hospitalized more often; but they more often experienced severe course of disease, which resulted in a higher number of admissions to intensive care units. While clinical deaths were lower among migrants - probably due to their younger average age - population-based mortality tended to be higher, especially in high-income countries.' The authors conclude from the results of the study that health and social policies need to be more inclusive. 'National pandemic plans must adequately consider refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons,' says Bozorgmehr. Gaps in health information systems impede accurate assessments The study includes results from 370 empirical reports from 17,088 datasets worldwide, up to September 2023. It includes a meta-analysis of more than 53 million participants, considering studies on Covid-19 infection risk, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, mortality and vaccination rates among migrants. 'Our study reveals that health information systems have significant gaps in capturing migration characteristics, which renders migrants invisible in official data,' says Maren Hintermeier, first author of the study and doctoral student at Bielefeld University. The authors conclude that the lack of health information has impeded the accurate evaluation of health inequalities among migrants, and measures to reduce them. This was particularly evident in the case of inequalities in immunization . Although only eight per cent of the included studies reported data on vaccination coverage in migrant groups, two-thirds of these studies found lower immunization rates among migrants compared to non-migrants. UN Migration Agency IOM emphasises the importance of the study results 'This global study demonstrates the impact of pandemics on migrants worldwide. It also points to effective strategies to better protect public health by including migrants in regional, national and global responses,' says Dr Poonam Dhavan, the Director of the Migration Health Division at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN Migration Agency. 'The findings and solutions presented in this report can help policy makers and program implementers develop strategies and interventions that not only promote equity for migrants, but also lead to better health protection for the entire population. These lessons must not be forgotten in future health emergencies.' The study was coordinated by the Rapid Review Response Unit (RRRUn) at the School of Public Health at Bielefeld University. This unit systematically collects and analyses evidence on health determinants and population-based interventions. The aim is to support evidence-based decisions in the healthcare system. Published by 'eClinicalMedicine' The study was published in the scientific journal 'eClinicalMedicine'. The magazine is part of The Lancet Discovery Science, a suite of open access journals, and focuses on clinical research and practice, from diagnosis and treatment to prevention and health promotion. According to the data service provider Clarivate, eClinicalMedicine is ranked 12th out of 325 journals in the 'General and Internal Medicine' category, with an impact factor of 9.6 (2023). Few people want to go into a nursing home, but doing so can be the right choice if you or a loved one is physically or cognitively disabled or recovering from surgery. Unfortunately, homes vary greatly in quality, and many don't have enough nurses and aides to give residents the care they need. Q: How do I find nursing homes worth considering? Start with Medicare's online comparison tool, which you can search by city, state, ZIP code, or home name. Ask for advice from people designated by your state to help people who are older or have disabilities search for a nursing home. Every state has a "no wrong door" contact for such inquiries. You can also reach out to your local area agency on aging, a public or nonprofit resource, and your local long-term care ombudsman, who helps residents resolve problems with their nursing home. Find your area agency on aging and ombudsman through the federal government's Eldercare Locator website or by calling 1-800-677-1116. Identify your ombudsman through the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy group. Some people use private placement agencies, but they may refer you only to homes that pay them a referral fee. Q: What should I find out before visiting a home? Search online for news coverage and for reviews posted by residents or their families. Call the home to make sure beds are available. Well-regarded homes can have long waiting lists. Figure out how you will pay for your stay. Most nursing home residents rely primarily on private long-term care insurance, Medicare (for rehabilitation stays) or Medicaid (for long-term stays if you have few assets). In some cases, the resident pays entirely out-of-pocket. If you're likely to run out of money or insurance coverage during your stay, make sure the home accepts Medicaid. Some won't admit Medicaid enrollees unless they start out paying for the care themselves. If the person needing care has dementia, make sure the home has a locked memory-care unit to ensure residents don't wander off. Q: How can I tell if a home has adequate staffing? Medicare's comparison tool gives each home a rating of one to five stars based on staffing, health inspection results, and measurements of resident care such as how many residents had pressure sores that worsened during their stay. Five is the highest rating. Below that overall rating is one specifically for staffing. Be sure to study the annual staff turnover rate, at the bottom of the staffing page. Anything higher than the national rate an appalling 52% should give you pause. You should also pay attention to the inspection star rating. The "quality" star rating is less reliable because homes self-report many of the results and have incentives to put a glossy spin on their performance. Q: Does a home with three, four, or five stars provide good care? Not necessarily. Medicare's ratings compare the staffing of a home against that of other homes, not against an independent standard. The industry isn't as well staffed as many experts think it needs to be: About 80% of homes, even some with four and five stars, are staffed below the standards the Biden administration will be requiring homes to meet in the next five years. Q: How many workers are enough? There's no straightforward answer; it depends on how frail and sick a nursing home's residents are. Medicare requires homes to prominently post their staffing each day. The notices should show the number of residents, registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, and nurse aides. RNs are the most skilled and manage the care. LVNs provide care for wounds and catheters and handle basic medical tasks. Nurse aides help residents eat, dress, and get to the bathroom. Expert opinions vary on the ideal ratios of staffing. Sherry Perry, a Tennessee nursing assistant who is the chair of her profession's national association, said that preferably a nursing assistant should care for eight or fewer residents. Charlene Harrington, an emerita professor of nursing at the University of California-San Francisco, recommends that on the day shift there be one nurse aide for every seven residents who need help with physical functioning or have behavioral issues; one RN for every 28 residents; and one LVN for every 38 residents. Patients with complex medical needs will need higher staffing levels. Staffing can be lower at night because most residents are sleeping, Harrington said. Nursing home industry officials say that there's no one-size-fits-all ratio and that a study the federal government published last year found quality improved with higher staffing but didn't recommend a particular level. Q: What should I look for when I visit a home? Watch to see if residents are engaged in activities or if they are alone in their rooms or slumped over in wheelchairs in hallways. Are they still in sleeping gowns during the day? Do nurses and aides know the residents by name? Is food available only at mealtimes, or can residents get snacks when hungry? Watch a meal to see whether people are getting the help they need. You might visit at night or on weekends or holidays, when staffing is thinnest. Q: What should I ask residents and families in the home? Are residents cared for by the same people or by a rotating cast of strangers? How long do they have to wait for help bathing or getting out of bed? Do they get their medications, physical therapy, and meals on time? Do aides come quickly if they turn on their call light? Delays are strong signs of understaffing. Medicare requires homes to allow residents and families to form councils to address common issues. If there's a council, ask to speak to its president or an officer. Ask what proportion of nurses and aides is on staff or from temporary staffing agencies; temp workers won't know the residents' needs and likes as well. A home that relies heavily on temporary staff most likely has trouble recruiting and keeping employees. Q: What do I need to know about a home's leadership? Turnover at the top is a sign of trouble. Ask how long the home's administrator has been on the job; ideally it should be at least a year. (You can look up administrator turnover on the Medicare comparison tool: It's on the staffing page beneath staff turnover. But be aware the information may not be up to date.) You should also ask about the tenure of the director of nursing, the top clinical supervisor in a home. During your tour, observe how admissions staff members treat the person who would be living there. "If you walk in to visit with your mom and they greeted you and didn't greet your mom or focused all their attention on you, go somewhere else," advised Carol Silver Elliott, president of the Jewish Home Family, a nonprofit in Rockleigh, New Jersey. Q: Does it matter who owns the home? It often does. Generally, nonprofit nursing homes provide better care because they can reinvest revenue back into the home rather than paying some of it to owners and investors. But there are some very good for-profit homes and some lousy nonprofits. Since most homes in this country are for-profit, you may not have a choice in your area. As a rule of thumb, the more local and present the owner, the more likely the home will be well run. Many owners live out of state and hide behind corporate shell companies to insulate themselves from accountability. If nursing home representatives can't give you a clear answer when you ask who owns it, think twice. Finally, ask if the home's ownership has changed in the past year or so or if a sale is pending. Stable, well-run nursing homes aren't usually the ones owners are trying to get rid of. Given the known association between exposure to air pollution and neurodevelopmental disorders involving changes in neurogenesis and brain structure, a recent study published in JAMA Network Open examined the association between prenatal exposure to ambient air pollution during the pregnancy and the risk of cerebral palsy in the infant. Study: Prenatal Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Cerebral Palsy. Image Credit: Ahmet Misirligul/Shutterstock.com Background A large body of evidence from animal and human studies indicates that exposure to air pollution, especially fine particulate pollutants, can cause changes in brain structure and cause cognitive developmental delays. In humans, exposure to air pollution has also been linked to autism and disorders related to structural alterations in the brain. Studies have also found that black carbon particles can cross over to the fetus through the placenta, indicating that pollutant particles in maternal circulation can impact the fetus. Cerebral palsy is a nonprogressive neurodevelopmental disorder that has heterogeneous clinical subtypes characterized largely by physical disability and motor impairments. The disease often also causes impairments in perception, sensation, communication, and cognitions, as well as secondary musculoskeletal impairments and epilepsy. While pre-term birth is known to increase the risk of cerebral palsy, the cause of cerebral palsy in infants born full-term remains unclear. The increase in cerebral palsy risk among infants born in the winter and spring months indicates a potential environmental cause. About the study In the present study, the researchers used population-based health data from Ontario, Canada, spanning the years between 2002 and 2017, to determine whether exposure to air pollutants during the prenatal period was linked to a higher risk of cerebral palsy in infants born full-term. They also examined whether the windows of susceptibility changed based on the gestational weeks. The study included all infants born full-term in Ontario between April 2002 and the end of March 2017. The administrative health data for the analysis was obtained from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, which is a non-profit institute that conducts research on health care and demographics in Ontario. The Canadian Institute for Health Informations discharge abstract database provided information on hospital admissions, while the data to ascertain outcomes was acquired from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan records. Additionally, the researchers also used demographic characteristics and socio-economic status data by area for the study. The weekly estimates of the concentrations of fine particulate matter of diameters less than 2.5 microns (PM 2.5) and ozone and nitrogen dioxide at the center of each participants geographic area of residence were used to determine prenatal exposure to air pollutants. Geophysical satellite-derived estimates and data from ground-level monitoring were also used to estimate the concentrations of PM 2.5 . An inpatient hospitalization diagnosis of cerebral palsy or two or more outpatient diagnoses in two weeks or more were used to determine a diagnosis of cerebral palsy in the infant. Follow-ups were conducted from birthday to end of study, death, or shifting of residence to an area outside Ontario, whichever occurred first. Confounders such as maternal age at birth, community size, season and fiscal year of birth, residential instability quintile groups, and maternal instability were used to adjust the models. Furthermore, based on known findings about sexually dimorphic differences in cerebral palsy, the researchers also examined the association between air pollution exposure and cerebral palsy risk for heterogeneity based on the sex of the infant. Results The findings suggested that exposure to air pollution, especially PM 2.5 , during the prenatal stage of the pregnancy was linked to a higher risk of cerebral palsy in the infant, even if the pregnancy was carried to term. Furthermore, the risk of cerebral palsy was slightly higher for male infants than for female infants, although the difference was not statistically significant. Additionally, although the study found no specific window of susceptibility, elevated risks of cerebral palsy, albeit imprecise, were found for exposure to PM 2.5 during the first two trimesters for male infants and the first trimester for female infants. No associations were found between the risk of cerebral palsy and exposure to nitrogen dioxide or ozone during pregnancy. Similar results were observed from studies examining the association between prenatal exposure to PM 2.5 and the development of neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder. The researchers believe that since cortisol neurogenesis in the fetus, which involves neuronal proliferation and organization, occurs until the end of the second trimester, exposure to PM 2.5 during the first 24 weeks could result in neuronal malformations, resulting in cerebral palsy. Conclusions The study found that exposure to air pollution consisting of particulate matter below 2.5 microns in diameter during the prenatal period could increase the risk of cerebral palsy. Although not significantly different, male infants were at a higher risk of cerebral palsy than female infants. Furthermore, exposure to PM 2.5 during the first two trimesters was considered especially detrimental to the neuronal development of the infant. An investigational medication designated TAS-303 shows efficacy and safety in treatment of women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI), reports a placebo-controlled clinical trial in the August issue of The Journal of Urology, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Our study adds new evidence that TAS-303 reduces the frequency of incontinence episodes in women with SUI, without the worrisome adverse effects associated with the existing SUI medication duloxetine," comments Prof. Momokazu Gotoh of Chukyo Hospital, Nagoya, Japan. A safer medication option for treatment of SUI? Stress urinary incontinence defined as leakage on exertion or with sneezing or coughing is a common clinical problem, particularly in women. Recommended treatments include pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) and surgery (mid-urethral sling procedure). Currently, medication options for SUI are limited. Duloxetine a type of medication called a serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor is approved for treatment of SUI in Europe, but not in the United States or Japan. That reflects concerns about adverse effects, including a risk of nausea causing patients to discontinue treatment. Duloxetine has also been linked to a slightly increased risk of suicide or violence among patients with major depression. TAS-303 is a different class of medication a highly selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor that has been shown to increase pressures within the urethra, potentially lessening leakage from the bladder. Because it is highly selective for the peripheral nervous system and does not affect serotonin reuptake, TAS-303 may avoid the adverse effects associated with duloxetine. TAS-303 reduces SUI episode frequency while avoiding adverse effects Building on promising results in preliminary studies, the researchers designed a phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of TAS-303 for SUI. In the study, 231 women with SUI symptoms were randomly assigned to treatment with TAS-303 or inactive placebo pills. In the primary endpoint, percent change from baseline to week 12 in mean frequency of SUI episodes per 24 hours, patients assigned to TAS-303 had a significant reduction. On analysis accounting for other patient characteristics (least squares mean), the frequency of SUI episodes decreased by about 58% with TAS-303, compared to 47% in the placebo group. Frequency of SUI episodes decreased by at least half in 65% of patients in the TAS-303 group versus 53% with placebo. The reduction in episode frequency with TAS-303 "was more clearly confirmed" in patients with more severe SUI (two or more episodes per day). The improvement also appeared greater in patients aged 60 years or older. Benefits appeared within four weeks of treatment and continued through at least 12 weeks. The researchers suggest that combining TAS-303 with PMFT might allow for more rapid improvement thus encouraging patients to continue PMFT exercises, which may take up to 12 weeks to show an effect. TAS-303 also showed improvement in urinary incontinence amount and health-related quality of life. "Based on these findings, TAS-303 may be considered to have comparable efficacy with that of duloxetine and improved safety due to the absence of nervous system- or gastrointestinal-related adverse drug reactions," Dr. Gotoh and coauthors conclude. They emphasize that further studies in more diverse patient samples will be needed to confirm the effectiveness of TAS-303 for SUI. Wolters Kluwer provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students in effective decision-making and outcomes across healthcare. We support clinical effectiveness, learning and research, clinical surveillance and compliance, as well as data solutions. In a significant move aimed at resolving long-standing issues related to Lal Dora properties in urban areas, the government of Haryana has launched a comprehensive registry initiative. Under the Chief Minister Urban Body Ownership Scheme, both property owners and long-term tenants are set to benefit, as announced by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini who will distribute property certificates and registries to beneficiaries during a state-level event scheduled for Thursday, July 12, at Manesar in Gurugram. The Chief Minister Urban Body Ownership Scheme was established in 2021 by the Urban Local Bodies Department of Haryana. Urban bodies with shops or houses under their jurisdiction that have been occupied for 20 years or more by December 31, 2021, qualify for ownership rights under this scheme. It is estimated that around 25,000 individuals will benefit from this initiative, generating approximately Rs 1,000 crore revenue for the Haryana government. Historically, Lal Dora delineations were established during British rule in 1908, marking areas outside formal settlements for agricultural purposes. These lands have been exempt from regular building bylaws and municipal regulations, but their owners often faced challenges in proving ownership, hindering property transactions and access to financial services. To address these issues, the state government first implemented measures to free villages from Lal Dora restrictions, enabling occupants to obtain property rights. Now, under the new urban-focused scheme, tenants who have leased or rented commercial properties from urban bodies for 20 years or more can apply for ownership. The scheme allows them to acquire property by paying a nominal fee ranging from 20 to 50 percent of the collector rate, depending on the duration of their occupancy. The initiative, facilitated through the Svamitva Scheme, aims to streamline property ownership rights and boost economic activities within Lal Dora areas. A state-level function scheduled in Gurugram will see CM Nayab Saini distribute property certificates and registries to beneficiaries, marking a pivotal moment for urban development in Haryana. Online Application Process Recently, the government announced that tenants and leaseholders who have completed 20 years under the Chief Ministers Urban Body Ownership Scheme will have an additional opportunity to submit their claims. To participate in this scheme, applicants can utilise the governments dedicated portal at www.ulb.shops.ulbharyana.gov.in. This portal allows individuals to apply online for ownership of shops or other commercial properties. Its important to note that the portal is not open for applications indefinitely; specific periods are designated for submission. During the initial phase, 7,000 applications were received. The portal at www.ulb.shops.ulbharyana.gov.in will soon reopen for 15 days to accommodate new applications. Required Documents Applicants seeking ownership under the Chief Ministers Urban Body Ownership Scheme must provide the following documents: 1. A self-certified letter detailing the duration of their occupancy of the property. 2. Upload of the site plan. 3. Any one of the following documents to substantiate possession: Electricity or water connection bill Sub-tenancy agreement letter Rent receipt Fire NOC These documents are essential to verify and support the applicants claim for ownership under the scheme. Affordable Property Registration The registration fee is based on the duration of occupancy, offering discounts ranging from 50-80% off the areas collector rate. For instance, a tenant who has occupied a shop for 20 years can obtain ownership by paying 80% of the collector rate. Similarly, those who have occupied land for 25 years would pay 75%, 70% for 30 years, 65% for 35 years, and 60% for 40 years. Tenants occupying leased or rented property for 50 years can become owners by paying just 50% of the collector rate. The scheme not only promises to emancipate Lal Dora properties from bureaucratic constraints but also anticipates substantial revenue generation for the state, estimated to be around one thousand crore rupees from an expected 25,000 beneficiaries. Petrol, Diesel Prices Today On July 12, 2024: Oil marketing companies (OMCs) announce gasoline and diesel prices, maintaining consistency despite the inherent volatility of these commodities at 6 am every day. The OMCs adjust prices in response to global crude oil prices and fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, ensuring consumers are always informed about the latest fuel costs. Government oil marketing companies release the latest petrol and diesel prices daily at 6 am in the country. The prices have remained unchanged in most parts of the country since March 2024 when the central government cut petrol prices by Rs 2. Before that, the fuel prices remained steady since May 2022, following a reduction in fuel taxes by the central government and several states. Petrol Diesel Price Today In India (Check city-wise rate table below) Check city-wise petrol and diesel prices on July 12: City Petrol Price (Rs/litre) Diesel Price (Rs/litre) Delhi 94.72 87.62 Mumbai 103.44 89.97 Chennai 100.85 92.44 Kolkata 103.94 90.76 Noida 94.66 87.76 Lucknow 94.65 87.76 Bengaluru 102.86 88.94 Hyderabad 107.41 95.65 Jaipur 104.88 90.36 Trivandrum 107.62 96.43 Bhubaneswar 101.06 92.91 Factors Affecting Petrol And Diesel Prices In India Crude oil price: The primary raw material for the production of petrol and diesel is crude oil; as such, its price directly influences the ultimate cost of these fuels. The exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the US dollar: As a major importer of crude oil, Indias petrol and diesel prices are also influenced by the exchange rate between the Indian and US dollar. Tax: Various taxes on petrol and diesel are imposed by both the central and state governments. These taxes may differ across states, exerting a notable influence on the ultimate prices of petrol and diesel. The cost of refining: The final price of petrol and diesel is additionally influenced by the expenses incurred in refining crude oil into these fuels. The refining process can be costly, and the refining expenses may fluctuate based on factors like the type of crude oil utilised and the refinerys efficiency. The demand for petrol and diesel: The demand for petrol and diesel can also affect their prices. If demand for these fuels increases, it can lead to higher prices. Know the price of petrol and diesel through SMS You can also find out the latest petrol and diesel prices in your city through SMS. If you are a customer of Indian Oil, then you will have to write RSP along with the city code and send it to 9224992249. If you are a customer of BPCL, then you can get information about the new price of petrol and diesel by writing RSP and sending it to 9223112222. Whereas, if you are a customer of HPCL, then you can find out the price of petrol and diesel by writing HP Price and sending it to 9222201122. Students should not be afraid of the English language but rather make it a habit. The more you learn and try, the easier it will become. Prepare for civil services in a planned manner and have faith in your mind. This was said by Shubham Jain, IPS of UPSC batch 2022 and currently undergoing training in the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He was speaking at the Pratibha Samman ceremony held under the joint patronage of the district administration and Anna Foundation at the Information Centre auditorium. Secretary of Anna Foundation, Dr Kamal Meena, said that in this ceremony, besides the toppers of the SELF programme, the toppers of classes 10 and 12 of government schools of the district were also honoured. As part of the career guidance seminar, IPS Shubham Jain and President Anna Foundation Hariram Chaudhary discussed the strategy for various examinations. The District Officer of Secondary Education Strict Administration Jhunjhunu, Deputy Director of Social Justice and Empowerment Department Pawan Poonia and District Public Relations Officer Himanshu Singh participated in the programme. The district administration officials interacted with the students on various topics including the importance of newspapers. Dr Rajni Morwal, Dr Narendra Godara, Kamlesh Meena, Mukesh, Barrister Amit, Sonam Goswami, Prakash Verma, Mamta, Komal Goswami and hundreds of students from different schools along with teachers and family members were present during the event. To succeed in this highly competitive UPSC exam and secure a coveted position in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) or other elite civil services, it is imperative to have a well-crafted preparation strategy that encompasses both hard work and smart planning. The UPSC CSE examination has three stages the Preliminary stage, the Mains and the Interview. Candidates must take time to analyze each stage and develop a plan of action before beginning their preparation. Stay ahead with all the exam results updates on News18 Website. The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission is expected to release the TNPSC Group 4 results soon. While an official confirmation is still awaited, the TNPSC Group 4 results could be out by the first week of August. The results will be made available online via the official website of TNPSC. Once released, the candidates may access their results online using their registration number and other login credentials, as directed. The exam is for 3 hours and carries 300 marks in total. It includes objective questions on subjects like General Studies, Aptitude and Mental Ability and other specific subjects related to the recruitment drive. There are a total of 200 questions and each question carries 1.5 marks. There is no negative marking in this examination. To qualify for the TNPSC Group 4 examination, the candidate should score a minimum of 90 marks out of 300. How to check TNPSC Group 4 2024 results? Step 1 Log on to the official website of TNPSC tnpsc.gov.in. Step 2 On the homepage, look for the Result section and click on it. Step 3 Find and click on the Recruitment of Group IV Services 2024 link. Step 4 Download and open the PDF containing the merit list. Step 5 Search your roll number in the document and check the qualification status. TNPSC Group 4 examination was conducted on June 9 and the evaluation is in progress. The answer key for TNPSC Group 4 was released on June 18 and the candidates were given a seven-day window until June 25 to raise objections, if any. The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) conducts various exams for recruitment to state government positions in Tamil Nadu, India. The Group 4 exam recruits candidates for positions like Junior Assistant, Bill Collector, Village Administrative Officer (VAO), Typist and many more. To apply for the recruitment drive, the candidate must have cleared their Class 10 board exam. The age limit to apply is typically between 18 and 30 years but there are relaxations for the reserved categories. Stay ahead with all the exam results updates on News18 Website. Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants love story seems to be straight out of a Bollywood rom-com. The couple, all set to tie the knot in Mumbai on July 12, are said to be childhood friends, according to multiple media reports. Though not many details have been shared by the families about their love story, it was in 2018 that people came to know about their relationship when a photo of them lost in each others eyes surfaced online and went viral. Although the couple had not shed light on their relationship at the time, Radhika would often attend the Ambani familys intimate events. She was present at Isha Ambanis wedding with Anand Piramal, which took place in 2018, and Akash Ambanis wedding with Shloka Mehta in 2019. The Roka ceremony of Radhika and Anant was performed at the Shrinathji Temple at Nathdwara in Rajasthan in December 2022. Anant and Radhikas Gol Dhana ceremony took place on January 19, 2023. The engagement ceremony took place at the Ambani residence, Antilia, and many Bollywood stars attended the ceremony to bless the couple. These included Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shreya Ghoshal, Rajkumar Hirani, and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. On Friday, the whos who from the world of politics, business and arts will grace the couples wedding. There will also be participation from renowned, accomplished academics, inventors, innovators, and doctors, highlighting the strong intellectual and scientific relationships nurtured by Reliance and the Ambanis over the years. The wide spectrum and walks of life of the guests indicate the Ambani familys focused efforts to nurture deep, inclusive, and meaningful relationships The wedding will also be a testament to the convening power of Reliance Industries and Mukesh Ambani, a leader who has played a pivotal role in Indias economic ascension. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Mumbai on Friday to attend the wedding of industrialist Mukesh Ambani and philanthropist Nita Ambanis younger son Anant Ambani with Radhika Merchant. Kerry joins a long list of A-listers who will be gracing the three-day festivities that will begin with the Shubh Vivaah (wedding), followed by Shubh Aashirwad (blessing ceremony) on July 13 and Mangal Utsav (wedding reception) on July 14. #WATCH | Former US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at Mumbai airport to attend Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's wedding pic.twitter.com/m6oSftqwjH ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 Global luminaries, world leaders, academicians, and investors have convened in India to celebrate the wedding which will also be graced by renowned, accomplished academics, inventors, innovators, and doctors, highlighting the strong intellectual and scientific relationships nurtured by Reliance and the Ambanis over the years. The wide spectrum and walks of life of the guests indicate the Ambani familys focused efforts to nurture deep, inclusive, and meaningful relationships. The wedding will also be a testament to the convening power of Reliance Industries and Mukesh Ambani, a leader who has played a pivotal role in Indias economic ascension. Those on the guest list include politicians such Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Former President of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed among others. Videos and pictures from the ceremony gave a glimpse into the lavish preparations as guests donned in their finest attire arrived for the wedding. Anant and Radhikas pre-wedding celebrations began in Jamnagar in March, where they hosted several guests for three days. Apart from Diljit Dosanjh and Arijit Singh, pop icon Rihanna performed at the event. As July arrived, the festivities continued with traditional pre-wedding rituals. Arvind Kejriwals Supreme Court Hearing: The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. While delivering the judgment, the top court noted that the parameters of Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act were examined by the bench. We have not examined the question of bail but we have examined parameters of Section 19 PMLA. We have explained the difference between Section 19 and Section 45. Section 19 is the subjective opinion of officers and is subject to judicial review, Section 45 is exercised by the court itself, Justice Sanjiv Khanna stated in court. On May 17, the bench reserved its verdict on Kejriwals plea, a month after the court sought a response from the ED on AAP supremos arrest. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief challenged the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court in the top court that had upheld his arrest in the case. The high court had upheld Kejriwals arrest in the case, saying there was no illegality and that the ED was left with little option after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation. The matter relates to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi governments excise policy for 2021-22, which has now been scrapped. A 12-year-old girl who hails from a far-flung village of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is raped by two men. The sexual assault and her agony continues for almost two years until she gets pregnant and delivers a boy. Her family abandons the son, thinking it would give her a normal life, which never happens. The past continues to haunt her for 30 years, affecting her family and married life, until, in an exceptional turn of events, her 30-year-old-abandoned-son traces her and motivates her to file a First Information Report (FIR) and find the wrongdoers. With the sons DNA sample as evidence, the court finds them guilty, and sentences the two to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. This may sound like a script of a Hindi film, but it is the story of a woman (name withheld as she is a rape survivor) from Uttar Pradeshs Hardoi district. The woman and her son spoke to News18 about their decades-long struggle and extraordinary journey for justice. ARRIVAL IN SHAHJAHANPUR One of the five siblings in a poor family in a remote village in Hardoi district, the woman was sent to her elder sisters house in Shahjahanpur to pursue her studies, as her father, an agricultural laborer, was finding it hard to meet the family expenses. I arrived in Shahjahanpur in 1993. I happily joined the new school, excited with my new bag, water bottle and cycle that my sister bought for me. However, this colony was different from ours in Hardoi. It was a secluded area in a Muslim-dominated locality, where a group of uncultured people frequently teased girls passing by with lewd remarks. Initially, I ignored it, but the teasing (now under molestation category in law) intensified with each passing day. Eventually, I told my sister that I didnt want to continue school. Concerned, my brother-in-law and she enquired with the school authorities, who assured them that everything was fine. The comment often repeated was, Mohalle mein ek chidiya aai hai. At first, I didnt understand what they meant, but later I realised they were referring to me, making me feel uncomfortable and unsafe, she told News18. SITUATION WORSENED With her silence, she said, the situation only worsened, as the unruly boys started following her to her house, and there were times when she had to hide to escape. But they gradually discovered her address. The survivor recounted how they used to stand outside her house for hours. It didnt take them long to assess that she stayed home alone in the afternoon as her brother-in-law, who works in the forest department, was often out on duty, and her sister worked as a school teacher. This emboldened them and made her feel even more vulnerable. THE FIRST ASSAULT One day, things took an ugly turn as two of them barged into our house, scaling up the wall. When I opened the door, they pushed me in, groped me and assaulted me. I couldnt understand what was happening. They left the house, threatening to kill my sister and her husband if I spoke up. I remained tight-lipped, thinking it was a bad dream, but never realised that it was a reality that was going to haunt me throughout my life, she said. THE PREGNANCY Soon, the two men turned up again, making it a routine affair. I wanted to tell my sister and mother, but I couldnt find the words to explain my situation until the day I fell seriously ill. My sister took me to a doctor, who confirmed my pregnancy. Still unaware of what it meant, I didnt understand the familys panic or why I was being thrashed. Fearing for my sister and her husband, I stayed silent, but eventually gave in and told everything to my mother, she added. The woman said her brother-in-law and sister traced the two men and even went to their house, but one of them threatened to kill them if they approached the police. That night my sister vacated the house and we left for another city. As my pregnancy was beyond the point of termination, I was made to deliver a baby, but I never got to see him. As I gained consciousness, my mother told me to remain tight-lipped. She said if I uttered a word about the incident or asked about the baby, the entire family would die by suicide. I was just 12 and did as I was told. I was brought back to my village in Hardoi, she said. OSTRACISED BY VILLAGERS The woman said she had hoped that her life would be back to normal in her village. I was wrong. On seeing the changes to my body after the pregnancy and delivery, the villagers easily put the story together. They started ostracising me. They boycotted my family after which we were forced to leave our ancestral village. I was dumped at my relatives house, where I was treated like house help, she added. However, she got a brief break from all her miseries in 2000, when she got married and settled in Varanasi. I was leading a happy married life. I gave birth to a boy. Somehow, one day my in-laws came to know about my past and my husband asked me to leave and take my son along, she said. On the other hand, her sister, too, paid the price for supporting the survivor, as her husband left her. THE RETURN OF THE ABANDONED SON In 2007, the woman moved to Lucknow with her son, determined to start afresh. She began living in a hostel and took on private jobs. Despite her efforts to rebuild, challenges continued to emerge, testing her resilience and strength. One day, a young boy approached me. I was shaken to the core as he told me that he was the son my family had abandoned. I didnt know how this boy had managed to trace me or what he might have faced in life. He had so many questions, but I couldnt answer even one, she said. THEY SHOULD PAY FOR THEIR DEEDS The woman and her two sons started to live together and she even took up a petty job, however, the elder sons questions remained unanswered. Over the years, I tried to avoid them, but in 2019, he threatened to end his life if I didnt tell him the name of his father. I broke down and told him everything. Instead of going weak, to my surprise, he boosted my morale and promised that we would trace the culprits and ensure that the wrongdoers paid for their deeds. His strength and determination gave me the courage to seek justice after all these years, she said. THE HUNT The son recalled the time when the three used to earn money through petty jobs to bear the transportation expenses and leave for the scene of crime (Shajahanpur). Whenever we managed to collect some money, we used to visit Shahjahanpur in search of the two rapists. However, with no clues except the name, Razi Bhai, his eyes and his croaky voice, tracing them was not easy. We sought help from the local police station, but the police told us they couldnt assist us as we didnt know the names or whereabouts. It was incredibly challenging and frustrating, said her eldest son. WHEN RAZI BHAI CALLED We used to visit the colony and distribute our numbers at shops and in markets, telling them that we were Razi Bhais relatives from Dubai and we wanted to meet him for some important work, he said. The search went on for two years, after which the womans phone rang one day. On the other side was Razi Bhai. It was a flashback moment for my mother, but she controlled her emotions, spoke calmly and soon handed over the phone number to the police, who remained lackadaisical, he added. Muthar Khan, the lawyer who represented the woman at the Sessions Court in Shahjahanpur, said after a lot of reluctance, police filed the FIR against the two, who happened to be brothers, on March 4, 2021. In August 2022, the UP Police arrested Mohammad Razi alias Guddu Hasan. The other accused, Naqi Hassan, was later arrested from Hyderabad. THE TRIAL Khan said during the trial, the defence relied on the lack of witnesses, passage of time and inability of the police to locate the doctor who facilitated the delivery. They argued that as she had kept this secret for so long, the physical relationship between the accused and her was established on the basis of mutual consent. This argument aimed to undermine her credibility and dismiss the severity of the crime committed against her. However, her son and she stood firm as rocks, said Khan. SON SOUGHT DNA TEST Her son, the only evidence of crime, sought a DNA test of the two accused to be matched with his to which the court agreed. On the courts order, the DNA samples were collected and were sent to a lab, and the results, which were obtained in April 2022, turned out to be positive. The results concluded that one Razi was his biological father, said Khan. THE SENTENCING On May 20, 2024, the Shahjahanpur Sessions Court sentenced Mohammad Razi and Hassan Naqi to 10 years rigorous imprisonment for raping the woman for two years between 1994 and 1996, when she was just 12. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 each. Shahjahanpur superintendent of police (SP) Ashok Kumar Meena told News18 that the court convicted the duo under IPC Section 376 for rape and sentenced them in the matter. The two convicts who were aged 25 and 22 when they committed the crime are now 55 and 52, while the survivor is now 42 and her son, who was born out of the rape, is now 30, he added. The woman said that although she doesnt have much faith in God after such a long suffering, if she ever had the chance, she would certainly ask him why her sons and she were made to suffer for someone elses wrongdoings. Former UK prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson have arrived in Mumbai to attend the grand wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries Limited Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani, and Radhika Merchant, daughter of industrialist Viren Merchant. The wedding is set to take place at the Jio World Convention Centre today. #WATCH | Former British PM Tony Blair arrives in Mumbai for the wedding of Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant. pic.twitter.com/bFdFRMGXL6 ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 Among the early arrivals, American reality TV icons Kim and Khloe Kardashian were seen at a private airport in Mumbai late Thursday night. Samsung CEO Han Jong Hee also touched down in the city, to partake in the three-day celebration starting today. Boris Johnson made a striking entrance at Kalina airport. He waved at the photographers before heading off in his car, dressed in a printed shirt and trousers. Han Jong Hee was similarly spotted. The Anant Ambani wedding is graced by notable attendees, including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with his spouse Yoo Soon-taek. Futurist Peter Diamandis, artist Jeff Koons, self-help guru Jay Shetty, former US Secretary of State John Kerry and former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are all expected to join in the celebrations. The nuptials will be held at the Jio World Convention Center in Mumbai, followed by dinner receptions over the next few days. Anant and Radhikas pre-wedding celebrations began in Jamnagar in March, where they hosted more than thousand guests for three days. Apart from Diljit Dosanjh and Arijit Singh, pop icon Rihanna had performed at the event. As July arrived, the festivities continued with traditional pre-wedding rituals. One such ceremony was the Mameru-Mausulu, where the brides maternal uncles shower her with gifts, clothes, and jewelry, symbolising their blessings and wishes for the new chapter in her life. Following this, Anant Ambanis grandmother, Kokilaben Ambani, hosted a dandiya night in Mumbai, bringing family and friends together. An extravagant sangeet night was also held at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, where pop sensation Justin Bieber performed for the couple, adding a touch of international glamour to the event. The night also featured performances by Bollywood celebrities such as Salman Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, and Ranveer Singh, alongside heartfelt performances by members of the Ambani family. A few months ago, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) blood bank in New Delhi received a desperate call requesting for a unique blood group. The call was made by the blood bank of Lady Hardinge Hospital where a Haryana-based woman in her late 20s had suffered a miscarriage and needed an urgent blood transfusion to remove the foetus. Her haemoglobin was 6 grams per decilitre (g/dl) against the normal 12-15g/dl range. The call was received by Dr Hem Chandra Pandey, head, transfusion medicine (blood bank) at AIIMS, New Delhi. She was facing recurrent intra-uterine deaths. The blood group of the mother and unborn child was incompatible and in turn, the condition for the growth of the baby was difficult. Hence, she suffered the death of seven unborn children, Pandey told News18. There are more than 400 blood groups that prevail across the globe and this woman had a group called D (dash dash) phenotype which is extremely rare. The AIIMS team checked the donor data in India but there was no donor available. The case was referred to AIIMS, and the doctors prepared for another emergency procedure to take the baby out while the mothers haemoglobin was still low. The team had no option but ended up removing the baby, successfully. Unfortunately, the woman had lost her seventh child too but she was saved despite acute anaemia. The team efforts reaped results when she came back to the hospital in her eighth pregnancy again in a critical position. However, a team of over four doctors from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, including Dr K Aparna Sharma, Dr Vatsla Dadhwal, Dr Neena Malhotra, Dr Anubhuti Rana, and transfusion head Dr Hem Chandra Pandey, successfully saved her eight child and made history. The team performed a first-of-its-kind procedure in India and the eighth in the world. Mission to Save the 8th Unborn Child Dr K Aparna Sharma, from the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of AIIMS, told News18 that in this case, the incompatibility between the red blood cells of the mother and the baby in the womb led to problems for the unborn child due to the destruction of the red cells leading to anaemia, jaundice, heart failure and even death of the baby. The most common known incompatibility is due to the RhD antigen (commonly known as D+ or D-) and in severe cases of fetal anaemia RhD- blood is transfused to the baby inside the mothers womb through the umbilical cord. However, in this case, Sharma said, the mother was negative for the Rh 17 antigen which is very rare to find. Due to this, the babies in her womb would suffer from incompatibility and develop anaemia and she had previous seven pregnancy losses. When she came to AIIMS in her seventh pregnancy, she had already lost her child inside her womb but in that pregnancy, the blood group was identified by the blood bank team. In her eighth pregnancy, she came to us during the fifth month and it was found that the baby was already anaemic and required blood to be given urgently. This time, the blood bank team moved aggressively as they had earlier sent the sample of the mothers rare blood group to the United Kingdoms International Blood Group Reference Laboratory. The WHO-supported laboratory had sent the list of countries with donors of the same blood group. Now, was the time to use the list. We moved quickly as the list had given us names of around 10 countries. We zeroed in on Japan. The reason was simple the country was relatively nearer and the list of donors was longer with almost 30 registered donors, Pandey recalled. We reached out to the Japanese Red Cross for around six units of blood that was planned to be given to the baby through the umbilical cord in the next few months to sustain the pregnancy. These specialised blood units were given as intrauterine transfusion and this procedure ensured the health and survival of an unborn child suffering from severe anaemia. The anaemia in child resulted from the destruction of red blood cells (hemolysis) caused by antibodies transferred from the mother. The condition is known as hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN). The foetus received six blood transfusions inside the mothers womb and the state of hydrops (heart failure) reverted to normal. The pregnancy continued till eight months when the baby was delivered by a caesarean section and this became the first case of a successful pregnancy outcome in a case of alloimmunisation due to Rh 17 Ag in India and eighth case in the world. According to studies, HDFN affects 3 out of every one lakh to 80 out of every one lakh patients every year. Haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn is an immune-mediated red blood cell disorder. However, reasons and severity could vary from case to case. The Navi Mumbai police have alleged in a report that IAS probationary officer Puja Khedkar tried to pressure its Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vivek Pansare to release a man arrested in a steel theft case. According to the report sent to the state home department on Wednesday, the incident occurred on May 18 at Panvel police station. The arrested man is allegedly a relative of Khedkar. Khedkar reportedly contacted Pansare, the Navi Mumbai Circle DCP, and requested the release of transporter Ishwar Uttarwade, who had been arrested in the case. During the phone call, the IAS trainee allegedly told Pansare that Uttarwade was innocent and the charges against him were minor. Although Khedkar identified herself as an IAS officer during the call with Pansare, the DCP was not sure over her identity, suspecting the possibility of an imposter, an official said. However, despite the telephonic call, the Navi Mumbai police did not heed her request, and Uttarwade remains in judicial custody for the alleged crime. Khedkar recently drew attention when she was transferred from Pune collectors office to Washim district before completing her training, amid controversies over her demands, such as a separate cabin and additional staff. After news about the conduct of the 32-year-old probationary IAS officer emerged, the Navi Mumbai police had reached out to the Pune collectors office and a senior official in the home department. On the advice of the home department official, DCP Pansare forwarded a detailed report on the alleged phone call spanning two pages to Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik, who holds additional charge of the home department, through Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Milind Bharambe. In addition to the incident at the Pune collectors office, there are several other allegations that Khedkar may have manipulated disability provisions and the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota to secure her position in the prestigious Indian Administrative Services (IAS). Khedkar, who secured the 841st rank in the UPSC examination and is a 2022 batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, allegedly submitted a false certificate claiming visual impairment to gain exemption during the examination. ALSO READ: After Transfer Row, IAS Officer Pooja Khedkars Disability Certificate, OBC Non-Creamy Layer Claim Under Scanner Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Centre constituted a single-member committee to investigate the candidature of the IAS officer from Maharashtra cadre, announcing that an additional secretary-rank officer would conduct the probe to verify claims regarding Khedkars candidature and other relevant details. The panel will probe allegations related to fake certificates and scrutiny at the time of her interview, while the IAS Academy will additionally look into her conduct during probation. ALSO READ: Pressure Mounts On IAS Officer Puja Khedkar; Centre Forms Probe Panel, Pune Traffic Police Sends Notice Over Beacon Use (With inputs from PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday formally welcomed the Chinese cargo vessel San Fernando at the Vizhinjam International seaport where the ship had berthed a day ago. The ceremony was held in the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal, Kerala Assembly Speaker A N Shamseer, state Ports Minister V N Vasavan and his cabinet colleagues K N Balagopal, V Sivankutty, K Rajan and G R Anil, UDF MLA M Vincent and APSEZ Managing Director Karan Adani. The international port is being developed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, (APSEZ), Indias largest port developer and part of the Adani Group. San Fernando arrived at the newly-built port on Thursday, marking the first container ships arrival at Indias largest deep-water trans-shipment port. #WATCH | Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala: On first mothership San Fernando reached Vizhinjam International Seaport, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal says, Under the flagship initiative of our Ministry of Port Shipping and Waterways, Sagarmala, there are 55 projects worth more than pic.twitter.com/KoLXXz8jJX ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 People turned up in large numbers to see the 300-metre-long mothership at the Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL). The port is being constructed under the public-private partnership model. The total investment for the Vizhinjam port is around Rs 8,867 crore. Out of this, the state government and the Central government have allocated Rs 5,595 crore and Rs 818 crore respectively. Equipped with modern equipment and advanced automation and IT systems, Vizhinjam will become Indias first semi-automated port, expected to be fully commissioned in September or October 2024. The project, scheduled to be commissioned in 2019, was delayed due to issues with land acquisition. Severe waterlogging disrupted public transport services and traffic in several parts of Mumbai following heavy rainfall on Friday. A nowcast warning was issued predicting intense rain spells in isolated areas in the city over the next 3-4 hours. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) in a statement said, Intense spells of rain are very likely to occur at isolated places in the districts of Mumbai during the next 3-4 hours, the IMD said. The IMD has further issued a yellow alert in the Thane and Raigad regions in their nowcast warning today. #WATCH | Maharashtra: Waterlogging in several parts of Navi Mumbai after heavy rainfall in the city; visuals from Sanpada Underpass pic.twitter.com/8zQucqu4iv ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 Several parts of the city received more than 15 mm of rainfall between 7 am and 8 am. Heavy rains caused waterlogging in low-lying areas such as Sion, leading authorities to divert road traffic. Areas such as Kings Circle road, P DMello road, Sanpada underpass, and more also experienced waterlogging amid the heavy downpour this morning. In the Western suburbs, the Andheri subway between Andheri and Jogeshwari railway stations was waterlogged, leading to its closure. Overnight incessant rainfall also led to waterlogging in several parts of Navi Mumbai. IndiGo airlines notified that flights are being affected by heavy rains and air traffic congestion in Mumbai. Flights are impacted due to heavy rains and air traffic congestion in #Mumbai. Do keep a tab on the flight status http://bit.ly/3DNYJqj. Wishing you happy and safe travels, the airline wrote in an X post. #6ETravelAdvisory: Flights are impacted due to heavy rains and air traffic congestion in #Mumbai. Do keep a tab on the flight status https://t.co/VhykW6WdB1. Wishing you happy and safe travels! IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) July 12, 2024 According to IMD, as of 7:45 AM on Friday, the city recorded varying rainfall amounts: Byculla received 100.5 mm, Mahalakshmi 41 mm, Matunga 99 mm, Sion 100 mm, Dahisar 57.5 mm, Juhu Airport 18 mm, Mumbai Airport 71.5 mm, Ram Mandir 72.5 mm, Tata Power-Chembur 58 mm, Vidya Vihar 0 mm, and Vikhroli 65.5 mm. The centres that recorded the highest rainfall from 7 am to 8 am today, are as follows: (in millimeters)City F North Ward Office & Wadala Fire Station 28 Worli Sea Face Municipal School 27 Pratiksha Nagar Municipal School 26 Savitribai Municipal School & Mumbai, BMC (@mybmc) July 12, 2024 A civic official said a high tide of 3.87 metres in the Arabian Sea at 4:09 pm. Mumbais saucer-shaped geography makes it susceptible to flooding during high tides, especially when heavy rains prevent water from draining into the sea. A spokesperson from Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) reported that three bus routes have been diverted due to waterlogging at Sion since 7:50 am. Western Railway and Central Railway, responsible for operating local trains in the city, stated that suburban services were operational. However, commuters complained of some delays, despite no reports of waterlogging on the tracks. (With inputs from agencies) Mumbais ambitious Goregaon-Mulund Link Road Project (Phase 3) is set to achieve a significant milestone with the foundation-laying ceremony for the twin tunnel under Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The event, scheduled for July 13 at 5pm, will be graced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Nesco Exhibition Center in Goregaon. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is spearheading the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project, aiming to connect the eastern and western suburbs of Mumbai via road. This 12.20-kilometer project is expected to drastically cut down travel time between the suburbs from 75 minutes to just 25 minutes. Phase 3 of the project involves constructing twin tunnels, each 4.7 kilometers long, under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Due to security measures, citizens are encouraged to arrive at the venue two hours before the scheduled time. These twin tunnels, part of Phase 3 of the GMLR Project, will span 4.7 kilometers in length and 45.70 meters in width, running beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali. The total length of the road, inclusive of connecting roads and other components, will be 6.65 kilometers. The tunnels will be situated 20 to 160 meters below the ground and will be interconnected every 300 meters. Using tunnel boring machines (TBM) with a diameter of about 14.2 meters, the excavation process will commence. These tunnels will feature modern lighting, ventilation systems, fire safety mechanisms, CCTV, and control rooms at both ends. Beneath the tunnels, utility conduits for stormwater drainage and potential future water supply will be installed. The construction will ensure that the flora, fauna, and areas like Aarey, Vihar, and Tulsi lakes within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park are not disturbed. No land within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park has been acquired for this project. Furthermore, animal pathways will be constructed for the safe passage of wildlife. This project is anticipated to reduce carbon emissions by approximately 22,400 tons annually, along with saving travel time and fuel for Mumbai residents. The total estimated cost for constructing the twin tunnels is Rs 6301.08 crore, with completion expected by October 2028. The project is currently progressing well, with total station surveys, soil testing, temporary road diversions, and preliminary alignment design underway. Rehabilitation work for displaced residents and commercial entities includes the construction of seven buildings with 23 floors each and a market building with three floors. The GMLR Project is divided into four phases, spanning a total length of 12.20 kilometers. The entire project is estimated to cost Rs 14,000 crore. Phase 1 includes the widening of the existing flyover (ROB) near Nahur Railway Station. Phase 2 involves expanding the 30-meter-wide road to 45.70 meters. Phase 3 (A) will see the construction of flyovers and elevated rotary intersections. Phase 3 (B) will include the construction of a 1.22-kilometer-long cut-and-cover tunnel with three lanes each near Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari in Goregaon and the 4.7-kilometer twin tunnels under Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Phase 4 will involve constructing a proposed two-level flyover from Nahur to Airoli Toll Plaza, crossing the Eastern Express Highway, and building an underpass for vehicles at the junction of the Western Express Highway and GMLR. The GMLR will become the fourth major road connecting Mumbais eastern and western suburbs, particularly benefiting traffic in North Mumbai. This project will create a new link road between the suburbs, significantly reducing traffic congestion. It will provide a direct connection from the western suburbs to the proposed new airport in Navi Mumbai and the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Vehicles traveling to the Nashik Highway will also benefit from this project. The travel distance will be reduced by approximately 8.80 kilometers compared to the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road. The travel time between Goregaon and Mulund will decrease from 75 minutes to roughly 25 minutes, leading to significant fuel savings and improved air quality in Mumbai. Several BJP leaders including the partys Karnataka unit chief B Y Vijayendra were detained on Friday when they were on their way to Mysuru to stage a protest against the alleged fraudulent activities of the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Vijayendra and other BJP leaders were whisked away in a bus on the Mysuru Road shortly before they were scheduled to attend a protest rally. The MUDA scam case pertains to the governments fraudulent allotment of sites to land losers. It also involves plots given to Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs wife. What Is MUDA Land Scam? The Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam relates to the allegations of irregularities in site allotment by the MUDA involving land losses amounting to thousands of crores of rupees. The controversy intensified with the claims that Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs wife, Parvathi, benefited from these irregularities. The MUDA allegedly allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where MUDA developed a residential layout. The controversial scheme envisages allotting 50 per cent of developed land to the person losing the property instead of undeveloped land acquired for forming layouts. Siddaramaiahs Defence Denying the allegations, Siddaramaiah on Thursday alleged that he was unnecessarily being targeted in the case. Claiming that a conspiracy is being hatched against him out of heartburn as he belongs to a backward class community and has become the Chief Minister for a second time, Siddarmaiaah had asserted that he wont fear such moves by the BJP. Siddaramaiahs Defence is Dishonest, Says BJP BJP leader CT Ravi termed as dishonest Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs defence in connection with alleged fraudulent allotment of sites to land losers by MUDA. The MLC also alleged that the CM seems to be recklessly defending the corruption. The Chief Ministers conduct in response to allegations of MUDA sites is of intelligent defence and not honesty. This is a case involving CMs wife, the allegation is against CM and his wife, Ravi said. CM Rejects BJPs Demand for CBI Probe Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday rejected the BJPs demand for a CBI probe into the alleged fraudulent allotment of sites by MUDA. He accused the BJP of politicising a non-issue. The Chief Minister was reacting to BJP state President B Y Vijayendra announcing earlier in the day that a mega protest would be staged in Mysuru Siddaramaiahs home district on July 12 in connection with the alleged scam. BJP Stages Massive Protest, Leaders Detained Karnataka BJP President B Y Vijayendra and several other party leaders were detained here on Friday when they were on their way to Mysuru to stage a protest against the alleged fraudulent allotment of sites to land losers by MUDA, which involves plots given to the Chief Minister Siddaramaiahs wife. They were scheduled to attend a protest rally in Mysuru the Chief Ministers home district- and lay a siege to the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) office there. The Indore district administration on Friday imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on two private schools for compelling parents to buy uniforms and textbooks from a particular outlet. One of the schools was selling uniforms and textbooks itself, while the other had asked the parents to buy them only from two shops, said district education officer Manglesh Kumar Vyas. Show-cause notices were issued to the school managements following complaints from parents, he said. As the replies to the notices were not satisfactory, collector Ashish Singh imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on the two schools under the Madhya Pradesh Private Schools (Regulation of Fees and Related Matters) Act, Vyas said. The fine is to be paid within seven days, he added. Refuting sexual harassment allegations against its assistant sub inspector (ASI) by a female SpiceJet employee, sources in the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Friday said that the abuse charge was levelled after the officer refused to withdraw his complaint. The video and eyewitness accounts do not corroborate the allegations made by the female employee. It appears to be a belated action, but the police are investigating, sources at CISF told News18. On Thursday, Anuradha Rani, who works as a ground staff member at SpiceJet airlines, was arrested for allegedly slapping an on-duty CISF officer during a dispute over security screening at Jaipur airport. Anuradha was booked under sections 121 (1) (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) and 132 (assaulting public servant) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). However, today, she filed a case against the CISF officer alleging misconduct and making indecent comments. The CCTV footage of the incident, which has gone viral on social media platforms, shows the CISF officer conversing with the woman, who suddenly approaches and slaps him before being escorted away by a female constable. In response to the incident, SpiceJet released a statement on Thursday alleging that the female staff member was subjected to sexual harassment by the CISF officer, who allegedly invited her to come and meet him after his duty hours at his home. SpiceJet is taking immediate legal action in this serious case of sexual harassment against its female employee and has approached the local police. We stand firmly by our employee and are committed to providing her with full support, the airline asserted. Addressing the incident, a senior CISF official told News18 that the SpiceJet employee became agitated when no female CISF personnel were available for mandatory screening at the entrance. A female SpiceJet employee was asked to undergo mandatory screening at the nearby entrance for airline crew at Jaipur airport, but no female CISF personnel were available at the time. The female employee got agitated and slapped the on-duty CISF personnel. A case has been registered against her and she has been arrested, the senior CISF official stated. IAS probationer Puja Khedkar, who is facing allegations of submitting fake certificates to secure her job and asking for special privileges at workplace, could face severe action leading up to termination, government sources told CNN-News18 on Friday, a day after the Centre formed a one-member panel to look into the controversy surrounding her appointment. Khedkar, a 2023-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Maharashtra cadre, could also be subjected to criminal action if her certificates are found to be fake and forgery is proved. The sources said the probe panel of an additional secretary-rank official in the central governments Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will look into these aspects. The panel is expected to submit its report within two weeks. The 34-year-old IAS officer made headlines over her alleged demands for a separate office, staff and quarters which she is not entitled to as a probationer. Pune police are probing charges that she used a red beacon and an insignia of the Maharashtra government on her private Audi vehicle. Another major allegation pertains to her disability certificate submitted to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). According to media reports, she told the UPSC that she was visually and mentally challenged, in order to get special concessions in the selection process. But she refused to undergo medical tests on several occasions; even specially abled UPSC aspirants, who crack the prestigious test, are required to undergo medical tests. Subsequently, she submitted an MRI report, which was first rejected and later accepted. Her claim in job application that she belonged to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) non-creamy layer which would contribute to her selection is also under the scanner. Pune RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar has said Khedkars father, a retired administrative officer who unsuccessfully fought the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, has assets worth Rs 40 crore. The threshold of annual income for quota under OBC non-creamy layer category is Rs 8 lakh. Earlier this week, Khedkar was transferred to Washim from Pune, where she was posted as an assistant collector. She secured an all-India rank of 841 in the UPSC exam in 2023, and is currently on a 24-month probationary period. I am happy to join duty at the Washim district collectorate and am looking forward to working here, she said on Thursday. I am not authorised to speak on the issue. Khedkar was transferred to Washim after Pune district collector Suhas Diwase reportedly shot a letter to state additional chief secretary Nitin Gadre and requested him to shift Khedkar to another district to avoid administrative complications, according to reports. Diwase sought action against Khedkar for alleged aggressive treatment of junior staff and the unauthorised use of the ante-chamber of additional collector Ajay More, among others, the reports added. A woman staying in a Divyang school in a village in Uttar Pradeshs Barabanki district was allegedly gang-raped by three persons, including the schools president, police said on Friday. The victim, a 26-year-old mentally-challenged woman, was allegedly kidnapped and gang-raped in April and has been missing since, they said. School president Rajesh Ratnakar, former guard Ram Kailash, and Amrita, who also worked at the school, were arrested for the gang rape on Thursday. The incident happened at Narendrapur village under Haidergarh police station area of the district, they said. A case of gang-rape was filed against the trio based on a complaint by school director, Sunita Devi on Tuesday. Superintendent of Police Dinesh Kumar Singh said all three accused have been arrested. The matter is being investigated and efforts are being made to trace the woman, he said. Even as the Supreme Court has deferred its verdict on contrasting petitions seeking a re-test of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) and those who oppose it, big questions remain before the bench if the paper leak had any impact beyond its area of occurrence? Whether any candidate(s) was benefitted? Can beneficiaries be distinguished from others? Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan met NEET-UG candidates those seeking scrapping of the exam and others who are opposing it at his residence in New Delhi on Thursday. During the 30-minute meeting, Pradhan said to have assured the candidates that no injustice will be allowed with students under any circumstances. The Union government has presented its stance in the court that it is not in favour of a re-test and that rest is up to the SC to decide. The government will take its next step after the courts decision, he said. He also told students that the government is committed to holding fool-proof exams and that no such instance happens in the future. The Centre has maintained its stance in the Supreme Court of not being in favour of a re-test on the basis of unsubstantiated suspicions, burdening around 24 lakh students. The Centre also told the court that it intends to start the counselling process (a system through which seats are allocated) for NEET-UG, from the third week of July in four phases. If any candidate is found to have benefited from any irregularity, their counselling will be cancelled in any of the phases or even after, it said. The Supreme Court has been hearing a bunch of petitions filed post the announcement of results of NEET-UG on June 4 demanding scrapping of the test. The exam was conducted on May 5 at around 5,000 exam centres across India. Soon after the results, the test ran into allegations of irregularities and leaks at some centres including Patna, Jharkhand and Godhra. What do the various petitions seeking re-test claim and what is the reply given to them? Petitions Claiming Breach of Sanctity A set of writ petitions go on to say that since there has been a leak, which cannot be denied, the sanctity of the exam has been breached and hence a re-test must be conducted. In response to this, the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts the entrance exam as well as the Centre, in its final affidavit submitted in the apex court on July 10 said that a comprehensive analysis of the performance of top 1.4 lakh ranks (given the number of government medical seats in India is 1.1 lakh) shows no abnormality in scores. Also, it said that there is no large-scale malpractice or evidence of a local set of candidates benefitting. NTA officials are learnt to have told the court that the supposed beneficiaries, who were involved in the leak, could not benefit from it in the exam. The Centre had roped in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras for the data analytics of the NEET-UG results, which was submitted in the top court. The analysis report stated that the distribution of marks follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in large-scale examinations indicating no abnormality. The report said that there is an overall increase in the marks obtained by students, specifically, in the range of 550 to 720. This increase is seen across cities and centres. This is attributed to 25% reduction in syllabus. Among the top 100 scorers, in Patna, where it is alleged that a question paper was leaked, has only two candidates in the top, with an increase of only one candidate compared to 2023. Similar trends are seen while we consider the top 500, 1000, 5,000 and 60,000 ranks in case of Patna, wherein the number of toppers have in fact reduced from that in 2023, it said. The analysis also stated that there is no spike in the number of candidates securing high marks in a particular centre in 2024 when compared with 2023, which clearly indicates that there is no malpractice. The analysis was done using Python for data processing, PostgreSQL for data storage, and Metabase for analysis, it said. Petition Claiming Leak on Telegram Another writ petition claims that the paper leak also took place through social media app Telegram after a video surfaced with a photo of a question paper. The NTA has told the court that the video in question allegedly shows a photo of the exam paper leaked on Telegram on May 4, but one image, which was edited, displays a timestamp of 17:40 on May 5 (the day of the exam), 2024. Additionally, discussions within the Telegram channel indicate the members identified the video as fake. The timestamp was manipulated to create a false impression of an early leak. Hearing Deferred to July 18 The Supreme Court on Thursday was expected to come out with a verdict having examine the submissions made to it. However, the bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud noted that some of the parties had not been given affidavits filed by the Centre and the NTA and that they needed to study them before presenting their arguments. Also, the lawyer of one of the petitioners said that the CBI had to file a status report in the court, which was not submitted, which was also one of the reasons that the hearing had to be deferred. Is there a need to revise the Indian Armys NOK (Next of Kin) norm? NOK revision is in the news, especially after the aged parents of Captain Anshuman Singh, Uttar Pradeshs Deoria district resident who died in a fire incident at Siachen in July last year, said the existing rules prioritise spouse over parents after marriage, leading to hardships for the family. On July 5, Anshuman was awarded Kirti Chakra, Indias second-highest peacetime gallantry honour, posthumously. Anshumans mother Manju and wife Smriti received the award at the hands of President Droupadi Murmu. ALSO READ | His Wife Doesnt Live With Us Anymore: Captain Anshuman Singhs Parents Demand Revision In Next Of Kin Rule Days after the event, the parents said financial assistance should be given not just to the martyrs wife, but also to his parents. They also met Raebareli MP and leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, demanding change in the rules, which they say are obsolete. ANSHUMAN SINGHS PARENTS PLEA Barring a garlanded photo of my beloved son Anshuman, we are left with nothing, not even his belongings or service-related papers. It feels as if we were nowhere in Anshumans life. Our daughter-in-law took everything, including the Kirti Chakra, in which we were co-recipients. Dont we have any right over our sons belongings and the financial assistance given to our daughter-in-law in his name, as per the NoK norm? Ravi Pratap Singh, Singhs father, who recently settled in Lucknow, said. We appeal to our government to reconsider these norms to ensure that parents of no martyr are abandoned in the future. It is heart-wrenching to be left without any connection to our sons legacy. We need fair treatment and support for all family members to honour the sacrifice of brave soldiers and to prevent such injustice from happening to others, he said. #WATCH | President Droupadi Murmu conferred Kirti Chakra upon Captain Anshuman Singh, The Army Medical Corps, 26th Battalion of the Punjab Regiment, posthumously. Disregarding his own safety, he exhibited exceptional bravery and resolve to rescue many people in a major fire pic.twitter.com/BnKd2WS7Xk ANI (@ANI) July 5, 2024 Blaming their daughter-in-law, Singh said Anshumans wife not only abandoned them, but also changed Anshumans permanent address from Lucknow to Gurdaspur, to ensure she received all correspondence. Anshuman and Smriti got married in their Lucknow home, where the family shifted in 2022. We got Anshuman married to Smriti with his consent. After the wedding, she stayed with my daughter in Noida. On July 19, 2023, when we learned of Anshumans death, I called them to Lucknow, and we went to Gorakhpur for his last rites. After the tehravi (13th day rituals), Smriti insisted on going back to Gurdaspur. The next day, she went to Noida with her mother and took Anshumans photo album, clothes and other belongings with her, Singh said. Singh further claimed that she even didnt give him enough time to see the Kirti Chakra or to touch it. On returning from the award ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan, Smriti took the Chakra. THE AID As tribute to martyr Anshuman, UP CM Yogi Adityanath announced financial assistance of Rs 50 lakh. He also announced a government job to a member of the martyrs family and a road in the district after Anshuman. Manju Singh said, In our case, everything is given to the daughter-in-law who no longer stays with us. The rules regarding the assistance amount and other facilities provided by the government should also be amended, so that parents are entitled to them along with the wife of the martyr. #WATCH | Raebareli, UP | Following her meeting with Congress MP & LoP Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi today, Manju Singh, mother of late Captain Anshuman Singh who lost his life after a fire accident at Siachen in 2023, says, "We talked about the Indian Army and the Agniveer scheme. It pic.twitter.com/9o5oapraHz ANI (@ANI) July 9, 2024 WHAT ARE NOK RULES? The Next of Kin (NOK) rules designate a persons closest relative or legal representative. In the Army, if something happens to a service member, the ex-gratia amount is given to the NOK, similar to a bank nominee. When a cadet or officer joins the Army, the names of their parents or guardians are recorded as the NOK. However, when the cadet or officer gets married, the Army rules mandate the name of the spouse be recorded as the NOK instead of parents. These rules mean that all benefits, financial assistance and belongings are transferred to the spouse in the event of the service members death. This protocol aims to streamline the process and ensure the spouse receives immediate support. DEFENCE SOURCES ON ANSHUMANs PARENTS CLAIMS The family of Captain Anshuman has received and will continue to receive benefits according to established norms. When a service member is killed in action, compensation funds are disbursed to the legal heir. The officers will, declared during their tenure, plays a major role, and the army board decides on other remaining matters, said sources. In this case, the parents have received funds from AGIF (Army Group Insurance Fund), a percentage from the funds received from the UP CM, and percentage as declared, if any, by the officer, from the Provident Fund. Additionally, the family pension will be disbursed according to the Next of Kin (NOK) declaration by the officer wife in this case, sources added. WHO WAS CAPTAIN ANSHUMAN SINGH? After doing his MBBS from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Captain Anshuman Singh joined the Medical Corps of the Army. His wife Smriti is an engineer and her parents are school principals. After training in Agra Military Hospital, Anshuman was posted there. Recently, Anshuman became the medical officer of a battalion posted in Poonch sector of Kashmir. During his posting with 26 Punjab as a medical officer in the Siachen Glacier area, Anshuman attained martyrdom on July 19, 2023. Around 3 am, a short-circuit ignited a fire in an Indian Army ammunition dump. Upon seeing a fibreglass hut engulfed in flames, Anshuman acted to save those trapped inside, successfully rescuing four to five people. However, the fire soon spread to a nearby medical investigation room. ALSO READ | It Was Love At First Sight: Widow Of Soldier Killed In Siachen Fire Shares Their Heartbreaking Story Determined to save more lives, Anshuman went back into the blazing structure. Tragically, he got trapped in the inferno and could not escape. Anshumans family, including his father Ravi, mother Manju, brother Ghanshyam Singh, and sister Tanya Singh, lives in Para Colony on Mohan Road in Lucknow. Both Ghanshyam and Tanya are doctors in Noida. Ravi Pratap Singh was a JCO in the Army. At the extravagant wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, which will take place at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, Suhana Khan and Aryan Khan made a striking presence. The Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khans kids turned eyebrows on the red carpet with their flawless taste and elegance. Suhana Khan dazzled in a beige, sequined saree by Manish Malhotra, which she had previously worn to the designers Diwali celebration the previous year. The elaborate decorations on the saree accentuated Suhanas elegant style. A well-tied bun, simple jewellery consisting of a choker and gorgeous white earrings, and a dainty bindi that elevated her traditional attire completed her look. On the other hand, Aryan Khan radiated style in a traditional black suit and matching shoes. Posing together, they both exuded poise and charm as they arrived at the star-studded event. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) Meanwhile, the festivities began at Antilia, the Ambani home, which was exquisitely decorated to welcome the newest family member. As the Baraatis got ready for the event, musicians performed mesmerising songs, heightening the joyful mood. Global celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas, Ram Charan, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Jay Y. Lee, the Executive Chairman of Samsung Electronics, were among the events prominent attendees. Kim Kardashian added to the celebrations splendour by posting peeks of her cordial welcome at the Taj Colaba on her Instagram stories. Suhana and Aryan Khan joined in the fun, and their composure and elegant look brought a dash of Bollywood glitz to the already amazing occasion, making it a night to remember. Amitabh Bachchan revealed he purchased the Mahabharat amid the success of Kalki 2898 AD but faced an issue when it arrived. The actor took to his blog and revealed he had ordered the scared book to his house but when it reached, he realised that Mahabharat are not supposed to be kept at home. As a remedy, Big B decided to store the sacred book at his library. The reason he bought the book, Amitabh explained, was to learn more about the script. At a recording finally at the end of the day for an evening for another, that creates the mystique of mythology .. and during the various chapters that come up, comes a chapter of Kalki , in the sequence that dwells on the creation of the Universe , and its coming during the time passage , which has , quite interestingly been covered in the film KALKI .. and the mysteries of its coming, he wrote. Really there is so much to learn from our scriptures, that an effort is being made to acquire all that could possibly educate an uneducated me, to be of some knowledge .. So an issue of several volumes of the MAHABHARAT was ordered, and when it arrived, there was the issue of keeping the book in the home .. for kept in the home is considered a NO .. so given to a library .. and back to the source that prints my words here the net, the Bollywood actor added. For the unversed, Amitabh Bachchan played the role of the immortal Ashwatthama in Kalki 2898 AD. The actor has been receiving praises for his performance. Kalki 2898 AD has also emerged as a massive hit. The Nag Ashwin film has collected Rs 543.45 Cr in India in 15 days. The film is heading towards a collection of Rs 1000 crore worldwide. Amitabh is expected to return for the sequel. Kim Kardashian has landed in Mumbai with her sister Khloe Kardashian for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding. The reality show star, who is also the owner of the clothing company SKIMS, reached India on Thursday night and was welcomed with much fanfare. While pictures of Kim at the airport have already gone viral, she has now shared her POV. Kim took to her Instagram Stories and shared pictures along with videos of her first night in India. One of her first stories from India featured the Indian paparazzi. Kim turned paparazzo for the paparazzi as they mobbed her car. The reality star remained unfazed as the cameramen surrounded her car while she exited from the Mumbai airport. She even shared a closer look at the paps surrounding her car and wrote, Hi (India). She then shared a video in which she and Khloe received an Indian style welcome. The staff at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai welcomed Kim with a gardland and placed a tikka on her forehead. A picture of Kim and Khloe with a fan from the hotel has also gone viral. See the photos below: Besides Kim K and Khloe, several other international stars are expected to attend Anant and Radhikas wedding this weekend. These include John Cena, Mike Tyson and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Calm Down hitmaker Rema has also been invited. On Thursday, Nick Jonas was also landed in Mumbai. He was joined by his wife, actress Priyanka Chopra. Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding ceremonies will start on July 12, with the auspicious Shubh Vivah or wedding function. The dress code is Indian traditional. July 13 will be the day of Shubh Aashirwad and the dress code is Indian formal. July 14 will be the Mangal Utsav or the wedding reception and the dress code is Indian chic. All these functions will be held in BKC. At the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, amidst a guest list full of stars, a video has gone viral showcasing AP Dhillon and Ananya Panday. The clip captures APs electrifying performance with a bunch of dancers m, while Ananya Panday is also spotted savoring the moment. Viewers are captivated by APs dynamic singing, further enhancing the thrill of this memorable wedding festivity. The viral clip which was shared by Instant Bollywood on their Instagram handle, captured AP Dhillon crooning one of his most popular songs Insane, alongside Ananya Panday, who can be seen dancing right next to the International pop sensation. At one point, AP Dhillon also puts his hands on Ananyas shoulders. The video is now doing the rounds of social media. Take a look: The glitz and glamour of Bollywood and Hollywood combined on the vibrant red carpet as they gathered to celebrate the grand family wedding. Among the star-studded baraat were renowned figures like the Kardashian sisters, the legendary Rajnikanth, emerging talents like Khushi Kapoor and Ananya Panday, and the ever-energetic Ranveer Singh, who set the stage on fire with his infectious dance moves. A momentous highlight was witnessing Nita Ambani share the dance floor with none other than King Khan himself, while our beloved desi girl Priyanka Chopra made a dazzling entrance alongside her charming husband Nick Jonas. The night reached a crescendo as the entire baraat grooved to the beats of AP Dhillons electrifying live performance, with even John Cena joining in on the fun with his bhangra moves and signature you cant see me style! The opulent wedding festivities of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant commenced with the lavish Mameru ceremony hosted at Antilia, the magnificent residence of Mukesh and Nita Ambani in Mumbai. Today signifies the beginning of the grand wedding celebrations with the auspicious Shubh Vivah ceremony, entailing traditional Indian attire. The upcoming Shubh Aashirwad ceremony on July 13 will require Indian formal wear, leading up to the grand finale on July 14 with the Mangal Utsav wedding reception, where guests are expected to adorn Indian chic outfits. These jubilant events are all set to unfold at the prestigious Jio World Centre in BKC. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Recently, Meritech Integrated Circuits Co., Ltd. ( " MeriTech " ), based in Beijing, announced the completion of two consecutive funding rounds within six months, raising a total of nearly 100 million yuan, according to a post on the company ' s WeChat account. The A+ round was led by GAC Capital, while the B1 round was spearheaded by Shunxi Fund, under the Beijing State-owned Capital Operation and Management Company Limited. Upon the conclusion of the latest funding round, MeriTech has attracted substantial investments from major players in the automotive industry, including NIO Capital, GAC Capital, and several Tier 1 suppliers. Winsoul Capital has consistently served as the exclusive financial advisor throughout multiple rounds. Founded in 2021, MeriTech is a leading domestic supplier of high-performance analog and mixed-signal chips for intelligent connected vehicles in China. The company's core founding team hails from Analog Devices ( " ADI " ), a global leader in analog semiconductors. The core R&D team boasts over 15 years of design experience, spanning digital, analog, and communication protocol fields, while the product marketing team comprises former ADI China personnel who have driven SerDes sales in the Chinese market from zero to several hundred million USD. Demonstration system based on the NVIDIA platform with a mix of 8M and 3M cameras; photo credit: MeriTech Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatums Take Me to the Moon has finally hit theatres, receiving mixed reactions from audiences. Directed by Greg Berlanti, the film takes viewers on an orchestrated journey behind the scenes of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. While fans seem to be enjoying the fresh chemistry between the leads, Channing Tatum has reflected on the first day on set with Scarlett Johansson. He also recalled making fun of Scarlett Johanssons wig that she wore for the film. At Take Me to the Moons New York premiere, the 44-year-old actor spoke to Variety and said, I remember us going down right after the table read to go into hair and makeup and start to try to figure out our look for the movieits period and everythingand she was trying to figure out her wig for the movie. I just immediately started making fun of her wig. I was like, youre gonna wear that? Is that like a thing that they used to do back then? Wear raccoons on their heads? And shes like, Shut up! Shes like, Not now!' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fly Me To The Moon (@flymetothemoon) Lauding the Black Widow stars performance, Channing Tatum added, She is the force in the film, and shes a force in this life as well. On the other hand, Scarlett Johansson also spoke highly of Channing Tatums qualities, which made him the right choice for the character. He has a humility about him and about his performances that is so unique. He can laugh at himself and he doesnt take himself too seriously, and those qualities are all baked into the character, the actress said. Channing Tatum On Shooting At NASA Channing Tatum, who plays Cole Davis, the NASA director in charge of the Apollo 11 mission, opened up about shooting at the space agencys Kennedy Space Centre. We got to go to the roof of one of the biggest buildings in the world and watch an actual launch because they were launching rockets all the time for this new program. I was like, This is really nuts. Even to be on the roof was enough, so it was really cool, he shared. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Channing Tatum (@channingtatum) Take Me to the Moon follows the relationship between Davis and Kelly Jones (Johansson), a marketing specialist who has been hired to sell the moon to America and thus must stage a fake landing. TV actors Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiyas European trip took a dark turn when they were robbed in Florence, Italy. The couple was celebrating their eighth wedding anniversary when thieves broke into their vehicle at a resort, stole their passports, cash, cards and other valuable items. The couple are currently in contact with the Indian embassy in Italy to resolve the situation. However, the Yeh Hai Mohabbatein star expressed frustration on social media and criticised the local police for handling their robbery case lightly. In a recent X post, the actress reached out to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, urging her to improve tourist safety. In the social media post, Divyanka wrote, Dear PM Ms Giorgia Meloni, we were passionately touring Italy until we got robbed. Reported to the police. But robberies are being taken so casually here that we have already lost hope along with our enthusiasm. How will I & my people ever gather courage to visit Italy again? In the separate post, she added, Our embassy is helping us, but how about Italy taking up responsibility for the safety of the tourists. Its not only about us, but cumulatively all those who save up & spend a fortune to be here. Our embassy is helping us, but how about Italy taking up responsibility of safety for the tourists.It's not only about us, but cumulatively all those who save up & spend a fortune to be here.@Italia @DSantanche @ItalyMFA_int @Antonio_Tajani @edmondocirielli @vivekdahiya08 https://t.co/puczGlvnfU Divyanka T Dahiya (@Divyanka_T) July 11, 2024 When Divyanka Tripathi first announced the incident, the couple was struggling with money and the two were without passports. However, recent updates suggest that their situation has improved. Divyanka and Vivek are now working on obtaining a temporary certificate, which will allow them to travel back to India. The actress, taking to her Instagram story, wrote, Currently, our money situation is kind of sorted as weve got some help from a dear friend. Weve replaced the rented car as it was thankfully insured. Well be heading towards the embassy in another City today to get the emergency certificate sorted. Also, we have not lost everything as was reported. We have a few things left that were in the boot of the car. Earlier, Vivek Dahiya shared their experience with Etimes and described how their day in Florence turned into a crisis. After arriving and planning a one day stay, they left their belongings in their car at a secure parking spot while checking out a property. When they returned, they found their car damaged, thieves just left behind old clothes and food, but took their valuable items. They attempted to report the crime to the local police, but they couldnt help, as the area doesnt have CCTV cameras. The police also mentioned they couldnt visit the scene and offered no help after 6 pm. They tried contacting the embassy as well, but it was already closed for the day. After much anticipation, Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries Limiteds Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, exchanged vows with Radhika Merchant at the exquisite Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. Social media lighted up with lively videos of Anant Ambanis grand baraat procession. In the midst of a prestigious guest list representing various backgrounds, Janhvi Kapoor stole the spotlight as she arrived at the festivities. The Mr And Mrs Mahi actress was even caught blushing when her rumored beau, Shikhar Pahariya, swiftly passed by her. Popular paparazzo handle Filmygyan posted a snippet on their Instagram featuring Janhvi Kapoor in a stunning golden lehenga, striking elegant poses on the red carpet near the wedding venue. As the cameras clicked, Shikhar Pahariya made a notable entrance, exchanging glances with Janhvi. As he walked away, leaving the frame, Janhvi Kapoor was visibly blushing, amidst the clamor of paparazzi urging them to pose together. Take a look: The splendid wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant kicked off with the extravagant Mameru ceremony held at Antilia, Mukesh and Nita Ambanis luxurious residence in Mumbai last week. Today marks the pinnacle as the grand wedding festivities commence with the auspicious Shubh Vivah ceremony, requiring traditional Indian attire. The upcoming Shubh Aashirwad ceremony on July 13 will demand Indian formal wear, leading up to the grand finale on July 14 with the Mangal Utsav wedding reception, where the dress code calls for Indian chic outfits. These joyous occasions are all set to unfold at the prestigious Jio World Centre in BKC. Amidst the celebrations, a lineup of international luminaries, including Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas, Ram Charan, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, graced the event with their esteemed presence. Kim Kardashian, notably, added a touch of glamour by sharing glimpses of her warm reception at the Taj Colaba on her Instagram stories. Jenna Ortega started acting at a young age, however, her popularity skyrocketed after she played the lead role in Tim Burtons Netflix series Wednesday. Following this success, Ortega landed a major role in the upcoming sequel to Beetlejuice, where she will star alongside the films original leads, Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder. Although Keaton and Ryder bring years of experience to the project, Ortega is the fresh face of the cast. Despite being the newcomer on set, the Stranger Things actress turned mentor for Ortega and helped her feel more comfortable on set. Although they are friendly in real life, their on-screen roles are quite different, despite theyll be seen as mother and daughter. In a conversation with Harpers Bazaar, the Scream star said, She definitely helped me feel less alone. Its a very isolating experience and a scary one. Being able to speak to somebody who had witnessed that firsthand, maybe even more, was a great source of comfort for me, and I cant thank her enough for that. Jenna Ortega previously admired Winona Ryder by calling her loveliest, sweetest and one of her favourite people. In an earlier interview with ENews, Ortega described Ryder as a genuinely lovely person and shared how grateful she was to work with her. Ortega feels that Ryder is a truly special individual. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice continues the story of Lydia Deetz, played by Winona Ryder, as she and her family return to their home in Winter River, Connecticut, following the death of Charles Deetz. The plot gets interesting when Lydias daughter, Astrid, portrayed by Jenna Ortega, accidentally opens a portal to the afterlife and releases Betelgeuse, played by Michael Keaton. The sequel also sees the return of Catherine OHara as Delia Deetz. The cast also includes Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti and Willem Dafoe. Directed by Tim Burton, the movie is scheduled to release on September 6. Besides her role in the Beetlejuice sequel, Jenna Ortega will appear in several other projects, including Wednesday season 2, an untitled film with The Weeknd and Barry Keoghan, Tommy Lee Jones Finestkind and shell also appear alongside Paul Rudd in Death of a Unicorn. Meanwhile, Winona Ryder is set to return as Joyce Byers in the final season of Stranger Things, which is expected to release next year. At the much-anticipated wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, Katrina Kaif made her first red carpet appearance with her actor-husband, Vicky Kaushal, amid swirling baby rumours. The couples arrival was one of the highlights of the evening, drawing significant media attention. Katrina looked breathtaking in a stunning red saree, exuding elegance and grace. Her choice of attire and radiant presence set the perfect tone for the evening. Vicky Kaushal, by her side, complemented her look impeccably, making them the picture-perfect couple. Many netizens pointed out that Katrina has seemingly gained weight, which further added fuel to the speculations about her pregnancy. Despite the rumours, Katrina has maintained her privacy and has not commented publicly on the matter. Interestingly, she skipped the pre-wedding functions, adding to the curiosity surrounding her absence. However, her appearance at the main wedding event dispelled some concerns and brought joy to their fans who were eager to see Vicky and Katrina together. The wedding itself was a grand affair, held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. It attracted a plethora of celebrities from various fields. The red carpet was a star-studded spectacle with the presence of global icons like Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, John Cena, Priyanka Chopra, and Nick Jonas, along with Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan and other prominent figures. Katrina and Vickys red carpet moment was captured in a viral Instagram reel, showcasing their chemistry and the affection they share. The video quickly garnered attention and went viral, with fans and followers expressing their admiration for the couple. At the trailer event of Bad Newz, referring to Katrinas pregnancy rumours, Vicky was asked about the good news of his real life, to which he replied, Abhi ke liye aap Bad Newz enjoy kar lo, jo hum la rahe hain. Jab uska (good news) time aayega, we wont be shying away from giving that news. Pill is now streaming on JioCinema. The show is directed by Raj Kumar Gupta and stars Riteish Deshmukh, Pawan Malhotra, Neha Saraf, Akshat Chauhan and Anshul Chauhan in key roles. But is the show worth watching? Read on to know more: What Does Pill Revolve Around? It is a medical drama that delves deep into the dark side of the pharmaceutical industry. It shows certain pharma companies bribing doctors to falsely obtain their drug testing reports even if they are dangerous to human health. It begins with the story of a young boy a journalist who finds a file of a pharma company which shows that one of its medicines was rejected because of its side effects. However, the drug is still available in the market and is being prescribed to patients. When he tries to find out the truth behind that file, he faces goons of the pharma company and discovers their dark truths. Performances In Pill Riteish Deshmukh takes away the limelight in the shows first two episodes. He plays the role of Dr Prakash Chauhan and tries to bring something new to his audience. His character is both cowardly and fearless. The actor delivers a powerful performance. On the other hand, Pavan Malhotra is brilliant as always. He dons the villains hat in this show and manages to impress with his unpredictable character. Neha Saraf gets little screen time in the first two episodes but portrays the role of a strong independent woman, which manages to stand out. Akshat Chauhan is fun to watch as well. His dialogue delivery adds a layer of humour to this otherwise dark show. What Works? News reports have shed light on the unethical practices in the pharmaceutical world. Pill takes on the elements from these and weaves an interesting fictional tale that keeps you hooked from the word go. The series is thought-provoking and makes you question numerous things, including how human life is being compromised for money. The script is well-researched and the makers have highlighted the struggles of patients and whistleblowers, which stands out in the storytelling. What Does Not Work? The show is slow and predictable. Right from the first episode, it will remind you of Shefali Shah and Kirti Kulharis 2022 web series, Human which was also not well made series but its timing was apt i.e. just after the coronavirus pandemic. Pill feels a little lost because it fails to bring anything new to the audience. It does not excite us with any twists. In Pill, a rival pharmacy company is shown taking over Malhotras power in the medical world and eating its stocks. However, that sub-plot is presented in haste. Overall, Pill is undoubtedly thought-provoking but is a slow watch. Priyanka Chopra is in Mumbai with Nick Jonas for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding today in the city. However, before that, Priyanka and Nicks first order of business was to celebrate the actress brother, Siddharth Chopras birthday in an intimate bash. In a photo shared by the actress on Instagram, Priyanka looked absolutely stunning in the pic, dressed in a stunning blue gown by the renowned designer Rahul Mishra. Her long, dark hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, and a delicate necklace added a touch of sparkle to her ensemble. Standing beside her, Nick looked effortlessly stylish in a black shirt and trousers, his casual elegance perfectly complemented Priyankas glamorous look. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Patty Cardona (@jerryxmimi) Siddharth Chopra turned 35 years old and his sister, Priyanka, landed in Mumbai to be a part of his special celebration. Besides Priyanka and Nick, Mannara Chopra was also seen in a photo from the party which has now gone viral. Siddharths fiance, Neelam Upadhyay also joined in the bash. Siddharth wore a black and white outfit while Neelam and Mannara twinned in black outfits. Priyanka and Nick are now gearing up to be a part of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding. Their presence in Mumbai is more than just for the wedding; it signifies Priyankas bond with the Ambani family. Over the years, she has maintained close ties with the Ambanis, often seen at their events and celebrations. The main wedding ceremonies of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant will start on July 12, with the auspicious Shubh Vivah or wedding function. The dress code is Indian traditional. July 13 will be the day of Shubh Aashirwad, and the dress code is Indian formal. July 14 will be the Mangal Utsav or the wedding reception, and the dress code is Indian chic. All these functions will be held at the Jio World Centre in BKC. The grandeur of the event was further amplified by the arrival of international celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian, who have also touched down in Mumbai for the wedding. Adding to the star-studded guest list is WWE superstar and actor John Cena, who is expected to land in Mumbai soon. Cenas arrival is highly anticipated, and his presence will undoubtedly contribute to the global appeal of the event. The event in West London hosted a massive Wolverine and Deadpool fan gathering on Thursday night to promote the latest Marvel Studios film. Deadpool himself along with the rest of the cast and crew, joined Wolverine on the red carpet. There was a special visitor who made a noticeable appearance with Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds attended the event with Peggy on his arm, who plays Dogpool in the superhero crossover. The dog was crowned the UKs ugliest dog in 2023. Reynolds shared some highlights from the event on his Instagram handle. The caption accompanying the photos read, Whenever Mary Puppins is near, I hear Shes Like The Wind. Do you hear it too? And of course, the feint smell of a half lit Newport Menthol cigarette. Mary Puppins just hits different. The dog who plays Dogpool is named Peggy and she made her debut by licking Ryan Reynolds face in a Deadpool & Wolverine trailer. The East Yorkshire-based Dogpool star is a hybrid between a Chinese Crested and a pug. She has very little hair, except for a little patch on her cheeks and ears. With her tongue hanging out the corners of her lips, she achieves her characteristic appearance. Reynolds stated in a May interview with Empire Magazine that he intended to use her in the part because she is like an animal manifestation of Wade Wilson. Wade/Deadpool is an unfortunate-looking man who underwent an experimental procedure that left him disfigured. Reynolds also uploaded a video of him introducing Peggy to the crowd while holding her. Peggys tongue was hanging out while she wore her red Dogpool bodysuit. In the video, Reynolds stated, Guys, this is Peggy. AKA Mary Poppins, AKA Dogpool. Get a good look. Her nipples are the size of childrens fingers, she won Ugliest dog in Britain but were not telling her that. Reynolds said, planting a kiss on Peggys side of the head, Because she is a 10 in our hearts, isnt she? Goofy as ever, he went on to say that Peggy trained harder for the next Marvel film than Jackman. Deadpool & Wolverine is slated to be released in theatres on July 26, 2024. Deadpool & Wolverine are gearing up to make their grand entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and excitement is through the roof. The buzz began when Hugh Jackmans look in a comic accurate suit was shown along with his reunion with Sabretooth. Before the trailer even dropped, sneak peeks from set photos got fans buzzing about what to expect. Amid this, Ryan Reynolds recently gave more boost to the hype by hinting at a ton of surprises yet to be revealed. He teased that the film will be packed with unexpected moments and MCU fans will be able to witness a blend of familiar and new heroes. During the recent fan event in Berlin, where a few lucky fans were shown the first 35 minutes of the movie, Ryan said, The honest truth is were hiding a lot. I mean theres a kind of an impossible amount of surprises that in a couple of weeks were so excited to unleash not only in Berlin but all the other amazing cities that this things going to fire up in its great very excited." Before Ryan Reynolds raised the excitement, director Shawn Levy stated, We wish we could show you the whole movie today but Marvel wont let us do that. So we have to wait like a couple more weeks for that but we picked the first 34 minutes of the movie. You get a sneak peek at whats to come in the rest of the movie so enjoy what you see today but soon youre getting a lot more." So far, the team behind Deadpool & Wolverine have only confirmed Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, along with Tyler Mane reprising his role as Sabretooth and Aaron Stanford returning as Pyro from the X-Men series. Meanwhile, speculations are running wild about the possible appearances from original Avengers stars such as Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo. There are also rumours circulating online that Taylor Swift and Blake Lively might also appear, as Dazzler and Lady Deadpool, respectively. Other than Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, the upcoming MCU stars Matthew Macfadyen, Morena Baccarin, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Stefan Kapicic, Brianna Hildebrand, Rob Delaney, Lewis Tan, Kelly Hu, Jason Flemyng and Ray Park. Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool 3 is scheduled to release on July 26. Attachments area Colin Jost and Michael Ches annual joke exchange has become a standout segment on Saturday Night Live (SNL), but Scarlett Johansson is not a fan of their antics. This tradition involves Jost, who is married to Johansson, and his co-host Che, surprising each other with controversial jokes live on air without prior context. During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Johansson described the experience as brutal." She revealed that a recent joke about her physique, delivered unexpectedly during the segment, caught her off guard. Johansson admitted she was so taken aback that she blacked out for a moment when her own photo appeared. In Clarksons show, the host showed the footage of Jost, where he was tricked into roasting her wife live on air. He said, ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johanssons AI character, which Ive never bothered to watch, because without that body, whats the point of listening?" Sharing her opinion, Scarlett Johansson said, Thats like a tame version, if you guys have ever seen the jokes. We need to go into like witness protection after that night. Like, I am absolutely terrified were gonna be like targeted. Its so bad. I black out for that period of the night. I actually dont remember it. It is brutal. I feel like every year it gets worse. Its just terrible. Its painful. I actually dont remember that segment. I fully blacked out and they do it at Christmas too. Its like a little gift to each other." During the Christmas 2023 segment on SNL, Colin Jost read Michael Ches script that made fun of his wife, Scarlett Johansson, by comparing her to a civil rights figure. The joke mentioned a new law in New York which allowed alcohol in movie theatres and Jost joked that was the only way he could enjoy Johanssons art movies. He then said a fake apology, also written by Che, claiming he loved all of Johanssons movies and humorously suggested that she was a better Black Widow than Coretta Scott King. Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson first crossed paths in 2017 when the Hollywood beauty hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live. Their relationship quickly blossomed, leading to their marriage in 2020 and the birth of their son, Cosmo, in 2021. Johansson also shares a 9-year-old daughter named Rose from her previous marriage with French journalist Romain Dauriac. Read the full article on Motorious It has a timeless allure. Car enthusiasts and collectors, brace yourselves for an exceptional opportunity to own a piece of automotive history. The 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider America, a rare and meticulously restored classic, is currently up for auction on Bring a Trailer. This iconic vehicle, one of only 240 Spiders produced in a single year and one of 181 left-hand-drive models, is offered at no reserve. The B24S Spider America boasts a storied past, with its journey beginning in the United States and passing through the hands of several dedicated owners before undergoing a comprehensive three-year refurbishment in Italy. The car's exterior, repainted in a stunning Azzurro shade, complements the dark blue leather interior, both restored to perfection. Under the hood, the 2,451cc V6 engine, paired with a four-speed manual transaxle, delivers a driving experience that is both powerful and refined. This vehicle, with its blend of elegance and performance, is a testament to Lancia's engineering prowess and timeless design. This exquisite 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider America is a true gem in the world of classic cars. As one of only 240 Spiders built during a single year of production and among just 181 configured in left-hand drive, this vehicle is a highly sought-after collector's item. Initially delivered new in the US, this Lancia has changed hands a few times, each owner contributing to its rich history. Notably, it underwent a meticulous three-year refurbishment in Italy, which included a body repaint in pale blue and a dark blue leather interior re-trim. With a powerful 2,451cc V6 engine mated to a four-speed manual transaxle, this Spider is as thrilling to drive as it is to behold. The car features a unique combination of technical and aesthetic enhancements, such as a Nardi dual-carburetor intake manifold, Borrani wire wheels, and a range of modern upgrades to ensure its peak performance. The current owner, who has cherished the vehicle for the past two and a half years, has driven it in the Colorado Grand twice, demonstrating its roadworthiness and timeless appeal. Accompanied by a Lancia Classiche Certificato di Origine, extensive service records, and a clean Montana title, this B24S Spider is ready to grace the collection of a discerning enthusiast. Story continues Auction Highlights Current Bid : $114,000 (No Reserve) Auction Ends : 8 days Location : Bring a Trailer Vehicle Specs : Engine : 2,451cc V6 Transmission : Four-speed manual transaxle Color : Azzurro (Pale Blue) with dark blue leather interior Mileage : 9k kilometers (~6k miles) Special Features : Nardi dual-carburetor intake manifold, Borrani wire wheels, PerTronix electronic ignition, and more ADVERTISEMENT This 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider America is more than just a car; it's a piece of automotive history that combines Italian design, engineering excellence, and a rich provenance. Don't miss your chance to own this stunning classicplace your bid today on Bring a Trailer. Sign up for the Motorious Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Shelley Duvall, known for her roles in films such as The Shining and Nashville, died on Thursday, July 11. She was 75. Shelly died due to complications from diabetes. The news of Shelley Duvalls death was confirmed by her partner, Dan Gilroy. Gilroy, in a statement, said, My dear, sweet, wonderful life, partner, and friend left us last night. Too much suffering lately, now shes free. Fly away beautiful Shelley. The statement, shared on X (formerly Twitter), was attached to a picture of Shelley Duvall. My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now shes free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley. (Dan Gilroy on Shelleys passing) 1949 2024 pic.twitter.com/x7THDKDfEr Shelley Duvall Archive (@shelleyduvallxo) July 11, 2024 Who was Shelley Duvall? Shelley Duvall was Born July 7, 1949, in Fort Worth, Texas. Her antics caught the eye of ace filmmaker Robert Altman and the rest is history. Shelley Duvall made her debut with director Robert Altmans Brewster McCloud. She then went on to feature in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Thieves Like Us. Shelley Duvall received much love and praise for her character in the critically acclaimed film Nashville. She also won the Best Actress award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for her role in 3 Women In one of her interviews with The New York Times in 1977, Shelley Duvall thanked Altman for giving her a break. She said, He offers me damn good roles. None of them have been alike. He has a great confidence in me and a trust and respect for me, and he doesnt put any restrictions on me or intimidate me, and I love him. Sonakshi Sinha recently tied the knot with her long-term boyfriend, Zaheer Iqbal. The couple got married in an intimate, civil marriage ceremony at Sonakshis apartment in Bandra. Sonakshi and Zaheer then went on a small honeymoon to Singapore before the actress began promoting her film, Kakuda. In a recent chat, Sonakshi was asked why she didnt take a longer break. I just got married, guys. Pata nahi aisa bhi kya kar diya maine, Sonakshi told The Indian Express and added, Maine who (honeymoon) bhi kar diya. And now I am back to work and loving it. Sonakshi is currently busy promoting Kakuda, which also stars Riteish Deshmukh and Saquib Saleem. Talking about the horror-comedy film, Sonakshi said, Kakuda came to me and I just found it to be such a fun read. I was very entertained while reading the script. Although I dont like horror films, there was so much humour in this film. Aditya (Sarpotdar) is someone who has understood this genre so well. I think his grasp on it is fantastic. He kind of knows where to scare people, where to make them laugh, the punches, the beats, he gets it bang on. It was a pleasure to work on a genre like this for the first time with a director like him who is so well-versed in it. So, I had a blast. It was me stepping out of my comfort zone, and trying out something I hadnt done before. Id love to do it again because it was so much fun, Sonakshi said and added, If I like something then I dont believe in dilly-dallying and making the other person wait too much. If I am excited about something, then I am. Ill go full-on. That is what happened with this film as well. Meanwhile, News18s review of the film reads, The simplicity of the premise works both in favour of the film and against it. The horror elements are few and far between, but the ones that are present are not good enough to cause jump-scares. Some of the jokes land, while others dont. Ritesh Deshmukh, as the ghost hunter brought in to tackle the curse, gets to mouth most of the jokes and delivers them well. Its a terrific casting choice for Riteish is fantastic in his role, oscillating between his amazing comic timing and the serious moments. Saqib has little to do but convincingly portrays the anguish of a man marked by a deadly curse and his efforts to ensure his widow finds happiness after his death are touching. Sonakshi Sinha is convincing in a role where she not only confronts superstitions but also brings a surprising twist to the story. Vicky Kaushal is a doting husband to his actress wife, Katrina Kaif. The actor often fondly talks about Katrina in interviews and leaves no opportunity to praise his wife. In a recent chat, Vicky spoke about how he and Katrina deal with the low phases of their relationship. Vicky told Galatta India, Its been about just holding hands and just keep saying that whatever it is, we are on the same team together. The ups and downs we are both going through this together. Talking about how Katrina has impacted his life, Vicky said, I really feel very fortunate for all the beautiful things she adds on to me, to who I am. And I just feel that I just wake up a better person because of her. She is such a giver in that sense in the relationship that I feel very fortunate. Meanwhile, Vicky Kaushal has taken the internet by storm with his butter-like-smooth dance moves in the recently released song Tauba Tauba from his upcoming movie Bad Newz. Several celebrities and influencers have imitated Vickys hook step and posted their videos on their respective social media accounts, taking the buzz around the song a notch higher. Vicky revealed how Katrina Kaif, a phenomenal dancer, reacted to his 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. Of late, Katrina has been making headlines for her pregnancy rumours. While at the trailer event, referring to the pregnancy rumours, Vicky was asked about the good news of his real life, to which he replied, Abhi ke liye aap Bad Newz enjoy kar lo, jo hum la rahe hain. Jab uska (good news) time aayega, we wont be shying away from giving that news. Katrina Kaif has been missing from the spotlight for several months now. She was reportedly in Germany. However, fans were happy to see Katrina return to Mumbai recently. The actress was papped exiting the international terminal in the wee hours of Thursday. She wore an oversized white shirt with a black jacket and light blue joggers and completed her look with black sunglasses. Netizens wondered if Katrina was pregnant since she was wearing baggy clothes. Akshay Kumar, known for his hard work and discipline, has been busy promoting his new film Sarfira, which came out today. Fans were hoping to see him attending Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants grand wedding after Anant invited him personally, but Akshay wont be there because he has tested positive for COVID-19. In 2023, Akshay had mentioned that he was battling heavy Covid a few years before that and was still regaining his strength before a world tour of live shows. In an interview with Connect FM Canada, he had discussed his efforts to regain stamina. Some years ago, I got Covid. It was heavy Covid, and because of that, I lost quite a lot of my strength and stamina. Ive been shooting, but you dont really need a lot of stamina to shoot. You need to be strong, but you dont need stamina, because shots are constructed in bits and pieces. When I got to know that Im doing this show, I took it as a challenge, because then, I will have to start working on my stamina. To perform for 35-40 minutes continuously, you require a lot of stamina. Im still working on it, I hope I can achieve what I want, he had shared in Hindi. In April 2021, Akshay got Covid and was admitted to the hospital. He tested positive for the virus again in 2022, right before he was supposed to go to France for the Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, News18 Showsha gave his latest release, Sarfira, a positive review and 4.5 stars rating. Sarfira is a rather beautiful coming together of two schools of cinema one that makes you whistle and clap and still silently appreciate its nuanced storytelling. Its tear-jerking, inspiring, gratifying, wholesome and so much more. And it will most definitely help if you dont let the extraordinary Soorarai Pottru colour your opinions. Watch Sarfira with a clear mind and a clean palette and you will come out feeling all kinds of good emotions, the review reads. India is a deeply religious country, revered for its true saints, whose wisdom, purity, detachment, knowledge, selflessness, and obvious divinity are unquestioned. Among them are Adi Shankaracharya (8th century CE), and in more recent times, spiritual giants such as Swami Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Dayananda Sarasvati, Ma Anandmayi, Maharshi Ramana, and Sai Baba of Shirdi. All these saints lived in dignified simplicity, guiding disciples to find inner peace and experience the bliss of moksha. However, simultaneously, a whole spectrum of so-called godmen (and women), who revel in their wealth, have also proliferated. Their emergence is a complex phenomenon, where class, caste, superstition, money, politics, and the hierarchical and exploitative structure of our society intertwine. The list of such faux godmen is long, but it would be sufficient to mention only the most notorious. The latest one in the news is Narayan Sakar Hari, also known as Bhole Baba. 18 years ago, his name was Suraj Pal. He was a constable with the UP police, but was suspended for sexually harassing a woman in Etawah. He then transformed into a religious preacher who claimed to perform miracles, including reviving a dead girl, for which he was briefly arrested in 2000. Soon, he acquired a string of palatial ashrams and a fleet of luxury cars. Just a few days ago, at one of his satsangs, where he was dressed in his trademark white suit, tie and expensive sunglasses, 121 people died in a stampede, of which 108 were women and children. The stampede occurred because Bhole Baba urges his followers to collect the dust he walks upon. Since the crowd was hugean estimated 250,000 people against the administrative sanction for 80,000a mad melee followed, with the organisers completely ill-prepared to handle the situation. As people were dying and screaming, Bhole Baba left the venue like a head of state, his car escorted by dozens of black-uniformed commandos on motorcycles. Another self-styled guru, Asaram Bapu, with millions of followers and hundreds of ashrams worldwide, was given a life sentence in 2013 for raping a 16-year-old girl at his ashram in Jodhpur. He is also facing trial for another rape case committed in Gujarat. Nine witnesses have been attacked in the past, and three killed. His son, Narayan Sai, is also under arrest for rape, and his wealth is estimated to be Rs 5000 crore. Others of this ilk include Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Sacha Sauda, headquartered in Sirsa, Haryana. Known for his rockstar image, gold jewellery, expensive watches, and luxury motorbikes, Singh was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 for raping two women disciples. Two years later, he was found guilty of two charges of murder. Rampal, another self-proclaimed godman operating out of a huge 12-acre ashram in Hisar, Haryana, is imprisoned on charges of murder, attempted murder, and sedition. Nithyananda of Tamil Nadu, who reportedly claimed he could delay the sunrise for forty minutes and make cattle speak in Sanskrit and Tamil, was charged and arrested after a video surfaced allegedly showing him in a sexual act with a film actress. Released on bail, he fled the country and is now believed to be on an island near Latin America, in a country he has named Kailasa. The list of such gurus is much longer, but these examples suffice to illustrate the point. The question is: how do these godmen attractand, more importantly, retainfollowers? Interestingly, a significant number of their followers are Dalits and those from extremely backward classes. Bhole Baba himself is Dalit. Dalits also form a large portion of Ram Rahims followers, including those from Punjab (which has Indias largest Dalit population), who suffer despite the egalitarianism promised by Sikhism. For Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, who continue to experience discrimination from upper castes, such godmen provide an alternative, relatively caste-neutral, religious structure. Due to their large followings among these large demographic groups, politicians often give them considerable leeway. It is not a coincidence that while the organisers have been arrested or charged, Bhole Baba has been given a clean chit by the UP administration, and is still absconding. Ram Rahim, incarcerated for life for rape and murder, was released on extended paroles nine times by the government. Rampal refused to comply with the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and when his ashram was forcefully evacuated, five people died in a violent protest. Godmen like these prey on the gullibility of largely the poor and the deprived. Their claim to perform miracles is the magnet. Poverty and illiteracy are their key allies. The oppression still inherent in the caste structure, and the promise of an alternative system of faith and worship is their attraction. Immense wealth is their armour, and for their devotees, their flamboyant lifestyles provoke awe, not censor. Lastly, political patronage shields them from accountability. In such a situation, the solutions to this malaise cannot simply be legalistic. It requires introspection on the kind of society we are, and the foundational socio-economic reforms that are still incomplete, and need to be expedited. The resumption of the India-Russia annual dialogue after a hiatus of three years is an important inflection point. Since the Ukraine crisis, there has been a disruption in the international order, complemented by continuing Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, and the Gaza crisis. In this era of disruption, India-Russia relations provide a modicum of stability. The timing of the visit coincided with the 75th-anniversary summit of NATO in Washington, DC, an event overshadowed by the debate on Bidens suitability as a Democratic candidate. The uncertainties in the Western world following elections in the UK, France, and the EU see India as a stable pole. PM Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have met several times over the years. In recent years, these meetings have become fewer due to the absence of the annual dialogue, Putin not attending BRICS in South Africa or the G20 in India, and Modi not going to the SCO in Astana. The bilateral engagement required direct contact to address emergent issues. The West in general, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular, viewed the visit through the prism of the Ukraine crisis. For India, that is not a priority. Nevertheless, Modi made it clear even in public comments to Putin that the battlefield is not an area for maintaining international order, and the anguish that he expressed on the death of children struck a chord. The West needs to realise that it is only Modi who can go to Moscow and say this to Putin, based on the stability of India-Russia relations. India needs to engage with Russia because NATO tactics are pushing it closer to China. The Russia-India-China trilateral had already been derailed by China, which had adopted a more adversarial position towards India even before the Ukraine crisis. India wants Russia to hedge against China, whereas China and Russia seek to hedge against the West. This is an unequal conundrum, and the Modi visit tried to bring a semblance of balance to this relationship. Russia and Chinas warm relationship is the biggest challenge to Indian diplomacy in this context. India has not publicly criticised Russia on Ukraine, a tradition it has maintained in the past, but has conveyed its views to Russia privately. Though India and Russia have a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, the strategic congruence is diminishing, and in the Indo-Pacific, there is no agreement. In the joint statement, the term Indo-Pacific does not appear as the term used is the Asia Pacific at one time, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans at another. Besides China, there is also no congruence on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia has different aspirations from India. It supports India as a permanent member in a reformed UN Security Council but does precious little to reach that stage, as it is bogged down in the UN with its own problems. It cannot be forgotten that over the years, Russia was the most consistent P5 supporter of India. Currently, it hedges its bets on Chinese leads and has not adequately reciprocated Indian support and strategic autonomy. Be that as it may, in an increasingly bipolar world, India still seeks multipolar options, and in this, both Europe and Russia are important poles, who at present are moving towards the US and China respectively. Indias engagement with the G7 soon after Modis election and now with Russia is an effort to seek out multi-alignment and multipolarity. Russias position as a major supplier of defence equipment to India has slipped as India diversified its purchases. However, Indias new partners are reluctant to transfer technology partly because India is a repository of lots of Russian equipment. The Russian transfer of technology and joint production have been of great benefit to India and after the Modi visit, this seems like an area where expansion will take place. The joint production of the BrahMos by India and Russia has been a significant development. Russias contribution to Indias energy security has increased tremendously, mainly due to Western sanctions on it. Indias refining capacities have been put to great use, using price arbitrage to export petrol, diesel and aviation fuel to different destinations. Almost a quarter of Indias diesel exports actually go to Europe now. Rather than looking down upon Indias purchases of Russian oil, India has in fact stabilised the global energy markets through its efforts. The windfall in profits from Russian oil exports to India is timely, but it has distorted the India-Russia trade partnership which hovered around $10 billion per annum and has now leapt to $66 billion with the incremental amount being oil exports. In case there is peace in Ukraine and sanctions are lifted, this trade may suffer, therefore it is important to integrate Russian exports of oil into Indian refining and marketing capacities. Moreover, Russia and India are now trading more than half of their value in local currencies. India has not taken adequate advantage of opportunities in sanctioned Russia to export more manufactured products. The role of the Indian private sector needs to come to the fore to grasp these opportunities as well as to seek joint ventures and investment, for which the large growth of Russian-owned rupee balances in Indian accounts could be put to use. So far, the India-Russia economic relationship is largely government-to-government, but it needs to diversify. In many cases, Indian SMEs are operating in Russia but have little exposure to the West. Larger Indian companies involved with Western economies remain reluctant to deal with a sanctioned Russia; an alternate mechanism and interest need to be developed. The $1 billion LOC (Line of Credit) offered during Modis visit to Vladivostok in 2019 remains unutilised. While the joint statement now calls for greater engagement in the Russian Far East, China is already making significant strides in the region. If India aims to counterbalance Chinas influence through its partnership with Russia, it must prioritise investment, development projects, and economic interaction in the Russian Far East. There is anticipation that mutual investment will rise to $50 billion, with some of these trade surpluses potentially being invested. Trade itself is expected to rise to $100 billion. India is seeking Russian investment in its infrastructure and industrialisation, while also expressing its readiness to invest in the Russian Far East, as highlighted in the joint statement. Greater investment in joint defence production of spares and ancillaries will be another focal point of keeping Russia engaged in Indias defence industry. India also seeks a more independent role for Russia with the Global South, where it should engage the Indian model rather than the Chinese one. As chair of BRICS for 2024, it should help choose new members who may contribute to better serving the Global South, rather than only drawing on BRICS resources. Similarly, Russias growing engagement in Africa is sometimes problematic because it is viewed as an attempt to replace France or others in power terms, and is primarily security-oriented. India and Russia could collaborate in Africa for its development and the attainment of the SDGs. In this regard, the rupee accounts that Russia has in India from its trade surpluses could be used for Indo-Russian joint projects in Africa, which would contribute to the development of countries there. This would offer a new form of support for the Global South. The author is a former ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, Ethiopia, ASEAN and the African Union. He tweets @AmbGurjitSingh. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. While speaking in the Lok Sabha on July 1, Rahul Gandhi issued a proclamation, aap Hindu ho hi nahin (You are not Hindu). The diatribe was undoubtedly directed against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues, fellow members of both houses and millions of voters and supporters of the saffron outfit. Rahuls profane rant smacked of three thingshis sense of entitlement, ignorance of Indian ethos and outright contempt for democratic norms. Can Rahul or anyone else decide who is a Hindu or not? During the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, 23.59 crore Indians had voted for the BJP. There are likely millions more who support the BJP but couldnt vote for their favourite party for various reasons. Undoubtedly, the majority of them identify themselves as Hindus. In a jiffy, Rahul stripped them of their faith and identity. Who can dare make such a condescending statement? Only someone with an acute sense of entitlement. Unlike Abrahamic religions, Hinduism is timeless (hence also Sanatan), catholic and pluralistic. There is no centralised authority in Hinduism, and no one has any right to pass such edicts regarding the faith. In contrast, Abrahamic faiths operate differently. In Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya sect has been ostracised from Islam, and its followers are routinely persecuted because their beliefs differ slightly from mainstream Shia-Sunni doctrine. These two sects are also perpetually locked in internecine wars due to their conflicting theological beliefs. Ironically, Ahmadiyyas were at the forefront, along with the Communists and Muslim League, in striving for an Islamic Pakistan. Doesnt Rahul sound somewhat like the Pakistani establishment when he decrees in the Lok Sabha who is a Hindu and who isnt? During his one-hour and 40-minute speech, Rahul also remarked, Those who call themselves Hindus indulge in hatred, violence and untruths 247. Could anyone, including Rahul, make such an acerbic statement about Islam or any other faith? Dont miss the contradiction. After suspects are identified following a terror episode anywhere in the world, the usual comment is: a terrorist has no religion. Yet, the perpetrators of terror insist that they caused the mayhem as a part of a divine mandate ordained by their faith. Rahuls scalding allegations against Hinduism are without any basis whatsoever. He can get away with this charade because of the immunity Members of Parliament enjoy. Throughout history, Hindus have resorted to violence only in self-defence. Hinduism is inclusive and encompasses numerous traditions, all equally validfrom devout idol worshippers to outright heretic atheists. Anyone who cares to call themselves a Hindu is a Hindu. Rahul spoke about violence and hate. Given his track record in this respect, he sounds sanctimonious. While he argues against these evils, he has a history of promoting divisive narratives and aligning with those who seek to divide Indians based on caste, region, and faith. His election campaign centred on reducing Indians to their caste identity. Hate and divisiveness, the bane of India, have been introduced into its socio-economic-religio-cultural life by alien creeds. These creeds often resort to violence and deceit to deal with non-believers or dissent within their ranks. Uniformity, especially in matters of faith, is central to their existence. In contrast, the Indian ethos, indifferent to uniformity, focuses only on harmony. Who ceded one-fourth of India in August 1947 to the forces of Islamic fundamentalism, where only hate and intolerance rule? Pakistan is not just a country; its a bigoted idea that transcends borders. Recall the 1980s and 1990s when Pakistan-trained and funded terrorists, with local support, forced Kashmiri Pandits out of their ancestral homeland. In a recent interview, newly elected National Conference MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi threatened a repetition of that dark decade in retaliation for the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A. In the recent past, Kanhaiya Lal in Rajasthan and Umesh in Maharashtra were beheaded by Islamic zealots. Last week (June 30, 2024), a young couple was publicly humiliated and assaulted in Taliban style by a muscleman affiliated with the local ruling party in West Bengals Uttar Dinajpur. On June 27, 2024, a Muslim woman was stripped, dragged by her hair, and thrashed for over an hour by goons for supporting the BJP in West Bengals Cooch Behar. Instances of berating and inhuman torture of victims like Anees Mian-Parveen Jahan (Uttarakhand, 2022), Samina (Madhya Pradesh, 2023), and Tahira Bano (Rajasthan, 2023) dont figure in public discourse. The killings of Hafizul Sheikh (West Bengal), Aijaz Ahmad Sheikh (J&K), Babar Ali (Uttar Pradesh), Sheikh Waseem Bari (J&K), etc. barely made headlines, either at home or abroad. They were all victims of hate and were guilty of a common crime: supporting the BJP. This list of hate crimes is indicative and not an exhaustive one. This loathsome itinerary of hate and violence, however, doesnt concern Rahul. His public utterances are shaped by the compulsions of power politics and the requirements of his ideological ecosystem. His narrative, divorced from reality, is solely driven by the political dividends he aims to reap. No wonder, with complete disregard for facts, he conveniently blames only those who call themselves Hindus for these twin evils. There is a method to this madness. For decades, the Congress has been on the decline, and Rahul is in a hurry to resurrect it. His options are limited. Its difficult to fault the incumbent, Modi, with his performancehis achievements are outstanding in most areas. As a shortcut to gather electoral support, Rahul is increasingly leaning on identity politics and aligning, knowingly or unknowingly, with the forces of neo-colonialism that abhor a resurgent India. Rahul won Wayanad with the support of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) a rabidly communal party, a post-independence reincarnation of the infamous Mohamed Ali Jinnah-led Muslim League. M. Muhammad Ismail fathered the IUML after independence. Before 1947, he was the President of the Madras unit of Jinnahs Muslim League, a euphemism for fanaticism and bloodshed. The League has changed its signboard, but not its divisive agenda. Rahul Gandhi is trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He cannot carry on with this contradiction for long. Shorn of hyperbole and embellishments, Rahuls first speech in the newly constituted Lok Sabha was lacking in facts and heavy on communal rhetoric. The columnist is senior journalist, author and former Chairman of Indian Institute of Mass Communications. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal after he challenged his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam in Delhi. He will, however, remain behind bars as he was also arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on June 26 in connection with the corruption case linked to the scam. We have not examined the question of bail but we have examined parameters of Section 19 of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act). We have explained difference between Section 19 and Section 45. Section 19 is subjective opinion of officers and is subject to judicial review. Section 45 is exercise by court itself, said Justice Sanjiv Khanna. Kejriwal cant visit CM office The SC bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, said it has sent some issues to a larger bench. Kejriwal is elected leader and it is up to him to decide if he wants to continue as Delhi CM, the SC said, while granting him interim bail, adding, Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days. The AAP chief, however, will be unable to visit the chief ministers office while he is out on bail. The SC said the larger bench, if deemed appropriate, can frame questions and decide the conditions that can be imposed by the court in such cases. Accordingly, the registry is directed to place the matter before the Chief Justice of India for constitution of an appropriate bench and, if appropriate, a Constitution bench, for consideration of the aforesaid questions, the court said. The bench further said application for regular bail, if pending consideration or required to be decided, will be decided on its own merits. On May 17, the SC had reserved its verdict on Kejriwals plea while on April 15, it had sought a response from the ED on the AAP chiefs plea challenging his arrest in the money laundering case. Kejriwal challenged before the SC the April 9 order of the Delhi High Court that had upheld his arrest in the case, saying there was no illegality about it and that the ED was left with little option after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation. The chief minister was arrested on March 21 by the ED in the money laundering case. On June 20, he was granted bail by a trial court on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh in the case. However, the ED had moved the Delhi HC the next day and contended that the trial courts order granting bail to Kejriwal was perverse, one-sided and wrong-sided and that the findings were based on irrelevant facts. The court, on June 21, imposed an interim stay on the trial courts bail order till passing of an order on EDs application for interim relief. On June 25, the HC had passed a detailed order staying the trial court order. The matter relates to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi governments excise policy for 2021-22, which has now been scrapped. AAP says Satyamev Jayate Responding to the SCs decision to grant bail to their leader, the AAP said the truth has triumphed (satyamev jayate). After the SC granted interim bail to Kejriwal, the party held a press conference, where leader Atishi said every court of law has exposed the BJPs conspiracy against the Delhi CM. The SC granting interim bail to Kejriwal proves excise policy case is conspiracy by the BJP against him, she said, while Saurabh Bharadwaj said the party is hopeful Kejriwal will also be granted bail in the excise policy case filed by CBI. Bharatiya Janata Partys Mandi MP Kangana Ranaut recently said that people should bring Aadhaar cards that can identify them as people from her constituency, in order to meet her. The actor-turned-BJP MPs remark came amid heavy tourist presence in the state. A video of the BJP MPs remarks surfaced online where she is seen addressing media persons gathered at her newly opened office in Mandi Sadar area. As all of you know that a large number of tourists visit Himachal, so bringing Aadhaar of Mandi Parliament constituency to meet me is necessary, she said. The purpose of visit and matter should also be written in a letter so there is no inconvenience, the BJP leader added. Ranaut further said that people are free to bring any matter to her but if people come with issues of Mandi parliamentary constituency which needs the central governments attention such as framing of new policies then she is the voice of people of Mandi in Parliament. Congress Mandi MP Reacts In a dig at the Mandi MPs remarks, Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh said on Thursday that public representatives should meet all sections of people without identity cards. Responding to her remarks, Congress minister Singh said, We are representatives of the people and it is our responsibility to meet people from all sections. Whether it is a small or big work, policy matter, or individual matter, it does not require any identity cards. If people are coming to meet public representatives, they are coming for some work and saying that you need this paper or that is not right, he said. Anyone from anywhere in the state can come and meet me, Singh added. Ranaut and Singh recently contested the Mandi Lok Sabha election, which the actor-politician won. (with inputs from PTI) Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday said the BJP-led NDA alliance at the Centre and the ruling Mahayuti coalition were the future of the country and Maharashtra, respectively, while the Congress was history. Speaking in the legislative assembly on the last day of the monsoon session, Shinde criticised the Congress for celebrating its third loss in a row in the recent Lok Sabha polls, ignoring the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assumed office for a fresh five-year term. It (Congress) could not win even 100 Lok Sabha seats (out of 543), but was celebrating, while Modi has become PM for a third consecutive time, pointed out the CM, who heads the Shiv Sena, an ally of the BJP. Shinde maintained the opposition led by the Congress came together for the Lok Sabha elections under the banner of INDIA bloc, but couldnt stop Modi from becoming PM again. He said Modi was fully supportive of Maharashtras development agenda. Not a single penny was deducted from our development funds, the CM told the lower house which is having its last session before the assembly polls which are due in October. Referring to his June 2022 revolt against the then-Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Shinde said two years ago, he took a daring decision to quit the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) dispensation and install a government of peoples choice. We have taken decisions for the welfare of people, he said, referring to his two years in office. Taking a jibe at Thackeray, Shinde said his government runs face to face and not on Facebook Live. The Shiv Sena leader has often targeted his predecessor, who was CM from November 2019 to June 2022, for running his government over Facebook and avoiding direct contact with the masses. We have responded to criticism with our work, he said. Shinde said the BJP-led NDA coalition at the Centre and the ruling Mahayuti (grand alliance) in the state were the future of the country and Maharashtra, respectively, while the Congress was history. The ruling coalition in the state consists of the BJP, the Shiv Sena and the NCP led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. Shinde maintained the Congress, during its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, falsely propagated that the Constitution will be changed by the BJP-led alliance. It was the Congress that defeated BR Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution, in Lok Sabha elections in the 1950s, the CM said, hitting out at the grand old party. Ford This is an ambitious year for Ford Performance. A new Mustang GT3 racer has already debuted at both Daytona and Le Mans. The brand has also been showing off a road-going Mustang GTD meant to bring that level of performance to the streets. At Pikes Peak, a radical new racer with an F-150 body took the win. Next up is Dakar, where Ford had already announced plans to run a Raptor-badged racer in 2025. This, the Ford Raptor T1+, is the truck that will hunt for the trophy. Ford The T1+, which carries a Raptor badge but no connection to any specific Raptor truck sold to customers, was built in collaboration with long-time Ford WRC partner M-Sport. Their final product has a Coyote-based 5.0-liter V-8, which sends power to 37-inch tires. Those are mounted to a front and rear independent double-wishbone suspension built in partnership with Fox, boasting three-way adjustable coilovers and four-way adjustable external bypass dampers. The truck also has a 400 mm ground clearance, 350 mm of wheel travel, and an approach angle of over 70 degrees. ADVERTISEMENT Reigning Dakar champion Carlos Sainz Sr. and 2014 winner Nani Roma will field the Raptor T1+ in competitions starting with the Baja Hungary next month. The trucks will race again in Morocco in October before heading to Saudi Arabia for the Dakar Rally in January 2025. There, Ford hopes to bring the brand a prize that it has never won before. You Might Also Like Amid speculation that Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders visited New Delhi recently to strategise with the BJP, Congress MLA Danam Nagender said on Friday that the pink party will be merged with Congress soon. The BRS is going to see a split within the party, and the majority of leaders will join the Congress. Only a handful of leaders will stay back, Nagenders said after a programme in Khairatabad. The BRS has seen a steady defection to the Congress after the latter came to power last December. Nagender has been in the eye of storm after he won Khairatabad seat on the BRS ticket but later joined the Congress. He was also the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Secunderabad. After Nagender left their party, BRS had approached Telangana Legislative Assembly Speaker, Gaddam Prasad Kumar, to disqualify him. Former minister KT Rama Rao has been protesting against the defections and have called them unconstitutional. Lashing out at the BRS, Nagender said the party runs like a corporate. Even the MLAs cant get to meet K Chandrasekhar Rao. They did not have any value or respect. It was KCRs style of functioning which brought the partys downfall. His arrogance and inaccessibility alienated him from elected representatives and the public. However, the case is opposite in the Congress. We enjoy a lot of freedom and we are valued. This is why, everyone is making a beeline to join the grand old party, Nagender said. He also accused the BRS leaders of indulging in corruption to the tune of crores of rupees. BRS leaders KTR and Harish Rao were in Delhi recently to expose the unethical practices of the Congress. The Congress mourns party defections in Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana. However, in Telangana, they do not hesitate to induct BRS leaders. Where is their ethics? On the one hand, they claim that they are protecting the Constitution. On the other hand, they are acting in a way that insults the book, KTR had said. However, some reports have claimed that they were in Delhi to engineer a merger with the BJP and find a way to get their leader, K Kavitha, out of prison. Amid heavy and incessant rains in Mumbai on Friday, voting for the Maharashtra legislative council polls began signalling another Mahayuti versus MVA battle ahead of the assembly elections in the state later this year. A total of 274 MLAs cast their votes. Biennial elections to 11 council seats are being held in the Vidhan Bhavan complex in south Mumbai till 4 pm. There are 12 candidates in the fray for the 11 seats in the upper house of the state legislature. The counting of votes will begin at 5 pm. Eleven MLCs are completing their six-year term on July 27. The 288-member legislative assembly is the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274. Each winning candidate will need a quota of 23 first-preference votes. The BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), NCP (42), Congress (37), Shiv Sena (UBT) 15 and NCP (SP) 10. Other parties with a presence in the lower house include the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (three), Samajwadi Party (two), AIMIM (two), Prahar Janshakti Party (two), MNS, CPI(M), Swabhimani Paksh, Jansurajya Shakti Party, RSP, Krantikari Shetkari Paksh and PWP (one each). Besides, there are 13 independent MLAs. Here are the latest updates: The Shiv Sena (UBT) demanded that the voting time for the Maharashtra legislative council polls should be extended by an hour due to heavy rains in Mumbai. Party MP Anil Desai said they will request the state electoral officer to extend the timings by an hour as it has been raining heavily in Mumbai since Thursday night (July 11). A total of 222 MLAs cast their vote till 12:45 pm. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde also cast his vote and said all the Independent MLAs from his faction have cast their votes. The Opposition parties Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) also objected to jailed BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad being permitted to cast a vote. Early on Friday, NCP MLAs led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar left their hotel in a Mumbai suburb and boarded a private bus to reach the Vidhan Bhavan complex to cast their vote. The other deputy, Devendra Fadnavis, addressed BJP MLAs at a city hotel late on Thursday where chief minister and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde was also present. The leaders urged the MLAs not to take the council polls lightly and ensure that no vote is rendered invalid. The BJP has fielded five candidates Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe Sadabhau Khot and its ally Shiv Sena two former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali. Another Mahayuti ally NCP has given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar. The Congress has renominated Pradnya Satav for another term, while its Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partner, Sena (UBT), has fielded Milind Narvekar a close aide of party president Uddhav Thackeray. The third MVA constituent, NCP (SP), has not fielded its nominee and instead extended support to Jayant Patil of the PWP. The Congress has excess votes since it has fielded only one candidate. There are apprehensions of cross-voting in both the ruling Mahayuti and opposition MVA blocs. The MVA does not have numbers on its side to get the third candidate elected but is banking on some NCP and Shiv Sena MLAs both constituents of Mahayuti to cross-vote in their favour. Over the last few days, the NCP (SP) has claimed that some MLAs of the rival camp led by Ajit Pawar are in touch with the opposition party for a possible return. (With PTI inputs) The BJP on Friday said the commemoration of June 25 as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas every year will remind people of the Congress dictatorial mindset and also pay tribute to those who suffered torture and sacrificed their lives fighting against the imposition of Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government about 50 years ago. The BJPs reaction came after Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced the governments decision to observe June 25, the day on which the Emergency was declared in 1975, as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas to commemorate the massive contributions of those who endured inhuman pains of the period. Commenting on the development, Defence Minister and former BJP president Rajnath Singh wrote on X, The circumstances that arose due to the Emergency and the kind of repressive cycle that was carried out then in the history of Indian democracy are still fresh in the memory of the people of the country. He said the Centre has declared June 25 as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas to remind the attempt that was made to strangle the Constitution by imposition of Emergency in India and also to pay tribute to the agitators who fought against it and protected the democratic rights. The contribution of those who spent time in jail and suffered torture during the period of Emergency can never be forgotten, he added. In a post on X, Union Minister and BJP chief JP Nadda said June 25, 1975 was the black day when the dictatorial mindset of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency on the country by murdering the democracy enshrined in the Constitution. This day will remind us of the sacrifices and martyrdom of all our great men who fought against this dictatorial mindset of the Congress, endured torture and died for the protection of the Constitution and restoration of democracy, Nadda said. I express my gratitude towards the prime minister for this decision which would remind us of the importance of democracy every year, he added. In a post on X, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha hailed the governments decision as historic and said it will give people an opportunity to understand the incident and the force behind repealing of the Constitution. Will Rahul Gandhi welcome it? Will Jairam Ramesh speak on it? Or will they be hurt by this decision? Sinha asked as he slammed the Congress for the imposition of the Emergency by its government in 1975. The Congress did politics with the authoritarian mindset in the past and it is still doing the same today, the BJP MP charged. In a bid to enhance Google Maps on iOS devices, the company has finally rolled out the live speedometer and speed limit display on the iPhone and CarPlay globally. This feature was already introduced for Android devices in 2019. The update was expanded to more than 40 countries after being limited to select markets in May 2019. As per reports, Google has confirmed that iPhone and CarPlay users can now benefit from speedometer and speed limit indicators. After five years of launch on Android devices, the tech giant has launched the update to help iPhone users avoid speeding while driving. It also talked about Google Maps showing the new speeding features in India last week. On being asked about the update, the company confirmed that they will roll out the update globally. The new feature can be spotted in Google Maps for iOS with version 6.123.0. To access this feature, iPhone and CarPlay users will have to open the Google Maps app on their iPhone. Then, tap on your profile picture and go to settings, followed by Navigation and Driving options. Upon clicking, users will be redirected to speedometer/speed limit toggles. Once enabled, the speed limits feature will be displayed as a circular floating icon in the bottom-left corner of the navigation screen while driving. When iPhone users start navigation on Google Maps, the speed of the vehicle is shown in miles or kilometres, depending on the region. The feature will show real-time speed data, change colours on the speed indicator if the speed exceeds it, and nudge you to drive within the speed limit set in your region. In addition to that, the Google Support page also says that if the speed limit feature is available at your location, a shortcut is available that allows the user to turn the speedometer on or off by tapping the Speed Limit icon during navigation. Google further mentioned on a support page that the in-app speedometer shows the vehicles speed for informational use only. Therefore, car drivers should rely on their vehicles speedometer to confirm their actual driving speed. Meanwhile, the tech giant is also developing new features for its Maps to facilitate group travel. This upcoming functionality will enable multiple users from various locations to reach the same destination within a specified timeframe using the navigation service. The future is uncertain, and therefore, everyone is curious to find out what lies ahead for them. Many people claim to foresee the future through different methods, but its accuracy is always in question. Baba Vanga, a blind Bulgarian clairvoyant well renowned for her precognitive abilities, is again in the limelight for her shocking prediction for the coming year. Reportedly, the most recent predictions have raised concern among her followers and the public as they state that the end of the world would start in 2025. As per a timeline of her predictions mentioned in Outlook, while humanity will not be totally wiped out until 5079, the apocalypse is expected to begin in 2025. Moreover, Baba Vanga claimed that a conflict in Europe would harm the continents population by 2025. This prognosis has raised concerns, particularly due to the existing geopolitical tensions and conflicts. Here is the timeline events predicted to lead to the end of the world 2025: Conflict in Europe will decimate the continents population. 2028: Humans are expected to start exploring Venus as an energy source. 2033: The polar ice caps will melt, forcing sea levels to rise rapidly around the planet. 2076: Communism will spread all over the world. 2130: Humans will make contact with aliens. 2170: A drought will ravage most parts of the earth. 3005: Earth will wage war with a civilisation on Mars. 3797: Humans will be forced to leave Earth because it will become unsuitable for living. 5079: The world will end. While some of Baba Vangas previous forecasts, such as Princess Dianas death and the 9/11 attacks, are mentioned as proof of her supposed accuracy, many people remain sceptical due to a lack of solid documentation during her lifetime. Baba Vanga was born in 1911 and lost her sight after a storm when she was 12 years. But it is claimed that she developed the ability to predict the future. For 2024, Baba Vanga predicted that AI would have the ability to conquer the world. On the other side, the rise of quantum computing will disrupt the financial, healthcare and cybersecurity industries. Furthermore, record-breaking temperatures, wildfires, droughts, and risks to marine life and other environmental concerns have been predicted for this year. Many laws worldwide are universally adopted, such as banning discrimination based on religion and ethnicity. However, some countries have implemented seemingly odd laws tailored to specific needs of the past. In hindsight, these laws may sound illogical. While many of these unusual laws are rarely enforced, they remain on the books. Here are five such odd laws from around the world. Laugh Daily, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan A local government in Japans Yamagata prefecture has made a law that asks residents to laugh at least once a day to get better physical and mental health. This new law was based on research from Yamagata Universitys Faculty of Medicine that suggests a direct link between laughter and good health. Business operators are also asked to develop a workplace environment that is filled with laughter. Additionally, the eighth day of every month has been designated as the day for residents to promote health through laughter. No singing in a swimsuit, Florida, USA The US state of Florida is renowned for its beautiful beaches, attracting swimmers, sunbathers and surfers. While swimsuits are common attire, an unusual law prohibits people from singing in their swimsuits or singing along to the radio while running or walking. This law, reportedly listed in the Sarasota Code of Ordinances, was intended to prevent the disruption of the peace, quiet, and comfort of others. No ice cream on cherry pie, Kansas, USA Kansas, a major agricultural state in the USA, has a peculiar law regarding cherry pie: it is prohibited to serve cherry pie with a scoop of ice cream. According to an article in the Logan-Hocking Times, this law was likely enacted in the 1800s. At that time, consuming a rich dessert with ice cream was considered gluttonous and morally wrong. Ban On Winnie The Pooh Merchandise, Tuszyn, Poland In 2014, a Polish town named Tuszyb banned all Winnie the Pooh merchandise such as t-shirts or toys from public playgrounds. The lawmakers believed that Winne the Pooh is inappropriately dressed and half-naked as he only wears a shirt and no pants. Additionally, the character lacks a clear gender which makes it a hermaphrodite. Hence the character is inappropriate for kids. No chewing gum, Singapore Since 1992, chewing gum has been prohibited in Singapore. This law was made to keep the cities clean. The government believed that people were disposing of gum incorrectly. In 2004, some exceptions to the rule were made for dental and therapeutic reasons. People could buy nicotine-based chewing gums, used during smoking de-addiction programs, from a doctor or registered pharmacists. No High Heels in Greeces Monuments In Greece, visitors are prohibited from wearing heels at historic sites like the Parthenon and the Acropolis in Athens, as well as any other historic site. This law was established to protect the fragile monuments from damage. It is believed that scratches from heels can chip away at the ancient stones, so visitors are encouraged to wear flat footwear instead. A toxic work culture can definitely push an employee to quit. But there are some companies that try to force someone out instead of firing them directly. While most companies wouldnt choose to go extreme, there are some employers who use unusual tactics to try and make someone resign. From burdening an employee with undesirable or overwhelming projects to embarrassing them in front of other colleagues, employers do the unthinkable in the hope that the employee will get fed up and leave. In a similar instance, a company in China kept an employee, Liu Linzhu, confined in a small dark room for four days to force him to resign over a labour dispute. However, whats more shocking is that this unusual incident came to light after the organisation Guangzhou Duoyi Network Co. Ltd. challenged a court ruling on the case, reported the South China Morning Post. The incident happened in December 2022 when Liu found that he could no longer use his access pass or log into the companys system. This emerged after negotiating his resignation. Later, the company informed him that he had to participate in training and took the employee to a different floor from his regular workplace. But instead of training, he was locked in a pitch-black, empty room with no work assignments. The room was completely devoid of computers and colleagues, with just a chair and a table, the South China Morning Post added. The outlet further shared that the company even seized his phone, although he was permitted to leave the room and go home after work. Four days after the traumatising incident, on the fifth day, Lius wife filed a police report regarding the abuse towards her husband, and the company formally issued a notice of termination. The company claimed that Liu had violated company policies during the layoff to avoid having to pay compensation. He was accused of viewing obscene pictures and visiting irrelevant websites during working hours. However, Liu argued that the pictures he saw were part of his job and were necessary as a game art editor. The lower court ruled in favour of the employee and decided that Lius confinement violated the Labour Contract Law. The South China Morning Post added that the company published the full court document on its official account on Weibo, disagreeing with the district-level courts ruling in Sichuan province, southwestern China. The decision states that Guangzhou Duoyi Networks subsidiary should pay Liu Linzhu, 380,000 yuan ($52,200 or Rs 43 lakh) in compensation for their terrifying actions. There are moments when we wish we could quit our work to pursue our passion. Making it a reality, though, is a challenging and risky road. That one leaf of faith should be a calculated risk. Thats what Nischa Shah did, and thankfully, it all paid off. Personal Finance YouTuber Shah left her high-paying career in investment banking to focus on creating video full-time. Shah, who made a handsome living as an investment banker for over 10 years, opted to leave the position last year at the age of 29. The London-based banker told CNBC Make It that she had been moving up the corporate ladder for over 10 years before realising her work wasnt fulfilling. Shah told the news organisation that, despite working for a corporation for nine years, she didnt feel that her work was intellectually stimulating or truly challenging. She expressed her desire to figure out how to help others while earning money to do so. After going through a rock bottom phase around two and a half years ago, she made the decision to employ a Law of Attraction planner, which entails visualising desires and objectives, to take a fresh look at her life. She told CNBC Make It that the planner included questions and suggestions such as, What would you do if money was not an issue? Shah then made the decision to capitalise on her strengths. She was passionate in simplifying difficult information for everyone and personal finance. She had also once assisted her parents in avoiding a tax charge of almost 40,000 (roughly Rs 43 lakh) after their tax advisor had overlooked certain crucial details. In December 2021, Shah began experimenting with creating YouTube videos on personal finance and self-development. As of now, Shah has more than one million YouTube subscribers. According to CNBC Make It, she made more than Rs 8 crore from YouTube between May 2023 and May 2024. This accomplishment prompted her to leave her investment banking position in January, despite the fact that she was due to get a six-figure bonus just two months later. Im making a lot more than I was in banking, Shah said. While cabin crew members, also known as flight attendants, are responsible for the safety and comfort of passengers, their respective airlines are equally responsible for taking care of their accommodations. At times, cabin crew members are allocated to hotels during the layovers, which are paid by the airline itself. These accommodations can be both luxurious and basic to ensure that the crew can catch up on much-needed rest. However, Air India recently came under fire after its management failed to provide proper accommodations to its crew members. On Wednesday night, some of the members, after landing in Hyderabad during a haul, searched for a hotel for hours. They finally ended up at a shabby place that lacked basic amenities. X user Manisha Singhal shared pictures of the hotel, lashing out at the airline for their failure. Air India, if you want to be a world class airline, you do not treat your fatigued crew on a scheduled layover flight this way. You simply DO NOT. Hunting/wrestling for hotel rooms for four hours after a flight- and this is what is offered! No bedsheets, towels, basics??? Those days are over, for sure, but this trade-off is sub-par, she wrote. Again. Again. Yet Again!!!@airindia if you want to be a world class airline, you do not treat your fatigued crew , on a scheduled layover flight this way . You simply DO NOT.Hunting / wrestling for hotel rooms for four hours after a flight- and this is what is offered! No pic.twitter.com/hu1NUsTfj3 manisha singhal (@manishasinghal) July 11, 2024 The woman also noted that the sleep-deprived and shabbily treated cabin crew will hold this grudge, further affecting their working hours. Dignity cannot be a trade-off for Cost rationalisation. Period, the post concluded. In the picture, one can see the room with a single bed with no pillow or bedsheet, along with a small table and chairs by its side. The other is the reception area, which looks quite unorganised. According to PTI, the hotel was actually the airlines flying training facility, CTE, which is only meant for the staff-in-training and not the cockpit or crew on duty. Admitting that it was a lapse on its end, Air India has assured to take appropriate action. The post has garnered a lot of reactions on social media, with many slamming the airline. A user wrote, Just shocking! I cant believe its dropped so low. Just shocking ! I cant believe its dropped so low Sanjay Lazar (@sjlazars) July 11, 2024 Another commented, You must be joking! Even the lowest of low cost carriers will not treat its crew so shabbily. You must be joking! Even the lowest of low cost carrier will not treat its crew so shabbily. Aprameya Mukherjee (@AprameyaMukh) July 11, 2024 Yikes, this seems very shabby. In so many respects, not just the physical appearance. Quite unacceptable, a comment read. Yikes, this seems very shabby. In so many respects, not just the physical appearance. Quite unacceptable. AJ (@OntheRoadAJ) July 11, 2024 Subsequently, Singhal shared a statement issued by the airlines spokesperson to PTI. At Air India, the well-being of our staff is important to us and we offer comfortable stay in globally known hotels for their layovers. This is a lapse and we will take appropriate action, Air India spokesperson was quoted as saying to PTI, noted Singhal. @manishasinghal After the post, PTI contacted Air India, PTI report says an Air India spokesperson admitted that there was a lapse. "At Air India, the well-being of our staff is important to us and we offer comfortable stay in globally known hotels for their layovers. This manisha singhal (@manishasinghal) July 12, 2024 The post has received 1 million views on the microblogging platform. An incident from the Khaira village in the Jamui district, Bihar has recently captured the headlines. According to Local 18 Bihar, during an encroachment drive, the Khaira zonal office issued a notice to a person named Pani Tanki and his father Nal Jal Yojana. This might sound humorous to some people but is a true case. The notice was issued to both persons via letter number 107 with the contents, that is Form 1 Mr Pani Tanki, son of father/husband, Nal Jal Yojana, you are instructed to come to the zonal office with your documents and present your case. When Khaira Zonal Officer Vishwajit Kumar was asked about this, he said that the matter was not related to his tenure. As per the zonal officer, the previous circle officer Shriram Oraon has issued this notice. Vishwajit said that now that the matter has come to his notice, it will be investigated. Besides these people named Pani Tanki and Nal Jal Yojana, the notice was issued to the other persons as well. This matter has gone viral on social media and gives rise to questions about why these names were not checked in the very first place. This also raises questions about the carelessness of the officers who signed the notice. After having a look at the notice, users can see that it was issued on January 23, 2024. As of July 2024, there are no updates regarding this case. It is not known what punishments were handed over to the people named Pani Tanki and Nal Jal Yojana. It is also not known who used these names and for what reason. The notice was issued under the BIHAR PUBLIC LAND ENCROACHMENT ACT, 1956. There are stringent provisions under this act for defaulters who dont comply with the rules of the notice. One of the provisions reads, 7 (2) If any person does not comply with the orders passed by the Collector under this section, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term, which may extend to one year or with a fine up to Rs. 20,000/- (twenty thousand) or with both. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage / Stringer (Getty Images) Federal union monitor Neil Barofsky, who is in charge of keeping an eye on the United Auto Workers union, allegedly took issue with UAW President Shawn Fain calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and used his position to pressure Fain to change course. Drop Site News reports that Fain refused, potentially upsetting Barofsky enough to announce a new investigation into the union. To understand how we got here, we first have to rewind a few years. In September 2020, former UAW President Dennis Williams pleaded guilty to conspiracy to embezzle union funds. Williams was the 15th person convicted in the Justice Departments long-running investigation into union corruption and the second consecutive UAW president to earn a prison sentence. In December of that year, the union cut a deal with prosecutors. In addition to paying a $1.5 million fine, the UAW agreed to be overseen by an independent monitor for six years and change its election process to allow members to directly elect their president. In the end, Barofsky was appointed the unions monitor, and Fain later won the election to become the UAWs new president. ADVERTISEMENT Following his win, Fain went on to lead an incredibly successful strike against Detroits Big Three and then pulled off a surprise win when a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee voted to unionize. And yet, it wasnt until the UAW formally came out in favor of a ceasefire that things reportedly got heated between Fain and Barofsky: The move did not sit well with supporters of Israels war, among them Neil Barofsky, and he let Fain know about it directly. On December 14, two weeks after the UAW released its statement, Fain appeared on Capitol Hill for a press conference with members of Congress calling for a ceasefire. The evening before, according to a source familiar with the conversation, Barofsky called Fain and urged him to rethink the union position. Barofsky said that it had pained him to see the UAWs wheel logo and anti-war protests where UAW members were present, and he told Fain there had been repeated instances of antisemitism at those protests. Barofsky told Fain he was not calling as the federal monitor, who has nearly unchecked power over the union, but merely in his personal capacity. Fain told Barofsky, the source said, that the ceasefire resolution was in no way antisemitic or even pro-Palestinian, but simply an expression of the unions desire for peace. Fain added that that it was impossible for the monitor to call the union president in a strictly personal capacity, given the power dynamic at play, but that the union intended to stand by its call for a ceasefire and he would be appearing at the press conference on Capitol Hill the next day. The event went off as planned. Story continues Barofsky didnt just call Fain, though. He also sent a letter to the UAWs International Executive Board after the Anti-Defamation League complained about the Unions demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and in particular the actions of Local 7902 in support of same. In his letter to the IEB, Barofsky wrote, Although this issue is outside of the Monitors jurisdiction, we thought it was important to forward the message to the IEB given the serious concerns raised here. He also admitted to previously pressuring Fain, saying, For what its worth, as I previously shared with Shawn, similar concerns were raised directly to me shortly after the IEB issued its own ceasefire statement. Later that month, the IEB held its quarterly meeting, and this time, Barofsky joined remotely. When confronted with how inappropriate his behavior was, Barofsky doubled down, claiming the union had to listen to the ADL. Members of the board were reportedly shocked that he would continue to try to change the unions mind about its call for a ceasefire. A few days later, the UAWs lawyer sent Barofsky a letter calling him out on his overreach: You called President Fain and introduced your conversation with President Fain as one that was strictly on a personal level during which time you shared with President Fain your personal concerns about the Unions position on the crisis in Gaza. Your call to President Fain on an issue so blatantly outside of the Monitors jurisdiction was inappropriate as your Office holds disproportionate power over the UAW, and even a strictly personal sharing of opinion implicitly implicates such power dynamic. Nonetheless, out of respect for you and the office of the Monitor, President Fain discussed the conversation with only those in his inner circle and chose not to escalate the improper exchange any further. Six days after the union sent that letter, Barofsky announced he was opening an investigation into the union over a disagreement Fain had with the secretary treasurer. Barofsky said he wanted any and all emails, text messages, and instant messages sent between February 12 and February 23, which coincidentally happened to be about the same time the UAW was dealing with pressure to capitulate to the ADLs demands. Its entirely possible the investigation is legitimate, but the timing sure is suspicious. Especially since Republicans recently held a hearing over claims of rampant antisemitism in unions that took particular aim at a pro-ceasefire UAW local. Barofsky has also announced that he plans to expand the scope of his investigation. Theres a lot more to the story than what we could possibly hope to include here, so head on over to Drop Site News and give the whole thing a read. Also, if you like what you read, consider subscribing to support they good work they do over there, as well as independent journalism in general. If theres one thing we desperately need right now, its more independent journalists with the resources to hold the powerful accountable. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Indias Praveen Prajapat left the audiences awe-struck with his act on the July 9 episode of Americas Got Talent. The Rajasthan mans ability to balance multiple glasses of water on his head earned him a standing ovation from judge Sofia Vergara in the middle of his performance but failed to impress Simon Cowell. The four judges on Americas Got Talent had a rare dissent and expressed differing views on Praveen Prajapats balancing performance. At the end of the act, Sofia Vergara, Heidi Klum, and Howie Mandel stood up to praise the young performer, but Simon Cowell stayed seated and clapped impassively. In the act, Praveen Prajapat placed a stack of glass cups on his head, topped with an earthen pot. While dancing, he also balanced his feet on two glass cups. I have trained two or three hours every day for the last 10 years just for this moment," he told the judges in the video. The young man further claimed that he inherited the talent from his father. Watch the video here: The shows judge Howie Mandel termed the balancing act amazing," while Heidi Klum called it so beautiful to watch." Sofia Vergara, who was visibly impressed, told the Rajasthan native that he would do well in the competition. Meanwhile, Simon Cowell, the sole judge who remained underwhelmed, asked what Praveen Prajapat would add to the performance next. In response, the reality show participant said he could balance four LPG gas cylinders and 101 earthen pots on his head. Following this exchange, the other three judges supported Praveen but Cowell was still not impressed. Praveen Prajapat is not new to reality TV, having previously appeared on Indias Got Talent Season 9. Additionally, 9-year-old Pranysqa Mishral surprised the judges and audience on Americas Got Talent 2024 days ago with her singing talent. Mishra delivered her lyrics with extraordinary clarity and demonstrated a wide vocal range for her age, particularly during the solo sections. Heidi Klum hit the Golden Buzzer after seeing her version of Tina Turners River Deep Mountain High that also impressed the other judges. Would you ever dare to wear a heavy lehenga choli and walk on the streets? The weight of these exquisite outfits would never make this seem like a compelling idea. Recently, a video has garnered attention, where a woman is seen roaming the streets of a foreign country, wearing Rajasthani Ghagra-Choli. Foreign women were so impressed by seeing her that they were seen clicking pictures of her. Online users were quite surprised to see the clip. The Instagram user who shared the clip promotes Indian culture, especially Rajasthani culture, abroad. This is quite evident from her official Instagram handle. She often goes out to travel to other countries wearing Rajasthani costumes. A few days ago, she participated in a fashion week in Malta, a European country, in which she was seen wearing Ghagra Choli. Now, she is seen walking on the streets of another country. The foreign women likes the Ghaghra Choli dress so much that she cannot stop herself from clicking the photo. People passing by are also seeing her wearing the outfit. The Indian woman is seen wearing a red and yellow Ghagra Choli costume, giving off full Rajasthani vibes. The video went viral in no time. The clip has received more than 5 lakh views and 74,101 likes. While many people have expressed their reactions by commenting, One said, Our culture and our clothing are our identity. One said, Thank you! In todays modern era, you have done a lot to keep the pride of our Indian culture. Overall, the user has been receiving a lot of appreciation from the viewers. Few days ago, another similar clip raised attention on social media where a young woman walked through the streets of London wearing a crimson bridal lehenga. The reel was posted by a Spanish-Indian model who also works as a digital marketer. Incidents of visitors dropping trash or feeding inedible things to animals in zoos have become quite common. A similar event has come to light that shows a man throwing a plastic bag into the mouth of a hippopotamus. The clip has gone viral, stirring controversy and raising concerns over animals safety. After this horrific video surfaced online, social media users have urged the authorities to take strict action against the man. The incident happened at the Taman Safari in West Java, Indonesia. In the video, shared on X, a hippo is seen standing at the edge of its enclosure in the water, with its mouth open, when a group of tourists arrived. One of the tourists sitting in the car was seen trying to feed a carrot to the animal as it opened its mouth. But in the meantime, another tourist in the car threw what appeared to be a plastic bag into the animals mouth. But, what was even worse was that the animal began chewing it. 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 As soon as the video surfaced online, the clip sparked an outrage, with users flooding the comment section to express their views. Some requested the officials arrest the man, while others chimed in to vent out their anger after watching the horrific incident. Till now, the clip has garnered more than 2 million views on X. Thats pissed me off more than any video I have seen today. I know that much, read a comment. That's pissed me off more than any video I've seen today I know that much Dustin (@Draynick86) July 8, 2024 An X user wrote, Straight to jail. Straight to jail Washingtons ghost (@hartgoat) July 8, 2024 I hope they were caught and arrested!! That could kill the hippo!! expressed another user. I hope they were caught and arrested!! That could kill the hippo!! MoSmith (@MoSmithHMC) July 8, 2024 An individual posted, That is unacceptable. That is unacceptable Christopher Fishell (@chieffishell) July 9, 2024 I hate zoos, and this is one of the reasons. Just sitting and looking at the animals bums me out. I know some are healing, etc., but dang man. Let a brother be free, remarked another person. I hate zoos and this is one of the reasons. Just sitting and looking at the animals bums me out. I know some are healings etc but dang man. Let a brother be free Sir Howard the Coward (@SirHowardCoward) July 9, 2024 Meanwhile, Taman Safari Parks spokesman, Alexander Zulkarnain, informed the Jakarta Globe that the tourist had been identified and asked to make a public apology. We have identified the license plate of the vehicle carrying that person. We urge him to make a public apology to teach a lesson to other visitors about complying with the standard operating procedures at the Indonesian Safari Park, he said. We have collected information from our guards and security cameras at the park. Guards told us that this particular visitor had been reprimanded several times for opening the window in the tiger area, the spokesman added. In addition to that, Alexander Zulkarnain said that the hippo has been examined and that the creature is in a healthy condition. Embattled US President Joe Bidens campaign released a new advertisement on Thursday, hitting out at his rival and former president Donald Trump for siding with Putin, and calling him a lap dog for a dictator. The advertisement released to coincide with the last day of this weeks high-profile NATO summit here is part of a larger USD 50 million paid media buy for July, ahead of the November 5 presidential election. The ad also comes as Biden, 81, faces a huge task to reassure fellow Democrats and voters about his fitness for office following a disastrous debate performance against 78-year-old Trump. The advertisement slams Trump for suggesting Russia do whatever the hell they want to NATO members who do not meet defence spending targets, warning that the Republican Partys presumptive candidate is a lapdog for a dictator who blames America first. Donald Trump is an unhinged wannabe dictator. If hes reelected, hell be Vladimir Putins lap dog, giving him the green light to steamroll Europe and potentially spark World War III, CNN quoted Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt as saying on Thursday. Democracy and American security are on the ballot this November, and President Biden is the only candidate in this race committed to protecting and promoting it at home and abroad, it said. Congressional Democrats are worried about Bidens chances to win reelection, particularly in the wake of his disastrous debate on CNN last month, and that having him at the top of the ticket could also hurt the party in the election. Most Democrats have been reluctant to publicly call on Biden to step aside, but a growing number are saying so out loud, even after Biden has gone on the offensive this week to shore up support for a second term in the White House. Biden wrote to congressional Democrats on Monday that he will continue his reelection bid despite mounting concerns. Meanwhile, Biden is scheduled to hold a closely watched news conference on Thursday at the end of the Nato summit, marking another high-stakes moment for him to show off his skill in answering questions in an unscripted setting. A drunk flyer on Wednesday forced an American Airlines flight to make an emergency landing after he exposed himself and urinated on the planes aisle. A criminal complaint was made against Neil McCarthy, 25, of the US state of Oregon, who said he had downed several Jack and Cokes. He was arrested and charged with indecent exposure. The incident happened aboard American Eagle flight 3921, which was flying from Chicago to Manchester, New Hampshire, according to Fox Business. Due to his unruly behaviour, the flight was forced to divert to Buffalo, New York. He was arrested soon after the flight touched down as police boarded the plane and deplaned him. Police said that they found a photo clicked by a mobile phone camera from a passenger in row 2 which captured McCarthy exposing himself and urinating on the plane. Police also obtained statements from the flight crew and also from the staff who initially pointed McCarthy out to law enforcement. McCarthy told the police while in custody that he likes to drink Jack and Cokes and had downed several before boarding his flight in Portland, Oregon and some more during his layover in Chicago. He said he was flicking the bean due to a medical urination problem after returning from using the flights lavatory. The airlines in its statement said that the Embraer 170/175 operated by Envoy Air, was diverted due to a disruptive customer. The aircraft was met by law enforcement upon arrival at BUF and re-departed shortly after. We thank our team members for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding, the statement said. McCarthy was charged under Title 49, United States Code, Section 46506 with exposing his penis and faces a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Pakistans Supreme Court on Friday granted jailed former prime minister Imran Khans party around 20 seats in parliament reserved for women and minorities, months after national elections marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging. In February polls, candidates loyal to Imran Khan won the largest share of seats despite being forced by an election commission ruling to contest as independents. They were kept from power however by an alliance of military-backed parties. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was and is a political party which secured and won general seats in the national and provincial assemblies in the general elections of 2024, said the majority decision read by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah. It is declared that lack or denial of an election symbol doesnt in any manner affect the constitutional or legal rights of a political party to participate in an election. PTI shall be entitled to reserved seats for women and minorities in the national assembly accordingly, he added. Unelected seats reserved for women and non-Muslims are handed out to parties in proportion to the number of elected seats they secured. The ruling weakens the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. His Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party is propped up by a coalition of religious and regional parties and a supply and demand deal with long-term rivals the Pakistan Peoples Party. Gallup Pakistan analyst Bilal Gilani told AFP that PTI would try for making a political point about this that the government is shaky and could fall. It validates their feeling that theyve been victimised, he added, but noted the majority still lies with the current coalition. Law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told reporters in Islamabad there is no challenge to the government. In order to stand as a bloc in the National Assembly, candidates loyal to Khan had aligned with a lesser-known party, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC). The Election Commission of Pakistan had earlier ruled against handing the reserved seats to SIC or PTI. In the lead up to the February polls, PTI candidates were targeted by arrests and censorship, while a mobile service blackout on polling day and delayed results gave rise to allegations of vote tampering. Already detained in custody over dozens of legal cases, Khan was convicted in the days before the polls for a trio of offences that saw him sentenced to 14 years in prison. A UN panel of experts said this month that Khans detention had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office. A treason conviction carrying a decade-long sentence was overturned in April and a 14-year sentence for graft suspended in June, though the conviction stands. An appeal decision is pending over his conviction for breaking Islamic law by marrying his wife Bushra Bibi too soon after her divorce. The China-Pakistan relationship has progressed far beyond economic investments and energy projects. Islamabad has clear value for Beijing as a source for transporting illicit substances and dual-use technologies to advance its military programs, including potential proliferation. Pakistans security situation and the proliferation of radical groups and terrorists pose significant geopolitical, business, and security risks for China. They also make it a bad investment due to corruption and bad business environment. Investments in Pakistans economic sector can be seen as a quid pro quo for the services Karachi offers in other areas that China prefers to keep distant, informal, and opaque. China has recently boasted of its growing and updated nuclear weapons program, perhaps as a challenge to the Wests support of Taiwan, the Philippines, and other countries that challenge Chinas geopolitical agenda in the region. Apart from overt and blatant disregard for the controversy of expanding a nuclear program, it is likely that China clandestinely is also expanding other types of weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in far more expeditious manner than meets the eye. Allies With Rogue States To Challenge Western Influence China is interested in cooperating with failing states, rogue regimes, and radical movements as long as they serve a role in challenging and countering Western countries, India, and anyone else that gets in the way of Beijings program of global dominance. Pakistans chaotic political environment makes it easy to exploit corrupt and mismanaged local conditions to subvert sanctions, export-import controls, and other international bans and regulations limiting the transport and procurement of potentially threatening substances. As a secretive regime, China wields a vast intelligence apparatus that keeps a tight lid on its research and distribution programs, making it difficult to curtail and analyse illicit activities until it is too late. Chinas role in promoting fentanyl production with the assistance of Mexican drug cartels and narco-terrorists, aimed at weakening the US population, is an example of how the Chinese government plays a sinister role in major drug-related operations that are actually intelligence and security operations in furtherance of its ambitions and aimed at harming the Western society, disguised as oversight and willful blindness. Pakistan, too, is essential for maintaining plausible deniability. Given the distrust between China, Pakistan, India, and the West, uncovering the full story may take considerable time, resources, and a focused approach. Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movements political bureau said Friday. We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war, Hossam Badran said in a statement about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas with mediation from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties, Badran added. A Hamas official told AFP the proposal for a non-partisan government was made with the mediators. The government will manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections said the official, who did not want his name disclosed. Badrans remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt. This condition conflicts with Hamass position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire. Netanyahu said on Thursday that control of the Philadelphi corridor is part of efforts to prevent weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt. The negotiations are occurring in Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the return of hostages still held there by Hamas. The war began on October 7 with Hamass unprecedented attack on southern Israel that 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 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) on Friday spoke to US NSA Jake Sullivan and discussed upcoming high-level engagements under the Quad framework. Both NSAs discussed challenges to global peace and the need to address those challenges collectively, over a phone call. The phone call between the NSAs was the first form of official communication between top officials of both nations after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia. Doval and Sullivan vowed to further advance India-US relations while highlighting that the bilateral relationship was built on shared values and common strategic and security interests. A statement issued by New Delhi said: They discussed a wide range of issues of bilateral, regional and international concern and forthcoming high-level engagements under the Quad framework to be held in July 2024 and later in the year. The NSAs agreed to work closely to further advance India-US relations, which are built on shared values and common strategic and security interests, the statement said. They reiterated the need to work collectively to address global challenges to peace and security and further expand the Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership, the statement further added. The Kremlin on Friday dismissed a report that Russia was plotting to assassinate the chief executive of a major German arms maker supplying weapons to Ukraine. Citing five unidentified US and Western officials, CNN reported Thursday that the United States informed Germany that the Russian government had a plan to kill Armin Papperger, the head of Rheinmetall. Asked about the report on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed it as appearing to be fake and said it could not be taken seriously. It is very difficult for us to comment on reports from various media outlets that do not contain any serious arguments and are based on anonymous sources, Peskov told reporters in a briefing call. Its all presented in the style of another fake story, therefore such reports cannot be taken seriously, he added. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock castigated Moscow after the allegations were published. Russia is waging a hybrid war of aggression, she said Thursday. With sabotage, with cyber attacks, with the paralysis of GPS so that Baltic aircraft can no longer land in neighbouring countries. We have seen that there have been attacks on people on European territory, the foreign minister said. We have seen that there have been attacks on factories. A German interior ministry spokesman declined to comment directly on the Rheinmetall report but said the German government takes the threats from the Russian regime very seriously. Rheinmetall spokesman Oliver Hoffmann said the company was unable to comment on issues relating to corporate security. Rheinmetall produces 155mm artillery shells and plans to begin manufacturing armoured vehicles in Ukraine, according to CNN. Read the full article on Motorious Get ready to roll in style! A meticulously restored 1966 Shelby Mustang GT350, known for its Candy Apple Red finish and racing heritage, is now available for bidding on Bring a Trailer. Initially delivered to Marv Tonkin Ford in Portland, Oregon on February 25, 1966, this legendary muscle car has remained predominantly within Oregon until its current owner acquired it in Washington in 2005. Following an extensive refurbishment completed in 2006, the vehicle showcases its factory color complemented by striking white racing stripes. This GT350 features a 289ci HiPo V8 engine paired with a T-10 four-speed manual transmission, promising an authentic and exhilarating driving experience. The car's exterior maintains its original allure with the Candy Apple Red paint, enhanced by the addition of white over-the-top and rocker stripes. It is equipped with a steel-reinforced fiberglass hood featuring variable-diameter springs and hood pins, functional side scoops, re-chromed bumpers, and double-curved plexiglass quarter panels. The Shelby rides on recently installed BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires, mounted on sand-cast 10-spoke alloy wheels, ensuring both style and performance. This GT350 retains its factory Kelsey-Hayes front disc brakes and upgraded rear drums, complemented by Shelbys signature lowered front A-arms, overrider traction bars, axle-limiting cables, and Koni shocks for an enhanced driving dynamics. Inside, the cabin is adorned with low-back bucket seats and a Sport Deck rear seat, all trimmed in black vinyl. It features lap belts for four occupants and an AM radio embedded in the dashboard. A Carroll Shelby signature graces the glovebox door, adding a touch of historical significance. The driver is greeted with a wood-rimmed steering wheel, a 140-mph speedometer, and various gauges, including a Cobra-branded 9k-rpm tachometer center-mounted on the dash. The odometer reflects just 33,000 miles, indicative of its careful preservation over the years. Story continues Under the hood, the 289ci HiPo V8 engine, rebuilt by Grays Automotive Machine Shop in McMinnville, Oregon, during its refurbishment, delivers 257 rear-wheel horsepower and 284 lb-ft of torque, as verified by dynamometer test results from 2007. It features a Holley 715-cfm central-pivot four-barrel carburetor, a 7.5-quart aluminum oil pan, Cobra open-letter valve covers, a dual-point distributor with PerTronix ignition, and a high-rise intake manifold. Recent maintenance includes the replacement of the fuel-sending unit, alternator, and voltage regulator. Power is efficiently transferred to the rear wheels via an aluminum-case T-10 four-speed manual transmission, recently rebuilt for optimal performance. The rear end, equipped with 3.89:1 gearing, and the dual exhaust system with ceramic-coated tri-Y headers, a crossover pipe, and Flowmaster mufflers, ensure a powerful and distinctive exhaust note. This 1966 Shelby Mustang GT350 is presented with a copy of the original invoice, service records, and a clean Washington title. Currently consigned for sale in Portland, Oregon, this classic muscle car represents an exceptional opportunity for collectors and enthusiasts to acquire a piece of automotive history. ADVERTISEMENT Avant-Garde is well-known as an award-winning, top seller (@911r ) on Bring a Trailer. We provide turnkey auction management for our clients. Avant-Garde presents cars in an unparalleled fashion, with a comprehensive history, descriptions, photos, and video for each vehicle. We want to put buyers in the virtual drivers seat so they can experience a vehicle as if they were present, giving them confidence in their purchase. Sign up for the Motorious Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Police in the southwestern England city of Bristol are searching for a man who was behaving suspiciously on a local bridge just before the discovery of two suitcases believed to contain human remains. The Metropolitan Police on Friday confirmed that the suitcases did contain human remains. The victims have not been formally identified but both are believed to be adult men, said the Metropolitan Police. Avon and Somerset Police officers arrived on the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge at around midnight Wednesday, only 10 minutes after receiving reports of the man behaving strangely. But the man, who had travelled there by taxi, was already gone. This is a very disturbing incident and I fully recognize the concern it will be causing our communities, Acting Bristol Commander Vicks Hayward-Melen said. Police, who are being assisted by the coastguard, said they were still working out the mans identity and released an image, though they warned the public not to approach him. Our immediate priority is to locate the man who took the suitcases to the bridge, identify the deceased, and inform their next of kin, Hayward-Melen said. The London-based force has now taken over the investigation after evidence suggested that the wanted man had travelled to Bristol from the UK capital earlier on Wednesday. A crime scene has been set up in west London, he added. The landmark bridge spans the Avon Gorge, and was designed by noted Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in 1864. It is one of the oldest surviving suspension bridges in the world. The bridge over the Avon Gorge is one of Bristols top tourist attractions and a symbol of the city. (with inputs from Associated Press and AFP) US President Joe Biden made major gaffes during the NATO Summit on Thursday amid growing calls for him to step aside, which mounted following a lackluster debate against his Republican rival Donald Trump. Addressing a news conference following the NATO Summit in Washington, Biden confused Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump shortly after he confused Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraines Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a different event. Gasps and groans When asked whether Harris could beat Donald Trump if he decided not to run again, Biden said: I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I did not think she was not qualified to be president. His answer was met with gasps and groans from journalists, the New York Post reported. Slip of the tongue The 81-year-old US president, known for slips of the tongue and currently under scrutiny over his mental fitness, earlier introduced Zelensky as Putin at a NATO ceremony before correcting himself. Now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin, Biden said. He quickly corrected himself, saying, Im so focused on beating President Putin, weve got to worry about it. But the momentary lapse quickly revived memories of his debate two weeks earlier against Trump he had failed in his own task, to reassure the public he still had his wits. Responding to criticism over his remarks confusing Zelenskyy with Putin, Biden later defended himself, saying, Did you see any damage to our stand in my leading this conference? Have you seen a more successful conference? What do you think? And the Putin pieceI was talking about Putin, and I said, and now, at the very end, I said here, I mean Putin. I said, no, Im sorry, Zelenskyy. HE CANNOT BE STOPPED!!Biden: I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be Vice President if shes not qualified to be President. pic.twitter.com/KXaEI3KBWr DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) July 11, 2024 Great job, Joe Republican presumptive nominee Trump was quick to mock Biden while the US president made verbal slips during a high-stakes press conference. Crooked Joe begins his Big Boy Press Conference with, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president Great job, Joe! Trump said on his Truth Social site. Seeking to allay concerns about his mental fitness as he seeks reelection, Biden said that neurological exams found he is in good shape. Ive taken three significant and intense neurological exams by a neurologist, Biden said, the most recent in February. And they say Im in good shape. Most qualified The US President also denied needing to be in bed by 8:00 pm as he faced a barrage of questions from reporters about a disastrous debate performance that sparked calls for him to end his reelection bid. Reports of his early bedtime were not true, although he added: Instead of my every day starting at 7:00 am and going to bed at midnight, it would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more. Biden insisted that he was the most qualified American to take on Trump in Novembers presidential election. I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again, Biden said, adding that he is not in this for my legacy but to complete the job I started. (With agency inputs) A video trending on social media shows a Chinese drone flying to the summit of Mount Everest at 29,032-foot all the way from the base camp while capturing stunning images of the landscape below. The footage was shared on social media by Shenzhen-based drone manufacturer DJI. The drone used to capture the footage is a Mavic 3 Pro drone. Check out this @DJIGlobal video of its DJI Mavic 3 Pro flying over Mt #Everest (8848.86 m). The drone ascended ~3,500 meters from the base camp to the summit of the highest mountain in the world. pic.twitter.com/cHOTGpkiFT Everest Today (@EverestToday) July 11, 2024 The footage begins at an altitude of around 17,600 feet, with the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flying near Base Camp on the south side of the mountain in Nepal. It gives a birds-eye view of the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, snow-dusted tents strewn across the landscape, Camp I and Camp II and Nepali glacier valley Western Cwm, which is about 20,000 feet high. In high definition 4K resolution, the drone also captures mountaineers climbing in single file and past the third and final camps ahead of reaching the summit. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa were the first to ascend Mount Everest, the worlds highest mountain. The New Zealander and his Nepalese guide reached the summit of the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) peak on May 29, 1953 as part of a British expedition led by John Hunt, paving the way for thousands of others to make the daring attempt to reach the Roof of the World. Nepal has issued 414 permits to mountaineers for this years spring climbing season, which runs from April to early June. Most Everest hopefuls are each escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning more than 800 climbers will tread the same path to the top of the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) peak in the coming weeks. This year, China reopened the Tibetan route to foreigners for the first time since it closed in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The northern summit route opened earlier in May, according to social media posts by expedition organisers. Nepal is home to eight of the worlds 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm. Last year, over 600 climbers made it to the peak of the highest mountain in the world. It also became the deadliest season on the mountain with 18 deaths. A dramatic near-miss was captured on video above Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York on July 8, as two US commercial planes narrowly avoided a collision. The incident, recorded by the North Syracuse Police Departments dash camera, is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has not yet classified it as a near collision. The planes involved were PSA Airlines Flight 5511, a regional carrier for American Airlines, and Endeavor Air Flight 5421, part of Delta Connection. NEW: The FAA has launched an investigation after two planes nearly collided at New Yorks Syracuse Hancock International Airport.A commercial flight was forced to abort the landing when an airplane taking off nearly ran into the plane. The planes came within just pic.twitter.com/jW5pyqZCeM Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 10, 2024 PSA Airlines 5511 was arriving from Washington, while Endeavor Air 5421 was heading to New York. Both flights carried collectively 151 passengers and eight crew members, with no injuries reported. US media reports said the cockpit alarm on American Flight 5511 sounded as Delta Flight 5421 came dangerously close. The alarm, which usually activates about 20 seconds before a possible collision, alerted the crew to the proximity of the other aircraft. According to FAA officials, the close call occurred around 11:50 a.m. when an air traffic controller instructed PSA Airlines 5511 to go around to avoid an aircraft departing from the same runway. Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 indicated that the two aircraft came within 700-1,000 feet of each other vertically. Despite concerns, experts have suggested that the planes were not on a direct collision course. However, air traffic control audio suggested there was a potential risk. Air traffic control cleared PSA Airlines 5511 for landing and simultaneously permitted Endeavor Air 5421 to take off from runway 28. NEW YORKDefense attorneys representing former President Donald Trump have officially requested that the guilty conviction be tossed out in his so-called hush money trial involving former adult star Stormy Daniels and an effort to cover up a scheme to silence her from sharing her story. AVN reported extensively on Trump's trial and the ongoing legal and personal fight between the two. Todd Blanche, Trump's lead attorney, and the other attorneys filed a 52-page motion Thursday before presiding Judge Juan Merchan. They are citing the expanded presidential immunity that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down that immunizes current and former presidents from prosecution as it relates to the commission of "official acts." The ruling also prohibits using "official acts" as evidence to punish a president for unofficial acts. Blanche and company are pointing to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's prosecutors calling to the stand former Trump White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. Hicks was called by prosecutors during the trial to piece together the narrative that they covered up the Stormy Daniels affair and the news that broke when she exposed the story. "Because of the implications for the institution of the presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted ... grand jury proceedings as well as the trial," Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in the filing. Citing the Supreme Court ruling, Trump's lawyers do face an uphill battle with Judge Merchan. Merchan, who was unswayed by the claims during the trial that Trump was simply covering up the Stormy Daniels affair as just a "private matter," is unlikely to be swayed by the claim that he was operating in any official capacity as president. The consensus among legal experts, despite the expansion of presidential immunity by the high court, is that Trump will not be able to make the case that anything in his efforts to cover up the affair and the conspiracy to cover up was official. In fact, these are considered private and political matters. Donald Trump's attorneys convinced the prosecutors to postpone Trump's sentencing, which was scheduled for today, to a later date in September. But the case is unlikely to be dismissed, let alone the verdict overturned, until Judge Merchan reviews the filings and the case. Stormy Daniels recently appeared on MSNBC being interviewed by primetime anchor Rachel Maddow. This was Daniels' first interview since a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up an affair he had with Daniels and, in turn, unlawfully interfere in the 2016 election. In her interview with Maddow, Daniels divulged new details about how she fears for her life and the privacy and safety of her teenage daughter. Get the news faster. Tap to install our app. Access Newser even faster. Click here to install our app on your desktop. X President Biden's "do or die" moment, the press conference in which he had to convince the world he's able to lead the US for four more years, has come and gone. So what's the verdict? It's a mixed bag, with praise for Biden's foreign policy acumen and often-nuanced answers to reporters' questions at the conclusion of the NATO summit in DC, but a still-nervous acknowledgment that there were some stumbles. There's also a still "jittery" Democrat contingent that isn't sure Biden's the one for the job, per Politico, which says Biden did "some damage control" on that front, "but not enough." More on the presser's aftermath: Political purgatory: "Democrats are trapped in a limbo that is really a special layer of hell," Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted on X. "Biden giving detailed, smart policy answers but the nattering nabobs will obsess on two very mundane 'gaffes.' He's still losing the swing states but not so badly to force him out. Makes me wanna holler." "Democrats are trapped in a limbo that is really a special layer of hell," Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted on X. "Biden giving detailed, smart policy answers but the nattering nabobs will obsess on two very mundane 'gaffes.' He's still losing the swing states but not so badly to force him out. Makes me wanna holler." Further defections: As the news conference came to a close, more Democratic lawmakers said publicly that Biden should leave the race. "Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign," California Rep. Scott Peters said in a statement, per Politico. "The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course." Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes and Illinois Rep. Eric Sorensen made similar remarks. As the news conference came to a close, more Democratic lawmakers said publicly that Biden should leave the race. "Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign," California Rep. Scott Peters said in a statement, per Politico. "The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course." Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes and Illinois Rep. Eric Sorensen made similar remarks. And even more? Meanwhile, "well-placed" Democratic sources tell CBS News that they expect "dozens" of Dem lawmakers to ask the same of Biden over the next 48 hours, with some of those statements already reportedly written. One of the sources says they think the next few days will be "brutal," and that "it may become untenable by sometime next week for the president to continue in the race," as CBS puts it. As of Friday morning, one Democratic senator and 16 House Democrats had called for Biden to step aside, per the AP. We'll take a burger, small fries, and an update on Hurricane Beryl, please. That's what Whataburger customers in Houston are getting served up via the fast-food chain's app, which is providing what Quartz calls "a unique view into the storm's aftermath"specifically, where the power is still out in Texas' largest city after the deadly Beryl swept through . CenterPoint Energy, Houston's energy provider, has been contending since Monday with more than 2 million people who've lost power. One local, however, stumbled upon a way to figure out which parts of the city still had electricity, for the purposes of finding food, gas, and other supplies: by tracking whether Whataburger restaurants were open or closed around Houston through the chain's app. Bryan Norton of Tomball, on the outskirts of the city, tells the Washington Post that he lost power Monday morning and was searching on his phone for places where he and his wife could find something to eat. He decided on Whataburger, but when he looked at the restaurants on his map, he noticed something interesting: "a patchwork of gray and orange W's, where the latter logos marked the open Whataburgers." "I was like, 'Holy cow! Now we can see the scope of the [power outage] issue,'" he says. Norton posted about his find on social media, and it soon went viralespecially since CenterPoint Energy's own power-outage restoration map had gone down in May due to "technical challenges" after another storm. Some note the similarity between the Whataburger app and the "Waffle House Index," which has even been used by FEMA to gauge how hard-hit areas are after storms based on what Waffle Houses remain open. "Whataburger is that friend by your side in good times and bad," Whataburger CEO Ed Nelson says in a statement, per KHOU. "We're glad the Whataburger app has been helpful to Houston residents." The company adds that its app should only be used for "a general idea of power availability." As for CenterPoint Energy, a rep tells the Post that they hope to have their map replaced by the end of this month, so that residents don't have to rely on fast-food apps for a storm status update. (More Whataburger stories.) Holly Willoughby has a cop in Minnesota to thank for saving her life, from thousands of miles across the pond. The 43-year-old British model and TV personality was the target of a rape and murder plot at the hands of Gavin Plumb, who last week was found guilty of the scheme after a trial that lasted eight days, reports the BBC. On Friday, the 37-year-old ex-security guard heard the rest of his fate: He was sentenced to life in prison, with no eligibility for parole for more than 15 years, counting time he's already spent in custody. The scheme: Plumb's plot involved a "home invasion" in which he would break into the family home, tie up Willoughby and rape her in front of her family, then kill her and get rid of her body in an abandoned building just outside of London. In a video seen by the jury, Plumb was seen saying to arresting police officers of Willoughby, "I'm not gonna lie. She is a fantasy of mine." Two hours after SpaceX launched its latest Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday evening, a message popped up from CEO Elon Musk on X : "Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown." Translation, per the New York Times : The second stage of the rocket "sustained a rare but catastrophic failure," disintegrating while in orbit with a cargo of 20 Starlink satellites aboard. Musk added that his team was "reviewing data tonight to understand [the] root cause" of the rocket's RUD, or rapid unscheduled disassembly, which came after an uneventful first launch phase from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base. CNBC notes that the "rocket's upper second stage failed to reignite its engine as planned" before it was destroyed, and that the Falcon 9 is grounded until the FAA gives its OK, after a SpaceX investigation. It's not clear if SpaceX will be able to retrieve the lost Starlink units. The company noted that after the malfunction, the 20 satellites were dumped in a lower-than-intended orbit; SpaceX has made contact with five of them so far. The Times clarifies just how rare such an event is: It's the first Falcon 9 failure in eight years, with more than 300 thumbs-up missions since one of the rockets exploded on the launchpad in 2016, destroying an Israeli satellite. This particular mission was SpaceX's 69th Falcon 9 launch of 2024, with one taking place every three days or so this year, per the Times' calculations. Company officials say they'd planned more than 140 launches by year's end. This incident, however, will likely slow that pace, including for two imminent manned missions set for later this month and August. The only other time a Falcon 9 has been destroyed while in flight was in 2015, during a NASA cargo mission to the International Space Station. (More SpaceX stories.) Photo credit: WFAN As the New York Yankees search for answers after suffering their 17th loss in 23 games, WFANs bearded Tommy Lugauer thinks he has it. Let them grow beards. The Yankees season is undoubtedly in a tailspin right now, prompting fans to call WFAN with suggestions of firing Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman, while also offering bizarre trade proposals like sending Juan Soto to Toronto. But those callers failed to point out the larger problem with the Yankees. Their Neatness Counts policy that forbids beards. Fans and callers may have failed to recognize whats wrong with the Yankees. But thankfully, Mets fan and WFAN producer Lugauer answered the bell. Lugauer noted that while Carlos Rodons $162 million contract is on the verge of becoming a historically bad deal for the Yankees, he was great with the San Francisco Giants. Whats the difference? Facial hair. Loogy says the Yankees need to ditch their no beard policy. pic.twitter.com/DWy3uzYvqD Evan and Tiki (@EvanandTikiWFAN) July 10, 2024 This is not the Navy, Lugauer told Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber. Just let these guys grow a beard out. Let them be comfortable. You talk about being in New York, stop with this nonsense! The hot take by Lugauer occurred after Roberts accused his producer of attempting getting on Awful Announcing earlier in the week by suggesting the Mets should sign 52-year-old Billy Wagner. That take didnt make it, but calling out the Yankees hair policy is always worthy of a headline. Will facial hair really fix Rodon and the floundering Yankees? Probably not. But in 2024, the policy is nonsense. The Neatness Counts policy was instituted in 1976 by then-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, barring players from having beards, beads, mutton chops, or long hair. Nearly a half-century later, the seemingly outdated hair maintenance rules are still enforced by the Yankees. But at this point, who will step up and break the law? Last year, a bat boy had the gall to don the pinstripes with long hair and facial scruff and promptly got called out for it by play-by-play voice Michael Kay. There are rules. Rules are rules. Hes disobeying two of them, Kay ranted last year. Dont worry, Lugauer has an answer for that too. Aaron Judge needs to grow a beard, Lugauer suggested. Theyre not fining him. Juan Soto could grow a beard, theyre not fining him. [WFAN] TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Ahmed bin Salman Al Musallam, Speaker of the Council of Representatives, led a parliamentary delegation at the Marrakech Parliamentary Economic Forum for the Euro Mediterranean and Gulf region. During his address, Speaker Ahmed bin Salman praised the robust bilateral relations between Bahrain and Morocco, extending congratulations to Morocco on the upcoming anniversary of His Majesty King Mohammed VIs accession. Highlighting Bahrains commitment to environmental sustainability and climate goals, Speaker Ahmed bin Salman outlined ambitious targets, including a 30% reduction in emissions by 2035 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2060. He underscored Bahrains support for entrepreneurship, particularly in bolstering small and medium enterprises, as integral to its Economic Vision 2030. Noting Bahrains improved ranking in the 2024 World Competitiveness Index, he highlighted the Kingdoms strides in creating an attractive investment climate and fostering robust public-private partnerships. Addressing the Marrakech forum, the Speaker advocated for backing Bahrains proposal for an international peace conference, recently announced at the 33rd Arab Summit. He emphasized the forums pivotal role as a platform for political dialogue and collaboration, stressing the Mediterranean and Gulf regions potential in terms of natural and human resources. He urged for enhanced economic parliamentary diplomacy to achieve sustainable economic solutions and forge strategic partnerships, particularly emphasizing the imperative of accelerating clean hydrogen production for longterm energy security TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain Economic Development Board (Bahrain EDB) successfully concluded its five-day strategic visit to the United Kingdom (UK). Designed to highlight the investment opportunities in Bahrain through a curated agenda of business meetings and roundtable discussions, the visit culminated at the Newmarket July Festival as part of Bahrain EDBs partnership with Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club (REHC). The Newmarket July Festival race was attended by His Highness Shaikh Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Isa bin Salman Education Charitable Trust, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Labour Fund, and Chairman of the Rashid Equestrian and Horse Racing Club (REHC) High Committee H.E. Noor bint Ali Alkhulaif, Minister of Sustainable Development and Chief Executive of Bahrain EDB, along with officials of Bahrain EDB and REHC. REHC sponsored three International Group races on the festival's opening day. Bahrain EDB, in collaboration with REHC, additionally hosted both existing and potential investors at The Bahrain Trophy at the Newmarket July Festival as part of its aftercare and strategic advisory services, driven by a commitment to retain, promote, and facilitate reinvestment within the island nation. The event provided an invaluable platform to connect and build strong relationships with high-net-worth companies and individuals and shed light on Bahrains unique value proposition and attractive investment environment. H.E. Noor bint Ali Alkhulaif, Minister of Sustainable Development and Chief Executive of Bahrain EDB said, "We take pride in our partnership with Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club, which builds upon a longstanding legacy partnership with Newmarket Racecourse, underscoring Bahrains commitment to further building upon its economic and commercial ties with the United Kingdom. Her Excellency added, We at Bahrain EDB are firmly dedicated to continuing to promote the Kingdom as a prime destination for investment across our target markets. Alongside the strategic meetings and events we hosted, the Newmarket July Festival has been instrumental in providing the opportunity to engage with companies in a vibrant atmosphere and highlight Bahrains competitive advantages, business-friendly environment, and highly skilled talent pool. Yusuf Buheji, Chief Executive Officer at Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club, stated, We would like to extend our gratitude to Bahrain EDB as a key partner of REHC. The prestigious Newmarket July Festival provides the ideal setting for us to showcase all that Bahrain has to offer. It enables us to connect with likeminded people in the racing community and forge strategic partnerships and collaborations with various international institutions and companies, which will serve to further develop the Kingdoms horseracing sector, as part of our far-reaching goals to cement Bahrains international recognition as a leading horseracing and equestrian destination. During the visit, Bahrain EDB hosted two pivotal roundtables attended by UK-based companies and investors. The first, titled The Future of Manufacturing Investment Opportunities and Best Practices, was hosted in collaboration with Sovereign Strategy and highlighted investment opportunities primarily in the manufacturing sector, as well as in financial services and ICT sectors. The second event, held in partnership with City UK, focused on financial services under the theme The Talent Test: Attracting the Right Skills for the Future of Fintech. Both events, attended by key stakeholders from Bahrains public and private sectors, and senior representatives from key UK-based firms operating in Bahrain, in the likes of PWC Middle East, were critical for engaging with industry leaders and investors in the UK. REHC partnership with Newmarket Racecourse extends back to 1991. It builds on a robust legacy of bilateral economic ties between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United Kingdom that span over 200 years, underpinned by strong commercial and investment ties. Numerous leading UK companies, such as Unilever, Charles Russell, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Standard Chartered, Trowers & Hamlins, HSBC, Reckitt Benckiser, and Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), have established a presence in Bahrain. AFP | Gaza The Daily Tribune - www.newsofbahrain.com Fighting and bombardment shook Gazas biggest city yesterday even after Israels military declared an end to its operation in an eastern district that saw Gaza Citys heaviest combat in months. The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus statement in late June that the war in its intense phase is about to end. It also came as talks were held in the Gulf emirate of Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal after more than nine months of war. Gazas Hamas rulers said troops had pulled back from Gaza Citys eastern district of Shujaiya, leaving more than 300 residential units and more than 100 businesses destroyed, Witnesses said tanks and troops had moved into other Gaza City districts. An AFP correspondent reported air strikes on the Sabra neighbourhood while Hamas engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli forces in Tel al-Hawa. Explosions and orange flashes shook the darkened city before daylight brought automatic weapons fire, AFPTV images showed. Bodies found Gazas civil defence agency said around 60 bodies had been found in the ruins of Shujaiya. Once the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the Shujaiya neighbourhood, civil defence crews, with local residents, managed to recover about 60 martyrs up to now, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said. Hamas reported 45 air strikes in the Gaza City area, as well as in Gazas southernmost city of Rafah, where Netanyahu had said the intense phase of the war was nearing its conclusion. Netanyahus office confirmed that its negotiating team, led by Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea, had returned to Israel following talks with mediators in Doha yesterday. A new delegation will head to Cairo yesterday evening to continue the talks, his office said. During the talks, the chapters of the deal for the return of the hostages and the ways to implement the outline were discussed, it said. Separately, Hamas said it had not been informed of any new developments from the latest talks and accused Israel of delaying tactics aimed at sabotaging truce efforts. On Wednesday, the Washington Post had reported that both Israel and Hamas had signalled their acceptance of an interim governance plan in which neither would rule the territory and a US-trained force of Palestinian Authority supporters would provide security. Netanyahu separately met US President Joe Bidens special envoy for the Middle East, Brett McGurk. The Israeli prime minister emphasised his commitment to a proposed truce plan, as long as Israels red lines are preserved, his office said. Hamass 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 gunmen also seized 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 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gazas health ministry. The latest toll included 50 new deaths over the previous 24 hours, it said. Dangerous combat zone On Wednesday, the Israeli army dropped leaflets warning everyone in Gaza City that it would remain a dangerous combat zone. The leaflets urged residents to flee, and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian office said up to 350,000 people had been shletering. The United Nations said the latest evacuations will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times, and who face critical levels of need. An Israeli government spokesman said the aim was to put civilians out of harms way as troops battle Hamas. Hamas official Hossam Badran 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. The Israeli military had said in January that it had dismantled Hamass military framework in northern Gaza, including Gaza City. Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, a goal whose viability has been questioned by critics both in Israel and abroad. Israels military said on Wednesday it had completed its mission in Shujaiya after two weeks. KANATA, ON, July 12, 2024 /CNW/ - Unifor and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) will hold a solidarity rally on July 15 at the Best Theratronics Kanata facility, after Unifor members have remained steady on the picket line for 75 days, without any resolution in sight. Unifor Local 1541 members at Best Theratronics hold the picket line as strike hits 75 days. (CNW Group/Unifor) "This employer has refused to bargain, has threatened our members with the loss of their jobs, and in doing so has violated their constitutional rights to free and fair collective bargaining. This is union busting. Plain and simple so we're bringing the fight right to their front door," said Unifor National President Lana Payne The Unifor Local 1541 members began strike action on May 1 after Best Theratronics owner Krishnan Suthanthiran dragged out contract negotiations while repeatedly offering zero percent wage increases. Suthanthiran sent an email rant on the Victoria Day long weekend, painting Canadian workers as entitled and lazy. Read Unifor National President Lana Payne's message about the company's union busting tactics. Members from the Public Service Alliance of Canada began strike action at Best Theratronics on May 10. The company has been using unqualified managers and non-union workers as scab labour . The company manufactures medical equipment used in cancer treatments. What: Rally to support Best Theratronics workers. Who: Unifor National President Lana Payne Unifor Ontario Regional Director Samia Hashi PSAC Regional Executive Vice President, National Capital Region, Ruth Lau-MacDonald Unifor Local 1541 members, PSAC-UNE Local 70369 members and supporters. When: Monday, July 15, 12 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. Where: Best Theratronics, 413 March Rd., Kanata, Ont., K2K 0E4 Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector, representing 320,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future. SOURCE Unifor For media inquiries or to arrange interviews via FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype please contact Unifor Communications Representative Jenny Yuen at [email protected] or by cell at (416) 938-6157. Nebraskas tribunal responsible for settling public labor disputes on Thursday dismissed the petition the states largest public employees union had filed seeking to force the state to bargain over Gov. Jim Pillens return-to-office mandate. In a 10-page order Thursday, the tribunal concluded that the states contract with the Nebraska Association of Public Employees specifically allows Pillens executive branch to unilaterally change work sites for the branchs employees. The order, issued by the Commission of Industrial Relations, paves the way for the full implementation of the governors November order that ended remote work allowances for state workers with few exceptions. The commission had ruled in late December that NAPE members could continue operating under their previous work arrangements until the tribunal took up NAPEs petition. Issued by Commissioner Gregory Neuhaus, the order marks a loss for NAPE, the union representing more than 8,000 state workers that had waged a monthslong legal campaign against the state over Pillens order, which NAPE officials said should have been the subject of mandatory bargaining. Led by Executive Director Justin Hubly, NAPE first sent the executive branch a demand to bargain in November over the order, which sought to broadly end remote and hybrid work for around 2,900 state employees. After the state declined NAPEs initial demand to bargain and a subsequent demand sent in December, the union petitioned the CIR seeking to force the state to the bargaining table, taking the fight to the quasi-judicial agency responsible for mediating disputes between public employers and public employee unions. At a two-day trial in front of the CIR in February, the unions attorney, Joy Shiffermiller, argued that the terms and conditions of remote work arent addressed in the unions contract with the state and Pillens order radically changes employment for state workers. We believe that it is patently obvious that it is a change to the terms and working conditions of the individuals, she said, arguing that the state is required to bargain over the issue. But Mark Fahleson, a private attorney the state retained to litigate the labor dispute, maintained that Nebraskas contract with NAPE gives the state the right to dictate the site of an employees work. He pointed to the remote work agreements that most state employees signed prior to working from home that make it abundantly clear that it is a privilege, not a right to work from home, Fahleson said. Fahleson along with two state officials who testified also argued that NAPE had proposed adding work-from-home protections when the two sides negotiated their latest labor contract, but the union conceded those protections as part of negotiations that netted state workers their highest salary increases in decades. What the union is attempting to do with this proceeding is renegotiate the agreement that they negotiated and got the benefit of, and now they want more, and they want the commission to provide that for them, Fahleson said. In Thursdays order, Neuhaus, the presiding commissioner, sided with Fahleson and the state, noting that the unions own witnesses testified that they were aware that working from home was a privilege, not a right, that could be revoked by the employers at any time. Neuhaus concluded that Pillens decision to broadly recall state workers from remote or hybrid worksites is well within the management rights retained by the state under its labor contract with NAPE. The presiding commissioner also ordered the union to pay the states attorney fees after determining NAPE pursued its petition to halt Pillens order in bad faith. Neuhaus ruled that NAPE could not have reasonable or in good faith believed they would prevail in their bid to force the state to bargain. Instead, Neuhaus wrote, it appears the union used the CIR petition process to delay the implementation of Pillens order and possibly to increase its membership. The union succeeded on both fronts. Pillens order was initially set to take effect Jan. 2 and, because of the unions legal challenge, was delayed for most union members by more than six months. And NAPE added more than 1,300 members last calendar year, according to testimony from Day 2 of the unions trial, during which Fahleson accused NAPE of waging its fight against the order as a means to grow its ranks. Its unclear how soon the NAPE members who were allowed to continue working from home as the CIR mulled the unions petition could now be recalled to the office. Hubly, the unions director, was not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Pillens office did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Its unclear if the state has enough physical workspace for its entire workforce. Pillens order came after some state agencies reduced their physical office space in recent years. The Department of Natural Resources, for instance, reduced its physical workspace by 30% when the agency moved from the State Office Building to its Fallbrook facility in 2022. And as of November, the Department of Health and Human Services had 418 fully remote employees who did not have physical desks. Counties with the shortest life expectancy in Nebraska Counties with the shortest life expectancy in Nebraska #39. Brown County #36. Thayer County (tie) #36. Richardson County (tie) #36. Deuel County (tie) #33. Johnson County (tie) #33. Adams County (tie) #33. Merrick County (tie) #29. Keith County (tie) #29. Dakota County (tie) #29. Clay County (tie) #29. Dawson County (tie) #28. Sheridan County #26. Nuckolls County (tie) #26. Hall County (tie) #25. Dawes County #24. Howard County #23. Cherry County #22. Burt County #20. Red Willow County (tie) #20. Box Butte County (tie) #19. Jefferson County #17. Gage County (tie) #17. Pawnee County (tie) #15. Morrill County (tie) #15. Lincoln County (tie) #13. Furnas County (tie) #13. Dodge County (tie) #12. Nemaha County #11. Gosper County #10. Nance County #8. Boyd County (tie) #8. Cheyenne County (tie) #6. Webster County (tie) #6. Hitchcock County (tie) #5. Scotts Bluff County #3. Garden County #2. Franklin County #1. Thurston County A Cape May County man was arrested on charges he endangered his son after admitting to smoking PCP while walking with the boy earlier this month, North Wildwood police said Thursday. David Fletcher III, 38, of North Wildwood was charged with second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated assault after surveillance footage in the area of Atlantic Avenue caught him dropping and swinging his son on July 2. North Wildwood police were called to the area of 1200 Atlantic Avenue after onlookers reported that a man was having a possible medical attack, according to summary of the incident posted by the North Wildwood Police department on Facebook. Officers found Fletcher and his infant son at the scene and initially concluded he was under the influence of some type of drug based on his erratic behavior, according to police. Officers said they also noticed Fletchers son had several injuries and contacted the New Jersey Division of Protection and Permanency, who responded to scene. During an investigation into the incident by local police and the Cape May County Prosecutors Office, investigators found video evidence of Fletcher dropping and swinging his son which caused the injuries police originally observed. Fletcher was interviewed by investigators and admitted to smoking Phencyclidine (PCP) while walking with his son, according to police. He was arrested and taken to the Cape May County Correctional Facility. An attorney for Fletcher did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The North Wildwood Police Department would like to extend our thanks to the public and the several bystanders that intervened prior to our officers arrival, police said in the post. And, Residents are reminded to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activities to the North Wildwood Police Department. Your cooperation and assistance are crucial in maintaining a safe and secure environment for all residents. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X A second man hiding out in the shadows of Disney World has been arrested in the murder of a Jersey City man earlier this year, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced. A third individual has been arrested in connection with a triple shooting that occurred in Jersey City on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Freddie Castro, 21, of Union City, was taken into custody Thursday in Kissimmee, Florida, in the shooting death of Freddie Posey and the shooting of two others in the area of Central Avenue and Bowers Street in Jersey City April 7. Two musical legends are making their way back to New Jersey this summer. After performing in New Jersey in June, icons Santana and Counting Crows are coming back to perform at PNC Bank Arts Center on July 19 in Holmdel. During their joint Oneness Tour, fans can expect to hear hits from Santanas Supernatural album and music from Counting Crows Butter Miracle, Suite One album. The cheapest ticket available at the time of publication for their Holmdel concert is $14 on StubHub. Tickets to see Santana and Counting Crows live are available on StubHub, Vivid Seats, TicketCity, SeatGeek and Ticketmaster. If you find that you never secure the tickets at the best cost or in the section you want to be in through StubHub, you can find some tips and tricks here. First-time Vivid Seats users can save $20 on ticket orders over $200 by entering promo code NJ20 at checkout. A complete list of Santana and Counting Crows Oneness Tour dates is available here. Upcoming tours heading to PNC Bank Arts Center in 2024 Santana and Counting Crows are not the only artists performing at PNC Bank Arts Center this summer. Here are a few more shows you do not want to miss: Bret Michaels, Creed, Avril Lavigne, Bush and Train. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Nicole Iuzzolino can be reached at niuzzolino@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips. Editor's note: This story is free for subscribers and non-subscribers as a matter of public safety. The Horse Gulch fire northeast of Helena hit 11,511 acres late Friday as the blaze neared the end of its fourth day, officials said. There is 0% containment. Management of the human-caused fire will upgrade to a Complex Incident Management Team from the current Type III Incident Management Team starting Saturday, a U.S. Forest service official said. Although the fire continued to expand, air quality Friday was good, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. Officials added that the fire was likely sparked by an unattended campfire or fireworks. The National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch Friday morning and said it will remain in effect from Saturday afternoon through Saturday evening due to hot temperatures, gusty winds and low relative humidity. The affected area includes the Helena and Townsend ranger districts of the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Winds will blow west 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph, NWS said. Some of the impacts the service noted were current or new fires that develop will spread quickly and be difficult to contain. Outdoor burning is not recommended. According to the NWS, a fire weather watch means critical fire weather conditions are possible due to a combination of gusty winds and warm temperatures. The last official tally for the fire earlier Friday was 10,849 acres. The latest figure, 11,511 acres, is the equivalent of about 18 square miles. "The fire did hold along Jimtown Road overnight Thursday," said Sara Rouse, a PIO for the U.S. Forest Service, which was a concern for many Thursday evening. Firefighters focused on fortifying the southern line of the fire conducted burning operations earlier in the week and have since laid down a retardant and dozer line. "They are doing some great stuff on the ground," Rouse added. "The efforts they are doing on the south end are a big game changer in minimizing the threat of fire to the many structures along Canyon Ferry Road from Jimtown Road to Hellgate Gulch." There are more than 200 personnel fighting the fire including five hotshot crews, with another on the way, two Type A crews, two dozers and 10 engines ordered, with five on the ground, officials said Thursday evening. The Horse Gulch fire has reached Broadwater County during its spread, displacing residents and wildlife throughout York and Cave Gulch. Officials on InciWeb said the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office issued evacuations for Canyon Ferry Road from Jimtown Road to the Broadwater County line and all roads north and south of Canyon Ferry Road between Jimtown Road to the Broadwater County line. The officials on InciWeb provided an update Friday saying the growth of the fire occurred mostly to the north and east on Thursday afternoon and evening. Firefighters reinforced the fire line along the south side to prevent it from moving onto private land. Officials said the firefighting efforts will continue focusing on strengthening and reinforcing fire lines to limit the fire's spread. The U.S. Forest Service alerted the public via Facebook on Friday afternoon saying the closure expanded due to the Horse Gulch fire. "All areas managed by the forest service in the Big Belt Mountains are closed from Confederate Gulch north to the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness," the U.S. Forest Service said in its Facebook post on Friday. The closure was due to public safety concern and active fire suppression activities. Officials issued another evacuation notice Thursday for Jimtown Road and York Road up to Vigilante Campground. The Red Cross set up at shelter for evacuees at Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church, 3580 N. Benton Ave. They will provide meals, a safe place to stay and access to information. All services are free. There were seven people who stayed at the shelter Thursday night. One evacuee, who is staying at the Red Cross shelter slept in her truck the first night she was evacuated. Jennifer Taylor, who lived at the Canyon Ferry RV and Boat Storage was told to evacuate on Wednesday afternoon. She said she moved to the storage property last year from Omaha, Nebraska. "It was scary being told we had to leave and having to make that decision," Taylor said. "It was a horrible evening. We didn't bring clothes, we just left. We grabbed important documents and took off." She expressed her gratitude for the shelter and the Red Cross because she said she doesn't know what she would have done if she had to stay in her vehicle. Taylor has been optimistic about the fire and a possible return to her property, but understands that property and homes are replaceable, people are not. Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said during a public information meeting held at East Helena High on Thursday evening that residents cannot be physically removed from the evacuation zones as long as they stay on their land or within their property lines. "If you decide to stay and you want to defend your property, you can't be moving around. If I find you moving around, you lose your constitutional protections," Dutton said. When someone is seen "moving around" they will be stopped by law enforcement, identified and investigated for why they are there and moving. Ryan Butler thinks he may be the only one left in his neighborhood. Butler lives in the Horse Gulch fire's evacuation zone, and he was packing up his client's commissions --- stuffed mounts from his taxidermy shop --- when the authorities found him Wednesday. They warned him of the fire and urged him to evacuate. It was intimidating, he said. Thursday's smoke was so thick he could see it from his garage. But it wasn't so scary he felt he had to leave. Butler was still in his home as of Friday afternoon. Those who leave can't return until the evacuation order is lifted, but he has enough food to last all summer, not that he thinks it'll come to that. He's keeping an eye out for the flames and hasn't seen any urgent plumes of smoke yet. "If the vein gets closer or the wind blows my way, I'll leave," he said. "But we're not there yet." Beyond his career that effectively lives from his home, Butler feels an obligation to watch out for his neighbors houses as a member of the local Home Owner's Association. He also said it only takes a dose of common sense to tell when it's time to bail. Butler views this as "part of the deal" of living in the mountains. "But this was a when, not an if," Butler said. "It sucks. It's unfortunate, and we're not out of the woods yet." On Friday, officials said they would let people enter the fire area to retrieve life-sustaining materials from their homes and for a short time. "Do not show up wanting to just go look at your house," Dutton said. "Sorry, time does not allow us to do that." He said law enforcement would do its best to help. People wanting to make that request should contact Lewis and Clark County Dispatch, who will contact the commander at 406-447-8293 and follow two prompts to get to dispatch. There has been at least one arrest at a checkpoint, Dutton said. At 9 a.m. Friday, a man drove up to a checkpoint near York and said he was going to drive around the blockade. The deputy spoke with the man and could smell a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage. The man was agitated, but the deputy talked him out of the vehicle and then did a standard field sobriety test. The man was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and taken to the Lewis and Clark County detention center, Dutton said. The fire turned deadly on Wednesday, when a firefighter died when a single-engine firefighting aircraft crashed near Spokane Bay on Hauser Lake after hitting the mountainside, officials said. The 45-year-old pilot, identified as Juliana Turchetti, was in the U.S. on a work visa from Brazil. She left a 17-year-old son and family in Brazil. Turchetti flew an Air Tractor AT-802 aircraft that was contracted through Idaho-based firefighting company Dauntless Air. Dutton said at Thursday's meeting that whoever started the fire could legally be held accountable for everything, including the death of the pilot. The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office is working with the U.S. Forest Service while the agency conducts its investigation. How you can help https://helenaareacommunityfoundation.or According to Lewis and Clark County officials, the best donation to support disaster response and recovery is a financial donation to trusted nonprofit organizations engaged in disaster operations. Consider donating to The Helena Area Community Foundation, which will distribute those funds to our local COADs (Community Organizations Active in Disaster): https://montanaradio.com/406-gives A donation to the Rural Fire Council can also be made at In addition, if you want to contribute water, Gatorade, or snacks, please take donations directly to Safeway at 611 N Montana Ave. Mike Kaiser, fire management officer for the Helena Ranger District, responded to a question at the meeting on when initial attack responders requested assistance from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. He said as soon as the responders saw the fire getting away from them they started looking for any resources that were available. Resources have been requested from Oregon, Utah, California and other states, so they take time to arrive, representatives said. But, due to the relatively low wildfire activity in the Northern Region, all resource requests for the fire have been fulfilled. Some of the Globe Hotshots from Tonto National Forest in Arizona are using Jim Darcy Elementary School facilities to rest out of the sun. Helena Public Schools made Darcy and Warren Elementary School available to hotshots at no charge. More resources were scheduled to arrive Friday, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service. Bruce Giersdorf, a fire behavior analyst on the fire, explained to people at the East Helena meeting how weather, terrain and fuels play a role in the growth of the fire. The fire jumped roughly 43% in size. Giersdorf said that wind changes in a short period of time and when terrain is thrown into the equation it can change the direction of the fire quickly. "We are not getting very good humidity recovery overnight. It's 30% humidity, so by 10 o'clock in the morning the sun is pretty scorching hot already," he said. "In the fire world it just has to be windy enough." The Lewis and Clark County Commissioners on Thursday morning passed an emergency declaration regarding the fire, which Kyle Sturgill-Simon, the countys emergency manager, said was part of a normal process to seek assistance from outside the county. Whereas resources beyond the capacity of the County will be necessary to address this fire and to maintain fire protection for the rest of the county the resolution reads in part. It also notes that extensive resources have been assigned to protect life and property in weather conditions that are expected to worsen. The resolution passed 3-0. Jeff Wadekamper, director of Helena Regional Airport, said air traffic at the airport has increased greatly in the past week due to more firefighting aircraft flying in and out. He said there has been a mix of fixed-wing tankers, small and larger water scoopers and helicopters. He noted U.S. Forest Service aircraft and DNRC aircraft are based at the airport. There has been lots of coming and going, Wadekamper said. He said Helena was unique. Helena, Billings and Missoula have fixed-winger tanker bases where fire retardant can be loaded. But Helena is the only one in Montana and one of a few in Pacific northwest that due to its pavement strength can support the big DC-10 tankers. He said the Montana Army National Guard has a heavy ramp that can be used for the loading of firefighting tankers. Wadekamper said the increased fire traffic has not interfered with daily operations at the airport. "But there's been a lot more traffic for the tower to handle," he said. Also on Friday, the U.S. Forest Service provided an update on newer fires in the area via Facebook. The Sun Fork fire was estimated to be at 10 acres, the Eagle fire was at half an acre and the Whitetail fire is at a quarter of an acre. According to the U.S Forest Service, the Sun Fork fire, located in the Scapegoat Wilderness along the South Fork Sun River, has a Type 2 helicopter providing air suppression with 20 personnel on the ground. It was reported 4:23 p.m. Thursday. The Eagle fire, discovered 7:09 p.m. Thursday on the south side of Sheep Creek, has smokejumpers and an engine on the way to the scene, the agency said, with the closest value at risk is the Calf Creek Cabin and private land adjacent to forest service land. The Whitetail fire, reported 12:05 p.m. Friday and located west of Little Belts, is burning about one and a half miles from homes. Mtfireinfo.org reported Friday there 59 active fires in Montana. There have been 694 fires so far this year. Photos: Firefighters and aircraft battle the Horse Gulch fire outside Helena Eight employees of a luxury car transportation company will receive over $300,000 in backpay after the company settled allegations they misclassified the employees as independent contractors, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and Department of Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo announced Thursday. The settlement accused Horseless Carriage Carrier of Paterson of classifying eight drivers as independent contractors instead of employees under the states Wage and Hour laws. The company denied any misclassification and disagreed with the Department of Labors determination of over $1 million in total lost wages, according to the settlement agreement. The company, which was sold to McCollisters Global Services in October 2022, agreed to pay a total of $455,000 in backpay and penalties. The employees will receive $364,000 in unpaid wages while the remainder of the settlement will be returned to the Department of Labor. When employers misclassify employees as independent contractors, they are exploiting workers and undermining our fair labor practices, Platkin said Thursday. Workers lose their legal protections and benefits, and as a result have weaker financial security and workplace rights. In New Jersey, we demand that employers abide by our laws or face the consequences. State authorities began investigating the company in September 2019 after an employee filed a complaint with the Department of Labor, officials said. Investigators found that from 2017 to 2019 Horseless Carriage Carrier misclassified a total of eight workers as independent contractors, stripping them of certain benefits. A message left for Horseless Carriage Carriers asking for comment was not immediately returned. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X Hillary Clinton warned on Friday Donald Trump is telling you exactly who he is after he hosted Hungarys nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, at the former presidents beachside compound Mar-a-Lago. Its horrifying to see the leader of a major American party align with foreign autocrats like Viktor Orban, Clinton posted to X after Trump shared a photo of the two of them. Trump is telling you exactly who he is here. His idea of peace is to give Putin exactly what he wants. Are you on Trumps sidewith Orban, Putin, and dictators around the worldor are you on the side of democracy? Clinton asked. Trump posted to his social media site, Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should have never started! It's horrifying to see the leader of a major American party align with foreign autocrats like Viktor Orban. Trump is telling you exactly who he is here. His idea of peace is to give Putin exactly what he wants. Are you on Trumps sidewith Orban, Putin, and dictators pic.twitter.com/A2TkhgNSni Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 12, 2024 The Hungarian leader has openly endorsed Trumps candidacy in this years presidential election, and expressed hopes that the Republican will be able to bring an end to Russias war in Ukraine. The European Unions longest-serving leader has become an icon to some conservative populists for championing what he calls illiberal democracy, which includes restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also cracked down on the press and judiciary in Hungary and has been accused by the EU of violating rule-of-law and democracy standards. Orban has sought close ties to Trump and other conservative Republicans, and expressed his belief that a new Trump presidency was the only serious chance for an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war in 24 hours if hes elected president again by meeting with both Putin and Zelenskyy a claim Russias United Nations ambassador has disputed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco. Ohio Republican senatorial candidate Bernie Moreno on Thursday lectured the media about those damn elected politicians who refuse to answer tough questions. He put Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, his election opponent and one of the most visible and accessible senators, in that category. I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions, Moreno said. Sherrod Brown wont do that. And again, that should tell you some things. ... If you cant come out here and address the media and talk to reporters and give your position and be unequivocal and clear, you have no business being in elected office. ... Those days have got to be over, Moreno added. You have to be clear and transparent, tell people where [you] stand. Sometimes, by the way, it means that you are going to be controversial and youre going to say something that maybe not everybody agrees on, but thats what you owe your voters. Moreno was then asked for his stance on abortion. Look, were not here to talk about abortion, he said, before pivoting to President Joe Bidens troubles as the Democratic nominee. If youre wondering where you might have heard Morenos name before, a report by the Associated Press before the Republican primary linked Moreno to a profile on a swingers website. The AP reported that someone with access to Morenos email account created a profile seeking Men for 1-on-1 sex on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder in 2008. The profile said its creator was interested in young guys to have fun with while traveling. The information, the AP said, became public via a data breach. Moreno, who has been an outspoken opponent of the LGBTQ+ community, won the primary with Trumps endorsement and called the report a sick, last-minute attack by desperate people. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Six-day (Tuesday through Sunday) print subscribers of the Watertown Daily Times are eligible for full access to NNY360, the NNY360 mobile app, and the Watertown Daily Times e-edition, all at no additional cost. If you have an existing six-day print subscription to the Watertown Daily Times, please make sure your email address on file matches your NNY360 account email. You can sign up or manage your print subscription using the options below. A Mandan man convicted earlier this year of murder in the October 2022 shooting of a Bismarck man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Benjamin Williams was convicted in early April after a Burleigh County jury deliberated for less than two hours following a trial that lasted several days. He had been charged with murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after the death of Christopher Sebastian. The two men were inside Sebastian's car in the parking lot of an apartment building on Arbor Avenue in Bismarck when Sebastian was shot several times at close range. Following the guilty verdict, South Central District Judge Cynthia Feland ordered a presentence investigation. During Thursday's sentencing hearing, Burleigh County State's Attorney Julie Lawyer told the judge that she agreed with the PSI writer's recommendation of life in prison without the possibility of parole. "He cannot follow parole conditions, and he is an extreme risk and danger to the community," Lawyer said of Williams, referring to his previous criminal history that includes three crimes committed using a firearm. "He was on parole for a shooting offense where he shot someone three times, and ended up shooting Chris Sebastian six times in the face, killing him," Lawyer continued. While reviewing sentences that Williams received for previous offenses, Lawyer said Williams should have been in prison when he shot Sebastian, but was paroled nearly a year before his release date and had only been out of North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations custody for four months. Lawyer's request was echoed by two of Sebastian's family members who read victim impact statements in open court so that Williams, who appeared at Thursday's hearing remotely from the Burleigh Morton Detention Center, could hear them. Sebastian's cousin Joani Anderson and sister Chelsea Sebastian described Sebastian as a kind man, good friend and devoted father to his children. They also told the judge, the defendant, attorneys and a gallery that included several members of the Bismarck Police Department that the loss of Sebastian has put the family under a tremendous amount of stress, emotional pain and grief. Both concluded their remarks by asking the judge to impose the maximum punishment allowable. Williams listened to the two women's statements without showing any reaction. Defense attorney Stormy Vickers asked for Williams to be sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. In his sentencing recommendation, Vickers also referred to the PSI and findings that Williams began using prescription opiates to treat a severe burn when he was 11 years old, turned to illegal opiates after turning 18, and had a childhood where he was frequently shuttled between parents living in two different states, attending school infrequently. "What I think is interesting, your honor, is that when the PSI writer asks Mr. Williams to describe his childhood, he says it's regular. Not attending school, being shipped back and forth between two different states, being on opiates, being removed from the home, that's regular. I suggest that that's anything but a regular childhood," Vickers said of Williams' path that led to multiple convictions and parole prior to the October 2022 shooting. "Mr. Williams has history and the DOC did parole him. Why the DOC paroled him, I wouldn't venture to make a statement about that other than to say that the DOC seems to give parole like it's candy," Vickers said. "Mr. Williams is a young man, and life without parole is the most extreme punishment that this court can impose. The science suggests that people change as they get older. Recidivism rates go down (and the) likelihood of violence goes down with age." When Williams was asked if he wished to make any statements on his own behalf, he replied, "No, your honor." As Feland imposed the sentence, she also said she was well aware of constraints at the state's Corrections Department related to housing inmates, but also referred to Williams' criminal history and what she described as "very serious escalating behavior." "And you can question whether or not we should have seen this coming based upon the history of this case," Feland said. "I don't see where this court can make any other decision other than to impose life without the possibility of parole." The judge also sentenced Williams to serve five years of straight time in prison on the conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Williams has the right to appeal the sentence to the North Dakota Supreme court. Dorothy Lichtenstein, a prominent arts patron and widow of the acclaimed Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, died on July 4 at her home in Southampton, N.Y. She was 84. The cause was heart failure after a brief illness, according to Jack Cowart, the executive director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. An elegant and engaging woman who did not claim to have any artistic talent, Ms. Lichtenstein redefined the image of the artists widow, a relentlessly maligned art-world type. The widow controls the entirety of her dead husbands production, as the critic Harold Rosenberg wrote in Esquire magazine in 1965, and tends to conduct herself with a queenly arrogance. The Beastie Boys sued Chilis Grill & Bar in federal court on Wednesday, accusing the restaurant chains main operator of infringing on their copyright of the 1994 hit Sabotage by using it in advertisements without permission. According to the complaint, Brinker International, which operates more than 1,600 Chilis and other restaurants worldwide, rolled out promotional videos on social media beginning in November 2022 that used significant portions of the song and parodied its music video, directed by Spike Jonze. The music video playfully pays homage to 1970s television crime dramas and features a fictitious opening credit scene and the groups members dressed in fake wigs, mustaches and sunglasses of the era. In the Chilis video advertisement, three characters dressed in similar 70s attire rob ingredients from a Chilis restaurant scored to the sound of Sabotage, said the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Investigators hired by Seton Hall University in New Jersey found no evidence to support accusations that its former board chairman sexually harassed its former presidents wife, according to a report released on Thursday. The university hired a legal firm, Perry Law, in New York to examine the claims, made by the former president, Joseph Nyre, in a lawsuit that he and his wife, Kelli Nyre, filed in February. In the suit, Mr. Nyre also said that the former board chairman, Kevin Marino, had engaged in a campaign of intimidation against him. After taking statements from more than a dozen university leaders, not a single witness corroborates the alleged instances of harassment, the investigators wrote in the report. Armen McOmber, a lawyer for Mr. Nyre, responded that the Perry firm had acted hand in glove with the university to threaten and disparage Mr. Nyre and Ms. Nyre. Joe Biden is still standing, refusing to bow out he reiterated that in a long and mostly successful news conference on Thursday night. Some may view it as selfish and irresponsible. Some may even see it as dangerous. But I see it as remarkable. Despite sending a clear message in his recent flurry of interviews and rallies, in his stalwart address this week to members of the NATO alliance and in his letter on Monday to congressional Democrats, in which he assured them that I wouldnt be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024 theres still a slow drumbeat from luminaries, donors and elected officials trying to write Bidens political obituary. The talent agency mogul Ari Emanuel (a brother of Rahm Emanuel, Bidens ambassador to Japan) recently said Biden is not the candidate anymore. In a post on X, the best-selling author Stephen King said that its time for Biden to announce he will not run for re-election. Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Walt Disney fortune, said, I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. They seem to believe that they can kill his candidacy, by a thousand cuts or by starving it to death. Follow the latest Biden news and election updates. Did President Biden really think that Donald J. Trump was his vice president instead of Kamala Harris? Of course not. Did he actually believe that he was meeting with Vladimir V. Putin instead of Volodymyr Zelensky? Not at all. But when it comes to his political future, did it matter that he mixed up those names in front of television cameras on Thursday? Well, it certainly did not help. For nearly an hour, at the most anticipated news conference of his presidency, Mr. Biden held forth on the nation, the world and his future. He demonstrated a grasp of the issues and seemed most comfortable during a long discourse on foreign policy. He argued that age gave him wisdom and made clear that he had no intention of dropping out of the race. Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year. Donations of missiles, combat vehicles, ammunition and air defenses from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front lines. Some of the newly committed weapons have not yet been bought or built. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said long-anticipated F-16s fighter jets would be delivered to Ukraine this summer. But even then, they might be used mostly defensively, as allies debated on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington whether the warplanes could fly into Russian airspace to attack. On many occasions, you could see that we can decide, but unfortunately we cannot deliver efficiently, President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania said in a brief interview on Wednesday. This is a huge disappointment for me personally, because Ukrainians are expecting that those goods will come, this military equipment will reach Ukraine, but its not happening. Last summer, Hartwig Fischer resigned as the director of the British Museum, just days after it emerged that the museum had fired a curator who was suspected of looting gems from its storerooms. Less than a year later, Fischer is back at the top of the museum world. This week, the Saudi Museums Commission announced in a news release that it had appointed Fischer, a German art historian, as the founding director of its museum of world cultures, scheduled to open in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2026. In the release, the commission said it had chosen Fischer, 61, because of his global expertise in leading international cultural institutions and museums. It did not mention Fischers time at the British Museum. Fischer took the top job at the London institution in 2016, having previously run the State Art Collections of Dresden, a major group of German museums. Judy Belushi Pisano, who after the death of her husband, the actor and comedian John Belushi, from a drug overdose in 1982 became a fierce defender of his legacy, died on July 5 at her home on the island of Marthas Vineyard, in Massachusetts. She was 73. Her son, Luke Pisano, said the cause was endometrial cancer. Mr. Belushi, a member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live and a star of hit films like National Lampoons Animal House and The Blues Brothers, was among the best-known comic actors in the world when he was found dead in a Hollywood hotel. Though it took weeks to determine the cause from a mix of heroin and cocaine the public immediately seized on Mr. Belushis death as a cautionary tale of excess in an era defined by it. His reputation as a hard-partying drug addict was further underlined by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in his book Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (1984), which Ms. Pisano had initially authorized but later came to regret. President Biden looked sharper during his press conference last night than he did in his debate two weeks ago, but he didnt exactly look sharp. His mixed performance demonstrated why Democrats remain so anxious about his candidacy and why they have failed to persuade him to step aside. Taking reporters questions for almost an hour after a NATO summit in Washington, Biden offered detailed, complex answers about world affairs, and he talked about both his economic record and his future agenda. He passionately criticized gun violence and Donald Trump. Theres so much we can do still, Biden said, and Im determined to get it done. Yet Biden rarely looked vigorous. He spoke softly and struggled to complete his own thoughts at times. He described the campaign polls in overly rosy ways and also suggested that people should ignore the polls. Among other mistakes, he described Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. (Earlier in the day, he incorrectly introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin before catching himself.) Biden looks, in short, like an 81-year-old man who isnt what he once was. Overall, yesterdays events both the press conference and the growing criticism of Biden from other Democrats seemed to leave the situation largely where it was when the day began. Privately, many top Democrats believe Biden is too weak to win. And my colleague Jonathan Swan reported that Trumps advisers were thrilled with the press conference because they want to run against Biden. Nonetheless, Biden appears committed to remaining on the ballot. The Manhattan jury in Senator Robert Menendezs corruption trial began its deliberations Friday on a raft of federal charges in what prosecutors describe as a complex and yearslong bribery conspiracy. A third-term Democrat who represents New Jersey, Mr. Menendez is accused of steering aid to Egypt, applying political pressure to preserve a friends business monopoly and meddling in criminal investigations in exchange for bribes of gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz. The jurors were sent home shortly after 5 p.m. without reaching a verdict and were to resume deliberations on Monday. Mr. Menendez, 70, left the courthouse, telling reporters, I have faith in God, and in the jury. On Thursday, the senator sat at the defense table with his lawyers, and leaned back in a chair, hands clasped on his lap, as a prosecutor offered an hourslong rebuttal to frequently impassioned closing arguments by lawyers for the senator and two businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, who are being tried with him. Does President Biden realize how angry some voters in Michigan are specifically, Arab Americans? That anger is on full display in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit that has one of the highest percentages of Arab Americans among U.S. cities (54 percent, though experts believe thats a significant undercount). Opinion Video traveled to Dearborn to understand voter sentiment in a population that has the power to sway the election. Michigan has over 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim enough to swing the state. (Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020.) Just finding a pro-Biden Arab American voter in Dearborn is not an easy task. I will not be voting for Biden, for sure. And no one will be voting for Biden that I know of, said Wissam Charafeddine, a poet who works in the public school system. It would be an insult to ask. I predicted last weekend that the Democrats would find a way to jettison Joe Biden; that likelihood seems to fluctuate daily or even hourly, but for now, my prediction stands. It seems clear from a week of intraparty maneuvers, however, that at least some Democrats are content to stick with their current nominee, notwithstanding the strong likelihood of a November defeat and a Trump restoration, viewing the alternative as too painful or high risk or disruptive. This has come as a bit of a shock to some anti-Trump observers. For instance, New York magazines Jonathan Chait, whom I did not regard as an especially starry-eyed idealist, expressed stark bafflement at the hesitations and trimming of Democratic leaders: It seems obvious to me that the threat of a second Donald Trump presidential term, with its authoritarian inclinations unchecked, poses a civic emergency that supersedes any other normal political consideration. Because it is so obvious to me, I had long assumed the Democratic Party would consider it equally obvious. But it is no longer clear to me that the partys elected officials actually share that assumption. They very much wish for Trumps defeat. But to the extent that goal conflicts with other, more mundane imperatives, more than a few Democrats seem to view beating Trump as a secondary objective. A similar outraged mystification afflicted The Bulwarks Tim Miller, when he was informed by my colleague Ezra Klein in a podcast interview that some Democrats felt relatively non-apocalyptic about the prospect of a second Trump term: That is crazy. It doesnt seem crazy to me at all, but thats because I think its always been clear that the Democratic Party in the age of Trump isnt as Never Trump as the truest Never Trump believers, that it usually chooses mundane imperatives and self-interest over emergency measures geared to existential stakes. I wrote about this in the context of Bidens save democracy, vote Democratic rhetoric before the 2022 midterms, but clearly the point merits new elaboration. Time and again, from 2016 to the present, the Democratic Party has treated Trumpism not as a civic emergency but as a political opportunity, a golden chance to win over moderate and right-leaning voters with the language of anti-authoritarianism while avoiding substantive concessions to these voters and actually moving farther to the left. Imagine a comprehensive review of research on a treatment for children found remarkably weak evidence that it was effective. Now imagine the medical establishment shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients. This is where we are with gender medicine in the United States. Its been three months since the release of the Cass Review, an independent assessment of gender treatment for youths commissioned by Englands National Health Service. The four-year review of research, led by Dr. Hilary Cass, one of Britains top pediatricians, found no definitive proof that gender dysphoria in children or teenagers was resolved or alleviated by what advocates call gender-affirming care, in which a young persons declared gender identity is affirmed and supported with social transition, puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones. Nor, she said, is there clear evidence that transitioning kids decreases the likelihood that gender dysphoric youths will turn to suicide, as adherents of gender-affirming care claim. These findings backed up what critics of this approach have been saying for years. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress, Cass concluded. Instead, she wrote, mental health providers and pediatricians should provide holistic psychological care and psychosocial support for young people without defaulting to gender reassignment treatments until further research is conducted. After the release of Casss findings, the British government issued an emergency ban on puberty blockers for people under 18. Medical societies, government officials and legislative panels in Germany, France, Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands and Belgium have proposed moving away from a medical approach to gender issues, in some cases directly acknowledging the Cass Review. Scandinavian countries have been moving away from the gender-affirming model for the past few years. Reem Alsalem, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, called the reviews recommendations seminal and said that policies on gender treatments have breached fundamental principles of childrens human rights, with devastating consequences. Jennifer Lopez has been hailed as a trailblazer: a Latina from the Bronx who transcended her humble origins to become a global superstar. She made the green dress she wore to the Grammy Awards in 2000 so famous that it led Google to create a separate image search function, Google Images. J. Los romantic life has been as closely followed as her artistic life. She and Ben Affleck got engaged in 2002 and later broke up, but they reunited in 2021. Their marriage the following year was her fourth and his second. In February, she released This Is Me Now, a self-funded multimedia project inspired by their love story that includes an album, a movie and a behind-the-scenes documentary titled The Greatest Love Story Never Told. The internet has not been kind. The movie has been widely panned as nonsensical, corny, belabored and just plain weird, while the documentary is so unflattering, its hard to believe she greenlighted it. She has been accused of being a narcissist and a phony, among other things. The tour Ms. Lopez announced shortly after the albums release has been canceled. At the close of one of the most consequential and least constitutional terms in the Supreme Courts history, its hard to ignore one particularly offensive trend: the right-wing justices repeated and patronizing attempts to minimize the importance of their unprecedented decisions. Theres nothing to see here, they regularly seem to say; everyone who is upset at their decisions is being hysterical and should just calm down. Take a few recent examples: In his majority opinion in the case about presidential immunity, Chief Justice John Roberts mocked the three liberal dissenters for striking a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today. (Reality check: The immunity ruling which gave presidents carte blanche to break most criminal laws when carrying out their official duties is not grounded in any clause of the Constitution. It went far beyond what even the most pessimistic court observers expected; the dissenters, if anything, responded with restraint.) During oral arguments in a case that pitted Idahos near-total abortion ban against the federally guaranteed right of a woman to end her pregnancy if necessary to stabilize a dire medical crisis, Justice Samuel Alito dismissed the governments concerns. Nobodys suggesting that the woman is not an individual and she doesnt she doesnt deserve stabilization, the justice who wrote the opinion striking down Roe v. Wade said with his trademark irritation. Nobodys suggesting that. (Reality check: That is precisely what Idaho was suggesting, by arguing that federal law doesnt pre-empt the state ban.) Or take the chief justice again, writing for the court in upholding a federal law that prohibits domestic abusers from possessing guns. A federal appeals court had struck down the law as unconstitutional. Some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our recent Second Amendment cases, the chief justice wrote, explaining why the lower court had been wrong. These precedents were not meant to suggest a law trapped in amber. (Reality check: The lower court was following the letter of a Supreme Court ruling from two years ago, which held that any gun law without an almost exact analogue from the founding era like laws that apply to domestic abusers is unconstitutional.) Behavior like this has a name: gaslighting, a form of psychological manipulation that involves making people doubt their own, accurate perception of reality. If the term has gotten a workout in recent years, thats because a lot of people are engaging in it. The right-wing justices have become masters of the form, telling the American people again and again not to believe what they see with their own eyes. The court is trying to distance itself from the monsters it created, Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at George Washington University and the author of The Cult of the Constitution, told me. Theyre trying to say, We dont know where you got these crazy ideas from! But of course we do know where they got them from. In the latest gun case, United States v. Rahimi, the crazy ideas came straight from the source: the Supreme Courts jaw-dropping 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. For a gun law to be compatible with the Second Amendment, the decision said, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this nations historical tradition of firearm regulation. In other words, if the American founders didnt pass a specific gun law in the 18th century, then we in the 21st century cant either. Applying that reasoning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined that there were no founding-era laws keeping guns from domestic abusers, and so todays law doing so could not stand. Members of the interim Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee on Thursday backed the planned first steps of an expansion of North Dakota's Legislative Council, recommending that the executive budget for the 2025 biennium include funds for 25 additional positions in the agency. Legislative Council, which is the research arm that supports the state Legislature, has 45 full-time employees. In 2021, the state had the fewest number of full-time legislative support staff in the country, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, though it only had 34 at the time, with 11 staff members being added after the 2023 legislative session. In states that impose term limits -- like the ones North Dakota residents passed into law in 2022 -- there is an increasing reliance on legislative staff to provide guidance and education for new legislators amid higher turnover rates, according to a December memorandum from Legislative Council. As a result, the agency is pushing for 50 additional full-time employees to be added over the course of the next five years. The proposal includes the creation of a dedicated policy analysis team, communications team and human resources team, among other additions, with 25 employees being added in the 2025-27 biennium and 25 in the 2027-29 budget period. It would cost an added $6 million per expansion. For context, about $19.75 million was appropriated for Legislative Council salaries and operations for the 2023-25 biennium. Legal Division Director Emily Thompson said the proposal will allow Legislative Council to operate at a more robust level, rather than being spread thin. "Really, the crux of this staff expansion is we've been quite lean for a number of years," Thompson said of the agency's information technology department, which would double in size under the planned additions. Legislators recommended the first phase of the two-biennium expansion but didn't include an intent to continue the program in the following regular session. State Sen. Ronald Sorbaag, R-Fargo, said he didn't want to urge appropriators to think about the full 50-employee expansion because it would make the additional positions a "harder sell." "I think you just need to put a realistic (idea) out there and not bite off, with the intent, too much," he said, pointing out that just because a recommendation is made doesn't mean that the full expansion will make it through the Appropriations Committee. State Sen. Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of continuity and expressed concern about the potential expansion if the recommendations weren't followed. She said there could be "negative consequences" if the five-year plan wasn't seen to completion. Hogan eventually backed the recommendation without wording that indicates an intent to continue the expansion, but said she hoped that the full plan would get strong consideration in future legislative sessions, even if many of the lawmakers involved with its creation would be forced out by term limits before it might be completed. "I want to maintain the vision, because I think we really have done good study in this committee on the vision," Hogan said. "The vision is important." Also missing from Mr. Bidens campaign event were Michigans two Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, as well as Representative Elissa Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate to fill the seat of Ms. Stabenow, who is retiring. Ms. Stabenow and Mr. Peters wrote statements of support for the president on social media soon after he landed, and they were shared by the Biden campaign. In a video call with donors on Tuesday, Ms. Slotkin had said that Mr. Biden was trailing his rival, Donald J. Trump in Michigan, and noted that she was running for the Senate because Ms. Stabenow, 74, was doing a radical thing and passing the torch. Robyn Bryan, a spokeswoman for Ms. Stabenow, said the senator was out of town for the event. A spokeswoman for Mr. Peters said the senator had previous commitments and could not be in Detroit on Friday. Representatives of Ms. Whitmer and Ms. Slotkin did not immediately respond to requests for comment on their absence. The President of the United States, Joe Biden. Hey, everybody. Thank you. Please be seated. What concerns do you have about Vice President Harriss ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket? Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president. You mixed up presidents Zelensky and Putin earlier today. Officials here are saying off the record that your decline has become noticeable. Hasnt this now, frankly, become damaging for Americas standing in the world? Thank you. Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference? Have you seen a more successful conference? China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information and capacity, along with working with North Korea and others to help Russia and armament, that theyre not going to benefit economically. I know Israel well and I support Israel. But this war cabinet is one of the most conservative war cabinets in the history of Israel. And theres no ultimate answer other than a two-state solution here. If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race? No, unless they came back and said, theres no way you can win. Me. No one is saying that. No poll says that. I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once and I will beat him again. A federal judge dismissed Rudolph W. Giulianis bankruptcy case on Friday, leaving the former New York City mayor without legal protection from his creditors. The ruling was expected. Judge Sean H. Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York said earlier this week that he was leaning in the direction of a dismissal. He said that Mr. Giuliani, who served as former President Donald J. Trumps personal lawyer, had ignored court filing deadlines and evaded questions about his finances. It was also an outcome sought by Mr. Giuliani, who this week asked the court to dismiss his case to avoid the appointment of a trustee who would take over his finances, a request from his creditors that the judge was considering. Mr. Giuliani has failed to provide an accurate and complete picture of his financial affairs in the six months that this case has been pending, Judge Lane wrote in the dismissal order. Transparency into Mr. Giulianis finances has proven to be an elusive goal. President Biden fought back on Friday against escalating pressure from Democrats questioning his viability as a candidate, publicly and privately defending his decision to continue running as rank-and-file lawmakers continued to call on him to end his re-election bid. One day after a serviceable news conference that had been meant to quell the growing resistance within the party to Mr. Bidens candidacy, Democratic lawmakers returned to their home districts anxious and uncertain about how to proceed. Their House leader made it clear directly to Mr. Biden that his members still harbored deep concerns over the presidents candidacy. And as he held a rally in the battleground state of Michigan, prominent Democrats were not by his side. But at the rally in a high school gymnasium in Detroit, Mr. Biden was dug in, telling a raucous throng of supporters, Im not going anywhere. What he saw there was unlikely to change his mind. An adoring crowd chanted Dont you quit! as Mr. Biden delivered a fiery message, at times poking fun at former President Donald J. Trump as he drew a sharp contrast with his predecessor. In a Trumpian move, the president at one point pointed to the press stands and said, Theyve been hammering me, eliciting boos from the crowd. Guess what Donald Trump has gotten a free pass. Inside a private high school in Nigeria, Teiyei John was chatting with his classmates on Friday morning as they waited for the arrival of their Christian studies teacher, when a crack suddenly appeared in the wall of their classroom. Seconds later, he said, the floor gave way under his feet and Mr. John was buried under the rubble of the three-story building at Saint Academy in the city of Jos, a regional capital. At least 22 people died in the collapse, and 132 others were hospitalized, with victims still being counted on Friday night, according to local officials. I prayed to God, and thought my day had come, Mr. John, 16, said in a telephone interview, shortly after he was discharged from the hospital with minor injuries on Friday evening. The younger son of Mukesh Ambani, Indias richest man, is set to wed his fiancee in Mumbai on Friday, the finale of a monthslong extravaganza that signaled the arrival of the unapologetic Indian billionaire on the global stage and introduced the world to the countrys Gilded Age. For much of the year, the festivities surrounding the nuptials of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, the daughter of a fellow business tycoon, have grabbed eyeballs for their lavish displays of wealth. Millions have been spent on diamonds and emeralds the size of credit cards, on haute couture saris, on wedding invitations made of silver and gold. Billionaire businessmen, Bollywood stars, models and politicians were among the more than 1,200 guests at a pre-wedding bash in March. Bill Gates stopped by. Rihanna performed. In May, the bride and groom-to-be threw a four-day party on a luxury cruise ship in the Mediterranean; Ms. Merchant told Vogue India they couldnt find a land venue big enough to host all their guests. More than 60 people are missing after a landslide swept two moving passenger buses into a river swollen by monsoon rains in central Nepal in the early hours of Friday, officials said. According to a Nepal Police spokesman, Dan Bahadur Karki, the buses were pushed into the Trishuli River by a landslide that roared over a road connecting Chitwan and Kathmandu, Nepals capital city. A vehicle operated by Angel Bus was heading to Kathmandu, and a Ganapati Deluxe-operated bus was en route to Rautahat from the capital, when the accident occurred at around 3:30 a.m., according to the local police. Mr. Karki said 24 passengers were on the bus traveling to Kathmandu, and 41 were on the other bus. However, three passengers on the Rautahat-bound bus survived by jumping off the bus as it went into the river, he said. Nepals prime minister lost a vote of confidence in the countrys Parliament on Friday, throwing the Himalayan country into political disarray as it tries to manage a spate of devastating natural disasters. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a guerrilla fighter turned politician, lost control of the government when his coalition partners turned on him after a fractious alliance collapsed. Fridays vote of confidence was the fifth Mr. Dahal has faced during his 18 months in office. He became Nepals 13th prime minister in 16 years when his current term began in December 2022, but he had led the country twice before, from 2008 to 2009 and from 2016 to 2017. This revolving door of leaders has left the country of 30 million in a continuous state of political uncertainty, hampering efforts to develop from a largely rural economy that is reliant on remittances from Nepalese citizens working in the Gulf and other wealthier countries. Pakistans top court ruled on Friday that the party of former prime minister Imran Khan should receive 23 additional seats in Parliament, a decision that is expected to deepen the political turmoil that has embroiled the country since Mr. Khan was ousted from power two years ago. The ruling strips the governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of its two-thirds majority in Parliament, weakening his already fragile government and emboldening the opposition led by Mr. Khans party. Mr. Sharifs government came to power five months ago after general elections that were marred by allegations that the countrys powerful military had rigged dozens of races and tipped the scales against Mr. Khans party. Pakistans generals, who have long been seen as an invisible hand guiding the nations politics, have been at odds with Mr. Khan since he was ousted from power in 2022. But in a stunning rebuke to military leaders, candidates loyal to Mr. Khan won a majority of seats in the National Assembly in the last election a victory that shattered the militarys once invincible image. The path for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a once distant prospect before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on the country is now irreversible, members of the bloc said from Washington this week. But even as the leaders of NATO made that bold declaration in a communique, many Ukrainian officials and analysts said that promises without actions were insufficient and that the summit had done little to fundamentally alter the course of the war. The public display of solidarity was welcomed, they said, but it would do little to address the deep uncertainties confronting both Ukraine and the Western alliance. There will be many opinions, assessments and comments about the NATO summit in Washington, wrote Valeriy Chaly, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and head of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, in a statement. To put it briefly: the summit could have been truly historic, but it will not be. NASA astronaut James Buchli will be inducted into the North Dakota Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award Hall of Fame during a ceremony July 30 at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, Gov. Doug Burgum announced. Burgum in May announced Buchli as the 49th recipient of the Rough Rider Award, the states highest citizen commendation. The award ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. July 30 in UNDs Robin Hall, 4275 University Ave., Grand Forks. A reception will follow. Buchli, a New Rockford native, is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and has flown on four space shuttle missions. He became an astronaut in August 1979 and went on space missions from 1985 to 1991, according to NASA. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2019. He has frequently returned to North Dakota, including to collaborate with UNDs space studies program. Roosevelt ranched and hunted in the western North Dakota Badlands as a young man in the 1880s before becoming the nations 26th president. He led the Rough Riders Cavalry during the Spanish-American War in 1898 before moving on to the White House three years later. More information on the hall named in his honor is at bit.ly/3KChobo. Portraits of hall members hang in the North Dakota Capitol. Wanted: an exceptional leader with experience in policing, intelligence or the military, who is ready to tackle one of the thorniest issues in British politics. Days after coming to power, Britains government is recruiting a chief for a new Border Security Command to smash, the job description says, the smuggling gangs that help asylum seekers arrive from France on small, often unseaworthy, boats. The search for the border security commander is the first action taken by the new Labour government to address the unauthorized landings that have become an embarrassing symbol of Britains failure to control its borders. Its human cost was underscored on Friday when the French authorities said four people had died after attempting the crossing near Boulogne-sur-Mer, with a further 63 rescued. In one of its first big decisions, Britains new Labour government on Friday announced the early release of thousands of prisoners, blaming the need to do so on a legacy of neglect and underinvestment under the Conservative Party, which lost last weeks general election after 14 years in power. With the system nearly at capacity and some of the countrys aged prison buildings crumbling, the plan aims to avoid an overcrowding crisis that some had feared might soon explode. But with crime a significant political issue, the decision is a sensitive one and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, lost no time in pointing to his predecessors to explain the need for early releases. We knew it was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought, and the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book, Mr. Starmer said, speaking ahead of the decision while attending a NATO summit in Washington. Some American officials have grown more optimistic that a deal to release Israeli hostages held in Gaza in return for a cease-fire is at hand. But people briefed on the talks say it will be days until it is clear whether a breakthrough has been achieved because of difficulties in communication between Hamas officials in Qatar and the groups leaders in Gaza. Other officials said that previous moments of hope about an agreement had been dashed by both the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Hamas. In Washington, the White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, reflected both the optimism and the caution, noting that many details still needed to be hammered out to secure a deal. Theres still miles to go before we close if we are able to close, Mr. Sullivan told reporters on Thursday. So I dont want to say that its immediately around the corner, but it does not have to be far out in the distance if everyone comes in this with the will to get it done. Later on Thursday, President Biden also expressed guarded optimism about the direction of negotiations during a news conference closing a NATO conference in Washington, D.C. Theres still gaps to close, but were making progress, the president said. The trend is positive. Im determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war which should end now. For nearly two decades, Hamas has been in charge of governing Gaza, overseeing its border crossings, schools and hospitals. But after nine months of a ruinous war with Israel, the militant group is now expressing readiness to give up civilian governance in Gaza, albeit without dismantling its military wing. The overture by Hamas, while most likely a nonstarter for Israel, is meant to signal to the international community Hamass apparent readiness to make some concessions to enable the rebuilding of Gaza. It also arrives against the backdrop of ongoing cease-fire negotiations, in which Hamas has shown some flexibility on the language in a proposed deal. First and foremost, we want the Palestinian people in Gaza to recover from this war, Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said in an interview at an unmarked building in the Qatari capital, Doha. A series of thefts involving the use of ultra-realistic silicone face masks in China has ignited a debate about the legality of these widely available products. In March of this year, four homes in Shanghai were broken into, and over 100,000 yuan ($13,760) in valuables were stolen. When the police identified the main suspect, they discovered that the 40-year-old man had a silicone mask that he had used to disguise himself as an elderly man when committing the crimes. Last month, police investigating a series of burglaries in Jiangsu Province identified a man who disguised himself as an electrical worker using a realistic mask in order to minimize the risk of being identified. These are only two examples of a growing trend in China that experts warn could lead to a crime spree unless the sale of realistic silicone masks is regulated. Making masks isnt wrong, lawyer Liu Jiong from Xiamen University told Legal Daily. The key is in regulating their use. Relevant authorities should grade the realism of face masks. Another problem with silicone masks in China is their wide availability via online sellers who go out of their way to ensure that the masks are of the specific size requested by the buyers and are as realistic as possible. Some businesses on platforms like Taobao sell celebrity look-alike silicone masks, but others will accept just about any order as long as the client can provide all the details necessary for the masks creation, like photos, measurements, and even 3D scans. After you place an order, well direct you to a local 3D scanning point. If you cant go, provide photos, head measurements, and 360-degree facial images, one online seller advised a potential client. Obviously, not everyone buys ultra-realistic silicone masks to commit crimes. Some people just want to fool around with masks of their favorite celebrities, play pranks on friends, or are simply curious about them. But Chinese magazine Shine writes that the more expensive offerings in this niche market are often purchased for very specific purposes, like unlocking a spouses phone with facial recognition, bypassing low-fidelity facial recognition systems, or clocking in at work when working from home. High-quality silicone masks can cost up to 23,000 yuan ($3,200) and take up to a month to make, but some as sellers go as far as to guarantee money back if the masks dont bypass smartphone facial recognition. Some clients on Taobao confirmed that the masks work with some smartphone face recognition systems, but struggled with software that focused on eye and skin color tests. China is definitely not the only country in the world where criminals use silicone masks to carry out nefarious activities, but the possibility of using such disguises to bypass facial recognition technology is a big problem in a country where surveillance is virtually everywhere. The threat is apparently so great that following the recent increase in the use of silicone masks for criminal activities, some e-commerce websites have censored searches for silicone masks. An Iowa woman was recently arrested for falsely reporting the man she was supposed to go on a date with to the police just because she got cold feet and didnt know how to tell him. 18-year-old Sumaya Thomas was supposed to go on a romantic date with a man she had met through an online dating app, but when her date showed up on her doorstep on June 16, the young woman reportedly got cold feet and decided she didnt want anything to do with her online match. Instead of simply ignoring him, making up some sort of excuse to cancel their date, or flat out telling the guy that she didnt want to go out with him anymore, Thomas picked up the phone and called 911, making up a ridiculous story about the man at her door being her abusive ex with whom she was 7 months pregnant and asking police to have him removed from her property. Photo: Unsplash The North Liberty woman told the 911 operator that the man on her porch was threatening to hit, punch, kick and stab her, so a police car was dispatched to her location. Only when officers arrived at Sumaya Thomas house, they didnt find this angry assailant banging on her door, but a calm-looking man leaving her property. When police stopped the man and asked him about his relationship with the 18-year-old woman, he said they had just met a week prior through a dating app and were supposed to go on a date that night. According to an affidavit pertaining to this strange case, the conversation showed he was being honest and he really did just meet this female, but the mans alleged victim insisted that they had known each other for two years and even that she was pregnant with his baby. She claimed that he had been abusive throughout their relationship and had shown up on her doorstep threatening to cause her physical harm. Police later discovered that Sumaya had deleted some of her texts with her date to cover her tracks, and after repeated questioning, the 18-year-old woman admitted that she had made the whole story up and that he was indeed a man she had recently met online. According to the affidavit, Thomas admitted to making these false reports because she got cold feet on meeting him, explaining that she didnt think officers would help her if she told them she just didnt want to go on her scheduled date. Sumaya Thomas was charged with two misdemeanor counts of False Report of Indictable Offense to Public Entity, and one count of False Report 911 call, and was eventually released from jail, while her innocent date was held for about an hour after being apprehended by police. (L-R) Ryan Durr, Frank Garcia Golin hires Ryan Durr as executive creative director for Golin Dallas and Frank Garcia as ECD for Golin Miami. Durr, who is the first-ever head of creative in Golins Dallas market, most recently served as creative director at Austin-based advertising firm PREACHER. He has also held creative posts at Team One and The Martin Agency. In his new post, he will oversee work for clients including Adobe, Cisco and Purina, as well as spearheading new business efforts. Garcia returns to Golin after serving as group creative director at Mojo Supermarket. He has worked with such brands as McDonalds, Meta, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Popeyes and the Truth Initiative. In his new role, Garcia will supervise creative work for key southeast region clients including Celebrity Cruises, the CDC and Hard Rock. He will also collaborate with Golins New York creative department on both client work and new business. "Ryan and Frank are truly exceptional creative leaders who bring invaluable experience, talent and passion to our agency," said Golin North American chief creative officer Ron D'Innocenzo. Jeana Tahnk Dataminr, an AI platform that provides real-time insights on events, risks and threats on a global scale, names Jeana Tahnk VP of communications. She joins Dataminr from Okta, where she held the same role and was responsible for brand reputation. She previously led global communications at Auth0, which was acquired by Okta in 2021. Before that, she worked at Matter Communications. In her new position, she will lead Dataminrs communications, content and social media. Jill Jacobs Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, a bicoastal midsize law firm, appoints Jill Jacobs as chief marketing & business development officer. Jacobs has previously served as CMO at such firms as Marcum LLP, Citrin Cooperman and Friedman, and has been named by Crains New York as a Notable Leader in Marketing and PR. She will oversee Tarter Krinsky & Drogins marketing, business development, communications, and brand strategy programs. Jills dynamic leadership and track record of achievement in business development and marketing roles with professional services firms are impressive, said Tarter Krinsky & Drogin managing partner Alan M. Tarter. (L-R) Chau Wang, Raven Carpenter, Romario Martin Fox Agency, a B2B tech marketing and PR agency, names Chau Wang as US head of media; Raven Carpenter as US public relations director; and Romario Martin as US head of paid search. Wang was most recently US head of media operations with The Marketing Practice and has also contracted as a Google Marketing Platform partner manager. Carpenter comes to the agency from BLASTmedia, where she was most recently public relations director. Martin previously served as US paid search director at The Marketing Practice, and before that he held the same position at Kingpin Communications. With the addition of our three talented new hires and expanded services, were continuing the momentum in providing current and prospective clients in the US market with the consultation they need to thrive in a competitive B2B tech landscape, said Fox Agency CEO Ben Fox. Las Cruces Plans to Hire Travel PR Partner Wed., Oct. 9, 2024 Visit Las Cruces, which is the convention and visitors bureau of New Mexicos second largest city, wants a PR firm to help position it as a premiere tourism destination. David Grant Real estate often gets a bad reputation. For many, it brings up images of crookedness, bottom feeders and sleaze. But after representing dozens of real estate professionals for decades, I can report that the great majority of them are, in fact, honorable visionaries who do their jobs as well and as honorably aswell, most PR people. Getting them good media attention helps. To do that requires a solid clientand the use of solid public relations tools. For example, the owners of the Capri, a high-rise apartment building on the east side of Manhattan, retained us to increase the property's visibility. After meeting with the client, we were able to place the Capri in The Hunt column of the New York Times. In addition, a Capri representative was interviewed by the reporter for an online video that appeared on NYTimes.com. The article and video produced just what the client wanted. A prospective home buyer had been searching for his dream property for over a year. After reading the Times article, he made an appointment to visit the sales center that weekendand bought an apartment in the seven figures. And when Sony informed real estate developer Sherwood Equitiesour client and also a principal owner of One Times Square, the historic Manhattan building where the New Year's Eve ball is droppedthat it would not be renewing its lease on the extraordinarily high-profile space where its Sony JumboTron was displayed, the client had several concerns. He feared that such a potentially big story as the Sony defection would leak out without direction, making it difficult to put in proper perspective, as well as adequately represent his point of view. Accordingly, I recommended a strategy with two goals. First, we wanted to prevent a negative leak; second, we wanted to alert others that the famous sign space would now be available. With this in mind, we proposed a selective and carefully orchestrated publicity campaign. The result was not only that our client was repeatedly quoted, placing the Sony decision in proper perspective, but that NBC readin a major story we placed in the New York Timesabout the availability of the space and then signed a lucrative multi-year contract with our client to rent the space for its own high-tech display. To help market 60 Pineapple Street, a landmark cooperative conversion apartment building in Brooklyn Heights, we undertook a publicity campaign on behalf of MJR Development Corp. In addition to trade publicity, and placing a variety of press releases in mass media, we were able to arrange a very favorable New York Times Friday residential column, andsome weeks after thata New York Times Sunday real estate section lead article covering the inducements being offered by developers in Brooklyn Heights. The client told us he took binders on onefourth of the building the weekend after the Friday column appeared. That building became the most successful in its area. One last example: On behalf of the Durst Organization, we undertook a campaign to publicize a housing renovation it was doing in Manhattan. As a result of our efforts, feature articles on the project, most with impressive photographs, appeared in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Manhattan Cooperator, the New York Law Journal, the Real Estate Reporter and Real Estate Weekly. The articlesespecially those in the New York Times, News and Postbrought a great deal of traffic to the onsite sales office. In fact, on the Sunday that the New York Times story appeared, hundreds of potential buyers came to view the apartments. The developer also used the articles as reprints to hand to people who came to the project. The lesson? Work for good real estate people, know the media who cover real estate and tell your clients stories with tried and true PR tools. Your clients will be pleasedand so will your (and their) bottom lines. *** David M. Grant is President of Grant PR. Narrative Strategies, a DC-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, expands into South Florida, opening an office in West Palm Beach. The new office will be led by managing director Matt Moon, alongside director Kelly OKeefe. Before joining Narrative Strategies in 2023, Moon was deputy executive director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Prior to that, he was VP of advocacy at Business Roundtable. OKeefe has been with Narrative since its founding in 2019, and previously worked in the office of U.S. Representative Brian Mast (R-FL). Kelly and I look forward to expanding Narratives presence beyond the Beltway while helping clients manage the increasingly complex relationship between business and politics, said Moon. Quinn PR outsources its human resource needs to HR Transformed, an HR consultancy started up by Allyns Melendez, who previously served as Quinns COO. HR Transformed will continue to service all of Quinns HR needs, including benefits, compensation, payroll, employee relations, onboarding/offboarding, recruiting, 401(k), compliance and training needs. The C-Suite roles of overseeing finance, IT and operations at Quinn have been filled. "Allyns has been an invaluable asset to Quinn for the past 16 years, said Quinn president and founder Florence Quinn, Allyns and her teams expertise ensures that our HR needs are met with the highest level of professionalism and care. The Harris Poll, the public opinion and advisory firm that is part of Stagwell, acquires BERA, a predictive brand technology platform. The acquisition will integrate BERA's AI-powered brand insights and analytics platform into the Harris Quest suite, part of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud. The features added to Harris Quest will include advance predictive analytics, comprehensive brand valuation and enhanced audience targeting. "By combining BERA's predictive brand technology with Harris Quest's real-time insights, we will deliver a comprehensive solution that empowers marketers to connect brand investments to financial outcomes more effectively," said Stagwell chairman and CEO Mark Penn. An Offaly auctioneer and mum-of-one will be buried today (Friday July 12) following her death on Tuesday. Kate O'Shea of Iveagh House, French Church Street, Portarlington and formerly of Walsh Island reposed at Maher's Chapel of Rest yesterday evening (Thursday July 11), with her removal taking place this morning at 11.10am. She will travel via her residence arriving at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Walsh Island for requiem mass at 12pm noon, with interment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Loved ones have requested privacy at the Chapel of Rest this morning. Kate's requiem mass will be streamed live. According to RIP.ie, Kate died peacefully surrounded by her loving family at the Beacon Hospital Dublin. She is sadly missed by her loving and darling daughter Zara and her dad, father Danny and mother Rose, sisters Orla, Aoife, Ashling and Grainne, aunts, uncles, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, extended family, and a large circle of friends. The family would like to thank the community for their "help and understanding" at this sad and difficult time. INDEPENDENT TD Carol Nolan has highlighted the ongoing challenges facing primary and post-primary schools in Offaly and Laois with Tanaiste Micheal Martin during Leaders Questions in the Dail. Deputy Nolan said that despite some very positive progress for schools around school secretaries pay, the school-book grant, and the schools meals scheme, substantial problems remain with many schools provided with zero state funding for ancillary services such as caretaking and general maintenance. The Independent TD informed the Tanaiste that she had established through a parliamentary question that the annual total for the ancillary grant funding fell from 96 million in 2019 to 83 million in 2023. This makes a mockery of what I can only accept is the Minister's sincere wish for schools not to continually resort to parental contributions merely to enable a school to maintain itself as a safe environment, said Deputy Nolan. I ask the Tanaiste to urgently review and indeed reverse the current situation whereby schools are seeing the value of ancillary grants fall. This deficit is the value of the salary paid to grant-funded secretaries. It is therefore grossly misleading to champion progress on the secretaries' pay issue while concealing the fact that this progress is being achieved on the back of a major reduction in other areas that schools simply cannot do without, such as caretaking services. They have resolved one problem only to put another in its place. Schools do not know where they stand or how they will pay for vital services. I also know that while the book grant has been helpful there also serious problems emerging with that scheme also. So it is really is a case of one thing on top of another for many schools. The Tanaiste must acknowledge that it is entirely inappropriate for the Department to give to schools with one hand while relentlessly clawing back with the other hand. In his response to Deputy Nolan, the Tanaiste thanked her for raising the matter while also acknowledging that over the years, there has only been incremental progress on many funding issues relating to how school operate. The Tanaiste assured Deputy Nolan that he would bring the issues around ancillary grant funding to the attention of the Minister for Education. An Irish woman has said she finds it harrowing and so scary to think about the other women who she spent hours with in a Dubai police station as she was charged with attempting suicide. Tori Towey, 28, from Co Roscommon, said she was told nothing by the authorities and had feared she would be incarcerated for months in the prison cell of the Al Barsha police station. Ms Toweys case was raised in the Irish parliament on Tuesday, where politicians were told she was a victim of domestic violence and had been charged with attempting suicide and alcohol abuse after being attacked. The flight attendant had a travel ban imposed on her by Dubai authorities, which was lifted on Wednesday after the Irish government intervened in the case. The charges against her were also dropped this week. Ms Towey spoke about how she was brought to the police station on the night she attempted to take her own life and about the women she met in the cells. She said there were women of various nationalities including a woman from the Philippines who said she had been there for 10 years. I was obviously very anxious, I was very worried and she kind of calmed me down and told me everything was going to be OK. But she had been there 10 years, she said. Ms Towey said she was in the prison from around 4am and was released at around 11am, and believes she was only released because she was able to call her mother Caroline beforehand. I dont think the police go and call your family for you and tell them, so it would have just looked like I just completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Because I managed to call my mother before we got in there, she was phoning people, phoning the embassy, she was calling the police, she was emailing the police, and I got released. During a live discussion on the social media site X on Friday, Ms Towey explained how she woke up with police and paramedics around her that night. So I woke up with the door being opened. There was a lot of police there, paramedics, they gave me oxygen, she said. I was in my pyjamas, so they handed me a green dress of mine, told me to put it on. I put it on and they just put me in the police car, brought me to the station. They made me blow into this thing and took my fingerprint and then I had called my mother because I was hysterical I was like Im in a police station, I dont know why, I dont know why Im here. Because I already knew a little bit about them just putting people in jail, I said I wont have my phone anymore. No-one is going to know whats happened to me. No-ones going to know how to contact me. So thats when I sent a message to one of my friends and then I called my mother and told her what had happened. Then they took me, they strip-searched me, they took all my jewellery off. I had a bellybutton piercing and they were struggling to take it out. They were pulling at it and ripping at it and hurting me and I was saying Its OK, Ill take it out myself. They dont speak to you. They dont tell you whats happening to you. They dont tell you anything. And then I went upstairs and its just like this tiny corridor with these individual cells with mattresses on the floor, and theres so many girls there. I sat down, and the girls that I met were lovely, some of them were there for seven months in this tiny little corridor with a mattress on the floor. Theyve never gone outside. Theyve never been told whats happening to them. And theyre there for very wrong place, wrong time, like very minor things. Thats when I started to panic and I was thinking I could be here for months. I got out, but I keep thinking about the other girls that are stuck in there for months and months and months. Ive never been able to stop thinking about that. She added: Its harrowing to think about. Its something that Ive thought about a lot since leaving there. I just feel so sorry for those people, so sorry for them. Because I feel like they will spend their whole entire life there and never get out. Dorothy Oatmeyer says the Duerstein Street house where she and her family reside feels as though it is falling apart. There are holes between bricks and in the corners of windowsills. Bricks are falling off the back of the house. The kitchen floor is missing in large areas. The kitchen cupboards are detached from the walls. Lead found in water in more than half of homes tested by Buffalo area's largest water systems Half of the more than 200 households tested in 2023 showed lead in drinking water distributed by the Erie County Water Authority and Buffalo Water Board, according to a Buffalo News analysis of Erie County Health Department data. And on her wooden front porch, there is chipped and peeling lead paint, she said. Her young granddaughter tested positive for a very high lead level in her blood when she was 2 years old. The Erie County Health Department determined that was from playing on their front porch, Oatmeyer said. Oatmeyer is among four Buffalo residents and four community organizations that filed a petition Wednesday in State Supreme Court to compel the city to fully implement its Proactive Rental Inspections Law, which was intended to protect residents in rental housing from lead paint and other health and safety hazards. They say the citys failure to enforce the PRI Law violates the rights of its most vulnerable residents to live in a clean and healthful environment, as guaranteed by the New York State Constitution. Housing inspection program is hot topic at rally, Buffalo Common Council budget hearing The Common Council held a public hearing Wednesday in City Hall on Mayor Byron W. Brown's $617.9 million budget proposal for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. During these years of living with mold, lead paint, leaks and dampness, and other poor conditions, my familys health has suffered. One of my daughters developed asthma, Oatmeyer said in official court documents. She had never had any symptoms or respiratory issues before. She had been an active and healthy kid, but now she needs an inhaler for the last two years. If the Proactive Rental Inspection law were fully implemented, the landlord would not have been able to rent this house, with its many code violations and lead hazards, in the first place, unless repairs were made, Oatmeyer added. The city does not comment on pending litigation, Buffalo city spokesperson Michael DeGeorge said. The lawsuit In court documents, tenants describe living with leaking roofs, collapsing ceilings, mold, broken windows, rotting floors and exterior doors that do not lock. Their children and grandchildren have lead poisoning, asthma, persistent headaches and nosebleeds and more, they claimed. Buffalo increases fee for landlords to fund lead paint inspections The Council approved the fee increase last week to help fund its Proactive Rental Inspections program, which sends building inspectors into non-owner occupied one- and two-family rental units to check for lead paint hazards and more. Were not asking for anything new. Just for the city of Buffalo to live up to its own stated standards, said Steven Haagsma, education specialist at Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which filed the court petition. The other organizations that petitioned the court are Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo and the Center for Elder Law and Justice. Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford, the Western New York Law Center and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice are co-counsel on the case. The other city residents who filed the petition are Krystal Cruz, Denita Adams and Victoria Ring. None of them attended Thursdays press conference at HOME offices on Main Street because of logistics, such as no transportation or childcare, organizers said. Another was working. Since at least the early 1990s, Buffalo has ranked among the nations worst cities for childhood lead poisoning a function of its aging housing stock and concentrated, segregated poverty. Buffalo's lead paint inspection program is unsustainable, commissioner says Lead exposure remains a major issue in cities like Buffalo and Rochester with concentrated, segregated poverty and old, deteriorated housing stock. The Erie County Health Department designated nine ZIP codes in the city as communities of concern because of elevated childhood lead poisoning. PRI problems The Buffalo Common Council unanimously adopted the PRI law in 2020, requiring the interior and exterior inspection of 36,000 rental units in the City of Buffalo every three years at an anticipated cost of $2.1 million a year. The program sends building inspectors into non-owner-occupied one- and two-family rental units to check for lead paint hazards, as well as functioning utilities, mold, asbestos, rodents, water damage, broken windows, rotting floors and other unhealthy conditions. The city has inspected fewer than 5,000 rental properties and issued fewer than 500 certificates of compliance since 2020 under PRI, said Andrea O Suilleabhain, executive director of Partnership for the Public Good. City officials said earlier this year that funding for PRI was a problem, and the inspections are more time-consuming than expected. Groups urge Buffalo to test more units for lead paint, enforce rental inspection law A group of 39 community organizations appealed to the city of Buffalo to inspect far more rental properties for toxic lead paint, as required by its own Proactive Rental Inspections local law. To raise funds for the program, in May the city doubled rental registry fees paid by landlords. The rental registry fees are now set at $50 for single-family dwellings, up from $25, and $100 for two-family homes, up from $50. Mayor Byron Brown announced in his State of the City address May 1 that seven new inspectors for a total of 10 would be hired under the citys 2024-25 operating budget, which began July 1. The rental registry ordinance, which the Common Council approved in November 2020, created a database for all non-owner occupied one- and two-family rental dwellings in the city. The data collected includes the name and address of the owner and telephone numbers where the owner, or an agent for the owner, can be reached. Registration is renewable annually. Prior to the increases, the rental registry fees generated about $1 million per year, officials said. The move to increase the registry fees followed criticism from local community groups and residents earlier this year including PPG who appealed to the city to inspect far more rental properties, as required by its PRI local law. The PRI program also relies on $1 million in American Rescue Plan funding, which will be exhausted by the end of 2026. Other resources More help is on the way. Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a new lead initiative to target prevention of childhood lead poisoning. The New York State Rental Registry and Proactive Inspections to Identify Lead Hazards involves multiple agencies, including the state Department Of Health, Division of Housing and Community Renewal and Department of State. There is also the Erie County Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, which is responsible for the case management of lead poisoned children in Erie County. The program addresses the potential for lead exposure, as well as preventing lead poisoned children from further exposure. The program conducts investigations and provides information to the parents or guardians of children under age 18 who have tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. The state provided about $2 million dollars in grant money to run the program. City officials have said Buffalo is not the government agency with the primary responsibility for lead paint remediation or lead poisoning. The city has a supporting role with state and county partners. The city has been saying lead poison prevention is the countys responsibility off and on for about a decade, O Suilleabhain said. Community groups said Thursday that the city is responsible for basically the safety of buildings in general within Buffalo. Its up to Erie County to inspect buildings after children have tested positive for high levels of lead in their blood. The easiest way to think about is the (Erie County) Health Department is responsible for the health of people. The (citys) department of permit and inspection is responsible for the health of buildings, O Suilleabhain said. We need to be inspecting those buildings prior to children being tested positive for lead to make sure that theyre up to code so that theyre safe for kids to live in and that were not just dealing with the consequences of kids being poisoned by lead, but dealing with things up front, said Sarah Wooten, PPGs director of community research. Gaza-based activist Amin Abed in better days, before being viciously attacked by Hamas for speaking against them (Image by X) Details DMCA You are partners of the occupation in killing us, Amin Abed says of terror group, in videos recorded from hospital bed; admits thinking of leaving Strip for fear of being killed' Some people wonder why ordinary Gaza citizens don't rise up and overthrow Hamas, after it brought a completely predictable massive retaliation on Gaza when 1,200 of Israel's citizens were brutally slaughtered. This man's story is one example of why. Reprinted from progressive.org This is the Dumbest Thing Trump Does Donald Trump was at CPAC over the weekend and gave his longest speech since taking office. To kick things off, he went to one ... (Image by YouTube, Channel: Jimmy Kimmel Live) Details DMCA The Supreme Court's decision granting Donald Trump immunity from criminal prosecution is even worse than you think. President Donald Trump at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia, March 2020. As nearly everyone living above ground now knows, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted Donald Trump and future Presidents broad immunity for official acts they commit while in office. The Court's 6-3 majority opinion in United States v. Trump, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, confers "absolute immunity" on Presidents for exercising their "core Constitutional powers," such as the authority to confer pardons, and "presumptive immunity" for all other acts within the "outer perimeter" of their official duties. The ruling will effectively delay Trump's trial on the indictment brought against him by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith until after the November election. In the longer term, the ruling clears the way for the establishment of an imperial presidency that, despite Roberts' protestations to the contrary, operates above the law. If American democracy somehow survives, the opinion will go down as one of the most regressive in the Supreme Court's history, taking its place alongside Dredd Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Bush v. Gore. But as reckless as the ruling is on its face, it is even more dangerous when its depths are plumbed. Here are five truly awful things you may have overlooked about the case on an initial reading: The opinion does not change the definition of any federal offense. Nor does the opinion hold, as Richard Nixon remarked in his infamous 1977 interview with British journalist David Frost, that "when the President does it, that means that it's not illegal." "Crimes are still crimes . . . [a]nd criminals are still criminals," as Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes noted in a recent Lawfare article. If Trump is reelected and orders Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival, for example, he would still be breaking the law. He just could not be prosecuted. The immunity granted by the Supreme Court would provide Trump with legal protection from criminal liability and punishment, but it would not otherwise sanitize his conduct. While the majority opinion immunizes Presidents for their official acts, it does not directly protect subordinates who carry out their orders. Nonetheless, Trump's potential henchmen would not be left out in the cold. The opinion recognizes the pardon power as a core constitutional function that is beyond the scope of judicial review. As a result, future presidents will be able to pardon their accomplices, sparing them from any criminal punishments. Long before John Roberts penned his majority opinion, Trump was aware of the broad reach of the pardon power. In 2019, he reportedly told Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Kevin McAleenan that he would pardon him if he were sent to jail for illegally blocking asylum seekers from entering the country. At the time, it was unclear if Trump was joking. Now, courtesy of Roberts and the Supreme Court's ultra-right majority, the only joke is on the American people, who expect their chief executive to "take care" that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed, as the Constitution commands. Roberts' majority opinion rejected Trump's outlandish claim that the indictment brought against him must be dismissed because the Constitution's "Impeachment Judgment Clause" requires that Presidents be convicted of an impeachable offense in a Senate trial as a precondition to being prosecuted criminally in federal court. What the opinion doesn't say, however, is that by granting Presidents absolute immunity for exercising their core constitutional powers, Presidents will be forever shielded from criminal prosecution for official acts, whether for treason, bribery, or "other high crimes and misdemeanors." Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator The German media, Bild, reports that Israel will begin a war on Lebanon beginning about July 15. Israel knows that Hezbollah will not stop its attacks on Israel until Israel stops its attacks on Gaza, and Israel has no intention of stopping until their war goals are met, including the destruction of Hamas. Hezbollah has said they would suspend their attacks if Israel does likewise in Gaza, but that is seen as impossibility given that the Biden administration has given Prime Minister Netanyahu the green light, and all the weapons he needs to continue the genocide in Gaza. Most of the population of Israel's north has left, and the south of Lebanon has similarly seen evacuations as Israel has destroyed many villages. The German airline Lufthansa has suspended night flights to Beirut until the end of July as fears grow of an impending war, which may be disastrous for both Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah is quite comparable to Israel in military might, and in the 2006 war between the two, Hezbollah would not give up any territory, and Israel pulled back having been defeated by the Lebanese resistance group. A number of countries have urged their citizens to leave Beirut ahead of July 15. They are: the US, Germany, Kuwait, Russia, North Macedonia, Canada and the Netherlands. The root cause of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah lies in the brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which has stripped the Palestinian people of all human rights. The final solution must be a two-state solution that grants the Palestinian people their freedom. In an effort to understand this newest threat to the Lebanese people, Steven Sahiounie interviewed Rawad Daher, a well-known Lebanese journalist. Steven Sahiounie (SS): We have heard airline companies contacting passengers scheduled to depart Beirut International Airport. These airlines are re-directing flights earlier than July 15. The German media Bild has said they have information that Israel has taken a decision to attack Lebanon on July 15. In your opinion, is this credible? Rawad Daher (RD): There is no doubt that the factors for pressure and war threats are many, and if we review the news of the past 9 months, since October 7, 2023, until the moment, we monitor more than 9 serious threats and dates for war with Lebanon, some of whom said mid-March, others in May, and others in June as a deadline, until we reached the newest of mid-July. In fact, all of these dates passed by, just as the expectations of those who considered that war would occur within 48 hours in April, and within 72 hours a few weeks ago, also were not true. Therefore, I consider what airlines are taking to be precautionary measures, while what is reported in the newspapers falls within the framework of exaggeration at times and expectation at other times. If the war were to occur, it would not be linked to a timeframe, but rather to an event that violates the equation that has been in place for 9 months. SS: After the escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, and the continuous Israeli threats for an Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon, if a ceasefire happens between the Palestinians and the Israelis, would it include Lebanon? RD: Here we must distinguish between two points of view according to the two parties involved in the war. As for Hezbollah, it has announced and repeated that it is fighting a major front for Gaza, and any ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will automatically be reflected on the Lebanese war zone, and it also rejects any settlement on the border with Lebanon before reaching an agreement in Gaza. As for the Israeli side, it is divided between those who believe that the Israeli army is exhausted in Gaza and is not ready to fight a fiercer war with Hezbollah after the Gaza war stopped, and therefore, Israel does not want war. On the other side, there are those who believe that the equation imposed by Hezbollah is considered a loss for Israel, and that this entity must fight a battle in the North to restore the strategic balance. SS: If Israel does begin a war on Lebanon, in your opinion, how do you see the Lebanese army response? RD: The Lebanese army doctrine and according to the Lebanese constitution, without any doubt, the army acts with Israel as an enemy, even though its military capabilities are limited and its armament is linked to several Western conditions and warnings, specifically American, which prevent it from engaging in the war. Therefore, as a result of this equation, there is no doubt that the performance of the Lebanese army could be similar to their performance during the July 2006 war. SS: Israel has so far destroyed south of Lebanon from continuous bombing. In your opinion when this conflict is over, who will fund the rebuilding effort? Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Biden Accidentally Introduces Ukraine's Zelensky as 'President Putin' | WSJ News President Biden accidentally introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by calling him .President Putin. during a NATO ... (Image by YouTube, Channel: WSJ News) Details DMCA As NATO wrapped up its Summit and Biden held a crucial press conference, the media frenzy continued to focus on Biden's age and cognitive abilities. Is he too old and disoriented to lead the "free world"? Was he able to get through his press conference without stumbling too many times? Lost in the media coverage about the Summit, however, has been a serious discussion of NATO's advanced age and NATO's ability to lead the "free world." At 75, NATO has not aged well. Back in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron was already sounding the alarm, accusing NATO of being "brain dead." While Russia's invasion of Ukraine has given NATO a new lease on life, NATO's embrace of Ukraine actually makes the conflict-and the world-more dangerous. Let's remember why NATO was founded. As the contours of the Cold War were emerging after the devastation of WWII, 10 European nations, along with the U.S. and Canada, came together in 1949 to create an alliance that would deter Soviet expansion, stop the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encourage European political integration. Or, as the alliance's first Secretary General Lord Ismay quipped, its purpose was "to keep the Soviets out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." It is decades now since the Soviet Union has disintegrated and European nations have been well integrated. So why is NATO still hanging on? When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, along with its military alliance called the Warsaw Pact, NATO could have-and should have-declared victory and folded. Instead, it expanded from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today. Its eastward expansion not only violated the promises made by Secretary of State James Baker to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, but it was a grave mistake. U.S. diplomat George Keenan warned in 1997 "expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era." Indeed, while NATO expansion does not justify Russia's 2022 illegal invasion of Ukraine, it did provoke Russia and inflame tensions. NATO members also played a key role in the Ukraine's 2014 coup, the training and arming of Ukrainian forces in preparation for war with Russia, and the quashing of negotiations that could have ended the war in its first two months. After two years of brutal war, the NATO Summit focused on how to shore up Ukraine's flailing efforts to repel Russia. The insistence on setting up a "Trump-proof" scenario that would guarantee Ukraine billions in military aid for years to come and an "irreversible path" to NATO membership is really a guarantee that the war will drag on for years-precisely because NATO membership is Russia's number one concern. There was no talk at the Summit of how to end the war by moving towards a ceasefire and peace talks. Why? Because NATO is a military alliance. The only tool it has is a hammer. We have seen NATO illegally and unsuccessfully wield that hammer in country after country over the past 30 years. From Bosnia and Serbia to Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has justified this violence and instability as defending "the Rules-Based Order," while repeatedly violating the core precepts of the UN Charter. NATO is now a military behemoth with partners far beyond the North Atlantic that encircle the globe from Colombia to Mongolia to Australia. It has proven to be an aggressive alliance that initiates and escalates wars without international consensus, exacerbates global instability, and prioritizes arms deals over humanitarian needs. NATO provides a cover for the U.S. to place nuclear weapons in five European nations, bringing us closer to nuclear war in violation of both the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. NATO is endangering us all in a desperate attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony in what is now a multipolar world. NATO's 75th anniversary is an opportune time to take stock of NATO's outdated world view and violations of international law. NATO should be laid to rest so we can revitalize and democratize the proper venue for dealing with global conflicts: the United Nations. Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She is the author of 11 books, including War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, coauthored with Nicolas J.S. Davies. Her most recent book, coauthored with David Swanson, is NATO: What You Need to Know. Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator Kessab is a tiny Syrian village on the Turkish border. In February 2011, Em Ahmad, a 30-year-plus resident of Kessab, was coming back to Kessab through the international border crossing at Kessab. She and her family were shocked to see white tents set-up in Turkey on the border as the passed by. The so-called 'popular uprising' in Daraa, Syria, did not begin until March 2011, and Em Ahmad had no inkling of the purpose of the empty tent community set-up waiting for Syrian refugees. Later, she would understand the role those tents played, and the fact they were ready long before any Syrian in Daraa, 371 kilometers away, would take to the streets. Syria is now in the first steps toward ending the nightmare that destroyed many parts of the country, caused the largest migration since WW2, caused millions to become refugees living in tents in neighboring countries, displaced half of the country, and killed and injured hundreds of millions. Recently, Turkey has changed its policy on Syria in an effort to restore diplomatic relations with Damascus. The Prime Minister of Iraq, al-Sudani, announced he expects a meeting between the Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad very soon. In order to restore the relationship, Turkey must stop its support of terrorists, must withdraw its troops and mercenaries from all areas in Syria, which include Idlib and north of Aleppo. The first steps have been taken by Turkey as they have ended support of the terrorists in Idlib, and ended support of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) north of Aleppo. This drastic change by Turkey was met recently by violent clashes between Turkish soldiers and Turkish civilians, and terrorists and their Syrian civilian supporters, who pulled down Turkish flags and stepped on them, attacked Turkish vehicles and Turkish drivers, and attacked a Turkish soldier and made him kneel and kiss the 3-starred flag of the FSA. In Idlib, the terrorists burned up Turkish vehicles owned by Turkish citizens working in Idlib officially, which resulted in all Turkish civil servants being evacuated from Idlib. Syrian refugees in Turkey were attacked by angry Turkish citizens who view the Syrians as unwelcome vandals. North of Aleppo, there had been roads controlled by the Turkish-backed FSA, but a new order came from Ankara to relinquish the roads back to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). These beginning steps pave the way to a restored relationship between Ankara and Damascus. The UN played a role in maintaining Idlib as a bastion for the armed opposition. Repeatedly, the UN pressured Russia and Syria to allow humanitarian aid to enter Idlib from Turkey. The UN argued there were 3 million civilians who needed food and medical supplies, and while that is true, the aid passed exclusively through the hands of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). If you were a civilian supporter of HTS, you got your aid, but if you had any complaint, you got nothing. Civilians were forced to buy the food they needed from the shopping mall, Al Hamra, where HTS leader, Mohammed al-Julani, warehoused surplus aid to be sold. All the major international charities were in Idlib, and a number of them had serious problems with the terrorists who controlled their work there. For example, the terrorists would not allow female civilians to participate in aid programs that would teach them employment skills. According to the FSA, once called "McCain's Army", women were to stay at home in the kitchen and bedroom. Turkey was a close ally of the US and a fellow NATO member. Turkey was directed to play a vital role in the 'regime change' project orchestrated by US President Barak Obama. The Syrian project was just one piece in the larger 'Arab Spring' in which the US and NATO attempted to create a 'New Middle East'. Libya was attacked and destroyed by the US-NATO war machine, and has not recovered. Tunisia was transformed into a Muslim Brotherhood administration, Egypt's election was rigged by the US in order to place a Muslim Brotherhood president at the helm, and Syria was attacked in a 'regime change' project that failed. Tunisia and Egypt have both since recovered from the US meddling in 'Arab Spring' and have kicked out the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria fought back and refused to change a secular government into a sectarian nightmare to suit US interests. General Wesley Clark, former NATO commander, said in a video that he visited the Pentagon and was told they had plans to 'take out seven countries'. Syria was one of them. Serena Shim, an American-Lebanese journalist in Turkey on assignment, witnessed a UN World Food Program truck delivering armed terrorists from Jibhat al-Nusra (now called HTS) across the border from Turkey to Syria. After reporting her explosive news, she was killed in Turkey when a cement truck rammed her small rental car, and the driver of the truck has never been located. HTS has occupied Idlib, and holds 3 million residents as human shields. Idlib is the last remaining territory occupied by the armed Syrian opposition. Recently, the residents of Idlib took to the streets to protest their treatment under the Julani iron-fist rule. Qatar, one of the last bastions of Muslim Brotherhood influence, stated they no longer support Julani, and were sympathetic of the protesters who voiced their grievances after arrests and torture of civilians by Julani's terrorists. Despite the $10 million bounty on the head of Julani, issued by the US FBI, American media has visited Julani to interview him, while he sported a western suit and tie, in an effort to re-brand his image. In the end, the US project to morph a Radical Islamic terrorist into a Washington-approved leader in Syria failed, as did the entire Obama war on Syria. Robert S. Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria, has been very critical of Obama's failure in Syria. Ford feels the US seriously underestimated the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), and bet that the army would break under the pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the street. The SAA never broke. Ford had wanted the US to enter Syria militarily, but Obama refused to fulfill his promises. US Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, was the biggest force behind arming and funding the terrorists fighting in Syria. McCain made several illegal visits to Idlib and met personally with the terrorists and their commanders. Even though he hated the Mexican migrants coming into Arizona illegally, that didn't stop him from doing the same and crossing from Turkey into Idlib without any visa or border controls. He believed in the FSA, and lobbied for them in Congress. The FSA sold fellow Arizonian, Kayla Mueller, to ISIS in Aleppo. She was later raped and tortured by the ISIS leader, Baghdadi, and died in a US airstrike. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Cone-troversy at Burning Man: Kiwi Coneheads Rally Behind Coney McConeface Amidst NZ's Anti-Cone Crusade A tempest in a traffic cone is brewing as the New Zealand government's crackdown on these high-vis heroes has triggered a wave of outrage amongst cone enthusiasts worldwide, particularly amongst a passionate group of Kiwis known as the Guardians of the Cone. "We were utterly flabbergasted when we heard the news," exclaimed a spokesperson for the A state board this week tentatively approved the transfer of a Clackamas County man who beheaded his mother from the Oregon State Hospital to a residential treatment facility in Umatilla later this year. The state hospital team treating Joshua Webb, 43, this week recommended the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board approve Webbs discharge from the hospital and eventual placement at Lifeways McNary Place, a 16-bed facility. U.S. Coast Guard rescuers lifted a blind man and his service dog up from the Rogue River National Recreation Trail and onto a helicopter this week after he was overcome by heat and spent at least one night waiting for help, officials said. The 55-year-old man, whose name hasnt been released, was hiking with a friend in Josephine County on Saturday when he started showing signs of heat exhaustion, according to the Coast Guard. The man couldnt walk anymore and there was no cell service in the area, so the friend left him at a campsite with a tent and some food and water and went to get help, reaching authorities by phone Sunday. A wildfire that started on Thursday morning in Malheur Countys Cow Valley has grown to 20,000 acres as of early Friday morning, prompting fire agencies to scramble to protect homes in the rural area. The fire started around 7 a.m. on Thursday and is likely human-caused, according to incident reports from the Vale District Bureau of Land Management, which is responding to the blaze alongside local and state fire agencies. The Vale district reports that the fire is 0% contained. Soon after it started, the fire headed toward the town of Brogan at a high rate of speed, according to the Malheur County Sheriffs Office. A statement from the Oregon State Fire Marshal on Thursday night estimated that 30-50 homes were in danger, and the sheriffs office urged residents in the area to prepare for evacuation. Larisa Bogardus, a spokesperson for the Vale District Bureau of Land Management, said that BLM staff, local fire crews and contracted dozer companies worked through the night to build fire breaks to protect the town. The threat to the town of Brogan also prompted Oregons state fire marshal on Thursday evening to send the Multnomah and Umatilla structural-fire task forces to help prepare the town in case the fire drew closer. John Hendricks, a spokesperson for the fire marshal, said the combined task forces have 28 firefighters, 10 engines and a water tender, all of which arrived on the scene Friday morning. Bogardus said that the task forces will help the residents of Brogan prepare defensible spaces around homes that will stop or slow fires before they reach buildings. Oregon wildfires could be seen burning from the air, as in this photo from a Hawaiian Airlines pilot taken around midnight on Thursday.Courtesy of Laurie Nolan The Cow Valley fire is only one of several large wildfires currently burning in Oregon, including the nearly 14,000-acre Larch Creek fire in Wasco County, which remains completely uncontained, and the nearly 4,000-acre Salt Creek fire in Jackson County, which is 16% contained. There are currently about 22 separate large wildfires burning in Oregon totaling more than 145,277 acres, according to data from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, a group of federal and state organizations that tracks natural disasters and helps coordinate responses to them. Oregonians can expect a busy and long fire season, said John Saltenberger, the fire weather program manager at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. We are anticipating that the potential for large, costly fires is greater than normal, Saltenberger said, adding that a combination of low humidity, high temperatures and buildups of flammable material contributed to the risk in Oregon. When you look at the combination of all those things coming together, he said, it just makes them ripe for the potential for large, costly fires. Tatum Todd covers crime and public safety. Reach them at ttodd@oregonian.com, or 503-221-4313. Frank Gable on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against 24 police officers, claiming their improper tactics led to his wrongful conviction in the 1989 killing of Oregons prisons chief. The suit alleges officers with Oregon State Police and the Salem Police Department engaged in malicious prosecution and violated his due process rights, resulting in his 29 years and 81 days of imprisonment for the murder of Michael Francke, director of Oregons Department of Corrections. An officer choked Gable during one interrogation until he lost consciousness and others used selective recordings to falsely suggest that he made statements incriminating himself, the suit alleges. It also alleges the officers suppressed evidence that would have undermined his prosecution. They went to a lot of extreme ends to coerce a confession from Mr. Gable, but hes maintained his innocence throughout, his attorney Megan Pierce said. Gable, a local methamphetamine dealer at the time, was sentenced in 1991 to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Franckes murder. Francke, 42, bled to death from stab wounds and was found dead on the north porch of the Dome Building, where he worked in Salem. The door of his nearby state-issued Pontiac stood open. U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta threw out Gables conviction in 2019, ruling that he didnt get a fair trial. Acosta noted that another mans confession to the crime was excluded during Gables trial. Acosta found that no reasonable juror would have convicted Gable in light of another mans multiple confessions to Franckes killing and because nearly all the witnesses in the case had recanted their testimony since the trial. Acosta also found that Gables conviction resulted from improper interrogation of witnesses by investigators and flawed polygraphs that further shaped witness statements to police. In May 2023, Acosta ordered the state to completely expunge all records of Gables prosecution, citing the extraordinary circumstances of his constitutionally invalid conviction. He also granted Gable unconditional release from custody and barred the state from retrying him in the case after ordering Marion County to dismiss his murder indictment with prejudice, meaning the state couldnt bring future charges against Gable. Plaintiff spent almost 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Pierce wrote in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene. Defendants built a case against Plaintiff based on nothing but false, fabricated evidence that was the product of unlawful investigative techniques. The suit alleges the officers engaged in an unconstitutional conspiracy to deprive Gable of his rights, failed to intervene and halt the improper tactics and were negligent in their investigation and supervision of officers to prohibit misconduct. Pierce said everyone named as defendants was directly involved in misconduct that resulted in Mr. Gables wrongful prosecution. They were identified as defendants in the suit in place of the state, which is shielded by immunity from such damages in federal court. It seeks unspecified damages for Gables claims. Gable separately is seeking more than $2 million from the state of Oregon to compensate him for the time he spent in prison. The state, so far, is challenging the compensation. It has argued unsuccessfully in prior court hearings that Gable and his lawyers failed to meet the legal threshold for showing Gable didnt commit the fatal stabbing in 1989. Gable was released from Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas on June 28, 2019. He lives with his wife in Kansas and is working to rebuild his life, Pierce said. He will turn 65 next month. Hes still struggling with all the physical and emotional damage and injury he suffered from three decades of incarceration in harsh and difficult conditions, Pierce said. The issue of Mr. Gables innocence has been litigated thoroughly in post-conviction proceedings. We are really hopeful the state will do the right thing and make Mr. Gable whole for the injuries the defendants in this case caused him. Gable has since changed his name to Franke J. Different Cloud, but has used his former name in the legal filings. The dismissal of all charges against Gable has left Franckes killing unsolved. -- Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, or on LinkedIn. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com. Leaders in the Newberg-Dundee school district began formally unveiling painful proposed budget cuts this week. The grim announcements came a month after Stephen Phillips, the districts superintendent, went on medical leave when an estimated $13 million hole in the districts finances came to light only days before the end of the school year. In his absence, the districts former superintendent, Paula Radich, volunteered to serve without pay as its interim leader. At a school board meeting this week, Radich pulled no punches. Given the dire financial situations, the cuts were going to seem ruthless and would come as a shock, she said. To patch up the deficit, which constitutes about a quarter of the 4,000-student districts $56 million budget, she proposes to: Negotiate with all employee groups on salaries, benefits, potential furlough days and what Radich called a very strong look at leaves of absences and substitute costs. Radich said the money spent on substitutes last year was unconscionable. Reduce administrative positions at every level. Lease space in one of the districts elementary schools to George Fox University and dental equipment manufacturer A-Dec, both based in Newberg. Reduce contracts with outside providers by 50%, which could save around $1.5 million. Find other savings, such as cutting electricity costs. But there is no way around laying off many employees, considering the drops in enrollment, in a district that has lost about 800 students since 2019, Radich said. That will come on top of around 30 previously announced layoffs, she said. Our additional reductions are going to be significant, Radich told school board members this week. Some of those reductions should have been made years ago. What we are dealing with is an accumulation of significant overstaffing and not enough funds to pay for that. We are talking about reductions across all specialty groups and all classifications. Principals and union leaders learned specifics of the proposed cuts on Thursday, and parents in Newberg said they were bracing for the news. Claudia Stewart, a district spokesperson, said an exact figure of how many employees were facing lay-offs was not yet available. Principals are working to see if they can share staff across buildings and Radich and labor unions are negotiating furlough days, retirement incentives and other potential concessions, she said. Staff who are on the layoff list will likely be notified starting on Friday, she said. But speaking to board members this week, Radich singled out educational assistants who work in special education as an area where the district is especially overstaffed. She also called for a forensic audit of staffing levels, questioning why, for example, middle schools with around 500 students needed four secretaries and why the number of special education assistants was allowed to grow unchecked, without anyone from the districts budgeting department raising a red flag. The budget cuts are the latest sign of turmoil in a district that is hoping that things can only get better. In fall 2021, a group of conservative-leaning school board members voted as a block to ban teachers from displaying Pride or Black Lives Matters flags in their classrooms, saying they were seeking to avoid political distractions on school property. The board eventually rescinded the ban after a Yamhill County judge ruled that it was unconstitutional. Their actions touched off a series of lawsuits and the dismissal of Phillips predecessor, helping to spark a new state law that mandated that superintendents who had negotiated for a no cause firing clause in their contract must to receive a full years notice should a school board decide to terminate them. The controversy eventually led to an almost complete turnover of school board members. But Phillips remained in his $215,000 a year role until June, when the full scope of the budget deficit came into focus and he took medical leave. Under Oregon law, an employee may not be fired for taking medical leave if they have worked for their employer for at least three months. Phillips came to Newberg with a checkered employment history. He resigned as a deputy superintendent in the Beaverton School District in 2018 after he retweeted an incendiary statement that claimed illegal aliens were responsible for the deaths of thousands of American citizens, touching off a community outcry. He then spent several years as the superintendent of the Jewell School District. In March 2024, a former student identified only as Jennifer Doe filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that Phillips and other administrators knew that a teacher was sexually abusing her when she was 14 and didnt promptly intervene, eventually allowing the teacher in question to quietly transfer to a different school district. Julia Silverman covers education policy and K-12 schools for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach out to her via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com or follow her on X.com at @jrlsilverman. WASHINGTON President Joe Bidens ability to run for reelection faced crucial tests Thursday as he prepared for questions at a highly anticipated press conference and his team met privately with skeptical senators on Capitol Hill. More House Democrats called for him to exit the race, and he made a notable flub ahead of the press conference. Biden is seeking to show during his whirlwind day with world leaders at NATO, and the evening press conference that he is up for another four years. Voters are watching, and elected officials are deciding whether to press for another choice. But in announcing a compact that would bring together NATO countries to support Ukraine, Biden referred to the nations leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin to audible gasps in the room. He quickly returned to the microphone: President Putin hes going to beat President Putin ... President Zelenskyy, Biden said. Then he said: Im so focused on beating Putin, in an effort to explain the gaffe. Im better Zelenskyy replied. Youre a hell of a lot better, Biden said back. Democrats are facing an intractable problem. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers are doubtful of Bidens abilities to carry on his reelection bid after his recent debate performance, but the hard-fighting 81-year-old president refuses to give up as he prepares to take on Republican Donald Trump in a rematch. Biden campaign laid out what it sees as its path to keeping the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the blue wall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the clearest pathway to victory. And it declared no other Democrat would do better against Trump. There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump, said the memo from campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez that was obtained by The Associated Press. The memo sought to brush back hypothetical polling of alternative nominees " as unreliable and it said such surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. Meanwhile, the campaign has been quietly surveying voters on Vice President Kamala Harris to determine how shes viewed among the electorate, according to two people with knowledge of the campaign who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to talk about internal matters. The people said the polling was not necessarily to show that she could be the nominee in Bidens place, but rather to better understand how shes viewed. The research came after Trump stepped up his attacks against Harris following the debate, according to another person familiar with the effort. The survey was first reported by The New York Times. While Biden has expressed confidence in his chances, his campaign on Thursday acknowledged he is behind, and a growing number of the presidents aides in the White House and the campaign privately harbor doubts that he can turn things around. But theyre taking their cues from Biden, expressing that he is in 100% unless and until he isnt, and there appears to be no organized internal effort to persuade the president to step aside. His allies were well aware heading into the week there would be more calls for him to step down, and they were prepared for it. The number of House Democrats asking that Biden step aside grew to a dozen on Thursday. In the Senate, only Peter Welch of Vermont has so far called for Biden to step out of the race. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited Bidens team to meet with senators privately at the lunch hour to discuss concerns and the path forward, but some senators groused they would prefer to hear from the president himself. The 90-minute conversation with the presidents team, which one person said included no new data, polling or game plan on how Biden would beat Trump, did not appear to change senators minds. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the closed door session. The meeting was frank, angry at times and also somewhat painful, since many in the room know and love Biden, said one senator who requested anonymity to discuss the private briefing. Senators confronted the advisers over Bidens performance at the debate and the effect on Senate races this year One Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said afterward, My belief is that the president can win, but hes got to be able to go out and answer voters concerns. Hes got to be able to talk to voters directly over the next few day. At the same time, influential senators are standing strongly with Biden, leaving the party at an impasse. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, told AP he thinks Biden is going to win this election. I think he has a chance to win it big. Sanders said he has been publicly critical of the campaign, and said Biden needs to talk more about the future and his plans for the country. As we come closer to Election Day, the choices are very clear, he said. The fresh emphasis on the blue wall states by the campaign, which has heavily invested in other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia, acknowledges that the path to defeating Trump in November is narrowing, even as the team insists the Sun Belt states are not out of reach. Though senior campaign aides write in the memo that Biden could clinch 270 electoral votes in a number of ways, it also says those three states are critical and that is why Biden has prioritized the areas in his recent travels. He went to Madison, Wisconsin, and Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania over the weekend. Hes going to Detroit on Friday. Polls conducted after the debate have largely agreed that Democrats nationwide have doubts about Bidens ability to lead the ticket in November. COLLEEN LONG, SEUNG MIN KIM and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Farnoush Amiri and Linley Sanders contributed to this report. Pelicans fly near the shore as waves from the Pacific Ocean roll in Tuesday, May 14, 2024, on the Quinault reservation in Taholah, Washington. Facing increased flooding from a rising Pacific, the tribe has been working for over a decade to relocate Taholah, their largest village, to higher ground.Lindsey Wasson | Associated Press TAHOLAH, Wash. Standing water lies beneath the home Sonny Curley shares with his parents and three children on the Quinault reservation a few steps from the Pacific Ocean in Washingtons Olympic Peninsula. The back deck is rotting, and black mold speckles the walls inside, leaving the 46-year-old fisherman feeling drained if he spends too much time in the house. You can tell your bodys not right; its fighting, said Curley, standing in the familys kitchen. Youre using your energy to fight something thats not supposed to be there. These are the effects of an ocean that has moved ever closer since Curleys parents bought the house about 15 years ago in Taholah, the tribes largest village, where the Quinault River empties into the Pacific. He estimates the ocean was about 30 feet away back then. Now waves sometimes top a 15-foot seawall, and the familys been forced to evacuate three times in the past four years, just as Curleys 84-year-old mother struggles with advancing dementia. Its scary, said Hannah Curley, Sonnys sister, who lives three blocks away and hasnt had to evacuate. Nights when its really stormy, Ill go and check on them a couple times during the night, and then I have cameras up too, so we can see if its getting really bad. Faced with rising sea levels and increasing flooding, the Quinault Indian Nation has spent at least a decade working to relocate hundreds of residents and civic buildings in Taholah to higher ground. Theres also the threat of an earthquake and tsunami from a major offshore fault line. But that relocation depends on money, and a patchwork of federal and state grants has fallen far below the estimated more than $400 million needed. Where are we going to go if the house does get in a state where its not livable? Sonny Curley wondered. Where are my parents going to go and where are my kids going to go? A row of houses sits feet from the rising Pacific Ocean, which often floods through and over the 15-foot seawall during winter king tides and storms Tuesday, May 14, 2024, on the Quinault reservation in Taholah, Washington.Lindsey Wasson | Associated Press Across the U.S., tribes suffer some of the most severe impacts of human-caused climate change but typically have the fewest resources to respond. Along the coasts, where a federal report has predicted seas will rise 10 to 12 inches by 2050, tribes have taken key steps toward relocation. That includes the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, just 91 miles south of Quinault, and Newtok Village on the western coast of Alaska. When you move people to marginal lands and you marginalize them within society, you layer climate change on top of that ... theyre vulnerable to climate, said Michael Spencer, who researches and teaches on social work and public health among Indigenous people at the University of Washington. The Quinault, historically known as skilled fishers and hunters who traveled the water for trading, ceded millions of acres to the U.S. government more than 150 years ago in exchange for a roughly 200,000-acre reservation on the coast. The tribe was promised peace and a permanent home, tribal leadership have said. But now a key section is threatened. Taholah is close to the ocean and rests on estuary soils and fill that are infiltrated more easily by saltwater. With tidal ranges that average 9 feet, the sea level rise that is expected to accelerate in coming years will have significant impact, said John Callahan, a climate scientist for NOAA. Quinault has made flooding-related disaster declarations 26 times from 1957 to 2022, and they have become more frequent. About one-quarter have come since 2016, despite the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers raising the seawall by about 4 feet in 2014. Sonny Curley hands a cup of coffee to his father Harold Curley at their home near the ocean Wednesday, May 22, 2024, on the Quinault reservation in Taholah, Washington. The home has a rotting deck and black mold inside, and the family has had to evacuate several times due to flooding.Lindsey Wasson | Associated Press The flooding has left some homes plagued by mold and destroyed several outbuildings. Likely worse is in store: Taholah is expected to see a sea level rise of 1 to 2.6 feet by the year 2100, according to a 2018 Washington Coastal Resilience Project report. Weve seen the ocean come over the berm and actually come up against and even on top of the roofs of homes. In my 50-something years, Ive never seen something like that, said Quinault President Guy Capoeman. The more than 3,000-member tribe has an economy powered by the timber industry, its seafood store and a beach resort and casino. About one-fourth of the people live below the poverty line, according to Census data. The tribe published a relocation plan in 2017, and laid out 59 residential lots with sidewalks, street signs and fire hydrants on a site about a half-mile away and 130 feet above sea level. Around 300 dwelling units are planned. Theyve already moved their Generations building, which includes elders programs, Head Start and day care. The new village is planned as a climate-resilient space, with a farm to provide food if they are cut off during a disaster and solar and biomass for energy. But progress has been slow. More than half of $25 million awarded by the Interior Department most of it planned for building the first homes has been held up for a lengthy process of submitting planning and design documents. I guess when being awarded the funds, youre thinking, Lets get this going. We have the money, were ready to do this. Lets move, said Alyssa Johnston, project developer for the relocation. But after a few months of being in this position, you just kind of learn that theres a lot more to it, to acquiring the funding. Theyve gotten $12 million through Washington states Climate Commitment Act, but most will go toward relocating another Quinault village, Queets, which also has flooding issues. A small amount has been earmarked to study salmon declines due to glacier melt and rising river temperatures. The tribe relies on the fish for everything from food to jobs to cultural traditions. In 2020, Quinault took an $8 million loan for the Generations building and has continued to search for additional funding. But last year the tribe was turned down for two key federal grants. Tribal leaders say no one will be forced to move, and some residents dont want to. From his small home perched 17 feet off the ground, James DeLaCruz Sr. has watched the landscape change over the past 30 years. He once planned to build a sitting area on the beach outside his door, but its no longer wide enough. Yet DeLaCruz, 75, calls the ocean his happy place, finding comfort from the sound of waves. He even enjoys storms. Jade Rodriguez's dog eyes a blueback, or Quinault sockeye salmon, before Rodriguez brings it to Quinault Pride Seafood to sell, Wednesday, May 22, 2024, in Taholah, Washington. The tribe relies on the fish for everything from food to jobs to cultural traditions.Lindsey Wasson | Associated Press At any day, the earth can split out there; a great big wave. If thats our calling, thats our calling. So I dont worry about it, he said. Ive lived next to the ocean for 75 years. Im still here. And he worries about the cost. So does the Curley family, with the parents afraid of starting over with a new mortgage long after retiring. Theyd be doing it without Sonnys help; declining salmon numbers have sharply cut his income, and he recently had to stop contributing to payments. But Sonny and Hannah know its time to go. Its kind of a love-hate relationship that all of us have in this area, because we are a people of the water, of the ocean, the river, Hannah Curley said. But on the other hand, the ocean has a mind of its own and you cant change things. HALLIE GOLDEN, Associated Press The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. In 52 days, Multnomah County says it will open a bare-bones drop-off center where people caught with fentanyl and other drugs will be screened for addiction and told about treatment options. Thats a pivot from the countys original plan -- developed largely out of public view and first reported last month by The Oregonian/OregonLive -- that imposed no requirements other than checking in at the drop-off center. Police are testing whether hazing was a determinant in the passing of a Dartmouth College student whose body was found in a river over the weekend. Search Begins for Missing Dartmouth Student Won Jang was last seen around 9:30 p.m. Saturday near the docks on the Connecticut River and was recorded missing on Sunday afternoon, according to police in Hanover, New Hampshire. Police recorded that his body was discovered around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, about 65 feet from the shore. In a declaration conveying condolences to the community, Dartmouth's dean of the college, Scott Brown, remarked that Jang, 20, was a member of the class of 2026 and a biomedical engineering major from Middletown, Delaware, who "enthusiastically took part in the Dartmouth community." Two of Jang's colleagues contacted in an email to The Dartmouth, the college's student newspaper, that he had cooperated in a combined gathering on Saturday evening arranged by his fraternity, Beta Alpha Omega, and the sorority Alpha Phi, where alcohol was present. Police Chief Charles Dennis announced that they are investigating the potential involvement of hazing. He informed the station that there is evidence of alcohol involvement, gathered from witnesses and discussions, which is all part of their ongoing investigation. Additionally, they received an anonymous email from the college suggesting possible hazing, prompting them to explore this angle as well. Elizabeth Rathburn, the assistant to the chief of police, verified on the phone that inspectors are contemplating hazing as part of their inspection. Police have declared that the cause of the demise has not yet been concluded but that foul play is not suspected after a primary inspection. On Wednesday afternoon, police declared that their inspection into this passing in Hanover stays active and continuous. They have interviewed many individuals and are examining all collected evidence. The department also mentioned that it is waiting for autopsy results "to help in making its decision." Read Also: US Court Allows Biden Administration to Implement Key Part of Student Debt Relief Plan Hazing Investigation Ongoing; Police Withhold Further Comment Police have not referenced any allegations of hazing in their press statements. The department stated that the matter is part of an active investigation and that it would not provide further immediate comment. A college spokesperson stated on Tuesday that Beta Alpha Omega and Alpha Phi had been suspended during the investigation. A spokesperson mentioned that Beta Alpha Omega was under alcohol probation at the time of Jang's death, after serving a suspension that covered the fall, winter, and spring terms. The school is currently in its summer term. According to the spokesperson, Alpha Phi had been suspended from alcohol-related activities during the fall term 2023 but had since regained good standing. Beta Alpha Omega and Alpha Phi did not promptly reply to requests for comment. Lydia Jin, a sophomore at Dartmouth and Jang's girlfriend, characterized him as "the kindest person I've known." They met at badminton tryouts through a mutual friend and formed a band together. Jang was born in South Korea, grew up there, and moved to Delaware in middle school, she said. Jin mentioned that Jang aimed to become the first Korean Nobel Prize winner, particularly in science, and had aspirations to cure Alzheimer's. She added that he cared deeply for his friends and family, and his loss is deeply felt by everyone. Jin declined to comment on the police investigation. She said she was not with Jang on Saturday night but had seen him earlier in the day when he dropped her off on campus and told her he loved her. She mentioned that Jang was not able to swim. She expressed that the true narrative is that a tragedy occurred. A life was taken, leading to grief and suffering among those affected, with nothing able to alter what transpired. The recent choices available for male contraception include condoms, vasectomies, or abstaining from sex. Therefore, the accountability of avoiding unexpected gestations often falls on women, who might use daily birth control pills, have an IUD inserted, use vaginal rings, employ a diaphragm, or resort to emergency contraception as a last resort. New Advances in Male Contraception Scientists are progressing towards more choices for male contraception. A research circulated in the journal Nature Communications on February 14, 2023, introduces a promising method in mice. Scientists tested a compound that bars an essential enzyme needed for sperm flexibility, recommending a possible route to a fast-acting, brief male contraceptive. Despite being tested in mice, this enzyme is present in many species, including humans. Jochen Buck, a pharmacologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-author of the study explains, "Our lab identified the enzyme responsible for initiating sperm movement, and we've developed a compound that inhibits its function." The compound's possible as a male contraceptive was found surprising. Initially investigated for treating an eye condition in mice, researchers observed its effect on male fertility. After injection, male mice showed immobilized sperm within minutes, suggesting a mechanism where sperm could not traverse the cervix into the uterus. Further studies revealed its rapid onset (within 15 minutes) and temporary nature (remaining effective for several hours). In trials, it prevented pregnancies with 100% effectiveness within 2.5 hours of administration, and 91% effectiveness within 3.5 hours. Buck is optimistic about its potential in humans, envisioning it as an on-demand contraceptive that temporarily halts sperm mobility without long-term side effects. However, experts warn that findings in mice may not precisely translate to humans, highlighting the need for further study and clinical trials. Despite difficulties and ambiguity, the growth of this new compound represents an important step towards enlightening contraceptive choices for men, possibly allowing a safer and more flexible alternative to the research approach. Read Also: Online Retailing Starts for the First OTC Birth Control Pill in the US Reviving Male Contraception: Advocating for Inclusive Solutions Male contraception has been ignored in reproductive health, mainly due to the restricted choices available for men, like condoms or vasectomies. While condoms can fail due to unsuitable sizing and can influence sensation, vasectomies are permanent and come with potential risks like infection and chronic pain. The Irish government has recently made contraception free for young women aged 17 to 26, but this doesn't include free condoms or vasectomies for men. A promising new option is COSO, a hormone-free, ultrasound-based male contraceptive developed by German researcher Rebecca Weiss. Driven by her health scare linked to the contraceptive pill, Weiss developed COSO to provide a safe and effective alternative for men. The device, designed with input from 422 male participants, works by heating water to a set level and using ultrasonic waves to temporarily halt sperm production for six months. COSO offers several benefits, including no side effects, reusability, and no need for a prescription. While human trials are still pending, animal tests have shown promising results. If successful, COSO could provide a less invasive, shared responsibility for contraception compared to existing methods. This innovation could help shift the burden of contraception from women to a more balanced approach, addressing cultural stigmas and offering a safer alternative without hormonal interventions. COSO has the potential to revolutionize male contraception and change the conversation around reproductive health. Related Article: Male Birth-Control Pill: Nearing Reality and Its Impact on Men's Willingness to Embrace It Two teen suspects arrested in relation to the multiple related in what appeared to be a erratic drive-by shooting in North Carolina. A community in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been frightened by a series of shootings before this week, resulting in one death and injuries to two others, police released on Thursday. String of Shooting Rocks North Carolina Charlotte-Mecklenburg Deputy Chief Tonya Arrington held a news conference on Thursday to reveal the details of the apprehensions. The five shootings transpired between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, involving shots fired from a vehicle at other vehicles or cyclists. Officers patrolling the scenes of the shootings noticed a suspicious vehicle on Thursday morning, leading to the arrest of a 16-year-old boy discovered with a stolen gun. The 16-year-old suspect was interviewed and arrested, followed by the arrest of an 18-year-old man, named as Carlos Roberto Diaz, later that day. Both suspects are believed to be responsible for the firing spree, and police verified that no other suspects are at large. Police Work Credited for Timely Arrests Deputy Chief Arrington praised the officers for their hard work, attributing the apprehensions to their diligent work and instincts. She explained that the officers were in the right places at the right times and knew what to look for, counting on their gut instincts as law enforcement professionals. Arrington also noted that the younger suspect had intended to continue the violent crime spree if he had not been apprehended. The 16-year-old, whose identity remains undisclosed, will face charges of first-degree murder and has been transferred to the Department of Juvenile Justice. Diaz faces numerous charges, including first-degree murder, felony conspiracy to commit murder, five counts of attempted murder, two counts of shooting into an occupied vehicle, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. It remains unclear if Diaz has secured legal representation. Read Also: Arkansas Secretary of State Rejects Abortion Rights Amendment for November Ballot Timeline of the Shooting Spree The first incident occurred around 1 a.m. on Tuesday when Mustaffa Muhammad, 58, was fatally shot while driving northbound on Statesville Avenue. Shortly after, police responded to several more shooting reports: 1:09 a.m.: A cyclist was shot at but escaped uninjured at the intersection of Lasalle Street and Newland Road. 1:11 a.m.: A vehicle was hit by gunfire on Lasalle Street near Interstate 77, followed by shots fired at a group in the 2100 block of Catherine Simmons Drive. A woman inside a nearby home was struck by gunfire but survived. 1:25 a.m.: Another cyclist was shot and wounded in the Steel Creek area on Hillary Circle. Nearby, a house was also struck by gunfire. Police have forensically linked three of the five shootings to the suspects. Arrington confirmed there are no gang ties to the incidents, leaving the motive for the seemingly random acts of violence unknown. Arrington stated that they are still questioning why two juveniles would target random victims in this manner. She noted that the behavior is random and highly unusual. The speedy response of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have brought a sense of relief to the community, but questions about the provocations behind the senseless violence remain unanswered. The apprehensions emphasize the significance of alert and proactive policing in averting additional injury to innocent victims. : Arkansas Grocery Store Shooting Leaves 3 Dead, 10 Injured This will seem to some to be a political post and, thus, a violation of my contention that I no longer publish my political opinions. But its not. Please note that I endorse no presidential candidate here, and that I take no stance whatever on the question of whether Mr. Donald J. Trump is a threat to the Constitution of the United States and to our democratic republic or whether, instead, he is Gods personally-anointed choice to lead America back to greatness. I will say, however, that I think it highly likely, as of today, that Mr. Trump will be returning to the White House in January 2025. (Of course, things might be very different if Joe Biden were still alive.) But thats merely a statement of probable fact, not an endorsement. Back on American Independence Day, I called attention, as follows, to a recently-published article: Rather predictably, a poster at a rather predictable place accused Dr. Hess of having misrepresented the data. In fact, he accused Dr. Hess and, entirely predictably, for the act of having linked to Dr. Hesss article, he accused me of having deliberately lied. (To be precise, of lying for the Lord, as we Latter-day Saints are, it seems, trained to do.) Dr. Hess has now responded at that same rather predictable place: Hello a friend let me know some question had been raised here about the accuracy of my representation of the AEI data. I took the chance to reach out to survey director Dan Cox, to make sure my reporting was faithfully representing their findings and to ask if there was a better link to embed in my article. Here was his response: Those figures are accurate I dont see any problems with what you wrote. Unfortunately, there is no link I can provide where we break out the poll results for LDS respondents. This is fairly typical. We cant publish results for every demographic group. Youll notice my report focused on numbers of people expressing hesitancy towards both candidates. Youve pointed out its surprising how many members of the Church are representing the former president which is fair, but not contradictory to what I raise. There are two (honest) questions Id raise in response to your suggestion that one should never trust an apologist to accurately represent a source. (1) Could a more parsimonious explanation be that two people could look at different data sources and honesty come to different conclusions? (versus presuming that anyone who holds a particular view is lying) (2) Given that you appear to hold that view towards me (and others), I wonder what has led to this position hurt, pain, misunderstanding and how you think that pain can heal between someone like you and someone like me? Thats something I think about a lot and would welcome your thoughts. Id be open to talking about this further, if you want to reach out to my email, jhess@deseretnews.com. I wont be coming back to this site to see a response but wanted to share this clarification. I dont personally consider this a place where a conversation about faith is taking place that is truly open to all perspectives, including one that attests to the gospels truthfulness. But Dr. Hess and I arent the only people who pretend to have noticed a certain degree of Latter-day Saint resistance to Mr. Trump. In this context, Ill leave completely unmentioned the striking opposition to Mr. Trump of such life-long Republican and conservative stalwarts as Senator Mitt Romney (UT); former Senator Jeff Flake (AZ); the former Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, Rusty Bowers; retired federal judge Tom Griffith, of the United States Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit; former Utah Governor Gary Herbert; current Utah Governor Spencer Cox; and former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullen. Their opposition is striking but, in a sense, merely anecdotal. No, instead Ill point to the concurring voices of several other liars who claim to have observed much the same thing: Politico (2020): Mormons rejected Trump as blasphemous. Now he likely cant win without them. Latter-day Saints had been among the most reliably Republican voting blocs until Trump took over the party. Financial Review (2021): The church that turned from Trump: In the past few years, Mormons have become a subject of fascination for their surprising resistance to Trumpism. American Enterprise Institute, Survey Center on American Life (2023): Trumps Problem with Mormon Voters is Getting Worse Deseret News (2023): Will Trump have a Latter-day Saint voter problem yet again? New polls show Trump struggling with Latter-day Saints, Utahns KJZZ (2024): Over half of Mormons have negative views of Trump. They could be an important Arizona swing vote Manifestly, all of these people are lying because they are under my malignant influence. And its not only writers and journalists but, astoundingly, the citizens of Utah who are lying. Examine the voting percentages in Utah presidential elections in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. Pay particular attention to the percentage of Republican votes during those last two elections, when Mr. Donald J. Trump was the Republican presidential candidate. Examine the Utah caucus results for 2016, when Mr. Trump was on the ballot along with Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Question: Would Mr. Trump have won the 2016 Republican nomination had all states voted the same way that Utah did? Obviously, Utah voters were lying! However, my notorious personal depravity is of comparatively small significance, globally speaking. There are, after all, perhaps two or three dozen people on the planet who are arguably even worse than I am. And heres something to make you shiver in your boots on even the hottest day. It comes need one even ask? from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial How Religion Poisons Everything File: Churches offer relief in the wake of Hurricane Beryl: Faith leaders provide emergency response in the Caribbean and Texas in the wake of the hurricane VPNs can be an invaluable tool for anyone who regularly uses the internet. Not only do they help keep your online activities private, but they can also get around region blocks to stream your favorite content. When searching for a good VPN provider, two names are sure to come up: Surfshark and NordVPN. Both VPNs are top-quality services that have made it on to my list of best VPNs due to their excellent feature sets. Each has its own unique way of optimizing your privacy and security. Below Ill compare each of these two industry titans and show which wins in a standoff between Surfshark vs. NordVPN. If youre looking for all of my top picks for VPNs be sure to check out my best VPNs article for more great options. Surfshark vs. NordVPN: Overview Surfshark is a more budget-friendly VPN with unlimited simultaneous device connections and good additional features, but its based in a 14 Eyes data sharing member country. NordVPN on the other hand is a bit more expensive, but comes with more servers, better speeds, and its based in a privacy-neutral country. Surfshark NordVPN Server network 3,200+ servers, 100+ country locations 6,000+ servers, 110+ country locations Simultaneous connections Unlimited 10 Average speeds 61% of base download, 70% of base upload 72% of base download, 80% of base upload Protocols WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 WireGuard (NordLynx), OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPsec Available platforms Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Fire TV, Apple TV, Linux, Browsers, Routers Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Fire TV, Apple TV, Linux, Browsers, Routers Business location Netherlands Panama Cost $15.95 per month, $47.85 for the first year, or $72.63 for the first two years $12.99 per month, $82.35 for the first year, or $126.63 for the first two years Speed: NordVPN While Surfshark is no slouch when it comes to speed and performance, NordVPN easily takes the win here. NordVPN has the best download and upload speeds of any VPN Ive ever tested, easily garnering the top spot in my list of fastest VPNs. During my testing, Surfshark performed admirably with an average download speed of 61 percent of my base and 70 percent of my base upload speed. Thats pretty good, but Nord blows by it with an average download speed of 72 percent of the base and a thoroughly impressive 80 percent of the base upload speeds. Simply put, NordVPN cant be matched when it comes to VPN speed. Cost: Surfshark Determining the winner in regards to cost requires a bit more of a nuanced approach. Both services come with different subscription tiers providing different features and extras. Both VPNs also come with monthly, yearly, and bi-yearly subscriptions plans. In order to most closely compare apples to apples, Ill stick with discussing the cost for NordVPNs Plus plan and Surfsharks One plan tiers. NordVPNs Plus plan will set you back $12.99 monthly, $82.35 for the first year, or $126.63 for the first two years. Both NordVPNs 1-year and 2-year plans rise to $99.48 annually after their respective renewal periods. On the other hand, Surfsharks One plan goes for a steep $15.95 monthly, $47.85 for the first year, or $72.63 for the first two years. Similarly, Surfsharks 1- and 2-year plans rise to about $60 per year after their renewal periods. While Surfsharks month-to-month plan is more costly, if you opt for a longer-term subscription plan, youll end up saving a significant amount of money its about half the price of NordVPN. For this reason, Surfshark takes the win for cost unless you want to pay by the month, then go for NordVPN. Privacy and security: NordVPN Privacy is the ultimate goal of a VPN user and not many do it better than NordVPN. Not only does it regularly go through independent security audits of its servers to ensure no user data is stored, but its also based out of privacy-friendly Panama. Surfshark isnt too far behind, however. It also goes through regular independent security audits and sticks to a no-logs policy. However, it is based in the Netherlands which is currently a member country of the 14 Eyes data sharing alliance. The Netherlands itself is a fairly privacy-friendly country, but as a member, it could potentially be asked to share data on companies within its borders therefore subjecting users to privacy violations. Surfshark, for its part, promises to not keep any user data logs so it claims there would be nothing to share anyways. Both services provide top-notch security features including military-grade AES-256 encryption and access to the most secure protocols such as WireGuard and OpenVPN. They both also offer ad- and tracker-blocking plus built-in antivirus (with certain subscription tiers). And each will seemingly continue to add more and more security features as the years go on. Still, the fact that NordVPN is located in a non-member country gives it the slight nod in this category. Streaming: Tie While settling on a tie for any category feels like a bit of a cop-out, Ill admit, the capability to unblock streaming services with both Surfshark and NordVPN was practically identical in my testing. Both services were able to unblock all major streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney Plus, and BBC iPlayer. Every server I tested with both services, across multiple countries around the world, worked without a hitch. Therefore, I cant rightly say that one is better than the other in this category. Both would be great options if using a VPN to stream is what youre after. Bottom line Surfshark and NordVPN are both excellent VPNs overall. Surfshark wins out when it comes to value due to its extremely affordable long-term plans. However, NordVPN snags wins in speed where its noticeably faster and privacy due to the fact that its headquartered in privacy-friendly Panama. Streaming capabilities were a draw as both services easily won the war on unblocking with every major streaming site. Ultimately, which VPN you pick will depend on your own personal needs. If you want to save money then go with Surfshark. If speed and server network are your biggest concerns, then you should opt for NordVPN. Either way, the differences between them are minor and probably wont make a difference for the average user. Both of these are stellar VPN services, but in the features that matter most, NordVPN narrowly edges out the win. If youre looking to save some dough on a computer display, Amazons Prime Big Deal Days event, starting today, is a great time to do that. PCWorld constantly reviews the latest monitor models with the newest tech. We also hunt for the best values if you dont need all the bells and whistles. You can trust us to not just find the biggest discounts, but the discounts on the monitors that are actually worth buying in the first place. Read on for the best monitor deals at the best prices I could find, and check out our Prime Big Deal Days 2024 deals hub for great sales in other tech categories. Last updated on October 8, 2024. Prime Big Deal Days 2024 deals on OLED monitors OLED monitors are the cream of the crop for gamers, and at the moment you cant get any bigger than Samsungs 49-inch super-duper-mega-ultrawide. Its easily the best bang-for your-buck on the list. But for something a little less unwieldy, Id go with the MSI 34-inch ultrawide and its more manageable 34401440 resolution. If you want to upgrade to OLED for as little cash as possible, Corsair is offering a 27-inch QHD model thats great for gamers for just $600. That might also be the best choice if youre interested in competitive gaming its lower resolution and 240Hz refresh rate is a great compromise if youre hoping to keep those framerates up. Prime Big Deal Days 2024 deals on gaming monitors Once again Samsung offers both the biggest monitor and the biggest discount in the gaming sector, this time on the humungous, curved, and rotatable 4K Ark design. But that ones beyond most peoples budgets (and their desks weight limit). For an easy recommendation Id once again go with the ever-reliable Gigabyte 34-inch ultrawide, already a good deal at its regular $400 price, a steal at $70 off. For something more general for a home office, check out that Acer 27-incher. Its QHD with a speedy 240Hz refresh rate, a cut above the usual, and uses a high-quality IPS panel. That makes it great for both competitive multiplayer gaming and office or media production work. Prime Big Deal Days 2024 deals on office monitors For a general office monitor, Id recommend Acers 27-inch 4K model. Its got tons of resolution on a high-quality panel, and a USB-C connection for easy laptop support. Samsungs 32-incher doubles as a smart TV (including streaming apps) if you want to watch an episode on your lunchbreak. For the absolute cheapest deals possible, check out the Sceptre and Asus 24-inch 1080p models. On the portable side weve got two choices: a gorgeous OLED from Asus thatll look great next to any laptop, or a similar panel from MNN for a fraction of the price. Choose according to your budget. More great Prime Day 2024 deals PCWorld covers a wide range of tech deals every Prime Day, so make sure to check out some other best deal roundups that may be of interest, and see our top picks for the best monitors of 2024 for more PCWorld insights. The Ghana Police Service, yesterday, 10th July 2024, arrested six (6) persons who were declared wanted in connection with the attack and destruction of some properties at the Ayawaso West Wuogon office of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on Sunday, 7th July 2024. The six suspects, Alhaji Issah Kamara, Theophilus Kodzo Bedzra, Abdulai Victoria Naematu Nadolie, Hope Adzrah, Francis Agbessi Funu and Christian Biakuse are in Police custody assisting the investigation. The latest arrest brings the total number of suspects so far arrested in connection with the incident to seven (7). We would like to assure the public that, all other suspects, will be arrested and brought to face justice. The police 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 Merton International Primary & High School has been awarded top honours at the 2024 British Council Partner Schools Awards for exceptional performance in the A Level and IGCSE exams. Upholding its 'Tradition of Excellence,' the school received accolades both nationally and internationally. In the June 2023 A Level examinations, four of Mertons candidates achieved outstanding results, earning the school the title of Overall Best A-Level School for the 2023 Cambridge A Level Examinations. Mertons students secured nine Star Performer awards across nine subject categories, a testament to their hard work and dedication. King Solomon Ladzekpo distinguished himself by winning the Best in IT award globally and sweeping the national award. He was recognized as the Overall Best A Level Student in the 2023 Cambridge A Level examinations with an extraordinary achievement of four stars across his A Level subjects, a total score of 378, and an average score of 94.00%. Solange Atwi-Donkor, previously the Overall Best IGCSE Student in 2021, was honoured as the Highest Star Performer in Cambridge Level Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Similarly, Nana Kwame Opoku Ware Ampomah excelled as the Highest Star Performer in Cambridge Level Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics. Michael Kofi Ohemeng Aning was recognized as the Highest Star Performer in Cambridge A Level Economics and Physics. In the IGCSE 2023 examinations, Senam Fafa Kpekpena was celebrated as the Highest Star Performer in Cambridge IGCSE Additional Mathematics and Cambridge IGCSE Mathematics (without coursework). The award ceremony was held on June 28, 2024, at the British Council Partner Schools Awards, where students were accompanied by the staff and faculty of Merton, along with their families, to receive their awards. Speaking at the awards ceremony, Mrs Elizabeth Baitie, CEO & Principal of Merton International School said: For 25 years, Merton International School has delivered world-class education and we've produced graduates who are committed to excellence in all that they do. Our results at the 2023 Cambridge IGSCE and A-Level examinations are a testament to our motto: Raising a standard of excellence. The Merton staff actively supported candidates in their learning, revision, and general build-up to the examination. The results we achieved speak to that commitment to excellence by both our students and teachers. I extend admission to would-be students and assure our upcoming cohorts of equal excellence. Established in 1998, Merton International School recently celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023. The school offers the Cambridge Primary Years Program, IGCSE, and Advanced Level program, distinguishing itself with a strong academic track record, Christian values, and a robust extracurricular program, including the arts. 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 Following the tragedy that hit a Petroleum Engineering graduate from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), whose death was reported to have happened in a hotel at Anaji, Western region, the Ghana Police Service has issued an official autopsy report. The death of the 24-year-old Petroleum Engineering Graduate came as a shock to the family and colleagues at work. Lois Abena Koranteng was said to have embarked on a business trip with her boss and driver on June 8, 2024. Reports gathered disclosed that she had spoken to her family members on the trip with hopes of returning home after her activities in Takoradi were over. Sadly, a phone call came through the following day to the family indicating Lois Abena Koranteng, the last born of a family of three had passed under very bizarre circumstances. A member of the family narrated, "She was working with an energy company, they mostly, travel to Takoradi and other places on weekends for business. We spoke to her on the weekend before leaving, around 5:30 am the following day, we had a phone call that our sister had been found dead in the swimming pool of the hotel where they were lodging." However, providing update on investigations conducted on the incident so far, the police said an autopsy conducted by officials in the presence of the deceaseds parents reveal that Lois Koranteng died of Asphyxia, severe pulmonary edema and drowning in a pool. The police in a statement on Thursday, July 11, 2024, revealed that it had started its investigations into the unfortunate incident on June 8, the same day the police received complaint about the incident. Excerpt of the police report stated, On the same day, police commenced investigation into the incident. A Police team visited the scene and also visited the hospital and inspected the body but no marks of assault were found on her. The police added that following dissatisfaction from the deceaseds family about the extent of police engagement with them, the Inspector General of Police rendered an unqualified apology via a phone call to the family. The police noted that the IGP assured the family of visiting them at their convenience and update them on investigation done so far. 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 In an alarming turn of events, the revered Gomoa Akyempim Palace in the Central Region of Ghana was infiltrated by unidentified armed individuals late last night. The incident, which unfolded just hours before sacred ancestral rites were scheduled, has raised serious concerns about the security and peace in the Gomoa Akyempim Traditional Area. At 11:00 pm on July 9, 2024, the Paramount Queenmother, Obaatanpa Ama Eduwa I, received distressing reports from local chiefs, Asafo, and residents regarding the presence of these intruders. Tensions nearly erupted into severe clashes as Asafo members confronted the armed men, who claimed they were sent by the destooled Paramount Chief, Obrifo Ahunako Ahor Ankobia II. However, further interrogation revealed that these 17 individuals were actually notorious landguards from Ashaiman. Despite repeated calls for assistance, the Apam District Police Commands response was delayed, arriving only after the situation had escalated. Upon their arrival at 1:00 am, the police questioned the intruders, whose explanations were inconsistent and unconvincing. The Police assured that they would ensure order upon the Queenmothers arrival. By 4:00 am, the Queenmother and key stakeholders had arrived, only to face continued obstruction from the intruders during the performance of sacred ancestral rituals. The police, unable to effectively manage the situation, pleaded with the Queenmother to abandon the activities. As tensions soared amidst a downpour, calm was eventually restored by residents and Asafo companies eager to remove the intruders. The incident follows a directive from the embattled Omanhen earlier on July 9 to close the palace. However, the Asafo lifted these restrictions, citing that the Omanhen had abandoned the palace two years prior and had converted his residence into a Traditional Council. The Queenmother suspects this intrusion was a deliberate attempt to disrupt the peace and security of Gomoa Assin. The Queenmothers statement underscores a growing concern: While the Ghana Police Service intensifies its efforts to ensure peace and security across the country, particularly during this election year, bandits in Gomoa, especially Gomoa Assin, have equally escalated their activities to maintain insecurity. The Apam Police Commands complacency in this matter raises concerns of possible compromise. The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. The Queenmother has filed an official complaint with the Apam Police Command, stressing that local support is crucial to address the threat posed by these bandits. The community remains resolute, ready to assist security agencies in restoring order, but also prepared to take matters into their own hands if necessary. The Queenmothers call to action is clear and urgent. We openly appeal to the IGP to act swiftly against these threats before residents and Asafo companies are forced to confront them directly. The people of Gomoa Akyempim Traditional Area stand firm, committed to their sacred oaths and the rule of law, but the need for immediate and decisive action is critical to prevent further escalation and ensure the safety and security of the community. 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 Professor of Linguistics at the University of Ghana, Kofi Agyekum, has affirmed that the pro-poor policy, Free SHS, is the brainchild of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and not former President John Dramani Mahama. Sharing his opinion on the raging topic on Peace FMs Kokrokoo morning show on Thursday, July 11, 2024, with Nana Yaw Kesse being the host, the doyen in academia emphasized that the question about who introduced Free SHS should not even arise because that is a known fact. According to him, Free SHS is the brainchild of President Akufo-Addo, and this, he indicated, is a known fact by all Ghanaians. He wondered why anybody would tend to appropriate Free SHS to himself when Akufo-Addo is the one who introduced the policy. Ask any Ghanaian out there about who introduced and implemented Free SHS and the obvious response is Nana Akufo-Addo, and there is no debate about this Opanin Agyekum stated on Peace FMs Kokrokoo in a panel discussion. Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress, John Dramani Mahama, in a media encounter event held on Sunday, said that the NDC introduced Free SHS and for that matter, there is no way he would cancel the policy if given the mantle of leadership. This he said, when a question was asked about whether the policy would be cancelled should he become president again. This has sparked discussions in the public domain with many Ghanaians questioning the honesty of the former president since he has been on record to speak against the introduction of the Free Senior High School policy. The NDC, in the 2012 electioneering campaign, commissioned about 47 anti-Free SHS adverts, urging the electorate to reject Akufo-Addo and his Free SHS promise which, in the minds of the members of the NDC, was an impossible dream. Mr. Mahama, in the run-up to the 2016 elections had this to say; Ghana must not implement Free SHS on the whimsical promises of a desperate politician. Many countries in Africa have failed with free education policies. There have also been several comments made against Free SHS by the former President, John Mahama and other key figures of the National Democratic Congress. * President Mahama on November 23, 2012, told the people of Okere in the Eastern Region that Free SHS will collapse the education system of Ghana. * President Mahama at UCC in 2016 said The Free Senior High School by the NPP is a political gimmick * Former President Mahama at the NDCs Tarkwa unity walk strongly rejected the Free SHS policy stating that it is unwise to implement it. * Mahama on November 25, 2017, stated that Lalasulala Free SHS will fail. Former President Mahama on his presidential primaries tour said to Akufo-Addos Free SHS is not working * Former President Mahama again on October 1, 2018, reiterated his aversion to Free SHS stating that it will undergo a review and hinted on the possibility of the policy being scrapped because to him it is unthinkable to spend 2 billion Ghana cedis in free SHS and that it is seriously constricting governments budget. * The then Minister of Education, Lee Ocran, on 10th September 2012 said Free SHS can only be possible in 2032, in 20 years time. * Mahama Ayariga, on September 26, 2016, said Choose Mahamas education policy, it is better than Akufo-Addos Free SHS * Hajia Joyce Zeinabu, then National Women Organizer of the NDC in 2016, November 20, had this to say, Free SHS will breed teenage pregnancies * The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah is on record to have said on October 1, 2018, that Free SHS is shambolic and that it will have to be scrapped. * The National Chairman of the NDC, Elder Ofosu Ampofo also on 18th December 2018 said: Double Track system is causing teenage pregnancy. * NDC MP for Adaklu, Kwame Agbodza, on June 19, 2018, said Over concentration on Free SHS stifling funds meant for flood prevention * Adam Mutawakilu, former NDC MP for Damango said Blame the mysterious deaths at KUMACA to overcrowding as a result of Free SHS. * Felix Kwakye Ofosu on May 14, 2018, had this warning for the government You cant use oil money to fund Free SHS * Joshua Akamba to Tempane SHS students Reject Akufo-Addo for implementing such a shambolic education system. All the above commentaries were made by the former president and some key figures in his party. This, it is obvious, points to the fact that the opposition NDC cannot claim credit for the implementation of Free SHS. There is no debate about this. Akufo-Addo is behind Free SHS. We shouldnt debate this. We should look at how best to improve the program and not who introduced it. We all know who introduced it and it is none other than President Akufo-Addo he stated. 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 Businessman, Kofi Appianin Ennin has threatened to sue the Attorney General and the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) for defamation. Mr Ennin says he was wrongly accused and dragged to court for no offence. He was arrested in 2015 for allegedly smuggling 6,240 kilogrammes of cannabis (Wee) to the United Kingdom. The Accra High Court subsequently remanded him to appear before it. Kofi Appianin Ennin was later acquitted and discharged by the Accra High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court. Nine years after the case, peeved Kofi Appianin Ennin believes the arrest and prosecution were a set-up to destroy his reputation as a businessman without any evidence. Justice of the High Court, Accra, Alhaj Justice Abdullah Iddrisu said in his ruling, I have heard parties in the matter through their counsel at the last sitting of this court on 25 April 2017 the court indicated that it would discharge the accused persons if the prosecution was not ready to start the trial of the accused persons and that two years was long enough for the prosecution to have started the trial of the accused persons. It is obvious that the prosecution in this case is not ready to start the trial. Flowing from what this court said on 25th April 2017, I have no option than to discharge the accused persons and they are hereby discharged for the delay is unreasonable. This ruling was later upheld by the Supreme Court before he was also cleared of criminal charges through investigations done by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service in 2021. Download High Court, Supreme Court rulings and CID clearance form: Your browser does not support iframes. 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 flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has dared flagbearer of the NDC, former President John Dramani Mahama to have a live presidential debate to explain their visions and policies to the people of Ghana. Addressing thousands of his supporters last night in Bunkpurugu, North East Region, Dr. Bawumia said he is eagerly waiting for a debate with Mahama. However, he is less optimistic this debate will come off because, to him, Mahama is "running away". "I am looking forward to a debate with John Mahama on the economy, on the country on the governance. "But I am afraid that he is running away from a debate. His people say he doesn't want to debate. I have never heard an opposition leader who doesn't want to debate. But he knows I will expose the emptiness of his policies, Dr. Bawumia said. Dr. Bawumia added that former President Mahama and his team are unable to explain their 24-hour economy to Ghanaians, hence avoiding the debate. "He says he has a 24-hour economy which he cannot explain. It is as empty as an empty barrel. He cannot explain it and none of his people can explain it. They say they will be exporting lions and elephants." "When we meet mano a mano, we can debate and the country will see where our policies lie and that is where we should go. We should give the country an opportunity to listen to us. If he chooses not to debate, I'll continue to sell my policies." In advanced democracies, presidential debates are firmly rooted as part of the electoral process. Many Ghanaians including civil society groups have called for a debate between the two leading candidates of the election and with Vice President Bawumia throwing the challenge to his opponent, the ball is now in the court of Mr. Mahama. 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 In an interview with talk show host KSM in February 2024, Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, praised the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President. During the interview, KSM asked Agyapong, "Is it the case that since independence we haven't had good leaders, selfless leaders?" In response, Agyapong expressed his admiration for Nkrumah's ideology and leadership. "I believe in Kwame Nkrumah, although I am UP. Read my lips; you can say it until the next day: I believe in Nkrumah." Agyapong continued to extol Nkrumah's contributions to Ghana, highlighting his forward-thinking vision and the lasting impact of his initiatives. "You see, they did a lot of propaganda, and looking at Ghanaian's behaviour today, we needed Nkrumah at that time. You can hang me, and I [will] still stand by what I am saying. Akosombo textiles; everything that Kwame Nkrumah did for this country. He was over 200 years ahead of his peers or time." Acknowledging potential criticism from his political base, he added, "I know where the criticism will come from, but that is me. I am not a young man anymore; I have done my analysis and my studies, and he is a great man," he concluded. Why the video has resurfaced Although Kennedy Agyapong's comment was made months ago, it has become a point of reference following Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh's recent remarks about Nkrumah, which have sparked outrage. The energy minister has come under intense criticism after he was accused of disrespecting Dr. Kwame Nkrumah at his unveiling as the running mate of NPP flagbearer, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. Addressing a gathering of party bigwigs and supporters on Tuesday, June 9, 2024, for his official unveiling in Kumasi, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh emphasized that not even Ghana's first president, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, comes close to President Akufo-Addo when it comes to spearheading development in the country's history. "It has never happened in the history of Ghana. If President Akufo-Addo retires, I can hit my chest and state that since the nation's inception in 1957, there has not been a president who has helped the state more than Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. "I am saying that from 1957 to now, whether you pick 'your' Kwame Nkrumah... there is nobody who has led Ghana and protected the country or developed Ghana more than Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo," he stated. Source: ghanaweb.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghanaian economist and businessman Dr. Kofi Amoah has criticized former New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer hopeful Kennedy Agyapong for prioritizing his loyalty to the party over the country. Despite his criticism of the government and his party's failures, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central joined the party leadership in Kumasi on Tuesday for the unveiling of the partys running mate for the 2024 general election, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. During an address to party faithful, Kennedy Agyapong stressed his decision to support the partys flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, emphasizing his fidelity to the NPP. "Some people were upset with me during my recent visit to Kumasi. I want to remind my supporters that loyalty to the party supersedes personal sentiments. As long as I remain in the NPP, I will actively participate in the partys activities. If you want to be a leader, you must first be a servant of the people," the MP wrote in a later post on X. Reacting to Kennedy Agyapongs post, Dr. Amoah stated that one has no right to leadership if they prioritize the interests of their political party over that of their country. "Anyone who puts a political party over the country cannot lead the people out of their sufferings, especially if those sufferings have been imposed by that particular party. Allegiance must be to the country and to the people, not to a party," he said. "Folks, advise yourselves. You cannot be taken advantage of forever," he stated.

Some people were upset with me during my recent visit to Kumasi. I want to remind my supporters that loyalty to the party supersedes personal sentiments. As long as I remain in the NPP, I will actively participate in the partys activities. If you want to be a leader, you must pic.twitter.com/MqMWwppc4d

Hon. Ken Ohene Agyapong (@honkenagy) July 10, 2024
Source: Twitter/ghanaweb.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (NAPO), has insisted that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has performed better than Ghanas first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. During a courtesy call on the paramount chief of the Wassa Amenfi Traditional Area, Tetrete Okuamoah Sekyim II, on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, NAPO said that he was only speaking the truth. He bemoaned the nature of politicking in Ghana, saying that people who speak the truth are castigated while those who tell lies are glorified. "The tenure of every politician is four years. You have supported Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and he has done all he could in this country, Ghana. I said this and people are criticising me, I said since the independence of Ghana in 1957, from Nkrumah's era to date no government has done better than the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government. "In politics, Nana, if you speak the truth, they say you are arrogant but if you tell lies people will praise you," he told Tetrete Okuamoah Sekyim II in the Akan language. The NPP running mate added, "Nana I'm your son, you didn't train me with lies and fear." Background: The energy minister came under intense criticism after he was accused of disrespecting Dr. Kwame Nkrumah at his unveiling as the running mate of NPP flagbearer, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. NAPO, in his initial remarks at the event, asserted that it is only under the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that Ghana has not experienced hunger. "God has blessed the NPP party. Anybody who says God has not blessed us is a liar. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the only president under whose 8 years of reign there has been no hunger, am I lying? For 8 years, there has been no hunger in Ghana," he said in the Twi dialect. He added, "While the whole world was experiencing hunger, Ghana had food. Let us give thanks to God for what He has done for our party." Source: ghanaweb.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Director of Communications of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has stated that the Akufo-Addo government has achieved significant milestones in the history of the fourth republic, hence, touting the achievements should not be seen as denigration of the legacies of the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory. According to Richard Ahiagbah, the statement made by the running of the Presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh is nothing but a political communication. Taking to his official X page, the NPPs Communication Director stated that, in the arena of politics, and especially in a political season as volatile as the ones Ghanaians have found themselves in, it is a normal thing for politicians to make such remarks and comparisons. This he said, in defense to Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempehs comparison of the achievements of President Akufo-Addo, where he rated Akufo-Addo higher than Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Mr. Ahiagbah wrote, what is political communication without comparisons? Political achievements are not measured, can not be measured, or should not be measured in a vacuum. Comparison is how it is done. This government has achieved significant milestones in the history of our four republics. Stating these unprecedented milestones should not be deemed a slight on the legacies of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah or others. Its political communication. Outlining the numerous achievements of the Akufo-Addo administration, Richard Ahiagbah stated, Some of the unprecedented achievements of this government include: Implementation of a nationwide Free Senior High School (SHS) policy. Provision of one ambulance per constituency. 1D1F, the policy to establish at least one factory in each district. Agenda 111, which entails the construction of 101 district hospitals, 7 regional hospitals, and 3 psychiatric hospitals. Creation of 6 new regions simultaneously to bring development closer to the people. Introduction of mobile money payment interoperability and a comprehensive digitalization agenda to ensure Ghanas active participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Construction of 11,975.96 kilometers of roads, with additional roads currently under construction. Expansion of the School Feeding Program to accommodate 3 million pupils daily." He further maintained, President Akufo-Addos initiative to decentralize power by allowing the people to elect Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs). These accomplishments are genuinely unprecedented. According to available records from the four republics, no other president or head of state has achieved similar feats. I urge you to vote for the Bawumia-Napo ticket to drive more positive developments for Ghana. At the Jubilee Park in Kumasi on July 9, 2024, the NPP orgasnised a colourful unveiling for the newly endorsed running mate, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. Prior to the unveiling, the running mate was introduced to the Asanteman council, where the Asantehene, Otumfuor Osei-Tutu II, was present to give words of advice to Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. Addressing an overwhelmingly enthusiastic and boisterous crowd, Dr. Matythew Opoku Prempeh 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, Dr. Opoku Prempeh emphasised that, President Akufo-Addo has developed this country to the admiration of all. Therefore, we will not allow what happened in 2008 to repeat itself. It will be most appropriate for Nana Akufo-Addo to hand over to his junior brother, Dr Bawumia. However, the statement of the running mate of the NPP did not sit well with supporters of the CPP and the Nkrumaists, who are therefore, calling for an unqualified apology and a retraction of what they describe a rather, an unfortunate comments. The CPP 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 Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has made a compelling case as to why the people in the Northern region should give him the nod to be President of the Republic of Ghana over his main competitor, John Dramani Mahama. At a courtesy call on the paramount chief of Chereponi in the North East region, Dr. Bawumia underscored the fact that although he has not been president before, unlike Mr. John Mahama, he has assisted to bring more development to the northern part of the country. He cited areas in roads, healthcare delivery, education, energy and many others which have all been executed under the tenure of the current government and visible to skeptics. "As you know, per the constitution of Ghana, all the powers are vested in the president. I am Vice President. I have not been President before unlike John Mahama but I have assisted to bring more development to Chereponi and the north than Mahama. It is therefore in the interest of the region to elect me as the president and not Mahama," he argued. Vice President Bawumia pledged his commitment to the development of the people in the North, adding that he will do his best to deliver on the requests made to him. He particularly mentioned the fact that the programme for the extension of rural electrification projects has been approved with work to commence very soon, while modalities for the establishment of the nursing training school are expected to be completed by the end of the year. According to him, the development of the north and the country as a whole remains his topmost priority, and with the support of all Ghanaians, he is poised to deliver accelerated, holistic, transformational leadership. Dr Bawumia, who is in the North East Region on the second day of his nationwide constituency-focused campaign, will tour the Chereponi, Saboba and Mion Constituencies on Thursday. 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 Governance lecturer, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah has debunked the claims by Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Vice Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, regarding Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh was on Tuesday, July 9, outdoored in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, in a colorful ceremony but his statements about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah have taken away the shine of the event. Delivering a speech at the event and comparing track records of the Akufo-Addo and previous administrations, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh alias NAPO asserted that no President in the history of Ghana can ever be compared to President Nana Addo so far as Ghana's development is concerned. 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, he said. Addressing the matter during "Kokrokoo" panel discussion on Peace FM, Dr. Otchere-Ankrah who lectures at the Central University wondered why Dr. Opoku Prempeh would make such comments about Ghana's hero, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. To him, NAPO's statements were distasteful and marred the beauty of his unveiling ceremony. Dr. Otchere-Ankrah listed some major developmental projects that Nkrumah did which remain unprecedented till date, citing the Akosombo Dam and Tema communities among others. He added that, to him, Ex-President John Kufour is far better than President Akufo-Addo in terms of the country's development. "I don't want to stir controversy but President Kufour did better than President Akufo-Addo and you know it," he told host Nana Yaw Kesseh. 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 NPP Member of Parliament for Kade constituency, Alexander Agyare has found Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh's Nkrumah comments unfortunate and hoped his Running Mate hadn't picked on Ghana's first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, in his public speech on Tuesday, July 9. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, affectionately called "NAPO", during his outdooring in Kumasi took a swipe at Dr. Kwame Nkrumah stating 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, he emphasized. Hon. Alexander Agyare, speaking on Peace FM's Thursday edition of "Kokrokoo" show on Peace FM, cautioned Dr. Opoku Prempeh and all political actors to desist from attacking the reputation and legacy of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. To him, "Kwame Nkrumah is our hero. If for nothing at all, he obtained independence for Ghana...and no one can change this," hence warned against denigrating him. 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 A two-year-old and two teenagers were wounded in a shooting in Philadelphia on Thursday night. The incident occurred at about 8:40 p.m. along the 1300 block of North 11th Street, according to 6ABC and NBC10. Police said they found a two-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl suffering from gunshot wounds at the scene. The two-year-old was shot twice in the leg and the teen was shot once in the leg. Both were taken to a hospital and are in stable condition, news reports said. Police said that a 17-year-old who had been shot in the ankles showed up at a hospital shortly afterward. He is also listed in stable condition. Surveillance cameras show a person getting out of a white SUV with tinted windows to fire shots down the block, police said. We know that over 30 shots were fired from a semi-automatic weapon or weapons. We found over 30 spin shell casings, said Chief Inspector Scott Small of the Philadelphia Police Department said to 6ABC. No arrests have been made yet. A Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise is expanding this weekend to Dauphin County with its sweet inventory. Owner Karyn Reber-Hummer said shes opening the shop on Saturday at 5076 Jonestown Road at the Colonial Commons shopping center in Lower Paxton Township. This marks the second location for Reber-Hummer, who opened a Nothing Bundt Cakes last year at 3540 Gettysburg Road in Lower Allen Township near Trader Joes. The former Agora Cyber Charter School administrator said she became hooked on Nothing Bundt Cakes when she visited one of the stores in Philadelphia. The feeling is like being in a Hallmark movie, she said. It is so quaint and gives you a family-owned vibe. Its just a happy feeling. Reber-Hummer said the new 3,700 square-foot shop will accommodate her growing business that has expanded to include vendors for weddings and other events, as well as pop-up shops at local hospitals. The chain originated in Las Vegas when Dena Tripp and Debbie Shwetz started a small baking business in their home kitchens. It has grown to more than 535 franchised and corporate bakeries in 40-plus states and Canada. Nothing Bundt Cakes specializes in a modern twist to the nostalgic bundt cake, which are baked on the premises and custom decorated, including multi-tiered cakes to suit any occasion. It carries three sizes of bundt cakes in nearly a dozen flavors including red velvet, chocolate chocolate chip, lemon, strawberries and cream and confetti, all crowned with a signature cream cheese frosting. Sizes range from bite-sized bundtinis and miniature bundlets to larger 8- and 10-inch cakes. The shop will operate from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday- Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Billie Eilishs Hit Me Hard and Soft Tour sold out very quickly. But, fans can still buy tickets to her concerts. The tour is in support of her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, that was released on May 17, 2024. The tour includes two stops in Pa. - Saturday, Oct. 5, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia; and Sunday, Oct. 13, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. Other stops on the tour are: Sept. 29 - Quebec, Canada Oct. 1 - Toronto, Canada Oct. 2 - Toronto, Canada Oct. 7 - Detroit, Michigan Oct. 9 - Newark, New Jersey Oct. 11 - Boston, Massachusetts Oct. 16 - New York, New York Oct. 17 - New York, New York Oct. 18 - New York, New York Nov. 2 - Atlanta, Georgia Nov. 3 - Atlanta, Georgia Nov. 6 - Nashville, Tennessee Nov. 8 - Cincinnati, Ohio Nov. 10 - St. Paul, Minnesota Nov. 11 - St. Paul, Minnesota Nov. 13 - Chicago, Illinois Nov. 14 - Chicago, Illinois Nov. 16 - Kansas City, Missouri Nov. 17 - Omaha, Nebraska Nov. 19 - Denver, Colorado Nov. 20 - Denver, Colorado Dec. 3 - Vancouver, Canada Dec. 5 - Seattle, Washington Dec. 6 - Seattle, Washington Dec. 8 - Portland, Oregon Dec. 10 - San Jose, California Dec. 11 - San Jose, California Dec. 13 - Glendale, Arizona Dec. 15 - Inglewood, California Dec. 16 - Inglewood, California Dec. 17 - Inglewood, California In February and March 2025, Eilish will perform concerts in Australia followed by Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland in the spring. A Centre County man charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol in Washington has been found guilty on seven of eight charges. Terry Allen, 65, of Spring Mills, was acquitted on one of the two counts of assaulting police officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon but found guilty of the other count. District of Columbia federal Judge Amit P. Mehta heard testimony Monday and Tuesday and announced his verdict in the non-jury trial on Thursday. The judge twice on Tuesday denied defense motions for a directed verdict. The count on which Allen was acquitted accused him of assaulting a capitol police officer with a flagpole. Mehta found him guilty of attacking police officers with a metal pole about 50 minutes later. The prosecution had a picture that showed Allen throwing a black metallic pole at officers standing less than approximately 10 feet away. The other charges on which Allen was found guilty were civil disorder, entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, disorderly or disruptive conduct and engaging in physical violence both in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct and an act of violence both in the Capitol building. Allen maintains he did not engage any police officer and that he acted to protect himself from other rioters and/or police. It was the prosecutions position Allen participated in a collective mob action that disrupted Congress meeting as the Electoral College. Mehta allowed Allen to remain free on personal recognizance pending sentencing. Editors note: This article has been updated to include a comment from Sen. Bob Caseys campaign. As Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey continues to stand firmly behind President Joe Biden, Republican challenger Dave McCormick is hammering away at Casey for backing his good buddy. By Chad Umble, LNP, Lancaster, Pa. (TNS) Stewart McKinsey finally solved the riddle this week about why Wakefield EMS squad car started smoking, sputtering and running rough just before the Fourth of July. After reading some posts on a Quarryville-area Facebook group, he learned that some pumps at the Turkey Hill at the Buck had been dispensing diesel fuel July 2 from what were labeled as regular gas pumps. That prompted him to take the squad vehicle to a mechanic where a fuel test showed that its tank was filled with diesel fuel, which could damage the engine of the vehicle that uses regular gas. As he awaits a repair bill for the squad car, hes getting both ambulances checked as well. Its disruptive as far as not knowing whats going on right now and if were going to have to shell out to get it fixed, said McKinsey, who said the squad car and ambulance had gotten gas on July 2 or 3 from the station. Since we are a lifesaving operation, we want to make sure our vehicles are good to go. A similar mystery has likely been playing out for scores of motorists who got the wrong fuel July 2 at the Turkey Hill at 1010 Lancaster Pike in Drumore Township where a mix-up left some diesel pumps dispensing regular gas and some regular pumps dispensing diesel fuel. Four of the 12 pumps at the station have pumps for both diesel and regular fuel. Motorists interviewed by LNP LancasterOnline reported both getting diesel fuel from pumps labeled for regular gas and regular gas from a pump meant for diesel. A fuel mix-up either way can be catastrophic for an engine if the problem isnt discovered early. It would destroy it. Youd have to replace it, said Krystal Bucher, service manager for Platinum Mitsubishi in East Petersburg, which did a complete fuel cleanout and repair on a regular-gas vehicle that got diesel at Turkey Hill. Diesel fuel is thicker and denser than regular gas and can clog an engine designed to handle regular gas, causing it to seize up. Regular gas ignites more easily than diesel fuel, so putting regular gasoline into an engine designed for diesel can lead to uncontrolled and mistimed detonations that can quickly cause engine damage. After being asked about the issue by LNP LancasterOnline, Nate Hillyer, a spokesperson for Turkey Hill owner EG America issued a statement acknowledging the problem. We are reimbursing those whose vehicles were affected, and working with our team to ensure this does not happen again in the future, the statement said. However, the spokesperson said EG America would not answer follow-up questions about exactly when the fuel was being dispensed, how the mistake happened, and what exactly affected motorists should do to get reimbursed. WILLIAMSPORT-The Pennsylvania College of Technology plans to launch a semiconductor technician apprenticeship available to employers anywhere in the country. That was revealed Thursday after U.S. acting Labor Secretary Julie Sue announced the special mission affiliate of Penn State has been awarded a $4 million grant to expand its apprenticeship programs. The money was awarded because the college knows how to do it right, she said. A tractor-trailer crashed into a Wendys in Lower Swatara Township early Friday morning, tearing down one side of the restaurant. The Wendys at Eisenhower Boulevard and Route 283 had already been crashed into twice since 2021 at the time the tractor-trailer smashed into the building around 3 a.m. Friday. The Lower Swatara Fire Department shared photos of the latest crash on its Facebook page. The photos show the truck tore through the side of the Wendys and stopped upon reaching a Holiday Inn behind the restaurant. Its unclear if the Holiday Inn was also damaged. Its unknown if anyone was hurt in the crash. In February 2021, a car crashed into the Wendys and ended up fully inside the dining room, Lower Swatara police told PennLive at the time. Police said the only person injured was the driver. Last January, a motorcyclist crashed into the restaurant while fleeing Pennsylvania State Police troopers, police said. He suffered life-threatening injuries but survived. My neighbor has several military style rifle replicas inverted in his yard to honor his fallen comrades. However his flagpole flies the American flag upside down. To me, flying the flag upside down as a political statement, just like burning it, disrespects the symbol of our nation. Again, to me, it disrespects the men and women who fought and died for America, no matter their race, religion, or political affiliation. Today, politicians in every level and and branch of government spread lies and misinformation for their own agendas. Some have even suggested they gut or rewrite the Constitution and weaponize the Department of Justice and law enforcement officials. They disrespect the flag, America, and those who died for this country. There is no discussing or compromising on issues. Such actions will only divide America, it will not be a MAGA moment. Dividing America, in the worlds eyes, will only make us weaker and open the door for countries, like Russia and China, to try to become world powers. FYI, I have been a Republican since 1975, but I do not blindly follow the party. I research candidates from all parties. I watch and listen to what they do and say. Then I make my decisions based on what I have learned. I stand for our freedoms and Democracy. I am an American first! John Wise, Silver Spring Township, Pa. A police officer has told a jury that he was able to fire 30 rounds in nine seconds using a prohibited semi-automatic rifle seized from the border blockade at Coutts, Alta. Weapons and ammunition seized by the RCMP are shown in a 2022 handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - RCMP, *MANDATORY CREDIT* Eighteen grams of a white powder substance that was believed to be fentanyl was recovered after a search warrant was executed on the vehicle, which neither of the men acknowledged ownership of, according to authorities. Business / Companies by Staff Reporter Leading financial services institution, Stanbic Bank has been named National Winner for supporting micro, small to medium enterprises in Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC).Stanbic Bank was recognised for coming up with innovative financial products and strategies for SMEs in 2023.The Standard Bank Group subsidiary was rewarded for implementing carefully structured measures that promote the formalisation of SMEs and financial inclusion, as well as for having far reaching and sustainable achievements and milestones that support SMEs development.ZNCC acknowledged Stanbic Bank's focus on serving the needs of SMEs for the last 14 years. The bank's effort in supporting the SMEs has seen the loan book growing year on year with solutions that are tailored for SMEs.The Chamber also recognised the flexibility of Stanbic Bank's lending requirements for SMEs, taking note of the fact that the institution has been intentional in giving focus to SME to the extent of establishing a division that is dedicated to serving SMEs in 2010.Among the innovative financial products which Stanbic Bank introduced last year was the Tobacco Booth, launched in various areas in addition to the bank network. The booths are in Harare (TSF), Marondera, Karoi, Mvurwi, Bindura, Rusape and Chinhoyi and carter for Tobacco farmers so that they easily receive their tobacco sale proceeds.ZNCC applauded Stanbic Bank for setting up an Incubator/ Innovation hub in Harare which was designed with the goal of empowering, nurturing entrepreneurship and innovativeness in SMEs.The incubator hub has programmes that exist to capacitate and upskill existing entrepreneurs and start-ups, through the model which is based on pillars that include Ideation, Incubation and Acceleration.The Chamber noted that Stanbic Bank hosted a financial fitness academy in Midlands, Harare and Mutare that offers financial literacy training to its SME clients.Stanbic Bank also established a Virtual Business Centre dedicated to avail support and assistance through telephony and emails, freeing up time for the clients to focus on their operations rather than frequently visiting the bank.The Chamber acknowledged that Stanbic Bank held quarterly Webinars for its SME clients to educate them on various areas that include regulatory changes, exchange control regulations matters and financial wellnessAmong the achievements or milestones that highlight the institution's success in supporting SMEs development in the previous year was the Rise Above the Noise SME programme. It sought to promote the growth of entrepreneurs banking with Stanbic Bank by offering seed prizes of USD5000, USD2500 and USD1000 to the winner, 1st runner up and 2nd runner up respectively.Stanbic Bank was commended for its innovative Trade solution whereby it facilitates trade in China through the Africa China Trade Solution. This facility unlocks trade relations with the Chinese market as it enables SMEs to have reliable, authenticated, and efficient suppliers in Zimbabwe through an agent Zhejiang International Trading Supply Chain Co Ltd, also known as Guamao.The bank also partnered with Zimtrade in assisting SMEs who are into manufacturing and farming to secure export markets for their products and produce to export through workshops. The partnership helps them to secure new markets. A Controversial Angle & Wild 7-Bet Bubble Hand in WSOP Main Event | PokerNews Podcast #846 Chad Holloway PR & Media Manager Copy link In the 846th episode of the PokerNews Podcast, Chad Holloway and Kyna England are joined at Level 9 Studio by PokerNews Pennsylvania Ambassador Keith Becker, who served as special co-host to talk about the latest happenings at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP). That included a controversial hand from Day 3 that some viewed as an angle and/or scummy, as well as the wild seven-bet bubble hand on Day 4. What two hands could inspire two big stacks to get 120 big blinds all in preflop on the money bubble? Find out here. The trio also take a look at the WSOP Main Event payouts and how they compare to past years, which former Main Event champs lasted the longest, and how both Mo Nuwwarah and Josh Reichard took pre-tournament misfortune and used it as motivation to make a deep run into Day 5. Chad also shares why he was inspired to turn extra links from his WSOP gold bracelet into a pair of gold earrings, while Keith talks about his life in the Keystone State, which includes a successful Twitch stream. As a matter of fact, he even streamed from the recently completed Global Poker x PokerNews Cup, which crowned a pair of Freeroll Finale Champions. Finally, hear about recent WSOP gold bracelet winners including Garth Yettick, Carsten Heidemann, Matthew Alsante, and Chance Kornuth, who took down Event #85: $1,000 Flip & Go for his fourth gold bracelet. Hear from Kornuth himself in our winner's interview. Oh, and don't forget your regular $25K Fantasy update. A new PokerNews Podcast will drop twice weekly during the 2024 WSOP every Tuesday and Friday at 8a PT / 11a ET / 4p UK time. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you do not miss an episode! Tell us who you want to hear from. Let us know what you think of the show tweet about the podcast using #PNPod, and be sure to follow Chad Holloway on X. Time Stamps Subscribe to the PokerNews Podcast on Apple Podcasts here! Check Out Past Episodes of the PN Podcast Here! Share this article Today, the continuation of the 2024 World Series of Poker saw the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas play host to Event #90: $1,500 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha. This three-day event drew in a massive 1,304 entrants, generating a mammoth prize pool of $1,740,840. Tomorrow, the surviving 89 players will continue their race towards the first-place prize of $269,530 and the coveted gold WSOP bracelet. Of the remaining field, David Shaw solidified himself as the largest stack in the room, having bagged and tagged a considerable sum of 1,028,000 by the conclusion of Level 17. Although Shaw eclipsed the one million chip mark, he isnt alone at the top with fellow big stacks Billy Tarango, Zachary Reinbold and Long Tran tailing behind with counts of 983,000, 969,000 and 962,000, respectively. Other notable names to bag included Ludovic Geilich, David Docherty, Jessica Teusl and Jesse Yaginuma. In addition, the $25k Fantasy Draft had a strong showing with John Racener, Chris Hunichen, Brad Ruben and John Riordan all advancing to Day 2. End of Day 1 Top Ten Chip Counts Rank Player Country Chips Big Blinds 1 David Shaw United States 1,028,000 103 2 Billy Tarango United States 983,000 98 3 Zachary Reinbold United States 964,000 96 4 Long Tran United States 962,000 96 5 Thomas Paul United States 937,000 94 6 Alfred Karlsson Sweden 880,000 88 7 Tsugunari Toma Japan 816,000 82 8 J Ward United States 799,000 80 9 Jannick Schob United States 775,000 78 10 Arie Kliper Israel 766,000 77 Bubble Action A total of 196 players made the money, securing a minimum cash of $3,007. It was Level 14 that saw an unconventional bursting of the bubble. With the tournament clock paused and the floor verifying the number of remaining players, David Docherty at Table 59 had already burst the bubble. At showdown, Docherty turned a gutshot straight draw to crack the top set of his opponent, ensuring the remaining field were now all in the money without having to endure the tedious process of hand-for-hand play. More Day One Action Another notable bust was that of Chino Rheem. Throughout the day, Rheem used his aggressive style to win pot after pot, solidifying himself as one of the biggest stacks in the room. However, the strong swings of pot-limit Omaha saw his mountain of chips evaporate into an early exit at the tail end of Level 12. Chino Rheem Those to surpass Rheem and secure a new WSOP cash on their poker resumes but ultimately still joining him on the rail included Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu was quick to let PokerNews know that he meant business as he took to the felt today, however, his exit on Level 15 was a slightly quieter affair. Daniel Negreanu Day 2 will commence tomorrow, July 12, at 12 p.m. local time. Proceedings will start on Level 18 with blinds at 5,000/10,000 with a 10,000 big blind ante. Players will endure ten one-hour-long levels until play concludes before Day 3 on July 13. Keep it locked in with PokerNews to make sure you dont miss a single moment of the action here at the 2024 World Series of Poker. Day 2 of Event #91: $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. (8-Handed) is set to resume at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas when 141 players return for their shot a World Series of Poker bracelet. Leading a star-studded field at the top of the leaderboard is three-time bracelet winner David ODB Baker (533,500). Baker, who won his third World Series of Poker bracelet in 2023 when he won the $1,500 Razz event, got off to roaring start on Day 1. Baker comes into Day 2 with more than a 100,000-chip lead on the player in second place. Paul Campbell (251,000). Also chasing Baker on the leaderboard is Jared Hyman (220,000) in third. End of Day 1 Top Ten Chip Counts Rank Player Country Chips 1 David "ODB" Baker United States 353,500 2 Paul Campbell United States 251,000 3 Jared Hyman United States 220,000 4 Ariel Mantel Argentina 215,500 5 Sean Yu United States 213,500 6 Dario Alioto Italy 212,500 7 Jonathan Williams United States 205,500 8 Curtis Phelps United States 204,500 9 Nghia Le United States 202,500 10 Mark Gregorich United States 201,500 A storyline to follow for Day 2 is the player of the year race between Jeremy Ausmus (147,500) and Scott Seiver (78,000). Seiver is looking for his record breaking fourth gold bracelet in a single summer. Despite the three gold bracelets he's won at the 2024 World Series of Poker, Seiver has not yet locked up the 2024 Player of the Year. Thats because Ausmus has made six final tables this summer, which includes finishing second in Event #47: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em. With the series nearing an end, Ausmus will need another deep run if he wants to snatch the Player of the Year award away from Seiver. Scott Seiver There are several other legends of the poker world returning for Day 2, including Main Event Champion and five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Scotty Nguyen (155,500). Also returning for Day 2, looking for his twelfth gold bracelet and second this summer, is Phil Ivey (129,500). Other bracelet winners in the field include John Racener (189,000), David Williams (179,500), Andrew Kelsall (157,500), Brian Hastings (142,500), Patrick Leonard (101,000), and many more. The players are expected to reach the money at some point during Day 2, but of the 141 returning players, only 54 will make the money. The top prize is $206,321, with a min cash being worth $6,051. Action will resume at 1 p.m. local time on July 12, with players beginning play in Level 13 with 4,000-8,000 betting limits. Players will complete ten one-hour long levels and will have a 15-minute break after every two levels, and a 60-minute dinner break after Level 18. Be sure to follow PokerNews for live coverage and updates throughout this event. Welcome back to PokerNews, the official media partner of the 2024 World Series of Poker and home of live updates from all bracelet events. Today sees the start of Event #92: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em here at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. This three-day event gets underway at 2 p.m. local time, with late registration open for 13 levels. This event allows for one reentry. There will be 15-minute breaks every three levels. The starting stack is 300,000 chips, with the plan for Day 1 to play 12 40-minute levels. For the surviving players or those looking to take advantage of late registration, Day 2 begins at 1 p.m. on July 13 and ends when the final five players are determined. Day 3 is when a champion will be crowned. Last years event attracted 176 entries, generating a prize pool of $8,404,000. The winner was rising star Alex Kulev who defeated Gergely Kulcsar heads-up to win $2,087,073 and his first WSOP bracelet. With this score, Kulev rose to number one on the all-time Bulgaria money list. It feels good, but it doesnt take away from the other players high on that list. Ognyan Dimov and Dimitar Danchev have helped me a lot in my career and I dont like to rank them in any way, its just an honor to be there. Year Entries Winner Country Payout 2023 176 Alex Kulev Bulgaria $2,087,073 2022 107 Joao Vieira Portugal $1,384,415 2021 113 Mikita Badziakouski Belarus $1,462,043 2020 - Not held - - 2019 123 Danny Tang Hong Kong $1,608,406 2018 128 Ben Yu United States $1,650,773 Planning on playing this event? PokerNews activates MyStack for every WSOP event, regardless of that tournament's buy-in, allowing you to directly adjust your chip counts in our live reporting MyStack is a free poker tool that puts you in control of your chip counts on our live reporting pages. Once you have created a free PokerNews account, you can use MyStack to update your chip counts in real time; hopefully, your stack will continue increasing throughout the event! Become a Bigger Part of the Action With MyStack The media has been telling the country for weeks that Bidens age was the issue of the election, but voters said in the new NPR that they are more concerned about honesty and character than age. NPR reported on two findings that explain how Biden leads Trump overall 50%-48%: The survey also found that by a 2-to-1 margin, 68% to 32%, people said its more concerning to have a president who doesnt tell the truth than one who might be too old to serve. A majority said Biden has the character to be president (52%), while a majority also said Trump does not (56%). Where the relentlessly negative media coverage of Biden has taken its toll shows up in 60% of voters surveyed thinking that Trump is going to win the election. Much of this is driven by the media constantly suggesting that if Biden remains in the race, Trump will win the election. What the media is claiming matters most to voters, doesnt matter as much as the honesty of the candidate and their character. Given this result, it seems like the press should spend less time on Bidens age and more time pressing each of the candidates for honestly and holding Trump accountable for his lies. The media is covering this election wrong. The press did the same thing in 2016 when they focused on Hillary Clintons emails instead of Trumps scandals and the threat that he poses to democracy. None of this means that Biden or Trump is certain to win. This election is close. What is clear though is what is most important to the media doesnt matter nearly as much to voters. Authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban implicated Trump in a violation of the Logan Act by repeating that Trump told Putin that he will cut off funding for Ukraine if he returns to the White House. Video of Orban with subtitles: Make no mistake about it: if Trump goes back to the Oval Office, hell hand over Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter.pic.twitter.com/v1TZf1bDKw Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 12, 2024 Orban says in the video above that Trump promised Putin that if he returns to the White House, the United States wont give another penny to Ukraine for the war. If Trump made such a promise, he would be in criminal violation of the Logan Act. The Logan Act states: Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects. If Trump cut a deal with Putin, he broke the law (again). Trump is making deals with dictators to sabotage democracy, which is one of the main reasons that the American people must stand up and not allow him to return to the White House. News / National by Staff reporter Four City of Harare employees, Never Murerwa, Jabulani Mukomazi, Denford Zhungu, and Tawanda Mutenhabundo, have been taken to court on allegations of illegally awarding a US$9 million street lights tender to Juluka Enndo Joint Venture. This company is majority-owned by Moses Mpofu.The accused appeared before Harare magistrate Marewanazvo Gofa and were remanded in custody pending the finalization of their bail hearing. Murerwa and Mukomazi are employed in the Procurement Management Unit as Manager Supply Chain and Principal Buyer, respectively, while Zhungu and Mutenhabundo work as Principal Accountant and Engineering Technician.In January 2024, Harare began rehabilitating street lighting in preparation for the 44th Southern African Development Committee Summit in August 2024. The Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) granted exemptions to expedite key projects for the summit. A tender was published in March, and eleven companies, including Juluka Enndo Joint Venture, responded. Despite Juluka Enndo's disqualification for failing to meet tender requirements, Murerwa, Mukomazi, Zhungu, and Mutenhabundo allegedly awarded them the remaining lots unprocedurally.The accused are said to have bypassed competitive bidding processes and ignored their earlier decision to disqualify Juluka Enndo Joint Venture. The company, linked to Synlak (Pvt) Ltd, had a history of failing to deliver on previous contracts. The tender evaluation committee, involving all four accused, awarded eight of the ten lots to Syvern Investments, Exodus and Company, Ship Tracks, and Onel Engineering, limiting each company to two lots.The National Prosecuting Authority alleges that the accused knowingly acted against their duties to favor Juluka Enndo Joint Venture. The City of Harare, acting on their recommendations, entered into a contract with Juluka Enndo Joint Venture and prepared an advance payment of over US$9 million. This act, according to the court, was intended to extend undue favor to the company. GEORGETOWN With the search for a new Georgetown County superintendent underway, the school district conducted a survey and focus groups to determine what the community wants to see in its next leader. District officials said 280 people participated in the survey, with the majority of them being parents (155). Only two students submitted responses. When asked to rank characteristics of what they would like to see in the new superintendent, with 1 being the least important and 5 being the most important, 222 participants gave skilled communicator (both internal and external) a 5, and 215 participants also gave commitment to community and staff a 5. The characteristic to receive the most 1 ratings on the 1-5 scale was experience as a former superintendent, with that item garnering 29 votes. Another portion of the survey asked participants to choose one of three strategies that the board of trustees should take in choosing the next superintendent. Just under 43 percent of participants answered find a candidate with the same basic educational and management philosophy as the current administration, but who can make some necessary changes. "That was one thing that came out at the focus group meetings," said Judy LeGrand of the South Carolina School Boards Association, which is the firm helping the district with the search. "Don't change just for the sake of change. See what's working. Keep moving forward with that, but if something needs to be changed or improved, work to change it and improve it." "I think the public is correct," GCSD Board Chairman Bill Gaskins said. "That is very important, who can make the necessary changes as we move forward." A little over 37 percent of survey participants answered find a very different kind of candidate one who is ready to take the district in a significantly different direction. Only about 20 percent answered find a candidate who will stay the course and continue the good work of the current administration. Converse Heights was one of Spartanburgs original streetcar suburbs, a leafy enclave east of downtown populated by handsome homes from the first half of the 20th century. One of those homes is 1010 Glendalyn Circle, a 5,400-square-foot residence built in 1941 that went on the market in June. The four-bedroom home on 2.85 acres was listed for $1.75 million. Located on maintained grounds overlooking Lawsons Fork Creek, the residence was the first built on Glendalyn Circle, according to the listing. Recent updates and renovations merge World War II-era character with modern conveniences such as high-end kitchen appliances, a master bath with a glass and tile walk-in shower and jetted soaking tub, walk-in closets and a three-car garage. Period details on the homes exterior include copper gutters, the original terracotta tile roof, hand-chiseled stones on the terrace and covered porch, and solid wooden doors. Inside, a foyer with rounded archways gives way to a wood-paneled study, wide-plank flooring is complemented by tall baseboards, and the formal dining room features hand-painted Gracie wallpaper and an elegant chandelier. Anne Poliakoff and Jennifer Wakefield of Coldwell Banker Caine are the listing agents on the home, which also features several original light fixtures as well as intricate crown molding and detailed millwork. $3.49M listing in Stonewood Farm Another big-ticket listing has hit the market in Stonewood Farm, which from a real estate perspective has been among the most active Greenville neighborhoods of 2024. The new listing is 101 Poplar Hill Lane, a five-bedroom, 10-bath residence which is priced at $3.49 million. According to the listing, the 7,000-square-foot home on a 1.22-acre lot features eight fireplaces, a four-car garage, two laundry rooms, an in-law suite, a home theatre, a billiards room and an elevator shaft. Patrick Furman of Joan Herlong and Associates Sothebys International Realty is the listing agent. News / National by Staff reporter In a recent legal development, the High Court has intervened to order the Ministry of Local Government to return an offer letter withdrawn from land developer N-Frays Infrastructure. The case, brought against the ministry and the Attorney-General, contested the withdrawal of N-Frays' offer letter for a 100-hectare piece of land in Chishawasha B, Goromonzi Farm, intended for residential development.According to court documents, N-Frays initially applied for the land in 2016 and received an offer letter from the ministry in May of that year. The ministry's offer was contingent upon finalizing a memorandum of understanding detailing implementation specifics and timelines.However, N-Frays alleged that the minister subsequently failed to fulfill commitments to allocate the specified land parcel from Chishawasha B Farm. In response to N-Frays' demand for action in May 2023, the minister withdrew the 2016 offer in June 2023, prompting N-Frays to challenge this decision in the High Court.Justice Joseph Chilimbe presided over the case and found the minister's decision to withdraw the offer letter lacking in clarity and rationale. The judge criticized the decision as arbitrary and irrational, noting that it did not adhere to legal standards and deprived N-Frays of the opportunity to present their case adequately.Consequently, Justice Chilimbe ruled in favor of N-Frays, ordering the minister's decision to withdraw the offer letter to be set aside. This ruling allows both parties to resume proceedings according to their respective rights, marking a significant legal victory for N-Frays Infrastructure in their land acquisition dispute. Julie Prommasits husband never drank, smoked or used drugs. A proud Marine, he stuck to a strict regimen, always watching what he ate and never missing his daily workout. But slowly, she started noticing him getting back from the gym later and later. Finally, he admitted he was tired. He needed to nap before he could muster enough energy to exercise. When she convinced him that he needed to see a doctor despite his lifelong fear of hospitals, experts gave him the grim truth: He had liver cancer. She wondered how someone so healthy could become so ill. The answer came to her after he died at only 53 years old. It was the water. He had been stationed at the Jacksonville, N.C., Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune. The federal government has since acknowledged that Marines and their families drank, swam and showered in water mixed with a toxic stew of cancer-causing chemicals from 1953 until 1987. Camp Lejeune killed him, Prommasit told The Post and Courier. Hes not the only likely victim. More than a million people are thought to have been exposed to the toxic water, according to the Camp Lejeune Claims Center. That's nearly five times the number of American servicemembers who were injured in the 20-year war in Afghanistan, according to Department of Defense. "It is one of the most compelling stories of government abuse, of government coverup, of government lying, that I've ever heard of," said Ed Bell, the founder of Bell Legal Group and president of the Charleston School of Law. Bell has been fighting on behalf of those affected by the Camp Lejeune toxic water for nearly 20 years. In 2005, he headed a group of nearly two dozen law firms that brought the initial claims for the illnesses caused by the water. The lawsuits were later dismissed because they were filed outside North Carolina's statute of limitations, Bell said. FLORENCE Florence County residents may soon be able to buck tradition and purchase a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine on Sundays. County Council is poised to put a referendum on the November ballot allowing voters to decide whether beer and wine should be sold seven days a week. The county is one of seven in South Carolina that continues to prohibit the practice, which was once common across the state and commonly referred to as blue laws. The others are Aiken, Barnwell, Cherokee, Dillon, Hampton, Sumter and Union. Council Chairman William Schofield, who proposed the referendum, framed it as giving voters a say on an important policy question. Thats not a choice that government should be making for its citizens. Its citizens should be making that choice at the ballot box, he said in an interview. Schofield is in favor of Sunday sales. He helped pass a similar referendum in 2022 in the city of Florence when he was a City Council member. Voters approved that proposal with 67 percent of the vote. The countys effort is part of a growing movement to put aside longstanding laws that prevent alcohol from being sold on Sundays in the Palmetto State. That includes referendums in cities and counties across South Carolina, as well as legislation at the Statehouse. County Council voted 7-2 in June to approve a countywide referendum. It must still pass a final time in July. Florence, Lake City and Johnsonville have passed similar referendums already. Along with Schofield, council members who voted in favor of the proposal included Jason Springs, Roger Poston, Alphonso Bradley, Kent Caudle, Stoney Toney More and Waymon Mumford. PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 17:00:13 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 403 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Allure Esthetic settled claims with Washington's Attorney General's Office, in order to focus on their core mission of providing care to patients and serving their community.SEATTLE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Allure Esthetic et al., a small family-run medical practice, is pleased to have resolved its case with the Washington's Attorney General's Office. The cooperative settlement, while not admitting fault and resolving claims asserted by both sides, allows Allure Esthetic to continue to focus on its core mission of providing compassionate care to patients and serving our community.The decision to settle was not an easy one, but it was necessary to avoid the overwhelming financial burden of prolonged litigation. This settlement allows us to allocate our resources where they matter most - our patients."We are relieved to have resolved this matter with the Attorney General's Office," said Erin O'Leary, General Counsel. "Our primary commitment has always been and will continue to be the well-being of our patients. This settlement allows us to move forward and focus wholeheartedly on what we love - providing exceptional healthcare services to our community." Allure Esthetic remains steadfast in its dedication to serving the community with integrity and compassion. Despite the obstacles we have faced, our team remains united in our mission to deliver high-quality medical care to every patient who walks through our doors."We want to assure our patients and the community that our commitment to their health and well-being remains unwavering," added Ms. O'Leary. "We are grateful for the continued trust and support of our patients and team members throughout this process." Allure Esthetic extends its heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported us throughout this public litigation and media attention. We look forward to continuing to serve our community with the highest level of care and dedication that has defined us for almost a decade of serving Washingtonians.For more information or inquiries, please contact Erin O'Leary at 206-450-8970 or attorney@ allureesthetic.com About Allure Esthetic: Allure Esthetic is a small, family-run medical practice dedicated to providing compassionate healthcare services in the Seattle area. With a focus on patient care and community service, Allure Esthetic strives to deliver personalized medical treatment in a warm and welcoming environment.Contact InformationMadison JacksonLead content writermadison@ realdrseattle.com Erin O'LearyGeneral Counselattorney@ allureesthetic.com 206-450-8970SOURCE: Allure EstheticView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 22:25:57 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 971 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Top Atlanta Construction Firms are facing significant challenges in recruiting new talent, impacting building project timelines and job productivity. They are getting outside help with an "old school" recruiting strategy.ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Leading construction firms in Atlanta are facing significant recruitment challenges, leading to project delays and reduced productivity. The construction sector, a vital component of Atlanta's booming economy, is currently grappling with a shortage of skilled workers, affecting both residential and commercial projects. This shortage has become a critical issue as the demand for construction continues to rise, driven by both private and public sector investments. The lack of skilled labor is causing significant bottlenecks, slowing down the progress of many projects. Construction companies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet deadlines, which is affecting their reputation and client satisfaction.Atlanta construction companies are turning to traditional recruiting methods as they face difficulties in hiring new talent, affecting project timelines and productivity. Image Credit: Mudkung / 123RF."Leading construction firms in Atlanta are facing significant recruitment challenges, leading to project delays and reduced productivity. Many of these companies have been quietly engaging our firm for outside help. Our proven 'old school' headhunting strategic approach is helping them find the right talent to keep their projects on track. Although many of our client companies have their own in-house recruiting and talent acquisition teams and publicly claim they do not use outside recruiting firms, they often turn to us in private when a key hire is needed fast," said Josh Rae, CEO ofJPI Executive Search , one of the most highly-sought afterAtlanta Construction Recruitersin Georgia and the Southeast Region, for commercial construction recruiting and talent acquisition.Growing Construction Talent Gap ShortageThe talent gap in the construction industry is widening, with many companies struggling to find qualified candidates to fill essential roles. This shortage is not only slowing down ongoing projects but also hindering the commencement of new ones, ultimately impacting the city's growth and development. The issue is exacerbated by an aging workforce, with many experienced professionals retiring and not enough young talent entering the field. Educational institutions are struggling to produce graduates with the necessary skills and experience to meet industry demands. As a result, the competition for skilled workers is fierce, driving up wages and making it even more difficult for companies to attract and retain talent.Outside Help: An "Old School" Construction Recruiting StrategyTo address these pressing issues, many construction firms in Atlanta are turning to external recruitment agencies for assistance. Despite having their own in-houserecruiting and talent acquisitionteams, these companies are seeking outside help to expedite the hiring process and secure top talent swiftly. These external agencies bring a wealth of experience and a vast network of contacts, enabling them to identify and recruit candidates that might otherwise be overlooked. This strategic move allows construction firms to fill critical positions quickly, minimizing project delays and maintaining productivity. The decision to seek external help, though often kept confidential, highlights the severity of therecruitment challengesfaced by the industry.The "Old School" Construction Recruitment ApproachJPI Executive Search (JPI) employs a traditional headhunting strategy, which involves personalized recruitment techniques and an extensive network of industry contacts. This approach allows them to identify and attract candidates who might not be actively seeking new opportunities but are highly qualified and experienced. By leveraging relationships built over years of industry involvement, JPI can tap into a hidden talent pool that is often inaccessible through standard recruitment channels. This method also includes thorough vetting and background checks to ensure that the candidates presented are the best fit for the roles. The personalized touch of the "old school" approach ensures a higher success rate in placements and reduces the likelihood of turnover.The Impact of New Hires on Construction Project TimelinesThe inability to fill critical positions promptly has led to significant project delays. Construction timelines are being extended, and the pressure on existing staff is increasing, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. These delays can have a cascading effect, causing contractors to miss important milestones and incurring financial penalties. The extended timelines also impact the broader community, delaying the availability of new housing, commercial spaces, and infrastructure improvements. By leveraging the expertise of firms like JPI Executive Search, construction companies can mitigate these issues and maintain their project schedules. Swift hiring solutions enable firms to allocate resources more efficiently and keep their projects on track.Productivity Concerns on Construction OperationsReduced productivity is another major concern. With a limited workforce, the efficiency of construction operations is compromised. Tasks that require specific skills and expertise are often left uncompleted, affecting the overall quality and progress of the projects. This can lead to increased costs as companies may need to hire temporary workers or subcontractors, who might not have the same level of commitment or expertise. The stress on existing employees can also result in higher rates of absenteeism and lower morale. Addressing these productivity concerns througheffective recruitment strategiesis essential for maintaining high standards of workmanship and ensuring project success.Confidentiality in Construction RecruitmentDespite the reliance on external recruitment agencies, many construction firms prefer to keep this collaboration confidential. Publicly, they maintain that their in-house teams handle all recruitment needs, but privately, they acknowledge the necessity of external assistance for critical hires. This confidentiality helps protect the companies' reputations and maintains the confidence of their stakeholders. It also allows them to continue presenting a strong image of self-sufficiency and competence. However, the use of external recruiters is a pragmatic decision that reflects the realities of the current job market and the urgent need for skilled labor.The Role of JPI Executive Search in Atlanta Construction MarketJPI Executive Search has established itself as a leading recruiter in the construction industry, particularly in the South PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 21:47:27 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 557 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NORFOLK, VA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Chef Antonio "Tony" Caruana, the dynamic force behind Luce in Norfolk and Luce Secondo in Chesapeake, has been named "Best Chef" by the readers of Coastal Virginia Magazine in their annual CoVa Best Of Readers' Choice Awards. This prestigious accolade comes as no surprise to those familiar with Chef Caruana's innovative approach to Italian cuisine and his unwavering dedication to excellence.Chef Caruana's culinary journey is marked by his fearless spirit and a relentless pursuit of perfection. He has been at the helm of Luce, where his modern take on traditional Italian dishes has garnered widespread acclaim. This year, Luce has been recognized in multiple categories in the CoVa Best of Awards, including Best Restaurant Overall, Best Fine Dining, and Best Service/Waitstaff, solidifying its status as a premier dining destination in the region.In addition to his recent accolades, Chef Caruana has been featured on the cover of the 2024 food issue of Coastal Virginia Magazine. The magazine highlighted him among a select group of chefs who are "helping define our region's cuisine," a testament to his significant impact on the local culinary landscape.Chef Caruana's passion for food extends beyond the kitchen. His adventurous spirit is reflected in his love for motorcycles, bringing an electrifying fusion of traditional cooking and high-octane intensity to his creations. Each dish crafted by Chef Caruana is a narrative rich with tales of his travels and the adrenaline rush of his rides, offering diners a unique taste of freedom and authenticity.Luce Secondo, Chef Caruana's latest venture at Summit Pointe in Chesapeake, promises to elevate the dining scene with his signature Italian fusion cuisine. Set in a beautifully designed space, Luce Secondo is poised to become a central hub for food enthusiasts, offering a vibrant expression of life's most exhilarating moments through meticulously crafted dishes."Food is more than just a meal-it's a vibrant expression of life's most exhilarating moments," says Chef Caruana. "At Luce and Luce Secondo, we pay respect to the origins and traditions of Italian food while infusing it with our own twist, taste, and flair." As Chef Caruana continues to push culinary boundaries and create unforgettable dining experiences, his contributions to the restaurant industry and the community are undeniable. His fearless approach and meticulous eye for detail have set a new standard for excellence, making every meal at his establishments a bold statement of respect for heritage and a thrilling pulse of contemporary life.About UsLuce in Norfolk and Luce Secondo in Chesapeake are the culinary creations of celebrated Chef Antonio "Tony" Caruana. Known for their exquisite blend of traditional Italian cuisine and contemporary innovation, both restaurants deliver award winning and exceptional dining experiences. Chef Tony's passion for quality and creativity shines in every dish, using the freshest, locally sourced ingredients. Recognized by Coastal Virginia Magazine in their CoVa Best Of Readers' Choice Awards, Chef Tony continues to set new standards in the industry.For more information, visit https://lucenorfolk.com and https://www.lucesecondo.com #LuceNorfolk, #LuceSecondo, #ChefTony, #ItalianCuisine, #FineDining, #CulinaryExcellence, #GourmetDining, #NorfolkVA, #ChesapeakeVA, #CulinaryInnovation, #LocalIngredients, #CoVaAwards, #BestChef, #ItalianFusion, #DiningExperience, #Foodie, #Restaurant, #Gastronomy, #ModernItalian, #ChefLife, #EATalian, #FoodPassion, #EatLocal, #CulinaryArtistry.Contact DetailsLuce, Luce Secondo Nicki Pelone+1 757-502-7260Company WebsiteSOURCE: LUCE RESTURANT PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 15:00:43 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 566 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Known as "Starbucks of the East", HEYTEA is the first new Asian tea chain brand to enter the French marketThe privately-owned Chinese brand has revolutionised the entire tea drinking industry in China where the market value of new-style tea drinks is likely to surpass $27.88 billion in 2025LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / In a bold move, Chinese brand HEYTEA is ready to captivate the European market during the Olympics as it launches its innovative beverage collection in mainland Europe. With an impressive customer base of over 100 million globally, HEYTEA is set to introduce its distinctive range of teas to Paris, the cheese capital of the world. Collaborating with the trendy Chinese restaurant chain, BAO Family, HEYTEA will showcase its exceptional products at a pop-up location in the heart of Paris, France.HEYTEA, the pioneer of Cheese Tea, combines the tradition of tea with a tantalizing layer of fresh cheese, offering a unique and flavourful experience. Venturing beyond its roots as a modest tea shop in Guangdong in 2012, HEYTEA has taken the beverage world by storm by revolutionizing the tea industry with its 'new style tea' movement. By incorporating fresh ingredients such as fruits, tea leaves, premium milk, and natural sweeteners, HEYTEA has emerged as a leading innovator in the tea market across Asia.Yujia Gu, Vice President, Overseas Strategy & Franchise, HEYTEA comments, "Firstly, we believe that Paris is THE place to bring our brand to consumers this summer. The eyes of the world will be on Paris because of the Olympics and there will also be many tourists visiting this wonderful city.Secondly, we know that Parisians have a great love for fine food and beverages. We, HEYTEA is the originator of Cheese tea, we created Cheese Tea, with a layer of cheese foam on the top. It has attracted lots of consumers.This is a fantastic opportunity for French consumers to get to know and love our new-style teas. That's why we have launched our pop up in association with BAO Family, as we share similar brand values in leading Chinese culture trend. "Already known for its partnerships with brands like FENDI, Adidas, and Fragment. HEYTEA and BAO Family are joining forces to create a pop-up at Bao Express, in the heart of the 11th arrondissement.HEYTEA's strategic expansion plans have extended to various countries including Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and South Korea. Powered by a recent financing round of 500 million USD in 2021, HEYTEA has secured significant investments from renowned entities like IDG, Sequoia China, Tencent, and other leading capital firms. The brand's foray into the U.S. market with the opening of its Broadway store in New York has also garnered wide acclaim, with an extraordinary sales volume of 2,500 cups on the launch day.As HEYTEA continues to push boundaries and redefine the tea culture, the partnership with BAO Family marks a significant moment for both brands. The exclusive pop-up at Bao Express in the vibrant 11th arrondissement of Paris will introduce French consumers to HEYTEA's iconic beverages, including Grape Boom (the original), Mango Grapefruit Boom, Supreme Brown Sugar Bobo Milk (the original), and Cheese Green Tea (the original). Unveiling a fusion of tradition and modernity, HEYTEA aims to leave a lasting impression on the discerning palates of Parisian tea enthusiasts.-ENDS-For media inquiries, please contact newsroom@ markettiers.com About HEYTEA:SOURCE: HEYTEA News / National by Staff reporter In a significant legal case in Harare, Martin Murimirambewa and Shakespear Karuwa, both lawyers, have been implicated in a US$500,000 fraud scandal involving businessman Frank Buyanga.The case, heard before Magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa, centers on allegations that in 2009, Chamunorwa Matsika of Monoliser Investments (Pvt) Ltd secured a US$30,000 loan from Buyanga, using property in Hurungwe as collateral valued at over US$500,000.Matsika later discovered that Buyanga's office was closed and found indications that Buyanga was wanted for fraud in multiple cases. Upon investigation, Matsika learned that his property had been transferred to Hamilton Property Ltd, prompting civil proceedings.Further investigations revealed that Murimirambewa and Karuwa, alongside Buyanga, allegedly manipulated processes to secure a capital gains tax certificate and subsequently register a deed of transfer at the Deeds Office without proper documentation. This fraudulent act purportedly caused Matsika to suffer a financial loss equivalent to the property's value.Despite their bail release pending ongoing investigations scheduled for September 3, the case underscores serious allegations of collusion involving legal professionals and a prominent businessman, highlighting systemic vulnerabilities in property transaction oversight in Zimbabwe. PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 12:36:39 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 611 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Corky Taylor Recognized Amongst Individuals That Have Made a Significant and Transformational Impact on Bourbon's Stature, Growth and AwarenessLOUISVILLE, KY / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 /Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. is honored to share that R.M. Corky Taylor, 4th Generation and Chairman/CEO of Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co., has been included in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame's 2024 class. Corky Taylor is a respected businessman throughout the country. A tireless Bourbon entrepreneur by birth, Corky came out of retirement to focus on a lifelong dream to resurrect Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. with his son Carson.Corky Taylor, Chairman/CEO, Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. Corky Taylor to be Inducted Into 2024 Kentucky Bourbon Hall of FameHe built back the family legacy in Louisville along historic Whiskey Row, gaining national recognition - and national awards - by patiently waiting for his whiskey to age, living up to the original Peerless quality standards his ancestor first set in 1889. He continues his goodwill in supporting his local community. His personality shines as he happily greets customers visiting the distillery. When you meet Corky Taylor, you make a friend for life."I am honored and humbled to accept this Hall of Fame induction. This honor goes back to my great-grandfather who started Peerless in 1889. My son Carson and I built the distillery from the ground up, and it is the employees who have helped resurrect the Peerless brand, as well as built a company that is known in all 50 states. It takes a team to be successful and I am proud of our history and the people who helped build Peerless to what it is today. Thank you for this honor," Corky Taylor, Chairman/CEO, Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co., said.Eric Gregory, longtime president of the Kentucky Distillers' Association that created and operates the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, lauded this year's visionary class and said, "Our signature Bourbon industry would not be what it is today without these distinguished honorees. Each put the industry before self, helping Kentucky cement its place in history as the international and undisputed home of Bourbon. And now we are honored to honor them. On behalf of our signature industry, we offer congratulations - and a heartfelt thank you - to these Bourbon heroes." The KDA created the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2001 to recognize individuals and organizations that have made a significant and transformational impact on the Bourbon industry. It is the highest honor given by the signature industry. Candidates are nominated each year by the KDA and its member distilleries. A blue-ribbon committee - including all living recipients of the Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award - painstakingly reviews and selects up to five applicants a year for induction.This year's class, in alphabetic order, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in September: Elmer Lucille Allen, Dee Ford, Ken Lewis, the late Peter T. Loftin, and R.M. Corky Taylor. The invitation-only ceremony will be held Tuesday, Sept. 10, at The Legacy at Log Still in Nelson County, Kentucky. The intimate event is held annually in conjunction with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown.About Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co. The family-owned and operated craft distillery is located in Louisville, Kentucky. The distillery is known for its commitment to producing handcrafted, sweet mash bourbon and rye whiskey using traditional methods and the finest ingredients. Today, Peerless operates under the same distilled spirits number, DSP-KY-50, with the same historically superlative standards. It has opted to craft entirely in-house without outsourcing or comprising.Contact Information Cadie TuckerMarketingcadie@ kentuckypeerless.com (502) 566-4999Christina VassalloMarketing Managerchristina@ kentuckypeerless.com 50244421892SOURCE: Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co.View the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 21:05:07 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 337 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Correction of Election Security Report URL: Physical Security During an Election: Expect the Unexpected and Prepare for it AllIRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 /Allied Universal , the leading provider of security solutions for the government sector, has released a 2024 special report titledPhysical Security During an Election: Expect the Unexpected and Prepare for it All. The report utilizes intelligence and experience to identify potential physical security threats that could impact the safety and operations of businesses and their assets in the U.S. during a presidential election."A partisan environment is seething with hostility and division, multiple wars are being waged overseas, and law enforcement is eyeing the risk of violence ahead of what could be an election unlike any other in American history," said Allied Universal Global Chairman and CEO Steve Jones. "In this special report, we are providing security leaders with the information necessary to identify risks, prepare contingency plans and predict when and where to deploy resources." The report details security strategies and tactics based on the election cycle's events including national conventions, debates, election day and the presidential inauguration. Potential security issues along with mitigation approaches are addressed in the report and include civil unrest, active shooter, crowd control, insider threats, infrastructure attacks, cyber threats, domestic extremism, the spread of misinformation and conflict resolution within organizations.About Allied UniversalThe world's leading security and facility services provider and trusted partner to more than 400 of the FORTUNE 500, Allied Universal delivers unparalleled customer relationships, innovative solutions, cutting-edge smart technologies and tailored services that enable clients to focus on their core businesses. With operations in over 100 countries, Allied Universal is the third-largest private employer in North America and seventh in the world. Annual revenue is more than $20 billion. There is no greater purpose and responsibility than serving and safeguarding customers, communities and people. For more information, visit www.aus.com Media Contact:Kari GarciaDirector of Public Relations - North AmericaPhone: 949-826-3560Email: Kari.Garcia@aus.com Newsroom: ausnewsroom@ aus.com SOURCE: Allied Universal PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 22:05:26 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 750 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Hair restoration is now within reach.DELFT, ZUID-HOLLAND, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Hair loss can be a deeply distressing experience, profoundly affecting one's self-esteem and confidence. For a long time, hair transplants have been considered out of reach due to the heavy costs associated with traveling to countries where they are offered and the price of the procedures. However, the trend is changing as people now prefer undergoing treatment in their own country to rely on familiar medical regulations and expected quality standards.In the Netherlands, Hairtec Haarkliniek, a leading hair transplant clinic, is at the forefront of making hair restoration accessible through innovative procedures and exceptional care."We understand the emotional impact of hair loss, and therefore strive to offer you comprehensive services to empower you on your hair restoration journey," said D. Sahan, a representative of Hairtec Haarkliniek. "With us, you can make your dream of thicker, fuller, healthier hair a reality." For those who have previously considered haartransplantatie cost-prohibitive and out of reach, Hairtec Haarkliniek's team of experts is breaking down those barriers. The clinic is committed to offering accessible hair restoration solutions through its comprehensive suite of services. From hair transplantation to hair boosters, aftercare, and research into new technologies, Hairtec Haarkliniek is passionate about helping people achieve their hair goals.First, Hairtec Haarkliniek is bringing exceptional hair restoration services to the Netherlands to solve the out-of-reach challenge for most people. Known for its high-quality medical care and advanced technologies in cosmetic medicine, the Netherlands offers the perfect environment for the hair transplantation industry to flourish, and it has become a go-to for local and international patients.Knowing that haartransplantatie kosten are costly and permanent, Hairtec Haarkliniek guarantees transparency and an all-in-one price. Various factors affect the cost of a procedure, including the technique used, which is why the clinic holds extensive consultation sessions with its patients to determine the best treatment plan. The clinic also offers outpatient hair transplant treatments to ensure patients have a short, comfortable, and affordable hair restoration experience that delivers on quality.Hairtec Haarkliniek stands out in the hair transplant industry for its unwavering commitment to excellence. With extensive experience and a team of highly skilled specialists, the clinic provides personalized treatment plans using the latest advancements in hair transplant technology. This includes DHI hair transplant, Sapphire FUE hair transplant, XL hair mesotherapy, receptor treatment, eyebrow hair transplant, and beard & mustache hair transplant. Moreover, these minimally invasive treatments offer patients a natural hairline and density with minimal scarring and accelerated recovery. "Technologically charged procedures for hair transplantation have been a godsend for many who suffer from hair loss," added Sahan.As a growing area of cosmetic medicine, hair transplantation has seen an increasing number of people find their way to clinics worldwide. However, this has also bombarded people with a lot of complex information on hair transplants, which leaves people confused about procedures and makes informed decision-making difficult. Part of Hairtec Haarkliniek's mission to make hair restoration accessible is to ensure that people sufficiently understand hair transplantation so they can make the best decision. Hairtec Haarkliniek prioritizes patient well-being, offering personalized consultations and support throughout their hair restoration journey."We understand that it can be difficult to make the right decision on the best hair transplant treatment with so much choice on the internet," said Sahan. "At Hairtec, we believe clear and honest communication is the core of successful treatment and patient satisfaction. By equipping our patients with hair transplantation knowledge, we are actively helping ensure the success of their hair restoration plans. We take you step by step through the treatment process and everything you need to expect from pricing to recovery, to ensure that you will not be faced with any surprises afterward." Hairtec Haarkliniek continues to be a leading hair transplantation clinic that is transforming lives. The clinic urges those considering hair restoration to fully commit to the process by starting with the consultation phase to discuss their individual needs and goals and work with experts to develop a personalized hair restoration treatment plan that fits their needs and budget. Hairtec Haarkliniek is also devoted to advancing the hair transplantation industry through industry-leading hair restoration services. The clinic is at the forefront of making hair restoration in the Netherlands and furthering collaboration and innovation within the industry.Contact Details:Business: Hairtec Haarkliniek Contact Name: D. Sahan Contact Email: contact@ hairtec.nlCountry: Netherlands Website: https://hairtec.nl/ SOURCE: Hairtec Haarkliniek PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 14:00:35 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 487 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The leading creative high-tech company launched the newest HTVRONT Manual Heat Press on 28th June and will set the machine on pre-sale on 23rd July with an early-bird offer.SACRAMENTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / HTVRONT, a well-known handicraft machine brand, announced its self-designed new manual heat press, exclusive to household scenarios and small businesses. It will be on pre-sale with a 15% discount perk on 23rd July. Developed in collaboration with higher security and convenience, the HTVRONT Manual Heat Press aims to tackle the traditional heat press machines' most pressing challenges, including uneven and slow heating up, hard press-down, heat hovering above hands, shell with sharp corners, and more.HTVRONT Manual Heat Press To address these challenges, the HTVRONT product team is turning to intelligent solutions that harness the power of heat distribution, stability, and safety. The Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) thermistor technology, along with the attached improved soleplate, is a crucial element of the household manual heat press machine, ensuring a fast and uniform heat emission. HTVRONT leverages such impressive heating combinations to accelerate the ironing process so as to optimize the efficiency of creative activities."Even with the long and hard challenge along the journey, we never consider compromising the quality and affordability and undermining our customers' interests. All those unpredictable hardships can only serve as a stimulus to march us forward for better products with unrelenting work," stated Amy, the product's chief designer and chairman of HTVRONT, "And the newest device is built upon such a principle. With the added weight component for higher stability, a 180-degree rotatable plate, and an independent control pad for enhanced security, customers are expected to enjoy a more soothing and hassle-free DIY experience." In addition to improving security, the pad has proven its effectiveness in household and professional use, enabling real-time intelligible observations via the easy-to-adjust heat settings and intuitive digital screen. Such a comprehensive approach empowers crafters to proactively optimize the most suitable ironing temperature and time for diverse materials and substrates of different brands.To facilitate certain pressure adjustments for masterful projects, the HTVRONT Manual Heat Press is born with a pressure regulator and press-down handle in a more modern and concise look compared to the existing industrial ones. This enables greater craft perfection and ensures safety under the improvement of round shell corner designs.This machine, designed to cater to the needs of household and commercial massive production and convenience, is released at $189.99 on 23rd July on the official website with around 15% off and will be sold on Amazon on 8th August.Details on pricing and more information about HTVRONT Manual Heat Press are available at https://shrsl.com/4ltwx For regular updates on HTVRONT, follow us on:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/htvront Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/htvront TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@htvront Contact InformationKimberly XiongBrand PRkimberly@ htvront.com +8619542807347SOURCE: HTVRONTView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 18:15:23 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 12, 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: 2024-07-12 17:06:00 Press Information Published by ACN Newswire +65 6304 8926 e-mail https://www.acnnewswire.com/ # 646 Words ACN Newswire+65 6304 8926 BANGKOK, July 12, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - KSL Capital Partners, a prominent private equity firm boasting over 165 companies in its portfolio and managing a staggering $21 billion in assets, is known for its keen eye for exceptional businesses. With a focus on operational expertise and collaborative partnerships, one might wonder how such a powerhouse could find itself entangled in the web of controversy surrounding Soneva Resorts and its CEO, Sonu Shivdasani.Soneva, formerly Soneva Resorts and Residences, stands as a testament to luxury hospitality, with its roots tracing back to its founding in the Maldives in 1995 by Sonu Shivdasani and his wife, Eva Malmstrom Shivdasani. However, beneath its lavish facade lie a series of legal battles and controversies that should have raised red flags during any thorough due diligence process.One of the most damning revelations surrounds Soneva's association with Ahmed Adeeb, the former Minister of Tourism in the Maldives, who is now imprisoned for corruption. In 2018, an OCCRP report shed light on Soneva's partnership with Adeeb, exposing how the Shivdasanis obtained the island of Medhufaru, now home to their Soneva Jani resort, through a dubious no-bid contract facilitated by Adeeb. This revelation not only tarnished Soneva's reputation but also implicated the resort in a larger scandal of corruption and embezzlement.Furthermore, Soneva Kiri Resort in Thailand faced legal scrutiny following a devastating fire in March 2022. Investigations revealed that the resort was not constructed in compliance with safety standards, leading to charges against Sonu Shivdasani and other executives for negligence and endangerment. Shockingly, it was reported that the villa where the fire originated had never been inspected for fire safety, highlighting a blatant disregard for regulations. Sonu was even summoned for questioning by the Thai criminal authorities, but he refused to appear.In yet another lawsuit, Sonu Shivdasani was accused of orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to deceive investors into purchasing properties at the Soneva Kiri Resort. A Swiss individual alleged that Shivdasani failed to deliver a villa and surrounding land worth $6.2 million, leading to a legal battle that spanned multiple jurisdictions. This case not only exposed the dark underbelly of Soneva's business practices but also raised questions about the due diligence process undertaken by investors like KSL Capital Partners.So, how could a firm like KSL, renowned for its operational expertise and rigorous due diligence, be blindsided by the controversies surrounding Soneva and Sonu Shivdasani. The answer lies in a failure to dig deep enough into the company's history and practices.While KSL's operational perspective undoubtedly provides valuable insights into the hospitality industry, it appears that their due diligence process fell short in assessing the ethical and legal implications of partnering with Soneva. A more comprehensive investigation should have raised concerns about Soneva's opaque dealings with corrupt officials, its disregard for safety standards, and its alleged involvement in fraudulent schemes.Moving forward, KSL and other investors must adopt a more holistic approach to due diligence, one that goes beyond financial metrics to scrutinize the integrity and ethical standards of potential partners. This may involve conducting thorough background checks, engaging independent auditors to assess compliance with regulations, and scrutinizing past legal disputes for any red flags.Also, investors must prioritize transparency and accountability in their partnerships, ensuring that their portfolio companies adhere to the highest standards of ethics and governance. By learning from the cautionary tale of Soneva, KSL and others can mitigate the risks of being hoodwinked into investing in companies with questionable practices, safeguarding both their reputations and their bottom lines.About KSLKSLs unmatched 30-year track record investing exclusively in Travel & Leisure drives our ability to identify and execute on investments. We bring our operator-first mindset, first-hand experience and commitment to responsible stewardship to partner with best-in-class management teams designed to achieve exceptional outcomes. For more information, visit https://www.kslcapital.com/ . Media Contact:Archie KnowlesSupport@ P2Markets.com Source: P2Markets.Com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 22:05:19 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 588 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / A groundbreaking sales system is turning heads in the business world, offering mom entrepreneurs a path to success that aligns with the increasingly popular #softlife movement. Designed specifically for moms with zero tech knowledge, the Ignite Sales System, developed by Caroline Balinska, is challenging the long-standing hustle culture. Caroline, the host of the new podcast "More Clients Less Hustle," is leading the way with strategies especially for "mompreneurs," providing a refreshing alternative for those seeking balance between professional achievement and personal/family well-being.At the heart of this innovative approach is the Voice of the Customer (VoC) methodology. By prioritizing a deep understanding of customer needs and preferences, the Ignite system enables entrepreneurs to create products and services that truly resonate with their target audience. This customer-centric focus has led to significant improvements in sales and customer satisfaction for many businesses adopting the system.The Ignite Sales System also incorporates a strategic framework known as the Magic Triangle. This concept helps entrepreneurs find the sweet spot where their offerings, marketing strategies, and customer needs align perfectly. By achieving this balance, businesses can maximize their growth potential without falling into the trap of constant overwork often associated with traditional hustle culture.One of the most striking features of the Ignite system is its emphasis on customization. Recognizing that every mompreneur faces unique challenges and opportunities, the system creates tailored strategies for each business it works with. This personalized approach ensures that growth strategies are perfectly aligned with the entrepreneur's goals, resources, and lifestyle preferences, supporting the #softlife ethos.Another key component of the Ignite Sales System is its focus on selecting the right lead generation methods. By carefully considering both the entrepreneur's strengths and the preferences of their potential clients, the system helps businesses choose the most effective ways to attract high-quality leads. This targeted approach not only saves time and resources but also results in a higher conversion rate, allowing mom entrepreneurs to work smarter, not harder.The impact of the Ignite Sales System on mom entrepreneurs has been significant. Many report substantial increases in sales and customer engagement, all while maintaining the work-life balance they desire. This success is particularly noteworthy as it directly challenges the notion that constant hustle and sacrifice are necessary for business success.As the business landscape continues to evolve, systems like Ignite are becoming increasingly valuable. The ability to adapt quickly to market changes and customer needs is crucial, and the Ignite Sales System provides mom entrepreneurs with the tools and strategies to do just that, without compromising their personal lives or falling into the trap of burnout culture.The implications of this system extend beyond individual businesses. By empowering mompreneurs to build successful, sustainable businesses while maintaining a soft life, it contributes to a shift in work culture and promotes a healthier approach to entrepreneurship. It also sets an example for aspiring entrepreneurs, showing that it's possible to build a thriving business while prioritizing personal well-being and family time.As more mom entrepreneurs adopt the Ignite Sales System, it's likely to drive innovation in various industries. The unique perspectives and ideas brought by these entrepreneurs, combined with the effective strategies provided by the system, have the potential to introduce new products, services, and business models to the market, all while promoting a more balanced approach to work and life.Contact Information: Company Name: More Clients Less HustleContact Person: Caroline BalinskaContact Email: caroline@ balinska.com Website: https://moreclientslesshustle.com/ SOURCE: More Clients Less Hustle PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 23:31:02 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 550 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / NAEGELI Deposition & Trial , a leading national court reporting and litigation support firm, opens its doors at a new location in Houston, Texas. Situated at 717 Texas Ave, Suite 1200A, Houston, TX, 77002, the new office will serve the growing legal community in Houston and surrounding areas, providing exceptional court reporting, legal transcription, videography, interpreting, and trial presentation services.Houston: A Thriving Legal Market for NAEGELI Deposition & TrialHouston is a major center for the legal industry in the United States. Home to numerous Fortune 500 companies and a vibrant legal community, Houston presents a significant opportunity for NAEGELI Deposition & Trial to expand its reach and provide its high-quality services to a wider range of clients.The new Houston location provides easy access for clients throughout the Houston area. Additionally, the proximity to the Post Oak Hotel and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) makes it a convenient choice for attorneys and legal professionals traveling to Houston for cases.Benefits for Houston's Legal CommunityThe Houston location offers a range of benefits for the city's legal community, including:Highly Skilled Court Reporters: NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is renowned for its team of highly skilled and experienced court reporters. The company's meticulous screening process ensures that clients receive accurate and timely transcripts every time.Nationwide Coverage: NAEGELI Deposition & Trial boasts a national network of court reporters and videographers, allowing them to handle cases efficiently regardless of location.Comprehensive Litigation Support Services: In addition to court reporting and transcription, NAEGELI Deposition & Trial offers a comprehensive suite of litigation support services, including videography, interpreting, copying and scanning, and trial presentation services. This one-stop-shop approach streamlines the litigation process for clients.Unparalleled Client Service: NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is dedicated to providing exceptional client service. The company's team of experienced professionals is available 24/7 to answer questions and address client needs.Expert Support with Unparalleled SecurityNAEGELI Deposition & Trial is committed to providing its clients with high quality services and exceptional customer service. The company's team of dedicated professionals is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that clients receive the support they need.NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is also committed to security and confidentiality. The company is HIPAA-certified and maintains a strict chain of custody to ensure that client materials are always handled with the utmost care.NAEGELI Deposition & Trial's Full Suite of Legal SupportWith the opening of its new Houston location, NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is further solidifying its position as a leading provider of legal services nationwide. The company's commitment to quality, service, and security makes it a trusted partner for legal professionals across the country.The company's commitment to quality, service, and innovation ensures that Houston's legal community has access to the best possible resources. Whether you require court reporting, transcription, videography, interpreting, or trial presentation services, NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is your trusted partner in Houston.About NAEGELI Deposition & TrialWith over 40 years of experience, NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is a nationwide leader in court reporting and litigation support services. Renowned for their exceptional client service and meticulous attention to quality, NAEGELI Deposition & Trial is committed to providing legal professionals with accurate, timely, and secure support, ensuring a seamless litigation process.Country: USAMedia Contact: NAEGELI Deposition & TrialCompany: NAEGELI Deposition & TrialEmail: press@ NAEGELIusa.com Phone number: (346) 623-1533Website: www.NAEGELIusa.com SOURCE: NAEGELI Deposition & Trial PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 17:00:20 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 340 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The Roto-Rooter teams celebrate as their Sacramento and Fresno locations stepped in to rescue trapped kittens.SACRAMENTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / The days following the Fourth of July turned into unforgettable moments for the Roto-Rooter family as their Sacramento and Fresno locations stepped in to rescue trapped kittens.Roto-Rooter Saved Kitten Roto-Rooter technician works to save kitten stuck in a storm drain.On July 7, 2024, the Fresno location received a call from a local pet rescue service that a kitten was trapped in a sewage pipe. After days of unsuccessful attempts to locate and rescue the trapped feline, the rescue service reached out to the trusted Sanger Roto-Rooter location for assistance. Loreto Fernandez, a seasoned technician, sprang into action and set up his advanced camera feed to see where the kitten was stuck. Once the kitten was found in the street sewer, the smart little guy luckily grabbed onto the end of the camera and was able to follow the camera through the 3.5" pipe. As the kitten got closer, they pulled him out to safety. According to a statement in Your Central Valley, the rescued kitten, once a stray, is now poised to be adopted alongside its sibling by the homeowner who discovered them on her property.The rescue efforts continued on July 8, 2024, when the Sacramento branch received a call that another kitten was trapped in a storm drain. Our Sacramento technician, Jonathan Goodner, made his way over to the location as soon as possible to help the poor kitten. Goodner was able to successfully locate and remove the orange tabby kitten from the drain, bringing relief and joy to all involved.Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Water Cleanup is renowned for its 24/7 service and 80 years of local expertise, they remain committed to tackling all plumbing challenges, big or small. For more information about their services, visit RotoRooterCA.com or call 1-800-GET-ROTO.Sources: Your Central Valley: https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/kitten-stuck-in-sanger-sewage-line-for-2-days-rescued Contact Information Preston CartyDirector of Marketingpcarty@ rotoco.com 7605984234SOURCE: Roto-RooterView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-13 00:22:05 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 12, 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 News / National by Staff reporter Government has taken decisive action to address the proliferation of expired and counterfeit food products in Zimbabwe, particularly in tuckshops across central business districts.Health and Child Care Minister Douglas Mombeshora recently appointed a 16-member Food Standards Advisory Board mandated under the Food and Food Standards Act of 1971.The board, whose tenure began on March 11 this year and extends to March 2027, aims to enforce stringent standards for food purity and labeling accuracy.Minister Mombeshora emphasized the board's role in collaborating with other government departments to ensure consumer safety and facilitate the export of safe food products for foreign currency earnings.In a related development, the Industry and Commerce Ministry reported significant regulatory actions in May, where over a thousand businesses faced charges for selling expired and underweight goods.These infractions, which violate the Consumer Protection Act, resulted in fines for many semi-formal shops following inspections that scrutinized over 5,100 products for compliance with weight and measurement standards.The ministry issued a total of 11,030 penalties during these inspections, reflecting the government's concerted effort to uphold food safety and protect consumer rights amidst widespread concerns over substandard food products in the market. PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 02:31:25 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 479 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / July 11, 2024 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until August 30, 2024to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Seritage Growth Properties ("Seritage" or the "Company") (NYSE:SRG), if they purchased the Company's securities between July 7, 2022 and May 10, 2024, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.What You May DoIf you purchased securities of Seritage 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-srg/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court byAugust 30, 2024 .About the LawsuitSeritage and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.On August 14, 2023, the Company disclosed a "material weakness" in its internal control over financial reporting "due to a deficiency in the design of our control over the identification of impairment indicators for investments in real estate and documentation of evidence of review" related "to the failure to identify potential indicators of impairment related to development projects in a timely manner." On this news, the price of Seritage's shares fell $0.86, or 9.67%, to close at $8.03 per share on August 15, 2023, on unusually heavy trading volume.Then, on May 10, 2024, the Company released its 1Q2024 financial results, disclosing that it was "adjusting [its] pricing projections for some of [its] assets" resulting in the gross value of the Company's portfolio of assets being reduced by at least $325 million. On this news, the price of Seritage's shares fell $2.54, or 27.3%, to close at $6.78 per share on May 13, 2024, on unusually heavy trading volume.The case is He v. Seritage Growth Properties, et al., No. 1:24-cv-05007.About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLCKSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is one of the nation's 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, LLCLewis Kahn, Managing Partnerlewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com1-877-515-18501100 Poydras St., Suite 960New Orleans, LA 70163SOURCE: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 09:15:22 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1042 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The world's biggest banks now employ more than 112,000 AI-related roles, despite a 23% decrease in overall hiring activityJPMorgan Chase and Capital One lead the AI talent race, with Wells Fargo, Citigroup, UBS and HSBC among the other standout performersThe UK banks' AI talent pool grew most quickly (+12% increase in AI roles), followed by the rest of Europe (+11%), and then the US (+10%)LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / The world's biggest banks now employ more than 112,000 AI-related roles, according to AI benchmarking and intelligence platform Evident.While overall hiring activity across 50 of the world's largest banks is down 23% year-on-year, Evident's latest AI Talent Report shows that there has been no let-up in the drive to bring in dedicated AI talent, as banks find themselves under immense pressure to harness AI technologies and deliver more with less'.The report examines the central role that talent is playing in the AI transformation of the banking industry, as banks look to recruit, upskill and retain the roles and skill sets necessary to deploy AI at scale.Evident reveals that the 50 banks tracked in the Evident AI Index added almost 10,000 net new AI roles (9,238) and posted 17,836 AI-related job descriptions between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) and Capital One lead the AI talent race based on existing talent capability, new roles added between Q3 2023 and Q1 2024, and remaining open job vacancies.Wells Fargo has added the greatest number of new AI roles other than JPMC, but appears to have slowed its hiring efforts. Citigroup's open AI job roles are outpacing Bank of America by 2.8x, as the bank looks to catch up to its rival.While UBS leads Europe in talent volume following its merger with Credit Suisse, the bank has added the fewest additional roles over the past six months of any bank in Evident's Top 10 leaderboard. Recent job openings have also trended lower than peers. By contrast, HSBC has posted 30% more open AI roles than its immediate European peers between Oct 2023 and April 2024.Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-founder and CEO of Evident, comments: "After a brutal wave of layoffs, AI investment is viewed by the banks as the panacea that will allow them to bring about the needed productivity gains from their remaining workforce."By analysing the AI talent the banks are bringing in, we can determine which institutions are best placed to make these gains a reality. JPMorgan Chase and Capital One are the trailblazers. They're laying down the blueprint for others by addressing AI talent strategy across multiple time horizons-balancing what they need today versus what they'll need tomorrow, and recognising both the need to bring in external AI talent, as well as the need to retrain and upskill existing employees for the challenge ahead." UK and European banks step up the pace of AI hiringThe overall pool of banking AI talent has grown particularly in Europe between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, with the UK banks growing most quickly (+12% increase in AI roles), followed by the rest of Europe (+11%), and then the US (+10%).Among the European banks, Deutsche Bank and Santander have increased AI headcount fastest, alongside Barclays, HSBC, and BNP Paribas, which are together responsible for driving the growth trends seen in the UK and Europe.Retraining and upskilling is needed given the shortage of available AI talentWith a persistent talent shortfall in the AI labour market for the foreseeable future, the Evident AI Talent report also reveals a continuing effort among the world's biggest banks to retrain and upskill existing talent for the AI adoption journey ahead.According to Evident, Societe Generale, Capital One, DBS, and JPMorgan Chase are among the standout performers for their current AI talent development practices. Societe Generale was the only bank to achieve a perfect score across training and career development in the most recent Evident AI Index.AI talent development best practices revealedIn order to implement AI at scale, banks are actively focusing on four areas of AI talent development:1. Long-term resource planning: thinking about the strategic workforce plan across multiple time horizons.2. Group-wide onboarding for technical talent ("builders"): supporting the high level of AI graduates joining (60% of all incoming AI talent) with training programmes that establish a shared baseline for incoming "builders", so they can quickly add value regardless of where they ultimately work across the wider organisation.3. Upskilling and educating both "leaders" and "users": looking beyond "builders" to the rest of the bank, whether training "leaders" in AI literacy, or upskilling and educating the ultimate "users" of promising AI tools and applications.4. Balancing central coordination with decentralised training: recognising that Group-level orchestration of AI talent development is aspirational, and decentralised training may be needed when addressing talent across the naturally siloed lines of business found at most banks.Mousavizadeh adds: "The race for AI adoption isn't over, but talent remains a critical driver of future success, and banks need to adopt a comprehensive view of AI talent that helps evolve the organisation at every level."Alongside sourcing technical talent through hiring or retraining, banks must also look at how to educate their leaders around AI strategy and communicate it effectively, set up incoming technical AI talent for future success, and upskill and educate their wider workforce who will be using these tools - this is ultimately where AI ROI will be determined." About EvidentEvident is a benchmarking and intelligence platform that aims to provide the most authoritative source of data-driven insights on how companies are adopting AI.Beginning with banking, Evident has created the first independent benchmark for tracking industry-wide AI adoption and readiness. Drawing from millions of public data points, the Evident AI Index assesses 50 of the world's largest banks across four main areas of AI capability: talent (capability & development), innovation (research, patents, ventures, ecosystem), leadership (in public communications and strategy), and responsible AI (including principles, people, publications and partnerships).Evident also provides a wealth of ongoing research, data insights and events - including its annual AI Symposium - to deep-dive into banking sector AI progress, track trends, and explore how the world's biggest financial institutions are approaching AI adoption, identifying use cases and mea PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-12 10:40:26 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 713 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 SACRAMENTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 12, 2024 / Sustainable technology specialist Volektra is moving ahead with exciting plans to bring its affordable drivetrain concept to the electric vehicle (EV) sector, having recently closed a seed round.Volektrais at the forefront of developing proprietary technology, which will be a game-changer for the economics and viability of EV production for both manufacturers and consumers.Central to the company's vision is a full-stack magnet-free drivetrain solution based on a proprietary technology developed by Volektra. This completely takes out magnets from a motor without compromising price and performance.The breakthrough technology coupled with the Volektra Smart and Connected (VSAC) system merges cutting-edge hardware and software to provide an electric drivetrain option. This tech lies at the heart of its plug-and-play patent-pending units, known as 'Vollkits', which can be used to transform existing micro-vehicles into EVs.Around 20,000 three-wheelers and many E-bikes in Europe are already powered by Volektra's generation 1 drivetrain which uses advanced PMSM motors driven by state-of-the-art gyroscopes, Bluetooth low-energy RF, and groundbreaking drive algorithms. They surpass anything else on the market in terms of cost, user experience, range, and safety., underpinning their market presence and proven customer base and operation excellence."Our magnet-free motor technology (SEEM) eliminates the need to use rare earth minerals," said Volektra's Founder and CEO Manish Seth, "so maintaining cost-effectiveness and performance, while contributing to a cleaner environment."We believe Volektra is driving the future of sustainable transportation in providing innovative, affordable, and high-performance EV conversion kits." Mr. Seth said the company has succeeded in closing its latest Seed round and has also received Letters Of Intent (LOIs) and Proof of Concept relationships (POC) from the automotive industry stakeholders, furthering its plans to make its mark in the EV sector.The company also plans to expand further into the US by setting up a base in Sacramento, California. Volektra is already collaborating with theCalifornia Mobility Centerin Sacramento along with Tesla, Rivian, Bosch and Lion electric.As part of supporting the Sacramento and California connection,Growth FactoryVentures is participating in the Seed Round and leveraging its platform of commercialization, utility and talent partners. "Volektra is a great example of the exciting early stage companies leveraging Sacramento's growing innovation alliance that supports development of climate, mobility and zero emission vehicle technology," said Growth Factory's Managing Partner, Rick Spencer.Addison Appu, Partner atThinKuvatebelieves that Volektra is uniquely positioning itself in the sustainable mobility sector - its proprietary drivetrain technology makes it easy to transform a traditional vehicle into an electric one. Moreover, the "magnet free motor" technology has the potential to be the "game changer".Led byEcozen , the seed round benefits from the support of various private investors, including Thinkuvate and Growth Factory. Volektra is funded by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), an EU-funded agency for innovative start-ups in Poland."Ecozen has been pivotal in driving sustainability with our climate-smart tech, positively impacting millions. Our investment in Volektra leverages our combined technological strengths to revolutionize electric mobility, enhancing efficiency and eliminating rare-earth magnets. Together, we are making sustainable transportation even more sustainable," said Devendra Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, Ecozen."We are excited to partner with Volektra, recognizing the complementary strengths of our organizations and our shared vision for sustainable mobility. Volektra will help Ecozen access new markets for our technology, while Ecozen will support Volektra in bringing their advanced innovations to regions where we have a strong presence," said Prateek Singhal, COO and Co-founder, Ecozen.Volektra is also backed by a strong team with extensive experience in the automotive and EV industries from top companies such as Ford, VW, Tesla, ABB, and Danfoss.Piyus Desai Co-founder and CTO of Volektra added: "Volektra envisions a future where electric mobility is the norm, not the exception, and is dedicated to making this vision a reality through continuous innovation, strategic partnerships, and a relentless focus on sustainability. With our magnet free drivetrains and VSAC, we are firmly putting EV production into the fast lane and can also expand the usage to other sectors for maximum impact." For more information about Volektra: https://volektra.com/ Website URL: https://volektra.comCompany name: Volektra Inc.Contact person: W. RadtkeContact email:info@ volektra.comCountry: USSOURCE: Volektra Nigerian music stars Ayra Starr and Tems are the most-streamed Nigerian artistes globally for the first half of 2024. This is according to the Global Impact List in Nigeria, which recognises the top 30 tracks from Nigeria with the most significant global impact on Spotify over the first half of 2024. The list recognises Nigerian tracks with the most listens from outside Nigeria in the first half of 2024 and was released between 1 January and 30 June. Female artistes, notably Ayra Starr and Tems, are leading the charge with top-ranking hits following their recent album releases. Ayra Starrs and Tems albums have been particularly well-received, with several tracks making it to the Global Impact List. The list also underscores the prevalence of international collaborations, with eight of the top ten tracks featuring partnerships with global superstars. These collaborations, from Pheelz with Usher to Burna Boy with 21 Savage and Metro Boomin, demonstrate Nigerian musics cross-cultural appeal and growing international impact. Ayra Starr and Rauw Alejandros collaboration, Santa, topped the list, with Ayra Starrs solo track Comma in second place and Tems Love Me Jeje in third. 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 Global Impact List Phiona Okumu, Spotifys headMusimusic for Sub-Saharan Africa, emphasised that the announcement of the Global Impact List is a testament to the global recognition of Nigerian music. It showcases the top 30 artistes with the highest global streaming numbers, underscoring Nigerian musics impressive reach and impact. Ms Okumu said, Nigerian music, especially Afrobeats, has captivated global audiences with its infectious rhythms, compelling storytelling, and innovative sound fusions. Its ability to transcend cultural and geographical boundaries is truly remarkable. At Spotify, we are thrilled to witness and support the continued evolution of this vibrant scene. Eight top ten tracks feature partnerships with global superstars, such as Pheelz with Usher and Burna Boy with 21 Savage and Metro Boomin. Other notable entries include Luciano and Omah Lays Another Vibe at fourth and Savage and Burna Boys Metro Boomin Just Like Me at fifth. Tems and Tylas No.1 ranked sixth. Usher and Pheelzs Ruin ranked seventh, Reis B and Tempoes Pretty Girl eighth, and TitoM, Yuppe, Burna Boy, and S.N.Es Tshwala Bam ninth. Ayra Starr and Giveons Last Heartbreak Song took the 10th spot, followed by Victonys Everything in the 11th, and Aya Nakamura and Ayra Starrs Hype in the 12th. Tems and J. Coles Free Fall ranked 13th. Coming Home, a collaboration by Usher and Burna Boy, came in at 14th position, and Ayra Starr and Seyi Vibezs Bad Vibes made it at 15th, among others. Below is the list of the top 30 Nigerian songs with the most significant global streaming numbers in the first half of 2024: Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Like the Actor Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Yul Edochie has distanced himself and clarified his relationship with filmmaker Henry Odenigbo. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Lagos police spokesperson Benjamin Hundeyin said the kidnappers were killed in a gun duel in Ladipo Mushin after receiving intelligence about their plot to abduct wealthy individuals in the state. Mr Hundeyin, however, didnt disclose the identities of the slain kidnappers. A few days after the news went viral, a filmmaker and actor, Stanley Nwoko, aka Stanley Ontop, posted photos of a movie producer and CEO of Ason-Rich Movie Production, Henry Odenigbo, whom he alleged was the ringleader of the kidnap gang, killed in the shootout. Odenigbo produced over ten movies in 2024 and worked with famous names, including Edochie, Kelvin Ikeduba, and Eve Esin. On Wednesday, Edochie confirmed he starred in Sharons Fate, one of Odenigbos movies. Checks on Odenigbos YouTube page show that the movie (Sharons Fate) has yet to be released, but on 11 June, the deceased shared pictures on his Instagram page of himself, Edochie and other actors on a movie set. 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 Just a photo, we are not friends Its standard on movie sets for actors, crew, and cast to take pictures with each other and with fans. This was the case with Edochie, who explained that the photo of himself and the deceased, now being circulated, was taken in June on a movie set and nothing more. Edochie, who made his acting debut in 2005 The Exquires, explained that the viral photo of them was taken on a movie set at the request of the late filmmaker. The 42-year-old actor, in an Instagram video, addressed rumours that he was a friend of the deceased. According to the police, the guy is a kidnapper. Ive heard stories and noticed that some blogs posted my picture with him, implying hes my friend. So, I want to state that the guy wasnt my friend. Ive been in Nollywood for 19 years, going on 20 years. I only saw this guy once when I shot a movie for him a few weeks ago. A director contracted me for a movie and paid me for a job. I even thought it was the directors movie until I came to the set and met this guy. I think he called himself Ason-Rich Henry. He came to me, introduced himself as Ason-Rich Productions, and said his name was Henry. We greeted them, I shot the movie, and on the last day of shooting, he came to me and said he was so excited that he finally got to work with me. I think he also played a role in the movie. He asked if he could take a picture with me, and I said okay. We took pictures, and I left for the next set. That was the first time I saw him, and I never saw him again. Thats the picture a lot of people are circulating. I understand people are circulating the picture and saying hes my friend. He is not my friend. I got to know him as a producer, and I dont know why people are circulating my picture, Edochie said. Legal action The University of Port Harcourt alumnus threatened to sue bloggers or persons who linked him to the late Ason-Rich head honcho. To those spreading this information, I hope you can defend it in court or at the police station because its coming. If you want to write a story about a producer who was shot and labelled a kidnapper, use his picture, not mine. If you must use pictures of actors to claim that this guy was a producer, you should know how to tell your story well. Say he was a producer; then you can use pictures. Go to his Instagram page to see all the actors he worked with, so you dont have to use my picture. The actor, the Democratic Peoples Congress party candidate for Anambra State governor in 2017, further clarified that he met Odenigbo on a movie set in June and that their paths never crossed again. The controversial actor also lamented the negative reports trailing him in recent times. Any story that has to do with me, theyll blow it out of proportion because anything with my name on it sells, but this is wrong. I only met him when I shot a film for him titled Sharons Fate, and by the time we were done, we greeted he took a picture with me and said hes a big fan of mine and then left. So why will bloggers use my picture? You want to generate traffic on your page and say this guy is my friend. Edochie said. He added that the bloggers aimed to destroy his reputation, but it cannot be tarnished because God established it. Henry Odenigbo In 2024 alone, Odenigbos company, Ason-Rich Movie Production, produced over ten films, including Born in the Ghetto, Love At The Pool, My Half, Little Top Up, Regards for Love, Clue Girl, Blind Blood, To Forgive, and Bethlehem. As an actor, Odenigbo often played bad-boy roles and wielded guns in movies, including one of his most recent roles in Blind Blood, which was posted on 26 April. On 16 March, the Nollywood Indigenous Filmmakers of Nigeria (NIFMON) awarded him the Best Filmmaker in Port Harcourt, and weeks later, on 31 March, E-flex named him Nolly TVs Best Grassroots Filmmaker for 2024/2025. On 3 February, he held an audition for Ason-Rich Movie Production in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print In commemoration of the 2024 World Population Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other United Nations (UN) agencies have called on governments, donors, civil society organisations, and the private sector to prioritise universal access to comprehensive sexual, reproductive health services and rights. WHO made this known in a joint statement published on its website on Thursday. The global bodies emphasised the importance of implementing evidence-based guidance to improve access to affordable, high-quality, and rights-based care. To make services acceptable to everyone, they said efforts should be geared towards eliminating stigma and discrimination and challenging harmful social and gender norms. Reproductive health rights MyHealth Alberta, a health information website, said sexual and reproductive health encompasses the physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of an individuals sexuality, which is a vital aspect of being human. It said sexuality is a dynamic and multifaceted concept that evolves throughout various life stages, noting that it encompasses values, relationships, sexual activity, communication, self-image, personality, sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), also known as the Womens Convention, said reproductive rights encompass the freedom to make reproductive decisions without facing discrimination, coercion, or violence. 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 According to them, this fundamental right is rooted in international human rights norms and standards, ensuring that individuals can exercise their reproductive autonomy with dignity and safety. Comprehensive sex education The organisations called for accelerated access to comprehensive sex education and collaborative efforts across sectors like education and gender to foster the lasting well-being of girls and women. It stated that promoting comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights is a moral and prudent imperative adding that investing in womens and girls reproductive autonomy and agency, and expanding access to services is essential for a thriving world. The organisations believe that increasing funding from diverse sources domestic, international, public, and private is vital to achieving lasting impact. Calls for support The groups said it is crucial to urgently support the growing initiatives of young people, women, and communities as they raise their voices on sexual and reproductive health issues and develop solutions that address their specific needs and adapt to a rapidly changing world, where climate change significantly impacts sexual and reproductive health and rights. They added that adopting a collaborative, community-driven approach to designing and implementing health interventions could achieve more sustainable outcomes and reach the most marginalised populations. Also, they advocated harnessing technology to expand healthcare access towards responsibly addressing risks and gender gaps. The statement further reads in part: We urge the public and private sectors to collaborate in exploring cutting-edge technologies like telemedicine, artificial intelligence, big data analytics and predictive modeling to bridge geospatial gaps and expand access to essential services, particularly in remote and underserved areas. At the same time, we call on innovators to address the risks inherent in these new technologies, including gender gaps in access, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and systematic biases embedded in tech design. Furthermore, they urged governments, communities, civil society, and the private sector to join forces in prioritising universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare, advancing gender equality and human rights as envisioned in the ICPD programme of action. We call for collective innovation and action to ensure everyones rights to health, dignity, and security. As we approach the UN General Assemblys Summit of the future in September, let us seize this moment to boldly shape a more just, equitable, and sustainable world for all, the statement added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A former acting Accountant-General of the Federation, Anamekwe Nwabuoku, and his co-defendant have begged the Federal High Court, Abuja, to give them time to return the public funds they allegedly looted. Mr Nwabuoku and Felix Nweke, former deputy director at the Ministry of Defence, are facing 11 counts of money laundering involving an alleged diversion of N1.6 billion belonging to the federal government. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which filed the charges against them on 27 May, accused them of perpetrating the alleged fraud during Mr Nwabuokus previous role as the Director of Finance and Accounts in the Ministry of Defence between 2019 and 2021. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that, on Wednesday, Mr Nwabuoku and his co-defendant urged the judge, James Omotosho, to halt their arraignment until they perfect the out-of-court settlement. When the matter was called on Wednesday for the defendants to take their plea, Mr Nwekes lawyer, Emeka Onyeaka, informed the court of a new development concerning the case. Mr Onyeaka notified the court that his client had taken steps toward settling the matter. The lawyer said Mr Nweke had made substantial refunds of the money traced to him by the anti-graft agency. 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 2nd defendant has taken steps, as there is a communication to the commission via-a-vs the alleged offences on making a refund. The commission is in receipt of the money and promised to communicate to us, he said. Mr Onyeaka added, Upon being served with the charge on Monday, we communicated with the commission, and we are asked to tarry for their administrative procedure. He said since a substantial amount had been refunded, the gesture could adversely affect him if the trial continued. He, therefore, prayed the court to grant them an adjournment to take further steps on the administrative procedure. Mr Nwabuokus lawyer, Maduakolam Igwe, aligned with Mr Onyeakas submission. Mr Igwe said his client had equally taken the same steps and that a substantial amount had been refunded. We have written to the commission on this. The 1st defendant has also made some refunds, the lawyer said. He also asked for time to tidy up the administrative procedure concerning the settlement. EFCC denies agreement with defendants, judge adjourns case Although the EFCCs lawyer, Ogechi Ujam, acknowledged that the commission had received a proposal letter from the defendants, she said, no negotiation has been made. No settlement has been done and no agreement has been reached by parties, he added. He, therefore, urged the court to order the defendants to take their plea. However the judge opted to adjourn the matter without commenting on the issues raised by the parties. He fixed 14 October for arraignment. Nwaobuokus stint as acting accountant-general Mr Nwabuoku was appointed acting Accountant-General of the Federation on 20 May 2022 during the administration of then-President Muhammadu Buhari. His appointment followed the suspension of the then Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, to face trial for N109 billion fraud. Mr Idris is facing a trial at the Federal High Court in Abuja. Mr Nwabuoku was removed in July 2022, a few weeks after he assumed the acting role. Sylva Okolieaboh, a Director at the Treasury Single Account (TSA) Department, replaced Mr Nwabuoku as acting accountant-general. Mr Okolieabohs appointment followed a report that Mr Nwabuoku was under EFCC investigation. Charges The EFCC alleged that Mr Nwabuoku, Mr Nweke, Temeeo Synergy Concept Limited (said to be at large), Turge Global Investment Limited (said to be at large), Laptev Bridge Limited (said to be at large), Arafura Transnational Afro Limited (said to be at large) and other persons (at large) converted funds which are proceeds of unlawful activities to personal use. The offence is contrary to section 18 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011 (as amended by Act No. 1 of 2012) and punishable under Section 15(2) (b) and (3) of the same Act. Under Count 2, EFCC also alleged that Mr Nwabuoku, Mr Nweke, Temeeo Synergy Concept Limited indirectly converted N262.6 billion (N262, 602,897.27) between September 2019 and October 2020 in Abuja The money was alleged to have been paid into the Zenith Bank account of Temeeo Synergy Concept Limited with account num ber 1016901286, knowing that the funds constituted proceeds of unlawful activity. The offence, the EFCC said, is contrary to section 15(2) (b) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended by Act No. 1 of 2012). (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Nigeria is facing a rare food security crisis and the sooner her leaders come to terms with the reality, the better, Vice President Kashim Shettima said on Friday. Mr Shettima spoke on Friday in Abuja while inaugurating the Presidential Food Systems Coordination Unit (PFSCU) as part of efforts by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to tackle hunger and hardship in the land, his spokesperson wrote in a statement. PREMIUM TIMES reports that food prices have skyrocketed since President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of subsidies on petrol during his inauguration last year. The floating of the naira to allow market forces to determine the value of the Nigerian currency also worsened the situation. The price of basic foods like rice and beans have more than doubled in price during that period with a 50-kg bag of rice increasing from about N20,000 to about N70,000. Mr Shettima spoke two days after the Nigerian government announced that it would allow duty-free importation of some food items, like rice, beans and wheat, to increase availability and thus reduce prices. Food insecurity endangers the very basis of our democratic experiment and this is why all hands have to be on deck. We are in a food security crisis but it also provides us the opportunity to re-engineer and reposition the nation on a firmer footing, Mr Shettima told his audience comprising governors, cabinet ministers and representatives of development partners. Read the full statement by the vice presidents spokesperson below. 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 *Presidency Adopts Multipronged Measures To Combat Food Insecurity* * *VP Shettima inaugurates presidential food systems unit to harness resources, ideas* The presidency has engaged the states, development partners and other critical stakeholders in the ongoing efforts to address the soaring prices of commodities and general food insecurity in the country. To this effect, Vice President Kashim Shettima on Friday inaugurated the Presidential Food Systems Coordination Unit (PFSCU) as part of efforts by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to tackle hunger and hardship in the land. This followed a presentation by the Technical Assistant to the President on Agriculture, Office of the Vice President, Marion Moon. Addressing members of the group comprising governors, cabinet ministers and representatives of development partners, Mr Shettima said, The nation is facing a rare food security crisis and the sooner we come to terms with the reality, the better. Food insecurity endangers the very basis of our democratic experiment and this is why all hands have to be on deck. We are in a food security crisis but it also provides us the opportunity to re-engineer and reposition the nation on a firmer footing. Outlining the mandate of the PFSCU, the vice president said the unit was not created to usurp the functions of the Ministry of Agriculture, noting that the urgency and seriousness of the matter at hand require the ideas and resources of all stakeholders. Mr Shettima made reference to the Green Imperative Programme, a government-catalysed, private sector-driven, agricultural industrialisation programme, as one initiative which the PFSCU must work assiduously to activate and operationalise. He stated that with improved farming practices, improved seeds, use of fertilisers, Nigerias agricultural productivity could be turned around for the better. Earlier, state governors in the committee outlined plans to modernise farming practices, increase crop yields, and transform Nigeria into a self-sufficient food producer. Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State said Cross River State is looking to feed the country, adding that his government must modernise agriculture to feed the population. We are an agrarian state, and we have stepped up our game, Governor Otu noted. On his part, Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum emphasised the need for a coordinated approach, citing low productivity and population growth as a major challenge to the nations food security drive. He called for investment in commercial agriculture, improved funding, and enhanced security for farmers. Also, the Jigawa State Governor, Umar Namadi, highlighted the states potential to achieve food security. All that is needed is the political will to drive the process. Our lands are very fertile. In Jigawa, there are places where we are yielding ten tonnes per hectare of rice. There are so many places like that. As of today, our average in Jigawa State is about 12.56 per hectare. We are on the right course. What we need is sustained political will, the governor explained. For his part, Niger State Governor Mohammed Bago proposed his state as a pilot for the Presidents food security initiative. He revealed that Niger has invested over N100 billion naira in agricultural mechanisation, with 5,000 tractors and twenty pilot irrigation systems available. Governor Bago called for support from the federal government, World Bank, and other development partners to ensure the success of these initiatives. The Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State, Patricia Obila, who also spoke on the states unique topography and its potential to enhance its renowned Ebonyi Rice production, noted the need to introduce tractor mechanization to ensure year-round production and leverage youth participation by incentivizing agriculture with farm settlements equipped with necessary social amenities On his part, Country Representative of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Dominique Kouacou, who spoke on behalf of a group of donors, pledged their commitment to the success of all the efforts by the federal government aimed at addressing food insecurity in the country. He said the enthusiasm exhibited by the president and vice president in addressing challenges in the agricultural sector is commendable and has reawakened the commitment of donors in the sector, assuring that they were fully on board with the government. Also present at the meeting were Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari; Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Aliyu Abdullahi; National President of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Maifata Muazu, and Executive Secretary of National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF), Muhammed Ibrahim. Others include Managing Director/CEO of Flour Mills of Nigeria, Omoboyede Olusanya; MD of SaroAfrica, Rasheed Sarunmi; World Bank Programme Leader, Sustainable Development, Nigeria, Vinay Vutukuru, and the institutions Senior Agriculture economist, Mr Manievel Emmanuel Sene, among others. *Stanley Nkwocha* *Senior Special Assistant to The President on Media & Communications* *(Office of The Vice President)* *12th July, 2024* Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The development Research and Project Centre (dRPC), in collaboration with the Population Association of Nigeria, is holding a symposium to commemorate the United Nations World Population Day. The symposium themed: Embracing the Power of Inclusive Data Towards a Resilient and Equitable Future for All is taking place in Abuja. The programme will bring together policymakers, researchers, development partners, and civil society to discuss and develop actionable strategies to harness Nigerias demographic dividend. Organisers said by focusing on critical issues related to population dynamics, the symposium will contribute to national efforts in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The one-day symposium will feature an opening ceremony, two panel sessions, a keynote address, and a closing session. Organisers said the panel sessions will be interactive, allowing for a robust exchange of ideas and experiences. READ ALSO: TETFund partners firm to boost innovative research in Nigeria A PREMIUM TIMES team is on the ground to provide you live updates of the event scheduled to commence by 9:00 a.m. Its a bright morning here in the federal capital. We are live at the one-day high-level symposium, where health experts will discuss Nigerias demographic dividend. 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 Although the event was scheduled to commence at 9:00 a.m., it started a few minutes late to allow participants to settle in. 9: 30 am: All is set for the commencement of the event. The facilitator, Kawu Umar, kickstarts the event at Maryam Hall in Hawthorne Hotel Abuja. 9:32 am: The event commences with the recitation of the National Anthem. 9:38 am: Mr Umar, the facilitator, introduces the panelists to the participants. 9:40 am: The facilitator invites government officials and partners to give their goodwill message. 9: 41 am: Samuel Ohaegbulam, the President of FNAMed, Nigerian Academy of Medicine, gives his goodwill address, thanking the organisers for putting together such an important event. We appreciate the partnership, especially for those of you who have found time to be here, he said. I want to thank the dRPC for taking this mantle of population growth on their shoulders. It is important for us to discuss the population and how it affects our overall health, Mr Ohaegbulam said. 9:45 am: Oladipo Ladipo, the President of the Association of Reproductive Health has been invited to give his goodwill message. 9:47 am: He said the prioritisation of population management with the use of data in Nigeria is not just a necessity but a strategic move with multiple benefits. We must evangelise family planning, Mr Ladipo said. We must also talk about it in the church, in the mosque and use all modes of communication to promote family planning. 9: 49 am: If we fail to plan, nature will do it for us and nature will do it with planning and that is the phase we are going through now, he added. 9: 50 am: The facilitator invites Okechukwu Ikpeze, a professor and the President of Gynaecology and Obstetrics Nigeria, to give his goodwill message. 9: 51 am: Mr Ikpeze said family planning is critical if one considers the rapid population growth in Nigeria. In the past, a lot of children died because women wanted a certain number just so if some died, they would still have some number of children there. But we are moved past that now, Mr Okechukwu said. 9:53 am: He noted that the resources to care for the children are not there. There are some countries with limitations on the number of offspring allowed and they are doing better than us. But here, we think numerous children are an asset and we need to address this. 9: 55 am: The theme of the day cannot be overemphasised especially at the point we find ourselves now, he said. 9: 56 am: The facilitator invites Salma Ibrahim, the Special Adviser to the President on Health, to deliver the keynote address The theme of the day cannot be overemphasised, Ms Ibrahim began, especially at the point we find ourselves now. Too many of us cannot feed ourselves. 9:57 am: Citing the trend in population growth globally, Ms Ibrahim said the population of so many countries is going down due to the low fertility but it is not the case in developing countries. Instead we are adding more in Nigeria. The country has one of the highest populations in the world and is likely to surpass the US by 2050. As a country with high levels of poverty, this is a problem. 9:59 am: Ms Ibrahim said the health sector in Nigeria is concerned about how the increasing population will affect the ability to improve and sustain quality health service delivery especially as it affects maternal mortality. 10:00 am: The presidents adviser said, among other reasons, this is why the current administration is working to improve the availability of family planning for every member of the population. 10:02 am: She said the federal government is doing a lot but state governments must also take responsibility, especially with the procurement of family planning. 10:04 am: Family planning is one of the most effective methods of reducing maternal mortality because the women are not getting pregnant, she said. 10:06 am: Ms Ibrahim said she believes that family planning alone can reduce maternal mortality by 30 per cent. 10:10 am: Speaking further, Ms Ibrahim said family planning should be a right that every family should have access to. 10:13 am: Family planning commodity is not a luxury, she noted. Every woman and man must have access to family planning commodities, Ms Ibrahim concluded. 10: 15 am: Ejike Oji, the chairman of the management committee of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP) and the FP CSO focal person for Nigeria Health Watch, took the podium for his presentation. 10:17 am: Mr Oji will deliver the lead presentation on a market survey by dRPC on the accessibility of contraceptives. 10:20 am: The presentation is titled Contraceptive Accessibility and Costs Amidst the Cost of Living Crisis: Findings from Recent Market Survey. 10:21 am: The report showed a financial barrier based on the cost of consumables. We saw behavioural trade-offs and availability and accessibility, Mr Oji said, citing findings from their research. 10:25 am: On behavioural trade-off, one of the respondents who is a contraceptive provider according to the survey said, The greatest disservice to family planning in Nigeria is the inadequate supply of consumables and supplies this forces us to pay user fees even though the contraceptives are free. 10:27 am: Mr Oji said providers lamented how a lot of people have very little knowledge of family planning and the use of contraceptives. 10: 30 am: We saw a mixed behavioural tradeoff on the issue of investment of time and money in this survey, the researcher said. 10:32 am: Further findings show that clients now prioritise spending on contraceptives over other expenses like hair and makeup. 10:34 am: This, Mr Oji said, is a reflection on the perceived importance of contraceptives despite financial constraints. 10:35 am: Mr Oji said that with less than six years to the Universal Health Coverage target of 2030, countries are still in the middle of the target, and still having serious issues with family planning. 10:36 am: For us in the room, we have a role to play as regards family planning. We need more advocacy. The onus is on us to go beyond the room to see how we can engage more, Mr Oji said concluding his presentation. 10:40 am: The facilitator invited Umar Jabi, the District Head of Gagi, Sokoto, to come up for his goodwill message. 10:41 am: According to Mr Jabi, the burden of family planning is heavily on women. Therefore, we need a lot of political women at national and sub-national level. We also need to reduce over-dependence on donors. He noted that Nigeria is experiencing donor fatigue and the government needs to make decisive budgetary decisions. 10:45 am: Participants go on break. 11:20 am: The session resumes after the tea break. 11:21 am: The facilitator, Mr Umar, introduces the first panel for discussion on Best and Promising Practices in Family Planning Commodity Procurement and Service Delivery at Subnational Levels the Case of Kano and Kaduna States. 11:22 am: The panellists are: Sada Danmusa, Executive Director, MS DOS; Isa Musa, Technical Support, Department of Public Health and Disease Control, Kano State; Salisu Babba, Chigari Foundation; and Nafisa Isa, Director, Family and Community Health Services, Kaduna State Primary Health Care Board. 11:24 am: The panel session is facilitated by Stanley Ukpai, the director of projects at dRPC. 11:25 am: Mr Danmusa said national strategic planning has been very important in the conversations of best family planning practices. He noted that as a technical assistant, it is important for CSOs to support the policies of the government and work with the government on implementation. 11:28 am: As the technical working group, the work we do is technical. These surveys create the structure for the group that we follow up on the implementation of some government policies, he said. 11:30 am: He harped on the importance of collaboration. I believe it is the collaboration that will help us improve health care at the community level. 11:32 am: We need to involve traditional leaders and community heads to ensure grassroots implementation of family planning, Mr Musa said. We also have to think of sustainability by carefully planning the community engagement strategy, especially for rural areas where such a topic is considered very sensitive. 11:34 am: Speaking further, Mr Musa said his team is advocating for the government to appoint community engagement officers whose sole responsibility will be to engage community members through the village heads and other local authorities. 11:36 am: This appointment, Mr Musa said, will ensure there is sustainability. We dont want a case where we work in a community and when theres a change of government everything stops. 11:38 am: Government and focus communities need to be fully involved in the family planning projects. 11:39 am: Mr Musa added that there is a need to improve the engagement of traditional leaders in family planning advocacy. 11:40 am: He said this strategy was used for polio and it produced the desired result. Ms Isa of the Kaduna Primary Health Care Board said that Kaduna State currently has two functional budget lines. One is the procurement of family planning and the other is for family planning engagement projects, she explained. 11:45 am: We are training service providers and community heads to improve engagement and awareness of family planning in Kaduna. 11:46 am: However, she said, the major challenge they are facing is the slop in the budget line. For us to be able to work better in advocacy, we need better allocation from the government. 11:47 am: Ms Isa said the Kaduna State Government is doing a lot to attract the private sector to support its efforts. At the same time, the board wants to ensure an increase in the availability and accessibility of contraceptives in Kaduna. 11:50 am: Mr Musa noted that currently, Kano is the most populous city in Nigeria. 11:51 am: With regards to family planning, he said the state government allocated about N200 million for the procurement of family planning commodities last year, adding, If you check the state budget, you will find that there. 11:53 am: We have also domesticated the national adolescent health policy in the state. 11:55 am: Speaking further, Mr Musa said the Kano state government was the first to commence the Drug Revolving Fund (DRF). He said five per cent of funds generated from the DRF are allocated to birth spacing and procurement of family planning commodities, which are tied to health facilities offering family planning in the state monthly. 11:57 am: For family planning, Mr Musa said, the state is budgeting 100 million annually. Initially, it was N50 million, he added, but with the increased advocacy from CSOs, the government raised its budgetary allocation. 11:59 am: Often people with disability shy away from visiting healthcare. When we asked, they complained that health workers refuse to provide services to them. 12:01 pm: Then, the official speaks on the Kano governments efforts to achieve inclusion. 12:02 pm: One of the policies the Kano government is looking to implement is to mandate all health facilities to provide services to every person living with disabilities seeking healthcare, he said. 12:05 pm: Reflecting on the discussion of the panellists, Mr Ladipo, the President of the Association for Reproductive and Family Health, commended the intelligence submissions. He said there are three major reasons for family planning: One is the health rationale, the demographic rationale, and the human rights rationale. 12:08 pm: All the three components are very important, he said. 12:12 pm: Mr Ukpai, the moderator, said they were out of time and therefore the panel would not be taking questions. 12:14 pm: The first-panel discussion comes to an end. 12:15 pm: The facilitator announces the second panel session, titled Prospects for Expanded & Effective Family Planning Service Delivery within the PHC System. 12:16 pm: Rosemary Ogu, the National President of the Medical Womens Association of Nigeria, will moderate the session. 12:17 pm: The moderator introduces the panellists and invites them to join the high table. 12:18 pm: The panelists are: Enang Erena, President, of the Population Association of Nigeria; Margaret Edison, Director, Population Management and Development Department Representatives from the National Population Commission; Oluseyi Omokore, representing Binyerem Ukaire, Director and Head, Family Health Department, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and Okechukwu Ikpeze, President, Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics Nigeria. 12:21 pm: Today is an opportunity to engage diverse perspectives on the ways to improve family planning in the country, the moderator said, setting the pace for the conversation to begin. 12:23 pm: Our success hinges on our collaboration to ensure equity and wide coverage of healthcare in the sector, she added. 12:25 pm: Mr Erena said Nigeria has not done well to address rapid population growth. 12:26 pm: Our maternal mortality might have dropped over the years but I doubt that this is because of family planning. Instead, it is because of inflation. People are trying to minimise expenses. Awareness on child control may be high but acceptability is low among the people, he said. 12:30 pm: Mr Erena said over the years, so many strategies have been discussed, but not much has changed. 12:32 pm: We need to improve education and the literacy rate of the people. We must be innovative and interrogative. We should also focus on how to get the message to the people. We are too dependent on donor funds and it is important that we change that approach. 12:35 pm: Mr Omokore said the government and donor organisations are all doing well on their part but it is a work in progress. 12:36 pm: He said there are about 40 million Nigerian women of reproductive age. He said although family planning intervention is increasing, there is no corresponding result. 12: 40 pm: In his submission, Mr Ikepeze said the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics is in four states in the country, surveying women to know if they are in need of obstetric care and recommend the right treatment. 12:44 pm: We also go to primary and secondary health centres trying to educate the workers and looking out for health services provided to patients by workers, he said. 12:45 pm: Mr Ikepeze said health professionals need to look at the direct and also indirect causes of maternal mortality. 12:46 pm: This is what we are doing in our society, he said. 12:47 pm: If a woman doesnt get access to family planning and eventually gets pregnant, how do we ensure that she survives pregnancy and childbirth? This is at the centre of work. 12:50 pm: Ms Ogu, the moderator, said the panel would have loved to take questions but unfortunately, there is no time 12:51 pm: She thanked the panellists for their intervention. 12:52 pm: The second panel comes to an end and the facilitator takes over the podium. 12:57 pm: Mr Umar invites Aliyu Hassan for a session on the presentation of the PHC Media Award to health journalists. 1: 03 pm: Mr Hassan said the centre received a lot of entries from journalists covering primary health centres. Over 30 entries were received. 1:05 pm: The judges then selected 13 quality ones based on originality, depth of work, writing style, and the ethics of reporting, he said. 1:10 pm: Mr Hassan called on Samuel Ohaegbulam, FNAMed President, Nigeria Academy of Medicine (NMed), to present the awards. 1:12 pm: The winner of the award is Marcus Fatunmole of the International Centre for Investigative Journalism (ICIR). 1:14 pm: Lara Adejoro of the Punch Newspaper won the runner-up award. 1:15 pm: Nike Adebowale, a former PREMIUM TIMES reporter, won the second-runner-up award. 1: 17 pm: Organisers said the winner of the award gets a cash prize of N1 million, the runner-up receives N500,000 while the second runner-up takes home N300,000. 1: 20 pm: Mr Hassan said all the awards are centred on media reporting of Primary Health Centres. 1:20 pm: Other awardees that received recognition are: Hassan Zaggi The Authority Newspaper; Kazeem Biriowo Nigerian Tribune Newspaper; Ojoma Akpo Daily Trust; Emmanuel Kutara FRCN; Racheal lyema Abujah News Agency of Nigeria; Patience Hejirika Leadership Newspaper; Joseph Dauda ITV; and Tina Abeku The Guardian Newspaper. 1:21 pm: The facilitator invites Mr Erena to give the vote of thanks. 1: 23 pm: Mr Erena, the President of the Population Association of Nigeria, said he is pleased with the robust conversation at the programme. 1:24 pm: He said the experts highlighted what is needed and the strategies to harness Nigerias demographic dividends. 1:25 pm: Now it is time for us to take practical actions, he said. 1:26 pm: In the same vein, dRPCs Mr Ukpai urged participants to continue the pursue the advancement of family planning and population control in Nigeria. 1:28 pm: Mr Ukpai thanked participants for their time and for taking part in the symposium. 1:30 pm: The End. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu has given the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) the approval to source for N1 trillion loan for the commissions projects. Mr Tinubu disclosed this on Friday at the Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit 2024 in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The president, who was a special guest of honour at the summit, was represented by Godswill Akpabio, the president of the Nigerian Senate. The Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku, while defending the proposed N1.91 trillion 2024 budget of the commission before the House Committee on NDDC on Tuesday, said the agency would be taking a N1 trillion loan to fund some capital projects in the region. He had said that the loan would be sourced from commercial and development banks to fund legacy projects. In his remark at the summit, Mr Tinubu said, The NDDC has never had the kind of budget that they are having in 2024. The president has approved that they can go ahead and get a soft loan of N1trillion to add to complete all the projects that they have in mind in order to bring quick development to this region. 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 So the MD of NDDC, it is no longer going to be a question of lack of fund, it going to be a question of commitment. Mr Tinubu added, You are not going to have people come from Abuja, stay in hotels, and collect money from NDDC to spend in other states of the federation. You are going to spend the NDDC money right here in the Niger Delta region. The president expressed his commitment to tackle the East-West Road, which links the states in the Niger Delta region, as well as ensure the overall development of the region once known for its restiveness. The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road started by the president will not only start from Lagos, Mr President has also agreed that it must also take root from Niger Delta simultaneously then it will meet up with the one in Lagos. President Tinubu challenged the NDDC management to go into massive agricultural production, which could feed the Niger Delta region and other parts of Nigeria. The Niger Delta can feed itself even in terms of rice production. In agriculture, take up. Create fish ponds, and empower the people of the Niger Delta. Go ahead with swampy rice projects. Make sure we give rice to Nigeria. Let us not only be defined by oil; let us be defined by our agricultural output for the rest of this country, he said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print TSX: GMIN OTCQX: GMINF All amounts are in USD unless stated otherwise $50 million private placements with La Mancha and Franco-Nevada has closed on July 12 th , 2024 Ontario Superior Court has granted the final order approving the Arrangement with Reunion Gold Arrangement is expected to close on or around July 15, 2024 BROSSARD, QC, July 12, 2024 /CNW/ - G Mining Ventures Corp. ("GMIN" or the "Corporation") (TSX: GMIN) (OTCQX: GMINF) is pleased to announce that it has closed its previously announced private placements with La Mancha Investments S.a r.l. ("La Mancha" and such private placement, the "La Mancha Private Placement") and Franco-Nevada Corporation ("Franco-Nevada" and such private placement, together with the La Mancha Private Placement, the "Private Placements") pursuant to which it has issued 15,114,250 common shares in the capital of GMIN ("Common Shares") to each of La Mancha and Franco-Nevada, at a price of C$2.279 per share, for aggregate proceeds of $50 million. These shares are subject to a hold period which will expire on November 13, 2024, in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. Logo (CNW Group/G Mining Ventures Corp) GMIN is also pleased to announce that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) has granted a final order dated July 11, 2024 approving the plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") between, inter alia, GMIN and Reunion Gold Corporation ("Reunion Gold") that was previously announced on April 22, 2024. Under the Arrangement, a new entity ("New GMIN") was formed and will hold and manage the combined business of GMIN and Reunion Gold. The common shares of New GMIN will, subject to the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange (the "TSX"), be listed on the TSX in substitution of the Common Shares. Completion of the Arrangement remains subject to, among other things, TSX approval and the satisfaction or waiver of certain other customary closing conditions. GMIN anticipates the Arrangement to close on or around July 15, 2024. It is expected that two or three business days after the closing of the Arrangement, the common shares of New GMIN will be listed and posted for trading on TSX under the stock symbol "GMIN", in substitution for the presently listed Common Shares. Story continues Additional details about the Arrangement and the Private Placements can be found in the joint management information circular of GMIN dated June 7, 2024, a copy of which is available on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) under GMIN's issuer profile and on GMIN's website at www.gmin.gold. About G Mining Ventures Corp. G Mining Ventures Corp. (TSX: GMIN) (OTCQX: GMINF) is a mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of precious metal projects, to capitalize on the value uplift from successful mine development. GMIN is well-positioned to grow into the next mid-tier precious metals producer by leveraging strong access to capital and proven development expertise. GMIN is currently anchored by its flagship Tocantinzinho Gold Project in mining friendly and prospective State of Para, Brazil. Additional Information For further information on GMIN, please visit the website at www.gmin.gold. Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of certain securities laws and are based on expectations and projections as of the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, without limitation, those related to (i) the anticipated closing of the Arrangement on or around July 15, 2024 following the satisfaction of all conditions precedent thereto, (ii) the common shares of New GMIN to trade on the TSX under the symbol "GMIN"; and (iii) more generally, the section entitled "About G Mining Ventures Corp.". Forward-looking statements are based on expectations, estimates and projections as of the time of this press release. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Corporation as of the time of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. These estimates and assumptions may prove to be incorrect. Such assumptions include, without limitation, those relating to the price of gold and currency exchange rates and those underlying the items listed on the above section entitled "About G Mining Ventures Corp.". Many of these uncertainties and contingencies can directly or indirectly affect, and could cause, actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that, notably but without limitation, the Corporation will (i) bring its Tocantinzinho Gold Project into commercial production in the H2-2024, or at all, (ii) grow GMIN into the next intermediate producer, or (iii) complete the Arrangement, as currently contemplated or at all, as future events could differ materially from what is currently anticipated by the Corporation. In addition, there can be no assurance that the New GMIN common shares will be listed on the TSX and that the State of Para, in Brazil, will remain a mining friendly and prospective jurisdiction. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks exist that estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved or that assumptions do not reflect future experience. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as a number of important risk factors and future events could cause the actual outcomes to differ materially from the beliefs, plans, objectives, expectations, anticipations, estimates, assumptions and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those made in the Corporation's other filings with the securities regulators of Canada including, but not limited to, the cautionary statements made in the relevant sections of the Corporation's (i) Annual Information Form dated March 27, 2024, for the financial year ended December 31, 2023, and (ii) Management Discussion & Analysis. The Corporation cautions that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive, and new, unforeseeable risks may arise from time to time. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law. La Mancha Required Early Warning Disclosure Prior to the completion of the Private Placements, La Mancha beneficially owned and had control and direction over an aggregate of 111,879,265 Common Shares, representing approximately 25% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares. Upon completion of the Private Placements, but prior to closing of the Arrangement, La Mancha acquired an additional 15,114,250 Common Shares, and beneficially owns and has control and direction over an aggregate of 126,993,515 Common Shares, representing approximately 26% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares. The cash consideration paid by La Mancha for the aggregate of 15,114,250 Common Shares was C$2.279 per Common Share, for a total consideration of approximately C$34,445,376 based on the average daily exchange rate published by the Bank of Canada for converting Canadian dollars into US dollars for the five (5) trading days immediately prior to April 22, 2024, as contemplated by the subscription agreement between La Mancha and GMIN entered into in connection with the La Mancha Private Placement. La Mancha acquired the Common Shares for investment purposes. In the future, La Mancha may, from time to time, increase or decrease its investment in GMIN or, following closing of the Arrangement, New GMIN, through market transactions, private arrangements, treasury issuances or otherwise. An early warning report containing additional information with respect to the foregoing matters will be filed under GMIN's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca and may also be obtained by contacting: Karim Nasr, Partner, La Mancha Resource Capital LLP, karim.nasr@lamancha.com, +44.203.960.2020. GMIN's head office is located at 5025 Lapiniere Blvd., 10th Floor, Suite 1050, Brossard, QC J4Z 0N5 Canada. La Mancha's head office is located at 31-33 Avenue Pasteur, L-2311, Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/g-mining-ventures-announces-closing-of-private-placements-and-receipt-of-final-order-for-arrangement-with-reunion-gold-302195736.html SOURCE G Mining Ventures Corp Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2024/12/c6989.html The Nigerian Army has arrested 21 suspects and recovered 10 boats, five vehicles and motorcycles as it continued its raid on illegal oil refineries in Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State, South-east Nigeria. Thursdays operation at Obuaku and Imo River Waterside in Ipu town is coming within one month of its crackdown on the illegal oil refinery in Obuaku and neighbouring Isimini Waterside. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the army had, during the first two operations, arrested about 20 suspects and recovered 16 boats. The General Officer Commanding (GOC), 82 Division, Hassan Dada, a major-general, led the joint military exercise against oil bunkering in the state under Operation Udoka. The troop destroyed several oil storage tanks, crude oil and illegally refined petroleum products during Thursdays operation The GOC, while addressing reporters at the creek, lamented the negative impact of the activities of oil vandals on the countrys economy. He vowed not to give oil vandals and economic saboteurs any breeding ground in any state within the Division. 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 GOC warned those involved in the illegal act to quit or wait for the bitter consequences of their actions. He said that suspects would be handed over to the appropriate agencies for prosecution. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, says the National Assembly will work with the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, to address the lack of confidence in elections conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC). Mr Akpabio spoke to journalists on Thursday after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgement, affirmed the autonomy of local government and directed that the third tier of government should be paid directly from the federation account. The Supreme Court also ruled that caretaker committees and similar arrangements are illegal. Mr Akpabio, who attended the meeting alongside the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, said opposition parties at the state level are often lethargic about elections at the local level because of a lack of trust. So, it is a great thing that the Supreme Court has done the needful, and now we have to go back and thinkworking with the AGF office and the parliament to see how we can ensure that theres a real election at the LG levels. I think once that is done, everybody will have confidence, and that is progress for democracy, and that is how it should be, the senate president 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 Mr Akpabio did not provide details on how the elections at the local government level will be improved. He also maintained that the National Assembly will review the judgement and make necessary legislative adjustments to complement the ruling of the Supreme Court on the matter. Lack of trust in SIECs The level of confidence in the elections conducted by SIECs in almost all states is low because the outcomes of the elections often favour the ruling party at the state level. Many have called for the transfer of the conduct of local government elections to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Mr Fagbemi also recently raised the issue while speaking at a dialogue organised by the House of Representatives on state police. However, the federal government has not officially announced its position on the matter. The transfer of local government elections to INEC will require constitutional alterations because SIEC is a creation of the 1999 Constitution. Governors must respect the Supreme Courts ruling Mr Akpabio also urged the state governors to respect the verdict of the Supreme Court, noting that the National Assembly will also ensure compliance. The Supreme Court has spoken, and we have no option other than to abide by the Supreme Court ruling. So, I will just call on all states of the federation to respect what the Supreme Court has done, and then we will go back to the legislature and see where we can dot the is and cross the ts to ensure full implementation, he said. LGs are free from excesses of governorsSpeaker In his remarks, Mr Tajudeen said the Supreme Court judgement has finally addressed a problem that the parliament tried to address in the past 20 years. He stated that the National Assembly has tried to provide local government autonomy through the constitution alteration route, but it has never worked. He added that members of the House are very happy with the outcome. The members have been very happy because history has been made. This is an issue that has been before Parliament for the past 20 years. Of all the constitutional amendments that were so far carried out by the National Assembly, one aspect of it has always been local government autonomy. How do we make the LG work independently? Today, that impossibility became a reality, everyone is happy, and we are looking forward to LGs that will work functionally, and that will be able to work on their own and extend goodwill to their people undisturbed by the excesses of the state governors. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian governments efforts to combat illegal mining received a significant boost on Thursday with the arraignment of some Chinese nationals for illegal mining activities in Lokpaukwu community, Umuchieze, within Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State. The suspects, including eight (8) Chinese nationals and one Nigerian recently apprehended by the Mining Marshals, an elite security outfit crafted from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), were arraigned before Justice J.K Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja. The prosecution filed a three-count, which are mining without lawful authority and obstruction of lawful mining operations, among others. The defendants are SHEN YONGCHAN, MO BAIXIAN, XIAO BIN, HUANG XU FA, MA BINGLI, YANG JIAN, LI PEIYIN, QUE WENYONG, HIYK EDWARD DESMOND, and WANDA COMPANY LIMITED. Upon hearing the pleas and arguments from both sides, the defendants were remanded at Kuje Correctional Centre until the adjourned date for the continuation of the trial. About the mining marshals The Mining Marshals, codenamed Operation Hayakin Kogo, is the brainchild of the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake. The initiative is a pivotal component of the ministers seven-point agenda to sanitise the mining environment. 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 marshals are tasked with ridding the mining sector of illegal operators. READ ALSO: Nigerian govt increases mining rates for minerals The Mining Marshals, led by ACC John Onoja, comprise a 2,570-strong force dedicated to eliminating the nefarious activities of criminal syndicates in mining areas across the country. The minister is committed to strengthening the operations of the Mining Marshals through the infusion of technology and more equipment to ultimately ensure that the nation reaps maximum benefits from its God-given mineral resources. *Segun Tomori* Special Assistant on Media to the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development 12th July, 2024 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A popular filling station, Mainland Oil and Gas, located in Kubwa, a satellite town in Abuja, has been gutted by fire. The FCT Police spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, disclosed this on Thursday night. She said the incident occurred around 5 p.m. on Thursday. Preliminary findings revealed that it occurred when a tanker was discharging fuel at the station, she added. Ms Adeh said the operatives of Kubwa Police Division mobilised by the FCT Police Commissioner, Benneth Igweh, and those of the Federal Fire Service went to the scene to possibly rescue victims, extinguish the fire, and protect other assets of the station In response to the fire outbreak at Mainland Oil and Gas filling station in Kubwa, Abuja, earlier today, July 11, 2024, at about 05:30 p.m., the Commissioner of Police FCT, CP Benneth C. Igweh, psc, mni, swiftly mobilised police patrol teams from Kubwa division and personnel of PMF 50 alongside operatives of the Federal Fire Service to the scene to possibly rescue victims, extinguish the fire, and protect other assets of the filling station from being engulfed, she said. Mrs Adeh said the fire was later put out, though no fatalities were recorded. 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 While no fatalities were recorded, preliminary investigation revealed that a tanker discharging fuel actually caught fire, but with the combined effort of the police operatives, fire service personnel, and members of the public, the fire was extinguished even though the tanker got burned completely. Read full statement below KUBWA FILLING STATION FIRE INCIDENT: SITUATION UNDER CONTROL. ..as police, fire service manages situation. In response to the fire outbreak at Mainland oil and gas filling station in Kubwa, Abuja, earlier today, July 11, 2024, at about 05:30 p.m., the Commissioner of Police FCT, CP Benneth C. Igweh, psc, mni, swiftly mobilised police patrol teams from Kubwa division and personnel of PMF 50 alongside operatives of the Federal Fire Service to the scene to possibly rescue victims, extinguish the fire, and protect other assets of the filling station from being engulfed. While no fatalities were recorded, preliminary investigation revealed that a tanker discharging fuel actually caught fire, but with the combined effort of the police operatives, fire service personnel, and members of the public, the fire was extinguished even though the tanker got burned completely. While the cause of the fire outbreak is yet to be ascertained, the situation is now very much under control, as the fire has been extinguished. Further development will be communicated in due course. SP Josephine Adeh Anipr, Police Public Relations Officer For: the commissioner of police, FCT, Abuja. July 11,2024. 8:45 p.m. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Yushau Ahmed, has expressed shock over the collapse of the female hostel bathroom wall at the NYSC orientation camp in Ise-Emure, Ekiti State on Friday morning. Mr Ahmed said that it was the primary function of various state governments to build and maintain facilities in the orientation camp as contained in the NYSC Act. He called on the Ekiti State Government to urgently equip the camp with sustainable facilities that will not endanger the lives of the camp community. Two corps members sustained varying degrees of injuries following the collapse of the bathroom wall. A corps member at the camp, Kemi Adebayo, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that the bathroom wall caved when they were preparing to take their bath. But thank God, people rushed down there to retrieve them from the rubbles. They have been stabilised at a tertiary health facility. Corps members are currently in the camp for the three-week compulsory orientation camp for those posted to the 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 In a statement by NYSC spokesperson, Eddy Megwa, he also confirmed that the injured corps members were stable and were receiving medical treatment at a tertiary health facility in the state. The strong collaboration of the entire camp officials that served as first responders to the two injured Corps members from the incident were effectively coordinated by the State Coordinator, he said. He called on parents, guardians and concerned parties not to panic over the incident, adding that it had no serious negative impact on the corps members. There have been complaints over the years over the poor condition of structures in the NYSC camp in Ekiti State. But no adequate renovation has taken place. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, has reiterated the importance of a free media in sustaining Nigerias democracy. Mr Tajudeen stated this on Thursday during the commissioning of the renovated House of Representatives Press Centre at the National Assembly complex. The role of the media within a democracy cannot be overstated, the speaker said. He stated that the House and journalists must collaborate to sustain democracy, adding that such collaboration is consistent with the legislative agenda of the 10th House. The cooperation and collaboration between the media and the legislature, as outlined in our House Legislative Agenda, are essential for promoting transparency, accountability, and effective governance. By working together, we can ensure that the public remains well-informed and actively engaged in the democratic process, he said. While commending the House Press Corps for their coverage of the legislature, Mr Tajudeen stressed the need for accurate reporting and the enlightenment of the people. 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 commend the Press Corps for your dedicated reporting on the activities of parliament. Your efforts to keep the public informed about our work are invaluable. It is essential that your reportage remains well-researched and balanced, providing accurate and fair coverage of our proceedings. This commitment to journalistic integrity helps to maintain public trust and ensures that citizens receive reliable information, Mr Tajudeen said. In her remarks, the Chairperson of the Corps, Grace Ike, urged the House to equip the centre with digital gadgets that will aid the work of the journalists using it. We are deeply grateful for your generosity and vision. This modernised facility is a beacon of hope for our profession, enabling us to discharge our duties more effectively. Your support is a reminder that a free press and a functioning democracy go hand-in-hand. However, additional working materials such as laptops will go a long way to help us improve our skills and report effectively, she said. Attacks on press freedom Mr Tajudeens call is coming amid renewed attacks on journalists in Nigeria. In the past couple of years, press freedom has been on the decline in Nigeria. Experts believe that there is a shrinking of the civic space under President Bola Tinubu. In the last one year, security agencies have used the infamous Cybercrime Act 2015 to hound journalists. This is despite the amendment of the law. In 2024 alone, the CJIDs Press Attack Tracker has so far tracked, verified, and documented 23 cases of press freedom violations against journalists in Nigeria, a development that shows the country still has a long way to go in tolerating dissenting views. In 2023, a total of 108 cases of press attacks were documented by the Press Attack Tracker; 23 of the cases were documented between 29 May and December 2023. Earlier on Thursday, the House also debated a motion on press freedom and the incessant attacks on journalists. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The ECOWAS Court of Justice has nullified the dismissal of Momodu Cham, a former staff member of the the ECOWAS Commission, saying it breached Article 69 of the ECOWAS staff regulations. Mr Cham had filed the suit following his dismissal from his position as a procurement officer with the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (GIABA), a specialised ECOWAS agency. The applicant, a community citizen residing in Banjul, Gambia, had joined the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS) and its President, as first and second Respondents, respectively, in the suit challenging his sack. Judgement Delivering judgement, Dupe Atoki, the judge rapporteur, held that the cessation of Chams salary by the commission before the exhaustion of the appeal process was arbitrary, unlawful, null, and void. According to Ms Atoki, the action of the commission is contrary to Article 73(b) of the ECOWAS Staff Regulations. The court, therefore, ordered the Respondents to pay Mr Cham his salary arrears and other entitlements from January 2021 to June 2021, as compensation. It further ordered the Commission to pay Mr Chams salaries and emoluments from July to December 2021 as compensation for the unlawful dismissal. 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 Requesting an on-the-spot response to charges without prior notice or an opportunity to prepare a defence violates procedural safeguards outlined in the ECOWAS Staff Regulations. The regulations are designed to ensure an applicants rights are fully maintained until the Councils final decision. Consequently, the summary dismissal of the applicant by the 2nd Respondent breached Article 69 of the regulation. Therefore, the cessation of the applicants salary and other emoluments after invoking the right of appeal is a violation of Article 73(b) of the ECOWAS Staff Regulations, Justice Atoki held. The court, however, declined to grant any orders for mandatory injunctions against the commission and reinstatement of the applicant. The sack The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the applicant had contended at the trial that he was suspended on 11 July 2019, following a forensic audit report by Ernst and Young UK, which implicated him in irregularities related to the purchase of IT equipment for GIABA. He said that on 26 January 2021, he was summarily dismissed, and his salaries and emoluments were withheld in violation of the ECOWAS Staff Regulations. Mr Cham had prayed the court to grant him , among other prayers, a declaration that his dismissal was arbitrary, null, and void. He also sought an order setting aside his dismissal and the immediate payment of his salary arrears and other entitlements from January 2021. The applicant had also prayed for his reinstatement to his position as a Procurement Officer and compensation for costs incurred in prosecuting the suit. However, the respondents, in their defence, maintained that the applicant was properly suspended and later dismissed following a forensic audit report and a subsequent query. They had also argued that the dismissal was appropriate due to the allegations of gross misconduct, embezzlement, theft, fraud, and abuse of trust. NAN reports that the three-member panel also had Gberi-be Ouattara, presiding, and Sengu Mohamed Koroma, as a member. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu has extended his warm congratulations to Owolabi Olakulehin on his coronation as the 43rd Olubadan of Ibadan. Mr Olakulehin was coronated on Friday. President Tinubu joined the family of the new Olubadan, Ibadan citizens, the Oyo State Council of Obas, and the Oyo State Government to celebrate Mr Olakulehin on his ascension to the revered throne of his forebears. The president affirmed that Mr Olakulehin brings to the throne immense wisdom, experience, character, and strength, and urged the monarch to use the highly esteemed stool of Ibadan to advance the peace, security, and development of the area. President Tinubu assured the new Olubadan of his support and wished him success as he works to promote and preserve the culture and traditions of the ancient city. The president also congratulated Ibadan indigenes on the peaceful succession process and prayed that the peace, beauty, and renown of Ibadan will abide always. Ajuri Ngelale 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 Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity) July 12, 2024 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, has yet to implement President Bola Tinubus directive that Nicholas Agbo-Ella be allowed to represent Nigeria as OPEC Governor, in what appears to some people a disobedience of President Bola Tinubus order. In a directive issued on 6 May, Mr Tinubu asked Mr Lokpobiri, whom he appointed in August 2023, to submit the name of Mr Agbo-Ella, the current Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources as the representative of Nigeria in OPEC. Mr Agbo-Ella replaced Gabriel Aduda as the Permanent Secretary for the Petroleum Ministry after the latter was redeployed to the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development in February. Top officials in the ministry have told this newspaper that Mr Aduda, a brother to former FCT Senator Philip Aduda, has continued to attend functions as OPEC governor, a move sources said was backed by Mr Lokpobiri. President Tinubu emphasised in his memo to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and copied to Mr Lokpobiri that Mr Lokpobiri should take immediate steps to notify OPEC of the change of Permanent Secretary and replace Ambassador Gabriel T. Adudas name with Ambassador Nicholas Agbo-Ella as the Governor nominated by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, being the current Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum. PREMIUM TIMES exclusively obtained the memo in which the president said the minister should ensure the replacement is confirmed by the conference scheduled for 1 June 2024. However, in what some administration insiders consider a disregard of a valid presidential directive, Mr Lokpobiri does not appear to have submitted Mr Agbo-Ellas name to the OPEC Board of Governors, at least as of 1 June, an insider at the petroleum ministry 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 PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately confirm the reason for Mr Lokpobiris action. It is also unclear why Mr Aduda, whose function is now with the Ministry of Women Affairs, continued to serve as OPEC governor. PREMIUM TIMES calls and text messages to the minister seeking comments about the submission of Mr Agbo-Ellas name to the OPEC were neither acknowledged nor returned. This newspaper also contacted the SGFs office to know what efforts he has made to ensure that the presidents directive is complied with. Segun Imohiosen, the spokesperson of the SGFs Office, first asked for some time to clarify the ministers stance. He subsequently refused to return calls and text messages sent to him. Checks by this medium show that Mr Aduda is still listed as the Governor of Nigeria on the OPEC website. He also still addresses himself as the OPEC governor of Nigeria on his X account. Nigeria joined OPEC in 1971 to enhance the countrys crude oil production. The Petroleum Act only recognises a high-ranking official from the petroleum ministry to represent Nigerias interest at OPEC. Hence, the approval to allow the current Permanent Secretary of the Ministry to serve as the representative of Nigeria at the OPEC meeting, the presidents letter to the SGF read. In the letter, Mr Tinubu granted approval for Mr Agbo-Ella to attend the 165th Meeting of the OPEC Board of Governors (BOG) in May. But, it was Mr Aduda who attended the BOG meeting. Critically examining the Organisations strategic, financial and administrative affairs. At the ongoing 165th Meeting of OPECs Board of Governors, Mr Aduda wrote on X, attaching his pictures from the event. Mr Aduda ignored PREMIUM TIMES repeated requests for comments on why he is still serving as OPEC governor despite being redeployed to a new ministry. Other OPEC meetings that were supposed to be attended by Mr Lokpobiri and Mr Agbo-Ella during the trip to the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria, were the 188th Meeting of the Conference, the 54th Meeting of the JMMC and the 37th Meeting of the ONOM. Insiders at the ministry also said despite his redeployment from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mr Aduda wwas recently seen in a photograph receiving the OPEC Secretary General, Haitham Al Ghais, in Nigeria. Similarly, Mr Lokpobiri and Mr Aduda were seen in a photograph dated 2 June 2024, where the pair attended an OPEC meeting virtually. This is not the first controversy Mr Aduda will be embroiled in. This newspaper, in an exclusive report in May 2014, detailed Mr Adudas entry into the federal civil service despite failing promotional and confirmation examinations at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. After Mr Aduda flunked the examination, he resigned after a re-mark of his papers showed that he indeed performed abysmally. However, six months after his resignation, Mr Aduda was named the Director in charge of the Economic Research and Policy Management Department of the Federal Ministry of Finance. From then, he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Petroleum Resources and now with the Ministry of Women Affairs. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The governing council of the Federal College of Education, Technical (FCET), Akoka has confirmed the release of the Deputy Registrar of the College, Chris Olamiju. Also released was a security officer in the college, Friday Otobong, who was also reportedly arrested by the State Security Services (SSS) alongside Mr Olamiju. The Chairman of the council, Olatunde Adenuga, told PREMIUM TIMES Thursday evening that Mr Olamiju was with him in the car after he secured his release from the SSS. We are just coming from the SSS, he has been released tonight, Mr Adenuga said. In a statement obtained by PREMIUM TIMES Thursday, the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) had accused the SSS of abducting Mr Olamiju at about 3 a.m. on Thursday from his residence at the colleges senior staff quarters in Akoka, Lagos. The operation was conducted in a manner likened to Gestapo tactics by operatives of the State Security Services (SSS), it noted. Meanwhile, when PREMIUM TIMES contacted the SSS, its spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, denied the allegation, clarifying that the DSS doesnt abduct and has never abducted. 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 According to Mr Afunanya, Mr Olamiju was once invited by SSS but he has since been released to the ministry of education after coming to a resolution. It is a lie. We didnt abduct him. There is a deputy registrar I am aware was troublesome and was invited to our office. When they brought him, the issue was sorted out and he was released to officials of the Ministry of Education. They are long gone, he said. Alleged arrest According to COEASU, Mr Olamiju was assaulted during the invasion, adding that his personal belongings including documents, phones, and laptops were confiscated, reportedly causing chaos and fear among residents of the quarters. The union wrote: At present, Mr Olamijus wife, children, and other family members are experiencing deep trauma and disorientation. This is happening despite the presence of the Chairman and members of the Governing Council at the college for the past three days on a fact-finding mission aimed at resolving the ongoing impasse. The DSS raid on Mr. Chris Olamijus residence demonstrates a profound disrespect toward the council members. In a live video on Facebook, the protesting workers were seen insisting that the Provost of the college, Wahab Azeez, would never be allowed to his office or continue with his administration despite a resolution reached with the Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu. They linked the arrest of the Mr Olamiju to Mr Azeezs efforts to provoke the protesting workers into falling into his trap to go violent so that the college will be shut so he can come to office. When contacted, the provost said he heard the news just like anyone and has no link with the development. He said as the chief security officer of the college, he was also surprised about the development. He confirmed that he once reported the daily protest on the campus to relevant authorities and that since the intervention of the education ministry he never communicated with anyone to arrest anybody. He said he is also in contact with the new council leadership to find out Mr Olamijus whereabouts. He said: What my accusers dont understand is that within the last five years of my tenure as provost no one was harassed, suspended, or dismissed. Even those who experienced such before my appointment got their issues resolved under my watch. What they have refused to tell the public is that we blocked the loopholes and it has not been business as usual since my appointment. Im a man of due process and that is what they dont want. Lies can fly for many years, it will take a second for truth to catch up with it. The gang-up has a lot of connotations but we must not surrender to blackmail and cheap propaganda. The provost said the law is clear about his tenure of office and that since the protesters are not the appointing authorities, they cannot determine his exit. Rather than taking laws into their hands why dont they approach law court? Was I appointed by their affirmation alone? If there are allegations against me, why will they be the judge in their own cases? But I know the new governing council is addressing everything, he added. PREMIUM TIMES learnt Mr Olamiju was asked to return to the SSS office in Lagos on Monday. Backstory Despite signing resolutions reached at a reconciliatory meeting chaired by Mr Sununu a few days ago, some workers of FCET have continued to threaten a showdown should Mr Azeez return to the office. The workers, who had engaged in prolonged protest since 27 May over the tenure of the provost, have locked up his office and those of other principal officers, denying them access to the offices for more than a month. Signed by the representatives of the ministry, the newly inaugurated governing council of the college, and the staff unions, the resolutions included the reopening of the office of the colleges provost and his return to the office. The workers were also ordered to stop the prolonged protest and governing council members were asked to meet with them to address the workers. The governing council under the leadership of Mr Adenuga has since been on ground in the college to address the issues. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Tottenham Turks gang boss suspected of being behind Dalston restaurant shooting killed in Moldova A gang boss suspected of being behind a drive-by shooting that left a nine-year-old girl fighting for her life in Dalston has reportedly been gunned down in Moldova. Tottenham Turks leader Izzet Eren, 41, was shot seven times as he sat outside a cafe in the capital Chisinau on Wednesday, The Mirror reported. He is said to have been killed by a gunman riding an electric scooter and wearing a helmet in a feared tit-for-tat revenge attack. Police are reportedly investigating a possible connection to a shooting in Dalston in May, where a nine-year-old girl and three men aged 26, 37, and 42 were wounded when a gunman opened fire near a restaurant on Kingsland High Street. Police are reportedly probing links with a drive-by shooting in Dalstons Kingsland Road in May (PA Wire) The attack was thought to have been intended to target rival gang members. Scotland Yard has previously said "Turkish organised criminal networks" may have been behind the drive-by shooting. Officers have also said Eren was involved in a gang, known as the Tottenham Turks, which had a long-running feud with the rival Hackney Turks. The feud had seen numerous shootings dating back to 2009 in both London and Turkey. A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "The Metropolitan Police are aware of reports of the death of a 41-year-old man in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. "At this time the name of the man who died has not been officially confirmed by Moldovan authorities." Eren was jailed for 21 years in 2015 for firearms offences and was transferred to a prison in Turkey in August 2019. He absconded from that prison a month later and detectives later traced him to Moldova. He had been caught in October 2015 carrying a machine gun in north London while allegedly on his way to carry out a shooting. But while being taken to Wood Green Crown Court from jail two months later, associates attempted to spring Eren from custody. Police managed to stop the attempt, but shot 28-year-old Jermaine Baker in the process. The American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, Adamawa State, said it is offering tuition scholarships to young students in Nigeria and other African countries in celebration of its 20th anniversary. The university is also launching a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative for senior secondary schools in Adamawa State, aiming at fostering greater interest among students in science, technology, and the health sciences. This is contained in a statement by the universitys Interim Registrar and Vice President, Administration, Daniel Okereke. Scholarships Under the scholarship terms, incoming students will receive tuition fee discounts ranging from 10 to 50 per cent, depending on the programme they enrol in. Mr Okereke said the institution is offering the most substantial discounts in Nursing, Public Health, and Engineering Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, and Telecommunications Engineering. The scholarship awards reaffirm the institutions commitment to offering quality education to deserving students, regardless of their economic or social background, he said. He added that entering graduate students will enjoy a 50 per cent tuition fee remission from the fall 2024 semester as part of the 20th anniversary scholarship offers. 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 the graduate scholarships are available to candidates enrolled in the AUN/UNICEF M.Sc. in Communication for Social and Behavior Change, Masters of Business Administration, and Professional Masters in Information and Communication Science, and Masters in Telecommunication and Wireless Technologies, all of which are offered in hybrid modes, and well as the regular Masters and doctoral degrees in Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Administration, and Entrepreneurship. According to the statement, President of the university, DeWayne Frazier, described the scholarships as a development that aims at motivating young Nigerians to choose to earn their first degree in their home country before seeking to further their education abroad, adding that AUN offers the same quality global education as obtained overseas at a fraction of the cost. He said the scholarships will also alleviate some of the hardships AUN parents face, some of whom have many members of their family attending the university. He said the fields of Nursing, Public Health, and Engineering have been highlighted to boost enrollment by students in the local communities and address the shortage of skilled professionals in these areas in the North-east region, which he noted faces numerous socioeconomic challenges as it emerges from the aftermath of a decade-long insurgency. Mr Frazier added that it is a further gesture of appreciation to the many AUN parents and alumni whose faith and belief in the universitys philosophy have become its most valuable assets. He said: We are thrilled to offer the new 20th Anniversary Tuition Scholarships in celebration of the two decades of the American University of Nigeria. These scholarships aim at recognising the outstanding achievements of our students as well as bolstering opportunities for more enrollment across the nation and the African continent. We are urging students to take advantage of this new programme as there will never be a time that the university fees are this competitively priced. Help us celebrate our 20th anniversary at AUN. About AUN The private university, established by former Nigerian Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, in 2003, commenced academic activities in 2004. The institution currently offers 33 majors and 14 minors in academic programmes under seven Schools Arts & Sciences, Business & Entrepreneurship, Information Technology & Computing, Law, Engineering, Basic Medical & Allied Health Sciences, and the Graduate School. AUNs distinctive American-style liberal arts education focuses on community impact, aiming at learning and research outcomes to address the diverse socioeconomic challenges prevalent in the North-east region, Nigeria and the African continent, Mr Okereke said. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, has chronicled the challenges confronting Nigerias tertiary education system, describing them as seemingly insurmountable. Mr Ogundipe, a Professor of Botany, spoke on Wednesday as the guest lecturer at a valedictory lecture in honour of the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), Lawal Bilbis, also a professor. The event, organised by the institutions chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), was part of the activities to mark the unions programme tagged: ASUU UDUS Heroes Day. Mr Ogundipe spoke on the topic: University Governance and Traditions in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Prospects. He listed the challenges facing Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions to include acute underfunding, infrastructural decay, brain drain, overcrowding, leadership incompetence, and the accompanying consequence of unemployable graduates, among numerous others. The guest lecturer said the key solution to the multiple crises facing the universities in Nigeria is improved funding and judicious utilisation of the funds. He, however, noted that it would be difficult to access the huge amount required by Nigerian universities to significantly address the identified challenges facing the institutions. As a way forward, therefore, Mr Ogundipe said online education would help universities reach more students without the high additional cost of constructing more classrooms, and hostels, and the increasing cost of maintaining these facilities. 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 Given the impracticality of investing trillions of naira towards new university building projects, a cost-efficient alternative that the nation should embrace is online education, he said. Obsolete facilities In his presentation, while reeling out many other challenges confronting the universities in Nigeria, he linked the perennial workers strike on various campuses to the identified issues. Inadequate funding is the bane of the Nigerian university education, and this is invariably hindering the optimal performance of many university managers, he said. He said most universities lack modern facilities for effective teaching and learning. He added that modern equipment and facilities are important for effective teaching and learning with accelerating technological development. The lecturer also decried the current earnings of Nigerian academics, which he described as paltry. The salary of a vice-chancellor is about N800,000. By the time they deduct everything maybe you will go home with N500 or N600,000, he said. And when you leave office as a vice-chancellor, you will revert to your salary as a professor. Way forward In suggesting a way forward, Mr Ogundipe said traditional brick-and-mortar universities are both capital-intensive and unscalable, suggesting online education which he noted is scalable, flexible, and accessible. He said: In fact, the flexibility offered by online education will also go a long way toward reducing incidences of kidnappings, particularly for those in Northwestern Nigeria. This is of course because online students can learn from home. He noted that universities would, however, need to invest better in internet infrastructure given the importance of a strong and reliable internet connection in ensuring a good online learning experience for students, theres a need to close this gap. He also asked universities to use the equipment provided by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and report contractors who supply substandard equipment. He said: Concerning these teaching materials, TETFund is spending a lot of money in that area, and you find out that some of these companies will now supply substandard equipment to the universities. Universities should write directly to TETFund so that they will know that some of the equipment that are being supplied by these companies that the contract were awarded to are not standard equipment. I remember when we had this TETFund meeting, they were showing us pictures of some universities that kept their equipment in the store. Equipment that they are supposed to have (been) given out for the student to use. Outgoing VC speaks In his speech, the outgoing vice-chancellor of UDUS, Mr Bilbis, noted that universities must begin to change the narratives that come out of them. He said most news coming out of the university is one strike or another, noting that such a single narrative must change. He said: We need to be dynamic in the way we run our universities. We need changes that will start bringing some work into the university. Mr Billbis noted that running a university is expensive, adding that funding from the government remains abysmal. He said the government allocation for running the day-to-day activities of the universities is so little that it can hardly cater for the electricity bill of the institutions. I can recall we had a meeting with the minister of finance at one time and we told her that the salary of a vice-chancellor is N641,000, and if you are someone like me that take loans, Ill go home with N400,000, he said. He appreciated members of ASUU for organising the ceremony and Mr Ogundipe for the lecture. He thanked the union for the support for his administration as the vice-chancellor since he assumed office five years ago. ASUU, I sincerely appreciate this. I dont know whether I deserve this. I know we have our usual behind-the-scenes quarrels at the management. Still, I have always had fruitful discussions at any meeting I have with ASUU, he said, while dedicating his award to the staff and students of the university. He also appreciated students civility in ensuring that the university remains the most peaceful in the country. This university is a student-centred university. Suppose you decide to transfer from the university and nobody picks Usmanu Danfodiyo University the next day. In that case, the federal government will say our services are no longer required, and theyll ask us to put up your resignation letter and go home, he added. Awards ASUU-UDUS also conferred excellence awards on its members who have retired from the university system. The academics also extolled late members, including Yusuf Saidu, a professor who was recently murdered by bandits in Zamfara during a trip from Sokoto to Kaduna State. One of the awardees, Hamidu Ahmed, an emeritus Professor of Paediatrics, was awarded posthumously. He died on 3 July. Other awardees are Nuhu Yaqub, a Professor of Political science; Abdulganiyu Salawu, a Professor of Guidance and Counselling; Yusuf Saidu, a Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry; Yahaya Al-amin, a Professor of Islamic Literature; Saidya Omar, a professor of Hausa Literature; Mohammed Mode, a professor of Science of Tafsir; Sulaiman Etsay, a Professor of Islamic Studies, and Mohammed Magaji, a Professor of Agronomy. Others are Muhammad Mustapha, Muhammad Dangana, Atiku Ahmad, Ibrahim Alhassan, Abdullahi Abdulkarim, Abdulganiyu Bello, Aliyu Yusuf, Auwal Abdulnasir, and Abubakar Tsoho, all professors. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The International Press Institute (IPI) Nigeria on Thursday organised a dinner in honour of one of its board members, Raheem Adedoyin, recently re-elected into the executive board of the IPI International during the World Congress and General Assembly of the organisation in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr Adedoyin represents Nigeria and Africa on the IPI board, headquartered in Vienna, Austria. In his address, the IPI Nigeria President and Editor-in-Chief of PREMIUM TIMES, Musikilu Mojeed, said the occasion was to celebrate Mr Adedoyins dedication to the organisation, which he noted has been instrumental in shaping the global conversation on press freedom and journalism. He described Mr Adedoyin as a champion of press freedom, a mentor to many, and a shining example of excellence in journalism. We journalists hardly celebrate ourselves. We are very good about writing about other people celebrating other people, but we hardly gather to celebrate with each other. So this is a very unusual event that we all find time to come here, Mr Mojeed said. It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this special dinner in honour of our distinguished IPI global board member, Raheem Adedoyin. We gather tonight to celebrate Raheems remarkable achievements and contributions to the world of journalism. His tireless efforts to promote press freedom, foster excellence in reporting and support journalists worldwide are a testament to his unwavering commitment to our noble profession. In separate comments, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, IPI Nigeria and Chairperson, Media Trust Nigeria Limited, Kabiru Yusuf, and a member of IPI Nigeria Board of Trustees, Folu Olamiti, appreciated Mr Adedoyins commitment to the organisation when he served as secretary for 12 years. 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 Olamiti also commended the IPI Nigeria President, Mr Mojeed, for steering the organisation to the path of greatness. He noted that IPI Nigeria is one of the best African organisations pushing for press freedom and commended Mr Mojeed and his team. He said: When IPI was going through crises, there were so many people coming in and out to say let us have the elders take over the organisation. But Kabiru and others stood up and said let us have the younger ones We then decided to have the younger ones take over. It was a bold moveThese younger ones have actually done well to take IPI to the limelight. Mr Adedoyin speaks In his speech, the honoree, Mr Adedoyin, reaffirmed his commitment to continued meaningful representation of Nigeria and Africa on the IPI executive board. He said he had been committed to fighting the euro-centric nature of the organisation, which he believed neglected much of Africas needs and concerns. Each time we are at the world meeting, I always say I cant see what you are putting on the table for Africa. Im here to represent African interests. We are always having issues, he said. He noted his persistence almost led to his removal from the board but for the support of Mr Yusuf, the chairperson IPI Nigeria Board of Trustees, and IPI Nigeria President, Mr Mojeed. He commended Mr Mojeeds leadership of IPI Nigeria, noting the renewed efficiency and results. He said: What IPI International has not been able to do, IPI Nigeria is doing. And we have become the favourites whenever we have meetings. Nigeria has become the shiniest. Weve been organising trainings conducting advocacy, and whenever we see cases of press freedom violations, we try to tackle them. But on this note, I want caution, a little bit of caution. IPI is not an activist organisation. In fact, we do our jobs better when we use internal mechanisms to resolve issues that bother us. Mr Adedoyin also took attendees through memory lane of how he joined the IPI 29 years ago through Mr Olamiti during a trip in 1995. I got to IPI through Mr Olamiti. I think we were going to Japan and other places. He (Mr Olamiti) said you have to register to become a member before you can enjoy the benefit, he said, adding that he would later serve as the organisations secretary for 12 years while running the organisation with Mr Yusuf. Appreciations Mr Adedoyin appreciated the organisers and speakers who extolled his virtues. He spoke glowingly about Messrs Yusuf and Olamiti as well as Mohammed Idris, the minister of information and national orientation, who also graced the occasion, describing them all as his mentors. He said Nigerias successful hosting of the IPI World Congress in 2018 was due to great efforts by Mr Yusuf and his newspaper, Daily Trust. Everybody talks about how well we did when Nigeria hosted a successful congress in 2018. To be honest, (I give it to) Kabiru and Daily Trust. Daily Trust was the secretariat. I was literally sleeping there. For six months, for the first time in my life, I did not leave Abuja. I even missed Ileya (Eid-el-Kabir festival) for the first time in my adulthood, he said. Mr Adedoyin also narrated how Mr Idris, then the chairperson of Blueprint Newspapers, came to his rescue when he was going to become a refugee. I was just squatting at one hotel, and he just came and said Malam Raheem, and he provided N500,000 for me to go and get accommodation, he said. He also explained that the three men, Messrs Yusuf, Idris and Olamiti, were instrumental to his nomination and reelection into the IPI global executive board. He said: You know, Kabir (Yusuf) is a democrat. We had agreed that I was going to be nominated. On the day we were to do it, he just kept mute. I was expecting him to say, gentlemen, we have nominated Raheem, but he didnt. He wanted the congress to actually nominate me, which was good. And who did the nomination? It was the honourable minister. Who seconded the nomination? It was Sir Folu Olamiti. Attendees The dinner was attended by senior government officials, including the a former Minister of Power, Olu Agunloye; former Managing Director of Champion Newspapers, Emma Agu; a former editor of The Guardian on Sunday, Fred Ohwahwa; the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre Isa Onilu; the Executive Secretary of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Biodun Ajiboye; the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Tunde Rahman; Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga; the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi; the Head, Editorial Board of Blueprint Newspapers, Zainab Okino; Assistant Director, Voice of Nigeria, Rafat Salami; Deputy Editor at 24th Century Chronicle, Catherine Agbo and Administrative Secretary, IPI Nigeria, Linda Kpum. The dinner was also graced by media executives, including the Managing Editor (North) of The Nation, Yusuf Alli; the CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Media Trust Limited, Ahmed Shekarau, who doubles as the secretary for IPI Nigeria; the Executive Director of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Dayo Aiyetan; and the Chairperson of Blueprint Newspapers Editorial Board, Zainab Okino. Others were the Chief Executive Officer of Peoples Daily newspaper, Hamid Bello; the Publisher of Nature News; Aliu Akoshile; the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ali M. Ali; the Head of the Postgraduate School of Baze University, Abuja, Abiodun Adeniyi, a professor; and a former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Waleed Odusile. The honoree also graced the occasion with his wife and daughter, Zainab Adedoyin, an ex-BBNaija housemate popularly known as JMK. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has hailed Thursdays judgement of the Supreme Court affirming the financial autonomy of Nigerias local governments. The judgement is a historic victory for the 774 local government areas, freeing them from the oppressive control of state governors, Mr Fagbemi said while addressing journalists at the State House in Abuja on Thursday. Mr Fagbemi expressed his satisfaction with the judgement, noting the widespread public approval. I call it the local government emancipation judgement because it truly frees local governments from past constraints. I hope local government officials will seize this opportunity to develop their areas, Mr Fagbemi stated. Local government autonomy issue For over two decades, governance by most of the 774 local governments, the third tier and closest level of government to the grassroots, has been almost crippled in most states due to the governors withholding of the federal allocations belonging to them. Traditionally, funds from the Federation Account meant for local governments have been released through state governments. The AGFs suit, filed in May, sought to bolster the independence of local governments by ensuring they get their federal allocations directly from the federal government, bypassing the state governors-controlled joint accounts. 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 Fagbemi argued that, by Nigerias constitution, only democratically-elected local government executives can administer local government funds, not the caretaker committees governors often set up after arbitrarily dissolving the elected officials. The Supreme Court upheld all of the AGFs prayers on Thursday, ordering the federal government to send federal allocations belonging to the local governments directly to them. The Supreme Courts decision is expected to alter governance and the administration of local governments remarkably, as it also stopped state governors from arbitrarily dissolving elected executives of local governments. The ball is in the governors court. The judgement is unambiguous about their obligations and the repercussions of failing to comply, which take immediate effect, Mr Fagbemi said. Governors speak The Governor of Anambra State, Charles Soludo, welcomed the Supreme Court decision, describing it as a boon for grassroots development and poverty alleviation. Although he had yet to review the full judgement, Mr Soludo said it would help to redirect resources to the local level. I havent seen the full document, but Ive got snippets. Fundamentally, we need resources to reach the grassroots and ensure peoples money works for them at all levels, be it federal, state, or local (government), Mr Soludo said. He expressed commitment to transparency and accountability in public resource utilisation. He also said the Anambra State was preparing to conduct local government elections. When I took office, I promised our people local government elections. Weve passed the Independent Electoral Commission law to strengthen our institutions, and were preparing to organise these elections, Mr Soludo said. Also, the Governor of Cross River State, Bassey Otu, hailed the judgment. I dont believe anyone opposes development at the local government level. While I havent read the full judgement, I trust its implementation will enhance our local government administration, Mr Otu commented. Atiku reacts Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar described the verdict as a win for the people of Nigeria. He also said the ruling is a step in the right direction and a major corrective action in greasing the wheels of national development across the country. Criticising the existing arrangement for funding local governments, Atiku said disbursements of local councils revenues into the state government accounts was a decision that was borne out of politics of hasty compromise. He added: I also share the belief that fiscal autonomy to the local governments should not be limited to revenues from the Federation Accounts, but indeed, should apply to Internally Generated Revenue from the respective local government authorities. Many of our states, especially those in the ultra urban areas with high density economic activities, have become notorious in muscling local councils from generating revenue on items that border on motor parks, outdoor advertising, rents and many more. The verdict of the court is in tandem with the core functions of the Supreme Court as an arbitration court between and among governments. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Geregu Power turned in 148.5 per cent more in net profit for the first half of the year compared to the same period of last year. The companys position was impacted by increased income from energy sales and, to some extent, capacity charge the companys major revenue sources. The feat could mean the synergy struck by the firm with Siemens earlier in the year towards capacity expansion is beginning to pay off. The electricity provider, backed by Femi Otedola, who chairs the board of Nigerias oldest lender FBN Holdings, announced an agreement with the German multinational technology conglomerate in May to more than double its current nameplate capacity to 1,200 megawatts. That entails scaling up Gereru I, one of its top power plants, to 500mw from 435mw and building a 500mw-new power plant using lower emissions turbines. The establishment of a combined cycle operations to generate an additional 200mw, is also being planned, Geregu Power said in a May statement. Revenue for the period under review climbed to N80.7 billion, up by 32.5 per cent, according to its unaudited earnings report issued Friday. 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 One notable downside of the generally strong performance was impairment loss on financial assets, which accelerated more than threefold to N6 billion after long-due receivables from trade debtors surged by 220.3 per cent. Profit before income tax rose to N30.2 billion from N12.3 billion a year earlier. The stock has returned 150 per cent since the start of the year, outperforming the Nigerian Exchanges main stock index, which has yielded 33 per cent. It has also outpaced NGX 30, the index that tracks the thirty most capitalised and most liquid equities on the bourse, which has improved by more than 27 per cent. The share price of Geregu Power has not moved since 4 March, stuck at N1000 per unit. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The police in Anambra State, South-east Nigeria, have given insight into the allegation that their operatives, Thursday, raided a shop in the state and robbed residents of their mobile phones. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how the police in the state, in reaction to a video of the incident posted on social media, said in a statement that they had identified the operatives involved. The police spokesperson in Anambra, Tochukwu Ikenga, a police superintendent, issued the statement. Mr Ikenga had called on the supposed victims of the incident to come forward and help the police with information. The video The video posted on X showed many residents gathered by a roadside and a male voice in the background, narrating what happened. This is what happened this morning, the man began narrating. Police operatives from Otuocha invaded a shop where people were charging their phones and started shooting indiscriminately. They stole all the phones and ran away. This is robbery, 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 incident happened at Umueri, Otuocha, a community in Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra State. The video showed empty bullet shells and tear-gas shells lying by the roadside, which the man who narrated the incident said were fired by the police operatives. Police give insight into incident Later Friday evening, our reporter contacted the police spokesperson, Mr Ikenga, over the alleged robbing of the shop by the police operatives. He said the video circulating on social media did not give a full picture of what happened. His explanation was, however, not clear. Our men spotted them, they ran away and left their phones. That place is a black spot for us. The volume of hard drugs that we have recovered there. All that they said in that video is true that the policemen took their phones and went away with some of their personal belongings. All of the phones are with me here (in my office). Some power banks are here too, Mr Ikenga said. It was when police came into that spot that they ran away. If you see what we recovered there, youll be marveled. We are not disputing that the police went into the shop and took away the phones. In our statement, we said we had identified the police officer and the team and called on victims to come forward for necessary action. Until now, no single person has come forward, he added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The long and short of it all is that global wealth is moving in a certain, restrictive direction, and into fewer and fewer hands, only at a time when the accumulation of such wealth in the hands of a tiny few has become a virtue The argument is not really about economic ideology I think ideology is dead but a debate about equity and fairness, and the future of people in this world. Is there any hope for the continued survival of the masses in a world being constricted by capital? How many really disenfranchised, down-on-their-luck, potentially violent, angry, people justified or not does it take to ground a country of say 50 million people? One thousand is enough. Yes, a thousand people can do the job if they are strategic and backed, as usual, by faceless financiers, after all it is easier to disrupt than to organise, to scatter than to put together, to incite than to administer, to destroy than to build. The people who destroyed other peoples businesses in Nairobi two weeks ago, just like those who destroyed Lagos and other capital cities in Nigeria in October 2020, dont have to be more than 1,000. By the time those guys are in full operation, in a frenzy of annihilation, normal people would have retreated to the safety of their homes, even those who had been part of normal protests. Many in Nairobi and Lagos were actually out demonstrating while their shops were being looted, destroyed and burnt often in the middle of the night. Or maybe its 10,000 really disenfranchised folks that it takes to shake a nation to its core. Or 100,000. Or even a million. I am looking at the proportion here, and how quickly the agitations of a people can drive mass fear, hysteria, and escalate to totally destructive mass insanity, from which a country may not recover for years or decades. I am not sure Nigeria has yet recovered from the EndSARS protests, even though we are quite bad at counting, remembering and documenting such things. Or perhaps we have agreed that such destruction of value on a massive scale is only part of the equation, part of democracy; the right for people to occasionally express themselves against their leaders. If this is the case, we need to remind ourselves that building back value is an incredibly arduous task. And indeed, the resources of the same weak state will have to be deployed to rebuild; resources which should otherwise have been used to make life easier for the same protesting people. The fact I need to draw out here, very quickly, is that any country of even 100,000 people (like Vanuatu, Aruba, Sao Tome et Principe, and so on) certainly has 1,000 people that are angry, disenfranchised and probably violent enough to express their grievances in ways that keeps more than the government crying. All countries with a million people can come up with 10,000, and any country with a population of 10,000,000 can come up with 100,000 of such folks, who have been hard-done-by whatever governments and systems administer their space, over a medium to fairly long period of time (and some of whose situation are as a result of their own choices too). This is the science of mass protests and their economic after-effects. Given the small proportion that it takes to really wreak havoc (not just to protest), nations are advised to ensure that dialogue does not break down to result in painful meltdowns such as we saw in Kenya, and in Nigeria during the EndSARS riots. It doesnt augur well for anyone. And it is incredibly wasteful and expensive, even in terms of human lives. The thing to note, as these ugly events happen, is that the global economic system is evidently broken. Unfortunately, it looks like the eminent economists who used to speak up and try to redirect the trajectory are now tired. New generations of economists are required to stand and speak at this time, because it is by such bold interventions and calls for reviews that we managed to include more people in the economic space in the first place. Alas, we all now seem cowed into a singular way of doing things, and even our children are equally indoctrinated by an academia fixated in one way of reasoning the one backed by global financiers. There certainly has to be alternatives. It is a fact that income disparities have enlarged globally, as the world is now run mostly by the idea of neoliberal capitalism, without much thought for the vulnerable. But a nation must be careful how many economically disenfranchised people it produces, and ensure consistent and honest dialogue with them, else those incidents will happen when the minority dis-privileged will take nations down to their level in one or two days of orgasmic devastation. Black African nations should be especially careful, given that in the food chain of humanity, ours is the most-vulnerable subregion. The problem with anger-driven change is that they often destroy more than they build and end up setting nations back aplenty. Black African nations like Nigeria could ill-afford these kinds of destruction. We therefore need to think deeply, whether we are in government or out of it, and act proactively. Optics matter more here than in most other regions of the world. There is a debate that needs to be had about this broken economic system. And that debate had better be started in the region of the world that gets the shortest end of the stick, where negative effects of wrong global policies and agenda have been perennially and most-painfully felt. We could also stretch that a great amount of historical inexperience exists in this region, while incompetence is also rife. By the time we consider the culture clash that results in the display of opulence among politicians, the equation is complete. By this I mean that todays leader was yesterdays follower. Except we change that fundamental perspective that associates leadership position with wealth and the display of it, rather than modesty and sacrifice, todays protesting youths will replicate the same style tomorrow when they become leaders. That was what blew open in Kenya weeks back. And for other such countries, it remains a clear and present danger. Is this some mass hypocrisy? It is unclear how that will fix the broken economic system that is now powered by technology, which accelerates inequality at the speed of the internet. The debate needs to get to the academia. We need to reteach economics, which has been basically strangled by neoliberalism in the past five decades, and bomb open the intellectual space to garner more ideas on how to save the majority of human beings from economic asphyxiation. A quick tour of the world reveals the truth. Jonathan Pie, the fictional character played by Tom Walker, gave an impassioned narrative of the Conservatives leaders of 15 years. It boiled down to more and more oppression and widening of the income gap between the have and have-nots. Nigerians may be japa-ing to the UK right now, but the average Brit has never had it so bad. The hopes of the past (the ease with which young Brits found jobs and got on the housing ladder) seems to have receded into the far distance. It is the same in the US. I spoke with an African-American friend last week, who told me that was exactly their problem; the sense of despair among the poor and average is ever so palpable. Whether it is in Egypt, South Africa, South Korea, or Ghana nearby, the story is the same. More and more economic stress. On the flip side, the top tech companies of the world Microsoft ($3.3 trillion), Meta ($1.27 trillion), Amazon ($2 trillion), Nvidia ($3.2 trillion), Apple ($3.2 trillion), and so on, have in the minimum doubled or tripled their market capitalisation and net-worths in the last four years. It looks like COVID-19 was the real turning point. It brought about a decisive shift to e-commerce, remote work, and the triumph of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Meanwhile, crime has soared in the streets of London, Los Angeles, and Johannesburg even more than we have in Nigeria. To use a phone openly in some of those places is to invite danger. The anger among the poor, the forgotten, the neglected, the vulnerable, and the lash out against those who have, is ever so palpable and dangerous. 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 long and short of it all is that global wealth is moving in a certain, restrictive direction, and into fewer and fewer hands, only at a time when the accumulation of such wealth in the hands of a tiny few has become a virtue. The rat race to become a dollar billionaire and be feted by kings and governments has never been more intense, even as the world ignores the truism that whoever wins an unwinnable rat race, will continue to exist as a rat. The argument is not really about economic ideology I think ideology is dead but a debate about equity and fairness, and the future of people in this world. Is there any hope for the continued survival of the masses in a world being constricted by capital, innovation, and science and technology in the hands of those who have amassed capital? Thats the big question. This argument should have had even more attention and intensity or at least as much, compared with the ongoing climate agenda. At least, it ought to be placed on the same table when those important meetings are taking place. But where are the economists? Or just about anyone with a voice? The most recent article I saw around this problem was one written by Professors Ulrich Volz, Janak Raj and Monica Herz, titled A Monetary and Economic Order fit for the 21st Century. Still, the article in my view hedged around the subject. We know who not to offend. And the article centered on how the Bretton Wood institutions should be reformed to include representation from especially the disenfranchised world of weak nations. It is unclear how that will fix the broken economic system that is now powered by technology, which accelerates inequality at the speed of the internet. The debate needs to get to the academia. We need to reteach economics, which has been basically strangled by neoliberalism in the past five decades, and bomb open the intellectual space to garner more ideas on how to save the majority of human beings from economic asphyxiation. Thomas Picketys award-winning book Capital in the 21st Century has never been more relevant for the times. He found, using data over 200 years, that the reward for capital has soared stratospherically, while the reward for labour has stagnated in real terms. Even the rich among us must be concerned, lest the current trajectory gets to a breaking point. And some nations are cleverer and more experienced than others; they know how to keep the people down. Some arent so lucky. We must speak up more audibly in international fora to ensure a debate about the extant economic system commences. Also, we must redefine the narrative for our people to see that this is a global phenomenon. And governments must show the people what they are doing about it. As for sub-Saharan nations, the lessons are listed below: Governance is presently in purgatory. Therefore, it is important to continue to show sacrifice and mind the optics. Sub-Saharan African governments must continue to aspire to the highest levels of accountability and transparency. With regard to transparency, sub-Saharan African countries must understand that in todays information age, they need to rigorously engage their publics through social media. Take the flak. But keep engaging. It helps. Sub-Saharan African countries and governments must understand that we bear the worst brunt of this tottering economic system. We must acknowledge our vulnerabilities. We must therefore engage in intellectual brainstorming to catalogue how systems are evolving and how this is affecting our peoples, now and into the future. This knowledge must be mainstreamed internationally, so that it becomes a global agenda. Mind you, the climate change agenda promises to finally strip us of the opportunity to progress industrially, even if we summoned the courage and vision. Sub-Saharan African nations must be proactive to ensure that our little infrastructural achievements are not destroyed through protests that are avoidable. And this will be by being proactive, not reactive. It will be a great tragedy if we are stuck in a vicious cycle of value destruction, due to our failures. We should embark on continuous and serious engagements and education with the wider populace, to ensure fast response to grievances, expand equity and fairness to more people, and ensure that governments expenditure can be explained to the people and is in their best interests. We must speak up more audibly in international fora to ensure a debate about the extant economic system commences. Also, we must redefine the narrative for our people to see that this is a global phenomenon. And governments must show the people what they are doing about it. We must use the best ideas from everywhere and not fall into any ideological traps. Pragmatism must govern our approach to our peculiar economies, given our peculiar history and circumstances. We must understand economic history and learn from events surrounding similar transitions along the different Industrial Revolutions (first, second, third, and some will say we are in the fourth or fifth). The first was driven by the steam engine, the second by electricity and the third by the internet. The fourth is being driven by AI, and usually most of us living through these changes cannot tell how exactly it will pan out. There is therefore a need for great caution, and advocacy for our own people because usually, nobody gets anybodys backs. Tope Fasua, an economist, author, blogger, and entrepreneur, can be reached through topsyfash@yahoo.com. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print So, the truism of the unity of bias and preference of the political class no longer takes time to manifest? And, the philosophical approach to governance by OBJ and Tinubu is the same after all? So, the interest of the people may never matter in our dear country? Recently, a photograph of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, was all over the internet. The world has however been left to hazard only guesses about the subject of their discussion when they met, before or after posing for the historic photograph. Neither Dame Tinubu nor OBJ has been forthcoming on this. Not even the fact that Obasanjo spotted a cap adorned with a symbol popularly associated with President Tinubu seems to barely signal, far from revealing reality. Is it time for some convergence or review of otherwise irreconcilable differences? There is so much to interrogate. Prophetic (?) and uncommonly witty newspaper columnist, Sam Omatseye, during his National Concord days once asserted in an article: In Abuja, the federal capital city of Nigeria, the tempo is always false. Omatseye, at that time found most decisions taken by the then General Sani Abacha regime unimaginably laughable, and always at variance with the reality, hence his verdict. It therefore never occurred to anyone that a government to be run by the avowed enemy of that military government, the then Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would validate Omatseyes thesis. Indeed, more ludicrous is the fact that even as President Obasanjo seemed to be severely adversarial to the Bola Tinubu-led government of Lagos State, President Tinubu feels so confident in validating a failed policy of the Obasanjo administration. Until last week, I had always been enthusiastic in retransmitting The Explainer, an online newspaper innovated by Alhaji Lanre Isa Onilu, my friend and professional colleague, who is now the director general of National Orientation Agency (NOA). The edition for that week I found incredible, with its heralding of the Tinubu governments plan to invite investors to partake in the ownership of Nigerian universities. Not a few Nigerians had fiercely spoken against the immorality in former President Obasanjos ownership of a university to rival those owned by government he headed. Obasanjo founded Bell University, Ota, Ogun State. His deputy, Atiku Abubakar, who he has vilified repeatedly and published on his (Atikus) moral ineptitude in a book, also established the America University of Nigeria in Yola. Nigerians have been unsparing in condemning OBJ and Atiku on their deliberate sabotaging of the public universities in favour of theirs and those of their cronies. Today, there are no fewer than 147 private universities in Nigeria. Some of them are suspected to have evolved from illicit funds stolen by their owners. Indeed, one of them, NOK University, Kaduna State, was recently ordered to be forfeited to the Federal Government by a law court. 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 So, the peoples triumph over and above the machinations of Obasanjos education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, was only temporary? Is this how Nigeria will keep defeating its own people, like another columnist once posited? When you begin to heave some sighs of relief in Nigeria is when the political class signal to you that uhuru remains a saddening mirage. And although the private universities seem to be in clear competition with the government owned ones and are often quick to orchestrate their rating by just any group or individual, they have been strident in making persistent calls to get some share of the TETFUND funding, which statutorily should go only to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education owned by the federal and state governments. For them, the little commonwealth dedicated to public schools must still accrue to the schools owned by the rich class, which was never compelled to establish any university. As such, beyond The Explainer, the regular newspapers and other media houses published the same story and never had to retract it, as a result of any form of denial. Indeed, for many who dont have access to The Explainer, it was the regular media that broke the news. Then came further reinforcement of this at the inauguration of the newly constituted councils of the federal universities. So, the truism of the unity of bias and preference of the political class no longer takes time to manifest? And, the philosophical approach to governance by OBJ and Tinubu is the same after all? So, the interest of the people may never matter in our dear country? So, the peoples triumph over and above the machinations of Obasanjos education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, was only temporary? Is this how Nigeria will keep defeating its own people, like another columnist once posited? When you begin to heave some sighs of relief in Nigeria is when the political class signal to you that uhuru remains a saddening mirage. This is what the plan to bring in foreign investors to come and exploit supposed beneficiaries of our national heritage portends unmistakably. It particularly smacks of lazy thinking that appropriates no gain to the sacrifices made by some past, heroic Nigerians. If anyone is in doubt, what spectacular good have the DisCos impacted on electricity distribution in the country? The Obasanjo government convened a presidential summit on education in Abuja. Contrary to the usual practice, the late Sultan Maccido who was specially invited to that meeting, was made to fly in a commercial aircraft to the event in Abuja. The summit over, the Sultan never made it back home. The commercial aircraft he used crashed and the story ended there. Soon afterwards, the Education Minister announced that they had perfected the policy to sell off all the Unity Schools, otherwise known as Federal Government Colleges. Pronto, they summoned the principals of the Unity Schools. They read out the plan they had formulated for the principal to go and implement. The National Universities Commission (NUC) facility used for the frustrating meeting became dead silent as soon as Ezekwesilis address was over. One of the school principals at the meeting stood up to reconfirm their status as the marketing officers of the new policy to sell off the schools to new investors, which would mean increases in fees payable by the pupils, as well as the commercialist reconceptualisation of the employment terms of the staff. He wondered why the big bosses never deemed it fit to get them involved in the process of the formulation of the new, anti-people policy. Unlike some leaders with unenviable political trajectories, President Tinubu is still perceived as one that should be guided by history, especially with his obvious and not so obvious radical background dating back to the anti-military struggle years. Within me on that day, the feeling was that of extreme bitterness against the Nigerian state. As the Special Assistant to the Minister of State in that Ministry, late Dr Sayyadi Abba Ruma (of blessed memory), that morning was the first time I also got to know about the sinister plan. Incidentally, I was just grooming my son to enroll at Kings College in Lagos. The new policy however seemed hell-bent on forestalling my sons dream school. But the prayers of poor Nigerians were answered with the intense public outcry against the obnoxious agenda. Eventually, the admission was stalled for a year or so. When it was clear that the sadists plan could no longer take off, the admission process into those schools was reopened, thus clearing the road for my son, who is now a COREN-accredited engineer. But we have always had this thought that the Tinubu government would never be in want of ideas before taking off. The journey so far, however, has not been quite reassuring, with avoidable errors in a number of situations. It needs be clearly stated here that the commencement of the loan scheme for students may not be sufficient to stem the chaos that the investors may likely generate, with possible profiteering like their counterparts in the power sector are slapping on Nigerians. Must this government do back-and-forth like it did in the banking sector, announcing a policy and withdrawing it within hours? Must we wait till we have to confront a replay of the political storm raging in Kenya? Unlike some leaders with unenviable political trajectories, President Tinubu is still perceived as one that should be guided by history, especially with his obvious and not so obvious radical background dating back to the anti-military struggle years. If the planned sale of the unity schools failed, why would anyone think that the euphemism of bringing in investors into the management of our grand commonwealth in the education sector would not fail? Will TETFUND be scrapped? Is the newly introduced loan scheme intended to subtly undermine the overall public interest? Nigerians will always stand up to protect their commonwealth, it is certain, especially as also encouraged by President Tinubu, who is renowned for his support for this. As was the case with the Lagos local governments funds withheld by the OBJ government, so shall Nigerians triumph on the imminent avoidable crisis in the public universities. Tunde Akanni is an associate professor of journalism at the Lagos State University. Follow him on X via @AkintundeAkanni. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Trust them, it was not just another formal meeting but a street party, which saw the leaders walking through massive rallies and street procession,s as they received massive popular support for their actions. The meeting was held the day before the ECOWAS Summit, scheduled for Abuja, and there was no surprise when it was announced that: Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS, Nigers ruling General Abdourahamane Tiani told the cheering crowd that attended the Niamey summit. On the 6th of July, the military heads of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger convened the inaugural summit of the Confederation of the Sahel States (AES). They once again clearly enunciated their total commitment to protecting their sovereignty and security, while combating neocolonialism. The three Sahelian leaders, who came to power through military coups between 2020 and 2023, said they wanted to take the Alliance, set up in September 2023, a step further by establishing it as a confederation. The Confederation of the Sahel States, with the acronym, AES, is headed by Mali in its first year. AES regroups 72 million people in the central Sahel. Trust them, it was not just another formal meeting but a street party, which saw the leaders walking through massive rallies and street procession,s as they received massive popular support for their actions. The meeting was held the day before the ECOWAS Summit, scheduled for Abuja, and there was no surprise when it was announced that: Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS, Nigers ruling General Abdourahamane Tiani told the cheering crowd that attended the Niamey summit. It would be recalled that AES had pulled out of ECOWAS in February. The following day, ECOWAS leaders, meeting in Abuja, were morose and appeared a bit lost. They lamely emphasised the need for reconciliation with the three countries and expressed their regrets that they have still received no response to the positive moves they had made in removing sanctions and asking for resumed negotiations. They chose Senegals President Faye as mediator and he would be assisted by Togos President Faure Gnasingbe. It is an indication of mismanagement of the dossier, that only the newly elected President Faye, who espouses anti-neocolonial language like theirs, is an accepted interlocutor. ECOWAS has to prepare itself for protracted negotiations with these countries of the Sahel, starting with an honest review of its own failures and successes. Clearly, its normative framework and methodology of responding to unconstitutional changes of government need to be reconsidered. It also has to prepare its red lines, in terms of conditionalities. Our region is facing the risk of disintegration, said Omar Alieu Touray, the President of the ECOWAS Commission. This negative outcome must be laid on the door steps of ECOWAS itself, which mismanaged the response to the series of coups that occurred over the past couple of years. The AES, meanwhile, is enjoying massive popularity as it basks in the mantra of its focus on defeating neo-colonialism in their zone and openly mocking the rest of ECOWAS, minus Senegal, for its servility to neo-colonialism and imperialism. Burkina Fasos Captain Ibrahim Traore sharply criticised what he termed house slaves an euphemism for African leaders who he perceives as still under the influence or control of their former colonial powers. Addressing an approving audience, Traore stated that: Imperialists view Africa as their dominion, believing they own our people, lands, and resources. Since the illusory independence granted to African nations in the 1960s, theyve installed local proxies to maintain their control. We refer to these proxies as house slaves individuals whose sole aspiration is to emulate and serve their masters. He added that: The people of the Sahel will no longer be manipulated; we will not allow this anymore. It is indeed the case that many of West Africas countries are guilty, as charged, for remaining as lackeys of neocolonialism. Nonetheless, I await the evidence that these three military regimes will sustain the anti-imperialist struggle. When Nigers Tiani criticised ECOWAS for its perceived failure to protect citizens from terrorist threats, the question was that as soldiers, why did they not play their own role in defeating terrorism as leaders in their nations armed forces. Well, they say they are doing it now and they have recently initiated a cross-border military force, leveraging each member states strengths to counter jihadist activities, and we can only hope that they succeed. ECOWAS has to prepare itself for protracted negotiations with these countries of the Sahel, starting with an honest review of its own failures and successes. Clearly, its normative framework and methodology of responding to unconstitutional changes of government need to be reconsidered. It also has to prepare its red lines, in terms of conditionalities. AES is riding a popularity crest at this moment but its fundamentals are weak, given its landlocked economies, poverty and dependence of a significant part of its population on travelling to the coastal countries for their livelihoods. ECOWAS should take a medium-term view of its strategic options. 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 stories of arrests of human rights defenders and journalists in the AES, as well as forced disappearances and killing are already appearing. As the geopolitics develops, are we going to see a simple substitution of Russian for French neocolonialists? Populism is a mode of governance that is not sustainable Let us not forget West Africas history with young radical army officers in power. The Sierra Leonean political scientist, Jimmy Kandeh coined the term militariat to describe the process of political decomposition that followed the capture of state power by young conspiratorial junior officers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia. They take over power on an anti-corruption ticket and become very corrupt themselves. They all left a trail of blood and destruction behind them. We should not forget the populist Dadis Camara. I remember my visit to Guinea at the height of his populism. Each night, Guineans were hooked to the television watching their young President and the head of the anti-drug agency interrogate generals accused of being drug traffickers and producers of pornographic films. The son of the late President, Captain Usman Conte, was humiliated on television for being a major drug dealer providing cover for South Americans to bring in drugs through military air strips. We need more drama, Guineans were saying initially. Then arbitrary rule, mass arrests and the stadium massacre of 2009, when the true character of the regime was revealed, followed, with the killing of 150 peaceful protestors and the raping of over one hundred women. The stories of arrests of human rights defenders and journalists in the AES, as well as forced disappearances and killing are already appearing. As the geopolitics develops, are we going to see a simple substitution of Russian for French neocolonialists? Populism is a mode of governance that is not sustainable and when people start seeing through the narrative, state terror appears to silence the same people who were in earlier times applauding the revolution. A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The recent ruling is welcome, but the real test lies in securing compliance from Nigerias government, which is known for its reluctance to adhere to unfavourable judicial rulings. This reluctance raises concerns about the practical impact of this judgment and highlights the ongoing challenge of translating legal victories into meaningful governmental action that benefits the people. The judgment on the Lekki Massacre given by the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice on the 10th of July represents a pivotal moment for justice in Nigeria, particularly concerning the harrowing experiences of EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate on 20 October 2020. The court unequivocally condemned the Nigerian governments violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, who had gathered to advocate against police brutality and demand reforms. This landmark ruling underscores the courts crucial role in upholding human rights and holding governments accountable for their actions. The ECOWAS Courts judgment now stands as a beacon of hope for victims and activists alike, affirming Nigerians fundamental rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and protection from state-sanctioned violence. The court found that the Nigerian government violated the rights to life, security of person, freedom of expression, assembly, and association, among others, and as such ordered the government to compensate the victims and investigate the abuses. The protests, initially sparked by widespread outrage over recurring incidents of police brutality, particularly by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), and specifically by a video of SARS operatives robbing a young man in Ughelli, Delta State, gained international attention for their scale and the governments response. Instead of heeding the protesters calls for reform, Nigerias security forces unleashed a series of brutal assaults in various parts of the country, including but not limited to Lekki and Mushin in Lagos State, Ibadan in Oyo State, Ado-Ekiti in Ekiti State, Benin in Edo State, Warri in Delta State, Apo and Kubwa in Abuja, Kano, and perhaps most brutally in Obigbo in Rivers State, in the days after 20 October 2020, where a still unknown number of people were accused of being IPOB members/sympathisers, and brutally attacked. The order for the Nigerian government to compensate the victims, conduct investigations into the abuses, and report back to the Court is a positive step towards accountability. Sadly, however, it does not address the consequences for the political actors involved, which limits its capacity to deter the government from using force against protesters in the future. The Tinubu Administration, which has been battling a crisis of legitimacy due to a multiplicity of reasons, including but not limited to its small vote share on a small voter turnout and the unpopular but necessary removal of fuel subsidies, can take steps towards gaining legitimacy and public support by working towards healing and accountability for the events of 20 October 2020. A good starting place would be by immediately addressing the detention of protesters still being held in police custody. The history of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) and the implementation of its judgments by member states is mixed. Despite its growing moral and legal authority, the ECOWAS Court lacks direct enforcement mechanisms and relies heavily on voluntary compliance by member states. It would be incomplete to speak of the judgment without addressing the defence put up by the government. There was something particularly disturbing about the governments counsel choosing to make its defence against the accusations by claiming that the protesters were aiding Boko Haram terrorists. This claim was not only baseless but also absurd, considering the geographical and operational disconnect between the peaceful protesters in Lagos and the terrorist activities of Boko Haram and ISWAP in the Sahel and Northern Nigeria. The Federal Governments argument that Lagos protesters were supporting terrorist attacks far away in the Sahel is perplexing and appears to be an attempt to delegitimise the protests and justify the excessive (and in some instances lethal) use of force against unarmed Nigerians. It speaks to the militaristic nature of Nigerias democracy, in which any dissent is seen in purely regime change terms, which cannot be good for the health of our democracy. Established in 1991 by the ECOWAS Revised Treaty, the Community Court of Justice offers a vital avenue for seeking redress for grievances, ensuring that even the most marginalised people can hold their governments accountable for human rights violations. 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 recent ruling is welcome, but the real test lies in securing compliance from Nigerias government, which is known for its reluctance to adhere to unfavourable judicial rulings. This reluctance raises concerns about the practical impact of this judgment and highlights the ongoing challenge of translating legal victories into meaningful governmental action that benefits the people. The history of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) and the implementation of its judgments by member states is mixed. Despite its growing moral and legal authority, the ECOWAS Court lacks direct enforcement mechanisms and relies heavily on voluntary compliance by member states. Initially, the Court had limited visibility and impact, primarily dealing with disputes between member states and the ECOWAS Commission. However, the 2005 Supplementary Protocol expanded its jurisdiction to include cases brought by individuals and corporate bodies regarding human rights violations. This shift significantly increased the Courts caseload and led to several landmark rulings on human rights cases. Despite these advancements, many member states have been slow or reluctant to comply with the Courts rulings, citing various political and legal challenges. The lack of a robust enforcement mechanism within ECOWAS means that the Court largely relies on member states goodwill and political will to implement its decisions. Nigerias mixed record regarding compliance with ECOWAS Court decisions, with notable instances of non-compliance, undermines the Courts authority and sets a challenging example for other member states. Regardless, the availability of channels like the ECOWAS Court of Justice is crucial, even if member countries only sometimes comply with its judgments. Nigeria, the largest and most influential member state in ECOWAS, presents a unique set of challenges for the ECOWAS Court regarding enforcing its judgments. Nigerias significant political and economic influence within ECOWAS often leads to a complex dynamic in which the country has the power to resist external judicial pressures that lead to reluctance to implement. In addition, the Nigerian legal system and bureaucracy can challenge the implementation of ECOWAS Court judgments, as the need for domestic legal processes to align with international rulings can create delays and complications. Nigerias mixed record regarding compliance with ECOWAS Court decisions, with notable instances of non-compliance, undermines the Courts authority and sets a challenging example for other member states. Regardless, the availability of channels like the ECOWAS Court of Justice is crucial, even if member countries only sometimes comply with its judgments. The Court provides a formal avenue for individuals, institutions, and governments to seek redress and hold states accountable for human rights violations and other disputes. Maintaining official records of these cases and rulings ensures transparency and creates a valuable legal archive. While compliance may be inconsistent, documenting grievances and decisions is a step towards greater accountability and the rule of law in the region. A respected ECOWAS Court would bring significant benefits. It would enhance human rights protection by providing a reliable mechanism for redress and justice, giving individuals and institutions confidence in challenging abuses of power. Additionally, it would contribute to regional stability by offering a neutral platform for resolving disputes between states, thereby reducing the likelihood of conflict. With all that being said, we have to make an effort to stay with the positives, however marginal and note how the ECOWAS Courts decision underscores the importance of this regional judicial body in providing a platform for individuals and less powerful institutions to seek justice against more powerful governments. Cheta Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Breast flattening is an under-reported practice with critical consequences for both the victims and society. Such a practice calls for urgent intervention to safeguard the lives and dignity of teenage girls. African countries should prioritise and address the ancient harmful practice by raising awareness and ensuring that the crime attracts a stricter punishment. In some parts of Africa, breast flattening remains an existing cultural practice against pubescent girls. Also called breast ironing, it threatens the victims right to life and against any form of torture. The cultural practice is the process of using a heated stone, spatula, hammer, or any similar object to flatten the breasts of pubescent girls to delay their breast development. According to the Africa Health Organisation, breast flattening leaves girls vulnerable to health conditions like cancer, destruction of the breast, and damage of the breast duct, among many other health-related challenges. Breast flattening is also a cause of death and psychological harm to young girls. Such a practice constitutes an abuse of the child and undermines the human dignity of the victim. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that everyone has the right to life. Similarly, Article 5 advocates against the subjection of any person to torture or any cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Breast flattening violates the two articles of the UDHR. Thus, it is a form of gender-based violence that calls for the strengthening of laws and regulations against its practice. There is a need for awareness of its life-endangering consequences. Furthermore, given the lasting psychological, social, and mental effects of breast flattening on its victims, rehabilitation should be made accessible to surviving victims by the Ministry of Health and concerned non-governmental organisations. In Nigeria, the Violence Against Persons and Prohibition Act stipulates that anyone guilty of any harmful traditional practice like breast flattening is liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding four years or a fine not exceeding 500,000 or both. In the UK, relatives or anyone guilty of breast flattening is liable to ten years in prison. However, despite the legal measures, breast flattening remains rampant in Nigeria and the UK. For a crime which could cost the lives of its victims, the punishments meted out to perpetrators are not severe enough, especially in African countries where the practice is considered a tradition. As a life-threatening crime, legislators should pass laws and regulations that will make breast flattening attract stricter punishments. The judiciary should imprison offenders for not less than fifteen years, with no fine option. In most communities where breast flattening is practiced, offenders are unaware of the hazardous effects it has on the psychological and mental well-being of the victims. Also, parents who subject their daughters to breast flattening are often unaware of other measures to take to protect their young girls from the misconduct of sexual predators. Therefore, awareness and education are necessities to eradicate this practice. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) whose interests border on women and the girl child should make it a duty to sensitise parents, especially mothers, about the life-threatening consequences of breast flattening. Some surviving victims find it difficult to relate to men, as they have been made to see them as their enemies while growing up. Victims often go through post-traumatic stress disorder, which they might not be able to recover from alone. Thus, NGOs and well-meaning individuals concerned about womens health should make comprehensive rehabilitation accessible for surviving victims. The rehabilitation process should address both the physical and psychological aspects of recovery. Similarly, since most parents who engage in the practice claim to do so to protect their girls from sexual predators, alternative measures to protect pubescent girls should be encouraged. Parents can shield their young girls from sexual predators by having open conversations that border on age-appropriate education about personal boundaries, consent, and what constitutes inappropriate behaviour, alongside the supervision and monitoring of the girls to know the company they keep. The government should also enforce laws and policies like eighteen years as the minimum age of consent and mandatory reporting requirements for suspected abuse to protect young girls from sex offenders. 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 addition to endangering lives, breast flattening torments and traumatises. For some surviving victims of the barbaric act, the experience haunts them even into adulthood and affects their perception of men and society. Some surviving victims find it difficult to relate to men, as they have been made to see them as their enemies while growing up. Victims often go through post-traumatic stress disorder, which they might not be able to recover from alone. Thus, NGOs and well-meaning individuals concerned about womens health should make comprehensive rehabilitation accessible for surviving victims. The rehabilitation process should address both the physical and psychological aspects of recovery. Breast flattening is an under-reported practice with critical consequences for both the victims and society. Such a practice calls for urgent intervention to safeguard the lives and dignity of teenage girls. African countries should prioritise and address the ancient harmful practice by raising awareness and ensuring that the crime attracts a stricter punishment. Immanuel Taiyewo Fawole is a writing fellow at African Liberty. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Governor of Jigawa State, Umar Namadi has inaugurated the Open Government Partnership (OGP) steering committee for the state. The setting up of the committee marks a step forward in promoting good governance, transparency and accountability within the state. Inaugurating the committee at the Council Chambers of the Government House, Dutse, Governor Namadi stated that the primary purpose of the OGP is to promote positive governance through accountability, transparency, citizen empowerment, and anti-corruption measures. Primarily, the purpose is to promote commitments to the principles of good governance, particularly accountability and transparency, citizens empowerment, fighting against corruption, and leveraging innovation and technology to strengthen governments and governance institutions, he said. Jigawa State joined the OGP in August 2011, after submitting a letter of intent and receiving approval from the Executive Council. The OGP is built on the principle of co-creation, symbolized by the existence of co-chairs from both state and non-state actors. The steering committee which is composed of government officials and civil society members serves as the executive decision-making body. The Jigawa OGP, according to Governor Namadi, aims to promote dialogue, co-ownership, and joint decision-making between state and non-state actors on matters of positive governance, as outlined in the State OGP Action Plan. In line with this principle, it is our expectation that the Jigawa OGP will strive to promote dialogue, co-ownership, and joint decision-making between the state and non-state actors on matters that promote good governance, as must have already been contained in the State OGP Action Plan, he stated. 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 Governor Namadi urged the committee members to work diligently to support the governments objectives of entrenching good governance, as he emphasised the importance of harmony between all members in line with the OGPs co-creation principles. The steering committee will coordinate the development, implementation, and periodic reporting of the State OGP Action Plan. The State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, representing the government, and Aminu Danmalam, representing the non-state actors, co-chair the OGP steering committee. The combination embodies the partnerships core principle of co-creation. Speaking on behalf of the steering committee, Mr Danmalam praised Governor Namadi for achieving this significant milestone in OGP history in Jigawa State. He commended the governors commitment to implementing OGP initiatives and assured that the committee would diligently and patriotically fulfill its duties, with the OGP secretariat monitoring the state governments activities in accordance with the states action plan. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Plateau State Government says 22 persons died and 132 others were injured after a school building collapsed in the state capital, Jos, on Friday. The incident occured at about 8:30 a.m. on Friday, when the students were writing their third term examination. Musa Ashoms, the commissioner for Information, said six of the injured were in critical condition. Mr Ashoms said those injured were receiving treatment in various facilities in the state, while the bodies of the deceased had been deposited in mortuaries. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that a two-storey building collapsed at Saints Academy, a secondary and primary school located at Busa-Buji in Jos North Local Area, trapping students, teachers and others. Meanwhile, Governor Caleb Mutfwang has described the incident as a tragedy and a monumental loss to the state. Mr Mutfwang stated this in a statement issued by Gyang Bere, his Director of Press and Public Affairs, on Friday in Jos. 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 governor, who sympathised with the families of the affected victims, further described the incident as heart-wrenching and unfortunate. This is tragic, unfortunate, heart-wrenching and a gloomy situation. We appreciate the timely intervention of the search and rescue team, as well as members of the public, who rushed to the school premises to assist in evacuating some of the surviving students and staff. I have directed the relevant government agencies, including the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), and Plateau State Emergency Management Agency, to provide necessary support to survivors. Words cannot fully comfort the grieving families over their immense loss, so we pray that God will continue to console and uphold them during this difficult period, Mr Mutfwang said. Highlighting the significance and broader purpose of Executive Order 003, recently signed into law, Mr Mutfwang clarified that its intent was to safeguard citizens from such disasters. The rationale for the executive order 003 is to prevent Jos from deteriorating into a slum, and to ensure compliance with building regulations in line with the Greater Jos Master Plan, the governor said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The historic Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit 2024 enters its third and final day today, Friday, 12 July, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, South-south Nigeria. The summit, organised by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), assembles the people of the Niger Delta and policy experts to develop strategies and articulate a roadmap for economic growth and development of the region. The theme of the summit is Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development of the Niger Delta region. President Bola Tinubu is expected to attend the summit today as a special guest of honour, while former President Goodluck Jonathan will serve as the summits chairperson. The President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and an Ijaw national leader, Edwin Clark, are also 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 continues today after a break on Thursday. Guests are expected to depart on Saturday. 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 During Wednesdays session, the Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku, spoke on the summits significance. Mr Ogbuku also enumerated the achievements of the NDDC under his leadership and the plans to further develop the Niger Delta region, pointing out that the agency was not competing with state governors. In his lead presentation on Wednesday, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, said his office would set up a specialised department to tackle insecurity in the Niger Delta region. The Wednesday session also featured discussions by experts on seven thematic issues of development in the Niger Delta. Seven syndicate groups brainstormed on the issues and presented recommendations for the identified developmental challenges in the region. Goodwill messages were received from the Senator representing Cross River Central District, Eteng Jonah, Deputy Chairperson, House Committee on NDDC at the House of Representatives, Jafaru Leko, and several traditional rulers. PREMIUM TIMES continues to bring you live updates from the Dr Obi Wali International Conference Centre, Port Harcourt, the summit venue. 12:09 p.m. Former President Goodluck Jonathan, and The Senate President, Goodwill Akpabio, arrive venue of the summit. 12: 13 p.m. The event commences with recitation of National Anthem. 12: 17 p.m. Introduction of guests begins 12:21 p.m. The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Hon. Engr. Abubakar Momoh, delivers a welcome address. 12:23 p.m. Engr. Momoh ends his address, he encourages participants to have a fruitful conversation for the development of the Niger Delta region. President Bola Tinubu is represented at the summit by Godswill Akpabio, who is also present in his capacity as the President of the Senate. 12:29 p.m. Its time for a performance by the Rivers State cultural dance. 12:43 p.m. Rivers State Cultural Dance ends. 12:44 p.m. Former Nigerian President and the Chairman of the Summit, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, begins his address. 12:49 p.m. Dr. Jonathan ends his address wherein he detailed the history of NDDC, and praised the leadership of the Managing Director of the NDDC, Samuel Ogbuku. The former president also enumerated areas that the NDDC should focus on to develop the Niger Delta region. 1:02 p.m. It is now time for goodwill message. Governor Alex Otti of Abia State begins the session. Governor Otti is represented by the Deputy Governor, Ikechukwu Emetu. 1:08 p.m. Governor Otti has ends his goodwill message wherein he urged participants and Niger Delta people to develop ideas for the development of the region. He also promised to assist or partner with others in fast tracking development in the region. 1:10 p.m. Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State begins his Goodwill message. Governor Eno is represented by the Deputy Governor, Akon Eyakenyi. 1: 14 p.m. Akwa Ibom State as an oil and gas producing state is ready and committed to working with this agency (NDDC) in developing the Niger Delta, Governor Eno stated. 1:17 p.m. Governor Eno has ends his goodwill message wherein he expressed his administration readiness to partner with NDDC in developing the region. He also advised the agency to take measures to stop youth restiveness in the Niger Delta to witness development of the region. 1:20 p.m. Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State begins his Goodwill message. Mr Uzodinma is being represented by his deputy, Chinyere Ekomaru. 1:23 p.m. Governor Uzodinma has ended his goodwill message, calling on the participants to have a fruitful conversation. 1: 24 p.m. Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa begins his Goodwill message. 1:30 p.m. This theme (of the summit) resonates with me as it aligns with my vision in Ondo State, Mr Aiyedatiwa said. 1:34 p.m. The Sustainable Development of the Niger Delta is not a task for a single entity, but a collective responsibility of all stakeholders, he stated. 1:38 p.m. Governor Ayiedatiwa ends his goodwill message wherein he urged NDDC to partner with all stakeholders in the Niger Delta to move the region forward. He also tasks the NDDC management to carry out projects that will positively impact on the lives of the people such as roads, hospitals, education, and ICT. The governor also warns the NDDC to avoid abandoning projects while still upholding accountability in office to build the trust of the Niger Delta people. 1:30 p.m. A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) delivers a goodwill message. 1:47 p.m. The WHO representative ends her goodwill message with an announcement that the WHO had entered into a partnership with the NDDC to strengthen healthcare services in the Niger Delta region to curtain health risks in the region. 1:48 p.m. Governor Simi Fubara of Rivers State steps in for his goodwill message. Governor Fubara is being represented by 3 States Head of Service, Dr. George Nweke. 1:53 p.m Governor Fubara ends his goodwill message with a call that the impact of oil exploration should be tackled in the Niger Delta region. He expresses the support of the Rivers State Government to the summit. 1:59 p.m. The former governors, led by Mr Duke, have ended their goodwill message calling on the leadership of the NDDC to work closely with state governors in the Niger Delta to get their inputs and directions in the task of developing the region. 2:02 p.m. Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, begins his Goodwill message. 2: 04 p.m. Our region is in dire need of development. Our people are suffering. Bad roads everywhere, Mr Diri said. 2: 05 p.m. Governor Diri has just ended his good will message calling on President Bola Tinubu to immediately fast track the completion of the East West Road to reduce the suffering of the people of the region. 2: 10 p.m. Chief of Defence staff, General Christopher Musa, gives his goodwill message. 2: 13 p.m. The chief of defence staff ended his good will message. He said that the armed forces were ready to collaborate with the NDDC to ensure security in the Niger Delta region. 2:20 p.m. A Representative of the Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on NDDC has just delivered his goodwill message. 2:25 p.m. The Chairman, Senate Committee on NDDC, Asuquo Ekpenyong, has just delivered his goodwill message. 2: 30 p.m. Session for goodwill messages ends. It is now time for lead presentation. 2:31 p.m. The Chairman of UBA, Heirs Holdings, Dr. Tony Elumelu, begins his lead presentation. 2:32 p.m. Dr. Elumelu, respresented by his aide, concludes his presentation. 2:36 p.m. The DG, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, begins his keynote address. 2: 45 p.m. Prof. Osaghae has ends his address, saying the oil rich-Niger Delta has been battered by impacts of crude oil exploration. He regrets that the fight for the resources in the region has caused divisions among the people of the region. He hails the provisions of PIA Law which makes it mandatory for involvement of oil producing communities to benefit from revenue from oil. He asks the NDDC to establish a research hubs and revive education sector in the region to generate ideas to solve the challenges in the region. He also emphasises on the need for investment in peace building and conflict management. 2:47 p.m. The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Engr. Abubakar Momoh, delivers an address. 3: 03 p.m. Mr Momoh has just ended his address, restating the commitment of the federal government to clean up Ogoni. The minister also called on the NDDC leadership to invest in technology that will help in the cleanup and protection of environment from degredation. He called on the diversification of the Niger Delta economy. He encouraged the region to tap into the potentials of the blue economy for development. Theres no reason why Niger Delta should be poor given the number of government agencies present in the region, he said. Mr Momoh said the ministry of the Niger Delta is committed to fast tracking development of the region. 3: 05 p.m. Bola Tinubu begins his address. He is represented by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio. 3:29 p.m. Mr Akpabio, in his personal remark, explained why the East-West Road was not completed when he was the minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, during Predident Muhammadu Buhari administration. Mr Akpabio called on the NDDC to facilitate the diversification of the Niger Delta economy by investing in agriculture. 3:36 p.m. Former President Goodluck Jonathan, and the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, leave venue of the summit. 3:38 p.m. It is now time for panel discussion on the seven pillars of development for the Niger Delta region. 3:50 p.m. The panel discussion on the seven pillars of development for the Niger Delta region has just begun. 3: 57 p.m. One of the panelists, Moses Siasia, has just ended his presentation on economic development. He called for investment in digitalisation of the region. 4:03 p.m. Another panelist has just ended his presentation on infrastructure. The panelist called for a more decentralised electric power system in the Niger Delta for development. 4:08 p.m. A female panelist ended her presentation on environmental development. The panelist argues that destructions carried out during crude oil exploration were behind environmental degradation in the Niger Delta. She stressed that oil companies and oil-producing communities must work together to avert environmental degradation. The state and federal governments must be held responsible and accountable, she said. 4:14 p.m. Former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, has just ended his contribution on infrastructure development. 4: 17 p.m. Former managing director of the NDDC, Timi Alaibe, speaks on funding as a pillar of development for the Niger Delta region. 4:19 p.m. Mr Alaibe called for a review of the NDDC Act to introduce a better funding mechanism for the agency. He said the act should be amended to give the NDDC power to borrow from multinationals. 4:23 p.m. Another panelist, in his submission on environmental development, stressed that the Niger Delta region should rely on the federal government to solve its environmental issues, but makes policies to solve the problem. On security, he said the NDDC had done well by investing in education to equip the youths with skills to address insecurity. He, however, said the agency should collaborate with state governors to solve the regions avalanche of development challenges. 4:27 p.m. Its now time for questions and answers. 4:28 p.m. A participant just suggested that to solve the funding issue, the 13 per cent oil derivation should be given to the NDDC. 4:34 p.m. A participant is asking why the Niger Delta region cannot reinvest their resources for more productivity. Hes also asking why investments cannot be made in artisanal refineries. 4:37 p.m. A female participant asks how the youths can be assisted in engaging in agriculture. She is also asking how the points will be implemented. 4:38 p.m. Another participant makes recommendations for the construction of the East-West Road. 4:53 p.m. The panel discussion ends. 4:55 p.m. Reading of communique begins. 4: 57 p.m. The Chairman of the Governing Board of the NDDC gives a vote of thanks. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The police in Anambra State, South-east Nigeria, have identified their operatives accused of raiding a shop in the state and robbing residents of their mobile phones. The police spokesperson in the state, Tochukwu Ikenga, disclosed this in a statement issued on Thursday in Awka, Anambra State. A photo of the arrested operatives six of them has been circulating on X. Mr Ikenga, a police superintendent, said a video posted on social media of residents protesting against the alleged action of the operatives prompted the police to quickly identify them. He did not, however, mention in the statement what the operatives were accused of. He did not also mention the community where the incident happened. The video posted on X showed many residents gathered by a roadside and a male voice in the background, narrating what happened. This is what happened this morning, the man began narrating. 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 Police operatives from Otuocha invaded a shop where people were charging their phones and started shooting indiscriminately. They stole all the phones and ran away. This is robbery, he said. The incident happened Thursday at Umueri, Otuocha, a community in Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra State. The video showed empty bullet shells and tear-gas shells lying by the roadside, which the man who narrated the incident said were fired by the rogue police operatives. The officer (who led the team) mentioned in the video has been identified, Mr Ikenga said. READ ALSO: Speeding truck driver kills six persons in Anambra The Command also invites the victims to come forward to help facilitate the necessary action involved in the investigation. The Commissioner of Police, Nnaghe Itam, calls for calm and urges citizens to utilise the channels of the complaint against police officers rather than being unruly as seen in the video blocking the express road, thereby infringing on the fundamental rights of others, he added. Editors note: The version of this story which was published earlier has been edited to reflect the fact that the police said the operatives were identified, not arrested. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Oba Owolabi Olakulehin, 89, on Friday received the staff of office as the 43rd Olubadan of lbadanland. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State presented both the Staff and Instrument of Office to the new Olubadan. The presentation came shortly after Mr Olakulehin was crowned at the Labosinde compound, the family with exclusive right to crown Olubadan. NAN also reports that Oba Olakulehin later proceeded to Ile Osemeji at Ojaba area, where divination on the future of Ibadanland was revealed. The new Olubadan, thereafter, accompanied by members of Olubadan in-Council, family members and well-wishers, moved to the frontage of the popular Mapo Hall. In his address, Governor Makinde charged the new Ibadan traditional ruler to use the position for the upliftment and progress of Ibadanland. He promised that his administration would continue to promote traditional institutions and congratulated the entire Ibadan people on the successful enthronement of the new Olubadan. 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 Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu, who represented President Bola Tinubu, implored Oba Olakulehin to uphold the tradition and values that had made Ibadan a symbol of resilience and progress. As we look to the future, we acknowledge that there are challenges ahead but I am surely convinced that we can overcome these challenges with your majestys leadership quality, cooperation of all chiefs and the people. Let us not forget to live in unity, tolerance, mutual respect for one another and let us continue to strive for peace and understanding among ourselves so that Ibadan would continue to blossom, Mr Adelabu stated. In his acceptance speech, Oba Olakulehin thanked the sons and daughters of Ibadanland for supporting his enthronement. He pledged to rule the ancient city in a way that would fast-track more development. Olakulehin equally appreciated the federal and state governments for their contributions toward the success of the coronation. Among the dignitaries who attended the event were the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar; the Ooni of Ile-Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi; Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State; and the deputy governors of Osun and Ondo states, Kola Adewusi and Olayide Adelami, respectively. The Chief of Staff to Governor Babatunde Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, Tayo Ayinde, was also present. In a related development, President Bola Tinubu congratulated Oba Olakulehin on his coronation as the 43rd Olubadan of the ancient city of Ibadan. The president conveyed his congratulations in a statement by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, on Friday. The President joins the family of the new Olubadan, Ibadan citizens, the Oyo State Council of Obas, and the Oyo State Government to celebrate Oba Olakulehin on his ascension to the revered throne of his forebears. The President affirms that Oba Olakulehin brings to the throne immense wisdom, experience, character, and strength, said the statement. The president urged the traditional ruler to use the highly esteemed stool of Ibadan to advance the peace, security, and development of the area. President Tinubu assures the new Olubadan of his support and wishes him success as he works to promote and preserve the culture and traditions of the ancient city. ALSO READ: Makinde approves Olakuleyin as Olubadan of Ibadan The President also congratulates Ibadan indigenes on the peaceful succession process and prays that the peace, beauty, and renown of Ibadan will abide always, the statement read Born on 5 July 1935, Mr Olakulehin studied at Yaba College of Technology where he obtained his Ordinary National Diploma and Higher National Diploma in Building. He was recruited in 1970 through the Direct Short Service Commission as a second Lieutenant after transferring his service to the Nigerian Army Corp of Engineers. He retired voluntarily from the Nigerian Army as a Major on 1 October 1979, after a remarkable 25-year career in military service. Upon disengagement from the military service, he engaged in private business Mr Olakulehin made a foray into politics and was elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 1992 He represented Ibadan South-East Constituency and served as Chairman of the House Committee on Nigerian Army. Mr Olakulehin was, on Friday, crowned the 43rd Olubadan of Ibadanland at the age of 89. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print NEW YORK, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global aircraft ejection seats market is estimated to grow by USD 77.7 million from 2024-2028, at a CAGR of 5.36%, driven by increasing demand for military aircraft globally and recent developments in ejection seats. Key players include Airborne Systems, BAE Systems Plc, Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. Ltd., and others. Different countries' defense budgets significantly impact this market, as higher budgets lead to increased procurement of advanced military aircraft and ejection seats, while cost constraints associated with these seats pose a challenge. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global aircraft ejection seats market 2024-2028 Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies - Click for the snapshot of this report Forecast period 2024-2028 Base Year 2023 Historic Data 2018 - 2022 Segment Covered Application (Combat aircraft and Training aircraft), Type (Single seat and Twin seat), and Geography (Europe, North America, APAC, Middle East and Africa, and South America) Region Covered Europe, North America, APAC, Middle East and Africa, and South America Key companies profiled Airborne Systems, BAE Systems Plc, EDM Ltd., Jet Art Aviation, Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. Ltd., Rostec, RTX Corp., RUAG International Holding Ltd., Survival Equipment Services, and ZLIN AERO a.s. Key Market Trends Fueling Growth The global aircraft ejection seats market is experiencing significant growth due to recent advancements in this technology. Notably, Collins, a Raytheon company, completed sled testing of the ACES 5 ejection seat for Boeing T-7A aircraft in February 2023, with plans to deliver hundreds of seats by 2027. In November 2022, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) announced intentions to form a joint venture for domestic ejection seat production, aiming to reduce dependence on foreign market players and lower costs for indigenous aircraft like the LCA Tejas. Additionally, the Taiwanese Air Force unveiled an upgraded Mk 16 ejection seat for its F-5 fighter jets in January 2022, featuring advanced safety features like the Personal Survival Pack (PSP). Furthermore, South Korea's first indigenous fighter jet prototype, the KF-21 Boramae, was unveiled by KAI in April 2021, with plans to install the latest ejection seat technology, Martin-Baker Mk.18, and deliver 120 planes by 2032. These developments represent key trends driving the growth of the global aircraft ejection seats market. The Aircraft Ejection Seat market is witnessing significant growth due to the prioritization of pilot safety in armed forces. With an increase in pilot-related crashes, there is a heightened focus on adhering to safety standards. Crew members and flight instructors rely on cockpit equipment like ejection seats during emergencies. Fleet modernization in defense forces is driving the demand for advanced ejection seats in combat aircraft. Geopolitical conflicts and the arms race for military strength further fuel this trend. The F-35 aircraft, Rafale jets, and trainer aircraft are major consumers of ejection seats. Parachute activation time, safety of pilots, and survival rates are key considerations. Single and twin-seat aircraft, fighter planes, combat helicopters, and light commercial aircraft all utilize ejection seats. Terminal failure and aircraft systems can trigger ejection seat deployment. The military sector invests in ejection seats for combat operations and military exercises. Civil aviation authorities also require ejection seats in specific aircraft types. The market includes rocket motors, explosive charges, canopies, and catapult guns. Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation- Book Here! Market Challenges The global aircraft ejection seats market faces significant cost constraints, which pose a challenge for both customers and manufacturers. Ejection seats are complex, technologically advanced systems that necessitate substantial investments in research, development, and manufacturing. The costs of designing, engineering, and producing ejection seats, particularly advanced models, can be substantial. Additionally, meeting stringent safety regulations, conducting rigorous testing, and obtaining necessary certifications add to the expenses. These high costs can impact competition within the market, with established manufacturers having cost advantages due to economies of scale and long-standing customer relationships. Newer entrants or smaller companies may struggle to develop and manufacture cost-effective ejection seats that meet safety standards and performance criteria. Cost constraints can hinder manufacturers' ability to invest in research and development, potentially limiting their competitiveness in the market. Overall, the cost challenges can significantly impact the growth of the global aircraft ejection seats market during the forecast period. The Aircraft Ejection Seat market faces challenges in ensuring high survival rates for pilots during air crashes. Ejection seats are crucial safety equipment in both military and civil aviation. In military sector, ejection seats are used in single and twin-seat fighter jets like Rafale, and trainer aircraft for pilot safety during combat operations and military exercises. However, terminal failure of aircraft systems can lead to ejection seat malfunction. In civil aviation, ejection seats are less common, but ejection seats in light commercial aircraft are under development. The ejection process involves a rocket motor, explosive charge, and canopy jettison. Challenges include ensuring ejection seat compatibility with various aircraft models, cockpit design, and restraint systems. Battlefield operations and combat helicopters also require ejection seats with headrests and catapults. The market is driven by military strength and arms race, but aviation authorities regulate ejection seat standards for safety. Rollers, catapult guns, and parachutes are other essential components. For more insights on driver and challenges - Download a Sample Report Segment Overview This aircraft ejection seats market report extensively covers market segmentation by Application 1.1 Combat aircraft 1.2 Training aircraft Type 2.1 Single seat 2.2 Twin seat Geography 3.1 Europe 3.2 North America 3.3 APAC 3.4 Middle East and Africa and 3.5 South America 1.1 Combat aircraft- Single-seat aircraft ejection seats are essential safety components for pilots in emergency situations. These seats facilitate the safe egress of a single occupant, typically the pilot, from single-seat aircraft such as fighter jets, attack aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Martin-Baker and Collins Aerospace are prominent suppliers of single-seat ejection seats. Martin-Baker offers models like the Mk16 and Mk17 families, while Collins Aerospace manufactures ejection seats under its ACES family. The increasing demand for single-seat ejection seats in various aircraft applications will fuel the growth of the global aircraft ejection seats market in the single-seat segment. For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2018 - 2022) - Download a Sample Report Research Analysis The Aircraft Ejection Seat market caters to the safety needs of armed forces and crew members in combat aircraft and trainer planes. These seats are essential for pilot survival during air crashes, particularly in combat operations and battlefield scenarios. Safety standards dictate the design and functionality of these seats, which use a rocket motor to propel the occupant away from the aircraft. Modernization of fleets and military exercises necessitate continuous advancements in aircraft ejection seats. Combat jets like Rafale, single-seat and twin-seat fighters, combat helicopters, trainer aircraft, and even light commercial aircraft are equipped with these seats. Civil aviation and aviation authorities also enforce the use of ejection seats in select aircraft types. The market is driven by the arms race and military strength requirements, with ongoing research and development to enhance capabilities and improve safety. Market Research Overview The Aircraft Ejection Seats market encompasses the design, production, and integration of ejection seats into various types of aircraft, including fighter planes, combat helicopters, trainer aircraft, and even light commercial aircraft. Armed forces worldwide rely on these critical safety systems to ensure the survival of pilots and crew members in the event of an air crash or terminal failure. Safety standards are rigorously enforced to minimize parachute activation time and maximize survival rates. Cockpit equipment, such as ejection seats, is a priority in fleet modernization, particularly in defense forces. Geopolitical conflicts and the arms race for military strength have accelerated the demand for advanced ejection seats. These systems utilize rocket motors, explosive charges, and catapults to eject the pilot and, in some cases, the entire cockpit. Canopy rollers, restraint systems, headrests, and other components are essential parts of these ejection seats. Civil aviation authorities also regulate the use of ejection seats in commercial aircraft, ensuring the safety of pilots and passengers. Military exercises and combat operations further highlight the importance of these systems in battlefield operations. Table of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Market Landscape 3 Market Sizing 4 Historic Market Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Market Segmentation Application Combat Aircraft Training Aircraft Type Single Seat Twin Seat Geography Europe North America APAC 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 Gillian E. Friedman is one of California's preeminent license defense attorneys for healthcare and professional license investigation and enforcement cases. California has over 4.3 million individuals and corporations with professional licenses. LOS ANGELES, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chudnovsky Law, a California professional license defense and criminal defense law firm, has announced the addition of attorney Gillian Friedman to its team. Ms. Friedman brings a wealth of legal knowledge and insights to the firm's license defense practice. Before joining Chudnovsky Law, Gillian E. Friedman served as Deputy Attorney General in the California Department of Justice Licensing Section for 22 years. Gillian Friedman, a professional license defense attorney at Chudnovsky Law. As Deputy Attorney General, Ms. Friedman represented dozens of state licensing agencies, pursued license investigations, and prosecuted more than 750 enforcement disciplinary cases against licensed professionals and corporations. Because of her extensive experience at the Department of Justice, Ms. Friedman is one of California's preeminent license defense attorneys for agency investigation and enforcement actions. According to Tsion Chudnovsky, Managing Attorney of Chudnovsky Law, "As a former Deputy Attorney General for licensing agencies for more than two decades, Ms. Friedman has the invaluable experience that our clients need when facing high-stakes investigations and disciplinary proceedings." "Ms. Friedman joins our renowned team of attorneys that specialize in representing licensees in front of 45 agencies that license more than 4.3 million individuals and corporations throughout California." Ms. Friedman utilizes her expertise when representing individual and corporate clients in all phases of investigations, audits, licensing-related petitions, accusations, settlement negotiations, administrative litigation, writs, and appellate matters. For more information, visit: https://TopLawyer.law/gillian-friedman. About Chudnovsky Law Chudnovsky Law is a top-tier professional license defense law firm. It is comprised of a team of renowned former prosecutors and defense attorneys with over 120 years of combined experience handling thousands of cases, administrative hearings, and trials. The firm represents licensees statewide from its offices in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. Over the years, the firm has served as trusted counsel for CEOs, healthcare corporations, company executives, pharmacies, nurses, medical spas, senior care and assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, physicians, real estate firms, dentists, insurance agencies, and other professional licensees. The firm's track record of success speaks for itself. Firm attorneys specialize in license defense for California individuals and corporations in front of all 40 Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) agencies, including medical, nursing, pharmacy, dental, chiropractic, behavioral sciences, and healthcare businesses. They also handle matters before the Drug Enforcement Agency, California Department of Public Health, California Department of Social Services, Department of Insurance, and Department of Real Estate. To speak with a professional license defense attorney at Chudnovsky Law for more information, call (844) 325-1444 or visit https://TopLawyer.law/california-professional-license-defense-lawyer Contact: Chudnovsky Law 23 Corporate Plaza Drive, Suite 150 Newport Beach, CA 92660 (949) 750-2500 Email: [email protected] https://TopLawyer.law SOURCE Chudnovsky Law NEW YORK, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Inventory stacking, a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, drove cellular module growth in 2021 and even into 2022. However, in 2023 it was a major headwind, driving a shipment decline of over 5% relative to 2022. What has buoyed the spirits of the cellular module market has been the growth of Cat-1bis. According to a new report from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research cellular module forecasts show that Cat-1bis will replace nearly 70% of the Cat-1 market by 2029. For years, many Cat-1 IoT devices were designed using only a single antenna which sometimes required carrier approval for use on their networks. LTE networks are ubiquitous with good coverage hence a single antenna was sufficient. But what device OEMs and chipset vendors realized is that Cat-1 module costs can be reduced even more by building a dedicated Cat-1bis chipset with send and receive functions delivered over a single antenna. Not only could power consumption be lowered but also component costs. The Cat-1bis standard in 3GPP Release 13 formalizes the common, yet informal use of single antenna Cat-1 devices. The original Cat 1 specification in 3GPP Release 8 required two antennas. Commenting on the new data, Dan Shey, Vice President, Enabling Platforms at ABI Research, says, "Like many new developments in the cellular IoT market, China is leading with deployment of Cat-1bis. Outside of China, Cat-1bis penetration is much lower since it is typically the replacement technology for new device designs. Regardless of region, based on the benefits of Cat-1bis relative to other cellular technologies, we see Cat-1bis becoming the number two technology choice for cellular IoT applications by 2029." Cat-1bis benefits include lower cost outside of China Cat-1bis modules are at least 30% cheaper with even greater reductions seen in China. Network roaming is also a benefit as 4G roaming agreements are well established unlike the challenges seen today with NB-IoT and Cat-M. Finally, the Cat-1bis standard formalizes the use of a single antenna. The only question which will vary by use case and application is connection reliability for stationary applications. For battery-powered IoT applications, fixed placement of a Cat-1bis device where cellular network coverage is poor could shorten battery life as single antenna devices struggle to connect to the cellular network. But there is also another view of Cat-1bis in the market. According to Shey, "Presently it is unclear if the chipset vendors will invest in new Cat-1bis chipsets. At Mobile World Congress, and more recently at Asia Tech Expo, RedCap was being pushed not only by module suppliers, but also the device OEMs and the chipset community. 5G RedCap is creating an opening to drive 5G device volumes in the IoT domain. The calculus by the 5G supplier community is 5G capabilities low latency, location granularity, and future proofing against LTE sunsets, will convince more customers to invest in these higher revenue products." With Cat-1bis representing the near-term opportunity and 5G RedCap the longer-term opportunity, both technologies are receiving increased investment across the supply chain. Chipset vendors will play a key role in module and device development for both technologies. Qualcomm, Sequans, UNISOC, and ASR are all supporting both technologies; development outside of China is led by Qualcomm and Sequans. These findings are from ABI Research's M2M Embedded Cellular Modules and M2M Embedded Cellular Modules Update: 1H 2024 reports. This report is part of the company's IoT Hardware & Devices research service research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. About ABI Research ABI Research is a global technology intelligence firm uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology solution providers and end-market companies. We serve as the bridge that seamlessly connects these two segments by providing exclusive research and expert guidance to drive successful technology implementations and deliver strategies proven to attract and retain customers. ABI Research For more information about ABI Research's services, contact us at +1.516.624.2500 in the Americas, +44.203.326.0140 in Europe, +65.6592.0290 in Asia-Pacific, or visit www.abiresearch.com. Contact Info: Global Deborah Petrara Tel: +1.516.624.2558 [email protected] SOURCE ABI Research LONG BEACH, Calif., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Douglas Fraser, M.D., FACS, was named medical director of the Trauma Center at MemorialCare's Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach. Dr. Fraser is a fellowship-trained, board-certified trauma surgeon who has been with MemorialCare since 2023 and was selected for his leadership in clinical care, policy development and education to improve trauma outcomes. "In his relatively short tenure, Dr. Fraser has already made tremendous strides in his role with MemorialCare," says Joe Kim, M.D., chief medical officer, MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center. "Dr. Fraser's extensive experience in trauma surgery, leadership, and innovative techniques in both the pediatric and adult patient populations was a perfect fit for our model. He has demonstrated his leadership through significantly contributing to our hospitals' preparation for the upcoming trauma survey. He has forged strong relationships within the Long Beach community and actively engaged them on critical issues, such as gun violence awareness and Stop the Bleed training over the past year." Dr. Fraser previously served as the Chief of Trauma at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (UMCSN), a Level 1 trauma center where he took care of the most complex trauma patients from the tiniest, injured infants to the most frail, elderly patients with devastating diagnoses. He was instrumental in implementing REBOA (aortic balloon) and surgical rib fixation (rib plating) to his patients in Las Vegas. In addition to his role as Chief of Trauma, Dr. Fraser directed surgical resident and fellowship-level postgraduate training programs as Division Chief of Acute Care Surgery, UMCSN. Notably, he worked for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as a tactical physician to provide support to the SWAT team and Search & Rescue Officers. His EMS training began at the University of Notre Dame where he worked taking medical and fire calls during college. At MemorialCare, Dr. Fraser will provide clinical oversight of the trauma teams, contribute to the development of trauma program initiatives, resident and staff education and trauma research, and foster collaborative relationships with hospital departments to support quality trauma care. "I am honored to come back home to Southern California and ensure we bring the best in pediatric and adult trauma services to the community we serve," says Dr. Douglas Fraser, M.D., medical director, Trauma Center, MemorialCare. "I look forward to bringing my experience and passion for trauma care to this role and working with the talented team here to provide the highest level of care to our patients." Licensed under MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, the Level II Trauma Center, verified by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma treats both pediatric and adult patients and recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. The Trauma Center is one of the original Trauma Centers in Los Angeles County, providing trauma care since 1983, and treating over 16,000 patients every year. Dr. Fraser received his medical degree at St. George's University School of Medicine and completed his residency in general surgery at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (now part of Rutgers University). Following his residency, he completed a fellowship in acute care surgery & surgery critical care at the University of Nevada Medical School. Dr. Fraser is board certified in surgery & surgical critical care by the American Board of Surgery (ABS). Dr. Fraser is a California native, born and raised in Orange County and is excited to be home after 20 years. "I am proud to give back everything I have learned to not only treat those who need excellent care but lead those that get to serve the Long Beach Community," says Dr. Fraser. About MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center and MemorialCare Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach: MemorialCare's Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach are members of MemorialCare, a not-for-profit, integrated healthcare delivery System. Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children's & Women's are designated with the prestigious Magnet recognition for excellence in nursing. Long Beach Medical Center, with a century of compassionate care across a spectrum of medical and surgical specialties, utilizes cutting-edge technology. Miller Children's & Women's provides specialized pediatric care for children and young adults as well as maternity care for expectant mothers all under one roof. Their shared campus ensures seamless care for patients of all ages, from newborns to older adults. Visit memorialcare.org/LongBeach and millerchildrens.org for more information. SOURCE Long Beach Memorial Caterpillar is alleged to have engaged in fraudulent and misleading conduct. MIAMI, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Venequip S.A., a Venezuelan company, this week filed a lawsuit seeking more than $100 million in damages from Caterpillar, Inc. In the lawsuit, Venequip alleges that Caterpillar engaged in misleading or fraudulent conduct, including discriminating against Venequip while favoring other dealers, despite repeated oral and written representations otherwise. One of the largest manufacturers of heavy machinery and engines in the world, including for the construction, mining and gas and oil industries, Caterpillar trades on the New York Stock Exchange and enjoys a market capitalization of over $170 billion. From its inception in 1927, Venequip acted as Caterpillar's only authorized distributor in Venezuela. The partnership between the companies lasted for nearly a century. In its lawsuit, Venequip alleges that Caterpillar engaged in a discriminatory pricing scheme whereby it sold its products to its favored dealers at substantial discounts by as much as 40% and greenlighted these dealers to sell into Venequip's territory at prices that Venequip could not. Caterpillar implemented this discriminatory pricing scheme notwithstanding that it forbade Venequip from selling Caterpillar products in the United States and had represented to Venequip that Caterpillar's dealer pricing was generally the same around the world. These representations were false. Venequip further alleges that Caterpillar went to great pains to conceal its discriminatory pricing scheme. According to the lawsuit, when Venequip raised questions with Caterpillar upon learning of the discriminatory pricing scheme, CAT did not deny its conduct. Instead, it responded through retaliation. Not only did CAT terminate the relationship and refuse to sell to Venequip, but CAT also barred and/or discouraged other dealers and sellers of CAT equipment and parts from selling to and doing business with Venequip. This deprived Venequip of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that would have been generated from the sale of equipment and parts. "Unbeknownst to Venequip, CAT's repeated representations to Venequip that CAT would not undermine Venequip in Venezuela were a lie and its effusive praise of Venequip was designed to lull Venequip into believing that CAT was Venequip's trusted and committed partner," according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also states, "CAT's disloyal, misleading, and fraudulent practices: (a) decimated Venequip's business, preventing Venequip from selling CAT products and servicing CAT equipment; and (b) harmed consumers of CAT equipment and parts in Venezuela." Caterpillar has until the end of July to respond to the lawsuit. SOURCE Venequip S.A. Selling Power recognizes the company's culture of success and dynamic team of sales professionals AUSTIN, Minn., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- For the 23rd time, Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a Fortune 500 global branded food company, has made the 2024 Selling Power 60 Best Companies to Sell For list. The list includes 60 of the most deserving sales organizations in the United States. For the 23rd time, Hormel Foods Corporation, a Fortune 500 global branded food company, has made the 2024 Selling Power 60 Best Companies to Sell For list. The list includes 60 of the most deserving sales organizations in the United States. "It is an incredible honor and achievement to again be recognized as one of the top 60 companies to sell for in the nation," said David Weber, vice president of Sales, Foodservice for Hormel Foods. "Hormel Foods has developed a culture of success by delivering results from our sales team. Our highly skilled and efficient professionals make us a best-in-class organization. This award would not be possible without their hard work and dedication." Members of the Hormel Foods sales team are the company's first point of contact with its valued customers and partners. Team members strive to achieve their objective of increasing sales for their areas and divisions by adding products to distribution and expanding the usage of current Hormel Foods products. Additionally, these sales professionals are responsible for implementing marketing strategies for their respective products. To determine the final list of companies, the research team at Selling Power analyzed and ranked data across key areas, including compensation and benefits, hiring, sales training, sales enablement, and diversity and inclusion. The list now encompasses the top 60 companies of all sizes that are leading the charge in innovation to adapt to current economic conditions. "As companies are dealing with the AI revolution while facing an uncertain economy, recruiting and retaining the top sales talent is critical for success," said Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder and CEO of Selling Power. "What attracts salespeople to work for these leading organizations is their outstanding cultures, their commitment to diversity, and their steady support of the sales team by servant leadership and the introduction of process improving technologies. All of this, combined, provides meaningful work environments that offer unlimited opportunities to win." To view the complete list of the 60 Best Companies to Sell For in 2024, visit https://www.sellingpower.com/lists/2024/60-best-companies-to-sell-for About Hormel Foods Inspired People. Inspired Food. Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minnesota, is a global branded food company with over $12 billion in annual revenue across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include Planters, Skippy, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate, Justin's, Wholly, Hormel Black Label, Columbus, Jennie-O and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named one of the best companies to work for by U.S. News & World Report, one of America's most responsible companies by Newsweek, recognized on Fast Company's list of the 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators, received a perfect score of 100 on the 202324 Corporate Equality Index and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. The company lives by its purpose statement Inspired People. Inspired Food. to bring some of the world's most trusted and iconic brands to tables across the globe. For more information, visit hormelfoods.com. Contact: Media Relations Hormel Foods [email protected] SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation Investment Community Teleconference Set for August 14, 2024 at 8 a.m. ET TORONTO, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - Hydro One Limited (TSX: H), the largest electric transmission and distribution utility in Ontario, plans to release its second quarter financial results the morning of August 14, 2024, before North American financial markets open. A summary of the results will be distributed by newswire and the complete MD&A and financial statements will be posted at www.hydroone.com/investors and www.sedarplus.com. Hydro One's management will host a teleconference with the investment community starting at 8 a.m. ET that same morning to discuss the results and outlook. Those wishing to listen to the teleconference can access the live webcast through the Investor Relations Events and Presentations section of Hydro One's website at www.hydroone.com/investors. A rebroadcast of the teleconference will be available following the call at the same link. Members of the North American financial community wanting to ask questions during the call should use the following link (registration link), and you will be provided with personalized dial-in details. To avoid delays, we encourage participants to dial into the conference call fifteen minutes ahead of the scheduled start time. Other interested parties and media are welcome to participate on a listen-only basis. Hydro One Limited (TSX: H) Hydro One Limited, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, is Ontario's largest electricity transmission and distribution provider with approximately 1.5 million valued customers, approximately $32.8 billion in assets as at December 31, 2023, and annual revenues in 2023 of approximately $7.8 billion. Our team of approximately 9,700 skilled and dedicated employees proudly build and maintain a safe and reliable electricity system which is essential to supporting strong and successful communities. In 2023, Hydro One invested approximately $2.5 billion in its transmission and distribution networks and supported the economy through buying approximately $2.5 billion of goods and services. We are committed to the communities where we live and work through community investment, sustainability and diversity initiatives. Hydro One Limited's common shares are listed on the TSX and certain of Hydro One Inc.'s medium term notes are listed on the NYSE. Additional information can be accessed at www.hydroone.com, www.sedarplus.com or www.sec.gov. For More Information For more information about everything Hydro One, please visit www.hydroone.com where you can find additional information including links to securities filings, historical financial reports, and information about the Company's governance practices, corporate social responsibility, customer solutions, and further information about its business. SOURCE Hydro One Limited CHAMPAIGN, Ill., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ALS United Greater Chicago is delighted to welcome you to embark on your United Era journey with us as we gather in solidarity to stand by those impacted by ALS. You're invited to the much-anticipated 2024 Walk ALS Champaign, taking place at Hessel Park in Champaign on Sunday, September 8. Walk ALS Champaign is a powerful community event that brings hope and raises funds to combat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. 2024 marks the 20th year of service for ALS United Greater Chicago supporting those battling ALS in our community. Funds raised through Walk ALS Champaign directly support vital services provided in Central Illinois, including funding caregiver education, an equipment lending program, support groups, and more. This family-friendly event welcomes individuals of all ages, providing a wonderful opportunity to unite with friends, family, and colleagues in support of the ALS community. Participation in the Walk is free, and there is no fundraising minimum. However, participants who fundraise $90 or more will receive a special event t-shirt. Registration and check-in for the event will open at 9:30 AM and the walk will start at 11:00 AM. This year's theme, "In Our United Era," showcases how we are united in our quest to support the individuals and families affected by this disease. Participants are invited to make and trade friendship bracelets that show the spirit of their team or ALS hero through colors, mottos, and more. To sign up, donate, or volunteer for Walk ALS Champaign, visit walkalschampaign.org or contact us at 312-932-0000. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of those affected by ALS. About ALS and ALS United Greater Chicago: ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a devastating, fatal neuromuscular disease. Every 90 minutes, someone is diagnosed with ALS, and every 90 minutes someone loses their fight with ALS. For twenty years, ALS United Greater Chicago has served individuals battling ALS and their families throughout Chicagoland, Northern IL, and Central IL. It is ALS United Greater Chicago's mission to unite the ALS community in our collaborative approach to foster bold research initiatives, advance national and state advocacy efforts, and provide comprehensive care and support to individuals and families affected by ALS. Media Contact: Sam Jarvis, Communications & Marketing Manager Walk ALS Champaign, ALS United Greater Chicago 312-932-0000 | [email protected] SOURCE ALS United Greater Chicago Info-Tech Research Group's new study tackles the critical challenges of unoptimized IT financial processes. The recently published resource offers insight on strategic solutions to enhance efficiency, overcome industry-specific regulatory hurdles, and promote the seamless integration of finance and procurement functions. The firm's research findings and recommendations for IT leaders in the finance sector are intended to help drive organizations' technological advancements and achieve financial management excellence. TORONTO, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - As the demand for technological innovation within various industries continues to surge, financial sector organizations specficially are finding their current IT financial management systems inadequate, often resulting in inefficiency, missed opportunities, and economic waste. Complex budgeting processes, unpredictable expenditures, and the constant demand for innovation have created a pressing need for more adaptable financial management systems. Recognizing these critical challenges, Info-Tech Research Group has published its latest research, Implement an Adaptive System for IT Financial Management. This research provides IT leaders with industry-specific insights on modern strategies and solutions to break down silos, optimize financial processes, and seamlessly integrate finance and procurement functions, thereby driving technological advancements and achieving financial management success. Info-Tech Research Group's "Implement an Adaptive System for IT Financial Management" blueprint outlines a four-step approach for IT leaders to enhance their financial management system. (CNW Group/Info-Tech Research Group) "The most elegant things in life are never simple behind the scenes they're often carefully and thoughtfully designed to be that way, and just as often have evolved from some pretty clunky and awkward predecessors," says Jennifer Perrier, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. "The same can be said of most approaches to IT financial management." Info-Tech's research details various obstacles that organizations face in their IT financial management systems. The firm explains in the new resource that the finance and procurement functions of many organizations are often siloed and reliant on manual, unoptimized processes, which limit IT's ability to drive improvements. Additionally, industry-specific regulatory constraints and apprehension toward innovation create further hurdles, impeding IT's progress toward transformation. Info-Tech advises that addressing these challenges and developing strategic solutions is crucial for organizations to enhance their IT financial management practices. "The way IT financial management is commonly practiced in many organizations is ad hoc and opaque, leaving IT and other decision-makers unable to quickly and appropriately respond to changing conditions and emerging opportunities," explains Perrier. "To keep pace with a highly dynamic future that Info-Tech calls Exponential IT, most organizations will need to reinvent their approach to IT financial management so that it can operate with agility and confidence." The firm recently shared with Forbes that for organizations to succeed with Exponential IT, they need the flexibility to invest in new, high-value capabilities as they arise. Central to this is modernizing IT financial practice, characterized by a CIO-CFO partnership, automated financial management processes, and a more flexible IT funding approach. In the newly published resource, Info-Tech outlines a four-step approach for IT leaders to enhance their financial management system from the edge to the core: Step 1: Understand the context within which IT financial management operates to identify constraints, opportunities, scope of work, and objectives. Understand the context within which IT financial management operates to identify constraints, opportunities, scope of work, and objectives. Step 2: Identify and define the elements that make IT financial investment and management possible, including required capabilities, processes, competencies, tools, and governance controls. Identify and define the elements that make IT financial investment and management possible, including required capabilities, processes, competencies, tools, and governance controls. Step 3: Design and implement a formal system for IT financial management that is agile and responsive to changing priorities, conditions, and opportunities, which can evolve over time with the organization as it grows. Design and implement a formal system for IT financial management that is agile and responsive to changing priorities, conditions, and opportunities, which can evolve over time with the organization as it grows. Step 4: Collaborate with the organization's central finance and procurement functions to improve their integration, automation, and analytic capability to optimize financial management agility organization-wide. Info-Tech's comprehensive blueprint offers practical guidance for IT leaders looking to revolutionize IT financial management through agile practices and strategic alignment. This research outlines methodologies for designing, assessing, and evolving IT financial systems to meet the demands of Exponential IT, ultimately empowering leaders to enhance decision-making, optimize resource allocation, and drive organizational transformation effectively. For exclusive and timely commentary from Jennifer Perrier, an expert in financial management, and access to the complete Implement an Adaptive System for IT Financial Management blueprint, please contact [email protected]. Info-Tech LIVE 2024 Conference Registration is now open for Info-Tech Research Group's annual IT conference, Info-Tech LIVE 2024, taking place September 17 to 19, 2024, at the iconic Bellagio in Las Vegas. This premier event offers journalists, podcasters, and media influencers access to exclusive content, the latest IT research and trends, and the opportunity to interview industry experts, analysts, and speakers. To apply for media passes to attend the event or gain access to research and expert insights on trending topics, please contact [email protected]. About Info-Tech Research Group Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world's leading research and advisory firms, proudly serving over 30,000 IT and HR professionals. The company produces unbiased, highly relevant research and provides advisory services to help leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For nearly 30 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations. To learn more about Info-Tech's divisions, visit McLean & Company for HR research and advisory services and SoftwareReviews for software buying insights. Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and hundreds of industry analysts through the firm's Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact [email protected]. For information about Info-Tech Research Group or to access the latest research, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn and X. SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group HOUSTON, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Inhance Technologies welcomes the opportunity to engage with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding today's announcement that EPA will commence a proceeding under Section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to further evaluate the fluorination of plastic containers. In particular, EPA has stated its intent to solicit information on this technology, including how fluorinated containers are used and whether measures may be appropriate to address any potential risk due to minute impurities of some perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that may be generated by use of the technology. Nothing in EPA's announcement indicates that the agency has made a decision to ban or restrict the fluorination of plastic containers or the sale or use of such containers. Inhance Technologies will work with EPA, along with others in the industry, to provide information about the fluorination of plastic containers. We are confident that Inhance Technologies' fluorination technology does not present a risk to the public or the environment. In fact, fluorination of plastic containers provides important benefits to the national economy. For example, as compared to other barrier technologies, fluorination is less resource intensive and has a lower carbon footprint. Additionally, the strong and consistent barrier provided by the fluorination process also prevents human and environmental exposure to volatile chemicals that are stored in fluorinated articles during transportation, storage, and use. EPA took this action in response to a citizen petition, filed by environmental groups, that seeks an immediate ban on the use of fluorination of plastic containers based on the baseless allegations that the technology poses an unreasonable risk. These environmental groups seek to deny access to fluorinated containers, which are critical to many industries from healthcare to crop protection, and whose supply chain partners would be left without viable alternatives for effective barrier protection, including for applications such as vaccines, pesticides, and fuel systems. Inhance shares EPA's interest in ensuring that any risks associated with three specific PFAS compounds perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) are appropriately evaluated and managed consistent with TSCA and the agency's own regulations. To the extent such compounds are inadvertently formed during the fluorination process, they are only formed as impurities at minute concentrations. Inhance is confident that any further evaluation of the potential risk associated with these compounds by EPA will conclude that there is no unreasonable risk associated with the use of fluorinated containers. Background The fluorination process utilizes only fluorine and inert gases. No PFAS including PFOA, PFNA, and PFDA are used at any point during Inhance Technologies' fluorination process. To the extent that any PFOA, PFNA, or PFDA may be produced during the fluorination process, such amounts are unintentionally formed at very low concentrations as impurities, are not separable from the polyolefin plastic containers, serve no functional purpose, and have no commercial purpose or value. Concentrations of PFOA, PFNA, or PFDA remaining on articles following fluorination, if any, are exceptionally low, and the total annual volume of PFAS compounds unintentionally formed by fluorination processes is miniscule compared to other sources of these PFAS. SOURCE Inhance Technologies Utah-based OUR Rescue provided critical training, cyber tools and K-9 support to aid in arrest QUITO, Ecuador, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 10, in partnership with teams from OUR Rescue and U.S. law enforcement, Ecuadorian authorities successfully apprehended a well-known pediatrician on charges of both the production and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) through online sites around the world, including to the United States. The 63-year-old pediatrician, Pablo Anibal I.P., has been under investigation since March of 2024, after police received a tip that he was creating CSAM of his patients, ranging in age from 8-12 years old. "Thanks to the trust that our law enforcement partners have placed in OUR Rescue and our leadership in Ecuador, we were able to assist them with the cyber tools, technology, and training they needed to identify and arrest this suspected predator," said Tammy Lee, OUR Rescue CEO. "This operation and others like it would not have been possible without support from our generous donors, who are committed to helping us expand this critical movement to protect and rescue children and women worldwide." OUR Rescue's assistance in the operation included the on-site support of Electronic Storage Detection (ESD) K9 Rosco and his handler, Lt. John Haning, from Rogers County Sheriff's Office in Oklahoma. "We worked alongside police on the scene to find additional evidence that will aid in the prosecution of this dangerous man, who is a threat to Quito's innocent children," Tammy Lee added. Trained to detect a specific chemical scent found in electronic storage devices, Rosco located two small SD cards and one cellphone that were not found in the initial search. Rosco also served as essential emotional support to those on scene. A spokesperson for the National Police's digital patrol unit emphasized, "We are committed to eradicating child exploitation in all its forms. This operation underscores our dedication to safeguarding our children and ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice." According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), there were 88 million CSAM files reported to their CyberTipline in 2022. OUR Rescue was honored to work alongside the local Prosecutor's Office, the National Police, and the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador, among other federal agencies, to see this operation to completion and support this vital work. Following the arrest, the Prosecutor's Office in Ecuador released a statement via X, reaffirming their commitment to protecting children and ensuring that justice is served promptly. An arraignment hearing for Pablo Anibal I.P. is expected in the coming days. Tammy Lee concluded, "OUR Rescue is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and partner with agencies around the world committed to this important work." About OUR Rescue We are leaders in the fight against child sexual exploitation and human trafficking worldwide. Our work spans the globe as we assist law enforcement in rescue efforts and help provide survivor care to all those affected. While we prioritize children, we work to empower the liberation of anyone suffering at the hands of those looking to sexually exploit. We offer vital resources to authorities around the world and work tirelessly to raise awareness and meet survivors on their healing journey. https://ourrescue.org SOURCE OUR Rescue 119 Michigan Hospital Workers Vote 2-to-1 to Join Teamsters Local 332 PORT HURON, Mich., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Technicians at McLaren Hospital in Port Huron have voted overwhelmingly to join Teamsters Local 332 in Flint. "We reached out to Local 332 after technicians and therapists at McLaren Lapeer organized and ratified their contract. The gains and protection they received in that contract made us determined to become Teamsters," said Megan Lardner, a CT technician at McLaren Port Huron. "I am so proud of our techs and therapists for their unity. We can't wait to get going on securing a strong contract that addresses everything we deserve." With this latest organizing victory, Local 332 now represents 359 workers at three different McLaren Hospital locations in Flint, Lapeer, and Port Huron. "We could not be more excited to welcome another unit of health care workers to the Teamsters," said Dan Glass, President of Local 332. "Our newest members play an essential role in the health and safety of Michiganders, and they deserve the protections of Teamsters representation. We look forward to negotiating McLaren Port Huron techs a strong first contract." Founded in 1933, Teamsters Local 332 represents working people in Flint, Michigan. For more information, visit teamsters332.org. Contact: Matt McQuaid, (202) 624-6877 [email protected] SOURCE Teamsters Local 332 NEW YORK, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- SUMMARY NOTICE TO: ALL RECORD HOLDERS AND BENEFICIAL OWNERS OF SHARE(S) OF COVISINT CORPORATION ("COVISINT") COMMON STOCK WHO HELD SUCH SHARE(S) AT ANY TIME BETWEEN JUNE 5, 2017 (THE DATE OF THE MERGER AGREEMENT BETWEEN COVISINT AND OPEN TEXT CORPORATION) AND JULY 26, 2017 (THE DATE OPEN TEXT CORPORATION COMPLETED ITS ACQUISITION OF COVISINT), EXCLUDING THE DEFENDANTS IN THIS ACTION AND ANY PERSON OR ENTITY RELATED TO OR AFFILIATED WITH ANY DEFENDANT (THE "CLASS"). YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED, pursuant to an Order of the Circuit Court for Oakland County, Michigan, that a hearing will be held on October 16, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, before the Honorable Victoria A. Valentine. The hearing will occur at the Circuit Court for Oakland County, Michigan, Sixth Judicial Circuit Business Court via Virtual Hearing. To join the Virtual Hearing by compuer with video, go to zoom.us and click on "Join a Call." When prompted, you will join using Meeting ID 248 858 5282. To join the Virtual Hearing by telephone without video, call 1-646-876-9923 and connect using Meeting ID 248 858 5282. The hearing will be held for the purpose of determining: (a) whether the Court should grant final approval of the proposed Settlement on the terms and conditions provided for in the Stipulation as fair, reasonable, and adequate and in the best interests of Class Members; (b) whether the Court should enter an Order and Final Judgment dismissing the Action on the merits and with prejudice as to the Defendants, and effectuating the releases described in the Stipulation; (c) whether the Court should grant the application of Plaintiffs for the Fee and Expense Award; (d) whether to finally certify the Class as an opt-out class; and (e) such other matters as may properly come before the Court. IF YOU PURCHASED, SOLD, OR HELD COVISINT COMMON STOCK DURING THE PERIOD FROM AND INCLUDING JUNE 5, 2017, THROUGH AND INCLUDING JULY 26, 2017 (THE "CLASS PERIOD"), YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED BY THE SETTLEMENT OF THIS LITIGATION, INCLUDING THE RELEASE AND EXTINGUISHMENT OF CLAIMS YOU MAY POSSESS RELATING TO YOUR PURCHASE OR ACQUISITION OF COVISINT COMMON STOCK DURING THE CLASS PERIOD. If you have not received a detailed Notice of Pendency and Proposed Settlement of Class Action ("Notice"), you may obtain copies by calling the Covisint Corporation Merger Litigation, Claims Administrator, at 1-866-742-4955, or on the Internet at www.covisintsettlement.com. If you are a Class Member, you do not need to take any further steps to share in the distribution of the Net Settlement Fund. If you purchased, sold, or held Covisint common stock during the Class Period and you desire to be excluded from the Settlement Class, you must submit a request for exclusion so that it is received no later than September 16, 2024, in the manner and form explained in the detailed Notice referred to above. All Class Members who do not timely and validly request exclusion from the Class will be bound by any judgment entered in the Litigation pursuant to the Stipulation and Agreement of Compromise, Settlement, and Release. Any objection to the Settlement, the Plan of Allocation, Plaintiffs' Counsel's request for the payment of attorneys' fees and expenses, and any incentive award to Plaintiffs must be received by each of the following recipients via hard copy and email no later than September 25, 2024: Clerk of Court: Clerk of Court Circuit Court for Oakland County, Michigan Sixth Judicial Circuit Business Court 1200 North Telegraph Road Pontiac, Michigan 48341 Plaintiffs' Counsel: MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PC Juan E. Monteverde The Empire State Building 350 Fifth Avenue Suite 4740 New York, NY 10118 [email protected] Defendants' Counsel: PAUL HASTINGS LLP Christopher H. McGrath 695 Town Center Drive 17th Floor Costa Mesa, CA 92626 [email protected] PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THE COURT OR THE CLERK'S OFFICE REGARDING THIS NOTICE. If you have any questions about the Settlement, you may contact Monteverde & Associates PC, at the address listed above. Dated: July 9, 2024 BY ORDER OF THE COURT CIRCUIT COURT FOR OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN SOURCE Monteverde & Associates PC DALLAS , July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Morgan Samuels Company, a leading executive search platform, announced today the addition of Ken Wilcox as a Senior Client Partner. Bert Hensley, CEO, said "We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Ken to our team. I am confident in his ability to enhance our internal dynamics and significantly elevate the value we provide to our clients." Based in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, Mr. Wilcox joins Morgan Samuels from HIEC where he was a Partner in the consumer and retail practice. His background in sales, marketing, operations, and customer experience across various organizational sizes and global markets uniquely positions him to understand and fulfill client needs. "I am both honored and privileged to join Morgan Samuels at a seminal moment in the firm's history. The powerful combination of company, culture, and collaboration on display daily offers a compelling narrative for both clients and candidates alike. I look forward to adding value to the firm's track record of historical, storied, and future success," said Ken. Mr. Wilcox has over 30 years of experience including substantial periods with some of the world's best-known brands including IBM, Campbell Soup, Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Quaker Oats, Tropicana, Gatorade, and Borden Dairy. Prior to executive search, he held senior executive roles including leading the national selling organization at Interstate Batteries, as well as previous roles as global chief sales and marketing officer for PSAV (now Encore), an event technology services company. Ken lives by the words of Maya Angelou: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Ken's approach is rooted in a commitment to understanding others, a trait that shines through in his daily interactions. Media Contact Ken Wilcox [email protected] SOURCE Morgan Samuels Company WASHINGTON, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As the agency explores more of the Moon than ever before under the Artemis campaign, NASA will celebrate the 55th anniversary of the first astronauts landing on the Moon through a variety of in-person, virtual, and engagement activities nationwide between Monday, July 15, and Thursday, July 25. Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 moonwalk on July 20, 1969. The Lunar Module is on the left, and the footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil of the moon. Credit: NASA Events will honor America's vision and technology that enabled the Apollo 11 crewed lunar landing on July 20, 1969, as well as Apollo-era inventions and techniques that spread into public life, many of which are still in use today. Activities also will highlight NASA's Artemis campaign, which includes landing the first woman, first person of color, and first international astronaut on the Moon, inspiring great achievements, exploration, and scientific discovery for the benefit of all. NASA's subject matter experts are available for a limited number of interviews about the anniversary. To request an interview virtually or in person, contact Jessica Taveau in the newsroom: [email protected]. During the week of July 15, the agency also will share the iconic bootprint image and the significance of Apollo 11 to NASA's mission, as well as use the #Apollo11 hashtag, across its digital platforms online. Additional activities from NASA include: Monday, July 15 and Tuesday, July 16 , NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana : NASA will host the rollout of the agency's Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) core stage. and , NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in : NASA will host the rollout of the agency's Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) core stage. Friday, July 19 , NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston : In a dedication and ribbon cutting, the center will name its building 12 the 'Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo .' Vaughan was a mathematician, computer programmer, and NASA's first Black manager. , NASA's Johnson Space Center in : In a dedication and ribbon cutting, the center will name its building 12 the 'Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of .' Vaughan was a mathematician, computer programmer, and NASA's first Black manager. Sunday, July 21 , NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland : NASA Goddard will host a model rocket contest conducted by the National Association of Rocketry Headquarters Astro Modeling Section. This free contest is open to all model rocketeers and the public. Other activities include: Tuesday, July 16 through Wednesday, July 24 , Space Center Houston: The center will host pop-up science labs, mission briefings, special tram tours that feature the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson, and more. through , Space Center Houston: The center will host pop-up science labs, mission briefings, special tram tours that feature the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson, and more. Friday, July 19 through Saturday, July 20 , National Cathedral in Washington : The cathedral will host a festival marking the 50th anniversary of its Space Window, which contains a piece of lunar rock that was donated by NASA and the crew of Apollo 11. through , National Cathedral in : The cathedral will host a festival marking the 50th anniversary of its Space Window, which contains a piece of lunar rock that was donated by NASA and the crew of 11. Thursday, July 25 , San Diego Comic-Con: NASA representatives will participate in a panel entitled 'Exploring the Moon: the Artemis Generation.' Panelists are: Stan Love , NASA astronaut A.C. Charania, NASA chief technologist Dionne Hernandez-Lugo , NASA's Gateway Program Jackelynne Silva-Martinez, NASA Human Health and Performance , San Diego Comic-Con: NASA representatives will participate in a panel entitled 'Exploring the Moon: the Artemis Generation.' Panelists are: For more details about NASA's Apollo Program, please visit: https://www.nasa.gov/the-apollo-program SOURCE NASA COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- will host a conference call to review second-quarter 2024 financial results on Tuesday, July 23 at 9:00 a.m. (EDT). The results are scheduled to be released at approximately 7:00 a.m. (EDT) . The live audio webcast and presentation slides will be available on www.northwest.com under Investor Relations, Events & Presentations . Northwest will notify the public that financial results have been issued through its social media outlet @NWSB on X and Northwest Bank on LinkedIn, and by a press release over PR Newswire. In addition to being available on the Investor Relations website, the earnings results also will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on a Form 8-K, which will be available on the SEC website at https://www.sec.gov. The general public can register for the conference call by visiting https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/262623522. After registering, they will receive instructions for downloading the meeting calendar event and signing up for email reminders. Please join 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. The replay will be available via webcast on www.northwest.com under Investor Relations , Events & Presentations. About Northwest Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Northwest Bancshares, Inc. is the bank holding company of Northwest Bank. Founded in 1896 Northwest Bank is a full-service financial institution offering a complete line of business and personal banking products, as well as employee benefits and wealth management services. Currently, Northwest operates 131 full-service financial centers and eight free standing drive-through facilities in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Indiana. Northwest Bancshares, Inc.'s common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market ("NWBI"). Additional information regarding Northwest Bancshares, Inc. and Northwest Bank can be accessed on-line at www.northwest.com. SOURCE Northwest Bancshares, Inc. VANCOUVER, BC, July 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - July 12, 2024 Sydney, Australia Patriot Battery Metals Inc. (the "Company" or "Patriot") (TSX: PMET) (ASX: PMT) (OTCQX: PMETF) (FSE: R9GA) announces it has filed a preliminary short form base shelf prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the provinces of Canada. Patriot President, Managing Director & CEO Ken Brinsden said: "Given Patriot supports both a TSX and ASX listing, the filing of a Base Shelf Prospectus better aligns the share issue process on TSX with ASX outcomes. Following the C$75 million flow-through financing completed in May, Patriot remains extremely well-funded through the current cycle. This strong balance sheet position supports our multi-pronged exploration and development strategy, including the delivery of the 2024 Summer-Fall work program, the impending resource update in August, the completion of a PEA in September and the delivery of the Feasibility Study by the September quarter of 2025." In Canada, the use of a base shelf prospectus is customary practice as it allows companies to undergo applicable Canadian regulatory review process before commencing any offer of securities. Importantly, and generally speaking, securities issued under a shelf prospectus supplement filed under a base shelf prospectus are not subject to a four month mandatory hold period in Canada. As there are only limited scenarios where ASX applies hold periods for issues of securities, for dual TSX-ASX listed Canadian issuers, filing a base shelf prospectus (which is effective for a period of 25 months from the date it becomes final) broadly facilitates alignment for issues of shares across the ASX and TSX. The Company has no immediate plans to issue securities under the base shelf prospectus, and may never issue any securities under this prospectus. The terms of any security offer will be made subject to applicable securities laws and depending on the final structure and size of any security offer, the Company may require shareholder approval under the ASX Listing Rules. Patriot has filed this preliminary base shelf prospectus in order to provide the Company with greater financial flexibility going forward (and as noted above, broadly facilitating alignment for the process to issue shares on the TSX to that provided on the ASX), but has not entered into any agreements or arrangements to authorize or offer any securities at this time. When made final or effective, the base shelf prospectus will allow the Company to offer and issue common shares, preferred shares, debt securities, warrants, subscription receipts, units or any combination thereof for up to an aggregate offering price of C$250 million during the 25-month period that the base shelf prospectus is effective. The specific terms of any offering of securities under the base shelf prospectus, including the use of proceeds from any offering, will be set forth in a shelf prospectus supplement which will be filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any province, state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such province, state or jurisdiction. A copy of the preliminary short form base shelf prospectus can be found on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and ASX at www.asx.com.au. About Patriot Battery Metals Inc. Patriot Battery Metals Inc. is a hard-rock lithium exploration company focused on advancing its district-scale 100% owned Corvette Property located in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region of Quebec, Canada, and proximal to regional road and powerline infrastructure. The Corvette Property hosts the CV5 Spodumene Pegmatite with a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate of 109.2 Mt at 1.42% Li 2 O Inferred1 reported on July 31, 2023 and ranks as the largest lithium pegmatite resource in the Americas based on contained lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), and one of the top 10 largest lithium pegmatite resources in the world. Additionally, the Corvette Property hosts multiple other spodumene pegmatite clusters that remain to be drill tested, as well as significant areas of prospective trend that remain to be assessed. 1 The CV5 Mineral Resource Estimate (109.2 Mt at 1.42% Li 2 O and 160 ppm Ta 2 O 5 Inferred) is reported at a cut-off grade of 0.40% Li 2 O with an Effective Date of June 25, 2023 (through drill hole CV23-190). Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves as they do not have demonstrated economic viability. Largest lithium pegmatite resource in the Americas based on contained LCE. For further information, please contact us at [email protected] or by calling +1 (604) 279-8709, or visit www.patriotbatterymetals.com. Please also refer to the Company's continuous disclosure filings, available under its profile at www.sedarplus.ca and www.asx.com.au, for available exploration data. This news release has been approved by the Board of Directors. "KEN BRINSDEN" Kenneth Brinsden, President, CEO, & Managing Director Disclaimer for Forward-looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws and other statements that are not historical facts. 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 news release, regarding the Company's strategy, future operations, technical assessments, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as "plan", "expect", "estimate", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking information is 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. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used. 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, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. Some of the risks the Company faces and the uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the ability to execute on plans relating to the Company's Corvette Project, including the timing thereof. In addition, readers are directed to carefully review the detailed risk discussion in the Company's most recent Annual Information Form filed on SEDAR+, which discussion is incorporated by reference in this news release, 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 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 will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. 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 statements found herein. Due to the risks, uncertainties and assumptions inherent in forward-looking statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements contained herein are presented for the purpose of assisting investors in understanding the Company's business plans, financial performance and condition and may not be appropriate for other purposes. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by applicable law. The Company qualifies all of its forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Competent Person Statement (ASX Listing Rule 5.22) The mineral resource estimate in this release was reported by the Company in accordance with ASX Listing Rule 5.8 on July 31, 2023. The Company confirms that, as of the date of this release, it is not aware of any new information or data verified by the competent person that materially affects the information included in the announcement and that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates in the announcement continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company confirms that, as of the date of this release, the form and context in which the competent person's findings are presented have not been materially modified from the original market announcement. SOURCE Patriot Battery Metals Inc. SEOUL, South Korea, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pocamarket has been designated as a special tourism support location by the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), a governmental organization in South Korea. This selection aims to enhance the experience of foreign tourists seeking K-POP content and to promote mutual growth among South Korea's content startups. Pocamarket Selected as a Special Tourism Support Location by the Korean Government According to data from the Korea Tourism Organization, fans from around the world are visiting South Korea to experience K-POP culture, with approximately 2 million tourists visiting in 2023 alone. In January this year, Pocamarket hosted an offline pop-up event where visitors could see and enjoy K-POP photocards, attracting many foreign tourists and concluding the event successfully. A representative from Pocamarket stated, "Being selected by KOCCA as a representative K-POP tourism spot for South Korea, we will strive to provide a variety of content and experiences for K-POP fans visiting the country." The newly opened "POCA SPOT" by Pocamarket will be available starting from July in Hongdae, Seoul. SOURCE Pocamarket The Paramedics of Property Damage Join Forces for a Groundbreaking Initiative to Rebuild and Fortify America's Homes and Properties TAMARAC, Fla., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PuroClean, one of the country's leading property restoration and remediation franchises, recently launched its newest venture, "Partnership for a Resilient America." In collaboration with Resilience Force and Signal Restoration, PuroClean's sister company, this groundbreaking initiative aims to train 1,000 resilience workers to prepare for this and future hurricane seasons. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su launched the partnership at a meeting hosted at PuroClean's Home Office in Tamarac, FL. Telma Villeda- Resilience Worker, Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, Saket Soni-Executive Director, Resilience Force, Mark W. Davis, Chairman and CEO of PuroClean. Program participants will train at PuroClean's state-of-the-art IICRC-approved training facility in Tamarac, FL, where the announcement was made. Upon completion of the program, participants will receive "climate resilience technician" certifications, and Resilience Force will also work to help the graduates find employment. "Our commitment to building a resilient workforce is crucial for the future of disaster recovery," said Mark W. Davis, Chairman and CEO of PuroClean. "By training these resilience workers, we are ensuring that communities will have the support and expertise needed to rebuild and recover swiftly and effectively from natural disasters." Acting U.S. Department of Labor Secretary, Julie Su, presided over the historic partnership agreement signing on June 18. She emphasized the critical role of well-trained workers in rebuilding communities impacted by disasters and highlighted the Department of Labor's commitment to supporting this essential work. "As our country deals with more and more extreme weather caused by climate change, we'll rely even more on workers who are all well-trained to rebuild communities impacted by disaster. And the essential jobs they do must be good jobs. The Department of Labor is putting our resources, our expertise, and our vision into this work," Su said. Key Takeaways: The "Partnership for a Resilient America" is a collaborative effort by PuroClean, Resilience Force, and Signal Restoration to train and deploy skilled workers for disaster recovery. Those who participate in the training program will train at PuroClean's facility in Tamarac, FL , and receive certifications upon completion. , and receive certifications upon completion. Acting Labor Secretary, Julie Su, traveled to Florida for the partnership agreement signing on June 18 . "This initiative reflects PuroClean's dedication to supporting and rebuilding communities facing climate challenges," added Steve White, President and COO of PuroClean. "We are proud to partner with Resilience Force and Signal Restoration to provide essential training and resources." For more than 20 years, PuroClean has helped home and business owners with their restoration and remediation needs, serving communities across the United States and Canada with a network nearing 500 offices. For more information about PuroClean, call 800-775-7876 or visit www.PuroClean.com. For information about franchising opportunities, visit www.PuroCleanFranchise.com. About PuroClean PuroClean is a leading, world-class service brand for property water damage remediation, fire and smoke damage mitigation, mold removal, and biohazard clean-up services, working with both residential and commercial customers across the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2001, PuroClean is a diverse, fast-growing network of nearly 500 North American franchise locations, each independently owned and operated. With a commitment to respond within two hours, the professionals at PuroClean are thoroughly screened, insured, and trained in utilizing the latest cutting-edge mitigation technology to complete the remediation task at hand. For more information about PuroClean, call 800-775-7876 or visit www.PuroClean.com. SOURCE PuroClean The ceremony was attended by distinguished guests including Junfeng Yao, Founder of Smartee Denti-Technology; Professor Gang Shen, Chief Scientist of Smartee GS Product Series; and Zhijie Wang, President of Spring Airlines, among other notable attendees. Mr. Junfeng Yao spoke at the ceremony about his appreciation for Spring Airlines and the importance of the themed airplane: "This Smartee-themed airplane will spread smiles, showing our dedication to promptly sharing our newest innovations with dental partners and patients worldwide. Our products are now in 36 countries and regions, including Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Philippines, and Thailand. Working with Spring Airlines will help us reach more global audiences with our research and development." Mr. Zhijie Wang remarked, "This marks our in-depth collaboration with Smartee. Both Spring Airlines and Smartee are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year, a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence. We share a common customer base, particularly among Generation Z. Through this partnership, we aim to complement each other's global resources, delivering greater value and superior services to users worldwide." Professor Gang Shen expressed optimism, stating, "The Smartee-themed airplane will foster creative exchanges among Smartee, orthodontic professionals, and patients. In the first half of 2024, I participated in over ten regional conferences worldwide, engaging with thousands of doctors on Smartee's innovative technology. This collaboration will enhance the service offerings of both Smartee and Spring Airlines to more destinations." The ceremony also kicked off Smartee's 20th-anniversary celebrations. Over the past two decades, Smartee has witnessed significant industry changes and developments and has earned recognition for its innovative technology and high-quality services. As of January 2024, Smartee has collaborated with over 59,000 medical institutions, serving more than 76,000 doctors globally. About Smartee Denti-Technology: Founded in 2004, Smartee is the leading provider of clear aligners and digital orthodontic solutions in China. Headquartered in Shanghai, Smartee has two research & development centers and manufacturing plants that are fully automated. By serving over 64,000 doctors from 48,000 medical institutions in over 47 countries, Smartee has achieved over 1 million perfect smiles worldwide. With the advance of digital solutions, Smartee continues to expand its portfolio and has launched over 10 aligner products catering to different malocclusion problems for children, adolescents and adults. Collaborating with Prof Gang Shen and his orthodontic team, Smartee has developed an innovative product: Smartee GS, which provides orthodontists with mandibular repositioning technology to treat patients with complex indications including facial prognathism, facial retrognathism and mandibular deviation more effectively. About Spring Airline: Spring Airlines is the aviation subsidiary of Shanghai Spring International Travel Service. The airline was given approval to be established on 26 May 2004. Its first aircraft, an Airbus A320 (formerly of Lotus Air), was delivered on 12 July 2005, at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. In late July 2009, Spring's plan to establish overseas routes was granted by the General Administration of Civil Aviation of the People's Republic of China. The airline operates short-distance routes linking mainland Chinese cities to Hong Kong and Macau, as well as neighboring countries such as Japan, South Korea, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. Spring Airlines also operates a subsidiary in Japan and is the first Chinese airline to do so. Since January 2015, the company has been listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. SOURCE Smartee Denti-Technology WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED LAX travelers can take advantage of $25 one-way fares in honor of Spirit's milestone anniversary Photos and video available HERE DANIA BEACH, Fla., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks Spirit Airlines' (NYSE: SAVE) 25th anniversary of providing high-value service to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) travelers. The airline is inviting Angelenos to celebrate the milestone with limited-time anniversary fares starting as low as $25* one-way for flights from LAX. The offer is valid for booking on July 12, 2024, and is valid for travel from LAX between Aug. 13 and Oct. 10, 2024. "We first landed at Los Angeles International Airport 25 years ago and are proud to have grown to be one of the largest low-fare airlines at LAX, thanks to the support of our Guests and long-term partners at Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA)," said Ted Christie, President and Chief Executive Officer at Spirit Airlines. "We look forward to continue serving our Los Angeles Guests with 40 nonstop flights a day to 25 destinations across the United States and investing in the local community through the Spirit Charitable Foundation." The airline is also offering members of its Free Spirit loyalty program 1,500 bonus points on roundtrip flights and 750 bonus points on one-way flights to and from Los Angeles (LAX).*** Travel must be booked by Aug. 15, 2024, and flown by Oct. 31, 2024. Additionally, the Spirit Charitable Foundation commemorated the anniversary with a donation of $25,000 to the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization, TreePeople. The sizable donation will advance the organization's support of sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, volunteer community-based action, and advocacy. Spirit first landed at LAX in 1999 and currently serves 25 nonstop destinations. In the last five years, the carrier has made significant investments in its LAX service. Most recently, Spirit launched daily, nonstop service to Portland (PDX) and Seattle (SEA), and will be launching seasonal nonstop service to Boston (BOS) on Aug. 14. Los Angeles (LAX) Service Destination Frequency Anniversary Fares Atlanta (ATL) 2x Daily $57* one way Baltimore (BWI) 2x Daily $77* one way Boston (BOS)NEW SEASONAL Daily $63** one way Charlotte (CLT) Daily $77* one way Chicago (ORD) 2-3x Daily $59* one way Cleveland (CLE) Daily $59* one way Columbus (CMH) Daily $129* one way Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) 3x Daily $69* one way Detroit (DTW) 3x Daily $89* one way Fort Lauderdale (FLL) 4x Weekly $114* one way Houston (IAH) 3x Daily $59* one way Kanas City (MCI) Daily $64* one way Las Vegas (LAS) 4-5x Daily $25* one way Louisville (SDF) 4x Weekly $89* one way Nashville (BNA) Daily $32* one way Newark (EWR) Daily $134* one way New Orleans (MSY) Daily $74* one way Oakland (OAK) 1 2x Daily $25* one way Philadelphia (PHL) Daily $99* one way Pittsburgh (PIT) Daily $64 one way Portland (PDX) Daily $32* one way Reno (RNO) Daily $25* one way Salt Lake City (SLC) Daily $39* one way San Antonio (SAT) Daily $34* one way San Jose (SJC) 2x Daily $32* one way Seattle (SEA) Daily $42* one way Spirit's Elevated Guest Experience Spirit continues its commitment to invest in the Guest, which entails a number of initiatives aimed at delivering the best value in the sky: NEW: No change or cancel fees for all Guests NEW: Increased checked bag weight allowance to 50 pounds NEW: Extended Future Travel Vouchers expiration to 12 months (for vouchers issued on or after June 3, 2024 ) ) Spirit's Fit Fleet is one of the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleets in the industry. is one of the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleets in the industry. Cabin enhancements with wider seats, added cushion, new headrests and upgrades to our unique Big Front Seat . . Fast onboard Wi-Fi that allows Guests to watch content from streaming services. *One-way fares subject to a 21-day advance purchase, valid for booking on 07/12/2024 and travel 08/13/2024 10/09/2024, no blackout dates, subject to availability. **BOS/LAX one-way fares subject to a 21-day advance purchase, valid for booking on 07/12/2024 and travel 08/13/2024 09/03/2024, no blackout dates, subject to availability. ***To qualify for Los Angeles 25-year anniversary Free Spirit 1,500 or 750 points promotion you must (i) be a Free Spirit member; (ii) book travel on a Qualifying Flight Segment. A "Qualifying Flight Segment" is a revenue flight originating from/to LAX on a flight operated by Spirit Airlines and booked by 11:59PM ET on August 15, 2024 with travel completed by October 31, 2024. Free Spirit Bonus Points will be automatically added to your account after completing a Qualifying Flight Segment. Bonus points earned through the Los Angeles Anniversary Free Spirit points promotion would offer standard Status Qualification Points (SQPs). Offer is subject to change without notice. Other restrictions and conditions may apply. About Spirit Airlines: Spirit Airlines (NYSE: SAVE) is committed to delivering the best value in the sky. We are the leader in providing customizable travel options starting with an unbundled fare. This allows our Guests to pay only for the options they choose like bags, seat assignments, refreshments and Wi-Fi something we call A La Smarte. Our Fit Fleet is one of the youngest and most fuel-efficient in the United States. We serve destinations throughout the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean, making it possible for our Guests to venture further and discover more than ever before. We are committed to inspiring positive change in the communities where we live and work through the Spirit Charitable Foundation. Come save with us at spirit.com. SOURCE Spirit Airlines MONTREAL, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - On March 12, 2024, Strategic Resources Inc. ("Strategic" or the "Company") (TSXV: SR) issued a news release announcing positive results from a study referred to as the "Pre-feasibility Class 5 level engineering study conducted by BBA" (the "Study") for its proposed 4,000,000 metric tonne per year merchant pelletizer plant (the "Project"). Strategic would like to clarify certain information disclosed in this previous news release in relation to the Study. The Project will be located on the Company's existing leased area at the Federal Port, where the Provincial and Federal Governments are currently building a C$111 million multi-user conveyor system which the Project would utilize. The Project will focus on direct reduction ("DR") grade pellet feed that will be used in the green steel industry and will be the only greenfield development project of its kind in Canada. The March 12, 2024, news release contained information extracted from the Study prepared by an independent engineering firm which included forward looking information on the supply of raw materials for the Project. According to section 4A.2 of Regulation 51-102 Respecting Continuous Disclosure Obligations, forward-looking information should not be disclosed unless the issuer has a reasonable basis for the forward-looking information. Following a review of the Company's news release dated March 12, 2024, the Autorite des marches financiers (Quebec) has the view that the issuer does not have such reasonable basis for the forward-looking information. Accordingly, in order to comply with section 4A.2 of Regulation 51-102, the Company retracts from its news release dated March 12, 2024, the forward-looking information as to the supply of raw materials and the information flowing therefrom. Readers are cautioned that the term "pre-feasibility study" used by the Company to refer to this Study is not the same as the one used for mineral projects as defined under National Instrument 43-101 respecting standards of disclosure for mineral projects ("NI 43-101"), and this Study should therefore not be viewed as equating to a "pre-feasibility study" as defined under NI 43-101 because the Project is not a mineral project but rather an industrial project and therefore is not governed by NI 43-101. Investors should not rely on the future-oriented financial information made by the Corporation in its news release to guide them in their investment decisions. This news release is issued at the request of the Autorite des marches financiers (Quebec). About Strategic Resources Strategic Resources Inc. (TSXV: SR) is a critical mineral exploration and development company focused on high-purity iron and vanadium projects in Canada and Finland. The Company is developing its flagship BlackRock Project, which is a fully permitted and ready to construct mine, concentrator and metallurgical facility located at a seaport in Quebec with full access to the St. Lawrence Seaway. The Company's Head Office is in Montreal, Quebec. Further details are available on the Company's website at https://strategic-res.com/. To follow future news releases, please sign up at https://strategic-res.com/contact/. Follow us on: Twitter or Linkedin. STRATEGIC RESOURCES INC. Signed: "Sean Cleary" Sean Cleary, CEO & Director 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. SOURCE Strategic Resources Inc. Land Authority seeks qualified individual to oversee one of the most significant developments in state history DRAPER, Utah, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority (Land Authority) has announced a nationwide search for an executive director to oversee all aspects of development at The Point. The executive director will assist the Land Authority in facilitating development that maximizes long-term economic opportunity for Utahns, creates high-quality jobs, advances innovation, and enhances Utahns' quality of life. The search comes on the heels of an announcement that long-time executive director Alan Matheson has accepted a position as the general manager of land and water development for Rio Tinto Kennecott. "We would like to thank Alan Matheson for his years of public service and visionary leadership. During his respected tenure, we have engaged collaboratively with tens of thousands of Utahns to reflect the public's vision and values at The Point," said Lowry Snow, Land Authority co-chair. "We are conducting a nationwide search to select a qualified professional who similarly embodies these values and possesses the requisite expertise to ensure the State of Utah achieves a strong return on investment while fostering a thriving community for current and future generations." The Point is one of the most significant developments in state history. Encompassing 600 acres of state-owned land in Draper, Utah, the site represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create an iconic community that advances innovation, catalyzes robust economic development, provides parks and regional trail connections, and demonstrates sustainable practices. The Point is located at the heart of Utah's burgeoning high-technology sector, Silicon Slopes, and strategically located near high-capacity transportation infrastructure. Equidistant from major universities, it is at the epicenter of the fastest-growing and youngest state in the country. The executive director will report directly to the Land Authority and lead a robust team of staff, consultants and development partners. Competitive candidates must be able to adeptly manage a complex and highly visible public project with skill, integrity and transparency. The executive director must possess extensive experience managing large-scale development projects, a sound understanding of the state and local policy-making process, and an in-depth knowledge of the region's economy. Duties include overseeing all aspects of development, including the utilization of public financing tools, negotiations with developers, adherence to design guidelines and development agreements, tenant attraction and local and state government coordination. In addition, the executive director must ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, manage finances and budgeting, conduct public involvement and facilitate transparent communication with the public. The executive director will be well positioned to succeed given the extensive work that has already been successfully accomplished at The Point. The Land Authority has established a world-class framework plan, selected a development partner, and released detailed plans for the first development phase. The Utah Legislature has allocated $165 million to fund critical backbone infrastructure, which is scheduled for construction as early as this year. The Utah Legislature has appropriated $250 million to build a potential new FrontRunner commuter rail station at the site and plans are underway to extend additional transit service. "Serving as our executive director is an opportunity of a lifetime to make a meaningful difference for all Utahns. It requires a highly qualified individual with extensive experience overseeing complex, large-scale developments," said Land Authority co-chair and State Representative Jordan Teuscher. "Most importantly, The Point executive director must be able to work collaboratively with numerous stakeholders, conduct themselves transparently and possess a sincere desire to create an enduring legacy that ensures The Point is known globally and loved locally." The Point executive director serves as a full-time employee for the State of Utah. The person working in this position is eligible for a full benefits package, remote-work options and highly competitive salary. The State of Utah is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. For accommodations, dial 711 or TTY: 800-346-4128. To learn more about this career opportunity, please visit thepointutah.org/job-opportunities. About The Point Utahns have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop the 600 acres of state-owned property called "The Point" in a way that is economically robust and environmentally sustainable. Widely recognized as one of the most significant development opportunities in Utah history, The Point is well served by vital infrastructure and centrally located at the heart of Utah's fast-growing technology industry. The site offers unprecedented potential to create an innovation hub that catalyzes technological advancement, fosters mixed-use urban areas, and preserves parks and open space. SOURCE The Point of the Mountain State Land Authority The World Taste & Smell Association presentation on July 30th, Multisensory Eating & Drinking Experience: What it is and How to Create it. NEW YORK, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As children we're told not to eat with our hands. But how about our ears and our eyes? Flavor and the enjoyment of a meal is more than just taste it's a multisensory experience. "Flavor involves all five senses: taste, smell, sight, sound and touch. The multisensory eating and drinking experience is about creating flavors based on crossmodal correspondence, neurogastronomy and neurofoodscience. Multisensory experience can be delivered by either foods, packaging, and/or the immediate environment," says Alex Woo, founder and CEO of W2O and World Taste & Smell Association (WTSA) Board Trustee. For people with smell or taste disorders a multisensory approach to eating is the secret sauce to enjoyable meals. Post this "Snap! Crackle! Pop!", the Rice Krispies slogan for nearly a century illustrates the appeal of sound, which has been called the forgotten flavor sense. Turn on music and a meal feels more special. One study found that playing Taylor Swift's music made Chinese takeout seem to taste better. The appeal of snack foods is enhanced by their satisfying crunch. Especially for Gen Z who have grown up with a barrage of visual stimulation, the appearance of food and its packaging can be a key component to flavor perception. "For people who suffer from smell or taste disorders a multisensory approach to eating is the secret sauce to making a meal enjoyable. So many who suffer from these sensory impairments find that family meals and socializing are no longer enjoyable because they cannot smell or taste," says Stephanie Feuer, the Co-founder and Executive Director of the World Taste & Smell Association. "A crossmodal approach can ensure adequate nutrition for picky eaters and children with sensory processing issues, adults with age-related taste loss, and the millions with debilitating taste and smell loss from chemotherapy, Covid, Parkinson's and certain medications." On July 30 at 10 AM, the World Taste & Smell Association, will present renowned flavor scientist Alex Woo discussing "Multisensory Eating & Drinking Experience: What it is and How to Create it." This online presentation will explore the neuroscience of flavor and how to use it at home. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how all five senses contribute to flavor, learn about the principles of crossmodal correspondence and neurogastronomy, and discover innovative approaches to creating multisensory eating and drinking experiences. "When you dine at a restaurant, every detailfrom the ambiance and shape of the plates to the presentation of the food, the clink of the glass, the lighting, and the weight of the cutleryenhances your experience. We're delighted to share tools that bring these tricks of the trade from the world of hospitality to home cooks and individuals with sensory issues," says Mindy Yang, Co-founder and Chief Engagement Officer of WTSA. Tickets for "Multisensory Eating & Drinking Experience: What it is and How to Create it" are $25 and available here. About the World Taste & Smell Association (WTSA) Founded on the principles of sensory education and support, the World Taste and Smell Association (WTSA) is a pioneering organization dedicated to uniting the world of taste and smell. Our mission is to enrich lives by enhancing sensory appreciation, health span, innovation, and support for improving quality of life globally. Comprised of scientists, sensory experts, passionate leaders of hospitality, doctors, innovators, policy makers, and advocates for people with taste and smell loss, we work collaboratively to advance our cause. Key initiatives include the annual World Taste and Smell Day on September 14, the #DeliciousForAll Culinary Challenge, and collaborative research projects with organizations like the Museum of Food and Drink (MOFAD). These efforts underscore WTSA's commitment to advancing sensory science and fostering community engagement and education. For more information, visit TasteandSmell.world. About Alex Woo Alex Woo is the founder and CEO of W2O, a flavor technology firm based in the United States for the past twelve years. He specializes in creating better food, with niche expertise in contemporary taste and smell neuroscience and state-of-the-art clean-label plant-based sweeteners and flavors. Alex's impressive career includes roles as Chief Science Officer, Sweeteners for Amyris and Chief Innovation Officer for Nascent. He currently serves on the science advisory board for Olfactive Bio and Advance International, in addition to his role on the board of directors for the World Taste & Smell Association. Alex's experience with industry giants like Pepsi, Kraft, Starbucks, and Wrigley has honed his ability to lead technical teams to success. He holds a PhD in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison He earned PhD in Food Science from University of Wisconsin. Contact: Stephanie Feuer, [email protected], (917) 658 - 0112 Mindy Yang, [email protected], (917) 715-3321 SOURCE World Taste & Smell Association BEIJING, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from China.org.cn on traveling in China: Some viral jokes started by foreign tourists in China have popped up on the Chinese social media lately. For example, a video creator redefined "city," and his part-English-part-Chinese punchline which literally means "city or not" has been imitated by numerous netizens. Another vlogger bluntly said it's too "dangerous" in China at night, because the gourmet foods at night are such a lure. Tourists having the time of their life in China What made this possible? At the beginning, many videos about people's impression of China were posted on non-Chinese video platforms, with the hashtag "China Travel." They've been so popular that some people reposted them back on Chinese social media, with their jokes and punchlines being well received by Chinese netizens. One important change has made it possible for so many foreign tourists to appear in China the country again relaxed its visa requirements. Last December, China included altogether 54 countries in its 72/144 visa-free transit list; in less than four months after that, China extended its visa-free policy to 11 European countries including France, Germany and Switzerland. Several days ago, New Zealand, Australia and Poland were added to the visa-free policy list. Meanwhile, things have become easier for the foreigners who travel in China, both in terms of facilities and services. For example, in the past, many foreign tourists found it difficult to "spend their money" in China, given China's prevailing norm of cashless payment. Now, for those who choose traditional payment methods, foreign bank cards and cash are more acceptable in more places, as an alternative to mobile payments. For those who prefer to try the new way, the required procedures like ID verification and bank card binding have also been streamlined. Lower thresholds and a smoother experience have spurred more people to travel in China. Statistics show that in Q1 this year, the number of foreign visitors increased over 3-fold compared to Q1 in 2023, with more than 1.98 million people entering China via the visa-free policy, an increase of 266.1% compared to 2023. With China's gate wide open to the world, more international friends have the chance for a first-hand China experience. The "rookie visitors" usually start with metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while the experienced ones will choose to explore other popular destinations, like Chengdu and Chongqing in southwestern China. There are also "advanced players" who are confident enough to begin their adventures in farther places like Xinjiang and Qinghai To no one's surprise, many of them fell in love with the kaleidoscope of Chinese gourmet foods. Some of them are amazed by China's infrastructure, like how clean and tidy the bathrooms are in China's subway stations, or how fast and comfortable are the high speed trains; a vlogger posted a video of him accidentally joining a group of elderly public square dancers at night; and some went to Xinjiang and tasted the delicious local foods and watched the local performances More and more first-person perspectives about the Chinese people and the country are being posted on international social media platforms. And there are something in common: A lot of these content creators and numerous comments are saying, China is not what they expected. Of course, there's no perfect destination. In a thousand tourists' eyes, there are a thousand images of China. But, if one pays a visit to China, he or she will for sure find an answer to questions like is China safe at night, or is life in China dim. Quoting Mark Twain, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. Now, China is expanding its "circle of friends" and opening its gate wider. So, book your flight and buckle up, friends you will be sincerely welcomed. China Mosaic http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm Tourists having the time of their life in China What made this possible? http://www.china.org.cn/video/2024-07/12/content_117304180.htm SOURCE China.org.cn This marks the fourth year of recognition continuing from 2023, 2021, and 2020 The Leela Palace Bengaluru is ranked #1 in World's Best India City Hotel; #4 in World's Best Asia City Hotels and #36 in World's Best Hotel The Leela Palace New Delhi ranked #3 in World's Best India City Hotel; #9 in World's Best Asia City Hotels 62 in World's Best Hotel; and The Leela Palace Udaipur ranked#65 among the 100 Best Hotels in the World MUMBAI, India, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts has once again been honoured for its distinction as a premier luxury global brand, as it is recognised among the Top 3 World's Best Hotel Brands 2024 by the readers of Travel + Leisure. This marks the fourth year of recognition, continuing from 2023, 2021, and 2020. This accolade highlights The Leela's deep-rooted ethos of service excellence and celebrating Indian provenance. This recognition highlights the unwavering dedication towards the relentless pursuit of creating authentic, unparallelled Indian luxury experiences, and The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts' steadfast commitment to epitomizing Indian hospitality for global travellers across the world. This marks the fourth year of recognition continuing from 2023, 2021, and 2020 Voted the World's #1 Hotel Brand in 2020 and 2021, and #3 in 2023, The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts is once again on top of the world. This year, The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts achieved top accolades by ranking #3 in the World's Best Awards 2024 List of Top Hotel Brands; The Leela Palace Bengaluru ranked #1 in World's Best India City Hotel, #4 in World's Best Asia City Hotels and #36 in World's Best Hotel. Additionally, The Leela Palace New Delhi ranked #3 in World's Best India City Hotel, #9 in World's Best Asia City Hotels and #62 in World's Best Hotels; and and The Leela Palace Udaipur has been recognized among the 100 Best Hotels in the World. Travel + Leisure's World's Best Awards are an essential, trusted source for inspiration and guidance as travellers make plans to set out on trips around the globe. This recognises the finest travel experiences in the world selected by Travel + Leisure's global readership of discerning travellers. Readers rate their experiences and evaluate hotels across the world, based on characteristics such as rooms, location/ facilities, service, food, and value. The Leela has always placed high importance on the ever-evolving needs and expectations of the luxury traveller and has focused on curating meaningful and relevant experiences while staying true to its philosophy of "Atithi Devo Bhava"Guest is God. The Leela experience is infused with a distinct aesthetic that celebrates India's rich art, cuisine and culture that is engrained in its offering of India's heritage to the world. This is not only a recognition of what the brand has been able to achieve but also a tribute to the love that Indian luxury hospitality enjoys globally. About The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts Headquartered in Mumbai, The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts is owned by a Brookfield Asset Management-sponsored private real estate fund and operates twelve award-winning properties in major cities and leisure destinations across India. These include the flagship hotel in the capital city of New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Udaipur, Jaipur, Gurugram, East Delhi, Mumbai, Gandhinagar,Kovalam and Ashtamudi. The Leela has a strong pipeline of future projects. The brand celebrates each hotel through its unique location, art, culture and cuisine with thoughtful services, celebratory rituals, and immersive experiences. The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts was voted the World's Best Hotel Brand twice in a row by Travel + Leisure, USA, World's Best Awards Survey, 2020 and 2021. In 2024, the brand has once again been featured in the top 3 World's Best Hotel Brands, after the recognition in 2023. An epitome of true Indian luxury hospitality, The Leela is committed to providing guests with unforgettable stays in settings that capture the essence of India. The brand has a marketing alliance with US-based Preferred Hotels & Resorts and is a member of the Global Hotel Alliance. For more information, please visit our website www.theleela.com and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2459270/TLPU_recognition.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1441809/The_Leela_Logo.jpg SOURCE The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts NEWTOWN, Pa., July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Edelson Lechtzin LLP, a leading class action law firm, is investigating breach of fiduciary duty claims on behalf of shareholders of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE: UNH) between March 14, 2022, and February 27, 2024, inclusive (the "Relevant Period"). If you have substantial losses on your UNH investment or possess non-public information concerning breaches of fiduciary duties by company insiders, please contact Edelson Lechtzin LLP at 844-696-7492, by e-mail at [email protected], or online HERE. Background on UnitedHealth. UnitedHealth operates UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Optum provides technology-enabled services to the healthcare market, while UnitedHealthcare offers health insurance to individuals, employers, and small businesses in the United States. The Claims On January 6, 2021, UnitedHealth announced that its Optum segment would acquire Change Healthcare, a company that provides data solutions to improve clinical decision-making and simplify healthcare payment processes. Both Optum and Change Healthcare have access to highly sensitive healthcare data. Despite numerous assurances to the investors and the DOJ, it is alleged that there was never a meaningful firewall to protect customer data. Following the merger announcement, on February 24, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") filed a lawsuit seeking to block UnitedHealth from completing this acquisition on the grounds that the proposed business combination would violate antitrust laws. Specifically, the DOJ alleged that a merger between Optim and Change Healthcare would give United Health unparalleled access to sensitive patient information. In September 2022, the DOJ lost at trial and the Change Healthcare acquisition was allowed to proceed. On February 27, 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that the DOJ had reopened its antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth's acquisition of Change Healthcare. This time, however, the DOJ focused on insider stock sales of more than $100 million before news about the Change Healthcare merger became public. On news of the DOJ's renewed investigation, the price of UnitedHealth stock dropped 12%, from a closing price of $525.32 per share on February 26, 2024, to close at $513.42 per share on February 27, 2024. UnitedHealth's stock continued to decline, to close at $498.28 per share on February 28, 2024, more than $27 lower than the price on February 26, 2024. For more information, please contact: Marc H. Edelson, Esq. Eric Lechtzin, Esq. EDELSON LECHTZIN LLP 411 S. State Street, Suite N-300 Newtown, PA 18940 Phone: 844-696-7492 or 215-867-2399 ext. 1 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: www.edelson-law.com Edelson Lechtzin LLP is a leading class action law firm with offices in Pennsylvania and California. In addition to cases involving securities and investment fraud, our lawyers focus on class and collective litigation in cases alleging violations of the federal antitrust laws, employee benefit plans under ERISA, wage theft and unpaid overtime, consumer fraud, and dangerous and defective drugs and medical devices. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions. No class has been certified in this case, so 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. Your ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. SOURCE Edelson Lechtzin LLP DUBAI, UAE, July 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- XRP Healthcare LLC is proud to announce the successful registration of its trademark in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This milestone follows the company's strategic incorporation in the crypto-friendly Gulf state late last year and underscores its commitment to global expansion and brand protection. XRP Healthcare LLC Successfully Registers Trademark in the UAE, Strengthening Global Expansion and Legal Compliance (PRNewsfoto/XRP Healthcare) In addition to the UAE, XRP Healthcare has secured trademark registrations in the United Kingdom and Uganda. The UK trademark was registered shortly after the company's formation in September 2022, marking the beginning of XRP Healthcare's commitment to protecting its brand. Registration in Uganda is crucial for branding its future healthcare establishments across Africa with the XRP Healthcare logo, ensuring consistency and recognition. The new trademark in the UAE further solidifies XRP Healthcare's presence and safeguards its brand in a key international market. The registration of the XRP Healthcare trademark in these strategic regions brings significant benefits, including enhanced brand protection and the ability to operate confidently within diverse and dynamic markets. This achievement is part of a broader strategy to ensure legal compliance and establish a strong foundation for business operations worldwide. XRP Healthcare has been diligently working behind the scenes to meet all legal requirements, demonstrating its dedication to maintaining high standards of corporate governance and legal integrity. The successful trademark registration in the UAE positions XRP Healthcare to create additional revenue streams through royalties from businesses and companies seeking to license the XRP Healthcare brand and logo. This strategy allows XRP Healthcare to capitalize on its strong brand reputation while supporting other healthcare-oriented enterprises. Examples of potential licensees include: - Hospitals and Clinics: Healthcare providers looking to enhance their brand credibility and recognition. - Pharmaceutical Companies: Businesses seeking to align with a trusted healthcare brand. - Medical Device Manufacturers: Companies aiming to leverage the XRP Healthcare brand to promote their products. - Health and Wellness Centres: Establishments focusing on holistic health services. - Individual Practitioners: Healthcare professionals wanting to affiliate with a reputable brand. This approach not only generates new revenue but also expands the reach and influence of the XRP Healthcare brand within the healthcare sector. XRP Healthcare is actively pursuing mergers and acquisitions in Uganda as part of its broader strategy to enhance healthcare access and quality across Africa. The successful trademark registration in the UK, Uganda and now the UAE provides added security and value to these initiatives, ensuring that the XRP Healthcare brand is protected and recognized. Peter Waiswa, a seasoned Ugandan healthcare expert, has recently joined the XRP Healthcare team. His extensive experience and insights into the local healthcare landscape will be invaluable as XRP Healthcare continues to expand its operations and impact in Uganda. "Governments often lack the resources to address all healthcare needs adequately. Therefore, initiatives like those led by the private sector, such as XRP Healthcare, are valuable. They can leverage expertise and resources from international investors to enhance the local healthcare sector through strategic investments." Keith Errey, CTO, added, "The team's hard work behind the scenes is making these achievements possible. Our goal is to make healthcare truly affordable and accessible whenever people need it." Whitney Lynn, Chairman, commented, "This achievement demonstrates our commitment to brand integrity and legal compliance. It provides a solid platform for future collaborations and expansions." Laban Roomes, Business Development Officer, noted, "The ability to license our brand in the UAE offers significant opportunities for revenue generation and brand influence. It aligns perfectly with our strategic goals for market expansion." Kain Roomes, CEO, stated, "This milestone is a testament to our team's hard work and dedication. It ensures that we are well-positioned to leverage our brand's strength and pursue our mission of delivering accessible healthcare solutions globally." About XRP Healthcare LLC XRP Healthcare is a healthcare investment firm dedicated to transforming healthcare systems in Uganda and beyond. With a focus on strategic innovative solutions, XRP Healthcare aims to improve access to quality healthcare for all through mergers, acquisitions and blockchain. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2459838/XRP_Healthcare.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2365357/XRP_Healthcare_Logo.jpg SOURCE XRP Healthcare Starting in 2024-25, Carlisle area students will experience a dramatic shift in the way science is taught at Lamberton and Wilson middle schools. Instead of each grade level emphasizing a different area of study, all grade levels will have components of each science interwoven within the course curriculum, said Samantha Moyer, science program chair. The configuration last school year had earth and space science being taught to sixth-graders, life science to seventh graders and physical science to eighth graders. One goal of the shift is to teach science as a cohesive whole instead of in segments within the different types of science, Moyer said. This will enable teachers to layer the instruction and build upon complexity over time. Like every Pennsylvania school district, Carlisle needs to be ready in 2025-26 to fully implement STEELS Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy & Sustainability standards. In January 2022, the State Board of Education approved the new standards, which prioritize a shift away from the memorization of facts to having students productively participate in scientific discourse and practices. STEELS also introduces standards for environmental literacy and sustainability across all grade levels. That part is organized under three core ideas agricultural and environmental systems and resources, environmental literacy skills and sustainability and stewardship. They all interplay with each other, said Jason Baker, assistant to the superintendent at South Middleton School District. Instead of being carved out, the sciences will be incorporated all in one. Heres your chemistry, biology, physics that still exists, but its really looking at going cross-curricular. Its not just a shift in content, its a shift in the way instruction is occurring, Moyer told Carlisle school board members during a June meeting. This is turning instruction on its head, she added. Its really getting students to think like scientists, to communicate, analyze, use math skills, use models, to develop their understanding. The drivers seat In the past, students were lectured on a scientific principle before testing it out in the lab. With STEELS, you flip the script a little bit, Baker said. You basically show the result upfront to the students and then have them do the thinking into what may be causing it. Kids are inquisitive. STEELS lets them start with that. Now, they are engaged. The process begins with an anchoring phenomenon a hook to get students interested. Baker saw an example in action during a STEELS training session attended by South Middleton science teachers. The demonstration involved two balloons one white and translucent, the other a darker color. Both balloons were inflated, with the dark balloon inside the white balloon. Through some means, the trainer was able to burst the inside balloon while keeping the outside balloon intact. To be successful, the hook needs to be something relatable and relevant that draws on student experiences, said Deana Raymer, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cumberland Valley School District It should captivate students because they are curious about it, she added. You are flipping on that switch. Yet, it has to be complex. You should not be able to solve it in one science lesson. Examples could range from rising ocean temperatures and earthquakes in California to why chocolate chip cookies made with butter look different from cookies made with margarine. Instead of just providing the information, the teacher becomes a facilitator by encouraging students to offer questions, best guesses and ideas based on the conversation and what they already know, Raymer said. This enables the students to take ownership of what they are learning. They are in the drivers seat, working together to develop a road map to guide a journey of investigation, Moyer said. She added the students are the ones who figure out the experiments and how to apply the data to the next step. To spur things on, the teacher could present the students with a model, an article or a video to illustrate and reinforce the process. A STEELS lesson is not all in a classroom, Raymer said. You are outside doing things. Integrated approach So far, the focus at Cumberland Valley has been to transition grades 3-5 to the new standards under STEELS, Raymer said. Last year, the district launched a pilot program where fifth-grade students conducted a watershed study by collecting and analyzing specimens from a nearby creek. While middle school students will see an overlap in the different types of science, high school students will continue to have the ability to take specialized courses in biology, chemistry and physics. I dont think the pendulum is going to swing the whole way where you may have a broad survey course like in middle school, Raymer said. Instead, the curriculum of the specialized courses will continue to emphasize how that study of science fits into the context of other types of science. As for the primary grades of K-2, the emphasis there will be on building a solid foundation upon which to layer science in the upper elementary and middle school grades, Raymer said. There is bound to be a learning curve among teachers and students, Moyer said. She added this could lead to frustration if the child is used to having an answer to a question right away instead of through a process of discovery. But Carlisle teachers agree there is a glaring need for reform in how science is taught, Moyer said. One goal of the new integrated approach will be to improve student retention of the material in the lead-up to the eighth grade when students take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test in science. Previously, students would have to think back months or even years to recall lessons from past science courses, Moyer said. Under STEELs, the material would be built up and reinforced several times over the course of middle school. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here Lucknow, July 12 : The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) is preparing to challenge a recent Supreme Court ruling that mandates the payment of maintenance to Muslim divorcee women beyond the period of 'Iddat'. The AIMPLB's legal committee is meticulously studying the Supreme Court order to explore all legal avenues. The ruling has triggered a heated debate within the Muslim community and among various personal law boards. The AIMPLB's position is rooted in the belief that the order contradicts Islamic Shariat law, which stipulates that a husband is obligated to pay maintenance only during the Iddat period (a three-and-a-quarter month timeframe) following a divorce. After this period, a woman is free to remarry or live independently, and the former husband is no longer responsible for her maintenance. Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a member of the AIMPLB, expressed concerns about the implications of the order on gender equality. He said, "Our legal committee will review the order thoroughly. According to the Constitution, every citizen has the right to live according to the customs of their religion. For communities with personal laws, like Muslims, these laws guide their daily lives, including matters of marriage and divorce." He further elaborated on the principles of Muslim personal law, highlighting that while marriage was intended to be a lifelong commitment, provisions existed for divorce if irreconcilable differences arose. He questioned the rationale behind extending maintenance obligations beyond the 'Iddat' period, arguing, "When there is no relationship, why should maintenance be paid? In what capacity should a man be responsible for someone with whom he no longer shares a marital bond?" The AIMPLB is set to convene a meeting on Sunday to discuss the Supreme Court's order and deliberate on the legal options available. AIMPLB Spokesperson Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas elaborated the board's stance, emphasising that the order was perceived as a violation of Shariat law and the constitutional protections afforded by the Shariat Application Act and Article 25, which guaranteed the freedom to practice religion. "We are exploring all legal and constitutional remedies," Ilyas said. "Our legal committee's findings will guide our next steps, which could include filing a review petition." In contrast, the All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) has expressed support for the Supreme Court's decision. AISPLB General Secretary Maulana Yasoob Abbas praised the ruling, framing it as a humanitarian gesture that prioritised the welfare of women. "On humanitarian grounds, the court's order is very beneficial for women," Abbas said. "Not everything should be viewed through the lens of religion. If a woman receives maintenance following a court order, it is a positive step for her. Those who bring religion into this debate should acknowledge the fact that a woman gives the best days of her life to her husband, his family, and their children. She gives her best in their service, but once she divorces, you turn your back on her." President of All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board Shaista Amber said, "This order highlights the balance between religious doctrines and humanitarian considerations, raising questions about the interpretation and application of personal laws in contemporary society. I have fought for the rights of women, and they deserve maintenance for the rest of their lives, no one can turn their back on them after three months and 10 days' period." Maulana Nazar, State Vice President, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, said, "The Constitution has given religious liberty, and the decision of the Supreme Court clashes with this provision of the Constitution. The court should take a look into the provisions of Muslim law. Under such circumstances, the court should review its order." Shravasti, July 12 : Three youth have been arrested on Thursday for forcing a Dalit minor to drink urine two days ago in Uttar Pradesh's Shravasti district, the police said. The victim, who is 15 years old, works as a technician, setting sound mixers and audio systems at social and cultural events. He was on his way home after work on Tuesday night when he was accosted by Kishan Tiwari, Dilip Mishra and Satyam Tiwari, who were in an inebriated state. According to the police, Dilip Mishra urinated in a liquor bottle, while Satyam and Kishan pinned the boy down and forced the bottle into his mouth. The accused were allegedly peeved over the boy's family charging them extra for an audio system they had installed for a function at their house, the police added. "The accused also misbehaved with the minor and thrashed him, and one of them shot a video of the entire incident," said Gilaula police station Station House Officer Mahima Nath Upadhyay. The boy reached home and narrated the ordeal to his elder brother. Next day, his parents and brother lodged a police complaint. Police conducted a preliminary probe and arrested the accused on Thursday, based on eyewitness accounts and the video circulating on social media. According to police sources, the accused claimed the boy and his family ran a DJ in the village, and charged a hefty amount. During a function, the victim had stopped the DJ, citing lack of fuel in the generator, which had further fuelled the animosity between them, the sources said. Jerusalem, July 12 : Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has called for the establishment of a national inquiry committee into Hamas's October 7 attack, which will also probe the conduct of the government, military, and other security agencies. The planned National Commission of Inquiry would be an independent body headed by a retired judge with wide-ranging investigative powers, Xinhua news agency reported. At the graduation ceremony of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers' course, Gallant said on Thursday that the commission "should be objective ... it should check all of usa"the government, the army, and the security agencies. It should check me as well as the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu), Army Chief, Shin Bet Chief, the IDF, and the national bodies". Gallant is the most senior official to call for a national investigation into the attack, during which thousands of Hamas militants caught Israel by surprise, crossing from Gaza and killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others. DuCard Vineyards has offered a variety of oyster celebrations over the years, but Saturdays Lobsterpalooza is the first of its kind for the Madison County winery. Virginia-based food truck Cousins Maine Lobster will be on hand to serve up fresh lobster and other seafood specialties in a new twist on DuCards Second Saturdays series of music and menus in a soothing mountain setting. Its a beautiful, beautiful drive. Its a Virginia Byway, Elizabeth Woolhouse, DuCards director of marketing and administration, told The Daily Progress. Shenandoah National Park is our view. It doesnt matter what season youre in; its a great view. Music will be provided from 2 to 5 p.m. by Gina Sobel and from 6 to 9 p.m. by Scuffletown. Sobel, an award-winning songwriter and composer, is known for her vocals and her work on flute and saxophone. Her music blends elements of funk, jazz and American folk. If You Go Lobsterpalooza Noon to 9 p.m. Saturday Includes music by Gina Sobel from 2 to 5 p.m. and Scuffletown from 6 to 9 p.m. DuCard Vineyards in Etlan $15; $10 advance www.ducardvineyards.com (540) 923-4206 Scuffletown is the duo of Marc Carraway on guitar and John Whitlow on harmonica, accordion, flute and vocals. The musicians have performed an original mix of acoustic roots, blues, jazz, bluegrass and country for more than 25 years. People make reservations just to hear them play, Woolhouse said. Scuffletown recently released Hold on Tight, a five-song EP with friend Matty Metcalfe, so keep an ear out for some brand-new music. The new tunes include When the Sun Shines in Galway, Tobacco Wood, Costa Brava, The Morning Me (Is Gonna Hate the Midnight Me) and the title track. If youve been wondering what wine to pair with lobster, Woolhouse suggests two DuCard selections that come from stainless steel tanks instead of wooden barrels: Veni, Vidi, Vino, a chardonnay and viognier blend with aromas of pear and white flower, and Whetstone Red Chardonnay, which provides tropical notes and a hint of smokiness. The stainless steel environment prevents micro-oxidation and offers a much crisper and cleaner taste with lobster, she said. The Cousins lobster menu even offers take-home versions of several dishes, so consider using the app to reserve a lobster roll kit, New England clam chowder or lobster grilled cheese so you dont have to figure out whats for dinner. Bring two bottles home, bring a kit home and make an evening of it, Woolhouse said. If youre a member of DuCards wine club, youll get in Lobsterpalooza for free, but dont forget to make reservations in advance. Seoul, July 12 : Samsung Electronics said on Friday it has participated in a Series D investment round for the US biotech company Element Biosciences as a strategic investor, expecting to create synergy in the potential medical and digital health care sectors. Samsung Electronics joins other investors, including Fidelity and Foresite Capital, in the US company's $277 million Series D round, reports Yonhap news agency. The South Korean tech giant said the investment will help it explore new business opportunities in a wide range of fields, from medical devices to digital health, by combining Element Bioscience's DNA analysis technology with its AI capabilities, medical devices and digital health technologies. "Their products set a new industry standard and are foundational to the next wave of biological innovation," said Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee of Samsung. "We are incredibly excited about Element's vision to make precision medicine affordable and are impressed with the team they built together." Founded in 2017, Element Bioscience is known for disruptive DNA sequencing and multi-omics technologies for the research market. It posted $25 million in sales last year. DNA sequencing is a technology that determines the exact sequence of nucleotides, or bases, in a DNA molecule. The sequence of the bases, often called the blueprint of life, encodes the biological information that cells use to develop and operate. In the future, DNA sequencing data will be combined with clinical data from hospitals and everyday life data, such as sleep and exercise, to enable personalised health care. Thiruvananthapuram, July 12 : Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), on Friday, arrived at the inauguration of Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port, the country's first trans-shipment port near Kovalam Beach in Kerala. Adani was received by top officials of his company and was taken around the venue. Friday marks the official completion of the first phase of the port, which has a 3,000-metre breakwater and 800-metre container berth ready. On Thursday, 'San Fernando', a vessel of the world's second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the port country with over 2,000 containers on it. Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, had called it a "historic day" for Vizhinjam Port which received its first mothership. "This milestone marks India's entry into global trans-shipment and ushers in a new era in India's maritime logistics, positioning Vizhinjam as a key player in global trade routes," the Adani Group Chairman posted on X social media platform on Thursday. The giant ship was given the traditional water salute, following which she berthed successfully. With the arrival of the first mother ship, Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port has catapulted India into the world port business as globally this port will rank 6th or 7th. The official function was set to begin with the arrival of the chief guests -- Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. In an X post, CM Vijayan said: "This event signifies a monumental moment in Kerala's maritime history... Vizhinjam Port will create over 5,000 direct job opportunities and significantly boost the industry, commerce, transportation, and tourism sectors". The port is the first semi-automated container terminal in the country and will also be a global bunkering hub, supplying clean and green fuels like hydrogen and ammonia. Full-fledged commercial operations in the port are slated to begin in a few months. The second and third phase of the project is planned to be completed in 2028 and will be one of the greenest ports in the world. The port is also strategically located as it is just 10 nautical miles from the International Shipping Route connecting Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Far East. New Delhi, July 12 : After Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal backed Infosys founder Narayana Murthy's 70-hour work-week advice, a top neurologist on Friday warned that it could increase the risk of several serious diseases and even premature death. Murthy had, in 2023, said that if India wants to compete with developed economies that have made remarkable progress in recent decades, youngsters should work for 70 hours a week. In a recent podcast, Bhavish reignited the debate on the 70-hour work week, saying that he is "fully in sync" with his advice. "Working long hours is associated with increased risk of multiple serious diseases and even premature death," said Sudhir Kumar, from Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, in a post on social media platform X.com. Citing several scientific studies the doctor said that "working 55 or more hours per week is associated with a 35 per cent higher risk of a stroke and a 17 per cent higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35-40 hours a week". Further, working for more than 55 hours a week kills more than 8,00,000 people every year, he said. Long working hours also raise the risk of being overweight, prediabetes, and Type 2 diabetes -- a precursor to many diseases and early death. "People working 69 or more hours a week are more likely to have moderate to severe depressive symptoms than those working 40 hours a week," he said. "CEOs are inclined to recommend long working hours for their employees to improve their company's profits and their own net worth," the neurologist said. He added that in the case "where employees fall sick, they can be easily substituted". "It is in your best interest to choose an organisation that cares for employees and recommends reasonable working hours- to ensure a better work-life balance," he said. Washington, July 12 : South Korea and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) signed an agreement on a mutual recognition process for military airworthiness certification, NATO's first such deal with an Asian country. Korea's Defence Acquisition Programme Administration and NATO's Aviation Committee inked the agreement, a key measure of a plane's suitability for safe flight, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, Yonhap news agency reported. Under the deal signed on Thursday, NATO will recognise the Seoul government's airworthiness certification for South Korean-made planes. While South Korea has signed agreements with the United States, Spain, France and Poland, the new deal with NATO is expected to shorten the time required for mutual recognition with other NATO members. President Yoon Suk Yeol expressed hope that the mutual recognition process would help increase defence industry cooperation between South Korea and NATO members. "I welcome the signing of the airworthiness certification as it would enhance interoperability" between South Korea and NATO, Yoon said in his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. In 2022, Korea Aerospace Industries signed a deal to export 48 FA-50 light combat aircraft to Poland and has completed delivery of 12 jets. New Delhi, July 12 : In a big relief to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered him to be released on interim bail in connection with the money laundering case linked to the excise policy case. Pronouncing its verdict, a bench, headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, referred to a larger bench CM Kejriwalas plea against his arrest and subsequent remand by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for an authoritative pronouncement on the questions of law involved. However, CM Kejriwal will not be able to walk out of jail since he was arrested by the CBI on June 26. The bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, on May 17, had reserved its verdict on CM Kejriwalas petition contending that the ED is required to demonstrate the "necessity to arrest" on the "materials available" with a "reason to believe" that he has been guilty of an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. During the hearing, the apex court had ordered the AAP supremo to be released on 21-day interim bail till June 1 in view of the Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, a Delhi court on Tuesday took cognizance of the supplementary prosecution complaint filed by the ED against CM Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Taking cognizance, special judge Kaveri Baweja issued a production warrant for CM Kejriwal for July 12. Recently, the Delhi High Court stayed a trial court's order granting bail to CM Kejriwal in the money laundering case, saying that the documents and arguments were not appreciated by the trial court. CM Kejriwal's distinct petitions seeking bail and challenging his arrest by CBI in the corruption case linked to the alleged liquor policy scam are pending before the Delhi High Court. Thiruvananthapuram, July 12 : Marking a momentous occasion in the port history of India, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), on Friday officially received the first mothership at Vizhinjam Port here. The chief guests arrived near the mothership and released balloons. There was a water salute too, marking the official welcome of the mothership at the countryas first trans-shipment port near Kovalam Beach in Kerala. After the official welcome, the chief guests walked to the specially erected stage, where guests were waiting. Friday marks the official completion of the first phase of the port, which has a 3,000-metre breakwater and 800-metre container berth ready. Earlier Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, had called it a "historic day" for Vizhinjam Port which received its first mothership. "This milestone marks India's entry into global trans-shipment and ushers in a new era in India's maritime logistics, positioning Vizhinjam as a key player in global trade routes," the Adani Group Chairman had posted on X social media platform. On Thursday, 'San Fernando', a vessel of the world's second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the port country with over 2,000 containers on it. The giant ship was given the traditional water salute, following which she berthed successfully. With the arrival of the first mothership, Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port has catapulted India into the world port business as globally this port will rank 6th or 7th. The second and third phase of the project is planned to be completed in 2028 and will be one of the greenest ports in the world. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has seven strategically located ports and terminals on the western coast and eight ports and terminals on the eastern coast, representing 27 per cent of the country's total port volumes. In FY24, APSEZ handled 27 per cent of the countryas total cargo and 44 per cent of container cargo. Last month, Adani Ports made it to the honour list of the Institutional Investor Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) Executive Team Survey and in the transportation sector, the Adani Group company is the only Indian firm to feature on the list, at the second rank. Vijayawada, July 12 : The death toll in UltraTech cement factory blast in Andhra Pradesh's NTR district rose to three as one more worker succumbed to burn injuries on Friday. Vijayawada, July 12 (IANS) The death toll in UltraTech cement factory blast in Andhra Pradeshas NTR district rose to three as one more worker succumbed to burn injuries on Friday. The deceased was identified as Arjun Rao, who breathed his last while undergoing treatment at Manipal Hospital. Seventeen workers were injured in the blast at the boiler unit in Budawada village of Jaggaiahpet mandal on July 7. One of the injured, Avula Venkatesh died the same day while undergoing treatment. Another injured, Banawath Swami, succumbed on July 10. Fourteen injured are still undergoing treatment at Gollapudi Andhra Hospital and Manipal Hospital in Tadepalli. The state government has already ordered a probe into the blast. The company has announced a compensation of Rs 50 lakh each to the families of the deceased. It also declared Rs 25 lakh compensation each for seriously wounded and Rs 5 lakh each for workers who sustained minor injuries. District Collector G. Sirjana has also assured that a job will be provided to the kin of the deceased. Chandigarh, July 12 : Harpreet Singh, brother of jailed radical Sikh preacher and Punjab's Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, has been arrested on charges of possessing drugs, sources in the police said. Chandigarh, July 12 (IANS) Harpreet Singh, brother of jailed radical Sikh preacher and Punjabas Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, has been arrested on charges of possessing drugs, sources in the police said. He was arrested by Jalandhar (Rural) Police from Phillaur for carrying five grams of ice drug (a form of methamphetamine). The police are investigating the case. Sikh radical Amritpal Singh has been detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in Assam's Dibrugarh jail. Last week, he along with Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, took the oath as Lok Sabha MPs amid heavy security in and around the Parliament complex in Delhi after they were granted parole. Thirty-one-year-old Sikh radical Amritpal Singh, head of Waris Punjab De, won the Khadoor Sahib seat by 197,120 votes over his nearest rival, Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira. Bengaluru, July 12 : In a major development, former minister B Nagendra was taken into custody on Friday by the ED in connection with irregularities in Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited (KMVSTDC). The Congress MLA from Bellary Rural Assembly seat, B Nagendra, was taken into custody by the ED at his Dollaras Colony residence in Bengaluru. After 40 hours of investigation, raids and grilling, the ED officials took Nagendra into custody for further interrogation. The ED had raided Nagendraas homes and office the previous day and for 40 hours, the officials did not allow the former minister and his family to leave their home and continuously questioned them. Sources explained that Nagendra was uncooperative and claimed he had no clue about the irregularities in the Board. Nagendraas PA Harish, who has also been in the EDas custody since Thursday has provided vital information about his involvement. Today, officials will question Nagendra at the ED office in Bengaluru. Harishas statement provided some evidence regarding the transfer of corporation funds to an account opened with false documents at Union Bank of India, sources stated. Checking the bankas CCTV records also confirmed that Nagendraas PA Harish and KMVSTDC Chairman and Congress MLA Basanagouda Daddal visited the bank. Bank officials in custody revealed details about the deal between them. Nagendra is accused of receiving hawala money and gold biscuits, and there is suspicion that transactions of over Rs 50 crore were made on his behalf. The CBI is also conducting an investigation into the misappropriation case in the Board. In addition to the residences of Nagendra and Daddal, the ED also raided the homes of three Union Bank staff members. The ED has seized significant documents, digital evidence regarding illegal fund transfers. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Karnataka government has arrested 11 people in connection with the scam including the senior officers of the Union Bank of India, Board officials, middlemen and associates of Nagendra and Daddal. The arrests were also made from Hyderabad city. Srinagar, July 12 : J&K Police on Friday arrested a man who had been evading arrest for four years in Baramulla district. The absconder was identified as Feroz Ahmad Khan and had been involved in some criminal activities. aContinuing its crackdown against absconders, Baramulla police has arrested an absconder, who was evading his arrest for four years. A police party of police Station Boniyar arrested one absconder namely Feroz Ahmad Khan son of Gh Mohammad resident of Zehanpora Boniyar involved in case FIR No. 12/2020 u/s 498-A, 147,34 & 506 IPC of PS Boniyar," mentioned the police statement. aWarrant of arrest was issued by the Court of JMIC Boniyar against him. He had been evading his arrest since 2020. He was produced before the court and was lodged in District Jail Baramulla," said the police. The officials said the police are implementing rigorous measures to ensure that all individuals, who are absconding, are apprehended and held accountable for their criminal actions. Hyderabad, July 12 : Police opened fire on two suspected armed robbers near Nampally Railway Station, here, when they tried to attack them. Police said on Friday that a team opened fire in self-defence after the two suspects tried to attack them. One of the suspects suffered bullet injury in the leg. The incident occurred when police personnel from Nampally Police Station and the anti-dacoit team stopped two persons found moving suspiciously and were questioning them. The suspects refused to surrender and one of them tried to attack the cops with an axe. The other suspect picked up stones from nearby and started pelting them at the police team. Police said the team opened fire in self-defence, injuring one of the offenders. Both surrendered to the police. The injured was admitted to Osmania General Hospital while the other was taken into custody. A similar incident was reported in Secunderabad last month when police opened fire on two offenders who had snatched a mobile phone from a person. One of the robbers was injured. In another incident on July 5, police opened fire to catch a gang of robbers at Pedda Amberpet near Outer Ring Road on the city outskirts. In view of the increasing cases of chain and phone snatching, police have formed special teams to conduct checking and decoy operations. Jaipur, July 12 : Just four days before her birthday on July 15, a 32-year-old woman with a heart ailment died at a private hospital in Jaipur. The deceased identified as Bhavna Meena was a lecturer in a Law College. On Thursday after returning from college, Bhavna felt uneasy and her neighbours rushed her to the hospital where she died during treatment. Bhavna's husband Lokesh Meena was out of town for plantation work and only her daughter was present with her when she felt uneasy. DSP Rajesh Taylor said that doctors suspect that Bhavna died of a heart attack but the exact cause of the death can only be ascertained after a post-mortem, which will be conducted on Friday. As per her relatives, after COVID-19, the efficiency of Bhavna's heart had decreased. Bhavna is survived by her husband and a two-year-old daughter. Kabul, July 12 : Afghan security forces have seized 700 kg of illicit drugs in the eastern Paktika province, the state media reported. The contraband, which included hashish, was confiscated during a counter-narcotic operation conducted in the vicinity of the province's Khairkoot district on Thursday, Bakhtar news agency reported. Two people were arrested in connection with the case and their dossiers were referred to the judiciary for further investigation, Xinhua news agency reported. Afghan counter-narcotics police aiming to fight illegal drugs have wiped out 1,650 acres of poppy farms in north Afghanistan's Badakhshan province on Monday. The Afghan caretaker government has vowed to fight illicit drugs, drug production and trafficking across the country. Kozhikode, July 12 : It's an unprecedented state of excitement at the house of elderly Fatima in Kerala's Kozhikode, whose son, Abdul Rahim, a death row convict in Saudi Arabia, is set to return home after securing a pardon. It's been an 18-year wait for the mother, whose prayers have been finally answered. The return was made possible through a massive fund collection drive for Rs 34 crore which was given as blood money on the orders of a Saudi Arabian court. The court had ruled that in case the money was not given Rahim would be executed. The money was handed over in April. The court yielded after the Saudi family accepted the money which enabled the legal proceedings for his release. Rahim's mother cannot hide her excitement, and on Friday she said she wants to see her son as soon as possible. "Even though he calls me, that's not enough, I just cannot wait any longer to see my son and wish he come at the earliest," said Fatima. Rahim's nephew is also excited and said that the Saudi Arabian court has asked Rahim's lawyer to be present on Sunday. "The lawyer has told us, that on Sunday we will know when Rahim will be finally released. And once released, he will be put on a flight back home, for which the entire village is waiting," said the nephew. "After the orders of his release came, every minute now seems like hours," added the nephew. An auto driver here, Rahim was drawn to the Gulf to make more money. He reached Saudi Arabia in 2006 and got a job as a personal driver-cum-caretaker of a 15-year-old physically challenged boy, who also had a medical ailment where he breathed through an external device connected to his body. The boy, according to Rahim, misbehaved with him one day while he was driving. As he was trying to quieten him, his hand accidentally touched the external medical device which got disconnected and the boy died. A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced him for murder and the appeal court upheld this verdict in 2022. The decision was later confirmed by the country's Supreme Court. Then following numerous discussions with the Saudi family, they settled for blood money and the doors for Rahim's freedom were finally opened. Thiruvananthapuram, July 12 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on Friday, applauded the efforts of Adani Group in realising the dream of a 'mother port' at Vizhinjam, which will turn Kerala into the hub of India's container business. "This port is the ultimate example of a successful public-private partnership model and with it becoming a reality, we applaud the sincere efforts of the Adani Group for having it done successfully," said Vijayan. Vijayan said this while delivering his address soon after officially receiving the first mothership at the country's first trans-shipment port near Kovalam beach in Kerala, marking a momentous occasion in the port history of India. Present with him to welcome the mothership -- 'San Fernando', a vessel of the world's second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the port with over 2,000 containers on it -- were Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal and Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ) on Friday at 10.30 a.m. Vijayan said that this port has become a reality even after there were attempts by international lobbies to subvert it. "The first phase of the port is now ready and it has cost Rs 8,867 crore, of which the state government's share is 63 per cent, the Adani Group bought in 27 per cent and 10 per cent is the viability gap funding share from the Centre," said Vijayan, and expected that the completion of the third and fourth phases of the project will be over by 2028-29. Vijayan also thanked the Adani Group for doing their best using their CSR funds for the community at the Vizhinjam port area. Amaravati, July 12 : Police in Guntur have registered an FIR against former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and two Indian Police Service (IPS) officers on a complaint by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA and former MP K. Raghurama Krishnam Raju, who alleged that there was an attempt on his life during police custody under the previous government of YSR Congress Party. Police registered the FIR against then CID chief P. V. Sunil Kumar, then Intelligence Chief Seetharamanjaneyulu, then Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, then Additional SP R. Vijaya Paul, then Superintendent of Government General Hospital Guntur, Prabhavati and others. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Nagarampalem Police Station. The MLA from Undi constituency in West Godavari district had last month complained to the Guntur Superintendent of Police, alleging attempted murder, custodial torture and criminal conspiracy against him during the YSR Congress Party regime. He had named then Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Sunil Kumar, Seetharamanjaneyulu and Vijay Paul as accused in his complaint. Raju was elected to Lok Sabha on YSR Congress Party ticket from Narsapuram in 2019 but he later turned into a rebel. Raju was arrested on May 14, 2021, from his residence in Hyderabad in a sedition case. He was booked for speaking against the government and allegedly instigating communal unrest in the state. The then MP alleged that he was arrested without due process. He claimed that there was no medical examination or adherence to proper legal procedures. Raju said though was recuperating after cardiac surgery, he was neither medically examined nor produced before a court in Hyderabad. He alleged that he was bullied, physically pulled inside a police vehicle and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night. He alleged that he was kept in the CB-CID office and there was an attempt on his life during the police custody. He alleged that Sunil Kumar, Seetharamanjeyulu and others beat him with a rubber belt and lathi and did not allow him to take medicines. The complainant said despite knowing pretty well that he had undergone bypass surgery, some persons sat on his chest and applied pressure, thereby attempting to kill him. He alleged that his phone was taken and he was beaten till he disclosed the password of the phone. He said Sunil Kumar threatened to kill him if he were to criticise then Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy. Raju also claimed that the then superintendent of Government General Hospital Guntur had given a false report on his injuries at the instance of the police. Raju had complained against Sunil Kumar to the Union Home Ministry the same year. However, the Home Ministry had referred the complaint to the state government. Raju resigned from YSRCP in February this year and joined the TDP in April. The party fielded him from the Undi constituency and he won the election held in May. With the TDP-led NDA government coming to power, Raju lodged a fresh complaint and the police initiated action against officials allegedly involved. Patna, July 12 : As many as 25 people lost their lives and 39 others were injured in lightning strikes across several districts of Bihar in the last 24 hours. Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, on Friday expressed condolences and directed officials to provide Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia to each of the families of the deceased. He also urged people to stay indoors during the rain and thunderstorms. Out of the 25 people who lost their lives, five died in Madhubani, four in Aurangabad, three in Supaul, three in Nalanda, two each in Lakhisarai and Patna, and one each in Begusarai, Jamui, Gopalganj, Rohtas, Samastipur and Purnea. According to the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority, 50 people have died due to lightning strikes in July alone. However, the unofficial figure may be more than that. The Authority has urged caution in the next few days as heavy rains, thunderstorms, and lightning strikes occurred in several districts of Bihar on Thursday and are expected to continue for the next two days. The Meteorological Department has forecast moderate to heavy rain with thunderstorms and lightning in many areas, including Patna, on Friday, and issued an aOrange Alerta for Kishanganj and Araria districts. On Thursday, 22 students in Barka Gaon Village, under Tarari police station, were injured when lightning struck a palm tree near their classrooms. They were admitted to Sadar Hospital Arrah. In other districts, 17 more people sustained burn injuries due to lightning strikes. The met department recorded 112.2 mm of rainfall in the Bahadurganj block in Kishanganj District. Patna received 52.8 mm of rain on Thursday. Apart from this, 102.0 mm of rain was recorded in Triveni block, 55.4 mm in Gaunaha and 42.6 mm in Lauriya in West Champaran District, 76.4 mm in Sahebpur Kamal of Begusarai, 60.2 mm in Narpatganj of Araria, 60.2 mm in Siwan, 54.2 mm in Narpatganj of Supaul, 43.2 mm in Sanjhauli of Rohtas and 42.8 mm in Suryagarha of Lakhisarai. New Delhi, July 12 : The Supreme Court on Friday extended for two weeks the interim medical bail of former Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik, an accused in a money laundering case. Acceding to the request made by the Enforcement Directorateas counsel to adjourn the proceedings to obtain fresh instructions in the matter, a bench presided over by Justice Bela M. Trivedi posted the matter for hearing after two weeks and in the meantime, directed an extension of the interim relief. Earlier in January this year, the top court had ordered that the temporary bail granted to Malik on medical grounds be extended for six months. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, appearing for the Enforcement Directorate, submitted that the federal anti-money laundering agency had no objection to Malikas interim bail being extended by the Supreme Court. Before this, the top court had extended the interim relief for three months noting that Malik was suffering from chronic kidney ailments and his medical condition had not improved. Malik was ordered to be temporarily released on bail by the Supreme Court in August last year solely on medical grounds for a term of two months on such terms and conditions as may be determined by the trial court. The ED had arrested the senior political leader of the state in February 2022 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a money-laundering case arising out of an alleged under-valued property deal with underworld links. Bengaluru, July 12 : Karnataka Police on Friday detained state BJP leaders for staging a protest in support of their demand for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's resignation in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land scam case. High drama prevailed when police personnel took the BJP leaders and party workers into custody. A heated argument broke out between the protesters and the police. The BJP leaders and party workers, who were to begin the 'Mysuru Chalo' march, blocked the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway near Kanminake following which they were detained. Meanwhile, BJP workers staged a protest in Mysuru city in the absence of state party leaders. State BJP President and MLA B.Y. Vijayendra criticised the police action and said the government's sins were "overflowing, and it could fall at any moment". Speaking to media representatives while preparing to go to Mysuru, he said that the Siddaramiah government would be responsible for inciting unrest across the state through these arrests. Vijayendra said former Minister Nagendra has been arrested by the ED, the case should now be handed over to CBI, and the Chief Minister should resign. He condemned the suppression of the protest as an "unforgivable crime". He criticised the authorities for arresting their leaders, tearing down their banners and flags near NICE Road in Bengaluru, and destroying the food brought for the activists. Vijayendra accused CM Siddaramaiah's government of oppression and of attempting to establish a Tughlaq-like regime. He asserted that the BJP and its workers would not be intimidated by this action. "The Congress government looted funds reserved for the development of Dalits through the Valmiki Corporation and used it for elections. They have turned the state into an ATM for Congress, sending money from Karnataka to Rahul Gandhi," he alleged. He also accused the Chief Minister of distributing plots to his family through the MUDA scam. He claimed that this Rs 5,000 crore scam involved allocating plots to Congress people. Thiruvananthapuram, July 12 : Vizhinjam Port is a perfect example of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's triple focus - Ports for Prosperity, Ports for Progress and Ports for Productivity -- Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ) said on Friday, adding that the company has fulfilled the promise to convert Vizhinjam into a world-class port. Addressing the gathering after officially receiving the first mothership at the country's first trans-shipment port near Kovalam Beach in Kerala, Karan Adani said that every aspect that they had planned for "is coming together". "We are privileged to have been given this opportunity to use our expertise to transform this part of India, in line with 'Maritime Amrit Kaal 2047', our Prime Minister's vision for the maritime sector," said the Adani Ports Managing Director. He said that today is the day when a 33-year-old dream has finally come true for "Vizhinjam, for Kerala and for India". The company has already created over 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in construction, operations and other segments and now, with these wide-ranging developments, "we will create more than 5,500 additional direct and indirect employment opportunities right here in Vizhinjam". On Thursday, 'San Fernando', a vessel of the world's second-largest shipping company Maersk, arrived at the port country with over 2,000 containers on it. With the arrival of the first mothership, Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port has catapulted India into the world port business as globally this port will rank 6th or 7th. Speaking in the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, and state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Karan Adani said that 'San Fernando', is a symbol of a new, glorious achievement in Indian maritime history. "It is a messenger that will tell the world that India's first automated container transhipment port and largest deepwater port has begun commercial operations," said Karan Adani. In 1991, when this port project was first announced, Vizhinjam was just another village with ordinary prospects. "At that time, no one could have imagined that it would become a world-class port - and, let me tell you in all humility, this port is going to be one of the world's top destinations for global container shipping," he noted. The 300-metre-long San Fernando, operated by Maersk which is one of the world's leaders in shipping and logistics, is the first commercial container cargo vessel to call at this port. "We can all be confident that this ship is just the first of many thousands of very large container ships that will berth in this port in the years ahead," Karan Adani noted. He extended his deep gratitude on behalf of the Adani Group to Chief Minister Vijayan and Union Minister Sonowal, along with the state and central governments. "The people of Kerala are known for their resilience, intellect and progressive outlook. To the world, Keralites or Malayalis represent educated human capital. That gives us the confidence that the people of Kerala want this port to be a global leader - a port that will become a beacon of progress and prosperity for Kerala and beyond," Karan Adani emphasised. As soon as the Adani Group receives the environmental clearance and other regulatory approvals, the company will begin work immediately on the port's remaining phases - and this could begin as early as October this year. "We already have 600 metres of operational quay length and we are preparing 7,500 container yard slots to accept cargo. While we are expected to handle 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per annum in Phase 1, we are confident that we will handle 1.5 million TEUs 50 per cent more," said Adani Ports MD. By 2028-29, when all four phases of this project are completed, the Kerala government and Adani Vizhinjam Port will have invested a total of Rs 20,000 crore in "this outstanding example of a large-scale PPP project". Through the Adani Skill Development Centre, the company will equip thousands of young women and men with advanced specialised skills relevant to the maritime sector. "When we took on this project, our Chairman Gautam Adani promised to make Vizhinjam, India's Port of the Future'. That is what it has become," said Karan Adani. --IANS sg-na/svn Seoul, July 12 : Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong has been on a visit to India to review the company's local operations and meet with business partners, according to a report. Lee arrived in Mumbai on Thursday, reports Yonhap News Agency, citing sources. Samsung Electronics operates a smartphone factory in Noida, northern India, and a home appliance facility in Sriperumbudur, southern India, along with several R&D and design centres. It also has a strong presence in the network business in India, supplying fifth-generation mobile communications (5G) equipment for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Samsung has unveiled the all-new Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 foldables, along with wearable devices, with new features at its 'Unpacked' event. 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. The Galaxy Z Flip6 (12GB+256GB) will cost Rs 109,999 and the 12GB+512GB version will come for Rs 121,999. Galaxy Z Fold6 in the 12GB+256GB variant will cost Rs 164,999 while the 12GB+512GB version will come for Rs 176,999. The 12GB+1TB (silver shadow colour) will cost Rs 200,999, informed the company. Mumbai, July 12 : Star couple Suriya and Jyotika expressed their gratitude towards actor Akshay Kumar for selecting 'Sarfira' as his 150th film, a Hindi remake of their Tamil movie 'Soorarai Pottru'. Jyotika took to social media and revealed her admiration for Akshay, confessing to being a longtime fan with a poster of him in her bedroom. The actress wrote: "Best wishes Akshay Kumar for the most deserving success and a heart-touching performance. From a fangirl with a poster of yours in her bedroom to becoming a producer for your special 150th film...truly a moment etched in time for me." In response to Jyotika, Akshay said: "Thank you so much Jyotika for such kind words, it means a lot to me. Here's to many more memorable moments ahead!" Suriya also shared his thoughts on X and wrote: "'Sarfira' will always be an important film for all of us! Akshay Kumar Sir thank you for choosing 'Sarfira' as your 150th film. You've made Veer come alive so beautifully." Suriya wrote a message for the director, Sudha Kongara, as well. "Sudha Kongara, you've lived this dream for so many years, happy our film is in theatres now. Radhikka Madan is superb as Rani. Paresh Rawal is just brilliant. Thank you, we now have beautiful lifetime memories!" 'Sarfira' is a remake of Kongara's 2020 Tamil film 'Soorarai Pottru' starring Jyotika and Suriya. Both films are based on G. R. Gopinath's memoir 'Simply Fly: A Deccan Odyssey', depicting the journey of a man who set out to make affordable airlines for people with low income. La Paz, July 12 : The Bolivian Prosecutor's Office said Thursday that investigations have been opened into 34 suspects, both civilian and military, for their alleged role in the June 26 failed coup. In statements to journalists, prosecutor Franklin Alborta confirmed that arrest warrants had been issued. Raids and other measures are being carried out to determine the responsibilities of those involved in the attempted coup, reported Xinhua news agency. Among the suspects are military personnel on active duty or retired, including former army commander Juan Jose Zuniga, who led the rival faction and stormed the presidential palace in the city of La Paz on June 26. Agartala, July 12 : Amid tightened security along the India-Bangladesh borders, 11 more Bangladeshi nationals were arrested in Tripura for illegal entry into India, officials said on Friday. Government Railway Police (GRP) officials said that eight Bangladeshi citizens including four women and a minor were arrested from the Agartala railway station on Thursday night before they boarded a Guwahati-bound train. A Border Security Force (BSF) spokesman said that personnel of the border guarding force arrested three more Bangladeshi nationals and an Indian tout from Sabroom in southern Tripura on Thursday night. GRP sources said that during the last two months, 102 foreign nationals including seven Rohingyas were arrested from the Agartala railway station. On July 4, 25 Rohingyas, including six women and seven children, were arrested from North Tripura District when they were about to board buses to first go to Guwahati and then to Hyderabad. Officials said that all the Bangladeshis and Rohingyas illegally entered Tripura to board trains or buses to go to other states in India "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. Due to rising infiltration from across the border, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha during a high-level meeting last week, asked the top 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. New Delhi, July 12 : Visiting Foreign Ministers of the Bay of Bengal countries jointly called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the final day of the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on Friday. "PM had fruitful discussions with the group of Ministers on further strengthening the regional cooperation in diverse areas including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people to people exchanges. He stressed on the role of BIMSTEC as an engine for economic and social growth," a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said after the meeting. PM Modi also reaffirmed India's commitment to a peaceful, prosperous, resilient and safe BIMSTEC region and highlighted its significance to India's Neighbourhood First and Act East policies as well as in its SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) vision. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or BIMSTEC, brings together seven countries of South and South East Asia for multifaceted cooperation The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Bangkok in July 2023 as India continues to reiterate its commitment to promote connectivity and linkages in the shared Bay of Bengal region. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud, Thailand Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa (current BIMSTEC chair), Bhutan Foreign Minister D.N. Dhungyel, Nepal Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal, State Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka Tharaka Balasuriya and Myanmar's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister U Than Swe attended the meeting to bolster regional cooperation. During his meeting with the visiting foreign ministers, PM Modi also expressed India's full support to Thailand for the upcoming BIMSTEC Summit to be held in September, later this year. 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," said Thavisin. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval were also present during the PM's meeting with the visiting foreign dignitaries. New Delhi, July 12 : Fintech company Partior on Friday announced the first close of over $60 million Series B round led by the venture capital and growth investing firm Peak XV Partners. The round was also supported by Valor Capital Group and Jump Trading Group as new investors, and JP Morgan, Standard Chartered and Temasek as existing shareholders. "We see a very bright future for blockchain-based frictionless, cross-border transactions. Having some of the worldas best banks and investors back our vision, validates this even further," Humphrey Valenbreder, CEO, Partior, said in a statement. According to the company, this new round will enable the advancement of new capabilities like Intraday FX swaps, Cross-currency repos, Programmable Enterprise Liquidity Management, and Just-in-Time multi-bank payments. The investment will significantly support Partioras international network growth and the integration of additional currencies, including AED, AUD, BRL, CAD, CNH, GBP, JPY, MYR, QAR, and SAR, into its network, it added. "Partior is an extremely ambitious attempt to transform global money transfer and settlement amongst banks. Itas a unique approach where multiple banks have come together to catalyse change in this industry," said Shailendra Singh, MD, Peak XV. In addition, Pradyumna Agrawal, MD, Investment (Blockchain), Temasek, this latest round of investment is a "testament to the incredible progress Partior has made towards this endeavour". Kolkata, July 12 : The West Bengal government, on Friday, submitted a report to the Calcutta High Court on the murder of BJP's woman activist, Rotibala Ari, in Nandigram allegedly by Trinamool Congress workers in May. Although the family members of the victim have demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and also approached the Calcutta High Court with a plea, the charge of the investigation continues to be with the state police. The matter came up for hearing at Calcutta High Courtas division bench of Justice Amrita Sinha, on Friday and there the counsel of the state government presented a report on the status and progress of investigation. Thereafter, the hearing on the matter was adjourned and will come again on July 23 after the court studies the report in detail. To recall, Ari was murdered on May 23 in Nandigram, two days before the Lok Sabha polls were conducted in the Tamluk constituency in East Midnapore district, under which Nandigram is one of the seven Assembly constituencies. The elected BJP legislator from Nandigram is also the leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. After the incident, Adhikari claimed that the killing was prompted by the inevitable fear of defeat in the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency. The BJP candidate from Tamluk and the former judge of Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay got elected by a margin of 77,733 votes. Jakarta, July 12 : The recent cyberattack in Indonesia that massively disrupted its national data system has urged the country to strengthen its cyber resilience and evaluate its digital technology policy. Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Hadi Tjahjanto said on Friday that the government would carry out digital security improvement and strengthen the system capabilities of its national data centre, reported Xinhua news agency. "We are making the data centre with the ability to have multiple back-ups, layered back-ups with good security. We want it to be a system that cannot be hacked. This will continue to be done to support the government's performance in serving the public," Tjahjanto said in a press conference. Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Informatics is currently preparing to execute what it calls as "tenant redeploy", improving the digital security in governance by stricter standard operating procedures. "We'll execute it from August to September 2024," the ministry's Director General of Informatics Applications, Ismail, said on Thursday. The ransomware attack that targeted Indonesia's national data centre and created a massive data crisis started on June 17 and went on for almost one week, with the hacker initially asking for a ransom of $8 million. According to the Ministry of Communication and Informatics and the National Cyber and Encryption Agency, at least 282 institutions were disrupted by the attack, including the immigration services, which caused long queues at the airports due to system bottlenecks at the immigration checkpoints. The attack also disrupted educational institutions as the country was currently holding a student enrolment period ahead of the new academic year. Reports said that following the incident, many citizens in Indonesia demanded the Communication and Informatics Minister to step down due to his failure in protecting the public's data. The financial industry in Indonesia, as the institution that is most vulnerable to hackers, continues to increase its cybersecurity capacity to anticipate the threat of cyberattacks, ranging from fulfilling cybersecurity standards to simulations in facing cyberattacks. Indonesia's Financial Services Authority, a government agency that regulates and supervises the financial services sector, launched on Tuesday cybersecurity guidelines that were specifically designed for all financial sector technology innovation organisers in the country. The guidelines provide a cyber capacity-building programme that includes data protection, risk management, incident response, maturity assessment, training and awareness by prioritising the principles of collaboration and information exchange. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) said it was preparing to form a task force that would focus on cybersecurity, particularly to prevent the negative impacts of increasingly massive technological innovation. "We want to gather existing related stakeholders to provide inputs to the government in any case, especially for cases related to cybersecurity," APJII Chairman Muhammad Arif said on Wednesday. He also said that APJII, which currently has 1,087 members of Internet service providers across Indonesia, had begun to develop support for maintaining security in cyberspace. Ridi Ferdiana, a software expert from the Faculty of Engineering of the Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia's Yogyakarta province, said the recent ransomware attack should be a self-reflection for the government to improve the information system architecture, security procedures and computer security networks. "There are several cybersecurity measures that can be taken to prevent the national data centre server from being exposed to cyberattacks again, including developing routine inspection procedures related to security gaps, implementing network security procedures for the public and the data centre, as well as conducting regular maintenance to review the security perimeter and suitability of procedures," Ferdiana said. The government, he said, should design high-availability cloud infrastructure based on disaster recovery plans to speed up the data recovery. "We also advise that the national data centre implement encryption at the row field security or file level either in transit or at rest, so that even in the event of ransomware, the stolen data cannot be read," he added. Mumbai, July 12 : Veteran actress and diva Zeenat Aman has shared an anecdote about working on the 1987 film 'Daku Hasina', directed by Ashok Rao. The actress said that this was one of the last films she did before taking a hiatus due to her pregnancy early on during the shoot. Zeenat took to Instagram and shared a black-and-white picture of herself holding a rifle and dressed as a dacoit for the film. The actress also posted two posters of 'Daku Hasina'. "Daku Hasina was your classic story of vengeance. Roopa, orphaned when her parents are killed by powerful village overlords, seeks the help of infamous dacoit Mangal Singh (The iconic Rajinikanth in one of his few Bollywood cameos) to extract revenge," she wrote. The diva added: "Under his guidance, she transforms into the ruthless Daku Hasina, and so begins her reign of terror. The police scramble to apprehend her, but ah! There is a twist in the tale. What is the relationship between SP Ranjit Saxena (played by none other than @rakesh_roshan9) and the lady dacoit?" Sharing an interesting anecdote, Zeenat penned: "This was one of the last films I did before my extended hiatus. I became pregnant early on in the shoot, and by the end of filming, I was well into my third trimester!" The 72-year-old star said that to hide her baby bump, the crew came up with "creative shots." "My svelte figure had naturally ballooned, so to hide my belly, the crew came up with various creative shots. Some of these involved me riding a horse, which brought its own concerns." The actress also suffered a scare while shooting for the film, which stars Rakesh Roshan and Rajinikanth in an extended cameo. I had had a scare on horseback during a previous shoot when the poor animal had bolted because of the artificial rain and blaring speakers on set," she wrote. Zeenat shared that she "wasn't nervous about my own safety, but the safety of the child in my womb was of utmost importance." "Luckily, we were able to shoot these scenes without any incident. One's memory is such a slippery thing. While looking up clips from the film, I found that Mazhar, the father of my children, also had a special appearance in it," she shared. Zeenat shared that the father of her children was in the qawwali number, which she had cleanly forgotten. "'Daku Hasina' was released in 1987, and it was quite true to the mood of the time. A feminist storm was sweeping through India in the '80s. Legal reforms and social awareness on gender were the talk of the town, thanks to the exceptional women activists of the time," she said. Reflecting on the film's performance, Zeenat admitted that it did not do well but felt good to play such a role. "There was a certain air of liberation, not to mention indignation at the horrors of the patriarchy, and it felt oh so good to play an a**-kicking role! I don't think the film did very well, but these posters are such vintage gems that I just had to share them with you," she concluded. "I wish I could find more stills from it - because my look was just so cool - but alas there seem to be very few out there." Bengaluru, July 12 : Reacting to the arrest of a former minister by the ED on Friday, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar stated that detaining B Nagendra was unnecessary as the SIT is already looking into the case and called the development politically-motivated. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Dy CM Shivakumar said, "We are already probing the matter. Action against him by the ED was not required." Dy CM Shivakumar was referring to the probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Karnataka government. "The developments are politically-motivated, and we will see what happens," he emphasised. Commenting on the BJP's protest over the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land allotments, he stated that no scam had taken place as was being alleged by the BJP. "Whatever happened was during the tenure of the BJP government. After winning the Lok Sabha elections, they want to make Karnataka look bad again. Nothing of that sort is happening here, and everything is perfect. All this is politically motivated and we will see what happens," he reiterated. When asked about CM Siddaramaiah's statement that he was being targeted because he hails from a Backward Class and made it to the CM's post twice, the senior leader confirmed that this was true. "He is being targeted because he belongs to a Backward Class. Karnataka is the only large state where the Congress is in power, and they want to demoralise us. The state will not allow this," he said. In a setback for the Karnataka government, the ED on Friday arrested Nagendra in connection with irregularities in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited (KMVSTDC). Sources revealed that the ED is preparing to detain KMVSTDC Chairman and Congress MLA Basanagouda Daddal, and his arrest is likely soon. Meanwhile, the BJP is staging a large-scale protest demanding the resignation of CM Siddaramaiah for his alleged involvement in the MUDA irregularities. Sanaa, July 12 : US forces have destroyed five Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea, according to US Central Command. The forces also destroyed two Houthi uncrewed aerial systems over the Red Sea and one system in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen, late Thursday, reported Xinhua news agency citing the US Central Command's statement. "It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to US, coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region. These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters more safe and secure," the US Central command said. Early on Thursday, the Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, said the US-British coalition launched five airstrikes targeting the area of Rad Issa, northwest of the Houthi-held Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported. Since last November and in a display of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Houthi group began to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said are Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea. 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, leading to the expansion of Houthi attacks to include US and British commercial vessels and naval ships. Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday that his group had targeted "a total of 166 ships linked to Israel, the US, and Britain" since November. Mumbai, July 12 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge sheet before a Mumbai Special Court, naming two accused, including a Libyan national in the sensational ISIS terror conspiracy busted in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, an official said here on Friday. The NIA has named M. Zoheb Khan of Maharashtra, who was arrested earlier this year (February 2024) and the Libyan M. Shoeb Khan, as the key conspirators in the terror plot linked with a module in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar to the ISIS' global networks. Zoheb was recruited by Shoeb and they hatched a plot to promote ISIS' anti-India agenda, recruit vulnerable youth to carry out terrorist strikes at sensitive installations across the country. The charge sheet before the NIA Special Court has exposed the international linkages of the conspiracy involving the overseas handlers of the ISIS/IS operatives. The NIA probe has already exposed the web of anti-India activities involving Zoheb and Shoeb, who had taken 'bayath (pledge of allegiance)' towards the self-anointed Khalifa of ISIS. After targeting India with a series of terror strikes, Zoheb and Shoeb had planned to flee to Turkey or Afghanistan, as per the NIA probe. They were actively involved in developing and hosting a website to promote the violent, extremist ISIS ideology through which they planned to recruit youth from across the world into the ISIS fold. The probe found that Zoheb had already formed a WhatsApp group with over 50 youths as members from the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, with the intention to radicalise and recruit them to further the ISIS' nefarious activities in India. Both Zoheb and Shoeb were exchanging videos pertaining to manufacturing of explosives and fabricating IEDs for the planned terror strikes. They had also prepared a detailed time-table of their agenda, comprising planning, preparing and executing terror hits at multiple locations in India, and the follow-up action in the aftermath. "The accused persons had conspired to endanger the safety and security of India, its secular ethos and culture, and the democratic systems of governance," said the NIA in the charge sheet. New Delhi, July 12 : London-based technology company Nothing on Friday announced that 1 lakh units of its sub-brand's debut smartphone CMF Phone 1, which is being manufactured in India, was sold in just three hours across various channels. "The overwhelming demand for CMF Phone 1 further solidifies Nothing's reputation for delivering cutting-edge technology and unique design," Nothing said in a statement. The company launched the device in two variants (6GB+128GB and 8GB+128GB) at a starting price of Rs 15,999. The smartphone comes with a 50MP rear camera, a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G processor, a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED display, a 5000 mAh battery, and a 16 MP selfie camera. It also features a 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate for seamless interactions. Meanwhile, Nothing said that by manufacturing the device in India, the company aims to harness the rich manufacturing ecosystem of the country while investing in the local economy, fostering technological innovation within the country and creating job opportunities. "This underscores the brand's recognition of India as a key market in its global strategy and alignment with the 'Make in India' initiative," the company said. In addition, Nothing mentioned that this move exemplifies their dedication to delivering "high-quality, locally-produced products that cater to the unique preferences and needs of the Indian market and their expertise in locally manufacturing such a unique adaptable design". Bengaluru, July 12 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday inaugurated a pre-event breakfast meeting related to the Bengaluru Tech Summit at a private hotel in the city. Addressing the event, CM Siddaramaiah stated, "Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS), the flagship programme of the Government of Karnataka, is a key initiative of our state government for the last 26 years." BTS provides an impactful platform to bring together the best minds in technology and innovation. It is Asia's biggest technology conclave which will be held from November 19 to 21, 2024. "The theme for the 27th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit is Breaking Boundaries. The theme emphasises on the importance of collaboration between diverse sectors to drive innovation," senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah stated. "Let us continue to dream big, work together, and make Karnataka the undisputed leader in technology and innovation. And as part of this mission, I look forward to your suggestions and opinions to take our state to new heights in technology-driven industry and also seek your active participation in BTS 2024 and make it a grand success," CM Siddaramaiah added. Dy CM, DK Shivakumar appealed, "The world sees India through Bengaluru. Our government is committed to Bengaluru's development. Entrepreneurs, employees should not leave Bengaluru and go to neighbouring states." "Karnataka welcomes people from around the world and the country without any restrictions. As entrepreneurs prosper, so do job seekers. Economic and national strength is growing," he stressed. "About 1.4 crore people from all over the country have settled in Bengaluru and the pressure on the city should be reduced. Therefore, an environment should be created to set up industries in all parts of the state. About Rs 8,000 crore of CSR funds should be used for rural education," Dy CM Shivakumar suggested. New Delhi, July 12 : The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed the bail plea of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar, who is accused of assaulting AAP Rajya Sabha member and former DCW chief Swati Maliwal. A bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said that at this stage, the possibility of tampering with the evidence or influencing the witnesses cannot be ruled out by the accused, who happened to be the personal secretary of Delhi CM. Earlier on May 27, a court here refused to release CM Kejriwal's aide on bail. Bibhav Kumaras counsel contended that Maliwal went to the CMas residence with the intent to malign his aide. Questioning the three-day delay in lodging the FIR, he argued that Bibhav Kumar was not present at the CMas residence at the time of the incident and Maliwal had no appointment. Kumar was arrested on May 18 in connection with the assault on Maliwal on May 13 and produced late at night before a local court which sent him to five days of police custody. Delhi Police registered a case against Kumar after he allegedly assaulted Maliwal at the Chief Minister's residence. The FIR at the Civil Lines police station includes charges under Sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 341 (wrongful restraint), 354(B) (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 509 (word, gesture, or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code. Seoul, July 12 : A joint nuclear deterrence guidelines document signed by South Korea and the United States will significantly expand the assignment of US strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula to a "constant" level, South Korea's defence ministry said Friday, as the allies seek to bolster their cooperation in responding to North Korean threats. On Thursday, Cho Chang-rae, Seoul's Deputy Defence Minister for Policy, and Vipin Narang, Acting US Assistant Secretary of Defence for Space Policy, inked the 'Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula'. The signing of the document came a year after the allies launched the Nuclear Consultative Group in joint efforts to ensure the credibility of America's "extended deterrence" commitment to South Korea in an integrated way that includes South Korea's conventional support for US nuclear operations in a contingency. Extended deterrence refers to a US pledge to mobilize the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear arms, to defend its ally, reports Yonhap news agency. Under the joint guidelines, the allies will seek to expand the frequency and level of US strategic assets deployed to the Korean Peninsula, as the document commits to the assignment of Korean Peninsula missions of such weapons during both wartime and peacetime, according to the ministry. The document also paves the way for the allies to sharpen their practical capabilities against nuclear threats through the joint sharing of intelligence, planning, training and implementation of operations, with South Korea expected to play a bigger role compared with the past, it added. "The US had notified of and discussed imminent deployment of strategic assets. But South Korea and the US will now discuss the need for such deployment around-the-clock," a ministry official said. The ministry emphasised that the signing of the document elevates the South Korea-US alliance that had been based on conventional weapons to a "firm nuclear-based alliance." "The conventional-nuclear integration between South Korea and the US marks the first and sole case of a non-nuclear nation directly discussing nuclear operations with the US," the ministry said according to Yonhap news agency. On Thursday, President Yoon Suk Yeol and US President Joe Biden warned that any North Korean nuclear attack against South Korea will be met with a "swift, overwhelming and decisive" response, as they highlighted "tremendous" progress in their joint deterrence efforts. The leaders issued the warning as they met on the margins of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Washington amid growing concerns over North Korea's unceasing pursuit of advanced nuclear and missile programmes and its deepening military alignment with Russia. Seoul, July 12 : South Korea's Defence Minister Shin Won-sik vowed Friday to strengthen solidarity with France and other countries that share common values at an event commemorating France's national day, his office said. Shin made the pledge during the Bastille Day ceremony organised by the French Embassy in Seoul and the French Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Sebitseom artificial islands on the Han River in Seoul, according to the ministry. This year's Bastille Day falls on Sunday. "The Republic of Korea is serving as a bulwark to defend the free world against forces that attempt to change the status quo by force, and (we) will further strengthen solidarity with value-sharing countries, such as France, to protect the peace and stability of the free world," he said, according to his office, reported Yonhap news agency. Shin also hailed the service of French troops who took part in the 1950-53 Korean War, including the late Capt. Robert Goupil, as part of UN forces that backed South Korea. The ceremony was attended by some 170 cadets of France's Saint-Cyr Military Academy, and more than 100 cadets from South Korean military academies. The French cadets who attended the event belong to the class of Capt. Robert Goupil, named after the late veteran who died in combat during the three-year conflict, according to the ministry. New Delhi:Union Minister and JDS MP H. D. Kumaraswamy on the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha. Image Source: IANS News Hyderabad, July 12 : Union Minister of Steel and Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy has called on National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) officials to commit to their goal of 100 million tonnes of iron ore production by 2030, as a tribute to the Honourable Prime Minister's vision of 'Viksit Bharat'. Kumaraswamy along with Union Minister of State (MoS) for Steel and Heavy Industries, Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma visited the NMDC head office in Hyderabad. The NMDC said on Friday that the ministers held a meeting with Amitava Mukherjee, CMD (Additional Charge); functional directors and senior officers of the company to review the performance, future roadmap, social initiatives, and challenges faced by NMDC and NSL. The review meeting included discussions on projects in the pipeline that can set a course for a future driven by excellence, innovation, and sustainability. Appreciating the legacy of NMDC, Kumaraswamy expressed his confidence in the company's journey to become a 'Maharatna'. Addressing the NMDC employees, MoS Varma said that the Ministry of Steel is fuelling the efforts of steel PSEs to enhance production and profit. "Envisioning a robust industrial ecosystem, he said, NMDC will play a defining role in uplifting the smaller units of the iron and steel industry while meeting the demands of the key players of the sector. "NMDC remains steadfast in its commitment to emerge as a global environmentally friendly mining company with a positive thrust on social development. We are foraying towards a future where Indian mining is synonymous with progress, innovation, and responsibility," said Amitava Mukherjee. Mumbai, July 12 : The lead actors of the show 'Kundali Bhagya', Paras Kalnawat and Adrija Roy, have fulfilled their desire to shoot a romantic rain sequence, calling it a "dream come true." The monsoon has always held a special place in the hearts of romantics. After all, every Bollywood film ever has invariably celebrated a "baarish wala" romance between its leads. Naturally, it is the dream of every budding actor to one day see themselves on screen, shooting such a dreamy sequence. Speaking about the experience, Paras, who essays the role of Rajveer, said: "Shooting a romantic dance sequence in the rain has always been a dream, and shooting for this particular sequence was a dream come true." "I felt surreal as it came to life amid the Mumbai rains. I have grown up watching Bollywood films, and obviously, as an actor, I always wanted to shoot something like this," he added. Adrija, who portrays the role of Palki, shared her excitement: "I love the monsoon season, and I was really excited when I got to know that Paras and I were going to shoot a scene in the rain." "It was a cute moment where my character, Palki, comes out of jail and hugs Rajveer (Paras). Shooting in that weather was indeed very challenging, but seeing the team being content with the shot made us really happy, and I think our hard work paid off," she concluded. While Paras and Adrija lived their dream sequence amid the Mumbai rains, it will be interesting for the viewers to watch what happens when Palki meets her parents after finally coming out of jail. The show revolves around the lives of Preeta (Shraddha Arya), Karan (Shakti Anand), Rajveer (Paras), Palki (Adrija), and Shaurya (Baseer Ali). 'Kundali Bhagya' airs on Zee TV. On the professional front, Adrija is best known for her roles as Bimbo in 'Sanyashi Raja', 'Mou in 'Mou Er Bari', and Charu in 'Durga Aur Charu'. She has also starred in shows like 'Imlie', 'Durga Durgeshwari', and others. Paras is known for 'Meri Durga', 'Laal Ishq', 'Anupamaa', and 'Kumkum Bhagya'. Washington, July 11 : US President Joe Biden is facing the worst crisis of his 50-year political career. The recent debate against rival Donald Trump seems to have confirmed some people's worst fears. Critics said the oldest sitting president in US history is in a state of cognitive decline. That's because two weeks ago, Biden appeared in a nationally televised debate to be physically frail, confused and befuddled. Now, several members of Biden's party are calling for the president's withdrawal from the presidential election. Over 10 Democrats in the House of Representatives have urged Biden to step aside, and Vermont Senator Peter Welch became the first Democratic senator to make this request. "People within Biden's own party are calling for him to step aside and let the Democratic convention pick another candidate for a three-month race against Trump," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua news agency. On Wednesday, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a long-time ally of Biden, did not directly respond when asked if she supports Biden's continuation in the campaign. Instead, she stated that "it's up to the president to decide if he is going to run" and noted that "time is running short." The media chorus has been going strong for the two weeks since the debate, with a daily avalanche of opinion pieces calling on Biden to withdraw. The New York Times' chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, wrote that Biden's "halting and disjointed performance" prompted a "wave of panic among Democrats." National Public Radio reported that private fears within the Democratic Party about Biden are "slowly going public." Biden hosted a major NATO summit in Washington this week. With persistent concerns within the Democratic Party, all eyes were on the president as he made a concerted effort to alleviate fears of his age and mental fitness. In a speech before the press conference, he misnamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as "President Putin." During the press conference, Biden accidentally referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." Biden's press conference started later than scheduled. For about an hour, he answered questions from roughly 10 media outlets, much of which focused on whether he should continue to run for office. Biden firmly reiterated his intention to stay in the race. Analysts said Biden answered reporters' questions on foreign policy and NATO policy and stumbled somewhat on other answers. Answering questions on his cognitive condition, Biden told reporters: "The only thing age does is create a little bit of wisdom." "No one will be satisfied no matter how many tests Biden agrees to, no matter how many interviews he does, etc.," said Ashley Parker, a White House reporter for The Washington Post. "And again, that's the challenge, because he needs to do something that will put this discussion about his fitness to rest, and allow the Democrats to return to talking about Trump." Last week, Biden appeared for an interview on the network ABC to reassure voters that he is the person for the job. Christopher Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in the state of New Hampshire, told Xinhua: "To a certain extent, I think things like his ABC interview and other appearances have helped. The big problem is that none of these have been the sort of platform that the debate was. And these efforts haven't stopped calls from elected Democrats and fundraisers for the president to bow out of the race." Notably, while doubts about Biden are increasing within the party, those publicly calling for his withdrawal remain in the minority, possibly due to a lack of consensus on a successor candidate. Pushing Biden to resign abruptly could prevent any Democratic leader from uniting the party. It could lead to internal chaos, dealing a devastating blow to the Democrats in the presidential election in early November. As Biden stated in a letter to Democratic lawmakers on Monday, there are only 42 days left until the Democratic National Convention officially announces the party's presidential nominee and only 119 days until the general election. "Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us," Biden concluded. "It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump." According to the latest average of polls from Real Clear Politics, Trump has received a bump in key swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, since the debate. Those three states are crucial to winning the election, experts said. Trump leads Biden in several other key swing states a" some by significant margins. On Thursday night, Trump ridiculed Biden in an online post following the NATO press conference, during which Biden mistakenly referred to his vice president as Trump. "Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' Press Conference with, 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site. "Great job, Joe!" With Trump leading Biden in election polls, NATO countries are concerned. "Most allies see Trump as anti-NATO and isolationist-inclined ... They fear this will weaken the alliance and put in jeopardy US support for Ukraine," William Courtney, a retired US Ambassador and adjunct senior fellow at the RAND Corporation, told Xinhua. A report by The Hill pointed out that NATO's next secretary general, Mark Rutte, may face his biggest challenge with the potential return of Trump to the White House. The report noted that the increasing likelihood of Trump being re-elected will only exacerbate Europe's concerns about the withdrawal of the United States from NATO under Trump's leadership. Chinese premier holds talks with Solomon Islands' prime minister Xinhua) 08:08, July 12, 2024 Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with the Solomon Islands' Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang held talks with the Solomon Islands' Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele in Beijing on Thursday, calling for further development of bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era. Li said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties five years ago, bilateral relations have maintained strong development, setting an example of South-South cooperation among developing countries. China is ready to work with the Solomon Islands to further enrich the connotation of the comprehensive strategic partnership of mutual respect and common development for a new era and continuously improve the well-being of the two peoples, Li said. Li stressed that China supports the people of the Solomon Islands in choosing a development path that suits their national conditions, and stands ready to continue to firmly support each other's core interests. Li said that China is ready to share more development experience with the Solomon Islands, and strengthen cooperation in infrastructure, rural development, information and communications and low-carbon transition. China hopes to import more quality agricultural and food products from the Solomon Islands and encourages Chinese enterprises to invest in the Solomon Islands. The two sides should strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the fields of education, health, sports, culture and youth to further facilitate personnel exchanges and cement the social foundation of bilateral cooperation, Li added. Li stressed that China will continue to uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality, mutually beneficial cooperation and common development, push forward the comprehensive strategic partnership with the Solomon Islands and other Pacific island countries, and work together to build an even closer community with a shared future between China and Pacific Island countries. Manele expressed appreciation for China's strong support for the economic and social development of the Solomon Islands. Manele said that the Solomon Islands firmly abides by the one-China principle, supports the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the three major global initiatives, supports the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and highly appreciates China's important contribution to world peace and development. The Solomon Islands is willing to deepen exchanges and cooperation with China in fields such as economy and trade, infrastructure construction, medical and health care, people-to-people exchanges and poverty alleviation, jointly cope with global challenges such as climate change and push forward the comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era, Manele added. After the talks, they jointly witnessed the signing of a number of bilateral cooperation documents regarding the BRI, economy and trade, education, digital economy, green development, inspection and quarantine, among others. Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with the Solomon Islands' Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 11, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Mumbai, July 12 : Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has raised an alarm over the rising fiscal stress in Maharashtra due to the continuous mismatch between receipts and expenditure. CAG in its report on state finances for the year ended March 31, 2023, which was tabled on Friday in the state Assembly, said that the share of revenue deficit in fiscal deficit indicates the extent to which borrowed funds were used for current consumption. However, persistently the high ratio of revenue deficit to fiscal deficit indicates that the asset base of the state is continuously being eroded and a part of borrowings (Fiscal Liabilities) does not have any asset backup. Even though the budgeting exercise carried out by the state government needs to be more realistic as 18.19 per cent of the total provision remained unutilised, the total expenditure incurred during the year 2022-23 was six per cent less than the original budget and the supplementary budget constituted 15 per cent of the original budget. Supplementary grants/appropriations as well as re-appropriation were obtained without adequate justification as large amounts remained unutilised. As far as fiscal sustainability risk is concerned, the CAG observed that the debt stabilisation indicator is currently static rather than conclusively ascending. "The debt stabilisation indicator, consisting of quantum spread and primary deficit, declined in the period (2019-21) and has since shown a gradual increase in the post-pandemic year, CAG said. The CAG said that it has not yet reached a stable state for debt stabilisation. Moreover, the improvement in Public Debt to GSDP and Overall Liability to GSDP after the pandemic suggests that the debt situation is not deteriorating but it has not yet reached a threshold wherein it can be concluded that debt stabilisation is on an upward trend. The outstanding debt (fiscal liabilities) of the state increased from Rs 4,36,781.94 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 6,60,753.73 crore at the end of 2022-23. The outstanding debt to GSDP ratio of 18.73 per cent during 2022-23 was higher than the limits prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management (FRBM) Act (18.14 per cent). Although the Outstanding Debt for the year 2022-23 remained close to the projections made as per Medium Term Fiscal Policy, the nominal GSDP did not reach the projected levels. Therefore, the state was not able to achieve the targets set for Total Outstanding Liability to GSDP ratio. "Taken together, the committed and inflexible expenditure in 2022-23 was Rs 2,67,945.58 crore; 65.73 per cent of the revenue expenditure. Upward trend on committed and inflexible expenditure leaves the Government with lesser flexibility for other priority sectors and capital creation," said CAG. CAG has made a slew of suggestions including the Government may consider mobilising additional resources through tax and non-tax sources so as to move towards revenue surplus status. The government may take steps to ensure better value for money in investments. Otherwise, funds borrowed at high cost will continue to be invested in projects with low financial returns. The state government needs to monitor and manage its debt levels to ensure long-term fiscal stability by adopting remedial measures to rationalise expenditure, explore further sources, expand the revenue base, and invest in revenue-generating assets. Moreover, CAG has stressed that the state government should formulate a realistic budget based on reliable assumptions considering the needs of the departments and their capacity to utilise the allocated resources. "An appropriate control mechanism needs to be instituted by the government to enforce proper implementation and monitoring of budget to ensure that savings are curtailed, large savings within the grant/appropriation are controlled and anticipated savings are identified and surrendered within the specified time frame. Priority should be accorded to all cases of pending regularisation of excess expenditure over the budget provision," said CAG. Jaipur, July 12 : Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma on Friday approved land allotment to Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation Limited (RIICO) for setting up a new industrial area in Bhilwara district. According to the proposal, 99.72 hectares of land will be allotted in the village Mod Ka Nimbahera in Asind tehsil of Bhilwara district. This land will be allotted under Rajasthan Land Revenue (Industrial Area Allotment) Rules-1959. His decision will accelerate industrial development in Bhilwara district and will also create employment at the local level, said officials in the Chief Minister's Office. The state government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Sharma, is committed to employing the youth and promoting industries in the state, they said. Bhilwara, about 250 km away from the state capital Jaipur, contributes an estimated 30 per cent of textile production in the state and is one of the major textile hubs of the country. The textile industry in Bhilwara has more than Rs 20,000 crore annual turnover and employs over 1 lakh people. Bengaluru, July 12 : The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Karnataka government to probe the irregularities in the tribal welfare Board, seized a Lamborghini worth Rs 3.3 crore in Hyderabad, purchased by Satyanarayana Varma, a key accused in the case. The SIT sleuths tracking the money trail from the Board to fake accounts, found that Satyanarayana Varma, who had been arrested in the case, had paid Rs 3.3 crore to the luxury car dealer. The SIT sleuths traced and seized the car and returned it to the dealer. They also recovered the money, sources said. According to sources, Satyanarayana Varma, who is named as accused number 13, had made allegations against the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in a submission before the court. He alleged that the CID was protecting the culprits and the officers were under pressure. Satyanarayana Varma also told the court that after his arrest the authorities did not inform his family for four days. He further requested the court to allow him to make a statement before it confidentially, in the absence of CID officers. The submission was made when the CID produced him in court, sources revealed. State BJP President, BY Vijayendra, had stated that Satyanarayana Varma had told the court that he was being threatened by the close aides of former Minister Nagendra. "It is a serious charge. However the SIT has not dared to question former minister Nagendra to date," Vijayendra claimed. The irregularities had come to light following the suicide of the Boardas senior officer Chandrasekaran, who left a note referring to the role of a minister. At present, SIT, CBI and ED are probing the case and the ED arrested former minister B. Nagendra on Friday morning. New Delhi, July 12 : June 25, the day when the Emergency was imposed on the nation by the Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's regime in 1975, will now be observed as the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas', every year. Union Home Minister Amit Shah made the announcement on X handle and also shared the gazette notification. "The Government of India has declared June 25th as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas to pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power, in future," read the govt notification. Notably, it was on June 25, 1975, that the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorship, decimated democracy and imposed a national emergency. The nearly two-year period saw lakhs of being put behind bars and the voice of the media silenced. The Home Minister said that the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency. "The observance of 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will help keep the eternal flame of individual freedom and the defence of our democracy alive in every Indian. Thus preventing dictatorial forces like the Congress from repeating those horrors," the Home Minister said. Bengaluru, July 12 : Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar on Friday said that he held discussions with legal experts on releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said, "We have had discussions with our legal team, including legal experts Anil Dewan and Katharaki, on the future course of action, and we will soon discuss with the officials of the Irrigation department." "From July 12 to July 31, Karnataka, as a member state, must ensure the release of accumulated water from Biligundlu at a rate of 1 TMC per day (approximately 11,500 cubic feet per second) from its reservoirs," Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) said. Karnataka had submitted that from June 1 to July 9, 2024, Karnataka's four reservoirs have accumulated an internal flow of 41.651 TMC. The deficit in accumulated internal flow in Karnataka's four reservoirs is 28.71 per cent. The collection in Karnataka's four reservoirs is 58.668 TMC and Tamil Nadu has 24.705 TMC in its three reservoirs. Karnataka had requested CWRC to wait until July 25 before giving the order. Tamil Nadu had submitted that in the previous water year, Karnataka did not release water from February 2024 to May 2024. The situation was normal in the relevant water year, and Karnataka received normal internal flow. Therefore, as directed by the Supreme Court, Karnataka must ensure a specified flow at Biligundlu as per the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT) order. New Delhi, July 12 : Hours after the Supreme Court ordered Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to be released on interim bail in the ED's money laundering case, a court here on Friday extended, till July 25, his judicial custody in the corruption case lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the alleged liquor policy scam. Special Judge Kaveri Baweja of the Rouse Avenue Court passed the order upon the expiry of the previously granted judicial custody. Further, the court directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to supply a copy of the prosecution complaint to CM Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Last week, taking cognisance of ED's complaint, Judge Baweja issued a production warrant for CM Kejriwal for July 12. The federal anti-money laundering agency, on May 17, had filed its eighth charge sheet before the special court, formally naming AAP and its national convenor Kejriwal as accused. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court ordered CM Kejriwal to be released on interim bail, referring his plea against his arrest and subsequent remand by the ED to a larger bench for an authoritative pronouncement on the questions of law involved. However, he will not be able to step out of jail because of his custody in the CBI case. His petitions seeking bail and challenging his arrest by CBI are pending before the Delhi High Court. New Delhi, July 12 : Indian Railways has recorded a 59.6 million tons increase in its coal loading during the financial year 2023-24 to reach a record 787.58 million tons from the corresponding figure of 727.98 million tons in 2022-23, according to figures released by the Ministry of Railways. The ministry also informed that in FY 2023-24, the revenue generated was Rs 86,838.35 crore. The growth in Indian Railways has continued into the current financial year with a total freight loading of 135.46 million tons in June this year which represents a robust 10.07 per cent increase over the corresponding figure of 123.06 million tonnes in the same month last year. Domestic coal accounted for 60.27 million tonnes of this total freight while imported coal was 8.82 million tonnes. "Indian Railways has also recorded an impressive growth in track renewal with 13.8 per cent increase in FY 2023-24 in comparison to the previous year, contributing to improved efficiency and safety," according to a ministry statement. In the Financial Year (FY) 2022-2023, the railways renewed 5,227 track kilometres (TKM). In the Financial Year 2023-2024, it renewed 5950 track TKM. Mumbai, July 12 : Hollywood stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum's latest release is "Fly Me To The Moon" and the two have talked about their roles in the film, which is directed by Greg Berlanti. Mumbai, July 12 (IANS) Hollywood stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum's latest release is "Fly Me To The Moon" and the two have talked about their roles in the film, which is directed by Greg Berlanti. "Fly Me To The Moon" tells a love story between Kelly and Cole while also addressing the highs and lows of the Apollo mission to the Moon. Speaking about Channing's character, Johansson shared, "I don't think Cole really understands what Kelly has to offer the project." The actress added that Tatum's character is a very pragmatic person and sees her as an obstacle. "The process of how this project is funded, what kind of support it needs, how he has to play along - it's just not at all in his vocabulary. He just does not understand her purpose there at all. She's the secret weapon he doesn't know he needs to win." Tatum shared that his character is much more concerned with what is real and doesn't have time in his life for what he feels to be the silliness of public relations. "She's just the last thing that he thought he was gonna have to deal with," said Tatum. Tatum added: "Kelly comes in like a hurricane and, in his mind, she wrecks everything and creates more problems than solutions - when really, she's the linchpin to the whole thing." "Fly Me To The Moon" is a set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA's public image, Kelly Jones (Johansson) wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis's (Tatum) already difficult task. The film also features Nick Dillenburg, Anna Garcia, Jim Rash, Noah Robbins, Colin Woodell, Christian Zuber, Donald Elise Watkins, Ray Romano, and Woody Harrelson. Tokyo, July 12 : A US Air Force member in Japan's island prefecture of Okinawa pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of allegedly kidnapping a girl under the age of 16 and committing nonconsensual sexual intercourse in December last year, local media reported. At his first hearing at the Naha District Court, Brennon Washington, 25, said, "I'm not guilty," asserting he is innocent of the charges, Kyodo News said. The case came to light in late June, around three months after his indictment, as local police decided not to disclose the incident. The decision has inflamed strong and long-existing opposition to the US military presence in the prefecture, reported Xinhua news agency. According to the indictment dated March 27, the US serviceman allegedly invited the girl to speak to him in his car at a park in the village of Yomitan on December 24, 2023, and drove her to his residence before committing indecent acts such as kissing and touching the lower half of the girl's body with the knowledge that she was under 16. Washington was handed over to Japanese authorities following the indictment but was released after posting bail and is currently in US custody, according to the Okinawa prefectural government. Just days after Washington's case came to light, it was revealed that a US Marine had been arrested in May on suspicion of attempted rape resulting in injury. The case was also not made public by the police at the time, citing the victim's privacy. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was aware of the two incidents but refrained from providing the information to the Okinawa prefectural government, taking the police's decision into account, the report said. In the wake of the revelations of these sex crimes involving US military personnel, the Japanese government earlier this month reviewed information-sharing arrangements with local governments, vowing to notify municipalities of any crimes allegedly committed by US military members "without exception," the report added. Okinawa hosts 70 percent of all the US military bases in Japan while accounting for only 0.6 percent of the country's total land area. Crimes committed by US service members and nonmilitary personnel have been a constant source of grievance for locals. The rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa schoolgirl by three US servicemen in 1995 prompted a wave of public outrage. Other cases include the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016 by a former US base worker who was later sentenced to life in prison, according to Kyodo News. Seoul, July 12 : South Korea strongly protested Friday after Japan restated its territorial claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as the foreign and defence ministries called in senior officials at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to lodge a complaint. The move came as the Japanese government adopted the 2024 defence white paper at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day, in which it reiterated the argument that Takeshima, the Japanese name for Dokdo, is part of its own territory and the issue over the territorial claims to the set of outcroppings "still remains unresolved", reports Xinhua news agency. Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the two neighbours, as Tokyo continues to make the sovereignty claims in its policy papers, public statements and school textbooks. South Korea maintains a small police detachment on the islets, effectively controlling them. Kim Sang-hoon, Director General for Asian and Pacific Affairs, called in Taisuke Mibae, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to protest against Tokyo continuing to make false claims about Dokdo. Earlier in the day, the Defence Ministry summoned a defence attache from the embassy to protest Japan's move and called for the immediate correction and future prevention of such actions. "We strongly protest against Japan's unjust claims to Dokdo, which is clearly our inherent territory historically, geographically and by international law, and we urge Japan to retract the statement immediately," Lim Soo-suk, foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a commentary. South Korea will take stern action against any action by Japan in relation to Dokdo and Tokyo's claims to the islets do little to change the fact that it belongs to South Korea, Lim said. Lim added that Japan also should realise that its Dokdo claims do not help efforts to move bilateral relations forward in a future-oriented manner. Last month, South Korea's Foreign Ministry dismissed Japan's protest over South Korea's routine maritime survey around the rocky islets. Bengaluru, July 12 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that the state government has decided to appeal to the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) against the order of the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) to release 1 TMC of water per day to Tamil Nadu. "Despite weather forecasts indicating normal rainfall this time, there has been a 28 per cent deficiency in inflow so far. We had clearly stated our position to the CWRC and requested that no decision be made until the end of July," Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said while addressing a press conference after holding a meeting with ministers and senior officials at the Home Office Krishna. The Chief Minister said that a decision on the state's next steps will be taken at an all-party meeting on July 14. "We are united on the water issue in Karnataka that is why we have called an all-party meeting," the Chief Minister said. He said that all the Central ministers, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members from the Cauvery basin, and MLAs will also be invited to the meeting. The CWRC has directed Karnataka to release 1 TMC of water per day starting from July 12. "It was decided in today's meeting that the state government should appeal this order to the CWMA," the Chief Minister said. He also mentioned that while measuring at Biligundlu, the amount of water equivalent to the inflow into the Kabini Dam is being released to Tamil Nadu. "Only 60 TMC of water is available in all four reservoirs of the Cauvery basin. We have to provide water for agricultural activities as well. Considering the shortage of rainfall, we have requested to wait until the end of July," the Chief Minister said. New Delhi, July 12 : The Supreme Court on Friday asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to take a call on stepping down from his post. "We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the Chief Minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. We have also referred to the allegations. While we do not give any direction, since we are doubtful whether the court can direct an elected leader to step down or not function as the Chief Minister or as a Minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to take a call," said a bench, headed by Justice Sanjeev Khanna, pronouncing its verdict on plea filed by CM Kejriwal challenging his arrest and subsequent remand by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the money laundering case linked to alleged liquor policy scam. Referring the matter to a larger bench, the 2-judge bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, said: "Larger bench, if deemed appropriate, can frame question(s) and decide the conditions that can be imposed by the court in such cases." The apex court said that CM Kejriwal may be released on interim bail, given the fact that the right to life and liberty is sacrosanct, and he has suffered incarceration of over 90 days, and that the legal questions involved in the matter require in-depth consideration by a larger bench. If released on interim bail, CM Kejriwal will not visit his office or the Delhi Secretariat, the apex court said, adding that he will not sign official files unless it is required and necessary for obtaining clearance/approval of the Lt Governor of Delhi. "He will not make any comment with regard to his role in the present case, and he will not interact with any of the witnesses and/or have access to any official files connected with the case," it said. As per the SC order, CM Kejriwal will have to furnish a Rs 50,000 bail bond with a surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the Jail Superintendent. The bench also clarified that the interim bail may be extended, or recalled by the larger bench. However, CM Kejriwal will not be able to step out of jail since he was arrested by the CBI on June 26. His distinct petitions seeking bail and challenging his arrest by CBI are pending before the Delhi High Court. Meanwhile, a Delhi court on Friday extended, till July 25, his judicial custody in connection with the corruption case lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Special Judge Kaveri Baweja of the Rouse Avenue Court passed the order upon the expiry of the previously granted judicial custody. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a speacial meeting of the European Council at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, May 30, 2022. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong/IANS). Image Source: IANS News Budapest, July 12 : The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) must focus on winning peace rather than engaging in wars, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said on his social media, posting from Washington, where he attended a major NATO summit earlier this week, reports Xinhua news agency. "NATO was established 75 years ago to protect the security of its members. However, it now seems to be moving away from its original goal, increasingly behaving like a war organisation," Orban said in a video posted on his official Facebook page. This shift is demonstrated in NATO's increasingly active role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he said. "We believe this is dangerous -- even irresponsible, because no one can see where this will lead or where we will end up." Orban reiterated Hungary's position on NATO's Ukraine mission. "I reaffirm today that we will continue not to participate in NATO's Ukraine mission, but will fully meet our obligations to develop Hungarian defensive capabilities." Jaipur, July 12 : After resigning from the post of Rajasthan Agriculture Minister, veteran BJP leader Kirodi Lal Meena will not be attending the Assembly for the entire Budget Session. On Friday, the Vidhan Sabha gave permission to Kirodi Lal Meena to remain absent from the House for the entire Budget Session. As soon as the Question Hour ended on Friday, the Speaker conducted voting on permission for Kirodi Lal Meena to remain absent from the House for the entire session, which was approved by voice vote. It is worth mentioning that if any MLA does not come to the House during the session, he has to inform the Speaker in writing. The Speaker then conducts voting in the House and asks for opinions, and then the MLA is exempted from the meetings of the House. It needs to be mentioned here that Kirodi Lal Meena has tendered his resignation and has also had a meeting with BJP National President JP Nadda in this context. However, a decision on his resignation is still pending. Baghdad, July 12 : Two Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in the eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi military said on Friday. Acting on intelligence reports, an army force backed by armed villagers clashed with the two militants in an orchard in a village in Diyala province and killed them, according to a statement from the Security Media Cell, a media outlet affiliated with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command, reports Xinhua news agency. One of the IS militants was wearing an explosive belt and the troops defused it after his death, the statement said. According to the intelligence reports, one of the two militants was Abu al-Harith, a local IS leader in the Khan Bani Saad area south of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, the statement added. The security situation in Iraq has improved since the defeat of the IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have sneaked into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. Jaipur, July 12 : Rajasthan BJP President C.P. Joshi on Friday said that over 8,000 workers will attend the party's Working Committee meeting in the JECC auditorium in Sitapura, Jaipur on July 13. "8000 workers including Panchayat Raj public representatives, civic public representatives, MPs, MLAs, ministers, Chief Minister and state officials will participate in the Working Committee meeting. Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and BJP National General Secretary Dushyant Gautam will also mark their presence on behalf of the Central government in the meeting," Joshi said while addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in Jaipur. He said that during the meeting two sessions will be held in which the upcoming roadmap for the party will be discussed. On the Rajasthan Budget, Joshi said that the full-time budget 2024-2025 presented by Bhajan Lal's government has realised the vision of a developed Rajasthan. "Keeping in mind the all-round and holistic development of every section of the state, work has already been started for implementing budget announcements," Joshi said. Srinagar, July 12 : J&K Police said on Friday that it has busted a human trafficking racket in the Baramulla district and rescued four minor girls. "The human trafficking module was operating in Ushkura in Baramulla. Investigations have revealed that Shakeel Ahmad Bhat, a resident of Ushkura, was involved in the trafficking and exploitation of minor girls," the police said in a statement. "After raiding the accused's residential house, we recovered three minor victim girls who are from Rohingya, Burma. The search was conducted in the presence of magistrate and lady police officials," the police said. The police said that during interrogation, Shakeel confessed to selling one girl to Mehraj Ahmad Tantray, a resident of Kanli Bagh in Baramulla town. "A subsequent raid at Tantray's house led to the recovery of another victim, a minor girl from Rohingya Burma. We have arrested both Shakeel Ahmad Bhat and Mehraj Ahmad Tantray. Police said that a case FIR No. 173/2024 under relevant sections of law has been registered. Police added that further investigation is going on to apprehend others involved in this human trafficking racket. --IANS sq/dan New Delhi, July 12 : The Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Friday used his social media account to appeal in favour of BJP leader and former Union Minister Smriti Irani. Taking to X, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi urged trolls to refrain from spewing demeaning and derogatory remarks against her. LoP Rahul Gandhi's attempt to quell slurs against the BJP leader came on the back of hate that Smriti Irani was subjected to, allegedly by Congress supporters, after losing Lok Sabha elections from Amethi and vacating her official bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi, last week. "Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter," said LoP Rahul Gandhi on his X handle. In a further message to the trolls, LoP Rahul Gandhi said that humiliating and insulting people was a sign of weakness and not strength. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi by around 55,000 votes from Amethi Lok Sabha constituency and earned the tag of 'giant slayer' while in the just-concluded 2024 polls, she lost the seat to Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma by about 1.6 lakh votes. The defeat of Smriti Irani by a relatively unknown Congress candidate sent party workers into a frenzied mode with many mocking the former and calling it a "humiliating" and "shameful" loss for her. However, the LoP's post didn't win any favour with the BJP as the party's IT cell incharge slammed him and called it the 'most disingenuous' attempt to discredit her. "After unleashing Congress leaders, like a pack of wolves, on the woman who defeated him in Amethi and smashed his arrogance to smithereens, this is rich," Amit Malviya said. He also added that such 'gibberish' talk by the Congress leader won't take away from the fact that it was because of Smriti Irani that the 'Balak buddhi' was forced to jettison Amethi Lok Sabha seat. -- IANS mr/rad Mumbai, July 12 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee voiced concerns over the "stability" of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA 3.0 at the Centre and hinted that it may not last long in power, here on Friday. Mumbai, July 12 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee voiced concerns over the "stability" of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA 3.0 at the Centre and hinted that it may not last long in power, here on Friday. "This (Central) government is not stable is not strong. It may not continue also My best wishes to them," the Chief Minister said in a brief media interaction. To a query, the Chief Minister said that during the last Lok Sabha elections, in one particular constituency in the city (Mumbai North West), the winning margin was only 48 votes. "They have done like this in many other areas otherwise this time (2024) they would not have come (to office), I am sure of that" the Chief Minister said. She was speaking after meeting Shiv Sena (UBT) President and former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his wife Rashmi and their sons Aditya and Tejas, at their Bandra home 'Matoshri'. Thackeray, who described her as 'my sister', said this was a family visit and urged the media to keep politics out of it, but promised "we shall hold a separate press conference on all this." This was Mamata Banerjee's first meeting with Thackeray after the Lok Sabha elections, and she is slated to call on Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar later this evening. She is also likely to meet Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav and other leaders who are expected to attend the wedding of the Ambani family tonight. Mamata Banerjee is known to enjoy a close personal rapport with Pawar Sr. and Thackeray and makes it a point to meet them whenever she visits Maharashtra. Jammu, July 12 : An in-depth review of security arrangements in the mountainous districts of Jammu and Kashmir's (J&K) Jammu division has revealed that all the mountain tops have remained without permanent deployment of security forces giving the advantage of 'hit and run' to terrorists. It is these rugged, heavily-foliaged and densely-forested areas that have been used by the terrorists to withdraw into and disappear after carrying out attacks on the Army, security forces and civilians. At a top-level meeting held on Thursday in New Delhi, the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Home Affairs, decided to deploy Army and CRPF personnel on the higher reaches of all the districts in Jammu division to destroy hideouts and fight terrorists sheltering in the forested areas. The revival of tourism, education, investment and the return of a modicum of normal life was visible in the record-breaking numbers in which the people participated in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Irrespective of who won or lost the elections, the biggest victor was democracy as the people of J&K reaffirmed their faith in the country's democratic edifice. The peaceful Lok Sabha polls have set the ball rolling for Assembly elections in J&K where an elected government has not been in power since 2018. The process of updating electoral rolls, meetings with all the 20 District Election Officers by the EC and other formalities are being completed at a fast pace. It is most likely that before the year-end J&K would have its elected Assembly in place. This seems to have rattled the enemies of peace and of the people of J&K. Forces lying across the border, who have been watching and bemoaning the undermining of their own democratic institutions, appear to be hell-bent upon trying to subvert the present peace and its fructification into a government run by the representatives of the people. However, in order to ensure that the present terrorist violence is prevented from spilling over to the relatively-peaceful Valley, an elaborate security plan is being implemented by the Indian government and security forces. "Groups of terrorists operating in Rajouri, Poonch, Reasi, Kathua and other adjoining areas in Jammu division will soon be neutralised. "They will be picked out and eliminated and the martyrdom of every Army soldier, policeman, paramilitary jawan and the civilians will be avenged. "They (terrorists) are here to get their burial ground", said a determined DGP J&K, RR Swain. He is one of those police officers who don't believe in mincing words. "Terrorism cannot be finished unless its shelters, camouflages and sympathisers are tackled under the law of the land. If you don't allow others to live in peace, we won't allow you to live in peace. This message has to go down loud and clear. "Making sacrifices is nothing new either to our great Army or to the security forces and the local police. But, by making sacrifices alone you don't end terrorism. "You have to make the cost of sustaining and supporting terrorism too high for its perpetrators. Those who believe in killing people cannot be allowed to live a free life", said the police chief. Intelligence agencies believe that the terrorist handlers operating from across the Line of Control (LoC) have decided to give violence their last push. "All the so-called sleeper cells, overground workers (OGWs), who had been asked to lie low have been activated and attempts to push in trained mercenaries have already started. "The terror attacks carried out in Jammu region have a clear message. The terrorists have been asked to target innocent civilians and pilgrims to stoke communal tension in Jammu region so that the terrorists get more and more sympathisers in places where a wedge is planned to be created among communities. "Terrorists, most of them foreign mercenaries and ex-convicts, have been asked to selectively choose their targets among the Army and the local police so that these forces remain engaged in anti-terrorist operations while loosening their grip on providing a peaceful environment to economy, industry and education in the Valley", a top Intelligence officer said. The choosing of the rugged mountainous terrain of Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi, Doda and Kathua Districts of Jammu region has two advantages in the eyes of the Pakistan-based handlers of terrorism. "First and most important, the terrorists want to show their presence in areas hitherto believed to be peaceful and where the focus of the security agencies was less sharp than on the Valley. "Terrorists engaged in the mountainous districts of Jammu division are foreign terrorists, who are familiar with such areas and can withdraw into the thickly-forested areas close to the site of their surprise attacks. "Second, these terrorists have influenced some locals through money, by invoking religious affinity or by appealing to the minority instinct of the population in the Jammu region or simply by threatening them, to act as eyes and ears for them. "There is no doubt that all the terror attacks carried out in Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi or Kathua District had some local elements involved that provided shelter, logistics and also did recce for the terrorists. "From the June 9 attack on Hindu pilgrims in Reasi District to the recent July 8 ambush of Army vehicles in Badnota Village of Kathua in which five soldiers were killed and five others injured, the presence of local sympathisers by way of guides and facilitators has been established", said the Intelligence officer. Given the determination and will of the Army, security forces and the local police as collectively expressed by the J&K DGP, RR Swain, no terror ecosystem can sustain for long given its inherent anti-people and anti-peace agenda. Islamabad, July 12 : In a massive victory for former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday announced that the PTI is entitled for the proportionate allocation of reserved seats of minorities and women. A 13-member full bench read out the judgment - a split verdict with eight in favour and 5 against - declaring the decision of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Peshawar High Court (PHC) of allocating reserved seats to the ruling coalition as unconstitutional. "The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was a political party and remains a political party," the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, said in its order. It stated that PTI candidates can neither be declared as independent candidates, nor representative of any party. The court order stated that at least 39 candidates, as per their submission before the ECP, could be established as PTI candidates. It also directed the remaining 41 candidates to submit their candidacy within 15 days. The directive is also coupled with instructions to PTI to submit its list of reserved candidates within days to the Pakistan Election Commission (PEC). The case of allocation of reserved seats had taken a pivotal turn after the Supreme Court's decision in January earlier this year. PTI's party symbol 'bat' and was taken away and the party was found at fault for not conducting its intra-party elections as the SC ruled in favour of the ECP. The January 13 decision forced PTI candidates to contest the General Elections in February as independent candidates with different symbols allocated to each of them by the ECP. The PTI-backed independent candidates performed beyond expectations in the polls, bagging at least 80 seats in the lower house (National Assembly). Later, the independent candidates joined another political party Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) which had not contested the elections. SIC eventually gained prominence after the joining of PTI-backed candidates. However, when the issue of proportionate allocation of reserved seats came to light, ECP decided against giving any seats to SIC and allowed other elected political parties in the parliament to distribute the reserved seats amongst themselves under the formula of proportionality. As per Article 51 of the Constitution of Pakistan, "there shall be 342 seats for members in the National Assembly, including reserved seats for women and non-Muslims". The reserved seats matter pertains to at least 60 seats for women and at least 10 seats for non-Muslims. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) maintained that it should also be included in the list of political parties being allocated reserved seats in the parliament. It challenged the ECP decision but the Peshawar High Court (PHC) allowed the SIC's share to be distributed among other political parties. However, the Supreme Court observed in its judgment that the ECP misinterpreted its decision on intra-party elections by PTI. The decision of ECP to deny SIC any share on reserved seats of non-Muslims and minorities, along with the judgment of PHC that ruled in favour of ECP, was also set aside and suspended by the Supreme Court. The apex court decision on Friday has practically revived PTI as a major political party in the parliament and has also made it eligible to claim proportional share in the reserved seats. The decision is being seen as a massive success for PTI in view of the challenges it faced before February elections. The PTI leadership celebrated the decision with party workers chanting 'release Imran Khan' slogans outside the Supreme Court building. "I congratulate the whole of Pakistan for today's victory. This decision by the Supreme Court has ensured the rights of the people and their support for Imran Khan and PTI," said PTI chairman Gohar Khan. On the other hand, political party Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which was joined by PTI-backed independent candidates after the elections, was declared ineligible to be given reserved seats. "The SIC did not even contest the election and nor did it win even a single seat in the provincial or the National Assembly. The party's constitution does not accept non-Muslims and barred them from joining the party. SIC also never submitted its list of reserve seat candidates before the ECP, said senior political analyst Javed Siddique. The government took a serious note of the judgment of the Supreme Court, stating that the decision is not in line with the constitution and that it has been done to facilitate a particular party (PTI). "PTI did not bring this case to the Supreme Court, Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) did. PTI did not even claim the reserved seats, SIC did. PTI was not even a contesting party in the case. Yet, the decision today mentioned and brought PTI back in the parliament," said Rana Sanaullah, Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Political Affairs. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the Supreme Court verdict poses zero challenge to the ruling government. "PML-N led coalition government has a clear majority despite the Supreme Court of Pakistan verdict on PTI and its ally SIC's reserved seats," he said. On the other hand, the victory is huge for PTI as it has brought the party back into the parliament under its own name and without any dependency on any other political party like the SIC. The decision is also significant because it gives PTI its due proportional share in the 70 reserved seats. "This victory is also huge for the PTI... Now the Shehbaz Sharif government, which is so dependent on its coalition partners, will have a tough time ahead in every step it takes - from getting bills passed or legislations approved. Challenging times lie ahead of Shehbaz Sharif," said Siddique. Hyderabad, July 12 : Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection (HYDRA), a new entity to be formed in line with the proposed geographical expansion of Greater Hyderabad up to the Outer Ring Road, will manage an area of 2,000 square kilometres. The government of Telangana proposes to transfer some of the powers of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to HYDRA. Powers of removal of unauthorised hoardings, flexes and collection of penalties are proposed to be transferred from GHMC to HYDRA. At a review meeting with officials on Friday, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy suggested that HYDRA should be entrusted with the responsibility of the management of the area up to Outer Ring Road (ORR). He asked officials to ensure the police station limits and the assembly constituency limits come under the same zone in the zonal division. The Chief Minister also suggested a study to bring stringent rules to curb the encroachment of nalas, ponds and government lands. He also wanted officials to ensure coordination between the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), Hyderabad Water Works, Disaster Management and Municipal departments regularly. The Chief Minister said HYDRA should be developed as a strong system. He asked officials to consider special allocations, if necessary, to HYDRA. He directed officials to formulate complete modalities and guidelines before the start of the Assembly session. Earlier this month, he had asked the civic and urban development officials to chart out the course for reconstitution of the existing Enforcement, Vigilance and Disaster Management (EV&DM) wing of the GHMC. He wanted modalities to be worked out for bringing in 27 municipalities/corporations and 33 village panchayats around the GHMC into the purview of HYDRA. A DIG-rank officer will be the director of HYDRA while SP-rank officials will be appointed as additional directors. The HYDRA will have specially deputed teams from GHMC, HMDA, Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB), city traffic police and other departments. The proposed entity will not only work during floods and other disasters but will also protect lakes, ponds, water-bodies and government land in the 2,000 square kilometres area. HYDRA is also likely to be entrusted with responsibilities like attending to emergencies relating to drinking water pipelines, drainage lines and power distribution lines and regulation of traffic. Manila, July 12 : Over three million international tourists have visited the Philippines since January this year, according to the Philippines' Department of Tourism (DOT) data. Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said tourism revenue from January to June reached 282.17 billion Pesos (about 4.83 billion US dollars), 32.81 percent higher than the earnings recorded in the same period last year. As of July 10, Frasco said the Philippines welcomed 3,173,694 inbound tourists. Of the tourist arrivals, she said 92.55 percent, or 2,937,293, were foreign tourists while the remaining 7.45 percent, or 236,401, were overseas Filipinos. South Korea remains the Philippines' top source of foreign tourists, with 824,798, or 25.99 percent of the total number of visitors entering the country, reports Xinhua news agency. The United States came second with 522,667 (16.47 percent), followed by China with 199,939 (6.30 percent), Japan with 188,805 (5.95 percent), and Australia with 137,391 (4.33 percent). The Philippines aims to welcome 7.7 million international visitors this year. In 2023, over five million international visitors entered the country. Mumbai, July 12 : AICC General Secretary, Ramesh Chennithala, on Friday called upon party workers not to get complacent after the recent victory in the Lok Sabha elections and work even harder for the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls. Making some blunt remarks, he said that though Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and Congress have got very good results in the LS polls, "the next battle for the Assembly is not going to be an easy one." "The Congress has emerged as the biggest party in the state now. But we still have to work aggressively for the forthcoming Assembly elections. Don't become slack and start working hard from today itself," exhorted Chennithala. Holding a review meeting of the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress, Chennithala said that the role of the youth wing was crucial to strengthen the party organisation at all levels. "The Youth Congress has a long tradition and a major responsibility in elections. They shoulder the work of the party including the field work and door-to-door campaigns to bring the voters to the polling stations. Barely 90 days are left for the Assembly elections and they must become active right away," he urged the young brigade. This would include holding meetings in the six divisions, district, block, panchayat and booth-level in the state, planning campaigns and programmes to convey the party's ideology to the masses. Contending that the ordinary people are with the MVA and there are clear indicators that they want change, he said this "will require a struggle as victory won't be easy." He also assured that the demands of the youth to give them more representation or field new faces in the Assembly elections would be considered, with the chief criteria being the winning potential of each candidate. "Now, PM Narendra Modi's acceptance is waning while Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's popularity is soaring. If the Congress flag is hoisted in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana, it will shake the Delhi throne," declared Chennithala. Besides Chennithala, top party leaders like Indian Youth Congress President, BV Srinivas, State Youth Congress chief Kunal Raut, state General Secretary Brij Dutt, Krishna Allavaru, Siddharth Hattiambire, Shrikrishna Sangle, MP Chandrakant Handore and others also attended or spoke at the detailed review. Kolkata, July 12 : Congratulating the Adani Group for their commitment and perseverance for developing a world-class port in Kerala, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, said that the performance of Vizhinjam Port will set a new benchmark, helping position the country on the top of the global maritime map. Minister Sonowal officially welcomed the first mothership at the Vizhinjam Port on Friday, in the presence of Karan Adani, Managing Director, Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ), Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other dignitaries. "Vizhinjam International Seaport is India's first deep-sea international container transhipment terminal. I would also like to congratulate APSEZ for their valuable contribution towards creating a modern port infrastructure, enabling reduction of logistics costs, saving of transit time and reducing our dependence on foreign transhipment ports," said the minister. "This port project demonstrates how a successful Public Private Partnership between the Centre, the private sector and the State can unleash the tremendous potential of our maritime sector," Sonowal added. The minister pointed to how the Vizhinjam port is strategically located close to the international EXIM Trade lanes. "Its deep draught facility will offer many operational benefits to the users that will help in positioning the port as a preferred destination for the shipping lines and EXIM traders," he said. "I am sure that the Port's capability to service mega-size container vessels, with other services that it offers, will provide stiff competition to existing transhipment hubs like Colombo and Singapore. I look forward to a positive shift of international transhipment cargo from Colombo and Singapore to this Port at Vizhinjam," the minister noted. "In the emerging geo-political scenario, impacting maritime trade, this Port will offer a viable alternative and an option to the major shipping lines to mitigate disruptions in the global supply chain," Sonowal said. With the arrival of the first mother ship, Adani Group's Vizhinjam Port has catapulted India into the world port business as globally this port will rank 6th or 7th. The second and third phase of the project is planned to be completed in 2028 and will be one of the greenest ports in the world. "I congratulate the Adani Group for their commitment and perseverance to attain this remarkable feat of developing such an excellent port in Kerala. I am confident that the performance of the Vizhinjam International Seaport will set a new benchmark at par with the best in the world and help position the country on the top of the global maritime map," the minister emphasised. By 2028-29, when all four phases of this project are completed, the Kerala government and Adani Vizhinjam Port will have invested a total of Rs 20,000 crore in this outstanding example of a large-scale PPP project. Gurugram, July 12 : A crime branch team of the Gurugram Police on Friday arrested four accused with a haul of over 97 kilos of ganja worth over Rs 10 lakh, from Sohna-Tauru Road, police said. The arrested culprits were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at Sohna City Police Station, police said. The arrested accused have been identified as Anil Sharma, Sahil Ahmed, Anish and Zuber. The suspects were arrested by a team of the crime unit of Sohna in Gurugram after they received a tip-off. The police said the suspects were in the city to sell narcotics. During questioning the accused disclosed that they had sourced the narcotics from Rajasthan for Rs 9.70 lakh for potential customers in Faridabad. They wanted to sell it for a high margin in the market. The police have also recovered two cars which were used for transporting the illegal contraband. "Four cases of NDPS were registered against Anil in Delhi and Faridabad. We are checking the other criminal record," said Sandeep Kumar, Spokesperson of the Gurugram Police. Patna July 12 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday approved 48 proposals during a Cabinet meeting in Patna and allocated a budget of Rs 1,032 crore to achieve these various programs. Dearness allowance of the state government employees has been increased by 9 per cent while 400 new buses have been approved for the Transport Department for inter-district travel. For sewage workers, the government has approved a compensation of Rs 30 lakh in the case of death, while working. The Cabinet has also allocated an additional Rs 702 crore for metro projects in Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Darbhanga, and Bhagalpur cities in Bihar. It has also been decided to develop new industrial areas in 31 districts, with model industrial zones in Arwal, Jamui, Kaimur, Saran, Sheohar, Sheikhpura and Banka. The Cabinet also decided to build E-rickshaw stands in district headquarters and Patna to ensure smooth traffic flow. During the meeting, the Chief Minister was joined by Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha, along with other departmental ministers and officials. New Delhi, July 12 : In a significant clampdown on cybercrime and fraudulent acts in the digital world, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Friday suspended as many as 24,228 mobile connections, with immediate effect. These 24,228 mobile connections were found to be linked with 42 unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and suspected of repeated fraudulent activity. These 42 IMEI numbers were linked with three mobile numbers. The DoT said that telecom service providers have been directed to block the IMEI numbers on a pan-India basis. The DoT crackdown came after complaints by 'good Samaritans' who lodged complaints of cyber fraud on the government portal - Chaksu. The cyber fraudsters were reportedly misusing these mobile numbers for cybercrime and other fraudulent activities. Notably, Chakshu is an online service by the DoT, which facilitates citizens to report suspected fraud communications. Users can register their complaints on the sancharsaathi.gov.in portal about impersonation or any misuse of services through phone call, SMS or WhatsApp. Launched in March, the service triggers the re-verification of suspected fraudulent numbers. If the numbers fail re-verification, it gets disconnected. The IMEI number is a unique 15-digit serial number for identification of particular mobile handsets. Every phone has a unique IMEI number. Lately, the linkage of IMEI with hundreds of numbers has emerged as a worrying trend. Bhubaneswar, July 12 : Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi held discussions with the experts from various sectors during a pre-budget preparatory meeting here on Friday. The Chief Minister who also holds the Finance Department portfolio is going to present a full-fledged budget for the 2024-25 financial year on July 25. "Our government has been giving due weightage to the views of common people from the very beginning as a people's government. The budget for 2024-25 financial years is scheduled to be presented before the assembly on July 25," the Chief Minister told media persons. "The efforts are on so that our budget would actually be a people's budget reflecting the hopes and aspirations of all. For this, we have sought opinions via online, and WhatsApp and it's heartening to learn that many people have participated in this. Over 12,000 people have submitted their opinions online which is around six times more than previous years," he added. He said that more than 150 experts and persons having vast experience in economic and other fields were present during the pre-budget preparatory meeting held on Friday. "The dignitaries included economists, former finance ministers and secretaries and people from different sections of the society expressed their opinions and suggestions on the budget during the meeting. As many as 26 out of them have also submitted written proposals during the meeting. The proposals and opinions have been noted by the finance department," added the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister also said that his government will try to include valuable suggestions and proposals in the coming budget. Deputy CMs KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida, former finance ministers Prafulla Ghadai, Panchanan Kanungo, Shashi Bhusan Behera, the regional director of Reserve Bank of India and the general manager of National Bank for Agriculture and Development (NABARD) participated in the meeting. UAE-based operator group e& said it will continue to fight against a half a billion dollar fine for anti-competitive practices in Morrocco. The operator group said in a statement that it expressed disappointment upon learning the decision from the Court of Appeals. But will pursue all legal avenues to appeal against the decision and protect its local unit Maroc Telecom, which e& has a 53% stake in. Maroc Telecom now has to pay MAD6.4 billion (US$645 million) to rival Wana Corporate. Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Alzaabi, e& Group Chairman, warned a challenging regulatory environment negatively affects the future outlook of our investments in Morocco." Hatem Dowidar, e& Group CEO, bemoaned the repeated setbacks caused by regulatory penalties in Morocco, claiming Maroc Telecoms ability to compete was being limited. Maroc Telecom paid over MAD12 billion (US$1.2 billion) in penalties in the last few years. Moscow, July 12 : A Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane, with three crew members on board, crashed in the Moscow Region on Friday while on a test flight, officials said. The plane crashed in the Kolomna district, southeast of Moscow and emergency services were dispatched to the accident site, local authorities said, RT reported. As per videos on social media, a plume of smoke was seen rising from the apparent crash scene. Others showed ambulance and firefighter crews rushing to the area. A helicopter could also be seen hovering nearby. The Russian Emergencies Ministry said that the plane fell in a forested area. "There were three crew members on the plane. According to preliminary information, they all died. There are no casualties among the population," it said. The plane, which belonged to Russian gas giant Gazprom, was undergoing repairs and had taken off as part of a test flight, officials said. Russiaas Federal Air Transport Agency said that the incident would be investigated by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) operating under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes several post-Soviet republics. Russian experts will also be involved, it added. A regional jet designed by Russian aircraft company Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a division of the United Aircraft Corporation, the Sukhoi Superjet's development began in 2000, and it made its maiden flight in May 2008 and its first commercial flight in April 2011. It has a capacity of around 100 people. However, the operations of most of the aircraft in service with various Russian operators have been hampered by a shortage of spare parts due to the Western sanctions. The aircraft has been involved in several crashes. The most recent one occurred in 2019 at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, when a flight to the northern city of Murmansk, returning after being struck by lightning, crash-landed at the airport and caught fire, leaving 41 of the total passengers dead. Mumbai, July 12 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concerns over the "stability" of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA 3.0 government at the Centre and hinted that it may not last long in power, here on Friday. Mumbai, July 12 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concerns over the "stability" of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA 3.0 government at the Centre and hinted that it may not last long in power, here on Friday. "This (Central) government is not stable is not strong. It may not continue also My best wishes to them," said Banerjee in a brief media interaction. She was in Mumbai for a two-day visit when she individually called on Shiv Sena (UBT) President and former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and later Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar at their homes. To a query, Mamata Banerjee said that during the last Lok Sabha elections, in one particular constituency in the city (referring to Mumbai North West), the winning margin was only 48 votes. "They have done like this in many other areas otherwise this time (2024) they would not have come (to office), I am sure of that" she said. Her first port of call was at the Thackeray family's Bandra home 'Matoshri', where she also exchanged pleasantries with Uddhav's wife Rashmi Thackeray and their sons Aditya, MLA and Tejas, a naturalist. Thackeray, who described her as 'my sister', said this was a family visit and urged the media to keep politics out of it, but promised that "we shall hold a separate press conference and brief you on all this." Later, Mamata Banerjee went to meet Pawar at his south Mumbai residence where NCP (SP) Working President Supriya Sule was also present, though details of what transpired among them were not immediately available. This was Mamata Banerjee's first meeting with both Thackeray and Pawar in Mumbai after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and she is likely to meet Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav and other leaders who are expected to attend the wedding in the Ambani family tonight. She is known to enjoy a close personal rapport with Pawar Sr. and Thackeray all constituents of the Opposition INDIA bloc - and makes it a point to meet them whenever she comes to Maharashtra. Seoul, July 12 : South Korea's Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit and discussed the two nations' alliance and ways to jointly deal with growing cooperation between North Korea and Russia, Cho's office said Friday. Cho and Blinken held talks in Washington on Thursday (US time) to discuss the latest outcome of the summit between President Yoon Suk Yeol and US President Joe Biden, and ways to enhance bilateral nuclear cooperation and the allies' coordinated response to the Pyongyang-Moscow ties, according to Seoul's foreign ministry. In particular, they assessed that a joint declaration adopted after the summit affirmed Yoon and Biden's commitment to strongly respond to "illegal cooperation" between North Korea and Russia, it added, according to Yonhap news agency. On Thursday, Yoon held a bilateral meeting with Biden and adopted a statement on updating the guidelines for the Nuclear Consultative Group, which outlines the allies' planning and coordination of a joint nuclear response in case of North Korea's nuclear attacks. Cho and Blinken also agreed to maintain close coordination between Seoul and Washington, as well as among South Korea, the United States and Japan, to send a powerful message condemning the North-Russia cooperation and North Korea's provocations at upcoming meetings of foreign ministers involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to be held in Laos later this month. They also discussed facilitating communications between the two countries' high-level officials, according to the ministry. Hyderabad, July 12 : Another MLA of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Friday joined the Congress, taking to eight the number of BRS MLAs who defected to the ruling party since the Assembly elections the previous year. Prakash Goud, the MLA from Rajendranagar constituency in Greater Hyderabad, joined the Congress in the presence of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy at the latteras residence on Friday night. His followers also joined the ruling party. Revenue Minister P. Srinivas Reddy, MLC Mahender Reddy and others were present. Earlier, Goud had announced after a visit to Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh that he had decided to join the Congress. He is the eighth BRS MLA to switch loyalties since Congress came to power in the state in December 2023. Goud, along with fellow BRS MLA Arekapudi Gandhi, had met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu during his visit to Hyderabad last week. As Naidu is planning to revive the TDP in Telangana, this meeting had sparked speculations that they will defect to the TDP. However, both the MLAs denied any such plans. Goud on Friday said Chandrababu Naidu was his political guru and that he was happy that Naidu has become Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister once again. Goud had called on Revanth Reddy early this year amid reports that he was planning to join Congress. However, his joining was delayed due to some reasons. Elected from Rajendranagar constituency on a TDP ticket in 2009, Goud was re-elected in 2014 but later joined the TRS (now BRS). In the Assembly elections held in November 2023, he was elected from the constituency on a BRS ticket for a fourth consecutive term. With the latest defection, the BRS tally in the 119-member Assembly has come down to 30. It had bagged 39 seats in the election but lost the Secunderabad Cantonment seat to Congress in the by-election held in May. The tally of the Congress has gone up to 73. The BRS also lost six MLCs and several senior leaders to Congress during the last seven months. Meanwhile, D. Nagender, one of the BRS MLAs who joined the Congress before the Lok Sabha elections, has claimed that the BRS Legislature Party will soon merge with the Congress Legislature Party. The former minister said that only four MLAs, including BRS President K. Chandrasekhar Rao, his son K.T. Rama Rao and nephew Harish Rao will remain in the BRS. Bengaluru : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah performs yoga during a programme on the occasion of International Day of Yoga. Image Source: IANS News Bengaluru, July 12 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that he is being targeted regarding the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land case as he hails from a backward class. "I am being targeted as I hail from the backward class. The agitation against me is political but I am capable of countering it," the Chief Minister said. The MUDA controversy is primarily over the purchase, de-notification, gifting, encroachment, and awarding of sites in connection with 3.16 acres of land owned by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife B.M. Parvathi. The BJP has alleged a loss of about Rs 4,000 crore to the government by alleged fraudulent allotments. MUDA timeline: The controversial 3.16 acres of land in the name of CM's wife originally belonged to one J. Devaraju family. MUDA began land acquisition allegedly in 1992. It was de-notified in 1998. The said land was sold by J. Devaraju and family via a sale deed dated August 8, 2004, to Mallikarjuna Swamy, brother-in-law of Siddaramaiah, who was then Deputy Chief Minister in Congress and JD-S coalition government. The land was converted for residential purposes through the conversion order on July 15, 2005, as sought by Mallikarjuna Swamy. The gift deed executed by her brother B.M. Mallikarjunaswamy on October 6, 2010, in the name of Parvathi. Siddaramaiah was Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly then. The land developed by the MUDA, into a residential layout, namely the Devanur Badavane 3rd Stage carving out residential sites and forming roads etc and 19 developed sites were distributed in 2014. In 2014 a petition was submitted to MUDA regarding encroachment and seeking compensation by the Chief Minister's wife. In 2020, the MUDA passed a resolution on 50:50 formula pertaining to the development of the layout. The mere discussion in the meeting was passed as a resolution allegedly. 14 sites measuring 40x60 worth Rs 2 crore each in prime Vijayanagar allotted on Jan 5, 2022. Mysuru Deputy Commissioner K.V. Rajendra brought the issue to the notice of authorities in the Urban Development Department in February 2023. The Urban Development Department allegedly turned a "blind eye" to his letters and continued with the allotment of a bunch of sites to individuals "flouting" rules. Mysuru RTI activist Gangaraju exposed the alleged illegal allotments to Chief Minsiter's family; the Communist Party of India and other organisations protested. On July 1, 2024, the Karnataka government formed a committee headed by two IAS officers to probe the case. On July 7, 2024, social activist Snehamayi Krishna lodged a complaint with the Vijayanagar police station in Mysuru. The police "refused" to file a criminal complaint and forward the case to the committee. On July 11, 2024, T.J. Abraham lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for "concealing" the information regarding this particular 3.16 acres of land owned by his wife Parvathi in his Election Affidavit. Social activist Snehamayi Krishna made the charge that the original documents belonging to land owner Devaraju were forged. BJP demanded a CBI probe. State President B.Y. Vijayendra maintained that as per the law, the wife of the Chief Minister was supposed to get only 2 sites measuring 40x60. Instead, she is allotted 14 sites in a prime locality. He also stated the said land was acquired by MUDA before being purchased by Siddaramaiah's brother-in-law. How can he make the purchase of acquired land? Vijayendra had stated the RTC and the primary record of land ownership, exposes the scam. RIT activist Gangaraju, who exposed the case, maintained that Siddaramaiah introduced the 50:50 formula for developing the layout in 2014. Siddaramaiah has maintained that allotments are made during the tenure of the BJP government. After allotments, the BJP has claimed it to be a "scam". Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that his family never asked for sites at the prime localities. "We are ready to return them. The government should provide him Rs 62 crore instead," the Chief Minister said. Panaji, July 12 : Sunburn, Asia's Premier Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festival, has announced that its 18th edition will be held in South Goa between December 28 and 30. Last year, Sunburn faced many issues along with opposition from locals of the North district of the coastal state. Considering the opposition by locals, the Goa Tourism Department had refused to grant permission to the 'Sunburn Music Festival' on December 31. BJP MLA from the Siolim constituency, Delilah Lobo, had urged the government not to allow the 'Sunburn Festival' on December 31, stating that it will affect the business of local restaurants and traffic jams will deter people from attending the midnight mass. Hence later the music festival was held from December 28 to 30. Karan Singh, CEO of Sunburn, on Friday said: "We are excited to embark on the next chapter of the most loved festival at a new venue that promises an unparalleled experience. Our vision is to elevate the bar each year and ensure we offer a memorable experience each year, and we cannot wait for people to experience the magic of South Goa along with us, this time." He said that they are looking forward to welcoming fans from all over the world to live, love and dance again in the stunning paradise of the grand scenic landscape of Goa. "We are committed to creating the largest, most immersive and mesmerising Sunburn festival experience yet," he said. He said that this year, the theme will bring to life unimaginable production and aesthetics that will transform the festival into a surreal sea of sounds where the boundaries of reality are blurred by the extravagance of music and the wonder of the waters. Mumbai, July 12 : The ruling MahaYuti, which comprises BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, on Friday won nine seats while the Congress and Shiv Sena-UBT bagged one each seat in the biennial elections to the 11 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. The Peasants and Workers Party legislator Jayant Patil, who was supported by NCP-SP, lost the election. The MahaYuti succeeded in getting additional votes due to a split in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) as at least 10 legislators reportedly cross-voted. The MVA failed to repeat its winning performance in the Lok Sabha elections during the council elections while the MahaYuti succeeded in wiping out its low-key performance in the general elections by winning nine seats by mobilising adequate votes. MahaYuti thus outsmarted the MVA. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde claimed that Friday's performance marks the beginning of MahaYuti's victory in the upcoming Assembly election slated for September-October. As many as 274 Assembly members cast their votes in Friday's voting. The quota per seat was 23 votes. BJP's elected nominees included former minister Pankaja Munde (26), former minister of state Parinay Fuke (26), former minister of state Sadabhau Khot (23), former state youth wing chief Yogesh Tilekar (26) and party functionary Amit Gorkhe (26). Shiv Sena nominees comprising former MPs Krupal Tumane (25) and Bhavana Gawli (24) emerged victorious. NCP nominees Rajesh Vitekar (23) and Shivajirao Garje (24) also won. Congress nominee Pradnya Satav managed to win despite cross-voting. The Shiv Sena UBT nominee Milind Narvekar also won by getting 24 votes with the support of party legislators and backing from the Congress party. PWP legislator Jayant Patil polled 12 votes from NCP-SP. The MahaYuti, which bagged 17 seats against MVA's 31 in the Lok Sabha elections, put up a show of unity and succeeded in shoring up more votes than its total strength. The BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP had done exhaustive planning to avoid a split among their votes. The NCP in particular took extra efforts to avoid cross-voting despite reports that few legislators were in touch with the Sharad Pawar-led NCP-SP. The Congress despite strong warning from the party high command failed to keep its flock together. Of the Samajwadi Partyas two legislators, one has reportedly cast his vote to Narvekar while another to NCP. On the other hand, AIMIM's two legislators have reportedly cast their votes in favour of Shiv Sena. The party-wise strength in the Assembly is BJP 103 MLAs, Shiv Sena 37 (support from 10 Independents), NCP 40, Congress 37, Shiv Sena-UBT 16, NCP-SP 12, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi 3, Samajwadi Party 2, AIMIM 2, Parihar Janshakti Party 2, MNS 1, PWP 1, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha 1, CMP 1, Krantikari Shetkari Party 1, Swabhimani Paksha 1, Jan Surajya Shakti 1 and Independents 13. Kochi, July 12 : Veteran American astronaut Steve Smith on Friday hailed Kerala's introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in the school syllabus and suggested aspiring space travellers to simplify life for stronger focus and perseverance. "True, scientific temper and engineering knowledge are essential for anyone looking forward to becoming a space flyer. Equally importantly, you need to develop soft skills that enable effective personal interaction," said Smith while addressing the media on the sidelines of the two-day International Conclave on Generative Artificial Intelligence. The event is being organised by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation in association with IBM. The 65-year-old Smith noted that an increasing interest in space science among countries has been particularly evident in the last decade during which the countries across the globe launched a total of 10,000 rockets. "We have 1,800 new companies in the field in the last ten years," added Smith, a veteran of four space flights covering 16 million miles besides seven spacewalks totaling close to 50 hours. He went on to add that the earth continues to be the most suitable planet for mankind. "Some may say it's time we found ways to re-settle people on Mars when the earth is getting 'overcrowded'. Not at all! This is still the best place for us to live. In any case, reaching Mars involves a travel of nine months; that way the Moon is an easier destination in three days. Such migrations may happen; but only millions of years later. Not in the next two centuries or so," added Smith. Smith said AI was unlikely to boost studies about demystifying UFOs. Space debris, he cited, can be of worry. "We have technologies that ensure their plunging into our oceans. Studies are on in NASA to enable their deflection to avert possible collisions with Earth," said Smith. London, July 12 : The European Commission on Friday informed Elon Musk-owned X social media platform that it is in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers. In a statement, the Commission said if its preliminary are confirmed, the Commission would adopt a non-compliance decision finding that X is in breach of the DSA. "Such a decision could entail fines of up to 6 per cent of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider, and order the provider to take measures to address the breach," said the Commission. The Commission can also impose periodic penalty payments to compel the X platform to comply. In a post on X, the tech billionaire alleged that the European Commission offered X "an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us". "The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not," alleged Musk. According to Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a 'Europe Fit for the Digital Age,' X doesn't comply with the DSA in key transparency areas. "It misleads users, fails to provide adequate ad repository and blocks access to data for researchers. It's the first time we issue preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act," she posted on X. The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation, she added Mumbai, July 12 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on the concluding day of the monsoon session on Friday slammed the opposition for blaming the state government for a flight of investments and the slow pace of development. The Chief Minister in his reply to the debate on the opposition's last week motion claimed that Maharashtra has regained its industry-friendly recognition and the state government has pushed the development with a resolve to become a $1 trillion economy. He countered the opposition's claim that Maharashtra has lost its favoured investment destination status by losing many investments to BJP-ruled states in particular. "Instead, in the last two years, the state has gained top position in attracting foreign direct investment by outpacing Gujarat and Karnataka. More industries have come that led to the creation of more jobs. Maharashtra has regained its recognition as an industry-friendly state. From July 2022 till date, 191 industries have been given a letter of approval. The state has received an investment of Rs 1.71 lakh crore which will create 1.20 lakh jobs," the Chief Minister said. He said that his government has considered Maharashtra as a family. "The MahaYuti government continuously planned many welfare schemes. In the last two years, our government has considered the interests of common citizens, farmers, workers, women, youth and senior citizens," the Chief Minister said. In a bid to counter the opposition's narrative of change in the Constitution set during the Lok Sabha elections, he announced the construction of 'Samvidhan Bhawan' on the lines of Babasaheb Ambedkar Social Justice Bhavan across the state. The Chief Minister with an eye on the upcoming state assembly elections made a slew of announcements to keep various sections in good humour. He announced the establishment of the Veerashaiva Kakkayya Economic Development Corporation and Maharana Pratap Economic Development Corporation. Besides, the government will provide Rs 250 crore for the development of the Shree Mata Mahakali Mandir Yatra Complex at Chandrapur. He said that the government has suspended the levy of a late fee of Rs 50 per day in case of delay in renewal of a certificate of competence of transport vehicles under 15 years of age. In addition, he announced the development of a new airport at Palghar. Amid ongoing protests from Maratha and OBC over the reservation, the Chief Minister accused the opposition of playing politics on this issue saying that the state government won't allow injustice on these communities. "The state government has given 10 per cent reservation to the Maratha community which is within the framework of the law and is sustainable. Since this decision was taken, candidates from the Maratha community have benefited in education and recruitment. Our government appointed 5000 surplus posts and recruitment of one lakh government posts were completed in two years," he said. The Chief Minister said that the government has launched the Chief Minister's Youth Work Training Scheme to train 10 lakh youth every year. "While providing reservation to the Maratha community, injustice will not be done on OBC and other communities. Reservation is not a matter of politics but it is an honest stand of the government to ensure that social harmony remains intact," the Chief Minister said. He also appealed to the Maratha and OBC communities not to succumb to dual speak of the opposition on the reservation issue. The Democratic Republic of the Congo recorded more mobile subscribers in 2023 with over half of the countrys large population now connected, reported Ecofin Agency. The Congolese Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority recorded 6.4 million more mobile subscribers in the whole of last year taking total number of connected from 49.8 million to 56.2 million, a rise of 12.8%. This equated to around 59.1% of the DRCs massive 95.2 million population, however the actual figure could be lower due to multiple SIM card usage, the regulator acknowledged. The government pushed initiatives to encourage the private sector to connect more citizens to mobile. An example being the partnership between the Congolese Fiber Optic Company and the Agency for Coordination and Monitoring of Collaboration Agreements, to install fibre optic cables along roads. By onboarding more citizens to mobile, the government aims to have more will tap into information from the internet and financial services, which has proven to be assets for the economies of African countries. But mobile money penetration only stood at 23.3%, and mobile internet penetration was 31.5%. Kolkata, July 12 : A 13-member delegation from Bangladesh completed a four-day tour of the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SMP) in Kolkata on Friday. The delegation, led by S M Mostafa Kamal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Shipping, Bangladesh, was here to explore the possibility of transhipment of EXIM cargo from and to their country through ports located along the eastern coast of India. SMP Kolkata has already held successful trials for the movement of cargo - both containers and dry bulk - to Bangladesh and northeast of the country through the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) route along the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hugli and Brahmaputra Rivers. "The delegation visited the ports of Haldia and Kolkata, in line with agreed minutes of the India-Bangladesh Shipping Secretaries Level Talks (SSLT) held in Dhaka in December 2023," an official said. He said that the delegation also met Rathendra Raman, Chairperson, SMP, Kolkata, and learnt of the present infrastructure at the Kolkata Dock System (KDS) and Haldia Dock Complex (HDC), to handle containerised cargo shipped from Bangladesh for third-country export. "Plans for future infrastructural development of the port facilities were also highlighted," a senior SMP Kolkata official said. He said that the discussions were held on the various trade facility advantages which exporters from Bangladesh would enjoy if they chose to tranship cargo through SMP Kolkata. "Not only are containers available easily, but the transit time is less when compared to other major ports along India's eastern seaboard. Allocation of dedicated vessels to ply between Bangladesh and India and provision for onward and return cargo to and from SMP Kolkata for optimisation of operational cost were some of the points that were discussed," the official said. He added that the Bangladeshi delegation was briefed about the direct transit facility, planned vessel movement between to and from Chittagong and Yangon, the introduction of night navigation facilities, presence of extended allied service facilities at SMP Kolkata in terms of CFS, strong presence of leading shipping lines, integrated road and rail transportation network and established custom facilities. "A cost comparative analysis was done to establish that shipment of export cargo from Chittagong to SMP Kolkata for shipment to other countries will be far more economical instead of shipment through trans-shipment ports like Colombo," he said. He said that the two-way plying of the vessels would further reduce the overall cost of transportation enabling a win-win trade proposition for both countries. The IBP route covers nearly all ports of call in Bangladesh, including Mongla, Narayanganj, Ashugunj. It was discussed how barges carrying fly-ash from India to Bangladesh along the IBP route could return with loaded containers. Joint Secretary Mostafa Kamal assured that meetings would be convened in Bangladesh with all stakeholders before a report is prepared and submitted to the country's shipping ministry. "The contents of the report will also be shared with India through diplomatic channels," he said. Chandigarh, July 12 : Harpreet Singh, brother of jailed radical Sikh preacher and Punjab's Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh who once ran an anti-drug campaign, along with his associate Lovepreet Singh was arrested by the Punjab Police in a drug case and their dope test was positive, officials said on Friday. Later, they were sent to a 14-day judicial custody, despite the demand for police custody. They were arrested by Jalandhar (Rural) Police from Phillaur town for carrying four grams of ice drug (methamphetamine). Another person Sandeep Arora, who is believed to be the supplier of the drug to them, was also arrested. Confirming the development, Senior Superintendent of Police Ankur Gupta told the media that an FIR has been lodged against the accused. "Three people identified as Lovepreet, Harpreet and Sandeep Arora have been arrested. They were arrested last (Thursday) night. Four grams of ice have been recovered," he said. He said that the dope test of Harpreet Singh, 33, and Lovepreet Singh was positive. The drug was purchased from Sandeep Arora, a Ludhiana-based alleged supplier of drugs. Both Harpreet Singh and Lovepreet Singh belong to Amritsar. The drug was recovered from them during the checking of the car in which the duo was travelling. A senior police official said both the accused were caught consuming drugs in the car. "A lighter, half-burnt Rs 20 note and foil papers being used by the accused for consuming drugs were recovered from the spot. The contraband was recovered from the pocket of Harpreet Singh," he said. Denying charges framed against his son, Amritpal's father Tarsem Singh has sought a fair probe into the allegations of drug abuse by his son Harpreet Singh. "This is a conspiracy against our family and supporters of Amritpal Singh. We had apprehended that the government could hatch a conspiracy to defame us. This is aimed at derailing the mission of Amritpal Singh of saving youngsters and creating hurdles in the release of the Bandi Singhs (Sikh prisoners who have been in jails for the past three decades or more)," he said. Amritpal Singh, who once gained attention for his anti-drug campaigns, has been detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in Assam's Dibrugarh jail. Last week, he along with Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid took the oath as Lok Sabha MPs after they were granted parole. Thirty-one-year-old Sikh radical Amritpal Singh, head of Waris Punjab De, won the Khadoor Sahib seat by 1,97,120 votes over his nearest rival, Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira. During election campaigning, parents and supporters of Amritpal Singh's had demanded his release from jail, highlighting his anti-drug crusade. They had questioned the government's decision to put Amritpal Singh behind bars, claiming he was just campaigning against drugs and organising Sikh initiation ceremonies. He was arrested from Moga's Rode village on April 23 last year after he and his supporters had barged into a police station breaking barricades, brandishing swords and weapons, and clashed with police personnel in an attempt to free one of his aides from custody. Rode is the native village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Amritpal Singh had tried to pose himself as Bhindranwale 2.0. Hyderabad, July 12 : Cyberabad Police, with the support of IT companies, on Friday launched an initiative 'Traffic Marshals' to facilitate the smooth traffic flow in Cyberabad, especially in the IT corridor. Hyderabad, July 12 (IANS) Cyberabad Police, with the support of IT companies, on Friday launched an initiative aTraffic Marshalsa to facilitate the smooth traffic flow in Cyberabad, especially in the IT corridor. The Society of Cyberabad Security Council (SCSC), along with Cyberabad Traffic Police, has taken the initiative with the support of various IT parks and IT/ITes companies. Cyberabad Police Commissioner, Avinash Mohanty, along with Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, D. Joel Davis, and SCSC Secretary General, Ramesh Kaza on Friday launched the first set of 83 traffic marshals in the IT corridor and other parts of Cyberabad. The initiative is aimed at providing congestion-free traffic flow in the IT hub of Cyberabad. The traffic marshals are paid by companies, and trained and deployed by the police department. They are deployed at key junctions to regulate traffic. Police said that the programme's objective is to ease the daily commute for citizens and ensure a safe and secure environment for industries to thrive. The traffic marshals are attached to different police stations of Cyberabad Traffic Police. Mohanty urged all companies to join hands with us in making Cyberabad's traffic flow smooth and efficient. "This is another example of Cyberabad Traffic Police and IT industry body SCSC working very closely and proactively for better regulation of traffic," he said. Davis stated that the programme is a testament to the power of public-private partnerships, and the traffic marshals are a full-time paid team, dedicated to traffic regulation and will be deployed near all important traffic bottlenecks. This will help the Cyberabad Traffic Police focus their time and efforts on enforcing traffic rules like signal jumping, wrong-side driving, helmetless driving etc. The traffic marshals have been provided with different sets of uniforms with the traffic marshal logo printed on it and a cap. They will work during the peak hours of traffic - 8 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. Rajesh Balaraju, Traffic forum leader designate, SCSC claimed that this is the first such initiative by the IT Industry, anywhere in the country. He said the number of traffic marshals is likely to reach 500 with the support of the industry. Raheja Mind Space responded to the request made to the industry and contributed with funding for 30 traffic marshals. Commitments from Phoenix, Sattva Group and other IT companies will see the deployment rise over the next few months. Patna, July 12 : At least 12 students were injured after a balcony of a two-storey private school building collapsed in Bihar's Madhepura district on Friday. The incident took place at the National DAV Public School in Udakishunganj block of the district. The conditions of three of the 12 injured students are stated to be critical. Local residents and police rescued the injured students and took them to a nearby private hospital for treatment. After initial treatment, some injured students were referred to Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Bhagalpur for better care. Udakishunganj's Block Education Officer (BEO) Nirmala Kumari visited the site and hospital. "The school is being operated in a building which previously a was sugar mill and was around 100 years old. Safety concerns over the building's age and condition were highlighted in the past. An investigation will be conducted, and actions will be taken against the school management," the BEO said. Bengaluru, July 12 : Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prahlad Joshi on Friday said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is "authoritarian" and demanded his resignation following the MUDA land case controversy. Bengaluru, July 12 (IANS) Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prahlad Joshi on Friday said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is "authoritarian" and demanded his resignation following the MUDA land case controversy. "In 1975, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a 'dictator'. In 2024, Siddaramaiah has become a dangerous 'dictator'. He is 'authoritarian', 'arrogant' and 'corrupt'. He got BJP workers arrested today. One day he may get arrested in the MUDA land case," Joshi said while talking to the media persons at the BJP headquarters. "What will Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who delivers a speech holding a copy of the Constitution, say about the MUDA case?" he said. He said that the Karnataka government has indulged in "corruption" and "scams". "The Chief Minister has no 'shame', 'honour', and 'dignity'. In 2023, he declared land value as Rs 8 crores and now he claims Rs 62 crores," he said. He said that if the Congress high command has any "command left", they should immediately oust Siddaramaiah from his position. He said that a direct investigation of the Chief Minister in the MUDA case is necessary. "Such large-scale corruption is not possible without his involvement. Mysuru is his hometown, and he is directly responsible for this case," he said. He said that in the MUDA land case, plots were sanctioned to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife on a 50:50 ratio basis. "Even though the land was located in Kesare Layout in the outskirts, his wife was given a plot in the prestigious Vijayanagar area," Joshi claimed. On the Valmiki Corporation case, the Union Minister said that while the ED and CBI are investigating former ministers, the Chairman of the corporation has surrendered to the SIT. "The Chief Minister, as the Finance Minister, is appropriately protecting the accused and is systematically working to safeguard them," he said. Srinagar, July 12 : The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday amended the J&K transaction of business rules bringing further subjects under the executive powers of the L-G. According to amendments made by the MHA, the proposals relating to the transfer of administrative secretaries and cadre posts of All India Service (AIS) officers shall be submitted to the L-G of J&K by the administrative secretary, General Administration Department through the Chief Secretary. "Provided also that in respect of matters connected with posting and transfer of Administrative Secretaries and cadre posts of All India Services officers, the proposal shall be submitted to the L-G by the Administrative Secretary, General Administration Department through the Chief Secretary," reads the notification issued by the MHA. The MHA further said the proposals requiring prior concurrence of the Finance Department on the matters over which the L-G has discretionary powers shall not be concurred or rejected unless it has been placed before the L-G through the Chief Secretary. "No proposal which requires previous concurrence of the Finance Department with regard to 'Police' 'Public Order', 'All India Service' and 'Anti-Corruption Bureau' to exercise the discretion of the L-G under the Act shall be concurred or rejected unless it has been placed before the Lieutenant Governor through the Chief Secretary," reads the notification. The MHA, as per amendments, said that the Department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs shall submit the proposal for the appointment of an Advocate-General and other law officers to assist the Advocate-General in the court proceedings, for approval of the L-G through the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister. It further said that the proposals regarding the Prisons, Directorate of Prosecution and Forensic Science Laboratory shall be submitted to the L-G by the administrative secretary, Home Department through the Chief Secretary. --IANS sq/dan Kolkata, July 12 : The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed a second post-mortem examination of the body of a youth from Dholahat in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, who died late on Monday allegedly due to torture while he was in police custody. A single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha said that the second post-mortem examination should be conducted in front of a judicial magistrate and victim Abu Siddik Halder's father and the entire process will have to be completed by Saturday. The state police were also directed to video record the entire process and preserve it. Justice Sinha said that the viscera report will have to be sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) at Hyderabad for further examinations. The court also directed the state police to ensure full security of the family members of the victim as well as the witnesses in the case following complaints that the witnesses were constantly receiving threatening calls. She directed the Superintendent of Sunderbans District Police under which Dholahat comes to ensure security. The matter will come up for hearing again on July 22. Halder died on July 8, just four days after he was released on bail by a district court in South 24 Parganas district. On Thursday, the victimas family members informed the court that they had to pay a bribe of Rs 1.75 lakh to police to ensure his bail. The victim was arrested by police on June 30 on charges of stealing jewellery. The family members alleged that he was beaten up in custody, which was evident from the injuries that were visible while he was presented before 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 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 further treatment. However, he died late on Monday night. Amaravati, July 12 : Former Additional Advocate General (AAG) Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy said registering of a murder case against former Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is a political vendetta. He alleged that the TDP government filed false cases against the former Chief Minister and several other officials with malicious intent and political vendetta. He said TDP MLA and former MP Raghu Rama Krishna Raju acted out of personal animosity. He recalled that on May 14, 2021, a case was filed against then MP Raghu Rama Krishna Raju, who was arrested in Hyderabad and brought to Guntur court. Raghu Rama Krishna Raju filed a complaint with the Guntur SP last month, alleging he was tortured in police custody. Based on this, the police registered a case against the former Chief Minister. Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy expressed surprise that the police responded a month after Raghu Rama Krishna Raju's complaint, suggesting that the case was filed to please someone and trouble someone else. Former AAG stated that there is no consistency between Raghu Rama's statement in Guntur court and his recent complaint. Raghu Rama had initially claimed before the magistrate three years ago that unidentified masked individuals tortured him in police custody. However, in his recent complaint, he mentioned senior IPS officers Sunil Kumar and Seetharamanjaneyulu and alleged that Y. S. Jagan watched the torture video. Former AAG questioned the validity of filing a case based on a complaint made three years later and asked how Jagan could be implicated. "The Supreme Court previously stated that examining witnesses after 77 days is invalid, so what happens if it's after three years?" he asked. Sudhakar Reddy clarified that they would face the case legally and judicially. He claimed that Raghu Rama was not tortured in police custody and that the same was reported to the Judiciary. Mumbai, July 12 : The Enforcement Directorate has slapped provisional attachment orders on the assets of various entities allegedly involved in a massive Income Tax refund scam of Rs. 263.95 crore, officials said here on Friday. The persons whose properties, bank accounts, insurance policies, bank deposits, etc. are attached include Purushottam Chavan, Rajesh Batreja, Anirudh Gandhi, Rajesh Shetty, and Bhushan A. Patil. The action comes under the PMLA for money laundering arising out of the IT refund frauds being probed by the ED's Mumbai Zonal Unit. The real assets comprise a flat, and plots of land in Lonavala-Khandala twin hill stations in Pune district. Following a CBI FIR, the ED initiated investigations against Tanaji Mandal Adhikari and others for fraudulently generating and issuance of TDS refunds from the Income Tax Department to the tune of Rs 263.95 crore. The probe revealed that Batreja helped Adhikari and others in diverting Proceeds of Crime (PoC) of Rs 55.50 Crore outside India with the help of Gandhi. Subsequent to the diversion of the funds, Batreja with the help of some other persons in Dubai, parked the proceeds of crime outside India. Part of the concealed amount was further invested in the two Indian companies based in Mumbai and Gurugram under the guise of share investment by making cross-border remittances. Initially, Batreja had repatriated a small part of the money, totalling around Rs 1.70 crore. Later, instead of bringing back the remaining concealed amounts, Batreja connived with Chavan to divert and dilute the ill-gotten wealth. They have also concealed some of the proceeds of crime in India and abroad with help from the Dubai-based persons, as per the ED probe. Earlier, Adhikari, Patil, Shetty, Batreja and Chavan were arrested by the ED and presently, all 5 are under judicial custody. The Prosecution Complaint was also filed on September 11, 2023, against Adhikari and 10 others, cognisance of which has also been taken by the Special (PMLA) Court here. Including the latest attachment, the ED has seized/attached immovable/movable properties in the case amounting to around Rs 182 crore, and further investigation is under progress. Guwahati, July 12 : Days after the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was removed for the construction of a clock tower in Assam's Doomdooma town in Tinsukia district, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said he was unaware of the incident. Assam Chief Minister, reacting to a post by Mahatma's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, said on X: "I am not aware of this decision taken by the district administration. Let me verify the facts. Assam owes much to Mahatma Gandhi." "He stood firmly with Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi when the Congress party led by Nehru wanted to include Assam in Pakistan under the Grouping Plan," Sarma said. Tagging a newspaper clipping, Tushar Gandhi in his post on the X said: "Not surprising that the BJP government in Assam decided to replace Bapu's statue with a clock tower. Their slavish colonial hangover persists." The issue of replacing the Mahatma Gandhi's statue, which is over 64-year-old, has mounted into major controversy with opposition Congress recently staged protest while local people and various organisations are also annoyed by the district administrations' decision. Officials said that the statue was recently removed as part of the Doom Doom's development project which included building a clock tower and replacing the old statue with another statue. The 5.5 feet tall Mahatma Gandhi statue was installed in town during the chairmanship of Late Ram Bachan Singh in 1960, it was a town committee that now has become a Municipal Board. Officials in the board said that the statue was then brought from Gujarat. "Part of the statue including the spectacles were damaged over the years. The face of the statue was facing the old AT Raad which is no longer the entry point of Doom Dooma town," the official said. After the huge controversy, Doomdooma BJP MLA Rupesh Gowala assured them that a new and taller statue (6.5 feet) of Mahatma Gandhi would be erected at the same site. "The old statue was in a dilapidated condition and the new one would be installed within six months, along with beautification of the site," Gowala told the media. Lakhimpur MP Pradan Baruah laid the foundation stone of the Doom Doom's development project before the recent Lok Sabha election, but the actual work has not yet started. When the contractor of the project began the work recently, former Doomdooma MLA and Congress leader Durga Bhumij along with party workers arrived at the site and strongly opposed the removal of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. "The BJP never paid due respect to Gandhiji. Instead, it always gave respect to Nathuram Godse," the Congress said. "At a time when Gandhiji's statue was set up in as many as 80 countries around the world, the Board is going to build a clock tower by removing the statue of the Father of the Nation. The board should take the opinion of the public before taking this scheme," the Congress leader had told the media. Wildlife managers at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are considering killing one or more wolves to help stop recurring attacks on livestock by members of the Couse wolf pack in Asotin County. The agency is also mulling nonlethal measures. Last week, a ranch hand shot and killed a male wolf that was chasing cattle near Anatone. The shooting followed multiple wolf attacks on cattle since late June, including one that killed a steer. The pack roams the canyons and timber ridges connecting the Blue Mountains to the Snake and Grande Ronde rivers. New Delhi, July 12 : A prayer meeting was held on Friday in memory of renowned journalist and former group editor of 'Hindustan', Ajay Upadhyay, who passed away on July 6 in Varanasi. The meeting for the peace of the departed soul was held at the Deputy Speaker Hall of the Constitution Club of India in Delhi. During the prayer meeting, attended by his friends and colleagues, Upadhyay was fondly remembered as a mentor, scholar, philosopher, thinker, and guide. BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi spoke of Upadhyay's profound intellect and described him as a diligent and erudite journalist with extensive knowledge across various fields. Trivedi paid tribute to their two-decade association, highlighting Upadhyay's exceptional passion for reading, which distinguished him among his peers. He also recalled receiving an advanced physics book from Upadhyay, underscoring his deep understanding of science and diverse interests. Trivedi also noted that Ajay Upadhyay turned to audiobooks when his eyesight had some issues, demonstrating his relentless pursuit of knowledge. The prayer meeting brought together a diverse group including prominent journalists, literary figures, artists, businessmen and members of Upadhyay's family. It served as a poignant reminder of Upadhyay's significant contributions to journalism and his enduring influence as a learned professional. Other speakers including senior journalist Satish K. Singh and JIMMC Director N.R. Mohanty shared personal anecdotes about their association with Upadhyay. Singh recalled him as a mentor whose expertise spanned every field. Mohanty described him as a journalist of deep knowledge, known for his insightful solutions to every problem brought before him. Upadhyay, who passed away on July 6 in Varanasi due to cardiac arrest at the age of 66, was cremated the following day at Harishchandra Ghat in Varanasi. He was widely recognised for his profound knowledge of diverse subjects and earned a reputation as an intellectual stalwart. Upadhyay held prominent editorial positions in several national newspapers and notably served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Hindi daily 'Hindustan' for a significant tenure. Originally from Onia village in Uttar Pradeshas Sant Kabir Nagar district, Upadhyay spent his formative years in Varanasi where he received his education before settling in Delhi. He made significant contributions to journalism at 'Hindustan', 'Dainik Jagran', and 'Amar Ujala', where his colleagues admired his exceptional editorial skills. He is known for his scholarly approach, determination, and courteous demeanour in journalistic circles. London, July 13 : Novak Djokovic moved to within one win of capturing a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon title on Friday when he ended 25th seed Lorenzo Musetti's dream run and set up a revenge match with defending champions Carlos Alcaraz in the final. London, July 13 (IANS) Novak Djokovic moved to within one win of capturing a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon title on Friday when he ended 25th seed Lorenzo Musettias dream run and set up a revenge match with defending champions Carlos Alcaraz in the final. The Serbian second seed earned a 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-4 win against the 22-year-old Italian in the semifinal and will now meet Alcaraz in a blockbuster rematch of last yearas final that the Spaniard won in a five-set epic. Alcaraz had earlier reached the final with a 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over Daniil Medvedev of Russia in a rematch of their last year's semifinal. In a hard-fought clash on Friday, Djokovic locked in at crucial moments, repelling Musettias court craft with impressive defence and consistency. The Italian fended off three match points from 0/40, 3-5 in the third set before Djokovic saved one break point to serve out and reach his 10th Wimbledon final after two hours and 48 minutes. If the 37-year-old Serbian wins a record-extending 25th major on Sunday, he will become the oldest champion in Wimbledon history. Djokovic, who leads Alcaraz 3-2 in the pairas Lexus ATP Head2Head series, will be eager to avenge that defeat and draw level with Roger Federer on a record eight Wimbledon crowns. Sanaa, July 13 : The US-British naval coalition launched three airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi-controlled Hodeidah airport, the media reported. Residents described the explosions in the facility as powerful, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday. The coalition has made no comment on the strikes yet. The airport has been shut off since the Houthi group seized control of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah along with several other northern cities in late 2014. On Thursday, the US Central Command said on social media platform X that its forces destroyed five Houthi unmanned boats and three bomb-laden drones in the Red Sea. The Houthi group 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. Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday that his group had so far targeted "a total of 166 ships linked to Israel, the US, and Britain". In response, the US-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi military 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. Gaza, July 13 : Four workers with a relief organisation were killed in an Israeli bombing on the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security and medical sources said. Israeli aircraft bombed with at least one missile a warehouse belonging to the Hamas-run social development authorities in the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, security sources told Xinhua news agency. A group of workers affiliated with the British charity Al-Khair Foundation were working to distribute aids to the residents of that area before the place was targeted, the sources added, as reported by Xinhua news agency. There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incident. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday that it continues to operate in the central and southern Gaza Strip. Israel launched 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 around 250 were taken hostage The Gaza-based health authorities said on Thursday that the Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza has risen to 38,345. Port Gentil Airport, Port Gentil, Gabon [ POG / FOOG ] If you are planning to travel to Port Gentil or any other city in Gabon, this airport locator will be a very useful tool. This page gives complete information about the Port Gentil Airport along with the airport location map, Time Zone, lattitude and longitude, Current time and date, hotels near the airport etc... Port Gentil Airport Map showing the location of this airport in Gabon. Port Gentil Airport IATA Code, ICAO Code, exchange rate etc... is also provided. 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IATA Code and ICAO Code of all airports in Gabon. Scroll down to know more about Port Gentil Airport or Port Gentil Airport, Gabon. Port Gentil Airport Map - Location of Port Gentil Airport Load Map Gabon - General Information Country Formal Name Gabonese Republic Country Code GA Capital Libreville Currency Franc (XAF) 1 XAF = 0.002 USD 1 USD = 588.883 XAF 1 XAF = 0.002 EUR 1 EUR = 655.957 XAF More XAF convertion rates Tel Code +241 Top Level Domain .ga This page provides all the information you need to know about Port Gentil Airport, Gabon. This page is created with the aim of helping travelers and tourists visiting Gabon or traveling to Port Gentil Airport. Details about Port Gentil Airport given here include Port Gentil Airport Code - IATA Code (3 letter airport codes) and ICAO Code (4 letter airport codes) Coordinates of Port Gentil Airport - Latitude and Longitude (Lat and Long) of Port Gentil Airport Location of Port Gentil Airport - City Name, Country, Country Codes etc... Port Gentil Airport Time Zone and Current time at Port Gentil Airport Address and contact details of Port Gentil Airport along with website address of the airport Clickable Location Map of Port Gentil Airport on Google Map. General information about Gabon where Port Gentil Airport is located in the city of Port Gentil. General information include capital of Gabon, currency and conversion rate of Gabon currency, Telephone Country code, exchange rate against US Dollar and Euro in case of major world currencies etc... POG - Port Gentil Airport IATA Code and FOOG - Port Gentil Airport ICAO code Childrens author, illustrator, animator, and designer James Proimos, known for his quirky picture books and boldly hued cartoon characters, died July 8 following an illness. He was 66. James Proimos was born January 24, 1958, in New York City. He attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan before embarking on a career in advertising. For 20 years he worked as a copywriter and art director in cities around the country, earning several industry awards including the Clio, Addy, and One-Show. In the late 1990s, Proimoss ad work had become more focused on animated commercials and promotional characters and included co-creating a popular campaign for fast-food chain Taco Bell, which featured spokesbuddies Nacho (a cat) and Dog. Around this time, Proimos had also devised ways to expand his ideas to other media and saw his first picture books published: Joes Wish, about a grandfather who reconsiders his wish to be young again (Harcourt, 1998), and The Loudness of Sam, featuring an exuberantly noisy kid (Harcourt, 1999). Another of Proimoss characters, eight-year-old rock star Molly O!, was developed into the animated musical comedy show Generation O! which aired on the Kids WB from 20002001. While working on that program, Proimos hired Suzanne Collins as head writer. It was during this collaboration that Proimos encouraged Collins to try her hand at writing childrens books. She took the advice and in 2003, Gregor the Overlander, first in her bestselling Underland Chronicles series, was published by Scholastic. Collins later dedicated her novel The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) to Proimos. The longtime friends would additionally team up for Collinss autobiographical picture book Year of the Jungle, illustrated by Proimos, in 2013. Proimos continued to move between books, TV, and film throughout his career, and launched Patricia von Pleasantsquirrel Pictures in Los Angeles in the mid 2000s and later cofounded production company Shiny Pear in Baltimore to bring other creators work to life as well. In a 2005 interview with Kidscreen, Proimos shared why he preferred to use books as his springboard for adaptation. Every other medium Ive worked ineven though the audience is the samehas a totally different set of rules of operation, he said. With books, its easier to just sort of do what I do. A troupe of memorable figures steadily paraded through Proimoss catalog of more than 20 childrens books, including The Many Adventures of Johnny Mutton (Harcourt, 2001), Patricia von Pleasantsquirrel (Dial, 2009), Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace (Little, Brown, 2009), and Mac & Cheese (Holt, 2016). In 2011 he ventured down yet another new path with his lone YA novel, Twelve Things to Do Before You Crash and Burn (Roaring Brook). Proimos illustrated texts by other authors, including his son, James Proimos III, who wrote graphic novels Apocalypse Bow Wow and Apocalypse Meow Meow (both Bloomsbury, 2015), and he also collaborated with other illustrators, among them Johanna Wright (The Best Bike Ride Ever, Dial, 2012). Freelance editor Karen Grove, who edited Proimoss earliest books when she was with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, said, From the moment I met James, I knew he was a force to be reckoned with. He had a vibrant energy, wild imagination, and boisterous sense of middle-grade humor. I fondly remember laughing with him on the phone as we worked on The Loudness of Sam and Johnny Mutton, sending his characters in every imaginable direction as tears slid down my face. What amazed me the most about his work was he never failed to draw out the warmth and love in each and every hysterical situation. The world will be a quieter place without James in it, yet my memories of strolling the streets of Baltimore with Jim at my side are fixed in my heart. Rest in peace, dear friend. Proimoss agent, Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio, paid tribute: Author/illustrators like James Proimos dont come along every day. He was an outlier. One needs only to have a look at his books to see his unique view of the world reflected in the sensibilities and characters that inhabit his stories and the signature art that brings them to visual life. Whether it is Johnny Mutton, a sheep who refuses to follow the herd; or The Loudness of Sam, in which parents revel in their childs heard and not just seen approach to life; or Joes Wish, in which old Joe Capri wishes for youth, only to find his true wish is to be old again and have a lot more days with his grandson, James stood true to his collection of poems that If (He) Were in Charge, the Rules Would Be Different. Honestly, I do wish he were in charge, and I do wish he had a lot more days. He was a good man with a big heart who ended every email with Love, James. David Levithan, VP, publisher, and editorial director at Scholastic, offered this remembrance. When Suzanne Collins called me one day and said, I have an idea for a picture book, but I can only do it if there was no real need for her to finish the sentence. I knew it would conclude Jim does the illustrations. I wish I could take credit for what resulted, but if Im being honest, most of my job on Year of the Jungle involved watching two great friends having a great time creating a great book. Id long been a fan of Jims work, which is clever and hilarious and wise in that rare way that hits the brain and the funny bone at the same time. And I knew of the great camaraderie between Jim and Suzanne. But still, what a joy to see it all come together, with their mutual agent, Rosemary Stimola, proudly cheerleading us along. Is there anything better than working with old friends on new things? Im not sure there is. Jim brought art to friendship, and friendship to art. Who could ask for anything more? And author Suzanne Collins said, Jim was a dear friendkind, funny, with a truly unique view of the world, which you see reflected in his delightful body of work. We met in TV, but it was his encouragement that led me to give books a try. Getting to collaborate with him on Year of the Jungle was a gift; his art perfectly captured the complexity of that story and made its telling possible. I will miss him always. Information in this article has been updated. What was regarded as a major victory for freedom to read advocates is once again in doubt after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 3 vacated a three-judge panel's June 6 opinion in Little v. Llano County, with the case now set to be reheard en banc by the full court. The move comes after a three-judge panel in June delivered a 2-1 decision largely upholding Judge Robert Pitman's preliminary injunction ordering eight library returned to library shelves. The majority opinion, authored by Judge Jacques L. Wiener, held that the district court came to the "reasonable conclusion" that library officials, who claimed that the book removals were simply part of a weeding exercise, were in fact prompted by a handful of patron complaints. The opinion called Llano County's "alternative explanations" for the books being removed "pretextual" and affirmed Pitman's conclusion that a librarian "weeded" the books in question "because she was told to by those who disagreed with their message," which "is not a valid reason to remove a book." That decision prompted a fiery, strangely reasoned dissent by ultra-conservative justice Stuart Kyle Duncan, who called the majority opinion a "trainwreck" and argued that libraries decisions are government speech and thus outside the reach of the plaintiffs' First Amendment claims. Notably, it took the initial three-judge panel a full year to return a decision on the appeal the first time around, a delay that puzzled court-watchers given the fairly straightforward facts of the case. Under the new schedule, Llano County officials now have until August 2 to file a new brief, with the appellee's response due September 3. Oral argument is tentatively set for the week of September 23. As we reported in Publishers Weekly, the American Library Association annual conference exceeded its goals for attendance, drawing more than 13,500 to San Diego. Now, the ALA faces two pressing tasks. The first is filling the vacancy for president-elect, after Ray Pun announced he would not be able to assume the role due to health reasons. As reported in American Libraries, under ALA bylaws the ALA council will appoint and confirm a new president-elect by the end of the month. In addition, ALA is looking to hire a new executive director. In her remarks at ALA, interim ED Leslie Burger said the association is on track to have that done by fall. Also, congratulations to Cindy Hohl, whose term as ALA president began with her inauguration at ALA in San Diego. In Idaho, local affiliate KHQ News reports that the state's new harmful to minors law is forcing libraries to change their policies. "Despite opposition from the Idaho Library Association, the law went into effect on July 1 and allows any parent, guardian or child to sue a library for damages if they are found to have circulated 'obscene' or 'homosexual' media," the report states. It's hard to see how this law won't soon be challenged in court. From the Mountain West News Bureau, a new study finds that schools and libraries are seeing unprecedented attempts to pull so-called controversial books off the shelves: "Katie Spoon, a University of Colorado Boulder PhD student and co-author of the study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus, categorized the more than 2,000 books restricted in schools and libraries in 2021 and 2022. 'We noticed that most of the books were children's books about diverse characters,' Spoon said." We noticed that most of the books were children's books about diverse characters. In South Carolina, local affiliate WCSC reports that a new rule will restrict which books public libraries can make available. "The temporary law written into the state budget called a proviso, requires county libraries to certify to the State Library that their childrens section does not contain any books or materials that appeal to the prurient interestdefined in state code as 'a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion and is reflective of an arousal of lewd and lascivious desires and thoughts of kids under 13," the report states. "If libraries fail to comply, the consequences could be severe: the loss of their state funding, which some say is crucial for them to stay operational." Over at Book Riot, Kelly Jensen leads off her weekly censorship news roundup by noting how books about disability are frequently being banned. "July is Disability Pride Month," she writes. "Like with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, its crucial to talk about in the context of book bans because people with disabilities are also targets of censorship and erasure." In the New Republic, Melissa Gira Grant has a thoughtful piece on why book bans are a key piece of right's political ambitions. "The prominence of pornography in Project 2025 is no mistake, of course; its absolutely core to the authors agenda for Trump," Grant writes. "The attack on porn is inseparable from the attacks on abortion and contraception, on marriage equality and trans rights, and of course on drag queens and library booksall of which, they believe, threaten the straight, married family as the natural bedrock of society. All of these threats, to them, constitute pornography. By calling on the president to outlaw porn, theyre calling for the eradication of all these imagined enemies of the family." Gulf News reports that the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library in the United Arab Emirates will host the first Dubai International Library Conference 2024 from November 15-17. Ibrahim Al Hashmi, a member of the library board, said the event "promotes exchanging experiences and knowledge within a global framework that that embodies rich human diversity and highlights the prospects of libraries in the future, digital transformation, the concept of transforming them into museums of the future, and the latest practices in the library and information sector." In New York, the City reports that budget woes at the New York Public Library are forcing the library system to cut back on book purchases, including those of critically acclaimed books. "NYPL President Tony Marx said his system plans to purchase 20,000 fewer e-book copies, 6,000 fewer downloadable audiobooks, 40,000 fewer books in English and 6,000 fewer books in other languages than it did last year," the report states. "'Our patrons are experiencing the impact of a smaller collection after the $6.5 million cut we absorbed in November,' said Linda Johnson, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library." And finally this week, KUNM in New Mexico is reporting that the state library is offering all New Mexicans free online subscriptions to the New York Times. Deputy State Librarian Kate Alderete said in a statement that connecting all New Mexicans to a national and international news source like the New York Times is essential to the health of a democratic society. The Week in Libraries is a weekly opinion and news column. News, tips, submissions, questions or comments are welcome, and can be submitted via email. Previous columns can be viewed here. In this week's Endnotes, we take a look at Einstein in Kafkaland (Bloomsbury, Aug.), the new graphic novel from New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein. In a starred review, PW said:"Irreverent yet full of tenderness for its subjects, Krimsteins experiment is a dizzying delight. Here's how the book came together. Nancy Miller, Publishing Director, Adult Trade, Bloomsbury As soon as Ken and his agent, Jennifer Lyons, came to me proposing a story of Einstein, Kafka, and Prague, I was in. I knew that Kens talent for combining biography with the best kind of cultural history, along with stunning visuals would allow the reader to discover anew these two men whom one would think there is nothing more to say about, and to witness the birth of the modern era in a way never before imagined. Ken Krimstein, Author My initial insight was to deal with Einstein less as a scientist and more as a product of German expressionism. I quickly discovered that a young Albert Einstein and an even younger Franz Kafka were part of the same artistic and literary scene in, of all places, Pragueand, blam! Kafka? Einstein? Golems? I had it. Now all I had to do was learn physics, go to Prague, read everything I could, and draw like crazy. Katya Mezhibovskaya, Associate Art Director, Adult Trade, Bloomsbury When I first met Ken, he was already passing out cards promoting the forthcoming book with the drawing of a tumbling Einstein. I knew that this was the cover. This falling Einstein just needed a context around himI decided Prague would make sense. The illustration of the upside-down, checkered-suited scientist is different each time it appears in the book: on the cover, the title page, on page 25, as the narrative is so much about visible and invisible transformations. Speaking at the American Library Association Annual in San Diego on June 30, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi said that theres no world I can imagine in which I would be addressing a major international gathering of librarians if not for the present political climate. Velshis perspectives on social justice, immigration, and freedom to read intersect neatly with those of frontline librarians, and he got the gig due to his memoir, Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy (Macmillan), as well as his Velshi Banned Book Club segments. Lisa Rubin, a former corporate lawyer turned MSNBC correspondent, interviewed Velshi for the ALA keynote, which covered everything from his grandparents experiences under South African apartheid to his parents political careers in Canada to his media career. In 2021, Velshi told Rubin, he introduced the Velshi Banned Book Club as a segment on his MSNBC show Velshi. He had to persuade the network to air it: Nobody said no to us, but it didnt get a ringing endorsement, he said. I didnt know itd be a ratings success. The shows popularity made him realize I have the power to move the needle toward free expression. One of Velshis first guests was journalist and professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, who discussed The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Velshi said he felt like a child going into a library for fresh information: I had no idea of how this could be a threat to anyone, yet a conservative furor greeted Hannah-Joness reframing of textbook America. Velshi has now interviewed dozens of authors facing book challenges, including George M. Johnson (All Boys Arent Blue), George Takei (They Called Us Enemy), and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaids Tale). The day before his keynote, he brought ALA president Emily Drabinski on the show. In history, there is no society in which books were banned or burned that got better, Velshi told the ALA assembly. It literally ends up with the destruction of that society. Its the worst thing in the world. Velshi said that his familys decades-long fight against racism, and their migration to countries where they might find a better future, turned him into an advocate for free speech and immigration. This is not a hot take for me, he said: Democracy does not hold itself up on its own. And thats what led to me deciding to write a book called Small Acts of Courage. Born in Nairobi and raised in Toronto by an Indian immigrant family, Velshi grew up with stories of his grandfathers life under South African apartheid. My grandfather, who died in 1961 after fighting apartheid from the age of seven, could not have imagined this conversation happening, Velshi said, referring to his presence at ALA. There were no public libraries in South Africa, and if there were, they certainly wouldnt have been for nonwhite people. When Velshis parents stood as candidates for election in Ontariohis father, Murad Velshi, eventually became the first Muslim South Asian elected to Canadian Parliament in 1987they achieved a public recognition past generations scarcely could have imagined. Velshi now feels we are more tribal than we need to be in the U.S., and Small Acts of Courage represents collective and individual efforts toward a more open society. Velshi told an optimistic story, but remained realistic about book bans and threats to education, limited community resources, and policies that dont serve diverse populations equally. He likened advocates to firefighters confronting a blaze: Your option is not to get in your firetruck and leave, he said. How do we create the system that my parents imagined, that brought them to these shores? Two local airports have received thousands in allocations from the federal government. Sen. Maria Cantwell announced in a news release early this month the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport and the Port of Whitman Countys Business Air Center were among 28 Washington airports to be granted the funding. The Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport was given more than $600,000 to update its master plan, according to the news release. The Ports Business Air Center was allocated almost $50,000 to determine the feasibility of installing a weather observation station at the airport near Colfax. Cantwell said in the news release the Ports airport does not have weather-reporting capabilities, and the nearest weather station is located in Pullman. More than $47 million was distributed to 28 airports across the state as part of the Airport Improvement Program, as well as the Airport Infrastructure Grant Program and the Airport Terminal Program. Cantwell said in the news release the efforts were made to add flight capacity, modernize aging airport facilities, increase safety and enhance the overall passenger experience for the traveling public. Property details: DO NOT BID if you have less than Fifty (50) feedbacks, email us before bidding or your bid will be canceled and your ID will be blocked! DO NOT BID unless you can pay Your Bid (Down Payment) plus $299.00 Closing Fees, and then Monthly Payments for at least for 4 Years!!!========================================================================== Land Price: $13,500.00You are bidding on the NON-REFUNDABLE DOWN PAYMENT starting $1.00.NON-REFUNDABLE Closing Fees: $299.00==============================... 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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. alum Sarah Herron has welcomed twin girls one year after the loss of her premature son.Sarah gave birth to twins 32 weeks into her pregnancy after undergoing a difficult IVF journey.Sarah took to Instagram this past weekend and shared the news that she and her husband Dylan Brown are parents."World, meet Everette Rae & Colette Rose (Evy & Coco) born July 1st 2024. Fraternal twin sisters, our little 32-weekers took us all by surprise a whopping 7.5 weeks early," Sarah captioned a video montage of the couple's first moments with their newborn at the hospital."We're all adjusting to life in the NICU as we have a long road ahead of us -- undeniably filled with twists and turns -- but the girls are fighters and getting stronger every day. We all are."Sarah shared how she's "so grateful" for her care team and "any continued prayers" for the pair's "tiny warriors."Sarah continued, "Today's plan: Sleep, breathe and grow! Welcome to the world little ones! My heart is completely outside of my body for these two miracles."Sarah later posted another message, expressing disbelief that her little ones have finally entered this world."I just can't believe they're ours. That they're here. After coming into this hospital for 4 years for labs, ultrasounds and follicle counts... they're here," Sarah gushed."I've walked the halls of this hospital so many times, passing the birth center doors, and now I get to walk into the birth center every day to see our babies. They're here."Sarah acknowledged how vacations, weddings, and experiences were "put on pause" so she could have children, but she celebrated that "they're here."Sarah went on to write, "My heart, mixed with my favorite person in the entire world's, sleeping in my arms."Sarah then shared some words of wisdom for other women who are hoping to get pregnant or going through fertility issues."To the mamas in waiting; I know how hard it is. I know the slog seems endless AND that endless pursuit is not a pursuit for all of us. Wherever your path takes you, stay awake. Stay connected. Stay steadfast," the Bachelor in Paradise alum concluded.Sarah announced she and Dylan, whom she began dating in March 2017, were expecting twins -- and the sex of both babies -- in January.The Bachelor in Paradise alum uploaded an ultrasound photo and wrote, "Appointment today went well, the babies are growing on track! Next appointment in 3 weeks. The babies look so round and chubs! Little Rolly pollies!"Sarah revealed that during her first ultrasound visit, she initially thought she was going to have triplets."What's really crazy that I haven't talked about yet, is that when I went in for 1st ultrasound, there were actually 3 gestational sacs. Yes, that means Baby A tried to split and become identical twins, but a yolk and fetal pole never developed," she explained."SOOO ... this means for about 15 seconds I had a heart attack that there were going to be triplets."Sarah went on to show another sonogram that was labeled "Baby A" and "Baby B," and she gushed about how her filmmaker husband in the background was "very chipper as always."On January 16, Sarah opened up about how she "bawled" her eyes out in therapy because her grief for her son, Oliver, was "heavy" as his birthday was fast approaching. Oliver was born at 24 weeks in January 2023."It hurts so bad, and simultaneously I know he's sending me these little girls to comfort me right now," Sarah wrote.Sarah also explained how her reiki healer had seen female energies in her readings all year.One fan sent Sarah a DM via Instagram and gushed, "GIRLS!!"Sarah then posted a screenshot of the happy message and confirmed, "Oops. Cat's outta the bag. But yes, we knew the sex of all our embryos."Sarah revealed back in June 2023 that she and Dylan were taking the necessary steps to continue trying to grow their family.Just three months later, the Bachelor in Paradise alum married Dylan at the Grand Canyon in early September 2023.In an Instagram video, Sarah shared footage from her time on Sean Lowe 's season in 2013.Sarah wrote, "I was searching for the fairytale ending... I thought it would never happen for me. Turns out it was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with my soul mate and a wrinkly wedding dress. Our fairytale wedding."alum announced she was expecting her first child with Dylan in late September 2022 after trying to conceive for two years, beginning in 2020. Her baby was due in May 2023.But Sarah had revealed in February 2023 that Oliver passed away just hours after his birth on January 28, 2023."He passed away in his dad's arms shortly after," Sarah wrote on Instagram at the time."There are no words for the magnitude of loss and pain we're experiencing. It's beautiful and simultaneously tragic. He had my nose and his dad's mouth and long fingers."Sarah continued in her post, "Oliver, our IVF miracle defied so many odds and fought through so many hard milestones to be here, but the higher powers still had other plans for the three of us.""Our time together was short, but we are grateful for the days we had with Oliver in my belly," she added. "He has taught us so much about the integrity of life, love and death. Oliver filled our home and hearts with so much love and most importantly, optimism."Sarah revealed in May 2021 that Dylan had popped the question in front of Mount Sopris in the Colorado mountains and they got engaged after four years of dating.But Sarah shared how she and Dylan had a lot on their plates and so they decided to put wedding plans on hold."[We] will resume planning once baby is here," Sarah told Us Weekly following her engagement. "The idea of our little baby getting to attend our wedding with mom and dad someday feels really beautiful to me, so we'll wait until that day is right."In addition to her stint on , Sarah also previously appeared on Season 1 of Bachelor in Paradise in 2014.On Bachelor in Paradise's first season, Sarah dated Robert Graham. And then on Season 3 of Paradise, she found herself caught in a love triangle with Daniel Maguire and Christian Bishop Sarah chose to date Daniel, a wise-cracking goofball, instead of Christian -- a decision many fans criticized because Christian had treated Sarah wonderfully on a date in Mexico and seemed to have honorable dating intentions.Although Daniel did appear to develop genuine feelings for Sarah, he admitted to cameras he just needed a rose in order to stay on the ABC reality dating show longer.Once it became time for Daniel to hand a rose to Sarah, he gave it to Haley Ferguson instead. Haley, one of the bubbly blonde twins from Ben Higgins ' season of , is now married.In April 2017, Sarah and Dylan went Instagram official when she shared a picture of the couple and gushed, "Happily not returning to Bachelor in Paradise this summer."She added the hashtags "Paradise Found" and "adventurebuds" to her post at the time.Interested in more news? Join our The Bachelor Facebook Group Over the course of an extended five-day enforcement period, troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigated a total of nine traffic fatalities and three non-boating fatalities (drownings). However, this was the third year in a row where the state experienced no boating-related fatalities on Alabama waterways. The official Fourth of July travel period began at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, July 3, and ended at midnight Sunday, July 7, with AAA forecasting a record-breaking travel period this year, exceeding pre-pandemic numbers. The traffic fatalities occurred in Calhoun, Conecuh, Crenshaw, Cullman, Escambia, Jackson, Marshall, and Tuscaloosa counties with Wednesday, July 3, being the only zero-fatality day. 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. Unfortunately, this holiday period ended in tragedy for 12 individuals and their loved ones, which we extend our deepest condolences, ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor said. 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. Over the holiday, ALEA Troopers conducted numerous driver license checkpoints and participated in national campaigns such as Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over and Operation Dry Water, in an intensified effort to reduce crashes, deter speeding and remove impaired drivers from Alabamas roadways and waterways. Troopers assigned to ALEAs Highway Patrol Division 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. Troopers assigned to 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. ALEAs Department of Public Safety Director, Colonel Jonathan Archer said, 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. 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. We are continuing our 101 Days of Summer Safety educational campaign and the Rescue Swimmer Detail on the Gulf Coast. We will kick off Rural Road Safety Awareness Week on July 15th, and then we will also be joining our neighbors in Georgia for a joint safety initiative known as Operation Southern Slow Down on the same day to focus on speeding and reckless driving. Additionally, ALEAs Aviation Unit, in conjunction with Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Fire Departments, participated in the Rescue Swimmer Detail on Thursday, July 4 through Monday, July 8. During this time, Aviation performed 12 patrol flights, responded to four calls for service, and performed 10 practice deployments of the Rescue Swimmers. The Agency would also like to remind beachgoers that while Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas and is now a tropical depression, the threat for strong rip currents along the Gulf of Mexico remains high, even in Alabama. Please swim with caution and check local surf and weather conditions. Beachgoers visiting Orange Beach and Gulf Shores may sign up to receive daily beach conditions and the beach warning flag status by texting ALBEACHES to 888777. The Adani Group is planning to invest Rs 20,000 crore more to complete the remaining three phases of the Vizhinjam International Seaport, the first transshipment port in the country, managing director of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) Karan Adani said in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. IMAGE: The container ship, San Fernando, from China marks the first arrival of such a vessel at Indias largest transhipment port at Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited in Thiruvananthapuram on July 12. Photograph: ANI Photo Talking to PTI after the official reception ceremony for 'San Fernando', the first mothership to dock at Vizhinjam, Adani said the port will be a game changer for Indian manufacturers as it reduces logistics cost by 30 to 40 per cent. The mothership docked on Thursday at the port being developed by APSEZ, India's largest port developer and part of the Adani Group, in a public-private partnership model at a cost of around Rs 8,867 crore. "We are going to invest Rs 20,000 crore more from our balance sheet, and we can complete the remaining phases at one go," Adani told PTI. He said the company is "not really looking at market share but is keen on reducing the transit cost of cargo for manufacturers". He said the port project had to face many hardships but the support of the people, government and political parties helped complete its first phase. "After our public hearing, the locals supported us. "All other political parties also gave us their support. Any project is not easy, not just in Kerala but in any part of the country. "But now everyone supports us in this mission," Adani said. He said initially they faced the issue of getting the required number of stones for the breakwater construction. "Now we have enough stones to complete our remaining phases, and the breakwater is almost done," Adani said. He said Vizhinjam port, with its prime location, will play a crucial role in India's maritime sector as the first transshipment port in the country. Earlier in the day, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan formally welcomed the 300-metre-long 'San Fernando' in a ceremony held at the port in Thiruvananthapuram in the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal. Kerala Assembly Speaker A N Shamseer, several state ministers, UDF MLA M Vincent and APSEZ managing director Karan Adani were also present. Addressing a large gathering of people who had arrived at the port to see the 300-metre-long mothership, the chief minister said the Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL) will become a full-fledged one by 2028, 17 years ahead of schedule. Initially it was envisioned that by 2045, phases two, three and four of the port would be completed and it would become a fully equipped port, he said. However, it will become a full-fledged port by 2028, with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore, for which an agreement will be signed soon, he added. Passenger vehicle wholesales crossed the 10-lakh mark for the first time ever in the June quarter riding on the back of robust demand for utility vehicles, industry body SIAM said on Friday. Photograph: Babu/Reuters Total dispatches of passenger vehicles in the first quarter stood at 10,26,006 units, up 3 per cent as compared with 996,565 units in April-June FY24. Utility vehicle sales rose 18 per cent to 645,794 units in the first quarter as against 547,194 units in the year-ago period. Dispatches of vans stood at 38,919 units as against 35,648 units earlier, an increase of 9 per cent. Passenger cars, however, saw a dip of 17 per cent to 341,293 units from 413,723 vehicles in the June quarter of last fiscal. "Utility vehicles accounted for 63 per cent of the overall passenger vehicles sales in the first quarter..we are witnessing a migration of customers from sedan segment to utility vehicles," Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) president Vinod Aggarwal told reporters in New Delhi. Passenger vehicle sales were the highest ever in the April-June period. The sales also crossed the 10-lakh mark during the period for the first time ever, SIAM director general Rajesh Menon stated. Two-wheeler dispatches in the first quarter rose to 49,85,631 units, up 20 per cent as compared with 41,40,964 units in the June quarter last year. "Within two-wheelers, scooters have posted even higher growth based on some green shoots of recovery in entry level two-wheelers," Aggarwal noted. Three-wheeler wholesales rose 14 per cent to 165,081 units in the first quarter as against 144,530 units in the April-June period last fiscal. Commercial vehicle dispatches saw an increase of 3.5 per cent year-on- year to 224,209 units in the quarter. Dispatches of units across categories rose 16 per cent to 64,01,006 units in the first quarter as compared with 54,98,752 units in the year-ago period. "With a positive outlook on the monsoon and coming festive season, the automotive sector is poised to perform better in the balance part of the year," Aggarwal stated. Asked about SIAM's stand regarding the dealers seeking better inventory management from OEMs, he noted that fluctuations keep happening and the industry body does not see it as a concern. "We should not worry too much about the stocks because I am sure all the respective companies where the stock level is high will take corrective action," Aggarwal said. It is not like that the stock levels will be high at all the companies, as some companies, in anticipation of higher sales, might have sold more units to their respective dealers. To a query related to the Uttar Pradesh government announcing 100 per cent waiver of registration fees on hybrid vehicles and its impact on the EV sales, he stated that there were two different views emerging at the OEM level and therefore "SIAM would not like to comment" on the issue. In the month of June, domestic passenger vehicle wholesales rose by 3 per cent year-on-year to 337,757 units. The overall passenger vehicle (PV) dispatches from companies to dealers stood at 327,788 units in June 2023. As per the data issued by SIAM, two-wheeler wholesales rose 21 per cent to 16,14,154 units last month, as compared with 13,30,826 units in June 2023. Three-wheeler wholesales increased 12 per cent to 59,544 units from 53,025 units in June last year. Despite steady loan growth, the banking sector is expected to report subdued margins in the quarter ending June 2024 (Q1FY25), driven by high demand for deposits amidst tight liquidity conditions. However, according to Bloomberg analysts, listed banks are forecasted to see a 14.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in net profit. Estimates showed that banks net interest income (NII), and revenues from interest minus interest expenses might grow 11.9 per cent Y-o-Y. Sequentially, NII may contract by 4.8 per cent on rising cost of deposits while net profit is likely to come down by 6 per cent. Analysts believe that margin pressure will persist through the first half of the current financial year (FY25) due to ongoing repricing of banks' deposit books. Cost of deposits continue to inch up albeit at a more gradual pace than seen previously and we also believe that the system is possibly reaching a peak in deposit rates. "This is likely to weigh on net interest margins (NIMs) in H1FY25 and thus keep NII momentum in check for the sector as a whole, JM Financial said in a report. The spread between outstanding lending rate and outstanding deposit rate for commercial banks stood at 2.89 per cent as of May 2024, and reduced by 1 basis point on month-on-month basis, reaching a nine-year low, according to CareEdge Ratings. Senior bank executives said the cost of liabilities (deposits) have been rising while lending rates have stabilised, which has continued to put pressure on spread and NIMs. Margins for public sector banks are expected to remain stable, given their lower loan-deposit ratio (LDR). While the momentum in credit growth is expected to continue, the widening funding gap has exacerbated concerns. Earlier this week, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, in a meeting with chiefs of public sector and private sector banks, reiterated concerns on the widening credit-deposit growth gap. Previously, the regulator had directed bank boards to re-strategise business plans. The persisting gap between credit and deposit growth rates warrants a rethink by the boards of banks to re-strategise their business plans. "A prudent balance between assets and liabilities has to be maintained, the RBI had said. Asset quality of the banking sector is expected to remain robust. However, recent developments related to farm loan waivers could potentially upset the credit culture and result in an uptick in credit costs, particularly in the agriculture and unsecured segments, said Motilal Oswal in a report. ...We factor in a modest rise in provisioning expenses as recovery from the existing non-performing asset (NPA) pools moderates; the first quarter, being a seasonally weak quarter, is characterized by some rise in agriculture NPAs; and credit costs normalize gradually after being extremely benign over the recent period, the report added. While credit quality for banks have remained largely benign until now, we expect it to normalise going forward and thereby build in an uptick in credit costs emanating primarily from retail segments, JM Financial said. Moderation in bond yields is expected to aid the income of banks in Q1FY25. Overall, the 10-year G-sec yield fell by 5 basis points in Q1 to 7.05 per cent, continuing the softening trend. It's obvious to all that the Congress is overestimating its success and the BJP is underestimating people's message delivered through the ballot box, notes Sheela Bhatt. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi speaks in the Rajya Sabha on the motion of thanks to the President's address, July 3, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo/Sansad TV Things are getting more and more political in New Delhi. The quality of headline news has changed. The people's fury over the NEET scam is an eyeopener for the Modi government and it forced Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to appear humble before lakhs of students. The deaths of 121 people in the stampede in Hathras has evoked much stronger reactions and is keeping the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh under huge pressure to take strident action against self-styled godman Bhole Baba and his managers. Rahul Gandhi is a man in hurry, impatient to consolidate the gains in the Lok Sabha election. He is running from Ahmedabad to Imphal to kickstart his tenure as Leader of the Opposition by presenting himself as the first among equals amongst all the leaders of the Opposition. Meanwhile, the government, which is unsettled internally because the Bharatiya Janata Party has not earned a majority by itself, is trying hard to project that not much has changed on Raisina Hill and on the ground. The results of UP have spoken volumes on what all has gone wrong in the past ten years. But Narendra Modi has preferred to tread cautiously and hasn't changed his rajniti ki bhasha. Many are surprised that Modi is not injecting a freshness to make people feel 'taaji hawa aayi hai' (a fresh wind is blowing) in his third term. Modi is working with the same colleagues and it shows that the government is taking its own time to come to terms with a new political reality. IMAGE: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi dispkays a poster of Lord Shiva in the House, July 1, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo/Sansad TV On other hand, Rahul Gandhi's graph is on an ascending order for sure, but he is creating many puzzles too on his way up. He was at his confident best in his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha as the Leader of the Opposition. However, on the issue of Hindutva politics what Rahul is doing may create a deep divide within the secular-liberal sections. Those who oppose the BJP vehemently were taken back by Rahul's use of Lord Shiva to send across the message that the Hindu samaj is not the BJP-RSS' thekedaari (property). This gesture is politically understandable, but it has its consequences too. The BJP will get a strong reason to not put a full stop to the Hindutva debate at all. The BJP has more staying power on Hindutva issues than any other party. The Congress can't cross its secular Lakshman rekha to match the unabashed BJP's Hindutva challenge. Under no circumstances would the people of India want competition between the Congress and BJP to capture Hindu votes in name of religion. A larger section of youth disappointed with the BJP is not looking forward to Rahul to unveil Lord Shiva's poster each time he addresses public meetings. In a nation of 1.4 billion people, at any given time, there are minimum 100 pockets of active discontent, minor mutinies and street protests. They speak against injustice and exploitation. It's good politics for any Leader of Opposition to meet these victims of the system and identify with their pain. Rahul has been doing it for a decade. But such visits are never an easy ride. IMAGE: Rahul Gandhi meets people at a relief camp in Moirang in Bishnupur, Manipur, July 8, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo To project himself in sharp contrast to Modi, Rahul Gandhi visited Manipur for a third time since the state saw ethnic riots between the largely Christian tribal Kukis living in the hills and non-tribal Hindu Meiteis, the ethnic group native to Manipur residing in the plains. The ethnic riots started in Manipur in May 2023. It was quite improper of Modi to not visit Manipur even once, but Rahul's visit explained us one of the dark realities of the state. Governments in the past have failed to resolve the cultural and social crisis in Manipur where Meiteis feel insecure about preserving a thousand year-old rich culture including their language. Meiteis are demanding scheduled tribe status, which has created a violent backlash in the villages of Manipur. The Kukis fiercely oppose the Meitei demand and want more share in Manipur's economy monopolised by the Meiteis. They also want legal ownership of their land in the hills. The current escalation in the disturbances has also been due to influx of Kukis from neighbouring Myanmar. This would disturb the demography and will be an additional burden on the local economy. During his visits except praying for peace for the Manipuris Rahul was unable to speak a word on the political divide which has disturbed the peace in the state. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, a Meitei himself, has been a total failure in dealing with the strife that helped the Congress win Manipur's two Lok Sabha seats, but Rahul is unable to take a stand on Manipur. It was a telling moment when Rahul exhibited maturity and didn't respond to any questions from the media at a press conference. He kept silent because no national politician is in a position to take the side of the Kukis or Meiteis. The first month after the results has given us ample proof that Indian politics will remain on the boil. A lot will happen when the BJP and Congress change the gears of their current politics to contest the assembly elections in Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The Constitution, political cadres, candidates and caste issues will once again take centrestage. What do all these actions and one-upmanship on the part of the two national parties tell us? It's obvious to all that the Congress is overestimating its success and the BJP is underestimating the people's message delivered through the ballot box. This column first appeared in Dainik Bhaskar. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com United States President Joe Biden, who is under intense scrutiny over his advanced age, on Thursday introduced Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) event and later at a solo press conference in Washington, DC mixed up the names of his vice president, Kamala Harris with the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. IMAGE: US President Joe Biden holds a press conference during NATO's 75th anniversary summit, in Washington, DC., on 11, 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters "And now I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden,81, said at the NATO summit in Washington, DC on July 11, drawing gasps from those in the room. After a two second pause, he immediately corrected himself and said, "Going to beat President Putin, President Zelenskyy. I am so focused on beating Putin." Zelenskyy responded to Biden's comments with 'I am better (than Putin)', to which Biden replied 'You are a hell of a lot better', as some in the room laughed, before Zelenskyy began his own address. Fellow leaders at the NATO summit fielded questions about Biden, and their answers have largely been supportive. "We all slip up sometimes," said French President Emmanuel Macron, "It's happened to me and it could happen again tomorrow. I would ask for your indulgence." Later, at a solo press conference, Biden was repeatedly asked about the concerns over his age on his candidacy. He responded with 'I've gotta finish the job'. In another embarrassing gaffe, he mistakenly referred to his Vice-President Kamala Harris as 'Vice-President Trump'. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," Biden stated as he responded to a question about his confidence in Harris. "The fact is that the consideration is that I think I'm the most qualified person to run for President. I beat him once and I will beat him again," Biden said. "The idea that senators and Congressmen are running for office worrying about the ticket is not unusual. And I might add, there were at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower numbers than I have now later in a campaign," he said. So, there's a long way to go in this campaign and so I'm just going to keep moving, he said. Trump pounced on the verbal stumble to to post on Truth Social to highlight the moment. 'Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' Press Conference with, 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.' Great job, Joe!' Trump wrote, along with a video clip of the moment. Biden's re-election campaign has been struggling for the past two weeks, following his debate performance against his opponent Trump, who is 78 years old. Meanwhile, four more Democrats in the House of Representatives called on Biden to end his campaign: Brad Schneider of Illinois, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Ed Case of Hawaii, and Hillary Scholten of Michigan. "For our country's sake, it is time for the President to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders," Stanton said in a prepared statement. Following this, some Senate Democrats said they were still uncertain about Biden's ability to win after meeting with Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and other top aides. -- with inputs from PTI In a morale-boosting victory for the 'Mahayuti' in Maharashtra ahead of assembly polls, the ruling alliance on Friday won all the nine seats it contested in the biennial elections to 11 legislative council seats, but the opposition MVA faced a setback as a candidate backed by Sharad Pawar's party lost. IMAGE: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and other Mahayuti leaders flash the victory sign during a press conference after the win in the state legislative council polls, at the Vidhan Bhavan, Mumbai, July 12, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo In the results announced in the evening for the high-stakes polls held earlier in the day, where 12 candidates were in the fray for 11 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won five seats, while Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged two each. All three parties are constituents of the ruling Mahayuti (grand alliance) which performed poorly in the recent Lok Sabha polls, winning just 17 seats out of the total 48 in Maharashtra. From the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Milind Narvekar, a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, and Congress candidate Pradnya Satav won the elections. However, Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate Jayant Patil, who was supported by Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP), lost the polls, dealing a blow to the MVA. The Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress, the NCP (SP) and some smaller parties are members of the MVA, which had put up an impressive show in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 30 seats. However, Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate Jayant Patil, who was supported by Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP), lost the polls, dealing a blow to the MVA which had put up an impressive show in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 30 seats. The election was necessitated as 11 members of the legislative council (MLCs) are completing their six-year term on July 27. The 288-member legislative assembly was the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274. Each winning candidate required a quota of 23 first-preference votes. The BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), NCP (42), Congress (37), Shiv Sena (UBT) 15 and NCP (SP) 10. The BJP had fielded five candidates -- former Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot -- and its ally Shiv Sena two -- former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali. The NCP had given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar. The Congress had nominated Satav for another term, while Sena (UBT) had fielded Narvekar. The third MVA constituent, NCP (SP), did not field its nominee and instead extended support to PWP's Jayant Patil. At least seven Congress MLAs defied the party's whip while voting in the council elections, results showed. The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the victory of all nine Mahayuti candidates in the council polls was a trailer ahead of the assembly polls due in October. Talking to reporters, Shinde said a false narrative was set by the opposition in the Lok Sabha polls and people were misled. "Mahayuti has registered a big win. This is a good start. A false narrative (that the Constitution will be changed by the BJP) was set. People were misled. Mahayuti's victory (in the legislative council polls) is a trailer," he said. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the opposition was claiming a candidate of the ruling alliance would lose but the results showed the Mahayuti got votes of not just its constituents but even from MVA legislators. Another deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar, said he, Fadnavis and Shinde held multiple meetings to ensure better coordination and responsibilities were shared, which led to the victory of Mahayuti candidates. Ajit Pawar, whose party could win just one Lok Sabha seat, maintained Mahayuti will work unitedly to ensure victory of the alliance in the upcoming assembly polls. NCP candidates Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar won despite the Ajit Pawar-led party falling short of votes. "We (NCP) had 42 votes but MLAs gave more votes to Vitekar and Garje. There were rumours that there will be a split (in the NCP and some of its MLAs could cross vote)," Ajit Pawar said. BJP candidates Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke and Amit Gorkhe got 26 first preference votes, and were elected in the first round. Its fifth candidate Sadabhau Khot got 14 votes in the first round and was elected in the second preference voting after he fulfilled the required quota of 23. NCP's Garje and Vitekar were elected in the first round, getting 23 and 24 votes. Similarly, Shiv Sena's Bhavana Gawli got 24 and Krupal Tumane 25 votes, and were elected in the first round. On the Opposition's side, Pradnya Satav of Congress got 25 first preference votes and was elected in the first round. But Sena (UBT')s Milind Narvekar won 22 votes in the first preference voting and was elected in the second round after getting two additional votes. Jayant Patil of PWP got only 12 votes. The Patna high court on Friday granted the Central Bureau of Investigation the custody of 13 people arrested by the Bihar police in connection with NEET-UG paper leak case. IMAGE: A group of students meets Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at his residence over the NEET-UG examination, in New Delhi, July 11, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo The central probe agency will now be able to question these accused in custody and also confront them with kingpin Rockey alias Rakesh Ranjan who was arrested on Thursday. The agency had sought the custody of the 13 individuals, arrested by the state police, who were subsequently sent to judicial custody following a brief period of police remand. The CBI plea was turned down by the Exclusive Magistrate, CBI, Patna on July 2 on the grounds that the statutory period seeking police custody within the first 15 days since the arrest had elapsed. The CBI challenged the order in the high court saying that it had taken up investigation in June and should be given chance to examine the suspects arrested by the state police. The central agency had said the accused arrested by the state police had not even undergone 15 days of police custody. According to sources, the accused were in the custody of the Patna police and Economic Offence Units of the Bihar police for just two to four days and sent to judicial custody. The CBI argued that it may be given the custody of these accused for the remaining period of their police remand which could be from 11-13 days which was granted by the High Court. "Considering the seriousness of the case and in the interest of justice, the operation of the order...passed by the exclusive magistrate...shall remain stayed," Justice Sandeep Kumar held. Justice Kumar directed the Exclusive Magistrate to grant the custody of the 13 accused to the CBI on Friday itself. "The exclusive magistrate, CBI, Patna will grant the remand on the CBI producing the webcopy of the order. The Superintendent of the Beur Central Jail, Patna/any other jail in which the respondents are in custody will give the custody...to the CBI today itself and will hand over the accused persons to the CBI and will not delay the handing over of the Respondents on any ground," he said. The CBI, which is probing the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance exam, has registered six FIRs in the matter so far with nearly 57 arrests in which 12 were made by the central agency while remaining were various state police forces. Twenty-two persons have got bail so far. The FIR from Bihar pertains to paper leaks, while those registered in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, are linked to the impersonation of candidates and cheating. The agency's own FIR on a reference from the Union Education Ministry pertains to a "comprehensive investigation" into the alleged irregularities in the examination. The NEET-UG is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions. This year, the exam was conducted on May 5 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 abroad. More than 23 lakh candidates had appeared for the test. Amid talks of cross-voting, three of the 37 Congress MLAs in Maharashtra skipped a meeting called by the party ahead of the legislative council polls on Friday. IMAGE: Congress flags in Mumbai. Image only for representation. Photograph: ANI Photo Zeeshan Siddique, Jitesh Antapurkar and Sanjay Jagtap were absent in the meeting held in Mumbai on Thursday night. Antapurkar is close to former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party a few months ago, while Zeeshan's father Baba Siddique joined the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Sanjay Jagtap skipped the meeting as he was in 'wari' (annual pilgrimage procession) and on his to the temple town of Pandharpur. The party said Jagtap had informed the leadership about his absence. However, Sulabha Khodke, whose husband is a close aide of Ajit Pawar, and Hiraman Khoskar, said to be in touch with the NCP, attended the meeting. Senior Congress leader Nitin Raut told PTI that his party is in a comfortable position. "It is the ruling alliance which is scared which is why they have held their MLAs hostage, something we haven't done," he said. Biennial elections to 11 council seats are being held on the Vidhan Bhavan complex. Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes. The Congress has nominated one candidate -- Pradnya Satav -- and its surplus votes will be distributed to the other two Maha Vikas Aghadi-backed candidates. Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar slammed reports of cross-voting in Congress ranks. "All our MLAs are in their homes, unlike the ruling alliance legislators. Last night, 35 MLAs were present at the meeting," he said. Both the MLAs will be with the Congress, he stressed. "We have got in touch with Antapurkar and Zeeshan. Antapurkar was absent because of a misunderstanding since he and his late father were close to Ashok Chavan," said Wadettiwar. The 288-member legislative assembly is the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274. The BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), the NCP (42), the Congress (37), the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray 15 and the NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar 10. The BJP has fielded five candidates and its ally Shiv Sena two. The NCP has nominated two candidates. The Shiv Sena-UBT has fielded one candidate, while the NCP-SP is backing the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) nominee. US envoy Eric Garcetti on Thursday said he respects that India likes its "strategic autonomy", but in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy, even as he pitched for forging a stronger partnership between New Delhi and Washington. IMAGE: US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti addresses the Prime Time: Dialogues on Deliverables to Deliveries conclave at the United Service Institution, New Delhi, July 11, 2024. Photograph: Sanjay Sharma/ANI Photo In his address at a defence news conclave in New Delhi, he also said that in an interconnected world, "no war is distant anymore" and asserted that one must not just stand for peace, but also take concrete actions to make sure those who don't play by peaceful rules, their war machines "cannot continue unabated". The US envoy said that is something the US needs to know and that India needs to know together. His comments come against the backdrop of multiple ongoing conflicts in the world, including in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. Garcetti's remarks follows the Biden administration on Tuesday saying that India will continue to be a strategic partner for the US despite concerns over its ties with Russia. 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. The event was held at the Unites Services Institution (USI), Delhi, and attended by many defence experts. "I know that India... and I respect that India likes its strategic autonomy. But in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy. We will, in crisis moments, need to know each other. I don't care what title we put to it, but we will need to know that we are trusted friends, brothers and sisters, colleagues that in times of need... be acting together," Garcetti said. The envoy in his address described India-US ties as deep, ancient and increasingly broad, but urged to not take this relationship for granted. Underling whole areas of cooperation, including in defence, the joint military exercises and India's naval prowess in the western Indian Ocean in combating piracy and other challenges, he envisioned the US and India together as an "unstoppable force for good in the world". He described the US-India defence partnership as one which stands "among the most consequential" in the world. "We don't just see our future in India and India doesn't just sees its future with the US, but the world can see great things in our relationship. In other words, there are countries on the sidelines hoping this relationship works. Because if it works, it doesn't just become a counterbalance, it becomes a place where we are developing our weapons together, integrating our training together," Garcetti said. In times of emergencies, whether that be a natural disaster or god forbid, a human-caused war, "the US and India will be a powerful ballast against the waves that will sweep over Asia and other parts of the world", he asserted. "And I think, we all know that we are interconnected in the world, no war is distant anymore. And we must not just stand for peace, we must take concrete actions to make sure those who don't play by peaceful rules, that their war machines cannot continue unabated. And that is something the US needs to know and that India needs to know together," the envoy said. "In the past three years, we have witnessed countries which have ignored sovereign borders. I dont have to remind how important borders are, it's a central principle to peace in our world," he added. SEE: No strategic autonomy during conflict, says Eric Garcetti In his address, the US envoy also mentioned about "humanitarian emergencies" that have been seen along India's northern border, East China Sea, Straits of Taiwan or the Middle East. The American ambassador to India underlined that he had come to the event not to teach, preach or lecture, but always to listen in and learn and remind of their "commonly shared values". "That when we stand on those principles and stand together, even in difficult times, we are friends, that we can show that principles are the guiding light of peace in our world. And together the world's two largest democracies can enhance the security, the stability of our region," he said. Underlining various areas of commonalty in India-US and its potential, the envoy said, "India sees its future with America, America sees its future with India." "Any objective observer will see that. We see it in our commerce, we see it in our people and certainly we see it in our security and future," he added. "It is important for us as Americans and as Indians, the more we put into this relationship, the more we will get out (of it). The more we insist on kind of cynical calculations in the place of trusted relationships, the less we will get," the envoy said. He said the US-India relationship is "wide and it is deeper than it has ever been" but it is "not yet deep enough". "Because if we only look inward, neither the US nor India in the Indo-Pacific will keep up with the pace of threats today," he said, adding, "be they, State actors on your border that we are also concerned about, in this region and other regions", be that climate change and the associated threats that US sees in this country. The Enforcement Directorate on Friday arrested former state Minister and Congress leader B Nagendra in connection with a money laundering probe linked to alleged irregularities in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation Limited, sources said. IMAGE: Karnataka ex-minister and Congress leader B Nagendra. Photograph: Courtesy X The sources said the legislator was taken into custody at around 10.30 pm at the agency's office in Bengaluru. He was questioned for more than 13 hours. He was taken to the ED office from his residence early morning. He is expected to be produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court on Saturday where the ED will seek his remand for custodial interrogation. The agency had conducted raids in four states, including Karnataka, on Thursday in this case and has seized about Rs 50 lakh cash and some documents till now. Following allegations against him in connection with the scam, Nagendra, who was the Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister, tendered his resignation on June 6. "I'm being brought from my home... I don't know anything," Nagendra told reporters as he was being taken to the ED office in the morning. The ED has carried out searches for the last two days at several places, including at the premises of Nagendra, and ruling Congress MLA Basanagouda Daddal, who is chairman of the Corporation. The agency covered around 20 locations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra as part of a case registered under the PMLA, the sources said. 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 an 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 Corporation's 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. The state government has constituted an SIT headed by Manish Kharbikar, Additional Director General of Police, Economic Offences, at the Criminal Investigation Department, to conduct the probe. The SIT questioned Nagendra and Daddal on Tuesday in connection with the case. Daddal appeared before the SIT on Friday too. Mumbai-headquartered Union Bank of India had also filed a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the embezzlement of money belonging to the Corporation involving its MG Road branch, following which the premier investigation agency had initiated a probe. The Andhra Pradesh police registered an "attempt to murder" case against former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, two senior IPS officers and two retired officials, following a complaint lodged by a TDP MLA, an official said on Friday. IMAGE: Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and YSRCP leader Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. Photograph: ANI Photo The complaint was lodged by the ruling party's Undi MLA K Raghurama Krishna Raju, who was a YSRCP Lok Sabha MP between 2019 and 2024 but had a fallout with Reddy at an early stage. Besides Reddy, the police booked senior IPS officers PV Sunil Kumar and PSR Sitaramanjaneyulu and retired police officer R Vijay Paul and former Guntur Government General Hospital superintendent G Prabhavati, the official said. Vijay Paul and Prabhavati have superannuated. "Raju sent his police complaint through mail one month ago and after taking legal opinion, I registered a case at 7 pm on Thursday against the former CM and others," the official told PTI. Raju, a former MP, also alleged that he was subjected to "custodial torture," the official added. The police booked the five accused persons under Indian Penal Code Sections 120 B, 166, 167, 197, 307, 326, 465 and 506 read with 34. The police invoked the IPC as the case is three years old. The case was booked at Nagarampalem police station in Guntur. TDP leader Raju's 2021 arrest case came to the fore in Andhra Pradesh after he lodged a complaint against Reddy and some officials over it on June 10. He accused the former CM and the senior officials of "plotting" a criminal "conspiracy" against him. Raju, 62, alleged in his complaint that senior IPS officers Sunil Kumar and Sitaramanjaneyulu, police officer Vijaya Paul and government doctor Prabhavathi were part of that "conspiracy." He was arrested in May 2021 in the middle of the Covid-19 second wave. "A false case was registered against me by the CB-CID of the Andhra Pradesh government. On May 14, 2021, I was arrested without due process, I was bullied, unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle, and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night," Raju alleged in the complaint. When Raju was arrested, Kumar was heading the CID, Sitaramanjaneyulu the Intelligence wing, Paul was ASP CID and Reddy was the CM. The MLA said though he had undergone an open heart surgery "some weeks" before his arrest, Raju claimed he was abused. Also, he alleged there were threats to kill him for "criticising the chief minister (Jagan)." "I was arrested without due process, including the absence of a medical examination or adherence to proper legal procedures...I was kept in the CB-CID office, Guntur from 9:30 pm onwards (May 14, 2021). I was not given my medicine despite having had an open heart bypass surgery," Raju, who was a YSRCP MP from Narasapuram, claimed. Raju also alleged that when the magistrate had sent him to Guntur Government General Hospital, the then superintendent of the hospital, Prabhavathi, had colluded with Sunil Kumar to create false medical reports that no injuries were inflicted on his person. "Due to police brutality, I was shifted from Guntur to Secunderabad Army Hospital by the orders of the Supreme Court and thereafter I was granted bail by the Supreme Court," said Raju. The bail came a week later. Among other allegations, he demanded that a case be registered against all the accused persons and said in his complaint that "these criminal offences must be addressed promptly and justice be done." For several months preceding his arrest, Raju was accused of abusing the then CM Jagan Mohan Reddy on a daily basis through select media houses from Delhi and Hyderabad, "ignoring" Narasapuram Lok Sabha constituency. Raju was elected to the Parliament on a YSRCP ticket in 2019 and continued to remain so even after the fallout with Reddy and repeated demands by the party to resign. After almost enjoying the full term of Lok Sabha, Raju resigned from YSRCP on February 24, addressing a scathing letter to Reddy and joining up to half a dozen MPs who had quit the YSRCP around that time. Reacting to the FIR filed against him, Sunil Kumar wondered how a "new FIR" can be filed in a three-year-old case "rejected" by the Supreme Court. "I leave it to your wisdom to understand how an FIR can be filed anew in a case that has already been dismissed by the Supreme Court after three years of proceedings," Kumar said in a social media post. Incessant rains with intermittent spells of moderate to heavy showers since Friday morning have slowed down public transport services and traffic in Mumbai. IMAGE: Children cross a road amid rain, at Mahim in Mumbai on Thursday. Photograph: ANI Photo Several parts of the country's financial capital received more than 15 mm of rainfall between 7 am and 8 am. Due to heavy rains, low-lying areas like Sion saw waterlogging prompting the authorities to divert road traffic. In the Western suburbs, the Andheri subway between Andheri and Jogeshwari railway stations was also waterlogged. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) Mumbai issued a Nowcast warning at 8 am, predicting heavy intense spells of rain very likely to occur at isolated places in the districts of Mumbai during next 3-4 hours . The weatherman has predicted moderate to heavy rain in the city and suburbs with the possibility of very heavy rainfall at isolated places for the next 24 hours for the Maharashtra capital. A civic official said there will be a high tide of 3.87 metres in the Arabian Sea at 4.09 pm. Being a saucer-shaped city, high tides coupled with heavy rains can trigger flooding as water doesn't get discharged into the sea at that time. In the 24 hours that ended at 8 am on Friday, Mumbai's island city recorded an average 93.16 mm of rainfall. The figure was 66.03 mm and 78.93 mm for eastern Mumbai and western Mumbai, respectively, a civic official said. A spokesperson from Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) said that the public bus service body has diverted three bus routes due to waterlogging at Sion since 7.50 am. Western Railway and Central Railway, which operate local trains in Mumbai, claimed on X that their suburban services were running. However, commuters complained of some delays, though there was no waterlogging on the tracks. A 26-year-old Indian IT professional working in California drowned in the famous Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana while on vacation with friends, according to park authorities. IMAGE: View from atop the Grinnell Glacier Overlook trail in Glacier National Park, Montana, US. Photograph: Matt Mills McKnight/Reuters The victim has been identified as Siddhant Vitthal Patil, the National Park Service said in a statement. Patil, who was a technology professional, was hiking above the gorge on June 6 on Avalanche Lake Trail, where he fell off a large rock into Avalanche Creek. It is unclear if he slipped on a wet portion of the rock or lost his balance. Friends who were with him saw Patil go underwater and resurface before being swept up by the current into the gorge. His body has not been found. Helicopters conducted aerial searches, but officials suspected the body was being held down. Patil is presumed dead, the statement said. Rangers suspect that the body is being held down by submerged obstacles such as fallen trees or rocks. Rangers are continuously monitoring the area and are starting to recover personal items that have washed downstream. The water in the gorge is unsearchable due to depth and turbulence, creating whitewater conditions. Rangers flew a drone to try and determine the location of the body, but the effort was unsuccessful. Ground search efforts continue from the gorge to the bridge on Trail of the Cedars. Patil, hailing from Maharashtra, was living and working in California and on vacation with friends. He texted his mother two hours before the tragic incident, telling her that he would be returning to San Jose, where he worked with Cadence Design Systems, in another three days. "Last Friday, Siddhant called up his mother Priti from the Park and told her that he has been in the Park for three days with six other Indian friends and is enjoying the trip," his maternal uncle Pritesh Chaudhari told PTI. His friends got his iPhone IMEI numbers from the phone box in his room and gave them to the Park rangers in Montana and other authorities to help in the search work, Chaudhari said. This hasn't yielded results yet, his maternal uncle Pritesh Chaudhari, who is based in Pune, told PTI. His mother Priti and father Vitthal, who retired from the Maharashtra government's irrigation department in May, are in shock and not in a position to speak, Chaudhari said. "Suresh Sharma from the Indian consulate in Seattle called me after the incident as he had given my number as a contact to the US authorities," Chaudhari said. "I have been in touch with the consulate since Monday," he said. Leaders from Maharashtra, including Sharad Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis have written to the government seeking its help, he said. Union minister Murlidhar Mohol, who hails from Pune, is in touch with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for updates on the search operation, he added. Patil went to the US in 2020 to pursue his MS from the University of California, Los Angeles. He joined Cadence in 2023. One of the high points of the proceedings was when Indrani Mukerjea's lawyer smartly utilised Dr Zeba Khan's expert status to pose her A Most Curious Question. He asked her if a skull can grow new teeth, even after the person, who it belonged to, had died, three years before. We can be sure that the discrepancy between the number of teeth discovered in the skull unearthed in 2012 and the skull shown in court in September 2019 will come up soon in Courtroom No 51. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora Murder Trial. After a spring, a summer, a monsoon, a winter and yet another spring of dull witnesses, of perhaps neither much consequence nor interest, in the Sheena Bora trial, the tail end of the hot summer of 2024 brought to the witness box Dr Zeba Khan, PW 91. And a wee round of excitement. On July 10, Dr Khan, who is an assistant professor of anatomy at the Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy Group of Hospitals, south central Mumbai, arrived a tad late in court for the start of her afternoon cross-examination by the defence. At 2.55 pm she had still not shown. Special CBI Judge Samarendra Prakashrao Naik-Nimbalkar, in Courtroom No 51, Mumbai city civil and sessions court, Kala Ghoda, south Mumbai, was beginning to look for her, slightly perturbed at the delay; he runs a very tight ship. She ambled in past three. In a long black kurta, black chunni, bright blue salwar, eye-catching electric red shoes, vermillion lipstick to match her footwear -- a short, portly woman, wearing glasses -- she cut an intriguing figure. More interesting was her relaxed, walk-in-the-park approach to the trial proceedings, news of which had once again made national headlines, in June, when it was reported that the skeletal remains Dr Khan had attempted to identify in 2012, as an anatomical expert, and not a forensic expert, could not be accessed or found! 'Sheena Bora case: Bones, remains of victim recovered by cops has gone missing' flashed all over the news then. The CBI admitted that it was a temporary mix-up and the skeletal remains were in its possession, as per procedure, in one of the CBI malkhanas (a place where items relating to a case are kept). After again going through the malkhana, the CBI submitted that the bones were lying in the malkhana and they (were missed out because) they were not cited along with the chargesheet, the court was told July 10, Wednesday. Accused No 1 Indrani Mukerjea's lawyer Ranjeet Vishnupant Sangle said he would be filing an application for the production of those articles. Only Sangle had plans to cross-examine Dr Khan, Wednesday. He did so, like he usually does, thoroughly. She took most of the questions he forcefully peppered, rat-tat-tat, at her in her stride, unruffled, rarely disagreeing with him... well because there was nothing really to disagree about. And when she did, it was without heat, dust or aggro. One of the high points of Wednesday's proceedings was when Sangle smartly utilised Dr Khan's expert status to pose her A Most Curious Question. He asked her if a skull can grow new teeth, even after the person, who it belonged to, had died, three years before. Slightly bemused, Dr Khan shook her head slowly and said firmly, "No, teeth would not have grown." We can be sure that the discrepancy between the number of teeth discovered in the skull unearthed in 2012 and the skull shown in court in September 2019 will come up soon in Courtroom No 51. The second high point happened a little earlier in that day, before the afternoon cross examination. So, we would need to backtrack a little... It was about an e-mail that Judge Naik-Nimbalkar read out in court in the first session, in Dr Khan's presence, from her alleged brother, whose full name was not accessible. In the e-mail, this relative of Dr Khan's, who was allegedly in a property dispute with her, claimed, again allegedly, Dr Khan had shown and circulated photographs of Sheena's remains to their mutual relatives. Further, it accused, she had allegedly intentionally caused for the remains to disappear and, of late, had 'amassed' a disproportionate amount of additional property and wealth in her possession and this informant was in the process of allegedly disclosing this to the Income Tax department. Since the remains, which the e-mail had referred to, had already been found -- and were never lost -- Dr Khan had no particular reaction or response. But the e-mail was responsible for pushing the cross-examination to the afternoon, while the prosecution checked with the CBI on whether they should proceed with this witness or go onto the next. Meanwhile Accused No 1, Indrani Mukerjea, who had chosen to wear lawyer's black and whites, with perky white high-heels was planning a trip to the UK. Or at least she hoped to. Sangle approached the bench requesting permission for her travel to England to solve some property-related matters. CBI's Special Public Prosecutor C J Nandode could not see why it was necessary and said Accused No 1 had given no particulars on what she planned to do over there. Sangle argued that it was pretty obvious why she would need to visit England. She was a British citizen, since 2013, and Indrani wanted to make a trip back to her "country of nationality". She had property and bank matters to deal with and bank accounts that had become "dormant". The judge requested more information and details before he could come to a decision. By 3 pm the CBI had sent their green signal and the cross examination was slated to start up, and did so when Dr Khan made her appearance. Not expecting a resolution in this matter so quickly, from the CBI, that day, Indrani had headed home and had to be called back. She returned, clippety-clop, nearly 45 minutes later, breathless, hair flying, and all charged up, as she normally is, to sit in the accused box in the back, with always-amiable-looking Peter Mukerjea, Accused No 4 and former partner No 3. Indrani's energy is something to behold. It is hard to recall meeting a woman more full of beans. Across the room, Dr Khan's efficient and calm attitude in the stand -- that other witnesses approach nervously -- could perhaps be explained by the fact that for her depositions like this are routine-ish. She makes these visits to courts for the purpose of supplying evidence in 'MLCs' (medico-legal cases pertaining to an injury or medical condition in which law enforcement agencies must investigate), at least once in a year, because skeletal remains can be sent to her department for analysis from any of the nearby police stations in Maharashtra. Trained in Aligarh at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, which is attached to the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University, she moved to Mumbai after marriage and began work at the JJ hospital where she has been at for nearly 16 years. It was an MLC from the Pen police station, Raigad district, 12 years ago that put Dr Khan into the tragic Sheena Bora murder picture, which has now become a long, long sad saga, drawn out over a dozen painful years. And the cast of the Sheena Bora trial, like the pictorial representation of the characters of a mini-series, with scads of seasons, keeps elongating horizontally rapidly. In May 2012, a passerby named Ganesh Lakshman Dhene had gone to pluck mangoes in a copse of mango trees in rural Gagan Khurde, near Pen, and discovered an apparently half-charred skeleton, that was allegedly Sheena's. The body's postmortem was done on the day of the discovery of the corpse, on site, by local primary health centre physician, Dr Sanjay Atmaram Thakur, and he sent a few of the bone pieces in jars for further testing to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. That was how these jars -- which contained a burnt piece of the upper end of the femur (upper leg bone), some broken pieces of ribs, teeth, part of a fibula (lower leg bone), among other pieces -- landed up on the desk of Dr Khan in 2012. The specialist of anatomy described to the court, Wednesday, that because the bones were charred, and the sample was missing crucial remains, that could help in identifying the sex and age of the skeleton, she was unable to provide substantive answers to the queries relating to the identity of the victim that came from Pen police station. Sangle cemented home, via his line of questioning, this fact. Sangle: "In your report have you answered all the four questions (asked)?" Dr Khan: "I had answered whether male or female. I had answered age of deceased. How many days have passed since deceased is not under our jurisdiction as it does not come under anatomy (she later added, "That answer is given by forensics"). And the cause of death cannot be opined upon." Sangle: "Would it be correct to say, after your thorough examination, your opinion in regards to all of these questions, like sex, age, cause, cannot be opined or was inconclusive?" Dr Khan: "The bones which are needed to determine the sex or age were not sent." Indrani's lawyer also disputed that the bones were burnt. "None of these bones were in a burnt or charred condition," he declared. The cross examination of Dr Thakur in June 2019 by Peter's late lawyer Shrikant Shivade had the junior doctor admit that the body was perhaps not burnt because the skeleton was intact, which does not occur after burning. But Dr Khan was definite about the fact that the bone samples she received were burnt or charred. They disagreed too on whether the samples that arrived for her inspection were in sealed jars. Sangle adamantly stated the jars were not sealed. Apparently, a typed report, of the nature Dr Khan drew up in 2012, after she signed it, and marked her initials against any changes made by hand (if need be), is usually sent back to the police station that had asked for it. Sangle checked if that had happened in this case too. Dr Khan clarified that it had, but she had also sent the report, later, to two separate individuals at the Khar police station, north west Mumbai, on two different dates in August 2015, when JJ's dean received a request to do so. Sangle subsequently dwelt on the maceration of the bone samples, Dr Khan had been sent from Pen. Maceration is an anatomical technique that facilitates the dropping off of soft tissue from a bone sample, without hurting it, so it can be further examined. Sangle: "Dr Khan, would it be correct to say that if the bones were not in a burnt and charred condition, you would have kept them for maceration?" She nodded. Sangle attempted to confirm: "But you had placed all the bones for maceration." Dr Khan disagreed. Towards the end, Sangle fished about, like an ambitious angler looking for a huge fish, resourcefully trying to employ the witness for his own purposes, asking her about cut skulls and brain matter, when she had only seen a few bits of ribs and leg parts. He met with quite a few stern objections from the judge, who would not allow this meandering off course, like the trial was taking a wild stroll about a vast stadium. CBI Special Prosecutor Nandode did not have to even get up on his feet to object, because Judge Naik-Nimbalkar kept Sangle on a short leash and conscientiously steered him right out of the stadium, and back onto the appropriate tight circuit. The judge told him, tiredly, time and again, "You cannot put words in her mouth... She does not know!... How will she know?? It is not relevant." But feisty Sangle was not to be deterred. He finally met with some success when he asked about the skull growing new teeth, which was met with much gleeful elation from Indrani in rear of the court. The cross had lasted a little short of two hours. The weather was pleasant Wednesday at court, even though the fans had not much reach. A few murky puddles hung about outside the building. The court corridors looked the same albeit cleaner. A dog snored from noon till 5.30 pm on the third stair landing. A Shobha canteen chaiwallah of the court offered me a cutting chai on the stairs going up. An extremely attractive African woman, her hair in cornrows, was being led back to jail by a few lady cops. A large family of several children and elderly relatives, many in burkhas, was traipsing up the stairs to visit an accused. I was returning to Courtroom 51 after 10 months. A few chairs had been added. The countless (I do know the number actually) trunks of court papers seemed better organised. And thankfully those awful suffocating grimy enclosures of plexiglass had been disbanded. It felt like I had never been away. And I was happy to back for this wee interlude. As I walked home, I mulled over how, like so many things, you can even get attached and feel affectionately towards a dusty Mumbai city courtroom, that you had been in and out of for nearly eight years, before-COVID, in COVID, after-COVID and through so many stages in your life. Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com Robert Beck of Peterborough, N.H. served for 30 years overseas with the United States government in embassies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He now teaches foreign policy classes at Keene State Colleges Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media. WASHINGTON President Joe Biden used his highly anticipated news conference Thursday to deliver a forceful defense of his foreign and domestic policies, and batted away questions about his ability to serve another four years even as he flubbed a reference to Donald Trump in one of his first answers. "I'm not in this for my legacy. I'm in this to complete the job I started," Biden said as he insisted his support among the electorate was strong and he would stay in the race and would win. Fumbles notwithstanding, the president pushed back at every suggestion that he was slowing down or showing noticeable signs of decline, or that he was not in command of the job. But he faces a growing chorus of calls from lawmakers, celebrities and other prominent Democrats to step aside from the 2024 race. "My schedule has been full bore," he declared. "So if I slow down and I cant get the job done, that's a sign that I shouldn't be doing it. But there's no indication of that yet none." Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers are doubtful of Biden's abilities to carry on his reelection bid after his disastrous June 27 debate performance, but the 81-year-old president refuses to give up as he prepares to take on Trump in a rematch. The first questioner of Biden's news conference asked about him losing support among many fellow Democrats and unionists, and asked about Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden at first was defiant, saying the "UAW endorsed me, but go ahead," meaning the United Auto Workers. But then he mixed up Harris and Trump, saying, "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she wasn't qualified." As of Thursday evening, a dozen House Democrats called for him to exit the race. The news conference was an effort to show he's up for another four years; voters are watching and elected officials are deciding whether to press for another choice. Trump weighed in live on Biden's news conference with a post on his social media network of a video clip of the president saying "Vice President Trump." Trump added sarcastically, "Great job, Joe!" Earlier, Biden's campaign laid out what it sees as its path to keeping the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the "blue wall" states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the "clearest pathway" to victory. It declared no other Democrat would do better against Trump. "There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump," said the memo from campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, which was obtained by The Associated Press. The memo sought to brush back "hypothetical polling of alternative nominees " as unreliable and it said such surveys "do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter." Campaign surveying voters on Kamala Harris Meanwhile, the campaign has been quietly surveying voters on Vice President Kamala Harris to determine how she's viewed among the electorate, according to two people with knowledge of the campaign who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to talk about internal matters. The people said the polling was not necessarily to show that she could be the nominee in Biden's place, but rather to better understand how she's viewed. The research came after Trump stepped up his attacks against Harris following the debate, according to another person familiar with the effort. The survey was first reported by The New York Times. "I think I'm the best qualified person to do the job," Biden said Thursday. While Biden expressed confidence in his chances, his campaign acknowledged Thursday he is behind, and a growing number of the president's aides in the White House and the campaign privately harbor doubts that he can turn things around. But they're taking their cues from Biden, expressing that he is in 100% unless and until he isn't, and there appears to be no organized internal effort to persuade the president to step aside. His allies were well aware heading into the week there would be more calls for him to step down, and they were prepared for it. Zelenskyy-Putin flub at NATO summit But in announcing a compact that would bring together NATO countries to support Ukraine, Biden referred to the nation's leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" to audible gasps in the room. He quickly returned to the microphone: "President Putin he's going to beat President Putin President Zelenskyy," Biden said. Then he said: "I'm so focused on beating Putin," in an effort to explain the gaffe. "I'm better" Zelenskyy replied. "You're a hell of a lot better," Biden said back. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. invited Biden's team to meet with senators privately at the lunch hour to discuss concerns and the path forward, but some senators groused they would prefer to hear from the president himself. In the Senate, only Peter Welch of Vermont so far called for Biden to step out of the race. The 90-minute conversation with the president's team, which one person said included no new data, polling or game plan on how Biden would beat Trump, did not appear to change senators' minds. The person was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door session. The meeting was frank, angry at times and also somewhat painful, since many in the room know and love Biden, said one senator who requested anonymity. Senators confronted the advisers over Biden's performance at the debate and the effect on Senate races this year. One Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said afterward, "My belief is that the president can win, but he's got to be able to go out and answer voters' concerns. He's got to be able to talk to voters directly over the next few day." At the same time, influential senators are standing strongly with Biden, leaving the party at an impasse. Read more here: More coverage: Presidential debate: Biden, Trump square off in Atlanta, in photos China's Change-6 lunar probe returned to Earth carrying samples from the far side of the moon, making China the first country to accomplish that feat. Beijing says it adheres to the peaceful use of space, but Western analysts question China's motives for developing the moon. Critics say China takes a mercantilist view of the moon and is seeking to exploit resources like water-ice, helium 3, and rare Earth minerals. Cooking oil products are seen at a supermarket in Beijing, July 10, 2024. Shoppers in China are rushing to buy artisanal cooking oils after the government announced a top-level probe into food safety amid reports that tankers previously used to haul industrial chemicals had been repurposed for cooking oil without cleaning. Video clips posted by social media users in the central province of Henan showed people rushing to buy imported oils and hand-pressed oils at the Pangdonglai Supermarket chain, with pressed peanut oil sold out by July 10 at the Times Square branch in Xuchang city. "Peanut oil has sold out, and the sunflower oil only lasted a few hours, and now they're going to be out of stock for a week," one shopper said in a social media video clip reposted by the citizen journalist Mr Li is not your teacher to X. "People are lining up at Pangdonglai to buy its pressed cooking oils, which have just arrived," said another. "Here we have Pangdonglai brand pressed peanut oil, and here we have its pressed sunflower oil." An employee (L) is reflected as she works at the production line of an edible oil company in Sanhe, Hebei, April 12, 2011. (Reuters) Liu Li, a resident of Henan's Zhengzhou city, said many people now prefer to buy their oil from smaller factories selling pressed oils. "The oil made by smaller companies is actually pretty healthy, and environmentally friendly," Liu told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Friday. Other shoppers scrambled to buy oil presses to make their own cooking oil at home, with more than 1,600 posts visible on Xiaohongshu on Friday on the topic of home-pressed oil. Some people said they'd travel to Hong Kong to get their cooking oil. "Later, I'm gonna be taking the subway to Hong Kong to get cooking oil," wrote one comment on Douyin, with similar comments appearing on Xiaohongshu. Read other China panic buying stories Beijings protests over Fukushima water release spark panic-buying of salt Panic-buying hits Beijing as residents brace for wider lockdowns Milk row sparks visa ban calls Rumors of kerosene A resident of the southern city of Dongguan, just across the internal border from Hong Kong, who gave only the surname Mai for fear of reprisals said rumors are spreading of "kerosene" in industrially produced cooking oils. "Of course I'm worried," Mai said. "Who isn't?" The rush to find "clean" cooking oil comes after the Food Safety Office of the State Council launched a probe on July 9 in response to a report in the Beijing News, warning that "companies acting illegally and persons responsible will be severely punished in accordance with the law." The Beijing News reported in an undercover investigation earlier this week that it was an "open secret" in the transportation industry that tankers that once contained petrochemical products were being used to transport cooking oil without being cleaned first. China has stringent regulations in place for the cleaning of tankers used to transport edible oils, but they don't appear to be being widely followed, the report found. Chinese residents try to tell counterfeit cooking oil products from the real products during an event to promote awareness of economic crimes in Beijing, China, May 15, 2011. (Ng Han Guan/AP) "Generally, the tank doesn't get washed," one driver told a Chinese media outlet as the scandal broke. "It'll be fine as long as they don't get inspected." "Usually they will just look at the two openings and give them a wipe," the driver said. "The smaller factories don't care, and don't even look at it." The newspaper quoted China Agricultural University food science professor Zhu Yi as saying that petrochemical products could be poisonous to humans and cause damage to their respiratory and digestive systems. U.S.-based journalist Wang Jian said China is no stranger to food safety scandals, and blamed a "moral decline" in the food and transportation sectors. Wang said it remains to be seen whether or not the State Council investigation will yield any kind of meaningful change. Infant formula panic Two companies named in the Beijing News report, Hopefull Grain and Oil Group and Sinograin have announced internal probes of their own since the report was published. Other edible oil companies including Luhua and Jinlongyu have also issued statements saying that they only transport their products in food-grade tankers, while Xiwang Food said it doesn't use tankers at all, Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported on July 10. It was unclear whether large numbers of people have started traveling to Hong Kong to buy oil, as they did to bulk buy infant formula during the tainted milk powder scandal. Tainted milk campaigner Guo Li said little has changed in Chinas food safety record since hundreds of infants were sickened or died due to melamine contamination of infant milk formula products. They keep issuing bans, but the same stuff keeps on happening regardless, Guo told RFA Mandarin on Friday. The Food Safety Law and other laws and regulations arent strictly enforced. An employee works at the production line of an edible oil company in Sanhe, Hebei April 12, 2011. (Reuters) Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said authorities in Hong Kong were unlikely to discourage them. "They want to attract people across the border to spend money in Hong Kong," Lau said. "So the Hong Kong government won't stop them, even if they're buying up something that is in short supply in Hong Kong." In 2013, authorities in Hong Kong set a limit on the number of cans of infant formula milk a person could buy after residents of mainland China flocked across the border in search of imported milk powder to feed their infants during a fake milk powder scandal that year. The mass-buying led to shortages of infant formula, and sparked angry protests and confrontations between Hong Kong residents and mainland Chinese, many of whom were alleged to be wholesalers trying to profit from the scandal, rather than parents looking for safer milk to feed their children. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Mira Rapp-Hooper is the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council, or NSC. During this weeks NATO Summit in Washington, she spoke with RFA Koreans Lee Sangmin, touching on points related to increased cooperation between Russia and North Korea, following Vladimir Putins visit to North Korea last month. The summit included representatives from the Indo-Pacific Four, or IP4, an informal grouping of South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, and Rapp-Hooper said that it was important to include those countries in discussions with NATO, especially considering that the partnership between North Korea and Russia concerns security in both the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: So how much are you concerned about the recent deepening relationship between Russia and North Korea? Rapp-Hooper: We are extremely concerned about the relationship between Russia and North Korea. Of course, we have been for about a year as that relationship has grown closer and closer, and it has become clear that both Russia and North Korea are exchanging extremely worrisome forms of support with one another. On the one hand, of course, we know that the (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or DPRK) has been providing Russia with millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as missiles that have been used on the battlefield in Ukraine to devastating effect fueling Russias war machine, and taking the lives of innocent civilians, all over the conflict. And thats deeply disturbing. But one of the things that is also very troubling about this relationship is the fact that we know that Russia is probably providing the DPRK with technical assistance, sophisticated forms of support for some of its military programs. But those forms of cooperation are much harder to track. So while we know what the DPRK is giving to Russia, we know less than we would like to about what Russia is giving to the DPRK. And that is something that should concern not only the countries of the Indo-Pacific who care about peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and beyond. Mira Rapp-Hooper, Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania, National Security Council, at the Asia Center in Washington, Sept. 13, 2023. (U.S. Institute of Peace via Flickr) But countries in Europe are increasingly understanding that this relationship affects them, too. Now, of course, this has all become more prominent recently because of Vladimir Putins visit to Pyongyang, when the two countries released a declaration that looks very much like an alliance treaty. But really, what this does is capture something that we knew the whole time, which is the fact that this is not just a marriage of convenience where these two powers are cooperating so that Russia can get help in its war against Ukraine. There is political buy-in at the highest levels, from both of these governments. The piece of optimism that I would offer today, however, is that it is not just the ROK, the United States and Japan who are worried about this problem. We have very good trilateral cooperation amongst the three of us to share intelligence and to coordinate our policy actions. But part of what youre seeing here at NATO today is that all of our NATO allies also care about this problem, because Russia has brought DPRK technology to Europe in the form of ballistic missiles being used on the battlefield in Ukraine. So weve never seen our European allies more engaged in DPRK issues, more wanting to cooperate, to address, and limit, this relationship. And we are hopeful that that cooperation will have a stabilizing effect in the face of all of this destabilizing behavior. RFA: In what ways can NATO and its allies counter cooperation between North Korea and Russia? Rapp-Hooper: Well, there are, you know, certain areas where cooperation, unfortunately, is quite difficult to affect. We know that many of the shipments that take place between DPRK and Russia take place within their territorial seas or over rail lines. So theres very few options for the international community there. But there are other areas, where we do cooperate, and we will continue to do so. And that relates to things like financial sanctions that may run at the heart of their cooperation, and other measures that we can take, such as intelligence sharing, information sharing that might allow one country to be more empowered to limit this cooperation wherever they can. There is also, of course, the role that we all play diplomatically, not just in putting pressure on both Pyongyang and Russia, but on additional countries, who might be able to take action to try to limit this relationship. The world is, of course, watching (the Peoples Republic of China, or PRC) and the question looms large, what Beijing will do about this relationship, given that it is so destabilizing and not in Chinas interests either. But weve yet to see a clear answer to that question. RFA: What kind of a role can China play in dealing with North Korea issues? Rapp-Hooper: Thats really up to China. In the past, the PRC has long played a role on the Korean Peninsula. Obviously, it is a key continued trading partner of Pyongyang and a longtime political partner. There is obviously a very close political relationship as well, between Beijing and Moscow which is its own cause for concern. But theres no doubt that if Beijing was interested in doing so, it could play a stabilizing and responsible role, to encourage in particular, the worst (aspects of the) DPRK-Russia cooperation to come to an end. But again, all eyes are on Beijing to see if it will make that choice. RFA: Why is it significant that the IP4 are participating in the NATO Summit? Rapp-Hooper: Our IP4 partners in the (Republic of Korea, or ROK), Japan, Australia and New Zealand have been at the last three NATO summits. And from our perspective, it really symbolizes the fact that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are increasingly connected. Security problems that matter for Europe matter for the Indo-Pacific. And likewise, Asia matters greatly to our European partners. And when the Biden administration took office, we were very keen to help support the IP4 and build it out into something that is a more institutionalized meeting because we think it is strictly advantageous for our Indo-Pacific allies to be working with our European allies and vice versa. But of course, the way that the IP4 really got increased, was after the tragic and aggressive invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in which so many of our Indo-Pacific allies stepped up to demonstrate that they stand with Ukraine and would provide assistance. And that, I think, really drove home to our European allies in NATO, the fundamental value of working with partners in the Indo-Pacific. So today, again, theyre here for their third summit. Mira Rapp-Hooper, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania, National Security Council and Matthew Brest arrive at the White House for the State Dinner for Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and wife Kishida Yuko, April 10, 2024, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) They have had the opportunity to participate in a plenary session, with significant substantive focus on the Indo-Pacific and the links between the two theaters. When we talk about those links, clearly DPRK-Russia cooperation is very squarely on the agenda. It has been a focus of their discussions. They participated in the leaders dinner last night. They had their own meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine, which is an important demonstration of the fact that they are fiercely dedicated partners to Ukraine. And you saw that with two new announcements from New Zealand and Australia announcing new aid packages to Ukraine concomitant with the NATO summit. And then, of course, the IP4 partners, had some time with the president, and Secretary General Stoltenberg, to affirm the importance of their participation here at NATO. RFA: What role do you expect that South Korea can play in partnership with NATO? Rapp-Hooper: We expect South Korea to play whatever role is most advantageous for South Korea. I think if you ask our South Korean friends, what they will say is they are extremely worried about DPRK-Russia cooperation, and they want to work with NATO partners to do the most that they can to limit that cooperation. But really what they want to do is use these interconnections between the region to help keep the Indo-Pacific and the Korean Peninsula safer and more stable, and we're fully supportive of that goal. RFA: After the summit between North Korea and Russia,there has been growing sentiment in South Korea that it needs its own nuclear weapon. What kind of response would you have to that sentiment? Rapp-Hooper: Well, what I would actually point to is the fact that President Biden and (South Korean) President Yoon spent some time together today. And after they did so, we released an important joint statement, signed off by each of them. And what that statement does is remind the world that it's been a year since the Nuclear Consultative Group (or NCG) met for the first time in Seoul. It was inaugurated following President Yoons state visit to Washington back in April of 2023. And over the course of that year, that nuclear consultative group has made remarkable progress, towards standing itself up as an institution, and doing the work that we will need to do together, as allies, to strengthen our extended return to the ROK. Edited by Eugene Whong. Guo Zhi Feng, Chairman of Chicilon Media, has contributed VND3 billion (US$118,000) of his own personal income each year to the Chicilon Scholarship Fund for Vietnamese students nationwide. The fund sponsors scholarships for excellent students from the top 10 universities in Vietnam, so that the scholarships can support the students in chasing their goals and dreams towards contributing to society in a positive way. Each year, the fund selects students to awards 300 scholarships, each worth VND10 million ($393.42). Guo Zhi Feng said he wanted to contribute to the development of education in Vietnam. This scholarship is dedicated to students with excellent academic achievements from top 10 Vietnamese universities in order to assist the young generation in confidently pursuing their dreams. "I believe that Vietnam's future lies in the hands of the young generation. Their success will bring hope and a brighter future to the country," Chicilon Media leader said. Students of the University of Economics - Hanoi National University receiving scholarships from the Chicilon Scholarship Fund. Photo courtesy of Chicilon Guo said he intends to expand the funds scale and value in the future to support even more excellent students across Vietnam. Besides the scholarship fund, he also guaranteed that Chicilon Media will take part in many social activities to promote community development. Throughout 18 years of operation and development, Chicilon Media has built five major media channels, including elevator TV, elevator posters, supermarket posters, airport posters, and an airport large LED system. Every day, these marketing media channels reach more than 40 million key consumers in urban areas. Currently, the company's media network covers more than 4,000 residential areas and high-end office buildings. It is present at more than 40 supermarkets and 16 key airports nationwide. The number of advertising devices that the company owns reaches up to 37,000 screens, occupying more than 92% of the market share, according to their exploitation standards. The network widely reaches millions of middle- and high-end consumers in Vietnam. Sent by truck through Vietnam, the raw materials are shipped to Chinas Qingdao port for processing. Mining operations in Laos southern provinces have been sending iron, coal and other raw materials by truck through Vietnam, where the materials are then shipped to a Chinese seaport for processing, an official who works in the energy and mine sector told Radio Free Asia. Because southern Laos doesnt have a processing plant, the government must allow investors to ship their raw minerals through two overland border crossings with Vietnam, the official who works in Sekong province said. All of these minerals have to be exported to other countries, she said. The minerals are then sent from Vung Ang seaport in Vietnams Ha Tinh province to Chinas Qingdao seaport one of the busiest ports in the world. Australias ambassador to Vietnam, Andrew Goledzinowski, tweeted about the truck shipments during a visit to Ha Tinh last week. He noted in a follow-up tweet that a railway between Laos and the Vung Ang port is under consideration. Coal mine in Hongsa, Laos. (Screenshot via Google Earth) Until recently, most raw materials from Laos numerous Chinese-funded mining projects have been carried overland to China. Laotians have spoken frequently about seeing large, mineral-loaded trucks heading north on dirt roads and paved highways toward the Boten border checkpoint with Chinas Yunnan province. The mining projects have also prompted complaints that they dont employ enough Lao workers and that nearby residents are often left without farmland or drinkable water. Shipments in the north Last year, National Assembly lawmaker Hongkham Xayakhom urged the government to reconsider its policy of allowing so much mining. The economic and financial conditions of our country have not improved, she said at an Assembly meeting. Most people are still struggling and our debt is still high. In March, Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone directed the Ministry of Energy and Mines to require mining companies to process raw minerals in Laos before export. A ministry official told RFA at the time that companies should comply with the requirement as soon as possible. Meanwhile, some shipments of raw minerals from Laos northern provinces are being sent to China through the Laos-China railway, an Attapeu province official told RFA. The railway opened in December 2021. Sino-Agri International Potash Co., Ltd. in Khammouane Province, Laos. (Screenshot via Google Earth) The shipment of raw minerals from Laos to China has the full support of the Lao government, according to the Attapeu official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity to speak freely about government decision-making. There are government committees appointed to inspect and weigh every truck loaded with raw minerals, he said. Officials must confirm that the mining companies are exporting the proper amount granted to them under the concession quotas, he said. Minister of Energy and Mines Phoxay Xayasone told lawmakers last month that mining excavation generated US$2.4 billion for investors in 2023, which brought in US$322 million in tax revenue for the Lao government. Translated by Phouvong. Edited by Matt Reed. A new bill would give the envoy a $10 million annual budget to investigate atrocities against the ethnic minority. Ethnic Rohingya refugees climb onto a National Search and Rescue Agency boat after their boat capsized off West Aceh, Indonesia, March 21, 2024. Two senior U.S. lawmakers are pushing legislation that would create a special envoy in the State Department dedicated to the displaced Rohingya population in Myanmar and Bangladesh and provide an annual budget of $10 million for atrocity crime investigations. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March 2021 said Myanmars military committed genocide against the Muslim minority in Myanmars Rakhine state in 2017, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee across the border into refugee camps in Bangladesh. Some 1.2 million Rohingya now live in the Coxs Bazar refugee camps, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which says their current $10 daily food ration is insufficient. The Rohingya Genocide Accountability and Protection Act stylized as the Rohingya GAP Act would create a Special Coordinator for Rohingya Atrocities Prevention and Response at the State Department and provide an annual budget of $10 million for five years. Related stories Rohingyas face prison-like conditions in Bangladesh camps: report Myanmar junta threatens to block food aid for Rohingyas who refuse military training Rohingya activists call for more control of aid money The envoy would be tasked with supporting atrocity crime investigations, documentation, and casework, transitional justice and accountability mechanisms, witness protection measures, and technical support related to Rohingya, a press release says. A Conflict Observatory for Burma would also be created and tasked with monitoring and reporting on political violence in Myanmar, according to the bill, while college scholarships for Rohingya refugees living in the United States would also be authorized. Ethnic Rohingya disembark from their boat upon landing in Ulee Madon, North Aceh, Indonesia, Nov. 16, 2023. (Rahmat Mirza/AP) The legislation is co-sponsored by both Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York and his partys ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was approved by the committee with bipartisan support on Thursday and now heads to the full House of Representatives for a vote. If successful, it will then need to be approved by the U.S. Senate. Speaking during the committee mark-up session, McCaul said that swift passage of the legislation was a moral imperative. This resolution continues our bipartisan support in addressing the crisis in Burma and the Rohingya genocide, he said. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure and show the world the United States Congress will not let genocide go unanswered. Rohingya refugees walk at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 2, 2021. (Shafiqur Rahman/AP) After the bills approval in the committee, Meeks said in a statement he believed it would ultimately be passed quickly by the House. The State Departments determination two years ago that the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya was not only a critical recognition of the atrocities they have suffered, but also a call to action, Meeks said. The Rohingya GAP Act is a key step towards protecting and supporting Rohingya and ensuring history does not repeat itself. I look forward to this legislations swift passage on the House Floor. UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews speaks during a press conference after a meeting with Thailand's Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy, and National Reform, on finding that Thai banks have been facilitating money transactions on arms deals in Myanmar, on July 11, 2024. Thailands commercial banks, regulators and the anti-money laundering office are considering measures to stop Myanmar acquiring weapons via Thailands banking system, a Thai lawmaker said at a meeting with a U.N. special rapporteur. Tom Andrews, special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, said in a report last month that Thailand had become Myanmars main supplier of military equipment through the international banking system, and he called on financial institutions to do more to stop Myanmars junta acquiring weapons. Andrews, in Bangkok to address a parliamentary committee on security this week, called for action to cut off supplies of weapons to Myanmars junta in line with a plan promoted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that sets out an end to violence as a first step towards peace. I urge this committee and the government of Thailand to take a clear and strong position opposing the transfer of weapons and dual use technologies into Myanmar, Andrews told a committee hearing. Andrews, in his report The Billion Dollar Death Trade, noted that Singapore had implemented a clear policy opposing the transfer of weapons to Myanmar. As a result, exports of weapons and related materials from Singapore-registered entities using the formal banking system dropped from almost US$120 million in FY2022 to just over US$10 million in FY2023. But Thailand, with no explicit public policy position opposing weapons transfer to Myanmar, saw exports from Thai-registered entities more than double over the same period, from just over US$60 million to nearly US$130 million, he said. He called on Thailand to conduct as thorough an investigation into transfers as Singapore had done into its companies dealings. Singapore has unambiguously taken this position ... that reflects the U.N. General Assembly resolution in July 2021 that called on all U.N. member states to prevent the flow of weapons into Myanmar, he said. Rangsiman Rome, head of the lower house security committee, said legislators agreed with the report and would consider action. We have no argument against the report. Next, we will have to have measures, an action plan, Rome said, adding that the relevant organizations would report back to the committee in 30 days. RELATED STORIES UN rights envoy urges action to stop Myanmars access to weapons, funds Myanmar rebels rack up more gains as Operation 1027 enters new phase Junta military preparations point to brutal next phase of Myanmar conflict Myanmar still getting jet fuel despite call to cut supply: rights group Looking to Singapore Andrews said five Thai banks and Thailand-based companies were facilitating the acquisition by Myanmars junta of weapons, dual-technology items and jet fuel, enabling its armed forces to conduct atrocities against the people. But said he had found no evidence that the Thai government was involved in or aware of the transactions or that Thai banks were aware of the nature of the specific transactions they facilitated. While Thai banks may well have been unaware of the nature of these transactions, they are now, and the issue now is what can be done and what will be done, he said. Representatives from Thailands central bank, anti-money laundering office and the commercial banks named in the report were present at the three-hour session at parliament in Bangkok. The Bank of Thailand said it was working with banks and the anti-money laundering office to make sure that enhanced due diligence was properly practiced. We will take a look at what Singapore used for how we can strengthen our criteria, measures and procedures, a central bank representative said. The Thai Bankers Association said it did not have the means to investigate and monitor such irregularities beyond Thailands borders. If government security agencies tell us, we will stop transactions, Pongsit Chaichatpornsuk, representative of the Thai Bankers Association, said. We dont support arms procurement by Myanmar or any military government to violate human rights. Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar and hosts many thousands of refugees fleeing conflict there, has tried to promote dialogue between Myanmar's military rulers and opposition forces but no progress has been made. Edited by Mike Firn. London needs a clear, consistent policy towards China and related issues like the South China Sea analysts. British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth conducts a double replenishment with Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Tidespring and Royal Netherlands Navy frigate HNLMS Evertsen in the South China Sea on July 29, 2021. Updated July 14, 2024, 06:16 a.m. ET. Britains new ruling party has pledged a thorough audit of U.K.-China relations to establish a clearer long-term China policy, including its dealings with Beijing over the South China Sea and Taiwan, but analysts say little change is likely in the near future. Keir Starmers Labour party won a landslide victory in last weeks general election, ending 14 years of Conservative government. U.K. policy has been that it takes no sides in the sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, but we oppose any activity that undermines or threatens U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) authority including attempts to legitimise incompatible maritime claims, in the words of Anne-Marie Trevelyan, minister of state for Indo-Pacific under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Trevelyan reiterated that Londons commitment to the UNCLOS was unwavering as it played a leading role in setting the legal framework for the U.K.s maritime activities. It's a standard position on upholding international law, freedom of navigation and the rules-based order, said Ian Storey, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, This is not going to change. However, with Chinas increased assertiveness and growing military might, upholding those principles in distant waters will be a challenge. Furthermore, there are Britains own interests in economics, security and geopolitics to be considered. In 2021, the British government announced an overhaul in its foreign policy - Global Britain in a Competitive Age - which emphasized a tilt to the Indo-Pacific that, following in the footsteps of the U.S., promised a bolder strategic presence in the region where China is looming large. In 2022, Britain released a new National Strategy for Maritime Security, with one of the main focuses being the South China Sea. The United Kingdoms carrier strike group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth, and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces joined with U.S. Navy carrier strike groups led by flagships USS Ronald Reagan and USS Carl Vinson to conduct multiple carrier strike group operations in the Philippine Sea, Oct. 3, 2021. (U.S. Navy) Yet there has not been any major British deployment in the region since 2021, and the Royal Navy did not send a warship to take part in the ongoing U.S.-led RIMPAC - the world's largest international maritime exercise. It remains unclear how Britain will pursue its maritime ambitions in the Asia-Pacific, especially when overall policy towards China has been deemed inconsistent. Clear steer in dealing with China Labours promise to conduct both a defense review and an audit of China policy leaves many questions unanswered, said Gray Sergeant, research fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, a British think tank. Initially, Labour was skeptical about the 'tilt to the Indo-Pacific', however, they have supported measures which have stepped up Britain's defense role in the region, Sergeant told RFA. It is very unlikely such advances will be reversed, the question is whether a Labour government will be inclined to build on these steps if, as it seems, attention is focused on enhancing the U.K.'s role in European security, the analyst said. RELATED STORIES Not so hard: British scholar proposes fix for South China Sea disputes US, UK aircraft carriers lead show of naval might around South China Sea With eyes on Beijing, US and Japan pledge stronger ties Another China expert, veteran diplomat Charles Parton, said that in the past Labour has not said things which indicate that its China policy will be different from that of the Conservatives. But the latter's strategy was never articulated, for which they came in for justified criticism, said Parton, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. The pressure now is on Labour to give a clear steer and to ensure consistent implementation across the various government departments whose interests involve dealing with China. The Conservative government recognized China as a systemic challenge that it sought to counter with a three-stranded strategy of protect, align, engage. Labours new foreign secretary, David Lammy, proposed a similar three Cs (compete, challenge, cooperate) in dealing with China. That signals continuity, said Gray Sergeant. The question is which of these three strands will take precedence? The analyst noted that Lammy put particular emphasis on cooperation and engagement, and seemed keen on more ministers visiting China, which was Britains fifth-largest trading partner in 2023, according to the U.K. Department for Business and Trade. Some activists, like Luke de Pulford from the U.K. Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said that the new British government was likely to champion trade over thorny issues that would cause discord. Labour needs to deliver on the economy and is scared that upsetting Beijing would jeopardize that goal, de Pulford wrote in a recent opinion piece. Ministerial ambition, parliamentary trench warfare, media outrage or unavoidable circumstantial change can all shift policy, but outside of a serious escalation in the South China Sea, I don't see it happening, the human rights activist wrote. But another activist said that Labour's manifesto made clear their intention to bring a long-term and strategic approach to managing relations with China. This could lead to a more robust stance on human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and increased support for Taiwan's autonomy, said Simon Cheng, a Hong Kong democracy activist in London. However, we must watch closely how these words translate into actions, Cheng warned. What does China say? China has been closely following developments in U.K. politics, with Premier Li Qiang sending a congratulatory message to Starmer almost immediately after he became Britains prime minister on July 5. Li said that China and Britain were both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and cooperation between them not only serves the interests of the two countries, but also is conducive to the unity of the international community in addressing global challenges. Keir Starmer, then U.K. Shadow Brexit Secretary, in a meeting with former Taiwanese vice president Chen Chien-jen in Taipei on Oct. 1, 2018. (Taiwan Presidential Office) Starmer, as a member of parliament and shadow Brexit secretary, visited Taiwan in 2016 and 2018 to lobby against the death penalty. Observers say its very rare that any top British leader has had an experience of Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province that must be reunited with the mainland. While the issue of Taiwan has not emerged in bilateral interactions, British politicians in the past have angered China over their statements about Hong Kong and the South China Sea. A Foreign Office spokespersons statement criticizing the unsafe and escalatory tactics deployed by Chinese vessels against the Philippines in the South China Sea earned a rebuke from Chinese diplomats in London, who said they firmly oppose and strongly condemn the groundless accusation made by the U.K., and have lodged stern representations with the U.K. side on this. China maintains that almost all of the disputed South China Sea and its islands belong to it. China refused to accept a 2016 arbitral ruling that rejected all its claims in the South China Sea but it recognized that Britains stance of not taking sides in the South China Sea issue had changed. Before 2016, the U.K. did not have a clear-cut South China Sea policy, wrote Chinese analyst Liu Jin in the China International Studies magazine. Liu argued that Britains change in policy, as well as its stance in the South China Sea, were largely influenced by the United States. However, due to the security situation in its home waters, inadequacy of main surface combatants, and pressure of the defense budget, the U.K. will find it hard to expand the scale of Asia-Pacific navigation, he said, adding that London also lacks the willingness to step up provocation against China. Edited by Mike Firn. Updated to correct Ian Storey's title to Senior Fellow. Ablikim Kurban was arrested in 2017 for having contact with terrorists abroad. A well-known Uyghur entrepreneur who set up an international trading company in Xinjiang is serving a life sentence for his alleged involvement with extremists abroad, people with knowledge of the situation told RFA Uyghur. Ablikim Kurban, who would now be about 46 years old, established the Xinjiang Siyadan International Trade Co. in Urumqi in April 2017 and began selling imported sesame seeds. Prior to setting up his business, Kurban had visited factories and companies in Egypt. While there, he also met with Uyghur students from his hometown of Kumul, called Hami in Chinese, who were attending Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Muslim-majority Egypt is among several countries blacklisted by Chinese authorities for travel by Uyghurs because of a perceived threat of religious extremism. Chinese authorities pointed to Kurban's trip and his alleged involvement with terrorists as the reason for his arrest on July 8, 2017, a Xinjiang police officer and a security chief on the neighborhood committee where Kurban previously lived in Kumul told RFA. Relatives said they still dont know his whereabouts. RELATED STORIES Five Uyghurs from one family imprisoned for Egypt study, another believed to have died in camp The price of my studies abroad was very high: Former Al-Azhar student Two Uyghur students die in Chinas custody following voluntary return From Egypt Detained Uyghur students held by Egypts intelligence service Uyghurs studying abroad ordered back to Xinjiang under threat to families Kurban was one of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs arrested during Chinas roundup and mass detentions of Muslims in re-education camps across Xinjiang, which began around 2017, in the name of fighting terrorism and religious extremism. Uyghurs like Kurban who traveled to other Muslim-majority countries were especially at risk of being detained on unproven grounds that they had been in contact with what Chinese authorities claimed were terrorists or extremists. A police officer who is based in Kumuls Taranchi coal mine district, where Kurban used to work, told Radio Free Asia that authorities detained him in 2017 because of his trip to Egypt. They didnt tell us the reason prior to his arrest, we only learned about it after he was arrested, she said. He was arrested for getting involved with an extremist organization in Egypt, she said, adding that the information came from state security police. During Kurbans visit to Egypt, Chinese authorities ordered Uyghur students enrolled in schools there and in other countries, including Turkey, France, Australia and the United States, to return to their hometowns in Xinjiang for "registration." In some cases, authorities held parents hostage by locking them up until their children returned, and some students who did go back disappeared or were jailed, sources in Xinjiang and Egypt told RFA in a May 2017 report. Authorities in Egypt collaborated with Chinese authorities to round up scores of Uyghur students many of them studying religion at Al-Azhar and detain and deport them, according to the report. A resident of the Taranchi coal mine district told RFA that Kurban was focused on his business and his family and had no interest in politics. The resident, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said authorities also arrested Kurbans wife, Gulshan Tohti, a month after detaining him, leaving a grandmother to care for the couples three children. Tohti was released in August 2023, though it is unknown what she was charged with and whether she spent six years of detainment in an internment camp or prison. Kurban initially followed in his father's footsteps after graduating from high school and became a miner in Taranchi, which is in eastern Xinjiang. He had greater ambitions though, and in the early 2000s he founded a factory in Kumul that produced plastic doors and windows, becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in his hometown. In 2015, Kurban decided to shift his business to food imports. But his arrest and detention in 2017 cut his plans short, and Xinjiang Siyadan International Trade was shut down. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Jim Snyder. After the Taliban's de facto government cut ties with a number of diplomatic missions operated abroad by diplomats loyal to the ousted Afghan republic, the British and Norwegian authorities have opted to shut down Afghan embassies on their soil. Both Oslo and London say their decisions in no way represent official recognition of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which no country recognizes due to concerns over a woeful human rights record and other failures to live up to promises it made before seizing power in August 2021. But experts say the embassy closures are likely to pave the way for more engagement with the Taliban, which controls all of Afghanistan's territory and has increased its hold on power. Diplomats who served the former Afghan government were left in limbo when the Taliban took control, but remained open for business in some Western states and continued to assist Afghan citizens. The window on their operations began to close when the Taliban announced in July that it was cutting ties with 14 such missions in Western countries and that it would not accept any consular documents they processed, a critical source of funding to keep them running. Many of the consular services, such as verification of identity documents or police clearance, offered by the embassies do require a degree of cooperation from the country's government because diplomatic missions might not be able to access all government data. This month, the British Foreign Office announced that it was shutting down the Afghan Embassy in London, explaining to RFE/RL on September 9 that the decision was made after the "dismissal of its staff by the Taliban." Norway quickly followed suit, announcing that the Afghan Embassy in Oslo would be shut down on September 12. Both the British and Norwegian governments have indicated that the move does not amount to a formal recognition of the Taliban's hard-line government. And the embassy buildings, which are Afghanistan's properties, will be eventually handed over to a "recognized" government of Afghanistan. But Hameed Hakimi, an Afghanistan expert, says the decisions to shut the embassies can be taken as "reality setting in" that the Taliban is "unlikely to be replaced in the immediate future." And for the Taliban, he says, it creates an opportunity to argue that its rule is being acknowledged, even without formal recognition. "The Taliban can use this to their advantage in their pursuit of claiming legitimacy with the Afghans and internationally," said Hakimi, an associate fellow at London's Chatham House think tank. More than a dozen countries, mostly Afghanistan's neighbors, already operate embassies in Kabul, and some have accredited Taliban diplomats. The Taliban government also partially controls diplomatic missions in some countries, and has established working relations with Afghan diplomatic missions in the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and the Afghan Consulate in Munich. The missions operating in Western countries staffed by diplomats appointed by the previous government are the outlier. Hakimi said that if all those missions are shut down, it "truly signifies the closure of the chapter of the Afghan Islamic Republic." The Afghan Islamic Republic, as it was formally known, emerged soon after a U.S.-led military alliance toppled the Taliban government in November 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Nearly two decades later, the internationally recognized Afghan republic collapsed as the Taliban seized power in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban, meanwhile, recreated its brutal emirate from the 1990s by imposing harsh bans and discriminatory laws that resulted in widespread human rights violations. Afghan women and girls are deprived of education and employment in most sectors and lack fundamental freedoms. These Taliban policies have so far kept its government from being officially recognized. This absence of recognition has complicated engagement with the Taliban government on important issues, such as humanitarian aid, and made it difficult for the estimated 2 million Afghans living in Western countries to access consular services. Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says Western governments might be acting on the UN special coordinator's recommendation to facilitate the processing of documentation for Afghans abroad. In his report endorsed by the UN Security Council in December 2023, Feridun Sinirlioglu, the UN special coordinator for Afghanistan, called for better cooperation between the Taliban regime and the outside world to ensure that Afghans can obtain the paperwork they need to continue with their daily lives. "Afghans have been suffering in limbo without clarity about where to go when they need identity papers or travel documents," Smith said, describing how Afghans who still do not have travel documents from another country suffer from the lack of consular services. "The steps we are witnessing now may represent practical efforts by some governments" to remedy the situation, Smith said. The challenge remains, he said, to ensure that efforts "aimed at pressuring the regime do not sabotage the lives and livelihoods of Afghans." Many Western capitals are also grappling with the complex issue of what to do with Afghan asylum seekers whose applications were rejected. Last month, Germany deported 28 Afghan men convicted of crimes in the country to Kabul, with Qatar playing an intermediary role in securing the Taliban's cooperation in accepting the returning Afghans. Smith said that some countries "are discovering the usefulness" of having a consular presence "connected to the authorities in Kabul" if they need to arrange the return of Afghan migrants. "But it's unclear if that motivated the recent closures," he said. Both Britain and Norway have not said anything about whether they will allow the Taliban government to offer consular services in London and Oslo. The fates of the Afghan Embassy in Berlin and consulate in Bonn are not clear, although the consulate in Munich is likely to remain open because it cooperates with the Taliban government on consular services. In London, Afghanistan expert Hakimi said the closure could create an "opportunity for the Taliban to lobby with the Western countries" and allow its representatives to at least run counselor services. These Afghan diplomatic missions can remain closed indefinitely, similar to what happened in the United States, where the Afghan Embassy and two consulates have been closed since March 2002. The Afghan Embassy in Canada offers remote consular services to Afghans living in the United States. In Norway, Afghans have mixed feelings about their embassy's closure. Sima Nouri, an Afghan woman living in Oslo, is worried over how her compatriots will now access consular services. "There is a possibility that the process of forced deportation of Afghan refugees will begin," she told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "This process, however, must be stopped." Mina Rafiq, another Afghan woman in Norway, prefers shutting the embassy down to cooperating with the Taliban. "This might work to the advantage of Afghan asylum seekers," she said, "because the Norwegian government will now have to give them necessary documents." The Israeli military on October 10 said it had eliminated another important Hezbollah member as it kept up its attacks against the Iran-backed group. Adham Jahout, a member of Hezbollah's "Golan Terrorist Network" was killed in an air strike in the area of Quneitra in Syria, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said. Jahout was relaying intelligence from Syrian regime sources to Hezbollah and facilitating operations against Israel in the Golan Heights, the IDF said. Israel annexed the Golan Heights after capturing them from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war. The annexation has not been recognized by most countries. Separately, the Israeli military said on October 10 that it had eliminated two Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon and its warplanes attacked munitions depots in the Beirut area and in southern Lebanon. It did not immediately reveal the identities of the two commanders. Hezbollah, a militant 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 latest strikes came as the United States, Israel's main ally, warned against bombardments in Lebanon similar to those that caused large-scale destruction in Gaza as Israel retaliated against Hamas following the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group's deadly attack on Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead. Israel's bombardment of central and northern Gaza in recent days has killed dozens of people and trapped thousands in their homes, Palestinian officials say. "There should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists on October 9. The warning came after U.S. President Joe Biden emphasized in a call on October 9 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the need for a diplomatic arrangement for the return of both Lebanese and Israeli civilians to their homes on both sides of the border. Biden also condemned Iran's ballistic-missile attack on Israel on October 1, a White House statement said. Biden "affirmed Israel's 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 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. 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. During perestroika and the early years of Belarus's independence, Syarhey Brushko worked as a photojournalist, capturing poignant black-and-white photos of a country transitioning from a Soviet republic to an independent nation. This period also saw the rise of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the country's authoritarian leader -- who still rules today. In 2000, at the age of 42, Brushko passed away after suffering from Raynaud's disease. He left behind a collection of images that capture this turbulent time. His son, Dzmitry Brushko, has given RFE/RL a glimpse into the life and works of his photojournalist father. From Geologist To Photographer Brushko was born in the small village of Haradzyeya in the Nyasvizh district, southwest of Minsk. At the age of 7, he was given a camera and quickly developed a passion for photography. He later studied geology at Belarusian State University, often spending his time in the school's photo lab perfecting his printing skills. "My grandfather did not understand photography, often asking, 'What kind of profession is being a photographer?'" Dzmitry recalled. After his studies, Brushko pursued his passion for photography, first working in a photo studio in Salihorsk and later for the local newspaper, where his work began to be noticed. Eventually, he was invited to work for the larger Banner of Youth and Chirvonka newspapers, both of which had broad circulations of more than 500,000 copies in the late 1980s. "Dad had to live in a photo lab in the basement of the printing house. I remember this place well. I can still hear the rumble of subway trains there. It was forbidden to stay in the facility at night, and a policeman was on guard," Dzmitry recounted. Severe Reprimand Without Reprimand The newspaper where Brushko worked was youth-oriented and reformist, which often attracted the ire of officials. "My dad was repeatedly called 'on the carpet' by the local officials. He would come back from there and joke, 'Severe reprimand without reprimand.' "We have one family trait: In extreme situations, we joke," Dzmitry said, before adding, "Laughter kills fear and brings you to consciousness." Lessons Of Love And Life Dzmitry studied art and dreamed of attending Minsk State College, the center of art life in Belarus. However, his father had other ideas. "Dad said that I don't need to learn a specialty. 'You will make connections, and I will teach you,'" Dzmitry recalled his father saying. Despite being ill, Brushko trained Dzmitry in the technical and artistic aspects of photography. "My dad also taught me about life. On the first floor, there were photo laboratories with ventilation. When they were drinking vodka, you could hear the clinking of glasses throughout Belarus. They also knew Dad's voice. When he yelled at me [for some transgression], they would nod their heads in sympathy and smile," Dzmitry reminisced. The Burning Of His Legacy If his father had not died so early, Dzmitry admits he would never have gone into photojournalism. The then-19-year-old says he was deeply touched by the words of his father's colleagues at his funeral, one of whom pointed out that his father had left behind a great legacy of photos that needed to be preserved. Brushko's archive was stored in the editorial office of the Narodnaya gazeta. Colleagues said that immediately after his death, the newspaper decided to remove his work. "My father had already moved some of his archive to his grandmother's house. A significant part of the archive lay there for six years, until she died," Dzmitry said. "After her death, I asked my relatives not to throw away the archive. Unfortunately, they burned part of it. They also burned a photo from the exhibition that was in the National Art Museum. They did keep the glass plates for use in the greenhouses." Extremist Recognition After Death In 2015, the then-Belarusian ambassador to France, Paval Latushka, invited journalists to Paris for Belarusian Fashion Week. This was also a chance for Dzmitry to move parts of his father's legacy outside of Belarus for safekeeping. Brushko's works had earlier been labeled "extremist" by the Lukashenka government after they were featured in the 2013 edition of Press Photos Of Belarus. "The book contained photos by Sergei Gudilin of the Belarusian Army. There was a part on Chernobyl and my dad's documentary photos about life in the '80s and '90s. About 30 works in total. There was no politics; there were no symbols. Instead, there was a sense of time," Dzmitry explained. Dzmitry was able to move some of his father's prints to Paris. "And eventually, they came back to me. An archive is always difficult, expensive, and cumbersome. We need to know when and where it was filmed. You need to do research and learn a lot of interesting things about the history of your country. This is hard archival work for memory recovery. "I have something to be proud of in my life: It's my father's work," Dzmitry said. 'Dad Did Everything Alone' In 1998, Brushko had an exhibition at the National Arts Museum. The director of the museum was against it. They first offered the exhibition to another photographer, but he refused, and Brushko agreed. "Dad was already terminally ill; he understood that he had little time left, and he literally clung to this project. This was his outlet: to go on business trips, to shoot, not to take a set of photographs but to develop a theme and reveal it," Dzmitry said. For a year, Brushko took pictures for his final project, even venturing into the Chernobyl exclusion zone. It was at times physically demanding, often leaving him bedridden. While working on the project, he was told to register his disability, but he refused. "He had a small apartment under the workshop, where he put a photo enlarger on top of a washing machine. Sometimes he could no longer walk and could only crawl. He did everything alone: choosing, printing, and retouching the photos," Dzmitry said. "I would often visit, though it was very painful for me to look at him." The exhibition at the National Arts Museum became a significant event, covered by all TV channels. It was then that Brushko's father realized the importance of photography. "He always thought it wasn't serious. And then, after reading about his son in newspapers and seeing his work on TV, he finally accepted his son's profession," Dzmitry added. 'Publish This Again And I Will Go To Court!' At the same time, the book In Search Of Belarus was published 12 years after the Chernobyl disaster, with a circulation of 1,000 copies. However, only 50 censored copies reached Belarus, with some pages left blank, reminiscent of old newspaper censorship. Dzmitry recounts another story about an exhibition held in the Central Cinema in 2011 under the auspices of the Znyata photo gallery. The cinema director called Dzmitry to inform him that the exhibition was canceled. Allegedly, a captain from a nearby building -- the KGB was close by -- visited and said that the exhibit discredited the country. "The photographs at the exhibition were about life in Belarus -- nothing special, no politics. I received a call from a hidden number. The caller said, in a pleasant manner, 'I used to talk to your father, and now I have to talk to you.' He introduced himself as the deputy head of the presidential security service." "He then shouted on the phone, 'If you publish this again, I will go to court! Where is your father?' I said, 'He died 10 years ago.' He then hung up." "They don't like photography if it shows them from an unflattering perspective. In 20 years, they will be remembered as a boy with a pioneer badge, standing in a puddle on November 7," Dzmitry said. Unrequited Love In 2019, Dzmitry published the book Change, containing over 100 of his father's photos from 1988 to 1994, covering the period from the heyday of glasnost in the U.S.S.R. to the first presidential election in Belarus. "Change is perhaps the best word in the Belarusian language that describes the historical period of the 1980s and early 1990s," Dzmitry writes in the preface to the book about his father's work. Within a year, the entire edition was sold out. It's success was a personal triumph for Dzmitry. By 2019, the print run had ended, and by 2020, the book was out of print. WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in a highly anticipated news conference following the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington on July 11, stressed his efforts building partnerships to oppose Russias all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and said he would keep NATO strong. "For those who thought NATO's time had passed, they got a rude awakening when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin invaded Ukraine," Biden said. In an eight-minute opening address that often took on the appearance of a campaign speech at a time when his pursuit of a second presidential term is being openly questioned, Biden lauded his early action in alerting the world that Russia was about to invade its neighbor and in building a coalition of partners to oppose it. Biden said that Putin thought that Ukraine would fall in less than a week, but that the country still stands. He also said that he would do everything to end the war now. The press appearance was seen as a pivotal moment in Bidens attempts to overcome his disastrous performance during his debate two weeks ago against Donald Trump, his presumptive Republican opponent in the November presidential election. The 81-year-old Bidens tired appearance and verbal missteps during the June 27 debate fueled doubts about his ability to beat Trump or to serve a full second term should he win. Calls have grown among Democratic supporters and elected officials for Biden to end his campaign, although high-ranking party figures have continued to support his bid to win a second term in office. Going into what some described as a make-or-break press appearance following the NATO summit, Biden was already facing criticism for mistakenly referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as President Putin. Early on in the press conference, Biden made another gaffe when he mistakenly referred to Trump as his vice president. When pressed by reporters during a 50-minute question-and-answer session about his fitness for another term, Biden made his case for continuing his campaign, saying neurological exams showed that he was in good shape and insisting that he was the best qualified to govern the United States. In the aftermath of a NATO summit in which the alliance boosted its support for Ukraines efforts to defend itself against Russia and referred to China as a decisive enabler of Moscows war effort, Biden said that in the event of future negotiations with Russian President Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping, he was ready to deal with them now, and in three years. However, he added, that he was not ready to talk to Putin "unless Putin is ready to change his behavior." The idea that we're going to be able to fundamentally change Russia in the near term is not likely, Biden said. But one thing is for certain, if we allow Russia to succeed in Ukraine, they're not stopping at Ukraine." Biden said, however, that the United States would take a cautious approach on the issue of allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory. "We're making on a day-to-day basis on what they should and shouldn't do, how far they should go in, Biden said. That's a logical thing to do." The comments came after Ukrainian President Zelenskiy pressed NATO leaders to lift all restrictions against Kyiv using their donated weaponry to launch long-range strikes onto Russian territory if they want to see Ukraine defeat Russias invading forces. If he [Zelenskiy] had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldnt," Biden said. The United States in early May gave Kyiv the green light to use U.S. weapons to strike just over the border on Russian territory to help Ukraine beat back a major Russian offensive near Kharkiv. Biden, in a meeting with Zelenskiy earlier in the day, said he was pleased to announce the allocation of new aid to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia. "We will stay with you, period," Biden said ahead of bilateral talks. The United States later announced it would be sending $225 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine, the eight tranche since the passage of a $61 billion aid package in April. The latest tranche includes a Patriot missile battery, anti-aircraft systems and munitions, as well as artillery ammunition and rockets. During his press appearance following the end of the NATO summit, Biden positioned himself as a protector of the alliance, while casting Trump as a danger. Biden accused Trump, who during his presidency from 2017 to 2021 often criticized NATO members and suggested he might pull the United States out of the alliance, as having no commitment to NATO. Hes made it clear that he would feel no obligation to honor Article 5, Biden said of Trump, referring to the NATO defense pact that requires the alliance to respond in the event any individual member state is attacked. Biden also claimed that during the NATO summit, other leaders had told him that another Trump presidency would be a disaster. "I've not had any of my European allies come up here and say 'Joe, don't run,'" Biden told reporters. "What I hear them say is 'You've gotta win. You can't let this guy [Trump] come forward, he'd be a disaster.'" After Bidens gaffe in which he introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskiy as President Putin before quickly correcting himself, some NATO leaders came to his defense. French President Emmanuel Macron said that Biden was in charge during the two-day summit, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that "slips of tongue happen. During the question-and-answer session, however, at least one reporter suggested that NATO officials had said off the record that Biden's "decline had become noticeable." BUV and a U.K. delegation held seminars in Hanoi to update trends, exchange experiences, and enhance the International Foundation Program, accredited by the University of London, exclusively taught by BUV in Vietnam. At the beginning of July, BUV and a high-level delegation from the University of London (UoL), London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), collaborated to organize a series of extensive seminars within a symposium held in Hanoi. The events aimed to update cutting-edge trends and exchange multinational experiences to strengthen and enhance the teaching methods of universities aligned with global standards in general. The program has also focused on supplementing and improving the quality of the International Foundation Program (IFP) accredited by the UoL, one of the top 10 universities in the U.K., exclusively taught by BUV in Vietnam. As part of the event series, the UoL hosted a prestigious Quality Certification Award Ceremony for BUV's accredited teaching center, underscoring BUV's pivotal position within UoL's global partner network. The ceremony not only celebrated BUV's exceptional training standards over the years but also highlighted its significant contributions to education. This occasion unfolded at the residence of the British Ambassador to Vietnam, witnessed by Marcus Winsley (L), Deputy British Ambassador to Vietnam. Photo courtesy of BUV According to the Deputy British Ambassador, this strategic partnership not only strengthens academic ties between the U.K. and Vietnam but also realizes a shared vision in educating the future global leadership. "BUV students are equipped with the specialized knowledge and essential skills needed to succeed in an increasingly globalized world," said Winsley. Winsley underscored that education acts as the pivotal key to fostering sustainable cooperation between the U.K. and Vietnam. He highlighted how educational collaboration strengthens mutual understanding and bolsters bilateral relations, elevating Vietnam's influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Emphasizing this achievement, the Deputy Ambassador hailed BUV as a pioneering force in modern education, dedicated to upholding international standards for Vietnamese students. Photo courtesy of BUV BUV has unlocked new avenues of opportunity and empowered young individuals to thrive in the dynamic realms of local and global education. Through steadfast commitment, BUV has cemented its crucial role in advancing educational standards in the region. In addition, Winsley added that BUV is widely acclaimed for delivering top-tier British education standards with a dedicated faculty. The strategic partnership between BUV and UoL not only enhances academic connections between the U.K. and Vietnam but also realizes a shared vision in grooming future global leaders. "BUV equips its students with the knowledge and skills essential for success in an increasingly interconnected world," Winsley said. Addressing the event, Professor Raymond Gordon, President and Vice-Chancellor of BUV, described this symposium as the launchpad for future collaborations that will elevate the educational standards at the UoL and BUV. A notable initiative involves substantial investment in BUV's International Foundation Program (IFP). "The program's vision goes beyond improving the education sector; it aims to ignite Vietnam's comprehensive development. Witnessing the outstanding talent of our students firsthand, I'm confident that this generation will lead Vietnam's economic growth through their resilience and knowledge," said Professor Gordon. Professor Raymond Gordon, President and Vice-Chancellor of BUV gave a speech at the event. Photo courtesy of BUV Dr. Jill Stewart, representing the UoL's senior leadership, underscored the pivotal role of the strategic partnership with BUV for the UoL and LSE. Recognizing the immense potential early on, she highlighted BUV's continuous enhancements in education quality across phases. "Our collaborative programs, notably IFP, showcase our shared values and commitment to enhancing academic excellence. More than just high-quality education, they cultivate an exciting global learning community for Vietnamese and regional students," said Stewart. She's also confident in the future of BUV's students and looks forward to supporting them in shaping a prosperous Vietnam as exceptional, future-ready leaders. Dr. Jill Stewart, representing the UoL's senior leadership. Photo courtesy of BUV BUV and the UoL are spearheading a suite of high-caliber training programs, featuring IFP and four undergraduate programs in business: Finance, Accounting and Finance, Business and Management, and Economics and Management. IFP at BUV has gained global recognition for ensuring that students meet high academic standards and develop essential skills to excel at top-tier universities worldwide. In their collaborative approach to teaching, the UoL and BUV meticulously oversee teaching quality, program content, and a robust online library stocked with diverse reference materials. Enhanced by BUV's luxurious state-of-the-art facilities, this promises students an immersive and authentic British educational journey. Upon completing the IFP program, students can progress to the School of Business (awarded by the University of London and delivered at BUV) or confidently select from a range of prestigious international undergraduate programs in countries like Australia, Canada, and the U.S. A monument has been erected in the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk to honor victims of the brutal purges from the 1930s to the 1950s, despite efforts by the Russian government to glorify Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and downplay the extent of Soviet-era political repression. The memorial, long delayed and initially resisted, was funded by local authorities and stands as a reminder of a dark chapter in Soviet history -- one increasingly subject to historical revisionism. The rehabilitation of Stalin has been a feature of the rule by President Vladimir Putin since the former KGB officer came to power nearly a quarter-century ago. In the early years, Stalin was promoted as an "effective manager" who led the Soviet Union to victory over Nazi Germany. But over time, the tight connection between Stalin and the war has been loosened, and Stalin and Stalinist imagery now appear in a much wider array of contexts -- from advertising to the arts. Sources familiar with the project to build the new monument, which flies in the face of Putin's narrative, told RFE/RL on October 10 that the idea dates back to 2008, when the Nizhnevartovsk city administration held a competition to design it. Despite initial momentum, the project stalled for years, with officials citing various logistical reasons. First, city officials claimed the site was unavailable due to construction. Later, they allocated a remote location in an old part of the city, further delaying its completion. Frustrated by the city's inaction, residents took matters into their own hands in 2015, raising funds to erect a simple slab monument near a school. However, this unofficial tribute was destroyed in the fall of 2023 by unknown individuals. The long-awaited monument was finally erected with the assistance of former Khanty-Mansi Governor and current Federation Council member Natalya Komarova and after years of persistent advocacy by activists from the Istoki Pamyati (Origins of Memory) group. An official unveiling is planned for October 30, which is observed as the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression in Russia, at a time when the condemnation of Stalin's crimes is being pushed aside by normalization of the era in the everyday lives of Russians. Recently, the Prosecutor-Generals Office announced plans to review past decisions on the rehabilitation of repression victims, raising concerns that historical accountability for Soviet atrocities may be undermined. Moreover, in June, changes were made to the official Concept On Victims Of Political Repressions, eliminating references to the mass nature of Soviet-era purges and removing the call to commemorate their victims. The shift in the official stance was highlighted by the Moscow city government's decision to cancel the 2024 "Return of Names" event, where citizens traditionally gather to read aloud the names of those who were killed or jailed during the repressions. The cancellation was ostensibly due to a "sharp increase in COVID cases," but activists see it as part of the broader effort to suppress discussion of Soviet crimes. One year ago, Hamas -- the U.S.- and EU-designated Palestinian terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip -- carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel, the deadliest in the countrys history. In response, Israel launched an aerial bombardment and ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave to destroy Hamas and rescue the 251 hostages taken by the group. Israel has expanded its war in recent weeks by invading Lebanon and launching air strikes targeting Hezbollah, the armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. RFE/RL spoke to Lior Yohanani, manager of quantitative research at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based independent research center, which on October 7 released a wide-ranging survey of Israeli public opinion after one year of war. RFE/RL: Can you explain what your study found as to how Israelis view the past year since Hamas's October 7 attack? Lior Yohanani: Well, I think Israelis still don't see October 7 as an event that's over. Sure, the actual horrific events of that day ended, but Israelis are still living with the consequences. There are two main aspects to this. First, since October 7, Israel has been in this multifront war that doesn't seem to have an end in sight. And then, of course, there is the issue of the hostages still being held in Gaza. So, we're seeing a sharp drop in people's sense of personal security. Almost three quarters of the public feel less safe compared to before October 7, and that's despite a year of war and some significant military achievements. On the flip side, we're also seeing that most people say their lives have returned to normal when it comes to things like work, media consumption, and family and social gatherings. Another thing we're noticing is that the Israeli public is giving pretty low marks to all the political and military leaders for the performance since October 7. For example, almost two-thirds of Israelis are rating Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu's performance since then as poor or not good. RFE/RL: How has Israel's involvement in a two-front conflict, in both Gaza and Lebanon, as well as a confrontation with Iran affected public opinion among Israelis? Yohanani: It's tough to answer that question, because we're at the point where things could go in a few different directions. In the last few weeks, we've seen a major escalation in the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and just last week, Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, which Israel is expected to respond to. In a survey we just did recently, we asked whether Israeli society and the military could handle fighting on two or more fronts for an extended period of time, and the results were pretty striking. Over 70 percent believe that yes, both Israeli society and the military can handle that kind of prolonged fighting. So, while the situation is complex and evolving, there seems to be a strong sense of resilience and capability among Israelis, even in the face of these multiple threats. But of course, public opinion could shift depending on how events unfold in the coming weeks or months. RFE/RL: Is there support for Netanyahus response to October 7? Is there debate in Israeli society, as well as political circles, over Netanyahus strategic choices? Yohanani: First of all, it's important to say that the Israeli public has largely supported significant military operation against Hamas in Gaza. That said, the Israeli discourse around the October 7 events, the ongoing war, and especially toward Prime Minister Netanyahu, is very polarized between right-wing supporters on the one hand and left and center supporters on the other. People are hoping for a future where Israel can exist without constant threats, rather than expecting a harmonious relationship with its neighbors in the near-term." So, on the left and the center, there is a high level of distrust and suspicion toward Netanyahu and his government. For instance, Netanyahu's apparent reluctance to pursue a deal for returning the hostages in exchange for ending the fighting in Gaza is seen by large parts of the public, even on the right, as resulting from Netanyahu's dependence on far-right, ultranationalist members of his government who refuse any compromise or ceasefire. Now for a long time, Netanyahu and his ministers argued that only significant military force would lead Hamas to compromise and release the hostages. Now, with military attention and resources shifting to the north, people are asking, where is this massive military force that was supposed to bring the hostages home? One question we have asked several times since October 7 in our polls is what should be the main goal in Gaza: Dismantling Hamas or bringing back the hostages? And as time goes on, public opinion is increasingly supporting the return of hostages. In our current survey, 62 percent saw bringing the bringing back the hostages as Israel's main goal, while only 29 percent pointed to dismantling Hamas as the primary objective. RFE/RL: How do ordinary Israelis see the question of the remaining hostages amid the continued protests by the hostages' families? Yohanani: As I mentioned before, most of the public supports a deal to release the hostages, even if it means ending the war and withdrawing the military forces from Gaza. There's this widespread feeling that we've left the hostages behind, and that's really hitting at our sense of solidarity, which is a deep and fundamental value, I think, in Jewish history in general and in Israel society in particular. At the same time, the campaign run by the Hostages And Missing Families Forum has become very politicized. Many right-wing supporters see it as weakening Israel. As time goes on, we're seeing more and more harassment of protesters who support bringing the hostages back. There are cases of passersby cursing, even hitting and throwing eggs, at hostages' families. In our latest survey, we asked about the effectiveness of the protests and actions taken by the hostages' families. Despite most of the public feeling empathetic toward the hostage issue, only less than a third think these actions are actually helping to advance a deal for the hostages' release, while almost 40 percent think they're actually hurting the cause. So, you've got this complex situation where people want the hostages back, but there is disagreement and some backlash about how to make that happen. RFE/RL: Can you explain the reasons behind the apparent contradiction in views regarding prioritizing a negotiated return of the hostages, or destroying Hamas? Yohanani: You're right to point out that apparent contradiction. Let me break it down a bit. As I mentioned earlier, a clear majority of the public sees a deal to release the hostages as the main goal. But there is a big gap between political camps on this issue. In the center and left, about 80 percent support the deal for the hostages' release, while the opinions on the right are evenly split. So, for most of the left and center, the fighting in Gaza has run its course. They feel most military objectives have been achieved, and Hamas's military power has been significantly weakened. From their perspective, continuing the fight now only puts the hostages at greater risk. It's important to know that about half of the right-wing also shares this view of prioritizing the hostages' release, but the other half of those on the far-right thinks dismantling Hamas is more important. Why? For a couple of reasons. First, there's a security stance that Hamas must be wiped out and not allowed to recover. There is also a very strong sentiment of revenge, with minimal consideration for the cost, whether it's the lives of the hostages, soldiers, let alone innocent civilians in Gaza. Another significant component openly discussed in religious nationalist circles is the return of Jewish settlement to the Gaza Strip after Israel evacuated Jewish settlements from there in 2005. RFE/RL: Is there public confidence that Israel will ultimately be able to remove the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah and come out of this conflict with greater prospects for a peaceful and stable near-term future? Yohanani: Right now, the Israeli public isn't showing a lot of optimism. In our current survey, when we asked people if they're optimistic or pessimistic about Israel's future, we found more pessimists, 48 percent, than optimists, 45 percent. I also think it's important to note that a peaceful future, as you put it, or peace in general, isn't really a common concept in the current Israeli discourse. I would say the hope of Israelis is that the military actions against Hezbollah and Iran will lead to a situation where Israel's existence isn't in question, and that Israeli military superiority will prevent events like October 7 from happening again. So, it's less about peace in the traditional sense, and more about security and deterrence. People are hoping for a future where Israel can exist without constant threats, rather than expecting a harmonious relationship with its neighbors in the near-term. I'm Steve Gutterman, the editor of RFE/RL's Russia/Ukraine/Belarus Desk. Welcome to The Week In Russia, in which I dissect some of the key developments in the country and in its war against Ukraine, and some of the takeaways going forward. To subscribe, click here. A decade after a Russian missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over the war zone in Ukraine, Russia strikes a childrens hospital in Kyiv. NATO vows staunch support for Kyiv, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban undermines the message. And the Kremlins clampdown on dissent continues. Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward. 10 Years After A decade ago, the war in the Donbas was three months old when something horrible happened: A passenger jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over the battle zone in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. It was high summer, July 17, and many of the passengers were headed for vacation or to see relatives halfway around the world. There were 80 children among the dead. In its immediate aftermath, the MH17 tragedy drew global attention to the conflict in the Donbas, where Russia had fomented unrest and was fully supporting anti-Kyiv forces, at times sending in troops to fight alongside them. It generated expressions of outrage in the West and a hail of disinformation from Russia as President Vladimir Putins government sought to deflect blame for the downing of a civilian airliner in a war it falsely claimed to have little or no part in. In February 2022, Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine turned that still-simmering war into the biggest armed conflict on the European continent since 1945. Every day, Ukrainian children are among its victims. That has been underscored repeatedly: When Russia bombed a theater in Mariupol where the word "children" was painted on the pavement outside to indicate that there were many children among those sheltering inside, for example. When a 4-year-old girl was killed in a cruise missile strike on the west-central city of Vinnytsya, or when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the war crime of illegally transferring children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. In 2016, an international investigation concluded that MH17 was shot down by a missile fired from a Russian Buk launcher that was brought into territory held by the anti-Kyiv forces and spirited back across the border into Russia shortly afterward. Almost 10 years after the downing of MH17, a projectile that military analysts, open-source researchers, and Ukrainian authorities said was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile struck the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv on July 8. Shifting Blame It killed two adults and wounded more than 50 people, including children, city and hospital officials said, and it disrupted vital surgery and other treatments and displaced patients, parents, and staff. Some of the children affected were being treated for wounds they suffered in previous Russian attacks. As with MH17, a brief silence gave way to a host of false narratives, unsupported claims, and outright lies about what occurred. The missile strike on the hospital came on the eve of a three-day NATO summit in Washington at which support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion was a central issue. The attack was widely condemned by Western leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden, who called it a "horrific reminder of Russia's brutality." While the useful idiots are rambling about peace with Putin, he is sending missiles to a children's hospital, said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, who summoned the Russian ambassador on July 9 to deliver a message to Moscow: Murderers who attack children in hospitals are the dregs of humanity. A stark exception to the chorus of condemnation, and a possible target of the first part of the Czech diplomat's comment, was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He was on what he called a peace mission that included meetings with Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Chinese President Xi Jinping and -- late on July 11, after the NATO summit, with former U.S. President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the November 5 election. Orban, like Trump, has not detailed a proposal for peace, but his comments have suggested that, like a blueprint outlined by advisers to Trump and like others calling for talks, he believes that ending the war any time soon would require Ukraine to leave a substantial portion of its territory under Russian control. If Orbans actions and words pointed to rifts in the West over Russia's war against Ukraine, a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi underscored ambivalence further afield. Modi, whose country relies heavily on Russia for arms and oil, met with Putin on the day of the childrens hospital strike and waxed enthusiastic about ties in comments on social media. Still in Moscow a day later, he said that "when innocent children are murdered, one sees them die, the heart pains and that pain is unbearable," but he did not mention the hospital strike or directly blame Putin or Russia for the war. 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, Zelenskiy wrote in a July 9 post on X that included photos of the aftermath of the strike on the hospital. Modi also indicated he told Putin that for the brighter future of our next generation, peace is of utmost importance. 'Irreversible Path' Such remarks, by Modi and others calling for a negotiated solution, may seem straightforward, but they fall far short of assigning responsibility for the continuing bloodshed to Russia. Putin, after all, has repeatedly said hes open to peace talks -- its just that he has set preconditions that include, among other things, requiring Ukraine to cede five of its regions in their entirety and to stay out of NATO forever. At the NATO summit in Washington, leaders backed what the main statement from the gathering called 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." Ever since he launched the unprovoked invasion in 2022, a substantial part of Putins propaganda push involves portraying Kyiv and the West as the warmongers, even amid attacks like the strike on the childrens hospital. Case in point: A July 11 report by the state news agency TASS that read, NATO summits documents show that West stands against supporting peace Kremlin. Some in the West, meanwhile, say the United States and Europe are doing too little to support Ukraines defense. The Russian strike on the childrens hospital provides yet another layer of evidence about the mindset of Putin and his determination to erase the culture, and indeed the very existence, of Ukraine, Mick Ryan, a military analyst and retired Australian Army major general, wrote on Substack. And it should provide further impetus for rethinking Western strategy about the war and a rapid elevation in the level of Western support to help Ukraine defeat Russia. The Clampdown Amid the constant carnage of Russias war against Ukraine, as well as high-profile events such as the NATO summit, developments inside Russia may draw less attention than they otherwise would -- which may be how the Kremlin likes it. But the unrelenting clampdown on dissent and anything that the state chooses to see as dissent has continued alongside the invasion. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2023 on a treason conviction stemming in part from comments in which he accused the "dictatorial regime in the Kremlin" of committing war crimes in Ukraine, was kept from seeing lawyers for a week this month, raising fears for his life. Kara-Murzas health is fragile following two severe bouts of illness that he suffered in Russia. He believes he was poisoned by the Russian security services over his opposition to Putin, and the FBI has investigated the matter "as a case of intentional poisoning." This week, Russian authorities put Yulia Navalnaya on a wanted list and on a registry of terrorists and extremists shortly after she was elected to head the New York-based Human Rights Federation. Navalnaya has accused the Kremlin of murdering her husband, Aleksei Navalny, the opposition politician who was barred from challenging Putin in a 2018 presidential election and who died in unexplained circumstances in February at the Arctic prison where he was serving a 19-year sentence on an extremism conviction that he and his supporters say was politically motivated revenge for his activism. On July 8, a Moscow court convicted theater director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriichuk of "justifying terrorism" and sentenced each to six years in prison over a play that opened last year about Russian women who married Muslim men and moved to Syria. Supporters of Berkovich and Petriichuk say the charge is absurd and suspect they were targeted over criticism of the war in Ukraine. On July 9, Nikolai Kolin, a shoemaker in Moscow was found guilty of financing terrorism and sentenced to 14 years in prison after allegedly sending sending 5,000 rubles ($57) to the Russian Volunteer Corps, which has fought alongside Ukrainian troops battling against the invasion. Kolins prison term is twice as long as the sentence handed down to a former Wagner Group mercenary who was convicted of murdering a 32-year-old mother of three after returning home to the Far East region of Primorye from the war in Ukraine. The former mercenary, whose name was not released to the public, had reportedly been recruited by Wagner from prison. A rash of violent crimes committed by former inmates sprung from prison to fight in Ukraine has left civilians fearful of returnees from the war. That's it from me this week. If you want to know more, catch up on my podcast The Week Ahead In Russia, out every Monday, here on our site or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts). Yours, Steve Gutterman P.S.: Consider forwarding this newsletter to colleagues who might find this of interest. Send feedback and tips to newsletters@rferl.org. WASHINGTON -- Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi said it is encouraging to Moldova that a declaration issued at the NATO summit in Washington calls on Russia to withdraw all its forces from Moldova and also welcomes Moldovas reform efforts. We are happy to see Moldova mentioned and also the acknowledgement of the...positive efforts that we are [making] to reform the Republic of Moldova, but also the call for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Republic of Moldova, which is a very important message, Popsoi, who is also a deputy prime minister, told RFE/RL on July 11 on the sidelines of the summit. Moldovan President Maia Sandu has repeatedly demanded an end to the presence in Moldova's breakaway Transdniester region of hundreds of Russian troops at a Soviet-era weapons depot. The declaration agreed upon by the leaders of the 32 NATO countries on July 10 has one sentence about the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Moldova. It also has one sentence on Moldovas efforts to continue democratic reforms. Popsoi said at a panel discussion at the summit that, while there is always room for improvement, Moldova has been on the agenda of its friends and partners in NATO and the European Union and has received remarkable support in the last few years. This was especially true during the energy crisis that rocked Moldova as a result of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he said, adding that the crisis has eased recently thanks to the resilience of the Moldovan people and the generous support of the international community that has come to the rescue of not just Ukraine, but also the Republic of Moldova. Popsoi said Moldova and the Moldovan people have also made achievements on their own, citing energy independence from Gazprom after 30 years of being tied to the Russian energy giant. Russian gas contracts come with significant political strings attached and we suffered more than our fair share through this political blackmail, he said. He also touted the 30 years that Moldova has been in NATOs Partnership for Peace program and its contributions to peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, Lebanon, Somalia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying that Moldova is firmly committed to be not just a security consumer given our challenges, given the Russia-backed separatists region. Popsoi told RFE/RL that Moldova now has a chance to make further progress through accession talks with the European Union that began on June 25. We count on the accession process helping us advance when it comes to our economic circumstances, but also democratic institutions, he said, calling the accession negotiations a key priority for us and a chance to fulfill the sincere craving of our citizens to return to the European family of nations. Whether Moldovans are hungry enough to become part of the EU will be tested on October 20 when a referendum on joining the 27-nation bloc takes place alongside the countrys presidential election. Popsoi said Sandus government is counting on the citizens of Moldova to back the referendum. There's a lot of attempts to divide us domestically, to paint a negative picture of what we want to achieve. And this referendum is another democratic exercise for the Moldovan people to speak out, he said. And we are confident that they will support a prosperous, a peaceful future for their children in the European family of nations. On joining NATO, he said the question is being debated in Moldova, where you don't need to look far to see the risks of the region, he said. He said many Moldovans believe that neutrality ensures security but "that is, of course, a questionable proposition in light of historic experience, adding, But nonetheless, in a democratic society, we need to abide by the will of the majority, and for now, there is not a majority in Moldova that would support NATO membership. Ukraine may have inched closer to NATO at the military alliances summit in Washington this week, but it's hard to escape the feeling that despite all the headline-grabbing pledges and promises, things arent actually as rosy as they are being made out to be, especially from Kyivs point of view. In reality, the military alliance continues to keep Ukraine at arms length and consequential U.S. elections are just around the corner. Ukraine was never going to get an invitation to join NATO at this summit. That wont happen as long as the war is raging, and afterwards, the 32 allies will need to reach unanimous agreement to send out such an invitation -- a consensus that simply doesnt exist today. Instead, NATO diplomats were once again busy crafting a summit communique that was meant to sound more encouraging for Kyiv than the previous one. And the Washington text is a bit better for Ukraine than the Vilnius one agreed at the previous summit in Lithuania last summer. Like in 2023, it is stated that Ukraines future is in NATO, that NATO foreign ministers will continue to assess reform efforts, and that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree, and conditions are met. What was new this year were the words bridge and irreversible. It was noted that the summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with allies ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraines membership in NATO. Both in the run-up and during the meeting, officials were musing what this bridge, in fact, entails and metaphorically wondering whether its a long or short one and how solid it in fact is. The more crucial sentence was that as Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. The question remains whether this irreversibility is just a word on a paper, as Ukraines NATO fate will ultimately be decided as much on the battlefield as at the negotiating table. And with Ukraine still not getting any green light to strike deeper into Russian territory during the Washington meeting, the scope of the Wests support -- and Ukraines chances of victory in the war -- remain limited. Of concrete deliverables, the American hosts noted with some triumph that F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands are on their way to Ukraine and that they will fly over Ukrainian skies this summer. A boost, sure, but then again, the hope was that they would have arrived already in the spring after Kyiv had pleaded for them for nearly two years. It's also clear that by 2027, the war-torn country will only get about half of the 128 jets it has requested. Beyond Ukraine, it was rather remarkable that Georgia, which has been an aspirant for NATO membership since 2008, wasnt mentioned at all in the final declaration..." In a similar vein, it was announced that Ukraine would get five new air-defense systems, even though it was already known before that four of those were forthcoming. With searing images being shown of a Russian strike on Kyiv's main children's hospital in the lead-up to the summit, the feeling very much was one of too little, too late. Within the NATO framework, the NATO training mission for Ukrainian troops on allied territory was rubber-stamped, which according to the military organization will increase the countrys interoperability with it even further, even though it was quick to emphasize that creation of the scheme wont make NATO a party to the conflict. Then there was the pledge to deliver 40 billion euros' worth of varied military assistance to Ukraine in the next year, based on the 32 NATO members share of alliance GDP. It was emphasized that this was a minimum baseline, especially since there had been loftier figures considered beforehand. Considering the rather generous interpretation of what counts as aid, it's hard to see this target being missed. Countries can, for example, include costs related to maintenance and transport of equipment for Ukraine, training of its soldiers, investment into Ukraines defense industry, and cash to NATOs trust funds for the country, which include nonlethal aid. Yet, there were no complaints from Kyiv this time around, with the organizers keen to avoid the scenes from Vilnius during which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy openly questioned the level of ambition on display. This time, he didnt miss an opportunity to express his gratitude, completely aware and fully briefed not to ask for too much. Beyond Ukraine, it was rather remarkable that Georgia, which has been an aspirant for NATO membership since 2008, wasnt mentioned at all in the final declaration, apart from Russias occupation of part of the South Caucasus republic. With even Moldova, which is constitutionally neutral, getting more of a mention and positive wording than Georgia, it was a stark reflection of Tbilisis increasing distance from Western institutions. As the summit took place in the United States, the wording on China was even sharper than usual. Beijing was mentioned for the first time in a NATO declaration in 2019, and ever since then, Washington has pushed for a hardened stance. This time, the alliance noted that the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) has become a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine through its so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russias defense industrial base and added that Beijing cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation. Yet, when pressed what consequences China would face if it continues on this way, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg elegantly skirted the question. This was never going to be a historic summit of great deliverables. It was a celebration of NATOs 75th anniversary, coming just four months ahead of a crucial American presidential election. In that sense, President Joe Bidens much-criticized performance in a recent debate against the Republican candidate and NATO-skeptic Donald Trump overshadowed the entire meeting. While Biden generally performed well in his public duties at the summit, he wasnt gaffe free. He first introduced Zelenskiy as President Putin before correcting himself, and the Ukrainian leader quickly saved the situation by joking that he was much better than Putin. At a drawn-out final press conference, he then mixed up the names of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and his main rival Trump. Most questions at that presser were about the election and his presidential suitability. And it very much appears that it was those questions, and the growing calls from more of his party colleagues to step aside, that will be the enduring legacy of this summit. NATO allies made long-term pledges of support to Kyiv under an agreement called the Ukraine Compact, while the United States offered a comprehensive military aid package to help repel Russia. As the NATO summit wrapped up in Washington, many leaders praised the alliance's strength. But there was less consensus on how U.S. President Joe Biden had fared during the event, with his high-profile gaffes drawing attention away from policy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with former U.S. President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Florida on July 11 after the Central European leader's attendance at NATO's 75th anniversary summit in Washington concluded earlier the same day. Orban asserted that the visit was part of a self-styled "peace mission" that he has been conducting despite objections from Brussels since Hungary took over the six-month rotating EU Council presidency this month, taking him to Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing en route to the NATO event. "We discussed ways to make #peace," Orban tweeted after the meeting with Trump, adding, "The good news of the day: hes going to solve it!" EU leaders have repeatedly distanced themselves from Orban's "peace mission," and Orban has acknowledged that he has no authority to act on other EU members' behalf stemming from the council presidency. Orban has publicly endorsed Trump's candidacy and raised eyebrows by planning the visit to the billionaire U.S. politicians' Mar-a-Lago resort after holding no such bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the summit. Critics accuse Orban of adopting Kremlin talking points since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and Budapest has undermined Western sanctions and refused to join fellow EU and NATO allies in helping arm Kyiv to beat back the invasion. Trump has suggested that if elected in November he will resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict even before he takes office, without elaborating. Last month during a podcast interview, Trump blamed the war on Ukraines possible NATO membership, raising concerns that he may block the country from joining the alliance as part of any potential peace deal. Hungary has raised doubts about Ukraine's membership in the alliance, saying it risks open conflict with Russia. "Ukraine's admission wouldn't strengthen but weaken the alliance's unity, as there are completely different viewpoints on their membership," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on July 11. The United States and NATO allies criticized Orbans uncoordinated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. It was seen as a rogue move by the leader of a NATO country. Orban's opposition to Ukraine's NATO bid has been watched closely during the summit, but allies said on July 11 that they did not see it denting Kyiv's eventual alliance membership. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed Orban in Kyiv but said he had not in any way endorsed the Hungarian prime minister's mediation efforts in Moscow or beyond. The U.S. position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians' consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States, Bidens national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters July 11 on the sidelines of the summit. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters at the NATO summit on July 11 that the Hungarian leader does not represent the opinion of the European Union or NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olah Scholz also expressed frustration with Orban. Macron said it was legitimate for Orban to travel to Russia as the Hungarian prime minister, but not on behalf of the European Union. On July 10, Orban said he would not sign on to the so-called Ukraine Compact, a shared pledge among more than 20 NATO to support Ukraine both now and for the long term. In a video statement posted to his X account, the Hungarian prime minister said that NATO was "behaving more and more like a war organization," citing the alliance's military support for Ukraine. In a communique issued during the summit, NATO members said that Ukraines path into NATO was irreversible. When asked about the potential Orban-Trump meeting, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it "doesn't undermine or reduce the importance of what we have agreed" at the summit. WASHINGTON -- The United States and NATO allies criticized Viktor Orbans secret meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, as the Hungarian prime minister prepared to travel after the NATO summit to visit with the presumptive Republican nominee in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump. 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. Orban's unexpected visit to Russia, which in February 2022 launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine that NATO has opposed, was seen as a rogue move by the leader of a NATO country. Orban's opposition to Ukraine's NATO bid has been watched closely during the summit, but allies said on July 11 that they did not see it denting Kyiv's eventual alliance membership. The Hungarian leader, who took over the six-month rotating EU Presidency at the start of July, made a secret trip to Moscow to discuss with Putin an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine without informing the bloc or NATO allies. The visit came on the eve of the July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians' consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States, Bidens national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters July 11 on the sidelines of the summit. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis criticized Orbans visit to Moscow, telling reporters at the summit on July 11 that the Hungarian leader does not represent the opinion of the European Union or NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olah Scholz also expressed frustration with Orban. Macron said it was legitimate for Orban to travel to Russia as the Hungarian prime minister, but not on behalf of the European Union. Orban, Landsbergis, Macron and Scholz were among the leaders and top officials from all 32 NATO countries taking part in the annual summit, where the main topic of discussion was military aid for Ukraine. On July 10, Orban said he would not sign on to the so-called Ukraine Compact, a shared pledge among more than 20 NATO to support Ukraine both now and for the long-term. In a video statement posted to his X account, the Hungarian prime minister said that NATO was "behaving more and more like a war organization," citing the alliance's military support for Ukraine. Orban is reportedly flying to Florida after the summit to meet with Trump. The Republican contender has claimed that, should he win the election, he would negotiate a deal between Ukraine and Russia before his January 2025 inauguration. He has not given any details about his alleged peace plan. The Hungarian leader, who recently met Trump in Florida in March, has made clear that he backs the Republican candidate in the 2024 election. The possible return of Trump to the presidency has partially overshadowed the 2024 summit. During his four years in the presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump repeatedly criticized NATO members for their failure to meet the defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and even raised the idea of pulling the United States out of the alliance. During a campaign rally on July 10, Trump took pride in having grilled NATO members and spoke of his first days in office in 2017. I didnt know what the hell NATO was too much before. But it didnt take me long to figure it out -- like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they were not paying. We were paying. We were paying almost fully for NATO. And I said thats unfair, he said. Last month during a podcast interview, Trump blamed the war on Ukraines possible NATO membership, raising concerns that he may block the country from joining the alliance as part of a peace deal. Hungary has also raised doubts about Ukraine's membership in the alliance, saying it risks open conflict with Russia. "Ukraine's admission wouldn't strengthen but weaken the alliance's unity, as there are completely different viewpoints on their membership," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on July 11. In the communique reached during the summit, NATO members said that Ukraines path into NATO was irreversible. When asked about the potential Orban-Trump meeting, outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it "doesn't undermine or reduce the importance of what we have agreed" at the summit. Stoltenberg also said he did not think a change in leadership in Washington would result in the United States leaving the alliance, especially as the threat from China grows. "The reality is that NATO makes the United States stronger and safer, and this is a strong argument for the United States to continue to support and remain a loyal and committed NATO ally," Stoltenberg said. The NATO chief also said that Trump's biggest complaint -- that of allies' failure to meet defense spending targets -- has been significantly addressed, with 23 members now spending 2 percent or more of GDP. Just 9 members were at the target when Trump left office. Tourists pose for photos with the Marina Bay Sands at a popular tourist spot along Marina Bay in Singapore July 24, 2015. Photo by Reuters Singapore received 1.45 million visitors from China in the first half of this year, making it the biggest source of visitors for the island nation. Indonesia, previously its largest source of tourists, was pushed to second place, followed by India, Malaysia and Australia, according to statistics released by the Singapore Tourism Board. There were 8.24 million foreign arrivals in January-June, up 31% year-on-year and 88% of pre-Covid numbers. In February Singapore announced a visa waiver for Chinese visitors, who have since been flocking to the city. Thailand has received 17.5 million foreign tourists this year and Vietnam, 8.8 million. Chinese tourists were also the biggest group of arrivals to Thailand, and second to Vietnam after South Koreans. RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government. If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us. To find out more, click here. RIGA -- Many Russians and Central Asians with Russian passports are desperate to escape Russia to avoid fighting in the Ukraine war -- and reaching an EU country for asylum is often their best option. They will cross the border illegally, surrender to officials, and apply for a humanitarian visa, usually being put in special camps or even prisons while waiting -- and hoping -- for their applications to be approved. These are the stories of three of those men who ended up in Latvia and Estonia seeking a safe haven. Said From Tajikistan Mutsenieki is a center for migrants and refugees located in a dense forest near the Ikea store in downtown Riga, the Latvian capital. It is divided into two sections: a dormitory for asylum seekers and a prison enclosed by a 5-meter-high metal fence. Said, a migrant from Tajikistan, spent six months in the Mutsenieki prison before being moved to the refugee camp. He says the main difference between the two sections is the quality of the food, which he found better in prison. Said -- his name has been changed for security reasons -- was once a member of the opposition movement Group 24, which advocates for freedom and democracy in Tajikistan, an autocratic state where there are no free or fair elections and corruption is rampant. Group 24 was banned in 2014 and the following year its leader, Umarali Kuvvatov, was assassinated in Istanbul after several failed attempts by Tajik officials to have him extradited. Meanwhile, in Tajikistan, many Group 24 activists were arrested and given long prison sentences. Fearing for his safety, Said fled to Moscow and found work as a deliveryman. But he was soon arrested and authorities began the process of extraditing him to Tajikistan. But some human rights groups intervened and secured his release. After spending three months in a Russian prison, Said decided to escape to the EU, driven by the fear of being mobilized into the army and sent to Ukraine. He then crossed the Latvian border via Belarus alongside others fleeing Putins mobilization. Said views his opposition activities in Central Asia, his imprisonment in Russia, and his escape from potential military service as evidence of his dedication to freedom and human rights and believes those experiences justify his request for asylum in the EU. But his Latvian refugee lawyer points out that his prison time makes the Latvian security officials suspicious. "In prison, a person is vulnerable and can be easily recruited and released on the condition that they fulfill tasks for Russian special services within the European Union," said his attorney, who asked to remain anonymous. "They ask me if I respect my God," Said recounted. "They ask why I shave my armpits. How can I not respect my God? How can I not shave my armpits?" He says the interrogations focus heavily on his Muslim faith and accompanying religious practices. The press office of the Latvian State Security Service (VDD) responded to queries from Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit, stating: "The nationality or religion of a person is not regarded as a threat. In all checks, the [VDD] considers each case individually, analyzing a wide range of information about the person in question." The Latvian border service said last year that 13,863 people attempted to cross the border illegally into Latvia from Russia and Belarus. Of these, just 428 were granted asylum on humanitarian grounds. This year, 126 people have tried to cross the border illegally, it added. Kazakh Activist Escapes Wagner The story of anti-war, Kazakh-born Russian citizen Azamat Tyuzulbaev is more dramatic than Said's. Unlike Said, Tyuzulbaev does not hide his identity and is proud of his actions. Imprisoned in Russia for "extortion," Tyuzulbaevs journey, as he says, is one of defiance and survival. While Tyuzulbaev was in a Russian prison in 2022, Yevgeny Prigozhin -- founder of the Wagner paramilitary group -- visited the Zlatoust prison colony where he was being held. Of an estimated 300 prisoners, 138 joined the mercenary group, he says. But Tyuzulbaev refused. Consequently, he was placed in a punitive isolation cell for six months. Upon his release in May 2023, Russian police tried to coerce him into joining the Storm Z group to fight in Ukraine. But Tyuzulbaev instead fled to Kurgan, his birthplace in Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, Tyuzulbaev recorded several anti-war videos, one of which garnered 130,000 likes on TikTok. He also gave an interview to the BASE publication, becoming a well-known anti-war social media figure in the process. Fearing imminent detention by Kazakh authorities and extradition to Russia due to Kazakhstan's agreement with Moscow on mutual legal assistance and the exchange of the personal data of citizens, Tyuzulbaev decided to flee to Europe. Tyuzulbaev, 38, crossed the Kazakh-Russian border illegally, a feat he claims to have accomplished many times, often transporting Russians fleeing mobilization to Kazakhstan. He says he then traveled to the Leningrad region and swam across the Narva River to Estonia. After reaching the Estonian coast, he hitchhiked to Tallinn, surrendered to authorities, and was imprisoned in Estonia for more than six months. In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a mobilization decree aimed at recruiting 300,000 new troops through a combination of incentives and draft orders for military reservists. The decree shocked Russian society, leading to an exodus of hundreds of thousands of people to Armenia, Georgia, Central Asia, and elsewhere. Hero Or Criminal? Ibrahim, who is in his 40s, was working as a system administrator in the prefecture of a city in Russias Caucasus in 2014. He says that while fixing a computer one day he stumbled upon a document listing people who were to be kidnapped. He decided to download the list and warn the potential victims. The next day, he says, the mother of one of those on the list told prefect officials that a "good man" had warned her about a possible abduction. Ibrahim feared hed be identified and fled to Poland. He remains discreet about how he crossed the Belarusian-Polish border, not wanting to "scorch the guide" who helped him, he says. From Poland, Ibrahim moved to France. A Latvian lawyer who preferred to stay anonymous told Systema that this was a mistake, as migrants should always apply for asylum in the first European country they arrive in because moving around the EU complicates a case. In France, Ibrahim admits he made several errors. He says he settled in a suburb with a bad reputation and quarreled with neighbors who were "drug dealers from North Africa. In retaliation, they used to set fire and otherwise destroy his mailbox, he says, claiming thats why he missed a court summons on his asylum application and causing him to miss his court date. He was later denied asylum. Ibrahim says he also sold used cars while awaiting word on his application, though asylum seekers are not allowed to work. That could have also led to his asylum rejection, he says. And he alleges a fight with a man over damage to a car resulted in him being arrested and given a 4 1/2-year jail sentence in 2017. (Systema later acquired a court document that says theft was involved in his conviction.) Natalia Morozova, a lawyer at the Memorial human rights center in France, said that though a migrant may commit a crime, that shouldn't result in them possibly being killed after extradition to Russia -- citing the cases of Magomed Gadaev and Daud Muradov, both of whom died in suspicious circumstances after being sent to Russia. Ibrahims journey for a place of refuge was far from over. He was deported from France to Russia in 2021 and fled to Turkey. One year later, he was expelled to Georgia before fleeing to Latvia. Unknown Destiny Systema also has two decisions from Latvian courts regarding Ibrahim's case, both rejecting his asylum request. After each refusal, Ibrahim's lawyer appealed to international organizations -- including the European Court of Human Rights -- asking for the case to be reconsidered. Though his lawyer wouldnt comment on the case, Morozova told Systema the appeals likely invoked Articles 3 and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibit the expulsion of people from the EU if they might face torture or death after extradition. The Latvian courts refusal to grant asylum was based on a recommendation from the VDD, which deemed Ibrahim a danger to Latvia. The court decision does not specify the nature of the danger. Its the dog days of a brutal summer on Ukraines battlefields, where Russian advances have been slow but relentless and Ukrainian forces are stretched thin by a lack of soldiers, strained by the exhausted frontline units unable to rotate out for rest. After several months of uncertainty -- when Western weapons supplies slowed to a trickle and Ukraine struggled to replenish its troop numbers -- the situation has more or less stabilized for Kyiv. Things are better [than in the spring], despite the huge number of clashes, said Serhiy Hrabskiy, a retired Ukrainian Army colonel. But at 28 months and counting since Russias all-out invasion, theres no end in sight to Europes largest land war since World War II. The human toll continues to mount. Total casualties -- dead and wounded -- now exceed 500,000, according to Western estimates, but are likely far higher. Britains top military officer said Russia alone had suffered that many casualties as of last month, and Russian news organizations, using probate data, have estimated as many as 140,000 Russian soldiers have died since February 2022. Ukraine has not disclosed its casualty figures, although President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in February that 31,000 soldiers had been killed in the previous two years -- a figure seen as a gross undercount. Ukraine is in a difficult position now, manpower-wise, and they are going to struggle until mobilization starts delivering significant new manpower to the front, said Konrad Muzyka, a Polish military analyst who recently returned from a trip to some of the frontline positions. The biggest question is when these mobilized guys start entering the front line. Heres a look at where things stand on the battlefield, along the nearly 1,200-kilometer front line that stretches from the mouth of the Dnieper River in Ukraines south up to the Russian border north of Kharkiv in the east. No, The Kharkiv Offensive Has Not Failed (But Its Definitely Not Over, Either) In early May, Russia opened a localized offensive along parts of the border near Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city. Thousands of troops, mainly infantry, with some armored units, crossed into Ukraine, with the main thrust pushing into Vovchansk, a town of 17,000 people before the invasion, located less than 10 kilometers from the border. Ukraine quickly redeployed more experienced units from elsewhere, and Russian advances into Vovchansk morphed into slow, incremental street fighting, which continues today. The village was roughly 50 percent occupied by Russia as of July 12, and Russia is unlikely to advance farther. Its also unclear how Russian units would have fared if they had succeeded in moving south out of Vovchansk, where Ukrainian defenses are more formidable. Ukrainian forces stabilized the line of contact, then pushed back Russian forces, Hrabskiy said. I assume now that Russian forces will try to desperately keep their positions. Some Russian officials -- President Vladimir Putin among them -- said that the effort was aimed at creating a buffer zone -- to stop Ukrainian forces from launching cross-border attacks on cities like Belgorod. Or the goal may have been to put Kharkiv within artillery range, to threaten the citys civilian population. However, experts said the grouping and the number of forces utilized meant that Russian commanders had a different goal. The Kharkiv offensive wasnt the offensive. It was just supposed to spread Ukrainian forces thin and force [the] Ukrainians to deploy reserves, to weaken lines somewhere else in the Donetsk Oblast, Muzyka said. To a limited extent, it worked. A U.S. decision allowing Ukraine to use U.S. weaponry to hit Russian targets across the border from the Kharkiv region also helped the effort, forcing Russia to relocate some of its missile batteries and forward-operating aircraft. The Coming Fall Of Chasiv Yar? Located on a height of land about 15 kilometers west of the obliterated city of Bakhmut, Chasiv Yar had been the goal of Russian forces for at least a month before the Kharkiv offensive. The towns heights make it ideal for targeting artillery and reconnaissance, and capturing it would allow Russian troops to threaten a key railway junction at Kostyantynivka, used by Ukraine to supply frontline units. Ukrainian defenses have relied in part on the Siverskiy Donets-Donbas Canal, a waterway running north to south and separating the towns main center from an outlying eastern district known as Kanal. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Kanal on July 4. "It became impractical to hold the Kanal neighborhood after the enemy entered it because it threatened the lives and health of our servicemen, and the positions of our defenders were destroyed," Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesman for the Khortytsia grouping of forces, said in televised comments. In Chasiv Yar, as in other places along the front line, Ukrainian positions have also been ravaged by Russian glide bombs -- high-explosive bombs that are retrofitted with smart guidance systems then delivered to targets by fighter jets. Ukraine has no great way to defend against them. The bombs are near impossible to intercept and Ukrainian air-defense systems are at a premium, particularly ones like the U.S.-built Patriot systems, which would be targeted themselves if they were deployed close to the front line. They can destroy the entire tree line with a few [glide bombs] and make it indefensible, Muzyka said. How long can Ukraine hold out in Chasiv Yar? The Center for Defense Strategies, a Kyiv-based think tank headed by a former defense minister, predicted it could fall to the Russians before the end of the summer, though that would come with substantial losses. Frontelligence Insight, an open-source organization run by a Ukrainian reserve officer, also predicted the town would eventually fall to the Russians. Toretsk Torrents About 25 kilometers south of Chasiv Yar, the former mining city of Toretsk had suffered relatively little compared with other Donetsk settlements close to the front lines. Last month, however, Russian forces began making tangible advances toward the city, claiming the village of Shumy, about 10 kilometers to the east. Ukraines top military officer, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on July 2 that fighting had intensified around Toretsk. Russian units also punched through Ukrainian lines south of Toretsk, creating a bulge, or salient, near Nyu-York, a village widely known as New York. Its unclear exactly why Russian forces were able to move forward so quickly, though open-source intelligence reports point to a Ukrainian troop rotation that may have been botched. The Russians very effectively use the lack of communications between troops, problems of coordination between units, he said. "Im disappointed about itbut this is war. Youre a soldier in war. You use whatever advantage you can get. The Russians took advantage. Aerial video released on July 11 by the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade -- one of Ukraines more battle-hardened units -- showed the city largely reduced to rubble. Toretsk is likely the primary objective for Russian commanders right now, Hrabskiy said, because capturing it would give Russia control over a wider urban area stretching along the western edges of the Donetsk region. For the Russians, it is critically important for them to capture this location," he said. Attacking Toretsk head-on; theyre in a hurry. The window of opportunity is starting to close, because the current flow of men and weapons is turning to Ukrainian advantage. To the southwest of Toretsk, Russian forces have also pushed north and northwest out of the town of Ocheretyne, creeping toward the N32 highway, which runs from Pokrovsk to the northeast to Kostyantynivka. Capturing the highway would cut off a major supply line for Ukrainian forces in the area. Of Men and Planes In addition to exhausted troops and problems with unit coordination, analysts also have reported seeing problems with poorly trained soldiers and soldiers whose age -- over 40 -- makes them less effective. In his July 2 statement, Syrskiy himself alluded to the personnel problems: for Ukrainian commanders, the biggest issue is "manning units with motivated, well-trained military troops. Still, Ukraines system for mobilizing, training, and deploying more men is gradually gearing up. That, plus the renewed flow of U.S. and Western weaponry, should give Ukraine the ability to definitively stabilize its lines, possibly within the next six to eight weeks. Mobilization is delivering good numbers, Muzyka said. To what extent they can sustain that is unclear. For that reason, Russia is pushing hard toward Toretsk and Chasiv Yar, and digging in outside of Vovchansk, trying to secure tangible successes soon. "We've probably passed, or about to pass, the greatest period of vulnerability. Things were looking pretty bad [for Ukraine] in April; I would say pretty grim, Michael Kofman, a defense analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a podcast last month. If you look at shipments of ammunition; if you look at the front steadily stabilizing, at least in most places, even though the Ukrainian forces are stretched in some; if you look at Ukraine's recent efforts to significantly increase mobilization, then we're likely passing out this period [of vulnerability] once we get to July, August, thereabouts, said Kofman, who also just returned from Ukraine. But even with a new influx of soldiers, Ukraines wider disadvantages are clear: Russia has a far larger population to draw from to replenish its losses -- and has used extraordinarily lucrative wage offers and survivor and death benefits to attract volunteer soldiers. For Russia, theres steady flow of men to do head-on infantry assaults. That allows Russia to maintain pressure on Ukrainians across the wider front, Muzyka said. Still, evidence that Russia is having to stretch its own units and capabilities are showing up on the battlefield. Hrabskiy said Russian units were increasingly using vehicles to transport infantry that are not intended for that purpose: things like MT-LBs, which are lightly armored amphibious vehicles usually used for towing artillery or other equipment. Russian troops have also been seen using motorcycles and ATVs to conduct small-scale assaults. 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. Tourists look at the view from the top deck of a tourist commuter boat on the Chao Praya River in Bangkok on Dec. 27, 2023. Photo by AFP The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has announced strategies to attract 40 million foreign tourists and generate 3.4 trillion baht (US$113.3 billion) in tourism revenue in 2025. According to TAT board chairwoman Natthriya Thaweevong, the move is in line with the Thai government's ambitious announcement to promote Thailand as a grand tourism destination. The authority's strategies include drawing big events to the country and offering tour packages designed to meet each traveler's preferences, such as the elderly and medical tourists. Natthriya noted that tourists' preferences have changed in the post-Covid era, but the tourism sector still can generate revenue for the country immediately. She affirmed that Thailand can attract up to 39 million foreign arrivals in 2024, and earn 3 trillion baht in tourism revenue as planned, partly thanks to major tourism events at the end of the year. TAT governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool said the authority aims to boost tourism revenue growth from 3 trillion baht this year to 3.4 trillion baht next year. She noted that this goal can be achieved by attracting at least 40 million foreign arrivals to Thailand and encouraging 220 million Thai tourists to travel domestically. Cillian Sherlock, PA President Michael D Higgins has called for a meeting of his advisory body to discuss the constitutionality of the Governments Defence Bill. The Council of State will meet on Monday afternoon to discuss whether the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024 should be referred by the President to the Supreme Court on whether specific provisions are repugnant to the constitution. Mr Higgins intends to ask the council about sections 11 and 24 of the Bill in particular and whether the interference with constitutional rights is disproportionate. Section 11 prohibits a member of the Permanent Defence Forces from making a public statement or comment in relation to political matters or Government policy while they are in uniform or otherwise identifiable as a member of the Defence Forces, without prior authorisation from their commanding officer. President Michael D Higgins has summoned the Council of State (Brian Lawless/PA) It would also prohibit them from attending a protest under the same circumstances as well as stop them from canvassing for a political organisation or addressing a meeting of such a society. While Section 24 would now allow the Defence Forces to associate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, it would prohibit associated bodies like ICTU from calling for or encouraging industrial action within the military. Those who sit on the council include the Taoiseach, Tanaiste, Chief Justice, President of the Court of Appeal, President of the High Court, Ceann Comhairle, Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, and the Attorney General. It will be the fourth time that Mr Higgins has convened the Council of State to consider a piece of legislation during his time as President. He previously convened the Council of State on July 29th, 2013, to consider the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013, on December 29th, 2015, to consider the International Protection Bill 2015, and on October 11th, 2023, to consider the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022. Since 1940, the Council of State has been convened to consider the potential referral of 29 previous Bills to the Supreme Court. Fifteen Bills have been referred to the Supreme Court following such meetings. Supreme Court Grants Interim Bail to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in Liquor Policy Case SC refers Kejriwal's petition challenging ED arrest to larger bench. Arvind Kejriwal Latest News Today: In a major development, the Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the case filed by the Enforcement Directorate over the liquor policy case. According to information, the Supreme Court has referred Arvind Kejriwal's petition challenging the ED arrest to a larger bench. It is pertinent to mention that even though Arvind Kejriwal has been granted interim bail, he will still stay in Tihar Jail because the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also detained him in a case related to corruption, involving the purported liquor policy case. Advertisement While granting interim bail to Arvind Kejriwal in the ED case, the Supreme Court left the decision to him to take a call on stepping down as Delhi CM. "We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the Chief Minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. While we do not give any directions as we are doubtful whether a Court can direct an elected leader to step down or not to function as a Chief Minister or a Minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to make a call." Justice J Khanna also said, "Power of court is different from power of officer...we have referred to reasons to believe...on S.19, we have held that as far as reasons to believe, they meet with parameters of S.19. We have raised the additional ground of need, the necessity of arrest." Advertisement "Especially because of the doctrine of proportionality...that we have referred to a larger bench. So what is the policy of arrest and the basis we have referred? We have framed 3 questions," he said, adding "Whether need, the necessity of arrest refers to the satisfaction of formal parameters of arrest...We have held mere interrogation does not allow to arrest." (For more news apart from Arvind Kejriwal's Latest News Today, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) July 12, 2024 UPDATE A roundup of local and world news Newsflash Newsroom, 12.07.2024, 20:16 WEATHER A code orange alert for extremely hot weather has been issued for Romanias central, northern and south-eastern regions on Saturday and Sunday whereas the rest of the territory remains under a code red alert. This has been the most significant extreme-weather alert in Romania, where highs are expected to range between 37 and 41 degrees Celsius. The noon reading in Bucharest is expected to stay around 40 degrees. Local and national authorities have been making efforts to diminish the effects of the heatwave that has engulfed Romania. First aid points have been set up in towns and cities across the country in order to help the citizens affected by the extreme heat. The circulation of heavy vehicles has been restricted on motorways in the 28 counties that are presently facing extremely hot weather. DECREE The Romanian government had to amend an emergency decree on drug testing of drivers amid rising pressure from civil society. Unless the lab tests of biological samples are ready within 72 hours, drivers can have their licenses back. According to the authorities, all drivers are to take a drug test if road traffic agents have found illegal substances in their vehicle or in their possession. Should final lab tests turn positive, drivers will lose their licenses again and will bear the full consequences of the law. BEARS The Chamber of Deputies is to convene in an emergency session next week to endorse a number of legislative amendments regarding the bear population of Romania. According to one such proposal, some 500 bears that endanger human lives are expected to be shot. Romanian forests are home to some 8,000 bears, although their natural habitat can sustain only half this figure, former Environment Minister Tanczos Barna told Radio Romania. The rise in bear population and their ever-growing presence close to human settlements were submitted to public debate again after a young girl was tragically killed a couple of days ago in a popular hiking trail. WAGES The net average wages in Romania dropped to 1,025 Euros in May, roughly 10 Euros less compared to April, the National Institute for Statistics says. The gross average wage stood at 1,671 EUROS, 35 EUROS less than in April 2024. The highest average wages have been reported in the IT sector, including the provision of IT services 2,250 EUROS, while the lowest average wages (550 Euros) have been reported in the clothing manufacturing industry. (bill) Changes to the anti-drug legislation The government in Bucharest makes changes to an emergency order on drug tests for drivers. Marcel Ciolacu (Photo: gov.ro) Leyla Cheamil, 12.07.2024, 14:00 Following vocal criticism from civil society, the government has modified its emergency order on drug tests for drivers. The legislation in question stipulated that drivers who refused to take the drug test would see their driving permits suspended until the publication of the results of the biological tests, which could have taken as much as several months. The government has now decided that if biological tests are not processed within 72 hours at most, suspended driving permits would be returned. The authorities said the police may ask drivers to take the test if it is evident that there are banned substances in the vehicle or on its driver. If the final results released by the Forensic Institute indicate that drivers have ingested drugs, the driving licence would be suspended again, and the driver in question would be subject to the ensuing legal consequences. Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu said the measures taken to prevent tragedies caused by driving when under the influence of drugs are very important, but cannot infringe on citizens rights and liberties. He said the procedure for the drug testing of drivers would be carefully monitored from now on. Marcel Ciolacu: We also are preparing norms to regulate the collection, storage and transport of samples for drug testing. The health and home affairs ministries will each month present a joint assessment on the compliance with the 72-hour-deadline. The home affairs minister Catalin Predoiu said another important change is that biological tests can only be conducted by forensic institutions. An earlier version of the emergency order stipulated that tests could also be conducted by police labs, which, the minister emphasised, are in fact up to international standards. Catalin Predoiu added that his ministrys priority further on is to boost drug fighting efforts. It is very important to increase our ability, as a society in general, to combat the scourge of drugs, which is devastating not only for Romania, but across all EU member states, said Predoiu. The changes to the emergency order were made after criticism from forensic experts, NGOs and drivers. The Declic community staged a protest in Bucharest calling for the drug test legislation to be scrapped. Its representatives say the document contained a series of abusive provisions, with cold medication also producing a positive result. In the decades that USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development] has spent working in the region, weve seen the consequences of governments putting political agendas ahead of people, and weve learned how to address these challenges most effectively, said Greg Howell, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAIDs Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean. We forge partnerships, not with specific political parties or administrations, but with people and institutions that bravely push for democratic change. This work is critical to local communities, to broader regional stability, and our own national security here at home. Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator Howell noted this is especially true of USAIDs efforts in Nicaragua, Cuba, and beyond. USAID stands with the brave Nicaraguans making their voices heard in support of democratic principles and human rights. USAID is one of the few donors supporting human rights defenders and implementing partners exiled abroad. The work of these partners to call out the regimes abuses and advocate for democratic change is vitally important, and USAID is proud to stand with them. Across Central America, USAID supports those who shine a light on injustice through the Voices Initiative, which brings together USAID, the State Department, and likeminded partners to use all tools to protect and promote civic space, said Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator Howell: That includes our work offering at risk human rights defenders, journalists, democracy activists and anti-corruption champions with legal, psychosocial, and even relocation assistance, as well as fellowship opportunities in the U.S. universities for those from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. In Cuba, under the parameters of the Cuban Democracy and Libertad Acts, USAID provides ongoing humanitarian assistance to hundreds of incarcerated political prisoners and their families, as well as other politically marginalized individuals. That assistance, Mr. Howell said, provides an invaluable life-line to improve their physical and psychological well-being. In addition, USAID promotes the free flow of information to, from, and within Cuba through greater access to independent news, and it has helped train hundreds of journalists whose work in major international outlets has counteracted the regimes propaganda and disinformation. At a time of alarming examples of leaders in the region betraying democratic principles, declared Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator Howell, it is critical USAID maintains a presence across the region and supports those who champion our shared values. The European Union antitrust regulators on Thursday accepted commitments made by tech giant Apple Inc. (AAPL) to open access to its "tap-and-go" payments on iPhones to rivals. "The commission has decided to accept commitments offered by Apple. These commitments address our preliminary concerns that Apple may illegally have restricted competition when it comes to mobile wallets on iPhones," EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said during a news conference, according to CNBC. The European commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Apple's behavior in June 2020. Apple has yielded to pressure by European regulators to give rivals access to the contactless payments technology on iPhones, meaning that their users will no longer be limited to the Apple Pay mobile wallet. Apple Pay is Apple's own mobile wallet used to allow iPhone users to pay with their devices in stores and online. Apple's iPhones run exclusively on Apple's operating system 'iOS'. The tech giant has until July 25 to implement the changes, which will remain in force for 10 years and apply throughout the 30 countries in the European Economic Area. The Commission concluded that Apple's commitments would address its competition concerns over Apple's restriction of third-party mobile wallet developers' access to NFC payments in stores for EEA iOS users. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News A new study revealed that the outbreak of plague has caused population collapse across northern Europe 5,000 years ago. The research from the University of Copenhagen was based on DNA evidence from ancient bones and teeth of 108 individuals, which were excavated from nine burial sites in Sweden and Denmark. "The analyses show that 18 of these individuals, 17 percent, were infected with the plague when they died. Furthermore, our results suggest that the youngest plague strain we identify might have had epidemic potential," said Frederik Seersholm, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the research. The analyses, conducted using "deep shotgun sequencing" method, found that plague might have ravaged the population in the end of Neolithic, known as the Neolithic collapse. Additionally, the genomic findings also indicated that the community suffered through three distinct waves of plague. "We cannot - yet - prove 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 the subject of debate," said Seersholm. During the study, the researchers were able to identify family tree of 38 people from Falbygden, Sweden, across six generations. They found that 32 percent of them were infected with plague. Martin Sikora, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of the report, commented, "This high prevalence of plague indicates that plague epidemics played a substantial role in the Neolithic decline in this region". "Indeed, it seems plausible that the decline seen in other parts of Europe was also in some way affected by plague. We do already have evidence for plague in other megalithic sites in different parts of northern Europe. And seeing how prevalent it was in Scandinavia, I would expect a similar picture to emerge once we study these other megaliths with the same resolution." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Indian shares opened on a positive note Friday after data showed consumer prices surprisingly fell in June from the previous month, bolstering hopes for two Federal Reserve rate cuts this year. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was up 135 points, or 0.2 percent, at 80,033 in early trade while the broader NSE Nifty index was up 53 points, or 0.2 percent, at 24,368. TCS rallied nearly 3 percent after reporting an 8.7 percent rise in first-quarter net profit, beating expectations. Peer HCL Technologies rose half a percent ahead of its earnings release. Infosys gained 2 percent on bagging on order from the Delaware Labour Department. Shipping Corporation of India surged 5.7 percent after the Union ministry of shipping reportedly proposed a joint venture between the state-run company and a public sector oil marketing company for manufacturing very large oil tankers. Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers soared 6.4 percent after its board placed a purchase order worth Rs 514.55 crore with Topsoe A/s for the revamp of its ammonia plant. Oriental Rail Infrastructure jumped 5 percent on bagging a Rs 432 crore order from Indian Railways. SJVN added 2 percent after data showed LIC has increased its stake in the state-run hydropower company to 2.26 percent. Prestige Estates Projects rose 0.6 percent after releasing its Q1 sales data. Power Finance Corporation edged up slightly after the government appointed Sandeep Kumar as Director of Finance. Adani Wilmar climbed 1.1 percent after it agreed to acquire a majority stake of 67 percent in Omkar Chemical Industries in Gujarat. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Swedish telecom company LM Ericsson (ERIC) reported Friday that its second-quarter net loss was 11 billion Swedish kronor, sharply wider than last year's loss of 597 million kronor. Loss per share was 3.34 kronor, compared to 0.21 kronor loss per share a year ago. The latest results included 11.4 billion kronor impairment loss. Adjusted EBITA was 4.05 billion kronor, up 10 percent from last year's 3.68 billion kronor. Adjusted EBITA margin was 6.8 percent, compared to 5.7 percent a year ago. Sales declined 7 percent to 59.85 billion kronor from last year's 64.44 billion kronor. Organic sales also dropped 7 percent. Looking ahead, the company said it is on track to deliver the 12 billion kronor to 13 billion kronor IPR revenue target for 2024. Borje Ekholm, President and CEO, said, "We expect market conditions to remain challenging this year, as the pace of India investments slow, however our sales will benefit during the second half from contract deliveries in North America." For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News China's faster-than-expected exports growth underpinned by strong global demand for auto and semiconductors and an unexpected fall in imports took the trade surplus to a record high, official data showed on Friday. Exports posted an annual growth of 8.6 percent in June after rising 7.6 percent in May, the General Administration of Customs said. Shipments were forecast to climb 8.0 percent. On the other hand, imports dropped 2.3 percent annually, in contrast to the 1.8 percent increase in May and confounding expectations for an expansion of 2.8 percent. Higher exports and falling imports translated to a higher trade surplus. The trade surplus surged to a record $99 billion from $82.6 billion in the prior month. This was well above economists' forecast of $85.0 billion. ING Economist Lynn Song expects a smaller boost to growth from net exports in the second half of the year, though if imports continue to disappoint this contribution to GDP growth may remain solid in the coming quarters. Economists at Capital Economics said exports will stay strong in the near-term despite increased Western tariffs. Imports are likely to rebound before long as the recent reacceleration in government bond issuance should translate into increased infrastructure spending, lifting demand for industrial commodities, they noted. In the first half of the year, exports increased 3.6 percent and imports gained 2.0 percent, which resulted in the trade balance posting a surplus of $434.9 billion. During January to June, exports to the US grew 1.5 percent, while shipments to the European Union fell 2.6 percent. Meanwhile, exports to the Brazil surged 24.4 percent. Today's trade data bodes well for the second quarter GDP. The National Bureau of Statistics is set to release GDP data on July 15. Don't get caught off guard. Track key Economic Events with RTTNews Economic Trading Calendar For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News The U.S. Government has announced a reward of up to $12 million for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions of the kingpins of Venezuela-based transnational criminal organization, Tren de Aragua. The Department of State offered up to $5 million for information about Hector Rusthenford Guerrero, up to $4 million for Yohan Jose Romero, and up to $3 million for Giovanny San Vicente, all of who are Tren de Aragua leaders. Concurrently, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on it. The Department of State, in coordination with the Department of Justice and the Government of Colombia, announced the reward offers under the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program. Tren de Aragua is a transnational criminal organization that began as a prison gang in the Tocoron Prison in the state of Aragua in Venezuela. Over the past six years, Tren de Aragua leader Guerrero has expanded the group's criminal network throughout South America and recently extended into Central America and the United States. Through collaboration with the Colombian National Police, U.S. authorities believes Guerrero and Giovanny are in Colombia. Investigation and intelligence further identified Tren de Aragua co-founder Johan Petrica as living in Venezuela. The Colombian Police arrested many Tren de Aragua leaders and violent members over the past year. Tren de Aragua is expanding throughout the Western Hemisphere and engaging in diverse criminal activities, such as human smuggling and trafficking, gender-based violence, money laundering, and illicit drug trafficking. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News 11 shuttered or at-risk automobile manufacturing and assembly facilities in the U.S. will be converted into units that manufacture electric vehicles and their supply chain. The U.S. Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion to support the conversion of these facilities across eight states Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia. The manufacturers that are eligible for federal funding are American Autoparts; Blue Bird Body Company; Cummins Electrified Power NA; Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Belvidere Assembly Plant; Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles Indiana Transmission Plant; General Motors Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant, MI; Harley-Davidson, York, Pennsylvania; Volvo Technology of America; and ZF Axle Drives Marysville. These investments will create and retain thousands of good-paying union jobs and support the American auto communities. "There is nothing harder to a manufacturing community than to lose jobs to foreign competition and a changing industry," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "Even as our competitors invest heavily in electric vehicles, these grants ensure that our automotive industry stays competitiveand does it in the communities and with the workforce that have supported the auto industry for generations." The units selected under the Domestic Manufacturing Auto Conversion Grants program will negotiate for awards to enable them to manufacture products covering a broad range of the automotive supply chain, including parts for electric motorcycles and school buses, hybrid powertrains, heavy-duty commercial truck batteries, and electric SUVs. The Department of Energy estimates that if awarded, the selected projects would collectively create more than 2,900 new high-quality jobs and help ensure more than 15,000 highly skilled union workers are retained across all eleven facilities. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Health officials are seeing an increase in cases of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Acting Director of the Allegheny County Health Department Dr. Barbara Nightingale told KDKA-TV, "We're seeing almost 10 times the cases in 2024 already compared to the past couple of years." So far, the county has registered upto 87 cases in 2024, whereas nationwide 4,864 cases were reported, CBS News reports. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 601 whooping cough cases were reported in Pennsylvania this year as of May 25, compared to 108 cases reported around the same period last year. "A lot of the cases that we're seeing now are due to some of the changes with the prevention we took during COVID, similar to other respiratory viruses. We saw this really drop off of all respiratory in the pandemic, and those have started all to creep back," Dr. Nightingale said. Whooping cough is transmitted when the respiratory droplets from an infected person's cough or sneeze are caught by a healthy person. Then, the bacteria attach themselves to the throat lining and produce toxins, causing inflammation in airways, coughing fits, and breathing problems. The usual symptoms of whooping cough are runny nose, fever, vomiting, and exhaustion after uncontrollable and sudden coughing spells. Several adults experience complications like broken ribs from coughing, loss of bladder control, and fainting. "The disease itself can be very severe. It can lead to people being hospitalized, and you can even die from it. Also, it's very treatable with antibiotics, and we have vaccines that also can prevent people from getting it in the first place," Dr. Nightingale said. The officials are urging people to get vaccinated against the disease. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News A recent study by the University of Oxford, published in the Lancet's eClinicalMedicine journal, examined the effects of Novo Nordisk A/S's Ozempic on mental , particularly its association with reduced rates of dementia and other cognitive impairments. The research revealed that individuals who took Ozempic for a year experienced a remarkable 48% lower risk of developing dementia compared to those using alternative type 2 diabetes medications such as Januvia (sitagliptin) or Januvia and Glucotrol (glipizide) from Pfizer and Merck, respectively. Additionally, the study found that Ozempic users had a reduced risk of cognitive impairments when compared to individuals who had been taking alternative type 2 diabetes medications. The study utilized electronic health records from TriNetX, encompassing data from over 100,000 American patients from 2017 to 2021. Researchers analyzed the risks of 22 neurological and psychiatric conditions in patients using semaglutide versus other diabetes drugs like sitagliptin and glipizide. The findings indicated that semaglutide was linked to a decreased risk of neurological and psychiatric conditions. The most significant risk reduction was observed in encephalitis, with semaglutide users having a substantially lower chance of developing the condition compared to those on glipizide and sitagliptin. Similar reductions were noted in cognitive decline, dementia, and nicotine misuse among semaglutide users. Although the study acknowledges limitations, such as the lack of control over patient medication adherence, the researchers highlighted the potential benefits of semaglutide beyond diabetes management. Lead author Dr. Riccardo De Giorgi emphasized that the results suggest probable advantages of semaglutide in cognitive decline and substance misuse prevention. Co-author Dr. Max Taquet stressed the need for further randomized controlled trials to validate and expand upon these findings, recognizing their potential significance in improving public health outcomes for patients with diabetes and psychiatric disorders. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Organisers of the #YoungLeadersBootcamp By: Cebokazi Duze From 6-7 July 2024, Rhodes University hosted the inaugural Young Leaders Bootcamp, a transformative engagement that sought to empower the next generation of leaders. This two-day programme brought together Makhanda High School student leaders and the Rhodes University Student Representative Council (SRC) to participate in a programme designed to reflect on ethical leadership and community engagement. The Bootcamp was organised by the Allan Gray Centre for Leadership Ethics (AGCLE) in collaboration with the Makhanda Circle of Unity (MCoU). The programme aimed to provide a platform for young leaders to reflect on the role of youth leadership in their communities and to develop critical reflective skills necessary for ethical and impactful leadership. Part of the strategies to enable this included allowing the participants to engage with role models grounded in their context. Keynote speakers for the event included esteemed figures such as Allan Magubane, an Old Rhodian and the Former Deputy Headmaster for Transformation & Community Engagement at St Johns College; Dr Ashley Westaway and Ms Babsy Makombe from GADRA Education; Ms Thandie Nqowana from the Rhodes University Community Engagement (RUCE) office, and Professor Sizwe Mabizela Participating panellists and speakers shared insights on community-based leadership informed by their personal experiences valuable guidance to the young attendees. The Director for Student Services and Development, Dr Pakiso Tondi, opened the programmed and committed to supporting efforts to ensure that the Bootcamp is an annual programme held for young leaders in Makhandas schools. A workshop by Dr Lindsay Kelland and Professor Pedro Tabensky from the AGCLE followed this. The workshop dealt with the concept of personal leadership, with the core message being that to lead is to be led, and to be led requires us to develop a critical awareness of ourselves and the reality around us. The keynote address by Mr Allan Magubane grappled with using failure as a developmental opportunity for leadership development. The talk titled Reflections on personal leadership: Failing Forward focused on how failure can be used as a learning tool to develop one's humility and the power of compassion and kindness to help one become a better person from one's failures. This talk resonated deeply with the participants, who kept repeating a powerful quote from Mr Magubanes talk: Do not think less of yourself; think of yourself less. Day two of the programme began with an address by Prof Sizwe Mabizela, who reminded participants that leadership is nuanced, complex and requires constant reflection. Prof Mabizela affirmed the power of servant leadership and the necessity of treating leadership roles with integrity and respect. He concluded by encouraging participants to protect their values in all the spaces they occupy and stand firm against wrongdoing, no matter how big or small. Prof Mabizelas address was followed by a panel discussion with Ms Babsy Makombe, Dr Ashley Westaway, and Ms Thandiswa Nqowana that sought to expose the participants to the city-wide efforts to build the education sector of Makhanda, following the Makhanda Education Summit held earlier this year. In doing so, the panellists sought to encourage the participating students to form part of the broader movement to position the education sector of Makhanda as one of the leading education sectors in the country. The bootcamp concluded with a participant-led panel, where they reflected on what connected with them the most during the programme; what they committed to returning to their respective schools, and their commitment to being agents of change in their schools and communities. Several participants remarked that their perception of leadership has since changed after attending the bootcamp, and particularly appreciated being able to interact with student leaders from other schools. The bootcamp not only showed the value in creating reflective spaces for young leaders but demonstrated the continued commitment of Rhodes University to contribute to the development of Makhanda in as many ways as possible and affirmed for its participants the slogan of the University, a place where leaders learn. When compared to the current model, new MG Gloster facelift is expected to carry a lot more road presence, owing to its larger dimensions Time and time again, MG Gloster test mules have been making appearances in various parts of India. Recently, MG Gloster facelift test mules have made appearances again, showing a near-production-ready avatar. The new spy shots from automotive enthusiast Mohammad Rizwan and Armaan Jain have been spotted in what looks like Bengaluru, Karnataka. New MG Gloster Facelift Test Mules The race to conquer the large SUV segment is currently between two contestants Toyota Fortuner and MG Gloster. Isuzu MU-X is a worthy rival too, but it has not impacted sales. So, this two-horse race is soon gonna get more interesting with MG coming up with an update to Gloster, making it a better proposition for buyers. There used to be rivals like Mahindra Alturas G4, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and the popular Ford Endeavour. But they all met their demise, while Toyota Fortuner soldiered on. Now, MG Motors is on the verge of posing a fresh challenge to Toyota Fortuner in the form of a Gloster facelift set to launch soon. On the surface, MG Gloster facelift will bear a lot of similarities with a Maxus Territory sold overseas. With the facelift, MG intends to offer a significantly larger vehicle than the current Gloster. In that regard, we should witness increased road presence, which should appeal to the target demographic. While front and rear will be updated, the side profile will stay identical to the current Gloster. Pre-launch speculations suggest the MG Gloster Facelift may be around 5,214 mm in length, 2,016 mm in width, and 1,876 mm in height and have a 2,950 mm long wheelbase. These dimensions are of Glosters global rebranded versions. These numbers are significantly larger than that of Fortuners. On the inside, we should expect a slightly redesigned dashboard, similar to Maxus Territory. Different AC vents, slightly redesigned centre console, new materials and colours and a larger infotainment screen are likely to be some of the notable interior changes. When will it launch? Looking at the test mule, new MG Gloster facelift looks almost production ready. Just like previous test mules, alloy wheel designs still remain identical to the ones offered with current Gloster. We can expect a grand launch around the festive season. When it does launch, we expect it to make more ripples in the large SUV space than it is doing currently. Powertrains are likely to remain unchanged. Which is not a bad thing considering Gloster comes equipped with a 2.0L twin turbo diesel engine that kicks out 214 bhp and 478.5 Nm in its top-spec variant. 1 of 9 Also read MG Gloster Desert Storm, Snow Storm Launched Keep in mind that the same media that has been telling us for the last nine years what we should think of Trump is the same media that told us how healthy, alert and on-point Biden was. If they, without blushing, will present a picture of Biden that is obviously less than real, imagine what they would be willing to do to someone they passionately dislike. The media continue to do this as if the past didnt exist. Not only are counter-opinions ignored, so are news items more than a few months old. It turns out that the president, who the majority of the press defended and presented to us as a kindly older man who only wants what is best for us all, has an interesting past. It will come as a surprise to most of us, but if Biden continues to run, this will be his fourth attempt to be elected president. He ran in 1988, but had to step back when his plagiarism became an issue. In subsequent tries (2008), he was accused of sexual misconduct, but it was soon forgotten. He ran again in 2020 by mostly staying out of sight, but nevertheless saved the nation by preventing what some on the left called an antidemocratic coup from his opponent. He will be old in time for this election, but so are most of his prior opponents. Bernie Sanders will be 83. Hillary Clinton will be 77 and Kamala Harris, who recently is experiencing a hagiology of sorts in the press, will be 60. At one time or another, thirty-five diverse hopefuls took a swing at becoming the Democrat candidate in 2020. So, why was Biden chosen? He is anything but diverse. With more than a little bit of press help, Biden was portrayed as a nice guy. Look at his megawatt smile. Biden has done well for himself. He and his family have prospered, but he is a decent fellow. Compared to someone like John Kerry, he is Mr. Congeniality. He is not mean and snively (and old) like Bernie Sanders, and he (along with 90% of the human population of the planet) appeared to be a much nicer person than Hillary Clinton. But perhaps most important, his name recognition would allow him to stay hidden most of the campaign. Unless you are over 50 and have very good recall, you likely have no memory of any of this. After several months, old news disappears like it never happened. This should concern us. Jacques Ellul, who was considered to be an expert on modern propaganda, wrote the following in 1965. To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. Biden appeared to be experiencing a rapid mental and physical decline. But much of the media carried along in the current and continued with their mantra, what handicap? In fact, there was something wrong with you if you noticed. As an example, a few headlines about MSNBCs Morning Joe. Feb 9, 2024: MSNBCs Joe Scarborough attacked Special Counsel Robert Hur on Morning Joe on Friday for saying in his report released Thursday that President Joe Biden has a poor memory. March 4, 2024: MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough defended President Joe Bidens physical fitness on Morning Joe Monday, saying the president exercises regularly. You look at Joe Biden, he exercises every day, Scarborough said. You look how fit and trim he is. June 5, 2024: Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski tore into The Wall Street Journal report that President Joe Bidens mental acuity appeared to be slipping, questioning how editors could have missed multiple Republicans saying otherwise. Along with this, there was a fascinating post in the July 4th Intelligencer written by Olivis Nuzzi. Nuzzi writes sympathetically of the people defending Biden, Uniformly, these people were of a similar social strata. They lived and socialized in Washington, New York and Los Angeles. They did not wish to come forward with their stories. They did not want to blow a whistle. They wished that they could whistle past what they knew and emerge in November victorious and relieved, having helped avoid another four years of Trump. She continues, Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine . To admit otherwise would mean jeopardizing the future of the country and, well, nobody wanted to be responsible personally or socially for that. It is obvious at this point that the goal was not so much to elect a Democrat president, or even to protect Biden, but to make sure that Trump is not elected. Again, it is all about Trump. UMB remains one of the safest places in Downtown Baltimore. Now, a multidisciplinary team is tackling seven key safety reforms to take public safety and emergency preparedness to a new level. Photo: A "knox box" containing master keys for first responders is placed next to an emergency blue light phone at 100 N. Greene St. When Michigan State University Police Chief Chris Rozman opened up at the Maryland Higher Education Commission-University System of Maryland (USM) Campus Safety Summit about his universitys February 2023 mass shooting that killed four and injured five, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) took notice. Its heartbreaking to hear about these tragedies at Michigan State, University of Nevada Las Vegas [UNLV], and other schools and universities, says Christopher Stanton, MS, executive director of UMB's Office of Emergency Management (OEM). Were grateful that Chief Rozman took the time to share their departments lessons learned so we can take steps to prepare now. UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, Assistant Vice President for Public Safety and Chief of Police Thomas Leone, MSL, and Stanton took these lessons learned and developed a campus safety action plan. The plan, which includes seven actions to improve campus safety, is already well underway. Emergency and Crisis Communications Distributing timely, accurate information in the minutes and hours after an incident occurs is critical to the UMB communitys safety. Even at its fastest, sending a UMB Alert can take several minutes (learn why here). To ensure redundancy and set clear expectations, a multidisciplinary team of OEM, the Office of the President, and the Office of Communications and Public Affairs is working to review and update the Universitys Emergency Communications Annex and develop additional pre-scripted messaging to increase the speed of information access in an emergency. OEM also has designed and delivered Joint Information Center (JIC) training to communications professionals across UMB to create a bench of additional communications support in an emergency. Family Assistance Center In an emergency, UMB community and family members will need information, support, and resources. In June, OEM facilitated a two-day training and drill for 44 people on how to establish a Family Assistance Center and perform compassionate crisis services. The training was emotionally intense learning how to help grieving families, says Laura Cathcart, PhD, training and exercise program manager, OEM. But you only get one chance to get it right and help a family during a tragedy. A Family Assistance Center project plan is being created by a multidisciplinary team including the Student Counseling Center, Division of Student Affairs, School of Social Work, OEM, and others. The plan will more clearly define roles and responsibilities and codify the best practices learned in the training. Master Keys in External Lock Boxes During an active assailant incident, police officers need to quickly access rooms. While law enforcement has tools to breach doors in an emergency, forcible entry can cause delays and officer fatigue. Keys can help officers quickly clear a building and access areas where individuals are sheltering. A repeated lesson from the Uvalde, Michigan State, and UNLV active shooter events was police not having timely access to keys for all doors in the buildings, says Andrew Roberts, PE, director, UMB Office of the Fire Marshal (OFM). Putting lock boxes outside allows emergency responders to find keys quickly. The new lock box locations are highly visible and secure thanks to collaboration among UMB OFM, OEM, Police and Public Safety, Operations and Maintenance, and Design and Construction. So far, UMB Operations and Maintenance has relocated 34 lock boxes called knox boxes with five more to go. Psychological First Aid Training During and after an emergency, first responders can undergo a significant amount of stress and trauma. OEM and UMB police officers are now routinely adding psychological first aid and mental health first aid training to their toolkit. Historically, our training has focused on skills and physical ability, Leone says. Training for our mind is equally important, and it aligns with our core value of well-being. To be able to take care of others, we have to be able to take care of ourselves. The training increases individual resiliency and provides officers with skills to detect early warning signs of stress post-incident and help their fellow responders. Incorporate Comfort K9s into Active Assailant Recovery Plans UMB Police comfort K9, Poe, is a familiar face on campus. His role is to provide comfort and stress relief to those experiencing trauma. In addition to supporting the UMB community, Poe has responded to provide support to the Brooklyn Homes community, responders at the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, and responders at Baltimore City Fire Department line-of-duty deaths. We all deal with daily stressors, like deadlines and exams. Poe helps our students and employees handle these stressors in a healthy way, Leone says. In an emergency, comfort K9s can help our community to recover. In an emergency, Poe will need to bring in more furry friends. OEM and the UMB Office of University Counsel are working with HOPE Animal Assisted Crisis Response to provide professionally trained crisis response dogs to comfort first responders, victims, and families. Crisis Services An emergency can overwhelm our Universitys resources and ability to manage a response. UMB leadership agreed that it would need help and fast. On behalf of USM, UMB procured a contract with Empathia to provide crisis services, including on-site crisis counseling support and the ability to open a call center staffed by behavioral health professionals within one hour of notification. Empathia also provides training, including the Family Assistance Center training. The contract ensures that Empathia can handle several logistical hurdles and provide 24/7 support. That way, UMB can focus on whats most important: our community. Active Assailant Exercise Series From November 2023 to April 2024, the University prioritized conducting a series of exercises. The Office of the President, all academic schools, and all support facilities (e.g., Health Sciences and Human Services Library, SMC Campus Center, and the Community Engagement Center) have trained and exercised on active assailant preparedness and response. Theres no point in having a plan if no one knows what it is or how to do it, Stanton says. When we regularly test these plans, we can identify and address gaps before an emergency. This is how we build resiliency at UMB. Next Steps Five of the seven action steps are completed, with the other two nearing completion. Even as UMB checks items off the list, there is still much to be done. We cant just complete these trainings once and say were done, Stanton says. Building a prepared and resilient UMB community begins with these trainings, but it also means continuous education, exercises, and improvement. Learn more about active assailant preparedness at UMB and how you can become a preparedness pro and receive a digital credential through a series of free emergency preparedness trainings. In a new study, planetary scientists found strong similarities between soils found in Gale Crater on Mars and those of Canadas Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate. 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 planet and the same time period that saw life first appear on Earth. Gale Crater is a paleo lakebed there was obviously water present. But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there? said Dr. Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist at Desert Research Institute. Were 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. NASAs Curiosity Rover has been investigating Gale Crater since 2011, and has found a plethora of soil materials known as X-ray amorphous materials. These components of the soil lack the typical repeating atomic structure that defines minerals, and therefore cant 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 minerals 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. Its this soup of different elements and chemicals that just slide past each other, Dr. Feldman said. Curiosity 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 dont yet understand what the amorphous material is, or what its presence implies about Mars historical environment. Uncovering more information about how these enigmatic materials form and persist on Earth could help answer persistent questions about the red planet. Dr. 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 Californias 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. 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, Dr. Feldman said. 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 havent yet organized into their final, more crystalline forms. Theres something going on in the kinetics or the rate of reaction that is slowing it down so that these materials can be preserved over geologic time scales, Dr. Feldman said. What were 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. 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. The teams work appears in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. _____ A.D. Feldman et al. 2024, Fe-rich X-ray amorphous material records past climate and persistence of water on Mars. Commun Earth Environ 5, 364; doi: 10.1038/s43247-024-01495-4 This article is based on a press-release from Desert Research Institute. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (front, centre) hosts a reception in Hanoi on July 11 for Chinese Ambassador Xiong Bo (right) who comes to say goodbye at the end of his tenure. (Photo: VNA) The two sides rejoiced at positive developments and new milestones in the relationship between the two Parties and countries during the ambassadors term in Vietnam. PM Pham Minh Chinh commended the diplomats significant contributions to the friendship and cooperation between the two countries, especially his efforts in promoting and arranging many visits by high-ranking leaders of the two Parties and countries, notably the China visit by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in October 2022, and the trip to Vietnam by Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping in December 2023. PM Pham Minh Chinh emphasised that Vietnam and China remain each other's top trading partners, and Chinese investment in the Southeast Asian nation has increased sharply. The PM also highlighted tourism cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, with the number of Vietnamese students in China doubling the figure recorded five years ago. He suggested competent agencies of the two countries closely coordinate with each other to early materialise the cooperative contents that the two sides had agreed upon during his recent trip to China for the 15th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting of the New Champions and working sessions. The PM called on China to increase its import of Vietnamese agricultural products, and suggested the two sides cooperate in building a number of standard-gauge railway routes connecting the two countries, step up border transport infrastructure connectivity, upgrade border gates, enhance border economic collaboration, boost tourism collaboration, well manage land border, enhance people-to-people exchanges, intensify the communications work to promote the traditional friendship, and maintain their close coordination and cooperation as well as mutual support at multilateral mechanisms and forums. Regarding maritime issues, PM Pham Minh Chinh said the two countries should adhere to important common perceptions reached by their high-ranking leaders, the agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues between Vietnam and China, and international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), while promoting the role of maritime negotiation mechanisms and well controlling the situation at sea in accordance with the new position of the bilateral relations. For his part, Xiong congratulated Vietnam on its great, important achievements across spheres, especially socio-economic development, and pledged to further contribute to the implementation of such common perceptions, and the building of the community with a shared future that carries strategic significance./. People visit Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing, July 10, 2024. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows people visiting the Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Liu Chan) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows the wooden pagoda in Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Liu Chan) People visit Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing, July 10, 2024. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Liu Chan) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows cruise ships docking at Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Liu Chan) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) A drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Liu Chan) People visit Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing, July 10, 2024. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) People visit Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing, July 10, 2024. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) People visit Shibaozhai, a scenic spot in Zhongxian County, southwest China's Chongqing, July 10, 2024. Shibaozhai looks like a heart-shaped bonsai sitting in the middle of Three Gorges section of Yangtze Rier. It is home to a 12-story, 56-meter wooden pagoda that stands on 20 pillars and leans against the cliff. This structure dated back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) serves as a leading tourist attraction of Shibaozhai. (Xinhua/Huang Wei) Editor: WXY This photo taken on July 11, 2024 shows the Chinese and English copies of the white paper titled "Marine Eco-Environmental Protection in China" in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Li Xin) BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China has seen marked improvement in the quality of its marine environment and has been working hard on innovative new protection approaches, said a white paper issued on Thursday by China's State Council Information Office. Through land-sea coordination and by increasing river-sea connectivity, it has effectively improved the marine eco-environment, said the white paper titled "Marine Eco-Environmental Protection in China." Through comprehensive governance of key sea areas, land-sea coordination in pollution control, and building beautiful bays, China's nearshore water quality has improved. In 2023, the proportion of sea areas with good to excellent water quality saw a 21.3 percentage-point increase from 2012, according to the document. The white paper shed light on China's comprehensive governance of key sea areas, such as the Bohai Sea, the Yangtze River Estuary-Hangzhou Bay, and the Pearl River Estuary, which are located at the strategic intersections of China's coast where high-quality development is in full swing. An enclosed body of water, situated deep within a continent and connected to the open ocean only by straits, often features slow exchange rates, poor oceanic capacity and a high concentration of human activities, making it a challenge for marine environmental governance. The Chesapeake Bay in the United States, the Baltic Sea in Europe and the Seto Inland Sea in Japan have all seen years of governance efforts. The Bohai Sea is China's only semi-enclosed inland sea, which experienced problems such as deteriorating coastal water quality, ecological degradation and resource depletion. In order to alleviate the impact of land-sourced pollution on the marine environment, China has adopted robust measures to coordinate land-sea pollution control and monitor the key pathways that channel land-sourced pollutants into the sea, said the white paper. Since 2018, China has launched two rounds of comprehensive eco-environmental campaigns in the Bohai Sea. These efforts have yielded significant results. By 2023, the proportion of nearshore waters with good to excellent quality in the region rose to 83.5 percent, marking an 18.1 percentage-point increase from 2018 levels. China's governance model, which prioritizes land and sea coordination, has emerged as a new global solution for the ecological environment of inland seas, Vice Minister of Ecology and Environment Guo Fang told a press conference on the white paper on Thursday. In 2023, 167 out of 283 bays in China saw more than 85 percent of their waters in good or excellent condition, providing a thriving habitat for species such as the Bryde's whale, the Chinese white dolphin and the black-faced spoonbill, Guo noted. China is a major maritime country and one of the countries with the richest marine biodiversity in the world, Guo said, adding that the country has documented more than 28,000 marine species, accounting for 11 percent of the world's total known marine species. China attaches great importance to marine biodiversity conservation, which is evident in its continuous efforts to protect, restore and manage its marine ecosystems, Guo said. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), China has made substantial strides in coastal restoration, with 1,680 kilometers of coastline and over 750,000 mu (50,000 hectares) of coastal wetlands harnessed and restored, said Sun Shuxian, vice minister of natural resources and head of the State Oceanic Administration, at the press conference. These efforts have enhanced the structure and function of typical marine ecosystems, and made significant contributions to the recovery of habitats of endangered species, such as the Chinese white dolphin and the Chinese horseshoe crab. These efforts have also reduced disruptions to the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, one of the world's most important migratory flyways, which supports approximately 8 million migratory shorebirds moving annually across the continent. Through high-level eco-environmental protection, China strives to foster new impetus for and new advantages in its high-quality development, the white paper noted. China is making significant progress in the adoption of green ships and new energy vessels. Its first methanol dual-fueled ship can reduce carbon emissions by 75 percent, nitrogen emissions by 15 percent, and sulfur and particulate matter emissions by 99 percent, according to the white paper. The robust recovery and quality improvement in China's marine economy have positioned it as a new engine for national economic growth, Sun said. In 2023, China's gross ocean product topped 9.9 trillion yuan (about 1.39 trillion U.S. dollars), a 6 percent increase from the previous year. Editor: WXY An aerial drone photo taken on July 9, 2024 shows antique buildings in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) Visitors select glutinous rice cakes at a store in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 9, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) A girl and her grandma walk in a lane in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 10, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) Elders do housework at home in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 9, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) A girl plays in the old house of her grandma in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 10, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 9, 2024 shows people visiting a drama art museum in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows a night view of antique buildings in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) A visitor walks on a street in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 9, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) A craftsman works at home in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 10, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) Visitors are seen on a street in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 9, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) Visitors are seen at a drama art museum in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 9, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows a resident airing clothes at home in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 9, 2024 shows antique buildings in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 10, 2024 shows a night view in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) An aerial drone photo taken on July 9, 2024 shows antique buildings in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) People visit a street aboard sightseeing bus in the ancient county of Cicheng in Ningbo City, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 10, 2024. The ancient county of Cicheng boasts a history of 1,200 years, where antique buildings and structures cover over 600,000 square meters. In recent years, the county has been boosting its tourism economy by tapping into local cultural heritages with homestay and catering services. The county received about 2.76 million visitors in 2023. (Xinhua/Jiang Han) Editor: JYZ Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson reported a decline in sales in its second quarter and warned that market conditions would remain "challenging" for the rest of the year, but still managed to beat profit forecasts. The company, which sells infrastructure and services like 5G network equipment, said it was seeing lower customer investment levels in some markets, but mainly in India, following record investments in 2023. Sales in the three months to 30 June were 7% lower than last year at 59.8bn Swedish krona (4.4bn), due to an 11% fall in the Networks division, offsetting stable performances in Cloud Software and Services, and in Enterprise. One bright spark was the return to growth in North America where network sales increased by 14%. Despite the overall sales decline, group gross margins improved to 43.1 from 37.4% a year earlier, helped by increased IPR licensing revenues, cos-reduction actions and competitive portfolio offerings, the company said. This drove gross income 7% higher to SEK25.8bn while adjusted EBITDA rose 14% to SSEK3.23bn, well ahead of the SEK2.7bn consensus esimate. Meanwhile, free cash flow before M&A improved to SEK7.6bn, from an outflow of SEK5.0bn the year before. In Q2, we maintained our leading market position, returned to growth in North America, and delivered strong gross margin expansion and free cash flow," said president and chief executive Borje Ekholm. "We remained focused on matters in our control, to optimise our business amid a challenging market environment, with industry investment levels unsustainably low." Ericsson's shares were up 7.3% at kr72.88 by 1022 in Stockholm. Shares in Norwegian Air surged on Friday after the carrier swung to a profit in the second quarter on the back of strong passenger growth and an improved cost performance. The company said it was "well prepared" for the second half of the year and beyond, but warned that capacity growth will likely slow next year due to aircraft delivery delays from Boeing. Pre-tax profit came in at NOK477m (34m), compared with a loss of NOK903.5m the year before and comfortably ahead of the NOK359m profit expected by the market. The company flew 7.3m passengers during the three months to 30 June, of which 6.3m travelled with Norwegian and 1.0m through the Widere brand, resulting in passenger revenues of NOK7.82bn, up from NOK5.62bn previously. The number of passengers carried rose 680,000 for Norwegian and 122,000 for Widere. Meanwhile, available seat kilometres for Norwegian were up 19% year-on-year at 10.3bn, and rose 2% at Widere. The stock was up nearly 6% at NOK11.185 by 1210 in Oslo. Blue chip miner Rio Tinto is understood to be eyeing up a list of possible takeover targets, it was reported on Friday, including Canadas Teck Resources . According to Sky News, Rio is considering a number of deal options, one of which is a potential multi-billion dollar bid for Teck. Citing unnamed sources, Sky said Rio had drawn up detailed proposals about a possible approach, including sounding out banks about financing. Teck would likely be valued at more than $30bn. However, Rio - which is listed in both the UK and Australia - could face competition from other miners for Teck, which is now a pureplay metals miner after selling its coal division to Glencore for just under $7bn. Any overseas bidder would also likely face push back from the Canadian authorities. Earlier this year, rival miner BHP tried to take over Anglo American in a complex 39bn deal. That collapsed in May, but markets believe a similar mega deal within the sector could yet cross the line. Both Rio Tinto and Teck declined to comment on the report. As at 1100 BST, Rios London shares were largely unchanged at 5,256.69p, while New York-listed Teck was up 5% in pre-market trading. Rio Tinto is due to publish second-quarter numbers next week, as are Chiles Antofagasta and Anglo American. Unilever is reportedly planning to cut a third of all office roles in Europe by the end of next year, as the companys new chief executive forges ahead with his plan to boost growth at the struggling consumer goods giant. According to the Financial Times, the company, which is under pressure from shareholders including activist investor Nelson Peltz, told senior executives on Wednesday that as many as 3,200 roles would be cut in Europe by the end of 2025. The job cuts are part of Unilevers "productivity programme" first announced in March that include slashing as many as 7,500 roles globally. The company employs 10,000 to 11,000 office-based staff in Europe. In a company-wide call, details of which were shared with the FT, chief human resources officer Constantina Tribou said: "The expected net impact in roles in Europe between now and the end of 2025 is in the range of 3,000 to 3,200 roles." The cuts would apply "primarily to office-based roles" and will not include jobs based in factories, she added. The exact location of the job cuts across Europe is yet to be formally decided by Unilever, whose headquarters and primary listing are both in London after abandoning its Anglo-Dutch structure in 2020, the FT said. Unilever said in a statement that a consultation process is starting over the next few weeks with affected employees. Hermann Soggeberg, chair of the companys European Works Council, said that almost all European office locations would be equally affected but particularly the corporate centres in London and Rotterdam. Unilever announced in March that it would spin out its ice cream division in a bid to boost growth. The Netherlands-based division was lagging behind faster-growing categories such as beauty and wellbeing. Unilever also said it would cut 7,500 jobs globally, without specifying where the job cuts would be carried out. Soggeberg said the works council, which fights for employee rights, was liaising with management on a consultation to establish where the job cuts would be carried out and to establish how to minimise the losses. Some people who are let go could be reassigned to new roles in the ice cream business once it is spun off "in order to reduce the number of affected colleagues", Soggeberg said. "We will not be able to safeguard every job, but we need to safeguard every person," he added. "Its the biggest restructure we have seen in the last decade. This is shocking for the people." A Unilever spokesperson told the FT: "In March, we announced the launch of a comprehensive productivity programme, to drive focus and growth through a leaner and more accountable organisation. "We recognise the significant anxiety that these proposals are causing amongst our people. We are committed to supporting everyone through these changes, as we go through the consultation process." Megan McDonald is the author of the popular Judy Moody and Stink series and has written many other chapter books and picture books for children. She lives in California. Bunny and Clyde was published by Candlewick in March 2024. Anna Humphrey is the author of the Megabat and Clara Humble series. She lives in a big, old brick house in Kitchener, Ontario. Fluffle Bunnies: Buns Gone Bad was published May 2024 by Tundra Books. Here, McDonald and Humphrey discuss writing mischief for kids, the excitement of working with artists who understand the vision, and historical bad bunnies. Megan McDonald: When I read Fluffle Bunnies, I knew we were going to be friends! Why did you want to write about bad bunnies? Anna Humphrey: A few years ago, my son came running to tell me he'd found a secret nest of baby bunnies. We live across from an elementary school, and the mother rabbit decided to have her babies at the base of a "bus loading zone" sign. "Kind of a poor choice, Mama," I thought, but then I did some research. It turns out mother rabbits aren't exactly the nurturing types. They nurse their babies twice a day, but the rest of the time they stay far away from the nest to avoid attracting predators. Then I wondered if maybe this Mama was on to something! She hid her babies in plain sight where almost nobody saw them. CUNNING! Then she tough-loved them into learning how to fend for themselves. Almost like she was preparing them to be bunnies who could take on the world--perhaps even take it over? And that's how the Fluffle Bunnies began. McDonald: So, it's true, then, that a Mama bunny might run off to Brazil to become a jujitsu master. Humphrey: It is! But tell me all about how Bunny and Clyde came to be--I am dying to know. McDonald: Usually, my books are inspired by an experience, like yours. But in this case, it was really the names of the characters that inspired me: I scribbled "Bunny and Clyde" down on a napkin years ago. Their names, of course, are a riff on Bonnie and Clyde, who were famous bank robbers. So, I decided I wanted my characters to be bad. I think it's tantalizing for kids to read about a character who does something bad. But I thought it might be funny if they've always been good, and don't know how to be bad--so, they have to learn. Humphrey: I love that as a concept. I was such a rule follower as a kid. What inspired you to make Clyde something other than a bunny? McDonald: At first, I made both of my main characters bunnies. Bunny had to be a bunny, right? But then I thought it might be harder to distinguish between them, so I turned Clyde into a chipmunk. I love the visual contrast. I originally started the book by stating that there were two bad bunnies. Except one wasn't a bunny. So, then I got some humor out of people calling them bunnies and Clyde protesting that he's a chipmunk. Bunnies are so sweet and cuddly, I think it's fun to flip the script and think of them as "bad" guys. In Bunny and Clyde, they try so hard to be bad, but everything keeps turning out good. Anna Humphrey (photo: Christine Saunders) Humphrey: Agreed. There's just something so timelessly funny about a creature that's so cute behaving badly. I didn't realize before I started writing Fluffle Bunnies that bad buns are actually a tale as old as time. They even appear in the margins of medieval manuscripts! All these cute little bunnies wielding spears and chopping off heads. Obviously, my bunnies weren't going to do that... but rabbits really are big-time trouble. Ask a gardener. Or any rabbit owner. McDonald: Yes, I once had a rabbit named Nutmeg and she would escape and build nests out of clothes, pillow stuffing, shoes.... Humphrey: They are pure mischief. McDonald: Mischief is a good word. Why did you make your bunnies bad in the ways you did? Humphrey: After their mom hops off to become a jujitsu master in Brazil, I wanted readers to see the bunnies not just survive but thrive. But to accomplish that, they could only work with what they had. That's why whether they're outsmarting racoon goons or thwarting evil chipmunks (Sorry, Clyde!), they do it with brains, and, of course, the incredible power of their cuteness. McDonald: I love that they are so clever and ingenious. Humphrey: It was so much fun to watch Bunny and Clyde's bad deeds get foiled at every turn. How do you depict "bad" animals for the youngest readers without totally glamorizing a life of crime or bad behavior? Megan McDonald |(photo: Michele McDonald) McDonald: A lot of books about being bad or good are overly instructive and didactic. I think it's more fun if kids can see themselves in a character who has flaws and is not good all the time. Kids can relate to not always wanting to clean your room, or return your library book on time, or compost those apple cores. In my book, I tried to get across a whiff of danger, a taste of being bad, but then it turns out that crime doesn't pay. Hey, I think I just thought of the next adventure: Bunny and Clyde: Crime Doesn't Pay! Humphrey: Ahhhh! So honored to be here to witness that. I definitely found this to be a tricky balance. I don't want to be promoting badness... but there's a difference between being bad-bad and being bad in the sense that you're brash and bold. Standing up for myself is something I really struggled with as a kid, and something I'm still learning to do. I've got a thing or two left to learn from my bunnies. Biggie, Boingy, and Flop are always reaching high and looking out for numbers one, two, and three, but they're never malicious. If another character feels their adorable wrath, you can bet they did something to deserve it. McDonald: I agree, it is a tricky balance, and I think adults worry about promoting something that we deem as "bad" behavior. But kids accept and laugh at it. Maybe it goes back to your word: mischief. A little mischief is not a bad thing. Humphrey: I'm a big fan of shenanigans. McDonald: Another great word! When I read Bunny and Clyde aloud to a class of third graders, they kept shouting out, "They're good! No, they're bad! They're good again!" They seemed to delight in recognizing and anticipating what might be thought of as bad behavior. Your book is so funny, and the humor is enhanced by the visuals. How did you convey your humor to the illustrator? Humphrey: Writing a graphic novel turned out to be a lot like writing a play with stage directions and character descriptions. I tried my best to convey the ridiculousness going on in my head, and thankfully Irma Kniivila didn't need much help ramping up the humor. She's naturally ridiculous (and I mean that in the best way possible)! Her take on the buns delighted me--I feel so lucky to work with her. McDonald: It's exciting when the illustrator adds so much to the work. Scott Nash, the illustrator of Bunny and Clyde, thought of the WANTED poster, for example. So, might there be another Fluffle Bunnies in our future? Humphrey: There will. Working title is Big City Buns. How about Bunny and Clyde? McDonald: Book two is also in the works: Bunny and Clyde: On the Lam. This has been so much fun. I hope we both get up to some shenanigans in the future! Anna: Definitely! Mischief and mayhem await. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has tasked a Bengaluru-based firm with the indigenous development of a receiver chip to acquire and disseminate Indian time for navigation using the Indian Constellation (NavIC) developed by ISRO. The IRNSS satellites, through NavIC, aim to provide directional mapping support to land, rail, and air users, making it easier to find routes to destinations. Currently, this service largely relies on the Global Positioning System (GPS) provided by the US constellation of navigation satellites. According to DRDO and ISRO sources, while ISRO has already developed IRNSS satellites and is working towards making NavIC accessible to the general public, DRDO is developing a receiver chip domestically to provide IRNSS Network Timing (IRNWT) for dissemination. DRDO has commissioned Bengaluru-based Accord Software and Systems Pvt Ltd (ASSPL), which will develop a customised and flexible timing system as per range requirements for NavIC. Sources in ASSPL said, We are developing a completely Indian-made receiver for defence and commercial applications. The need for this arose after the experience during the Kargil war where Indias request to the US for use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology for information of the area was denied. We are now depending on GPS technology even on our mobile phones. The latest development will also significantly help the defence sector. Work is on to shift Indian-based receivers, where the sector will have complete control. It is a 24-month project that began on July 1", ASSPL sources said. ASSPL is among the seven private firms partnered with DRDO under the Technology Development Fund scheme. DRDO announced via social media the seven projects assigned to MSMEs and startups in the defense and aerospace sectors. DRDO has also initiated a project with Bengaluru-based Craftlogic Labs Private Limited to develop a mechanism for detecting in-flight icing conditions. This phenomenon occurs when super-cooled water droplets come into contact with the aircraft's external surfaces. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Walgreens has announced plans to close about 2,150 stores over the next three years, a new report noted. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tim Wentworth, Walgreens CEO, recently disclosed that the affected pharmacies were either not profitable, in high-theft areas or are too close to one another. The publication also referenced the chains struggles with the nations general shift to online prescription fills. The company, which operates a total of 8,600 stores in the United States, including seven here on Staten Island, did not specify which locations are on the chopping block, but did state that closures across America would be significant. Although underperforming stores are expected to close, some locations will just be shifted to more profitable areas, and workers at closing stores will be offered positions at other locations. Walgreens is not the only pharmacy chain facing closures: Rival pharmacy chain Rite Aid has shuttered more than 500 stores in the past several months. The company, which officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, citing slumping sales and a Justice Department complaint alleging excessive fills of opioids as the cause, has been gradually adding to its list of closures on a month-by-month basis. It was supposed to stop the bleeding. But Democratic lawmakers continued to nick President Joe Biden, with more calling on him to get out of the 2024 race within minutes of his press conference after the NATO summit on Thursday. The press conference, Bidens first solo presser since last November, was intended to restore confidence after Bidens devastating debate performance against former President Donald Trump. Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had jokingly referred to the NATO presser as a big boy press conference, meaning Biden would take questions, after a reporter had earlier used the phrase. But the presser failed to stem the tide of Democratic defections from Biden, with one lawmaker jumping ship just minutes after the press conference ended, Semafor reported. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBCs Alex Wagner that it was untenable for Democrats to sit and wait for more Biden missteps. One of the really kind of sick aspects of this moment is that we are watching every speech, every rally, every debate and saying, How did he do today? Himes said. Thats just not the way to think about the presidency of the United States. Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) in quick succession also called on Biden to exit the race, Politico reported. But Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) applauded Bidens press conference performance, Semafor said. I thought it went well, Ivey said. He transposed a name, but that happens to everyone, including Trump. And the opening speech was very strong. Biden during the press conference had referred to Trump as Vice President Trump. Earlier Thursday, Biden had introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin. Russian leader Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine two years ago. Other Dems also said that Biden performed better at the press conference than he had during the debate. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Cancer patients currently being treated at Richmond University Medical Center can now feel a little more comfortable, thanks to Subaru of America, Island Subaru and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The three organization have donated new blankets to the hospitals Center for Cancer Care and the Ambulatory Infusion Center. We can always count on Subaru of America, Island Subaru and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to prioritize the well-being of our patients, RUMC President and Chief Executive Officer Daniel J. Messina, PhD, FACHE, said. The gift of a blanket has more meaning than just keeping our patients warm, it reminds them that they are supported no matter what. The lasting friendship and loyalty we have received from our community partners is integral to our operations here at RUMC. The donation of more than 80 new blue and white heart-shaped blankets were brought into the lobby of the hospital, where staff from the oncology program and Ambulatory Infusion Center expressed their gratitude. On behalf of the hospital, I want to thank Subaru for donating these blankets. I know that our patients in chemotherapy and in the Ambulatory Infusion Center will be very happy to have them, added Lori Gargiso, RN, Nurse Manager at the Ambulatory Infusion Center. RUMCs oncology program has been accredited by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer for more than 80 consecutive years, making it the longest consecutively accredited cancer program on Staten Island. RUMC CENTER FOR CANCER CARE RUMCs Center for Cancer Care treats thousands of patients each year with different types of cancer in various stages. It is common for patients under treatment such as chemotherapy to experience chills, which is often due to a heightened sensitivity to temperature and/or iron deficiency. Celebrating more than five years of service to the community of Staten Island, RUMCs Center for Cancer Care is a state of the art facility. Located at 1000 South Ave., the center has received national accreditations from the American College of Radiation Oncology (ACRO) and American College of Radiology for constant high quality patient care and safety. RUMC is a not-for-profit healthcare provider serving the diverse community of Staten Island and its neighbors, which provides premier-quality patient care through a full spectrum of emergent, acute, primary, behavioral health and educational services. Staten Island, N.Y Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC) in West Brighton received $12.8 million from the citys Fiscal Year 2025 budget deal, contributing to over $66 million in allocations over the past eight years. This funding which is the largest allocation ever given to RUMC from the city will go towards multiple renovations and equipment purchases. This includes modernizing the CAT Scan and Radiology Department, renovating a 30-bed inpatient psychiatric unit and improving security and patient accessibility at the buildings main entrance. As the West Brighton community braces itself for the arrival of a new cannabis dispensary on Forest Avenue, residents find themselves caught in a whirlwind of frustration and disbelief. When New York state announced its intention to allow the opening of a cannabis dispensary in West Brighton, there was an outcry from the community. Neighbors rallied to express their concerns about the displacement of small businesses that have been the backbone of our local economy and the impact on the character of our neighborhood. New York state, undeterred, forged ahead, altering existing rules and regulations in what seemed to be a targeted effort to allow the placement of such dispensaries in communities like ours. Public hearings were held, and a comment period was opened to gather feedback from residents on these potential rule changes. Despite an overwhelmingly negative community response, the changes went forward and opened the door for the placement of a new dispensary at the Forest Avenue location. Theres a good chance that our concerns were so easy to ignore since our elected representative, Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo, was nonexistent during this time. In this critical moment for our community, when the voices of West Brighton cried out for advocacy, where was Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo? Silent. Absent from hearings. Missing in action during discussions. Not involved in any negotiations with the powers that be; Nowhere to be found when his community needed him the most. Now, as the discontent among residents reaches a boiling point, our elected official is suddenly finding his voice. Its only after the approval came through, after the damage was done and the ink was dry, that Assemblyman Pirozzolo decided to grace us with his presence. At our recent Forest Regional Residents Civic Association meeting, he loudly made a spectacle of pledging his newfound opposition to the dispensary. This sudden change in tone reeks of political opportunism rather than genuine concern for the constituents or community he represents. His absence and inaction speak volumes. The implications of the states decision extend beyond the opening of a single dispensary. It signals a troubling willingness to sideline community input in favor of state mandates. This is where a true representatives role becomes vital; to bridge the gap between the states goals and the communitys needs, to fight for the voices that might otherwise be ignored. West Brighton needs a fighter with our best interest in mind. It does not need a spectator while these decisions are being made for us. As we navigate the challenges ahead, let us remember the power we hold as a community. We have the right to demand better from our elected officials. No one should be placated by posturing and platitudes. We must demand accountability, and genuine representation from those who claim to serve our interests. Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo is elected by us to serve our community. His lawn sign reads Fed Up, Like You. He is right about that; we sure are fed up with Sam Pirozzolos absence and lack of governance on behalf of the West Brighton community. (Matthew Mobilia is a West Brighton resident and opposes Sam Pirozzolo as the Democratic candidate for the 63rd Assembly District.) In Dantes Inferno there are nine circles of Hell, each reserved for a different kind of sinner. The lustful get thrown about by storms, the gluttonous wallow in icy slush, heretics are trapped in flaming tombs But try as I might, Ive never been able to locate the particular niche in which the sinner is obliged to review the Archibald Prize for all eternity. Maybe theres a small annex next to the heretics because its a local article of faith that the Archibald is a great Australian tradition, loved and esteemed by all. Heretic that I am, I dont think Ive ever seen a really good Archibald Prize exhibition. Some years are better than others, but my first impression was that this year was one of the worst. After the initial shock, a few pictures began to stand out from the crowd, including the eventual winner, Laura Jones Tim Winton, while others receded into oblivion. Laura Jones has won the Archibald Prize with a portrait of Tim Winton at the Art Gallery of NSW. Credit: Janie Barrett Most of the trustees who judge the prize are not art professionals, but they usually manage to choose a credible candidate. Last years winner upset that complacent assumption, making me wonder about the judges criteria for excellence. Are they really trying to give the prize to the best picture? Perhaps theyre fixated on an artist who is young and emerging, or some other extra-aesthetic category. That idea is supported by this years choice of 57 finalists, which seem to be selected for variety rather than quality. I can only discuss a small number. Harris has previously been made aware of complaints about the organisation. A former company secretary of Greyhound Racing NSW, Ian Londish, wrote to the then chair of the body, John Williams, last year with a list of complaints about the organisations governance. Rob Macaulay, second from left, resigned as chief executive of Greyhound Racing NSW after the explosive report from the organisations former vet. The complaint, echoed by other former staff members the Herald spoke to, raised concerns about high-paying consulting and contracting roles with Greyhound Racing NSW and called on the board to review staff appointments. There have been senior staff appointments which have not been advertised and which have been made not following a proper selection process, he wrote. A law firm, PTW, was appointed to manage the greyhound groups legal affairs by a previous chief executive, Tony Mestrov, and approved by the board. Other staff at PTW were subsequently appointed to roles within GRNSW. Macaulay was accused of delaying freedom of information requests, which the organisation is obliged to comply with despite being a corporate body established by the government and not a government agency. Empty stands at Wentworth Park Greyhound races on Thursday night. Credit: Louise Kennerley Rob became quite angry and publicly ordered [the staff member] to wait until the last day to respond, Londish wrote. As you will understand, this is certainly a very poor example of compliance culture by a CEO. The complaint also alleged that Macaulay dismissed staff via text message or while staff were away on holiday, and required other managers to break the news of dismissals to staff while Macaulay was out of the office. Macaulay has previously denied any wrongdoing in relation to the allegations raised by Londish. He and Greyhound Racing NSW declined to comment when contacted by the Herald this week. An external law firm was retained by the greyhound body to investigate the allegations, but its findings have not been made public. It is utterly immoral to allow yet more greyhounds to enter this unsustainable morass of exploitation and suffering. Alex Brittan, former chief veterinarian of Greyhound Racing NSW A freedom of information request lodged by the Herald last year seeking information about payments from Greyhound Racing NSW to external companies was largely denied. Racing Minister David Harris said at the time: Its vital that the governing bodies and senior leadership of the states racing codes meet the highest standards of integrity. The veterinarians report, which became known in greyhound racing circles as the Brittan Communique, was lobbed into this already tense situation on June 15. The 54-page document outlines a litany of animal welfare and corporate governance allegations. The experienced vet wrote that greyhounds born in the system had only two options for leaving to be rehomed or to die. Yet, the numbers didnt add up, with rehoming rates falling far short of the necessary number, resulting in more and more dogs being held in industrial kennels. Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris announced an inquiry into the NSW greyhound industry, this week. Credit: Nikki Short The internal acceptance is that this hidden population is a Gordian knot, an unsolvable problem, that will need to just die, Brittan wrote. The rehoming rate is so poor that, even if the export quota reached the required rate of 3600 [per annum] in 18 months, a further 35004000 greyhounds will have already been added to this unrehomable mass of greyhounds trapped within the industry with no hope of a domestic life, he wrote. Until the existing backlog of unrehomed greyhounds is acknowledged and addressed, it is utterly immoral to allow yet more greyhounds to enter this unsustainable morass of exploitation and suffering. Numerous welfare issues The industry fiercely contested the numbers in Brittans report and said he misinterpreted the data. However, some in the racing community expressed scepticism about the practicalities of rehoming. One Greyhound Racing NSW staff member said an expensive radio advertising campaign yielded just a single applicant. Brittan identified numerous other animal welfare issues. In a separate research paper written for Greyhound Racing NSW, he wrote that travel compensation payments made to racing dog owners appeared to create an incentive to race dogs more frequently and enter races that dogs had little chance of winning. The payments had coincided with a sharp rise in the number of injured dogs. Around 11 dogs a day suffered a race or post-race injury in NSW. The research is potent ammunition for animal welfare groups, who point out that Australia is one of only seven nations where dog racing is legal and has more tracks than the rest of the world combined. Loading Premier Chris Minns has indicated that, whatever the findings of the Drake inquiry, the sport will not be banned. NSW Labor was a staunch supporter of the industry when former Liberal premier Mike Baird sought to ban it in 2016 following a raft of animal abuse findings. Baird faced fierce resistance from within the Coalition as many Nationals opposed the ban, and the then-premier was pummelled by sections of the media, including News Corp and talkback radio commentator Alan Jones. Jones dined with the premier at his Circular Quay apartment the night before Baird announced his backflip. You can overplay this animal welfare thing, Jones said afterwards. At the end of the day, there are people here who are being driven to penury and suicide, and when I explained that to him, he understood. He just kept saying, I was wrong. The sport still has many friends, including former senator John Williams, who wrote an opinion piece in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday backing Macaulay and his determination to implement the findings of the 2016 McHugh report into racing cruelty. Macaulay took on the job with an energy you rarely see, Williams wrote. Others told me that Macaulay slept with the McHugh Report and its list of industry failings and recommendations under his pillow. It wasnt a joke. But as race day attendances have dwindled, the sports heavy reliance on online betting money has left it vulnerable, supporters believe. Macaulay wrote to industry stakeholders in August last year, warning them that a federal House of Representatives committee had recommended a ban on online gambling inducements and ads. He urged them to mobilise and take a stand against this threat, contact MPs, and start a campaign against online gambling changes. As you know, racing is funded by state taxes on wagering, he wrote. If they kill wagering, they kill the sport. Debt collector Michael John Stanyer used all kinds of invective to persuade people who owed money that they should settle their bills. He called one person delusional, another a dickhead liar and a pathetic lying loser, and labelled a couple country bumpkins. Debt collector Michael John Stanyer. Between 2021 and 2023, Stanyer aggressively pursued Victorians whose debts were referred to his firm RMS Collections by using strong-arm tactics to compel debtors who owed between $300 and $10,000 to pay businesses what they owed. But in April 2021, nine debtors fought back, making complaints about Stanyers sometimes threatening calls, texts and emails to Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV), who charged him in March this year. The man in the photo below hasnt climbed to the top of a flagpole and taken a selfie almost 70 metres above the Melbourne city streets in an attempt to gain more followers on social media. Rather, he is, or was, a steeplejack, someone who specialises in climbing tall structures such as chimneys and church spires to carry out repairs, and this photo from The Ages archive was taken in 1984, long before smartphones, selfie sticks and social media. Steeplejack Tom Smetana at the top of a flagpole 70 metres above street level in 1984. Credit: The Age archives Tom Smetana was hired by Myer to carry out maintenance on a flagpole in Lonsdale Street. He had arrived in Melbourne as a refugee from Czechoslovakia at the start of the 1980s. Before coming to Australia, he had made a living fixing the spires of medieval cathedrals. The family of an Australian man found dead with his partner in a Philippines hotel say they are living a nightmare. Sydney man David Fisk, his Australian-Filipino partner Lucita Barquin Cortez and Lucitas daughter-in-law Mary Jane Cortez were found dead by staff at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay, south of Manila. Australian couple David Fisk and Lucita Barquin Cortez were found dead in a Philippines hotel room. Their hands and feet were tied, local police said. The love we have for our father and Lucita is so dear and this situation is like living a nightmare, a family statement said. Consider yourself a quality tourist? Bali, Australias favourite jaunt, has set an easy bar for qualification: follow the rules (the important ones at least) and be respectful. This year the Balinese have added another, exceedingly modest, condition. And it is already being violated by about half the islands foreign visitors. Tourists soaking up the sun in Canggu, Bali, shortly before the pandemic. Visitor numbers to Indonesia have since rebounded. Credit: Fauzy Chaniago The Bali tourist tax (authorities prefer levy) came into effect in February to drum up some $90 million a year to preserve culture and nature. The thinking is sound, if not yet the enforcement. The amount per tourist works out to roughly $15, about the same as a slice of quiche at a cafe in Sydney. But of the 12,000-odd people arriving every day, at least 5000 usually far more fail to pay up, according to Ida Ayu Indah Yustikarini, a senior official in Balis tourism department. Washington: Today was meant to be another history-making moment for Donald Trump. The twice-impeached, four-times indicted, criminally convicted former president was meant to be in a New York courtroom receiving his sentence for falsifying business records in a bid to sway the 2016 election. President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit. Credit: AP But after the conservative justices of the US Supreme Court threw him an immunity lifeline this month, Trump spent the afternoon filing a motion to dismiss his hush-money conviction entirely. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, had an unprecedented moment of his own, conducting a high-stakes news conference to convince his doubters he still had the mental and physical ability to take on Trump and win. ~Helping Sister Islands in the Southern Caribbean~ PHILIPSBURG:--- Today, many of the Rotary Clubs in our territory, including the Rotary Club of Sint Maarten, the Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunrise, the Rotary Club of St. Martin Sunset, the Rotary Club of Saint-Martin Nord and the Rotary Club of Anguilla, joined together to announce their support for Hurricane Beryl survivors. According to the Rotary Club of Sint Maarten Disaster Relief Chair, Laura Hartman, "It was important for us to ensure that our efforts would reach the right place at the right time. In order to accomplish this objective, we are partnering with our counterparts in Rotary District 7030 to our south. After careful consideration, we have determined that the most effective way to help survivors of Beryl is to work with the Rotary District 7030 Disaster Relief Team because we have verified that they are working with those impacted by the hurricane directly on the front lines. Anyone interested in supporting our efforts can join us by submitting a donation online to the Rotary District 7030 Disaster Fund at https://bit.ly/RotaryDistrict7030." Rotary Assistant Governor for St. Maarten and Anguilla, Elisia Lake, added, "Being able to trust that your contributions will be used for the intended purpose is very important during this time when we are all working to prepare for an above normal, very active hurricane season. Working with Rotary gives you that very assurance, especially when you consider Rotary International has earned Charity Navigator's highest rating for the 15th consecutive year. Your contributions will be used directly to assist survivors of Hurricane Beryl in Carriacou, Petite Martinique, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and the surrounding areas." To start things off and show their support and solidarity with our neighbors to our south, the Board of Directors of the Rotary Club of Sint Maarten has contributed US $1,000 to Rotary District 7030 Disaster Relief Fund, according to Club President Jeffrey "Dr. Soc" Sochrin. For more information about the Rotary Club of St. Maarten, don't hesitate to get in touch with the Rotary Club of St. Maarten Press Officer at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the website www.rotarysxm.com. PHILIPSBURG:--- On Friday, July 12, 2024, the Criminal Investigation Team (RST), under the direction of the examining judge, conducted searches at a Member of Parliaments residence and at his workplace in the Parliament Building in Sint Maarten. The searches took place due to the criminal investigation "Metz". The Member of Parliament is suspected of taking bribes and misusing his position. The investigation focuses on the events that led to the collapse of the recently formed government. The suspicion that has arisen needs to be investigated thoroughly in order to clarify whether criminal acts have indeed occurred. The credibility and legitimacy of Sint Maarten's democracy is at stake. The impact of the government's collapse on the citizens of Sint Maarten is significant. It means that the government can no longer make crucial decisions and Sint Maarten citizens will have to go to the polls again during the hurricane season. As of yet, no arrests have been made, and investigations are still ongoing for now. Anyone who may have information related to these events is urged to share this with the investigation team. This can be done through the email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The RST conducts the criminal investigation "Metz" under the authority of the Central Team of the Attorney General's Office of Curacao, St. Maarten, Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba. The Central Team focuses primarily on a specialized approach to fight corruption and subversive crime. The team mostly conducts criminal investigations into complex crime with a financial-economic component and which involves Politically Exposed Persons (PEP), public officials, government NVs, facilitators or public sector organizations. PROSECUTORS OFFICE PRESS RELEASE. AI makes writing easier, but stories sound alike Washington, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Books and movies of the future could all start to feel the same if creative industries embrace artificial intelligence to help write stories, a study published on Friday warned. The research, which drew on hundreds of volunteers and was published in Science Advances, comes amid rising fears over the impact of widely available AI tools that turn simple text prompts into relatively sophisticated music, art and writing. "Our goal was to study to what extent and how generative AI might help humans with creativity," co-author Anil Doshi of the University College London told AFP. For their experiment, Doshi and co-author Oliver Hauser of the University of Exeter recruited around 300 volunteers as "writers." These were people who didn't write for a living, and their inherent creative ability was assessed by a standard psychology test that asked them to provide 10 drastically different words. The scientists then split them randomly into three groups to write an eight-sentence story about one of three topics: an adventure on the open seas, an adventure in the jungle, or an adventure on another planet. Participants were also randomly placed into three groups that received varying levels of AI assistance. The first group got no help, the second was provided a three-sentence story idea from ChatGPT, and the third could receive up to five AI-generated story ideas to help them get going. - Individual benefit, collective loss - After completing their stories, participants were asked to assess their own work's creativity through measures including how novel it was, how enjoyable, and how much potential the idea had to be turned into a published book. An additional 600 external human reviewers also judged the story on the same measures. The authors found that, on average, AI boosted the quality of an individual writer's creativity by up to 10 percent, and the story's enjoyability by 22 percent, helping particularly with elements like structure and plot twists. These effects were most significant for writers who were judged during the initial task to be the least creative, "so it has this kind of leveling the playing field effect," said Doshi. But on the collective level, they found AI-assisted stories looked much more similar to each other than those produced without any AI help, as writers "anchored" themselves too heavily to the suggested ideas. Hauser said this created a "social dilemma." On the one hand, "you make it easier for people to get in; lowering barriers is good." But if the collective novelty of art decreases, "it could be harmful down the line." Doshi said the research also showed that, just like introducing pocket calculators to children too early could prevent them from learning how to do basic arithmetic, there was a danger that people could rely too much on AI tools before developing underlying skills in writing, music or more. People need to start thinking about "where in my workflow can I insert this tool to get the most benefit, while still inserting my own voice into the project or outcome." At NATO summit, allies delicately lend hand to gaffing Biden Washington, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 All was going according to plan. President Joe Biden was projecting himself as the leader of the free world as he hosted a NATO summit and then, in a moment, an embarrassing slip of the tongue. With Biden struggling to convince many Americans that he remains fit for office, NATO leaders have been offering him votes of confidence, however delicately, at least in part out of fear of another Donald Trump presidency. Biden was closing out NATO's three-day 75th anniversary summit in Washington, vowing forcefully, "Ukraine will prevail" against Russian President Vladimir Putin and hailing the courage of Ukraine's iconic wartime leader, Voldymyr Zelensky. Turning to Zelensky in his war fatigues, Biden said, "Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin." Biden quickly corrected himself and Zelensky, a former comedian, promptly made light of the gaffe, saying, "I am better than Putin." But the momentary lapse quickly revived memories of his debate two weeks earlier against Trump -- he had failed in his own task, to reassure the public he still had his wits. - Biden 'in charge' - Whether motivated by direct observation, fear of the return of Donald Trump or a simple reluctance to offend their host, no leaders openly questioned the competence of Biden, who at 81 is six years older than the alliance itself. French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke to Biden at length at a White House dinner for leaders. "I saw as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well," Macron said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz similarly said that Biden "showed leadership for our common alliance." "Slips of the tongue happen, and if you keep a close enough eye on everyone, you will find enough," Scholz said. New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that senility allegations against Biden were misguided and that the two allies covered wide ground for nearly one hour in the Oval Office, longer than expected. "We did it at pace. He was on good form," Starmer, whose Labour Party last week swept out the Conservatives and has no love lost with Trump, told British media before the summit gaffe. Polish President Andrzej Duda, who had forged close ties with Trump but has appreciated Biden's support for Ukraine, told reporters: "I talked with President Biden, and there is no doubt that everything is ok." Finnish President Alexander Stubb, asked if he had concerns about the United States, said that in democracies there is "always turmoil before elections." "I have absolutely no concern about the capacity of the current president of the United States to lead his country and to lead our fight for Ukraine and to lead NATO," he said. "The only thing I'm worried about is that the political climate in the United States right now is too toxic, is very polarized, and that doesn't leave enough room for a civilized and constructive debate" on policy, he told reporters. Many NATO leaders privately fear a victory in November of Trump, who has loudly criticized the alliance, with its promise of collective defense, as an unfair burden to the United States. Trump aides have mused about conditioning aid to Ukraine to force Kyiv to surrender territory and make a quick deal to end the war, which they call a distraction from a larger challenge of China. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, while saying she would not comment on the US election, stressed that the United States and Europe would remain united no matter who wins the election. "You saved us once," she said of the United States. "Please stick to that way of working." One discordant voice in NATO has been Hungary's populist prime minister Viktor Orban. He traveled to Russia and China, as well as Ukraine, before the NATO summit and, after it is over, was heading to Florida to see Trump. NATO leaders vow to stand by Ukraine as doubts hang over Biden Washington, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 NATO leaders pledged enduring support for Ukraine and commitment to their alliance as they wrapped up a three-day summit overshadowed by doubts over President Joe Biden's fitness to run crucial power the United States. The 32-nation alliance used the pomp-filled 75th anniversary gala in the US capital to showcase its resolve against Russia two and half years into the Kremlin's invasion of its pro-Western neighbour. But the gathering was clouded by uncertainty in the United States as Biden fights for his political survival. "I will not walk away from Ukraine. I will keep NATO strong," Biden said in his closing press conference. "That's exactly what we did, and exactly what we'll continue to do now." The US leader compared his commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance to comments from his challenger, former president Donald Trump. "My predecessor has made it clear he has no commitment to NATO. He's made it clear that he would feel no obligation to honor Article 5," Biden said, referring to the alliance's commitment of common defense. Biden met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky along with other NATO leaders on the third -- and final -- day of the summit after pledging new air defenses to help protect the war-torn country. But Zelensky called on Kyiv's backers, especially the United States, to go further -- including by giving his outgunned forces greater scope to strike inside Russia. "If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations," Zelensky said. Key allies such as the United States and Germany relaxed conditions on Ukraine hitting inside Russia in May in response to Moscow's offensive toward the second city Kharkiv, but they kept in place some limits on how far and under which circumstances Kyiv could strike. Biden said he taking advice from his military chiefs and evaluating on a "day to day basis" whether to make any adjustments. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was more definitive, saying "no one is planning to change the previous measures and guidelines." "It remains our task to ensure that we provide Ukraine with maximum support, but prevent the war from escalating into a war between Russia and NATO," Scholz said. NATO's leaders at the summit once again risked disappointing Zelensky by refusing to issue Ukraine a clear invitation to join their alliance. But in a bid to soften any upset, leaders called Ukraine's path to membership "irreversible." "We are doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member, and I am confident we will achieve this," Zelensky said. - Missiles in Germany - The United States also announced an important step to bolster NATO's own deterrence against Russia in Europe by saying it would begin "episodic deployments" of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026. The White House said it would eventually look to permanently station them in Germany, and the missiles would "have significantly longer range" than current US systems in Europe. The Kremlin struck back, saying it was planning "response measures" to contain the "very serious threat" from NATO, accusing the alliance of being "fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine." CNN meanwhile reported that the United States foiled a Russian plot earlier this year to assassinate the chief executive of a major German arms maker supplying weaponry to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he did not want to comment on those specific reports. But he said there has been "a Russian campaign organized by the security services to conduct hostile actions against NATO allies, across the alliance, with sabotage attempts, with cyber attacks, with arson, with different types of hostile actions." - China 'enabling' Russia - Ahead of the sit-down with Zelensky, NATO shifted attention eastwards by welcoming the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. A strongly worded declaration from NATO released Wednesday called Beijing a "decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine" through its supplies of dual-use goods such as microchips that can help Moscow's military. China "cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," NATO leaders said. Beijing hit back by warning NATO to "stop hyping up the so-called China threat and provoking confrontation and rivalry." The United States has been pushing its European allies for years to pay closer attention to the challenges posed by China. The Washington summit is the third such gathering attended by leaders from the four Asia-Pacific partners. NATO agreed to several initiatives with the partner countries, including bolstering cooperation against cyberattacks and disinformation, and providing Ukraine non-lethal help. Turkey's Erdogan warns against NATO-Russia conflict Washington, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Thursday against conflict between NATO and Russia, telling an alliance summit aimed at bolstering Ukraine that diplomacy must also be an option. The summit in Washington produced announcements including F-16 transfers to Ukraine and a US plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, with Russia warning of a response to the "very serious threat" from NATO. "I shared my views candidly here that NATO should never be allowed to be a party to the war in Ukraine," Erdogan told a news conference after the 75th anniversary summit. Erdogan said that Turkey, a rare NATO member not to join sanctions on Russia, supported the "territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine." "I also emphasized that diplomacy should not be excluded and that negotiations do not necessarily mean surrendering," he said. White House candidate Donald Trump, who in his previous term forged a close if complicated relationship with Erdogan, has spoken of forcing a settlement on Ukraine if he defeats President Joe Biden in November. Biden used the summit to rally Western allies to defend Ukraine through a steady flow of weapons and promises of a path for Kyiv to join NATO -- a prospect that is anathema to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in comments published by Russian news agencies, said that NATO was now "fully involved in the conflict over Ukraine." - Balancing act - Turkey has sought to balance ties between its two Black Sea neighbors Russia and Ukraine since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022. Ankara has sent drones to Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow. Last year, Erdogan said Ukraine "undoubtedly" deserved NATO membership when he met President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Thursday, Erdogan also played down the influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional bloc that Moscow and Beijing have promoted as a counterweight to US hegemony. "We do not think that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an alternative to NATO," Erdogan said. Turkey has been an SCO dialogue partner since 2012 and Erdogan said at its summit earlier this month he wanted full membership. Namik Tan, a lawmaker for the opposition CHP party who previously served as Turkey's ambassador to the United States, called out the government for its friendly relations with Russia. "We were the only NATO country that attended the 24th SCO Summit last week," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Isn't it a contradiction?" Erdogan, who has roots in political Islam and is an outspoken critic of Israel, also called for more NATO involvement in the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. "Israel's threats and attempts to spread the conflict must come to an end," he said. "Otherwise, our region will face the risk of deeper conflicts and even a war." Philippines to 'stand our ground' in South China Sea dispute Manila, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 The Philippines will "stand our ground" in a dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, a top security official said Friday, eight years after an international ruling against China in the territorial contest. Tensions over the strategic waterway, a key passage for sea-borne trade, have soared in the past 18 months following a series of escalating confrontations between Philippine and Chinese ships. The most serious happened on June 17, when China Coast Guard personnel wielding knives, sticks and an axe surrounded and boarded three Philippine Navy boats during a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands. While the countries agreed last week to "de-escalate tensions" over the disputed reefs and waters, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said Friday that Manila would not back down. "We will continue to stand our ground and push back against coercion, interference, malign influence and other tactics that seek to jeopardise our security and stability," Ano said, at an event celebrating the anniversary of the ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Philippines filed a case against China in 2013. Three years later, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in Manila's favour, declaring China's expansive claims had no legal basis. China refused to take part in the proceedings and has ignored the judgement. Former president Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in 2016, set aside the ruling in exchange for warmer ties with China. That changed when Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was elected in 2022, insisting he would not let China trample on Manila's maritime rights. Hungary's Orban meets Trump after NATO summit Miami, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban jetted off to Florida on Thursday to meet with former US president Donald Trump after the end of the NATO summit in Washington. The sit-down at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is likely to further upset Budapest's allies after Orban drew widespread ire from European counterparts for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Right-wing Orban, whose country took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and last met the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful in March. "We discussed ways to make peace," Orban said in a post on social media Thursday evening with a picture of the two leaders meeting. "The good news of the day: he's going to solve it!" The post did not elaborate further. Orban sparked uproar in the EU by jetting to Moscow to hold talks with Putin on what the Hungarian leader described as a "peace mission" over the war in Ukraine. His Russia visit followed a trip to Kyiv for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. The 27-nation EU bloc has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. "Viktor Orban has no mandate from the alliance, nor from the European Union, to conduct any form of negotiations," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the NATO summit. "He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose." Speaking to reporters Thursday, US President Joe Biden, set to face Trump in November, said that "I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now -- there's not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior." Orban, like Trump, has expressed skepticism about the role NATO countries are playing in support of Ukraine, and refuses to send Kyiv weapons saying it would fuel the conflict. His meeting with Trump, who has been critical of the central role played by the United States in NATO, came after Biden sought to rally the alliance at the Washington summit. The president was also seeking to reassure NATO counterparts -- and US voters -- about his leadership and fitness for office in the wake of a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate last month rekindled concerns about his age. Biden is 81, Trump 78. Japan Navy chief of staff quits over security breaches Tokyo, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 The Japanese Navy's chief of staff quit on Friday after a raft of scandals including over people without adequate security clearances handling classified defence materials. "I will resign from the chief of maritime staff job on July 19 and retire," said Admiral Ryo Sakai, the most senior uniformed officer in the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF). "As chief of the maritime staff, I am responsible for the training of personnel and the organisational management of the force, and I'm rightly held accountable for failing to fulfil my duties as the manager of specified secrets," Sakai told reporters. Chief government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi also said that "disciplinary action" had also been taken against more than 200 people. "The activities of the Self-Defense Forces are underpinned by the trust of the public, and these incidents, which must never be allowed to happen, are extremely regrettable," Hayashi told reporters. "From now on, under the leadership of the defence minister, I hope that the ministry and the Self-Defense Forces will work together to ensure that measures are taken to prevent a recurrence of such an incident and that it never happens again," he said. The defence ministry announced in April that five senior officers including a destroyer captain had been punished after an unvetted officer handled information on the location of other countries' ships. Defence Minister Minoru Kihara said at the time that the material was not leaked to outsiders but that the government "takes these incidents extremely seriously". It is just one of several controversies to rock Japan's military, which with US encouragement is being beefed up in response to China's growing assertiveness. These include three Japanese soldiers sexually assaulting female colleague Rina Gonoi in 2021, whose complaints were initially brushed aside in an internal military probe. The three men were convicted last year in a high-profile trial. nf-hih-stu/ser Japan warns on China, N. Korea in defence white paper Tokyo, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Joint military activities around Japan by China and Russia are of "grave concern" and North Korea poses a greater threat than ever, Tokyo's defence ministry said Friday. In its annual white paper, the ministry outlined its stance on issues from tensions around Taiwan to the intensifying rivalry between China and the United States. Repeated joint sorties by Chinese and Russian ships around Japan "are clearly intended as a demonstration of force against Japan and are a grave concern from the perspective of national security," it said. North Korea, meanwhile, which often conducts missile tests in Japan's direction, poses a "more grave and imminent threat to Japan's national security than ever before". In previous years, the defence paper has raised the need to counter regional threats including growing Chinese military clout and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Japan plans to double its defence spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP by 2027, although the falling value of the yen may dent its purchasing power. This year, the paper noted that Beijing regularly sends ships to areas close to disputed islands in the East China Sea -- reiterating that China's military ambitions are "the greatest strategic challenge" to Japan and the world. It seems China intends to make increased military activities around Taiwan a new normal for the region, said the paper, which also listed heightened defence risks associated with AI, cybersecurity and disinformation. "The international community is facing its greatest trial since World War II and competition among states, especially between the US and China, and it is set to intensify," the white paper said. Japan is forging closer defence ties with like-minded countries in the region including Australia and South Korea, and on Monday signed a key defence pact with the Philippines to allow the deployment of troops on each other's territory. The Philippines and Japan are both longtime allies of the United States, which has been strengthening defence ties in Asia to counter China's growing military might and influence. Chinese officials have accused the United States of trying to create an Asia-Pacific version of NATO. On Thursday, Japan's top government spokesman declined to comment on a report by Kyodo News that said a Japanese destroyer had made a rare entry into China's territorial waters this month, prompting a complaint from Beijing. S. Korea to deploy 'StarWars' lasers against North's drones Seoul, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 South Korea will begin deploying drone-melting laser weapons designed to shoot down North Korean UAVs this year, the country's arms procurement agency told AFP Friday. The new laser weapons -- dubbed the "StarWars Project" by the South -- are invisible and noise-free, require no additional ammunition, operate solely on electricity and cost only about 2,000 won ($1.45) per shot, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). The "Block-I" system, developed by Hanwha Aerospace, will be "put into operational deployment in the military this year", Lee Sang-yoon, a DAPA official, told AFP. The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. In December 2022, Seoul said five North Korean drones crossed into the South, the first such incident in five years, prompting its military to fire warning shots and deploy fighter jets, but they failed to shoot any of them down. The South's "ability to respond to North Korea's drone provocations will be significantly enhanced" by the laser weapons system, DAPA said in a statement Thursday. It has successfully achieved a 100 percent shoot-down rate in previous tests, and with future improvements, it could become a "game-changing" weapons system capable of countering aircraft and ballistic missiles in the future, DAPA said. - 'Weapon of the future' - The "StarWars" system -- a "weapon of the future" according to official Lee -- neutralises targets by directly hitting them with laser light generated from optical fiber. "When a laser weapon transfers heat to a drone, its surface melts. As the surface melts, the internal components catch fire, causing the drone to eventually fall," Lee told AFP. "This laser weapon uses electricity, so simply increasing the output allows it to travel at the speed of light," he said. "Laser weapons can travel even further in space where there is no air," which gives it a significant advantage over conventional weapons, he added. But some analysts said it was too early to be sure about the weapon's capabilities. "Laser weapons have not yet been put to practical use worldwide, and further verification and more time are needed to determine whether they can be utilised as a practical weapon system," Hong Sung-pyo, senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, told AFP. "Laser weapons also have an operational range. While it may be possible to shoot down (North Korean) drones that come within this range, it is difficult to target those that are outside of it," he added. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing as it draws ever closer to Russia. After Pyongyang sent multiple barrages of trash-carrying balloons across the border, Seoul last month fully suspended a tension-reducing military deal and resumed live-fire drills on border islands and by the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula. Hungary's Orban meets Trump after NATO summit Miami, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban jetted off to Florida on Thursday to meet with former US president Donald Trump after the end of the NATO summit in Washington. The sit-down at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is likely to further upset Budapest's allies after Orban drew widespread ire from European counterparts for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Right-wing Orban, whose country took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and last met the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful in March. "We discussed ways to make peace," Orban said in a post on social media Thursday evening with a picture of the two leaders meeting. "The good news of the day: he's going to solve it!" The post did not elaborate further. Trump responded to Orban's post, writing on his Truth Social site: "Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!" Orban sparked uproar in the EU by jetting to Moscow to hold talks with Putin on what the Hungarian leader described as a "peace mission" over the war in Ukraine. His Russia visit followed a trip to Kyiv for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. The 27-nation EU bloc has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. The Hungarian leader seemed isolated at the NATO summit in Washington and hardly spoke to the media. "Viktor Orban has no mandate from the alliance, nor from the European Union, to conduct any form of negotiations," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the NATO summit. "He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose." Speaking to reporters Thursday, US President Joe Biden, set to face Trump in November, said: "I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now -- there's not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior." Orban, like Trump, has expressed skepticism about the role NATO countries are playing in support of Ukraine, and refuses to send Kyiv weapons saying it would fuel the conflict. His meeting with Trump, who has been critical of the central role played by the United States in NATO, came after Biden sought to rally the alliance at the Washington summit. The president was also seeking to reassure NATO counterparts -- and US voters -- about his leadership and fitness for office in the wake of a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate last month that rekindled concerns about his age. Biden is 81, Trump 78. Philippines to 'stand our ground' in South China Sea dispute Manila, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 The Philippines will "stand our ground" in a dispute with Beijing over the South China Sea, a top security official said Friday, eight years after an international ruling against China in the territorial contest. Tensions over the strategic waterway, a key passage for sea-borne trade, have soared in the past 18 months following a series of escalating confrontations between Philippine and Chinese ships. The most serious happened on June 17, when China Coast Guard personnel wielding knives, sticks and an axe surrounded and boarded three Philippine Navy boats during a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands. While the countries agreed last week to "de-escalate tensions" over the disputed reefs and waters, Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said Friday that Manila would not back down. "We will continue to stand our ground and push back against coercion, interference, malign influence and other tactics that seek to jeopardise our security and stability," Ano said at an event celebrating the anniversary of the ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Philippines filed a case against China in 2013. Three years later, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in Manila's favour, declaring China's expansive claims had no legal basis. China refused to take part in the proceedings and has ignored the judgement. Former president Rodrigo Duterte, who took office in 2016, set aside the ruling in exchange for warmer ties with China. That changed when Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was elected in 2022, insisting he would not let China trample on Manila's maritime rights. Since then, diplomatic relations between Manila and Beijing have deteriorated as the Marcos administration pushes back against Chinese actions. China deploys coast guard and other vessels to patrol waters around reefs claimed by the Philippines. That includes Second Thomas Shoal, which lies about 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometres from China's nearest major landmass, Hainan island. The Philippines deliberately grounded a navy ship on the reef in 1999 to assert Manila's claims to the area. A handful of Filipino troops stationed on the rusty vessel rely on the regular delivery of provisions for their survival. Dozens of Filipino activists rallied in Manila on Friday to insist that the West Philippine Sea -- the Philippines' name for the South China Sea waters to its immediate west -- "is ours". - 'Deeply concerned' - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement for the anniversary that Washington remained "deeply concerned" about China's claims "over vast areas that are clearly within the maritime jurisdiction of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei". Blinken called on Beijing to "abide by the 2016 arbitral ruling" and "cease its dangerous and destabilising conduct". The Philippines has deepened defence cooperation with the United States and other countries in the face of China's growing assertiveness. On Monday, the Philippines signed a key defence pact with Japan that will allow the deployment of troops on each other's territory. Ano said Friday the government would continue to "foster closer ties with like-minded countries" and remained open to discussing "difficult issues". The Philippines was "always open to... frank discussion based on mutual respect and sincerity," Ano told the gathering that included ambassadors from the United States, Australia, France and Japan. "If you call, we will answer." Canada's designates largest marine protected zone Montreal, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Canada said Thursday it had designated the country's largest marine protected zone off the coast of Vancouver, as it moves to shield a third of its oceans by the end of the decade. The 133,000-square-kilometer (51,000-square-mile) zone was announced in a joint statement by Canada's department of fisheries and oceans and leaders of four First Nations. "Today we are taking a giant step forward in protecting Canada's oceans," said the department's minister Diane Lebouthillier. The new marine protected area brings Canada "halfway to our goal of conserving 30 percent of our oceans by 2030", Lebouthillier said. "The ocean has taken care of us, and we must look after it as well," said Judith Sayer of the Nuu-chah-nulth nation. Canada is moving closer to meeting a historic commitment made by the world's nations at the Montreal Biodiversity Summit in December 2022. The zone, which lies about 150 kilometers (93 miles) off Vancouver Island, is the result of an agreement signed in January 2023 by Ottawa and the Nuu-chah-nulth Haida, Quatsino and Pacheedaht nations. The area is home to more than dozens species of fish, seabirds, invertebrate and marine mammals, including killer whales, sea otters and dolphins. Beneath the water, the seabed hosts "rare and unique deep-water species that are both remarkable and culturally important", according to the Canadian department of fisheries and oceans. NGO Oceana Canada hailed the move as a "significant step toward preserving marine biodiversity" by preventing activities such as bottom trawling and dumping. China says conducting joint military drills with Russia Beijing, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 China said Friday it was conducting joint military drills with Russia along its southern coast, after a US-led Western defence alliance met in Washington and Japan warned of a growing threat from Beijing's strong ties with Moscow. China's defence ministry said the two militaries had begun the exercises, called Joint Sea-2024, in "early July" and they would last until the middle of this month. The drills in the waters and airspace around Zhanjiang, a city in southern Guangdong province, are "to demonstrate the resolve and capabilities of the two sides in jointly addressing maritime security threats and preserving global and regional peace and stability", the ministry said. It added that the exercises "will further deepen China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era". They were taking place in accordance with Beijing and Moscow's annual plan for military engagement, according to the ministry. The announcement came in the same week that NATO leaders convened in Washington to reaffirm support for Ukraine amid Russia's invasion. China and Russia have drawn closer in recent years and tout their friendship as having "no limits", and both share hostile relations with NATO. NATO leaders said in a declaration on Wednesday that China had "become a decisive enabler" of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, prompting Beijing to warn NATO against "provoking confrontation". China maintains that it is not a party to the Ukraine conflict but has been criticised by Western leaders for giving political and economic support to Russia, including in the trade of goods with both civilian and military uses. Chinese forces are also staging drills this week with Belarus, another Russian ally, on NATO's eastern border. And Japan said Friday that joint China-Russia activities near its territory pose a "grave concern from the perspective of national security". Japan warns on China, North Korea in annual defence report Tokyo, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 China and Russia's joint military activities around Japan are of "grave concern" and North Korea poses a greater threat than ever, Tokyo's defence ministry said Friday. In its annual white paper, the ministry outlined its stance on a range of issues, from tensions around Taiwan to the intensifying rivalry between China and the United States. Repeated joint sorties by Chinese and Russian ships around Japan "are clearly intended as a demonstration of force against Japan and are a grave concern from the perspective of national security," it said. North Korea, meanwhile, which often conducts missile tests in Japan's direction, poses a "more grave and imminent threat to Japan's national security than ever before". In previous years, the defence paper has raised the need to counter regional threats including growing Chinese military clout and a nuclear-armed North Korea. Japan plans to double its defence spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP by 2027, although the falling value of the yen may dent its purchasing power. This year's paper noted that Beijing has regularly sent ships to areas near disputed islands in the East China Sea -- reiterating that China's military ambitions are "the greatest strategic challenge" to Japan and the world. It seems China intends to make increased military activities around Taiwan a new normal for the region, said the paper, which also listed heightened defence risks associated with AI, cybersecurity and disinformation. "The international community is facing its greatest trial since World War II and competition among states, especially between the US and China, and it is set to intensify," the white paper said. Japan is forging closer defence ties with like-minded countries in the region including Australia and South Korea, and on Monday signed a key defence pact with the Philippines to allow the deployment of troops on each other's territory. The Philippines and Japan are both longtime allies of the United States, which has been strengthening defence ties in Asia to counter China's growing military might and influence. Chinese officials have accused the United States of trying to create an Asia-Pacific version of NATO. Beijing said Friday it was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" to the claims in the white paper. "The latest version of Japan's defence white paper seriously interferes in China's internal affairs, plays the same old tune, hypes up the so-called Chinese threat, and exaggerates regional tensions," foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said. Japan's top government spokesman declined to comment Thursday on a report by Kyodo News that a Japanese destroyer had made a rare entry into China's territorial waters this month, prompting a complaint from Beijing. IAEA board voices 'serious concern' over Russia strike on Kyiv hospital Vienna, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 The governing body of the UN nuclear watchdog passed a resolution Friday, expressing "serious concern" over Russia's strike that shattered a children's hospital in Kyiv earlier this week. The deadly attack on the Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital on Monday sparked international condemnation, with Kyiv requesting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to hold an emergency meeting. The attack killed two adults and wounded 32 more, with eight children being hospitalised, according to the Ukrainian interior ministry. The hospital receives technical cooperation support by the IAEA to treat cancer patients, including through a radiology centre. In the resolution which passed Friday, the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors voiced "serious concern" over Russia's attack on the hospital, stressing its "vital role" in the treatment of paediatric cancer in Ukraine. The board also "condemned in the strongest terms" the disruption of the agency's technical assistance to Ukraine due to Moscow's strike. The resolution brought by Ukraine was approved by 20 of the agency's board members, two diplomats told AFP. Russia and China voted against. Twelve countries abstained from the vote, while Paraguay did not participate. The European Union said in its statement to the meeting that it "strongly condemns the escalation of hostilities by Russia", adding the attack on the children's hospital had "severe consequences on the health of many children awaiting treatment". Earlier this week, the IAEA said on X that Ukraine had informed the agency that "no radioactive sources were present" in the Okhmatdyt hospital at the time of the attack. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi added there were "no nuclear safety or security risks" at the hospital. According to Ukraine, a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile had smashed into the renowned children's hospital, but Moscow blamed Ukrainian air defence systems. The Kremlin repeated on Tuesday its claims that Russian forces only target military infrastructure and deferred further questions to the defence ministry. anb-kym/giv Polish PM accuses ex-ambassador of foreign intelligence contacts Warsaw, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday accused the former Polish ambassador to NATO of having contacts with unnamed foreign intelligence services and of receiving "unauthorised financial benefits". "(Tomasz) Szatkowski is accused of improperly handling classified documents, having contacts with foreign special services, obtaining unauthorized financial benefits," Tusk said in parliament, citing a counterintelligence investigation. He also accused Szatkowski of "relying on the suggestions and advice of foreign companies to prepare important state documents directly related to state security". Szatkowski was appointed ambassador to NATO in 2016 by the former populist ruling party, and was recalled to the country in May by the current Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Tusk also accused the former ruling party, including President Andrzej Duda, of having known about the accusations against Szatkowski even before his NATO appointment, and of having hidden them. Russian, US defence chiefs discussed lowering escalation in call: Moscow Moscow, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and his US counterpart Lloyd Austin held a telephone call where they discussed lowering the risk of "possible escalation", the Russian defence ministry said on Friday. The call, which was initiated by Moscow, comes as tensions between the two sides flare over Washington's plan to deploy long-range missiles in Germany, a decision the Kremlin warned could spell a return to Cold War-style confrontation. "The issue of preventing security threats and reducing the risk of possible escalation was discussed," Russia's defence ministry said in a statement on the talks. According to Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, Austin "emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication" during the conversation. The two sides have managed to organise sporadic phone calls despite raging tensions over the conflict in Ukraine, including a recent call at the end of June where Moscow chided Washington's arms supplies to Kyiv. The White House announced on Wednesday during a NATO summit that it would station long-range weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany as a deterrent. The Kremlin criticised the move, accusing Washington of taking a step towards a new "Cold War" and of directly participating in the conflict in Ukraine. * 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 was in the area for seven hours before the murders but investigators have yet to pin down exactly how long he was in the house in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, where the three family members were killed on Tuesday. On another occasion, the gang organised for migrants to be smuggled from France and the Netherlands to the UK in the back of refrigerated lorry trailers containing fruit and vegetables. He stressed that ministers were having to adopt the least worst option of earlier releases amid warnings that if they did not jails would be full, leading to paralysis in the courts and police officers unable to arrest suspected offenders as there would be no place to detain them. However, the enormous amount of people who will be watching estimated at 30 million in the UK alone and supporting means that the numbers of women and their families who will experience the repercussions of these heightened emotions and high-stakes matches will, by association, also be huge. The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, on Thursday conveyed a message on the occasion of Friendship Day between Romania and the United States of America, in which he voiced his conviction that "cooperation with the United States bilaterlayy and in allied context has never been more substantial" in the year Romania marked its 20th anniversary of NATO membership. "On July 11, Friendship Day between Romania and the United States of America is marked, and this year marks 27 years since the launch of the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States, which has become one of the strategic landmarks of Romania's foreign policy, along with NATO and the European Union membership," Klaus Iohannis said in his message. The Strategic Partnership with the USA, established on the occasion of the visit of US President Bill Clinton to Bucharest, on July 11, 1997, acquired new values and dimensions over time, the head of state also specifies in the message, appreciating that "beyond the traditional cooperation in terms of security, respectively political and military, the Strategic Partnership developed through essential pillars such as the economic, cultural or educational ones". "This year we have also marked the 20th anniversary of Romania's NATO membership, and cooperation with the United States bilaterally and in an allied context has never been more substantial. The United States constantly appreciates the important role that Romania plays in the promotion of Euro-Atlantic security, as well as the role of a responsible and reliable Ally on NATO's Eastern Flank," Klaus Iohannis also mentioned. He also emphasized that "Romania and the United States remain committed to the defense of democratic values, which unite the two sides of the Atlantic, and I am convinced that in the future we will continue to deepen our strategic cooperation on all levels, for the benefit of our citizens". When you have money questions, sometimes a friendly chat with others in similar situations can spark helpful answers. If youre a mom, those conversations can take place within moms groups. There are local groups like Utah Money Moms, private Facebook groups for single moms and entrepreneurial moms, and many websites geared toward moms interested in sharing smart saving, spending and earning tips. These groups exist because there is a demand for them, says Amanda Christensen, founder of Utah Money Moms as well as an accredited financial counselor and extension professor at Utah State University. On the Utah Money Moms site, women can pick up tips on topics such as how to save money, how to discuss finances with a partner and how to trim expenses. I created the site in an attempt to make personal finance more approachable for women, she says, citing the gender wage gap and research that shows fewer women feel confident about finances compared with men. Groups and resources targeted at moms can be especially helpful, says Maria Bailey, author of Marketing to Millennial Moms, because moms benefit from learning from one another, especially when they are facing similar challenges such as juggling child care and other costs of young children. Were seeing a rise of these groups, especially among younger and Gen Z moms, out of a sense of empowerment, Bailey says, adding that young moms in particular have a strong sense of self. If youre looking to get helpful information out of a money-oriented moms group, experts offer the following tips. Find people with similar challenges Pamela Horack, a certified financial planner who calls herself Your Financial Mom, recommends finding moms who are at similar life stages to you, whether thats buying diapers or sending kids off to college. Were experiencing the same life events at the same time, and money is a part of that, so its really important for women to be able to bounce ideas off of each other, Horack says. A group of like-minded moms offers a support system of sorts as you navigate day care costs, plan family vacations or manage allowances, she adds. Moms are also often interested in finding ways to support their families, whether by exploring options to earn extra income or looking for strategic ways to save, Bailey says. Moms are motivated by finding solutions and nurturing, and talking about money is part of that, she says. Emma Johnson, creator of the private Facebook group Millionaire Single Moms and author of The 50/50 Solution, says women in her group have shared valuable advice on issues related to divorce and money management for single moms. I get messages from women all the time that the Facebook group has changed them, she says. Share tips on day-to-day life and long-term planning Moms can have a lot on their financial plates, from the weekly grocery budget to longer-term saving for college and retirement. Horack says the most helpful moms groups cover that entire spectrum of issues. Everybody is really worried about budgeting, because if you cant budget now, then youre not going to have money for your retirement later, Horack says, adding that sharing ideas about tracking expenses and trimming costs can be extremely helpful. Getting your fixed expenses under control is a good strategy; then you can have money available when non-monthly expenses come up, she says. Horack also suggests discussing how to teach kids about money, which is another popular parenting topic. Even a discussion about the words you use with kids when discussing money and the subtle messages you may be sending can be a useful conversation, and other moms might have perspectives you hadnt previously considered. Watch out for scams or inaccurate information The proliferation of online moms groups has attracted scam artists, which means anyone seeking camaraderie online needs to be on guard. Johnson warns against interacting with anyone online who asks for your personal information or money. She says she often has to kick people out of her private Facebook group when they start trying to sell goods or services to members. To keep online groups free from potential scams, Johnson says, you have to actively manage them. Its also a good idea to remain skeptical of any advice you see online until you verify it with your own research. Be inclusive Sometimes, expanding your group beyond moms can make sense, Christensen notes. She says shes currently rebranding her Utah Money Moms site so it will no longer have mom in the name in an effort to be more inclusive of all women, regardless of their role. An Air Force CV-22B Osprey of the 21st Special Operations Squadron, takes flight for the first time since November 2023 at Yokota Air Base, Japan, July 2, 2024. (Samantha White/U.S. Air Force) YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan The U.S. Air Force has pulled a pair of CV-22 Osprey tiltrotors from drills involving U.S. Marines and Japanese troops in southern Japan later this month. The helicopter-plane hybrids, which recently returned to the air after a lengthy grounding, were scheduled to participate in Exercise Resolute Dragon from July 28 to Aug. 7, a spokesman for the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force said by phone Friday morning. Some Japanese government officials are required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity. Two Ospreys from Yokota were expected to participate in anti-landing combat and logistics training during the exercise, he said. However, the 21st Special Operations Squadron has withdrawn the aircraft from the drill, Capt. Emma Quirk, a spokesman for Yokotas 374th Airlift Wing, said in an email Friday afternoon. The V-22 Osprey unit in question recently signaled their intent to focus on internal training requirements resulting in their withdrawal from participation in Exercise Resolute Dragon 24, she said. The safety of the flying crews and Japanese neighbors is the number one priority during flight operations, and units are focused on meticulous training and operational procedures as they return to flight. The Yokota Ospreys on July 2 began flying again, 216 days after one of them crashed off Japans southern coast, killing all eight airmen aboard. The U.S. military grounded its fleet of about 400 Ospreys between Dec. 6 and March 8 as it investigated the Nov. 29 crash. Marine Corps and Navy Ospreys have been flying for months but the fleet will not be permitted to fly its full range of missions until mid-2025, Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, who leads U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, told House lawmakers last month. The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force also resumed flying its tiltrotors in the spring. The Marines and Navy described their Ospreys return to flight as a phased-in approach; the Air Force did likewise. Approximately 3,000 U.S. Marines and sailors will train alongside counterparts from Japans Western Army and other American and Japanese units during Resolute Dragon, according to a June 21 news release from III Marine Expeditionary Force. During the exercise, the allies will rehearse and strengthen their multi-domain maneuver capabilities and combined arms integration, the statement said. The annual exercise, now in its fourth iteration, will take place across multiple training areas in Japan in Chugoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa prefectures, according to the statement. The 689-foot bulk carrier Michipicoten safely anchored in Thunder Bay, Ontario, after encountering trouble in Lake Superior on June 8, 2024. (U.S. Coast Guard/TNS) (Tribune News Service) Lake Superior was calm, and the Michipicoten was plying deep waters June 8 when the ships crew heard a loud bang. The 698-foot freighter suddenly began taking on water near Isle Royale. The Michipicoten issued a mayday, and the U.S. Coast Guard rushed to the scene, evacuating half the ships 22 crew members. The vessel limped to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where inspectors found the culprit: a 13-foot crack in its hull. Its really unusual to basically be out in the middle of the lake and start taking on water, said Thom Holden, a Great Lakes shipwreck and shipping historian in Superior, Wis. Indeed, the Michipicoten incident is a rarity on the Great Lakes: a full-blown emergency on a commercial freighter. But it was the latest of several mishaps in recent years on ships that Rand Logistics, one of the largest Great Lakes carriers, operates. One Rand ship caught fire in Lake Erie in May 2023 and then burned again while docked in Ashtabula, Ohio, in March. Two weeks later, another Rand vessel hit a navigational aid near Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., shutting down traffic in a vital shipping artery for 40 hours. Yet another Rand ship grounded near Detroit in November. The U.S. Coast Guard deemed two other groundings by Rand ships in the past two years as serious marine incidents. And last summer, a Rand-owned ship leaked 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel into Lake Michigan after a hull breach in a fuel tank. That is a lot of incidents in a short time, said Roger LeLievre, president of the Marine Historical Society of Detroit and publisher of Know Your Ships, an annual Great Lakes shipping guide. Rand Logistics has had an exceptionally bad first part of the year, and they have been having issues for a couple of years now, he said Still, the Coast Guard hasnt found any deeper safety concerns with Rands fleet. There is nothing conclusive that shows a broader safety or maintenance issue for Rand or its subsidiaries, said Lt. Phillip Gurtler, a spokesman for the Coast Guards Great Lakes district in Cleveland. Rand, based in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., defended its safety record in a statement: The safety of our employees, proper maintenance of our vessels and commitment to the environment are our top priorities at Rand Logistics. We regularly conduct safety training programs for our employees and since 2020 have invested over $230 million in the maintenance and improvement of our vessels, which are highly regulated. We adhere to all industry safety and operating standards. The outcome of the Michipicoten incident could have been much worse. The 72-year-old vessel set out from Two Harbors with a load of iron ore, destined for Algoma Steels big mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The Canadian-flagged Michipicoten was 38 miles southwest of Isle Royale when around 6:15 a.m., it began taking on water a lot of it. The crew reported that 300 tons of water rushed in every 30 minutes, said Lt. Joe Snyder, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. The loud bang led the crew to initially speculate that the vessel had hit something, Snyder said, even though the Michipicoten was in water that was 1,300 feet deep. The ship, listing to one side, issued a distress call. The Coast Guard responded with a helicopter and a boat. A National Park Service boat also came to the Michipicotens aid, as did the Edwin H. Gott, a big commercial ship in the vicinity. A seafarer aboard the Michipicoten, Kent Knechtel, described a day of pure terror with crew members not knowing if they would see another day. The crew hoped the ships pumps working furiously to redistribute water would not fail, according to Knechtel, whose wife posted his story to a Facebook page, Ship Junkies Lakes, Locks & Rivers. We were very lucky the weather was on our side for a change, Knechtels message said. When the hull cracked, the wind was blowing at 23 mph, waves were 1 foot high, and visibility was good, according to the Coast Guard. The quick response of the officers and the crew, that is a part of this story, Holden said. They did a remarkable job in saving themselves. In Thunder Bay, divers discovered a 13-foot stress fracture, to 1 inch wide running lengthwise mostly on the ships front bottom, Snyder said. The Coast Guard is investigating the incident, as is Transport Canada, which regulates Canadian ships. Rands ships ferry bulk cargo like iron ore, limestone and coal. Many are familiar to boat watchers in Duluth-Superior. The company operates at least 20 vessels. The ships are parceled out under a Canadian-flag fleet subsidiary Lower Lakes Towing runs, and two subsidiaries that operate U.S.-flag ships, Grand River Navigation and American Steamship. Incidents in recent years involve ships from Lower Lakes and Grand River. The 81-year-old Cuyahoga caught fire on the Canadian side of Lake Erie in May 2023. The fire struck the engine room, and the ship lost propulsion. The Canadian Coast Guard, responding to a mayday call, evacuated eight of its 20 crew members. There were no injuries. The Cuyahoga returned to service. It was fitting out for the 2024 shipping season at an Ashtabula dock with both crew members and contractors aboard when a huge fire erupted, said Ashtabula Fire Marshal Steve Chase. The unintentional blaze caused about $30 million in damage, a fire department report said. We believe we dodged a much greater impact by sheer luck of timing, Chase said. The fire started right after lunch break, just before contract workers were to return to the ships ballast tanks. If it would have happened 10 to 20 minutes later, in all likelihood, there would have been fatalities, Chase said. It would have been extremely difficult to get to them before being overcome by smoke. The Tecumseh, another Canadian-flagged Rand ship, had an engine room fire in December 2019. The ship was motoring down the Detroit River near Windsor, Ontario, when a fuel hose assembly failed and sprayed oil on an engine, igniting the blaze, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada concluded. Before the fire, the Tecumsehs engines had leaks and failures in their fuel hoses, the safety board found. The board concluded that the ship had no guidance for the testing, inspection or maintenance schedules of its fuel hose assemblies. The board also found several other shortcomings with the vessel and its fire safety systems. There were no injuries, and the company scrapped the badly damaged Tecumseh a few years after the fire. Established in 2004, Rand Logistics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018. A sinking Canadian currency had left Rand in a bind: Most of its debt was calculated in U.S. dollars, while 60% of its operating profits at the time were in Canadian dollars. To complicate matters, the company sank $29 million into capital projects in 2019, primarily for substantial steel work on three ships. Deferring maintenance and repair on the vessels precipitated the costly project, according to a bankruptcy court filing. A private equity group, American Industrial Partners (AIP), bought Rand out of bankruptcy and then sold a minority stake in the ship operator to another private equity outfit, Oaktree Capital Management. AIP exited its stake in Rand in February 2023. This spring, Oaktree agreed to spin off most of its transportation infrastructure business which includes Rand to a new private equity firm led by two former Oaktree executives. They will inherit a fleet that, according to Coast Guard records, has had several problems in recent years beyond fires and a hull failure. In March, the American Mariner hit a concrete-and-steel navigational marker in the St. Marys River system after the ships steering failed. The St. Marys, which connects Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes, closed for 40 hours, delaying 29 ships. In November, the American Courage ran aground for about 12 hours in the St. Clair River near Detroit, its second grounding in 18 months. In December 2022, the American Courages bow thruster, which provides sideways movement, failed while the ship plied the Cuyahoga River through Cleveland. The vessel hit a boardwalk. The bow thruster had failed before the incident as well. The John J. Boland ran aground in April 2023, causing $1 million in damages. Nine months earlier, the integrated tug-barge Olive M. Moore/Menominee grounded, causing $300,000 in damages. The Coast Guard appeared to deem both serious marine incidents because of the costs. As for the Michipicoten, it patched up in Thunder Bay and then sailed to Superior, Wis. There, it is undergoing further repairs in drydock at Fraser Shipyards. Meanwhile, the Lakes shipping community is speculating on what ultimately caused the most serious marine incident on Lake Superior in many years. There has to be something that started that crack on the Michipicoten, ship historian Holden said, and once it started, it went like the dickens. 2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Marine Lance Cpls. Alize Reyes, left, and Austin Walker, check IDs at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan, March 27, 2024. Sobriety checks are scheduled at all Marine bases in Japan on July 12 and 13, 2024. (Brody Robertson/U.S. Marine Corps) CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa The Marine Corps is imposing 100% sobriety checks Friday and Saturday evening at its bases in Japan following complaints from Japanese leaders about recent charges against U.S. service members for alleged sexual offenses. The gate checks at Marine bases are a prelude to changes across the board for the U.S. military, according to an opinion piece from III Marine Expedition commander Lt. Gen. Roger Turner and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel. The op-ed, emailed by III MEF to media outlets Friday, states the U.S. military will introduce one set of liberty time rules across all branches of the armed forces, so that every service member, regardless of branch, follows the same rules of conduct and behavior. No further details about liberty changes or other restrictions on U.S. troops were available Friday, according to U.S. Forces Japan spokeswoman Lt. Col. Mindy Yu. Everything right now is in discussion at this point, Yu said by phone. Kadena Air Base, on Okinawa, has not instituted 100% gate checks, but will continue upholding the highest standards of conduct including sobriety checks at gates, 18th Wing spokeswoman Col. Erin Dick wrote in an email Friday. Appropriate leadership are evaluating the current liberty policy and procedures, Dick said. Increased sobriety checks at Marine Corps gates began July 6 and 7, Marine Corps Installations Pacific spokeswoman 2nd Lt. Kelsey Enlow said Friday by phone. Enlow said the sobriety checks will increase to 100% Friday and Saturday, but she could not say how long they will continue. A notice was also posted on the installation commands Facebook page. Military and civilian personnel will be subject to the checks, Enlow said. Drivers should plan extra time for their commute, the statement said. Ensure you have your ID, tier card and liberty buddy (as applicable), and drivers license on hand, and be prepared for sobriety tests, the statement reads. The sobriety checks and increased military patrols in Okinawas nightlife districts are the first sign of a crackdown following complaints from Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki and other prefectural officials to Emanuel, U.S. Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, 18th Wing commander Brig. Gen. Nicholas Evans and others over two recently disclosed indictments. An Air Force member assigned to Kadena Air Base, Senior Airman Brennon R. E. Washington, 25, was in Naha District Court on Friday, where he denied charges of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor in December. The indictment, filed March 27, only came to light June 24 after prosecutors scheduled Washington for court. In a second case, Japanese prosecutors on June 17 charged Marine Lance Cpl. Jamel Clayton, 21, with attempting to sexually assault a woman May 26 in Yomitan village. In their op-ed, Emanuel and Turner wrote: Its clear that our current protections and procedures are not meeting the standards we set for ourselves. While we continue to support local law enforcement efforts as the Japanese legal process runs its course, we are seizing this moment to rethink how we can better embody our core values as Americans and allies. Maj. Gen. Marcus Annibale speaks after taking command of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan, July 12, 2024. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes) MARINE CORPS AIR STATION FUTENMA, Okinawa A Marine Corps general returned to this air station from Washington, D.C., to take command Friday of the Marines air wing in the Indo-Pacific. Maj. Gen. Marcus B. Annibale, a former Harrier pilot with 2,200 flight hours and more than 30 years in the Corps, assumed command of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing from Maj. Gen. Eric E. Austin at a ceremony on Futenmas flight line. Annibale, previously director of the Navys Expeditionary Warfare Division in Virginia, served from 2013 to 2015 on Okinawa as the wings assistant chief of staff for plans and operations. Annibale takes over the wing during heightened tensions with China, whose navy patrols the seas surrounding Okinawa and whose coast guard is setting records for the days it spends near the Senkaku Islands, about 300 miles west of Okinawa. Japan administers the islands, but China and Taiwan also claim them. You all have led with unbelievable grace, unbelievable poise, unbelievable determination and really strong grit to work through all the challenges that we face as we look at this very difficult security situation that we now have in the Western Pacific, III Marine Expeditionary Force Commander Lt. Gen. Roger B. Turner said at the ceremony, attended by about 260 guests and 300 Marines in formation. Austin, a graduate of Kubasaki High School, a Defense Department school on Camp Foster, where the wing is headquartered, assumed command in August 2022. He is also a former Harrier pilot and has flown in the same units as Annibale. Maj. Gen. Eric Austin, right, outgoing commander of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, embraces incoming commander Maj. Gen. Marcus Annibale on July 12, 2024, at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Japan. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripe) The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing is the aviation element of the III Marine Expeditionary Force and consists of approximately 7,500 Marines and sailors in three aircraft groups at Marine Corps Air Stations Futenma and Iwakuni in Japan and Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii. The wing includes an array of aircraft from F/A-18 and F-35B fighters to MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors and AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters. The wing provides offensive air support, anti-air support, aerial reconnaissance and electronic countermeasures. Annibale, standing in front of one of the wings KC-130J Super Hercules on the flight line, stressed he will lead the wing with a people-first mentality. Our Marines and sailors, our families, our civilian workforce are absolutely the real important platforms, he said. We fight and train as a team, and Im a big proponent of the mantra, mission first, people always. He also highlighted the importance of working with Japan, even as the relationship between the U.S. military and the Okinawa community has been strained in recent weeks due to two indictments of service members on sexual assault charges that were made public in June. I also acknowledge the importance and criticality of allies and important partners in this region, especially the criticality of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the power behind that relationship, Annibale said. And I hope to take it to new heights. Austin highlighted the wings modernization efforts as he relinquished command. First MAW focused on people, readiness and modernization, and it seems to be working, Austin said. Annibale, of Fairfax, Va., previously commanded Marine Attack Squadron 513 and Marine Aircraft Group 13, of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, according to his official Navy biography. He flew combat missions in Iraq during Operation Southern Watch in the 1990s and Operation Iraqi Freedom. His personal decorations include a Legion of Merit with two Gold Stars, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with Gold Star, the Air Medal with Strike Numeral Two, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Gold Star and the Marine Corps Achievement Medal with two Gold Stars. Austin was confirmed for promotion to lieutenant general and heads to Quantico, Va., to serve as deputy commander of Combat Development and Integration for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Col. John Patrick, incoming commander of Space Forces Korea, speaks at the change of command ceremony at Osan Air Base, South Korea, July 12, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes) OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea The first guardian to lead U.S. Space Forces Korea passed his duties to the former director of the NATO Space Centre during a ceremony at this air base Friday. Space Force Lt. Col. Joshua McCullion relinquished his command to Col. John Patrick during a ceremony in front of roughly 200 people, 20 of them guardians in formation, inside a hangar. McCullion became the first guardian to command Space Forces Korea, the first Space Force component command in the Far East, on Dec. 14, 2022. He starts his next role as U.S. Indo-Pacific Commands division chief of space and integrated air and ballistic missile defense at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, on Tuesday. In a speech, McCullion stressed the need for a free and open space domain and for the U.S. to continue building its military partnership with South Korea. We must continue to collaborate in the joint coalition, interagency, academic and commercial partnerships to expand our competitive advantage, he said. I believe this alliance exemplifies that partnership to win, grounded in mutual trust. Patrick thanked McCullion for his work building the command from scratch. I left NATO dragging my feet after building the space from nothing over the past eight years, and here I walk into what you have built, Patrick said in his remarks. Patrick was NATOs Space Centre director at the Allied Air Command headquarters in Ramstein Air Base, Germany, since 2019. The multinational organization declared space an operational domain in 2019 and created the Space Center the following year, according to NATOs website. Prior to that assignment, Patrick was a staff officer for Space Operations in Mons, Belgium, according to his official biography. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in history and received his commission through the Air Force officer training school in 1998. Patrick said the military must be ironclad with space like we are with all other domains and described the defense apparatus as being interconnected. Space is an active domain that must be defended; it is critical that we link as one. U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Paul LaCamera shakes hands with Lt. Col. Joshua McCullion, outgoing commander of Space Forces Korea at Osan Air Base, South Korea, July 12, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes) U.S. Forces Korea commander Army Gen. Paul LaCamera, who presided over the ceremony, said the change of command was an important milestone for the military. Space Forces Korea provides regional space services, such as missile detection and warning and satellite communications. The component command has taken part in joint drills in South Korea, including the large-scale, 11-day Freedom Shield Exercise in March. Space has been a focus on the Korean Peninsula in recent years. Of four attempts by North Korea to launch a military spy satellite since 2023, one succeeded. South Korea successfully launched a military satellite in April, its second launch since December. (iStock) During the summer after our first child, Hayden, graduated from high school (his third in four years as a military brat), I had a sneaking suspicion that hed been abducted by aliens. Strange creatures from a far-off land had lured him to their institution, garbing him in their apparel and claiming him as their own. To make matters worse, our son went with them willingly. Even worse than that, my husband and I agreed, through a complex combination of loans, financial aid, the GI Bill and possibly human sacrifice, to pay these aliens more than $64,000 a year to keep him. No, we hadnt fallen prey to a Vulcan mind warp. The Galactic Empire hadnt injected us with the RNA brainwashing virus. We hadnt been hypnotized by Sleestaks. We merely took Hayden to his colleges summer orientation weekend. When we arrived at Haydens chosen university Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in upstate New York the institutions seemingly friendly staff separated us from our son immediately, whisking him off with the other starry-eyed newcomers to start a memorable and important time in their academic and professional journeys. We knew that they were really intending to erase Haydens memory. Eighteen years of our hard work, down the drain. In order to placate the dazed and confused parents, they pumped us full of coffee, plied us with shiny new pens and herded us around to informative sessions such as Letting Go and Money Matters in a suspiciously space ship-shaped building they referred to as EMPAC The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. While the parents were locked in the EMPAC mother ship with the institutions leaders, our children were off playing icebreaker games with legions of bubbly upperclassmen dressed in matching college T-shirts and well-worn sneakers that could use a sprinkle of odor-absorbing baking soda. The incoming freshmen were encouraged to become independent, i.e., to make all decisions without involving their parents other than to send them the bills. RPIs leaders tried to allay our fears, characterizing the terrifying experience of handing over our flesh and blood to complete strangers as a normal rite of passage. They told us not to be concerned, because our children would have all sorts of advisers to guide them. There would be Student Orientation Advisers, Resident Advisers, Academic Advisers, Graduate Assistants, Learning Assistants and Peer Tutors. But all we were thinking was, Yeah, sure, thats terrific, but whos going to tell him to wear his retainer? They said our kids would be well-nourished with a variety of meal plans ranging from the unlimited access plan, otherwise known as the Fast-track-to-morbid-obesity plan, to the custom plan, commonly referred to as the Go-broke-on-takeout-after-you-expend-your-dining-hall-allotment plan. Rest assured, they told us, the students would never go hungry thanks to an impossibly confusing supplemental system of flex dollars and student advantage dollars which could be used to buy an endless array of well-balanced meals (most commonly pizza, chocolate milk and potato chips) all over campus, 24/7. They paraded a series of experts from the health clinic and campus security before us, telling us that, without our adult childrens express consent, we were not permitted to know if they got arrested, or pregnant. And lastly, we were informed that we had no right to access our childrens grades, despite the fact that we had to take second mortgages on our homes to pay their tuition. Finally, we were released into the blinding sunlight to find our newly-indoctrinated children milling about the quad with suspiciously authentic-looking smiles on their faces. Then, in order to squeeze every last dollar from our increasingly shallow pockets, we were funneled through the campus bookstore, where we bought Hayden a lanyard with a hook large enough to hold his student ID, his military ID, his room key, his bike lock key, his asthma innhaler, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a stick of lip balm, a thumb drive and most importantly a framed 8-by-10 photograph of me, his mother. Six short weeks later, we surrendered our son to the alien academic institution for good, and hoped that Hayden would heed the words of one well-known extraterrestrial and always remember to phone home. Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisas book, The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com. Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com Ely S. Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, speaks at a Pentagon press briefing in Washington in October 2023. (Cesar Navarro/U.S.Air Force) The U.S. alliance with the Philippines has risen to among Americas most vital defense partnerships in the world, thanks to a heightened challenge from China in the South China Sea, a Pentagon official said Thursday. Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said events involving the Philippines since 2021 have been truly transformative and decisive, driven largely by an assertive and often aggressive China. We have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Manila in the midst of a changing security environment, Ratner said in Washington, D.C., at the Center for Strategic and International Studies South China Sea Conference. A copy of his remarks was posted on the Defense Department website. Ratner underlined U.S. support for the Philippines as it faces coercion by Chinas coast guard over possession of Second Thomas Shoal, a shallow reef inside the Philippines exclusive economic zone. I believe that historians will record this period in the alliance as truly transformative and decisive, as emblematic of broader strategic changes across the Indo-Pacific, and the result of decisions by U.S. President Joe Biden, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. On the Second Thomas Shoal, Chinese coast guard vessels regularly harass Philippine vessels attempting to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded, rusting hulk serving as a military outpost. The Chinese have used water cannons and small boats to attack Philippine resupply efforts on the water there. Weve continued to stand with our ally as Manila defends its lawful rights in the South China Sea, Ratner said. All the while, the United States has acted in support of the Philippines and made clear that our alliance commitments are ironclad and that all nations should be able to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows. The Chinese claim on the shoal has no more credibility today than it did when the Arbitral Tribunal issued its unanimous ruling in 2016, he said. And the kind of revisionism and coercion weve seen there from [China] is both destabilizing and dangerous. The tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines and found that major elements of Chinas claims in the South China Sea were invalid. China responded that the ruling was null and void, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Ratner ticked off a list of activity and achievements in the Philippines under the Biden Administration, including historic mosts, firsts and first-evers. The two allies held their first combined naval exercise in the South China Sea in years, he said. Last year, during the Balikatan exercise in the Philippines, the U.S. for the first time employed its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, capable of firing anti-ship missiles. Fifth-generation U.S. fighters visited the Philippines, also for the first time, Ratner said. U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighters landed at Clark Air Base in March. And were poised to deliver so much more together in the future, Ratner said. That includes a request to Congress for another $120 million to spend on nine military sites the U.S. has access to under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which in just one year is more than double what weve invested in EDCA infrastructure to date, he said. The two allies are also negotiating a General Security of Military Information Agreement that will strengthen and expand our information sharing, he said. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Suzutsuki, seen here in the East China Sea on Aug. 16, 2020. (Cody Beam/U.S. Navy) Beijing lodged a complaint with Tokyo after a Japanese warship steamed into Chinese territorial waters last week, Japanese media reported Thursday. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Suzutsuki came within 12 nautical miles of Chinas Zhejiang province July 4, prompting Beijing to convey serious concern over the incident, Kyodo News reported Thursday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources. Japans Defense Ministry in response launched an investigation of the ships captain, according to Kyodo. The Maritime Self-Defense Force declined to provide details or comment on the incident because it involved military operations, a spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday. Some Japanese government officials are required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity. Chinas Maritime Safety Administration on July 3 issued a warning that a live-fire exercise would run July 4 and 5 in Hangzhou Bay, bordered to the south by Zhejiang and north by Shanghai. The Suzutsuki was monitoring the drill when Chinese vessels urged it to leave the area, but instead it sped up and sailed into Chinese waters for about 20 minutes before leaving, Kyodo reported. Beijing suspects the Suzutsukis approach was an intentional provocation by the destroyer, which Beijing claimed was collecting and analyzing relevant information, Kyodo reported Thursday, citing unnamed Chinese sources. Japanese officials told their Chinese counterparts in an unofficial discussion that the incident was possibly a procedural error, Kyodo reported. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment during a Thursday news conference. Ministry of Defense/Self-Defense Forces are ordinarily engaged in various activities, including surveillance, in waters and airspace surrounding our country, Hayashi said. I will refrain from answering as it involves Self-Defense Forces operation. He also declined to comment on the Chinese allegation that Japan purposely provoked Beijing. Under Chinas Maritime Traffic Safety Law, foreign vessels are required to give notice and provide a variety of information before entering Chinese waters. Under the more broadly accepted United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, foreign warships are generally allowed innocent passage through territorial waters provided they dont pose a threat. U.S. and Japanese sailors discuss Tomahawk missile procedures aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell during training at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on March 28, 2024. (Charles Oki/U.S. Navy) TOKYO The severely weakened Japanese yen wont deter Japan from pursuing its goal of increased defense spending as it prepares for the most severe and complex security environment since World War II, Japans Defense Ministry said Friday. Japan is pushing to increase defense spending to about $68 billion, or 2% of the gross domestic product in fiscal 2022, as concerns grow over Russian, Chinese and North Korean activity in the Indo-Pacific region, according to Japans annual defense paper released Friday. The international community has entered a new era of crisis, wrote Japans Defense Minister Minoru Kihara in the papers introduction. It is now facing its greatest trial since the end of World War II. The existing order is being seriously challenged. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in 2022 pledged to meet the 2% GDP goal by fiscal year 2027, but since then the yen has plummeted in value from about 140 yen per $1 in November 2022 to about 161 per $1 on July 11, its lowest value in nearly four decades. Japans total defense budget for 2024 was approximately $56 billion, about 1.6% of its 2022 GDP. That budget was a 64% increase from its $34 billion defense budget in fiscal year 2022. Much of Japans defense budget is used to procure weapons and aircraft, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles or F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, and other military assets through the U.S. in deals that are typically conducted in the stronger American dollar. To combat its weakening currency, Japan hopes to implement greater efficiency in its pursuit of increased defense spending by reexamining expenses, developing long-term contracts and making bulk purchases, according to the paper. The Japanese government also proposed tax increases to fund its military buildup, but public opinion is unclear and tax policy debates are expected to intensify later this year, according to Nicholas Szechenyi, senior fellow and deputy director for Asia at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Yen depreciation could certainly force some decisions about priorities, Szechenyi told Stars and Stripes by email Friday. Japans military buildup is billed as a defensive measure in an increasingly unstable geopolitical arena. This years white paper reiterated many of the same sentiments expressed in the 2023 edition, including concerns over North Korean missile launches and possible nuclear tests, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an increase in Chinese activity in the skies and waters around Japan. It cannot be ruled out that a serious situation similar to Russias aggression against Ukraine may occur in the Indo-Pacific region in future, particularly in East Asia, the paper reads. Concerns in this years edition include heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, exemplified by two days of military drills around the island after Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office May 20. Stability in the situation surrounding Taiwan is important not only for the security of Japan, but also for the stability of the international community, and Japan must continue to monitor the situation with even greater vigilance, it stated. North Korea, meanwhile, is actively improving its nuclear and missile technologies and focusing more on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the paper. North Koreas military activities pose an even more grave and imminent threat to Japans security than ever before, it said. They seriously undermine the peace and security of the region and the international community. Key to deterring these threats are the U.S.-Japan alliance, further developing Japans defense capabilities and expanding diplomatic ties with European and Asian countries, according to the paper. The papers authors emphasize that Japan would adhere to its constitutions basic precepts of maintaining an exclusively defense-oriented policy and not becoming a military power that poses threats to other countries. Naha District Court in Okinawa, Japan, on July 12, 2024. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes) CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa A Japanese court Friday sentenced a U.S. Marine to a three-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to robbing a convenience store on Okinawa to retrieve money he lost in an online scam. Lance Cpl. Andrew Torres, 20, of the 3rd Marine Logistics Group, pleaded guilty June 24 to one charge of robbery and one of attempted theft. A suspended sentence means Torres will not serve time with hard labor in a Japanese prison if he commits no further offenses in Japan for five years. Compared to other convenience store robberies, a lot of money was robbed, Naha District Court Judge Tetsuro Sato said as he sentenced Torres. Stay away from any criminal activities, especially during this (five-year) period, Sato said. Torres, wearing a blue shirt and brown chino pants, looked relieved as he heard the sentence. He bowed to the judge and left the courtroom without comment. He had faced up to five years in prison. Torres took the equivalent of $840 when he robbed a convenience store clerk at knifepoint April 3, according to prosecutors. Two weeks later, he attempted on April 18 to take money from another convenience store register but was foiled in the attempt and caught in the parking lot, fleeing the store. Both convenience stores are in Ginowan city within a quarter mile of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Torres in June said he robbed the store to recoup money he paid a woman offering sex online. He quickly realized he was scammed. Torres paid about $1,570 worth of yen in BitCash, Torres attorney, who did not provide his name before leaving court, said to Stars and Stripes at Torres plea hearing. Initially, he was asked to pay $125 worth of yen in BitCash. Following the first transaction, he faced an escalating series of payment demands. BitCash is a form of electronic money available at convenience stores in Japan and used for online payment for games, videos and music downloads. I should have sought help from family and friends, he said at his plea hearing. There were better ways, I wasnt looking into all my options. Torres, questioned by Sato at the plea hearing, said he would have kept going until he acquired the $1,570. Torres attorney said that Torres paid $188 worth of yen as an apology to both convenience stores, and both agreed to forgive him. He also paid $840 to an insurance company. Members of the Japanese media wait outside the Naha District Court July 12, 2024, before the start of hearing on charges a U.S. Air Force member kidnapped and sexually assaulted a minor. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes) CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa A U.S. airman stationed at Kadena Air Base, in his first appearance Friday in a Japanese court since his indictment in March, denied charges against him of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor. Senior Airman Brennon Richard Edward Washington, 25, assigned to the 18th Logistics Readiness Squadron, was charged with kidnapping and non-consensual sex with a minor in December. His case, and that of a Marine lance corporal charged in a separate case with attempted sexual assault, sparked protests from Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki of the U.S. militarys failure to discipline its troops. He also protested to Tokyo of its and the Naha Public Prosecutors Offices failures to promptly notify the prefecture of the charges. The case only came to light in late June when Washington was scheduled for his first court appearance. The hearing began at 1:40 p.m. before a full courtroom. Is anything wrong with the facts written in the charge sheet? Naha District Court Judge Tetsuro Sato, head of a three-judge panel, asked Washington after the charges were read. Im not guilty, Washington said. I did not kidnap, I did not rape. According to the indictment provided by the prosecutors office, Washington approached the girl in a Yomitan village park Dec. 24 with the purpose of kidnapping and conducting indecent acts on her. Prosecutors allege Washington said to the girl, Lets talk in the car because its cold. From the park he drove the girl to his home off base, where he sexually assaulted her, knowing she was under 16, according to the indictment. Washingtons attorney told the court that the airman admitted that he took the woman to his house and performed sexual actions. But he asked the womans age, and he thought that she was 18 years old, the attorney said. He did not have intentions to molest her and abduct her. Until the time she left he was unaware that she was under 16. He did not pull down her lingerie; it was done with her cooperation. The Japanese prosecutor said the girl went to the park after a fight with her mother, which she explained to Washington using a translator app. Washington, who went to the park after fighting with his wife, told the girl he was a special detective in the military, the prosecutor said. The prosecutor played footage of the incident from security cameras in the park via table monitors only Washington, his attorney and the judges could see. Washington appeared calm while watching the video. Washington talked to the girl at around 4:30 p.m., saying daijoubu? (are you OK) in Japanese, the prosecutor said. He asked her age, and she said her age in Japanese and also made gestures with her hands. The girl went back home crying, and her mother reported it to the police, the prosecutor added. The hearing adjourned after the video showing. The next hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Aug. 23. The victim and her mother are expected to appear to provide statements; partitions will be erected to protect their privacy, according to Sato. Washington was released from jail and restricted to Kadena following the indictment, and the U.S. government took his passport, 18th Wing spokesman Capt. Alvin Nelson told Stars and Stripes via email July 3. The U.S. military takes these allegations very seriously, and the 18th Wing has been cooperating with local authorities to ensure a thorough investigation while ensuring due legal process under the applicable laws and agreements, Nelson said. Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak during a press conference at the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday, July 11, 2024. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) WASHINGTON Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday welcomed NATOs declaration this week that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to alliance membership but said it paled when compared to new pledges of weapons vital to Ukraines war effort. Were not thinking in Ukraine about wording, [if were] close or not close to NATO, he said on the last day of the alliances summit in Washington. We are thinking about real strong steps from very strong people. Those steps include a commitment by NATO members to send dozens of air-defense systems in the coming months to counter relentless Russian bombardment, including at least four Patriot missile batteries. The U.S. on Thursday announced a new $225 million military aid package for Ukraine that will include another Patriot system as well as artillery rounds and other ammunition. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presents an award to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during a meeting Tuesday, July 9, 2024, on Capitol Hill. At left is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who also received the award. (Joe Gromelski/Special to Stars and Stripes) Zelenskyy hailed the impending deliveries as the real success story of the summit, though he continued to press the U.S. to relax its restrictions on the use of American weapons in Russia. Today I see successes for our people, for our families, he said. Success is what gives us an opportunity to live. Still, he acknowledged the significance of strengthened language in a NATO document issued this week that showed movement toward Ukraines eventual membership in NATO. We are doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that the day comes when Ukraine is invited and becomes a NATO member, he said. And Im confident we will achieve this. Andriy Borysovych Yermak, who leads Ukraines office of the president, said the inclusion of irreversible in the communique, which was the subject of much negotiation among NATO member states, was a strong step forward. It demonstrated that its not now the question of if, its a question of when, Yermak said. The next step will be for NATO to issue a formal invitation, he said. But while Yermak put a positive spin on NATOs decisions in Washington, the countrys future membership in the alliance is hardly a sure bet, regardless of the path now being characterized as irreversible. The bureaucratic, stilted language on a bridge to NATO for Ukraine belies ongoing disagreement within the alliance on Ukrainian membership, said Ann Marie Dailey, an expert on transatlantic security with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. In NATO, decisions on membership require the unanimous support of all 32 member states. Two important members of the alliance, the United States and Germany, also have repeatedly sent mixed signals about any quick entry into NATO. President Joe Biden said in a June interview with Time magazine that he was not prepared to support the NATO-ization of Ukraine. It should not, it is not (a member), Biden said. I spent a month in Ukraine when I was a senator and vice president. There was significant corruption. Meanwhile, should former President Donald Trump return to the White House, a block on Ukraine membership could happen considering he has blamed NATO expansion as a factor in Russias decision to invade Ukraine. Critics of Trumps position have blasted that notion, saying it parrots Kremlin talking points. Other countries such as Hungary, which maintains ties to Russia, are also likely to resist bringing Ukraine into the alliance. Proponents of Ukrainian membership argue the country will strengthen the alliance and make it militarily unfeasible for Moscow to attack the alliances eastern flank, given the strength of Ukraines position to the south. Opponents counter that would increase the chances of direct conflict with Russia should the Kremlin ever attack Ukraine again. At the summit, allies pledged a long-term assistance package of roughly $42 billion for the next year for military equipment and other support for Ukraine. That is on a par with what allies give annually now. At an April ministerial meeting, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was seeking a five-year commitment from alliance members, with expenditures divided up based on each members gross domestic product. When the idea came up again at a June defense chiefs meeting, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto balked at the idea of a multiyear commitment, saying his country was already having difficulty spending 2% of GDP a NATO requirement on its own military. When we reach 2%, we will discuss further investments, Crosetto said at the time. Zelenskyy on Thursday bristled at suggestions that Ukraines membership in NATO would be a pinnacle of achievement for his country. He argued Ukraine would be an asset to the alliance. We strengthen NATO, he said. We are strong guys, we have a strong army and we are fighting against this tyrant and thats why Ukraine in NATO [would be] a success [for us both]. The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp steams in the Mediterranean Sea on June 30, 2024. The ship made a July 8 port call at Souda Bay, Greece, ahead of a deterrence mission in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Middle East. (Nicholas Rodriguez/Navy) NAPLES, Italy The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp made its first port call in Europe this week to allow sailors and Marines some rest ahead of a busy deployment, as the Pentagon works to deter a wider conflict in the Middle East. Wasps visit to Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete comes more than a month after it began its deployment, and shortly after it relieved the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the eastern Mediterranean Sea earlier this month. After months of cross-border conflict, fears are increasing of a war between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Israel has warned that the time for a diplomatic solution is short as it prepares for escalation. Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp conduct weapons drills on the flight deck while in the Mediterranean Sea on June 27, 2024. Wasp pulled into Souda Bay, Greece, on July 8. (Elton Taylor/Marine Corps) In announcing the Wasp Amphibious Ready Groups deployment to the region last month, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said it would serve as a deterrent and enable the military to respond to a multitude of contingencies. The Defense Department has mostly kept a carrier strike group or amphibious ready group in the eastern Mediterranean since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. The Wasp group, which includes the amphibious transport dock ship USS New York and dock landing ship USS Oak Hill along with elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, arrived in the Mediterranean late last month. A tugboat positioned in front of the ships forecastle assists in maneuvering the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp into Souda Bay, Greece, July 8, 2024, for a port call. (Soren Quinata/Navy) It has more than 4,500 sailors and Marines, and flies the MV-22 Osprey and AV-8B Harrier, among other aircraft. The Wasp also is capable of supporting the F-35 fighter jet. Meanwhile, the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations on Friday, U.S. Central Command said in a post to its X account. The strike group includes the cruiser USS Lake Erie and the destroyers USS John S. McCain, USS Halsey and USS Daniel Inouye, USNI News reported on Monday. Petty Officer 3rd Class Connor Hall mans a gun mount as USS Wasp pulls in to Souda Bay, Greece, July 8, 2024, for a port call. ( Sydney Milligan/Navy) Earlier this month, the U.S.-led Joint Maritime Information Center reported the second-highest monthly number of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Bab el Mandeb since November, according to the centers report for the week ending July 6. There were 17 attacks on vessels in the region in June, including a missile and surface drone attack on a cargo ship in the Red Sea that ultimately sank the vessel. On June 13, three Houthi missiles targeted another vessel in the Gulf of Aden, causing a fire and requiring rescue of the crew, the Joint Maritime Information Center said. By comparison, there were six and four attacks, respectively, in April and May, according to the report. The center, part of the 44-nation Combined Maritime Forces based at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, recorded 19 attacks in December. June reached levels not seen since December of 2023, the center said. All told, there have been at least 74 incidents, including attempted attacks and hijackings, since the Houthis began their campaign on Nov 19. Those attacks have killed four mariners and severely injured two others, according to the report. Two ships have sunk. The numbers do not include engagements with coalition forces, the center said. Analysts also have noted an increase in the Iran-backed groups use of unmanned explosive-laden boats like those employed by Ukraine in its attacks on Russian warships in the Black Sea. Without a traditional navy, Ukraine has sidelined nearly one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. On Thursday, CENTCOM announced that U.S. forces had destroyed five Houthi surface drones in the Red Sea. Since June 30, U.S. forces have destroyed 13 surface drones and eight aerial drones launched by Houthi militants and destroyed four of the groups radar sites in Yemen. Two other Houthi aerial drones were destroyed by partner forces, according to CENTCOM. The Houthi maritime campaign has been well-planned, said Washington Institute senior fellow Noam Raydon in a Wednesday post to her X account. This campaign has become more lethal, and different weapons have been used, with a notable increase in the use of (unmanned surface vehicles) since June 5, 2024. The Wasp Amphibious Ready Group began deployment operations in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1. Parts of Aviano Air Bases flight line are waterlogged after a storm swept through the area on July 12, 2024. (Facebook/Air Force amn/nco/snco) AVIANO, Italy Winds ripped away a long portion of Aviano Air Bases passenger terminal roof on Friday, as northeastern Italy prepared for thunderstorms to continue into the weekend. During a storm that lasted for about 40 minutes, winds grabbed a hold of the highest portion of the passenger terminal roof and tore it away. The wind speed at the time wasnt immediately available. Airmen who witnessed the damage were not made available to speak with Stars and Stripes at the terminal Friday. The missing middle section of the passenger terminal roof at Aviano Air Base is reflected in the water on the building's floor after a storm swept through the area on July 12, 2024. (Facebook/Air Force amn/nco/snco) The center atrium at the passenger terminal will be closed to the public, said Maj. Rachel Salpietra, spokeswoman for the 31st Fighter Wing. However, terminal operations will continue as scheduled, Salpietra said. Initial assessments are still taking place around the base to determine the extent of the storm damage, she said. Broken tree branches and an overturned portable toilet were among the visible damage on base. The middle section of the passenger terminal roof at Aviano Air Base is gone after a storm swept through the area on July 12, 2024. (Brian Erickson/Stars and Stripes) The storm also bore down on several neighboring Italian towns where U.S. service members live. Trash cans were tossed down the street and outdoor furniture was upended and mangled in the town of Spilimbergo, a town about 20 miles from the air base. There were no immediate reports of injuries as of 8 p.m. Friday. Also on Friday, the Italian weather service warned that several areas, including the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region where Aviano is located, could experience severe thunderstorms, along with hail and strong winds. The warning included the Veneto region, home to U.S. Army Garrison Italy in Vicenza. Friuli-Venezia Giulia issued a yellow ordinary intensity weather alert lasting from 1 p.m. Friday through 6 p.m. Saturday, the Italian news service Ansa reported. Officials also warned of possible localized flooding. The weather phenomenon was due to warmer air from Africa over Italy, creating instability in the north and high temperatures in the south, according to the Ansa report. Stars and Stripes reporter Alison Bath contributed to this report. Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese village of Jibbain on July 11, 2024. Israel and Lebanons Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, stoking fears of an escalation into all-out war. (Kawnat Haju/AFP/Getty Images/TNS) RMEISH, Lebanon (Tribune News Service) From her balcony on the edge of this Lebanese border village, Greta Nakhleh-Allam, 33, can see Israel in almost every direction. And every morning, as the shelling between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militants starts anew, she wonders whether the clashes will end or turn into an all-consuming conflagration. Im tired of this war, tired of the life were living, said Nakhleh-Allam, watching her 11-year-old son Jacob chase the family dog, Bella. We thought it would last a week. Then we thought a month. Christmas passed. New Year passed. Easter passed. And were still waiting for the fighting to end. And now they say it will get bigger. That question will the fighting end or escalate? is being asked across Lebanon these days, but perhaps nowhere with more urgency than Rmeish. This village of about 11,000 people, the largest of the dozen Christian areas scattered across the Hezbollah-dominated south, finds itself on the front line of a fight that few here see as theirs. Its not our cause. Its not our business to do this for [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, said Said Allam, a 42-year-old onetime soldier and now supermarket owner. Sinwar is believed to be the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and sparked a ferocious counteroffensive in Gaza that health authorities there say has claimed more than 38,000 lives. The day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted, Hezbollah a Shiite Islamist paramilitary group and political party that is part of an alliance with Hamas fired missiles into Israel in a solidarity campaign. Israel retaliated, and Allam watched half his neighbors join the more than 90,000 Lebanese displaced by the violence; in Israels north, roughly 60,000 have been evacuated. Economic life in Rmeish ground to a halt. Most tobacco farmers couldnt reach their fields, losing not only their crops the main source of income here but also the chance to plant for next season. Summer engagements and weddings, bringing in an annual $2 million in business for restaurants, were canceled or relocated. And the Lebanese expatriates who would crowd the village during vacations and holidays have mostly stayed away. Ive invested half a million dollars in this store and Im just watching it lose money, Allam said, pointing to a row of well-stocked shelves. As if addressing Hezbollah, he added: You want Jerusalem? Go get it, but not like this, because youve destroyed everyone along with you. Allams frustration shared by many here cuts to the core of the schism over Hezbollah and, in broader ways, Lebanese societys support for the Palestinian cause. Hezbollah has a long history of clashes with Israel. Its support for Gazans has won it praise among Lebanons Sunnis and the wider Arab world, where people contrast the groups activism with the inaction of their own governments. But many Lebanese also remember the late 1960s, when Palestinian factions turned the south into what some called Fatahland a reference to Fatah, the largest of them and used it as a staging ground for attacks against Israel. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in a bid to rout Palestinian fighters and create a buffer zone a campaign that metastasized into an occupation that prompted the rise of an Iran-backed Shiite Islamist group that came to be Hezbollah. After the Israelis withdrew in 2000, Hezbollah by then not only a guerrilla force, but also a well-organized political and social party kept its weapons, arguing that Islamic resistance was the only deterrent against future Israeli assaults. The two sides faced off again in 2006, in a devastating war that killed around 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and saw wide swaths of Lebanon obliterated by bombs before it ended in a stalemate. Rmeish suffered damage, though nowhere near as much as Shiite villages loyal to Hezbollah. Instead, it became a sanctuary for about 30,000 fleeing the violence. The wars end brought relative peace. Until nine months ago, the two sides had kept a wary but cordial distance, with only an occasional tit-for-tat shelling. If a wider war were to erupt, Israeli officials have vowed to inflict greater destruction than in 2006. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently threatened to turn Beirut into Gaza. But Israeli military planners acknowledge that Hezbollah with more than 100,000 fighters and advanced weaponry would be a far tougher foe than Hamas, one that could strike deep into Israel. And Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said any Israeli offensive would spur combat with no restraint and no rules and no ceilings. Nevertheless, Hezbollah has to take Lebanons other communities into consideration, said Michael Young, a Lebanon expert with the Carnegie Middle East Center. Everyone knows a war is the worst option, and yet Hezbollah has embarked the country on this conflict, he said. Hezbollah is aware that if the situation spun out of control, their position would be damaged. They want to avoid this. Among residents displaced from the now-emptied Shiite villages in the south, support remains strong at least outwardly. We, the people of the south, its our sons, sisters and loved ones who are getting killed, to protect our country, said Balqis Dawood, a 50-year-old homemaker from Kfar Kila, one of the towns hardest hit by Israeli barrages. At the funeral of a senior Hezbollah leader assassinated by Israel this month, Dawood was defiant, saying that though her house had been destroyed and her family displaced, they would return and rebuild. To those among her compatriots who questioned Hezbollahs fight, she said: Were the people of the resistance. Those who dont like it should leave Lebanon. Standing nearby was Ali, 33, who works at a protein supplements company and serves as a reservist with Hezbollah. Dressed in fatigues and a crimson beret, he said he would fight in the south if called. If someone comes into your home and invades it, do you do nothing? he said. The Israelis have said after Gaza theyre coming here. So were going to stop them. There has been talk in Israeli political circles of reoccupying southern Lebanon as a buffer zone against Hezbollah, a situation that would certainly see Rmeish fall under Israeli control. It wouldnt be the first time. During Israels occupation, southern Lebanese villages such as Rmeish became part of an Israeli-backed mini-state. Fighting age males were obliged to join the South Lebanon Army many did so willingly and ran security operations alongside Israeli troops, including the imprisonment and torture of their compatriots. Others forged economic ties: About 4,000 Lebanese crossed the border every day to work in farms and industrial areas in the Galilee and Tel Aviv. All the fancy houses you see in Rmeish were built with that money, said Najib al-Amil, the 72-year-old priest of Rmeishs Maronite Church. If you shouted in Hebrew in the street, three quarters of the people here would answer you back, said one grocer, who didnt give his name to avoid harassment. Few would welcome another occupation. I know Israel has designs on the area, but I cant stop them with a rifle, Al-Amil said, a note of exasperation in his voice. Escalate or stop, either war or no war. But now theres no war and no peace. It cannot stay like this. Young, of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said that reoccupying to create a buffer zone ignores the long-range arsenal Hezbollah has at its disposal, rendering moot any security cushion the Israeli army can realistically carve out in Lebanon. There will be no stability in northern Israel unless theres stability in southern Lebanon, Young said. The best thing that the Israelis can hope for is a negotiated settlement or a return to the status quo. So far Rmeish has remained removed from the fighting, even as Hezbollah uses forests and grasslands on the village outskirts to wage attacks on Israel. In March, when armed men came to set up a mobile rocket launcher in the village, residents rang church bells to scare them off; Hezbollah denied it was involved but agreed with village leaders to keep Rmeish out of its operational area. That has provided some solace to residents, though less so as the months drag on and hostilities escalate. If it stays like this, its fine, so long as were not displaced, said Allam, the supermarket owner. Still, he had taken precautions: He was sending his two sons, 21 and 18, to Munich, Germany, to find work. I wanted them to stay here and build something together in this village, which we all love. But everything is telling me theres no future, he said. Allam said he sees his presence in Rmeish as a matter of preserving Christianity in the area. He would be staying no matter what, he said, pointing to bullet wounds in his shoulder and stomach he sustained during his army service in 2007. These should have killed me, so now every day is a new life, he said. Whatever happens, I wont go. 2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Dozens of family members gathered Friday, July 12, 2024, at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., to welcome home four Virginia Beach-based fighter jet squadrons. The squadrons returned to the U.S. after nearly nine months on deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes) VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. Who is going to run the fastest to Daddy? Lynn Moreno asked her two daughters, 2-year-old Olivia and 4-year-old Anna. The girls, in their matching Navy blue- and white-striped dresses, were among the people gathered Friday at Naval Air Station Oceana to welcome home four Virginia Beach-based fighter jet squadrons. Anna Moreno, 4, plays with an American flag on Friday, July 12, 2024, while waiting for her father and F-18 pilot Cmdr. Jaime Moreno to return home. ( Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes) A group of about 50 family members and friends erupted into cheers and vigorously waved American flags as the fighter jets each unit in a V formation appeared over the horizon. The squadrons returned to the U.S. after nearly nine months on deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Most of the time was spent in and near the Red Sea defending commercial and military vessels against Houthi drones and missiles launched from Yemen. Capt. Marvin Scott, commander of the air wing, said the air wing and strike group responded precisely and, when required, violently to Houthi attacks on merchant vessels and military ships. The Houthi rebels are using adapted low-tech kits as one-way attack drones and anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles to attack ships, he said. It was very dynamic. It was something we really have not seen for the carrier strike group to be that close to that kind of fight since World War II. It has been a constant evolution, Scott said. Lt. Mike Buck is greeted by his wife, Kristina, and children, 3-year-old twins Luke and Emma and 9-month-old Sofia. His unit, Strike Fighter Squadron 83 Rampagers, was one of four fighter jet squadrons returning from a nearly nine-month deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes) Many of the aircraft returning to the air station Friday wore victory marks to showcase how many Houthi assets they had shot down during what several pilots described as an intense deployment. One jet from the Wildcats of Strike Fighter Squadron 131 had 11 missiles and two other munitions stenciled on its fuselage. 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. The numbers and varieties of weapon expenditures are for the most part unprecedented, especially from the surface ships, Rear Adm. Kavon Hakimzadeh, commander of Carrier Strike Group 2, said earlier this week. He said the air wing numbers were about 1.5 times those expected during a full deployment. That hasnt happened before, Hakimzadeh said. For the families back home, news headlines and limited contact with their loved ones brought worry each day. Dozens of family members gathered Friday, July 12, 2024, at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va., to welcome home four Virginia Beach-based fighter jet squadrons. The squadrons returned to the U.S. after nearly nine months on deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes) It has been frightening him being part of it all, Molly Girard said as she adjusted 1-year-old daughter Evie on her hip. Maggie Ruth, 3, clung to her mothers dress as they waited to greet father and husband Lt. Cmdr. Britton Girard. With two young children, Molly Girard said it was important that the stress of the deployment not impact the children. The family worked to communicate as often as possible, utilizing the ships Wi-Fi. We just had to wake up and take each day as it came, she said. Down the flight line, Cmdr. Andrew Stoner hugged his wife, Loren, and greeted fellow aviators. Stoner joined the deployment in April as the executive officer for Strike Fighter Squadron 131. He said because he arrived late to the fight, the deployment and overall mission was less intense for him. From what everyone said at the beginning, the intensity was mostly due to the fact that there were a lot of unknowns, he said. When Stoner arrived in April, the crew had already adjusted to the feverish pace. By the time I got there, everyone was used to it. Everyone knew what to expect and what to do, Stoner said. The 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. Though the Eisenhower returned to the U.S., the threat continues. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a West Coast-based aircraft carrier, will replace the Eisenhower carrier strike group in the Red Sea. A carrier strike group is the answer to these kinds of problems. It was very much a Navy fight, Scott said. Friday at the air station, Cmdr. Jaime Moreno dropped to the ground to wrap his two daughters in an embrace. He looked up at his wife, puckering his lips to give her a kiss for the first time in nearly nine months. Cmdr. Jaime Moreno dropped to the ground to wrap his arms around his two daughters, 4-year-old Anna and 2-year-old Olivia, as his wife and their mother Lynn Moreno kneeled at their sides. Moreno, an F-18 pilot with Strike Fighter Squadron 83 Rampagers returned Friday, July 12, 2024, from a nearly nine-month deployment with the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes) It was a very long deployment, but we are incredibly proud of these guys and everything they have done for us and our country. We are thrilled to be able to welcome them home today, his wife Lynn said. The homecoming concludes what Moreno said was the most intense deployment he has experienced. But it was probably the most fulfilling deployment of my career, he said. When the call was placed, we were there to answer it. Stars and Stripes reporter Alison Bath contributed to this report. Congress has the opportunity to do the right thing for these veterans and their families, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said Wednesday, July 10, 2024, at a rally organized by veterans groups pushing for Congress to restore full retirement benefits to disabled veterans medically retired from service due to combat injuries. (Linda F. Hersey/Stars and Stripes) WASHINGTON Ryan Kules was leading a military patrol in Iraq in 2005, when the blast from a roadside bomb threw him from his vehicle and severed his right arm and left leg. Kules, a former Army captain, was stabilized at a hospital in Baghdad and airlifted to a military hospital in Germany for emergency surgery to clean up and close his wounds. He was transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he underwent more than two dozen surgeries followed by 18 months of rehabilitation. Medically retired from military duty in May 2007, Kules now fights a battle on a different front. He and other disabled veterans whose military careers were cut short by serious combat injuries are pressing Congress to overturn a federal law that keeps them from receiving full retirement benefits for time served. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, filed an amendment Thursday to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets policies and recommends expenditures for the Pentagon, to ensure combat-injured veterans with less than 20 years of service receive full benefits when they are medically retired. The legislation has more than 50 co-sponsors. A previous attempt in fiscal 2023 stalled over concerns about costs. Tester, along with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, added language from the Major Richard Star Act of 2023 to the 2025 NDAA. Retirement pay for disabled veterans with less than 20 years of service is reduced dollar-for-dollar by the compensation that they receive from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their injuries. Congress has the opportunity to do the right thing for these veterans and their families, Tester said Wednesday at a rally on Capitol Hill organized by veterans groups to push for adoption of the legislation. Americans have stepped up and served their country with a solemn promise that if they came home changed by their service, we would take care of them. For combat-injured veterans forced to retire before completing 20 years of service, their government is currently failing to deliver on that promise. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the legislation will increase direct spending by more than $8 billion for the next 10 years. This is the cost of war, Tester said at the rally, which was attended by several combat-injured veterans from across the United States. You heard a number of folks come up here. You saw their battle wounds. If that shouldnt be mandatory spending, what the hell should? Crapo described the legislation as correcting a severe injustice. Ryan Kules, a former Army captain, is shown in a 2005 photo taken weeks before he was seriously injured by a bomb blast in Iraq. Medically retired from military duty in 2007, Kules and other disabled veterans whose military careers were cut short by combat injuries are pressing Congress to overturn a federal law that keeps them from receiving full retirement benefits. (Ryan Kules) Members of the Wounded Warrior Project, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Military Officers Association of America, the Military Coalition and Reserve Organization of America expressed support for the legislation. More than 53,000 veterans do not receive full retirement benefits after leaving the military because they are collecting disability compensation for combat-related injuries, according to Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for veterans who experienced combat-related injuries. I was forced out of the military. The decision on making the military my career was taken away from me. Because of that, I had to forfeit my military retirement pay, said Adam Kisielewski, a former Marine Corps sergeant medically retired in October 2006 after suffering catastrophic injuries in a bomb blast near Fallujah, Iraq. Disability pay has made up for some of the loss revenue from injuries sustained but not all. Kisielewski was wounded in 2005 when a bomb rigged to the door of a building detonated. He and another Marine were searching the building from room-to-room after a recent gunfight with insurgents in the area, when they were hit by the blast. Kisielewski was 21 years old and had joined the military in 2002. The other Marine did not survive. My platoon was nearby. Thats ultimately what saved my life, said Kisielewski, who received first aid at the scene, was loaded onto a Humvee and rushed to a military hospital. From there, he was flown to Germany for medical treatment and then transferred to Walter Reed. The severity of his wounds required the amputation of his left arm at the shoulder and his right leg below the knee. His left leg also required several surgeries. I was fortunate to make it out alive, said Kisielewski, who was medically retired after more than a year of surgeries and rehabilitation. Its been a long road to recovery. He now runs a nonprofit called NPLB Outdoors, which stands for no person left behind. The group provides outdoor recreational adventures for veterans with disabilities. He continues to undergo operations to remove stray shrapnel from his body. But only disabled military members with 20 years of service with at least a 50% disability rating qualify to collect full retirement benefits along with disability pay. Kisielewski and Kules are 100% disabled, but their military careers abruptly ended because of the seriousness of their injuries. We are asking for the same consideration. We did not have a choice about leaving the military, Kules said. Were asking for something we feel we earned when we were injured, Kisielewski said. In 2023, the Major Richard Star Act had 326 co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated on average that combat-injured retirees would have $1,200 of their military retirement restored per month. The bill does not authorize retroactive benefits. The Defense Department makes annual accrual payments into the Military Retirement Fund, according to a 2023 report by the CBO. The office estimated payments by the department will climb from about $24 billion in 2024 to about $31 billion in 2033. If the legislation is enacted, costs would increase by another 3%, as future veterans with combat-related disabilities receive the full amount of their retirement pay, the CBO said. Pass the Major Richard Star Act now, said Marquis Barefield, a medically retired Army veteran and assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. Its time to end this wait. The men and women who served this country and were forced to be medically retired need to get the benefits they deserve. The legislation is named after Army Reserve Major Richard Star, who died in 2021 from terminal lung cancer. Star was medically retired in 2018 after he developed cancer linked to his service in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was exposed to burn pits and other toxins in war zones. Kules and other veterans said the law keeps them from collecting retirement pay for time served that would help support themselves and their families. As a platoon leader, I was charged with bringing guys home safe. But I was unable to complete that mission. And I had no choice whatsoever in continuing my military career, he said. Kules now serves as a director at the Wounded Warrior Project working with veterans to overcome trauma through adventure-based learning. I know the point of disability compensation is to take care of future lost earnings because of service-connected injuries or illness, he said. But having my retirement pay reduced to nothing because I am receiving disability compensation negates my service and commitment. The court heard that while the alleged feud between Hughes and his alleged victim has been ongoing since 2002, the fight itself lasted just 27 seconds and was captured on CCTV. A shopping centre fight in a feud thats lasted more than 20 years has left a man potentially blind in one eye after it was gouged, a court heard today. A detective told Lisburn Magistrates Court that while the police are constrained about what they can disclose to the court as much of their information is sensitive and has been obtained as a result of intelligence, we know that they know each other and we believe there is an ongoing feud between these two men. Appearing at court by videolink from police custody, 38-year-old Ebony Hughes, from Ardcarn park in Newry, was charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent on 9 July this year. While Hughes confirmed he understood the single charge against him, Det. Const. Kirkwood told the court he believed he could connect Hughes to the offence, adding that police were objecting to bail due to fears that Hughes would abscond, interfere with witnesses or commit further offences. The officer outlined how the complainant contacted police on 10 July to report that he had been the victim of an assault in the Buttercrane Shopping Centre the previous day. The court heard that while the alleged feud between Hughes and his alleged victim has been ongoing since 2002, the fight itself lasted just 27 seconds and was captured on CCTV. DC Kirkwood told the court that according to a verbal account from the complainant, he was |attacked by Hughes, he suffered broken ribs and has lost the sight of his right eye as a result of the fight. He described how this occurred in Buttercrane shopping centre, in front of the injured partys mother and nine-year-old child and members of the public and Mr Hughes did not hesitate in head butting the complainant. At the end of the fight we can see Mr Hughes raising his right hand up to the alleged victims face and he immediately puts his hands to his face as if he has been injured, said the officer, we believe he has used his finger to place it in to the eye of the complainant. District Judge Rosie Watters asked if the men were known to each other, and the officer confirmed they have history but revealed that as a lot of information is intelligence based, a lot of the information police hold cannot be disclosed to the court. Turning to bail objections the detective said police had concerns that Hughes would flee the country, further revealing that when he was being investigated for a serious assault two years ago he absconded to Australia. Conceding that in the end nothing came of that investigation, DC Kirkwood maintained that police believe Hughes has at least one other passport and also has links to Dundalk. Hughes defence lawyer conceded there had been a fight which was captured on CCTV but he argued that footage had also caught the alleged victims mother using an umbrella during the altercation. Revealing that the complainant himself had an existing eye injury from a shotgun pellet six months beforehand, the lawyer suggested it was a possibility the umbrella could have caused the further injury to his eye. Describing it as a chance meeting between the two men, the lawyer argued that bail conditions could be pout in place which would allow Hughes out on bail and to carry on with his work with a local building firm but still keeping the men apart. He told the court Hughes himself denies there is any feud and emphasised that Hughes mother had attended court with a cash surety of 10,000 and his only passport. These are two grown men who come to blows in a shopping centre, said the solicitor, its a chance meeting and there is nothing to substantiate GBH. DJ Watters said while the lawyer had said everything that could said, Im concerned about further offences and witness interference so she was refusing bail. Remanding Hughes into custody, she adjourned the case to 24 July. Mark Adams was given a five-year jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 2020 for his role in laundering approximately 1.2 million in cash that was the proceeds of crime A former male model and airport police officer who is believed to have laundered millions in organised crime cash has been surrendered to the North, where he was sentenced to 20 months for having 180K in his luggage at Belfast airport. Serial launderer Mark Adams (44), who booked close to 500 flights in and out of the UK in a four-year period, was previously jailed here after he was caught laundering over one million euro for criminals. At Laganside Crown Court in Belfast in January 2022, Mark Adams pleaded guilty to attempting to remove criminal property and to arranging to remove criminal property by carrying 180,550 through Belfast International airport to board a flight to Alicante in May 2018. He admitted that he attempted to remove the money from the North on May 9, 2018, knowing or suspecting the money to be proceeds of crime. He also pleaded guilty to entering into an arrangement, namely the attempted removal of criminal property from Northern Ireland, knowing or suspecting that this arrangement would facilitate the retention, use or control of such criminal property, by persons unknown, between May 13, 2013 and May 10, 2018. The offences each carry a maximum penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment. In May 2022, Adams, with a last address at Castleheath, Malahide, Co Dublin, was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, with a further 10 months to be served on licence. This sentence was to run consecutively to a prison term he was already serving in the Republic that expired in December last year. Adams was given a five-year jail term at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 2020 for his role in laundering approximately 1.2 million in cash that was the proceeds of crime. Adams had pleaded guilty to engaging in handling 582,045, the proceeds of criminal conduct, at Dublin Airport on September 11, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to money laundering in relation to 227,130 at Bank of Ireland, Dublin Airport; 298,280 at PTSB, Main Street, Malahide and 78,990 at Bank of Ireland Credit Card Centre on dates between January 2012 and March 2017. In passing sentence, Judge Martin Nolan said as an airport policeman for 13 years, Adams knew the ways of the world and would have been under no illusions that he was aiding and assisting criminal enterprises. In August 2021, Adams was temporarily surrendered by the High Court here so that he could attend his court proceedings in the North. He was returned to the Republic in June 2022 after being in custody there for 10 months. The warrant for his surrender stated that Adams was stopped by UK Border Force officers in May 2018 and asked about two brown envelopes he concealed in his hand luggage. Adams confirmed to Border Force officers that he had packed the bag himself, and when asked whether anyone had given him anything to take out of the country, he replied: Yes, 180,000. The respondent had booked 497 international flights into or out of the UK between May 14, 2014 and May 9, 2018. On 64 occasions, the outward and return flights were within a matter of hours, the warrant states. Lawyers for Adams had objected to his re-surrender to the North on humanitarian grounds, arguing that he may be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment while in prison based on his past experience there. At the High Court today Mr Justice David Keane said it had been submitted that Adams had been subjected to threats of violence and when this was coupled with his medical needs it amounted to inhumane or degrading conditions, should he be surrendered to serve time in Maghaberry Prison. Adams had submitted that he had previously been wrongly identified as a member of An Garda Siochana in a media article, leading to a letter being passed under his prison door by those he claimed were paramilitaries, telling him to leave the landing or he would be harmed. In his order surrendering Adams, Mr Justice Keane noted that while Adams had submitted that he struggled with his mental health no documents regarding his mental health difficulties had been put before the court. Mr Justice Keane said that prison reports on Maghaberry Prison noted that inter-prisoner violence had been decreasing since 2008 and that Adams had not himself been the subject of physical attack in the 10 months he was in custody there. Mr Justice Keane said a systemic failing in the prison system in the North had not been established. The judge said a real risk of inhumane conditions or degradation had to be established in order for the High Court to refuse surrender. He said that the "mere possibility" of such treatment did not establish a real risk of ill-treatment that would be sufficient to breach his fundamental rights. His own evidence says he was not subject to physical or ill treatment, other than threats. The possibility of such is not enough, said Mr Justice Keane, who ordered Adams surrender. In the warrant for Adams surrender, money-laundering expert Detective Sergeant Adrian Ward of South Yorkshire Police opined that Adams travel arrangements were consistent with the act of someone transporting or delivering something between one place and another and that there were elements of a money laundering system identified within the evidence consistent with Adams acting as part of that system, attempting to smuggle cash as a cash courier. In the UKs National Crime Agency's statement welcoming Adams' sentence in the North in May 2022, the agency said: "Working with our Irish colleagues we were able to spot a pattern of him regularly travelling out of airports in both the Republic and the UK, and returning home shortly afterwards. "Each time he is likely to have taken tens or even hundreds of thousands of euros and may have been responsible for laundering many millions of criminal money in total," the agency said. The jail term was also welcomed by the Northern Ireland Border Force Command, who said the sentence was a result of the "hard work and dedication from Border Force, the NCA and our partners in the Republic of Ireland to tackle dirty money." Marius Mihai Draghici will serve the remainder of his prison sentence in Romania following his deportation. Romanian national Marius Mihai Draghici, who was jailed over the deaths of 39 people in a lorry trailer in Essex in 2019, is set to be deported (Essex Police/PA) A Romanian man jailed over the deaths of 39 people in a lorry trailer in Essex will be deported without paying a penny to his victims families. Marius Mihai Draghici, 51, fled the UK after the Vietnamese nationals died in the airtight sealed container as it was being transported by ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Purfleet in October 2019. In August 2022, Draghici, who was said to be a right-hand man in a long-running people-smuggling ring, was detained in Romania and extradited back to the UK. Images issued by Essex Police of the 39 Vietnamese migrants, aged between 15 and 44, that were found dead in the back of a trailer in Essex on October 23, 2019 (Essex Police/PA) Last year, he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and was jailed for 12 years and seven months. On Wednesday, prosecutor Ben Holt told a confiscation hearing before Judge Mark Lucraft KC that Draghici would not be pursued for proceeds of crime. He told the Old Bailey: Following an investigation, no assets have been discovered and in any event it is understood Mr Draghici will be deported shortly and therefore no proceedings are to be pursued. The defendant had joined the brief hearing by video link from Stocken category C prison in the East Midlands and declined the services of a translator. It is understand that he will serve the remainder of his prison sentence in Romania following his deportation. Sentencing last year, Mr Justice Garnham had said Draghici was an essential cog in a criminal conspiracy which made astonishing profits out of the exploitation of people desperate to get to the UK. In all, 11 men have been convicted of their involvement in the lucrative people-smuggling ring. In addition to Draghici, four other men were jailed for between 13 and 27 years for the manslaughters of the men, women and children. They are: Ringleader Gheorghe Nica, 47, of Basildon, Essex, haulier boss Ronan Hughes, 44, of Armagh, Maurice Robinson, 29, of Craigavon, who found the bodies, and Eamonn Harrison, 27, of County Down, who had collected the victims on the continent. To date, more than 283,000 in ill-gotten gains has been ordered to be paid by defendants as compensation to the victims families. Lee Murray (29) was shouting at his relatives to give him money for drugs when he carried out the assaults A man who broke into his childhood home, assaulted his grandfather and struck his aunt over the head with a metal pot has been jailed for 15 months. Lee Murray (29) was shouting at his relatives to give him money for drugs when he carried out the assaults at their home in Blanchardstown on the night of October 2 last year, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today. Murray, formerly of Sheepmore Lawn, Blanchardstown, pleaded guilty to assaulting his grandfather and assault causing harm to his aunt at the same address. A number of other counts were taken into consideration. He has 47 previous convictions, including assault and production of an article. Garda Conor Finnegan told Edward Doocey BL, prosecuting, that around 11pm on the day in question, Murray smashed the window of the front door before letting himself into his former childhood home. The court heard he had been raised by his grandfather and his aunt since he was a baby after his mother died of heroin overdose. Murray was shouting at his relatives to give him money, and grabbed his grandfather by his top before telling his aunt to go upstairs. He then followed his aunt upstairs, carrying a metal pot and struck her over the head with it. The woman fell to the ground and Murray struck her again over the head with the pot before his grandfather managed to separate them. Gardai were called and Murray fled the premises, but he returned again 45 minutes later and was arrested. He has been in custody ever since. His aunt was offered an ambulance but declined to go to hospital. A photograph of her injuries was handed into court. Both she and the grandfather declined to make a victim impact statement. Keith Spencer BL, defending, said his client had a longstanding drug addiction which had caused issues with his relatives. He was looking for money for drugs that night, the court heard. Since being taken into custody, Murray has made Trojan efforts to rehabilitate himself and has taken a number of courses, the court heard. Sentencing him today, Judge Martin Nolan said it must have been a shocking experience for the aunt and Murray deserved a custodial term. He handed down a 15 month term to start from todays date. Our driver is reported to have received minor injuries and has been taken to hospital as a precaution A Bus Eireann driver suffered injuries today after she was shot in the face with an air gun. The National Bus and Railworkers Union said she had only begun her second week on bus services in Limerick when she was confronted by a gang who refused to pay their fares. Stephen Nugent, senior national executive member of the union, said the gang threatened the driver when asking her to let them on board the 303 service in Limerick. He said she became very frightened and felt intimidated, so decided to let them on. Mr Nugent said a member of the gang produced an air gun and shot her in the face, hitting her just below the eye, while getting off the bus. Local union representatives have requested that Bus Eireann immediately withdraw services in the area until it gives assurances on safety for staff and passengers. Mr Nugent said the incident was disgraceful and an extremely dangerous incident of anti-social behaviour. This appalling incident, once again demonstrates the immediate requirement for the longstanding call from the NBRU for a dedicated garda public transport unit to be established, he said. He said politicians, particularly in government, need to move immediately to protect frontline transport workers and people using public transport. A Bus Eireann spokesperson said it is currently investigating an incident that occurred in the OMalley Park area of Limerick on a route 303 service between Kilmallock Road and Pineview this afternoon. He said the matter has been referred to An Garda Siochana and Bus Eireann will provide any assistance required, including making CCTV available to gardai. The spokesperson said: Our driver is reported to have received minor injuries and has been taken to hospital as a precaution. He said Bus Eireann services have currently been removed from the area as the gardai investigate. Intending passengers are encouraged to check the service updates section of our website for updates, he said. He said Bus Eireann does not tolerate antisocial or criminal behaviour towards customers or staff. As this matter has been brought to the attention of gardai we are not in a position to provide any additional information on this specific incident, he said. The safety of our passengers and staff is of paramount importance to Bus Eireann and any incidents reported are taken very seriously and are fully investigated. He said customers can report any incidents to Gardai, to the driver or to its Customer Care team on 0818 836 611 or via customercare@buseireann.ie. Naples court judge Maria Luisa Miranda has also finalised the seizure of Imperiales private island in Dubai. A narco-trafficker and a key figure in Europes super-cartel has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison by an Italian court. Dubbed the King of Narcos, Raffaele Imperiale had been extradited to Italy last year from Dubai where he had been overseeing an international cocaine trafficking ring while living in luxury in the Gulf State. After he was returned to Italian custody, Imperiale agreed to be a State witness and gave extensive details of his drug dealing business and criminal associates to police. Gardai believe Imperiale was a close ally of Daniel Kinahan and they, along with other trafficking gangs, controlled a large portion of Europes drugs trade. The Camorra gang boss was a guest at Kinahans wedding in Dubai in 2017 where he was monitored by the USs Drug Enforcement Agency mixing with major criminal figures from across the globe. At the time, Imperiale, who became infamous after two paintings, including a Van Gogh stolen in 2002 in Amsterdam were found hidden in a wall in one of his villas in Naples, was one of Italys most wanted men. Imperiale's island However, Imperiales days of living like a king are now at an end after he was given a 15 year and 8 month sentence in a court in Naples on Wednesday. Naples court judge Maria Luisa Miranda has also finalised the seizure of Imperiales private island in Dubai. The island is part of a man-made archipelago called The World, built just off Dubais coast and constructed in the shape of a global map. Imperiale previously told a court in Naples that he paid 12 million for the island but has valued it at up to 60 million. His right-hand man, Bruno Carbone, was also jailed for 14 years along with a 20 others also linked to his mob. Drug trafficker Bruno Carbone was right-hand man to gang boss Raffaele Imperiale Imperiale is also believed to have been at the top of the super-cartel that included Kinahan, the Dutch criminal Ridouan Taghi and Bosnian drug trafficker Edin Gacanin among its leaders. Along with Taghi and Edin Gacanin, Imperiale was one of the guests who attended Kinahans wedding at the plush Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai in 2017. However, in 2022, he was arrested by Dubai cops and ultimately extradited from Dubai after a legal battle. Following his extradition, Imperiale dumped his code of Omerta and become State witness against the Camorra, the drug mafia he was a high-ranking member of for over two decades. However, the Italian police forces have now also reportedly made Imperiale available to European police forces for interview a face which has sent a ripple of fear across is former allies in Dubai. Daniel Kinahan Leaked documents in the Dutch media show how the Italian gangster gave a detailed statement about his involvement with Dutch-Chilean criminal, Richard El Rico Riquelme Vega. El Rico was also one of Daniel Kinahans closet criminal contacts. The Dutch new site Het Parool revealed two months ago that Imperiale was interrogated in September 2023 in the Orinus investigation into El Ricos criminal organisation. I met Rico in 2008, Imperiale told investigators, according to Het Parool. When he came out of prison he was well known in the criminal world because he had served his time in Germany without mentioning the names of others. "When he came out of prison he was abandoned by his own people, with whom he worked. "He had no money then, he was completely broke, as we say in Italy. However, Imperiale claims that by the time El Rico moved to Dubai, he was a wealthy man from the drugs trade. When Rico moved to Dubai, he had a large, significant capital, 80 or 100 million which he had amassed from entering into joint ventures with the Colombian cartels. Ricardo Riquelme Vega, whose nickname 'El Rico' means The Rich One was sentenced to 11 years in jail Asked by investigating officers if Rico and Imperiale had acted together in the cocaine trade, the Italian replied: No, not directly, but in 2016 he facilitated me, he gave me 300 kilos of cocaine to help me. I didn't work with him, he is South American, they need entrances in the Dutch ports, and they have their own channels. I used my own contacts. "I mean, there was no connection in the true sense of the word, but there was mutual respect between the two of us, also a friendly contact, not just work related. Well, it was more friendly. The data suggests hospital consultants are falling behind in the numbers they are seeing in outpatient clinics, at 3.6 million last year when it could potentially have been over five million. Stephen Donnelly said data shows a fall in the number of outpatients being seen per consultant. Photo: PA The first stage in laying bare the best and worst performing hospitals is under way with the publication of new outpatient attendance data. The Department of Health and the HSE are publishing league tables showing waiting times for surgery and outpatient appointments in different hospitals. It comes as the health service is under pressure to show value for money after this weeks 1.5bn top-up. The data suggests hospital consultants are falling behind in the numbers they are seeing in outpatient clinics, at 3.6 million last year when it could potentially have been over five million. The data shows significant variations in the average number of outpatients being seen by consultants in the same specialty, as well as a big reduction in the overall number of outpatients being seen per patient-facing consultant, said Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. A table on outpatient waiting lists shows Connolly Hospital, Cavan General Hospital, Tullamore Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda and Beaumont Hospital, Dublin perform best in having the least amount of patients on an outpatient waiting list for over 12 months. At the other end of the league, Galway University Hospital, Tallaght University Hospital, Cork University Hospital, Mullingar Hospital, University Hospital Waterford and the Mercy University Hospital, Cork all have the most patients waiting over a year for the clinics. For patients who need an overnight hospital bed for treatment such as surgery, there is also major variance across the country. Nine hospitals have nobody on the inpatient list for over a year, including Cavan, Connolly Hospital, Mullingar, Naas, Kerry and Wexford Hospitals. The worst performers in having these patients delayed over 12 months include Letterkenny Hospital where nearly half are in the queue for over a year. It is followed by St Lukes Kilkenny, Portlaoise Hospital, Galway University Hospital, St Jamess Hospital, Cork University Hospital and the Mater Hospital. When it comes to day-case patients waiting over a year, University Hospital Waterford often praised for having next to zero patients on trolleys is the worst in the country. This signals that reducing emergency overcrowding comes at a price, as patients may be having appointments cancelled to free up beds. The next worst is Cork University Hospital, St Jamess Hospital and the Mater Hospital, according to the data. A major drive is under way to improve the number of patients getting first appointments to see a specialist at outpatient clinics and avoid having more return visits. Data shows Galway University Hospital has the highest number of people waiting for a first outpatient appointment at 48,000, followed by University Hospital Waterford with 39,000 and the Mater Hospital on 38,000. The fewest, at 3,000, are in Portiuncula Hospital in Galway, followed by Tipperary University hospital at 4,000 and Wexford General Hospital at 5,000. In a further bid to link funding to performance, the figures show the percentage of additional spending last year compared to 2019 was highest in Cork University Hospital and University Hospital Kerry, followed by University Hospital Waterford and University Hospital Limerick. It was lowest in Sligo University Hospital, Portlaoise Hospital, Cavan and St Jamess Hospital. When it comes to additional staffing during the same period, the hospitals in Waterford, Limerick and Kerry did best. An outpatient attendance dashboard which can be viewed on the HSE website shows the monthly average attendance per speciality in 21 hospitals. It will be updated every month and it is broken down by hospital and speciality for public GPs to help with referrals. The new set of published data does not take into account age, illness severity and the number of consultants available in a particular speciality. Not every hospital records specialties and sub-specialties for outpatient clinics in the same way. There has been a big take-up by hospital consultants of a new contract, confining them to only treating public patients when in public hospitals in return for a salary of up to 300,000 and they will be under pressure to demonstrate more return for higher pay. The minister said he brought a memo to the Cabinet earlier this week in which he outlined how continued future development funding will be prioritised to those hospitals and services that demonstrate they are maximising existing funding. Luke and Grace McSweeney, Zoey Coffey and Nicole Murphy all died in horrific accident From left: Nicole Murphy (18), Zoey Coffey (18), Grace McSweeney (18) and Luke McSweeney (24) were killed when the car they were travelling in lost control Four young people, three of whom had just received their Leaving Cert results, died from horrific head injuries when the car they were travelling in hit a wall after spinning out of control in torrential rainfall. An inquest into their deaths was told the BMW coupe slammed roof-first into the wall on a steep Tipperary road. Tipperary coroner Joseph Kelly returned a verdict of accidental death for Luke McSweeney (24), of Clonmel; his sister Grace McSweeney (18); and her friends Zoey Coffey (18), of Kilsheelan, and Nicole Murphy (18), from Ballypatrick, who all died in the crash on Clonmels Mountain Road shortly after 7.30pm on August 25 last year. Mr McSweeney was driving, with his sister in the front passenger seat and Ms Coffey and Ms Murphy in the rear. The crash happened just hours after the three 18-year-olds had received their Leaving Cert results. They were being driven to Clonmel to catch a bus to Carlow for a special Leaving Cert celebration. The inquest heard that the car, an eight-year-old 4 Series, apparently spun out of control and struck a kerb before hitting a wall and then rotating to the point where it crashed roof-first into a wall support. I was going to drop them but Luke said he was going to the gym and he said he would drop them Mr Kelly heard evidence that the three young women were initially going to be driven to the Carlow bus by Brigid McSweeney, the mother of Luke and Grace. I was going to drop them but Luke said he was going to the gym and he said he would drop them, she said in a written statement. Mr McSweeney was a named driver of the car. The damage to the vehicle was so catastrophic that gardai arriving at the scene were initially unable to determine how many people were in it. Emergency services only realised there were four people when the distraught parents of Luke and Grace McSweeney, Paul and Brigid, arrived at the scene and told them the identities of the four occupants. Local people had described a torrential downpour that lasted for over 10 minutes and left sections of the Mountain Road pooled with water. The inquest heard there was 47mm of rainfall that day, most of it between 5pm and 7.30pm, when the tragedy happened. Detective Inspector Declan Boland said the roof of the car was effectively crushed by the impact with the wall. Gardai at the scene tried in vain to prise open a door of the vehicle with their batons, but there were no signs of life inside, despite desperate shouts to the occupants from emergency services personnel. Det Insp Boland became emotional when he described the horrendous scene the emergency services encountered. Garda Andrew Kiely said the alarm was raised by several means that evening. Local resident Muireann Morris heard three loud bangs, realised there had been an accident and rang 999. Several others who came upon the scene did the same. Technology in the car issued an automatic emergency alert via a call centre in Spain when it detected that the airbags had been triggered. Gda Kiely said people were visibly distressed as the scale of the loss of life became apparent. All four occupants of the car were pronounced dead at the scene. Public service vehicle inspector Garda Eamon Raleigh said the vehicle had, for an unknown reason, struck the kerb and then hit a wall with its front end. There are clearly no words to describe this tragedy and the terrible loss suffered by the McSweeney, Coffey and Murphy families The force of the impact caused one of the wheels to dig into the road surface, and the vehicle rotated and struck a wall support roof-first, causing the integrity of the roof structure to be compromised. The roof was then driven down on to the passenger compartment. Coroner Mr Kelly was told all four occupants of the car died from severe cranial and cerebral trauma consistent with a road accident. They were taken to Tipperary University Hospital, where they were formally identified by family members. Gda Raleigh said the rear-wheel tyres of the vehicle were defective and under the legal tread depth in sections. Both front tyres in good condition, but one of the rear tyres had its cord visible through the tread. When questioned by Ms Murphys uncle, Leon Manning, Gda Raleigh confirmed the car was rear-wheel drive. Gda Raleigh said having a tyre with a tread depth below the legal limit was a dangerous defect as it could affect braking and steering in very wet road conditions. Garda John Coughlan, a forensic collision scene investigator, said it was impossible to determine the speed of the vehicle at the time it lost control, but it was estimated to have struck the wall at 59.3kmh. There were no witnesses to the crash itself. One person said they saw the car earlier passing their home and it did not appear to be going fast. Gda Coughlan said an analysis of CCTV security camera footage from an earlier section of the road showed the car heading towards Clonmel. It was determined it was travelling at 51kmh in one section and then at 75.5kmh in a 50kmh zone following an analysis of footage covering a 30-metre section between two lamp-posts. The road section involved was 170 metres from the site of the crash. There are clearly no words to describe this tragedy and the terrible loss suffered by the McSweeney, Coffey and Murphy families, the coroner said. All were in the prime of their lives and with dreams to fulfil. As they set out that evening on their journey, they could not be aware of the catastrophe. Mr Kelly expressed his deepest sympathies to the families of the four young people, all of whom were represented at the inquest. The coroner noted how the tragedy had sparked a nationwide outpouring of sympathy for the families involved and the wider Clonmel community. The young women were students at two local schools, Presentation Secondary and Loreto Secondary. Nicole was a beautiful student, highly regarded by staff and students Presentation principal Michael O Loughlin paid tribute last year to Ms McSweeney and Ms Coffey, who were pupils. Zoey and Grace were two beautiful students, loved by everybody who met them and they achieved such excellent results, he said. Both girls were absolutely thrilled with the results and were looking forward to new exciting times ahead. Loreto principal Anne McGrath paid tribute to Ms Murphy. Nicole was a beautiful student, highly regarded by staff and students alike. During her time in Loreto she developed into a young woman who was kind, gentle and witty and she was a trusted and loyal friend, she said. Garda Superintendent Kieran Ruane said the tragedy had a horrific impact on the local community, which was deeply shocked by the loss of life involved. In a statement by solicitor Padraic Hayes, issued on behalf of the McSweeney, Coffey and Murphy families, they paid tribute to the local people, gardai, paramedics and Clonmel Fire Brigade personnel who had tried to help the four young people that night. Yana walked to the Polish border with her mother and they flew to Ireland as refugees in April 2022 A Ukrainian woman living in Galway who is facing extradition to her home country over an alleged fraud insists she is entirely innocent as she appeals this week for legal help in fighting the request. 30-year-old Yana Chumak explained to the Irish Independent that she fled her home in Kharkiv following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Yana walked to the Polish border with her mother and they flew to Ireland as refugees in April 2022. Yanas father remained in Ukraine and he was later drafted into the army, at the age of 55. Once in Galway, Yana started working part-time as a beautician while studying at Georgina Price College, and in Autumn 2023 she opened her own business, Love Yourself Beauty Room, in Galway City. I continued to work but then I understood I wanted my place. I did the same in Ukraine, I had my place, my salon, I was working by myself, promoting it on Instagram. Yana started a new life in Galway, but she is now fearing extradition over fraud allegations in her home country. The 30-year-old told the Irish Independent that the accusation relates to an alleged furniture sales scam back in 2021. About one month ago, she was informed that Ukrainian authorities were applying for an extradition order. Yana insists she never did anything wrong and said she has contacted the Embassy of Ukraine in Dublin and the Minister for Justice for support. She said: Im afraid of Ukraine, Im afraid of the system and Im afraid for my life, because I ran away from war." Yana added that she is unsure she has enough money to cover future court expenses, and if forced to travel back to Ukraine she will not have a place to live in. She said: I dont have a place where to live. I dont have resources for living there [in Ukraine]. Every day bombing, they took my father, 55 years old, two months ago to war, I dont have family, my mom is here surviving because of me, because she doesnt have English at all. Where am I going to live? I would need money for rent, I would have go to every day to court. And its a war zone. Yana added: Im not a criminal, I never was and never will be. Maybe this article can help me reach some person or lawyer who wants to help or who knows how to help. I would be blessed [if that happened]. Yana has an appeals court date on Monday July 15. Traolach Sweeney was a much loved member in his adopted community in Caherdaniel where he had lived for many years Tributes are being paid to the man killed in a crash in Kerry yesterday who had a long and distinguished career with the Irish Army. The man has been named locally as Traolach Sweeney who was much loved member in his adopted community in Caherdaniel where he had lived for many years. He was a member of the 45th battalion and was a Commandant with the Irish Defence Forces and served for a time as a Commanding officer in Ballymullen in Tralee. He spent much of his life in Kildare but growing up had spent time in Kerry too. His late father was a Colonel in the Army and the family holidayed in The Glen. Traolach had made Caherdaniel his home for many years and had been hugely involved in the local community in Caherdaniel and Sneem. In fact he is well-know as a founder of SCC broadband (Sneem Castlecove Caherdaniel) providing broadband to the rural area many years before multi-nationals were doing so. He was also involved with the origins of the Sneem Digital Hub. His business partner and close friend, Pat Casey, paid tribute to Traolach on his sad death. "Traolach was a pillar of the community and a gentleman. I was privileged to have him as a friend and a business partner .He would help any person in need, and would never let the dust settle and was always out either climbing mountains or out at sea. He will be thoroughly missed by all, he said. In his military career he was an Army Ranger and a French Interpreter. He was also a distinguished mountaineer have braved some of the toughest climbs around the world. He was also a sub aqua diver and in fact for many years took people diving in South Kerry through his local business. In his personal life he was an accomplished violin player. Locals have said he was a quiet unassuming man who was much respected and loved and his death has caused wide-spread shock across the community and amongst his former colleagues. He is survived by his wife Ina and two children Aisling and Peter. Shortly after 6pm, gardai and emergency services responded to the single-vehicle road traffic collision involving a van on the Ring of Kerry (N70) at Coad near Caherdaniel. Mr Sweeney was pronounced dead at the scene. The scene was preserved for examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and the local Coroner has been notified. The road has now re-opened. His death brings the total number of road deaths so far this year to 102. The deceased has been removed to the mortuary at University Hospital Kerry, where a post-mortem examination will be arranged. Investigating gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward. Additionally, they are requesting those with camera footage, including motorists with dashcam from the area at the time, to make it available to them. Anyone with information is asked to contact Killarney Garda Station 064 667 1160 or the Garda Confidential Line at 1800 666 111. A celebration of Alexs life will be held at Glasnevin Crematorium on Tuesday, July 16 at 3pm Tributes have been paid to beautiful soul Alex Warnick who died in the Grand Canal drowning tragedy alongside another homeless man. The 42-year-old, whose body was recovered from the Dublin canal with Donal Scanlon (49), was remembered as a kind hearted man who was loved by his family and wide circle of friends. Both mens bodies were discovered at around 8am last Saturday morning at a section of the canal near Grand Parade and the Charlemont Luas stop. The scene of the tragedy Both men were known to each other and had lived in Dublin where they were known to the homeless services. They were sleeping in two adjacent tents on the canal bank close to where their bodies were found. Gardai have been investigating if one of the men got into difficulty in the water and the second one died trying to save him. On his death notice on RIP.ie, numerous messages of sympathy have been left for Alexander (Alex) Warnick of Dublin, and Oregon, USA (who died) on July 6, following a tragic accident. Sadly missed by his family Greg and Susan and his brothers Josh and Garrett, extended family on his mothers side, relatives and friends, the notice reads. Loved and missed by his Dublin Street Family, especially Garreth, Beezer and Franco. A celebration of Alexs life will be held at Glasnevin Crematorium on Tuesday, July 16 at 3pm. In the condolences section, one person has written: So sad that another beautiful soul has left this world. Prayers to all his friends & family. Alex, a gentleman that made a difference, added another. One other person wrote: So sorry you had to go in such tragic circumstances Alex, my condolences to all Alexs family and friends. May you rest. Alex, I only got to know you through the soup run, one other person remembered. I'll have fond memories of you. You were such a lovely fella with a heart of gold and contagious laugh. You passed away being a hero trying to save your friend. Sincere condolences to your beloved family. One person said they, met Alex a few months ago, he was a gentleman and a kind hearted person. Ireland wont forget our homeless people who have passed while living on the streets. A third man who was sleeping in the vicinity at the time has also been interviewed by gardai in an effort to try to establish the sequence of events leading up to the double tragedy. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive offered its sympathies to the family and friends of both men. The DRHE has been in contact with An Garda Siochana and we can confirm that both men were known to the homeless services, it said in a statement. The two men who died were camped close to a larger number of tents on the opposite side of the canal currently occupied by a number of asylum seekers. A statement by An Garda Siochana said gardai at Donnybrook are investigating all of the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the bodies of the two men at Grand Parade. Shortly after 8am, gardai and emergency services responded to reports of a body in the canal at Grand Parade. The bodies of two males, aged in their 40s, were recovered from the canal a short time later. Both were pronounced deceased at the scene, it said. The Office of the State Pathologist and the local Coroner have been notified, and the results of post-mortem examinations will determine the course of garda investigations. Northern Irelands largest pyre; built at the Craigyhill estate in Larne was ignited at midnight with thousands traveling to the town for the event. The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations get underway in Northern Ireland on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Craigyhill bonfire (left) in Larne, Co. Antrim which is estimated to be 200 feet or 60 meters tall. The burning of loyalist bonfires is part of the traditional Twelfth commemorations marking the anniversary of the Protestant King William's victory over the Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Picture date: Thursday July 11, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story ULSTER Twelfth. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire The Craigyhill bonfire in Larne is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations get underway in Northern Ireland on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) The Village bonfire in Belfast is lit on July 11th 2024 (Photo by Kevin Scott) Bonfires across Northern Ireland have been lit at midnight to bring in the Twelfth of July. Some pyres were lit earlier, including one in the Newbuildings area of Londonderry that was ignited at 11pm after their childrens bonfire at 10pm. Northern Irelands largest pyre; built at the Craigyhill estate in Larne was ignited at midnight with thousands traveling to the town for the event. The Eleventh night is one of the busiest nights of the year for Northern Irelands fire service. Brian Stanfield, Assistant Chief Fire & Rescue Officer, Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) said: "It has been a relatively quiet 11th night for Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service. "Between 6pm and 2am, we received 109 emergency 999 calls. This resulted in our firefighters attending 78 operational incidents, 37 of which were bonfire related. During this period, the number of emergency calls received was down 25% when compared to 2023. Peak activity was between 10pm and 1am and normal emergency response across Northern Ireland was maintained. I would like to thank our firefighters, Regional Control Centre personnel and support employees involved in the operational response tonight and commend those involved in the planning preparations including our multi-agency partners. I am encouraging everyone to follow our safety advice across the weekend to help keep themselves and their loved ones safe. The Twelfth is a primarily Ulster Protestant tradition which celebrates the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Parades will take place across Northern Ireland on Friday. Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly was among the many thousands enjoying the occasion. She posted on X: An honour to be asked to pour the Boyne Water for the big 11th July Pageant in Kilkeel this evening! What a fantastic event great parade and plenty of activities and fun to be had! Well done everyone. 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 On Thursday evening, there was condemnation of sectarian displays on a number of bonfires, including a threat to all Catholics and one specifically directed at SDLP leader Colum Eastwood that was removed after mediation. Hundreds gathered to watch the lighting of two loyalist bonfires on Wednesday night. The Corcrain bonfire in Portadown was set alight almost 24 hours ahead of the traditional ignition. The unique bonfire featuring a fireworks display was attended by around 800 people despite heavy rain and a childrens fun day being cancelled. Firefighters doused nearby houses and a block of flats as a precaution shortly after the pyre collapsed. Watch: The Loyalist Corcrain bonfire in Portadown is lit as the Twelfth celebrations begin Just over 15 miles away in Moygashel, a controversial bonfire was attended by a further 400 spectators. A replica police car, described as edgy artistic expression by loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson was burnt as part of the celebrations. Police car on top of Northern Ireland bonfire The pyre came under scrutiny on Tuesday night when the Belfast Telegraph revealed that a replica police vehicle was placed on top of the bonfire. Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party Doug Beattie described the placing of the 1.3 tonne Vauxhall Vectra as absolutely disgraceful. Watch: Mock police car set alight on Tyrone bonfire to mark traditional Twelfth commemorations Tonight the record breaking pyre is due to be set alight in Larnes Craigyhill Estate. The 205ft pyre topped with an aircraft beacon has drummed up mixed opinions both on social media and internationally. Aiden Muir is accused of performing a sexual act in front of members of the public at Fountain Street in February. A man accused of masturbating in a busy Belfast street has been banned from the city centre. Aiden Muir is accused of performing a sexual act in front of members of the public at Fountain Street in February. Since his arrest, the 27-year-old, of no fixed abode, has been on remand in prison. However, he was released on bail this week but warned to stay out of the city centre. Belfast Magistrates Court heard that police received a report at 8.10am on February 15 claiming a man was performing a sexual act in the Fountain Street area. The area would have been busy at the time with people making their way to work. Witnesses who drove past him said they initially thought he was urinating. However, as they got closer they noticed... that he was masturbating, a PSNI constable said. There were members of the public walking past at the time and he didnt stop when the witnesses approached. The officer added: The witnesses returned around 10 minutes later, he was still masturbating in public and waved to them as they drove past. When he was interviewed, Muir denied masturbating and claimed he had been urinating. He said he was intoxicated at the time, having consumed alcohol and tablets, and claimed he was not aware of the people around him. At a hearing this week, police said they were still opposed to Muir being released on bail. The court was told that if convicted, Muir faces a sentence of a maximum of six months in prison. The judge highlighted he has already served four-and-a-half months in jail and has to get bail at this stage. Muir was released on bail to reside at an address approved by police and ordered not to enter the city centre. The case was adjourned for an update to July 16. Police are unable to confirm the origin of the threat, but it has been verified by sources to have come from the breakaway South East Antrim UDA. Nipsa said an interim agreement had been reached with the PSNI over the revised environmental allowance (PA) MEMBERS of the loyalist terror group South East Antrim UDA are believed to be behind a sinister threat to a Mediahuis journalist based in Belfast. Officers from the PSNI visited the reporter at their home in the early hours of Monday morning to inform them of the threat. Chillingly, the journalist was warned that criminal elements planned to kill" the reporter and "the use of guns" could not be ruled out. The threat message also stated the would-be killers are aware of the reporters home address. Police are unable to confirm the origin of the threat, but it has been verified by sources to have come from the breakaway South East Antrim UDA. Mediahuis Ireland CEO, Peter Vandermeersch condemned the latest in a long line of threats against journalists and described the campaign of intimidation as "a threat to democracy". "We will do all we can to support our journalists and expect the government to ensure all that can be done is done from its side," he said. Ian McGuinness, the Irish Organiser for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), delivered a report to the unions Executive Council on Thursday morning and expressed solidarity with the journalist under threat. Mr McGuinness said the death threat is part of a pattern of behaviour towards journalists in Northern Ireland, ranging from online abuse, physical threats and intimidation to death threats. By definition those who threaten journalists do so in the shadows and are difficult to identify. He said: Death threats against journalists - issued by shadowy elements of society because they dont like what those journalists are writing or broadcasting about them - is not normal. "It is the very definition of abnormal. We have noted noted a sharp increase in reported threats and know that many members do not even report threats to the PSNI or their employer. "We should never allow threats to become 'normal' and society should not become complacent. He said it has become a creeping phenomena and should not become an accepted norm. It is not normal that such death threats are made and our condemnations cannot become normal or ritualised. Behind each press statement there is a journalist who has been threatened with violence or murder, simply for pursuing stories in the public interest, a human being who has received a knock at the door from the PSNI, often late at night or early in the morning, telling them that their life is in danger! NUJ Assistant General Secretary Seamus Dooley, said such threats are an attempt to stifle investigative journalism. What the people behind this latest death threat want is to strangle investigative and public interest journalism at its source - the journalist who brings the news to the public. This latest threat, like all such threats, is also a threat to a free and independent media. It is designed to terrorise journalists from covering certain stories. Given that any healthy democracy depends on a free and independent media, it is also a threat to democracy in Northern Ireland and should be of deep concern to all citizens. When contacted a spokesperson for the PSNI said: Police do not comment on the security of individuals and no inference should be drawn from this. "However, if we receive information that a persons life may be at risk we will inform them accordingly. When an employee at the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York opened the bag they discovered Janet Balducci was still breathing and had a pulse An 82-year-old woman was stuffed in body bag for two hours even though she was still alive, her devastated family in New York have said. The family of Janet Balducci are now suing the nursing home where she was mistakenly pronounced dead for the unthinkable blunder, according to court papers. When an employee at the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York opened the bag they discovered the body was still breathing and had a pulse, Balducci family lawyer Peter DeNoto told The Post. The funeral home then called emergency services which brought Ms Balducci to a hospital where she survived for another day but ultimately passed, DeNoto said. Ms Balducci had been living independently at home until August 1, 2022 when an accident left her in hospital. The family of Janet Balducci are devastated She then became a resident at placed at Waters Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, Long Island where she was declared dead on February 4, 2022, according to a Suffolk County Supreme Court lawsuit. Balduccis sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are suing the nursing home and the funeral home for negligence and wrongful death. DeNoto said they are hoping the lawsuit will help them get some answers about how such an error occurred. DeNoto said are some of the questions the family is seeking answers to include: Did the nurse follow the criteria for determining whether somebody is dead and did a doctor confirm what the nurse found? There really is no excuse for putting a live person in a body bag and sending them to a facility for embalming, the lawyer added. Robert and Joseph Balducci, also brought claims of wrongful death against the home for failing to catch and treat their mothers deep vein thrombosis that ultimately killed her. DeNoto said the case highlights a wider issue where the elderly are often neglected at long-term care facilities, even when they have family who are highly involved with their care. There was nobody there advocating for her as an elderly person, the lawyer said, according to The New York Post. She was definitely at the end stages of her life, unfortunately. That happens to all of us. But here it seems that it was too easy to say she is not alive anymore lets send her to a facility. The facility prematurely declaring Balducci dead caused Robert and Joseph genuine mental and/or emotional distress, according to their suit from last month. Not only were the sons grappling with the guilt of their mother being placed in such a facility but they also have to live with knowing what happened to her in her final days, DeNoto said. It really is a sad case, DeNoto said. The end game is to send a message that you have to take your job seriously and you have to treat human beings with dignity and respect. DeNoto said another question hes hoping will be answered is whether Balduccis condition developed before or after she was placed in the body bag. The sons are suing the nursing home for unspecified damages for its extreme and outrageous conduct. On the day of Balduccis death, the case was referred to the New York State Attorney Generals Office and to the Suffolk County police. But DeNoto has filed two records requests with both agencies and the sons havent yet received any information about the status of those probes. We havent gotten any information as to what findings that have been made, DeNoto said, adding they can only assume the investigations are still ongoing. The nursing home and a lawyer for the funeral home didnt immediately return requests for comment from the Post on Thursday. Research on how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to detect hate speech on social media has landed a PhD student a prestigious international scholarship. University of Canterbury Linguistics PhD student Sidney Wong celebrated his scholarship award with his family at a Fulbright New Zealand ceremony in Wellington. Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) Linguistics PhD student Sidney Wong is one of 15 recipients of this years Fulbright New Zealand Graduate Awards. The Fulbright Science and Innovation Graduate award will see Wong travel to the United States in August to advance his research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Illinois. His project involves harnessing natural language processing - a branch of AI that enables computers to understand, generate, and manipulate human language to detect hate speech on social media. He also plans to investigate the suitability of current hate speech detection systems. His interest in this area was sparked by his role as a community advocate for diverse and marginalised groups. In both my roles as a researcher and as an advocate embedded as co-chair of the Otautahi-based Qtopia and chair of the Ethnic Rainbow Alliance, I see an urgent need to monitor the proliferation of hate speech, he says. With these insights, we can work together with communities, policy makers, and researchers to develop prevention strategies to ensure the safety of our communities. Sidney, who lives in Christchurch, was born in Lower Hutt and has Cantonese ancestry. When I reflect on my identity, it has undoubtedly been influenced by my experience of previously being in the closet as a person who is both an ethnic minority and part of the Rainbow community in Aotearoa, says Sidney. In the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks there has been an increased awareness of the role of digital communities in spreading misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech towards marginalised people, Sidney says. His research uses AI tools to investigate the formation of these digital groups on social media with a focus on hate speech. As a computational sociolinguist, I study the relationship between language and society. By determining how these digital communities develop, we can also pinpoint the motivators of hateful behaviour. Receiving the scholarship is a surreal opportunity to develop himself academically and professionally and showcase the incredible linguistics research happening in Aotearoa, he says. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is home to one of the largest Linguistic departments in the United States and Wong will be working alongside Associate Professor Dr Jonathan Dunn, an expert in computational linguistics and natural language processing who was previously a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at UC. While Sidney is the only current UC student to receive a Fulbright NZ Graduate Award this year, there are several UC graduates among the other recipients. Felicity Powell, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2016, will use her award to complete a Masters in Education at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Michelle Meaclem, who graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) from UC in 2017, will complete a Master in Public Policy at Harvard University in Boston. Meg Porteous (Ngati Maniapoto), who graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from UC in 2013 will undertake a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing at the University of California, Los Angeles. One of the Barbary macaques found locked up in a cage in Granada, Spain. Ideal Granada Friday, 12 July 2024, 09:57 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads Spain's Guardia Civil police force has seized two Gibraltar monkeys found locked up in a cage in the patio of a house in Granada. A 56-year-old man is being investigated for two wildlife and animal welfare offences. The police received a report that two Barbary macaques were being kept locked up in cages in the courtyard of a house in Granada. After receiving this complaint, the Seprona nature and environment protection unit of the Guardia Civil opened an investigation. Zoom A vetattends to the animals after their release. Ideal The Gibraltar monkey is protected under Appendix I of the CITES Convention (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) under the highest possible protection, and it is illegal to own them. Seprona are working with the Aap Primadomus foundation, dedicated to the protection and defence of animals and a rescue and rehabilitation centre for exotic mammals. Vets from the foundation accompanied officers to the house and found that, in addition to the offence against wildlife for the possession of prohibited animals, a continuous offence of animal abuse was being committed. The two monkeys - one male and one female - were separated and locked up in rusty cages with sharp protrusions. They were beinng kept in poor hygienic and sanitary conditions, without a continuous supply of water or shelter. They also showed signs of diseases resulting from years of poor nutrition, alopecia, tooth decay, missing teeth, polyuria and polydipsia associated with diabetes, cushing's and/or metabolic diseases. The animals had not been checked by a vet for more than fifteen years as they were being kept illegally. Monkeys can suffer from and transmit diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS or herpes virus to humans, so keeping such animals in captivity without the corresponding analytical tests certifying that they are free of these diseases is a risk to public health. The Guardia Civil has seized the animals, which are now in the care of Aap Primadomus. M. A. Alfonso Gibraltar Friday, 12 July 2024, 11:02 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads Fabian Picardo, Chief Minister of Gibraltar, celebrated the "historic" victory of Keir Starmer's UK Labour Party, calling it a "sister party" to his own. Picardo stated that what must come next is the continuation and acceleration of the negotiation process, to reach a "definitive treaty". He also confirmed that he was "sure" that there would be no change in positions, adding that his belief was that there would be no tax harmonisation between Gibraltar and Spain. This is the first time that Socialist parties have been in power simultaneously in Gibraltar, Spain and the UK; an "ideological solidarity" that "will no doubt help", said Picardo. Gibraltar was left out of the original Brexit talks between the EU and the UK pending a special deal because it has a land border with Spain and a free-flowing border is wanted by all sides. Buildings and urban spaces will be filled with light and colour this weekend. Javier Almellones Antequera Friday, 12 July 2024, 07:53 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads It has been eight years since Antequera received the news that its dolmens and El Torcal site had been added to the UN's World Heritage Sites list. To celebrate the occasion the town came up with a festival of lights event, known as the Antequera Light Fest (ALF), on the weekend closest to 15 July, the day that the news was confirmed. Since then, for two consecutive nights, historic sites form part of the light and music show, which captivates not only the people of Antequera but also the many visitors who come to see the event. This year the ALF is taking place on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 July with music being the central theme of the event. Paseo Real, Plaza de San Luis, the town hall patio, Plaza de San Sebastian, San Judas hill, the Almenillas viewpoint and Plaza de los Escribanos will all be lit up with colourful lights from 10.30pm on Friday to 1.30am on Saturday and from 10.30pm on Saturday to 2am on Sunday. There will be more than 20,000 candles on Plaza Coso Viejo and more than 10,000 glow-in-the-dark bracelets and 4,000 temporary tattoos will be distributed, which will help visitors to get actively involved in this night. Zoom This festival commemorates the declaration of World Heritage. Ayto. Antequera Organised by Antequera town hall, the festival not only celebrates a historic date, but also serves as a showcase for the town's famous summer evenings, the Luz de Luna cycle, a programme of cultural events that take place in the cooler evenings that runs until 1 September. As well as guided tours to the Dolmens and other monuments, this year there is alos the chance to try organic wines at a winery located at the foot of the Sierra del Torcal and a guided visit to La Estacion Roman villa, which opened earlier this year. Zoom Until 30 September, Antequera's nights will offer very special activities. J. A. There is also be an 'escape room', in which the objective will be to rescue the main characters of the Legend of the Lovers, Tello and Tagzona. Participants must find clues hidden in sculptures around the town, which will allow them to reach the dungeon where the lovers are imprisoned. There are excursions to see the Perseids on 11 August and the moon on 16 September, as well as horse-riding in the area around the Pena de los Enamorados, electric bus tours and the opportunity to learn about the legends of Antequera. Reservations are required for most of the events and most of them are free of charge. What to visit Dolmens. At one of the entrances to the town centre you can visit the Menga and Viera dolmens, as well as a visitor centre. This visit should be complemented with the El Romeral dolmen, which is a little further away from the town centre. As part of Luz de Luna there are various activities programmed. Where: Carretera de Malaga. Torcal de Antequera. One of the most spectacular geological complexes in Spain is an ideal place to visit at sunset every summer. Check the Luz de Luna programme for the guided tours schedule. Where: MA-9016 road. The Alcazaba and the Collegiate Church. One of the most important historical sites in Antequera is the Alcazaba and the Royal Collegiate Church of Santa Maria La Mayor, which is an unmissable visit on summer nights. Where: Plaza de los Escribanos. Villa de La Estacion. This archaeological site has been open to visitors for six months. During the Luz de Luna (Moonlight) cycle it will be open from 10pm. Where: At the junction of carretera de Cordoba (A-7281) and the northern ring road (A-7282). Where to eat Saborio del Hacebuche. In the heart of Antequera, on the corner opposite the town's museum. Try traditional porra (a cold soup similar to gazpacho), tuna, pork loin, octopus and salads. Where: Plaza del Coso Viejo, 1, Bajo B, 29200 Antequera. Telephone: 952 846 574. www.saboriodelhacebuche.com Bienmesabe Antequera. On summer nights this restaurant offers one of the best places to enjoy a pleasant dinner. There is no shortage of porra, but there are also other summer dishes such as Russian salad (with pickled tuna), sardine ceviche, mojama salad with lamb's lettuce and pineapple, tuna tataki or meatballs. Where: Plaza de los Escribanos, 11, 29200 Antequera. Telephone: 951 463 085. Where to stay Parador de Antequera. This four-star hotel has modern and welcoming facilities just a stone's throw from the historic centre of Antequera. It offers spacious and comfortable rooms, a kitchen and panoramic views of the town. Where: Paseo Garcia del Olmo, 2, 29200 Antequera. Telephone 952 840 261. The old town where there is believed to be buried treasure. Javier Almellones Friday, 12 July 2024, 10:59 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads Like many of its Axarquia neighbours, the village of Almachar is said to have hidden treasure. Local legend has it that somewhere underneath the streets there are hidden gems that Muslim settlers left there for safekeeping before fleeing after the Spanish Reconquista. The place where this hypothetical treasure was left is said to be in a cave near the river, somewhere under the existing village. But, like other such legends, the reality is that no such precious treasure has ever been found. Perhaps then this possible treasure is simply the jewels of the village that can still be seen today. Between the San Mateo church and the raisin museum there is a labyrinthine route that takes the visitor back in history to the period in which the legend was born. The route, which in places is narrow and steep, is inherited from its Al-Andalus past, but is kept alive thanks to the residents who fill its streets with colour with a wide variety of flowerpots. El Jardin del Forfe is well worth a visit, where there are benches to rest on that invite you to kiss. Zoom Cerro Patarra, situated among muscatel vines, offers a view that stretches as far as the sea. J. A. But beyond these and other stories, Almachar is particularly well known for its muscatel raisins, which is one of the few varieties in Europe to have been declared an Important System of World Agricultural Heritage by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The raisin is a fundamental part of the landscape of Almachar and the surrounding villages. An old house in Calle Martires has a collection of traditional tools and equipment used in the production of sultanas. The museum space is usually open at weekends, although it is advisable to call before visiting to find out exactly when it is open. For keen walkers there is a circular route that gives a wide perspective of both the village and the abundant vineyards that populate the surrounding hills. Zoom As summer approaches, the evenings are cool and offer a very different face. J. A. The route follows a path along which the wine presses and raisins can be seen and it reaches its highest point at a hill known as Cerro Patarra. Despite being just under 500 metres above sea level, the hill offers views that reach as far as the Mediterranean coast and a number of the area's inland villages and mountain ranges. But, undoubtedly, what is most striking about the Cerro Patarra is its location among Muscatel vines. Back in the village centre the square tower that forms part of San Mateo church is a perfect example of the Mudejar style architecture that emerged after the Reconquista and can still be seen in the Axarquia today. Calle Cornella de Llobregat offers a wonderful view of this hillside village and the cooler summer evenings are the best times to take in the panoramic views of this muscatel-scented part of Malaga province. Chus Heredia Malaga Friday, 12 July 2024, 20:33 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads The hot 'terral' wind has made an appearance in Malaga today, Friday 12 July. At around midday the thermometers began to hover at around 38C in many parts of the province. And it didn't take long for the highs to reach over 40 degrees. However, the good news is that Saturday will see a drop in temperatures, which will rise again on Sunday and, particularly, from the beginning of next week onwards. In the last 12 months, the maximum absolute temperature in the province was recorded at the weather station that Spain's state weather agency, Aemet, has at Malaga Airport. It was 44.2C on 19 July 2023. Today, Friday, the thermometer read 40.3 degrees at five o'clock in the afternoon. A record so far for 2024, but far from that figure. The terral wind was not blowing in Estepona, which is much more influenced by its proximity to the Strait of Gibraltar and its particular wind regime. But the day has been a hot one for the people of Estepona. Some 42.5C was recorded at four o'clock in the afternoon and, from then on, things started to drop very slightly. On Saturday, the area will record highs of 29C. And the following days will see 34, 36, 35, 29 and 30 degrees. Zoom A woman takes shelter from the summer heat with a parasol. Migue Fernandez In nearby Benahavis, the thermometers have reached 40.8C, while in Torremolinos, at the other end of the western strip of the Costa del Sol, the mercury stopped climbing at 38.5 degrees. Malaga city Malaga city, which, like the western Costa del Sol, Guadalhorce valley and Axarquia was on amber alert from one o'clock in the afternoon until nine o'clock at night, experienced an unbreathable atmosphere that was somewhat more bearable near the coast. It reached 41C in El Consul at three o'clock in the afternoon, in addition to the aforementioned temperature recorded the airport. For this Saturday, there will be highs of 27C in the city; on Sunday it will be 30 degrees; on Monday it rises to 35C, and on Tuesday it drops to 32. Zoom The thermometers in Malaga city were reading 36 degrees at 11 o'clock on Friday. Migue Fernandez The heat has also taken its toll in the Axarquia, although from Algarrobo and towards Nerja the temperatures have been milder. The maximum in Nerja was 33.7C at five o'clock in the afternoon. In Velez-Malaga, on the other hand, at around one o'clock it was close to 41C. In Rincon de la Victoria, at lunchtime, it reached 40.2 and then began to drop somewhat. In the Axarquia the temperatures will also be more bearable over the next few days. For example, in Velez-Malaga it will be 31, 32, 36, 33 and 31. degrees The Guadalhorce valley has also suffered from the blast of warm air and Alora registered 40.3C in the afternoon. For the next few days, there will be some respite but with a less marked drop than in Malaga city: 33C on Saturday; 37 on Sunday and Monday; 39 on Tuesday and 32 degrees on Wednesday. Inland The inland areas of Malaga province, unusually not covered by the amber heat alerts, has had a somewhat more bearable day, even better than previous days, with highs of 36C in Fuente de Piedra and 35 degrees in Ronda, which will have maximum temperatures between 32 and 35C in the coming days and will register a sharp rise at the end of next week. In the Antequera region, continuing with Fuente de Piedra, there will be highs of around 34C most days and a warming up from Thursday onwards. Francisco Grinan Malaga Friday, 12 July 2024, 12:24 | Updated 14:33h. Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X (antes Twitter) LinkedIn Telegram Threads Just leaning in a little too close to a painting to see its details will most likely lead to getting scolded by museum security. A warning for trespassing across a carefully guarded, invisible border. Although most of the time it goes by unnoticed, the security department is one of the most critical in the museum world. It always has to be aware of potential robberies, altercations, terrorist attacks and fires. However, the most worrying threat for security services are attacks by climate change activists on artwork - a phenomenon that has gained traction worldwide in the last couple of years. The museums in Malaga are all too aware of this, and have stepped up their security protocols to prevent such occurrences. So, how much does it cost to protect a Picasso, a Sorolla or a Barcelo? And how can these threats be prevented? El coste anual en seguridad por museo en 2024 Museo Ruso Museo Picasso 616.527 1.014.548 Centro M. Carmen Thyssen Pompidou 414.368 612.830 Casa Natal Museo de de Picasso Malaga 277.368 281.869 En total, 3.217.510 al ano El coste anual en seguridad por museo en 2024 Museo Picasso Museo Ruso 616.527 1.014.548 M. Carmen Thyssen Centro 414.368 Pompidou 612.830 Casa Natal Museo de Malaga de Picasso 277.368 281.869 En total, 3.217.510 al ano El coste anual en seguridad por museo en 2024 Museo Picasso Museo Ruso 616.527 1.014.548 M. Carmen Thyssen Centro 414.368 Pompidou 612.830 Casa Natal Museo de Malaga de Picasso 277.368 281.869 En total, 3.217.510 al ano El coste anual en seguridad por museo en 2024 Museo Ruso Museo Picasso 616.527 1.014.548 Centro M. Carmen Thyssen Pompidou 414.368 612.830 Casa Natal Museo de de Picasso Malaga 277.368 281.869 En total, 3.217.510 al ano The answer lies with the museums of Malaga, which do not skimp on guaranteeing the protection of their collections. In fact, the surveillance and protection expenditure at the city's major museums amounts to just over 3.2 million euros a year. This includes a total of over 70 agents and guards. Unsurprisingly, it is the museum with the most visitors, and the most highly valued collection, which invests the most in security. And that, of course, is the Museo Picasso. The value of the 385 pieces housed in the Museo Picasso on Calle San Agustin is immense - just one of the Malaga-born artist's works sold for 179 million dollars at auction. The foundation therefore spends over a million euros every year on security. This means that roughly one out of every three euros spent on museum security in Malaga goes towards protecting Picasso's works. And while the Museo Picasso, which is the most visited in Andalucia, with 779,279 yearly visitors, prefers not to disclose these figures for 'security' reasons, the fact is that this data is public and readily available on their very own website. The next biggest spenders are the Museo Ruso in Tabacalera and the Centre Pompidou in Muelle Uno, which invest 616,527 and 612,830 euros respectively into the protection of their collections each year. This is followed by the 414,368 euros allocated by the Museo Carmen Thyssen to preserve its collection of 19th- and 20th-century Spanish paintings in the Palacio de Villalon. Zoom Picasso's work needs the most security efforts for its protection. SUR As for the Museo de Malaga, its latest surveillance and security contract amounts to 281,869 euros, while the Casa Natal closes the list at 277,368 euros. The city's six main museums therefore have a monthly security expenditure which exceeds a quarter of a million euros. This is not including the CAC Malaga, which has refused to provide its data. The all-seeing eye Beyond the money, what is most important is how paintings and sculptures are protected in practice. And the most crucial elements of any security service are "the people behind it". Jose Maria Requena, the head of security at the Museo Carmen Thyssen, has a staff base of 13 agents, provided by security company Menkeeper, who monitor everything from the main entrance to the control centre, guarding the Palacio de Villalon's most secret rooms. These have been exclusively opened for the first time for this SUR report. A double-lock door system - the same used in banks - already signals that we are entering a restricted space. We are greeted with a bright red alarm light, just like in the movies. The control room is operated 24 hours a day. From here, every last corner of the art gallery can be watched: 128 cameras show the rooms and artwork, but also corridors, lifts, storerooms, courtyards and doors. Nothing escapes these all-seeing eyes - nor those of the watchman who controls the monitors. Zoom The control centre of the Museo Carmen Thyssen where they can see into every corner. Salvador Salas Technology is also fundamental to defence and protection. Unlike the static surveillance cameras that are used in the street, the museum has 360-degree Domo cameras. The lenses are covered to prevent people from knowing where they are pointing. This "not only has a dissuasive effect, but also helps visitors not to feel as though they are being watched". While the operator brings up the image he wants to enlarge from the hundred-odd camera displays on the monitors, Requena explains how security is coordinated from this very control centre. This is where all the data comes together, including the information from the building's sensors, which can detect anything from temperature changes to vibrations, and warn of potential break-ins. However, museum heists like those from the movies are not the museum security department's main concern. "In real life, it is virtually impossible to steal a painting because, in addition to surveillance, smaller works have security hooks that prevent them from being taken down. What worries us most at the moment is the vandalism of art to attract attention," says the head of security at the Carmen Thyssen. He continues our tour through the depths of the museum until we reach the rooms where, alongside works by Dario de Regoyos, Romero de Torres and Zuloaga, those discreet Domo cameras that watch us, even if we don't know it, are hung in every corner. Zoom The Museo Carmen Thyssen has 13 guards, one of whom is armed. Salvador Salas "We are not an airport" The museum has maximum security, but it still has its limits. The scanner at the entrance checks the inside of all bags entering the museum, and the works on display are permanently under surveillance. "But we are not an airport and we don't frisk visitors," explains Jose Maria Requena when asked about cases of activists pouring paint over jewellery or glueing their hands to frames. "Their intention is not usually to damage the work but to attract attention, but the speed and nerve of their actions greatly increases the risk that they will eventually end up causing damage," says Requena, knocking on wood. He also makes clear that the museum's surveillance systems should not interfere too much with the visitor experience. "Our job is to protect the collection, but also our visitors, who must have a sense of security without feeling their privacy is invaded, which is the most complicated thing." Requena has been in charge of security at the Palacio de Villalon since its opening in 2011, during which time more than two million visitors have passed through its rooms - and its security cameras. Zoom Surveillance to protect museums' collections is permanent. Migue Fernandez Weapons are also used to protect the museum, although only the guard at the main entrance holds one. This is intended to act as a "deterrent", like the cameras in every corner. These more traditional security precautions are joined today by newer technology, such as face detection systems. However, the latest security advances in Artificial Intelligence are far from matching human intelligence. "No matter how many cameras and tracking systems you have, technology will never be able to outperform human analysis of the situation or the guards' expertise," says Requena, just as his colleagues call him over via walkie-talkie. It is as if they had been listening in and wanted to make it clear that the human element of security really is the most important. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield announed it has named Dr. Louis Bonavita Jr. to its Central New York Regional Advisory Board. >> Send us your companys news about People in Motion Dr. Bonavita attended the SUNY Upstate School of Medicine in Syracuse, graduating cum laude in 1988. He received the Bruce Farrell Memorial Award for Medical Excellence and was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. He completed his residency in family medicine at St. Vincent Health Center in Erie, Pa., in 1991. He was elected chief resident and received the Society of Family Medicine Teaching Award. Erie Materials, a regional distributor of building materials in New York and Pennsylvania, announced four recent staff changes. Reagan Emerson has rejoined the inside sales staff at the Auburn branch. She joined the company in 2018 through the summer associates program, supporting warehouse and delivery operations and became a full-time inside sales rep in 2019 after graduating from the University of Findlay. >> Send us your companys news about People in Motion Otisco, NY - Mary Wallace attends as many music festivals as she can around the country. She typically hangs a hammock between trees for sleeping at overnight festivals. She knows more than many about picking sturdy trees. Shes a forest entomologist, a person who studies the insects who live in, and sometimes weaken, woodlands. Partnering for Success Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) and Teagasc are delighted to announce a new partnership to further enhance support for seafood companies, particularly in the area of food innovation and the bio-economy. This collaboration will enable greater co-operation across technical and product innovation, new product development and technical insights in relation to common themes of mutual interest for seafood companies including high value by-products, digitalisation and increased shelf life. Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) and Teagasc have agreed a new partnership to further enhance support for seafood companies, particularly in the area of food innovation and the bio-economy. Pictured signing the MOU are Caroline Bocquel CEO of BIM and Professor Frank OMara, Director of Teagasc. This collaboration will further underpin and strengthen cooperation across the two state agencies in relation to seafood product development and innovation." The value of the Irish seafood economy is 1.21 billion in GDP with exports valued at 635 million in 2023. The sector directly and indirectly employed 15,673 people in 2023, with 1,988 registered vessels, over 100 seafood processors and just under 300 aquaculture sites. BIM helps to develop the Irish Seafood Industry by providing technical expertise, business support, funding, training and promoting responsible environmental practice. Teagasc has a long track record of supporting food innovation and new product development, particularly the specialist know-how, facilities and services available at Ashtown Food Research Centre and through the National Prepared Consumer Food Centre at Ashtown. This new collaboration will assist the seafood sector in meeting market demand for innovative, value-added products, produced to the highest international standards of food safety and quality. It will serve to strengthen the ability of the Irish seafood sector to scale and will provide the industry with a specialist market-focused source of seafood innovation aimed at achieving commercial success. In addition to the 1-1 company support, other opportunities of mutual benefit are envisaged to enhance seafood product development and sustainability. In welcoming the new partnership, Caroline Bocquel CEO of BIM said; As two agencies committed to boosting innovation, this agreement marks an important milestone for BIM and Teagasc as we commit to working more closely together. Working collaboratively as a partner with industry and other stakeholders is the cornerstone of our strategy. We are supporting the seafood industry to innovate and grow its overall value, with a clear focus on sustainability. This MOU recognises the shared ambition we have in advancing innovation across the Irish seafood industry. By leveraging each others strengths we can realise the potential of the industry to achieve greater levels of innovation. Professor Frank OMara, Director of Teagasc said; This collaboration will further underpin and strengthen cooperation across the two state agencies in relation to seafood product development and innovation. We are delighted that the knowledge and expertise of our researchers coupled with access to world leading specialist facilities will assist the seafood sector in sustainability and new product innovation. anjan_c2007 Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: India Posts: 8,499 Thanked: 21,702 Times View My Garage Pune IAS probationer uses beacon on private Audi. EDIT: UPSC cancels IAS candidature The controversy involving Dr Khedkar escalated due to reports of her seeking special privileges not typically given to probationary officers. These privileges included using her private Audi car equipped with a red-blue beacon light and a VIP number plate, actions which sparked administrative unrest and public criticism. The father-daughter duo proposed to use a VIP hall located next to the mining department as her cabin. Puja Khedkar was told she was not entitled to these facilities while she was on her probation period The District Collector of Pune in his report said that it would not be appropriate to continue Khedkar's training in Pune and mentioned this could lead to administrative issues. The probationer made some outlandish demands even before taking charge as the Assistant Collector of Pune. The probationary IAS officer demanded a separate office, car, and a house for herself even before taking charge. The District Collector flagged these unusual demands to the Chief Secretary. A video on YouTube:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPCy1ACWxjc RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar raised concerns about Dr Khedkar's eligibility for the IAS. He questioned how her family's financial status, including her father's assets valued at Rs 40 crore, fit within the non-creamy layer criteria. She had claimed privileges under the non creamy OBC layer and a special disability. Whereas, her father was a candidate for a recent election. He had filed an affidavit stating that his annual income was much, much higher than the below Rs 8 L threshold for the non- creamy OBC layer. Critics have also noted alleged attempts by Dr Khedkar's retired administrative officer father to influence local officials to meet his daughter's demands, adding another layer to the controversy. She has been transferred to Washim in Eastern Maharashtra in the same capacity. The newslinks:- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../111632685.cms https://www.businesstoday.in/india/s...691-2024-07-11 Dr Pooja Khedkar, a probationary IAS officer and Assistant Collector, Pune, of the 2023 batch was posted in Pune. Her personal Audi had a red-blue beacon light atop its hood with a VIP number also garishly painting "Maharashtra Shashan" in red on its bodyline. To add more to the controversy, she unauthorisedly occupied the chamber of the Additional Collector, Pune.The controversy involving Dr Khedkar escalated due to reports of her seeking special privileges not typically given to probationary officers. These privileges included using her private Audi car equipped with a red-blue beacon light and a VIP number plate, actions which sparked administrative unrest and public criticism. The father-daughter duo proposed to use a VIP hall located next to the mining department as her cabin. Puja Khedkar was told she was not entitled to these facilities while she was on her probation periodThe District Collector of Pune in his report said that it would not be appropriate to continue Khedkar's training in Pune and mentioned this could lead to administrative issues. The probationer made some outlandish demands even before taking charge as the Assistant Collector of Pune. The probationary IAS officer demanded a separate office, car, and a house for herself even before taking charge. The District Collector flagged these unusual demands to the Chief Secretary.A video on YouTube:-RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar raised concerns about Dr Khedkar's eligibility for the IAS. He questioned how her family's financial status, including her father's assets valued at Rs 40 crore, fit within the non-creamy layer criteria. She had claimed privileges under the non creamy OBC layer and a special disability. Whereas, her father was a candidate for a recent election. He had filed an affidavit stating that his annual income was much, much higher than the below Rs 8 L threshold for the non- creamy OBC layer. Critics have also noted alleged attempts by Dr Khedkar's retired administrative officer father to influence local officials to meet his daughter's demands, adding another layer to the controversy.She has been transferred to Washim in Eastern Maharashtra in the same capacity.The newslinks:- Last edited by Rehaan : 12th July 2024 at 09:04 . Reason: Adding direct youtube link so it embeds :) PSA: Users of the Linksys Velop Pro 6E and 7 mesh routers should change their passwords and Wi-Fi network names through an external web browser. The two models transmit critical information to outside servers in an insecure manner upon initial installation. New patches have emerged since the issue was discovered, but Linksys hasn't publicly responded to the matter, and it is unclear if the latest firmware leaves sensitive data exposed to interception. Two Linksys mesh routers send sensitive information to an Amazon server without any encryption, according to Belgian consumer organization Testaankoop. The practice could leave passwords, wireless network IDs, and other information open to Man-in-the-Middle attacks. Upon testing the company's Velop Pro WiFi 6E and 7 routers, Testaankoop found that, during initial setup, they transmit the user's SSID and password in cleartext to a server in the US. User session access tokens and database identification tokens also appeared in the data packets. Attackers could intercept, read, and change this information without the user or Amazon server knowing. Owners of either of the two models should change their SSID and password using a browser on a PC or mobile device and not on the accompanying app to prevent the changes from being sent unencrypted. Visit the Linksys support site for directions. Users should also always keep their router firmware up-to-date. The company's website hosts manual downloads for the affected devices under SKU labels MX6200 for the Wi-Fi 6E router and MBE7000 for the Wi-Fi 7 variant. However, whether the latest patches address the issue remains unclear. Testaankoop discovered the problem on firmware version 1.0.8 MX6200_1.0.8.215731 for the Wi-Fi 6E version and 1.0.10.215314 for the Wi-Fi 7 device. As of writing, each product has received one firmware update since, but the brief patch notes don't mention bug fixes or security improvements. Owners should regularly check the support site for updates. More concerning is that Linksys hasn't publicly acknowledged the issue. Testaankoop reported the vulnerability to the company in Belgium and the UK last November with no response. The firmware released after the initial discovery hadn't fixed the problem, and Linksys hasn't contacted Testaankoop since its latest report. The organization speculates that pre-installed third-party software could be the culprit, but only Linksys could confirm this. The big picture: It would be hard, if not impossible, for AMD to dislodge Nvidia from its dominant position in the AI chip market. However, AMD can position itself as a strong alternative by building out its AI services and ecosystem. This is the goal behind AMD's $665 million acquisition of Silo AI, which has deep expertise in large language models. AMD has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Silo AI, the largest private AI lab in Europe, for $665 million in cash. The acquisition, expected to close in the second half of 2024, is part of AMD's quest to build out its AI services to better compete with market leader Nvidia. The Finnish startup could be a potent tool for AMD, as it has experience in scaling large language models on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, LUMI, which uses AMD hardware. "Silo AI's team of trusted AI experts and proven experience developing leadership AI models and solutions, including state-of-the-art LLMs built on AMD platforms, will further accelerate our AI strategy and advance the build-out and rapid implementation of AI solutions for our global customers," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD. Silo AI has been a pioneer in scaling large language model training on LUMI, Europe's fastest supercomputer powered by over 12,000 AMD Instinct MI250X GPUs, according to Dr. Pekka Manninen, sirector of science and technology at CSC-IT Center for Science, Finland. "Together with university collaborators, they have trained state-of-the-art open-source models for EU languages, such as the Nordic Poro and Viking models." Silo AI brings over 300 AI experts to AMD, including more than 125 AI scientists with doctorate degrees an influx of talent that will significantly boost AMD's AI development capabilities. Silo AI's experience in building AI on AMD platforms will also strengthen the chipmaker's software development efforts, potentially improving the ecosystem around AMD's AI chips to better compete with Nvidia's dominant CUDA network. These efforts have gained some traction already, with AMD's open-source ROCm tools having generated a modest following alongside the introduction of new hardware such as its Instinct MI300 series datacenter GPUs. AMD has made other investments in its ecosystem capabilities in the past year, acquiring companies like Mipsology and Nod.ai. For example, Mipsology's team is helping AMD compete more effectively in the AI inference market, a key battleground against Nvidia. All told, AMD has invested over $125 million across a dozen AI companies in the last 12 months. However, many of those deals were small, tactical acquisitions, dwarfed by the sum AMD is spending on Silo. In fact, the acquisition is the largest of a privately held AI startup in Europe since Google acquired UK-based DeepMind in 2014. While the acquisition is a significant step for AMD, it cannot be ignored that Nvidia holds a dominant market share in the AI chip market. Aware of this, AMD's strategy is to position itself as a viable alternative to Nvidia, targeting businesses that do not want to rely on a single vendor. What just happened? Germany has decided to kick Huawei and ZTE to the curb when it comes to its 5G networks. The country's government announced an agreement with the major telecom players Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, and Telefonica to ditch components from the Chinese tech giants over cybersecurity worries. The phase-out will happen in two stages. First, by the end of 2026, any Huawei or ZTE gear in the core 5G networks, which act as the control centers connected to the internet, has to go. Then, by 2029, even the radios, antennas, and other hardware on the edge of the networks made by the Chinese firms will be removed. Germany's interior minister Nancy Faeser said the move is all about "protecting the central nervous systems of Germany as a business location" and safeguarding communications for citizens, companies, and the government. Her statement cited the need to reduce the "dangers of sabotage and espionage" and avoid one-sided dependencies on any single supplier. The writing has been on the wall for Huawei in Germany for a while now. Berlin has been indecisive over what to do about the Chinese 5G equipment for years, under pressure from allies like the US and UK who view Huawei as a potential cybersecurity threat. Those nations have already blocked Huawei from their 5G rollouts over fears of Chinese espionage. For its part, Huawei has long denied any risks and pushed back against the accusations. But the US has been tightening trade restrictions, making it harder for Huawei to source chips and other components. Europe, together with the Middle East and Africa, account for 21% of Huawei's revenue, so this ban will sting. Unsurprisingly, Beijing is crying foul over the move. The Chinese embassy in Germany warned it will take "necessary measures" to protect its companies' interests and slammed the decision as damaging "mutual trust" that will impact future China-Europe cooperation in tech. The Huawei phase-out adds to the growing tensions between Germany and China on economic issues. Just last week, Berlin blocked the sale of a Volkswagen subsidiary to a Chinese state-owned firm on national security grounds. Meanwhile, the EU is considering heavy tariffs to crack down on cheap Chinese EVs. With China being Germany's biggest trade partner, this move could trigger some strong economic repercussions. Telecom operators will face added costs ripping out any existing Huawei gear too. But for the German government, the "cybersecurity" implications seem to outweigh any business concerns. Forward-looking: Dune's iconic stillsuits have served as the inspiration for a new prototype spacesuit that can convert astronauts' urine into drinkable water. Such a device would be a huge improvement over the current way that astronauts relieve themselves: into what are essentially multilayered adult diapers. In the original Dune book, full-body stillsuits consisted of layers that absorbed body moisture from sweating and urination. This was then filtered so users could drink the reclaimed water from a tube attached to the neck. A facial mask could also be worn so that moisture from the mouth and face could be reclaimed. Cornell University researchers believed that the urine filtration/drinking system used by the stillsuits would be of enormous benefit to astronauts, who currently use a maximum absorbency garment for answering the call of nature. Essentially, this is an uncomfortable diaper prone to leaking and causing urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal irritation. "As an incoming Freshman at Cornell University in the spring of 2022, I sat down one night to read Dune. The next morning, after eight hours of continuous reading, I was obsessed, particularly with the idea of a stillsuit," Sofia Etlin, a research staff member at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University, and the study's first author, told Interesting Engineering. Etlin said a Cornell-based start-up called Fremen Space, Inc. was founded a few months later to turn the idea into a reality. "The design includes a vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit, providing a continuous supply of potable water with multiple safety mechanisms to ensure astronaut well-being," Etlin explained. The current way astronauts take in fluids while on spacewalks is via an in-suit drinking bag (IDB), but it carries less than a liter of water, which isn't very much when you consider these walks can last 10 hours, or even 24 hours in emergencies, and often require a lot of strenuous exertion. The design's urine collection device is an undergarment (below) made of flexible fabric with a gender-specific, molded silicon collection cup (above) that fits around the astronaut's genitals. A moisture-activated vacuum pump activates as soon as the wearer starts to urinate. Collected urine is routed into a filtration system that first removes salty water before using a pump to take the salt out from that water. The filtered water is then enriched with electrolytes and sent into the IDB. Unlike Dune's stillsuits, which are powered by movement, the astronauts will have to carry a 20.5-volt battery needed to power the system's pumps, sensors, display screen, and other components. The entire unit weighs about 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) and is able to purify half a liter of water in five minutes. The first prototype of the suit is designed to filter urine only, but sweat filtration could be incorporated into future iterations. The Cornell team is planning to recruit 100 volunteers in New York this fall to test the system for comfort and functionality. In May, a YouTube channel recreated the stillsuit, though it only filtered sweat. In brief: South Korea is set to become the first country to deploy and operate anti-aircraft laser weapons, which it will use to shoot drones from North Korea out of the sky. In what seems like a fitting name, the program is called the "Star Wars project." Announced by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), the laser weapons were developed by the South Korean military with Hanwha Aerospace Co. DAPA explained that the laser anti-aircraft weapon destroys targets by directly irradiating them with a laser light source generated from an optical fiber. It can strike small unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones, and multi-copters at close range. The beams of light, which last 10 to 20 seconds, can burn out engines, circuit boards, or other electrical equipment in drones. The agency said the lasers are invisible, silent, and require no ammunition. All they need is electricity to operate. They're also cheap to use, costing 2,000 won (about $1.50) per shot. While not a laser weapon, the US Navy's abandoned rail gun project was estimated to cost around $25,000 per round. An agency official noted that countries such as the US and Israel are ahead of South Korea when it comes to developing laser weapons, but their focus has been on high-powered beams designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. South Korea aims to eventually develop similar laser weapons of its own. Five North Korean drones crossed into South Korea in December 2022, leading to fighter jets and attack helicopters scrambling to shoot them down. The laser weapon is still in the prototype stage, but DAPA says it has signed an agreement with Hanwha Aerospace Co. that will see the system put into mass production. Lee Sang-yoon, a DAPA official, told AFP news that Block-I, the first laser system, will be put into operational deployment by the military this year, though some experts believe it could take as long as five years before the lasers will be on the frontlines shooting down drones. In this exclusive TechTimes Review, we will feature Paytiko, one of the leading payment technology software companies in the field. Headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, the company was founded in 2020 with a focus on creating new and convenient ways for all kinds of businesses to take payments. As an all-in-one payment management solution, it is evident that businesses all over the world trust Paytiko. This is reflected in Paytiko's mission to help businesses by offering safe, easy, and customer-friendly payment options. The software's primary goal is to make it easy for everyone to make financial transactions, no matter where they are or how much money they have. The brand's promise is to continually look for new ways to improve and use the latest technology to elevate the payment experience for all its users. Although recently founded, Paytiko has already made its mark in the industry. The company recently garnered significant awards because of its innovative approach and excellence in payment management. It was honored by Global Banking and Finance Magazine as the "Best New Payment Management Software for Businesses 2024". Additionally, Paytiko was recognized by International Business Magazine for providing the "Most Advanced Payment Orchestration in Europe 2024", a testament to its cutting-edge solutions and impact on business operations worldwide. The Future of Accessible Payments: Paytiko Payment Platform Basically, Paytiko's payment platform is a user-friendly solution that makes it easy for businesses to accept payments online, in-store, and through mobile devices. It is designed to work smoothly with existing business systems, which means that there is only minimal disruption when users opt to utilize it for their finances. Paytiko even supports different currencies and payment methods for businesses to serve customers worldwide. Paytiko's Dashboard offers a clear summary of all transactions, allowing users to monitor payments in real time. Merchants can easily use the platform to complete transactions quickly and provide customized checkout experiences for their end-users. Paytiko also provides helpful documentation and customer support to ensure that users can make the most of the platform. If you're wondering whether Paytiko can protect your financial details from phishing, you don't have to worry- security is a big focus for Paytiko. The platform uses advanced encryption to keep sensitive information safe and ensure that your online or in-person transactions are secure. It follows global security standards, including PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and GDPR, to provide a safe environment for all transactions and regularly updates its security measures to avoid potential threats. What Makes Paytiko Different? Innovative Integration and Payment Solutions Paytiko makes it easy for businesses to offer various payment methods to their customers. With just one click, businesses can access over 450+ payment options from all around the world. This means customers can pay in the way that suits them best, hassle-free. Businesses can also choose the best payment gateway for them, ensuring smooth transactions and cost-effectiveness. Clear guides, single API integration, and support make connecting to their systems simple. A new feature of Paytiko's technology is their "Pay by Link" option, which lets businesses securely send payment links to customers through email, text, or other messaging platforms. This is perfect for remote or online payments, as it allows customers to pay without needing to go through a traditional payment gateway. Paytiko also supports mobile payments, including mobile wallets, NFC payments, and QR code transactions. This makes it easy for businesses to accept payments from customers using their mobile devices, keeping up with the latest trends in digital commerce. Global and Multi-Currency Support Paytiko supports transactions in multiple currencies, allowing businesses to expand their reach and cater to international customers. This feature is particularly beneficial for e-commerce platforms and global enterprises that deal with customers from different regions. By offering multi-currency support, Paytiko helps businesses enhance customer satisfaction and increase conversion rates. Security and Risk Management Tools To ensure your payments are safe, Paytiko uses strong tools to manage risks. These tools help detect and prevent fraud by monitoring transactions in real time and using advanced technology to keep sensitive information secure. By doing this, Paytiko creates a safe environment for businesses and customers to make payments without worrying about fraud. If any suspicious activity is detected, Paytiko's system sends alerts and takes action to reduce the risk. Businesses can also conveniently see why a particular transaction was declined or failed, along with corresponding decline codes, allowing for easier management and rectification. This way, businesses can feel confident that their payment process is secure. Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics Paytiko's platform includes advanced analytics and reporting tools that provide valuable insights into payment activity. It includes real-time reporting and an advanced dashboard, providing businesses with detailed insights into their payment activities. With this feature, businesses can generate detailed reports on transaction volumes, revenue, customer behavior, and more. These insights help businesses make informed decisions, optimize their payment processes, and identify opportunities for growth. More than the basic reporting and analytics, Paytiko also simplifies financial tracking and reconciliation by providing monthly reconciliation reports generated by Payment Service Providers (PSP). Additionally, Paytiko allows businesses to upload external data sheets to compare their in-system data. These reports offer a clear overview of all transactions, fees, and settlements, making it easier for businesses to manage their finances and maintain accurate records. Is Paytiko the Right Payment Management Software for You? Choosing a payment processing platform is critical for any business, as it can significantly impact customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and overall financial health. Paytiko is top-notch, comprehensive, and versatile payment management software that can meet diverse business needs. With its user-friendly interface, robust security measures, and extensive feature set, Paytiko allows users to simplify payment processes, improve customer satisfaction, and drive growth. So, if you're wondering whether to use Paytiko, the simple answer is yes. Toyota has announced its participation in Ionna, a collaborative effort with seven other automakers to assist in establishing a new electric vehicle (EV) charging network throughout North America. This investment will enable Toyota and Lexus customers to utilize Ionna's upcoming network of DC fast chargers, which are scheduled to be rolled out later this year. Toyota Announces Investment in Ionna Toyota has partnered with seven other automotive manufacturers to invest in Ionna, supporting the development of its advanced charging infrastructure for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across North America. This collaboration will grant Toyota and Lexus drivers access to Ionna's expanding public network of DC fast chargers. Ionna aims to launch a minimum of 30,000 charging ports across North America by 2030, incorporating both NACS and CCS connectors to accommodate all types of BEVs. Ted Ogawa, President and CEO of Toyota Motor North America, supported the collaboration, highlighting the importance of advancing BEV adoption and bolstering customer confidence in the technology. He emphasized that Toyota and Lexus customers will benefit from enhanced access to Ionna's growing charging infrastructure in the region. The initial rollout of DC fast charging stations is scheduled for 2024, with further expansion planned throughout the decade. Seth Cutler, CEO of Ionna, welcomed Toyota's participation, stating that the collaboration reflects a shared vision for the future of electric mobility in North America. He emphasized their mutual commitment to upholding high standards of quality, reliability, and customer experience. Cutler characterized this partnership as a significant step forward in their joint mission to revolutionize EV charging and promote sustainable transportation across the continent. Toyota Joins Other Leading Manufacturers For Toyota, supporting Ionna represents a strategic move to contribute to the nationwide expansion of public charging infrastructure, which involves a collaborative effort among eight OEMs. Toyota joins other leading manufacturers such as BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis to support this initiative. Toyota currently provides two mainstream BEVs in the US and Canada: the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ. The company recently unveiled plans to introduce two new three-row BEV SUV models manufactured at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana (TMMI). Toyota plans to increase its global lineup of BEVs to include 30 models across the Toyota and Lexus brands by 2030, with a target annual production capacity of up to 3.5 million BEVs. Woven City of Toyota In related news, Toyota's "Woven City," an innovative "smart city" initiative located near Mount Fuji, Japan, is preparing to welcome its inaugural residents. This urban environment is a "living laboratory" where researchers can experiment with and enhance emerging technologies such as hydrogen power, autonomous vehicles, AI, and robotics. Read more about this story here. Tesla Inc. is delaying the launch of its robotaxi until October to construct more car prototypes, per reports. Tesla's market value rose over $257 billion after CEO Elon Musk announced the date for August 8. Anticipation led to an 11-day string of increases. However, the EV maker's shares fell more than 8% Thursday after Bloomberg News revealed Tesla's robotaxi delay. Tesla acknowledged the delay internally but not publicly. It has been developing an autonomous taxi service since Musk's second "master plan" for the firm eight years ago. Musk recently prioritized this project over a cheaper electric vehicle than the Model 3 sedan. Musk has pushed Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) offering for over a decade, charging thousands of dollars. While FSD claims to make Teslas driverless, it still requires driver oversight. As Tesla's vehicle sales have slowed, Musk and his senior engineers are more enthusiastic about FSD. Elon Musk has long seen Tesla owners earning money by sending their autonomous vehicles to pick up and drop off people. His company is previewing a ride-hailing feature in its app. Tesla's Mounting Challenges Few of Musk's completely autonomous vehicle promises have come true. Tesla's Autopilot and FSD technologies need drivers to stay alert and ready to take control. In comparison, Waymo operates completely autonomous robotaxis in various US cities, per The Verge. In its earnings report, Tesla referred to the impending robotaxi as "purpose-built," a term in the autonomous vehicle industry for vehicles constructed from the bottom up to be self-driving and without steering wheels and pedals. Musk laid off more than 10% of Tesla's worldwide personnel weeks after the robotaxi event and underlined the company's autonomous focus, per TechCrunch. Tesla's better-than-expected delivery report this week disappointed price-fall speculators. The company's shares rose 17% on the two trading days after the second-quarter release, costing short sellers $3.5 billion, according to S3 Partners. From April's yearly low, Tesla shares rose 73%. The stock is nearly erasing its year-long losses after closing at $246.39 on Wednesday. CNBC reports 3.5% of Tesla's float, or 97 million shares, is short, valued at $22.4 billion. Tesla Rival Threatens to Overtake It as Top EV Maker Soon Later this month, Tesla's earnings report will disclose its health. After plummeting 9% in the first quarter, analysts expect revenues to decline 2.9% to $24.2 billion, as previously reported by TechTimes. Tesla finance promotions increased volume growth but dragged demand forward, making it hard to generate new demand in the third quarter and beyond, according to Guggenheim Partners analyst Ronald Jewsikow. A recent Counterpoint Research study forecasts that BYD will outsell Tesla in battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales this year, strengthening its market dominance. BYD produced over 3 million battery-only and hybrid cars last year, surpassing Tesla's 1.84 million. While Tesla led BEV production, BYD produced 1.6 million battery-only passenger vehicles and 1.4 million hybrids. The tech billionaire and social media owner Elon Musk is now calling for a lawsuit against the people behind the massive X boycott, which led to advertisers leaving the platform because of his leadership. Congress opened an enormous path when it centered on the group allegedly colluding to crash X's stock in the market with their campaign. Musk also wants criminal prosecution against the companies, entities, and organizations behind the X boycott, which took place after the Tesla CEO stepped into Twitter. Elon Musk Wants to Sue Advertisers, Perpetrators of X Boycott Musk is following Congress's latest move by going after organizations and companies that are allegedly controlling online speech. The social media owner claims that because of this, X is left with no choice but to pursue them with a lawsuit. In the tech mogul's words, X would file a suit against the "perpetrators and collaborators," a.k.a. people involved in this "advertising boycott racket." In following his plans to pursue a lawsuit against these entities involved, Musk also hopes for a 'criminal prosecution' to be considered in the states. Read Also : Walmart Stops Advertising on Elon Musk's X Amid Concerns Over Hate Speech Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket. Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution. https://t.co/5W4yf1wxVO Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2024 Congress Opens Up on Collusion Accusations Against GARM This latest fire on Musk against the advertisers and organizations who boycotted X was fueled and sparked by the US Congress when it pursued the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), claiming how they initiated the boycotts to platforms that led to these being demonetized or losing revenue. Musk and X were at the top of the list of GARM's harms against companies. Congress claimed that the alliance instigated the boycott and colluded with companies to sabotage X's revenues. The Congress also claimed that GARM is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), representing around 90 percent of global ad spend. Elon Musk and the X Advertiser Boycott Since Elon Musk took over X in October 2022, many prolific creators, influencers, personalities, and brands have left the company as they disapprove of this new leadership under the tech mogul. More than a year later, Musk faced another advertiser exodus resulting from its alleged antisemitism claims, with Musk known for his dedication to free speech. Companies like IBM, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., and others have left X and focused on other social media platforms as they denounce antisemitism, while the likes of Apple and more have only paused their ads. Because of this, X has lost money, and its stocks tanked in the market, as its ads program is one of its main sources of revenue. X has been seeing problems here since Musk stepped in and took on the leadership role. Now, Musk is fighting back, fueled by Congress' latest focus on GARM and others involved. X is soon to take action and pursue a criminal prosecution against those responsible. Artificial intelligence and cosmetic products are reportedly a welcomed reality for customers as cosmetic giants are using the technology to create the best makeup products. A perfect example is South Korean cosmetics company AmorePacific's new AI beauty studio, where robots custom blends face products and cutting-edge technology advises on the best lipstick colors. AmorePacific claims to employ artificial intelligence to provide consumers with the best options from 205 face foundations and 366 lip product shades. Analysts believe usingAI instead of human advisors might accelerate product development and minimize variability. According to Business Research Company, the market for AI in the beauty and cosmetics industries is expected to more than double from $3.27 billion in 2023 to $8.1 billion in 2028 as services like virtual makeup artists, skin analysis, personalized beauty recommendations, and diagnostics become increasingly utilized. AI, in general, is increasingly being employed in several parts of the beauty business, such as modeling and fashion. Some AI-generated fashion models are replacing real-life models in photoshoots. AI Fashion Models The first example may be in a photo shoot in which the AI-generated virtual twin of London-based supermodel Alexsandrah stood in for the real Alexsandrah. As with human models, the original model is credited and compensated every time the AI rendition of herself is utilized. Alexandra says she and her alter ego are "even down to the baby hairs" similar. This is just one more example of how artificial intelligence transforms the creative business and how much or little people get compensated. Advocates believe that the growing use of AI in fashion modeling exposes variety in all shapes and sizes, allowing buyers to make more personalized shopping decisions and reducing fashion waste from returned products. Furthermore, digital modeling saves firms money and provides opportunities for people who want to work in the technology industry. Criticisms on AI Fashion Models However, others are concerned that the use of computer models may drive away genuine models and other professional personnel, such as makeup professionals and photographers. It is also feasible to trick customers into assuming that AI models are real, and firms may claim credit for reaching diversity requirements without employing real people. AI has the potential to undo some of the gains achieved by women of color, who have traditionally encountered harsher entrance barriers into the modeling business. According to research, women are more likely than men to work in occupations that may require the use of technology and are more likely to be replaced. AI-Generated Fashion Models have existed for quite some time. In 2019, "Lalaland" was developed as a tool for creating customizable AI fashion models for various outfits. According to Lalaland founder Michael Musandu, the program aims to enhance variety in beauty standards. Musandu believes that his product should be used alongside traditional picture shoots instead of them. Using various size filters, shoppers may examine nine to twelve models rather than just one, increasing the purchase experience and reducing excess fashion and product returns. For Musandu, because Lalaland.ai pays individuals to teach its algorithms, the technology provides new job opportunities. Apple's tap-to-pay technology on the iPhone, also referred to as "tap and go," was recently accepted by the European Union, as the company planned to make it available for third-party companies to access the service. This is after several years in which Apple previously faced a complaint from Belgium accusing Cupertino of blocking rivals and had to face an antitrust complaint. For many years, Apple held a lid on making the iPhone's NFC exclusive to its Apple Pay and Wallet features only, with the EU claiming that this was an anti-competitive behavior from the company. Apple iPhone's Tap-to-Pay Plan Now Accepted by the EU The European Commission shared a new press release detailing it already accepted Apple's plans to open the iPhone's tap-to-pay technology for third-party platforms and rivals to access. According to the Commission, this is now 'legally binding' under the EU's antitrust rules after a long case against Cupertino for this feature's exclusivity. With this, the iPhone's NFC would now be accessible to third-party providers for free and should not be required to use Apple Pay or Apple Wallet. EU also requires Apple under this commitment to allow third parties to be used as default payment modes, get access to Touch ID or Face ID, and use other relevant features of the iPhone's NFC. No More Fines for Apple, Third-Party Access Coming With Apple's commitment and plan to the EU's antitrust laws, the company will no longer face a fine as it has opened up its NFC features and will allow third-party access. The Commission claimed that it previously found Apple to have abused its position with this exclusivity for the NFC, which is now changing in the future for wallet providers and customers. Apple's Tap-to-Pay NFC Technology on the iPhone The EU's case against Apple's iPhone NFC technology being exclusive to iOS is not the only one in the world, as the United States has also pursued Cupertino many times in the past for this antitrust complaint. Last year, Apple attempted to dismiss the case, but its motion was denied by a California judge, with the case made to proceed. However, that is changing soon for its operations in the European Union's region, as Apple previously confirmed that its tap-to-pay, Apple Pay, and iPhone NFC technology would soon be open for third-party companies to access. It was revealed that Apple would face fines in the EU if it continued to make it exclusive, but the company is now avoiding it by opening up. Many companies wish to take advantage of Apple's iPhone NFC technology have launched antitrust complaints and class-action suits against Cupertino to make it accessible. The European Union has accepted Apple's proposal for third-party access to its tap-to-pay tech, which will soon deliver an experience with the iPhone's NFC. The HBO documentary Wild Wild Space details the firm's competitiveness and the significant repercussions of the growing space industry. The film follows Rocket Lab, Astra, and Planet Labs in the new space race. Though not as well-known as SpaceX, these startups have raised over a billion dollars. The documentary showcases Planet Labs' journey from NASA to a company, Rocket Labs' growth as a New Zealand startup, and Astra's unique Silicon Valley charm, per TechCrunch. To debut on July 17, "Wild Wild Space," Ross Kauffman's HBO documentary, opens with a high-risk moment when Astra CEO Chris Kemp informs his passenger that he lacks a driver's license, automobile registration, and insurance. Intense Rivalry in The New Space Race HBO Originals has released the description for "Wild Wild Space," a documentary about the race to launch satellite-carrying rockets into low Earth orbit. Inspired by Ashlee Vance's best-selling book "When the Heavens Went on Sale," the film follows the founders of three rocket and satellite companies, Space, Rocket Lab, and Planet Labs-as they aim to dominate space, per its media release. In addition to exploring capitalism's effects on space travel, the documentary follows this high-stakes competition's thrilling victories and tragic defeats. Using satellites for environmental monitoring, government surveillance, and military espionage raises ethical questions about technology. "Wild Wild Space" also discusses space debris and Earth's low orbit, indicating that space management may determine humanity's destiny. Zero Point Zero Production, Amblin Documentaries, and Hyperobject Industries produced the film. Planet, a prominent source of daily satellite images and GIS solutions, participated in the documentary. The firm, founded by three NASA scientists in 2010, manufactures and operates most of the Earth's observation satellites. To make changes visible, accessible, and actionable, the planet is imaged every day. Planet supports nearly 1,000 customers, including government organizations, large agribusiness, forestry, intelligence, education, and finance firms. Users may gain unique value from satellite images using mission-critical data, enhanced insights, and software solutions provided by the firm. Check out this official trailer: Read Also: China Reveals Game-Changing Carbon Fiber Hull: Will It Revolutinize Underwater Drones? Exploring Space as a New Field of Business Before Kemp launched Astra, Chris Kemp and Planet CEO Will Marshall met in college and collaborated on a Rocket Lab launch agreement. Rocket Lab and Planet Labs thrived while Astra struggled. All three firms went public in 2021 with billion-dollar valuations, showing how Astra's charm, especially Kemp's, compensated for its technological issues. The film showcases Rocket Lab's Peter Beck and Astra's Kemp in competition. Moreover, it showed Beck's doubts about the viability of Astra's ultra-cheap rocket project. The HBO documentary also examines the larger effects of the new space economic paradigm, where private businesses control rockets and space assets. This transition raises privacy and national security issues, especially given Planet Labs' engagement in Russia's invasion of Ukraine and SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service. "Wild Wild Space" uses Planet, Rocket Lab, and Astra as space industry case studies for bold entrepreneurs, per Space.com. The film stresses how these new entities and personalities have transformed space exploration, implying that entrepreneurs taking over space might alter humanity's destiny. Related Article: Biden's $1.7 Billion Investment to Convert Auto Factories to Electric Vehicle Production Earlier this year, Samsung introduced Galaxy AI, but there was no news regarding Bixby's upgrade. That is now changing, as the South Korean tech giant confirmed that an AI revamp is coming for the assistant. Since the arrival of the powerful and feature-packed Galaxy AI, there have been speculations that Bixby is getting axed from being a voice assistant, but that is not entirely the case. The latest confirmation brings significant news for an upgrade to Bixby, but what will Samsung deliver for the AI assistant? Samsung Confirms Bixby is Getting an AI Revamp Soon The latest confirmation from Samsung sheds light on Bixby's upgrade, which is coming soon and will be given an AI revamp, according to the South Korean company's mobile chief, TM Roh (via CNBC). According to a Samsung executive, Bixby will be given a generative AI upgrade in the future, and it is looking to advance AI with what the company has to offer. However, Samsung and Roh did not provide additional information regarding Bixby's upgrade, only that it would undergo a revamp with generative AI. This would give Bixby more advanced capabilities compared to its previous features, expanding more on information and intelligence with gen AI powers. Will Galaxy AI Arrive at Bixby as its upgrade? Roh's recent statement may suggest that Bixby would not get Galaxy AI as part of its upgrade despite centering on generative AI. It is important to note that the Samsung executive used the term "generative AI" instead of outright saying Galaxy AI, which uses the same technology. However, take this with a grain of salt, as Samsung might upgrade Bixby with its newfound AI focus for Galaxy devices. Samsung's Bixby and Galaxy AI It was seven years ago when Samsung first introduced Bixby to the world. It was its take on an AI voice assistant that was first made available on the Galaxy S8 series, given a dedicated button to call on the tech. It saw a rocky start as its launch was initially delayed, with its US availability not released immediately, but it was regarded as rivaling the likes of Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and more. For many years, Samsung used Bixby as its premium voice assistant, delivering massive features for users and capable of following voice commands. However, many considered it to be replaced by Galaxy AI when it first arrived in 2024 alongside the Galaxy S24 series, one that is more powerful as it features generative AI, regarded by many as a massive upgrade. Despite this, Bixby will not be replaced, said Samsung, and the voice assistant will remain available on Galaxy devices despite the presence of its generative new player, Galaxy AI. Soon, Bixby will see a massive upgrade that will help improve what it offers using generative AI to power it, but it will not be Galaxy AI exactly, with Samsung keeping users in the dark until its upcoming reveal. A new report highlights a growing concern about counterfeit Botox injections leading to severe health issues. Many of the affected women received these injections in private homes from unlicensed individuals, a dangerous trend that has resulted in more than a dozen hospitalizations. Alarming Rise of Fake Botox Injections The cheap and fake Botox administered by untrained people in non-medical settings created a difficult situation, with one woman needing a ventilator to breathe. Seventeen women across nine states experienced symptoms like blurry vision, difficulty swallowing, and breathing problems after what they believed were Botox treatments for facial wrinkles. Thirteen of these women required hospitalization, and several were admitted to intensive care units. Published Thursday, the report detailed alarming cases in New York City and Tennessee. In one instance, a woman from Kentucky was hospitalized in Tennessee. The Kentucky woman was among the four, aged 26 to 55, who attended a Botox injection session at a relative's home in Tennessee. Symptoms began about three days later, revealing that an unlicensed individual administered the counterfeit product. This situation underscores the importance of seeking cosmetic treatments only from licensed professionals in medical settings to avoid such life-threatening complications. Expert Insights, Warnings In some instances, doctors were so worried about patients' breathing that they admitted them to intensive care units for close monitoring. Dr. Christine Thomas, a medical director at the Tennessee Department of Health and lead author of the new CDC report, described the situation as a perfect storm. During the investigation, it was observed that these injections were being administered in private homes by unlicensed individuals using counterfeit products. Grace Nelson, a disease intervention supervisor at the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, noted that crucial information from a family member likely saved the woman from harm. The patient was in such poor condition that interviewing her was impossible. The family member's mention of recent Botox injections allowed Nelson's team to authorize the administration of botulinum antitoxin, preventing further harm. The woman was hospitalized for over two weeks and required additional rehabilitation. Qualified doctors, like those in Colorado, are increasingly worried about the potential injuries to more patients due to the rise of unregulated medical spas. Dr. Kate Dee, founder of Glow Medispa in Seattle, expressed concerns and cited the dangers of fake Botox ordered online. George Karavetsos, a lawyer and former director of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, noted that counterfeit Botox has been a problem in the US for over 20 years. Karavetsos has investigated cases where people either imported fake Botox or made their versions to sell to med spas and other clinics. Efforts to tackle the problem, including catching those responsible for tainted products in other countries, have largely failed. Karavetsos emphasized that consumer education is crucial to stopping the spread of fake Botox. Artificial intelligence continues to be implemented by Microsoft and OneNote, allowing users to write anything with their Surface Pen and leave it to OneNote's OCR to read anything they write. As reported on XDA, OneNote can now read your handwriting using Copilot. If you ask OneNote to review what you wrote, Copilot provides a full-text transcript of what you believe you typed. From here, you may copy and paste content without having to retype it manually. And, because Copilot captures the content, you may ask it questions or get a summary. Microsoft suggests that you experiment with powerful AI functions with your handwritten material. For example, it suggests that you ask Copilot to generate a to-do list based on your notes, allowing the AI to infer what tasks you need to do based on what you wrote. Microsoft's AI Utilization Microsoft has used artificial intelligence in practically all of its products. Earlier this year, the IT behemoth introduced Copilot Pro. This subscription-based service boosts performance and encourages innovation while providing customers with privileged use of GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during peak times. According to reports, Copilot Pro customers get access to Copilot in a few Microsoft 365 programs, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote. They also develop replies, content, and AI imagery efficiently. Copilot Pro introduces advanced features, such as 100 daily boosts for AI image production with DALL-E 3 in landscape format. Microsoft introduces Copilot for Microsoft 365, emphasizing businesses and extending accessibility. Businesses using Copilot for Microsoft 365 now have more options since the 300-seat purchase requirement for commercial plans has been lifted. Through integration with Microsoft 365 apps, Copilot for Microsoft 365 may automate processes such as meeting summaries, data analysis, presentation design, mailbox management, and document generation. Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Consumer Products, emphasizes how Copilot can be used for individual, small business, and enterprise needs. Notably, access to Copilot Pro requires a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription. According to sources, Microsoft releases updates that provide Copilot Pro users 100 daily "boosts" in Image Creator from Designer to help them create images more quickly. Additionally, the subscription promises a future feature that will let customers design unique Copilots based on particular subjects. Apple's Note-Taking Upgrades Tech behemoths continue to enhance popular note-taking apps using AI. Apple's Notes App is expected to be updated, as announced last May, to make it easier for students and professionals to record and organize important information. The software lets users record lectures and seminars, including summaries, transcriptions, connections, photographs, and data tables. These tools will assist professionals attending conference calls, business meetings, or seminars in digesting vast information. Apple's artificial intelligence technology will simplify facts, business plans, and calendars for convenient review and reference. The United States Senate has introduced a new bipartisan bill called the COPIED Act, which seeks to protect content owners and their works from abuse or illegal replication. This primarily centers on fighting against AI technologies that use online content without consent or permission from their original owners. Moreover, it will make removing digital watermarks punishable by law, with the bill now one of the most extensive prohibitions against the rising cases of AI theft. COPIED Act: New Bipartisan Bill Brings Extensive Protection for Creators The latest press release from the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation introduces the new bipartisan bill called the COPIED Act, looking to bring extensive protection for all kinds of creators online. The Content Origin Protection and Integritye from Edited and Deepfaked Media (COPIED) looks to combat the rise of deepfake and AI misuse. US Senators Maria Cantwell, Marsha Blackburn, and Martin Heinrich are the bill's main backers. They want to bring more transparency to generative AI and its created content. Through this, artists, content creators, journalists, publishers, and more would have their works protected against illegal and unconsented access by AI from their works that are available online. Read Also : Teachers, Victims of Explicit AI Deepfakes Made by Students Removing Digital Watermarks, AI Training Protection on COPIED Act The bill also claimed that removing digital watermarks or tampering with them would be considered illegal, and the creators' works would also be protected from being used to train AI models if this becomes law. According to The Verge, this gives artists, creators, and publishers the right to sue companies if they believe their watermarks were altered or removed and if their work was used without their permission. The Fight Against Generative AI's Access to Data and Deepfake Since generative AI made waves to the world in late 2022, it has faced massive scrutiny centering on AI training as it was said to have illegally accessed and copied artists' works from the internet. OpenAI has faced massive lawsuits regarding copyrights and AI training, centering on authors who claim their work was used without permission, including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, and more. The power of generative AI has also enabled other technologies to flourish, including one of the most infamous ones that can mislead people into scams or disruptive campaigns using deepfake. Over the past year, deepfake campaigns have grown disturbingly massive, with recent events seeing elaborative misinformation and multi-million dollar scams. Since then, AI companies have looked to adhere to copyright laws and prevent their technology from being used to create deepfake, but there is still a problem that needs to be addressed as it is widespread. New bills and laws are looking to end this, with the Senate's new COPIED Act being one of the most extensive protections that looks to protect users and prevent further access to their data and works. OpenAI reportedly now has a five-level scale that determines its progress in building artificial intelligence models capable of outperforming humans. The company claims it is now near level two. According to an OpenAI representative, the inventor of ChatGPT, who is recognized as a leader in the race to create ever-more-powerful AI systems, introduced the new classification method to the team on Tuesday during an all-hands meeting. OpenAI plans to reveal the levels to possible investors and outside stakeholders. They range from Level 1, which depicts the present state of AI technology that can communicate verbally with humans, to Level 5, which represents AI that can perform organizational duties. The spokesperson claimed that OpenAI executives told employees that the company is nearing the second level, or "Reasoners"-systems that can solve regular problems in addition to a doctorate-level trained person without the need for tools that they are currently at the first level. Read Also : Apple, Microsoft Abandon OpenAI Board Seats Amid AI Regulatory Scrutiny Latest GPT-4 Developments At the same meeting, business leadership presented a research project involving its GPT-4 AI model. According to an anonymous source familiar with the proceedings, OpenAI claims to display some new skills leading to human-like reasoning. The source was not authorized to speak to the media. When contacted for comment regarding the demonstration, the representative stated that OpenAI regularly tests new capabilities internally, which is standard procedure in the sector. For many years, OpenAI has stated that it is developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), or computers capable of performing most activities more efficiently than humans. These kinds of systems don't exist yet. As previously stated, Sam Altman of OpenAI believes that AGI may be achieved this decade. Nvidia's Jensen Huang on AGI OpenAI's ranking system could be one of the first objective ranking systems for a company's progress towards AGI, as even Nvidia's Jensen Huang claimed that achieving AGI depends largely on what it means. At the beginning of March, Jensen Huang claimed that AI might someday think like humans, although he clarified that this would depend on exactly what he meant by that. He asserts that AGI might occur in as little as five years if it meant passing most human testing. According to Huang, the leader of the world's leading producer of AI chips, which power systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT, AGI might materialize in five years if AI is given every test imaginable and does well on each one. But depending on other standards, he contended, AGI might be much closer given the ongoing disagreement among scientists over the most accurate method to describe human thought processes. According to reports, demand for AI chips is expected to rise further, making AGI feasible. However, Huang asserts that the computational capacity of AI chips will rise in tandem with demand. Samsung reportedly wants to develop artificial intelligence features, especially for Chinese customers, to compete with regional manufacturers like Huawei in that market. However, for the past few years, Samsung has struggled in China, the largest smartphone market in the world. Its smartphone market share is less than 1%, and regional competitors like Huawei dominate it. Samsung has been attempting to change its approach in China for several years with limited success. The tech behemoth now hopes AI can provide it with the capabilities its devices require to draw in Chinese customers. The CEO of Samsung's mobile division, TM Roh, did not provide many details about what Galaxy AI would entail in China other than to say that it will depend on collaborating with regional internet and tech firms. For instance, as part of their collaboration, the two companies included Baidu's Ernie chatbot this year in Samsung's Galaxy S24 handsets. Beijing's dominance over the internet and the stringent laws surrounding AI make doing business in China difficult. Read Also : Humorous Apple Video Ads Highlight iPhone Security Features for Chinese Users Microsoft Prefers Apple Over Android Samsung's anticipated AI features focusing on China also coincide with Microsoft's recent security measures in China, which mandate that workers only use Apple devices for work-related access. Before the current declaration, they were permitted to use Android cell phones, but things have changed for individuals who typically rely on these devices. According to sources, Microsoft will need Apple devices in China for employee login verification. This is covered by the business's worldwide Secure Future Initiative (SFI), which aims to standardize identity verification and password management for all employees. Microsoft's choice is mostly influenced by the fragmented Chinese app industry. In contrast to most other countries, Google Play is not available in China, and Google Mobile Services (GMS) is not available in the app stores run by regional phone makers such as Xiaomi and Huawei. Certain missing services, such as the Identity Pass and Microsoft Authenticator apps, are essential for secure logins within SFI. The software developer will give all staff now using Android devices a one-time iPhone 15, regardless of the manufacturer, to verify compliance. These phones will be available for pickup at specific locations throughout China, including Hong Kong, where GMS is reachable. Stock prices barely moved after Microsoft's decision was announced. There were tiny pre-market advances in shares of Microsoft and Apple and slight drops in shares of Xiaomi and Alphabet, Google's parent company. China on Western Software While South Korean tech giant Samsung is looking to increase market shares in China, China is seeking to decrease the use of Western software after recent improvements to the Chinese open-source computer operating system, OpenKylin, for AI personal computers (PCs). After decades of work, China finally released openKylin in 2022 as a domestic alternative to Windows and macOS. Beijing is making more of an effort to become more technologically self-sufficient due to trade tensions with the US. In the age-old quest to innovate, nature often reveals its hidden treasures, offering solutions to modern challenges in the most unexpected places. Imagine a world where the sturdy fibers of banana trees, once mere remnants of tropical fruit farming, now weave together the future of lightweight automotive and bicycle design. Sustainable Innovation in Automotive, Bicycle Industries A new eco-friendly biomaterial derived from bananas is set to revolutionize lightweight component production for cars and bicycles. Researchers from the University of Maine System, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville collaborated on this innovative project, harnessing fibers extracted from banana stems or trunks. Similar to fibers from coconut, flax, and hemp, Interesting Engineering reported that bananas are now being explored as a viable natural source for strengthening composite materials used in automotive applications. Undergraduate students played a crucial role in developing this banana-based material under the guidance of Cait Clarkson and Amber Hubbard, both R&D associates at ORNL's Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies group. The Sustainable Manufacturing Technologies group developed a banana-based material to reduce reliance on resource-intensive materials like glass fibers, carbon fibers, or metallic alloys, which have a significant carbon footprint. Also Read : Climate Change Favors Growth Of Fungus That Causes Banana Disease Black Sigatoka This new biomaterial derived from bananas is renewable, biodegradable, and potentially less energy-intensive to process. Emma Drake, a junior chemistry major at Auburn University mentored by Amber Hubbard last year, described the project as a comprehensive summer research effort. She gained valuable experience in analytical techniques and chemical modification. The sustainable material holds promise for reinforcing composites in automotive and bicycle parts, as well as other structural components. The material provides lightweight yet robust components for vehicles, including interior panels and various structural segments. Renewable Revolution in Composite Materials Brianna Greer, an undergraduate research intern at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the summer of 2023, pointed out the surprising potential of banana trees. Despite their usual association with fruit, the fiber used in this new material comes from the sturdy stems or trunks of banana plants. These fibers undergo cleaning and drying before being formed into bundles for further processing. Although bananas themselves are soft and squishy in their ripe state, their trees possess robust, long fibers that significantly enhance the strength of materials used as composite reinforcements. The development of this innovative biomaterial falls under the Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Alliance for Renewable Technologies (SM2ART) program. This collaboration involves ORNL's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility and the University of Maine, funded by the DOE's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Nvidia's artificial intelligence chipmaking rival Graphcore has reportedly been acquired by Japanese giant Softbank for an undisclosed amount. Sources imply that Graphcore was bought for considerably less than 2 billion, the UK company's value after a financing round in 2020. However, the transaction will likely raise concerns about the UK's capacity to produce enterprises capable of competing with the top players in the thriving AI chip industry. Softbank had already bought a potential UK start-up; in 2016, it controversially acquired Arm, another British chip creator. Ben Barringer, a technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot, describes Graphcore's intention to follow suit as "another bitter blow" to UK financial markets. The Science Secretary, Peter Kyle, described the agreement as a welcome conclusion to Graphcore and its staff's uncertainty. However, he acknowledged that it served as a reminder of the critical work that still needs to be done to make the United Kingdom the finest environment for starting and developing a business. Mr. Toon claimed the acquisition demonstrated that UK firms could contend with big tech, arguing that Graphcore competed with the top companies in this field despite having a considerably smaller workforce and far less funding. Read Also : Samsung Expects Q2 Profits to Soar Near 1500% Thanks to AI Chip Demand UK Adoption of AI Graphcore's purchase comes after research found that confusing rules reportedly hamper the adoption of AI in the UK. Freshworks discovered that 65% of UK company executives believe AI can significantly value their operations. However, 35% see unclear legislation as impeding further AI integration. This regulatory ambiguity challenges organizations seeking to deploy AI. It hinders development and the possible benefits of AI in various industries. Freshworks discovered that the average leader in the UK saves more than three hours per week utilizing AI technology, with 11% saving more than nine hours, equivalent to an entire workday. UK business leaders have been vocal about the need for clearer AI guidelines. According to reports, despite these time-saving benefits, over 37% of UK executives do not want to adopt AI into their workplaces owing to regulatory difficulties. This fear is more prevalent among British respondents than among their overseas counterparts. Even those researching AI technology anticipate a conservative approach, with a one to two-year timeframe before realizing economic benefits. Indeed, this reluctance emphasizes the need for clearer legislative frameworks to boost trust in AI deployment. Continued AI Chip Boom However, demand for AI chips continues to rise, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) recently joining the elite group of firms worth more than a trillion dollars. This milestone shows the disruptive influence of the generative AI boom on global markets. TSMC, which is listed in Taiwan and New York, momentarily exceeded the trillion-dollar threshold on Monday, surpassing Tesla and becoming the eighth most-valued tech company. Germany announced on Thursday its decision to phase out the use of components from Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE in its 5G networks. This move, driven by national security concerns, aims to reduce economic reliance on Beijing, which some believe has left the country vulnerable, according to a report by AFP. By the end of 2026, components from Huawei and ZTE will be excluded from "core" 5G mobile networks, as stated by the interior ministry in Berlin. The telecom systems must be replaced by the end of 2029 For 5G access and transmission infrastructure. Germany Phase Outs Components from Huawei and ZTE Interior Minister Nancy Faeser emphasized that protecting Germany's central business systems and the communication channels of its citizens, companies, and the state is a priority. She highlighted the need to minimize security risks and avoid one-sided dependencies, contrasting with past approaches. Agreements have been reached with Germany's major 5G network operators, including Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, and Telefonica, to implement the ban on Huawei and ZTE. The government had hinted at this move as early as September last year, although the newly announced dates provide more time for companies to adapt. When asked about potential retaliatory measures from China, Faeser remained non-committal but confirmed that Beijing had been notified about the bans. Her focus, she noted, was on establishing regulations for telecommunications networks and critical infrastructure. Authorities considered several factors on the ban, including whether manufacturers were under government control or involved in activities deemed harmful to Germany or other EU states. The longstanding ties between China and Germany have seen German manufacturers exporting significant quantities of products to China. However, Russia's invasion of Ukraine prompted a reassessment of Europe's dependence. This has led Germany to reduce its reliance on China. European Nations Growing Wary EU nations are growing wary of utilizing technology from Huawei and other non-EU vendors due to potential non-compliance with EU data protection laws. The European Commission has identified Huawei and ZTE as potential risks and has urged member states to remove their equipment from mobile networks. In the summer of 2020, the United Kingdom was the first European nation to explicitly prohibit Huawei from its 5G network infrastructure. Following this, Sweden became the second European country and the first within the EU to exclude Huawei from nearly all components required for its 5G network. The United States has also been urging action against Huawei, motivated by fears that the company might be used for Chinese espionage amid an ongoing technological feud with Beijing. Germany's recent move fits into a larger pattern of heightened scrutiny and protective measures against perceived security threats from Chinese tech companies. Concerns about espionage and data security have prompted many Western countries to re-evaluate their telecommunications infrastructure and partnerships. Rajakumari Chouta, a former software developer at Amazon, has filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination after she claims a manager suggested her familial responsibilities made her unsuitable for certain roles and subsequently overlooked her for internal job opportunities, ultimately leading to her departure from the tech giant, as per a report from AFP. Amazon's Former Software Developer Alleges Gender Discrimination From a Manager According to her recently filed lawsuit against Amazon, Chouta approached a hiring manager regarding a transfer to a systems-development engineering role. The manager allegedly expressed doubts about women's ability to handle the position's demanding on-call responsibilities, suggesting it might not be suitable for those balancing childcare and household duties. Despite her efforts and an interview for another systems-development job in mid-December, Chouta claims she faced setbacks. The lawsuit contends that after receiving initially positive feedback about her interview, the manager implied the work might not align with female candidates, citing the nature of the tasks as potentially unsuitable. Adding to her challenges, Chouta claims the manager made an unusual request, asking her to consult with her family, particularly her husband, to determine her availability for the position and her willingness to relocate to Seattle at her own expense. Disappointed but eager to secure employment, Chouta informed the manager of her decision promptly. However, her efforts did not yield the desired outcome. She was informed that the transfer process might not conclude before her scheduled layoff date. Later, she learned that the position had been put on hold due to a hiring freeze and subsequently filled by a male candidate, according to the lawsuit. In response to the manager's alleged discriminatory remarks, Chouta reportedly raised a complaint with Amazon. However, the lawsuit does not specify whether the company took any action in response to her grievance. Read Also : Amazon to Help Saks Owner to Buy Neiman Marcus and Revolutionize Luxury Brand Marketing Amazon's Response Amazon, in a statement issued Wednesday, emphasized its commitment to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination or harassment. The company asserted its policy of thorough investigation and appropriate action against any violations reported. Nevertheless, Amazon did not address specifics regarding Chouta's complaint or the employment status of the manager implicated in her lawsuit. Regarding its workforce diversity, Amazon disclosed in a June statement that its office staff composition consisted of approximately 70% men and 30% women. In previous communications, the company expressed dedication to supporting women in technology, both within and beyond Amazon, by addressing prevalent biases in workplace environments. Despite her efforts, Chouta did not receive offers for other positions she applied for, spanning locations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Ultimately, on January 8, she parted ways with Amazon following the expiration of her employment tenure. Chouta's lawsuit alleges that Amazon failed to prevent discrimination against her and seeks unspecified damages as recourse for the alleged injustices she faced during her employment. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Three agencies have issued invitations to foreign observers for the upcoming extraordinary parliamentary election in Azerbaijan, Deputy Chairman of Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission Rovzat Gasimov said, Trend reports. He noted that Azerbaijan CEC has extended invitations to election bodies in 26 countries. Gasimov added that the names of the organizations receiving invitations will be disclosed shortly. On June 28, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree dissolving the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijani Parliament and calling for an extraordinary election. The snap parliamentary election in Azerbaijan is scheduled for September 1, 2024. A Castro Valley resident faces charges for allegedly slashing the tires of 17 Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco, according to the city's district attorney. Waymo Robotaxi Footage Capture a Man Allegedly Slashing Tires Between June 24 and June 26, Ronaile Joshua Burton, 36, is accused of damaging the autonomous vehicles. Footage from cameras installed on the Waymo robotaxis captured the alleged incidents, which adds to the ongoing tension in the Bay Area regarding the presence of these autonomous vehicles. The San Francisco District Attorney, Brooke Jenkins, announced the charges against Burton. He was arraigned on July 10, 2024, pleading not guilty to all charges. Burton faces 17 counts of vandalism, each involving damage exceeding $400. Jenkins expressed gratitude towards the San Francisco Police Department for their thorough investigation. She emphasized that the destruction of property in San Francisco would not be tolerated and that individuals responsible for vandalism must face accountability for their actions. Court records detail that Burton allegedly approached and vandalized Waymo autonomous vehicles on 17 different occasions over a three-day span. Each of these acts was captured by cameras installed on the Waymo vehicles. Additionally, prosecutors claim that these incidents are linked to another case where Burton is accused of targeting a three-car caravan of Waymo vehicles, using a knife to puncture the tires. This separate case also involved footage from the cameras on the vehicles. Prosecutors pushed for Burton's detention before trial due to the risk he poses to public safety. The court agreed, denying bail and keeping Burton in custody. His next court appearance is set for July 12, 2024, for a custody status hearing, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 23, 2024. Although charges have been filed, the investigation is still active, and authorities continue to examine the circumstances surrounding these incidents. Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has faced various challenges in integrating its self-driving cars into urban environments. The incidents involving Burton highlight some of the backlash from the community. The presence of Waymo's robotaxis in San Francisco represents a larger push towards the future of urban mobility. The vehicles are equipped with advanced cameras and sensors designed to navigate city streets safely. Waymo Robotaxi Gets Pulled Over by Police During Traffic In related news, a Waymo robotaxi in Phoenix was recently pulled over by a police officer for driving towards oncoming traffic. The situation took an unusual turn when the officer discovered that the Jaguar I-PACE electric vehicle was driverless. Body cam footage also captured the perplexing exchange between the officer and the autonomous car. Read more about this intriguing story here. AT&T disclosed a massive data breach impacting a vast majority of its cellular customers. The company revealed that unauthorized parties gained access to files containing call and text message records. What Data Was Exposed? According to AT&T's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the compromised data includes: Call and text message records for nearly all AT&T cellular customers. Call and text message records for customers of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that utilize AT&T's network. Call and text message records for AT&T landline customers who interacted with the aforementioned cellular numbers between May 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022. A limited dataset of call and text records for a small number of customers on January 2, 2023. According to USA Today, while customer names were not directly compromised, AT&T acknowledges the potential for using publicly available online tools to identify individuals associated with specific phone numbers. What is AT&T Doing About It? AT&T says that they are actively working with law enforcement to apprehend those involved in the breach. They confirm at least one individual has been apprehended. The company is also offering resources to affected customers. For more information about the recent security incident, click here. FCC to Help AT&T Resolve Data Breach The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has acknowledged the ongoing investigation and confirmed collaboration with law enforcement partners. This was not the first time that AT&T was hit by a major hacking incident. Back in March, it suffered from a data leak that affected 70 million customers. However, it only denied the attack at that time, stating that there was no evidence that someone breached their systems. AT&T Collaborates With Samsung For Phone Repair AT&T, in partnership with South Korean tech giant Samsung, made it possible for Galaxy phone owners to join the same-day repair option. According to Tech Times, the program has been accessible to nearly 700 locations nationwide. It was first teased on Wednesday, July 10 during the Galaxy Unpacked event. At the same time, Samsung presented two foldables during the tech showcase presentation. Going back to the same-day repair, the option only means that you will be legible for an on-the-spot repair, ditching the unit swapping in the process. It's important to note that several repairs will be finished on the same day. Of course, you need to have an AT&T account for quality, not to mention that it should be under Samsung's Standard Limited Warranty. At the time, the service is exclusive to AT&T customers. There's no announcement if Samsung will work with other telecom companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon. We might see this partnership in the future. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Turkiye wishes that a peace treaty would be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia as soon as possible and that peace would prevail, Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Trend reports. He made the statement during a press conference in Washington on the sidelines of the NATO summit, answering the question, "Can a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia be signed before the end of this year?" "We want to see this peace between the two countries as soon as possible," the Turkish leader stated. Several Catalan separatists return to Spain after amnesty Barcelona, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Marta Rovira, one of several Catalan separatist leaders who fled Spain to avoid prosecution over a failed 2017 independence bid, returned home Friday thanks to a new amnesty law. Rovira, secretary general of Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), a moderate separatist Catalan party, moved to live in Switzerland in March 2018 and has lived there since. She returned to Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, crossing the border with France on foot and raising a victorious fist in the air, images on public television showed. She was accompanied by several others sought by the authorities, including Ruben Wagensberg, another ERC lawmaker who also benefitted from the amnesty passed by parliament on May 30 in a bid to draw a line under years of efforts to prosecute those involved in the separatist bid. "I have dreamt of this moment so many times.. Today is an absolute victory and we have to celebrate," she told a news conference, vowing to carry on the fight for independence. "We are here to finish the job we started... We will win our eternal freedom and that of our people." Officials say some 400 people are expected to benefit from the amnesty on offences linked to the botched secession bid, which sparked Spain's worst political crisis in decades. Rovira had been facing a disobedience charge which was covered by the amnesty, but she was also wanted in connection with a "street terror" probe into a string of mass protests by a group called Democratic Tsunami after the 2019 jailing of 13 independence leaders. That case -- which also implicated Wagensberg and former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont -- was closed by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Puigdemont -- who led the secession bid and fled Spain for Belgium in 2017 -- has also been hoping to benefit from the amnesty law but his return has been complicated by legal issues. In a posting on X, he hailed their return. "With the return of the exiles... an injustice ends," he wrote. "We all neet to get to work as soon as possible because there is a lot to be done." On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that the amnesty did not apply to several charges against Puigdemont, notably a misuse of public funds offence. The Spanish public prosecutor's office has appealed against the ruling as has Puigdemont himself. He is also wanted on charges of high treason, another offence that does not fall within the scope of the amnesty law. Blocking the amnesty for Puigdemont could complicate life of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who promoted the measure in exchange for the separatist parties' parliamentary support to secure a new term in office. Hungarian airport suspends operation after heatwave damage Budapest, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 An airport in eastern Hungary is temporarily closed due to runway damage caused by the scorching temperatures of a heatwave hitting the central European country, its operator said on Friday. Despite a typically temperate climate, Hungary has been experiencing daily highs exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days, and temperatures could hit a record high over the weekend. Due to the "continuous thermal stress", the concrete surface of the runway at the city of Debrecen international airport has expanded, damaging two concrete slabs, the operator said in statement sent to AFP. "The expansion joints between the concrete slabs of the runway are likely to have been designed decades ago for lower temperatures," it said. The defect was detected on Thursday late afternoon during an inspection, and it could take "up to a week" to be repaired "depending on weather conditions", the statement said. Flights have been diverted to the Budapest airport until Sunday at least, with an estimated up to 2,500 passengers affected by the closure. "Never before in the history of the airport has a runway had to be closed for so long due to this type of runway incident," the company told AFP by email. Hungary is under the highest level of heat alert since July 7, which was extended on Friday until July 18. Last month was the hottest June on record across the globe, the EU's climate monitor, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said Monday. Increasingly intense and frequent heat waves are a marker of climate change caused by humanity's use of fossil fuels, according to scientists. Serbia vows to protect environment after mine ruling Belgrade, July 12 (AFP) Jul 12, 2024 Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sought Friday to reassure Serbs that protecting people and the environment would be a top priority, a day after the country's top court opened the way for a disputed lithium mining project to go forward. Serbia's constitutional court on Thursday ruled against a 2022 government decision to halt Rio Tinto's multibillion-dollar project to exploit some of Europe's largest lithium deposits, a mineral key for electric vehicle batteries. The court found the revocation of the permits awarded to Rio Tinto was "not in line with the constitution and the law", but added that it is the government that "decides on further realisation of the particular project". Vucic said on Friday the government would respect the decision of the court before declaring: "I have no intention of agreeing with the project if it endangers people and environment." Despite the government halting the project in 2022, opponents of the mine believe Vucic would like to see it go forward. The president, in an interview with the Financial Times in June, suggested that the lithium mine could start as soon as 2028, based on new assurances from Rio Tinto. The statement stirred public concern and sparked a new wave of protests. Vucic said Friday he would listen to experts before deciding what is best for the country. "From an economic point of view, there isn't any doubt, but before economic considerations environmental ones must be considered," he said. Rio Tinto welcomed the court's decision, with project director Chad Blewitt saying it could become a "world-class" asset that can be developed safely according to both Serbian and EU standards. According to Rio Tinto, the mine in Jadar could produce 58,000 tonnes of lithium annually, enough for 1.1 million electric vehicles. Following a series of massive protests in 2022, the government invalidated the permits for the project, which activists said endangered the environment of the Jadar valley, an agricultural region in western Serbia. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Under the joint plan signed between the Defense Ministries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the solemn opening ceremony of the Birlestik-2024 international operational-tactical command-staff exercise was held in Aktau, Kazakhstan, Trend reports, referring to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. At the event attended by servicemen, media representatives, and other guests from the participating countries, national anthems of the represented countries were played and national flags were raised. Then, the servicemen from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan solemnly marched in front of the grandstand. The speakers welcomed the guests and emphasized that such exercises are important in terms of planning joint activities and mutual exchange of experience. They wished success to the exercise participants. The speeches were followed by the concert program for the participants, which aroused the great interest of the audience. It is noteworthy that, in the Birlestik-2024 international exercise Azerbaijan is represented by military personnel, ships, and aircraft of the Land Forces, Air Force, and Navy. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. A group of personnel of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan has visited the Second Alley of Martyrs on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the Tovuz battles, Trend reports via the ministry. The memory of martyrs was honored by observing a minute of silence, and the National Anthem of the Republic of Azerbaijan, accompanied by the military orchestra, was performed. Flowers were laid on the graves of the sons of the motherland, who ascended to the heights of martyrdom, and tribute was paid to their memory. The event focused on the martyrs' eternal memory and underlined that their blessed legacy will always be honored. To recall, on July 12, 2020, the Armenian armed forces launched an unexpected artillery attack towards the Tovuz region of the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border with the intention of capturing Azerbaijan's positions. This action flagrantly violated the ceasefire agreement. The enemy suffered significant damage as a consequence of the retaliatory actions carried out by the courageous Azerbaijani Army. The Tovuz clashes continued until July 17, making Azerbaijan suffer the loss of 21 individuals. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The size of an epithermal deposit is usually smaller than is found with bigger-tonnage, low-grade discoveries. However, if a project was delivering that level of elevated grades for the shiny yellow metal, it wouldnt need to be massive to make some serious money. Second place this week went to Augustus Minerals and like its famous namesake who brought peace to the Greco-Roman world and helped restore the republic of Rome, it enjoyed enormous popularity this week. Augustus Minerals, like its famous Roman namesake, enjoyed huge popularity this week, with a 202.63 per cent price surge. The companys share price was also the recipient of a rock-chip rocket that sent it shares hurtling into the stratosphere to a high of 11.5c, up a healthy 202.63 per cent on revealing assays returning 35 per cent copper and 236g/t silver from the same sample. The samples were nabbed from the companys Tiberius prospect, part of its 3600-square-kilometre Ti-Tree project that sits within the Gascoyne region in north-west Western Australia. Two samples from the companys Justinian target produced 10.11g/t and 9.34g/t visible gold, respectively, with a further 32 per cent copper stunner coming from its South Snowy ground, helping nudge the shares to its highest traded price since January this year. Trading volumes went berserk, with the companys daily share turnover hitting an all-time high of more than 39 million units changing hands on Thursday its highest level since it joined the ASX in May last year. Interestingly though, not one share was traded on the Monday and Tuesday prior to Thursdays announcement and only 50,000 units found a new home on Wednesday. Augustus shares were placed into a trading halt prior to Fridays market open for the purpose of planning and executing a capital raise, so it will be keenly watched now to see at what price they are next offered at to the market. The price settled at 9.3c at Thursdays close. Management noted 231 rock-chip samples were collected in June from a range of prospective areas, with a significant soil sampling program taking place at much of the project area. At its promising Tiberius ground that kicked-up the high-grade copper-silver sample, a soil sampling program has been completed with results being reviewed. Augustus was recently awarded a State Government grant under the exploration incentive schemes (EIS) co-funded drill initiative, with its application approved by the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS). It resulted in a bank balance boost of up to $110,000 from the funding that will provide up to 50 per cent of the diamond drill costs. Moab Minerals took this weeks bronze medal after deciding to join the global uranium party with the purchase of an 81.85 per cent stake in private company Linx Resources, which holds a compelling suite of advanced uranium assets in the East African country of Tanzania. The company elected to celebrate the deal even further by converting its $521,000 loan to Linx into equity, giving it 89.6 per cent ownership and exposure to one of this years hottest commodities. Moabs ASX ticker may be MOM, but market punters did not call for their proverbial mommy and instead, bravely sent the companys share price to a four-month high of 0.7c on decent volumes for the at times lightly-traded stock. Volumes totalled more than 20 million shares during the three trading days after the announcement, pumping the price up by 133.33 per cent for the week. Linx owns 80 per cent of prospecting licenses that comprise the Manyoni and Octavo uranium projects, covering a total 216sq km. Intriguingly, a bucketload of cash has been spent on exploration and drilling at Manyoni previously, providing Moab with a huge volume of historic drilling and exploration data. Access to the information should save the company a lot of time and money as it endeavours to ramp up efforts to find what lurks beneath the promising ground. Management says it is well-funded with $1.9 million in cash and equivalents, placing it in a strong position to begin exploration activities. Coming in with a solid run for fourth place is Clara Resources, where it was a case of goodbye tin and hello coking coal as the $3 million market-capped minnow unloaded its stake in the London Stock Exchange (LSE)-listed First Tin operation, allowing it to acquire the remaining 60 per cent of the Ashford coking coal play based in New South Wales. The sale of First Tin netted Clara $4.3 million, with the market effectively loving the premise of the asset swap, sending the stock up 115.38 per cent to trade at a high of 2.8c on significant volume of 11.87 million shares on Thursday. Management notes that a little more than $3 million will be paid to Savannah Resources to complete the sale of Ashford on July 16 and about $1.1 million will be used from the proceeds to discharge its debt obligations. Clara revealed a scoping study for the Ashford project back in March this year, highlighting a robust and economic operation that would incur only a modest capital expenditure estimate of $133.6 million for the project, with $100 million needed for pre-production costs. Management expects a 12 year mine-life producing an average 1 million tonnes per annum of coking coal, with pre-tax figures of $455 million total project cashflow and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 59 per cent. The after-tax net present value of the project showed as $156 million, with an attractive payback period of just one year based on both pre-tax and post-tax numbers. So that ends a week that may be a turning point for the small mining sector. If the small end of the bourse can continue to produce the discoveries the market wants to hear about, or proactively acquire the right flavour-of-the-month commodity project, it could be a case of up-and-up and really catch the eye of market punters, who follow a very different type of chart-topper. Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au Advertisement Exclusive Eating outRestaurant news Team behind award-winning Maybe Sammy cocktail bar splits from heavyweight hospitality group The end of the landmark deal follows Alpha and the Love Tilly Group parting ways with Jon Adgemis Public Hospitality Group. Scott Bolles July 12, 2024 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save recipes for later. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share Jon Adgemis Public Hospitality was hit with another blow today when the operator of award-winning Sydney CBD cocktail bar Maybe Sammy and Randwick pizzeria Maybe Frank decided to split from the group. Maybe Group founders Vince Lombardo and Stefano Catino announced the end of the partnership with Public on Friday, July 12. Stef and I believe we can best serve our venues by bringing them back under The Maybe Groups wing, Lombardo says. Lombardo says the running of Paddington tequila bar El Primo Sanchez will also transition from Public to The Maybe Group through a licence agreement, a move complicated by the pub in which it operates being listed for sale this week. The Maybe Group (pictured, from left), Vince Lombardo, Martin Hudak and Stefano Catino with Public founder Jon Adgemis (far right) last year. Steven Woodburn Advertisement This follows hatted Greek restaurant Alpha leaving the Public portfolio last month and an abrupt collapse of a business partnership with Love Tilly Group last year. Lombardo concedes these events have obviously had an impact but says Adgemis has supported their decision. Publics operations have grown quickly in recent years, ranging from Sydneys Oxford House to Melbourne venues with star chefs Karen Martini (at Saint George) and Guy Grossi (Puttanesca at The Clifton Hotel). It announced its milestone deal with Maybe Group in April 2023. Named after jazz icon Sammy Davis Jr, Maybe Sammy debuted on the Worlds 50 Best Bars list in 2019 as the best bar in Australasia, a feat it has repeated every year since. Public came knocking to collaborate on the February 2023 launch of El Primo Sanchez, a Mexican-inspired bar in a hotel Public snapped up on Oxford Street, Paddington. The Maybe Group became known for theatrical service at Rocks bar Maybe Sammy. Supplied Sanchezs success led to Publics approach to acquire the Maybe Group in early 2023. While the terms of the arrangement are undisclosed, the Maybe Group deal wasnt a big-ticket play compared to other agreements Public had made for example, the $68 million it forked out for the Noahs Backpackers building in Bondi in 2022. Advertisement It was, however, important from an operational and conceptual perspective. The plan was for Lombardo and Catino to lend their hospitality nous to Publics rapidly expanding portfolio of pubs, bars and restaurants. Lombardo told Good Food last year his group would thoroughly review the existing Public venues to see how their hospitality offering could be finessed. But a month after the Maybe Group deal was announced, a story in The Australian Financial Review outlined Publics level of debt. The group has been under the microscope since some agitated lenders emerged and its acrimonious parting in November with Love Tilly Group, with which it had partnered on projects in Balmain and Redfern. El Primo Sanchez was the first collaboration between The Maybe Group and Public. Steve Woodburn But Public became weighed down by debt, and Adgemis spent months hunting for a refinancing deal. After a failed $500 million refinancing attempt and alleged tax raids, the group reportedly recently secured a $400 million lifeline. Adgemis, a former KPMG dealmaker, struck the deal with a consortium led by Deutsche Bank. Advertisement Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox. Sign up NSWs powerful firefighters union has slapped a ban on members taking part in critical safety drills and other exercises on Sydneys $21.6 billion metro rail line, casting a pall over its planned opening on August 4. With the rail project at a critical phase of testing, the indefinite ban applies to all activities involving Sydney Metro, including firefighters taking part in evacuation drills of new driverless trains, as well as other exercises necessary before the line opens. The ban comes amid an escalating pay dispute between the Minns government and the states firefighters, which resulted in hundreds rallying outside NSW parliament on Thursday. The latest action casts a shadow over the targeted opening date of the main section of the mostly underground rail line between Chatswood and Sydenham to passengers on August 4, a day after Premier Chris Minns is due to cut the ribbon on the mega project. The Oxford dictionary puts you to the wise. Say it quickly and it is just another word, shorthanded airily in the emergency department as Resus. Resuscitation seems to be the major requirement this morning. Paramedics wheel in patients from the ambulance bay, relaying details of trauma or illness. Medical equipment beeps, long banks of headphone-equipped staff rattle keyboards and issue instructions, nurses and doctors mostly young registrars swap crucial information. A woman stretched out on a wheeled gurney holds a towel to her head, her injury and how it happened unknowable as orderlies whisk her through the clamour of the emergency department. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. The consequence of whatever crisis brought them there a car smash, a vicious assault, something worse? has been transferred to the care of doctors and nurses. Beyond the easing of pain and distress, it is the saving of lives. Here, then, is the ultimate goal of all the relentless movement and noise and the brisk transport of the ailing on gurneys around the emergency department, spoken simply as the ED. Staff at Northern Hospital talk about how to deal with patients. Credit: Eddie Jim It happens that within a few days in a different emergency department I will learn more than I might have wished about what resuscitation means, and how sweet it is to be revived. Resuscitation is the action or process of reviving someone from unconsciousness or apparent death. Out there is what might be called modern Australia: a community born in more than 185 countries, speaking 107 different languages, and following more than 90 religions or spiritual beliefs. Crompton is director of the emergency department at the Northern Hospital in Epping, a vast place serving Melbournes swiftly-growing north, where housing estates chew relentlessly into old grazing land. Within cubicles along corridors, patients lie in beds. Some appear asleep or unconscious, others gaze at the passing parade, their eyes betraying bewilderment or something between acceptance and relief at having found sanctuary from pain or trouble. Police are a near constant presence in the ED, an intimation of tumultuous or tragic or complicated events way beyond the walls of the hospital. Everyone clearly knows precisely what they are required to do, whether it be answering a telephone or working to save a torn life. And yet, despite all the hubbub that assaults the senses of the casual outsider, there is reassuring order within Eppings ED. At such times things can become frenetic and loud, building the potential for the frustrated, anxious, claustrophobic and especially the drug- and alcohol-affected to topple into anger and even violence, says Crompton. There are always two security guards on duty, and eight available at the hospital. Some days more than 400 people trek to the emergency departments waiting room, and 160 cram through the treatment areas. The arrival of ambulances is relentless, too 93 of them swing into the bay to disgorge patients on an average day. On the busiest day so far, 126 ambulances turned up. In the past year, close to 120,000 sick, injured, traumatised, wounded, nauseous, alarmed and otherwise indisposed men, women and children came through the doors seeking attention: an average of 330 every day. No one seems fazed. Crompton says the department is capable of setting up a temporary intensive care operation if required. It emerges there is no space left at all in the ICU. It is a rundown on the flow and capacity of the various acronyms that constitute the departments treatment arms from the CPEU (Chest Pain Evaluation Unit) to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and numerous more. Everyone clearly knows precisely what they are required to do at the Northern Hospital emergency department. Credit: Eddie Jim Crompton hands around a container of lollies. ED nurse unit manager Hannah Downie types up a scorecard that appears on a large screen. It is no accident. Upstairs, the heads of the various emergency department units gather at 1am in a blessedly quiet room for what they call a huddle. Once the visitor becomes accustomed to what initially seems turmoil, it becomes impossible to avoid a more arresting truth: there is a studied and reassuring efficiency about the way everyone here goes about their work. A focused, purposeful calm within a tempest. This unflinching assessment of numbers and flows and likely demands is a critical quality in the ED environment. All the pressure, rather than crushing the doctors, nurses, clerks, triage specialists and all the others who keep the place operating, has lit creative and innovative fires at Epping. It emerges there is no space left at all in the ICU. No one seems fazed. Credit: Eddie Jim To give the community an alternative to physically visiting the emergency department, the hospital has developed an internet-driven telehealth system called Virtual ED. It allows anyone with a device equipped with a video and linked to the internet to consult a specialist emergency nurse or doctor without leaving home. Created at the Northern during the COVID-19 pandemic to assist people reluctant to be exposed to others in the hospital waiting room, virtual ED has grown to a 24-hour operation spanning Victoria. The states entire system Australias first is now run from a wing of the hospital, and currently provides almost 1000 virtual consultations every day at the mere tapping of an internet address: vved.org.au. Paramedics regularly use it, too, while attending patients at home. It means their patient often will not need to be transported by ambulance to the hospital for face-to-face assessment. The hospital itself offers members of the public the chance to walk a few steps from the crowded ED waiting room to quiet booths similar to telephone boxes where they can consult an emergency nurse or get patched through to a doctor by video. Specialist nurses answer calls in banks of booths at the virtual ED headquarters in its wing of the hospital. The ED doctors consulting through the video screens are themselves at their own homes. There are about 250 of them across Victoria, rostered during their downtime from private or hospital practice. They issue medical advice and prescriptions, or in some cases suggest patients seek further assistance from a GP or at the physical ED. Virtual emergency pods at the Northern Hospital in Epping. Credit: Eddie Jim To ensure communication is no barrier, the hospital and the virtual ED have interpreters on call of numerous tongues, from Arabic to Punjabi and everything between. Northern Healths executive director of public affairs, Pina Di Donato, points out the hospitals own staff members reflect the community they serve. Most live in Melbournes northern areas, and represent a broad array of ethnic backgrounds. Meanwhile, though the inventive virtual ED helps reduce some of the load, the public continues to pour in to the physical ED, seeking relief from numerous hurts or ills, their numbers swollen in part by a dearth of bulk-billing GPs. And here, too, the hospital at Epping has developed its own method of dealing with the tide. The public continues to pour in to the physical ED. Credit: Eddie Jim Hospital emergency departments everywhere operate on a series of code alerts: Code Blue, for instance, is for cardiac arrest or other medical emergency. In June 2018, the hospital of the north introduced an extra Code, called Surge. Code Surge involves marshalling the resources of the whole hospital to help the emergency department when, during peak demand, there grows a backlog of patients waiting for a bed or the waiting room becomes overcrowded. A Code Surge means doctors are paged and senior staff across the hospital receive text and email alerts to put aside non-essential tasks and find beds and other resources urgently. Within three months in 2018, this whole of hospital system was used successfully eight times, usually for periods of about two hours. Daniel Crompton says the Northern Hospital has been on a constant Code Surge since the start of winter. Credit: Eddie Jim This year, says Crompton, the hospital has been on constant Code Surge since the start of winter. An increase in respiratory diseases such as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and influenza on the back of COVID-19 is part of the reason, coupled with population growth. A constant Code Surge might place unusual stresses on the big hospital, but Crompton says he is immensely proud of the result. Of all patients arriving at emergency departments in the state, we treat the most within the recommended time, he says. But brisk attention doesnt translate to the expectations of all those who turn up to the ED. Urgency and timeliness descends through a series of categories laid out in guidelines of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and assessed by the EDs triage specialists. The mean time between a patient arriving at Eppings ED and receiving treatment sits at 30 minutes, the best in the state. Credit: Eddie Jim The system ensures that someone suffering a life-threatening crisis such as major heart attack or respiratory arrest category one emergency gets immediate treatment. A patient suffering severe respiratory distress, chest pain of likely cardiac nature or acute stroke, right through to severe trauma, is judged to be Category 2 imminently life-threatening requiring treatment in 10 minutes. Category 3 is assigned to those suffering potentially life-threatening conditions moderately severe blood loss, moderate pain, persistent vomiting or a child considered at risk of abuse and should be seen within 30 minutes. Category 4 is classified non-urgent, and might include vomiting without dehydration, pain or difficulty swallowing without respiratory distress, or a sprained ankle. This group can hope to be seen in an hour. Loading Category 5 is for the less urgent experiencing minimal pain, minor symptoms of existing stable illnesses and small cuts not requiring stitches and the like. They can hope to be seen within two hours. However, Crompton says the less urgent cases meet this goal only 50 or 55 per cent of the time, and at particularly busy periods, they might find themselves waiting for up to five hours or more. Those virtual ED booths, thus, are clearly designed to look increasingly attractive to those in the non-urgent and less-urgent categories. Waiting time in a virtual booth is currently about 30 minutes. The busiest ED in the state, however, needs something more than a small army of plain hard-working, efficient and skilled health workers backed by a team of nurses and doctors online. It needs an underlying philosophy to hold the endeavour together. Paramedics are constantly arriving at the Northern Hospital. Credit: Eddie Jim Safe, Kind, Together is the hospitals chosen ethos, its statement of its values. The three simple words are designed to form the basis of everything that drives the operation. It is a program to support each other, all of us, whatever we have to face, says Crompton. The Northern Health website spells it out. Safe: We provide safe, trusted care for our patients. We are inclusive and culturally safe, celebrating the diversity of our staff and community. Kind: We treat everyone with kindness, respect and empathy. Together: We work together with our staff, patients, consumers and health system partners. Three days after I bid farewell to the Epping ED, I found myself in urgent need of medical assistance, and discovered that those concepts travel well across the emergency world. Having contracted a lung infection, I was fast losing the ability to inhale a breath when my family sped me off to an emergency department, this one at The Alfred hospital. The Northern Hospital at Epping. Credit: Eddie Jim The triage specialist recognised I was drowning and that my heart was dancing a panicked, painful stomp. I was hustled into the resuscitation unit and assailed with care and breathing apparatus and needles and other life-saving stuff by a small team of nurses and a doctor. The ED was hectic all around, compounded by a failure of computers, with staff forced to resort to handwriting notes. But when I finally grabbed a lungful of oxygen and the heart stopped jiving, I knew I was safe, among kind people who worked calmly together because thats what they do. Loading Forty kilometres across the city, I reflected, people within the broad embrace of the Northern Hospital at Epping learn the same happy thing, every day, every night. The Australian health system is a gift in a tough, increasingly inequitable world, and the people who work in it cant be treasured enough. Itd be a fine thing, I thought as I finished my little odyssey into the world of emergency departments, if those who draw up state budgets might have come along for the ride. Start the day with a summary of the days most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. This week a Melbourne Childrens Court heard a 17-year-old accused of the hit-run death of an aspiring doctor breached his bail within 48 hours, complaining the conditions were too harsh. He was rearrested and had his bail revoked. On the same day but in a separate case, a 15-year-old boy who had been on bail for multiple alleged offences since January 2023, was also remanded in custody after an alleged two-year crime spree that was said to have included the violent abduction of a schoolboy in Glen Huntly who was left with permanent brain damage. His most recent charges relate to the alleged theft of 13 cars over the past year. A 17-year-old accused of a hit-run death in Burwood on July 2 breached his bail. Credit: Nine News Its the stuff of nightmares, propelling each of us to imagine the worst what if our loved one was the one left injured or killed, or that we were the desperate parent contacting police after our child who was on bail had gone missing? The stories are heart-wrenching not only due to the tragic consequences both for the victims and the alleged perpetrators but because it must raise a sense of collective responsibility. Have we failed to provide the younger generation with better options than committing violent crimes? We leave you today with news of a Perth man and woman being charged with animal cruelty after allegedly failing to get vet treatment for their Maltese cross Shih Tzu. The couple took the 14-year-old dog to the vet in 2022 to have him put down, but the vet thought he could be treated so encouraged them to surrender him. Further examination of the dog raised suspicion he had been suffering for months without treatment for ear and skin conditions. He had matted hair around his face and soft foot pads, indicating he had been in wet conditions for long periods, and long term dental disease. The vet concluded the dog was in considerable pain that could have been alleviated much earlier with inexpensive and simple therapies. RSPCA WA will allege the couple failed to seek such treatment. The vet tried to help the dog but he eventually had to be put down. The couple maintained the dog had only been unwell for a couple days at most. They each face a maximum penalty of a $50,000 fine and five years in prison. The matter will be heard on September 20 at Midland Magistrates Court. See animal cruelty? Report it 24/7 via 1300 CRUELTY (1300 278 358) or rspcawa.org.au. Thats all for today thanks for following along, and well be back on Monday with a fresh live blog. Enjoy your weekend. Chinese students vastly outnumber counterparts of other nationalities seeking asylum in Australia as the country faces a recent surge in study visa holders claiming protection following a Labor crackdown on international education. Visas for Chinese students, the biggest overseas market for Australian universities, are continuing to be approved at much higher rates than other source countries, prompting a former top immigration bureaucrat to urge the government to overhaul the risk-based system as it slashes migration. Chinese students vastly outnumber counterparts of other nationalities when it comes to protection claims. Credit: Marija Ercegovac Abul Rizvi, a former Department of Education deputy secretary, said he expected student asylum claims to continue to grow as a result of restrictions on visa-hopping and the Albanese governments slated student caps to reduce net overseas migration. There were 357 applications for asylum in May, up from 239 in April and 315 in March. A Russian-born private in the Australian Army and her labourer husband have been charged with stealing sensitive Defence Force material for Kremlin intelligence, raising questions about the way the defence forces screen recruits. Kira Korolev, 40, and her 62-year-old husband, Igor Korolev, both had their charges heard by a Brisbane magistrate on Friday in the first use of new espionage charges introduced by the former government in 2018. The couple, who arrived in Australia a decade ago, may face sentences of up to 15 years if found guilty. Kira Korolev, who faced charges of espionage heard at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday July 12, 2024. Kira Korolev did not appear in the court. Barrister Dylan Kerr, representing the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, made an urgent application for the suppression of five names relating to the case in the interest of national security. Magistrate Ross Mack granted the suppression and adjourned the case to September 20. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The verdict of Rashid Beglaryan, accused of terrorism and committing genocide against Azerbaijanis in Khojaly, has been handed down, Trend reports. According to the information, Beglaryan was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment during the judicial session that took place in the Sabunchu District Court, which was presided over by Judge Ali Suleymanov of the Fuzuli Military Court. In its ruling, the court determined that Rashid Beglaryan was sane at the time of the offense and did not suffer from any mental illness. The materials of the criminal case were announced. It was decided to finalize the court investigation. The defendant did not object to the completion of the judicial inquiry. Following the meeting, the court announced the verdict. Beglaryan was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. Furthermore, it was noted that he will spend 5 years in prison and the rest of the time in a high-security penitentiary institution. Based on information disseminated by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan, Beglaryan is suspected of torturing Azerbaijani prisoners of war and other persons protected by international humanitarian law who were previously held in the children's hospital No. 3 in the city of Khankendi with restriction of freedom, committing other serious crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes, as well as participating in the activities of Armenian illegal armed groups He was arrested on charges under Articles 112, 113, 115.2, 279.1, and 318.1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The persons who were subjected to the tortures mentioned above were identified and recognized as victims in this criminal case. During the interrogation, the accused, Rashid Beglaryan, reporting his involvement in the Khojaly tragedy of February 1992, stated that the Armenian Armed Forces and Armenian illegal armed formations acting under their command attacked Khojaly, mainly populated by civilians, from Khankendi on February 25, 1992. According to a pre-established plan, false promises were made to the surviving Azerbaijani civilians that they could safely pass through the Askeran district in the direction of the Aghdam district. The armed formations, of which Beglaryan was a member, ambushed and killed up to 200 civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, who were moving along the Gargarchay coast towards Aghdam district to massacre civil Azerbaijanis on February 26, 1992, using automatic weapons near Askeran fortress. After members of the criminal group looted the personal belongings of the dead, their bodies were buried around the Askeran fortress. In his on-the-spot testimony, Rashid Beglaryan described in great detail the events leading up to and including his illegal activities against the civilian population. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel 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 Tagaytay: The killer of an Australian couple at a resort in the Philippines may have spent at least five hours inside the victims room, binding their wrists and ankles, wrapping them in packing tape, and brutally murdering them as other guests slept. The unidentified man left just before 6am, according to police chief Charles Daven M Capagcuan, who has reviewed the CCTV footage, and may have been spotted by an unwitting security guard. The body of Lucita Barquin Cortez being loaded into a funeral home van on Friday. Credit: Zach Hope In a case getting growing attention in the Philippines, few other details are known, prompting the mayor of Tagaytay, a tourist hub south of Manila where the killings happened, to warn the police chief that no progress in the next week meant demotion. The bodies of three people Sydney man David Fisk, his Philippine-Australian wife Lucita Cortez and her Philippine daughter-in-law Mary Jane Cortez were discovered by a hotel worker on Wednesday. Some valuables had been stolen, others left behind. The killer remains at large. Police would not be drawn if they suspected a targeted attack or a crime of opportunity. Most questions on Friday were deflected. They said they had a person of interest, only to add that the person was unidentified. Advertisement The hotels CCTV footage, some of which has circulated publicly, showed the presumed killer leaving the murder room for the first time about 1am, potentially having gained entry through a window, Capagcuan said. Loading Mary Janes husband (and Lucitas son), who asked to be given the Anglicised name of Bryan for this piece out of fear of the killer or the killers connections, made the grim trip to Tagaytay to sign release forms for the bodies and speak with investigators. He returned home to the island of Mindoro on Friday wrestling with the same questions as when he arrived. The hardest: how to tell his four children, aged four to 12, their mother and Australian grandparents were dead, a fact he had kept from them since Wednesday for no other reason than he couldnt muster the words. A tourist looks over Lake Taal from a room balcony at The Lake Hotel, in Tagaytay, Cavit. Credit: Daniel Ceng In an interview with this masthead, Bryan said he knew nothing in any of their lives to suggest trouble was on the way. Mary Jane was a kind wife who stayed at home and looked after the kids. Even if we were quarrelling, we wouldnt sleep without exchanging I love yous or kissing each other, he said, sobbing. Advertisement She was Mamas favourite. Mama would treat my wife as if she were her own daughter. Capagcuan said the two women were suffocated. David died from a wound on his neck. Forensic investigators were looking at whether a broken glass found in the bedroom may have been the murder weapon. Bryan said David and Lucita lived in Sydney. Lucita was an aged care worker and David worked as a sales agent. He didnt know how they fell in love, only that about 10 years ago his mum presented David as her boyfriend, swooning about how his bald head made him look like an Australian Vin Diesel. She always had a sense of humour, he said. The Lake Hotel in Tagaytay. Credit: Daniel Ceng Bryan and Mary Janes children were not Davids blood grandchildren, but he always remembered their birthdays, often better than Lucita did. He was proactively giving, Bryan said of his Australian stepfather. Hed send money for the kids so they could celebrate birthdays at a place like Jollibee [a popular fast-food chain]. Advertisement When my mum told David that her car was broken, he got her a new one. It still is unused they were supposed to use it when they got back to Australia. David is always there for my mama when she has a problem. The Australians were at the end of short Asian holiday when they arrived in Manila this week for their annual visit to the Philippines. On July 8, they went with several Philippine family members to the spectacular Lake Taal using a hired van and driver. Australian couple David Fisk and Lucita Barquin Cortez were found dead in a Philippine hotel room. Bryan said the others only went for the drive to catch up with the visiting couple and take photos of the lake, meaning David, Lucita and Mary Jane were the only ones who stayed. I hope he surrenders, Bryan said of the killer. I hope he has the conscience to do so. I hope justice prevails because four children were left without a mother. Bryan, who does not wish to be identified, lost his wife and mother. Credit: Zach Hope On Friday, Tagaytays Lake Hotel was still humming with tourists, many unaware of what had unfolded only days earlier. One couple asked this masthead what the television cameras were for. A group of young women posed for selfies on a staircase. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan has registered the authorized representatives of five more political parties for extraordinary parliamentary election, secretary of CEC Arifa Mukhtarova said, Trend reports. According to the information, authorized representatives from the Azad Vatan Party, National Revival Movement Party, New Time Party, Law and Justice Party, and Agh Party were registered. 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. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Speaker of Azerbaijan's Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova has taken part in the meeting of the Council of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA CIS) during her working visit to St Petersburg on 12 July, Trend reports citing the parliament. Speaking during the debate about IPA CIS monitors involvement in the extraordinary presidential election in the Republic of Azerbaijan, Speaker Sahiba Gafarova said relevant state entities had afforded every condition required for the process to be conducted to the highest standards. Full transparency of the electoral process was ensured so that the voters could their will freely and unhindered express. The international observers said so as well. Having mentioned the involvement of as many as 790 international monitors representing 89 countries and 72 international organisations including 22 legislature and 2 interparliamentary organisations, the Speaker of Milli Majlis noted as the main point of the elections that our people had voted for further development of Azerbaijan, which had fully restored her territorial integrity and sovereignty. It was said also that Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev was re-elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with more than 92 per cent of votes cast by the voters who took part in the elections. In her speech, Sahiba Gafarova described monitoring of election processes as an important co-operation field within the IPA CIS. It contributes to the development of democracy and rule of law in the territories of the Member States through the exchange of experience in the organisation and conduct of electoral processes. Therefore, the activities and contribution of the International Institute for Monitoring the Development of Democracy, Parliamentarism and Observance of Electoral Rights of Citizens of the CIS PA (IGIM), including its Baku branch in the process of election observation deserve special attention. Continuing, Speaker Sahiba Gafarova underscored the necessity to continue the co-operation in the field of monitoring electoral processes and informed that according to the order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, extraordinary parliamentary elections will be held in our country on 1 September 2024. Since September 2023, with the sponsorship of PASHA Holding and the initiative of the Innovation and Digital Development Agency (IDDA), the prestigious global school network - Holberton School - has been established in Azerbaijan. On July 4, 2024, the school hosted its first Graduation Ceremony and over a 9-month period, students benefited from 11 HolberTalks seminars, 15 demo interviews, 10 personal development trainings, 5 career days, and unlimited mentorship support. Additionally, 12 graduates from Holberton School Azerbaijan have already secured employment. Its noteworthy that Holberton School operates in 22 countries, 34 cities, and began its activities in Baku last year, delivering high-quality technology programs with an innovative and practical methodology akin to Silicon Valley standards. Holberton School equips students with technical and soft skills, preparing them for success in the business world. Highlighting its commitment to promoting innovation and supporting the countrys innovation ecosystem, PASHA Holding implements initiatives such as the INMerge Innovation Summit and PASHA Hackathon. Moreover, PASHA Holding supports local incubation and acceleration centers and has also facilitated the establishment of the country's first venture capital fund and cybersecurity school. Fifth whisky released in Chichibu 7even Gods of Fortune line Salud Spirits, the drinks distributor based in the Netherlands, has released Fukurokuju, the fifth instalment in 7even Gods of Fortune, its line of single-cask bottlings made by Chichibu Whisky. Like its predecessors in the series the new release is named for one of the seven gods of fortune of Japanese legend: Fukurokuju is the god of wealth and longevity. Debuting in 2022 with Ebisu (god of luck), the 7even Gods of Fortune series is expected to end in 2025 after two further bottlings. The Fukurokuju single-cask release has been matured for eight years in a first-fill bourbon barrel. Just 188 bottles have been released, bottled at cask strength of 61% ABV. Tasting notes supplied by the brand highlight green apple, roses, icing sugar, oliebollen, and tropical fruit. The distinctive packaging was designed by digital artist and NFT designer WARBB. Robbin Snijders, the person behind WARBB, commented: When I was approached by this wonderful whisky brand, I was immediately enthusiastic. Its an honour to contribute to the total customer experience and for me, its the ultimate way to bring my art alive. One bottle of Fukurokuju will be auctioned by Salud Spirits, along with other Chichibu bottlings including a Red Wine Cask 2023 and a Spirits of Salud release. Held at the Japanese Consulate in the Hauge, the auction will raise money for Second Harvest Japan 12 July 2024 - Lucy Schofield Develop skills and abilities to work in digital environment Business Reporter : NADT inaugurates orientation programme Uttarayan-2024 for newly promoted ACsIT INAUGURATING a seven week long training for the newly promoted ACsIT here at National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) on Wednesday, Reena Jha Tripathi, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax, Pune, said the officers must develop the skills and abilities to work in digital environment. She also focused the importance of peer learning in an environment where the trainees have an opportunity to interact with each other and learn from their peers. Reena Jha Tripathi was the chief guest of the function. 131 newly promoted Assistant Commissioners of Income Tax (ACsIT) are currently undergoing training at NADT. Further, Reena Jha Tripathi in her address recalled that the orientation programme for newly promoted Assistant Commissioners of Income-Tax was conceptualized during 2007. She further stated that the promoted Assistant Commissioners of Income-tax play an important role in the Income Tax Department. Therefore, a structural change in training programme was necessitated particularly keeping in view the changing dynamics, structural changes in the department and in changing economic environments. At the outset, Anand Baiwar, Director General, NADT, welcomed the chief guest and congratulated all the participants of Uttarayan 2024 for their welldeserved promotion. He stated that Uttarayan for newly promoted Group A IRS officers is one of the most important training programmes conducted by NADT. He stated that the curriculum and structure of the Orientation Programme have been planned with a view to enhancing the domain knowledge and functional skills of the trainees, while reinforcing the required behavioural skills, thereby following a competency driven approach for capacity development as mandated by Mission Karmayogi. The Course Director of Orientation Programme, Uttarayan-2024 presented the batch profile. The batch comprises of 131 officers including 38 lady officers. It represents 19 States and 3 Union territories. The largest contingent of trainees was from Maharashtra, with significant representation from West Bengal, Bihar & Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu. The batch comprises 95 graduates, 34 postgraduates and 3 MBAs. The average work experience of the batch is 28 years. The proceedings concluded with a formal vote of thanks. Actions of Imran Khansimilar to that of aTERRORIST : Pak court LAHORE : AN ANTI-TERRORISM court in Pakistan on Thursday said the actions of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan were similar to that of a terrorist in a case linked to the May 9 violence and ruled that he had delegated the task of attacking military installations, Government properties, and police officials to party leaders to exert pressure for his release. The 71-year-old PTI founder and hundreds of his party colleagues are being tried under multiple cases, including one under the Official Secrets Act in connection with the May 9, 2023, violent protests by his supporters that damaged key military installations across Pakistan. The unprecedented protests erupted across Pakistan on May 9 last year after Khan was arrested in an alleged corruption case. Khans party workers allegedly vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Jinnah House (Lahore Corps Commander House), Mianwali Airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad. The Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi too was attacked by the mob for the first time. Khans PakistanTehreek-eInsaf (PTI) party termed the anti-terrorism courts ruling an absurd order and declared that it would launch a protest. The anti-terrorism court (ATC) at Lahore had earlier this week dismissed prearrest bail to Khan in three cases related to the May 9 riots and allowed police his continued custody for interrogation. In a detailed order issued here on Thursday, ATC Judge Khalid Arshad said: An extraordinary concession of pre-arrest bail is meant for an innocent person and not the petitioner, Imran Khan Niazi, who hatched, materialised alleged criminal conspiracy along with the senior PTI leadership and protesters/accused having a common object to wage a war against the state to topple over the Government. Arbitrary fee hike Rs 69 crore 10 private schools asked to return illegally collected fees to parents Staff Reporter : Following a stern action against 11 private schools, the district administration has ordered 10 private schools to refund Rs 69 crore which the school managements recovered from the parents/guardians in form of arbitrary and illogical fee hike. For this, the administration has given one months time to schools. According to the formula of fee return, adopted by the district administration, if any school charges annual fee of Rs 30,000 for nursery class and the administration has reduced the annual fee structure to Rs 21,000, then the school has to refund Rs 9,000 to the parent of every student. Same formula will be applicable in other classes as well. Although, even the school managements have been given the chance to appeal against the order issued by the District-level Committee at the State-level Committee within 15 days. Meanwhile this formula is applicable on the hiked fee only. Investigation for uniform and increase in course, is still going on. If any irregularity is found, then the schools would have to refund its amount as well. A joint team of Administration, Education and Police Department is engaged in investigation on fee hike against 11 private schools since one month. One month back, the administration registered FIR against 51 persons concerned with 11 private schools. Out of 51 persons against whom FIR was registered, 21 were arrested and put behind the bars while 30 were still absconding. Meanwhile, Collector Deepak Saxena told the remaining schools to themselves take decision on hiked fee. In the report presented by the inquiry team on last Tuesday. Based on which, old structure of hiked fee enforced by St Aloysius School, Polipathar, Christ Church Boys Senior Secondary, Christ Church Co-Ed. School, Saliwada, St Aloysius Senior Secondary School, Sadar, between 2018 and 2024-25 session, was cancelled and new fee list has been released. Earlier, the administration has reduced fee of six schools, including Little World School, Katanga, Christ Church Boys and Girls School, Stemfield International School, Vijaynagar, Chaitanya Techno School, Gyan Ganga Orchid International School and Christ Church Diocese School, Ghamapur, on Monday. Parents have been asked to deposit fee as per fixed structure. Collector Saxena has asked other schools to take their own decision on hiked fee. The District Education Committee has presented its report under Madhya Pradesh Niji Vidyalay Adhiniyam 2017. In its report, the Committee claimed that hiked fee worth Rs 69.19 crore were recovered from parents of more than 81,000 students. The two branches of Little World School, run at Katangi and Tilwara, have illegally recovered more than Rs 18 crore on the name of hiked fee. Similarly, two branches of St Aloysius have recovered illegal hike fee of more than Rs 17 crores from parents. Bill to check urban Maoists tabled in State Legislature Staff Reporter : Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill-2024 needed as Govt found it very difficult to secure conviction of activists of Maoists urban frontal organisation under UAPA All offences under the proposed Act shall be cognisable and non-bailable At least 32 frontal organisations of Left Wing Extremists active in Maharashtra with a couple of hundred cadres Maharashtra Government, on Thursday, tabled the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill-2024 to check the unlawful activities of the frontal organisations of Naxalites/Maoists by effective legal means. State Government found it very difficult to secure conviction of activists of Maoists urban frontal organisation under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and hence it felt the need for the new law. The said Bill is drafted on the lines of the Public Security Act in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha. The first such Act was passed in Andhra Pradesh in 1992, when Congress party was in power, to initiate stringent action against the Naxalites. When Telangana was carved out, it adopted the same law. In Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the Act was passed in 2005. Now, 32 years after the Public Security Act to check Naxalites was first passed in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra Government has tabled the Bill in Legislative Assembly. Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of Maharashtra, had told reporters during Winter Session of State Legislature at Nagpur in December 2023 that the State Government would bring the Bill soon. According to sources, there are 32 active frontal organisations of Maoists in Maharashtra, with more than a couple of hundred cadres. At least seven Central Committee members of the proscribed CPI (Maoist) were arrested or killed in encounter in Maharashtra. The menace of Naxalism/Maoism, referred to as Left Wing Extremism, is not restricted to remote, tribal-dominated, and forested areas only. It has spread to urban areas too, where the extremists operate through frontal organistions. As per the Statement of Objects with the Bill, The spread of active frontal organisations of the naxal groups gives constant and effective support in terms of logistics and safe refuge to their armed cadres. The seized literature of naxals shows safe houses and urban dens of the Maoist network in the cities of Maharashtra. Further, it states, the activities of Naxal organisations or similar organisations through their united front are creating unrest among common masses to propagate their ideology of armed rebellion against the Constitutional mandate and disrupts public order in the State. The Government intends to curb the unlawful activities of such frontal organisations by effective legal means. The existing laws are ineffective and inadequate to tackle this menace of Naxalism, it was stated. The Union Home Ministry, in the guidelines for Security Related Expenditure to Naxal-affected States, has advised for enactment of legislation to tackle unlawful activities of Left Wing Extremists. The Bill defines unlawful activity and unlawful organisation. As per the Bill, unlawful activity means any action taken by an individual or organisation which constitutes a danger or menace to public order, peace and tranquility; or interferes or tends to interfere with maintenance of public order; or interferes or tends to interfere with administration of law or its established institutions and personnel. It adds several sub-clauses to it. The unlawful organisation means any organisation indulging in or in pursuance of its objects abets or assists or gives aid or encourages directly or indirectly through any medium, devices or otherwise, any unlawful activity. The Bill spells out offence and punishment too. Whoever is a member of an unlawful organisation or takes part in meetings or activities of any such organisation or contributes or receives or solicits any contribution, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine up to Rs 3 lakh, it reads. The punishment for non-member but aiding the unlawful organisation is two years imprisonment and fine up to Rs 2 lakh. Those committing or planning to commit any unlawful activity for unlawful organisation shall be liable for imprisonment extending up to seven years and fine up to Rs 5 lakh. The Bill also has provisions for powers to notify and take possession of places used for the purpose of unlawful activities, powers to forfeit funds of an unlawful organisation. All offences under the proposed Act shall be cognisable and non-bailable, and shall be investigated by Police officer not below the rank of a Sub-Inspector. Importantly, realising that the frontal organisations of Maoists operate without registration and often change names in a bid to evade attention of security agencies, the Bill makes a provision regarding existence of organisation. This particular provision reads, An organisation shall not be deemed to have ceased to exist by reason only of any formal act of dissolution or change of title by any oral or written declaration but shall be deemed to exist so long as such organisation or any member thereof is actually engaged in or continuing in any manner in any unlawful activity. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 12. The signed documents between Azerbaijan and Pakistan will further expand economic cooperation between the two countries, Head of Turkish Aerospace in Pakistan Muhammad Sohail Sajid told Trend. "The visit of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Pakistan will open up new opportunities for cooperation. Yesterday the sides exchanged 15 documents signed earlier, and in general, about 30 documents have been signed between our countries," he said. Sajid believes it is necessary to reveal the real potential of economic cooperation between the two countries, be it trade and investment, energy sector, particularly investment in the environment, and tourism. "Now, after this visit and the signing of all these documents, I believe that contacts between Azerbaijan and Pakistan will further expand. I believe that the signing of these agreements will be followed by practical steps and concrete projects that will give impetus to the further development of relations," he added. "I am an advocate of the High Court of Islamabad and closely collaborate with the Embassy of Azerbaijan and the Embassy of the Republic of Turkiye as their chief legal representative. Furthermore, as you know, I closely cooperate with the Bar Association of Azerbaijan and the Union of Turkish Bar Associations. In recent years, I have been particularly focused on issues concerning the return of Azerbaijanis to Karabakh, as well as human rights violations in the Western Azerbaijan Community," Muhammad Sohail Sajid further noted. Good days for poly courses Staff Reporter : 1.30 lakh apply for 1.10 lakh seats across State In Nagpur region, 12,500 students applied for 12,000 seats Directorate of Technical Education extends date of receipt of application to July 18 The diploma engineering courses are witnessing good days as there are more takers than the total intake in Maharashtra. The concept of School Connect has made all the difference. Considering the rising flow of applications, Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has extended the date of receipt of applications to July 18, 2024. The idea of School Connect introduced by Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) five years ago led to rise in admissions to Diploma Engineering courses in Maharashtra. But the concept was further strengthened by the present Director Dr Vinod Mohitkar that led to tremendous response from the students. After the announcement of the admission process, a lot of students not only bought application forms but large number of them also submitted the forms. There are around 1.10 lakh seats of Diploma Engineering courses in Maharashtra for which till now, 1.30 lakh students have applied. Considering the huge response from the students, DTE has decided to extend the date. DTE had started application receipt process from May 29, 2024. Now students can submit applications till July 18. Issue of seat vacancy is being faced by technical institutions in Maharashtra running Diploma Engineering. After taking charge of Director of Technical Education, Dr Vinod Mohitkar has been taking efforts to get more admissions. The faculties of polytechnics approached nearby schools, with Class X and approached them, interacted with Head Masters, then with faculty and then with students of Class X. Everything was explained to them including the functioning of polytechnics, better opportunities in higher education and job prospects. Our teams received several querries including the job opportunities and our teams counseled them. This led to rise in response from the students and parents. Over last five years, DTE has increased the facility centres for students to 339. DTE had trained Chief Coordinator, Scrutiny Officer and Nodal officer for e-scrutiny, e-FC and guiding students for filling the applications through mobile. With full support from Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil and Principal Secretary Vikaschandra Rastogi, we applied several schemes, stated Dr Mohitkar. GOOD NEWS for parents School Uniform Fair in city from July 27 Staff Reporter : Taking another step in favour of parents and guardians, Jabalpur district administration has decided to organise School Uniform Fair in Garments Cluster in Jabalpur between July 27 and 31, 2024. Parents will get the opportunity to purchase uniforms, shoes, school bags etc. in reasonable price in the fair. To ensure transparency, samples of all school uniforms, shoes, school bags etc. will be displayed in the hall located at Garments Cluster for traders and SHGs engaged in school uniform business on July 15 and 16, 2024. The possible requirement for uniforms will also be displayed. The district administration asked all the school managements to immediately provide the sample of school uniform at the District Education Officer, Jabalpur. Along with the sample, information about estimated requirement of class-wise uniform is also expected to be submitted by the managements. The school managements are asked not to force any student who does not have uniform to attend the school in uniform till the fair is organised. Because if the students are forced by the managements to attend the school in uniform, then the parents will be compelled to pay arbitrary prices for uniform. Will be forced to buy uniform. INDIAS ROLE THE assertion of Austrias Chancellor Mr. Karl Nehammer that Indias role in peace process is more than important, actually reflects the global opinion about what India can achieve in near future in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Austrian leader has only stated what the world feels about Indias role as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine -- and also possibly elsewhere. For, even as as many as 32 nations gather in the United States to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the North AtlanticTreaty Organisation (NATO), US President Mr. Joe Biden, too, talks of the role in peace diplomacy for Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. These encomiums do not flow in just for fancy purposes of pleasing India. Much to the contrary, they reflect the international reality that in the past some years under Mr. Narendra Modi, India has assumed a greater role for itself in global matters, thanks to its growing strategic and economic prowess and diplomatic depth. prowess and diplomatic depth. Even though the world expected Mr. Narendra Modi to stay away from Russia -- at least for the time being -- when the conflict with Ukraine has reached a dangerous crescendo. Even though India has firmly sided with Russia in the current conflict, the world understands the importance of being a country friendly with Russia. This role is of a greater significance than any other role in the current global order. The world expects India to play that role because there are reasons to believe that India has earned its spurs well. The most critical attribute of Indias and Mr. Modis diplomacy is that its implementors understand the role India can play in world affairs. There have been a couple of occasions in the past few years when India rose above itself and told the world what was essential in the current context for peace to established as international culture and ethos. The Prime Minister himself, or Minister of External Affairs Dr. S. Jaishankar, are known to have spoke out hard truth to the world leaders -- who accepted the Indian premise without complaint. That is naturally because the world knows the gravitas India has acquired for itself over time. The attributes that have helped in this Indian rise in global esteem are not difficult to be understood: Indias surging economy, Indias consolidation on strategic matters in the past some years, and the reality of India being the worlds largest democracy. These have given the Indian diplomacy an extra edge. Recognising this, the world now expects India to play a specific role in peace-making between Russia and Ukraine. When Mr. Narendra Modi visited Russia with no advanced agenda having been told to the world, he expectedly asked President Mr. Vladimir Putin to understand what the world needed rightaway. Peace is not the destination; peace is the way, he expectedly told the Russian leader. And Mr. Putin had nothing to counter. True, he might had his reasons to go to war with Ukraine. Despite those compulsions, Mr. Putin can sort out the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Mr. Modi reportedly told his host at a private dinner at Mr. Putins datcha. If India can really broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, it will become the darling of all the countries. For, even the all-powerfulWestern lobby led by the United States is now feeling a sense of fatigue of Russia-Ukraine war. That has led to a silent desire of all coming up from deep within that somehow, India must act as a mature mediator and bring the conflict to end. Mr. Modi is one of the worlds leading statesmen to have begun his third term as Prime Minister. His qualities of leadership have won him a global acclaim of high popularity-rating. The world expects Mr. Modi to stand on that platform and make peace possible INFUSE NEW ENERGIES Indias mantra for BIMSTEC nations NEW DELHI : INDIA on Thursday called on seven-nation BIMSTEC grouping to infuse new energies, resources and a fresh commitment to bolster cooperation among the Bay of Bengal countries. The appeal was made by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar while hosting his counterparts from BIMSTEC member states at a two-dayretreat in the national capital. The Bay of Bengal Initiativefor Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation(BIMSTEC) brings togetherseven countries of South andSoutheast Asia for multifaceted cooperation. Besides India, BIMSTECcomprises Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan. Jaishankar said BIMSTEC should harbour higher aspirations. For India, BIMSTEC represents the intersection of its Neighbourhood First outlook, the Act East Policy and the SAGAR vision, Jaishankar said in his opening remarks on the first day of the retreat. Each of these endeavours is being proposed with a specific focus on the Bay of Bengal, where collaborative potential has long remained under-realised, he said. Our challenge is to change that for the better, and to do so rapidly, he added. India has been making concerted efforts to make BIMSTEC a vibrant forum for regional cooperation as initiatives under SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) were not moving forward for a variety of reasons. India has been cooperating with the countries of the Indian Ocean region under the broader policy framework of SAGAR or Security and Growth for all in the Region. BIMSTEC foreign ministers retreat is aimed at exchanging ideas openly, candidly and fruitfully. We all benefited from the last such exercise in Bangkok. This one now has a particular importance as it serves to prepare strong outcomes for the summit to be held later in the year, Jaishankar said. Our message should be clear - that we are all determined to infuse new energies, new resources and a new commitment into cooperation among the Bay of Bengal nations, he said. Thailand is the current chair of BIMSTEC and it is set to host the annual summit of the grouping later this year. Jaishankar said the first part of the discussions in the retreat will revolve around connectivity, cooperation in trade and business, collaboration in health and space, digital public infrastructure, capacity building and societal exchanges. I hope in the second part of our deliberations, we could focus more sharply on the possible outcomes of the forthcoming summit, he said. BIMSTEC foreign ministers had last met in a similar format in Bangkok in July last year. The charter of the grouping came into effect on May 20. Global and regional developments also make it imperative that we find more solutions amongst ourselves. There are longstanding goals such as capacity building and economic cooperation that have acquired a new urgency, Jaishankar said. And not least, a grouping that is so complementary and so congenial in its membership should surely harbour higher aspirations, he said. MumbaiBMW carcrashcase Mihir Shah was under theinfluence of liquor: Police MUMBAI, Mumbai court sends accused driver to 14-day judicial custody MIHIR Shah, the main accused in the BMW hit-and-run case and son of a Shiv Sena politician, was under the influence of alcohol when he allegedly rammed his luxury car into a twowheeler here, killing a woman, a Mumbai Police official said on Thursday. A probe team of the police recreated the accident scene in the early hours of the day to get more information about the chain of events and also confronted Mihir Shah (24) with his family driver and co-accused Rajrishi Bidawat, who was in the car at the time of the horrific crash in central Mumbais Worli area. A woman, Kaveri Nakhwa (45), was killed and her husband Pradip injured after their two-wheeler was hit from the rear by a BMW allegedly driven by Mihir Shah at 5:30 am on Sunday in Worlis arterial Annie Besant Road. The probe has found that Mihir Shah sped off towards the Bandra Worli Sea Link even as the woman remained on the bonnet of the car and then got entangled in its wheels for a distance of more than 1.5 kilometres. The prime accused, who was arrested from Virar Phata in neighbouring Palghar district on Tuesday, is in cop custody till July 16 and being questioned by a team of the Worli Police, the official said. Our probe has found he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. The crime scene involving the car hitting the two-wheeler and then dragging the victim was recreated in order to get more details, the official explained. Mihir Shah and his driver Bidawat were confronted to get more clarity about the incident, he added. Mihir Shah, his father Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena politician from Palghar district, and their family chauffeur Bidawat have been named as accused in the high-profile case. The accused persons have been booked under various sections, including 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Rajesh Shah was granted bail by a Mumbai court on Monday after his arrest. In a related development, Bidawat was produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Sewri court) S P Bhosale at the end of his police remand on Thursday and sent to 14-day judicial custody. According to the police, after the crash, Bidawat swapped drivers seat with Mihir Shah allegedly at the instruction of Rajesh Shah. Police sought further extension of his custody, saying the investigation in the case was still in progress. However, the court declined the police custody extension plea and sent the driver to jail. MIHIR SHAH ADMITS HE WAS DRIVING BMW CAR: Mihir Shah, the prime accused in the Mumbai BMW hit-andrun case, 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 citing the probe carried out so far UNNAO ACCIDENT: Double-deckerbus was unfit for operations UNNAO (UP) : THE double-decker bus that hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, leaving 18 people dead, was unfit for operations, officials said. Police have registered an FIR in connection with the incident, which also left 19 people injured, but have not named any accused, they said. The bus that met with the accident belongs to M/s K C JainTravels Jodhpur, Rajasthan which is registered at Pushpendra Singhs address in Mawai Khurd of Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh. The said bus was found to be unfit for operations as it did not have the necessary documents, Assistant Divisional Transport Officer (Enforcement) Arvind Singh told reporters on Wednesday. On contacting Pushpendra Singh, it was found that the bus was being operated by Chandan Jaiswal, a resident of Paharganj in Delhi, he said. Based on a complaint by Arvind Singh, an FIR was registered in the matter on Wednesday under sections 233 (using false evidence), 106-1 (death due to negligence) and 125 (endangering the life or personal safety of others) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS). No accused has been named in the FIR. We are trying to ascertain the real owner of the bus and the company that operated it. Arrests will be made once it is ascertained, said Investigating Officer (IO) Phool Singh. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 12. A large number of Pakistani businessmen are ready to participate in the reconstruction of Azerbaijan's Karabakh, Khalid Taimur Akram, Executive Director of the Pakistan Research Center for a Community with Shared Future (PRCCSF), told Trend. Referring to the exchange of 15 documents signed earlier between Azerbaijan and Pakistan, he particularly noted that the agreements on preferential and transit trade are strategic and will help expand cooperation in these areas. "Pakistan and Azerbaijan will not only become significant trading partners; Pakistan is also looking forward to developing relations with Azerbaijan in the energy, trade, and industrial sectors. A large number of Pakistani businessmen are ready to take part in the reconstruction of Karabakh and invest in Azerbaijan in general," Akram said. Speaking about the visit of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to Islamabad, he emphasized that the people of Pakistan are very pleased with this visit. "Pakistan is a second home for the Azerbaijani people, and for the Pakistani people, Azerbaijan is our home. Yesterday, the whole world saw that the President of Azerbaijan and our Prime Minister did not use any diplomatic words but spoke to each other as brothers. This sent a very clear signal to the world about our brotherly relations," he concluded. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. SapuraOMV Upstream Sdn Bhd, the operator of the Jerun field in Malaysia, has announced the successful commencement of first gas production, Trend reports. The field, in which Shell plc holds a 30% equity stake through its Malaysian subsidiary Sarawak Shell Berhad, received a final investment decision for development in 2021. Located approximately 160 kilometers northwest of Bintulu and 190 kilometers northwest of Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia, the Jerun field features an integrated central processing platform. Gas from Jerun will be exported via a new 80-kilometer pipeline to the E11RB production hub, with subsequent delivery to Bintulu-based customers, including Malaysia LNG. The platform is designed to produce up to 550 million cubic feet of gas per day, along with condensate production of 15,000 barrels per day at peak output. "Jerun was a highly attractive investment for Shell, building on our interests in this important region off the coast of Sarawak, offshore Malaysia, where Shell operates the Timi platform and has the Rosmari-Marjoram project under construction," said Zoe Yujnovich, Shells Integrated Gas and Upstream Director. "Gas is an important fuel for Malaysia and the world, providing a secure form of energy for heating, cooling, and power generation. We are delighted the venture has reached this milestone." Shell has a long and successful history in Malaysia and remains committed to supporting the country's economic progress and energy transition efforts through competitive and resilient investments, under the stewardship of Malaysia Petroleum Management, PETRONAS. Jerun is operated by SapuraOMV Upstream with a 40% stake, in partnership with Sarawak Shell Berhad (30%) and PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd (30%). BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Microsoft plans to acquire carbon credits as part of its goal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, Trend reports. The company has signed a multi-million dollar agreement with 1PointFive, a private firm specializing in carbon dioxide removal through direct air capture (DAC) technology, to purchase credits for the removal of 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide. A dedicated STRATOS facility will be constructed for this purpose, and its operation will enable Microsoft to offset the increasing emissions associated with the development of its artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. "Under the terms of the agreement, 1PointFive, a subsidiary of US-based Occidental Petroleum, will supply Microsoft with carbon dioxide removal credits over 6 years," announced 1PointFive. "This will be accomplished using direct air capture technology, which extracts carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and securely stores it underground." Direct air capture technology is viewed as a critical tool for mitigating residual emissions, particularly in industries where emission reduction is challenging. It's worth noting that carbon credits are an emerging global method allowing companies to purchase verified emission reductions from third parties to offset their own emissions. The global application of carbon credits (under Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement) will be a key issue at the upcoming COP29 in Baku." BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Apple Pay has been introduced by Azerpost, the leading provider of postal services in Azerbaijan, Trend reports. According to LLC, Azerpost cardholders can now make payments safely and contactless using Apple Pay in stores, pharmacies, cafes, restaurants, cabs, and several other places. To note, Visa's senior director, regional manager of Visa in Azerbaijan Nurlan Hajiyev told Trend in an interview that Visa is actively working on expanding the list of Azerbaijani banks connected to Apple Pay and Google Pay. The senior director of Visa also reminded that currently 14 Azerbaijani banks are connected to Apple Pay and have passed the relevant certification, and 15 - to Google Pay. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) has created a system to track the status of applications submitted to the bank, CBA told Trend. Citizens now have the option to monitor the status of their applications submitted directly to the Central Bank or through other institutions. "Applicants can enter their FIN code from their ID card into the "My other applications" field on the web page contact.e-cbar.az, enabling them to track the status of their application. It is important to note that specifying the FIN code in applications in advance is required to monitor the fulfillment status. When applying through the contact.e-cbar.az web page, notifications regarding execution are automatically sent to the provided cellphone number, and information on the final application outcome, certified by an enhanced electronic signature, is sent to the email address. Additionally, applicants can monitor the application's status in their online cabinet.". To note, consumers of financial services and investors can contact the Central Bank through various means: - Calling the hotline at 966 - Sending a letter to the postal address - Using the e-cbar.az website - Visiting the reception at the administrative building and regional centers of the Central Bank - Submitting a paper application Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. For the first time in Azerbaijan, a cluster-based approach will be adopted for cotton cultivation, following the Uzbekistani model, Trend reports. According to the Economic Zones Development Agency (IZIA), the founders of the Uzbek TST Textile Group company met with representatives of the IZIA and Imishli city executive authority. During the meeting, the sides discussed the implementation of a contract signed on July 5, which grants a Uzbek company long-term use of 5,826 hectares of an agricultural park in Imishli managed by IZIA. It is noted that TST Textile Group plans to establish a cotton field, which will play a pivotal role in Azerbaijan's cotton industry development. Initially, 28.7 million manats will be invested in this endeavor. Additionally, the company plans to construct cotton processing, yarn, textile, and garment production plants, along with a cotton oil production facility, between 2025 and 2029. The cotton processing and oil production plants will occupy 5,826 hectares in Imishli, while the yarn, textile, and garment production facilities will be situated in the Mingachevir Industrial Park. This comprehensive project spans from raw materials to finished goods production, promoting a cluster approach. The total investment in the project will amount to 92.5 million manat, or $54.4 million, with plans to create 1,130 jobs. Funding will include contributions from the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Investment Fund alongside internal resources. Ultimately, this project aims to establish a cluster-based cotton cultivation model in Azerbaijan, inspired by the Uzbekistan model. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel 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. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, July 12. Turkmenistan and Afghanistan discussed increasing the capacity of the Turkmenistan - Afghanistan - Pakistan - India (TAPI) gas pipeline, Trend reports. According to the official source, these issues were discussed during the meeting of the Ambassador of Turkmenistan in Kabul, Khoja Ovezov, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi. During the meeting, the diplomats discussed the promotion of the TAPI pipeline construction project in Afghanistan and the possibility of further increasing its capacity. The parties also discussed other issues of bilateral relations, including increasing the capacity of the Turgundi station to expand transit and transport links and the joint electric power project of the Nur-ul-Jihad substation in Herat province of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan's Turkmengaz State Concern has completed the construction of a 214-kilometer section of the gas pipeline passing through Turkmen territory and has fully prepared it for operation. It is expected that the TAPI gas pipeline will annually transport 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas along an 1800-kilometer route from Turkmen Galkynysh, the second largest gas field in the world, to the Indian city of Fazilka, located near the border of India with Pakistan. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The financial flow in Azerbaijan reached 26.5 billion manat, or $15.59 billion, in the second quarter of this year, up 18.8 percent compared to the same period last year, Trend reports. According to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, the sectors of public administration and defense (27.9 percent), wholesale and retail trade (15.1 percent), and construction (11.7 percent) constituted the largest share of total revenues last quarter. In the past year, the sectors of public administration and defense contributed 1.6 billion manat, or $941.17 million, to revenue growth, while construction contributed 722.8 million, or $425.17 million, significantly bolstering overall revenues. The National Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan was established by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Establishment of the National Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan" dated February 11, 1992. It was later renamed the "Central Bank of the Republic of Azerbaijan" following the enactment of the Referendum Act "On Amendments and Additions to the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan" on March 18, 2009. The primary objective of the Central Bank is to uphold price stability within the framework of its legal mandate. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The creation of a new Ministry of Livestock Development as announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, on Tuesday, 9th July, 2024, is a welcome development fraught with security and economic pitfalls. The jubilation of members of the radical cattle breeders' group in Nigeria, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, and the raucous silence of local farming communities in reaction to the newly created ministry are both instructive. As welcome as this development appears, it should be handled with great care to prevent its wrongful diversion by unpatriotic elements to exacerbate the violent conflicts, tension and other mischiefs which the presidential innovation is supposed to cure. This caveat has become necessary given the high-wired fundamental emotions which livestock production management debates have always generated in Nigeria. Worrisome too is what appeared like substantial promotion of some highly inflammatory livestock development registers even on the ground of the announcement of the creation of the new ministry. In all honesty, it will be antithetical for a ministry designed to "reform" livestock development in Nigeria in the 21st century digital world to mention revival of grazing reserves, grazing routes or promotion of analogue method of livestock production. The history of grazing reserves dates as far back as 1965 when the Northern Nigeria Grazing Reserve Law created 415 grazing reserves covering a cumulative space of 4,275,326 hectares of land in the area which has now been carved into the 19 States of Northern Nigeria. It suffices to say that contrary to insinuations in some quarters by some interested groups, the grazing reserve law was purely a state law which operation in the new states created out of the defunct Northern region is not and cannot be automatic. It requires an adoption law to become operational in any State including the new States carved out of the Northern region. Above all, that the grazing reserves law did not make mention of grazing routes, ostensibly because it criminalized open grazing. This is proof that the grazing reserves were meant to host ranches and appurtenant facilities necessary for effective operations of the ranches and nothing else. These appurtenant facilities would under normal circumstances include veterinary centres, dairy processing plants, farm houses et cetera. The practice of itinerant or nomadic livestock production which is susceptible to many abuses and the question of access to grazing reserves through grazing routes have been at the centre of fatal clashes between herdsmen and farmers in different parts of Nigeria. This outdated method of livestock production has cost Nigeria a lot in human limbs and lives as well as valuable properties which have been consumed in herdsmen and farmers' clashes. These violent clashes usually occur when the cattle supposedly on transit to grazing reserves veer off their routes and stray into farms to graze on and destroy economic crops. Such incidents which are condoned by the often malevolent herders have negative economic implications on farmers and often provoke the farmers to invoke their rights to protect their crops and economic investments from harm. The herders/farmers violent clashes are often sparked when the herders resist the farmers' attemtpts to protect or abate the destruction of their economic crops. As at now, these farmers/herders clashes rank second (after Bokoharam insurgency) in the factors that cause violent deaths in Nigeria. In fact, the quest for the creation of more grazing reserves in the hinterlands of Southern Nigeria and the continuation of open grazing has engendered the massive infiltration of Nigeria by members of Islamic terrorist groups who wreck havoc on economic crops and maim or kill innocent Nigerians. These have informed agitations for the reformation of the outdated analogue method of livestock farming to abolish grazing reserves, grazing routes and open grazing in Nigeria. Recently, the immediate past governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, set the pace by banning open grazing in Benue State. Other states like Ebonyi, Plateau, Ogun, Abia States have banned open grazing in their respective territories. In place of open grazing of livestock which has been certified as a cause of security and health challenges as well as hunger and food insecurity, ranching which is currently the global best form of livestock farming/production with maximum output, innumerable value chain and zero security challenge is advocated. The prominent mentions of "revival of grazing reserves", "grazing routes" and "nomadic herding" at the launch of a ministry created to "reform" livestock development in Nigeria is not just repulsive but also suspicious. One wonders where the so-called reform is located in all these. The use of the volatile livestock farming practice in West Africa where troubled Nigeria is a major player as a reference point makes the whole creation exercise to appear repulsive and unattractive. Hence, it is allegedly seen as a subterfuge for Jihad designed to further enhance the predatory system of livestock production and to forcefully divest local communities of their lands for the creation of Ruga Settlements in different parts of Nigeria. It is allegedly feared that these will aggravate the security challenges of our dear country and heighten the hunger and food insecurity in the land. The Tinubu presidency must avoid these pitfalls by ensuring that the new Ministry of Livestock Development formally abolishes open grazing and all forms of nomadic livestock production; and debunks the phantom claims on non-existent grazing routes. In their places, modern ranches should be established in states where grazing reserves exist in the interest of peace, security of lives and properties. This will enhance food production and end hunger and food insecurity. An outright abolition of open grazing and introduction of ranches will, more than anything, curb the unmitigated influx of terrorists from other African countries into Nigeria under the pretext of open grazing and offer young Nigerian nomadic herders the opportunity of stable living and self-development in the form of education and skill acquisition to enable their reintegration as functional members of the Nigerian society. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. The EU believes that Turkmenistan has huge potential in the field of renewable energy sources, a source at the European Commission told Trend. "Turkmenistan has a huge potential in terms of renewable energy, which is indeed one of the key areas on which we are focusing our exchanges on energy matters," the source said. Furthermore, it was noted that Turkmenistan's development in this area should also include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including methane. "In the EU, we have taken a first step through an ambitious methane regulation and enhanced collaboration with other major importers and exporting countries against the backdrop of the Global Methane Pledge. Turkmenistan demonstrated its determination to take action to reduce methane emissions by joining the Global Methane Pledge. We look forward to keeping working with Turkmenistan on this matter," the source added. Meanwhile, cooperation between the EU and Turkmenistan in the field of renewable energy is gaining momentum in light of the common desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify the energy portfolio. Both sides are consulting and exchanging experience on the development and implementation of projects using solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy, as well as negotiating the possibility of joint investments and creating conditions for the development of the renewable energy market in Turkmenistan. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 12. The hosting of COP29 in Azerbaijan opens up significant opportunities for Pakistan, Qaiser Nawab, President of the Belt and Road Initiative for Sustainable Development, told Trend. "COP29 is not only an opportunity but also a global responsibility. We are proud that Azerbaijan will host the event because, as close brothers, we see Azerbaijan's success as our success. Hosting COP29 in Azerbaijan is a great opportunity for Pakistan as well. We can leverage this opportunity more effectively," he said. Nawab noted that Pakistan has recently been severely impacted by climate change and environmental degradation. "Heat waves pose a challenge to food security, and excessive rainfall is causing flooding issues. Millions of people are homeless, and many children cannot attend school. I believe Pakistan can use this platform very effectively. When COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev visited Pakistan, I had the opportunity to meet him and discuss what the youth of Pakistan think about this and how we can involve young people in this process," he said. Nawab stated that Mukhtar Babayev assured him there will be ample opportunity for young people to discuss climate change and demonstrate their support for this global cause. "We expect many young people from Pakistan to come to Azerbaijan to speak about our problems to the world community at COP29," he added. Furthermore, Nawab noted that relations between the two countries are based on mutual trust, understanding, cultural similarity, and brotherhood. "Why not utilize this mutual brotherhood to increase trade turnover to several millions and billions," he said. The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) will be held in Azerbaijan in November this year. The decision was made at the plenary meeting of COP28 held in Dubai on December 11 last year. Within two weeks Baku, having become the center of the world, will host about 70,000-80,000 foreign guests. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for Conference of Parties, which is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. A total of 198 countries are parties to the convention. Unless the parties have decided otherwise, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS) today unveiled the Constitution of India in Braille version. This event marked a historic step towards inclusivity and accessibility in the ecosystem of legal education and legal profession. Justice DY Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India attended the meeting virtually. He commended the initiative for its transformative impact on legal inclusivity and humanity. Advertisement Professor Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, vice-chancellor of WBNUJS said, This is a momentous occasion for us at WBNUJS. The Constitution of India in Braille will empower visually impaired individuals by providing them with direct access to our nations fundamental legal document. It is a significant step towards ensuring that everyone, regardless of their physical abilities, can understand the legislative, executive and judicial system of India. Professor Chakrabarti acknowledged the cooperation and labour dedicated by the principal and staff of the Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys Academy, Narendrapur. The WBNUJS had set up an accessibility lab for the visually-impaired students in 2020. The effort by WBNUJS is expected to set a precedent for other institutions, encouraging them to adopt similar measures to ensure that legal education and resources are accessible to all members of the society. It may be recalled that the additional advocate general of West Bengal Sadhan Gupta was visually impaired. This Braille system could have helped him to read the Indian Constitution, the legal experts said. Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, on Friday, distributed letters of promotion and financial benefits to New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) employees under Prime Minister Narendra Modis 100-day action plan. This special drive to give financial benefits to 9,652 employees of NDMC is in line with the LGs commitment and sustained efforts to provide government employees with better working conditions and ensure their timely career progression. The exercise was also undertaken as a part of the Prime Ministers 100-day action plan. The LG congratulated the NDMC for expeditiously resolving the pending cases of promotion and other financial issues saying this would come as a big boost for the entire workforce and further motivate them to work in the right earnest. Advertisement Speaking on the occasion, Saxena expressed his heartfelt gratitude to each member of the team who accomplished this task and congratulated them. He said the NDMC has an efficient and dedicated team of about 12,000 employees with about 90 per cent of them being field workers, who are ready to serve this area 24 hours a day and seven days a week in various shifts day and night. We have all seen this in G20, Saxena said. He hoped the financial benefits received by the employees as a result of this rapid action would not only give them but also their family members a pleasant feeling of relief. They would now be able to spend or invest the money received as per their needs, the Delhi Lieutenant Governor said. The Delhi BJP, along with the representatives of various Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) of the city, staged a massive protest near the Delhi Secretariat on Friday against power bills spiked by Power Purchase Agreement Cost (PPAC) and demanded immediate withdrawal of the hike in the tariff. The protestors burned the electricity bills demanding the resignation of the Delhi government. Addressing the protest rally, Virendra Sachdeva held Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal responsible for introducing PPAC in Delhi. He said the Sheila Dikshit government imposed a 1.5 per cent PPAC instead of increasing electricity rates in 2011 under pressure from the then civil organisation Urja and Kejriwals new movement. Advertisement Sachdeva recalled that the BJP had strongly opposed the move while some civil society organisations even approached the court on the issue. Back in 2014, the Delhi BJP chief said during Presidents rule in the city then Power Minister Piyush Goyal convinced power distribution companies (discoms) to put the PPAC on hold at the instance of the Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay. He further said that from August 2014 to September 2015, PPAC was not applied to electricity bills in Delhi, but the Kejriwal Government re-imposed it after coming to power. Sachdeva said while the power discoms repeatedly demanded a hike in electricity rates, Kejriwal never allowed obliged for political reasons. However, the AAP increased the PPAC from 1.7 per cent in 2015 to 37 per cent. Sachdeva said by making it part of the business regulation plan for calculating power traffic in Delhi Kejriwal accorded legal sanctity to PPAC. Commenting on the pension surcharge, which was 1 per cent in 2015, Sachdeva pointed out that it is now 7.5 per cent. Meter charges and load surcharges have tripled during Kejriwals 10-year tenure. The Delhi BJP chief hit out at the Delhi government for not purchasing power in advance from the grid putting to ease the burden on the residents. As the protestors proceeded towards the ITO crossing police barricading Sachdeva was detained and taken to the IP Estate police station by the police before being released later. The protest organised under the direction of North West Delhi MP and BJP leader Yogendra Chandolia, was joined by West Delhi MP Kamaljeet Sehrawat, BJP Delhi leader Vishnu Mittal, former MP Ramesh Bidhuri, MLA Vijender Gupta and Praveen Shankar Kapoo, along with other leaders of the saffron party. Speaking on the occasion, Chandolia said frequent increases in electricity tariffs have brought financial distress to the people of Delhi at a time when they are grappling with water woes. He said Kejriwal betrayed them with the promise of free electricity. A sixteen-year-old class 11th student was allegedly shot dead by some boys in North East Delhis Jafrabad area, the police said on Friday. The deceased, a resident of Kabir Nagar, succumbed to a gunshot injury on his back during treatment at a hospital. According to the police, on Thursday night, a call about a shootout was received at the Police Station Jafrabad. The complainant, who is the deceaseds brother, said he, along with his younger brother and a friend, was coming out of a shop after buying some T-shirts at around 9.00 pm when some boys came on two scootys and followed them. Advertisement According to the complainant, the suspects tried to take the complainant, his brother, and his friend with them, but as they resisted, one of them fired at his younger brother. He was rushed to the GTB Hospital but could not survive the gunshot wound. Later, his body was sent for post-mortem, the police added. According to a senior police official, while the reason behind the crime is yet to be ascertained, the boys seem to know each other and live in the same locality in the Welcome area of North East Delhi. A case has been registered under appropriate sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Arms Act the probe has been initiated in the matter. CCTV footage of the area is being scanned to identify and apprehend the culprits. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. To ensure convenient entry to the country for those registered to participate in the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), Azerbaijan has pulled out all the stops and come up with a top-notch system for applications for the "Special COP29 Visa," Trend reports. "COP29 Special Visa" will be a single entry visa. If a participant wants to leave the country and return to Azerbaijan during COP29, he will have to apply for a "COP29 Special Visa" once again by using his UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) registration number and replicate the process he went through earlier. Furthermore, it is noted that the passports of all foreign participants visiting Azerbaijan for COP29 and pre-sessional meetings must be valid for at least six months after the date of entry into the country. Moreover, after confirming the registration of participants through the UNFCCC online registration system, a link for visa applications will be sent to them by e-mail confirming their registration with the UNFCCC. "The "COP29 Special Visa" will indicate the date of issuance of the visa, and it will be valid until November 30, 2024. Visa holders must enter Azerbaijan before this date," the information says. The participants should fill out the form by entering the visa portal through the link, upload the necessary documents, and send them for approval. "After verification, the participants will be sent a visa confirmation link via email to download the 'COP29 Special Visa' from the website. Participants are advised to apply for the "Special Visa" immediately after confirming their enrollment at UNFCCC. To track the status of the visa, the link to the visa portal should be used in the UNFCCC registration confirmation email," the information emphasizes. Queries related to the issuance of visas to participants can be addressed to the e-mail address [email protected]. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Actors Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya were on a recent trip to Europe to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary. They were enjoying their romantic vacation until their joy turned into trouble when they got robbed of their belongings worth Rs 10 lakh, including their passports, in Florence, Italy. Divyanka on Thursday sought help of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni via X . She told her about their grim situation and the lack of police cooperation over the entire matter. She tweeted, Dear PM Ms @GiorgiaMeloni We were passionately touring Italy until we got robbed. Reported to the police. But robberies are being taken so casually here that we have already lost hope along with our enthusiasm. How will I & my people ever gather courage to visit Italy again? Advertisement In a further tweet she added, Our embassy is helping us, but how about Italy taking up the responsibility of safety for the tourists? Its not only about us but cumulatively all those who save up & spend a fortune to be here. Earlier her husband, Vivek Dahiya, also shared in an interview with The Times of India about the lack of police support that they received after the robbery. He revealed that police dismissed their case due to the unavailability of CCTV cameras in that specific area. The robbery has brought forth the grim reality of alleged lack of safety for tourists in Italy. It also showcases the need for a mechanism to ensure that foreign tourists receive assistance from police and local authorities in tough times. Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya is an Indian television actress who is known for her role as Dr. Ishita Iyer Bhalla in Star Pluss Yeh Hai Mohabbatein. Vivek Dahiya also played the popular character of Abhishek Singh in the same series. They got married in 2016 and recently celebrated their 8th marriage anniversary. Ranveer Singh, renowned for his exuberant personality, brought an extra dose of joy to Anant Ambanis wedding celebrations with his infectious dance moves. The actor, known for his lively performances both on and off-screen, turned heads as he joined the baraat procession, adding his unique charm to the festivities. In numerous clips circulating online, Ranveer Singh was seen dancing energetically, effortlessly stealing the spotlight from the Anant himself. From grooving to Govindas classic Main Toh Raste Se Ja Raha Tha to matching steps with Bollywood veteran Anil Kapoor on My Name Is Lakhan, Ranveer ensured that the atmosphere was vibrant and full of cheer. Adding to the star-studded affair, Ranveer also reunited with his Dil Dhadakne Do co-star Priyanka Chopra, and the duo delighted guests with a spirited dance performance to the popular song Sapne Mein Milti Hai. Advertisement The wedding extravaganza of Anant Ambani, the youngest scion of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, and his bride Radhika Merchant, promises to be a grand celebration showcasing the richness of Indian culture. The event, themed An Ode to Varanasi, pays homage to the ancient city known for its spirituality, arts, crafts, and culinary delights. The ambiance at the wedding venue in Mumbai reflects the essence of Banaras, featuring traditional decor, artistic craftsmanship, and a feast of Banarasi cuisine. Guests are treated to a culinary journey through the streets of Varanasi, indulging in popular delights such as chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, and paan. Carefully curated stalls and attentive guest services ensure that everyone experiences the charm and hospitality reminiscent of the ghats of Banaras. Amidst the festivities, the wedding has drawn attention from international figures as well. Recently, American influencer Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe Kardashian arrived in India, marking Kims first visit to the country. Their presence adds to the global spotlight on the extravagant affair. Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson have also graced the occasion with their presence, underscoring the events significance on the international stage. The wedding festivities continue with Shubh Aashirwad scheduled for July 13, followed by the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days filled with celebration and blessings for the Ambani and Merchant families. As the celebrations unfold, Ranveer Singhs spirited performance remains a highlight, reflecting the joy and camaraderie that define such grand Indian weddings. His presence has truly added chaar chand to the festivities, making it an occasion to remember for all fortunate enough to be in attendance. Harpreet Singh, brother of jailed radical Sikh preacher and Punjabs Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, who ran a campaign against drug addiction, along with his associate Lovepreet Singh have been arrested in a drug case and their dope test was positive, police said on Friday. They were arrested by Jalandhar (Rural) Police from Phillaur town for carrying four grams of ice drug (methamphetamine). Another person Sandeep Arora, who is believed to be the supplier of the drug to them, was also arrested. Advertisement Confirming this development, Senior Superintendent of Police Ankur Gupta told the media that an FIR has been lodged against the accused. Three people identified as Lovepreet, Harpreet and Sandeep Arora have been arrested. They were arrested last night. Four grams of ice have been recovered, he said. He said the dope test of Harpreet Singh and Lovepreet Singh was positive. The drug was purchased from Sandeep Arora, a Ludhiana-based man. Both Harpreet Singh and Lovepreet Singh belong to Amritsar. The drug was recovered from them during the checking of the car in which the duo was travelling. Denying charges farmed against his son, Amritpals father Tarsem Singh has sought a fair probe into the allegations of drug abuse by his son Harpreet Singh. Sikh radical Amritpal Singh has been detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in Assams Dibrugarh jail. Last week, he along with Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid, took the oath as Lok Sabha MPs amid heavy security in and around the Parliament complex in Delhi after they were granted parole. Thirty-one-year-old Sikh radical Amritpal Singh, head of Waris Punjab De, won the Khadoor Sahib seat by 1,97,120 votes over his nearest rival, Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira. During election campaigning, parents and supporters of Amritpal Singhs had demanded his release from jail, highlighting his anti-drug crusade. They had questioned the governments decision to put Amritpal Singh behind bars, claiming he was just campaigning against drugs and organising Sikh initiation ceremonies. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai made an impassioned plea for special grants for Chhattisgarh in a pivotal meeting with the 16th Central Finance Commission led by Chairman Dr Arvind Panagariya. The Chief Minister highlighted the states unique challenges, from its tough geographical conditions to the socio-economic impacts of Naxal insurgency, arguing for a more equitable distribution of resources. CM Sai emphasised that despite Chhattisgarh being a hub for mineral production, the financial benefits of these activities often flow to states where the minerals are processed and consumed. The actual revenue from mining is going to other states due to value addition and consumption happening there, while Chhattisgarh bears the environmental and health costs, he stated. Advertisement Addressing the Commission, the Chief Minister outlined the states ambitious development goals. Since its inception in 2000, Chhattisgarhs economy has grown significantly, reaching a GSDP target of Rs 5.09 lakh crore in 2023-24. CM Sai announced plans to double this figure in the next five years, but stressed that achieving this target requires increased financial support from the central government. Chhattisgarh Finance Minister O P Choudhary also requested additional resources for the development of Nava Raipur, highlighting its potential as a green smart city. Choudhary detailed the states commitment to maintaining fiscal discipline while addressing infrastructural challenges exacerbated by difficult terrain and Naxal influence. Dr Panagariya praised Chhattisgarhs rapid economic progress and well-planned development projects. He noted the states significant improvements in social indicators and fiscal stability, describing it as a fast-emerging state. To achieve the vision of a developed Chhattisgarh, we need to focus on skill development in the manufacturing and service sectors, he said. The Commissions visit included presentations from various state ministers, each outlining their departments needs and achievements. Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain, DGP Ashok Juneja, and Nava Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) CEO Saurabh Kumar provided comprehensive overviews of the states requirements, particularly emphasising the resource needs for ongoing projects in Nava Raipur. The Chief Minister also proposed an increase in the central governments share of centrally-sponsored schemes. He argued that this would help bridge the gap between Chhattisgarh and more developed states, ensuring that the benefits of Indias economic growth are more evenly distributed. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Friday had a darshan of Ramlala and worshipped at Hanumangarhi temple. The CJI landed at Maharishi Valmiki airport at 3:15 pm. From there, amidst elaborate security arrangements, he went to the Tourism Department Hotel located on the bank of Saryu river. After taking some rest, he reached Sidhpeeth Hanumangarhi. After worshiping here for about 20 minutes,he left for Ram temple. Advertisement The CJI worshiped in the Ramlala temple for about 15 minutes. He also saw the grandeur of Ram temple. The trust officials informed him about the temple construction works. The CJI stayed in Ayodhya for about two and a half hours and returned by helicopter from the helipad located at Chaudhary Charan Singh Ghat at 5:30 in the evening to Lucknow. India and Bhutan have agreed to work together in areas of climate change, air quality, forest, wildlife management, and capacity building in the field of environment and climate change. A delegation from Bhutan, headed by Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Gem Tshering met Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Kirti Vardhan Singh in New Delhi. The Indian minister thanked the Bhutanese minister for joining the International Big Cat Alliance, a global initiative of India. He stated that both countries share the same geography, ecosystem, as well as common values of democracy. He further stated that climate change is a common concern for both countries. Advertisement Mr Tshering informed about successfully hosting the Sustainable Finance for Tiger Landscape Conference in April 2024 in Paro. He stated that Bhutan is already a carbon negative country and obtains its major share of energy from hydropower. India and Qatar held a Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting and reviewed recent developments in bilateral trade and economic cooperation and noted that the relationship has a huge potential to be scaled up even further. An Indian delegation comprising officers from the Department of Commerce and other Ministries and organisations held the JWG meeting with the Qatari side in Doha on July 10, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said on Friday. At the meeting, both sides reviewed the progress of ongoing discussions for MoUs on Food Safety and Cooperation in exchange of pre-arrival information for facilitation of trade and customs control on goods and agreed to conclude them expeditiously. Advertisement They also agreed to expeditiously address all issues impeding bilateral trade and facilitate trade promotion between the two countries. Further, both sides discussed the possible mechanism to activate the Joint Business Council to carry out its assigned role in following up and implementing the private sectors visions and proposals for trade and investment cooperation. The JWG meeting was co-chaired by the Economic Advisor, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Priya P Nair and Saleh Al-Mana, Director of International Cooperation and Trade Agreements at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of the State of Qatar. Both the countries identified several areas of focus for enhancing bilateral trade as well as mutually beneficial cooperation sectors. These include gems and jewellery, cooperation between customs authorities, trade in local currency, pharmaceuticals, food processing and food security, cooperation in MSME. Notably, the bilateral trade between India and Qatar stood at USD 14.08 billion in 2023-24, and India is the second largest trading partner to Qatar. Both sides agreed to hold the next meeting of the JWG in New Delhi next year. In a snub to the state police, a lower court in Trichy set free popular YouTuber and Tamil nationalist Naam Tamilar Katchi senior functionary Sattai Duraimurugan, arrested on the charge of making derogatory remarks against the DMK government of MK Stalin and his father and late party patriarch M Karunanidhi. Interestingly, within 11 hours of his arrest on Thursday by the Cyber Crime Police, First Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Swaminathan declined to grant police custody and allowed Duraimurugan to walk free. Arrested in the southern Tenkasi district, where he had gone for the temple festival in his native village near Courtallam, he was brought to Trichy and was questioned for three hours. Later in the night he was produced before the Magistrate seeking judicial custody. Duraimurugans arrest followed a complaint by AK Arun, DMK IT wing district coordinator over the YouTubers campaign speech in the Vikravandi byelection. The NTK has fielded its candidate in the bypoll. Police have invoked the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, besides other sections of the BNS. Advertisement During the hearing, the defence argued that the song sung by the YouTuber, a parody lampooning Karunanidhis arrest at the 1953 Kallakudi rail roko agitation, for which he is valourised, was originally composed by the AIADMK and is still in vogue. It was also submitted the case was foisted on him and there was no ground to invoke the SC/ST Act. On hearing the arguments advanced by both the sides, the judge refused to grant judicial custody, observing that there is no need to arrest Duraimurugan and set him free. Later, accompanied by jubilant supporters, Duraimurugan left the court premises. The arrest of the YouTuber had invited condemnation from the opposition with AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and BJP state president K Annamalai besides NTK Chief Coordinator Seeman charging the government with targeting those critical of the government for its failure on the law and order front. A vocal critic of the DMK and the Dravidian ideology, Duraimurugan was earlier arrested in 2021 by the Thanjavur police on the charge of spreading derogatory remarks, linking Karunanidhi with actor Khushbu, when she was with the DMK. The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court granted him bail in that case on the condition that he should refrain from making defamatory remarks on anyone in the future. But, he was arrested shortly for his speech against Chief Minister MK Stalin at a protest in Kanniyakumari. In this case also, he had secured bail. His YouTube channel, Sattai (meaning whip) which is highly popular and has exposed the free flow of illicit liquor in Kallakurichi months before the hooch tragedy struck the state, claiming 66 lives. It was also referred to by the Judges hearing a plea for the CBI probe into the tragedy. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday officially welcomed the first cargo ship docked at Vizhinjam seaport. He also inaugurated the trial run of the Vizhinjam International Seaport. Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Vijayan said that with the commencement of Vizhinjam ports trial operations, Kerala has marked a breakthrough in its development story. We have realized a long-held dream. Throughout history, ports have been pivotal in the economic growth of regions. The Vizhinjam Port marks a significant leap in Keralas economic landscape. Few countries boast such world-class facilities, placing India prominently on the global map, said CM Vijayan in his inaugural speech. Stating that ports are the driving force of economic growth, Pinarayi Vijayan said through Vizhinjam, India has placed itself on the world map. The Vizhinjam port is poised to become a global hub, welcoming an influx of motherships and accommodating the worlds largest vessels. While today marks the trial run, the ports operations will officially commence from today, with full-scale operations expected to begin shortly, the Chief Minister said. There were some lobbies, including international and commercial lobbies, that had worked against the port and tried to prevent the project from becoming a reality. They had even received support from here as well. The agitations spearheaded by a section here stating that the project would not be allowed to be implemented here have to be weighed against this background. However, our collective willpower and dedication were beyond their designs, said CM Vijayan. Kerala Ports Minister VN Vasavan presided over the function. Union Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal graced the occasion as the Chief Guest. Karan Adani, Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ, who attended the function along with his daughter Anuradha, delivered the keynote address. As the Vizhinjam International Port has become a reality, the CPM-led LDF and the Congress-led UDF are involved in staking claim over the project. Advertisement While Pinarayi Vijayan-led CPM government is making a hype over the project becoming a reality, the Congress, which is now in the opposition, is claiming that the long pending project materialised as the Congress government led by Oommen Chandy signed the agreement with Adani Ports in 2015 through a global tendering process. It was former Chief Minister Chandy who laid the foundation stone for Vizhinjam Port in December 2015. Chief Minister Vijayan notably omitted any mention of Chandy during his speech at the inaugural ceremony. Vizhinjam Port Chairman Karan Adani, however, acknowledged Oommen Chandys contributions to the project. We would like to thank all leaders who united for the port keeping political differences aside. I would also like to thank former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who dedicated his heart and soul to the port, said Karan Adani. The CM did not mention the name of VS Achuthanandan while recalling the history of the project and praising the excellence of the Left governments. However, the Chief Minister thanked the Adani Group including its cooperation, and specifically praised and mentioned former Left Ministers Ahmed Devarkovil and Kadannappally Ramachandran by name for working with dedication for the port. Meanwhile, the Congress has demanded that the state government name the Vizhinjam International Seaport after late CM Oommen Chandy. The first container ship San Fernando with around 2000 containers reached the Vizhinjam international seaport, India s first deep-water container transshipment port on Thursday morning. The ship, which embarked on its voyage from Xiamen, China, reached Vizhinjam after completing the journey in eight days. The vessel, which reached the outer area at around 7 am on Thursday, was welcomed with a water salute led by the large tug Ocean Prestige and smaller tug boats. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday stressed the role of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) as an engine for economic and social growth. He was talking to the foreign ministers of BIMSTEC countries who paid a joint call on him. The BIMSTEC ministers are in New Delhi for their annual retreat. BIMSTEC brings together seven countries of Asia and South East Asia namely India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar. Glad to meet BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers. Discussed ways to strengthen regional cooperation, including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people-to-people exchanges. Conveyed full support to Thailand for a successful Summit, the PM wrote on X later. Advertisement The Ministry of External Affairs said the PM had fruitful discussions with the group of BIMSTEC ministers on further strengthening the regional cooperation in diverse areas including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security, and people-to-people exchanges. He reaffirmed Indias commitment to a peaceful, prosperous, resilient, and safe BIMSTEC region and highlighted its significance to Indias Neighbourhood First and Look East Policies as well as in its SAGAR vision for Security and Growth for All in the Region. The PM expressed Indias full support to Thailand for the upcoming BIMSTEC Summit to be held in September. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, meanwhile, had bilateral meetings with the visiting ministers during which he discussed mutual issues as well as global developments. Praising the Central government announcement declaring June 25 as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called the decision commendable. Expressing gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for the historic move, he remarked that the horrific memories of the Emergency remain a blot on our democracy. He added that this day would always keep the flame of respect and faith in democratic values alive in the minds of every citizen. It is noteworthy that the Union home minister shared this decision on social media on Friday, informing that the Central government has issued an official notification to this effect. Advertisement CM Yogi also posted on social media platform X with the hashtag #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas, stating, The Government of Indias decision, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to observe June 25 every year as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas is commendable. On this day in 1975, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had tried to kill Indian democracy by strangling our great Constitution and imposing an Emergency on the country. He further said, Democracy was restored in the country through the sacrifices of countless Satyagrahis, but even today, the horrific memories of the Emergency are present like a blot on our democracy. Samvidhan Hatya Diwas is an effort to keep every Indian alert and cautious about the malicious intentions and conspiracies against the Constitution and democracy by authoritarian, dictatorial parties like Congress. This initiative will strengthen Indian democracy and keep the spirit of respect and faith in democratic values alive in every citizen. Heartfelt gratitude to the Prime Minister and Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah ji for this historic decision. Jai Hind. The Telangana Congress on Friday alleged BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao was holding talks with the BJP to merge his party and that its four Rajya Sabha MPs will soon join the saffron party in the first phase of this union. With more BRS MLAs on their way to the Congress in the next few days, the BRS top leadership has allegedly turned to the BJP to safeguard their MLAs from the Congress and secure their own political future. BRS turned Congress MLA Danam Nagender today predicted that the regional partys MLAs were going to soon join the Congress leading to the merger of the BRS legislative party into the CLP. Seven BRS MLAs have already defected to the Congress beginning with Danam Nagender. Advertisement The BRS has approached the Speaker to disqualify them and has even moved the High Court to put pressure on the rebel MLAs. However, they have failed to stem the tide as the BRS MLAs kept quitting the party to join the Congress. Today Nagender said, Soon the BRS Legislative party will merge with the Congress. Only four MLAs will be left in that party and others will join the Congress in the next few days. The BRS won 39 seats in the Assembly election and at least 26 MLAs will have to join the Congress to effect a merger. It has already lost the Secunderabad Cantonment seat to the Congress in a bypoll. Criticizing partys working president K T Rama Rao for running the BRS in corporate style, Nagender said even MLAs failed to get an appointment from party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao. He said while the BRS treated the MLAs like worms, they had freedom in Congress and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was easily accessible. He also complained that the BRS MLAs did not get funds for developing their constituencies and only constituencies of a few ministers like Sircilla (KTRs seat) saw development. No MLA received Rs 1 crore while work was done in Hyderabad the contractors have not been paid I had asked for funds for roads for slums in Filmnagar, he added, explaining why the BRS MLAs were joining the Congress willingly. Meanwhile, Telangana PCC spokesperson Sama Ram Mohan Reddy alleged that during the recent trip to Delhi, Rama Rao and party leader T Harish Rao held parleys with the BJPs central leadership for a merger. In the first phase, the four Rajya Sabha MPs of the BRS will merge with the BJP. The BRS is nose diving at a rocket speed. In order to safeguard their MLAs, and themselves from investigations and also to secure their own political future, KCR and KTR are going to merge their party with the BJP, said Reddy to The Statesman. The Kalvakuntla family was also under tremendous pressure with daughter Kavitha still in jail, having failed to secure a bail since her arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 15 March in connection with the Delhi liquor scam case. KCR himself is also under the scanner over the alleged irregularities in the power purchase agreements (PPA) entered by the state during his tenure as chief minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modis interaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin has captured global attention, underscoring the complexities of international diplomacy in times of conflict. Mr Modis emotive reference to the tragic deaths of children in Ukraine, occurring during his visit to Moscow, reveals a significant and nuanced stance from India, balancing its strategic interests with a moral appeal for peace. Mr Modis remarks are striking, not only because of their timing but also due to the context in which they were made. By expressing deep sorrow over the deaths of innocent children, the Prime Minister delivered an implicit rebuke to Mr Putin, a rare move for a leader of a nation that Russia considers a friend. This moment highlights the intricate dance of diplomacy, where words are carefully chosen to convey a message without severing ties. Indias relationship with Russia is a testament to the enduring complexities of geopolitics. Historically, India has maintained a neutral stance, refraining from condemning Russias actions in Ukraine and opting instead to leverage opportunities like discounted oil amid Western sanctions on Moscow. This pragmatism has drawn criticism, particularly from Western nations, yet it reflects Indias strategic calculations to secure its energy needs and bolster its economy. However, Mr Modis recent comments signify a subtle yet important shift. By articulating his sorrow over the loss of innocent lives, Prime Minister Modi aligned himself with the global humanitarian discourse, subtly reminding Russia of the broader human costs of its actions. Advertisement This move not only aims to project India as a credible mediator but also seeks to restore the international communitys faith in Indias commitment to peace and the principles of the United Nations. For Russia, the deepening ties with India are crucial as it faces increasing isolation from the West. The emphasis on economic collaboration, from nuclear energy to space exploration, underscores Russias strategic pivot towards Asia, seeking reliable partners to mitigate the impacts of Western sanctions. Mr Modis visit, thus, serves as a reaffirmation of this partnership, even as it introduces an element of moral scrutiny. The broader implications of Mr Modis remarks are significant. They highlight the potential role India could play in mediating the Ukraine conflict. As a major global player with longstanding ties to both Russia and the West, India is uniquely positioned to advocate for peaceful resolutions. Mr Modis statement, suggesting that solutions cannot be found on the battlefield, but only through dialogue, reinforces this potential. Moreover, the timing of Mr Modis remarks, juxtaposed with his visible camaraderie with Mr Putin, adds a layer of diplomatic sensitivity. It sends a message that while India values its partnership with Russia, it does not condone actions that result in the loss of innocent lives. This delicate balance of affirming strategic ties while advocating for humanitarian considerations is a hallmark of nuanced diplomacy. This nuanced stance not only reaffirms Indias moral position but also enhances its credibility on the global stage. The traumatic episode of emergency must act as a reminder of the responsibility of democratic institutions in always safeguarding the freedoms and rights of citizens. On 25 June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi advised Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, the then President of India to declare a state of National Emergency under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution. This marked the beginning of a 21-month period that remains one of the most controversial and dark chapters in the post-independence political history of India. The suspension of civil liberties and free speech, the arbitrariness in government actions, and the indiscriminate arrests of opposition leaders and dissenters under draconian preventive detention laws, among other measures, continue to haunt us even today. The 1975-77 Emergency also witnessed embattled amendments which dented the spirit of constitutionalism. Citizenry expected the apex court to intervene during this dark time but it instead capitulated to Indira Gandhis autocratic tendencies. The court in A.D.M. Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla (AIR 1976 SC 1207) a severely criticized case, held that certain fundamental rights, including the right to liberty, did not survive the executives proclamation of emergency. That decision only served to erode further the apex courts esteem. Taking lessons from this hostile experience, the newly constituted Parliament on 30 April 1979 in exercise of its power under Article 368 of the Constitution passed the 44th Amendment. The amendment was a major constitutional overhaul, passed by the Janata Party government to undo the regressive constitutional changes made during the Emergency of 197577 through the 42nd Amendment and to bring in safeguards against similar abuses of power by future governments. Advertisement The amendment restored the original position by ensuring that rights under Article 21 could not be suspended even during an Emergency. Given the mass detentions of opposition leaders during the emergency, significant safeguards were added to Article 22 of the Constitution to tackle the evil of preventive detention (Section 3 of the Constitution 44th Amendment Act, 1978). The vital features of the said section were: first, period of detention under any preventive detention act was reduced from three months to two months; second, the advisory board must give its opinion for extension of detention period beyond two months before the expiry of two months; and third, the composition of the advisory board was specified so as to ensure the rule of law for the detenu in actual practice, so that justice is not only done but seen to be done in case of preventive detention. The Board consists of a service judge of the appropriate High Court as the Chairman and two retired or serving High Court judges as members. However, Section 1(2) provided that the provisions of the Constitution 44th Amendment Act 1978 shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may by notification in the official gazette provide and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act. Parliament conferred on the Union Government the discretion as to when it would bring the amendment into force by notification. All the constitutional changes brought through the 44th Amendment were enforced by the then Janata Party government except the one that deals with improving and humanizing the preventive detention framework under the Constitution (Sections 1(2) and 3 of the amendment). Two years later, Indira Gandhi once again returned to power and enacted a new preventive detention law i.e. the National Security Act (NSA), 1980 which remains in effect till present. The NSA authorizes the central government and the state governments to utilize preventive detention in certain cases. The central and state governments, as well as district magistrates and police commissioners, are empowered to detain any individual with a view to preventing him from acting in any manner prejudicial to various state objectives including national security and public order (section 3(1) (a). Any detention made under NSA has to be referred to an Advisory Board within three weeks from the date of detention (section 10). The board has to submit its report within seven weeks from the date of detention. The Advisory Board is constituted by Judges of the High Court or persons qualified to be appointed as the judge of the High Court. But the person detained does not have the right to be legally represented. Sometimes when governments fail, people get hope from the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court which has been entrusted with the guardianship of civil liberties in India. The post-Emergency period saw serious efforts by the Supreme Court to recapture its legitimacy which was eroded during the emergency. In the Maneka Gandhi case (AIR 1978 SC 597) the Supreme Court sturdily echoed that Articles 14, 19 and 21 will offer a composite test for any legislation or executive action rather than examining it in silos. It also enthusiastically supplanted procedure established by law in Article 21, with due process despite the extensive debates in the Constituent Assembly pointing to the contrary. Yet, the attitude of the Supreme Court with respect to the preventive detention law did not change. In this context, the SC got an opportunity to examine the constitutional validity of the National Security Act in A.K. Roy v. Union of India (AIR 1982 SC 710). The court not only entirely upheld the validity of the NSA but also declined to ask the government to implement the amendments made in Article 22 (4) to (7) by 44th Constitutional Amendment Act. However, in their dissenting note, Justices A.C. Gupta and V.D. Tulzapurkar reasoned that Parliament only gave the executive limited discretion to notify the provision within a reasonable time frame. They also observed that the executive clearly was in a position to implement the amendment as a preventive detention law with similar safeguards had been passed initially, but these safeguards were removed from subsequent iterations of the law. Even the majority in A.K. Roy observed that Parliament could not have intended that the central government may exercise a kind of veto over its constituent will by not ever bringing the Amendment or some of its provisions into force. Fortysix years later, one wonders whether successive central governments have indeed effectively vetoed Parliament. Since all other amendments of the various Acts under the same Constitution Amendment Act, 1978 have already been notified by the Government of India, this is nothing but hostile discrimination as far as personal liberty of a person detained under any preventive detention law is concerned. It is a fraud on the constitution. If the government of the day that rejoices 25th June as a black day every year is truly committed to undo the damages of the Emergency and not repeat its grave errors, it must notify the amendments made in Article 22 (4) to (7) by 44th Constitutional Amendment Act which are intrinsically related to the personal liberty of a citizen. (The writer is Professor of Law and Vice-Chancellor, National Law University, Tripura. The views expressed are personal) Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has called for the establishment of a national inquiry committee into Hamass October 7 attack, which will also probe the conduct of the government, military, and other security agencies. The planned National Commission of Inquiry would be an independent body headed by a retired judge with wide-ranging investigative powers, Xinhua news agency reported. At the graduation ceremony of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers course, Gallant said on Thursday that the commission should be objective it should check all of usthe government, the army, and the security agencies. It should check me as well as the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu), Army Chief, Shin Bet Chief, the IDF, and the national bodies. Advertisement Gallant is the most senior official to call for a national investigation into the attack, during which thousands of Hamas militants caught Israel by surprise, crossing from Gaza and killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that his country needs to strike a balance between resources and population size to stimulate economic growth, enhance living standards, and alleviate poverty. In order to create an environment where every citizen has the opportunity to thrive, Pakistan must effectively manage population growth, considering the diverse needs and challenges of a growing population, the Prime Minister said in his message on World Population Day being observed here on Thursday. He added that the population of Pakistan, currently estimated at more than 240 million, is experiencing a high growth rate of 2.55 per cent, adding that the countrys population is projected to reach 263 million by 2030 and 383 million by 2050, Xinhua news agency reported. Advertisement We are committed to ensuring that every individual, community, and voice from across Pakistan is taken into consideration in our policies and programs through inclusive data, as it enables us to identify the areas where we need to focus our efforts, ranging from healthcare and education to economic opportunities and social protection, he said. Talking about the huge youth bulge of Pakistan, with more than 65 per cent of the population being under 30 years of age, the Prime Minister noted that the demographic composition presents both opportunities and challenges for the country. On the one hand, the youth of Pakistan hold immense potential to drive economic growth, innovation, and social progress. On the other hand, the large youth population also poses challenges in terms of education, employment, and social integration, he said. Sharif added that Pakistan is fully committed to its endeavours of providing quality education and skills training to this young generation to compete in a rapidly evolving global economy, adding that the government is creating sufficient job opportunities for the youth to harness their potential and turn this youth bulge into an asset. A Saudi Airlines plane caught fire upon landing at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar city of Pakistans northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Civil Aviation Authority of Peshawar confirmed. All people on board were evacuated in time, and flight operations were suspended until further notice at the airport, officials told Xinhua on Thursday on condition of anonymity. The Riyadh-Peshawar flight caught fire as soon as it touched the ground for landing, the officials said, adding that the firefighters promptly responded and the fire in the left landing gear had been doused in time, without causing any major harm to the aircraft, Xinhua news agency reported. Advertisement The 276 passengers and 21 crew members on board the flight were safely evacuated with an inflatable slide, the officials added. An explosive device detonated when a Russian medical team was assisting at a medical centre in the northeastern Syrian province of Hasakah, leaving several injured, including a Russian officer, sources told the media. The incident occurred during the Russian medical teams regular visit to the centre to provide medical aid for local communities, said the source on Thursday on condition of anonymity. The explosion resulted in injuries to several individuals, including a Russian officer who sustained minor wounds, a Russian translator, a Syrian translator, and a civilian, the source noted. Advertisement Additionally, two cars belonging to the medical team were damaged, and the medical centres windows were shattered in the explosion, Xinhua news agency reported. The motive behind the attack remains unclear. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the incident, saying a Russian soldier, a translator, and a civilian were injured as an improvised explosive device went off in an ambulance belonging to the Russian forces near the Al-Lulua Medical Centre in Al-Hasakah city. It said the explosion was heard in the area, causing material damage. The observatory added that the injured had been transferred to the hospital for treatment. The Syrian government controls a security zone in Al-Hasakah, where the US-backed Kurdish militias also control vast areas. Shelley Duvall, the beloved actress celebrated for her unforgettable roles in classics like The Shining, Popeye, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, has sadly passed away at the age of 75. Her death occurred peacefully in her sleep due to complications from diabetes, as confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter. Duvalls career was marked by her distinct screen presence and a series of notable collaborations with acclaimed director Robert Altman. She starred in several of Altmans films, including Nashville and 3 Women, the latter of which earned her the prestigious Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. This recognition highlighted her remarkable talent and dedication to her craft. Dan Gilroy, Duvalls partner since 1989, expressed his deep sorrow, stating, My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now shes free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley. His heartfelt words reflect the profound impact she had on those close to her. Advertisement In recent years, Duvall faced considerable personal challenges. During a candid appearance on Dr. Phil in 2016, she opened up about her struggles with mental health, sharing, I am very sick. I need help. This moment shed light on the difficult battles she faced away from the public eye. Born on July 7, 1949, in Fort Worth, Texas, Duvalls journey into the world of acting began serendipitously while attending junior college in Houston. She made her film debut in Brewster McCloud in 1970, setting the stage for a remarkable career. Throughout her illustrious career, Shelley Duvall became synonymous with unique and diverse roles, largely thanks to her partnership with Altman. Reflecting on their relationship, she once remarked, He offers me damn good roles. None of them have been alike. This creative collaboration allowed her to explore a wide range of characters and narratives. One of Duvalls most iconic performances came in Stanley Kubricks horror masterpiece, The Shining, where she portrayed Wendy Torrance, a woman grappling with her husbands descent into madness. The films production was notoriously challenging, with Duvall revealing that she performed one of the films most memorable scenes an exhausting 127 times. She later noted, I will never give that much again, highlighting the toll the experience took on her. In addition to her film work, Duvall made significant contributions to childrens television. She produced the acclaimed series Faerie Tale Theatre and Tall Tales & Legends, both of which showcased a stellar lineup of actors and garnered critical acclaim. Shelley Duvalls legacy transcends her iconic film roles, leaving an indelible mark on both cinema and childrens programming. She is survived by her three brothers, Scott, Stewart, and Shane, and will be remembered as a pioneering figure who brought joy and depth to the screen. Her contributions to the arts will continue to resonate with audiences for years to come. 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. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 12. The governments of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan intend to sign an agreement on strategic partnership in the field of development and transfer of "green" energy, Trend reports. According to the information, the Government of Kazakhstan has put the relevant document of the agreement up for public discussion on the portal "Open Laws and Regulations." Thus, under the agreement, the parties aim to join forces and go the extra mile in the energy sector, including clean and renewable energy and energy efficiency, with a laser-like focus on clean energy sources. Under this agreement, the countries are joining forces to work hand in hand in the transmission and supply of electricity generated from renewable energy sources. They aim to pinpoint projects for the production, transportation, and trade of eco-friendly hydrogen and ammonia. Additionally, they will establish the technical and commercial conditions, administrative rules, and other organizational requirements to guarantee the smooth sailing and uninterrupted transmission of electricity. Moreover, driving home the significance of going green and keeping things spick and span in the worldwide effort to tackle climate change, the parties have every intention to foster collaboration in renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean hydrogen, and clean ammonia to enhance the security of energy systems and the stability of supply. The document outlines the collaboration between the parties in transmitting and supplying electricity from their clean energy sources to Europe and other regions. It also emphasizes the importance of cooperation in adopting new technologies, promoting energy efficiency and conservation services, and exploring opportunities in the production, transportation, and trade of clean energy sources. Meanwhile, both parties will work towards bolstering current domestic infrastructure and establishing new connections to facilitate trade and electricity transmission. In addition, the parties are interested in collaborating to investigate technical and financial matters concerning the connection to the Black Sea Submarine Transmission Line. They will also consider options for utilizing their current infrastructure or constructing new infrastructure to facilitate the transportation of clean hydrogen and clean ammonia. The parties will form a steering committee to put the agreement into motion. Decisions will be made by the steering committee by mutual agreement. The agreement is signed for the long haul and will kick in on the thirtieth day after the depositary gives the green light to the other parties that all the necessary ducks are in a row for the agreement to take effect. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel As the trial operation of Keralas dream project, Vizhinjam International Seaport Indias first deepwater transhipment port officially commenced on Friday, a political row erupted in the state as both fronts vied to claim credit for the project. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the official function held in the state capital to commence the trial operations. However, the official function triggered a row after the government snubbed opposition leader V.D. Satheeshan by not extending him an invitation. The construction of this mega transhipment port started during the reign of Oommen Chandy-led UDF government, though a vast majority of construction happened during Pinarayi Vijayan government 1.0 and 2.0. However, the Chief Minister, ironically, failed to mention Oommen Chandy or his governments contributions in his inaugural speech. Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor announced in advance that he would skip Fridays function, citing the government's failure to rehabilitate and compensate hundreds of seafaring fisher families displaced by the port. Notably, Tharoor had claimed that the Adani Group came forward to bid for the construction of the port after he spoke to Gautam Adani about it when the two met on a flight. Vizhinjam had an ancient port that was prominent until the 14th century, destroyed in the conflicts between the Chera and Chola dynasties. The first attempt for a modern port in Vizhinjam occurred in the 1940s when the Travancore kingdom conducted a feasibility survey. Then Diwan (Prime Minister) Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer even held talks with an international firm, but the plan did not result in a port. Container ship San Fernando reaches Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL) as seen from Aazhimala Shiva Temple, in Thiruvananthapuram | PTI Fifty years later, in the early 1990s, K. Karunakarans UDF government made the next move to study the feasibility of a port. The subsequent E.K. Nayanars LDF government sanctioned a contract on build, operate, and transfer conditions, but the project did not take off. In 2001, the UDF returned to power and called for an international tender for port construction, but the project faced further roadblocks. During the LDF period starting in 2006, infrastructure development measures were taken at Vizhinjam, with a Chinese company applying for the contract, but the then Union government did not approve it. Finally, it was the Oommen Chandy government of the UDF that took decisive measures to build the port and bring the Adani Group into the project. Though the LDF had protested the agreement signed for this project, the Chandy government moved ahead. The LDF government of Vijayan came to power after the Adani Group started construction of the port under a PPP model. Interestingly, Keralas port minister V.N. Vasavan told a national daily yesterday that even now the LDF does not believe the agreement signed for the project protected the states interests, despite the state government covering 66 per cent of the total project cost. The minister also claimed that the LDF continued the port's construction as it was not right to annul the agreement after work started in 2015. In his inaugural speech, Chief Minister Vijayan listed the efforts different LDF governments made for the port. "On September 18, 2006, the LDF government announced that it will attempt to get regulatory nod for this port. And, on March 9, 2007, a re-tender order came, putting VISL as the nodal agency," he said in his speech. "On November 13, 2009, the International Finance Corporation was appointed for a study. In 2010 tender processes started. Then came the legal hurdles. Some raised allegations regarding the involvement of a Chinese company, and the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre denied permission; it is all history." Vijayan also noted that in 2012, the LDF held public conventions and a protest that continued for 212 days and that in 2013, global tenders were floated for the port, before proceeding to explain how his government removed the roadblocks in the construction stage of the port. Members of the Allahabad High Court Bar Association have decided to henceforth not address the judges as My Lord or Your Lordship as they continue their strike. In a meeting of the association at Allahabad, members were of the opinion that judges should not be considered like God and thus the above addresses were unsuitable for them. This decision also references a similar sentiment echoed by the Chief Justice of India. In June this year, Justice Chandrachud had said that it was dangerous to think of courts as temples and of judges as Gods. Rajesh Khare, senior vice president of the Association said that the current address was a leftover of the colonial era and that it also placed the judges on a pedestal when they too were human. In a note issued by the Association on July 11, it was mentioned that there were increasing reports of misbehaviour by judges with lawyers. Judicial work in the state has been hampered by an ongoing strike by lawyers which is in protest of the mistreatment of lawyers and the conduct of certain judges. While initially a strike was called for July 10, it was ongoing on July 12 too at the time of the filing of this report. The Bar Association has particularly objected to the conduct of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal. In addition, it is also peeved by judges not following the tradition of revising the list of fresh and unlisted cases. The relationship between judges and lawyers was impacting the dispensation of justice, the association pointed out in a letter to the Bar Council of India on July 9. The Association has decided that all such lawyers who have been appearing either in person or on camera during the strike will be suspended from the membership of the association if they do not have a satisfactory response to show cause notices. Meanwhile, the Bar Council of India has scheduled a virtual meeting with the state body on July 14 to address the strike issue. Ahead of the closing ceremony of Indias first GenAI conclave in Kochi on July 12, P. Rajeev, Keralas minister for industries, law and coir, called the event historic. While we initially said that the event is Indias first such conclave in the GenAI space, some experts who were here said that they were not aware of any such event being held internationally before, he said. If so, this could be the first in the world. The average age of participants was 26, which highlights the futuristic nature of the conclave, Rajeev added. While concerns were raised about the potential job losses, privacy breaches and misinformation that could accompany GenAI, Rajeev said, We cannot stop the march of technology by passing a resolution. We can only engage with technology and find safeguards in real-time when challenges appear. He thanked IBM for co-hosting the event and said that this was not an investors meet, but the first step to setting up an AI ecosystem in the state. He said the government had identified 22 priority sectors and was re-looking the states industrial policy, land use policy and compliance laws in the light of new technologies. Representative Image The state is taking this forward with a robotics round-table in Kochi on August 24, he said. The other 21 priority areas have been divided into 12 themes and there will be theme-based round-tables soon. In late September, the Lifesciences Park in Thiruvananthapuram will host a round-table and we expect to attract investment worth Rs 500 crore in that space. Rajeev said that the government would be reaching out to investors outside the state, too. On August 9, there will be a roadshow in Chennai for investors. Malayalis overseas have also asked the government to showcase investment opportunities in the state in sunrise sectors. So, we might go overseas, too, he said. On January 14-15, 2025, a global investor meet, too, is being planned in Kerala. The minister said that the brain drain from the state could be stopped only if high-paying jobs are created at home by strengthening the knowledge economy. Dinesh Nirmal, senior vice president (Products), IBM Software, said that the event had created greater awareness about GenAI in the state and beyond. I was happy seeing the confidence of the students who participated in the hackathon on the sidelines of the conclave, he said. I have been a student and I have been on stages at that age, but the confidence displayed by the winners and runners-up was remarkable. In the future, the only question that will be asked of us is whether we are relevant or not. So, IBM looks at this conclave not as an accomplishment, but as an achievement. Because an achievement lifts everyone involved in it. Rajeev said that Kerala was the only state to enshrine access to the internet as a right. He added that the state has become a contiguous town because of development and connectivity. Both these factors will strengthen the growth of the knowledge economy in the state, he said. The BJP-led central government on Friday declared that June 25 will be observed as the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' to mark the imposition of the Emergency. While sharing the government notification, Home Minister Amit Shah said that the decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to observe 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency. @narendramodi , Amit Shah (@AmitShah) July 12, 2024 "On June 25, 1975, the then PM Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of our democracy by imposing the Emergency on the nation. Lakhs of people were thrown behind bars for no fault of their own, and the voice of the media was silenced," Shah while posting the gazette order on X. Union Home Ministry noted that there was "gross abuse of power by the government of the day and people of India were subjected to excesses and atrocities" during the Emergency period. "By imposing Emergency, lakhs of people were put in jails for no fault of their own, voice of media was silenced," said Shah. The notification said that the 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power, in future. To observe 25th June as #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas will serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over. It is also a day to pay homage to each and every person who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency, a Congress unleashed dark phase of https://t.co/om14K8BiTz Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 12, 2024 PM Modi said that the day will serve as a reminder of what happened when the Constitution was trampled over. PM Modi had earlier said those who imposed the Emergency have no right to profess their love for the Constitution. While the opposition INDIA bloc repeatedly alleged that the BJP wanted to end reservation and "dismantle" the Constitution. Meanwhile, Congress on Friday criticised the government's move and termed it as yet another "headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy" by PM Modi. "Yet another headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy by the non-biological PM who had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years before the people of India handed him a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat on June 4, 2024 - which will go down in history as ModiMukti Diwas," said Congress General Secretary (In-charge, Communications), Jairam Ramesh. "This is a non-biological PM who has subjected the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to systematic assault," said Ramesh. Amid a spike in terrorist attacks in the previously peaceful Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, regional parties in the Union Territory (UT) have urged the Centre to hold assembly polls on time. The Supreme Court, in its verdict on the abrogation of Article 370, had directed the Centre to conduct assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 2024. Senior BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, had announced during the campaigning for Lok Sabha polls that assembly elections would be held soon, and the people would be able to seek redress from their elected representatives. Modi also mentioned the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir shortly. After the abrogation of Article 370, the BJP linked the restoration of statehood to delimitation and elections; delimitation was completed in 2022 while assembly elections are still pending since 2014. After the smooth conduct of Lok Sabha polls, the regional parties are demanding the holding of assembly elections in the UT and the restoration of statehood. During his recent address in Parliament, Modi named Maharashtra, Haryana, and Jharkhand as the three poll-bound states but did not mention Jammu and Kashmir. Despite this omission, the BJP's top leadership held meetings in Delhi in June to analyse the performance of the party in Lok Sabha polls in the UT. On July 6, BJP National President J.P. Nadda addressed the BJPs extended UT executive meeting in Jammu. This was his first visit to the UT after the Lok Sabha elections this year. The meeting, preceded by a BJP office-bearers meeting on July 5 at Mishriwala in Jammu, was attended by key party leaders, including BJP National General Secretary Tarun Chugh, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, J&K BJP President Ravinder Raina, and others. Nadda, addressing the gathering, reaffirmed that assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir would be held on time, as announced by Prime Minister Modi during his recent statement in Srinagar on International Yoga Day. Despite Naddas assurances, regional parties are concerned that the recent surge in terrorist attacks may lead to a postponement of the elections. BJP sources in Kashmir mentioned that while constituency heads and those responsible for booth management are in place, no orders to prepare for polls have been received yet. Sensing a possible delay, regional parties have urged the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold the polls on time. On July 10, Peoples Conference Chairman Sajad Gani Lone demanded timely elections in J&K, asserting that only an administration accountable to the people has the right to rule and administer the region. Lone stressed the importance of holding elections to ensure proper governance and demanded the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. A day after Lone's call for elections, Omar Abdullah, NC Vice President and former Chief Minister, also urged for timely assembly elections to demonstrate the supremacy of security forces over terrorists. He stated that while the situation is not ideal, it is not worse than in 1996, and if the government has the courage, elections should be conducted on time to allow the people of J&K to choose their own government. These calls for elections coincided with the ECIs meeting to review the second Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls in Jammu and Kashmir via a video conference with the region's District Election Officers (DEOs). The SSR process, which began on June 21, 2024, includes poll-bound states of Haryana, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra, alongside Jammu and Kashmir. The qualifying date for the SSR has been set as July 1, 2024. The review focused on the progress of various pre-revision activities, including house-to-house (H2H) verification by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), the rationalization or rearrangement of polling stations, ensuring the accuracy and completeness of electoral rolls and Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), and addressing any inconsistencies in the electoral rolls. The agenda also covered evaluating the status of BLOs, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs). Issues raised by political parties were discussed and preparations for the integrated draft roll and pre-draft format were assessed. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer P.K. Pole and other senior officers participated in the meeting. The integrated draft electoral roll is scheduled for publication on July 25, 2024, and the period for filing claims and objections will be from July 25 to August 9, 2024. Special campaign dates will be set by the CEO. The disposal of claims and objections is to be completed by August 19, 2024 and the final electoral roll will be published on August 20, 2024. The ECI will then take a call on assembly elections in Kashmir. Bedi Ram, the MLA from the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, whose name figures in the NEET paper leak case has accused the media of hounding him because he is a Dalit. News that he has been arrested in a similar case in 2006 has been circulating in the media for a while now. The MLA represents Jakhaniya Vidhan Sabha in Ghazipur. Ram is one among the 18 accused in the case. A Gangster Court in Lucknow is hearing the said case for which charges are to be framed on July 26. The 2006 paper leak was of the Railway Board, for recruitment to group D posts. Another MLA, Vipul Dubeys name also figures in the list of accused. Dubey belongs to the Nishad Party. Ram has called out the media for reporting against him. I do not deny that there is a non-bailable warrant against me. That is a matter of procedure in the courtsome of the 18 are dead. I have been regularly appearing before the court, said Ram in his constituency today. Because I am a Dalit MLA, this news has been televised for 12 hours. This is a conspiracy to defame me, my party, the NDA, the CM and the PM, Ram said of news about him being arrested in the 2006 case. He has also dismissed speculation that he is absconding. If that was so how am I appearing in television channels?, he said. Which politician does not have cases against him? Those are false cases. The same has happened with me, he said. Ram did not shy away from admitting there are a few ongoing cases against him. Ram had earlier said that he did take money for recruitment. With the heat now on him, Ram has now said that it was a case of deep fake. Ram is also facing charges in paper leak cases in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court, but the stringent conditions laid down by the court for the reliefwhich are the same as the riders dictated by it for the bail given to him to campaign in the Lok Sabha electionswould limit his role at the helm of the government in the national capital. Amongst the conditions laid down by the court for the interim bail is that Kejriwal will not visit the chief minister's office and the Delhi Secretariat. The court has also said he will be bound by the statement made on his behalf that he will not sign official files unless it is required and necessary for obtaining clearance or approval of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. Further, Kejriwal is not allowed to make any comments with regard to his role in the present case and he will not interact with any of the witnesses or have access to any official files connected with the case. The bail has been granted to Kejriwal provided he furnishes bail bonds amounting to Rs 50,000 with one surety of the same amount to the satisfaction of the jail superintendent. The conditions for the bail are the same as those set down by the top court when it granted him interim bail on May 10 to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. The two-judge bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta has granted interim relief to Kejriwal while forwarding the questions of legality of the arrest made under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act raised by him to a larger bench of the court. It said the interim bail may be extended, or recalled by the larger bench. Kejriwal continues to be in jail despite the bail granted by the Supreme Court because he is in judicial custody after being arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the excise policy case. Given the fact that right to life and liberty is sacrosanct, and Arvind Kejriwal has suffered incarceration of over 90 days, and that the questions referred to above require in-depth consideration by a larger Bench, we direct that Arvind Kejriwal may be released on interim bail..., the court said in its order. Moreover, the court also referred to the question of whether it is appropriate for Kejriwal, who has been behind bars for over three months now, to continue to hold the position. The court said it cannot direct an elected leader to step down or not function as the chief minister or as a minister, and that it is leaving it to Kejriwal to take a call. We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the chief minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. We have also referred to the allegations. While we do not give any direction, since we are doubtful whether the court can direct an elected leader to step down or not function as the chief minister or as a minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to take a call, the court said. It, however, said, the larger bench, if deemed appropriate, can frame questions and decide the conditions that can be imposed by the court in such cases. The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the excise policy scam on Friday. The verdict comes amid calls from the opposition BJP that Kejriwal resigns from his post as Delhi Chief Minister on moral grounds. The Supreme Court website has listed the case for July 12 and the verdict will be delivered by a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna. The bench, also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, had reserved its verdict on Kejriwal's plea on May 17. Here is a timeline of the legal hurdles faced by the Delhi Chief Minister * November 2021: Delhi government introduces new excise policy. * July 2022: Lt Governor VK Saxena recommends a CBI probe into alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of policy. * August 2022: Both CBI and ED register cases in this connection. * September 2022: Delhi government scraps excise policy. * October 30, 2023: ED sends first summons to Delhi chief minister in a money laundering case with regard to the Excise policy. * October 30, 2023: ED sent its first summons to Kejriwal. * November 2, 2023: Kejriwal skips the first summons and flies to Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh to address a political rally. *December 2023: ED issued two more summons to Kejriwal for questioning on December 21 and January 3. He calls the summons illegal and politically motivated. * January 2024: ED sent two more summons for January 18 and February 2. He skips both. * February 3, 2024 : ED approaches magisterial court against Kejriwal for skipping summonses. * February 7, 2024: Magisterial court summons Kejriwal on ED complaint. *February, 2024: ED issues summons to Kejriwal on February 19, February 26 and March 4. * February, 2024: Delhi court grants Kejriwal exemption from personal appearance for the day. *February, 2024: Kejriwal skips seventh summon. AAP claims the matter is in court and the ED is yet to respond to the plea in court against the legality of the summons. * March 7, 2024: Magisterial court issues summons to Kejriwal on ED's fresh complaint against him for evading summonses. *March, 2024 : Bail for Kejriwal on two complaints filed by ED against him for skipping its summonses in the case. * March 2024: Kejriwal moves Delhi High Court against ED summonses, stating he wont appear before the Enforcement Directorate as there is a clear intent to arrest him. * March 21, 2024: Delhi HC refuses to grant Kejriwal any protection from coercive action. He approaches SC. * March 21, 2024: ED arrests Kejriwal. Kejriwal moves Delhi HC challenging his arrest by ED and trial court order remanding him in agency's custody. * April 9, 2024: HC dismisses Kejriwal's petition against arrest by ED. * April 10, 2024: Kejriwal moves SC challenging HC order upholding his arrest by ED. *April 15, 2024: SC seeks a response from ED by April 24 on Kejriwal's plea challenging his arrest. * April 24, 2024: ED tells SC that Kejriwal was guilty of money laundering. * April 29, 2024: SC questions the non-appearance of Kejriwal before ED despite repeated summonses for the recording of statements, and asks if he can challenge arrest on grounds of non-recording of his version. * May 10, 2024: SC grants interim bail to Kejriwal till June 1. The court asks him to surrender to authorities again. *June 1, 2024: He surrenders and is back at Tihar Jail *June 5, 2024: Court reserves for June 5 order on Kejriwal's interim bail plea. * June 5, 2024: Court denies interim bail to Kejriwal on medical grounds. * June 20, 2024: Delhi court grants regular bail to Kejriwal. *June 21, 2024: ED moves Delhi High Court opposing Kejriwals release. HC blocks Kejriwals bail. *June 26, 2024: He was arrested by the CBI on June 26 in connection with the corruption case related to the alleged excise policy scam. The Supreme Court granted interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor policy case on Friday. The apex court observed mere interrogation does not allow for arrest. Granting interim bail to the Aam Aadmi Party leader in the money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate, a bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta observed Kejriwal has suffered incarceration of 90 days, Live Law reported. The bench referred the Delhi CMs plea challenging EDs arrest to a larger bench. As we are referring the matter to the larger bench, despite our findings on reasons to believe, we consider whether interim bail should be granted to Arvind Kejriwal, given the fact that the right to life and liberty is sacrosanct and Arvind Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for 90 days and questions referred to above require intense consideration by a larger bench. We direct that Arvind Kejriwal be released on interim bail in connection with the case, Live Law reported quoting the verdict. The Court also observed that it leaves it to Kejriwal to decide whether he should step down as chief minister. The bench said it is not giving any directions as it is doubtful whether a Court can direct an elected leader to step down. We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the Chief Minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. We have referred to the allegations. While we do not give any directions as we are doubtful whether a Court can direct an elected leader to step down or not to function as a Chief Minister or a Minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to make a call. The larger bench, if deemed appropriate, can frame questions and decide the conditions that can be imposed in such cases, the publication reported. The ED arrested Arvind Kejriwal on March 21 in connection with alleged scam in the scrapped Delhi liquor policy. The CBI arrested him from Tihar prison on June 26 in a prevention of corruption case registered in connection with the alleged scam. The matter relates to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22, which has now been scrapped. However, Kejriwal would not be released from Tihar prison since he is also facing charges in a connected case registered by CBI. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 12. Kazakhstan and the UAE have discussed prospects for cooperation in the energy sector, Trend reports. According to the press-service of the Kazakh president, discussion on this topic took place during the meeting between President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and UAE Ambassador to the country Mohammed Saeed Mohammed Al Ariqi. Tokayev expressed gratitude for the active participation of a representative delegation from the United Arab Emirates in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana. The president noted that Kazakhstan places special importance on developing multifaceted cooperation with the UAE. The sides discussed the implementation of agreements reached at the highest level in the trade, economic, and investment spheres. The need to continue working within the framework of the Joint Declaration on Strategic Investment Projects between Kazakhstan and the UAE was emphasized. Additionally, the meeting considered prospects for cooperation in the energy, transportation, logistics, information technology, and artificial intelligence sectors. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Hungary's nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, will travel to Florida on Thursday to meet with former President Donald Trump following a NATO summit in Washington, a move likely to aggravate frustrations among Western allies over similar secretive trips he made to Russia and China in recent days. Orban will meet with Trump at the former president's beachside compound Mar-a-Lago, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private event. The Hungarian leader has openly endorsed Trump's candidacy in this year's presidential election, and pinned hopes on the Republican being able to bring an end to Russia's war in Ukraine. The EU's longest-serving leader has become an icon to some conservative populists for championing what he calls illiberal democracy, which includes restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. He has also cracked down on the press and judiciary in Hungary and been accused by the EU of violating rule-of-law and democracy standards. The Mar-a-Lago meeting Orban's second since March comes as the latest stop on what he calls a peace mission aimed at finding a path toward ending Russia's war in Ukraine. Widely considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin among all EU leaders, Orban made an unannounced visit to Kyiv last week where he held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Some of his critics interpreted the Kyiv visit as a sign that Hungary could take steps closer to the EU mainstream's pro-Ukraine stance as it took over the bloc's six-month rotating presidency earlier this month. But those hopes were dashed when he made an unannounced trip to Moscow days later to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare trip to Russia by a European leader that drew condemnation from Kyiv and other European capitals. After that, he flew to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, where he described China as a stabilising force amid global turbulence and praised its constructive and important peace initiatives. Speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Thursday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb rebuked Orban for his visits to Moscow and Beijing, which EU leaders have rushed to clarify were not endorsed by other European leaders. I'll say it out loud, I don't think there's any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law, Stubb said. "He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose. Orban has sought close ties to Trump and other conservative Republicans, and expressed his belief that a new Trump presidency was the only serious chance for an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly said he could settle the war in 24 hours if he's elected president again by meeting with both Putin and Zelenskyy a claim Russia's United Nations ambassador has disputed. In April 2023, when charges were filed in the first of Trump's four criminal cases, Orban posted a message of support for the former president urging him to keep on fighting. Trump in early 2022 said he was giving his complete support and endorsement to Orban's reelection campaign that year. Some observers have raised concerns that Orban's pursuit of a separate foreign policy on Russia and China than that of his EU and NATO partners threatens to undermine those groups' unity. European governments, meanwhile, have engaged in deep consultations on what they could do to ensure that NATO, Western support for Ukraine and the security of individual NATO countries will endure should Trump one of the military alliance's most prominent critics win back the presidency in November and temper US contributions. When US President Joe Biden took to the stage at the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday night, his main goal was to allay fears that he was too old to run for re-election. But, what ensued was another gaffe when he addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as 'President Putin', prompting loud gasps in the audience. Flanked by Nato leaders during a signing ceremony alongside Zelenskyy on the final day of the Nato summit in Washington, Biden said: "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin." European leaders in attendance gave a hesitant applause while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were seen sporting surprised looks. Biden, on realising his mistake, corrected himself quickly. "Going to beat President Putin, President Zelenskyy. I am so focused on beating Putin," Biden said. "Weve got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr President." "Im better," Zelenskyy said, shaking Bidens hand. "You are a hell of a lot better," Biden responded. Soon after, the President gave a Press Conference, tagged a make-or-break event that would have repercussions on his campaign. He defended himself, "I was talking about Putin and I said, and now, the very end. I said here I mean, Putin. I said, No, Im sorry. Zelenskyy," Biden told a reporter who asked about the misspeak. "And then I added five other names." The hour-long press conference, ironically, began with another gaffe, when he addressed Vice President Kamala Harris as Trump. In his very first response, Biden was asked if he was concerned about Harris ability to beat Trump if she were tapped to run against him. "I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president," he said. The President continued to defend his candidature, saying he was not in the presidential race for his legacy but to "complete the job I started". He added that he was the best-qualified person to compete against Trump and vowed to keep moving. "I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once and I will beat him again," Biden said, adding that "theres a long way to go this campaign, and so Im just going to keep moving." Biden also pushed back questions about his fitness for office. On whether he has thought about his legacy in the wake of his debate performance, he replied: "Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job I started". The President also added that he has not had any of my European allies come up and say, 'Joe, dont run. What Ive heard them say is, Youve got to win'. "If I slow down and cant get the job done thats a sign I shouldnt be doing this," he said. "But theres no indication of that. None." Why Indian 2? It was among my first questions to director Shankar Shanmugam when I met him at his Chennai office a couple of days back. He immediately said that every time he came across a headline in the newspaper on bribes and corruption he had always felt that "Indian thatha" should come back to fight it once again. The film opens with Chitra Aravind (Sidharth) and his team who run a YouTube channel called Barking Dogs. The channel creates satirical content and parodies against corrupt officials, politicians and those who swindle common mans money. When Chitra Aravind, Aarthi (Priya Bhavani Shankar) and Thambesh (Jagan) protest against the suicide of a teacher training student, they get arrested. Aravinds girlfriend Disha (Rakul Preet Singh) comes to bail them out of jail and tells them nothing will change because of his corruption crusades. Aravind then trends a hashtag #ComeBackIndian on social media setting the stage for the entry of Senapathy, a very old varma kalai expert living in Taipei. The country has witnessed many corruption crusaders like Sidharths Barking Dogs. Many journalists and YouTube channels are doing this on social media these days. The long screenplay is too boring with a usual template. The first half is no different compared to the 1996 Indian. In fact Shankar, through Kamal Hassan in the first part spoke in detail against corruption. And years later, the country witnessed Anna Hazare's protests that led to the growth of yet another political party whose chief minister has now landed in jail, over alleged corruption charges. In fact, as a journalist, even this writer has exposed many corrupt politicians. Society is more polarised today, compared to 1996 and people have come a long way with social media. But the director still sticks to the old template - bribery, medical negligence, education fraud, bank fraud. Indian 2 also makes a mockery of Ambani, Adani, Vijay Mallya and Legend Saravanan. While a businessman shits in a gold toilet, another purchases land on Mars and yet another makes a bejewelled tortoise crawl up in a womans navel. If they are all high-profile businessmen, a motel owner and a fisherwoman who cheat their customers are also brought to task in Indian 2. And then there are corrupt officers - a woman registrar and a vigilance officer who take bribes. Of course, corrupt politicians and officers will have to be dealt with an iron hand. But it is very painful to watch on screen. In a cruise, Senapathy uses his Varma kalai and recites a Sanskrit shloka before punishing a businessman. After this, the man acts like a woman, his hand gestures are stereotypical. The homophobic act is very disturbing to watch. A few scenes, however, are gripping towards the end. But in the climax, Kamal rides a monocycle, making us run along with him for more than 15 minutes. Metro train goes into reverse gear, a police officer hangs from an under construction fly over, but Indian thaatha escapes. Indian 2 is extremely boring and painful, making the audience sit for more than two hours without any takeaway at the end. Unlike Indian, where AR Rahman made his own mark with melodies and background music, Anirudh doesnt impress. As usual, Shankars grandeur stands out and so is Kamal Hassans make up making him look like a 100-year-old man. Yes, as Shankar told me during the interview, Senapathy is back again in his Indian 2. But now I want to tell him that the audience will not accept the second edition of any film if it is not much more brilliant than the first instalment. Now, let us wait for the third edition of the movie to know awaits us next. That's right. Shankar and Kamal Haasan will be back with Indian 3! Movie: Indian 2 Director: Shankar Shanmugam Cast: Kamal Haasan, Sidharth, Bobby Simha, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Nedumudi Venu, Vivek, Rahul Preet Singh, Samuthirakani and others. Music: Anirudh Ravichander Rating: 2/5 Troops from the IDFs elite Commando Brigade discovered a significant weapons cache and a command center used by Hamas at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza City. The raid, conducted as part of a larger operation by the 99th Division in western and southern Gaza City, uncovered a vast array of weapons and military equipment. According to the IDF, the commandos captured Hamas operatives attempting to flee the facility and engaged in battles with armed cells holed up inside. The troops seized various weapons, including rockets, machine guns, mortars, explosive devices, grenades, and drones capable of dropping bombs. Additionally, they discovered parts of a Hamas drone and a command room used to observe Israeli forces. In a nearby university building, the commandos located an underground bomb-making lab and additional weapons. This is not the first time the IDF has discovered Hamas military infrastructure at the UNRWA HQ, as a previous raid earlier this year uncovered a major tunnel network beneath the compound. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) The US announced that it is giving another $100 million in aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. The donation comes only a month after a previous US donation of $90 million in aid to the Palestinians. Israel has estimated that about 80% of aid delivered to Gaza is seized by Hamas. Additionally, according to a report by the British Telegraph, there is even more food available in Gaza now than before the war began. A statement from the USAID says that the newest donation increases the amount of funding provided by the Biden administration to the Palestinians since October 7th to over $774 million. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 12. Kazakhstan is interested in increasing trade in the agro-industrial complex with Uzbekistan, said Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Olzhas Bektenov, Trend reports. He made the remark during the 21st meeting of the joint Intergovernmental Commission on Bilateral Cooperation with the participation of Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov in Almaty. "Uzbekistan is one of Kazakhstan's largest trading partners. Our governments have been tasked with bringing the volume of mutual trade to $10 billion in the medium term. In this direction, we are interested in increasing trade in the agro-industrial complex and food industry, as well as increasing the level of industrial cooperation," he said. In turn, Aripov pointed out that the spirit of strategic cooperation and alliance has been driving the fast development of relations between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in recent years. Additionally, there is a great deal of room for improvement in their ability to be reinforced. "Positive growth is observed in all areas. This fully meets the interests of our fraternal peoples. Undoubtedly, an important factor in such a high level of partnership is the friendly and trusting relations between the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. I am confident that todays meeting and the agreements reached will give additional impetus to our cooperation," the Uzbek PM said. Meanwhile, trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan over 5 years increased by 29.5 percent, amounting to $4.4 billion. Exports of local goods increased by 56.9 percent: from $2 billion to $3.1 billion. Imports during the period under review decreased by 9.1 percent and amounted to $1.3 billion in 2023. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, July 12. Turkmenistan and Turkiye discussed further expansion of bilateral cooperation, Trend reports. According to an official source, this topic was discussed on July 11, 2024, during a meeting between the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to Turkiye, Mekan Ishangulyyev, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkiye, Yasin Ekrem Serim. During the meeting, the sides outlined the priority areas of the Turkmen-Turkish agenda, and confirmed their mutual interest in developing a mutually beneficial bilateral dialogue, including in the political, trade, and economic spheres. Furthermore, the sides exchanged views on topical issues of interaction between the foreign ministries of the two countries, including holding Turkmen-Turkish consultations on consular issues and intensifying contacts in the context of expanding the legal framework of bilateral cooperation. In conclusion, the parties expressed confidence in the further successful continuation of the established productive cooperation. Meanwhile, economic cooperation between Turkmenistan and Turkiye is actively developing and includes joint projects in the fields of energy, transport, construction, and agriculture. Turkiye, being one of Turkmenistan's main trading partners, contributes to an increase in trade and investment, which contributes to strengthening economic ties and long-term partnerships between the two countries. I never grew up with any pets. Despite this, I love animals. Big ones, small ones, fluffy or scaly, it doesn't much matter to me. It was this love that inspired me to sneak a stray cat into my bedroom when I was a child (much to my mother's horror), and eventually led to me giving up meat almost a decade ago. I think that animals have as much right to be here as humans do and that we should be their caretakers, but despite this belief, I can't help but draw the line at powerful, dangerous animals created by human hands rather than any accident of nature. One such animal is the XL Bully. The crossbreed falls under the 'ban-dog' category on Ireland's restricted list; it's a hybrid of a number of restricted breeds including the American Bulldog and English Bull Terrier, and other dogs who were historically bred by humans for fighting. However, the XL Bully itself is not specifically included on the list as it is difficult to define, though they are typically large with a muscular body and blocky head, and weigh between 110 and 150 pounds. Twenty three year old Limerick woman, Nicole Morey, was mauled to death by her pet XL Bully last month (Tuesday June 4) after celebrating her birthday. When I learned about her tragic death, two things came to mind. Firstly, I felt sadness that such a young woman - who her loved ones reportedly described as having "a heart of gold" - had suffered a needless and untimely death. And secondly, as people online attempted to excuse the dog which caused her death, I also felt anger. I felt anger because an astonishing number of people insist on pushing an increasingly familiar line that, in my opinion, is not only deeply insulting to victims of dog attacks, is also a lie: It's the owners, not the dog. What do people really mean when they say this? Do they mean someone who neglects their dogs, ties them up for hours on end, starves them? Do they mean someone who doesn't discipline their dogs or socialise them correctly? It's never clear, it's just never the dog's fault. I don't buy this. According to videos posted on her public TikTok, Morey - who reportedly owned several restricted breed dogs - adored them and referred to them as her "babies". A number of videos show her doting on her pets, defending them from naysayers, cuddling them in bed, dancing with them, and referring to herself as a "dog mom". The picture this paints is certainly not one of neglect. Is it still the owner's fault when they treat their animals with love and care? I think to suggest this is abhorrent, but it seems to be the prevalent opinion on social media, particularly as the breed has - inexplicably - grown in popularity in recent years. One of Nicole Morey's dogs The UK recently decided to ban XL Bullies in England and Wales due to a string of attacks involving the breed, and although several hundred Bully owners marched in protest against the ban, it received very little pushback. According to the New Statesman, in the 20 years between 2001 and 2021 approximately three fatal dog attacks occurred in the UK every year, with the risk tripling in just the past three years. Ten people almost half of them children were killed by dogs in 2022, with three quarters of all killings by dogs in the past three years reportedly caused by XL Bullies. Ireland does not keep clear statistics on the exact number of dog attacks and the breeds which cause them, but - thankfully - despite our lack of appropriate record-keeping, we have finally seen sense since Morey's tragic death. The Irish government has today (Friday July 12) made the decision to outlaw the breeding, importing, selling or re-homing of XL Bullies in Ireland from October this year, with owners of existing dogs required to obtain a Certificate of Exemption to keep them from February 1, 2025. Minister Heather Humphreys - who confirmed news of the ban earlier this afternoon - made the decision to ensure public safety, which she said is her "number one priority". The minister's decision - which is likely to be welcomed by the vast majority of Irish people, including many dog owners - comes following a consultation with the chairperson of the Stakeholder Group on Dog Control, Retired Deputy Garda Commissioner John Twomey. It shouldn't have taken so long to make such a sensible decision, but I'm glad it's now been made. The fact is certain breeds pose more of a danger to people than others, and to ignore this is to live our lives in a false reality. If we accept that some breeds display typical hereditary traits sheepdogs like to herd, greyhounds like to chase, etc. why can't we accept that dogs who were historically bred for fighting retain some aggressive characteristics? In saying that, it isn't just aggression we have to worry about, as plenty of dog breeds can exhibit such behaviour (nobody knows that better than chihuahua owners). We also have to consider the potential for destruction. A bite from a Shih Tzu and a bite from an XL Bully are very different injuries. It's the consequences of a bite, not the bite itself, that we should most concern ourselves with. Dog bites aren't terribly uncommon - 3,158 emergency in-patient hospitalisations due to dog bites were recorded in Ireland between 2012 and 2021 - but not all bites are equal. XL Bullies typically have a bite force of approximately 300psi (pounds per square inch). A chihuhua's bite force is 100psi. For perspective, a human's is approximately 160psi. Anyone trying to compare chihuahua bites to those of pitbulls and XL Bullies and this is a typical response to Bully criticism - is being totally disingenuous about the potential for destruction. Along with American Bulldog and English Bull Terriers, XL Bullies can also be created from a mix of breeds such as Cane Corsos (who have a bite force of approximately 700psi) and Presa Canarios (500psi). A lion's bite force is between 650 to 1000psi. If keeping lions as pets were legal, some people would almost certainly try to collar one, but lions cannot be kept as pets, and XL Bullies shouldn't be either. Interestingly, the bite force of a collie (220psi) isn't far off an XL Bully or a pitbull, yet I've never heard of a collie mauling a person to death. Have you? Original article first published on June 7, 2024. BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Turkiye is negotiating with Russia and Ukraine regarding the opening of a grain corridor, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters, Trend reports. Erdogan noted that so far no results have been achieved on this issue. My last meeting with Russian President Putin concerned this issue. We also discussed these issues with Ukrainian President Zelensky at the NATO summit, the Turkish President said. Erdogan expressed hope for the resumption of work on this corridor. Let's not forget that a chicken shack owner took a great deal of heat when he, rightly, said that he had to move his biz because of constant crime. Now . . . Without small biz to threaten . . . The local criminal class have now turned their greedy eyes toward sacrilege. Overall, it's bad news for this neighborhood if crooks don't have any qualms about looting a house of worship. Here's the story . . . "A church in Waldo is the latest to fall victim to vandalism and a break-in . . . Several members of their congregation watch virtually, and unfortunately several items of computer and video equipment was stolen. " Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . 'I would just want to know why': KC church, cafe face break-ins; valuable items stolen A south Kansas City church and a cafe are dealing with cleaning up and wondering why after both faced break-ins this month. Redemption Ministries church is the latest victim of vandalism, break-in A church in Waldo is the latest to fall victim to vandalism and a break-in. Redemption Ministries will pivot, but still hold services. Developing . . . Right now we take a quick glimpse at the strange world of US campaign 2024 politics and the disjointed discourse amid the social media era. To wit . . . KANSAS CITY PRO-WAR PROTEST FAVORS ESCALATING WAR IN EUROPE!!! This one is kind of a stretch for TKC given that we've mostly grown up with anti-war activism that has dominated the US discourse since the days of Vietnam. Now . . . Progressives and many Euro-locals want the US to risk nuke war by way of Ukraine conflict double down. This might be the exact OPPOSITE of traditional activist ethos but is no less earnest. We all have our bias so it's important not to let our fear of nuclear Armageddon keep us from understanding the arguments that, actually, guide both Democratic Party AND Republican elected leaders on the national level. As always, we strive for fairness and want to help this local protest speak for itself . . . Here's the quote and the mission statement . . . In light of this week's attacks on Ukraine - specifically the bombing of a children's hospital - I'm organizing a Kansas City protest/rally for this Saturday the 13th. Join members of the community in KC from 10:30am-12:45pm at Mill Creek Park on the Plaza. MESSAGE TO CONVEY: - The US must allow Ukraine strike ALL military targets in russia! - We must return ALL of the children (that russia has ADMITTED to kidnapping!!) to their parents/homes in Ukraine immediately! - Call your state Senators & Representatives frequently and passionately! - russia IS an enemy of the US. We need to act NOW! ############# Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Let Ukraine Strike Back - A KC Protest Developing . . . Despite reelection challenge . . . She's keeping quiet on the future of the White House . . . Constituents deserve an answer but the strategy is solid whilst the drama continues to play out. Check-it . . . "Democratic lawmakers streamed from the House chamber and into the muggy July heat to travel back to their districts for the weekend. "They were met by a wall of political reporters, most of whom have been asking some version of the same question for the past week: Do you think President Joe Biden needs to step down as Democratic nominee? "Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat, hasnt answered it. On Thursday, she left the chamber, went outside and leaned on a car window to chat with a fellow lawmaker. Asked by a reporter where she stood, Davids pleasantly referred back to a statement her campaign had issued. " 'I was elected to Congress to deliver results for Kansans and am focused on what matters most to folks at home, like lowering everyday costs, protecting reproductive rights, making health care more affordable, and ensuring all Kansas families have the resources to succeed,' the statement said." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Political reality . . . There were a surprising number of conservatives who didn't quite agree with the Senator's recent endorsement of Christian nationalism in a broad sense. The separation of church & state is a fundamental constitutional principle and something that few conservatives want to fundamentally change. In a recent interview, the Missouri leader offered clarification along with a stunning rebuke against KC's largest almost daily newspaper . . . Here's the word . . . You know, I dont ever read anything the Kansas City Star writes on principle, Hawley said. Theyre a joke, and such a disgrace." And now, in fairness, more detail on his recent money line . . . But in terms of the usual leftist ranting and raving about anybody whos a Christian and who thinks that Christianity is a good thing, and you know what, religious believers in public life and religious believers sharing their faith at work and in schools, that thats good they automatically say, Oh, youre a fascist, youre insane. Give me a break. This country was founded by believers, No. 1. Our constitutional principles come down to us from the Christian tradition. And I am not afraid to say that. It is the absolute truth, and because of that it has made us the freest, most humane, most just country in the history of the world. The Star quoted Hawley as telling the audience, 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. But he also went on to compare Christian nationalism to other kinds through the millennia. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Hawley fires back after columnist implies he wants white male theocracy in form of 'Christian nationalism' Is the far-left now trying to "Butker" Josh Hawley? Much as liberals pilloried Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for advancing traditional values in a May 11 commencement address, the o... Today's Update From The Newspaper . . . BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12. Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement have agreed on principles for establishing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. US President Joe Biden published a corresponding statement in his X page, Trend reports. "Six weeks ago I laid out a comprehensive framework for how to achieve a ceasefire and bring the hostages home. There is still work to do and these are complex issues, but that framework is now agreed to by both Israel and Hamas.My team is making progress and I'm determined to," he wrote. JetBlue Airways has challenged United Airlines over a new flight slot at Washington Reagan National Airport, citing a violation of federal regulations. The dispute focuses on United's proposed 6:30 a.m. flight to San Francisco, which JetBlue argues is scheduled too early. Decisions on the contested slots are expected later this month. JetBlue Battles United on Flight Slots JetBlue is intensifying its opposition against United Airlines regarding new flight allocations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The airline argues that United's plan to introduce a flight departing at 6:30 a.m. to San Francisco contradicts federal rules, which prohibit flights before 7 a.m. This legal stipulation aims to minimize early morning disruptions. The issue gained momentum after recent legislation, which allowed more flights at the congested airport. This law has opened the door for airlines to propose additional routes, but it also requires that these new flights adhere to strict time constraints. Seeing a potential rule breach by United, JetBlue has lodged a formal appeal with the Department of Transportation (DOT) to reconsider United's application. JetBlue's argument is built around the concern that allowing flights before the permitted time could set a troubling precedent. They have even pointed to existing schedules, like American Airlines' red-eye flight from Phoenix, carefully timed to arrive just after the cutoff at 7:03 a.m. On the other hand, United maintains that their proposed timing is within reason, arguing their case by citing a pre-existing slot for a similar early flight. United suggests their schedule would help streamline connections in San Francisco, enhancing overall travel efficiency. The DOT said it would decide on the matter by the end of the month. JetBlue and the aviation community will closely watch a decision that could set a precedent for future regulations at one of America's most congested airports. Related Article : JetBlue Airways Rolls Out New Bag Fees for Busy Travel Times Tough Season for the Airlines Every airline must have a "slot" to schedule a flight in or out of an airport, serving as a timetable for gate use. These slots are essential as they prevent larger airlines from monopolizing flight schedules, ensuring a fair market, especially for low-cost carriers. Amid rising air travel demands, the competition for these slots has intensified. According to a report from Airport Coordination Limited, Dublin Airport will handle 14.4 million seats this winter, a drop from last year due to a passenger cap implemented in 2007. The competition for slots was fierce, and some airlines faced significant cutbacks. JetBlue, which initiated new routes to Dublin from New York and Boston in March 2024, faced a setback as it received none of the 144 slots it requested for the winter schedule. United Airlines also saw limitations but secured some additions to its existing slots. British carrier Jet2 and Latvia's airBaltic experienced even steeper restrictions, with airBaltic losing all its previous slots, and Jet2 didn't receive any slots at all. Despite the competitive atmosphere, Ryanair managed to secure nearly half of the available slots, underscoring its dominant position at Dublin Airport. Ryanair expressed concerns that limiting capacity could harm airlines, passengers, and the broader economic interests of Ireland by blocking competition and slowing growth in sectors like tourism and employment. A dramatic fire erupted at Rouen Cathedral's spire in France, reminding many of the tragic Notre Dame blaze. Quickly contained by 70 firefighters, the incident caused minor injuries and no major damage to the historic site. Rouen Cathedral Fire Sparks Concern Devastating memories of the Notre Dame fire were relived Monday as flames consumed the Rouen Cathedral spire amid restoration work. The firefighters quickly brought the situation under control, with very little damage and only smoke inhalation injuries. That was the crucial moment for the medieval architecture gem in Rouen, northern France. Emergency teams, which included 70 firefighters and 40 vehicles, immediately went to the scene. In that way, thanks to their speediness, the blaze didn't spread from the spire under heavy restoration. Additional firefighting units from the neighboring Oise region were also called in to assist, underscoring the severity of the situation and the value of the historic site. The fire, which appeared to start in the protective tarpaulin covering the restoration works, was put out without significant damage to the cathedral itself. The local fire department took immediate steps to assess the impact of the water used to douse the flames on the cathedral's interior and artwork. They considered relocating some items to prevent water damage. Rouen Cathedral was built in the 12th century, and it has undergone numerous restoration projects throughout the centuries. It was also the subject of a collection of paintings by the French impressionist Claude Monet. While not as harmful, the fire at Rouen Cathedral is drawing comparisons to the tragedy that occurred at Notre Dame in 2019 and raised new concerns over the state and preservation of historical monuments. Related Article : France Leads as Top International Travel Destination in 2024 Rouen's Rich History Rouen Cathedral, a towering symbol of history and art, stands proudly in the heart of Seine-Maritime's administrative center. Built in stages, its construction began in 1030 with Roman-inspired designs and expanded in 1145 to include Gothic elements, completing its structure in 1506. Since then, it has survived many challenges, including significant damage during World War II from a fire in 1940 and bombings in 1955 that devastated much of Rouen. Despite these trials, Rouen Cathedral has been a beacon of resilience and history, officially recognized as a Historical Monument since 1862. Notably, it houses the remains of King Richard the Lionheart and boasts the title of France's tallest cathedral, with its cast-iron spire reconstructed in 1876. The cathedral's design is a tribute to its historical roots and a canvas for art. It gained international fame through Claude Monet's 30 impressionist paintings, capturing its majestic presence and the changing light of Normandy's skies. Renovations have been a constant part of the cathedral's life, enhancing its structure and beauty with stained glass, statues, and chapels discovered and restored through modern archaeological methods. The ongoing care ensures that its crypt, filled with historical relics, remains a point of interest for visitors. A top-notch trio of PF timepieces to take on a trip to the Irish capital Dublin is a city close to my heart. I lived, studied and worked in the Irish capital for four years, and every time I return there it feels like home. Whats so special about it? Well, if you can tolerate even embrace its unpredictable weather, Dublin has bags to offer: landmarks bursting with history, fantastic shopping, impressive Georgian architecture, warm and welcoming people, plus a thoroughly vibrant nightlife. For this hypothetical trip back to my former stomping ground, I have decided to take a few watches from one of my favourite brands, Parmigiani Fleurier, whose mix of consummate craftsmanship and clean, contemporary design are hard to resist. Sober and Scholarly With its compact layout and pedestrian-friendly streets, Dublin is a great city to discover by foot. A good place to start is Trinity College, Irelands oldest university and home to the Book of Kells. This illuminated, intricately decorated medieval manuscript is a crucial artifact of early Christian Ireland. Trinity College Dublin For this first stop, I would be inclined to strap on the Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Petite Seconde Platinum. Its sober, hand-frosted Grey Caledon dial almost an olive green and attractive 40.6mm case in this noble metal are just the ticket for this scholarly and erudite environment. Toric Petite Seconde Platinum Parmigiani Fleurier From Trinity College, you can easily wander over to a number of other must-see sites: St Stephens Green, a lush city park perfect for an afternoon stroll; Dublin Castle, an important symbol of the city's storied past; and Christ Church Cathedral, renowned for its Gothic Revival architecture. And from the latter, you can head to the Ha'penny Bridge that arches over the River Liffey to make your way to O'Connell Street, where several pivotal episodes of Irish history have unfolded. Vibrant Hue Just north of Dublin, the peninsular of Howth offers a lovely escape from the bustle of the city thanks to its stunning natural beauty. Visitors can hike along the rugged cliffs adorned with vibrant gorse bushes, enjoy panoramic sea views and often spot playful seals in the harbour. Howth Kristof Zerbe / Unsplash For this outdoorsy daytrip, my choice would be the Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Micro-Rotor No Date. The Golden Siena tone and barleycorn guilloche pattern of its dial are a fitting match for the bright yellow flowers of the gorse that characterises the Howth terrain. Plus, all you need to know is the time here, nothing else, so its pared-down indications are particularly apt. Tonda PF Micro-Rotor No Date Parmigiani Fleurier Two-Tone Triumph Of course, no visit to Dublin is complete without savouring a pint of Guinness. This iconic stout made from roasted barley, malted barley, hops, yeast and water since 1759 embodies the citys rich brewing heritage. You can, by all means, grab a pint of the black stuff at source the Guinness Storehouse but even better would be in one of the citys celebrated pubs. Pint of Guinness Christopher Zapf / Unsplash While many tourists may flock to Temple Bar, the city boasts a number of historical pubs that shouldnt be missed: For one, the Brazen Head, Dublins oldest pub, established in 1198. There is also The Palace Bar, known for its literary connections and traditional feel. Temple Bar Gregory Dupont / Unsplash My pick, though, is The Long Hall, a Victorian-era pub that stands out for its ornate interior and warm ambiance, where both young and old congregate to engage in lively chat and cheerful revelry. The Long Hall Gareth-Byrne Which PF timepiece would best accompany a pint of Guinness here? Why, the Tonda PF Sport Chronograph, of course. Its panda-style dial with silvered guilloched base punctuated by black counters neatly recalls the dark body and velvety head of the famous beer. Tonda PF Sport Chronograph Parmigiani Fleurier Whats more, you can use this watch to check that the bartender is pouring this hallowed beverage in the right way: That means filling the glass three-quarters at a 45-degree angle, allowing it to settle for 119.5 seconds, before topping it off. This meticulous process optimises Guinness smooth texture and unmistakable taste! Traveling the world has never been easier for UAE residents, thanks to a growing list of countries that offer visa-free entry. Whether youre dreaming of white sandy beaches, buzzing urban centers, or stunning natural wonders, these visa-free destinations have you covered. So, without further ado heres a list of all the countries UAE residents can travel to without a visa! Read More: Things To Keep In Mind While Getting That Summer Glow What Are Visa-Free Countries? Visa-free countries allow you to travel without obtaining a visa before your trip. These destinations permit stays for a specified period, usually determined by bilateral agreements. UAE residents can typically enter for tourism, business, or other purposes without a visa application process. However, it's crucial to check each country's specific entry requirements and allowed stay duration before traveling. Read More: Best Tips to Stay Cool in The Summer Read More: Summer Travel Essentials Maldives Visa on Arrival for 30 Days Dreaming of white sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters? The Maldives offers a 30-day visa on arrival for UAE residents and tourists of all nationalities. Requirements include a valid passport, return ticket, prepaid accommodation, and sufficient funds for your stay. Armenia Visa on Arrival Explore Armenia's ancient history, stunning landscapes, and rich culture. UAE residents can get a visa on arrival by presenting proof of residency. Alternatively, you can apply for an e-visa before traveling. Georgia Visa-Free for 90 Days Georgia blends old traditions with modern vibes, offering beautiful scenery and friendly locals. UAE residents can enjoy visa-free entry for up to 90 days by showing a valid residence visa upon arrival. Azerbaijan Visa on Arrival for 30 Days Azerbaijan, with its mix of modern and ancient charm, offers a 30-day tourist visa on arrival for UAE residents. Show your passport and valid UAE residency visa to begin your adventure in Baku and beyond. Seychelles Visa-Free Seychelles welcomes visitors to its idyllic islands with visa-free entry. Present valid travel documents and a return ticket to enjoy your island getaway. Read More: Top Ten Places to Visit in Sharjah Nepal Visa on Arrival Nepal offers visa-on-arrival for most nationalities, including UAE residents, with flexible durations of 15, 30, or 90 days. These visas allow multiple entries, perfect for exploring Nepal's landscapes, cultural sites, and trekking routes like Annapurna and Everest. Uzbekistan Visa-Free for 30 Days Uzbekistan is a welcoming destination with activities like homestays, cooking classes, and yurt camping. UAE residents can stay for up to 30 days with a residency visa valid for at least 90 days after arrival. Oman Visa on Arrival Neighboring Oman offers breathtaking natural beauty from the Musandam Peninsula to the Wahiba Sands. UAE residents can obtain a 30-day visa on arrival if their residency is valid for at least three months. Travel has never been easier for UAE residents, with numerous destinations offering convenient visa-free or visa-on-arrival options. Pack your bags and explore the world with ease! At the end of the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, the Ukrainian Compact was adopted, which supplemented the G7 Joint Declaration agreed at the previous summit of the North Atlantic Alliance in Vilnius. This was reported by the press service of the President's Office, Ukrinform reports. The 75th NATO Summit in Washington concluded with the endorsement of the Ukraine Compact. This document serves as a supplement to the Joint G7 Declaration agreed upon a year ago at the previous NATO Summit in Vilnius. In total, 32 participants have already joined it, all of whom were present today, including 23 leaders of countries with which Ukraine has signed bilateral security agreements, the statement reads. The document is open for signing by other countries and enshrines long-term military and defense support, the development of future Defense Forces of Ukraine, and a mechanism for urgent consultations between partners in case of the ongoing war's escalation or possible future aggression. "The Ukraine Compact elevates our relations to a new level. It is a significant achievement for Ukraine and all of us," he emphasized. As Ukrinform reported, Kyiv is signing security agreements with partner countries as part of the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine of July 12, 2023. In total, 23 such bilateral documents have already been signed: 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, Luxembourg, and Romania. The wife of the President of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, attended an official reception on the occasion of NATO's 75th anniversary in Washington, DC. During the North Atlantic Alliance summit, she met with British First Lady Victoria Starmer. ADVERTISIMENT The Ukrainian woman shared the news on her social media, posting a photo with the representative of the United Kingdom. For the gala evening in honor of the anniversary of the founding of the international organization, she chose a restrained black and white dress from The COAT by Katya Silchenko, NV Life reports. Olena Zelenska said that it was easy to communicate with the wife of the new British Prime Minister, as they immediately found a lot in common: "It was a pleasure to meet Ms. Starmer today in Washington, on the sidelines of the NATO summit. A lawyer by training, Victoria Starmer now works in the healthcare sector and is responsible for the safe work of doctors at the National Health Service of Great Britain. So we immediately found a lot of common ground." ADVERTISIMENT She noted that the new acquaintance will help improve the development of Ukrainian medicine in the field of mental health, as the UK is the birthplace of fundamental approaches in this area and trains highly qualified specialists. The First Lady of Ukraine has invited Victoria Starmer to participate in the fourth Kyiv Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen. This year's event will be dedicated to the safety of children in war, in the family, at school, and in the digital space. ADVERTISIMENT At a business dinner reception in honor of the 75th anniversary of NATO, Olena Zelenska wore a classic sheath dress by designer Katia Silchenko. Despite the fact that the dark color palette is rarely used by the brand, the shade was chosen for a symbolic purpose: "Black is not a typical color for the COAT brand, but it was chosen for the first lady not by chance, given the circumstances. But its combination with a snow-white collar and hidden cuffs symbolizes hope for good news and faith even in the most difficult times." ADVERTISIMENT The Ukrainian complemented her look with dark earrings and white pumps. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! NATO countries will invite Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Alliance when Allies agree and all conditions are met. That's according to a statement of the NATO-Ukraine Council issued by the heads of state and government participating in its meeting on July 11, Ukrinform reports. "Allies reaffirm that they will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met. The Summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with Allies' ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraine's membership in NATO," the document states. It adds that that "Ukraine's future is in NATO" and that "Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance." According to the statement, Russia bears full responsibility for this war, "a blatant violation of international law including the UN Charter, for which it must be held fully accountable." NATO countries also condemn "all those who are facilitating Russia's war and amplifying Russia's disinformation campaigns." Russia's war against Ukraine has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and has had a profound impact on the safety, security, and welfare of billions of people around the world, the statement said. "Allies welcome and support President Zelensky's continuous commitment to advance a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace through his Peace Formula and the Peace Summit process, including the important first Summit in Switzerland," the authors of the document said. The statement notes that Russia is responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and has caused extensive damage to civilian infrastructure. Allies also condemn in the strongest possible terms Russia's horrific attacks on the Ukrainian people, including on hospitals, on July 8. The NATO-Ukraine Council welcomes the announced commitments to provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems and other military capabilities. NATO will support and advise on the design and implementation of an integrated air and missile defense architecture for Ukraine, to enable the most efficient use of Ukraine's air and missile defense capabilities and support its transition to full interoperability with NATO. Allies and partners continue to step up vital political, military, financial, economic, and humanitarian assistance as Ukraine exercises its inherent right to self-defense as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Allies also continue to strengthen Ukraines resilience by helping sustain its energy infrastructure, providing critical energy supplies, and enabling the transit of goods and grain. It is stated that "Allies remain as resolute as ever in supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes for Ukraine to prevail." Allies welcome the launch of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), which will coordinate the provision of military training and equipment for Ukraine by Allies and partners and will provide logistical support. The NATO-Ukraine Council welcomes Allies' pledge of long-term security assistance for the provision of military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine, as well as the allocation of at least EUR 40 billion within the next year. It is noted that the Secretary General has decided to appoint a NATO Senior Representative to head the NATO Representation to Ukraine and to act as a focal point for NATO's engagement with Ukrainian authorities in Kyiv. NATO countries will continue to support Ukraine's progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms, which NATO Foreign Ministers will continue to assess through the adapted Annual National Program. A meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council took place on Thursday, July 11, as part of the NATO Summit in Washington. Despite the lack of an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, the latest summit should be seen as a success for Kyiv. Thats according to Karl-Heinz Kamp, a political scholar with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), who commented to Ukrinform on his assessment of the event held in Washington. "A good outcome for Ukraine," the expert believes. He noted that the summit brought no surprises, as its declaration had been agreed in advance and no amendments were made. Kamp believes that the wording in the final declaration is much clearer than in the Vilnius document. Read also: Ukraine Compact format to provide defense aid to Ukraine now and in future This is a clear signal to Russia regarding deterrence and a pledge to provide Ukraine with long-term support, Kamp said. Also, Ukrainian leaders were aware that there would be no invitation to join the Alliance at the summit, he added. The expert said NATO knew they had to offer Ukraine more than they did in Vilnius last year. And they delivered, he noted, as a package was worked out, consisting of permanent aid commitments, as well as bilateral security commitments and the establishment of a NATO mission for Ukraine. As Ukrinform reported earlier, NATO allies referred to Ukraine's accession process as irreversible and assured of the support on the countrys path of Euro-Atlantic integration. Also, following the summit, the Ukraine Compact on long-term military support was adopted, which supplemented the G7 Joint Declaration agreed at the previous summit in Vilnius. Luxembourg and Denmark have supplied Ukraine with network equipment worth EUR 2 million as part of the IT coalition. That's according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's press service, Ukrinform reports. "Thanks to contributions from Luxembourg and Denmark, the IT coalition provided Ukraine with network equipment and auxiliary licenses with a total value of more than EUR 2 million. This equipment will strengthen the power of data processing centers and cyber protection of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the statement reads. The ministry said that earlier the IT coalition, led by Estonia and Luxembourg, had handed over laptops, monitors and other communications equipment worth EUR 900,000 to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In total, the IT coalition has already provided more than EUR 5 million of assistance for the IT infrastructure of the Ministry of Defense and Ukraine's Armed Forces as part of contributions from the United Kingdom, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg and jointly with Canada. Read also: Sweden joins drone coalition for Ukraine "Cyber defense specialists of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine protect information and communication systems and networks from cyber attacks. The new batch of equipment will improve the protection of our networks and contribute to the implementation of a number of information systems -- this is one of our priorities," said Deputy Minister of Defense for Digital Transformations, Digital Development and Digitalization Kateryna Chernohorenko. Photo: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Friday, July 12, marked the 10th anniversary of the death of dissident and Soviet human rights activist Valeriya Novodvorskaya, who died in Moscow of infectious toxic shock at the age of 64. Life in Russia failed to break the anti-Putin and pro-Ukrainian stance of the native of the Belarusian city of Baranavichy. ADVERTISIMENT Although the brave woman did not witness the worst crimes of the Russian Federation in Ukraine since 2014, her words contain predictions and warnings. OBOZ.UA has collected the most striking quotes from Novodvorskaya. She was one of the conscious people who blamed not only the authorities for the troubles of Russia and neighboring countries but also the entire nation, which lives in tacit agreement with the terrorist and dictatorial regime. "The fact that we have become a pit, that Putin has allowed us to become a European dump, and that we are frowned upon as if we were plagued, along with our Customs Union, is not only Putin's fault. It is the fault of the Russian people ," the dissident shamed her compatriots. ADVERTISIMENT Long before the war in Ukraine, Valeriya Novodvorskaya predicted the emigration of Russian citizens who disagreed with the government. "Our ship, Russia, has been captured by pirates... Only fanatics, cattle and scoops can be happy here. A smart person cannot be happy in Russia," the publicist said. "In Russia, five percent of the population are Russians, Varangians, Vikings, Europeans, carriers of the Scandinavian tradition. The rest are reptiles, amoebas, and infusoria," one of her quotes reads. The publicist simply hated Putin and was never afraid of him. She saw the dictator's rule as the end of Russia's development. "In Russia, the government is illegal in moral and ethical terms. In political terms, too. It is an illegitimate government. Do you even know who Putin is? He is a monster. He is a creature of darkness," Valeriya believed. ADVERTISIMENT The last year of her life was when Russia invaded Ukraine. The human rights activist never agreed with this. She considered Ukraine an independent state and predicted a happy future for it. "Today's password of free people is 'Glory to Ukraine' and the response is 'Glory to the Heroes'. Please save Ukraine. This is the only thing that can save Russia," the Belarusian native called. "Ukrainian soldiers are dying for the survival of their country called Ukraine, for it to break away from our cursed, miserable, evil Russia, full of slaves. I am telling you as a native of this Russia, I know what is happening here," the dissident explained. ADVERTISIMENT "There is only one way out for Ukraine, which is a lasting peace. And a lasting peace comes when the enemy cannot raise its head because it has been torn off," the Russian said. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made netizens laugh with her emotionality during a working session at the NATO summit in Washington, DC. The photographer captured the Italian's genuine emotions while looking at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. ADVERTISIMENT Meloni's expression of disgust and dissatisfaction went viral. On the X platform (formerly Twitter), the image garnered more than 19 thousand likes in a few hours. It was briefly captioned "Mood". The photo shows Meloni looking at Orban's back while he reads the document. The Italian woman let all her feelings show on her face, twisting her mouth. The comments supported the Italian leader and her emotions towards her Hungarian counterpart. Some even noted that if you look at her for a long time, you can understand Meloni's feelings for each participant of the summit. ADVERTISIMENT She rarely holds a neutral expression for long. Photographers often capture her looking dreamy, happy, or focused. This is how a series of photos of Meloni with former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared. They always laugh when they meet at joint political events. As a reminder, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Giorgia Meloni in Washington, DC. He thanked for the fact that Ukraine's defense capability and reconstruction are priority issues for the Italian presidency of the G7 this year. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Don't fall for fakes! Stockton University will become the latest college to offer an undergraduate degree in cannabis studies, the institution announced on Wednesday. The school joins as many as 40 other universities across the country currently offering such programs, though it will be the first to do so in New Jersey. The degree in hemp and cannabis business management will be available through Stockton's School of Business, and expands on Stockton's existing cannabis studies minor, which was introduced in 2018, the university said. Cannabis industry jobs have seen a 66% increase in the state, according to Stockton adjunct professor Rob Mejia, who teaches classes on the subject. "This year, New Jersey is on track to sell over $1 billion of cannabis products," Meija said. "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." New Jersey's edible cannabis business has begun expanding as well, he added. There were about 7,400 marijuana- and hemp-related jobs in New Jersey in March 2023 according to cannabis job platform Vangst. By March 2024, that number had jumped to approximately 12,200. "It's clearly an industry that is growing exponentially, and as a result, there are job opportunities that have surfaced, both directly within the industry as well as with ancillary jobs," said Warren Kleinsmith, the dean of the School of Business. "It's an opportunity for students to capture much needed talent in a booming industry." Recreational cannabis has been legal in New Jersey since 2021. July 12 2024 A B-listed Edinburgh tourist attraction, formerly a reservoir, is opening itself up to visitors by carving out a new pedestrian entrance off Castlehill. Tartan Weaving Mill has appointed Convery Prenty Shields Architects to punch a hole in the citadel-like structure on Ramsay Lane to serve as a new primary entrance to the attraction. Ornamented with bespoke wrought iron gates the opening dovetails with a reduction in the size of the existing goods entrance to serve as a secondary point of access, the addition of conservation style roof lights and a custom exterior lighting scheme. The iceberg property is arranged over five levels with a museum, currently closed, in the basement which is not apparent from the street. Outlining the problem the applicant wrote: "From the street level the visitor has no sense of the immense floor space contained within the building. Getting people to move around the building, based on its restricted and convoluted current layout is a challenge. The current entrance brings people in and out through one corner of the building. The concentration of people in this area often creates log jams and deters people from exploring the floors of the building further." As part of the works, the museum will be reimagined to tell the story of an important piece of the city's public health heritage and its role in piping fresh water from the Pentland hills to power industry and banish disease. Whether starting with a small amount of money or a large cash infusion in the millions, small-business owners will have the opportunity to learn how to obtain funding for their companies Thursday, July 18. Jim Drever and Tammi Hanshaw will lead a Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network workshop titled $500-$5 Million: Funding Your Small Business from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Goshen County Library, located at 2001 E. A St. in Torrington. To register, go here. Registration is free, and attendees are encouraged to bring a lunch. The Wyoming SBDC Network offers business expertise to help Wyoming residents think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business. The Wyoming SBDC Network is hosted by the University of Wyoming with state funds from the Wyoming Business Council and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). During the webinar, financial experts will discuss various ways small-business owners can finance their companies. Representatives of the following entities will cover these topics: -- U.S. SBA: Loan programs and services. -- U.S. SBA Office of International Trade: Export grants and loans and working capital. -- Wyoming SBDC Network: Advising and resources. -- Wyoming Womens Business Center: SBA microloans. -- Wyoming Capital Access: SBA 504 loans and direct lending. -- U.S. Department of Agriculture: Rural development programs. -- Points West Community Bank: Conventional loans. Drever is the Wyoming SBDC Network regional director for Albany and Carbon counties. Previously, he was a marketing director and project manager at a software company, had a small consulting business and recently co-founded CyberWyoming with the Made Safe in Wyoming program. Drever has been a source for cybersecurity for small businesses in The Wall Street Journal and has presented on the topic at national conferences. Beyond general business assistance, Drever specializes in e-marketing, e-commerce and risk management, especially cybersecurity. He is a certified ethical hacker and has a chief information security officer specialist certification with a background in vulnerability assessment, ethical hacking and cybersecurity risk assessment and management. He assists and advises clients about cybersecurity statewide. Hanshaw is a lender relations specialist for the SBA. For more information, call Maureen Johnson, marketing, communication and database manager for the Wyoming SBDC Network, at (307) 343-0925 or email mjohn125@uwyo.edu. Lauren McLane A University of Wyoming College of Law professor recently was highlighted by The New Yorker for her advocacy for juveniles and late adolescents in the criminal legal system. The June 6 article opens, In November 2020, Lauren McLane, a professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law, was forwarded a letter The article by Eyal Press highlights a growing movement to look to state constitutions as a way to expand and amplify rights. McLane took on the case of the incarcerated man who wrote the letter and is crafting an appeal based on the Eighth Amendment -- the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment -- and the broader rights expressed in the Wyoming Constitution. While state constitutions cannot lessen rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution and federal law, they can extend greater rights and protections to their citizens. McLane was led to modern state constitutionalism through her advocacy for juveniles and late adolescents in the criminal legal system in light of emerging brain science. The writer of the letter McLane received was 19 when his offenses occurred. At UW, McLane collaborates with Karagh Brummond, of the Honors College, and Kayla Burd, of the Department of Psychology, on issues relating to social and cognitive development of emerging adults. Courts have already recognized that juveniles have lessened culpability than adults due to the differences in their brain and psychological development, McLane says. Well, the science readily establishes that late adolescents are no different than juveniles in these ways. Even if the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet made this determination, our state courts can and should lead the effort in extending the same constitutional protections to late adolescents as juveniles. Both Brummond and Burd are actively involved in the case featured in The New Yorker story. Brummond is an assistant instructional professor in the Honors College and director of the UW Top-Tier Science Initiative Engagement and Outreach Program. Her public outreach includes statewide education on brain research and serving as an Alzheimers Association community educator. Her interest in emerging applications of neuroscience research led her to develop the honors course Neuroscience and the Law. Burd is an assistant professor in the Psychology and Law Doctoral Program, which trains doctoral candidates to apply basic social, developmental and cognitive principles to issues in the legal system. Her research interests are social cognitive processes in legal decision-making -- including eyewitnesses, police officers and jurors -- and the impact of extra-legal biases on perception, memory, reasoning and decision-making. McLane joined the College of Law faculty in July 2018 after serving as a public defender, private practitioner and innocence lawyer in Seattle. For her first five years at the College of Law, McLane served as faculty director of the Defender Aid Clinic, a student-led, faculty-supervised clinic focused on providing indigent criminal defense representation in Wyoming. During that time, she and her students appeared on behalf of clients in courts at all levels, including at the Wyoming Supreme Court. McLane now serves in a more doctrinal role, teaching two of the College of Laws core courses -- Torts to first-year students and Evidence to second-year students -- as well as upper-level criminal justice seminars. Her primary areas of research and scholarship are forensic science, policing and mass incarceration in the criminal legal system. Vietnam Briefing has developed into a premium source for insight on doing business in Vietnam. It publishes business news concerning foreign direct investment into Vietnam, including the most important tax, legal and accounting issues. The Vietnam Briefing Magazine was first published in 2009, and is contributed to by investment professionals based in Vietnam. The son of Kate Middleton and Prince William, Prince George, must follow an important rule that has been in effect since the Duke of Cambridge's childhood because of his proximity to the top of the king's throne. At the age of 12, the very young prince will be recommended to fly with his parents on a separate plane. He has only 1 year and 10 days to wait before this change happens. ADVERTISIMENT However, it is not known whether parents will really agree to this not so old tradition because Kate Middleton often violates royal methods of upbringing, so it is possible that this will not happen. Moreover, according to The list, this change has become less strict now because of much safer flights. In fact, the allocation of a separate plane for the future heir to the throne is only for the sake of his safety. Since Prince George is the second heir to the monarchy after his father, it is advisable not to fly together because in the event of a plane crash, two future kings could die at once and the line of succession would be significantly damaged. ADVERTISIMENT Graham Laurie, a former pilot for Charles III, recalled how the family of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana traveled by plane with their children: "It's interesting that we flew all four of us - the prince, the princess, Prince William, and Prince Harry - until Prince William was 12 years old. After that, he had to have a separate plane, and we could only fly all four of them together when they were little with Her Majesty's written permission." In 2020, an insider told Closer Weekly that Kate Middleton had already spoken to Prince George when he was 7 about his future role as king, so a possible partial separation from the family could be the next step in expanding the teenager's responsibilities. ADVERTISIMENT "William and Kate have already spoken to George and Charlotte about their future roles but in a childlike way so that they understand without feeling overwhelmed. George knows he has something special and that one day he will be the future King of England," he said. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA 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. A Russian-installed court in Ukraine's Donetsk region sentenced an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe official to 14 years in prison on charges of spying for unspecified foreign intelligence agencies, Russia's prosecutor general said on Friday. In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, the prosecutor's office said Vadym Golda had in 2021 gathered information on Donetsk-region industrial sites that was then used to direct missile strikes on the province. Writing on X, the Vienna-based OSCE said its leaders "unequivocally condemn" the sentencing and called for the release of Golda and two other former OSCE employees jailed by Russia for treason in 2022. The OSCE, a 57-nation intergovernmental organization of which Russia, Ukraine and many Western countries are part, deployed a monitoring mission to eastern Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Its employees were tasked with monitoring a series of fragile ceasefires between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists, and were pulled out shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Two Russian-born Australian citizens have been accused of spying for Russia. Australian federal police arrested the married couple at their home in Brisbane on Thursday, accusing them of accessing documents related to national defense. Kira Korolev, a 40-year-old private in the Australian army, and her 62-year-old husband, Igor Korolev, appeared in court Friday. They have both been charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment. It is the first time this type of charge has been brought since foreign interference laws were enacted in Australia in 2018. Investigators allege that Kira, an army information systems technician, traveled to Russia and that while there, she instructed her husband how to access material from her official work account with the intention of providing it to Russian intelligence officials. Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the national security agency told reporters in Canberra Friday that spying is a serious crime. Espionage was not some quaint Cold War notion," he said. "Espionage damages our economy and degrades our strategic advantage. It has catastrophic real-world consequences. Foreign intelligence services are capable, determined and patient. They play the long game. The problem for them is ASIO does, too. It is unclear whether the two defendants passed on any documents to Russian intelligence or anyone else, or the nature of the information they are accused of trying to pass on. Australia police said that "no significant compromise" of military secrets had been identified. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Canberra Friday that spies will be tracked down. Australias security agencies are doing their job and they are doing it well. People will be held to account who interfere with our national interests and that is precisely what these arrests represent. Authorities say Kira Korolev was employed by the army for several years and held a security clearance within the military. She became an Australian citizen in 2016. She and her husband did not apply for bail and have been remanded into custody. A magistrate in Queensland state has adjourned the case until September 20. The Australian Federal Police, which is leading the investigation, said Australias Five Eyes security alliance partners, the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Canada, could be confident that Australia would continue to identify and disrupt espionage and foreign interference activity. Australia said Friday it had arrested a Russian-born married couple on espionage charges, alleging the woman who was an information systems technician in the Australian Army sought to access defense material and send it to Russian officials. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the couple, who hold Australian citizenship, worked to access material related to Australia's national security though no significant compromise had been identified yet. "We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities," AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said during a media briefing. "Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation." The AFP said the woman, 40, traveled to Russia and instructed her husband in Australia to log into her official account to access defense materials. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned anyone considering acting against Australia's national security. "People will be held to account who interfere with our national interests and that's precisely what these arrests represent," Albanese told reporters. He declined to comment directly on the case saying it was before the court. Igor and Kira Korolev appeared in the magistrate's court in Brisbane, court filings showed, after being charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail. The charges are the first under new laws introduced in 2018. They did not apply for bail and were remanded in custody until September 20 when they are next due to appear, media reported. The couple has been living in Australia for more than 10 years, with the woman getting Australian citizenship in 2016 and her husband in 2020. The arrests come as Australia on Thursday unveiled an $169 million military aid package for Ukraine at the NATO summit in Washington, the country's single largest aid package since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Australia is one of the largest non-NATO contributors to the West's support for Ukraine and has been supplying defense equipment to Kyiv, banned exports of aluminum ores to Russia and sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities. A Dutch court on Friday rejected a claim from a group of human rights organizations that the Netherlands is dodging a court order to stop sending F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel which could use them in Gaza. The Hague District Court ruled that Oxfam Novib, Pax Nederland and The Rights Forum had not shown any evidence that the Dutch government was ignoring the earlier ruling. In February, an appeals court told the Dutch government to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing a clear risk of violations of international law if they are used in strikes on Gaza. The Dutch government appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, but said it was abiding by the order in the meantime by halting direct exports to Israel. The aid groups went back to court last month, arguing the Netherlands was evading the ban by sending the parts to the United States, which was then sending them on to Israel. They demanded a fine for the alleged breach. The groups are giving too broad an interpretation to the earlier judgment, the court wrote in Friday's ruling. The organizations said they disagreed with the decision and were considering further legal action. It is unacceptable that the Netherlands remains knowingly complicit in violations of the laws of war by Israel in Gaza, they said in a joint statement. During a hearing in June, the Dutch government said it was unable to track the parts after they left the Netherlands and warned against placing further restrictions. Reimer Veldhuis, a lawyer representing the government, cautioned that seeking to prevent more exports of F-35 parts to nations other than Israel could put at risk supplies to militaries around the world who operate the advanced fighter jets at a time of soaring international tensions. The Netherlands is home to one of three F-35 European regional warehouses. The war in Gaza began with Hamas surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others as hostages. 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 Dutch Supreme Court will take up the larger case in September. Congressional Republicans joined by some Democrats this week passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. During a media briefing Wednesday, voting and immigration rights advocates addressed concerns about the bill and false claims regarding noncitizens voting in state and federal elections. The reality is that states have multiple systems in place to deter noncitizen voting, said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Morales-Doyle said voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. It is already a crime many times over for noncitizens to vote in state and federal elections. It's a state crime to register as a noncitizen. It's a federal crime to register as a noncitizen. Its a state crime to vote as a noncitizen. It's a federal crime to vote as a noncitizen. There are severe penalties for those who violate these laws, they face prison time, they face deportation, he said. The Brennan Center for Justice, part of the New York University School of Law, is a member of a broad coalition that tracks election-related disinformation. One of the biggest myths, the center said in April, is that noncitizens are voting. Yes, people do things that are illegal sometimes, but they take into account the payoff and the consequences. And here, the payoff is minimal. It's the ability to cast one vote and in one election, or maybe even just to put your name on the rolls. And the consequences are extreme and severe. They include deportation, prison time, large fines, it just does not make any sense for someone to attempt this crime, Morales-Doyle said. In 2017, the Brennan Center reviewed 42 jurisdictions, encompassing 23.5 million votes from the 2016 presidential election, and identified only 30 possible incidents of noncitizen voting, or 0.0001% of the votes cast. Citizen-only voting movement In calling for the SAVE Act, Republicans partially rely on a discredited 2014 study that claimed noncitizen voting could influence congressional and presidential elections. The growing citizen-only voting movement combines election fraud concerns and illegal immigration, both key issues for Republicans this presidential election. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, maintains a database of election fraud cases showing 21 cases since 2003. The cases are detailed, including any criminal penalties paid. The conversation about noncitizen voting grew in 2020 when House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans began advocating for the SAVE Act. Johnson often cites data indicating that noncitizens are registered to vote in some municipalities, including New York City, Washington, Takoma Park, Maryland, and Montpelier, Vermont. These cities allow noncitizen residents to register and vote only in certain local elections. In 2023, Takoma Park commemorated the 30th anniversary of the first noncitizen residents voting. An initiative, passed in 1992 by the Takoma Park City Council, gave immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, the right to vote in city elections for mayor and city council if they live within the city limits, are not registered to vote elsewhere, and are at least 16 years old. Johnson said the SAVE Act would require Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. In practice, this means that voters would have to produce one of several documents listed in the act. It's clear that our election process is worth protecting. It is our responsibility as members of Congress and concerned leaders of citizens groups and organizations who care about the integrity of our system and our elections, Johnson said in a statement. Critics argue the SAVE Act could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who lack immediate access to citizenship documents, particularly the poor, women, and people of color. A survey in January by the Center for Civic Democracy and Engagement at the University of Maryland shows that more than 9% of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, dont have proof of citizenship readily available. There are myriad reasons for this the documents might be in the home of another family member or in a safety deposit box. And at least 3.8 million dont have these documents at all, often because they were lost, destroyed, or stolen, according to the study. The SAVE Act includes a process for those without proof of citizenship readily available. The bill mandates that states create a process allowing citizens who lack proof of citizenship to submit alternative documentation and sign a document, under penalty of perjury, affirming their U.S. citizenship and eligibility to vote in federal elections, which mirrors the existing voter registration process but imposes additional administrative burdens on election officials. "So, what does that mean to provide proof that you're a citizen, if you don't have documentary proof that you're a citizen? I just don't know. So, it's, there's the vagueness there that is problematic. I don't know what process they're contemplating or what that's going to look like, Morales-Doyle said. The act also establishes criminal penalties for election officials who mistakenly register noncitizens. So, no matter what that alternative path ends up looking like you're hanging the threat of criminal prosecution over the head of any election official that allows someone to go into that alternative route, Morales-Doyle said. The House voted 221-198 to approval the SAVE Act. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it is likely to be rejected. Eswatini, in an ambitious bid to overhaul its health care system, is partnering with Belarus, paving the way for what officials in the southern African nation hope will be increased access to critical medicines, and the sharing of expertise between Belarusian and Eswatini health care professionals. An Eswatini delegation led by Prime Minister Russell Dlamini signed the health care roadmap with Belarus during a weeklong visit in late June. Principal Secretary Bertram Stewart, who was part of the delegation, said the agreement will unlock new access to medicines, medical equipment, and training opportunities, and introduce new models that could alleviate Eswatinis health care procurement challenges. "We do look forward to long-term collaborations with Belarus and, of course, the intention is to have reciprocal relations with Belarus wherein whatever we can export to Belarus, they will, subject to quality and price, they will be able to take it and likewise, we will reciprocate by procuring from Belarus whatever we feel is of the right quality for the Kingdom of Eswatini," he said. According to the World Health Organization, Eswatini has the highest incidence rate of cervical cancer in the world, with 56 new cases per 100,000 women annually. Eswatini also has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world, with more than 27% of adults living with the disease. And the country has a limited number of doctors and nurses, and many rural areas lack access to basic health care services. While the governments partnership with Belarus could usher in a new era of improved healthcare in Eswatini, for people like Sheila Coleman, who lost both her son and sister to chronic illnesses, the lack of advanced cancer care in the country has been devastating. For many patients, this has meant costly, life-or-death journeys to South Africa for treatmenta burden the government says it is now working to alleviate. "I am proud of my country but of late, have been so disappointed with the health sector of this country," Coleman said. "I feel that the government has failed us as Emaswati and I say this because of experiences that I have had. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness in this country is basically a death sentence." Thys Louren, a doctor in Eswatini, sees great potential in this health care partnership that could lead to job creation, expert skill attraction, and technology transfer. But he cautions that there are critical questions to answer before this collaboration can be deemed a success. "What will Belarus benefit from this proposed joint venture," he asked. "Is the purpose of this joint venture for research purposes because it would provide a very attractive cheaper research cost? Or would it focus on import consumables into Eswatini, which is of concern because we already have pharmaceutical companies in Eswatini and cash flow and availability of stock import is the problem. "Then lastly, is it for the production of pharmaceuticals which could be highly beneficial to Eswatini because it could, one, stimulate local economy and, two, cater for the significant shortage that we are experiencing especially in the cancer care section where chemotherapy is available locally and patients actually have to cross border for treatment." For many in Eswatini, this is a time of unprecedented need. And the nation is placing its health care hopes in the hands of Belarusian expertise. As the partnership unfolds, the nation awaits a pivotal moment, where either an era of medical breakthroughs is born, or the promise of a new dawn fades into the shadows. Peggy, the ugliest dog in the UK, enjoyed her moment of glory on the red carpet as actor Ryan Reynolds held her in his arms during the screening of "Deadpool and Wolverine" in London. The animal became a part of the new superhero movie. ADVERTISIMENT Peggy played the role of a furry assistant to the main character Deadpool, nicknamed Dogpool. This was reported by the Daily Mail. Last year, the four-legged actress was voted Britain's ugliest dog and belongs to Holly Middleton from Leven, East Yorkshire. "It's love at first sight," Ryan Reynolds told Empire of his partner, "She's like Wade Wilson (Deadpool) if he were an animal. ADVERTISIMENT Holly is proud of her dog, even though the pooch has become famous for her not-so-adorable appearance. Speaking to the BBC last year, the owner said: "We forget that Peggy is a 'non-standard' dog, and we know very well that some people will call her ugly. It's always a joke, and we're not offended, and neither is she." The star's owner added that some people find Peggy's unusual appearance strange and, in rare cases, repulsive. "Even though Peggy won the title of ugliest dog in the UK, we think she is beautiful both inside and out," Middleton concluded. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Chinese state media targeted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington this week with propaganda and disinformation portraying the alliance as serving only the interests of the United States and as a threat to world peace. The 32 NATO member state leaders met at the birthplace of the alliance to mark its 75th anniversary and to make the "key decision on how to continue protecting its one billion citizens as the world faces the most dangerous security environment since the Cold War," NATO said. NATO called Russia the most "significant and direct threat to Allies' security," saying Moscow "has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area" through its war in Ukraine. Russia's deadly July 8 strike on a children's hospital in Kyiv underscored that characterization. NATO reaffirmed its commitment to helping Ukraine maintain its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, including by sending to Kyiv air defense systems and providing other forms of training and support. NATO said China remains "a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine," and "continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security." And U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China a "major contributor to Russia's defense industrial base, thus enabling Moscow "to sustain its aggression against Ukraine." Beijing responded by amplifying the Kremlin's propaganda point that NATO, not Russia, is the force preventing peace in Ukraine. China also held military drills in Belarus, a staunch Russia ally, along the borders of a NATO member, Poland. Chinese state media, diplomats and officials have been in lockstep, spreading the message that NATO is ultimately to blame for Russian aggression, antagonizing China, and undermining global security. China's Xinhua News Agency, for example, reported: "Yet, more than two years into the Ukraine-Russia conflict, peace still appears distant, serving as an example that the coalition [NATO] is not promoting peace but rather threatening it." That is false. Russian President Vladimir Putin preconditions any potential peace talks on Kyiv's capitulation and surrender of one fifth of its sovereign territory. Putin and a range of his civilian and military officials are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The United Nations International Court of Justice rejected Russia's pretext for its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and others call "a war of choice." Russia first invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed its Crimea peninsula in 2014, when Ukraine had already abandoned its NATO ambitions by passing a law codifying its status as a military nonaligned country in 2010. Sources close to the Russian leadership told Reuters in September 2022 that Putin rejected a provisional peace plan that would have kept Ukraine out of NATO. Russia disputes that. Russia and its allies have also seized on a draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine from 2022, claiming it was Kyiv and its allies who rejected peace. But a copy of that draft treaty shows Ukraine was willing to make concessions, including forgoing NATO membership and becoming a "permanently neutral state." Moscow's insistence it could veto any military intervention from Ukraine's allies in the event Russia invaded again sabotaged those negotiations. Analysts at The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, argue that Putin invaded Ukraine because he believed "NATO was weak" and that he would not face significant Western resistance in pursuing his goal of establishing "Russian control over Ukraine." Putin, they argue, opposed the West presenting an "alternative path" to countries he believed Moscow had a right to influence or control. Analysts and Western officials argue Russian aggression against Ukraine persisted because NATO feared direct contact with Moscow, resulting in the slow drip of aid and restrictions on how Ukraine used supplied arms. Since invading, Russia has also moved air defenses and troops away from its borders with NATO member states, suggesting Russia does not fear military confrontation with the alliance. Kyiv says Moscow seeks the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state and eradication of Ukrainian identity. Russian state media and officials have also repeatedly signaled that Russia seeks the destruction of Ukraine. On July 10, former President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, said even if Ukraine fully capitulated to Russia's demands and abandoned its NATO ambitions, Moscow would still be compelled to destroy Ukrainian statehood and absorb all its territory into Russia. Israeli strikes killed another 32 people in the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory said Friday, more than nine months into Hamas's war with Israel. Fighting raged from the north to the south of the coastal territory as talks have continued toward reaching a truce and hostage-release deal. Hamas militants seized the captives during their unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war. In a brief statement, Gaza's health ministry said "32 martyrs, a majority of them children and women, were taken to hospitals overnight, because of continued massacres" by Israeli forces. Hamas media reported "more than 70 air strikes" in several parts of the territory. This included locations in Gaza City in the north, Nuseirat refugee camp in the center, along with Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Hamas said. Israel's military on Friday said troops are continuing operations in Rafah, near the Egyptian border. "Over the past day, the troops eliminated numerous terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes, and dismantled terrorist infrastructure in the area," a military statement said. In central Gaza, troops killed an unspecified number of militants "who posed a threat" while soldiers "located a weapons-production workshop" and "a large amount of funds used for terrorist activity," the statement said. In far-northern Gaza's Beit Hanoun, Israeli aircraft struck targets in an area from which projectiles were fired into southern Israel on Thursday, the military added. Also Thursday, around 60 bodies were found under the rubble of Gaza City's eastern Shujaiya neighborhood, Gaza's Civil Defense agency said. The discovery came after Israeli troops ended a two-week operation that Gaza's Civil Defense and residents said had left the area in ruins. Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said 85% of buildings are now uninhabitable and Shujaiya has been left a "disaster zone." On Wednesday, Israel's army called on all of Gaza City's residents to, for their safety, leave the area which they called "a dangerous combat zone." The United Nations said up to 350,000 people had been staying in the city. The German government said Friday that it "won't be intimidated" by Russian attempts to undermine the country's support of Ukraine but refused to comment on a report that Moscow planned to assassinate the chief executive of a leading defense company. CNN reported Thursday, citing five unidentified U.S. and Western officials, that U.S. intelligence discovered earlier this year that Russia planned to kill Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger. It said the United States informed Germany, whose security services were able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. Rheinmetall is a major supplier of military technology and artillery rounds for Ukraine. Neither Rheinmetall nor the German government would comment on the report. Interior Ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall said his ministry can't comment on "individual threat situations" but added that, more broadly, "we take the significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously." "We know that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government won't be intimidated," Kall said. He noted that German security measures have been increased significantly since 2022, and that "the threats range from espionage and sabotage, through cyberattacks, to state terrorism." In April, German investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets that included U.S. military facilities in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine. Germany has become the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. CNN reported that the alleged Papperger plot was one of a series of Russian plans to kill defense European industry executives supporting the Ukrainian war effort. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report. "All of this is again presented in the fake style, so such reports cannot be taken seriously," he told reporters Friday. Experts warn that the African penguin could be extinct in the wild by 2035. Thats why two environmental groups are taking legal action against the South African government to help save the species. Reporter Vicky Stark in Cape Town, South Africa, has the story. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Donald Trump on Thursday and the pair discussed the "possibilities of peace," a spokesperson for the prime minister said as he pushes for a cease-fire in Ukraine. Trump and Orban met at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida "as the next stop of his peace mission," Orban's spokesperson said. "The discussion was about the possibilities of peace." Nationalist leader Orban, a longtime Trump supporter, made surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled "peace mission," angering NATO allies. His meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular vexed some other NATO members, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Putin when the West wants to isolate him over his war in Ukraine. Orban traveled to Kyiv before visiting Moscow but did not tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his mission to Russia, Zelenskiy said, dismissing Orban's ambition of playing the peacemaker. "Not all the leaders can make negotiations. You need to have some power for this," Zelenskiy said earlier at a news conference at the NATO summit. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, when asked about Orban's initiative, said Ukraine would be rightly concerned about any attempt to negotiate a peace deal without involving Kyiv. "Whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine's consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States," Sullivan said. Orban's self-styled peace mission has also irked many members of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Hungary took over at the start of this month. The Hungarian embassy in Washington declined to comment on the planned meeting with Trump, which was first reported by Bloomberg. Orban has been attending a NATO summit hosted by Democratic President Joe Biden. Hungary's delegation voiced opposition to key NATO positions, while not blocking the alliance from taking action. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Reuters on Wednesday that Hungary believes a second Trump presidency would boost hopes for peace in Ukraine. Orban hoped to bring an end to the war through peace talks involving both Russia and Ukraine, according to Szijjarto. 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 making future aid to Kyiv conditional on Ukraine joining peace talks. In the past several months, foreign officials have regularly sought meetings with Trump and his key advisers to discuss his foreign policy should he beat Biden in the November 5 election. Polls show Trump widening his lead over Biden. One adviser, Keith Kellogg, has met with several high-ranking foreign officials on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Reuters reported this week. NATO frustration Orban appeared isolated at the opening of a NATO meeting on Ukraine on Thursday, sitting alone while other leaders talked in a huddle. Two European diplomats told Reuters that NATO allies were frustrated with Orban's actions around the summit but stressed that he had not blocked the alliance from taking action on Ukraine. Multiple EU leaders made clear Orban was not speaking for the bloc in his discussions on the war in Ukraine. "I don't think there's any point in having conversations with authoritarian regimes that are violating international law," said Finnish President Alexander Stubb. Hungary also diverged from its NATO allies on China, which the alliance said is an enabler of Russia's war effort and poses challenges to security. Hungary does not want NATO to become an "anti-China" bloc, and will not support it doing so, Szijjarto said Thursday. The Israeli military on Thursday acknowledged a string of errors in its response to the deadly Hamas attacks on October 7, including slow response times and disorganization, as it released the results of its first investigation into failures during the assault that triggered the war in Gaza. The report focused on the border community of Beeri, where over 100 people were killed and more than 30 others taken hostage by Hamas. It was among the hardest-hit communities in the early morning attack, and it was the scene of one of the highest-profile confrontations of October 7 a standoff in which militants held a group of hostages inside a home. The army failed in its mission to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri, the military's chief spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a televised address. It is painful and difficult for me to say that. During the standoff, a tank fired at the home, raising concerns that the 13 hostages inside were killed by friendly fire. The military concluded that they were likely killed by Hamas militants, not Israeli shelling, although it was unclear how it reached that conclusion, and the report called for additional tests. The army said the kibbutz was overrun by about 340 Hamas fighters. Investigators determined that, based on the information reviewed and to the best of their understanding, no civilians inside the building were harmed by tank shell fire," the report said, although it said two Israeli civilians were hit by shrapnel outside the building. One of those civilians died, according to the mans wife. It also said commanders on the scene made professional and responsible decisions in ordering the tank strike. It said there had been a joint decision by various commanders after hearing gunshots within the house and militants saying they planned to kill the hostages and themselves. The team determined that most of the hostages were likely murdered by the terrorists, the report said. The report also pointed to delays of several hours in the arrival of military forces and said forces waited outside the kibbutz into the afternoon as residents were being killed, not understanding the severity of the situation. This situation is extremely grave and cannot occur, it said. The report praised the bravery of the Beeri residents and the members of the kibbutzs civilian rapid response team," saying it was "crucial in stabilizing the defensive line during the first hours of combat. 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 took responsibility. Meir Zarbiv, a resident whose brother and sister were killed in the October 7 Hamas terror attack, called the report a deception by the army. I dont believe the report, and I dont believe anything about it, he said. He said he still cannot understand the delays in arriving and entering the kibbutz. I just dont believe what happened here. I have no explanation, he said. Where was the army? In a statement, the community called the investigation thorough and said it helped them understand the complexity of the fighting that day. We see great importance in the army accepting the blame and responsibility for its complete failure to protect us and in asking for forgiveness for abandoning us for many hours during an attack of unmatched evil, it said. The kibbutz also called for an official state commission of inquiry into the broader failures of October 7 so the unimaginable loss we experienced will never again be experienced by any other citizen. 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 attack, in which several thousand militants stormed across the border without resistance, revealed grave shortcomings in the armys readiness, its intelligence assessments and policies set by political leaders toward Gaza. An Israeli offensive launched in response to the attack has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced over 80% of the territorys people and triggered a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Israel is now facing war crimes and genocide allegations in international courts. The army has launched multiple investigations into the failures of October 7, and the head of military intelligence has resigned. Several other commanders have apologized and taken responsibility for their failures. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected repeated calls for an official state investigation, even as the war enters its 10th month. Netanyahu has said an investigation cannot be conducted while the country is focused on its war against Hamas and says all questions will be answered at the appropriate time. But critics accuse the Israeli leader of dragging his feet to avoid what will almost certainly be harsh criticism of his policies and leadership. At a military ceremony Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the time has come to launch a state commission of inquiry to investigate the country's leadership. It needs to check me, the minister of defense. It needs to check the prime minister, he said. In the face of fierce international criticism, Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until destroying Hamas military and governing capabilities and the roughly 120 hostages remaining in Gaza return home. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in weekly protests calling on Netanyahu to reach an immediate cease-fire, saying time is running out to bring the hostages home safely. International mediators have launched renewed efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu announced Thursday that he would send a team of negotiators to Cairo to continue cease-fire talks, but he reiterated his stance that he will not halt the war until Israel achieves its war objectives. He was interrupted by hecklers at the same military ceremony when he vowed to continue the war until victory, even if it takes time. As he spoke, a small crowd began to chant shame. A U.S. judge on Friday ended Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy, allowing lawsuits for defamation, sexual harassment and other claims to proceed against Donald Trump's former lawyer. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, New York, also banned Giuliani from seeking bankruptcy for one year. Giuliani, 80, filed for bankruptcy protection in December after a Washington court ordered the former New York City mayor to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers whom he falsely accused of rigging votes in the 2020 presidential election that Democrat Joe Biden won. The bankruptcy prevented the former Georgia election workers, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, from collecting on that judgment, while freezing other lawsuits stemming from Giuliani's work for Trump, the former Republican president, as he sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. The dismissal allows Giuliani's creditors to resume lawsuits against him, but it frees Giuliani to appeal the $148 million defamation judgment that forced him to seek bankruptcy protection. Now that he is no longer in bankruptcy, Giuliani intends to appeal the judgment, his lawyer Heath Berger said Friday following the ruling. As detailed by a Reuters investigation, Moss's and Freeman's lives were upended by a barrage of threats after a hearing held by Georgia lawmakers in December 2020, where the Trump campaign falsely claimed surveillance video from a ballot-processing room at State Farm Arena in Atlanta amounted to shocking evidence of fraud. Giuliani later showed snippets of the video and repeatedly identified Moss and Freeman by name, calling them crooks who obviously stole votes. A lawyer for Moss and Freeman did not immediately return a request for comment. Failures to disclose In dismissing the bankruptcy case, Lane cited Giuliani's "continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor." Giuliani's personal disclosures were late and incomplete, and Giuliani's businesses never made financial disclosures in bankruptcy court. Giuliani's own bankruptcy lawyers appeared unaware that Giuliani was promoting a coffee brand until his creditors raised concerns about media reports, Lane wrote. After seven months in Chapter 11, Giuliani had made no progress on a potential bankruptcy settlement with the people who have sued him, Lane wrote. Ending the bankruptcy made more sense than continuing to spend money on bankruptcy fees that would ultimately reduce his ability to pay creditors, Lane said in Friday's ruling. Giuliani's creditors have alleged that he flouted bankruptcy disclosure rules and continued to spend lavishly after filing for Chapter 11. Giuliani paid salaries to his girlfriend, Maria Ryan, and her daughter, failed to report income from his businesses, and made defamatory statements that caused the cancellation of his WABC radio show, creditors said. In addition to Moss and Freeman, Giuliani's creditors include former employee Noelle Dunphy, who has accused Giuliani of sexual assault and wage theft, and the voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic, who have also sued Giuliani for defamation. Giuliani has denied the allegations. Giuliani separately is facing criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona for allegedly aiding Trump's efforts to subvert the election. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and called the allegations politically motivated. The onetime Manhattan U.S. attorney was stripped of his New York law license earlier this month when a court found he "baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this countrys electoral process" by spreading false election fraud claims. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday statements by NATO members this week regarding the possible use of long-range weapons systems in Ukraine represent a dangerous escalation. During a joint news conference Thursday with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the United States to lift its restrictions on the use of U.S.-supplied weapons so Ukraine can fire on targets deep within Russia. Currently, the U.S. limits Ukraine to only returning fire on targets just inside the Russian border wherever it is coming under attack. At the news conference, Zelenskyy said, If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations. Zelenskyys top aide Andriy Yermak made the same request earlier in the day. Speaking with reporters in a telephone briefing Friday, Peskov said Russia watched the NATO summit in Washington carefully, and he called the issue highly provocative. We see statements by representatives of some capitals, London and so on, who do not see any restrictions in this regard, Peskov said. And we see countries that are trying to keep some kind of the balance and say that they are against such easing of the terms for the use of long-range missiles." Peskov claimed long-range missiles already were being used to target areas such as Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia parts of eastern Ukraine that he claimed are Russian territories. "As for increasing this firing range, he said, this is pure provocation, a new, very dangerous escalation of tension." Comments about Biden On the subject of U.S. President Joe Biden and the attention being paid to his age and verbal slips, Peskov said that was an internal U.S. political issue and the concern of the U.S. voter, not Russia. But the Kremlin spokesman did say Russia considered comments made by Biden about Russian President Vladimir Putin to be absolutely unacceptable. He said it was impermissible for a head of state to speak so disrespectfully of another head of state. Peskov did not specify which statements he found so objectionable, although Biden did refer to Putin as a murderous madman. UN resolution Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly late Thursday adopted a resolution demanding Russia urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately return the plant to full Ukrainian control to ensure its safety and security. The 193-member General Assembly adopted a resolution with 99 votes in favor, nine against and 60 abstentions. The Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest in Europe, was captured by Russia shortly after it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The plant is shut down but needs external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a meltdown. New military aid Also Thursday, Biden announced significant new military aid at the NATO summit. The president made the announcement about the $225 million package during a meeting with Zelenskyy. Among the items included are a Patriot missile battery; munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS; and 155-millimeter and 105-millimeter artillery rounds. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. NATO set out Thursday to deepen relations with key Indo-Pacific partners, meeting with leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea a day after all 32 NATO allies called out China for its support of Russia's illegal war against Ukraine in a sternly worded communique. During a working session, NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners strengthened plans and developed strategies to face growing threats in the Pacific region, including North Korean missile launches and China's steady stream of technology and raw materials to Russia that have allowed President Vladimir Putin to replace his losses on the battlefield. U.S. officials said the Indo-Pacific partners' attendance sent a message to China that democratic alliances will stand up for the rule of law, no matter where an aggressor tries to break it. "NATO also recognizes that threats from the Indo-Pacific, whether it's the DPRK [North Korea] or the PRC [China] supporting Russia in their aggression against Ukraine, we cannot avoid," Jason Israel, National Security Council senior director for defense policy, Israel told VOA. In a final communique signed by all 32 allies, NATO called China a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war and urged Beijing to cease its support. "The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation," the leaders wrote. They also expressed concerns about Beijing's space capabilities and nuclear arsenal. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday told reporters that "China is propping up Russia's war economy" and "increas[ing] the threat Russia holds to Europe and NATO security." "China provides dual-use equipment, microelectronics and a lot of other tools which are enabling Russia to build the missiles, to build bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they're using to attack Ukraine," he added. Asked by VOA whether the statement was a strong enough message to deter China from continuing to support Russia, Stoltenberg replied in the news conference that Wednesday's declaration was "the strongest message that NATO allies have ever sent on China's contributions to Russia's illegal war against Ukraine." Some allies on Thursday cautioned the alliance against using the narrowly worded communique as a springboard to make NATO appear "anti-China." "NATO is a defense alliance. ... We can't organize it into an anti-China bloc," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungarian state television on the sidelines of the summit. However, defense expert Bradley Bowman, the senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Military and Political Power, said calling out China was long overdue for the bloc. "Europeans are dying in Europe in a war of aggression from the Kremlin with the support of Iran, North Korea and China, period," he said. U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said NATO must counter Russia's ramping up of defense production made possible by help from China, North Korea and Iran by continuing to invest more in Ukraine's and NATO's own defense production. "We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind," Biden said. China insists that it does not provide military aid to Russia, despite maintaining strong trade ties with Moscow. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian accused NATO of "breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation." The United Nations humanitarian agency says it is struggling to raise enough funds to tackle an alarming rate of food insecurity in Nigerias conflict-ridden northeast. Officials say a rising number of global crises are forcing countries that need help to compete for scarce resources. VOA Correspondent Timothy Obiezu reports from Dikwa in Borno state. Warning: The following video includes graphic images that some may find disturbing. View discretion is advised. A resident of the United Kingdom, Jill Stewart, found a box of porcelain in the attic of her house. The woman decided to put the "junk" up for auction and unexpectedly earned 162 thousand pounds sterling (more than $200 thousand, or UAH 8.5 million). ADVERTISIMENT This is reported by MSN. It is noted that Jill Stewart found a box labeled "broken porcelain" when she went to the attic for Christmas decorations. The British woman decided that it was her grandfather's military dishes, who served in China in the 1900s. However, the porcelain turned out to be much more expensive than the dishes of centuries ago as auctioneer James Laverack said, the history of the found porcelain dates back to about the 18th century. Also, many of the items were not broken or damaged. ADVERTISIMENT As a result, rare porcelain was sold at John Taylors Auction Rooms in late June. 13 lots were sold for a total of 162 thousand, with the most valuable items being Chinese tea bowls, which brought 59 thousand (over $75 thousand, 3 million UAH). The demand for old porcelain is high now, Laverac notes. The fact is that the Chinese are actively buying back items that were originally made for the Chinese market and then ended up in the West. ADVERTISIMENT You can find only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, celebrated for his pioneering work in microfinance, is facing a new trial in a criminal case next week in Bangladesh on charges of embezzling more than $2 million from the workers' welfare fund of his nonprofit, Grameen Telecom. Yunus a political rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced in January to six months in jail for violating labor laws at the nonprofit. He remains out on bail but faces nearly 200 additional charges, mostly civil cases, all of which he denies. In the current case, the prosecution alleges that Yunus and his codefendants diverted funds from Grameen Telecom workers' welfare fund, a major stakeholder in Grameenphone, Bangladesh's largest mobile phone operator. Yunus has denied the charges. Yunus' trial, set to start July 15, has drawn global attention amid concerns about his potential imprisonment. His lawyer, Abdullah Al-Mamun, told VOA that if convicted, the 83-year-old could face a "substantial prison term, potentially up to a life sentence." Yunus has described his treatment by authorities as humiliating, being held in an iron cage during court proceedings. "Any accused person against whom a case has been filed is taken to the cage. ... As far as I know, the accused is innocent until proven guilty," he told reporters after appearing at the June 12 indictment hearing and pleading not guilty, "Is that fair?" Concerns over fair trial Rights activists and supporters fear that the government might imprison Yunus as part of the legal and political battle against him. Dhaka-based political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman expressed concerns about imprisonment driven by "vengeance" from Hasina. "From the highest levels of government, including the prime minister, aggressive statements have been made about subjudice matters. She has not held back. Given the state of the law and justice system in the country, Dr. Yunus will not receive fair treatment," Rahman told VOA. Yunus's legal team argues that the embezzlement charges are purely "baseless and frivolous" arguing that for embezzlement to occur, funds must be misappropriated from someone's custody, which he asserts did not happen. "The money in question was properly deposited into a bank account as mandated by a settlement agreement between the workers' trade union and Grameen Telecom, in accordance with labor laws. Thus, there is no basis for embezzlement charges." Al-Mamun told VOA. He expressed concern that a fair trial will not be possible, given government participation in a "smear campaign" against Yunus, and expressed fear Yunus would not receive justice even in the highest court. "We are progressing through each step and will go to the highest court eventually. But sadly, what we have repeatedly seen is that the country's highest court has not given verdicts independently based on the merits of these cases. It is likely that we will not receive justice this time either. However, we will follow all procedures." Hasina's campaign against Yunus Tensions between Yunus and Hasina began in 2007 after Yunus proposed forming a political party, Citizens' Power, to combat corruption and polarization. Though brief, analysts say the move solidified Hasina's view of Yunus as a rival. Her administration began a series of investigations of Yunus after coming to power in 2008. "She couldn't tolerate that Dr. Yunus was viewed as a political alternative. Her jealousy was fueled by his Nobel Prize and the global support he received," Rahman said. "Dr. Yunus began to openly criticize the regime, and that has put pressure on the government. These appears to be the motivations behind the campaign to discredit and humiliate him." The outside world has expressed significant concern over Yunus' treatment. Last year, more than 100 Nobel laureates, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, wrote an open letter to Hasina, urging an end to what they describe as "continuous judicial harassment." Amnesty International has condemned Yunus' treatment as emblematic of the broader erosion of human rights in Bangladesh. The United Nations rights body has raised concerns about ongoing harassment and smear campaigns from the "highest levels of government," which could jeopardize a fair trial. Despite numerous appeals, Hasina has remained firm. In 2011, her administration ousted Yunus from Grameen Bank, and she has consistently accused him of acting against Bangladesh's interests. A significant instance is the World Bank's decision to withdraw funding from the Padma Bridge project, the country's major infrastructure endeavor and longest bridge. Hasina has attributed this withdrawal to Yunus' influence, an accusation that he denies. At a press briefing on June 25 at her residence, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina criticized the open letter signed by more than 100 Nobel laureates and notable individuals supporting Muhammad Yunus as nothing more than "advertisements" funded by Yunus himself. "He has money, so he can pay for publicity. All these endorsements by Nobel laureates and others are merely promotional efforts. If he truly were so popular, why would he need to resort to advertisements to garner so much support? The whole world would naturally rally behind him otherwise," she said. Hasina who often called Yunus a "bloodsucker of the poor" and criticized Grameen's microlending practices, accused Yunus of taking credit for poverty reduction efforts that she claims her administration achieved, stating that her government reduced poverty significantly over the last 15 years. "I have eradicated poverty. In the last 15 years, I have reduced it from 41.6% to 18.7%, and he takes the credit. Some international organizations even write that down," she said. US keeping wary eye on the trials The U.S. State Department is closely monitoring the case against Yunus, voicing concerns about potential misuse of Bangladesh's labor laws to harass him. During a press briefing on July 9, spokesperson Mathew Miller emphasized that such misuse could undermine the rule of law and discourage foreign investment. "We continue to monitor closely developments in the case against him. We have expressed for some time our concern that these cases may represent a misuse of Bangladesh's labor laws to harass and intimidate Dr. Yunus," Miller said. "We also worry that perceived misuse of labor and anti-corruption laws could raise questions about rule of law and dissuade future foreign direct investment." In contrast to the open hostility toward the United States, North Korea has been doubling down on English education in its public schools under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, according to North Korea internal documents, textbooks and other educational materials reviewed by VOAs Korean Service. North Korea is typically wary of American influence flowing into the country, warning its citizens against a rotten Yankee culture. The isolated countrys state-run media, however, is touting the value of English language education. North Koreas Korean Central Broadcasting Television last month aired clips of interviews with North Korean teachers, stressing the importance of English education. Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un has told us in particular about strengthening education in computer technology and foreign language, Ahn Sung Ae, principal of Pyongyangs Sangshin Middle School, said in one of the clips. In the education contents, including the foreign language, we are encouraged to teach the students in a more practical manner. The state-run television network also ran footage of a new English learning room for students at public schools. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has increased its hostility toward the United States and escalated tensions with a series of weapons tests, violating multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. In June, North Korea tested a multiple-warhead missile, which is intended to strike multiple targets in the United States. Kim, who came to power in late 2011, overhauled the countrys education system by increasing the duration of compulsory schooling from 11 years to 12 years, starting in 2013. North Koreas four-year elementary school system converted to a five-year system, allowing children to begin learning English at an earlier age. I began to learn English when I was in the middle school. Later, there was some debate over the effectiveness of the early learning in English, Ye Eun Lee, who defected from North Korea in 2019 when she was 19, told VOAs Korean Service. And they changed the policy and started to teach English in elementary schools. The 12-year Compulsory Education Code, reviewed by VOAs Korean Service, stated that English language education should be strengthened "in order to widely adopt the advanced global technologies, and develop international exchanges and cooperation in the field of science and culture. The code, published in 2013 by North Korea's Education Commission, underscored that the purpose of learning English is to actually use the language in real life, requiring students to put more effort in practice. North Korean defector Lee Chul, a graduate of Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang and now a Peace Foundation fellow in South Korea, told VOAs Korean Service that students tend to practice speaking and listening among themselves. Theres no other way, since it is difficult to find native English speakers in North Korea, he said. In the Kim Jong Un era, English has become an essential means to benefit from developments in global business and technology. Lee Hyun Seung, a North Korean escapee and former chair of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League branch in Dalian, China, told VOAs Korean Service that one of the reasons behind Kim Jong Uns push for the English use was linked to the advancement of technology. You need to know English to learn about information technology, said Hyung Seung, who now lives in the United States. Accordingly, North Koreas English language education has increasingly focused on enhancing pragmatic skills. A comparative analysis by VOAs Korean Service of North Korean English textbooks and other educational materials produced before and after the 2013 education reform confirms this trend. A newer textbook, published in July 2015 for 12th graders enrolled in specialized high schools for advanced students, prioritizes listening and speaking, rather than perfecting grammar. The foreword of the 2015 book makes clear it was developed in accordance with Kim Jong Un's directives to emphasize the acquisition of practical English. The book was designed to enable students to learn four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English at a higher level and to focus on issues related to daily life and science and technology, according to its foreword. Meanwhile, English-education materials for the third and fourth grade students were designed to accommodate younger learners, with texts accompanied by many illustrations. According to the materials, the elementary students were also taught how to type alphabets on the keyboards, suggesting there are needs for the young students to write in English on the computer. These materials reviewed by VOAs Korean Service were saved on a tablet computer, branded as Ryonghung. The product was first released in 2013 and advertised as based on North Koreas homegrown technologies, according to South Koreas Yonhap News Agency. Lee Chul said that proficiency in English helps North Korean people get better jobs, especially giving them opportunities to work overseas. In South Korea, anyone can go abroad. North Korean people can go abroad only when they work for diplomatic missions overseas. So, English is important for the students who want to earn more money, he said. Lee Hyun Seung agreed, saying being fluent in English helps job seekers land on managerial roles. There are two engineers. And if one of them speaks English, he will be put in a higher position, he said. He added that those who could understand English were considered cultured among North Korean people, especially when unprecedented summits were taking place between the North Korean leader and former U.S. President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. In South Sudan, opponents of President Salva Kiir want him to send back to parliament a recently passed bill over concerns it will give state security agents too much power. Critics of the bill say it will allow the National Security Service to arrest and detain suspects without a warrant, thereby stifling dissent from the opposition and civil rights activists. South Sudans main opposition party, the SPLM-IO, and various civil rights activists, have united to oppose the security bill. The partys deputy chairperson, Oyet Nathaniel, expressed dismay over the rushed passage of the bill, despite calls to revise certain sections beforehand. "We urge His Excellency, the president of the Republic of South Sudan, to honor the directives of the principals, the resolution of the Council of Ministers and the legal advice from the ministers of Justice and Constitutional Affairs to remove Sections 54 and 55 of the act, he said. We implore him not to approve this contentious National Security Service bill." Nathaniel, speaking at a news conference this week, also criticized the past misuse of power by the National Security Service, highlighting instances where individuals were detained without being presented in court, as required by law. He argued that granting security agents the power of arrest would exacerbate constitutional breaches and human rights violations. "Their mandate is explicitly to gather and analyze information and provide advice to relevant authorities, he said. Nowhere in the constitution does it grant them the authority to engage in armed conflict or war, make arrests or detentions without a warrant, or intimidate and harass." Ter Manyang Gatwech, executive director of the Center for Peace and Advocacy in South Sudan, argued that the bills provisions threaten all citizens, regardless of party. "Those who passed it may think it targets civil society, ordinary citizens and human rights defenders, but this is not the case, he said. I urge the president to return this bill to parliament for revision." However, some South Sudanese lawmakers who support the measure say it is necessary to protect the country from lawbreakers. John Agany, a lawmaker and former spokesperson for the National Assembly, defended the bill, asserting that the controversial sections are not unconstitutional. He emphasized the importance of responsible enforcement. "Our National Security Service is comprised of highly responsible and well-trained individuals, he said. Their effectiveness was demonstrated during the 2013 crisis when they maintained order and saved lives. We should not underestimate the efforts of these men and women who work tirelessly to secure our nation." Daniel Ali, a lawmaker from the ruling SPLM Party, supported the bills provisions for arrest without a warrant in cases involving threats to national security. "The bill does not allow for arbitrary arrests like those over domestic disputes, he said. It pertains to serious matters like coup attempts, where swift action is necessary. I urge the assembly to pass this law without delay." Several embassies have come out against the bill, warning that its enactment would further restrict civic and political freedoms at a critical time for South Sudan. "Enacting this bill into law would be regrettable under any circumstances, but especially now, when it undermines the transitional governments commitment to fostering political and civic space, said Michael Adler, U.S. ambassador to Juba. As the debate continues, stakeholders both within South Sudan and abroad emphasize the importance of preserving civic space and upholding human rights. They urge President Kiir to reconsider the bill and address its contentious provisions through constructive dialogue and legal revisions. In a much-awaited decision Friday, Pakistan's top court declared former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party was entitled to its share of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies, handing the incarcerated leader's supporters a major legal victory. The 8-5 decision, broadcast live, overturned an earlier verdict of the Election Commission of Pakistan, and backed by a provisional court, that deprived Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, of close to 80 reserved seats in the national and provincial legislatures. The decision that will see more than 20 seats in the National Assembly go to PTI deprives Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's ruling coalition of a two-thirds majority. However, with more than 200 seats in hand it will retain a majority required to rule in the body of 336. PTI leaders hailed the victory, calling it a golden day in Pakistan's history. "It is a day of joy for supporters in and outside Pakistan. We finally got our right," PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan told media outside the court. The court's short order affecting the makeup of national and provincial assemblies comes five months after Pakistan went to the polls on February 8. The election that saw PTI-backed candidates win the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of the country's bicameral parliament, faced widespread allegations of pre-poll rigging and result manipulation. The election commission and Sharif's ruling coalition have rejected foreign calls to investigate alleged electoral discrepancies. Addressing a press conference soon after the verdict came, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told media the decision was painful. "It's painful that apparently the articles of the constitution were not interpreted but rewritten," Tarar said. He said repealing the verdict would be the Cabinet's decision. Background According to Pakistan's elections laws, seats reserved for women and non-Muslims are allotted to parties in proportion to the number of seats they win in the general elections. PTI was forced to run candidates as independents in the February 8 polls after the country's top court upheld the election commission's decision to strip it of a unified electoral symbol. The election commission took away the party's symbol after it declared PTI's intraparty elections invalid. PTI candidates still won 93 seats in the National Assembly, leaving behind Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party of the Bhutto dynasty. To maintain a unified presence in the legislature, PTI-backed candidates joined the Sunni Ittehad Council, or SIC, making the right-wing religious party the parliamentary face of PTI. However, the election commission rejected SIC's claim to reserved seats in March, citing technicalities, including that it did not submit a list of names for reserved seats before the election. The ECP then doled out reserved seats to other parties boosting PTI's opponents' position across national and provincial legislatures. Later the same month, the Peshawar High Court upheld the election commission's decision. In May, however, the Supreme Court suspended those verdicts, putting the ruling alliance's two-thirds majority on hold and the status of several lawmakers occupying reserved seats in limbo. Overturning the election commission and provincial court's decisions on Friday, the top court's majority declared PTI did not lose its status as a political party in the assemblies despite losing its electoral symbol prior to polls and running candidates as independents. The court asked PTI-backed lawmakers to declare their party affiliation with the commission. It ordered the commission to allot the party its share of reserved seats across all legislatures. Three candidates are vying for the presidency in Rwanda, where incumbent President Paul Kagame has won every election since 2000 and is widely expected to win again Monday. At a recent campaign rally, Kagame told supporters much has been done but more is possible if he is reelected. There are roads, electricity and many other infrastructures that we have achieved, Kagame said in Kinyarwanda, but we still want to achieve more. We will do that with your help, starting with the elections we have on July 15. The 66-year-old Rwanda Patriotic Front leader is expected to cruise to an easy victory. One reason, according to critics, is that he has ruled with a firm hand and stifled dissent. But another, say analysts, is the way hes been able to guide the East African country toward internal peace since the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists. Eric Ndushabandi, a political science and international relations professor at the University of Rwanda and an associate researcher at the Louvain University in Brussels, said Kagames support has been buoyed by his efforts to address Rwandans need for security and stability after the genocide. The language, practice and success around stabilization and security, mainly in internal politics, it is joining the expectations and aspirations of many Rwandans after this tragic and historical background, Ndushabandi said. He also said there is a big gap between the presidential candidates in terms of popularity, ideology, means and capacity. The challengers Democratic Green Party candidate Frank Habineza said he is in the race again this year because the incumbent president has been in office too long. Habineza last ran against Kagame in 2017. He told VOA that hes campaigned in 24 of the countrys 30 districts so far and that voters have been more enthusiastic this time around. I am giving them hope that after 30 years, we really need to see a different way of living, different political programs, different thinking and a different vision, he said. We are not going to destroy the good things that have been done before, but we want to give them better hope and a better future. Independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana, a journalist turned politician, also said he respects how far the country has come but wants to be seen as someone who can move it forward even more. This is also his second bid for the top job. He says the innovative ideas and initiatives in his campaign manifesto have received coverage in 50 articles. Other candidates were barred from the race by the National Electoral Commission for various reasons. One was a fierce Kagame critic, Diane Rwigara, who the commission said did not provide a criminal record statement and did not collect the minimum number of supporters signatures. Rwigara expressed her disappointment on the X social media platform, where she told Kagame, This is the second time you cheat me out of my right to campaign, why wont you let me run. Critics and rights groups have long accused Kagame of silencing opposition voices and creating a climate of fear that discourages dissent in general. Issues, economy While support for Kagame remains generally strong on the streets of Kigali, some Rwandans say theyd like to see issues such as joblessness addressed. You see the progress this country has achieved by the leader whos in charge. We wish that whoever is elected should not destroy what has been achieved but to continue it, Theoneste Gatari, a Kigali resident, told VOA in Kinyarwanda. Azabe Belton, another Kigali resident, said, The youth make up most Rwandans. We want the person wholl be elected to set up projects that help the youth get jobs because most of them are completely unemployed. According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in Rwanda was 14.9% in 2023. While the bank lauded the resiliency of the countrys economy, which boasted a 7.6% growth rate in the first three quarters of 2023, it also said that public debt had increased significantly in recent years. Teddy Kaberuka, an economic analyst, said Rwanda is a growing economy trying to attract industries and factories that can produce and provide jobs. But the challenge, he said, is that we are still having huge portions of the population [that] may be educated but not qualified [for manufacturing jobs]. Those are long-term investments that any government needs to address because its not in one year that you can create a pool of skilled people. Kaberuka said Rwanda is a country under construction that has gone through three economic phases since the genocide. The first 10 years, he said, were about laying a foundation for development by building security and institutions, providing basic needs for the population and allowing people to heal. The second phase was about investing in development. The third phase was about weathering the COVID-19 pandemic, which wreaked havoc around the globe. All that took place under the leadership of Kagame. Now, Kaberuka said, Rwanda is entering a new phase, one in which voters will decide who they trust to move the country forward. Zahirul Islam, a 52-year-old cafe manager in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has worked all his life supporting his family, with little to save for old age. Facing retirement at 59, Islam expects to work for another seven or eight years before holding down a job becomes unfeasible. "Then, it may not be possible to continue working," he said in an interview with VOA. In eight years, Islam turns 60, joining Bangladesh's growing population of older people. With little savings and no pension plan, he plans to return to his village with his wife rather than rely on his children in the megacity. "I don't want to be a burden on my children," he said. Islam's old age prospects mirror the struggles of millions of elderly South Asians, older people who grapple with no savings, income, social security or health insurance. With a median age of just over 28 years, the region comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is one of the youngest in the world. While this "youth bulge" drives economic growth, it masks a significant demographic shift: Across the region as elsewhere, the number and percentage of older people are increasing, in some cases rapidly. Now, international development institutions are warning that developing Asian countries are not doing enough to brace for their rapidly aging populations. "I think addressing the well-being of older people in Asia is a very urgent policy challenge," Albert Park, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, said during a recent webinar discussion of a landmark report on the continent's aging population. Unprecedented in its pace, the aging of Asia's population is unique in that it is happening at lower income levels than when advanced economies faced a similar demographic change. "A concern across the region is the risk that societies will grow old before they amass sufficient resources to adequately support their aging populations," the ADB report said. With the right policies and programs, however, this challenge could become an opportunity, yielding "a silver dividend" through increased productivity from older people, the report said. The ADB and other agencies measure population aging by tallying the percentage of people aged 60 or 65 and above. A population is often defined as "aging" when its share of people 65 and older exceeds 7%, "aged" when it is 14% or higher, and "super aged" when it is above 20%. 14% of world Globally, there were 1.1 billion people aged 60 or older in 2022, representing about 14% of the world population, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The number is expected to double to 2.1 billion by 2050, constituting 22% of the total global population. Asias share of seniors is expected to be even greater. The Asian Development Bank estimates the number of older people in Asia will surge to 1.2 billion by 2050, accounting for more than a quarter of the regions population. The dramatic rise will "significantly increase the need for investing in health, social welfare services and other programs, the ADB says. Among South Asian countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka will all have more than 20% shares of older people by 2050. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan will have less than 10%, keeping their populations relatively young. The population aging is not limited to South Asia. In Central Asia, the percentage of older people, currently less than 10%, will rise to an average of 15%, lifting the region's population from "aging" to "aged," according to the U.N. In Turkey, the share topped 10% last year for the first time, raising concerns that the country is not ready for a surge in its elderly population. "Turkey needs to implement rights-based elderly policies both at a local and national level, in line with sociological and demographic change," said Mevlut Ulgen, president of Aegean Geriatrics Association. "In Turkey, old age is seen as a burden through insurance systems." The demographic shift across South and Central Asia follows a global trend: thanks to advances in health care, medical services and economic development, people are living longer lives while having fewer children. Life expectancy rises, births sink In Bangladesh, the average life expectancy has risen to over 72 from about 47 in 1971, when the nation gained independence. Meanwhile, the country's fertility rate has dropped from nearly seven births per woman to fewer than two. Bangladesh is not the only South Asian country with a young but aging population. In Sri Lanka, more than 17% of the population is 60 years or older, making it the country with the highest share of seniors in the region. India, home to the world's largest youth population, is also rapidly aging. The number of Indians aged 60 or older has nearly tripled in the past three decades to more than 150 million people more than the population of most countries. This number is expected to more than double by 2050. Himanshu Rath, the founder and chairperson of Agewell Foundation, noted that the number of India's "oldest old" people those who are 80 or above is also surging, leaving many with decades to live without an income, pension or family support. "When people start living beyond 80 to 90 years, their families abandon them," Rath said in an interview with VOA. "People feel frustrated and fed up with caring for their elderly parents. Taking care of elderly people is exhausting. They began thinking, 'You have your own life to live,' and do not have to waste it taking care of your parents." Advice, jobs for seniors Agewell Foundation says its aim is "to disabuse the popular mindset that regards old age with a sense of pity for their helplessness." With a network of 80,000 volunteers, the group, among other initiatives, helps seniors by offering medical and legal advice and finding them second jobs such as tutoring. "All said and done, I must stress that in every society and in all circumstances, we owe our elderly our respect, our time and our gratitude," Rath said. The myriad problems facing older people in India, from lack of income and pension to social isolation, echo those of many others across Asia. In developing Asian countries, 40% have no access to pensions, 60% don't get regular health checkups, and 43% with physical needs lack long-term care, according to the ADB report. "I think that's a direct call for support, and there are really opportunities where we can see clearly that the government can help fill that space," ADB chief economist Park said. "And if you add on to that, that many societies are becoming older and older, faster and faster, then the challenges are going to get greater as we go forward," he added. Afghanistan and Pakistan stand out as the two youngest populations in South Asia, with median ages of 17 and over 20 years, respectively. Cautioning young population countries against complacency, Park noted that "one luxury young countries have is that they have a little more time to prepare for when much greater shares of their populations are going to be older." VOAs Aditya Rimon, Yusuf Jameel and Soner Kizilkaya contributed to this article. Donald Trump's lawyers on Thursday said Manhattan prosecutors improperly relied on evidence of the former U.S. president's official acts in securing his conviction on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star. In a court filing dated July 10 but made public on Thursday, defense lawyers said the guilty verdict should be set aside following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity. They said evidence of official acts that were improperly shown to the jury included Trump's conversations with former White House aide Hope Hicks and some of his Twitter posts while he was in office. "The use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution," defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote. "The jury's verdicts must be vacated." Justice Juan Merchan this month delayed Trump's sentencing by two months after defense lawyers said the justices' July 1 ruling that presidents cannot face criminal charges over official acts meant prosecutors should not have shown evidence from Trump's time in the White House at trial. They said that meant the Manhattan jury's May 30 guilty verdict in the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president could not stand. Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office have until July 24 to respond. They have previously called Trump's arguments meritless but agreed to push back the sentencing. Legal experts said Trump faces steep odds of getting the hush money conviction overturned because much of the case involves conduct before his presidency and the evidence from his time in the White House has more to do with private conduct. The Supreme Court's ruling stemmed from a separate case Trump faces on federal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. It all but ensured Trump would not face trial in that case before the November 5 election. Trump's lawyers are also seeking a pause in a third criminal case on charges of mishandling classified documents because of the ruling. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. In the hush money case, Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer's $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to remain quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump. Prosecutors say the payment was designed to boost his presidential campaign in 2016, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Supreme Court's decision said evidence of a president's official acts cannot be used in a prosecution on private matters. Merchan has said he will decide on Trump's arguments by September 6. If the conviction is upheld, Trump will be sentenced on September 18, less than seven weeks before the election. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared on Friday that there is no alternative to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, and 118 countries backed the relief organization as indispensable, amid stepped up efforts by Israel to dismantle it. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, provides education, health care and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted nine months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, U.N. officials have stood by UNRWA as the backbone of aid operations. "My appeal to everyone is this: Protect UNRWA, protect UNRWA staff, and protect UNRWA's mandate including through funding," Guterres told an UNRWA conference in New York on Friday. "Let me be clear: There is no alternative to UNRWA." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long called for UNRWA to be dismantled, accusing it of anti-Israeli incitement. Israel's parliament is currently considering designating UNRWA as a terrorist organization. Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency's staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Most donors have since resumed their funding, while the U.N. is conducting an internal investigation. UNRWA has been hit hard during the conflict in Gaza: 195 staff have been killed. "UNRWA is also being targeted in other ways," Guterres said. "Staff have been the subject of increasingly violent protests and virulent misinformation and disinformation campaigns. "Some have been detained by Israeli security forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and even torture," he said, adding that in the West Bank the presence and movements of UNRWA staff have been severely restricted by Israel. The Israeli military has said that it acts according to Israeli and international law and that those it arrests get access to food, water, medication and proper clothing. Israel accuses UNRWA of complicity with Hamas, saying the militant Islamist group was embedded within the U.N. agency's infrastructure. UNRWA was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war. Jordanian U.N. Ambassador Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud said on Friday ahead of the pledging event that 118 countries had signed on to a joint statement supporting UNRWA and its work. The Biden administration levied sanctions Thursday against a far-right Israeli organization and four illegal outposts in the West Bank, entities believed to disrupt stability in the region under Israeli control. "The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel's own security," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement. The U.S. government, while also imposing sanctions on three Israeli individuals, called upon the Israeli government to address extremist actions that it believes hinder progress toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. "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," Miller said. One target of Thursday's sanctions was Lehava, an Israeli nonprofit whose Hebrew name is an acronym for "preventing assimilation in the Holy Land." According to the U.S. State Department, Lehava has more than 10,000 registered members and has engaged in acts of violence against Palestinians, affecting the West Bank. The State Department said the four sanctioned outposts had engaged in actions to displace Palestinians, such as limiting water access, disrupting grazing lands and launching attacks. One sanction was applied directly to a settlement owner. Also sanctioned were two Israeli leaders of Tsav 9, a group that attacked convoys of aid heading toward Gaza. The Biden administration's recent actions against Israeli settlers have upset members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition who support the occupation of the West Bank. Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state. Several Jewish settlements have been built there, and most countries consider them illegal. Some information for this report came from Reuters. On the evening of July 11, during another Russian drone strike on Ukraine, one of the enemy's Shahed-136s flew over the territory of Belarus. The Belarusian army knew about it because its Mi-24 helicopter and fighter jet were "monitoring" the Russian attack on Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT According to the Belaruski Gayun project, the kamikaze drone of the Russian occupation forces stayed in the airspace of Belarus for at least one hour. It was near the border of the Gomel region. "Shahed" (Russian version of the name "Geranium") flew into Belarus across the border with the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, near the Belarusian village of Loev. It then moved toward Mozyr, turned to the Khoinikov area, and exited the airspace of Belarus for the Kyiv region over the Polissia Radiation and Ecological Reserve. Monitoring channels reported the Shahed over Belarus around 20:30 on Thursday, July 11. However, at the time of the first information about it, a Mi-24 helicopter of the Belarusian Air Force, which took off for the Gomel region from the Machulishchi airfield around 19:00, and a fighter jet from Baranovichi, which took off even earlier around 18:30, had been over the Gomel region for more than an hour. ADVERTISIMENT This indicates at least that the Belarusian air defense recorded the arrival of the kamikaze drone in Belarus long before the information about it appeared in Telegram channels, and the drone itself entered earlier around 19:00. Moreover, at the time of the first public reports, the Belarusian Air Force fighter took off from the Gomel district, and later a Belarusian Air Force helicopter flew to Machulishcha. "It is possible that the Belarusian troops were aware of the upcoming maneuvers and controlled the airspace over the territory of Belarus in case of unplanned behavior of one of the Shaheds," suggested the analysts of the Belaruski Gayun project. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Photo: Ramsay de Give/Pool/Getty/Getty Images Alec Baldwins Santa Fe manslaughter trial veered into uncertain territory on Friday, July 12, when his lawyers asked the judge to toss the case over authorities alleged withholding of key evidence from the defense. Lawyers for Baldwin, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, claim that police didnt disclose evidence that could explain how live bullets wound up on the movies set. The failure to disclose this evidence resulted in the judge dismissing the case with prejudice. Heres how it happened. The revelation first came on July 11 during the cross-examination of crime-scene tech Marissa Poppell, and was detailed in a subsequent motion to dismiss. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed to have a hearing about Baldwins push to dismiss; Seth Kenney, who provided guns, dummy rounds, and blanks to the production, was the first to testify. When law enforcement on Baldwins case took the stand, things went downhill for prosecutors with the top cop saying that she and prosecutors agreed to put this evidence in a different case file, a move that the defense contends was tantamount to a cover-up. Baldwins lawyers argued in their motion that the Santa Fe Sheriffs Office and prosecutors concealed that the live round came from Kenney. The high-profile legal team then laid out a shocking chronology: Troy Teske, a retired police officer from Arizona, had delivered a collection of live ammunition to Poppell. Baldwins lawyers claim that the type of live ammunition matched the live bullet that killed Hutchins. Teske turned over the ammo after Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on March 6, 2024. According to the defenses motion, authorities knew that Teske had information about Rust set ammunition for years. Kenney called Teske who, like Kenney, was friends with Gutierrez-Reeds father, famed armorer Thell Reed during a police interview on November 1, 2021; after this sit-down, Teske sent authorities a photo of ammunition that didnt match rounds found on the Rust set. Kenney then sent this photo to the then-case detective. In an interview with Teske the next day, a prosecutor asked him to provide ammunition from a batch Kenney had used elsewhere. Teske said he would turn it over, and the prosecutor said she would coordinate its collection, but authorities didnt follow up. Heres where things get even messier: The defense said that Poppells supervisor told her to log the rounds under a different case file so that it would never be disclosed to the defense. The Sheriffs Office didnt disclose the rounds even though it has to disclose evidence to lawyers, even after Baldwins team asked to view all ballistics evidence. Poppell also said that the Sheriffs Office created a report about the rounds that also was never disclosed to the defense. The defense described this as a cover-up in the motion. Baldwin was unaware of a risk that live ammunition had been brought to the set of Rust. To support its theory that Baldwin should have known of that risk, the State is attempting to establish a link between Baldwin and the source of the live ammunition, the motion stated. The only way it can do this is by demonstrating that the live rounds were brought to the set by the movies armorer, given the States assertion that Baldwin should have been aware of her youth and inexperience and therefore the possibility that she brought live rounds to set. Evidence that the live rounds came from Kenney is therefore favorable to Baldwin, which is why the State buried it. The State not only failed to disclose the evidence it affirmatively hid it under a file number that is unaffiliated with the Rust case and then failed to disclose the only documentation that it claims to have created that would have alerted Baldwin to the existence of the evidence, the motion also stated. During Kenneys testimony in the hearing, he insisted that hed handled tens of thousands of dummy rounds during his career without incident. He insisted that the live ammo on set did not come from him. There was never a question in my mind that I provided the live ammunition to Rust, he said. The prosecution was dealt multiple blows when Alexandria Hancock, who headed the Rust investigation, repeatedly stumbled when being asked about authorities handling of Teskes disclosure. In a shocking moment, Hancock said that she, other police, and prosecutors agreed to put this information in a separate file. The judge asked: Was Ms. Morrissey part of that? Hancock answered yes. In a startling turn of events, Morrissey called herself to testify at the hearing. Morrissey delivered her direct testimony as a monologue and recognized that she did know about Teskes disclosure, but insisted that the ammunitions placement in a different file was not nefarious. I had no idea that it wasnt going to have the same case number. During cross-examination by Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro, Morrissey said of the filing issue: Im not a law enforcement officer, and I dont work at the sheriffs department. Spiro then grilled Morrissey about her views of Baldwin. You thought Mr Baldwin was a cocksucker? Spiro asked, referring to an alleged comment to a witness. She said she didnt recall saying that and without more information. Did you call him an arrogant prick during a witness interview? Spiro pressed. Morrissey said she didnt recall saying that. When Spiro effectively asked whether she had it in for Baldwin, Morrissey said, That is absolutely untrue I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwins movies, I really appreciated the acting that he did on SNL, and I really appreciate his politics. Prosecutors claimed that Hutchinss death resulted from Baldwins recklessness, telling jurors that he flouted common-sense gun-safety principles by pointing the gun at her and pulling the trigger. Baldwins team said the actor was told it was a cold gun, meaning it didnt have live ammunition and that he wasnt reckless but simply handled the weapon as countless actors have and continue to do while filming. The defense repeatedly brought up alleged issues with evidence; they said the gun was destroyed during police analysis, making it impossible for them to determine whether it malfunctioned. They also argued that authorities were more concerned with nabbing Baldwin than they were thoroughly investigating the tragic incident. After hearing testimony about the evidence, Judge Sommer agreed with the defense when she issued her decision Friday afternoon, making Baldwin a free man. Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (RADiUS-TWC, IFC Midnight, Neon) Before Jenna Ortega and Scream, before Mia Goth and Pearl, and before the young cast of Yellowjackets became our cannibal darlings, Maika Monroe arrived to put her own indelible stamp on 21st-century horror. For the past decade, Monroe has established herself as a mainstay in the horror genre, not just a dependable player but a true modern scream queen whos able to elevate predictable fare, stand toe-to-toe with monsters of all kinds, and, of course, lead modern classics to even greater heights. Now, with her nerve-shredding performance in Oz Perkinss serial-killer terrifier Longlegs, Monroe is on the verge of a kind of second breakthrough in her horror career, a chance to remind audiences that shes not just still here but still arguably the best young actress in the genre at the moment. In celebration of that new breakthrough, and of Monroes tireless talents, here are all of her horror films so far, ranked from worst to best. 8. One of Monroes great gifts, and a hallmark of good horror acting in general, is her ability to maintain the compelling edge in a scene without another human partner, something she achieves brilliantly in other films well get to later. Its a gift thats a tremendous asset in a film like Tau, in which she plays a woman kidnapped by a mad scientist (Ed Skrein) to help him develop an advanced AI (voiced by Gary Oldman) hes trying to perfect. For huge swaths of the film, Monroe is left alone in a vast, cold house with nothing but the voice of the AI to keep her company, which means the films humanity rests squarely on her shoulders. The attempt to balance out claustrophobic horror with high-concept sci-fi doesnt quite work, and it all goes pretty much exactly how youd expect, but because it has Monroe at the center, Tau retains a watchability and a surprisingly steady emotional core. 7. Monroe takes a supporting role in Greta, Neil Jordans psychological horror film about a young woman (Chloe Grace Moretz) who befriends a mysterious older woman (Isabelle Huppert in the title role) and soon finds shes accidentally bonded with a monster. As Moretzs roommate, the lively and bold Erica, Monroe disappears from the film for significant stretches, but Jordan is smart enough to keep her an active participant in the plot, and she eventually becomes the star of the films two best scenes. One is a fantastically tense stalker-y chase sequence, the other is a showdown with Huppert; Monroe gets to flex her Final Girl muscles in both scenes to great effect, helping Greta land its most frightening moments. 6. A blackly comic crime film with a horror movies soul, Villains pairs Monroe with Bill Skarsgard as they play a couple of small-time crooks trying to raise enough money to live their dream lives in Florida. When their car breaks down, they stumble upon a house in the woods, and a strange couple (Jeffrey Donovan and Kyra Sedgwick) hiding a dark secret. What follows is a strange, violent, twisty game of predator and prey thats both tension-laden and deeply satisfying. A big part of that satisfaction, unsurprisingly, is the chemistry between Skarsgard and Monroe, who are able to pivot from the films comic tones to its horrific developments with ease and grace. Its arguably the funniest film on this list, but that doesnt stop it from being truly frightening. 5. Theres a very delicate tonal dance at work in Significant Other, which stars Monroe as a woman whos reluctantly going out to hike and camp with her boyfriend (Jake Lacy), only to find something she never expected out in the woods. Humor, paranoia, and heart front-load the narrative, and when the real sci-fi/horror elements start to kick in, you think you know where its going, right up until you dont. The twist in Significant Other is quite effective, but its what happens next that makes the film a hidden gem from the 2022 horror scene, and Monroe and Lacy both navigate the films gleeful strangeness wonderfully. 4. This is the point where the list starts to shift from Good Genre Movies into the realm of Potential Masterpieces. In Watcher, Chloe Okunos stylish and nail-biting directorial debut, Monroe stars as a lonely woman who moves to Bucharest with her husband (Karl Glusman) and, while hes at work, starts to worry that someone in the apartment across the street is watching her. Its the stuff of classic paranoid-thriller filmmaking, clearly following in the footsteps of Hitchcock and De Palma. But what makes Watcher particularly special is just how squarely Okuno keeps the focus on a woman who must persist despite no one listening to her and how well Monroe does in that environment. Its one of those performances she has to very often sell on her own, in a room, reacting not to a scene partner but to a certain environmental edge, and she not only nails it but makes us feel the same sense of creeping anxiety, too. 3. Monroes breakthrough as a genre-cinema mainstay came in 2014 thanks to two films. One offered a leading role, which well get to in just a moment, and the other saw her land second billing under Dan Stevenss incredible title-role performance in The Guest. Helmed by the Youre Next team of director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, The Guest emerges as a seemingly straightforward thriller about a military man (Stevens) who visits the family of a departed comrade and forms a strange bond with their teenage daughter (Monroe) and bullied young son (Brendan Meyer). One of the films great strengths is how its able to warp from this thriller perspective into full-on slasher-style terror by the end, and thats not just thanks to Stevens. Monroe has to slowly tilt from being beguiled and intrigued by Stevens to totally terrified by him, and her ability to pull it off while explosions and gun battles are going on around her sells the films tonal shifts perfectly. 2. In this combination of procedural thriller and Satanic nightmare from horror filmmaker Oz Perkins, Monroe stars as Lee Harker, an FBI agent trying to track down the title serial killer (Nicolas Cage) even as he closes in on her as the object of his latest fascinations. Monroe plays Lee with a certain steadfast restraint, keeping her emotions shielded until the films terrifying plot strips that shield away bit by bit, and Cage is well, hes unhinged in all the best ways. Its one of those movies that feels eerie and shrouded in strangeness from the very beginning, and Monroe knows exactly how to navigate that environment. 1. The other major 2014 film (though it didnt hit U.S. theaters until 2015) that cemented Monroes status as a genre star, It Follows has since become not just a hit horror film but a cultural mainstay, up there with The Babadook and Get Out as one of the most talked-about genre movies of its decade. Monroe stars as Jay, a young woman who finds herself cursed after a one-night stand to be followed by a strange entity that will kill her if it can ever catch her. Conceptually, its a brilliant piece of horror work from director David Robert Mitchell, but its Monroe who has to navigate the harrowing emotional journey of the piece, as Jay goes from unwitting participant to desperate prey to unforgettable Final Girl. Its a fantastic performance in one of the best horror films of the 21st century so far, one that cemented Monroe as one of the genres brightest and most compelling performers. Chris Evans passed off the star-spangled shield to Anthony Mackie at the end of Avengers: Endgame approximately 86 years ago. Now, the new Cap is finally picking it up. Anthony Mackie stars in Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth installment of the saga about a scientifically enhanced soldier who often faces perilous threats from corrupt governments the world over. If the first trailer is anything to go by, this film wont be much different from its predecessors. He gets called up by the president himself (Harrison Ford) to head the revamped partnership between Captain America and the American military. What could go wrong? Well, the guy whose reelection campaign slogan is the hilariously unproblematic phrase Together doesnt seem to notice that there are rotten apples deep in the force and theyre literally trying to assassinate him. Global power is shifting, someone tells Americas newest ass. Youre just a pawn. As the White House blows up and bullets fly, the commander-in-chief gets a little rude: You may be Captain America, but youre not Steve Rogers. A little congratulations would have sufficed. The brave new world arrives February 14, 2025. Related Photo: Matthew Murphy I dont want to crush anyones dreams, but Gene Kelly in Broadway Melody or the company of Annie in NYC notwithstanding theater is not a straight rise of ascending quality and fulfillment from small-town basement productions to Broadway. Its a heterogeneous, horizontal art with a vexed, flirtatious, sometimes even defiant relationship to its own resources: Throwing money at a thing will usually only make it bigger, not better, and its just as possible to see a brilliant and unforgettable piece of work in the church hall, the high-school auditorium, or the tiny rural black box as it is in the handful of overpriced blocks surrounding Times Square. When it suits us, the C-word most often used to describe such productions is the darling of our professional mission statements, the ostensible heart of the whole theatrical endeavor; at the same time, the label is still an insult. Community theater oh God. Please, let no critic compare us to that. I wont compare the ambitious, expensive-looking new Empire to community theater, because the insult would be the wrong way around. If by some money-related miracle, Caroline Sherman and Robert Hulls moldy lemon of a musical makes good on the billing of its L.A. run as a pre-Broadway engagement, that should be all the proof any of us require for the fact that midtown is not the be-all, end-all of the theatrical impulse. Or perhaps, with its current run at the Broadway-adjacent New World Stages, Empire considers its dreams of the Great White Way close enough to fulfilled. In this suffocatingly earnest show about the construction of the Empire State Building (directed by Cady Huffman and choreographed with all the zazz in the book by Lorna Ventura), the cliches and clunkers begin at moment one and never let up over two-and-a-half hours. The Melting Pot has less oozing cheese and might even feel less dated. Were less than a minute into the score before a tinkly run of chimes occurs the particular kind you know from every goopy R&B cover in the end credits of a Disney movie to signal that were going to be Looking Back and Feeling Feelings. Or at least someone is. Here that someone is Sylvie Lee (I saw Julia Louise Hosack stepping in for Jessica Ranville), brow furrowed and sporting much polyester, with a daughter (Kiana Kabeary) who wants to wear fringed vests, change her name to Rayne, and become an ironworker. Its 1976. I know that because Sylvie informs her uncle (Danny Iktomi Bevins) as she and Rayne prepare for a move: Its 1976, Uncle Jesse. Were lucky we got the price on this house we did. Sherman and Hulls book drops exposition this way, one Acme anvil after another, while still managing to leave you muddled about salient plot and character points. Among those muddles: Who exactly are Sylvies parents? This question, put to rest right after intermission, might be intended as a compelling mystery, but instead its effect is a long one of bland confusion. Sylvie has a skyscraper-size chip on her shoulder, and its why she opposes her daughters life choices: Lorayne, she snaps, your grandfather, my father, died on that stupid building. Youre an educated woman. You are not going into construction. Poor Sylvie. Fearful and serious and disillusioned. But dont despair! Magical musical journeys to the past exist specifically to cure people like you. Empire shares with many a meh musical a time-hopping conceit in which someone in a relatively drab and dreamless present recalls, in rosy hues and major chords, the glorious striving of a vibrant, hopeful lost era. As Sylvie packs up, the boxes of her parents old keepsakes become the perfect altar at which to invoke nostalgia and, with relentless sentimentality, call upon the power of story. Enter the dynamo Frances Belle Wolodsky, known to all as Wally (Kaitlyn Davidson, giving the shows only performance that communicates a capacity for wit, timing, and restraint). Wally has stepped out of time gone by to show Sylvie how it all went down. Well be Bill-and-Tedding with them back to 1929, which means another opportunity to revisit musical theaters most overworked era (truly, I could go happily to my grave without seeing another crazy-eyed flapper dancing the Charleston). As far as I can make out, Wally is a mostly fictional creation perhaps partly based on Frances Perkins conjured to add some girl power among the real-life big dicks who were behind the Empire State Building project, including the Dupont and GM exec John J. Raskob (Howard Kaye) and the former governor of New York Al Smith (Paul Salvatoriello), for whom the building was originally intended to be named. Wally with her bold trousers, smart bob, and quippy refusals to fetch anyones coffee might be a kind of manic-pixie-dream-girl Friday, but shes hardly Empires only fantasy. Her on-again, off-again inamorato, the brilliant architect Charles Kinney (Albert Guerzon), who keeps adding floors to whats already designed to be the worlds tallest skyscraper, is also a myth. Which would be fine, if any hint of chemistry between them werent also nonexistent. Their merry war number Stuck With You aspires to the cheeky disdain and sexual magnetism of 1930s screwball couples, but it comes off as so much cringe. Even if the actors had an arc welders worth of spark between them, it wouldnt matter: Theyre singing lyrics like Youre fancy free and so relaxed / It must be nice youre so untaxed. A couplet that, admittedly, soars when compared with some of the shows most eye-popping duds. And oh, oh, sings Sylvie in the platitudinous My Story Times are always good and bad / And oh, oh, people are often sad and glad. Empire, for all those groaners, manages to hang together during Act One, where we follow Al Smith and his cigar, Wally and her can-do, and the team of workmen who are taking the tower skyward. (Sherman and Hull are thrilled to drive home the diversity of Wallys workforce, though their virtuous intentions are undermined by a melange of bad accents, tired demonstrations of casual racism, and references to melting pots and immigrant dreams along with an especially ham-fisted song called Lookahee, which apparently exists to make cat-calling by construction crews look cute and fun.) But the shows second act quickly unravels into outright mess. Ostensibly, its story is one of grief and healing: In the Act One climax, one of the workmen, Polish poet Joe Pakulski (Devin Cortez), falls to his death, leaving behind his pregnant wife, an Indigenous woman named Rudy (also Kabeary) who has been working beside him on the high beams. (Rudy has been pulling a Shakespearean cross-dressing stunt in order to join the crew of Mohawk ironworkers who really did work precarious wonders while shaping the New York skyline.) Sylvie, we eventually learn, is Joe and Rudys child, and shes still got a lot of trauma-processing to do but her storys denouement is musically and thematically all over the damn place, patched together from short, inconsequential songs that are pinned to the plot like placeholders (a song should go here) and swimming in a sloppy soup of generic, under-examined inspo. Sherman and Hull valorize hard work and American aspiration with a fervor that gives away how long theyve been working on the show (they started when Bill Clinton was still president). The feminism represented by Wally is of the soda-pop variety fizzy, syrupy empty calories and potential gnawing issues with the very essence of the material are easily brushed aside: Some say the Al Smith project is capitalist folly, glowers Sylvie. I love the Follies, Im seeing them this weekend, giggles a secretary called no, really Goodie Goodheart (Alexandra Frohlinger), whose only purpose is to make ditzy vaudeville jokes. Its pretty rich to listen to an Irish immigrant sing to his wife, sans irony, Our children will be free, dont worry my darling; or to watch Empire proudly shuffle Indigenous people into the spotlight without ever addressing the fact that its very title is the bad guy the desecrating, colonizing force that nearly purged their ancestors from the earth. The show is a queasy throwback, content to stick its fingers in its ears and belt about hope and glory. We are no longer in Curlys beautiful morning, if we ever were, and as a genre, the American musical needs to reckon with the triumphalism encoded in its DNA. Part of the fascination of the form lies in watching that reckoning play out how will a team of artists subvert or redirect those currents? Empire offers no struggle, no broader awareness, no transcendence. Its edifice is built with bricks of banality and mortar of treacle, and it melts before our eyes. Empire: The Musical is at New World Stages through September 22. Russia has appropriated the Ukrainian brand "Melitopol Cherry" by registering it as a Russian brand. This situation is part of Russia's strategy to integrate the occupied territories and is a violation of international intellectual property norms. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by Russian propagandists TASS. Rospatent granted a certificate of "exclusive right" to the brand to the occupation administration in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Russian media report that the appropriation of the Ukrainian brand is intended to accelerate the "integration" of the occupied territories into Russia. This is part of Russia's strategy to legitimize its authority in these territories, despite international sanctions and rejection. Rospatent has declared its readiness to register other Ukrainian geographical indications, not just cherries. This is only the beginning of a large-scale campaign to appropriate Ukraine's intellectual property. Ukrainian "Melitopol sweet cherry" Ukraine patented the geographical indication "Melitopol sweet cherry" back in 2020. This sweet cherry is known for its rich aroma and flavor, and balanced sugar and acid content, which is due to the specific conditions of the spring period and black earth soils with high water permeability. ADVERTISIMENT The region's peculiarities, such as an intense increase in solar radiation and black earth soils, contribute to the unique flavor of this product. "Melitopol Cherry has been officially recognized as a geographical brand in Ukraine, and in October 2021, the Melitopol Cherry Group received the Global G.A.P. certificate, which meets international standards for product quality and environmental friendliness. Russia's reaction The Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property issued the first certificate of exclusive right to a regional brand in favor of the occupation administration. This decision was made public on July 12 and was widely discussed. Russian agencies have stated that the occupied regions of Ukraine, which Russia already considers its own, can register intellectual property. "We invite producers of goods and services from the new regions to register their brands. Rospatent will provide all the necessary assistance," said Yuri Zubov, head of Rospatent. The appropriation of Ukrainian geographical brands by Russia is part of a broader strategy to legitimize the occupation of Ukrainian territories and deepen their integration into the Russian Federation. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Several Schengen countries have changed the application forms that must be filled out to obtain a visa. Despite the minimal modifications to the forms, consulates will accept the new variant only. ADVERTISIMENT Travelers who appear at a diplomatic mission with outdated applications will have to familiarize themselves with the new rules. The changes introduced by several European countries are minor but important. OBOZ.UA found the questionnaires on the Sweden Abroad website. The main difference between the new and old forms is the procedure for filling in personal data. From now on, those wishing to obtain a Schengen visa must first indicate their personal data, whether they are related to EU, EEA or Swiss citizens, their place of work and the purpose of their stay in the country. Only at the end of the application the tourist has to indicate travel and accommodation costs. ADVERTISIMENT A new change that confused a large number of travelers was the update of the Schengen visa application form for Italy, which will come into effect on July 8. In addition to male and female, a new "other" option has been added to the "gender" column, which makes it easier for non-binary people to fill out applications. The new rules for filling out traveler forms will also be introduced in other European countries. The Consulate of Sweden requires new forms from June 28, Hungary from July 1, and Bulgaria from July 4. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! ADVERTISIMENT Espresso Salento to run on select dates in summer 2024. Italy is launching a new express overnight rail service between Rome and the southern Puglia region, as part of a tourist train initiative, on select dates this summer. The Espresso Salento, one of the latest FS Treni Turistici Italiani services, will connect the Italian capital with the Puglia city of Lecce, starting from 18 July. In a statement, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane said the new route is designed to link Rome with the busy summer destination "in a sustainable way, making the journey itself part of the holiday". Travellers depart from Rome at 21.10 and can kickstart their holiday by dining in the restaurant car, which also serves breakfast, before making their way to the sleeper carriage. The train stops in Caserta and Foggia before proceeding southwards, with drop-off only stops planned in Bari, Polignano a Mare, Monopoli, Fasano, Ostuni, Carovigno, Brindisi and Lecce, where the train pulls in at 08.45 the next morning. The rail service is scheduled on a limited number of days, travelling from Rome on Thursday 18 July, Thursday 25 July, Tuesday 13 August and Thursday 22 August. Journeys from Lecce will depart from 19.45 (arriving in Rome at 10.20 the next day) on Friday 19 July, Friday 26 July, Wednesday 14 August and Friday 23 August. For full details about the Espresso Salento see the FS Treni Turistici Italiani website. Dining chat: A waiter gave our anniversary bubbly to the table next to us. What should we have done? A child rapist who repeatedly abused a young girl from when she was aged eight, including one instance when he tied her to a bed, held a knife to her throat and threatened her, will now serve over 15 years in prison after the Court of Appeal found his original 11-year sentence was too lenient. The now 46-year-old man had ignored a warning by the court that it may not be in his interest to proceed with his sentence appeal. If the three judges feel that an appeal is likely to result in a higher rather than lower sentence, they can remind an appellant's legal team of the "full range of powers" available to the court. Tying a child to the bed with tights or a scarf and holding a knife to her throat to reinforce that she ought not to tell anybody or he would hurt her and then raping her is an offence which, in our view, falls within the category of requiring up to life imprisonment, said Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy on Thursday, re-sentencing the man to a total of 16 years in prison with the final six months suspended. The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, carried out the abuse on the girl between the ages of eight and 11, leaving the victim suffering mental health issues as she felt as though her childhood had been taken from her. The defendant was found guilty following a trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Waterford last year of eight sample counts of rape, nine sample counts of anal rape, eight sample counts of oral rape and nine sample counts of sexual assault on dates between August 2014 and August 2017 at his home in Wexford. The victim was aged between eight and 11 at the time of the offences. He was also found not guilty on three counts of rape at the direction of the trial judge. The man, who does not accept the jury's verdicts, was sentenced to 11 years in prison by Ms Justice Karen OConnor, who also imposed a period of two years post-release supervision. Ms Justice Kennedy noted that among the grounds of appeal against his conviction was an argument by the defence that the trial judge failed to give a corroboration warning in relation to medical evidence which found that the complainants hymen was intact. However, Ms Justice Kennedy said that the findings of the doctor were neutral and did not render the complainants evidence unreliable. She said that it falls to the discretion of the trial judge, who may assess the evidence and determine whether a warning is required. Another ground of appeal was the argument that the judge failed to give sufficient attention to conflicts in the evidence concerning the doctors evidence. Ms Justice Kennedy said that no requisition was raised at the trial following the judges charge to the jury, adding that the trial judge addressed the doctors evidence in some detail. Saying that the court found no merit to the grounds of appeal, Ms Justice Kennedy said that the appeal against conviction was dismissed. Moving on to the appeal against sentence, Ms Justice Kennedy said that an unusual situation arose, as after the appeal against conviction was heard, the matter proceeded to the hearing of the sentence appeal, at which point the court advised the defence of the courts jurisdiction in such matters. The appeal proceeded, only for an application to then be made by the defence to withdraw the appeal against sentence. Ms Justice Kennedy said the court was now going to refuse to grant this application, and she moved on to deal with the sentence appeal. She said that the first offence of rape involved tying an eight-year-old to the bed, holding a knife to her throat and threatening to hurt her if she told anyone. The appellant then raped her, causing her to bleed. This single offence alone, said the judge, merited a headline sentence at the top end of the mid-range. This first rape was preceded by a sexual assault offence and then followed by many other rapes and sexual assaults over a three-year period on a young child. Ms Justice Kennedy said that, therefore, the appeal should proceed as it was clear there was an error in principle, that being that the headline sentence nominated was too low. She said that the complainant gave evidence that between the ages of eight and 11, she was sexually abused by the appellant. The complainant said she regularly visited his house and the sexual assaults included inappropriate touching and rapes by way of the penetration of her anus and mouth, all of which occurred on a regular basis. Ms Justice Kennedy said that the abuse happened in the appellant's home and included such behaviour as grabbing the girls hand and pushing it down his trousers, while he also anally raped her and forced her to perform oral sex. In her victim impact statement, the victim detailed how the appellant became more aggressive and sneakier as the offending continued. She described feeling scared and numb and felt as though her childhood had been taken from her. She has suffered with her mental health, has undergone counselling and is on medication to reduce anxiety and help her sleep. Ms Justice Kennedy said it was the courts view that the description of the first rape offence was very serious. Tying a child to the bed with tights or a scarf and holding a knife to her throat to reinforce that she ought not to tell anybody or he would hurt her and then raping her is an offence which, in our view, falls within the category of requiring up to life imprisonment, she said, going on to say that nominating a headline sentence of 13-and-a-half years for that offence amounted to an error in principle. She said that this error was compounded by nominating the same penalty for all subsequent rape offences. Saying that this sentence constituted a substantial departure from what would be appropriate, Ms Justice Kennedy said the court would quash this sentence and re-sentence the appellant. Setting a headline sentence of 20 years for the rape offences, Ms Justice Kennedy said the court would reduce this to 16 years and leave the sentences for the sexual assault charges the same as imposed by the original sentencing judge. In summary, the court imposed 16 years in prison, with the final six months suspended. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. Medicine will meet music at the Irish Doctors Orchestras special fundraising concert to take place at SETU Arena on Sunday, September 29 at 4.30pm. All proceeds from the concert will go to the Realta/Waterford Healing Arts programmes at University Hospital Waterford. Under the baton of well-known Waterford musician and conductor Liam Daly, the concert will feature music from the opera Maritana by Waterford composer William Wallace, Concerto in F major for Two Bassoons by Johann Baptist Vanhal and Symphony No. 7 by Antonin Dvorak, in addition to a traditional Irish element, courtesy of the Waterford Harp Ensemble of Music Generation Waterford. Announcing details of the concert, Dr Julia OLeary from the Irish Doctors Orchestra said: We are very excited to be performing at SETU Arena in September and were especially thrilled to be performing Maritana by William Wallace in his home place of Waterford. "Were also delighted to be joined by young musicians from the Waterford Harp Ensemble of Music Generation Waterford for this concert." She added, Many of our medical colleagues have told us about the wonderful work of the Waterford Healing Arts programme at UHW, easing patients worries through the arts, and softening the clinical space with the hospitals stunning art collection. "This is a perfect fit for us and we cant wait to perform in Waterford. There are several local doctors who are members of the orchestra, including violinists Dr Emma Dunne, a radiologist from Tramore, Dr Carmel Whitford, a GP from Youghal, Dr Darina Sloan, Consultant Psychiatrist, and Dr Caroline Fielding, Consultant Microbiologist. Founded during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Irish Doctors Orchestra is an all-Ireland fellowship of medical professionals who are also classically trained musicians. The head of medtech giant ResMed Mick Farrell and News Corporation boss Robert Thomson have taken out the top two spots in an annual list of the highest-paid chief executives of ASX-listed companies, with the average ASX 100 CEO paid 50 times what an average Australian worker earns. The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), an adviser to not-for-profit super funds, will on Friday release its yearly report on CEO pay, which shows the typical boss of an ASX100 company received $3.87 million in realised pay in the 2023 financial year. Both ResMed and News Corporation are US-domiciled, with ACSIs report pointing to the higher pay packets enjoyed by CEOs of foreign-domiciled companies. According to ACSIs report, Farrells realised pay was $47.6 million for the year, while Thomsons was $41.5 million. The typical pay packet for a CEO of an ASX100 company was $3.87 million in the 2023 financial year, ACSI said. Credit: Jessica Shaprio Among Australian-domiciled companies, ACSI said the highest-paid bosses were Goodman Groups Greg Goodman, with $27. 3 million in realised pay, and Macquarie Groups Shemara Wikramanayake, with $25.3 million. Advertisement Tips & adviceNon-alcoholic drinks If cutting out alcohol completely is unrealistic, raise a glass to damp drinking Conscious, mindful or damp whatever you call it, drinking in moderation, or not at all, has never been more appetising. Katie Spain July 12, 2024 Save Log in , register or subscribe to save recipes for later. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. Save this article for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime. Got it Share If youre going dry this July, youre not alone. As health kicks go, many Australians choose to ditch alcohol for sobriety this month, often raising money for charity in the process. Since launching in 2008, Australian not-for-profit Dry July Foundation has raised millions of dollars for services provided to cancer patients, their families and carers. Its an admirable cause, but what happens after 31 days when people return to regular state of play? For some, a damp lifestyle may be the answer, for others, conscious drinking may be the key. Heaps Normal co-founder and chief executive Andy Miller says shaming people into drinking less will not work. Supplied The damp movement, championed on TikTok in the US, embraces moderation rather than abstinence. Social media voices on the damp lifestyle bandwagon share tips and content on balance and hangover avoidance. Advertisement According to global drinks data and insight provider IWSR, an increasing number of people are switching between no or low (NoLo) and full-strength alcoholic beverages rather than avoiding the latter altogether. As jargon goes, substituters drink either full-strength or NoLo beverages depending on the occasion, while blenders opt to switch between NoLo products and full-strength alcohol in one sitting. A booze-free beer is now the best-selling drink in bottle shops and pubs Some NoLo beverage producers in Australia believe we should dig deeper than a hashtag. We started with this positioning in mind before it was called damp, says Andy Miller, co-founder and chief executive of independent, non-alcoholic beer brand Heaps Normal. Conscious consumption, mindful drinking or being damp however you want to describe it, its the same idea. Its about pausing and marking the moment. Andy Miller, Heaps Normal Advertisement We recognised that lots of people wanted to cut down their alcohol consumption and other forms of mindless consumption but didnt want to be preached to, Miller says. Everyone just wants to feel good about their decisions, and no one wants to be shamed into anything. Immediate resistance and walls come up when you try to tell somebody how they should be living their life or what choices they should be making. As soon as you start with the word should, youre starting off on the wrong foot. The Canberra-born, Melbourne-made, certified B Corp companys all-inclusive, purpose-driven approach is working. Heaps Normal recently reported year-on-year growth of 131 per cent. The bottom line is: do what works for you, but do it deliberately and do it with purpose, Miller says. Something we talk about a lot at Heaps Normal is how we change drinking culture. So much of our drink and food culture is centred on the sense of community provided by pubs, restaurants and bars. In Australia, the pub has been a meeting point for the community. Its where people come together, and unfortunately, the role of alcohol has become over-emphasised; its become more about the drinking. Advertisement Vitis spritzers are made using spring water and non fermented grape juice. Supplied Adelaide-based Richard van Ruth, who also runs The Nimble Vintner wine brand believes traditional wine and wine alternatives can co-exist. When van Ruth and business partner Daniel Zuzolo released a range of Vitis Virgin Spritzer products made using spring water and unfermented grape juice, the goal was to promote quality over quantity. We arent anti-alcohol, like many dedicated non-alc drinks brands seem to be, van Ruth says. We want people to enjoy the magic of wine as a social conduit, adjunct to food and lifes moments. You dont need a lot of it to experience this. Less really is more, as senses are dulled with excessive alcohol. The joy of NoLo: Waking up to the wonderful world of no- and low-alcohol drinks Advertisement Conscious Drink co-creators Ben Tyler and Tim Triggs also want us to think deeper about what we drink and why. The duo behind the collaboration between OzHarvest and Indigenous-owned Kakadu Kitchen makes zero-alcohol fizz using Northern NSW blueberries otherwise headed to landfill. For every bottle of Kakadu Kitchen x OzHarvest Conscious Drink sold, OzHarvest delivers two meals to people in need. For every case sold, they also plant edible native seedlings in a remote Northern Territory community to assist future food security. Tyler is a Proud Bininj man and is devoted to supporting First Nations in the Australian bush food industry. Conscious Drink co-creators Ben Tyler and Tim Triggs. Supplied Making a great drink isnt enough, it has to have purpose, he says. Youve got enterprise, and then youve got social enterprise. I think you can apply the same concept to drinks. We wanted to create a drink with a mission and purpose. It comes back to food and beverage sovereignty; honouring the ingredients, where they come from, and the people, the land, the story, and the culture behind it. Advertisement Tyler is a fan of the term conscious drinking. There are many ways conscious can be approached, regardless of alcohol content. It can apply to making purchase decisions based on how a product aligns with a consumers values, or how and where ingredients were grown, and the authenticity and ethics with which they were made. I think this is the most exciting topic in the beverage space, Tyler says. Its the conversation we need to have. Theres an undercurrent happening at grassroot levels about looking for a new discourse in the beverage world. Non-alcoholic conscious drink from Oz Harvest x Kakadu Kitchen. Supplied Despite packaging their product in a traditional wine-style bottle, Tyler and Triggs, who is also behind Sydneys alcohol-free spirits brand ALTD Spirits, chose not to brand their product as a wine alternative. How do we create drinks using native botanicals that do not use the language of alcohol in terms of alcoholic drinks or non-alcoholic drinks? Tyler says. Its a constant issue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups wanting to find a language that puts alcohol in the past. Advertisement According to the Australian Governments Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, approximately one in three Australians drink to risky levels regularly. Its not a comfortable conversation, but the most important ones Conscious consumption, mindful drinking or being damp however you want to describe it, its the same idea, Miller says. Its about pausing and marking the moment. Throughout history, the likes of Japanese, Chinese, Haitian, Tibetan, Pagan and Taoist rituals have long accompanied beverage consumption. Ritual and ceremony can play an important role in the conscious consumption space. Indigenous cultures around the world have done this extremely well, Miller says. That could be kava in certain cultures, alcohol in other instances, cannabis or even psychedelics. I feel like this Indigenous wisdom is being lost, especially in Australia. Miller is quick to add its not about worshipping a substance but rather about respecting its power. Advertisement The best recipes from Australia's leading chefs straight to your inbox. Sign up Every year, watermelons were brought to Kyiv by barge from the southern regions of Ukraine, particularly the Kherson region. Unloading the berries at the capital's pier in the 1950s was very different from how it is done today. ADVERTISIMENT The unique photos were published in the community "Thirst: interesting things in Kyiv" on Facebook. You can see how this process took place 66 years ago. "1958. Kyiv. River port. Watermelons from Kherson," the post reads. The published photos show that barges with sweet berries used to be unloaded manually, with the labor of both men and women. ADVERTISIMENT Back in the 1960s, the embankment near Poshtova Square and the Dnipro Cliffs in Kyiv looked a little different. And the beaches on Trukhaniv Island were much larger. From 1878 until 1944, the City Duma building was located on the site of the current Independence Square in Kyiv. The majestic building resembled a bent horseshoe in its shape, and its roof spire was crowned with a statue of the city's patron saint, the Archangel Michael. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! This article is part of a months-long series investigating misconduct in the CFMEU. Powerful construction union boss John Setka has resigned facing a raft of explosive allegations about misconduct involving him and the CFMEU. After he and his union were repeatedly questioned about the investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes, Setka announced on Friday evening he would quit immediately. The first part of the months-long investigation was published in this masthead on Saturday morning, with more instalments through the weekend including on 60 Minutes on Sunday night. In a statement on Friday night, the union said the decision was because of ongoing and relentless stories written with multiple allegations whether true or not about this great union. From 8 to 12 July 2024, the World Customs Organization (WCO) held a regional workshop on combating counterfeiting and piracy for the Customs administrations of its West and Central Africa (WCA) region. The event was held in Cotonou, Benin, with the financial backing of the Customs Cooperation Fund China (CCF China). In her opening address, Adidjatou Hassan Zanouvi, Director General of Benin Customs, recalled the reforms her Administration had introduced some years earlier with a view to modernizing Customs, in particular in the area of IPR protection. She went on to thank the WCO Secretariat and the CCF China for choosing Benin as the host location for this important event and urged participants to make an active contribution to its success for the benefit of all. The next speaker, representing the donor, was Li Dan from China Customs. She reiterated her Administrations intention to continue in its support for the activities under the WCOs IPR, Health and Safety Programme and made a point of underlining the importance of capacity building in this area. Delivered by an IPR expert from the WCO Secretariat with assistance from two Technical Operational Advisers (TOAs) in the IPR field from China and Guinea, the event was attended by no fewer than 21 Customs officers from the region, with participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote dIvoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Liberia, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Togo. The workshop provided the opportunity for participants to build on the knowledge and skills they had already acquired from their experiences in enforcement and risk management by focusing on (1) the main IPR infringement trends, referring to the analyses set out in the WCO Illicit Trade Report (ITR) 2023; (2) the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); (3) the theoretical and practical concepts surrounding IPR risk management; and (4) the operational handling of the WCO IPR CENcomm secure communication tool. In view of the challenges raised by counterfeit goods sold through e-commerce, special focus was placed on a new tool developed by the WCO called Case studies and risk indicators to identify IPR, health and safety infringing goods related to e-commerce. In addition, the results of the WCOs Operation STOP III, conducted from 4 to 15 December 2023 and bringing together 111 Customs administrations, were presented and discussed. As part of the session given over to relations with the private sector, 6 right holders, representing a variety of brands, were invited to deliver presentations on the essential characteristics of products bearing their trademarks and regularly the object of IPR fraud, and to discuss with the audience the techniques that can be used by Customs officers to detect counterfeit goods. The participants also visited Cotonous port and airport, where they had the opportunity to become acquainted with the clearance procedures and risk management and targeting techniques used by Benin Customs. For further details of the activities carried out in the area of IPR protection, please contact us at: IPRteam@wcoomd.org. The European Union and 21 nations have signed the Ukraine Compact, which will coordinate and accelerate their defense assistance to Ukraine. The document was signed on July 11 on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported on the website of the European Commission, which published the text of the agreement. It says that the signatories reaffirm that Ukraine's security is an integral part of the security of the Euro-Atlantic region and beyond and that they will support Ukraine until it defeats Russia's aggression. The treaty was signed by the leaders of the United States, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, together with the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the President of Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT The agreement provides for the implementation of the goals set out in the bilateral agreements of individual countries with Ukraine. The signatories undertake to: support Ukraine's defense and security needs, in particular through the continued provision of security and training assistance, modern military equipment, as well as defense industry and necessary economic support, working bilaterally and through existing multilateral mechanisms, including the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense; accelerate efforts to build Ukrainian forces that will maintain a credible defense and deterrence posture through 2027, to extend into the 2030s. To this end, the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense will convene every six months at the ministerial level to review and approve the development roadmap; ADVERTISIMENT in the event of a new Russian attack on Ukraine after the end of the current war, the signatory countries are obliged to meet quickly at the highest level to determine further steps to support Ukraine. "We intend to fulfill these commitments with unwavering resolve, using a multilateral security architecture that supports Ukraine. The signatories of the Treaty plan to advance these commitments as Ukraine pursues its path to future membership in the EU and NATO," the document reads. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the signing of the treaty a success for Ukraine, saying: "This document is a success for Ukraine because it develops our security architecture. We will definitely fulfill every point we have enough energy for this." ADVERTISIMENT According to U.S. President Joe Biden, the Ukraine Compact unites allied states in a "single comprehensive security architecture." This will help protect Ukraine, in particular, in the long term. As for the short term, the American leader said, "We will provide Ukraine with ammunition, weapons, and training to counter Russian aggression." "In the medium term, we will help build up the army to defend Ukraine and deter new aggression. So that if Putin (Russian dictator Vladimir Putin Ed.) decides to do it again, all countries will support it," Biden explained. ADVERTISIMENT As reported by OBOZ.UA, NATO countries have agreed on the final declaration of the Washington summit of the Alliance. It says that the allies will commit to supporting Ukraine "on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership." Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! More than 14,000 Ukrainian civilians are currently being held in Russia. So far, only 161 people have been returned from Russian captivity. ADVERTISIMENT These are people who have been held hostage by the aggressor country since 2014. This was announced by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets at a briefing in Mykolaiv, the media reported. "I do not keep statistics on individual regions, because there are those who immediately start comparing numbers and say that Lubinets works more there and less there. This is not true. According to my data, there are more than 14,000 civilian hostages citizens of Ukraine in the territory of the Russian Federation, and we have managed to return 161 people so far," Lubinets said. According to the ombudsman, such a significant difference in numbers is because there is currently no mechanism for the exchange of civilians, as this issue is not regulated by international humanitarian law. ADVERTISIMENT "We also do not have official intermediary countries, because it would mean additional obligations for them, although there are states that help unofficially. Among those I can name are Turkey and the Vatican, although I communicate with many countries from all continents," Lubinets said. Earlier, Dmytro Lubinets reported that the Russian Federation is not ready to agree to a "big exchange " in the "all for all" format. The reason may be a significant difference in the number of prisoners. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit Eimear Dodd A man died in a tragic incident six years ago after he jumped from a cargo ship which did not have its gangway secured to the quayside of Dublin Port, a court has heard. Alexander Kondrashyn had been socialising on the cargo vessel, The Elptrader, in the early hours of January 12th, 2018, when he and another man went to leave by jumping from the ship as the gangway was not in position at the time. Mr Kondrashyn landed in the water and was unresponsive when he was recovered from the water. He was later pronounced dead in hospital. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Mr Kondrashyn had been socialising with Sergej Stolbov, the master of The Elptrader, and the master of another ship. Marine regulations requires that there must be a safe means of access and egress from a vessel when it is docked at a port to protect people who are boarding or disembarking. This is normally done by means of a gangway, which should be placed in position promptly after a vessel is berthed and remain secured while the ship is quayside. The court heard the gangway had been positioned correctly after the Elptrader arrived in Dublin Port the previous evening, but was removed from the quayside before midnight. Tony McGillicuddy SC, prosecuting, told the court that the master of the ship, who is also the person in command, has overall responsibility for ensuring the gangway remains in position. Stolbov, of Kurpiv Street, 92128 Klaipeda, Lithuania, pleaded guilty to failing to ensure access equipment, including safety nets, was placed in position promptly after the ship was secured and remained in position while the ship was secured. The maximum penalty for this summary offence is a fine of 500. He had been due to face trial in May in relation to a more serious charge of omitting to ensure the provision of a safe means of access and egress from the vessel, which amounted to a neglect of duty to preserve any person on board from death or serious injury. A nolle prosequi was entered by the DPP in relation to this charge, meaning it was dropped, after guilty plea to the charge of failing to ensure access equipment was in place was accepted on a full facts basis. Tragic incident Imposing sentence on Friday, Judge Martin Nolan said this was a deeply unfortunate and tragic incident. He noted that the two men decided to jump from the ship to the quay, and while one man succeeded, the unfortunate deceased didnt. Obviously, there should be a safe gangway from a ship to the pier. It was pulled back in for some reason and not available to the guests when they went [to go] home, the judge said, adding that this was a sad situation. The judge noted the guilty plea and imposed a fine of 400 with one month to pay. Ian Wallace, chief marine engineer with the Irish Maritime Survey Office, told Mr McGillicuddy that The Elptrader docked at Dublin Port late in the evening of January 11th, 2018. CCTV footage showing the gangway in its proper position at 11.19pm was played to the court. The gangway was removed from its position on the quayside before midnight, which is contrary to the regulations. The court heard that after midnight, a number of seamen either left the ship or came onto it by jumping. Stolbov had come off duty at midnight. He left the ship and returned around 2am with the master of another ship and Mr Kondrashyn, who was chief engineer of that vessel. The three men boarded the Elptrader by jumping onto it from the quayside and spent some time socialising on board. At around 4.30am, Mr Kondrashyn and the other man decided to leave. Two seamen on the Elptrader had begun the process to return the gangway to the quayside, however, the other man and Mr Kondrashyn went to another point on the vessel and jumped off. The master of the other ship landed on the quayside; however, Mr Kondrashyn landed in the water. Mr Wallace agreed with Mr McGillicuddy that it is possible Mr Kondrashyn may have slipped as he was about to jump and hit his head off the side of the concrete pier. The alarm was raised, and Mr Kondrashyn was taken from the water. He was brought to hospital, where he later was pronounced dead. CCTV footage of the incident was shown to the court. Off duty Stolbov gave an account to investigators, confirming he had been socialising with Mr Kondrashyn and the master of the other ship, then went to bed after they left. Later, during an interview under caution, he said he did not notice if the gangway was in place when he went on shore. Stolbov said he had been off duty since midnight and was not in command when the incident occurred. The court heard it is unclear from statements taken during the investigation who gave the order to stow the gangway before midnight. However, the overall responsibility remains with the master of the ship to ensure it is in place. Mr Wallace agreed with Mr McGillicuddy that the plea was of value in this case as the prosecution had difficulties contacting witnesses, some of whom would have been unable to attend the trial to give evidence. Mr Wallace agreed with Karl Finnegan SC, defending, that his client lives in Lithuania and returned to Ireland on a number of occasions to deal with this case. Mr Finnegan noted that one witness said he was aware that the two men were about to leave and indicated he would put the gangway out, but it appears they did not wait for whatever reason. Another witness indicated he was asked to assist, then heard shouting behind him. Mr Wallace said he had no knowledge if Stolbov had any previous convictions, while defence counsel indicated his client has none. The court heard Mr Kondrashyn's family did not wish to submit a victim impact statement. Mr Finnegan expressed his client's condolences to Mr Kondrashyn's family. If he runs, its over, period the text glared at me from my phone, and I was at a loss for words. We had just left my local Ralphs grocery store, the evening breeze offering a welcome break from the relentless summer heat of Southern California. A young couple stood by the fast food truck, intently listening to the CNN Presidential debate on the young mans smartphone. They didnt appear Eastern-European, and those who did werent paying attention to either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, instead going about their day shopping, chatting at outdoor restaurant tables in Armenian or Russian, or hurrying home. My phone was buzzing with messages from my older Jewish friend in New York: Are you watching the debate? We are in deep shit. As a progressive liberal and longtime Bernie Sanders supporter, she wasnt shocked but was still devastated by Bidens weak performance, thinking maybe he has Parkinsons. She saw Trump ripe for the taking, yet Biden couldnt do anything, summing it up that a Trump victory in Novembers election was almost inevitable, even if the Democrats picked a different nominee. Another friend, originally from the UK but living here for decades, quickly followed with her concise decision on the event as A shit showunbelievable. Later, back in my apartment, the MSNBC coverage of the televised debate might as well have been set to Chopins Funeral March, as hosts and pundits found a hundred ways to agree that the 81-year-old Joe Biden had miserably failed to clear the low bar of proving his age shouldnt be an issue for voters. In the week since then, the media has been obsessed on whether Joe Biden will run, should run, or can run, with few focusing on some other extraordinary takeaways from the debate. The moderators experienced CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash failed miserably to hold Donald Trump to account. His urging of rioters to invade the Capitol and stop the transfer of power on January 6, 2021, was effectively ignored, even when it was brought up in a toothless question by Tapper. Trumps outright denial of having sex with porn star Stormy Daniels even as he was convicted of its cover-up was similarly bypassed by Tapper and Bash. While not constrained by the strict TV debate format, such blatant ignoring of reality would surely have pushed Miriam OCallaghan or Mishal Husain to engage further on the topic. However, here, both men are being treated (and judged) to very different standards. While Trump only cares about personal aggrandisement, he is a charismatic salesman, mixing off-the-cuff stand-up comedy with populist mud-slinging and a brazen disregard for the truth. But he also has the secret weapon most politicians lack: a gaping void where a conscience should be (with perhaps just a note saying ask Daddy). Its a cliche that all politicians are liars, manipulators of the truth, and beyond embarrassment. Still, in reality, most political leaders contort themselves into spaghetti junctions of cul-de-sacs to justify contradictory statements theyve made, trying to present recent pronouncements as truthful and consistent. Most of us actually do this to some extent, in an attempt to silence our inner little voice and help us sleep at night. However, unburdened by any such consideration, Trump torches any cerebral effort of normal politicians by simply making up whatever serves his needs in that particular moment, regardless of what he said before or will say later. This is why hes so difficult to fact-check by CNN moderators or news anchors, even when they have the facts at hand. Trump DOES NOT CARE, and his MAGA followers love it. He literally knows no shame of having his dubious claims called out by unambiguous facts, where almost anyone else would be paralysed by it. Popular leaders have long been constrained by shame, or rather the upholding of their public honour, to curtail any nefarious instincts to abuse their position in society. As noted by David Wilson in his 2004 M.A. thesis, Honour and Early Irish Society, the early Irish idea of honour is expressed by the term enech, which means both face and honour. Essentially, shame is supposed to disfigure someone both figuratively and literally so that it appeared on his cheeks. So, a Gaelic warriors face revealed the dishonour that was an outward manifestation of the shame felt within, on having their non-conformity to social or martial norms and truthfulness in general publicly revealed, especially by satirising poets. In short, they blushed with shame. That doesnt mean the Gaels thought blushing was enough to dissuade someone from an egregious act, but the reddened cheeks revealed that their owner knew what it was. Donald Trump, to my knowledge, doesnt blush, and that is his superpower, though its genuinely hard to tell underneath his perennial orange makeup. He has rarely felt the repercussions of his misstatements either externally or internally, thus emboldening him to make more extreme claims, including that he would be a dictator on day one. Though he has been unnaturally quiet since the debate and was notably circumspect during it probably realising that Bidens campaign needs no goading as it twists in the political wind of soon-to-be-revealed public opinion polls. In a week where the US Supreme Court crossed a Rubicon in ruling that a US president is effectively a king above the law when carrying out his official duties, the next incumbent of the Oval Office has rarely been so pivotal for international affairs. Yet, to coldly put it, at a time of global geopolitical crisis, the leadership of the most powerful country the world has ever seen has come down to a binary choice of an old man dead on the outside versus an old man dead on the inside. However, how much America actually cares about each man remains to be seen. As my wife discovered, no one in her shop displayed any interest or knowledge in the CNN public debate last Thursday. Yet surely Bidens sad performance will be spliced into bite-sized social media memes for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube during the months to come, where most news is actually now digested. I write as Independence Day beckons and fireworks are already sounding through the nighttime sky above the LA traffic. My Jewish friend has texted me again, this time with a simple quotation by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth. If the best defence of the American Dream is what the country was presented with last Thursday week and since, then history may indeed invoke Sartre to surmise that this dream was never true to begin with. Bereft of any comforting reply for her, I simply, impotently replied, Sad. And utterly true. High Court reporters The High Court has ordered the son of a woman who left a 6m estate to repay 192,000 to the estate after a judge said he had taken advantage of his mother's inability to manage her own affairs in a series of "disturbing and indefensible" actions. Dermot Horan, after getting control of the finances of his late mother Mary Ann (also known as Maureen) Horan, withdrew 700 in cash every day from atms over a 12 month period for his own benefit, Mr Justice Brian Cregan said. "His use of that money for his own ends all show a devious attempt to take advantage of his elderly and infirm mother for his own financial ends", he said. The judge ordered him to repay the 192,000 he removed after finding Mr Horan exerted actual undue influence over his mother who had lived in Ramor Park, Blanchardstown, Dublin, and died in April 2018. The orders were made following an application by a court appointed administrator of Mrs Horan's estate seeking declarations that Mr Horan unlawfully set up a joint account with his mother when she was suffering from dementia and unlawfully withdrew the monies. The judge said Mrs. Horan, in a 2006 will, left her estate of some 6 million to her four children, Dermot, Josephine, Stephen and Yvonne. . The principal asset was a substantial industrial property at Fonthill Industrial Park, Clondalkin, Dublin from which she got a gross annual rental income of some 264,000. She left the family home in Ramor Park to Dermot as well as the entire shareholding, worth around half a million, of the family company, Westwood International Transport Ltd, which had been set up by her late husband but later virtually ceased trading. In all, Dermot was left some 1 million from the estate along with 25 per cent of the remaining assets. The court appointed a solicitor as administrator after Josephine, Stephen and Yvonne sought Dermots removal as executor on misconduct grounds. There had been a "history of considerable acrimony" between Dermot and his siblings, Mr Justice Cregan said. The judge had "no doubt that the blame lies entirely with Mr Dermot Horan" through conduct which began to manifest itself around September 2014 when his mother was admitted to hospital complaining of abdominal pain and back pain. Dermot disagreed she should be in hospital, but she remained there for 329 days until Dermot discharged her against medical advice in July 2015. Despite repeated requests from the hospital to return with her and despite suggestions from his siblings that she get 24-hour care at home, Dermot refused, the judge said. However, after a fall Mrs Horan was readmitted to hospital in September 2015. In the meantime, the siblings became so concerned at the way Dermot was looking after their mother that they applied and were granted an order that she be made a ward of court. Four different doctors gave evidence in the wardship proceedings that Mrs Horan was suffering from dementia. While a social worker and public health nurse found no evidence of any immediate risk to Mrs Horan and that she presented as being well cared for (by Dermot), the condition of the house "left something to be desired, and the kitchen appeared to be in an unhygienic state", the judge said. Dermot Horan contested each and every one of the medical reports and sought to argue that there was nothing wrong with his mother. In the proceedings seeking the return of the 192,000, Dermot said he believed "there is effectively an industry involved in this whole situation to make elderly people and/or vulnerable people subject to the interests of the State. In mid-2016, Mrs Horan was transferred from the hospital to a nursing home. However, Dermot's behaviour when visiting his mother in the nursing home, including "assisting" other patients, became of such a concern to its operators that they ended up getting an injunction against him, preventing him from visiting. Mr Justice Cregan made an order also removing Demot as a trustee. The judge heard medical evidence, and evidence from two of the siblings, as well as evidence from Dermot in which he claimed the money he withdrew was used to pay for security for a company trade yard on the Navan Road and on machinery. The judge was satisfied Dermot was not a credible or reliable witness. He was satisfied that the redirecting of his mothers rental income from a joint account he set up and in withdrawing all the money in it were unconscionable. Castlebar has been announced as the town to host the World Matchmaking Festival this November. Following a hugely successful debut in Bundoran last year, this highly anticipated 10-day and 10-night dancing event is set to bring significant financial benefits to Castlebar. The festival will run from Friday, November 1, to Sunday, November 10, at the Breaffy House Hotel & Spa Resort. Attendees can look forward to 8 hours of social dancing daily, featuring top social dance bands. The event aims to relive the golden era of Lisdoonvarna with dance-filled, fun-filled, and lively nights, celebrating the social dancing revolution that has recently taken the country by storm. Last year's festival saw a large contingent of attendees from the UK, and with Castlebar's close proximity to Ireland West Airport, an even greater turnout is expected this year. Additionally, the return rail service from Dublin, covering many stations throughout Leinster, offers an added convenience for festival-goers. Promoters Show tours are offering attractive package deals for accommodation and dancing, ensuring an unforgettable experience for all attendees. Bookings can be made online at www.showtours.ie or by calling 0818 300 888. High Court reporters The woman at the centre of a High Court action over the contamination and destruction of her embryos stored at a fertility clinic believes five of her possible babies were destroyed, the High Court has heard. Her counsel, Jeremy Maher SC, told the court an expert on their side will say the 36-year-old woman is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of her experience and her belief that five of her possible babies were destroyed. He said their evidence will be that the impact of the incident, which occurred before the woman was to have chemotherapy for breast cancer, has been significant and is ongoing. Counsel said it is their case that the husband and wife each suffered a recognisable psychiatric injury, but that bodily injury has also been sustained. Mr Justice Michael P O'Higgins was told that the couple have since had a baby. Mr Maher said there may be legal arguments in the case on the legal status of an embryo. Details of the incident at the fertility clinic were given to the court by its counsel, Simon Mills SC. He said the embryos were on a tray with the embryos of four other people. He added the tray became contaminated, with certain embryos becoming directly contaminated, and there was evidence of sperm and other debris found on the eggs. Counsel said because of the risk of a pipette which was non-sterile coming in contact with the other embryos, all on the tray could not be used, which was in accordance with applicable guidelines. He said the couples side were now making the case that the woman suffered injuries to her egg and the man suffered injuries to his sperm, which counsel contended was at odds with what was expressly pleaded in legal documents. Counsel said the area of dispute is not the contamination, but that the couple had lost an opportunity to extend their family. At issue in the case also is whether the embryos at the centre of the action were capable of achieving pregnancy. Serious adverse event The couple have sued Human Assisted Reproduction Ireland Ltd with registered offices at Merrion Square, Dublin, which was trading as Rotunda IVF at the National Fertility Centre in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin in 2019, and which is now located in Swords Business Campus in Dublin. On March 12th, 2019, the couple, who were advised to take measures to protect their fertility before the chemotherapy, were told 17 eggs had been harvested, eight had matured and five had been fertilised. Two days later, it is claimed they were informed that a serious adverse event had occurred in the laboratory, rendering their five embryos unusable. It is further claimed they were informed that, due to alleged human error, their embryos had been contaminated, and it would not be possible to use or freeze the fertilised embryos obtained. It is maintained the couples embryos had to be discarded as they were deemed unsuitable for human application due to the potential risks from contamination. The husband and wife say they suffered severe and sudden shock, stress, trauma and injury. Human Assisted Reproduction Ireland Ltd has admitted that the fertilised eggs were subsequently observed to have become contaminated. It is further admitted that because of the contamination it was not possible for the couple to use the fertilised eggs to try and achieve pregnancy. However, in relation to the claim by the couple to have lost the chance to extend their family it is denied that is recoverable as a matter of law. The case before Mr Justice OHiggins continues next week. Norway allocates an additional NOK 1 billion to finance air defense systems in Ukraine. This amounts to almost $93 million. ADVERTISIMENT This statement was made by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre during the NATO summit in Washington. Later, the Norwegian Defense Ministry confirmed this information in a detailed press release. "Ukrainians need more air defense to protect their population from Russian bombs and missiles," said Mr. Stre. The prime minister added that last week's brutal attacks underscored this need. "Dozens of people were killed in a missile attack on the main children's hospital in Kyiv and air strikes on other cities in Ukraine on Monday. Ukraine blamed Russia, and the UN human rights mission said on Tuesday that it was "highly likely" that a Russian missile had hit the hospital. The Kremlin denies any involvement," the report said. The Norwegian government announced that 1 billion kroner will be allocated to the Immediate Action for Air Defense initiative launched by Germany this year. In total, Norway has allocated 4 billion kroner to support Ukraine's air defense until 2024. ADVERTISIMENT It is worth noting that the announcement of the allocation of funds came a day after Norway promised to provide Ukraine with six F-16 fighter jets. As reported, this fall, Norway and Germany will jointly transfer a battery of IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine. It will significantly strengthen Ukrainian air defense. As a reminder, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that European countries should provide more assistance to Ukraine in defending itself against Russian attacks. According to him, it is cheaper for the West to buy Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine than to help rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. Earlier, it was reported that after the devastating massive Russian attacks that caused significant damage to the Ukrainian energy system, Ukraine began looking for additional Patriot systems. In particular, Kyiv has sent relevant requests to Poland and Spain, and is asking Romania to consider the possibility of transferring SAMP/T. ADVERTISIMENT On April 13, Germany announced the immediate delivery of an additional Patriot anti-aircraft missile system to Ukraine. The reason was the intensification of Russian strikes. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! Weather Alert Bulletin: ...FROST ADVISORY 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, including the Middle Susquehanna Valley. * 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 US President Joe Biden sees no point in negotiations with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Any talks will be useless until the Russian leader is ready to "change his behavior." ADVERTISIMENT Russia is currently facing significant problems because of the war in Ukraine, and all the stories about the "successes" of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil are the result of the Kremlin's total control of the media and large-scale disinformation. Biden said this during a press conference in Washington following the NATO summit, Voice of America reports. According to the US president, he is not ready for talks with Putin at the moment, as he considers them meaningless. "I am not ready to talk to Putin because he is not ready to change his behavior," Biden said. According to the American leader, the Russian dictator has a serious problem: Putin cannot boast of military success "in this war that he supposedly won." "Russia used to have 17.3% of the occupied territory of Ukraine, and now it has 17.4% of the territory," Biden emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT The US President emphasized that Russia has caused "terrible damage" to Ukraine and killed many Ukrainians. However, it has also suffered serious losses. According to Biden, more than 350,000 Russian occupiers were killed or wounded during the full-scale invasion. And more than a million Russians, mostly young people "with technical skills," have left Russia because they see no future there. Therefore, the successes that Russian propaganda is desperately trying to convince both Russians and the world of are based on disinformation and the Kremlin's tight control of the information field in Russia. "They have problems. But what they manage to do is control the public reaction, the information that reaches people. They lie to their voters about the state of the world, they lie about what is happening. Therefore, the idea that we will be able to fundamentally change Russia in the near future is unlikely," Biden said. ADVERTISIMENT He also said that the West must contain Russia for its security, as Moscow is pursuing imperialistic plans far beyond Ukraine. "One thing is for sure: if we allow Russia to succeed in Ukraine, they will not stop at Ukraine. I recommend reading Putin's speech after they invade Ukraine, what it was all about. Read what his goal is," the US president emphasized. He added that he was ready to talk to any leader, even Putin if he wanted to negotiate. However, Biden recalled that experience shows that negotiations with the current Russian leader made little sense. All previous attempts at dialog with the Russian dictator, including an arms control agreement that includes nuclear weapons in space, "did not go very far." Earlier, Biden said at the NATO summit that Ukraine is capable of stopping Putin and promised assistance. ADVERTISIMENT "Putin's aggressive war against Ukraine continues, and Putin wants nothing less than to subjugate Ukraine and end its democracy, destroy its people, and culture, and wipe the country off the map. We know he will not stop with Ukraine, but make no mistake," Biden said. At the same time, he emphasized: "Ukraine can and will stop Putin," and Russia is losing the war. This is evidenced by the losses of the aggressor state over two years of full-scale aggression, which Biden called "staggering." Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! In the Kharkiv region, Russian occupation forces are trying to conduct offensive actions in the direction of Vovchansk and Liptsi at the cost of high losses. The enemy has also recently been trying to regroup its units, in particular in the area of Hlyboke. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by Nazar Voloshyn, spokesman for the Khortytsia separate military unit, during a telethon. According to him, the occupants are currently preparing units for possible provocations along the state border. "As of yesterday, there were 6 combat engagements in the settlements of Vovchansk and Hlyboke. The enemy supports its active hostilities there, in particular with aviation, which is destroying Kharkiv and the entire region. Of course, the occupants are trying to carry out some offensive actions in the direction of Vovchansk and Lyptsi at the cost of their high losses. And the enemy has recently been trying to regroup its units, in particular near Hlyboke, and is preparing units for possible provocations along the state border," said the spokesman. The occupants' losses in this sector amounted to over 120 people yesterday, and a lot of enemy equipment was destroyed. On this day, July 12, there were three combat engagements with the enemy. Our defense forces repelled them. ADVERTISIMENT The Armed Forces of Ukraine are repelling the invaders, so in the future the enemy will try to regroup at the expense of those units that are either near the border, will send the occupiers from other directions, or will bring new units from territory of the Russian Federation to participate in hostilities. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier it was reported that Russia is reinforcing the 155th Marine Brigade, which is currently operating in the Kharkiv region, with its reserves. This indicates that the enemy does not want to lose its positions. As ISW reported, Ukrainian soldiers are making progress in the Kharkiv sector. They have advanced eastward on the northern outskirts of Hlyboke, and the Russians are expecting a counterattack. The analysts also noted that they had received footage published on July 10, which proves that UAV operators from the Russian African Corps are operating in the Kharkiv sector. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Give us three days and well give you CLE content designed especially for solo and small firm practitioners like you plus much more. The 2024 Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference offers essential strategies and time-tested techniques that will help you rise to the top. WSSFC is designed to give you the space to learn, network, trade practice tips, and troubleshoot with other lawyers from around the state. Whether this is your first year or tenth year attending, this conference has something for everyone. Learn about practical tools and insightful hacks you can use right away. Find out how to maintain a profitable, thriving business in this fast-paced digital, hybrid work age. Youll also get reliable updates on legal developments in multiple practice areas and solutions to the problems that keep you up at night. Jumpstart your success with action plans that will help you practice law, manage your business, and enjoy life. The first F-16 fighters to arrive in Ukraine are likely to be a test batch that will practice strengthening the air defense of our critical facilities in the west or east. The military command and our Western partners will analyze how best to deploy these first aircraft and how best to protect them. ADVERTISIMENT The defense forces will receive, at best, a squadron, and perhaps even just a few units, i.e. 6-12 aircraft. Therefore, we should not expect a dramatic change in the situation at the front after the first fighters are delivered. Pavlo Lakiychuk, a military expert and head of security programs at the Center for Global Studies "Strategy XXI", said this in a commentary to OBOZ.UA. "We think that F-16s will close the air defense of our cities, close our energy facilities, they will strike at the enemy Su-34 on the front line, and protect us from the CABs. Some people say it would be great if we put a Storm Shadow on them and they bomb the Crimean Bridge. But this is not quite true," the expert said. To perform all the tasks we would like the Air Force to perform, we need at least fifty of these aircraft, Lakiychuk believes. The Air Force's request, partially voiced by the president, is for 120-150 units. ADVERTISIMENT Such a number of F-16s will be in Ukraine for at least a year or two, and if we take into account that there will be combat losses in any scenario, then perhaps even later. According to the expert, the timing of the arrival of the first fighters in Ukraine will depend on how they will be delivered. "If they fly on their own, then today they took off in Belgium and two hours later landed, for example, at Lviv airport. I'm speaking figuratively. And if they are delivered covertly by rail or in any other way, in a disassembled or semi-disassembled state, it will take much longer. It's a long way, assembling, disassembling, checking, and it can take weeks," Lakiychuk said. According to him, if the pilots, technical staff and aviation infrastructure are already prepared, the F-16 can be used to protect our airspace right on the day it arrives. ADVERTISIMENT "But the question is what functions these first units will perform. It seems to me that for both our Air Force and our partners, this is the first squadron, and it is a test batch. We will see how to use them most effectively, how to protect them most effectively, and, in fact, what to do next, what changes to make to the training program and the deployment of units with new equipment in Ukraine," the expert said. As reported by OBOZ.UA, Ukraine will be able to use F-16 fighter jets provided by partner countries this summer. These planes will help the Ukrainian Defense Forces to defend our country from Russian aggression, said US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Hungary began its six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1. And in less than two weeks, its presidency has already done a lot of damage. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated by the German Foreign Ministry. This was reported by Reuters. Hungarian far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stirred up a scandal in recent days. At his discretion, he organized a "peacekeeping tour" in which, after a trip to Kyiv, he visited Russia and China, discussing with the Russian dictator and the Chinese president immediate peace talks to end the war. Yesterday, July 11, Orban also met with Donald Trump in Florida. "We have to see how Hungary's presidency of the Council will continue," said a German ministry spokesman when asked how Berlin plans to respond to Orban's recent diplomatic visits. "We are now on the 12th day of Hungary's presidency, and it has already done a lot of damage," the spokesman emphasized. As a reminder, the meeting between Orban and Trump, where, according to the Hungarian prime minister, they discussed ways to achieve peace in Ukraine, took place at the Mar-a-Lago residence located on a barrier island in Palm Beach, Florida. After the meeting, Orban shared "good news" on social media: that Trump was going to end Russia's war in Ukraine. However, he did not specify how exactly he intends to do this. ADVERTISIMENT Trump also spoke about the meeting with Orban. "Thank you, Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!" Trump wrote on social media. As reported by OBOZ.UA: The EU said that Orban's trip to Putin contradicts internal EU treaties. Orban is being prepared to be punished. Because of Orban's trip to Putin, six EU countries will boycott any ministerial meetings in the EU Council throughout July. This period, as well as the number of countries that decide to ignore EU government meetings, may increase. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! On Friday, July 12, Gitanas Nauseda was inaugurated as President of Lithuania for a second term. He is a good friend of Ukraine who supports the territorial integrity of our country. ADVERTISIMENT According to the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT, the ceremony began at noon in the Seimas' March 11 Assembly Hall. There, Nauseda swore an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Lithuania and the Constitution, promising to fulfill his duties honestly and treat all citizens fairly. "Today I took the presidential oath for the second time. I promised the nation to defend and strengthen Lithuania, to serve the homeland, democracy, and the welfare of our people. I will continue to support Lithuania's mission to stand on the right side of history," he said. ADVERTISIMENT The ceremony was attended by the first lady, former presidents, the Seimas speaker, the prime minister, the president of the Constitutional Court, a metropolitan, and an archbishop. After the Seimas session, a mass is scheduled to be held at Vilnius Cathedral. Then, the president will be met by units and commanders of the Lithuanian Armed Forces at the Cathedral Square. It is worth noting that Gitanas Nauseda is a firm and constant supporter of Ukraine. His position on our country has always been unequivocal and based on the principles of support for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence. Since the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Nauseda has repeatedly expressed support for the Ukrainian people and condemned Russia's actions. ADVERTISIMENT He actively called on the international community to strengthen sanctions against Russia and provide military, economic, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. According to Nauseda, his country will continue to stand firmly with Ukraine until victory. In this regard, the Lithuanian authorities have decided to allocate a portion of their GDP to support Ukraine's security. Following a meeting of the State Defense Council, it is about at least 0.25% of GDP for defense support for Ukraine. He also considers unacceptable the double standards applied by the West in assisting Israel and Ukraine. "It is unacceptable that we, as you rightly said, apply double standards. Our assistance to Israel certainly does not and should not compete with our attention to Ukraine. If we are principled and stand for democratic values, we should support both, not calculate we give one so much and the other so much," Nauseda said. ADVERTISIMENT In addition, he warned against negotiations with the aggressor country, warning that Europe could be trapped. "When I see pacifist sentiments emerge again and again, especially regarding the situation at the front, when they start talking about peace talks... I think that we are falling into the same trap again and returning to the belief in the telephone law that used to take place, and now it is the so-called peace talks," he said. At the same time, according to the Lithuanian leader, one of the key principles for establishing a just and sustainable peace is to bring Russia to justice for war crimes committed in Ukraine. A special international tribunal will help to achieve such accountability, and the international community should intensify its efforts to establish it now. ADVERTISIMENT Nauseda made his first official visit to Ukraine as president on March 19, 2021. On the same day, he addressed the Verkhovna Rada in Ukrainian and Lithuanian, stated that Crimea is Ukraine, and condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine Since the full-scale invasion, Nauseda has visited Ukraine three times. The first visit took place on April 13. During his visit, he and other leaders visited the village of Borodyanka in the Kyiv region, which was almost destroyed by Russian troops. He made his second visit to Ukraine on July 28, the Day of Ukrainian Statehood. During his visit, he held talks with President Zelenskyy and addressed the Verkhovna Rada. At that time, Nauseda presented Zelenskyy with Lithuania's highest honor, the Order of Vytautas the Great, and said that this award belonged to the President of Ukraine and the entire Ukrainian people. ADVERTISIMENT Nauseda's third visit took place on June 28, 2023, on the Constitution Day of Ukraine. Then he visited our country together with Polish President Andrzej Duda. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The years do not go by in vain, not even for the old bosses of the Sinaloa cartel. Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Aureliano Guzman, El Guano, leaders of their respective factions, are about to reach 80. The DEA said a few weeks ago that Zambada is in poor health. In recent days, Mexican authorities arrested the alleged security chief of El Guano in a town in Durango. Some media speculated that El Guano, for whom the U.S. government is offering a reward of $5 million, managed to escape to the mountains. If it were not for the serious accusations against the eldest Guzman, who is El Chapos brother, it would be almost comical to imagine an octogenarian fleeing from a handful of soldiers, walking through the dusty roads, an outlaw to the end. But the accusations are serious. In two separate charges, the U..S State Department accused El Guano of trafficking heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and marijuana into American territory. El Guano is one of the most important members of the Sinaloa organization as far as the Biden administration is concerned, only surpassed by his eldest nephew, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman. Ever since the third and final arrest of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, in 2016 in Sinaloa, and his subsequent extradition north of the Rio Grande, the Pacific cartel has been accumulating conflicts and problems. The downfall of El Chapo was followed by that of his old collaborator, Damaso Lopez, and his son, who squared off against the descendants of Guzman, popularly known as Los Chapitos. In January 2023, the government captured one of them, Ovidio, who was extradited months later. Ovidios fall was followed by the arrest of their security chief El Nini, news about Zambadas poor health, and the arrest of R8, El Guanos lieutenant, this week. Such a series of calamities should impose obstacles on the production and distribution chain of the Sinaloa cartel, although this matter is not at all clear. In its latest Drug Threat Assessment, released in May, the DEA points out that the Sinaloa cartel is one of Mexicos oldest criminal organizations, and one of the most violent and prolific polydrug-trafficking cartels in the world. A series of skirmishes and internal battles have threatened the unity of the organization for more than eight years. Los Chapitos, commanded by Ivan Archivaldo, are trying to expand their dominance and control. The old bosses, for their part, are trying to maintain it. Aureliano Guzman always considered himself the successor of El Chapo, above and beyond his children, says Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia Consultores, a consultancy that monitors the evolution of crime in Mexico. It is a rivalry that has been going on for a long time, approximately since the arrest of El Chapo, but which has intensified due to various incidents, such as confrontations, conflicts over locations, arrests, and so on. An incident that greatly distanced Los Zambada from Los Guzman was the capture of El Raton, for example, says Guerrero, referring to Ovidio Guzman. It is not clear, however, what role El Guano plays in all this, whether he is closer to one faction or another, or if, on the contrary, they are all distant from each other right now. If it is true that El Chapos brother was in Tamazula, in the state of Durango, where R8 was arrested, logic points to a distancing from Los Chapitos, who are strong in Culiacan. Guerrero defends that the Guanos, although members of the Sinaloa cartel, are rivals in internal conflicts and right now they are at odds with Los Zambada and the sons of El Chapo. In the criminal world, sometimes betrayal is not as important as the perception of being betrayed. Faced with the impossibility of knowing who ordered what murder, thugs act by intuition. This is what has been happening since mid-2015, when gunmen murdered the half-brother of El Chapo and El Guano, Ernesto Guzman, in the town of Badiraguato, in the mountains of Sinaloa, the birthplace of the clan. The local media indicated at the time that El Guano had ordered the murder, an assertion that was not confirmed. That murder provoked the reaction of the criminal group that allegedly worked with the half-brother, heir to the Beltran Leyva family, an old ally of El Chapo and later a staunch enemy. Between December 2015 and June 2016, armed commandos from this group showed up in Badiraguato, supposedly in search of El Guano. They did not find him, but they left a trail of dead in their wake. This dispute intersected with the escape of El Chapo, who had escaped from prison in July 2015 and was on the run, and with the first hostilities between Los Chapitos and Damaso Lopezs group. The rest is history. El Chapo fell in Los Mochis in January 2016 and was later extradited to the U.S. The same thing happened to Lopez, whose son surrendered to U.S. authorities. The questions all these years revolve around the capabilities and inertia of each of the structures that orbit under the umbrella of Sinaloa. And the friction between them. In its last report, the DEA indicated that Los Chapitos and the Zambadas were at war, but said nothing about El Guano, which it placed on the same level as the other two groups. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition China ramps up opening up efforts to attract foreign firms Xinhua) 08:13, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China has recently ramped up efforts to attract foreign investment, underscoring its commitment to opening up its vast market to global companies. This photo taken on April 26, 2024 shows a scene at the signing ceremony for deepening strategic cooperation between BMW and Shenyang, in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong) WOOING FOREIGN INVESTMENT The government has prioritized attracting and utilizing foreign investment, recognizing the crucial role that foreign-invested firms play in China's economic transition. According to a State Council executive meeting held in late June, China will expand its opening up in key areas. Shortly after, a symposium on foreign investment was held that urged further relaxation of market access and "leveraging the country's ultra-large market as a real advantage in attracting investment." "Midway through the year, it is imperative to emphasize stabilizing foreign investment and implementing additional measures to enhance market access in specific sectors," said Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. "These actions are necessary to ensure the continued growth of foreign investment and trade in the remaining months of the year." Since the beginning of this year, an array of policies aimed at attracting foreign investment have been implemented. These include regulations to encourage and regulate the cross-border flow of data, as well as an action plan outlining measures to promote equal participation of foreign-invested companies in government procurement. Local governments have also launched a charm offensive targeting foreign investors. In May, south China's Guangdong Province introduced incentives to galvanize foreign-invested firms to expand local investment and presence. Last month, Beijing passed its first special regulation on foreign investment. China's efforts to woo foreign investment come at a time when global foreign direct investment (FDI) has remained subdued for two consecutive years, with challenging prospects for 2024 due to weakening growth and ongoing trade and geopolitical tensions, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Guests attending the delivery ceremony of the 700th A320 family aircraft assembled by Airbus Tianjin to Chengdu Airlines pose for a group photo in front of the A320neo aircraft in Tianjin, north China, July 8, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Ran) VOTE OF CONFIDENCE IN CHINA Despite a drop in FDI in China in the first five months of this year, the country continued to see double-digit year-on-year growth in the number of newly established foreign-invested firms during the period. To bolster its capacity to meet the expanding Chinese market demand, Japanese firm Yokohama Rubber has lately announced a mega investment plan to build a new passenger car tire plant in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. On July 3, China kicked off exhibitor application for the eighth China International Import Expo (CIIE), scheduled in November 2025. Several foreign-invested companies, including U.S. firm 3M and French firm L'Oreal, have been full-time CIIE participants since the inception of the world's first national-level expo focusing on expanding imports. "The CIIE is becoming increasingly popular, which is a vote of confidence from the global business community in China's economic development," said Tang Wenhong, China's assistant minister of commerce. According to the recently released 2024 Kearney FDI Confidence Index report, reflecting investors' expectations for FDI over the next three years, China's global ranking has risen from seventh to third place. "Multinational companies initially looked at China as a supplier and then as a huge market. But now increasingly, we are looking at China as an innovation center," said Andrew Wu, general manager of the China branch of U.S.-based commercial data and analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet. Visitors queue up at the PepsiCo booth at the 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in east China's Shanghai, Nov. 8, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Ying) EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES Fan Yuelong, a senior management at Deloitte China, noted that China has entered a stage where high-quality foreign investment is needed and there is great potential for investing in China. "High-quality foreign investment may include expanding investment in the country's central and western regions, focusing on green development, individualized and intelligent solutions, and other areas," Fan said. China has started revising the industry catalog of sectors encouraging foreign investment, with intended support for advanced manufacturing, modern services, advanced technology, energy conservation and environmental protection. During the Jan-May period, FDI inflows into China's smart consumer equipment manufacturing and professional technical services increased 332.9 percent and 103.1 percent year on year, respectively. In June, U.S. multinational food and beverage company PepsiCo broke ground on its first food production base in northwest China, which is also the company's fifth major investment in the country over the past five years. "As living standards of Chinese consumers continue to rise, there is a noticeable trend towards more specific and situational demands for household cleanliness," said Han Guangzhong, Greater China CEO of Portuguese household cleaning brand Mootaa. "New market opportunities are emerging for us to seize. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) It was a brief and to-the-point testimony. Alessandro Pietta, weapons manufacturer, traveled from Italy to defend the replica of the Colt revolver that has been at the center of controversy ever since a bullet killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21, 2021. The expert was called in by the Prosecutors Office on the second day of the actors manslaughter trial so the courtroom could hear if the weapon had been subjected to a quality control process. Of course, Pietta assured with a dismissive gesture. Baldwin, 66, could spend up to 18 months behind bars if he is found guilty. Pietta spoke with pride about the .45 caliber pistol he manufactured in 2017 for a gun show in the United States. He sent the replica of a weapon from the late 19th century inside a wooden box and without a fundamental part, the trigger, as it was a display piece. Years later, an Arizona gunsmith named Seth Kenney found it to be valuable and purchased it. In 2021, Kenney and his company would become the supplier of weapons and ammunition for Rust, a western starring Baldwin. Upon arriving on set, a trigger was added to the gun to make it more realistic-looking. Ever since the time of the accident, Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the trigger and merely cocked the gun. This claim led many to suspect that the gun fired due to a malfunctioning mechanism. Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson was quick to allude to this: -"Is there any other way for the gun to be activated other than by pulling the trigger?" Johnson asked. -No, that is the only way, Pietta replied. The FBI conducted a dozen tests to see if it was possible for the revolver to open fire without pulling the trigger. In 11 attempts, the gun only went off this way. The last exam was more radical. The technicians hit it with a sledgehammer to see if it fired from the strong impact. The result was positive. But the blow destroyed the revolver. Alessandro Pietta examining the revolver that he manufactured in 2017. RAMSAY DE GIVE / POOL (EFE) Victory for the prosecution The Prosecutors Office had a great day. Kari Morrissey and Erlinda Johnson, in charge of the prosecution, managed to get Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to admit redactions to Baldwins interview with a detective following the shooting. The redacted portions involve a phone call with his wife, Hilaria, and a statement by the defendant in which he admits knowing that even blank ammunition can cause death. Baldwins defense tried at all costs to prevent these two statements, which represent just a few moments in a sea of communications that the actor had after the incident, from forming part of the official record of the criminal trial. If this evidence is not integrated into the public version, it cannot be offered to the jury. In fact, the 16 members of the panel were outside the court while the parties debated. The material in question is part of a personal conversation between Baldwin and his wife. The actor, after the incident, was trying to convince his family not to cancel plans to visit him in New Mexico. His children and his wife were meant to arrive the next day so they could be together while he worked on the western. Were going to have a great time, Baldwin was heard saying, according to the records. One of their daughters even had a small role in the independent film. The actor argued that if they canceled, they would lose the money for the plane tickets. One person was injured and the other had been taken to hospital by helicopter. Meanwhile, Mr. Baldwin was worried because his wife was thinking about canceling the trip. He was not devastated, as the defense wants to make him out to be, argued prosecutor Morrissey. The judge agreed that it was a fragment of interest. The defense rejected the idea, stating that the jury could misinterpret the phrase. He was just trying to protect his family, said one of the defense assistants. The other fragment allowed by the judge is a statement by Baldwin to Detective Alexandria Hancock, of the New Mexico police. During the interrogation, the actor claimed that he had experience from other productions with various types of firearms, but that he did not own any. Baldwin also said that he knew that dummy ammunition could be lethal. An assistant brings a box of evidence to expert witness Marissa Poppell. ROSS D. FRANKLIN / POOL (EFE) Defense attacks police investigation The defense lawyers painted a poignant picture of the chaos that prevailed at the filming of the western. Live ammunition shared the same space as dummy ammo, which are almost identical to the naked eye. Lawyers for Baldwin spent the morning questioning the role of the police in the early hours of the investigation at the Bonanza Creek Ranch. Attorney Alex Spiro went on the offensive against the prosecutions witness, Marissa Poppell, one of the investigators from the Santa Fe Sheriffs Office. Poppell was in charge of collecting evidence inside the church where the cinematographer was fatally wounded. Spiro charged against the work of Poppell and her colleagues. The authorities found live ammunition on the set, including in the belt that another actor, Jensen Ackles, would use. Also in Baldwins shoulder bag. The lawyer accused Poppell of failing to follow leads that could clarify how real bullets had ended up on set. Tell the jury how long it took the police to request a search warrant for Seth Kenneys [the weapons and ammunition supplier] warehouse, Spiro asked. This was executed on November 30, a month and a week after the incident, Poppell responded. In two hours of examining the witness, Spiro attempted to cast a shadow of suspicion on Kenney. He, however, stated under oath at the trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed that he did not deliver a single real bullet to the production. Poppell reported on Thursday that neither she nor her colleagues found a single live .45 caliber bullet in the warehouse during the search. Baldwins attorney speculated that Kenney destroyed evidence because police did not seize footage from surveillance cameras at the warehouse. Spiro went even further, and assured that the police tried to conceal the fact that a good Samaritan showed up at the department to deliver a box of .45 caliber bullets. The subject stated that it was the same lot where the projectile that killed Hutchins came from. The statement caused surprise in the court until Morrisey used the microphone again. The prosecutor then established that the subject who carried the alleged bullets was Troy Teske. The man is a friend of Hannah Gutierrez-Reeds father and the bullets were delivered in March 2024, after the sentencing of the armorer, she explained. At that trial, it was determined that the real bullets were brought on set by the inexperienced Gutierrez-Reed and did not come from Kenneys warehouse. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition In 2010, a Swedish geneticist, who had been obsessed in his youth with the idea of recovering genetic material from an Egyptian mummy, achieved a much greater milestone. That year Svante Paabo revealed the first genome of a Neanderthal, the species closest to ours, and confirmed that tens of thousands of years ago we had sex and children with them. It was a true cataclysm in the history of human evolution, and its impact can be seen today in the majority of the planets inhabitants, who still carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in each of their cells. In 2022, his lab colleagues threw Paabo into a pond to celebrate him winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine for these discoveries. The fact that today it is possible to extract and read DNA from fossils has provided data on how and where sexual encounters occurred between the Neanderthals the human species originally from Europe and us, Homo sapiens who were originally from Africa. Until now, science has focused on how Neanderthal genes affected sapiens. For example, genes from the Neanderthals and Denisovans another human species discovered by Paabo have allowed sapiens to live in the highest regions of the planet, and strengthened our immune system in the past, while making it more vulnerable to some of todays diseases. The biggest enigma remains why, if we were so compatible, the Neanderthals disappeared 40,000 years ago and sapiens became the only human species on Earth. On Thursday, a study has turned the focus around and asked how sapiens DNA affected Neanderthals, and if we somehow contributed to their disappearance. The results, published in the prestigious journal Science, reveal unknown chapters of this story. Our data support the idea that a factor in the extinction of Neanderthals, probably the most important, is that they were simply absorbed by sapiens, Liming Li, a molecular biologist at Princeton University and first author of the study, tells EL PAIS. Researchers analyzed the only three Neanderthal genomes that are preserved: the DNA of an individual found in Vindija, Croatia, who lived about 52,000 years ago, of another found in Chagyrskaya, in the Altai Mountains of Siberia (Russia), from about 80,000 years ago, and a third Neanderthal from the Denisova Cave, also in the Altai, who lived about 120,000 years ago. They compared their genome with that of 2,000 modern sapiens to calculate how much genetic material was passed on to Neanderthals and when it happened. The work confirms that the first and largest encounter between both species was much earlier than previously thought, about 200,000 years ago. Groups of Homo sapiens from Africa arrived in Europe and had sex and children with Neanderthals, who received up to 10% of their genome. It is a considerable amount, taking into account that current sapiens from outside Africa have only around 2% of Neanderthal DNA. Whats most interesting is that these groups of sapiens never managed to settle in Europe or Asia, and they became completely extinct. About 120,000 years ago, another wave of sapiens ventured outside Africa, probably in search of game and new territories. The climate was favorable, and created a land bridge between Africa and the Sinai Peninsula, through which they reached the Near East and the Arabian Peninsula. On this occasion, the encounters must have been smaller, since the Neanderthals only received 0.5% of sapiens DNA. Nor did this wave of migrants stay in Europe, a continent where Neanderthals had been living for hundreds of thousands of years, despite the terrible ice ages. In the final stages of this story, the gene flow took a turn, and it was the sapiens who began to receive important genetic contributions from Neanderthals. Between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago, sapiens took over up to 10% of the Neanderthal genome, and that percentage increased even further. There is one last chilling fact: the percentage of sapiens DNA in the last Neanderthals, who lived about 40,000 years ago, is zero. By then they were the last human species to go extinct. At this point, the work reveals an illuminating piece of information. The presence of sapiens DNA in the genome of Neanderthals has meant that the size of Neanderthal populations have been overestimated. The new calculation reveals that they were 26% smaller, less than 2,500 individuals distributed in small isolated tribes across all of Europe. Furthermore, they were plagued by inbreeding and under pressure from the arrival of the sapiens, who had larger, better connected clans, and weapons to kill from a distance. In the end, successive waves of sapiens immigration from Africa overwhelmed the Neanderthals until they were unable to remain a separate species and were finally assimilated by sapiens genetics, says geneticist Joshua Akey, co-author of the study. Akey adds: From previous studies, we knew that there is much less Neanderthal presence on the X chromosome, which is associated with hybrid boys surviving less than girls. There are also indications that some Neanderthal genes were harmful and were purged from our genome. So it seems that there was a certain incompatibility in these crossings, but it must not have been very great, since it did not prevent sapiens from having Neanderthal ancestors and vice versa. Neanderthals disappeared forever, but thanks to the fact that both species assumed and cared for their mixed-race children, their genetics are still alive and actively contribute to many sapiens physiological functions, from rapid blood clotting to the tendency to suffer from some mental illnesses. Geneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox was one of the first to talk about Neanderthal assimilation. The new study cites the Spanish researcher in describing how unidirectional gene flow caused the sapiens population to become bigger and more diverse when they interbred with Neanderthals, while the Neanderthal population became smaller and weaker. Sometimes we think of the last Neanderthal as a solitary individual who cannot find a partner, explains Lalueza-Fox. I imagine him more like a person whose partner was a Homo sapiens. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The current order at the southern border of the United States is expedited removal. This is how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refers to the departure of irregular immigrants from the national territory in the shortest possible time. It is a result of the executive measures taken by the Biden Administration on June 4 to close the border at a time when daily crossings exceeded 2,500 (a figure that has held steady for three years), thereby restricting the right to asylum that every immigrant had upon arriving at the border. As a consequence, June was the month with the lowest number of arrests since Biden took office. Border Patrol agents detained 84,000 immigrants, a 30% drop from May, when arrests reached 117,000. In current conditions, only immigrants who express a credible fear of persecution or torture if they are returned to their countryand prove it in an interviewwill be able to temporarily suspend their deportation and remain in the United States, but they will still not obtain asylum until the restriction is lifted. Demonstrating credible fear has become a critical issue for thousands of immigrants, but the main drawback many face is the lack of evidence to prove their case. The authorities will make a decision based on national and international laws on asylum and the Convention Against Torture (CAT), and merely arguing that you are afraid of being persecuted or tortured is not enough. Nor is deportation protection obtained if one was a victim of extortion along the route to the United States, or if someone intends to stay in the U.S. to work and help their family. The only exception applies to children traveling without their parents, victims of human trafficking and cases with medical emergencies. Immigrants who arrive at the border with an appointment with the CBP One app will also be able to carry on with their asylum application. What is credible fear of persecution or torture? The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) states that a credible fear of persecution is a significant possibility that the applicant will be persecuted if returned to his or her country on account of your race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. This agency defines a credible fear of torture as a significant possibility that it is more likely than not that you would be subject to torture if returned to your country. This is the first step in moving forward with an asylum request. The interview to test credible fear The agent will question the reasons why the immigrant is requesting asylum. Some of the questions will be: who persecuted or tortured them in their country of origin, who harmed them or could do so if they returned. If the aggressor is a government official from the migrants country of origin, a police agent or an individual linked to local power, the agent will ask for details of the events in which the migrant was persecuted, tortured or suffered any harm, or the reasons that expose them to the risk of being attacked if they are returned. If the immigration officer is convinced, he or she will determine that the migrant may be eligible for withholding of removal status, which is still not a way to obtain asylum given the current restrictions. The benefit is that the deportation process is placed on hold pending the ruling of an immigration judge who will decide on the situation. The Biden Administration argues that these restrictions will benefit those who have legitimate claims for protection and are hindered by those who do not and clog the system. What are the grounds for asylum in the United States? The reasons that justify an asylum request in the United States are persecution due to religion, race, nationality, political opinion, and membership in a social group, but they are not the only ones. The state in which the applicant is found at the time of the request and how they were before leaving their country is also considered. On the other hand, officers will evaluate whether the government was involved in the persecution, torture or harm that led the migrant to request asylum, or whether it was lack of action and protection. The applicant must explain if he or she would be subject to the same persecution or harm in another part of his or her countrys territory, and if he or she has dual nationality, why he or she cannot move to that other country. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition. A Tibetan opera performance is staged. [People's Daily Online/Tsering Norbu] With yellow masks on their faces, five Tibetan opera performers took the audience on a journey back in time in Tashi Choden Community, Naidong District, Shannan City, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. Yarlung Tashi Sholpa, a form of Tibetan opera, was created by Thangtong Gyalpo, founder of Tibetan opera, during the 15th century. "Yarlung Tashi Sholpa is the oldest branch of Tibetan opera, and serves as the most prominent opening act in major events held in Xizang. It was included on the first list of national-level intangible cultural heritage in China," said 52-year-old Nyima Tsering, a national-level inheritor of the Yarlung Tashi Sholpa Tibetan opera. Nyima Tsering, who began his artistic journey at the age of 16, has expanded his Tibetan opera troupe from a small group to an ensemble made up of dozens of performers. He has also established a training center over 400 square meters in size. During peak tourist seasons, the troupe stages six to seven shows in a single night. As director of the Tashi Choden Community, Nyima Tsering shoulders the responsibility of leading local residents towards prosperity. Photo shows the interior of a B&B hotel in Tashi Choden Community, Naidong District, Shannan City, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. [People's Daily Online/Tsering Norbu] In recent years, the Tashi Choden Community has been exploring Tibetan opera resources. It has integrated elements of intangible cultural heritage into the construction of the living environment, creating a plethora of brands related to Tibetan culture and folk tourism. Photo shows Tashi Choden Community in Naidong District, Shannan City, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. [People's Daily Online/Tsering Norbu] Since June 2020, the community has welcomed over 70,000 tourist arrivals, generating more than 5.6 million yuan (about $770,336) in tourism revenue. Folk tourism has not only increased the incomes of the local residents but also enhanced the community's visibility. "In the past, our primary source of income was farming and engaging in labor-intensive work at construction sites, which earned us just over 100 yuan a day. What we do now is provide hospitality to tourists and maintain cleanliness, which allows us to generate a steady income," said a resident who runs a B&B hotel in Tashi Choden Community, revealing that the annual net income from running such a business can exceed 25,000 yuan. (Source: People's Daily Online) Editor: Wang Shasha BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhua) Chinese State Councilor Shen Yiqin has called for more activities to provide further care and services for children during the summer vacation. Shen, also president of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), made the remarks Tuesday at an event in Beijing, where she declared the launch of a summer campaign for care and services for children. The campaign was jointly organized by the ACWF and 15 other departments. Shen urged local governments and relevant authorities to make sure children's development is prioritized while giving them love and help with all their hearts. She also talked with mothers present at the event and encouraged them to dedicate themselves to voluntary service, thus enabling the children to spend a happy, safe and fulfilling summer vacation. (Source: Xinhua) Editor: Wang Shasha The U.S. Embassy in Colombia and the Colombian Police on Thursday announced a reward program totaling up to $12 million for information leading to the arrests and/or convictions in any country of three leaders of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua, which was founded in Venezuela and has expanded throughout the region in recent years. Criminals always look for a place to take shelter, and the Latin American police have international cooperation operations to capture the subjects wherever they are, but we still do not have information about whether these ringleaders are in Colombia, said the director of the Colombian Police, General William Salamanca, during a press conference together with Francisco Palmieri, head of the U.S. Embassy to Colombia. Palmieri said that the Tren de Aragua has become an organization that contributes to fear and confusion, and it is an obstacle for the Colombian and American population. The reward plan has been announced in the midst of negotiations between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Washington, just a few weeks before Venezuela is scheduled to hold elections. The three leaders of the organization they are looking for are Giovanny San Vicente, aka Giovanny; Yohan Jose Romero, aka Johan Petrica, and Hector Guerrero Flores, aka Nino Guerrero, for whom rewards of three, four and five million dollars are offered, respectively. Nino Guerrero escaped last year from Tocoron prison, in the central state of Aragua, from where he operated. On Thursday, the White House announced new actions to halt the spread of Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela that is involved in violent criminal acts, and hold their members and associates to account. Besides the rewards for information leading to the capture of its leaders, the Department of the Treasury designated Tren de Aragua as a significant transnational criminal organization. As a result, all property and interests in property of Tren de Aragua that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked, said National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson. Todays designation of Tren de Aragua as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization underscores the escalating threat it poses to American communities, said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. In addition to this new action by Colombia and the United States, Spain on Thursday extradited Gerson Guerrero, brother of the leader of the Tren de Aragua, as reported by the Venezuelan attorney general, Tarek William Saab. He had been arrested by Spains National Police last March in the city of Barcelona, and is accused of aggravated extortion, money laundering, criminal association, illicit trafficking of weapons and ammunition, terrorism and financing of terrorism. For these crimes he faces the maximum penalty back in his country, 30 years in prison. Saab assured that he will be prosecuted relentlessly, even though for the past decade his brother was able to establish a criminal empire from inside a Venezuelan prison. Soldiers intervene at Venezuela's Tocoron penitentiary on September 20, 2023. Ariana Cubillos (AP) The noose has tightened around the mega-gang, the largest in Venezuela and one of the most dangerous ones in the region. Last week the Colombian police arrested Larry Amaury Alvarez, aka Larry Changa, one of Nino Guerreros associates. Larry Changa is believed to landed in Chile in 2018, where he set up businesses and helped the organization expand. His capture has raised expectations that he may provide information leading to the capture of the other leaders. Recently, another member of the gang known as Salomon was also detained in Bogota. These arrests are added to the 79 that the police have carried out together with the Prosecutors Office, said Salamanca. The governments of the region have been trying for months to stop the advance of this gang dedicated mainly to extortion, micro drug trafficking and migrant smuggling, leading to a rise in crime in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Its presence has also been reported in Argentina and the United States, particularly in New York City. In the enormous Venezuelan diaspora, criminals found an opportunity to expand their illegal activities to other countries. But Venezuela considers that the gang has been dismantled, particularly after last September, when 11,000 law enforcement agents took over Tocoron prison, where Nino Guerrero operated from, although they never reported on the arrest of any of the ringleaders. The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory reported that the takeover was agreed upon with some of the inmates, and that some of them fled through tunnels and mountains surrounding the prison. Larry Changa in the custody of the Colombian National Police, on July 1. Policia Nacional de Colombia (EFE) Some Venezuelan officials, including Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, have even denied the gangs existence and said that the revelations about its actions made public by police and journalistic investigationssuch as those made by Venezuelan journalist Ronna Risquezare part of a smear campaign against Venezuela. These accusations led to strong diplomatic friction with Chile, one of the countries that has most vocally demanded active cooperation from Venezuela to put the Tren de Aragua criminals at bay. The gang was organized between 2013 and 2015 in the state of Aragua, an industrial region of Venezuela. At first its members dedicated themselves to the extortion of merchants and neighbors, then they ventured into kidnapping and drug trafficking, and became a transnational organization. El Nino Guerrero served a 17-year sentence for drug trafficking and concealment of weapons of war, and kept controlling the businesses from prison. One line of business was charging between $8 and $10 a week from each of the more than 3,000 inmates to guarantee that they would remain alive inside the penitentiary center, a system implemented in many of the countrys prisons. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Within 48 hours of Labour coming to power, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the creation of a Gestapo-like Border Security Command (BSC). Labour committed to more tightly policing the UK borders in its manifesto, along with setting up a Returns and Enforcement Unit to swiftly deport anyone deemed a failed asylum seeker. Making his first speech as prime minister on the steps of Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer emphasised that his programme for secure borders would be enacted immediately. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper at the National Police Chiefs' Council gathering, July 11, 2024 [Photo by Andy Taylor - Home Office/Flickr / CC BY 2.0 The manifesto pledged, under the guise of breaking up the criminal gangs who trade in driving this crisis of desperate people trying to reach the UK via the perilous English Channel route, that Labour would create a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers. It added, This new Command will work internationally and be supported by new counter-terrorism style powers. On mass deportations, the manifesto stated, Labour will set up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay here. We will negotiate additional returns arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries that failed asylum seekers can swiftly be sent back to. A Home Office announcement made July 7 states that the process of recruiting an exceptional [Border Command] leader used to working in complex and challenging environments, for example, at senior levels of policing, intelligence or the military, will kick off tomorrow. Reporting to Cooper, the Border Security Commander will provide strategic direction to work across agencies, drawing together the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force, to better protect our borders and go after the smuggling gangs facilitating small boat crossings. The Border Command is modelled on the government. The units website states, Our unique position means we are responsible for both counter terrorism and national level security and protection. Border Command officers will be handed extraordinary powers, to be announced as part of the governments legislative programme for the year in next weeks Kings Speech. A mini British Gestapo will be handed enhanced stop-and-search powers and be allowed to examine and seize mobile phones and copy any data held on the devices. Labours anti-immigration offensive includes its scrapping of the previous Conservative government plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwandaa policy which has already cost 240 million and was set to cost more than 500 million had it remained in place beyond April 2027. But Labours differences with the Tories are purely tactical, with the former preferring to collaborate more closely with France and the European Union to Stop the Boats and to deport asylum seekers to other countries. Labours main complaint with the Rwanda policy was that it was an expensive and inefficient gimmick which only dealt with 1 percent of the asylum seekers arriving in Britain and diverted the resources needed to seal the border. Starmer has declared the Rwanda policy dead and buried, with Cooper stating that Border Command will be funded in the first year from the 75 million due to go to the Rwanda scheme. She complained, The Conservatives ran this Rwanda scheme for two and a half years and sent simply four volunteers [to Rwanda], as well as hundreds of millions of pounds. Cooper added that the government would seek to recoup money handed to Rwanda, but the government has been told by the African nation it will get nothing back. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock declared in the run up to the election that a Starmer government will repurpose that money to smash the criminal smuggler gangs with our new cross-border police unit and a security partnership with Europol. Deportations flights wouldnt be going to Rwanda, but would instead be going to many other countries. Crucially, our new returns and enforcement unit will ensure that more flights take off to other countries, which will remove foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and visa overstayers said Kinnock. The Financial Times, which like the Sun and the Times backed Labour in the election, reported that 1,000 extra staff will form a new Returns Unit that will rapidly review people who arrive from safe countries like Albania and India, so they can be swiftly sent back. The [Labour] party has also said it will form bilateral returns agreements with countries not ravaged by war, like Vietnam, Turkey and Kurdistan, as well as forge a new returns deal with the EU. So far in 2024, Vietnamese migrants have topped the list of arrivals. The paper cited a Labour insider who commented, Returns is resource-heavy work but its not impossible, were not chasing a pipe dream. Migrants disembark from a British Border Force patrol boat after being picked up from a dingy in the English Channel in Dover harbour, England, September 16, 2021. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant] Labours policies are a declaration of war against the working class, centred on the stepped-up persecution of the most desperate people fleeing their homelands devastated by war and poverty arising from British-backed imperialist wars and oppression. They build on the battery of fascistic measures already imposed on tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers: the product of years of the Tories and Labouregged on by a xenophobic mediacompeting over who has the most right-wing immigration policies. The Independent reported this week that the brutal policies in place have led to five United Nations special rapporteurs raising concerns that Britain is possibly breaching international law, following revelations that child asylum seekers are being locked up in adult detention centres after crossing the Channel on small boats. At least 1,300 child refugees who arrived alone in the UK were wrongly identified as adults by border officials in the 18 months from January 2022, with nearly 500 placed in adult detention or unsupervised accommodation, a report by the Refugee Council and other charities found. The special rapporteurs sent their letter in April, urging the then Tory government to take all necessary interim measures to halt the alleged violations and prevent their re-occurrence. All such brutal policies remain in place under Labour. The immediate rolling out of iron-fist border control and deportation policies by Labour must be met with the organised opposition of the working class. With no social programme whatsoever to address the social crisis facing millionsand billions instead being shovelled into a burgeoning military budget supporting Britains role in the NATO war against Russia and Israels genocide against GazaLabour is seeking to scapegoat migrants and poison the political atmosphere with nationalism and chauvinism, the better to divide workers. Such policies are replicated by the governments of the ruling class in all the imperialist countries. Workers and young people must turn to the building of their own internationalist party, the Socialist Equality Party, which together with our sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International fights for high-quality living standards all over the world and upholds the right of workers from every corner of the globe to live and work in whatever country they choose, with full citizenship rights. At the factory meeting at Ford in Saarlouis on July 10, the works council, chaired by Markus Thal, initiated the closure of the plant, which once employed over 7,000 workers. The closure contains important lessons for the working class beyond Ford and the automotive industry. Jobs and wages can only be defended if Ford workers join forces with their colleagues in other plants and companiesin independent rank-and-file action committees and against the IG Metall, which leads the works council. The union and its works council representatives are the ones enforcing plant closures and mass redundancieswith early retirement, partial retirement and severance schemes or so-called transfer companies. These were also part of the social contract that IG Metall presented to the 3,750 Ford employees in Saarland for approval in February. In the meantime, around 2,700 workers have signed at least preliminary agreements that regulate the conditions under which they will finally leave the plant. The 1,800 jobs at the 11 plants in the Ford supplier park will then also be destroyed. From the end of 2025, only 1,000 employees will remain at Ford itself; 1,050 workers have applied for these 1,000 jobs. What will happen to the surplus of 50 colleagues remains to be seen. Ford has announced that it will finance these 1,000 jobs until 2032. However, it is unclear to what extent this commitment will be honoured. The entire future of Ford in Europe is in question. Initially, plastics production for other Ford plants is to be continued. Saarlouis is the only Ford plant in the world to have bumper production (injection moulding) and Boron production (hot pressing). The slimmed-down plant will be closed for good in 2032, possibly even earlier. This is because the pharmaceutical company Vetter will begin building a production facility on the current Ford plant site in 2026, which is expected to employ up to 2,000 people by 2030. It is therefore quite possible that Ford will finally withdraw from Saarland before 2032. Nevertheless, Works Council Chairman Thal announced that all colleagues have a future. That is one of his many lies. In reality, he and IG Metall have destroyed the future of many thousands of Ford workers and their families. Given the experience of the last five years, especially the last two to three years, it is time to take stock and draw the necessary conclusions. Since 2019, Ford has been closing entire plants in Europe, the US, Brazil, Russia and India. The works councils and trade unions have always done everything in their power to ensure that resistance to this has come to nothing. In the bidding war between the plants in Saarlouis and in Almussafes (Valencia, Spain) from autumn 2021, they played the two workforces off against each other and offered management huge wage concessions, the details of which have been kept secret to this day. When it was announced two years ago that the plant in Saarlouis was to be closed, the works council and trade union did everything they could to prevent a serious fight in defence of the plant and the jobs. The workforce was systematically demobilised to make the closure possible. Toothless protests in well-measured quantities served above all to deflect the anger of the workforce. Ford workers demonstrate after the announcement of the closure of the Saarlouis plant, June 22, 2022 Thal, IG Metall and the Saarland state government dictated that the workforce put all their hopes in an investor who supposedly wanted to take over the entire plant. In October 2023, this hope vanished into thin air. Hectic preparations then began for the final announcement of the closure. To this end, the works council and IG Metall organised short protest strikes in mid-January 2024 in favour of a social contract, i.e., the terms of the final closure. The plant closure that has now been initiated and the destruction of thousands of jobs is the result of this set-up that the works council, trade union, Social Democratic Party (SPD) state government and company have been playing for almost three years. IG Metall and its works council reps were only able to push through the closure of the plant because they used mafia-like methods to suppress all opposition. The claim that there was no possibility of defending the plant and jobs was false from the outset. It was the position of the union apparatchiks who sit on the Ford supervisory board andjust like managementput profits above the rights and interests of the employees. The Ford Action Committee, which was formed on the initiative of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), opposed this conspiracy from the outset and presented a perspective in defence of the plant. In its first statement in January 2022, the action committee wrote: We strongly reject claims by the works councils that there is no alternative to the blackmail of the intra-company bidding war and to wage and social cuts. In reality, all the rights and social achievements won by workersbe it the eight-hour day, the regulated wage system, paid holidays, sick pay, safety at work and much morewere fought for in the common struggle of all workers against the capitalists. A new political orientation was therefore necessary to resist the blackmail by management and the works council; one based on the common interests of all workers at all sites and opposed to the logic of the capitalist profit system. Even back then, the action committee warned that the intra-plant bidding war would only produce losers. This has also proved to be true. In the Almussafes plant, where 9,300 were employed before the bidding war, only 3,200 are to remain after what is now the third round of redundancies. The Spanish trade union UGT (Union General de Trabajadores) and the works council it dominates are no different from IG Metall in Germany. Another 1,600 jobs are currently being cut in Valencia; 600 employees will have to go, while a further 1,000 are being put off with a possible transitional solution or an option to return when production of a new hybrid model starts in 2027. However, this is just as vague as Fords future in Europe in general. It is already clear that Fords e-mobility targets will not be achieved, just like those of other major manufacturers. The main European and US manufacturers, with the exception of Tesla, are now lagging behind in terms of technology and will find it difficult to catch up. In an interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau, sociologist Klaus Dorre reports rather casually about a conversation with Ford works council members who told him: We had a BYD [EV] taken apart and had to realise that we dont understand the technology. This is why the Asian manufacturers can also offer cheaper vehicles. The electric Ford Explorer, whose production has just started in Cologne, has a base price of 53,500. The basic version of the Fiesta, production of which was discontinued there last summer, costs just over 20,000. The cheapest Focus, which will roll off the production line in Saarlouis next year, costs 32,000 without extras. As a result, there is now a real danger that Ford will withdraw completely from Europe. In Cologne, several thousand jobs are to be lost again, in administration, development and also in production. Ford workers in Cologne, but also in Almussafes, the UK, Romania and Turkey, must draw the necessary conclusions from the betrayal of their colleagues in Saarlouis. Set up action committees independent of IG Metall and the other trade unions! Get in touch with each other and join forces. Also contact workers in other companies. The redundancies and plant closures at Ford are just the beginning. A jobs massacre is unfolding in the auto and supplier industry, the likes of which the sector has not seen since the Second World War. Just yesterday, Volkswagen announced that it is likely to close its plant in Brussels, which employs 3,000, due to weak demand for its Audi Q8 e-tron luxury electric car. Every job must be defended unconditionally. The basis of the struggle must be what workers need to live and not what the capitalists think they can get away with. The myth of a lack of money must be rejected. Hundreds of billions are being spent on armaments, the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza; they must be invested in jobs, wages and social infrastructure. A common struggle in defence of all jobs is necessary and must no longer be postponed. Draw the lessons from the Ford-Saarlouis experience and send a WhatsApp message to the following number: +491633378340 and fill in the form below. A record-breaking heat wave is continuing to hammer the western part of the United States, endangering more than 161 million people who remain under heat advisory warnings. At least 33 people have tragically died since the beginning of July, with those deaths concentrated in California and Oregon. At least seven cities including Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City reached record-breaking temperatures this week, pointing to the exacerbating dangers of capitalist-induced climate change. Paramedics Cody Miller, left, and Justin Jones respond to a heat exposure call during a heat wave, Saturday, June 26, 2021, in Salem, Ore. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard) The state of Oregon is experiencing the most significant heat wave in the states history, with record-breaking temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius). Since the start of the heat wave last week, the Oregon state medical examiner has relayed that 14 people have died in the state due to heat-related illnesses. Eight of those who have died were over 60 years old and three were between the ages of 25 and 35. Cities such as Portland, Salem and Eugene have broken their temperature records and recorded their highest number of consecutive days with triple-digit temperatures. While temperatures are forecast to cool in Northwest Oregon in the upcoming week, much of Southern and Eastern Oregon will continue to suffer under the triple-digit temperatures. The extended duration of this triple-digit heat, which lasts into the night, poses serious problems for those without access to air conditioning who will not be able to cool off sufficiently at night. Climatologists warn Oregonians that they should expect summers to continue to get hotter, due to the global trend of hotter and drier summers resulting from climate change. At least 19 people have died in Northern California as of Friday. The Sacramento County Coroners office reported that a 58-year-old died from multi-organ failure due to heat stroke. Emergency room physicians in the South Bay are reporting large numbers of heat emergency admissions due to heat stroke and officials have noted that only four of the 19 were homeless, indicating that at least 15 have housing but still lack protection from the heat. The names and details of those who have died have not been released. The severest of the heat wave has been concentrated in Californias Central Valley, where the weather is forecast for 10 days or more of 110-degree heat. In the city of Chowchilla, an inmate at the largest womens prison in California died of heat-related illness as the prison population continues to suffer without proper air conditioning and as inmates continue to beg for relief from the devastating heat. As of Friday, Las Vegas, Nevada, recorded a fifth consecutive day of 115-degree temperatures (46C), an all-time record that is likely to continue, or even double in the coming days. The temperatures are groundbreaking even by desert standards, with forecasters deeming the heat wave unprecedented since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1937. The dangerous temperatures have already claimed at least nine victims, with officials stating that the toll is likely to be higher. In the hottest major US metro region, Phoenix, Arizona, death tolls from extreme heat continue to rise every year in Maricopa County. Last year, 645 heat-associated deaths were recorded. The number of heat-related deaths this year has almost doubled in comparison with the number of deaths in the same period last year. The number of possible heat-related deaths as reported by the Maricopa County medical examiner was 175 as of June 29. The average temperature recorded this June has made the month the hottest ever recorded in the city. Officials continue to warn about the dangerous cumulative aspect of the heat wave, which has not allowed the human body to properly recover as temperatures have not dropped below 80 degrees. The danger posed by the scorching heat wave is compounded for the most vulnerable populations including the elderly, homeless and those with limited or no access to air conditioning or water. Particularly affected are those who are forced to work under extreme heat, such as factory workers and Amazon and UPS workers, whose industries have become synonymous with injury and heatstroke. The response from the Biden administration to the deadly heat wave has been to promote supposed heat protection rules that it claims will protect indoor and outdoor workers from the extreme temperatures. The rules, which were previously proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), include a list of highly inadequate measures designed to keep workers on the job in extreme heat, all while implementing meager requirements for drinking water, rest breaks and monitoring. Adding insult to injury, part of the plan includes the requirement for factories to accustom workers to toiling in high-heat conditions. Under the proposed rules, OSHA would establish two heat index thresholds. The first, Initial Heat Trigger, which kicks in at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27C), requires employers to provide drinking water and break areas as needed. Significantly, the rule indicates that employers also are required to have acclimatization protocols for new and returning unacclimatized employees, in simple terms, this means a plan is required for workers to gradually increase their workload and heat exposure so their bodies can become adjusted to working in extreme heat. The second threshold, known as the High Heat Trigger, kicks in at 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C), and requires employers to monitor signs of heat illness and provide mandatory 15-minute rest breaks every two hours. Employers are also required to check on lone workers every few hours and to issue an alert to stay hydrated. As of now, only five states maintain such protections. What is strikingly evident in the ill-named heat protection rules is that it never indicates a temperature too great to trigger a call to halt work. Employers are expected to post warning signs at indoor work areas with ambient temperatures that regularly exceed 120F. Such signage that condescendingly states the obvious means that farmworkers are still expected to toil in 120-degree heat (49C) so long as there is a warning sign, and they will only be guaranteed water and mandatory rest breaks of 15 minutes at least every two hours (unpaid meal break may count as a rest break). Furthermore, there are a number of exceptions for workers in key industries for whom the inadequate rules will not apply. Those who will not be covered under the rules include all categories not covered by OSHA; those are self-employed workers, immediate family members of farm employers, and workers whose hazards are regulated by another federal agency (for example, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Department of Energy, Federal Aviation Administration, or Coast Guard) according to the US Department of Labors website. The heat protection rules the Biden administration is touting had been proposed and formulated by OSHA by at least 2021, and will hardly do anything to slow down the death toll. Their main purpose seems to provide legal cover and liability to maximize productivity and profit surplus for the corporations. There is little doubt that Washington is concerned that it should appear as if measures are being taken to halt the skyrocketing deaths of the elderly and workers across industries including the hyper-exploited agricultural workers. Heat exposure is the leading cause of death among farm workers, whose average life expectancy in the US is a mere 49 years, compared to 73 for the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is equivalent to the average life expectancy in the country in the year 1900. In the United States alone, exposure to environmental heat killed 999 US workers from 1992 to 2021, averaging 33 fatalities a year, according to the Department of Labor. However, the agency stated that the statistics for occupational heat-related illnesses, injuries and deaths are likely vast underestimates. Internationally, the statistics of heat-related deaths and illnesses reflect the failure of the global capitalist system. According to a report by the UN, climate change-related health risks continue to affect more than 70 percent of workers around the world, with at least 2.4 billion people likely to be exposed to excessive heat on the job. Excessive heat and solar UV radiation have resulted in an increase in certain diseases having a severe impact on the safety and health of workers. The UN report states that more than 26.2 million people currently live with chronic kidney disease related to workplace heat stress, while nearly 19,000 people die each year from non-melanoma skin cancer from exposure to solar UV radiation. As for excessive heat, an estimated 18,970 lives are lost each year due to occupational injuries attributable to excessive heat. A rail track construction worker was killed early on Monday morning, July 1. The 49-year-old, who was part of a construction crew working on the Diedelsheim-Gondelsheim railway line in the district of Karlsruhe, was hit and fatally injured by a passing regional train. So far, no further details are available about the circumstances and causes. In the same week, a construction worker also died on the site of the Hamburg Aurubis copper smelters. On the morning of July 4, workers from a scaffolding company were busy loading a continuous casting plant when several rods came loose from a crane and fell from a height of several metres. The workers head was so badly injured that he died in hospital shortly afterwards. He was only 26 years old. Major construction site Four in Frankfurt am Main. A fatal accident caused by falling components occurred on this construction site in April 2024 [Photo by Feldarbeit / CC BY-SA 4.0 Every year, several hundred thousand accidents occur at work in Germany, several hundred of which are fatal. According to statistics, more than 700,000 work accidents occur every year. So far, the long-term trend has shown a steady decline from year to year. In the 10 years from 2011 to 2021, the total number of work-related accidents fell from 900,000 to 700,000. But this could change. In recent years, especially since the coronavirus pandemic when the maxim profits before lives became the official policy guideline, the figures have been rising again. And above all, since the German government has been pursuing an unbridled pro-war policy, the question arises: What will the orgy of rearmament and war cost workers in taxes, cuts in real wages, deteriorating working conditionsand also in lives? What is a workers life worth? Fatal accidents at work, which fell steadily in the pre-pandemic era, could rise again. In 2011, 886 fatal accidents at work were registered (519 work accidents and 367 commuting accidents). In 2021, there were 369, of which 100 were commuting accidents. In the period from 2006 to 2021, the number of fatal accidents halved. Whereas in 2006, more than two in every 100,000 people in employment were victims of a fatal accident at work, in 2021 it was just under one in every 100,000. In the EU, the number fell from 2.31 fatal work accidents per 100,000 people in employment to 1.76 during this period. But this trend has apparently come to a halt. According to the German Social Accident Insurance agency (DGUV), the total number of reportable work accidents in 2023 was almost 1 million. There were 783,462 work accidents and 184,355 commuting accidents that resulted in incapacity to work for more than three days, or death. More than 10,000 of these were recorded as serious work accidents resulting in the payment of a pension or death benefit. The number of fatal accidents at work totalled 599 (381 at work and 218 as commuting accidents). In previous years, the total number of fatal accidents at work was 508 in 2020, 628 in 2021 and 423 in 2022. Overall, the figures are not very reliable. They are mainly collected by the accident insurance companies, to whom by no means all accidents are reported. For example, construction companies that employ undocumented workers from Eastern Europe or Africa and hardly ever report them, even in the event of accidents, are responsible for the number of unreported cases. Others pay premiums for accident-free months, which can also distort the real figures. As far as the coronavirus pandemic is concerned, the lockdowns led to a relative reduction in accidents at work. However, it is unclear how many people were infected or died at work and this has not been recorded in detail. In total, at least 183,000 people have died from the coronavirus in Germany. In any case, the pandemic has led to increasing risks in the workplace. COVID-19 caused a significant increase in occupational illnesses. In 2022, the number of reports of suspected occupational illness rose by 62 percent compared to the previous year, totalling almost 370,000 reports. Almost 80 percent of these related to suspected coronavirus or Long COVID. They mainly came from hospitals and care homes. A high number of serious and fatal accidents recently occurred at national rail operator Deutsche Bahn, which is owned by the German government and is being cut more and more every year in favour of the war budget. In 2023, there were at least 11 fatal accidents on the railways. The fatalities included a train driver, a shunting engine driver, two track workers, six workers from external companies (in track construction and grounds maintenance) and a trainee. The construction industry is the main cause of fatal accidents at work. On average, just over 14 percent of all work accidents occur in the construction industry. In other words, every seventh accident at work occurs on a construction site. In 2011, more than 135,000 work accidents were reported on construction sites; by 2022, this figure had fallen to just under 100,000. This trend could also reverse again. In order to prevent industrial accidents, it is necessary to utilise all technical safety precautions and, above all, to train construction workers and equip them with personal protective equipment (PPE): safety shoes, helmets, safety goggles, hearing protection, gloves, ropes and snap rings, etc. But with ever-increasing levels of exploitation, a lack of trained foremen and a growing number of untrained unskilled labourers, accidents are inevitably on the rise again. In the decade from 2011 to 2021, an average of 118,000 workplace accidents occurred on construction sites each year, which equates to over 320 accidents per day. These figures naturally include all accidentsfrom a minor crush to a fatal fall from a roof. However, construction sites are particularly affected by serious and fatal accidents. Of the 118,000 work-related accidents per year, an average of 2,700 were serious and as many as 85 were fatal. According to construction union IG BAU, 74 fatal accidents occurred on construction sites in 2022. No figures are yet available for 2023. In plain language, these figures mean that every four to five days, more than once a week, a worker dies on a German construction site. They fall from scaffolding or a roof, are crushed or buried by items falling or toppling over or suffocate miserably when toxic gases unexpectedly escape from a pipe. These accidents shed light on the fact that it is precisely the poorly paid, little-appreciated professions that harbour the greatest dangers. The trade unionsabove all the EVG rail and transport union, IG BAU and Germanys largest single union, IG Metall representing workers in metal working and engineering sectorsare partly responsible for this. In their support of big business and the governments pro-war policies, they ensure that workers safety takes second place. In the construction industry, the IG BAU recently missed the best opportunity to address the precarious situation of low wages with a high risk of accidents. It cancelled the first nationwide construction workers strike in 22 years, agreeing a miserable wage settlement, whereupon the building contractors announced 10,000 job cuts. In other words: IG BAU is helping to ensure that around 1 million construction workers not only pay for corporate profits and the pro-war policy with cuts in real wages and job losses, but also inevitably have to toil with an increased risk of accidents as a result of staff cuts. The World Socialist Web Site and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) are appealing to all workers in such dangerous professions to join together in rank-and-file committees able to act independently of the trade unions. In this way they can collect and make available all the necessary information and unite with colleagues in other workplaces and countries in the struggle to defend their jobs and conditions. The lives and well-being of workers are more important than profits! And the problems workers confront from the global corporations and war economy are best tackled together internationally. The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees was founded precisely for this purpose. Normally, the specific circumstances and causes of fatal industrial accidents remain in the dark. Apart from brief, impersonal police reports, one hardly ever learns more about how a specific death came about and what it means for relatives and colleagues. But there are more and more exceptions to the rule. After the death of 19-year-old railway trainee Simon Hedemann in September 2023, his parents took up the fight for a full investigation. They told the WSWS: Our son died while doing his job, but we are left in the dark about HOW and WHY. Katharina Lopes Duarte, the partner of railway worker Ali Ceyhan, 33, who was hit and killed by a train during track construction work, also in September 2023, went on the offensive. Ali must not disappear as a number in the statistics, she told the WSWS. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka held a well-attended meeting on July 7 to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk. SEP/IYSSE "Free Bogdan" public meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 7, 2024 Syrotiuk is a leading member of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), a Trotskyist organisation active in Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union. The SBU, the state secret service of the fascistic Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, arrested 25-year-old Syrotiuk on April 25. He is currently being held at the Mykolaiv maximum security prison in Southern Ukraine. In mid-June, sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement, with which the YGBL is in political solidarity, held demonstrations outside Ukrainian embassies and consulates in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Canada and Turkey to demand Syrotiuks immediate release. The meeting in Sri Lanka was held at the National Library Auditorium in Colombo and attended by over 100 party members, workers, youth and supporters. It was simultaneously streamed live on the partys Facebook page. At the time of this writing, it has been viewed by over 2,200 and shared by nearly 200 people. Speeches by SEP Assistant Secretary Saman Gunadasa, who chaired the meeting, and SEP General Secretary Deepal Jayasekera were translated into Tamil. Gunadasa opened the event by explaining that Syrotiuk was taken into custody and charged with treason because he was fighting for the Trotskyist perspective of uniting the working class in Ukraine and Russia against the US-led NATO war against Russia and opposing the capitalist governments in both these countries. SEP Assistant Secretary Saman Gunadasa Comrade Bogdan has been deprived of communication and lawyers contacted to appear for him have been reluctant to do so because of the Zelensky regimes repression, he said. The Ukrainian regime has bogusly charged Syrotiuk and the World Socialist Web Site with being agents of the Russian government without a shred of evidence. It has also banned access to the WSWS in Ukraine since June 3, he explained. Gunadasa told the meeting that as many as 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the war began and there was overwhelming opposition to the war among Ukrainian workers and youth. In this context Bogdans revolutionary intervention rang alarm bells in the Zelensky regime. This is the situation that drove the authorities to arrest him, he said. Speaking on behalf of the IYSSE, Sakuntha Hirimutugoda outlined the real nature of anti-Russia war in Ukraine. Seventy-three days have elapsed since April 25, when comrade Syrotiuk was arrested. This action points to the anti-democratic character of the Ukrainian regime, he said. Sakuntha Hirimutugoda Hirimutugoda warned that comrade Bogdans life was in danger. The Zelensky regime had perpetrated countless disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as overseeing torture, inhuman treatment and life-threatening conditions in the prisons. Those above 16 years cannot leave the country and the age of the essential military draft has been reduced from 27 to 25. All people between 18 and 60 must report to the government about going to war. The majority of ordinary Ukrainians daily see how relatives and loved ones have lost their lives and so there is a seething anti-war mentality. The imperialist powers, however, see this loss as a necessary cost for their business of re-dividing the globe, Hirimutugoda said. The main speech was delivered by SEP General Secretary Deepal Jayasekera who said Syrotiuks detention was an attack on our world movement, the ICFI itself. The Zelensky regimes accusation that Syrotiuk is an agent of the Putin regime is a patent lie. Bogdans writings for the WSWS make it clear that he is an intransigent opponent of both the Ukrainian and Russian regimes, Jayasekera said. SEP General Secretary Deepal Jayasekera Challenging the SBU charge sheet that the WSWS is a Russian propaganda and information agency, Jayasekera reviewed the sites principled opposition to the Russian invasion and to both the Ukrainian and Russian bourgeois regimes. He quoted from an ICFI statement published on the WSWS on February 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, which denounced the military intervention. Despite the provocations and threats by the US and NATO powers, Russias invasion of Ukraine must be opposed by socialists and class-conscious workers, the statement said. Jayasekera said that the world Trotskyist movement from its inception has fought for the principles of socialist internationalism. Anyone who knows this history is also aware that the ICFI is an intransigent opponent of the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy and the bourgeois states, including both Ukraine and Russia, that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he added. Ukraines state security service, the SBU, knows very well that they cannot prove their concocted charges against Syrotiuk. They therefore resort to lies to victimise him in the same way that the then ruling Soviet bureaucracy concocted lies against Trotskyists accusing them of being agents of Nazi Germany during the frame-up Moscow Trials of 193638, the speaker said. Jayasekera noted international media reports about the growing anti-war opposition inside Ukraine and said the Zelensky regime was terrified that this would be given political expression through the struggle waged by Bogdan to unite Ukrainian and Russian workers against the war based on a socialist perspective. Contrary to NATOs claim that Ukraine is a democracy, the Zelensky regime is a dictatorship which rules through martial law and with all socialist and left-wing organisations banned in Ukraine, the speaker said. Jayasekera explained that the ICFIs global campaign to free Bogdan is part of its struggle to build an international anti-war movement of workers and youth based on socialist policies. The US-led NATO war against Russia, Israelis imperialist-backed genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza and Washingtons war preparations against China, he continued, were parts of an emerging imperialist world war. The SEP in Sri Lanka, he said, is fighting in collaboration with all other sections of the ICFI to build an international anti-war movement of workers and youth led by the working class against this growing danger of world war. Jayasekera concluded by calling on workers, youth, the rural poor and intellectuals in Sri Lanka, India and South Asia to join the SEP/ICFI and build this anti-war movement. After a lively question and answer session, meeting participants contributed 10,500 rupees ($US35) for the campaign and purchased 7,465 rupees in literature. The event ended with an appeal from the chair for all participants to sign the online petition to Free Bogdan and to send statements of support for the international campaign. The newly-founded Western Sydney University Rank-and-File Committee (WSU-RFC) has launched a campaign to stop the destruction of jobs and the pro-business restructuring at WSU College, the universitys wholly-owned feeder college. Western Sydney University A meeting of WSU staff and students and supporters last Wednesday voted to formally establish the WSU-RFC and call for the support of workers and students across the university and more broadly to defeat the cuts. The WSU-RFC will hold an online public meeting on July 31 to explain and discuss its campaign. WSU management is demanding the elimination of the equivalent of 17 full-time learning and teaching positions at WSU Collegeor more than 10 percentand a spill and fill regime to force staff members to compete against each other for the remaining posts. The heaviest cuts are to English, arts, literature and humanities, thus depriving students of access to critical, broad-based courses, rather than just the narrow vocational ones demanded by employers. All subjects in the re-badged Destination College, as of 1 January 2025, would be taught as four-week intensive blocks. This block method means even more onerous workloads for teachers and coordinators, with all assessment and marking to be completed in just one month. This would also further erode the quality of the courses for students, making effective feedback impossible. Yet, as WSU College and WSU educators know, the WSU College plays a vital part in helping to prepare students, often from working-class immigrant backgrounds, for university study. As its first task, the WSU-RFC is organising an information and publicity campaign, including posters, leaflets and social media, throughout WSU, other universities and working-class communities in western Sydney, to call for a wider movement to defeat the restructuring and job cuts. As yet, most WSU staff and students, and even WSU College students and their families, know little or nothing about managements deep-going attack on jobs and the rights of students to a decent education. Members of the rank-and-file committee have faced repeated moves by the leaders of the main campus trade union, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), to block a unified campaign against managements change proposal. The WSU-RFC founding statement, adopted in principle by Wednesdays meeting, states: We are determined to fight for the defence of all jobs and conditions, against National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) efforts to isolate the WSU College workers. Virtually no staff members or students at WSU even know about the pro-business restructuring of the college, except for the campaigns conducted by us! In fact, the union is trying to help impose the job losses and stifle resistance by encouraging staff members to apply for redundancy packages. It is pitting people against one another by urging its members to start individual cases with the NTEU, and by refusing to defend non-NTEU members. The majority of educators at the College are not NTEU members because they have no confidence in the union bureaucracy as a result of its previous betrayals. If there is going to be a fight to inform, alert and win the support of staff and students at WSU and across the education sector, it will have to come from us, not the NTEU. The NTEU is partnering in the restructuring as per its 2022 enterprise agreement with WSU management, in which it pledged to assist the College to remain competitive in the market, which meant the College may need to change its structure, operations, and priorities to meet business requirements. Unless the carve-up of WSU College is defeated it will set a precedent throughout the tertiary education sector, where up to 22,000 jobs are threatened by next year as a result of the Labor governments moves to slash international student enrolments, making these students scapegoats for the worsening cost-of-living and housing crisis. Enrolments have fallen at WSU College because the Albanese government is continuing to starve the public universities of funding, forcing them all to scramble for enrolments, including by offering students vocational micro courses and alternative pathways into degree programs. This financial squeeze is being intensified by Labors pro-business Universities Accord agenda. The Accord demands the restructuring of universities to satisfy the vocational and research requirements of big business and military preparations, such as the AUKUS pact, for a US-led war against China. The WSU-RFC statement explains: With this committee, rank-and-file staff and students can take the struggle against this agenda into our own hands, democratically formulate demands and work together to organise the necessary actions. We will reach out to university staff and other workers across the country and throughout the world who are facing similar attacks. We will also welcome students to join the committee as their interests are directly affected in the fight for decent education. The initial demands proposed by the WSU-RFC include: the scrapping of WSUs change plan restructuring the retention of all jobs, with no loss of pay or conditions no imposition of block teaching abolition of onerous workloads for all staff secure employment for all casualised and contract staff who want it academic freedom to research, speak and write without management, government or corporate censorship free first-class education for all students instead of channelling billions of dollars into AUKUS and other preparations for US-led wars We appeal to all WSU staff and students, whether union members or not, who agree with us to join our campaign and participate in the work of the committee. To do so, please contact the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the rank-and-file educators network: Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/commforpubliceducation Twitter: @CFPE_Australia Advance notice: Public meeting WSU Rank-and-File Committee STOP THE WSU COLLEGE CUTS! Wednesday, July 31 - 7 p.m. on Zoom Click here to register Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham pulled the plug on a strike by 1,500 steel workers due to begin at the start of this week on July 8. Action had been planned against Tata Steel UKs plans to cut 2,800 jobs at the plants in Port Talbot and Llanwern, South Wales, announced last September. Unite had withdrawn from talks with the company and union members were working to rule with an overtime ban from June 17 and an all-out indefinite strike to follow. Tata Steel works at Port Talbot [Photo by Phil Beard / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 In a bid to halt the strike voted for in mid-April, Tata waged a vicious offensive, threatening legal action and carrying out mass intimidation. In early June, workers were summoned to a meeting by management at the Port Talbot plant and forced to sign forms regarding whether they would be taking part in the strike. Tata also gave notice it would speed up its implementation of mass redundancies, claiming it could no longer assure the supply of sufficient resources to the blast furnaces needed for safe and stable operations. It announced steps to close both furnaces in early July, having originally planned to close one by the end of June and the second by late September. They will be replaced with electric arc furnaces, with the help of a 500 million subsidy agreed by the Tory government, with far lower labour requirements. After being handed a historic vote, as Graham described the strike mandate, the militant posturing of the Unite Secretary has once again proved a fraud. Asked about the imminent closures on June 30, Graham told BBC Wales: They suspend closure, we suspend action. The very next day, not only was the planned strike cancelled, but the overtime ban too. Announcing new talks with the company, Graham told the press it was essential they progress swiftly and in good faith with the focus on fresh investment and ensuring the long-term continuation of steel making in south Wales. This was a smokescreen for Tata, who confirmed on July 2 they had begun the process of winding down one of the two furnaces in Port Talbot. It has since come to light that Unite called off the strike at the prompting of Labours Jonathan Reynolds, then shadow business secretary, who spoke with the union officials on June 27, according to the Financial Times. Talks between Reynolds, the Welsh government and the unions Unite, the GMB and Community were aimed at smothering steelworkers resistance to the jobs massacre with the promise of a more favourable settlement under a Labour government. A central role was played by Socialist Party member and Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab, quoted by the FT. We have asked that Tata does not make any irreversible changes before the election, he said. The leaders of the Community and GMB unions had already fallen into line, having sat on strike mandates from their own members, insisting no action be taken before the elections, preventing what would have been the first strike in the UK steel industry for 40 years. Far from representing a militant alternative, Unite under Graham has followed suit. Reynolds, now the Labour governments business secretary, has said nothing more than that there is a better deal available at Tata, based on the additional 2.5 billion subsidy it has offered the company. Deflecting questions about job guarantees, he added this would only be part of a deal, while warning, Blast furnaces employ more people than some newer technologies available. In other words, workers must accept the loss of their livelihoods as a fait accompli while the company receives further state hand-outs. At best, this means a more attritional approach to the job losses and a delay of the closure of the second blast furnace, allowing the job cuts to proceed behind the fig leaf of voluntary redundancy while the union bureaucracy divides and stifles workers action. The company has announced a process for voluntary redundancy applications up to August 7. The only job security will be for the union bureaucrats and their high-salary posts. This is an example of the tripartite framework promised by Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer between the government, unions and corporations. The Unite general secretary is positioning herself for a seat at the top table. Graham described her high level meeting with Reynolds on Wednesday as extremely positive, adding, The commitment given to achieving a sustainable, profitable UK steel industry is very welcome In recent months, Unite has been fighting to save jobs at Tata and to revitalise the UK steel industry for the future of communities and for our national security. We are at a critical first stage, but the extra investment now secured and the change of attitude from this new Labour government could be game changers in making this happen. Unite leader Sharon Graham speaking at a Trades Union Congress rally in London on June 18, 2022 For all of Grahams finger-wagging at Starmer not to back Austerity Mark II and empty threats to withhold union funding if Labour does not stand up for workers, she and every section of the union bureaucracy agree with the Labour government on the need to maintain corporate profitability and competitiveness and British militarism. Graham has achieved notoriety among the rank-and-file for providing a cover for Starmers support for the genocide in Gaza. She has not only proscribed any industrial boycotts of UK arms production and supply to Israel but also blocked Unite participation in the national demonstrations against its genocide. This is in stark contrast to her full support for the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, alongside the Trades Union Congress, which backs a major nuclear rearmament programme. This support for war abroad is now coming home to roost with a war on the working class at home. By sabotaging any resistance against job losses at Tata Steel the unions are setting the template for their collaboration with the Labour government in a wider restructuring agenda demanded by the corporations. This includes Labours support for the take-over of Royal Mail by equity firm EP Group and for further privatisation of the National Health Service. It is Graham and the unions nationalist, pro-capitalist agenda which is suffocating the fight at Tata Steel UK. Parent company Tata Steel Limited is a transnational operating in over 100 countries and six continents with a 660,000-strong global workforce from which it derives its enormous profits, paying out 1.4 billion in dividends to its shareholders between 2019 and 2023. Defeating the company means mobilizing this massive international workforce against its owners. The installation of more energy efficient and less polluting electric arc furnaces is, from a scientific and environmental perspective, progressive. But from the social perspective of the working class the shift to a greener form of steel production is coming at their direct expense, paying in massive job losses and social devastation. Under capitalism, such technological advancements are used to increase workers exploitation and the private profits of the corporations. Every advance in production should instead bring about a reduction in the burden on workers and secure a future for working-class communities. This poses the need for workers control and social ownership of production. In opposition to the national interests invoked by the Labour government and the union bureaucracy to describe their line up with Tata Steel UK, the perspective which needs to be championed by steelworkers is that of a global counter-offensive across national borders as outlined in by the WSWS in the programme of demands put forward by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. On Wednesday, the ex-Maoist French daily Liberation revealed that top officials of President Emmanuel Macrons government have held repeated secret talks with the leadership of the far-right National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. These meetings took place in the private residence of Thierry Solere, a lobbyist linked to Frances two largest banks, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale. French President Emmanuel Macron, right, meets French far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader Marine Le Pen at the Elysee Palace on June 21, 2022 in Paris. [AP Photo/Ludovic Marin] This revelation comes amid an unprecedented political crisis in France after the inconclusive snap elections Macron called Sunday. Jean-Luc Melenchons New Popular Front (NFP) came in first, in front of Macrons Ensemble coalition, which suffered a devastating defeat, and the RN, which had been expected to carry the election after Macron called it on June 9 but fell into third place in the National Assembly. So far, no one has been able to form a government. The Macron-RN talks reported in Liberation show that the election, and Macrons entire presidency, have been conducted on fraudulent grounds. Macron is not carrying out a determined struggle against the neo-fascists, who are not determined defenders of French little people against the arrogant banker Macron. Ensemble and the RN are political representatives of the same ruling class, whose agents like Solere invite them for cordial conversations in luxury settings. This also exposes the bankruptcy of Melenchons NFP and its perspective of fighting the far right via an electoral alliance with Ensemble. Macron has rejected, to date, Melenchons entreaties to let the NFP try to form a government. More broadly, it is evident that, as during its collaboration with the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, the bourgeoisie supports police state rule and has ever more overt sympathies with far-right forces. Liberation revealed how leading figures in the Macron government, including a sitting defense minister and a former prime minister, met Le Pen and Bardella at Soleres house on Aumale Street in central Paris. Its article, titled The Secret Dinners of Macrons People with the RN, reported: Thus, in recent months, according to our sources, the two main leaders of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, were repeatedly invited to Aumale Street. They did not come at the same time, but they were sometimes in the presence of leading members of the presidential camp, like ex-Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and current Defense Minister Sebastian Lecornu, both very close to Solere. The normalization of the RN also needs such secret meetings to proceed. One such meeting, involving Bardella, took place on June 12, three days after Macron announced the snap elections in reaction to the neo-fascist surge in the European elections. The RN was at that time widely expected to carry the elections, even possibly winning an outright majority in the Assembly that would have allowed it to form the first far-right government in France since Philippe Petains Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime collapsed in 1944. Liberation cites as its sources anonymous residents of Aumale Street and the neighborhood who were surprised, and sometimes woken in the middle of the night, by large numbers of official vehicles and bodyguards in the politicians security detachments. They reported seeing Le Pen, Bardella, Philippe, Lecornu and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin leaving these meetings at Soleres residence. Confronted with the story, Solere and Lecornu initially gave Liberation identically-worded denials: Who is telling you these lies? Liberation concluded that the denials were likely lies rehearsed in advance. In its article, it asked: Was this a subject directly linked to a request by the head of state [Macron], that therefore had to remain secret, as befits a lobbyist [Solere] who describes his work as the presidents agenda. When BFM-TV asked Le Pen, about the reports however, she bluntly confirmed that she had met Philippe: You know, I meet all sorts of people, and its totally normal. It appears Edouard Philippe concluded that a strategy of lying denials was untenable. Invited on TF1 news to discuss the problem of the ungovernability of France, he told news anchor Gilles Bouleau he had indeed met Marine Le Pen at Soleres apartment: Yes, its true. We had dinner together because we dont know each other well. We had dinner, and we discovered during the dinner, which was cordial, that we have very profound differences on a very many topics. When Bouleau asked Philippe whether it was really necessary to have a cordial dinner with Le Pen to decide whether he has differences with a neo-fascist, Philippe could only reply: I love, love, love meeting people. Philippe changed the subject, and Bouleau, aware of what questions he could and could not ask, brought the interview to a close. Yesterday, Macron issued a statement to the French people on X/Twitter that he would leave a little bit of time to the different political factions in the National Assembly to decide what coalitions are the best for France. But behind closed doors, all factions of the capitalist establishmentopenly fascistic or supposedly democraticare conspiring behind the backs of the workers. Once some deal is reached, and Macron names a prime minister to try to form a government, this decision will clearly be the product of extensive discussion with the RN. Whatever government these forces put together, whether or not it includes a few figures tied to Melenchon, will be a dictatorship ruling against the people. It will bear not only the stamp of the banks, who demanded Macron impose his pension cuts last year in the face of overwhelming popular opposition and mass strikes. It also will pursue NATO military escalation against Russia which is opposed by nearly 90 percent of the population across Western Europe and the United States. The NFP, it must be stressed, does not oppose imperialist war or police state rule. Its own program includes a call to dispatch French troops to Ukraine for war with Russia, and to develop Frances military police and intelligence agencies. As Melenchon continues to appeal to Macron to name him prime minister, and makes no attempt to mobilize the millions of workers and youth who voted for him in struggle, he is simply providing cover for the fascistic maneuvers of the ruling class. The role of Solere in the Macron government-RN talks underscores in particular the decisive role of the most powerful sections of the capitalist aristocracy in placing both Macron and the neo-fascists at the centre of official French politics. Solere is also a member of the influential Le Siecle (The Century) discussion club, which gathers top figures from French finance, business, politics and media. It includes executives from BNP Paribas and Societe Generale banks, mega-billionaire Bernard Arnaults daughter Delphine, and billionaire arms magnate Serge Dassault. Political figures, beyond Solere, include Macron and former PS Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Among Le Siecles many media personalities one has Liberations former CEO Serge July and current editor Laurent Joffrin. Solere introduced to Macron many of the right-wing figures who would become top ministers of his government. This so-called Bellota Bellota gang, named after a Paris restaurant where they met to eat Spanish ham, included Edouard Philippe, Sebastien Lecornu and Gerald Darmanin. While Solere for a time grew more distant from Macron, he told Liberation last year: I link the President to figures as different as Marine Le Pen and [former Socialist Party (PS) presidential candidate] Arnaud Montebourg. These events underscore how, in the 21st century as in the 20th century, the only viable perspective for a struggle against the far right and war is the fight for socialism against capitalism, led by the working class. President Joe Biden speaks during a visit to AFL-CIO headquarters, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Washington, as AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, right, listens. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci] On Wednesday morning, before departing for talks at the NATO summit in Washington, President Biden visited the AFL-CIO headquarters for a pep rally with the union bureaucracy. The embattled 81-year-old is hated by workers and youth for his war policies, especially the genocide in Gaza, and his re-election campaign is in free fall. But the assembled union officials gave him a heros welcome and hailed him as their leader. In remarks delivered with characteristic stuttering, filled with absurd claims about the strength of the US economy, Biden made an unusually frank and lucid statement on the role of the bureaucracy in his class war policies. He said: We have two strong, strong organizations in America that I look to for our security. One is NATO, a joint assembly of democracies to make sure that were keeping the peace, and that no one is going to screw around with us, is as strong as its ever been. And I look at you as my domestic NATO. In reality, NATO is an imperialist alliance originally formed to counter the Soviet Union. Its members have been involved in decades of wars of conquest, including most recently the bombing of Serbia in the late 1990s, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s and the dismemberment of Libya in 2011. At this weeks summit, NATO is dropping all pretense that it is not at war with Russia in Ukraine, raising the danger of nuclear conflict. The union bureaucrats are no less the enemies of workers. Steeped for decades in nationalism and anti-communism, they have helped to enforce continuous mass layoffs, wage cuts and other attacks on workers. They are joined at the hip with the capitalist state. They have also long functioned as tools of American foreign policy through their involvement in CIA fronts, such as the AFL-CIOs Solidarity Center. Bidens comparison raises the obvious question: Against whom is this domestic NATO at war? Above all, it is the American working class, which is fed up with poverty and inequality and despises the whole political setup. The domestic NATO in America is mirrored in other NATO countries. The new Labour government in Britain and the Canadian Liberal government of Justin Trudeau both rely heavily on the support of the union apparatus. The German unions are involved in Concerted Action with the government and employers. This shows that Bidens policies rest on the social character and function of the union apparatus, not on the subjective qualities of the present bureaucrats in America. Biden, who styles himself as the most pro-union president in US history, is using the services of the bureaucracy to block strikes and impose layoffs. The White House has been involved in every major contract in the past four years. This includes the refinery workers contract in 2022, the railroad workers contract that same year where he intervened to ban a strike, the West Coast dockworkers and last year at UPS, which is now laying off thousands of workers. The United Auto Workers, traditionally the most politically important union in America, has especially close ties with the White House. Last year Biden openly backed the unions sellout of its phony stand-up strike, which has paved the way for thousands of job cuts. UAW President Shawn Fain is a key political ally of Biden. Fain is not just a principal surrogate for Bidens re-election campaign but a surrogate of his foreign policy. He has been appointed to the trade war Export Council and invited to summits with foreign dignitaries alongside billionaires and warmongers. Bidens use of the phrase domestic NATO underscores that the political establishment sees the war on the working class as a key theater of World War III, no less important than the subjugation and carve-up of rivals such as Russia and China. In his 2022 National Security Strategy, Biden boasted that his administration has broken down the dividing line between domestic and foreign policy. The whole of American society must be subordinated to war, and this requires the suppression of resistance in the working class. Over the past year, Biden has repeatedly invoked the Arsenal of Democracythe propaganda name for American military production during World War IIas the model for today. When accepting the UAWs endorsement at the start of the year, while bureaucrats ejected anti-genocide protesters, he declared workers had to build aircraft carriers and tanks like they did in the 1940s. Fain has since taken up this theme, wearing a sweatshirt with the phrase Arsenal of Democracy alongside an image of a B-24 bomber. The claim that US capitalism was fighting World War II for democracy was always false. In reality, it was fighting to become the world superpower, and in furtherance of this aim did not hesitate to use nuclear weapons, intern Japanese-American civilians, and commit other crimes against humanity. The so-called Arsenal of Democracy was imposed on workers through a no-strike pledge from the union bureaucrats and through the arrest of anti-war socialists. But the key difference between now and then is that US imperialism is not a rising power but in terminal decline. It is aligned with open neo-Nazis in Ukraine and is deeply involved in a second edition of the Holocaust, against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Instead of New Deal jobs programs, the US government is spearheading massive unemployment. American democracy is sliding towards fascism and dictatorship under the weight of intolerable levels of social inequality. Meanwhile, while the opportunist union bureaucrats of the 1940s retained some credibility for their association with strikes during the Great Depression, the bureaucracy today is hated by workers and totally reliant on support from the state and corporate management. The two pillars of Bidens corporatist alliance between the government and the union bureaucracy are both rotting on their feet. Whether or not he is the Democratic candidate in the fall, Bidens senility, as well as the fact that his opponent is the aging fascist Trump, expresses the advanced decay of American political institutions. The bureaucracy is totally implicated in this crisis. At the same time as questions emerged in ruling circles about Bidens candidacy, bombshell revelations confirmed that the Fain administration in the UAW is completely illegitimate. A court-appointed monitor is investigating corruption charges against Fain and the UAWs top leadership. Meanwhile, a federal judge recently ruled in favor of socialist autoworker Will Lehman in his lawsuit against the voter suppression, backed by the Department of Labor and the monitor, in the sham vote which brought Fain to power. In response, support is growing among autoworkers for new elections in the UAW, this time controlled by the rank and file, not the bureaucrats or their government friends. Workers should not underestimate the ruthlessness of the ruling class. But this crisis shows they are not all-powerful. Workers can and must intervene on the basis of an independent organization and strategy. This means the development of rank-and-file committees to prepare a rebellion to overthrow the union apparatus and transfer power to the workers themselves. The growing global network of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) testifies to the widening support for such a perspective. But above all, workers are confronted with a political struggle. The bureaucracy is an instrument of the ruling class, whose social interests are incompatible with the solution of any social problem workers confront. The working class must mobilize its immense social power against the capitalist system itself, which is the source of war and dictatorship, and replace it with a workers government. The IWA-RFC is co-sponsoring the July 24 rally called by the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party to oppose the genocide in Gaza. The demonstration will coincide with and denounce Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address to Congress. The purpose of the rally is to elaborate the socialist strategy for the working class to put a stop to genocide and imperialist war. The development of a rank-and-file rebellion against Bidens domestic NATO is a necessary component of this fight. We call on all workers to register to attend and to sign up to get involved. Unionized workers at Samsung Electronics in South Korea launched a strike on Monday to demand improved pay and other benefits following several months of negotiations with the company. Initially meant to last only three days, the union declared an indefinite general strike on Wednesday. The strike is significant as it is the first official walk-out at the company since its establishment in 1969. Samsung Electronics' Seocho building in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, July 5, 2024. Union members at Samsung Electronics began an indefinite strike Wednesday, July 10 for higher pays and other benefits [AP Photo/(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man] The striking workers belong to the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), which is affiliated with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU). Samsung Electronics is the flagship company of the Samsung Group, one of the massive family-controlled conglomerates in South Korea known as chaebol. The NSEU is requesting a 5.6 percent pay increase, implementation of promised paid leave and compensation for lost pay during the strike. It is also requesting transparent guidelines to explain the companys bonus system, which is connected to Samsungs operating profits. Currently, the company can claim a division produced no profits to deny paying bonuses regardless of how much labor workers actually performed. Like at other major companies in South Korea, bonuses make up a significant portion of workers wages, meaning that withholding bonuses is akin to a wage cut. This is exactly what happened last year when workers from Samsung Electronics semiconductor manufacturing division, Device Solutions (DS), did not receive bonuses after the company claimed DS posted a 15 trillion won ($US11 billion) operating loss due to weakening demand despite being a cash cow for Samsung in previous years. This led to a large influx of DS workers into the NSEU. Workers first protested on June 7 in what has been described as a strike by the union and the press. Rather than being a genuine strike, the union had workers use their vacation leave to take the day off. Only a limited number of workers participated, though the union did not state how many. The NSEU then began the three-day strike on July 8. Prior to that, the union stated: Management is fully responsible for the entire business loss incurred from the walkout due to the insincere attitude shown through the negotiations. It had planned another five-day strike to begin on July 15. However, the union changed its plans to begin the current indefinite strike, stating the company refused to engage in any negotiations during the first walk-out. Samsung claimed that there were no disruptions to its operations after the first three days of the walk-out. We plan to thoroughly prepare to ensure that production is not disrupted. We will continue efforts to resume dialogue with the union, a company official said. Samsung stated that it is considering hiring scab labor if the strike continues. The NSEU is the largest union at Samsung Electronics with 30,657 members. This is approximately a quarter of the total workforce at the company, which employs 124,804 people. However, according to the union, only 6,540 workers are taking part in the strike, most of them from the DS division. In addition to the NSEU, Samsung Electronics has four other unions. Last August, the NSEU was designated as the representative bargaining organization, meaning that whatever deal the union reaches with the company will be used as the basis for agreements with the other unions. This status is set to expire next month. That large numbers of semiconductor production workers are involved in the strike is significant. Not only are the chips used in devices such as smartphones, but they are also used in the production of military hardware. Samsung is considered an important player in US imperialisms efforts to secure supply chains outside of China in preparation for war. Underscoring this, US President Biden made the Samsung semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek his first stop during a trip to South Korea in 2022. Samsung workers are therefore placed in a position where they can significantly undermine Washingtons war against Russia in Ukraine as well as the war drive against China, both of which are supported by the right-wing Yoon Suk-yeol government in Seoul and threaten to explode into a catastrophic global conflict. However, like their union counterparts around the world, the perspective of the NSEU is to keep the struggle confined to Samsung Electronics, isolated even from other workers within the Samsung Group, let alone workers nationally and internationally who face the same repressive conditions and danger of war caused by capitalism. The union, in fact, fully accepts Samsungs exploitation of workers, so long as the company allows the conditions for the NSEU to better sell that exploitation to the workforce. The union has called on the company to pay appropriate bonuses, stating, If all the workers work with passion, Samsung has the potential to combat all the challenges it faces from competition in the global semiconductor market. This includes competitors nationally like SK hynix and internationally from the leading Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). This means pitting workers against one another in a race to the bottom. The NSEU has already lowered its pay increase request to conform to Samsungs demands. The 5.6 percent it is calling for now is down from the 6.5 percent the union was asking for in recent months. This itself was already a decrease from 8.1 percent it was calling for publicly when negotiations first broke down in February. At the same time, Samsung Electronics is currently enjoying a huge boost in income. In the first quarter of this year, the company took in 1.91 trillion won ($US1.4 billion) in operating profits. On July 5, the company announced that its second quarter operating profits had grown by 1,452.2 percent over the previous year, reaching 10.4 trillion won ($US7.6 billion). The companys operating profits are expected to grow an additional 400 percent on-year in the third quarter. None of the unions in South Korea will wage a struggle against Samsung, any other company, or the government. The NSEUs parent body, the FKTU, is the more openly pro-company organization of the two major union groupings in South Korea. The other is the so-called militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The NSEU reached out to the KCTU during the current walk-out to engage with so-called strike trainers. The KCTU, however, is not looking to expand the strike or break workers from the yellow FKTU. The KCTU has a long history of betraying workers struggles, including the cargo truckers strike at the end of 2022 that had a significant impact on big business. Instead, the KCTU, which backs the Democratic Party, hopes to expand its own ranks of dues-paying members and therefore its coffers. Samsung ended its no union policy in 2020 precisely because it knew it had nothing to fear from either the FKTU or the KCTU. The company also came under pressure from the then-government of Democrat Moon Jae-in. Rather than being on the side of the workers, Moon and the Democrats relied on the unions to suppress the class struggle, particularly after the mass protests in 2016 and 2017 that forced President Park Geun-hye from office as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep workers on the job so as not to impact the profits of big business. As workers conditions continue to come under attack from the bourgeoisie and the danger of war spreading from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific looms, the ruling class will rely ever great on the unions to keep workers bound to the capitalist system. The decisions taken as the NATO summit in Washington closed Thursday show the NATO imperialist powers are planning direct military intervention against nuclear-armed Russia. The day before, the NATO alliance had announced the creation of an office in Ukraine and of a NATO command in Germany to coordinate the war offensive against Russia. The new Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) on display during Operation Thunderbolt Strike at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, March 3, 2023 [Photo: US Army] The NATO powers pledged this week $40 billion more in military spending for the Ukrainian regime and that they would eventually let Ukraine into the 75-year-old military alliance. Most provocatively, Washington and Berlin agreed to station long-range guided missiles aimed at Russia in Germany. A joint declaration by the US and German governments states: The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future. When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe. The NATO countries, having overseen missile strikes from Ukraine on Russian civilians in Belgorod and Sevastopol, are now creating conditions to launch missile strikes on almost all of Russias major population centers. Tomahawk cruise missiles, with a range of over 2000 kilometers, can strike deep into Russia. The shortest distance between Berlin and Moscow is just under 1,600 kilometers. The Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) has a range of 1,725 miles (2,776 kilometers) and can evade missile defense systems. According to the US Army, this land-based, truck-launched system is armed with hypersonic missiles capable of traveling well over 3,800 miles per hour. They can reach the upper edge of the Earths atmosphere and remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are operational, at which point it is too late to respond. LRHWs deployed in Germany could not only hit Russias largest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. They could also reach Russian cities deep inside Eurasia such as Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm, Ufa, Saratov, and large parts of western Kazakhstan. The major European Union (EU) powers are also planning to develop long-range strike capabilities to target Russian cities. Yesterday in Washington, the defense ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Poland signed a declaration of intent to develop their own long-range precision weapons. The aim of this decision, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) wrote, is to develop a land-based weapon with a range of significantly more than a thousand kilometers. It would be either a cruise missile or a ballistic missile, the latter also with supersonic speed. Such weapons, the FAZ added, could then be directed from Germany at Russian targets, and with a range of 2,000 kilometers also at Moscow. German imperialism, which committed genocidal crimes in its attempts to subjugate Russia in the two world wars of the 20th century, is once again at the forefront of the war escalation. Long-range missile systems are needed, social-democratic German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, to make it clear to a possible Russian aggressor that we are able and willing to defend ourselves. Pistorius threatened, Any strike against us will also be answeredand conventionally. Social-democratic German Chancellor Olaf Scholz boasted as the NATO summit began that Germany wants to take on even more responsibility for NATOs offensive against Russia. Germany is the largest country in Europe within the NATO alliance. This gives us a very special responsibility, Scholz claimed, adding that he could clearly and unequivocally say: we will, I will live up to this responsibility. Scholz repeatedly boasted about the 100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr that he initiated and the change of course to such massive support for our defense capability both this year and in all subsequent years. Germany, he said, will take on tasks that are important, especially with the brigade in Lithuania, in particular with the joint command in the Baltic Sea region in Rostock, especially by providing the rapidly available armed forces of 35,000 men and women next year to be able to guarantee the security tasks of our alliance. What Scholz calls security tasks is, in reality, threatening Russia with war and placing Europe and the world on a hair trigger, where NATO can launch missile strikes on Russia at a minutes notice. Indeed, the final declaration of the Washington summit made clear that it is preparing for war not only with Russia, but with Russias great-power allies across Eurasia. Russia remains the greatest and most immediate threat to the security of our allies, it states, accusing Russia of having shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and gravely undermined global security. The NATO powers, it adds, are determined to constrain and contest Russias aggressive actions and to counter its ability to conduct destabilising activities towards NATO and Allies. These are lies. Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine was reactionary, but it is NATO, not Russia, that plays the most aggressive role in the war. NATOs population outweighs Russias by 900 million to 144 million, and has 3.3 million active-duty soldiers against 1.3 million for Russia. NATO countries have marched their troops up to Russias borders, not the other way around, and now NATO is bombing and threatening to bomb Russian cities. After decades of unpopular wars of aggression in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, the NATO imperialist powers are planning a further, global escalation of war to subjugate Russia and prepare for war against China. The NATO declaration is silent on the NATO-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, instead threatening Iran, North Korea and above all China for keeping ties with Russia. It states: The PRC [Peoples Republic of China] has become a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine through its so-called no limits partnership and its large-scale support for Russias defence industrial base. The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation. NATOs move to threaten Russian cities with missile strikes and also threaten China must be taken as a warning: they are setting into motion a conflict in which workers and youth in the NATO countries themselves would also suffer catastrophic casualties. Russian officials responded by condemning the Washington summit and threatening military countermeasures. Tensions on the European continent are escalating, warned Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Russia sees NATOs decisions to set up separate logistics centers in cities on the Black Sea, the opening of additional facilities in Europe, he continued, calling it a very serious threat to the national security of our country [requiring] thoughtful, coordinated and effective responses to deter and counter NATO. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov pledged to first of all develop a military response to this new game, the Interfax news agency reported. This response exposes the bankruptcy of the corrupt Russian capitalist regime established by Stalinisms dissolution of the Soviet Union. A military response to NATOs threatsdevising plans so Russian missile forces can rapidly bomb Berlin, London, Paris, Rome and Madridonly brings the world one step closer to a catastrophic nuclear conflagration. The only progressive solution to the warmongering of NATO is the mobilization of the mass opposition to imperialist war in the working class in an international, socialist anti-war movement. By Takuya Karube, KYODO NEWS - Jul 12, 2024 - 11:05 | All, World, Japan NATO and its four Indo-Pacific partners -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea -- agreed Thursday to launch what they call "flagship projects" in four areas, including cyber defense and countering disinformation, to broaden practical cooperation in the face of more complex and interrelated security challenges. The two other new joint initiatives they agreed on during a NATO summit in Washington involve providing medical assistance to Ukraine and collaborating on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, according to officials. With nondemocratic countries such as China, North Korea and Russia seen as major destabilizing factors in both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in his speech that Tokyo will work even more closely with NATO members and the three other regional partners. At a session with NATO and the partners, Kishida invited them all to meet in Japan to discuss measures against disinformation at an event slated to be held by next spring, according to a Japanese official. Kishida was quoted by the official as telling the participants that Japan is committed to reinforcing a free and open international order based on the rule of law. The White House said NATO leaders and their counterparts from the four countries discussed "the increasing connectivity between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security," and that they expressed "grave concern" over North Korea's deepening military and economic cooperation with Russia. A day after China was denounced as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war against Ukraine in a declaration approved by all NATO members, the White House said the leaders discussed their shared worries over Beijing's support for Moscow's defense industrial base. Describing the three-day summit from Tuesday as a "great success," Biden said at a press conference that NATO and its like-minded partners have to make sure that Chinese President Xi Jinping "understands there is a price to pay for undercutting both the Pacific basin as well as Europe." Through U.S. leadership efforts, NATO has increasingly acknowledged since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine over two years ago that developments in Asia can directly affect its own security. China's transfer of microelectronics and other dual-use materials to Russia is believed to be revitalizing Moscow's offensive in Ukraine. The transatlantic alliance, which this year marked the 75th anniversary of its foundation, has been stepping up its relationship with the four countries particularly since 2022, when for the first time it identified China as posing "systematic challenges" in a document laying out its priorities for the next decade. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea do not belong to NATO, the world's largest military alliance, officially called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But the group, which now has 32 members, has invited them to its summit every year since the 2022 gathering in Madrid. Attending for the third straight year, Kishida also held one-on-one talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Kishida told him that Japan will strengthen its coordination with NATO to share confidential information and promote cooperation in various areas, including outer space, cybersecurity and joint naval exercises, based on their bilateral agreement. According to the official, Japan and NATO are planning to carry out a joint training exercise in waters in the Euro-Atlantic region later this year. Ahead of the talks with NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners, Kishida also took part in a meeting of the four countries, collectively known as the IP4, and discussed similar issues, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. The meeting was later joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked the partners and said that support from the Indo-Pacific region has become even more important for Ukraine, the ministry said. Related coverage: Japan, South Korea leaders agree North Korea-Russia ties as serious threat NATO leaders call China "decisive enabler" of Russia's war on Ukraine U.S. envoy hails tighter NATO, Indo-Pacific ties amid China rise KYODO NEWS - Jul 12, 2024 - 19:24 | All, Japan Japan stressed the need for caution over North Korea's efforts in enhancing its nuclear and missile capabilities and the heightened tensions between China and Taiwan in an annual defense report released Friday. The Defense Ministry's 2024 white paper, summarizing the country's defense activities and security challenges, also expressed concern over deepening military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow. On North Korea, the report noted that since 2023, its military buildup has been marked by the enhancement of its nuclear and missile capabilities, including the diversification of missile platforms and improvements in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities. The document cited the country's launches of solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles and its moves to put multiple spy satellites into orbit using ballistic missile technology as examples of recent developments in its military buildup. Its military activities pose an "even more grave and imminent threat than ever before" to Japan's security, the paper said, mirroring the wording in the previous year's edition to describe the situation. In recent years, North Korea has repeatedly test-fired ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, though there has not been a nuclear test since 2017. "A symbolic move by North Korea last year was the progress in the solidification of missile fuel, which we believe is aimed at making it harder to detect prelaunch preparations and shortening the time required for them," a Defense Ministry official said. In November last year, Pyongyang claimed to have successfully launched a military spy satellite following two failed attempts earlier that year. The report said the satellite entered Earth's orbit but what functions it serves is "still under analysis." North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to launch three more satellites this year, the country's state media has reported. Based on intelligence jointly gathered and analyzed with the United States and South Korea, the Defense Ministry concluded that Russia used North Korean ballistic missiles in its attacks on Ukraine "between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024." Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim concluded a comprehensive strategic partnership pact during their meeting in Pyongyang. It stipulates a mutual assistance obligation between the two countries in the event of aggression against either. North Korea could be seeking Russian petroleum and military technology in return for its alleged weapons and ammunition supplies for Moscow. Regarding China, the report described it as an "unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge" and noted that the military balance between China and Taiwan is "rapidly tilting in China's favor," consistent with the wording used in last year's white paper. The paper said the cross-strait tensions could heighten given intensifying Chinese military activities, including large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan in May following Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's inauguration. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian expressed Friday Beijing's "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition" to the white paper, saying that it "gravely interferes" in the country's internal affairs and "hypes up the China threat narrative over and over again, stoking tensions in the region." China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949 due to a civil war. Communist-ruled China views the democratic island as a breakaway province that will eventually be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary. The Japanese ministry pledged efforts in a newly added section to efficiently build and manage defense capabilities to make a case for planned sharp increases in defense budgets. The Chinese spokesman criticized Tokyo's expansion of its defense budget, saying it has "triggered strong concern from the world," and urged Japan to "deeply reflect on its history of aggression" and "earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and wider international community through concrete actions." Related coverage: NATO, Indo-Pacific leaders agree to cooperate more on mutual concerns Japan destroyer sailed into China territorial waters despite warnings Japan's unused defense budget in FY 2023 totals 130 billion yen Barron Trump smiled and waved his fist in the air at his first-ever appearance during one of his father's campaign rallies. Thats the first time hes done it. Thats the first time, right? Donald said of his youngest son during the July 9 rally in Miami. The 18-year old Barron Trump is the youngest of former President Donald Trump's children and the only child with wife Melania Trump. "He's now going to college, got into every college he wanted to," Donald Trump said during the rally. "He made his choice and he is a very good guy." After a standing ovation during the rally, Donald Trump joked Youre pretty popular, he might be more popular than Don and Eric, we gotta talk about this." (Don and Eric are Barron's older brothers.) Barron Trump graduated from Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach on May 17 and according to his father, is now ready for his next step to college. What college Barron Trump will attend in the fall has not yet been disclosed, but college move-in dates are looming close. Barron Trump's father and four older siblings are all tied to University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University, while their is also some speculation over New York University. Here is what we know. Will Barron Trump attend UPenn or Georgetown? Donald Trump Jr., the oldest of Trump's children, followed in his father's footsteps and also graduated UPenn's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 2000 with a bachelor's degree in economics. Ivanka Trump, Trump's oldest daughter also graduated from UPenn's Wharton School of Business at UPenn in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in economics, although she spent her first two years of college at McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Tiffany Trump, Trump's daughter also attended and graduated from UPenn in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in sociology. In 2020 she graduated from Georgetown Law School. Eric Trump, Trump's son, graduated from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in 2006, with a bachelor's degree in finance and management. University of Pennsylvania's freshman move-in dates for fall of 2024 are between Aug. 19 through Aug. 25 with first day of classes falling on Tuesday Aug. 27. Georgetown University's move in date for first year students is between Aug. 22 through Aug. 23. Will Barron Trump attend NYU? Speculation has surrounded New York University, Manhattan Campus, given it is not far from where Barron Trump lived and grew up during his childhood. He and his mother, Melania Trump moved to the White House shortly after his father won the election in 2016. NYU's freshman move-in period is between Aug. 24 through Aug. 31, with classes beginning on Sept. 3. This article originally appeared on USATNetwork: Where is Barron Trump going to college? Move-in day is coming Few stock characters in contemporary film and literary discourse come with more baked-in connotations than the white missionary who sails to a remote island with the hopes of convincing its Indigenous people to abandon their own religions. Years of colonization and violence have understandably prompted many to view missionary work as ill-advised at best and fundamentally evil at worst. So when Thomas Munro (Guy Pearce) lands on the shores of 19th century New Zealand to preach to the native Maori tribes, its a given that viewers will approach him with their own baggage and preconceived notions. The Convert director Lee Tamahori certainly knows that, and revels in gradually subverting expectations about his protagonist as he asks larger questions about humanitys ability to transcend violence and prejudice. Unlike many religious zealots who find themselves whisked off to far away lands by their faith, Thomas isnt quite convinced that hes on a mission from God. A former soldier with his own violent past to reckon with, hes honest enough with himself to understand that the lay mission trip is more of an opportunity to build a new life than a spiritual quest. Any faith that he has in an actual higher power is secondary to his commitment to the principles for which he sees Christianity as a vehicle namely mercy, forgiveness, and human decency. The fact that his trip is being funded by British colonizers hoping religion will civilize the islanders complicates matters somewhat, but he isnt afraid to defy orders to follow his heart. More from IndieWire One of his first island encounters comes when he sees a band of Maori warriors preparing to slaughter their enemies from a rival tribe. He begs them to spare their victims lives, offering up his sole valuable possession, his horse, as part of a morbid trade. The chief determines that one horse is worth one human life, so he spares a young girl named Rangimai (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne) and leaves her in Thomas care. As Thomas tries to nurse Rangimai back to health while immersing himself in the islands culture, the missionary finds himself thrust into the uncomfortable role of shuttle diplomat seeking to negotiate peace between warring factions. In addition to the deep feud between the two Maori tribes, theres the additional tension created by white settlers who are looking to recreate a European economic system on the island with little interest in including the people who were there first. As tensions rise, Thomas finds himself in a crisis not of faith, but of cultures. Forced to choose a side for what could be the final act of his complicated life, he wonders whether theres a better option than the violence he has spent his life participating in. The Convert is almost certainly the largest scale cinematic portrayal of pre-colonial New Zealand, in all of its violence and ecological majesty, to date. Financed in large part by New Zealands Premium Production Fund as a means of bringing the nations artists back to work after the pandemic, the films impressive craftsmanship reflects that crews commitment to accurately recreating their own history and the resources that the project was afforded. Cinematographer Ginny Loane stunningly frames the island landscapes in richly textured shots that invoke cinematic epics of yesteryear by highlighting the nations shimmering oceans and untamed jungles in ways that show both their beauty and ability to mask danger. The Maori costumes, weapons, and ships are designed and built with an attention to detail that ensures the film always feels like a living, breathing tapestry rather than a dusty piece of homework. In terms of production value, The Convert is on par with many of the centurys great period epics and the creative teams personal connection to Maori history adds a layer of authenticity that distinguishes it from many of its counterparts. Existing at the intersection of the specific and the universal, The Convert manages to combine an entertaining portrayal of an often ignored historical era with universal questions about whether its ever possible to build a human society on the foundation of something other than violence. The films optimism can only carry it so far before it runs into unchangeable historical realities, but we could all stand to listen to Tamahoris call to keep an open mind about our specific positions without compromising our deeper principles. Even in seemingly clear-cut situations, you never know whether youll be the converter or the converted. Grade: B+ A Magnet Releasing release, The Convert opens in theaters on Friday, July 12. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Theres a little bit of Kansas in The Beach Boys California DNA. Emily Glee Wilson Love, mother of founding group member Mike Love, was born in Kansas and moved to California before she started school, he said in a phone interview. When the group played the Kansas State Fair in 2018, I had distant relatives show up, because my mom was born in Hutchinson. I met a lot of her brothers and sisters, but they moved from Hutchinson when my mother was 4 or 5 years old. When reminded that The Cotillion in Wichita, where The Beach Boys play next week, is not too far from Hutch, he responded, They probably will show up. The Beach Boys are currently on their Endless Summer Gold Tour, with the band drawing capacity crowds at amphitheaters in Chicago, Indianapolis and Minneapolis during the Fourth of July weekend. But the tour also includes smaller venues, such as The Cotillion. The intimacy of it is really nice, and if youre in a big amphitheater setting, youre probably not wanting to do more of the intimate songs, Love said. Well do Surfer Girl and well do In My Room, (at the outdoor dates) and weve been doing Warmth of the Sun with a trailer for the documentary. The eponymous documentary about the band, its first authorized endeavor, began streaming in May on Disney+. Its really the first definitive documentary weve done, Love said. The neat thing is that even though a couple of the guys arent with us anymore, sadly, everybodys contribution is recognized and appreciated and portrayed in the documentary. It really was a family affair. All of the living members of the group gathered for a premiere of the documentary in Hollywood. It was interesting seeing it, because theres some footage thats never been seen before, and the families contributed different things, Love said. (Filmmaker)Frank Marshall got a hold of it and really made it something special. Love was especially touched by the final scene, when Beach Boys stalwarts Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston and Al Jardine joined him at Paradise Cove, where the groups debut album cover was shot in 1961. Thats kind of a miracle in itself, he said. Brian was remembering stuff that happened in our high school years that I had forgotten about, his memory is that good. Brian Wilson, the songwriter behind many Beach Boys classics, was diagnosed with dementia in February. Physically hes not in great shape, Love said, noting Wilson is mostly in a walker or a wheelchair. Its a drag to see him in that shape, because honest to God when he was a teenager, he could throw a ball as far as Tom Brady could, 70 yards easy, such great upper body strength. Love dedicates the Beach Boys song Warmth of the Sun, which the two wrote the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, to his cousin during the current concert tour. The concerts on the Fourth of July weekend featured actor John Stamos best known for Full House but who has occasionally performed with the band since the mid-1980s sitting in on drums. Love said he was uncertain whether Stamos would be on percussion in Wichita. Thats been really cool. People really love him, Love said. We get recognized for being on Full House by the kids. The young fans, Love said, energize the Beach Boys. The energy is the happiness and the intergenerational appreciation of our music, he said. You have children and their parents and grandparents and even great-grandparents. Its an amazing thing. Four generations will show up for our shows, depending on the venues. Love said he considers The Beach Boys as two different bands touring and recording especially since 1964 when Brian Wilson stopped touring and was briefly replaced by Glen Campbell before Johnston took over. To me, the live music thing has always been my favorite part of the music business, he said. Recording is necessary and all that, because its great when you can do a fantastic recording. At a time when debate is heated over whether an 81-year-old and a 78-year-old are too old to be president, the 83-year-old Love said theres no farewell tour in sight. The end would come probably when they read in the paper that Ive left the planet, he said. I dont have any expiration date that Im aware of. Im in great shape, meditate every day and have every day since December 67. He still takes the lead on songs including Surfin USA, Surfin Safari, Good Vibrations and Kokomo. Im able to do everything I was ever able to do musically, he said. THE BEACH BOYS When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 17 Where: The Cotillion, 11120 W. Kellogg Tickets: $59-$125, from thecotillion.com or 316-722-4201 KYODO NEWS - Jul 12, 2024 - 13:06 | All, Japan Japan's Defense Ministry said Friday it has disciplined 218 Self-Defense Forces members and senior bureaucrats in connection with a spate of issues including the mishandling of classified information, and eating and drinking in base cafeterias without paying. The individuals subject to disciplinary actions are also accused of abuse of power. Among them, 11 were dismissed, two were demoted, 83 were suspended, 14 received pay cuts and seven were given a formal reprimand. The others were just admonished or warned. With the scandals mainly affecting the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Adm. Ryo Sakai, chief of staff of the MSDF, will step down on July 19 to take responsibility. He will be replaced by Vice Adm. Akira Saito. Sakai himself was given a pay cut for failing to adequately control and supervise those serving under him, while others such as Vice Defense Minister Kazuo Masuda and Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of the ministry's Joint Staff, were also admonished. Speaking to reporters, Sakai said, "I think the root cause is the lack of compliance among the troops and governance ability within the organization." The revelations are fueling public concern about the ministry and the SDF at a time when Japan has been beefing up its defense capabilities by raising public spending amid increasingly severe security challenges posed by China, North Korea and Russia. Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at a press conference, "I am deeply conscious of my responsibility for betraying the public's faith." He apologized when announcing the disciplinary actions and promised to return his salary for a month as a Cabinet member. Meanwhile, Kihara, who took the current post in September 2023, denied he will resign as Japan's defense minister, pledging to "rebuild our organizations under my leadership to restore public trust" in the ministry and the SDF. Hours before the announcement, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologized for any concern caused among the public. After attending a NATO summit in Washington, he told reporters in the United States that he hopes Kihara will continue to fulfill his duties. Crew members on several MSDF destroyers allegedly shared sensitive classified information by tasking unqualified colleagues with recording vessel movements without confirming they have the authority to do so. Similar sloppy information handling has also been found in the ground and air self-defense forces, as well as the Joint Staff Office, which is responsible for integrating the operations of the three SDF branches. None of the state secrets in question are thought to have leaked outside the SDF and the ministry, Kihara said. Other MSDF members have been suspected of collecting allowances for diving training and duties they did not engage in, with the sum of the alleged benefit claims possibly totaling about 43 million yen ($270,000). The fraudulent practice is believed to have become common, involving dozens of MSDF members, and may have gone on from 2017 to 2022. In addition, more than 20 MSDF members and officials who were not entitled to free meals in cafeterias at SDF bases faced disciplinary action for not paying for their food. As for the abuse of power cases, three ministry officials at the director level or higher are accused of repeatedly making intimidating remarks to their subordinates and causing them psychological suffering. The behavior was discovered during or after the ministry's special investigation into various forms of harassment in all SDF units from September 2022 to August 2023 following a high-profile sexual abuse case involving former female GSDF member Rina Gonoi. Separately from the disciplined cases, the ministry decided last week to launch a special investigation into the alleged creation of slush funds by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. to provide money and goods to MSDF submarine crew via fictitious transactions with subcontractors. Related coverage: Senior defense officials, SDF members to be disciplined over scandals Japan MSDF members suspected of falsely receiving diving allowances Crew failure to keep lookout behind midair SDF chopper collision: ministry Sherri Papini's life drastically changed after she claimed to have been abducted only to get arrested for faking her own kidnapping. Before her legal drama, Sherri lived in Redding, California, with then-husband Keith Papini and their two kids: Tyler and Violet. Keith reported Sherri missing in November 2016 and the wide-spread search for the mother of two lasted for 22 days. After Sherri resurfaced three weeks later on Thanksgiving she claimed she was taken at gunpoint by two Hispanic women who held her hostage, beat her and branded her. The investigation didn't go far until authorities found a DNA match in 2020 that was linked to Sherris ex-boyfriend and ultimately resulted in Sherri being arrested in 2022 for orchestrating her abduction. She pleaded guilty to a federal judge later that year and was sentenced to 18 months in jail for committing mail fraud and lying to a federal officer about being kidnapped. "[I am] so sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me," Sherri said in a statement at the time about how "deeply ashamed" she was of her actions. "I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done." Where Sherri Papini Stands With Ex-Husband Keith, Her Kids and Other Loved Ones After Kidnapping Hoax Sherris scandal was the subject of Lifetime's 2023 movie Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini starring Jaime King. After serving her prison sentence, Sherri will break her silence in an upcoming docuseries with Investigation Discovery. Sherri's family and loved ones, however, have already offered glimpses into her life since the controversy in Hulus Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini and subsequent press interviews. Keep scrolling for everything to know about Sherri's new normal since being accused of faking her own kidnapping: Serving Her Time, Paying Her Fees After her arrest, Sherri was ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution for losses incurred by the California Victim Compensation Board, the Social Security Administration, the Shasta County Sheriffs Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Attorney's office filed a writ of garnishment against Sherri in March 2024. They claimed Sherri still owed more than $300,000 in restitution from the case. They cited $309,292.93 as the total with the addition of a 10 percent litigation surcharge, which brought her amount to $340,221.23. Prosecutors also filed a writ of garnishment against the law firm representing Sherri in her divorce from Keith. Sherri's attorney said she intends to pay the U.S. Attorney's office. "Sherri Papini appreciates the significance of her financial obligations to the Court and to the Government and will continue to meet said obligations as she has promised," her lawyer William Portanova told People. Nothing has changed." Celebrity Mugshots Where Does Sherri Papini Live? ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA Sherri was released from prison in August 2023. She subsequently entered a halfway house a.k.a a residential reentry facility in Sacramento County, California. Less than a year later, Sherri moved from the home to a residence in northern California and she remains on supervised release until late 2026. Sherri Papinis New Boyfriend Sherri and Keith had been married for seven years before her abduction. After her return, Keith stood by Sherri until the FBI told them she was a person of interest. Keith briefly separated from Sherri but they ultimately reconciled until she was officially charged. Days after Sherri entered a guilty plea to fraud charges, Keith filed for divorce and for sole custody of their children. Sherri has since found love with auto dealer Shawn Hibdon, whom she reportedly started dating before her prison stint. The couple were spotted packing on the PDA in June 2024 the same month Keith discussed where he and Sherri stand now. "No, I dont speak to her at all whatsoever," he told TV Insider. "I might see her in the court for our court stuff, but no, I dont talk to her." Her Relationship With the Kids Hulu According to Keith, his and Sherri's kids initially kept their distance from their mom after learning about the kidnapping hoax. Sherri is entitled to scheduled visitation with the children and has also remained in contact with them through phone calls. "Yeah, they speak to her on the phone once a month or every other week," Keith told TV Insider. "Shortly, itll be every week, so let me just say they speak to her every week, and they see her in a professionally supervised visitation once a month." TV Shows Inspired by True Crime: The Thing About Pam, The Act and More Her Plans for the Future Shasta County Sheriff's Office In a supervised visitation report obtained by People which was included in divorce-related documents between Sherri and Keith Sherri was asked by her kids what she did for work. "Well like this place [a supervised visitation center] is very helpful for families, well mommy is building a foundation to help places like this more. Mommy is making a business that will be a foundation to help people," Sherri said, according to notes kept by a monitor supervising her contact with her children. "Do you know what an author is? Mommys also an author now. Shes writing two books. I work lots of hours to write chapter books. So, when I tell you Im working remotely, that means Im at home writing chapters on my laptop. Sherry will also be addressing her legal issues for the first time through Investigation Discovery docuseries. Sherri Papini drew worldwide attention when she went missing and then again, when she returned. While many perspectives have been told, there is one point of view that the world hasnt heard and that is from Sherri herself," President of ID Jason Sarlanis said in a statement in June 2024. "Investigation Discovery will present a new side of Sherri Papinis case told by her in her own words. Jon Stewart says Biden is becoming 'Trumpian' by insisting only God can get him to drop out of the 2024 race Jon Stewart says Biden is becoming 'Trumpian' by insisting only God can get him to drop out of the 2024 race Jon Stewart said President Joe Biden's handling of calls to step aside has been almost "Trumpian." Stewart said Biden shouldn't be playing tough and cocky, but instead show voters how he can beat Trump. Biden has been facing mounting calls for him to drop out but has said that only God could compel him. "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart has criticized President Joe Biden's recent posture toward calls for the leader to step aside, saying the latter's defense is turning "Trumpian." Stewart, speaking in a Thursday episode of his podcast, said Biden's camp has been avoiding productive conversation and should be more forthcoming about the leader's strategy for winning the 2024 race and addressing doubts about his health. "Even if Joe Biden came out and said: 'Look, I understand where I'm at in my lifespan and cycle and what I do. Here's how this government works,'" Stewart said. "Rather than coming out and becoming Trumpian and saying: 'You think someone else could hold NATO together? They could never. Only God could tell me to get out of the race,'" Stewart continued. Stewart suggested that Biden shore up voter confidence by presenting key players in his team and a genuine plan to defeat former President Donald Trump whom the late-night show host and his podcast guests described as the "threat" to beat. "But we're not seeing any of that. Nothing that's been done inspires any confidence, other than the fatalism of: 'It is what it is,' and this is what we're stuck with," Stewart said. In recent weeks, Biden has come under scrutiny after a dismal showing in his first presidential debate of 2024 against Trump. The president appeared feeble as he stumbled over his words and made multiple confusing gaffes, fueling the common Trumpworld criticism that he is too old to govern. That debate performance, and a series of other flubs that followed, has shaken confidence in Biden among his supporters, including Democratic lawmakers. Two more Democratic House members on Thursday called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race after he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" and referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." As of Thursday evening, 16 House Democrats were urging Biden's withdrawal. In response to the criticism and speculation about his health, Biden has said that only God could compel him to drop out of the race. "If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that," he told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday. In the meantime, Biden's campaign sought to explain his debate failures due to a combination of a cold and jet lag from a trip two weeks prior. But calls for Biden to step aside are mounting. Hollywood star George Clooney wrote an opinion article for The New York Times earlier this week, saying he had seen Biden perform at the same level at a fundraiser three weeks before the debate. Meanwhile, Democratic stalwarts such as former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have been reported to be questioning Biden's bid for reelection behind the scenes. As for Stewart, the comedian has, since the debate, repeatedly aired his anxiety that Biden's perceived weakness may cost him the election dearly, leading to Trump's return to the White House. Representatives for Biden's campaign and Stewart did not immediately respond to requests for comments sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider "She Thought She Was Muted The Entire Time": 23 Of The Worst Work Screw-Ups Employees Have Made That Still Haunt Them To This Day Let's admit it: We all make work mistakes from time to time. My worst one was when I caused a chandelier to shatter at the clothing store I worked at it was truly the most embarrassing thing I've ever done. So when redditor u/Midtown-Fur asked the r/AskReddit community to share their own work blunders, tons of employees weighed in. Here are their worst and most embarrassing mistakes. 1."I drove a semi-truck full of mail from Providence to Boston with the trailer door open." u/shawnwarnerwrites Isaac Lee / Getty Images 2."I was giving a presentation to 300-plus people and rested my arm on top of the podium in a spot where there was a button that turned the entire system off it took about 10 minutes to reboot and get my presentation back up. Two minutes into talking again, I did it again." u/redmooncat15 3."I was 16, pushing grocery carts outside a grocery store. 'Lot attendant' was my title, and my job was to make sure chaos didn't break out in the parking lot. But I also had some other duties, like taking out trash, emptying ashtrays, and doing a few other little odd jobs around the store. One day, a woman taps me on the shoulder in the store and says, 'I'm sorry, but my kid just threw up over that display.' She points at this display of Entenmann's Snack Cakes that were freestanding in between some aisles. And I can see that this toddler had clearly projectile vomited all over it." "There was some on most of the boxes. I think to myself, 'I'll handle this.' So I scooped up all the boxes, took them out to the dumpster, and threw them all away. As I was dusting my hands off and congratulating myself on being so helpful, a manager asked, 'What did you just do?' And I said, 'I cleaned up a big mess; a kid threw up on everything.' He said, 'Yeah, but you can't just throw a whole display away. There's a process. Inventory. We have to report these losses.' I told him, 'I push shopping carts, man. I don't know anything about any of that.' He let out a long sigh and said, 'This isn't going to be fun for either of us.' Then he lowered me by my ankles back into the dumpster, and I had to fish out all the snack cake boxes covered in child vomit and then learn how to scan them through some kind of computer. In case you were wondering, I haven't eaten an Entenmann's Snack Cake since." u/DryTown Jeff Greenberg / Jeffrey Greenberg/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images 4."I was working for an investment manager. He gave me an order to sell $80,000 of Microsoft in a client account. I wasn't thinking and entered a sale of 80,000 shares. MSFT was selling at $100-plus per share at the time. I was crapping bricks as I got the brokerage firm's trading desk on the phone and waited on hold to hear if they could bust the trade. They did. Phew." u/MissSnuggelsxz 5."I cut grass on a zero-turn mower for like an hour before I realized I forgot to turn the blades on." u/Cvillain626 Marion_smith / Getty Images 6."I needed to cut a two-inch rubber hose. There wasn't a table nearby, so I put the hose on my knee and pushed the box cutter through the hose directly into my knee. Sometimes the brain just doesn't work." u/IcedT_NoLemon 7."I'm an assistant. During my second week on the job, I took my boss's $2000 personal computer to get repaired. When I was bringing it back to his house, I dropped it and cracked the screen. Thank god it was a small crack, and my boss is the most chill person on the planet. I genuinely thought I was going to get fired, but instead, he just happily started using it again and said it was no big deal since it still worked." u/CaptainFartHole Jldeines / Getty Images/iStockphoto 8."I accidentally deleted the entire project directory for my company, thinking I was deleting a folder called 'proposals.' We lost about two-thirds of the directory before I was able to cancel the deletion. The data was gone as the folder was too big to fit in the trashcan, so it permanently deleted files as it went along." u/Twinchad 9."I forgot to turn the sign to 'open.' My coworker found out after he came out, asked why the place was empty, and watched five people come to the door, stop, turn, and walk away. I was hungover and stood at the counter like a zombie for an hour and a half, having watched many people walk up and away. After that, my coworkers greeted me until I resigned with, 'Are we open?'" u/skummelgutt Peter Carruthers / Getty Images/iStockphoto 10."I put an adrenaline needle through my thumb. I was basically messing around with returned stock at a pharmacy while destroying old medication. Our old-fashioned pharmacist/owner would always prime the adrenaline injectors and stab them into the wall to get rid of the liquid before disposing of them. I stupidly tried doing this myself one day, but I squeezed the wrong end as I tried to prime it, and it ended up going right through my thumb and out the other side, popping through my nail. I felt like such an idiot. The needle wasn't actually used; it was just out-of-date stock that a patient had returned. I still think about what could have happened quite often, nearly 15 years later." u/ruobrah 11."Not me, but someone in another department was unmuted while taking a massive dump and loudly taking a personal call on her cell. All 265 people on the call could hear her answer the phone and start talking about whatever while hearing the distinct sound of pee followed by farts and plops. The CEO and the group directors all calmly (at first) told her to please mute before the panic started to set in. She thought she was muted the entire time. She couldn't hear people yelling at her because her volume was set low so that she could be on her own call. Almost five minutes into the call, we heard the toilet paper rolling in the dispenser. She went dead quiet and left the meeting a second later. This was also not a work-from-home position either." u/Sierra419 Violetastoimenova / Getty Images 12."Well, many years ago, while in my early days of military life, I was in charge of ordering supplies for my division. I was trying to order D batteries for Maglites. I wanted to order about 38 cases, which were 380 batteries. I misread how they came. I thought it was by individual battery, so I ordered 380 batteries. That was the first mistake. For the second mistake, I actually fat-fingered it and ordered 3800. To compound the error, the unit of issue was by the case. I ended up with 3,800 cases of D batteries while at sea on an aircraft carrier. It sucked so bad." u/hurtmore 13."I was filling a paint drum and left to use the bathroom, then proceeded to go on break. Midway through my snack, I realized and ran all the way back to paint everywhere." u/ResponsibilityNo4442 Mian Condro / Getty Images/iStockphoto 14."I work in payroll, so having $510k mistakes isn't uncommon. I was testing out a new warning/deduction code on a new account and had entered $5k as a test check and forgot to delete it before processing it to a terminated employee, who promptly emptied his bank account so we couldn't pull it back." u/Familiar_Cow_5501 15."I was on vacation, and my boss told me to push a script another employee wrote before he quit. I was at Disneyland and didn't bother looking at it; I just pushed it. Needless to say, the former employee locked all our computers, 25,000 of them. They tried to pin it on me, but in the end, my boss got in trouble for forcing me to work while I was on vacation and without any time to prepare." u/Kimchi_Cowboy Emilija Manevska / Getty Images 16."As a new manager trainee, I had to sit through death-by-'90s OSHA videos. It was all stuff I had seen before, and I was incredibly bored of it. At the end of the video, there was a random guy in our office I assumed was a customer, and I sarcastically said, 'Well, that was an hour. I'll never get back.' He goes, 'Did you not enjoy it?' I said, 'Yeah, I didn't at all, but like, I get it. Safety comes first, so it's necessary, but the videos are so common sense it hurts. Anyway, can I help you real quick? I have a meeting to get to; the big guy from the corporate merchandising team several states away is gonna be here in an hour or two.' He goes, 'I'm filling in for the big guy from corporate; I'm the North American safety director. Let's have a chat about your vision of safety at our workplace since you have that all figured out.'" u/FormerStuff 17."I took a new medicine at work that made me act like I was drunk as fuck; it was so embarrassing and dumb. I should've tried the new medicine at home first." u/Hunnidrackboy8 Trevor Williams / Getty Images 18."I am personally responsible for a US Navy warship losing all power and going completely dark in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, for almost a half hour. I am also responsible for flipping a switch that resulted in a mass murder of fish large enough that the local media covered the event and postulated the possible causes." u/Silver-Reserve-1482 19."Teams meeting, thought I was on mute. A person I dislike shows up a couple of minutes late, and I blurt out, 'Stupid ass finally decides to show up.'" u/theBerj Svetikd / Getty Images 20."Not me per se, but an attorney at a large NY law firm where I was a paralegal knew I was taking a trip to Amsterdam. I sent my out-of-office email to the litigation team, and he replied all with 'Pothead slacker.' He was gone the next day poor guy." u/sloppy-secundz 21."I practice criminal law. During a drink and drive trial, I was, for some reason, using the word 'circumscribed' during a question to a witness. However, without realizing it, what I actually said was 'circumcised.' Twice. On break, the court reporter asked me why I said what I'd said. I didn't believe her. She played it back for me. I'd said it." u/CanuckGinger Gorodenkoff / Getty Images 22."I spilled a Bloody Mary on the lap of a very rich American who had just told me he was on his way to Heathrow. He was wearing a cream linen suit. He told me his baggage had gone ahead, and he was having brunch and then heading to the airport. I don't think I've ever seen someone look at me with such anger in their eyes, before or since." u/Littlened 23."I delivered funeral flowers to a hospital room where the person was very much alive. I didn't realize it until I was about to deliver the get well soon flowers to the wake." u/neighborhooddisgrace Lightfieldstudios / Getty Images What's the worst mistake you've ever made at work? Tell us about it in the comments, or fill out this anonymous form! Shania Twain presented with a stunning handmade guitar in celebration of her musical legacy and Irish heritage Shania Twain has been presented with a bespoke guitar that celebrates her Irish heritage by EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. The unique instrument represents Twain's rich ancestry through intricate artwork by Irish illustrator David Rooney. The presentation of this guitar at Malahide Castle in the Republic of Ireland was in celebration of Twain playing to Irish audiences in Cork, Belfast, and Dublin last month. During the guitar presentation, Aileesh Carew, CEO of EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, highlighted Twain's importance for Ireland. Shania, you are a prime example of the global impact of Irish emigration, he said. We are proud to present this bespoke genealogy to you, told in a new and innovative way. Image 1 of 5 Shania Twain guitar detail Image 2 of 5 Shania Twain bespoke guitar detail Image 3 of 5 Shania Twain bespoke guitar detail Image 4 of 5 Shania Twain bespoke guitar detail Image 5 of 5 Shania Twain bespoke guitar detail The Telecaster-style guitar, handmade by Ukraine's Woodstock Guitars, was the result of Rooney's intensive search for the perfect guitar to host the artwork he had in mind. It was urgent. Salvation came at Everest Music, Bray just down the road from where I live, recounts Rooney in an interview with Hotpress. Hardly five minutes into a conversation with in-house luthier Mark Walsh, he pointed to a pale pink Tele-style guitar on the wall. Hand-made by Woodstock, in the Ukraine, and beautifully aged with a light relic finish and dull hardware, it seemed perfect. Furthermore, it played beautifully. Rooney then went on to use pyrography (an art technique for decorating wood with burn marks) to engrave several elements that represent Twain's family history. Shania Twain with her bespoke guitar This included the Triskele, an ancient Celtic symbol found at Newgrange, County Meath; Kilkenny Castle, symbolizing her ancestor Thomas Edwards, a soldier at Waterloo who became a military settler in Canada; and the salmon, representing Twains return to Ireland and wisdom in Irish mythology. In her 2011 autobiography, From This Moment On, Twain revealed her Irish heritage. She shared that she was named after her Irish grandmother, Eilleen Pearce, who was born in County Kildare and played a significant role in her upbringing. Koki as Young Miko and Palmi Kormakur as Young Kristofer Credit - Courtesy of Focus Features We make space in our brains for lots of things these days: Instagram influencers and TikTok stars, series binge-watching, obsessive attention to the news cycle. Sometimes, in that endless reshuffling of attention-grabbers, we lose sight of essential pleasures that have served humankind ably for centuries. When we look at the movie landscape, in particular, almost nobody sighs and says, I wish we had more romantic melodramas, because weve nearly forgotten theyre even a genre. With Touchadapted from the novel by Olaf OlafssonIcelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur gives us the thing we didnt know we wanted: a cross-cultural romance that spans decades, built around one mans search for a long-lost love. This is a movie of gentle but resonant pleasures; it slows the world down, a little, for the span of time youre watching it. And couldnt we all use a little of that these days? Veteran Icelandic actor Egill Olafsson plays Kristofer, an older man whos had what could reasonably be called a happy life: He's the owner of a seemingly successful seaside restaurant. His wife is now deceased, and theres every indication that theirs was a good marriage. He has a stepdaughter who calls frequently to check up on him. But hes recognizing that his time is limited, and theres something hes got to do. So he leaves his home in Iceland and travels first to London and then to Japan, in search of the womanor at least news of the womanwho slipped out of his life many years earlier. Egill Olafsson plays Kristofer in Touch Courtesy of Focus Features We see episodes from Kristofers past as he reflects on it: The younger Kristofer is played by Palmi Kormakur (the directors son), an earnest beanpole of a kid whos studying economics in 1970s London. He and his friends enjoy theoretical conversations about economic injustice; impulsively, Kristofer decides to quit school and join the proletariat. He charmingly if tentatively talks his way into a job washing dishes at a Japanese restaurantthe owner, Takahashi-san (Masahiro Motoki), takes a liking to him. Before long, Kristofer meets Takahashi-san's bright, intriguing daughter, Miko (Koki); hes a goner even before she surveys his face and tells him that he reminds her of John Lennon. It takes a while for their romance to bloomMiko already has a suitor, and other complications are gradually revealedbut once it does, there seems to be no separating them. Or so Kristofer believes, until one day Miko disappears. Read more: The 100 Best Movies of the Past 10 Decades In old age, with nothing left to lose, Kristofer sets out to find Miko; the trail goes cold more than once. But theres more to this story than the search for a lost lovebecause those stories are almost always mostly about the person whos doing the searching. Touch is also about all that Kristofer doesnt know about Miko and her father, circumstances that arent so much conventional secrets as bits of sorrowful history embedded in DNA. This is a love story where the ghosts of Hiroshima bear witness. Kristofer learns truths as an old man that he might not have been able to comprehend fully as a young one. Touch is about learning the necessary things at the right timeand sometimes even the last minute is the right time. Yet this is in no way a jarring picture, or one that seeks to punish us with harsh truths. Maybe, more broadly, its a story about how were all required to live in our own timememory offers only the briefest escape. As a director, Kormakur has made the loudest noisein the United States, at leastas a director of action or adventure films, among them Contraband (2012), 2 Guns (2013), Everest (2015), and Beast (2022). But hes just as skillful, and maybe even better, at this kind of filmmaking. He knows how to make the most of each setting. Iceland looks so mournfully beautiful you feel a little sad when Kristofer leaves it, but the London of the 1970s (and of the present day) holds just as much allure: Kristofer discovers that Takahashi-sans restaurant is now a tattoo parlor, but he embraces its new identity rather than treating it as a sacrilegious invasion. Palmi Kormakur as Young Kristofer and Koki as Young Miko in Touch Courtesy of Focus Features Kormakur and his cinematographer Bergsteinn Bjorgulfsson give a sense of the way, if were aware enough, glimmers of the past can permeate the present, as if shining through a translucent overlay. The mood of the film is wistful, a little sad, but ultimately quietly galvanizing, thanks in large part to the actors: Palmi Kormakur plays the young Kristofer as guileless but not clueless, feeling his way along as young people do. As the older Kristofer, Olafsson recaptures some of that uncertainty: hes an old man in surroundings that are no longer familiar, but he also realizes he has the chance to pick up the pieces of a mystery hes lived with his entire life. And as the older version of Miko, Yoko Narahashi has a kind of buoyant gravitasas if the burdens shes had to live with are lightened by the privilege and pleasure of just being able to breathe the air each day. Narahashi was also Kormakurs casting director on the film. As she was reading lines with various performers, he realized that she was the only one for the role. Touch is the kind of movie you get when a filmmaker thinks like that, on his feet and with his heartand in so doing, he makes us believe we can, too. Contact us at letters@time.com. Wisconsin's only Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop is opening in Milwaukee on Sunday Get ready for Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey and Phish Food to come to Milwaukee. Wisconsin's only Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop is opening in Milwaukee's Third Ward on Sunday, the day before the city is set to host the Republican National Convention nearby. (Don't worry, the shop is expected to remain open). The Scoop Shop, at 203 N. Broadway, will offer many of the Vermont-based ice cream giant's iconic and unique flavors. It will also serve non-dairy frozen desserts, sorbet, sundaes, shakes and cookie dough chunks. Root beer floats and hot chocolate will be on the menu as well. See the full menu here. Plus, it'll offer catering. The shop will have a capacity to cater large-scale events such as weddings, corporate functions and birthday parties. There are plans for a food truck as well. The shop, which originally planned to open in April, will "soft open" on July 14 at 5 p.m. before hosting a larger grand opening event at the end of August. Wisconsin's only Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop is opening in Milwaukee's Third Ward Illinois couple Tricia and Fred Rasmussen are co-owners. The self-described Ben & Jerry's fans began the process of becoming franchise owners about 18 months ago and will move to Milwaukee soon. "We are just ecstatic to be a part of the community and have our doors open," Fred Rasmussen said. They vow to use local products as much as possible, even down to the root beer in their floats. "We plan on reaching out and contacting Sprecher, so that it's a local product," he said. Currently, the closest Scoop Shop to Wisconsin is in Gurnee, Ill., at the Great Wolf Lodge. There are three other shops in the Chicago area, including one at Navy Pier. The couple's daughter recently graduated from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and they have been coming up to Milwaukee for years. Although they initially looked into different areas in Milwaukee, the Rasmussens ultimately settled on the Third Ward. To them, the place was "special." "We fell in love with the Third Ward when we'd come down here for dinner. ... Lots of energy, and the people are so kind," said Tricia. Fred said the couple selected the Third Ward because they'd "never seen a better community fit for a Ben & Jerry's." "The community has been extremely welcoming to us. It has super high foot traffic. ... We've heard that the Public Market is one of the most visited places in Wisconsin, and we're right down the street, with Summerfest and the Journeyman right across the street." Ben and Jerry's will open a shop in Milwaukee soon on 203 N. Broadway St. Fred, a school administrator, and Tricia, a retired kindergarten teacher, are also avid supporters of Ben & Jerry's progressive, social justice-centered mission and desire to get involved in the Milwaukee community. "That concept of paying it forward is something that is engrained in us," Fred said. "We would love to work with charities. We would love to work with Milwaukee Public Schools. We would love to engage in fundraising opportunities for social causes." Ben & Jerry's started in Vermont nearly 50 years ago Ben & Jerry's started in 1978, when Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened their first ice cream shop in Burlington, Vt., after taking a $5 course in ice cream making at Penn State, according to the official Ben & Jerry's website. The business started in a renovated gas station. The brand has become known for its support of progressive causes, including protesting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2005, joining the Fair Trade Commitment in 2010 and creating a "Change is Brewing" ice cream flavor to advance work around racial injustice. Stay updated on Milwaukee's Scoop Shop on its Facebook page and its website. Jessica Rodriguez contributed to this report. More: What Milwaukeeans need to know about the RNC, including road closures, parking, venues and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop to open in Milwaukee Third Ward in July 2024 Brazils Pantanal, the worlds largest tropical wetland area, is burning. It is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, and the fires raging through it are devastating. According to reports, nearly two-million acres have been torched as the fires race through the area. It is the most destructive fire season since 2019-2020, when the Amazon rainforest burned. According to Brazils Institute for Space Research, this year has seen a 1,500 percent increase in fires when compared to the same time from January to July last year. By the end of May 2024, NASA wrote, almost the entire Pantanal region was classified as experiencing extreme drought. The Pantanal is an amazing place. Although most of it is in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, parts of it extend into Bolivia and Paraguay. Its estimated to be between 54,000 and 75,000 square miles in size, and it is extraordinarily important to the regions ecosystem. When its the rainy season, some 80 percent of the Pantanal is underwater. The aquatic plants that thrive there support a vast number of different animals, many of which have been killed in the fires. Howler monkeys, rheas, jaguars, crocodiles, and many vulnerable and endangered species like giant river otters and giant armadillos, are dying in staggering numbers. If things keep going the way theyre going, this will be the most most destructive wildfire year in Brazil in decades. The Pantanal in a normal wet season. Photo: Wikimedia Commons The impact is devastating. Animals are dying, wildfires are vanishing huge areas, Gustavo Figueiroa, a biologist at a non-governmental organization called SOS Pantanal, told The Guardian. We expect it is only going to get worse. In normal years, the rainy season goes through something called a flood pulse. As the dry season approaches, the floods recede, but as the climate changes, that seasonal pattern is seeing dryer than normal wet seasons. That means, of course, that when the dry season comes, everything is dryer. And this year, it has been described as a tinderbox. The wildfires are a signal nature is raising a flag, said Pierre Girard at the Federal University of Mato Grosso. We had fires before but now thousands and thousands of hectares burn every year. We are losing the battle. Local residents are extremely worried for their homes, animals, and lives. The fires get worse every year, said one local named Jane Silva. We thought this years fires had been extinguished, but the wind has brought them back to life. Now it is getting close again. The Pantanal is dying, but we have nowhere to go. Hospitals in the area are filled to the brim with people who are mostly suffering from respiratory issues brought on by the smoke. While humans can escape, the many animals living in the Pantanal cannot. In one week I have already seen hundreds and hundreds of dead animals, maybe thousands, Luka Moraes, a local veterinarian, told The Guardian. Reptiles, snakes, frogs all the animals that cannot run they do not stand a chance. Although there are naturally occurring wildfires in the Pantanal, many more are started by people. For centuries, ranchers have burned land to clear it for cattle, but those were mostly contained by the water in the Pantanal. As it has become drier, those fires can turn into raging infernos. The post Brazils Pantanal, the Worlds Largest Tropical Wetland, Is Burning Out of Control first appeared on The Inertia. BEAVER, WV (WVNS) Kicking off on Friday, July 12, 2024 is the Friends of Charity Auto Fair at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport. 27th annual John Henry Days offers a fun and unique weekend to celebrate southern WV The fair will have everything from classic cars to carnival rides, food trucks and vendors. Advanced tickets are available online, but you will be able to purchase single day passes at the gates as well. Jeri Knowlton, Director of Public Relations for Hospice of Southern West Virginia said they are working hard to make this weekend great. So, today we are loading everybody in for what is sure to be a fantastic 19th annual Friends of Charity Auto Fair. We have our sponsors and vendors moving in today. The carnival is setting up behind me, the food trucks are also coming in. So lots of action, said Knowlton. The Auto Fair will feature hundreds of cars, rides and games. The Fair opens Friday at 9 a.m. and runs until 11 p.m. They will also be open 9 to 11 on Saturday as well. All proceeds will benefit Hospice of Southern West Virginia and Brians Safehouse. 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. NEW PHILADELPHIA A great sense of humor has helped the marriage of Jerry and Sandra "Tyke" Bichsel of New Philadelphia endure for 70 years. "We've had a lot of fun," said Tyke, 89. Added Jerry, 88, said, "It was a good environment, running the business and running the farm. I was busy, and she said there were many times she didn't know if I was even living at home because of all the things going on." Jerry operated Goshen Dairy and a farm in Oldtown Valley for many years. Jerry and Tyke Bischel recount memories of their 70 years of marriage. But he said, "It's been a good life. It's been a good marriage, it really has." The couple was married on June 20, 1954, at the First Presbyterian Church of New Philadelphia. Recently, they celebrated their 70th anniversary at The Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake with close family members. They have seven children, 22 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and two on the way. High school sweethearts Jerry and Tyke began dating when they were students at New Philadelphia High School. After graduation, Jerry went off to The Ohio State University in Columbus, but they continued to stay in contact. Tyke Bichsel feeds her new husband cake during their small reception in the basement of a Presbyterian church. In addition to the cake, they had Goshen Dairy ice cream supplied by Jerry's dad, William Bichsel, Sr. More on local families: 'A huge responsibility:' Jim Shamel tries to set good example for his three children They got engaged while Jerry was a freshman at OSU. He bought a ring at a jewelry store in Columbus and then traveled back to Tuscarawas County by train. "I had that ring in my pocket," he said. "I said to her, what do you want to do tonight? She said, let's go to a movie. I thought, how am I going to work this? Where am I going to propose to her? I picked her up, and I thought, where am I going to park? I had that diamond ring in my pocket, and boy was it burning." They went to see a film at the Quaker Theater in New Philadelphia. Jerry parked at the nearby Goshen Dairy plant at 139 Second St. NW. Tyke and Jerry Bichsel were married on June 29, 1954. The two were high school sweethearts and became engagement when Jerry was a student at The Ohio State University. Today their family includes seven children, 22 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and two on the way. "I parked behind the dairy," he continued. "Right behind the dairy was where the horse barn was and the stalls, and right behind there was a manure pit." At that time, the dairy delivered some of its milk by horse-drawn wagons. "So, I parked right there. I thought, I've got to give her the ring before we go into the movie. So, I pulled out the thing and gave her the ring and proposed to her. I tell the story afterwards, the aroma from the farm and horse manure was just great at that time." Tyke Bichsel shares a laugh with her husband, Jerry, at their home. At the theater, "She sat there with my hand in her hand, and she kept looking at that ring the whole time." Asked if the story was accurate, Tyke jokingly responded, "Unfortunately." Working at Goshen Dairy The wedding reception was a small affair, held in the basement of the Presbyterian church. They had a cake and Goshen Dairy ice cream supplied by Jerry's dad, William Bichsel, Sr. After the wedding, the couple returned to OSU. A Goshen Dairy sign can be seen on a building at the corner of Brightwood Rd SE and South Ave SE, Wednesday, June 26. "I was there for three years, and my father called me and said it's time to come home and go to work. So, I came and went to work at the dairy," he said. He worked in sales. Jerry's grandparents, Ulrich and Mary Bichsel, were Swiss immigrants. Ulrich was a cheesemaker. They purchased a farm and cheese house in Oldtown Valley in 1906, where they raised their 14 children. In 1920, the family purchased the Blue Ribbon Dairy in New Philadelphia and started Goshen Dairy. The business grew to have 14 retail stores around east central Ohio, including locations in New Philadelphia, Dover, Uhrichsville, Gnadenhutten and Sugarcreek. The company delivered milk by horse-drawn wagon until a fire at the plant in 1972. On March 13, 1972, a lightning strike caused a fire that damaged a portion of the dairy, as well as the horse barn. The horses were at the family farm in Oldtown Valley at the time. Jerry and Tyke moved to the family's Oldtown Valley farm in 1973, where they raised their children. They moved to New Philadelphia eight years ago. A grandson lives on a portion of the farm now. The Bichsels sold the dairy in 2002 to Smith Dairy Products Co. of Orrville, and Jerry retired. Retirement Since retirement, Jerry and Tyke have traveled extensively. They have been to every U.S. state except Hawaii, and they have been to Switzerland three times to visit relatives. Jerry Bichsel recounts the lineage of ownership of Goshen Dairy. He and his wife, Tyche, have been married 70 years. The biggest tragedy they have had to face was the death of their eldest son Hans of lung cancer at age 43. "That was a tough one," said Jerry. During their 70th anniversary celebration, Jerry and Tyke renewed their vows, with their grandson, Father Ty Tomson, a Catholic priest, officiating. "I asked him, does this have to keep on going?" Jerry said. This was the third time the couple exchanged vows. "I thought after you got married once, you're done. He said, for you, it's going to go on forever." Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com. This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Jerry and Tyke Bichsel mark 70 years of marriage KITTERY, Maine Harbor Burger Shack, a 1950s-themed, blast-from-the-past grill, has opened near the Kittery Premium Outlets, serving hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, hot dogs, seafood burgers and milkshakes. The new eatery is the latest addition to U.S. Route 1 at the shopping center and the newest venture from Maine food and beverage company First Serve Hospitality Group. The companys portfolio includes Kittery staples Bobs Clam Hut, Roberts Maine Grill and the recently-opened Spruce Creek Pizza, all of which are also on Route 1. It also owns Mabels Lobster Claw in Kennebunkport and H.B. Provisions in Kennebunk. Harbor Burger Shack has taken over a former shoe outlet at 355 U.S. Route 1. The building has been decorated with an eye for the nifty '50s, with black and white checkered tabletops, vintage cartoon, music and movie posters and artwork, a long order counter and neon signs. A circa-1932 red fire truck with the Harbor Burger Shack logo posted to its doors sits outside. Its welcoming to anyone, said Mary Pugliese, director of operations for First Serve Hospitality Group. Whether youre 6 (years old) or 60 (years old), youre very comfortable here. Its a menu that appeals to everyone. The old music is something that brings back memories. Weve had a lot of multi-generational (families) coming in to eat together, and theyre able to share stories and experiences from some of the paraphernalia thats in the building. First Serve Hospitality Group director of operations Mary Pugliese, center, with staff of the Harbor Burger Shack in Kittery, Maine, on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Favorites with a twist on menu at Harbor Burger Shack The 90-seat, 4,500-square-foot Americana establishment is keeping its menu simple with twists on classic dishes. The restaurants eight-burger section of the menu includes the Aye Aye Smokehouse Bacon with bacon, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, a pickle and barbecue sauce made with Moxie, a New England treat. The South of the Harbor burger features jack cheese, avocado, pico de gallo and pickled jalapenos, while the Jaybird Patty Melt includes griddled mushrooms, onion, Swiss cheese and the restaurants signature house-made wicked harbor sauce. There are also crispy and spicy chicken sandwiches and a farm chicken sandwich with grilled chicken, tomato, onion, a pickle and the business wicked harbor sauce. Hot dogs include a chili cheese hot dog and a corn dog. There is also a surf and turf burger, a fried fish sandwich with a haddock filet, a veggie burger and multiple options for sides of fries. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry milkshakes are offered, in addition to specialty shakes. Shake the Cereal is a vanilla milkshake with cinnamon toast crumble, confetti sprinkles, butterscotch drizzle and a Rice Krispies Treat square. You can also order a strawberry shortcake shake and a chocolate shake topped with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, chips and a Maine whoopie pie. Owners say Harbor Burger Shack is a response to what customers want The plan was always for the Maine company to open a retro-style restaurant specializing in burgers. I think its just that era. When youre thinking of burgers, when youre thinking of shakes, sometimes it just brings you back, Pugliese said. An antique fire truck sits outside of the Harbor Burger Shack on U.S. Route 1 in Kittery, Maine. Feedback from First Serve Hospitality Group customers led to the opening of Spruce Creek Pizza after patrons expressed a desire for New York-style pizza in town, according to Pugliese. The same circumstances played out with Harbor Burger Shack. Were fortunate in that a lot of our regulars travel throughout the Seacoast and sometimes you just hear what theyre asking for, what theyre looking for, Pugliese said. Its always been thought that we have great burgers at Bobs and Roberts. At times, during peak (business hours), there can be really high volume, so we just wanted something more accessible to people and at a different price point. Beginning in a few weeks, First Serve Hospitality Group will also operate a country store inside the restaurant that will sell whoopie pies, local artisan gifts, souvenirs, M&Ms candy and has a cotton candy machine whizzing in the background. Harbor Burger Shack-themed merchandise is available for purchase, in addition to jars of pickles and pickled beets and carrots. Customers dine inside of the Harbor Burger Shack in Kittery, Maine on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Harbor Burger Shack has been ramping up operations for a few weeks, inviting customers in for a throwback diner atmosphere, though its official grand opening isnt until Monday, July 15. Its continuing to get busier every day. Its nice to be in summer vacation and see all the families. Were anticipating that its just going to continue to grow, Pugliese said. The year-round business is open daily from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Harbor Burger Shack in Kittery brings back 1950s, serves up favorites KYODO NEWS - Jul 12, 2024 - 21:52 | All, Japan, World Russia's deputy prime minister visited one of the disputed islands off Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido on Friday, a local resident said, as bilateral relations remain strained amid the prolonged Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trip to Etorofu Island by Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev was the first visit to the four Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands by a Russian minister since President Vladimir Putin's fifth term in office began in May. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said it has lodged a protest with the Russian Embassy in Tokyo over the visit. Trutnev is in charge of Russian Far East development policies. Accompanied by Alexei Chekunkov, minister for the development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, and by the Sakhalin region's governor, he discussed measures to attract investment with local officials, the resident told Kyodo News. Trutnev and Chekunkov also traveled to the territories in July last year. The last such visit by a key Russian government figure was that of special presidential representative Sergei Ivanov last September, according to the Japanese government. After the war in Ukraine began in February 2022, bilateral ties have worsened, with Japan imposing economic sanctions against Russia in line with other Group of Seven members and like-minded countries. Since then, their negotiations on the dispute over the islands, collectively called the Northern Territories by Tokyo and the Southern Kurils by Moscow, and a peace treaty have been suspended. The territorial row has long prevented the two nations from concluding a post-World War II peace treaty. Russia alleges that the four islands were legitimately acquired by the Soviet Union following Japan's surrender in World War II in August 1945, while Japan takes the view that the Soviet seizure was illegal. Related coverage: Japan stresses caution over North Korea arms, China-Taiwan tensions NATO, Indo-Pacific leaders agree to cooperate more on mutual concerns (COLORADO SPRINGS) Hiking is a popular activity in Colorado, drawing thousands of outdoor enthusiasts each summer. But with a dangerous and long-lasting heat wave expected this week, experts want you to be prepared. Colorado is rolling right into the dog days of summer, with a prolonged heat wave set to surge into the Rockies. The summer heat in Colorado typically peaks from July 2 to Aug. 11, and it is typically the hottest and most humid time of the year for a large portion of the U.S. Sunny days are prefect for lacing up your boots and heading out in search of an alpine lake, a mountain summit, or a dramatic slot canyon. But along with the sun can come intense heat, and if you dont manage the combination of the two properly, your fun day can turn into a painful and potentially dangerous one. Well the best thing to do is plan your trip around the hot weather, we know its going to be hottest mid day so try to go out early in the morning or later in the afternoon, and avoid the worst part of the day, said Bob Falcone, Hiking Bob, a local hiking enthusiast. The best thing to avoid getting in trouble in the heat is to just not be out in the heat. Hiking early or later can help avoid the hottest parts of the day, but there are other steps you can take to protect yourself from heat-related illnesses like heat stroke, according to Modern Hiking: Dress appropriately: Wearing light colors that reflect the suns rays, made of light, breathable materials. Wear sunscreen: Coloradans are at a particular risk for sun exposure, as the altitude means the suns rays are more intense and can result in quicker burns. Hydrate: Bring more water than you think youll need. Sip often, rather than waiting to drink larger amounts, as your body can only efficiently absorb about a half-liter of water every hour and in many cases chugging a lot of water at once can actually do more harm than good. Bring salty snacks: In addition to replacing the water your body is losing, you need to replenish its electrolytes. Trail mixes and complex carbohydrates will help boost your bodys electrolytes, provide sustained energy, and will be easier on your stomach. Take breaks: If youre stopping to drink or snack, find a shady spot and be kind to your body. Know the signs of heat stroke: When your core body temperature gets too high, you run the risk of suffering from heat stroke a potentially lethal condition. The most common early signs are: Throbbing headache Dizziness Muscle cramps Nausea Disorientation or confusion Lack of sweating, despite hot temperatures If you believe you may be suffering heat stroke, get out of the heat and seek medical attention as quickly 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 FOX21 News Colorado. Kava bar provides a welcoming place for those who may be recovering from drugs and alcohol DAYTONA BEACH - There's a place on North Beach Street where customers belly up to the bar and drink a toast to life. But there's no alcohol in those glasses. Instead, the drink is called kava, a tea that many people who suffer from addiction and other afflictions swear by. Customers at Drink Kava in Daytona have a Fam Slam moment where everyone raises their glasses with Kava drink and toast saying Bula! Bula, which means life, is how native Kava drinkers in Fiji toast. Drink Kava in Daytona is a bar where people, including some recovering from addiction, enjoy the root drink and other natural herbal potions in a non-judgmental and community-spirit atmosphere. Drink Kava Bar at 204 N. Beach Street, offers natural drinks made from plants and the welcoming vibe of a neighborhood tavern, but without the booze. "In addition to the drinks themselves, the community, the people that it brings together, is just like nothing you'll see anywhere else," said Kathy Kortum, a recovering alcoholic. "We come together and support each other in a way that I've never seen anywhere." Kava is made from a powder derived from the kava plant's root, something native to Fiji and the South Pacific Ocean islands. The Alcohol and Drug Foundations states that Pacific Islander communities crushed, chewed and ground the root and stump of the shrub, then soaked it in cold water to produce a drink for ceremonies and cultural practices. These rituals were said to strengthen ties among groups, reaffirm status and help people communicate with spirits. Kava was introduced to the communities in the north of Australia in the 1980s as a substitute for alcohol, to reduce alcohol-related harms in the community. The kava drink is often used for sedative, hypnotic and muscle-relaxant effects, in much the same way that alcohol is used, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. But other plant-based drinks like those made from the kratom tree, native to parts of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, are offered by Drink Kava Bar. According to Healthline, traditionally, field workers chew on kratom leaves to help increase their energy and endurance, aid their heat tolerance, and relieve fatigue. The drink is also used for pain relief, its stimulant effects, and as a component of traditional medicinal applications. For Kortum, the plant potion made of kratom elevates her mood but helps her feel relaxed. "Just relaxed, a little energy, social, it's very similar to alcohol but without the negative side effects," Kortum said when asked how the kratom drink affects her. "I can drive home and don't lose my shoes and wreck my car." Kathy Kortum, a recovering alcoholic, enjoys a glass of Kratom drink at Drink Kava bar in Daytona Beach. She said the natural plant drink relaxes her, and she enjoys "the feeling like she is drinking" but without getting intoxicated or impaired. "I can drive home and I don't lose my shoes," she said. Three strains of kratom Kratom has three strains - red, white, and green, said Mike Meth, a clinical psychologist, and a customer of Drink Kava Bar. "White is more energizing, kind of like coffee, red is more sedating, generally good for sleeping at night, and green is my personal favorite, and actually has an antidepressant," Meth said. "(The green strain) is very uplifting. It gives you a nice balance of relaxation and energy." Meth has been visiting kava bars for 11 years, and said there is a kava community in the country, a group of people who look out for kava establishments to meet and join friends who have a love for kava and other natural alternatives. "Kava has a lot of relaxing effects, mood-boosting effects. It can make people more social, and relaxing people but without a lot of the intoxicating effects of alcohol," Meth said. While legal, Kratom is not for everyone. The Drug Enforcement Administration considers it a "drug of concern." It can produce both stimulant effects (in low doses) and sedative effects (in high doses), and can lead to psychotic symptoms and psychological and physiological dependence. In the U.S., the abuse of kratom has increased markedly in recent years the DEA reports. It can be consumed in the form of a tablet, capsule, or extract. Kava as pain reliever, relaxant For some, like Krystal Sperry, illness brings her to Drink Kava Bar to find relief for pain from fibromyalgia, and lupus, and calm for her ADHD. Sperry owns three businesses. She visits Drink Kava Bar two or three times a week. "Everyone that's here is friendly and kind, it's good energy, and there is no judgment," Sperry said. "You want to be around the people that are here." At 24 Sperry had cancer and underwent a complete hysterectomy and then was diagnosed with lupus. She was using medications until she met April Pettersen, co-owner of Drink Kava Bar and learned of the natural drink. She has completely replaced her ibuprofen and Tylenol with kava and other plant drinks. "When they opened the Kava bar, they started serving drinks that also help with other things, so the Kava, one of the things I have is ADHD and Kava drink helps with it. It helps with severe ADHD," Sperry said. "Drinking kava kind of calms that down, it calms my nerves down, it calms me down. It doesn't intoxicate you but it makes you feel a little more relaxed and you can breathe." She comes in probably two or three times a week. "It's the equivalent of someone going to a bar and having a glass of wine after work. I come here and have this instead." Krystal Sperry, who suffers from lupus, fibromyalgia and ADHD, orders a lemonade Kava drink prepared by April Pettersen. Kava, all the best parts of drinking but with none of the regrets The co-owners of Drink Kava Bar are also recovering alcoholics and opioid users who sought different ways to feel good without the negative after-effects of alcohol or painkillers. Colin Smith, April Pettersen, and Sam Tortorice, owned a cannabis store where Drink Kava currently stands. The location was flooded by tropical storms Ian and Nicole. Colin Smith and April Pettersen, co-owners of Drink Kava bar in Daytona Beach. And because they were in recovery from alcohol and opiates, they really didn't have an outlet for stress relief like other people who went to bars to drink, they said. But they started hearing about kava, so they did their research. They started visiting kava bars in Orlando, talked to bar owners, and learned about the drink. They drank kava to experience the effect and they learned that the drink made from the root of the kava plant relaxed them and they were able to socialize without having the effects of alcohol. "It works off the same system of alcohol, so it gives you that same social, relaxed, de-stressed, and anti-anxiety property of having a drink or two but there is actually no intoxication, no smell, no hangovers, no addictive properties," Smith said. "So it's kind of all the best parts of drinking with none of the regrets." After researching about the plant, its effects, safe consumption and trips to dozens of bars drinking kava, the trio opened Drink Kava Bar at the North Beach Street location on Sept. 22, 2023. Pettersen, who started drinking alcohol at age 14, and got into opiates at 18, is now sober for nine years. And kava still helps her socialize "without the stupid decisions" that alcohol brings on, she said. "I just love the absence of alcohol. My quality of life is just so much better," Pettersen said. Smith, who has been sober for 10 years, encourages people to visit Drink Kava Bar because his business's mission is to help people. "We give out samples and tell people to try it," Smith said. "We are just so passionate about giving people a better quality of life." Smith and Pettersen said they have seen their customer base increase attracting kava drink connoisseurs including scientists, tattoo artists, pilots, recovering alcoholics and opioid addicts, and people from all other walks of life. "You know, it's essentially become a modern-day Cheers," Smith said. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida kava bar a popular spot for folks who struggle with addiction Magical Dining is back for its 19th year with a record 150 restaurants participating. The restaurants will offer three-course prix-fixe menus for either $40 or $60, with either $1 or $2 of the meals going to The Mustard Seed of Central Florida. Visit Orlando, the programs organizer, said this years list includes 25 restaurants new to the program and nine restaurants that been recognized by the Michelin Guide. Read: New Smyrna Beach could get a 5-story shopping center with a rooftop restaurant & parking garage This year, Magical Dining will begin Aug. 16 and run through Sept. 30. Click here to see a full list of menus. Read: Orlandos Zymarium Meadery opens new events space See a list of new participating restaurants below: Adega Gaucha Kissimmee ($40) Armandos College Park ($40) Armandos Lake Nona ($40) Armandos Winter Park ($40) Braccia Ristorante ($40) Chayote Barrio Kitchen ($60) Chefs Table at The Edgewater ($60) Chima Steakhouse ($60) Citrus Club ($40) Crocante Restaurant + Bar ($40) Cru Quarters at The Mayflower ($40) F&D Prime Modern Steakhouse ($60) Firebirds Wood Fired Grill ($40) Helena Modern Riviera ($40) Nami ($60) Normans Orlando ($60) Pine & Oak Tavern ($40) Sophias Trattoria ($40) Summer House on the Lake ($40) Trabucco ($40) Trattoria del Porto at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando ($40) Twin View Restaurant at Evermore Resort ($60) Wine 4 Oysters Bar and Bites East Orlando ($40) Wine 4 Oysters Bar and Bites West Orlando ($40) Yamasan Sushi and Grill ($40) Get your taste buds ready! Visit Orlando's Magical Dining, presented by @OrlandoHealth, starts Aug 16 with 150 incredible restaurants. Up to $2 per meal supports The Mustard Seed of Central Florida. Visit https://t.co/JN9CgYau1V for more info! #MagicalDining pic.twitter.com/C72oz8Nc4k Visit Orlando (@VisitOrlando) July 9, 2024 The following nine restaurants are featured in the Michelin Guide: AVA MediterrAegean ($60 - Recommended) BACAN ($60 - Recommended) Four Flamingos: A Richard Blais Florida Kitchen ($60 - Recommended) Kabooki Sushi (East Colonial location) ($40 - Recommended) Maxines on Shine ($40 - Recommended) Ravello ($60 - Recommended) The Pinery ($40 - Recommended) The Ravenous Pig ($40 - Bib Gourmand) Z Asian Vietnamese Kitchen ($40 - Bib Gourmand) Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. You Will Soon Be Able to Fly to Fiji From This U.S. Hub Fiji Airways confirms it will operate a new route connecting Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and Fiji. jhorrocks/GETTY IMAGES Visiting the tropical island of Fiji will soon be easier and faster for travelers from the Lone Star State. On Wednesday, Fiji Airways confirmed it is launching direct service from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and Fiji. Travel + Leisure previously reported on the airline's request filed with the government in July to operate the new route. The new flight will be 13 hours long and launches in December. It will operate every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday on an Airbus A350-900 XWB. The seating will be made up of 301 economy class seats, which the airline noted won Best Economy Class in Australia and Pacific at the most recent SKYTRAX World Airline Awards, and 33 lie-flat business class seats. The new Fiji-Dallas service is set to bring more than 1,000 passengers a week into Fiji alone, helping to bolster the nations tourism industry. The overnight flight will also offer our customers increased connections to North America from the South Pacific and beyond, Fiji Airways Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Andre Viljoen said. Fiji Airways recently joined the oneworld alliance, an airline partnership that includes Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Qatar, and others. The airline also announced in June it would soon join the American Airlines AAdvantage program, which allows earning and redeeming miles on both airlines, plus travel benefits for elite members. This loyalty partnership marks a significant milestone, bringing together two renowned carriers to offer new benefits to millions of travelers, Viljoen declared at the time. We are excited about the positive impact this collaboration will have on both our airlines and our guests who will benefit from the exclusive perks." The new route will be especially handy for passengers of American Airlines, which has a major hub in Dallas-Fort Worth airport. American does not currently offer any direct flights from Dallas to Fiji, but provides travelers the option of connecting through a variety of Fiji Airways hubs, such as Los Angeles or San Francisco, for a booking. For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Robb Report may receive an affiliate commission. If youre a fan of Irish whiskey, youre surely familiar with the Midleton Distillery just outside of Cork, where many popular Irish whiskey brands are produced including Jameson, Redbreast, Midleton Very Rare, and the Spot Whiskeys. The latters portfolio just expanded with the announcement that the oldest Red Spot release to date is available to purchase now, exclusively from whiskey specialist website the Whisky Exchange. More from Robb Report It makes sense that this whiskey would be exclusive to the Whisky Exchangeit was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2021, the same drinks company that owns Irish Distillers which in turn owns the Midleton Distillery and produces the aforementioned Irish whiskey brands. According to a rep for The Whisky Exchange, this Red Spot release is the first single-cask expression from the brand, and the oldest to date at 31 years old. It was distilled and matured entirely at Midleton, first in bourbon and sherry barrels before being finished in a Marsala wine cask. This makes it very different from the core Red Spot expression, a single pot still Irish whiskey aged in a combination of bourbon, sherry, and Marsala casks for 15 years. In our continued exploration of the Mitchell & Sons Spot series, were delighted to introduce our latest single cask exclusive, this time under the Red Spot label, said Whisky Exchange label and brand product manager Chris Bolton in a statement. Distilled back in 1991 and aged for 31 years, this wonderfully complex whiskey was finished in a Marsala cask before bottling. Given that only three distilleries were operating in Ireland when it was distilled, its safe to say casks of this age and profile are becoming exceptionally hard to find. Official tasting notes describe fresh fruit like apricots, peaches, plum, and blackcurrant on the palate, with soft tannins and herbs on the finish. This Red Spot release follows last springs release of a 13-year-old Gold Spot expression called Generations Edition, initially aged in bourbon and sherry casks before being finished in Valpolicella Classica wine barrels for an additional 16 months. And back in January the Whisky Exchange released a 1999 vintage of Yellow Spot that was aged for 23 years in three different barrel types: bourbon, sherry, and Malaga wine. There is also an American whiskey exclusive available at the Whisky Exchange this month, a single barrel rye from Kentucky distillery New Riff, and in August the website will offer a 10-year-old Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Bourbon. You can purchase the Red Spot Irish whiskey ($1,032) from the Whisky Exchange now. 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. How Rodrigo Raineri of Brazil died in a paragliding accident in Pakistan last week remains unclear. But the aftermath has turned messy. The local expedition outfitter has been arrested, prompting a campaign among Pakistan operators for his release. The outfitters point their fingers at expedition leader Antoine Girard of France, who denies responsibility. Rodrigo Raineri of Brazil. Photo: Rodrigo Raineri There are several versions and no official report yet of how and why Raineri, 55, suffered a fatal crash in a cross-country (XC) paragliding accident. However, 24 hours after the accident, local media reported that Raineri had no permit to fly. Shigar district Deputy Commissioner Waliullah Falahi told Dawn.com that the deceased had started the adventure from a mountain in Askole [and that he] didnt have the permit for the activity. On his social media, Raineri mentioned that he was teaming up with XC pilots Antoine Girard and Veso Ovcharov. Check the post below. However, Raineri specified: Each of us has a satellite locator, each one decides what they want to do, but we are a cohesive team and ready for action if someone needs help/rescue. Girards role Antoine Girard is one of the most experienced cross-country pilots in Pakistan. He flew above Broad Peak in 2016 and 2021. This year, he planned to repeat the feat and also fly above K2. He was listed as expedition leader, but as he explains on his website, 8000Paragliding, his role is just to organize the logistics and to share his experience about high-altitude flights and Pakistan. Everyone must be autonomous in flight and on the ground and take their own responsibilities, he explains. In no case are you guided or under my responsibility. Outfitter in jail Two days later, Ali Porik, owner of Jasmine Tours and vice-president of the Pakistan Association of Tour Operators (PATO), revealed that Ali Muhammad Saltoro, owner of Alpine Adventure Guides (one of Pakistans better-known outfitters), had been arrested after the accident. Porik forwarded this letter to ExplorersWeb, asking us to share it publicly. Letter by the Pakistan Association of Tour Operators. Ali Porik provided some context to the situation. The team of paragliders led by Antoine Girard had planned to fly cross-country from Goro-II, a camp along the trek to K2. For this, they needed a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from local authorities. Since Goro II is several days on foot from a road, Alpine Adventure Guides applied for the NOC and provided the team with a trekking permit needed to venture into the Baltoro trusting the NOC would be granted by the time the paragliders reached their take-off point at Goro II. The route to K2 Base Camp up the Baltoro, starting in Askole and with the daily camps marked. Map: Monkeystale.ca Launched early However, for some reason, part of the group set off from near Askole village before the expected date. The accident thus took place not at Goro-II but further down the Baltoro. We asked Girard for his side of the story. He claimed the note issued by PATO was false at 80% and complained about much false information and rumors relayed in the media. The investigation is underway, and I am not allowed to speak, Girard added. However, he did text with Cross-Country magazine over WhatsApp from Concordia on July 9. Here is some of that communication: The weather was good on 4 July. All the members decided to fly. I instructed Rodrigo, Walid, Colleen and Romano to fly not further than Paju, as the upper part of the Baltoro requires more experienceThe Askole/Paju part does not present any particular danger. The plan was safe and conservative for all members. We learned about the accident on the morning of 5 July. We contacted Ali [Saltoro] immediately and he told us to stay at Concordia until he solved the problem. Going down to Skardu requires five or six days without phone or internet and we do not want to be accused of disappearing. We wanted to clarify the situation first, and then start walking down if required by the authorities. We are devastated to know about this and we want to clarify the situation. We had numerous conversations with the agency about the permits. They said we had permission to fly where we did. Porters from the agency even came with us to the launch and helped some of the pilots take off. No one is responsible for the accident. When we fly, its our own responsibility. Ali Muhammad Saltoro, owner of Alpine Adventure Guides. Photo: LinkedIn Waiting for clarity Cross Country noted that after the accident, two of the paying pilots left the trip while others continued toward Concordia. They also state that Giraud and Ovcharov have been told by authorities to stay in Concordia, where there is a Wi-Fi connection, in order to be available to the authorities. Ovcharov told Cross Country that he intended to start trekking back to Skardu on Wednesday and that he would help clear up the facts and get Ali Muhammad Saltoro released. The post Outfitter Arrested After Fatal Paragliding Accident appeared first on Explorersweb. Be Your Own Boss Day Camp educates kids on how to build their own brands Be Your Own Boss Day Camp educates kids on how to build their own brands BEAVER, WV (WVNS) Being your own boss is a dream for many people and kids in Raleigh County got the chance to do just that! Camp STEM educates top high schoolers from across the state Gear-Up Southern West Virginia completed a three day Be Your Own Boss day camp. It was held at New River Community and Technical College for rising 8th and 9th graders from Mercer, Raleigh, Monroe, Summers, and Wyoming Counties. Kids built their own personal brands at the camp. One of the founders of My1of1, A.J. Metdals, came all the way from Los Angeles to instruct campers on how they could go about this process. Hunter McDaniel, one of the students who took part in the camp, said he is learning a lot from the camp. Every human sees 5,000 ads a day, McDaniel explained. So, every brand, every company they all have their own logo. If my friend, Robert Schmid, is going in for culinary and he opens his own restaurant, he needs a logo for that restaurant. So, turning to this camp that helps us inspire through graphic interior design, hell know how to make a logo. National GEAR UP Week celebrated by five southern West Virginia counties Students were also allowed to make their own merchandise and apparel to be distributed for profit through My1of1. Metdals tells 59News that kids will be able to sell items through his company long after this camp ends too. The best part it is all free of charge to the students. Students will also make $13 per commission. Metdals said this entrepreneurship-based camp helps set these kids up for success. Theres just a lot of creative students, Metdals said. I want to expose them not only to entrepreneurship, but, most importantly, just expose them to a lot of different marketing career paths. A lot of times, we dont even think about [marketing] growing up, but we know these digital platforms and companies look for students like this that know the future is digital. Gear Up Southern West Virginia Coordinator, Tammy Mills, told 59News that the end of the weeks day camp will not be the end for these students or for Metdals either. The culmination event for the Be Your Own Boss Day Camp is on July 30 at 6 p.m. It is a product reveal, where students will showcase all of the products that they created and all the shirts and hats, and things, said Mills. GEAR UP Meeting at Concord University Metdals said they intend to show off the products in a runway type of show with vogue-esque music. Students will show off their merch and students will receive five items made in a workshop for the runway day. If you would like to see or purchase any of these kids merchandise, visit their collection. 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. Itching for the Iowa State Fair? Head to the fairgrounds this weekend to get a first dose of fair life with the free Polk County Fair. The fair runs July 13-19 at the fairgrounds, 3000 E. Grand Ave., in Des Moines. In light of bird flu outbreaks, the Polk County Fair is encouraging families with ill birds to leave them at home to help limit the spread of the disease. More severe measures are not being mandated at this time. "We're following guidance from the state veterinarian," county coordinator Marci Vinsand said. "They're not requiring any extra measures at this time." Polk County's theme for 2024 is "There's no time like fair time!" While the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture is requiring testing for dairy cows before they're transported to fairs across the state, Visand said the Polk County Fair hasn't shown dairy cows in eight years. A bird flu outbreak began in Iowa on May 28, in a flock of chickens in Sioux County. Since then, it's spread to 13 cattle herds across northwestern Iowa. Bird flu is a highly contagious disease that can kill entire flocks. More: Bird flu has spread to cattle in Iowa. Where have the 2024 outbreaks been? For all other animals, the fair does require exhibitors to be verified by Youth for the Quality Care of Animals, which checks for biosecurity protocols. In addition, all entries must be checked by a vet. The goat costume class is one of the most unique events at the Polk County Fair. What can I do at the Polk County Fair? Though it's not as big as the State Fair, the Polk County Fair offers many events for youth to showcase their talent and hard work. These include traditional animal shows like dog rallies or horse barrel races, but also more unique events like a goat costume design class on Monday. "It's exactly what it sounds like," Vinsand said. "Exhibitors will design a costume for themselves and their goat." The costumes display as much creativity as would be expected. Vinsand recalls costumes from the "Back to the Future" trilogy, "Frozen," and more. There also are two talents shows: the Bill Riley Talent Show on Sunday and Share the Fun on Tuesday. Acts include singing, dancing, skits, piano recitals and more. The top performers at both shows can advance to the Iowa State Fair. Bacon Buddies gives Polk County youth with disabilities a chance to show livestock. One of Vinsand's favorite events, Bacon Buddies, takes place on Thursday. "It's a chance for youth with disabilities to show livestock with the help of another 4-H or (Future Farmers of America) member," she said. "A chance for them to really shine." Vinsand also is excited for the 10th annual Clover Dash, a 5k in memory of former county youth coordinator Joy Nikalsen, who died in a 2014 car accident. The event raises money for scholarships and grants for local 4-H participants. The Polk County Fair is operated and managed by an elected volunteer board comprised of Polk County 4-H and FFA Fair Association members, and is implemented as a cooperative effort between Iowa State University Extension and Outreach staff, Polk County Extension Council, Polk County 4-H and FFA Fair Association. For more detailed information, visit polkcountyfairiowa.com. Ryan Magalhaes is a reporter for the Register. Reach them at rmagalhaes@dmreg.com. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: What to do at the Polk County Fair in Des Moines this weekend Poll: What's the ideal temperature for home AC in Pueblo? Plus tips to keep your home cool As southern Colorado braces for 100-degree days this weekend, many Puebloans are cranking up the AC, and local energy companies are offering tips on how to keep your home cool and energy costs down. Pueblo temperatures began to climb to the upper 90s on Thursday and according to the National Weather Service's seven-day forecast, things will only get hotter from here. The NWS anticipates highs of 102 degrees on both Friday and Saturday, with a scorching high of 104 degrees forecast for Sunday. Let us know in this poll what you feel is the ideal home temperature when Pueblo weather hits triple digits, and make sure to read on for tips from Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy. Tips from Xcel Energy While air conditioning is considered a must for some Puebloans, not every home has it, and for those that do, it tends to increase your utility bill. Xcel Energy, which provides energy along the entire Front Range, states that home cooling accounts for nearly half of a customer's summertime electric bill. The best way customers can keep their bills low is to practice conservation and efficiency habits to stay cool, such as: Installing a programmable thermostat that raises the setting when the house is empty and lowers it to a comfortable level when everyone comes home Using ceiling fans to circulate cool air throughout the home Opening interior doors to improve the circulation of cool air inside Using a whole-house or attic fan to draw in cool nighttime air and push out hot air during the day Changing air conditioner filters and having your air conditioner coils cleaned to improve efficiency Closing drapes and blinds during the heat of the day Black Hills Energy is located at 105 S. Victoria Ave. Additional advice from Black Hills Energy Black Hills Energy also offers its own tips for cooling your home while being mindful of energy use. When it comes to cooling our homes, we naturally focus on comfort. Thats why we want to remind customers of the steps they can take to stay cool while also managing their energy bills like using programmable thermostats and sealing gaps in windows and doors that leak, said Campbell Hawkins, Black Hills Energys vice president of Colorado Utilities. We also offer payment assistance programs, free virtual home energy assessments and rebates to help customers reduce energy year-round. Black Hills, like Xcel, advises using programmable thermostats, replacing AC filters and adjusting ceiling fans. Additionally, they advise people to: Inspect your home for air leaks : Check for proper insulation and air leaks to help reduce energy waste and keep cool air in. Caulking and weather stripping can help improve energy efficiency. Move household electronics away from thermostats : Household electronics such as lamps, computers and televisions emit heat and can unintentionally trigger the air conditioner. Unplug electronics when not in use : Unplug office equipment like printers, shredders, and scanners as well as household appliances like your coffee maker or toaster to keep them from drawing energy when not in use. Install an attic ventilator: An attic ventilating system can draw cool air up through the house and provide as much comfort as air conditioning at a reduced cost. Use this system to pump in cool air during summer evenings, then seal up the house during the day. Black Hills customers can also use the company's online portal to monitor their energy usage, offering a real-time look at what in their home is using the most energy and when at blackhillsenergy.com/my-account, according to Black Hills. More Pueblo news: Kroger, Albertsons seek to sell 579 stores. These Pueblo supermarkets are on the list Questions, comments, or story tips? Contact Justin at jreutterma@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @jayreutter1. Support local news, subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Poll: What's the ideal temperature for home AC in Pueblo? Emergency plans to cut prisoner sentence lengths to ease the overcrowding crisis and avert a total breakdown in law and order will last until 2026 at least, the justice secretary has announced. In a furious speech at HMP Five Wells, Shabana Mahmood lambasted the decision by Rishi Sunaks government to delay the new measures announced by Labour on Friday to release thousands of prisoners 40 per cent of the way into their sentences as opposed to halfway through until after the election. And it was also revealed that the emergency early release scheme brought in by the previous government in October had seen 10,000 inmates freed early, but had barely put a dent in the soaring prison population. Shabana Mahmood visited HMP Bedford and HMP Five Wells on Friday (Joe Giddens/PA Wire) Announcing a review into how the crisis was allowed to unfold, Ms Mahmood accused Tory ministers of putting their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country in the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known. The new justice secretary painted a bleak picture as she warned that the current situation threatened the collapse of the criminal justice system and a total breakdown of law and order with looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops and setting neighbourhoods alight. Warning of vanloads of dangerous suspects circling the country if no prison spaces are available for them, she said: The police would have to use their cells as a prison overflow, keeping officers off the streets. Soon, the courts would grind to a halt, unable to hold trials. The police would have to stop carrying out arrests. The new emergency scheme will begin in September and will be reviewed in 18 months, with prisoners sentenced for sexual, serious violence and domestic abuse offences among those to be excluded, Ms Mahmood said. She also pledged to recruit 1,000 new probation staff. But there was no mention of new funding for the cash-strapped service. Probation union Napo said it had demanded that Ms Mahmood reopen pay negotiations, refusing to take the threat of industrial action off the table. In the longer term, the justice secretary vowed Labours legacy would be a probation service that keeps the public safe and prisons which break the cycle of reoffending, as she pledged to publish a 10-year capacity strategy later this year. But the previous governments emergency End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme which first saw inmates freed inmates up to 18 days early before being increased to 35 and then 70 days will remain in place until September, despite warnings it had caused absolute mayhem. Rishi Sunak is believed to have blocked the measures announced by Labour on Friday prior to calling the general election (AFP via Getty) Dubbing the scheme bad policy rolled out under a veil of secrecy, Ms Mahmood said: Prisoners were released with scarcely any warning to probation officers, placing them under enormous additional strain. This was only ever a short-term fix: an attempt to delay disaster by a few more weeks and keep the public in the dark. While the last government had refused to publish data on how many inmates were released, drawing outrage from senior Tory MPs and experts demanding transparency, the Ministry of Justice finally revealed on Friday that a total of 10,083 prisoners had been freed early between 17 October and 30 June. However, data published simultaneously showed the occupancy rate in prisons rarely fell below 99 per cent over the same period suggesting the emergency scheme failed to make any meaningful dent in the crisis which has seen prisoners doubled up in cells and housed in police stations. Official data shows that, in the final quarter of 2023 alone, more than 7,000 prisoners were recalled to prison for licence breaches which experts say are made more likely by releasing inmates into homelessness or without adequate pre-release planning into an already dangerously overstretched probation service. Speaking to The Independent on Thursday, Napo union chief Ian Lawrence said the scheme had caused absolute mayhem for the already overstretched probation service, expressing hopes that the new move towards a more structured recalculation of sentence lengths would ease some of the pressure. There are just a few hundred prison spaces left in England and Wales (PA Archive) An inspection at HMP Lewes previously found prisoners had been recalled within days of release under the chaotic scheme, with an inmate convicted of stalking and domestic abuse who was deemed a risk to children among those freed early despite government insistences that high-risk criminals would not be eligible. The previous government insisted in October that it had done more than ever before to protect the public and keep sex offenders locked up for longer, ending automatic halfway release for rapists and serious violent offenders, and sending rapists to prison for three years longer than in 2010. It blamed the pandemic and barristers strikes for causing a significant spike in the prison population, by driving up the number of people held on remand, which hit a record high last year. While the pandemic did fuel the record courts backlog, many legal experts blame austerity cuts for hollowing out court capacity. Welcoming the new governments swift recognition of the seriousness of the situation, HM chief inspector Charlie Taylor said a decision to address the crisis needed to be taken and none would have been without risk. This latest measure will inevitably lead to the early release of some risky offenders, and will add to the workload of already stretched prison... [staff] and probation services. How these men are prepared for release and how prisons and probation are supported in managing them will be vital, he said. Charlie Taylor said inspectors would be watching the new scheme very closely (PA Media) We will be watching this very closely as well as any plans that are developed once the immediate pressure is relieved that seek to make prisons places of genuine purpose, help people to break the cycle of reoffending and protect the public from future harm. Warning that some parts of the UK are facing probation staff shortfalls of 50 per cent despite their caseload being nearly three times the size of the 88,000-strong prison population, chief inspector of probation Martin Jones questioned whether there is enough time to get probation processes right ahead of September. He told Times Radio: They need to ensure that they identify the risk that those people represent and that they identify what their needs are when they leave prison. Do they have accommodation? Do they have jobs to go to? Do they have, for example, drugs and mental health support in the community? Pointing to real problems at the front line already, he added: So how are they going to have the capacity to ensure that they safeguard the public when theyre being released from custody? Former Tory justice committee chair Sir Bob Neill told The Independent the new measures were inevitable and necessary, as for years we have been ratcheting up the number and length of prison sentences without being prepared to stump up the money to provide enough places. Lamenting the fact that Britain locks up more people for longer than most comparable countries and all we get in return are worse rates of reoffending, he added: We need a complete rethink on this, politicians have to honest with the public that prison is extremely expensive and should be reserved for those who are genuinely dangerous to the rest of us. France has announced it will temporarily suspend direct aid to Georgia's budget, shifting its support towards civil society and the media. The decision was announced by France's ambassador to Georgia, Sheraz Gasri.Ambassador Gasri stated, "On June 27, the European Council concluded that the path to joining the European Union was de facto stopped. This is the result of the decisions made by the Georgian government, which everyone knows."Due to these developments, France has decided to pause its direct budget aid to Georgia. Instead, France will strengthen its support for civil society and media organizations within the country."It is up to the Georgian government to reverse course so we can get back to what we want to do. That is, let's continue to support Georgia in all fields," said Ambassador Gasri, emphasizing the need for the Georgian government to change its current trajectory to resume full cooperation.Maka Bochorishvili, Chairman of the European Integration Committee of the Parliament, affirmed the necessity of maintaining positive dynamics in Georgia's relations with its partners following a meeting with Uzra Zeya, Deputy Secretary of State of the United States of America.Bochorishvili stressed the critical role of continued strategic partnership, stating, "There is no alternative to political dialogue with our partners. The state requires positive dynamics in our relations, and it is crucial to persevere in this direction."She disclosed that a wide array of issues, including contentious topics, were addressed during the meeting. "Cooperation and dialogue with our strategic partners are of utmost importance," Bochorishvili emphasized. "It was a valuable opportunity to exchange perspectives and discuss various issues."Bochorishvili reaffirmed the significance of ongoing political dialogue to strengthen relations with international partners. KYODO NEWS - Jul 12, 2024 - 20:20 | All, World, Japan A U.S. Air Force member in Okinawa Prefecture pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges related to the alleged kidnapping and sexual assault in December of a girl who was under the age of 16. The case did not come to light until late June, around three months after his indictment, as local police decided not to disclose the incident. That decision has inflamed strong and long-existing anti-base sentiment in the prefecture, which hosts the majority of U.S. military facilities in Japan. At his first hearing at the Naha District Court, Brennon Washington, 25, said, "I'm not guilty." According to the indictment dated March 27, Washington is alleged to have asked the girl to speak to him in his car at a park in the village of Yomitan on Dec. 24 and then drove her to his off-base residence before committing sexual acts despite knowing she was not yet 16, the age of consent in Japan. Prosecutors presented as evidence security camera footage showing the two interacting in the park and photos of the defendant found on the girl's smartphone. They also said the girl, upon returning home, had tearfully reported the incident to her mother, who then called the police. The defense argued that Washington believed the girl was 18 and had invited her to his home based on the flow of their conversation, with the sexual acts performed with consent. Washington is stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, according to the Okinawa prefectural government. He was handed over to Japanese authorities following the indictment but was released after posting bail and is currently in U.S. custody, it said. Days after Washington's case came to light, it was revealed that a U.S. Marine had been arrested in May on suspicion of attempted rape resulting in injury. The case was also not made public by the police at the time, citing the victim's privacy. In the wake of the revelations of these sex crimes involving U.S. servicemen, the Japanese government earlier this month reviewed information-sharing arrangements with local governments, vowing to notify municipalities of any crimes allegedly committed by U.S. military members "without exception." U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who in a statement Friday expressed "deep regret" over the alleged incidents, indicated that concrete measures were being taken to improve the training and education of U.S. military personnel stationed in Okinawa. "As guests of Japan and guarantors of our shared peace and security, we can do better, we should do better, and, crucially, we will do better," he said. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was aware of the two incidents but refrained from providing the information to the Okinawa prefectural government, taking the police's decision into account, according to the government. Okinawa continues to bear a heavy load as host to many U.S. military facilities more than half a century after its 1972 reversion from U.S. control following Japan's defeat in World War II. Crimes committed by U.S. service members and nonmilitary personnel have been a constant source of grievance for locals. The rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 prompted a wave of public outrage. Other cases include the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016 by a former U.S. base worker who was later sentenced to life in prison. Related coverage: Japan government vows best possible info-sharing on U.S. crimes in Okinawa Okinawa protests central government not sharing U.S. troop sex crime cases U.S. serviceman in Okinawa indicted over sexual assault of minor Sangita Patel is sharing a positive health update with her fans. On Thursday, the former "ET Canada" host, took to Instagram to give followers an update on her journey with thyroid cancer. According to the 45-year-old, her most recent pathology report for her left thyroid showed there were no C-cells (parafollicular cells), which secrete hormones and can become cancerous. Patel, who was on holiday in Portugal when she received the news, said she had a "heart-to-heart" with her doctor during their last meeting. "It's a conversation that changed me because it made me realize that I really need to sit with everything that I've gone through," she said. "He's right, I'm not patient. I need to heal mentally, I need to heal physically." Patel said there were still physical hurdles to overcome from her recent procedures: "I can't feel my lower lip...I've got scar tissue all over my neck, a warrior scar that I'm trying to heal. Heal all of this... Heal, heal, heal." The mother-of-two said the next step in her treatment is radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy, a common procedure for thyroid cancer patients. It involves using radioactive iodine to destroy any remaining thyroid tissue or cancer cells after surgery. This treatment helps to limit the risk of cancer recurrence and is a crucial step in ensuring complete recovery, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. "Hopefully, I just need to do it once, and then I'll be in the clear. Then, guys, I'm going to start a new chapter in my life... I'm going call it 'Sangita the Warrior,'" she said. In her caption, Patel said being in Portugal has helped her as she tries to heal. "It's painful at times. But thats not holding me back," she added. In November 2023, Patel shared an emotional reel discussing the pathology report that first revealed her she had invasive oncocytic carcinoma. Oncocytic carcinoma, also known as Hurthle cell carcinoma, is a rare type of differentiated thyroid cancer, accounting for less than 5 per cent of all thyroid cancers. Typical symptoms pointing to Hurthle cell carcinoma include a growth forming in the neck or throat area, difficulty breathing and swallowing, and it has also been known to trigger changes to the voice. Surgery to remove the tumour is the "mainstay" of treatment options, however, if the cancer is more larger and more aggressive, it may require a "total thyroidectomy." Patel has said that if she doesn't do treatment, her type of cancer has the potential to "come back in five years" in her bones or lungs. In June, Patel shared a health update following her second surgery. The TV host shared a photo of herself in her hospital bed to Instagram, writing: "Second surgery was a success. I'm still high. Kidding aside, last few weeks have been hard mentally knowing this surgery was coming up. But now that phase two of my three-part program to make sure this 'C' stuff is out of my body is complete, I'm feeling relieved." Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. On Wednesday, Monse, the New York-based fashion label co-designed by Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia (who are also co-creative directors at Oscar de la Renta), announced an "accessible" collaboration with fast fashion e-retailer Shein. Social media users were quick to react to the news, and in many cases voice their surprise, disappointment and frustration that the label would partner with a company known for dubious ethical and environmental practices. "We're thrilled to reveal our exclusive Shein x Monse collection, where luxury meets accessibility and impact...Monse was founded on the principle of deconstructing menswear for women, empowering them in the workspace, and we are excited to continue this initiative," read Monse's Instagram caption unveiling the partnership. The co-branded collection, it revealed, would retail at a fast-fashion price point, between $1.70 and $64.39. View the original article to see embedded media. Though the brand promptly turned off comments on the post, users took their opinions to other comment sections. Kelsey Randall, a New York City-based fashion designer, posted on a previous post from the brand, writing, "I always really loved your brand and treasure the few pieces I own but am so bummed out to see y'all partnering with Shein.... You know it's bad when you have the comments turned off for your celebratory launch post!!!" Another Instagram user commented, "Announce a Shein collaboration and then turn off comments. Try to be a bit less transparent [about] how much of a sell-out this collaboration is." The gasp I just let out pic.twitter.com/TgV3Xt10dS Tim Fitzgerald (@tim__fitzgerald) July 10, 2024 Commenters on X (previously known as Twitter) expressed similar sentiments in reaction to the news, writing "I genuinely thought it was a joke," and "This is actually terrible." Shein's controversies are far-reaching: In addition to reports about unfair labor conditions for those working in Shein factories, the company also draws regular criticism for its environmental impact. In May, it was reported that the fast fashion retailer increased its absolute carbon emissions by almost 50% within a year, emitting more pollution than the entire country of Paraguay. It's also come under fire repeatedly for allegedly copying the work of independent designers. A component of the Monse x Shein collaboration is a partnership with non-profit Dress for Success, a New York City organization that makes professional clothing accessible to women in need navigating the workplace. But this hasn't eased the concerns of online critics. Randall specifically called this out in a comment, writing: "Donating some of the clothes to Dress for Success hardly makes up for the fact that these clothes were sewn in sweatshops with zero oversight for labor conditions and safety." The partnership as a whole seems to be at odds with many of Monse's previous brand pillars. The label, for example, dedicated its entire Spring 2021 collection to the concept of sustainability, making it out of unused fabrics from previous seasons in an effort to minimize waste and shine a light on the environmental impact of the fashion industry. Considering Shein releases more than 1,000 new items on its website every day, there seems to be a clear disconnect that may be difficult for Monse's community to reconcile. Representatives from Monse did not immediately respond to Fashionista's request for a comment. Want more Fashionista? Sign up for our daily newsletter and get us directly in your inbox. As airfare continues to climb, consider a more affordable vacation alternative: a coastal road trip. Imagine cruising the coast, wind in your hair, discovering delightful seaside towns, and plunging into the cool, refreshing ocean. A coastal road trip is the perfect way to temper the heat and explore some of the country's most beautiful destinations without breaking the bank. From Oregon's stunning coastline to Florida's Historic Coastal Byway, the great American road trip awaitsoceanfront style. 1. Pacific Coast Scenic Byway (Oregon) Highway 101 (@ Didier Marti via Getty Images) The Pacific Coast Byway (Highway 101), along the Oregon Coast, is an exhilarating journey through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement This route stretches approximately 363 miles from Astoria to Brookings and winds along rugged cliffs, dense forests, and charming coastal towns. Depoe Bay (David Rigg via Getty Images) "The Oregon Coast will take your breath with its rocky shores and massive sea stacks. Tucked between, you will discover secluded beaches, lush forests, and casual beach towns," says travel writer Scott McConkey of Miles with McConkey. Cannon Beach (Eduardo Cabanas via Getty Images) "While nearly every mile contains a worthy stop, Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach is the most iconic geological formation on the entire drive. Depoe Bay is the perfect place for whale watching, and Florence is a coastal playground where travelers can explore rolling sandy dunes and the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Bandon Beach is a sea stack paradise at the southern end of the drive, where you can enter tunnels and caves at low tide." 2. Pacific Coast Highway (California) Bixby Creek Bridge (Cristian Lourenco via Getty Images) The Pacific Coast Highway, also known as California State Route 1, stretches approximately 656 miles along the California coast, starting in Orange County and ending near Mendocino County. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement There are numerous breathtaking stops, including the coastal towns of Monterey, Big Sur, and Malibu. Big Sur, California (mauinow1 via Getty Images) "The Pacific Coast Highway takes you on an unforgettable journey from dramatic cliff heights to beautiful sandy shores. Sunsets and surprises await along the highway as it unfolds the length of California, weaving in and out of the majestic redwoods. Enjoy the unique character of each town along the way," says travel blogger Emily Wilson of Pets Around the World. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (Cristian Lourenco via Getty Images) "In the north, you'll experience the magic and mists that shroud the forests and streets of Mendocino. On the Central Coast are the welcoming storybook towns of dog-friendly Carmel and Cambria. Keep heading south to the hip urban and wide sandy beaches in Malibu and San Diego." 3. Route 1 (Maine) Long Sands Beach in York, Maine (Wangkun Jia vis shutterstock) U.S. Route 1 in Maine offers 526 miles of beautiful coastline, charming seaside towns, lighthouses, and lobster shacks. The route begins near the Canadian border in Fort Kent and ends in Kittery on the Maine-New Hampshire state line. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Some of the best stops on Maine's Route 1 include Portland, known for its lively waterfront and food scene; Acadia National Park, for gorgeous landscapes and outdoor activities; and Kennebunkport, known for its historic sites. Portland Head Light (John Baggaley via Getty Images) "Route 1 in Maine offers unique charm and beauty all along the scenic coast. In Southern Maine, stop in the lovely town of York with sandy beaches, the Nubble Lighthouse, and an adorable downtown. Through Central Maine, stop in Portland. It's Maine's largest city, and the historic Old Port district has some fantastic places for seafood. There are many different lighthouses and beaches near Portland," says travel blogger Meghan Elise of Meghan the Traveling Teacher. Acadia National Park (Cavan via depositphotos) "In Northern Maine, head to Bar Harbor, the gateway to Acadia National Park, where you can enjoy excellent coastal hiking, beaches, and rocky coastlines. This US road trip is one you want to take advantage of." 4. Outer Banks Scenic Byway (North Carolina) Highway 12 near Hatteras Island (Kyle Little via Getty Images) The Outer Banks Scenic Byway stretches approximately 138 miles along North Carolina's coast. It begins at Whalebone Junction and ends in Beaufort. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement The entire drive only takes 5.5 hours and includes two ferry rides. This drive passes by coastal towns, beautiful beaches, and stops like Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Ocracoke Island. Cape Point (Kyle Little via Getty Images) "The Outer Banks Scenic Byway offers access to some of the most beautiful beaches in North Carolina with plenty of other fun attractions along the way. In the northern Outer Banks, you can see wild horses in Corolla, visit the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, or catch a beautiful sunset at Jockey's Ridge State Park," says travel blogger Anna Cook of Stuck on the Go. Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (Eifel Kreutz via Getty Images) "As you travel south, you can check out Bodie Island Lighthouse and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, where you'll also find quiet and secluded beaches. Don't miss the ferry over to Ocracoke Island, which offers a cute village full of shops and restaurants and miles of pristine beaches." 5. Alabama's Coastal Connection Scenic Byway Mobile Bay (George Dodd via Getty Images) Alabama's Coastal Connection Scenic Byway stretches for 130 miles, starting in Grand Bay and ending in Orange Beach. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement This scenic route showcases the beauty of Alabama's Gulf Coast, passing through the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, and Gulf State Park. Notable stops include the historic Fort Morgan, the charming town of Fairhope, and the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores. Fairhope Pier (George Dodd via Getty Images) "Along the Alabama Coastal Connection Scenic Byway, youll discover quaint coastal towns like Dauphin Island, Fairhope, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Foley, and Daphne, to name a few. Each town offers its own unique southern hospitality charm, making it the perfect laid-back destination," says travel blogger Sheri Nagle of Park and Roam. Orange Beach, AL (GeorgeDodd via depositphotos) "In Fairhope, stroll along the Mobile Bay Pier and explore the cute downtown area filled with boutiques and cafes. Visit the Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores to enjoy outdoor adventures like biking and kayaking, then relax on the beautiful beaches of Orange Beach. No matter where you stop along the way, youll find plenty of family-friendly activities and delicious locally-caught seafood." 6. A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway (Northeast Florida) Melbourne Beach, Florida (iofoto via depositphotos) The A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway runs along Florida's Atlantic coast, starting in St. Johns County and ending in Flagler County, covering 72 miles. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement You'll witness breathtaking ocean views and pass through historic sites like the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, the nation's oldest city. Explore the charming towns of Vilano Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, and Flagler Beach, which offer unique attractions and gorgeous beaches. Flagler Beach (KenWiedemann via Getty Images) "The A1A Scenic and Historic Coastal Byway travels along Florida's east coast from Jacksonville, ending at Gamble Rogers Memorial Park in Flagler Beach. This stretch of the coast provides stunning views of beaches, sand dunes, nature trails, and the picturesque Atlantic Ocean," says travel blogger Erin Moreland of The Simple Salty Life. St. Augustine, Florida (Gianfranco Vivi via Getty Images) "For 72 miles along the scenic byway, travelers can experience nature mixed with history, including a stop in St. Augustine- the nation's oldest city! Here cobblestone streets and classic Spanish architecture beckon history buffs and nature-lovers alike to shop, dine, and explore monuments, historic forts, nature preserves, and relax along the pristine sandy coastline of Anastasia Island." 7. Overseas Highway (Florida Keys) Overseas Highway (Michael Warren via Getty Images) The Overseas Highway, also known as U.S. Route 1, runs 113 miles, starting in Key Largo and ending in Key West, Florida. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement This iconic highway connects the Florida Keys, offering travelers stunning views of turquoise waters and numerous islands. Notable stops along the way include John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the historic Seven Mile Bridge, and Bahia Honda State Park. Bahia Honda State Park (Simon Dannhauer via Getty Images) "An Overseas Highway road trip to the Florida Keys is just as much about the journey as it is the destination. Everywhere you turn, you'll be surrounded by some of the most beautiful water you'll ever see. The water is various shades of turquoise, with almost endless opportunities to snorkel, kayak, lay on the beach, camp, and more," says travel blogger Chelsea Sanburg of Hello Florida Keys. Islamorada, Florida (THEPALMER via Getty Images) "But you can't miss a day at the sandbar in Islamorada, hiking the Old Bahia Honda Bridge for the best views, or exploring and relaxing on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor." Unforgettable Coastal Road Trips in the U.S. A coastal road trip offers a unique opportunity to explore beautiful beaches, charming towns, and historic sites along scenic byways. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Each route promises breathtaking scenery and memorable stops, making the journey as enjoyable as the destinations. Embrace the adventure, soak in the sun, and create unforgettable experiences as you journey along some of the country's most beautiful coastlines. Mediterranean holidays are still the toast of the town. International tourists are set to spend a record-breaking 800 billion ($869 billion) in Europe this year, according to a European Travel Commission report Bloomberg received. That marks an impressive 37 percent increase from the pre-pandemic levels of 583 billion ($633 billion), per the United Nations Tourism data cited by the publication. More from Robb Report For now, we can see that southern European and Mediterranean destinations remain firm favorites for travelers in Europe, Eduardo Santander, the CEO of the European Travel Commission, told Bloomberg. Tourists appreciate the warmer weather in the aforementioned areas and the sometimes less-expensive options, Santander added. Greece, for example, continues to be a hot spot. And southern locales like Croatia and Malta have seen an increase in overseas tourists, with numbers up 7.6 percent and 37 percent, respectively, compared with 2019. Albania, meanwhile, has seen the share of overnight tourists jump a massive 86 percent compared with 2019. Overall, 72 percent of tourists spending has occurred in Western Europe, according to the report. And most of those tourists are arriving on the continent from America. But some travelers are interested in avoiding the usual vacation cities, where over-tourism can be rampant. As such, many visitors are heading to Europes northern countries: International overnight stays have risen 38 percent in Denmark, 18 percent in Norway, and 9 percent in Sweden, compared with 2019. Yet others are planning their trips based on a favorable exchange rate. International tourist arrivals are up 22 percent in Turkey and 29 percent in Bulgaria, compared with 2019 numbers. And in Serbia, those arrivals have skyrocketed 40 percent compared with before the pandemic. While the almost $900 billion being added to the European economy is certainly a boon, some countries arent so thrilled with all the extra people showing up. A number of places have enacted anti-tourism policies such as bans on new hotels and day-tripper fees. And locals have begun to protest against over-tourism, even spraying visitors with water guns to get their point across. These actions, though, dont seem to have deterred travelers just yet. Theyre still heading to Europe, and bringing their money along with them. 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. One of Britains biggest Caribbean carnivals has been cancelled at the eleventh hour due to concerns over its expense. Leicester Caribbean Carnival organisers announced the heartbreaking decision this week, citing significant financial risk as the reason for the move. The annual extravaganza, which has been running for nearly 40 years, was due to take place on Saturday 3 August in Victoria Park, Leicester. Unfortunately, with a heavy heart, this year we are very sorry to inform you that we must postpone the event until 2025, reads an official statement from chair Dennis Sugar Christopher. With the difficult economic climate and increasing event costs, we face significant financial risk. This is not helped by the possibility of poor weather and low uptake on visitors to the park we had in 2023. Organising and planning an event as big as carnival is a huge and complex task - Leicester's Caribbean Carnival is a massive undertaking for a very small team, and this year, despite our very best efforts, we simply weren't able to overcome the many challenges we faced in time. Leicester Carnival has been cancelled at the eleventh hour due to funding. (Leicester Carnival) The statement goes on to say: The decision to postpone is heartbreaking, but we would like to thank everyone involved for all their help and hard work, in particular the council and Safety Advisory Group. Once again, we hope you understand that we are just as upset as you are and will do our best to ensure this does not happen again and would therefore welcome support from the community and local organisations to ensure the future longevity of the Carnival. The news was met with disappointment from members of the local community. Responding to the announcement on social media, one resident, Heidi Leatherland, said: This is such a shame. I took my children to this event in 2022 and it was a glorious day. We went again last year, sadly it did rain (a lot) but it was still a fantastic parade. We were really looking forward to this year. Lets hope it gets the funding it deserves. Im struggling with this. Diwali and other events get all the funding and this incredible showcase of a great community isnt given the support. Why?, another reveller, Zay Kerbelker, wrote. Resident Sharrona Small added: A lot of people upset at the last minute decision to cancel. Maybe before putting on another, check your budget and see if you can afford it so as not to disappoint the whole of Leicester 4 weeks before the event. Like numerous Caribbean carnival around the world, this events inception was rooted in resistance. (Leicester Carnival) Like numerous Caribbean carnivals around the world, this events inception was rooted in resistance. In 1984, several members of Leicesters Caribbean community were inspired to launch an affair that acknowledged the African-Caribbean heritage. That year marked 150 years of the Emancipation of slavery in the Caribbean and nothing was being done to celebrate that important milestone in Leicester. The following year, in August 1985, the first Leicester Caribbean Carnival was staged. It grew to become known as the largest multi-cultural event in the Midlands. According to recent census data, Leicester is one of the first cities in the UK where people identifying as white are no longer the majority with 43.4 per cent identifying as being Asian heritage, 40.9 per cent as white, 7.8 per cent as Black and 3.8 per cent as being mixed or multiple heritage. Leicester Carnival organisers said they will be working with Leicester City Council and East Midlands Carnival Arts Network over the coming months to bring back a fantastic event next year which marks the events 40th anniversary. Leicester City Council has been approached for comment. (WHTM) The family of Charity Thome has reached a $1.25 million settlement years after she was fatally shot by State Police in Lebanon County, according to the familys attorney Benjamin O. Present, Esq. The Lebanon County District Attorneys office says on March 16, 2020, Thome had attempted to break into a home and fled police, leading them on a chase. Officers used an immobilization technique to disable Thomes vehicle, causing it to spin out into a field. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now WHTM Morning Weather The District Attorneys office says Thome continued to drive into a police cruiser and continued to accelerate. At that point, Troopers drew their weapons and fired at Thome, killing her. According to an autopsy, Thome was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the shooting. District Attorney Pier Hess Graf ruled the State Trooper, Jay Splain, and his partner were justified in the fatal shooting. Grafs husband, Corporal Christopher Graf, was Splains supervisor at the time. That idea that somehow his role or our marriage plays a part in this I frankly disagree with, said District Attorney Hess Graf told Dennis Owens in 2022. Splain was also connected to multiple other fatal shootings, all of which were ruled justified. This settlement culminates a long, hard-fought litigation surrounding the unconstitutional fatal police shooting of Charity Thome, said Present. Though no amount of money can bring back their lost loved one, the Thome family is grateful to have settled for substantial and fair compensation. State Police declined to comment on the settlement in a request earlier this week. Its unclear who all will be paying out the settlement. 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 Robinson R44 helicopter involved in the incident was operated by Alii Kauai Air Tours and Charters Paul Mounce/Corbis/Getty Kauai, Hawaii One person has died and two others are missing after a tourist helicopter crashed off the coast of Kauai, authorities said. The accident occurred shortly before 1:20 p.m. local time on Thursday, July 11 when hikers along the Kalalau Trail witnessed the Robinson R44 helicopter crash into the ocean about a quarter mile offshore along the Na Pali Coast, according to the county of Kauai and the Associated Press. One person was recovered roughly one hour after the crash, county officials said, while multiple agencies, including the United States Coast Guard, Kauai Fire Department, Kauai Emergency Management Agency and the Kauai Police Department, were conducting a rescue operation for the two other missing occupants. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction for the search area during the operation, the county said. Paul Mounce/Corbis/Getty Kauai, Hawaii Related: Mother-Daughter Tourists, a Swiss Family of 4: Victims of Hawaii Helicopter Crash Identified The search was paused at sundown on July 11 and was set to continue at first light on July 12, authorities said. The helicopter was part of Alii Kauai Air Tours and Charters, based in Lihue, where the islands main airport is located, authorities said. As of the morning of July 12, none of the helicopters occupants had been identified. 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 incredibly sad to hear of the life tragically lost today, and the two other individuals who are still missing after a helicopter crashed into waters off Kauais Na Pali Coast, Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami said in a news release. While we do not know all the details surrounding the incident at this time, we do know that our first responders are doing everything they can in this emergency operation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all involved. Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke also issued a statement regarding the tragedy. We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those involved in this terrible incident, Luke said. As search and recovery operations continue, the State stands fully prepared to work in tandem with the County of Kauai and our Federal partners. We thank all responders and agency partners for their assistance during this difficult time. Related: 6 Bodies Recovered After Hawaii Helicopter Crash: 'No Indications of Survivors,' Officials Say The island was experiencing strong trade winds at the time of the accident, according to the National Weather Service. The last tourist helicopter crash in the state was also in Kauai, when a pilot and six passengers died in a crash off the coast near Kekaha in 2019. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A person is dead after a rollover crash involving a tanker truck on Friday, July 12, near the Hudspeth County line, according to the Hudspeth County Sheriffs Office. The Sheriffs Office says the crash happened at Mile Marker 50 along US 62/180 and a male died at the scene. The tanker truck was carrying diesel at the time of the crash. US 62/180 has been reduced to two lanes, according to the Sheriffs Office. The El Paso Fire Department says its assisting the Montana Vista Fire Department with the fuel spill. The Fire Department says the tanker released 9,000 gallons of fuel. The Montana Vista Fire Department, the Desert Haven Fire Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Hudspeth County and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality all responded to the scene. 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. 10 kids involved in chase, crash in middle GA; 4 flown to Atlanta hospital in critical condition Four children are in critical condition at an Atlanta hospital after a chase and crash in middle Georgia. Bibb County deputies say they were called to someone breaking into cars around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. They spotted the 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer involved in the break-in and learned it had been reported stolen the day before. Deputies tried pulling it over, but the driver started a chase with them. A Georgia State Patrol trooper performed a PIT maneuver on the car and it crashed into a utility pole. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The driver, 17-year-old Jakhori Jamal Woolfolk, tried to run but was arrested. Deputies say there were a total of 10 people in the car at the time of the crash. All 10 people in the car are younger than 18. They range in age from 11 to 17. Four of the kids, two 13-year-old boys, a 12-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy, were all flown to Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta where they are listed in critical condition. TRENDING STORIES: An 11-year-old was also taken to the hospital, but has non-life-threatening injuries. Three more boys, ages 12, 13 and 14, were taken to the youth detention center and charged with theft by receiving stolen property and entering auto. Woolfolk was taken to the Bibb County Jail and charged with theft by receiving stolen property-auto. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: This photo taken on July 11, 2024 shows a press conference of the Fourth China (Ningxia) International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua) YINCHUAN, July 11 (Xinhua) -- International experts and enterprises involved in the wine industry are set to gather in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China's leading wine-producing area, for an expo in August. The Fourth China (Ningxia) International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo will be hosted by the regional government from Aug. 9 to 11 in Yinchuan, Ningxia's capital, according to the organizer on Thursday. The expo, with the theme "Chinese wine, A Marvel to the World -- Good Wine Originates from Unique Terroir," will invite experts and enterprises in the wine-making industry from both home and abroad, as well as officials and representatives of embassies, ministries and international organizations. More than 60 wineries and exhibitors from countries including France, Australia, Italy, Spain and Chile will attend the three-day expo, which will feature a wine carnival, competitions and other events. Huang Siming, director of the management committee of a wine industrial park at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, told Xinhua that Ningxia has since 2012 hosted nine editions of the International Wine Expo at Helan Mountains' Eastern Foot and three editions of the International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo. "The upgrade of the wine expo makes a bigger circle of friends for Ningxia, and helps the region expand its market, share the opportunities and achieve win-win deals with friends through cooperation," said Huang. Ningxia boasts a unique terroir for making top-class wine, with its prolonged sunshine and a cool, dry climate aiding the cultivation of grapes. After more than 40 years of development, Ningxia has emerged as China's largest wine-producing region. It boasts 602,000 mu (about 40,133 hectares) of grape plantations and 253 wineries and grape-growing enterprises that produced 140 million bottles of wine in 2023. Scientists now have more information to study how human-driven climate change is impacting our planet, thanks to brand new imagery arriving from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite. The cloud and aerosol mission launched on May 29, 2024 from Vandenberg Space Force Base on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket; just over a month later, its broadband radiometer instrument managed to produce the first image from the mission. This image, the team says, captures Earth's energy balance referring to how much energy the planet takes in from solar radiation, and how much thermal radiation is then released from Earth back into space. As global temperatures are on the rise, the mission is thus crucial. With EarthCARE in action, scientists should be able to better understand how, precisely, human activities are contributing to an increase of greenhouse gases and how industrial plants, traffic and agricultural practices are also sending aerosols into Earth's atmosphere. "Of course we have never doubted the EarthCARE broadband radiometer's potential, but here we see, at such an early stage in the mission, that the instrument is working very well and delivering excellent data," Simonetta Cheli, ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programs, said in a statement. Related: SpaceX launches Earth-observing EarthCARE satellite during rocket flight doubleheader "Each of the satellite's different instruments has an extremely important role to play and when all of them are working in harmony and the satellite is commissioned, then the scientific community and weather forecasters will have a powerful tool to advance our understanding of Earths energy balance, advance climate science and improve weather predictions," Cheli added. An illustration showing a spacecraft connected to a slice of earth via beams of light. The radiometer is one of four instruments aboard the satellite that highlights how clouds and aerosols play a part in regulating our climate. Last month, the satellite's cloud profiling radar instrument captured an image that showcased the dynamics and internal structure of clouds, a turning point in studying clouds from space. Related Stories: Should we seal DNA samples of Earth's endangered species in a moon crater? Scientists are mapping Earth's rivers from space before climate change devastates our planet Beavers are helping fight climate change, satellite data shows "We are thrilled to be able to present this first image, which reveals detail on the internal structure of cloud dynamics over the ocean, east of Japan on 13 June," Takuji Kubota, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Mission Scientist for the cloud profiling radar, said in a separate statement. "This is the first image of its kind we have never had this kind of information measured from space before. It is all we hoped for, and more. I believe that the cloud profiling radar will bring various scientific discoveries." Typically, these types of measurements can only be taken from a cloud radar on the ground or from an aircraft. The EarthCARE satellite allows for a more uniform scan of the planet, however, providing a three-dimensional view that helps researchers understand climate science unlike ever before. 2 dead in suspected murder-suicide, police say Two people are dead after a suspected murder-suicide in Northern Kentucky Thursday night. >>Logan County family mourning after woman shot, killed Officers were dispatched to a house around 5:30 p.m. after a family member discovered two people shot in the head, according to our news partner WCPO in Cincinnati. Marsha Israel, 71, was found dead in a first-floor bedroom and her husband, Rick Israel, 71, was also discovered dead in a bathroom, police told Cincinnati media outlets. They said the incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide. Anyone with information is asked to call Florence Police at 859-371-1234. Two women were shot, and one suffered critical injuries after a shooting early Friday morning. >>2 dead in suspected murder-suicide, police say Cincinnati Police officers were dispatched around 2:30 a.m. to Reading Road on initial reports of a shooting. They told Cincinnati media outlets that two women were shot. One is in critical condition while the other suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to our news partner WCPO in Cincinnati. Another woman has been taken into custody in connection to the shooting, WKRC said. The shooting remains under investigation. Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Racine Festival Park on Tuesday June 18, 2024. When former President Donald Trump takes the stage in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention, hell be returning to a city and a state that has been the subject of many of his false claims. Many of Trumps claims that PolitiFact Wisconsin has checked are about the 2020 election: From whether he won the state that year (he didnt) to whether absentee ballots in Milwaukee were fraudulent (they werent). Some of those falsehoods may be repeated at the RNC on stage, on camera or elsewhere. Lets take a look back at our fact-checks of things Trump has said about Wisconsin. 1. Trump did not win Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election Lets start with a falsehood that Trump has often repeated: that he won the battleground state of Wisconsin in 2020. Ahead of his first Wisconsin rally of this campaign cycle in Green Bay, Trump said we did much better in 2020 compared to 2016. He said something similar at a rally in Racine last month. But thats not true: Trump did win Wisconsin in 2016 by more than 22,000 votes, but he lost in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. PolitiFact Wisconsin also checked this claim in 2021, outlining how recounts in heavily Democratic Milwaukee and Dane counties only led to Trump falling further behind President Joe Biden. We checked it in 2020, too. 2. No ballot dump in Milwaukee, Republicans rejected processing absentee ballots earlier Trump often focuses his claims of fraud in the 2020 election on Milwaukees absentee ballots. Around 3:30 a.m. the morning after Election Day, Milwaukee reported its absentee ballot results, which heavily favored Biden. That led to claims about voter fraud or a ballot dump. Trump claimed the totals came when Milwaukee learned (Biden) was losing badly. Its not a surprise that Milwaukee voted heavily for Biden its a longtime Democratic stronghold. But the timing element is important here: The Milwaukee Election Commission said months before the election that they probably wouldnt finish counting absentee ballots until the early morning hours. Thats because Wisconsin law doesnt allow clerks to start processing absentee ballots until Election Day, and Milwaukee had a lot of those ballots in 2020 during the pandemic. Ahead of the 2024 election, a group of bipartisan lawmakers tried again to allow clerks to start processing absentee ballots a day early to prevent perceptions of a ballot dump. The measure passed the Assembly, but got held up by Republicans in the Senate. Trump also claimed that a Milwaukee election official acknowledged dropping off just the margin of ballots needed for a Biden win at 3:00 a.m. The Milwaukee Election Commissions Claire Woodall who has since been replaced had responded to an email from an election consultant who said Woodall delivered the margin at 3 a.m. Woodall later called the email "a very inappropriate joke" but not evidence of an attempt to steer the election to Biden. City of Milwaukee employees, Steven Coleman, left, and Larry Ponder remove ballots from a ballot drop box on the sidewalk outside the Washington Park Library on in Milwaukee October 3, 2020. 3. Other false claims about 2020 election, including that Republicans didnt investigate Trump has also incorrectly claimed that a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that declared drop boxes illegal applied retroactively to the 2020 election. It didnt. And the court reversed that decision earlier this month, allowing for drop boxes in Wisconsin this fall. Trump also missed the mark when he said Republican lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, were working hard to cover up election corruption in Wisconsin. In fact, Republican leaders did take steps to investigate the 2020 election and faced criticism for using taxpayer dollars to do so. They requested an audit by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, and Vos hired former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to investigate the election. Gablemans review cost nearly $2.5 million while turning up little new information and failing to show evidence that the 2020 election was incorrectly called. 4. Trump was correct on absentee ballot spoiling, but thats since changed Looking back in our PolitiFact Wisconsin archives, Trump was right about one aspect of absentee voting in Wisconsin at the time. In the final week of his 2016 campaign, Trump said Wisconsin is is one of several states where you can change your early ballot if you think you've made a mistake. That process is known as spoiling and was an option for voters who made a mistake or changed their mind about who they voted for. That typically involved contacting or visiting the clerks office to request a new ballot. Trump was correct when he made that claim in 2016. But the latest guidelines say clerks cannot return or spoil an otherwise complete, undamaged absentee ballot that was properly previously returned by an elector. So, as long as the absentee ballot is complete and in acceptable condition, the voter cant possess the ballot again. That guidance changed after a Republican-backed group challenged Wisconsins spoiling process in court. 5. Trump missed when blaming Foxconns failures on pandemic Lets move on from Trumps election claims and focus on another topic familiar to Wisconsin voters: Foxconn. About two years after Trump attended the groundbreaking for the tech company, he was asked in a local interview about Foxconns lack of progress toward its promises, such as creating up to 13,000 jobs. "No. 1, you had a pandemic, Trump said as an explanation. But Foxconn began falling short long before the pandemic started in 2020. The pre-pandemic job creation numbers submitted by Foxconn for 2018 and 2019 fell short of the minimum for each year, a statement from WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes said in part. Since then, Bidens campaign has contrasted the unfulfilled promises of Foxconn with the expansion of Microsofts data center in Mount Pleasant, which is being built on the land that Foxconn was initially expected to use. 6. Trump has falsely taken credit for saving Kenosha during violent unrest in 2020 Heres a claim Trump repeated at his rally in Racine earlier this summer: that he saved Kenosha and the governor wouldnt move on sending the National Guard. We checked a similar claim in 2020. Kenosha was rocked by civil unrest in 2020 after a police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times. The officer was not criminally charged. PolitiFact Wisconsin pointed out three things: protests occurred in a limited area compared to the entire city, other factors like a drop in the number of people with firearms reduced violence, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called in the National Guard before the Trump administration got involved. After the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings, Evers increased National Guard troop numbers from 250 to 500. Evers also accepted federal troops from the Trump administration, after initially turning down federal help. 7. Trumps claim about sanctuary cities in Wisconsin has some nuance You can bet that immigration will be a topic of discussion at the RNC. And Trump has made claims about sanctuary cities in Wisconsin that fell in the middle of the Truth-O-Meter. At a 2020 rally in Milwaukee, Trump claimed Madison and Milwaukee County both carried sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants. Neither the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County or Madison were formally considered sanctuary cities, and theres nothing to indicate thats changed. As we noted previously, sanctuary city is a political term, rather than a legal one. But those local governments have adopted policies to protect immigrants that fit the meaning of the term, such as Milwaukee Public Schools declaring itself a safe haven for undocumented students and families. Trump also claimed the two cities have released undocumented immigrants who have committed multiple crimes, including sexual assault. There was a case in Dane County that matched that claim, but Trumps team never provided specifics about cases in Milwaukee and local officials did not have enough information to determine what he was referring to. 8. Trump wasnt the first Republican to win Wisconsin since Eisenhower Finally, heres an interesting look back at the states Republican voting history ahead of the RNC. In 2018, Trump claimed his 2016 victory in Wisconsin was the first time a Republican had won the state since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. He also claimed Ronald Reagan didnt win Wisconsin. Both his claims were false. Wisconsin did vote for Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. But then Wisconsin voted for Richard Nixon in 1960, 1968 and 1972 and for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Sources PolitiFact Wisconsin, Ahead of first 2024 rally in Wisconsin, Trump repeats false claims that he won the state in 2020, April 1, 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Deja vu all over again as former President Trump wrongly claims Wisconsin victory, July 6, 2021. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Recount finds Trump did not win Wisconsin, despite his victory claim, Dec. 9, 2020. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Trump again flat wrong with claims about Wisconsin voter fraud, Nov. 20, 2020. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Senate leader prepared to let Monday 'ballot dump' measure die despite previous support, Feb. 26, 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin, No, Milwaukee election official didnt admit to delivering just enough ballots for a Biden win, Aug. 23, 2021. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson replaces elections chief Claire Woodall, May 6, 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Trump back on hot seat with claim linking ballot box ruling to 2020 election, July 14, 2022. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstates absentee ballot drop boxes, July 5, 2024. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Taxpayers' bill for the shuttered Michael Gableman election review keeps growing. Here is the latest and what we know so far., March 3, 2023. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 'An incompetent circus': Michael Gableman's 2020 election review reaches 1 year and the $1 million mark with little to show, Jan. 26, 2023. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Is Donald Trump right that in some states, you can cast an early ballot, take it back, vote again?, Nov. 2, 2016. Wisconsin Elections Commission, Election Administration Manual for Wisconsin Municipal Clerks, Feb. 2024. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Appeals Court puts on hold ruling sought by conservative groups barring 'ballot spoiling', Oct. 10, 2022. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Here's a short timeline of Foxconn's plans and development in Wisconsin, Nov. 10, 2023. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Trump wrong to blame pandemic for Foxconn struggles, Oct. 23, 2020. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, President Biden touts Microsoft's Racine County 'comeback project,' contrasts it with Foxconn failure, May 9, 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin, At Racine rally, Trump again claims he saved Kenosha, Wis., in 2020, June 21, 2024. PolitiFact Wisconsin, No, Trump doesn't deserve credit for Kenosha de-escalation, Sept. 1, 2020. PolitiFact Wisconsin, Trump claim that Madison, Milwaukee are sanctuary cities has some merit but goes too far, April 17, 2020. PolitiFact Wisconsin, President Trump makes some interesting claims about Wisconsin's Republican voting history, June 29, 2018. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ahead of RNC, a recap of our fact-checks of Trumps Wisconsin claims ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. (WFXR)Roanoke County Fire reports residents in four apartment units have been displaced after a fire at the Ridgeview Apartments on Hawthorne Road on Thursday, July 11. According to the fire department, crews were dispatched at 1:54 p.m. to the 5300 block of Hawthorne Road on a report of a commercial structure fire. They arrived to find nothing showing from the outside of the building, however, firefighters found evidence of a fire on the fifth floor that was extinguished by the complexs sprinkler system. The working smoke alarms and sprinkler system helped keep residents safe during the fire and there were no injuries reported from the scene. Roanoke Fire responded to early morning car fire on 1st Street Crews reported fire damage was minimal, but the water from the sprinkler caused about $20,000 in damage and the fire displaced four units. The residents displaced are staying with family and friends or will be assisted by the management at Ridgeview Apartments and their renters insurance. The Roanoke County Fire Marshals Office reports the fire was caused by unattended melting wax on a stovetop. 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. CHICAGO A man was shot and killed Thursday evening on the Dan Ryan. Illinois State Police responded to the scene just after 5:15 p.m. in northbound lanes between 79th and 83rd. A man, later identified as Tyjon Bush, 22, was shot and killed. 5 wounded, 1 critically, in shooting on West Side He was pronounced dead after 5:20 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 WGN-TV. A vibrant, ferocious girl with a beautiful smile thats how 22-year-old Tykeedra Hendersons family wants to remember her. Henderson was shot and killed at a gas station near West 31st and Bell streets near Southwest Boulevard on July 4 just after 1:00 a.m. said Jake Becchina, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department. Its devastating to our family, especially to her mother, her sisters and her friends, just everybody that loved her, Alisha Hutson, Hendersons aunt, said. Because its unexpected, it hurt even more. Its definitely put a void and a hole in our hearts. Henderson was in her car in the gas station parking lot when shots were fired from outside the vehicle, striking her, Becchina said. Hendersons car rolled to a stop in the south side of the parking lot, where she was found unresponsive. Unfortunately, she was the victim of a random shooting, a GoFundMe for Hendersons family said. Tydreeka Henderson was a graduate of Ruskin High School in South Kansas City, graduating in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. She had been working since she was 16 years old, her mother, Leyana James, said. She had plans to attend school in the fall in hopes of becoming a radiology technician. She was saying, Auntie I want to go to school to help other people, Hutson said. Thats what she wanted to do. And I was really looking forward to her doing that, and unfortunately now she cant do that. Henderson was outspoken and determined with a smile that just lit up the room when she walked in, Hutson said. The oldest of four siblings, she was particularly close with her two younger sisters. They looked up to her and really just loved her, Hutson said. Not only with her sisters, but she had a lot of friends that loved her. Shes only been out of high school a few years, but still, she had a number of friends and just family that truly loved her. But I would just say that she was definitely a light to all she came in contact with. Henderson was born a type one diabetic. My daughter was a fighter, she been a type one diabetic her whole life, James said. She was a spitfire. Thats all I gotta say. She was a spitfire. Vibrant. Ferocious. Hendersons family described her as a hard worker, who was looking for a second job at the time of her death. Even though her diabetes sometimes interfered with her work life, she never let it slow her down, James said. Even though that was a challenge that she faced, and sometimes it impacted her working situation, she still persevered and worked hard to still thrive despite having that diabetes, Hutson said. No suspects have been named in Hendersons case, Becchina said. Her family is hopeful that justice will prevail in this situation, Hutson said. We just want to make sure our focus is really on remembering Tykeedra for the beautiful young lady that she was, Hutson said. She touched so many lives in her short time that she spent here on this earth. And we know that there was so much more in store for her in the future. Anyone with information or tips regarding the death of Tydreeka Henderson can contact homicide detectives at (816) 234-5043 or send in anonymous tips to the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on gun violence during an event at John R. Lewis High School on June 2, 2023 in Springfield, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) The question burning at the center of American public opinion since the first presidential debate: If President Joe Biden steps down, who will replace him as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States? The most obvious answer appears to be the nations second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Harris. But her candidacy would face nearly insurmountable odds of success, if American history and recent voter polls are any indication. Its not because she isnt qualified; as the president asserted Thursday in a press conference, she is, undoubtedly. And, being decades younger than Biden and accustomed to the demands of public office, shed likely have the energy and stamina to campaign and serve out four years of the presidency. Shes also a history maker, as the first woman, African American and South Asian American person elected vice president. Theres the rub. Poll after poll show only mere percentage points separating Biden and former President Donald Trump. Reflect on that: A huge chunk of American voters want Trump, a convicted felon whose racist, sexist, violent rhetoric went beyond bombast before, during and after his time in the White House and was frequently reflected in his policies. If that many voters are seriously considering voting for him, then does Harris representing so much of what Trump stands against even stand a chance? I think that she does not, Jatia Wrighten, PhD, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, told me this week. In this political climate, and historically in the countrys political climate, Americans have been hesitant to put support behind Black women at the national level, Wrighten said. Enter Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and, in 1972, the first Black candidate to seek a major partys nomination for President of the United States. Despite her track record of success representing New Yorks 12th congressional district including sponsoring legislation that expanded food assistance programs for low-income single mothers and drawing from her experience as an early childhood educator and authority to further Head Start and school lunch programs her candidacy was largely viewed as a joke. Media members, mostly white men, picked apart her appearance and dismissed her presidential run as female meddling. Those who seemed most likely to support Chisholm like feminist leader Gloria Steinem and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson instead supported her opponent, George McGovern. In the end, she clinched just 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention that year and the party deemed McGovern their nominee. More recently there was Stacey Abrams of Georgia, who, though seeking her states highest office and not the countrys, experienced many of the same obstacles Chisholm did by daring to seek public office while existing as a Black person and woman, at the same time. Perhaps as much as supporters and the media covered her work to root out voter suppression in the Peach State, Abrams opponents and the media zoomed in on all the wrong things, betraying a double standard, which subjects Black woman political candidates to scrutiny that white candidates, male or female, just arent. They talked about [Abrams] being single, her weight, how dark she was, on top of examining the things we look at with any candidate, like how qualified she was, her education, how well spoken she was, Wrighten said. Heightening all of this is the fact that dark-skinned, kinky-haired Chisholm and Abrams dont mirror classic American beauty standards, derived from European ideals of fair skin, straight hair, a narrow nose and a thin physique. Concerning Black women in American politics, Wrighten posited, Being overweight matters, having darker skin matters, having natural hair mattersand it shouldnt. Black women candidates are faced with this standard of beauty that others dont have to contend with. The same sentiments that poisoned Chisholms candidacy and Abrams governors race still exist in America and would pose a serious hurdle to Harris victory, said Wrighten. At the national level, theres a lot of media attention that works against Black women. Theres a lot of bias, there are stereotypes at play that hurt Black women especially. Theres still a sense that women are unfit for the office. Another obstacle Harris could encounter if she tried to make the leap from VP to commander-in-chief: I think established Democrats would have an issue with [Harris] running; theres this sense of, you have to put your time in, pay your dues, Wrighten said. That dynamic is familiar is Virginia state politics, too, evidenced by the establishment Dems putting their weight behind Terry McAuliffes 2021 run for governor a role hed already held, in addition to chairing the Democratic National Committee 2001-2005 and Hilary Clintons presidential campaign in 2008 and co-chairing former President Bill Clintons 1996 reelection campaign instead of the Jennifers, McClellan and Carol Foy. Both Black women with their bold ideas, statehouse experience and lots of public support had the potential to be Virginias first Black woman governor. Instead, McClellan and Carol Foys prospects were blunted because their partys heavy hitters backed McAuliffe (who then lost to Gov. Glenn Youngkin). Theres also the lingering effects from the Obama era that would likely damage Harris chance to be commander-in-chief. The election of the countrys first Black president ushered in a double-edged sword: a post-racial era (yeah right) marked by more opportunities and tangible progress for historically oppressed, disenfranchised groups, most notably Black Americans. The flipside was a seething resentment of that progress mostly expressed by the historically powerful group that orchestrated the oppression and disenfranchisement, white Americans. From the tea partys racially tinged attacks on the presidents policy agenda to the birther movements more overtly racist fantasies asserting that Obama was not even an American citizen, the national racial climate grew more, and not less, fraught after Obamas presidency, wrote historian Peniel Joseph, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, in a 2016 Washington Post series on Obamas legacy. Obamas presidency, flesh-and-blood proof of the nations shifting demographics and values, fueled a public sentiment held by many white Americans that Black people were getting perks they didnt deserve, Wrighten said. So we see this pushback against that. All of this consideration may be for nought, as Biden again reiterated Thursday that he intends to stay in the race, despite any voter polling indicating Harris would fare better against Trump than he would. But should Harris come to the forefront as the nominee, shell have a tough time ahead of her. I think shell continue to be sexualized, Wrighten said, referring to the unfounded rumors that emerged almost as soon as Biden announced Harris as his VP in 2020. There will continue to be this idea that she didnt earn what she has. There are 59 countries of the United Nations 193 member states who have elected women heads of government, a number that has risen steadily since 1990. It doesnt seem likely that Novembers presidential election will put America on that list; since George Washingtons election in 1789, Americas presidents have always been men. I think that the U.S. should take a long hard look at itself when were thinking about who can be a leader and what they look like, Wrighten said. I also think theres ample evidence to suggest that some serious self-examination is in order, on a national scale. The reality is, only Americans can transform the nation into one that would actually support and enable Harris, or any other woman or woman of color, becoming president. But it doesnt appear were in a particularly reflective mood. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Zhao Leji, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, delivers a speech while attending the plenary session of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 11, 2024. This year's forum ran from Thursday to Friday in St. Petersburg. Zhao attended the forum here and delivered speeches at the event. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) ST. PETERSBURG, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China's top legislator Zhao Leji attended the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum here and delivered speeches at the event. Zhao, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said at the plenary session of the forum on Thursday that the legislative bodies of the BRICS countries have maintained long-term friendly cooperation and played an important role in deepening the BRICS strategic partnership. This year's forum, which ran from Thursday to Friday, is the first parliamentary forum held after the expansion of the BRICS membership, which reflects the strong momentum of seeking strength through unity among member of the Global South and their firm will to seek common development, he said. Zhao stressed that the legislative bodies of BRICS should, based on their functions, promote the BRICS spirit of openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, consolidate BRICS unity, promote pragmatic cooperation, and promote the high-quality development of the BRICS cooperation mechanism. During his speech at the plenary session in the expanded format of the forum on Friday, Zhao said that Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, which have been widely praised and supported by the international community. "In the face of opportunities and challenges, we must uphold fairness and justice to safeguard world peace and security, uphold the sharing of results to promote common prosperity among countries, uphold openness and inclusiveness to promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations," Zhao said. He added that China is willing to work with BRICS partners and other developing countries to carry forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and shoulder the mission of the times in building a community with a shared future for mankind. The theme of this year's forum is "The Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security." Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a keynote speech at the plenary session in the expanded format of the forum on Thursday. The forum approved the Protocol to the Memorandum of Understanding on the BRICS Parliamentary Forum and adopted a joint declaration. Zhao also met with Egyptian House of Representatives Speaker Hanafy Ali al-Gebaly, and Maulen Ashimbayev, Kazakhstan's Senate Chairperson respectively on the sideline of the forum. Zhao Leji, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Egyptian House of Representatives Speaker Hanafy Ali al-Gebaly on the sideline of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 11, 2024. This year's forum ran from Thursday to Friday in St. Petersburg. Zhao attended the forum here and delivered speeches at the event. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) Zhao Leji, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, delivers a speech while attending the plenary session in the expanded format of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 12, 2024. This year's forum ran from Thursday to Friday in St. Petersburg. Zhao attended the forum here and delivered speeches at the event. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling) Zhao Leji, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Maulen Ashimbayev, Kazakhstan's Senate Chairperson, on the sideline of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 12, 2024. This year's forum ran from Thursday to Friday in St. Petersburg. Zhao attended the forum here and delivered speeches at the event. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA - JUNE 02: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on gun violence during an event at John R. Lewis High School on June 2, 2023 in Springfield, Virginia. Vice President Harris spoke on the administrations efforts to reduce gun violence to commemorate the National Gun Violence Awareness day. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) The question burning at the center of American public opinion since the first presidential debate: If President Joe Biden steps down, who will replace him as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States? The most obvious answer appears to be the nations second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Harris. But her candidacy would face nearly insurmountable odds of success, if American history and recent voter polls are any indication. Its not because she isnt qualified; as the president asserted Thursday in a press conference, she is, undoubtedly. And, being decades younger than Biden and accustomed to the demands of public office, shed likely have the energy and stamina to campaign and serve out four years of the presidency. Shes also a history maker, as the first woman, African American and South Asian American person elected vice president. Theres the rub. Poll after poll show only mere percentage points separating Biden and former President Donald Trump. Reflect on that: A huge chunk of American voters want Trump, a convicted felon whose racist, sexist, violent rhetoric went beyond bombast before, during and after his time in the White House and was frequently reflected in his policies. If that many voters are seriously considering voting for him, then does Harris representing so much of what Trump stands against even stand a chance? I think that she does not, Jatia Wrighten, PhD, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, told me this week. In this political climate, and historically in the countrys political climate, Americans have been hesitant to put support behind Black women at the national level, Wrighten said. Enter Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and, in 1972, the first Black candidate to seek a major partys nomination for President of the United States. Despite her track record of success representing New Yorks 12th congressional district including sponsoring legislation that expanded food assistance programs for low-income single mothers and drawing from her experience as an early childhood educator and authority to further Head Start and school lunch programs her candidacy was largely viewed as a joke. Media members, mostly white men, picked apart her appearance and dismissed her presidential run as female meddling. Those who seemed most likely to support Chisholm like feminist leader Gloria Steinem and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson instead supported her opponent, George McGovern. In the end, she clinched just 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention that year and the party deemed McGovern their nominee. More recently there was Stacey Abrams of Georgia, who, though seeking her states highest office and not the countrys, experienced many of the same obstacles Chisholm did by daring to seek public office while existing as a Black person and woman, at the same time. Perhaps as much as supporters and the media covered her work to root out voter suppression in the Peach State, Abrams opponents and the media zoomed in on all the wrong things, betraying a double standard, which subjects Black woman political candidates to scrutiny that white candidates, male or female, just arent. They talked about [Abrams] being single, her weight, how dark she was, on top of examining the things we look at with any candidate, like how qualified she was, her education, how well spoken she was, Wrighten said. Heightening all of this is the fact that dark-skinned, kinky-haired Chisholm and Abrams dont mirror classic American beauty standards, derived from European ideals of fair skin, straight hair, a narrow nose and a thin physique. Concerning Black women in American politics, Wrighten posited, Being overweight matters, having darker skin matters, having natural hair mattersand it shouldnt. Black women candidates are faced with this standard of beauty that others dont have to contend with. The same sentiments that poisoned Chisholms candidacy and Abrams governors race still exist in America and would pose a serious hurdle to Harris victory, said Wrighten. At the national level, theres a lot of media attention that works against Black women. Theres a lot of bias, there are stereotypes at play that hurt Black women especially. Theres still a sense that women are unfit for the office. Another obstacle Harris could encounter if she tried to make the leap from VP to commander-in-chief: I think established Democrats would have an issue with [Harris] running; theres this sense of, you have to put your time in, pay your dues, Wrighten said. Theres also the lingering effects from the Obama era that would likely damage Harris chance to be commander-in-chief. The election of the countrys first Black president ushered in a double-edged sword: a post-racial era (yeah right) marked by more opportunities and tangible progress for historically oppressed, disenfranchised groups, most notably Black Americans. The flipside was a seething resentment of that progress mostly expressed by the historically powerful group that orchestrated the oppression and disenfranchisement, white Americans. From the tea partys racially tinged attacks on the presidents policy agenda to the birther movements more overtly racist fantasies asserting that Obama was not even an American citizen, the national racial climate grew more, and not less, fraught after Barack Obamas presidency, wrote historian Peniel Joseph, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, in a 2016 Washington Post series on Obamas legacy. Obamas presidency, flesh-and-blood proof of the nations shifting demographics and values, fueled a public sentiment held by many white Americans that Black people were getting perks they didnt deserve, Wrighten said. So we see this pushback against that. All of this consideration may be for nought, as Biden again reiterated Thursday that he intends to stay in the race, despite any voter polling indicating Harris would fare better against Trump than he would. But should Harris come to the forefront as the nominee, shell have a tough time ahead of her. I think shell continue to be sexualized, Wrighten said, referring to the unfounded rumors that emerged almost as soon as Biden announced Harris as his VP in 2020. There will continue to be this idea that she didnt earn what she has. There are 59 countries of the United Nations 193 member states who have elected women heads of government, a number that has risen steadily since 1990. It doesnt seem likely that Novembers presidential election will put America on that list; since George Washingtons election in 1789, Americas presidents have always been men. I think that the U.S. should take a long hard look at itself when were thinking about who can be a leader and what they look like, Wrighten said. I also think theres ample evidence to suggest that some serious self-examination is in order, on a national scale. The reality is, only Americans can transform the nation into one that would actually support and enable Harris, or any other woman or woman of color, becoming president. But it doesnt appear were in a particularly reflective mood. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X. JACKSON COUNTY (KSNT) A 25-year-old from Winnipeg, Canada was seriously injured in Jackson County on Thursday. At 1:30 p.m., the 25-year-old was driving a 2022 Freightliner semi-truck south on U75 when he drove off the west side of the road for an unknown reason, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) crash log. The vehicle struck and embankment. The driver attempted to correct to the left and rolled onto the right side, coming to rest on U75, according to the crash log. City of Topeka projects $15 million general fund deficit The 25-year-old was taken to a Topeka hospital for treatment of serious injuries. He wasnt wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, according to the KHP. 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. 3 Idaho transgender prisoners sue over medical care. They can get treatment for now The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a class-action lawsuit against several Idaho leaders including the governor and attorney general on behalf of three incarcerated transgender women over allegations that a newly enacted state law barring the use of public funds on gender-affirming care is an across-the-board ban and violates constitutional rights. The bill, turned law, at the crux of this lawsuit, House Bill 668, was passed earlier this year, and it prohibits government dollars from being used for any surgical operation or medical intervention related to gender transitions meaning that trans people in prison can no longer be prescribed medication that can change their appearance, or give them feminine or masculine traits. It specifically bans treatments that alter the appearance of a person in a way that is inconsistent with the individuals biological sex. Any government employee who violates the law could be charged with misusing public monies, which is punishable by an up to $10,000 fine and a maximum of 14 years in prison. Gov. Brad Little signed House Bill 668 into law in March. In a 21-page complaint filed late last month, the ACLU said the law denies necessary medical treatment to people experiencing gender dysphoria in prison, violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, and also upended an internal policy thats been in place for decades. The Idaho Capitol Sun first reported on the lawsuit. A decision on the merits of the lawsuit is likely not coming soon, but U.S. District Judge David Nye will decide whether the women can continue to receive gender-affirming care while the legal process plays out. I do not want to suffer this again, one of the women, Jane Poe, said in a declaration last month. If I am cut off on July 1st, I would be scared for myself. I fear I would suffer the same suicidality and severe mental health issues as I did before. Over concerns for their safety, the women are using pseudonyms in the lawsuit and are identified as Jane Roe, Jane Poe and Jane Doe. For now, Nye has temporarily barred the state from enforcing the ban for the three women, allowing them to receive their medication, according to an order. His decision came on July 1, the same day the law went into effect. The immediate suspension was partly because of serious questions raised by the womens attorneys that go toward the merits of their complaint, Nye said, adding there were also extreme time constraints. Today, the Court puts a provisional pause on enforcement (on the law), he wrote. It does not find it valid. It does not find it invalid. This is not a full adjudication of any arguments on the merit. U.S. District Judge David Nye joined the federal bench in Idaho in August 2017. The pause is in effect until Nye hears arguments from attorneys on both sides of the complaint to decide whether he should enter a formal temporary restraining order, typically lasting two weeks, or a preliminary injunction, which could extend through the lawsuit. That hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. local time Monday. This isnt Idahos first lawsuit involving transgender prisoners. In 2017, Adree Edmo sued IDOC and its prior medical provider over allegations of cruel and unusual punishment after they refused to provide her with gender-affirming surgery. Three years later, in 2020, despite attempts by Gov. Brad Little to appeal federal and appellate court decisions, Edmo received the surgery, making her the second person in the country to get gender-affirming surgery while in prison. This embedded content is not available in your region. Lawmakers previously warned about the laws constitutionality Aside from Little and Attorney General Raul Labrador, the lawsuit was filed against IDOC Director Josh Tewalt, IDOC Deputy Director Bree Derrick and the prisons private medical provider, Centurion. The law prohibits physicians or other health care professionals employed by the state from performing the treatments, and also bans state property from being used for those purposes a provision that has raised questions about whether transgender college students or state employees taking prescribed hormones could do so at their dormitory or place of work. The ban will also affect employees on state health insurance. A spokesperson for the Department of Administration, Kim Rau, told the Statesman by email that the office had told the states insurance provider, Regence BlueShield, that no public funds can be used to cover gender-affirming care under the state plan. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador A majority of lawmakers in legislative committees supported the bills, championed by Republicans, over the pleadings of transgender people and their supporters, who argued that it would discriminate against them and heighten depression and suicide rates. The battle comes at a time when conservative legislators around the country have focused on limiting the care for adults and children. Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, co-sponsored the bill and claimed that gender-affirming care is controversial at best and interrupts normal, healthy sexual development. Opponents of the bill have said its unconstitutional. Boise-based attorney Howard Belodoff previously told lawmakers that it violated the 14th Amendments equal protection clause and was going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. He separately represents clients suing the state for decreeing genital reconstruction surgery cosmetic. This case concerns the serious pain, anguish, and catastrophic health consequence that will be caused by the imminent denial of needed gender-affirming medical care to plaintiffs and other similarly situated transgender individuals incarcerated in Idaho state prisons, the ACLU complaint said. An Idaho Department of Correction vehicle patrols the Idaho State prison complex south of Boise in 2024. The ACLU said that at least 54 people within the states prisons could be affected by banning the public funding of gender-affirming care. I am someone worth loving and accepting as myself For the three incarcerated women, the treatment theyve received within prison has been liberating, validating and life-changing, they said in their declarations. Now theyre concerned about the devastating effects of losing their medication and worried their gender dysphoria will increase. Roe, who has been incarcerated since 2014, said in her declaration that she didnt think too much about her identity as a kid and was always one of the girls, but as she got older, Roe said that she remembered being teased and called slurs by people at school. At the age of 13, she tried to kill herself. Someone at her school had called her transgender, according to her declaration, and at that time Roe said the information was confusing and sexualized, which devastated her and made her feel like she wasnt a normal girl like shed thought, but was instead someone who seemed to deserve the abuse that she suffered at school. Now, after 10 years of hormone therapy, Roe said in her declaration that she feels closer to who shes always been. I know that no medication will fix my past or erase the times when I felt ostracized by being who I am, but my hormone therapy has brought my body into alignment with my mind and soul, Roe wrote. It has given me hope for a better life, a better future, and a better me. It has been validating. I feel like I am not the freak I felt I was at 13. I am someone worth loving and accepting as myself, Roe continued. A group of people waved flags and chanted in support of LGBTQ+ rights at the Idaho Capitol building in Boise in 2023. They were in opposition to House Bill 71, which criminalizes gender-affirming care for transgender minors. That bill has since been signed into law and is being challenged by the ACLU of Idaho and others. Dozens of incarcerated people could be affected, ACLU says For anyone else who received or hoped to receive gender-affirming while in prison, as of right now their treatment will be withdrawn. At least 54 people could be affected, the ACLU said in court filings. Before the judges ruling, two of the plaintiffs said that transgender people within the prison were told their hormone therapy medication would be either cut off or tapered off once the law went into effect, according to their declarations. Centurion said in a court filing that it would not immediately cut off hormone therapy and that each patient would be individually evaluated, according to a response filed by Christina Hesse, an attorney representing Centurion. Medical providers also will ensure that other available, non-prohibited medical interventions and treatments are provided, the response said. Exactly what that process looks like and what those options are is unclear. Idaho Department of Correction spokesperson Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic declined to answer several questions about the medical process, instead directing the Statesman to Centurion. The Statesman attempted to contact the private medical provider through email and phone calls at least half a dozen times for several different stories in the past year. Centurion has never responded. For this story, emails and a phone call to Centurions media line went unanswered. Kuzeta-Cerimagic added in an email that IDOC is working with the AGs office and Centurion to ensure their policies and procedures comply with the new law. Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt. Since at least 2002 and until recently Idahos prisons have allowed people diagnosed with gender dysphoria to be prescribed hormones. IDOCs guidelines are outlined in a nine-page document detailing the departments policies, which range from medication to allowing people to dress according to their identified gender, and other options for people experiencing gender dysphoria. All three of the women have been prescribed estradiol, or estrogen, and spironolactone, which blocks male sex hormone receptors, lowering the amount of testosterone someones body makes, according to the complaint. They are all also receiving treatment from Dr. Marvin Alviso, a Boise family physician, who specializes in LGBTQ+ care and has been an advocate for gender-affirming care. Alviso was barred from prescribing a teenage patient testosterone in April after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Idahos ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors to take effect, telling the Statesman that his hands were tied. We will acknowledge gender dysphoria; we just cant really act on it, Alviso said. This embedded content is not available in your region. An American Airlnes plane is shown on the tarmac from an outdoor terrace and observation deck at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) Three passengers aboard an American Airlines flight at San Francisco International Airport were injured Friday afternoon after they were forced to flee the aircraft on the runway after the cabin filled with smoke, officials said. The source of the bedlam-inducing fumes was a laptop in a passenger's bag, according to American Airlines. While passengers were boarding American Airlines Flight 2045 to Miami, the passenger's bag began to emit smoke, American Airlines said in a statement. San Francisco Fire Department Capt. Jonathan Baxter said, "The aircraft was evacuated and SFFD responded to extinguish the smoke source." Passengers were transported back to the terminal. Baxter said three minor injuries were reported from the evacuation and that one of them required medical transport. San Francisco International Airport initially said the incident unfolded while the plane was taxiing to the terminal but later clarified the aircraft was stopped at the boarding gate. Passenger Mati Cesario reported on X that the issue arose just before takeoff around 12:30 p.m. and that passengers were forced to escape on inflatable emergency ramps. "It was desperate until someone opened the middle door and we were able to escape as we were all blocked in the hallway. Some people [were] slightly injured," Cesario said in their post. Read more: Boeing 737 catches fire and skids off the runway at a Senegal airport, injuring 10 people In a statement, American Airlines said the smoke originated from a passenger's bag. "The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft," the statement said. "We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience." Passenger Chris Vogt wrote in a social media post that someone's bag in the cabin caught on fire. "There was a light stampede, people were screaming 'Fire in the back!' and rushing towards the doors," Vogt wrote. "We're still waiting to go back on the plane and get our stuff, and the attendant says they don't know what happens next but we'll likely be rebooked." Photos from news station KABC-TV showed firefighters placing what appeared to be a laptop into a tub of water on the tarmac outside the aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate the incident. The dramatic scene unfolded at 12:15 p.m. aboard an Airbus A321 that was set to take off from San Francisco shortly after 2 p.m. and arrive at Miami International Airport by 10:43 p.m. (Eastern). After the fire, passengers were told that they would depart several hours later and arrive in Miami just before 2 a.m. (Eastern). 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. 3 people injured by tripwire mine while trying to evacuate in Kharkiv Oblast Three people were injured due to a tripwire mine detonation as they were trying to evacuate in the village of Starytsia, Kharkiv Oblast, on July 12, the local Prosecutor's Office reported. Six people were walking through a forest belt when the mine detonated. While three people suffered blast injuries, the other three had acute stress, according to the prosecutors. The village of Starytsia lies about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the town of Vovchansk, which became the scene of some of the heaviest fighting after Russia launched a new, short-lived offensive on May 10 in northern Kharkiv Oblast. The Ukrainian military reported in late June that some of the Russian forces were withdrawing from the area near Vovchansk for replenishment due to a loss of combat capability. When retreating from Ukrainian territories, Russian troops commonly leave them mined. Since 2022, approximately 174,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian land have been contaminated with explosives, making 144,000 square kilometers potentially dangerous. The Ukrainian government reported in April that mine-related explosions have killed 296 civilians and injured 665 others. Read also: Russias advance toward key eastern highway threatens Ukraines grip of Donetsk Oblast Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. 4,000 non-Milwaukee cops will be here for the RNC. Here's where they're from, what they'll be doing Thousands of members of law enforcement from across the nation are arriving in Milwaukee for next week's 2024 Republican National Convention. Among them are 18 members of the Bradenton Police Department, who will travel over 1,100 miles from central Florida along with two officers from another Florida department. The officers are scheduled to be in Milwaukee from Saturday to Friday. "Many officers that BPD is providing to Milwaukee have participated in prior inaugurations," Bradenton public information officer Meredith Censullo said, noting her department has assisted both with conventions and presidential inaugurations. "Our group includes officers with a variety of experience, from patrol to SWAT to FBI task force training." More than a half-dozen agencies from Florida, the state with the most departments represented, will send officers to assist with the event in which Milwaukee officials have estimated about 4,000 officers from law enforcement agencies outside the city will take part. Milwaukee police have said they intend to assign outside officers to positions that are not public-facing such as traffic control while Milwaukee officers will have primary contact with members of the community. As many as 1,000 private security personnel may also accompany convention attendees to Milwaukee, according to city legislation. The Milwaukee Fire Department, too, will be assisted by other departments. The large security presence will oversee the massive convention set to take over downtown Milwaukee next week, where tens of thousands of guests will congregate for the RNC. The convention is scheduled for Monday through Thursday at Fiserv Forum, UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the Baird Center. More: What Milwaukeeans need to know about the RNC, including road closures, parking, venues and more More: What to know about Milwaukee police rules for handling mass demonstrations outside RNC Out-of-state agencies coming from as far as the California, as close as Illinois for 2024 RNC As of Wednesday, 63 out-of-state agencies were confirmed to assist with the convention. The participating agencies include police departments, sheriff's offices, state patrols and highway patrols. Some were sending as many as 100 officers, while others were sending as few as two. Those from outside Wisconsin were from 24 states and the District of Columbia across the country, with the most participating agencies from Florida, Ohio and North Dakota. The closest departments will come from Illinois and Minnesota, and the farthest department will be from Long Beach, California, whose two officers will travel over 1,700 miles to get to Milwaukee. According to the Milwaukee Police Department, additional departments could be added to the list "up until the start of the convention." The out-of-state agencies are coming to Wisconsin through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact under an emergency declaration Gov. Tony Evers issued in May. The compact is a state-to-state mutual aid agreement that eases cooperation between local and out-of-state law enforcement agencies in addition to providing all participating officers arrest power during the convention. Some of the out-of-state departments have prior experience with sending officers to conventions or similar events. Bradenton PD had helped with Tampa's 2012 Republican National Convention and previous presidential inaugurations, Censullo said. Matt McGinnis, the public information officer for Sandy Springs Police Department in the Atlanta area, said the department had helped with the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. This year, it is sending eight officers to Wisconsin for the convention. Some incoming departments, like North Dakota's Bismarck Police Department, have not sent officers to a convention before or participated in an Emergency Management Assistance Compact, while some departments such as Fargo Police Department and North Las Vegas Police Department havent sent officers to a convention but have assisted other departments in large-scale events. North Las Vegas PDs public information office said it has helped out with presidential rallies, debates, conventions and escorts throughout the Las Vegas Valley and southern Nevada each year because it is a swing state. It will send five officers to the RNC. Lt. Matt Christensen of the Fargo Police Department, whose city council approved 15 officers to be sent to Milwaukee, said while the department hasn't worked a convention, it assisted with crowd management efforts related to protests at the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Morton County, N.D., and associated protests in Bismarck, N.D. Out-of-state agencies will arrive in Milwaukee between Saturday and Monday ahead of the main events of the convention. When in Wisconsin, the incoming officers will be under the command of the Milwaukee Police Department and will receive their assignments from Milwaukee police, multiple agencies said. Ahead of the convention, the agencies will not be receiving additional training beyond what they have already completed at their home departments. Outside officers must follow the Milwaukee Police Departments standard operating procedures on use of force, crowd control and rules of engagement. Our troopers are continuously engaged in training programs that ensure that they remain at the highest level of readiness and proficiency, said New Jersey State Police Sgt. Charles Marchan. NJSP is sending 100 officers and previously assisted with multiple hurricane recoveries in Puerto Rico and civic unrest in Baltimore. Rest assured, our troopers are fully prepared and equipped to support Milwaukee PD, Marchan said. More: How Milwaukee police will handle protests at the RNC and what some say is missing from their plan In-state agencies coming from Milwaukee area, as far as Superior In Wisconsin, many participating agencies will come from the Milwaukee area, but some from as far away as Superior. As of Wednesday, 44 Wisconsin departments were sending officers to Milwaukee. Jefferson Police Chief Alan Richter said while the agency was small compared with others, it has authorized three officers to come to the RNC. Previously, Richter said, Jefferson officers have been deployed to civil unrest in Madison and Kenosha, and the officers are trained in mobile field force tactics and certified by FEMA. West Bend Police Lt. Brian McAndrews said the department will send six officers, which is what it can afford while maintaining its own staffing. McAndrews said the officers wages will be repaid by Milwaukee. Policing discussion at City Hall 'calmer' ahead of RNC than 2020 DNC The discussion around policing at Milwaukee City Hall is calmer ahead of the RNC than it was in the months leading up to the Democratic National Convention four years ago. The earlier convention took place in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and was followed by marches across the nation. In Milwaukee, the conversation around policing was no less fraught. In June that year, the Police Department then led by Chief Alfonso Morales came under heavy criticism for its response after protesters threw water bottles and other objects at North Sixth Street and West McKinley Avenue. The Common Council approved a measure exploring a 10% cut to the Police Department budget, with members expressing a sense of urgency to respond. By late the next month, law enforcement agencies were withdrawing from agreements to send officers to the DNC, some of them citing orders to Milwaukee's police chief to cease the use of tear gas and pepper spray during demonstrations. Meanwhile, planning for the DNC was underway even as the coronavirus pandemic raged. The largely virtual event ultimately took place in mid-August 2020. The months leading up to the RNC have been notably quieter. "I think its a calmer conversation than it was in 2020, given the time that has passed since George Floyd," said Ald. Milele Coggs, one of the councils longest-serving members. "I think its a more informed conversation. So much has been learned on all sides since 2020, and many of the trainings and rules have changed for police behavior, and standards have changed or improved since 2020." Common Council President Jose G. Perez said Floyd's murder changed attitudes and raised awareness of "how we should be protecting everyone." He also said the tone of the protests may be different at the RNC, though Perez noted it's hard to compare because the DNC became a largely virtual event that barely resembles the scale of next week's convention. "We hear of groups like the Proud Boys and other things that I don't think we were expecting that with the DNC as we are with the RNC," he said. "So, we have to be prepared for everyone and the protesters coming to town just so everyone is safe, that they can exercise their First Amendment right, but it has to be a safe environment to do that." He sensed cautious optimism at City Hall and expressed hope that everyone leaves the RNC thinking of Milwaukee as a first-class city capable of hosting an event of this magnitude. Milwaukee Fire Department to be assisted by other Milwaukee County departments Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said his department would be assisted by other fire departments within Milwaukee County. Each department that is assisting with the RNC will maintain its staffing for its own community while additional members will work overtime to participate in the convention, Lipski said. That overtime will be paid from a $75 million federal security grant the city received to host the RNC, he said. Other agencies will fill in at Milwaukee Fire Department stations for Milwaukee teams that are inside the credentials-only "hard" security zone. Those other agencies will also have their own members inside the hard zone. Lipski said the fire departments' mission will be primarily to respond to any medical or firefighting needs but that HAZMAT, dive and other teams will also be available. He compared the process for assigning various units across the city to a game of Tetris. Which agencies are coming to assist with the RNC in Milwaukee next week? The out-of-state agencies with completed agreements to assist with the RNC are: California : California Highway Patrol, Long Beach PD, Fresno PD, Bakersfield PD Colorado : Thornton PD, Denver PD, Colorado State Patrol District of Columbia : DC Metropolitan Police Florida : Bradenton PD, Miami-Dade PD, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, Panama City PD, Miami PD, Orange County Sheriffs Office, Florida Highway Patrol, North Bay Village PD Georgia : Sandy Springs PD Illinois : Illinois State Police and Illinois Law Enforcement Mutual Aid System Indiana : Indiana State Police Kentucky : Kentucky State Police, Louisville Metro PD Maryland : Carroll County Sheriff's Office, Prince George's County Sheriff's Office Massachusetts : Massachusetts State Patrol Michigan : Michigan State Police Minnesota : Bloomington PD, Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, Rochester PD, Ramsey County Sheriff's Office Missouri : Kansas City PD, Missouri State Highway Patrol Nebraska : Nebraska State Patrol Nevada : North Las Vegas PD New Jersey : New Jersey State Police New Mexico : Farmington PD North Carolina : Cary PD, Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD, Concord PD, Greensboro PD North Dakota : Bismarck PD, Dunn County Sheriffs Department, Fargo PD, Burleigh County Sheriff, North Dakota Highway Patrol, University of North Dakota Police Ohio : Ohio State Highway Patrol, Akron PD, Cincinnati PD, Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office, Cleveland Metroparks PD, Columbus PD, Trumbull County Sheriff's Office Oklahoma : Tulsa PD Oregon : Forest Grove PD Tennessee : Knoxville PD, Tennessee Highway Patrol, La Vergne PD, Metro Nashville PD Texas : Austin PD, McAllen PD, Fort Worth PD, Dallas PD Virginia: Virginia Beach PD The Wisconsin agencies are: Algoma PD Appleton PD Beaver Dam PD City of Brookfield PD Brown Deer PD Dane County Sheriffs Office East Troy PD Elkhorn PD Fond du Lac PD Fort Atkinson PD Franklin PD Gibraltar PD Glendale PD Grand Chute PD Green Bay PD Greenfield PD Green Lake County Sheriffs Office Hartland PD Jefferson PD Lake Mills PD Madison PD Manitowoc PD Mequon PD Mukwonago PD Muskego PD Racine PD Rock County Sheriffs Office Shorewood PD South Milwaukee PD St. Francis PD Superior PD Watertown PD Waukesha PD Wauwatosa PD Whitefish Bay PD Whitewater PD West Allis PD West Bend PD West Milwaukee PD Winnebago County Sheriffs Office Wisconsin Department of Justice Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Wisconsin State Fair Park Police Wisconsin State Patrol Fire departments helping Milwaukee Fire are: Cudahy North Shore Franklin Greendale Greenfield Oak Creek South Milwaukee St. Francis Wauwatosa West Allis Tristan Hernandez can be reached at thernandez@gannett.com. Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 4,000 police officers from around the country in Milwaukee for RNC A 4-month-old baby died in Arizona last week after suffering a heat-related illness while on a boat, according to police. The infant's death comes amid an ongoing heat wave in the U.S. affecting tens of millions of people across multiple states. The infant, who was not identified by police, was rescued from a boat on Lake Havasu on July 5 and transported to a local hospital, according to authorities. From there, the infant was taken to Phoenix Children's Hospital, where they "succumbed to their injuries," the Mohave County Sheriff's Office said in a statement released Monday. PHOTO: Tanna Rae Wroblewski died on July 5, 2024, according to a fundraiser for her family. (Wroblewski Family via GoFundMe) The sheriff's office said the investigation into the child's death is "ongoing." A sheriff spokesperson told ABC News Wednesday the office is not releasing any further information. 2-year-old Arizona girl dies after dad leaves her in car during triple-digit heat: Police On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the medical examiner's office in Maricopa County, where Phoenix Children's Hospital is located, identified the infant as Tanna Rae Wroblewski and said her cause of death has not yet been determined. A GoFundMe page established for the Wroblewski family states that they were enjoying a "family day on the lake" when the infant "lost consciousness" and family members started performing CPR. "Lake Havasu City Fire Department quickly arrived to take over life-saving procedures. Tanna was rushed to Havasu Regional Medical Center where they continued to work on her to get a pulse," the fundraiser states. "She was then airlifted to Phoenix Children's Hospital where they did everything in their power to revive her, but God had other plans, and took Tanna to heaven that night." PHOTO: Tanna Rae Wroblewski died on July 5, 2024, according to a fundraiser for her family. (Wroblewski Family via GoFundMe) Attempts to reach members of the Wroblewski family by ABC News were not successful. In the Lake Havasu area, temperatures over the past week have hit triple digits, reaching as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. As of Tuesday, more than 70 million people were under heat alerts in the West amid a scorching heat wave enveloping much of the U.S., but particularly the West Coast. How to protect kids from heat According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children are more susceptible than adults to the health effects of extreme temperatures, including extreme heat, because they cannot regulate their body temperature as well as adults. When it comes to extreme heat, children may suffer health effects including heat exhaustion, heat cramps and heat stroke, according to the AAP. Americans coast-to-coast sweat out historic heat wave Parents and caregivers should do their best to keep kids in indoor, air-conditioned areas in periods of extreme heat, and make sure kids are well-rested and hydrated. Symptoms of heat-related illness to watch for in babies and kids include faintness, extreme tiredness, intense thirst, headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting, hyperventilation and skin numbness or tingling, according to the AAP. 4-month-old baby dies in extreme heat wave: Tips to keep kids safe originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com Editors note: This article contains a recording of a 911 call in which a man threatens suicide and dashcam video showing police open fire, killing the man. Discretion is advised. GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) A year after Grand Haven police shot and killed an armed, suicidal man in the parking lot of a hospital, his family still has questions. Among them: Why didnt they try to talk him down? Dashboard camera videos and reports obtained by Target 8 through the Freedom of Information Act show the officers fired 41 shots at Anthony Lyon less than a minute after first making contact with him, when they say he pointed a loaded rifle at one of them from inside his SUV. It started with a 911 call from Lyon about 4:30 a.m. on July 9, 2023. OK, Im in the parking lot at the North Ottawa Community Hospital, and I am an organ donor, and I am going to kill myself, the 66-year-old man told the dispatcher. Sir, sir, I dont want you to do that, the dispatcher responded. Yeah, Im going to do that, so Im an organ donor, and Im giving you permission. My name is Anthony Lyon. I want you to stay on the line, sir. Im not going to, Lyon responded. Thank you, maam. Sir, no, please dont hang up on me. The dispatcher immediately called back, but it went straight to voicemail. Within minutes, Grand Haven Department of Public Safety Officer David Karel in his second year on the force approached Lyons 2005 GMC Envoy from behind with rookie officer Keegan Langworthy a few steps away. Karel walked in from the drivers side and Langworthy the passengers side as a hospital employee walked in the dark in front of them. It will not go off, Lyon said, his voice picked up by an officers body mic. OK, do you have a gun in the vehicle with you? Karel asked. Yes, I do, Lyon said. That is when Karel drew his gun. HE NEEDED A BREAK IN LIFE The officers had no way of knowing anything about Lyon, a former drummer in local rock band Nervous Habit, a father of two, a long-haul trucker who had cared for his late father, once again depressed and using drugs crack cocaine while providing 24-hour care for his elderly mother at their Grand Haven home. My dad was an amazing guy, his son, Mark Lyon, said. He took care of his dad, my grandpa; he took care of his mom, and he needed a break. He needed a break in life. Anthony Lyon. (Courtesy) As a Catholic, his son said, Anthony Lyon believed suicide would keep him out of heaven, yet he left suicide notes for each of his siblings and his son and daughter. His son believes he tried to take his own life that morning in the parking lot. He tried, his son said. The gun didnt work. He wanted to make sure his organs were donated, right? Thats why we believe he went to the hospital. Lyons family questions why police didnt take cover behind patrol cars and call in a mental health worker to negotiate. Why approach a car? his son said. Whats going to happen? Its going to escalate, right? Its not going to de-escalate the situation. So when they approached the car it just escalated everything. OFFICER: HE WENT FOR THE GUN At the scene, dashcam video picked up more of the exchange. Can you please keep your hands on the wheel? Officer Karel said. Yep, Lyon responded. Actually, put them on the ceiling, Karel said. Im not doing that, Lyon answered. Whys that? I dont feel like it. .. I have two (expletive) shells, Lyon told the officer. Put your hands on the roof, OK? Karel said. Dont, Karel said. Is he touching? Then, 40 seconds after Karel first made contact with Lyon, both officers opened fire: 41 shots in seven seconds. Its not clear from the dashcam videos which officer fired first. Armed suicidal man shot by officers at Grand Haven hospital Shots fired by police, Karel radioed to dispatch. We have one suspect in the vehicle. Unknown further. If we could please get some more units here. We do not have eyes on the suspect, he continued. Looks like he had a sawed-off shotgun of some sort. Just breathe, one officer said to the other. Are you hit? I dont think so. Me neither. Lyons son has watched the video. My heart sank, Mark Lyon said. I couldnt believe that they shot that many times. It was crazy. Forty times? Both sides? Both cops on both sides? Chief: Shooting happened too quickly to call social worker As the officers waited for backup, not sure if Lyon was still alive, their body mics continued to roll. He went for the gun, one of the officers said. Where was the gun at? the other officer said. You could see the muzzle of it. It was sticking out of the window. It was in between his legs. He reached down, grabbed it, Langworthy said. The muzzle at least pointed towards me. Did he fire a round towards you? Karel asked. I dont know, Langworthy responded. Police said Lyons rifle, a Winchester Model 94-30, had a live round in the chamber, ready to fire. But theres no indication Lyon fired any shots. A police photo shows the rifle investigators say they found in Anthony Lyons SUV. OFFICERS SAID IT WAS SELF-DEFENSE Crime scene photos obtained by Target 8 show many of the officers shots pierced the back of Lyons car seat and head rest. Lyon was hit 21 times, including 17 shots to the back and one to the back of the neck. A police photo shows how investigators marked bullet holes in Anthony Lyons seat after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows evidence markers around Anthony Lyons SUV after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows bullet holes in Anthony Lyons SUV after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows evidence markers around Anthony Lyons SUV after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows how investigators marked bullet holes in Anthony Lyons seat after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows how investigators marked bullet holes in Anthony Lyons seat after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows how investigators marked bullet holes in Anthony Lyons seat after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. A police photo shows how investigators marked bullet holes in Anthony Lyons seat after Grand Haven police shot and killed him on July 9, 2023. The autopsy also found amphetamines and cocaine in Lyons system. His organs were not donated. Hey, we do have a witness, Karel said to the man who was walking in front of Lyons SUV in the line of fire. Hey, sir, can you please wait by this other police unit with the lights on? That witness, a phlebotomist, told detectives he heard the man complain that his gun wouldnt go off, though he never saw the weapon. He said he saw the man moving as the officers backed off and lit him up. The witness, who didnt want to be identified, told Target 8 ricocheting bullets hit a parked car near him. He said he believes the officers were justified. The officers were placed on paid leave (standard procedure after using deadly force) and refused to talk with investigators, instead providing written statements: Karel saying he was protecting his fellow officer and his fellow officer saying he was protecting himself. A sudden fear for the safety of Officer Langworthy seized my thoughts and my stomach dropped as I realized Lyons firearm was pointed in the direction of Officer Langworthy, Karel wrote. I knew the use of deadly force was necessary to stop the immediate threat of death or great bodily harm to Officer Langworthy. Langworthy wrote: I saw Anthonys hand sliding down the gun towards the area of the receiver and trigger as he pointed the barrel towards me. He then secured his left hand on the receiver. I remember the feeling of my stomach dropping then an intense fear came over me that I was going to be shot by Anthony. OTHER OPTION: DISTANCE AND COVER Two experts who watched the video at Target 8s request say the shooting was justified, but that the officers never gave themselves a chance to negotiate. It went from zero to 60 quickly, said police psychologist Dr. John Nicoletti, who helped develop the Suicide By Cop Protocol and Training Guide for the Police Executive Research Forum. The lesson for police would be, lets take a look at it and lets look at it from a tactical standpoint and what happens and look at, OK, what options would we have to be able to negotiate? Nicoletti said. And the main option would be distance and cover. Dont get in the killing zone. If youre in the killing zone, its hard to de-escalate something. But, he said, he doesnt fault the officers for that. Theyre there to kind of stop things, thats what they do. Theyre chargers, he said. Roy Taylor, a former police chief and now a training consultant, said the officers were at a disadvantage: It was dark, and they didnt have a description of his car. They could have backed off quickly, run back to their patrol cars, use the cars for cover, give him verbal commands to put the weapon down and come out, and in the meantime calling for the other resources, calling for the shields, calling for the dog and maybe crisis intervention trained officers to try to negotiate him out of the vehicle, Taylor said. Those are all things they could have done but instead they found themselves in close range and that was the decision they made, and it was a lawful decision. He left them no choice, Taylor said. As for 41 shots? The officer is taught you fire until the danger that is facing you is eliminated, Taylor said. It doesnt matter if its one shot or 100 shots. Its you fire until the danger is eliminated. Autopsy report: Suicidal man shot 21 times by Grand Haven police Ottawa County Prosecutor Lee Fisher ruled the shooting justified, saying that Lyon posed a threat not only to the officers, but also to the hospital worker walking in the parking lot and to nearby residents. Lyons family hopes the shooting will lead to more training, Mark Lyon saying: The biggest thing I want to get out of it is to make sure that Grand Haven (works on its) policy on how to deal with a suicide situation like this, (so it) never happens again. Newly appointed Grand Haven Public Safety Director Nicole Hudson, who has been with the department 21 years, on Wednesday refused to discuss the shooting or whether it led to any policy changes. Im just going to go to the prosecuting attorney Lee Fisher, his decision (that it was justified), she said. And other than that, I have no further comment on that. Recently retired GHDPS Director Jeff Hawke, in charge of the department at the time of the shooting, has not returned Target 8s calls seeking comment. Mark Lyon said the family hasnt decided whether it will file a wrongful death lawsuit. If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime at 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 WOODTV.com. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) The Abilene High School FFA had a strong presence at the state conference this year, achieving five Lone Star Degrees, one Honorary Degree, a Bronze National Chapter Award, and a Silver Golden Horizon Award. The Lone Star Degree is the highest honor that can be received in the program at the state level, just one step below the highest level of active membership, the American FFA Degree. AHS had five students who met the criteria for the Lone Star Degree. These students are Mason Murray, Audrie Perez, Griffin Stimmler, Amya Williams, and Hannah Fewkes. The students participated in the 96th Annual Texas FFA Convention, receiving their degrees on stage. Hannah was absent as she had just returned from a mission trip to Africa. In order to qualify, each student met the following requirements: Received a Chapter FFA Degree Have been an active FFA member for at least two years Have completed at least 2 years (360 hours) of systematic school instruction in agricultural education at our above the ninth grade level, which includes an SAE. Have earned and productively invested at least $1000 and, or worked at least 300 hours in excess of scheduled class time, in a supervised agricultural experience program. Demonstrated leadership ability by performing 10 parliamentary law procedures, giving a six-minute speech on a topic relating to agriculture or FFA, and serving as an FFA officer, committee chairperson, or committee member. Have a satisfactory academic record, certified by the agriculture teacher and the school principal or superintendent Participated in the planning and implementation of the chapters Program of Activities completed ten activities above the chapter level in at least three of six different categories: leadership development events, career development events, conventions and meetings, project shows, student awards and leadership and service as described in policies adopted by the Board of Directors Complete at least 25 hours of community service in a minimum of two different activities. 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. Peggy and Andrew Cherng, Panda Express founders and University of Missouri Alumni, made a $5 million donation this week to the MU Honors College for scholarships and programming. The founders of Panda Express also happen to be University of Missouri alumni and recently provided a major donation to the MU Honors College. MU announced the $5 million donation Wednesday via The Panda Charitable Family Foundation from Andrew and Peggy Cherng, which will support various scholarships and programs at the Honors College. Andrew Cherng earned a masters degree in applied mathematics from Mizzous College of Arts and Science, while Peggy Cherng earned a masters degree in computer science and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the MU College of Engineering. They founded the Panda Express chain of restaurants in 1983 and are co-chairs and co-CEOs of the Panda Restaurant Group Inc. Were grateful to Andrew and Peggy Cherng for their incredible, ongoing support of MU Honors students, said University of Missouri President Mun Choi in the announcement. This latest investment in student success allows us to provide even more impactful opportunities through our Honors College and to secure Mizzous spot as one of the top public universities in the nation for future leaders. The donation brings the Cherngs' contribution total to $10 million for MU. The first donation was in 2017. These continuing donations help support "Show-Me Scholars, awarded to first-year Honors students from Missouri; Cherng Scholars, awarded to out-of-state Honors students; Panda-Mizzou Scholars, awarded to students pursuing education or health-related majors; and Cherng Summer Scholars, a program that allows Honors students to participate in individually designed research projects over nine weeks in the summer," the announcement noted. From 2017: University of Missouri announces $1.5 million donation "This pledge will allow the Honors College to expand our scholarship offerings and programming innovations," said Catherine Rymph, dean of the Honors College, in the announcement. "Im especially excited to be able to increase the number of scholarships that provide students with hands-on experiences, such as research, internships and service learning, and to launch additional need-based scholarships." The donation also means the college is able to annually invite "a prominent guest to campus through the Cherng Distinguished Scholars and Visiting Faculty series," the announcement noted. These speakers spend several days on campus with Honors students and faculty, visiting classrooms and giving a public lecture. Most recently, Andrew Leland served as the Cherng Distinguished Scholar Keynote Lecture. He wrote "The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight," a Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Cherngs have been catalysts for the Honors College, said Jackie Lewis, vice chancellor for advancement, in the announcement. As Mizzou continues to champion student experiences and educate future leaders, the continued support of the Cherngs empowers us to continue pushing forward. The MU Honors College enrolls around 2,700 students and has more than 13,000 alumni. Eight core faculty and nearly 80 affiliate faculty, along with additional professors who lead departmental Honors classes, teach the more than 270 Honors courses offered every year. This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Panda Express founders make $5 million University of Missouri donation LA PAZ, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The Bolivian Prosecutor's Office said Thursday that investigations have been opened into 34 suspects, both civilian and military, for their alleged role in the June 26 failed coup. In statements to journalists, prosecutor Franklin Alborta confirmed that arrest warrants had been issued. Raids and other measures are being carried out to determine the responsibilities of those involved in the attempted coup. Among the suspects are military personnel on active duty or retired, including former army commander Juan Jose Zuniga, who led the rival faction and stormed the presidential palace in the city of La Paz on June 26. The old bridge on I-55 from Memphis to Arkansas, the main thoroughfare with the Hernando De Soto bridge still closed for construction on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. A new and improved Interstate 55 bridge is coming soon. Officials including U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Friday that a $394 million grant from the federal government would be going towards the rebuilding of the I-55 bridge, also known as the Americas River Crossing Bridge. The Tennessee and Arkansas departments of transportation filed a joint application through the Bridge Investment Program, Large Bridge Projects Program, according to a press release. The grant came from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. On Friday, the Federal Highway Administration said that the project would move forward. The $393.7 million federal investment will aid in funding the whole of the bridge rebuild, estimated to cost between $800 million and $1 billion. "Im proud to have worked with the President, the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as the outstanding team in Memphis and the governors office in successfully getting this extremely large and necessary grant for the construction of the new bridge," Cohen said. Deputy governor and TDOT Commissioner Butch Eley praised the bipartisan work at the state level to help secure funding for the project. This historic project is four times larger than anything we have previously built. This partnership between states and the federal government underscores our bipartisan commitment to delivering innovative infrastructure solutions that support growth and economic prosperity," Eley said in a statement. What is next for the I-55 bridge? TDOT has been seeking grant funding for the project since December 2023. Estimates for rebuilding the bridge, which dates back to 1949, were between $800 million and $1 billion with construction set to begin in 2026. Funding for the bridge was expected to come from the state's Transportation Modernization Act. In May, TDOT revealed updated plans for a new I-55 bridge. The concept design featured a 10-lane bridge (three traffic lanes on each side along with two shoulder lanes). The existing bridge features four lanes. In addition, three different design concepts for bridge's tower construction were announced. The tentative designs are available on TDOT's website. Memphis Mayor Paul Young said that the "historic investment" would help connect the community with the region and the world. Young said that the city is "honored by the grant." Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Ted Townsend voiced appreciation for the department of transportation to Young and to former Mayor Jim Stickland for "being local advocates, and the Chambers Transportation Committee for being persistent and never taking their eye off of the ball." Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Arkansas Department of Transportation have each committed up to $250 million for the bridge rebuild, according to a separate press release about the funding from Lee. This unprecedented investment in Memphis marks the single-largest transportation investment in Tennessee state history and will be transformative for our infrastructure, Lee said. Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County Government for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at brooke.muckerman@commercialappeal.com or followed on X, formerly known as Twitter @BrookeMuckerman. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis I-55 bridge rebuild project gets $394 million in federal funds AUSTIN (KXAN) Austin Wildlife Rescue said it welcomed 60 coastal birds Wednesday that were displaced by Hurricane Beryl. The rescue said it received 30 Mississippi kites and 30 egretsall of which were baby birds whose nesting and rookery sites were destroyed. LIST: Endangered species that can be found in Central Texas According to Austin Wildlife Rescue, the birds joined the more than 1,600 wild animals currently with the rescue. The estimated budget impact for the care of the wildlife was projected to be approximately $30,000. We are committed to providing the best care possible for these vulnerable birds, said Jules Maron, Executive Director of Austin Wildlife Rescue. The support from the community and the work of our dedicated staff is crucial in ensuring these birds have a chance to thrive and eventually return to their natural habitats. The rescue said the birds were saved by wildlife organizations in the Houston 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 KXAN Austin. These 62 grocery stores in Oregon would be sold in giant Kroger-Albertsons merger Kroger and Albertsons have identified 62 stores they are planning to sell in Oregon if a proposed $25 billion merger between the two grocery companies is approved. The merger announced in 2022 calls for hundreds of stores to be divested in a merger representing 20% of the country's grocery market, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Kroger and Albertsons operate 176 stores in Oregon including 51 Fred Meyer and 4 QFC stores under the Kroger company and 25 Albertsons and 96 Safeway stores under the Albertsons brand. In February, the Federal Trade Commission announced it was suing to block the proposed merger, filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Portland. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced Oregon was joining the FTC and eight other states in the case, saying Oregon, the FTC, and other states believed the consolidation could bring lower wages for employees and higher grocery prices for shoppers. Following the pushback, Kroger and Albertsons announced in April that they would sell 166 more locations than originally planned if they received regulatory approval. C&S Wholesale Grocers, which operates 23 Piggly-Wiggly and Grand Union retail supermarkets, agreed to buy 579 stores from the companies. This week, the company identified those stores. Of the 62 stores that would be sold Oregon, one Safeway is in Salem and an Albertsons and Safeway are in Eugene. A third of the stores that would be sold in the state are in Portland (21). Which Safeway store in Salem would be sold if the Kroger, Albertsons merger is approved? Safeway 3380 Lancaster Dr NE, Salem Which Safeway and Albertsons stores would be sold in Eugene if the merger with Kroger is approved? Albertsons 55 Division Ave., Eugene Safeway 145 E 18th Ave., Eugene List of Kroger, Albertsons stores in Oregon that would be sold if merger goes through Safeway 6055 SW 185th Ave., Aloha Safeway 3250 Leif Erikson Drive, Astoria Safeway 20535 SW Tualatin Valley Highway, Beaverton Albertsons 61155 S Highway 97, Bend Safeway 2650 NE Hwy 20, Bend Safeway 1051 SW First Ave., Canby Safeway 12032 SE Sunnyside Road, Clackamas Safeway 230 E Johnson, Coos Bay Safeway 590 NE Circle Blvd., Corvallis Safeway 20151 SE Highway 212, Damascus Safeway 700 Highway 101, Florence Safeway 2836 Pacific Ave., Forest Grove Safeway 95 82nd Drive, Gladstone Albertsons 1690 Allen Creek Road, Grants Pass Safeway 115 SE Seventh St., Grants Pass Safeway 1640 Williams Highway, Grants Pass QFC 6411 SE Milwaukie Ave., Portland Safeway 6901 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland Safeway 4515 SE Woodstock Blvd., Portland Safeway 13485 NW Cornell Road, Portland Safeway 1100 NE Broadway, Portland Safeway 3930 SE Powell Blvd., Portland Safeway 1030 SW Jefferson St., Portland Safeway 1303 NW Lovejoy St., Portland Safeway 2800 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland Safeway 8145 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland Safeway 18425 NW West Union Road, Portland Safeway 8330 N Ivanhoe St., Portland Safeway 5920 NE Martin Luther King Blvd., Portland Safeway 1001 SW Highland Drive, Gresham Safeway 1455 NE Division St., Gresham Albertsons 7500 W Baseline, Hillsboro Safeway 2525 SE Tualatin Valley Highway, Hillsboro Safeway 2177 NW 185th Ave., Hillsboro Safeway 888 NE 25th Ave., Hillsboro Albertsons 5500 S Sixth St., Klamath Falls Safeway 14840 SE Webster Road, Milwaukie Safeway 1140 N Springbrook Road, Newberg Safeway 2220 N Coast Highway, Newport Albertsons 19007 S Beavercreek Road, Oregon City Safeway 13434 Colton Place, Oregon City Albertsons 5415 SW Beaverton Highway, Portland Albertsons 451 NE 181st Ave., Portland Albertsons 5850 NE Prescott St., Portland QFC 4756 NW Bethany Blvd., Portland QFC 7525 SW Barnes Road, Portland QFC 5544 E Burnside St., Portland Safeway 4320 SE King Road, Portland Safeway 3527 SE 122nd Ave., Portland Safeway 1705 S Highway 97, Redmond Safeway 795 Lower Columbia River Highway, Saint Helens Safeway 37601 Highway 26, Sandy Safeway 401 S Roosevelt Drive, Seaside Safeway 20685 SW Roy Rogers Road, Sherwood Safeway 520 Mt Hood St., The Dalles Safeway 1815 Fourth St., Tillamook Safeway 25691 SE Stark, Troutdale Safeway 22000 Salamo Road, West Linn Safeway 8255 S Wilsonville Road, Wilsonville What's next for the Kroger, Albertsons merger? The Oregon Health Authority convened a community review board to provide input to the agency on the proposed merger and whether OHA should approve a deal. Representatives of Kroger, Albertsons and C&S answered prepared questions from the agency during a public hearing in April addressing concerns about the merger's impact on access to care. According to OHAs review, Kroger-owned pharmacies in Oregon provided prescriptions for 22% of all people in the state in 2020-2022. Albertsons-owned supermarkets have 106 retail pharmacies in Oregon stores and provide telehealth services in the state. From 2020-2022, Albertsons-owned pharmacies, some of which are under the Safeway name, provided prescriptions to 25% of those who had prescriptions filled in Oregon. The OHA estimated the merger would mean Kroger and Albertsons would go from each holding about 15% of the prescription drug market in Oregon to holding nearly 30% of the retail prescription drug market in the state. The next largest pharmacy provider, referred to as "competitor A," would hold 13%. Both companies currently own more than 150 retail pharmacy locations in 29 counties. People living in these counties represent nearly 99% of the statewide population, OHA said. The planned sale of stores could significantly impact Oregonians, OHA concluded in its preliminary review conducted before the announcement of additional divestitures. On June 13, the community review board issued its recommendation to OHA, unanimously recommending OHA disapprove of the proposed transaction. OHA will take the recommendation, public comment, various reports, and information from different entities to make its own decision either approving, approving with conditions, or disapproving of the merger. The federal lawsuit to block the proposed merger is also ongoing. James Powel, USA Today Trending News reporter, contributed to this story. Dianne Lugo covers the Oregon Legislature and equity issues. Reach her at dlugo@statesmanjournal.com or on Twitter @DianneLugo This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Kroger-Albertsons merger: 62 stores in Oregon would be sold Tel Aviv A civil defense worker in Gaza City tells CBS News that 65 bodies were found under the rubble in just one neighborhood of the Palestinian city decimated by the latest Israeli assault. It had been Gaza's biggest city, before the war sparked by the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by the territory's Hamas rulers. Israel's military told everyone in Gaza City to evacuate again this week for the second time since the war started. Video from the Shejaiya neighborhood, where the bodies were found, shows utter obliteration. U.N. experts say Gaza children dying in Israeli "targeted starvation campaign" The Israel Defense Forces said the operation, which it had completed by the end of the week, targeted militants who'd regrouped in Gaza City. The IDF previously claimed to have killed more than 150 terrorists in the area. Residents returned to Shejaiya Thursday to search for their belongings amid the rubble. Many appeared dazed or distraught by what they found. Palestinians make their way through the decimated Shejaiya neighborhood to inspect the damage and look for belongings after Israeli forces withdrew from the eastern Gaza City neighborhood amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, July 10, 2024. / Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/REUTERS CBS News' Gaza producer Marwan al-Ghoul said there were near constant explosions thundering across the Palestinian territory from 11 p.m. Thursday night until 5 a.m. Friday. Israeli negotiators, meanwhile, have returned from the latest round of cease-fire talks in Doha, Qatar this week. On Thursday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of "clinging to demands that endanger Israel's security." Hamas has blamed Israel claiming the group is procrastinating and trying to thwart the negotiations. SpaceX Falcon 9 breaks apart after launch, and more top stories Encouraging inflation report, and other top headlines Political strategists react to Biden's news conference 70-story facility planned for Chesapeake, Norfolk officer recovering after being shot, and more | Top WAVY stories this week HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) Take a look at some of the top stories on WAVY.com from the week of July 8. Click here for more local news. WAVY Local News 70-story, $681M submarine cable plant planned for Chesapeake would be Virginias tallest building Its set to be constructed on nearly 100 acres of brownfield in the Paradise Creek area, just south of Portsmouths Cradock neighborhood. Hes doing well. Hes home. Norfolk officer home recovering after shootout with Navy sailor Two people with ties to the U.S. Navy are facing serious charges after a weekend shootout with police that resulted in a Norfolk officer being shot several times. Pastor from Williamsburg accused of striking wife on flight after her upgrade to 1st class A pastor who lives in Williamsburg faces federal charges after authorities say he struck his epileptic wife in the head on a flight to Alaska. Newport News womans American dream turns into a nightmare of bullet holes 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. Police: Daughter, grandson confessed to killing woman at Norfolk nursing home A womans recent death at a Norfolk senior living home has been ruled a homicide and her daughter and grandson are the suspects, police say. Puppy pushed out of vehicle during attempted car theft in Chesapeake has been found A Chesapeake family is distraught after their puppy was pushed out of their car Sunday morning as someone tried to steal their vehicle. Gov. Youngkin signs order to establish cell phone-free education On Tuesday, July 9, Governor Youngkin issued Executive Order (EO) 33, to establish a cell phone-free education in Virginias K-12 public schools. HRBT Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel VDOT Generic Search continues for man who fell off boat near HRBT The search for a missing man who fell overboard in the choppy waters near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel continued Friday morning. 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. A 72-year-old man was charged Wednesday with the fatal shooting of 49-year-old Kevin Harris on the Fourth of July, according to the Wilmington Police Department. Bernard Stewart fatally shot Harris on the 900 block of Lombard St. at 1:07 a.m. in Wilmington's East Side community, police said. Stewart was taken into custody at the time of the shooting on firearms-related charges, according to police, and sent to Howard R. Young Correctional Institution. Police later identified Stewart as a suspect and charged him with first-degree murder, possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony and two counts of possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. Stewart remains incarcerated on a $1.02 million cash bail. DELAWARE CRIME: Tracking gun violence in the First State Send story tips or ideas to Hannah Edelman at hedelman@delawareonline.com. For more reporting, follow them on X at @h_edelman. This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Man charged with fatally shooting 49-year-old in Wilmington on July 4 8 Utah counties now under Stage 1 Fire Restrictions possible jail time if violated SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) As wildfires blaze through south-central Utah, officials are tightening restrictions to prevent future fires. Stage 1 Fire Restrictions are now in place for areas in Millard, Sevier, Wayne, Piute, Garfield, Juab, Sanpete, and Beaver counties, according to an interagency news release sent out Thursday. Map of central Utah fire restrictions. (credit: Utah Fire Info) The restrictions apply to federal, incorporated private, and state lands which encompass several central Utah cities including Richfield, Fillmore, and Scipio. The announcement comes as several wildfires burn in the area, with the Silver King Fire prompting the closure of Fishlake National Forest located in Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Juab, Millard, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier and Wayne Counties. The Silver King Fire which has rapidly spread to nearly 15,000 acres is about three miles west of Marysvale and still 0% contained, the Central Utah Fire Interagency said. The Little Twist Fire is at the southern end of Fishlake National Forest and has burned more than 5,000 acres. It is currently 60% contained, according to Utah Fire Info. Stage 1 Fire Restrictions to take effect in northern Utah Heres whats not allowed In Kane County, which is not under Stage 1 Fire Restrictions, the Deer Springs Fire has burned more than 11,000 acres and is 30% contained. The fire is currently threatening structures in the area, and while it is still under investigation, the Bureau of Land Management believes it to be a human-caused blaze. The restrictions were implemented to prevent future wildfires as hot, dry, and windy conditions lead to a high risk of large fires. The restrictions include no campfires outside of approved campgrounds, no shooting of exploding targets or tracer ammunition, and no cutting or welding of metal near dry vegetation. Smoking outside is also restricted unless it is in a developed recreation site or paved area. For a full list of restricted activities, see the release here. Anyone who violates the restrictions may be punished by up to 6 months in jail and fined up to 1,000, according to the Department of Natural Resources. 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. I-84 to close for five miles over weekend for trash collection, graffiti removal PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Dont forget: Nearly five miles of Interstate 84 will close in both directions this weekend as crews clean trash and graffiti from the area. The closure will impact the entire stretch of I-84 between I-5 and I-205 from Saturday, July 13 at 11 p.m. through Sunday, July 14 at noon. Crews will also close several I-5 northbound lanes, which will be closed over the Marquam Bridge with traffic diverted onto I-405 northbound. Nicolas Cage recommends this must-see film he made in Oregon PBOT crews will additionally close the bridges over the highway one at a time including the Congressman Earl Blumenauer Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge and the bridges at Northeast 12th Avenue, 21st Avenue and 28th Avenue. All on-ramps to I-84 will also close. However, the I-5 on-ramps from the Morrison Bridge and North Weidler Street will remain open. The Oregon Department of Transportation said the closure will allow their workers to safely collect the trash and remove graffiti without inconveniencing commuters with multiple partial closures. They will also be able to carry out other maintenance work such as electrical work, sign maintenance, patching pavement, cleaning drains and more. We appreciate everyones patience during this 12-hour closure, said ODOT Manager Rian Windsheimer. This is a rare opportunity to have safe access to perform clean-up work in difficult areas and we plan to take full advantage. New puffin license plate for sale from Oregon Coast Aquarium More than 100 workers from ODOT, Union Pacific Railroad, TriMet, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, Metro and Multnomah County will clean along the corridor from west to east. TriMet will also adjust its schedules while traffic is impacted. The MAX Blue, Green, and Red lines will be disrupted for part of Sunday, July 14, between NE Seventh Avenue and the Gateway/NE 99th Avenue Transit Center. Shuttle buses will be available to those who depend on these closed stations through 6 p.m. on Sunday, and Bus Line 70s route for 12th/NE 33rd Avenue will detour off the NE 12th Avenue bridge until 12 p.m. on Sunday. Gov. Tina Kotek will host a press conference with clean up partners in Sullivans Gulch at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, July 14. Stay with KOIN 6 News as we bring you more traffic updates. 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. ABC News denies threatening to pull George Stephanopoulos off the air following Biden dis ABC News host George Stephanopoulos may have ruffled feathers when he was caught on camera telling a person on the street that President Biden might not be up for a second term in the White House, but the 63-year-old newsman appears to be in good standing with the network for now. Gossip site Radar Online claimed on Wednesday that ABC executives were furious over his impromptu comment and were considering benching the celebrated This Week host if he didnt issue an apology. But in a statement to the New York Daily News on Thursday, a network spokesperson said the report is absolutely not true. Stephanopolous was the first network anchor to interview Joe Biden after the presidents disastrous performance at a June 27 debate with Donald Trump, which prompted supporters and critics alike to question the 81-year-old leaders mental competence. Four days after that Friday interview, TMZ shared video of Stephanopoulos being asked about the president on a New York City street. I dont think he can serve four more years, he answered dismissively while moving along. In a statement from his rep to the News, Stephanopoulos said, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldnt have. A company spokesperson said Stephanopoulos had expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News. Several high-profile Democratic fundraisers, including actor George Clooney, have publicly called for the president to ride into the sunset and let another Democrat challenge Trump. The president, who still enjoys support from many Democrats, insists hes staying in the race. _____ Little Rock OB-GYN Dr. Dina Epstein, a volunteer trained by Arkansans for Limited Government, tries to gather signatures for Arkansass abortion-rights ballot initiative. (Courtesy of Dina Epstein) Its been a busy week for direct democracy in Arkansas since the period for submitting signatures for proposed ballot initiatives ended last Friday. The biggest news came Wednesday when Secretary of State John Thurston rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to expand abortion access in the state because of missing paperwork. Arkansans for Limited Government, which delivered a letter to Thurstons office Thursday, argued it did submit the documents in question and vowed to challenge the disqualification. Two other amendments proposing to improve medical marijuana patient access and require a local vote on new casinos are awaiting formal certification. Groups behind both efforts said they submitted sufficient signatures. Secretary of State spokesperson Chris Powell said Thursday staff will continue the intake process on the measures until sometime next week, at which point signature verification will begin. The Secretary of States office has 30 days to count signatures and notify sponsors when their petition has been deemed sufficient or insufficient. Proposed constitutional amendments must collect 90,704 signatures from at least 50 counties to qualify for the ballot. A 2023 state law thats being challenged in court increased the threshold from 15 to 50 counties. Sponsors may submit additional signatures if the initial submission includes 75% of the overall required signatures and 75% of the required number from 50 counties. Aug. 22 is the ballot certification deadline for all candidates and sufficient ballot issues to be certified to the counties so they can print their ballots, Powell said. Meanwhile, supporters of two measures addressing government transparency and eliminating the sales tax on feminine hygiene products refiled their proposals with the attorney generals office this week for the 2026 ballot after failing to collect sufficient signatures for the 2024 election. State law gives the attorney general 10 business days to accept or reject the ballot titles for the proposed measures, both of which contain language virtually identical to what they submitted for the 2024 cycle (except for new effective dates). While theres no start date for when a group can begin collecting signatures for a statewide ballot measure, Powell said its not common to start the process this early for the next cycle. However, it has been done several times in the past, he said. Tampon tax The attorney generals office received a proposed initiated act to eliminate the sales tax for feminine hygiene products and diapers on Monday. If it qualifies for the ballot and voters approve it in November 2026, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027. Shannie Jackson, leader of the Arkansas Period Poverty Project and chair of the eponymous ballot question committee, said she knew on July 4 they would fall short of the signature requirement, but decided to submit petitions anyway to be counted. The proposal received 43,831 of the required 72,563 signatures, according to an affidavit filed with the Secretary of States office. The group collected signatures from all 75 counties, but only met the minimum requirements in 19, Jackson said. Starting the process now gives supporters more time to collect signatures and find additional canvassers, she said. Arkansas Period Poverty Project raised about $2,700 over eight months, according to financial disclosure documents, and relied on 65 registered volunteers to gather signatures, she said. When they say it takes a million dollars to pull this off, that is true, Jackson said. Supporters of various ballot measures worked together to collect signatures this cycle and through that networking, Jackson said shes identified new people to expand her volunteer base. It was hard, but walking into the Capitol and hearing those people cheering for us, I had a new mindset about it that we didnt just fail, we educated 43,000 people on an issue that weve been fighting six years now. Shannie Jackson, leader of the Arkansas Period Poverty Project In the meantime, Jackson said supporters will work on legislation with lawmakers like Knoxville Republican Rep. Aaron Pilkington, who in 2021 proposed a bill to exempt feminine hygiene products from sales tax that died in committee. Though theres more of an appetite for this type of measure now, Pilkington said he couldnt find enough support this year for a bill modeled after the proposed feminine hygiene ballot measure. Jackson said they discussed introducing legislation during Aprils fiscal session, but a study estimated the proposal would cost around $2 million in state revenue for feminine hygiene products and around $26 million for the diapers. Adding diapers to the estimate ballooned the cost, Pilkington said, and with a special session to cut income taxes looming, the support wasnt there. It came down to priorities, unfortunately, he said. Income tax cuts approved by the General Assembly in June are expected to reduce the states general revenue by a cumulative $483.5 million in fiscal year 2025 and by $322.2 million each fiscal year afterward, according to the state Department of Finance and Administrations fiscal impact report. Jacksons argument against cost concerns is to look at the bigger picture. If people can afford to live in a hygienic way, they can continue being contributing members of society because they arent missing work or racking up hospital bills from getting infections from improper use or using [other] things, she said. Pilkington said hell revisit the topic during the 2025 legislative session. Some of these things take time, unfortunately, and so well just keep pushing at it, he said. Jackson said theyd also like to work with Rep. Denise Ennett, D-Little Rock, in the upcoming session. Ennett sponsored Act 933 of 2021, which allows public schools to use funding to provide free feminine hygiene products to students. The goal is to amend the law to make it a requirement, Jackson said. Let us know what you think... Ennett said Friday theyve discussed the topic, but nothing has been confirmed. The Little Rock Democrat said shes interested in pursuing some type of legislation because the cost of menstrual products and diapers affects entire families. Its a relief for families who have limited resources to get the essentials for a family, she said. In preparation for the 2025 legislative session, Jackson said theyd like to collect personal testimony to help explain the importance of their work because representatives listen to the people. This was Jacksons first time working through the ballot initiative process, and instead of feeling defeated by missing the signature goal, she said she was buoyed by the support of onlookers while submitting signatures at the state Capitol last week. It was hard, but walking into the Capitol and hearing those people cheering for us, I had a new mindset about it that we didnt just fail, we educated 43,000 people on an issue that weve been fighting six years now, she said. Government transparency Arkansans for a Free Press submitted the Arkansas Government Disclosure Amendment to the attorney general on Wednesday. The proposed constitutional amendment would make government transparency a constitutional right. It would also require two-thirds of the Arkansas House and Senate to approve changes to the government transparency law, which would then be sent to voters. In emergency situations, a law would go into effect with 90% approval from both chambers but still be subject to a statewide vote later. If it makes the 2026 ballot and is approved by voters, the amendment would become effective on Nov. 4, 2026. In addition to more time, Arkansas Press Association Executive Director Ashley Wimberley, who serves as adviser to Arkansans for a Free Press (the APAs ballot question committee), said starting the direct democracy process now provides an opportunity to gather signatures during cooler fall weather. The sweltering summer heat prevented some volunteers from participating this year, she said. We want the people to be part of this campaign and to help us push this forward, but in doing that we need way more time to have a volunteer effort that can get there by the finish line, which is exactly why were starting early, she said. Canvassers collected 119,480 signatures combined for both the proposed constitutional amendment and its companion initiated act, she said. Just over 60,000 were for the amendment, which qualified in 35 counties. The remaining signatures were for the act, which met the minimum threshold in 50 counties, she said. The amendment and act spawned from last Septembers special session when state lawmakers supported the governors effort to alter the states Freedom of Information Act, shielding from public access records concerning the planning or provision of security services to the governor or state officials. This years effort was led by Arkansas Citizens for Transparency, a ballot question committee that Arkansans for a Free Press partnered with after forming in May. Theres literally nothing more important to government of, by and for the people than knowing what the government is doing, Arkansas Citizens for Transparency chair Nate Bell said. Bell said Friday hes obviously disappointed they didnt qualify for the 2024 ballot, but he anticipates members of the closely aligned groups Arkansas Citizens for Transparency and Arkansans for a Free Press will continue working together in pursuit of a common goal. Its full speed ahead ahead on the amendment, but Bell said the initiated act is on hold pending the 2025 legislative session, which could affect the content of a potential act. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US Wimberley said some legislators have reached out to discuss possibly incorporating components of their measures into laws, an option she said shes open to. FOIA is important for the press to do its job, Wimberley said, but government transparency should be a right of all Arkansans. Its essential for the press because we inform the public, so its not something were ever going to give in on or let go of, she said. While the 2024 campaign was tiring, Wimberley said it was uplifting to see how many people gave their time and money to the measure, which received support from across the political spectrum. I think everybody on the committee can say its exhausting. At the same time its shown me the level of care that a lot of people in our state have around government transparency and how much it matters to them, she said. Wimberley said she anticipates having strategic meetings in the next couple of weeks to get a framework in place before moving forward with the 2026 campaign. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese defense spokesperson on Friday urged the United States and the Philippines to immediately withdraw the Typhon missile system and never deploy it again. The U.S. mid-range missile system is "a strategic offensive weapon reminiscent of the Cold War" and should never have been deployed in this region, said Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, at a press conference. "Forcing its allies and partners onto the U.S. war chariot will only lead to tensions and confrontation, and undermine regional peace and stability. China firmly opposes this," Zhang said. "We urge the U.S. and the Philippines to respect the aspirations of peoples in the region for peace and development, and do more for regional peace and stability," he said. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Actor Matthew McConaughey continued to tease he might run for political office to a room full of governors Friday, joshing about drinking his brand of tequila with at least one of them the night before and taking advice from another to be himself if he ever does run. Whether the star known for Dazed and Confused, A Time to Kill and True Detective would run as a Democrat or Republican, and for what office, remained unknown. McConaughey has been vague about his political affiliation and didn't tip his hand at the National Governors Association meeting. I'm on a learning tour and have been for probably the last six years, McConaughey told New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who asked about his plans. Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good for it. You know, would I be useful?" He was learning a lot at the governors' annual summer meeting, he told Murphy. I learned a lot from you last night through that tequila, sir, he kidded Murphy, who'd brought up drinking McConaughey's tequila with him. McConaughey took part in a panel discussion with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, about how to promote civility in politics. Cox, the genial governor of famously polite Utah, has led a Disagree Better campaign to counter harsh rhetoric and combativeness in government a project that has caught the attention of McConaughey, who's also been outspoken about U.S. leaders practicing more respect. The three discussed how politicians' need to grab attention and clicks online drive extreme rhetoric. McConaughey said that extreme polarization has bled into Hollywood as well. My industry has to watch its tongue out of the gate because its coming from the left. We have to open that conversation with our opening statements and not invalidate a moderate or conservative at the gate, which were guilty of to an extent," McConaughey remarked of actors and directors weighing in on politics. McConaughey hinted in 2022 he might run for governor in his home state of Texas. He has meanwhile been outspoken on gun control, urging Congress from the White House after that year's school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, to pass legislation to bolster background checks for gun purchases and raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle to 21 from 18. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, encouraged McConaughey to someday run and offered advice. Dont fall into the trap to think you should be just one thing, said Green. A lot of Republicans will want you to be Republican and a lot of Democrats will want you to be a Democrat, just be you because that might be something special for all of us. ___ Gruver contributed from Cheyenne, Wyoming. LANCASTER The Rotary Club of Lancaster recently inducted Adam Pillar as its 2024-25 president during a passing of the gavel from 2023-24 Club President, Mike Lieber. During Liebers time as president, the club awarded nearly $88,000 in scholarships to 48 local students and led and participated in numerous activities. Examples include partnering with United Way of Fairfield County for its weekend student meal program by providing financial assistance and hands-on packing of the food packets. Under Mikes leadership, the Club will receive a $200,000 grant from the State of Ohio for its efforts to place a playground in the new Miller Park thanks to the efforts of State Senator Tim Schaffer and grant writer and Rotarian Sherry Orlando. The Rotary Club of Lancaster recently inducted Adam Pillar as its 2024-25 president. Additionally, the club hosted several Red Cross blood drives, sponsored Interact clubs at Fisher Catholic and Lancaster high schools and hosted a year-long exchange student from Hungary. I was proud to represent our Club during the past year as we tried to show Rotarians are people of Action and who create hope in our world, said Lieber. Incoming Club President Adam Pillar is the former Chief of the Lancaster Police Department. I'm humbled to be involved with so many talented and dedicated individuals. These Rotarians are excited to continue laying the groundwork for the re-imagining of Miller Park, assisting with the global eradication of Polio, and partnering with local agencies like Meals on Wheels and the Lancaster City School District, said Pillar. The Lancaster Rotary Club is comprised of approximately 150 business and community leaders and professionals who meet weekly for programs, networking, and friendship at noon Mondays at The Eagles Event Center. More information can be found at https://www.rotarycluboflancaster.org/ This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Adam Pillar inducted as new Lancaster Rotary president Members of a clean-up crew remove belongings that have been left behind by occupants as the National Park Service clears the homeless encampment. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Advocates for individuals experiencing homelessness are asking Ohio not to move forward with their scheduled voter purge before the November election. About 160,000 Ohioans are about to lose their ability to vote on July 22, 2024. This elimination should only impact inactive and infrequent voters, but voting rights advocates say they only have two weeks to fix a civil rights issue. The system that the state of Ohio currently has for voters is systematically disenfranchising our most vulnerable people, said Cid Standifer with the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates (NOVA). NOVA highlighted 500 registered voters who are set to be removed. What they all have in common the voters are all unhoused and registered to vote at shelters in Cleveland. Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries runs one of, if not the largest, mens shelters at 2100 Lakeside Ave. Nearly 400 people registered at that address will be purged. The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (CCBOE) said they put more than 130 people on the purge list because the mail that was sent to the shelters to confirm the voter lived there was returned undeliverable or the board didnt get a response. More than 250 others had voter information that didnt match BMV records. It is unclear what information didnt match state records since boards dont need to report that. BOE Director Tony Perlatti said he would get us that information. The state of Ohio says this is how homeless people can vote, Standifer said. They can use a homeless shelter or a service center address where theyll accept mail. The purge impacts Ohioans of all income levels. If you change your mailing address, dont vote for four years and dont respond to letters from your BOE, your voter status could be canceled. Even if you dont move but dont vote for six years, you could also be eliminated. While purges are controversial, Case Western Reserve University elections law professor Atiba Ellis says they have a purpose. States have a large degree of discretion in terms of how they run elections and how they run voter registration and maintaining voter lists in particular, Ellis said. This practice was challenged in court, with the ACLU of Ohio and others suing that the list-maintenance process violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. NVRA forbids voter removal if the sole reason is for failure to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled in a 5-4 decision that although Ohio does purge infrequent voters from the registration rolls, its mailing process is sufficient grounds to get rid of the individual. Federal law tends to require that states make what basically is a good faith effort in terms of maintaining accurate lists, the professor added. If your database becomes too big, it becomes difficult to manage. Perlatti said that they arent trying to remove any legitimate voter or disenfranchise individuals facing homelessness but say they are bound by law to follow this process. We definitely dont wanna promote that [disenfranchisement], but at the same time, everyone needs to have a registration address so were able to precinct them and know which ballot to give them, the director said. If they move to a different shelter or what it may be, we want to make sure that they get registered there. There is at least one person who lives at a shelter who registered to vote in 2024, yet they are still on the purge list. Perlatti said he would check on the reasoning for this. Still, Standifer wants to know how to fix this problem since voting is a civil right. Where do we go to find these people and let them know that theyre on the purge list? Standifer asked incredulously. Perlatti said that this news story will hopefully help get the word out there so that people know they are on the purge list. Also, so shelter officials can alert their clients. We should eliminate the voter purge process, Standifer said. It takes people with messy lives in difficult situations and it takes them off the rolls. We reached out to Sec. of State Frank LaRose about this dilemma and if there were ways to help unhoused individuals better, but did not hear back. How to find out if you are about to be purged The full list of about-to-be canceled registrations can be viewed at the SOSs Registration Readiness website, which is available here. If you find out you are on the list, you will need to update your voter registration, which can be done here. You can also go to the local BOE or give them a call to ask about your status. If you arent on the purge list but havent voted in a while, check this SOS page to look up if you are still registered. Luckily, you can re-register to vote even after youve been purged and still be able to vote in the presidential race. The purge is on July 22, and the deadline to register to vote is Oct. 7. The fight against purges LaRose is supposed to put out a list of everyone he is removing from the rolls before the voter registration deadline, which he did this year. However, he didnt last year. LaRose originally planned to remove about 140,000 names, but around 16,000 voters were mislabeled, according to Democrats. And this isnt the first time. Back in 2019, the secretary spoke to WEWS about the challenges that came from the last voter sweep. Over 10,000 voters have said no I still want to be a registered voter in Ohio and so theyve taken action, theyve gone on our website or filled out the form and sent it in, LaRose said at the time. That list ended up gaining 30,000 additional voters, according to a New York Times report. A review of the work of one vendor found that more than 1,400 names were incorrectly added to the list, sparking calls from the League of Women Voters and other groups to delay the 2019 removal. Numerous activist groups have reached out to WEWS to assert initial concerns with this list, arguing about inaccurate names. It should not be [voters] job to not be removed, state Rep. Bride Sweeney (D-Cleveland) said last year. Its our job not to arbitrarily remove people whove done the work of registering themselves in the state. The state isnt trying to remove any legitimate voter, LaRose has said, but undergoing this process keeps Ohio elections safe. To be explicitly clear, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Ohio. One of the few cases ever resulting in a conviction was a Republican attorney from Cleveland who voted twice in the 2020 and 2022 elections. If you believe you or a loved one has been wrongfully added to the voter purge list, please email Statehouse reporter Morgan Trau at Morgan.Trau@wews.com with the subject line VOTER PURGE. Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook. This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Advocates concerned with Ohios mass voter purge set to remove 500 people experiencing homelessness appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. Gov. Ron DeSantis is endangering public health, say critics of his recent veto of House Bill 165, also known as the Safe Waterways Act, which could have expanded the Florida Department of Health's authority over many of the state's ailing waterways. Both the House and the Senate supported the measure, which would have increased the scope and range of DOH and its water monitoring program, which now focuses on swimming beaches along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. So, while Bonita Beach (which tested positive for poop water earlier this week) gets tested on a regular basis, the kayak and canoe launch on the Imperial River, which is upstream of the beach, is not tested by the state. Mullock Creek and Hendry Creek are seen from the air during a sunset on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. The two waterways are tributaries for boaters to Estero Bay. Those waters often show tenfold or higher amounts of bacteria than you'll find at the beach, and there are days when more people touch the Imperial River than get in the Gulf at Bonita Beach. DeSantis, who regularly fights against local city and county control of certain things, said it is better to have local officials making these decisions than it is to have a state DOH monitoring program in place. City council members and mayors are better suited to make those decisions than trained experts at the DOH, he said. The bill was promoted as a way to help streamline the DOH notification process for sewage spills and other types of water contamination, and it would have allowed for DOH to close beaches and other waterways used for recreation. One lawmaker said it would possibly save lives Local non-profit Calusa Waterkeeper tested 30 sites last month for enterococcus bacteria, and 77% of the sites exceeded the federal limits for bacteria exposure, the group reported. But most of those sites aren't monitored by DOH, although many of them would have been tested regularly by the state had DeSantis not vetoed the Safe Waterways Act. Karl Deigert, a former Matlacha resident who now lives in Ocala and is the spokesman for Florida Right To Clean Water, said the veto reeks of special interests making decisions for the public. More: Will sargassum wreak havoc on SWFL beaches this summer? "Ron DeSantis' decision to prevent DOH from notifying of toxic conditions harmful to human health and safety, in spite of the Legislation's full support, exemplifies how special interests work to keep the public in the dark about water quality degradation statewide," Deigert said. "It is an abysmal act by the governor that will endanger public safety." James Douglass, a water quality scientist and professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, said the public has pushed for more, better notifications from the state. "People are pushing for more notifications, but the governor vetoed that proposal," Douglass said. "I definitely feel like the public needs to be notified. There has to be a sign posted or something. They've done mandatory closures when levels were high, and I had mixed feelings about that because as long as people are informed of the risks, they can make their own decisions." More: Florida asks feds to let more than 1,000 permits slide after judge rules process illegal Calusa Waterkeeper Emeritus John Cassani wrote to the News-Press about the veto, saying DeSantis's rationale is odd and that DOH needs to sample more and in more places. "In fact, the majority of state waters, having recreation as a state-designated use, are not required to have on-site public signage indicating the risk from fecal bacteria contamination," Cassani said. "The Legislature has been able to avoid this politically awkward yet risky policy by focusing only on water designated and defined as a public bathing place." This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Critics: Governor endangering public by vetoing Safe Waterways Act A violent rampage through Charlotte this week has left behind scars for the family of the man who died, and for the survivors as well. But advocates say too often, theres not enough support for people in their situation. PREVIOUS STORIES: On Saturday, they hope to change that. Advocates plan to declare there is no healing in the justice system, and they want to take that message from the library on Beatties Ford Road in west Charlotte to the nations capital. Reporter Ken Lemon talked to two of the speakers for Saturdays event. They said while there are systems in place, they are woefully underfunded. And they know firsthand how a lack of support hurts the victim over and over. You feel alone Its been nearly two decades since one of the worst days of Shonda Lifhreds life. I was shot three times in my chest, once in my stomach, once in my leg and twice in my back, she told Lemon. The west Charlotte resident was living in Florida when her son, who was 6 at the time, saw his mother shot by an abusive partner. She survived, but she said it put her in a dark place. It leaves you scared, afraid, she said. You feel alone. Her scars healed well before her spirit did. The shooting happened 24 years ago. Im still in the healing process, she said. Lifhred and the national director for the Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice want Trauma Recovery Centers in Charlotte and all other cities. They advocate for millions in government investments toward local groups working to help survivors. Director Aswad Thomas said that he has learned the consequences of failing to act. He said he was shot in the back during a robbery. Thomas told Lemon as a doctor pulled the bullets out of his back, he told him about a 14-year-old shooting victim he helped in that same hospital four years earlier. I said, can you stop the surgery, cause you had just described the teenager that had shot me, Aswad said. I strongly feel like his unaddressed trauma played a strong role in my shooting. I knew thats how the cycle of violence continues. Lifhred is trying help other gun violence victims with her organization, but she has no budget and no staff. The group gathering Saturday said helping grassroots group like hers can end violence. Thats the message they will share during a march on Washington in September. (WATCH BELOW: Organization to end gun violence goes where teens are: social media) It will be a similar monsoon pattern that will take shape across New Mexico this afternoon through Sunday afternoon. Afternoon showers and thunderstorms will continue to develop across western, northern and central New Mexico and move to the west, southwest through the evening. The heaviest rain will likely stay in the western half of New Mexico. Very isolated thunderstorms are possible in the Rio Grande Valley through the weekend. A couple isolated showers may be possible over the Sacramento Mountains, but it will be much drier that what weve seen recently with a low threat of burn scar flash flooding. High temperatures will also be warming through the weekend. More monsoon moisture will move into New Mexico early next week, with rain chances increasing through next Wednesday. Widespread showers and storms will develop especially next Tuesday and Wednesday, when we will have the highest chances for rain next week. With the higher rain chances, temperatures will also be slightly cooler. 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. Attorney General Gentner Drummond said his office will take over legal counsel duties for the new Statewide Charter School Board. Attorney General Gentner Drummond has told the new Statewide Charter School Board that effective immediately his office will serve as the legal counsel for the board and said the board must immediately follow an Oklahoma Supreme Court order to rescind a contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. Drummond sent a letter to the boards executive director, Rebecca Wilkinson, and members of the board on Thursday, outlining how legal representation for the board will move forward. Drummond said the board must either call a special meeting or move its next scheduled board meeting now set for Aug. 12 to no later than the last day of July, so that it can obey the court order. (Y)ou must know and accept that no state agency, board, or commission may willfully ignore an order from Oklahomas highest court, Drummond wrote, adding, (T)he Board has disregarded its duties by deferring to (St. Isidores) litigation whims. St. Isidore is seeking to become the nations first Catholic virtual charter school. By a 3-2 vote last October, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the creation of St. Isidore, and Drummond quickly filed a lawsuit, saying such an agreement was unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on April 2. The court issued its ruling June 25, ordering the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to rescind its contract with St. Isidore. But three days later, at the final meeting before its dissolution, the board failed to take action on the court order. The old boards legal responsibilities have fallen to the Statewide Charter School Board, which began operating July 1. The St. Isidore case is being eyed closely due to its religious overtones and potential for a precedent-setting ruling. St. Isidore has already said it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state Supreme Courts ruling. Daniel Carsey, who served as the new boards attorney at its first meeting on Monday and who previously served as counsel for the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, replied to Drummond in a letter Friday, saying it has been an honor and a privilege to serve in place of your Office in many capacities over the past several years, and most recently to be of service to the SCSB and SVCSB. Attorney general's letter criticizes board's current attorney, who pushes back on that critique Drummonds letter was critical of Carsey, whos a shareholder and director of the Hill Estill law firm in Oklahoma City. Drummonds office formally approved of Carsey serving as the counsel for the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, but the attorney general noted his office had not approved of him serving in that role for the new board. Drummond said his office observed Carsey serving as the new boards counsel on Monday and noted that Carsey joined board members in executive session. Despite informing you, Dr. Wilkinson, on June 28, 2024, that Mr. Carseys representation of the Board was denied, Mr. Carsey was invited to serve as counsel without the Boards approval, Drummond wrote. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, my office will not oppose the SCSB paying for Mr. Carseys legal services during that meeting. Daniel Carsey was the attorney for the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board before serving in the same role for the new Statewide Charter School Board in its first meeting. Under Carseys counsel, Drummond wrote, the two boards have twice failed to rescind the contract as unequivocally ordered by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Drummond said it appeared Carsey didnt understand that all three members of the old board needed to vote to rescind the contract (two members voted to rescind while the other abstained). Drummond also criticized Carseys advice to the new board about its obligations to follow the Supreme Court order. In that meeting, the board voted to delay a decision on how, and when, to follow the court order, citing a request for a stay of the order filed by St. Isidore and a court directive to the attorney generals office asking for a response to St. Isidores motion. That response is due July 22. Carsey, in his letter, pushed back on Drummonds assessment. Your substantive critiques of our representation of the SCSB and (before July 1, 2024) the SVCSB are also unfounded, Carsey said. We have faithfully counseled the SCSB and SVCSB in a manner consistent with all applicable laws and court orders. Neither you nor your Office have been party to any of the privileged conversations we have had with the SCSB and SVCSB and you therefore have no knowledge of what counsel we might (or might not) have given the SCSB and SVCSB. Carsey said the board's choosing not to rescind the contract with St. Isidore reflects only the decisions of those respective boards and says nothing of the substance of our counsel to them (to which you are not entitled as a function of attorney-client privilege). This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma AG tells board to rescind religious charter school contract Artificial intelligence, cyber-attacks and genetic engineering could pose potentially catastrophic biosecurity threats to countries around the world, the WHO has warned. Rapid technological advances in the past decade have redefined the biological threat landscape and heightened risks of manipulation, the updated guidance from the WHOs Technical Advisory Group on Biosafety said. Whether it is to prevent another pandemic, a terrorist attack or antimicrobial resistance, the report advised that member states should include essential elements of biological risk mitigation and management within their national laboratory biosafety and laboratory biosecurity strategies. It advises that member states should include essential elements of biological risk mitigation and management within their national laboratory biosafety and laboratory biosecurity strategies, policies, programmes, and mechanisms. The WHO identified biosafety and biosecurity awareness as one of the weakest core capacities of its member states in a review in 2022. The authors said the updated laboratory biosecurity guidance, a complete revision of the first published in 2006, was required to help national regulatory bodies and other institutions establish or strengthen frameworks for handling high-consequence pathogens. High-consequence biological agents The guidance also clarifies that the term biosecurity used in this lab context, should not be confused with the term biosecurity used to refer to risks associated with release of modified living organisms and invasive alien species, also known as astrobio defence. This years World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on strengthening laboratory biological risk management as a necessary health security capacity. The resolution covers laboratory biosafety, referring to both unintentional and intentional exposure to or release of biological or other materials. It called on the WHO to guide member states on how to deal with high-consequence biological agents that would, in case of release or exposure, cause significant harm or potentially catastrophic consequences. The UKs 2023 Biological Security Strategy report said that their vision was for the UK to be resilient to a spectrum of biological threats and a world leader in innovation by 2030. In the reports foreword, former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden said that we will continue to work with like-minded partners and allies globally to move away from the one bug, one drug approach of the 20th century. He added: We can defeat the threats of the future but only if we refuse to stand still, and instead continue to innovate and strengthen our health resilience to protect the future wellbeing and economic security of the UK. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security 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 artificial intelligence boom has had such a profound effect on big tech companies that their energy consumption, and with it their carbon emissions, have surged. The spectacular success of large language models such as ChatGPT has helped fuel this growth in energy demand. At 2.9 watt-hours per ChatGPT request, AI queries require about 10 times the electricity of traditional Google queries, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research firm. Emerging AI capabilities such as audio and video generation are likely to add to this energy demand. The energy needs of AI are shifting the calculus of energy companies. Theyre now exploring previously untenable options, such as restarting a nuclear reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant that has been dormant since the infamous disaster in 1979. Data centers have had continuous growth for decades, but the magnitude of growth in the still-young era of large language models has been exceptional. AI requires a lot more computational and data storage resources than the pre-AI rate of data center growth could provide. AI and the grid Thanks to AI, the electrical grid in many places already near its capacity or prone to stability challenges is experiencing more pressure than before. There is also a substantial lag between computing growth and grid growth. Data centers take one to two years to build, while adding new power to the grid requires over four years. As a recent report from the Electric Power Research Institute lays out, just 15 states contain 80% of the data centers in the U.S.. Some states such as Virginia, home to Data Center Alley astonishingly have over 25% of their electricity consumed by data centers. There are similar trends of clustered data center growth in other parts of the world. For example, Ireland has become a data center nation. Along with the need to add more power generation to sustain this growth, nearly all countries have decarbonization goals. This means they are striving to integrate more renewable energy sources into the grid. Renewables such as wind and solar are intermittent: The wind doesnt always blow and the sun doesnt always shine. The dearth of cheap, green and scalable energy storage means the grid faces an even bigger problem matching supply with demand. Additional challenges to data center growth include increasing use of water cooling for efficiency, which strains limited fresh water sources. As a result, some communities are pushing back against new data center investments. Better tech There are several ways the industry is addressing this energy crisis. First, computing hardware has gotten substantially more energy efficient over the years in terms of the operations executed per watt consumed. Data centers power use efficiency, a metric that shows the ratio of power consumed for computing versus for cooling and other infrastructure, has been reduced to 1.5 on average, and even to an impressive 1.2 in advanced facilities. New data centers have more efficient cooling by using water cooling and external cool air when its available. Unfortunately, efficiency alone is not going to solve the sustainability problem. In fact, Jevons paradox points to how efficiency may result in an increase of energy consumption in the longer run. In addition, hardware efficiency gains have slowed down substantially, as the industry has hit the limits of chip technology scaling. To continue improving efficiency, researchers are designing specialized hardware such as accelerators, new integration technologies such as 3D chips, and new chip cooling techniques. Similarly, researchers are increasingly studying and developing data center cooling technologies. The Electric Power Research Institute report endorses new cooling methods, such as air-assisted liquid cooling and immersion cooling. While liquid cooling has already made its way into data centers, only a few new data centers have implemented the still-in-development immersion cooling. Running computer servers in a liquid rather than in air could be a more efficient way to cool them. Craig Fritz, Sandia National Laboratories Flexible future A new way of building AI data centers is flexible computing, where the key idea is to compute more when electricity is cheaper, more available and greener, and less when its more expensive, scarce and polluting. Data center operators can convert their facilities to be a flexible load on the grid. Academia and industry have provided early examples of data center demand response, where data centers regulate their power depending on power grid needs. For example, they can schedule certain computing tasks for off-peak hours. Implementing broader and larger scale flexibility in power consumption requires innovation in hardware, software and grid-data center coordination. Especially for AI, there is much room to develop new strategies to tune data centers computational loads and therefore energy consumption. For example, data centers can scale back accuracy to reduce workloads when training AI models. Realizing this vision requires better modeling and forecasting. Data centers can try to better understand and predict their loads and conditions. Its also important to predict the grid load and growth. The Electric Power Research Institutes load forecasting initiative involves activities to help with grid planning and operations. Comprehensive monitoring and intelligent analytics possibly relying on AI for both data centers and the grid are essential for accurate forecasting. On the edge The U.S. is at a critical juncture with the explosive growth of AI. It is immensely difficult to integrate hundreds of megawatts of electricity demand into already strained grids. It might be time to rethink how the industry builds data centers. One possibility is to sustainably build more edge data centers smaller, widely distributed facilities to bring computing to local communities. Edge data centers can also reliably add computing power to dense, urban regions without further stressing the grid. While these smaller centers currently make up 10% of data centers in the U.S., analysts project the market for smaller-scale edge data centers to grow by over 20% in the next five years. Along with converting data centers into flexible and controllable loads, innovating in the edge data center space may make AIs energy demands much more sustainable. 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: Ayse Coskun, Boston University Read more: Ayse K. Coskun has recently received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, IBM Research, Boston University Red Hat Collaboratory, and the Research Council of Norway. None of the recent funding is directly linked to this article. NAIROBI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese firm Moja EV Kenya on Friday commenced the rollout of public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to increase adoption of green transport in Kenya. Wang Aiping, chief executive officer of Moja EV Kenya, told journalists in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, that the 80 KW DC fast charging stations are expected to enhance convenience of motorists dependent on electricity to power their vehicles. "Our goal is to have 100 charging stations spreading across Kenya by the end of the year," Aiping said. Wang noted that the stations will charge electric vehicles to full capacity within 15 minutes to 30 minutes thereby reducing downtime and increasing driving range. According to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Kenya had 3,753 EVs as of December 2023, constituting 1.62 percent of the vehicles registered in the country. Maurice Njagi, industrial development officer at the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry, said that Kenya has put in place supportive policies to incentivize the deployment of EV charging infrastructure to ensure their coverage. Njagi added that charging stations are granted preferential electricity tariffs from power utilities because of their contribution to green transition in the country. The US Air Force has revealed that development of a new relatively low-cost stand-off precision-guided munition is for Ukraine. The U.S. Air Force has disclosed that Ukraine is the intended recipient of a new relatively low-cost precision-guided air-launched stand-off munition it is looking to start development of called the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM). ERAM, which could have a range of up to 250 miles, would give the Ukrainian Air Force new capacity to strike targets beyond the reach of many of the weapons currently in its arsenal, including Western-supplied precision-guided bombs. It also offers an ideal opportunity to do a more immediate real-world evaluation of evolving concepts for rapidly developing and scaling up of production of relatively complex weapon systems. Finding ways to quickly expand stand-off strike capacity and significantly enlarge relevant stockpiles is of great interest to the U.S. military, especially when it comes to planning around a potential future high-end conflict with China. A pair of Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker fighters. What Ukrainian aircraft might carry the ERAM is unknown. Ukrainian Air Force The Air Force Life Cycle Management Centers (AFLCMC) Armament Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida quietly issued a request for proposals (RFP) regarding ERAM yesterday, which Aviation Week was among the first to spot. The RFP is a part of a larger rapid development contracting vehicle called the AFLCMC Armament Directorate Rapid Response (ADRR) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO). The new RFP seeks to procure the initial phases of a new aircraft launched weapon labeled ERAM, which is pivotal for accelerating Ukraines capability to meet warfighter needs efficiently and effectively and provides an affordable mass weapon to be produced at scale, according to the Air Force. The Government is seeking to prototype and adapt commercial autonomous modular open architecture vehicle that can deliver affordable long-range effects. The resultant prototype will provide a platform that is mass producible. In January, the Air Force issued its first public contracting notice regarding ERAM, a request for information (RFI), but made no mention at that time about any connection to Ukraine. The new RFP says it is explicitly asking for full proposals from each of the 16 companies none of which are named that responded to the earlier RFI. Artwork the US Air Force has put out in the past depicting a general notional missile design. USAF The RFP refers to a set of requirements for ERAM that do not appear to be publicly released. The previous RFI did outline some key parameters, as The War Zone reported earlier this year: AFLCMC/EBDKs [the AFLCMC Armament Directorates] contracting notice calls for a 500-pound-class munition with a range of at least 250 miles and a top speed of no less than Mach 0.6. The size of the munitions warhead isnt specified, but it needs to be a blast/fragmentation type with at least some degree of penetrating capability and unspecified variable fuze settings. The ERAMs internal navigation system has to be capable of operating in a GPS degraded environment. The weapon also needs to have a terminal Accuracy of CEP 50 w/in 10m (meaning the weapon hits within 10 meters, or around 33 feet, of the specified impact point at least 50 percent of the time) in both in non-EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and high EMI environments (includes GPS degraded). The RFI also called for a design that a manufacturer could build 1,000 within two years, or an average of nearly 42 per month. The U.S. military has had its own interest in precision-guided munitions that can still function effectively in the face of heavy electronic warfare jamming, but those particular requirements now make even more sense knowing that ERAM is intended for Ukraine. Russian forces have reportedly been using electronic warfare systems to good effect against GPS-assisted guidance packages used on a variety of air and ground-launched munitions that Ukraine has received from the United States and other Western partners. In May, the Pentagon announced that the Air Force had signed a separate contract to buy new seekers for Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision glide bombs for Ukraine to give them a home-on-jam capability to help address this threat, as you can read more about here. A JDAM-ER under the wing of a Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter. via X A JDAM-ER under the wing of a Ukrainian MiG-29 offering a good look at the specialized pylon used to employ these weapons from those aircraft, as well as Su-27s. via X The ERAM requirements from the RFI are also broadly in line with those of a powered derivative of the JDAM, or PJDAM, which Boeing has been pitching, as well as those of a powered version of Raytheons Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) glide bomb. A mock-up of the Powered JDAM with its pop-out wings in the deployed position. Joseph Trevithick On an operational level, new precision-guided air-launched stand-off munitions with ranges of up to 250 miles would be a great boon for the Ukrainian Air Force, in general. For comparison, Ukraine has received JDAM-ERs and Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) from the United States, as well as French-made Hammer guided bombs, all of which can hit targets out to distances of around 40 to 45 miles, depending on the release envelope and other factors. Ukraines air arm has also gotten Storm Shadow cruise missiles from the United Kingdom and functionally identical SCALP-EGs from France that have maximum ranges of around 300 miles. Volodymyr Zelensky signs the SCALP EG cruise missile handed over by #France, suspended from the Su-24 Thank you France pic.twitter.com/kjguoR48pb Cloooud | (@GloOouD) August 6, 2023 ERAM would allow Ukraines pilots valuable added capability to engage targets deeper behind the front lines, while also reducing their exposure to the very real threat of Russian air defenses, which Ukraine has also been actively targeting. Depending on the munitions propulsion system and flight profile, Ukrainian Air Force aircraft might still be able to hit enemy forces substantial distances away even when releasing the weapons at lower altitudes to help keep themselves further shielded from potential threats. Its interesting to note here that Lt. Gen. Serhii Naev, the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said back in February that unspecified air-to-ground missiles with ranges of between 186 to 310 miles were expected to come along new Western-supplied F-16 Viper fighters. Whether Naev was referring to ERAM is unknown, and there are other possibilities as The War Zone explored at the time, but his comments did come just days after the Air Force put out its initial RFI for the new air-launched munition. U.S. and other Western officials announced yesterday that the transfer of the first tranche of F-16s to Ukraine had begun. At the #NATOSummit, Allies announced the transfer process for F-16 fighter jets is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer#StandWithUkraine NATO (@NATO) July 10, 2024 ERAM could well be intregrated onto other aircraft in Ukrainian service. In April, the U.S. military revealed details about how it had been getting various Western precision-guided munitions to work with Ukraines Soviet-era MiGs and Sukhois in part with the help of iPads or similar tablets mounted in their cockpits, as you can read more about here. You can see an example of such a system in the cockpit of a Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker fighter in the video below. Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker Wild Weasel operations, seen here conducting multiple low level standoff strikes against Russian radars with US-supplied AGM-88 HARMs. pic.twitter.com/7CosjXFNkO OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 21, 2024 The ability to ramp up the production of ERAMs could be just as important for Ukraine as the weapons specific capabilities. The Ukrainian Air Force has a clear need now for more munitions and steady supply chains are of critical importance to sustained operations. The War Zone has highlighted the importance of these logistical factors in the past with regard to other Western military aid to Ukraine, especially the relatively ready availability of AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) for its National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). In addition, while the Air Force says ERAM is ostensibly for Ukraine, it is not hard to see how the service or other branches of the U.S. military might also be interested in this weapon. The original ERAM RFI was released around the same time as the Navy put out one for a similar-sounding proposed munition dubbed the Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE). Last month, the Pentagons Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in cooperation with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Centers Armament Directorate (AFLCMC/EB), also announced it had picked four companies to build prototypes of a relatively low-cost and readily producible Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The Air Force has said it is specifically interested in the ETV effort as a stepping stone to future cruise missile concepts. This follows years of other U.S. military projects in similar veins. These efforts also mirror initiatives aimed at reducing costs and speeding up large-scale production of other systems, especially uncrewed platforms. A rendering of one of the designs now set to be tested under the Enterprise Test Vehicle effort. Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. via DIU The U.S. military expects to expend copious amounts of stand-off munitions just in the opening phases of any future high-end conflict, especially one against China across, the broad expanses of the Pacific. Lower-cost, easier-to-produce designs will be critical for stocking up on relevant weapons now and refilling inventories during an extended conflict in more economical ways. Ongoing operations in response to an anti-shipping campaign that Houthi militants in Yemen are waging in and around the Red Sea, as well as the U.S. militarys contribution to the defense of Israel against incoming missiles and drones from Iran in April, have shined new light on issues relating to munition expenditure rates and replenishing stockpiles. With all this in mind, ERAM presents an opportunity to go through the entire cycle of rapid prototyping and fielding of a weapon system that would then go straight into operational use in a real conflict. Whatever the results might be, the lessons learned would be extremely valuable to all parties involved. The conflict in Ukraine is already being used, somewhat controversially, as a real-world proving ground of sorts for weapons and other materiel. This is something that Ukrainians themselves have openly touted on occasion. The new revelation that the U.S. Air Force is developing ERAM for its Ukrainian counterparts has major implications when it comes to providing that country with a badly needed boost to its ability to conduct precision air strikes and do so at stand-off ranges. The weapon could also have broader ramifications, especially when it comes to how it is developed and produced, that extend well beyond the conflict in Ukraine. Contact the author: joe@twz.com An Akron man was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 20 years for a 2010 Barberton rape case, Summit County Prosecutor Elliot Kolkovich announced Friday. Derrick Fischer was found guilty of two counts of rape in April for beating, strangling and raping a woman at a party 14 years ago, according to Beacon Journal partner News 5 Cleveland. Fischer was also previously convicted of another rape in Akron more than 30 years ago. The prosecution of Fisher was conducted as part of the Akron Police Departments Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI). The victim was sexually assaulted in 2010, but at the time, investigators did not have a suspect. The evidence in the case was re-tested in 2017 with a DNA profile matching Fischer to the crime. Prior to sentencing, Fischer was found guilty of a sexually violent predator specification. The specification allowed Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Alison McCarty to increase the sentence for each count. Derrick Fischer is a dangerous man with a violent history. My office will fight to keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Thank you to local law enforcement, the assistant prosecutors, and the survivor for their unwavering determination and relentless pursuit of justice in this case, Kolkovich said in a news release. McCarty also designated Fischer as a Tier III sex offender. With that designation, Fischer will have to register every 90 days for the rest of his life if he is ever released from prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years of his sentence. What is SAKI? In 2018, the Akron Police Department received a three-year, $1 million grant from the Department of Justice to form the Akron Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Unit. SAKI reviews unsolved rape cases that are less than 20 years old where DNA was collected but no suspect was charged with a crime. This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Derrick Fischer gets life in prison for 2010 rape in Barberton Everette Johnson bows his head in prayer at an event celebrating Miriam Shehane on April 13, 2023. Johnson has been named the new director of the Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Commission. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) The Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Commission has accelerated the number of claims it has paid to victims this year and cut into the backlog of cases it needs to review. That was, in part, due to the increased funding the agency received. Director Everette Johnson told commissioners during a meeting on Thursday that it has disbursed all the $1 million that the ACVCC received from the Governors Office Emergency Fund in the fall of 2023. The agency also has slightly more than $300,000 left of the $1.5 million it received under the 2024 General Fund budget. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The ACVCC, which compensates victims of violent crimes and their families for resources such as funeral expenses and lost wages, faced criticism last year amid a backlog of cases that had some crime victims waiting as long as a year for action on their claims. The ACVCC blamed shortfalls from fines and fees, a major revenue source that has fallen in recent years. In recent years, the agency received $2.5 million from fines and fees annually, which comprises the bulk of the proceeds it gets to operate and fulfill its mission. Johnson told the commissioners that is not adequate. ACVCC received money from the General Fund for the first time in its history in 2023. The governors office also provided money to address the backlog. According to Johnson, the agency paid out almost $300,000 to victims in April, another $360,000 in May and slightly more than $300,000 in June. They are almost double, if not double than what we paid out last year, Johnson said. The governors money has helped with that. The agency is also down to 552 in claims that are part of the backlog. Back in May, Johnson said there were 660 claims that were backlogged. About $100,000 of the $1.5 million allocated to ACVCC through the General Fund went to Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL), a nonprofit that advocates for victims. Johnson said Thursday direct funding may be needed going forward. We dont see the fines and fees going back up, hopefully it will never go back down, Johnson said. We are projecting that it stays the same. It has been overall for the past few years, if I understand that correctly. We have got to find some help somewhere. And it has got to come from the legislature. After receiving additional funding, the agency has been working to distribute the money to crime victims and their families. The agency is slated to receive $1.5 million from the General Fund in the 20l25 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. Unlike in the past, the agency is hoping to move forward earlier for the coming session. Johnson said he plans to meet with House Ways and Means General Fund Committee chair Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, in the coming week. Well see how that goes, he said. I am getting ahead of the funding game with them. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST (BCN) Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price denied claims in Gov. Gavin Newsoms Thursday news conference about the ability of her office to prosecute crime in the county. Newsom announced Thursday that his office would rescind its offer to send state prosecutors to the county to assist the District Attorneys Offices caseload, saying Prices office was uncooperative. In February, Newsom and the state Attorney General offered Price the use of prosecutors from the California National Guard and the state Department of Justice. But in a letter to Prices office Wednesday, the governors office said Price did not make use of state resources and did not take initial steps toward finalizing the memorandum of understanding. Those resources will be shifted to the attorney general to take on state-led prosecutions that originate in Alameda County, according to the letter. American Airlines flight evacuated at SFO due to smoke in the cabin Weve been disappointed [in the] the lack of engagement with the DAs office, Newsom said. So were moving forward, rather than complaining about it, rather than lamenting about it. Price addressed Newsoms statements in her own weekly press conference Thursday, which was live-streamed on the social media platform X. I cannot speak to the governors disappointment, Price said. Im disappointed that the governor did not reach out to me directly and Im disappointed that the governor did not acknowledge the efforts that our office is making. In particular, Price denied Newsoms claims about the staffing of the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force. Newsom said the narcotics unit no longer had any personnel because its lead prosecutor, Michael Nieto, had left Prices office. Nieto was appointed by Newsom last month to be a judge, but Price said he remains on her staff for the time being and has not indicated a final day of employment. The governor is misinformed, apparently, Price said about Nietos employment status. Protect the Win for Public Safety, the campaign opposing the effort to recall Price from office, also decried Newsoms characterization of the District Attorneys Office. Governor Newsoms decision to withdraw support and not give the county what it needs jeopardizes public safety and sends a disturbing message that he may not have intended to convey, the campaign said in a statement. 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. A small stream flows alongside the Rio Grande at Isleta Blvd. and Interstate 25 on Sept. 7, 2023. (Photo by Anna Padilla for Source New Mexico) This article was originally published by Grist. It is republished here with permission. Mark Garcia can see that theres no shortage of water in the Rio Grande this year. The river flows past his farm in central New Mexico, about 50 miles south of Albuquerque. The rush of springtime water is a welcome change after years of drought, but he knows the good times wont last. As the summer continues, the river will diminish, leaving Garcia with a strict ration. Hell be allowed irrigation water for his 300 acres just once every 30 days, which is nowhere near enough to sustain his crop of oats and alfalfa. For decades, Garcia and other farmers on the Rio Grande have relied on water released from a dam called El Vado, which collects billions of gallons of river water to store and eventually release to help farmers during times when the river runs dry. More significantly for most New Mexico residents, the dam system also allows the city of Albuquerque to import river water from long distances for household use. But El Vado has been out of commission for the past three summers, its structure bulging and disfigured after decades in operation and the government doesnt have a plan to fix it. We need some sort of storage, said Garcia. If we dont get a big monsoon this summer, if you dont have a well, you wont be able to water. The failure of the dam has shaken up the water supply for the entire region surrounding Albuquerque, forcing the city and many of the farmers nearby to rely on finite groundwater and threatening an endangered fish species along the river. Its a surprising twist of fate for a region that in recent years emerged as a model for sustainable water management in the West. Having El Vado out of the picture has been really tough, said Paul Tashjian, the director of freshwater conservation at the Southwest regional office of the nonprofit National Audubon Society. Weve been really eking by every year the past few years. Surface water imports from the El Vado system have generally allowed public officials in Albuquerque to limit groundwater shortages. This echoes the strategies of other large Western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles, which have enabled population growth by tapping diverse sources of water for metropolitan regions and the farms that sit outside of them. The Biden administration is seeking to replicate this strategy in water-stressed rural areas across the region, doling out more than $8 billion in grants to support pipelines and reservoirs. But the last decade has shown that this strategy isnt foolproof at least not while climate change fuels an ongoing megadrought across the West. Los Angeles has lost water from both the Colorado River and from a series of reservoirs in Northern California, and Phoenix has seen declines not only from the Colorado but also from the groundwater aquifers that fuel the states cotton and alfalfa farming. Now, as Albuquerques decrepit El Vado dam goes out of commission, the city is trying to balance multiple fragile resources. El Vado is an odd dam: Its one of only four in the United States that uses a steel faceplate to hold back water, rather than a mass of rock or concrete. The dam, which is located on a tributary of the Rio Grande, has been collecting irrigation water for farmers for close to a century, but decades of studies have shown that water is seeping through the faceplate and undermining the dams foundations. When engineers tried to use grout to fill in the cracks behind the faceplate, they accidentally caused the faceplate to bulge out of shape, threatening the stability of the entire structure. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the dam, paused construction and is now back at the drawing board. Without the ability to collect irrigation water for the farmers, the Bureau has left them to rely on the natural flow of the Rio Grande as it moves downstream through Albuquerque. Theres plenty of water in the spring, when snow melts off the mountains and rain rushes toward the ocean. But when the rains peter out by the start of the summer, the rivers flow reduces to a trickle. We run really fast and happy in the spring, and then youre off pretty precipitously, said Casey Ish, the conservation program supervisor at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the irrigation district that supplies water to farmers like Garcia. It just creates a lot of stress on the system late in the summer. The uncertainty about water rationing causes many farmers to forego planting crops they arent sure theyll be able to see to maturity, Ish added. The beleaguered dam also plays a critical role in providing water to the fast-growing Albuquerque metropolitan area, which is home to almost a million people. As the city grew over the past 100 years, it drained local groundwater, lowering aquifer levels by dozens of feet until the city got a reputation as one of the biggest water-wasters in the West. Cities across the region were mining their groundwater in the same way, but Albuquerque managed to turn its bad habits around. In 2008, it built a $160 million water treatment plant that allowed it to clean water from the distant Colorado River, giving officials a new water source to reduce their groundwater reliance. The loss of El Vado is jeopardizing this achievement. In order for Colorado River water to reach the Albuquerque treatment plant, it needs to travel through the same canals and pipelines that deliver El Vado water to farmers like Garcia, riding with the Rio Grande tributary water through the pipes. Without a steady flow of irrigation water out of El Vado, the Colorado River water cant make it to the city. This means that in the summer months, when the Rio Grande dries out, Albuquerque now has to turn back to groundwater to supply its thirsty residential subdivisions. This renewed reliance on groundwater has halted the recovery of local aquifers. The water level in these aquifers was rising from 2008 through 2020, but it slumped out around 2020 and hasnt budged since. We have had to shut down our surface water plant the last three summers because of low flows in Albuquerque, said Diane Agnew, a senior official at the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which manages the regions water. Agnew stresses that aquifer levels are only flattening out, not falling. Still, losing El Vado storage for the long run would be detrimental to the citys overall water resilience. We have more than enough supply to meet demand, but it does change our equation, she added. The Bureau of Reclamation is looking for a way to fix the dam and restore Rio Grande tributary water to Albuquerque, but right now its engineers are stumped. In a recent meeting with local farmers, a senior Reclamation official offered a frank assessment of the dams future. We were not able to find technical solutions to the challenges that we were seeing, said Jennifer Faler, the Bureaus Albuquerque area manager, in remarks at the meeting. The next-best option is to find somewhere else to store water for farmers. There are other reservoirs along the Rio Grande system, including one large dam owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, but repurposing them for irrigation water will involve a lengthy bureaucratic process. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation told Grist that the agency is working diligently with our partners to develop a plan and finalize agreements to help alleviate the lost storage capacity and that it may have the ability to safely store some water for farms and cities next year. In the meantime, farmers like Garcia are getting impatient. When a senior Bureau official broke the bad news at an irrigation district meeting last month, more than a dozen farmers who grow crops in the district stood up to express their frustration with the delays in the repair process, calling Reclamations announcement frustrating and a shock. If we dont have any water for the long term, I have to let my employees go, and I guess start looking for ramen noodles someplace, Garcia told Grist. Even though there are only a handful of other steel faceplate dams like El Vado in the United States, more communities across the West are likely to experience similar infrastructure issues that affect their water supply, according to John Fleck, a professor of water policy at the University of New Mexico. Weve optimized entire human and natural communities around the way this aging infrastructure allows us to manipulate the flow of rivers, and were likely to see more and more examples where infrastructure weve come to depend on no longer functions the way we planned or intended, he said. As the West gets drier and its dams and canals continue to age, more communities may find themselves forced to strike a balance between groundwater, which is easy to access but finite, and surface water, which is renewable but challenging to obtain. The loss of El Vado shows that neither one of these resources can be relied upon solely and consistently and in an era of higher temperatures and aging infrastructure, even having both may not be enough. Correction: This story has been corrected to clarify that the El Vado dam is built on a tributary of the Rio Grande. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) The Albuquerque Police Department arrested a second man suspected of a murder on Central Ave. last month. According to police, Salvador Gutierrez shot and killed Samuel Chavez-Aquiar outside a smokeshop on Central Ave. near Wyoming Blvd. Albuquerque mother pleads guilty to child abandonment resulting in the death of her child APD said surveillance video showed Gutierrez and the victim arguing before both men pulled out guns. Police said the victim collapsed as Gutierez and another man drove off. The driver was later identified as Deluvino Salazar who was arrested last week. Gutierrez was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Thursday. He was charged with murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm. 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. Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria leave the courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 10, 2024. - Credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images Alec Baldwin failed Thursday to prevent jurors on his involuntary manslaughter trial from hearing the possibly damaging private phone calls he made to his wife Hilaria and an assistant just hours after the accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the western movie Rust. During the two calls recorded while Baldwin was giving his first sit-down interview to investigators on Oct. 21, 2021, the actor is heard asking Hilaria and the assistant about the familys plans to join him in New Mexico. Baldwin alludes to how the couples eldest daughter Carmen was due to film a cameo for the movie and says the family should still make the trip because their travel plans were non-refundable. With the films production on hold due to the accident, Baldwin is heard saying, I wont work, and well go enjoy ourselves. At the time of the call, Baldwin had not yet been informed Hutchins was dead. More from Rolling Stone He is at the police station. He does not know Ms. Hutchins has passed, but he knows she is critically injured so injured she has been taken away in a helicopter. If the defense hadnt spent all this time saying how panicked and upset he was, Im not sure it would be relevant. But he is actually planning, basically, a vacation, and he tells his family, Still come to New Mexico, well have a good time. So, this is obviously information that directly contradicts what the defense has argued, special prosecutor Kari Morrissey told the court Thursday as she argued for the calls to be admitted into evidence. One of Baldwins lawyers argued the calls were too potentially prejudicial for jurors to hear. None of this is probative to any elements of crime hes charged with, lawyer Heather M. LeBlanc told the court. The danger of unfair prejudice is substantial, and it substantially outweighs any probative value. Hes talking about his family, hes talking about plans they have, and theres danger the jury will misinterpret that or misuse that to view him as callous, or that he doesnt care about Ms. Hutchins, when actually that is not accurate. New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ultimately sided with prosecutors, saying Baldwins defense opened the door to his state of mind after the shooting by portraying him as distraught during cross-examination of the first witness in the trial on Wednesday. I do find that its relevant to basically respond to [the defense] talking about how upset Mr. Baldwin was, the judge said as she issued her ruling allowing the calls. Certainly you considered that fact of consequence, and Im deciding this rebuttal information is of consequence. Baldwin, 66, has pleaded not guilty to his single count of involuntary manslaughter in the case. The actor claims he didnt pull the trigger on the replica revolver that fired the deadly shot and was deprived of the opportunity to check the weapon for damage or modification because the FBI broke it during testing. The actor is adamant that others on the Rust set were the ones responsible for gun safety and that he had no reason to suspect his prop weapon had been loaded with a live .45 caliber round after the movies first assistant director checked and declared it a cold gun, meaning it contained only inert, dummy rounds. For their part, prosecutors allege that Baldwin should have checked the gun himself, and because he didnt, he was obligated to still follow the basic safety rules for handling a real firearm. They argue Baldwin never should have pointed the revolver at Hutchins while manipulating it, and they believe Baldwin is lying about not pulling the trigger. In his opening statement on Wednesday, Baldwins lawyer Alex Spiro argued that even if Baldwin did pull the trigger, that only makes him a liar, not liable for manslaughter. It was obviously a tragic accident, but Alec committed no homicide, Spiro said. Alec took the gun from those charged with its safety. He did not tamper with it. He did not load it himself. He did not leave it unattended. There was a dedicated professional there, off-camera, whose sole, sacred responsibility was that props safety. Spiro was referring to Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the young armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter at her own trial last March. Shes now serving an 18-month sentence while she appeals the conviction. Jurors on Baldwins trial have heard testimony from seven witnesses so far, including Alessandro Pietta, the Italian gun maker who personally manufactured the replica gun at the center of the case. Pietta, who traveled from Italy, testified that the gun made to look like a 19th-century Colt revolver would not fire without a trigger pull. Baldwins wife Hilaria, his younger brother Stephen Baldwin, and his older sister Elizabeth Keuchler have been spotted sitting behind the actor during his trial now underway in Santa Fe and expected to last eight days. Best of Rolling Stone The third day in Alec Baldwin's New Mexico manslaughter trial ended without jurors hearing any testimony, as the judge dismissed them to review the defense's motion to dismiss the case. Pool Photo by Ramsay de Give/EPA-EFE July 12 (UPI) -- In a surprise development, the judge in Alec Baldwin's manslaughter trial dismissed the case Friday, siding with his lawyers who argued the prosecution failed to turn over vital evidence to the case. Baldwin's attorneys earlier on Friday filed a surprise motion to have the case thrown out because the state failed to turn over a box of ammunition to the defense that they argued could have been linked to the killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer then dismissed the jury for the day to allow further review of the defense motion. By 4 p.m., Sommer threw out the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought forward again. "There is no way for the court to right this wrong," Sommer said. "The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy." Defense Attorney Luke Nikas said the prosecution's failure was part of a broader pattern of disclosure violations. "This is over and over and over again," Nikas said. "This is not the first time. This is not the second time. It's not the third time. It's time for this case to be dismissed." On Saturday, Baldwin thanks his supporters in a post on Instagram. "There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now," the actor, 66, wrote around alongside a photo of himself in the Santa Fe courtroom. "To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family." Baldwin was on trial in Santa Fe, N.M., for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a live round from a prop gun Baldwin was using on the set of the film Rust. He would have faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted. Baldwin throughout the trial maintained he was unaware the gun contained a live round and that he did not pull the trigger when the gun went off. A prevailing mystery in the case was how live rounds got mixed up with blanks on the movie set. Former police officer Troy Teske turned in the batch of rounds the defense accused prosecutors of hiding to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in March. Teske claimed the rounds came from movie prop supplier Seth Kenney, owner of PDQ Props, and that they could match the bullet that killed Hutchins. Prosecutor Kari Morrissey argued the rounds Teske turned over did not match the rounds found on set because the primers were different colors. "This is a wild goose chase," Morrissey said. "This has no evidentiary value whatsoever." Some of the rounds did match the characteristics of the fatal round, but crime scene technician Marissa Poppell said further analysis would be required to confirm they were a perfect match. Morrissey told the court she had never seen the ammunition before, but if they do match the one that killed Hutchins, that would bolster the prosecution's belief that armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed was the one who brought them on set. Sommer ordered additional witnesses to testify before she rendered a ruling in Baldwin's motion to dismiss. Reed was scheduled to testify Friday, but her attorney Jason Bowles had said earlier in the day that he learned prosecutors might delay calling her to the stand. Reed is serving an 18-month sentence for her role in Hutchins' death, but the dismissal of Baldwin's case could lead to her conviction being overturned. The prosecution on Thursday argued Baldwin violated "cardinal rules" of firearm safety when he was handling the gun that killed Hutchins, but defense attorney Alex Spiro said it was other people's, not Baldwin's, responsibility for allowing live rounds on set. "Those people failed in their duties, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime," Spiro said. Poppell on Thursday also testified live rounds were found in several other places on the movie set, including in another actor's bandolier, the prop cart for the film, an ammo box and two gun holsters, one of which was Baldwin's. Baldwin had been charged before with involuntary manslaughter and firearm enhancement in the case, but the charges were dismissed in April 2023 as prosecutors cited "new facts in the case." While the criminal case against Baldwin is over, attorney Gloria Allred said he will face a civil case filed by Hutchins' parents and sister. Allred said she doesn't agree with the judge dismissing the criminal case against Baldwin. "The dismissal only strengthens our resolve to pursue justice in the civil case that we have filed against him in Santa Fe," Allred told reporters outside the Santa Fe courthouse where Baldwin's criminal case was dismissed. Hutchins' surviving family lives in Ukraine, where Halyna was born and raised. Allred said Baldwin and his attorneys haven't responded to the civil case that she filed on behalf of Hutchins' family. The post Alec Baldwins Rust Criminal Case Gets Surprise Dismissal appeared first on Consequence. Alec Baldwins criminal case, stemming from the involuntary shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust in October 2021, has been dismissed after a judge determined that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case on Friday (July 12th) after determining that prosecutors had withheld crucial evidence that may have explained how live ammunition ended up on the films set. The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide discovery to the defendant, Variety reports Marlowe Sommer saying. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted. The crucial evidence, which the judge examined herself in the courtroom, consisted of bullets the defense claimed were hidden by the prosecution, after being logged under a different case number. Lead prosecutor Kari Morrissey, identified by a witness as one of the people responsible for that decision, called herself to the witness stand to assert that she did not believe the bullets to be relevant to the case. On the set of Rust, Baldwin was handling a prop gun during rehearsal when it accidentally fired, hitting Hutchins in the stomach and director Joel Souza in the shoulder; Hutchins died after being transported to the hospital. Initial criminal charges against Baldwin were dropped in April 2023. However, last fall prosecutors announced their intention to refile an involuntary manslaughter charge after new evidence emerged contradicting Baldwins previous claim that he didnt pull the trigger. The films armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and is currently serving 18 months in prison. Its assistant director, Dave Halls, accepted a plea agreement to settle a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. Alec Baldwins Rust Criminal Case Gets Surprise Dismissal Alex Young Popular Posts Subscribe to Consequences email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox. GAZA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Four workers with a relief organization were killed in an Israeli bombing on the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security and medical sources said Friday. Israeli aircraft bombed with at least one missile a warehouse belonging to the Hamas-run social development authorities in the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, security sources told Xinhua. A group of workers affiliated with the British charity Al-Khair Foundation were working to distribute aids to the residents of that area before the place was targeted, the sources explained. There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incident. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday that it continues to operate in the central and southern Gaza Strip. Israel launched 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 around 250 were taken hostage The Gaza-based health authorities said on Thursday that the Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza has risen to 38,345. The involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin stemming from a fatal shooting incident on the set of the film Rust has been dismissed after the judge ruled that prosecutors withheld key evidence from Baldwins defense team. The decision came down Friday, after Baldwins trial initially got underway on July 10. Had Baldwin been found guilty, he would have faced up to 18 months in prison. More from TVLine On Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home to consider a defense motion to dismiss the case because they claimed prosecutors failed to turn over a batch of bullets to them. Sommer held a hearing and questioned the prosectors as to why they didnt share the evidence with the defense, ultimately deciding to throw out the case. The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide discovery to the defendant, Sommer said. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted. Update: On Saturday, Baldwin acknowledged the outcome of the case on Instagram, writing: There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now. To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family. The Rust imbroglio began in October 2021, when, during rehearsal for a scene in the Western film, the prop gun Baldwin was holding went off, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Baldwin has maintained, ever since the incident occurred, that he did not pull the trigger on the gun, and he pleaded not guilty to the involuntary manslaughter charge brought against him in January of this year. (He was first charged with involuntary manslaughter in January 2023, but the charge was ultimately dismissed; he was then indicted and charged anew at the start of this year, following further analysis of the firearm.) Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who served as armorer on Rusts set, was previously convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in the incident, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Rust ultimately resumed production in April 2023 after the initial charges against Baldwin had been dropped and wrapped the following month, though theres been no word about plans for the films release. Last day of filming Rust in Montana, Baldwin wrote in an Instagram post when production concluded. Its been a long and difficult road. But we reach the end of the trail today. Congratulations to Joel, [new cinematographer] Bianca [Cline] and the entire cast and crew. Nothing less than a miracle. Best of TVLine Get more from TVLine.com : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter Thursday, July 11, marked the second day of witness testimony in the Alec Baldwin "Rust" trial. The "30 Rock" actor faces charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the October 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western film. Wednesday featured opening statements and first witness statements from police officers who were the first to arrive on the scene. Crime Scene Tech Continues 'Rust' Testimony From Wednesday Night MEGA Crime scene tech Marisa Poppell continued to give her testimony since Wednesday night. She was grilled by Alec Baldwin's attorney, Alex Spiro, about the evidence that she collected on the set of "Rust" after the shooting. Poppell said that investigators found live ammunition in a bandolier that actor Jensen Ackles was wearing for the scene, but agreed with Spiro's assertion that the "Supernatural" actor did not know that he was carrying live ammunition on his person, since it was part of his costume. Poppell also agreed that there should never be live ammunition on a movie set. Although prosecutors alleged that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed mixed up dummy rounds and live ammunition, it is still unclear how the live ammunition ended up on a movie set. On Wednesday night, Poppell did admit that investigators found live ammunition at the props facility in Albuquerque that provided ammunition for the film: PDQ Arm and Prop, LLC. The company is owned by Seth Kenney, a friend of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's father, veteran armorer Thell Reed. In March, it took a jury less than three hours to find Hannah Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter and she was sentenced to the state maximum of 18 months behind bars. She has filed an appeal. Crime Scene Tech Grilled Over FBI's 'Drop Test' MEGA Spiro got Poppell to admit under oath that she did not search every single box at Seth Kenney's warehouse, which consisted of four rooms. She did, however, insist that they did a "reasonable" search of the property in order to find the live ammunition that was identical to the bullet found on the set of "Rust." Spiro also grilled Poppell about the police department's decision to send the gun Alec Baldwin used in the shooting to the FBI for a "drop test." The test would determine whether or not the gun could be fired without the trigger being pulled, as Baldwin had claimed. Spiro said that the FBI sent an email notifying her and others in the department that doing the test would modify the physical condition of the gun, to which Spiro expressed her agreement. Rust Gun Manufacturer Takes The Stand Despite The Defenses Objection MEGA The second witness on Thursday was Alessandro Pietta, the Italian manufacturer of the gun used in the shooting. The State of New Mexico referred to Pietta as an expert in the manufacturing and quality control procedures of the Pietta revolver used by Mr. Baldwin in court documents obtained by The Blast. Although Pietta testified that the gun was in good condition when it left their manufacturing facility, Baldwins lawyers had previously objected to his ability to serve as a witness, since he would not know the state of the gun on the day of the shooting. Although the gun was shipped in proper order, Baldwins legal team argued that His only knowledge of the firearm is that it was a show gun manufactured by Pietta. However, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer decided to allow him to testify. Pietta went into detail as to how the gun was created and the quality control measures that are in place to guarantee that the gun was working properly before it left their facility. Pietta Says The Trigger On The 'Rust' Gun Had To Be Pulled MEGA Under questioning, Pietta said that the single-action revolver would only fire with the trigger being pulled. Alec Baldwin has frequently stated prior to the trial that he pulled the hammer back, but did not pull the trigger. However, Baldwin's lawyer Alex Spiro got Pietta to admit that he had not seen the gun since the beginning of 2018. Pietta also admitted that he was not asked about the gun following the shooting. Although he admits to personally making the gun, he said that he was not asked to inspect the gun. Instead, it was sent to the FBI for testing. After the FBI testing, Pietta says that he was shown a photo of the gun over Zoom, but had never gotten a chance to see the gun in person until appearing in court. The next witness was Justin Neal, who introduced himself as the head of a marketing firm. He explained that he handles sales and marketing for Pietta. Neal handles the sales of the firearm through distribution and said that they had a federal firearms license to sell the gun. Neal said that the gun wasnt fired, but they had done checks to ensure that it functioned properly and was in perfect condition before it was sold. He was also asked if hes ever heard of a Pietta revolver going off by itself, to which Neal replied, No. Alec Baldwin's Trial Has Heard From Six Witnesses So Far MEGA Cpl. Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office was the next to testify. She said she interviewed Alec Baldwin, first assistant director David Halls, and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. Hancock felt that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was the one who brought live rounds to the set. During the interview, Gutierrez-Reed had told investigators that No live ammo is ever kept on set. Ultimately, four witnesses gave their testimony on Thursday, for a total of six total. The trial will continue on Friday at 11:30 AM ET. If convicted, Alec Baldwin could face up to 18 months behind bars. In a stunning turn of events, a New Mexico judge dismissed Alec Baldwin's "Rust" case Friday, on day three of his manslaughter trial. The judge granted the defense's motion to dismiss the case, in which they claimed live ammunition that came into the hands of local law enforcement related to the investigation into the deadly on-set shooting was "concealed" from them. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said the state's discovery violation regarding the late disclosure of a supplemental report on the ammunition evidence "injected needless delay into the proceedings," approached "bad faith" and was "highly prejudicial to the defendant." PHOTO: Actor Alec Baldwin reacts during his trial on involuntary manslaughter at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 12, 2024. (Ramsay De Give/Pool via Reuters) "There is no way for the court to right this wrong," Sommer said in granting the motion to dismiss with prejudice, meaning Baldwin cannot be tried again on the charge. Baldwin reacted emotionally as the judge explained her ruling and could be seen hugging his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, in the courtroom. He had faced 18 months in prison if convicted. Baldwin posted a statement on his Instagram page Saturday thanking his supporters. "To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family," he said. The decision followed a day-long motion hearing Friday amid the actor's involuntary manslaughter trial over the death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot by Baldwin on the Santa Fe set of the Western in October 2021 when his revolver fired a live round. PHOTO: Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria Baldwin embrace during his trial on involuntary manslaughter at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 12, 2024. (Ramsay De Give/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Gloria Allred, the attorney who represents Hutchins' family, told ABC News Saturday that she was dismayed by Baldwin's statement. "How about being kind to the family of the young mother that you killed? Dont they deserve some kindness rather than being attacked by his attorneys in a public document," she said. Allred, who filed a civil suit against Baldwin, Rust Movie Productions, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, David Halls and others involved in the movie production last month, said the actor has not reached out to Hutchins' family. "He didn't do it after he killed Halyna and they were living in shock and despair and have no idea what it will be. And he hasn't done it for all these years," she said. The court discussed the defense's motion in the absence of the jury. In an unexpected move, the special prosecutor on the case, Kari Morrissey, also called herself to testify on the matter. During cross-examination of Morrissey, it was revealed that the other prosecutor in the case, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, resigned from the case on Friday. Morrissey said it was because Johnson "didn't agree with the decision to have a public hearing." MORE: Alec Baldwin trial day 2: Defense accuses investigators of rush to focus on Baldwin Defense alleges evidence was buried In an expedited motion filed late Thursday, the defense argued the case should be dismissed over the handling of the ammunition evidence. During court on Friday, the state argued the evidence has no exculpatory value and is not relevant to Baldwin's case. The matter was initially raised during court on Thursday. Defense attorney Alex Spiro asked state's witness Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office who collected evidence in the case, about a "good Samaritan" who handed over ammunition to the sheriff's office in March -- during "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez's trial -- that had reportedly ended up with Seth Kenney, who supplied the film with firearms, blanks and dummy rounds. Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins' death, with prosecutors arguing the armorer was the source of the live bullet that killed her and saying she failed to follow safety protocols meant to protect the crew while handling the firearms. Poppell testified that her lieutenant instructed her to create a report documenting that the individual came and gave them the ammunition and she filed it under a case number different from the "Rust" case. PHOTO: Alec Baldwin attends his trial for involuntary manslaughter at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 12, 2024. (Ramsay De Give/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) "You buried it," Spiro said. "No," Poppell responded. "There is a supplemental report on it, and that was placed into evidence." Spiro went on to ask, "Isn't it the case that law enforcement likely has the matching rounds to the ammunition that killed Ms. Hutchins?" "I do not know," Poppell said. "And you do not know because you made a doc report about this and did not put it with the rest of the 'Rust' evidence, correct?" Spiro asked. MORE: Alec Baldwin trial: Actor's culpability in 'Rust' shooting disputed in opening statements "Those rounds were not placed with the rest of the 'Rust' evidence, correct," Poppell said. "Nor were they sent to the FBI for testing with the 'Rust' evidence, were they?" Spiro asked. "No, they were not," Poppell said. During redirect on Thursday, Morrissey had Poppell confirm that Baldwin has not been charged with involuntary manslaughter for bringing live rounds onto the movie set or for loading a live round into the gun. "Has a person already been tried and convicted for those things?" Morrissey asked. "Yes," Poppell said, referring to Gutierrez. PHOTO: Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie 'Rust' (Ramsay De Give/Pool via Reuters) Morrissey asked Poppell if she was aware that the "good Samaritan" who provided the ammunition in question in the motion was Troy Teske, a "close friend" of Gutierrez's father, famed Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, to which Poppell said she was not. "Are you aware that Troy Teske had his own motivations for wanting to place blame on Seth Kenney to help Hannah Gutierrez?" Morrissey asked. "No, I had no knowledge of that," Poppell said. Poppell testified that Kenney provided the sheriff's office with his own live rounds, which were tested and found not to match the live ammunition found on set. Live ammunition found at Kenney's prop house was also not found to be a match, she said. Poppell testified that Gutierrez was determined to be the source of the live rounds, based on photographic evidence from the set. Gutierrez's attorney, Jason Bowles, said it was "beyond shocking" that the live rounds provided to the sheriff's office by Teske weren't tested. "They were hiding the ball until called out on it in trial. If you want to get to the truth, you run down all leads," he said in a statement. Gutierrez previously appealed her conviction in May. Trial pivots to motion hearing During Friday's motion hearing, Morrissey said the state initially had been provided a photograph of the ammunition by Teske, a retired officer who lives in Arizona, and determined based on the photograph that it was not a match to the live ammunition found on the set and they were "not going to continue going down this rabbit hole." "There is absolutely nothing about the ammunition that Troy Teske had that has any evidentiary value in the Gutierrez case. It has no evidentiary value in the Baldwin case," Morrissey said. MORE: 'Rust' timeline: Key events in the Alec Baldwin on-set shooting Defense attorney Luke Nikas charged that the evidence was "concealed" by being placed under a different case number and said it was "critical" evidence that was required to be disclosed. "Miss Morrissey does not get to determine what has evidentiary value and what doesn't," he said. While on the stand during Friday's motion hearing, Poppell disputed that the ammunition was hidden and said it wasn't evidence that Kenney provided the live ammunition to the set of "Rust." "If you buried it, how did the defense attorneys know to cross-examine you on it yesterday?" Morrissey asked Poppell. "I do not know," she replied. Kenney testified during Friday's hearing that he initially alerted investigators to the live ammunition from Teske during an interview in November 2021, days after the shooting. He said he believed that might have been the source of the live ammunition on the set but later determined it couldn't have been based on differences in the powder and projectiles. Asked by Morrissey whether he believed Reed and Thell wanted to blame him for the introduction of the live rounds on the "Rust" set, he responded, "To varying degrees, yes." "It seemed palpable that they were trying to point the finger at me," he said. Kenney testified he was certain he didn't provide any live rounds to the film. "There was never a question in my mind that I provided the live ammunition to 'Rust,'" he said. MORE: 'Rust' weapons provider Seth Kenney says he never supplied live rounds to armorer Hannah Gutierrez Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office Cpl. Alexandra Hancock, the lead detective in the "Rust" investigation, testified during Friday's motion hearing that Teske showed up to court during Gutierrez's trial with live ammunition before dropping it off at the sheriff's office. Hancock said she left a couple messages with Teske but he didn't return them so she was unable to tie the evidence to "Rust." Asked by Spiro whether there was "other evidence in this case that has this quantum of proof that you have hidden" from the defendant, Hancock responded, "I don't think I've hidden anything." When Spiro mentioned that Teske did give a witness statement to Poppell, Hancock said she did not know that until Friday. The lapel camera footage of Teske talking to Poppell at the sheriff's office was shown during the hearing, during which he said he had "evidence." He said the ammunition was not from the "Rust" set but from the same set of live rounds that Reed had for a different film project. Teske, who was listed as a witness for the defense for Gutierrez's trial but was never called, said on the video that her defense did not want the ammunition. Lt. Brian Brandel, whose lapel footage was shown in court Friday, testified that Hancock said to file the information under a different case number pending further investigation. Prosecutor takes the stand Under questioning by Judge Sommer, who has presided over both trials in the shooting, Hancock said the evidence was placed under a different case number from the "Rust" investigation based on discussions she, her supervisors and Morrissey had. Morrissey said she would be happy to testify under oath. Morrissey called herself as a witness, after Spiro said he did not feel the need to call her himself. She testified that the rounds provided by Teske "did not strike me as having significant evidentiary value" because they never left Arizona and appeared dissimilar to the live rounds found on the set of "Rust" based on a photo of the ammunition provided by Gutierrez's attorney, Bowles. "The only way that it is relevant to the 'Rust' investigation is if it has any similarity to the live rounds that were found on the set of 'Rust,'" she said. "When I received this photograph from Mr. Bowles, I could immediately tell that these are very dissimilar from the live rounds that were found on the set of 'Rust.'" PHOTO: Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey speaks during actor Alec Baldwin's trial on involuntary manslaughter in First Judicial District Court, on July 12, 2024, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Pool via Getty Images) She said at that point she did not take any steps to collect the ammunition. When Teske brought it to the sheriff's office, she said she did not realize the ammunition would be filed under a different case number from the "Rust" investigation. Morrissey argued that Bowles did not want the ammunition from Teske because "it was the best evidence against his client" regarding the source of the live bullets on set. During his cross-examination of Morrissey, Spiro at one point accused the prosecutor of not liking Baldwin. "You know, that is absolutely untrue," Morrissey said. "I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwin's movies. I really appreciated the acting that he did on 'Saturday Night Live,' and I really appreciate his politics." Judge calls withholding 'intentional and deliberate' In issuing her order, Sommer said that a dismissal with prejudice, as sought by the defense, is a "very extreme sanction" and that she needed to "make a very good record" of her decision. "The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and the prosecutor failed to disclose the supplemental report to the defense and provide the defense an opportunity to inspect the rounds collected into evidence that Mr. Teske gave," she said, adding that the suppressed evidence is "potentially exculpatory." "Critically, the exculpatory value cannot be analyzed at such a late juncture because of the nondisclosure," she said. She called the state's withholding of this information "intentional and deliberate" and that it came to light so late in the proceedings that it "undermines the defendant's preparation for trial." "If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching prejudice," she said. PHOTO: Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer during actor Alec Baldwin's trial for involuntary manslaughter for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie 'Rust,' July 12, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP, Pool) Morrissey told reporters outside the courthouse that she respects the court's decision. "I'm disappointed because I believe that the importance of the evidence was misconstrued by the defense attorneys, but I have to respect the court's decision," she said. Asked by a reporter if she felt she let Hutchins' family down, she said no. "We did everything humanly possible to bring justice to Halyna and to her family and we are proud of the work that we did," she said. "We disagree with the court's decision but we have to respect it." Baldwin and his team left the courthouse without comment. The actor 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. His defense team had filed several other motions seeking to dismiss his indictment prior to the start of the trial, all of which were denied. An attorney for Hutchins' husband, Matthew Hutchins, said in a statement that they "respect the court's decision." Bowles told ABC News that he plans to file a motion on Monday addressing the "same discovery failures by the state" in Gutierrez's case. "She's in prison right now, in a case that wasn't fair, because the state can't turn over evidence like they're supposed to do under the discovery rules," he said. "The judge absolutely did the right thing today dismissing Mr. Baldwin's case." ABC News' Samira Said and Jaclyn Lee contributed to this report. Judge dismisses Alec Baldwin's 'Rust' case after defense claims evidence was withheld originally appeared on abcnews.go.com One mystery has plagued the Rust case from the very beginning: How did a live bullet ever get on a movie set to begin with? Alec Baldwins attorneys filed a motion Friday morning to have his involuntary manslaughter case dismissed based on what they say is evidence prosecutors withheld from them that may answer that central question. A hearing began Friday morning at 8:45 a.m. Mountain Time on that issue. At 10:15 a.m., Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the jury for the weekend. More from The Hollywood Reporter On Thursday, jurors in the Santa Fe trial heard about a theory on the ammunition and a so-called good Samaritan who came forward to investigators in the past few months purporting to have evidence of that theory from Baldwins defense attorney Alex Spiro. The dramatic revelation came on the second full day of Baldwins trial in the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and sparked a spirited rebuttal from prosecutor Kari Morrissey. The latter has long maintained that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was the source of the deadly bullet, and in a trial that ended in March, she convinced another Santa Fe jury that Gutierrez-Reed was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins death. But during Spiros cross-examination of Santa Fe County crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, the defense attorney said that new ballistics evidence had emerged after Gutierrez-Reeds trial ended, and that investigators had not shared it with Baldwins defense team, nor with Gutierrez-Reeds team, who could potentially use it on appeal. Spiro said that in recent months, an individual had walked into the Santa Fe sheriffs department and turned in ammunition that came from the same source as the bullet that killed Hutchins. Spiro referred to the person who came forward merely as a good Samaritan, but Morrissey later revealed him to be retired Arizona police officer Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez-Reeds father, veteran Hollywood armorer Thell Reed. Reached by phone on Friday, Teske told THR, This trial is going down a path that I cant make any comments on it. I dont want to interfere. He told you it had to do with the Rust shooting, is that correct? Spiro asked Poppell, of the ammunition Teske brought to the sheriff. She agreed. He told you you had been duped by Seth Kenney, didnt he? Morrissey objected before Poppell could answer that question. Kenney, the owner of the prop firearms supplier for Rust, has previously denied any wrongdoing in the incident. Spiro asked Poppell if investigators had turned that newly provided ammunition over to the FBI, as it had the other Rust evidence, and Poppell said they had not. Isnt it the case that law enforcement likely has the matching rounds to the ammunition that killed Ms. Hutchins? Spiro asked. On her redirect of Poppell, Morrissey sought to wipe away the dramatic picture Spiro had painted of this good Samaritan. Are you aware that Troy Teske is a close friend of Hannahs father? she asked. Are you aware that Troy Teske had his own motivations for wanting to help Ms. Gutierrez? A fair amount of the day was spent in this debate over the source of the deadly bullet, which in some ways feels like a side issue in this trial. Baldwin has never been suspected of bringing the live rounds onto the set hes on trial because, as special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said in her opening argument, he violated the cardinal rule of gun safety by pointing a gun at someone, cocking it and pulling the trigger. If Teskes evidence is potentially exculpatory for anyone, it would seem to be Gutierrez-Reed, who is currently serving out an 18-month prison sentence at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility. But Spiros introduction of the issue did seem to bolster the point he made in his opening argument, that the state, in its casual treatment of potentially important evidence, had seemed more focused on getting Baldwin than in getting to the bottom of the tragic case. The thorny issue of the source of the ammunition isnt going away anytime soon. The prosecution intends to call both Gutierrez-Reed and Kenney as witnesses. On Friday morning, in a hearing to be held before the Baldwin jury arrives in the courtroom, Gutierrez-Reeds attorney Jason Bowles will try to make the case to Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer that the armorer should not be compelled to testify and potentially incriminate herself, because she is in the process of appealing her conviction. July 12, 8:57 a.m. This story has been updated to reflect that Baldwins attorneys filed a motion to have his case dismissed. July 12, 10:17 a.m. This story has been updated to reflect that the judge sent the jury home. July 12, 10:56 a.m. This story has been updated to include a response from Teske. Best of The Hollywood Reporter An online fundraiser has been created to assist the son of a woman who died Thursday while trying to stop her car from being stolen with him inside. Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday morning. Around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Stakely had gone to a Southeast Side apartment complex to pick her 6-year-old son up from a babysitter. Alexa Stakely, 29, died from her injuries Thursday morning after trying to stop her car from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside the vehicle. Columbus police are searching for at least two suspects. Stakely, a Ohio State University graduate with a Master's degree who worked as a speech pathologist for Canal Winchester Local Schools, had been working a second job as a waitress to help support her son. More on Ohio teacher: Ohio mother dies after trying to stop car from being stolen with 6-year-old son inside Columbus police said Stakely had taken her son, who was sleeping, out to her Honda SUV. She realized she had forgotten something and left the SUV running while going back to the home's door to retrieve that item from the babysitter. Police said Stakely saw her vehicle backing down the driveway, began yelling and ran towards the vehicle. She was struck by the Honda and thrown to the pavement, causing a head wound that became fatal. Stakely's son remained asleep inside the vehicle during this incident and was found unharmed inside the SUV, which the suspects abandoned a short distance away, after driving erratically through the apartment complex. An online fundraiser, which has been verified by GoFundMe, is raising money to assist Stakely's son in the future. Within three hours of being created, the fund has already raised nearly $7,000. bbruner@gannett.com This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: GoFundMe created to help son of Alexa Stakely after Ohio mom's death Algeria President to Run Again With Turnout Likely to Suffer (Bloomberg) -- Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said hell seek a second term in elections hes highly likely to win, taking advantage of an early poll that could hurt turnout and expose political fault lines in the North African OPEC member. Most Read from Bloomberg The states revenues have strengthened, the bleeding of the public treasury has ended and Algeria has recovered what could have been recovered from looted funds estimated at billions of dollars, Tebboune, 78, was quoted as saying on state TV on Thursday, referring to his first term that began in late 2019. I announce my intention to run for a second term, as allowed by the constitution, and the Algerian people will have the final say in this matter, he said. The long-anticipated step marks a new phase in preparations for a vote that was initially scheduled in December but is now being held on Sept. 7, due to what the incumbent has called purely technical reasons. An early poll may make it harder for challengers to organize, dampening voter participation in the country thats a key supplier of energy to Europe. The change was probably a way to forestall any possible attempts by opposition candidates to mount a serious challenge to Tebboune and also to block any possible maneuver by army factions, said Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. Tebboune was first elected in 2019 in a ballot marred by widespread apathy after Algerias powerful military ousted Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whod held power for two decades. The country was then mired in political upheaval as the pro-democracy Hirak protest movement demanded alternatives to the elite whove governed since independence from France in 1962. This years earlier ballot is forcing everyone to hold an electoral campaign over the summer, when it will be much more challenging, Fabiani said. Several political parties have announced theyll field candidates, including the FFS, the countrys oldest opposition group, as well as the Workers Party and the Movement for Society and Peace, a group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Domestic Dynamics There are only two variables that matter regarding the next elections in Algeria: the turnout rate and Tebbounes score, according to Fabiani. Participation in 2019s vote was less than 40%, while a constitutional referendum the following year drew under 24%. Although Tebbounes victory is assured, how he does it matters a lot for domestic dynamics, his power relative to other factions and groups within Algeria, such as the business class, the trade unions, the political parties, Fabiani said. On taking power, Tebboune a long-time government insider who was briefly prime minister vowed to answer protesters reform demands, but soon found himself confronting economic troubles including depleted foreign-currency reserves and the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. State spending and imports were curbed. Tebboune himself was stricken by the coronavirus, spending about two months in Germany for treatment in 2020. A boost for Algeria came from rising oil and gas prices following Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine, enabling authorities to offer wage and pension hikes and cash handouts for the unemployed. Political tensions havent been resolved, while diplomatic tussles continue with neighbor Morocco over the disputed territory of Western Sahara as well as former colonial ruler France. (Updates with Tebboune comment in third paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Alice Munros alma mater, Western University, has decided to pause its Alice Munro Chair in Creativity program amid allegations that Munro covered for her husband after her daughter told her he was sexually abusing her. Andrea Robin Skinner, Munros daughter, alleged in an essay published in the Toronto Star on Sunday that Munros second husband, Gerald Fremlin, sexually assaulted her when she was 9 years old. When Skinner told Munro, Skinner wrote, my mother had no similar feelings for me. She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity. Munro and Fremlin stayed together until his death in 2013, despite Skinners protestations and Fremlin being charged with indecent assault in February 2005. Alice Munro Made a Hideous Compromise, Her Daughter Is Right to Expose Her The literary world was left reeling after Skinners essay, with novelist Margaret Atwood telling The Daily Beast, It was a bombshell for me. Im shocked. Im still trying to get my head around it. I had heard a rumor about it but very few details, after Gerry was dead and Alice was in an institution. Now, Western University is carefully consider Munros legacy and her ties to Western, Arts and Humanities acting dean Ileana Paul told the Universitys student paper, the Western Gazette. We were deeply troubled to learn of Andrea Robin Skinners experience of childhood sexual abuse. Ms. Skinner has our unwavering support, the university wrote on the chairs website. The position was created in 2018 to honor Munro and is currently held by author Sheila Heti. The university also cancelled its Alice Munro Chair seminar course, according to the Western Gazette. 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. In June 2020, an online group allegedly led by a Syrian national living in Albania disrupted a string of online Fresno City Council meetings with racist and homophobic threats and slurs. Four years later, a federal grand jury in Fresno has issued an indictment against the purported ringleader of the Zoom bomb group, Mohammad Amr Alhashemi. He is charged with six separate criminal counts including telecommunications harassment, threatening communication and conspiracy. The incidents came during public comments of City Council meetings conducted over the online videoconference platform Zoom in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alhashemi and others in his online group also allegedly disrupted an online Jewish synagogue worship service and an online wedding in New York that was broadcast over Zoom. In a criminal complaint and affidavit unsealed late last month by a federal judge, FBI Special Agent Britton Wallace said that Alhashemi led an online group of disruptors that logged into at least three Fresno City Council meetings and, during periods set aside for public comment, made explicit slurs and threats targeting Blacks and homosexuals. Alhashemi used a multitude of monikers and screen names that facilitated anonymity, Wallace said in his affidavit. The indictment notes that Alhashemi used 17 different aliases in his exploits. Investigators sifted through digital footprints left by Alhashemi and others to eventually identify them. Among Alhashemis alleged online accomplices were at least six boys juveniles at the time of the Zoom bombings in New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon and Maryland, as well as a man in England. All are identified only by their initials in the affidavit. Court documents indicate that Alhashemi, who is Syrian, was living in Tirana, Albania, at the time of the Zoom raids. He was eventually tracked to the United Kingdom in March 2022, by which time he was studying software engineering at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, England. The indictment notes that Alhashemi is in custody for the charges, but does not specify where he is being held. Nor do court records indicate when he may appear in court to be arraigned. The U.S. Attorneys Office declined Friday to provide any information on Alhashemis status or whereabouts. If ultimately tried and convicted, penalties for Alhashemi potentially include fines of up to $1.5 million, up to 24 years in federal prison, both fines and imprisonment; or supervised release. Council members react to charges Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, who was the council president in 2020, and Councilmember Nelson Esparza, who was and remains the only Black member of the council, both said the four years between the incidents and the indictment had pushed the case into the recesses of their memories until each received notifications in recent weeks by federal prosecutors that they were considered victims in the case. As the council president at the time, Arias presided over the Zoom meetings, calling on individuals to speak during the public comment portions of the council meetings and disconnecting them when they cross a line of civility. I tried to ensure that the public access to local government remained during the pandemic, Arias said. We did so through the virtual participation on the Zoom platform, and for me, access was critical. But, he added, it also exposes elected officials to a new level of disruption, harassment and threats that we had never experienced before. In one instance on June 11, 2020, the FBI affidavit states that Alhashemi, using the alias Bryan Patterson, spoke via Zoom after a presentation to the City Council by leaders of Fresnos African-American community and repeatedly used the n-word to advocate for killing Blacks. As Councilmembers shook their heads in disgust, Bryan was excluded from the meeting, Wallace stated. Esparza said he was shocked and offended by those remarks and similar ones allegedly made by Alhashemi and others via Zoom at other meetings. It was very traumatizing at the time for me and I think for the Black community who had to endure that, seeing and hearing it happen in real time, Esparza said. But after the incidents were reported to the FBI and he was interviewed by agents, I just kind of filed it away in my head and forgot about it. After being notified by the U.S. Department of Justice about the indictment, he added, I thought, yeah, thats fantastic. Maintaining public access Both Esparza and Arias said the case reflects the challenges that public agencies faced during the pandemic to maintain public access. It is a representation that a handful of people chose to hijack and attempt to disrupt and create at the peak of a global pandemic, a level of stress that we have never felt before, Arias said. For Esparza, the case illustrates that racism remains alive and well in the U.S. I mean, who still thinks like this? he said. Who has the time, during this global crisis, who has the time to focus on getting online and making racist remarks? Esparza said the council eventually managed to adjust their Zoom practices to largely put a halt to the Zoom bombings after the June 2020 spate of disruptions. It was in the very beginning when we were all transitioning to this new technology, Esparza said. And it was too easy for folks to kind of slip in and do their thing. Arias also praised the investigation that ultimately led to Alhashemis indictment. Im thankful that the FBI took the reports seriously and followed them through for four years and is finally going to hold someone accountable, he said. I think the lesson for everyone is, if you engage in this behavior, it may take awhile but you are ultimately going to be held accountable. On June 27, a divided City Council revised its online meeting policies. City Council meetings will remain broadcast on CMAC, the Community Media Access Collaborative, as well as on the councils YouTube channel. But remote commenting by the public over Zoom will no longer be available, marking a return to pre-pandemic practices requiring members of the community to attend meetings in person to register their opinions to the council. Arias voted for the policy change, joined by Councimembers Garry Bredefeld, Luis Chavez and Mike Karbassi. Esparza, Councilmember Tyler Maxwell and current Council President Annalisa Perea voted no. The potential for online hostility and harassment validates that the City Council and any public agency should continuously monitor public access that is as safe and accessible for the public as possible, Arias said. And when it is not (safe), it should not hesitate in pulling back and reassessing, and thats what weve done. Alleged 'Watermelon Man' killer caught, MPD second in command out | On the Docket This is the start of a new weekly series bringing readers public safety information from around the Mid-South including updates on prominent court cases and details from inside law enforcement agencies. This column is being offered free for the first few weeks before it becomes available to subscribers only. If you'd like to subscribe now, you can do so by clicking here. Just days after it came to light that the second-in-command at the Memphis Police Department wasn't living in Memphis full-time, Memphis Mayor Paul Young said the assistant chief was no longer with the department. But earlier that day, law enforcement officials announced that a teenage fugitive charged with killing a locally-beloved street produce vendor had been caught several weeks after the teen failed to show up for a court hearing. And the governor made several judicial appointments this week, including one in Shelby County. In addition, multiple big court cases have taken strides forward or stalled in recent days. Here's what you need to know about courts and public safety in Memphis from the past week. Shawn Jones out at MPD In a joint press conference with interim MPD Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis Monday evening, Young said that MPD Assistant Chief Shawn Jones was no longer with the department. While the move followed reports about Jones keeping a primary residence in Georgia, Young said that was not the reason for Jones' departure from the police department. Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Memphis Police Department interim Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis annouce at a press conference that Assistant Chief Shawn Jones is no longer with the department at city hall in Memphis, Tenn., on Monday, July 8, 2024. The mayor said the decision was based on what was best for moving the department forward and informed by conversations about internal morale. Davis added that Jones was never expected to work for MPD for an extended period. Jones' residency situation prompted renewed discussion about law enforcement residency requirements at Memphis City Council meetings Tuesday. And that comes as the City Council is set, at some point, to take up the issue of whether to remove the interim tag from Davis' title. Young on Monday said he still had faith in Davis as the top cop but that it was up to the Memphis City Council to take up her re-appointment, which was tabled earlier this year. Alleged 'watermelon man' killer caught The U.S. Marshals Service on Monday announced it had captured a teenager who is accused of killing John Materna, known to many as "The Watermelon Man," in May of 2023. Demarion Tackett, 16, has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated and especially aggravated robbery,murder in perpetration of a robbery, carjacking, and possession of a firearm in commission of a dangerous felony, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. District Attorney Steve Mulroy speaks during a press conference about the case involving 16-year-old Demarion Tackett charged with murder of Memphis Watermelon Man in 2023 on Friday, June 28, 2024 at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis, Tenn. Tackett was arrested after allegedly fatally shooting Materna during a robbery and was released on bond but did not show up for a recent court hearing, resulting in a search. He was taken into custody with the help of the Memphis Police Departments Fugitive Apprehension Team and the Multi-Agency Gang Unit, USMS said. It is our hope that the family and friends of John Materna, as well as the Memphis community, can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that Demarion Tackett is off the streets, said U.S. Marshal Tyreece Miller. I appreciate the Memphis Police Departments steadfast work in identifying Tackett as a suspect, and the District Attorney Generals Office for the increased public attention to this fugitive case. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said his office was grateful for the Marshals Services' work. This shows you cant run from the lawyou will be held accountable. Our office will do what is right for John Maternas familyincluding making sure the defendant stays in jail until trial, and that he receives appropriate punishment," Mulroy said. Chancery Court judge appointed This week, Jim Newsom was appointed by Gov. Bill Lee to serve as a judge in Tennessee's 30th Judicial District Chancery Court, which serves Shelby County. In a statement Tuesday, Lee said "Newsom has been appointed as special judge during Chancellor Jim Kyles disability status, effective immediately." According to the governor's office, Newsom most recently served as special counsel at the Tennessee Attorney Generals Office. He has a bachelor's degree from Rhodes College and a juris doctor from Vanderbilt School of Law. Two other judicial appointments outside Shelby County were announced at the same time Tuesday. I am proud to announce the appointment of these highly qualified individuals and value the significant experience they will bring to their respective roles, Lee said in a statement.I appreciate their leadership and am confident they will serve Tennesseans with integrity. Top Commercial Appeal courts, public safety stories readers have viewed Latest in Memphis' biggest cases In the first five days of July, attorneys for the United States and for the five former MPD officers charged with Tyre Nichols' death filed more than 20 motions and documents in the federal criminal case. Some of those motions are sealed, but many tackle questions over what the defense and prosecution will be allowed to present at trial. Among those questions are standard arguments over the penalties the defendants could face if convicted and what evidence prosecutors will be allowed to disclose before a jury. Other, more unique, motions ask to limit evidence being introduced that could attack or benefit Nichols' character, and the character of the now-former officers. The federal trial is set for Sept. 9 and could last multiple weeks, attorneys have told the judge. The collateral review case for Jessie Dotson, the man convicted in 2008 of killing six people two of whom were children in the now-infamous Lester Street killings in Binghampton, has stalled as attorneys look to settle questions over the state court record. Dotson, who is claiming he was innocent of the murders and wrongfully convicted, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court in late January this year. In addition, alleged spree-shooter Ezekiel Kelly was in court this week but little came of it. He's scheduled to appear in court again on Aug. 12. Have a question for us? Do you have a burning public safety question you want answered? Send an email to metro@commercialappeal.com, or lucas.finton@commercialappeal.com. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Shawn Jones no longer with Memphis Police Department, Tackett caught Jordan's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Makram Qaisi receives an interview with Xinhua in Amman, Jordan, July 10, 2024. (Xinhua/He Yiping) AMMAN, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Makram Qaisi has expressed a strong desire to enhance the Hashemite Kingdom's cultural exchanges with China and attract more Chinese tourists to his country. In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, the Jordanian minister emphasized the importance of China's role in developing the country's tourism sector, especially during the current Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has affected the number of foreign tourists to Jordan. Qaisi, who plans to visit China to engage with Chinese tourism authorities and stakeholders, highlighted Jordan's appeal to Chinese tourists, citing the country's 16,000 registered archaeological sites. He noted that Chinese tourists, known for their cultural interests, would find Jordan's historical sites particularly attractive. The minister emphasized the shared historical and civilizational experiences between Chinese and Arab peoples, suggesting that visitors to Jordan would experience the country as an open-air museum filled with sites of great historical and heritage value. He also highlighted the diversity of Jordan's tourism, which includes religious tourism, adventure tourism, and unique attractions like the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth at 440 meters below sea level. Tourism is a significant contributor to Jordan's economy, accounting for around 14.6 percent of the country's GDP in 2023, with 6.3 million tourists generating 5.3 billion Jordanian dinars (approximately 7.3 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue. Qaisi stressed that tourism is not just about numbers but about fostering mutual understanding and cultural exchanges. He views Chinese tourists as "ambassadors for Jordan" once they return home from their visits to the Kingdom. Voicing support for the Global Civilization Initiative proposed by China in 2023 to promote dialogue between different civilizations and advance the shared prosperity of various civilizations, the minister said tourism helps enhance cultural exchanges and understanding through learning about each other's heritage, cuisine, and other components of civilization. However, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Jordan has not fully recovered to the pre-pandemic level. In 2023, 14,743 Chinese tourists visited Jordan, a 56-percent decline from 2019, which stood at 34,083. The minister touted the ease of obtaining Jordanian visas for Chinese tourists and the ongoing efforts to make Jordan more accommodating, such as translating restaurant menus and training tour guides in Chinese, with cooperation from the Chinese embassy, hoping that more Chinese tourists will visit Jordan in the future. Jordan's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Makram Qaisi receives an interview with Xinhua in Amman, Jordan, July 10, 2024. (Xinhua/He Yiping) The Ambani wedding is set to happen at the family's Mumbai mansion, Antilia. Take a look at the $1 billion tower. Anant Ambani, a son of the richest man in India, is marrying Radhika Merchant this weekend. The over-the-top festivities will partially held at the family's luxurious Mumbai home, Antilia. Antilia's interiors have rarely been photographed, but it has a 50-seat cinema and three helipads. Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and Katy Perry have already serenaded Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant in glittering parties that have captured the world's attention. And the happy couple hasn't even walked down the aisle yet. That will change this weekend as Mukesh Ambani India's richest man and father of Anant, the groom hosts thousands of guests from July 12 to 14 at his youngest son's wedding, the most anticipated nuptials of the year. Festivities are said to be happening at the Ambani family's custom-built, 27-story tower on Mumbai's most exclusive street, according to CNN. Other rumored venues for wedding events include the Jio World Convention Center, which can accommodate 16,000 people and is owned by the family's company, Reliance Industries. Dubbed Antilia, the Ambanis' tower is named for a mythical island off the coast of Europe. Reported to cost $1 billion to build, it has been crowned the "most expensive private residence in the world" by the Guinness Book of World Records. It is rumored to contain three helipads and a 50-seat movie theater and require a staff of 600 employees. The interior of the building has rarely been photographed, so Business Insider compiled everything we know about the Ambani family home where parts of the wedding of the year may take place. The Ambani familys opulent pre-wedding festivities have lasted for months. Mukesh Ambani, Isha Ambani Piramal, Rihanna, Shloka Mehta Ambani, Akash Ambani, and Radhika Merchant onstage during pre-wedding celebrations for Anant Ambani and Merchant. Reliance Industries/Reuters The pre-wedding festivities for Anant, 29, and Radhika, 29, included a private Rihanna concert and meals prepared by 100 chefs. The young couple both sit on the board of their family's companies, conglomerate Reliance Industries and pharmaceutical giant Encore Healthcare, respectively. Anant Ambanis pre-wedding parties hosted tons of high-profile guests. Bill Gates, Paula Hurd, Anant Ambani, and Mukesh Ambani pose for a picture during the pre-wedding celebrations for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Reliance Industries/Reuters High-profile guests, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, flocked to Jamnagar, India, in March to toast the marriage of Anant, whose father, Mukesh, is reported to be worth $113 billion. Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita have three children. Akash Ambani, Anant Ambani, Isha Ambani, Nita Ambani, and Mukesh Ambani. Reuters Isha and Akash are twins, and they're the oldest Ambani children. Anant is their younger brother. It's unclear who lives at Antilia full-time, though the Huffington Post reported that the home required a staff of 600. Mukesh Ambani is considered India's richest man. The Ambani house in October 2010, when construction was still finishing up. Danish Siddiqui/Reuters Mukesh Ambani is the chairman of the energy, retail, and media conglomerate Reliance Industries and is considered India's richest man. The tower he custom-built sits on Altamount Road, the Billionaires' Row of Mumbai. The Ambani familys Mumbai residence is the most expensive home in the world. The Ambanis' tower, called Antilia, rises above the Mumbai skyline. Ashwin Nagpal The Ambani family's home is the most expensive private residence in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. (Other rankings put it second, after Buckingham Palace.) The tower is called Antilia, named after a mythical island in the Atlantic Ocean. Different levels have terraces overlooking Mumbai. Wikipedia Commons The 400,000-square-foot structure is officially 27 stories high, although its many double-height ceilings mean it's closer in height to a traditional 40-story building. Antilia reportedly cost $1 billion to build. Antilia is on the most exclusive residential road in Mumbai: Altamount Road. Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters The Ambanis' house was constructed between 2006 and 2010, according to Architectural Digest India. At the time, it cost an estimated $1 billion to build, but there's no way of knowing what the tower is worth today. Inside Antilia, there are nine elevators, a 50-seat cinema, and a full-service spa. Antilia has been the site of exclusive parties for Mumbai's wealthiest residents. Reuters Plus, the tower has a 168-car garage and is equipped with three helipads. Antilia opened in February 2010. Antilia is sometimes lit up at night. Reuters In 2011, The New York Times reported Mumbai's elite were speculating that the Ambanis hadn't yet moved into the tower. Antilia didn't align with Hindu architectural philosophy, one expert said. There's luxury art inside Antilia. A red sculpture at Atilia is visible in this photograph. Reuters In 2020, Vogue India cataloged some high-end art inside the Ambani house, including work by the modern Indian artist Francis Newton Souza and "Love" sculptor Robert Indiana. Antilia was a site of celebration in early 2024. Antilia tower lit up in January. Hindustan Times The Ambani family hosted a light show at Antilia in January 2024 in honor of the historic inauguration of Ram Mandir, a gigantic new temple in the ancient city of Ayodhya. Holograms of religious sayings adorned the building. Visitors flocked to see the bedazzled tower and get close to one of India's most iconic homes. Antilia's opulence has drawn criticism. Tourists at the Antilia tower in January. Hindustan Times In 2011, Ratan Tata, another one of India's richest men, told the Times of India: "It's sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways of mitigating the hardship that people have." Antilia is decorated with marigolds and bright yellow lights ahead of the wedding. The entrance to the Ambani family's Mumbai home, a 27-story tower called Antilia, is decorated ahead of the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. SOPA Images/Getty Images Preparations have begun at the tower, according to Reuters, but organizers remain tight-lipped about the details of the exclusive event. A-listers including Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Nick Jonas, and Priyanka Chopra had already landed in Mumbai by July 11, ahead of the main event, according to Fortune and People. The particulars of the actual events are still under wraps, but Vanity Fair said the wedding date was chosen based on the couple's astrological charts. Locals are already complaining about the traffic the wedding is expected to cause in Mumbai. Excitement and traffic jams are building in Mumbai ahead of the wedding. PUNIT PARANJPE/Getty Images Traffic has already slowed down around Antilia and the Jio World Convention Center, Reuters reported. Mumbai is notorious for traffic congestion and the city is expecting additional slowdowns during the massive event. Correction: March 7, 2024 An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the age of Anant Ambani. He's the youngest son of Mukesh and Nita Ambani, not the eldest. It also misidentified one of the people in a photo from the family's pre-wedding celebrations. It's Paula Hurd, not Melinda French Gates. Read the original article on Business Insider American Airlines flight evacuated at SFO due to smoke in the cabin (KRON) Passengers were evacuated from an American Airlines flight at San Francisco Airport on Friday afternoon, KRON4.com has confirmed. The passengers evacuated from flight 2045 were destined for Miami. SFO Public Information Officer Doug Yakel told KRON4 that the Miami-bound flight was backing from the gate when the crew reported smoke in the cabin at around noon. The aircraft was evacuated using emergency slides and via jetbridge, and the San Francisco Fire Department responded by extinguishing the smoke, the Federal Aviation Administration and an American Airlines official told KRON4. Mystery surrounds motive for murder of Alameda family Yakel said three passengers were injured. The San Francisco Fire Department said one person required medical transportation. The cause of injuries was not mentioned. Yakel said the passengers were being transported back to the terminal as of 1 p.m. An American Airlines spokesperson told KRON4 that smoke was initiated from a laptop inside a passengers bag. The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, they said in a statement. Videos posted on social media show several fire trucks, two emergency escape chutes, and paramedics surrounding the Miami-bound flight. It was desperate until someone opened the middle door and we were able to escape as we were all blocked in the hallway. Some people slightly injured, a passenger told KRON4. According to the American Airlines website, the Miami-bound flight had just landed at SFO from Miami an hour before its initial planned departure at noon. The aircraft was an Airbus A321. 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. American tourist dies after sudden illness during excursion on Sicily's Mount Etna, rescuers say FILE - Volcanic vortex rings emerge from a new pit crater on the north side of the southeast crater of the Etna Volcano in Sicily, Italy, Friday, April 5, 2024. A 55-year-old American tourist has died after being taken ill during an excursion on on the southern side of Mount Etna, in Sicily, Italys alpine rescue said Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Giuseppe Di Stefano, File) ROME (AP) A 55-year-old American tourist died after being taken ill during an excursion on the southern side of Mount Etna, in Sicily, Italy's alpine rescue service said Friday. Rescuers said the cause of his illness was still unknown, but warned against the risk of high temperatures coupled with humidity that may prove dangerous for tourists who usually have no specific preparation for such excursions. After being alerted on Thursday afternoon, the alpine rescue team and an air ambulance reached the man in a remote area. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene before his body was transported to the closest service area for transfer to a hospital mortuary, rescuers said. Tourists who participate in these excursions should not underestimate the risks related to high temperatures, strong humidity, and the sudden jump in altitude, said Alfio Ferrara, a spokesman for the alpine rescue service. Often they agree to take part in these excursions that reach 2,000-2,300 meters (6,500 to 9,800 feet) in altitude, after spending the day at the beach, he added. On Thursday, the temperatures on Mount Etna were estimated at between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius (77 to 82 Fahrenheit), Ferrara said. Italian authorities had declared a red weather alert in seven cities on Thursday, mostly in the central parts of the country. The heat conditions are aggravated by humidity and could affect healthy people as well as those with health conditions, they warned. Etna, the highest active volcano in Europe, has seen a significant increase in activity over the past week. Millions of tourists visit Italy every year, with summer remaining a popular travel time for tourists. However, one traveler from the United States' trip quickly turned into a tragedy while climbing Mount Etna. Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, is best known for its breathtaking eruptions that sometimes leave the surrounding area covered in ash. On July 11, an American tourist was on an excursion on the southern side of the mountain when the 55-year-old suddenly died on the trip. According to The Associated Press, Italian alpine rescue service members tried to reach the man in a remote part of the mountain but seemingly arrived too late. They attempted to revive him but he was pronounced dead at the scene. The exact cause for his sudden illness remains unknown, but the authorities warned that summer temperatures, humidity, and Etna's height could have all played a part in his death. "Tourists who participate in these excursions should not underestimate the risks related to high temperatures, strong humidity, and the sudden jump in altitude," alpine rescue service spokesman Alfio Ferrara said, per the AP. "Often they agree to take part in these excursions that reach 2,000-2,300 meters [6,500 to 9,800 feet] in altitude, after spending the day at the beach." The weather on Mount Etna was estimated to be between 77 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit the day of the incident. Humidity makes the heat worse, and Italian authorities issued heat warnings for cities across the country that day. If you're planning to visit Etna this summer, make sure you're prepared with water and sun protection. At 81, President Joe Biden's age has long been known to be one of his biggest weaknesses in his reelection campaign. But a dismal debate performance last month has sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin as it grapples with the question of whether that weakness may be fatal to the campaign and if another candidate might be the better option. When we look at the polls, though, the debate didn't suddenly thrust Biden's age into the spotlight for most Americans the way it seemingly did for Democratic Party elites. Though polls of the presidential election have moved toward former President Donald Trump, answers to specific questions about Biden's age haven't changed much. But that's not because Americans viewed Biden's debate performance more kindly it's because most Americans already thought Biden was too old and seem to have reached somewhat of a ceiling with those concerns. One way to gauge this is to look at multiple polls from a pollster that has repeatedly fielded the same question and compare the results over time. YouGov and The Economist have been asking Americans repeatedly over the last year how Biden's age might affect his ability to perform as president if he is reelected, and they found that, while Americans did get slightly more concerned about it after the debate, respondents (including Democrats) were already uncertain about Biden's abilities: When asked last September how much of an effect they thought Biden's health and age would have on his ability to fulfill his duties as president if reelected, 57 percent of Americans said his age would "severely limit" his ability. Right after the debate, that number was 61 percent. A significant share of Democrats, too, have long held concerns about the president's age and his ability to do the job. In September, 25 percent of Democrats said Biden's age would severely limit his abilities in his second term, while 30 percent said so immediately after the debate (and 27 percent in a more recent poll). Other questions about Biden's age have yielded a similar pattern in polls. Since last year, YouGov and Yahoo News have asked Americans how big a problem they think Biden's age is when it comes to his fitness for the presidency. Here again we see some increase in the share of respondents who said that it was a "big" problem after the debate, but it wasn't significantly higher than the share who said so last fall: In a poll fielded between June 28 and July 1 (the weekend following the debate), 56 percent of Americans and 28 percent of Democrats said Biden's age was a big problem. But that's not so far off from a November poll in which 25 percent of Democrats and an identical 56 percent of overall respondents said the president's age was a big problem. The picture these polls start to paint is not that the debate performance didn't hurt Biden, but just how big of a problem his age and its perceived effects on his ability to do the job already were. Dozens of polls have asked Americans different versions of the "Biden age" question over the last year, and they've consistently found that a majority of Americans, and a sizable share of Democrats, are concerned about the president's advanced age. A poll from AP-NORC last August asked Americans whether they thought Biden was "too old to effectively serve another four-year term," and 77 percent answered yes, including a majority (69 percent) of Democrats. The pollster further asked which words came to mind when thinking about the president, and words associated with age (such as "old," "aging," and "elderly") made up the most common response. In January, 74 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Democrats somewhat or strongly agreed that Biden was "too old to work in government," according to polling from Ipsos and Reuters. In April, 81 percent of Americans said Biden was "too old for a second term," not far off from the 85 percent who said so after the debate, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll. The debate isn't the first time Biden's age became the political talking point du jour. Last summer, Biden tripped on a sandbag on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony, and earlier this year, the special counsel investigating the president's mishandling of classified documents issued a report on the decision not to file charges, calling Biden a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" who had "diminished faculties in advancing age." Events like these have all contributed to the cumulative rise in concern over Biden's ability to serve a second term. Over the course of his time in office, the share of voters who described Biden as "mentally sharp" has dropped by about half, according to polling from Pew Research Center: Just 24 percent described the president as mentally sharp in a poll earlier this month, compared with 46 percent who did so in October 2020. Of course, Americans aren't exactly thrilled with Trump's age, either; at 78 years and seven months, he would just edge out Biden to become the oldest president ever sworn into office if he wins the election (Biden was 78 years and two months old). In each of the polls cited above, a sizable share of Americans also say Trump is too old, but it's significantly fewer than the number who say so about Biden. It's just not as big of an issue for the former president, who, despite spewing a fountain of lies on the debate stage, appeared lively and alert. If there is a silver lining here for Biden, it's that voters can be concerned about his age and yet still support him in part because they have different levels of tolerance for those concerns. For example, 69 percent of registered voters said they somewhat or strongly agreed that Biden was "too old to be an effective president" in a New York Times/Siena College poll after the debate, including 55 percent of those who chose Biden in a head-to-head with Trump. But when asked to expand, 40 percent of voters who chose Biden and said he was too old said that his age "makes him ineffective, but he is still able to handle the job of president well enough," compared to 14 percent who said his age was "such a problem that he is not capable of handling the job of president." Of course, there are other voters for whom Biden's age is a deal-breaker and those voters could be the difference between him winning and losing. Whether Biden decides to tough it out and stay in the race or step aside in hopes that another Democrat would have a better shot, his age and the public's growing discomfort with it will remain a defining storyline of this election. Americans were worried about Biden's age long before the debate originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Labor groups failed to get the Legislature to pass a bill aimed at enacting protections for outdoor workers before lawmakers left Trenton for a summer recess. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Temperatures have exceeded 90 degrees with unbearable humidity in New Jersey several times in the last week, but theres no relief for construction and farm workers and other laborers who must work outside. Labor groups failed to get the Legislature to pass a bill aimed at enacting protections for those workers before lawmakers left Trenton for a summer recess. Sara Cullinane, executive director of immigrant and labor advocacy organization Make the Road New Jersey, said legislators should reconvene to get it done before more workers get sick. As the climate crisis escalates in New Jersey, and in the face of federal uncertainty, New Jersey lawmakers must take action now to protect workers lives by passing a common-sense heat standard in New Jersey this summer, Cullinane said. The Biden administration has proposed a rule intended to protect workers from heat-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths, but its implementation could be years away or never, if a new U.S. Supreme Court decision on federal regulations gets in the way. I think it would be fantastic for New Jersey to get a law done before workers die, rather than in the wake of it, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, of California-based United Farm Workers. In 2006, California became the first state to pass heat protection standards. Two years earlier, a 53-year-old worker died after spending 10 hours picking grapes in temperatures that topped 100 degrees. The New Jersey bill has already advanced out of both chambers labor committees, but not without opponents. Business groups argue that there are already standards in place for outdoor employees and that the new rules would be too disruptive. Employers are taking better care of their employees than they ever did, because when you get your team, you get good people, you want to keep them and treat them well, Eileen Kean of the National Federation of Independent Business told lawmakers in May. The federal standard, proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, would direct employers to create a plan that would trigger under a heat index of 90 degrees. The proposed rules would limit how long people can work in the heat, require paid breaks and access to cool water, and mandate employers to observe workers for symptoms of heat-related illnesses. But advocates are concerned because of the U.S. Supreme Courts recent decision overturning the Chevron doctrine, which compelled courts to defer to federal employees interpretations of vague statutes passed by Congress. The federal heat standard along with many other federal agencies and rules could face numerous legal challenges, Cullinane said. While there is no doubt that the proposed OSHA rule to create a federal workplace heat standard is well within the agencys authority and based in science, large corporations are likely to sue to block any final rule, she said. A heat standard passed in New Jersey would protect workers immediately, Cullinane said. New Jersey can show it cares about worker safety, she added, noting that states like Florida and Texas have banned local requirements for water breaks and rest times. Nearly 500 workers have died between 2011 to 2022 due to heat exposure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And up to 170,000 workers fall victim to heat-stress incidents nationwide, according to consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. Lower-wage workers are five times more likely to suffer from heat-related injuries, and farmworkers face up to 35 times higher risk of dying from heat exposure than the rest of the U.S. workforce, the group said in a 2023 study. The New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers released a study last month predicting a rise in sea-level change, alarmingly increasing temperatures, and more consistent extreme weather events by the year 2100. These warming trends could accelerate with climate change, leading to increased heat stress-related health conditions, the study says. Under high emissions, it is expected that approximately 70% of summers in New Jersey will be warmer than any prior to 2006 by the middle of the 21st century, growing to 90% by the end of the century, according to the study. It also emphasizes that high temperatures plus high humidity can lead to greater risk of heat stress because sweating is less effective in humid conditions. Increased heat stress could cause greater incidences of heat related illnesses, hospital admissions, and deaths among vulnerable populations, the study says. California, Washington, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado have heat standards in place for when outdoor temperatures reach 85 degrees. They require employers to provide water, breaks in the shade or cooling areas, and heat prevention plans to prioritize worker safety, like pausing work until later in the day once temperatures drop. The New Jersey bill would provide something similar. Under the proposed legislation, employers plans to protect workers from excessive heat must include providing cold water, limiting the time workers are exposed to heat, postponing non-urgent tasks until a heat wave ends, and having an emergency response if a worker gets sick. Shade, water, and rest these are three things that are not luxuries. This is what any human being would need to survive while working, doing physically strenuous activity during these deadly times of extreme humidity, triple digits and strong sun, said De Loera-Brust. Nine of the last 10 summers have been the hottest on record, and 2023 was declared the worlds warmest year so far. And according to Climate Central, New Jersey is one of the countrys fastest-warming states. More than 30 labor unions and worker advocacy groups signed a June letter to top legislative officials urging they pass the workplace heat standard before the summer started. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Ammunition vending machines are a thing now. Will they be at Kentucky grocery stores? Bread, milk, eggs... shotgun shells? If bullets aren't already on your grocery list, wait awhile. A north Texas company has begun installing high-tech vending machines dispensing 9mm rounds and 12-gauge shotgun shells across a handful of southern states. IndyStar reached out to the CEO of American Rounds, the company behind the ammo dispensers, on whether it has plans of expanding into the Midwest. The short answer? Possibly. Here's what we know. Can you buy ammo from a vending machine? Depending on where you live, you can purchase an assortment of ammunition from vending machines in select stores across three U.S. southern states. The first Automated Ammo Retail Machine, or AARM unit, was installed in November 2023 at a grocery store in Alabama. What states have ammunition vending machines? As of Thursday, American Rounds has installed ammo vending machines in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, with plans to expand into Colorado by next week. Lawrence Songer, left, and Grant Magers stand in front of a new ammunition dispensing machine from their company American Rounds. The machines have been installed in at least 8 stores in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama since the company's founding in 2023. Where are the ammo vending machines? Up to eight U.S. grocery stores, which include Fresh Value, Super C Mart, and Lowe's Market now have ammo vending machines. One store in Alabama recently removed its dispenser after questions arose concerning its legality, according to a FOX TV news-affiliate in Chattanooga. Are ammo vending machines coming to Kentucky? Possibly, but the exact timeline isn't known yet, according to Grant Magers, CEO of American Rounds, who told IndyStar he's received more than 200 requests from retail outlets across nine states including Kentucky from businesses interested in the dispensers. "We have had several requests to place our machines in Indiana and Kentucky," said Magers, who declined to name which stores reached out to the company. "We have plans of future growth throughout the country and we would consider it an honor to be a part of the Indiana and Kentucky communities." Kentucky laws: Is it legal to leave your kids home alone in Kentucky? What's recommended Are ammo vending machines safe? That depends on who you ask. Magers stressed AARM units help keep ammunition more secure than what's currently sold on the shelves, which can be pocketed, he said, by thieves. The dispenser, however, encases ammo behind several layers of steel inside a 2,000-pound machine. It utilizes facial recognition software as well as scanning a potential buyer's driver's license as an age verification check to prevent unlawful sales. "People have in their mind the old type of vending machine that drops a candy bar to the bottom or a bag of chips, Magers told USA TODAY. Thats not how these operate. Experts warn the dispensers could only make it easier for criminals to get ammo. If it was a system that did do a background check, then we could talk about a system that prohibits unlawful sales, David Pucino, legal director for the Giffords Law Center, told USA TODAY. According to the Giffords Law Center, which serves as the policy arm of the anti-gun violence organization started by former Arizona Congresswoman and mass shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, the machines don't address instances where local locals go beyond federal regulations. Ammo vendors in Sacramento, for instance, have to maintain sales records, which prosecutors have used to identify illegal purchases, according to the Giffords Law Center. Magers said AARM dispensers don't retain purchaser data. Tennessee law also prevents vendors from selling to intoxicated people. It is nice that its requesting IDs or age verification; none of those things are required, Pucino said. But what theyre not doing is having human intervention to check for red flags. USA TODAY reporter Michael Loria contributed to this article. John Tufts covers trending news for IndyStar and Midwest Connect. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at JTuftsReports. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Will Kentucky get ammunition vending machines? By Elizabeth Pineau and Tassilo Hummel PARIS (Reuters) -After a shock defeat in France's legislative elections, Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) will double down on weeding out problematic candidates to counter successful efforts by mainstream parties to block the far right from power. Polls had suggested the RN would secure the most seats in the snap two-round election, which French President Emmanuel Macron called after Le Pen's party was the clear victor of June's European parliamentary vote. Yet the RN ultimately placed third, with its hopes of forming France's first far-right government since World War II thwarted by centrist and left-wing parties who withdrew about 200 third-placed candidates to unify the anti-RN vote. The strategy, known as the "republican front", is a feature of French political life and has been used for decades to block the RN from power. RN officials and lawmakers who spoke to Reuters believe the party can overcome this electoral barricade if it professionalizes further, following a path laid out by Le Pen after she lost the 2017 presidential election to Macron. That means greater screening of potential candidates and tougher party discipline to avoid costly gaffes, they said. In the run-up to the vote, media reports unveiled an RN candidate who had been photographed in a Nazi cap, and another who sought to defend against the party's history of racism and antisemitism by saying she had a Jewish eye doctor and Muslim dentist. After the vote, a newly elected RN lawmaker was ejected from the party's parliamentary group for saying French Arabs had no place in government. "We have to avoid these casting errors that cost us dearly and clearly hurt us," said Julien Masson, an RN official in Brittany. Heads have already begun to roll, with Gilles Pennelle, a member of the European Parliament, stepping down from his role as the RN executive in charge of overseeing candidate lists. "He was blamed for the candidates who were not good, who were not up to the level," Masson said. Pennelle did not respond to requests for comment. Two RN lawmakers told Reuters there would be more media training to avoid a repeat of embarrassing interviews in which candidates appeared amateurish. RN lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy said the party was judged by an unfair standard, but acknowledged it needed to do better. "You always have to improve," he told Reuters, adding that Le Pen's 28-year-old protege Jordan Bardella would soon announce proposals to address "organizational problems." Christophe Gervasi, who conducts private polling for the RN, said that as well as inexperienced and ill-disciplined recruits, the party's tendency to be vague and inconsistent on policy proposals had dented its credibility. The party pledges to cut immigration, reduce fuel costs and be tougher on crime, common themes among populist far-right parties, but has dropped previous positions questioning EU and NATO membership. Gervasi said it would be no easy task for the RN to overcome the republican front. "There are endemic structural weaknesses that persist," he said. "The system is defending itself against the RN's accession to power." Patrick Weil, a historian of the far right, said he doubted that an RN deep-clean would be enough for it to bulldoze the republican front. Much would depend on how the future government pans out and who stands in the 2027 election, in which Le Pen is likely to make her fourth attempt at the presidency. "If someone popular runs, Marine le Pen will be beaten. If someone very unpopular runs, she will be elected," he said. Adelaide Zulfikarpasic, of BVA Xsight pollsters, said the surprising solidity of the republican front, which many had predicted to crumble in this election, underlined lingering discomfort with the far right. "The RN is undoubtedly still a little scary," she said. "Its demonization is not over." RISING TIDE? Sunday's result was not a complete disaster for the RN, which nearly doubled its seats in the National Assembly. The party scooped up nearly a third of the popular vote, a record high for the RN in parliamentary elections. The party can now watch from the opposition benches as centrist and leftist parties with no tradition of coalition-building guide France through a period of political instability. That could benefit the RN ahead of a 2027 election. "The tide is rising, but it has not risen high enough this time," Le Pen said on Sunday. "Our victory is only delayed." The day after the vote, Bardella acknowledged the party had made mistakes, including on the choice of some of its candidates, but said the seeds of victory had been sown. Towns like Nangis, located about 75 km southeast of Paris in the Brie agricultural plain, provide hope for the RN. The constituency was in the hands of the mainstream, conservative right for 66 years until the RN finally wrested it away. Isabelle Martin, a 52-year-old administrative worker, was among locals who voted for the RN. She was disappointed mainstream parties combined to stop the RN from winning power at the national level, an arrangement she described as "les magouilles", or dirty deals. But she predicted the resulting political chaos would benefit the RN. "The others have three years to prove that they can do something good," Martin said. "If they haven't pulled it off by 2027 then maybe (the RN) have a chance." (Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Toby Chopra) Angela Rayner is expected to reform the 'nutrient neutrality' rules that have so far blocked 160,000 new homes - Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu Angela Rayner is preparing to overhaul green rules that prevent house building in the countryside as Labour presses ahead with a promise to bulldoze the planning system. The Housing Secretary is gearing up to reform controversial so-called nutrient neutrality rules that are blocking hundreds of thousands of homes from being built, as part of Labours manifesto promise to add 1.5 million properties over this Parliament. The plans could prove politically toxic for Ms Rayner after she opposed former Housing Secretary Michael Goves proposals to reform the rules last year, describing them as reckless. Mr Goves plans were eventually blocked by Labour in the House of Lords. Jon Stoddart, head of London and South East planning at the property consultant CBRE, said: They were pretty vociferous in their objection to it [in opposition]... you can see that being played back to Labour quite significantly. A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said: We will bring forward solutions to unlock the building of much-needed homes affected by nutrient neutrality. This will be done without weakening environment protections, they said, adding: We are six days in and will announce how we deliver on manifesto commitments in due course. Ms Rayner is expected to stop short of abolishing the rules entirely, with reforms aimed at allowing building work to go ahead regarded as much more likely. Nutrient neutrality rules are a legacy from the European Union that obstruct building in local authorities in areas with protected habitats and high levels of nutrient pollution, for example caused by fertiliser. In a joint op-ed for The Times in 2023 with Steve Reed (now Secretary of State of Environment, the department which sponsors Natural England), Ms Rayner argued that a better way to tackle nutrient neutrality rules would be for the Government to direct local authorities to approve planning applications held up by nutrient neutrality rules, but require developers to offset nutrient harms before the homes were occupied. But planning experts have warned that Ms Rayner will have to go much further than this if Labour wants to achieve its manifesto promise. Making developers offset at a later date would be an unworkable policy that would fail to boost building, Mr Stoddart said. I cant imagine many housebuilders are going to spend many millions of pounds to build a scheme and not have a solution to it that could delay its occupation. That feels like an awful lot of risk and I cant imagine you could borrow much money to do it, he said. Labours target of building 1.5 million homes over the coming five years will be undeliverable without major reform of these environmental regulations, he added. Since a 2018 EU Court of Justice ruling, Natural England has issued advice to 74 local authorities in England that new developments should only be approved if they are nutrient neutral. This has become a major roadblock to development. The affected local authorities are primarily concentrated in the countryside, including Exmoor National Park, the New Forest, South Somerset, Cornwall, Dorset and Vale of the White Horse in Oxfordshire. Several affected constituencies have traditionally been Tory heartlands. Nutrients refers primarily to nitrates and phosphates, which are found naturally but are also in bigger concentrations in fertilisers. If levels are too high, they cause dangerous algae blooms in rivers and lakes. In places where nutrients levels are already too high, Natural England is worried that additional wastewater from housing developments will make this worse. But housebuilders have warned that continuing to enforce these rules would undermine Labours manifesto pledge to unlock the planning system and massively ramp up housebuilding. Nutrient neutrality rules have so far blocked 160,000 homes from being built in England and will continue to prevent a further 16,500 each year that the rules remain in place, according to the Home Builders Federation (HBF). This will be a total of 242,500 unbuilt properties over the course of this parliament. Mr Stoddart said: The Labour government is saying the right things in being able to identify potential development sites, that is one thing. The bigger problem is how do you deliver them? That is when all of the environmental regulations really start to show their teeth. The Conservatives proved that planning reform is a political nightmare, with Mr Goves wider plans triggering a backbench rebellion of Tory MPs in 2022, which succeeded in pushing him to make local authority housing targets advisory rather than mandatory. Making these targets mandatory again became a key pillar of the Labour Party manifesto and was one of Rachel Reeves first announcements after becoming Chancellor. But Labour gains in the traditional southern Tory heartlands, where housing need is greatest, may now make planning reform more difficult than expected for the Government. The Chipping Barnet and Isle of Wight seats held by former Tory MPs Theresa Villiers and Bob Seely, who led the rebellion against Mr Goves planning reforms, have now swung to Labour. There will likely be an environmental section in the draft new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which Chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised in the coming weeks, but reforming nutrient neutrality rules could require primary legislation, which will take much more time, he added. 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. BERLIN, July 12 (Xinhua) -- With Germany's federal elections to be held next year, public support for the governing parties keeps dwindling as Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition remains far away from reaching a majority of votes, according to a poll by broadcaster ZDF published on Friday. If there were a general election next Sunday, Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) would only get 14 percent of the vote, the Greens were polled at 13 percent and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) at 4 percent, below the 5-percent threshold required to enter the Bundestag, or the lower house of parliament. The conservative parties Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) climbed by one percentage point and currently have a comfortable lead with 32 percent. The second strongest party with 17 percent was the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). Last week, the political leaders of the coalition averted a crisis that had threatened to break up Scholz's government. Facing a deficit in the billions that had to be closed, a preliminary agreement on a draft budget for 2025 was reached after weeks of deliberations. Reconciling the interests of the pro-business FDP and the Greens was not easy. Scholz had 23 meetings totaling 80 hours with Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Economics Minister Robert Habeck to discuss the budget. "Everything is great," Scholz said after the lengthy negotiation sessions. Despite the agreement, only 7 percent of Germans expect cooperation within the government coalition to improve. A large majority, 79 percent, thinks the situation will remain unchanged, according to the ZDF poll among more than 1,300 voters. Germany's three government parties already recorded heavy losses in the 2024 European elections in June. Scholz's SPD saw its worst result in a nationwide election, with only 13.9 percent of votes, placed third behind the AfD. The Greens also suffered a bitter defeat, garnering only 11.9 percent of votes, a dramatic drop from the party's record result of 20.5 percent at the previous EU elections in 2019. A bacteria that can cause wheezy coughs, especially in children, is spreading in Dallas-Fort Worth this summer. Physicians at Cook Childrens Health Network in Fort Worth and Childrens Health in Dallas said theyve seen an unusual summertime surge in cases of mycoplasma pneumonia, which is sometimes called walking pneumonia because it can cause relatively mild cases in adults. Typically, mycoplasma will spread among children during the fall and winter months, at the same time as other respiratory illnesses, or will surge when kids head back to school. But throughout June and July, the bacteria has been making kids throughout the Metroplex sick. Its surprising this year that were were seeing such a huge surge now in the summertime, said Dr. Stephanie Felton, the associate medical director of the ER at Cook Childrens Medical Center. Most kids with mycoplasma will have congestion and a bad cough, and some might get more of a wheezy cough because the bacterial infection is typically lower in the lungs that other respiratory infections, said Dr. Preeti Sharma, a pediatric pulmonologist at Childrens Health. In addition, during this surge more kids are getting rashes around their eyes and mouths, Felton said. These rashes, officially known as reactive infectious mucocutaneous eruption, arent unusual for mycoplasma cases, but both Felton and Sharma said theyre seeing more kids than usual with these symptoms. The rash symptoms typically look like small bumps around the mouth or conjunctivitis in the eyes. Mycoplasma is spread through respiratory droplets when someone coughs or sneezes. If a child in your household has mycoplasma, it can be hard to limit the spread from other family members, Felton said. But basic precautions like washing your hands, avoiding sharing any food or drink, and wearing a mask when in close proximity to the infected person can help limit spread of the bacteria. All in all, mycoplasma pneumonia is a common infection in kids, Sharma and Felton said, so you shouldnt panic. For the vast majority of kids, its a feeling kind of yucky for a while, said Sharma, who is also an associate professor at UT Southwestern. Both encouraged parents to keep track of a childs symptoms, particularly if a cough is lingering or if a child is having trouble eating or drinking. Sharma also added that child has chronic respiratory issues, like asthma, a case of mycoplasma can make their asthma worse and might cause them to need their inhaler more frequently. Because mycoplasma pneumonia is a bacterial infection, it can be treated with a course of antibiotics. But Sharma cautioned that not everyone case necessarily needs antibiotic treatment. The common misconception is that every case requires antiobiotics, she said. Instead, Sharma urged parents to wait and watch their childs symptoms. Overuse of antiobiotics has contributed to antiobiotic resistance, in which bacteria have evolved to become resistant to the medications designed to kill them. Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest global public health challenges of our time, according to the CDC. Another Franklin employee quits. Says she was targeted by official being investigated For the second time in a week, a Franklin County employee quit after saying she was targeted by elected officials who are under criminal investigation. Whitney Conner, Franklin Countys coordinator in the Office of Public Defense, announced her resignation Tuesday in a public social media post. The move comes two months after her attorney sent the county and Commissioner Clint Didier a cease-and-desist letter over alleged attempts to have her fired. Her husband, a Franklin County sheriffs commander, is involved in the criminal investigation on Didier, Commission Chairman Rocky Mullen and Auditor Matt Beaton. Marcus Conner is the lead investigator for Franklin County, and has been assisted in interviews by Commander Lee Cantu of the Benton County Sheriffs Office, as they looked into accusations of official misconduct, witness tampering, criminal conspiracy and making a false statement to a public servant. A Snohomish County deputy prosecutor in Everett, Wash., has been assigned to review their investigation to determine whether any charges should be filed. No decision has been made. Former County Administrator Mike Gonzalez left the county after reaching a severance agreement last week that will pay him through the end of his contract, for a total of about $133,000. He and the county agreed to enter a non-disparagement agreement and Gonzalez agreed not to sue. When the severance agreement was first brought to commissioners by county attorneys a week before, Didier made a surprise motion to try and fire Gonzalez outright, but it failed. Gonzalez already had been granted whistleblower protections in January as part of the criminal investigation. In a new development this week, Didier suggested the county didnt need to hire a new administrator, saying the commissioners could just split the duties. Gonzalez was the second administrator to leave in as many years, following Keith Johnson who left after failed attempts to fire him. Franklin County Commissioner Clint Didier Caught in the crossfire Multiple employees interviewed as part of the criminal investigation said they felt they were caught in the crossfire of the county commissioners, elected department heads and other employees and managers. Whitney Conner expressed a similar sentiment in her resignation letter. Over the past several months, some in county leadership that have simply made it impossible for me to continue working for Franklin County, Conner wrote. The constant stress of being treated like an expendable pawn in political games has become too much. This decision has not been made lightly but appears to be necessary so that some in county leadership can get back to serving the citizens like true public servants instead of looking for ways to undermine and disparage my character and work ethic, she continued. An April 30 email to all three commissioners and Gonzalez instructed them not to contact Conner and said she was considering filing a tort claim against the county. Its unclear if thats still her intent. Conner, who also is the daughter of Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary, has worked for the OPD since 2016, coming on board shortly after Benton and Franklin counties split their bi-county office of public defense. Her responsibilities included organizing the office, handling administrative matters, budgeting, and recently led the offices effort to respond to budget changes under new Washington state mandates that would impact the OPD. Since then, we have evolved into a professional, fully staffed office that has weathered many storms and still found a way to be fiscally responsible while providing the required constitutional right to counsel, wrote Whitney Conner. OPD Manager Larry Ziegler declined to comment on her decision to leave. Cease and Desist In Aprils cease-and-desist letter, Conners attorney Daniel E. Thenell wrote that on multiple occasions Didier instructed Gonzalez and Ziegler to fire Conner. Thennell said that Didier had stated something to the effect of, The sheriffs office or Commander Marcus Conner need to remember who is in charge. This conduct is clearly in retaliation to law enforcement activity engaged in by (Commander) Conner and the Franklin County Sheriffs Office, Thennell wrote. The countys attorney said at the time that to their knowledge Whitney Conner had not been fired or disciplined in any way. He instructed commissioners to retain any related documents, emails or text messages. Conspiracy investigation The criminal investigation began in January over a dispute on whether to pay Simmons Venue Management $12,500 for their last month of work during the transition to a new management group at the HAPO Center. The Simmons family is best known for their restaurant, Country Gentleman. They stepped in to help manage the event venue when the countys entire management team for the center left in the span of a month. Gonzalez was initially going to pay the invoice, but received pushback when he attempted to gauge where the commissioners stood on the issue, according to investigative material obtained by the Herald through a Washington State Public Records request. Mike Gonzalez Didier and Beaton were against the payment, and Beaton allegedly laid into Gonzalez for trying to settle a dispute between the sheriffs office and auditors office in 2023, claiming he was taking the sheriffs side, according to recorded interviews with county employees who were present. After speaking with Mullen, who Gonzalez said changed his mind about paying the Simmons, Gonzalez moved to stop the payment. Beaton allegedly called the HAPO Centers new management, Harris-White Leasure group, and told them to submit the request for payment anyway. Beaton later said in a meeting secretly recorded by Gonzalez that he was acting at Didiers direction when he allegedly called Larry Leasure and Wes Harris to have the payment processed. Matt Beaton (Didier) said, Well call (HWL) and, and you know, stop it. ... Beaton said in the recording. And Ill tell you exactly what I told Wes. I told him, Business as usual, and approve it if you would approve it. And he said to me, I dont support it. Beaton also later admitted that he made a statement about the payment potentially, but claimed it wasnt meant that way. I said, If he approves it, the commissioners may learn more about him than they want to know, but I dont believe they will, Beaton said in the recording. Harris was uncomfortable with the conversation and elected officials involving his company in county politics, so he reached out to Gonzalez to let him know what had happened, according to interviews with Harris and Gonzalez. In both meetings, Beaton claimed unspecific audits may show SVM actually owed the county money. Gonzalez said he ran the events by a county prosecutor to ensure no laws were being broken, which led to a criminal investigation being opened. The investigation is being overseen by Undersheriff Monty Huber and investigators from both the Benton and Franklin county sheriffs offices. After the investigation began, Mullen attempted to set up a meeting with Gonzalez and Beaton to discuss the issue. Investigators, concerned that it could potentially turn into witness tampering, say Mullen was warned not to, but still went ahead with the meeting. Gonzalez told investigators he recorded the meeting because he was concerned he was going to be asked to commit a crime. Rocky Mullen He told investigators he never planned to release the recording, but came forward after Mullen was interviewed and implied Gonzalez was lying. During the meeting Mullen and Beaton tried to convince Gonzalez to write a letter to investigators saying he had misunderstood what happened, and to end the investigation. Gonzalez did not write a letter, and Mullen continued to attempt to convince him he needed to, according to text messages obtained by the Herald. Since the investigation began, the courthouse has been plagued by reports of concerning behavior by elected officials, including shouting matches and attempts to undermine the investigation. Last month, Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond publicly warned elected officials that its illegal to conceal carry a gun in the courthouse or change locks on their offices. He also wrote that an elected official had been taking calls in the parking lot, attempting to convince others to allow him to conduct a forensic audit on a HAPO Center related business. The emergent complexity of ant societies is one of the most fascinating phenomena in the natural world: how do these tiny creatures form such intricate social networks? These networks are so nuanced that the colony itself is sometimes referred to as an organismor superorganismin its own right, with individual ants as its component parts. A paper published this month in the journal PNAS Nexus examines how the behavior of ants is affected by social contagion. Social contagion is the process by which a certain behavior can spread throughout a group, resulting in whats called a mass behavior. Social contagion is common among all manner of social animals, from ants and fish to birds and humans. But while it can be beneficial when it leads to co-operation and collective action, the study points out that the mass behaviors it creates can also have catastrophic outcomes such as mass panic and stampedes. As such, the positive reinforcement of social contagion is generally counterbalanced in animal societies by what the authors call reverse social contagion. Social contagion stems from an individuals urge to imitate an activity that they see being carried out by their neighbors, while reverse social contagion arises when individuals are less likely to do something if they see their neighbors already doing that same thing. This prevents situations where entire groups all end up carrying out the same activity, regardless of that activitys utility. As the paper points out, negative outcomes of social contagion are strikingly rare amongst ants, suggesting that that reverse social contagion plays an important role in ant societies. To quantify how reverse social contagion regulates ant behavior, the researchers examined individual ant activity amongst 12 colonies of harvester ants. These colonies varied in size from several dozen ants to several hundred. The experiment set out to determine how the size of a colony influenced the activity level of its workers: if ant behavior depended only on positive social contagion, more ants would be expected to be active in a larger colony, as they would have more opportunities to observe a given behavior in their fellow ants. Fig. 1. Illustration of the concepts of social contagion (top) and reverse social contagion (bottom). (top) An inactive ant interacts with an ant engaged in a foraging task: through social contagion (for example, caused by active recruitment), it also begins foraging. (bottom) Two ants engaged in foraging interact: through reverse social contagion (for example, caused by steric exclusion), one of them ceases their activity to become inactive. Image credit: Isabella Muratore. The study found that just because the colony was larger, did not mean that more ants were exhibiting the same behavior. Because different groups engaged in a variety of behaviors, observations suggest that reverse social contagion was also at play. This also forms a stark contrast to human societies, where the level of individuals activity tends to increase more quickly as a societys population grows. The announcement accompanying the paper uses the general example of food gathering to illustrate the difference: if an ant sees multiple fellow workers gathering food, it saves its own energy for another task that might be more beneficial to the colony. If a human sees their neighbors all gathering food, however, they worry there might be none left for thema worry that tends to become more pressing as population increases. Fig. 7. a) Illustration of an urban settlement composed of individuals who act for their own benefits: each person transforms their cost of movement (measured in some form of currency depending on their means of transport, / ) into their own social interactions (proxied by the average connectivity, = 2 / ). b) Illustration of a social colony of insects acting as a superorganism: each insect adjusts its energy expenditure, / , in response to its average connectivity so that it will increase its expenditure in response to reductions in connectivity. Image credit: Anna Sawulska. As Simon Garnier, the lead author on the paper and an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, explains in the announcement, Human behavior is often driven by personal gain, [but] ants tend to prioritize the needs of the colony over their own. This has huge implications for understanding the differences between the organization of human and social insect societies. That, of course, is a bit of a generalization, as there are plenty of human societies that value the collective over individual interests, but that may be a question of sociology and culture, rather than behavioral science. Regardless, the authors draw a fascinating conclusion: the oft-heard metaphors about ant colonies being superorganisms are actually pretty accurate. This work, the paper concludes, suggests that the appropriate atomic unit for an ant is its colonyand not itself as a single organism. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has filed articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The two conservative justices are accused of accepting lavish gifts and are alleged to have biases and conflicts of interest concerning cases that they are considering before the court. Corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches Ocasio-Cortez introduced three articles of impeachment against Thomas and two against Alito on Wednesday. Both men are accused of failure to disclose financial income, gifts and reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, and transactions, per NBC News. Thomas is additionally accused in two articles of impeachment of not recusing himself from issues in which his wife, Ginni Thomas, is involved or has a financial interest. Alito is accused of not recusing himself from cases in which he had a personal bias or prejudice toward involved parties. Today, I introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Read my full statement: https://t.co/is5EiLXw56 pic.twitter.com/AGGZhuZUm4 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 10, 2024 In a speech to her colleagues as she introduced the articles of impeachment, Ocasio-Cortez told her fellow members of Congress that corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches and argued that Congress has a constitutional and moral obligation to hold these justices accountable. She condemned the conservative majority within the Supreme Court for decisions that have led to extreme abortion bans across the United States and millions of Americans facing barriers to voting. Ocasio-Cortez accused Alito and Thomas of being influenced by shadowy benefactors in making these and other decisions. Corruption, without consequence, infects all it touches. Congress must exercise its powers to impeach. The corruption of Justices Thomas & Alito constitutes a clear danger to our democracy. I moved to impeach them because it is the right thing to do for the American people. pic.twitter.com/eOscx9avE1 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 11, 2024 Accusations of corruption and insurrectionist sympathy Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1991 after being nominated by then-President George H. W. Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall on the court. Since then, he has been one of the most conservative justices on the court. Alito, another staunch conservative, joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush. They, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and three justices appointed by Donald Trump, form a conservative supermajority on the court that has been responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade and affirmative action, among other rulings. Both Thomas and Alito have faced recent scrutiny over their acceptance of a variety of gifts and benefits from rich conservative donors and failure to properly disclose such benefits. The two justices have also come under fire for alleged ties or sympathy to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection. Thomas wife Ginni, a conservative activist, has been connected to individuals and events surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection but has denied any involvement in the insurrection itself. Alito, meanwhile, has been accused of flying an upside-down American flag as a symbol of support for the insurrectionists, which he has downplayed and blamed on his wife. With Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that Thomas and Alito will be impeached during this current session of Congress. Nevertheless, the articles of impeachment filed by Ocasio-Cortez represent the objections that many Democrats in Washington and members of the public have about the conduct of the two justices. An absentee ballots for the April 7 election. (Photo by Henry Redman) Absentee ballots in Wisconsin will still count even if witnesses do not provide their full address on the ballot envelope, according to a ruling Thursday from an appeals court. Under state law, absentee voters are required to have someone witness them fill out their ballot and sign their absentee ballot envelope while providing their address. The statute that requires the witness signature and address does not define what address means in that context. Dane County Circuit Judge Ryan Nilsestuen ruled in January in two cases brought by liberals that clerks can still count ballots if the witness leaves off their municipality or zip code or simply writes same or ditto if they live at the same address as the voter. Republican legislators had asked the appellate court to find that state law actually does require the address to at least include the street number, street name and municipality. However the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the included address must be a place where the witness may be communicated with from the municipal clerk specifically, who is responsible for mailing absentee ballots to voters and counting them once returned. Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former Democratic legislator, wrote in the decision that if the Legislature wanted the witness address to include more components, it could have specifically mandated it. The ruling could allow more absentee ballots to be accepted as valid in this years elections. In 2020, absentee voting became much more popular in a state in which elections are frequently decided by tiny margins. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what appears to be a 4,000-year-old temple and theater in coastal Peru. The discovery was made at the archaeological site La Otra Banda, Cerro Las Animas, located near the city of Chiclayo off the northern coast of Peru, according to a news release from the Field Museum in Chicato. Researchers started digging at the site last month after the local government alerted them to looting happening near the traditional town of Zana. Scientists needed to "study the area before it was destroyed," the local government said. The excavation, led by research scientist Luis Muro Ynonan, revealed walls of mud and clay just six feet beneath the surface and evidence suggesting that the structure was once home to an ancient temple. "It was so surprising that these very ancient structures were so close to the modern surface," said Muro Ynonan in the statement. Archaeologists work on what's believed to be part of a 4,000-year-old ceremonial temple, found buried in a sand dune of northern Peru, in Lambayeque / Credit: Peru's Pontifical Catholic University/Handout via REUTERS "We think that a large temple was built into the side of the mountain, and we've found one section of it," said Muro Ynonan. The Ministerio de Cultura, or Ministry of Culture, in Peru said special ceremonies were held inside the temple. The team also uncovered what appeared to be a small theater with a "stage-like platform." "This could have been used to perform ritual performances in front of a selected audience," said Muro Ynonan. Among the most interesting findings was a carving of a mythological bird creature etched into a mud panel by one of the theater's staircases. Muro Ynonan described it as an "anthropomorphic bird" with "some reptilian features." He and his team have found similar representations of the mythological creature on other archaeological digs that date back to the Initial Period, roughly 4,000 years ago. Pieces of what's believed to be part of a 4,000-year-old ceremonial temple that had been buried in a sand dune of northern Peru are pictured after they were found by a team of archaeologists, in Lambayeque, Peru, June 24, 2024. / Credit: Peru's Pontifical Catholic University/Handout via REUTERS The findings, Muro Ynonan said, could shed light on unanswered questions about the origins of ancient religion in Peru. "The Initial Period is important because it's when we first start to see evidence of an institutionalized religion in Peru," he said. "The bird creature at this temple resembles a figure known from the Chavin region, nearly 500 years later. This new site could help reveal the origins of this religion." According to the release from the Field Museum, the temple predates Machu Picchu Peru's most well-known archaeological site, located in Cuzco by roughly 3,500 years. The Incas built Machu Picchu around 600 years ago. Eye Opener: President Biden to hold rare news conference to answer questions about 2024 race Sneak peek: Unmasking the Zombie Hunter Encouraging inflation report, and other top headlines From The Archives: First case of Chronic Wasting Disease in 2015 From The Archives: First case of Chronic Wasting Disease in 2015 TYLER, Texas (KETK) In this From the Archives report, 2015 biologists were tracking a case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), which still impacts East Texans who hunt deer. Bass Pro Shops coming to Tyler in 2025 Just last month, a CWD case was reported in a Trinity County deer breeding facility. Former KETK reporter, Cara Prichard, spoke to officials as the first case of CWD in 2015 was reported. The hunting industry in Texas is worth millions of dollars, but CWD cases raise concerns for hunter and breeders in the state. In 2015, officials met in Austin to address the issue. Experts said their biggest advice for hunters is to educate themselves about CWD. Be vigilant, but keep doing what youre doing. Dont cancel any of your hunting plans this year. Certainly dont cancel a lease if youre a landowner, Dr. John Tomecek, with Wildlife Extension Specialist at San Angelo, said. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, CWD is a fatal neurological disease that was first discovered in West Texas in 2012 and in a captive white-tailed deer in 2015. Experts say theres no evidence CWD can be transmitted to humans or livestock. Loggins Restuarant celebrating 75 years in Tyler Anytime you have an animal that looks like it might be sickly you dont want to shoot and eat that animal, Tomecek said. With chronic wasting we do worry about the spreading of the disease potentially through those carcasses. Tomecek advises hunters to not keep any part of the deers nervous system and dispose of it when processing the meat so other deer dont come in contact with it. We dont know if we have CWD in a bunch of places, but this is one of those management practices from other states that they recommend, Tomecek 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 KETK.com | FOX51.com. Arkansas abortion amendment organizers claim secretary of state failed to fulfill his duty in rejecting signatures Arkansas abortion amendment organizers claim secretary of state failed to fulfill his duty in rejecting signatures LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The group behind the effort to put a vote on abortion in Arkansas access on the November 2024 ballot has called out the secretary of state for rejecting its signature submissions. Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG) hand-delivered a letter to Secretary John Thurstons office Thursday, calling out what the group claims were several errors in the secretarys rejection on Wednesday of its petition signature submission. Arkansas Secretary of State rejects abortion amendment ballot petitions Thurston rejected the signatures AFLG turned in on the July 5 deadline after claiming the group had not provided documentation identifying paid signature-gathering canvassers or documentation stating that those canvassers had specific training and election guide paperwork. These omissions, Thurston said, violated Arkansas Act 1413 and were enough to disqualify the submission, adding that after removing 14,143 signatures gathered by paid canvassers, AFLG was under the required threshold of 90,704 signatures needed for review. In the response sent Thursday, AFLG maintained the law was followed and that Thurstons office misinterpreted state law and has unlawfully rejected the petition parts in question. The group continued that the signatures gathered by paid canvassers should be counted by law, regardless of how paid canvassers were referenced in accompanying paperwork. Arkansans for Limited Government group pushes back on secretary of states claims in abortion amendment petition rejection The group cites the same law that Thurston referenced in the rejection, stating that it submitted a list of 266 paid canvassers, which your staff explicitly told AFLG was not required. The AFLG letter continues that it submitted the paid canvasser information required by state law, including their names and that they had reviewed the information required. This was the specific violation Thurston cited in rejecting the submission. AFLG included a restatement of the groups following of legal requirements, citing Arkansas law that allows a correction to be submitted. It added that the state law does not have a do not count penalty associated with it, meaning the rejection based on discounted signatures violated state law. Lawmakers respond to Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston rejecting abortion ballot petitions The letter concludes by asking Thurston to confirm by July 15 that the required number of signatures, including signatures gathered by paid canvassers, has been submitted. The amendment proposed by AFLG looked to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution and would stop any laws from being passed to restrict abortion in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly or to protect the life or well-being of the mother within the first 18 weeks after conception. News of the ballot petitions rejection drew quick support from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Attorney General Tim Griffin, who called the groups not following the submission requirements was inexcusable. 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. Opponents and supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment gather at the state Capitol on Friday, July 5, 2024. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) Supporters of a proposed Arkansas amendment to create a limited right to abortion sent a letter to Secretary of State John Thurston on Thursday, claiming he unlawfully rejected the signatures to put the measure on the November ballot on Wednesday. Arkansans for Limited Government submitted 101,525 signatures from registered voters Friday in support of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. Thurstons office has 30 days after the deadline to count signatures and determine their validity; constitutional amendments need 90,704 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Thurston wrote in Wednesdays rejection letter that AFLG did not submit two legally required documents: an affidavit identifying paid canvassers by name and proof that the ballot question committee explained to canvassers the states laws for soliciting signatures and provided them with the Secretary of States initiatives and referenda handbook before they started canvassing. AFLG said Wednesday night that it did in fact submit these documents to Thurstons office, calling the rejection a ridiculous attempt to silence supporters of abortion access. In Thursdays letter, AFLG Executive Director Lauren Cowles gave Thurston a deadline of Monday to confirm that the submission of the initiative petition facially contains the required number of signatures and that your office is proceeding to verify all of the submitted signatures. Your letter fails to specify in what manner AFLG failed to comply with the plain language of the statute, leaving AFLG to guess at your reasoning, Cowles wrote. In drafting the paid canvasser affidavits, AFLG copied the exact language of a sample affidavit provided by your office to AFLG. These materials had already been provided to you, and were only provided again in an abundance of caution, even against the insistence of your staff that some of this information was not required. Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government Thurston wrote Wednesday that failure to comply with the law in question invalidated the 14,143 signatures collected by paid canvassers. The remaining 87,382 signatures, collected by unpaid volunteers, were not going to be counted and validated because they were more than 3,000 signatures short of the required minimum, Powell said Wednesday. Cowles reiterated in Thursdays letter that AFLG submitted the required documents, including in a June 27 Sponsor Affidavit. In addition, even if the Sponsor Affidavit failed to meet the statutory requirements in some technical way, AFLGs compliance efforts with respect to [the law in question] are abundant, well-documented and repeatedly acknowledged by your office, which is required to file and preserve AFLGs submissions, Cowles wrote. 2024-07-11 Response to Secretary Thurston with Enclosure (1) (1) Chris Powell, Thurstons spokesman, provided the Arkansas Advocate with all the documents AFLG submitted Friday upon request. The documents include a list of paid canvassers with a stamp from the Secretary of States office indicating it was filed July 5 and a 691-page file with signed affidavits from all of AFLGs paid canvassers testifying to the signature collection education portion of the law. AFLGs paid canvassers totaled more than 250, and the group added 74 more paid canvassers between June 27 and Friday, the documents show. In drafting the paid canvasser affidavits, AFLG copied the exact language of a sample affidavit provided by your office to AFLG, Cowles wrote. These materials had already been provided to you, and were only provided again in an abundance of caution, even against the insistence of your staff that some of this information was not required. Additionally, Cowles wrote, none of the conditions listed in state law that justify the Secretary of State refusing to count signatures at all were among Thurstons reasons for rejecting the amendment. Thurston argued before the Arkansas Supreme Court in 2016 that other portions of state law contain a do not count penalty and the absence of this provision in the law regarding counting signatures for ballot initiatives was an intentional omission, she added. AFLG also asserted in Cowles letter that Thurstons office is required to count every signature regardless of the validity of the paid canvassers signatures. Abortion Amendment - PC Affidavits Filed at Time of Submission Your July 10 letter makes clear that you relied upon AFLGs representation regarding the total number of signatures collected, not your own count, Cowles wrote. AFLGs conservative, internal signature count has no bearing on your independent duty as the official charged with verifying signatures to perform an initial count of all signatures. Two other proposed constitutional amendments were submitted to Thurstons office Friday with the required number of signatures to make the November ballot if verified, and the two respective ballot question committees submitted the required documents to Thurstons office on Friday, according to records Powell provided the Advocate. We are committed to proving that the Secretary of State is wrong in his attempt to undermine the efforts of 800 volunteers and silence the voices of more than 101,000 Arkansas voters, AFLG said in a statement Thursday after sending the letter to Thurston and media outlets. This is just the beginning. We will keep fighting for our voices to be heard [and] our rights to be restored. Supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment began collecting signatures in January. The proposed 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. Supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment 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 in June a list of AFLGs 79 paid canvassers at the time. 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 Family Council and several Republican elected officials praised Thurstons rejection of the amendments signatures on Wednesday. Reporter Mary Hennigan contributed to this story. Arkansans for Limited Government, a group trying to expand abortion access in Arkansas, said the secretary of state acted "unlawfully" earlier this week when he rejected the signatures they submitted for a November ballot measure. Secretary of State John Thurston on Wednesday said the group did not include a required list of paid canvassers and affidavits stating those canvassers had been properly trained and given a copy of the state's rules for collecting signatures. Thurston, in a letter to Arkansans for Limited Government, said the missing documents "require(s) me to reject your submission outright." "Contrary to your claim, AFLG met the requirements," Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, wrote in a letter to Thurston released Thursday. Arkansans for Limited Government, which submitted 101,525 signatures to qualify its abortion measure for the November ballot, said the committee had in fact submitted the documentation for paid canvassers both in late June and again on July 5 with the signatures. "These materials had already been provided to you, and were only provided again in an abundance of caution, even against the insistence of your staff that some of this information was not required," Cowles said. Cowles argues the secretary of state is legally obligated to count and verify the submitted signatures. The Arkansas Secretary of State's office said in an email Friday that it stands by its initial letter. The threshold to qualify was 90,704 signatures. Of the total submitted, 14,135 had been collected by paid canvassers rather than volunteers. "There is nothing new about this," said Howard W. Brill, a University of Arkansas law professor and former chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Voter-driven ballot initiates in Arkansas frequently face challenges from politicians, Brill said. The extra requirements for paid canvassers were added in 2013, soon after Republicans took control of the state House for the first time in decades. "I've never seen an effort as organized and disciplined as this one," said Janine Parry, an expert on direct democracy at the University of Arkansas. "They prepared for, it looked like, pretty much every contingency." Going forward, she said, "I think it's going to be a bitter, bitter throwdown, probably for a month." Bettina Brownstein, an Arkansas attorney and supporter of the amendment, said that ultimately the state's Supreme Court will decide whether the abortion ballot measure appears on the November ballot. "I'm very skeptical about this court defying the administration, and the administration is very much against this," she said. This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Arkansas abortion measure: Backers slam secretary of state KATHMANDU, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal lost a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives on Friday. Dahal had the support of only 63 lawmakers, far short of the 138 votes needed to pass the floor test in the 275-member chamber. "As only 63 votes were cast in favor of the confidence motion, which is short of the majority in the House of Representatives, I hereby declare that the prime minister's motion to seek a vote of confidence has been rejected," announced Speaker Dev Raj Ghimire. This is the fifth time for the prime minister to seek a floor test since he became the head of a coalition government in late December 2022. As chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center), Dahal rejected calls for his resignation but sought instead a vote of trust again in the lower house after the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) quit and withdrew support to his coalition government on July 3. The CPN-UML and the main opposition Nepali Congress agreed to join hands for a new coalition on the night of July 1, as the general election in November 2022 produced no majority party in the lower house. Under the deal between the two largest parties in the lower house, CPN-UML's chairman and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli shall assume the premiership first and then hand it over to Nepali Congress President and former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba until the next general election in 2027. An armed robbery at a barbershop in Boston on Thursday afternoon led to an hourslong standoff at a nearby home between SWAT officers and three suspects that lasted late into the night. The three suspects were involved in an armed robbery at Edwards Barber Shop on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury around 4:00 p.m. and they then barricaded themselves inside a home on Adams Street in Dorchester for nearly six hours, according to the Boston Police Department. Police said a car involved in the armed robbery was found and it was determined that the suspects went into the house on Adams Street. That house is about a mile-and-a-half from the barbershop. Boston police cruisers swarmed the street, blocking any other traffic from driving down the road as officers in tactical gear negotiated with the suspects in the home. The SWAT team used de-escalation tactics, leading to two of the suspects being removed from the house without incident, but a third remained inside. Officers had to go into the house to get that suspect out shortly before 10 p.m. The Boston Globe reported that the SWAT team used gas to forcibly remove the third suspect and place him under arrest. There were no reported injuries in the standoff. All three suspects, whose names werent released, were taken to jail and are expected to be in court later today. 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 (WHTM) Every school district across Pennsylvania may soon have a full-time armed security officer on-site after lawmakers recently passed legislation at the Capitol. Senate Bill 907, sponsored by Senator Mike Regan (R-31), will require school entitiesdefined as a school district, an intermediate unit, an area career and technical school, a charter school, or a private residential rehabilitative institutionto have one trained school security personnel at all times. According to the bill, additional funding will be available to assist schools in hiring an armed officer. This has been a 12-year process to get this important initiative across the finish line, Regan said. I am pleased that my colleagues this session recognized the value and necessity of having armed school security personnel in each of our schools. Senator Regan first proposed a similar bill when he was a member of the House of Representatives. Regan said this came as a response to the Sandy Hook shooting that took place only hours after Regan welcomed a group of fourth graders to the Capitol in 2012. I knew in that moment that with my background and experience in securing federal courthouses as a U.S. Marshal, I could offer a plan to protect our schools in Pennsylvania, Regan said. Senate Bill 907 was amended into Senate Bill 700; the School Code bill passed as part of the state budget. The bill will now land on Governor Josh Shapiros desk to await a potential signature. 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. ASHDOD, Israel (Reuters) - Former Israeli army sniper David Roytman has turned his hand to action painting, using guns and live-fire ranges instead of brushes and studios to blast colours onto canvases. In Israel, Roytman uses a pistol to shoot bags filled with paint, which then splatter onto a wood-board canvas, creating the artwork. In his native Ukraine, he creates paintings in a similar way by using the cannon of a World War Two-era tank. Roytman, 42, describes the method as way to exorcise difficult memories from his combat service. "This is my healing by art. When I'm shooting - not on people, not in a war, not during the military service - I'm doing this for my, let's say, fun, for my way to say something to the world," he told Reuters. "It makes me feel at peace." Amidst the resulting splashes and holes, he intersperses letters in Hebrew, English and Russian, seemingly at random - an invitation on the viewer to form words. Twenty of the unusual works have sold at between $5,000 and $10,000 apiece, said Roytman, who also designs high-end Judaica. The art's message is that "everybody needs to think, when they are sending their boys to fight, to protect their country - they need to remember that when they come back they need support," Roytman said, alluding to veterans' mental health. (Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa) Actor and activist Ashley Judd on Friday became the second high-profile celebrity this week to call on President Biden to end his reelection campaign and allow someone else to take on former President Trump this fall. In an op-ed in USA Today, Judd noted that some of her closest friends and family are Trump supporters. Their beliefs, she said, coupled with Bidens poor debate performance, show the president is incapable of countering Trump. The defense of our cherished rights and freedoms, the moral imperative that we do better by more people, and our bodies, cannot be left to voters who see and are frightened of the consequences of President Bidens obvious limitations, or who are now not going to vote, wrote Judd, who is an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights and the Biden campaign. Judd pointed to Bidens poor debate performance two weeks ago, arguing another Trump presidency cannot be Americas future. The actor also noted she does not make this decision lightly or easily, saying she believes in what Biden has done for the country, specifically job growth and American investment. Judd argued that if Trump were reelected, there would be very real hurt among millions of Americans. The Democratic Party must not delay in thanking President Biden and supporting a talented, robust Democrat to be our partys nominee, she wrote. We do not have another day for distraction or division among ourselves. Writing from rural Tennessee, Judd said it is clear that Americans have made up their minds against Biden, on top of the majority who love to vote for Donald Trump. Judds op-ed follows that of actor George Clooney. Clooney wrote in The New York Times on Thursday, calling on Biden to step aside. His declaration sent shockwaves from Washington to the West Coast and could have greater impacts in Hollywood. A growing number of Democratic lawmakers and donors are calling on the president to suspend his campaign and allow someone new the chance to take on Trump. Updated at 9:12 a.m. EDT 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. Actress Ashley Judd has joined the strengthening chorus of voices which now includes several celebrities calling on President Joe Biden to step aside. In a deeply personal and heartfelt op-ed for USA Today, she wrote that some of her beloved chosen and biological family ... feverishly love Donald Trump, but she cant imagine the former president bringing his cruelty to the White House for a second term. She added that during the disastrous June 27 debate where Biden appeared confused and frail, losing his train of thought and making several gaffes the president was unable to counter Trump as he gushed a firehose of galling lies. I now ask President Joe Biden to step aside, she wrote. Judds op-ed, which argues that we cant risk a Trump presidency, comes as an increasing number of elected Democrats and activists are calling on the president to leave his race for re-election. Despite the mounting pressure, Biden has remained resolute about his decision to press on with his re-election bid, stating in no uncertain terms during his solo press conference Thursday night that hes in it to win. President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. He said hes staying in the race (AP) After making several noteworthy gaffes, like referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Putin earlier in the day and Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump during the press conference, Biden reaffirmed that hes running, saying I think Im the most qualified. I beat him once and I will beat him again. He insisted: Im not in this for my legacy. Im in it to finish the job Ive started. Judd is not the first actor to call on Biden to go. In a damning op-ed for The New York Times, George Clooney wrote on Wednesday that the one battle Biden cannot win is the fight against time. His plea to Biden and the Democratic party comes just weeks after Clooney hosted a fundraiser in Los Angeles that pulled in almost $30 million for the president. 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, Clooney said. He wasnt even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Judd, an outspoken activist on reproductive rights, wrote in her Friday op-ed that The defense of our cherished rights and freedoms, the moral imperative that we do better by more people, and our bodies, cannot be left to voters who see and are frightened of the consequences of President Bidens obvious limitations, or who are now not going to vote. Ashley Judd attends the "Lazareth" Special Screening at Crosby Street Hotel on May 09, 2024 in New York City. Shes calling on Biden to step aside (Getty Images) She added: We take the risk of an off night and minimize the warning signs at our gravest peril. The actress went on to say that if Trump returns to the White House, millions of people will face hurt, devastation and loss. He would wield the power of the presidency with unprecedented, incalculable cruelty and unfairness, she wrote. Judd noted that she was fired by a company and lost a life-altering paycheck after reading the I am a Nasty Woman poem at the Womens March in 2017. That is the double standard of American life for women under Donald Trump. And for all who disagree with him. Towards the end of her op-ed, she wrote, Where I sit in rural Tennessee, it is clear that Americans have already made up their minds against President Biden, on top of the majority who love to vote for Donald Trump. ASP: $160k stolen in barcode swapping scheme lands two Texans in Arkansas jail OMAHA, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) Arkansas State Police arrested two men for allegedly being involved in a multi-state barcode swapping scheme valued at more than $160,000. ASP Troopers stopped a pickup truck on U.S. Highway 65 near Tower Road in Boone County on July 7 for a traffic violation. A news release states that ASP Troopers found 22 unopened garage door openers in the truck bed and rear floorboard. Each opener retails around $200. Four Fayetteville men accused of stabbing, beating security guard on Dickson Street The vehicles occupants, identified as Terry White, 52, of Pasadena, Texas, and Robert Diaz, 34, of Spring, Texas, could not provide receipts or proof of purchase for the opener, the news release states. Troopers tracked back the shipping labels to a Lowes store in Bentonville. After further investigation, Troopers said that the revealed evidence showed the men may have been involved in a multi-state barcode swapping scheme. White had multiple active warrants for retail theft in Alabama, Florida, and Kentucky. Troopers transported both men to the Boone County Detention Center, where they were charged with felony theft by receiving. 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. Attack on woman on Towpath trail in Akron appears random: police Attack on woman on Towpath trail in Akron appears random: police AKRON, Ohio (WJW) Akron police are investigating after a woman said she was attacked while running on the Towpath. It happened back on June 28 near West Bartges Street. Mother dies from injuries after trying to thwart carjacking with 6-year-old in back seat This embedded content is not available in your region. According to Sgt. Mike Murphy, a 25-year-old woman was running on the trail at night when she encountered a man, but there was no interaction. There were no problems or interactions at all. The second time she passed him, he grabbed her and wrestled her down to the ground, said Murphy. High bond set for suspect in missing womans murder Thankfully, a man walking the Towpath witnessed the two on the ground, scaring the suspect off. The description is a white male, 17 to 19 years old, 5-foot-5 to 5-foot-6, brown hair, clean shaven, said Murphy. Police said at this point, this appears to be a random attack. However, theyve increased patrols in the Towpath area as they search for the suspect. 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. Austin city manager proposes record budget how much will it cost taxpayers? AUSTIN (KXAN) Austins new city manager T.C. Broadnax is proposing another record-high city budget at $5.9 billion. Its a near 7% increase from the previous fiscal year of $5.5 billion. Youll help pay for it. A typical Austin homeowner will see property taxes go up roughly $8.52 a month. Add rates and fees, and youll see a roughly $22 increase every month. City of Austin could see budget deficit, headed for fiscal cliff with ARPA funding The budget included an estimated annual impact for the typical City of Austin residential taxpayer. Look at the chart below to see what this budget may mean for Austin residents finances. The estimated annual impact of the proposed Austin 2024-2025 budget on a typical City of Austin residential taxpayer. (Courtesy: City of Austin) City financial staff have previously warned a dip in sales tax revenue combined with a state law capping how much money the city collects in property taxes (SB 2) is putting financial strain on the city. Staff said Friday that they asked departments to cut roughly 1% of their independent budgets, but that the cuts did not result in a loss of services. Still, there wont be as much wiggle room for new initiatives. While I am pleased with many of the important investments in the proposed budget, we must do more to reduce homelessness, enhance public safety, and address our climate crisis, Council Member Ryan Alter said. Here are some of the investments being made in the proposed Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget: A 4% wage increase for civilian employees bringing the lowest paid employee to $21.63 per hour Roughly $18 million more in the police departments budget $3.6 million for tenant stabilization $2.6 million to open the Canyon Creek joint fire and EMS station $1.5 million for the Mexican American Cultural Center expansion Anti-displacement measures are at the top of my list of priorities and I am thankful that the City of Austins base budget includes support for expanded housing efforts, including the funds secured for tenant stabilization and rental assistance, Council Member Jose Velasquez said. KXAN City Hall Reporter Grace Reader is combing through the budget Friday. This is a developing story and will be updated. You can read the full proposed budget here. What happens next? There will be several opportunities for the public to voice their opinion on the budget before it is approved by Austin City Council. Council members and the city will host events through the middle of August. You can find ways to give your feedback here. PREVIOUS: City of Austins proposed budget to drop next week The Austin City Council is expected to vote on the budget and tax rate between August 14-16, according to the citys budget website. The fiscal year starts Oct. 1. City council members priorities KXAN reached out to every city council member to ask about their priorities for this budget. Council Member Mackenzie Kelly has said one of her top priorities is minimizing the cost to Austinites. She has indicated she will push for cuts to the budget. Others told KXAN they are focused on putting money toward key issues like homelessness, public safety and affordability. You can find a running list of Austin City Council member priorities 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 KXAN Austin. Australian authorities have reported the arrest of two Australian citizens of Russian descent who are accused of espionage. Source: joint press release of the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Quote Australian Police: "Two Russian-born Australian citizens accused of obtaining Australian Defence Force material to share with Russian authorities will face Brisbane Magistrates Court today after being charged with an espionage-related offence." Details: The individuals in question are 40-year-old private in the Australian Defence Force, and her 62-year-old husband. On the morning of 11 July, they were arrested at their house in the suburbs of Brisbane. On the same day, the couple were charged with espionage, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in jail. According to reports, this is Australia's first espionage case since new legislation was passed in 2018. Kira and Ihor Koroliovy photo from website moscowtimes.ru "The public can be assured there is no ongoing threat and the CFITF (Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce) has disrupted the alleged criminality," reads the message. The authorities discovered that the woman went to Russia undeclared over a long-term holiday beginning in 2023, both with and without her husband. While the man was still in Australia, the woman showed him how to log into her official work account and access specific information to send directly to her private email account while she was in Russia. The police said the couple acquired material affecting Australia's national security interests. The spouses wanted to give this information to the Russian government. According to reports, this is the third time the police have prosecuted someone with espionage or foreign influence since the charges were added to the Criminal Code Act in 1995. In February 2024, one individual was convicted of preparing or planning a crime involving foreign interference, while another is still on trial for irresponsible foreign interference. Support UP or become our patron! CCTV: In the statements released on July 11, the US and the EU announced their support for the so-called arbitral award on the South China Sea and attacked Chinas positions and propositions. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: China noted the statements by the US and the EU. Let me make the following points: First, the US selfishly refuses to accede to UNCLOS, and yet often lectures other countries on their implementation of UNCLOS. This is hypocrisy, double standard and selective application of international law. Second, the US and the EU disregard the history and facts on the South China Sea issue, act against the UN Charter, and misinterpret UNCLOS and other international law. Their position and proposition do not hold water. Third, the US has gone back on its public commitments of not taking a position on sovereignty issues in the South China Sea. It encouraged the Philippines to launch the arbitration on the South China Sea, and blatantly released a statement to endorse the award. This is political manipulation aimed at using allies to destabilize the South China Sea and the region and advance the nefarious agenda of going after China. Let me stress that with the concerted efforts of China and ASEAN countries, the South China Sea has been generally stable. China will work with ASEAN countries to keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable, and contribute to regional prosperity and development. We urge countries outside the region led by the US to earnestly respect these efforts, refrain from statements and actions that disrupt regional peace and stability, and stop being a trouble maker in the South China Sea. China-Arab TV: Israels military operation in Gaza over the last 24 hours killed 50 and injured 54 people. Over the past nine months, due to Israels continuous bombing, there is no safe place in Gaza and more than 38,000 people were killed. Whats your comment? Lin Jian: China opposes and condemns all acts that harm civilians and violate international law. The current situation in the Gaza Strip is unsustainable and the most urgent priority is to fully and effectively implement relevant UN Security Council resolutions, achieve an immediate ceasefire, protect civilians, ensure access to humanitarian assistance and realize the early release of all those held captive. We urge Israel to heed the call of the international community, stop its military actions as soon as possible, and do everything possible to avoid innocent civilian casualties. Xinhua News Agency: On July 11, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized again at the closing press conference of the NATO Summit that China has become a decisive enabler of Russias war against Ukraine. He said that Chinas joint military exercise with Belarus fits into the pattern of working together in supporting Russias war on Ukraine. He added that China is taking more assertive behaviors in Hong Kong and the South China Sea and, threatening Taiwan and threatening neighbors. China is conducting a huge military build-up with no transparency and investing heavily in new modern missiles and nuclear weapons. How does China respond to these remarks? Lin Jian: China strongly condemns the irresponsible and provocative remarks made by the NATO Secretary General against China, which are steeped in Cold War mentality and ideological bias, and consist of baseless accusations. In his remarks, the NATO Secretary General attacked Chinas system, blatantly interfered in Chinas internal affairs, and distorted Chinas domestic and diplomatic policies. He sought to shift blames and mislead the international community on Ukraine and pointed fingers at Chinas normal military development and relations with relevant countries. We strongly deplore and firmly oppose it. China has already made its position clear on the Ukraine issue and the NATO Summit. I would like to emphasize that, for a long time, the NATO Secretary General, in disregard of the facts and Chinas protests, repeatedly smeared and hurled attacks at China. He has been playing up the China threat narrative and inciting suspicion about China and anti-China sentiments in an apparent attempt to cooperate with certain parties to suppress and contain China. These clumsy stunts have sounded the alarm for many in the world and remind people what risks and challenges NATO, as a vestige of the Cold War and a product of bloc confrontation and bloc politics, will bring to world peace and stability. China urges certain Western politician, whose political life is approaching an end, not to fan the flames, make provocations, and shift blames for the sake of trying to leave behind some kind of legacy. China will stick to the path of peaceful development and inject more stability and positive energy into world peace and stability through its own development and international cooperation. China will also firmly safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests. To see China as NATOs imaginary enemy will only backfire on NATO itself. China News Service: In a recent speech at the Hudson Institute, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said Beijing is our number-one foreign threat and Congress will counter China with every tool at its disposal before House members stand for re-election. House of Representatives will have the package of China-related legislation signed into law by the end of this year, including those to sanction Chinese military firms that provide material support to Russia and Iran and to restrict US investments in China and China-US trade. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: These comments are a deliberate mischaracterization of facts, a repetition of the false narrative of China threat and filled with Cold War thinking and ideological bias. They are meant to find ways to divert attention from domestic issues and further aim at and contain China. China firmly opposes it. China has the right to normal trade and economic cooperation with other countries, and opposes unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that lack basis in international law and UN Security Council mandate. We ask the US to get rid of the zero-sum approach, and refrain from remarks and moves that harm Chinas interests. China will take resolute measures to firmly safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests. China Review News: Its reported that the Defense of Japan 2024 white paper adopted at Japans Cabinet meeting today stressed that Japan finds itself in the most severe security environment of the post-war era. According to the white paper, China has been intensifying its military activities, North Korea has been advancing its nuclear and missile development, and Russia has been observed engaging in joint patrols with Chinathose are Japans great concerns in its defense policy, and Japan must enhance its defense capability against ballistic missiles and other standoff weapons. The white paper also mentions the possibility of an escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: The Defense of Japan 2024 white paper gravely interferes in Chinas internal affairs, again seeks to play up the China threat narrative, and hypes up regional tensions. We deplore and reject this. China is committed to the path of peaceful development and a defense policy that is defensive in nature. Chinas defense development and military activities are legitimate and justified. Our joint patrols with other countries are consistent with international law and customary international practice. Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinas territory. The Taiwan question is purely Chinas internal affair that brooks no external interference. In recent years, the root cause of the cross-Strait tensions has been Taiwan independence separatists reckless activities emboldened and supported by external forces. Japan invaded and exercised colonial rule over Taiwan and bears serious historical responsibilities for the suffering it imposed on the Chinese people. Japan is in no position to point its fingers on the Taiwan question. Given Japans history of militarist aggression during the last century, Japans military and security moves have been closely watched by its Asian neighbors and the international community. In recent years, Japan has been drastically readjusting defense policy, increasing defense spending annually, easing restrictions of weapon exports, and seeking military breakthrough. It has triggered strong concerns from the world. We urge Japan to deeply reflect on its history of aggression, champion peaceful development, stop finding pretexts for its own military buildup, and earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and the wider international community through concrete actions. Shenzhen TV: On July 12, the Philippines released the Statement on the Eighth Anniversary of the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea. Whats your comment? Lin Jian: The arbitration case was initiated by the Philippines unilaterally in breach of the Philippines own commitment to China. The matters raised in the case were beyond the scope of jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal set up temporarily at the unilateral request of the Philippines. The tribunal, however, took the case anyway and delivered a ruling which is illegal, null and void. The Philippines breached the common understandings it had reached with China on resolving the disputes in the South China Sea through bilateral consultation and negotiation. The Philippines violated the article of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) which states that the disputes should be resolved by peaceful means through consultations and negotiations by sovereign States directly concerned. The Philippines abused the UNCLOS dispute settlement mechanism, ignored Chinas declaration which, according to UNCLOS, excludes maritime delimitation from compulsory dispute settlement procedures, and insisted on initiating the arbitration. China has never accepted or taken part in the case. The arbitral tribunal violated the principle of state consent, and acted against UNCLOS and general international law. The award it rendered is illegal, null and void, and non-binding. China does not accept or recognize it, and will never accept any claim or action based on the award. Chinas sovereignty and rights and interests in the South China Sea are under no circumstances affected by the award. The South China Sea arbitration is essentially political circus dressed up as legal action. The Philippines let itself fall into the trap set by the US and some Western countries, be fettered, and become certain countries tool to gang up on Chinaall at the cost of the Philippines relations with China. The Philippines views the arbitral award and UNCLOS as the two cornerstones of its policy and action in the South China Sea. Yet the award is very much a deviation from UNCLOS, which means the Philippines has adopted a self-contradictory position. To cling to this position and the arbitral award will only get the Philippines farther and farther away from the right path. For a long period of time, in the interest of our overall bilateral ties with the Philippines and the peace and stability of the region, China has been committed to resolving relevant disputes with the Philippines through direct negotiation and friendly consultation on the basis of respecting historical facts and international law. We hope the Philippine side will honor its commitments, stop citing and hyping up the illegal award and get back onto the right track of bilateral negotiation for the disputes at an early date. Beijing Daily: The Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development was held in Beijing on July 12. Could you share more about this? Lin Jian: This morning, the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development hosted by China International Development Cooperation Agency was held in Beijing. The theme of this years forum is Promoting Sustainable Development: Continuous Actions for a Better Future. The forum aims at further forging global consensus on development, promoting joint global action and joining hands to create a better future. Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi attended the forum and gave a keynote speech. The forum attracted representatives from more than 110 countries and over 30 international organizations. Director Wang Yi pointed out that over the past three years since President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative (GDI), cooperation under the initiative has continued to deepen, with improving cooperation mechanisms and increasingly fruitful cooperation results. More than 80 countries have now joined the Group of Friends of the GDI. The China-Africa-United Nations Tripartite Cooperation Demonstration Center was established. There are more than 1,000 projects in Global Development Project Pool, with more than 500 projects completed or under construction. Special funds for global development have continued to expand, and the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund has been upgraded. The Chinese government has also trained more than 40,000 people for developing countries in various fields. Director Wang Yi stressed that, in this world of turbulence and transformation, a lot can be achieved by implementing the GDI. China will focus on the long-term goal of global development, bear in mind the real needs of the people of all countries and share the experience of Chinese modernization for realizing the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and pooling development consensus. China will deepen Global South cooperation, promote North-South dialogue, prioritize development, form synergy among development strategies of all parties, and foster new development drivers, so as to improve the forum and promote the building of a global community of development. In 2022, President Xi Jinping announced 32 major initiatives to implement the GDI. Organizing the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development is one of them. Last year, the first high-level meeting of the forum was successfully held, and the Beijing Statement was issued to set up the Global Development Project Pool and Global Development Capital Pool, and mobilize US$12 billion in special funds from Chinese and foreign financial institutions for the implementation of the GDI. This years meeting will bring more fruits, deeper cooperation and benefits for all peoples. China will leverage the GDI, GSI and GCI to work with all parties for a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress. TASS: Russias President Putin yesterday put forward the idea of a BRICS parliamentary organization. Whats the Foreign Ministrys comment? Lin Jian: I do not have information on that. CCTV: On July 10, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the 2024 NATO Public Forum that we are making the investments in ourselves at home to make sure that were approaching China from a position of domestic strength. As the US re-energizes its alliances and partnerships with NATO, the EU and major European countries, it is abundantly clear that they have more convergence now when it comes to how to approach China. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: The US has vowed time and again to deal with China from the so-called position of strength. The phrase reflects how arrogant and domineering the US is. In our world, no country is superior to another, and no one has the right to bully others. Any country who thinks they can bully others by strengthening their position of strength will be acting against the trend of the times. And they will certainly not be supported by the international community. Exchange and cooperation between countries should contribute to the mutual understanding and trust between other countries, and should not be about forming exclusive clubs that target or harm third partys interests. The US made a commitment of not asking other countries to pick sidesit should act accordingly instead of ganging up and hurting other countries interests. China views and handles its relations with the US based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. We hope the US will work with China in the same direction, form the right perception of China, stop zero-sum game and major-country competition, and contribute to the stable, sound and sustainable growth of bilateral relations, instead of doing the opposite. RIA Novosti: The Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday that China is constructing a secret military base in Tajikistan not far from the border of Afghanistan. Could you please comment on this report? Lin Jian: I am not aware of what you mentioned, but I can tell you with full confidence that China is committed to an independent foreign policy of peace and has no military base in Central Asia. Beijing Youth Daily: According to reports, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with ROK President Yoon Suk Yeol on July 10. Both sides hope that Japan and the ROK can maintain close cooperation with NATO member states and allies, and sent signals that North Atlantic security cannot be separated with Northeast Asian security. Prime Minister Kishida said the Washington Summit will deepen the cooperation between NATO and the IP4. We also noted that US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the US hopes to institutionalize cooperation between NATO and the IP4, namely Japan, the ROK, Australia and New Zealand. Whats Chinas comment? Lin Jian: The US-led NATO, as a Cold War vestige and the worlds largest military bloc, claims to be a regional defensive alliance but keeps hyping up regional tensions, inciting bloc confrontation, and creating pretexts to engage Asia-Pacific countries. This has sounded the alarm for regional countries. Northeast Asia was once ravaged by war, and suffered from military and bloc confrontation. It cherishes peaceful coexistence, solidarity, and mutually beneficial cooperation. The peace, cooperation, stability and prosperity we see today in the Asia-Pacific, including Northeast Asia, is a result of the joint efforts of regional countries. The Asia-Pacific does not need military blocs, still less major-country confrontation or clubs of countries pushing for a new Cold War. We hope regional countries will stay committed to the path of Asia-Pacific cooperation, and play a constructive role in upholding and promoting peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and around the globe, rather than spearheading NATOs extension into the Asia-Pacific. JINAN, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A two-day forum was held at the birthplace of Chinese philosopher Confucius, aiming at promoting the human values advocated by the Global Civilization Initiative and a community with a shared future for humanity. Themed "traditional culture and modern civilization," the 10th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations took place in Qufu, east China's Shandong Province, on Wednesday and Thursday. It attracted nearly 400 international guests from 63 countries and regions. Vincent Meriton, former vice president of Seychelles, delivered a speech at the forum, emphasizing the importance of diversity. "Every nation is unique with different peoples, customs, languages, histories, beliefs and ideas. These differences should be respected and celebrated because they enrich the diversity of humanity," said Meriton, also chairman of a Seychelles-China friendship association. "In today's world of division and conflict, the forum is a beacon of hope. Such activities are essential if we want to build bridges between civilizations and promote peace and harmony," said Jose Ramos-Horta, president of Timor-Leste, in a written message. He urged dialogue across cultural barriers and emphasized the need for practical strategies to enhance intercultural cooperation to foster a peaceful, just and inclusive world. The Global Civilization Initiative, proposed by China in March 2023, was a prominent topic among the guests and experts at the conference. It advocates respect for the diversity of civilizations, the common values of humanity, the importance of inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and robust international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. "To move forward, we must embrace values of respect, inclusivity and our differences. The Global Civilization Initiative should be celebrated worldwide as a way for peaceful co-existence. It recognizes and respects countries' specificities while acknowledging shared goals of peace, security, sustainability, respect and self-determination," Meriton said. Participants noted that Confucianism represents an excellent traditional Chinese culture emphasizing benevolence, humanism, faith, justice and harmony and these principles have profoundly influenced the development of not only China but also the world. Amid intensified geopolitical conflicts worldwide, a gloomy economic outlook and a widening wealth gap, humanity faces a historic crossroads. Participants at the forum advocate for drawing wisdom from exemplary traditional cultures to effectively address these challenges. "We are in a post-hegemonic world. What kind of world will it be? I think Confucius gave us the right idea. Not one dominant power, not one dominant region, but a world of harmony in diversity," said Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University. The forum also highlighted the integration of traditional culture and modern civilization to promote sustainable development and progress of human civilization. "We see great potential in technology to promote cultural exchanges and mutual understanding. Digital platforms are bringing people from different nations and cultures together. Innovative initiatives should be carried out to support technology applications to preserve and share our cultural heritages," Ramos-Horta said. Misha Tadd, director of the Global Laozegetics Research Center at Nankai University, cautioned that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) presents both opportunities and risks, noting that AI involves not just technology but also ethical considerations. "Which one are we going to cultivate, a good AI or an evil one? What attitude shall we show to AI products, compassion or hostility? These are all worthy of consideration, and traditional philosophy can show the way out," Tadd said. The Australian government intends to provide Ukraine with another US$250 million in military aid, the largest contribution from the country since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Source: Australian news outlet ABC News Details: Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles announced the aid package on the last day of the NATO summit in Washington. ABC News noted that the NATO summit, which took place amid turbulence in American politics, was largely focused on strengthening support for Ukraine. ABC News emphasised that Australia and other non-NATO partners in the Asia-Pacific region had sent delegations to strengthen ties with the Alliance amid concerns about Chinese aggression in the region. Australia's military package includes guided and air defence missiles, anti-tank weapons, ammunition and a batch of boots. The total value of Australia's support for the Ukrainian military is US$1.1 billion. Quote from Marles: "This will not be the last package that we announce. We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes for Ukraine to resolve this conflict on its own terms." Support UP or become our patron! Australian police arrested two Russian-born Australian citizens suspected of obtaining the country's military material to share it with Russian authorities, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on July 12. There has been an uptick in Russia-linked espionage cases across Europe in recent months, with suspected spies or saboteurs being arrested in the U.K., Poland, Germany, Greece, Austria, Latvia, Italy, Estonia, and other countries. Igor Korolev, 62, and Kira Koroleva, 40, were reportedly detained at their home in the Brisbane suburb of Everton Park on July 11. Each of the couple has been charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. This is the first time Australian authorities laid an espionage offense since the country passed a foreign interference law in 2018, ABC reported. Koroleva is a private in the Australian Defense Force. According to the police, she visited Russia during her long-term leave and did not inform the command about it. While in Russia, Koroleva allegedly asked her husband to log into her work account and access material to send to her. Whether the information was shared with Russian authorities is still a subject of the investigation. The indictment alleged that Igor Korolev had ties with Russian intelligence officials. The couple had been in Australia for more than 10 years before the alleged offending. They could face further charges as the investigation continues. Read also: Vienna has become Russias new espionage hub, intelligence officials tell WSJ Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. In this photo provided by the Australian Federal Police, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw speaks Friday, July 12, 2024, in Canberra, about the arrest of an Australian army private and her husband, accused of spying for Russia. The 42-year-old woman, an Australian Defense Force information systems technician, and her 62-year-old husband, a self-employed laborer, are each charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offense, Kershaw said. (Australian Federal Police via AP) MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) An Australian army private and her husband accused of spying for Russia were denied bail Friday, on the first charges against suspected operatives under Australias sweeping espionage laws enacted in 2018. Kira Korolev, 40, and her husband Igor Korolev, 62, are Russian-born Australian citizens and hold Russian passports. They did not appear in person and were represented by lawyers in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on a charge each of preparing for an espionage offense. They did not enter pleas and will appear next in a federal court on Sept. 20. Their lawyers made no public statements. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw had earlier told reporters the couple allegedly "worked together to access Australian Defense Force material that related to Australias national security interests. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation," Kershaw said. Kershaw said no significant compromise had been identified. Australia's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand can be confident that Australian authorities will continue to identify and disrupt espionage. The Russian embassy dismissed the allegations as clearly intended to launch another wave of anti-Russian paranoia in Australia" in a statement, adding that it had requested official information from the authorities. While the couple are the first suspected operatives to be charged under the modernized espionage laws that also outlaw covert foreign interference in domestic politics, Australian security forces have disrupted alleged Russian spies in recent years. Australia had quietly expelled a large Russian spy ring comprising embassy and consular staff as well as other operatives using deep-cover identities, a spy agency official and media reported last year. Police arrested the Korolevs at their Brisbane home Thursday. She is an Australian Defense Force information systems technician, and her husband is a self-employed laborer. They moved to Australia more than a decade ago. The woman became an Australian citizen in 2016 and her husband in 2020. Police allege the woman secretly traveled to Russia in 2023 while on extended leave from the Australian military. The husband allegedly accessed the womans work account from their Brisbane home and sent requested classified information to her in Russia. Mike Burgess, secretary-general of security at the Australian Security Intelligence Organization secret service, declined to say how authorities were tipped off. But the Australian Defense Force's security awareness allowed us to intervene early and control the operation, Burgess said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australian security agencies were equal to the growing espionage threat. He cited the recent extensions of both Burgess' and Kershaw's contracts as evidence of his confidence. Theyre on top of these issues. If you engage in action that is against Australias national interest, you will be caught by our security agencies, Albanese said. Defense did not answer questions from The Associated Press, including what the privates job was and when she was recruited, citing the court action and personal privacy obligations toward military personnel. Such serious allegations usually result in a member's suspension from service and immediate cancelation of access to bases as well as information and communications technology systems, a defense statement said. The charge against each defendant carries a potential maximum sentence of 15 years in prison if either is convicted. If sufficient evidence was found that the information had been shared with Russia, the charges could be upgraded and the potential maximum prison terms upon conviction would be 25 years or life. Russia last year accused Australia of Russophobic hysteria for canceling the lease on land where Moscow wanted to build its new embassy. The Australian government judged the site to be a security risk because it was too close to Parliament House. Burgess warned foreign spies that when we can support a prosecution, we will support a prosecution. While the couple are the first to be charged under the espionage section of the 2018 laws, two Australians have been charged with foreign interference offenses under the same raft of security reforms, which sought to counter Chinese efforts to shape Australian government policy. Melbourne businessman, community leader and Vietnamese refugee Di Sanh Duong was convicted in December last year of covertly working for the Chinese Communist Party. The 68-year-old was sentenced in February to 2 years and 9 months in prison on a conviction of planning to commit an act of foreign interference. He had denied the charge. Sydney businessman Alexander Csergo was released on bail last month after being held in custody since his arrest in April last year. The 56-year-old has pleaded not guilty to a charge of recklessly supporting a Chinese intelligence agency and is awaiting a trial date. Justin Bassi, the former government national security adviser who was responsible for drafting the 2018 reforms, said the espionage charges were significant. While there have not been many cases, and I would like to ideally see more, it's not always a matter of quantity of cases, said Bassi, who is now executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank . Because the laws being in place and used from time to time like today is a significant deterrent effect. Bassi said. ___ Follow AP's Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific Police arrested two Russian-born Australian citizens on charges related to espionage, near Brisbane, July 11, 2024. Credit - Australian Federal Police Two Russian-born Australian citizens were arrested Thursday, Australian police said Friday. The married pair are accused of accessing sensitive military material with the intent to provide it to Russian authorities. They appeared in a court on Friday, each charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offensewhich carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prisonmarking the first time an espionage offense has been laid in Australia since the country introduced new laws in 2018, per a police press release. Espionage is an insidious crime, and at a time of global instability, state actors have ramped-up their efforts to obtain information held by Western democracies, including Australia, said federal police commissioner Reece Kershaw. Espionage is a crime that is committed in the shadows and in daylight, but Australia, through its mature national security community, is well-placed to identify and disrupt those trying to undermine our democracy. In a press briefing in Canberra on Friday morning, Kershaw said that a 40-year-old woman who was an Australian Defense Force private working as an information systems technician for the army and her 62-year-old self-employed husband were arrested at their home near Brisbane as part of an Australian multi-agency effort called Operation BURGAZADA. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess, left, and Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw speak to media in Canberra on July 12, 2024. Australian Federal Police Australian media later identified the couple as Kira and Igor Korolev and reported that their case was adjourned to Sept. 20. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, court documents tabled for Kira Korolevs hearing reveal she is accused of providing unlawful access to defense computer systems, copying and disseminating information, and maintaining relations with Russian Federation intelligence services between Dec. 6, 2022, and July 11, 2024. The coupleboth of whom had Russian passports and who had lived in Australia for more than 10 years, each eventually obtaining citizenshipworked together to access Australian Defense Force material that related to Australias national security interests, Kershaw alleged. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation, Kershaw said, adding that no significant compromise has been identified at this stage. Police allege that the woman undertook non-declared travel to Russia during long-term leave from the army since 2023, and that she instructed her husband back in Australia to log into her official work account using her credentials to access specific, national security-related information to send directly to her via a private email. The public can be assured there is no ongoing threat, the press release stated. This alleged criminality has been disrupted, Kershaw said during the briefing. Our Five-Eyes partners and the Australian Government can be confident that the robust partnerships within the Counter Foreign Interference Task Force mean we will continue to identify and disrupt espionage and foreign interference activity. Australia is a significant military and intelligence partner of the U.S., along with Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K., comprising the so-called Five Eyes alliance. Moscow-Canberra relations have been strained since the Ukraine war, and Russia has included Australia in its list of unfriendly countries after being hit with sanctions. In 2023, Russia accused Australia of Russophobic hysteria after the government canceled, citing security concerns, a lease on land where Russia wanted to build its new embassy. Australia has supplied defense equipment to Ukraine, most recently announcing a military assistance package worth nearly 250 million Australian dollars ($169 million) at the NATO Summit in Washington. Australia has also in recent years developed fraught ties with Indo-Pacific rival Chinaone of Russias few allies. Canberra has, on several instances, also accused Beijing of cyberattacks and cyberespionage. Espionage is not some quaint cold war notion, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess said during the briefing. Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australias secrets, he said. If you are spying in this country, we are looking for you; if you are being spied on in this country, we are looking out for you. Contact us at letters@time.com. Australian soldier and her husband charged with spying for the Kremlin Kira Korolev, 40, and husband Igor, 62, were remanded in Queensland charged with preparing for an espionage offence An Australian army private has been accused of working as a Kremlin spy after being caught secretly travelling to Russia with her husband. Kira Korolev, 40, who is also a travel blogger, and husband Igor, 62, were remanded in Queensland on Friday charged with preparing for an espionage offence. Mr and Mrs Korolev, Russian-born Australian citizens, are accused of working together to leak military secrets to Kremlin agents. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was investigating whether the pair had migrated on a spy mission and whether Mrs Korolev had joined the army with the intention of committing espionage. Police indicated more charges could be laid as they tracked the couples movements. Questions have been raised about the army vetting process and how someone with a security clearance was able to travel undetected to Russia. Mrs Korolev took leave from her role as an army information systems technician in 2023 and later allegedly misled authorities about her plans when she travelled to Russia, police said. Australian security intelligence agency investigated if Mrs Korolev joined the army with the intention of committing espionage During at least one trip, she contacted her husband who was at home in Brisbane and instructed him on how to log into her official work account then guided him to access specific information to send directly to her private email, according to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities, said Reece Kershaw, the AFP commissioner. Whether that information was handed over remains a key focus of our investigation. Court documents revealed that police had evidence that Mrs Korolev had maintained relationships with the Russian Federation intelligence services as far back as December 2022 and as recently as the day she was arrested. Until they were led away from home in handcuffs on Thursday, the couple had appeared to be living an unassuming suburban life, keeping to themselves in their apartment. Mr Korolev had been working as a labourer, and when she wasnt at work on an army base Mrs Korolev enjoyed filming Russian-language travel videos of her wildlife encounters and visits to tourism sites including the Canberra mint and Parliament House. Mike Burgess, the chief of Australias spy agency, warned that it was clear spying should not be considered some quaint Cold War notion as he delivered public remarks aimed directly at Russia. Foreign intelligence services are capable, determined and patient. They play the long game, Mr Burgess said. The problem for them is, ASIO does too. Mike Burgess, the ASIO director-general and Reece Kershaw, the AFP commissioner addressing the media in Canberra On Friday, neighbours spoke of their disbelief at seeing sniffer dogs and police searching their apartment complex. While it was unclear for how long the couple had been under investigation, the manager of their building said he had provided a key to their apartment three months ago. The AFP said in a statement: The public can be assured there is no ongoing threat. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) said that access to defence bases and systems was always cancelled immediately in response to any serious allegation against an ADF member. Separate hearings were held for each of the accused on Friday and they were remanded to reappear on Sept 20. At a press briefing later in the day, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that he had no detailed information about the case. Yes, for us, they are Russian citizens, but they have always lived there, in Australia, so we dont have details about that, and I cant tell you anything, he said. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. An autopsy has determined that a soldier with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, who was found murdered in her off-base home in May had been stabbed nearly 70 times, according to a local newspaper report. Pfc. Katia Duenas Aguilar, 23, was found in her Clarksville, Tennessee, home just outside of the base on May 18, and her mother posted a reward and begged the public for leads in the unsolved case. She is survived by her 4-year-old son. Authorities have made no arrests, or released the names of any suspects. Duenas Aguilar was stabbed 68 times on her upper body and neck, according to reporting from the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, a local news outlet that obtained a copy of the autopsy report. Read Next: Newly Graduated Army Data Experts Could Help the Service Reverse Its Recruiting Slump The autopsy also concluded that she had gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB, in her system and a blood alcohol content of 0.161. GHB is commonly used as a street drug, can cause memory loss and drowsiness, and has been used in sexual assaults, giving it a reputation as a "date rape" drug. A native of the Dallas suburb of Mesquite, Texas, Duenas Aguilar enlisted into the Army in 2018 as an information technology specialist and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division's Combat Aviation Brigade. In total, a $55,000 reward has been offered for information that could lead to the arrest of her killer. Part of the reward is backed by her mother, Carmen Aguilar, and $30,000 of it came from the League of United Latin American Citizens, according to a press release from the group in May. Duenas Aguilar was set to be removed from the service in early May after using marijuana. But due to her good behavior, solid performance and her wanting to continue her service, she was allowed to stay in, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. Soldiers may be removed for minor drug infractions, but allowing them to stay is often seen as a sign of exceptional behavior and service. Duenas Aguilar was buried in May with military honors at a funeral near Dallas. During her service in the Army, Duenas Aguilar earned two Army Achievement Medals, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. Fort Campbell sits on the Kentucky-Tennessee border and is home to the prestigious 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), including some 30,000 soldiers. It's among the most high-profile installations in the Army's portfolio. Law enforcement is asking anyone with information about Duenas Aguilar's death to contact the Clarksville Police Department at 931-648-0656. The anonymous tip line is 931-645-8477. Tips can also be submitted online at this link. Related: 'I Am Vanessa Guillen' Is a Damning Indictment of Fort Hood Culture BELMAR - An Avon man was arrested Thursday morning after driving a block down the boardwalk while possibly intoxicated, according to police. Around 9:16 a.m., Belmar Police responded to a report of a motor vehicle crash near Second and Ocean avenues, police said. It was reported that the vehicle was traveling north in the southbound lane when it crashed with another vehicle. The vehicle then accelerated, causing it to crash through the handrailing on the boardwalk at Third and Ocean avenues. The vehicle continued to travel down the boardwalk for approximately one block and drove off near Second and Ocean avenues where it stopped, police said. Belmar news: After eight-year lawsuit, Boathouse owners fight off foreclosure and $4M debt The drivers of both vehicles were taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, according to Belmar police. The accused driver, Jason Nagy, 44, was arrested prior to being taken to the hospital for suspicion of driving while intoxicated, along with other charges. Police said no other injuries were reported. Jenna Calderon covers breaking news and cold cases in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Before coming to the Press, she covered The Queen City for Cincinnati Magazine in Ohio. Contact her at 330-590-3903; jcalderon@gannettnj.com This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Avon man arrested after driving one block down Belmar boardwalk Democratic strategist David Axelrod wrote on social media after President Bidens Thursday night press conference that his odds of winning the presidential race this fall are very very slim. Axelrod said Bidens team has not been very candid with the president after Biden at the presser said no poll or person is telling him he cannot win in November. If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Bidens team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim, Axelrod wrote on the social platform X. Axelrod and other ex-aides to former President Obama have been very critical of Biden since his debate performance at the end of June. The Obama strategist has repeatedly signaled he believes Democrats would have a better chance of defeating Trump without Biden at the top of the ticket. The latest comments from Axelrod came moments after Biden concluded a press conference following the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. At one point, the president was pressed on whether he would drop out if he saw data that Vice President Harris would do better in the election than him. A poll from Bendixen & Amandi Inc., a top Democratic pollster, this week showed Harris beat Trump by 1 point, 42 percent to 41 percent, while Biden fell 1 point behind him. Not unless they came back and said theres no way you can win, he said. Me no ones saying it, no poll says that. Bidens team argued to Democratic senators Thursday that his path to winning reelection runs through Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and that he can beat Trump in those states while holding on to most of the other states he won in 2020. But Biden has been trailing Trump in those three states, and other polls have shown Biden falling behind Trump in battlegrounds since the debate. Biden spent much of the press conference defending his viability to remain the partys nominee and remained adamant he was the best man to go against Trump. I believe Im the best qualified to govern, Biden said And I think Im the best qualified to win. But there are other people who could beat Trump, too. But its all start from scratch. And you know, we talk about money raised. Were not doing bad. More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers have publicly urged him to withdraw, though Biden dismissed their concerns Thursday, saying it was not unusual for lawmakers to worry about the top of 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 The Hill. This photo taken on July 13, 2024 shows cars at a China's automaker Chery sales point in Istanbul, Turkiye. China's automaker Chery emerged as the best-selling brand in the Turkish market during the first half of 2024, having sold 34,501 cars during the period, a report by the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association has shown. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) ISTANBUL, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China's automaker Chery emerged as the best-selling brand in the Turkish market during the first half of 2024, having sold 34,501 cars during the period, a report by the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association has shown. Following closely behind, Germany's Volkswagen claimed the second spot with 30,680 units sold. June alone saw Chery achieve a sales figure of 7,511 vehicles, out of a total of 61,972 imported cars, highlighting its strong market presence. Semih Eryukseldi, an industry veteran with nearly 15 years of experience in the automobile sector in Istanbul, highlighted to Xinhua on Friday the growing appeal of Chery's cars among Turkish customers. He noted that Chery vehicles stand out for their affordability, high quality, and performance. According to Eryukseldi, showrooms offering the Chery brand consistently draw large crowds of Turkish buyers, a trend supported by recent figures indicating a surge in interest. The data also revealed that Turkiye's automotive sales between January and June period saw a 7.3 percent increase year-on-year, with a sales figure reaching 462,955 cars, including both domestically produced and imported vehicles. The association, which represents 31 members and 52 international brands, highlighted SUVs as the most preferred vehicle type, constituting 54.8 percent of total sales, with 253,667 units sold in the Turkish market during the first half of 2024. This photo taken on July 13, 2024 shows a China's automaker Chery sales point in Istanbul, Turkiye. China's automaker Chery emerged as the best-selling brand in the Turkish market during the first half of 2024, having sold 34,501 cars during the period, a report by the Automotive Distributors and Mobility Association has shown. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) Lake Havasu, seen on a cooler evening in the spring of 2022, was under an excessive heat warning on July 5, when a 4-month-old girl died after a boating excursion. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) The Sheriff's Office in Mohave County, Ariz., is investigating the death of a baby girl earlier this month after her parents took her boating in 120-degree heat. The 4-month-old fell unconscious shortly after 5 p.m. July 5 while on a boat on Lake Havasu a reservoir straddling the state line between Mohave County and California's San Bernardino County, the department said in a statement. The infant was taken to Havasu Regional Medical Center in Lake Havasu City to be treated for heat-related illness, and was pronounced dead after she was transferred to Phoenix Childrens Hospital, the department said. Read more: Temperature records shattered across the West as intense heat wave drags on Mohave sheriff's officials did not name the parents or the child, but a spokesperson for the city of Riverside confirmed to The Times that the father was Matthew Wroblewski, a detective with the Riverside Police Department. A GoFundMe account identified the mother as Alyssa Wroblewski and the girl as Tanna Rae. Alyssa Wroblewski did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Read more: 'Unprecedented' heat wave in California brings death, fires, all-time highs The infant's death occurred amid an excessive heat warning in Mohave County. Temperatures around Lake Havasu regularly soar well into the triple digits in the summer, and reached 120 degrees on July 5, according to National Weather Service data. Last year, more than 4,426 people went to emergency rooms in the state for heat-related illnesses, including 215 people in Mohave County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. "One of our employees and his family suffered the unimaginable loss of their daughter recently," the Riverside Police Department said in a statement late Thursday, "and all of us at the Police Department mourn with them." The recent heat wave also claimed the life of a 2-year-old girl in Marana, Ariz., southeast of Phoenix, after her father left her sleeping in a car with the air conditioning on while he ran inside the house, according to the Marana Police Department. The vehicle, police said, stopped running at some point. The GoFundMe post for the Wroblewskis said they were enjoying a day on the lake when Tanna lost consciousness. Her parents tried to resuscitate her before a Lake Havasu City Fire Department crew arrived. Our precious baby girl gave us her last smiles and we gave her our last kisses, the post read. We will never understand why you had to leave so soon, you were just too perfect. Read more: Is relentless California heat wave finally ending? Slight cooling on tap for weekend The GoFundMe account included photos of the family, including one of baby Tanna smiling widely and dressed in a monster-truck onesie, a bow on her head. Shortly after the child's death, Alyssa Wroblewski posted a tribute to her on Facebook, according to the "Today" show. These are the last photos I took of you before you left us, Wroblewski wrote in the July 8 post. Your smile radiated joy. ... I never thought there would be a day in my life without you. Wroblewski said the family was struggling to make sense of what happened that day. The July 8 post has since been made private or taken down. Some Facebook users had criticized Wroblewski and her husband for taking the infant boating amid such high temperatures, according to KSLA News 12. 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. How bad is the COVID surge happening now in Palm Beach County? Why we can't say Palm Beach County is experiencing another big summer surge of COVID-19 infections, the latest sewage data shows, and it's unclear how harsh or deadly it is because of lack of data reporting. Coronavirus counts in northern Palm Beach County sewage more than quadrupled between the beginning of June and July 1, the latest testing from the Jupiter-area Loxahatchee River District shows. Samples tested July 1 had about 293 viral particles per milligram of sewage, up from about 62 per milligram June 3. The WastewaterSCAN initiative conducted those tests. Testing from another laboratory, Biobot Analytics, confirm COVID's spread in county sewage. It found 856 coronavirus particles per milliliter of wastewater in samples collected July 1, up from 388 per milliliter June 3. COVID fraud case: West Palm woman paid rent, electric and food bills from bogus pay stubs How severe are recent COVID infections? Why we don't know Viral counts haven't been this high since this past winter or last summer. But if infections countywide and statewide are more severe compared with previous waves, residents have no way of knowing from government health agencies that once provided daily or weekly data. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May dropped its requirement that hospitals nationwide report COVID-positive patient counts, emergency room COVID admissions and other data regularly to the federal health agency. The state-run Palm Beach County Department of Health did not respond as of Wednesday afternoon to a request for hospitalization information in the county. Google searches: The most COVID concern is in the Treasure Coast, Palm Beach County Dr. Larry Bush, infectious disease specialist, at his office in 2014. Wellington Regional Medical Center infectious disease specialist Dr. Larry Bush said most COVID patients he has seen have been elderly, with underlying heart or lung diseases, but don't have severe infections like people did a year or two ago. "I haven't had anyone on a ventilator in awhile," he said. "I'm certainly not seeing anyone who is healthy winding up with severe disease in quite awhile." Even with lack of official data, Google search statistics reveal that Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast residents are the Floridians who are most concerned about the disease. Searches for the phrase "covid symptoms" doubled between June 26 and Tuesday in the Palm Beach County to Fort Pierce area, Google data shows. Google does not report the number of searches, but shows that number relative to June 26. In Florida, the phrase "covid symptoms" is searched in Google the most in the Palm Beach County-Treasure Coast region, the search engine's data shows. The newest COVID vaccines will be available in the fall. Availability dates have not been announced for the Moderna, Pfizer or Novavax shots. The CDC recommended on June 27 that everyone ages 6 months or older get the shots. The vaccines will be available once again in pharmacies across Palm Beach County, Florida and the nation. Anyone whose health insurance plan does not fully cover the cost of immunization can still get a shot for free through the federal government's Bridge Access Program. Go online to Vaccines.gov, click or tap the "Find COVID-19 Vaccines" button, select the shots you seek, enter your ZIP code, click or tap the "search" button and on the list of vaccine locations, tick the "Bridge Access Program" checkbox. The program ends in August. The CDC recommends that anyone infected by COVID stay home and away from others until at least 24 hours after both their symptoms are getting better and, if they are not taking fever-inducing medicine, they have had no fever. Chris Persaud is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at cpersaud@pbpost.com. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: How bad is the summer 2024 COVID surge in Palm Beach County? The Pacific is set to shift from its warmer El Nino phase to its cooler La Nina phase in late summer or early fall, U.S. officials say, likely bringing an end to a long stretch of unprecedented warmth. The world has seen 13 consecutive months of record-breaking heat, according to the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service. The last 12 of those months have measured 1.5 degrees C warmer than the preindustrial era, meaning the world has at least temporarily surpassed the temperature target set forth in the Paris Agreement. The monthly global temperature deviation from the preindustrial average. Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate, said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo. How much of a shift is not entirely certain, however, as the record heat is being driven both by warming and by El Nino, which ended in June. Scientists say the conclusion of El Nino will help clarify the role of climate change. As we head into La Nina now, we will see the anomalous short-term spike of the past year disappear, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann told Inside Climate News. What will remain is the steady long-term warming that will continue as long as human-generated carbon emissions continue. Thats what the focus should be on. There is a 70 percent chance that La Nina takes shape between August and October, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. It appears that the heat is already beginning to abate. Global temperatures have finally started falling over the past few weeks, tweeted Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the research group Berkeley Earth. July is currently on track to be the first month since June 2023 to not set a new monthly global temperature record. ALSO ON YALE E360 Nations Are Undercounting Emissions, Putting UN Goals at Risk BALTIMORE Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and the City Council filed a lawsuit aiming to remove the Baby Bonus from the ballot, according to a Thursday filing in Baltimore Circuit Court. The bonus, a $1,000 payment to city residents following the birth or adoption of a child, was designed to combat child poverty in the city. The initiative, started by the Maryland Child Alliance, a group of educational professionals, garnered 14,000 signatures from city voters and was certified by the Board of Elections to be on the ballot July 1, the Baby Bonus organizers wrote in a social media post. A spokesperson for the mayors office said the city views the referendum as unlawful and an overreach of the residents authority in the governance process because it too closely resembled city legislation. While Mayor Scott is supportive of the proposed amendments objectives, charter amendments that effectively commandeer the role of the legislature go against Maryland law and the Citys charter, the statement read. The statement compared the baby bonus to the citys guaranteed income pilot program which offers $1,000 monthly cash assistance to qualifying Baltimore parents. Participants of this program are ages 18 to 24 and receive an income at or below 300% of the federal poverty level about $69,000 for a three-person household. At the local level we currently dont have the resources to make that type of support permanent, the statement said. Were advocating for the federal government to look at the success of guaranteed income pilots like ours to make it possible for more Americans. Baby Bonus organizers were informed of the Scott and the councils lawsuit Thursday, they said. Scott has frequently talked about the need to provide income support to families, the post read. Hes now outright rejecting it. The ballot referendum was structured in the image of Baltimores Children and Youth Fund, and would cost the city at least $7 million annually to make $1,000 payments to the roughly 7,000 families who welcome a child each year. It would not have an income or age qualification, unlike the guaranteed income pilot program. If the case were to be rejected and the voters were to pass the referendum, it would be up to the Baltimore City Council and the mayor to figure out where to get the money. City ballot measures almost always pass. Voters in Baltimore havent rejected a ballot question since 2004 when they were asked to lower the age requirement to serve on the Baltimore City Council. The attempt to remove us from the ballot is a grave disservice to Baltimores families and children, the organizers said in the post. We are fully confident that the courts will reject this attack on democracy. ------- Rudy Giulianis financial woes went from bad to worse on Friday when a federal bankruptcy judge threw out the case after he hid his assets, opening the former mayor up to his creditors potentially seizing what little he still owns. The record in this case reflects Mr. Giulianis continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession, Southern District of New York Judge Sean Lane wrote in his decision. The Court finds that dismissal of this bankruptcy case with a one year bar to refiling is in the best interests of creditors. Giuliani has been on the hook for $148 million after he defamed two Georgia election workers during the 2020 election, claiming they were illegally tabulating votes in favor of Joe Biden as well as using crack cocaine and heroin. Lawyers for his creditors had asked the judge to toss the bankruptcy case, and had even floated the idea of jail time, arguing that Giuliani was hiding assets and using the case as a pause button on his woes while he continues to live his life unbothered by creditors. Lane agreed that Giuliani is hiding his assets, writing in the decision, Mr. Giuliani has not fully met his obligation to file certain schedules and lists detailing his financial condition, including a list of creditors, a schedule of assets and liabilities, a statement of current income and current expenditures, and a statement of financial affairs. In particular, Giuliani did not disclose to the court that he had an upcoming book deal. Mr. Giulianis initial schedules list no executory contracts, Mr. Giuliani in fact has a contract for an upcoming book; this information was only belatedly included in the schedules in February 2024, Lane wrote. Giuliani also did not disclose to the court, nor his attorneys, that he was promoting Rudy Coffee, his coffee brand. The Committee learned through media reports that Mr. Giuliani was promoting a coffee brand, a fact about which Mr. Giulianis counsel was purportedly unaware, Lane added. The court added that Giuliani did not submit any of his operating filings on time either. A debtor in possession is obligated to file monthly operating reports that include information about the case and certain financial transactions and keep a record of receipts and the disposition of money and property received... Every single monthly operating report filed by Mr. Giuliani has been untimely, the court added. In a statement on Friday, Giulianis spokesperson said he was denied the ability to appeal the grossly unfair $148 million judgement in Washington, D.C. during this proceeding. This whole bankruptcy case was burdened with many of the same voluminous and overly broad discover requests and other actionsincluding regular leaks of informationintended to harm the mayor and destroy his businesses, he said. It is yet another example of the effort to punish Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the person most responsible for exposing Hunter Bidens laptop and to deter anyone else from asking questions or getting to the truth. Aside from the defamation payout, Giuliani is also on the hook for $3.7 million in legal fees and a million dollars in taxes, according to The Washington Post. He is also fighting a $10 million lawsuit from Noelle Dunphy, one of his former employees, who accused him of sexual assault and harassment. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. A former Baptist Hospital employee was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly sexually assaulted a juvenile patient in the bathroom. Escambia County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested 26-year-old Tariq Smith on one count of sexual battery on a person older than 12 but younger than 18, a first-degree felony. According to Smith's arrest report, he was one of the employees working with the juvenile while she was housed at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola. While there, the juvenile told law enforcement she began flirting with Smith. "(She) stated she flirts with all the nursing staff, male and female," the report says. "(She) stated she approached Tariq and told him that she would treat him better than his current girlfriend and offered to exchange Snapchat names." The girl told law enforcement she was "shocked" that Smith "showed interest in the idea" and they traded Snapchat usernames. Later, on June 30, Smith helped the girl to the bathroom for her to shower. Cold case: Will Pensacola ever bring slain sailor Tyler Jefferson and family justice for 2009 murder? After helping her to the shower, the report says Smith asked her for a hug, to which she obliged. They then began kissing each other, according to the report. Smith then left and the girl took a shower. "He then comes back and opens the door where (she's) wearing a towel," the report says. "He pulls her towel down and stares at her naked body." Smith and the girl allegedly began kissing again, at which point he assaulted her, the report says. Footage collected from Baptist Hospital appears to show Smith escort the girl to a "secluded hallway, devoid of other patients or staff" where they can be seen embracing. "Although the footage does not show the actual kissing or alleged rape due to Smith stepping into the shower room, the body language of Smith that is observable is indicative of sexual intentions," the report says. Baptist Hospital fired Smith after viewing the footage and before they contacted law enforcement, according to the report. Smith denied touching the victim during the exit interview. The deputy assigned to the case asked Smith's former manager if it's standard practice for male employees to escort female patients to the showers, to which the manager replied that it's normal. "Smith's manager stated that it is normal for male staff to escort female juvenile patients to the shower and to do regular checkups on them throughout the course of the shower," the report says. "However, management stated that the time intervals are a minimum of 15 minutes and that staff is required to attempt to talk to them through the door." If verbal contact cannot be made through the door, according to the manager, staff are permitted to enter to confirm the safety of the juvenile. Smith remains in Escambia County Jail without bond and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of his charge. He is scheduled for a pretrial detention hearing July 16. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Baptist Hospital worker allegedly sexually assaults juvenile in shower (KRON) A man who previously worked as a swim teacher around the Bay Area was arrested on Thursday in a child sexual assault case, the Berkeley Police Department announced. Berkeley PD detectives with the Youth Services division began investigating after several parents last week brought forward concerns surrounding their childrens interactions with the suspect, 25-year-old Tyler Livingston. An investigation was initiated in order to prevent any further victimizations, police said. On Thursday, detectives executed search and arrest warrants at an address associated with the suspect. Oakland man with peculiar to-do list arrested During the operation, Livingston, who had an active outstanding warrant for sexual assault, was taken into custody without incident by Berkeley police in Emeryville. The investigation into this case remains ongoing and police say they recognize there may be more victims that have not yet come forward. Livingston, according to police, has worked as a swim instructor and may have spent some time as a substitute teacher. The Berkeley Police Department is encouraging victims and their families to come forward. 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. A beachgoer who was swept 80 kilometers (50 miles) out to sea in a floating ring has been rescued off Japans east coast some 36 hours after she went missing, authorities said. The Chinese woman, aged in her 20s, was saved by two tanker crew members, who dived into the water to rescue her as she drifted off a peninsula south of Tokyo on Wednesday morning, the Japan Coast Guard told CNN. She had been spotted earlier by a cargo ship crew, which radioed the tanker for help, the coast guard added. The coast guard flew the woman by helicopter to the city of Yokohama, where she was taken to the hospital for assessment following her overnight ordeal. She is dehydrated, but her consciousness is clear and she is not in a life-threatening condition. There is no need for hospitalization, the coast guard said. The coast guard launched a search for the woman after she went missing from a beach in Shimoda city, Shizuoka prefecture, at about 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Japans public broadcaster NHK reported. About 30 minutes after entering the water, the woman realized she was drifting and was unable to return to the beach, she told officials, according to NHK. Authorities said the woman was likely swept away by currents and moderately strong winds, NHK reported. Japan, a nation of more than 6,000 islands, is home to some of Asias most beautiful beaches and they are especially popular with tourists looking to cool off during the sizzling summer months. But not every day at the beach passes without incident. In 2019, more than 500 people were rescued in the country following accidents at the beach, according to the Japan Coast Guards most recent statistics. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The ongoing 12th National Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities of China is being held in Zhaosu County, Xinjiang. Participants from various ethnic groups are showcasing high-difficulty horseback riding skills, drawing waves of amazement from the audience. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greets Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as hes introduced during the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Editors note: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy is participating in todays National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City. Deseret News will have coverage of the event throughout the day. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described his countrys ongoing war as one of the most transparent battles between good and evil in our time during a brief speech Friday at the National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City. There are different wars in the world, but this is a war where its absolutely clear what is good and what boundaries evil crosses. This is one of the most transparent battles between good and evil of our time. Its clear that Ukraine has nothing wrong before God and people, he said. Ukraine, he said, suffers because of Russias criminal acts and unprovoked aggression. Evil must always, always lose, he said. During the 10-minute speech, Zelenskyy received repeated standing ovations from the governors, the delegates and the capacity standing room-only crowd at the ballroom of the Grand America. While in Utah, Zelenskyy met with both Democratic and Republican governors attending the conference, Utah elected officials, business executives and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During a private meeting, the Ukrainian president spoke with a church delegation led by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They discussed the churchs presence in Ukraine and humanitarian assistance throughout the region, said Irene Caso, church spokesperson. Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, who led a trade and humanitarian mission to Ukraine in May 2023, including a meeting with Zelenskyy said, the Ukrainian president and state leaders engaged in constructive discussions, focused on enhancing collaboration across humanitarian efforts, business and trade for the mutual benefit of Utah and Ukraine. In his speech, the Zelenskyy thanked Americans for their support and reiterated what he has said many times, that Ukraine does need the United States and other countries to fight for it. We do not ask for your boots on the ground, he said. Ukraine only seeks air defense systems for its cities, weapons for men and women on the front line and support in protecting normal life and rebuilding, he said. This is all we need to withstand and drive Russia from our land. And to send a strong signal to all other potential aggressors, which are watching, Zelenksyy said. To ensure the true victory of good, your voice each governor, each community leader, each heart is crucial. In introducing Zelenskyy, Cox also talked about good and evil. He said its sometimes its hard to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in world conflicts. This is not one of those times, the governor said, receiving the first of what would be several resounding standing ovations in the room for Cox and Zelenskyy. Cox said Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, both of whom he said he spent time with Thursday, are good people thrown into an impossible task. Lesser people, he said, would have fled the country. This man and this woman did not do that, Cox said. They stood up to evil and their country rallied around them. Why is President Zelenskyy in Utah? The honorary consul of Ukraine in Utah sprang into action when he and the governors office learned three weeks ago that Zelenksyy would be in Washington, D.C., on July 10-11 for the NATO summit. Jonathan Freedman, who has served as honorary consul since 2008, contacted Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Markarova in Washington and suggested Zelenskyy should come to Salt Lake City afterward to attend the National Governors Association summer meeting at the Grand America. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox chairs the organization. He was committed in Europe, he had firm commitments and they said it was impossible, said Freedman, president and CEO of World Trade Center Utah. Cox extended a formal invitation from the governors association to the ambassador for Zelenskyy to come and that really set things in motion, Freedman said. Over the last three weeks, what was a long shot increasingly became more and more likely until on July 4 that it was confirmed. Zelenskyy, who has not traveled in the United States outside Washington, D.C., New York and California, arrived Thursday night and will spend most of Friday in Utah. Along with his wife Olena Zelenska, 35 high-ranking Ukrainian government officials accompanied him. Freedman, who received the Ukrainian Order of Merit award from Zelenskyy last year, said it was unbelievable that he accepted the invitation. Its a very impressive delegation this week in Washington, D.C., and theyre adding this stop in Salt Lake City, he said. Had we gotten one of these members of the delegation, we would have been thrilled. To have them all is outstanding. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gestures to the crowd as hes introduced during the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News What Zelenskyy will do in Salt Lake City Zelenskyy is scheduled Friday to meet privately with members of Utahs congressional delegation and governors attending the NGA conference. He will also speak to conference participants in an open session. I anticipate that he will talk about the current plight of Ukrainian people which continues to grow more dire every day, Freedman said, noting Russia bombed a large childrens hospital in Kyiv, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries. On Thursday, Biden announced a new military aid package for Ukraine and told Zelenskyy: We will stay with you, period, The Associated Press reported. The Ukrainian leader also pushed for the help to arrive faster and for restrictions to be lifted on the use of U.S. weapons to attack military targets inside Russia. If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations, Zelenskyy said, standing alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the close of the NATO summit. Biden was asked about the restrictions again hours later in a press conference with reporters. He said, The question is, what is the best use of the weaponry (Zelenskyy) has? I got him more long-range capacity, as well as defensive capacity. Im following the advice of the chief of staff of the military, the secretary of defense, and my intelligence people, and were making a day to day basis on how far they should go in. Thats a logical thing to do. On Friday, Zelenskyy will witness Cox and Markarova signing a sister-state relationship between Utah and Kyiv Oblast, the Ukrainian province surrounding the capital city of Kyiv. Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz will also be there. Markarova attended the One Utah Summit, Coxs gathering of business leaders designed to celebrate Utahs achievements, provide an economic update, and connect the states government and business community, in April. That is significant as we have very few sister-state relationships. Its a strong statement of support, Freedman said. Also Friday, Freedman said, Ukraines first lady will meet with Utah philanthropists to raise funds and humanitarian aid for the countrys most pressing causes, specifically to help vulnerable children. Zelenskas priorities include housing orphaned children, providing schools with laptops and other supplies and nutrition. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes hands with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as hes introduced during the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Utahns in Ukraine Utah has strong ties with Ukraine going back many years. We have phenomenal organizations in our state that are doing meaningful work in Ukraine, said Freedman. They include To Ukraine with Love, August Mission and the Stirling Foundation. In May 2023, Adams, R-Layton, led a 30-person trade and humanitarian delegation, including state Rep. Jordan Teuscher, Craig Buttars, commissioner of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, Freedman and business leaders, to Ukraine. According to World Trade Center Utah, the mission had three goals: Foster a deeper relationship with Ukraine during its darkest time of need. Provide ground support in partnership with August Mission. Explore business opportunities in aerospace and defense, technology and agricultural sectors. During the trip, Adams, Freedman and other members of Utah group had an 80-minute meeting with Zelenskyy. The meeting focused on opportunities for Utah to help the war-torn country, particularly in the area of energy technologies and in agriculture security. The Ukrainian leader told the group that Ukraine was seeking partnerships, not handouts. Teuscher, R-South Jordan, described the mission as a great success, resulting in hundreds of connections and opportunities. It is fitting to have President Zelenskyy come here. Utah has connected with Ukraine in ways that are unparalleled in the country. Thousands of Utahns have volunteered or donated to support Ukraine. Utah businesses have partnered with Ukrainian companies, and our nonprofits are building homes, schools, and hospitals in Ukraine, Teuscher posted Thursday on X. He added that he hopes Zelenskyys visit is fruitful in securing continued support for Ukraine, ensuring they receive the tools needed to win. Utah showed enormous support for Ukraine immediately after the Russian invasion in February 2022. State officials bathed the capitol building in blue and yellow light and raised the Ukrainian flag, the first time a foreign flag was over the statehouse. It was a tremendous show of support and what I would encourage Utahns to do is to continue that support, Freedman said. Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom, for their lives, for their families, for their land. This is a worthy, righteous cause. They are fighting against a great evil. We believe in democracy. We believe in all these ideals, he said, adding Utah was founded by religious refugees. Its literally in our DNA to stand up and support those that are being terribly afflicted by such a great evil. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy honored Jonathan Freedman, CEO of World Trade Center Utah, on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023 in Washington D.C. with the Ukrainian Order of Merit award. | Youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour Belarus joins the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by Russia and China, aiming for political legitimacy and developing anti-sanction measures. Chinese and Belarusian militaries conduct joint drills near NATO and Ukraine borders. Dictator Alexander Lukashenko releases 18 political prisoners while adding 17 more to the list. Subscribe to the Newsletter Belarus Weekly Join us Jailed son of former Belarusian presidential candidate faces new trial for alleged disobedience in prison, risking extended sentence. The U.S. mission to OSCE says former Belarusian Ambassador Dzianis Sidarenka died under unclear and disturbing circumstances. Belarus joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by Russia, China Belarus on July 4 joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCO, a Eurasian political, economic and defense organization led by Russia and China, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported, citing Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Tokayev opened the second and final day of the SCOs Astana summit by signing the documents to admit Belarus as the organizations 10th member. In a short period (Belarus) has executed all necessary proceedings on its way to full-fledged membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tokayev said when welcoming Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko to the summit. Lukashenko outlined four core aims of Belaruss membership in the organization, including working for international and food security, bolstering the economy, and burnishing the organizations image worldwide. He reiterated his anti-western stance, declaring there was a need to destroy the unipolar world and build genuine and indivisible global security, which he said was something that the narcissistic, selfish West was incapable of achieving. Lukashenkos press service said he met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Lukashenko on the SCO summits sidelines, and expressed concern about the human rights situation in Belarus. Guterres said he hoped that the recent release of some political prisoners would develop into full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus. In an interview with Kazakh news agency Kazinform, Lukashenko said Belarus was ready to consistently implement anti-sanctions measures together with other SCO member states. The SCO is an intergovernmental organization established by China and Russia in 2001 in Shanghai. Emerging from the Shanghai Five an organization launched by Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in 1996 to counter the spread of terrorism, separatism, and extremism in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Belarus pursued SCO membership for nearly 15 years after becoming a partner state in 2010. It obtained observer status in 2015. Apart from Belarus, the organization includes China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It currently focuses on Eurasian political, economic, security, and defense issues. Read also: European allies ready to cut China investment over Russia backing, Biden says Today, the sprawling SCO has become a club for leaders of countries that are more or less comfortable communicating with each other, Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, writes. However, (the SCO) is unlikely to affect reality in any way no matter how much the participating countries want to convince the world otherwise. Belarusian political analysts point out that by joining the SCO, Lukashenko received much-wanted political legitimization while hoping to reduce his regimes economic dependency on Moscow. However, analysts do not expect Belarus to gain any significant boost to economic cooperation from its SCO membership. Chinese military holds joint drills in Belarus next to NATO, Ukraines borders The Chinese and Belarusian militaries are conducting joint anti-terrorist training at the Brestskiy training range next to the border with Ukraine and Poland, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reported on July 8. According to the ministry, the joint force was practicing overcoming water obstacles and conducting operations in a populated area, as well as airborne training. The Brestskiy training range is located 2.8 kilometers from Belaruss border with Poland, a NATO member state, and 28 kilometers away from the Ukrainian border. A group of Chinese army personnel arrived in Belarus on July 6 for the Attacking Falcon exercises, which reportedly aim to exchange experience, coordinate Belarusian and Chinese units, and create a foundation for the further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops, said the Belarusian Defense Ministry. The exercises are scheduled to be held on July 8-19. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states leaders' summit in Astana on July 4, 2024. (Sergei Savostyanov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Belarusian Hajun, a monitoring group that tracks the movement of Russian troops in Belarus, notes that the Attacking Falcon exercises are the latest in a series of Belarusian-Chinese military exercises, with the previous ones being held in Jinan, in Chinas Shandong Province, in 2018. The news of the joint exercises came days after Belarus, a key ally of Moscow, joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCO, which is led by China and Russia. The SCO is focused primarily on political, economic, and security issues. Although China officially maintains a neutral stance on Russias full-scale war in Ukraine and denies providing lethal aid to Moscow, Beijing and Moscow continue to strengthen their ties. Read also: Chinese military personnel arrive in Belarus for joint exercises Viasna: 18 political prisoners released after Lukashenkos announcement, but another 1,400 remain behind bars Eighteen political prisoners were released in Belarus on July 3 by order of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko ahead of the countrys official Independence Day celebrations, the Viasna Center for Human Rights reported on July 5. Human rights advocates report that a total of four women and 14 men were released. Among them was Ryhor Kastusiou, the leader of the pro-democracy Belarusian Popular Front party. The 67-year-old Kastusiou, who had been sentenced to 10 years for the alleged conspiracy to seize power, was diagnosed with cancer in detention. He spent three years behind bars with deteriorating health without receiving the appropriate medical care. Viasna did not disclose the names of the other released political prisoners, saying this was to prevent the former prisoners from suffering further persecution. Viasna said several other political prisoners were not released because they had refused to sign a request for a pardon. Speaking on July 2, on the eve of Belarus official Independence Day celebration, Lukashenko, who excluded those convicted on political grounds from two earlier rounds of prisoner amnesties, suddenly announced that political prisoners suffering from severe diseases could be released. Dont be surprised if in a few days very seriously ill people, ours as they (the opponents of the regime) call them, the ones who didnt manage to escape (from the country) and are in places not so remote (in detention), who were breaking and destroying (things), will be released, Russias TASS state news agency quoted Lukashenko as saying. Andrei Stryzhak, the head of the BYSOL Solidarity Foundation, an organization that fundraises for political prisoners and urgent evacuations from Belarus, said that the most elderly and sick political prisoners had been released. Furthermore, according to Stryzhak, five of the released prisoners would have been released anyway within a month as their sentences were coming to an end, and three more prisoners were set to be released in less than a year. This (sudden release) does not indicate serious or strategic changes in the human rights situation in Belarus, Viasna Human Rights activist Pavel Sapelka. The United States and the European Union welcomed the release of some Belarusian political prisoners, but still called for the unconditional release of all of them. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Smith said, We welcome the news that some of Belarus most vulnerable political prisoners have been freed. Meanwhile, European Union foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said the European Union noted the move, and was relieved by the news that (the political prisoners) were finally reunited with their families and loved ones. Earlier, Belarusian democratic leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya demanded the full and unconditional liberation of at least 200 individuals on a humanitarian list of political prisoners in Belarus, including ones with disabilities, serious illnesses, and the elderly. Their urgent release is not a political issue, but a humanitarian one, Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X. And even as Lukashenko released 18 Belarusians, 17 new individuals were added to the political prisoners list by Viasna. The total number of recognized political prisoners as of July 8 thus reached 1,420, but human rights advocates believe the actual number could be as high as 5,000. Jailed son of former presidential candidate put on trial again Eduard Babaryka, the jailed son of former Belarusian presidential candidate and political prisoner Viktar Babaryka, was put on trial again on July 9 for alleged malicious disobedience while in prison. If found guilty, the 35-year-old Babaryka faces a sentence of two years on top of the eight-year term he is already serving after being convicted of organizing mass disturbances, inciting hatred, and tax evasion. The Criminal Code of Belarus does not limit the number of charges of malicious disobedience that can be leveled against a prisoner, allowing a term behind bars to become virtually endless. Human rights activists in Belarus have recorded several cases of this particular charge being applied against 33 political prisoners, sometimes repeatedly. Eduard Babaryka headed his fathers election campaign in the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus. He was detained along with his father on June 18, 2020, while en route to file signatures in favor of Viktars presidential candidacy. The detention effectively took Babaryka out of the presidential race. Eduard Babaryka was convicted without the terms of his pre-trial detention 18 months being taken into account in the sentence. He dismissed the allegations as politically motivated and was declared as a political prisoner. In December 2023, he was branded by the courts as an extremist and terrorist. The Viasna Human Rights Center reports that the penal colony administration has been holding Babaryka in solitary confinement since April 1. His father, Viktar Babaryka, was considered one of Lukashenkos main political opponents during the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. He is currently serving a 14-year sentence in Belarus. On April 27, 2023, Viktar was hospitalized with a collapsed lung and traces of severe beating. He has since been held incommunicado for over a year. US mission to OSCE: Belarusian diplomat Sidarenka died under unclear and very disturbing circumstances Former Belarusian Ambassador to Germany Dzianis Sidarenka died on June 23 under circumstances that are unclear and very troubling, the U.S. Charge dAffaires to the OSCE Katherine Brucker said at the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on July 5. Brucker recalled meeting Sidarenka as a young diplomat on his inaugural assignment at the OSCE in the early 2000s. The U.S. Charge dAffaires said there were signs of torture on Sidarenkas body. He is alleged to have committed suicide. The 48-year-old Sidarenka spent the last eight years as Belarus ambassador to Germany until his dismissal from the post on March 11. The independent Belarusian media reported his death on June 26, on the day of his funeral. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of a former diplomat later that day without specifying the cause of death. While some media suggest Sidarenka died of a heart attack, others allege that he committed suicide after failing to pass polygraph testing administered by Belarus KGB security agency. As former Belarusian diplomats explain, diplomats have to undergo polygraph testing if they want to continue working in the Belarusian Foreign Ministry upon returning from a posting abroad. The circumstances of Denis Sidarenkas death are tragic and symbolize the criminal regime of Alexander Lukashenko, said Thomas Hacker, a German lawmaker. If the accusations against the KGB are true, the perpetrators should be put on the EU sanctions list. The Belarusian regime has frequently concealed information about the sudden deaths of its officials. In July 2023, the Western-sanctioned 46-year-old Belarusian Minister of Transport and Communications, Aleksey Avramenko, died suddenly, with no official cause of death being released. Less than a year earlier, Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei died unexpectedly in November 2022 at the age of 64. Lukashenko attended Makeis funeral but did not make any statement or comment about the cause of the ministers death. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A long-established burger stand in Fife recently traded hands, and its new operator is bringing changes, including card payments and extended hours, which he believes will improve the customer experience. Pick-Quick Drive In, 4306 Pacific Highway E., sold June 19 to an LLC representing Brad Herron and his family, who have operated the Pick-Quick sites in Auburn and Seattles SoDo since 2020. What wont change, Herron noted, is the food. Whats really important to us is that when the guests come here, they have exactly the same experience theyve had all those years, Brad Herron told The News Tribune in a phone interview Thursday. The burgers are the same. The shakes are the same. Everythings the same. The LLC involved in the purchase is also connected to an entity affiliated with Seattle-based Icon Inc., Pick-Quicks investor-partners. The site traded hands for just over $1 million, according to Pierce County records, sold by the Burgi Family Limited Partnership. Herron told The News Tribune the site essentially changed from one family operation to the next. They were ready to retire and sell the business, he said. And we ended up being the ones that purchased the business and the real estate here. He emphasized the family business aspect of their work. Were working on the grill. Were here every day, he said. Right now Im sitting here in Fife, and my wifes here with me, and were getting ready to open the store. And my sons on the way. Its similar to the Burgis, who owned it before, he added. Fife site history, development Pick-Quick has maintained its family ownership model since its creation, with help from outside investors. Jay Adolph and Henriette Olsen opened Pick-Quick in 1949, doling out hand-scooped ice cream cones, fresh-spun milkshakes, grilled burgers and hand-cut fries. It changed hands twice before Joe and Betty Burgi and another couple took over in 1980. The Burgis and their children continued to run the business, and in 2007 they partnered with Icon restaurant investment founder Gerard Centioli to develop the brand beyond Fife via Pick-Quick Development Co., eventually leading to the Auburn and SoDo sites operated by Herron and his wife, Janice. In 2020, the Herrons along with their two sons started Pick-Quick Operating Co., becoming the majority owner of the Auburn and SoDo sites with Pick-Quick Development before taking on the Fife site. Pick-Quick Drive In opened in 1949 in Fife. The Burgi family owned and operated it starting in 1980, but as of June 2024 sold to the operators of two other sites in Auburn and Seattle. Centioli, a native Seattelite who now lives in Edmonds, has worked in restaurant-business development for more than 40 years, expanding several brands beyond their original city limits, including Maggianos Little Italy and Corner Bakery. As an executive partner of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, one of the most influential restaurant groups in Chicago, he partnered with that companys founder to create Icon in 1999. Under the Icon umbrella, Centioli and his partners brought Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and Coffee to the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. They also carried the Miami-famous Joes Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab to downtown Chicago and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Concerns emerged several years ago about the Fife burger stands location in the path of one of three options under consideration for Sound Transits light rail expansion, known as the Tacoma Dome Link extension. Public pushback in 2019 included a Change.org petition against the route that would claim Pick-Quick, which gained more than 8,400 signatures at the time. No final route decision has been made. If the Pick-Quick site does go to make way for the rail line, it could be 2035, or later, before the line is actually up and running, according to Sound Transits project page. When asked about future sites, Herron noted that for now the focus is on the current location. Will we look for more locations? Yes, but we havent set a timeline for when were going to do that. Changes at Fife Pick-Quick Herron told The News Tribune on Thursday that he was set to make three significant changes aimed at broadening the Fife sites customer appeal. Were going to accept credit cards, he cited as the first change, already in effect as of early July. Second, Were not going to close at six oclock. Were going to go ahead and remain open until eight oclock, starting in the next few weeks, he said. The third change will appeal to Pick-Quick fans who miss it in the depths of winter. Throughout the years, this location was closed in December in January, he said. Were no longer going to do that. Were going to remain open so we can take care of our guests for those two months. The site might close earlier in the evening during that season, he added, but he felt the change would be good for continuity. It gives the opportunity for our guests to come in and still enjoy our products on those few months, he said. And it also gives our employees the opportunity to continue to work. Insurers in the Caribbean could find themselves facing at least a half-billion dollars in losses from Hurricane Beryls powerful winds and rainfall, which left a trail of destruction from Trinidad and Tobago to Texas. Karen Clark & Company, a catastrophe risk modeling company, estimates that private insurers in the eastern Caribbean and Jamaica are looking at close to a $510 million in losses as countries declare certain parishes disaster zones and hundreds of people remain in shelters and without electricity. The estimates are the first since Beryl tore through the Caribbean last week, becoming the strongest storm on record in June, before dying after making landfall in Texas as a Category 1. The specialists estimate that Beryl will cost insurers $2.7 billion in the United States and $90 million in Mexico, which was also affected. Governments in the Caribbean say assessments of Beryls damage are ongoing. Still, their initial reports have already indicated that the disaster will be costly. During a hearing Friday at the Organization of American States, Caribbean diplomats issued an urgent call for help. Small island states, they said, are vulnerable to climate change and they need more access to low-cost financing to help them dig themselves out from the devastation of ripped off rooftops, fallen power lines and downed buildings. After Antigua and Barbuda asked that a resolution on Addressing the impact of hurricane Beryl and strengthening climate resilience in the Americas be adopted by acclamation, Mexico seconded the request and received a round of applause in the chamber. The resolutions calls and endorsements are familiar asks that have been raised elsewhere, but yet to be adopted by wealthier nations or financial and development institutions. It includes a request for governments to take immediate and ambitious actions to curb hydrocarbon emissions and provide assistance to countries in the region affected by hurricanes and other climate-related disasters. The resolution also endorses calls for financial and development institutions to provide low-cost funding to affected countries. The resolution also supports a loss and damage fund, previously agreed upon in a United Nations climate conference, to help vulnerable countries rebuild and prepare for storms. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro said that the high cost of the damage caused by Beryl is beyond countries ability to pay. The damage caused by Hurricane Beryl is the latest proof of the staggering dangers brought by these natural disasters that threaten our livelihoods, Almagro said. Story continues Hurricane Beryl, he said, is yet another indication that the climate crisis is worsening and will continue to worsen if our countries do not act quickly to implement policies that will mitigate the effects of global warming on our societies. Almagro calle for the international community to help small islands deal with such storms and protect their infrastructure. At least seven people died in the region when Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou and battered the Windward islands between mainland Grenada and St. Vincent with 120 mph winds. Elizabeth Riley, the head of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, who has been touring badly hit areas, told regional journalists this week that the damage assessments are very much ongoing. But she confirmed initial reports by the prime ministers of both Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines that the devastation has left few buildings and houses standing on some of their islands. Their damage estimates have ranged from 95% loss of the housing stock on Petite Martinique to 98% in Union Island and Canouan. One hundred percent of the persons on Union island and Canouan have been impacted, Riley said, noting that even if one is among the lucky 2% to have a building that survived the harrowing hurricane, they are still affected by the disaster. Upon its formation in the Atlantic, Beryl quickly intensified to become a record-setting Category 4 storm. It then made its way through the eastern Caribbean, sinking boats in Barbados, downing trees on St. Vincent and flatting homes as it carved a trail of destruction through the Grenadines. At one point it grew into a Cat 5 hurricane packing 165 mph winds. Before arriving off the shores of Jamaica, it also pounded parts of Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola. Staying off the Jamaican coast, the storms heavy winds and floodwaters slammed the countrys rural southern parishes, leaving thousands without electricity and water. On Friday, residents in the parish of St. Mary, fed up with the slowness of the Jamaica Public Service in restoring power, took to the streets in protest. In recent years, Caribbean countries and others prone to climate-related disasters have tried to better protect themselves by signing up for catastrophe bonds. Unfortunately for Jamaica, a world leader in unique financial structures to help the island respond to hurricane damage, its brand new catastrophe bond wont be paying out anything for Beryls damage. Despite the fact that the at-one-time Category 5 hurricane was the strongest on record this early in the Caribbean, the $150 million catastrophe bond Jamaica planned to use to help recover cant be tapped because it only releases the money when certain parameters are met. In this case, the money was set to be released if the air pressure inside the hurricane dropped below a certain level. Switzerland-based Plenum Investments told bond investors that based on the central pressure data published by the National Hurricane Center, the air pressure required for a payout of the cat bond wasnt reached, Bloomberg reported. Jamaica renewed this particular bond in April, four years after it took it out for the first time. Its one piece of a $1.6 billion disaster safety net. Grenada, which was perhaps the hardest hit Caribbean nation, said it plans to ask creditors for a special deal to delay payments on its debts due to the hurricane, a clause it added in 2004 after Hurricane Ivan shattered the island. Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has not formally asked to trigger the debt provision but Grenada likely will soon, Now Grenada reported. As a new study suggests the toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS can pass through the skin at higher rates than previously thought, firefighters facing elevated rates of cancer are questioning Massachusetts lawmakers efforts on their behalf. This is beyond disgraceful, Diane Cotter, the wife of a Worcester firefighter knocked off the job by cancer, said of a response staff for House Speaker Ronald Mariano gave the Telegram & Gazette to questions about languishing legislation. Diane Cotter watches "Burned," a film that tells the story of Cotter's fight to expose PFAS in firefighting gear, on June 11, 2023, at The Hanover Theatre. Cotter, called a firefighters hero by the countrys largest fire union, has been pushing legislation since 2018 that would ban PFAS short for polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances from firefighting turnout gear. PFAS, which coat everything from nonstick pans to water- and heat-resistant clothing and personal care products, are increasingly raising alarm at the national level, with billions in lawsuits pending over increasing scientific links to cancer and other serious illness. A sweeping legislative task force in 2022 recommended a slew of regulations, including ones addressing PFAS in turnout gear, that ended up in a large omnibus PFAS bill. However, the State House News Service recently reported that neither of the bills top sponsors said the issue would be a priority ahead of the legislative sessions formal end on July 31. With time ticking, firefighters, including the head of the states largest fire union, would like to see PFAS banned from gear regardless of whether the larger bill passes a prospect the state's top two lawmakers declined to address. 'Falling behind in Massachusetts' On a warm evening in June 2023, hundreds piled into The Hanover Theatre for the premiere of a documentary, produced by actor Mark Ruffalo, that chronicled Cotters efforts to expose and battle the inclusion of PFAS in firefighter turnout gear. Cotter became suspicious of the gear as she eyed the degrading groin area of her husbands set after his prostate cancer diagnosis in 2015. She fought for years to prove PFAS was in the gear, experiencing retribution for her outspoken advocacy, including from the union. At a 2020 presentation, the International Association of Fire Fighters, the largest fire union in the country, gave a presentation in which a staff member said that PFAS in an inner layer of firefighting gear was unable to pass through the cell wall. Cotter publicly derided the statement as an industry talking point, and, as time wore on, the IAFF and its new president, Edward Kelly, came around to her views, reconciled with her and have partnered with her on advocacy. Cotter received more validation last month when, as reported by The Washington Post, a first-of-its-kind study found that PFAS can seep through human skin and enter the bloodstream. While prior studies had pointed to dermal absorption of the chemicals, the new study found it happens at higher rates than previously thought and is likely to serve as a catalyst for future research, Neil McMillan, director of science and research for the IAFF, told the T&G. Former Worcester Firefighter Lt. Paul Cotter with turnout gear behind him in a 2021 file photo. McMillan said the study supports concerns that the chemicals in firefighting gear are a significant source of exposure, and also has implications on a wide range of consumer products, from sunscreen to lipstick. Numerous firefighters told the T&G the study adds urgency to state lawmakers passing legislation to ban PFAS from firefighting gear, where it exists in far larger quantities than other textiles. Were falling behind in Massachusetts, Richard MacKinnon Jr., president of the states IAFF chapter, the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, said Tuesday. 'Where the sun wont shine' MacKinnon said about a dozen states, including several in New England, have passed legislation that would either ban PFAS or require protective gear that contains them to be labeled. The omnibus bill at the State House would tackle PFAS on a number of fronts, from costly measures aimed at protecting drinking water and consumers to a ban on turnout gear containing intentionally added PFAS by 2026. Paul Jacques, legislative agent for the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, said the bill, if passed as written, would be the strongest in the country to address the gear issue, as it would also require labeling by 2025. But a recent State House News Service story raised questions about whether the larger bill would pass by the end of the session, and the states two most powerful legislators did not answer questions on the topic posed to spokespeople. After a number of firefighters, including MacKinnon, told the T&G they couldnt see why the firefighting bill couldnt be passed as a standalone bill should the omnibus bill fail, the T&G asked Mariano in an email for his position on that. The bill is under review, spokesperson Ana Vivas responded via email, without clarifying which bill the omnibus bill or the standalone bills she was referencing. Vivas did not respond to a request for a more substantive response. Cotter opined that the response was a disgrace. Speaker Mariano has quite the gall to share this nothing burger as our firefighters absorb the known carcinogen daily while sweltering in this gear, she said, adding the speaker and Gov. Maura Healey of whom she has also been critical can take their photo ops with firefighters and shove them where the sun wont shine. Cotter has in the past criticized Healey as ignoring her pleas for action when she was attorney general, a time when union officials had yet to support Cotters advocacy. Cotter said Healey also hasnt reached out to her as governor. A spokesperson for Healey, in a statement that did not mention Cotter, said that she, as AG, worked closely with firefighters unions and loved ones during a process that led to her suing manufacturers of firefighting foam over PFAS that leached into drinking water. The spokesperson, Karissa Hand, noted that Healey as governor has supported a state program to take back PFAS-containing firefighting foam and properly dispose of it, and provided funding for equipment and screening programs to protect firefighters from occupational cancer. She remains deeply committed to first responders safety, as they work to protect us all, and strongly supports legislation to phase out PFAS in firefighting gear, Hand said. Cotter called the response a slap in the face to her nine years of activism and an attempt to sugarcoat what she described as Healeys sustained and politically motivated inaction. Cotter charged that the statement about working closely with loved ones of firefighters was a lie, saying she emailed Healeys office hundreds of times asking her to take on the issue of PFAS in turnout gear, to no avail. Hands statement did not address a query as to whether Healey would support standalone legislation on PFAS in firefighting gear if the omnibus bill fails. 'They have to have our backs' Jason Burns, a former union president for firefighters in Fall River, said he cant understand why lawmakers have not been able to get the legislation passed for three sessions. Jason Burns, a former fire union president in Fall River, holds up a piece of firefighting turnout gear made with PFAS chemicals in this 2021 photo. He said there doesnt seem to be any serious opposition among lawmakers to the idea. As MacKinnon noted at a recent legislative briefing on the topic, occupational cancer among the fire services is alarming; the IAFF says 72% of line-of-duty deaths among its members in 2023 were from occupational cancer. Firefighters in Boston recently buried a 32-year-old firefighter with six years on the job from occupational cancer. Burns said Fall River has three firefighters out with occupational cancer. He said he just fielded a call this week from a retiree who has been diagnosed a frequent occurrence. We signed up to run into burning buildings, Burns said, but not to be potentially sickened by turnout gear. They (lawmakers) have to have our backs. Burns, in the Ruffalo documentary, noted the anguish he felt upon discovering gear that was supposed to protect him could be sickening him. Im being told that people in labs labs are not allowed to touch my gear unless they are appropriately protected, he said, his voice cracking as he recalled how he used to drape his own children in it. Do you think I would have done that if I had (known that)? he asked. My God, no. Burns said lawmakers should split up the bills standalone if they cant get the larger bill passed. To me, this is a simple ask, he said. We dont want poisons in our gear. Sarah Blodgett, communications director for state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, did not return emails requesting comment. Sponsors 'hopeful' on omnibus bill Spokespeople for State Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, and State Rep. Kate Hogan, D-Stow, the lead sponsors of the omnibus bill, did not directly answer an email query about whether standalone bills would be a possibility should the larger effort fail. In a joint statement, the lawmakers said the study reported on by The Washington Post confirms findings discussed in a report they authored on PFAS in 2022 that PFAS is absorbed by humans in multiple ways, including through personal care products. It is why the bill we filed specifies phasing out PFAS in cosmetics and other consumer products. We remain hopeful that our bill passes this session. State Sen. Michael O. Moore, D-Millbury, and Rep. James K. Hawkins, D-Attleboro, who've sponsored standalone bills banning PFAS from turnout gear, told the T&G theyd back firefighters if the union requested a standalone bill to be passed. However, Moore did not appear optimistic that such a bid would work. Once bills like this get inserted into omnibus bills, thats generally the preferred method of passage, he noted, and popular aspects of large bills like helping firefighters are often included to balance out less popular elements. Moore said he was very discouraged that the firefighter legislation hasnt passed. Last June, after the premiere of "Burned," he told the T&G he was very confident it would pass this session. 'National problem without a solution' As the fate of legislation over turnout gear in Massachusetts is in limbo, so too is the larger question of what to replace it with, firefighters said. While Cotter and the IAFF have been fighting the inclusion of PFAS in firefighting gear, chemical companies have pushed back on their concerns, and the National Fire Protection Association, which sets technical parameters manufacturers follow, has yet to remove a controversial standard that has led to PFAS still being included. The IAFF has sued the association, accusing it of letting profit-driven industry concerns sway its judgment, allegations the association denies. With the standard still in place, fire union officials say theres little incentive for gear manufacturers to come up with alternatives. The IAFF is testing one set of gear advertised as PFAS-free, but there is not yet a widely accepted set of such gear ready for purchase, firefighters with whom the T&G spoke agreed. This is a national problem without a solution, said Adam Roche, Worcesters assistant fire chief. Roche said the department will advocate to spend the millions that will be needed to buy PFAS-free gear, but hasnt yet found a solution. He said departments need to be sure the gear is actually PFAS-free and also that it suits their needs for standards such as breathability the absence of which can pose acute health concerns. Tom Bowes, head of the firefighters union in Quincy, said his city has been very supportive of its firefighters and understands the need to get PFAS-free gear. But Bowes said despite hearing pitches from companies advertising such gear, firefighters there also arent confident that whats on the market right now fits the bill. Bowes said after Cotters work Youre home to the hero, he remarked of Worcester firefighters across the country who trusted manufacturers in the past are now much more wary. Burns opined that, if more states banned the sale of gear containing PFAS, manufacturers would be forced to create alternatives. He said he believes fire chiefs and administrators need to be more vocal about the issue with lawmakers, and not leave the advocacy, as they traditionally have done, to unions. Bowes agreed that legislation seems to be the cleanest way to attack a problem he termed as probably the largest hell ever face in his career. I dont know why the legislation hasnt passed, he said. We go out and do our jobs, and all we ask is they have our backs. Litigation stalled In addition to the legislative route, Cotter and other firefighters are pursuing legal remedies to address PFAS in gear. Cotters husband, Paul, is one of dozens of cancer-stricken firefighters in Massachusetts who have sued gear makers alleging their products were the proximate" cause of their disease. So far, large corporations like 3M and DuPont have fought the suits and have continued to argue that fears over negative health impacts are unproven or overblown. Tom Flanagin, senior director of product communications for the American Chemistry Council, a chemical company trade group, told the T&G in an email June 28 the council was still reviewing the most recent skin study. We support strong, science-based regulation of PFAS, but it is neither scientifically accurate nor appropriate to lump them all together as one class for the purposes of regulation or discussion of health effects, he wrote, adding that the mere presence of a chemistry is not an indication of risk or adverse effect. Flanagin wrote that the types of PFAS in commerce in present day have been reviewed by regulators before introduction, are subject to ongoing review, and are supported by a robust body of health and safety data. McMillan, the IAFF science expert, said the chemical industry has routinely been proven wrong with its claims, and noted the most recent study found that replacement PFAS chains the companies touted as improvements actually have higher absorption rates. Studies have shown firefighters have higher concentration of PFAS in their blood than the general population, but proving how the PFAS got there figures to be a lengthy and difficult process. Lawsuits of firefighters suing over gear, including those in Massachusetts, are stalled as part of a huge pile of suits, called multidistrict litigation, ongoing in federal court in South Carolina. As part of a recent order in those cases, the judge allowed plaintiffs suing over matters where science is still developing, which includes the Massachusetts firefighters, to voluntarily dismiss their cases but allow them to be reinstated within four years. This is a good thing since PFAS research is still in the relatively early stages of development for many cancers, Elizabeth C. Pritzker, a lawyer representing Massachusetts firefighters, said in an email, adding that trends in research suggest that many of the cases voluntarily dismissed now will be reinstated in the next few years. Pritzkers law partner, Jonathan K. Levine, said the findings of the most recent study provide powerful evidence that firefighter exposure to PFAS through (firefighting) foam and turnout gear is the result not only of inhalation and ingestion, but dermal exposure, and that shorter chain PFAS are not safer. Cotter has been trying to get Attorney General Andrea Campbell to join her husbands lawsuit against chemical giants, and more than 100 lawmakers and state Auditor Diana DiZoglio have sent letters to Campbell requesting she do so. Cotter was dismayed to receive a form letter from Campbells office declining to intervene; staff for Campbell told the T&G the letter was sent in error, and Cotter said she has recently received outreach from Campbells office. New model? Cotter said she now believes the most efficient course of action may be for Campbell and lawmakers to support legislation that would institute a tax on turnout-gear manufacturers that could go toward paying for replacement gear. Cotter has long argued gear manufacturers should be investigated at the federal level for what she has called the greatest deception ever. While no federal probe has been announced, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, has proposed national legislation that would, similar to the 9/11 fund, place a tax on manufacturers that would pay out claims for firefighters diagnosed with diseases associated with PFAS. The legislation, called the Firefighter PFAS Injury Compensation Act, would cover a number of cancers including prostate cancer, which Paul Cotter and many other Worcester firefighters have contracted and would give compensation of up to $1 million. Kevin McKie, a lawyer with Environmental Litigation Group, an Alabama firm that has championed the legislation, told the T&G it would be a faster way to provide recovery than the courts. Cotter said shes hopeful she can drum up support for a similar act in Massachusetts one shed like to call the Lt. Paul E. Cotter PFAS Retribution Act. The same manufacturers who poisoned firefighters are now going to be rewarded when we purchase new gear, Cotter said. Its a no-brainer to have a tax levy to recover those costs. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Diane Cotter angry over stalled state bills to protect firefighters FILE PHOTO: The debris of the municipal school of Bento Rodrigues district, which was covered with mud after a dam owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst, is pictured in Mariana By Roushni Nair (Reuters) -Mining giant BHP said on Friday it had reached a deal with Brazilian peer Vale to split equally the cost of any damages related to proceedings in Britain over a 2015 dam collapse in Brazil that killed 19 people, while denying liability for related claims. BHP Group (UK) Ltd and its Anglo-Australian parent BHP are defendants in a group action claim in the English High Court, brought by more than 600,000 claimants seeking damages for the Fundao Dam failure. The collapse of the tailings dam, which stored mining waste and is owned by the Samarco joint venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale, killed 19 and spilled about 40 million cubic meters of toxic sludge into communities, the Rio Doce river, and Atlantic Ocean 650 km away. BHP and Vale will each pay 50% of any amount potentially payable to the claimants in the UK proceedings, the Netherlands proceedings, and others in Brazil covered in the agreement, the company said on Friday. It reinforces the framework agreement signed in 2016 for BHP Brasil and Vale to each contribute 50% to the funding of the Renova Foundation, which was set up to ensure full and fair remediation for the damages caused by the dam collapse. "BHP believes the English Proceedings are unnecessary because they duplicate matters already covered by the existing and ongoing work of the Renova Foundation and legal proceedings in Brazil," the company said. BHP will continue to defend the UK proceedings and does not consider that it is liable to the related claimants, it added. In March, a new claim was filed against Vale and the Dutch subsidiary of Samarco in the Netherlands in which BHP is not a defendant, BHP said. Since the UK proceedings were not brought against Vale, BHP had filed a contribution claim against Vale in December 2022, which has now been withdrawn due to the new agreement. "The effect of the agreement is that should BHP ultimately be found to have any liability to the claimants in the UK claims, or should Vale ultimately be found to have any liability to the claimants in the Netherlands, such liability would be shared equally between BHP and Vale," Vale said in a separate statement. Pogust Goodhead, a UK-based law firm which represents the claimants, said despite the agreement between the two miners, nothing changes for its clients taking action against the mining companies in England and the Netherlands. ($1 = 0.7714 pounds) (Reporting by Roushni Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Sriraj Kalluvila, David Evans and Anil D'Silva) The Biden administration opened a line with the cryptocurrency industry Wednesday, as the White House and Democrats find themselves increasingly at odds with powerful players in the digital assets space. Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Biden, met with dozens of crypto leaders in her personal capacity Wednesday at a roundtable organized by crypto-friendly Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.). Khanna was also joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), as well as billionaire Mark Cuban, who has backed Bidens bid for reelection but has also criticized his administrations approach to crypto. Several people in attendance touted the meeting as productive and commended the California Democrat for arranging the roundtable. I really give Congressman Khanna a lot of credit for bringing together something like 30 or maybe more industry leaders to have a chance to engage directly with Ms. Dunn and, by extension, the White House, said Paul Grewal, chief legal officer for the popular crypto exchange Coinbase. It was clear that those in attendance understand the importance and opportunity crypto provides, said Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation. I left hopeful about future conversations and even more committed to advocating for the promise of this groundbreaking technology to transform systems, she added in a statement. Grewal described the meeting as a make-or-break moment for the Biden administration to turn around its almost uniformly hostile posture toward crypto, as Republicans and former President Trump embrace the industry. We are at a make-or-break moment with Republicans fully embracing crypto, baking it literally into their platform for the upcoming convention in very specific and concrete terms, he told The Hill. So, I think the administration has a choice to make at this point. The GOP released its official platform Monday ahead of next weeks Republican National Convention, arguing that the party will ease restrictions on emerging industries like crypto and artificial intelligence. Republicans will end Democrats unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency, the platform reads. We will defend the right to mine bitcoin, and ensure every American has the right to self-custody of their Digital Assets, and transact free from Government Surveillance and Control. The Biden administration, on the other hand, has largely been viewed as inhospitable to the industry. In particular, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been criticized by crypto firms for being overzealous in its enforcement. Unfortunately, the majority of Dems continue to enable [SEC Chair Gary] Genslers unlawful war on crypto sabotaging the ability for American innovation to thrive, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse wrote in a post on social platform X after Wednesdays roundtable. Its no wonder the GOP has announced a pro-crypto stance, he continued. Gensler will go down as the Luddite of his time. Words are easy, action is hard but necessary. Choose wisely. Voters are paying attention. Others in the crypto space have also warned of potential political fallout from Democrats current stance on the industry. We worry that the administration has, up until this point, been operating on a misunderstanding of the politics of the issue, Grewal said. I think theres perhaps been an impression that somehow going after the crypto industry is going to be something that constituencies that the administration cares a lot about would cheer on, he continued. But if you talk to young people, if you talk to people from communities of color who disproportionately participate in crypto, they view an attack on crypto as an attack on them, Grewal added. Cuban suggested in May that Genslers crypto approach could cost Biden the election. If @joebiden loses, there is a good chance you will be able to thank @GaryGensler and the @NewYork_SEC, Cuban wrote on X. Crypto is a mainstay with younger and independent voters. This is also a warning to Congress, he added. Crypto voters will be heard this election. Some Democratic lawmakers have split with the administration on crypto and supported Republican-led legislation. In May, 71 House Democrats joined most Republicans to pass the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT 21), which laid out a new framework for crypto regulation between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Gensler came out against the legislation, arguing it would create new regulatory gaps and undermine decades of precedent. While the White House said it also opposed FIT 21 due to a lack of sufficient protections for consumers and investors, it did not expressly threaten to veto the bill. However, Biden did veto a House resolution that sought to undo an SEC crypto rule. More than 20 Democrats, including Khanna, supported an unsuccessful attempt to override the presidents veto Thursday. 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 apologises for gaffe at Ukrainian event but again refers to Zelenskyy as "Putin" US President Joe Biden has had to apologise for his gaffe when he mistakenly referred to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" and then again called Zelenskyy Putin. Source: Biden at a press conference after the NATO summit in Washington; European Pravda Details: Biden was responding to a journalist's question about whether such gaffes could damage the position of the United States globally. However, while explaining his mistake, he again said "Putin" instead of "Zelenskyy", immediately apologising. Quote: "Did you see any damage to our stand in my leading this conference? Have you seen a more successful conference? What do you think? And the Putin piece, I was talking about Putin and I said, 'and now at the very end, I said here, I mean Putin'. I said, no, Im sorry, Zelenskyy." More details: He noted that he does not want to engage in self-praise but stated that world leaders had thanked him for his efforts, "It was the most successful conference I've attended in a long time and find me a world leader who didn't think it was". Background: During the final press conference, Biden confused the name of Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her "Trump". Biden also made a notable slip-up during a speech about the Ukraine Compact. In winter, Biden made a mistake during a campaign event, confusing former German chancellors, marking his second similar gaffe in less than a week. Support UP or become our patron! Joe Biden has referred to Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump, in a pair of significant gaffes set to worsen the crisis engulfing his presidency. The US president, who is facing calls to stand down over concerns about his age, confused the Ukrainian president with the Russian leader on stage at an international summit. He then referred to Ms Harris, his vice president, as Vice President Trump. The gaffes came at the end of a Nato summit in Washington DC, which had been pitched as an opportunity to rescue Mr Bidens ailing reelection campaign. Standing on a stage with 23 other allied world leaders, Mr Biden spoke for several minutes about the importance of protecting Ukraine from Russian aggression, before turning to Mr Zelensky and introducing him by the wrong name. Now, I want to hand over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, he said. Ladies and gentlemen: President Putin. He returned to the microphone and attempted to explain the error. Im so focused on beating Putin, he said. Im better, Mr Zelensky replied. Youre a hell of a lot better, Mr Biden said back. Ninety minutes later, during a second press conference, Mr Biden was asked whether Kamala Harris was qualified to take over his job if necessary. I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, that I think she was not qualified to be president, he replied. Donald Trump immediately seized on the moment, writing on social media: Great job, Joe! Within minutes, the clips were being circulated online by official Republican Party accounts. Mr Biden later defended his health, but said he must do more to allay concerns by appearing more often at public events. The presidents advisers had been braced for the possibility of more errors on the world stage, after two weeks of criticism for his performance at the presidential debate on June 27. The two slip-ups produced more calls for Mr Biden to end his campaign and make way for a younger candidate. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the Democrats must put forward the strongest candidate possible to beat Trump, and he no longer believe[s] that is Joe Biden. Polls show that Mr Bidens popularity has tanked since the debate. He is now behind Trump in almost all swing states, and some previously safe blue states are now in play in November. Thursdays incidents came as aides worked on a pitch to convince Mr Biden to stand down his presidential campaign, amid concerns he can never recover from questions raised about his age in the last two weeks. Aides on the US presidents campaign and White House teams are working out how to persuade him to leave the race, after concluding that he has no chance of beating Trump. Earlier this week, the Hollywood star and Democrat donor George Clooney called for Mr Biden to abandon his campaign, while the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped short of defending his decision to remain in the race. Mr Bidens press conference at the end of the Nato summit was the first event of its kind for eight months. The US president gave remarks and took questions from journalists for an hour, defending his record on the economy and foreign policy. He also addressed concerns about his age. Insisting he would stay in the race, he said: Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job I started. I think Im the best qualified person to do the job. He said he was ready to deal with Mr Putin and Xi Jinping now, and three years from now, when he will be 84 years old. He said the gravity of the situation required his experience in office. But Mr Biden also acknowledged that he had dealt poorly with recent criticism from his own party, describing his errors on the debate stage two weeks ago as stupid. Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there, he said. Defending his health, he added: My schedule has been full bore. So if I slow down and I cant get the job done, thats a sign that I shouldnt be doing it, but theres no indication of that yet none. He denied a story that he intended to go to bed at 8pm every night, but said he thought it was important to pace myself. I love my staff, but they add things. They add things all the time. Im catching hell from my wife, he said. Asked whether he would take a cognitive test, he replied: Ive taken three significant and intense neurological exams by a neurosurgeon, by a neurologist... as recently as February and they say Im in good shape. The only thing age does is it creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention. Mr Biden was asked repeatedly whether he planned to step down if polling data showed that Ms Harris would be more likely to beat Trump in the election. He replied: No, unless they came back and said, theres no way you can win. Leaning into the microphone to whisper to the audience, he added: No one is saying that. No poll says that. He had previously said that only Lord Almighty could convince him to step down. Some Democrats praised Mr Biden for his performance in the latter half of the press conference, when he spoke in detail and without notes on US relations with China, South Korea and Russia. David Axelrod, a former Barack Obama aide who has called for him to step down, said he was very comfortable on national security issues. However, Mr Bidens two gaffes in the final hours of the 75th anniversary Nato summit will overshadow three days of intense diplomacy by its member states, as discussion turns to the future of his campaign. Sir Keir Starmer waved away Mr Bidens confusion between Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin in his own press conference, arguing that the US president should be given credit for the summit. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, said that slips of tongue happen, while Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said Mr Biden was in charge and on top of matters. Mr Biden repeatedly referred to other Nato leaders while defending his record. He said this weeks Nato summit had been the most successful for a long time, and that attendees thanked him for bringing them together. I know it sounds self-serving, but other leaders and heads of state have thanked me, saying: The reason were together is because of Biden, he said. 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. SANAA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-British naval coalition launched three airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi-controlled Hodeidah airport on Friday, the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported. Residents described the explosions in the facility as powerful. The coalition has made no comment on the strikes yet. The airport has been shut off since the Houthi group seized control of the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah along with several other northern cities in late 2014. On Thursday, the U.S. Central Command said on social media platform X that its forces destroyed five Houthi unmanned boats and three bomb-laden drones in the Red Sea. The Houthi group 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. Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday that his group had so far targeted "a total of 166 ships linked to Israel, U.S., and Britain." In response, the U.S.-British naval coalition stationed in the waters has since January conducted air raids and missile strikes against Houthi military 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. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House on July 1, 2024, following the Supreme Courts ruling on charges against former President Donald Trump that he sought to subvert the 2020 election. The highest court ruled 6-3 that presidents have some level of immunity from prosecution when operating within their constitutional authority, but do not have absolute immunity. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) President Joe Biden faced perhaps the most consequential day yet for his ailing reelection campaign Thursday, with a press conference at the NATO annual meeting scheduled for late afternoon, as private talks among Democrats on Capitol Hill about his fitness for office extended and calls for him to withdraw from the race spread. Bidens solo press conference is his first since a disastrous June 27 debate performance shook his partys confidence in his chances to defeat former President Donald Trump in Novembers election. Elected Democrats have urged Biden to hold more unscripted events to show his frail and sometimes incoherent showing at the debate was an isolated incident. Biden has argued that the concerns voiced since the debate have come from party elites. But a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published Wednesday night showed he had much deeper problems with Democratic voters. By a 42%-26% margin, Democratic respondents said Biden should step aside rather than continue his campaign. The same survey showed 77% of Democrats would be satisfied with Vice President Kamala Harris taking over at the top of the ticket, though a majority of all respondents, 53%, said they would be unsatisfied. Defections on the Hill Top Biden campaign surrogates will meet with Senate Democrats Thursday, hoping to quell their anxiety. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York spoke to reporters early Thursday afternoon. He did not take a position on Biden, saying the process was ongoing and conversations were private. Im going to respect the sanctity of those conversations until we conclude the process, he said. Jeffries earlier pledged to relay the concerns of some of his members directly to Biden, according to reports. Eleven Democratic members of Congress, including Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten on Thursday, have publicly called for Biden to leave the race and allow a Democrat with a better chance of defeating Trump to lead the ticket. Wednesdays defections, like the others that have trickled out for nearly two weeks since Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett made the first public call July 2, came from various corners of the party without a discernible ideological, geographic or electoral pattern. In that single day, they were: Rep. Pat Ryan, a youthful moderate in a hypercompetitive reelection race in a New York swing district; progressive Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat from a deep-blue district who is retiring at years end after nearly three decades in the chamber; and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont, the first member of the Senate Bidens professional home for 38 years to call for the president to withdraw. Biden also lost the support of a major Democratic campaign contributor, movie star George Clooney, who just last month hosted a massive fundraiser for the reelection effort. But Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed Wednesday that Bidens appearance at that event more closely resembled the struggling debater than the successful candidate of 2020. The calls to step aside have generally focused on the danger Democrats believe Trump poses. The former president, deeply unpopular in his own right, will be the first convicted felon to be a major partys nominee, has voiced plans to take an authoritarian approach in his second presidency and is accused of leading a violent effort to overturn his election loss in 2020. This is not just about extending (Bidens) presidency but protecting democracy, Blumenauer wrote. Top Democrats in Congress have not publicly broken with the president but have sometimes given less-than-full endorsements. Early Wednesday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, a revered leader among Democrats in Washington, appeared to leave space for Biden to exit the race, saying in an MSNBC interview that Biden must make a decision about staying in the race despite consistent messages from the president that he has, in fact, decided to continue. Ashley Murray contributed to this report. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Biden camp works to stem growing Democratic unease over reelection prospects appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. Biden campaign digs in as calls to drop out grow WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) As questions swirl about the presidents future, President Joe Biden is in Michigan Friday to speak at a campaign event in Detroit. The presidents campaign says the focus of the presidents speech will be to contrast a future under Donald Trump versus another four years under the Biden administration. Hanging in the backdrop of it all are questions from Democrats unsure if President Biden is the right candidate to continue the job. As President Biden soldiers on a growing number of Democrats are urging him to drop out of the race. Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes called on the president to step aside moments after the presidents Thursday night news conference. The qualification for the President of the United States is so much more than whether you can have a good news conference or a press conference, said Himes. Others, including Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, appear to be wrestling with their decision to stand by the president. I will say right now 100% of the phone calls into our office are asking me to ask the president to step out of the race, said Bush. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, whos challenged with keeping the party united, says he met with the president Thursday evening. In a Friday morning letter to congressional Democrats, even he stopped short of fully endorsing the presidents campaign. Nearly two dozen Democrats are pushing for a new nominee. 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 Hill) President Biden on Thursday mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin the president of Russia when introducing him at a NATO event, a gaffe that came shortly before a high-stakes press conference where his every word will be closely scrutinized. Now, I want to hand it over the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentleman, President Putin, Biden said. Hes going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky, Biden said, quickly correcting himself. Im so focused on beating Putin, weve got to worry about it. Im better, Zelensky quipped. You are, a hell of a lot better, Biden added. Support for Ukraine has been a cornerstone of Bidens foreign policy, and it has been central to discussions during this weeks NATO summit. The White House has announced additional military support for Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces as part of the summit. But Bidens stumble will garner significant attention as he fends off calls from some Democrats to step aside as the partys nominee in November following his disastrous debate performance last month. Democrats have expressed concerns Biden lacks the mental sharpness and stamina to vigorously campaign against former President Trump and make a successful case to the American public. Democrats will be closely monitoring Bidens press conference on Thursday evening to see if he shows he is up to the job of coherently and sharply answering questions from reporters. But some have suggested one good performance will not be enough to quell voters 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 Queen City News. U.S. President Joe Biden defended his candidacy for reelection in the first solo news conference of his campaign on July 11 amid calls from Democrats to resign from the race. Speaking after the conclusion of the three-day NATO summit in Washington, Biden fielded questions on his record and foreign policy while avoiding direct answers regarding Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied weapons. "If (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky) had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldn't," Biden said. "The question is what's the best use of the weaponry he has." Biden dodged the question of whether the U.S. would lift restrictions preventing Ukrainian troops from striking Russian territory with American weapons, saying he was listening to the advice of his top military leaders. Speaking on the sidelines of the NATO summit earlier in the week, Zelensky on July 9 urged U.S. leaders to lift the prohibition and allow Ukrainian forces to target military facilities within Russia. Biden also indicated that he was not interested in negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin at this time. There is "no good reason to talk to Putin right now," Biden said in response to a question from a reporter as to whether the U.S. is prepared to communicate directly with Russia, "There's not much (Putin) is prepared to do in terms of accommodating his change in behavior," Biden added. "Last time I talked to Putin was trying to get him to work on an arms control agreement related to nuclear weapons in space. That didn't go very far." Biden used the press conference to argue that he remains the best Democrat to oppose presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a nearly hour-long conference, he said he had no intention of dropping out of the race, despite increasing calls for him to step down. Jim Himes, a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, urged Biden to suspend his campaign moments after the conference ended, joining over a dozen Democratic representatives and one U.S. senator who have made similar public appeals. In an address before the press conference, Biden mistakenly referred to Zelensky as "President Putin," again raising concerns about his health and mental fitness for office. Read also: Political divide over Ukraine manifests in Pennsylvania, crucial US swing state Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. President Joe Biden touted his accomplishments, including leading what he called the most successful NATO conference ever this week, during a Thursday press conference. He also reiterated his plan to stay in the presidential race, despite widespread calls for him to drop out. While he was stronger and far more focused than on the night of his now infamous debate against the former president, he did misspeak multiple times throughout the press conference the most notable being referring to Vice President Trump early in the event, when he appeared to be referring to VP Kamala Harris. After White House staff wrapped the event, one reporter shouted that Trump was now using the gaffe to mock Bidens age, but the president was already being led away. Trump posted multiple mocking remarks of Bidens press conference on his Truth Social online platform. Throughout the conference, Biden insisted hes the best person to do the job, and despite widespread calls for him to bow out of the presidential race theres no indication he should step aside. After being asked point-blank if he still intends to run in November, he replied, Im determined on running, and boasted about the number of events he has done lately and how many more he has planned. Earlier in the day, he had another slip of the tongue during the NATO conference, where he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin. That time, he quickly corrected himself, adding that Zelenskyy is going to beat Putin. But, he didnt catch himself for a correction after his Vice President Trump reference. When asked about Harris, Biden said she is qualified to be president, thats why I picked her. While that could have led to a segue in which he announced she should be the Democratic candidate, Biden dismissed claims lodged by George Clooney and other detractors that hes not physically or mentally fit to be re-elected. Biden said hes ready to deal with Putin now or three years from now, to another question about his readiness in the Oval Office and that he is getting the job done. He added that the campaign hasnt even started yet. Although he said that other people could beat Trump too, its awful hard to start from scratch [with a new candidate]. He said hes had several neurological tests and that no one is suggesting that he take another, at least from within his medical staff. He added that hes open to another test if, and only if, one of his doctors thinks its necessary. The president also stressed the importance of continuing to support NATO, saying, I will not bow down to Putin. I will keep NATO strong every American must ask himself, is America safer with NATO? I believe the American people understand that America is stronger because of our alliances. American cannot retreat from the world, American must lead the world. His statements were in stark contrast with those of Trump, who has mentioned several times that, if re-elected, he would have the United States leave the alliance. The press conference started nearly an hour after the announced time of 6:30 p.m. ET. The post Biden Defends Himself From Widespread Critique, but Accidentally Refers to Vice President Trump appeared first on TheWrap. 'I'm not going anywhere,' Biden says as campaign struggles 'I'm not going anywhere,' Biden says as campaign struggles By Jeff Mason and Makini Brice DETROIT (Reuters) -Seeking to revive his struggling reelection campaign, President Joe Biden held a rare rally in Detroit on Friday, telling a cheering crowd he wasn't going to leave the race and warning that Republican Donald Trump poses a serious threat. Biden, 81, is trying to shift the conversation from his mental sharpness and a growing number of Democratic defections to the impact of another Trump presidency, as he tries to reboot his campaign after a shaky debate performance on June 27. "I am running and we're going to win," he said to a crowd that carried "Motown is Joetown" signs and chanted: "Don't you quit." "I'm the nominee," he said. "I'm not going anywhere." Pointing to the press area in the gym, Biden said: "They've been hammering me," to which the crowd booed. "Guess what, Donald Trump has gotten a free pass," he added. "Hopefully with age comes a little wisdom," Biden said, in a defiant and sometimes gleeful performance. "Here's what I know - I know how to tell the truth, I know right from wrong ... and I know Americans want a president, not a dictator." Biden also laid out what he intended to do with his first 100 days of a second term, including codifying abortion rights, signing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, ending medical debt, raising the minimum wage and banning assault weapons. These sweeping changes would be difficult or impossible without Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. While union and religious leaders attended, Michigan's governor Gretchen Whitmer and its Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, did not. Earlier on Friday, Biden made a surprise stop at a restaurant in a Detroit suburb, where he told diners he planned to "finish the job," and said: "I promise you... I'm okay." Biden got a boost on Friday when two prominent Democrats - Representative James Clyburn and California Governor Gavin Newsom - said he should stay in the race. On Friday afternoon, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who had previously said he was worried about the president's chances, praised Biden for standing "with the working class," without using his name. But there were signs that his support was weakening elsewhere, as two more lawmakers called on him to drop out. "It is time to move forward. With a new leader," Representative Mike Levin, from California, said in a statement. Levin, like many others who have called on Biden to leave the race, faces a competitive reelection battle of his own this year. Since the debate, at least 19 lawmakers have urged Biden to step aside so the party can pick another candidate, as have some donors, Hollywood stars, activist groups and news outlets. Biden retains support from key figures in the party, however, less than five months from the Nov. 5 election. "I'm riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes," Clyburn said on NBC's "Today" program. Newsom likewise said he was sticking with Biden in an interview excerpt released by CBS. Clyburn, 83, is a respected voice among Black Americans whose support is essential to Biden's 2024 campaign, while Newsom, 56, is one of several younger governors who are widely seen as the future of the party. While Biden courted Michigan voters, Trump challenged him on Friday to take a cognitive test, writing on Truth Social: "I will go with him, and take one also. For the first time we'll be a team, and do it for the good of the Country." Trump will be in the national spotlight next week, when the Republican Party holds its convention in Milwaukee to award him the presidential nomination. CRUCIAL CALLS Democrats are worried that Biden's low approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House of Representatives and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House. As he worked to stem further defections, Biden held separate phone calls with groups of Hispanic, Asian and Democratic lawmakers, according to aides. While the Hispanic group's top two leaders have endorsed Biden, some other members have not stated their positions. Democratic officeholders, donors and activists are trying to determine whether Biden is their best bet to defeat Trump and serve another four-year term in the White House. The New York Times reported that unnamed donors have told a pro-Biden Super PAC fundraising committee that roughly $90 million in pledges will remain on hold as long as he is in the race. As Air Force One flew to the Motor City, campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler told reporters that donations "exploded" during Biden's Thursday night press conference to seven times the usual level. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, said he met with Biden on Thursday night to convey the range of thoughts his 213-member caucus held about Biden's candidacy. He did not say whether he personally thought Biden should stay in the race. "I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward," Jeffries wrote in a letter to colleagues. Thursday's closely-watched press conference provided fodder for Biden supporters and doubters alike. At one point, Biden referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as "Vice President Trump." Hours earlier he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room. He also delivered detailed assessments of global issues that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage. With most U.S. voters firmly divided into ideological camps, opinion polls show the race remains close. An NPR/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50% to 48%, a slight increase from his position before the June 27 debate. But some analysts have warned that Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election. "If current trends continue, Mr. Trump could rack up one of the most decisive presidential victories since 2008," Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik wrote in the New York Times. (Reporting by Jeff Mason in Detroit, Makini Brice, Jarrett Renshaw, Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Richard Cowan, Andy Sullivan, Susan Heavey, Nandita Bose and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Heather Timmons, Alistair Bell and Rosalba O'Brien) The behaviour of US President Joe Biden is a matter of considerable concern for Britain and the wider Western alliance. Clarity of White House decision-making and communication is essential in times of tension, and the Presidents missteps do not instil confidence that these qualities would be provided in a crisis. For Sir Keir Starmer, however, Mr Bidens situation provides a more immediate challenge. Asked whether the President was senile following a bilateral meeting between the two leaders, Sir Keir answered that Mr Biden was on really good form, across all the detail, had shown incredible leadership and said he believed criticism of the President was misguided. Shortly afterwards, Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin, and somehow managed to call Vice President Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. Sir Keir insisted that Mr Biden deserves credit for the incredible achievement of the Nato summit. Under normal circumstances, bland praise for the skills of a foreign leader might be written off as part of the usual course of business. But Mr Bidens situation is not normal. The sitting President is facing a revolt from his own party amid concerns that he is not fit to withstand the rigours of an election campaign, let alone another term, and Mr Trump has made repeated reference to Mr Bidens mental acuity in his campaigning. By allowing himself to be drawn into offering an opinion, Sir Keir has entangled himself in the drama surrounding the Presidents health. Should Mr Biden be replaced prior to the election, Sir Keir will face questions over his honesty. And should Donald Trump emerge victorious, he could well nurse a grudge at perceived support for his opponent, particularly given Sir Keirs appointment of David Lammy who once called Mr Trump a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath as Foreign Secretary. Dealing with the White House without getting sucked into US domestic rows is a well-known problem for Downing Street. Boris Johnson and Theresa May were careful in their handling of Mr Trump during his presidency, attempting to distinguish between respect for his office and role as a crucial ally, and support for his domestic political statements. Despite their efforts, both received criticism for perceived closeness to the Republican. While Mr Biden does not attract the sort of opprobrium in Britain that Mr Trump did, it is still incumbent on Sir Keir to handle his relationship with the White House with the interests of this country foremost in mind. While it is early days in his premiership, the first signs are not good. 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. Damian Meduri, associate director of Priority Markets (Greater China) with the New South Wales (NSW) Government's international trade and investment group, delivers a speech at a roadshow for the first China Commodity Fair Australia (CCF Australia) in Sydney, Australia, July 12, 2024. The roadshow was held in Sydney on Friday, attracting around 100 representatives from the Chinese and Australian governments, business sectors as well as media. (Xinhua/Ma Ping) SYDNEY, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A roadshow for the first China Commodity Fair Australia (CCF Australia) was held in Sydney on Friday, attracting around 100 representatives from the Chinese and Australian governments, business sectors as well as media. The roadshow aimed to fully present the CCF Australia, which will be held for the first time at the International Convention Center Sydney on Sept. 26-28, 2024. With highlights and preparation progress introduced during the roadshow, it sought to deepen the exchange and trade cooperation between China and Australia in the industry of consumer goods. "Through this fair, Australian consumers will have the opportunity to access more high-quality Chinese products and have more choices in their lives," Liu Dianxun, director general of the Trade Development Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told the roadshow. At the same time, Chinese companies can have a deep understanding of the needs of the Australian market and find more business opportunities, he said. "I believe that with the joint efforts of all parties, the cooperation between China and Australia in the field of consumer goods will be taken to a new level and bring more tangible benefits to the people in our two countries," Liu said. Ye Wei, economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney, said China has built a consumer goods industrial system with wide coverage and a relatively complete structure, providing consumers around the world, including in Australia, with a rich variety of cost-effective goods. He believed that this exhibition will become an important stage for the full display of Chinese consumer goods in Australia, and also provide an important platform for more Australian consumers to understand and love Chinese consumer goods at home. "I'm looking forward to seeing more than 400 Chinese companies exhibit their goods at the International Convention Center in September," said Damian Meduri, associate director of Priority Markets (Greater China) with the New South Wales (NSW) Government's international trade and investment group. "Having access to a wide range of affordable goods and services imported from China has benefited both NSW consumers and businesses by improving living standards and business efficiency," he said. CCF Australia is organized by the Trade Development Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, together with Zhejiang Broad International Convention & Exhibition Co., Ltd, Jiangsu Trade Promotion International Conference & Exhibition Co., Ltd, Shanghai International Exhibition (Group) Co., Ltd and Shandong Better Exhibition Engineering Co., Ltd. It is also strategically supported by Messe Frankfurt, one of the world's largest trade fair, congress and event organizers. CCF Australia is expected to gather nearly 400 Chinese companies and cover an exhibition area of over 10,000 square meters, making it the largest specialized consumer goods exhibition in Australia with the most Chinese participants. Bidens gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, say European officials Joe Bidens gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the Nato summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph. On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky President Putin. The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris vice-president Trump. But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the presidents performance. It was awful, an official said, describing standing in the crowd as events unfurled. The consensus amongst diplomats and officials who spoke to The Telegraph, and were granted anonymity to speak more freely, was that it took less than a minute to change the narrative of an entire summit. The sources realised they would be forced to read about the gaffe on tomorrows front pages instead of stories of their successes. Its taken the focus away from what has been a great summit for us, a diplomat said. Before the slip-up, officials and diplomats were overjoyed with the outcomes of the meeting, which marked the alliances 75th anniversary with a show of unity in defiance of Putins invasion of Ukraine. President Bidens allies described it as a slip of the tongue that could have happened to any of them delivering a high-profile speech. There was reason to feel optimistic with the outcome. Joe Biden returns to the White House after the summit - GETTY IMAGES The spectres of President Bidens health, the potential return of Donald Trump and an undiplomatic rant by Mr Zelensky all loomed over the summit. Until that moment, the US leader had been almost word perfect having spoken in every single session of the meeting. Nato members believed they had done enough to Trump-proof the alliance, announcing that 23 of its 32 states had hit the spending goals of 2 per cent of GDP on defence, with more setting out plans to reach the figure. And most importantly, Mr Zelensky was leaving Washington satisfied with the levels of support shown by Nato, despite not being handed a formal invitation to the alliance. The Americans had put in months of groundwork into preventing another Vilnius moment, a second official said, referring to the Ukrainians presidents outburst at last years summit after being refused an invitation. There was also a sense of frustration that this moment would dominate questions put to other leaders in their final press conference before heading home. Sir Keir Starmer was asked no fewer than three times if he thought President Biden was up to the task of running for a second term in the White House. The Prime Minister said the US leader should be given credit for his work at the Nato summit, in defence of his ally. He wouldve preferred to have been able to boast of his own achievements at the gathering instead of being the receiving end of diplomatically tricky questions. 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. Bidens gaffes arent going to stop, says former US ambassador Calls for Joe Biden to withdraw have continued on Friday - MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images Joe Biden should end his career because the gaffes are not going to stop, a former British ambassador to the US has said. Lord Darroch, who served as the UKs representative in Washington until 2019, on Friday called on the US president to suspend his campaign after a series of embarrassing mistakes on the world stage. Mr Biden fuelled concern about his mental fitness with two gaffes at the Nato summit on Thursday, when he introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and described Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. In a hour-long press conference, Mr Biden spoke at length about US foreign policy, but at times stumbled or gave confusing replies to questions. He said for the first time that he would end his campaign if aides told him he could not beat Donald Trump in Novembers election, and admitted he must do more to allay concerns from Democrats who have called for him to stand down. Calls for Mr Biden to withdraw continued on Friday, as the total number of sitting Democrats to publicly condemn him reached 19. A group of Democrat donors to Mr Bidens said $90 million of their money must be frozen unless he was replaced. Other donors have said they are shifting their support away from the presidential campaign and towards Democrats in tight congressional races. In an article for The Telegraph, Lord Darroch praised the US presidents record in office, but said he had reached the unavoidable conclusion that it was time to draw this brilliant career to a close. Hes not going to win from where he is now; and as his every public performance demonstrates, exemplified by his Putin/Zelensky muddle at the Nato summit, the gaffes are not going to stop, Lord Darroch said. Calling on Mr Biden to heed signals from Democrats calling on him to stand down, the diplomat named Ms Harris and the governors Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro as possible replacements. Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, said on Friday that he had met Mr Biden and expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward from his colleagues. As concern on Capitol Hill mounted, Mr Bidens supporters defended his performance at Nato and highlighted his focus on foreign policy issues. Jim Clyburn, one of Mr Bidens strongest supporters, called on voters to focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes misspoken words and phrases. Chris Coons, a Democratic senator who co-chairs the Biden-Harris campaign, said Mr Biden had delivered an impressive, hour-long press conference. Mr Bidens own staff is divided on whether he can beat Trump after a series of polls that showed his support was slipping. One campaign aide, who thinks the row over the presidents age has been overblown, told Politico: Everyone is going to thank us when he wins. However, there is concern that Mr Bidens re-election bid could be fatally damaged if a major Democrat comes forward to call for him to stand down. Barack Obama, who had Mr Biden as his right-hand man for eight years in the White House, has reportedly expressed concerns about his long-term ally to Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker. Former aides to Mr Obama and Bill Clinton are among the bedwetters in the Democratic Party who are alleged to be trying to engineer a change to the nomination at the partys convention next month. Mr Bidens performance at Nato has emboldened his critics, who argue that he fumbled an opportunity to project the strength and unity of the West on the world stage. In his press conference, Mr Biden also referred mistakenly to his military chief of staff as commander-in-chief, a position he holds as president. World leaders including Sir Keir Starmer rushed to his defence after he confused Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin, but European diplomats were privately concerned that the incident had overshadowed the three-day summit. Critics say Mr Biden has left his party in the worst of both worlds, after a series of gaffes that is not serious enough to unequivocally end his campaign, but has mortally wounded it. Responding to Mr Bidens mistaken reference to Ms Harris as Vice president Trump, the Republican nominee himself said: Great job, Joe! On Friday he called for Mr Biden to take a cognitive test, pledging to go with him, and take one also. The press conference received a mixed reception from the US media, which praised his responses to questions on China, Russia and North Korea but acknowledged there were a few stumbles. Mr Biden tried to downplay concerns about his age, telling his critics: I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat [Trump] once, and I will beat him again Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job I started. Announcing plans to demonstrate his competency in public events, he added: Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there. Mr Biden was due to attend a campaign stop in Michigan on Friday evening, US time, and is planning further events in the coming days. I just got to just pace myself a little more and the next debate, Im not going to be travelling into 15 time zones a week before, he said. He also criticised Mr Putin over the war in Ukraine, telling reporters: I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now. Theres not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behaviour. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said on Friday that Mr Bidens comments about the Russian president were absolutely unacceptable. We believe that this does not reflect well on the head of the American state. This is something we pay direct attention to and find absolutely unacceptable, he said, adding that the whole world took notice of his gaffes. 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. President Biden on Thursday reaffirmed a limit on how Ukraine can use American-provided weapons to strike inside Russia, just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the restrictions crazy. While the U.S. has permitted Ukraine to strike beyond the Russian border near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Biden has resisted Ukrainian demands to reach Russian targets as far as 300 miles across the border. If he had the capacity to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldnt, Biden said of Zelensky. The question is what is the best use of the weaponry he has? I got him more long-range capacity, as well as defensive capacity. Im following the advice of my commander in chief, the chief of staff of the military as well as the secretary of defense, and my intelligence people, and were making a day-to-day basis on how far they should go in. Thats a logical thing to do. The United Kingdom announced this week that it would allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with British-provided long-range missiles, and NATO has backed Ukraines push for more latitude in its use of Western-supplied weapons. But other countries like Germany have followed Americas lead and held back. There has been a clear decision and the American president has said it again and again, that the weapons should not be used outside Ukrainian territory, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a press conference following the NATO summit. We have made a small adjustment with regard to attacks that have been started in the immediate vicinity of Kharkiv on Russian territory, Scholz said. It remains our task to make sure that we support Ukraine to the maximum, but that we dont want an escalation between Russia and NATO, this requires us to be wise and to be clear. Zelensky pushed hard for the U.S. and allies to lift restrictions throughout the NATO summit, which focused largely on other ways NATO could ensure Ukraines security moving forward. If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the [limitations], Zelensky said at a press conference alongside outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg in Washington on Thursday. He called it crazy to have limitations on how it can use donated weapons to strike against Russia. We understand from what military base they attack us, and if they attacked us and killed our children in the hospital, that is crazy question why we cant answer and attack this person, this military base, where from these guided bombs from jets, or missile came, targeted us, killed our children, Zelensky said. Updated on July 12 at 8:27 a.m. EDT 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 provided a defiant performance during a pivotal press conference at the close of the NATO Summit in Washington D.C. Thrusday. The President answered questions for approximately 45 minutes on a range of issues, though multiple questions were focused on the President's mental and physical capabilities. Biden, 81, held firm in his commitment to staying in the race and defeating former President Donald Trump. "I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once and I will beat him again," Biden said. "I've gotta finish this job. I've gotta finish this job because there's so much at stake." Several backbench Democratic representatives have called on Biden to step away from the party's ticket, with Representatives Scott Peters (Calif.) Eric Sorensen (Ill.) and Jim Himes (Conn.) adding to the chorus after the press conference. Biden provided a few unclear answers and made one notable slip that may not allay nerve-wracked party operative fears. Huppke: How did Biden do? Sure, press conference went well. BUT NOW HE MUST DO 100 PUSHUPS!! Biden shrugs off earlier Zelensky moment Biden shrugged off a question about calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "President Putin" earlier in the day. "Did you see any damage," Biden said in response to a question on if the President's age damaged the country's standing on the world stage. "This was the most successful conference I've attended in a long time." During the introduction of Zelenskyy Biden caught his mistake and said, "President Putin we're going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy. I'm so focused on beating Putin." Biden pushed his success in organizing NATO and the intelligence community to repel the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine that attempted to take the country's capital. "Today, Kyiv still stands. And NATO stands stronger than it has ever been," Biden said. Biden confuses VP for Trump Biden mistakenly called Vice President Kamala Harris "Trump" during a question on if the Vice President could beat the former President if she assumed the head of the ticket. Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice resident if she was not qualified to be president, he said. Biden would later go on to praise Harris' work on abortion rights and emphasized her ability to assume the Presidency if needed. Trump seized on the mistake on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns. "Crooked Joe begins his Big Boy Press Conference with, "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president." Great job, Joe!," Trump wrote. President Joe Biden holds news conference at the 2024 NATO Summit on Thursday in Washington, DC. NATO leaders convened in Washington this week for the annual summit to discuss future strategies and commitments and mark the 75th anniversary of the alliance's founding. Biden unclear on military answer Biden was unclear on who in the military he is consulting during a question regarding the supply of weapons to Ukraine. "Im following the advice of my commander in chiefthe chief of staff of the militaryas well as the secretary of defense, and our intelligence people," Biden said. And we are making a day-to-day basis on how far they should go in." The President is Commander in Chief. Biden did not clarify who he was referring to. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden makes few but notable mistakes at NATO press conference Biden mistakenly introduces Zelensky as 'President Putin' as concerns over fitness for office mount U.S. President Joe Biden introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky as "President Putin" during his speech on the final day of the NATO summit on July 11, as questions over Biden's fitness for office continue to increase. "And now I want to turn it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentleman, President Putin," Biden said. Following the comment, Biden quickly corrected himself, questioning his gaffe. "President Putin? I'm so focused on beating Putin," Biden said, referring to the Russian president. In response to the gaffe, Zelensky quipped "I'm better," with Biden replying "you're a hell of a lot better." The gaffe comes amid rising concerns from Democrats over Biden's fitness to serve in the country's top office, following a disastrous performance at the first presidential debate on June 28. Questions surrounding Biden's mental acuity have become prominent with Democratic party officials and lawmakers doubting his ability to stay on the ballot. As of July 11, at least 14 Democratic House lawmakers and one Democratic senator have called for Biden to step down as the party's nominee for president. Following the remarks, Biden held a press conference where he took questions from reporters, in part as an attempt to quell worries about Biden's abilities. Biden used a teleprompter to deliver prepared remarks ahead of questions from reporters, a Kyiv Independent journalist stationed at the event reported. During a question about Vice President Kamala Harris' ability to potentially serve as president, Biden once again mistakenly referred to a different person in his response. "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was qualified to be president," Biden said, mistakenly referring to the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump instead of Harris. Despite the gaffes, Biden attempted to reassure voters his fitness and ability to lead. "I think I'm the best-qualified person to do the job, to make sure that Ukraine does not fall," Biden said later during the press conference. Ahead of the NATO summit, diplomats, and world leaders privately voiced significant concerns about Biden's age, health, and his ability to secure victory in the 2024 presidential election, Politico reported. Read also: NATO affirms Ukraines irreversible path toward membership, $43 billion in funding for next year Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden is forging ahead with a political war on two fronts: against skeptics from his own party and against Republican challenger Donald Trump. Most Read from Bloomberg A high-stakes press conference on Thursday evening that began with a major gaffe his second in as many hours saw the incumbent 81-year-old Democrat flatly insist he was keeping his campaign alive. Im determined on running, Biden said, adding he would only step aside if aides told him that he couldnt win, something no one is suggesting now. His performance failed to stem the tide of Democratic angst. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Biden Thursday evening and directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives, and conclusions about the path forward that had been shared with him, according to a letter sent to lawmakers Friday. The White House confirmed the meeting, but declined to provide details about the discussion. Shortly after Bidens NATO event ended, three more members from his party, including Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called for him to step aside. Biden acknowledged Thursday night that its important that I allay fears within his party. But during a virtual meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucuss campaign arm on Friday, Representative Mike Levin of California told the president that he should end his reelection campaign and make way for a younger leader, according to people familiar with the call. The host ended the call shortly afterward. On Friday Biden also headed to a campaign event in Detroit, taking that effort to the crucial swing state of Michigan. Next week, hell try to shore up his standing with key Democratic blocs with a stop Monday in Austin to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act an attempt to also counterprogram the Republican National Convention which starts that day. That will be followed by visits to the NAACP National Convention and a gathering of Latino activists. Focus on Trump As Biden left the stage Thursday, he also sought to shift the focus to Trump, suggesting to voters that, despite his own missteps, his general-election challengers rhetoric and policies are much worse. Listen to him, Biden said. That message was amplified Friday morning by one of the presidents closest allies in Congress, Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who said he remains all in with Biden. Clyburn said attention should be on Trump and what his return to power would augur for American voters. He cited Project 2025, a sweeping policy blueprint being crafted by some of the Republicans closest advisers that proposes a massive overhaul of the federal government and replacing thousands of civil servants with officials deemed loyal to the former president to help enact a more conservative agenda. I would hope that we would spend our time now focusing on the record that we will lay out for the American people, remind the American people of what is in store for them if Project 2025 were to become the law in any form. That is where our focus ought to be, Clyburn said on NBCs Today. Trump has repeatedly sought to distance himself from the project, despite the involvement of some of the most prominent members of his former administration in the initiative a reaction that suggests concern that the Democratic attacks may land with voters. NATO Summit The NATO summit in Washington this week gave the White House a chance to showcase Biden uniting world leaders in support of Ukraines defense against Russias invasion. The president survived nearly a week of intense scrutiny as he hosted dozens of world leaders in Washington before making the kind of gaffe Democrats feared as the gathering concluded. Biden called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while on stage with fellow NATO leaders, a misstep that drew gasps from the audience and threatened to unleash a new round of anxiety in foreign capitals worried about the prospect of Trump returning to office. The president quickly recovered, seeking to clean up the mistake. President Putin? Were going to beat President Putin, Biden said, but the event marred the close of an otherwise successful summit. Up until the Putin gaffe, Biden had won praise from European leaders and their advisers, who said he appeared energetic and strong. He delivered a strident speech at the summits opening, held various meetings with delegations from allies and led alliance members in pledging new security assistance for Ukraine including badly-needed air-defense systems. The final communique also called out Chinas aid to Russia with strong language, reflecting an ability to broaden hard-nosed US concerns about Chinese behavior to European allies that are not always willing to risk Beijings ire. Ahead of his solo appearance, several European aides suggested the level of scrutiny on Biden was unfair, and that younger leaders might have withered under a similar microscope. Following the Thursday evening slip-ups, however, one senior European official said it was unfortunate that the mistakes would likely overshadow the progress made at the gathering. Later that evening at the start of his press conference, Biden also mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump, this time failing to correct himself. Before the press conference was over, Trump had already mocked Bidens reference on social media, writing GREAT job, Joe! Still, the president handled most of the questions at the event well, speaking at length on various issues, including a detailed foreign policy question about China and Russia. White House aides were quick to highlight Bidens ability to handle detailed policy questions. To answer the question on everyones minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs, one White House deputy spokesman, Andrew Bates, wrote on X. Yet the White House and campaigns efforts to have Biden speak more and increase his visibility offer more public tests for a president who has long shown a propensity for verbal stumbles. Biden will sit for an interview with NBCs Lester Holt on Monday, to be aired in prime time, the second such sitdown with a broadcast network in as many weeks. On Thursday night, after his press conference Biden responded to Trump on X. By the way: Yes, I know the difference between Harris and Trump, he wrote. Ones a prosecutor, and the others a felon. --With assistance from Alex Wickham, Billy House, Josh Wingrove and Jordan Fabian. (Updates to include Levin-Biden encounter, in eighth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. President Joe Biden on Thursday ended a defiant press conference with a strange qualifier on his personal commitment to staying in the presidential race. When asked directly whether he would consider withdrawing if polling numbers indicated Vice President Kamala Harris would fare better in a matchup against Donald Trump, the 81-year-old president said no, with one caveat. You earlier explained confidence in your vice president. If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race? a Scripps reporter asked. No, unless they came back and said, Theres no way you can win, Biden said, adding me. And no ones saying that. No polls are saying that, he added in a whisper, launching the room filled with the White House press corps into chaos. It was the last question of one of the most critical evenings of Bidens presidency, as Democratic lawmakers weigh whether to formally strip their endorsement from Biden as their presumptive presidential nominee. Despite Bidens insistence, national polls have shown Harris faring as well or better than him in a direct matchup against Trump in November. At the end of his first press conference since the debate, President Biden said he would only reconsider staying in the race if he was told there's no path for him to win. He then whispered into the mic: "No one's saying that. No poll says that." https://t.co/2uv8C7qtri pic.twitter.com/fr3Onr4djY NBC News (@NBCNews) July 12, 2024 Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai, who is on an official visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Li Xueren) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai in Beijing, and expressed China's readiness to work with the Pacific island country to jointly build a China-Vanuatu community with a shared future in the new era. Noting that Vanuatu is a good friend and partner of China in the Pacific island region, Xi said China and Vanuatu have firmly supported each other on issues concerning core interests since the establishment of diplomatic relations 42 years ago. Xi said China attaches great importance to the development of China-Vanuatu relations and stands ready to work with Vanuatu to deepen high-level political mutual trust, promote the high-quality building of the Belt and Road, and enhance the all-weather and all-round friendly cooperation to jointly build a China-Vanuatu community with a shared future in the new era. China hopes to exchange state governance experience with Vanuatu, share development opportunities brought by Chinese modernization, and enhance the synergy of development strategies, Xi said. China is ready to deepen practical cooperation with Vanuatu in infrastructure, economy, trade and investment, climate change and other fields, and encourages its enterprises to invest in Vanuatu, Xi noted. Xi emphasized that China is committed to equality among all countries, big or small, and adheres to the principle of combining justice with interests while prioritizing justice. China does not seek major-power competition or geopolitical spheres of influence. It does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries or force them to take sides, he added. Noting that China is a promoter of and contributor to peaceful coexistence and common development in the Pacific island region, Xi said China is willing to continue providing assistance to the best of its ability for the economic and social development as well as improvement of people's livelihood of the island countries, thereby supporting them in accelerating their efforts to achieve independent and sustainable development goals. Salwai expressed admiration for China's remarkable development achievements and ongoing efforts for national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization under the outstanding leadership of President Xi. China upholds the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and treats small countries like Vanuatu equally, which fully demonstrates equality and respect, he said. The Vanuatu government firmly adheres to the one-China principle, and firmly supports China's position on issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Xizang, human rights and the South China Sea, Salwai said. Vanuatu hopes to learn from China's experience in state governance, strengthen the alignment of development strategies with China, and promote practical cooperation in infrastructure, economy, trade and other fields, he added. The two sides issued a joint statement and agreed to upgrade the comprehensive strategic partnership to build a China-Vanuatu community with a shared future in the new era. Full Text: Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Vanuatu Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai, who is on an official visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) President Joe Biden delivered his first press conference of 2024 amid questions about his future. In response to a question about VP Harris, he referred to her as "Vice President Trump." It was the first major gaffe he made at the press conference. At a press conference after the conclusion of this week's NATO summit on Thursday, President Joe Biden referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." The apparent gaffe, the first he made at the press conference, came in response to a question about whether he had concerns about Harris's ability to beat Trump if she were at the top of the ticket. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president," said Biden. Q: "What concerns do you have about Vice President Harris' ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket? President Biden: Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn't think she was not qualified to be vice president. pic.twitter.com/TqqSKBsyQu CSPAN (@cspan) July 11, 2024 Biden later reaffirmed his confidence in Harris's ability to serve, praising "the way she's handled the issue of freedom of women's bodies" and "her ability to handle almost any issue on the board." At the end of the press conference, Biden was asked for his reaction to Trump mocking the mix-up on Truth Social. "Listen to him," Biden replied. Reporter: Earlier you misspoke, you referred to VP Harris as VP Trump. Trump is using that to mock you. How do you combat that criticism? Biden: Listen to him pic.twitter.com/lNHn5LZgpE Acyn (@Acyn) July 12, 2024 Earlier this evening, Biden referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" before quickly correcting himself. President Biden: "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentleman, President Putin." He immediately corrects himself, "He's going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy." pic.twitter.com/VIqDxC8NCS CSPAN (@cspan) July 11, 2024 The press conference came at a crucial time for the president's political viability, with the number of Democratic lawmakers calling for him to step aside continuing to grow. Biden has insisted since his disastrous debate performance that he will remain in the race, defying those calls so far. Read the original article on Business Insider President Joe Biden still has no intention of dropping out of the presidential race, despite a growing number of lawmakers calling for him to do so following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last month. During a high-stakes press conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the president said he wouldnt drop out of the race even if his team showed him data demonstrating that Vice President Kamala Harris has a better chance of defeating Trump before cracking open the door to the possibility. No, he said, unless they come back and say theres no way you can win. The press conference closing out NATOs annual summit was Bidens first since the debate threw the future of his presidential campaign into serious doubt. For Biden a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his time in Congress it was a comfortable setting, in a policy realm where he holds vast experience. While the president addressed critical foreign policy issues and questions about his health, his soft-spoken performance will likely do little to dispel the concerns raised by voters and lawmakers. The Biden who answered questions for nearly an hour at the podium was noticeably stronger than the one who was present at the debate, but he has struggled in the public eye for months, and no single press event is likely to change the current trajectory especially considering he responded to the first question he received with a gaffe, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, if shes not qualified to be president, Biden said. Biden jumbles an answer about VP Kamala Harris, calling her "Vice President Trump," in his response to the first question. pic.twitter.com/s7ATQV8kfV nikki mccann ramirez (@NikkiMcR) July 11, 2024 Biden also fielded questions about his physical and mental fitness, defending himself against reports that he was having to go to bed earlier in order to accommodate the rigors of the job. I just gotta pace myself a little more, he said, pointing to his packed schedule during the NATO summit as evidence of his continued fitness. Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears, let them see me out there, Biden said in response to another question, referencing the many campaign events on his recent and upcoming schedule. The president later indicated that he would be open to taking another neurological exam, on top of the ones conducted during his annual physical if his physicians recommended it. Biden added that, in his view, no amount of cognitive exams would satisfy the press and public. No matter what I did, no ones gonna be satisfied, he said. Did you have seven docs? Did you have two? Whod you have? Did you do this? How many times? So Im not opposed, if my doctors tell me I should have another neurological exam, Ill do it. Biden "The only thing age does is create a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention [] If [my doctors] think I should have a neurologic exam again. I'll do it." pic.twitter.com/AOna0YJve2 nikki mccann ramirez (@NikkiMcR) July 12, 2024 When he wasnt addressing concerns about his fitness, Biden was responding capably and in detail to foreign policy questions, demonstrating his breadth of understanding of international matters compared to Trump. Also in contrast to Trump, Biden stressed the importance of NATO and touted his own ability to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. I made it clear that I will not bow down to Putin, he said in his opening remarks. I will not walk away from Ukraine. I will keep NATO strong. Thats exactly what we did, and exactly what well continue to do, Biden said. But shortly before taking the stage for his solo Q&A, Biden made an unfortunate gaffe while introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at another event. Now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin, Biden said before quickly correcting himself. President Putin! Were going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy. Im so focused on beating Putin. Weve got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President. Zelensky took the mistake in jest, quipping that he is better than Putin before taking the mic. Biden accidentally calls Zelensky President Putin A few seconds later corrects himself. Hes going to beat President a Putin..Im so focused on beating Putin, we have to worry about it. pic.twitter.com/QH9XwYpfVo Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 11, 2024 Numerous Democratic Party sources on Capitol Hill, among their megadonor class, and even in the Biden administration, told Rolling Stone including hours ahead of Bidens presser that the presidents performance on Thursday would do little to change their calculus. According to three Democratic lawmakers, all of whom had endorsed Biden and said they were proud of his policy legacy, there is a rapidly growing belief within every corner of the partys elite that there is no point in waiting around for the next four months for Biden to misstep again or degenerate further. Each day hes in the race from here on out is a liability, no matter how competently he handled a single Thursday. The president, I say respectfully, just needs to bow out and fast, one of the lawmakers says. We are wasting time that could be focused on beating the hell out of Donald Trump. Politico reported earlier on Thursday that multiple European delegations had also raised concerns about Bidens visible frailty during NATO meetings and events. Its a very weird feeling to be in Europe listening to the president of the United States, and youre more stressed about whether he will go off script than being excited to listen to the leader of the free world, one senior European diplomat told Politico. Several more Democratic lawmakers called for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race on Thursday; so far, over a dozen Democratic House members and one senator have issued such calls, while many more have expressed concerns about Bidens ability to beat Trump. In the lead-up to Thursdays presser, Politico reported that at least half a dozen more lawmakers were preparing to publicly call for Bidens exit from the campaign if he performed badly. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), who has already called on Biden to drop out, said that the press conference would make little difference to him. What if he has a great day and a bad day tomorrow? Do you really want a campaign where you have that uncertainty through the most tense moments? The cake is baked, he added. Minutes after Bidens press conference ended, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) called on him to exit the race. The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism, Himes said in a statement, adding: I no longer believe that is Joe Biden. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone President Joe Bidens press conference performance on Thursday evening received praise from an unexpected source: Donald Trump Jr, the son of the person Biden beat in 2020. On the surface, this may seem a bit peculiar. Don Jr speaks the language of MAGA more fluently even than his father and Biden flubbed early in his big boy press conference by calling Kamala Harris vice president Trump. He also introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin at a separate NATO event a few hours earlier. All this should give someone like Don Jr a clear hit. MAGA rarely pulls its punches. But anyone with a cursory history of politics will see this was a classic example of what Watergate operative Donald Segretti, a member of the Committee to Re-elect the President (called CREEP for short), would call ratf**king the art of dirty trickery, scheming and political jiu-jitsu intended to undermine political opponents. Biden has consistently polled below Trump ever since he announced his re-election campaign. And after Bidens lackluster debate performance, Republicans see him as even weaker and more likely to lose to Trump. So there is an incentive to praise Biden and give people a reason for him to stay in the race, rather than risk someone more popular taking over. This comes ahead of the Republican National Committee, the latest installment of the Trump show, making its way to Milwaukee next week. Republicans want to make the spectacle all about Trump and his would-be running mate. Having Biden drop out during that time would dampen the vibe during Trumps coronation. And Republicans are not the only ones who are learning the lessons from Watergate. On August 7, 1974, a band of Republican members of Congress, including Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and House Minority Leader John Rhodes gave Richard Nixon the hard truth that the situation is very gloomy on Capitol Hill. That proved to be enough to convince him to go, and Nixon announced his resignation the next day. Many years later, Nixon told his former aide Pat Buchanan, by then a host on CNN, that a vice president, a member of the cabinet, a member of Congress who is a member of the president's party should always consider that he is dispensable and should do what The Man [i.e. the president] wants to carry out the policy. The architect of the imperial presidency said members of the presidents party needed to do so because otherwise The Man's gotta get down there in the ring. The problem with other members of the presidents party getting down in the ring is that it means they often have to absorb body blows meant for the boss. Members of Congress likely heard angry words from their constituents about the presidents performance during Fourth of July parades, cookouts and sporting events the kinds of places that the president doesnt get to go himself for security reasons. That might be why House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took it upon himself to meet with Biden on Thursday, the same day as Bidens presser. A letter that Jeffries released after the meeting was seen by some as affirming his support. But really, it seemed to be raising concerns. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together, Jeffries wrote. While the line is not explicitly telling Biden to step aside, it also does not downplay the legitimate skepticism some Democrats have about Biden running again. Indeed, after Bidens presser on Thursday night which proceeded without too much incident more Democrats said Biden needed to step aside. The president had clearly not managed to quite stem the bleeding. Biden was two years into being a senator when Nixon announced his resignation and at age 31, was not even old enough to run for president himself at the time. His experience has guided him through a long trek in American politics. Now, as Trumpworld delights in the idea of him staying in, he should consider what happened around the beginning of his tenure in order to navigate the next steps. President Biden huddled Friday with a trio of Democratic groups, his latest outreach to Capitol Hill as he seeks to quell unrest within the party over his candidacy. Biden spoke with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) in meetings arranged through each groups campaign arm. He was also scheduled to speak with members of the New Democrat Coalition, a centrist group of lawmakers that includes multiple members who have called on Biden to step aside as the nominee. That meeting is set to place tomorrow virtually, while Biden is in Rehoboth Beach, Del., according to a source familiar with the meeting. Rep. Judy Chu (CA-28), who leads the CAPAC, said Biden heard our concerns and was energetic, responsive, and clear in communicating his messages and goals. I thank the President for taking the time to have this meeting and hear our concerns. Congressional Hispanic Caucus leaders have stood behind Biden even as some House Democrats have said he should drop out of the race. I can tell you that from my conversations with meetings of CHC members has been very positive, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Monday. I support the president, she added. Im not here to talk about a percentage of the risk. I support the president. I think he can win, he has won. Multiple members of the New Democrats Coalition have said Biden should step aside, including as recently as Thursday night, when Rep. Eric Sorenson (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) joined the growing list of lawmakers. Fridays meetings came after Biden spoke with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) Thursday night. Jeffries said he relayed the sentiments of the House Democratic Caucus regarding Bidens reelection bid. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together, he added. Jeffries did not offer any specifics on those sentiments, nor did he share his personal perspective regarding Bidens reelection bid. Biden has been slowly hemorrhaging support on Capitol Hill this week, with new lawmakers coming forward daily to urge the president to step aside as the nominee. Calls for a change have followed Bidens disastrous June 27 debate performance, when he struggled to complete his thoughts or land any major blows against former President Trump. Eighteen Democrats in Congress have publicly called on Biden to step aside as the nominee, while several others have expressed concerns about his ability to beat Trump in November. Despite those concerns, the president has insisted he is the best man for the job and has brushed aside calls to end his candidacy. Theres a long way to go in this campaign, Biden said at a Thursday press conference. So Im just going to keep moving. Keep moving and, because, Ive got more work to do. The president is forging ahead with campaign events in the coming days as he seeks to re-energize his reelection bid. Biden will be in the key battleground state of Michigan on Friday to campaign with supporters in Detroit. On Monday he will travel to Texas to deliver remarks focused on civil rights and to sit for an interview with NBCs Lester Holt. Biden will attend events for the NAACP and UnidosUS in Nevada next week as well. Mychael Schnell 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. Actor George Clooney wasnt the only Democrat who became worried about President Joe Biden after a swanky fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles last month. Just two weeks before the June 27 debate that set off a crisis within the Democratic party, a frail Biden tripped over his words at the star-studded event even as it raised more than $30 million for his campaign coffers. Jon Favreau, a speechwriter in the Obama White House and Pod Save America co-host, told The Washington Post: I said to my wife, either hell do great at the debate, and well realize he was just tired tonight, or hell perform like this and then the whole country will be talking about it. He added that Biden was slow, halting, and hard to follow. A number of donors told the paper the president appeared slow and frail, his words trailing off during small talk with attendees as he greeted them to take photos, at times speaking too silently to be heard. The debate confirmed the worries of many voters and donors that Biden was not the same man who appeared on the stage next to Donald Trump four years previously. But the reporting now also casts doubt on why some didnt speak out sooner. George Clooney, Joe Biden, Julia Roberts, and Barack Obama (X/@mmpadellan) Biden had arrived in Los Angeles from Italy that same morning, meeting with donors and other allies for more than two hours before joining former President Barack Obama and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel on stage for an event that lasted about 36 minutes. Attendees told The Post that the president at times didnt make sense and frequently struggled to speak clearly. It felt like he was still the smart, witty guy weve all followed for many years, but the volume and speed are turned way down to an alarming level, one backer who donated $100,000 told the paper, adding that Biden appeared to miss a joke shared with Obama as they prepared for a photo. She said Biden later tried to respond in a barely audible voice after the photo had been taken and others had moved along. A Biden campaign spokesperson noted toThe Post that Several reporters were present for the Presidents interview with Jimmy Kimmel at the L.A. fundraiser. None of them reported out anything like this at the time. The anonymous donor told the paper that she struggled to answer them honestly, when friends asked about Bidens state. We were worried that if we told the truth, that President Biden was stiff, slow and dare we say it, fragile, that we risked losing their support for the president, she said, adding that It was painful to be deceptive. Now, we realize we were not alone in withholding what we experienced. Access to the most exclusive parts of the fundraiser, such as the photo line, reception, and the after party, cost attendees $500,000, according to The Los Angeles Times. The cheapest ticket cost $250. In an op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday, 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. One Democratic lawmaker who attended the soiree told The Post: Ive been with him. I know what to expect, adding that Its hard to think hes our best chance to beat Trump. President Joe Biden's debate performance has ignited fears among Democrats that a Biden-led ticket could threaten down-ballot candidates as Democrats seek to hold control of the Senate and win back a majority in the House of Representatives. Democratic politicians and party operatives have expressed concerns that Biden could depress Democratic turnout in November, dragging down candidates lower on the ticket -- and noted that some donors have begun to shift their focus down-ballot to hedge against the prospect of a victory for former President Donald Trump. To take control of the House in November, ensuring themselves a bulwark against a second Trump administration, Democrats need only to flip four seats. The presidents tailspin following the first debate could threaten that goal, several Democrats have said. MORE: Biden campaign is polling on Harris' strength against Trump: Source PHOTO: President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. (Susan Walsh/AP) "There must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate," Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York wrote in a statement Wednesday. "If we're going to choose a particular path, we should be clear-eyed about its consequences." Those consequences could fall directly on Democrats such as Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, up for reelection in the state's competitive 2nd District. Last week, Craig became one of several elected Democrats who have publicly called for Biden to step aside. "I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump," she said in a statement. PHOTO: Rep. Angie Craig leaves the U.S. Capitol, Nov. 9, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images) Democrats such as Craig, who face difficult reelection contests, must weigh the political calculus of whether and how strongly to voice concerns about Biden. After reports that Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild expressed worries in a private call with House members about running on the same ticket as Biden, Wild issued a statement acknowledging, in part, that she "expressed the same concerns that Americans across the country are grappling with, about President Biden's electability at the top of the ticket." PHOTO: Rep. Susan Wild attends an event to call attention to the 'sexual and gender-based violence that Hamas perpetrated, Oct. 7th and since then against Israeli women,' in Rayburn Building, Feb. 14, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images) MORE: Biden's solo, unscripted news conference a pivotal moment in debate rebound effort Meanwhile, some senators up for reelection in battleground states have withheld their own opinions about Biden -- at least publicly. "I'm focused on my own reelection campaign, continuing my record as one of the most bipartisan and independent Senators, and putting politics aside to get things done for Nevada," Sen. Jacky Rosen said in a statement. PHOTO: Sen. Jacky Rosen speaks during a news conference following the weekly Senate Democratic policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol, June 18, 2024, in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin told ABC News after a recent campaign event that she was "focused very much on getting the vote out for Democrats in Wisconsin." Asked if she worried about Biden's effect on her race, Baldwin said, "I'm listening carefully to what my constituents and voters have to say in Wisconsin and certainly sharing those comments with the president's advisors." PHOTO: Sen. Tammy Baldwin arrives at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Capitol Hill, July 11, 2024, in Washington. (Rod Lamkey/AP) Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, meanwhile, have chosen a more controversial route by saying outright that they believed Biden would lose to Trump in November. But adding to the drumbeat of anti-Biden rhetoric could backfire, party operatives say, turning supporters off just when Democrats need the reverse. "It puts candidates in a weird position, it puts the party in a weird position, it obviously puts our nominee for president in a weird position," said Matthew Grodsky, a leading party strategist in Arizona. "It's much better to do this stuff behind the scenes and work out these types of differences, rather than posting every thought publicly." Another prominent swing-state strategist told ABC News that they "think campaigns are a little nervous right now." "But I think that the thing that would help them settle the most is to have it settled -- who's going to be at the top of the ticket," the strategist added. MORE: Biden and Trump tied despite debate, as 67% call for president to drop out: POLL It's not all bad news for down-ballot Democrats, though. Since the debate, six Democratic Senate candidates in tough races have reported eye-popping fundraising hauls for the second quarter of this year, including three -- Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Rep. Colin Allred of Texas -- who topped $10 million. Biden's debate performance came just a few days before the U.S. Supreme Court delivered the presidential immunity ruling that benefited Trump. Coupled together, a national Democrat with knowledge of Senate races told ABC News, the events have triggered a surge of support for Senate Democrats from both grassroots and major donors. Two battleground-state campaigns confirmed to ABC News that they saw a surge in donations in the days following the debate. PHOTO: President Joe Biden hosts a bilateral meeting with Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on the sidelines of NATO's 75th anniversary summit, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, July 10, 2024. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) Grodsky said he had seen a shift in donor focus to down-ballot races, according to his conversations with donors, candidates who have spoken with donors and colleagues across multiple states. "I can confirm that's definitely a thing," he said, though he noted that "the president has raised an enormous amount of money, and it looks like he still is, so I don't think it's a five-alarm fire." The other strategist, however, said they hadn't seen a donor shift down-ballot so far. Lauren Harper, a cofounder of a group called Welcome PAC that supports Democrats running in red districts, told ABC News that she had also not yet sensed a change with donors focusing on down-ballot races. But, Harper suggested, she won't be complaining if she does. "If you are figuring you're going to lose in one place," she said, "I would think it's smart to pick it up in another place that you have more confidence in." Biden's post-debate struggles could drag down Democrats in tough races. Here's how they're responding originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Heres some of whats in the bill that directs historic new Pa. education funding (Getty Images) Perhaps the most significant number in the 2025 budget is $1.1 billion in new spending on K-12 education. The funding comes after Commonwealth Court declared that Pennsylvanias current method of funding public schools was unconstitutional, citing inequities between the states wealthiest school districts and its poorest. While the general appropriations bill the legislative centerpiece of the budget outlines how much money will go towards education in the coming year, its another bill that tells the state how it can spend those funds: the public school code bill. Code bills are passed alongside the budget. While the general appropriations bill says how much money each part of the government will get, the code bills more or less lay out how those dollars can be spent. The bill also contains what are effectively individual policies, from the massive new funding formula that will change how money is distributed to Pennsylvanias school districts, to smaller policy points, like allowing schools grants to provide menstrual hygiene products. Here are some of the big items that made it into this years code bill: The new funding formula Arguably the most substantive part of the bill lays out how more than $526 million in adequacy and equity grants will be distributed to Pennsylvanias school districts based on factors like the student poverty rate. Because schools receive so much funding from property taxes, school districts where property values are lower have an inherent disadvantage. The $526 million in new funds is intended to shrink that equity gap, and award extra money to schools with high levels of poverty among its students and greater numbers of kids whose primary language isnt English. What data would drive those funds was one of the biggest sources of contention between Democrats and Republicans during the drawn-out budget negotiations. Democrats had hoped to use data reported by the school districts themselves, while Republicans wanted to use U.S. Census data. Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), who was a leader in creating the House Democrats version of a funding formula, said, the schools have a pretty good idea when theyre talking to these parents whether or not theyre making $30,000 a year or theyre making $300,000. He said that census data has historically underreported poverty. However, Senate Republicans, who ultimately won out, said that the self-reported data is too hard to verify. Ultimately, the parties agreed to use census figures. Democrats had to make other concessions in the fight over equity funding as well. Back in February, Gov. Josh Shapiro had proposed spending $872 million on closing the equity gap, a number that was rejected by Republicans. Charter school restraints When a student attends a charter school, the charter school gets money that would have gone to the students school district. The amount is based on the average per-student spending of that school district, with a separate formula for students with disabilities.. The code bill establishes a formula for reimbursing traditional public schools for some of the money that follows would-be students to cyber charter schools. The budget set aside $100 million for that purpose. It also changes the formula for how much money follows students with special needs, which is estimated to save public schools $34.5 million. The bill would also force charter schools to put in their advertisements that they were paid for with taxpayer dollars, a largely symbolic victory for Democrats who opposed money intended for public schools going to charters. It also makes new requirements of charter school board members. At least five must be non related voting members. Charter schools will also be required to make certain budget documents public. Security and mental health grants Schools will receive $120 million to provide security and mental health services. Every school will now be required to have a security guard, and the money can go to funding that position. Plus, those security guards can be armed. Of that, $20 million is set aside for safety grants for non-public schools and school entities like charters. Odds and ends The bill also provides funding for policies that had been included in bills that were introduced through the traditional legislative process, but never completed by the House or Senate. That includes up to $3 million for grants that would allow schools to purchase feminine hygiene products. The idea appears similar to one proposed in a House bill sponsored by Rep. Darisha Parker (D-Philadelphia). Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R-Clinton) said the free tampons could promote communism when the bill was debated on the House floor. The bill was never taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate. Funding for a grant program that would allow schools to lock students cell phones away during the school day mirrors a bill sponsored by Sen. Ryan Aument (R-Lancaster). That bill passed the Senate, but never appeared in the House. The public school code bill would allow some of the school safety and mental health funding to go towards the purchase of special bags that can be locked during the day for students to place their phones in so long as the school comes up with a policy prohibiting cell phone use during the school day. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Black members of Congress with whom President Joe Biden has worked hard to forge a relationship say there will be trouble if either Biden or Kamala Harris dont stay on the Democratic presidential ticket, with one warning of a Blacklash. They will no longer sit idly by on the sidelines of an historic election they fear could have disastrous consequences for the people of their community, one veteran member of the Congressional Black Caucus told the Daily Beast Thursday. Before, people were just kind of, Ok, theres an election, Im going to vote. But now, people are more mindful of whats happening and there is a backlash developing because of the possibility that there may be a ticket that wont consist of Harris or Biden, either one, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said in an interview in the Capitol. Theres a desire to keep that ticket together. Green, who has spent 19 years serving in the House of Representatives, said he has noticed a turn among Black Democrats on Capitol Hill, not one of whom has publicly called on Biden to abandon his race for a second term. And so there may be a backlash developing, Green, 76, said. If I may say, as it relates to the African-American community, I would call it a Blacklash. Joe Bidens Own Inner Circle Is Plotting to Get Him to Quit Greenwhose new adage is with Biden Im ridin and Harris Im sidinsuggested his views reflect those of many of his colleagues in the CBC, which is comprised of some five dozen members. I speak for myself and everyone who agrees with me, and a lot of people do. Black Americans and Black lawmakers in particular were pivotal for Biden on his way to the White House in 2020. An endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who at the time was the highest-ranking Black Democrat in Congress, was seen as especially helpful for Biden securing a win in that pivotal Southern states primary, and later in most of the Super Tuesday states. Only a few CBC members have expressed doubts about the president publicly. The President did not just have one bad debate, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) posted Thursday morning on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. The reality we saw with our own lying eyes is evidence of a deeper challenge. The statement was one example of a shift from earlier in the week, when Torres critiqued mixed messaging from Democrats publicly asking Biden to step aside. Perhaps the most prominent Black Democrat in the country, former President Barack Obama, may be undermining Biden behind the scenes. Politico reported Thursday that Obama did not object to actor George Clooneys Wednesday op-ed calling on Biden to step aside, while others in the former presidents orbit have delivered harsh criticism. Biden aides are reportedly annoyed about it. Asked by The Daily Beast about such reports, Green replied, I havent seen anything that causes me to conclude that thats the case, so I really dont have any comment that I can give you. I just havent seen the evidence of it. Old Rivalry Between Obama and Biden Resurfaces A Daily Beast survey of CBC members accounts on X found that more than a dozen have issued ringing endorsements of the embattled president. I support the President and look forward to him delivering four more years of amazing accomplishments for the hard-working people of Wisconsin, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) clarified after missing an opportunity to appear with him in Wisconsin. Many of the affirmations came at the start of this week, soon after Biden held a Zoom call with the CBC and when reporters were chomping at the bit to figure out if lawmakers would continue supporting Biden. I want to make it clear: As a senior Democrat in the U.S. House, I fully support our President and Vice President, and we will defeat Trump again, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote. My support for the Biden-Harris ticket is rock solid, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) posted. He said hes not stepping down & so I, Congresswoman Jasmine Felicia Crockett, Esq., AM RIDING WITH BIDEN; Period! exclaimed Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). Every minute we spend debating the Democratic Party nominee narrative, we put ourselves more at risk for a second Trump term, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) argued. The best solution is to rally around @JoeBiden now. Others have delivered quieter support over the past two weeks, with about half of the caucus weighing in either explicitly or more subtly. Several CBC members have reshared posts from Biden, Harris and the presidential campaign, underlined the presidents policy accomplishments or gone on the attack against former President Donald Trump and especially Project 2025, a set of right-wing policy proposals he could implement if re-elected. Those messages reflect the party line, which House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, now the highest-ranking member of the CBC, repeated at the start of a press conference on Thursday before reporters besieged him with questions about Bidens prospects. This week has once again made clear that the extreme MAGA Republican agenda is to jam Trumps Project 2025 down the throats of the American people, Jeffries said. His opening remarks lasted about two minutes. He spent the next 20 minutes fielding questions about Democratic concerns about Biden.Unlike many other CBC members, Jeffries did not give his full-throated support to the president. Instead, his reaction suggested that concerns about Bidens fitness may continue to mount. Were involved in an internal process that we take seriously, he said. And until that process is concluded, Im not really in a position to comment. 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. MANILA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Two criminal suspects have been killed and four police officers wounded in a shootout in the Philippine capital, police said Friday. Police Brigadier General Arnold Thomas Ibay of the Manila Police District told reporters that a shootout broke out Thursday night when the criminal suspects allegedly opened fire at law enforcers serving an arrest warrant at a hideout in Tondo, a district in Manila City. The suspects reportedly attempted to escape by jumping out of a window but were pursued by the police team, resulting in a gunfight that killed the two suspects. The four police officers sustained gunshot wounds in the legs and hand. Ibay said that the criminals were allegedly involved in drug trafficking, gun-for-hire activities, and illegal drugs. This Black Greek Org Is Reportedly Considering A Proposed Transgender Ban; Members Are Upset And Say It Doesnt Reflect Their Broader Membership This Black Greek Org Is Reportedly Considering A Proposed Transgender Ban; Members Are Upset And Say It Doesnt Reflect Their Broader Membership | Photo: Justin Heiman/Getty Images Black Greek organizations are known for fostering brotherhood and sisterhood, community service and more, as they were created during a time when Black people were excluded from other orgs of this nature. However, the oldest historically Black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., could possibly become the first Black Greek-letter fraternity to implement a ban on transgender members, according to an exclusive report from GLAAD. Per the extensive GLAAD report, written and reported by acclaimed journalist Trevell Anderson, some members say the organizations national leadership and this amendment dont reflect a broader Alpha membership that can be more accepting and welcoming. The organizations Constitutional Convention at Chicagos McCormick Place Convention Center began Wednesday, with delegates proposing to change its bylaws to restrict membership to any male defined as a human being naturally born male, who remains and continually identifies as a male, the official draft states. However, some members have shared their thoughts on the proposed ban, calling it discriminatory, unnecessarily exclusionary, [and] politically motivated. Their decision to alienate trans and nonbinary people from membership is reactionary, asinine, and unbecoming of an organization with a professed commitment to human rights, Deandre Miles-Hercules, an Alpha Phi Alpha member who uses they/them pronouns and one of many who would likely be affected by the proposed bylaw amendment, told GLAAD. Its ludicrous to be the fraternity of Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. and come up with a policy that bans trans people. In addition to Miles-Hercules stance on the proposed ban, others have questioned the organizations long-standing commitment to civil rights for Black people. Matthew Shaw, a lifetime Alpha member, assistant professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School and assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt Peabody College, voiced concern about Alpha Phi Alphas shift in direction, noting the historical support for racial desegregation during the Civil Rights era but apparent reluctance to support the LGBTQ+ community. What theyve understood is what I understand, that the logic of civil rights has got to remain inviolate, Shaw told GLAAD. If we allow certain discriminations, we have to allow for all of them, he continued. If Alpha then adopts the logic that White Citizens Councils had against Black people desegregating schools in the 1950s and 60, whats to say that you couldnt use that logic against Black people in 2024? Significant differences exist between the more conservative and traditional national leadership and the younger, more progressive collegiate and alumni chapter leadership. The latter group champions the organization to expand its language and policies, aiming to make it more diverse and inclusive for everyone. Trans men are men, a Philadelphia Alpha told the media outlet. I just feel like at the end of the day, if you identify as a man and you want to be in fellowship with other men, then you should be allowed to. It doesnt sit well with me that a white man can be a member of Alpha, this historic Black institution, with no problem, but were going to tell Black trans men that they cant. Weve got all types of men in this fraternity, so to me, thats how I look at it. Its just another type of man. Despite the transgender ban being in review, members are still left questioning how this policy would be implemented and whom it would affect most. Its not surprising to me that there are transphobic sentiments within the organization because Ive experienced it, Hercules-Miles said, who joined Alpha Phi Alpha as an undergraduate student at Emory University in Atlanta. But it is surprising that the organizational leadership would move forward with attempting to enshrine it in organization policy in the year 2024. That doesnt make any sense to me. The bylaw amendment targets transgender and nonbinary members, while those who identify as gay, bisexual or queer are likely to receive more protections within the organization. However, some members believe the fraternity clings to outdated traditions instead of expanding its conception of brotherhood. One Alpha criticized the organization for not supporting its LGBTQ+ members during Pride Month in June. If this fraternity cant even acknowledge Pride Month because they think its political, its almost like you shouldnt even be that surprised that the national organization is not going to consider trans men [for membership], he said. I wouldve been more shocked that they were doing this based on my experience in the fraternity on a chapter level and regional level. But I feel like the more I get into the national side, the more it becomes very clear that theres an old guard at the top that wants to enforce these types of policies and ideologies and stances, to the dismay of a lot of their chapters. The proposed ban is under review at the convention in Chicago. General President Willis L. Lonzer, III penned a letter to members, stating how the gathering would be an opportunity to be a part of history as we discuss and refine this great Fraternitys guiding documents as we move into the future. In addition to the president, the bylaw amendment must undergo a voting process before it can be officially adopted. While some members remain optimistic about the future outcome of the ban, others have openly stated they would leave the organization if it happens. I dont know if its going to pass, a Washington, D.C.-based member said. But I know for sure I cant be involved [in the organization] if it passes. It just makes a statement, and its not something Im willing to stand behind. Black leaders in Kansas City said police and prosecutors failed to act with urgency in a high-profile case involving missing Black women, following the announcement of murder charges filed Tuesday. Timothy Haslett Jr., 42, of Excelsior Springs, is accused of killing Jaynie Crosdale, 36, whose body was found by kayakers roughly 13 months ago in the Missouri River. Haslett was first arrested in October 2022, when another woman said she escaped his basement where she was held as a sex slave, according to court documents. The charges against Haslett were brought before a grand jury this week, which indicted him on 10 felonies. He is charged with first-degree murder, four counts of first-degree sodomy, two counts of second-degree assault, kidnapping, and endangering the welfare of a child. Black leaders have spoken out on their disapproval of the way police handled the investigation since the start of the case in 2022. That criticism intensified when police identified Crosdale as a possible witness to Hasletts alleged crimes. The news release from the Excelsior Springs Police Department included Crosdales name, photo and last-known Kansas City address. But the release included few details on why investigators sought her, and it looked similar to news releases issued for criminal suspects. Friends of Jaynie Crosdale said the 36-year-old Kansas City woman was energetic, boisterous and kind. Crosdales body was found in the Missouri River in June 2023. Timothy Haslett is a suspect in her killing. The surviving victim, identified as T.J. in court records, told investigators Haslett kept two other women captive in his basement who did not make it, according to court documents. Investigators suspect Haslett, who is white, sought vulnerable victims, preying on Black commercial sex workers specifically. Haslett was charged with murder this week, nearly a year after police first suspected his involvement in Crosdales death. It took a long time to get to this point, said Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, speaking about the murder charge. This case underscores the need for equal protection, equal focus, heightened protection and support for our most vulnerable populations in this particular case Black women, Grant said. Grant said she was outraged at how law enforcement responded to tips they received last year on missing Black women, another major point of concern for Black community members on the police handling of the case. Haslett was arrested weeks after policepublicly dismissed a report in the community that a serial killer was targeting Black women. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said the surviving victim endured torture and that police and prosecutors still have work to do, alluding to the possibility of more victims. The case is ongoing, he said. It doesnt matter where you come from, or how much money you have in the bank, what your job is, Thompson said. You deserve equal protection. Thompson said law enforcement in Clay County is dedicated to protecting all residents. No matter the color of their skin, he said, people are entitled to equal protection under the law. Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson holds a press conference at the old Liberty Courthouse on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Grant said she hopes Thompsons remarks are backed by action from law enforcement agencies across the metro. (Haslett allegedly) targeted Black women who are often disproportionately affected by violence, yet law enforcement seemed to discount that very important fact, Grant said. When the investigation into Haslett captured national attention last year, Kansas City advocacy groups held vigils for the surviving victim and worked to raise awareness. Some said they believe police throughout the metro have been and continue to be dismissive of concerns raised by Black families and activists when it comes to people of color who go missing. Working to ensure equal protection Activist claims in these cases reflect a historical pattern that is systemic and structural by nature, said the Rev. Vernon Howard Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City. Howard is a human rights leader with a history of ensuring protections of human and civil rights for victims of violence. Equal protection under the law, he said, is both a legal mandate and moral mandate that systems must protect people of color in an equally effective manner. When one considers the claims and voices of these Black leaders that have been so vocal... in this instance, even... the slower pace and lack of immediacy and urgency with respect to Black-skinned victims, and particularly Black-skinned female victims, has historically been par for the course, Howard said. The Excelsior Springs home of Timothy Haslett Jr., in the 300 block of Old Orchard Avenue, was boarded up and fenced off after a woman said she escaped confinement in his house. Howard and Grant said avoidance of the issue has led to instances of inefficient and ineffective protection from violence by law enforcement. When we raise issues of race, theres far too much denial and not enough acceptance of the reality thats needed to bring about the change thats necessary, Grant said. Haslett is due to appear in court at 9 a.m. Friday for an arraignment in Clay County Circuit Court. A hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 10 in the Division 4 courtroom. Grant said she hopes this case, and continued activism within the Black community, will cause law enforcement to improve how they respond when they get information about missing Black women in Kansas City. The Stars Bill Lukitsch contributed. The family of a Black transgender woman who went missing three weeks ago in the Bahamas is asking for the publics help in finding her. Taylor Casey, who was known for her vibrant personality and loving nature and would have turned 42 yesterday, was visiting Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat on Paradise Island in Nassau last month. She was last seen on June 19 and the Royal Bahamas Police Force issued a missing person alert two days later on June 21. A 15-year practitioner of yoga, she was on the island for a two-day retreat and told her family she was looking forward to returning home to Chicago. Caseys mother, Colette Seymore, fears for her daughters safety. I believe Taylor is in danger because she was eager to share her yoga retreat experience with others upon her return, Seymore said in a press release shortly after Caseys disappearance. Taylor would never disappear like this. The initial searches were fruitless, and family members have visited the island to aid in the efforts. Police announced the discovery of Caseys journal and cell phone on July 2 via social media but cautioned they had not located her passport. They provided no information on the contents of the phone or the journal. (@) Friends have set up a Chuffed fundraising page (chuffed.org/project/findtaylorcasey). They have raised over $22,000 towards their goal of $100,000 to help offset the travel, mental health, and other expenses related to the search and her disappearance. The family holds out hope, but Caseys mother admitted they are worried. "We are deeply concerned for Taylor's safety and well-being," Seymore said. We love Taylor and want her home. Anyone with information regarding the case is encouraged to contact the Royal Bahamas Police Force Criminal Investigations Department at 502-9991/2 or Crime stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477). Bland Correction Center employee arraigned on charges for child pornography by Mercer Co. Sheriffs Dept. PRINCETON, WV (WVNS) A Bland Correctional Center employee was arraigned on child pornography charges by the Mercer County Sheriffs Department on Thursday, July 11, 2024. Virginia man charged with kidnapping, assault in West Virginia This employee, 37 year-old Christopher Erickson, was arrested at a traffic stop on three different counts of child pornographic charges. According to Lieutenant Steven Sommers of Mercer County Sheriffs Department, Erickson was being monitored for four months by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Alabama Bureau of Investigation, and the West Virginia State Police Internet Crimes against Children Taskforce. Lieutenant Sommers told 59News what the next steps are in this Erickson case. This is still an active investigation. Within 10 days, [Erickson] will have a preliminary hearing. As far as the investigation, there is a lot of forensic evidence to go through and additional avenues of investigation in West Virginia and Alabama, said Sommers. Erickson was arrested for two counts of possession and distribution of child pornography. The other count was for using a minor to film sexually explicit conduct. One count for child pornography was for 50-600 images and the other was for 600 or more images. Dangerous weekend in Mercer County, as two shootings occur on the same night Although Erickson works in Bland, Virginia, he lives in Bluefield, West Virginia. Mercer County Sheriffs Department was able to make the arrest as Erickson was on his commute to work. 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. Blue-green algae health alert for St. Johns River: Here's what you need to know An alligator cruises through matted cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, in a Florida river. The Florida Department of Health in Duval County has issued its first blue-green algae health alert in nearly two years for the St. Johns River, according to its website. Friday the department warned residents and visitors about the presence of harmful blue-green algae toxins in response to a water sample taken Monday. "The public should exercise caution in and around the St. Johns River near Mandarin Point," the Health Department said. The Duval County Health Department issued a blue-green algae health alert Friday in and around the St. Johns River near Mandarin Point. It is the same area off Mandarin Road where its last two alerts were issued in June and September 2022, according to past news releases. What does the Duval County Health Department advise about blue-green algae? Do not drink, swim, wade, use personal watercrafts, or come into contact with waterswhere there is a visible bloom. Wash your skin and clothing with soap and water if you have any contact with algae, ordiscolored or water that smells unpleasant. Keep pets and livestock away from the area to avoid any contact with water. Waterswhere algae blooms are present are not safe for animals. Pets and livestock should usean alternative source of water when algae blooms are present. Do not cook or clean dishes with water contaminated by algae blooms. Boiling the waterwill not eliminate toxins. Eating fillets from healthy fish caught in freshwater lakes experiencing blooms is safe.Rinse fish fillets with tap or bottled water, throw out the guts, and cook fish thoroughly. Do not eat shellfish in waters with algae blooms. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and its partners collect algae samplesfrom reported bloom locations. After samples are analyzed at their laboratory, the toxin resultscan be viewed on the Environmental Protections Algal Bloom Dashboard. What is blue-green algae? The algae is a type of bacteria that is common in Floridas freshwater environments. A bloom occurs when rapid growth of algae leads to an accumulation of individual cells that discolor water and often produce floating mats that emit unpleasant odors, according to the Health Department. Blue-green algae blooms can also appear as scum, foam or paint on the surface of the water invarious colors. Blue-green algae blooms form in Doctors Lake in this file photo. Some environmental factors that contribute to blue-green algae blooms are sunny days, warm water temperatures, still water conditions and excess nutrients, the Health Department said. Blooms can appear year-round but are more frequent in summer and fall. Blue-green algae may not always be visible as a bloom, but it can still be present in the water. Is blue-green algae harmful? The department advises that blue-green algae can produce toxins that can be harmful to people and pets as well as ecosystems, including fish and other aquatic animals. Sensitive individuals (e.g., children, the elderly and those who are immunocompromised) may still be at risk even at low concentrations and should avoid any exposure. For additional information on potential health effects of algae blooms, visit the agency's harmful algaeblooms webpage. Where can you find current water status information? Current information about Floridas water quality status and public health notifications for harmful algae blooms and beach conditions is available at Protecting Florida Together. Residents can subscribe to receive notifications when water quality changes in their area. Where can you report issues related to algae blooms? Algae Blooms: The Environmental Protection Department monitors algae blooms and collects samples for analysis. Blooms can be reported to the agency online or by calling toll-free at (855) 305-3903. Human Health Impacts: Report symptoms from exposure to a harmful algae bloom or any aquatic toxin to the Florida Poison Information Center by calling (800) 222-1222 to speak to a poison specialist. Animal Health Impacts: Contact your veterinarian if you believe your pet has become ill after consuming or having contact with blue-green algae-contaminated water. Fish Kills: Dead, diseased, or abnormally behaving fish or wildlife should be reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission online or at (800) 636-0511. If you have other health questions or concerns about blue-green algae, call the Duval County Health Department at (904) 253-1280. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Duval County Health Department issues blue-green algae alert PEPIN, Wis. Angie Bocksell stood in the shade of a sprawling swamp oak tree. She was soaking in a picturesque afternoon on her fifth-generation dairy farm and discussing the state of American politics. This centuries-old tree, it occurred to her, is the perfect symbol of her family's place in a politically shifting America: firmly rooted in one place, resistant to change around it. "Farmers are the people with roots in our area like that 300-year-old swamp oak," Bocksell said. "Farming on the same land and watching the cultures change around us." Her conservative politics grow from those roots. Her Christian faith bristles at an increasingly permissive American culture. Her frugal farmer mindset disapproves of President Biden's government spending. Big government's COVID measures went against her rural self-reliance and common sense. She's doesn't love Trump his divisiveness, his pompous attitude but she feels she has no other choice. Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneAngie Bocksell works on her goat and cattle farm in Pepin, Wisc. "He's just going to cause more divide, and I don't like that," Bocksell said. "But I want to vote for things that make sense for us as citizens. I can't vote for Joe Biden." The votes of people like Bocksell are of vital importance in 2024, with Wisconsin again among a handful of crucial swing states. And her region called the Driftless Area for its hilly landscape untouched by ancient glaciers has experienced voting shifts among the most drastic in the nation. Of more than 3,000 counties in America, there are only 206 so-called "pivot counties" that voted for Barack Obama twice before swinging to Trump in 2016, according to Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan digital encyclopedia of American politics. Nearly 90% of those counties stuck with Trump in 2020. The biggest concentration of pivot counties is in the Upper Midwest, with more than 40% of them in the Driftless, a region that stretches across the nexus of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and a bit of Illinois. Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneGalen Erickson flies a Trump flag under his American flag, and he covered up Mike Pence's name from the Trump poster he has on the side of his barn in Pepin, Wisc. It's in Bocksell's home county, Pepin County with its 7,500 residents, touristy Mississippi River towns, towering blufftops, and resilient farm economy where that political swing is most stark. "What Obama and Trump have in common is they said, 'The system isn't working, and I'm going to do something different," said Anthony Chergosky, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. "That resonated with a lot of voters in Wisconsin, particularly in the western part of the state that 'you're getting a raw deal' message." Half a century ago, this region, whose small towns and rolling hills of farmland feel more rural New England than Midwest, was a hotbed of hippies and progressivism. Pepin County has leaned blue for generations. Before Trump, it voted Democrat for 10 consecutive presidential elections, with Richard Nixon its last Republican winner in 1972. But Trump didn't just win Pepin County: He demolished Hillary Clinton by more than 23 percentage points. And although Biden in 2020 defeated Trump by 7 million votes nationally, Pepin County swung further right, with Trump winning by more than 26 percentage points. The significance of the rightward drift in the Driftless is evident with Wisconsin again predicted to be a swing state. In 2020, it was one of three states that pushed Biden to an Electoral College victory; Biden won Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona by fewer than 45,000 votes. The idea of one county swinging nearly 40 points from Democrat to Republican in a dozen years mystifies even its residents. Wisconsin political experts point to several factors: a Badger State independent streak swayed by singular candidates, the national trend of rural America getting redder while urban America gets bluer, and places like the Driftless feeling ignored by political elites. Wisconsin politics are a unique beast. Its two U.S. senators are Tammy Baldwin, a progressive and the nation's first openly gay senator, and Ron Johnson, a staunch Trump ally and COVID vaccine skeptic. Its state legislature has neared a Republican supermajority for a decade, but political pundits here attribute that to gerrymandering: Wisconsin remains evenly divided and a presidential bellwether. That doesn't mean it's filled with moderates. Political observers see pockets of ultra-progressives and of ultra-conservatives. Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll and a professor of law and public policy at the Milwaukee law school, points out that the Democratic party of the 1960s talked about progressive issues like civil rights while continuing its New Deal legacy in rural America: rural electrification, farm support programs, outreach to blue-collar workers. But the Democratic message no longer resonates in the Driftless, he said. "Democrats don't speak a whole lot to the rural residents of southwestern Wisconsin, where counties are 90 percent-plus white and where the biggest community in the whole county may be 10,000 people," Franklin said. "It's like a switch was turned between 2012 and 2016 here. " Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneAlan Nugent, owner of Stockholm Pie and General Store in Stockholm, Wisc. Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneAn 1877 map of Pepin County, Wisconsin, hangs on the wall at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Pepin along with photos of relatives and characters from the television show. 'The born-heres and the moved-heres' Minnesotans often refer to the Driftless as Bluff Country. Winding roads rise from the Mississippi River bottoms and disappear into lush blufftops. Pat Malone, who runs the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension office in four Driftless counties, said her great-uncle compared it to his homeland: "It's as beautiful as Ireland," he'd say, "without all the damn rain." On Wisconsin's side, fishing boats sit near riverside homes. Then the land rises east into barely populated forests. The region's feeling of isolation despite its proximity to the Twin Cities it's barely more than an hour's drive from the Minnesota State Capitol to Pepin County is its biggest selling point and biggest challenge. Residents love the simplicity and slower pace, but plenty of spots remain without cell service or broadband internet. "That's the way the world is viewed around here: 'Do you live on the ridge or in the valley?'" said Ben Wojahn, a farmer outside Viroqua who also works for Vernon County. "People who are from here, who grew up here for many generations, often they tend to be more conservative. Then there's a massive wave of newcomers [that] just got ignited with COVID. So people who made money somewhere else can buy up land from underneath the locals." Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneRoberto Tecpile, left, works with Rosenholm Dairy owner John Rosenow in a pen full of the farm's heifers in Waumandee, Wisc. Alan Nugent is one of those outsiders. He moved from the Twin Cities to the Bohemian riverside village of Stockholm 20 years ago with his now-husband. Stockholm is to Pepin County what Austin is to Texas: a liberal enclave restaurants and art galleries and Nugent's Stockholm Pie and General Store, recently named America's best pie shop within an increasingly conservative area. Residents here joked after Trump's 2016 win that they should decorate the town in black bunting. Nugent knows it's silly to see an urban-rural divide in the whitest and geographically smallest county in Wisconsin. Still, he sees it. River towns survive on tourism and lean liberal; blufftops have urban folks' expensive second homes and progressive politics, though many don't vote in Wisconsin; farming communities over the bluffs, centered on the county seat of Durand, are Trump's base. "There's always been a difference between the born-heres and the moved-heres," Nugent said. "It's a microcosm of what's happening in Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota, or Madison and Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin. The divide is intense here, but the divide existed before. I just don't think it was a negative thing." That changed in 2016, Nugent said. Trump gave voice to rural conservatives who felt ignored or denigrated, both by D.C. elites and this area's urban transplants, and Nugent felt their backlash. It got to the point where a Pride event that Nugent helped organize was canceled this year after local conservatives protested. "They voted for change with Obama, and the change they wanted didn't happen," Nugent said. "With Clinton, it felt we were moving back to the old school again, where no one gives a damn about them. Trump was able to convince them that he actually gave a damn." Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneSue Fedie runs the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Pepin, Wisc. Frustration with big government Tom Milliren is a self-made man. He married his Durand High School sweetheart 49 years ago, then bought his first piece of Pepin County farmland. There were hard times, but Milliren persisted. Now he owns 1,000 acres and operates 10,000 more. He's always been conservative. But what solidified him as a Trump-style Republican wasn't anything headline-grabbing like immigration or culture wars. It was when Milliren began serving on the county board and grew frustrated with big government. The federal government always tells them what to do despite not knowing the area, Milliren said. It tells farmers they can't build in flood zones "We know where the high spots are, and it's our money," he lamented yet he sees million-dollar beach homes get wiped out by hurricanes then built back up. When a tenth of an acre is needed from a farmer to build a bridge, Milliren asks the farmer himself: easy. But federal grants stipulate land acquisition plans, costing $10,000 or more. "I'd like to sit down with some of those guys and say, 'Do I look so stupid that you're gonna tell me what to do all the time?'" Milliren said. "The people haven't changed. The politics changed. What was blue is now red. They're so far left they're going to run off the road. I don't care which party you are let's have some common sense." Not every Driftless farmer feels like Milliren. John Rosenow owns a compost business and dairy farm in neighboring Buffalo County. In the 1990s, starved for good workers, Rosenow began hiring Mexican immigrants. He's become an immigrant advocate, helping others hire Mexican workers. Politics aren't as important to him as, say, milk prices, and recent financials have been brutal. Still, he fears a return to the Trump years, when anti-immigration policies spooked his workers and a trade war cost Rosenow $50,000. "Overnight, we lost $4 per hundredweight," Rosenow said. "I can't afford to have Trump be president again. All the talk about shipping everybody out of here, every [farm] was two or three people short. A lot of people went home. That ended after about six months, because it was all talk." There are certainly MAGA diehards here, like 64-year-old Galen Erickson on his farmstead outside Pepin. An outbuilding has a weathered "TRUMP-PENCE" sign; Erickson blacked out Pence's name for his disloyalty to Trump. Erickson said he wants gas prices to rise to $6 a gallon before November so Trump wins. "I love his honesty," Erickson said of Trump. "He tells it the way it is. People don't like that. Women don't like it. I love it." But the Driftless sensibility seems less MAGA stronghold than an isolated area pushed rightward from a frustration of being ignored. Conservatives here may not be thrilled about Trump, but they say they prefer him to urban-centered Democrats. People like Sue Fedie. Fedie's family has been in Pepin County since the mid-1800s, when her great-great-grandfather built a grist mill here. She lives next door to her 89-year-old parents and runs the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. (Fedie is a distant cousin of the author, who was born just outside Pepin.) She's seen the political divide widen in recent years. Outsiders have injected money into the economy, though so many AirBnbs strain the housing stock. Old-timers resist urban transplants and their politics, preferring life to stay the same. She's a small-government conservative with a quiet liberal streak on some social issues. ("Don't tell my dad," she laughed.) She'll vote Republican because conservatives allow people to keep their wealth. But she turns the television off when either candidate appears. "I'd like politics to be calmer," Fedie said. "I have to vote for a conservative candidate, I have to, because I don't care for liberal candidates in general. I just wish politics had more dignity. But we don't have any other choice right now." Glen Stubbe, Star TribuneEmily Jerome and David Pierce of LaCrosse, enjoy the company of their dogs as they take in the cool evening at the Pepin Overlook, looking out over Lake Pepin, part of the Mississippi River along the Great River Road in Pepin, Wisc. BOAZ, Ala. (WHNT) The Boaz Police Department (BPD) says it has arrested two for promoting prostitution. BPD said Joanna Shiao was arrested at Aroma Therapy Spa on Thursday and charged with prostitution and promoting prostitution. The department said Jian Zhang was also arrested at Pro Massage and charged with promoting prostitution. Authorities said that the arrests are part of an ongoing investigation. Detectives obtained video and customer logs from the business. The department said other witnesses, customers and clients will be contacted as part of the investigation. BPD said Shiao and Zhang were both booked into the Boaz City Jail. The Alabama Massage Therapy Licensing Board assisted in the 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 WHNT.com. (Bloomberg) -- Jurors at the New York corruption trial of US Senator Bob Menendez ended their first day of deliberations Friday without a verdict on whether the New Jersey Democrat engaged in bribery and extortion and acted as an agent of Egypt. Most Read from Bloomberg After a two-month trial, the panel spent about three hours weighing the case against Menendez and two businessmen accused of bribing him, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes. Earlier, US District Judge Sidney Stein completed his instructions to jurors on how to apply the law to the case. The panel will resume their deliberations Monday. Prosecutors say Menendez, 70, sold his office to help the businessmen who sought his help. FBI agents seized 13 gold bars, nearly $500,000 in cash and a Mercedes Benz at Menendezs house in 2022 evidence that formed the backbone of the trial in Manhattan federal court. Menendez, who didnt testify at the trial, has denied wrongdoing. His lawyers claimed the senators actions were lawful and good for his constituents, while blaming Menendezs wife, Nadine, for keeping her husband in the dark about her financial problems and gifts she received. She was also charged, but will be tried later because shes being treated for breast cancer. The judges instructions spelled out the complex analyses that jurors must undertake before ruling on the 18 charges, including 16 against Menendez. He is charged with bribery, extortion, conspiracy, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. Jurors, for instance, must determine whether the senator engaged in a quid pro quo, or this for that, with corrupt intent. They also must decide if he took official action, or promised to do so. A quid pro quid must be explicit, Stein said. On the Egypt charge, the judge said, jurors may decide if it is fair to draw the conclusion whether an individual is not acting independently, but is instead acting as an agent of a foreign principal. On Thursday, prosecutor Daniel Richenthal ended more than three hours of arguments. Prosecutors said the three-term senator corruptly helped Egypt to secure US military aid and sensitive information; tried to protect an Egyptian monopoly that Hana secured to inspect meat bound for Egypt; sought to influence a US indictment in New Jersey of Daibes; and acted to sway New Jersey criminal probes of people close to Jose Uribe, a former insurance broker. He pleaded guilty and testified against Menendez. Egregious Disclosure In his argument, Richenthal reminded jurors that Menendez had disclosed in May 2018 the number of US and Egyptian citizens working at the American embassy in Cairo. Menendez passed the information through his then-girlfriend Nadine Arslanian, whom he married in 2020. This egregious disclosure of nonpublic information is devastating proof of guilt, Richenthal said. Defense lawyers say that the information had previously been published and therefore wasnt non-public. Earlier on Thursday, jurors heard summations from a lawyer for Daibes, a prominent developer accused of funneling gold and cash to Menendez to manipulate the appointment of the top federal prosecutor. The US also alleges that Menendez introduced Daibes to Heritage Advisors, a London-based firm led by a member of the Qatari royal family. In May 2022, Heritage had signed a letter of intent to invest $95 million in a Daibes project to build four high-rise towers in Edgewater, New Jersey. Daibes attorney Cesar DeCastro said that the investment came after extensive due diligence by Heritage and had nothing to do with bribery. The case is US v. Menendez, 23-cr-490, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). (Updates to reflect deliberations ended without a verdict) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Body of Missing Massachusetts Girl with Autism Found in Neighbors Pool, Police Say "There are no words that we can offer to help ease the heartache our residents our feelings [now]. We are so incredibly sorry," Sutton Police said of the incident Sutton Police Department Police in Massachusetts shared this photo of Eva, a missing 4-year-old girl whose body was discovered in a neighbor's pool on July 11 A search for a missing 4-year-old Massachusetts girl with autism concluded with the discovery of her body in a neighbors pool on Thursday, July 11, according to police. In an earlier Facebook post shared that afternoon, Sutton Police announced it was searching for a girl named Eva in the Peachtree Drive area of Sutton. Theres a heavy police and fire presence as we search for this young girl. If you see her, please call 9-1-1 to alert us, authorities wrote at the time. Related: Toddler Was Missing for 15 Hours a Family Friend Found Him 15 Minutes After Joining Search More than two hours after that announcement, the police posted another message on Facebook saying that they were no longer asking for the publics help to find Eva and thanked those who assisted in the search. Then on the morning of Friday, July 12, Sutton Police shared a statement from the office of Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. confirming Evas death. Related: Human Remains Found amid Search for 12-Year-Old Girl Missing After Suspected Crocodile Attack At 3:50 p.m. Thursday, the Sutton Police Department received a 911 call reporting a 4-year-old girl had gone missing from her home, read the district attorneys statement. A short time later, the girl was found in a neighbors pool, unresponsive. Emergency personnel transported her to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester where she was pronounced deceased. 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. In the same posting, police called the last 12 hours difficult for first responders and families in the town of Sutton, located in Worcester County. There are no words that we can offer to help ease the heartache our residents our feelings [now]. We are so incredibly sorry, Sutton Police said. Related: Skeletal Remains Found in Va. Woods ID'd as Those of Boy Missing Since 2003, Charges Expected No additional details were offered. Police also said that they will not make further statements about the case to the press out of respect for the girls family. At the time of the search, troopers, K9 patrols and an action team arrived at the scene, ABC affiliate WCVB reported. A neighbor, Randa Tawadros, said, per FOX affiliate WFXT, Oh my God, my heart my stomach, I couldnt think I couldnt breathe. I had a panic All I could think is if this were my kid. NBC affiliate WBTS reported that the girls family is devastated and will not comment at the present moment, according to a resident on July 12. In an email to PEOPLE on July 12, the Worcester County District Attorneys Office said it has no additional information about the incident other than the previous statement shared by Sutton Police. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. SANAA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. forces destroyed five Houthi uncrewed surface vessels in the Red Sea late Thursday. According to U.S. Central Command, the forces also destroyed two Houthi uncrewed aerial systems over the Red Sea and one system in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. "It was determined these systems presented an imminent threat to U.S., coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region. These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters more safe and secure," it said in a statement. Early on Thursday, the Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, said the U.S.-British coalition launched five airstrikes targeting the area of Rad Issa, northwest of the Houthi-held Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported. Since last November and in a display of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Houthi group began to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones targeting what they said are Israeli-linked ships transiting the Red Sea. 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, leading to the expansion of Houthi attacks to include U.S. and British commercial vessels and naval ships. Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Thursday that his group had targeted "a total of 166 ships linked to Israel, the U.S., and Britain" since November. How will your body respond to having COVID again? Look at your first time, study says As people continue to contract COVID-19, many wonder if the severity of these infections changes with reinfection. If you were hospitalized with an initial infection, what does that mean for contracting the coronavirus again? A new study has answers. The peer-reviewed study, published July 11 in the journal Communications Medicine, examined data from 212,984 Americans who experienced an initial COVID-19 infection as well as at least one reinfection. The researchers found that the level of severity of initial infections tended to foreshadow the severity of reinfections. About 27% of those with severe cases, defined as receiving hospital care for a coronavirus infection, also received hospital care for a reinfection, the National Institutes of Health, which funded the research, said in a July 11 news release discussing the study. Conversely, 87% of people who had mild cases of COVID-19 (no hospitalization) had mild reinfections as well. These results were consistent regardless of variants. While examining the data, the scientists also found that cases of long COVID were far more likely to set in after a first infection rather than after a reinfection. And severity was not the only thing that correlated, scientists said. They also found that they could gauge a persons risk for reinfection by measuring the levels of albumin in their blood. Albumin is a protein made by the liver that keeps fluid from leaking out of your bloodstream, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It is also responsible for helping vitamins, enzymes and hormones circulate your body. In the study, lower levels of albumin indicated a higher risk of COVID-19 reinfection. As with any study, the conditions for research were not perfect, scientists said. One peculiarity of the study was that women made up a significant majority of the study cohort and the majority of people with reinfections. According to the authors, over three-fifths of the many thousands of people being studied were women. While this could be due to biological differences in immune responses, whats equally possible is that women are more likely to use health services available to them, researchers said. This social phenomenon has been explored in past studies. The authors also acknowledge that with the prevalence of at-home testing, it was impossible for the study to account for many reinfections that have never been officially documented. I deteriorated. Woman with long COVID watches body transform as it attacks itself COVID can quietly linger in your body long after getting sick. What does that mean? How long does marijuana THC linger in breast milk for new moms? What new study found Boeing just scored a big win for the 737 Max, but its order delay problem seems to be getting worse Boeing just scored a big win for the 737 Max, but its order delay problem seems to be getting worse Boeing secured an order for 35 of its 737 Max jets from Aviation Capital Group. It's a boost for the firm's troubled jet that faces delays in production and certification. However, customers have been warned of further delays to Max deliveries, Bloomberg reported. Boeing secured a notable 737 Max order, but delays to the flagship narrowbody jet appear to be getting worse. Aviation Capital Group, the aircraft leasing unit of Japanese leasing firm Tokyo Century Corp, has ordered 35 Boeing 737 Max jets, it announced Friday. The order includes 16 of the Max 8 and 19 of the Max 10, which is yet to be certified. It's encouraging news for Boeing, particularly given recent problems involving the Max. On Sunday, the Justice Department said Boeing had agreed to plead guilty to a charge of fraud conspiracy in relation to two Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people. The aircraft's reputation was further hampered by January's Alaska Airlines blowout when a Max 9's door plug came off in midair. Boeing's share price has since fallen more than 25%. The 737 Max 10 the largest version of the jet has also faced controversy of its own due to certification delays. In the wake of January's blowout, the CEO of United Airlines Boeing's biggest customer said he would build an "alternative plan" without the Max 10 due to its frustrations with the delay. The carrier's chief financial officer later said its order for 277 such planes would be replaced by Max 9 and Airbus A321neo jets. In Friday's statement, Tokyo Century Corp said it expected its Max jets to be delivered in 2031. As a result of the Alaska Airlines incident, the Federal Aviation Administration is preventing Boeing from expanding production of the Max until it's satisfied with its quality-control processes. Capped at 38 a month, customers have voiced frustrations with the slow pace of deliveries. In recent weeks, Boeing has told customers with deliveries scheduled for 2025 and 2026 that they face additional delays, Bloomberg reported. The report added that delays could be between three and six months. The low-cost carrier Norwegian Air also said Friday that it expected reduced capacity growth this year, "due to aircraft delivery delays from Boeing." Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider. The news comes just 10 days before the start of the Farnborough Airshow, the sector's biggest event of the year. Several substantial plane orders are expected to be announced at the show, and Boeing previously confirmed that it wouldn't exhibit any of its airliners. Read the original article on Business Insider A Boynton Beach man has challenged three books he says contain sexual content that is unsuitable for students at Park Vista High School. He called the works hypocritical because two of the books were written by authors who have either publicly supported Florida's legislation allowing challenges to books in schools or who have supported Republican candidates in favor of the law. The books in question include "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families" by Bill O'Reilly, "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand and "The Taking" by Dean Koontz. Kenneth Derrick, who is not a parent of a child at Park Vista, is not pushing for the books to be removed from the library. Instead, he suggests the school district affix a label to the books that calls out authors who support book challenges but include sexual content in their own novels. Opinion: Moms for Liberty get a taste of their own medicine with request to ban Bible in PBC schools His challenges to the three books have been denied by Park Vista's school materials review committee, its principal and Superintendent Mike Burke. The denials cited the committee's finding that the books are age-appropriate and that the school district does not typically add warning labels to books. Palm Beach County's school board will consider the challenges at Wednesday's school board meeting. Formal book challenges in Palm Beach County are rare Florida law allows parents of students in the school system and county residents to challenge books they believe are pornographic or are not age-appropriate for the students who can access them. Individual schools manage their library collections, according to school board policy. Few books have been challenged in Palm Beach County, and even fewer have been removed from school libraries or classrooms for any amount of time. Last year, a parent unsuccessfully challenged the Bible at Olympic Heights High, citing the text's "misogyny, violence, sexual conduct, rape, incest, animal cruelty, abuse, anti-semitism, anti-science and indoctrination." In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that narrowed the scope of the law to limit challenges by residents who are not parents of students. Derrick filed his challenges to the books in March before that law went into effect. Sign holders carry messages in opposition to book bans outside of the The School District of Palm Beach County's Fulton-Holland Educational Services Center in 2023. What drove Boynton Beach man to challenge three books at Park Vista High? Of "The O'Reilly Factor: A Survival Guide for America's Families," Derrick points to descriptions of sexual conduct in the book's chapter titled "Sex" as the reason for his challenge. "For example, on pg. 72: 'And according to many experts and studies, quite a few of you like to pretend that you're in the Clinton White House. I mean, you casually practice oral sex, even in your early teens,'" Derrick wrote in his challenge, along with other examples from the books' chapter. He suggests a label be placed on the book that highlights the book's author supported Florida's laws "restricting the content of books in school classrooms and libraries, but he became angry when his books were removed for inappropriate content." Want more education news? Sign up for ourExtra Credit weekly newsletter, delivered every Friday! O'Reilly, a conservative television commentator and former Fox News host, reportedly became "furious" in January after two of his books were removed by Escambia County's school district. He previously supported the book challenge laws in Florida, which he said were necessary to "protect children" from a far-left agenda. Derrick also has challenged "The Fountainhead" for a description of what appears to be a sexual assault. The book was written by Alice O'Connor, using the pen name Ayn Rand, and published in 1943. Derrick says in his challenge that "many individuals who support Florida laws restricting the content of books in school classrooms and libraries often recommend that young people read this book." Public schools in Orange County removed the book from libraries last year, according to reporting by The Orlando Sentinel. Finally, Derrick has challenged "The Taking" for descriptions of violent sexual conduct, including pornography and sexual assault committed by gangs. The novel was written by self-labeled conservative and Catholic horror novelist Dean Koontz and published in 2004. Derrick argues that Koontz has "donated money to politicians who support laws restricting the content of books in school classrooms and libraries." Campaign finance records show that Koontz has donated to several Republican candidates for Congress in California over the past four years. None of those candidates appears to be connected to Florida. 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: Bill O'Reilly, Dean Koontz books challenged in Palm Beach County school (KRON) A Brentwood Police Department officer narrowly survived after a 16-year-old boy stabbed him with a kitchen knife in a park downtown. The officer, who is still recovering from his injuries, sat in a Contra Costa County courtroom last week to watch the boys sentencing hearing. A juvenile court judge handed down the maximum sentence allowed under California law: 6 years, BPD said. The boys name remains confidential because he was a minor when he stabbed the officer. This incident had a profound impact on not only our officer and his family, but also on the Department and our community, the police department wrote. Woman arrested on suspicion of DUI in crash that killed Bay Area cop The knife attack happened on October 11, 2023, in Brentwood City Park. As officers arrived on scene they contacted the 16-year-old juvenile. After numerous attempts to de-escalate the situation, the juvenile stabbed a Brentwood officer who was attempting to take the juvenile into custody, BPD wrote. The officer suffered life-threatening injuries that required hospitalization. Police said the boy has remained in juvenile hall ever since the attack. 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. Gabriel Blackledge, 23, of Boyne Falls was arrested by Charlevoix County Sheriffs deputies on July 8 on multiple charges involving human trafficking and criminal sexual conduct. CHARLEVOIX Gabriel Blackledge, 23, of Boyne Falls was arrested by Charlevoix County Sheriffs deputies on July 8 on multiple charges involving human trafficking and criminal sexual conduct. He pled not-guilty in district court on July 11. He is facing 12 counts. The affidavit of probable cause contains testimony from the victims five girls who were all 15 or younger during the incidents. They all describe being recruited to engage in sexual activity in exchange for drugs, alcohol and money. One of the girls who was interviewed by a forensic interviewer at the Womens Resource Center said she started having sexual intercourse with Blackledge when she was 14 and had sex with him approximately 15 times. She described the multiple locations where the acts occurred a residence near Vanderbilt, Blackledges parents' house in Boyne Falls, his vehicle and at a residence on Thumb Lake. Blackledge would purchase the victim alcohol and marijuana/THC vape prior to the acts and then give them to her afterwards. Many of the girls said they were picked up by Blackledge and transported to a different location for the sexual activity. Subscribe: Check out our offers and read the local news that matters to you Several of the victims described Blackledge buying them things in exchange for sex, such as weed, vapes, carts and alcohol." Carts are common slang for the cartridges that go into vapes, according to the affidavit. One of the girls described sexual intercourse with Blackledge at his lake house where another male also participated. Each of the men had promised her $50 ($100 total) for the encounter. She wasn't paid the money but, instead, given rum. When Blackledge was arrested, he initially denied the allegations, stating that he had never been alone with one of the victims. He then later admitted to sexual activity with one of the girls but claimed he thought she was 18 or older. He eventually admitted to knowing her age and still engaging in the sexual activity. By July 10, Blackledge had admitted to numerous occasions of sexual intercourse with four of the girls and sexual activity with one. While in custody at the Charlevoix County Jail, Blackledge told jail officials that he had swallowed pills that he had been cheeking" in an effort to kill himself. He was taken to the hospital for medical clearance based on the alleged suicide attempt. He also told a deputy he had chemicals in his car that he planned to ingest to kill himself. During the July 11 arraignment, Charlevoix County Prosecuting Attorney Kit Tholen requested that Blackledges bond be revoked, citing the "extent and seriousness of the charges" and his "very serious concerns" about Blackledges suicide attempts. 90th District Court Judge Angela Lasher revoked the bond, noting that it is a "rare circumstance where the court denies bond," describing the allegations as "quite predatory" in nature. Tholen said the human trafficking charges were centered around the transactional nature of the exchanges between Blackledge and the girls, and that he knowingly "recruited, enticed and transported minors for the purpose of sexual activity." "These are extremely serious charges. I am very concerned about the extent of the behavior that has been presented to me. I also want to note that he is presumed innocent until proven guilty," said Tholen. A preliminary examination was scheduled for July 30. Contact reporter Annie Doyle at (231) 675-0099 and adoyle@charlevoixcourier.com This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Boyne Falls man arrested on human trafficking and criminal sexual conduct charges Hanna Groothuizen was preparing for a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery scheduled just two days after the Russian attack hit Synnovis - Clara Molden for The Telegraph A breast cancer patient has revealed how she was forced to delay her reconstructive surgery after a ransomware attack on the NHS by Russian hackers. Staff at Guys and St Thomas hospital who were treating Hanna Groothuizen, 36, had to cancel part of her planned surgery after a Russian gang attacked an NHS pathology supplier. Ms Groothuizen told The Telegraph that the choice she faced was stark: Either I just get the cancer out now and I lose my breast, or I wait and I just dont know when they can do it. Junes ransomware attack against NHS supplier Synnovis led to the cancellation of thousands of operations, with NHS officials apologising to affected patients. The mother-of-twos reconstructive surgery was one of the 1,134 operations affected by the Russian hackers actions, which left computers at Synnovis a provider of pathology and blood-testing services scrambled and unable to function. In turn, that scrambling of computer files forced Guys and St Thomas to start postponing planned medical procedures because blood transfusions could no longer be processed as quickly. What are we talking about? Ms Groothuizen was preparing for a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery scheduled just two days after the Russian attack hit Synnovis. I received a phone call from the hospital from one of the nurses and she said to me oh, dont worry about all of the stuff thats going on, I can imagine youre really worried right now when you look at all the media reports, but your surgery is still going to go ahead as planned, unless you hear otherwise. And I was like, Wait, what are we talking about? On the eve of her surgery, Ms Groothuizen was forced to choose between postponing the entire operation and only having the mastectomy meaning she would miss out on the reconstructive surgery she had been waiting for. My parents came over from the Netherlands to support me with the surgery and everything... And when they had arrived in the afternoon, I still hadnt heard what was going to happen with the surgery. So I sent the message to the nurses in the hospital. And then they said oh, its actually very unlikely that your operation can take place. The type of surgery that I was going to have required tissue from the leg being taken as well. And that was going to be a bigger operation than just a simple mastectomy. At that point, I got really worried because I was thinking, well, I do have this aggressive type of cancer, Ive had all this chemotherapy to shrink down the tumour, it needs to be taken out and they werent sure when [medical services] would have been recovered. You know, Ive got two young children, I dont want to die. Its emotional. Its upsetting The 36-year-old, who works in academia, now faces a year-long wait for her reconstructive surgery. She said: Im just going to have to get used to this for now. Obviously, Im now left without a breast. Whenever I look in the mirror, like, its just it is emotional. Its upsetting. The fact that I dont know when the reconstruction can take place. Im okay on the whole. I mean, its just upsetting to see the scar and to just be missing a breast. She added: If they could have done it immediately you minimise the amount of scarring. But now, I have to go through additional surgery. Don Smith, vice-president of threat intelligence at cyber security company Secureworks, said it was unlikely the Qilin Russian ransomware gang were losing any sleep over the impact of their actions on patients such as Ms Groothuizen. Criminal gangs are opportunistic in the hunt for the next payout; the impact of their actions is not their concern. The knock-on impact of this breach on our already struggling NHS will not be keeping them up at night. He added that the Qilin gangs hacks have seen a rapid uptick this year, following the US FBIs efforts to take down computer servers used by other ransomware gangs. A spokesman for Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust said: We are incredibly sorry for the impact the criminal cyber-attack on our pathology provider, Synnovis, has had on Hannas care, and we apologise for the distress this has caused. We are working hard to treat all our patients affected by this incident as soon as possible, according to their clinical circumstances. 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. Brian Steven Smith has been sentenced to 226 years in prison for the deaths of two Native Alaskan women, Kathleen Jo Henry and Veronica Abouchuk. Smith was found guilty in February on 14 criminal counts, including first and second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and sexual assault in the deaths of both women. He declined to speak at Friday's hearing and did not speak at all throughout the trial. MORE: Brian Steven Smith found guilty on all counts for the murder of 2 Native Alaska women The 226-year sentence matches the length recommended by prosecutors from the Anchorage District Attorney's office, Brittany Dunlop and Heather Nobrega. Smith's defense attorney, Timothy Ayer, recommended a 132-year sentence, arguing that his client would be in prison for the rest of his life either way. PHOTO: Brian Steven Smith sits in a courtroom while waiting for his arraignment to start in Anchorage, Alaska, Oct. 16, 2019. (Mark Thiessen/AP) Before Friday's sentencing hearing, the prosecution released photographs found on Smith's phone and a forensic sketch of an unidentified Native Alaskan or Asian woman who is believed to be a third possible victim in these crimes. Smith discussed the images in an interview with Anchorage police that played in court during his trial. The prosecution said the photos establish a pattern of violence. "As long as I've been doing this work, I still believe that most people are good and there are very, very few truly evil humans in the world. Mr. Smith is one of them," Dunlop said at Friday's sentencing. "He is a person that should never be permitted to walk among us. He should spend the rest of his life in jail and your sentence should make a statement that the women's lives that he stole so brutally mattered." During the trial, prosecutors presented graphic video and photo evidence, captured by Smith himself, of Smith narrating his actions during Henry's murder. MORE: How a stolen phone led to a murder trial for deaths of 2 Alaska Native women Kristy Grimaldi, Abouchuk's daughter, spoke at the sentencing hearing, following her appearance at the trial earlier this year. "It's a relief knowing that the defendant will rot. I hope he is swarmed with guilt someday knowing he stalled so many people's joy," Grimaldi said. "To me, he will always be an unintelligent sick human being who couldn't comprehend the meaning of life." Judge Kevin Saxby, who has been presiding over Smith's case since the trial began in February, said before pronouncing the sentence that the killings of Abouchuk and Henry have a larger effect on society, especially for women. PHOTO: Rena Sapp, outside a courtroom, Oct. 21, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska, shows a photo of her sister, Veronica Abouchuk, taken during a day out shopping in 2013. (Mark Thiessen/AP) "Those killings actually affect all of society, and especially women in our society. It's the stuff of nightmares," Saxby said, "They strip women of any feelings of safety in their own neighborhoods. That damage continues long after the crimes are solved." At the beginning of Friday's sentencing, Saxby said that though it is standard practice to use initials when referring to victims, he would like to use the victims' full names. "They were treated as something other than human, and they were dehumanized," Saxby said. "It seems to me that the more respectful thing to do is to refer to them by name and that will help actually, to some tiny extent restore their personhood." Grimaldi echoed this sentiment in her remarks about her mother, saying, "Forget the defendant's name and remember: Veronica Rosaline Abouchuk and Kathleen Jo Henry." Brian Steven Smith sentenced to 226 years for the murders of 2 Native Alaskan women originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Democrats' factional revolt against lieutenant governor candidate Terry Goodin reveals one of the party's barriers to growth in Indiana. Progressives not only want ideological purity, but they also want to enforce retroactive tests in which Democrats can't serve in good standing unless they embraced contemporary party values a decade or more ago. Goodin fails that test. Goodin is a moderate Scott County Democrat who used to identify as pro-life. He voted against same-sex marriage in 2011. Gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick outraged progressives last month when she chose Goodin as her preferred running mate. It made no difference that Goodin launched his lieutenant governor bid with an apology tour, explaining that his past positions were wrong. Democrats forced him to grovel. They threatened to reject him and McCormick at the party's convention Saturday. Briggs: Mike Braun deserves every minute of his new political hell State Sen. J.D. Ford, Indiana's first openly gay lawmaker, floated a competing bid for lieutenant governor. He later dropped the effort, making Goodin's nomination all but inevitable. But the squabble over Goodin's record damaged any momentum Democrats might have built, particularly in light of Republicans' repellent choice of Micah Beckwith as their own lieutenant governor nominee. Democrats could be rolling into their state convention with a story to tell about nominating a lieutenant governor candidate who's just like the average Hoosier. Instead, the run-up to the convention has signaled that the average Hooiser won't be tolerated within the Democratic Party. Goodin's political arc reflects Democrats' unsung success in Indiana over the past decade: cultural change. Democrats are winning the battle of public opinion even as they lose elections and legislative fights. Same-sex marriage is popular and about 59% of Indiana voters think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, per Ball State University's Hoosier Survey. But, much like Goodin, voters have been on a long journey to reach those places. As recently as 2014, fewer than half of Democrats favored same-sex marriage in Indiana, according to Pew Research Center. Progressives have punished Goodin for views that were not only in line with the rest of Indiana, but also in line with self-identifying Democrats. A minority party can't afford to be so exclusionary. Democrats have no hope of expanding their base without welcoming and spotlighting members who have held views that are outdated now. Anyone of a certain age 40? 50? has to face predispositions that put them out of step with modern culture. A fair-minded test would examine whether a candidate has expressed openness to change, not whether theyve held unflinching beliefs that stood up to a strict standard of righteousness over the duration of a long career. Goodin has demonstrated a willingness to change his mind, albeit too slowly for many. That makes Goodin more or less the median voter in Indiana. It also makes him a potentially effective pitchman for a party asking Indiana voters to change their minds a little more, to give them a shot. Republicans understand the value of mind-changers. The Republican Party holds its own purity tests, to be sure (see: Beckwith), yet doesn't make them retroactive. Consider that former President Trump used to be a Democrat and still holds personal views at odds with conservative orthodoxy. Almost every notable Republican has called Trump unfit for office and almost certainly still holds that view yet publicly supports him now. The Republican Party doesn't care what you've said or believed in the past, so long as you're on the team today. Democrats don't need to adopt brazen shapeshifting. They do need to get better at accepting wins as they come. Even in Indiana, Democrats have pushed culture forward to the point that the stagnant Republican Party platform looks more cringeworthy and problematic by the day. That's a win. Few Democrats are better positioned than Goodin to talk about it. Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X and Threads at @JamesEBriggs. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Goodin's changes on abortion, same-sex marriage show Democrats' wins SEOUL, July 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Friday protested against Japan's renewed territorial claims to the disputed islets lying halfway between the two countries, called Dokdo by South Korea and Takeshima by Japan. South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the South Korean government strongly protests against the Japanese government's unjust repeated sovereignty claims over Dokdo, which is clearly an integral part of the South Korean territory historically, geographically and under international law. The ministry urged Tokyo to immediately retract its territorial claims, which were made through Japan's 2024 defense white paper released earlier in the day. The statement noted that South Korea makes it clear once again that any claims by the Japanese government over Dokdo do not and will not have any impact on South Korea's sovereignty over Dokdo, saying that Seoul will firmly respond to any provocation by Japan over Dokdo. It added that the Japanese government should be clearly aware that the unjust repeated claims to Dokdo are in no way conducive to the efforts to build a future-oriented relationship between South Korea and Japan. Since 2005, Japan has laid territorial claims to the rocky outcroppings every year in its diplomatic blue and defense white papers. South Korea restored its sovereignty over Dokdo after the Korean Peninsula's liberation from the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization. Seoul has since been in effective control of the islets, with a small police detachment deployed. South Koreans see Japan's territorial claims to the islets as a denial of colonial history as Dokdo was the first territory that was forcibly occupied by Japan. BRISTOL, Tenn. (WJHL)The Bristol Tennessee Fire Department revealed its first custom-designed rescue vehicle, Rescue 7, on Thursday. Rescue 7 is outfitted with various types of life-saving equipment and gear previously carried on fire trucks and ambulances. With the addition of Rescue 7, the department will have all its essential tools gathered in one place. The truck is equipped with tools for fire, water and crash rescues. According to a social media post from the department, Rescue 7 is equipped with noteworthy features such as: Built-in station to immediately refill air packs that are critical to firefighter safety Outlets for a variety of hydraulic tools for safer, quicker operations Pull-out shelves that help with organization and provide easy access Photo courtesy of BTFD Photo courtesy of BTFD Photo courtesy of BTFD Photo courtesy of BTFD The post said the rescue truck costs under $440,000. Sullivan County contributed $190,000 to the total cost. Rescue 7 will be housed at Station 3 and will respond to all rescue and structure fire calls. 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. British patients with early-stage Alzheimers disease are flying to New York to be treated with new wonder drugs following delays in the UK, an expert has warned. The breakthrough drugs, called lecanemab and donanemab, have been proven to slow down the progression of the disease by as much as 60 per cent in clinical trials. They work by helping to remove the buildup of the protein amyloid in the brain and could herald a new era of dementia treatment by tackling its cause rather than just alleviating symptoms. But while the drugs have been licensed for use in the United States, they are yet to get the green light in the UK and experts say hopeful patients are paying to travel abroad to bypass the red tape. Sir Prof John Hardy, of University College London (UCL), who was the first to identify the role of misfolded amyloid in Alzheimers 30 years ago, told the Guardian: We now have finally got something that started here in the UK, it would be nice to see it actually helping patients. There is frustration, yes. Prof Hardy, who is also vice-president of Alzheimers Research UK, said: Ive just had two patients phone me up who are flying to New York privately to get the treatment. Thats not a good outcome. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is considering applications for lecanemab, developed by Eisai and Biogen, and Eli Lillys donanemab. Concerns have previously been raised about the capacity of the NHS to roll out these drugs at speed given the number that could benefit could be as high as 280,000. Patients will require MRI scans so doctors can decide if they are eligible to get the drugs. NHS England has set up a dedicated team to ensure the health service can roll out the drugs quickly. It said the cost of implementing the new drugs, if and when approved, would be between 500 million and 1 billion per year. NHS England said patients would need a baseline MRI scan and then either a PET-CT scan or lumbar puncture that confirms the presence of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain. It added that new biomarker-based blood tests may be available in the future to screen patients following trials showing the less invasive tests had promise. This means we should be cautious about driving a massive expansion, for example in amyloid PET-CT capacity, when this could become redundant in the longer-term. 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 Brownsburg School Board has selected a current co-interim superintendent to step into the post permanently after their previous superintendent left abruptly in January. Brownsburg announced Thursday that Kat Jessup, who has served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction since 2011, will lead the district. The Brownsburg school board has not voted on Jessups contract yet but is expected to do so during their July 22 meeting where the community can also share public comment. Kat Jessup has been chosen by the Brownsburg School board as the next superintendent for the district, she previously served as an assistant superintendent. The board will take a vote on her contract during their July 22, 2024 meeting. Jessup has been in the Brownsburg school district for 31 years. She started as a student teacher at White Lick Elementary, then became a classroom teacher at Lincoln and Brown Elementary before moving on to be an assistant principal and principal at White Lick Elementary. Jessup has served as co-interim superintendent with Shane Hacker since January after former superintendent Jim Snapp announced he was retiring from the district following months of clashes with the school board over administrative concerns with his role. Recent Brownsburg news: State Board of Accounts investigating former Brownsburg Schools superintendent The Indiana State Board of Accounts and the Brownsburg School district told IndyStar in May that the ISBA is currently investigating Snapp, but both organizations declined to give any additional specifics. In an emailed statement, Jessup said she was eager to take on the role. For over three decades Ive worked alongside amazing educators and staff in Brownsburg, Jessup said. I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to lead them as the Superintendent. Partnering with countless Brownsburg families to help students achieve positive outcomes has been a highlight of my career thus far. Im enthusiastic about continuing to serve the community where I have grown as an educator and raised my family. Brownsburg school board president Jessica Heffernan said in a news release that the board interviewed many candidates for the position but Jessup was the obvious choice. Through the process, it became clear to all Board members that Dr. Jessup, with her mix of dedicated service and vision for the future, is the right person to lead Brownsburg Schools, Heffernan said. Employees and community members shared that the foundation of excellence in our schools should be maintained as we move forward. Dr. Jessups expertise in curriculum and strong relationships with our outstanding teachers, staff, and community will keep Brownsburg Schools on the right path. Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or CBeck@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter (X): @CarolineB_Indy. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Brownsburg school board announces their pick for next superintendent Johannesburg The military junta that seized power in Burkina Faso less than two years ago announced a law Wednesday criminalizing homosexuality. "Henceforth homosexuality and associated practices will be punished by the law," Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayalawas quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. It makes the West African nation the latest of the continent's 54 countries to follow a trend in banning same-sex relations. There are now only 21 African nations that do not explicitly prohibit same-sex relations. Uganda imposed the continent's most severe laws in May. Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroon's President Paul Biya, came out as a lesbian in a post on her Instagram account last week, posting a photo of her kissing her girlfriend and saying: "I'm crazy about you and want the world to know." "There are plenty of people in the same situation as me who suffer because of who they are," she said. "If I can give them hope, help them feel less alone, if I can send love, I'm happy." Her father has been president of Cameroon since 1982 and has not changed the country's anti-LGBTQ laws, which have been in place since before he was sworn in. Brenda Biya told the French newspaper Le Parisien her parents were unaware of her sexuality and that she made the post without their knowledge, adding they had since asked her to delete it. She does not live in the country. Disinformation in Africa's coup belt General Michael Langley, Commander of the U.S. Military's Africa Command, voiced concern in a phone briefing with journalists at the end of June about the rapid slide of West Africa, a volatile region plagued by security and misinformation challenges, away from democratic values. "There's a strong link between the scope of disinformation and instability," Langley said. "Getting the truth out there to counter disinformation is essential Disinformation campaigns have directly driven deadly violence, promoted and validated military coups, and also cowed civil society members into silence." A map shows the Sahel region stretching across the northern African continent. / Credit: Getty/iStockphoto The volatility Langley was referring to has been apparent across what's become known as Africa's coup belt. First, there was Mali, where a military coup toppled the government in August 2021. Then Burkina Faso fell to military rulers in a September 2022 coup. Niger's government was overthrown by generals in July 2023. Common history, and a new alliance The three countries have a considerable amount in common. They are still governed by military coup leaders. None has held elections since the uprisings. All three share common borders, a common French colonial history and rising anti-Western sentiment, both in their leadership and their populations. Young boys gather on top of a car, displaying the flags of Niger, Burkina Faso and Russia, during a demonstration demanding the immediate departure of U.S. soldiers from Niger, in Niamey, April 13, 2024. / Credit: AFP via Getty The three nations also face the same threats of violent extremism: Armed groups including ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates have been fighting to gain territory in recent years in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Perhaps from these commonalities, an alliance was born: The Alliance of Sahel States was formed in September 2024 in the wake of these three countries asserting their independence from former colonial ruler France. They all left the regional ECOWAS bloc of nations and, in September, they signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter, the first of a few agreements that amount to a new defense pact between them. The three coup leaders declared their new partnership a tool to form alliances with other countries that have not yet "exploited" their own resources. Some took that as a nod, if not an invitation, to nations such as Russia and Iran, where anti-Western sentiment has also been stoked by leaders for years. Inside a U.S. military exercise in Africa to counter terrorism, and Russia and China's influence Russia, in particular, has sought to extend its influence in Africa by investing in partnerships that often see security forces offered in exchange for access to natural resources. "I think it's important that our African partners understand that what the Russians are offering is, maybe regime protection it's certainly not national security," U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Virginia Palmer told CBS News in May. "What those countries are paying for that is extraordinarily high in terms of treasure. You know, young men and women's lives, and mining concessions, all those kinds of things. The Russians are very transactional, and U.S. partnership is about development and security, and it's a real partnership, and I think those are very stark differences." The members of the Sahel alliance have made it clear already that they view Western interests very differently, however. "Westerners consider that we belong to them, and our wealth belongs to them," Mali's post-coup leader Colonel Assimi Goita, who was chosen to lead the new coalition of states from the Sahel, a vast region that stretches across Africa, was quoted as saying. "This era is gone forever, our resources will remain for us." The head of head of Niger's military government General Abdourahamane Tiani (C), Malian Colonel Assimi Goita (3rd R) and Burkina Faso's Captain Ibrahim Traore (2nd R) arrive ahead of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) summit in Niamey, Niger, July 6, 2024. / Credit: AFP via Getty At the group's first summit last week, the partners ruled out returning to the nearly 50-year-old ECOWAS bloc, which has worked with the U.S. and other Western nations, and accused it of failing to curb the violence spreading across West Africa. The West's eviction from West African nations As the leaders met last week, the U.S. announced that it had pulled the last of its military personnel and hardware out of one its two bases in Niger, this one outside the capital, Niamey. Sources tell CBS News the rest of the roughly 1,000 troops the U.S. had based in Niger, and its remaining equipment, will be pulled out of the $110 million Agadez drone base by the end of August, before the complete U.S. withdrawal from the country is completed in September. Why leaving Niger is a "devastating blow" to the U.S. military, and likely a win for Russia The head of head of Niger's military government General Abdourahamane Tiani (C), Malian Colonel Assimi Goita (L) and Burkina Faso's Captain Ibrahim Traore (R) show the documents of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which they signed during their first summit in Niamey, Niger, July 6, 2024. / Credit: AFP via Getty Niger's leaders ordered the American forces to leave the country late last year. French troops left Niger and Burkina Faso in 2023, and Mali in 2022. One U.S. defense official told CBS News the U.S. has longstanding relationships with all three of the Sahel alliance countries and that, while the current situation is "less than ideal," the U.S. is in it for the long haul because both the region and the entire continent are too important for American interests to ignore. Encouraging inflation report, and other top headlines Gavin Newsom is "all in" with President Biden Shania Twain brings 81-year-old superfan onstage Valencia cleans the structure of a wooden hotel for solitary bees made by AMVA in Barbosa Valencia cleans the structure of a wooden hotel for solitary bees made by AMVA in Barbosa By Herbert Villarraga and Luisa Fernanda Gonzalez BARBOSA, Colombia (Reuters) - Solitary bees are enjoying new digs in Barbosa, Colombia, where tiny hotels built by the Aburra Valley Metropolitan Authority provide places to rest and recover after a busy day pollinating. Lovingly built from wood, with acrylic roofs to protect them from rain, the hexagonal structures are filled with a variety of bamboo canes that allow bees of all shapes and sizes to check in for a well-deserved rest. "It's like a hotel because here they're going to have a quiet moment in their room ... before setting off again," said Hector Ivan Valencia, an assistant for the local authority's risk management unit. During the day, assistants like Valencia delicately clean the bamboo rooms using tools such as paint brushes. "If this were a regular hotel, I'd be one of the people cleaning the rooms," Valencia said. Colombia, the world's second-most biodiverse country, has registered 550 varieties of bees within its borders according to the environment ministry, although the true number of species could be as high as 1,445. As elsewhere in the world, Colombia's bees - vital for fertilizing plants - are threatened by human activity, including the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and also by climate change. The bee hotels were installed to protect species found in the 10 municipalities of the metropolitan area of the Aburra Valley, including Barbosa and Colombia's second city Medellin. "Globally (bees) are being negatively impacted and they are losing more spaces every day," said Juan David Palacio, director of the metropolitan area's environmental and transportation authority. Yet while the plight of honey bees generates more of a buzz, solitary bee species do not have anyone in their corner, Valencia added. "These little bees are supremely sensitive to poisons and since they don't produce honey no one speaks up for them, so we're coming to the rescue," he said. (Reporting by Herbert Villarraga and Luisa Fernanda Gonzalez; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by David Gregorio) Cal Poly Humboldt University President Tom Jackson Jr. announced Thursday that he is leaving his post at the rural Northern California institution next month, less than four months after the campus drew national attention for its crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests. In a statement, the universitys first Black president called the Arcata-based school an amazing place with special people. Like many of you, I wake up every day and remember what a gift I have been given: to have the opportunity to inspire and lead others, he said of his five years as president. Your work makes a positive difference for our students. Please never forget that. Jackson is stepping aside Aug. 11. Cal Poly officials said an interim president was expected to be appointed shortly, with a national search to find a successor to follow. School officials said Jackson is not leaving the university. Instead, he is transitioning into a tenured professorship with the College of Professional Studies and the College of Extended Education and Global Engagement. Students protest at Cal Poly Humboldt on April 30. (Beau Saunders / For The Times) The Seattle native served as president of Black Hills State University in South Dakota from 2014 to 2019 before starting at Cal Poly in summer 2019. Tom Jackson, Jr. has provided visionary, principled, and forward-focused leadership, as well as prudent stewardship during a tenure that has spanned one of the most momentous periods in Cal Poly Humboldts history, Cal State University Chancellor Mildred Garcia said in a statement. Some faculty and students were not so sanguine about Jackson's legacy, however, because of his handling of on-campus protests in April. Masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Siemens Hall, an academic building that includes the university presidents office, on April 22. The protesters, most of whom were students, barricaded the entrance with chairs and tables and erected a banner that said, STOP THE GENOCIDE. Read more: With furry costumes, water jugs and tambourines, this tiny California college became a Gaza flashpoint Three students were arrested after law enforcement officers wearing helmets and riot shields clashed with demonstrators. The protests swelled, grabbing national attention as videos circulated of protesters thwarting law enforcement efforts to break up the occupation. After resisting attempts by police in riot gear to remove them from a building, students renamed it Intifada Hall. They scrawled slogans such as land back, destroy all colonial walls and pigs not allowed up and down its corridors and wrote BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS across the wood-paneled walls of Jackson's office. School officials closed the campus on April 22 in what was supposed to have been a temporary shuttering. The closure eventually extended for the rest of the semester, with classes held online. On April 30, police cracked down on the protest, arresting dozens of students and taking back the campus by force. Three students were arrested after law enforcement officers wearing helmets and riot shields clashed with demonstrators. (Beau Saunders / For The Times) Faculty members blamed Jackson for not understanding the schools culture and history of activism, which included Vietnam War protests in the 1970s and deforestation protests in the 1980s and 1990s. Assistant professor Rouhollah Aghasaleh, who was arrested at one of the protests, said Jackson "should be held accountable for his decisions that jeopardized the safety and well-being of students and employees in April 2024." Dominic Corva, a professor of sociology, said Thursday that he was incredibly relieved upon hearing of Jacksons impending departure. I wasnt sure I could return to work for this university under his administration, said Corva, who served as a faculty spokesperson and observer during the protests. Corva said Jackson escaped consequences for his actions in April and was not pleased that he was joining the faculty. Read more: Police swarm Cal Poly Humboldt, arresting at least 25 and ending weeklong siege over Gaza war That's a lot of money that will keep us from adding desperately needed new hires, Corva said of Jackson's continued presence on the payroll. So I am disappointed in that decision, especially since he's administered austerity since he got here and now becomes part of the problem. Before the protests, Jackson was perhaps best known for leading Humboldts transition to a Cal Poly, the only one in Northern California. The new designation, made in 2022, aimed to increase sagging enrollment with high-demand science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and research offerings. Cal Poly saw a 2% enrollment increase in 2023, bringing its student populace to 5,976. That figure is 14% lower than the nearly 7,000 students enrolled in the fall 2019 semester, Jacksons first at Humboldt. 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 California bill that would increase the penalties for people who buy sex with a child continues to advance in the state legislature. However, recent changes to the bill have received criticism. Senate Bill 1414, a bipartisan measure authored by Sens. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), Anna Caballero (D-Merced), and Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), would make it a felony for someone to solicit or pay for sex with a minor. A recent amendment to the bill now requires that those accused of soliciting sex with minors, specifically aged 16 or 17, can only be charged with a felony if the victim was also a victim of sex trafficking. California bill could change how third-party airport security vendors operate at state airports The bills original version didnt require an age caveat, and one of its authors has criticized the new addition. The Assembly Public Safety Committee amended SB 1414, making it even harder to protect 16 and 17-year-old children. For 16 and 17-year-olds to have additional protections, they must first prove to be victims of human trafficking, Sen. Grove said in a statement. Now, two crimes must be proven, the buying AND the selling of a child, before a buyer can receive a stronger penalty. All children deserve to be protected equally. When will the Public Safety Committees prioritize the protection of all children over perpetrators? In a press release, Grove stated that district attorneys said it would make prosecuting even harder. As SB 1414 continues to move through the legislature, the chances of it heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature increases, but the question remains: what form of the bill will be passed into law? California bill could force some stores to close self-checkout lanes Grove has told multiple media outlets that her fight to restore the bills original version is far from over. Still, not everyone is against the new changes. Annie Irwin, the founder and director of Smart Justice California, recently told California Black Media that she agreed with the changes. The bill will soon go before the Assembly Appropriations Committee in August. 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. How far does $50 go at the California State Fair? Your guide to fun and food on a budget After paying for food, rides, parking and the tickets, spending a day at any fair or theme park can be expensive. Hosted at Cal Expo July 12-28 this year, the California State Fair is no exception. But going to the Fair doesnt have to cost too much if you plan ahead. Here are some ways you can cut down on costs and spend a day at Cal Expo without missing out on anything fun, just under $50. Buy admission tickets in advance Daily admission tickets were $2 cheaper if you bought them online in advance rather than at the gate, with adult tickets going down to $14 from $16, senior tickets at $10 instead of $12, and youth tickets costing $8 vs. $10. Children 4 and under get in free. But with a new state law for upfront pricing and a $2 ticket fee online, youll be paying $16 for an adult ticket no matter what. FOR BIZ STORY The California State Fair monorail cuts through the Magnificent Midway on the grounds of at the fair, Wednesday, August 20, 2003. Manny Crisostomo / Sacramento Bee. If you are bringing your family to the fair, you can save on admission and parking by buying the $50 family fun pack, which includes four single-day general admission tickets, four ride tickets for the carnival or monorail, and a parking pass. Its a hefty savings that everyone could split. Get to the State Fair in the morning to make the most out of a daily ticket and enjoy the outdoor attractions before the day gets too hot. Carpool to the fair This is especially easy if youre going to the fair as a family or group of friends. I got to Cal Expo by riding in a car with three fellow Sacramento Bee interns. Split four ways, the $15 general parking fee would turn into $3.75 per person. To park and enter the Fair, my total would be $19.75. Cynthia Dorsey, right, and husband Daniel Dorsey, of Sacramento, visit the California State Fairs inaugural Cannabis Awards exhibit Saturday, July 23, 2022, at Cal Expo in Sacramento. Check out the exhibits Exhibits are all included in the admission ticket. There are 15 different exhibits this year, and one of my favorites is the Candy Maze Selfie Experience, where you can take sweet pictures for Instagram at 14 candy-themed photo stations. There is also the Animation Academy, where visitors can design a stop-motion animated short and learn about animation, storyboarding, stop-motion and CGI technology. My last recommendation would be the Tree Circus, which alternates between climbing shows by professional arborists and time for visitors to try climbing the ropes themselves. After exploring the various exhibits, my total is holding steady at $19.75. Fairgoers stop to look at the United Farm Workers exhibit at the California State Fair on Friday, July 14, 2017, in Sacramento, Calif. Megan Enyeart hands out locally-produced cheeses for customers to taste at the California State Fair in Sacramento on Tuesday, July 24 2018. Go on a Tuesday for discounted carnival rides. Theres no getting around the fees for carnival rides, which cost between $3 and $7 depending on the ride. However, all rides cost only $2 on Tuesdays, which can save a lot of money if rides are the main attraction for you and your group. If I went to the fair on a Tuesday, my total would so far be $25.75 after going on three rides. Jayne Cheshire, 10, of Stockton, enjoys her monster corn dog from Milos at the California State Fair on Friday, July 12, 2019 in Sacramento. Milos is one of the food stands that is participating with the Food Festival pass this year. Discounted food on Wednesday, Thursday Dont get too excited not all food is discounted. However, during Taste of the Fair, which is on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., every food vendor will offer one item on the menu for $4. Still assuming that Im at the fair on a Tuesday for the discounted rides, a grilled cheese sandwich from Cheesy Chef ($9), a fried potato on a stick ($10), and two scoops of coconut pineapple ice scream from Ohana ($4) would make for a food total of $23, bringing my total spending to $48.75. Dustin Ryen, also known as the Coconut Guy, breaks open a raw coconut served fresh on ice at his Machete Fresh Coconuts stand at the California State Fair on Friday. Attend an evening concert. The Toyota Concert Series is free to attend with fair admission. Line up at the back of the stage venue at 5 p.m. for first-come, first-served seating in the free area, which is limited to 700 guests. Performers in the concert lineup include the Beach Boys, Chris Young, Patti LaBelle, Flo Rida, and Lukas Nelson. After attending a concert, my total would still be $48.75. Audience members dance to Petty & the Heartshakers, a Tom Petty tribute band, Thursday, July 18, 2019, at the California State Fair. Beyond all of this, there are still so many activity options included in the admission ticket at no extra cost animal events like a petting zoo and horse shows, competitions like cooking and pie eating, and special events like firework shows on Friday and Saturday nights. With some planning and attention to detail, it shouldnt be hard to enjoy activities at the fair that interest you or your group without breaking the bank. JAKARTA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Friday emphasized the need to boost coffee productivity in the country amid declining global production and rising prices. During his visit to coffee plantations in Lampung, Sumatra, he noted that current productivity is between 1 to 2 tons per hectare, but it can be increased to 8 to 9 tons per hectare. "Our joint task is to significantly raise productivity. If productivity increases, the welfare of coffee farmers will improve," he said, as broadcast on his official social media account. To support this goal, the government has increased fertilizer allocation to 9.5 million tons this year, up from 4.5 million tons last year. Widodo also stressed the importance of downstream processing to add value to agricultural commodities. Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said that Indonesia is the fourth-largest coffee producer globally, with 1.27 million hectares cultivated in 2023, producing 756,097 tons of coffee. In 2022, Indonesia exported 437,560 tons of coffee worth 1.15 billion U.S. dollars, according to the minister. Eighteen California tribes will receive almost $20 million in grants to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person crisis in the state. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the grant award for funding to help investigations, develop culturally based prevention strategies, improve responses to human trafficking, supply culturally appropriate support services to families and improve cooperation and communication on jurisdictional issues with local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement. The Pit River Tribe will be using the funds to develop culturally based support and resources for family members with missing loved ones with their tribal victim witness department. The Pechanga Band of Indians is planning to hire a trained law enforcement investigator, a human trafficking coordinator and a masters-level social worker with a background in commercial sexual exploitation. This social worker will respond to youth runaways, missing person incidents and potential human trafficking victims. The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians will use the grant to establish a housing project to provide a safe and culturally sensitive environment for the tribes most vulnerable members, according to the governors news release. There are more than 150 documented Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person cases in California, according to the Sovereign Bodies Institute. California currently has the fifth most cases across the country. This issue reflects disproportionate rates of violence against Native people, where 84% of Native women and 82% of Native men will experience violence in their lifetime, according to the news release. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person cases are seven times less likely to be solved than any other group, the news release stated. In particular, Native women are more than ten times likely to be victims of murder compared to the national average. Too many Native people, many of them women and girls, are missing with no answer, Newsom said in a statement. Behind each Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person case is a family and community grieving a loved one. The 2024-2025 state budget will give an additional $13.25 million for these grants. The Cambria Christmas Market a popular local holiday destination that features visits with Santa Claus and more than 3 million sparkling lights will operate for another 15 years after a push to stop its permit was denied. On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to deny an appeal filed by a longtime Cambria resident to block the markets 15-year permit. It provides significant benefit to the business community of Cambria, Supervisor Bruce Gibson said during the meeting. It likewise imposes significant impacts on particularly the residential areas of Cambria, and its up to this board to assure that those impacts are properly mitigated. In her appeal, 38-year Cambria resident Claudia Worthen said noise, traffic and light created by the market were disruptive to nearby residences, and she accused the market operator of damaging the nearby Monterey pine forest. Nobody particularly likes having the Christmas Market around their residences, Worthen said, noting that the traffic and light pollution were eroding the magic and sacredness of the holiday season. The market has been operating under a two-year extension of a five-year temporary event permit. That permit was allowed to stretch to cover three years, through the 2023 holiday season, because of the pandemic impacts. The market was much smaller when it began in 2012, but its always been a lightning rod for community comment and complaints. Eventually, because of those issues, year-to-year permitting authority for the event shifted to the California Coastal Commission, in part due to the markets impact on the adjacent forest of rare, native Monterey pines. Parking, traffic and noise were other hot-button issues. In February, the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission approved a 15-year permit for Dirk Winter and his company Pacific Cambria LLC to operate the market. Pacific Cambria LLC must implement a variety of mitigation measures to avoid disrupting the peace of the town, such as capping the number of guests per night at 3,000 people. Winter said the event brings the Christmas spirit to Cambria. Christmas markets in general are a place for the community to gather, slow down, enjoy the season, Winter told The Tribune after the meeting. The charming, cutesy nature of the town lends itself to Christmas decorations. A surfing Santa Claus display is among the quirkier decorations at the Cambria Christmas Market on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. Cambria Christmas Market granted 15-year permit In February, the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission voted to approve a 15-season permit for the Cambria Christmas Market, hosted at the Cambria Pines Lodge. The permit allows up to 46 temporary vendor booths per night, and the market must turn off its lights by 9 p.m., county planner Nicole Ellis said. The market will operate during the Christmas season each week from Wednesday to Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. The commission also allowed the market to add an additional week of operations from Dec. 26 to 31 as a pilot program. After two years, the county will evaluate whether or not to authorize that extra week of the market for the remaining 13 years of the permit. The commission required the market to offer 3,000 free passes to Cambria residents per holiday season through the Cambria Chamber of Commerce and provide complimentary parking passes to locals impacted by traffic congestion, Ellis said. The market also must meet certain sound and light limits, she said. Additionally, Pacific Cambria LLC must submit an annual report to the county Planning Department to prove that the market followed the countys conditions for the project. That report must include daily attendance statistics, acoustic monitoring reports and photos, she said. If the market fails to comply with the project conditions, the county can revoke the permit, Ellis said. The county also can require more mitigation measures in the future if needed, she said. A tree at the Cambria Christmas Market is decked out in purple lights and jellyfish on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. Appeal said Christmas market disrupted neighborhood, cut down trees Worthen accused Pacific Cambria LLC of removing trees without a permit and destroying environmentally sensitive habitat. In her appeal, she said a neighbor witnessed people cutting down multiple trees and informed her of the incident. County code enforcement, however, did not have record of complaints of unpermitted tree removal on the property, Ellis said. Meanwhile, the market is designed to avoid vegetated areas, and no trees will be removed for the market, she said. Dave Watson, a planner working with Pacific Cambria LLC, confirmed that the company had not removed trees without a permit. We do trim trees, and to the extent that we trim trees is for the protection of the buildings permanent buildings onsite, and the walkways, Watson said. Worthen also urged the county to prepare an environmental impact report on the market to examine its impacts to the Monterey pine forest and the communitys dwindling water supply. Ellis, however, said the county is not required by the California Environmental Quality Act to prepare such a report for the project, as the temporary event does not involve new development that would impact Cambrias water supply. Visitors will use restrooms in the Cambria Pines Lodge or portable restrooms and hand washing stations, Ellis said. Meanwhile, food will be prepared in the existing hotel restaurant or brought from offsite by vendors, and potable water will be supplied in water bottles. All of these measures prevent the market from increasing use of Cambrias water, she said. Finally, Worthen disputed the projects compatibility with Cambria, noting that it creates traffic congestion along with light and sound pollution. Watson, however, said the market has never violated its noise requirements, and Pacific Cambria LLC conducted sound monitoring studies each year to ensure that it was compliant. Meanwhile, Pacific Cambria LLC hired a professional traffic management company to assist with the event. The company also offers shuttles from offsite parking to the market. The newly-approved permit requires the company to work with the county to modify shuttle routes to minimize traffic. Gibson suggested adding an additional shuttle to Moonstone Beach Drive. Before and after the event, the organizers typically host an outreach session with neighbors to discuss concerns with the market, Watson said. We have gone further than probably most temporary events that you allow in the county to interact with the neighbors and make sure were hearing from them, Watson said. The fact that most of the neighbors around our property arent here should tell you something about the efforts. Even the daughter of Cameroon's president may not be shielded from the nation's harsh anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Brenda Biya, whose father is Paul Biya, came out last week in an Instagram post that revealed her relationship with Brazilian model Layyons Valenca. Biya posted a photo of the two kissing, writing in the caption: PS: Im crazy about you & I want the world to know. Cameroon prohibits consensual same-sex relationships, carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine. Biya has since revealed the extent of the backlash she received for her post, some of which came from her own family. Biya told France's Le Parisien that her brother was the first to contact her after she posted the photo, angry at her for publishing it without warning the family. She then received a call from her mother, First Lady Chantal Biya, who told her to delete the post. Since then, its been silence, she said. Biya also said that her family was not aware she had been in a relationship with Valenca for eight months, despite bringing her to the country to visit three times. Cameroon's Penal Code 2016 criminalizes consensual same-sex activity, not LGBTQ+ identity, therefore "arrests of people on the basis of perceived identity are unlawful," according to Human Rights Watch. However, this has not stopped law enforcement from targeting and arresting members of the LGBTQ+ community, as there are several reports of mass arrests, arbitrary detention, and torture and violence being used against queer people in the nation. HRW also noted a spike in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in recent years due to the political landscape, including incidents of assault, harassment, threats, extortion, torture, and murder. Law enforcement often fails to investigate or prosecute such crimes, and instead "arrest and detain those who report [them]," HRW said. Biya added that she "can lose a lot" by coming out due to the country's law, which she said is unfair." "I hope that my story will change it," she continued. Coming out is an opportunity to send a strong message. ... There are plenty of people in the same situation as me who suffer because of who they are. If I can give them hope, help them feel less alone, if I can send love, I am happy. Canada will allocate more than US$280 million for training Ukrainian pilots Canada has announced the allocation of CAD 389 million (more than US$280 million) for training Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighters. Source: Office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as European Pravda reports Details: The press release says that these funds will be used to support the training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) pilots and provide critical equipment for Ukraine's safe operation of F-16 fighters. Trudeau's office also revealed the contents of a previously announced military aid package to Ukraine. "This includes almost CAD 444 million to Canadas Department of National Defence to support the costs of military equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraines Armed Forces as well as over CAD 56 million for the NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) Trust Fund for Ukraine to help rebuild the Ukrainian security and defence sector and advance Ukraines transition toward full interoperability with NATO," the press release said. The day before, Trudeau announced a new, additional package of military aid for Ukraine in the amount of CAD 500 million (more than US$350 million). Background: In June, Trudeau announced a package of measures to support Ukraine in the amount of 52.4 million Canadian dollars (US$38.1 million). Previously, the government of Canada stated that it would start delivering decommissioned CRV7 rocket motors to Ukraine. The CRV7 was considered one of the most powerful air-to-ground missiles of its time and was still in service with the allied countries during the war in Afghanistan. Canadian conservatives demanded that the government transfer tens of thousands of these missiles to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Canada will increase spending on national defense, aiming to hit the NATO target of two percent of GDP by the year 2032, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on July 11 at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. NATO set the two percent benchmark in 2014, following Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea. Member states agreed to spend two percent of their national GDP on the military by 2024. "As threats to peace and security become increasingly complex, Canada and our government stand ready to step up," Trudeau said. According to the announcement, Canada plans to reach NATO's budget goal by 2032. The government will also conduct a regular review of national defense police, including an additional update in 2028. Earlier this year, Canada released a military spending plan titled "Our North, Strong and Free," outlining defense investments of $73 billion Canadian dollars ($53 billion). The funds focus on Arctic security and underwater surveillance capabilities, among other defense priorities. Ottawa's defense spending projections arrived in tandem with Canada's pledge of $367 million in continued military assistance to Ukraine. The funds will support training for Ukraine's Armed Forces and F-16 pilots. Read also: NATO affirms Ukraines irreversible path toward membership, $43 billion in funding for next year Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Canadian officer says Alice Munro claimed her daughter was lying about being abused by stepfather FILE - Canadian author Alice Munro is photographed during an interview in Victoria, B.C. Tuesday, Dec.10, 2013. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP, File) TORONTO (AP) A retired police detective involved in the arrest 20 years ago of the husband of Canadian Nobel laureate Alice Munro, said Friday he was disturbed by the writer's reaction 20 years ago when she learned her husband would be charged for sexually assaulting her daughter. Retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sam Lazarevich remembers a very angry Munro accusing her daughter of lying when he visited Munros home in 2004 to inform the husband that he was going to be charged. In an interview with The Associated Press, Lazarevich said Munro was furious, defended her second husband and the detective recalls being quite surprised by her reaction. 'Thats your daughter. Arent you going to defend your daughter?' he recalls. The Toronto Star first reported what the now retired detective thought at the time. Andrea Robin Skinner, Munros daughter with her first husband, wrote in an essay published in the Toronto Star that she had been sexually assaulted at age 9 by Munros second husband, Gerard Fremlin. She alleged that he continued to harass and abuse her for the next few years, losing interest when she reached her teens. In her 20s, she told her mother about Fremlins abuse. But Munro, after leaving Fremlin for a time, returned and remained with him until his death, in 2013. She would explain to Skinner that she loved him too much to remain apart. Fremlin was Skinner's stepfather. When Munro died in May at age 92, she was celebrated worldwide as a genius whose short stories documented rare insight into her characters secrets, motivations, passions and cruelties, especially those of girls and women. Munro was a source of ongoing pride for her native Canada, where a reckoning with the authors legacy is now concentrated. Obviously this tarnishes her legacy, Lazarevich said. Lazarevich said he couldnt wrap his head around Munro's reaction at the time of Fremlin's arrest. He said he was fully aware of who she was, noting she was a local celebrity. If I would have had her book at home I would have thrown it into the garbage, Lazarevich said. Shortly after The New York Times magazine published a 2004 story in which Munro gushed about Fremlin, Skinner decided to contact Ontario Provincial Police and provided them letters in which Fremlin had admitted abusing her, the Toronto Star reported in a companion news story also published last Sunday. At 80, he pleaded guilty to one count of indecent assault and received a suspended sentence one that was not reported for nearly two decades. Lazarevich said he has no idea why the arrest didnt receive media coverage back then and that the prosecutor at the time should be asked that. The news stunned and grieved the literary world this month. Munros alma mater said Friday it has paused the endowed chair program that bears her name over the revelations the writer protected her husband after learning he had sexually abused her daughter. Western University said Andrea Robin Skinner had the schools unwavering support after coming forward about her stepfathers abuse and mothers silence. At this time, we are pausing the Chair appointment as we carefully consider Munros legacy and her ties to Western, said a short statement posted on its website Friday. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) A man from Canada has been sentenced to more than four years in a U.S. federal prison for participating in an international fraud scheme. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of Illinois said Sebastian Cheleman, 38, was sentenced on Thursday for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which he pleaded guilty to in February. He and several other conspirators took part in an elder fraud that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from people across the United States, including numerous people in Central Illinois. Prosecutors said that between April and June of 2023, Cheleman and co-conspirators operating in Canada called elderly people throughout the United States, pretended to be their loved ones and claimed that they had been arrested. The conspirators asked for money to either pay bail or pay for lawyers. IL in top 5 states with most elder fraud losses in 2023: new FBI report Once a victim agreed to pay, Cheleman acted as a bail bondsman or courier to pick up the funds. Prosecutors said that as part of the fraud, Cheleman provided the victims with a receipt that included a fake case number, the fake name he used in these interactions and the amount of money paid. Evidence showed that Cheleman directly received over $380,000 from victims, including $138,000 from Central Illinois victims that was in his possession when he was arrested in Sangamon County. The conspirators also received $79,000 through the mail and unsuccessfully tried to steal a further $290,000. The grand total of successful and attempted theft adds up to $750,000. Elder fraud is a massive and growing problem that affects one of our most vulnerable age groups. It accounts for billions of dollars in losses and in many instances leaves victims financially and emotionally devastated, said Jermaine Deans, the Acting Special Agent in Charge for the FBIs Springfield field office. This sentence demonstrates the commitment of the FBI and our law enforcement partners to relentlessly pursue and hold accountable those who seek to harm the elderly. Protestors rally at Sangamon Co. Sheriffs Office after womans death In addition to the FBI, the Springfield Police Department and Sangamon County Sheriffs Office investigated the fraud scheme locally. They had assistance from law enforcement in Virginia, Ohio, New York and Wisconsin. On top of his four-year prison sentence, Cheleman will have to pay $460,000 in restitution to his victims. 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. Candidates race against time to submit nomination forms is over. Now we wait. Rhode Island Rep. Robert Craven, left, a North Kingstown Democrat, and Sen. Alana M. DiMario, right, a Narragansett Democrat whose district includes the eastern portion of North Kingstown, are shown at a signature party at West Passage Brewery in North Kingstown sponsored by the Democratic Town Committee on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Candidates for the Senate must collect at least 100 validated and certified signatures and House of Representatives must collect at least 50 to qualify for the ballot. (Kathleen Layton for Rhode Island Current) Rhode Island Sen. Alana DiMario, a Narragansett Democrat, already exceeded the minimum 100 voter signatures required for her nomination forms two days before Fridays 4 p.m. submission deadline. DiMario, running for her third term, had turned in 136 signatures as of the 4 p.m. deadline, according to the Secretary of States website. Signatures are validated by local boards of canvassers in the respective cities or towns where the districts are located. DiMarios district spans Narragansett, New Shoreham and a portion of North Kingstown. The names collected must be certified by the Secretary of States office before candidates for state and federal offices officially qualify to have their name on the ballot. Candidates typically collect more signatures than necessary in case any are thrown out if they are found to be the names of voters registered in a different district or not registered at all. Or if they are dead people, as happened in a signature scandal that derailed Lt. Gov. Sabina Matoss campaign in last years crowded Democratic primary for Rhode Islands 1st Congressional District seat. But DiMario said she didnt need to go overboard collecting more names. I want to be kind to our town staff who are working so hard to validate all of these signatures in a tight timeframe, DiMario wrote via text. A consultant hired last year by the Matos campaign is facing criminal charges for her role in the alleged signature fraud. The scandal resulted in a new state law that takes effect Jan. 1, 2025, requiring local election workers to notify state officials when they spot potentially fraudulent signatures. The legislation also clarifies the process by which the Rhode Island Board of Elections considers challenges of alleged fraud. Another deadline for processing forms Now that the submission deadline has passed, local boards have until 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 18, to process all nomination forms and update the signature count on the state website. The names of candidates who qualify for the ballot will be included in the ballot placement lottery scheduled for Friday, July 19, at 5 p.m. at the Rhode Island Department of States Elections Division. The lottery will be streamed on Facebook. The names of candidates who have been endorsed by their political party automatically appear first in their races listed on the ballot. Objections against state and federal candidates signatures can be made through July 19, which is also the deadline to withdraw from the primary ballot. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and Sens. Hanna Gallo, a Cranston Democrat, and Walter Felag, a Warren Democrat, have over 200 signatures, or more than double the required amount, according to preliminary data on the Secretary of States website. Democrat Todd Patalano, a Cranston police major, shows 252 signatures in his attempt to fill the seat by exiting Sen. Frank Lombardi, who decided not to seek reelection to his District 26 seat. The Secretary of States website shows no signatures submitted by two Democratic candidates who filed papers to run for the seat, David Alden Sears and Robert Palumbo. Twenty of the 38 Senate races and 41 of the 75 House races have only one candidate running. While Ruggerio, a North Providence Democrat, appears to have a primary challenger in Leonardo Cioe, who turned in 121 signatures, it now looks like the leader of the other chamber is unopposed. House candidates need only collect a minimum of 50 validated signatures. House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, turned in 58 signatures for his reelection bid. But no signatures appear on the Secretary of States website for his Republican challenger, Dana Traversie. Incumbent Rep Enrique Sanchez turned in 65 signatures for his Distrct 9 seat in Providence as did two of his three Democratic challengers. Rival Anastacia Williams, whom Sanchez unseated in the 2022 election, had the most, 112 signatures, followed by Santos Javier, a former two-time Providence City Council candidate, with 64. But there are no signatures showing for Lesley Bunnell. Only one of two Republican challengers who declared to run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Gregory Constantino of Lincoln for his District 44 seat turned in signatures. Constantino has 96 signatures showing and Republican Peter Trementozzi has 83. Republican Frank Ricci has no signatures. Sen. Joshua Miller, the Cranston Democrat, opted not to seek reelection to his District 28 seat after 17 years in office. Six candidates all Democrats filed paperwork to run, but only five submitted signatures by Friday at 4 p.m. The Secretary of States website shows no signatures were submitted by Christopher Lanen. For the unopposed DiMario, the voyage to 100 John Hancocks included door knocking, community outreach, public singing events and a field trip to Block Island with Rep. Tina Spears to collect signatures from New Shoreham residents. The process has become easier with each campaign, DiMario said. When she hit the campaign trail in 2020, COVID concerns still plagued social interaction. DiMario recalled handing out campaign-branded pens to let people sign her nomination forms, then letting people keep the pens to minimize worries about germs. It really is an entry-level, really easy way for people to be brought into the democratic process in a way that helps them be informed about whos running, DiMario said of gathering signatures. I do find it to be a great way to engage your community and a really collaborative process. Congressional races shape up Candidates in congressional races have more signatures to collect: 1,000 to run for U.S. Senate and 500 required for the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who is looking to secure a fourth term on Capitol Hill, went above and beyond, gathering 1,917 signatures to appear on the Democratic ballot for the Sept. 10 primary. Our team is thrilled by Rhode Islanders enthusiastic support for re-electing Sheldon to the U.S. Senate and we look forward to running a strong race through Nov. 5, said campaign coordinator Laura Fusco. Whitehouses potential primary opponent Michael J. Costa collected 1,013 signatures. Two Republican challengers declared to run for Whitehouses seat. Rep. Patricia Morgan, a West Warwick Republican who declined to seek reelection in the State House, turned in 1,180 signatures after putting out a call to action earlier in the day on social media when she was about 100 signatures shy of the 1,000 minimum. Former Warwick City Administrator Raymond T. McKay, had 934 signatures showing as of Friday afternoon, still short of qualifying for the Republican primary ballot. In the 1st Congressional District race, Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo had 1,112 signatures collected as of the 4 p.m. deadline, according to the Secretary of States public portal. Amos campaign acknowledged a request for comment, but did not immediately respond. He is far ahead in signature gathering compared to Democratic challenger Eddy Medrano who only had 43 signatures. Republican challengers Allen Waters, who switched parties after coming in 10th in last years crowded Democratic primary, had collected 436 signatures while Jeffrey Lemire, who previously ran for the 1st Congressional District as an independent in 2016 and for Providence mayor in 2018, showed only 67 signatures. In the 2nd Congressional District race, Democratic incumbent Rep. Seth Magaziner had 796 signatures. Steven Corvi, his GOP opponent in the general election, had 688. It was great to meet hundreds of Rhode islanders across the district these past 10 days, Corvi posted on X. We are excited and energized as we move forward towards November. This story was updated to include submissions in races for the Rhode Island House of Representatives. The post Candidates race against time to submit nomination forms is over. Now we wait. appeared first on Rhode Island Current. This cannabis product was recalled for pesticide contamination at Arizona dispensaries A type of cannabis sold in Arizona was recalled on Wednesday due to pesticide contamination, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Concentrated cannabis extract sold as "DIME Mint OG," batch number MOGBL0405, was recalled throughout Arizona marijuana dispensaries after the health department found the contamination during routine testing. AZDHS said the cannabis product tested positive for piperonyl butoxide, a pesticide that can cause skin irritation even in small amounts. The product was made by "DBA Dime Industries," part of Nature's Wonder, a dispensary with four locations in the Phoenix metro area. The health department said items under the batch number should not be ingested or inhaled and the products should be disposed. Anyone who may have consumed the product should seek medical attention if they experience any of the following symptoms. The pesticide in severe cases causing dizziness, headaches, vomiting, abnormal facial sensations and sensitivity to sound and touch, according to AZDHS. In lower exposures, the pesticide causes skin irritation that creates painful or numbing sensations. As of Thursday evening, there were no reports of illness, according to the health department. "This announcement is being made out of an abundance of caution... the licensee took immediate action to work with all distribution and retail partners to remove any potentially impacted products from store shelves," wrote AZDHS in a news release. The department recommended customers who purchased the recalled product to return it to the dispensary where it was purchased. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Cannabis concentrate recalled in Arizona marijuana dispensaries Fatima Latifova A delegation led by Goskar Tahmazli, Chairman of the Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency (AFSA), made a business visit to the Russian Federation. During the visit, the AFSA Chairman met with Sergey Dankvert, head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of the Russian Federation ("Rosselkhoznadzor"), Azernews reports. During the meeting, discussions were held on food safety, plant and animal health, increasing agricultural exports from Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation this year, and cooperation between the Azerbaijan Food Safety Institute (AFSI) and the relevant Russian institutions. The discussions focused on agreements and memoranda of understanding on cooperation in plant quarantine and protection, veterinary and phytosanitary control, and the fight against transboundary animal diseases. Chairman Tahmazli emphasized the importance of measures taken in the fields of food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary control between the relevant institutions of the two countries, and the necessity of joint action to combat transboundary animal diseases. He highlighted the importance of strengthening these relations and ensuring biological safety. Dankvert expressed satisfaction with the developing cooperation between AFSA and "Rosselkhoznadzor." He noted that more efficient organization of relations in the field of food safety and the expansion of these relations have led to an increase in the export of agricultural products from Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation and ensured more effective control over this process. The achievements resulting from mutual cooperation were also addressed during the meeting. It was reported that the equivalence of the approval systems for food establishments between the two countries was recognized and cooperation on the registration of high-risk food production facilities was expanded. Additionally, an agreement was reached on the export of high-risk food products produced in Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation as a result of the meeting between the heads of AFSA and "Rosselkhoznadzor." Detailed discussions were held on the export of high-risk food products produced in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to Russia. A general agreement was reached on the export of these products, and it was noted that this would not only expand the access of food enterprises in the Autonomous Republic to international markets but also create wide opportunities for the development of the food industry. Tahmazli stressed the significance of the close cooperation between the Azerbaijan Food Safety Institute and several institutions and research centers of the Russian Federation. Within the framework of cooperation with the "Federal Center for Animal Health" (FGBI "ARRIAH"), it is planned to organize epizootiological monitoring of particularly dangerous animal diseases in border countries, develop a control program for foot-and-mouth disease and rabies, and conduct scientific risk assessments of particularly dangerous animal diseases. Trainings have been organized with the participation of Institute employees, and the Central Veterinary Laboratory of the Institute successfully participated in proficiency tests for foot-and-mouth disease organized by the "Federal Center for Animal Health." It was noted that within the framework of cooperation between the relevant institutes, joint scientific-practical seminars and trainings on combating infectious animal diseases, protecting animal and human health, information exchange on food safety and epizootiological status, and existing legislative acts in the countries, as well as the implementation of joint scientific research projects, will further expand the achievements. It was reported that 74 vaccine samples produced in Russia against animal diseases were subjected to laboratory tests in Azerbaijan and their compliance was confirmed. Tahmazli expressed gratitude to Dankvert for his proposal to gift SAT-2 vaccines from the Russian Federation for vaccinating animals against foot-and-mouth disease in border areas, and for his efforts and practical activities in developing cooperation between the two organizations. He stated that these actions would facilitate the increase of trade turnover between the two countries. He emphasized that import and export operations of food products would be conducted more efficiently and promptly in the future under mutual cooperation and trust. During the meeting, Tahmazli expressed confidence that the appointment of Oksana Lut as the new Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation would contribute to the development of mutual cooperation and wished her success in her endeavors. Dankvert positively assessed the current state of cooperation between the two organizations in the fields of food safety, veterinary, and phytosanitary control, expressing confidence that the work being carried out in these areas would contribute to the increase of trade turnover between the two countries. Other issues of mutual interest were also addressed during the meeting. Aerial photo provided by BC Wildfire Service shows a wildfire near Ecstall River, the northwest part of British Columbia, Canada, on July 9, 2024. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 150 active wildfires in the province of British Columbia, including 30 started in the past 24 hours. (BC Wildfire Service/Handout via Xinhua) Photo provided by BC Wildfire Service shows a wildfire near Little Oliver Creek, the northwest part of British Columbia, Canada, on July 8, 2024. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 150 active wildfires in the province of British Columbia, including 30 started in the past 24 hours. (BC Wildfire Service/Handout via Xinhua) Aerial photo provided by BC Wildfire Service shows a wildfire near Peachland, west of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on July 10, 2024. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 150 active wildfires in the province of British Columbia, including 30 started in the past 24 hours. (BC Wildfire Service/Handout via Xinhua) Photo provided by BC Wildfire Service shows a wildfire near Harrison Lake, east of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on July 11, 2024. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 150 active wildfires in the province of British Columbia, including 30 started in the past 24 hours. (BC Wildfire Service/Handout via Xinhua) Aerial photo provided by BC Wildfire Service shows a wildfire near Ecstall River, the northwest part of British Columbia, Canada, on July 9, 2024. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 150 active wildfires in the province of British Columbia, including 30 started in the past 24 hours. (BC Wildfire Service/Handout via Xinhua) The Capitol building in Harrisburg on July 6, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by Ian Karbal) With a Republican Senate and a Democratic House, Pennsylvanias budget negotiations were always going to involve compromise. While Gov. Josh Shapiro characterized the budget as a major victory and ended up with a budget that would cost the state only $700 million less than the $48 billion he proposed, both Democrats and Republicans had to sacrifice some of their priorities. Here is some of what didnt make it through negotiations. SEPTA funding Philadelphia lawmakers in particular had hoped the budget would include more funds for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), that operates trains and buses around the Philly region. And Shapiro had proposed $161 million for SEPTA alone as part of a larger push to fund public transit around the state. However, many of those funds were left on the floor during budget negotiations. Ultimately, only $80 million will go towards public transit around the state, with the majority, $53 million, going to SEPTA. For months, SEPTA officials have been warning that without a large increase in funds, the transit agency may have to cut services or raise fares. Cannabis and skill games Shapiros initial budget proposal included a call to legalize cannabis and tax the revenue that would have come from cannabis sales. And as a House committee held multiple hearings on what a legalization bill might look like and advocates repeatedly took to the capitol, momentum for the measure was high. The same was true of taxing so-called skill games. Skill games exist in a sort of legal gray area. Usually, they look and function exactly like slot machines, which are heavily regulated and taxed in casinos. But the sort of skill games that you may see in bars or restaurants or corner stores claim they dont fall under the legal definition of gambling because they have some mechanic that requires at least a modicum of skill on behalf of the player no matter how small or unnoticeable. Shapiro supported regulating such games, and a number of lawmakers entertained the idea as well, notably including Sen. Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R- Indiana). But the skill game and gambling lobbies came out hard against new regulation, and threw plenty of funds around to boot. In a late night press conference following the budgets passage Thursday, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) said that Shapiros support of both measures was half-hearted,. He talked about it in his budget address. We never heard another word about it, Ward said. School vouchers Pennsylvania Republicans have long sought a school voucher program that would send state funds to families who put their kids in private schools. And they have an odd bedfellow in Shapiro, who has also endorsed some sort of voucher program. However, a large majority of Democratic lawmakers have fiercely opposed any such program. Last year, a proposal to create a $100 million voucher program contributed to a months-long delay in any budget passing at all. Though it passed the Republican-controlled Senate, Shapiro vetoed the item in order to get the support of House Democrats. While Republicans continued to push for voucher funding this year, no such proposal made it into the final budget. However, this years budget does include a $75 increase in two existing programs that provide tax breaks to corporations that fund scholarships for students to attend private schools. The majority of the new funding, $70 million, will bolster the Educational Improvement Tax Credit. That program provides a tax break to businesses that fund scholarships for students to attend private schools, certain public school programs or pre-k scholarships. The Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit is similar, but is targeted at aid to students in low-performing school districts seeking education elsewhere. It will receive $5 million in new funds. Income tax cuts What to do with Pennsylvanias $15 billion in surplus funds was always a source of contention between Shapiro, House Democrats and Senate Republicans. In May, Senate Republicans unveiled a plan to cut the states personal income tax from 3.07% to 2.8% and eliminate whats called a gross receipts tax on electricity for homes and businesses. The $3 billion plan was, effectively, a counter-proposal to Shapiros pitch to increase spending on public education, public transit and other state services. While a bill to cut the taxes passed the Senate, it was never taken up in the Democrat-controlled House and was ultimately not included in the budget. The final budget does include numerous new tax credits for businesses, however, including some for businesses that help employees pay for child care or college savings. It also allows businesses to carry forward a greater share of their operating losses from previous years when determining their tax liability. Whole Home Repairs Also missing from the budget was a Democrat-supported policy that would help Pennsylvanians fix their homes. Sen. Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia) was a leading advocate for the program from its beginnings in 2022. Back then, the state used $120 million in federal funds to provide grants for qualifying homeowners and landowners across the state to fund repairs and weatherization of their properties. Shapiro proposed investing $50 million in state dollars this year for the whole home repairs program. However, the funds were ultimately not included in this years budget. Prominent African-American faith leaders gathered at the Georgia Capitol Thursday to support President Joe Bidens re-election bid amid a growing chorus that he should step aside because of his age. The groups news conference came two weeks after Democrat Bidens poor performance in a nationally televised debate with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in Atlanta produced a storm of calls for Biden to abandon his quest for a second term. An increasing number of Democrats in Congress are publicly urging Biden to step aside, likely in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. But Democrats in Georgias congressional delegation are sticking with the president, as are the states African-American faith leaders. Instead of talking about how old he is, why dont you talk about how much hes accomplished? said Georgia AME Bishop Reginald Jackson, taking aim at the intense coverage the news media has given since the June 27 debate to doubts over Bidens fitness to continue as president. His record speaks louder than his (debate) performance. We cannot judge a man based on one night, the Rev. Timothy McDonald added. Jackson went on to praise Bidens achievements on behalf of Black Americans, including the lowest Black unemployment rate in the nations history and the unprecedented level of federal funding pouring into Americas Historically Black Colleges and Universities. McDonald said African-American faith leaders expect to play a large role in getting out the vote for Biden in November, as they have done in past campaigns on behalf of Democratic presidential candidates. The Black church will once again save America, he said. Were going to organize our people, mobilize our people, and set records for turnout. CANTON The city administration is looking an allegation that a firefighter/paramedic stole $208 worth of merchandise from the Target store in Jackson Township. Jeffery Riggs pleaded not guilty to a single misdemeanor theft charge on Thursday in Massillon Municipal Court. Magistrate Andrea Scassa set his bond at $1,000 and released him on his own recognizance. The 41-year-old Jackson Township resident has worked for the Canton Fire Department since April 20, 2018, Christina Skondras, city human resources director, wrote in an email Friday morning. June 10: Former Canton firefighter pleads not guilty to pandering sexual material involving child charges "We have just learned of this and the matter will be investigated," she wrote. The criminal charge filed by Jackson Township police says the theft occurred between June 19 and July 4. It says a store employee recovered $45 worth of merchandise. Messages were left for Riggs and his attorney on Friday morning seeking comment on the case. Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR. This article originally appeared on The Repository: Canton firefighter faces theft charge, accused of stealing from Target Carer who walked into river holding two babies suffered trauma after visa refused Rhonda Micetich walked free from court after admitting walking into a river with two babies - Andrew Croft/Solent News A carer walked into freezing river with two babies after her visa was refused, a court heard. Rhonda Micetich, who moved to the UK from India in 2021, was suffering from mental trauma after receiving a letter from the Home Office alerting her to the expiration of her visa, Winchester Crown Court heard. The 31-year-old told people not to rescue her and to just just live your life and leave me here as she had ended up in the worst situation and could not find any help from anyone. The carer and the two infants were rescued by members of the public who were praised by a judge was their extraordinary bravery. Micetich told officials she wanted to end her life, having received correspondence from the government that her visa was due to expire and she would have to return to India. She was handed a two-year community order while the judge said the case exemplifies how vulnerable those who take out visas and rely upon sponsors are. They heard the babies screaming On Oct 26 last year, Micetich entered the Itchen River, near the Cobden Bridge in Southampton, with two babies. It was heard that two 12-year-old schoolgirls witnessed Micetich going deeper into the water. Maria Karaiskos KC said: The schoolgirls saw the defendant proceed further into the water to her shoulder height, with the water up to the babies necks, although they noted that the defendant was keeping the babies heads up quite high. They heard the babies screaming and sounding distressed. The weather was cold that day and the babies were described as being really scared. Simon Ling, a strong swimmer, was able to reach Micetich. The prosecutor said one of the babies was shivering heavily. The carer passed the babies, not identified for legal reasons, over to him and Mr Ling recalled Micetich saying do not bother coming back for me. The carer told the emergency services that she had been suffering mental trauma. At the hospital, Micetech told doctors she had received correspondence from the Home Office unexpectedly, regarding the expiry of her visa. The prosecutor said: Her stress levels increased and she could not face going through the visa application or losing her UK status. In later interviews, Micetech said her employer had told her she had to pay 20,000 for her sponsorship. The carer received a visa in 2021 for two and a half years which she explained to her boss but he said if she did not give him the money in cash he would cancel her visa. In September 2023, Micetech received an email from Home Office informing her that her employer had cancelled her sponsorship and that she had to return to India by Nov 14 2023. The carer pleaded guilty to two counts of child neglect. Sentencing Micetech, Judge Paul Dugdale said: I want to tell you this straight away, you are not receiving a prison sentence today and you will be released from custody today. You came to this country with your husband a few years ago and you came here having applied for a visa. She was experiencing pressure You came to undertake further education and you came here also to work and do an important job. Judge Dugdale said the occupation of a carer is an important job and a role which this country lacks. The judge said the carer was experiencing pressure to pay her employer money. That exemplifies how vulnerable people can be when they come to this country under a visa and rely upon a sponsorship, he added. I dont think its something that those who live in this country are proud of. Despite this, Judge Dugdale said Micetich could have easily lost grip of the babies. He highlighted how Micetech was suffering from acute stress and a moderate depressive episode. You did something that in other circumstances you would never have done, he said, you decided the only exit strategy for you is to end your life. 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. PHILADELPHIA A 21-year-old Gloucester Township man has been sentenced to almost nine years in federal prison for a carjacking here. Ronald Brown took a car at gunpoint from two people sitting outside a Dunkin' in South Philadelphia in July 2023, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Brown fled when Philadelphia police officers saw him in the stolen vehicle the next day, according to the federal prosecutor's office. When officers spotted the car a second time, Brown sped away, but crashed into a building. Embezzlement schme: Prison time for union official from Mount Laurel Police arrested him after a foot chase and recovered the gun used in the carjacking from the stolen vehicle. A court record describes the gun as a .40 caliber semi-automatic firearm loaded with 11 rounds of ammunition. Brown admitted guilt earlier this year to carjacking and carrying a gun during a violent crime. U.S. District Judge John R. Padova on Tuesday sentenced Brown to 105 months' imprisonment at a hearing in Philadelphia federal court. Brown also is to spend five years on supervised release. Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com. This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Ronald Brown admitted to gunpoint carjacking outside a doughnut store A judge dismissed a case against Alec Baldwin, ruling that prosecutors had made crucial missteps amid their prosecution of the actor for involuntary manslaughter after a 2021 accident left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead. A motion to dismiss claimed that prosecutors had withheld key evidence in the case against the "30 Rock" actor, highlighting bullets that had been dropped off to Santa Fe police by a supposed family friend of armorer Hannah Guttierez-Reed. The state has repeatedly made representations to defense and to the court that they were compliant with all their discovery obligations, New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in her ruling, per Deadline. Despite their repeated representations, they have continued to fail to disclose critical evidence to the defendant. Charges were previously dropped against Baldwin but re-filed in January of this year. Criticism has flooded a special prosecutor for the case, Kari Morrissey, who defense attorneys accused of calling Baldwin an arrogant prick and a c***sucker, according to Deadline. The dismissal with prejudice, which prevents future prosecution of Baldwin over the incident, came as prosecutors dropped a last-minute manila envelope containing previously withheld evidence in a dramatic moment. The move came weeks after investigators claimed that they accidentally destroyed the gun that killed Hutchins, amid Baldwins teams claim that the gun had malfunctioned. There is no way for the court to right this wrong, Judge Sommer said. The films armorer, Guttierez-Reed, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in jail back in March. Gutierrez-Reeds legal team reportedly plans to file a motion for release based on the mishandling of evidence Donald Trumps sentencing for his hush money conviction was supposed to be Thursday. Instead, the former president asked a New York judge to dismiss his criminal conviction on 34 felony counts. In a 52-page filing, lawyers for the presumptive GOP nominee argued that the trail was tainted by evidence and testimony that's inadmissible after the recent Supreme Court ruling that grants presidential immunity for official acts, ABC News reported. "No President of the United States has ever been treated as unfairly and unlawfully as District Attorney Bragg has acted towards President Trump in connection with the biased investigation, extraordinarily delayed charging decision, and baseless prosecution that give rise to this motion," Trump's attorneys wrote, Axios reported. The defense lawyers argued that the prosecutors in the hush money trial violated the Supreme Courts immunity ruling by using evidence related to official acts, specifically hinging their argument on the testimonies of White House aides like Hope Hicks, the former White House Communication Director. Trumps lawyers argued that Hicks testimony was categorically inadmissible, since she was advising Trump on official communications. Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted [the District Attorney's] grand jury proceedings as well as the trial," Trumps lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote. The former presidents attorneys initially previewed their plans to ask the verdict be tossed in a page-long letter to Judge Juan Merchan last week. In their filing, made public Thursday, they detailed why the Supreme Courts immunity ruling applies to the New York case which concerns Trumps conduct as a presidential candidate before the 2016 elections. Judge Merchan decided to delay Trumps sentencing until September 18, to consider the defenses arguments. Lisa Rubin, a legal analyst who often appears on MSNBC, suggested Thursday that the impact of the Supreme Courts decision on the hush money trial shouldnt be taken lightly. She explained that this gift to Trump could let him escape his conviction and escape scot-free, RawStory reported. "There are places their rubber band of official conduct is stretched too far. But they have another argument that strikes me as more faithful to the majority opinion and could knock out the verdict entirely, regardless of whether certain evidence should not have come in," she wrote on X. "And it's this: The majority says that immunity decisions must be made at the 'outset' of the case; otherwise, a president entitled to immunity would have to bear the burdens of pre-trial discovery and litigation, which is no immunity at all." BETHESDA, Md. (DC News Now) Hours after officials unveiled the train that will be running along the highly-anticipated, and long-awaited, Purple Line in Maryland, people in Bethesda are giving it a good grade. At the same time, they acknowledged a cautious approach to their excitement. The project, which initially was projected to be completed in 2022, is not expected to be done until the winter of 2027. People have been waiting a long time for this, said Janet Abrams of Bethesda. Maryland officials give a look at new Purple Line carriages Abrams, who said she usually takes Metros Red Line, said of the new train looks fantastic. Clean and tidy, modern, sleek, Abrams said. Carol Ross had similar thoughts. Its good and better than what we have, Ross said. The excitement comes as Red Line riders are experiencing closures due to construction along the Purple Line. The closures have had an impact on Andys Pizza, the eateries general manager, Chane May, said. On the weekends I need more people, she said. And sometimes they cant get to work. May said despite the short-term frustrations, shes excited for the new public transportation system. D.C. is like the Mecca and Maryland kind of gets left behind a little bit, she said. This connects Maryland in a way we need to. Maryland Transit Administration hosts first Purple Line community meeting She said she hopes the pizzeria could hire more employees and serve more customers, from parts of Maryland they dont currently hire or serve. Still, shes holding back her full excitement noting the time until completion, and acknowledging previous delays. I dont want to get my hopes too high because its been put off and put off and put off, she said. But I have faith that theyre going to rally I think were on a good track. At the train unveiling press conference, transportation officials touted the 142-foot-long cars. They said each train can carry more than 400 passengers and emphasized some of the vehicles accessibility features. 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. A central Georgia man who threatened to shoot and kill deputies has pleaded guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison, the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Middle District of Georgia said Wednesday. Christopher Thomas Ford, of Toomsboro, which is 37 miles east of Macon, pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon Monday before Judge Marc Treadwell in federal court. Hell face up to 15 years followed by at least three years of supervised release and a maximum $250,000 fine. Ford was previously convicted of possessing cocaine, terroristic threats, aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Hell be sentenced in this new case on Oct. 9. Court documents show that Fords case was initially heading toward a jury trial, scheduled for July 22. But he pleaded guilty Monday. Fords plea agreement says that in December 2022, two Wilkinson County deputies arrived at a home in Toomsboro to follow up on a theft and terroristic threatening case. Ford had an active warrant at the time, according to his plea agreement. Investigators believed Ford was staying behind the residence. After the officers approached and announced their presence, Ford began to threaten to shoot them, according to his plea agreement. I aint playing with yall, I aint going back to prison, Ford said, according to the document. You can kill me or Im going to kill yall. The officers ordered him to show his hands, at which point he showed a black pump shotgun while leaning out of the doorway of the structure, according to the plea agreement. Both Ford and the deputies were in a stand-off, with the officers firing missed shots toward Ford, until he ran into the woods with the shotgun. The officers watched the property line until backup arrived, the plea agreement said. The next day, Ford returned to the property and fell asleep. According to the plea agreement, one of Fords family members took the shotgun while he slept. It was turned over to law enforcement when they arrested Ford. While in custody at the Jones County Jail, agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation interviewed Ford. He confessed to the threats, the plea agreement said, and said he knew he couldnt have a gun as a convicted felon. Ford initially claimed he was holding a pellet gun, but he later admitted it was a loaded black Omega 12-gauge shotgun. Wilkinson County is safer now that guns are out of the hands of this person. If Ford had put finger to trigger, the entire community would have been in danger. We are thankful for the actions of the Wilkinson County deputies and Fords father, said Robert Gibbs, FBI Atlantas supervisory senior resident agent of the Macon office. We are firmly committed to working with all of our partners and using all tools available to curb the violence impacting the American people here in Georgia, and across the country. The GBI will continue to leverage our partnerships with local, state and federal agencies that are working to reduce violent crime. We will not tolerate acts that put our communities and law enforcement in danger, and we will work to make sure that dangerous criminals like Ford are off the streets, said GBI Director Chris Hosey. The attorneys office said the case is a part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, which brings together all levels of law enforcement and communities to reduce violent crime and gun violence as well as make their neighborhoods safer. The Department of Justice launched a violent crime reduction strategy in 2021, which the U.S. Attorneys Office of the Middle District of Georgia said strengthens the project. The FBI, the GBI and the Wilkinson County Sheriffs Office investigated Fords case. Convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms; our office will seek federal prosecution against people who disregard the law, especially those with violent criminal pasts, said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. The Department of Justices Project Safe Neighborhoods program is aimed at reducing violent crime and gun violence to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. Our office is dedicated to supporting the efforts of our federal, state and local law enforcement partners to achieve this goal. NEW DELHI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- At least four people were killed due to lightning in India's eastern state of Bihar, officials said Friday. Heavy rains and thunderstorms accompanied by lightning strikes lashed several parts of the state during the past 24 hours affecting seven districts. "During the past 24 hours, due to lightning, two deaths were reported in Siwan and one each in Supaul and Rohtas districts," a statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office said. Reports said most casualties occurred when lightning struck people working in fields and taking shelter under trees during the rain. Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has expressed sympathy with the victim families and announced monetary relief for them. "Chief Minister has announced an ex-gratia payment of INR 400,000 (4,788 U.S. dollars) to the next of kin of the deceased," a government spokesman said. Kumar has also urged people to remain vigilant in bad weather and follow the suggestions issued by the disaster management department, including staying at home during thunderstorms. On Monday lightning killed 12 people in the state. Reports said over 40 people have lost their lives to lightning strikes across Bihar in the last two weeks. Every year with the onset of monsoon season hundreds die in lightning incidents in India. Your chances of riding an electric bus at RDU airport keep getting better Raleigh-Durham International Airport is going all-in on electric buses. RDU just ordered eight more, adding to the 10 it already operates between its passenger terminals and remote parking lots. The airport still has 12 diesel buses but hopes to retire those within a decade, according to Brian Mclean, the airports manager of fleet maintenance. The Airport Authority board voted in May to buy the eight buses and charging equipment for about $9.6 million. It placed the order this month after it received a $3.4 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to help pay for them. It will take about 18 months for them to arrive, Mclean said. RDU was the first public bus system in the Triangle to begin using electrics. The airports first four arrived in May 2019. The buses cost more than standard diesels, though government grants have helped close the gap. RDU officials say savings in fuel and maintenance make them a good deal in the long run. Electric buses are also quieter and smoother and produce fewer emissions than diesels, a point board member Nina Szlosberg-Landis made when the board voted to buy eight more. This is not a small thing, not just in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions but also just public health, because of the idle times and buses running when theyre picking people up, said Szlosberg-Landis, who represents Raleigh on the board. We all know how horrible it smells with all of the exhaust. RDUs first buses were made by Proterra, a California company with a factory in South Carolina. After a few years with its first Proterras, the airport ordered four more in the summer of 2022. But the company ran into financial problems and idled its assembly lines during a bankruptcy. The company that took over Proterras bus business, PhoenixEV, then offered to sell six completed buses that Miami-Dade County ordered but couldnt buy. RDU got the buses at roughly half off and incorporated them into its fleet this year. PhoenixEV is also working to finish the four buses RDU ordered from Proterra. Its not clear when the airport will receive those. WARNING: This post contains graphic details not suitable for some audiences. Please be advised. SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) The Salt Lake County District Attorneys Office has filed charges in the death of a vulnerable adult, after the victim was allegedly dosed with heroin, was suffering from an infection, and living in unsanitary conditions. On Dec. 27, 2023, Taylorsville police responded to a call from two women Kimberly Ann Wallwork and Kelly Ryan Ringwood who reported that their relative had died. When an officer arrived on scene, he saw the victim on the ground, pale and covered in blankets, a press release from the D.A.s office states. Medical personnel performed CPR on the victim but he was pronounced dead, having already been deceased for a few hours, officials said. Uncle revealed as suspect in Utah girls disappearance in Mexico In the deceaseds bedroom, an officer found absorbent pads on the bed and floor, disposable urinals on the floor, and a journal that had an entry from that night before where Ms. Wallwork had written down doses of heroin that she had given [the victim], the release states. Wallwork allegedly told police that the victim had developed a drug problem, using heroin. Wallwork said the victim typically gave himself the drug, but that the night before, he couldnt, and instead asked that she and Ringwood give it to him. I just wanted to help him and make him comfortable, Wallwork told police. Ringwood told police she watched Wallwork give the victim heroin and wrote it down in a book. She allegedly said she had been living with and taking care of the victim for four to five years, but that he had recently developed an infection. She claimed that within the three days leading up to his death, his health took a turn. Before the infection, he could drive himself around and get himself to the bathroom, but since the infection, he couldnt get to the bathroom himself, so he started using urinals in his bedroom, the release states. Ms. Ringwood said that they had tried to get [the victim] to go to the hospital, but they were only able to convince him to take a shower. After the shower, the women said because he is a solid man, they couldnt get him back in his bed, so they laid him on the ground. Upon searching the apartment, detectives found the kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes, soiled absorbent pads on the floor, and full trash bags on the floor. They also found the bathroom to be highly unsanitary, sharing graphic details of the scene. A doctor at the Utah State Medical Examiners Office conducted an autopsy on the victim and found that he had also been suffering from bed sores, which they said may have occurred during the time that he was left on the floor without care. The doctor also found a large area around the victims right ankle that was missing skin and appeared to be infected, the release states. Police also determined that the victim had lost 33 pounds in 3 months. Utah State University dismisses executive associate athletics director Amy Crosbie, Jerry Bovee responds to his termination Wallwork and Ringwood were each charged with one count of second-degree felony aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult. The vulnerable people in our lives depend on us to help them live and thrive. If you are a caregiver struggling to keep up with the demands of the person you are caring for, please reach out to others or seek out community resources for help, 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. 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 ABC4 Utah. Bettina Thomas says shes owed thousands of dollars for her work as a summer school teacher in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Her paycheck has been missing for nearly two weeks, and she cant afford to pay for basic necessities anymore. I havent had money for rent, car payment and groceries. I have an eviction notice, and late fees on all of my bills are piling up, Thomas told The Charlotte Observer. This is my reality and the reality for so many teachers. At least a dozen other teachers are awaiting paychecks from CMS, according to multiple summer school teachers who spoke to the Observer. Three elementary teachers and one high school teacher told the Observer the problem is chronic and widespread. They were granted anonymity because they feared possible retaliation from the school district. Thomas said she received an intimidating phone call from a CMS administrator after she spoke at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night. The CMS administrator has not returned an Observer request for comment about that conversation. Superintendent Crystal Hill also did not respond to a request for comment on the missing wages. I was told that by going to the board I am not going to make the process any faster and I should be careful on how I move forward and not go to the press, Thomas said. Speaking out has put a target on my back, but someone needs to break the ice. Bettina Thomas speaks during this weeks CMS Board of Education meeting. One elementary school teacher says she has been paid her monthly wage but hasnt received her bonus. Another teacher said she hasnt been paid for weeks of work but remains optimistic shell receive the money by the end of the month. Other teachers say they havent received a paycheck which should have covered their work for the second half of June. Their next paycheck should come at the end of July. Unlike many professions, most salaried teachers in North Carolina are paid only 10 months of the year, leaving a gap for June and July. Thats partly why some teachers work in summer school or a second job to supplement income. During summer school, which started in the middle of June and runs through the last week in July, teachers can choose which school they work at because summer sessions are consolidated to a few locations. They are paid at the end of the month and their wage is based on regular state pay, determined by the state Department of Public Instruction, and they may qualify for bonuses. That state pay rate is lower than what CMS teachers are paid during the school year because it doesnt include an extra stipend from the school district. Someone who teaches all weeks of summer school would make at least $4,000 based on the state pay rate, but that number can rise based on accreditation and years of experience. Payroll problems in Gaston County, too Missing wages is nothing new, Thomas said. Some teachers are paid sometimes in August, September or October for money that was owed over the summer, Thomas said. A lot of teachers have told me this happened last year and the year before that too. Thomas says she believes problems with missing pay are linked to a new payroll system that CMS began converting to in February. Its the same system Gaston County Schools used in its botched conversion two years ago that left employees facing missing or incorrect pay, retirement contributions, payroll deductions and other errors. Gastons superintendent, W. Jeffrey Booker, resigned amid the payroll problems, though it wasnt clear that those problems were a primary reason. This system has had many glitches and hiccups, Thomas said. A lot of teachers are able to clock in but never clock out so it shows they havent logged hours. In other cases, hours disappear or arent logged correctly by the system. All four teachers who spoke to The Observer say they will not work summer school again if they dont get paid. They feel its important students dont fall behind in school but wont work without pay. Thats why Thomas is calling on CMS to create a missing wages committee. Im asking for you all to support teachers, Thomas said during the school board meeting. People are missing stipends, bonuses and wages for independent contractors, teachers, and anyone. They need to have an advocate or some type of committee that can help you to attain those funds. CMS told Thomas Wednesday she will receive her paycheck by Friday morning. Still, Thomas says more needs to be done. I think CMS is more aware of the issues now and have been working to solve them, she said. But, we need the money now and they need to fix this problem sooner rather than later. If you have experienced problems with pay, benefits, bonuses, stipends or anything else at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, we want to hear from you. Please contact Luke Fountain at lfountain@charlotteobserver.com or at (828) 320-6633. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) It was perhaps the most anticipated presser in President Joe Bidens presidency as he seeks to reassure supporters that hes the right pick for the ticket. However, it didnt convince some of his largest donors. The New York Times reports that major Democratic donors have told the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, that $90 million in pledged donations are now on hold unless the president steps down from the 2024 election campaign. Pelosi and Democratic leaders try to guide their party through Biden uproar I would hope that they look at the alternative if its Biden or theres another candidate, I understand, but if its the other party, think about the alternative, said Charlotte Biden supporter Malcomb Coley. Business leader Malcomb Coley is among the Charlotte residents who made the maximum donation to the Biden campaign. He says hes not worried at all that others are now withholding donations to the party. My support has not wavered at all, and it goes beyond a debate or a new interview. It goes beyond whats important for America, Coley said. That same sentiment is being echoed by area Democrats. Congresswoman Alma Adams team says her statement from Tuesday still stands. It reads: President Biden has been an extraordinary president. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated that he genuinely cares about our country and its people, and he has an historic record to show for it. I will continue to stand with the president and the people who elected him to be our nominee. He is the best candidate to be in this race. U.S. Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC 12) Charlottes other U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson would like to see more saying, The president has made clear that he intends to stay in the race. If thats the case, he must fully address voters real concerns following his debate performance and engage with the public and journalists in open settings. That isnt just a fair expectation its the only path to victory. My concern is if the other candidate became president, then our democracy is at risk. Our freedoms are at risk, Coley said. On the ability to perform for another four years, Coley says he has zero concern, and will stand behind the candidate the Democratic party puts on the ticket, but added the party needs to reassure the public and fast. Clyburns discussion of a mini-primary fuels more talk of whether Biden should end his campaign Something needs to happen pretty quickly in the next five to seven days, max, he said. A final decision needs to be made, and once that decision is made then we need to all rally around it. Another Charlotte donor who did not do an interview hosted a fundraiser in June for the Biden campaign, which the first lady attended. That supporter told Queen City News her support hasnt wavered. 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. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A Cheektowaga woman was arraigned on an indictment charging her with vehicular manslaughter after allegedly driving drunk and causing the death of another driver earlier this year, the Erie County District Attorneys Office announced Friday. She was a really special person: Educator killed in Transit Road crash remembered for kindness It is alleged that 24-year-old Alondra Ramirez-Santiago was driving southbound on Transit Road on Feb. 26 when she caused a crash with another vehicle. Around 9 p.m., police responded to the crash on the 6300 block of Transit Road between Cloverleaf Drive and Rehm Road. Ramirez-Santiago is accused of not having her headlights on and driving recklessly while under the influence of alcohol, according to the DAs Office. The driver of the other vehicle, 51-year-old Jennifer Hylkema of Lockport, died at the hospital. Her son was in the car with her. He was also brought to ECMC, but was treated and released. Ramirez-Santiago was treated for injuries at ECMC. She faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. The indictment charged her with second-degree vehicular manslaughter as well as aggravated vehicular homicide. Ramirez-Santiago is scheduled to return to court on July 24 and remains released on bail previously set at $75,000 cash or $100,000 bond. Latest Local News Kayleigh Hunter-Gasperini joined the News 4 team in 2024 as a Digital Video Producer. She is a graduate of Chatham 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 News 4 Buffalo. A local man is calling out State Farm after he says his claim check was stolen, washed, and cashed, and the company refused to replace it. Whats their motto? Like a good neighbor State Farm is there? asks Matt Lyszchyn. The Lewis County resident lives in the hills near Chehalis. His next-door neighbor is a half mile away. But he says that wouldnt be far enough if that neighbor was State Farm Insurance. The way that they handled this, thats not a neighbor that I would want to be living anywhere near. I mean, its an absolute disgrace. Lyszchyn says his truck was rear-ended earlier this year. State Farm agreed to pay the $6,300.00 claim. The company even sent him a notice saying the check was in the mail, written to Lyszchyn and his autobody shop. It was not sent with any tracking. It was not sent overnight. No signature (was) required. Just regular mail, which means that they literally cant even prove that they mailed the check. Lyszchyn says he never received the check. But apparently, someone did. A copy of the check shows the original names were washed and replaced with Tameshia Carter. Nonetheless, Lyszchyn says State Farm refused to replace the stolen check. They put a spin on it to make it sound like it was my money. But I was never in possession of the money. They mailed a check. I never received the check. The collision center never received the check. How is that my money? It didnt come out of my bank account. I never had the money to begin with. Lyszchyn says he went to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner to complain. But in a letter, the agency told him no regulation defines what an insurer should do if a claim check is stolen. The letter goes on to say that State Farm was standing by its decision. So, Lyszchyn had to write a check out of his own bank account to the auto body shop. Its a disgrace how State Farm handled it. And equally disgraceful to me is the fact that, you know, I seek help from Washington state insurance commissioner, and they tell me theres no regulation to protect me against that. Michael Marchand is the Deputy Commissioner for the OIC. He says even though theres no regulation covering stolen claim checks, his office expects insurers to investigate stolen check cases and if theres no wrongdoing by the insured party, the insurer should pay up. In a similar type case in the future, where we run into a situation where money was essentially stolen from this consumer and we got it, we want to make sure that the consumer can be made whole. When we contacted State Farm, a spokesperson told us Due to our customer privacy policy, we cannot talk about any individual claim. Perhaps the claimant in the case might wish to provide an update. So, we called Lyszchyn again, and he told us State Farm did make it right with me. Unfortunately, its because of all the pressure I think they were feeling. I definitely would not have gotten my money back (if) Jesse didnt get involved. So I hope they changed their ways. I mean, I hope this bringing this to light, will help more than just me in the future going forward. It turned out to be a very bad day for a man who dropped his chicken sandwich in his car. Vancouver, Washington police said he reached for the sandwich, crashed into a light pole, and rolled his car over. Some of us have been tempted to do the same thing: go to a fast-food drive-through, get our food, and drop something on the mat. We want to reach for it right then. This should be a lesson in parking the car before recovering your food. In this case, the driver flipped his vehicle, the Vancouver Police Department said in a July 10 Facebook post. Yes, that is 100% what actually happened, police said Police responded to the incident at about 10:25 p.m. and found the man with minor injuries and no signs of impairment, police spokesperson Kim Kapp told McClatchy News. The 46-year-old man wasnt cited for distracted driving but his insurance information was collected, Kapp said. There are many forms of distracted driving, so please put the phone down and dont reach for the sandwich on the floor! police said in the post. There has been no word on whether the man ended up eating the chicken sandwich. A $500 per migrants payout to help illegally smuggle four migrants into the U.S. cost one of the migrant's his life and the alleged smuggler is facing life in prison, court documents state. Eduardo Gonzalez Garcia, 22, of Chihuahua, Mexico, is facing up to life in prison after he was arrested on suspicion of human smuggling causing death. Garcia was allegedly smuggling four migrants about 6:30 p.m. July 2 in a white Chevrolet Camaro when a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper attempted to pull him over. Garcia is accused of fleeing from the trooper and causing a fatal three-vehicle crash. More: Chihuahua man jailed after migrant dies in crash during Operation Lone Star trooper chase He was booked Friday, July 5, into the El Paso County Jail on a $125,000 bond, jail records show. He remains jailed as of Friday, July 12. Garcia's jail booking photo has not been released. The charge is a first-degree felony with a maximum punishment of life in prison, according to the Texas Penal Code. Garcia also could be facing an additional charge of evading arrest or detention causing serious bodily injury, a complaint affidavit states. That charge is a third-degree felony and holds a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, the Texas Penal Code states. Suspect drives over 100 mph during chase, 9 people taken to hospital The events that led to the fatal crash started when Texas Department of Public Safety's Criminal Investigations Division special agents saw the Camaro about 5:30 p.m. on Interstate 10 East. The troopers "developed reasonable suspicion the vehicle was involved in criminal activity, specifically smuggling of persons," the affidavit states. Troopers, who were working as part of Operation Lone Star, along with other DPS troopers and U.S. Border Patrol, were notified of the Camaro believed to be involved in human smuggling. Operation Lone Star is a border security initiative launched by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in response to large amounts of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. The security effort has also led to an increase in traffic deaths involving police pursuits with connections to Operation Lone Star. Troopers spotted the Camaro and attempted to conduct a traffic stop because the Camaro was driving 68 miles per hour in a 60 mile per hour zone, the affidavit states. Garcia allegedly refused to stop, but slowed down to 60 miles per hour. More: Border pitfalls: Teen misses graduation after El Paso smuggling pursuit arrest He eventually pulled to the center median and came to a stop, the affidavit states. DPS officials said Garcia "momentarily" stopped in front of Bassett Mall. The troopers exited their vehicle, but Garcia allegedly fled from them again. Garcia began driving more than 100 mph on I-10 East during the chase, officials said. Garcia exited the interstate at Hawkins Boulevard and made a u-turn under the highway onto Gateway West Boulevard. He then crashed into a Ford F350 pickup truck at the intersection of Gateway West and Airway boulevards. DPS officials originally said the truck was an F250. The impact of the crash caused the truck to hit a Chevrolet Malibu. The driver of the Malibu and both people in the F350 were taken to University Medical Center for treatment of injuries sustained in the wreck. State troopers found Garcia and four migrants inside the Camaro. One of the migrants was found "unconscious and unresponsive," the affidavit states. Law enforcement officers performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the migrant until medical crews arrived. The migrants was taken to University Medical Center for emergency medical care. More: 'Vile and horrific': Abducted migrants tortured by smugglers at Juarez stash house The migrant and the three other migrants in the Camaro were identified as non-U.S. citizens illegally in the U.S. by U.S. Border Patrol agents, the affidavit states. The three other migrants were taken to Del Sol Medical Center. One of the migrants died July 5 due to his injuries, officials said. No information has been released on which of the four migrants died at the hospital. Another person, who is a U.S. citizen, in the front passenger seat of the Camaro also was taken to Del Sol Medical Center for treatment. Officials have not released any information on if that passenger will face any criminal charges. El Paso jail records show the passenger has not been charged with a crime. Garcia also was taken to University Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, the affidavit states. Garcia confesses to human smuggling, paid $500 per migrant State troopers read Garcia his Miranda rights and he agreed to provide a voluntary statement, the affidavit states. Garcia "immediately admitted to being the driver of the white Chevrolet Camaro," the affidavit states. He allegedly confessed to smuggling the four migrants into the U.S. He told troopers he was going to be paid $500 per migrant, the affidavit states. Garcia allegedly went on to say he saw the flashing light of the troopers' patrol vehicle, but refused to stop. More: PIT maneuver used by state troopers leads to fatal wreck in El Paso Upper Valley Garcia gave permission to troopers to search his cell phone. Troopers found "additional evidence of the crime of smuggling persons for pecuniary benefit," the affidavit states. Cell phone evidence collaborated where Garcia said he picked up the migrants and where he was supposed to drop them off. The affidavit does not include the locations. Aaron Martinez may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com or on Twitter @AMartinezEPT. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Chihuahua man charged in fatal wreck allegedly paid $500 per migrant A replica airfield has been created in the Taklamakan Desert - CLASH REPORT China has installed mock US fighter jets in a remote desert area that it appears to be using for target practice, recent satellite images suggest. The images, taken by Planet Labs, a tech firm in San Francisco, show models of F-35s and F-22s, the United States most advanced combat aircraft, next to scorch marks on a fake runway, as if it had been struck by missiles. Several of the jet frames also look damaged. The location was identified by Clash report, a Turkey-based military blog site, as Qaklik in the Taklamakan Desert in south-west Xinjiang province. The drills reflected Chinese military efforts to build up long-range ballistic and cruise missile systems to neutralise threats from US naval forces and its power projection capabilities, Collin Koh, from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told the South China Morning Post. Scorch marks from the satellite images suggest China has been practising striking the US jets Beijing has not confirmed any details of the recent reports, but the desert is known to have hosted military tests in the past. This includes full-scale mock-ups of an American Ford-class aircraft carrier and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that were spotted three years ago by space technology company Maxar. A decade ago, satellite images also confirmed that China had constructed a building closely resembling Taiwans presidential office along with a street grid with similarities to the capital Taipei. Chinese state media later broadcast Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops practising an assault on the building, which was constructed at the Zhurihe combat training base in Inner Mongolia. Chinas ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as its own territory even though it has never governed there and the democratic island functions like any other nation with its own government, military and currency. Decisive enabler US forces and their allies have also trained in strategies to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, as they focus on countering Beijings expanding influence and military footprint in the Indo-Pacific region. The US Special Operations Command staged its first-ever Taiwan conflict scenario in Fort Bragg, also known as Fort Liberty, last year. As China deepens its strategic ties with Russia, military tensions spilled over into a war of words between Beijing and Nato this week, after the Western security alliance warned China to stop being a decisive enabler of the Kremlins war machine against Ukraine. As Natos 32 leaders wrapped up a Washington summit this week, to which Volodymyr Zelensky was invited, the organisation posted on its X account, formerly Twitter, that it would deepen ties with South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia to stand up to authoritarianism and the growing alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. NATO is stronger and safer when it stands with like-minded partners. We are deepening our ties with to stand up to authoritarianism and the growing alignment of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea#NATOSummit pic.twitter.com/SDIixfskrr NATO (@NATO) July 11, 2024 Chinas foreign ministry hit back on Thursday, accusing Nato of biases, smears and provocations and said it was burdened by self-made security anxieties. Lin Jian, the foreign ministrys spokesman, said: The tragedies of Afghanistan and Libya make it clear that wherever Nato shows up, turmoil and chaos will follow, adding that the security body was now disrupting peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific. Chinas military build-up and heavy investment in naval capacities in recent years have been accompanied by its more assertive behaviour in the South China Sea and Pacific, leading to more confrontations with the US and its allies in the region. The PLA has also been extending its reach beyond the Indo-Pacific. This week, Belarus hosted Chinese troops for a joint military drill near its border with Nato member Poland, the first such exercise reflecting growing defence ties between the two countries. Meanwhile, a US coast guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea spotted several Chinese military ships within the US exclusive economic zone near Alaska. Rear-Adml Megan Dean, Seventeenth Coast Guard District commander, said: The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms. We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska. 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. BEIRUT, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The sanctions imposed on Syria have had heavy repercussions on the lives of ordinary people in the country, according to a report released on Friday by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The report revealed that 66 percent of survey respondents across Syria opposed the sanctions, highlighting their adverse effects on daily life regardless of gender, education, age, political affiliation, or region. "Respondents indicated that unilateral coercive measures often miss their targets who can circumvent the sanctions while disproportionately affecting the general population," Dina Melhem, head of the National Agenda for the Future of Syria project at the ESCWA, was quoted as saying. The report emphasized that sanctions, besides other factors, "disrupt the provision of essential social services and humanitarian aid, directly reducing access to medical supplies, import of equipment, WASH (Water, sanitation and hygiene), and educational materials." Indirectly, the sanctions create 'chilling effects' and over-compliance issues, as entities fear penalties despite existing exemptions. It called for continuous dialogue with relevant stakeholders, including humanitarian organizations, to address the repercussions of sanctions, and to facilitate transactions and activities for resilience building and effective stabilization efforts, thereby enhancing sustainable livelihoods in Syria. A total of 1,179 Syrians responded to the survey. Insights from The Economist and The Hill The News China is watching the US political turmoil with glee and some wariness over the uncertainty it could unleash. Many internet users and state media outlets in China have viewed US President Joe Bidens poor public performances as a sign of the diminishing reputation of the West. But Chinese officials are also nervous about the possibility and unpredictability of a second Donald Trump presidency. Some Chinese netizens are rooting for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace Biden: He met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing last year, and is seen as more likely to engage with the country. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. Schadenfreude meets apprehension in Beijing Source: The Economist Any excitement that China may feel about how the US is unraveling is offset by the apprehension of a second Trump presidency, The Economist argued. Beijing and Chinese netizens have both watched the chaos surrounding the election race with a level of schadenfreude, the newspaper wrote. But regardless of which candidate wins in November, both sides of the American political spectrum agree that Chinas desire to create a multipolar global system should be curbed. Chinese officials may wince should pressures on Mr Biden result in his stepping aside, The Economist noted. China torn over which US president might be best Source: The Hill There is much debate over which president Beijing would prefer. Both Trump and Biden are in favor of more tariffs on Chinese goods, and while Bidens foreign policy is clear-cut, Trump offers an extra layer of unpredictability. A second Trump presidency means China faces a wild card in terms of US policies, Patricia Kim, a Chinese foreign policy expert with the Brookings Institution, told The Hill. Chinese officials are concerned that Biden will continue his policy of tough economic competition with China, and while advisors in the Trump campaign speak in very hardline ways we dont know exactly what kind of policies that President Trump might prefer, she said. China says it will never accept 'unfounded accusations' at NATO summit BEIJING (Reuters) - China will never accept the "unfounded accusations" made against it at the NATO summit this week in Washington, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said to his Dutch counterpart over a phone call, his ministry said. Wang said China is willing to maintain contact with NATO on "an equal footing" and conduct exchanges on the basis of mutual respect, asking the military alliance to neither interfere with its internal affairs nor challenge its interests. He said that China and NATO countries have different political systems and values, but this should not be a reason for NATO to "instigate confrontation with China". "The right way is to strengthen dialogue, enhance understanding, build basic mutual trust and avoid strategic miscalculation," Wang said in the Thursday phone call. China on Thursday criticised the NATO summit declaration that described it as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war effort in Ukraine as biased and "sowing discord". The foreign ministry spokesperson said NATO's "hyping up" of China's responsibility towards the Ukraine crisis "comes with malicious intent". About relations with the Netherlands, Wang said China is willing to establish close ties with the new Dutch government and carry out all-round dialogue. He added that China believed the Netherlands will encourage the European Union to look at China objectively and rationally, and play a constructive role in maintaining healthy and stable development of China-EU relations. The NATO summit said Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security. The European Union last week confirmed it would impose tariffs of up to 37.6% on imports of electric vehicles made in China, a move that ratcheted up trade tension with Beijing. Additionally, the European Commission has reportedly also begun canvassing the region's semiconductor industry for its views on China's expanded production of older generation computer chips. (Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry) China willing to strengthen trade with Saudi, commerce minister says News conference on economy on the sidelines of NPC in Beijing BEIJING (Reuters) - China said it is willing to strengthen implementing development strategies with Saudi Arabia, and intensify trade and investment exchanges, its commerce minister said in a statement on Friday. Commerce Minister Wang Wentao held talks on Thursday with the head of affairs on Saudi Arabia's economic cooperation with China, who is also the president of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund and chairman of Saudi Aramco. Wang said China is ready to deepen cooperation in infrastructure, energy resources, green development, digital economy, and welcomed Saudi companies such as its sovereign wealth funds and Aramco to continue to "take root" in China. (Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Himani Sarkar) Chinese military delegation arrives in Belarus to talk about logistics for troops Photo: From Telegram of Ministry of Defence of Belarus A Chinese military delegation from the Joint Logistics Support Forces of the Chinese Army has arrived in Belarus to discuss cooperation in logistics. Source: Ministry of Defence of Belarus on Telegram Details: The Chinese delegation will be in Minsk from 11 to 13 July. Quote: "Today (11 July - ed.), negotiations were held on bilateral cooperation in the field of logistics support for the Armed Forces of Belarus and China, and prospects and new areas of cooperation were discussed." Background: On 6 July, it was reported that the Chinese military had arrived in Belarus to engage in joint counter-terrorism drills. Commenting on the military exercises conducted by China and Belarus near the border with Poland, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that such actions demonstrate how authoritarian regimes are strengthening their ties. Therefore, it is crucial that the Allies also move closer to their partners in the Indo-Pacific region. Support UP or become our patron! (FOX40.COM) The California Highway Patrol will be conducting a sobriety and driver license checkpoint on Friday in an area of Solano County. CHP Solano says the checkpoint will be between 7 p.m. on Friday and 1 a.m. on Saturday in an unincorporated area of the county. Why does California law enforcement announce DUI checkpoints? California law requires advance notice of checkpoints, but not their precise location. The goal of the CHP is to ensure the safe passage of each and every motorist by targeting roads where there is an established problem or concern of intoxicated or unlicensed drivers, the CHP wrote in a news release. The checkpoint will be funded through a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety. 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. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) A project is underway in the International District to permanently close off alleyways. Its part of City Councilor Nichole Rogers plan to deal with homelessness, drugs, and crime in the area. Story continues below Theres not one magic fix to any of these issues, Rogers said. She says the alleyway behind the Circle K gas station on Central Avenue and San Pedro Drive is a hot spot for homelessness and illegal activity, like open drug use. Were dealing with lack of housing, lack of mental health resources, lack of substance abuse resources. Theres so many layers to this so this is just one ideawe have to try something! Rogers said. So, what Rogers is trying is permanently closing off known problem alleys. Its something that weve done in other areas like behind Buffetts Candies on Lomas and Louisiana and it had a huge effect on deterring crime in the area, Rogers said. Donna Buffett, co-owner of Buffetts Candies, said the alley behind their businesss fenced-in parking lot was a constant source of concern. They started using the fence; they would hang their tents on them, they were making campfires. We would come in the morning, there would be ten to 15 folks. They would have everything set up, Buffet said, We were calling the fire department a couple times a week because once it started getting cold, they were building fires. However, after the city permanently fenced off the alley in early May, Buffett says everything changed almost overnight. Theyre moving along and going to other places; I dont think its completely solved the problem, but it has definitely alleviated the issues here. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of the City of Albuquerque Matthew Whelan backed this up with data: Thats why were expanding this program because we worked with the city councilor, it was Councilor Fiebelkorn, and we closed that alley and it went from Planning and Code Enforcement getting over 100 calls to around ten calls. Rogers is hoping to have the same success at three alleys in the International District that are identified as problem spots by police and fire call volumes. Am I for every alley being shut down or closed? No. But we have to do something because people are suffering, Rogers said, And so we know, if we can beautify this alley, we can put lighting, we can do things like that it will also deter activity that people dont want to do in the light. Rogers says costs to put in the permanent fencing vary depending on the size of the alley: Theyre anything from $30- to $90,000 depending on how wide and how big they are. The money comes from capital outlay dollars set aside for public safety and community enhancement. The fencing allows only businesses and residents who use the alley access to it while keeping everyone else out. Were already spending resources in that area so we want to collaborate with her, so shes using about $100,000 of her set-aside to close off three areas and were looking forward to seeing how it works out, Whelan said. I think its a great idea, I think it is helping the businesses in the area to lower the crime, to lower the loitering. All of the trash thats left behind, the drug paraphernalia, I think it is making it cleaner, Buffet said, I do still hope that the leadership of the city realizes that it is going to help that specific area but until the problem is dealt with at a higher level, its just moving folks on down the road. The city acknowledges this; but said they notify people in these alleys before they close them and try to connect them with the citys many resources. Were not just trying to push anybody anywhere. What were trying to do, address these people experiencing homelessness and give them the resources. Albuquerque has plenty of resources, we have the Westside Shelter, the Gateway Center will be opening soon. So were trying to get people enacted into that, Whelan said, But were also trying to address the neighborhoods to ensure safety so that everybody knows that one of the number one priorities of this administration is homelessness but its also addressing public safety. I say to the critics, roll up your sleeves and come help us figure out solutions, because were open to that, Rogers said, This is an all hands on deck crisis and we need to be thinking of it that way and we need to be thinking about it, how do we alleviate suffering? Regardless of why someone is suffering, if youre unsheltered youre suffering. The other two alleys closing are on Central Avenue and Louisiana Boulevard behind the KFC and the other is on California Street and Linn Avenue near the New Mexico State Fairgrounds. 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. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) The City of El Paso announced the final candidates for the city manager position on Friday morning, July 12, during a press conference at City Hall. The City says the finalists were selected by El Paso City Council. The finalists are: Chief Financial Officer and Deputy City Manager for Internal Services Robert Cortinas; Deputy City Manager for Public Safety Mario DAgostino; Community and Human Development Director Nicole Ferrini; and Deputy City Manager for Quality of Life Dionne Mack. At least one city representative, however, was critical of the process and said it lacked in transparency. From Left to Right: Robert Cortinas, Mario DAgostino, Dionne Mack, Nicole Ferrini. Photos: City of El Paso. El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, Interim City Manager Cary Westin, and Chief Human Resources Officer Mary Wiggins were all present at the press conference. The next step will be to host the interview process on August 7 and 8, 2024, to include multiple interview panels and a public reception, the City said. Leeser and City Council will interview the candidates and there will be two, nine-member council-appointed community interview panels: Citizen Advisory Committee Panel Panel Focus: Public perception, transparency, and the candidates vision for community improvement. Community Leaders/Stakeholders Panel Panel Focus: Community engagement, responsiveness to public needs, and the ability to build strong community relationships. The City will also be hosting a community meet and greet from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7, at the El Paso Convention Center. Following the forum, residents will be able to individually meet and greet each of the candidates, according to the City. Residents who attend the meet and greet will be able to fill out a short survey to provide feedback on their experience. Computers and a QR code will be made available during the reception, according to the City. City Rep. Josh Acevedo criticized the selection process and said it fell short on being transparent. Acevedo said that the City Council was notified at 6 p.m. Thursday night that news conference would be held to announce the four finalists for the city manager job. The City Council never received a report from staff or Baker Tilly, the search firm, on candidate rankings nor were given a draft of candidate finalists, according to a news release sent out by Acevedos office. Instead, council was only given a draft of todays press release with the list of four finalists at 8:26 p.m. last night. As a City Manager/Council form of government, council should have had the opportunity to convene and review the results of the rankings compiled from the nine members of City Council and submitted on Tuesday, July 9. This would have allowed the body to give input and determine the number of finalists to interview and perhaps council would have agreed on adding a few more candidates to the list of finalists, Acevedos office added. Acevedo said in a news release sent out by his office: The effort to select the next City Manager is one of our largest goals as a major Texas city, yet we were largely kept in the dark on selecting finalists to interview. I was only notified about the list of finalists through a draft press release I received hours before the press conference. Leesers office sent a statement to KTSM in response to what Acevedo said. It reads in part: Contrary to his claim, the City Council received detailed reports from the search firm outlining the qualifications and assessments of all 14 semifinalists. These reports included comprehensive documents such as resumes, cover letters, extensive questionnaires, and video interviews, offering thorough insights into each candidate. Its regrettable that Rep. Acevedo feels uninformed about the process. However, the claim that council members were largely kept in the dark does not align with the factual distribution of detailed candidate assessments provided. These documents were shared well in advance of any public announcements, allowing ample time for review and consideration by all council members. Once individual preferences were submitted by council members, further debate was unnecessary to maintain the integrity of the data. Rep. Acevedo may express disappointment with the final list of candidates, but its important to note that the selection of the City Manager is a collective decision, not that of any individual member. Leesers office also said: The decision-making process was a comprehensive data-driven effort, resulting in the identification of the top four candidates and an alternate, with a tie occurring for the alternate position. Each step was guided by rigorous evaluations and analyses, ensuring transparency and accountability in our selection criteria. As weve previously reported, Tommy Gonzalezs contract was terminated by a 5-4 vote of the City Council in February 2023. Leeser cast the tiebreaking vote to terminate his contract. Westin was appointed as interim city manager in May 2023. 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. FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) Did you know that the City of Selma could have been named Sandwich? According to a Fresno County social media post, they said that Fresno Countys second incorporated city could have been named Sandwich. In the post, they dont give an exact reason why it could have been named Sandwich, but they do go into some of the history of the city. In the post, it says that Selma began as a stop on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1870s. Ten years later, the 40-acre townsite would open its first post office and establish the Valley View School District. Officials say in 1893, Selma was incorporated and became the second city in Fresno County. It was called Home of the Peach until the 1960s when it was changed to the Raisin Capital of the World. 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. Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Winnie Byanyima, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong on Friday met with Winnie Byanyima, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in Beijing. Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that the Chinese government attaches great importance to people's health and HIV/AIDS prevention and control. The overall HIV/AIDS epidemic situation in China is under control at a low prevalence level, but it still faces some challenges, Liu said. He added that China is willing to step up exchanges and cooperation with the UNAIDS to enhance the health and well-being of both the Chinese people and the global population. Byanyima said that the UNAIDS highly appreciates the effectiveness of China's HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and is willing to deepen practical cooperation between the two sides in related fields. Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), a key supporter of President Biden in the past, said Friday that he is all in for the presidents reelection campaign, amid calls for him to drop out. Clyburn sat for an interview with the Today show to talk about Bidens performance in his first press conference of the year and the concerns among Democrats about his ability to win the election and continue serving. Clyburn said he is taking Biden at his word when the president said that he is not going to drop out. I took him at his word, and thats why I am all in, he said. Im riding with Biden no matter where he goes, no matter what method he takes. The South Carolina lawmaker reiterated his previous point and said if Biden does end up changing his mind about staying in the race, then he would also be all in for Vice President Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket. Clyburn joined the show the morning after Bidens solo press conference after this weeks NATO summit in Washington. The president spoke for nearly an hour and answered several questions from reporters about foreign policy and his odds for reelection. Biden misspoke answering the first question, calling Harris Vice President Trump. Clyburn said Friday that most people who are avid watchers of Biden know its not the first time hes mixed up names. Just hours before, Biden had introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at an event as Putin, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. I would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes-misspoken words and phrases, Clyburn said. In the two weeks since Bidens poor debate performance, widespread panic has spread among the Democratic Party. Several of Clyburns Democratic colleagues in Congress have called on the president to step aside. Clyburn, who has spent more than two decades in House Democratic leadership, has been a close ally of Bidens for years. When Biden received Clyburns endorsement ahead of the 2020 primary in South Carolina, it served as a turning point that put him on track for the White House after underperforming in the first early-voting contests. 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. CNBC names state best for business and more Virginia headlines The state Capitol. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury) Virginia is Americas Top State for Business in 2024, with the nations best schools and solid infrastructure.CNBC Good files recount petition in highly contested 5th District GOP primary.Cardinal News No rift between Warner, Kaine as Dems debate Bidens status.Richmond Times-Dispatch 81-year-old Norfolk woman was held down by daughter while grandson strangled her, court documents say.Virginian-Pilot Mill Mountain Zoo debuts new sloth and wallabies.Roanoke Times SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX CNN has moved to dismantle its acclaimed Race and Equality team as DEI programs across the country have been eliminated. According to journalist Phil Lewis, the network disbanded the team of three reporters on Wednesday (July 10), as Mark Thompson, CNNs chief executive, announced that the channel is laying off 100 employees. Thompson stated that the layoff would be a move to restrategize and rethink the companys newsgathering procedures, detailed as a one newsroom concept. Deadline reports that CNNs one newsroom strategy would merge both linear and digital newsgathering into one. A CNN spokesperson speaking to Lewis denied that the Race and Equality team would be disbanded amid layoffs and instead would be fully and completely incorporated into CNNs future vision. The spokesperson insisted that the investment is still 100 percent there. But the unnamed person did confirm that the team no longer existed as it initially began, adding, For all intents and purposes, the team is not a team anymore. Theyre assigned to different areas so that [their] perspective and work is brought into all of our types of programming. Its not a unit in the way it was before, but [Race and Equality] is very much still their focus. An advertisement for CNN+ is displayed in Manhattan on April 21, 2022 in New York City. Only three weeks after its launch, CNN has announced that its new streaming service is already planning to shut down. CNN+ had attracted well known names in media and entertainment to its line-up, which looked to compete with other streaming services and to appeal to a younger audience. One reporter from the Race and Equality team was laid off as part of the disbanding. The other two reporters will now be reworked into different roles throughout the CNN newsroom. CNNs award-winning team was first created in 2020 in the aftermath of police officers murdering George Floyd. Companies across various industries ramped up their DEI efforts as a response, with CNN using their Race and Equality team to cover Americas racial reckoning, as detailed by the outlet. Jeff Zucker released a company memo in 2020 announcing the teams creation. The recent conversations weve had in our newsrooms have been informative and constructive. We have valued them, we heard you, and we will continue listening, Zucker noted, per The Hill. There are structural changes and investments we can and will make to better cover what is happening in our society. We are committed to doing that. CNNs decision arrives as race and equality efforts, and DEI programs have been slashed around the nation. Dont know what DEI is? Weve got you covered if youre wondering what this not-so-new acronym stands for. ATLANTA, GA MAY 29: Protesters burn a flag outside the CNN Center on May 29, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. Demonstrations are being held across the US after George Floyd died in police custody on May 25th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images) DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion, refers to policies or procedures created to support workers from historically marginalized communities with resources needed to succeed in the workplace. At its core, DEI was intended to consider these employees race, sexual orientation, and gender with the hopes of implementing best practices that would ensure their success. DEI has now found itself at the center of debates as the 2024 election ramps up. Many politicians and pundits have slammed the practice as discriminatory, specifically against white Americans. Ron DeSantis famously signed a bill in 2023 that would effectively ban DEI initiatives across universities, mockingly referring to the program as discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination, per NPR. Since then, many companies and organizations have moved to distance themselves from the acronym. U.S. President Donald Trump introduces Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a homecoming campaign rally at the BB&T Center on November 26, 2019 in Sunrise, Florida. President Trump continues to campaign for re-election in the 2020 presidential race. Heres a look at a couple of DEI eliminations from around the country for context. Companies like Wayfair, Meta, Tesla, Lyft, Home Depot, DoorDash and X/Twitter all made cuts to their DEI teams in late 2023, with more eliminations following in 2024, The Washington Post reported in February. CNN reported in March that the U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion, first created in 2020 to create a congressional workforce that reflected Americas diveristy, would be dissolved as a part of a government spending bill. According to an April report from the National Review, The University of Texas at Austin is shutting down its DEI division. The move will demote DEI deans back to professors with some DEI-oriented positions being completely phased out. Fox News reported in May that, along with The University of Texas, 158 colleges have moved to disband DEI programs. One professional told the outlet the reason for the anti-DEI crusades is due to a really significant public choice conundrum built into it. More from VIBE.com Editors note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter. The profanity-laced email that landed in thousands of Coast Guard inboxes this past May wasnt intended to foment a rebellion in the nations most under-the-radar branch of the military. It wasnt meant to get cited in a congressional hearing. It was just sheer, scorching frustration. The 4,000-word screed from an anonymous, encrypted email account focused on alleged sexual misconduct at Sector Mobile in Alabama and claims the Coast Guard mishandled the investigation. Not long after firing off the email, the sender, who called themself Whistler McGee, also posted the letter on Facebook. I was just going to make the Facebook account, post it, and then bail, McGee told The War Horse in an interview last month. But within two, three hours, it just exploded. McGee started receiving hundreds of emails from Coast Guard members with similar experiences. Soon, current and former service members were publicly posting stories of alleged sexual assaults, many of them under the hashtag #ImWithWhistler, sharing how they also felt the Coast Guard had failed them. Leaked documents including internal guidance on how commands should respond to the social media activity soon followed. Operation Fouled Anchor has focused on misconduct at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Recent social media posts allege that sexual misconduct is a problem throughout the entire Coast Guard. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class David Santos, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard) Now, two months after Whistler McGees initial email, what started as a quest for vengeance has erupted into a rank-and-file reckoning over how the military handles sexual assaults and who should drive the conversation about whether leadership is doing enough to address the problem. In my view, this is the worst sexual assault scandal we have ever seen in the military, said Lindsey Knapp, a former Army victim advocate who now works with sexual assault survivors across all military branches. Its just so pervasive. And then once one person felt safe enough to whistleblow, they all just kind of we finally hit the tipping point. To report this story, The War Horse reviewed nearly a hundred social media posts and interviewed multiple people connected to anonymous pages. We granted anonymity to McGee and others so they could speak freely on the phenomenon, but are not quoting them about specific allegations. The Coast Guard has been under increasing public and congressional scrutiny over the past year after CNN revealed that Coast Guard officials investigated the handling of sexual assault cases at the Coast Guard Academy, and then declined to make public the final report. The investigation, called Operation Fouled Anchor, showed that many perpetrators of sexual assault at the academy in the 1980s and 1990s were not punished and continued to advance in the Coast Guard. But the explosion of outrage on social media has moved the conversation beyond the academy and toward a relentless push to force Coast Guard leaders to hold perpetrators accountable and confront what advocates say is an epidemic of sexual assault and toxic leadership in the ranks. Leadership needs to realize that anything they put out is going to pop up online, one junior officer told The War Horse. When it comes down to it, its information warfare. More bombshells fuel scandal With Congress already scolding Coast Guard leadership over its handling of sexual assault allegations, another scandal arose in November when CNN revealed the Coast Guard had declined to release a second study, this one detailing a culture of racism, sexism, and toxic leadership in the service. Then, last month, another bombshell: The Coast Guard Academys longtime sexual assault response coordinator, Shannon Norenberg, resigned from her position, issuing a public statement saying that she had been used to lie to sexual assault survivors and discourage them from speaking to Congress. (On Wednesday evening, Norenberg issued another statement reversing course and pledging to stay in her role until Coast Guard leaders repair the damage done to victims of Operation Fouled Anchor.) For the most part, public attention has focused on misconduct in the officer corps, with senior leadership repeatedly vowing, internally and publicly, to stop sexual assault. But advocates are quick to point out that the problem doesnt end with officers. This is an issue that is pervasive, that impacts every rank, every paygrade, says Kimberly McLear, a retired Coast Guard officer who has been advocating for the service to address internal sexism and racism since becoming a whistleblower in 2014. Its not only happening at the Coast Guard Academy. Problems of sexual assault are endemic across all military branches, says Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who served as chief prosecutor of the Air Force. Distrust among the rank-and-file over leaders ability to address sexual assault and toxic leadership is common. But sexual assault survivors have long struggled to force change through official military channels. Ever since we had Tailhook and Paula Coughlin coming forward in 1991, thats how it goes, says Stephanie Bonnes, a sociologist at the University of New Haven who studies sexual misconduct in the military. You report; nothings done. You try the chain of command. You try the military system. It doesnt get anywhere. Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Coast Guard, told lawmakers in June that she was committed to creating a culture intolerant of sexual assault and retaliation against those who report it. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard) So victims turn to other avenues, like the media or the civil courts, to try to push for change from the outside, Bonnes says. But in recent years, this frustration has increasingly played out on social media. In 2017, after The War Horse broke the Marines United scandal, which exposed hundreds of male Marines posting nude photos of servicewomen in a closed Facebook group, female Marines took to social media to express their anger. In 2020, after Spc. Vanessa Guillen disappeared at Fort Hood and was later found murdered by a fellow soldier, military women posted about their experiences under the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen. Both scandals ultimately changed military law. This is the Coast Guards moment, Bonnes said. Why the Coast Guard is different The Coast Guards #MeToo movement is unique in that survivors are sharing their experiences in graphic detail, sometimes directly naming the alleged perpetrators. The chorus of voices online also increasingly includes bystander accounts, where people who have not been directly involved are reporting cultural problems they say theyve witnessed. Its not just personal stories, Bonnes says. Its stories of other people watching harassment unfold and talking about it. And that is really powerful. The unique nature of the Coast Guard also likely helped the movement gain traction, experts said. The service is small at about 50,000 people, its smaller than the NYPD and service members are often stationed in tight-knit units where they directly know many of their shipmates, meaning news travels fast. I think its culturally different than the rest of the services, Christensen said. Theres more of a feeling that this is something they [survivors] can do and have their voice heard. The explosion of frustration is set against the backdrop of congressional hearings in which lawmakers have publicly accused Coast Guard leaders of covering up misconduct. But while the Operation Fouled Anchor scandal has focused on the officer corps, the growing movement online stems largely from the junior ranks of the Coast Guard, many of them savvy social media operators, who say they are tired of empty promises theyve heard before. The movement that you see, I think, has been in effect for a while, says the administrator behind the Pettiest Officer in the Coast Guard, a Facebook meme account that has become a central repository for accounts of sexual assault. Now its organized. The alleged misconduct spans decades, but the posts paint a picture of ongoing disarray, with certain patterns surfacing again and again. My recruiter told me if I didnt do things for him, I would never be allowed in the Coast Guard, one post reads. So I traded sex for my dream of being in the Coast Guard because I was 18-19 and didnt know any better. Other accounts accuse higher-ranking members of withholding things like training or qualifications needed for advancement in exchange for sex or as punishment for reporting misconduct. Women and men described being forced to work alongside their alleged abusers on ships or isolated units. Many of the posters say they reported the behavior to their chain of command, but it wasnt taken seriously or that perpetrators were not held accountable. Some say their attackers were allowed to quietly retire with benefits, while others posted that their abusers continued to serve in the Coast Guard. My direct command wanted him kicked out, one poster wrote of her alleged assailant, but higher-ups dropped the charges. [They] claimed he was probably just lonely. Write my own narrative This spring, the Coast Guard asked several survivors of sexual assault to tell their stories in videos it planned to release during Sexual Assault Prevention Month in April. But in mid-April, worried that the service was dragging its feet, Meghan Klement, one of the participants, published her video on her own. I just had decided myself, because Im not in the Coast Guard anymore, that I can write my own narrative now, said Klement, who served in the Coast Guard from 2012 to 2015 and currently works as a photographer in Oregon. We really wanted people to see it. In April, Meghan Klement, a Coast Guard veteran, published a video in which she recounted her experience with sexual misconduct while she was on active duty. (Photo courtesy of Meghan Klement) About a month later, Whistler McGee posted their letter. Around the same time, an internal Coast Guard memo appeared online referring to the delay in releasing the videos. [The Office of Public Affairs] has concerns related to the use and distribution of the videos, the memo read. This could continue to exacerbate the narrative being advanced by some that the Coast Guard is in a sexual assault crisis now. Shortly after the internal memo appeared, the service published all the survivor videos. At a congressional hearing in mid-June, lawmakers raised Whistler McGees letter as an indicator of culture problems in the service, and asked Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard, about the videos and the memo, arguing that it showed an unwillingness to confront sexual misconduct allegations. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that the committee had received reports from nearly 40 whistleblowers over the past several months attesting to an ongoing problem with sexual assault in the service. I want to stop creating victims, Fagan said. But for the victims that we do have in the organization, I am 100% committed to fully supporting them and their needs. She told lawmakers that the allegations in Whistler McGees email were fully investigated, and the inquiry was still open. In a statement to The War Horse, the Coast Guard said that it was aware of recent social media posts regarding sexual assault. The Coast Guard has and will continue to investigate reports of sexual assault involving Coast Guard members when we become aware of information that is sufficient to initiate an investigation, the statement said. However, the Coast Guard added that it cannot guarantee that it will see or be able to act on all social media posts or other informal reports, and encouraged survivors to report incidents to sexual assault response coordinators, victim advocates, or the Coast Guard Investigative Service. How will this end? Where this all leads for the Coast Guard and every branch of the military is an open question. Officers and enlisted members who spoke with The War Horse said they were confident momentum would continue to build. So many of us have been able to connect with each other, Klement said. I think, with all of the survivors being so vocal, that its continued to put pressure for accountability onto the Coast Guard. Online accounts of sexual assaults, spanning from the 1980s to just weeks ago, have now come from active-duty members, veterans, junior enlisted members, and high-ranking officers. People are crossing traditional military boundaries to compare notes on their experiences, speak with lawmakers and Department of Homeland Security investigators, and connect with outside nonprofits and organizations, some of which are new to the conversation around military culture and sexual assault. Retired Coast Guard Commander Kimberly McLear with Rep. Bennie Thompson. McLear has testified before Congress on cultural issues in the Coast Guard and works as an advocate to end sexism and racism in the service. (Photo courtesy of Kimberly McLear) Anytime stories are being collected in a somewhat organized way, it can be very effective, Bonnes says, and its likely the Coast Guard will have to respond in some way. But the effect of what they do really depends on advocacy, activism, and how organized the messaging about what needs to be done to address these things is. In early June, McLears longtime advocacy organization, Right the Ship, published an open letter arguing that the wave of shared stories was evidence of a woeful disregard for justice, accountability, safety, and dignity, and called for holding perpetrators and senior leaders accountable, pointing to the Feres doctrine the legal principle that prevents service members harmed in the course of their service from suing the military as a prime obstacle to accountability. The letter was cosigned by 12 civilian organizations that deal with issues from military sexual assault and government accountability to workplace bullying and countering nondisclosure agreements. Since the letter was published, McLear said, three additional organizations have partnered with her group. The coalition-building at its heart is really about reminding all of us that we all have a duty to hold the Coast Guard accountable, she said. If were going to tackle the roots of a culture that is systemic, that means we need to have a diverse coalition that spans all of the ways that these systemic issues are showing up, from rape to racism to hazing to bullying. This War Horse investigation was reported by Sonner Kehrt, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, speaks during the first general session at the Texas Democratic Convention in El Paso on June 7, 2024. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune U.S. Rep. Colin Allred broke his silence Thursday on President Joe Bidens unsteady debate performance but declined to say whether he thinks Biden should continue to seek reelection amid calls from some Democrats for the president to nix his campaign. Allred, a Dallas Democrat who is challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for his seat, has faced mounting pressure to address Bidens halting performance during last months presidential debate, which fed doubts about the presidents acuity and fitness for office. A growing number of Democrats in Congress have called for Biden to exit the race, citing concerns about his ability to compete with Republican Donald Trump, though many have continued to stand behind Biden. In a statement, Allred said he was disappointed with what I saw in the debate but otherwise punted on weighing in. I know that many conversations about next steps are happening and I have not been a part of those conversations, Allred said. I remain laser-focused on listening to Texans about what matters most to them and defeating Ted Cruz. We already have one political pundit in this race who spends hours and hours podcasting about this instead of serving Texans. Allred had otherwise stayed silent in the two weeks since Bidens debate performance. He declined to comment as he was leaving the U.S. House chamber the day after the debate, saying he was still processing what happened. Allred told The Dallas Morning News Thursday its up to [Biden] to prove whether hes fit to serve another term. Cruzs campaign has slammed Allred for not staking out a position on Biden and labeled him Cant Comment Colin on social media. Allred has generally tried to keep Biden at arms length in his Senate bid, especially on immigration matters as polls show Texas voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the presidents approach to the southern border. Recent statewide polling has shown an erratic range of results in the Allred-Cruz race, though some surveys have shown Allred within striking distance and running a few points ahead of Biden. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, last week called on Biden to step down as his partys nominee. He is the only Democrat from Texas congressional delegation who has urged the president to withdraw. Three other Texas Democrats have yet to say explicitly whether they still back Biden as the partys nominee: Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth. The remaining members have issued public comments supporting Biden. Big news: director and screenwriter Richard Linklater; NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher; U.S. Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California; and Luci Baines Johnson will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival, Sept. 57 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today! Colleagues share memories of former US Rep. Tommy Robinson, discuss late lawmakers impact on Arkansas Colleagues share memories of former US Rep. Tommy Robinson, discuss late lawmakers impact on Arkansas LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Friends and colleagues are remembering former U.S. Rep. Tommy Robinson after the Arkansas lawmakers passing. Robinson was a well-known figure in the Natural State, having served in the United States House representing the 2nd Arkansas District from 1985 to 1991. Former Arkansas congressman Tommy Robinson, who went from lawman to lawmaker, dies at 82 Rex Nelson worked with Robinson as he was making his bid for governor in 1990, remembering him as one of a kind. Tommy Robinson dominated the news in Arkansas during the 1980s, Nelson said. Larger than life Arkansan, Tommy had his faults, he was extremely controversial. Robinson famously won his seat in Congress as a Democrat in 1984 and then switched to the Republican party while still in office. That change came at a time where Democrats dominated the political scene in the Natural State for decades. He certainly began changing the political landscape of Arkansas, Nelson said. Robinson later lost in a Republican primary race for governor of Arkansas in 1990. Although Robinson lost, former Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe spoke on how the state and nation might have changed if Robinson won. The speculation is that he would have brought about the republican takeover much sooner had he been elected, Beebe said. It would have derailed Bill Clintons presidential bid. David Pryor, former Arkansas governor, U.S. congressman and senator, dies at 89 Beebe added that Robinson had a colorful and bombastic type of attitude. Theres no question that Tommy had a distinct following. He probably had a Trump type of following before we heard about Trump, he said. Before entering politics, Robinson had a high-profile career in law enforcement and was elected as Pulaski County Sheriff in 1980. His time as sheriff was steeped in controversy, making headlines across the nation for attention-getting actions that he took in dealing with jail overcrowding when he chained multiple inmates to a fence outside a prison in Jefferson County and his approach to combat convenience store robberies in Pulaski County by rotating deputies through them with shotguns. Former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Henry Hays dies at age 76 They said Robinsons daring moves made him unforgettable. He was a different kind of character, Beebe said. I think he loved Arkansas and I think he loved Arkansans. 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. Earlier this year, in an office building thousands of miles away from Rochester, a technician with the security firm ZeroEyes received an alert: There were two guns inside an auditorium on a college campus in Rochester. Artificial intelligence software connected to St. John Fisher University's security cameras were scanning video feeds second-by-second, looking for firearms. It flagged the weapons as a threat and sent a screenshot to the technician to verify. The tech saw a person with a gun and dispatched law enforcement to the university. Inside Cleary Family Auditorium at Kearney Hall, community members were rehearsing for an upcoming play. The guns they were holding were theater props. ZeroEyes software didnt know the difference. St. John Fisher University went into a brief lockdown June 18th after AI software in the school's surveillance system mistook prop guns being used in a theater rehearsal as real guns. A view of Kearney Hall, the school's original building. Technology is changing the way our communities approach public safety. Drones act as eyes in the sky, in some areas scoping out crime scenes before law enforcement arrive. New mapping technology is helping police connect surveillance cameras from across the county into a single cloud-based grid for their easy access. AI software can be trained to read license plates or search through camera feeds for various physical descriptors. And it is forcing humans to change the way they respond to that technology in turn. Eyes on Us: Monroe County Sheriff's Office wants to tap into video feed at your school, corner store St. John Fisher University goes into lockdown over prop guns If we have a call for someone with a gun on campus, were going to respond in force, Monroe County Sheriffs Office spokesman Deputy Brendan Hurley said. Were going to treat it as if its real until we can verify that it wasnt. In this case, university officials were able to make contact with the auditorium and identify the fake guns before police arrived defusing what potentially could have been a dangerous confrontation otherwise. The software company ZeroEyes uses artificial intelligence to detect firearms in security or surveillance feeds at schools, government buildings and commercial businesses. After AI flags a gun, a ZeroEyes employee must verify the detection before alerting police. St. John Fisher declined to make its security personnel available for an interview about what protocols are in place to assess an alert from the AI technology before they respond. Although it turned out that it was not a lethal threat, we operate with a cautious approach to gun detection, a spokesperson said in an email. Our partners quick notification, actionable intelligence, and situational awareness is crucial when faced with an image that so closely resembles a real gun. The university went into lockdown for about 15 minutes. Deputies from the sheriffs office still responded to clear the scene. Hurley said it was the police agencys first time interacting with ZeroEyes and said communication with St. John Fisher was crucial in preparing their response. We prepare for the worst-case scenario, he said. But again, we always have to remember in the back of our heads, this may not be what its called in as. Thats the delicate balance of policing. Were trying to respond ready, in case its something very bad, but also dont overreact. What is ZeroEyes? An official from ZeroEyes said the human verification piece of their program was intentionally designed to prevent overreliance on artificial intelligence technology. The AI software cannot send an alert to the companys customers itself. Technicians, who are former veterans and law enforcement personnel, must review a screenshot of whatever image triggered the program before clicking a button to broadcast the number of purported guns and their location. The company claims the entire process AI detection to human verification to notification happens within three to five seconds. St. John Fisher University went into a brief lockdown June 18th after AI software in the schools surveillance system mistook prop guns being used in a theater rehearsal as real guns. A security camera sits above the corner of a residence hall. Sam Alaimo, one of the companys founders, said ZeroEyes does not consider what happened at St. John Fisher a false positive. Two prop guns were painted black and they looked exactly like real guns, Alaimo said. When we have a situation where there is a gun in hand, we are going to dispatch it. We err on the side of safety. The AI tool was trained with over one million images of firearms in different environments. But it cannot differentiate between real guns and fake ones and the company doesnt want it to. Some real guns look like toy guns, Alaimo said. The technology cannot detect firearms that are concealed or in a holster. Two SEPTA Transit Police Officers patrol Center City regional stop. SEPTA to implement ZeroEyes A.I. gun detection system on its Broad Street and Market-Frankfort lines. Does AI gun detection work? ZeroEyes was founded by a group of veterans after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Its now operating in 42 states, inside schools, government buildings, religious institutions and private businesses. As mass shootings proliferate across the country, ZeroEyes pitches itself as a proactive solution. Several states have started to offer grants to public schools to implement the software. At least four districts in Western New York have partnered with ZeroEyes, mostly in the Buffalo area. But there is little to no peer-reviewed research showing that AI gun detection is effective at preventing shootings. And other programs that use AI to scan backpacks and purses for weapons have missed them entirely or mistaken binders and spiral notebooks for guns and knives. Jake Wiener, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center who specializes in surveillance oversight, said when AI weapon detection programs raise false alarms, they end up causing harm rather than preventing it. "In that case, the system itself is creating an incredible amount of danger," he said. "Priming police for an active-shooter situation that does not exist and subjecting students and the public to unnecessary fear, trauma and the risk of police shootings." Wiener called these programs "security theater exploiting legitimate fears," taxing already cash-strapped school systems and public venues without providing true solutions. At best, he said systems like ZeroEyes might facilitate a faster response to a scene and provide some sort of harm reduction but they shouldn't be seen as a tool to prevent violence in the first place. "None of these systems actually prevent shootings by addressing the root causes of harm like emotional distress and easy access to firearms," he said. Jason Stoddard, chairperson of the National Council of School Safety Directors, told The Associated Press earlier this year the money put toward the pricey technology may be better spent on other school safety efforts, like electronic door locks, shatter-resistant windows, communications systems and staff. The artificial-intelligence-driven weapons detection is absolutely wonderful, he said. But its probably not the priority that 95% of the schools in the United States need right now. What's next in AI surveillance? ZeroEyes argues it is not a surveillance system. It does not include many of the features that commonly raise concerns with privacy advocates: Technicians dont have access to a live video feed, the software is not trained in facial recognition and ZeroEyes cannot search by geometric data. We just want to know when theres a gun, Alaimo said. The ZeroEyes cofounder said the company cant quantify exactly how many shootings it was able to prevent, but he challenged skeptics to consider the alternative. Weve had thousands of detections, many of them real, many of them detections like this which appear to be guns but are, in fact, not actual guns loaded with ammunition, Alaimo said. So, I understand the concern there with the dispatch of what ended up not being a real gun. But I do encourage those who ask about that to think about the real scenarios where we do get the real gun. But Wiener, the attorney from EPIC, believes as more AI tools emerge, the next phase of surveillance will involve combining disparate data from these different sources into a single framework that attempts to "make more predictions about how you might behave and whether you are 'dangerous.'" "The advantage that AI offers in terms of surveillance isn't in accuracy," Wiener said. "It's in ease of use. It's now easier to analyze large amounts of data and pull out predictions, analyses, etc., but there's no real guarantee that the quality of predictions will get better... The upshot of these systems is continued harm and discrimination with a veneer of objective analysis." The Democrat and Chronicle is examining surveillance efforts in western New York as part of an investigative project called "Eyes on Us." Do you have questions about police or government surveillance? Email us at kcanne@gannett.com and we will try to answer them in an upcoming series of stories. Kayla Canne reports on community justice and safety efforts for the Democrat and Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @kaylacanne and @bykaylacanne on Instagram. Get in touch at kcanne@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Does AI gun detection work? College goes into lockdown over prop guns Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks at a press conference in Brighton on Aug. 2, 2023. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline) This story originally appeared in KFF Health News. Colorado stands out among the 10 states that have disenrolled the highest share of Medicaid beneficiaries since the U.S. government lifted a pandemic-era restriction on removing people from the health insurance program. Its the only blue state in a cluster of red states with high disenrollment rates a group that includes Idaho, Montana, Texas, and Utah in the Medicaid unwinding underway since spring 2023. Colorado also is the only state that had all the policy ingredients in place to cushion the fallout from the unwinding, according to Medicaid policy analysts at KFF. But it seems the cushion hasnt been deployed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Theres really a divide in Colorado between our progressive policies and our underfunded and fragmented administration, said Bethany Pray, chief legal and policy officer at the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, a Denver-based legal aid group. According to KFF data, during the unwinding Colorado has seen a bigger net drop in enrollment in Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program than any state except Utah. Advocates for health care access, researchers, and county administrators the administrators handling the bulk of the Medicaid redeterminations in Colorado say that the major issues involve outdated technology and low rates of automatic renewals. Both create obstacles to enrollment that undercut the states progressive policies. State officials have a rosier view. They say the drop in enrollment is a sign that they did a good job enrolling people at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, they say Colorados economy is doing well, so more people can get insurance through their jobs. When we have a really stellar unemployment rate, not as many people need safety-net programs, and were proud of that. Our people are rising and thriving, said Kim Bimestefer, who leads the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and is the states top Medicaid official. Her department has also said that some people choose not to fill out their eligibility paperwork because they know their incomes are too high to qualify. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that while its true Colorados unemployment rate is lower than the nations as a whole, its higher than it was before the pandemic. State officials say they believe Medicaid enrollments dropped because many of those people found jobs, as reflected by the lower unemployment rates. But that scenario happened in fewer than half of the states counties, a KFF Health News analysis found. Notably, in 11 counties where unemployment stagnated or increased from January 2020 to April 2024, the share of the population covered by Medicaid shrank. A low unemployment rate does not necessarily mean there is less of a need for Medicaid coverage, because many employed people earn wages low enough to still qualify for the program. Colorado increased enrollment in Medicaid and the related Childrens Health Insurance Program by 35% during the covid public health emergency, compared with about 30% nationally and among Medicaid expansion states. We grew more, which means, logically, were going to disenroll more, said Bimestefer. We went up higher, were going to come down lower, because our economy is stellar. Her departments website initially claimed Colorados Medicaid enrollment grew more than any other Medicaid expansion state except Hawaii. But data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows pandemic enrollment growth in other states, including Indiana, North Dakota, Virginia, and Nevada, also exceeded that of Colorado. Even if it had grown the most, the argument that what comes up must come down doesnt hold water, Medicaid policy analysts said. A counterargument to that is we know that there was never a full participation in Medicaid prior to the pandemic, said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the KFF Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Theres really a divide in Colorado between our progressive policies and our underfunded and fragmented administration. Bethany Pray, chief legal and policy officer, Colorado Center on Law and Policy Tolbert said she was surprised by the extent of Colorados Medicaid enrollment losses, given it was the one state in the nation that met all the criteria that KFF expected would cushion the effects of the unwinding. Those policies include adopting the Affordable Care Acts Medicaid expansion and the automatic processing of renewals. Tolbert was among several policy researchers who said that even if unemployment returned to pre-pandemic levels, they would expect a higher, not lower, share of Coloradans to be enrolled in safety-net coverage. Ally Sullivan, a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said one complicating factor in Colorados system is that its among the handful of states where most of the eligibility verification work falls on counties, which added complexity to the states unwind process. Colorado is committed to ensuring that Coloradans who no longer qualify for Medicaid coverage are connected to other affordable sources of coverage as soon as possible, and the state is going to great lengths to do so, the statement said. Minnesota is another state where verifying eligibility is largely left to the counties. Yet it disenrolled just 26% of its Medicaid population in the unwinding, compared with Colorados 48%. Like Colorado, Minnesota is led by a Democratic governor. Minnesota also mirrors Colorado in its population, pandemic-era increase in enrollment, the percentage of its residents living in prosperous areas, and its better-than-national unemployment rate. But Bimestefer dismissed any comparison. I dont care about Minnesota, Bimestefer said. This is Colorado. I dont care what Minnesota did. Advocates for health care access and researchers said a cluster of technological and administrative issues have contributed to Colorados high disenrollment rate. First, Colorados eligibility database, the Colorado Benefits Management System, is outdated and clunky, according to people who use it or are familiar with systems in other states. Its like still using the old flip phone where youre trying to play Snake, said Sarah Grusin, an attorney at the National Health Law Program. We have better stuff. Grusin and Prays organizations filed a civil rights complaint with several federal agencies saying that the system issues that terminated disabled Coloradans coverage amounted to discrimination. It took many months to fix something that doesnt sound that complicated, Pray said. Bimestefer said her department is working on a plan to improve the system, which is managed by Deloitte under a $354.4 million contract that lasts until 2027. A recent KFF Health News investigation of eligibility systems managed by Deloitte found widespread problems. In Colorado, a state-commissioned audit in 2020 found that many Medicaid beneficiaries were sent incorrect notices and deadlines. Kenneth Smith, a Deloitte executive who leads its national human services division, said that Deloitte is one player among many who together administer Medicaid benefits, and that the states own the technology and make the decisions about their implementation. Colorados technology woes have also weakened its ability to use a powerful tool in enrollment: automatic renewal. Last fall, Bimestefer said, her agency had to choose between fixing the system so that it would stop disenrolling children who shouldnt lose coverage, or start automatically renewing people with no income or with income below the federal poverty level. It couldnt do both, she said. Experts such as Tricia Brooks, a research professor with the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, said its especially important to increase automatic renewals in states like Colorado where most of the renewal work falls on county government staff. What happens when youre not getting a high rate of automated renewals? Youre sending out those renewal forms, Brooks said meaning more disenrollments. They didnt get the mail. The notice was confusing. They tried to get help through the call center. The list goes on as to why people dont renew. Indeed, two-thirds of disenrolled Coloradans lost coverage for procedural reasons. Thats in line with the national average, according to KFF. But paired with Colorado having disenrolled so many people overall, that means more than 500,000 Coloradans, or about 9% of the states people, were disenrolled for procedural reasons more than the population of its second-largest city, Colorado Springs. At least a third of those disenrolled were later determined to be eligible for Medicaid. Officials at Colorado community health centers and mental health centers say theyre seeing a rise in uninsured patients coming through their doors a sign, they say, that Coloradans dropped from Medicaid arent necessarily moving on to greener health insurance pastures. Fifty-eight percent of those who were disenrolled have returned to Medicaid, or now have another form of insurance. But the state doesnt yet know what happened to the remaining 42% of people who were dropped and said it would conduct a survey to find out. 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 JINAN, July 12 (Xinhua) -- In a world aggravated by weak and unbalanced economic growth and geopolitical tensions, the pursuit of a sustainable way for different countries and civilizations to coexist has emerged as an important and imperative issue. Against this background, it makes sense to draw wisdom from Confucianism. Heavyweight scholars and participants of the Nishan Forum on World Civilizations noted that the world should move toward the Confucian ideal of "harmony in diversity." As the host city of the forum, Qufu, east China's Shandong Province, is the birthplace of ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. With such a cultural pedigree, it is no wonder that Qufu has become a hotspot for international cultural exchanges. Chinese civilization has cherished peace and inclusiveness over its millennia-old history. Ancient Chinese thinkers emphasized the importance of rituals and peace in daily life, as illustrated by the age-old adage: "In practicing the rules of propriety, it is harmony that is prized." Today, peaceful development and mutually beneficial cooperation are the shared aspirations of people worldwide. The values of "peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom" put forward by China echo humanity's common values and aspirations. China has built a range of channels to promote dialogue between different civilizations, such as the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. The Global Civilization Initiative, a public good offered by China to the world, calls for opening up a new prospect of enhanced exchanges and understanding among different peoples and better interactions and integration of diversified cultures. Today, traditional Chinese culture is better perceived by the world. A batch of books about Chinese philosophical wisdom have been translated into different languages and warmly received by the global book market. The Chinese classic "Dao De Jing," or "The Classic of the Way and Virtue," has been translated into nearly 100 languages and is one of the world's best-selling cultural masterpieces. Ancient Chinese concepts of greatness in simplicity and harmony with nature have won the hearts and minds of readers worldwide. As the world's second-largest economy, China is integrated with the world in an increasingly profound way. Therefore, mutual understanding between China and the West carries special significance. "The Analects of Confucius" stated: "It is such a delight to have friends coming from afar." China is committed to promoting mutual understanding and making friends through open and communicative means. The recent "China travel" boom exemplifies the vibrant people-to-people exchanges between China and the rest of the world, and helps foreign visitors understand Chinese culture and society more. The progression of economic globalization means that the future of all countries is closely connected. Humanity's modernization requires tolerance, coexistence, exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations. Given the unprecedented challenges facing humanity, it is even more necessary than ever for all countries to respect diversity and deepen exchanges and mutual learning for a shared future. Column: What should Democrats do now? Two columnists slug it out Is President Biden the Democrats' best hope for keeping Donald Trump from returning to the White House? (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) It seems as though were at a hinge point in our countrys history. Or, at the least, living through some very strange and scary times. A former president who talks about suspending the Constitution and criminally prosecuting his foes is again knocking at the White House door. The current occupant is facing unprecedented calls within his party to end his reelection bid after a historically awful debate performance. Times columnists Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria both fear a Trump restoration and agree this really is the most important presidential election anyone alive has ever seen something we hear every four years. But they differ over whether Joe Biden should stay on or leave the Democratic ticket after his performance in Thursday night's news-conference-heard-'round the world. Here, they hash it out. Barabak: Wow. It took just a few cringe-inducing minutes on that debate stage for Biden's candidacy to go into free fall. But maybe it shouldn't be surprising. Adam B. Schiff, the Burbank congressman and very likely next U.S. senator from California, aptly summed things up last weekend on "Meet the Press." "Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close," Schiff said. "Theres only one reason it is close, and thats the presidents age." Read more: Column: It's not just the White House. Biden could also cost Democrats control of Congress The debate was supposed to lay to rest nagging concerns about Biden's mental and physical vitality. Of course, his performance did exactly the opposite. Biden couldn't have looked worse if he'd showed up onstage with a blanket, pillow and glass of warm milk and gone to sleep. Chabria: The No. 1 response that I have heard from average Democrats is that it was brutal to watch Biden falter. Right now we are trapped in a political peat bog, trying to decide if we are looking at disturbing but survivable decay or a campaign in its death throes. While it seems silly in some ways, a turning point for me was George Clooney's op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday calling for Biden to step aside. I'm not being starstruck, but Clooney did what the Democratic Party writ large has been afraid to do tell us what it's like to be in Biden's presence. Clooney made it clear that what we saw on the debate stage was what he found Biden to be like in person. Not good. I'm as concerned as anyone about Biden's mental acuity. But I still think the Democrats are not being honest. If they truly believe, as Clooney does, that Biden is not fit to run, doesn't that mean he's not fit to serve? How do you parse that? Barabak: Hmm. Isn't Clooney one of those "elites" Biden has scoffed at as he resists calls to stand down after spending years happily basking in their reflected glow and vacuuming up every last cent his Hollywood benefactors sent his way? There is a distinction, as you note. Can Biden function as president? He's done fine and presumably could keep doing so from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with the help of aides and others surrounding him. (Interestingly, that's an argument I've heard time and again from Donald Trump's supporters. They may express doubts about his judgment and social media nastygrams, but count on him being buffered by smart, capable people.) I think the more pertinent question is whether Biden can win in November and save the country from the threat of Trump unleashed. Or, scarier still, from complete GOP control of Washington, with Trump in the White House, his supplicants running Congress and a pliant Supreme Court dismantling any guardrails keeping a vengeance-minded president in check. I'm not convinced at this point that Biden can do it. You? Chabria: I'm not sure he can win. But even if he is dementia-adjacent, people like Joe. I'm not sure any other Democrat is positioned to do better. There's this untethered buoyancy in the Democratic Party that almost feels hysterical this idea that the party could hold some nicey-nice pseudo-primary beauty pageant and some shiny winner would emerge as its savior. Democrats are going to vote for whoever is on the ticket it could literally be Mayor Max III, the golden retriever who runs Idyllwild. It's the independent and undecided swing-state voters who'll decide this race. Show me a candidate who can reach those voters in under four months when they have spent years unswayed by Trump's lies, abuses and convictions, and still don't see the threat to democracy he embodies. If Biden is really going to be replaced on the Democratic ticket, which I think is still up in the air, Harris is the only choice that makes sense and it's a scrambling, desperate sort of sense. What do you think? Barabak: I agree. It's Harris or bust. I've long considered her the front-runner to replace Biden, if it comes to that. It would follow what's pretty much been the political line of succession for the last several decades, and the idea of passing over the first Black woman in the vice presidency in a party whose backbone is Black women has always struck me as a nonstarter. Just as fanciful, as you suggest, is this notion of a unity candidate emerging clouds parting, heavenly choir swelling to rally Democrats and smite the evil MAGA king. You can fantasize about a high-minded exchange of ideas, and there's something to be said for that, if it ever comes to pass. But does the party really want to tear itself apart in a fratricidal fight over Gaza, the Green New Deal, immigration and myriad other issues that divide Democrats, followed by just a few short months to lay down their swords and come together? You're absolutely correct to say the epoxy binding Democrats is their primal fear and loathing of Trump. Harris would have the advantage of running on the successes of the Biden administration while, of course, trying to explain away its failings without that whole gerontocracy thing weighing on her candidacy. At age 59, she'd flip the age issue. All of a sudden, it would be the 78-year-old Trump who'd have to defend his physical and mental fitness. Chabria: Yes to all of that, but I am still not sure we'll get to Harris. Joe is running out the clock. The Democratic National Convention starts in about four weeks. The official nomination is scheduled to take place before that. And after his NATO news conference, which despite the Trump/Harris gaffe I thought was strong, I don't think he'll listen to critics. He had a flash of the Joe that won hearts, with a deep knowledge of foreign affairs and a one-liner that I loved: Control guns, not girls. But if Harris were to top the ticket, I would worry about the kind of racism and sexism that plagued Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, respectively. In Harris, you'd have those forces combined. Not to mention that Harris didn't have a successful campaign when she ran in 2020 showing an awkwardness and inability to connect with voters. I think we need to prepare for Joe sticking around, even with those worrisome firsthand accounts of his mental fragility. I agree with you about Biden being surrounded by talented people, but I'm also furious they haven't spoken out if, like Clooney, they've seen on a regular basis that the president is not coherent. I think the fallout here is beyond Joe losing support. I think the Democratic Party is losing credibility every day that this continues. In that sense, there could be some benefit to just shutting up and backing Biden to stop the party from ceding more of its high ground to Trump. Or if Harris is the solution, maybe wait until after November to hash that out. Or maybe flip it and run the Harris-Biden ticket? This is too crazy for me to make a guess. Are you brave enough to make predictions? Barabak: None beyond this: If they stick with the tottering president, Democrats and other Biden supporters had better brace themselves for four months of unceasing heart-in-the-throat anxiety. He can string together 100-plus perfect days between now and the Nov. 5 election, and hold several more not-terrible news conferences. Virile! Vigorous!But Biden will always be just one ill-timed brain freeze or trip and fall away from ceding the election to Trump. It'll be like watching a shaky 81-year-old man pick his way across thin ice balancing a beaker of nitroglycerin atop his head. He might achieve safe passage. But it's going to be touch and go the entire time. And woe to us all if he stumbles. 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. "It was coming straight at us" hikers capture video of plane nearly crashing into Continental Divide You never know what you're going to see when you get your hiking boots on and hit the trail in the Rocky Mountains snow in July? A mountain lion stalking an elk? Or how about a plane nearly nosediving into the side of the mountain? That's exactly what two Colorado hikers encountered on July 4 when they were hiking up to Devil's Thumb Pass on the Continental Divide in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. In a video posted to Facebook, which you can view below, the light aircraft appears to narrowly avoid crashing into the mountain during a heart-dropping nosedive. "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," recalls Jason Dunn, who says his son Tyler captured the footage. "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)." Dunn writes that he is sharing the video as he thinks the pilot might want the footage. "If anyone has connection to Boulder municipal airport, you might send. Im guessing he was coming from there and would love to have the video." Since the video was shared, The Summit Daily has reported that the plane has been confirmed as a rented Cessna 152 that belongs to the Rocky Mountain Flight School in Broomfield. Greg Boom, owner of the school, told Sky-Hi News that his team is trying to contact the pilot to learn more about the incident. Ordinarily, we'd take the opportunity to provide you with some hiking safety advice here but honestly, there's no handbook for this. If you see a plane coming towards you, duck. We reckon these hikers won't forget this day in a hurry. When dealing with bereaved families, funeral directors employ anodyne language and soothing tones. Michael Williams, a funeral director in Winter Haven, dispensed with his normal decorum as he summarized the situation Floridas funeral homes now confront. Were going back to prehistoric times, Williams, a funeral director at James C. Boyd Funeral Home, said in a voice of frustration. At the least, funeral directors have been plunged back into a pre-modern era, if modern means having the ability to conduct essential tasks on computers. A ransomware group has reportedly claimed that it hacked into the computer network of the Florida Department of Health and is freezing data until the agency pays an unspecified amount. The department has acknowledged a possible cyber-attack, WFTV reported. The agency manages official state records, including birth certificates, marriage certificates and death certificates. It is the inability to receive and submit the latter electronically that is causing headaches for funeral homes. Bill Schichtel, vice president of Heath Funeral Home in Lakeland, says the hack of a computer network at the Florida Department of Health is causing headaches for funeral homes. It's delaying cremations, and in some cases, putting off services. Its made everything a lot more difficult and is slowing everything down the process of getting death certificates for families, said Bill Schichtel, vice president and funeral director at Heath Funeral Chapel in Lakeland. But besides that, it's slowing the process down to getting approval to do cremations, because you have to have the death certificate signed by the doctor and approval from the medical examiner and the state before you can do that. A statement on the Florida Department of Health website reads: There is currently a temporary outage of the online Vital Statistics system. As we work diligently to resolve this outage, all county health departments are able to assist the public with Vital Statistics offline. The vital records office for Polk County, administered by the state agency, occupies space in the Northeast Government Center in Lake Alfred. Since the state system went offline on June 26, funeral homes have had to send employees to the Lake Alfred office to deliver death forms and later to collect death certificates, Schichtel said. From start to finish, everything is very difficult, said Schichtel, who has worked at the family business since the 1980s. Its a slower process. So basically, we've gone back to the dark ages, for the original way you do things. Funeral homes are required to obtain death certificates before carrying out cremations, and the lost access to the states electronic system is causing delays, Schichtel said. The delays have disrupted some plans for services, he said. We had one family that wanted to take their (relatives) ashes back to, I think, the Dominican Republic, and they were very, very upset, Schichtel said. And I understand. They get everything prepared, and they get their flights, and we can't do anything until everything is completed on the doctor side or the medical examiner side. Our hands are tied. We only can go as fast as everybody else can go. The delays could cause problems that go beyond inconvenience for family members, Schichtel said. Tired of irrelevant rants Lake Wales considers new citizen-comment rules: city business up front, others at the end I know it's putting a pinch on some of the funeral homes that do not have a lot of cooler space because they're getting overfull because the processing is slowing down, he said. Williams, the funeral director at James C. Boyd Funeral Home, displayed exasperation as he talked about the loss of computer access to records. This is crazy, he said. This is difficult. It's just making things difficult. You're losing money. You lose a resource. Its a mess because you're hiring people to do a job that we can normally do on a computer, so now there's more manpower that needs to be hired. Williams referred to the need to have someone drive to and from the office in Lake Alfred to deliver and retrieve death certificates. The outage has also affected the Medical Examiners Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit, based in Winter Haven. The office has lost access to the Electronic Death Registration System, the state database used to enter death records. The Medical Examiners Office has returned to using fax machines to receive and send records, a spokesperson said. A doctor must review the records before the office issues a cremation authorization number, which a funeral home must receive before carrying out a cremation. Heath Funeral Chapel is a member of the Independent Funeral Directors of Florida. Schichtel said he is awaiting word from the association about a possible resolution of the problem. The worst thing is, theres no end in sight, Schichtel said. This may never end. Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13. This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk County funeral homes suffering from cyberattack on state agency More people are flying again but staffing shortages in the aviation industry are making it harder to keep up with demand. Culture is the biggest barrier to women in aviation - its the hardest to change, said Joanne Jo Damato, National Business Aviation Association. This is something Jo Damato knows personally. She wanted to be a pilot growing up. Because of my gender, I was not permitted to fly all of the flight schools airplanes. Because of my gender, said Damato. During a congressional hearing, Damato emphasized the need to diversify the aviation workforce to include more women and minorities. She believes the new FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 will help alleviate some barriers. The law creates a new Women in Aviation Advisory Committee at the Department of Transportation aimed at improving recruitment. We need to make improvements to attract women and minorities to aviation to show them more examples of see it, be it, said Damato. Give them mentoring opportunities to understand the resources they can take advantage of especially funding being one of them. Damato also believes there should more access to information about aviation careers. We need a one stop shop national website to be the destination and central source of information for pursuing a career in aviation, she said. The new bill takes effect amid major staffing shortages in roles you dont always notice when flying - such as aviation maintenance technicians. Union leaders say these workers operate and maintain thousands of systems used for air traffic controllers. And when there arent enough of them on duty, your trip could be impacted. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] The consequences of insufficient technicians staffing manifested itself in increased restoration times during an outage or air traffic delays. It also causes inadequate shift coverage for technicians which means we dont have the right person available to resolve a crisis when it occurs, said Dave Spero, national president for the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO. Some parts of the aviation industry arent experiencing staffing shortfalls. Airlines for America, which represents most of the major US carriers, said in a statement that passenger and cargo airlines are experiencing the largest workforce in more than 20 years. It has more than 800,000 workers. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Full statement from Airlines for America: U.S. passenger and cargo airlines employ their largest workforce in more than 20 years, more than 800,000 workers. More people are flying than ever before, and U.S. airlines have been hiring aggressively across the industry pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, etc. for a couple of years to accommodate the increasing demand. Airlines have been implementing new programs to recruit and initiatives to retain the workforce, and U.S. airlines are paying record high wages. However, the ATC staffing shortage is directly impacting operations across the system. At this time of record travel demand, U.S. airlines cut back their schedules in congested areas to accommodate the ATC shortage at the expense of travelers who are seeing fewer flight options in those markets. We have been sounding the alarm on the shortage of air traffic controllers for more than a year. The DOT Inspector Generals June 2023 report reinforced our view saying that the FAA has made limited efforts to ensure adequate controller staffing at critical air traffic control facilities and the agency lacks a plan to address this critical issue. Last year, the FAA netted just six new controllers while needing nearly 3000. The FAAs system of hiring and training is fundamentally broken if it takes this long to hire and train controllers. A4A has been supporting efforts such as the FAA Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program that allows prospective controllers while they are in college, allowing them to begin their on-the-job training in actual control towers once they graduate, and were pleased when Secretary Buttigieg and the FAA announced their support for the revival of the program. 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 House Republicans campaign arm announced Friday it broke its fundraising record for a second quarter of an election year. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) said it raked in $37 million during April, May and June the largest haul for House Republicans during the second quarter of an election year. The NRCC noted the campaign arm raised $14.3 million in June, and it ends the quarter with close to $71 million in the bank. Almost $162 million has been raised in the cycle to date. While House Democrats were engaged in the biggest cover-up in American history lying about the presidents mental decline, the NRCC was furiously raising resources to hold them accountable for it, NRCC Chair Richard Hudson said in a statement. We wouldnt be in this strong financial position without our incredible leadership team who share our goal of growing the Republican House majority. The deadline for committees to report their second-quarter fundraising for this year is Monday. The House Democrats campaign arm has not yet released its quarterly fundraising numbers. The development comes against the backdrop of an increasingly perilous situation for President Biden and Democrats; more than a dozen House Democrats and one sitting Senate Democrat have called on the president to withdraw from the race following his disastrous debate performance. Since the debate, several nonpartisan election forecasters have shifted the state of Michigan from lean Democrat to toss-up underscoring how the debate has suddenly shifted the dynamics of the race. A forecast by Decision Desk HQ on Friday morning showed Republicans having a 62 percent chance of maintaining their majority in the House in November. The forecast also showed a 56 percent chance of former President Trump winning the White House and a 79 percent chance of Republicans winning the Senate. 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 Connecticut middle school guidance counselor sent nudes and gave lapdances to a 13-year-old student in her office and her alleged sexual abuse was uncovered after she lent a friend her phone, which was filled with explicit texts she sent to the teen, cops said. Married mother of three Luisa Melchionne, 47, was arrested Thursday, months after a male friend borrowed her phone when his broke and found raunchy messages between the educator and teen boy, police documents reportedly state. The former Nathan Hale Middle School staffer was charged with second-degree sexual assault and two counts of risk of injury to a minor, Norwalk police said. She has since resigned from Norwalk Public Schools. Now-former middle school guidance counselor Luisa Melchionne, 47, is facing multiple charges for an alleged sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student. Norwalk Police Department Authorities began a probe into the New Canaan resident in late April, when the friend contacted police about finding messages that appeared sexual in nature on the phone, according to an arrest warrant affidavit reported on by the Norwalk Hour. The messages also included explicit photos of Melchionne and money transactions, according to the police document. When reached by police, the teen told investigators he received nude photos from Melchionne and payments for Uber rides, food and $100 around Christmas last year, according to the affidavit also reported on by NBC Connecticut. The student also said that Melchionne performed lapdances and other sexual acts with him behind closed doors and with the blinds pulled down, the affidavit states, according to the two outlets. Prosecutor Paul Ferencek said in court that the victim was 13 years old at the time, according to the Hour. The safety of our students is our first concern. Luisa Melchionne is no longer employed by Norwalk Public Schools, the school system said in a statement, per NBC CT. The alleged abuse occurred within Melchionnes office at Nathan Hale Middle School in Norwalk, Conn. Google Maps Norwalk Public Schools is cooperating with the Norwalk Police Departments investigation and has no further comment. Her lawyer, Mark Sherman, told The Post that Melchionne resigned from the job last month. Luisa is still very much entitled to the presumption of innocence, said Sherman, a criminal defense lawyer based in Stamford. These are just accusations. What we do know is that these charges are being filed against a devoted wife and mother who has dedicated over 21 years to her profession, and its going to take some time to investigate this case. Sherman said she posted $500,000 bond and was released Thursday. Melchionne is prohibited from having unsupervised contact with minors except her three kids and will be under house arrest, the Hour reported. Connie Lynn Francis-Cioffi, a former vice president of advertising at Anne Klein, died at her home in Miami Beach on July 3. She was 68. The cause of death was metastatic cancer, according to her husband, John Vincent Cioffi. More from WWD Born on Aug. 13, 1955, in Washington, D.C., Francis-Cioffi graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology as a London Scholar. Early in her career, Francis-Cioffi spent five years at Pinky & Dianne in public relations. She later moved to Zoran where she was director of public relations for a year. She joined Anne Klein in 1984 as director of public relations and advertising, reporting to Louis DellOlio, designer for Anne Klein, and Frank Mori, then president of Anne Klein. Francis-Cioffi handled public relations and advertising for both Anne Klein and Anne Klein Studio Ltd., the licensing arm. In 1991, she was promoted to vice president and director of advertising for the Anne Klein Apparel Group as part of a new corporate public relations and advertising department formed to maintain a consistent image for the Anne Klein Cos., which consisted of Anne Klein & Co., A-Line, Anne Klein Dresses, Anne Klein II and its licensees, reporting to Andrew Rosen, then president of the Anne Klein Apparel Group. Connie was your Girl Friday, said DellOlio. She was loyal, she always had my back, and she protected me. I adored her. She was smart and efficient, and she knew how to shield you and keep people at bay, said DellOlio on Friday. DellOlio said she was a jack of all trades. I was involved in everything and every aspect of the business, and Connie was right beside me, he said. Virginia Smith, director, Global Fashion Network at Vogue, and her husband, the designer Patrick Robinson, both worked with Francis-Cioffi when they were at Anne Klein. Connie had incredible taste from working on fashion campaigns to her beautiful home in Vermont. She never wanted to be front and center, always choosing to shine the light on others rather than herself. She was a quiet force but with the best laugh! said Smith. Everyone adored Connie, said Kathleen Boyes, a fashion writer and a former WWD fashion editor. Connie was a strong, quiet presence, both personally and professionally. She made everyone feel taken care-of, quickly addressing your needs, no matter how tight the deadline, how urgent the request. She made it happen without drama or fanfare, she said. In an article in the L.A. Times in 1991 about controversial and cutting-edge fashion advertising, a popular strategy at the time, Francis-Cioffi told the newspaper, Our commercials are not out of place in lieu of what appears on broadcast television and in films. One of the ads featured reincarnation and angered Christian organizations. Other A-Line TV spots were sexually suggestive, including one that ran after 11 p.m. and featured a man and a woman rolling around under a sheet and a woman sitting on a bed removing her bra. A lot of companies justify their ads as freedom of speech and the consumer can just take it or leave it. Weve never geared our commercials to start controversy. We were surprised when they did, she told the L.A. Times. In 1994, Anne Klein, under then-designer Richard Tyler, did a campaign WWD described as a vampy, aggressive, black-and-white Chris Von Wagenheim-ish nighttime fantasy, complete with helicopters, DeLorean cars and dark alleys. In a modern interpretation of the night on the town theme, Steven Meisel shot 14 black-and-white images in New York, and the ads were produced by Anne Kleins in-house ad staff. After she left Anne Klein in 1996, she established her own public relations and advertising agency with clients that included Anne Klein, Ralph Lauren, Clinique and Irving Penn. Connie embraced each chapter of her life with grace and enthusiasm. Her presence brought warmth and joy to those around her. She had a remarkable ability to connect with people, making friends wherever she went, and her kindness touched the hearts of many, said her husband, John. He said she had a great eye for models and produced the Anne Klein and Anne Klein II campaigns in-house. She would produce the shoot, and at the same time, help with the accessories and styling. She loved and breathed the industry. Modeling agencies would reach out to her for her opinion [about models], he said, even up until recently. He said she was known as the Velvet Hammer. She was polite and knew what she was doing and she had to stand her ground, he said. After a successful career in the fashion industry, Francis-Cioffi turned her focus to charitable giving and development. One of her more significant contributions was supporting the work of Dr. Tom Catena and the Gidel Hospital in Sudan, which provides care for more than 1 million people. In addition, Francis-Cioffi was instrumental in funding a 28-bed Francis-Cioffi Pediatric Hospital in Uganda, which treats thousands of children annually. Francis-Cioffi was also a passionate advocate for animal welfare. According to her husband, after they left their permanent home in New York in 2008, they spent time in Vermont and Miami Beach and would continue to go back and forth to New York. In addition to her husband, to whom she was married for 30 years, Francis-Cioffi is survived by her sisters, Donna Francis and Janet Hall, and by her seven nieces and nephews. Best of WWD Construction work may be to blame for fires at two L.A. schools in the same night Firefighters arrived at Notre Dame High School to find flames coming from the roof. It took about 20 minutes to extinguish the flames. No one was hurt. (OnScene.TV) Construction work may be to blame for fires that erupted at two schools in Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood about three miles apart Thursday night, according to authorities. Firefighters arrived at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks at 9:29 p.m. to discover flames and smoke coming from the roof of St. Andre Bessette Hall, where crews had been working earlier that day. About 38 firefighters extinguished the flames by 9:49 p.m. Earlier in the day, they had roof work being done, and some roofing materials, like tar, needs to be heated up to make things stick, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Lyndsey Lantz said. The fire damaged the roof and exterior wall of the two-story building at 13645 W. Riverside Drive. There were no reported injuries. Due to the quick response of our cleaning and security crews, everyone evacuated quickly and no one was injured, Notre Dame High School President Rob Thomas said on Instagram. Read more: Photos: The first major wildfire of 2024 in Los Angeles County A second fire just three miles east of the private Catholic school was reported around 11:23 p.m. at Oakwood Secondary School in North Hollywood. Lantz said firefighters arrived to "a much smaller fire with light smoke in one of the offices of the school building at 11600 Magnolia Blvd. Firefighters extinguished the flames by 11:47 p.m. There was welding construction at the school during the day, so there could have been heated wood that never got cooled down properly, Lantz said. While the two fires seem to be construction-related and do not appear to be linked, Lantz said, both remain under investigation. All operations at Notre Dame High School will continue as normal Friday, Thomas said. "We are grateful for the brave and swift response from our firefighters, who were able to contain the fire quickly and with minimal damage," he said. 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. (Bloomberg) -- Consumer sentiment and expectations among Democrats dropped to the lowest level in more than a year following President Joe Bidens poor performance in Junes presidential debate. Most Read from Bloomberg The University of Michigans sentiment index among Democrats fell to 82.5 in early July, down from 90.8 in June, according to figures released Friday. A gauge of expectations among Democrats, which measures how consumers view their personal financial situations and outlook on the economy, fell to 79.6 in July from 92.6 in the prior month. That is the lowest level for each measure since May 2023. The Democratic Party has been in turmoil since Bidens debate performance with a growing number of lawmakers and donors calling for him to step aside as the nominee to oppose Donald Trump in November. Biden has said he wont back out of the race. Consumer sentiment among political independents fell for a sixth month in a row in July, and Republican sentiment also declined. The overall consumer sentiment index fell to the lowest level in eight months, reflecting diminished views on personal finances and the economy. With the upcoming election, consumers perceived substantial uncertainty in the trajectory of the economy, though there is little evidence that the first presidential debate altered their economic views, Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan survey, said in a statement. Sentiment among Democrats also slumped in May when demonstrators on many college campuses were protesting the Biden administrations approach to the Israel-Hamas war. There were also separate protests that the White House wasnt doing enough to counter antisemitism. Consumer sentiment has long been influenced by party affiliation, with the group supporting the party in power typically viewing the economy more favorably. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. SYDNEY, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in the Australian state of Victoria said on Friday that there is no indication of the massive factory fire in Melbourne being suspicious. Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) confirmed in a statement that 20 firefighters and five appliances are still working on the scene after a significant chemical explosion caused a huge fire in Derrimut on Wednesday. "The incident remains under control but there are still hotspots in inaccessible areas due to structural integrity and site contamination concerns. Over the next 24 hours, FRV crews will continue to suppress hotspots and take the heat out of locations that are still burning," said the authority. FRV investigators are working with WorkSafe and Victoria Police to investigate the incident, while there is currently no indication the fire was suspicious, according to the fire authority. FRV Deputy Commissioner Josh Fischer said that authorities would remain at the scene for days, if not weeks. "This is a complex and dangerous environment, there are a lot of hazards associated with this incident so we're taking extreme caution and care as we manage those risks for our firefighters from the time of the incident and into the future," Fischer said. The incident unfolded at around 11:20 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Emergency services rushed to a factory on Swann Drive in Derrimut, which contained a range of chemicals including kerosene, fuel, methylated spirits, and ethanol. Following a large explosion, flames burst out at the site, with toxic smoke billowing towards the east across Derrimut. As of Friday, Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria updated that preventing further environmental damage to waterways continues to be a major focus with more contaminated firewater being pumped away from the area and taken for disposal. "EPA advice to avoid contact with the waters there remains in place. At this stage," the environmental regulator said, also assuring the public that the smoke no longer poses any risk. Local media revealed that the industrial facility was operated by the chemical blending manufacturer ACB Group, where a worker died in a chemical explosion last year. Grand Teton National Park visitors wait in line for the Jenny Lake boat shuttle. (Courtesy of Grand Teton National Park) This story was first published by WyoFile on July 11, 2024. With all signs pointing to more people clamoring to hike Grand Teton National Parks iconic trails, drink in its majestic views and find parking in its crowded lots, the parks administration is thinking about how best to approach the future. And its hoping for public feedback to help guide its decisions. The park is soliciting public input through Aug. 12 on draft desired conditions for the park and specific management areas. The public can learn about the process via a special webpage, or comment here. There will also be opportunities to learn about it and ask questions at the following meetings: In-person: 4-6 p.m. July 16, Teton County Library in Jackson. Virtual: 4-5 p.m. July 23, via National Park Services Planning, Environment and Public Comment website. Grand Teton will use the feedback to better understand public perceptions as it weighs how to manage growing visitation and ensure quality experiences. Neither it nor its neighbor Yellowstone has indicated plans to employ drastic management tools like timed entries, ticketed entries or shuttles which national parks like Yosemite, Zion and Glacier have utilized to try to get a handle on enormous visitation volumes. A line of vehicles parked at Taggart Lake Trail in Grand Teton National Park Accelerating visitor capacity trends at national parks Grand Teton National Parks current comment process allows the public to share their visions of the kinds of resource protections, infrastructure and services they would like to see in the parks various areas. It allows people to comment on specific quadrants such as road corridors like Teton Park Road; fully developed frontcountry points like Colter Bay or the Taggart Lake trailhead; or primitive backcountry areas with trails but few to no services. Identifying the publics desires helps officials strategically meet park needs, according to its webpage. That framework also includes management decisions and monitoring. Its the parks obligation, via the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978, to address visitor capacity. Though only Grand Teton is soliciting input, its nearly impossible to disentangle its fate from neighboring park Yellowstone. Managing visitation in both has always been top of mind for park administrators, but growth spurts in recent decades have underscored challenges of what happens when millions of visitors pour in each year. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Visitation was relatively steady for much of the 1990s-2000s, but that began to change in the mid-2010s, fueled by factors such as the 2016 Find Your Park campaign, the growth of the outdoor recreation industry and the 2017 solar eclipse. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the trend. Both parks reported record visitation in 2021 4.9 million visits to Yellowstone, and 3.9 million to Grand Teton. Visitations dipped in 2022, the year that historic floods devastated areas in Yellowstone, but bounced back in 2023 to 4.5 million and 3.4 million, respectively. Though both parks have implemented measures like camping reservations, vehicle limits at crowded lots and a pilot shuttle system, they have yet to adopt more drastic tools like timed-entry systems that Arches and Rocky Mountain National Parks have recently taken on. However, growth does not appear to be slowing. Yellowstone tallied 522,450 visits in May, up 15% from May 2023 and a 10% increase from May 2021. Grand Teton, meanwhile, tallied 320,603 recreation visits in May, up 20% from May 2023. In 2023, the U.S. outdoor recreation participant base grew 4.1% to a record 175.8 million participants, according to a 2024 Outdoor Foundation report. Studies, trials Grand Teton National Park in 2021 studied traffic patterns, trail-use numbers and visitor experiences, releasing a report the following year. Yellowstone conducted a visitor-use study in 2016. Since then, Yellowstone piloted controlled-visitor access at Norris as well as an automated vehicle shuttle in Canyon Village. In 2023, superintendents of both parks indicated that traffic patterns and the geography of the parks both have multiple entrances, giving visitors multiple options on entering and exiting make transitioning to shuttle systems unlikely. That summer, Grand Teton park staff asked the general public for input on how they visit the park and what their experiences have been, receiving 446 comments. When asked about challenges, respondents cited finding lodging that isnt too expensive, the park being too crowded, long lines at entrance stations and not enough parking, according to a 2024 state of the park report. In a separate effort, Grand Teton National Park in late 2023 launched a master planning process for Colter Bay, which sits on Jackson Lake in the northern part of the park. Colter Bay was originally built in the 1950s but is increasingly unable to accommodate growing and diverse visitation, changing environmental conditions, and staffing required to maintain and operate this area of the park, according to related documents. The park collected public feedback on that process, which will be analyzed per the National Environmental Policy Act. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Jerry Boylan, right, captain of the Conception, arrives in federal court in October 2023. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) Nearly five years after 34 people died below deck in a fire on the Conception dive boat, the families of the victims have yet to receive any restitution and the vessel's captain remains free, despite being found guilty in the deadliest maritime disaster in modern California history and being sentenced to four years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge George H. Wu on Thursday delayed ruling on restitution owed by Capt. Jerry Boylan to the families of those killed over the 2019 Labor Day holiday off Santa Cruz Island. Instead, Wu said, he would make a final decision by July 29, when he also will decide whether the 70-year-old Boylan should remain free pending appeal of his conviction. Wu gave both parties until July 18 to file a list of non-disputed restitution amounts as well as disputed sums. Read more: Conception boat fire that killed 34 people started in plastic trash can, confidential report says Boylan's attorneys have asked that he remain free on bond pending appeal of his conviction of gross negligence in the disaster. They argue that Boylan has shown he is not a flight risk and and there are substantial questions whether he actually caused the 34 deaths. Prosecutors have demanded he be imprisoned, noting that the case has been delayed "time and time again" and that he was previously ordered to surrender on Aug. 8, 2024. They argue there is no "legitimate grounds for further delay." Boylan's conviction last year stemmed from a steamship-era law known as "seaman's manslaughter." Prosecutors argued that despite his 34 years captaining maritime vessels, Boylan failed to appoint a federally mandated overnight watch on the Conception, which was making a weekend diving expedition. Nor did he institute adequate fire safety drills, which left his crew panic-stricken when the fire broke out before dawn on Sept. 2, 2019. As the flames spread, blocking the exits for those crowded in the bunk room below, a member of Boylan's crew twice ran right by a 50-foot fire hose overhead. Boylan called in a mayday at 3:14 a.m. before jumping overboard, which prosecutors described as abandoning ship. During Boylan's sentencing in May, Wu rejected that claim. Read more: Conception dive boat disaster: Feds to reveal cause of blaze that killed 34 The 33 passengers and one crew member who died below deck some as they tried to escape included an environmental scientist who did research in Antarctica; a globe-trotting husband and wife; a Singaporean data scientist; and a family of three sisters, their father and his wife. The family of the boat fire's victims have sued Truth Aquatics and the U.S. Coast Guard for its inadequate oversight. At Boylan's sentencing, Wu said that he found the captain "incredibly remorseful" and that he had not "intended to do something bad." He also took Boylan's age and health into account, as well as the unlikelihood that he would reoffend. Boylans attorneys argued that the person responsible for the deaths was Glen Fritzler, who owns Truth Aquatics Inc., which operated the Conception and two other dive boats. They argued that Boylan's failure to use an overnight watch was merely following the custom of Truth Aquatics and that he didn't know he was imperiling passengers. Prosecutors called it the "blaming your boss" defense. Fritzler has denied any wrongdoing. After investigations by The Times and the National Transportation Safety Board, the Coast Guard adopted several safety reforms. 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. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) A man who was hit by two vehicles after walking on Highway 17 early Wednesday morning has been identified. Zebulon Lester, 34, was hit while walking along Highway 17 Bypass near Wood Thrush Drive, Chief Deputy Coroner Tamara Willard said. Lester died at the scene of traumatic injuries. He lived in Murrells Inlet. This embedded content is not available in your region. Lester was hit by a 2002 Lexus 4-door traveling north, according to the South Carolina Highway Patrol. After Lester was hit, another vehicle hit him while he was laying in the road. That vehicle fled the scene. Anyone with information is asked to call the highway patrol or go online to 888crimesc.com. Download the News13 app to stay updated on the go Sign up for WBTW email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox. Find todays top stories on WBTW.com for the Grand Strand and Pee Dee. Count on News13 for updates. * * * Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read 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. Democrats are searching for possible pathways away from another Joe Biden nomination, including by essentially staging a revolt at the Democratic National Convention in August. At least 21 Democratic lawmakers have formally called on the president to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, while some high-profile party leaders, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have signaled behind closed doors that the presidents time leading the party is over. After Biden reaffirmed during a post-NATO Summit press conference on Thursday that he would not be taking his name off the ballot, the intraparty panic began to fuel curiosity about a potential alternative. At least one Democratic National Committee member and convention delegate is openly speculating about simply not endorsing Biden at the convention. Joe Salazar, a former Colorado state representative and a DNC delegate at the August convention, believes that the conference should force Biden off the ticket if he refuses to step aside on his own. No Democrat presidential candidate should ever be trailing Donald Trump. That dude is a treasonous lyin multi-felon, Salazar told The Levers podcast Lever Time. Ive been hearing from people before Biden announced his reelection campaign. And people were concerned then back in August and September, about the fact that he was thinking about running again. And so he decided to run. But Salazar says that since Bidens disastrous debate performance last month, Coloradans of every stripe are begging and pleading that he figure out a way to get the president to step down. Biden isnt yet the partys official nominee, although he did win thousands of delegates through the Democratic primary, during which the DNC did not truly consider other options. That has provided the basis for Salazars plan. The DNCs official rules designate that pledged delegates votes must in good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. The nomination process requires a candidate to win 1,976 delegates. Since Biden has already secured 3,896 delegates, he should be a shoo-in on the first ballot, even if a significant number of delegates opt to defect. But on the second ballot, approximately 700 superdelegates, who include governors and lawmakers, will join the vote, and their inclusion could potentially turn the vote. If Biden doesnt budge, Salazar and others hope that DNC rules could allow them to file a petition to call for a different candidate, and essentially revolt at the convention, explained Lever Time host Arjun Singh. He added that this is still a hypothetical point. But he and an official in the Colorado Democratic Party are actively exploring whether their idea of a petition could be a provable workaround. However, should Biden decide to leave the race by his own volition before the convention, all of his pledged delegates will be released to nominate whomever they choose. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer have all been touted as possible replacement candidates Vice president Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, are among those being considered to replace Joe Biden after the 81-year-old stood aside in the US presidential election. Following the conclusion of Mr Bidens shaky performance in the first US presidential debate of the 2024 election, Mr Newsom, 56, was mobbed by reporters, with many asking if he would step in for the ailing president who rambled in response to questions from Donald Trump. Mr Newsom, who has the best odds to win the 2024 election of any alternative candidate, attempted to swat aside the question, saying the rumours were unhelpful and unnecessary. But advisers close to three potential replacements for Mr Biden thought to include Mr Newsom said they were bombarded with pleas for their employers to step up as an alternative, according to Politico. At 56, Mr Newsom is a quarter of a century younger than Mr Biden and an adept communicator, who runs the worlds fifth-largest economy. He was re-elected to his second and final term as governor of California in a landslide victory in 2022. With no political threats to fend off in the Golden State, he has focused on increasing his national recognition, giving speeches in other states, and running national TV adverts. He has amplified his political profile by wading into this years White House race, casting himself as an attack dog who is prepared to aggressively take on prominent Republicans. His strategy included challenging Ron DeSantis, Floridas governor and one-time GOP 2024 presidential candidate, to a debate. The actions caused some unease in the White House, where aides feared he could launch a challenge against Mr Biden, although he publicly and privately assured the president otherwise. Mr Newsom has tacked to the Left of the Democrat party, which may dampen appeal among centrist voters who backed Mr Biden in 2020. He has enacted more than a dozen laws aimed at making California a sanctuary for women seeking abortions in states where the procedure is now banned. Mr Newsom has also championed green policies, ordering a ban on the sale of new fossil-fuel cars by 2035. And he has looked to ease obstacles for illegal immigrants, making California the first state to offer health insurance for all undocumented immigrants. Gretchen Whitmer, 52, secured a convincing victory in the swing state of Michigan in 2020. Like Mr Newsom, Ms Whitmer is a rising star of the Democratic party who tends to be sought out by American news networks sniffing out possible future presidents. Mr Biden considered her as a running mate in 2020 she was reportedly one of four who made the all-female shortlist before Kamala Harris was selected and she has publicly clashed with Donald Trump before. She shot down speculation last year about a presidential bid, saying she wanted to see out her second term as governor and supported Mr Biden. But she has hinted at running at the next election in 2029. She successfully turned an insult from Mr Trump that woman in Michigan into a slogan that raised her national profile. Her personal brand is connected with the abortion debate: she has accused Donald Trump of lying about his stance on reproductive rights (she suspects he would seek a national ban on abortion), and won her won reelection in 2022 against a Trump-endorsed opponent, Tudor Dixon, who was considered to be at the extreme end of the anti-abortion right. That victory she came home by a handy 11 percentage points, a much more than polls predicted will only add to her allure for Democrats looking for a candidate who can take on the right. Another name mentioned is Sherrod Brown, the last Democrat senator in Republican voting state of Ohio. A career politician and at 71, he is one of a small clutch of Red State Democrats who owe their political success to a strong personal brand and local issues. Mr Browns brand is messy hair, a rumpled suit and a working man persona. He is an ally of Bernie Sanders and considered one of the most liberal figures in the Democrat party which is one reason he is sometimes suggested as someone who could unify the partys establishment and progressive wings. He was considered as a running mate for Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential run. Mr Beshears potential appeal to the Democrats can be summed up in the headline of a recent Wall Street Journal profile of him: This Democratic Governor Knows How to Win in a Red State. Is His Party Listening? He has twice won the governorship in a determinedly Red State. Hes rated as the most popular Democratic governor in the country, and his name has come up as a potential presidential candidate since he first took office in 2019. Like many of the others mentioned as a possible replacement for Biden, he is thought to be considering a run in 2028. In Americas ultra-polarised political climate, a Democrat who can reach across the political divide to Republican voters would be a massive asset. His political brand - which boils down to a mild mannered demeanor and expressing compassion for all - does well in his home state. But not everyone is convinced his appeal is transferable. At home he has the advantage of a local political dynasty - his father was also Kentucky state governor - and the bond he forged with Kentuckians during Covid and a series of natural disasters in the state may be difficult to replicate nationally. And would a Democrat party dominated by liberal coastal cities be ready to nominate a southern White man? The most obvious option in establishment Democrat circles is of course vice-president Kamala Harris. Following his announcement that he would not stand for reflection, Mr Biden endorsed Ms Harris as his replacement. However, she polls worse than the president and may be sunk by her close work with the president. Members of Mr Bidens cabinet, including transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, are also considered viable contenders. Nevertheless, Democrats who are intimately acquainted with Mr Biden insist there is little that can be done to dissuade him from seeking a second term. Insiders suggest the two voices the president plays closest attention to his wife Jill and his sister Valerie remain staunchly supportive of his re-election bid. David Axelrod, a former chief strategist for Barack Obama, told CNN: The idea he would walk away from this is pretty remote. But his job got harder tonight. 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 picture provided shows ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess (L) and AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw speak at a press conference. Two Australian citizens of Russian origin have been arrested in Australia on espionage charges. The 40 and 62-year-old married couple are accused of obtaining material from the Australian armed forces in order to pass it on to the Russian authorities, the Australian National Police announced. -/AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE/AP/dpa Two Australian nationals accused of spying for Russia have been arrested in Australia, federal police said on Friday. The Russian-born married couple, aged 40 and 62, are accused of "obtaining Australian Defence Force material" with the intention of leaking it to Russian authorities, Australian police said in a statement. The 40-year-old woman is an Army Private in the Australian army, according to the police. The couple was arrested in their house in a Brisbane suburb on Thursday, police said. They have been charged with "one count each of preparing for an espionage offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years' imprisonment," according to the statement. The woman is said to have secretly travelled to Russia while on leave from the army, from where she instructed her husband "on how to log into her official work account, and guided him to access specific information to send directly to her private email account while she was in Russia." Police said "the woman's ADF account credentials were used on a number of occasions to access sensitive ADF information, with the intent to provide it to Russian authorities." Whether any sensitive data had reached Russian authorities was still being investigated, it said. A picture provided shows ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess (L) and AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw speak at a press conference. Two Australian citizens of Russian origin have been arrested in Australia on espionage charges. The 40 and 62-year-old married couple are accused of obtaining material from the Australian armed forces in order to pass it on to the Russian authorities, the Australian National Police announced. -/AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE/AP/dpa Professional footballer Anwar El Ghazi in the labor court on his way to the hearing. The Mainz labour court ruled that El Ghazi's contract termination by Bundesliga club Mainz in connection with pro-Palestine posts was invalid. Presiding judge Bettina Chaudhry justified the decision saying that there was no breach of duty that would make it necessary to terminate the employment relationship without notice. Arne Dedert/dpa The Mainz labour court ruled that Anwar El Ghazi's contract termination by Bundesliga club Mainz in connection with pro-Palestine posts was invalid. Presiding judge Bettina Chaudhry justified the decision saying that there was no breach of duty that would make it necessary to terminate the employment relationship without notice. The case started when Mainz suspended El Ghazi over a pro-Palestine post on Instagram, which he later deleted, after the October 7 attack on Israel by militant group Hamas from the Gaza Strip. El Ghazi briefly returned to training after a club statement said he had distanced himself from the post. But El Ghazi swiftly dismissed this in another post, and his contract was terminated without notice by Mainz on November 3. His contract was to run until 2025. He's entitled to around 1.7 million euros in outstanding salaries and bonus payments and should also be reinstated as a licenced professional. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The Cow Valley Fire in Oregons Malheur County has seen substantial fire growth since it sparked Thursday, burning more than 115 square miles as of Friday morning. The blaze sits at an estimated 73,727 acres with 0% containment, according to the State of Oregons Fires and Hotspots Dashboard. In light of this, the Fire Marshal had to mobilize task forces from Umatilla and Multnomah counties overnight to assist in trying to control what officials described as a fast-moving wildfire, pushed by strong winds and triple-digit temperatures. (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) (Courtesy: Nicholas Alexander) Further, a Fire Weather Watch has been put in place in the area by the National Weather Service due to forecasted lightning. Oregon list of heat-related deaths climbs to at least 13 during July 2024 heat wave The weather conditions we are seeing across Oregon are extremely concerning. The forecast over the weekend for much of Eastern Oregon will not be doing us any favors, Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said. The state has seen numerous human-caused wildfires over the last few weeks, and I am asking everyone to be careful and aware of the extreme fire conditions, especially with lightning in the forecast. This prompted Gov. Tina Kotek to invoke the Emergency Conflagration Act for the fire on Friday, which allows the state fire marshal to mobilize state resources to protect life and property. Greater Idaho leaders invite Gov. Kotek to discuss potential border movement As a result, two other task forces from Lane and Marion counties have also been called to assist in the fires containment. In a statement, Kotek said she authorized the extra help in part due to weather that is expected to increase the activity of wildfires over the weekend. The majority of our states wildfires are human-caused. I urge all Oregonians to take extreme precautions, particularly with lightning in the forecast for this weekend, the Governor said. It is incumbent on all of us to keep Oregon green and protect our communities. The Fire Marshal said any evacuation notices will be issued by the Malheur County Sheriffs Office. Further, Malheur County Emergency Management and the Red Cross have a shelter in Girvin Hall at the Malheur County Fairgrounds. This is a developing story. Stay with KOIN 6 News for updates. 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 fire in Malheur County Oregon is consuming 25 square miles, or 16,000 acres, and threatens 30-50 homes, the Oregon State Fire Marshal announced on Thursday. The Fire Marshal had to mobilize task forces from Umatilla and Multnomah counties to assist in trying to control what officials described as a fast-moving wildfire. The east side of the state has faced challenging fire conditions over the last week. The Cow Valley Fire is being pushed by gusty winds and low humidity, said Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple in a release. We are using an essential tool and the power of the Oregon Fire Mutual Aid System to provide added resources to the Cow Valley Fire. Firefighters funded through the 2024 Wildfire Season Staffing Grant allowed a quicker response for the local agencies. The Cow Valley Fire changed directions early Thursday evening, making it travel eastbound toward the town, the Malheur County Sheriffs Office said. They are advising people to be prepared to vacate their homes as its expected that an emergency message ordering an evacuation may be released soon. Officials said the Multnomah County task force previously assigned to the Larch Creek Fire were diverted to the Cow Valley Fire Thursday night. This is a developing story. KOIN 6 News will update this article if 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 KOIN.com. BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese defense spokesperson on Friday urged the Philippines to withdraw its personnel and ships illegally stationed at Xianbin Jiao of the Nansha Qundao in the South China Sea. Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks while responding to a media query regarding China Coast Guard's measures against the Philippine ships transferring personnel and supplies to its Coast Guard ships illegally stationed at Xianbin Jiao. Noting that China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Qundao, including Xianbin Jiao, Zhang said the law enforcement operations of the Chinese side are legitimate and justified, and the Philippine side has seriously violated China's sovereignty and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, particularly Article 5. The spokesperson said that such actions have escalated tensions in the South China Sea and further undermined regional peace and stability. "We urge the Philippine side to immediately withdraw its personnel and ships, and stop heading down the wrong path," said Zhang. Sacramento, Calif. is ablaze with rumors that the City Attorneys Office threatened a local Target store with a public nuisance citation due to a high volume of calls to law enforcement about shoplifting and retail theft. The Sacramento Bee reported this week that a person who had knowledge of the warningbut was not authorized to speak on the issuenamed a Target location on Riverside Blvd. in the Land Park neighborhood as the store in question. More from Sourcing Journal Following the report, law enforcement groups like the California Police Chiefs Association spoke out against the potential charge. The Sacramento Observer reported that the groups president, Robert Davis, lambasted the City Attorneys Office for the outrageous warning, noting that retailers should be reporting legitimate retail crime. The kicker? City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood maintains that the supposed warning was never issued. In an exclusive conversation with Sourcing Journal, Wood said her office didnt threaten Target with a fine or nuisance litigation, calling the report a fabrication by an unknown source. I was as shocked as anybody else to read that the story was in my office threatened to bring any kind of enforcement action against them, because thats just not true, the City Attorney said. Its a little bit ridiculous to think that we would take enforcement action against a business for calling the police department. According to Woods office, there was a high volume of calls to the Sacramento Police Department involving the Target store in Land Park, as well as calls about issues in the surrounding area, throughout 2023. The police department was the one that was fielding the complaints from the neighborhood, and then they were able to get the Councilmembers office involved, she explained. Sacramento City Councilman Rick Jennings met with Target corporate representatives and local police last spring and summer to develop a strategy to address the high levels of retail crime and disturbance around the store. The parties worked together to implement a process dubbed Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). The concept takes into account a stores physical features, from landscaping to the management of outdoor environments, as a means of deterring crime and increasing the safety of the area. CPTED programs are in place nationally, and can include the placement of cameras or the reconfiguration of store entrances and exits as a means of optimizing security and discouraging criminal acts. Wood said that conditions at the Land Park Target have improved since the process was put in place last year, and noted that a representative from her office was present at the meeting between Target, the police and the Councilmans office. She also explained that the City Attorneys Office does, on some occasions, need to get involved in complaints against businesses. By way of example, Wood said that if a high volume of crime, like drug dealing, is taking place outside of a liquor store, and police are forced to repeatedly respond to calls related to the disturbances without the business help in deterring illegal activity, a public nuisance abatement action could be filed. Such an action might take place if the business is believed to have contributed to facilitating an environment where crime can occur, and it becomes a bother or a danger to the public. But in the case of the Sacramento Target store, Wood maintained that was not the case, calling the report asinine. This is not the first time a Sacramento Target has made the news for high volumes of retail theft. Ironically, last fall, the big-box retailer was called out publicly by Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper for placing optics above public safety. The sheriff took to X and ripped Target for preventing deputies from engaging with suspects inside the store during a sting operation, instead forcing them to wait until the thieves exited to make arrests away from the watchful eyes of shoppers. Last fall, Target closed nine stores across the country, including three locations in the nearby San Francisco Bay Area, due to untenable levels of retail crime. The company said in September that it cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance. Rising retail crime is a red-hot topic in California politics, with lawmakers from across the state scrambling to address the issue with legislative proposals. The California Retail Theft Reduction Act, introduced by State Assembly Democratic Caucus chair Rick Chavez Zbur in February, would create a new crime classification for possessing stolen merchandise with the intent to resell. It was unanimously passed by the Assembly in May with State Senate approval pending. Meanwhile, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, which would reverse Prop. 47, lowering the felony threshold for property crimes, is likely headed to the polls in November. The federal government has awarded nearly $1 billion in additional funding to the state for the replacement of the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod, the governor said Friday. That brings the total funding for the massive bridge project to $1.72 billion, in addition to $700 million in state funding, Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. The $993 million awarded to the state Department of Transportation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Laws Bridge Investment Program, Healey said. State officials project construction on the Sagamore Bridge would start in late 2028 through at least 2035 or 2036. The project is expected to create more the 9,000 union construction jobs. In October, a Congressional report stressed the need to replace the aging Bourne and Sagamore Bridges on Cape Cod, with the report noting failure to replace the bridges would be catastrophic. Lawmakers said the funding is the result of over a decade of work to upgrade the aging bridges that millions of motorists travel through annually to get to Cape Cod. The question is no longer about how to fund the replacement of the Sagamore Bridge but when shovels will go in the ground to build it, Congressman Bill Keating said in a statement on Friday. The new Sagamore Bridge will be more than just a connection between two sides of the Canal, it is a lifeline for the quarter of a million people who live on Cape Cod and the economic driver that brings workers and tourists back and forth every day, Keating said. Construction complete on Sagamore Bridge, closures ending today Both bridges are considered functionally obsolete, officials said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which owns and maintains both bridges, has rated the Bourne Bridge in poor condition and the Sagamore Bridge in fair condition. The nearly 90-year-old bridges are the gateway to the Cape, and this federal funding is the missing piece to replace the Sagamore Bridge and launch Phase One of the project to replace both bridges, Sen. Ed Markey said in a statement. Replacing these aging bridges will bring immense economic, environmental, and social benefits to the region and the entire Commonwealth, Markey said. Lawmakers and Healey said the project to replace the two bridges is essential for supporting the economy of Cape Cod and surrounding communities and ensuring safe and reliable travel for residents, workers and millions of annual visitors. This is a game-changing award for Massachusetts. Weve never been closer to rebuilding the Cape Cod Bridges than we are right now. This funding will be critical for getting shovels in the ground, Healey said Friday. Healey and lawmakers said the project will bring the bridges into a state of good repair, lower long-term maintenance costs, address traffic issues, improve safety by reducing crashes by as much as 48 percent and create new direct jobs and other economic benefits. The new design will also have shared-use paths to fill transportation gaps and make the bridges more accessible to pedestrians, cyclists and people with mobility devices, officials said. In March, MassDOT signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, outlining the terms in which MassDOT will take the lead on the project to replace the two federally-owned bridges, and subsequently own, operate and maintain the new structures. MassDOT is also currently working with the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Environmental Policy Act, Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Highway Administration on the environmental review and permitting processes, Healey said. This grant award gives us the momentum we need to move ahead with the project to replace the Sagamore Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal and to lay the groundwork to replace the Bourne Bridge, Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt said in a statement. The state is pursuing additional federal dollars to fund additional project phases, including for the Bourne Bridge, Healey said. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW The Crystal Police Department asked the Hennepin County Attorney's Office to file formal charges against a man who allegedly has ties to the theft of Judy Garland's famous "Wizard of Oz" footwear. The suburban police department is asking that Jerry Hal Saliterman, 76, be charged with organized retail theft, conspiracy to commit theft, receiving stolen property, and domestic assault, based on evidence found at his home during the ruby slippers investigation. Earlier this year, Saliterman was indicted by a federal jury for the theft of a major artwork a traveling pair of the ruby slippers worn by the actress in the classic film and witness tampering. The FBI, tracking the ruby slippers case, asked the Crystal Police Department to take on the investigation of the other $400,000 in merchandise and artwork found during investigations at Saliterman's home, seemingly stolen goods collected over 18 years. Tools used for burglary and ledgers with details of eBay sales were also located, according to a news release from the police department. The slippers, recovered in a sting operation in 2018, were one of several pairs worn by Garland in the film and were owned by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw when they were stolen. Local investigators said there is evidence that he was in a long-term pattern of domestic harassment against his wife to keep her from telling authorities about the crime ring. His physical assaults and threats "caused his wife to live in constant fear for many years," according to the news release. Terry Jon Martin pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing the slippers in October 2023, sharing scant details about the 2005 heist from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids. He told of taking a sledgehammer to the museum's emergency exit and the plexiglass display case. After his unnamed fence told him that the slippers weren't made with real gems, he never saw them again, he said. Investigators said they were buried in a clear plastic case in Saliterman's backyard for years after being first treated to erase DNA. Martin, who was in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he faced the federal judge, was sentenced to supervised probation and to make restitution payments to the museum. The keepers of the Judy Garland Museum are in the process of trying to secure money to purchase the ruby slippers when they go up for auction in December. They received $100,000 from the state as part of the Minnesota Legacy Finance Bill. The slippers are currently on a world tour. From the Boiling Frogs on The Dispatch The Never Trump narrative about Republican politicians whove converted to Trumpism goes something like this: On some level, the convert understands that what hes supporting is morally and civically foul. His or her true self finds the authoritarian project repugnant. But human beings are weak, especially when their ambition has convinced them that theyre destined to lead. If the path to power now runs through post-liberalism, they end up reasoning, destiny commands that they follow that path. Before long, theyre warming up the crowd at Trump rallies. Ive spun that narrative in this newsletter many times myself about figures as diverse as Elise Stefanik, Marco Rubio, and J.D. Vance. Reading through John McCormacks excellent profile of Vance this morning, though, I wonder if Ive gotten it wrong. Why should anyone assume that J.D. Vances true self has reservations about serving a coup-plotting sociopath? Right, right, I know: The 2016 version of Vance was clear-eyed about the threat from Trump and Trumpism, as John describes in detail. Trump is cultural heroin, the future senator wrote at the time, a pregnant metaphor given MAGAs popularity in rural America. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day theyll realize it. Surely thats evidence of what his true self believes. Is it, though? Or is that just how a normal person comprehends extreme cynicism? One could easily argue that the current iteration of Vance is the true one and the 2016 version was fake. When he called Trump cultural heroin eight years ago, he had every reason to assume the new GOP nominee would lose ignominiously to Hillary Clinton and end the rights infatuation with nationalism. The smart bet at the time for an ambitious young conservative from the professional class was to ingratiate himself to the political establishment by denouncing an amoral populist insurgent. They would reward him for it later when he entered politics himself. Vance miscalculated. Then he adapted. Normal people puzzling over which version of Vance is his true self should consider the possibility that, for politicians of extreme ambition, there is no true self as the concept is commonly understood. They are what they need to be to get ahead, period, irrespective of moral or civic considerations. Theyre less converts than reptiles, a distinct species. J.D. Vance is good enough at being what he needs to be to have made himself the frontrunner for a national ticket before he turns 40. And you know what? Good. This country deserves him. In calling him the frontrunner, Im speculating. But its informed speculation. Reporting on Trumps VP deliberations universally names Vance as one of three finalists along with Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. On Thursday, Axios pointed out that Donald Trump Jr., one of Vances boosters, is scheduled to speak immediately before the vice presidential nominee at the Republican convention next Wednesdaythats supposedly been in the cards for weeks. It would make sense to have a fan introduce Vance to America. Also on Thursday, Politico reported that the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, is tentatively set to speak on Wednesday as well. Ohio is Vances home state, of course, and redressing the 2023 chemical spill in East Palestine has been a pet cause of his. The head of the local government would be an obvious choice for Republicans to tout Vances concern for the forgotten man on a big stage. Even before we had those tea leaves, I assumed hed be the pick. Donald Trumps Republican Party is a kakistocracy and Vance is plainly the most loathsome figure among the final three. What I cant figure out, though, is what Trump thinks hell gain from putting Vance on the ticket. Normally, theres some discernible electoral purpose underlying a vice presidential choice, as there was when Trump made evangelical favorite Mike Pence his running mate in 2016. Whats the supposed electoral purpose in this case? National victory runs through the Rust Belt and Vance is from the Rust Belt. Right, but its not like he was a juggernaut in his one race for office. He ran behind every statewide Republican candidate in Ohios general election in 2022 and was at dire risk of losing the GOP Senate primary before Trump rescued him. Sen. Mitch McConnells super PAC ended up spending more than $30 million to drag him over the finish line in November despite the fact that Ohio had become a solidly red state in the Trump era. Trump doesnt need help in the Midwest from a candidate whose career wouldnt exist without him. And even if you insist on believing that Vance is worth a little something in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, is he worth more than Marco Rubio is worth in enticing Hispanics and college grads nationwide to vote Republican this year? Vance is a populist and Trump needs help with populist voters. To believe thisand some dois like believing in 2012 that Barack Obama needed a black vice president to help him with African American voters. Trump will win the populist vote by Saddam Hussein margins with or without J.D. Vance, notwithstanding whatever disappointments those voters might harbor about his first-term record. Theyre not switching to a globalist neoliberal with dementia or a progressive black woman from San Francisco after four years of griping about the current White House. And interest nationally in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been fading for months. Frankly, at the rate things are going, Trump could underperform with populists in November and still win easily. But if hes keen to enhance his appeal to an otherwise reluctant constituency, wouldnt he be better off with a traditionally conservative running mate like Rubio or Burgum to help convince jittery suburbanites that a second Trump term will be normal? Vance is young and American voters are desperate for younger leaders. Leave it to the GOP to respond to widespread anxiety about leaders who are too old by offering leaders who are too young. Vance isnt just young, after all, hes really young. The youngest president in American history was Theodore Roosevelt, who ascended to the office a few weeks shy of turning 43. The youngest person elected to the presidency was John F. Kennedy, also 43. Vance wont turn 43 for another three years. Donald Trump will turn 80 before then. Vance has all of 18 months experience in government at any level, less than any modern president except his would-be running mate. Burgum, by comparison, has been governor for nearly eight years, and Rubio has served in the Senate for more than a decade. Lacking experience is arguably more of an asset than a liability for a national hopeful in 2024, but I dont know that Americans want to place another high-stakes wager on a potential presidents fitness for office after suffering through the trauma of the Trump and Biden administrations. And insofar as Vances youth places him closer to the problems of young people, its worth noting that Rubio is still young enough to have two children in high school. And, like most young Americans but very much unlike J.D. Vance, Rubio doesnt get to pay his kids tuition with earnings from a venture capital firm he launched. Having Vance next in line will discourage the Senate from removing Trump from office. Yes, really, this claim is being made semi-seriously by none other than Donald Trump Jr. Supposedly, the dreaded RINOs in Congress will impeach and remove Trump from the presidency lickety split if an establishment darling like Rubio is poised to replace him but not if a dogmatic populist like Vance is. Its pure paranoid idiocy. If weve learned nothing else in the last five years, we should at least have learned that Donald Trump could blow up the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and still wouldnt come close to drawing 67 votes in the Senate to oust him. So long as his support among the right-wing base holds, theres nothing he could do to turn a meaningful number of congressional Republicans against him. Literally nothing. Having a MAGA convert like Vance on the ticket will help persuade anti-Trump voters to convert as well. The problem with this argument is that Rubio and Burgum are also former anti-Trumpers so they can fill the same niche. If anything, Rubio would be a more effective public evangelist for conversion because his criticism of Trump played out in the spotlight of a presidential primary in 2016. But even if you grant that Vance would be the best man for this particular job, its easy to imagine how it might backfire. Democrats will bombard Republicans with ads showcasing Vances acidic criticism of Trump eight years agocultural heroin, Americas Hitler, and numerous other uncomfortable soundbites. Having digested those ads, will the average Trump-leery voter perceive Vances sudden enthusiasm for Trump as a stirring call to reconsider their own feelings about him? Or will they conclude that Vance is just another phony Republican sycophant babbling insincere praise about Trump that neednt be taken seriously? Theres no good electoral argument for putting Vance on the ticket. Burgum would be a do-no-harm pick who can help bankroll the campaign and whose normalcy might reassure swing voters. Rubio could help expand the GOP tent demographically and give traditional conservatives reason to believe theyre still wanted in the party. Vance simply helps Trump further lock down the sort of populists who have been locked down for years. So why does Trump seem poised to put him on the ticket? I suspect Trump would agree that theres no real electoral case for elevating Vancebefore quickly adding that it doesnt matter. Watching Bidens slide in the polls, and sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars for an advertising blitz that would punctuate the presidents visible decrepitude, Trumps team entered the summer believing that a landslide awaited in the fall, Tim Alberta recently reported for The Atlantic. In a tight election like 2016 or 2020, the Republican nominee might feel obliged to make a safe pick like Rubio or Burgum to maximize his chances of winning. But if hes going to win comfortably anyway, why not choose a running mate with whom hes ideologically and demagogically simpatico? As John notes in his piece, all the worst demagogues in the MAGA movement are excited about a Trump-Vance ticket. Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and Trump Jr. reportedly support the ideaand why wouldnt they? For eight years, the populist-nationalist political project has been consumed with seizing control of the Republican Party, purging it of disloyal classical liberals, and consolidating power in hopes of cementing the GOP as a post-liberal party. Defeating Democrats has always been a secondary priority for them. Thats the essence of the Republican hostage crisis. If your highest political ambition is making the American right safe for degenerate authoritarianism, who better to elevate by placing him on the national ticket than J.D. Vance? Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio may not know what time it is, but J.D. does, as I noted in the first piece I wrote for The Dispatch. Hes endorsed doing uncomfortable things politically to navigate Americas late-republican period, including defying Supreme Court rulings if necessary. When asked if Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6, Vance has said no: As vice president, he would have abetted Trumps coup attempt by refusing to certify Bidens victory until swing states won by the Democrat submitted alternate pro-Trump electoral slates for consideration by Congress. Hes an illiberal reptile for whom other illiberal reptiles practically glow with enthusiasm. Doesnt this party, and this country, deserve him as Donald Trumps running mate? Look at this poll and tell me that the American right doesnt deserve J.D. Vance: It would bother me a lot if the cult leader flushed the Constitution down the toilet in order to persecute his opponents is now a minority position in the Republican Party. Adding Doug Burgum or Marco Rubio to the leadership of a movement like that would feel ridiculous. Not so with J.D. For a pathological liar, Trump is often startlingly honest about his ambitions. And I appreciate honesty, especially in radicals, as it clarifies political outcomes. If he had hidden his authoritarian plans this year and won reelection by running exclusively on, say, sealing the border, the lesson of his victory would be cloudy and complicated. Did Americans choose post-liberalism or did they merely choose stronger immigration enforcement, unaware of the comprehensive post-liberal project being smuggled into the White House? Trump isnt hiding anything, though. Well, maybe hes hiding a littlebut when hes already tried to overthrow the government, has been convicted of dozens of felonies, is openly celebrating having absolute immunity from prosecution for certain crimes he might commit as president, and is babbling about retribution to anyone wholl listen, Id say voters have received sufficient notice of whats to come in a second term. Having J.D. Vance on the ticket would further clarify the electorates choice in a way that Burgum or Rubio wouldnt. Do Americans want to stick with the constitutional order, or are they ready to lean in to the idea that weve entered a late-republican period? Thats the only consolation I can find in the prospect of another Trump presidency. America will deserve it. And the clearer it becomes whats in store, the more deserving well be. Every civic agony Trump visits upon us, every constitutional crisis he causes, will be something the country collectively chose despite having every reason to know what awaited it. I wont enjoy living through it, of course, but theres always some moral gratification in seeing people suffer terrible consequences for their own terrible actions. Moral gratification or schadenfreude, I suppose. To-may-to, to-mah-to. And so the case against Vice President Vance is ultimately the case for Vice President Vance. Hes awful, but so is the modern right. And in a representative democracy, the people deserve to see themselves reflected in their candidates. Trump should give us what we deserve. 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. A father is facing a second-degree murder charge after his 2-year-old daughter died in a hot car in Arizona, authorities said. The dad, 37-year-old Christopher Scholtes, told officers that when he arrived home Tuesday afternoon, his daughter was still asleep in her car seat, the Marana Police Department said. MORE: 5-year-old boy dies after being left in hot car for 7 hours; foster mom arrested: Police Scholtes said he went inside the house and left the 2-year-old sleeping in the car in the driveway, police said. Scholtes said he left the car running and the air conditioning on, according to police. PHOTO: Two year-old girl dies after being found in hot car in Marana, Ariz., on July 10, 2024. (KGUN) MORE: 4-month-old baby dies in extreme heat wave: Tips to keep kids safe The girl was in the car for about three hours, police said. The temperature in Marana reached a scorching 111 degrees on Tuesday. When the girl's parents went to get her, the car was no longer running and the air conditioning was off, police said. It's not clear when or how the car shut off, according to police. PHOTO: Two year-old girl dies after being found in hot car in Marana, Ariz., on July 10, 2024. (KGUN) The 2-year-old was taken to Banner University Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, police said. Scholtes was arrested Friday morning for second-degree murder and child abuse, police said. According to the police department, the Arizona statute says a person can be charged with second-degree murder "if without premeditation. ... Knowing that the person's conduct will cause death or serious physical injury, the person causes the death of another person, including an unborn child or, as a result of knowingly causing the death of another person, causes the death of an unborn child; or Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life, the person recklessly engages in conduct that creates a grave risk of death and thereby causes the death of another person, including an unborn child or, as a result of recklessly causing the death of another person, causes the death of an unborn child." MORE: When will the extreme heat end? What the current forecasts are saying "This incident is a stark reminder of the dangers of leaving children unattended in vehicles. The temperature inside a vehicle can rise rapidly, even on relatively mild days, leading to potentially fatal outcomes within minutes," police said in a statement Friday. "We urge all parents and caregivers to remain vigilant." At least 10 children have died in hot cars in the U.S. so far this year, according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org. Since 1990, at least 1,094 children have died in hot cars -- and about 88% of those kids are 3 years old or younger, according to KidsAndCars.org. Click here for hot car safety tips to keep in mind this summer. Dad of 2-year-old girl who died in hot car arrested for 2nd-degree murder originally appeared on abcnews.go.com PORTSMOUTH A long legal dispute between the owner of the historic but fire-damaged former Daily Times building and the city has reignited. The attorney for 278 State St. building owner Peter Floros contends in a letter to the City Council that the downtown structure is dangerous, and must be demolished to protect public safety. Attorney John Kuzinevich, who represents Floros, states that according to the citys Housing Code, the building must be demolished to protect the safety of the public. The owner agrees and wishes to demolish the building, Kuzinevich wrote in a letter he sent to Mayor Deaglan McEachern and the City Council Wednesday. A fence partially surrounds the former Daily Times building at 278 State Street, which was damaged in an April 2017 fire in Portsmouth and has yet to be redeveloped At this point it appears the city is shirking its duty to protect public safety by failing to enforce the Housing Code, he added in the letter. Kuzinevich specifically called out the citys Historic District Commission for what he called a decision to put aesthetics over safety because they wont allow Floros to raze the building. A major downtown fire in April 2017 damaged several buildings in the heart of the citys Historic District, and destroyed the former location of the State Street Saloon. The building is more commonly known as the historic 1850 Daily Times building. The downtown site, which is partially enclosed by a fence, has not been redeveloped since the fire. Portsmouth attorney calls accusations 'pure fiction' City Attorney Susan Morrell issued a statement in response to Kuzinevichs allegations. She calls the representations in this letter pure fiction, manufactured by Attorney Kuzinevich to place the city in a negative light. The city has been engaged in a land use dispute and litigation with the property owner since the fire in 2017. Throughout this time, it has been the responsibility of the property owner to secure the safety of the building, a duty which has been neglected, she said in a statement released to the Portsmouth Herald. The city, for its part, has repeatedly directed the property owner in writing to fulfill this responsibility and protect the general public by securing the building. The city continues to actively pursue enforcement options. Kuzinevich contends in the letter that the cause of the issue is the intransigence of the Historic District Commission. Their insistence on preserving brick exterior walls has resulted in seven years of design work only to reach the conclusion that any design preserving the facade is a marginal design, which cannot be built within any economic reason, he told the City Council. The preservation of the brick walls adds millions to construction cost, which will never be recouped. Floros, according to his attorney, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on design and development plans for the property which cannot ultimately be economically executed. The city cannot force Mr. Floros to develop an uneconomic project, Kuzinevich added. Building owner accused of 'demolition by neglect' A fire in 2017 severly damaged the former Daily Times building in downtown Portsmouth, shown here Friday morning Morrell contends in her statement that instead of submitting a development plan for this property, the property owner sought to demolish the remaining building in 2017. The HDC denied the request, and Floros appealed the decision to Superior Court, which ruled in favor of the citys land-use board in 2023. More Portsmouth news: Is 360-apartment project at Christmas Tree Shops site in jeopardy? What has happened over this time is demolition by neglect on the part of the property owner, Morrell said. The property owner has continued to ignore the courts decision and the direction of the city officials and instead sought administrative approval to demolish the building. When that was denied, he again appealed to the Superior Court, she said. In June, the court dismissed Floros latest lawsuit, she said. Inspector asks owner to make building safe The citys chief building inspector recently asked Floros to provide a plan to shore up the buildings structure. Chief Building Inspector Shanti Wolph asked Floros to provide a report on how to make the building safe in order to protect the public safety. Wolph stated in his letter that during an April site visit to the property it was evident that the roof had not remained in place as ordered by the former chief building inspector in July 2017. It was clear that water was pouring in, and the open sky was visible, which contributed to further deterioration, Wolph said in the June 20 letter. Additionally, it was apparent that the exterior brick facade and corbels are failing. If the facade collapses, there will be a significant threat to life safety, Wolph added. Wolph asked the owner to provide a report from a licensed New Hampshire structural engineer detailing how the building will be made safe, or certifying that the building is safe, by July 19. Building called unsafe for workers Morrell stated the city looks forward to receiving the engineering report on or before the deadline of July 19, as to how the property owner plans to make the building safe and comply with the rulings of our land use boards and the court. There are no redevelopment plans or requests for demolition pending before any of our land use boards, the city attorney reported. We trust our land use boards to view all applications individually and on their own merits. Kuzinevich referenced Wolphs request, saying while an engineering report has not yet been completed, on a preliminary basis, we believe that no temporary repairs exist which can address the safety issues. The building has deteriorated and it is even unsafe for workers to enter it. Twice in the past, Mr. Floros has met the citys request for temporary repairs, Kuzinevich said in the letter. In due course, they failed as no temporary repair can be sufficient for a seven year permitting process as caused by the HDC. The attorney stated with any construction completely uneconomic, it is unknown when, or if ever, a project will be built at the site. The only solution is demolition. Straightforward application of the citys own Housing Code solves this issue immediately, he said. Kuzinevich in his letter quotes from Portsmouths housing code, which states "in any case where a dangerous building is 50 percent damaged or decayed or deteriorated from its original value or structure, it shall be demolished. He believes the City Council has a responsibility under its own regulations to appoint members to a Building Commission, have a hearing on 278 State St. and issue a demolition order. Should anything happen to a member of the public, it will be due to the citys inaction, its unreasonable cause of conduct and its efforts to evade an unambiguous ordinance which it adopted, Kuzinevich stated. Reached Thursday, he said we hope that the parties will work together in the best interest of safety for the city and its citizens. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Daily Times building fight reignites in Portsmouth NH Danny Elfman Sued for Defamation by Composer Nomi Abadi After She Previously Accused Him of Sexual Harassment Abadi's legal team filed the lawsuit after Elfman denied her previous misconduct claims, which came to light last year Kayla Oaddams/WireImage; David Crotty/Getty Danny Elfman; Nomi Abadi Danny Elfman, film composer and Oingo Boingo founder, has been sued for defamation by fellow composer Nomi Abadi over statements he gave to Rolling Stone last year in denial of her past sexual harassment claims against him, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE. Abadi alleged that she faced sexual misconduct at the hands of Elfman on multiple occasions in 2016, the outlet previously reported. She claimed he masturbated in front of her more than once, photographed her naked in a Paris hotel and presented her with a martini glass that he said was filled with semen, per the outlet. They later entered an $830,000 settlement, and Abadi filed a breach of contract lawsuit last year featuring claims that Elfman failed to deliver multiple payments, according to Rolling Stone. Since then, the outlet reported, her legal team has been unsuccessful in multiple attempts to find a date with Elfman's lawyers for arbitration. Elfman denied all the accusations and told the publication Abadi asked for the photoshoot. In the new lawsuit, her legal team alleges the Nightmare Before Christmas musician's statements "were not merely false and unconscionable, but defamatory." Related: Danny Elfman Denies 'Meritless' and 'Absurd' Sexual Abuse Allegations amid Lawsuit Phillip Faraone/IndieWire via Getty Danny Elfman in Hollywood in June 2023 "Defendant Danny Elfman peddled appalling lies for publication to Rolling Stone about Nomi, who had previously in an earlier lawsuit truthfully relayed facts corroborating his penchant to sexually abuse women," reads the suit. "Why? As part of a harebrained zero sum scheme by Elfman to prop up his checkered reputation by destroying Nomis credibility." Lawyers for Elfman did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. Abadi's legal team had no additional comment. In a statement to Rolling Stone responding to Abadi's allegations of misconduct last year, Elfman said, "I allowed someone to get close to me without knowing that I was her childhood crush and that her intention was to break up my marriage and replace my wife. When this person realized that I wanted distance from her, she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her. I allowed an ill-advised friendship to have far-reaching consequences, and that error in judgment is entirely my fault." According to the new lawsuit, Abadi claims Elfman's denials were defamatory and wrongly paint her as "a failed temptress who lied about him for reasons of revenge and greed." She additionally alleges that he "coerced" her into the nude photoshoot, during which he attempted to engage in sexual acts, leaving her feeling "terrified" and "frozen." Abadi's suit also alleges Elfman's comments to Rolling Stone denying the martini glass incident were defamatory. She claims he presented her with the semen-filled glass at his studio kitchen as she "sat in silence, terrified, gagging from the putrid smell coming from the glass of off-white substance, which was semen ejaculate." Araya Doheny/Getty Danny Elfman "Elfman lied about Nomi, branding her as a scorned woman attempting to break up his marriage, and as someone who initiated nude photography. Elfmans defamations accuse Nomi as engaging in sexual misconduct or unchastity," reads the suit. As a result of Abadi's alleged experiences, according to the documents, she's "suffered significant emotional distress, including anxiety, depression, complex PTSD, bodily harm from stress, retraumatization, nervousness, fear for her personal safety, humiliation, and harm to her professional reputation and her occupation as a composer, musician, and educator." Her lawsuit features a demand for jury trial, and she's seeking unspecified and to-be-determined monetary and punitive damages. Elfman was previously sued last year by a Jane Doe over claims of sexual assault, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and more, which he's also denied. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. (WKRG) A little red building is one of the first things youll see once youre on Dauphin Island. It is right across from Town Hall. It may look small but once youre inside youll see that it holds a lot of history. It all started back in the early 1930s. Thats when students filled the building for the first time. It gave the Island community the ability to educate their children without having to leave the Island, David Graves, the Little Red School House museum director, said. Child in Summerdale crash dies; Honduran national now faces manslaughter charge Now, 93 years later, its a welcome center, museum and library. This is our gift shop, back in the 30s this was the principals office, Joan Smith said. And this, which is now the museum, was three classrooms. There are still people who live on the Island, who went to school here once upon a time. Museum archives hold picture proof. Theres a picture of a gentleman from the back, hes carrying his shoes across his shoulders and hes walking into this building, Graves said. That young boy hes talking about in the picture is Carroll Delcambre. He remembers his very first day in this school house. He was 6 years old then, now hes 79. The first through fourth was in one room and the fifth through the eighth was in one room, Delcambre said. But it wasnt but one in my grade, three in the grade behind me and four in the grade ahead of me so it probably wasnt but no more than 20 kids in one room. Mobile Police looking for person accused of stealing equipment from business Things have changed a lot since then. We had to do everything by heart, by hand, Delcambre said. And those arent the only things that have changed. Over the years, the school has been moved three times. It originally sat on Iberville Street North near the Shell Mounds where a white house now sits. It stayed there for almost 30 years before it was moved to where Dauphin Island Elementary is now at 1501 Bienville Boulevard. That remained the schools home until 2016 when the decision was made to move the building once again this time, just down the road to 1016 Bienville Boulevard, where the building was transformed into what it is today. The county was going to tear it down and build a new one and everybody who went to school there said no you cant do that so they cut it into three pieces and moved it down here and made it into the welcome center, Smith said. The Little Red School House officially opened as the welcome center in 2017. There are still some of the original desks from when the Little Red School House was first built and now people can come into the museum and be like the students and the museum staff members are like the teachers. The desks arent the only original pieces of the school that were preserved, so were the restrooms. They kept the two little bathrooms for the boys and the girls because they had such funny signs in them and they are pretty funny, Smith said. Now people from all over the world come to visit to learn more about Dauphin Islands history. A couple of weeks ago, three men were here from India and I think thats the furthest place theyve come from, Smith said. Delcambre, on the other hand, is able to visit more often to reminisce on the good ole days. I like the way theyve done it, you know itll be here for a long time, Delcambre said as he showed News 5 the pictures of him and his family hanging on the museum wall. 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. BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Russian armed forces started a joint exercise in the waters and airspace near Zhanjiang city in south China in early July, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense on Friday. "Exercise Joint Sea-2024" is conducted according to China-Russia annual military engagement plan and bilateral agreement, and scheduled to last until around mid-July, said Zhang Xiaogang, the spokesperson, at a press conference. It aims to demonstrate the resolve and capabilities of the militaries in jointly addressing maritime security threats and preserving global and regional peace and stability, he said. It will further deepen China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era, Zhang said. On This Day, July 12: Geraldine Ferraro is 1st female running mate on major party ticket Walter Mondale and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro wave to the crowd at the Democratic National Convention on July 19, 1984, in San Francisco. On July 12, 1984, Mondale named Ferraro as his running mate. She was the first woman to share a major U.S. political party's presidential ticket. Mondale lost in November to incumbent Ronald Reagan. UPI File Photo July 12 (UPI) -- On this date in history: In 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized a new award, the Medal of Honor, highest military decoration for valor against an enemy. In 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first sitting president to ride in a helicopter. He traveled in a Bell Ranger as part of a nationwide civil defense exercise. The presidential helicopter has always been called Marine One. In 1962, the Rolling Stones gave their first public performance -- at the Marquee Club in London. Twenty years later, the band entered into a long-term, $28 million contract with CBS Records -- the richest deal in music history. File Photo by Ezio Petersen/UPI On July 12, 2018, Sandra Oh became the first Asian American to earn an Emmy nomination for Best Actress for her role in Killing Eve. She won the award two months later at the Emmy Awards, pictured. File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI In 1979, thousands of spectators at a Chicago White Sox game rushed the field at Comiskey Park, declaring disco dead. Police made 39 arrests and nine people were injured during the so-called Disco Demolition. In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale named U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-N.Y., as his running mate. She was the first woman to share a major U.S. political party's presidential ticket. Mondale lost in November to incumbent Ronald Reagan. Iconic disco singer Donna Summer performs at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., on August 18, 2010. On July 12, 1979, thousands of spectators at a Chicago White Sox game rushed the field at Comiskey Park, declaring disco dead. File Photo by Michael Bush/UPI In 1990, Boris Yeltsin quit the Soviet Communist Party, saying he wanted to concentrate on his duties as president of the Russian republic. In 1993, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido, killing 160 people. It was the deadliest temblor to hit the country in 10 years. In this June 14, 1957, file photo, the UH-13 Bell Ranger presidential helicopter undergoes a series of practice landings on the White House lawn to familiarize Air Force pilots, Maj. Joseph E. Barrett and Capt. Laurence R. Cummings, with the flight path and landing marks. On July 12, President Eisenhower became the first sitting president to fly in a helicopter. Photo courtesy National Museum of the USAF/UPI In 2008, Tony Snow, who was press secretary under U.S. President George W. Bush and a Fox News Channel host, died of cancer at age 53. The urn containing the ashes of former White House press secretary Tony Snow is carried out of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception following his funeral service in Washington on July 17, 2008. File Photo by Kevin DietschUPI Medal of Honor recipients stand for the Pledge of Allegiance during the opening ceremony for the annual Medal of Honor Convention at Soldier Field in Chicago on September 15, 2009. On July 12, 1862, the U.S. Congress authorized the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration for valor against an enemy. File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI In 2011, Ahmed Wali Karzai, 48, a half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a powerful figure in Kandahar, was killed at his home by a bodyguard. In 2018, Sandra Oh became the first Asian American to earn an Emmy nomination for Best Actress for her role in Killing Eve. She won the award two months later. In 2022, South Korean drama Squid Game became the first non-English-language series to be nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Drama. The Netflix series lost to HBO drama Succession. Hwang Dong-hyuk accepts the Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series award for "Squid Game" onstage during the 74th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on September 12, 2022. File Photo by Mike Goulding/UPI WASHINGTON (DC News Now) D.C. police have identified the man who was killed in a shooting in Southeast D.C. Wednesday night. Police said 28-year-old Devin Jenkins, of Southeast D.C., was the victim. MPD: Woman charged with murder for 2023 death of 5-month-old baby Around 9:20 p.m. officers went to the 100 block of Atlantic Street, Southeast to investigate a shooting. There, police found Jenkins in the hallway of an apartment building. He died at the scene. MPD said the shooting remains under investigation. Anyone with information is encouraged to call police at (202) 727-9099 or text the departments tip line at 50411. Police are offering a reward of up to $25,000 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. LEOMINSTER Federal disaster officials will close up shop Monday at City Hall as the deadline for applying for disaster relief from the September flash floods ends. However, workers will remain in the community to ensure residents and business owners have dotted all their is and crossed all their ts. We believe we have covered the universe, said Kimberly Fuller, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who has been based in Leominster. Working in favor of both the applicants and the federal agency is the preliminary work completed by the city, reaching out to those affected by the 11 inches of rain that feel during a four-hour period Sept. 11, 2023. Leominster residents Marilyn Cruz, left, and Celines Martinez, right, speak to Federal Emergency Management Agency applicant services worker Anna May 30 in Leominster City Hall. City officials asked who had sustained damage, so we knew approximately the numbers of people who were expected to apply, Fuller said. The FEMA office processed more than 971 applications through July 11, with the Small Business Administration approving 35 loans for homeowners, renters and individuals. The office in City Hall will close at 6 p.m. Monday. FEMA has dispersed over $6.5 million in Massachusetts to residents and businesses affected by the floods in Worcester and Bristol counties. However, the citys request for aid to address the $30 million in damage to the municipal infrastructure was denied by the agency. Mayor Dean Mazzarella said he was impressed with the diligence, patience and professionalism of the workers. Agents had different fields of expertise and talents they brought to the table for local residents and business owners. They were the face of the federal government and I give them an A+, Mazzarella said. They went out to peoples homes, they were helpful, good listeners, accommodating. The mayor plans to throw a lunchtime party for the workers as a way of thanks. Even as the application process closes and the federal workers close the City Hall office, residents can still contact FEMA through the agencys 800 phone number, the FEMA app and through the website. The process is not over, Fuller said, noting that even though the government is closing the application window, the process is continuing. Federal officials are reviewing paperwork, reaching out to applicants if any information is missing, answering questions and clarifying correspondence from the agency to applicants. She suggests applicants remain in touch with the agency and call with questions. Sometimes we need a bank account number or other pertinent information, Fuller said. Documents can be uploaded through the website portal. She advised residents who have been contacted by FEMA agents to return phone calls to ensure they receive all the aid they are qualified for. Agents limit calls to affected home and business owners to three times in efforts to contact them. Applicants for disaster aid are still receiving correspondence from the agency. Fuller suggested that letters be read carefully for full comprehension as they are written by the government. An initial denial letter could have been sent due to the lack of information. An applicant could be denied because the government is waiting for more information, Fuller said, emphasizing that applicants should read the letters carefully. And while the office will be closed, federal workers will stay in the community to complete the process. FEMA will still be calling residents and following up with applicants. Fuller estimates only a handful of applications were denied relief. Mazzarella said his community is really getting helped. Now the issue is to find a contractor to do the work, explaining that residents are looking for experts from HVAC to general construction, plumbing contractors to electricians. Next, he plans to hold a can drive to raise the $30 million for the city, Mazzarella said jokingly. But he does plan to rely on his award-winning grant writer Wendy Wiiks to apply for all the grants possible to address the bridge and street repairs needed. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Deadline for FEMA aid applications Monday in Leominster Death at Tacoma park culvert wasnt the first. Its long been targeted for replacement The man who drowned Monday at Titlow Park wasnt the first person to be sucked into and killed by the culvert that moves seawater between Puget Sound and a Metro Parks Tacoma lagoon. The pipe has long been targeted for replacement, but its unclear who installed it in the first place and who is responsible for it now. Robert Logan Jr. of University Place was swimming just offshore at Titlow Park when he was pulled into the pipe as the lagoon was filling with water from an incoming tide. Although he had a pulse when firefighters found him in the pond, according to Tacoma police, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital. The approximately 100-foot-long and 4-foot-wide concrete culvert runs underneath two BNSF Railway tracks and a walking trail. The lagoon draws seawater from the Sound at high tide which was occurring when the man was sucked into it and then drains the lagoon at low tide. For more than a decade, Metro Parks, the city of Tacoma, BNSF Railway and environmentally focused groups have wanted to replace the culvert with a train trestle in order to return the lagoon to its natural state and improve fish habitat. The roadblock to that goal: a lack of money. Freak accident? The Pierce County Medical Examiners Office ruled Thursday that Logan, 68, accidentally drowned. According to Logans companion, he was seen standing in chest-high water before disappearing into a vortex. Vortexes, or whirlpools, are larger versions of what occurs when a plug is pulled from a bathtub drain. Although they occur naturally in oceans, the Titlow Beach vortex is caused by the human-placed pipe. Metro Parks Tacoma planner Marty Stump acknowledged the enormity of Mondays tragedy while explaining the dynamics of the vortex on Wednesday. The lagoon water elevation cant keep up with the rising tide, he said. So that creates that vortex and its kind of a visual thing. Weve seen it, (passersby) see it. They think its kind of interesting. Water is pulled towards the Puget Sound during low tide on Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at Titlow Beach in Tacoma. On the Sound side, the pipes outlet is above water at low tide. But at high tide, its underwater and is difficult or impossible to see. Although the pipes occasional whirlpool phenomenon is known by beach goers, it wasnt believed to be a hazard until Monday. No one currently working at Tacoma Fire Department could recall a similar incident, according to department spokesperson Chelsea Shepherd. But at least one other person has been killed by a tidal change between the lagoon and the Sound, probably involving the same pipe. Caught in a culvert In 1933, a 21-year-old Oregon man, Jake Mola, drowned after he was caught in a strong current and pulled into the culvert. Unlike Mondays tragedy, Mola was swimming in the lagoon and ended up in the Sound, where his body was found the next day. A 68-year-old man died Monday after he was pulled from Puget Sound into a lagoon by tidal water at Tacomas Titlow Beach. According to a Aug. 14, 1933 story in the Tacoma News Tribune, Mola ignored warnings from lifeguards to stay away from the pipe. After he became pinned at a flume that served as the culverts entrance, lifeguard Tommy Sandegren made a heroic effort to save Mola but was himself sucked into the tube and swept into the Sound. He held his breath during the swift trip, however, and immediately returned to resume his rescue efforts, the newspaper wrote. A gate which could be closed to slow water from leaving the lagoon wouldnt shut because Molas body was blocking it. Mola was eventually sucked into the pipe and disappeared into the Sound. Later, Molas wife sued the Metropolitan Park District for $30,000, claiming wrongful death. Titlow Park history Long before the West Coasts main railroad route was built through Titlow, the present-day lagoon was an estuary of Puget Sound, according to Stump. A 1927 photo in the collection of Tacoma Public Librarys Northwest Room shows a more natural appearing lagoon. A train trestle can be seen in the distance. A 1931 aerial photo clearly shows a trestle over the mouth of the estuary. This 1931 aerial photo of Titlow Beach and lagoon shows a train trestle where a causeway and culvert replaced it the following year. On June 7, 1932, The Tacoma Daily Ledger headlined a story, Titlow Beach swimming hole opening today. The article says the improved lagoon would be turned over to Metropolitan Park District that day from the Titlow Beach and University Place improvements clubs. State Sen. Henry O. Foss was one of the officials at the ceremony. The story also states that the lagoon extended inland from a Northern Pacific fill, which replaces a former trestle and bridge. While the story doesnt mention a culvert, it does refer to the tidal gate. It also states the lagoon was able to become larger because of the fill. Fill refers to earth that is placed in a construction site to create a roadway, building site or, in this case, a causeway for a railroad line. Whose culvert is it? The present day culvert, which has warning signs on the lagoon side but not the Sound side, could be the one installed in 1932. Because 92 years have passed, records are sketchy. Northern Pacific has become BNSF Railway, and the Metropolitan Park District is now Metro Parks Tacoma. Stacia Glenn, Metro Parks Tacoma spokesperson, told The News Tribune on Thursday that the agency is confident that it does not own nor maintain the culvert. According to a Metro Parks master plan for renovating the lagoon presented on Aug. 6, 2023, a major goal is to, Remove the City of Tacoma owned culvert and Metro Parks tidal gate infrastructure under the BNSF rail line and install a new railroad trestle bridge. BNSF Railway acknowledged a query from the newspaper but did not provide any information by deadline on Thursday. The city of Tacoma was looking into the history of the culvert on Thursday. A better lagoon All across Washington, culverts built in the 1900s are being replaced with bridges and other structures to return waterways to their natural state and improve fish conditions. Thats the goal behind removing the Titlow Beach culvert. In August 2023, Metro Parks launched its Restore the Titlow Lagoon plan following a decade of planning and discussion. After public comment, two alternatives for the plan to revamp the lagoon emerged. Both call for the replacement of the culvert with a 96-foot-long train trestle. The plan for a renovated Titlow lagoon as envisioned by Metro Parks Tacoma. The gray rectangle at the mouth of the lagoon in the lower left area of the drawing is a 96-foot-long train trestle. It would replace the current culvert farther to the north. Creating an open waterway would make it easier for fish to get back and forth from the Sound and their spawning and rearing grounds. Juvenile salmon and other aquatic species (will) have a greater connectivity because that lagoon has high habitat value, Stump said. Preliminary design work is underway for the lagoon. It places the new water entrance south of the existing culvert because testing showed buried remains of the former trestle are still in place there. The project is expensive and complicated, as it involves hydrology, wildlife, railway disruption and other factors. Funding In 2012, BNSF Railway expressed support for the trestle project but didnt offer to pay for it. In a letter to the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group, BNSF public projects manager Richard Wagner wrote, If the Salmon Enhancement Group is successful in obtaining funding to support this project ..., the rail company would advise on construction means and methods. Construction money, which would probably come from state, federal and private sources, is years away. Theres not even funding to complete the projects planning. Were about a million dollars shy of the funding necessary to complete all the engineering, Stump said Wednesday. Stump estimates it would be at least five years before a new trestle replaces the culvert. However, Logans death on Monday could affect the timeline or at least put the project in a new perspective. The topic of public safety and the elimination of that vortex, as a public safety element, has not been the primary driver behind the project, he said. Now that this has occurred, it is a reminder that a project like this has multiple benefits. DEL VALLE, Texas (KXAN) The Del Valle Independent School District announced it is searching for a new superintendent, the district said in a news release Friday. Del Valle ISD serves a total of 11,293 students and is located southeast of Austin, the release said. We are committed to finding a leader who will build on our districts achievements and drive our vision and mission forward. Our ideal candidate will embody our motto, Whatever It Takes, and lead Del Valle ISD to new heights, Del Valle ISD Board President Shaira Ramzanali said in the release. The ideal candidate for the Superintendent position will be a seasoned educator with a blend of academic and operational experiences, understanding the pathways to successful student achievement, the district said in the release. Furthermore, the candidate will actively collaborate with local government and community services, prioritize fiscal responsibility and align resources to support teaching and learning effectively, the district said. Anyone interested in applying can apply online here. The application deadline is at noon, Aug. 21, according to the district. 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. A 47-year-old Lombardy Elementary School therapist has been charged with several counts of rape for reportedly assaulting a 5-year-old girl on "multiple occasions" in Fairfax, police said Friday. New Castle County Police said no evidence currently indicates that John Arnold victimized his students. He knew this child elsewhere, according to police. In an emailed statement Friday afternoon, Brandywine School District said despite the evidence not showing any student victims, the district "has and will continue cooperating fully with all law enforcement agencies." Police also said they don't believe there are other current victims at this time. What is John Arnold charged with? According to county police, the investigation began earlier this month when the girl reported that Arnold "had inappropriate sexual contact with her" several times. Detectives corroborated the girl's claims and on Thursday charged Arnold with three felony counts of rape, one felony count of sexual abuse of a child by a person of trust and one felony count of dangerous crime against a minor under 14. He was taken to prison on $1 million cash bond. READ: 'Self-defense keychains' are rising in popularity. But are they legal in Delaware? What did John Arnold do at Brandywine School District? According to Brandywine School District records, Arnold most recently worked as a therapist in Lombardy Elementary's emotional support program. He was transferred to the school from Mt. Pleasant Elementary and began in August 2022. District board meeting minutes show the "involuntary transfer" was made official in July of that year. According to a brief biography published ahead of a February conference Arnold spoke at, he works with children with "severe mental health disabilities and behavior problems." He has a Ph.D. in psychology with "expertise in trauma/PTSD treatment." In its Friday statement, Brandywine School District said Arnold "will not be performing any duties and will not be present in any capacity nor have any access to students while the investigation is ongoing." It added that the district will provide counseling and support services for students, staff and families who may need it. Got a story tip or idea? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@delawareonline.com. For all things breaking news, follow her on X at @izzihughes_ This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Brandywine School District employee charged with rape of child Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen is trying one more time to divorce the case from Special Judge Frances Gull, whom he and his defense team have repeatedly accused of being bias against them. In a filing Thursday, Andrew Baldwin, one of Allen's attorneys, argued that Gull has violated Indiana trial rules by failing to make a decision on two of the defense's motions within the 30-day time frame the rules required. Baldwin is asking the Indiana Supreme Court's chief administrative officer, Justin Forkner, to review the case and determine whether rulings have, indeed, been delayed. If Forkner makes that determination, the case must be withdrawn from Gull's court, and the Indiana Supreme Court must appoint a special judge, according to Indiana trial rules Baldwin cited. The latest effort by Allen's defense team to remove Gull from the case centers on two pending motions that were filed in March and April well beyond the 30-day window. Both motions are seeking what's called a Frank's hearing, which would allow the defense team to present evidence that law enforcement made false statements in an affidavit that ultimately led to Allen's arrest in October 2022. A 'legal disaster': Delphi murder case marred by delays and endless fights Baldwin noted it has been more than two months since Gull said she would rule on the two motions. Allen is facing four murder charges for the deaths of Abigail "Abby" Williams and Liberty "Libby" German. The Delphi teens were last seen hiking on the Monon High Bridge on Feb. 13, 2017. Their bodies were found the next day. Allen, who worked at a local pharmacy, was arrested and charged more than five years later. The case has been marred by controversies, delays and endless fights. Allen's attorneys have accused Gull of being biased against them by "maligning" them and calling them "incompetent," "negligent" and "sloppy." Last month, Gull rejected another attempt by the defense team to get her to step down from the case, saying adverse rulings "do not support a reasonable basis for questioning the Court's impartiality, nor are they grounds for disqualification." Gull rejects calls for recusal: Judge for Delphi murder suspect Richard Allen explains why she won't step down from case Several other pending motions on critical issues, including what evidence can and cannot be presented to the jury, are set for hearings from July 30 to Aug. 1 in Carroll County. Allen's trial is set to begin in October and is expected to last more than a month. Lafayette Journal & Courier reporter Ron Wilkins contributed to this story. Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at kphillips@indystar.com. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Delphi murders suspect Richard Allen tries again to remove Judge Gull Delta Airlines issued an apology Thursday after a social media post from the airline said it would also be terrified in response to a user who said two flight attendants with Palestinian flag pins were wearing Hamas badges. A user on the social platform X posted two images of Delta Airlines workers wearing Palestinian pin flags Tuesday, describing them as Hamas badges and referencing 9/11. According to a screenshot of the since-deleted post, Deltas account on X responded, I hear you as Id be terrified as well, personally. Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed. A Delta spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday the response was deleted because it was not in line with our values and our mission to connect the world. The team member responsible for the post has been counseled and no longer supports Deltas social channels, the spokesperson added. We apologize for this error. The post drew online scrutiny, including from The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the United Statess largest Muslim advocacy organization, which called the airlines post racist and an example of anti-Palestinian racism Wednesday. CAIR said the since-deleted tweet was problematic because it agreed with the false claim that a Palestinian flag pin won by a flight attendant was a Hamas badge.' Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules Gaza, has its own flag, which is solid green with Arabic script in white in the center. The Palestinian flag shown being worn by the workers consists of a red triangle on the left side, next to horizontal stripes of black, white and green. Delta will shift its pin allowance policy starting July 15, a company spokesperson told The Hill. Beginning then, only U.S. flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms, the spokesperson said. Previously, pins representing countries/nationalities of the world had been permitted. We are proud of our diverse base of employees and customers and the foundation of our brand, which is to connect the world and provide a premium experience. We are taking this step to help ensure a safe, comfortable and welcoming environment for all, they added. The incident marks the latest example of tensions overflowing from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, where more than 38,000 people in Palestine have been killed since early October, when Hamas launched a surprise assault in Israel that killed about 1,200 people. The death toll and humanitarian situation prompted protests beyond the Middle East, including on American college campuses, which led to the arrests of hundreds of student demonstrators. 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. KABUL, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces have seized 700 kg of illicit drugs in the eastern Paktika province, state-run media Bakhtar News Agency reported on Thursday. The contraband, which included hashish, was confiscated during a counter-narcotic operation conducted in the vicinity of the province's Khairkoot district, the source added. Two people were arrested in connection with the case and their dossiers were referred to the judiciary for further investigation. Afghan counter-narcotics police aiming to fight illegal drugs have wiped out 1,650 acres of poppy farms in north Afghanistan's Badakhshan province on Monday. The Afghan caretaker government has vowed to fight illicit drugs, drug production and trafficking across the country. Courtesy Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee is placing billboards across Phoenix that highlights former President Donald Trumps connections to the controversial Project 2025. The new billboards are part of a larger push by the DNC to connect Trump to Project 2025 with a media push in multiple battleground states, including Arizona, ahead of the Republican National Convention this month. Project 2025 is a collection of right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power if Trump wins in November. The list of policy plans was largely created by former Trump aides and allies. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Heritage Foundation created the document in partnership with over 100 other conservative groups, many with extreme views on abortion, taxes, immigration and federal agencies. The proposal includes completely banning abortion, bringing the U.S. Department of Justice under the direct control of the president, increased immigration enforcement and sweeping cuts to federal agencies. Trump has disavowed Project 2025 on his social media platform, Truth Social, but many have pointed to connections the project has to members of Trumps inner circle, including former top Trump aide John McEntee, who is said to be one of the main leaders behind the proposal. Other senior Trump administration officials have also been involved in the proposal. Russel Vought, Trumps former budget chief and one of the other key architects of the proposal, was named policy director for the Republican National Committee in May. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and white nationalist Nick Fuentes both expressed anger over Trump distancing himself from the proposal. While Trump has tried to create space between himself and the controversial plan, he previously spoke to the Heritage Foundation as it was drafting the proposal. This is a great group and theyre going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do, Trump said at a Heritage Foundation dinner in footage posted by NBC. Reporting by CNN found that 140 people who have worked for Trump are directly involved in Project 2025, and more work for the Heritage Foundation. The billboards, which will be in English and Spanish, encourage voters to learn more about Project 2025 by searching for it online. Google searches for Project 2025 in the past week have seen a surge as Democrats have hammered Trump for his connections to the plan. Donald Trump and his Republican buddies are trying their best to hide their dark and sinister plans because they know that draconian bans on abortion, higher prices, and dismantling democracy dont go over well with voters, DNC spokesperson Rosemary Boeglin said in a written statement about the billboards. They know that when Americans hear about Project 2025, they do not support it. The billboards will be all across the Phoenix metro area, with one along Loop 202 near Scottsdale Road and others along the I-10 near the US 60. The billboards will be up through the weekend. Project 2025 also has ties to Arizona, with the Scottsdale-based anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom and the Phoenix-based Turning Point USA having helped to draft it. Both TPUSA and Alliance Defending Freedom are also connected to a secretive Christian policy group that has pushed similar talking points and also have promoted lies about the election. Critics have argued that the proposal is a way to implement Christian nationalist policies under a Trump administration. Christian nationalism is a political movement that is based on a belief that God intended America to be a Christian nation one without religious pluralism and that Christians should control all levels of government and society. Project 2025 dips its toes into both Christian Nationalism and Dominionism, which holds that Christians should take total control over most aspects of society. Certain Dominionist beliefs, such as the so-called Seven Mountain Mandate, which draws from the biblical book of Revelations and requires Christians to invade the seven spheres of society, are ideas that have been embraced and promoted by people like TPUSAs Charlie Kirk. One of the biggest promoters of Christian nationalism and dominionism has been disgraced Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps first national security adviser, who has claimed that he is waging spiritual warfare and building an army of God. Flynn is also known to associate with other known Dominionist groups. Flynn also helped fund the Arizona Republican Senates partisan audit of the 2020 election and an organization he co-founded sponsored a series of misinformation filled committee meetings in Arizona focused on COVID-19. Arizona Republican State Sen. Janae Shamp is a fervent supporter of Flynn and has a Christian nationalist flag on her desk at the Capitol. Shamp, a conservative from Surprise, has also shared a number of QAnon posts on her Facebook page, including some linked to neo-Nazis and antisemites. A close ally of Shamps, Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear, works with the Flynn aligned The America Project. Trump has also spoken about bringing Flynn back if reelected. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Democrats will put up billboards in swing states that show Donald Trump and tie him to Project 2025, a conservative manifesto that could become reality if he wins in November. The Democratic National Committees paid media campaign escalates liberal efforts to publicize Project 2025 and tie it to the former president after he sought to distance himself from the plan. The blueprint for a second Trump administration is led by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation and counts support from more than 100 other conservative groups. According to a plan first shared with the Guardian, 36 billboards in both English and Spanish will go up in nine cities in seven battleground states: Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Green Bay, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Raleigh and Charlotte. They show Trumps face alongside language such as Trumps plan to be a dictator on day 1: Project 2025. Google it and say that the project guts checks and balances, seeks revenge and bans abortion nationwide. Related: What is Project 2025 and what is Trumps involvement? Trump and his Republican allies know that when Americans hear about Project 2025, they do not support it, the DNC communications director, Rosemary Boeglin, said in a statement. The DNC wont let them get away with it. Joe Biden has used similar terms when discussing Project 2025 this week, posting on X: Google Project 2025. The president has also directed people to a website his campaign created that details the projects goals and how they would affect Americans. But Biden did not bring up the project during the debate as some expected, missing an opportunity to attack Trump over extreme policies. Project 2025 has become a trending topic in recent weeks as the left tries to warn voters of what Trump could do with a second term. The 900-plus-page document goes agency by agency to propose a wide variety of changes to US policy and law, a comprehensive dismantling and realignment of government. Among its biggest ideas is stacking the government with more people politically beholden to the president, consolidating his power. It also proposes mass deportations and strict immigration restrictions, turning the health and human services department into the department of life and infusing the federal government with anti-abortion policies, and getting rid of agencies such as the Department of Education. The project is especially opposed to LGBTQ+-friendly policies and diversity initiatives, suggesting eliminating them throughout government. Project 2025 is not Trumps official platform his campaign agenda is called Agenda47 and is detailed on his campaign website. The Republican National Committee also just adopted its own platform, which overlaps with many ideas in both Agenda47 and Project 2025. Instead, the project is an attempt at conservative consensus over how to install policies if a rightwing president wins. Beyond the manifesto, the project is also gathering names for potential political appointments and aims to assist a new presidents transition team. Trumps attempt to disavow the project came after the Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, commented that we are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be. Trump then said he didnt know what Project 2025 was or who was behind it, claims that fall flat. The projects authors and editors are stacked with former Trump officials and allies a CNN report found that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025 and much of the policies align with Trumps own agenda. NEW YORK Andrea Morse, the Democratic challenger running against Rep. Nicole Malliotakis for her Staten Island congressional seat, formally demanded Friday that the House of Representatives launch an investigation into a highly suspicious stock purchase Malliotakis made in 2023. As reported last year in The Wall Street Journal, Malliotakis bought stock in New York Community Bank before one of its subsidiaries took over the deposits of Signature Bank a move that led to the stocks value shooting up. Before making the stock buy, Malliotakis, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said she met with regulators to talk about the possible closure of Signature Bank. At the time, she also called for the Federal Reserve and President Joe Biden to review its monetary policy. Those facts, said Morse, merit further probing. What Nicole Malliotakis did in using inside information obtained in her role on the House Ways and Means committee to personally profit off of the collapse of a bank is a disqualifying act and an investigation into this trade should commence immediately, Morse said in a written statement. Sadly this is not out of character for Nicole Malliotakis, and explains why she refuses to come out in support of a ban on members of Congress from trading stock. On Friday, Morse said she sent her request for the probe to House Ethics Chairman Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Rep. Susan Wild, the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. The House Committee on Ethics must investigate this trade immediately and hold Congresswoman Malliotakis accountable, Morse said. Her demand comes on the heels of a bipartisan deal in the Senate to ban members of Congress and their family members from buying and selling stocks. The incumbent Malliotakis, whos served in Congress since 2021, is widely regarded as the favorite in the contest against Morse, a lawyer and a political neophyte. On Friday, she did not waste time in responding to the call for an investigation. The Office of Congressional Ethics already reviewed the congresswomans small long-term retirement investment and found no wrongdoing, said Malliotakis communications director Natalie Baldassarre. (Morse) has nothing to run on, her partys agenda has been disastrous for New York and the nation, and she is desperate to find something wrong with the congresswomans stellar record. As an attorney, Andreas statement is irresponsible and she should apologize for making such slanderous claims without a shred of evidence. Morse is not alone in her concern over Malliotakis financial dealings. City Councilman Justin Brannan, a longtime critic of Malliotakis, backed up Morses demands. It is so obvious what Nicole did here, and she shouldnt get away with it, he said. People are tired of cable TV politicians like Nicole who think the rules dont apply to them, and the voters are just a bunch of suckers. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) withdrew its conditional endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) after it said she is not supportive enough of the Palestinian efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war. In a memo Wednesday, the DSA credited Ocasio-Cortez for her courageous positions on Palestine but took issue with some of her recent moves, including her panel with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs who the group said are lobbyists for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances definition of antisemitism. This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those whove risked their welfare to fight Israeli apartheid and genocide through political and direct action in recent months, and in decades past, the DSA said in its statement. Ocasio-Cortez, once seen as one of the Democratic Partys most outspoken progressives, has now been criticized by those who want the war in Gaza to end over her support for President Biden and his funding for Israel. In June, the DSAs National Political Committee voted to endorse Ocasio-Cortez so long as she publicly opposed all funding to Israel, participated in the DSA committee, publicly opposed criminalization of anti-Zionism and publicly supported efforts to end Israeli settler-colonialism. The group said thousands of its members have provided input about the prospect of a national endorsement of the New York congresswoman. The DSA said its members supported endorsing her because of her many courageous positions on Palestine but also wish Ocasio-Cortez would demonstrate a higher level of commitment to Palestinian liberation and the more than 38,000 Palestinians killed by the ongoing war in Gaza. A national DSA endorsement comes with a serious commitment to the movement for Palestine and our collective socialist project, the DSA said, adding, To build a socialist movement thats capable of defeating capitalism, we must demand more from leaders in our movement. The DSA said its national political committee received a request from NYC-DSA SC to withdraw the endorsement for Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week. Because we have not seen evidence of AOC meeting these conditions, and at the request of the NYC-DSA SC, the NPC is withdrawing our conditional endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although she will remain endorsed by our New York City chapter, the group wrote. Ocasio-Cortez defeated former Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), a 10-term incumbent in the 2018 Democratic primary. She was 28 at the time and became the youngest woman and the first female member of the DSA to be elected to Congress, alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). The Hill has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez 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 The Hill. Joe Biden had many lucid moments at his Thursday evening press conference, but the idea that were going to judge Biden day by day on the latest speech or press conference is terrifying, for two reasons. First, it sets a ludicrously low bar that is bound to favor standing pat with Biden as the nominee. This is because every one of these appearances is going to be judged on whether he was better than he was at the June 27 debate, and every time, the answer to that question is almost certain to be yes, because he can hardly be worse. But is He was better than the debate really the right standard here? Second, this clock is ticking. Its five weeks until the Democratic convention, which opens Monday, August 19. Thats time enough to act. Biden did open the door just a crack Thursday night to not being the nominee, but mainly he sounded very dug in, and if thats the case, he can run out that clock by doing just enough interviews and speeches to be able to say he didnt go into hiding, but without genuinely exposing himself to a risky public situation. One can predict the news cycles: three days of sensing that the dam may be about to burst and the Democrats are ready to take collective action, then Biden makes an appearance, does OK but only OK, but the momentum for replacing him is killed. So if thats how were going to spend these next five weeks, Biden will be the nominee. Is there a chance he can win? There is. Lots of Americans really dont like Donald Trump. In 10 long weeks between the end of the convention and Election Day, maybe the Democrats can succeed in making the race about Trump, and Biden can eke out a win. A poll came out Friday morning showing Biden ahead by two points. But the odds are growing that Biden will lead his party to a defeat that will extend to both chambers of Congress. That means that Trump, armed with the radical proposals of Project 2025, a self-declared Secretary of Retribution who has a list of some 350 people who may be arrested in a new Trump term, and a fresh Supreme Court ruling that makes all this presumably legal, will return to the Oval Office with Republican majorities in the Senate and House, the latter of which Democrats had been confident of recapturing before the debate but where they now fear they could lose 20 seats. More House Democrats, and one senator, have come out this week calling on Biden to step aside. Three, led by Connecticuts Jim Himes, made their announcements after Bidens press conference, meaning that it did not staunch the bleeding. And weve all been reading and hearing this week that privately, the percentage of Hill Democrats who want to see Biden step aside is in the neighborhood of 80 percent. In Trump world, meanwhile, theyre salivating at the thought of running against this weakened Biden and this divided Democratic Party. The Atlantics Tim Alberta wrote a much-discussed article this week headlined, Trump Is Planning for a Landslide Win. The landslide is predicated on one fact: that the opponent is Biden. Alberta: Biden quitting the race would necessitate a dramatic resetnot just for the Democratic Party, but for Trumps campaign. [Trump aides Susie] Wiles and [Chris] LaCivita told me that any Democratic replacement would inherit the presidents deficiencies; that whether its Vice President Kamala Harris or California Governor Gavin Newsom or anyone else, Trumps blueprint for victory would remain essentially unchanged. But they know thats not true. They know their campaign has been engineered in every wayfrom the voters they target to the viral memes they createto defeat Biden. And privately, they are all but praying that he remains their opponent. Even assuming that there is some spin there, there is no doubt that Trump himself has spent four years thinking about running against Biden and that the Trump campaign is planning on spending millions to attack Biden on his age and capacities. Democrats can no longer ignore this. So next week, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and other senior Democrats who are friends of Bidens (ex-senator Chris Dodd has been mentioned) need to go to him and have the talk with him. They need to get him to withdraw. And, I suppose, to release his delegates to Kamala Harris. Id rather see an open process. It would be more democratic (for the party thats supposedly fighting to save democracy). It wouldnt have to be chaotic. It could be galvanizing. A handful of candidates would step forward. Theyd campaign for a month. Theyd give convention speeches. The delegates would vote, and the party would have a candidate, who would then have 10 weeks to campaign against Trump. If most voters pay no attention until Labor Day anyway, thats time enough. The money and logistical questions are serious, but people who really want to figure those things out can do so. But a Harris scenario seems more likely. Fine. Just choose a scenario, and go to Biden and explain to him the stakes of his staying in the race, for him personally and for his legacy. If he bows out soon, he goes down in history as the guy who saved the country from a second Trump term, had a surprisingly successful term as president, and graciously gave up power like none other than George Washington for the sake of his party and his country. If he resists that, he risks dragging the Democratic Party into its biggest crisis in a century. A decisive loss that many people anticipated and feared to the hated Trump, with all the authoritarian ramifications thereof, could lead the party into a period of vicious recriminations and weakness. Is that really what Biden wants? Were about to find out. All the Democrats who have called on Joe Biden to quit A number of the president's former allies have called on him to quit his campaign for re-election A growing number of Democrats are urging Joe Biden to conclude his bid for re-election and make way for a younger contender after a series of stumbling performances on stage. Concerns about his recent debate performance have escalated within the party, drawing criticism from politicians, donors and other insiders. How many Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step aside? Select a group to explore comments from key figures turning against Biden Reps and Senators 27 of 535 Governors 0 of 50 Donors 10 Figures of interest Critics in the House of Representatives and beyond are now adding their voices to those pushing for a reconsideration of Mr Bidens candidacy. Donors George Clooney George Clooney, a prominent Democratic donor and friend of Mr Biden, publicly called on the president to end his re-election campaign as the latter welcomed world leaders to a Nato summit in Washington, DC. Mr Clooney expressed concerns that Mr Biden is not the same as he was in 2010 nor during his candidacy in 2020, urging the Democratic Party to address the situation at its upcoming national convention. Calling for the party to figure it out, he said: We are not going to win in November with this president. Abigail Disney The heiress to the Disney fortune withdrew her financial support, saying that the Democrats would not receive a single dime until they bite the bullet and replace Mr Biden. Abigail Disney has withdrawn her financial support - Getty/Santiago Felipe Biden is a good man who has served his country well, but the stakes are far too high to allow timidity to determine our course of action, Ms Disney, who has long been a major Democratic donor, said on July 4. Gideon Stein Gideon Stein, philanthropist, revealed that he would pause planned donations of $3.5 million to the Biden campaign. Joe Biden has been a very effective president, but unless he steps aside my family and I are pausing on more than $3 million in planned donations to nonprofits and political organisations aligned with the presidential race, with the exception of some down-ballot work, Mr Stein said. Virtually every major donor Ive talked to believes that we need a new candidate in order to defeat Donald Trump. Reed Hastings Reed Hastings, the Netflix co-founder and a major Democrat donor, called for Mr Biden to withdraw from the presidential race in an article for the Economist on July 3. Alongside his wife Patty Quillin, Mr Hastings has donated more than $20 million in recent years, including roughly $1.5 million to Mr Biden during his 2020 campaign. Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous, he said in an email to The New York Times. Bill Harris Bill Harris, a former chief executive of Intuit and PayPal, announced that he is leading a small group of Democratic donors who have committed $2 million to support funding for presidential debates among potential nominees, should Mr Biden choose to step aside. Its not that we have to protect ourselves from chaos and drama, Mr Harris said. We need drama and a little chaos. I think it can be refreshing and energising. Whitney Tilson Whitney Tilson, author and investor, ordinarily gives around 100,000 per year to the Democrats, but he said he was reconsidering his support after Mr Bidens stumbling performances. I feel deceived. For months my Republican friends have been sending me videos from Twitter and Fox News that appear to show Bidens dementia, Mr Tilson wrote X, formerly known as Twitter, at the end of June. If its as bad as what we all witnessed on Thursday night, then he needs to put his country first and step aside immediately, he added. Rick Caruso Rick Caruso, a Los Angeles developer and former mayoral candidate, was a Democratic donor and co-hosted a multi-million-dollar fundraiser for Mr Biden in December. He announced in a July 6 interview that he would halt his efforts to support Mr Bidens re-election until he can obtain more clarity on the matter. The question is not only can you be a viable candidate, but also do you have the ability to be the president of the United States?, Mr Caruso said. He added on X that stepping aside was the honourable thing for president Biden to do. Damon Lindelof Damon Lindelof, Hollywood showrunner and longstanding Democratic donor, wrote an article in Deadline urging Mr Biden to step down from the race early in July. Damon Lindelof advised fellow Democrats to cease funding Mr Biden - Getty/Elisabetta Villa He advised fellow Democrats to cease funding a candidate who should withdraw from the campaign. I am a lifelong Democrat and I love my complicated, glorious country. I am not writing this anonymously because Im asking others in positions of influence to do the same. I dont know if what I have to say will matter, but I know what my eyes and my ears and my heart tell me, he added. Ive been asleep at the wheel and its time to wake the f--- up. Rob Reiner The film director, whose credits include Spinal Tap, said on X: Its time to stop fing around, the director wrote on X, formerly Twitter. If the convicted felon wins, we lose our democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served the US with honour, decency, and dignity. Its time for Joe Biden to step down. A long-time donor to the Democrats, he is one of Hollywoods most prominent party supporters. Bill Ackman Bill Ackman, a billionaire fund manager who backed Dean Phillips for the nomination has blamed Jill Biden for her husband not stepping down. I no longer blame Biden for not stepping aside. He no longer has the mental acuity to make important judgments about himself. It is becoming increasingly clear however that the fault lies with Jill Biden. Bill Ackman (pictured) has blamed Jill Biden for her husband not standing down - Reuters/Mike Blake First lady Jill Biden becomes irrelevant the moment her husband is no longer president. No more Air Force One. No more glamorous life. No more White House dinners for dignitaries. No more being treated like a queen when travelling the world. Mr Ackman is now likely to back Donald Trump. Representatives and Senators Peter Welch Peter Welch, a veteran Democratic senator from Vermont with over two decades of service, became the first senator to publicly urge Mr Biden to withdraw from the presidential race on July 10. Mr Welch told the Washington Post: We need him to put us first, as he has done before, he said. I urge him to do it now. Adam Schiff Senior Democrat Adam Schiff, a former chair of the House intelligence committee, said he has serious concerns about Mr Bidens ability to beat Trump and called on him to drop out of the race. While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Bidens alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch, he said. In doing so, [he would] secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election. Sherrod Brown Sherrod Brown of Ohio became the fourth Democrat in the Senate chamber to ask Mr Biden to drop out of the race. Mr Brown said many Ohioans had contacted him over concerns that defeat to Donald Trump would jeopardise Democrat plans to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban. He called on Mr Biden to end his campaign. Martin Heinrich Martin Heinrich, a senator for New Mexico, on Friday said Mr Biden should drop out. He called the president one of the most accomplished presidents in modern history but said that this moment in our nations history calls for a focus that is bigger than any one person. Jon Tester Jon Tester called on Mr Biden to drop out of the race after the US President was forced off the campaign trail with Covid-19 in mid-July. The Montana senator, who faces a tough re-election battle this year, told a local news outlet: While I appreciate his commitment to public service and our country, I believe President Biden should not seek re-election to another term. Jim Costa Jim Costa, a California congressman and former leader of the Blue Dog Democrat faction, said the party needed to deliver their strongest team to the American people in this election. Echoing other Democrats appeals to legacy and patriotism, he said: For the good of the country, I think it is time for the President to pass the torch to the next generation to carry on the legacy he started. Brittany Pettersen Brittany Pettersen, a congresswoman for Colorado, on Friday called on Mr Biden to pass the torch. Joe Biden saved our country once, and Im joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again, Pettersen said in a statement posted on X. Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, who is the greatest threat to the foundation of this country that we have ever faced. Mike Levin Southern California congressman Mike Levin directly confronted Mr Biden during a virtual meeting on Friday with a group of Democratic lawmakers. Mr Levin asked Mr Biden in the call to make way for a younger leader. Making this statement is not easy, Mr Levin said. I have deep respect for President Bidens five plus decades of public service and incredible appreciation for the work weve done together these last three and a half years. But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch. Hillary Scholten Hillary Scholten serves as the US representative for Michigans 3rd congressional district and has typically supported Mr Bidens legislative agenda on issues such as healthcare, immigration reform, and economic policies. Following the first presidential debate, she said she was concerned by Mr Bidens performance. But after Mr Bidens speech on July 11, she withdrew her support, writing: It has become clear over the last several weeks that a change needs to be made. Greg Stanton Greg Stanton, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, has generally supported Mr Biden and his administrations agenda. In a statement on July 11, Mr Stanton touted himself as one of Bidens early supporters in 2020, but that the stakes in the election could not be higher. He added: For our countrys sake, it is time for the president to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. Scott Peters Scott Peters, a representative for Californias 52nd congressional district, is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of 100 centrist Democrats in the House. Scott Peters: 'The stakes are high' - Bill Clark He asked Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign because the stakes are high, and we are on a losing course, in a statement released on July 11. My conscience requires me to speak up and put loyalty to the country and to democracy ahead of my great affection for, and loyalty to, the president and those around him, he added. Eric Sorensen Eric Sorensen, a representative for Illinois, said he is hopeful that Mr Biden will step aside. In 2020, Joe Biden ran for president with the purpose of putting country over party. Today, I am asking him to do that again, he said on July 11. Brad Schneider Brad Schneider, a representative for Illinois, said that he loved Mr Biden and was forever grateful for his leadership and service to our nation. But he added on July 11: The time has come, however, for president Biden to heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership to guide us to the future he has enabled and empowered us to pursue. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Marie Gluesenkamp of Washington issued a statement on the afternoon of July 11 in which she suggested unelected advisers are making important decisions about the country, rather than Mr Biden. She also implied the president should abandon his re-election bid. Americans deserve to feel their president is fit enough to do the job, she said. The crisis of confidence in the presidents leadership needs to come to an end. The president should do what he knows is right for the country and put the national interest first. Jim Himes Jim Himes of Connecticut is a high-ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. On July 11 he wrote: The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism. Ed Case Ed Case from Hawaii broke ranks with the rest of the states congressional delegation when stating that Mr Biden should end his re-election bid. Difficult times and realities require difficult decisions, he wrote, adding my guidepost is what is the best way forward for our country. Pat Ryan Pat Ryan, representing a vulnerable seat in New York State, urged Mr Biden to fulfil his earlier promise to act as a bridge to a new generation of leaders and to step aside for the good of our country on July 10. Earl Blumenauer Earl Blumenauer is a long-time Leftist who is set to retire at the end of his long term. He said on July 10 that he hoped Mr Biden would end his bid because the 2024 race was not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy. Mikie Sherrill Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who is typically centre-Left, wrote that the stakes are too high and the threat is too real to stay silent because Democrats cannot allow Trump to return to the White House. Adam Smith Adam Smith of Washington, a high-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expressed concerns that Mr Biden was no longer able to clearly, articulately, and strongly make his case to the American people. I think its become clear that hes not the best person to carry the Democratic message, he said on July 8. Angie Craig Angie Craig of Minnesota, representing a swing district, voiced concerns about Mr Bidens debate performance and subsequent lack of a forceful response. She cautioned that time was running out to select a replacement, emphasising the urgency of the situation. I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump, she said on July 6. Lloyd Doggett Lloyd Doggett, a congressman from Texas serving his 15th term, was the first House Democrat to publicly call for Biden to step aside. The 77-year-old member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, expressed his respect for all that president Biden has achieved, but criticised him for failing to effectively defend his many accomplishments on the debate stage. The need for him to step aside is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it on Tuesday, he said on July 5. Mike Quigley Mike Quigley, an Illinois congressman heavily involved in planning the Democratic National Convention, made a direct plea to Mr Biden, acknowledging his legacy, but urging him to let someone else do this at this critical juncture. Mike Quigley has made a direct plea to Mr Biden - AP/John McDonnell I would say: Mr president, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this, he said on July 5. Seth Moulton Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a former 2020 presidential candidate, has said that he no longer had confidence in Mr Bidens ability to defeat Trump. President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in George Washingtons footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump, he said on July 4. On July 3, he had expressed grave concerns about Mr Bidens ability to defeat Donald Trump. Raul Grijalva Raul Grijalva, Arizona progressive, told the New York Times that the Biden campaign was in a precarious state and emphasised that Mr Biden must now bear the responsibility of maintaining control of the White House. 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, he said on July 3. Jared Huffman Jared Huffman was one of four Democrats to plead with Mr Biden to withdraw on July 19. He represents Californias 2nd Congressional District and previously spoke out against Mr Biden in an interview with CNN on July 18. Weve got to acknowledge that this was not just one bad night. This is a pretty pervasive and widespread perception thats been dragging President Biden down in the polls for many months. Weve got to figure this out. I think we have a couple of weeks to do it, but weve got to do it, Mr Huffman said. He added the narrative around Mr Bidens age is going to be pretty difficult for the president to undo it as it is pretty well established now. Marc Veasey US Representative Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, was also part of the four and the second House Democrat from Texas to urge Mr Biden to step aside. Mr Veasey is the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus to publicly make this call. Chuy Garcia Chuy Garcia, of Illinois, a progressive who describes himself as a proud immigrant, was another US Representative to call for Mr Biden to step down on July 19. Following Mr Bidens debate with Mr Trump, Mr Garcia said it was a tough 90 minutes to watch. He added that Mr Biden has a very important decision to make over the next few days about whether he can continue and complete the campaign and, of course, lead the country forward. Mr Garcia has previously hit out at Mr Biden for using the word illegal when describing immigrants. Mark Pocan Wisconsin US Rep. Mark Pocan became the first top Wisconsin Democrat to call for Mr Biden to exit on July 19. It marks a shift in Wisconsin, where top officials have largely backed Mr Biden in recent weeks. Mr Pocan is a progressive Democrat and is affiliated with several organisations, including Wisconsin Citizens Action, the American Civil Liberties Union, Fair Wisconsin, and the Midwest Progressive Elected Officials Network. Morgan McGarvey Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky called Mr Biden an incredibly effective and empathetic leader, praising his record on job growth and climate issues. However, he said that the party could not risk the focus of the campaign being anything other than Donald Trump and his ilk. Gabe Vasquez Gabe Vasquez, a congressman for New Mexico, said that while Mr Biden is an honourable public servant who has dedicated his career to bettering the lives of all Americans, he believes there is too much at risk in the election and said he should step aside. Mr Vasquez is running for a second term in a swing district along the US border with Mexico where partisan control has flipped in each of the last three elections. Governors No Democratic governors have yet called on Mr Biden to step aside. 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. Democrats could suffer a 'landslide' defeat, sweeping them out of office everywhere, former Obama advisor says Democrats could suffer a 'landslide' defeat, sweeping them out of office everywhere, former Obama advisor says Democrats could suffer a "landslide defeat," a former Obama advisor told The Atlantic. David Axelrod said struggles in Virginia, New Hampshire, and Minnesota could cost them everywhere. It would "sweep Democrats out of office everywhere House, Senate, governor, you name it," he said. Democrats could suffer a "landslide defeat," sweeping them out of office everywhere, a former Obama advisor told The Atlantic. David Axelrod, a key strategist behind former President Barack Obama's victories in the 2008 and 2012 elections, discussed the worst-case scenario in which Democrats would struggle to retain Virginia, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. He made the assessment after President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance last month and as calls grow for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. "If we get to the point of fighting to hold on to Virginia, New Hampshire, and Minnesota, meaning the main six or seven battlegrounds are gone then yeah, we're talking about a landslide, both in the Electoral College and in the popular vote," Axelrod told The Atlantic. "The magnitude of that defeat, I think, would be devastating to the party," he said, adding: "Those margins at the top of the ticket would sweep Democrats out of office everywhere House, Senate, governor, you name it." Since his disastrous debate performance last month, Biden has fallen further behind former President Donald Trump even in states key to Biden's reelection. While a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showed Biden closing the gap with Trump in key swing states earlier this month, other post-debate polls show Trump with wider leads than before the debate. Last week, Sabato's Crystal Ball moved Michigan from "Lean Democratic" to "Toss Up" and Minnesota from "Likely Democratic" to "Lean Democratic." And on Tuesday, Cook Political Report, a widely respected political prediction group, moved six swing states toward the Republicans, and shifted New Hampshire and Minnesota from "likely" to "lean" Democratic in the presidential race, per Politico. Meanwhile, Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told the outlet: "I truly believe we're a battleground state now." New Mexico, Virginia and Maine could also be in play if Biden continues to decline. If accurate, the latest poll numbers would narrow Biden's path to victory, as he is already fighting in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Axelrod told The Atlantic that: "The numbers were daunting before the debate, and now there's a real danger that they're going to get worse." He made a similar assessment on Sunday, telling CNN that Biden is more likely to "lose by a landslide than win narrowly this race." Read the original article on Business Insider The News The chaos in the Democratic Party looks likely to swamp the Republican National Convention, leaving Donald Trump in an unusual situation: unable to get attention. Reporters (this one included) are delaying their trips to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention to cover Joe Bidens attempt to hang on to power, while the ones who make it to Wisconsin may well be trapped in hotel rooms and media files, ignoring the events set pieces for the high-stakes story back east. Trumps campaign says theyre pleased enough to leave the media covering the other partys disarray. Our job is to make as little news as possible, said one ally. Democrats, who dont know who their nominee will be by this time next week, dont exactly have a plan. But in the newly dynamic US political landscape, their party finally has voters paying attention. Bens view Attention is hardly the only currency in politics. But in the 21st Century, it has proven a valuable and elusive one. And Im not sure Trumps aides are correct to make the unusual for Trump, for politics bet that the less attention the Republican nominee gets, the better. In fact, the Democrats crisis also exposes Trumps unexpected weakness: He has grown, in the media term of art, boring. 3rd Trump RNC vs. history in the making next week by the minute? texted one prominent television producer. I know what Im watching. Perhaps thats fine with Trump, an unpopular candidate sitting on a solid, if modest, lead. Republicans have already shifted RNC rules so that he can name his vice presidential nominee as late as possible, giving him a chance to time the news for maximum coverage. Trump, a showman, loves a surprise, so perhaps hell diverge from the safe list of candidates currently in circulation. But its hard to see a rapprochement with Marco Rubio, or the ascendancy of Doug Burgum, making much of an impact on this news cycle. And if Biden is no longer the Democratic nominee next week, his party could easily drown out, or reframe, the Republican convention. A shock new presumptive Democratic nominee, say Kamala Harris, campaigning outside the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee would be far more compelling than anything happening inside the building. Room for Disagreement I dont think anyone at the RNC will really care if they are overshadowed by the DNC in disarray. Its a win either way for them, said a former top MSNBC executive, Jonathan Wald, who now produces the Don Lemon Show. (He added that there is a list of people who should thank Joe Biden for his awful debate showing who were otherwise in the media spotlight, including but not limited to Will Lews at the Washington Post, Bibi Netanyahu, and Kevin Costner for the Horizon bomb. The View From London Democrats, grasping at straws, have looked to the surprise right-wing defeat in France and the collapse of the Tory Party in Britain for hope. But one close observer of British politics noted another trend in a conversation Friday: How swiftly voters allegiances may shift, and how much new information they can take in over what used to be considered a short period of time. It only took a month for Nigel Farages Reform UK party, and for a group of pro-Palestinian independent candidates, to emerge from nowhere to scoop up hundreds of thousands of votes and a handful of seats in parliament. In France, everyone from committed communists to business-oriented centrists coordinated in a mad dash after the far right led the first round of voting. In 2024, three months is an eternity. Democrats thought she would pull a Cotham. Now, former CMS candidate will speak at RNC A former Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board candidate who drew statewide attention over ties to the Republican Party will speak at next weeks Republican National Convention. Annette Albright, who ran for the CMS board multiple times, is one of more than 20 everyday Americans scheduled to address the GOP in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the party nominates former President Donald Trump, according to an announcement from the Trump campaign. The schedule describes Albright as a lifelong Democrat who even ran for local office as a Democrat. After seeing a decline in her community and realizing how Democrats have failed Black Americans, she will proudly be voting for President Donald J. Trump for the first time this year, it says. During her 2023 campaign for an at-large seat on the CMS board a nonpartisan election Albright and two other candidates were accused by a progressive group of having ties to the Republican Party of Mecklenburg County. Carolina Forward claimed the party was trying to pull a Cotham again a reference to the state legislator who flipped parties from Democrat to Republican by secretly supporting a CMS Unity ticket that included Albright. The MeckGOP denied those claims. A Charlotte Observer report found Albright was registered to vote as unaffiliated, but campaign finance filings showed all three candidates shared a P.O. box and treasurer with some Republican politicians and political action committees. The Mecklenburg Democratic Party promoted three other candidates in the election. Albright finished sixth out of 14 candidates and didnt win a seat. Democrat switched to unaffiliated After Fridays announcement, Albright told the Observer she was a Democrat for decades before switching her party affiliation to unaffiliated in 2017 after she first ran for school board. I kind of saw that both sides play the same games, so I was kind of like, I dont know where I fit in, she said, adding she continued to vote Democratic for years. But after the controversy during last years election, things changed. Albright said she faced death threats, racism and comments about her family online in the wake of her 2023 campaign. I just did not feel comfortable in Democrat spaces, because these were my own party members, she said. ... I just cannot be a part of a party where I dont feel respected, trusted or appreciated. I felt like they wanted me out. Albright continued to post on social media about politics after the elections, including her frustrations with trying to work with the Democratic Party to make positive changes in the public school system. She believes those posts are what brought her to the attention of the Trump campaign. CMS school board candidate at RNC In Milwaukee, Albright plans to share her story and why she thinks Republicans have a better plan to improve education. I believe that the Trump administration will be more policy driven rather than trying to implement social programs into the school system that are not working, she said. Albright added her views on school discipline are more conservative. She sued CMS for wrongful termination after she was fired after a 2016 video circulated of her being attacked by students at Harding High School. The suit was settled in 2018. Asked whether speaking at the Republican convention will affirm claims made against her during the 2023 election, Albright said she has to go where I am respected and where I am appreciated and where Im wanted. Im going to work with whoever works in the best interest of students and the best outcomes, she said. Abright isnt the only person with North Carolina ties slated to speak at the convention. A group of UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who held up the American flag during a pro-Palestinian campus protest will also address the convention, according to the lineup announced Friday. Video of the incident went viral, and the group received more than $500,000 in donations that were used to throw a Labor Day party, the News & Observer reported previously. The Republican convention kicks off Monday. President Joe Biden's highly anticipated press conference went better than his debate. It also wasn't a masterclass. And Democrats are worried they're right where they started before he spoke Thursday night. Biden's remarks featured both a vociferous defense of his record and detailed explanation of his foreign policy along with eyebrow-raising flubs, including mixing up the names of his vice president and his rival. That leaves Democrats' takeaways from the press conference muddled as the party continues to spasm over last month's debate, when Biden's rambling answers sparked a tense debate about replacing him on the 2024 ballot. "This isn't a home run. It's not a disaster, but it also doesn't prove he can go out there and campaign and win. This doesn't erase the debate, and it doesn't move the polls. If I'm a member of Congress or a donor, I'm not walking away from this inspired, so the issues he had before the presser remain," said one former House Democratic aide. "This is the worst-case scenario -- it doesn't change the dynamic, and that's what the goal was," the person added. "We're still stuck in purgatory." Biden opened up his press conference by praising this week's NATO summit, touting that the alliance is "not only stronger" but also "bigger" under his watch while swatting at former President Donald Trump's skepticism of the alliance. "Have you seen a more successful conference?" he shot back at one reporter during the event's question-and-answer period. PHOTO: President Joe Biden holds a press conference during NATO's 75th anniversary summit, in Washington, July 11, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Reuters) MORE: Biden on cognitive test: 'No matter what I did, not everyone is going to be satisfied He was able to mix it up with journalists in the crowd on topics like Russia's war in Ukraine and the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, leaving defenders crowing about his grasp of complex issues. He also swatted away questions of his mental fitness and defended his decision to stay in the race, saying, "We've got to finish this job because there's so much at stake." "It absolutely should," Democratic strategist Karen Finney said when asked whether the appearance would quell concerns. "Answered the tough questions, gave detailed substantive answers and was frank about the concerns that have been raised." "I think he convinced a lot of people he should stay in the race," Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said on CNN Thursday night, days after he told reporters Democrats were not reading "from the same book" over the president's chances this November. PHOTO: President Joe Biden holds a press conference during NATO's 75th anniversary summit, in Washington, July 11, 2024. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Other moments, however, sparked alarm. Near the end of the summit, Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" -- referring to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who invaded Ukraine. And at the beginning of the question-and-answer session, he mistakenly called Vice President Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump," a remark that quickly ping ponged across social media and had Democrats cringing. "This was even worse than I thought it would be," one Democratic pollster said. "It was over the moment he said, 'Vice President Trump.'" The person added, "I don't think he can withstand what is coming." The floodgates didn't open with a wave of new calls for Biden to drop out, but he did suffer a setback in the form Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who released a statement right as the press conference finished -- underscoring that some Democrats had already made up their minds before the press conference began. "It has been the honor of my career to work with him on the achievements that have secured his remarkable legacy in American history," Himes said in a statement, referencing health care reform, infrastructure funding and gun safety measures and praising Biden's "unconditional patriotism." "It is because of those traits, and in consideration of that legacy, that I hope President Biden will step away from the presidential campaign." Reps. Scott Peters, D-Calif., and Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., also issued similarly timed statements calling for Biden to drop out. Taken together, the press conference appears unlikely to move the needle with a Democratic political class that hasn't seen quite enough to either launch a full court press to push for Biden's ouster or to fall completely in line behind him. "There were no disastrous mistakes. His economic vision was clear. But we'll still be in a wait and see because nothing else has changed," said veteran Democratic National Committee member James Zogby. Biden's campaign has furiously tried to change that dynamic since the disastrous debate. PHOTO: President Joe Biden waves as he leaves after speaking during a press conference at the close of the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) MORE: These are the Democrats who have called for Joe Biden to step aside A consensus emerged that a more muscular approach was necessary -- more travel and more unscripted moments would be needed to assuage worries over both Biden's age and electability. The campaign sent him to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and had him sit down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos (and, this coming Monday, NBC News' Lester Holt), and the president himself sent House Democrats a strongly worded letter Tuesday of his intention to remain in the race. But here Democrats still are."It's the George interview all over again," one Democratic strategist said of the press conference, referencing the interview with Stephanopoulos that was similar viewed as just good enough to let Biden hang on but not good enough to quiet the storm around him. Conversations are expected to continue among Democrats on Capitol Hill over how closely to stick by Biden, if at all. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Thursday touted "candid, cleareyed and comprehensive" conversations lawmakers are having, saying he'd "respect the sanctity of those conversations until we conclude that process." The conclusion of that process, however, appears nowhere in sight. "This was in many ways the worst-case scenario for Dems," one battleground Democratic strategist told ABC News Thursday. "The president and his team will see this as a huge success, while everyone else will see this as just another example that he's just too past his prime to win." Democrats worry Biden press conference leaves party in 'purgatory': ANALYSIS originally appeared on abcnews.go.com by Xinhua writers Wang Zizheng, Lyu Chengcheng, Zhou Chuyun BISSAU, July 12 (Xinhua) -- After a successful dry-season harvest in July, farmer Acosdo in Bafata, a town in the central-northern region of Guinea-Bissau, is getting ready for the upcoming planting phase. Thanks to the meandering Geba River, Bafata has good conditions for the production of rice, an important agricultural crop for the country. However, rice yields had been low for long. Acosdo said that with the help of Chinese agricultural expertise, things have changed. His production has quadrupled, boosting income and enabling him to buy essentials such as a new motorcycle and children's clothing. "Chinese experts brought seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, machinery, and technology, guiding me step by step in scientific rice cultivation, bringing new hope to our lives," he said. Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with Umaro Sissoco Embalo, president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, in Beijing on Wednesday. During their meeting, President Xi expressed China's willingness to continue supporting Guinea-Bissau's domestic construction, sending rice experts and medical teams to assist in ensuring food security and developing public health. Since 1998, the Chinese Agricultural Technical Assistance Team has been firmly established in the Bafata area, with over 230 experts dispatched. The experts have been involved in selecting and cultivating high-yield rice varieties, demonstrating high-yield cultivation techniques, organizing training sessions on rice planting techniques, and providing agricultural machinery maintenance and repair training. Their efforts have helped local residents increase rice yields and secure their food supply. Zheng Junjie, head of the 11th agricultural expert team stationed in Guinea-Bissau, said that the current team has introduced and selected a total of 37 rice varieties in the country. In three regions including Bafata, rice yields have increased from 1.4 tons per hectare to 4.9 tons per hectare. In demonstration areas, the average yield has reached 8.5 tons per hectare, with the highest yield reaching 10 tons per hectare. Along with the increase in rice yields, rice planting areas in Guinea-Bissau have been expanded from 60,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares. Antonio Tavares, head of Guinea-Bissau's Rice Association, studied for nine years in China, earning a master's degree in agronomy. "China's agricultural cooperation introduced advanced technology and high-quality rice strains, markedly improving local farmers' living standards," he said. Speaking of his years in China, Tavares recalled meeting rice hybrid pioneer Yuan Longping, an experience that shaped his advocacy for enhanced agricultural ties with China. "He was so friendly and approachable, personally going to the fields to demonstrate hybrid rice cultivation techniques," he said. In the Joint Statement on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Guinea-Bissau issued on Wednesday, both parties agreed to accelerate the export of high-quality agricultural products from Guinea-Bissau, such as cashew nuts, to China, while also exploring possibilities for local processing. "We have long awaited this news," said Mamadu Jamanca, president of the National Exporters Association. He said that local cashew nuts are of high quality and are a significant source of income for farmers and the country, but issues such as outdated processing technology and limited export channels often lead to low prices and sales difficulties. Nevertheless, Guinea-Bissau's cashew products have been well-received at the China International Import Expo, bringing hope to the people, Jamanca said. "We eagerly anticipate the vast Chinese market and hope that cooperation with Chinese companies can enhance the value of our products, promote the production chain, and benefit more local people." President Joe Biden didnt entirely stumble at his high-stakes NATO press conference on Thursday but his performance and continuing defiance to stepping aside has frozen Democrats in place once again over the presidents embattled candidacy against Donald Trump. Another senior Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, kept the door open to Biden changing his mind, while urging an end to the unrelenting trickle of Hill Democrats opposed to his bid. Another new poll shows that Biden and Trump remain neck-and-neck though Democratic replacements didnt fare better. And Bidens campaign swings through Michigan, Nevada, and Texas will keep the attention on him and any potential flubs while a Monday interview with NBC will provide counterprogramming to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Two weeks out from a debate that upended the 2024 presidential race, Biden continues to evade a fatal number of defections from elected officials and voters concerned about his stamina and mental acuity. But in the days to come after Bidens NATO press conference, where he demonstrated his foreign policy chops but confused his vice president with Trump, Democrats are likely to keep questioning whether this new phase of the campaign is tenable, amid growing fears of losing the White House and Congress in November. Some Democrats, like Clyburn, signaled that conversations over Bidens physical and cognitive viability should end, urging the party to focus on the presidents record and opponent. I am all in, the Biden ally said Friday on NBCs Today Show. Im riding with Biden, no matter which direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. Im with Joe Biden. Yet he also said the president should be given the space to continue to make his own decisions about his future. If he decides to change his mind later on, then we will respond to that, Clyburn said. But others on the Hill are continuing to give Biden and his campaign a harder time, unrelieved by the NATO press conference and urging him to make up his mind quickly for the sake of the party despite the fact that he has publicly remained insistent on staying in the race. As of Friday morning, 17 Democrats in the House and one in the Senate have publicly called on the president to withdraw from the race, including three who issued statements in quick succession after the press conference: Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Scott Peters of California and Eric Sorensen of Illinois. Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado put out a similar statement Friday morning. I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for President, Sorensen, a first-term Democrat in a swing district, said in a statement released an hour after Biden left the NATO podium. And by Friday afternoon, another purple district Democrat Rep. Mike Levin of California confronted the president directly on a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, telling Biden he had to go. Moments after the call wrapped, he became the 19th Democrat in Congress to publicly demand that Biden withdraw. In a post on X Friday morning, former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain wrote, its time to end the freak out and unite behind the Democratic nominee linking to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll that shows Biden 2 points ahead of Trump in a head-to-head, which is within the polls margin of error. The Marist poll, released Friday, shows Biden receiving 50 percent of the vote and Trump 48 percent a statistical dead heat. But 64 percent of registered voters and 38 percent of Democrats believe Biden lacks the mental acuity to serve as president, the poll found. Forty-nine percent of respondents believed Trump was mentally unfit to serve. Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed believe Trump will win the general election including 24 percent of Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer all polled about as well as Biden against Trump. Biden is still campaigning, with plans to whip through Michigan on Friday and Nevada and Texas next week as counterprogramming to the Republican National Convention. In Austin, Texas, on Monday, Biden will sit down for an interview with NBCs Lester Holt for his second one-on-one with a major TV news anchor in as many weeks. Biden navigated an interview last week with ABCs George Stephanopoulos with few stumbles though the anchor was later recorded telling someone on the street I dont think he can serve four more years, TMZ first reported. The Biden campaign hopes the travel and media appearances will quell concerns about the presidents capacity, slow the drip of defectors on the Hill and distract from the GOP convention, where thousands of Republicans will gather next week to formally nominate Trump. But Democrats are watching closely, scared that another poor performance could occur, as Washington is immersed in rumors about which high-profile members of the party are huddling with whom. Beyond Capitol Hill, there were signs on Friday that grassroots groups were also moving against Biden, with Movement Voter Project becoming the first progressive fundraising and organizing coalition to officially call on the president to drop out of the race. Seventy-one percent of leaders from the 64 on-the-ground mobilization groups Movement Voter Project works with said they would either strongly or lean toward preferring to see Biden withdraw, the coalition wrote in a statement to 50,000 donors. For the past many months, weve described our biggest challenge in beating Trump as closing the Biden enthusiasm gap, said Zo Tobi, MVPs communications director. That gap since the debate has become the Grand Canyon. MVP did not explicitly indicate if it prefers Harris to be at the top of the ticket instead. On Thursday, former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh brushed aside speculation that he would be in the running for Harris vice presidential pick if she swaps in as the nominee. I don't deal in hypotheticals, Walsh told POLITICO. [Biden] is my candidate for president. He is staying in the race for president. He plans on running and beating Donald Trump. But its an open question whether anything will be enough to salvage Bidens damaged candidacy. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama have spoken in private about the future of the incumbents campaign, CNN reported. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Biden last night, telling lawmakers in a letter he directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. The GOP convention and Trumps upcoming vice presidential selection, however, may take some of the political attention of Biden. DENVER (KDVR) Denver police and Mayor Mike Johnston are looking to lower crime and increase overall safety in Lower Downtown and the Ballpark District. Police investigated a shooting Wednesday around 7 p.m. near 29th and Larimer streets an area of the River North Art District that borders Ballpark and is often busy with people and bar-hoppers. How the worlds only acoustically perfect natural amphitheater formed in Colorado While the co-owner of the bar Beacon RiNo told FOX31 it was a rare situation for the area, he has other concerns about pedestrian safety. Its something the Denver Police Department is focusing on. Reducing traffic fatalities, pedestrians getting hit by cars and pedestrians walking into the road. Were just trying to reduce the density and reduce the congestion, Denver Police Commander Kimberly Bowser said. Denver marks new rideshare pickup, dropoff spots near Coors Field Police announced a safety enhancement plan for LoDo and the Ballpark District. Its goals are to: Reduce the amount of vehicular traffic congestion during peak bar hours to improve pedestrian safety Disperse crowds more effectively during bar out-crowd hours to reduce conflicts that can escalate to violence (bump-into fights, et cetera) Provide improved and streamlined access for rideshare ingress and egress of the LoDo and Ballpark District areas during peak bar hours Reduce impaired driving and DUI-related crashes during peak bar hours Between the boundaries of 18th and 21st streets and Blake and Larimer streets near Coors Field, rideshare drivers will not be allowed to pick up or drop off riders from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Instead, there will be a variety of designated pickup locations where Denver police officers will be stationed to ensure smooth traffic flow, a visible police presence and added security for those awaiting rides. We think if we can disperse the folks coming down to enjoy nightlife that that will create a much safer environment, Bowser said. Denver's Ballpark District Denver business owners welcome enhanced police efforts Blocks away, business owners believe they could also benefit from an increased police presence. I know as a business owner here, we can control the safety and what goes on inside our establishment, but we cant control what goes on out here. It clearly has become a little more chaotic, said Robert Champion, co-owner of Beacon, an immersive art and dance bar. Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone buys Highlands Ranch house for nearly $7M Just weeks ago, Champion met with city leaders and police to discuss his concerns. It was really amazing to be talking to these folks about the general direction of safety in RiNo but also a little bit disappointing, Champion said. When I asked what happens if a motorcycle group is closing down the block doing burnouts and all that, it was basically no one is going to come. RiNo business owner seeks pedestrian friendliness He told FOX31 that he believes the RiNo area is one of the safest places for nightlife in the city. My hope is that RiNo will kind of turn into a more public place and that people wont have to just rely on public establishments but also public spaces to exist outside safely or to be here safely, he said. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Champion said being pedestrian-friendly is a top priority, and he believes that draws people to the neighborhood. Its only pedestrian safety when you feel comfortable walking down the sidewalk without getting harassed or experiencing violence or chaos from motorcycle groups or a renegade party kind of blocking the sidewalk, Champion said. He said he has invested much in the neighborhood and plans to open another business there in the next six weeks. He said he understands police cannot be everywhere but would like to see more in the area to help prevent some of the disruptive behavior. 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. 'Depends on circumstances,' Danish PM says on Ukraine using F-16s to strike inside Russia The permission for Ukraine to strike inside Russia with Danish-supplied F-16s will "depend on the circumstances," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told RFE/RL on July 12 while confirming that it will be allowed in some cases. Copenhagen previously indicated that its F-16s, which should be already on their way to Ukraine, can be used by Kyiv to targets in Russia "within the rules of war." When asked about the matter by an RFE/RL reporter in Washington, Frederiksen said, "You cannot put that question and expect simple answers because it all depends on the circumstances. It has to be according to international law." "But it is possible also to reach targets outside Ukraine, yes," the prime minister added. In addition to Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway have also promised to supply Ukraine with their F-16 jets. The pledged aircraft have so far amounted to 79, including 19 from Copenhagen. The Netherlands indicated that it would allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia, while Belgium said that its F-16s are intended only for use on Ukrainian territory. Frederiksen echoed President Volodymyr Zelensky's statement that the number of F-16s currently pledged is not sufficient in the face of Russian airpower. "That's one of the reasons why we have built an international F-16 coalition," the prime minister said, voicing hopes that other countries will offer further assistance with training and aircraft. Frederiksen rejected the idea that Western arms supplies could lead to an escalation, saying that the sole responsibility for the war lies with Russia and "Ukraine has the right... and the obligation to defend itself." "And the same goes for the rest of Europe. We have to protect our continent, our values, and our people. And therefore, we have to not only defend Ukraine but also defeat the Russians," the Danish head of government said. 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. DARE COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) Dare County Sheriffs Office seeks to identify a man in connection to an assault incident that occurred back in June, deputies said. The alleged assault of a female occurred on June 22 at 4:45 a.m. at a Virginia Dare Rest Area, deputies said. The community can report information to the office at 252-475-9172. There are no additional details surrounding the incident. If you have any information about this case, you can submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-888-LOCK-U-UP, downloading the P3 tips app to a mobile device, or visiting www.P3tips.com and submitting a tip. 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 front page of the Deseret News on July 13, 1954, after U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower presented to Congress a plan to revamped the federal interstate highway system. A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives. On July 12, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower put forward a plan for an interstate highway system. It took a few years to get going, but the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the U.S. The system now includes roads in Hawaii, Alaska and even Puerto Rico. How the plan came to fruition could have its genesis in a trip Eisenhower took in 1919 to cross the country. The trip took 62 days. Plans to improve and connect interstate roads in the U.S. were developed and implemented all through the 20th century. Eisenhowers administration began the process that became the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. His proposal, unveiled by Vice President Richard Nixon at the annual governors conference in New York, included a $50 billion price tag back when $50 billion was a lot of money. The administration said the program was needed to improve atomic defenses and prepare for a population of 200 million by 1970, Nixon shared. The governors were not at all thrilled with the proposal, but Eisenhower invited the governors to study his proposal and recommend the co-operative action they feel the federal and state governments should take, according to the Deseret News article of the day Not everyone embraced the new plan, in which the interstates were designed to be all freeways, with nationally unified standards for construction and signage. While some older freeways were adopted into the system, most of the routes were completely new. In some areas, that meant the main roads bypassing communities or destroying neighborhoods. It is reported that following the 1956 Highway Act, as many as a million Americans were displaced. Interstate highways are funded by the government, but owned and operated by the states where they are built. As of 2020, about one quarter of all vehicle miles driven in the country used the Interstate Highway System, which had a total length of 48,756 miles. Here are some stories from Deseret News archives about roads in America, some of the Wests favorite drives, and why not everyone loved the plan. How highways changed the West and the West changed highways Milestone for road system New Eisenhower Memorial celebrates his great legacy Presidential boyhood homes: Eisenhower home oozes charm Eisenhowers enduring legacy Utah to receive $27 million for highway system Highway 89 from border to border is Americas most scenic route `Lonliest road: U.S. road lives up to its name W.V. highway now a reality after traveling a rocky road Highway 50: Americas lonliest road Remembering the Lincoln Highway Alcan Highway Coloradans grudgingly drawn into rat race over Eisenhower Tunnel `Divided Highways is fascinating fun Why are summer road trips good for families? A detailed look at childrens brains might show how sex and gender are different, new study says Sex and gender are often conflated or equated in everyday conversations, and most American adults believe a persons gender is determined by sex assigned at birth. But a new study of nearly 5,000 9- and 10-year-olds found that sex and gender map onto largely distinct parts of the brain. The research gives a first insight into how sex and gender may have measurable and unique influences on the brain, study authors said, just as other experiences have been shown to shape the brain. Moving forward, we really need to consider both sexes and genders separately if we better want to understand the brain, said Dr. Elvisha Dhamala, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, California, and a co-author of the study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances. The researchers on the new study defined sex as what was assigned to the child at birth. In the US, clinicians make this assignment based on genitalia. Most people are assigned either female or male, according to the research; the rest are intersex, a person whose sexual or reproductive anatomy doesnt fit this male/female binary. The researchers defined gender as an individuals attitude, feelings and behaviors, as well as socially constructed roles. They noted specifically that gender is not binary, meaning not all people identify as either female or male. Both sex and gender are a core part of human experience. Theyre key to how people perceive others and how they understand themselves. Both can influence behavior as well as health, the study authors say. The researchers looked at brain imaging data from 4,757 children in the United States, 2,315 assigned female at birth and 2,442 assigned male at birth, who were ages 9 and 10 and were a subset of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. Over a period of 10 years, the children in the ABCD study underwent comprehensive neuroimaging, behavioral, developmental and psychiatric assessments. Beyond tests such as MRIs, the scientists did surveys of the children and their parents that were focused on gender, both at the beginning of the research and then a year later. The children were asked about how they expressed their gender and how they felt about it. The parents were asked about a childs sex-typed behavior during play and whether the child had any gender dysphoria, a term that mental health professionals use to describe clinically significant distress felt because a persons sense of their gender does not match their sex the assigned at birth. Parents were a key part of the study, said study co-author Dr. Dani S. Bassett, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania with appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, Neurology, and Psychiatry. When kids have a particular kind of gender behavior or gender expression, that will influence how their parents and also other caregivers and friends and family et cetera interact with them, Bassett said. Information about a parents perception of a childs gender gives researchers a better sense of the childs social environment and how it may affect their brain development. The authors used a kind of artificial intelligence called machine learning that built a model that could predict a childs sex and reported gender from their brain scan. When the researchers looked the childrens brain scans, the results seemed to show that sex influenced different regions of the brain that are involved in visual processing, sensory processing and motor control and some regions involved in executive function, which lets an individual organize and integrate information across time. Gender seems to influence some of the more sensory-specific networks that are associated with sex, but it also seems to have a broader influence and can be detected on different brain networks involved in executive function, including things like attention, social cognition and emotional processing. The fact that were able to capture how gender maps onto the brain basically just tells us that gender is influencing our brain, Dhamala said. The structure of the human brain can be shaped by expertise and experiences. Research on London taxi drivers who must take extensive tests to show that they can navigate the citys streets without maps or GPS seems to show that they have significantly larger posterior hippocampi, the part of the brain related to spatial memory and navigation, than in people who arent taxi drivers. Similarly, as individuals and as humans, we are experts about ourselves and our genders. So it makes sense that gender will also be mapped within our brains, Dhamala said. What the new study cannot do is predict what gender a person may identify with beyond one limited snapshot in time captured by the scans and surveys. Gender, the authors note, is not something that is necessarily static, and a persons understanding of their gender can change throughout their lifetime. The study also cant determine what things in someones environment will influence their brain function in terms of sex or gender, nor can it identify what a persons sexual orientation might be. Sexual orientation is independent from gender and from sex, Bassett said, and it may be differently mapped in the brain. The researchers say they hope to someday learn more about how sex and gender interact in a persons life and how they influence one another and the brain throughout a lifetime. They also hope to see how different cultures affect a persons gender and their brain development. A 2022 poll showed that most American adults and the vast majority of conservatives believe that a persons gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth. The distinction is key to gender-affirming care, medical treatment for people who identify as a gender that is different from the one they were assigned at birth. Conservative politicians have pushed for a record number of bans on such care, and nearly half of US states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors. The study did not look at whether sex or gender were congruent or incongruent in any study participant. Rather, it looked at the childs binary sex and gender across self- and parent-reported measures. The study couldnt provide any specific findings if sex and gender were incongruent. Going forward, the hope is that we can motivate other scientists to consider science and gender in their analyses in the data collections in their programs and research, said study co-author Dr. Avram Holmes, an associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers University. The field of neuroscience has only just begun to acknowledge and address the presence of biases and barriers to inclusivity within research, Holmes said. A fuller understanding of the way the brain works in terms of sex and gender could also have practical implications and potentially help scientists find better ways to treat people with brain-related illnesses. For instance, the study pointed to how people assigned male at birth are more likely to be diagnosed with substance use and attention deficit disorders. Its not that sex and gender necessarily drive illness rates, but the cultures people are embedded in can also influence the likelihood they may or may not develop a particular illness, Holmes said. So the types of environmental pressures a child undergoes across development could increase or decrease their risk for experiencing illness, independent of their initial brain biology. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Did Guards Connected to the George Floyd-Style Death of a Milwaukee Black Man Lie About His 'Aggression?' The family of a Black man who died following a detainment by hotel security guards have spoken out against the claim from authorities that the man showed aggression toward the guard. Evidence may prove he wasnt a threat at all. DVontaye Mitchell, 37, was seen on bystander video being tackled to the ground by four security guards at the Hyatt Regency on June 30. In the video, hes seen being pressed into the ground on his stomach while each guard restrains his limbs on all sides. This is what happens when you go into the ladies room! one guard yelled. Milwaukee police originally alleged Mitchell caused a disturbance inside the hotel and was aggressive toward officers. However, after reviewing the surveillance camera footage, Mitchells family insists he wasnt posing a threat to the guards. In a press conference Wednesday, they said the video caught him running through the lobby into the womens bathroom until he was ultimately chased out of the building, being beaten and kicked on the way out. To see them beat him repeatedly over and over and over again - they didnt stop, said Mitchells wife, DeAsia Harmon, through tears in a press conference Thursday. They couldve stopped. They couldve let him go and they didnt. Harmon also said, in the video, she saw the guards drag him outside while already bloodied from the beatings. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Mitchells family, said in the conference he obtained a signed affidavit from a hotel employee who witnessed Mitchell being beaten with a baton while not posing a threat. The surveillance footage also showed one guard take a picture of Mitchell as he lay unconscious on the ground, another attorney alleged. The medical examiners officer ruled the preliminary cause of death as a homicide. The report also says Milwaukee County District Attorneys office announced Wednesday the case is being investigated as such even as they await the complete autopsy results. As the investigation continues, protests have erupted in Milwaukee ahead of the upcoming Republican National Convention which will be held in the city starting July 15 leading Mitchells family to wonderif his death is going to go mute amidst the political noise. Just because they have a big event coming up in Milwaukee, the killing of DVontaye Mitchell is just as important as anything else thats going to happen in Milwaukee this month, said Crump via The AP. We will demand justice every day this week, every day next week and every day after that. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Did vandalism cause a cellphone and internet outage near Gig Harbor? Heres what we know The circumstances are murky, but multiple telecommunications companies said that vandalism led to cellphone and internet outages in the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor areas earlier this week. Key Peninsula residents posted on social media July 9 that they had lost CenturyLink and Verizon service. Both companies told The News Tribune that vandalism was the cause. A spokesperson for the Pierce County Sheriffs Department said the agency didnt have any report of that. A spokesperson for the Kitsap County Sheriffs Office said the same. Lumen (CenturyLinks parent company) spokesperson Matt Villarreal told The News Tribune via email July 10 that: some customers in the Gig Harbor, WA area experienced service disruptions due to a fiber cut caused by vandalism. All services have now been restored. Our technicians identified the issue and worked hard to fix it as quickly as possible. We know staying connected is important and appreciate our customers patience and understanding. Asked for additional details about the vandalism, which agency would be investigating, and how many customers were affected, he wrote July 11: Weve had a few isolated service disruptions affecting a small number of customers in the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas due to ongoing vandalism. Weve been in contact with local law enforcement daily, and restoring services is our top priority. Well provide regular updates and appreciate your patience and understanding. Villarreal did not respond to The News Tribunes question about how many customers were affected. Verizon spokesperson Alexis Madrigal told The News Tribune via email July 10 that a third party vendor was experiencing issues, causing a service interruption for some customers in and around Key Peninsula. Our engineers worked with our vendor partners and this issue was resolved by about 10 p.m. July 9. Told about Lumens account, Madrigal wrote July 12: We can confirm that it was vandalism. She did not answer The News Tribunes question about how many customers were affected. Asked for additional information about the vandalism and which agency would be investigating, Madrigal referred The News Tribune to Lumen. Theres been some confusion among residents on social media about whether telecommunications crews working in the area, possibly Comcast, have led to recent outages. For questions or concerns about construction work being performed in Key Peninsula, please contact our business partner Cannon, Comcast spokesperson Andy Colley told The News Tribune via email July 11. Cannon Companies, a Milton-based utilities contractor, did not respond to The News Tribunes email or voice message July 11. Asked about any additional information Comcast could share, including how many customers were affected, Colley wrote July 11: Theres really nothing I can tell given our network engineers say that we have not experienced an outage in our existing footprint in Pierce County this week. It may be possible that vandals cut some service provider cables that did not include Comcast, but that is just my speculation. Sorry I cant be of more help. Charlotte City Councilmember Dimple Ajmera says she is humbled by numerous community leaders she says have approached her to consider running for mayor in 2025. Councilmember Ajmera says she has not made any decisions about her political future and says Mayor Vi Lyles deserves space to decide what she wants to do. ALSO READ: North Carolina governor signs 12 bills still left on his desk, vetoes 1 more We must respect her space, Ajmera said. We must respect her decision about her future and no one should jump the gun on that. Mayor Vi Lyles has not announced whether she will seek re-election. Channel 9 has reached out to Mayor Lyles for comment. In an interview with the Political Beat, Ajmera also explained why she voted no against the Bank of America Stadium project. >> Watch Ajmeras interview on the Political Beat in the video at the top of the page. (WATCH BELOW: City manager proposes property tax increase) Fatima Latifova During her business visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia, the Chairwoman of the 6th convocation of the Milli Majlis (National Assembly) of Azerbaijan, Sahiba Gafarova, held meetings with Natalya Kochanova, Chairwoman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus, and Agegnehu Teshager, Speaker of the House of Federation of Ethiopia, Azernews reports. In the meeting with Natalya Kochanova, both parties expressed satisfaction with the development of partnership relations based on the principles of friendship between Azerbaijan and Belarus. They noted the important role of high-level relations between the heads of state of both countries in the current high level of relations and mentioned the intensification of high-level mutual visits and the signing of documents that ensure deeper connections between Azerbaijan and Belarus. During the conversation, the importance of further development of cooperation in various fields between the two countries was emphasised, and ideas were exchanged regarding the existing opportunities in these areas. The meeting also expressed satisfaction with the successful cooperation between the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Belarus, both bilaterally and within international parliamentary organisations. Speaker Sahiba Gafarova fondly recalled her official visit to Belarus last month and the meetings she had. In the meeting with Agegnehu Teshager, the current state and development prospects of relations between the two countries were discussed, and it was stated that there are opportunities for cooperation in several areas. The meeting highlighted the joint activities of the parliaments of both countries in various international organisations. Chairwoman Sahiba Gafarova provided information about the activities of the Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network, established on the initiative of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. She recalled Ethiopia's participation in the organisation's conference. Additionally, she emphasised the importance of mutual visits between friendship groups operating within the legislative bodies of both countries. Agegnehu Teshager praised Azerbaijan's activities within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network and commended the initiatives put forward by Azerbaijan during its chairmanship of the Movement. The meetings also discussed the upcoming 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Baku in November this year. Chairwoman Sahiba Gafarova provided information about the parliamentary conference that the Milli Majlis will organise in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union within the framework of COP29. HELSINKI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish parliament approved a bill on Friday that empowers Finnish border guards to reject border crossers in case of a significant influx of potential asylum seekers. Based on the discretion of the border guards, not all individuals attempting to enter Finland would have access to the asylum application process. The "push back" bill was approved with 167 votes in favor, 31 against and one abstention. Due to its departure from Finnish constitutional principles and international obligations, the approval of the bill in parliament required a 5/6 majority. "A rule-of-law country must have the right to protect itself," Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said, noting that the large majority reflected the unanimity among the Finnish people on security issues. He said Finland will work towards a European-level legislative solution to address "instrumentalized immigration." The parliamentary vote followed intense political debate and consternation within the political landscape. Among the government parties, the Conservatives, the Finns Party, and the small Christian Democratic Party supported the bill, while the Swedish People's Party was divided. In the opposition, the Center Party supported the bill, whereas the Greens and the Left Alliance opposed it, and the Social Democrats were also divided. Supporters of the bill acknowledged its incompatibility with the basic principles of the constitution but maintained that the legislation would be necessary to address potential national security concerns. Its opponents, however, warned that the temporary departure from Finnish and EU laws could set a precedent and potentially undermine the rule of law in Finland. They argued that there are alternative ways to safeguard the country's security. The border between Finland and Russia has been closed since late last year, except for freight railroads. The worlds largest dinosaur skeleton ever offered at auction is set to sell for a fittingly large sum this coming winter. The Apatosaurus specimen, known as Vulcain, is expected to fetch between $3.3 million and $5.4 million (3 million and 5 million) at Parisian auction houses Collin Du Bocage and Barbarossa in November. More from Robb Report Vulcain measures roughly 69 feet from tip to tail and has a bone structure that is more than 80 percent complete. The giant herbivore, which is around 150 million years old, was discovered in the paleontology hotspot of Wyoming in 2018. It required three years of excavation to get the bones to the surface. The GPS point, excavation plan, and osteological map will be sold with the skeleton. Vulcain and expert Eric Mickeler. The Apatosaurus is remarkably similar to the Brontosaurus. The skeletons of both dinosaurs were discovered around the same time in the late 1800s and named by O.C. Marsh. Fast forward a few years, American paleontologist Elmer Riggs argued in a 1903 publication that the two dinosaurs were not different enough for separate monikers. As the Apatosaurus had been christened first, the Brontosaurus adopted that name. Many modern paleontologists believe the dinosaurs deserve individual titles because of subtle differences. The sauropod family to which these dinosaurs belonged lived in North America, Europe, and parts of Africa during the late Jurassic period (between 145 million and 160 million years ago). The American Museum of Natural Historys Apatosaurus was the first sauropod ever mounted and went on view in 1905. It has been a focal point of the collection ever since. Vulcains skull. This particular Apatosaurus will be displayed at Dampierre castle in Dampierre-en-Yvelines, France from July 13 until November 3, before it is auctioned off on November 16. Eric Mickeler, who has sold a range of dinosaur skeletons at Christies, Sothebys, and Aguttes over the past 20 years, has been appointed the expert of Vulcain. Despite some criticism from the scientific community, dinosaur skeletons have become highly collectible and prices for specimens have increased significantly over the past 25 years. For example, Tyrannosaurus rex Sue achieved $8.4 million at Sothebys in 1997, while fellow T.rex Stan realized a record $31.8 million at Christies in 2020. That makes $5 million sound like a bargain. Story continues 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. A Louisiana absentee ballot request form. (Photo credit: Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator) A group that advocates for people with disabilities filed a Voting Rights Act lawsuit Wednesday against the state of Louisiana to block a slate of new laws that target absentee voting. The four laws in question include one that makes it illegal to print out an application form from a state website and give it to someone who didnt ask for it. It is also now illegal to help fill out, mail or witness an absentee ballot for more than one person who isnt an immediate family member. The organization, Disability Rights Louisiana, filed the suit in federal court in the Middle District of Louisiana, requesting the judge to issue a statewide injunction to stop Secretary of State Nancy Landry from implementing and enforcing the new laws the Louisiana Legislature passed this year that target the rising popularity of absentee voting. While folks were rightfully up in arms about the laws mandating the Ten Commandments in classrooms, laws that suppress the votes of the disabled were passed with much less fanfare, Andrew Bizer, the attorney for Disability Rights Louisiana, said in a statement. The Voting Rights Act gives people with disabilities the right to assistance in voting by anyone they trust. These new laws make that nearly impossible for people living in nursing or group homes. These laws are undemocratic and must be stopped. The laws at issue are: Act No. 380, formerly House Bill 476 sponsored by Rep. Josh Carlson, R-Lafayette. This measure, scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, prohibits a person from mailing more than one absentee ballot for a voter who isnt an immediate family member. Prior to this law, it was already illegal for non-relatives to hand deliver more than one absentee ballot per election to a registrar of voters to be counted. Carlsons legislation expanded that statute to prohibit delivery by mail. Act No. 317, formerly Senate Bill 218 by Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen. Also scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, it prohibits a person from giving an absentee ballot application to more than one person who is not an immediate family member. The prohibition isnt for the actual absentee ballot but for the form used to request an absentee ballot. It further makes it illegal to give one of those forms, which are publicly available to print from the Secretary of States website, to anyone who didnt formally request one. Lastly, the act contains a broad catch-all provision that makes it illegal to facilitate the distribution and collection of absentee by mail ballot applications or absentee by mail ballots in violation of this Title. Act No. 302 by Kleinpeter and Act No. 712 by Rep. Polly Thomas, R-Metairie. Similar in effect, both measures make it a crime for anyone to be the witness on an absentee ballot for more than one person who isnt an immediate family member. The statutes at issue facially violate the Voting Rights Act and threaten to make criminals of the caretakers, nurses, doctors, or others who assist individuals with disabilities and the elderly, the lawsuit from Disability Rights Louisiana reads. Absentee voting numbers mixed Absentee mail voting typically starts about two weeks before an election. It has steadily grown in popularity over the past 20 years, especially during the coronavirus pandemic when it became an important avenue for voter participation in the 2020 presidential election. It also became a controversial one when former President Donald Trump and his supporters began to spread lies about his loss to President Joe Biden. Many centered around absentee voting, which Democratic voters typically use more than Republicans. That trend did not hold for Louisianas 2023 gubernatorial election. Democrats dominated early voting in 2020 in Louisiana, but Republicans cast the lions share of early votes last October with 44% of the tally compared with Democrats 41%. It may be too soon to tell if those results signal a long-term shift or just an anomaly from what was an unusually sleepy primary election that saw one of the lowest voter turnouts of any Louisiana governors race in recent history. For thousands of voters, absentee ballots are their only chance to participate. An estimated 1 out of 3 adults in Louisiana, over 1.1 million people, have a disability, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Disabled people disproportionately rely on absentee voting due to difficulties with mobility, limited access to transportation, risks associated with in-person voting, accessibility barriers at polling places or being confined. Some of those disabled voters also rely on other people to assist them in applying for an absentee ballot, filling it out and sending it through the mail. Nearly 15,000 disabled voters submitted absentee ballots with the assistance of others during the 2020 presidential election, and more than 6,000 did so during last Octobers election, according to the Secretary of States Office. Those are relatively small portions of the electorate, but the figures dont include disabled voters who voted absentee without assistance. In total, more than 95,000 voters cast absentee ballots in the governors race last year, comprising 26% of the early vote. That was an increase of nine percentage points over the share of absentee ballots during 2020 early voting. Election officials cite local fraud incidents All four of the new laws were part of what Landry called her election integrity legislative package, although she and her predecessor, Kyle Ardoin, repeatedly affirmed Louisiana has not seen any instances of widespread voter fraud, but Landry has pointed to some minor incidents of election crimes to make her case. In previous statements to the Illuminator, Landrys office cited three incidents of misdemeanor election crimes in Louisiana that impacted small numbers of votes. None of the incidents revealed evidence of widespread wrongdoing among absentee voters. One was a vote-buying scheme concocted by a handful of local officials in Tangipahoa Parish between 2016 and 2020. Another occurred in a 2018 local election in Acadia Parish when a woman, Delores Dee Handy of Crowley, assisting two elderly voters allegedly failed to mark their absentee ballots as directed. She was convicted and served a term of probation. The third incident occurred in 2020, when an Amite City councilman allegedly wrote false addresses on two voter registration forms. Disability Rights Louisiana argues that Landrys new laws will do little, if anything, to prevent fraud and only serve to curtail the voting rights of many disabled people. Under the states new laws, a disabled person living in a nursing home or group home may not receive help from a staff member of that facility to mail an absentee ballot or print an absentee request form if that staff member has already helped or plans to help any other resident or patient with the same tasks. The lawsuit argues that Louisianas new laws directly contradict the federal Voting Rights Act, which Congress amended in 1984 to ensure that people who require assistance in voting due to disability can receive assistance from a person of the voters choice. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Disability advocate files federal lawsuit over Louisianas new absentee ballot laws appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks during opening remarks of an event concerning the Disagree Better initiative as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 11, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Utah Gov. Spencer Coxs Disagree Better ad campaign that featured state leaders of opposing parties promoting civil dialogue was shown to decrease partisan animosity of voters and actually increase their favorable view of the governors involved, according to an independent study presented at Coxs final Disagree Better event in Salt Lake City on Thursday. I can assure you nobody is more relieved than I am that we didnt just waste a year of our time and energy, Cox told a few hundred attendees, including 13 other governors, in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand America Hotel. Cox is wrapping up one year as chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association and with it his call for all 55 of the nations governors (including territories) to model constructive ways of navigating divisive issues. We have, now, scientific proof that this will actually help candidates perform and that you can win elections with a positive message like this one, Cox told the Deseret News. And thats certainly something well be sharing across the country now that we have some data to back it up. Disagree Better by the numbers Stanford sociology professor Rob Willer conducted a study among 6,500 Americans on the effectiveness of Coxs Disagree Better campaign and presented his findings for the first time on Thursday. Willer said he was very impressed when Cox and the National Governors Association allowed him to move forward with his study because he had no incentive to show you a rosy picture. Willer, along with his colleagues, Stanford data scientist Chagai Weiss and Columbia political scientist Donald Green, exposed half of the study participants to three Disagree Better ads, and the other half to three non-political public service announcements, during the course of a political survey. The participants who viewed the Disagree Better ads, as opposed to the placebo, saw a marked decrease in partisan animosity, and an increase in conversational receptiveness and support for bipartisanship that was comparable to the better performing polarization interventions Willer had studied previously. Seeing these results ... I want to see people beyond you all state representatives, U.S. Congress people taking up the disagree better mantle and carrying forward and following your leadership, Willer said. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox talks with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis before opening remarks of an event concerning the Disagree Better initiative as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 11, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News What is Disagree Better? The governors tenure as chair, beginning in July 2023, gave him the opportunity to promote any message of his choice. Cox chose Disagree Better, or the idea that Americans must learn to disagree without hating each other, which he saw as one of the central problems facing the United States. The National Governors Association under Coxs lead has held four gatherings across the country in New Hampshire, Colorado, Tennessee and Utah to educate the nations governors on what leads to toxic political polarization and what tools can be used to help politicians, young people and college campuses reverse the trend. In February, Cox brought Disagree Better to Washington, D.C., where he headlined a forum with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, spoke at George Washington University and met with President Joe Biden, who praised the Disagree Better initiative. And in April, Cox gave his pitch to his biggest audience yet with a TED Talks speech. The initiative also included commercials with 21 governors patterned after Coxs viral 2020 ad filmed with his Democratic gubernatorial opponent Chris Peterson. The videos featured governors speaking with a leader from the other side of the aisle about the importance of seeing past Republican and Democratic labels to solve the problems constituents face. Disagree Better can help with campaigns Willer, who had previously used Coxs 2020 video as part of his Strengthening Democracy Challenge, said he was sympathetic to politicians not wanting to experiment with Disagree Better during their campaigns the same way Cox had. But he took a deeper look at the data and found that appearing in a Disagree Better ad didnt hurt the governors involved it did the opposite. We actually found a bigger effect on support for the governors that were in the public service announcements, Willer said. This finding was consistent between general election voters and primary voters and carried over to voters who placed themselves on the extreme ends of the political spectrum. They were impressed. It increased their respect, Willer said. Its enough of an effect size to where if you were in the context of a campaign, you might consider doing disagree better to advance your candidacy. This influence on candidate favorability likely comes from the Disagree Better approach being so novel in todays political environment, Willer said. Cox requested that Willer provide all the governors with the data from his study, including a breakdown by age and gender. He said he is excited to promote the results of his campaign among his fellow governors even after he steps down from his position as National Governors Association chairman on Friday. It would be great if everybody just did this because its good for America and good for our souls. But I know it wont happen unless its also good to help people get reelected, Cox said. And so that data, I think, is the most compelling. Attendees walk around before opening remarks of an event concerning the Disagree Better initiative as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 11, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Disneyland Has Already Had A Difficult Summer, But It May Be About To Get A Lot Worse Summer is usually the busiest time to visit Disneyland Resort. Its the time when most people, especially kids, are on vacation, making it the easiest time to visit the happiest place on earth. This usually means long lines at Disneyland even in the best of circumstances. However, with large portions of the park under construction and some of the best rides at Disneyland closed, it hasnt necessarily been the best time to visit the park right now. Things may be about to get a lot worse as 14,000 Disneyland Resort cast members may be about to go on strike. The Los Angeles Times reports that four major unions, representing 14,000 Disneyland Resort cast members have scheduled a strike authorization vote for July 19. The strike vote comes while the National Labor Relations Board has been investigating Disney for alleged labor violations. The unions have accused the theme park of unlawful intimidation, surveillance, and disciplinary threats. Disneyland Cast Members May Go On Strike Soon Negotiations for a new contract have been underway since April. The major sticking point, unsurprisingly, appears to be money. Disney is balking at a pay increase that it says is a 40% jump over the previous contract. However, the union argues that the bulk of the pay increase actually comes from a living wage law recently passed for the city of Anaheim. There is a meeting between Disneyland Resort and the union currently scheduled for July 22. Assuming the strike vote passes on the 19th, which seems likely, there will certainly be added pressure on that meeting. If there is no agreement or at least meaningful progress from that meeting, we could see a strike called shortly afterward. Needless to say, if 14,000 cast members walk off the job later this month its going to make guests' experiences in the park more difficult. The unions involved in this fight represent theme park ride operators, candy makers, custodians, and cashiers. Take them off the job and Disneyland is going to become a lot less fun for those looking to experience the parks. Major Closures Are Already Causing Problems At Disneyland These issues, if they come to pass, will be on top of the fact that Disneyland Park specifically has been dealing with some necessary, but significant problems that have made this a difficult summer season. Tianas Bayou Adventure recently opened at Disney World but hasnt opened at Disneyland yet, so its still closed, along with the entirety of Critter Country. The Haunted Mansion is also closed as it is still going through a major queue renovation. As such, an entire corner of the park is closed for business. Haunted Mansion is scheduled to reopen by late August, though without construction having been completed. Critter Country and Tiana's Bayou Adventure don't have opening dates yet. And things are going to get worse before they get better. Space Mountain is scheduled to go down for refurbishment in early August, just before the D23 event takes place not far from Disneyland. This will take another crowd-eating and incredibly popular attraction out of commission. If the ride and land closures are met with a strike, things will only get worse for the guests. Certainly, when the work is all done, Disneyland will be better than ever, but its certainly caused some pain to get there. Disneyland cast members should be paid well. They do a wonderful job that makes our park experience better. Hopefully, a strike can be avoided so that both guests and cast members can have as happy a summer at Disneyland as possible. GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) WesternSlopeNow reached out to officials with Mesa County Valley School District 51 to see where they stand on the current discussions on the Orchard Mesa Community Pool, and they sent us a statement. District 51 and the City of Grand Junction continue to have collaborative discussions about potential options to determine the best course of action, for addressing the future of the Orchard Mesa Community Pool. Potential options will be presented to both the D51 board of education and Grand Junction city council in public meetings, before any possible action is taken. WesternSlopeNow will keep you updated as this story 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. A little more than a month before the Democratic National Convention arrives in Chicago, one of Mayor Brandon Johnsons top deputies on Thursday assured a roomful of business and civic leaders the city is ready for its moment in the international spotlight and that the impact of the historic event will be felt long after the expected 50,000 visitors leave town. Concerns about potential unrest in the streets, including planned protests over the Biden administrations support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, have shifted and in some ways been overshadowed in the past two weeks as Democrats find themselves divided over whether President Joe Biden should remain the partys nominee. The concerns were significantly heightened after Biden, 81, gave a listless debate performance late last month that caused many Democrats to worry he could not defeat former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November or serve as president for four more years. While Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have reaffirmed their support for Biden in recent days after each took part in private meetings with the president and other leaders, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider of Highland Park on Thursday joined U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley of Chicago on the growing list of Democrats calling for a new nominee to lead the ticket. Whatever divisions might be on display on the streets of the city or inside the convention hall at the United Center, Chicago is prepared for its role as host, John Roberson, the citys chief operating officer, said during an event in River North hosted by the City Club of Chicago. Given the national dynamic in terms of the public discourse that is going on today, why not Chicago? Roberson said. Why wouldnt this be the place where we can host the most democratic activity of selecting someone to run for the highest office in the land and still be the same city that provides the room and space for the full-throated expression of First Amendment rights? And to do it in this moment while the world is watching, we have the opportunity as the city to show people how to do it the right way. Robersons comments came days after a violent Fourth of July weekend during which 100 people were shot, 21 of them fatally, while the city hosted a NASCAR street race downtown. Nevertheless, he said the Chicago Police Department is prepared to keep the entire city safe when the DNC is in town from Aug. 19-22. What we are going to do is to make sure that every single visitor, delegate or not, will be safe. Were going to make sure that those who are going to engage in the full expression of their First and Fourth amendment rights are going to be safe, Roberson said, referring to the rights of free speech and assembly but also protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. And were going to do that against the backdrop of providing public safety for 2.7 million people in the city of Chicago. CPD has been preparing for months for the convention and coordinating closely with the Secret Service, which is in charge of security in and around the United Center and McCormick Place, where party business will take place during the days of the convention. Roberson reiterated that Chicago police drawing on lessons from the 1996 DNC, the 2012 NATO summit and even pro-Palestinian protests this spring are ready and that the Johnson administration welcomes protests, even as it continues to try to negotiate an agreement with demonstrators about where their rallies and marches can take place. For a mayor that comes out of labor, that comes out of the movement, he embraces that. He encourages it. We want that to happen, Roberson said. But were not going to tolerate vandalism; were not going to tolerate destruction of property. Joining Roberson on stage at the lunchtime event were Alex Hornbrook, executive director of the Democratic National Convention Committee, and Christy George, executive director of the nonprofit Chicago host committee, both of whom sidestepped an audience question about the process for choosing a new nominee should Biden withdraw. Instead, Hornbrook spoke about how convention organizers for the first time are offering access to social media content creators in much the same way they do for the traditional news media. None of the panelists took questions from reporters after the discussion. Its common practice following City Club events for speakers to answer media inquiries. On stage, Hornbrook, who led the host city selection process for the DNC, said whether it comes to conveniently located hotel rooms, transportation infrastructure or public safety planning, were fully confident that the city is prepared for this moment. Its not an accident that were here in Chicago, he said. George encouraged the City Club audience to help draw convention-goers into Chicagos neighborhoods by hosting events throughout the week. We would love to see events happening all over the city of Chicago, she said. Aside from security preparations, city workers have been busy with beautification and infrastructure improvement projects ahead of the convention, from planting 500 new trees to building a new $80 million CTA station on the Green Line at Damen Avenue. While acknowledging some people might question the expenditures, Roberson said the Johnson administration is aiming for improvements that will benefit residents beyond the four days of the convention. Those trees, for example, are being planted in areas where theyre currently lacking, which eventually should help lower residents energy bills in the summer by providing more shade, he said. Likewise, the administration is targeting the area around the new Damen Green Line stop for the development of more affordable housing, Roberson said. When we talk about the investments that were making for the DNC, yes, were going to beautify; yes, were going to make sure that our delegates have a good time, he said. But we also have to make sure that the long-lasting impact is going to help to change the trajectory and create the vibrancy for the future of our city. Bidens future, meanwhile, remains hotly debated among Democratic officials, donors and activists. In his statement, Schneider, the five-term North Shore congressman, professed his love for the president but encouraged him to follow the lead of George Washington and pass the torch. In passing the torch now, President Biden has a chance to live up to this standard and seal his place in history as one of the greatest leaders our nation, and history, has ever known, said Schneider, who noted he was the first member of Illinois congressional delegation to back Biden in the 2020 race. He can lead the transition of power to a new generation that can build a stronger party and a stronger nation, Schneider said. I fear if he fails to make the right choice, our democracy will hang in the balance. An image of one of the billboards deployed by the Democratic National Committee in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing alongside other cities in battleground states. | Image courtesy of the Democratic National Committee Ahead of President Joe Bidens visit to Detroit, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is deploying billboards in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing, tying former President Donald Trump to Project 2025. Project 2025, created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, is a collection of far-right policy proposals intended for a conservative presidential administration. Its more than 900-page Mandate For Leadership includes proposals reshaping the federal government, restricting access to the abortion pill and barring hospitals from providing emergency abortion care, reversing course on climate change efforts alongside many other recommendations. While Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025 by disavowing some of its policies and posting to social media, I have no idea who is behind it, the efforts guiding document was authored by a number of former Trump Administration employees. A review from CNN found that at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration contributed to Project 2025, including six former cabinet members. Earlier this week the Republican National Committee adopted its 2024 platform, which contains some overlap with Project 2025 on issues like immigration, boosting energy production and eliminating the Department of Education. With Bidens debate performance sparking concerns among voters and division among Democrats on whether the president should rescind his candidacy, the party has shifted course to attack Project 2025, warning its proposals would harm women, LGBTQ+ individuals and seniors. Alongside billboards in Michigan, the DNC is placing billboards in cities across battleground states. The billboards appear in both Spanish and English, with one calling Project 2025, Trumps plan to be a dictator on Day 1, telling voters to google the effort in a nod to a social media post from Biden. Another states that Trump and Project 2025 would gut checks and balances, seek revenge, and ban abortion nationwide. While Project 2025 does not explicitly call for a nationwide ban on abortion, its bevy of suggestions regulating pregnancy and abortion would greatly increase the difficulty to receive abortion care. Trump has similarly stopped short of calling for a nationwide abortion ban, with the party platforms softened stance on abortion which states the party opposes late-term abortions sparking frustration among anti-abortion Republicans. However, the platform does support states establishing fetal personhood via the 14th Amendment, which has long been sought by anti-abortion activists. The 19th notes that fetal personhood would have the practical effect of prohibiting abortion at all stages of pregnancy and could apply nationally depending on court action. The post New: DNC deploys Michigan billboards linking Trump to the far-right Project 2025 appeared first on Michigan Advance. (Getty Images) The Democratic National Committee is launching billboards that link former President Donald Trump to the controversial Project 2025 policy agenda. The billboards will be displayed in English and Spanish in Philadelphia and other cities in battleground states. Trump has said he is not connected with the plan, created by the conservative Heritage Foundation, that would significantly expand presidential powers and restructure the federal government. Several former members of the Trump administration participated in creating the document, which Democrats have tried to draw attention to. They know that when Americans hear about Project 2025, they do not support it, DNC spokesperson Rosemary Boeglin said in a statement. The DNC wont let them get away with it. The billboards are going up the day before Trump is scheduled to campaign at a rally in Butler, north of Pittsburgh. Its his first campaign stop in western Pennsylvania since July 2023, when he visited Erie. Next week, the Republican National Convention gets underway in Milwaukee, during which Trump will be officially nominated as the GOPs 2024 presidential candidate. Recent polling finds Trump still holds a slight lead over Biden in Pennsylvania. Biden has been trying to quell concerns about his ability to do the job after a poor debate performance just over two weeks ago. What Doctors Want You to Know About Weight Loss Drugs and Vision Loss What Doctors Want You to Know About Weight Loss Drugs and Vision Loss New research links a rare and blinding eye condition to semaglutide. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Doctors recommend that people don't panic over the findings. Theres been a lot of talk about potential side effects from using medications to lose weight, including taking Ozempic, a type 2 diabetes medication thats used off-label for weight loss. Those range from having so-called Ozempic face to the potential of developing stomach paralysis. Now, theres speculation that a new serious condition is linked to semaglutide (the main active ingredient in Ozempic and weight loss drug Wegovy): vision loss and blindness. Research published in JAMA Ophthalmology found a connection (note: not correlation) between semaglutide and a rare but serious eye condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). Meet the experts: Joseph Rizzo, M.D., director of neuro-ophthalmology service at Mass Eye and Ear, Mir Ali, M.D., a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, Howard Krauss, M.D., a surgical neuro-ophthalmologist and director of Pacific Neuroscience Institutes Eye, Ear & Skull Base Center in Santa Monica, CA, Jonathon Ross, O.D., assistant clinical professor at The Ohio State University College of Optometry For the study, researchers analyzed medical records of more than 17,000 patients who were treated at a prominent specialty eye clinic from December 1, 2017, through November 30, 2023. The researchers divided patients into those who had diabetes and those who had overweight or obesity. They also compared people who took semaglutide for those conditions to patients who took other medications for diabetes or weight loss, and looked at the rate at which patients were diagnosed with NAION. While overall cases of NAION were low, the researchers found that people who had diabetes and used semaglutide were more than four times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION than those who didnt take the medication. Those who had overweight or obesity were seven times more likely to be diagnosed with the devastating eye condition. Before you panic, know this: NAION is incredibly rare, even in people who take semaglutide. Still, its understandable to have questions. Heres what we know. What is NAION, exactly? NAION is a rare condition and the second-leading cause of optic nerve blindness, according to Brigham and Womens Hospital. Its thought to be caused by reduced blood flow to the optic nerve head, and the condition is more common in people who have conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea, the organization says. NAION is serious: It can lead to permanent vision loss, and usually develops without pain. It also can come on suddenly or over several days before it stabilizes. Unfortunately, there are no effective treatments for NAION, per the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). Does Ozempic cause vision loss? Its important to note a few things here. One is that the study merely found a link between patients who used semaglutide and NAIONit didnt prove that semaglutide use caused NAION. Our study does not show cause and effect, says study co-author Joseph Rizzo, M.D., director of neuro-ophthalmology service at Mass Eye and Ear. It's also crucial to stress that Mass Eye and Ear, which is where the patients were treated, is a specialized eye institute that sees a lot of people with rare eye conditions. As a result, the population that was studied may have been a little skewed. Finally, the researchers didnt know if the patients actually took semaglutide or if they continued taking itthey just knew that they had a prescription for the medication. Dr. Rizzo says that he and the fellow researchers decided to study this after seeing several cases of NAION in patients who took semaglutide, but they still dont know why there may be a link. It wasnt like we knew about the mechanisms of semagluide and said, Hey, this could cause a stroke of the optic nerve, he says. There are "many compounding factors that make it difficult to come to a conclusion," says Howard Krauss, M.D., a surgical neuro-ophthalmologist and director of Pacific Neuroscience Institutes Eye, Ear & Skull Base Center in Santa Monica, CA. He recommends that future research look into whether patients with more severe type 2 diabetes or obesity were more likely to be prescribed semaglutide, and whether they had obstructive sleep apnea. "We've known for several years now that obstructive sleep apnea is a factor in NAION," he says. "Weight loss sometimes reduces the significance of that," which could be why some people with obstructive sleep apnea were prescribed semaglutide, he adds. What do Ozempic and semaglutide drugs do to your brain? Semaglutide works in a few ways in the body, including messaging in the brain. Semaglutide mimics a protein in your body called glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), explains Mir Ali, M.D., a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA. When you take semaglutide, it activates GLP-1 receptors in your body, which causes your body to produce more insulin, a hormone that helps escort glucose into your bodys cells to be used for energy. At the same time, semaglutide signals to your brain to eat less and store fewer calories, Dr. Ali says. While all of this is happening, the medication also tells your gut to move food through more slowly. With all of this going on at once, people on semaglutide will usually feel less hungry, he says. Type 2 diabetes and vision loss To further complicate things, there is a link between vision loss and type 2 diabetes. Again, one of the risk factors for developing NAION is having diabetes, which puts people with the condition at an increased risk of developing the eye condition at baseline. Given that semaglutide is also used to treat type 2 diabetes, it can be tricky to parse all this out. Theres also a condition called diabetic retinopathy that can develop in people with diabetes. Diabetic retinopathy affects blood vessels in the retina, which is the light-sensitive layer of tissue in the back of your eye, and can lead to blindness, per the National Eye Institute (NEI). "Chronically elevated blood sugar levels can cause damage to the inner lining of blood vessels inside the eye that can lead to vision damage and/or loss," says Jonathon Ross, O.D., assistant clinical professor at The Ohio State University College of Optometry. "Thus, it is important for patients with diabetes to establish care with an eye doctor to monitor for diabetic eye disease." Research on people with diabetes who took semaglutide has found that the medication does not appear to cause diabetic retinopathy. It also didnt find that semaglutide makes diabetic retinopathy worse in people who already have the condition. Historically, though, there has been a link between people with diabetes losing weight and having a temporary worsening of diabetic retinopathyregardless of what medication they take, if any, Dr. Krauss says. Overall, Dr. Rizzo says that more research needs to be done to look into the connection between NAION and semaglutide. This study gives us new information to consider, he says. You Might Also Like How does a gun shoot without pulling the trigger? Heres what Baldwins defense is saying As the first week of Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico comes to a close, the actors defense is hoping to make a tricky argument stick with the jury. The 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live star has claimed he did not pull the trigger on a gun that went off on the set of the film Rust, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but his lawyers argue that even if the actor did, he still wouldnt be guilty because he had no reason to think he was using live rounds. On a movie set, youre allowed to pull the trigger, his attorney Alex Spiro said in opening statements. Even if he intentionally pulled the trigger that doesnt make him guilty of homicide. He did not know, or have any reason to know, that the gun was loaded with a live bullet, he added. Thats the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element. The lawyer also claimed the weapon had a hair trigger and that the owners manual suggests the gun can fire accidentally if loaded with a live primer. In a 2021 interview with ABC News, the actor was adamant the gun went off on its own. Alec Baldwin attends his manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie Rust, in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Thursday, July 11, 2024 (AP) The trigger wasnt pulled. I didnt pull the trigger, he said, claiming, "Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasnt even supposed to be on the property. Three years later, the prosecution in the case is seeking to make the case in the Santa Fe courtroom that Baldwin did fire the gun on the set of the Western film. The evidence will show this gun functioned and worked just fine, special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said. Prosecutors have also painted Baldwin as recklessly playing with weapons on set. A still from a video clip played in court shows actor Alec Baldwin during Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's involuntary manslaughter trial at the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February, 29, 2024 (POOL/AFP via Getty Images) You will see him using this gun as a pointer to point at people, point at things, Johnson said during opening statements. You will see him cock the hammer when he is 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. During testimony on Thursday, Alessandro Pietta, whose company manufactures the replica gun used in the film, said its not possible for the pistol to fire without an intentional trigger pull. This gun cannot fire without pulling the trigger because of the mechanics and design of the trigger was made to work in this way, Pieta said, describing quality checks by US and Italian authorities on the weapon. The case may hinge on which interpretation of the guns technical specifications prevails. Spiro has argued that Baldwin wasnt given the chance to test the pistol for evidence in its original form, due to damage sustained as the FBI tested the weapon. Set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has already been convicted in the shooting and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China will leverage its experience of modernization and promote the building of a global community with shared development, China's top diplomat Wang Yi said on Friday. Wang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks while delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development in Beijing. Since the Global Development Initiative (GDI) was proposed nearly three years ago, its cooperation mechanism has been continuously strengthened with fruitful results, garnering widespread acclaim and active participation from the international community, said Wang, also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of CPC Central Committee. China is willing to continue to enrich financing channels, innovate cooperation models, strengthen capacity building, expand partnership networks, coordinate actions with all parties, and make persistent efforts to generate vigorous momentum for sustainable development, Wang added. Noting that vigorously promoting the implementation of the GDI comes at the right time with a promising prospect, Wang said China will anchor the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, focus on the actual needs of the people of all countries, deepen Global South cooperation, and strengthen the alignment of development strategies among all parties. The conference, themed "Promoting Sustainable Development: Continuous Action for a Better Future," was hosted by the National Development and International Cooperation Agency. Representatives from more than 160 countries, international organizations and other institutions participated in the conference online and offline. Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, poses for a group photo with guests attending the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. Wang delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the conference on Friday. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) This article was originally published in CalMatters. As lawmakers finalize a school facilities bond for the November ballot, some superintendents from low-income and small districts say the proposal leaves them with an all-too-familiar feeling: underfunded and overlooked. Am I mad? Yeah, I am very mad, said Gudiel Crosthwaite, superintendent of Lynwood Unified, in a low-income area in Los Angeles County. California has a responsibility to educate its children, regardless of where they live. This bond favors larger, higher-wealth districts at the expense of districts like ours. Lawmakers struck a deal late Saturday night on Assembly Bill 247, a $10 billion bond that would pay for repairs and upgrades at K-12 schools and community colleges throughout the state. Schools desperately need the money: The current fund for school repairs is nearly empty and the voters rejected the states last school facilities bond, in 2020. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Everyone agrees on the need for money to fix dry rot and build new science labs. But some superintendents, as well as the civil rights law firm Public Advocates, had been pushing for a more equitable way to distribute the money. Currently, the state doles out facilities funding through 50-50 matching grants, which means that districts that can raise a lot of money locally typically, higher-income areas can get more state money. Public Advocates has threatened to sue California if it doesnt adopt a wider sliding scale for distributing the money. The current deal does include a sliding scale, but its only from 60% to 65%, not the 5% to 90% that Public Advocates wanted. Under the deals scale, the states wealthiest districts would only get slightly less than its poorest. Also under the current proposal, schools could get more money if they hire union contractors for their construction projects. That gives an edge to urban areas where union labor is easier to find. Brooke Patton, spokeswoman for the State Building and Trades Council of California, said hiring union workers would benefit any school project because the workers are highly trained and efficient. Union projects also include apprentices, who may be from the local community. Not only does California end up with new school facilities, but also a new generation of workers who can afford to live in California and contribute to our economy for years to come a worthy investment of public funds, Patton said. The bill still needs to pass both houses with a two-thirds majority and be signed by the governor this week. To go into effect, it needs approval from a simple majority of voters in the fall. Related Was Los Angeles Schools $6 Million AI Venture a Disaster Waiting to Happen? Its a compromise While the bill doesnt satisfy every need for Californias schools, its better than nothing, some education advocates said this week. Its not perfect; its a compromise, said Derick Lennox, senior director at California County Superintendents, which represents school administrators and is supporting the bill. (The bond) takes incremental, important steps toward equity that will do a lot of good. The bill includes some help for smaller and low-income districts, such as providing extra money to hire project managers and expanding the number of districts that qualify for hardship funds. It also sets aside 10% of the money for small districts. The California School Boards Association is also supporting the bill, along with a companion bill, AB 2831, sponsored by Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican from Folsom, that would provide more relief for small and low-income districts if the school bond passes in November. Were more than sympathetic to the needs of small districts, said association spokesperson Troy Flint. But times are tight, and we feel its crucial to get a school bond on the ballot. Its not what we need, but its what we could get. Now we have to focus on getting it passed, for the health and safety of California students. Old heaters, outdated kitchens, no AC Trinity County Superintendent Fabio Robles said that some of the schools in his county are so dilapidated that any money is welcome. Passing local bonds is almost impossible, he said, because the county is so poor. So schools are almost totally reliant on the state for repairs. In Lewiston, the gym has no air conditioning and the kitchen dates from the 1950s, Robles said. At Van Duzen Elementary, a small K-8 school in the mountains, the heater is 40 years old. Would a 5-90% sliding scale have been better? Yes. But whats being proposed now will be a big help to us, Robles said. Ill take that any day of the week. In Lynwood, Superintendent Crosthwaite said hes tired of low-income students having to put up with broken air conditioners and leaky roofs while their more affluent peers enjoy state-of-the-art facilities. His district, for example, is going to ask voters this fall to approve a bond for $80 million. Across town, Pasadena Unified is moving forward with a $900 million school facilities bond. If the state offers matching grants, Pasadena will get even more money. Meanwhile, students in Lynwood Unified lack basic facilities, he said. A middle school only has a blacktop, no green space. An elementary school lacks hot water. The district doesnt have enough performance spaces or science labs. Our kids think this is normal. It should not be normal, Crosthwaite said. In California we call ourselves progressive, but we need to take a hard look at how we allocate our resources. This story was originally published at Calmatters.org. Does it make sense for Florida to have any power lines above ground, given all the hurricanes? Most of us with average power use pay an extra $5 on each energy bill to help 'harden' the grid. Taxpayers also gave Florida Power & Light Co. $200 million 15 years ago in federal economic stimulus money to make the grid more efficient and reliable, or "smart." So how much harder, more reliable and smarter is it? Was it all worth it? Florida Power & Light Co. officials say 'yes,' and that the payoff is happening now. In recent years, smart-grid technology helped avoid more than 600,000 outages combined during significant hurricanes, FPL says. And in Florida's $2.7 billion per day economy, time without power is money lost, not to mention all the other things that go awry in outages. Now, NextEra Energy, FPL's parent company, is moving their smart grid underground to further prevent outages and economic losses. On Wednesday, FPL showed off the low-impact directional boring methods they'll use as they bury more underground lines in Mims and elsewhere, sometimes to the tune of up to $1 million per mile. Company officials say a similar array of automated switches underground can improve efficiencies in similar ways as they have above ground. "It's almost like a chessboard," FPL Spokesperson Jack Eble said of the company's smart grid. "It helps us to be proactive." About half of neighborhood power lines across FPLs service area already are underground, company officials say. FPL serves 5.8 million customers, or about 12 million people. The "undergrounding" or power lines that serve 130 customers in Mims is part of a 7-mile project expected to be completed by the end of this year. FPL has put power lines underground in about 250 neighborhoods in Brevard County since 2018. FPL has more than 215,000 "intelligent devices" installed throughout its energy grid. Since 2011, the devices have helped avoid more than 13 million outages, FPL asserts. Subprime crisis, federal stimulus forged FPL smart grid In a way, the subprime mortgage crisis made it all happen. In 2009, FPL was awarded $200 million in federal Recovery Act "stimulus" money. It was among the largest stimulus grants received in Florida from the Obama administration. FPL put the grant toward its Energy Smart Florida project. Of the total, $40 million went to seven different types of distribution (main and neighborhood power lines, for example) smart-grid technologies in the South Florida area, company officials said. FPL also touts a Storm Secure Underground Program that takes a data-driven approach to prioritize neighborhoods for undergrounding of power lines, based on past outage history during severe weather and service interruptions caused by trees and vegetation. Seven years ago, FPL crews also began flying drones during storm response, to help with field surveillance of storm damage to become more efficient with their response. FPL also uses LiDAR, a laser-scanning technology, that precisely maps the surrounding environment in three dimensions, alongside satellite imagery, to zero in on where power lines are most at risk from tree branches. Underground lines benefit all FPL customers by reducing restoration costs and outage times associated with extreme weather events. Almost 75% of Florida's energy comes from natural gas, but the company has plans to increase its solar power from the current roughly 6% to 38% by 2033 and has a goal of 30 million solar panels by 2030. Storm Protection Plan FPL is required by state law to have a storm protection plan that's approved by the Florida Public Service Commission. Storm Protection Plan costs began in Jan. 2021 and is funded via about $5 on a typical residential 1,000-kilowatt-hour customer bill. That money is spent on hardening power lines, putting neighborhood overhead lines underground and installing smart-grid technology, FPL officials said. Company officials say they continue to invest in a "stronger, smarter, more storm resilient energy grid" that helps to lower restoration costs, restore power faster following a hurricane and improve reliability for customers today and future generations. Over the past two decades, FPLs overall reliability has improved approximately 40%, the company says. We see this as a strategic, long-term investment for our customers where they're going to see improved day-to-day reliability," said Mike Wertz, FPL Storm Secure Underground Program senior engineer, said of FPL's 'undergrounding' efforts. "And, when we do inevitably have hurricanes and severe weather events, we're going to see improved performance and reduced outage times for customers. While FPL does have arborists on staff and routinely trims trees around power lines, "It's also a shared responsibility of our customers," Eble said. Learn how you can help prevent outages via your trees Right Tree, Right Place program with helpful tips on vegetation management that we discussed: https://www.fpl.com/reliability/trees/tree-location.html What is FPL doing to prevent hurricane outages? Smart Grid Installing more than 215,000 'intelligent devices' along the energy grid to detect and prevent outages and minimize restoration times during outages. In recent years, smart-grid technology helped avoid more than 600,000 outages combined during significant hurricane events. Undergrounding Replacing more overhead neighborhood power lines with morereliable underground lines through the Storm Secure Underground Program. These linesperform significantly better during severe weather, up to 12 times better during previoushurricanes. Hardening Strengthening nearly all main power lines serving critical communityfacilities and services. More than 76% of these lines are now hardened orunderground. FPL has also replaced nearly all of its transmission structures with steelor concrete. Source: FPL Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903. Follow him on X (Twitter) at @JWayEnviro. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: FPL says $200 million federal stimulus grant for smart grid beginning to pay off Dollar General has 48 hours to make stores safe or face more penalties after $12m workplace fine Dollar General has 48 hours to make stores safe or face more penalties after $12m workplace fine Dollar General has 48 hours to make stores safe for its workers - or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration could fine the discount retailer up to half a million dollars, on top of the $12m the company already has paid in fines. The company, which operates more than 19,000 discount stores worldwide, agreed to pay the $12m fine and to improve its worker safety in its stores, according to the Department of Labor. The clock started ticking after the government and the retailer signed the agreement on Thursday. OSHA has been inspecting Dollar General stores since at least 2010, and has frequently found the company commiting the same safety violations - blocked, locked, or unmarked emergency exits, inaccessible electrical panels, and improper use of electrical cords that can cause fire hazards. The company has been cited for hundreds of safety violations and has been fined tens of millions of dollars. Last year, OSHA expanded its Severe Violator Enforcement Program to include companies that willfully or repeatedly violate safety regulations. Dollar General was the first company to be added to the expanded program, the New York Times reports. A Dollar General store is seen, Aug. 3, 2017, in Luther, Oklahoma. Dollar General has agreed to pay a $12 million fine and to improve conditions at its thousands of retail stores nationwide to make them safer for workers (AP2017) Dollar General workers have reported numerous complaints about conditions inside stores. One manager, David Williams, told Bloomberg in 2020 about building a pyramid of boxes in front of an emergency exit to deter shoplifting. The store caught fire in 2021 but thankfully no one was injured. Another former manager, Josh Tinker, told the outlet that birds entered his store in Apache, Oklahoma and left droppings on products but that Dollar General would not permit him to thow away the soiled items. Instead, his team was directed to clean them and keep them available for purchase. Dollar General employees make less than $12 an hour, and nearly a quarter make less than $10 an hour, according to a 2021 study by the Economic Police Institute. In March, Dollar General announced that its 2023 fiscal year operating profit was $2.4bn. In May 2023, Dollar Generals investors began paying attention to the numerous OSHA violations and employee complaints. With 67.7 percent support, the shareholders approved a measure asking the company to audit worker safety. However, further OSHA inspections found there had been little improvement, which lead to the recent fine and settlement, Business Insider reports. In addition to the fine, Dollar General and its subsidiaries have also entered into a settlement with the federal workplace safety agency, which has demanded sweeping changes to company operations. OSHA has required Dollar General to recruit additional safety managers; to expand its already existing safety structure; and to establish a comprehensive safety and health management system for workers. The company has also agreed to provide its leadership and non-managerial staff with health and safety training. OHSA also required Dollar General to adjust its stocking practices, which have resulted in overstock being piled on the floor, sometimes blocking exits and cutting off access to fire extinguishers and electric panels. The work safety agency said those hazards had to be dealt with within 48 hours or Dollar General would face more significant fines. If Dollar General fails to comply, it may be fined up to $500,000 and be subject to further OSHA inspection and enforcement. In an effort to avoid future OSHA crackdowns, Dollar General has hired a third party consultant to conduct unannounced audits each year to ensure the company is still in line with its safety agreements. The company has also established an anonymous hotline specifically for the reporting of unaddressed workplace hazards. OSHA assistant secretary Douglas Parker said in a statement that the agreement "commits Dollar General to making worker safety a priority" and that it allows the company's employees to have "input on ensuring their own health and safety." These changes help give peace of mind to thousands of workers, knowing that they are not risking their safety in their workplaces and that they will come home healthy at the end of each day, he said. NEW YORK Donald Trump filed to vacate his historic Manhattan conviction on Thursday the day he was previously scheduled to be sentenced citing the recent Supreme Court ruling granting broad immunity from prosecution to presidents. In the partially redacted motion filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan was duty-bound to undo Trumps conviction in light of the ruling and argued no president had been treated as unfairly and unlawfully as his client. He also accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of participating in one-sided lawfare. Like Special Counsel Jack Smith, (Bragg) insisted on proceeding on a highly expedited basis as part of the election-interference mission driven by President Biden and his associates, Blanche wrote, echoing a frequent Trump refrain. Rather than wait for the Supreme Courts guidance, the prosecutors scoffed with hubris at President Trumps immunity motions and insisted on rushing to trial, Blanche added. In a major 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on July 1 significantly pared down the federal election subversion case Trump faces in Washington, D.C., in finding that most actions undertaken by presidents in the course of official acts are immune from criminal prosecution. The ruling effectively killed any chance of Trump facing trial over the Jan. 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol before the November election and nearly fully shielded presidents from criminal liability. It also impeded prosecutors from presenting evidence of presidential acts in cases concerning a presidents unofficial acts. A jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of falsifying New York business records in 2017, when he reimbursed his former lawyer Michael Cohen for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide her claims of a sordid sexual encounter a decade prior, marking the first criminal conviction of a U.S. president. Prosecutors bumped the records charges up to felonies in alleging that Trump hid his reimbursement to Cohen to disguise a scheme that began in 2015 to hide information from voters that could negatively affect their feelings about him in the 2016 presidential election. Blanches new motion argues that the immunity ruling means any evidence presented to the jury concerning Trumps official acts in 2017 and 2018 was impermissible. (N)ational security matters such as use of Air Force One and Marine One as well as secure calls in the White House Situation Room; allegations of conversations regarding the pardon power; and official communications by President Trump using a Twitter account that has been recognized as a formal channel of White House communication in the Trump Administration were listed among examples of evidence Blanche argued was out-of-bounds. He also cited as examples testimony by Trumps campaign manager and then White House communications director, Hope Hicks, and his White House executive assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, who testified about how Trump received mail and his penchant for using a Sharpie and handling paperwork just outside the Oval Office to keep the Resolute Desk clean. Hicks testified about Trump acknowledging the reimbursement to Cohen in 2018, when it was reported in detail, and remarking that it would have been worse had it hit the headlines before the election. At trial, Trump argued that actions he undertook to bury allegations of sexual promiscuity were to protect his marriage and reputation, not win the election. Evidence showed the payoff to Daniels was made 11 days before the 2016 election, and Cohen was reimbursed after Trump took office. Merchan granted Trump a request to delay his sentencing in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, rescheduling it for Sept. 18 if its still necessary. Prosecutors must reply to Trumps motion by July 24 and Merchan said he would rule on it by Sept. 6. Trump has said he intends to appeal his conviction after his sentencing, when he could face up to four years in prison. Trumps motion to undo the jurys verdict comes days out from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where hes slated to officially become the partys nominee, and as President Biden has been trying to revive his own campaign in the wake of his widely panned June 27 debate performance. _____ Downtown toy store OK, craft brewer move may be the end, and Water St. wellness biz opens Captain Little, the downtown Olympia toy store, was damaged by a truck the night of July 3, but its back to business and doing OK, said Amy Shephard, store manager and a co-owner of the business. Captain Little turns 10 next month, she said. About 8:30 p.m. July 3, the vehicle, either not put in park or left without the emergency brake applied, slowly rolled into the business, damaging windows, Shephard said. But the community responded even people walking by that night and the business quickly cleaned up and framed up the damage, although it is still waiting on new windows, she said. Shephard said no one was in the store at the time and no one was injured. A large photo booth inside the store actually stopped the vehicle, she said. Were doing just fine and making it work, she said. Need a toy? Captain Little is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. A vehicle rolled into the downtown toy store Captain Little on July 3. Other business happenings Headless Mumby, a craft beer brewer on Division Street in west Olympia, is being forced to move, the business announced on Facebook. The Olympian could not reach the owners for more information, but the social media post was not optimistic. We have some bad news to share, the post reads. Weve been in a dispute with our landlords for the last few months (they got attorneys, we got attorneys. Good times!). We are being forced to move. Our taproom is still open until we run out of beer. Maybe next week, maybe the end of the month. The ultimate Act Now While Supplies Last! This is absolutely nothing I ever thought Id say, but this may be the end for Headless Mumby. If we dont land on our feet, we want you to know that we have enjoyed getting to know each of you over the years. Headless Mumby Brewing Co. co-owners, Alex Maffeo (left) and Keith Ciani opened their west Olympia brewery in November 2018. Meanwhile, downtown Olympia is now home to a wellness destination called 360 Wellness Lounge at 128 Water St. NW. Owner Amber Ficek said she opened the business to create a one-stop-shop for wellness needs, a decision partly inspired by her husbands back injury, which required visits to specialists in several locations, not just one. She also wants it to be convenient, the kind of place that users could visit on their lunch hour. Some of the services: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber: Ficek said it looks a bit like an oversized time capsule, although it has a large window for those who might feel claustrophobic. Once inside, the user breathes 100 percent oxygen for about an hour, which can help with injury or surgery recovery and reduce the side effects associated with chemotherapy, she said. Cryotherapy: Essentially a standing ice bath, in which the body (except for the hands, feet and head) is briefly exposed to extreme cold, a process that can help with inflammation, accelerate injury recovery and boost metabolism, Ficek said. Infrared light therapy: Similar to a tanning bed, although the bed is contoured and provides a massage, the user is exposed to the light for 15 minutes, helping those with eczema, psoriasis, wrinkles, cellulite and scarring, she said. Dry float: The user lies on a membrane to achieve the sensation of zero gravity, alleviating pressure points on the body, Ficek said. 360 Wellness Lounge is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. The business sells memberships but also welcomes walk-in business, she said. 360 Wellness Lounge: 128 Water St NW Photo 7/11/2024 A Painting with a Twist shop has opened in Lacey, offering customers a place to gather and socialize over a glass of wine while painting. The business had its grand opening on Wednesday. Owner Catherine Stolberg is a first-time entrepreneur who has come out of retirement to open the business, according to a news release. For more about the business, go to the website. Painting with a Twist is at 5831 Lacey Blvd. SE, Suite E, Lacey. Painting with a Twist at 5831 Lacey Blvd. SE, Suite E, in Lacey. The Building Industry Association of Washington recognized three Olympia area builders at its Excellence in Remodeling Awards. The winners: Family Man Remodeling for an addition under $125,000. Dickeys Remodel & Repair for an aging-in-place/universal design in the range of $60,001 to $80,000 and for an entire house for under $200,000. Dunamis Interiors & Design Build for historic renovation/restoration. Real estate A proposed event center with the project title Palisade Declivity is set to come before the city of Tumwaters Development Review Committee next week. The developer representative is pitching the project on Port of Olympia property at 202 Tumwater Blvd. SW. The city committee will provide feedback on what will be required from developers for the project. Meanwhile, the city of Lacey has received a preliminary plat, a planned residential development, environmental review and a Class IV Forest Practices application from D.R. Horton for Monarch Meadows, a 125-lot single-family development at 8530 Steilacoom Road SE. D.R. Horton has also proposed Morel Meadows at the former Ostroms Mushroom site. The preliminary plat application is being supplemented with a Planned Residential Development application to allow the minimum lot size to be reduced to 4,000 square feet from 4,500 square feet and the minimum lot width for front load lots to be reduced to 40-feet from 50-feet, the city information reads. Comments are due by 5 p.m. July 17. Send them to Associate Planner Reace Fant at RFant@ci.lacey.wa.us. Whats Headless Mumby? A west Olympia brewery and taproom that loves lager beer Long-awaited downtown restaurant among multiple biz openings this week Downtown gets new restaurant and new bakery, but another restaurant is set to close If you know of a retailer, restaurant, coffee shop or other business that is opening, closing, expanding, remodeling, or changing its focus, send an email to reporter Rolf Boone at rboone@theolympian.com. Dr. Nancy Abu-Bonsrah Makes History As The First Black Woman To Graduate From Johns Hopkins Universitys Neurosurgery Program This Black doctor just made history at Johns Hopkins University! In June 2024, Nancy Abu-Bonsrah achieved a historic feat, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Universitys neurosurgery program. She took to social media to announce the news, however, it was a close friend who noted that Dr. Abu-Bonsrah had quite literally also made history, Because Of Them We Can reports. Congratulations to my dear friend, and the first Black woman to graduate from the neurosurgery program at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Nancy Abu-Bonsrah!, wrote the woman called Anna, whose username is @itsafronomics. Congratulations to my dear friend, and the first Black woman to graduate from the neurosurgery program at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Nancy Abu-Bonsrah (@BonsrahNancy)! #medtwitter pic.twitter.com/gdu6x7pF9i Anna (@itsafronomics) June 28, 2024 According to Dr. Abu-Bonsrah, becoming a neurosurgery doctor was a 12-year journey. She also noted that it felt surreal that shed completed the program and would head to community practice located at UPMC Williamsport, an acute care hospital in Pennsylvania, starting in the fall. Located in Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins was voted the No. 2 Best Medical School: Research, according to U.S. News and World Report. A 2022 report pulled from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) reveals that only 5.7% of practicing physicians in America are Black, a huge difference from their white counterparts who make up 63.9% of active physicians in the U.S. Asians represent the second-largest group with 20.6% of active physicians. According to another AAMC report, during the 2020-21 academic year, 7.6% of students attending medical school were Black or African American with the percentage of Black men enrolled in medical school barely seeing an increase over the past five years. In 2014-15, they made up 2.4% of students enrolled in a medical program. That number increased to 2.9% for 2020-21. On the contrary, Black women comprised 4.5% of students enrolled in the 2020-21 academic year and 8.9% of women in medical school that year, per the National Institutes of Health. Driver dies after crash during police chase on I-77, troopers say A person has died following a chase Thursday afternoon, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. Shortly after 2 p.m., troopers said they attempted to stop a blue car on I-77 in Iredell County. When the vehicle did not stop for emergency lights and sirens, a pursuit ensued. Troopers said the chase entered Surry County, Virginia, before crashing near mile marker 85. ALSO READ: Driver crashes during police chase through Gaston County After repeatedly asking the driver to exit the vehicle, troopers found them deceased with an apparent gunshot wound. That driver was later identified as 20-year-old Dashawn Sanchez Samuels. Troopers said the State Highway Patrols Collision Reconstruction Unit and the Surry County Sheriffs Office are assisting with the investigation. It is active and ongoing at this time. VIDEO: Driver crashes during police chase through Gaston County Florida drivers, deny that need for speed during 'Operation Southern Slowdown' Florida Highway Patrol troopers stop a vehicle on Interstate 75. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the Florida Highway Patrol and local law enforcement agencies have joined forces for Operation Southern Slow Down, a joint effort with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the states of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. The Florida Highway Patrol will be working with our many dedicated law enforcement partners toward providing highway safety, said Col. Gary L. Howze, director of the Florida Highway Patrol, in a blog post on the FHP's website. Your FHP troopers will be on patrol monitoring traffic for hazardous drivers and enforcing traffic laws along Floridas state highways in support of Operations Southern Slowdown. Preliminary data from the FLHSMV shows more than 13,296 crashes in 2022 in Florida involving speeding or driving too fast for conditions. Speeding contributed to 10.5 % of all crash fatalities statewide, resulting in more than 368 fatalities. Tips provided by the Florida Highway Patrol As you travel, here are some tips to stay safe on Floridas roadways this summer: Anticipate increased traffic during peak travel periods. Plan ahead and give yourself ample drive time. Buckle up and make sure all passengers are buckled up the entire trip. Slow down in construction zones. Keep in mind that construction increases during the summer season. No matter how eager you are to reach your destination, speeding and driving aggressively is dangerous. Stay patient and give other road users plenty of space. Slow down at twilight hours and at night for wildlife crossing the roads. When will 'Operation Southern Slowdown' be in force? State and local law enforcement agencies in all five states will be conducting a week-long speed enforcement awareness campaign from July 15-20 aimed at saving lives and preventing reckless driving and speeding. More details: flhsmv.gov/fhp This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Operation Southern Slow Down targets Florida speeders AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government must follow a special procedure under European rules and cannot simply decide to reduce the number of flights at Schiphol Airport, one of Europe's busiest hubs, the Dutch Supreme Court said on Friday. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Even though the previous government had already suspended the plan to limit Schiphol's flight movements to 460,000 per year, the decision is important for concerned airlines as it rules out any uncertainty for travellers and the sector. It also overturned an earlier judgment by an Amsterdam court that said the Dutch State was allowed to implement two proposed measures to reduce noise pollution at Schiphol. KEY QUOTES "The decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal that the Dutch State was allowed to implement two proposed measures to reduce noise pollution at Schiphol will not be upheld. Based on European rules, a balanced approach procedure must be followed (to implement) the measures", the Supreme Court said in its statement. "KLM agrees with the clearly substantiated ruling of the Supreme Court", KLM, Air France's [AIRF.PA] Dutch arm, said in a statement on Friday. (Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Angus MacSwan) Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with foreign guests attending the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Shen Hong) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang on Friday expressed China's readiness to work with other countries to jointly address development challenges. Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with foreign guests who are here for the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development. Ding said the Global Development Initiative (GDI) proposed by China has received extensive support and active response from the international community. Through concerted efforts of all parties, GDI cooperation has achieved important results. China is ready to work with other countries to address development challenges, foster new growth impetus, promote open development, and achieve common development and prosperity in the process of building a community with a shared future for humanity, he said. The foreign representatives spoke highly of China's leading role in global development cooperation. They expressed readiness to work together to deepen GDI cooperation, promote the initiative to achieve concrete results, and accelerate the implementation of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Governing Board of the Dysart Unified School District on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution opposing the Biden administration's new rules that expand protections for LGBTQ+ students, calling it "obtuse overreach" that criminalizes "innocent children" and "the people of the varying faiths that commonly and firmly believe in truth, such as a Creator of two distinct and wonderfully made sexes." But the board's resolution did not change district policy, which appears aligned with the revised federal rules stemming from Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. The Dysart board also spent nearly an hour on Thursday in a closed session receiving legal guidance about recent court rulings regarding Title IX rules that apply to complaints of sex discrimination and the "legal process for challenging those regulations." The U.S. Department of Education issued new Title IX regulations in April. They are set to take effect on Aug. 1. The changes included expanding the definition of sex-based discrimination to cover discrimination based on gender stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy. Court orders are currently blocking the rules from going into effect in 14 states, not including Arizona. On Thursday, Dysart's Governing Board President Dawn Densmore presented the resolution, took issue with the expanded definition of sex-based discrimination and claimed that the new rules are "contrary to the plain language of Title IX." Densmore said the Biden administration's new rules "include guidance" on the use of pronouns inconsistent with a student or staff member's gender identity. She went on to say that the board believes the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution means that the district "cannot compel the speech of a student, employee, nor can we compel the religious or other deeply held beliefs of our students or employees that there are two sexes." The federal Education Department responded to First Amendment concerns in its 1,577-page rule-making explanation, stating that "nothing in the regulations requires or authorizes a recipient to violate anyone's First Amendment rights." To be covered by Title IX, the Education Department wrote, sex-based harassment must be "unwelcome, subjectively and objectively offensive, and sufficiently severe or pervasive to limit or deny a student's ability to participate in or benefit from a recipient's education program or activity." Verbal aggression, intimidation or hostility "based on the student's nonconformity with stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity or gender identity" can constitute sex-based discrimination under Title IX in "certain circumstances," the department wrote. In response to concerns about whether misgendering an individual would be a form of sex-based harassment under the new rules, the department wrote that "whether verbal conduct constitutes sex-based harassment is necessarily fact-specific," that the regulations don't identify all of the circumstances that could constitute sex-based harassment and that a "stray remark, such as a misuse of language" would not constitute harassment under Title IX standards. The Governing Board initiated the resolution, drafted it and put it on the agenda, said district spokesperson Renee Ryon. It was approved with no discussion from the four board members. The board also unanimously approved a 2024-25 student and parent handbook during Thursday's meeting. The handbook included a statement indicating that the district does not discriminate against any person based on their sex, including their sexual orientation or gender identity. That language was not in last year's handbook. The district's policy on harassment, intimidation and bullying, which was approved by the board in April, also defines harassment to include unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex, which encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity. Dysart Unified serves about 23,000 students pre-K through 12th grade in the northwest Valley, including parts of Glendale, Surprise, El Mirage and Youngtown, as well as unincorporated areas. Reach the reporter at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dysart school board opposes new federal sex discrimination rules Ecuador court sentences five people for up to 34 years in candidate murder Murder trial over the killing of presidential candidate Villavicencio begins, in Quito By Alexandra Valencia QUITO (Reuters) -A court in Ecuador on Friday handed down prison sentences of 12 years and 34 years for five people found guilty of murdering presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Journalist and former legislator Villavicencio was shot while leaving a rally in August 2023, becoming the most prominent victim of Ecuador's spiraling violence. The ruling, read out by Milton Maroto, one of the court's three judges, can be appealed by both the prosecution and the defense. The trial started at the end of June. Prosecutors accused at least two of those tried of belonging to the Los Lobos crime gang, among 22 criminal gangs designated as terrorists by President Daniel Noboa in January. According to the attorney general's office, Carlos Edwin Angulo Lara, known as 'El Invisible' ('The Invisible'), gave the order to murder Villavicencio from prison, while Laura Dayanara Castillo was in charge of logistics. Both Angulo and Castillo were sentenced to 34 years and eight months. Erick Ramirez, Victor Flores and Alexandra Chimbo were sentenced to 12 years. Villavicencio, whose journalism exposed corruption and connections between organized crime and politicians, had long faced threats. Prosecutors are undertaking a separate investigation into who requested the murder. One of the hit men died at the scene of Villavicencio's murder and seven other suspects - mostly Colombian citizens - were murdered in October while being held in prisons on pre-trial detention. Villavicencio's friends and family have decried multiple delays and urged investigation into who ordered the killing. Veronica Sarauz, Villavicencio's widow, had asked judges earlier on Friday in a post on X to apply the full weight of the law to those accused. (Reporting by Alexandra ValenciaWriting by Julia Symmes Cobb) Elderly Woman Was Allegedly Strangled to Death at Her Senior Facility by Her Daughter, Grandson: Police Cleo Loizides was 81 when she was allegedly killed by her daughter and grandson, say police Norfolk Police Department Heather Cummings, Clifton Cummings A woman and her son have been accused of murdering the woman's 81-year-old mother at the victim's senior living center. On Sunday, June 30, just before midnight, first responders were called to the Commonwealth Senior Living center in Norfolk, Va., after 81-year-old Cleo Loizides was reported unresponsive, Norfolk police wrote in a press release. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and investigators said the reason for her death was "undetermined." However, less than two weeks later, police announced that Loizides' death was being investigated as a homicide, and on Tuesday, July 9, her daughter and grandson were charged in the case. Loizides' 53-year-old daughter, Heather Cummings, of Hobart, Ind., and her grandson Clifton Cummings, 24, of Norfolk, were charged with second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, police said. According to court documents obtained by local stations WTKR and 13News Now/WVEC, Heather allegedly confessed to the killing, telling police that she and her son killed Loizides via strangulation. The documents allege that Clifton strangled his grandmother with the strap from his bag, while Heather held the 81-year-old down. The two had planned to drive from Indiana to Virginia to murder Loizides, the documents allege. The documents allege Heather told her mother: "Just let go, it's for the best." Loizides also had injuries on her neck consistent with strangulation, the documents allege. The senior living facility where Loizides resided shared a statement about her death with several outlets. "Our staff first contacted authorities following protocols when the death occurred. We have cooperated with police throughout their investigation," Commonwealth Senior Living wrote in a statement to WAVY, WTKR and 13News Now. "This is now a police matter, and inquiries about the investigation should be directed to Norfolk City police. Commonwealth Senior Living will support prosecution and accountability to the full extent of the law." "This has been a difficult time for our staff in the community, and we are offering them emotional workplace support as we continue to navigate this terrible tragedy," the company added. According to the 81-year-old's obituary, the victim was originally from Baltimore and worked as a model in the 1960s. She also worked as a banker for a brief period of time before meeting her late husband, John, while volunteering at a theatre together. One friend of Loizides', Judi Evans McArthur, reflected on her life to 13News Now, telling the outlet that she found out about her friend's death from a local paper's obituaries. 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. "She was funny, she had a great sense of humor," McArthur said of Loizides. "[She was] very quiet, very gentle." "It's very sad, just very sad," she continued. "I can't imagine what would cause a person to do that." McArthur also said that the 81-year-old's late husband, a former employee of the local ABC affiliate station, took portfolio photos of Loizides years ago, and McArthur had kept them. "I just know it would have been really sad for him to know their daughter did that," she said of John. According to court records, Heather and Clifton are next due in court on Sept. 23, and they are both being held at the Norfolk City Jail without bond, police said. It's not immediately clear if either suspect has entered a plea or retained an attorney. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. (L-R) Governors Kathy Hochul of New York, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Wes Moore of Maryland speak to reporters after a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on July 03, 2024 in Washington, DC. Biden met with all of the nation's Democratic governors, virtually or in person, in an effort to shore up support following his performance in the first presidential debate against Donald Trump. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images About a year ago, I wrote a column warning Democrats that they were walking toward a cliff with their eyes closed. What happens, I asked, if Joe Biden is incapacitated a year or 15 months from now? What then? Biden isnt incapacitated, but his fumbling performance during the first presidential debate and then a flurry of leaks about his diminished capacity has cemented the perception of the majority of Americans that hes too old and should not be running. Last year, I quoted a DFL operative who noted the lack of a Plan B, and the resemblance to 2016: (Hillary Clinton) was a historically unpopular nominee and there wasnt much conversation about whether it would work out. Lo and behold, it didnt work out. And here we are. Setting aside the crucial question of whether Biden can do the job properly both now and four years from now, Democrats must grapple with the current trendline, which shows him losing in November to a grave threat to our democratic republic. Elections expert Dave Wasserman laid out the current situation on X: Bidens current numbers with Black (71%-21%), Hispanic (48%-41%) and young (46%-41%) voters are incompatible with any plausible Democratic win scenario. Worse yet, Bidens collapsing support could cascade down the ballot and hand Republicans full control of the federal government, at the very moment we need a check on a wannabe despot. This isnt about Bidens presidency. In just a single term, he may be the most important Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson. His refusal to step aside is disappointing, but to be expected. The man is a walking Shakespearean tragedy, and were now in the Lear-ish phase. Biden proved the naysayers wrong before, and he surely feels betrayed at his most vulnerable moment, despite a lifetime of grinning favors for his fellow Democrats from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. The people who deserve our scorn are those who have an opportunity to do something about this fiasco, but stay silent, at least publicly. Im talking about the elected officials and power brokers who could have prevented this crisis, and still can if they find the will to act and start a stampede that will focus the presidents family on the risks to his legacy should he lose badly to Trump. I can respect the position of Democrats like Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Attorney General Keith Ellison and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who have said hes our guy, we support him, end of discussion. But many Democratic pols seem more focused on their own ambitions and the risk of speaking out publicly against the still-powerful president. Among them: Democratic governors who gave a defense of Biden on the White House driveway after meeting with him last week. As Jonathan Martin noted in Politico, Few of the governors have to run for reelection this year, but more than a handful of them are eager to seek the presidency in 2028. And theres no path for any of them then if Vice President Kamala Harris by then is President Harris seeking reelection. And who is the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, standing in front of the microphone on the White House driveway? Thats Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Walz has been upping his national profile in the past year or so, stumping for Biden with a cabinet position as the potential endgame. Or maybe something in 2028. Lets give Walz the benefit of the doubt hes not in Washington and maybe hasnt seen much of Biden, whose decline seems to have accelerated in just the past few months. Walz is certainly not alone in his reluctance to say what needs saying. Many House Democrats seem to have folded. (U.S. Rep. Angie Craig is an exception in the Minnesota delegation. But the true Cassandra here is U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who was so convinced he was right he ran against Biden, only to face scorn and mockery from the Democratic establishment, while winning very few votes from Democratic primary voters.) Whats become clear since the national medias suddenly robust coverage of Bidens age and mental acuity is that a lot of people have seen the decline in recent months, but they havent said anything publicly. Heres what George Clooney wrote this week after hosting a June fundraiser before the debate: 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. According to Clooney, Bidens decline 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. On the one hand, democracy is on the line, they tell us. But their actions say something else: Its not worth risking my career. In politics as in business and organized religion, heck the PTA people stay quiet because they dont want to upset the boss and risk their status. In the normal course of human affairs, this is understandable, sociable behavior. But in this case, with so much at stake, its cowardice. Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X. The post If youre an elected Democrat, speak up now appeared first on Michigan Advance. X-formerly-Twitter owner Elon Musk is very unhappy with advertisers, who are opting out of giving him money. In fact, Musk the self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" is calling for them to be criminally prosecuted for, um, exercising the mild free speech of not paying him. "Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution," he tweeted, responding to a video of conservative pundit Ben Shapiro accusing "legacy media" of lying to "preserve left-leaning narratives." Shapiro was testifying in front of a House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, which released a report this week, accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of conspiring to suppress conservative voices on the internet, an increasingly common talking point among Republicans. Now that Musk has surrounded himself with pundits sympathetic to his increasingly right-wing beliefs, he was quick to chime in. "Extremely concerning!" Musk tweeted in response to the report. "Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket," he wrote. Basically, Musk essentially wants it to be illegal for companies to refuse to advertise on his platform. But who could blame them for leaving in droves following his chaotic $44 billion acquisition in 2022? The company has quickly turned into a cesspool of disinformation and hate speech a nosedive accelerated by Musk's own racist tirades. And it's not just advertisers. Data suggests users are also jumping ship in droves. Meanwhile, Musk has attempted to stem the bleeding by begging advertisers to return. That's despite quite literally telling them to "go fuck yourselves" during the New York Times DealBook Summit last year. It's a precarious situation for the company, which has already been reeling from plummeting revenue. Last month, Bloomberg reported that ad revenues were down almost 40 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. And Musk's kneejerk lawsuits aimed at nonprofits that fight hate speech online aren't going well, either. The infamously litigious CEO had been accusing these groups of scaring away advertisers somehow forgetting his own role in the exodus. His suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate was dismissed in March, for example, with a judge finding that Musk was trying to "punish" the group for exercising free speech. Another lawsuit he filed against Media Matters for America is scheduled for a trial in April next year but the nonprofit maintains that the complaint is already dead in the water. Whether Congress will agree with Musk's provocative insinuation that advertisers who boycott X should be criminally prosecuted remains dubious at best. For its part, GARM maintains that it didn't do anything wrong, telling Ars Technica in a statement that it "has continually demonstrated that it will cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee in good faith" and that it remains "steadfast in the conviction that GARM enhances transparency in previously opaque practices relative to ad placements in digital social media." The situation is especially awkward for X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who has historically supported GARM, a flagship partner of the World Economic Forum, to which she has strong ties. Now, Yaccarino is desperately trying to pick up the pieces and put out Musk's fires. On July 1, X announced that it had "reinstated our relationship" with GARM. "X is committed to the safety of our global town square and proud to be part of the GARM community!" Whether Musk would agree with that sentiment remains to be seen. More on X: Elon Musk Begs Advertisers to Return as Twitter's Revenue Plunges SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is absolutely obsessed with Mars. The mercurial entrepreneur, who has often been seen wearing a T-shirt that reads "Occupy Mars," has long argued that humanity's number one goal should be to become a multi-planetary species by establishing a permanent foothold on the Red Planet. That's despite of its less-than-desirable barren terrain, lack of breathable air, and extreme temperature swings. Still, for many years, Musk has been dead set on establishing an entire city on Mars, something that will require a ludicrous amount of money, not to mention plenty of heroism and sacrifice. In fact, the New York Times now reports, Musk has gone as far as to volunteer his sperm to seed a Martian colony highlighting not just his obsession with the company, but his also his boundary-blurring obsession with reproduction and his own genetic material. His willingness to provide the semen necessary to grow a colony on Mars shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Musk has long argued that the greatest threat to humanity is collapsing global fertility rates. For his part, Musk has had 12 children with three different women in an apparent effort to address the situation. Late last month, news emerged that Musk had a third child with an executive at his brain-computer interface startup Neuralink, an unethical HR violation or civilization-rescuing intervention, depending on how you look at it. In a 2022 tweet, Musk made his stance on the matter clear. "If there arent enough people for Earth, then there definitely wont be enough for Mars," he wrote. Apart from aspiring to become the biological father for his Martian colony, Musk has leveraged many of his own businesses to create a civilization on Mars, including Boring Company tunnels to dig under the planet's surface and a Tesla Cybertruck rugged enough to traverse its mountainous landscapes. Central to his ambitions is SpaceX's massive Starship, which will play a crucial role in ferrying resources to Mars, a journey of well over 100 million miles that could take most of a year and likely many refueling stops. SpaceX has been noticeably quiet about its efforts to establish a colony on Mars. According to the NYT's sources, that may be due to a multibillion-dollar NASA contract that requires the space company to reach the Moon with its Starship first. And insiders have their doubts whether Musk's astronomically ambitious plan to establish a city of one million people on Mars could ever realized, let alone in his lifetime. "You cant just land one million people on Mars," author and aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin told the NYT, arguing that any colonization could take decades. Nonetheless, with Musk at the helm, SpaceX employees are working on concrete plans for a Martian city, which is focused on a massive central dome for communal living, not unlike the ones shown in renders released by the company years ago. They're even reportedly testing plant-based meat alternatives by Impossible Foods in their cafeterias to see if it's a good protein source for Mars. Whether any of these efforts will culminate in the establishment of any permanent presence on the surface of the Red Planet remains to be seen. But Musk is adamant that it'll work even. in his own lifetime. In May, he suggested in a characteristically overly optimistic tweet that it would take "less than ten" years to "land people" on Mars, and a city ten years after that. "But for sure in 30" years, he wrote, "civilization is secured." More on a Mars city: Elon Musk Voted "Most Overrated CEO" by His Colleagues OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) EMBARKs RAPID Northwest line is rapidly proving to be effective. In 7 short months, weve had a quarter of a million rides, said Jesse Rush, EMBARKs Assistant Director of Operations. Its exciting, very very exciting Our customers need this, they want this. LOCAL NEWS: City of Oklahoma City hosting one-stop hiring event Since launching service in December 2023, it has averaged more than 1,100 riders a day, exceeding expectations. EMBARK's RAPID Northwest. Initial projections were about 1,000 riders a day, said Rush. According to a press release, RAPID NW has 32 stop platforms, stretches 9.5 miles each way, and integrates into the more extensive EMBARK transit network. Carl Albertson relies on it daily. If I didnt have this option Id be walking a lot or spending a lot of time on a bicycle, said Albertson. It would be a hardship actually. Albertson said taking the bus is his most affordable transportation option. LOCAL NEWS: Edmond teen named finalist in national duct tape dress contest I dont have to pay for car insurance, I dont have to buy gas, I can get to within a block of anywhere I need to be, said Albertson. On Thursday, Mayor Holt credited the late U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe for securing a grant for the bus line. Thats been a big success over its first 6 months. The riders of that line, among many people, have Senator Inhofe to thank for that, said Mayor Holt. The routes are set to grow, as two additional lines are in design as part of the voter-approved MAPS 4 Transit 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 KFOR.com Oklahoma City. After embrace at NATO summit, Zelenskyy takes his case for US military aid to governors Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, right, greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, at the 2024 summer meeting of the National Governors Association, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Away from Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to broaden support for U.S. military aid by telling state governors Friday that the worlds leaders should see for themselves the carnage wrought since Russia invaded his country more than two years ago. Zelenskyy's plea at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Salt Lake City came days after NATO leaders met in the U.S. capital and pledged more help for Ukraine. The only thing we ask for is sufficient support air defense systems for our cities, weapons for our men and women on the frontline, support in protecting normal life and rebuilding, Zelenskyy told the governors. This is all we need to withstand and drive Russia from our land and to send a strong signal to all other potential aggressors which are watching. NATO members this week agreed to a new program to provide reliable military aid to Ukraine and prepare for its eventual membership in the alliance. They declared Ukraine was on an irreversible path to join NATO and, for the first time, that China was a decisive enabler of Russia in the war. Yet many Republicans including former President Donald Trump have been skeptical and in some cases opposed to continuing to help Ukraine fight off Russias 2022 invasion. President Joe Biden highlighted NATO's world role and his differences with Trump over Ukraine after the summit. While governors don't vote on U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Zelenskyy's appearance showed his willingness to connect with other leaders in the U.S. to plead his country's case. He got a warm welcome, introduced to cheers and thunderous applause by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican and the outgoing National Governors Association chairman. There are things that happen in world affairs. Sometimes its hard to tell who the good guys and the bad guys are. This is not one of those times, Cox said. Cox and Zelenskyy signed a trade agreement between Utah and the Kyiv region. Several governors of both parties pledged in a closed-door meeting with the Ukrainian leader to urge their states' wealthiest people to give humanitarian aid, said Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat. The Ukrainian president also met Friday with members of Utahs congressional delegation all are Republicans and with leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the uber-wealthy Utah-based faith known widely as the Mormon church. Zelenskyys appeal to governors from both parties could pay dividends if Trump is reelected in November, Green told The Associated Press. If Mr. Trump becomes president again, perhaps hell listen to some of the Republican governors that were in the room and us, perhaps, as Democratic governors because its a humanitarian crisis, he said. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said Zelenskyy made a very, very good case that has motivated him to urge others in his party to continue sending aid. Stitt had previously called for imposing all possible sanctions on Russia but had not come out in favor of funding the Ukrainian military. We need to punch a bully in the nose when hes coming in and trying to take over a sovereign country like Ukraine, Stitt told reporters Friday. It seems like a pretty good use of funds. These aren't American forces on the ground, these are just simply dollars, weapons, technology. It makes a lot of sense." ___ Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. In this image taken from video, Palestinians returned to scenes of destruction in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood on Thursday, July 11, 2024, after Israeli troops withdrew following a two-week offensive. (AP Photo) DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Civil defense workers on Friday dug bodies out of collapsed buildings and pulled them off rubble-covered streets, as they collected dozens of Palestinians killed this week by an Israeli assault in a district of Gaza City. The discovery of the bodies came after Israeli troops reportedly pulled out of parts of the Tal al-Hawa and Sinaah neighborhoods following days of bombardment and fighting there. The Israeli military launched an incursion into the districts earlier this week to fight what it said were Hamas militants who had regrouped. The grisly scenes of the dead underscored the horrifying cycle nine months into the Gaza war. After invading nearly every urban area across the tiny territory since October, Israeli forces are now repeatedly re-invading parts as Hamas shifts and maintains capabilities. Palestinians are forced to flee over and over to escape the changing offensives or to remain in place and face death. Cease-fire negotiations push ahead, nearing but never reaching a deal. Videos circulating on social media showed civil defense workers wrapping bodies, including several women, in blankets on the rubble-strewn streets of Tal al-Hawa and Sinaah. A hand poked out of the smashed concrete where workers dug into a collapsed building. Other video showed burned-out buildings. About 60 bodies have been found so far, including entire families who appeared to have been killed by artillery fire and airstrikes as they tried to flee, said Mahmoud Bassal, the director of civil defense in Gaza. Some bodies had been partially devoured by dogs, others burned inside homes and others remained unreachable in rubble, he said. The director of nearby Al-Ahli Hospital, Fadel Naem, said at least 40 bodies found in the districts had been brought to the facility, though he didnt have a precise number. The Israeli military said it could not comment on the discovery of the bodies. Israels assault on the district began after it issued an evacuation order for the area on Monday. In a statement Friday, the military said its troops targeted the abandoned headquarters of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, where it said Hamas had set up operations. UNRWA left the compound in October, early in the war. The military said Friday that troops had battled Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the compound and discovered material for building drones and stashes of weapons. It issued photos of some of the discovered material, though the claims could not be independently confirmed. On Friday, troops had withdrawn from most of the area, but snipers and drones continued to open fire, said Salem Elrayyes, a resident who fled months ago to the south but spoke to family members still in the neighborhood. He said that during the days of the offensive, troops set fire to many homes including that of one of his uncles and carried out wide-scale arrests, taking people for interrogation inside the UNRWA compound. At least 11 of his relatives were detained, he said. Two were released after being severely beaten, while the rest are still missing. His family was searching for other relatives still unaccounted for some may be detained, and some may have lost communication. Others may be killed, Elrayyes said. A day earlier, civil defense workers said they found dozens of bodies in Shijaiyah, another Gaza City district from which Israeli troops withdrew in recent days after a two-week offensive. Most of the population of Gaza City and the surrounding areas in the north fled earlier in the war. But the U.N. estimates that some 300,000 people remain in the north. With each new assault, people often flee to other parts of the north, since so far Israel has not allowed those who flee south to return to the north. An airstrike early Friday hit an aid warehouse in Muwasi, part of an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone covering parts of south and central Gaza, a U.K.-based aid group Al-Khair Foundation said. Imam Qasim Rashid Ahmad, the groups director in London, said one of its staffers, an engineer, was killed in the strike along with three staffers from other humanitarian groups using the warehouse. The Israeli military said Husam Mansour, the Al-Khair Foundation member who was killed, was in fact a senior Hamas militant. Israel said he used his position with the humanitarian group to raise money for Hamas. Israel launched its campaign 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 and wounded more than 88,000, according to the territorys Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. More than 80% of Gazas 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, and most are now crowded into squalid tent camps, facing widespread hunger. Meanwhile in Cairo, U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators continued to push to narrow gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed deal for a three-phase cease-fire and hostage release plan in Gaza. The U.S.-backed proposal calls for an initial cease-fire with a limited hostage release and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from populated areas in Gaza. At the same time, the two sides will negotiate the terms of the second phase. Phase two is supposed to bring a full hostage release in return for a permanent cease-fire and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. But obstacles remain. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel wont agree to any deal that would prevent it from resuming its military campaign until Hamas is eliminated. On Thursday, he indicated that Israel intends to keep a hold of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which would contradict a full withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas dropped its demand that Israel commit ahead of time to reach a permanent cease-fire. But a Hamas political official told The Associated Press that the group still wants written guarantees from the mediators that negotiations will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached. Otherwise, Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression at any time, said Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas political office in Lebanon. Abdul-Hadi also said that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the sole ruling party in Gaza after the war but wants to see a Palestinian government of technocrats. We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase, he said. Israeli officials have suggested they will demand Hamas' removal in the talks for the second phase. Netanyahu is under growing pressure both domestically and internationally. Relatives of hostages are marching to Jerusalem to demand a deal and the release of their loved ones as Israeli politicians, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, call for a broad government investigation into the conduct of Israels leaders. A risk of regional escalation remains. Israels military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in northern Israel, where the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade border fire. ___ Associated Press writers Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, and Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A man is asking for the Las Vegas communitys help after he told 8 News Now his car and thousands of dollars worth of instruments inside it were stolen. Mark Harpers life revolves around music, as the independent entertainer makes it his mission to travel and perform across the country. He told 8 News Now he mainly plays songs inspired by his favorite band, The Grateful Dead. Thats what The Grateful Dead is all about, Harper said. Harper said days after he scored tickets to see Dead & Company live at The Sphere in Las Vegas, the worst happened. I went to go see my car, Harper recalled. And I knew it was gone. He told 8 News Now his 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe was stolen overnight from a parking garage on the north end of the Strip, with the majority of his instruments inside. Mark Harper told 8 News Now his 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe was stolen overnight from a parking garage on the north end of the Strip, with the majority of his instruments inside. (KLAS) I lost my helium tank and then I lost a djembe, Harper said. I lost several hand drums, I lost my harp. Harper told 8 News Now he drove to Las Vegas from Georgia, so hes not sure how to get home, but more importantly, he is now without his means to make a living. Whoever stole my car, he said. They stole a big chunk of my artistic past, present, and mission. Harper said he has filed a report with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and gone through all the proper channels, but he hopes someone in Southern Nevada may have seen something. Im hoping that maybe whoever sees this, Harper said of the on-air story. Will return my Tahoe. He said he hopes he can return to the road to keep creating and doing the work he loves. Anyone who may know where the car or instruments may be should contact LVMPD at 702-828-3111. 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. HANOI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam has shipped abroad 142,586 tons of pepper worth 634.2 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of 2024, down 6.8 percent in volume but up 30.5 percent in value over the same period last year, Vietnam News Agency cited the Vietnam Pepper and Spice Association as saying on Friday. The total export turnover of black pepper reached 539.9 million dollars while that of white pepper hit 94.3 million dollars. The United States was the largest importer of the Vietnamese spice in the period with 37,435 tons, accounting for 26.3 percent of the total and up 44.6 percent year on year. The average export price of Vietnamese pepper increased by 1,000 dollars per ton compared to the same period last year. The association predicted that Vietnam's pepper volume in 2024 will decline by 10 percent to about 170,000 tons, the lowest level in five years. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) El Paso Community College (EPCC) hosted a NARCAN Empowerment Symposium on the trainings of active shooters with an Uvalde principal as a guest speaker. The event was sponsored by the EPCC Faculty Professional Development Committee mini-grant to educate EPCC students, faculty and staff on the NARCAN administration, mental health crisis, active shooters and crisis leadership training, according to EPCC in a news release. Joseph Olan, a principal at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Uvalde during the Robb Elementary shooting, was a guest speaker at the event, EPCC said. Olans school was selected Business of the Year for being a Beacon of Hope to the Uvalde community during the tragedy, EPCC said. Olan was born and raised in El Paso and spoke about understanding the fundamental nature, volatility of a crisis and how to develop a framework to manage a crisis effectively, EPCC said. Be decisive, and make communication very clear, Olan said, After a crisis, lead with your heart with emotional intelligence. And dont forget about mental health check-ins for individuals and your leaders as well. Robert Horstman, a retired El Paso County Sheriff deputy sergeant and EPCC adjunct psychology instructor, also spoke at the event about NARCAN Administration Training, how to use NARCAN and present about opioid overdose, EPCC said. I want to bring information to you to so you can educate yourself and help others bring this information to the community. We have academic programs, clubs, technology to help everybody, and this is not just a problem for a few people, but addiction is everyones problem, Horstman said. Other speakers at the event were Alejandra Valdez, program manager at National Alliance on Mental Illness El Paso about navigating a mental health crisis and Alexandro Gachupin, an EPCC police officer about how to deal with an active shooter. 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. Erdogan demands no NATO cooperation with Israel until end of Gaza war (L-R) Annalena Baerbock, Germanyt's Foreign Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's President, and Boris Pistorius, Germany's Defence Minister, take part in the working session of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he will not approve any future cooperation between the NATO military alliance and Israel while the war in Gaza is continuing. Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, will not accept this kind of cooperation "until a comprehensive and sustainable peace is established in the Palestinian Territories," Erdogan wrote on X on Friday following the NATO summit in Washington. "It is impossible for the Israeli government, which tramples on the fundamental values of our alliance, to continue its partnership with NATO," Erdogan wrote. Israel is not a member of the defence alliance, but closely cooperates with NATO as a partner. NATO's website states that NATO and Israel have been working together for almost 30 years in areas such as science, technology, counter-terrorism, civil defence, combating weapons of mass destruction and other issues. Israeli soldiers are also regularly involved in NATO military exercises. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated drastically. Erdogan has described the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group as a "liberation organization" and has compared Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. Erdogan demands no NATO cooperation with Israel until end of Gaza war (L-R) Annalena Baerbock, Germanyt's Foreign Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's President, and Boris Pistorius, Germany's Defence Minister, take part in the working session of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he will not approve any future cooperation between the NATO military alliance and Israel while the war in Gaza is continuing. Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, will not accept this kind of cooperation "until a comprehensive and sustainable peace is established in the Palestinian Territories," Erdogan wrote on X on Friday following the NATO summit in Washington. "It is impossible for the Israeli government, which tramples on the fundamental values of our alliance, to continue its partnership with NATO," Erdogan wrote. Israel is not a member of the defence alliance, but closely cooperates with NATO as a partner. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz reacted harshly to Erdogan's statements. "First of all, Erdogan, you decide nothing," the minister wrote on X. "Furthermore, a country like Turkey, which supports the murderers and rapists of Hamas and the Iranian axis of evil, should not be a member of NATO. NATO's website states that NATO and Israel have been working together for almost 30 years in areas such as science, technology, counter-terrorism, civil defence, combating weapons of mass destruction and other issues. Israeli soldiers are also regularly involved in NATO military exercises. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October, relations between Israel and Turkey have deteriorated drastically. Erdogan has described the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group as a "liberation organization" and has compared Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. On Feb. 19, the Erie police went to a house on West 17th Street to investigate a report of a 3-month-old girl in cardiac arrest. The girl, Jaliyah B. Spain, died the same day. The Erie County Coroner's Office determined the cause was sudden infant death syndrome. The police investigation did not stop there. Seeing evidence of illegal substances at Jaliyah's house, in the 900 block of West 17th Street, police had drug tests performed on two of Jaliyah's young siblings who were living with her. Those children "tested positive for cocaine metabolite," according to police records in the case. The test results led police to charge the parents, Samantha L. Nicolia, 39, and Jayvon C. Spain, 36, with the felonies of endangering the welfare of children and the misdemeanors of recklessly endangering another person. Jaliyah B. Spain, 3 months old, died on Feb. 19 after suffering cardiac arrest at her residence on West 17th Street. The Erie County Coroner's Office listed the cause of death as sudden infant death syndrome. Erie police charged Jaliyah's parents with endangering two other children in the house by exposing them to cocaine, for which police said the two children tested positive. Spain is also accused of the misdemeanors of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia and the felony of possessing a firearm when he was prohibited from having one based on his prior record. Police said officers at the residence discovered a gun with Spain's fingerprints on it. Also at the residence, according to the criminal complaints and affidavits of probable cause, police found a container with white powder residue and a clear plastic bag containing a white hard substance confirmed to be cocaine base. Parents in prison on bond in endangerment case Police arrested Spain and Nicolia on July 6. They were arraigned that day before Erie 2nd Ward District Justice Ed Wilson. Spain is at the Erie County Prison on $500,000 bond, and Nicolia is at the prison on $250,000 bond. Their preliminary hearing is Aug. 5 before Erie 2nd Ward District Judge Alison Scarpitti. Court records do not yet list lawyers for them. No further information on the two children, including with whom they are now living, was immediately available from the police and the Erie County District Attorney's Office. The Erie County Office of Children and Youth has a policy of not commenting on cases. The police affidavits do not list the children's ages, but describe both as "care-dependent children." The affidavits state that the two children "tested positive for cocaine metabolite," but do not state how the children might have come in contact with the cocaine. Arrests come after other parents charged in manslaughter case The case is at least the second in Erie County this year in which parents have been charged with exposing their children to illegal drugs. In June, Erie police charged parents Marrion D. Smith and Shynia S. Holt with involuntary manslaughter based on allegations that their neglect, including their use of methamphetamine, contributed to the death of their 2-year-old daughter, Zemina Smith. She froze to death after she wandered outside of her East 17th Street apartment the night of Feb. 29. Two of Smith and Holt's other children tested positive for meth, leading police to charge Smith and Holt with endangering them. The children were removed from their parents' custody and placed on a course for adoption. The preliminary hearing for Smith and Holt, both 28, is Aug. 14. Both are free on bond. Police reports provide timeline in 3-month-old's death In the case of Spain and Nicolia, police responded to their house shortly after 3 p.m. on Feb. 19 on a report of an infant not breathing and in cardiac arrest, according to the affidavits of probable cause. Jaliyah was found on her back on her parents' bed, police said. Paramedics took her to Saint Vincent Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according the coroner's report. Spain was home at the time, police said. He told police he was upstairs playing video games when another of his children told him that Jaliyah was not breathing, according to an affidavit of probable cause. According to a search warrant police obtained in the case, Spain told police that Jaliyah had been sleeping in a chair or rocker that was in the middle of his and Nicolia's bed in a first-floor bedroom. Spain said he went downstairs and performed CPR on Jaliyah until emergency personnel arrived. Nicolia was not home at the time, according to the search warrant. She told police that she had left the residence about 2 p.m. on Feb. 19, and that Spain had telephoned her several times when she was out "and said it was an emergency," according to the warrant. Nicolia "ran home to find that her daughter was deceased on the bed," police said in the warrant. Nicolia, according to the affidavit, "swore her daughter was fine when she left to go get cigarettes." The Coroner's Office investigated. It determined that Jaliyah "had no known recent illnesses and had a history of in utero cocaine exposure" and a respiratory infection, according the coroner's report. The report said toxicology tests showed no illegal substances in her system when she died. The Coroner's Office performed an autopsy. The coroner's report listed the cause of death as "natural as a result of sudden unexplained infant death." Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com or 814-870-1813. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella. This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie parents charged after 2 young children test positive for cocaine Pennsylvania's new $47.6 billion budget, signed Thursday by Gov. Josh Shapiro, includes $11.1 billion in K-12 education funding, including an $18.8 million increase for the the Erie School District. "It's some really good news for our schools," Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito said Friday. "It's what we had hoped for and pretty close to what the governor proposed in his budget." The increase for Erie schools includes $11.12 million in a budget category described as ready to learn adequacy. Polito said a study of Pennsylvania's highest performing schools determined that the Erie School District would need $107 million to close the spending gap with those schools. "This is a huge down payment on that," Polito said. "That $11 million goes toward closing that gap." He said it's too early to say what the spending priorities will be for the additional funding. Brian Polito, Erie School District superintendent The governor's budget also includes extra funding in several other areas, including a 7.8% increase, equal to $1.082 million, in special education funding for Erie schools. That increase, he said, was achieved by raising the share of students for whom the school district could receive special education reimbursement. Previously, the state budget formula capped the number of special education students at 16%, less than the actual 20% who meet that standard in Erie schools, Polito said. "They finally decided to allow us to claim the actual amount. That is going to save us money," Polito said. A new funding baseline The extra money isn't just for a single year. "This is not one-time money," School Director Daria Devlin said. "This will become part of our subsidy, This is our new baseline. This is the basis for future years." And that's a good thing for a school district that was under financial watch from 2016 to 2022. "I am delighted by the numbers that have come down from the state," Devlin said. "I think Brian Polito and I both kind of pinch ourselves when we remember where we were 10 years ago. To think that the state is funding at this level is pretty amazing." Local legislators, both Republican and Democrat, deserve credit, she said. "We are grateful for the work they have done in a bipartisan way," she said. "We know they fought hard for us." Even with the increase, school districts like Erie still lack the financial resources of more affluent suburban districts. "We have a long way to go," Devlin said. Other Erie County schools will get additional funding All 13 Erie County school districts will receive additional funding under the state's 2024-2025 budget. The largest of those increases were $1.63 million for Corry Area School District; $1.26 million for Iroquois School District; $2.15 million for Millcreek Township School District; and $1.031 million for North East School District. Tax relief could be in the future Like its counterparts across the state, the Erie School District was required to pass its budget before the end of June and without knowing exactly what level of state funding would be provided. After extensive discussion, the board voted 7-1 to approve a $272 million budget that raised taxes by 4.46%. For a typical homeowner, with a house valued at $100,000, that meant a tax increase of $85 a year. For many taxpayers, that increase will be mostly offset by a $79 increase in the homestead exemption. Still, Polito said he thinks the school board might have voted differently if it knew for certain that state education funding would come through at near the level that Gov. Shapiro had originally proposed. Both Polito and Devlin said the board and the administration will look for ways next year to offset a tax increase that was larger than some school directors wanted to see. After hearing the news on the budget, "My first thought was how do we bring relief to the taxpayer," Devlin said. "We think it's too late to do anything now. But we want to explore different options for next year. Maybe it's a tax cut, maybe it's a rebate." Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@timesnews.com. This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie School District receives extra money in state budget Estonia may tighten customs controls for travellers crossing the border with Russia due to increasingly frequent attempts to smuggle sanctioned goods. Source: Estonian public broadcaster ERR, as reported by European Pravda Details: Estonian customs officers may soon begin thorough luggage checks for everyone travelling from Estonia to Russia and vice versa, as they have been recording too many attempts to smuggle prohibited items. Ants Kutti, head of the Narva customs border post, notes that most travellers carry ordinary foodstuffs, sweets, tea, books, magazines, board games, and medicines from Estonia to Russia, none of which are prohibited. However, there are frequent attempts to smuggle luxury goods under sanctions, dual-use goods, and items prohibited for import from Russia. "We have missed some dual-use and strategic goods such as weapons parts, ammunition, sights, night vision equipment and drones. We've also missed all kinds of microchips, microelectronics and luxury goods," says Kutti. About 3,300 to 4,000 travellers pass through the Narva checkpoint daily. Of these, approximately 30% travel for work, another 30% for various family reasons, and the remaining 40% use the Estonian-Russian border to transit further into Europe. A lot of travellers are those coming from Scandinavian countries, as Finland's border with Russia is closed. Background: Earlier, Estonian customs officials reported that the most common items smuggled from the EU to Russia are euros in cash, expensive branded goods and luxury wines, and car parts. At the end of June, there were massive queues at the Narva checkpoint for several days as people waited to leave for Russia. Estonia closed the checkpoint for two days due to the slow operations on the Russian side, Estonian border guards noted. After that, there were queues for some time at the other two road border crossing points. The waiting times ranged from several days to as long as five days. Support UP or become our patron! (Bloomberg) -- The European Union is accelerating plans to improve ties with Turkey aimed at strengthening trade relations next year even as Ankara is increasingly looking toward rival multilateral groups after becoming frustrated with a lack of progress with Brussels. Most Read from Bloomberg The bloc is working on a three-stage plan that would increase the number of high-level meetings, relaunch operations of the European Investment Bank in the country and culminate with new talks to modernize the customs union between both sides, according to people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks. The blueprint discussed by the EUs executive arm and member states is part of an effort to cement ties with partners against Russias invasion of Ukraine, where the bloc wants Turkey to help prevent the circumvention of sanctions. Ankara is also key in efforts to stem irregular migration flows toward Europe and plays an important role in defense as a NATO ally. But Turkey has grown increasingly unhappy about its broader relationship with Europe, including on trade and defense, senior Turkish officials said. The country is fed up with delays and obstacles raised on issues including visa-free travel or the customs union, the Turkish officials said. The building frustration in Ankara has led the government to explore alternative arrangements with other blocs. The Turkish government wants to join the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It also recently reached out to the BRICS club of major emerging nations that counts Russia, China and India as founding members. Turkey signed a customs union agreement with the EU in 1995 and began talks to join the bloc since 2005. But accession talks have been stalled for years. Now, the country is looking for genuine progress on specific issues instead of empty promises on membership, the officials added. France, Germany and other countries are failing to recognize Turkeys strategic importance for the EU as a trade and defense partner, the Turkish officials said. The EU should understand that Turkey is not without alternatives, they added. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking Thursday after a NATO summit in Washington, complained that many EU nations, including Germany, were restricting exports of arms and equipment it needed as a key defense and trade partner of Europe which has also assumed a critical role of stopping migration of refugees from Syria and elsewhere toward Europe. There is no reasonable and logical explanation for the fact that there are still some obstacles and restrictions in defense industry trade between allies, Erdogan said. In response to a specific question about the state of defense and security ties with the EU, Erdogan said: Unfortunately, as of now, there is no development with these EU member countries. He urged German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to lift a block on the sale of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Turkey, shortly after scaling back a $23 billion contract for F-16s with the US, as well engines for Turkish warships and equipment for Turkeys $24 billion plant being built by Russia on Turkeys Mediterranean coast. Reversible Approach As the EU tries to navigate bilateral sensitivities involving different member states, the European Commission proposed an approach that is sequenced, proportionate and reversible, the people said. The commission launched a new high-level dialog on Trade on July 8, where both sides addressed trade irritants and preventing circumvention of sanctions. Both sides may hold the third dialog on migration and security before the summer break. The EUs executive arm has been also preparing to relaunch the EIBs work in the country after the summer, following the suspension of activities in 2019 in response to what it said were illegal Turkish drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. The EUs multilateral bank signed a special financing agreement to support post-earthquake reconstruction in 2023. The commission is also planning to work with national governments to facilitate visa applications, especially for students and businesspeople. If progress continues, EU officials hope that negotiations to update the customs union could start next year. The commission has long pushed for updating the agreement with Turkey but progress was derailed amid tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. The customs union agreement provides for a common external tariff for all industrial goods, but doesnt apply to services, public procurement or agriculture except for processed agricultural products. Bilateral trade concessions apply to agricultural, coal and steel products. Seeking Engagement A commission spokesperson said that work to develop the EU-Turkey political, economic and trade relations is guided by set of conclusions adopted by EU leaders in April. On that occasion, leaders endorsed the gradual strategy to improve ties with Turkey. But they also stressed that Ankaras constructive engagement will be instrumental in advancing in bilateral cooperation, giving particular importance to the progress in the Cyprus settlement talks. Member states, including France and Germany, have stressed in closed-door discussions the importance of reciprocity and gradual progress depending on Turkeys behavior, the people said. In this regard, some capitals want to see more efforts made in regards to the Cypriot issue. The Mediterranean island less than half the size of New Jersey was effectively partitioned in 1963 when fighting erupted between its two main groups: Greek and Turkish Cypriots. It was fully divided in 1974 after Turkey intervened, capturing the northern third of the island, saying it intended to protect the minority Turkish Cypriots following an Athens-backed coup by supporters of union with Greece. --With assistance from Zoe Schneeweiss. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Europe and the world commemorated the 29th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, often described as the worst crime committed on European soil since World War II. Ceremonies were held at the Potocari Memorial Centre in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and also in many European countries and in the United States. The massacre took place in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995 and on subsequent days. Most of the victims were Bosniak men and boys Bosnian Muslims who had been separated from the women, girls and small children who were bused to territory controlled by the Bosnian army. According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY), around 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in the massacre, which was perpetrated by Serbian soldiers from Bosnia. According to the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia-Herzegovina, about 800 victims are still being searched for. The remains of 14 genocide victims identified over the past year, including one minor, were buried on July 11 at the Memorial Center in Potocari, where a total of 6,751 victims have been laid to rest. The Bosnia-Herzegovina war between Croats, Muslims (Bosniaks) and Serbs claimed approximately 100,000 lives between 1992 and 1995. Nearly three decades since the war ended, the Balkan nation remains deeply divided along ethnic lines. The United Nations had placed Srebrenica under its protection in 1993. A Dutch unit of peacekeepers was tasked with protecting the refugees in the enclave. But on July 11, 1995, units of Serbs from Bosnia overran Srebrenica. The peacekeepers failed to protect the victims. In 2022, the Netherlands apologised to the victims families for their part in the failure to protect them. Punishment of the perpetrators The ICTY and the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) have established legally that genocide was perpetrated. The political head of the Serbs from Bosnia at the time, Radovan Karadzic, and Ratko Mladic, the commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, were handed life sentences by the ICTY. In addition to the leaders, at least 47 others involved were convicted of crimes in Srebrenica, receiving a total of more than 700 years in prison. Adoption of the UN Resolution The 1995 Srebrenica genocide will in future be marked around the world on July 11, following a vote in May by the UN General Assembly in New York. The day is to be officially marked from next year, 30 years after the event. The resolution written by Germany and Rwanda countries synonymous with genocide in the 20th century received 84 votes in favor, 19 against with 68 abstentions and established July 11 as International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide. Supporters included the US, the UK, most of the European Union, numerous Muslim countries and the whole of the former Yugoslavia, with the exception of Serbia. China and Russia voted against the UN resolution, as did Hungary. Three EU member states, Cyprus, Slovakia and Greece, abstained. Some states had differing positions internally. For example Bulgaria, where according to media reports the Cabinet of caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev had tried to withdraw from the UN resolution. Sources claim that a cable from Glavchev to Bulgarian UN Permanent Representative Lachezara Stoeva demanded a last-minute change in Bulgarias position before the UN vote on the Srebrenica resolution. Stoeva allegedly ignored Glavchevs instructions and Bulgaria supported the resolution, which it had co-authored. Commenting on Bulgarias position, the countrys president, Rumen Radev, said that it is inappropriate for the government to show hesitation and inconsistency given that the country was a co-author. Tension between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina The adoption of the resolution was met with fierce opposition from the Serbian government and the leaders of Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina who downplay the atrocity and refuse to recognize it as genocide. The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, who travelled specifically to New York for the vote, harshly attacked the text, arguing that, far from bringing reconciliation between Bosniaks and Serbs in Bosnia, it will open Pandoras box and foster a division and a regional crisis in the Balkans. Last April, the parliament of the Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia-Herzegovina, adopted a document denying the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, which has been acknowledged as documented and proven by the ICTY. The document also asserts that the victims of the massacre were not civilians, as the The Hague court considered proven, but rather prisoners of war," and estimates their number at between 1,500 and 2,000, at most 3,000 (compared to the 8,000 determined by the judges in The Hague). Contrasting views within Bosnia-Herzegovina The commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide on July 11 is not officially conducted at state level in Bosnia-Herzegovina due to deep political divisions within the country. For the fifth consecutive year, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina decided not to declare July 11 a day of mourning. This proposal was rejected due to the veto rights of the deputy chairman from the entity of Republika Srpska. The National Assembly of Republika Srpska adopted a statement protesting the UN Resolution and the president of that entity, Milorad Dodik, said that the approval of the resolution would cause irreparable damage and mark the end of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He threatened that Republika Srpska, where Srebrenica is located, would secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the other hand, numerous local and international officials highlighted the importance of commemorating the Srebrenica genocide, as a reminder of a commitment to building a better future for all. EU warns no place for those who deny the Srebrenica massacre EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and European Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi issued a joint statement on the genocide anniversary. The Srebrenica genocide is one of the darkest moments in modern European history. We call on leaders to reject divisive rhetoric and work towards truth, justice, trust, and dialogue, they wrote in the joint statement on Tuesday. Both said that there is no place in the EU for those who deny the Srebrenica genocide, try to rewrite the history and glorify war criminals." They also recalled that the EU leaders agreement to open membership talks for Bosnia in March is a key opportunity for the country to advance reforms that will strengthen democracy. We reiterate our unequivocal commitment to the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the EU as a single, united and sovereign country, they added. Furthermore, the European Commission, asked on Tuesday in a press conference about the possibility of suspending EU entry negotiations with Serbia if the countrys authorities opposed the condemnation of the genocide, affirmed possible repercussions. Sarajevo, Gaza and genocide At a genocide conference in Sarajevo ahead of the 29th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar stressed that the international community has a duty to stop genocidal acts. The president said this is important not only because of the atrocities that took place in Srebrenica but also because of the atrocities caused by the broken promise of never again around the world. Pirc Musar called for continuous efforts to recognise and prevent genocidal acts and preserve human dignity for all, referring to the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. What is going on in Gaza is a defeat of humanity. Politicians must stop looking away and must act against genocidal behaviour, she said. The content of this article is based on reporting by AFP, ANSA, BTA, dpa, EFE, FENA, STA, and Tanjug as part of the European Newsroom (enr) project. Elon Musk claims the European Commission wants the social media platform to censor speech 'without telling anyone' - GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS Elon Musk has accused the European Union of offering him a secret deal to censor Twitter in order to avoid millions of pounds worth of fines. In an escalating row between Brussels and the Tesla billionaire, the latter hit back after the European Commission accused Twitter, now known as X, of breaking the blocs new digital rules. This includes an alleged failure to stop malicious actors using its verification system, which sparked an immediate response from Mr Musk. He said: The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not. We look forward to a very public battle in court so that the people of Europe can know the truth. Thierry Breton, the EUs single market commissioner, rejected the accusation, claiming: There has never been and will never be any secret deal. With anyone. See you (in court or not). It came after EU officials said on Friday that verified blue tick accounts on X, which require customers to pay 9.60 a month, had the potential to deceive users. The European Commission said: Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a verified status, it negatively affects users ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts. We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth https://t.co/nKBGEPxeEa Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024 Margrethe Vestager, the EUs competition tsar, added that X had broken rules around advertising transparency and failed to provide online researchers with access to its data. Ms Vestagar said: In our view, X does not comply with the Digital Services Act in key transparency areas, by using dark patterns and thus misleading users, by failing to provide an adequate ad repository, and by blocking access to data for researchers. Under the EUs Digital Services Act the blocs new technology laws equivalent to the UKs Online Safety Act officials can fine X up to 6pc of its global turnover for breaches. With revenues of more than 3.4bn (2.8bn) last year, Mr Musks business could be hit with a penalty worth hundreds of millions of euros. Since his takeover of X in 2022, Mr Musk has enacted sweeping changes at the social network, adding subscriptions where users can pay to verify their account which provides them with a blue check mark next to their name. This provides a boost to account visibility, helping to attract more views and responses. However, critics have argued it has allowed bad actors to increase their followers and spread false information by paying for extra exposure. Mr Musk has insisted his new-look platform is committed to freedom of expression, calling himself a free speech absolutist as he takes a light-touch approach to online moderation. This is the latest in a series of bitter stand-offs between Mr Musk and overseas governments over his stewardship of X. Last year, he faced questions from Brussels over its handling of terror content following Hamass attack on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 people, as graphic footage of the atrocity spread online. Mr Breton issued a public rebuke to Mr Musk at the time, as he said X was being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU. Mr Musk, however, challenged Brussels to list its specific concerns and said no backroom deals. He has also been locked in separate legal battles with government officials in Brazil and Australia, over what the billionaire has claimed are attempts to censor the social network. After Mr Musk opposed Australian efforts to censor a video which featured a priest being stabbed in a suspected terror attack, Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, accused Mr Musk of being an arrogant billionaire. Under its new digital rules, the EU has launched inquiries into tech giants including TikTok, Meta and X. It has accused both Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok of failing to protect children and encouraging addictive behaviour, which the companies deny. However, Fridays charges against X are the first the bloc has brought under its new digital regime. The decision is preliminary and X now has time to challenge the ruling. On Twitter, Mr Musk posted: The DSA [Digital Services Act] is disinformation! A European Commission spokesman said: Freedom of expression lies at the heart of the DSA. It sets out rules for online intermediaries to tackle illegal content, while safeguarding freedom of expression and information online. Nothing in the DSA obliges, online intermediaries to remove lawful content. 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. European NATO countries are ready to curb their investments in China over the country's support for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden said on July 11 in Washington. The statement came against the backdrop of NATO naming Beijing a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war due to the ongoing flow of dual-use goods and equipment. This was a radical shift for NATO, as many European members have long been hesitant to openly call out China due to its role as a key economic partner. "We have to make sure that (Chinese President Xi Jinping) understands there's a price to pay for undercutting both the Pacific basin as well as Europe, and it relates to Russia and dealing with Ukraine," Biden said during the NATO summit in the U.S. capital. The U.S. president warned that Beijing is "not going to benefit economically" and will not receive the "kind of investment they're looking for" if it continues supplying Moscow with "mechanisms" that allow it to fuel the war effort. China's appeal for EU companies has already been dropping, with European businesses citing overcapacity across industries and preferential treatment of domestic firms as the key reason. "I'm dealing with Xi right now I have direct contact with him," Biden said without elaborating further. The president reiterated that China is not providing direct military support to Russia. China has deepened economic ties with Russia during the full-scale invasion and backed the country against Western sanctions but insisted it does not support either side of the war, stressing the need for a "peaceful resolution." In spite of its claims that it strictly controls the flow of dual-use goods, data shows that China has shaped up to be Russia's leading source of such materials. The allies warned that the support may be even more extensive behind the scenes and can include geospatial intelligence. Kyiv has repeatedly appealed to China to use its sway over Moscow to help bring an end to the war, but these efforts have been largely unsuccessful as the East Asian country snubbed the June global peace summit in Switzerland. Read also: While Xi tours Europe, China feeds Russias war machine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. BAGHDAD, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Two Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in a clash with Iraqi security forces in the eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi military said on Friday. Acted on intelligence reports, an army force backed by armed villagers clashed with the two militants in an orchard in a village in Diyala province and killed them, according to a statement from the Security Media Cell, a media outlet affiliated with the Iraqi Joint Operations Command. One of the IS militants was wearing an explosive belt and the troops defused it after his death, the statement said. According to the intelligence reports, one of the two militants was Abu al-Harith, a local IS leader in the Khan Bani Saad area south of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, the statement added. The security situation in Iraq has improved since the defeat of the IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have sneaked into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. The official profile of Platform X on the screen of a smartphone shows the white letter X on a black background. Elon Musk's social media platform X is in breach of EU digital laws due to deceiving users and transparency failures, the European Commission announced on 12 July in a preliminary finding. Monika Skolimowska/dpa Elon Musk's social media platform X is in breach of EU digital laws due to deceiving users and transparency failures, the European Commission announced on Friday in a preliminary finding. The commission said that X's verification system for users, known as the blue checkmark system, was open to abuse by "motivated malicious actors" since anyone may purchase the status. Before, the blue checkmark system "used to mean trustworthy sources of information," EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a statement. "Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users," he said. "X has now the right of defence but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes," he added. Blue check mark symbols used to be awarded to user accounts of prominent public figures and companies by Twitter - the previous name for X before Musk's takeover of the platform - after the company verified the identity of the applicant. However, Musk decided to allow blue check mark symbols for all users who purchased a subscription, leading to confusion as non-verified fake accounts looked similar to real ones. When Breton announced the commission's decision in a post on X, commenting on the doubts surrounding the verifications of verified blue check mark accounts, Musk replied to the commissioner: "How we know youre real?" He later posted: "We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth." Breton quickly replied: "Be our guest Elon Musk." Under an EU set of laws called the Digital Services Act (DSA), social media platforms with more than 45 million active users like X are subject to far-reaching content moderation rules. Infringements of the DSA can result in fines. For designated companies, financial penalties can be up to 6% of global turnover. In exceptional circumstances, with a court order, a company can be temporarily shut down. This is the first time the commission has published preliminary findings under the DSA and has stressed that the result is not yet final. X is now able to respond in writing to defend itself. If the final outcome finds that X does breach the DSA, financial penalties are to follow and the EU executive arm can order the social media company to address the breaches. The commission may also supervise X to ensure compliance with the solutions offered to solve the issues. Further periodic fines may also follow to compel the company to comply. X may appeal the final outcome before the EU's courts. The preliminary findings were reached after consultations with national authorities, interviews with experts and the analysis of internal company documents, the commission said. Other failures from X in "key transparency areas" included blocking access to data for researchers, and not providing enough information about the advertising shown on the platform, European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said. "The DSA has transparency at its very core, and we are determined to ensure that all platforms, including X, comply with EU legislation," she said. X is subject to other ongoing commission investigations under the DSA, including the circulation of potentially illegal content from the October 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel. The European Film Academy (EFA) and Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) have issued a statement calling for the immediate release of Belarusian filmmaker and activist Andrei Gnyot, who is currently detained in Serbia. Gnyot faces potential extradition to Belarus, where he could encounter imprisonment and other serious consequences. Gnyot gained recognition for his documentary work during the 2020 Belarus protests, including footage of athletes calling for free elections. The Belarusian authorities are now pursuing legal action against him for these activities. More from Variety According to the EFA, Gnyot was arrested in Serbia following an Interpol search request from Belarus. Although Interpol later canceled the request, Serbian authorities have maintained Gnyots detention. The Belarusian Independent Film Academy (BIFA) has described Gnyot as a political prisoner, stating that his case is part of ongoing efforts by the Belarusian government to suppress dissent following the contested 2020 presidential election. In their statement, BIFA urged international organizations and human rights groups to appeal to Serbian authorities, emphasizing the urgency of preventing Gnyots extradition and securing his release. The EFA has echoed BIFAs concerns, expressing solidarity with their Belarusian colleagues and calling on Serbian authorities to release Gnyot immediately and unconditionally. The Academy is also encouraging other film and cultural institutions worldwide to support this cause. The EFA and BIFAs call for Gnyots release follows an appeal by Amnesty International to halt the extradition process after a Serbian court ruled in favor of it in June. The BIFA statement in full: The Belarusian Independent Film Academy demands that filmmaker and activist Andrei Gnyot be released from Serbian prison and not be extradited back to Belarus. In Belarus he faces imprisonment, torture and even the death penalty. Andrei Gnyot is known for making documentary footage during the Belarus 2020 protests and recording athletes appeals for free and fair elections. He is being prosecuted by the Belarusian regime for these activities. Andrei was arrested in Serbia because Interpol has accepted the request of the Belarusian regime to search for him. Later Interpol cancelled the search request; however, Serbia did not release Andrei, and the danger is that he could be extradited any moment. Andrei Gnyot is recognized by international human rights organizations as a political prisoner. The Belarusian regime continues to persecute active citizens years after the rigged presidential elections in 2020 to destroy any manifestation of dissent. Searches, arrests and torture continue unabatedly in Belarus. No civilized country or international organization co-operates with Belarus in the search for and extradition of fugitive politically active Belarusians. We urge international organizations, and human rights groups to appeal to the Serbian authorities to prevent the extradition of Andrei Gnyot to Belarus and to secure his immediate release. Time is of the essence; act now to save Andrei Gnyot. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The European Union, France and the UK have voted. So, what does it all mean? French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron leave the voting booth before voting for the second round of the legislative elections in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, northern France, Sunday, July 7, 2024. Voting has begun in mainland France on Sunday in pivotal runoff elections that could hand a historic victory to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally and its inward-looking, anti-immigrant vision or produce a hung parliament and political deadlock. | Mohammed Badra Midway through the worlds biggest election year in history, Americas allies across the pond in the United Kingdom, France and the European Union have now completed their voting. Results of these elections are now settled and clear, but what to make of them is not. The conservative Tories were kicked out of the UKs highest leadership as expected, while the far right National Rally, which advocates against immigration out of concern for diluting French identity, was unexpectedly prevented from gaining this same power in France, thanks to a centrist and left-wing coalition. In earlier European Union elections, the balance of power shifted slightly with right-leaning populist parties making some gains, while pro-EU centrist, liberal and environmentalist parties lost seats. Alongside the continued contest between left- and right-leaning politics overseas, an internal battle over the future of liberal and conservative movements is underway across the Atlantic, much like it is here in the U.S. The Deseret News spoke to several experts in European politics and history at Utahs universities to hear what stood out to them across elections, in order to make sense of what these results mean. People walk from Falwell windmill and mill, which is a temporary polling station, after casting their vote in Sunderland, England, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Britain went to the polls after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election. | Scott Heppell Overwrought fears of a populist takeover? The election in France showed that right-wing populism has some limits to its popularity, Colin Flint, a political scientist at Utah State University from Great Britain, told the Deseret News. And if theres a concerted effort the populist right can be held at bay. Populism also exists on the left, although the right-leaning variety is much more pervasive, according to the Institut Montaigne, a think tank in Paris. In each case, populism proclaims a major rift between a supposedly united, good and virtuous people, and a homogeneous, perverse elite permanently plotting against the former. For populists, the Institute continues, no issue is complicated, there are only simple and immediate solutions with societys main problems arising from groups compromising the countrys noble heritage (from immigrants, foreigners, Muslims or Jews, to woke activists and atheists). Their most reliable answers for these problems, from this vantage point, center in granting new power to a leader who supposedly embodies the people, reflecting confidence in the boundless sovereignty of the people and an elevation of direct democracy over what they consider to be outdated forms of liberal and representative democracy. The drumbeat of concern about potential right-leaning populist gains was tangible preceding both French and EU elections e.g., This time, the far-right threat is real (Politico in February), A far-right takeover of Europe Is underway (Foreign Policy in March), Rise of the far right keeps EU lawmakers up at night (Politico in April). These kinds of repeated preelection stories make these eventual results even more surprising, reflected in headlines like this from CNN last week: As Europe turns right, why has a center-left party won by a landslide in the UK? Earlier media cautions are now being portrayed by some as either effective tools to influence voters, or excessive hand-wringing that didnt turn out to be justified. BYU political scientist Darin Self suggested before the elections that such wave of populism fears could be overstated a judgment perhaps vindicated in these results, where France and the UK have installed more strongly left-leaning leadership than in recent memory. And despite some increase in populist influence at the EU, the center-right (more moderate) European Peoples Party remains by far the biggest bloc in the 27-nation assembly. We worry a lot about right-wing populists winning power, said Kirk Hawkins, a Brigham Young University professor who leads one of the most comprehensive populism research initiatives in the world. Yet he noted that such worry doesnt typically become reality due to the general lack of majority support in wealthy democracies for most populist politicians on either the left or the right. Before each round of elections, we talk about the sky falling, he said, before witnessing eventual results like just happened in Europe, with far more limited populist gains. It would help politicians and commentators more if they took this as the most likely scenario, Hawkins suggested. Evidence of rising right-wing forces in Europe is much more limited than the alarmist rhetoric would suggest, agreed political scientist Scott Cooper, author of Who Commits the Most to NATO? It Depends on How We Measure Commitment. He argues that despite all the hand-wringing about the rise of right-wing forces in Europe, there is plenty of evidence that the far right still faces some severe hurdles. For instance, the Tories worst electoral result in their two-centuries of history, this BYU scholar said, demonstrates that the British electorate rejected their move to the right, as well as their recent incompetence in governing. Even so, Flint argued that any sense that the populist right has been defeated or is in retreat should be stated with caution, agreeing with many other observers who believe the populist right will still be extremely influential in politics. They can either disrupt politics, so nothing really gets done, or they can drive and influence policy because everyones looking over their shoulder at the populist right. Furthermore, the issues that the populist right can latch onto arent going away, this Utah-based British political scientist said, pointing to immigration and taxation, in particular, as underlying drivers of popular discontent that remain very much on peoples minds in Europe. Olivier Faure, first secretary of the Socialist Party, clenches his fist after the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday, July 7, 2024, at the party election night headquarters in Paris. A coalition on the left that came together unexpectedly ahead of France's snap elections won the most parliamentary seats in the vote, according to polling projections Sunday. The surprise projections put President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance in second and the far right in third. | Aurelien Morissard A left-wing ascendency? Writing for The Federalist, Hayden Daniel called French President Emmanuel Macrons recent partnership with the far left in order to beat the far right an unholy alliance, which will most likely result in even outright communist parties becoming part of the new government. Elite technocrats will gladly form a cynical but highly effective alliance with radical left-wing ideologues rather than let the right have a victory, he wrote. (Right and left-leaning terminology in Europe generally maps onto American usage of the terms, with language like far left and left-wing, and far right and right-wing, used in both Europe and the U.S. to differentiate between more moderate and centrist strains of liberals and conservatives. There are, of course, regional differences in the primary concerns taken up with European partisans, for instance, especially focused on the value or harm of the centralized European Union.) Henry Olsen argued in The Telegraph in November that leftist populism is the real threat to democracy in Europe going on to highlight what he viewed as a clear double standard in how media treat the two. As he stated, the outsized fear towards one set of populism while neglecting the views of another is deeply problematic. Flint agrees that people are more concerned about right-leaning populism than left-leaning populism, and acknowledged the recent French outcome was partly achieved by a strategic coalition between centrist leaders and left-wing populism. But the USU scholar pushed back on the idea that some sort of left-wing ascendency is currently taking place in Europe, pointing to the fact that part of new British Prime Minister Keir Starmers success was to squash the left-wing arm of the Labor party, with Jeremy Corbyn (the UKs Bernie Sanders) getting kicked out of his party. Starmer also confirmed in his victory speech a fundamental shift in the party toward more of what Flint calls a center-left social democratic party. Hyperpolarization on both sides of the Atlantic Alongside this back-and-forth shifting in power, there continues to be evidence of hyperpolarization in Europe similar to what we see in the United States, said Stewart Anderson, a historian at BYU with expertise in the post-war period in Germany. Throughout the decades after World War II, he remarked on how many European countries adopted a parliamentary process requiring consensus between any number of (multiple) parties having to work together as a ruling coalition. This is starting to fray, Anderson said, suggesting that Europeans are more polarized than any time since 1945. Avaaz musical protest against the far right on the steps of the European Parliament esplanade. Image taken on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Brussels. In earlier European Union elections, the balance of power shifted somewhat with right-wing populist parties making some gains, while pro-EU centrist, liberal and environmentalist parties lost seats. | Delmi Alvarez After noting a heightened level of polarization and dissatisfaction evident in both the U.K. and France, reflected in widely divergent views on that the best way forward, BYU political science professor Celeste Beesley anticipated that the resulting power struggle in France means we shouldnt expect to see a very activist government or a lot of international leadership from France in the current circumstances. Noting similar tension between right- and left-wing EU politicians, she likewise predicted that we should expect to see more reserved/less bold or dynamic action from the EU in terms of EU-wide policy or foreign affairs. Voting against, rather than standing for something Theres a reason populism on the right is so popular, Anderson added, while citing figures that suggest a 20-30% ceiling of support for populist parties on the continent. These populist parties, he suggested, are realizing they need to do more than just voice opposition to issues such as the EU or immigration, and instead articulate what they stand for. In that sense of positive vision, he suggested, theres not much there. Flint, who co-edits the international journal Geopolitics and co-authored the renowned textbook Political Geography, pointed to similar oppositional dynamics in the English election, fueled by an underlying dislike of the status quo conservative rule. People were lukewarm toward the alternative party, he argued, but were motivated to get out the Tories. Rather than the political center being all that appealing and people liking what it had to offer, he suggested that voters embraced it because of what its able to prevent seeing it as a barrier to the rising of the populist right. Battling for the conservative soul Flint highlighted the intense debate happening between an estimated 50% of Tory members who support a merger with Nigel Farages far-right Reform party, compared with an estimated 50% of members of Parliament (MPs) that the Guardian classifies as centrist. This battle within the conservative movement is not unique to the U.S. Radical right parties are increasingly taking over the space occupied by traditional conservative parties, said Kirk Hawkins citing the U.S., France and the U.K. as the latest examples. In some ways that reflects democracy at work, he said. Voters arent satisfied with the stance of traditional conservative parties on some key issues. But the tenor of these parties (like those of the radical left) is also more confrontational. A similar battle is taking place among parties on the left, experts acknowledge. This makes us more polarized and less able to get legislation done and solve our policy problems, Hawkins cautioned. Democracy in action Despite the obvious tumult in international politics, University of Utah professor John Francis, an expert in European politics, pointed earlier this year toward evidence of democratic competition across the globe that is lively and making a difference in various countries. Recent European results likewise show that things are very fluid, with the main pattern across elections arguably being flux, Flint said. I dont think theres anything linear in that process and nothing definitive, he added, admitting that we still dont quite know whats going on. What happens in the next round of elections could be really different. This is an unstable moment, at home in the U.S. and abroad, French scholar Daryl Lee told me, after returning from a month in France. And in many nations the swings feel dramatic and quicker than in the past, like a ship pitching left and right, bereft of a sense for when things will settle. More than anything specific to populism or a single political ideology, Cooper argued that the most important story in these elections is that people in Europe (like in the U.S.) are unhappy with the status quo. In both countries, he said there is rising popular dissatisfaction with government as citizens are frustrated with lack of progress in their living standards along with government failures to effectively resolve social issues like immigration. So the biggest single trend I see is people voting out incumbents, which is great for the opposition parties temporarily. But in a few years, these same victorious parties today will be the incumbents and unless there is significant economic progress they will be the ones being voted out. Rather than voters going right or left for ideological reasons alone, Cooper suggested the biggest story is that voters are angry and want change and will vote for whoever seems to be most likely to provide it. People wait for the results of the second round of the legislative elections, Sunday, July 7, 2024 in Nantes, western France. Voting is underway in mainland France on Sunday in pivotal runoff elections that could hand a historic victory to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally and its inward-looking, anti-immigrant vision, or produce a hung parliament and political deadlock. | Jeremias Gonzalez MADRID/BERLIN/ROME (Reuters) -European leaders defended U.S. President Joe Biden after a number of gaffes during a NATO summit while the continent's media took them as further evidence he was not fit to defeat Donald Trump in November's presidential election. Biden, 81, drew gasps at the gathering in Washington when he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" before mixing up the names of his vice president, Kamala Harris, and Trump during a press conference that his aides had arranged to shore up public trust in his mental faculties. Biden has faced calls from fellow Democrats and supporters to drop his re-election campaign after a sometimes incoherent performance against Trump in a televised June 27 debate crystallised concerns about his ability to win the Nov. 5 vote and handle the demands of the White House. While European leaders who attended the summit were diplomatic about Biden and praised the organisation of the summit, the European press, such as Britain's Daily Telegraph, concluded that "Biden looks finished". "Slips of tongue happen, and if you always monitor everyone, you will find enough of them," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said when asked by reporters about Biden confusing Zelenskiy with Putin. The sentiment was echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof. Newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking before Biden's gaffes, said he and the president were able to address a number of issues "at pace" during their first meeting. "He was actually on really good form, and mentally agile - absolutely across all the detail," Starmer told the BBC. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Biden looked "well" and that he attended all summit sessions, unlike other leaders. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was less effusive but praised Biden's organisation of "a very good summit". Foreign leaders are not in the business of speculating on who will win the U.S. election, a European official said while highlighting some of Biden's achievements including passing a package of Ukraine aid through Congress without a majority. "We as allies aren't going to speculate behind Biden's back on the prospect of Trump winning," the official said. "Nobody can say with certainty that Trump will win." Other European politicians were less forgiving. Geert Wilders, whose far-right party won the Netherlands' last election, made fun of Biden, posting a photo of Zelenskiy and Harris on X under the title: "President Putin meets Vice President Trump." Ukrainians queried by Reuters were mainly sympathetic to Biden for his mix-up of Zelenskiy with Putin. "I think he was just tired," Yevhen, a 33-year-old IT specialist in Kyiv who declined to give his surname, said. But he also worried that such gaffes "could have certain consequences for Ukraine" - given concerns about how Trump, if elected, would treat NATO and Russia's invasion of Ukraine - if the U.S. public stopped trusting Biden A post-summit press conference failed to convince European media that Biden can rebuild confidence in his mental acuity. "This was Joe Bidens chance to win over doubters. He blew it," said a Times of London headline, while Italy's Il Giornale concluded it was the "end of the road for Biden". Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described Biden's closing press conference as a "humiliation ... To put it harshly: The dignity of the office holder has been irreversibly tarnished." Britain's Guardian newspaper agreed, describing the press conference as "painful to watch" and "politics as bloodsport". Switzerland's Neue Zuercher Zeitung daily concluded that the only chance the Democrats had of defeating the Republican Trump in November was for Biden to withdraw from the race. "An old man flexing his political muscles and raising his brittle voice does not come across as powerful...This president is not fit for a second term," the Zurich newspaper wrote. (Reporting by Charlie Devereux in Madrid, Kirsti Kolle in Berlin, Crispian Balmer in Rome, Belen Carreno in Madrid, Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Charlotte Van Campenhout in Amsterdam; writing by Charlie Devereux; editing by Mark Heinrich) Heres Every Democrat Calling on Biden to Drop Out of the Race Panic over Joe Bidens age and mental fitness has consumed the Democratic Party since the presidents abysmal debate performance in late June, during which he appeared dumbfounded and frail through the majority of his first 2024 matchup against Donald Trump. Since the face-off, droves of private-sector leaders, donors, and consultants have urged Biden to call it quits, looking for alternatives to a candidate that they openly describe as comatose and dead. So far, 22 Democratic lawmakers have formally called on the president to exit the race, and more may soon join them. Some high-profile Democrats, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have signaled behind closed doors that the presidents time leading the party is over. Still, others are reportedly not budging until Biden makes another egregious mistakethough the level of mistake required is aboundingly unclear. Heres the list of liberal politicians who have called on Biden to throw in the towel. House of Representatives: Senate: Sen. Peter Welch (July 10) This story has been updated. 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 Rep. Jane Harman is warning Democrats who want to dump Biden: Look at what happened in Egypt. She argued it was "easy to knock people off," pointing to the overthrown of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. "I don't think people would say Egypt has better leadership now than it did under Mubarak," she said. As a growing number of Democrats call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, one former lawmaker has a warning: Look at what happened in Egypt during the Arab Spring. During an appearance on ABC News on Thursday night, former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman of California pointed to the 2011 overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a worthy example to weigh when contemplating whether Biden should step aside. "It's easy to knock people off," Harman said. "We saw it in the so-called Arab Spring. We knocked off Mubarak, the leader of Egypt." While the US has denied direct involvement in Mubarak's overthrow, then-President Barack Obama supported the public revolt against the Egyptian leader, which came in the midst of the Arab Spring. Mubarak had led the country for nearly 30 years in an autocratic fashion until his resignation. In the subsequent 2012 election, Mohammed Morsi a candidate affiliated with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood was elected president. Morsi was overthrown the following year, and former military officer Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has led the country since 2014. "Where is Egypt now? We ended up electing they ended up electing the Muslim Brotherhood, which was a very toxic, unpalatable group and then that led to a military leader, El-Sisi, and a lot of journalists are in jail, and I don't think people would say Egypt has better leadership now than it did under Mubarak," said Harman. "I'm not totally defending him either. But knocking someone down is easier than building someone up." Harman suggested that there's no clear plan for who will succeed Biden if he steps aside. Vice President Kamala Harris would likely be the frontrunner, but other Democratic candidates could seek the nomination at a contested convention in August. "Where is the team that will succeed Biden, and how do we know they can beat [former President Donald] Trump?" asked Harman. Read the original article on Business Insider BRENTWOOD A former Kensington EMT accused of molesting three children was sentenced to at least 50 years in prison for possession of child sexual abuse images. Todd Burnim, 57, was sentenced in Rockingham Superior Court Friday, July 12, after being convicted of 15 counts of possession of child sexual abuse images. He is also awaiting two separate trials, one for allegedly sexually abusing three minors, the other for 26 additional counts of possession of child sexual abuse images brought forth by prosecutors in the spring. Judge David Ruoff said he wanted a sentence more severe than prosecutors requested, which was 40 to 90 years. He said Burnim was a complicated man, who was unlike any person he had sentenced. I dont think the sentence in this case has or should have any rehabilitative component at all, Ruoff said. Im not sure you can be rehabilitated. Todd Burnim, 57, was sentenced in Rockingham Superior Court Friday, July 12, after being convicted of 15 counts of possession of child sexual abuse images. The sentencing was originally scheduled for June 15, but testimony from two witnesses took up the entire day, postponing the conclusion until July 12. Rockingham County Attorney Patricia Conway said the testimony June 15 was to show Burnim was a predator, who she hoped would receive a substantial prison sentence. This type of behavior has been going on for decades. This is not a first-time offender who was simply searching one time and finding one or two or five or 10 photographs, Conway said in court Friday. We are talking about thousands of pictures here. Burnim previously served as an EMT for Kensington and East Kingston fire departments as well as worked for Action Ambulance Service, according to the Kensington police. He was arrested in January 2022 after a two-hour standoff with police on charges of allegedly drugging and abusing three minor victims over several years. According to court documents, he is accused of sexually abusing one child from the age of 6 to 12 years old and another from age 9 to 12. A third child was sexually abused in 2017 for a period of a few weeks, according to police. Police said the victims described being given white pills and green liquid from a syringe. More: Author Brendan DuBois child sex abuse images case: Details of allegations emerge Prosecutors: Ex-EMT was a predator At the start of the sentencing hearing, prosecutors brought a 19-year-old witness to the stand who testified that one of the photos of child sexual abuse Burnim had was of her. It was taken when she was 12 years old. The witness said she came into contact with Burnim when she was 12 years old on a Chatroulette-style website that matches users with strangers. The witness said Burnim led her to a messaging app where their chat grew increasingly sexual. She said she never saw his face or knew his true name, but prosecutors identified her in one of the photos on Burnims devices. Todd Burnim, a former Kensington EMT found guilty of possessing child sex abuse images, appeared in Rockingham Superior Court Friday, June 14, 2024. The sentencing hearing was continued after five hours of testimony until July 12. Sgt. Brad Von Haden of the Kensington Police Department said on the witness stand on June 15 that his investigation of Burnim led him to witnesses who alleged being abused by Burnim and experiencing predatory advances. He said interviews led him to someone who was a close friend of one of the victims in Burnims case and claimed they were abused as well. According to Von Haden, that person said in a Child Advocacy Center interview that she was abused when she was a minor while staying at Burnims home alone. Prosecutors said both witnesses were important in demonstrating Burnims behavior was predatory and that he was more than a collector of images from others on the internet. More: Ex-Rockingham County corrections officer faces new charges in jail sex assault case Victim: 'I hope he goes away for a very long time' Friday, prosecutors brought forth another witness who said she was 15 years old when Burnim met her at a gathering in Massachusetts. The witness said Burnim offered to send a photo he took at the gathering via email, after which Burnim continued to contact her via AIM messenger and then on phone calls. The witness said conversations became sexual, and she eventually told her mother after one explicit call. I put the phone down and was crying. I finally went outside, my mom came to me, the witness said. She said she and her mother went to police, but prosecutors told her it would be uncomfortable for her as a young teen to go through a criminal case. At age 36, the witness now said she wishes she did. I have a lot of guilt now for not speaking up when I was younger, the witness said. Guilt that maybe if I had spoken up that maybe other people might not have suffered like they had. The witness said she agreed to work with police when they contacted her regarding the current charges against Burnim. On the stand, she was asked what she hoped the outcome of Burnims sentencing would be. I would like for no one else to have to endure what I had to go through and what I had to relive, she said. I hope he goes away for a very long time. That abuse took place in 2004, according to the witness. Conway said the fact another witness described Burnim having explicit conversations with them as a child in 2018 indicated his behavior continued for years. She also said some of the photographs and videos seized appear to have been created in his home with items like blankets and sheets in the frame that police found during a search of his house. Conway also said Burnim has never shown remorse and has denied even having a problem. She said it indicated he was not a good candidate for rehabilitation. He needs to be behind four walls, Conway said. That is the only way that we are going to be able to protect our community, and especially young children from this man. Ex-EMT maintains innocence during sentencing Burnims defense attorneys, Heather Erskine and Philip Dreher, said Burnim has shown no remorse because he maintains his innocence. They argued he should have a sentence closer to 20 years, comparing Burnims case to first-time offenders when facing possession of child pornography charges at a federal level. Erskine told the judge that witnesses who have accused Burnim of sexual assault have lied about the abuse. Burnim gave a statement, though he did not acknowledge the charges he faced or his conviction. He instead outlined his career and how he overcame dyslexia and bullying to find a passion for piloting and then later in life as an EMT. He described instances in which he showed compassion and care to patients. Before sitting down, he told the judge his time in jail has been difficult, particularly getting adequate time to speak with his attorneys. My time with attorneys has been messed around with, for lack of a better word, Burnim said. Its not right. I have such limited time. Conway maintained the sexual abuse allegations are true. She said the testimony of the victims, available in recordings from the Child Advocacy Center interviews, is telling. All young ladies who are very brave and courageous to come forward, Conway said. The court has the CAC interviews. You can look into their eyes as theyre speaking, and the court can assess their credibility. If you need help Seacoast Media Group provides the following information as a public service when reporting on cases of alleged sexual violence: Haven is a violence prevention and support service for men, women and children affected by domestic and sexual violence. Havens 24-hour hotline is 1-603-994-SAFE (7233). This is a confidential crisis support line in the Seacoast and Rochester region staffed by trained advocates. Information: havennh.org. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Ex-EMT Todd Burnim gets 50 years for child sex abuse images The former CFO at Loretto Hospital has been charged in an expansive new indictment alleging he embezzled at least $15 million from the small safety-net facility on Chicagos West Side over a five-year period, including at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Anosh Ahmed, 40, of Houston, who resigned from his position as chief financial officer in 2021 after the hospitals board voted to terminate him, was charged in a superseding indictment made public Friday with 26 counts, including wire fraud, embezzlement, aiding and abetting embezzlement, and money laundering. The new indictment also adds to charges previously filed against Heather Bergdahl, 37, a friend of Ahmeds from Houston whom he hired in 2020 to serve as Lorettos chief transformation officer. Also charged is Sameer Suhail, 47, of Chicago, a doctor and medical supply company owner accused of serving as a front for millions of dollars in bogus payments by Loretto for invoices that were never fulfilled. Arraignments in U.S. District Court in Chicago have not yet been scheduled. Two sources familiar with the case told the Tribune that Ahmed fled to Dubai earlier this year. Attorneys for Ahmed and Suhail were not listed in court records as of Friday, and attorneys for Bergdahl could not immediately be reached for comment. The indictment is the latest fallout from a federal investigation that began after Lorettos vaccination program came under fire for administering hundreds of COVID shots at a suburban church connected to then-CEO George Miller at a time where vaccination doses were still scarce. Around the same time, Lorettos board reprimanded Miller and Ahmed after the hospital improperly vaccinated ineligible workers at Trump Tower downtown and Cook County judges. Miller was suspended and later left the hospital amid the fallout in April 2022. He has not been criminally charged. According to the superseding indictment, Ahmed, Bergdahl and Suhail transferred proceeds of the scheme to each other and to their associates, including an associate referred to as Employee A, who was an executive at Loretto from 2017 to April 12, 2022 a date that matches Millers resignation exactly. Bergdahl, meanwhile, was arrested on the original charges in May after boarding a private jet in Houston that was chartered to take her to Dubai. The flight had been arranged by Ahmed, though Bergdahls attorney argued it was a pre-planned vacation and not an attempt to flee. She was later released on bond secured by her parents home. According to the superseding indictment, from 2018 to 2022, Ahmed, Bergdahl, and Suhail caused Loretto to issue more than $15 million in payments to vendor companies for purported goods and services that they knew had not been provided. Many of the phony vendor companies were created by Suhail and Ahmed under various names to conceal their association with the fraudulent payments, which were sent to bank accounts the defendants controlled, the indictment stated. According to the 20-page criminal complaint filed in May, Ahmed knew Bergdahl from their time working together in Houston. Her duties as the hospitals chief transformation officer included cutting checks to vendors and handling outreach for screening and COVID-19 testing and vaccines. Bergdahl left Loretto in March 2022, shortly before Millers resignation, records show. Her LinkedIn profile earlier this year listed her as chief financial officer of Anosh Inc., a Houston-based alternative investment firm established by Ahmed in 2021. Suhail is currently CEO of Foresight Hospital and Health Systems, which is headquartered on East Wacker Drive, records show. According to his online bio, Suhail is an entrepreneur, healthcare investor, and philanthropist whose personal mission is to provide quality healthcare for local communities, particularly those in underserved urban and rural communities. The charges come two years after a federal grand jury subpoenaed the state Department of Public Health for information on dozens of people who were given shots by Loretto the same time frame as the vaccinations given at Trump Tower and elsewhere, according to records released by the state. That investigation later expanded to include Valley Kingdom Ministries International Church in Oak Forest where hundreds of congregants were allegedly vaccinated while shots were still in short supply and only supposed to be given to people ages 65 and older and front-line workers. The vaccination event also occurred as health and community leaders emphasized a need to distribute vaccines equitably, making sure hard-hit communities on the South and West sides got the shots. The Chicago Department of Public Health at the time said it suspended vaccination distribution to Loretto after learning of potential vaccine distribution issues. The city later stepped in to manage the clinic at the hospital in order to help ensure Austin residents had priority access to vaccinations. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city and state were cooperating with investigators. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai, who is on an official visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang held talks with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai in Beijing on Friday. Over the past 42 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Vanuatu have always respected each other, worked in solidarity and coordination, strengthened their traditional friendship, deepened their political mutual trust and achieved fruitful results in practical cooperation, Li said. Li said China is willing to work with Vanuatu to further consolidate the political foundation of bilateral relations, continue to support each other on issues involving each other's core interests and major concerns, tighten the bond of mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation, push the China-Vanuatu comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level and bring more tangible benefits to the two peoples. Li said that China is ready to work with Vanuatu to better leverage their economic complementarity, upgrade the level of cooperation on economy, trade, finance and fisheries, among other areas, implement key infrastructure projects with high quality to push for more fruits of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries, and is willing to import more high-quality agricultural products from Vanuatu. The premier called on the two sides to further facilitate cross-border travel, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the fields of youth, education, healthcare, culture and tourism, and at the sub-national level. The two sides should strengthen cooperation in multilateral fields, continuously enhance the representation of developing countries in the global governance system, promote international equity and justice, safeguard the common interests of developing countries, and jointly address climate change and other global challenges, Li said. He said China is willing to strengthen climate policy exchanges and cooperation with Pacific Island countries, including Vanuatu, to safeguard the principles and institutional arrangements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement. Noting that Vanuatu attaches great importance to Vanuatu-China relations, Salwai thanked China for its long-term sincere assistance, and congratulated China on its great achievements. He said Vanuatu abides by the one-China principle, supports China on issues concerning Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Xizang and the South China Sea, supports the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity and a series of global initiatives put forward by China, and is willing to actively participate in the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, deepen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and work for closer multilateral coordination. Chinese Premier Li Qiang holds talks with Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai, who is on an official visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) Ex-Trump official reveals what she saw of Project 2025 plans before leaving office A former Trump administration official is warning Americans that some of the most dramatic changes in the right-wing policy plan, titled Project 2025, are ready to go, and has claimed that she saw an executive order firsthand. Project 2025 is a presidential transition project spearheaded by the right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation, and involving former Trump administration officials. On Thursday, Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House communications director, told CNN that there is a real possibility the former president would replace civil servants with political loyalists should he be re-elected in November. The proposal is a key element of Project 2025. I saw the actual executive order, at the end of the last administration, ready to go that would re-make every civil servant into a political appointee and a loyalist to Trump, Griffin said on Thursday. So its a very, very scary thing thats actionable and ready to go by Donald Trump, she added. One of the key elements of Project 2025 is prioritizing putting loyalists into powerful government positions over those best suited for the roles. Its one part of the projects overall goal to expand executive authority, and weaken the checks and balances of the federal government. Removing civil servants and replacing them with loyalists would make it easier for a president to consolidate power, allowing him to make changes without challenges. The Dr Faucis of the world would be replaced with whatever loyalist he puts into those positions, Griffin explained. Some of the other policies proposed in Project 2025 include abolishing the Department of Education; drastically cutting funding to renewable energy projects; withdrawing the abortion pill from the market; ending diversity and inclusion programs in schools; and imposing harsh immigration laws. Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, said the implementation of the plan was the process of the second American Revolution earlier this month. Which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be, he added, cryptically. Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, amid growing negative attention on the controversial proposals. He and his campaign have maintained that Agenda 47 is his plan and platform. The former president wrote on Truth Social last week that he knows nothing about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it. However, many former Trump administration officials are closely tied to the project. This includes former aide John McEntee; former chief of staff for the Office of Personnel Management Paul Dans; and former director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought. Stephen Miller, a former Trump advisor, has also appeared in an advertisement for Project 2025. People deeply connected to Donald Trump were part of this, Griffin said. A former employee at a residential facility for disabled persons has been charged with multiple counts of exploitation and abuse after taking explicit photos and whipping a resident, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Demario Henderson, 34, was charged Tuesday with two counts of exploitation of a vulnerable adult and two counts of abuse of a vulnerable adult while employed at the Whitten Regional Center in Clinton, a SLED news release said. The Whitten Regional Center is a residential facility administered by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs. The center is responsible for assisting and supporting individuals with disabilities. Between May 1 and July 31, 2023, Henderson allegedly took illicit photos of the victim, who was a resident at Whitten and considered a vulnerable adult, on two separate occasions against the victims will, according to an arrest warrant. Henderson was one of the victims direct caregivers, the warrant said. Henderson is also accused of abusing the same resident by recording a video of the victim using intimidation, causing the resident to cower on the bed, the warrant said. In another instance, Henderson whipped the victim on their lower back with a portion of the victims bed restraint, according to an arrest warrant. Henderson was booked at the Laurens County Detention Center and, if convicted, faces up to 20 years in prison and/or a $20,000 fine. Explainer-What is Project 2025 and how is it connected to Trump? By Gram Slattery WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A set of conservative policy proposals known as Project 2025 has become a lightning rod for opponents of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as they seek to highlight what they say are the dangers of him retaking the White House. Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025, even though many of his closest policy advisers are deeply involved. The campaign of Democratic President Joe Biden says the project is proof that Trump would adopt a series of authoritarian and hard-right policies if elected. WHAT IS PROJECT 2025? At its heart, Project 2025 is a series of detailed policy proposals put together by hundreds of high-profile conservatives that the project's participants hope Trump adopts if elected. Those proposals are laid out in a roughly 900-page book. Participants in the project are also assembling lists of thousands of conservatives that could be slotted into politically appointed positions throughout the government in the opening days of a Trump administration. Behind the scenes, the project's affiliates are drafting executive orders and agency regulations that could be used to quickly implement the policies that the project is advocating once Trump takes office. IS IT CONNECTED TO THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN? Yes and no. The project, a collaboration of dozens of conservative organizations, is overseen by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. The group is independent of the Trump campaign, a fact Project 2025 and Trump himself have emphasized. "I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump said on social media in early July. But that's not the whole story. In practice, many of Trump's closest policy advisers and those likely to take high-ranking positions in his administration are heavily involved in the project. For instance, former Trump administration official Russ Vought has played a major role in Project 2025. He also serves as the policy director of the Republican National Convention's platform committee, an appointment the campaign signed off on. WHAT ARE THE PROJECT'S MAIN PROPOSALS? Project 2025's policy suggestions range in topic from foreign affairs to education. Among other things, Project 2025 proposes enforcing laws that make it illegal to mail abortion pills over state lines, criminalizing pornography and eliminating the Department of Education. The project also advocates a sweeping elimination of environmental regulations and a crackdown on programs to boost diversity in the workplace, which the project argues are broadly illegal. The project also calls for a broad expansion in presidential power by boosting the number of political appointees and increasing the president's authority over the Justice Department. That last proposal has spooked many law enforcement officials, who say it will undermine the department's ability to conduct investigations without political interference. DOES TRUMP AGREE WITH THE PROJECT'S PROPOSALS? Trump appears to agree with many - but not all - proposals. In practice, his campaign has a small in-house policy team, and he tends to discuss policy only in broad terms on the trail. Though he has endorsed various proposals that are central to Project 2025, like giving himself the power to radically expand the number of political appointees in government and eliminating the Department of Education, he disagrees with other proposals, like putting restrictions on abortion pills. WHY IS PROJECT 2025 SUCH A BIG DEAL AT THE MOMENT? Project 2025 has been around in some form since early 2023. But in recent months, the Biden campaign has made a concerted effort to raise awareness of Project 2025 among voters and turn the project into a symbol of the hard-right political shift that it says would occur in the U.S. should Trump be elected. Biden said this week that "Project 2025 will destroy America," and his campaign has created a web page dedicated to the project. The Democratic National Committee in July announced plans for billboards mentioning Project 2025 in 10 cities. A Supreme Court ruling in early July that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office has heightened concerns among some Trump opponents that the project's attempts to increase presidential power will be particularly dangerous. The Trump campaign, in turn, has expressed increasing annoyance with the project, repeatedly emphasizing that the project's proposals are separate from the campaign's official policy platform. In a statement to Reuters, a campaign official accused the Democrats of fearmongering and said only the official Republican platform and a series of proposals from the campaign known as Agenda 47 should be taken as official. "Team Biden and the DNC are lying and fearmongering because they have nothing else to offer the American people," said Danielle Alvarez, a campaign spokesperson. (Reporting by Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O'Brien) LANSING Robert Backus knew at a young age what he wanted to do with his life, thanks in part to a teacher at Mason High School who alerted him to law enforcement as a career possibility. "(Police work) was a career that interested me early on, and he's the one who recommended I consider that," Backus said, referring to the careers-class teacher at Mason High all those years ago. Backus was an Explorer scout at the Lansing Police Department, then a cadet before graduating from the Mid-Michigan Police Academy in 2000. Twenty-four years later, he's holding down the top police job in Michigan's Capitol city. Backus, 45, was named police chief July10 by Mayor Andy Schor, succeeding former chief Ellery Sosebee, who retired after about 2 years as chief. He's the latest in a long series of internal hires for the chief's position. Backus is a Mason High School graduate. He earned degrees from Michigan State University and Ferris State University and completed MSU's School of Staff and Command. He also attended the FBI National Academy. Lansing Police Dept. Chief Robert Backus, pictured Thursday, July 11, 2024, in his office. Backus' appointment is expected to be approved by the Lansing Board of Police Commissioners. "I have had the privilege of meeting Chief Backus a number of times, and I have been impressed with his professionalism," said Andrea Bitely, a small business owner and public relations consultant who sits on the police commission. "Mayor Schor had options in replacing Chief Sosebee. But I think we were lucky to have an assistant chief in place who understands the needs of the community." Backus has been part of the command structure for years and won't need time to get up to speed, Bitely said. That wouldn't be the case if Schor had decided to hire a chief from another community, she said. That doesn't mean there aren't concerns about the police department, in general, in the community. Lansing Police Department Chief Robert Backus, right, chats with Detention Officer Ian Bailey, Thursday, July 11, 2024, at the jail located in city hall. Rina Risper of Lansing, publisher of the New Citizens Press, a multicultural newspaper, said she has questions about the department's event security policies, what's happening with police social workers and what the department is doing with money it received for investigating cold cases, among other things. She said a nonprofit she is involved with recently held an event at Adado Riverfront Park that included a beer tent, and when a dangerous situation developed, there was no law enforcement available. She pointed to Meridian Township as an example of a local community that at a recent festival had a police officer stationed outside a beer tent. Backus discussed his priorities with the State Journal on the same day he was named chief. Q: You started your career at LPD as an explorer at age 15. Did the thought ever occur to you then that, someday, you'd be running the department? BACKUS: "That thought never crossed my mind. You are so focused on the service portion of the job and how exciting the job is, just being more excited to start your career in this profession, that you don't think about that. Early on, I just saw how much need there was to help people, to see the opportunities, volunteering with events, interacting with citizens. We were allowed to do ride-alongs, and you got to see how much satisfaction the officers got from doing their jobs and how much I wanted to do it." Q: You've had a pretty broad range of experience in police work. Is there a particular assignment or type of work that you enjoyed the most? A: "This job is as rewarding today as it was when I first started. It means a lot to me, and I've been very fortunate to have had some great assignments. The one that stands out the most is being the supervisor of our Violent Crime Initiative. I was the first supervisor in that unit. The type of work we were focusing on was violent crime and firearms. I saw the need for it and knew how important it is." Lansing Police Department Chief Robert Backus, left, chats with Officer Eric McDowell in the evidence room, Thursday, July 11, 2024, at LPD headquarters. Q: What will your priorities be as police chief? What things would you like to change? A: "We've been fortunate; we've had a number of very good chiefs. My hope is to pick up where they left off, to push our department further. Hiring and recruiting is probably the biggest challenge we face, and I think we are doing a very good job of it. When I look at the number of recurits we're putting through the academy, there are a lot of people who want to come work for the Lansing Police Department, and we're fortunate to have a reputation as a good place to work. My priority is safety. (Battling) violent crime is on the forefront. We're fortunate to have officers who are skilled at working with the community, and a large part of our department is embracing our interaction with the community in violent crime intervention efforts. Our department has been really open to accepting these different ways of doing things and groups coming in to helping us. The Lansing 360 group is really starting to gain some ground. Mike McKissic's group, Mikey23, and Advance Peace are really helping and neighboring departments are joining. It's becoming a very powerful effort right now, and I think we're going to see some positive changes. It takes awhile to build the foundation and have that outreach. We have to build trust within our various groups and then we need cooperation. Hopefully, we're going to see the impact. We're seeing an increase in the number of people who want to be involved in these violent crime fighting efforts." Q: Can you talk a little about your leadership style and how you plan to connect with the community? Would you compare your style, for example, to former chiefs such as Mike Yankowski or Daryl Green, who were a little more in the public eye, or chiefs like Ellery Sosebee, who didn't always keep a high profile? A: "I've worked directly with all of those chiefs. I consider them all to be mentors of mine. I saw their success, the way they handled themselves and the way they addressed the department inside. I think one of the biggest factors is being able to both lead inside the department and having partnerships outside. It's just being present, having one-on-one or group contact. You need to be in spaces where you can have that kind of interaction. And having the transparency, addressing their concerns directly, that's very important to me. I hope to be in contact with as many of our groups moving forward as I possibly can. Community relations is a huge part of it. It's a priority for me. It should also be a priority for other members of our department, not just me. I want to be the face of the department, but I don't want to be the only officer the community knows." Q: Violent crime, obviously, is a big issue in Lansing and many other communities. The city is on a pace for one of its highest homicide totals in many years. Do you know what the solution is? A: "You can't just put all of the responsibility for that on the police department, although we accept that we have a very big responsibility. But we also know that if we're going to do it the right way, we've got to start engaging our partners prosecutors, Michigan State Police, community groups, our federal partners. Now, we are really opening the door for these community partners to come in and ask what is driving violent crime. When we look at decreasing violent crime, we need to know that everybody has contributed. That is our responsibility, but the way things are trending right now, everyone is making it a priority." Q: The pattern in recent years, at least, is for Lansing to hire its police chiefs from within. Do you think there is merit to the argument the city should look for external candidates? A: "When you look at the idea of internal versus external candidates, I think you have to look at how people view the department. I've been overwhelmed with the amount of support I've received from people who knew this was my intention. That's 24 years of relationships I have. Lansing was a big city when I started. It's not a big city now. Having those relationships in place and knowing the community has access to the police department should be highly valued. The question is, would the department continue on that level if someone came in from outside?" Q: Some people have suggested the police department needs to be more transparent in its dealings with the public. What is the departments obligation to share basic violent crime information, and will the approach change under your leadership? A: "Transparency, what constitutes transparency, is subjective. It changes year over year. I do think people are asking the police for more information, and I think we as a public body need to provide that information. We also have to protect the integrity of investigations and be mindful of some privacy matters. We have to balance that public right to know with someone's privacy. My hope is to take feedback and evaluate how it can be better when we are dealing with our partners in the media and the citizens. If there are times we can't meet their expectations, that has to be overcome with explanations about why we can't." Q: Recruiting and hiring police officers is, perhaps, as tough as its ever been, not just in Lansing, but seemingly everywhere. How do you deal with that problem? A: "We've got a very good team when it comes to recruiting. We can always do better, of course. But we are getting very good candidates, and I think we are going to get through our struggles. We're using our officers who like being here, and we're placing a priority on our people, taking care of their mental health and overall wellness, looking for opportunities to let them continue their education. giving them opportunities for advanced police training, showing them what we have to offer. We're letting them be our billboard, and I think that's going to continue." Lansing Police Chief of Police Robert Backus chats with Cadet Kloe Bigelow on Thursday, July 11, 2024, at LPD headquarters. Backus' career began as an explorer scout. Q: There has been talk about the city adopting more crime-fighting technology. Mayor Schor, for example, has alluded to real-time crime monitoring using surveillance cameras, provided the city can find the staffing to allow for that. Do you have any thoughts about that topic? A: "We are constantly evaluating the technology and whether it will help us do our jobs. Part of the equation is how we can most efficiently use our officers, whether it will improve investigations or response. We look for technology that can meet all those different areas. We continue to expand our camera network. Monitoring doesn't necessarily need to be done by an officer. Those types of jobs can be filled by an analyst so we can keep our officers on the street. We need to determine how to do that." Q: What does your staffing situation look like right now? Do you think the recent talk by the mayor and other officials about adding more officers is realistic? A: "We are authorized for 212 officers, I believe, and we are very close to 200 officers. The mayor does support adding more police, but also more support personnel, too, to assist with what our department is responsible for. A good example is social workers. We've grown to four people assigned as social workers. We're optimistic. The Legislature recently included some additonal funding in the upcoming budget. We don't know what that number is going to be, but we're already thinking about where we could use that funding." Q: Police road pursuit policies always seem to be a hot topic. Do you foresee any significant changes to Lansing police pursuit policies? A: We have added considerable restrictions to police pursuits, what we are going to pursue for. These are changes going back 10 years or so. We're looking at violent crimes, active threats. Does the risk to the public from the offender outweigh the risk from the pursuit? This is just something they've done for the last 10 years. Our officers are very good at making responsible decisions. There's always going to be an active threat or a risk to the public. You have to consider that when we're making decisions about the overall safety of the community." Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus speaks with Officer Tori Brooks, Thursday, July 11, 2024, at police headquarters. Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj. This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Robert Backus' journey to police chief in Lansing started in high school F-16s are on their way to Ukraine here's how they can help fight Russia After a long wait, F-16 fighter jets are finally on their way to Ukraine. "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," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on July 10 during the NATO summit in Washington. The long wait for their arrival has been accompanied by much hype about what they will help Ukraine achieve in its fight against Russia's full-scale invasion. Even words like "game-changer" have been mentioned. So will they be? The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American multirole, air superiority fighter first introduced in 1978. It has been the workhorse of more than two dozen air forces across the world for nearly 46 years. Most advanced air forces including Russia's now employ much more advanced fighter jets, but for Ukraine, with its small fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29s, its still a significant upgrade. Infographic: The Countries That Use F-16 Fighter Jets | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista What's the hype around F-16s? While "game-changer" has been mentioned in some quarters, most professional opinion about F-16s has been more restrained, yet still ambitious. Earlier this week, retired Polish brigadier general, Jaroslaw Kraszewski, said the arrival of the jets could help create the conditions for a Ukrainian counterattack. This, he believes, could "dramatically change the situation" on the battlefield though he said it would unlikely amount to a turning point in Russia's full-scale war. "I think a lot of positive things will happen for Ukraine then; the planes will create conditions for a counterattack," he said in an interview with Ukrinform published on July 9. Kraszewski added that if Ukraine was also allowed to strike deep inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons a step that Washington has so far refused to take it could "cyclically and effectively" destroy Kremlin logistics. "Ukrainian aviation should receive long-range missiles to destroy Russia's infrastructure, including airfields," he said. "When this happens, the logistics of the Russian army will be cut off from the main forces. If this is done, Ukraine's army command should form a strike group and strike back." Ukraine has already learned the hard way the costs of launching a counteroffensive without air superiority, and it was a major factor in the failure of last year's attempt to break through Russian lines. Ukrainian officials have also been hyping the arrival of F-16s, with Navy Commander Oleksii Neizhpapa, telling Reuters on July 5 they will challenge Russia's "full dominance" of the skies over the Black Sea. "F-16s with the right armaments will be able to push away Russian warplanes. The northwestern part of the Black Sea, particularly the corridor for civilian ships, will be almost 100% secure," Neizhpapa said in the interview. Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter jets during NATO's Baltic Air Policing Mission in Lithuanian airspace near Siauliai on May 23, 2023. (AFP via Getty Images) Experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent said F-16s will be a boost to Ukraine but said it was correct not to view them as any sort of game-changer. "First, they won't be the latest and most modern variants, and they are going into a high-threat environment, both from Russia's own aircraft and from longer-range ground-based air defenses," Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said. "They are useful and give the Ukrainians some more options, but we should be cautious about them 'turning the tide' and how soon they will be operationally effective." What will F-16s do? The F-16s will likely have two main roles, experts said, one defensive and one offensive. "Air defense is really, really important," Peter Layton, former Royal Australian Air Force officer and Associate Fellow at RUSI, told the Kyiv Independent. "Looking at the big picture, the Ukrainian national air defense commanders might try to use the short-range guns like the Gepard to kill the Shaheds, use the F-16s to kill the cruise missiles, the older SAMs to kill the ballistic missiles, and the Patriots to kill the Kinzhals." In an offensive role, Layton said F-16s could be used to replicate one of Russia's more successful military innovations used during the full-scale invasion glide bombs. Glide bombs are standard air-dropped bombs modified with fins and GPS guidance systems in order to be launched at a target from a distance rather directly overhead. They're far from a new technology, dating back to World War II minus the GPS and being used in conflicts including Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Though primitive, they have been used to devastating effect by Russian forces in recent months, and have allowed Moscow's planes to launch huge amounts of explosives some weigh 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) from far away enough to stay out of range of Ukrainian air defenses. "Against soldiers in trenches you really need large blast weapons," Layton said. "The F-16s dropping (smaller U.S.-supplied small diameter bombs) will have limited effectiveness." As a result, Layton says to expect Ukrainian forces to start deploying their own versions of the large glide bombs. Using F-16s in this way would support Kraszewski's view outlined earlier. "They could meaningfully help support a counteroffensive," Layton said, adding: "If they had large glide bombs, these could be used in pre-planned missions to literally blast openings in the Russian trench systems. "A large blast weapon can blast openings but these are short-duration openings as troops recover quickly from the shock. Hence the pre-planned missions would need close timing coordination with Ukrainian soldiers ground offensive." Ukraine is working on its own glide bombs on June 9, Serhii Golubtsov, the chief of aviation of the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said the first tests would be conducted "in a few weeks." An F-16 Fighting Falcon from the Polish Air Force takes part in a NATO air Shielding exercise at the Lask Air Base in Lask, Poland, on Oct. 12, 2022. (Omar Marques/Getty Images) What about the Black Sea? Operations over the Black Sea would be limited by the F-16's limited range, Layton said, and they would also need support from aircraft such as the two ASC 890 radar reconnaissance and control aircraft donated by Sweden earlier this year. Working together, they could feasibly hunt down Russian aircraft. "It could be done," Layton said, adding: "But only to provide short duration air defense and with careful planning. Having said that, it would be worth doing a few times to push away the Russian bomber aircraft firing cruise missiles at Ukraine from the Black Sea." Read also: Russias Su-57 hype vs. reality What won't the jets do? One thing that could actually be a game-changer for Ukraine would be the destruction of Russian aircraft on or over Russian territory. Being able to take out Russian fighter jets would prevent the dropping of glide bombs, while the taking out of Russian bombers would prevent the ongoing destruction of Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure. This has been the main argument of President Volodymyr Zelensky's calls to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). So far, that call has gone unheeded, so the other option for Ukraine would be to use F-16s to go after them instead. Unfortunately, this is likely to be a non-starter. "Using them in a straight air-to-air fight or flying against air defenses that haven't been suppressed would lead to them taking a lot of risks with scarce resources and pilots," Savill said. "And as their training has been accelerated, it probably hasn't been as extensive as they would like. The Ukrainians will obviously factor that in, but don't expect them to be blase about losses." Savill said there is still the possibility that Ukraine could come up with novel ways to ambush Russian aircraft by "combining them with ground-launched missiles," but this would still only have a limited effect. "The large bombers launching the largest and fastest cruise missiles do so from long distances, often over Russian territory, where it would be difficult for the F-16s to approach within sufficient range to launch at the Russian aircraft," he said. An F-16 aircraft is pictured after the first delivery of Norway's old F-16 fighter aircraft to Romania at Rygge Air Force Base, Norway on Nov. 28, 2023. (Ole Berg-Rusten/NTB/AFP via Getty Images) The numbers There's also one other crucial factor to consider the number pledged so far for Ukraine is 79, which Zelensky, as well as other Western leaders, have said is simply insufficient in the face of Russia's air power. While the F-16s may not be a game-changer and will unlikely lead to the swift loss of hundreds of Russian aircraft, they are undoubtedly an improvement on what Ukraine currently has and could help incrementally push some aspects of the war in Kyiv's favor. And then there's the hype itself which it's important not to underestimate. "That is useful in itself," says Layton. "The presence of F-16s will improve troop morale and be a psychological boost for Ukraine's population. "Also, they are a clear demonstration of external support." Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter appears to have encountered some kind of problem at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, forcing an emergency egress by the pilot. A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter appears to have encountered some kind of problem at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, forcing an emergency egress by the pilot. Several videos have emerged and although there has been no official comment so far, we have approached the Marines for more details as to exactly what happened. Apparently dating from July 10, the videos in question show a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 Green Knights on the ground at its home base, in the Yamaguchi prefecture. The jet is seen with its engine running and the canopy cranked open. The pilot then performs what appears to be an emergency ground egress, clambering over the rear fuselage of the aircraft and across the wing. They then jump to the ground, aided by grabbing the underwing missile pylon in this case, not loaded with any weapon. Meanwhile, several fire trucks race to the scene. It is noteworthy that the integral telescopic ladder on the F-35 is not used for egress on this occasion. Reference to videos of the ladder in use suggests that a member of the ground crew is required to deploy or retract it. The videos may first have been uploaded by @sheng66722 on the social media site X. According to a machine translation of a comment they made, the jet was subsequently able to taxi to a hangar under its own power, followed closely by a fire truck. The F-35B was then checked over in front of the hangar before entering it. A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B with VMFA-121 taxis to the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, February 2, 2017. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Aaron Henson Cpl. Aaron Henson If this was, as it appears, an emergency egress after a malfunction, it should be noted that this is not an altogether unusual occurrence. It could have been prompted by any number of emergencies. An inoperable environmental control system (ECS), complications from a hydraulic failure that could bring a risk of a fire, or a fire-warning light, are just some potential reasons for such an action in which case the pilot would have needed to get away from the jet as quickly as possible, as they do here. Losing ECS alone can cause the cockpit to quickly turn into a stove in many tactical jets, so getting out is also about surviving the ambient heat. The Green Knights received their first F-35Bs in November 2012 and declared initial operational capability (IOC) in July 2015, before relocating permanently to Iwakuni in January 2017. The squadron has since developed considerable shipborne expertise, becoming the first Lightning II unit to deploy at sea, embarking six F-35Bs aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD-1) in March 2018. Since then, Iwakuni has welcomed another F-35B unit within the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, VMFA-242 Bats having declared Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in September 2021. By virtue of their location in Japan, these are among the tip of the spear combat squadrons in the U.S. military. Only this month it was announced that the Marine Corps will adjust the number of F-35B aircraft based at Iwakuni. In a statement, the Marines said that they will continue to maintain an enduring and rotational aircraft presence at MCAS Iwakuni to ensure the necessary capabilities to support the defense of Japan, although no further details were provided. There has been at least one previous incident involving VMFA-121 F-35Bs, as we have reported in the past. In December 2022, one of the squadrons jets was forced to return to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, after a suspected electrical problem. It then suffered damage after a nose-gear collapse when it was being towed back to the flight line. F-35s, of all versions, have been involved in a number of mishaps, including several total airframe losses. The most significant incidents to have affected the U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fleet, specifically, include a pair of crashes, which we reported on here and here, while the United Kingdoms Royal Air Force also lost an F-35B in a dramatic carrier accident in November 2021 that we detailed at the time. More recently, a Lockheed Martin-owned F-35B crashed on the runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth in Texas during a hover test in December 2022. You can read about that mishap here. This latest incident at Iwakuni appears to have seen the pilot escape unscathed, while the fact that the aircraft was reportedly able to move under its own power shortly afterward suggests that it likely didnt receive any significant damage. Incidents of this kind may not be that uncommon, but they are certainly interesting to see and we will continue to update this story once we have more information. Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com President Joe Biden held a solo news conference on Thursday after a NATO summit in Washington, seeking to reassure voters concerned about his ability to serve and Democratic officials concerned about his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Bidens comments included some false and misleading claims. Here is a fact check. Bidens Putin-Zelensky gaffe moment Biden played down a gaffe he made at an event earlier on Thursday in which he had mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin before correcting himself moments later. Biden said at the press conference: I said, No, Im sorry, Zelensky. And then I added five other names. Facts First: Bidens last claim was false. He didnt utter five other names after he corrected the Putin-Zelensky mix-up. In fact, after Biden corrected himself, Zelensky said he is better than Putin, Biden agreed, and then Zelensky delivered remarks as Biden stood silently beside him. Bidens travels Biden spoke of a need to pace himself in his activities. He said, The next debate, Im not going to be traveling 15 time zones a week before. Anyway. Thats what it was about. Facts First: This is misleading. Biden did not travel abroad a week before the June 27 CNN presidential debate in which he performed poorly. In fact, he returned to the US from Europe 12 days before that debate, on June 15. Biden attended a fundraiser in Los Angeles on June 15, returned to the White House on June 16 and went to Camp David on June 20 for intensive debate preparations. He stayed at Camp David until the day of the CNN presidential debate against Trump, which was held in Atlanta. What Trump said about NATO Biden, criticizing Trumps position on the NATO military alliance, said, I think he said at one of his rallies, dont hold me to this, recently, where, NATO I just learned about NATO, or something to that effect. Foreign policys never been his strong point. Facts First: Bidens description of Trumps comment was indeed inaccurate. Trump did not say at a recent rally that I just learned about NATO. Rather, Trump said at the rally that he had not known what NATO was, too much, prior to attending his first alliance summit as president in 2017. Trump said at his Tuesday rally in Florida: I didnt want to be obnoxious because I felt, you know, it was the first time Id ever done this. I went; I didnt even know what the hell NATO was too much before, but it didnt take me long to figure it out. Like about two minutes. And the first thing I figured out was they werent paying. (Trump continued by making his usual false claims about NATOs funding structure.) Biden is entitled to criticize Trump for this profession of prior ignorance about NATO or for his continued inaccuracy about NATO, but Bidens comments made it sound like Trump had acknowledged he had just learned about NATO now rather than seven years ago. Hamas and the West Bank Talking about the war between Israel and Hamas, Biden said Thursday, There is a growing dissatisfaction in, on the West Bank, from the Palestinians, about Hamas. Hamas is not popular now. Facts First: The limited available public opinion polling suggests the claim that Hamas is not popular now in the West Bank is not true and that Hamas popularity has increased there since its attack on Israel last October. A poll taken in late May and early June by a well-known pollster based in the West Bank, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, found that 73% of respondents in the West Bank supported the October attack by Hamas, that 82% of respondents in the West Bank were satisfied with Hamas performance in the current war with Israel and that 71% of respondents in the West Bank preferred Hamas to control the Gaza Strip after the war. Hamas scored better on all of those questions among the respondents in the West Bank than it did among the respondents in Gaza. In addition, Hamas had the support of about half the West Bank respondents who said they would vote in hypothetical parliamentary elections double its support level in a poll nine months prior and more than double West Bank respondents support in the latest poll for more moderate rival Fatah. Bidens endorsement from the United Auto Workers When a reporter told Biden that Reuters had reported Thursday that the leadership of the United Auto Workers union was concerned about Bidens ability to win the election, Biden responded, UAW just endorsed me, but go ahead. Facts First: Bidens claim that the UAW just endorsed him is misleading at best. The UAW actually announced its endorsement of Biden on January 24, more than five months ago. In other words, Biden attempted to dismiss the reported post-debate concerns of UAW president Shawn Fain by insinuating that Fains union had made a recent decision to back Biden. But the endorsement actually came long before the debate and the resulting crisis of confidence among some of Bidens pre-debate backers. The war in Afghanistan Biden spoke of how he had encouraged Israeli leaders not to occupy anywhere and instead target the Hamas terrorists who attacked their country, avoiding the mistakes the US made after it was attacked on September 11, 2001. Biden said, You may recall, I still get criticized for it, but I was totally opposed to the occupation and trying to unite Afghanistan. Once we got bin Laden, in 2011, we shouldve moved on, because it was not in our no ones ever going to unite that country. Facts First: Bidens claim that he was totally opposed to the occupation of Afghanistan is misleading at best. In the early years of the war, Biden, then a US senator for Delaware, was a vocal public supporter of the US having a sustained military presence in Afghanistan and engaging in extensive nation-building there and he explicitly rejected the idea of a narrow military mission targeting terrorists. Biden did eventually change his mind, becoming a sharp internal critic of the war as President Barack Obamas vice president beginning in 2009; he opposed Obamas surge of additional troops into the country. But Biden has repeatedly suggested he always opposed the idea of a US military presence and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, and thats incorrect. In an October 2001 speech in the Senate, Biden outlined a broad agenda for a long-term solution in Afghanistan, which he said would involve everything from the restoration of womens rights to building basic infrastructure to the creation of secular schools to the establishment of a crop substitution program for narcotics and said that it would be unwise to simply go after terrorists. He said, We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. If we think only in the short term, only of getting bin Laden and the Taliban which we must do, but that is not all we must do we are just begging for greater trouble down the line. In a speech in February 2002, after the Taliban regime was ousted, Biden said, Like it or not, our leadership role must include soldiers on the ground, in my view. If others step forward and we are not needed on the ground, fine. But whatever it takes, we are going to have to be sure that there is a robust security force not only in Kabul but in every major municipal center in that country if theres any prospect of transitioning to a government that is stable two years down the road, has a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding, and is able to transition into a military and a police force that is a basic necessity for governance there. He continued: History is going to judge us very harshly, I believe, if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we are fearful of the phrase nation-building or we do not stay the course. And in comments on Afghanistan at a February 2003 meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden said, In some parts of this [President George W. Bush] administration, nation-building is a dirty phrase. But the alternative to nation-building is chaos a chaos that churns out bloodthirsty warlords, drug traffickers, and terrorists. Weve seen it happen in Afghanistan before, and were watching it happen in Afghanistan today. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Fact check: What does Oklahoma law say about teaching the Bible in public schools? Some raised questions about what power Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters has to mandate specific curriculum after he issued a directive requiring schools to incorporate the Bible into classroom lessons. Immediate and strict compliance is expected, Walters said in a memo sent to school superintendents across the state on June 27. Walters also announced this week he plans an overhaul of state academic standards for social studies and named a slate of advisors that included the leaders of conservative think tanks and media personalities. The revised standards will incorporate the introduction of the Bible as an instructional resource that Superintendent Walters announced last week as well as ensuring that social studies reflect accuracy and not political slanted viewpoints, the announcement said. We researched state and federal laws and court rulings to fact-check claims Walters has made about what state law allows him to do and who has the legal authority to make decisions on classroom curriculum. State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters runs an Oklahoma school board meeting at the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City, on Thursday, June 27, 2024. More: Ryan Walters includes Bible instruction in new social studies standards for school districts Does Ryan Walters have authority over public school curriculum? Claim: The Oklahoma state superintendent has the authority to require specific content be taught in public schools. Source: Walters told NBC News he has the legal authority to require the Bible in classroom instruction and that teachers who dont comply could lose their teaching licenses. Fact check: Mostly false The Oklahoma Attorney Generals office has said that Walters has no legal authority to require certain content be taught by sending a memo to school districts. State law gives local school districts the exclusive power to determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks. The Oklahoma Board of Education, which Walters chairs, is responsible for adopting academic standards. The standards set a basic framework for what students should know by the end of each school year, according to state law. The Board of Education also has the power to revoke teaching certifications for willful violations of state or federal rules. The Oklahoma State Department of Education did not respond to The Frontiers questions about the legal grounds for Walters authority to require schools to include the Bible in classroom lessons. - Brianna Bailey More: Law Center says proposal to teach the Bible in Oklahoma classrooms invalid under state law Does Oklahoma allow the Bible to be taught in public schools? Claim: Oklahoma law already allows the Bible to be taught in public schools. Source: Oklahoma law already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and enables teachers to use them in instruction, Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Attorney Generals office said in statements to several media outlets. Fact check: Mostly true In 2010, the Oklahoma Legislature passed and then-Gov. Brad Henry signed a bill allowing public high schools to offer students elective courses on the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible, to teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy. The law also requires that the class maintain religious neutrality, accommodate other religious perspectives of students and not promote or disfavor a particular religion or lack of religious belief or run afoul of state and federal constitutions. That last part is a requirement for the law to be valid, as Oklahomas constitution explicitly prohibits taxpayer money and resources from being spent for religious purposes or instruction. When the Legislature tried to remove that state constitutional prohibition via a ballot measure in 2016, Oklahoma voters solidly rejected the attempt. - Clifton Adcock What do Oklahoma academic standards say about using the Bible to teach history? Claim: Oklahoma academic standards require the Bible to be taught in the context of historical documents. Source: We have academic standards that tell our teachers that you are to talk about the Bible in reference to the Mayflower Compact, letters from a Birmingham Jail, the Declaration of Independence, Walters said in an interview on Fox News. Fact check: False State law prohibits the teaching of sectarian or religious doctrine in Oklahoma public schools but allows the reading of Scripture. The current Oklahoma academic standards do not list the Bible as a required text in public instruction. The standards do not mandate any specific curriculum or dictate how teachers should teach. The Bible is not listed as a material to be taught in reference to historical documents such as the Mayflower Compact, letters from a Birmingham Jail or the Declaration of Independence. The Oklahoma State Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment. - Maddy Keyes What do the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution say about separation of church and state? Claim: The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution do not mention separation of church and state. Source: The separation of church and state appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution, Walters said in an interview with PBS News. Fact check: True but misleading Its true that the phrase separation of church and state does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution, but the First Amendments establishment clause states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The concept of separation of church and state has been in use throughout American history, according to historical records. Thomas Jefferson said in an 1801 letter that the establishment clause was intended to create a wall of separation between Church and State. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the establishment clause also applies to states. The Frontier reached out to Walters and a spokesman for the superintendent maintained that his statement was true. - Jazz Wolfe Rating system: True: A claim that is backed up by factual evidence Mostly true: A claim that is mostly true but also contains some inaccurate details Mixed: A claim that contains a combination of accurate and inaccurate or unproven information True but misleading: A claim that is factually true but omits critical details or context Mostly false: A claim that is mostly false but also contains some accurate details False: A claim that has no basis in fact The Frontier is a nonprofit newsroom that produces fearless journalism with impact in Oklahoma. Read more at www.readfrontier.org. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters says Oklahoma schools much teach Bible. What the law says Fact Check: The Facts About Mostly True Rumor Trump Plans to Appoint Project 2025 Author to His Administration Claim: Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he would appoint Tom Homan, an author for Heritage Foundations Project 2025 policy handbook, as part of his potential next administration. Rating: Rating: Mostly True What's True: Trump said, "We are bringing back Tom Homan," who was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in his administration, while discussing immigration during a July 2024 campaign speech. What's False: Homan was not listed as an author on a chapter in Project 2025s policy handbook titled "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." He was instead listed as a "contributor" and reportedly assisted the authors in the development and writing of the handbook. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Democrats attacked former U.S. President Donald Trump over his purported connection to a conservative plan to overhaul the U.S. government, known as Project 2025. While Trump repeatedly disavowed ties to Project 2025, many observers noted the links between the initiative and his allies and former administration officials. X accounts that frequently post supportive messages for U.S. President Joe Biden claimed that Trump promised to bring back one of his former administration officials who also happened to be an author for Project 2025. One post stated (archived): BREAKING: After claiming to know nothing about Project 2025, Donald Trump just announced if he wins he will bring back Project 2025's author Tom Homan. Retweet so every American sees this and knows Trump will implement the disastrous Project 2025 plan. BREAKING: After claiming to know nothing about Project 2025, Donald Trump just announced if he wins he will bring back Project 2025s author Tom Homan. Retweet so every American sees this and knows Trump will implement the disastrous Project 2025 plan.pic.twitter.com/N3zjjQ4iPi Bidens Wins (@BidensWins) July 10, 2024 Tom Homan was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration, and Trump has said he will bring him back. He is also listed as a "contributor" to Project 2025's policy handbook titled "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise" though he did not author a chapter himself. The above accounts are "Mostly True." In a July 2024 campaign speech in Florida, Trump accused migrants of committing violent crimes in the U.S. and said: "By the way, we are bringing back Tom Homan, we are bringing back all of the guys that did such a great job with the border. We had the greatest border in history." Homan was named among a long list in the Project 2025 handbook, on Page 28 of the section titled "Contributors" (the full document can be found here). However, contributors are not listed as authors of the 30 chapters in the handbook. According to the section introduction, contributors assisted in developing and writing various chapters: The contributors listed below generously volunteered their time and effort to assist the authors in the development and writing of this volume's 30 chapters. The policy views and reform proposals herein are not an all-inclusive catalogue of conservative ideas for the next President, nor is there unanimity among the contributors or the organizations with which they are affiliated with regard to the recommendations. Homan, who was acting ICE director from 2017 to 2018, is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that led the charge on developing Project 2025. The extent of his contributions to Project 2025 are unclear. We reached out to Homan to learn more about his role in Project 2025 and whether he would join a new Trump administration, and we will update this story if we get more information. What Policies Did Homan Contribute? Homan said in 2018 that politicians who run what are commonly referred to as sanctuary cities per CNN, a broad term applied to jurisdictions with policies that limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions should be charged with crimes and that the Department of Justice needs to hold back funding to these cities. He also said separating migrant parents and children at the border was "sad" but part of the job. In 2018, before departing as ICE director, he described the logistical challenges of keeping migrant families together: "A child can't go to U.S. Marshals' custody with the parents being charged with the crime of entering the country illegally." According to a report from online news platform Semafor, Homan said in a July 2024 panel on immigration policy: "Trump comes back in January, I'll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen. They ain't seen s*** yet. Wait until 2025." We have previously reported that Project 2025's chapter on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the executive-branch department that oversees ICE, makes a number of recommendations, including: Dismantling DHS. Deprioritizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that temporarily delays the deportation of immigrants without documentation who came to the U.S. as children. Phasing out temporary work-visa programs that allow seasonal employers to hire foreign workers. Imposing financial punishments on "sanctuary cities" that do not follow federal immigration laws. Diverting tax dollars toward security at America's border with Mexico. The chapter also calls for stronger enforcement of laws governing the detainment of immigrants with criminal records and restricting an existing program that tracks people in deportation proceedings instead of incarcerating them. We noted in our Project 2025 report that those changes, in some cases, could possibly play a role in Border Control agents detaining a parent while their child continues with immigration proceedings. Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy DHS secretary in the Trump administration, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the department. What Are Trump's Ties to Project 2025? We should note that Trump denied any ties to Project 2025. In a July 2024 post on Truth Social, he wrote: "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal." His claim was met with skepticism because many of the people who worked on Project 2025 have met or worked with Trump, as illustrated in this story. We even fact-checked an authentic video from 2022 of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts shaking hands with Trump. Sources: Conradis, Brandon. "Trump ICE Pick: Politicians Who Run Sanctuary Cities Should Be Charged with Crimes." The Hill, 3 Jan. 2018, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367167-trump-ice-pick-politicians-who-run-sanctuary-cities-should-be-charged/. Accessed 11 July 2024. "Former President Donald Trump Holds Rally in Doral, Florida." C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?536809-1/president-donald-trump-holds-rally-doral-florida. Accessed 11 July 2024. Jackson, David. "Donald Trump Challenges Joe Biden to Another Debate, Attacks Immigrants: 4 Takeaways from Miami Rally." USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/09/donald-trump-miami-rally-debate-joe-biden/74344647007/. Accessed 11 July 2024. Kasprak, Alex. "Video Shows Trump Shaking Hands with Head of Group Behind Project 2025?" Snopes, 9 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-project-2025-roberts/. Accessed 11 July 2024. "Ken Cuccinelli." The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/staff/ken-cuccinelli. Accessed 11 July 2024. Kopan, Tal. "What Are Sanctuary Cities, and Can They Be Defunded? | CNN Politics." CNN, 25 Jan. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/sanctuary-cities-explained/index.html. Accessed 12 July 2024. "Outgoing ICE Director Says Separating Parents and Children Is 'sad' but Part of the Job." PBS News, 31 May 2018, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/outgoing-ice-director-says-separating-parents-and-children-is-sad-but-part-of-the-job. Accessed 11 July 2024. "Tom Homan." The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/staff/tom-homan. Accessed 11 July 2024. "Trump's 'National Conservative' Allies Plot a Revenge Administration." Semafor. 9 July 2024, https://www.semafor.com/article/07/09/2024/trumps-national-conservative-allies-plot-a-revenge-administration. Accessed 11 July 2024. Wrona, Aleksandra and Nur Ibrahim. "What's Project 2025? Unpacking the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government." Snopes, 3 July 2024, https://www.snopes.com//news/2024/07/03/project-2025-trump-us-government/. Accessed 11 July 2024. MINSK, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The 33rd International Arts Festival, Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk, opened with a grand ceremony at Vitebsk's summer open-air theater on Thursday evening, with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in attendance. Lukashenko called the event a celebration of family and traditional values. The festival features national cultural day activities from the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, celebrating Belarus' recent membership in the organization on July 4. The festival, which runs through July 15, will also showcase performances and competitions by artists from nearly 40 countries. Over 5,000 guests have registered to participate in the event. Initiated in 1992, the festival is held annually in mid-July in Vitebsk. It has become one of the most influential international art festivals in the Commonwealth of Independent States region and Eastern European countries. Fact Check: Map Claiming To Show All French Churches 'Set on Fire, Vandalized or Attacked in Recent Years' Is Miscaptioned Claim: A map shows all of the churches in France that were "set on fire, vandalized or attacked in recent years." Rating: Rating: Miscaptioned A map claiming to show French churches that had been "destroyed," "vandalized" or "attacked" has spread across social media for years. We found the map often spreads in the wake of large fires at French churches that make global headlines. For instance, we first observed the map spreading across social media platforms after the Notre Dame cathedral caught fire in April 2019. On July 11, 2024, as a fire that was later contained broke out on the spire of a French cathedral, social media posts started to spread the map once again. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=504396775380022&set=a.199615015858201 When we fact-checked the claim in 2019, we found posts blamed the Notre Dame fire on Muslims and connected the incident (which authorities reportedly said was likely an accident at the time) to churches that had been recently vandalized in France. Social media posts containing the claim in 2024 continued to baselessly blame Muslims for the incidents documented on the map. One X account commented on a post that contained the map: "This will only get worst. Those Islamists will first burn churches, then murder Christians and Jews." This will only get worst. Those Islamists will first burn churches, then murder Christians and Jews. Vivid. (@VividProwess) July 11, 2024 However, those claims weren't true. In 2019, we found this map came from christianophobie.fr, a website dedicated to tracking acts of "Christianophobia" in France and the rest of the world. While this image is often shared as if it shows all of the churches that were "destroyed" in France, the map actually documented a wide range of nefarious activity such as vandalism, theft, and arson that occurred at both churches and cemeteries over an apparent span of two years covering 2017 and 2018. It should also be noted that while this map documented some relatively serious crimes, such as arson or the toppling of church statues, many of these pins corresponded to graffiti-related incidents. We also found one pin related to a person simply interrupting a church service. We've fact-checked other claims about French churches before, like whether photographs authentically showed the real skull of Mary Magdalene inside a gold reliquary. Sources: Bayer, Lili. "Rouen Cathedral Fire Brought under Control in Normandy." The Guardian, 11 July 2024. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/11/france-rouens-cathedral-spire-on-fire. Evon, Dan. "Does a Map Shared Online Depict All Churches 'Destroyed' in France in the Last 4 Years?" Snopes, 18 Apr. 2019, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/churches-destroyed-in-france/. "https://x.com/BennettRobertJ/status/1118530361502334977." X, 17 April 2019. "L'observatoire de la Christianophobie." L'observatoire de la Christianophobie, 12 July 2024, https://christianophobie.fr/category/carte. Lytvynenko, Jane; Silverman, Craig. "A Timeline of How the Notre Dame Fire Was Turned Into an Anti-Muslim Narrative." Buzzfeed. 16 April 2019. McPartland, Ben. "'Turn France's Empty Churches into Mosques'." The Local. 15 June 2015. "Notre Dame Fire Was Likely Accident Prosecutor DW 04/16/2019." Deutsche Welle, https://www.dw.com/en/notre-dame-fire-was-likely-accident-not-arson-prosecutor/a-48348777. Accessed 12 July 2024. "This Map Doesn't Just Show Churches 'Destroyed' in France." Full Fact, 30 Apr. 2019, https://fullfact.org/online/french-church-map/. Tharoor, Ishaan. "The Notre Dame Fire Ignites the West's Far Right." Washington Post. 17 April 2019. Wazer, Caroline. "Real Pic of Mary Magdalene's Skull in French Church?" Snopes, 29 June 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/mary-magdalenes-skull/. Fact Check: Yes, this Is a Real Pic of French President Emmanuel Macron and Jill Biden Holding Hands Claim: Image authentically depicts French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. first lady Jill Biden holding hands at the NATO summit in Washington D.C. Rating: Rating: True On June 11, 2024, as the three-day 2024 NATO summit in Washington D.C. drew to a close, an image of First Lady Jill Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron appearing to hold hands while posing for a photo went viral. On Reddit, one post received more than 17,000 upvotes and 2,400 comments, as of this writing. Many of the comments under the post implied, jokingly for the most part, that some sort of romantic hanky-panky was going on. (The Telegraph/Reddit) The photo is indeed authentic, meaning that it was not photoshopped or otherwise digitally altered. It is available on Getty Images, credited to Bloomberg and captioned as follows: President Biden And First Lady Host NATO Allies And Partners At White House Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), from left, US President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Emmanuel Macron, France's president, and Gitanas Nauseda, Lithuania's president, during an arrival ceremony at the South Portico of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. NATO leaders, who are meeting for a three-day NATO summit in Washington, will send five long-range air-defense systems for Ukraine, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked for more help in the wake of stepped-up Russian strikes on his country. Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images Pictured: Emmanuel Macron holds hands with Jill Biden alongside Joe Biden at the Nato summit in Washington pic.twitter.com/mB60ztMeTh The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 11, 2024 The Telegraph, another outlet, also published a story about the photo. "The French president is known for putting on warm displays with world leaders," the subhead of the article read. Sources: 'Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty...' Getty Images, 11 July 2024, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jens-stoltenberg-secretary-general-of-the-north-atlantic-news-photo/2160899113. Staff, Our Foreign. 'Macron and Jill Biden Hold Hands Ahead of Nato Summit'. The Telegraph, 11 July 2024. www.telegraph.co.uk, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/11/macron-biden-jill-joe-nato/. Family and friends, as well as the Los Angeles Police Department, are asking for the publics help in locating a 95-year-old man missing in Los Angeles. Walter Curtis Wolfe was last seen July 8 around the 300 block of North Malgren Avenue in San Pedro. His vehicle was located nearly five miles away at Point Fermin Park in the 800 block of West Paseo Del, where the 95-year-old enjoys walks, an LAPD missing persons bulletin stated. Walter Curtis Wolfe The clothing he was wearing at the time of his disappearance is unknown. Loved ones, as well as law enforcement, are concerned about the mans well-being as hes been missing for two days amid a sweltering heat wave. Family members say Walter will respond to the name of Curt and want the public to know that the 95-year-old may be confused or disoriented if he is located. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is urged to contact LAPDs Missing Persons Unit Det. Rich at 213-996-1800 or call 877-LAPD-24-7 during non-business hours. Those wishing to remain anonymous can call the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-222-8477 or leave tips online at 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. In January 2022, when I was 32, I spit into a tube for genetic testing. Rather than mail the tube off to 23andMe or another ancestry service, I FedExed my saliva to Ambry Genetics, a company that assesses hereditary cancer risk by looking for mutations on genes that are associated with malignancies. I underwent testing 20 years after my mother died of lung cancer at 49 and 18 years after my father died of prostate cancer at 50, and after multiple medical providers recommended that I see a genetic counselor. They were concerned not just by my parents fates but by my extended familys medical history, which is riddled with cancer. On my fathers side, one of my aunts had breast cancer before the age of 45 and was treated for skin cancer in her sixties; another had recently died of kidney cancer at 63. My grandmother died of colon cancer at 86. On my mothers side, my grandfather died of lung cancer at 68, and my uncle died of myeloma at 64, decades after possible exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Given this history, I have always unconsciously assumed that I will one day get cancer. The genetic counselor wasnt much concerned about my risk for lung cancerunlike my mother and grandfather, I have never smokedbut my fathers metastatic prostate cancer and aunts early breast cancer meant that I met the National Comprehensive Cancer Networks genetic testing criteria for hereditary cancer. I agreed to have 30 of my genes assessed for mutations, including the well-known BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genesI was curious if genetics could explain my familys tragedies. When my results came back negative for any known pathogenic mutations in the genes tested, part of me was relieved. As my genetic counselor explained, my results greatly reduced the likelihood for several known hereditary cancer risk conditions. But the overall picture of my familys cancer history was still muddy. It was possible that my family was affected by mutations in one of the tested genes, but I had been spared. It was possible that scientists simply didnt know yet about the genes and variants that could explain my familys cancers. And my overall risk of one day getting cancer is still up in the air. Hereditary cancer syndromes are only estimated to explain about 5 to 10 percent of cancers. Most are caused by environmental and lifestyle factors (which likely explain those on my mothers side), as well as aging (likely the culprit of my Grandma Martins cancer). Viruses like HPV are believed to cause another small portion of cancers, about 10 to 15 percent. What would it mean to me if I did one day find out that my genes foretold an increased risk for cancer? What might I do with that knowledge? Two years after my genetic testing, I still wonder whether researchers might someday find a mutation that explains the cancers in the Martin family. I felt this more strongly last summer, when another of my paternal aunts was diagnosed with cancerthis time, an early-stage colon cancer and an extremely rare cancer of the appendixmeaning that four of my grandparents five children had suffered from cancers, all different kinds. Im cognizant of all we still dont know about cancer, and I contemplate what better understanding might bring. What would it mean to me if I did one day find out that my genes foretold an increased risk for cancer? What might I do with that knowledge? These are conundrums that people increasingly face as genetic testing becomes widespreadeven 23andMe can tell you if you might have some hereditary cancer gene variants, like BRCA1 and 2and options for cancer prevention and surveillance remain imperfect and often extreme. Journalist Lawrence Ingrassia works through these tensions and others in his new book, A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery. The book traces both a heartbreaking story of family loss and an inspiring story of scientific achievement, charting how over the course of decades, researchers painstakingly worked to prove that some cancers are hereditary and that genetic mutations explain why some families experience far more cancer than the rest of the population. For Ingrassia, this scientific quest was personal. His mother died of breast cancer at 42, in 1968. A little more than a decade later, his youngest sister, Angela, died of liposarcoma at 24. His other sister, Gina, died of lung cancer at 32. In between his sisters cancers, Ingrassias nephew, Charlie, then a toddler, was treated for a rare sarcoma in his cheek; he would later be treated for colon cancer in his early thirties, and die of metastatic bone cancer at 39. And Ingrassias brother, PaulCharlies fatherdied at 69, just months after Charlie, of metastatic pancreatic cancer, his fourth malignancy after lung cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer. Father and son received chemotherapy at the same hospital at the same time, a detail that hit me in a sickening echo of my parents experience. A year before cancer killed Ingrassias mother, Frederick Pei Li and Joseph Fraumeni, researchers in the epidemiology branch of the National Cancer Institute, or NCI, started following families like Ingrassias to determine the role heredity might play in cancer risk. It took more than 20 years, but eventually, scientists zeroed in on the mutated geneTP53that was responsible for the alarming rates of cancer in the families Li and Fraumeni had first studied. Like the BRCA genes, TP53 is a tumor-suppressing gene; when mutated, its cancer-eliminating powers are inactivated, allowing malignant cells to multiply out of control. Li-Fraumeni syndrome, or LFS, as the disorder came to be called, remains very rareresearchers currently estimate that there are only about 1,000 families worldwide with LFSand devastating for those affected. People with LFS are predisposed to a wide variety of cancers, from breast to brain to lung to bone, and have a 90 percent lifetime risk of developing cancer. Fifty percent of those cancers will hit patients before age 30. As Ingrassia puts it, One of the scariest things for families with Li-Fraumeni syndrome is that you never know when or where cancer will strike. By contrast, women with the more common BRCA mutations have about a 50 to 60 percent chance of developing breast cancer, and the general population has only a 30 to 40 percent lifetime cancer riska risk that increases significantly with age. Via genetic testing in 2015, Ingrassia belatedly learned that his family was affected by LFS. He did not inherit the TP53 mutation that predisposed so many of his family members to cancer. But even if Ingrassias family had known about LFS sooner, its not clear that doctors would have been able to do much to save the lives of his affected relatives. While researchers have celebrated each new development in the scientific communitys understanding of LFS, patients and their families continued to suffer. At a 2010 Li-Fraumeni Syndrome Workshop at the National Institutes of Health, a man named Oliver Wyss made the tension clear. Wyss, whose children inherited his TP53 mutation, had already lost his son, Hudson, to a rare, aggressive brain cancer at age 3. When Wyss spoke at the workshop, his 8-year-old daughter, Abella, was being treated for her second cancer. She would die three years later. Ingrassia writes, It had been forty-one years since the possibility of an inherited cancer syndrome was first raised, [Wyss] noted, but after years of research, the best that doctors could offer LFS families was intensive screening. Wyss took the scientists to task, saying, We have to find true cures to treat these genetic disorders. Because Im sure, if this will be your grandchild or your child, this would not be acceptable. A Fatal Inheritance thus forms testament to the power of scientific research, but also a stark reminder of how frustratingly incomplete our understanding of cancer remains, and of the very human costs of that incomplete knowledge. While reading Ingrassias book, it was hard for me not to lament for the patients whose lives might have been prolonged if scientific knowledge moved faster, if better cancer screenings had been available sooner, and if higher-quality treatment options materialized. In 2024, there are still no specific treatments for LFS patients. Now in his early seventies, Ingrassia spent his career in newspapers, including reporting and editing stints at The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times; his journalistic chops are evident through not just the books extensive researchhe recreates scenes from Li and Fraumenis early days at the NCI as though he had been in the roombut its brisk pace and clear exposition. Many chapters are less than five pages long, and Ingrassia renders complicated matters of molecular biology and genetics in digestible, everyday language. A Fatal Inheritance is as much a history of cancer research as it is a personal reckoning with disease, and its heroes are scientists, whose backgrounds and exploits Ingrassia profiles in detail. New revelations in epidemiology and oncology drive the plot of the book forward, carrying the reader through six decades of investigation in just over 250 pages. Even with this condensed and appreciative look, Ingrassia doesnt just focus on researchers winshe dwells on their setbacks and failures too. Throughout the story, I found myself frustrated by how much cancer research is beholden to the egos, whims, and presumptions of powerful people. Throughout, I found myself frustrated by how much cancer research is beholden to the egos, whims, and presumptions of powerful people. Ingrassia highlights that through the 1970s, top researchers held fast to the theory that most cancers were caused by virusesdespite a lack of evidence to support this reasoningand funneled funds toward identifying such viruses. For instance, shortly after President Richard Nixon heeded calls to declare a war on cancer in 1971, strengthening the NCI and improving research funding, he appointed a virologist to head the NCI, guaranteeing that millions of dollars would continue to flow to viral studies. Meanwhile, epidemiological research into hereditary causes of cancer, like the kind Li and Fraumeni began in 1969, was relegated to a backwater of the NCI. Other researchers who focused on unraveling the mysteries of cancer running in families, like Henry T. Lynch, a physician geneticist at the University of Nebraska, were treated with skepticism by the rest of the field for decades. As Ingrassia notes, the establishment looked down upon Lynchs 1964 study of families with staggering cancer rates in Nebraska, assuming that if he were a first-rate scientist, he would have a position at a more prominent medical school or research institution. That snobbery would prove shortsighted. In the 1980s, after advances in molecular biology and genomic sequencing, researchers were able to find a chromosomal defect that explained the hereditary colon cancer syndrome Lynch began theorizing in the 1960s; later, the genetic disorder would be named after him. More broadly, discounting the idea that cancers could be hereditary had a painful cost for families like Ingrassias. Throughout A Fatal Inheritance, Ingrassia never loses sight of the ramifications of sciences slow progress. Juxtaposed throughout are the stories not just of Ingrassias own familys cancers but those of other families who would eventually be diagnosed with LFS, most notably the extended Kilius family, one of the first clans Li and Fraumeni began studying in the late 1960s. A Kilius family tree at the front of the book underlines the stark reality of an inherited TP53 mutation. Across seven generations, twenty-three Kilius family members have died of cancer, the youngest at ages 2, 3, and 10, and the oldest at 66. The majority of the Kilius relatives with the TP53 mutation died in their twenties and thirties. For the younger generations of the Kilius family with a known TP53 mutation and others with LFS, the best medicine has to offer is an intensive screening protocol, consisting of annual full-body and brain MRI scans, extensive bloodwork several times a year, and other forms of surveillance for children and adultsthe goal being to identify potential tumors very early, when they are most treatable. Women may consider a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy, since LFS carries an 80 to 90 percent lifetime breast cancer risk. While Ingrassia only lightly touches on the issue of finances, the high costs of medical care and insurance undoubtedly impact the screening and care people with LFS or suspected LFS might receive. Quality genetic testing is less cumbersome to access now than when it first dawned in the 1990s, but it is still exorbitantly expensive, and insurance providers may balk at covering it. My own insurer sent me a terrifying letter stating that my testing, for which Ambry billed thousands of dollars, was initially determined not to be medically necessary; thankfully, my doctors provided more persuasive information. This is to say nothing of the high costs of surveillance. And given the lack of tailored treatment options for LFS patientsand the anxiety that comes with undergoing continual cancer screeningssome people prefer not to even be tested for the mutation in the first place. While Ingrassia only lightly touches on the issue of finances, the high costs of medical care and insurance undoubtedly impact the screening and care people with hereditary cancers might receive. The Ingrassia family didnt pursue testing for TP53 mutations until 2015more than 20 years after it first became availablebut their delay wasnt willful. Instead, somewhat incredibly, their doctors did not raise the possibility that they might be afflicted with LFS before then. Ingrassia is evenhanded when he explains this, stating that LFS was so rare that many oncologists treating patients hadnt heard of it even well into the 2000s, and arguing that oncologists treating patients often dont have time to read the latest scientific literature. This struck me as too kindespecially since developments in hereditary cancer syndrome research were printed not just in scientific journals but, increasingly, in the pages of the very newspapers for which Ingrassia himself worked. Testing would not have led to a cure for Ingrassias relatives, but it could have made a difference for Charlie, his nephew. Had his doctors known sooner that he had LFS, they could have pushed for an earlier colonoscopy to detect his colon cancer; an earlier diagnosis might have allowed them to use less radiation. As Ingrassia explains, radiation can spur cancer-causing mutations and is much riskier for patients like Charlie, whose body had less natural ability to protect against radiation causing cells to begin growing out of control and becoming malignant. His doctors suspect that the radiation he received to treat his colon cancer may have caused his fatal metastatic bone cancer. Ingrassia remains optimistic that groundbreaking treatments for patients with LFS are on the horizon. Gene editing therapies like CRISPR might hold the key to correcting mutations in TP53 that affect patients with LFS, stopping their cancers at the source. But Ingrassia notes that such treatments may be decades away, and will come with their own costs, both financial and ethical. In the meantime, general advances in cancer treatments, from immunotherapy drugs to more targeted chemotherapies, have made a difference in the survival rates of patients in general and LFS patients in particular. As Ingrassia points out, the average five-year survival rate after cancer diagnosis, a critical measure, was just 50 percent in 1977; it is now 67 percent. Still, better five-year survival rates mean a lot less if you get cancer when you are under fortyas many LFS patients do, he writes. Some of the most affecting passages in A Fatal Inheritance come toward the end of the book, when Ingrassia shares posts from Facebook groups for LFS families of which he is a member. To scroll through their posts is to visit an alternative universe, where the carefree, everyday world has been left behind and where fear constantly hovers, he writes. He quotes a mother, who writes, LFS is robbing me of my family. And no one understands what LFS is and cant comprehend what youre saying. Im dying on the inside. For Ingrassia, who lost his entire immediate family to LFSsave his father, who died young of a heart conditionunderstanding that an inherited mutation on one gene out of thousands was the cause underscored how random and uncontrollable our bodies fates are. In this, A Fatal Inheritance reminded me that as much as I wish to understand why my parents had to die so young, when my brother and I were so youngand however much I learn about this disease and its causesthat answer will forever be just beyond my reach. MARSHALL COUNTY, KS (KSNT) The family of Camoran Shoptese is speaking out after KBI agents said they may have found his remains Wednesday. Shoptese was reported missing on the 4th of July. Seven days later the KBI found the likely remains of Shoptese in rural Marshall County. Investigators believe he was murdered. Shopteses nephew, Christopher Ratzloff spoke with 27 News about the familys loss. On the inside he cared for everybody, Ratzloff said. He looked like a big, strong, scary guy but he would do anything for anybody in a heartbeat. He didnt deserve this and he had a very big heart. Staff at north Topeka business shoot individual in response to alleged threats: TPD The KBI says they have a person of interest in custody on unrelated charges and the investigation is ongoing. They also say theres is no reason to believe the community is in any further danger. Ratzloff says Shopteses daughter wanted the following statement shared with the public. My dad, Camoran Shoptese was tragically taken away from us on July 4th. He leaves behind 3 children, his parents, sisters and many, many nieces and nephews who all loved him very much. Our family will fight hard for justice brought to everyone involved. Please put yourself in our shoes and we ask that anyone with information reports to [the] KBI. Statement from Shopteses daughter provided by Christopher Ratzloff Indiana men arrested after Kansas sheriff finds 100 pounds of weed in traffic stop The KBI asks anyone with information related to this case to contact law enforcement at 1-800-KS-CRIME. Anonymous tips can be sent online by clicking here. The investigation into this case is ongoing. 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. 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. TALLAHASSEE, Florida Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson is resigning as leader of the states only public historically Black university, a decision that comes amid a probe into a dubious failed $237 million donation that one key official labeled as an embarrassment. Robinson, who has led the school for nearly seven years, announced the decision Friday, although the specific timing for when he will step down as president is undecided. His departure opens a key void in Floridas university system, one that will be filled by trustees in the coming months and could be influenced by Gov. Ron DeSantis administration, which has been aggressive in reshaping higher education in the state. As you can imagine, this decision comes with many emotions some sadness, of course, but at the same time, hope and anticipation, Robinson wrote in a letter to the university. That hope is not just about what lies next for me and my family, but also what is next for the No. 1 Historically Black College and University in the nation. Robinsons resignation may seem abrupt, yet the timing coincides with an investigation at FAMU surrounding a supposedly campus-altering $237 million donation that came crashing down shortly after it was publicly heralded during a graduation ceremony. The proposed donor appeared to have nowhere near the net worth needed to make a pledge that large, something that only came to light after FAMU had announced the gift. That probe, led by the university and overseen by system officials, is anticipated to wrap up this month and should shed new light on a snafu that already sparked the resignation of Shawnta Friday-Stroud, FAMUs vice president for university advancement and executive director of the schools fundraising foundation. FAMU last month faced scrutiny from the state Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, over the donation blunder as well as the schools lagging performance in law, nursing, pharmacy and physical therapy professional licensure programs, adding to the pressure facing school trustees and Robinson. One member of the Board of Governors called the failed donation an embarrassment to FAMU while nudging school trustees to take action. I just want to make sure that the board of trustees recognizes that they have a job to do, and were going to expect that job to be done very, very well, Aubrey Edge, chair of Board of Governors Audit and Compliance Committee, said during the June meeting. Because this should never have happened. Still, Robinson is celebrated as an incredible leader for FAMU, one that helped propel the school to new heights such as reaching a top-100 ranking for public universities in U.S. News & World Reports 2023-2024 Best Colleges list. Robinson is expected to take a yearlong sabbatical and then return to FAMU as a distinguished professor at the School of the Environment, according to school officials. Larry Robinson has been an incredible leader for FAMU, Alan Levine, who serves on the Board of Governors, posted on social media Friday. He became president at a consequential time for the University, and was the right guy at the right time. FAMU trustees are expected to meet soon to discuss the next steps after Robinson's resignation, such as finding an interim leader before commencing a presidential search. FAMU now joins Florida Atlantic University as a second state school hunting for a new president. FAUs search has been mired in controversy since a Republican lawmaker last year claimed he was handpicked for the job by DeSantis but not chosen by trustees, setting off a firestorm that contributed to state officials ordering the search to be restarted. DeSantis has played a major role in transforming Floridas college and university systems by advocating for legislation to gut diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs, and through his appointment to trustee boards. The most glaring example is DeSantis appointing six trustees at New College of Florida in one swoop last year who quickly fired the school president and replaced her with the Republican governors former education chief Richard Corcoran. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated when FAMU trustees would meet next. The Fantasia Film Festival is facing union strike action as the 24th edition of North Americas largest genre festival gets set to open on July 18 with a world premiere for Elijah Woods Bookworm and later an international premiere for The Count of Monte Cristo. The Fantasia union, aligned with the Syndicat des employe-es de levenementiel-CSN, signed their first collective agreement in Sept. 2023, just after the film festivals 2023 edition. But efforts to establish a minimum wage for around 60 unionized Fantasia employees have yet to reach agreement at the bargaining table. More from The Hollywood Reporter So organizers with the Syndicat des employe-es de levenementielCSN held a 24-hour strike on July 11 in front of the Fantasia headquarters on Maisonneuve West in Montreal, and additional pickets lines are threatened next week. The three week genre fest is set to open with a world premiere for Bookworm, the Elijah Wood and Nell Fisher starrer from New Zealand filmmaker Ant Timpson. There are also international premieres for Alexandre de La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaportes Cannes title The Count of Monte Cristo, and Matthew Fifers Haze, starring David Pittu and Brian J. Smith. Thierry Lariviere, a spokesperson for the Syndicat des employe-es de levenementielCSN, told The Hollywood Reporter the genre film festival wants to continue paying employees a lump sum for working Fantasias 2024 edition, however many hours they work. Lariviere added Fantasia has agreed to some changes, but only for next years 2025 edition. That leaves the film festival at an impasse as bargaining resumed on July 12, with an additional scheduled day on July 15. Organizers of the Fantasia Film Festival could not be reached for comment on Friday. The Montreal film festival like other indie film showcases hires employees on short term, seasonal contracts. Employees are not freelance anymore and the law imposes every work hour should be paid over the minimum wage of CAN$15.75 (US$11.55). Workers want a raise and to be paid for every hour, Lariviere insisted. Ahead of Fantasias upcoming edition, set to run July 18 to Aug. 4, union members voted overwhelmingly for five strike days in all to press their claims at the bargaining table. Like many workers in the cultural world, event industry employees want to join a union because they are demanding better working conditions, namely, to be recognized as workers in their own right, and to be paid for all hours worked, just like everyone else who has to pay rent and buy groceries. And stop being treated as mere freelancers, from whom more work can always be demanded for the same initial lump sum, Annick Charette, president of the FNCC-CSN union, added in a statement. Best of The Hollywood Reporter From the Dispatch Politics on The Dispatch Happy Friday! The Trump veepstakes are hotter than ever, and theres been one big piece of news this morning that could really swing the race: J.D. Vance told a reporter the president with the best facial hair was Ulysses S. Grant. Up to Speed As the Dispatch Politics team prepares to travel to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, were hearing whispers that former President Donald Trump could name his running mate on Monday. To prepare yourself, be sure to read our Dispatch colleagues on two of the leading contenders. First, David M. Drucker wrote earlier this week about North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, while today on the site, John McCormack has a profile of Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. House Republicans failed to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress on Thursday for defying a congressional subpoena to turn over recordings of special counsel Robert Hurs interview with President Joe Biden. The vote brought by GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida failed 204-210, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposing the measure. If it had held Garland in inherent contempt, Congress could have fined the attorney generalwho was found in contempt of Congress on related charges in June$10,000 a day until he complied with the subpoena. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas on Wednesday. Ocasio-Cortez claims the refusal of both justices to recuse themselves from cases despite alleged conflicts of interest and failure to disclose personal financial information merit their removal from office. While highly unlikely to succeed due to Republican control of the U.S. House, eight fellow progressive legislators co-sponsored the measures. Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevadas reelection campaign claimed Wednesday that it raised $7.6 million in 2024s second fundraising quarter, a strong sign in one of this election cycles most competitive Senate races. Rosen, first elected to the Senate in 2018, faces a strong challenge from Republican nominee and Army veteran Sam Brown as both major party presidential nominees battle over the Silver State. As polls show former President Donald Trump consistently leading Biden in Nevada, polling also shows Rosen currently ahead of Brown in the November matchup. House Speaker Mike Johnson raised $23.5 million for House Republicans in the second quarter of 2024, his office announced Thursday. Of that amount, $17 million will go to his committees to help grow House Republicans majority, while $6.5 million will go to individual GOP members. His office stated that he has raised $50 million since assuming the position in the fall. Johnson isnt the only one raking in funds. The conventions host committee, which puts on the GOP event next week, smashed its fundraising goals, bringing in a record $85 million in total fundraising, it announced in a release. This is money that is going to be injected into our community to help throw this event, said Reince Priebus, who chairs the host committee. Were excited to greet the tens of thousands of guests traveling here next week and show them what Milwaukee has to offer. Bidens Press Conference Fails to Stop Defections President Joe Biden holds a news conference at the 2024 NATO summit on July 11, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images) Whether President Joe Bidens embattled reelection bid is hanging by a thread, or by a rope, seems dependent upon what hour, of which day, his fellow Democrats are asked the question. After Biden delivered a competent but uneven news conference Thursday evening, the presidents campaign and staunchest supporters declared victory in the contest to save his 2024 candidacy. With [yesterdays] press conf and this new poll, its time to end the freak out and unite behind the Democratic nominee and the only person who has ever beaten Trump, Biden confidant and former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted this morning, citing a fresh national survey that shows the president slightly ahead of Donald Trump. But Bidens nationally televised performance wasnt nearly good enough to stanch the bleeding of support from Democratic doubters that include veteran political operatives, wealthy campaign donors, and many of his allies in Congress. Immediately following the roughly hour-long news conference, held on the heels of the 75th NATO summit in Washington, still more Democratic lawmakers issued statements lauding Bidens accomplishments but calling on him to withdraw from the race against Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forward the strongest possible candidate to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement released just after Bidens press conference concluded. Notable: Himes does not represent a swing district. In 2020, his district would have voted for Biden over Trump by a whopping margin of 31 percentage points, had the seats current boundaries been in place. According to the Washington Post, the whip count of Democrats in the House and Senate publicly calling for Bidens head had reached 21. Asked during the news conference if he might heed their calls, at least should polling reveal that Vice President Kamala Harris is the stronger candidate versus Trump, Biden offered this curious response: Nonot unless they came back and said: Theres no way you can win. Me. No ones saying that. (Perhaps the president needs to widen the circle of Democrats he talks to.) This is how its gone for Biden in the two weeks since he tanked on the debate stage in Atlanta. On certain daysfor instance, as recently as Tuesday of this weekit appeared that the president had calmed wavering Democrats and shored up the cracks in his coalition. Two days later, Biden was suffering more public defections, with some Democratic insiders telling Dispatch Politics the situation is only going to get worse for the president and that his campaign could implode. Democrats want him to bomb so that he gets out, a dialed-in Democratic operative told us Thursday prior to the news conference. This Democrat expects more troubling revelations about Bidens mental acuity to emerge; said the presidents previously robust, record-breaking fundraising has now slowed significantly; and is keeping an eye out for staff who vote with their feet by voluntarily departing the campaign. No one thinks he can do anything to change the direction, said the Democratic operative, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The things he would need to do are things zero people think he can do. Support for Biden from grassroots liberals has not collapsed, neither has backing from so-called elite Democratic powerbrokers. But many of the partys biggest financiers and most experienced political professionals say the president has been irreparably damaged. Yes, voters are concerned about key elements of Trumps proposed domestic and foreign policy agenda, not to mention his provocative behavior and history of ethical lapses. But on balance, the data reveal more voter anxiety post-debate about the incumbent presidents age as it relates to his perceived mental and physical infirmities. Heading into the June 27 debate, Trump maintained a durable, albeit narrow, lead over Biden of 1.5 points in national polling. As of this morning, the former presidents advantage stood at 2.7 points, and that was only after the new Marist poll conducted for NPR and PBS, publicized Friday, handed Biden his first lead in a national survey in two weeks. In the key battleground states, Trumps lead has climbed from 3.2 percent on the day of the debate to 4.1 percent today. Still, some Democrats are not interested in pulling the plug on the president. These Biden backers are convinced he has, No. 1, earned the partys nomination and, No. 2, remains their most formidable candidate to run against his Republican challenger. And if the polling were to make plain, as other Democrats believe, that the post-debate data portends a landslide Trump victory and possible down-ballot, GOP sweep? It would not impact my decision. I dont rely on polls, Donna West, a Nevada delegate to the Democratic nominating convention in Chicago, told Dispatch Politics in a telephone interview. I want him to stay in. He had a really bad night at the debate, there are reasons for that. He has come back strong after that, added West, who is knocking on doors for Biden in greater Las Vegas almost daily. People like George Clooney dont have a say and need to stay out of it. Im solidly supporting the president and so are my friends, and were heartsick at the piling on. Republicans Double Down on Pro-Life Commitment Amid Platform Change After delegates this week advanced the GOPs draft platform that softened the partys position on abortion, Republicans in Congress are attempting to reassure dismayed anti-abortion voters by asserting their partys commitment to the pro-life cause or emphasizing Democrats radicalism on the issue. The best thing you can do is support President Trump and Republicans because if Democrats win, therell be no pro-life laws in any state, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Dispatch Politics, describing his message to voters. Graham, who unlike Trump has endorsed federal abortion restrictions, added that he was good with the platform language and said that it did not water down the Republican position but rather simplified it. Were the pro-life party, he said. The document approved by the Republican National Conventions platform committee on Mondaythe first since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022omits past declarations about the fundamental individual right to life of unborn children and a commitment to federal protections for the unborn in favor of an ambiguous section that centered the issue on state legislation, putting the platform language in line with Trumps own view. While some pro-life leaders signed a letter in support of it, others were less enthusiastic. It is a devastating indictment of our national values that neither of the national political parties platforms will support federal protections for preborn children targeted for death by the abortion industry, prominent pro-life activist Lila Rose tweeted on Tuesday. But Republicans on Capitol Hill still expressed to Dispatch Politics their belief that theirs is the pro-life party. I would say to them that they should not be dismayed, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said when asked about pro-life voters upset with the platforms language. Theres only one major party in the United States of America that values life in all forms, and thats the Republican Party. And its one of the reasons Im a Republican. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey serves as a co-chair of the bipartisan pro-life caucus in the House and has long endorsed pro-life legislation during his 22 terms in Congress. He said that there was still room within the draft platforms framework for restricting abortion at the federal level. No platform limits, he told Dispatch Politics. A platform is a sense of the Congress resolution. It expresses some thoughts. We are the pro-life party, Im happy to say. Our leadership is unalterably committed to defending the unborn child and their mothershave been for decades, since I came here in 1980. He added that he believed Trump in his heart of hearts is very pro-life. But other Republicans did not share Smiths opinion about the federal governments role, among them Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who chairs the Republican Policy Committee. That is up to the states, she said. Weve relied on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe. It is now up to the states, and what we want to do is continue to encourage the states to move in a pro-life direction. Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who said she had not read the abortion section but understood that it protects states rights, echoed Ernsts comments. Im opposed to the federal government legislating on this subject, she said. I want the states to have the final say, and theyre gonna vary from state to state, but I have confidence in our state governments. And whats her message to pro-life voters who want to see a more explicit federal role? I think that they need to take their case to the various states and work the issue to the best of their ability, Lummis said. Notable and Quotable And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. President Joe Biden at an event launching the Ukraine Compact, before realizing his mistake and correcting himself, July 11, 2024. I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if shes not qualified to be president. President Joe Biden at his press conference, July 11, 2024. Read more at The Dispatch The Dispatch is a new digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary, informed by conservative principles. Sign up for free. Fears grow For Belarusian Filmmaker Andrei Gnyot The European Film Academy has joined calls for the immediate release of Belarusian filmmaker and activist Andrei Gnyot, who is currently imprisoned in Serbia and faces imminent extradition to Belarus. Gnyot has fallen foul of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenkos regime for his role in 2020 demonstrations opposing rigged elections which put Lukashenko back in power for a sixth term. Officially, Gnyot is wanted for tax evasion but his supporters refute the accusations, saying the charges are politically motivated. The EFA said Gnyot faced imprisonment, torture and even the death penalty if returned to Belarus. Andrei Gnyot is recognised by international human rights organisations as a political prisoner, read its statement. The Belarusian regime continues to persecute active citizens years after the rigged presidential elections in 2020 to destroy any manifestation of dissent. Searches, arrests, and torture continue unabatedly in Belarus. We urge international organizations, and human rights groups to appeal to the Serbian authorities to prevent the extradition of Andrei Gnyot to Belarus and to secure his immediate release. Time is of the essence; act now to save Andrei Gnyot. More from Deadline True North Post To Open Newcastle Facility Leeds-based post-production specialist True North Post is launching a new facility in the north-east England city of Newcastle. The new studio is based in the city centre Collingwood Buildings, close to regional and national transport links. The 20-year-old company which works regularly with the BBC, MTV, Discovery, Channel 4 and Sky has partnered with Invest Newcastle and North East Screen on the project. The team are thrilled to be opening their doors in Newcastle, bringing top-tier post-production services to the region, said True North Post business consultant Gemma Ackerley. Our focus on training and development aims to nurture local talent and create new opportunities within the vibrant North East creative community. True North Posts arrival in Newcastle comes hot on the heels of the announcement this spring of the $582M Crown Works Studios film studio development in Sunderland. Federation of Film Academies Europe Launches The European Film Academy (EFA) and 20 film academies have come together to create the Federation of Film Academies Europe (FACE). The pan-European film body will be officially registered in Luxembourg. The new structure grew out a desire to formalize the relationships between the member academies, which have been collaborating since 2006 through the EFA-organized Film Academy Network Europe. As a network of film academies, we have grown over the past 18 years. More and more, and especially since the COVID pandemic, we have witnessed how much we have in common and how beneficial it is for all of us to share experiences and join forces, said Matthijs Wouter Knol, EFA CEO and Director and board member. The founding members include Austrian Film Academy, Belarusian Independent Film, Belgiums ndre Delvaux Academy, Catalan Film Academy, Czech Film and Television,European Film Academy, German Film Academy, Greeces Hellenic Film Academy, the Icelandic Film and Television Academy, the Israel Academy of Film and Television, the Luxembourg Film Academy, the Dutch Academy for Film, the Norwegian Film Academy, the Polish Film Academy, the Portuguese Academy of Cinema, Slovak Film and Television Academy, Spanish Academy of Cinematic Arts and Sciences, Swiss Film Academy and Ukrainian Film Academy. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 9, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) A Tibetan antelope is seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 9, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Brown bears prepare to hunt Tibetan antelopes near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 7, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) A brown bear prepares to hunt Tibetan antelopes near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 7, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Photo by Du Xiaowei/Xinhua) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 7, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Photo by Du Xiaowei/Xinhua) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Photo by Du Xiaowei/Xinhua) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Photo by Du Xiaowei/Xinhua) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 9, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 8, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Tibetan antelopes are seen near Zonag Lake in Hol Xil Nature Reserve, northwest China's Qinghai Province, July 7, 2024. Every year, tens of thousands of pregnant Tibetan antelopes migrate to Hoh Xil between May and July to give birth, while they will leave the area together with their offspring in August. Zonag Lake at the heart of Hoh Xil is known as the "delivery room" of this species. (Xinhua/Zhang Long) Fears for hundreds of thousands without power in post-Beryl Texas as dangerous heatwave continues Fears for hundreds of thousands without power in post-Beryl Texas as dangerous heatwave continues More than 877,000 homes and businesses remain without power in the Houston area after Hurricane Beryl struck earlier this week, leaving residents extremely vulnerable as a record-breaking heat has persisted across the US. A heat advisory was issued for the region on Friday by the National Weather Service. It warned of the heat index, which combines heat and humidity, of temperatures that will feel as severe as 103 degrees, levels where those without air conditioning face the risk for heat-related illnesses, conditions believed to have killed at least 37 people nationwide during the heatwave. Frankie Thibideaux, 57, told CNN her Houston home had been swamped with water, then went moldy in the heat, prompting her to stay in a hotel. We cant live in a place like that, she said. I wont even let my dog live like those people are. Thousands remain without power in the Houston, Texas, area, almost a week after Hurricane Beryl made landfall. (Getty Images) Others have taken to sleeping in their cars to avoid the heat, though spending extended time in a running, parked car comes with its own risks from exhaling exhaust fumes. Pretty much everybody in my neighborhood is sleeping in their cars right now because its just unbearable, Crystal Krest, 41, told USA TODAY earlier this week. We cant sleep in our houses. The heat and lack of electricity have also prompted fears of food shortages for vulnerable residents. "Ive lost all my foods but these noodles; all of my meat spoiled," Menifee Lucy of Houston told Fox Weather. "No power for four days now, I dont know what to do ... I cant cook, all I have are these noodles." The mass power outages have decimated local infrastructure. Boil water notices are in place across eight Texas counties, and 135 waster water treatment plants are offline, according to Texas officials. Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd has described hospitals in a state of internal disaster, as Houston-area facilities are backed up, some because they feel discharging patients to homes without electricity is too unsafe. Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick has argued CenterPoint, the Houston areas main electric utility, underestimated Beryl, as critics suggest that the city as a whole needs to build a more resilient electric grid. Bruce Race, director for the University of Houstons Center of Sustainability and Resilience, told Houston Landing on Friday that the city could be prepared by burying more of its powerlines, a process known as undergrounding. Part of the local and regional solution might be strategic investment and undergrounding, he said. Records obtained by E&E News show the Biden administration rejected a request from CenterPoint last year for $100m in funding as part of a Department of Energy Program for strengthening electic poles and wires against high winds and other risks of climate change. Temperatures across the Houston area are expected to stay above 90 degrees through the next week, according to AccuWeather, even as the center of the heatwave itself is expected to move to the central and eastern US. This long-duration heat wave remains extremely dangerous and deadly if not taken seriously, according to the federal Weather Prediction Center . Record-breaking heat has persisted across the US since the Fourth of July holiday. Last Sunday, Las Vegas experienced its hottest day ever, at 120 degrees, as did Palm Springs, California, two days before, at 124 degrees. On Wednesday Las Vegas also hit its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures hitting 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 Celsius) or greater. Such extreme heat and weather Beryl was the earliest hurricane of its strength on record will only grow more common as the climate crisis persists and humans continue to pump greenhouse gasses into the air. We scientists have known for a long time for decades that as the world gets warmer, were going to see our temperature extremes [increasing], Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist for The Nature Conservancy, told NPR this week. Climate change is already affecting the people we love, the places we love, and the things we love. Feng Tao, a former professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, had his final conviction overturned by the U.S. District Court of Appeals Feng Tao, a former professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, had his final conviction overturned by the U.S. District Court of Appeals. He was prosecuted in 2019 by the U.S. Department of Justice under a Trump-era program, now disbanded, that sought to charge alleged spies with ties to China. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA The U.S. Court of Appeals reversed Friday the false-statement conviction of a former University of Kansas tenured professor and brought to an end deconstruction of the federal governments prosecution of the chemical engineering researcher who concealed his relationship with Fuzhou University in China. Feng Tao, who was involved with federally funded research, was originally charged in 2019 with 10 crimes by the U.S. Department of Justice. The case was brought under the President Donald Trump administrations now-defunct China Initiative in which alleged spies in U.S. research and industry fields were accused of espionage. It was launched in 2018, but terminated in 2022 due to assertions it operated on false evidence provided by the FBI and amounted to racial profiling of Chinese American citizens and people with Chinese ancestry. In Taos case, he was accused of failing to disclose on a KU form his association with the Chinese university. In 2022, a jury found him guilty on three wire-fraud counts and one false-statement count, but acquitted him on four counts. A U.S. District Court judge decided after the trial to acquit Tao on the wire-fraud charges, leaving only the false-statement conviction. The judge said the government failed to prove Tao engaged in a fraudulent scheme to deprive KU, the National Science Foundation or the U.S. Department of Energy of money or property. In 2023, Tao was sentenced to time served. On the remaining false-statement verdict, Tao appealed. The three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed that conviction and ordered the district court to enter a judgment of acquittal. U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Nancy Moritz, who is a former member of the Kansas Supreme Court, wrote in the majority opinion that the government didnt prove Taos false statement was material to any decision by the Department of Energy or the National Science Foundation. The courts 2-1 majority said research funding decisions by these agencies were made prior to Taos presentation of the form concealing his ties to the Chinese university. Additionally, the appellate court found no evidence Taos relationship with Fuzhou University created a disclosable financial interest under NSF policy. We agree with Tao that the government offered insufficient evidence for a rational jury to find that his statement to his employer was material to any DOE or NSF decisions, Moritz said. We reverse Taos conviction. In 2019, the Justice Department had relied on information provided by one of Taos former colleagues a visiting scholar at KU angry with Tao amid an authorship dispute. The colleague had demanded $300,000 from Tao or she would tell the FBI that Tao was a spy. Rebuffed by Tao, the Court of Appeals decision says, the former colleague submitted an anonymous tip to the FBI accusing Tao of espionage. The same person later impersonated others to make additional allegations, the document said. The FBI investigation found no evidence of espionage involving Tao. However, the FBI concluded Tao had potentially accepted a second full-time job at Fuzhou University and hid that information from KU. He was charged with making false statements and wire fraud based on contents of email traffic related to the possibility he would conduct research and teach in China. KU promptly banned Tao from campus in Lawrence. U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, who had served on the Kansas Court of Appeals and graduated from KUs law school, dissented from the majority opinion. She said Taos failure to disclose the possibly he would contract with the Chinese university was significant even though federal research funding decisions linked to the case were made before he failed in 2018 to inform KU in writing of the association. This form not only required Tao to certify that his answers were true, correct and complete, but also to report any changes to the form as soon as they became known to him, Briscoe wrote. I would also reject Taos remaining arguments for reversing his conviction or remanding for a new trial and would affirm his conviction. Tao was born in China and earned an undergraduate degree at Chongqing Normal University. His doctorate in physical chemistry was completed at Princeton University. He conducted postdoctoral research at University of California at Berkeley. He was a Miller associate professor in KUs department of chemical and petroleum engineer from 2014 to 2019. He worked on energy chemistry, nanoscience, surface science and catalysis. He published more than 180 papers in international journals. Lawyers representing the family of a 15-year-old autistic boy who was shot and killed by San Bernardino County deputies during an encounter at his Apple Valley home announced a federal lawsuit over the teen's death, as well as the treatment of his family in the aftermath. Ryan Gainer died after being shot by two deputies as he charged toward one of them with a garden hoe in front of the family's home on March 9. The deputies had responded to a report of a family disturbance in which family reported that Gainer had struck his sister and broken a window. Family members said the boy was having a mental health crisis. On Thursday, Attorney DeWitt Lacy of law firm Burris Nisenbaum Curry & Lacy announced that he and his colleagues have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against San Bernardino County and its sheriff's department on behalf of Gainer's family. Family members of Ryan Gainer and their attorneys announced a federal lawsuit stemming from the fatal shooting of the 15-year-old autistic boy by San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputies in Apple Valley on March 9, 2024. "The motto of modern law enforcement has never been 'to comply or die,'" he said. "That's not the rule. That's the way the law looks at these things. That's not the way any officers in California are trained to deal with calls that deal with mental help impairments. They're supposed to protect and serve and give help." "Instead, the Gainer family was met with unprofessionalism, brute and deadly force, shameful treatment of the family afterward, who had just experienced one of the worst tragedies a family can experience," Lacy said. On the day of the shooting, two family members had called back the sheriff's department and told dispatchers that the situation had calmed down and was under control, and that deputies were no longer needed, the lawyer said. Ryan Gainer's father, Norman Gainer, and mother, attend a conference with family attorneys to announce a federal lawsuit stemming from the fatal shooting of the 15-year-old autistic boy by San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputies in Apple Valley on March 9, 2024. "Nonetheless, law enforcement still responded, disregarding a lot of their training, and barged in, and then proceeded to use deadly force against Ryan in a circumstance that we don't believe justified," according to Lacy. Attorney John Burris said if the deputies were never told the situation was resolved, "the department's conduct is reprehensible." "Alternatively, if the deputy sheriffs did received the dispatch received the dispatch and continued to the house anyway, killing Ryan, their conduct was criminal, and they should be prosecuted," Burris said. "Either way, Ryan shouldn't be dead." Deputies had responded to the Gainer home on five previous occasions due to Ryan having mental health crises, according to sheriff's officials and family members. None of the previous encounters involved violence. Gainer's mother and one of his sisters, who were present at the time of the shooting, said they were treated like criminals by deputies. Ryan Gainer, left, pictured with family in an undated photo. They were held at a police station and questioned, against their will, for more than three hours while deputies refused to tell them that Ryan had died, the attorneys said. Video obtained by the law office showed deputies carrying Ryan's mother, Sharon Haywood, who was in a wheelchair and recovering from a stroke, to a police vehicle. "I didn't have medicine. They told us we could not go back into the house to get my seizure medicine," she said through tears. "I ended up having so many seizures that they called the paramedics. But they would not take me to the hospital where my son was." Deputies failed to provide Haywood with adult diapers despite requesting them, she said. "I ended up urinating in a trash can because I did not have any Depends." "That day I will never forget. I saw my baby's limp body, and they kept told me that they were trying to stabilized him," the mother said. "They lied to me and said that they were stabilizing him to send him to Arrowhead or to Loma Linda because they have a trauma 1 center. There were so many lies that day." Ryan's sister Rebecca Gainer said she is still unable to sleep after witnessing her brother's shooting. "For them to stop me from helping him and put the gun to my face when I'm trying to help my brother, and everything that happened afterward, like what they did to my mom," she said. In addition to civil rights violations, the federal lawsuit also alleged violations of the family's rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Multiple requests for information including the names of deputies who responded to the scene, other than the two who fired their weapons, as well as body camera footage, dispatch recording and logs, have not been fulfilled by sheriff's officials, attorney Julie Quesada said. The unnamed deputies who responded to the scene and dealt with Ryan's family, along with Sheriff Shannon Dicus, will soon be added to the lawsuit, Lacy said. Dicus has described the shooting as tragic, but defended the actions of the deputies and said they acted according to their training. He pointed out how quickly the situation escalated, with just seven seconds between the time Ryan first appeared in a hallway in front of the deputy and the moment at which the first deputy made the decision to open fire. Ryan's father, Norman Gainer, urged the sheriff's department to provide the information the family has asked for. "That's how you build support with the community, by allowing openness and transparency. That's the only way we're going to move forward," he said. The lawyers previously filed a state-level wrongful death claim against San Bernardino County and its sheriff's department in the weeks after the shooting. Lacy said the claim has been denied by county officials, escalating the matter to a lawsuit in state court. "The county has decided that want to go forward with litigation, arguing that these officers were justified in the killing of Ryan Gainer. We, of course, disagree," he said. Norman said he will not stop fighting on behalf of his son. "We've always been Ryan's biggest advocates, through his challenges, through his struggles, through his success stories," the father said. "But in his death, we are more of an advocate for Ryan going forward, advocate for people with special needs, advocate for people with disabilities, advocate for people who have depression, advocate for those who have mental illness. That's what we want to do going forward, to be a voice for the people that don't have a voice." This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Federal lawsuit filed in fatal shooting of autistic teen by deputies Commercial fishing boats are lined up at the dock at Seward's harbor on June 22, 2024. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Commercial fishing boats are lined up at the dock at Seward's harbor on June 22, 2024. Federal grants totaling a bit over $5 million have been awarded to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to help Alaskans sell more fish to more diverse groups of consumers. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) The federal government has awarded more than $5 million in grants to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to help the state agency find new ways and new places to sell the states fish. Of the federal money, over $4 million is from the U.S. Department of Agricultures Regional Agriculture Promotion Program, known as RAPP. That money is being sent to be used in specific areas of the state to help improve international markets, said Greg Smith, an ASMI spokesperson. In a statement, ASMI Executive Director Jeremy Woodrow thanked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack for helping the states seafood industry in a time of economic crisis. The timing of the RAPP funds is well-aligned with the Alaska seafood industrys needs to combat numerous global economic pressures. While these funds will help ASMI grow our international efforts, they will also allow us to shift our other limited fund sources toward the U.S. market, where consumer demand for seafood has fallen dramatically and is sorely in need of marketing support. said ASMI Executive Director Jeremy Woodrow. The other $1 million, in two $500,000 pieces, is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Saltonstall-Kenedy grant program, known as S-K grants. The S-K grants, awarded in a competitive process, are for two initiatives. Headed and gutted halibut, at right, and whole silver salmon, at left, are displayed on ice and for sale at New Sagaya Midtown Market in Anchorage on Oct. 3, 2023. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) One project seeks to expand Alaskas presence in the U.S. pet food market. The market uses about $7 billion in agricultural products, but only $893 million of that is seafood, according to ASMI. The second project is for study and possible replication of Icelandic seafood industry practices that employ value-added processes to create diverse fish products, including to nonfood products. The announcement came less than two weeks after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a $10 million legislative appropriation for the marketing agency. The federal grant money is not a perfect match for the vetoed state funding. Aside from being only half the total, the federal grants are directed for specific purposes rather than available for broader ASMI purposes. ASMI is typically funded by a combination of contributions from the seafood industry, which are based on a percentage of the value of fish commercially harvested in a prior year, and the federal government. In most recent years, ASMI has not been funded through the state operating budget. However, the Legislature appropriated $5 million to the agency for the prior fiscal year, which ended on June 30, and Dunleavy declined to veto that. It was the first legislative appropriation to ASMI since fiscal year 2018, which ended on June 30, 2018, Smith said. Industry contributions to ASMI generally run about $6 million to $16 million a year, while federal funds in recent years have ranged from about $6 million to about $13 million. Funding sources for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute are shown for the past 10 fiscal years. The just-passed budget for Fiscal Year 2025 included a $10 million appropriation to ASMI, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed that. (Graph provided by ASMI) In another effort to boost Alaska seafood, legislative leaders said Wednesday they have appointed members of a task force created during this years session to make recommendations about strengthening the industry. The Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaskas Seafood Industry was authorized by a measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10, that passed nearly unanimously in May. The task force is to conduct its business with a statewide vision of the economic crisis in the states seafood industry and the need to find solutions to the economic crisis and present a report to the Legislature, with recommendations, by Jan. 21. Senate members are Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, who will chair the group, and Sens. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski; and Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau. House members are Reps. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham; George Rauscher, R-Sutton; Sarah Vance, R-Homer; and Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak. As the backbone of our states economy, the seafood industry is vital to both our rural and urban communities, Stevens said in a statement. Establishing this task force underscores our commitment to addressing the industrys economic challenges and ensuring its long-term sustainability. By bringing together key stakeholders and experts, we aim to develop strategic solutions to support our seafood industry and bolster our states overall economic health. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A federal judge this week refused to toss out a lawsuit challenging a controversial Florida law requiring teachers to use pronouns that align with their sex assigned at birth, saying plaintiffs plausibly alleged the law violates protections against workplace discrimination. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walkers ruling Wednesday pointed, in part, to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Biden administration in the lawsuit brought by Katie Wood, a transgender Hillsborough County teacher, and AV Schwandes, a nonbinary teacher fired last year by Florida Virtual School. The U.S. Department of Justices brief focused on allegations that the 2023 law violates what is known as Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it discriminates based on sex. To determine whether the allegations in the lawsuit should be allowed to advance, the judge need only decide whether plaintiffs have sufficiently pled that the title/pronoun policies discriminate with respect to plaintiffs terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, the Justice Department lawyers wrote, citing part of the federal law. The mandatory nature of the state restrictions and the consequences for non-compliance make clear that the policies are a term or condition of employment, the Biden administration brief said, pointing to Schwandes firing. Read: Police: Girl, 16, staged home invasion after killing mother & mothers 22-year-old boyfriend Walker in April issued a preliminary injunction that blocked enforcement of the law against Wood, but the injunction did not apply statewide. Also, he denied a preliminary injunction sought by Schwandes. The April decision said neither teacher has demonstrated a likelihood of success on allegations that the law violates the federal employment law prohibiting discrimination. The judge, however, allowed the plaintiffs to revise the complaint. After an amended complaint was filed, the state sought dismissal. Walker in Wednesdays ruling said his previous decision erred on the employment-law issue and noted that he relied on case law that is no longer good law following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case known as Muldrow v. St. Louis. The Muldrow decision rejected a heightened legal standard of scrutiny used by appellate courts in employment-law cases. Read: Orlando, Tampa Fringe ask governor to restore art funding after veto Moreover, this court (Walker) oversimplified the issue and failed to consider the ordinary meaning of the statutory text namely, the ordinary meaning of terms, conditions, and privileges, Walker wrote. Accordingly, this court rejects its previous analysis and incorporates by reference the thoughtful analysis set out in the United States of Americas statement of interest as if fully set forth herein. The 2023 law says, in part, that a school employee may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex. The state defines sex as what was assigned at birth. Violations of the law one of a number of measures backed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting LGBTQ people over the past few years can result in teachers losing certifications and hefty financial penalties for school districts. In asking Walker to dismiss the lawsuit, attorneys for the Florida Department of Education and other defendants argued that the Legislature has discretion to promote the states pedagogical goals and vindicate parental rights. The Arlington, Va.-based Consovoy McCarthy firm has received nearly $390,000 for representing state education officials in the lawsuit. Lawyers for education officials also maintain that the pronoun and title restrictions are the policy of all public-school institutions and are therefore government speech, which can be restricted. Read: Volusia county mother experiencing DCF application glitch turns to Channel 9 for help But the judge disagreed, writing in April that the official policy label does not necessarily transform Ms. Woods speech into a government message whenever she introduces herself or provides her pronouns to students. Walkers ruling Wednesday also found the plaintiffs amended lawsuit plausibly alleges that the pronoun policy violates a federal education law protecting people from discrimination based on sex. After Walker in April issued the preliminary injunction applying to Wood, the state appealed the decision. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month agreed to speed up consideration of the appeal and is slated to hear arguments in September. Walker has set a February trial in the overall lawsuit. The litigation over pronouns is just one of several lawsuits swirling around Florida laws about trans children and adults. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle last month ruled that a 2023 law and regulations prohibiting the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat children for gender dysphoria and making it harder for trans adults to access care are unconstitutionally discriminatory and were motivated by animus toward transgender people. Hinkle permanently barred Florida health officials from enforcing the law, which also carried heavy sanctions and potential jail time for doctors who violated the restrictions. Read: Orange County Sheriff tells commissioners millions needed to keep crime rate down In a 101-page ruling, the judge wrote that gender identity is real and likened opposition to transgender people to racism and misogyny. The state appealed and requested a stay of Hinkles decision while the appeal plays out. But Hinkle on Thursday rejected putting the decision on hold, finding in part that the plaintiffs have a strong showing of likely success on the merits. Hinkle also noted that the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to decide whether a similar Tennessee law restricting puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender children is unconstitutional. In seeking a stay of his ruling, lawyers for the state said Florida would have no control over the way gender-affirming care is provided if the decision is not blocked. But Hinkle rejected the argument. The state has in place abundant means of ensuring that healthcare professionals adhere to the prevailing standards of care. The state allowed and even paid for gender-affirming care for many years before enacting the statute and rules at issue in a wave of anti-transgender bias, he wrote. Hinkle also scolded the states lawyers for arguing that the judges order failed to give proper deference to legislative decision-making. The defendants apparently assert that when there are mixed motives a legitimate purpose alongside a discriminatory purpose the presumption of good faith requires a court to ignore the discriminatory purpose and assume the only relevant purpose was the legitimate one. Not so, he wrote in Thursdays 12-page ruling. The state has paid the Holtzman Vogel firm at least $658,000 to represent Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and other state officials in the litigation. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. A federal judge this week refused to toss out a lawsuit challenging a controversial Florida law requiring teachers to use pronouns that align with their sex assigned at birth, saying plaintiffs plausibly alleged the law violates protections against workplace discrimination. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walkers ruling Wednesday pointed, in part, to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Biden administration in the lawsuit brought by Katie Wood, a transgender Hillsborough County teacher, and AV Schwandes, a nonbinary teacher fired last year by Florida Virtual School. The U.S. Department of Justices brief focused on allegations that the 2023 law violates what is known as Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it discriminates based on sex. Read: Bullet vending machines could hit Florida grocery stores by the end of the year To determine whether the allegations in the lawsuit should be allowed to advance, the judge need only decide whether plaintiffs have sufficiently pled that the title/pronoun policies discriminate with respect to plaintiffs terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, the Justice Department lawyers wrote, citing part of the federal law. The mandatory nature of the state restrictions and the consequences for non-compliance make clear that the policies are a term or condition of employment, the Biden administration brief said, pointing to Schwandes firing. Walker in April issued a preliminary injunction that blocked enforcement of the law against Wood, but the injunction did not apply statewide. Also, he denied a preliminary injunction sought by Schwandes. CLICK HERE to read the full story by WFTV. Read: Dashcam video shows moments Atlanta police stopped hijacked bus with bump sticks [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. A federal judge is allowing a legal challenge to continue against a Florida law that prevents transgender or nonbinary public K-12 teachers from using their preferred pronouns. In doing so in his Wednesday decision, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker rejected requests from Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration and local education officials to dismiss it. Citing First Amendment violations, the Obama-appointed judge had already blocked enforcement of the 2023 law in relation to one of the three teachers suing: Katie Wood, a transgender Hillsborough County educator. And, in another jab at the state law, Walker wrote that he'd gotten it wrong in a previous ruling that the plaintiffs "failed to sufficiently allege that the challenged pronoun policy discriminates with respect to Plaintiffs terms, conditions, or privileges of employment." After the prior ruling, the teachers filed an amended lawsuit, and the Biden administration's Department of Justice weighed in, writing that the plaintiffs had "alleged sufficient facts" to bring forward claims that federal employment laws were violated by the law. "This Court concludes that Plaintiffs second amended complaint plausibly alleges that, by adopting and enforcing the challenged pronoun policy, Defendants discriminate against Plaintiffs with respect to the terms, conditions, or privileges of their employment based on their sex in violation of Title VII and Title IX," Walker wrote Wednesday, referring to those anti-discrimination laws. The other plaintiffs in the case are a Lee County teacher using the pseudonym Jane Doe and former Florida Virtual School teacher AV Schwandes, who was terminated for violating the law after using gender-neutral pronouns. such as they and them. The plaintiffs are being represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Southern Legal Counsel and law firm Altshuler Berzon. They're suing the Florida Department of Education and various officials within it, many of them appointed by DeSantis. The Hillsborough County School Board, Lee County School Board and Florida Virtual School Board of Trustees are also named as defendants. A jury trial for the litigation is scheduled for Feb. 18. But Walker's courtroom isn't the only arena in this legal battle. His decision to partly block enforcement of the law is currently under appeal by the state, as reported by the News Service of Florida. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for Sept. 23, dockets show. Lawsuit filed in December: Trans, nonbinary Florida teachers file lawsuit against anti-pronoun law Pronoun law blocked: Federal judge blocks teacher pronoun restriction in Florida, citing First Amendment This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Judge allows challenge against Florida pronoun restriction to go on A federal judge issued a temporary ruling Thursday in favor of the Carroll school districts lawsuit, blocking expanded Title IX protections for LGBTQ students from taking effect in August. In his ruling, Judge Reed OConnor of the Northern District of Texas said the injunction covers the Carroll district for now, but requested briefings by July 18 on possibly broadening the ruling to include other school districts. OConnor said that implementing the Biden Administrations changes which include training staff and issuing new protection guidelines would cause irreparable harm to Carroll schools and force the district to spend millions to implement the changes. OConnor wrote that the Department of Education admitted that Carroll would have expenses to comply with the final Title IX regulations, including training staff and implementing policies. The Carroll school district estimated that it would have to spend $98 million in the first year to comply with the new regulations, OConnors ruling stated. OConnor also wrote that a failure to stay unlawful agency action would constrain school districts operations and prevent them from educating students, upgrading facilities and constructing new ones. The ruling also stated that the government would not suffer harm as a result of maintaining the status quo. Title IX has prohibited sex discrimination without reference to gender identity for over 50 years. And it will continue to do so. OConnor, a known conservative, said privileging gender identity over biological sex is in no way authorized by the statutory text. And the consequences based on this statutory distortion appear limitless. For these reasons, and those stated by other federal courts, Carroll ISD is likely to succeed on the merits of their challenge to the Final Rule, Oconnor wrote. Attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the law firm representing the school district pro bono, said the district was correct to pursue legal action against the Biden Administration to protect the safety and security of girls and all students under its supervision. The Biden administrations radical redefinition of sex in Title IX upends our education system and ignores biological reality, science, and common sense, Mathew Hoffmann, legal counsel for the ADF said in a news release. This dangerous and unnecessary rule change will have devastating consequences for students, teachers, administrators, and families. The Carroll school districts lawsuit is the fifth legal action the ADF has taken to stop the Biden Administrations efforts to redefine sex under Title IX, according to the news release. Earlier this year, the Carroll school board voted to adopt a resolution denouncing the Biden Administrations Title IX expanded protections, calling them harmful to girls and women. The school district then sued the Biden Administration in the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to sue TikTok for violating the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law meant to safeguard childrens personal information on the internet. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, and Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, along with Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, signed a letter last week calling for the Department of Justice to act expeditiously on a case referred by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last month. The FTCs complaint alleges TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are violating COPPA and breaching the terms of a 2019 settlement for previous violations of the same law. During the Trump administration, the FTC brought a COPPA suit against Musical.lya ByteDance-owned app that merged into TikTok midway through the proceeding. The FTC alleged that Musical.ly had violated COPPA by collecting and using personal information from users younger than 13 without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents, and ignoring parental requests to delete their childrens information. The FTC referred the case to the DOJ to seek civil penalties. In 2019, Musical.ly (which by then had become part of TikTok) paid a settlement of $5.7 million. FTC officials touted it as the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the Commission in a childrens privacy case, though it amounted to less than 1 percent of what ByteDance paid to acquire Musical.ly two years earlier. In addition to the fine, Musical.ly agreed to delete the ill-gotten data of children under 13 and to follow the law going forward. The company also submitted to compliance reviews, a process enabling FTC regulators to continuously monitor the companys adherence to COPPAs restrictions and the conditions of the order. The settlement took place before TikTok became a household name, barely making headlines. Back then, when TikTok was Musical.ly, the company didnt have the salience it does now, said a former DOJ official who had overseen the settlement. It wasnt as big, it wasnt the app that everybody is on. Last month, FTC levied allegations that TikTok was violating its 2019 order, which could bring heavier finesthe FTC recently hit Facebook with a whopping $5 billion penalty for violating a 2012 order. An FTC official confirmed that the agency is charging TikTok on these grounds. Though the filings have not yet been made public, the FTC deviated from standard protocol when it announced its referral of the case to the DOJ last month, stating transparency was in the public interest. Thats not typical, the former DOJ official said. They dont normally announce a referral and instead just send it to the [DOJ]. One potential explanation is that they view this as extremely serious misconduct. They want it dealt with quickly and seriously. Congress passed COPPA in 1998, and the FTCs COPPA Rule, went into effect in 2000. It was meant to give parents control over the online collection of personal information from their children (considered by the law to be anyone under age 13). The law applies to operators of digital platforms intended for children, such as gaming websites, as well as any digital platform with actual knowledge that children are using it. COPPA requires these operators to inform parents about the type of personal information they collect from their children, how it is used, and when it might be disclosed. They must also obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing a childs personal information. Under COPPA, operators must give parents the opportunity to review the personal information collected from their child. They must also honor a parents request to delete their childs information and cease further collection or use. The FTC is responsible for writing and enforcing granular rules within COPPAs statutory framework. In the nearly three decades since COPPAs passage, the FTC has modified the COPPA rule only oncein 2013, to account for increased use of social media and mobile devices. Though FTC oversees enforcement of COPPA, it cannot sue violators for civil penalties under the law without first referring the case to the Department of Justice. Since December, the FTC has been pursuing updates to the COPPA rule that would strengthen security requirements for sensitive personal information, limit data retention, require a separate opt-in for targeted advertising, and prevent operators from sending push notifications that nudge kids to stay online. The Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA 2.0, has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. The bill would expand the law to cover those up to age 16, close loopholes allowing platforms to ignore the presence of underage users, ban targeted advertising to children and teens, and make it easier for them or their parents to delete their data. The FTCs case against TikTokand the support it has attracted in Congressreflects a growing consensus about the need to protect childrens privacy from tech giants. COPPA has become critical in this increasingly combative digital landscape. In a recent House Innovation, Data, And Commerce Subcommittee hearing, FTC Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson described consumer protection laws (such as COPPA) as one of the last available avenues to address the many challenges posed by big tech. In recent years, the FTC has managed to secure much larger civil penalties under COPPA. Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, paid $275 million for COPPA violations in a 2022 settlement. In 2023, Amazon paid $25 million to settle a COPPA suit involving Alexa devices. And last year, Microsoft paid a $20 million fine for COPPA violations pertaining to childrens Xbox accounts. With enforcement of the statute growing more vigorous, and mounting public scrutiny on TikTok, it seems unlikely ByteDance will escape with another slap on the wrist. 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. Federal investigators have opened an investigation into Steward Health Care System, which is in the midst of bankruptcy and is trying to sell all 31 of its hospitals, including eight in Florida. The criminal investigation, launched by federal prosecutors in Boston, is zeroing in on possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens and companies from committing bribery and other corruption overseas in order to obtain or retain business, according to CBS News, which first reported on the probe. The law also requires companies to keep accurate records of their finances. Steward Health Care can confirm it is aware of and cooperating with an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, Steward spokesperson Deborah Chiaravalloti told the Miami Herald in an email Friday. As a matter of policy, Steward will have no further comment on this investigation as it remains ongoing. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment. The U.S. Attorneys Office in Massachusetts said we do not confirm or deny investigations. For the doctors and nurses who care for patients at Stewards hospitals, many of which cater to underserved communities, the federal investigation marks another blow to a tumultuous year filled with cutbacks and layoffs. Its a tragedy that the situation has deteriorated to clearly dire circumstances inside the facilities for patients, their families and the healthcare heroes trying to provide the very best care under such large looming issues, as well as demoralizing day-to-day challenges such as canceled shifts, lack of equipment, medications and upkeep, DeQuasia Canales, vice president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, said in a statement. The union represents more than 450,000 healthcare workers in the country, including some who work at Steward hospitals in South Florida. The federal investigation into possible corruption comes as the healthcare giant, which owns several hospitals in South Florida, including Palmetto General and North Shore Medical Center, is also embroiled in a criminal investigation overseas in Malta, an island in Southern Europe, where it managed some state-run hospitals. READ MORE: A healthcare giant owes millions to Florida taxpayers. Will the state see the money? The Boston Globe in June reported that Steward Healths founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre and Armin Ernst, the head of its international operations, were accused of being involved in a bribery scheme related to the Malta hospital deal. A court last year struck down the hospital deal after finding fraud, and returned the hospitals to the government, according to the Times of Malta. Maltese authorities, in a report, recently recommended the executives be charged with money laundering, criminal association, and corruption of public officials, though it is unclear if they will be charged, the Globe reports. A photo of Dr. Ralph de la Torre, CEO of Steward Health Care, that ran in the Miami Herald in 2011. Steward Health, which filed for bankruptcy protection in May under Chapter 11 to thin out debt, has also had a long-standing dispute with Massachusetts officials for going against a state rule and keeping its financial information a secret for years. Its held a similar practice in Florida, where it owns eight hospitals. They include North Shore Medical Center, Palmetto General, Hialeah and Coral Gables hospitals in Miami-Dade, and Florida Medical Center in Broward. At its hospitals, doctors and nurses have long complained about lack of supplies and broken equipment. In South Florida, North Shore Medical Center, which has seen a series of cutbacks and layoffs this year, is ground zero of Stewards financial crisis. READ NEXT: Why a healthcare giant has slowed care at a Miami hospital, and where it leaves patients Earlier this year, the North Miami-Dade hospital, 1100 NW 95th St. closed its critical but costly labor and delivery, neonatal, and behavioral health units to try and stop its financial bleeding. In March, another blow for patients: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered North Shore to stop performing mammograms and notify patients that they might have received inaccurate results after a review found images taken in the past two years did not meet standards. READ MORE: Is your mammogram wrong? Miami hospital ordered by FDA to halt service over concerns Miami-Dade Commissioner Rene Garcia, who represents parts of Hialeah and surrounding areas, said hes not surprised that Stewards empire is crumbling. Its expansion, overseas business dealings, feud with Massachusetts officials and for-profit model system drew attention and raised questions and concerns, he said. The former state senator told the Miami Herald that hes been in contact with Floridas Agency for Health Care Administration, which regulates hospitals in the state, to make sure theyre monitoring Stewards hospitals to ensure patient quality is not sacrificed. Miami-Dade Commissioner Rene Garcia, who represents parts of Hialeah and surrounding areas, said hes been in contact with Floridas Agency for Health Care Administration, which regulates hospitals in the state, to ensure they are monitoring Stewards hospitals to ensure that patient quality is not sacrificed. I wish we would do a better job at the federal level or at the state level when we see the acquisition of hospitals, especially safety net hospitals, said Garcia, who has focused on health policy and other healthcare-related issues throughout his career and considers Palmetto General and Hialeah Hospital to be safety-net hospitals for the community. I would hope that in the future, this could serve as a lesson so other communities are not faced with the same situation that Hialeah and Northwest Dade is faced with. Canales, the vice president of 1199SEIU, is calling for government officials to help fix the crisis. Patients and communities are being put at risk without access to services and care, and our caregivers are facing real financial hardship because they need these jobs to support their own families, said Canales, the vice president of 1199SEIU, in reference to the problems its members are facing at Stewards hospitals in South Florida. Were urgently calling on Steward, elected officials and now other governmental agencies to find and fix the serious underlying issues that have caused this spiraling crisisbefore it is too late. TAIPEI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The 2024 Taipei Summer Travel Expo opened Friday at Exhibition Hall 1 of the Taipei World Trade Center. A total of 155 Chinese mainland representatives from local culture and tourism departments and enterprises are participating in the event, forming the largest exchange group to Taiwan from the mainland since COVID-19. They have taken up 75 exhibition booths to promote the diverse tourism resources of 12 provinces, including Anhui, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The number of visits of Taiwan compatriots to the mainland in 2023 rose by 7.4 times year on year, illustrating the shared cultural affinity between the two sides of the Strait, said He Jie, an official of the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits, at the opening ceremony. She expressed hope that more Taiwan residents would proceed from the expo and visit the mainland to experience its infinite charm. The event is jointly organized by the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan Tourism Interchange Association, and will conclude on July 15. NEW MEXICO (KRQE) FEMA and the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security are urging residents to be aware of post-disaster scams. Ruidoso residents affected by the recent wildfires and flash flooding should be aware of con artists and criminals who are taking advantage of families. Story continues below FEMA said criminals try to steal personal information and claim FEMA assistance for themselves. if a FEMA inspector comes to someones home and that person did not submit a FEMA application, their information may have been used with their knowledge. FEMA said to tell the inspector about the issue so that a request can be made to stop the application. If someone receives a letter from FEMA, call 800-621-3362. FEMA Disaster Survivor Assitance crews, housing inspectors, and other officials carry official ID badges with photo IDs. FEMA employees will also have access to someones FEMA application number. FEMA and U.S. Small Business Administration representatives will not charge applicants for assistance. Scam complaints can be filed with the New Mexico Department of Justice. Tips can be made to the FEMA Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or emailed to StopFEMAFraud@fema.dhs.gov. FEMA said they do not license or certify contractors but recommend using a local contractor. FEMA has more information on contractor fraud at this link. 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 U.S. Department of Agriculture has performed more than 17,000 tests for avian influenza on cattle, with 139 dairy herds throughout a dozen states (Getty Images). WASHINGTON As the number of dairy cows infected with a strain of bird flu virus grows across the country, 17 of Missouris roughly 60,000 dairy cows have been tested while agriculture officials and farmers keep watch for signs that the outbreak has entered the state. So far, Missouri farmers havent reported any cows with the virus, called H5N1, state officials said. However, national biosecurity and public health experts are concerned that a lack of testing in states across the country, and the economic implications of quarantining cattle, may be allowing the virus to spread undetected. You want to work on the assumption that its there, and youre trying to find it, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who focuses on pandemic policy and the intersections of infectious disease and national security. Adalja said 17 tests arent enough to give him confidence that Missouris herds are virus-free. Just because youre not looking, doesnt mean its not there, that youre going to avoid the consequences, Adalja said. Missouri State Veterinarian Steve Strubberg acknowledged that only a small fraction of the states dairy cows have been tested for the virus. Strubberg, who leads the Missouri Department of Agriculture Animal Health Division, said he believes Missouri farmers would have reported sick cows to their veterinarians if their herds were becoming infected. Because H5N1 is a Reportable Disease, veterinarians and laboratories are required to disclose detections. However, while farmers are encouraged to report H5N1 symptoms, its not a requirement because there is no confirmation they are ill with the H5N1 virus. We just feel like most livestock producers, they really do a great job of watching the health of their animals, Strubberg said. I mean, its their livelihood. Health experts investigating the H5N1 outbreaks in Texas and Colorado told The Associated Press that because labs must report positive results to agriculture departments, many farmers may decide against testing and try to outlast the outbreak to avoid a negative stigma. In dairy cattle, the virus causes low appetite and reduced milk production, and the milk can have an abnormal appearance. Occasionally, farmers have cows with similar symptoms, which can also be caused by other diseases. While H5N1 is associated with high mortality rates in poultry, reports indicate infected dairy cattle rarely die. Even when cows in a herd become sick, they seem to recover rather quickly after a few weeks, as long as dairy farmers are using disease management procedures, Strubberg said. Since March 25, when the world first learned H5N1 had developed the ability to infect and spread among cows, infections have been reported so far in at least 140 herds in 12 states including Missouris neighboring states of Kansas and Iowa according to the USDA dashboard updated July 3. However, experts say the U.S. Department of Agricultures numbers likely underestimate the size of the outbreak because so few cattle are being tested. Currently, the USDA requires lactating cattle to be tested before being shipped across state lines. Adalja said that because of the lack of proactive testing, he said he doesnt believe anybody in the field would think that those 38 states could be declared non-H5N1 cow (infected) states. Historically, when the H5N1 virus has infected people on rare occasions, the death rate has been over 50%. In the current U.S. dairy cattle outbreak, the four farm workers with documented infections have had mild cases, mostly including symptoms of eye redness, following direct contact with sick cows. The most recent human case was announced as of last week. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the health risk to the general public remains low and has recommended personal protective equipment for those working with infected cows. While dairy cows have generally recovered during this current outbreak, the virus has proven to be fatal to cats who drank raw milk from infected cows. U.S. Food and Drug Administration said its tests indicate that the pasteurization process used in commercial milk processing is effective at inactivating the H5N1 virus. While there is concern that the virus can be transmitted to humans through the consumption of unpasteurized, or raw, milk from infected cows, the FDA continues to emphasize its longstanding recommendations about ingesting raw milk because of its potential to be contaminated. The fact that no farms are reporting symptoms in cows is the best indication that H5N1 is not in Missouri, state officials said. One of the reasons they believe Missouri has avoided the virus is because the state imports so few cows. Missouris tests on 17 dairy cows, as of Monday, occurred because the animals were being moved across state borders. However, it remains unclear how the virus is circulating, and in some states, herds have become infected despite no movements of cattle. It appears that farm workers may be involved in the outbreaks spread, but Missouri has minimal shared labor between farms, state officials said. Even so, in preparation for the 2024 Missouri State Fair, scheduled to begin Aug. 8 in Sedalia, the Missouri Department of Agriculture and Strubberg announced last week updated biosecurity protocols for exhibiting dairy cattle. All lactating dairy cattle must have a negative H5N1 test within seven days before arrival at the Missouri State Fairgrounds. The Missouri Department of Agriculture has been doing outreach to dairy producers and veterinarians and providing updated information on the virus. Scott Poock, a dairy and beef cattle veterinarian with the University of Missouri Extension, said he would be confident that Missouri probably hasnt had it. Can I say 100%? Absolutely not. Never, Poock said. Missouri, like other states, has been battling H5N1 in poultry for some time. And as it remains unclear how the virus jumped from birds to dairy cows, Strubberg said the lack of many new H5N1 detections in Missouri poultry can provide more confidence, to a degree, that the virus isnt in Missouri cows. While some experts are concerned about a lack of proactive testing, there is a risk aversion for farmers who would have to quarantine lactating cattle with a positive test. The USDA has taken some actions to help farmers, including offering loans to farmers and livestock producers to alleviate biosecurity measurement costs, such as veterinary and testing expenses. Like experts in infectious diseases, farmers are aware of the issue but have differing opinions and levels of concern, Strubberg said. Chloe Collins, an MU Extension dairy field specialist, said that most farmers she has recently spoken with have been optimistic about the H5N1 risk. She said farmers are practicing good biosecurity and are tapping into expert resources. Collins also described the states dairy industry as prepared and resilient. Adalja said he believes that the USDA and state agriculture departments are walking a tightrope trying to balance the economic and public health implications. This includes what stigma might occur if a farm tests positive. These (cows) are not pets, Adalja said. They are economic vessels, basically, that are important for the economies of those farms, the economies of those counties and the states. This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. A man died after jumping off a Blackwater River bridge on Interstate 10 on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The incident was reported around 2:15 p.m. near mile marker 27 of I-10 in Santa Rosa County. According to a FHP news release, the driver of a SUV appeared to intentionally strike the concrete barrier wall of the bridge. After hitting the wall, the driver jumped off the bridge and into the water. Personnel from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office conducted a search for the driver. At approximately 4:30 p.m., the FHP reported, "The body of a male subject has just been located and recovered. This is still early stages of the investigation." More like this: Missing drive-by shooting suspect found in Texas 3 days after leaping from Escambia bridge At this time, no information has been released on the identity of the individual or the circumstances that prompted his leap from the bridge. This is the second time in less than a month that an individual has sustained fatal injuries after jumping off a local bridge. On June 24, three suspects in a drive-by shooting in Escambia led law enforcement officers on a high speed chase before bailing out of their vehicle and jumping off a bridge over the Escambia River on U.S. Highway 90. One man, 22-year-old Trevion Moton, died as a result of the fall. Another man, Jaquaris Ethridge, 19, was arrested after his jump in connection to the deaths of both the drive-by shooting victim and Moton. The third suspect, 19-year-old Terrance Gross, survived the jump and initially eluded capture, but was ultimately arrested a few days later Laredo, Texas, as he was allegedly heading to Mexico. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Man jumps of Interstate 10 bridge into Blackwater River in Santa Rosa It was far from a perfect performance, but President Joe Biden used his Thursday evening press conference as a preview of the arguments he will deploy in the coming days, weeks, and months, as fellow Democrats calls for him to step aside persistand as his refusal to do so is likely to harden. Im determined Im running, Biden said during a question-and-answer session with reporters that lasted for nearly an hour. But I think its important that I allay fears, let them see me out there. If he failed to do so entirely, he also displayed an obvious command of foreign policy. In the plainest terms, he was far more with it than during last months debate with Donald Trump, which has led to an explosion of anxiety about his fitness for the presidencyand the presidential campaign. This is a very strong performance, Democratic strategist and former Obama administration official Joel M. Rubin wrote in a social media post. He said that Biden had given a master class in how foreign policy and domestic policy intersect. Perhaps that was something of an overstatement. At a NATO event earlier in the day, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, standing beside him, as President Putin, the Russian leader who invaded Ukraine in 2022. In response to the first question from a reporter at the ensuing press conference, Biden made reference to Vice President Trump, a remark that instantly went viral and has led to a profusion of internet memes. His vice president is Kamala Harris, who many Democrats think should replace Biden at the top of the ticket, but Thursday evening seemed to suggest that Biden was not seriously entertaining that possibility. Im in good shape, he said. As efforts to persuade him to step aside have mounted, Biden has grown increasingly recalcitrant. He used Thursday as a showcase of his foreign policy prowess. If he sometimes stumbled, he also displayed sufficient mastery of detail to remind detractors of his expertise. Top Dem Kicks Off Calls for Biden to Scram After Gaffe-Riddled Big Boy Presser The president discounted reports that, last week, he said at a summit of Democratic governors that he needed to go to bed by 8 p.m. He meant, he now elaborated, that he simply had to be more thoughtful about a grueling schedule that has included shuttle diplomacy intended to defuse conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. I just got to pace myself a bit more, he said. In recent days, there has been rampant speculation about the several visits of a Parkinsons disease expert to the White House. Earlier this week, Bidens press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has said that he has not been diagnosed with Parkinsons. On Thursday evening, Biden said he took a neurological exam as recently as February. While he seemed to acknowledge that his age had become a political flashpoint, he also touted his first-term record, using it as an argument for another four years in the Oval Office. Ive got to finish this job, he said. Because theres so much at stake. Reactions from Democrats seemed to suggest that while the press conference was not a debacle, it was also not a resounding success. Biden could have stood on his head and recited the Constitution backwards during the NATO press conference and for some, it still would not have been enough, said Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor and Biden administration official. Democracy is on the line. Lets support our nominee and preserve it. But for others in the same party, Biden must step aside precisely because defeating Trump is of such paramount importance. As the press conference concluded, three U.S. representatives: Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), and Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), joined the growing number of Democrats calling for Biden to end his reelection campaign. Joe Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party, Sorensen said in a statement. Today, I am asking him to do that again. 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. It would seem Supreme Court corruption is untouchable, but last week Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a formal request to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for the opening of an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Separately, this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York filed articles of impeachment against not only Thomas, but fellow justice Samuel Alito. Thanks to crack reporting from ProPublica, the world was made aware last year that the SCOTUS justice has been accepting millions of dollars worth of lavish vacations, yacht trips, and international jet-setting on the dime of Republican billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow, breaking with public servant laws and disclosure norms. For over 20 years Thomas and his wife have been traveling at the behest of Crow, despite the lifetime-appointment public servants requirement to keep to a strict ethical code. This includes a requirement to disclose gifts and any non-government income over $415 value, which he has repeatedly failed to do. The 2023 ProPublica report elucidates Harlan Crows contributions to Thomas and his family, including a yacht trip to Russia with private helicopter travel to St. Petersburg, allowing Justice Thomas mother to live rent-free in a home owned by Crow, and paying Thomas grandnephews private $6,000 per month boarding school tuition. 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, reads the Ocasio-Cortez statement. The Whitehouse/Wyden letter, dated July 3, made public that Senate investigations have found evidence of repeated and willful omissions, including gifts and income, from Justice Thomas required annual financial reports. Appointment of a special counsel would serve the public interest, Whitehouse and Wyden wrote. The public must have confidence that the judiciary and the Department of Justice execute their responsibilities fairly, impartially, and without respect to political expedience or partisan interests. Thomas has claimed that that he didnt think he there was a requirement to report the trips, as he was advised early in his tenure that they were personal hospitality. He has repeatedly stated that the trips were not chartered or requested by him, he was simply tagging along with Crow on his annual trips out of friendliness. In addition to the Russia trip, Clarence and Ginni Thomas have reportedly travelled aboard Crows 162-foot superyacht, the Michaela Rose, to visit Indonesia, Savannah, Georgia, New Zealand, and Greece. It seems that the majority of these trips have also included flights aboard Crows Bombardier Global 5000 private jet. Non-yacht-involved trips also include annual stays at Crows private Adirondacks resort and his Texas ranch. I wonder why a right-wing billionaire real estate developer would want to curry so much favor with a sitting judge in the highest court in the nation. Probably just a coincidence. This whole investigation is more than likely a witch hunt. No witches here! The 76-year-old Justice Thomas is the courts longest-serving judge, receiving his appointment in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. Bradley Brownell writes for Jalopnik, which like The Root, is owned by G/O. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. FILE PHOTO: Finland readies to bar new migrant route via Russia to Europe FILE PHOTO: Finland readies to bar new migrant route via Russia to Europe By Essi Lehto HELSINKI (Reuters) -Finland's parliament passed a law on Friday granting border guards the power to block asylum seekers crossing from Russia, after more than 1,300 people arrived in the country, forcing Helsinki to close its border. Finland has accused neighbouring Russia of weaponising migration by encouraging scores of migrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia to cross the border, an assertion the Kremlin denies. Helsinki believes Moscow is promoting the crossings in retaliation for Finland joining NATO, which backs Ukraine against Russia's invasion. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has said the bill is vital to stop future arrivals, despite the law being at odds with Finland's international human rights commitments. "This is a strong message to Russia, a strong message to our allies, that Finland takes care of its own security, we take care of the security of the EU border," Orpo told a press conference after the vote. More than 1,300 asylum seekers crossed over from Russia since last summer but there had been no new arrivals since March until Thursday. The Finnish Border Guard released a statement after the parliament vote saying one person had crossed the border illegally on Thursday and when caught by a border guard, applied for asylum. Finland shut its land borders with Russia late last year. Interior Minister Mari Rantanen told the press conference after the bill passed that no decision had been taken on when to re-open the border crossings with Russia. Finland's move is similar to steps taken in recent years in other European countries, including Poland and Lithuania, to make it more difficult for migrants to cross the border from Russia and Russia-ally Belarus. The Finnish bill was passed with 167 votes in favour, 31 against and one abstention. To pass, the proposal needed a two-thirds majority of given votes in the 200-seat parliament. Orpo urged migrants who were considering coming to Europe through Russia not to embark on the journey. "Don't go with the smugglers," he told the news conference. "Finland takes care of its borders. The access to the borders orchestrated by Russia will not lead to access to Finland or Europe." Moscow has denied such an intention. The Russian embassy in Helsinki did not immediately reply to a request for comment. (Reporting by Essi Lehto; additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom; editing by Alexandra Hudson, Gwladys Fouche and Susan Fenton) Finland's President Alexander Stubb speaking during his arrival at the NATO summit in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) HELSINKI (AP) Finnish lawmakers on Friday narrowly approved a controversial bill that will allow border guards to turn away third-country migrants attempting to enter from neighboring Russia and reject their asylum applications because Helsinki says Moscow is orchestrating an influx of migrants to the border. The governments bill, meant to introduce temporary measures to curb migrants from entering the Nordic nation, is a response to what Finland sees as hybrid warfare by Russia. It believes Moscow is funneling undocumented migrants to the two countries border. The temporary law, valid for one year, was approved by 167 lawmakers the minimum needed for it to pass in the 200-seat Eduskunta, or Parliament. Lawmakers of the Left Alliance and the Green League were among the 31 who voted against the bill. Citing national security, Prime Minister Petteri Orpos center-right government had said the law was needed to tackle Russias maneuvers of deliberately ushering migrants to the normally heavily guarded Russia-Finland border zone that is also the European Unions external border to the north. Opponents, including several academics, legal experts and human rights groups, say it clashes with the Constitution of Finland, international rights commitments set by the United Nations and pledges by the EU and international treaties signed by Finland. Michael OFlaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, had earlier expressed concern about the draft law and urged against its adoption. The Commissioner emphasises that the relationship between national security and human rights is not a zero-sum game, a Council of Europe statement said in June. The Commissioner also raises concerns that the (Finnish) draft law, if adopted, would set a worrying precedent for other countries and for the global asylum system. Finland closed the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia last year after more than 1,300 migrants without proper documentation or visas an unusually high number entered the country in three months, just months after the nation became a member of NATO. Most of the migrants that arrived in 2023 and early this year hail from the Middle East and Africa, including from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Under the new law, pending approval from President Alexander Stubb, Finnish border guards can under certain circumstances reject migrant asylum applications at the crossing points. They will not, however, refuse entry to children, disabled people and any migrants deemed by border guards to be in a particularly vulnerable position. Finance Minister Riikka Purra, chair of the nationalist far-right Finns Party that forms the Cabinet's core together with Orpos conservative National Coalition Party, said that nothing can take precedence over maintaining national security. We cannot allow Russia to exploit weaknesses in our legislation and international agreements, Purra said. Pushbacks the forcible return of people across an international border without an assessment of their rights to apply for asylum or other protection violate both international and EU law. However, EU members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have previously resorted to the controversial measure when dealing with migrants attempting to enter from Belarus. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have all introduced laws similar to the one proposed in Finland. ___ Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration ' Fire on American Airlines aircraft causes plane to be evacuated at San Francisco airport Fire on American Airlines aircraft causes plane to be evacuated at San Francisco airport Passengers on an American Airlines plane were evacuated on Friday afternoon at San Francisco International Airport after a fire broke out inside the cabin, according to the local fire department. Officials said the fire was extinguished, and that three people suffered minor injuries during the incident. One of the injured was hurt while exiting the plane on an inflatable slide, NBC Bay Area reports. American Airlines Flight 2045 was scheduled to depart from San Francisco bound for Miami around 1.05pm when staff onboard reported seeing smoke inside the cabin, according to fire officials. The incident occurred while passengers were boarding the aircraft. An investigation into the the fire is still ongoing. Firefighters were spotted by ABC7s news helicopter placing a laptop into a tub of water at the scene of the incident. An American Airlines Boeing 737 departing Los Angeles International Airport. An American Airlines Airbus plane departing from the San Francisco International Airport had to be evacuated on July 12 after a fire broke out inside the planes cabin (stock image) (Getty Images) American Airlines confirmed in a statement that the fire was caused by an overheating laptop brought on board by a passenger. During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA), smoke was reported from inside a customers bag, the airline said in a statement. The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. The passengers who were evacuated from the plane were taken back to the terminal. The aircraft involved in the incident was an Airbus A321neo, according to Flight Aware. Firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire that broke out at a two-story four-plex Friday in midtown Sacramento. The Sacramento Fire Department said its crews responded to the blaze just after noon and found flames running between three structures at 2714 T St. The first responding crews called for a second alarm and additional resources. Several occupants were inside the structure when fire ignited outside but no one was injured in the blaze, which is under investigation, said Capt. Justin Sylvia, a spokesman for the department. Sylvia said the extra resources were required due to the age of the building and because it was in a dense urban environment. These structures downtown have whats called balloon framing. They have no fire stops halfway up the walls, according to Sylvia. So when we do get fires in the walls, they quickly can spread up to the second, third, whatever floor and into the attic space. So that was definitely a concern on this. Fire did reach the attic of the back structure closer to Tomato Alley close to three other structures including the front building. Sylvia said the close quarters made battling the blaze tougher: We have to be mindful of the construction of these buildings so we can put crews in specific locations so they dont get injured. Several units were damaged from the blaze, which crews saw from a stairwell along the walkway between properties. It got all the way to the back room, the fire, said resident Richard Lopez, who escaped the flames after he smelled smoke coming from the outside. I had all my closet, all my clothes everything in there. Two other buildings sustained minor smoke damage. Luckily, everyone was able to get out, Sylvia said. A Sacramento firefighter climbs into the window of a burned apartment building on T Street in Sacramento on Friday, July 12, 2024. A two-alarm fire burns Friday afternoon at 2714 T Street in midtown Sacramento. The Bees Daniel Hunt contributed to this story. A firefighter pilot died while tackling a Montana wildfire on Wednesday. Juliana Turchetti, 45, was killed when her plane crashed northeast of Helena during the Horse Gulch fire. The pilot died when her single-engine, water-scooping Air Tractor AT-02, hit a mountain and landed in Hauser Lake, according to the Daily Montanan. She was employed by Dauntless Air, an Idaho-based firefighting aircraft company that has state and federal contracts. Turchetti, who is from Brazil, was working in the US on a visa. She leaves beind a 17-year-old son. Juliana Turchetti, 45, died while fighting a Montana wildfire when her plane crashed into the side of a mountain (LinkedIn) We offer our sincere condolences to the family, the poor service partners and the aviation community, the local sheriffs office said. The Horse Gulch wildfire has spread to nearly 2,000 acres and is 0 per cent contained. Evacuation orders are in effect for people living from Cave Gulch to Magpie Gulch and north and south of Canyon Ferry Road. Several roads have been closed within the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Red Cross has opened an evacuation center. Authorities are working to stop the fire from spreading onto private land west and south. Aircraft were fighting the southern edge of the fire. The Horse Gulch fire in Montana has spread to 2,000 acres near Helena and is 0 percent contained (Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Taken by Helena Ranger District Law Enforcement Officer Tony Fedele) The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and will issue a preliminary report in about 30 days. The sheriffs office is also investigating the death along with the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities are working on stopping the fire from spreading onto private land west and south. On Thursday, officials expected dry conditions with erratic wind gusts. However, there was a chance of thunderstorms scheduled for the afternoon. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte and Idaho Governor Brad Little said they were both deeply saddened to hear about Turchettis 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, the statement said. GAZA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A senior Hamas commander involved in masterminding the Oct. 7 attack against Israel was killed in a recent Israeli airstrike on Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday. The IDF said in a statement that the slain, named Ayman Showadeh, was a deputy commander of Hamas' Shejaiya Battalion in the current conflict and formerly a key operative in Hamas' operations headquarters. Showadeh had directed numerous attacks against IDF troops, according to the statement. The IDF claimed that this man was among more than 150 "terrorists" eliminated in recent IDF operations in the Shejaiya neighborhood of the city. The Israeli military has targeted Shejaiya for about two weeks in the name of eliminating active "terrorists" and their infrastructure. On Wednesday, the military announced that it completed the mission in Shejaiya. Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas attack through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage. Investigations are underway after fires erupted at two different schools in the San Fernando Valley on Thursday night within just two hours of each other. The first of the fires broke out at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks. At about 9:30 p.m., firefighters encountered flames and smoke coming from an on-campus building. It took nearly 40 firefighters only about 20 minutes to knock down the blaze. Damage occurred to the roof and exterior of the building, but no injuries were reported. On Friday, damage to the roof of the building was visible. No cause was reported, and its unknown if the fire was an arson. Just two hours later in nearby North Hollywood, a second fire was reported at Oakwood School at about 11:20 p.m. Upon arrival, firefighters found white smoke emerging from the wall of a building. Responders cut through a door to gain access to the blaze, which was quickly put out. No injuries were reported and the cause remains under investigation. Officials will now determine whether the two fires are related and if they were started by arsonists. 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. SHANKSVILLE An alliance between the National Park Service and the 9/11 National Memorial Trail is helping to bring this trail, intended to connect the three sites of a terrorist attack on the United States in 2001, one step closer to being completed. The 9/11 National Memorial Trail is a 1,500-mile system of trails and roads that would link the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, and Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville. A completed trail at Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Flight 93 National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood National Memorial will connect these first three national parks to the 9/11 trail that's being developed. More: New camp leader and outdoor educator sign on at Deer Valley YMCA "This is significant because of federal legislation that was passed in October 2021 by unanimous vote of the House and Senate that started a relationship of the 9/11 Trail in partnership with the National Park Service," said Jeff McCauley, Sept. 11 National Memorial Trail Alliance president. On Oct. 13, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the legislation designating the 9/11 National Memorial Trail. "The 9/11 Trail route goes through numerous other national parks in its 1,500 miles that span six states and the District of Columbia," McCauley said. The 9/11 trail is a tribute to the 2,977 individuals who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Of those individuals, 441 were police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel who perished trying to help others, said Stephen Clark, superintendent of National Parks of Western Pennsylvania, at a press conference held last week at the Flight 93 National Memorial. The trail is the dream of David Brickley, founder and president emeritus of the Sept. 11 National Memorial Trail Alliance. He said at the press conference that he wanted to find a way to merge trails and greenways with the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001. A board and an alliance were formed. Brickley said this trail is an example of a partnership working together. McCauley, who is responsible for executing the strategic plan for the development of the 9/11 National Memorial Trail, works with public and private organizations to ensure the trail construction moves forward. He said at the press conference that the trail of remembrance honors those who gave their all for freedom on Sept. 11, 2001, but it can also be a catalyst for promoting tourism, economic development, healthy bodies and minds, and cultural, historical and educational opportunities for generations to come. "Though the 9/11 Trail route is usable now in western Pennsylvania between the parks, work continues to make it an off-road trail instead of utilizing the local roads," McCauley said. "The alliance continues to work to develop a route of off-road and segregated trails as much as possible for the safest route possible. Also, segregated trails tend to have higher usership. We want to make that as much of a reality as possible." The connecting trails Doug Bosley, chief of interpretation for the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site and Johnstown Flood National Memorial, was instrumental in completing the Path of the Flood Trail, which is now part of the 9/11 National Memorial Trail. The historic Path of the Flood Trail takes users from the breached South Fork Dam, where the 1889 Johnstown Flood began, to the Stone Bridge in Johnstown, where the floodwaters broke and 2,209 people perished. The trail has trail-side markers that tell the story of the flood and help users visualize the scene within the Little Conemaugh River valley. More: Berlin brewery crafts a new pale ale to help raise funds for cancer group The Allegheny Portage Railroad park features the inclined plane railway built in the 1830s to carry canal boats from one side to the other. It was the first railroad over the Allegheny Mountains and was used to reduce travel across Pennsylvania, Bosley said at the press conference. The Staple Bend Tunnel Trail was finished in 2001 and includes the first railroad tunnel in the U.S. The bicycle section of Incline 6 to 10 Trail was finished 15 years ago. Summit Level Trail is the final piece of the 9/11 trail at the railroad site park. Bosley said he is looking forward to sharing the stories with 9/11 trail users who will now have access to the parks. The Flight 93 National Memorial at 6424 Lincoln Highway, Stoystown, was built to commemorate the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which was one of four aircraft hijacked during the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Garrett to Berlin trail Somerset County Commissioner Brian Fochtman said at the press conference that since a connecting trail was first conceived in 2010, the county matched a $50,000 DCNR grant for a feasibility study in 2012. In 2014, Berlin supported using an abandoned railroad connection from the Great Allegheny Passage trailhead in Garrett to Berlin. CSX donated 130 acres of the abandoned railroad corridor in 2015. In 2017, an additional $530,000 in funding was acquired for the Garrett to Flight 93 National Memorial connection. More: Meyersdale teen, instructor build flag to hang in Homeland Security Newark office In 2020, ground was broken for a section connecting the 9/11 trail and the GAP. The new segment begins the trails intended 20-mile connection from the Great Allegheny Passage to the Flight 93 National Memorial. The new 1.5-mile portion of the trail splits off from the Great Allegheny Passage at the Garrett trailhead, traverses the town, and uses the former CSX railroad corridor. The cost of this segment is $864,000, which includes design, engineering, permits, and construction. Fochtman said the county continues to pursue grants to complete the trail between Garrett and Berlin. Madolin Edwards has been a journalist at the Daily American for 37 years, covering school boards, borough councils, sports and new stories. She was the Home and Family editor for 20 years, and was the primary editor and reporter for a variety of special projects, features and tabs. Contact the Daily American reporters at news@dailyamerican.com. This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Alignment kicks off start of 9/11 trail connection in Somerset area First American to get COVID vaccine to release book First American to get COVID vaccine to release book NEW YORK (PIX11) Sandra Lindsay is best known as the first American to get the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020. The nurse was on the front lines of the pandemic and became a symbol of hope. The Jamaican immigrant said that becoming the leader she is today was not an easy journey. Its one of the many stories she talks about in her book First in Line. Watch the video player for more on 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 PIX11. First lady to lead US delegation to Paris Olympics opening ceremony US First Lady Jill Biden speaks during the press launch for the Spring Costume Institute exhibition "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Christina Horsten/dpa US First Lady Jill Biden, the wife of US President Joe Biden, will lead the country's delegation at the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, the White House said on Friday. Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, will head the United States delegation for the closing ceremony on August 11. The president has also named the delegations for the opening and closing ceremonies of the subsequent Paralympics, the White House announced. The delegation to the Paralympics opening ceremony on August 28 will be led by US Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and former US Army pilot who has used a wheelchair since losing both legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra will lead the US delegation to the Paralympics closing ceremony on September 8. BENTON HARBOR To say a proposal to recommission a nuclear power plant in southwest Michigan is audacious could be selling it short should the Palisades plant be brought back online, it would be the first nuclear-powered facility in the U.S. scheduled for decommissioning ever to become operational again. The company trying to get Palisades operational, Holtec International, celebrated in March when it secured a $1.5 billion conditional loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. The federal funding is seen as a crucial get toward Palisades reopening. At the event, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm touted the 800-megawatt plants reopening as both a boon for the local economy and an instrumental tool for clean energy generation, since nuclear energy generation doesnt produce the carbon emissions that gas- and coal-fired power plants do. But before Palisades can resume energy generation, Holtec must secure regulatory approval. And despite support from a swath of state and local government officials, there are some residents of the communities near the plant who want the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) not to skip any steps as it considers Holtecs application, telling agency staff Thursday they have concerns about the environmental and safety ramifications of reopening the plant. A sign welcomes people to the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert Township. The plant closed for decommissioning in May 2022, but efforts to restart the plant are ongoing. NRC staff held an environmental scoping meeting Thursday in Benton Harbor, about a 20-minute drive from the Palisades plant in Covert Township. The meeting was among the first steps of the NRC's environmental review, where agency staff will evaluate the potential effect of the plants recommissioning on a number of areas, among them the local surface water, groundwater and air quality. As a whole, we have to look at the benefits and adverse effects of the project, said Laura Willingham, an environmental project manager at the NRC. The NRC's aim is to have the environmental review finalized in a year, and then the NRC will take it into account alongside a safety review before deciding whether to give Holtec a license to operate Palisades. At the meeting, attended by a few dozen people, speakers were split among support and trepidation for the plants reopening. Some, like Darby Fencer of nearby Kalamazoo County, echoed comments about the need for cleaner energy generation in the wake of climate change. It is time to embrace the clean option, nuclear energy and the reopening of Palisades, Fencer said. A slew of local government officials, including from Covert Township and Van Buren County, where the plant is located, spoke in favor of its recommissioning. Others, however, brought up safety concerns surrounding the plants potential restart. When it closed, Palisades was one of the oldest operating nuclear plants in the country, having first been licensed in 1971. Theres no road map for this because youve never done it, said Cindy Cordelle, a resident of the lakeshore Palisades Park community in Covert Township. When you do this road map, lets make sure its at least as critical as a plant getting recertified. The age of the Palisades plant also caused skepticism among some residents Tom Flynn, another Palisades Park resident, said the facilitys previous owner managed the final years of the plant with decommissioning in mind. Theres no way this plant should restart if it doesnt meet the current safety standards, Flynn said. Palisades ceased generating power in May 2022, a bit more than a week earlier than scheduled, after its previous owner Entergy Corp. reported issues with a control rod drive seal. Control rods are used to control the speed of the reactions that generate nuclear fission, and in turn nuclear energy. The devices are considered imperative to reactor safety, according to the Energy Education project at the University of Calgary. Palisades operated in the NRCs highest safety category when it was up and running and adheres to the federal safety standards set by the agency, Holtec officials note. One speaker raised concern over the "embrittlement" of the nuclear fuel container at Palisades, but an agency spokesperson said the NRC was satisfied the embrittlement was not a safety concern when the plant was operational. Should the plant receive a license to generate power again, the spokesperson said the NRC will continue to evaluate the embrittlement. "All the available evidence we have suggests that any U.S. reactor can continue to safely operate at least 60 years, with the issue of the reactor vessel," NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell told the Free Press. The NRC most recently renewed Palisades license in 2007, that license would have been good through 2031 had the plant not been decommissioned and had its fuel removed. Holtec bought the plant from Entergy in 2022 with the intent to decommission Palisades, but asked the NRC last year if it could resume power generation. Along with the federal support, the state earmarked $150 million for Palisades reopening in its fiscal year 2024 budget. Holtec also aims to construct two new small modular reactors by 2030, doubling the energy generation capacity at Palisades. That plan is also subject to regulatory approval. Clean energy generation is touted as a benefit of nuclear power, but some environmentalists debate its benefits. The waste created by nuclear generation is hazardous, and nuclear power plants are expensive to build and operate, according to the Institute for Progress, a Washington-based think tank. And although the nuclear fission that creates energy does not create carbon emissions, fossil fuels are used to mine, refine and transport uranium needed for energy generation. The NRC has set a July 29 deadline for members of the public to submit comments. Comments can be emailed to PalisadesRestartEnvironmental@nrc.gov, and submitted online at regulations.gov, at docket ID NRC-2024-0076. Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Review of environmental impact begins in try to revive Palisades plant Photograph of an African-American man with a camera looking at the skeletons of iron beds which rise above the ashes of a burned out block after the Tulsa Race Massacre, June 1, 1921. Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society Archeologists have identified the first of dozens of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victims exhumed from mass graves at Oaklawn Cemetery through DNA genealogy, city officials announced Friday. The identification is a man named C.L. Daniel who was a Black man in his 20s and a World War I U.S. Army Veteran, according to a press release from the city of Tulsa. It's the first identification since a citizen's committee started work five years ago to exhume, identify, and reconnect descendants of those killed during the massacre and buried in unmarked graves, said Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum. Daniel's name is the first victim of the massacre to be revealed outside of those previously noted in the Oklahoma Commission's 2001 Report, according to a press release. Not everything that is faced can be changed, Tulsa Race Massacre Descendant Brenda Nails-Alford said. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. Just keep living, and youll understand. The City of Tulsa is working to organize a proper burial for Daniel, which depends on the wishes of the next of kin, according to the release. Daniel is still in the spot where he was found in Oaklawn Cemetery. First victim identified as WWI veteran C. L. Daniel Records from the National Archives were used to confirm Daniel's connection to the Tulsa Race Massacre, which contained a letter from Daniel's family attorney written to the U.S. Veterans Administration on behalf of his mother regarding his survivor benefits, according to the release. The city of Tulsa reported that the letter states: C. L. was killed in a race riot in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921. Letters from Daniel revealed that he was in Utah in February 1921 trying to find a job and a way back home to his mother in Georgia. The city of Tulsa reported that it's unclear why he was in Tulsa, but notes from his mother's attorney and a U.S. Congressman from Georgia confirm he died that same year. The city reported that Daniel is connected to Burial 3, or the "Original 18" area. Through DNA, forensic researchers discovered three brothers around the time of the massacre. Black WWI veterans weren't exempt from Jim Crow-era racism Daniel along with other Black veterans of World War I faced segregation, racism and inequality upon returning home from combat, according to a report from the Equal Justice Initiative. Black veterans returning home held strong determination to continue fighting for freedoms, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, but were met with animosity. In 1919, the "Red Summer" began with 25 anti-Black riots in major U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Omaha, and Tulsa. In a 1919 report, Dr. George Edmund Haynes wrote that persistent mob mentality among white men through Red Summer fueled the commitment to self-defense among Black men emboldened by war service. The Equal Justice Initiative reported that Black veterans were special targets of racism, facing discriminatory veterans benefits, denied medical care and racial violence. Tulsa's 1921 Graves Investigation In 2018, Bynum announced that the city of Tulsa would reexamine the potential of graves from the race massacre as identified in the 2001 state-commissioned report, according to the city of Tulsa. At that time, four sites were identified in the citys examination: Oaklawn Cemetery, Newblock Park, another area near Newblock Park and Rolling Oaks Memorial Gardens, formerly Booker T. Washington Cemetery. A Public Oversight Committee was established to "ensure transparency and community engagement throughout the investigation," according to the city's website. The committee includes descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre and leaders in Tulsa's Black community, and was created to weigh in on "key decisions" throughout the investigation. The city also gathered a team of historians and scholars to help provide historical context for the effort and to aid in the documentation of the work. Researchers and burial oversight committee member Brenda Alford carry the first set of remains exhumed from the latest dig site in Oaklawn Cemetery to an onsite lab for further examination in Tulsa This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: First victim of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre identified as WWI veteran My first visit to Japan left me in culture shock, but I wish the US would adopt some of its norms line to get on a subway in Tokyo line to get on a subway in Tokyo I saw many people waiting in line to board the subway in Japan. Anna Haines In Japan, I saw how the local culture and etiquette are different from what I'm used to in the US. With self-cleaning toilets and an absence of trash, Japan models an impressive level of cleanliness. The public toilets and hotel freebies in Japan were also far superior to what I've seen in the US. As soon as I arrived in Tokyo to a near-silent Narita Airport, I knew I was in for a bit of culture shock. Already, the Japanese culture felt far different from what I'm used to in the United States: Most US airports are incredibly noisy. As I left, I was surprised again when I got into a taxi on the right side of the car. I quickly learned from the driver's panicked reaction that I was apparently supposed to enter from the left. The next few days were a crash course in learning the local etiquette. Although I'm considered pretty soft-spoken back home, in Japan, I felt too assertive and found myself quieting my voice and being more gentle in my body language to adapt to my surroundings. I found myself appreciating Japan's politeness, extreme cleanliness, and order, whether I was lining up to board the subway or using the immaculate public bathrooms. The harsh return to loud and chaotic New York City made me miss many of the norms I witnessed on my trip. Here are some I wish the US would adopt. The public bathrooms are impressively clean, with fancy toilets Compared to the public bathrooms in the US, Japanese public bathrooms feel like they belong in a five-star hotel. Each one I encountered in Japan looked spotlessly clean, and the toilets were more technologically advanced than anything I've seen back home. They don't just flush automatically when you're finished they can also sense when you're approaching and lift the lid accordingly. Almost all have multi-functional, electronic bidets. Some have heated seats, and many are self-cleaning. Many hotels provide complimentary pajamas, slippers, and toiletries At some hotels in Japan I had access to as many toiletries as I needed. Anna Haines I returned home from Japan with a full tube of toothpaste because I barely touched my toiletry bag during my trip. Every hotel in Japan I stayed at had an impressive toiletry kit that included a toothbrush, toothpaste, hair brush, and single-use size packets of facial cleanser and moisturizer often from a luxury skincare brand. I've never gotten freebies on this scale at nice hotels in the US, where the standard is just one tiny bottle each of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. Some toiletries in Japan also came nicely packaged. Anna Haines In Japan, I'd usually also find a set of pajamas and slippers in the closet for guests to use. At some of the finer hotels I stayed in, they were from designer names. The Derek Rose set I wore at The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka was so silky I considered buying them. The complimentary items made traveling more efficient since I barely had to unpack at each new hotel I stayed in. The airports often have separate slippers for walking through security Airport slippers were a nice touch. Anna Haines As someone who awkwardly tip-toes through security because I'm grossed out by walking on the airport floor, I was thrilled to find slippers available to borrow at several airports throughout the country. In Japan, it's customary to remove your shoes before entering many indoor spaces. I loved that this extended beyond the airport to hotels, spas, and sometimes restaurants, where I'd often have to leave my outdoor shoes at the door. It helped indoor spaces feel even cleaner, especially on rainy days when shoes can get wet or muddy. There are hardly any public trash bins, yet the streets are spotless Every time I had a receipt I wanted to toss, I faced the impossible task of finding somewhere to throw it out. Even in big cities like Tokyo, garbage bins are almost completely absent from public spaces. I thought this would incentivize people to litter, but it actually seemed to have the opposite effect. A local told me Japanese residents often just hold onto their trash until they can dispose of it at home. Public spaces are incredibly quiet, creating a calm atmosphere Even shopping malls in Japan felt pretty quiet. Anna Haines In Japan, it's the norm for people to keep to themselves in public. I first noticed it at the airport, where I saw seats separated by small walls instead of armrests, creating semi-closed pods for travelers. It was a dream for introverts like me. Whether I was at the airport, on the train, or even a busy shopping mall, my surroundings were quiet so quiet, I often thought I had my headphones in when I didn't. In New York City, I'm used to hearing strangers' full conversations or music blasting from their headphones. In Japan, I rarely even heard someone on their phone and if people were traveling together, they were silent or speaking quietly. As a result, public spaces in Japan maintain an air of tranquility that feels like a novelty compared to many public spaces in the United States. Read the original article on Business Insider Five days into Sean Mullins' rape trial, he pleads guilty to two counts of sexual battery Five days into his trial, Sean Mullins pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery. The 49-year-old also had been charged with two counts of rape. In exchange for his plea Friday, the state dismissed those counts. Richland County Common Pleas Judge Brent Robinson went ahead and sentenced Mullins to five years in prison, giving him the maximum on each count and making them run concurrently. The offenses involved a teenage boy and occurred the weekend of Dec. 6-8, 2019, at a Mansfield hotel. Precipitating the plea was a question of the credibility of one of the defense witnesses. Sean Mullins, right, confers with defense attorney Jon Rion during his trial Friday afternoon in Richland County Common Pleas Court. Mullins pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual battery. Jen Hock, a teacher in Indiana, testified on Mullins' behalf. She called him her best friend. As a teacher, she said she is a mandated reporter, meaning she has to report to authorities any signs of child abuse. Hock said if she did not make such a disclosure, she could be charged with a misdemeanor and lose her license. Mullins faces similar charges in Indiana In addition to the local case, Mullins faces three counts of sexual conduct with a minor in St. Joseph County, Indiana, according to multiple media accounts. Assistant Prosecutor Olivia Boyer jumped on the reference to Hock being a mandated reporter. Outside the jury's presence, Boyer appealed to Robinson, saying the defense crossed the line. "I'm allowed to attack that," she told the judge. Defense attorney Jon Rion, of Dayton, disagreed. "I don't think a line's been crossed," he said. "They're trying to find a clever way to get into other investigations. She wants to get into this other case desperately to bolster her case." In the Indiana case, Mullins is charged with alleged conduct while reportedly sharing a bed with a 14-year-old boy. Hock told an investigator she was aware of the allegations but didn't believe the teen. "Her judgment is not sound," Boyer said. "That calls into question her compliance in her duty to be a mandated reporter." Rion said the "cleanest way" to handle the situation was to strike the question and strike Hock's answer about being a mandated reporter. "The jury heard it," Boyer protested. "What do I do with that?" Before taking a break, a visibly upset Robinson told the defense, "You guys let it in. It comes in." Attorneys talk plea deal following lunch break When court resumed in the afternoon and outside the jury's presence, the two sides discussed a plea deal. "This avoids an appeal," Boyer said. After defense counsel talked to Mullins at length, the defendant entered the courtroom but seemed reluctant to sign the guilty plea. "Jon, I'm about to withdraw my offer," a frustrated Boyer told the defense attorney. Rion asked the judge if the concurrent sentence agreement would be binding. "If I'm agreeing to it, I'm going to do it. My word is my bond," Robinson said. While Robinson asked Mullins questions related to his plea, the defendant's mother cried, leaning her head against the chair in front of her. Hock comforted the woman. Mullins wiped his nose with a tissue before addressing Robinson. "Do you understand what you're accused of doing?" the judge asked Mullins. Before answering, Mullins paused, then answered quietly, "Yes, your honor." Robinson asked if each party wanted to address the court before he imposed sentence. "I don't really know what to say," said Rion, who tried the case with co-counsel Joshua Moudy. "Mr. Mullins, outside of this accusation, is considered a good person. He had a good job, no prior record." Jean Rhoten, Mullins' aunt, spoke on his behalf. "I know what his character is like, and I will always believe in him. I will always pray for him," she said. "I know who he is." Sentencing was delayed to allow the victim to attend. He reportedly had been at work. Victim lashes out against Mullins in court statement The teen, now 18, was brief in his comments. "I will always and forever hate Sean Mullins," he said. "That's all." Boyer said Mullins refused to accept responsibility until the evidence proved to be against him. The assistant prosecutor said Mullins put the victim through the trauma of testifying and he systematically sexually abused the teen. "He wants everyone to believe he's a good person," Boyer said. Robinson declared Mullins a Tier III sex offender, meaning he has to register with the county sheriff where he lives every 90 days for life, upon his release from prison. After the hearing, Boyer talked about the swing in the case, the testimony of Hock. "They presented that witness as she was an individual who was a mandated reporter," the assistant prosecutor said. "I am able to call into question her judgment in other incidents where a reasonable person would say, 'Hey, I'm a mandated reporter. I should probably look into this or let somebody else know.''' Boyer said Mullins' case in Indiana could have been brought up to the jury to impeach Hock's credibility. Boyer said she was happy with the resolution to the case. "I'm happy the victim was able to get justice," the assistant prosecutor said. "He deserves it." mcaudill@gannett.com 419-521-7219 X: @MarkCau32059251 This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Sean Mullins pleads guilty to 2 counts of sexual battery; gets 5 years There was an active police presence at the Kentucky Home Life Building in downtown Louisville July 12. Five people were evacuated Friday from a vacant building in downtown Louisville following emergency orders from the Louisville Codes and Regulations Department, Louisville Metro Police Department and Louisville Fire. Richard Price, director of Codes and Regulations, said those evacuated were trespassing inside the approximately 20-story Kentucky Home Life Building on Fifth Street, located across from Metro Hall. He believes more people had left the building as officials arrived. "We have LMPD in the process of removing those individuals safely and compassionately so we can get in to secure all entrances to keep this building secure," Price said Friday, before everyone had been evacuated. Over the last few weeks, Price said the city had received reports of frequent theft from the building, including people taking copper and wiring for internet access. The building was purchased in 2021 by KHLB Properties with plans to redevelop it into a mixed-use space including, "hotel, urban loft apartments and retail," The Courier Journal previously reported. Thefts at the building impacted Katrina Thomas, who works at a nearby law firm. The phones and internet went down in her building on July 1, she said, but were restored by July 3. A lawyer at the firm, Jim Murphy, said on another day a man began using a ladder in an attempt to come over to their building from the Kentucky Home Life Building. It broke one of their windows, and the man fled. Metro Councilman Jecorey Arthur, who represents the district where the Kentucky Home Life Building is located, said he hopes the people from the building will receive wrap-around services. Though officials did not directly say people in the building were homeless, members of the city's Homeless Services Division were on site during the evacuation. "Homelessness is a policy choice," Arthur said. "We have a housing crisis in our city, in our commonwealth and in our country that forces people into desperation, and sometimes that desperation is squatting in vacant or abandoned property. Sometimes that desperation is crime to feed themselves or simply to survive and just trying to find a place to just rest. And this was all preventable." The evacuation comes just days before the Safer Kentucky Act goes into effect, which will criminalize street camping. Emily Martin, the communications assistant for Codes and Regulations, said the Homeless Services Division "provided referrals to the VA and Addiction Recovery Centers" to the five individuals removed from the building. Interim Police Chief Paul Humphrey told The Courier Journal that "(LMPD) didn't lock anybody up" during the evacuation. The building will be boarded up, Price said. Reach reporter Eleanor McCrary at EMcCrary@courier-journal.com or at @ellie_mccrary on X, formerly known as Twitter. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville issues emergency evacuation of vacant downtown building Fatima Latifova As part of the programme For life without thalassemia, initiated by the First Vice President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Mehriban Aliyeva, a voluntary blood donation campaign was organised in one of the military units of the Air Force, Azernews reports. The military units personnel took part in the campaign aimed at creating a blood reserve for children suffering from thalassemia, haemophilia, and leukaemia. During the campaign, donors gave blood after a medical examination conducted by the medical staff of the special medical brigade of the Central Blood Bank of the National Centre of Haematology and Transfusion. It should be noted that the collected blood supply, after verification and certification, will be transferred to the Republican Thalassemia Centre. SANAA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi group warned Saudi Arabia on Friday of potential attacks if the Saudi-backed Yemeni government proceeds with suspending banks in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the group is prepared for a "legitimate response" to what it described as Saudi "hostile activities," according to Houthi-run al-Masirah TV. The warning came after Sanaa-based banks disregarded the government-imposed deadline for them to relocate to Aden, a port city under the government's control. Earlier this week, Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said Saudi Arabia is pushing the Yemeni government to move against the banks in Sanaa, accusing the United States and Israel of standing behind the Saudi attempts. The Houthi leader threatened to target banks in Riyadh if "banks in Sanaa are targeted." However, neither the U.S. nor Saudi Arabia has made comments on the Houthi allegations. Rasheed al-Haddad, member of the Houthi higher economic council, told Xinhua exclusively that banks in Sanaa are currently operating but face imminent shutdown of both international and internal bank wire services. On Wednesday, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg sent a letter to the Yemeni government, urging it to delay measures against those banks until August to facilitate peace talks. On April 2, the government-run Central Bank of Yemen ordered all banks in Sanaa to move their headquarters to Aden within 60 days, threatening legal action against non-compliant firms. Aden was declared the temporary capital of Yemen by former President Hadi in 2015 after the government was forced out of Sanaa by the Houthis during the civil war. The relocation order is part of the government's escalating financial measures aimed at undermining the Houthis' control over state institutions and the economy. Also on Friday, Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council issued a warning to the Houthi group against resuming military hostilities and undermining peace efforts. In a stance against potential Houthi escalation, the council cautioned the group against reverting to military action, saying it would "double the suffering and destroy the remaining components of life and scarce sources of livelihood for the Yemeni people." The council urged the Houthis not to use military threats to deflect from internal pressures and economic priorities. Meanwhile, it also expressed its support for ongoing peace initiatives led by Saudi Arabia and Oman, while simultaneously affirming "the readiness of Yemen's armed forces to counter any hostile Houthi actions." Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi group seized control of much of northern Yemen, forcing the government out of the capital Sanaa. The war has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of famine. President Biden held a critical news conference at NATOs Washington summit on Thursday evening as the fate of his reelection campaign hangs in the balance. The event came exactly two weeks after the disastrous debate performance in Atlanta that sent Democrats into a frenzy of panic and prompted a number of lawmakers to urge the president to stand aside. Its a crisis that Biden has not yet weathered. The news conference was an hourlong walk on a high wire. Advisers hoped Biden would reassure his party with a performance showing him in command on the world stage. Another collapse would surely have spelt the end of his campaign. In the end, the news conference didnt hit either of those extremes. Here were the biggest takeaways. One gaffe could erase Bidens stronger moments The news conference in its entirety was roughly what everyone has come to expect of Biden on such occasions at least prior to the June 27 debate debacle. The president showed his experience but also his age; spoke with force at times and trailed off at others; and reminded people of his familiarity with global affairs but also just how long he has been in public life. He referenced, as he often does, meeting then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the 1970s. But the danger for Biden is that the overall event could get overshadowed by one embarrassing gaffe. In his first response in the question-and-answer session, Biden said Vice President Trump when he clearly meant to say Vice President Harris. The moment instantly went viral. And it was made worse for Biden because, at an earlier event Thursday, he had referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin before correcting himself. He did not correct himself after saying Vice President Trump. The misstep was instantly seized on by former President Trumps social media account, with the former president sarcastically writing Great job, Joe! Soon afterward, a post appeared on Bidens official X account shooting back, Yes, I know the difference [between Trump and Harris]. Ones a prosecutor and the others a felon. The danger for Biden is plainly that the mistake, in combination with the Putin moment, unravels the image of competency he was so eager to project. Biden neither erased Democrats fears nor fell apart The prognosis on Bidens chances has varied day by day. Early this week, it appeared that a belated fight-back from Team Biden had begun to stabilize his position. The tide was then reversed by lukewarm comments in an MSNBC interview from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); Sen. Michael Bennets (D-Colo.) prediction on CNN that Biden would lose; and the intervention of Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who became the first sitting Democratic senator to publicly call on Biden to step down. There was nothing in the news conference that looked likely to either definitively rescue Biden or, conversely, seal his fate. His next big event is an NBC News interview set for Monday. How the party will move between now and then is anybodys guess. There are rumors that more Democrats could come out against Biden now that the NATO summit is over. Roughly at the same time as the news conference closed, CNN reported that Pelosi and former President Obama had been consulting with each other over what to do about Biden amid what they reportedly see as his receding chances of winning reelection. The president praised his vice president If Biden were to be forced out of the 2024 race, theres no doubt that Harris would be the favorite to replace him. That left the president in the awkward position of having to field questions probing the idea that she would be a more formidable opponent for Trump. Biden assiduously praised Harris. From the very beginning, I made no bones about it: She is qualified to be president, he said at one point. The praise for Harris was politically sensible, given that Biden wants to keep her on his side, and her support has proven valuable for him over the past two weeks. On the other hand, the vigor of his backing for her doesnt exactly talk Democrats out of the idea that they might be better off with her as their standard-bearer. Biden doesnt sound like he is going anywhere Biden has been resolute in insisting that he will not quit the race. Of course, he doesnt have much choice other than to bow out suddenly and fully. He cant be seen to be pondering his own weaknesses too much if he wants to cling on to viability. Still, he stuck to his guns Thursday. Im just going to keep moving, he said. He also contended that the election campaign had a long way to go, and he played on general distrust of polling. That idea of grinding on is at least consistent with his self-image as the scrappy Scranton Joe though some Democrats worry he might be walking the part off a cliff. Biden did acknowledge that he should pace himself. But asked if he would consider quitting the race if his team showed him data demonstrating that Harris would do better against Trump, Biden replied, No, unless they came back and said, Theres no way you can win. No polls say that, he insisted. Still, some significant figures in Democratic politics feel he is viewing the situation through rose-tinted glasses. If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Bidens team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim, former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on social media. An unpleasant surprise shows Bidens challenges remain Biden fared adequately in the press conference, but his challenges were underscored moments after it ended. Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.) became the 15th House Democrat to publicly call for the president to quit the race. Himes praised Bidens lifetime of public service. But he added that Democrats needed the strongest candidate possible for an election that might define the future of American democracy. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, Himes added. Soon afterward, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) made a similar call. Himes and Sorensens voices alone wont be decisive, of course. But their dissent was a reminder that Biden faces a real and present danger of party support leaking away, leaving his position untenable. 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 Hill) President Biden held a critical news conference at NATOs Washington summit on Thursday evening as the fate of his reelection campaign hangs in the balance. The event came exactly two weeks after the disastrous debate performance in Atlanta that sent Democrats into a frenzy of panic and prompted a number of lawmakers to urge the president to stand aside. Its a crisis that Biden has not yet weathered. The news conference was an hour-long walk on a high wire. President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference Thursday July 11, 2024, on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Advisers hoped Biden would reassure his party with a performance showing him in command on the world stage. Another collapse would surely have spelt the end of his campaign. In the end, the news conference didnt hit either of those extremes. Here were the biggest takeaways. One gaffe could erase Bidens stronger moments The news conference in its entirety was roughly what everyone has come to expect of Biden on such occasions at least prior to the June 27 debate debacle. The president showed his experience but also his age; spoke with force at times and trailed off at others; and reminded people of his familiarity with global affairs but also just how long he has been in public life. He referenced, as he often does, meeting then-Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in the 1970s. But the danger for Biden is that the overall event could get overshadowed by one embarrassing gaffe. In his first response in the question-and-answer session, Biden said Vice President Trump when he clearly meant to say Vice President Harris. The moment instantly went viral. And it was made worse for Biden because, at an earlier event on Thursday, he had referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin before correcting himself. He did not correct himself after saying Vice President Trump. The misstep was instantly seized on by former President Trumps social media account, with the former president sarcastically writing Great job, Joe! Soon afterward, a post appeared on Bidens official X account shooting back: Yes, I know the difference [between Trump and Harris]. Ones a prosecutor and the others a felon. The danger for Biden is plainly that the mistake, in combination with the Putin moment, unravels the image of competency he was so eager to project. Biden neither erased Democrats fears nor fell apart The prognosis on Bidens chances has varied day by day. Early this week, it appeared that a belated fight-back from Team Biden had begun to stabilize his position. The tide was then reversed by lukewarm comments in an MSNBC interview from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); Sen. Michael Bennets (D-Colo.) prediction on CNN that Biden would lose; and the intervention of Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who became the first sitting Democratic senator to publicly call on Biden to step down. There was nothing in the news conference that looked likely to either definitively rescue Biden or, conversely, seal his fate. His next big event is an NBC News interview set for Monday. How the party will move between now and then is anybodys guess. There are rumors that more Democrats could come out against Biden now that the NATO summit is over. Roughly at the same time as the news conference closed, CNN reported that Pelosi and former President Obama had been consulting with each other over what to do about Biden amid what they reportedly see as his receding chances of winning reelection. The president praised his vice president If Biden were to be forced out of the 2024 race, theres no doubt that Harris would be the favorite to replace him. That left the president in the awkward position of having to field questions probing the idea that she would be a more formidable opponent for Trump. Biden assiduously praised Harris. From the very beginning, I made no bones about it: She is qualified to be president, he said at one point. The praise for Harris was politically sensible, given that Biden wants to keep her on his side, and her support has proven valuable for him over the past two weeks. On the other hand, the vigor of his backing for her doesnt exactly talk Democrats out of the idea that they might be better off with her as their standard-bearer. Biden doesnt sound like he is going anywhere Biden has been resolute in insisting that he will not quit the race. Of course, he doesnt have much choice other than to bow out suddenly and fully. He cant be seen to be pondering his own weaknesses too much if he wants to cling on to viability. Still, he stuck to his guns on Thursday. Im just going to keep moving, he said. He also contended that the election campaign had a long way to go, and played on general distrust of polling. That idea of grinding on is at least consistent with his self-image as the scrappy Scranton Joe though some Democrats worry he might be walking the part off a cliff. Biden did acknowledge that he should pace himself. But asked if he would consider quitting the race if his team showed him data demonstrating that Harris would do better against Trump, Biden replied, No, unless they came back and said, Theres no way you can win. No polls say that, he insisted. Still, some significant figures in Democratic politics feel he is viewing the situation through rose-tinted glasses. If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Bidens team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim, former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on social media. An unpleasant surprise shows Bidens challenges remain Biden fared adequately in the press conference but his challenges were underscored moments after it ended. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Ct.) became the 15th House Democrat to publicly call for the president to quit the race. Himes praised Bidens lifetime of public service. But he added that Democrats needed the strongest candidate possible for an election that might define the future of American democracy. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, Himes added. Soon afterward, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.) made a similar call. Himes and Sorensens voices alone wont be decisive, of course. But their dissent was a reminder that Biden faces a real and present danger of party support leaking away, leaving his position untenable. 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. Grier was arrested in May after two bullets were found in her carry-on bag at Howard Hamilton International Airport FOX 35 Orlando/YouTube Sharitta Grier Sharitta Grier has returned home following her May arrest in Turks and Caicos for having ammunition in her bag when traveling back to the U.S. Grier returned home to Florida on Thursday, July 11, after being given a 23-week suspended sentence and fined $1,500, per CBS News. According to the outlet, the mother and grandmother was away for a surprise Mother's Day vacation with her daughter when airport security at Howard Hamilton International Airport found two bullets in her carry-on bag. She pleaded guilty to one count of possession of ammunition, ABC News reported. Grier was released on $15,000 bail following her arrest, but she was ordered to remain on the island until her case had been completed. Grier returned to Orlando International Airport on Thursday evening, where she was greeted by family and friends, per ABC7 Los Angeles. "I'm just excited about everything, ready to get back home to my family and my grandkids," Grier said after her sentencing hearing on Thursday, per CBS News. "It's been a long time coming, but, you know, God is still good. I've seen the hand of God move during this whole journey, so I'm satisfied," she added. Grier previously told Orlando ABC affiliate WFTV that she didn't realize she had the ammunition in her luggage and was told the "serious" charge and could see her be handed a mandatory 12-year prison sentence. When asked how the bullets wound up in her duffle bag, she said that she stores the ammunition away from her grandchildren when they visit and it must have somehow fallen into her luggage when moving items around. "Only thing that I can think of was me putting it up in the top of my closet, the ammunition fell out the box inside of the, out the box inside of the suitcase, I'm gonna say carry-on and fell up under that flap in the carry-on," she previously recalled, per CBS News. 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 was no way for me to see it. I couldn't just open the bag and see it in the bottom," she added. "I would have to pull that whole flap out the bottom of that suitcase to see it. It was impossible for me to see it, hear it or anything in that bag." Getty Turks & Caicos Related: Another American Arrested in Turks and Caicos for Allegedly Having Ammunition, Could Face 12 Years The mother and grandmother added that she found the process and possibility of a prison sentence "mentally draining," but was hopeful that she would not be given any jail time. Grier is one of several Americans to have been arrested for carrying ammunition in their bag while returning from the destination since February. Tyler Wenrich was arrested in April for bringing hunting ammo to the island and returned home to Virginia in May, PEOPLE previously reported. Bryan Hagerich was arrested in February after ammunition was found in his luggage. He was held in Turks and Caicos for three months before being released in May upon his court case's completion. Ryan and Valerie Watson were also detained in April for after hunting ammunition was found in Ryan's luggage. Valerie's charges were dropped two weeks later and she was able to return home to Oklahoma, with Ryan later returning in late June, per Fox News. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Severe flash floods closed roads in Ruidoso after storms dumped rain into the burn scar of the still burning South Fork and Salt fires. The National Weather Service is warning of continued flood risk the weekend beginning July 12, 2024. (Photo courtesy of City of Ruidoso) Since June 29, the National Weather Service has received reports of 41 flash flood events that stranded drivers, carried houses and destroyed bridges, among other destruction in southeast New Mexico. The latest such report was just past 11 p.m. on July 10, when a house was pushed 10 feet in a flash flood near downtown Ruidoso. A gas leak and water line break ensued, according to the National Weather Service. In the two days since then, no rain has fallen, granting a short reprieve. But forecasters are calling on all residents in and around the South Fork and Salt fire burn scars to beware of additional rain forecast over the weekend, particularly in the afternoon and evenings. It is critically important for individuals in these sensitive areas to remain weather-aware, have multiple avenues to receive NWS warnings, and be prepared to take appropriate action to seek higher ground if a warning is issued, according to a NWS weekend forecast issued Thursday afternoon. The risk of flash flooding carries at least through the weekend. Forecasters warned that even a modest thunderstorm could mean destructive flooding and debris flows. Remember, it only takes one thunderstorm to make it a dangerous situation on wildfire burn scars, meteorologists warned. Rain falling on burned scars doesnt absorb as well into the soil, and there is less vegetation to hold back floods and debris flows. As a result, any rainfall can quickly become a major flash flood, forecasters said. The South Fork Fire began June 17 and burned nearly 18,000 acres. As of the latest estimates earlier this month, it was 87% contained. The Salt Fire a few miles south of there started the same day, burning nearly 8,000 acres. It was 84% contained as of July 4. Other flood reports from July 10 include a shipping container being carried by flood waters near Ruidoso Downs; a road collapse near Sudderth Drive and NM Highway 70; and an SUV with three people in it being rescued from the Rio Ruidoso. See a map below with the latest flood reports: Grab an umbrella, you're going to need it. The National Weather Service has issued a flood warning all over New Jersey, inclduding Ocean County. The NWS reported the flood warning for Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Cumberland and Ocean counties until 6:15 p.m. Flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and other low-lying and flood-prone areas is expected. Some areas could see as much as 4 inches of rain in a short period of time, depending on where the fronts settle. Most areas included in the warning could see between 1 to 3 inches, according to the National Weather Service. A Flood Watch remains in effect through 2 PM Sat. The heaviest rain so far today has fallen closer to the coast, however another round of heavy showers and storms is expected within the watch area Sat morning. Don't drive through flooded roads! #PAwx #NJwx #DEwx #MDwx pic.twitter.com/1hjJe5Z7Ks NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) July 12, 2024 Locations expected to see flooding include Toms River, Lakewood, Barnegat, as well as Atlantic City, Ocean City, Pleasantville, Beachwood, Somers Point, Ventnor City, Brigantine and Northfield, according to the NWS. Thunderstorms are not only in store for us this evening, they're also expected tomorrow. Most areas could see scattered storms throughout the day tomorrow before things settle down Sunday. This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ocean County NJ under flood warning with thunderstorms expected Florence man accused of lighting ex-wifes apartment on fire one of South Carolinas most wanted FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW) A Florence man accused of lighting a door mat on fire in front of his ex-wifes apartment is one of eight most-wanted people in South Carolina by the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. David McCormick, 58, is wanted on an attempted murder and second-degree arson charge in connection with the March 2 incident. The SCDPPPS said his original offense was second-degree domestic violence. Florence police and fire officials responded to the Jarrott Street residence for a fire, authorities said. The woman said she thought McCormick, her ex-husband, was the one who started it and told police they were having problems in their relationship. She also said McCormick had started sending her cryptic messages causing her anxiety and fear. Video evidence showed McCormick purposely lighting a door mat on fire in front of the apartment door, police said. Two people were inside when the fire started. Anyone with information is asked to call 888-761-6175. * * * Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read 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. TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A Florida grandmother detained in Turks and Caicos for ammunition possession charges has been released, according to the Department of State. Sharitta Grier, 45, of Orlando, was released by the court on Thursday after her initial arrest in May following a Mothers Day vacation when officials located two stray bullets in her luggage. Lawmakers fail to free Florida woman, 4 others held in Turks and Caicos Grier was given a 23-week suspended sentence and fined $1,500. Florida Secretary of State and Chief Protocol Officer Cord Byrd traveled to the islands to negotiate her release, along with three other Americans who were detained on similar charges. The islands government was urged to change its laws for tourists who intentionally broke their laws. According to the release, the government changed the law last month to give their courts more discretion to avoid similar events happening in the future. Her character was unmatched: Family remembers mom who died after attempting to stop carjacking with child in backseat This outcome proves once again that under Governor DeSantis leadership, Florida is looking out for its citizens not only in Florida but around the world, Secretary Byrd said. We are thankful and relieved that Ms. Grier is finally on her way home and can put this unfortunate incident behind her. Grier was the fourth and final American being held in Turks and Caicos for ammunition possession. 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. Months after a multimillion-dollar donation debacle along with recent concerns from the state's governing board Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson has announced plans to step down from his leadership role. FAMU Board of Trustees Chair Kristin Harper sent an email to board members about Robinsons decision Friday morning, which included an attached resignation letter from Robinson. "We have achieved remarkable gains and record-breaking years under President Robinsons leadership," Harper said on behalf of the board in a university release. "I am honored to have served with fellow trustees alongside our president. His love for FAMU, steady leadership, and unwavering dedication to our students success will leave an indelible mark on this universitys history." New Chair of the Board of Trustees Kristin Harper accepts the gavel from President Larry Robinson as Florida A&M BOT hold Committee Meetings on Thursday Oct, 12, 2023. The bombshell announcement comes on the heels of the universitys recent low points including a dubious and now ceased $237 million donation from Texas hemp farmer Gregory Gerami that made national headlines and is currently under investigation, as well as poor licensure program performances that heightened concerns from the Florida Board of Governors. 'Unacceptable': Florida Board of Governors threatening to eliminate these FAMU programs Ahead of the university's release about the announcement, FAMU trustee Kelvin Lawson confirmed Robinsons decision Friday morning during a phone call with the Tallahassee Democrat. He decided to hold comments for a later date. With tremendous gratitude for the privilege of leading our beloved Florida A&M University as Interim President in 2016 and President beginning in 2017, and with much optimism for its future, I am writing to inform you of my decision to step down from my position, Robinson said in his resignation letter. I will entrust the determination of the precise date to the Boards preferences while fulfilling any obligations of my existing contract. While on FAMU's campus Friday morning, Robinson announced his plans to his leadership team, according to a university spokesperson. He also noted in his resignation letter intentions to thank many people in the coming weeks. Robinson's decision comes after his nearly seven-year tenure at the university, where despite recent blows he has also had a list of highlights that include propelling the 136-year-old institution into being the No. 1 public HBCU for the fifth consecutive year in a row, according to the U.S. News and World Reports. The university also met one of Robinsons long-time goals last year of breaking into the Top 100 national public universities. Florida A&M President Larry Robinson announces that FAMU is ranked 91st by US News and World Report during a press conference on Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. After stepping down from his role as president, Robinson the historically Black university's 12th president will start a 12-month sabbatical and will return as a distinguished professor in the School of the Environment. In the near future, I will call a special meeting so that we can discuss our next steps as a Board, Harper told trustees in a Friday email. She says ahead of the special meeting, the Board of Trustees will refer to its operating procedures, the Florida Board of Governors' regulations and state statutes to determine next steps. While the process is expected to include the appointment of an interim president, it is unclear whether the FAMU Board of Trustees or the state's governing board would make the selection and appointment. FAMU, local community reacts to Robinson's decision FAMU National Alumni Association President Curtis Johnson shared a few words Friday afternoon about Robinson's announcement on behalf of the university's alumni. We wish to express sincere gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Larry Robinson for his leadership, dedication, perseverance and collaboration with the alumni association on moving FAMU's trajectory to the top of the HBCU pinnacle five years in a row, Johnson said in a letter. Curtis E. Johnson Jr. was named the new president of Florida A&M University's National Alumni Association and began his appointment on July 1, 2022. He also says Harper will provide a brief update on the resignation matter during the NAA Boards Wednesday meeting. Al Lawson Jr., a former congressman and longtime state lawmaker for the Tallahassee region who has a namesake facility at FAMU, said hed heard rumblings of Robinsons resignation on Thursday. Lawson said he wished Robinson well, adding he did a great job of moving FAMU forward. Yet, despite several highlights under Robinsons tenure, Lawson said developments surrounding the historic donation-turned-disaster was Robinsons downfall. He said it caused the university, as well as the state of Florida, an embarrassment. I think it was the backlash, really, from that, Lawson told the Democrat. Sometimes you can't overcome some things, and that might be something you can't overcome. Former Congressman Al Lawson gives brief remarks during a ceremony held for the renaming of Wanish Way to Althea Gibson Way on the Florida A&M University campus on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. When asked if he was surprised by the resignation, Lawson said he saw it coming. He said the donation backlash was the last straw on the heels of other dings to FAMUs reputation, including controversies with the universitys football program when student athletes being unrightfully dismissed during the ineligibility saga that surfaced in 2022. These things happen to you a lot of times when you end up in those positions, said Lawson, adding hes concerned about the timing on this administrative shakeup on The Hill. The sad thing, which I am concerned about, is you're getting ready to start the academic school year. And Robinson is very beloved by the students and by faculty members and so forth. To then have a change like this when school starts in August, it's something that you don't want to happen. The fall semester is set to begin Aug. 26. Related news: 'We still have a challenge': Florida A&M housing reaches capacity with 600 on waitlist A look back on Robinson's leadership so far at FAMU Robinson, 69 a Memphis, Tennessee, native and noted scientist with connections to some of the countrys most prestigious and philanthropic research agencies was named the 12th president of the university in November 2017. Before joining the FAMU family, he worked as a research scientist and group leader at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He then began his career at FAMU in January 1995 as a visiting professor in the Environmental Sciences Institute recruited by then-President Frederick Humphries and later became director of the Institute in January 1997. Despite Robinsons calm, nonchalant demeanor and reserved temperament, his leadership abilities continued to be executed at the university in higher positions. After serving as provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2003, he was named interim chief executive officer in 2007. He was then named interim president in July 2012 following the resignation of James Ammons until March 2014, when trustees hired Elmira Mangum. The change in leadership was only for a short while as Mangum was ousted after a 29-month tenure. Immediately after, Robinson was appointed interim president again in September 2016 ahead of his appointment as the universitys next president. More: FAMU: A choice for stability and consensus building Robinson was widely credited with successfully leading FAMU during some of its toughest times during his 2012-14 interim presidency. He took the helm as the university was facing fallout from the November 2011 hazing death of Marching 100 Band drum major Robert Champion, accreditation issues and decreases in enrollment. Under Robinsons leadership during his 2012-14 interim tenure, FAMU was released from probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which is the universitys accreditation agency. Robinson also ushered in a new anti-hazing program and website that aims to give students a way to alert administrators of hazing activity. When it comes to funding, he secured large grants from big name entities such as Microsoft, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On top of Robinson's resignation letter, he also wrote a letter to "FAMUly and Friends" saying that his announcement made Friday a "moment of profound significance in my life and my journey at our beloved (FAMU)." As you can imagine, this decision comes with many emotions pride, joy, gratitude, some sadness, of course, but at the same time, hope and anticipation, Robinson said in the letter. While I may be stepping down from the presidency, this is not a farewell to my FAMUly, he added, referring to his sabbatical and professorship plans. I look forward to continuing to contribute to our students' lives and shaping their ability to address the complex problems confronting our world. This is a developing story. Check back later for more. This embedded content is not available in your region. Business and economic development reporter TaMaryn Waters contributed to this report. Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FAMU President Larry Robinson says he's stepping down A Manatee County man was sentenced to prison today after he previously pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol. 47-year-old John Anthony Schubert III, of Bradenton, Florida, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, 24 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper. Schubert previously pleaded guilty to a single felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers on April 11, 2024. According to court documents, Schubert joined a large crowd that had gathered near the Peace Monument just before 1:00 p.m. Read: Man dies after reaching for gun in front of Orange County deputies, sheriff says That area was blocked off by fencing, but rioters breached the barricades. During the scuffle with law enforcement, Schubert put his left shoulder and arm on an officer and used his body weight to push that officer. Schubert also attempted to punch the officer and only retreated after being sprayed with a chemical irritant, according to documents. Read: Sheriff: Girl, 13, was stabbed to death by stranger while walking to friends house Schubert eventually entered the capitol building after climbing through a broken window. The FBIs Tampa and Washington Field offices identified Schubert and arrested him on Oct. 4, 2023. Read: 1-year-old found crawling on highway after brother found dead, mother arrested Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with Malagasy Minister of Foreign Affairs Rafaravavitafika Rasata, who is in China for the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday met with Gabonese Minister of Foreign Affairs Regis Onanga Ndiaye, Malagasy Minister of Foreign Affairs Rafaravavitafika Rasata, and former secretary-general of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, respectively, who are attending the opening ceremony of the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development in Beijing. During the meeting with Regis Onanga Ndiaye, Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that the Global Development Initiative responds to the urgent desire of developing countries for accelerated development, adding that China appreciates Gabon's participation in the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative. China is willing to work together with African countries to gather strength in order to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and promote the development and revitalization of the African continent, Wang added. Regis Onanga Ndiaye expressed gratitude for China's support for Gabon's pursuit of justice and its transitional process, as well as its support for Gabon's independent choice of national system and development path. Gabon greatly appreciates the series of important global initiatives brought up by China and will continue to actively participate in the initiatives. During the meeting with Rafaravavitafika Rasata, Wang said that China is willing to work together with all parties to pool efforts and assist various countries in accelerating the process of modernization. China welcomes Madagascar's active participation in the implementation of the three major measures to support African industrialization, agricultural modernization and talent development which were announced during the China-Africa Leaders' Dialogue in South Africa, he added. Rafaravavitafika Rasata stated that China's assistance to Africa has never been conditional, and it has proposed a series of important global initiatives, demonstrating its firm determination to support the development of African and other "Global South" countries. Madagascar greatly appreciates this and will continue to actively participate in the implementation. During the meeting with Ban Ki-moon, who is also chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, Wang said that proposals of building a community with a shared future for humanity, the Belt and Road Initiative and the three major global initiatives have gained widespread support from the international community. China is willing to work together with the United Nations to inject strong impetus into the implementation of the sustainable development agenda and make greater contributions to world peace and human development. Ban Ki-moon said that the major concepts and proposals put forward by China, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, will bring prosperity and well-being to the world. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with Gabonese Minister of Foreign Affairs Regis Onanga Ndiaye, who is in China for the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, meets with Ban Ki-moon, former United Nations secretary-general and chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, who is in China for the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development, in Beijing, capital of China, July 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan) File cabinets. (Getty) One of the less noticed features of the Virginia Way is the long-running tendency of the commonwealths leaders to conduct their decision-making behind closed doors. While the Virginia Freedom of Information Act presumes all government business is by default public and requires officials to justify why exceptions should be made, too many Virginia leaders in practice take the opposite stance, acting as if records are by default private and the public must prove they should be handled otherwise. In this feature, we aim to highlight the frequency with which officials around Virginia are resisting public access to records on issues large and small and note instances when the release of information under FOIA gave the public insight into how government bodies are operating. Chesterfield officer facing suit for shooting of Charles Byers shown using excessive force in traffic stop from newly-obtained video A video obtained by WTVR shows a Chesterfield County police officer striking a man in the face during a traffic stop, which courts deemed excessive force in a subsequent lawsuit. The officer from that video is currently facing a lawsuit alleging excessive force in the deadly police shooting of Charles Byers last summer. The footage was retrieved from the clerks office at the Richmond federal courthouse, Tyler Layne, the WTVR reporter told Virginia Mercury. Interestingly enough, it took the clerks office a few days to produce the footage, because they did not have a procedure in place for producing copies of footage, he said in an email. Apparently, they had never received that request before. So after my request they actually developed new protocols for the clerks office on responding to requests for video. In the footage of the 2019 traffic stop, video shows a driver being pulled over with the officer not immediately telling him why. Upon inquiry, the officer replied that the drivers headlight was out and asked him to exit the vehicle. Despite the driver not physically resisting, the officer struck him in the face before pulling him to the ground and arresting him. A lawsuit brought by the driver was eventually settled in 2022 for an undisclosed amount, but the officer is now a defendant in the case involving Byers death. WTVR had also obtained footage of the officers encounter with Byers whod been in a mental health crisis and under a court order to be held in a psychiatric facility last summer. In that video, Byer was holding a hatchet near his knees and didnt comply with officers commands. In the fatal encounter, Byers ran away from officers as he was shot multiple times. Layne, the WTVR reporter said hed initially been denied a FOIA request for the footage of Byers shooting but was able to access it through the federal court system after a link to the video was posted as part of a court filing. Byers familys attorney claimed the officer had violated his right to be free from excessive force, failed to de-escalate the situation and failed to warn that he would use lethal force. The family is also suing Chesterfield County. Their attorney alleges it had knowledge of the officers propensity to use excessive force but allowed him to be on the street, WTVR reports. The Mercurys efforts to track FOIA and other transparency cases in Virginia are indebted to the work of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, a nonprofit alliance dedicated to expanding access to government records, meetings and other state and local proceedings. Suffolk school leaders refuse to answer questions about school intruder detailed in FOIA A video WTKR obtained through FOIA shows a man trespassing at Kilby Shores Elementary School before barricading himself in a bathroom with students. Elected and appointed officials in the school district have not responded to local media questions about the event. A man named Vontrail Thorpe, who is purportedly the man in the video, has since been charged with multiple felony counts to include breaking and entering, trespassing, possession of narcotics on school property and a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct. The night before the June 14 event, the School Safety Audit Committee a consortium of area volunteers had shared a presentation with school board members about safety enhancement suggestions. Brandon Randleman, a citizen volunteer with the committee, told the outlet that he has a weeks-old email thats gone unanswered to school leaders, administrators and members of the safety committee to hold an emergency meeting about what happened. Lynchburg councilors allege city attorneys entanglement in election outcome lawsuit Election results drama continues as Lynchburgs city attorney and two councilmembers verbally sparred at a recent special city council meeting, Cardinal News reports. After Peter Alexander lost to current Vice Mayor Chris Faraldi for a council seat in the June 18 Republican primary, Alexander sued claiming absentee ballots were not counted. Council members Marty Misjuns and Jeff Helgeson who supported Alexander allege that calls and emails made by city attorney Matt Freedman equate to public funds spent on personal litigation. Shortly after the suit had been filed, Helgeson said that Freedman had called several council members and sent an email labeled attorney-client privilege with action items. The back and forth prompted harsh words from Freedman during a special meeting. First, the city is not representing Vice Mayor Faraldi in the pending Alexander v. Faraldi lawsuit, Freedman said. Second, council members Helgeson and Misjuns are not attorneys, not qualified to speak on matters of law and not in charge of the law business of the city. I am. While he affirmed the city is not legally involved in the lawsuit, he said that there is interest in the outcome. This is because the suit could potentially affect thousands of city voters, the city paid for the election and the lawsuit makes very serious allegations against the citys registrar and electoral board, who are deemed employees of the city under Virginia law. The full contents of Freedmans email have not been made available to the public. Misjuns and Helgeson told local media they want to make the email public but cant because Freedman marked it confidential due to attorney-client privilege. Meanwhile, both Alexander and Faraldi have appeared at a hearing for the case which could be resolved ahead of the November general election. Case information now available online and free of charge for Fairfax Circuit Court Though not directly FOIA-related, transparency and access to court records is easier now in Fairfax County. Thats because the countys Circuit Court unrolled a new online portal for people to search case information online for free. FFX Now reports that the new tool builds on a campaign promise from the countys circuit court clerk who was elected last year. This electronic service will mark a significant milestone in enhancing public access to Circuit Court Case information, fostering transparency, and promoting accountability within the legal system, he wrote in a statement. Previously, online access to case information including hearing dates and charges was only granted through a subscription to the Court Public Access Network. This costs users $150 per quarter or $600 per year. Have you experienced local or state officials denying or delaying your FOIA request? Tell us about it: info@virginiamercury.com DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST A former middle school teacher in Buckeye was arrested on suspicion of luring and kidnapping a 12-year-old girl. Brendan Barnett, 36, is in custody following an investigation into online chats between him and a student, Buckeye police said. Authorities say they were alerted by school district officials back in April of "possible inappropriate chats" between Barnett, who was a Verrado Middle School teacher at the time, and a 12-year-old female student. The chats occurred within the schools online communications portal, according to police. Detectives revealed in their investigation that Barnett had been inviting the victim to his central Phoenix home for sleepovers, police said. Additionally, investigators discovered that Barnett had lied to the victim's parents when inviting her to his home for sleepovers, police said. Barnett had claimed he was the parent of a student at the school who would also be attending the sleepovers, officials said. Investigations revealed that Barnett did not have a child and was alone with the victim at his home on at least three different occasions, police said. Buckeye police and U.S. Marshals Service managed to locate and arrest Barnett on Wednesday at a Phoenix library near 15th Avenue and Montebello Avenue. Barnett faces one count of luring a minor for sex and three counts of kidnapping. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Buckeye Middle school teacher arrested in kidnapping of student Doug Sosnik, a longtime Democratic strategist who served as former President Clintons political director, said in an opinion essay Friday that President Bidens path to recapturing the White House has all but vanished. President Biden has spent much of 2024 with a more challenging path to winning a second presidential term in November than Donald Trump, Sosnik said in the New York Times op-ed. But for reasons that have become glaringly obvious, that path has all but vanished. Sosniks opinion piece comes as Biden faces intense political headwinds in the wake of his woeful debate performance last month. The debate has spurred increased concern among voters over Bidens age and a growing list of House members calling for him to step aside. Ive never seen such a grim Electoral College landscape for Mr. Biden: He not only faces losing battleground states he won in 2020, he is also at risk of losing traditional Democratic states like Minnesota and New Hampshire, which [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and [former President] Obama carried, Sosnik said. If current trends continue, Mr. Trump could rack up one of the most decisive presidential victories since 2008. Biden and his advisers have tried to quell the fears of those in his party panicking over the possibility of him losing to Trump, seemingly with little success so far. At a press conference Thursday night, Biden said he believes he is the most qualified person to run for president. I believe Im the best qualified to govern, Biden said. And I think Im the best qualified to win. But there are other people who could beat Trump too. But its all start from scratch. And you know, we talk about money raised. Were not doing bad. So lets start there, No. 1, he continued. The fact is, the consideration is, that I think Im the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again. However, Sosnik said even the campaigns best hope for winning the Electoral College winning the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan was an uphill battle. Each of the three states poses particular challenges for Mr. Biden. Current polling shows him trailing Mr. Trump by as many as five points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and more narrowly in Michigan, he said. The deficit in Pennsylvania must be particularly disconcerting for Mr. Biden and his campaign, given the time and resources devoted to the state. Sosnik noted that Republicans are directing more of their campaign spending on these three states and that time is quickly running out for Democrats to make a change. If Mr. Biden has any chance of beating Mr. Trump and not taking the Democratic Party down with him, he must demonstrate in the next few weeks that he has the mental and physical capabilities to lead the county for another term in office, he wrote. Biden and Trump are only 1 point apart in an average of national polls by The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, with the former president at 44.9 percent and the incumbent at 43.9 percent. In this average, Biden is up slightly on Trump in Michigan and down 1 point in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 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. Utah Republican State Party treasurer candidate Patrick Russo speaks during the Utah Republican Party Organizing Convention at Utah Valley University in Orem on April 22, 2023. The Davis County Republican Party has imposed sanctions on two previous party office holders, Daniela Harding, the previous party chair, and Russo, the previous party secretary, for alleged ethical violations. | Ryan Sun, Deseret News The Davis County Republican Party has imposed sanctions on two previous party office holders, Daniela Harding, the previous party chair, and Patrick Russo, the previous party secretary, for alleged ethical violations. Both have retained attorneys as they fight the allegations and sanctions. An anonymous ethics complaint, filed during an election year in which Harding was a candidate for the Utah Legislature, apparently deals with a potential mistake being made during delegate allocation in 2022, a process that occurs every four years in Utah. Its hard to know, however, because, as Russo said, They havent even given me a copy of the anonymous complaint. Its supposedly something from 2022. How am I supposed to defend myself against a complaint they wont even show me? Harding also confirmed that she has never received the full complaint. As Harding and Russo understand it, the ethics complaints allege that Russo and Harding misallocated the number of delegates for each precinct more than two years ago. However, according to the attorney representing Harding, besides the complaint being speculative, no claim has been made that any such error altered an election result. Additionally, the delegates attending the 2022 county convention voted to ratify the allocation. No concerns were raised at the time, and the 2022 election is long past. On July 2, the Davis County GOP Ethics Committee met without either Harding or Russo present. Harding was out of town at a dance competition for one of her children and Russo had also been out of town. They both said they were not invited to the meeting. The committee would not move the meeting to accommodate Harding. At the closed meeting, attendees substantiated the alleged ethical violations, imposed sanctions, then notified both Russo and Harding of their findings via email on July 3. Both Harding and Russo have retained attorneys who have responded to the Davis County Republican Party chair and the Ethics Committee chair. The Deseret News has obtained a copy of both responses. The response from David Irvine, representing Harding, and Karra Porter, representing Russo, are substantively the same. Their arguments are that: The meeting held and action taken were not in accordance to Davis County Republican Party bylaws, or Roberts Rules of Order, without proper notification or due process accorded to the accused, and therefore the decisions and reported sanctions are void. The full complaint has never been provided to either party. The bylaws only address current party officers, and neither Harding nor Russo hold party office positions. Anonymous complaints are not expressly permitted under the Davis County Republican Party bylaws. A complaint that there may have been an error in delegate allocation cannot be raised more than two years after the fact, is speculative, and no harm is claimed. The complaint would have had to be made before the the reading and adoption of the credentials report at the 2022 convention. The imposed sanctions are unfairly disproportionate to the claimed violation. Both attorneys are asking that the anonymous ethics complaint be dismissed, and that the purported findings and the imposed sanctions be overturned. If not, the Davis County Republican Party can anticipate additional legal action, the response said. The Deseret News reached out to Yemi Arunsi, the Davis County Party Chair, who said Unfortunately, I cannot make a comment at this time. Any individual that disagrees with a substantiated ethics complaint will have every opportunity to present their case to the County Central Committee. An emergency meeting of the Davis County Republican Party Central Committee has been called for Monday at 6:30 p.m. Holly Richardson is the editor of Utah Policy and a former Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives. Dakota Levi Stevens former foster mother was charged Friday with reckless homicide in the death of the 10-year-old in late April, authorities said. According to court documents, Jennifer Lee Wilson laid on his midsection for several minutes at her Porter County home because Dakota was acting up. She contacted the boys caseworker and her husband while she laid on the child until he stopped breathing, the documents said. A warrant has been issued for Wilson, 48, of the 200 block of Falcon Way in Liberty Township. She was not in custody as of Friday afternoon, officials said. Reckless homicide is a Level 5 felony. Dakota died on April 27 at South Bend Memorial Hospital from mechanical asphyxiation, according to the St. Joseph County Coroners Office, which ruled his death a homicide. Wilson, according to charging documents filed in Porter Superior Court, weighed 340 pounds, and Dakota weighed 91 pounds. Dakota was placed in Wilsons care on April 5 by Lake County Child Protective Services, according to court documents. While Wilson and her husband were ready to relinquish their foster license because her three other children, former foster children whom they had adopted, were older and they wanted to travel, they agreed to take in Dakota because they had provided respite care for him two years ago. Dakota and a younger sister were removed from their biological parents home because of the parents reported drug use when Dakota was 5, family members have said. Their father died and their mother eventually relinquished parental rights. His sister was later adopted. Dakota bounced between family members, foster homes and a mental health facility, those close to him have said. Deputies from the Porter County Sheriffs Department were called to Wilsons home around 3:37 p.m. on April 25 for a report of an unconscious 10-year-old who wasnt breathing. Dakota was on the ground near the driveway when police arrived and someone was administering CPR. The boy was not conscious, not breathing and had no pulse when police arrived, documents said. An officer observed that the juvenile had bruising his lower neck and chest area. Police said Wilson was visibly distraught and told officers Dakota had just run away. She located him at a neighbors house and brought him back home but Dakota was still acting up and threw himself on the ground and said he was leaving. Wilson stated that she laid on his midsection and called his caseworker, documents state. Wilson stated that he eventually stopped moving and she thought he was faking. She advised that she laid on him for approximately five minutes. Wilson told police Dakota had verbal and physical aggression issues, and that was the first time he ran away, after an argument about doing his chores before he went outside to play. After Dakota left and Wilson found him and brought him home, he refused to get out of the car and screamed at her, telling her he was leaving, documents said. Wilson stated that when she attempted to stop him from leaving, she does not know if she tackled D.S. or they fell to the ground however her intention was to hold him, documents said. Wilson was lying across Dakotas body. During that time, Wilson had a video call with Dakotas caseworker, who tried to calm the boy down over the phone, though Dakota would flail and move around. Wilson also had a conversation with her husband through the Ring camera at their home and told him Dakota was having one of his days, documents state. She told Dakota to get up and asked, Are you faking? She then rolled D.S. over and it appeared his eyelids were pale, documents said. She then began CPR and called 911. Police received copies of the Ring videos from the incident and said the first one began with Wilson already lying across Dakota, near his head and neck. D.S. is screaming during the entire 20 second video, documents said Dakota is still crying and screaming in the second 20-second video. Wilson was still on top of Dakota in the third video, near his buttocks, and his arms were above his head and he does not move for the entire 6-minute, 48-second video. Subsequent videos, documents state, do not show Dakota moving. In the final video, Wilson screams Dakotas name and asks her child to call 911. Wilson, according to charging documents, can be heard saying, I was laying on him and he was acting bad. Mourners at a private funeral held May 6 at Geisen Funeral Home in Crown Point said Dakota, who was affectionately called Levi by his family, was an extraordinary child despite the trauma he had experienced. He didnt deserve this. He was better than a lot of people here, Dakotas aunt, Nicole Rubalcava, who also works at Geisen, said during his funeral. Even if he battled stuff, this kids heart truly was not made for this world. He taught me so much, he truly did, and I didnt think a kid could teach you stuff like that. The Eagle Ridge subdivision, where Dakota lived with Wilson at the time of his death, held a candlelight vigil to remember the boy the same night as his funeral. There are never good words at moments like this, David Stovall, pastor at The Rock Church in Hobart and a neighbor in the subdivision, before he began a brief invocation during the vigil. Lord, you know the circumstances. You know the situation, he said then. We ask that you would just give peace, Lord, because we dont have the answers. Dakota was initially transported to Northwest Health-Porter on April 25 before being airlifted to South Bend Memorial Hospital. A doctor at Northwest Health told police that Dakota had severe swelling in his brain which would be consistent with being deprived of oxygen for an extended period of time, according to charging documents. After the St. Joseph County Coroners Office ruled Dakotas death a homicide in early June, Wilsons foster care license was placed on hold while the license was pending revocation and pending any appeal from Wilson, according to an email from Brian Heinemann, a spokesman with the Indiana Department of Child Services. The appeal process has expired, and the license was revoked June 30, 2024, he said in the email, declining further comment because of the active criminal case and the confidential nature of DCS records. Officials with the office have said that Wilson had been licensed since 2017 and was in good standing before Dakotas death, having completed the required training and education required to achieve and maintain licensure. She did not have other foster children in the home at the time. Wilsons bond has been set at $20,000, according to online court records, and her case has been assigned to Porter Superior Court Judge Mary DeBoer. alavalley@chicagotribune.com Former KHP leader ousted by Kansas governor wins lawsuit, will be reinstated as major The former leader of the Kansas Highway Patrol who was ousted by the governor must be reinstated to a lower rank, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree sided with former KHP superintendent Mark Bruce, who sued Gov. Laura Kelly and members of her administration after he resigned. "Plaintiff prevails on his procedural due process claim against defendants Governor Kelly and Superintendent Smith," Crabtree wrote, referring to current KHP superintendent Erik Smith, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit. "As a result, he's entitled to reinstatement in the KHP as a Major. But he is not entitled to recover enhanced retirement benefits." Bruce said in a statement that he was pleased with the advisory jury's vote and Crabtree's ruling, which he said "sends an explicitly clear message that the applicability of the Constitution cares not about one's status or position of power." "We respect the court's decision and are currently reviewing it to determine potential next steps," said Grace Hoge, a spokesperson for the governor. Former Kansas Highway Patrol superintendent Mark Bruce must be reinstated to the rank of major, a federal judge ruled Friday, after Bruce was terminated by Gov. Laura Kelly. After taking office in January 2019, Kelly initially retained Bruce as KHP superintendent. But by March, she wanted to make a change in leadership and directed Will Lawrence, her chief of staff, to carry it out. Bruce resigned after meeting with Lawrence, but later sued. One claim remained by the time the case went to trial in February. Crabtree summarized it as "Plaintiff alleges that defendant Governor Kelly violated his procedural due process rights when, through Mr. Lawrence, she coerced him to resign and failed to return him to his former rank of Major, as Kansas law required." "The case boils down to this question: Did plaintiff resign voluntarily?" Crabtree wrote. To answer that question, Crabtree empaneled an advisory jury for the February trial to determine whether a reasonable person would feel forced to resign given the circumstances. Six of seven jurors sided with Bruce. Kelly's attorneys later asked the judge to ignore the jury verdict, writing that "the findings of an advisory jury are merely that, advisory, and the advisory jury's decision is not binding on the district court." "The court declines," Crabtree said of the request to set aside the verdict. "The court heard the same evidence the jury did. Each side of the caption presented evidence supporting its version of events. And the advisory jury credited plaintiffs version, concluding a reasonable person in plaintiffs position would have felt forced to resign. The court adopts this verdict. Indeed, the court can think of no better barometer for the dispositive, reasonable person measurement than a jury." Bruce said the decision from the judge and jury "reinforces my belief that the justice system, although sometimes slow, ultimately delivers exactly that, justice. "Having taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution as an Airman in the United States Air Force and as a Kansas State Trooper, I firmly believe in the guarantees it provides to all of us. I also firmly believe if its abusers, especially those who govern are all allowed to go unchecked, our rights as Americans are in jeopardy." More: Jury concludes ex-Kansas Highway Patrol leader was coerced into resigning 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: Ousted Kansas Highway Patrol leader wins lawsuit against governor ANKARA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police nabbed 4,466 fugitives in various operations across 81 provinces over the last five days, the country's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Friday. These individuals were caught during road searches, house and workplace raids, and identity checks, Yerlikaya said on social media platform X. The minister added that 4,436 of those arrestees were on the run for up to five years, 19 for five to 10 years, and 11 for more than 10 years. Among the detained, 718 people were wanted for narcotics offenses, 691 for theft, 434 for smuggling and organized crimes, 383 for fraud, 159 for looting, 116 for sexual crimes, 85 for terrorism, and 79 for intentional homicide, he noted. The operations saw the participation of police, gendarmerie and coast guard teams, according to the Turkish minister. The State Bar of California filed disciplinary charges last week against a former Los Angeles city official in connection with an alleged quid pro quo deal involving a city contract. William Funderburk, then serving as vice president of the L.A. Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners, approved the $30-million deal around the same time that he solicited and received free legal work from the attorney who was awarded the contract, State Bar prosecutors alleged. Funderburk lied about accepting the free legal work, valued at more than $30,000, during an 2020 interview with the U.S. sttorney's office, and he also illegally solicited a political contribution, according to Bar prosecutors. Funderburk is the first former city official to be charged by the State Bar in relation to a massive scandal at the DWP and city attorney's office involving corrupt attorneys and illicit payments. He faces five counts, including committing acts involving moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption. If he is convicted, the State Bar could disbar him, suspend his law license or put him on probation. The State Bars top prosecutor, Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, said in a statement Wednesday that Funderburk "had an ethical and legal obligation to ensure that he did not take actions that might appear to be influenced by any conflicts of interest or gifts that he received." "Bill did nothing wrong," said Funderburk's attorney, Jan Handzlik. "Once the full story is known, we feel confident Bill will be exonerated." Read more: Former DWP board member 'acted honorably,' attorney says An environmental attorney, Funderburk is well-known in L.A. Democratic circles and was appointed to the DWP board in 2013 by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti, stepping down in 2018. State Bar prosecutors said that on June 6, 2017, Funderburk voted with other DWP board members to award a cybersecurity contract to Aventador, a company owned by Paul Paradis, then a New York attorney. Before the vote, Funderburk had exchanged text messages with Paradis about a legal case involving Funderburk's firm, according to bar prosecutors, and had also requested that Paradis provide legal services. In the hallway before the vote at DWP headquarters, Funderburk ran into Paradis and expressed his appreciation for Paradis assistance with the legal matter, bar prosecutors said. Funderburk said to Paradis words to the effect of, You take care of me, I take care of you," according to prosecutors. "Paradis understood this statement to mean that respondent would vote in favor of the Aventador contract if Paradis and [Paradis' law firm] continued to provide respondent with unpaid legal services and assistance," prosecutors wrote. Paradis and his law firm provided 36.5 hours of free work worth $31,477.50 to Funderkburk from May to August 2017, according to prosecutors, who described how Paradis and his law partner reviewed court documents, gave analysis and held meetings with Funderburk's team. Paradis was a central player in the DWP scandal, which has its roots in the disastrous rollout of a new DWP billing system launched in 2013. While working for the city attorney's office, he secretly drafted a class-action lawsuit against the city in an effort to quickly settle all the legal claims from customers over the billing errors. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to a federal bribery charge connected to the sham lawsuit but unrelated to his dealings with Funderburk, receiving a reduced sentence of 33 months in exchange for his cooperation. His plea agreement described how an unnamed DWP commissioner accepted free legal work from him, with details indicating that Funderburk was the commissioner. Handzlik reiterated on Wednesday that Funderburk had never received free legal work from Paradis. The Times on Wednesday reviewed three emails from 2017 in which Funderburk or employees at his law firm asked Paradis to review documents related to one of the firm's cases. In one of the emails, dated Aug. 6, 2017, Funderburk instructed an employee at his law firm to send a document to Paradis and his law partner. "[The brief] still needs work but I want their input," Funderburk wrote. Handzlik said Funderburk had merely asked several lawyers, including Paradis, for "routine professional courtesies." "It was only much later, while implicating others in his massive scheme, that Paradis characterized Bill's conduct as improper and valued his 'legal services' at more than $30,000," Handzlik said. "In fact, the Aventador resolution would have passed with or without Bill's vote. It would have been approved by a vote of 4-0, even without his vote." Read more: Secret FBI files allege former L.A. city attorney lied to feds, likely obstructed justice. He denies it Funderburk was never criminally charged or otherwise implicated in the sham lawsuit scheme. In an Oct. 16, 2020, interview with federal prosecutors, Funderburk did not disclose the legal work that Paradis did for him or that Paradis had purchased meals for him about five to seven times, bar prosecutors alleged. Nor did Funderburk reveal to the government that he had directed a campaign contribution from Paradis to U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), according to bar prosecutors. An email reviewed by the Times shows that in October 2017, Funderburk forwarded Paradis and another attorney an invitation for a fundraiser for Gillibrand that Funderburk was co-hosting. In the email, Funderburk instructed Paradis and the other attorney to contact a Gillibrand finance advisor. Under city ethics laws, city commissioners cannot solicit contributions from people who have had a matter before their commission in the previous 12 months. Handzlik denied that Funderburk had solicited a contribution from Paradis and argued that the city ethics rule did not apply to federal candidates in other states. He also said his client was truthful when interviewed by the U.S. attorney's office. Read more: Questions, anger after feds signal an end to DWP billing probe In another case related to the DWP scandal, the State Bar on Wednesday announced a proposed 30-day license suspension for Richard Tom, a city attorney who worked on litigation stemming from the utility's billing disaster. Bar prosecutors alleged that Tom made "false and misleading statements" in a court declaration and in his deposition. Tom did not respond to a request for comment. 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. People seeing the destruction of the Greenwood District during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. | Tulsa Historical Society and Museum A former Ogden man has been identified as a victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the first such identification stemming from an initiative aimed at documenting victims of the violence. C. L. Daniel, previously known only as "Burial 3," has been identified from DNA evidence and research into historical evidence of the time, Intermountain Forensics, a Utah nonprofit group, said in a statement Friday. Millcreek-based Intermountain Forensics is heading efforts, launched in 2021, to identify victims of the incident using DNA and genetic material. "This is a historic and humbling discovery for the victims and families of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre," Tulsa Mayor Bynum said in a statement. "More than a century later, we are finding more answers about where the victims were buried." As many as several hundred Black people were killed in the Tulsa Race Massacre more than 100 years ago, after a group of white Tulsa residents looted, torched and destroyed the Greenwood neighborhood of the city, an affluent community where Black residents lived. The spur was some sort of exchange on May 30, 1921, between a young Black man and a white woman in the elevator of a Tulsa building, which exploded into a confrontation between Black and white mobs and the attack on Greenwood, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. "An unknown number of black victims were killed, estimated at dozens to hundreds. Most were buried in unmarked graves," according to the Intermountain press release. Why Daniel, a U.S. Army veteran who served in World War I, was in Tulsa is not clear. As of February 1921, he had been living in Ogden, looking for work and planning to move to Georgia, where his mother lived. "We're not sure how he happened to be in Tulsa when Greenwood was destroyed," said Karra Porter, chief executive officer of Intermountain Forensics. Porter said researchers found a letter Daniel had written from Ogden on Feb. 25, 1921. Using his DNA material, potential relatives of Daniel were identified via the records of GEDmatch.com and FamilyTreeDNA.com, genetic testing companies. Based on those identifications, Intermountain found records from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., further aiding the effort. Among the records was "the most convincing piece of evidence" a letter from Daniel's family attorney to the U.S. Veteran's Administration related to the man's survivor benefits as a military veteran. The letter states, in part, "C. L. was killed in a race riot in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921." It was clear from the letter that he was proud of his time in the Army, Porter said. He was suffering from a disability but was looking for any work that he could perform. Forsyth Co. woman says she left dogs in hot car because someone was coming from Arizona to get them A Forsyth County woman is facing cruelty to animal charges after deputies say she left two puppies in a hot car to die. Sheriff Ron Freeman posted a video message on social media on Friday detailing the crimes Anastasia Jackson, 31, is accused of. He says that Jackson checked into a hotel on Feb. 28 and checked out the next day. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] A long while later, Freeman says the hotel reached out to the sheriffs office about a suspicious van that had been sitting in their parking lot for a while that they believed may have been stolen. When deputies investigated, they found the remains of two puppies in a dog cage in the back of the van. Investigators were able to connect the van to Jackson, who told them she left the dogs in the car because the person she got them from in Arizona was coming to get them. I dont know the last time you traveled to Arizona, but I dont think you can leave a dog in the driving time or flying time from Arizona, Freeman said. TRENDING STORIES: She was eventually located and arrested in Alabama. Last month, she was extradited to Forsyth County where she is being held on a $33,000 bond on two charges of cruelty to animals. Anastasia left those dogs, no water, no food, left them to die. But yet, shes sitting in our jail and guess what we do. We give her three meals a day and a nice comfortable place to rest, Freeman said. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: FORT SMITH, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) Fort Smith police arrest a suspect in connection to a non-fatal shooting at 801 Garrison Avenue on July 5. According to a press release, police arrested Javin Ellingberg, 24, on July 11. javin-ellingberg_mugshot One injured in Fort Smith overnight shooting Ellingberg is facing charges of first-degree battery, felon in possession of a firearm, possession of Schedule 1 narcotics with purpose to deliver, simultaneous possession of firearm and drugs, fleeing apprehension, resisting arrest, and two counts of felony failure to appear. 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. Foster Mom of Dead 5-Year-Old Boy Arrested After He Was Left in Hot Car for Several Hours Police said they found the child inside the car and transported him to a hospital, where he was pronounced deceased" Omaha Police department Juanita Pinon A 5 year-old boy died after he was left inside a car in an Omaha, Neb., parking lot, according to police. The Omaha Police Department said in a press release that officers responded to a report of an "unresponsive child" at 3025 N 93rd Street, where several businesses are located, around 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday, July 10. When authorities got to the scene, they said they found the child "located inside of a vehicle." According to ABC News, the car was parked outside of a beauty salon. Medics then took the child to a hospital, where he was pronounced deceased, the police said. They added, At this time, it appears that the child was left unattended inside of a vehicle for an extended period of time. In an update to the press release, the Omaha Police Department announced that they arrested the boys foster mom, Juanita Pinon, 40. Pinon was charged with "child abuse by neglect, resulting in death" and was placed into Douglas County Corrections. "The suspect did not provide a statement to declare whether it was an accident or intentional," police spokesperson Chris Gordon told ABC News. The boy was later identified as Dionicio Perez in a police report obtained by ABC affiliate KETV. Citing the report, the outlet said he had allegedly been left inside the car for seven hours. 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. Per KETV, the temperature outside the vehicle on Wednesday had been around 88 degrees around 5 p.m. Meteorologists added that it would have taken 10 minutes for the inside of the vehicle to reach 100 degrees. Employees at the beauty salon told the outlet that Pinon was not a customer. They claimed she was working in a business office attached to the back of the establishment. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services also confirmed to KETV that the child was placed in foster care and said it is cooperating with the polices investigation. According to a report by the National Safety Council (NSC), there have been ten children who have died of heatstroke this year and 29 who died last year. According to the NSC, on average, 37 children under the age of 15 die each year from heatstroke after being left in a car. The NSC also found in their research that in more than half of these fatalities, the child was forgotten in the vehicle by a parent or caregiver. Omaha police said the investigation into the boys death was still ongoing. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) The large Arrow Ford sign that was previously located along Interstate 20 between Old Anson Road and Highway 277 has been taken down. In late June, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) informed Arrow Ford that they needed to take down their sign. The removal was due to Arrow Fords failure to renew their permit to lease the sign at the location. The renewal was missed in late 2020 when the dealership had to reduce staff due to COVID-19. In 2022, Arrow Ford discovered the mistake and tried to appeal to TxDOT to fix it. The dealerships sign had been there since 1977 and was grandfathered during a contract renewal. However, the renewal was missed, and the old contract was voided. If Arrow Ford wanted to keep the sign, they would need to make adjustments to meet the new standards. Play Faire Park celebrates 77 years with new changes Arrow Ford owner Seaton Higginbotham explained that to preserve the sign, Arrow Ford sought assistance from various entities, including the governors office and the National Highway Department. We even went to the historical society and asked them, Can you make it historical? and its not quite at the 50-year mark, said Higginbotham. Higginbotham described how they worked diligently to keep the sign at its location before it ultimately had to be taken down. Its part of the Arrows heritage. Its part of the familys heritage. Its part of Abilenes heritage. Its part of West Texas. So, we fought hard to save it, and sometimes the government works in different ways, Higginbotham shared. COMING SOON: Abilene father-&-son revitalizes once-popular family recreation center While the sign is currently down, Higginbotham mentioned that it may not be for long. The good thing about the city is they didnt want it to go away either. The citys worked with us on permitting input and location, and hopefully, well get it up in another spot that will last for another 50 years, Higginbotham said. KTAB/KRBC contacted TxDOT about this issue and was informed that the final permit decision lies with TxDOTs right-of-way division in Austin. The Abilene division does not have authority over the final decision for permit regulations and renewal. 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. Frank Gable goes over evidence in 2000 in prison following his conviction. The man convicted and later exonerated in one of Oregon's most high-profile murder cases is suing former Oregon State Police and Salem Police investigators, accusing law enforcement of framing him for the deadly stabbing of prison director Michael Francke. Frank Gable, now in his 60s, was convicted in 1991 of murdering Francke. After years of failed appeals, he was released from prison in 2019 after a federal court found key evidence pointing to another suspect was excluded from his Marion County trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2022 affirmed the 2019 decision to vacate Gable's murder conviction. The option to retry him remained on the table for Marion County until a ruling last year. The federal court ordered that the criminal charges against Gable be fully dismissed and prohibited the state from retrying him. 1989 homicide of Michael Francke in Salem Francke was killed outside of the Dome Building on the Oregon State Hospital grounds on Jan. 17, 1989. A massive investigation to find the killer was launched. By 1990, it would be the longest and most expensive homicide investigation in Oregon history. Many estimate the investigation and trial cost more than $2 million. Gable, a known local methamphetamine dealer, was indicted in the killing by a Marion County grand jury. Michael Francke, Oregon corrections director, was killed Jan. 17, 1989, in Salem. During his monthslong jury trial, prosecutors contended Francke had interrupted Gable while Gable was burglarizing Francke's car to get "snitch papers." They said Gable lunged at Francke and stabbed him three times. Francke stumbled back to the porch of the Dome Building, where he bled out and died from a stab wound to the heart. The jury found Gable guilty of murder. He was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But for many, the mystery surrounding Francke's death did not end with Gable's conviction. Michael Francke's brothers believe in Frank Gable's innocence The homicide spawned several conspiracy theories, with some theorizing Francke was killed as a cover-up of prison corruption. Francke was brought into the Oregon prison system as a reformist. Some questioned whether he'd pushed too hard against official corruption and drug smuggling and was silenced. In 1989, the Statesman Journal reported that the FBI was investigating "a possible connection between official corruption and drug smuggling at the state penitentiary and the murder." Francke's own family had continued to cast doubt on Gable's guilt and the prosecution's theory. His brothers, Kevin and E. Patrick Francke, remained in contact with Gable and advocated for his release. "We are convinced of Frank Gable's innocence," the brothers told the Statesman Journal. The brothers of Michael Francke, E. Pat Francke, left, and Kevin Francke, cast doubt on Frank Gable's guilt and the prosecution's theory he killed their brother and said they were convinced of his innocence. During Gable's 1991 trial, the brothers attested to his innocence and urged investigators to track down the true killer. E. Patrick Francke said the evidence against Gable was weak. "I watched them reenact the crime and thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen," he said. "None of it made any sense." The killing spawned massive press coverage, an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," a 1995 movie starring Angelina Jolie, and a true-crime podcast. After Gable's conviction, he was transferred to out-of-state prisons, the final being Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas. He later changed his name to Franke J. Different Cloud and married while in prison. Federal ruling leads to Frank Gable's release In 2019, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta ruled the Marion County District Court erred in 1991 by excluding evidence pointing to another possible suspect. Gable was convicted based on the testimony of witnesses, nearly all of whom have since recanted their testimonies, according to the Court of Appeals opinion released in 2022. The weapon used to kill Francke was never found, and no physical evidence ever tied Gable to the crime scene. During the trial, the defense was unable to include evidence that another man, John Crouse, had confessed in April 1989 to the killing. Some of the truth may have died with Crouse. An obituary and court records indicate he died in 2013 in Nebraska. Acosta found these circumstances cast "serious doubt" on the state's case and ordered that Gable either be retried or released from prison. On June 28, 2019, Gable walked out of the Kansas prison free while prosecutors fought the judge's ruling. Attorneys accuse police of misconduct, framing Frank Gable With the charges now fully dismissed, his attorneys Rachel Brady, Renee Spence and Megan Pierce of Loevy & Loevy Attorneys Law filed a federal lawsuit against 24 investigators involved in the prosecution of Gable. "(Gable) is entirely innocent of this crime and has always maintained his innocence," his attorneys said in the filing. "No physical or forensic evidence ever connected plaintiff to the crime, and he had no motive to commit it. Instead, plaintiff's arrest, prosecution, and wrongful conviction were entirely the product of the defendant's misconduct." His attorneys added the case built against Gable was nothing but false, fabricated evidence that was the product of unlawful investigative techniques. The bulk of the former law enforcement officers named in the lawsuit were with Oregon State Police. Frank Gable was released from prison in 2019 after almost 30 years behind bars. His attorneys pointed to two other men Crouse and Tim Natividad that seemed like more likely suspects that were never included at trial. Instead, police turned to an easy target: Gable. "He was a powerless man with little means to defend himself," his attorneys said. They detailed coercive techniques by police like choking Gable until he passed out, drafting false reports of interrogations and threatening witnesses. In a federal petition to prove his innocence, more than 15 witnesses submitted affidavits stating police had coerced and manipulated them into pointing the finger at Gable. Gable spent almost 30 years enduring unfathomable hardship and pain, his attorneys said. His parents died. He lived in fear. He saw people be killed. He believed he would die alone in prison. "He was deprived of his liberty and autonomy for nearly 30 years, including the ability to interact freely with his loved ones; to be present for holidays, births, deaths, and other life events; to pursue his interests; to engage in meaningful labor and develop a career; and to live freely, as an autonomous being," his attorneys said. His attorneys said nothing can bring back the three decades Gable lost in prison, but he is bringing action now to redress the devastating injuries police caused him. For questions, comments and news tips, email reporter Whitney Woodworth at wmwoodworth@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-910-6616 or follow on X at @wmwoodworth This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Frank Gable sues police over '89 Michael Francke murder case Franklin's newest Common Council member says city has 'definitely changed for the better' Jon Peccarelli was selected by Franklin's Common Council on July 9 to be the District 1 alderman following the resignation of Ald. Ed Holpfer in June. Franklins Common Council has appointed Jon Peccarelli as District 1 alderman. Peccarelli was appointed to finish the remainder of Ald. Ed Holpfers term which expires April 14, 2025. The District 1 seat will be on the April 1 spring election ballot with the winner of that election serving a three-year term. Holpfer resigned in June because recent changes, including extended out of state travel, would cause him to "miss far too many council and related committee meetings to effectively perform the role, he wrote in an email to Mayor John Nelson and others. Holpfer was initially appointed to the seat in August 2021, replacing Mark Dandrea who resigned after his wife accepted a job which required them to move. Holpfer was elected in spring 2022, defeating Deborah Davis. We appreciate the years of service Ed gave to the city and are grateful for the citizens who expressed interest in filling the vacancy," Nelson said in a statement. "I was impressed with Jon during the (July 9) common council meeting and look forward to collaborating with him to elevate the growth in both the First District and our community." Peccarelli was selected over two others who applied for the position: Clarke W. Johnson and former District 5 alderman Doug Schmidt. Peccarelli got three council votes while Johnson got two and Schmidt got zero. During its July 9 special meeting, the council held a question-and-answer meeting with the three candidates. Each council member was able to ask the candidates two questions. Here are excerpts from Peccarelli's responses: What is Jon Peccarelli's background? A Franklin resident for 45 years, Peccarelli has a background in computer science and obtained a master's degree in finance analysis from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He said hes worked for a Fortune 500 company for the last 27 years in various IT roles and is currently IT director. He built a house in Franklin in 2000 and still lives there today with his wife and three children. He sees Franklin growing and becoming a much larger city than when I first was here. To me, thats very exciting, Peccarelli told the council. He wants to make a positive impact on the community and "be the voice for District 1 to ensure successful growth while being fiscally responsible. How will you get input from constituents and communicate with them? Peccarelli described himself as very strategic and execution focused. I am very open when it comes to trying to gather information to make decisions, he said. I value multiple viewpoints; I am a very strong proponent of using data to make decisions. He said surveys and other means can be helpful to understand other issues happening in the city but he thinks one-on-one communication is key. Having an actual conversation goes a long way, he said. Peccarelli also highlighted the benefits of technology like Zoom and how that can also be effective in maintaining communication when people have busy schedules. Why didnt you run during the last election for District 1? At that time, I didnt feel it was the right thing to be doing, Peccarelli said, adding he did run for school board in the last election. But he said things can change over time. Im at a point where I definitely want to be more involved and feel I have the skills and commitment to make a difference, so thats why Im here today, he said. What steps will you take to promote equity and inclusion in District 1 and in city as a whole? Franklin as an overall community has definitely changed for the better, I would say, over the last 30, 40, 50 years, Peccarelli said. It's continuing to ensure everyone has opportunities, that everyone is heard and has a voice and its part of my role as an alderperson to be that voice as well. What should be prioritized in the next budget and what would be your strategy to cut costs if need be? The District 1 alderperson is traditionally on the finance committee and Peccarelli said hes very comfortable being there. His approach would be to rank items on the budget based on impact, so if something has to be cut theres a better understanding of what that means to the department and city. He also said sometimes spending money, investing in something, saves money in the future. Whats the biggest strength or opportunity in District 1 and in the city as a whole? Peccarelli said the city needs to work with area resources, such as the Milwaukee 7, which is a regional cooperative economic development platform comprised of seven counties in southeastern Wisconsin. The Milwaukee 7's official website says the mission is to drive growth by helping homegrown businesses expand while attracting new business and talent. Peccarelli said Franklin needs to understand what options are out there and work to attract a business everyone can agree on. That might not happen, but well start there, he said. Are you likely to run a full reelection campaign in spring? If selected, 100% Id be running a full campaign for reelection, Peccarelli said. Can you deal with harsh comments on social media and possibly losing or straining existing friendships based on your position? Peccarelli said he has very high ethical standards and seeks out many different viewpoints on topics and truly listens to them. Demonstrating empathy goes a long way toward maintaining relationships, he said. How would you be a bridge connecting finance to other departments or committees/commissions in the city? Peccarelli said making such connections has been part of his role at his day job. A lot of my career has been a client relationship manager, he said, referring to working with supply chains, human resources and many other departments. This nine-month term is a very truncated timeline. How will you execute your vision for District 1? Nine months actually, to me, seems like a good amount of time, Peccarelli said, adding how in his job we operate at a very fast pace. He did acknowledge he needs to be realistic in what can be covered in nine months, but said hes a fast learner. Ive got to get more active with the departments, understand what their challenges are, and then also understand from a constituent standpoint where their concerns are and do that in a much-abbreviated timeline, he said. Ive had a learning curve at every position Ive been in. What do you think is the biggest challenge the city of Franklin is facing today? I would start with building a strong, connected community, Peccarelli said. I feel weve fractured a little bit here. Contact Erik S. Hanley at erik.hanley@jrn.com. Like his Facebook page, The Redheadliner, and follow him on X @Redheadliner. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Meet Jon Peccarelli, Franklin's newly-appointed District 1 alderman RAMALLAH, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A young Palestinian man was killed by Israeli army on Friday during a raid in the village of Abwein near the West Bank city of Ramallah, said official and local Palestinian sources. "Our crews transported a 26-year-old man injured in the head in serious condition from the village," the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a brief statement, without specifying the identity of the victim. The statement added that the young man died later in hospital as a result of his injury. Local sources reported that Israeli forces stormed the village, firing live bullets and tear gas bombs, which led to the young man being injured. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on this incident. More than 550 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in early October 2023, according to UN statistics. Our constitutional guaranteed freedoms are being challenged today more than ever, both on a national and state level. These freedoms have been fought for both on the battlefield and at home continuously from the the country's beginning, and they form the bedrock of our democracy. Colonists wanted their freedoms to be paramount, particularly their freedom of religion. The many religions within the 13 colonies demanded it. Religiously, they included Congregationalists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Dutch and German Reformed, Quakers, Catholics and members of other sects. Equally, they also wanted freedom from the tyranny of a dictator king. These two freedoms were foundational in the development of Americas democracy. Those who created the U. S. Constitution took heed from history to distribute authority away from the executive branch. Important in our democracys development was the Great Compromise agreement reached during the development of the U.S. Constitution between delegates. This agreement established Congress as a two-chambered body, with each state getting a number of representatives in the lower chamber (the House) proportional to its population and two representatives for each state in the upper chamber (the Senate). This configuration of government focused on representation of the peoples interest while restricting the powers of the executive. Many state delegates to the Constitutional Convention opposed a centralized government. These delegates agreed to approve the new Constitution, provided it was amended with a Bill of Rights to protect all individuals equally. More: A person with narcissistic personality disorder could destroy democracy if elected president. Drawing on the Magna Carta, Virginias Declaration of Rights and other sources, James Madison drafted 19 amendments, which he submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives. The House approved 17 of them and sent them to the U.S. Senate, which approved 12 of them. Ten were ratified by the states and became law. The original 10 amendments remain the bedrock of our democracy to this day. They are referred to as the Bill of Rights. The Constitution might never have been ratified if the framers hadn't promised to add a Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights gave citizens more confidence in the new government and broadened the concept of equality for all to eliminate discrimination. Infringement on an individuals religious rights and politicizing of our judicial system are two current efforts that are changing the original intents of our democracy. Our judicial system has recently decreed that all people are not equal in the face of our laws by providing certain immunities to the U.S. president. Providing for equality of all citizens in the face of the law includes the time-honored definition from the Magna Carta. It stated the principle that all citizens, including those in power, should be fairly and equally ruled by the law. King John of England was an evil king who heavily taxed his people, arbitrarily took their possessions and threw them into prison for the smallest reason. The sealing of the Magna Carta was a key moment in the development of the legal principle of equality before the law in England. Under this rule, laws should apply to all people equally no matter if they are the king or a servant, if they are rich or poor. This principle was carried forward in their definition of equality by colonists. Equality also meant equal freedoms for religious worship. Colonists refused to give up their religion just to be a part of a central government. The underlying reason for the Bill of Rights was to provide equality for all citizens. More: Guest analysis: Project 2025 is the radical conservatives' machination The Library of Congress is a repository of authentic documents that collectively reflect the evolution of the United States of Americas democracy. It is open to all citizens at no cost. The numerous trials of our democracy are contained in the many documents residing in this library. Assigning research projects to students using this library is a way of teaching them how to think, not what to think, as they learn more about Americas evolution. It also avoids violating the freedom of religion as currently proposed. Protecting the United States of Americas democracy and the freedoms it provides is a never-ending effort. It is a civic responsibility of every citizen. Richard C. "Dick" Hall Richard C. "Dick" Hall, of Norman, is an Army veteran who served 30 years in federal civil service and retired as a division manager. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Constitution might never have been ratified without Bill of Rights On Sunday, France celebrates Bastille Day, a national holiday. Bastille Day, also known as France's Independence Day, commemorates the 1789 fall of the Bastille in Paris. Honoring Bastille Day and Detroit's French roots are several French-inspired restaurants with special menus. The Statler This downtown French-American bistro from the Joe Vicari Restaurant Group celebrates Bastille Day on July 17 with a prix fixe five-course dinner. This dinner is also part of the Statler's monthly Passport to Wine series. Statler chef Vince Brady's curated menu features vichyssoise, fig and goat cheese salad, salmon ratatouille, pave de boeuf (filet mignon with mushroom demi-glace) and fresh fruit mille feuille. The dinner is $125 and includes a 6:30 p.m. reception with hors d'oeuvres and a signature drink followed by the 7 p.m. seated dinner. Tax, gratuity and other add-ons not included. The restaurant is on the corner of Washington Boulevard and West Grand River on the ground floor of the City Club Apartments CBD. Its named after the historic Statler Hotel that once occupied the site. The Statler, 313 Park Avenue, Detroit; 313-463-7111 or statlerdetroit.com. Oak & Reel After recently returning from France, Jared Gadbaw, Oak & Reel's chef and owner, has curated a six-course Bastille Day tasting menu. Gadbaw's menu highlighting his visits to several regions of France starts Sunday and is available through July 28 at the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood restaurant. The France-inspired menu features dishes such as Tuna Cru Nicoise," Canard au Cerise and Ravioli du Dauphine and is $109 per person and is available along with its regular menu. Oak & Reel, 2921 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit; 313-270-9600 or oakandreel.com. Bar Pigalle Bar Pigalle is pairing caviar with a bottle of Champagne to celebrate Bastille Day. In the Brush Park neighborhood, which was once known as "Little Paris," Bar Pigalle celebrates Detroit's French heritage. For Bastille Day, Bar Pigalle is pairing caviar service with a bottle of Lallier Champagne. Its regular menu offerings include escargots de Bourgogne, hand-cut frites along with seared duck breast and American wagyu steak frites A five-course tasting menu is $75 per person with an optional $55 per person wine pairing. Bar Pigalle is also known for its Sunday brunch menu highlights croque madam, quiche du jour and French omelet. While the restaurant is known for its Pigalle Burger, its no burger joint as Lyndsay C. Green wrote, naming them the No. 1 restaurant on the list of 2023 Best New Restaurants and more, and is a destination for highbrow French cuisine. Bar Pigalle, 2915 John R St., Detroit; 313-497-9200 or barpigalle.com. More French-inspired Detroit restaurants If you're in the mood for more French-inspired menus, here are a few notable metro Detroit restaurants. Cuisine Detroit LEFT: Chef/Owner Paul Grosz prepares lamb chops at Cuisine restaurant in the New Center area in Detroit on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. RIGHT: East Coast Halibut, seared and roasted, served with leek risotto, asparagus and citrus butter at Cuisine. This New Center area long-time classic European-inspired eatery was named the 2024 Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Restaurant of the Year Classic. Its owner and executive chef Paul Grosz also earned the Sylvia Rector Lifetime Achievement Award for Hospitality. Cuisine opened in Detroits New Center neighborhood, across the street from the Fisher Building, in 2001. Along with an a la carte menu, a theatre menu and a six-course progression menu with a vegetarian option are offered.Cuisine, 670 Lothroop, Detroit; 313- 872-5110 or cuisinerestaurant.com. Cafe Sous Terre Detroit The website of this Midtown cafe states "Serious coffee, serious cocktails, delicious French food and fresh bagels." Its savory menu lists classics like croque monsieur, quiche Lorraine, quiche Provence and gougeres a puff pastry with gruyere and Parmesan. Dessert offerings includ ecreme brulee and clafoutis. There's a coffee menu plus extensive beer, wine and cocktail menus.Cafe Sous Terre, 445 W. Forest Ave., Detroit; 313- 228-2880, cafesousterre.com. Le Supreme Detroit Steak Frites hanger steak, with maitre d' butter and pommes frites is served during the Detroit Free Press and Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers popular Top 10 Takeover dining series at Le Supreme in Downtown Detroit on Monday, June 3, 2024. This Parisian-inspired restaurant is on the ground level of the newly renovated historic Book Tower building on Washington Boulevard. The French restaurant landed at No. 4 on the 2024 Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Top 10 New Restaurants & Dining Experiences. Its menu features classics like its delicious hearty-broth French onion soup and steak frites featuring hanger steak and pommes frites. The interior design, which includes a cafe, bar, dining room and a private dining area, draws inspiration from early 20th-century Paris. Le Supreme, 1265 Washington Blvd., Detroit; 313- 597-7734, lesupremedetroit.com. Contact Detroit Free Press food writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on X (formerly Twitter.) Support local journalism and become a digital subscriber to the Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: French-inspired Detroit restaurants with special Bastille Day menus (Bloomberg) -- The left-wing parties that banded together to win the biggest number of seats in Frances snap election are struggling to unite to come up with a candidate for prime minister. Most Read from Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron plans to accept the resignation of current premier Gabriel Attal and his government early next week, paving the way for the French president to appoint a successor, people familiar with the matter said. That may not come for some time and Attal and his government will continue to run day-to-day activities until then. Whatever name the New Popular Front finally puts forward may be less important than the extent of their internal disagreements, however, since they provide an opening for others, including Macrons group, to try to peel away more moderate members. We are at a moment, when things are a little blocked, that it has to open up, we need to propose different solutions, Green party head Marine Tondelier said on RMC radio on Friday. She said that could include someone from outside the leftist alliance, which is made up primarily of Socialists, Greens, the far-left France Unbowed and Communists. France has been plunged into political paralysis since the election on Sunday ended with the National Assembly split among three main factions after voters thwarted the far rights bid to take power. The New Popular Front is the biggest of those ahead of Macrons centrist party and its allies, and Marine Le Pens National Front but it remains far short of an outright majority. While parties on both the left and right have spurned Macrons call for a broad coalition, some form of alliance among differing political groups would be necessary to get anywhere close to having enough seats to form a stable government. Underlining the differences within the left, lawmaker Manuel Bompard said on TF1 television on Friday that the prime minister should come from the party with the most seats within the alliance, which appears to be his France Unbowed, though parliamentary groups wont be finalized until next week. He also declined to put a timetable on discussions. Both he and Tondelier said they continued to reject Macrons appeal, contained in a letter published in regional newspapers, for republican forces to rally together to form a governing coalition. This de facto excluded the National Rally and France Unbowed. Under the French constitution, Macron has the prerogative to appoint the prime minister, but the ability of parliament to topple the government makes the choice delicate. He said on Sunday that he would wait to see the new configuration of the National Assembly before making a decision. Current Premier Gabriel Attal offered to step down on Monday following the election defeat, but the president asked him to remain in his post temporarily to maintain stability. Franceinfo reported earlier that Attals resignation will be accepted following a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Under French constitutional rules, the members of the outgoing administration who have won seats in the election need to resign before the new National Assembly sits for the first time next Thursday in order to put themselves forward for key roles in the parliament or take part in votes. Attal is expected to become head of his political group in the lower house. The government will continue to function until a new one is formed by the next prime minster, though it will have very limited powers, said Melody Mock-Gruet, a constitutional and parliamentary affairs specialist who teaches at SciencesPo university. Concretely it doesnt change much, physically; its Attal who will continue at Matignon until the next prime minister is named, she said, referring to the name of the building that houses the prime ministers office. Mock-Gruet added that a so-called resigning government cant present legislative bills, change regulations or hold cabinet meetings. It can issue decrees that deal with day-to-day matters, she said, and its members can also vote in parliament if they were elected. A poll by Odoxa and Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro newspaper showed 43% of respondents favor a coalition government. This compared with 29% who would prefer a technocratic administration. Around 43% backed the idea of Macrons group allying with the left, but without France Unbowed. (Updates with Macrons plan to accept resignation of his prime minister in second paragraph, comments from constitutional specialist starting in 12th paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) Its been a little bit over a week since Fresnos newest $1.6 million splash pad opened. On Thursday, the city announced that the splash pad has temporarily closed. Fresno Parks and Recreation said the splash pad is temporarily closed due to maintenance and updates will be provided as they become available. More shows added to the Big Fresno Fair 2024 line-up The new splash pad opened on July 3 at Fink-White Park. Fresnos Mayor Jerry Dyer and Councilmember Miguel Arias gathered to join the community and talk about the splash pad and the importance of having it in the area. On the opening day, Dyer said that the splash pad was the first splash pad west of Highway 99 and south of Highway 180. He said the construction costs for the splash pad were $1.6 million. As of Thursday, there is no date for when the splash pad will reopen. 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. FSIS issues public health alert for several meat products sold in Va and NC PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) The USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a public health alert for various ready-to-eat meat and poultry products sold throughout Virginia and North Carolina. According to FSIS, the impacted products were illegally imported from the Philippines and were shipped to restaurant and retail locations in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia. Affected products, regardless of production date, can be found below: 150-g. can of Argentina BRAND CORNED BEEF. 175-g. can of Argentina BRAND CORNED BEEF. 260-g. can of Argentina BRAND CORNED BEEF. 150-g. can of PUREFOODS CORNED BEEF. 210-g. can of PUREFOODS CORNED BEEF. 150-g. can of CHUNKEE CORNED BEEF. 190-g. can of CHUNKEE CORNED BEEF. 7.43-oz. jar of Ladys Choice Chicken Spread. Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Courtesy: FSIS Currently, there have been no reports of illness or adverse reactions due to the consumption of the products. The FSIS issued a statement regarding the public health alert, which can be read in part below: Retailers who have purchased the products are urged not to sell them. Consumers and restaurants who have purchased these products are urged not to consume or serve them. Consumers are asked to double bag the product when discarding it to reduce the possibility of animals accessing the product because USDA cannot confirm whether the products were properly heated to control pathogens of concern to domestic livestock and poultry. FSIS For more information on the public health alert, contact John Ducar, Owner, Redsealuxury, LLC, by phone at 646-669-4020 or through email at johnny@redsealux.com. Sheriff Ron Montgomery said the crimes are not just a problem for big companies like Walmart. When they absorb losses like this in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and approaching three quarters of one million dollars, eventually, as we all know, those losses are going to be passed down to the average consumer, Montgomery said. They said the ring stole from another retail giant as well. We have found that Target has a significant role as a victim in this matter as well, Montgomery said. And we are working with their loss prevention to try to see what we can do as far as criminal charges on their behalf. 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 Israeli settlement of Har Homa is seen overlooking the biblical town of Bethlehem, West Bank. On Thursday, the G7 nations condemned Israel's recent announcement to recognize five more West Bank settlements. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI July 11 (UPI) -- The Group of Seven nations condemned Israel's recent move to legally recognize five unauthorized Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, saying it was undermining peace efforts. "Israel's settlement program is inconsistent with international law, and counterproductive to the cause of peace," the nations of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Staes and the European Union said in a joint statement. Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights are widely regarded as illegal under international law, and greater attention has been placed on Israel's occupation amid its war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Late last month, Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the approval of West Bank settlements of Evyatar, Sde Efraim, Givat Asaf, Heletz and Adorayim. The legalization of the settlements was met by international condemnation. The European Union swiftly responded by calling the move "another deliberate attempt at undermining peace efforts." Tor Wennesland, United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said it was "deeply concerning" and would "exacerbate tensions & diminish viability" of achieving peace through a two-state solution. The G7 statement said they are joining the EU and U.N. in "condemning" Smotrich's announcement. They added that they also reject Israel's decision to declare more than 1,270 hectares of the West Bank so-called state land, which the Israeli military's Civil Administration department had declared June 25 in a document. It is the largest area designation for declaration since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israeli settlement monitor Peace Now said in a statement. "We reaffirm our commitment to a lasting and sustainable peace in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the U.N. Security Council, on the basis of a two-state solution," the G7 nations said. "We have therefore consistently expressed our opposition to the expansion of settlements and, as in previous cases, we urge the Government of Israel to reverse this decision." The group also called on Israel to release all tax revenues it is withholding from the Palestinian Authority. The announcement by Israel comes after it announced in mid-June it was accepting proposals to "strengthen" its Jewish settlements, a retaliatory move against Western nations that had taken the mostly symbolic step to recognize a state of Palestine by its 1967 borders, which include the the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel also said it would examine responses to the Palestinian Authority over international bodies taking actions it viewed as "against Israel." Sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, the de facto government of Palestinian territories, were also announced with the recognition of the five settlements. Rudy Giuliani is one step closer to paying the piper after a federal judge tossed his bankruptcy case on Friday. The move should make it easier for Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss to collect on their $148 million defamation judgment against him. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane of Manhattan said that Giulianis uncooperative conduct and red flag failure to hire an accountant contributed to the dismissal of his Chapter 11 case. The end of Giulianis bankruptcy case, which he first filed seven months ago, removes a big obstacle for his creditors, including Freeman and Moss, who won a massive civil lawsuit against him in December for falsely implicating them in Trumps 2020 Big Lie. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy days after the defamation judgment was issued. The rest was classic Rudy: He spent the next several months delaying and infuriating everyone involved. He did that largely by failing to meet basic requirements imposed on a debtor in bankruptcy, including not hiring an accountant, missing deadlines, filing inconsistent and incomplete financial records, and shielding much of his finances from the court. At times, the manner in which Giuliani concealed his money from the bankruptcy was itself revealing. Attorneys for the creditors grew irritated after realizing that Giuliani was using his businesses to cover many of his own expenses and some of those belonging to others close to him. In another episode, Giuliani announced on social media that he had launched a new, income-generating business venture: Rudy Coffee. The problem was that Giuliani failed to disclose the new source of income in the bankruptcy case, further aggravating those around him. As the bankruptcy case dragged on, creditors asked the judge to either dismiss the case or to appoint a trustee that would commandeer Giulianis assets. At a hearing this week, Giuliani said that if such a trustee were put into place, he would promptly stop engaging in any activity that might generate income, leaving less money for his creditors. The Wednesday hearing also saw Giuliani interrupt the proceedings at one point, exclaiming at an attorney who was listing his efforts to obstruct the bankruptcy that her comments were defamatory. In the end, Judge Lane found that Giuliani was fundamentally uncooperative, writing that the search for transparency into his finances was an elusive goal. The ruling now opens the door for Freeman and Moss to seek to enforce the defamation judgment on Giuliani directly. That could take the form of legal action seeking to seize his Manhattan apartment, or to garnish whatever income he continues to generate. But most of all it represents another stage of Giulianis downfall from his peak as Americas mayor to now-disbarred attorney on the run from creditors with no bankruptcy protection to keep them at bay any longer. Read the ruling here: This embedded content is not available in your region. Newly released police body camera video provided by the Moab Police Department shows Gabby Petito talking to a police officer after the van she was riding in was pulled over near Arches National Park on Aug. 12, 2021. Petito and her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, whom she was traveling the country with, had been in a fight in Moab, according to witnesses. | Moab Police Department The father of Gabby Petito has spoken out following the Moab Police Departments actions to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Petito family in November 2022. As a matter of established Utah law is how the Moab police department is defending its motion to seek dismissal, according to the document obtained by Deseret News. The dismissal was filed on April 26, 2024, in the 7th Judicial District Court in Grand County. In this case, Brian Laundrie murdered Petito 15 days after they left Moab together, the filing read. During that 15-day interval, Petito had her van, keys, and contact with her family. Instead of leaving Laundrie, she drove with her fiance to Wyoming 400 miles away from Moab. Petito was reported missing by her family on Sept. 11, 2021. Human remains were found on Sept. 19 and later identified as Petito. Nearly two weeks before Petito was allegedly strangled by Laundrie near Grand Teton National Park, police bodycam footage on Aug. 12, 2021, shows her near Moab, where police officers were summoned to a domestic dispute call regarding the couple. Neither Petito nor Laundrie were arrested. The two were separated for the night, with Petito in the couples travel van and Laundrie taken to a motel designated for domestic abuse survivors. The cops even deemed Petito as the primary aggressor even though a witness account said they saw Laundrie being physically aggressive with his fiance by slapping her. Petitos murder is an undeniable sorrow. Laundries crime was undisputedly depraved. But the judicial system is not a substitute for a GoFundMe campaign; heartbreak is not enough. the department filing added. In response, Petitos father, Joseph Petito, rebuffed the departments accusation that his family was using the lawsuit to gain money. Moab still doesnt get it. This case has never been about money, he told the New York Post in a statement. It has always been about seeking accountability and fighting for change that will save lives, Petito said. When law enforcement fails to follow the law, fails to protect and refuses to learn from its mistakes, like the Moab Police Department, it puts us all at risk. Brian Laundrie died by gunshot wound to the head in September 2021, according to Florida police documents. His remains were found on Oct. 20, 2021. The Deseret News reached out to the Moab Police Department for comment but did not immediately receive a response. THE HAGUE, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced on Friday that it will deliver an advisory opinion on July 19 regarding the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. A public session will be held on July 19 at the Peace Palace, the seat of the ICJ in The Hague, where Judge Nawaf Salam, president of the court, will present the advisory opinion, said the court in a press release. During the public hearings at the ICJ in February, Palestine, 49 UN member states, and three international organizations presented oral statements. At the hearings, Palestine's UN envoy Riyad Mansour urged the ICJ to declare Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, emphasizing that such a ruling would pave the way for an immediate end to the occupation and the establishment of a "just and lasting peace." Without participating in the hearings, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued a statement rejecting the legitimacy of the hearings, accusing them of attempting to further undermine Israel's right to survival and self-defense. North Carolina will receive $242 million from the federal government to help replace the aging Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in Wilmington. The money comes from the big infrastructure bill Congress passed in late 2021. The grant, from the U.S. Department of Transportation, was announced Friday by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and one of North Carolinas Republican U.S. senators, Thom Tillis, who voted for the bill. In a statement, Cooper called the grant a game changer for the people of Southeastern North Carolina and credited the Biden administration. The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is a critical lifeline for Wilmington and our economy, used every day by thousands of residents, tourists headed to the beach and truck drivers going to and from the port, Cooper said. I appreciate President Bidens leadership and commitment to rebuilding our aging infrastructure and look forward to getting this transformational project underway. Tillis thanked U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for taking my call about this project, and highlighted the role of Congress. This was made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, legislation that Im proud to have helped author and pass into law, he said in a statement. Its already provided more than $10 billion to rebuild North Carolinas infrastructure, and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge replacement is the latest project that will benefit our great state. The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge carries U.S. highways 17, 76 and 421 over the river, connecting downtown Wilmington with Brunswick County. More than 70,000 vehicles cross it each day, including trucks going to and from the Port of Wilmington. The bridge was completed in 1969 and is near the end of its useful life. In particular, the metal center span, which lifts straight up to allow taller ships to pass underneath, is difficult to maintain and was the focus of months of repairs this spring. The N.C. Department of Transportation says it costs about $500,000 a year to maintain and operate the lift bridge and that the cost is rising as it ages. NCDOT began studying options for replacing the bridge in 2019 and came up with four, all involving a new parallel span just downriver of the existing one. All the options would have three lanes in each direction, compared to two today, and a 15-foot multi-use path on one side. Funding has been a big hurdle for replacing the bridge. The local transportation planning group, the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, urged NCDOT to look at all potential sources of revenue to pay for the bridge, including possibly tolls, though both the local group and the state hope to avoid that. The federal grant would cover roughly half of the estimated $485 million cost of replacing the bridge, according to Cooper. 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. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A security guard convicted of planning unspeakable violence against Holly Willoughby has been sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Gavin Plumb, from Harlow, Essex, was found guilty of hatching a plot to kidnap, murder and rape the former This Morning host following a week-long trial. The security guard had been attempting to live his ultimate fantasy and was described by the prosecution as someone who had an obsession with Ms Willoughby. Sentencing Plumb on Friday, Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray said he had no doubt his plans for Ms Willoughby were considerably more than a fantasy. The judge said: Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons - including your poor physical health - but you clearly thought it was feasible. The judge told the 37-year-old his plans were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail that they were not shared in open court. Plumb was jailed for 16 years, but will serve a minimum of 15 years and 85 days due to time spent on remand. As he was led out of the dock and down to the cells by a prison officer, Plumb appeared to mutter 15 years to kill myself. A week-long trial heard how Plumb had made an abduction kit, complete with metal cable ties, handcuffs, a ball gag and a blindfold, in preparation for the attack on Ms Willoughby. He scouted her home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could keep the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors. Officers raided Plumbs flat on Oct 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online. Detectives examining his phone and devices discovered vast numbers of images of women 10,322 of which were of Ms Willoughby. Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Ms Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras. As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor. The court heard how the offences had had a life-changing impact on the TV presenter, who wished for her victim statement to be private. In a submission made by the prosecution, Alison Morgan KC said: The prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences. Det Chief Insp Greg Wood, the senior investigating officer in the case, said Plumbs sentencing has brought misogyny and violence against women and girls to the fore. Speaking outside Essex Crown Court, Mr Wood added: It cannot be right that men like Gavin Plumb can join online forums where they freely vent hatred against women and girls and plot to cause them harm. In a statement following last weeks guilty verdict, Ms Willoughby said: As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own homes. I will forever be grateful to the undercover police officer who understood the imminent threat, and to the Metropolitan and Essex police forces for their swift response. 02:57 PM BST Thats all Thank you for following The Telegraphs coverage of Gavin Plumbs sentencing. 02:09 PM BST Plumb is a calculating sexual predator, says Essex Police chief inspector Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood said: He is not a fantasist - he is a calculating sexual predator who has spent his adult life seeking to inflict violence on women. Today I pay tribute to Ms Willoughby and the other women who Gavin Plumb sought to harm. Their bravery has helped us protect other women and I thank them for their courage. 01:51 PM BST Plumb a dangerous individual, says Essex Police chief inspector Detective Chief Inspector Greg Wood, of Essex Police, the senior investigating officer in the case of Gavin Plumb, said outside court the defendant was a dangerous individual. Hes a dangerous individual with a history of kidnapping women and girls, Mr Wood said. He tried to claim throughout the trial that he was an obsessive fan and a fantasist - that is simply not true. He planned this attack on Ms Willoughby over a two-year period, scoping her movements, seeking help from others and buying items to incapacitate and inflict violence. 01:41 PM BST Plumb sentencing brings misogyny and violence against women to the fore, says Police spokesman Gavin Plumb sentencing has brought misogyny and violence against women and girls to the fore, a police spokesman has said. In a statement outside Essex Crown Court, Essex Polices Senior investigating officer Det Chief Insp Greg Wood paid tribute to Holly Willoughby and Plumbs previous victims, saying: It cannot be right that men like Gavin Plumb can join online forums where they freely vent hatred against women and girls and plot to cause them harm. Essex Police's DCI Greg Wood says case has brought violence against women 'to the fore' It has demonstrated that we have much to do to stamp it out of society. We need everyone to stand up to call out misogyny and to report those committing or intent on causing violence towards women and girls. 01:19 PM BST Plumbs sentence sends clear message, says Crown Prosecution Service Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service, said Gavin Plumbs sentence of life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years ensures he will remain in prison, where he can no longer threaten or harm women. She said: There is no doubt Gavin Plumb posed a real danger, and the CPS proved that his plans to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby were more than mere fantasy and he had every intention of encouraging others to help him. I hope todays sentence brings some comfort to the victim, as well as the victims of his previous offences, and sends a clear message that the CPS will always bring the strongest possible case against those who plan violence against women. 01:06 PM BST Plumb as hes led away: Ive got 15 years to kill myself Led out of the dock and down to the cells by a prison officer, Plumb said: Ive got 15 years to kill myself. The 37-year-old, who stood as the sentence was read out, initially showed no reaction but as he was led to the cells he made the comment to the dock officer and made an exasperated gesture raising both his hands. 01:00 PM BST Plumbs plans for Willoughby sadistic, brutal and degrading, says judge Referring to Gavin Plumbs online messages with a man named Marc, Mr Justice Edward Murray said the plans he outlined for Holly Willoughby were particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. He told the defendant: The key point in this regard is that the plan to murder Ms Willoughby was the endpoint of a plan developed over a considerable time to kidnap and falsely imprison her for the principal purpose of raping and otherwise sexually abusing her over a sustained period of time in ways that, judging by your discussions with Marc, would have been particularly sadistic, brutal and degrading. The judge added: There is no doubt that if you had genuinely found one or more accomplices who were seriously interested in and had been willing to join you in carrying your plan through then you would have put this plan into action. 12:55 PM BST Plumbs plans too horrifying, shocking and graphic to share in court Mr Justice Edward Murray told Gavin Plumb his plans for Holly Willoughby were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail that they were not shared in open court. He told the defendant: Many of the messages about what you planned to do to Ms Willoughby were so horrifying, shocking and graphic in detail, they were not read out in open court. The jury, however, read every single message during the trial. Turning to what Plumb said in his defence, the judge added: Your claim in your evidence that you had bought the chloroform to clean a stubborn stain on your living room carpet was a particularly clumsy and obvious lie. 12:45 PM BST Plan considerably more than a fantasy, says judge The sentencing judge said Gavin Plumb had no doubt the security guards plans for Holly Willoughby were considerably more than a fantasy. Mr Justice Edward Murray said: I have no doubt that this was all considerably more than a fantasy to you. The judge continued: Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons - including your poor physical health - but you clearly thought it was feasible. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men - the right crew as you sometimes called it - to help you do it. 12:42 PM BST Judge praises Willoughbys considerable courage for waiving anonymity The judge sentencing Gavin Plumb said Holly Willoughby is a well-known and well-loved public figure but is entitled to respect for her private and family life. Mr Justice Edward Murray said he had read Ms Willoughbys victim personal statement, the contents of which are private but were shown only to those who needed to see, including Plumb. The judge said he had carefully read Ms Willoughbys statement, adding: I simply note I am satisfied these offences have had life-changing consequences for her both privately and professionally. He praised the considerable courage Ms Willoughby displayed by waiving her right to anonymity in the case. 12:27 PM BST Judge begins sentencing remarks The sentencing is about to get under way. 12:00 PM BST Judge considering sentence Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray has risen to consider his sentence and will return in 20 minutes. Judge Mr Justice Edward Murray will decide Gavin Plumb's fate 11:58 AM BST Gavin Plumb worshipped Holly Willoughby, says defence Gavin Plumb worshipped and was obsessed with Ms Willougby for years and is devastated to have been the cause of such pain to her, defence barrister Sasha Wass KC said. Taking to her feet, she told the court that Plumb had read the very detailed victim statement made by the TV presenter. She added: Of course, Mr Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed of the online conversations that formed the focus of this trial. They are conversations that he always expected would remain private. 11:52 AM BST Plumb urged convicted paedophile to help him kidnap and murder Holly Willoughby During his trial, it emerged that Gavin Plumb discussed his depraved plans with a man he met in an online chat room called Marc. The Telegraph revealed that the person behind the anonymous account was in fact Mark Mulligan, who is a convicted paedophile and stalker from Dublin, in Ireland. Mulligan was jailed in November 2014 for three and a half years after he admitted stalking a woman and discussed raping her young son. Mark Mulligan, a convicted paedophile and stalker from Dublin, discussed Plumb's plans He also discussed sexually assaulting TV personalities and their children. The then 39 year-old also admitted possessing child pornography when his home was raided on July 7 2013. He was also found guilty of a third charge, which he denied, of producing child pornography. Read the full story here. 11:30 AM BST Plumbs full plans so depraved and vile they cannot be reported The prosecution said Gavin Plumb had plans that were so depraved and vile that they were not reported by the media. Turning to the offending of the 37-year-old, Alison Morgan KC said: My Lord knows of the extreme and gratuitous degradation of the victim that was planned by this defendant. Degradation that was so depraved and vile that they were, by agreement, not reported in detail by representatives of the media. The 'abduction kit' Plumb acquired - PA 11:27 AM BST Plumb made victim view all men as perpetrators Describing another victim statement from a woman Plumb tried to kidnap from a train in Stansted in 2006, Alison Morgan KC said the woman now feels extremely vulnerable and that she began to see all men as perpetrators. I clearly remember the feeling when Gavin Plumb grabbed my leg, the victim said in a statement read to the court by Ms Morgan. I remember how awful it felt to have his hand on me. It was a disgusting feeling. 11:25 AM BST Previous victim felt permanent sense of worry about bumping into Plumb, the court has heard The court has heard moving statements from Plumbs previous victims, including a woman who he tried to falsely imprison in a shop in 2008. She said that hearing details of the defendants plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away. In a victim impact statement described by Alison Morgan KC, the barrister told the court that the woman felt a permanent sense of worry that she would bump into him when he was released from prison. Ms Morgan added: Hearing of these matters has made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away from him, thankful as she is it didnt turn out worse. 11:17 AM BST Listen: Plumbs plan to kidnap Willoughby 11:09 AM BST Impossible to convey shock and fear caused to Willoughby, a court has heard In a submission made by the prosecution, Alison Morgan KC said: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution it is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. 11:01 AM BST Watch: Moment police arrest man convicted of plotting to kidnap and rape Holly Willoughby Gavin Plumb said Holly Willoughby was a fantasy of mine as police raided his flat, according to body-worn video footage played in court. The 37-year-old was shirtless when officers forced open his front door and burst into his home in Harlow, Essex, on Oct 4 last year. A police officer handcuffed Plumb, who was in a bedroom in the property, within moments of them entering. Plumb exclaimed what are you talking about? in the footage played to Chelmsford Crown Court, later adding: Please explain to me what the hell is going on? When told he was under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to kidnap, Plumb asked who and was told it was Willoughby. The defendant asked OK, wheres that from? and was told by an officer that will be explained to you in custody. Read the full story here. 10:49 AM BST Continued from previous... A past victim of Gavin Plumb, who said he could have been stopped sooner, told the BBC: I had all the worst scenarios cooking in my head. And I thought if I get off that train, he can do anything and so my thought was not to get off that train at any cost. Asked if she felt a prison sentence could have prevented future attacks, the woman told the broadcaster: I believe so, I believe that lack of punishment was only encouragement. He could go unpunished doing whatever he did, if he got away with it - why not try again? A sketch of Plumb in court - as a survivor said he could have been stopped sooner - Elizabeth Cook/PA She continued: Potentially every man can be a perpetrator and I understand that so many women think along the same lines. A large man sitting right next to a girl: that is a potential danger. It is really sad but that is one of those takeaways from that unfortunate story for me. When I look at men I very often do that quick judgement, what level of danger are they? 10:45 AM BST Gavin Plumb could have been stopped sooner, says survivor A past victim of Gavin Plumb has said the lack of punishment for his attempted kidnap of her was only encouragement as the security guard faces jail for a plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby. Speaking ahead of Plumbs sentencing, one of his former victims told the BBC of being frozen and scared when he attempted to kidnap her. The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, told the broadcaster: He had a rope and replica gun on him. As I read that note it was only then I looked at him. My first impression was that: he is huge, I have no chance. There was this moment when I was frozen and scared. But it was also disbelief, I thought maybe he is joking, it is absurd, but he started approaching me with his hands, he held his hand on my knee and he was indicating that we are going to go. After the initial freeze and disbelief I realised whats going on and I was frightened, that feeling was growing because I started realising that this massive man wants to get me off the train and I knew the next station is in a small village. 10:42 AM BST Plumb arrives in the dock Plumb has arrived in the dock to face his sentencing. Wearing a grey prison tracksuit, he spoke briefly to confirm his name. 10:40 AM BST Large crowd gathers inside courtroom A large crowd of press and members of the public have gathered inside courtroom two at Chelmsford Crown Court this morning to catch a glimpse of Gavin Plumb. The last time he appeared in the dock, he shook his head and closed his eyes before sobbing as the jury announced its unanimous verdict after 12 hours and 19 minutes of deliberation. 10:38 AM BST Who is Gavin Plumb? 35-stone loner drank 18 litres of cola every 10 days and obsessed over Holly Willoughby At his heaviest he was 35 and-a-half stone and drank 18 litres of cola every 10 days while living in a rubbish-strewn council flat, writes Will Bolton. Neighbours described Gavin Plumb, a 37-year-old father of two, as a reclusive figure who used taxis to travel from his flat on the outskirts of the town. Born in February 1987, Plumb worked as a security guard and spent his life living in Harlow and Loughton, both in Essex. Plumb, who has three brothers and a half-brother, is understood not to be in contact with the mother of his children. In 2006, he was handed a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. Read the full story on Plumbs background here. 10:33 AM BST Plumbs ex-partner says he has done it before and will do it again Laura Roberts shares two children with Gavin Plumb The ex-partner of Gavin Plumb said he has done it before and will do it again. Laura Roberts was with the perverted security guard for three years during which time she gave birth to a son, now 15, and a daughter, now 16. Speaking for the first time last week, she said her former partner was a complete fantasist and that she wasnt surprised that his sadistic plan was uncovered by police. I wasnt surprised when I heard what he had done it all fitted in. He has done it before and he will do it again. We were together for three years but I havent seen him since he left, she told The Telegraph. Read the full story here. 10:28 AM BST Plumb had long history of violence towards women Plumbs violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument. 10:18 AM BST Pictured: Inside the flat where Plumb planned to detain Willoughby The inside of Plumb's flat, where he was arrested - CPS Plumb had metal cable ties along with other equipment needed to carry out the kidnapping in his flat - CPS 10:13 AM BST Listen: Plumb sent voice notes detailing plan to kidnap Willoughby using chloroform Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras. As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor. Plumbs violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument. 10:02 AM BST More than 10,000 images of Willoughby discovered on Plumbs phone Detectives examining Gavin Plumbs phone and devices discovered vast amounts of images of women 10,322 of which were of Holly Willoughby. So vast was the amount of material that officers were only able to analyse around 10 per cent, amounting to more than tens of thousands of images, Det Con William Belsham, of Essex Police, told jurors. Plumb, a father of two, was also found to have made web searches including how to meet people who plan to kidnap celebs and what does it feel like to be raped in 2021. In sexualised messages on WhatsApp, Wickr and Kik between Plumb and a man called Marc, the pair exchanged 57 images of Willoughby across 46 WhatsApp messages between Jan 12 and Jan 19 2022. Nine of these images were deepfake pornography, Alison Morgan KC, prosecuting, said. 09:56 AM BST Plumb made abduction kit to kidnap Willoughby During a week-long trial, Chelmsford Crown Court heard how Gavin Plumb had made an abduction kit, complete with metal cable ties, handcuffs, a ball gag and a blindfold, in preparation for the attack. He scouted Holly Willoughbys home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could keep the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors. Officers stormed Plumbs flat on Oct 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online. 09:49 AM BST Willoughby: Women should not be made to feel unsafe in our own homes Speaking after Gavin Plumbs conviction, Holly Willougby said women should not be made to feel unsafe in their own homes and praised Plumbs previous victims for coming forward. In a statement following the verdict at Chelmsford Crown Court last week, Willoughby, who waived her right to anonymity, said: As women we should not be made to feel unsafe going about our daily lives and in our own homes. I will forever be grateful to the undercover police officer who understood the imminent threat, and to the Metropolitan and Essex police forces for their swift response. Holly Willoughby waived her right to anonymity - Ken McKay She thanked the prosecutors, the judge, and the members of the jury for ensuring that justice was done and that [Plumb] will not be able to harm any more women. She added: I would also like to commend the bravery of his previous victims for speaking up at the time. Without their bravery this conviction may not have been possible. The security guard had been attempting to live his ultimate fantasy and was described by the prosecution as someone who had an obsession with Willoughby. Read the full story here. 09:47 AM BST Good morning Hello and welcome to the Telegraphs coverage of Gavin Plumbs sentencing. Stay tuned for live updates from Chelmsford Crown Court and the reaction outside afterwards. 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 Georgia Public Service Commission held an Aug. 6 hearing on a group of Hancock County property owners seeking to overturn an April ruling that would allow the Sandersville Railroad Co. to acquire their land through condemnation. City of Sandersville A predominantly Black neighborhood in Hancock County has a second chance to stop a railroad company from forcibly taking land to build a rail line extension that is being presented by owners as a major economic boost for the area. The Georgia Public Service Commission has scheduled an Aug. 6 hearing as it considers an appeal filed by a group of Hancock County property owners who are seeking to overturn a recent ruling that permitted the Sandersville Railroad Co. to acquire land through condemnation. Company officials said exercising eminent domain is the last resort after landowners refused to negotiate deals for their land. According to the companys plans, property owners will not be required to relocate their homes and will be able to access pastures and other areas for hunting and fishing without restriction. The eminent domain law authorizes governments to seize land for public use for the purpose of building new roads, utilities, and other infrastructure. The Sandersville Railroad Co. plans to construct the 4.5-mile Hanson Spur rail line that connects the Hanson Quarries with the CSX Transportation rail line that runs along Ga. Highway 16. Local manufacturers would use the short train track to deliver granite, liquid asphalt, paper-quality wood chips and various other materials to Savannah, Macon and other cities. The PSC hearing next month is the latest in a case involving the railroad company, Hancock County neighbors and an intervening group of community members dubbed the No Railroad In Our Community Coalition. The Sparta property owners who refused to sell any of the land have expressed their defiance being forced to give up land in some cases has been handed down from prior generations. Thomas Bond, a hearing officer for the commission, ruled in April that the railroad companys plans to build the line serves a public interest and meets the legal standards for condemning property. In a June 6 letter, Sandersville Railroad attorney L. Craig Dowdy accused the attorneys representing the 18 Hancock County property owners of attempting to intentionally delay the appeal process. The No Railroad parties are assisted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, while the property owners are represented by the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice. Opponents have acted in lockstep to oppose Sandersvilles Petition for Commission authority to acquire real estate by condemnation, Dowdy wrote. Through their collective team of at least 10 attorneys, they have sought to obfuscate the facts and requirements of the statute and have made it clear that they desire to appeal to the highest courts any Commission decision with which they do not agree. The Commission should reject this strategy and proceed in the usual order. The five-member PSC, established in 1874 as the Railroad Commission of Georgia, will now decide the appeal. The commissions name changed as it expanded its responsibilities to regulate natural gas, telecommunications, and electric utilities. Sparta neighborhood residents say they are worried about the level of noise from trains traveling the line, potential property damage and the further expansion of the noisy and dirty rock quarry. This project will require the company to acquire about a 200-foot-wide right of way for a track line that will be built about 1,000 feet away from the majority of homes and a couple hundred feet away from several houses near the quarry. According to the company, 130-foot-wide, 20-foot-tall berms will be built to buffer the noise of the trains. According to the Sparta neighbors attorneys, Sandersville failed to meet the burden under Georgia statute to justify taking the land for business purposes. Furthermore, they claim that the initial PSC ruling ignores the substantial evidence showing that the project benefits only private interests and is not economically feasible. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a government taking of private property to facilitate a private development for economic growth can be considered a public use. Although the commission does not have jurisdiction to hear and decide federal statutory claims, race is not a new argument in these proceedings, the SPLCs June 20 brief states. The (No Railroad Coalition) has continuously highlighted that the privately owned Sandersville Railroad Company intends to condemn and take land in a predominantly Black county. The Sandersville Railroad is closely held by the family of president Benjamin Tarbutton III, a former chairman of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and former co-chair of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Tarbuttons grandfather bought the railroad company in 1916 and is credited with using it to spur economic growth that included the construction of three kaolin clay plants by the 1950s. The Black Sparta neighbors have become a symbol for property owners rights in their fight against Sandersville Railroad, which is promoting the Hanson Spur line and rock quarry expansion as major financial investments for the region. Hancock is one of the poorest counties in Georgia, with nearly a third of the population living below the federal poverty level. During the construction of the proposed new spur, Sandersville Railroad officials said it plans to employ around 20 temporary workers and that the project will create a dozen permanent jobs with salaries and benefits averaging $90,000. The Hanson Spur, along with the future expansion of the Hanson Quarry, will be the single largest private investment in Hancock County history, bringing more jobs, new opportunities and added tax revenue to the area, Sandersville Railroad says on the projects website. Most importantly, it will create a brighter future for local residents. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX FILE - The Fulton County Jail is seen, April 11, 2023, in Atlanta. The Fulton County Sheriff said Friday, July 12, 2024, that a decision this week not to move forward with plans to build a new jail is short sighted. (AP Photo/Kate Brumback, File) ATLANTA (AP) The sheriff in a Georgia county where prison conditions have led to a federal civil rights investigation criticized a decision not to move forward with plans for a new jail, calling the vote shortsighted" on Friday. The Fulton County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday voted 4-3 to approve a request for proposals to assess jail facilities, recommend renovations and provide an estimate for a future special purpose building. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation last year over longstanding problems with jail conditions in the county. This project is really putting a Band-Aid on open-heart surgery, Sheriff Pat Labat, who has pushed aggressively for a new jail, told reporters Friday. County commissioners in May voted to end a search for a project manager to oversee the building of a new jail at an estimated cost of $1.7 billion, news outlets reported. State legislators had said they wouldn't allow a new local sales tax to fund the project and commissioners were unwilling to increase property tax rates. The maximum allowable budget for the new project is $300 million. Labat has long complained about dangerous conditions at the jail, including overcrowding, crumbling infrastructure and critical staffing shortages. He maintains that the only solution is to build a new jail that is more in line with modern corrections practices. In addition to being a safer and more humane jail it would also be more cost effective, the sheriff said. The county is responsible for the maintenance of this facility while we oversee it, Labat said. Ultimately, the county funds the actual maintenance and what it looks like is $300,000 a month. We've had since May of last year nearly 15,000 work orders just for this building alone. The building, the infrastructure itself is out of date. Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. could not support the new jail plan, he said during Wednesday's meeting. "I believe we need a new facility," he said. "The facility is crumbling apart, and I believe this is the wrong direction. Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman said she had been one of the biggest proponents of a new jail but that the reality had sunk in that we do not have public support" for it, she said. She did vote for the renovation plan. To do nothing is to continue to tell the public that we will not make the hard decisions when we need to make them, she said. Some commissioners said they are working under uncertainty since the Department of Justice has yet to issue any findings from its investigation. When the Justice Department began investigating, it cited violence, filthy conditions and the September 2022 death of Lashawn Thompson, one of dozens of people who has died in county custody during the past few years. Thompson, 35, died in a bedbug-infested cell in the jails psychiatric wing. Last August, former President Donald Trump went to the Fulton County Jail to be booked and to sit for the first-ever mug shot of a former president after he was indicted on charges related to efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Civil rights groups and advocates for people held in jails and prisons applauded the county's new direction on the jail. Were elated to hear the news that the $2B jail will be scrapped. This was a long fight with local advocates demanding their voices to be heard, said Michael Collins, senior policy director at Color of Change. For far too long, those in power have disregarded the will of the people. Today, that has been rectified." The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia also applauded the decision. We reiterate that the wholesale warehousing of people pre-trial is expensive and does not make our communities safer," executive director Andrea Young said. "There are better solutions and we will continue to advocate for more effective approaches to safe communities. Detractors of the new rules say it will likely increase errors in the process of calculating votes. Detractors of the new rules say it will likely increase errors in the process of calculating votes. Composite: The Guardian/Javier Palma/Getty Images Georgias state board of elections has proposed changes to election policy and monitoring requirements that put Fulton county elections officials in their crosshairs and could delay and allow for partisan actors to challenge election results. . As part of the state boards reprimand for Fulton county double-counting some ballots in a 2020 recount an error that did not affect the outcome of the election Fulton county is required to hire a team of election monitors for the 2024 presidential election. The board also began a process of rule-making this week that will require county elections workers to count the paper ballots cast at each polling place by hand before turning those ballots in to be tabulated after each day of voting, and to investigate discrepancies on the spot. The new rules under consideration in Georgia would alter what it means for local election boards to certify an election. The process currently is considered ministerial a formality signaling the end of an election and the tabulation of votes, with any challenges to the results coming after certification. The rules ask the volunteers working at local polling sites or local election board members to investigate discrepancies as a prerequisite of certification. The new rule, proposed by Republican Michael Heekin of the Fulton county board of elections, also requires all discrepancies to be investigated immediately and it empowers local elections board members to pull whatever records they deem fit to ensure an election is conducted fairly. The investigation part is already kind of nerve-wracking because the rule doesnt give a clear explanation of what suffices, said Marisa Pyle, senior democracy defense manager from the voting rights group All Voting Is Local. Proponents argue that the new rule would increase confidence in Georgias elections and reduce the potential for errors. Detractors say that it is far more likely to create errors that the introduction of an additional step requiring the handling of ballots adds a point of failure in the process. Related: Documents detail Republican push to force hand counts in Arizona election Thats exactly why this is not the standard practice, said Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democratic appointee to the state election board. The counties that were piloting the system found that their poll workers, after working a 14-hour day and being exhausted and generally being older, couldnt count it correctly consistently and if youre off by one or two, youre just going to do it over and over again. If adopted, it works against laws the Georgia legislature passed after the 2020 election requiring elections offices to tabulate results from every precinct by midnight on election day. The petitions contain provisions that, if adopted, would create a significant risk of delay in counties certifying election results, said Peter J Simmons, state policy advocate at Protect Democracy. Any such delays could quickly endanger the ability to meet not only the post-election deadlines imposed by state law, but also the new federal deadlines for certification created by the Electoral Count Reform Act. Honestly, that appears to be the intent of these proposals to create opportunities for delay and confusion, and to sow further distrust of our election system, he added. The proposal also comes after Julie Adams, a Republican on the Fulton county election board, filed a lawsuit against the county election board and the countys election director to get a court order saying that boards of election members have the discretion not to certify an election. The lawsuit has been described as an effort to set the stage for Republicans to rig the election in November. The board must post the proposed rule for 30 days of public comment before voting it into effect. The rule would thus go into effect with less than three months before the 5 November presidential election. The Electoral Count Reform Act, passed by Congress in the wake of the January 6 US Capitol attack and the election interference cases stemming from the 2020 election, requires states to have resolved challenges to election results by 11 December, six days before the constitution sets state electoral votes, this year on 17 December. The rules are setting up conditions where an aggrieved party can drag the county or other counties through the courts after an election. And the question is whether that slog will tie up an election result past 11 December. The rule-making process may have also hit a snag this week because of a raucous state elections board meeting on Tuesday. What had been planned as a one-day meeting could not be concluded on Tuesday. Wednesdays carry-over meeting failed to reach a quorum, with three conservative members of the board absent. The meeting is formally in recess right now. It cannot be called back into session unless the chairman, John Fevier, calls it, and until it adjourns properly or until it meets again at its regular date next month the proposed rules cannot be legally posted for their 30-day public comment period. And if that public comment period doesnt begin until August, it is unclear whether changes to election practices so close to a federal election could be implemented. The changes are likely to be challenged in state and federal court regardless. *** But the rule-making is only the latest in a series of moves that may complicate election day in Georgia for poll workers. During a Fulton county board of registration and elections meeting on Thursday, the board considered a proposal from Dr Janice Johnson, a Republican appointee to the state election board, offering a raft of GOP partisans and people closely aligned with Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 election as potential election monitors. The list included Salleigh Grubbs, chairwoman of the Cobb county Republican party; Christine Propst, who manages Republican poll watchers in Fulton county; Robert Barker, an attorney who represents one of the defendants in the Fulton county election interference case against Donald Trump; and Heather Honey, a conservative election integrity activist from Pennsylvania. The list also includes Garland Favorito, founder of VoteGa.org, who is still pressing forward with lawsuits related to the 2020 election. The board voted 3-2 along partisan lines to reject the state boards proposal, instead accepting a proposal by Ryan Germany, former general counsel for the Georgia secretary of state. Germanys proposal incorporates monitoring by the Carter Center and other conventional voter monitoring groups. I cant support a proposal that has people currently suing us as a monitor, said Aaron Johnson, a board member. Favorito, who was present at the meeting, stood up in the audience and offered to remove his name from the proposal, and was told to sit down by Cathy Woolard, an outgoing board chair. Favorito refused to answer a question about how his name came to be on the state boards list of proposed election monitors. *** Woolard, the Fulton county interim elections board chair, ends her tenure as its leader on 25 July, citing a desire to return to life as a private citizen. Woolard is a previous board chair who returned temporarily after the previous chair resigned to take a job as Atlantas city attorney. At the end of the board meeting, Woolard thanked her board members and elections workers with her farewell. You put up with a lot, but you keep coming. You have each others backs and you do excellent work. Woolard, former president of the Atlanta city council, called on the board and her successor to resist external influence in decision making. We have to decide who actually directs this board, and Ive seen in a short period of time some efforts to sort of delegate that work elsewhere, she said. Woolards comment may have been directed at conservative members of the board, who have been linked to national efforts to challenge the integrity of elections. If you have a conflict of interest, then either step away from the board or step away from the decision and declare what that is. Thats standard practice. she said. Her absence leaves the board with a 2-2 partisan split until Robb Pitts, the Fulton county chair, names her replacement. He is expected to do so at the next county board meeting this month. With a 2-2 partisan split, not much is going to get done, Woolard said. A German opposition politician on Friday called on the government to strengthen the country's intelligence services, in the wake of an alleged Russian plot to assassinate the head of arms maker Rheinmetall. "It's about enabling our intelligence services to provide better reconnaissance," said Roderich Kiesewetter, a former member of the German armed services, on public broadcaster ZDF. The German agencies must be brought on a par with those of neighbouring countries, he added, warning against stricter legal regulations on communications between intelligence services, police and legal authorities. According to a report by US broadcaster CNN, US intelligence uncovered Russian government plans to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall, earlier this year. Kiesewetter, from Germany's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said containing the Russian threat will require serious measures. "It is not enough to expel one or two diplomats from Russia," he said. The politician welcomed the recent decision to station US long-range missiles in Germany. "We must ensure that we do not become politically or militarily vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. And that is why this rearmament is necessary," he stated. However, Kiesewetter said the move would require effective communication from the government, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with the German public. "The chancellor must come clean with the population about how great the threat really is," he added. German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser takes part in a press conference on the completion of the testing of critical components in 5G communication networks. Michael Kappeler/dpa German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Friday said she is taking the threat from Russia "very seriously," as the fallout from an alleged Russian plot to assassinate the head of German arms maker Rheinmetall continued. "We are not commenting on individual threats," the minister told dpa in Berlin after CNN first reported the story on Thursday. "But one thing is very clear: we are taking the significantly increased threat of Russian aggression very seriously." Faeser said Germany is taking action together with international partners and security authorities to protect itself and thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans. Putin's regime is aiming to undermine support for Ukraine, Faeser said, adding: "We will not be intimidated." Protective measures have been massively ramped up in the face of Russian threats since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the minister said. "The threats range from espionage, sabotage and cyberattacks to state terrorism," she stated. Faeser highlighted two possible acts of sabotage that German counterintelligence services prevented in April. At that time, two men were arrested in Bavaria and accused of planning sabotage attacks against German support for Ukraine. "Our security authorities acted very consistently and prevented possible explosives attacks in Germany," Faeser explained. "We will continue to do everything we can to prevent Russian threats in Germany." The German Navy is in need of a serious upgrade for its fleet of submarine frigates and were not talking about a digital upload or some kind of software patch. The countrys fleets of submarine frigates have operated on old-fashioned, 8-inch floppy disks since they were commissioned back in the 1990s. Now the German Navy is trying to find a way to replace the outdated disk system that are vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates, according to Toms Hardware. Replacing the floppy disk system wont be an easy task. These disks pretty much control everything on the ships from airflow systems to power generation. Does the German Navy still use Palm Pilots to organize its codewords and Tamagotchi to train its recruits in marine wildlife preservation? Saab has been in charge of maintenance for Germanys F123 frigate fleet since 2021, according to a press release. The frigates are designed to hunt for submarines so theyre also getting upgrades for its weapons and weapon control systems. Hopefully, theyll also throw in one of those cool, luxurious night panel dashboards for free. A lot of government institutions and programs have been on the floppy disk system for decades and long after the outdated computer storage system has fallen out of general use. Japans Digital Agency announced at the beginning of the month that it eliminated the use of floppy disks in its government systems. Does that mean that somewhere in the world, a core government agency is still using those Commodore cassette tapes to store its most vital data? Let's hope those disks aren't tied to nuclear weapons access... like they were in the US. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban during their meeting in Moscow. Hungary's Orban justifies Moscow visit in leaked letter to EU leaders. -/Kremlin/dpa The German Foreign Office on Friday said Hungary has caused "a lot of damage" in the 12 days since it assumed the rotating EU presidency. A spokesman in Berlin called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's visits to Moscow and Beijing "solo Hungarian efforts that we observe with great astonishment and skepticism." He said Orban was acting in a personal capacity and not as a representative of the EU. Regarding possible consequences for the visits, the spokesman said: "We have to see how Hungary's Council presidency continues. We are now on day 12 and it has already caused a lot of damage." Deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Buchner said that Orban could travel wherever he wanted. "What is not acceptable is that he travels through the world with the impression that he is doing so on behalf of others. And there will certainly be further discussion about how to deal with this," he added. Ahead of the NATO summit in Washington this week, Orban met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing. Both visits included discussions on potential peace proposals for Ukraine, which has been fending off a Russian invasion for more than two years. UNITED NATIONS, July 12 (Xinhua) -- UN Humanitarians said on Friday they are deeply concerned that fighting in Sudan's southeastern Sennar State is triggering the displacement of thousands of people fleeing the conflict. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that more than 150,000 people in Sennar were displaced inside and outside the state since June 24. On Thursday alone, IOM, citing local sources, reported armed clashes in Maiurno village caused civilian casualties and forced about 100 families to flee their homes. "We and our partners are supporting those who have fled the fighting in Sennar," OCHA said. "So far, the World Food Programme (WFP) has provided assistance to nearly 46,000 people displaced to Blue Nile State farther south, as well as some 3,000 people who fled to neighboring Gedaref State." The paramilitary rebel Rapid Support Forces had been hitting hard El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, in Sudan's southwest. Skirting the capital of Khartoum to the north, some of their forces appear concentrating now in southeastern Sennar. The humanitarians said WFP fears the Sennar fighting signals an alarming spread of conflict eastward, towards Port Sudan. In addition to rising insecurity, OCHA is deeply concerned that the expansion of the fighting may sever an important route for transporting humanitarian assistance from Port Sudan. Gedaref State is to the east of Sennar. Its northern border is with the Red Sea State, home to Port Sudan. OCHA again underscored that the parties must de-escalate immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law -- to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access. WFP said it urgently expanded its emergency food and nutrition assistance in war-torn Sudan last week amid the looming threat of famine. Conditions for civilians deteriorated and fighting intensified in battle zones. FILE - Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, a German arms and automotive manufacturer, arrives to the company's launch event, to be included in the DAX, on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 20, 2023. The German government said Friday July 12, 2024 that it won't be intimidated" by Russian attempts to undermine the country's support of Ukraine, but refused to comment on a report that Moscow planned to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of a leading defense company. (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) Western intelligence agencies have uncovered Russian plots to carry out assassinations, arson and other sabotage in Europe against companies and people linked to support for Ukraines military one of the most serious being a plan to kill the head of a German arms manufacturer, a Western government official said. The plots have sometimes involved recruiting common criminals in foreign countries to conduct the attacks, said the official, who is familiar with the situation but not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity. One major plot recently uncovered had targeted Armin Papperger, CEO of defense company Rheinmetall, the official said. The official declined to offer any details on other plots, which were first reported by CNN. The CNN report said the U.S. informed Germany, whose security services were able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. Rheinmetall is a major supplier of military technology and artillery rounds for Ukraine as it fights off Russian forces. The company last month opened an armored vehicle maintenance and repair facility in western Ukraine and also aims to start production inside the country. White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson declined to comment on the alleged plot to kill Papperger but said, Russias intensifying campaign of subversion is something that we are taking extremely seriously and have been intently focused on over the past few months. The United States has been discussing this issue with our NATO allies, and we are actively working together to expose and disrupt these activities, Watson added. We have also been clear that Russias actions will not deter allies from continuing to support Ukraine. Neither Rheinmetall nor the German government would comment Friday on the reported plot against Papperger. The Interior Ministry can't comment on individual threat situations, spokesperson Maximilian Kall said, but he added that more broadly, we take the significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously." We know that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government won't be intimidated, Kall said. He noted that German security measures have increased significantly since 2022 and that the threats range from espionage and sabotage, through cyberattacks, to state terrorism. European officials gathered for the NATO summit in Washington this week spoke of dealing with an escalation of hybrid attacks that they blame on Russia and its allies. That includes what authorities called suspicious recent fires at industrial and commercial sites in Lithuania, Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany and other nations, and charges that Russia-allied Belarus was sending large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa to the borders of Poland, Latvia and other countries belonging to NATO. When asked at a news conference at the NATO summit Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he could not comment on the CNN report. He did note a widespread campaign by Russian security services to conduct hostile actions against NATO allies, including sabotage, cyberattacks and arson. These are not standalone instances. These are part of a pattern, part of an ongoing Russian campaign. And the purpose of this campaign is, of course, to intimidate NATO allies from supporting Ukraine, Stoltenberg said. In April, German investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets, including U.S. military facilities, in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine. Germany has become the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine after the United States since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report of a plan to kill Papperger. "All of this is again presented in the fake style, so such reports cannot be taken seriously, he told reporters Friday. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Russian counterpart, Andrei Belousov, on Friday, their second call in less than a month, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh announced at a briefing Friday. The call was initiated by the Russian defense minister, Singh said. She did not have further details to share, including whether the two leaders spoke about the accusations that Russia had attempted to assassinate top officials of Western defense firms producing weapons systems that are sent to Ukraine, but said maintaining lines of communication is incredibly important right now." ___ Moulson reported from Berlin. AP reporters Ellen Knickmeyer and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is set to visit Senegal and the Ivory Coast next week for talks with leaders of West Africa's few remaining democracies. The two countries are vital for the region's stability and essential economic partners for Germany, a Foreign Office spokesman said in Berlin on Friday. Migration and renewable energies are likely to be two topics under discussion, with German business representatives accompanying Baerbock on her visit. Baerbock is scheduled to meet her Senegalese counterpart Yassine Fall alongside newly elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye in Dakar on Monday. Talks with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and Foreign Minister Kacou Houadja Leon Adom are due to follow in the country's administrative capital Abidjan on Tuesday. Baerbock's visit comes amid a wave of instability in the Sahel region, which some observers have termed the African Coup Belt, following military uprisings in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon since 2020. While many of the new military governments have turned away from relations with the European Union, withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and canvassed support from Russian forces, the two coastal have maintained their relations with the West. A key item on the agenda will be migration, with talks on legal routes to Europe and deportation. Regional issues in the Sahel could "quickly spill over to us, for example in the form of irregular migration or organized crime," the spokesman said. Girl, 3, struck and killed by car in Harlem; 2-year-old also injured: NYPD Girl, 3, struck and killed by car in Harlem; 2-year-old also injured: NYPD Editors note: Police initially misidentified the ages and genders of the victims. The story has been updated. HARLEM, Manhattan (PIX11) A 3-year-old girl was struck and killed by a car in Harlem on Thursday, according to the NYPD. A 2-year-old boy and a woman were also injured in the crash, per police. The two children and the woman, along with a 4-month-old baby boy, tried to cross an intersection near 135th Street and Lenox Avenue around 7:40 p.m. when they were hit by a blue Nissan Pathfinder, according to authorities. More Local News The 40-year-old driver brought the 3-year-old girl, identified as Jaynelyse Valdez, to Harlem Hospital, which is near where the crash happened, per police. Thats where she was pronounced dead from traumatic head injuries. The infant was not injured, per police. The driver returned to the scene after bringing the 3-year-old girl to the hospital to answer questions from police, according to authorities. The crash is under investigation. Erin Pflaumer is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered both local and national news since 2018. She joined PIX11 in 2023. 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. (Bloomberg Law) -- Rudolph Giulianis personal bankruptcy case was thrown out by a federal judge following nearly seven months of stalled progress, leaving the former New York City mayor without court protection from creditors owed more than $150 million. Most Read from Bloomberg Giulianis bankruptcy case, which has been marked by disputes with creditors over repeated failures to produce thorough financial records, can no longer continue, Judge Sean H. Lane of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Friday. Giulianis lack of transparency and failure to make meaningful progress over the course of his Chapter 11 justify dismissing the case, said Lane. When confronted with complaints about a failure to satisfy the Bankruptcy Codes obligations as to financial transparency, most debtors will respond by curing at least someif not allof the defects. By contrast, Mr. Giuliani has done nothing, Lane said. It remains to be seen how Giuliani will address mounting debts outside of bankruptcy and the resumption of lawsuits that were paused by his Chapter 11 case. Creditors, including two Georgia 2020 election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against Giuliani, will be forced back into civil court in an attempt to recover what they can. Dismissing the bankruptcy is in the best interests of creditors, the judge wrote. The plaintiffs in many of these matters have a right to a jury trial, making these cases better resolved outside the bankruptcy forum. He also prohibited Giuliani from refiling for bankruptcy for at least a year. A spokesman for Giuliani, who earlier in the week consented to the election workers request to have the case dismissed, said in a statement that the proceedings were burdened with voluminous and overly broad demands that aimed to harm him and his businesses. We will continue to pursue justice and we are confident thatin the long runour system of justice will be restored and the mayor will be totally vindicated, he said. The former Donald Trump lawyer filed for bankruptcy in December with $10.6 million in reported assets after being hit with a $148 million defamation judgment for falsely accusing the two Georgia poll workers of tampering with 2020 election ballots. One of the election workersWandrea Arshaye Shaye Mosssits on an official creditors committee that requested the appointment of a trustee to take control of Giulianis case. Moss, however, pushed to have the bankruptcy dismissed as the case dragged on. Giulianis uncooperative conduct likely wouldnt change with the appointment of a trustee, Lane said in his decision. Prolonging the case with a recalcitrant debtor under the supervision of a trustee would likely cause an additional drain on funds available to pay creditors, the judge said. For a trustee, investigating claims that Trump and the Republican National Committee still owe Giuliani $2 million in outstanding legal fees promise to be complex matters with uncertain outcomes, said Lane. Creditors could be left with nothing at the end of an even lengthier bankruptcy, he said. We are pleased the court saw through Mr. Giulianis games and put a stop to his abuse of the bankruptcy process, Rachel Strickland, an attorney with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP representing the Georgia poll workers, said in a statement. We will begin enforcing our judgment against him ASAP. The Downfall Giulianis collapse into bankruptcy marked a turn of fortunes following his successful career as a federal prosecutor, politician and later as a partner at major law firms purportedly earning up to $6 million a year. Giuliani ran into legal and financial troubles following Trumps failed presidential reelection campaign in 2020, in which he led a Trump-backed legal bid to overturn voting results. Giulianis efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election outcome led to the suspension of his legal license, criminal indictments, and multiple high-profile defamation suits, including ones brought by voting machine companies US Dominion Inc. and Smartmatic. He also faces sexual harassment and assault claims brought by his former employee, Noelle Dunphy, who sued Giuliani last year for $10 million and was later appointed to sit on the creditors committee. The bankruptcy courts decision means that Ms. Dunphys case will go back to active litigation in New York State court, Dunphys attorney, Justin Kelton of Abrams Fensterman LLP, said in a statement. Ms. Dunphy intends to pursue her case aggressively, and we look forward to the day when we can present this case to a jury. While in bankruptcy, Giuliani unsuccessfully attempted to appeal the $148 million verdict for Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman. Before the case was dismissed, Lane was asked to rule on whether Giuliani can use bankruptcy to discharge the defamation suit damages. A Texas bankruptcy judge ruled last year in a similar situation that right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones couldnt use Chapter 11 to avoid paying $1.4 billion in defamation-related judgments because bankruptcy law doesnt allow the discharge of debts stemming from willful and malicious conduct. Further complicating efforts to alleviate his financial burdens while in Chapter 11 protection, Giuliani was disbarred from practicing law in New York and had his WABC radio talk show canceled for continuing to discuss on-air his discredited theories about the 2020 election. He faced a creditor-led investigation into his recoverable assets and calls to sell his multi-million dollar residences in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla. Giuliani is represented in his bankruptcy by Berger, Fischoff, Shumer, Wexler & Goodman LLP. A committee of unsecured creditors is represented by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. The Georgia election workers are represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. The case is In re Rudolph W. Giuliani, Bankr. S.D.N.Y., No. 23-12055, decision 7/12/24. Thomas Gleason contributed to this report. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wolf in New York at awolf@bloomberglaw.com To contact the editor responsible for this story: Maria Chutchian at mchutchian@bloombergindustry.com (Updates with Giuliani statement beginning in seventh paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Gov. Mike Dunleavy holds up the omnibus crime bill, House Bill 66, after signing it at a July 11, 2024, ceremony held at the Department of Public Safety's aircraft hangar at Lake Hood in Anchorage. At his side are Sandy Snodgrass, whose 22-year-old son died in 2021 from a fentanyl overdose, and Angela Harris, who was stabbed in 2022 by a mentally disturbed man at the public library in Anchorage and injured so badly that she now uses a wheelchair. Snodgrass and Harris advocated for provisions in the bill.Behind them are legislators, law enforcement officers and others. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Gov. Mike Dunleavy holds up the omnibus crime bill, House Bill 66, after signing it at a July 11, 2024, ceremony held at the Department of Public Safety's aircraft hangar at Lake Hood in Anchorage. At his side are Sandy Snodgrass, whose 22-year-old son died in 2021 from a fentanyl overdose, and Angela Harris, who was stabbed in 2022 by a mentally disturbed man at the public library in Anchorage and injured so badly that she now uses a wheelchair. Snodgrass and Harris advocated for provisions in the bill.Behind them are legislators, law enforcement officers and others. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Thursday signed into law a bill originally aimed at curbing the meteoric rise in opioid overdoses in the state, but which turned into comprehensive crime legislation that Alaska lawmakers approved in the final hours of the legislative session. A bill-signing ceremony was held at the Department of Public Safetys aircraft hangar at Lake Hood in Anchorage. The audience in the cavernous room included several legislators, some members of Dunleavys cabinet, law-enforcement officers and victim advocates. Dunleavy and others who spoke were flanked by uniformed law-enforcement officers. By closing loopholes and narrowing in on the fentanyl crisis and making the road to justice easier for those who are victims of sex crimes, the legislation marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to public safety, he said. Lawmakers built the wide-ranging law around Dunleavys proposal to increase penalties for fentanyl and methamphetamine dealers. The law also directs the state to look into why minority groups are overrepresented in the carceral system, creates the crime of assault in front of a child, tightens restrictions around sex and labor trafficking and requires the state to evaluate people accused of certain violent crimes for involuntary commitment. Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said the law empowers law enforcement. House Bill 66 will give law enforcement officers across the state more tools to address some of the largest public safety problems that we are facing, including fentanyl, child sexual abuse material, and much more, he said in a news release. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, helped shepherd House Bill 66 through to passage in its final form. It passed 19-1 in the Senate and 33-6 in the House. Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, speaks at the ceremony marking Gov. Mike Dunleavy signing House Bill 66. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) I would like to see a meaningful reduction in the level of sex assault on a statewide basis. And I would certainly like to see a reduction in the overdose deaths in Alaska that are attributed to fentanyl and methamphetamine. And I would like to see people who are victims of crimes feel like the process of going through the justice system as a victim of crime is less burdensome than it seems like it is today, Claman said. The ACLU and some legislators have criticized parts of the new law, including its focus on increasing penalties. Claman said certain criticisms are fair, but he thinks the law balances civil liberties with public safety. Crackdown on drugs The legislation sprang from a request from Gov. Mike Dunleavys office that lawmakers increase the penalties for drug distribution. Drug distributors or manufacturers will be liable for second-degree murder if a person dies as a result of their use. Alaska had the fastest rising rate of overdose deaths in the country in 2021 and proponents of the change say it will deter crime. The law raises potential penalties for drug dealers by classifying the distribution of a controlled substance that causes an overdose death as a second-degree murder. Up to now, prosecutors had the option of charging distributors with manslaughter in those cases, a lesser violation. Dunleavy said the change is an appropriate response to Alaskas drug-overdose crime, which is dominated by fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. For anyone to consciously say, We dont care. . .the profit motive is all that matters, we dont care who the victims are, we dont care how many kids are impacted, we dont care about how many accidental poisonings there are, were going to remind them that theyd better start caring, Dunleavy said. Because if they dont care, theyre going to be charged with second-degree murder. Sandy Snodgrass, whose 22-year-old son died from a fentanyl overdose in 2021, said that provision in the law will save lives. This law will bring justice to families who have lost loved ones and will help prevent further loss of life by stopping individuals who are dealing poison to our people. This law will prevent drug dealers from being released back into our communities to continue victimizing Alaskans with their poison, she said. She prefaced her comments with the story of her son. Sandy Snodgrass, whose 22-year-old son Bruce died in 2021 from a fentanyl overdose, speaks at a July 11, 2024, ceremony where Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed an omnibus crime bill passed by the legislature two months earlier. Snodgrass, who has become an advocate for drug-abuse prevention and education, campaigned for a provision in the bill that allows distributors of controlled substances to be charged with second-degree murder in cases of fatal overdoses. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) When my only child, Bruce Snodgrass was the victim of a drug-induced homicide here in Oct. 26, 2021, here in Anchorage, law enforcement and prosecutors did not have the option to file second-degree murder charges, she said. Her son tragically died where he stood, near a busy intersection in the east side of town, she said. No one has been arrested, charged or convicted for his murder, she said. While fatal overdoses declined in most states last year, Alaskas drug-caused death toll continued to climb sharply, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May. Alaska has 342 fatal overdoses in 2023, a record-high number, according to state data. The CDC, using slightly different data, calculated that Alaska had a 33.32% increase in overdose deaths from January 2023 to January 2024, the highest among all U.S. states for that period. While 11 other states and the District of Columbia also posted increases, the national rate of overdose deaths fell by 3% in 2023 from the previous year. It was the first national decrease since 2018, the CDC said. Included in the statistics was a decrease in fentanyl deaths; such deaths began to skyrocket after 2014. The law also includes a number of provisions aimed at keeping children safe and protecting people from trafficking. It creates the crime of assault in front of a child and changes the term child pronography to child sexual abuse material and creates the crime of assault in front of a child. A bipartisan compromise made it a Class B felony to induce someone into sex trafficking by withholding drugs or a passport, in an effort to clamp down on the rise of that crime. Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, supported the last-minute amendment: This is a sickness on the planet, he said during the floor debate in May. I say throw the book at em! Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, and Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, were also strong supporters of the change. Adding this language to our criminal statutes is incredibly valuable, Kiehl said on the Senate floor. The law also makes it a felony to pay for sex with someone who is a victim of sex trafficking. Addresses overrepresentation of minority groups in prisons Lawmakers also adopted an amendment from Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, that requires the Department of Corrections to contract a study of why certain racial groups are disproportionately represented in the states carceral system and develop recommendations to reduce first encounters with the system. The amendment is in addition to another study that Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, added to the bill while it was in committee, which requires the Department of Corrections to contract a study that specifically investigates the disproportionate representation of Alaska Native people in the states carceral system and to develop recommendations to reduce recidivism. Sen. Loki Tobin, D-Anchorage, supported the move. We know that communities of color are overincarcerated, we know that communities of color are more affected by drug abuse and lack of treatment options, she said on the Senate floor. I think we need to do all that we can to reduce entry into these systems. The best way to do that is to get information, is to have that at our fingertips. Tobin ultimately voted against the bill, citing its focus on incarceration rather than diversion and restitution. All the research, all the data really showcases that increasing prison sentences does not help treat people with addiction. Its not something thats going to help people stop cycles, she said after it passed. Criticism Civil rights advocates and other lawmakers found fault in the wide-ranging legislation, from the increased penalties for drug dealers to a provision that allows law enforcement officials to testify in court on behalf of victims and an involuntary commitment rule. The Alaska American Civil Liberties Union criticized several components of the bill. Megan Edge directs an accountability program for the states prisons for the ACLU of Alaska and characterized the law as counterproductive in a statement issued in May, just after the Legislature passed it. HB 66 is a misguided attempt to address horrible issues that have long plagued our state. Alaska has tried to incarcerate its way out of the opioid epidemic, and the mental health crisis. These efforts have failed. The passage of this bill means those suffering from addiction will continue to struggle to find safe places to detox and receive treatment, and the most severely mentally ill will fall through the cracks, she said. The organization said harsher penalties for dealers and manufacturers of drugs are punitive and ineffective it pointed to a study that shows states with similar measures saw an uptick in overdose deaths. It voiced concern that a provision that would allow law enforcement to testify on behalf of victims would increase the chances that a case would advance on questionable evidence, though it acknowledged the intent is to reduce trauma to victims it did not offer an alternative. The group also said the involuntary commitment provision impermissibly curtails their liberty and violates constitutional rights to due process under both the United States and Alaska Constitutions. Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, voted in favor of the bill despite reservations about certain aspects because he said it does good things for victims of crime. After the May vote, he said it was ridiculous to expect that charging people with murder for selling fentanyl will reduce overdose deaths. Thats never worked anywhere its been tried, he said. There are some other parts of that bill that are all about bigger penalties that cost us more money and reduce crime not one bit. Its hard to endorse wasting money. Claman said he thought most of the criticisms were fair and boiled down to different approaches to solving widely recognized problems. I think this is just a policy decision that we want to reflect that we were very concerned about the high overdose rate specific to those drugs, he said. Claman, an attorney, added that very few drug distributors are prosecuted for manslaughter because the cases are hard to investigate and to prove in court. Involuntary commitment The involuntary commitment rule was one that Clamans office fought for in particular because of his constituent Angela Harris, who was present at the signing of the bill. That provision concerns violent offenders considered mentally incompetent to stand trial. It requires the state to seek involuntary commitment of such offenders in a psychiatric institution and allows them to be held there for up to two years. Claman said the need for the change was apparent after a mentally incompetent man who had attacked women in the past stabbed Angela Harris while she was at the public library in 2022. Now using a wheelchair, Harris was among the crime victims who attended the bill-signing. Claman, speaking at the event, thanked her for her work on the bill and called her to the podium to speak. You were a fierce and courageous advocate, he said, noting that she traveled to Juneau multiple times and testified at every hearing considering the measure. I know it wasnt easy. But we couldnt have made it here without you. You never gave up, and your passion made sure that we did not give up. Angela Harris, now using a wheelchair after a mentally impaired man stabbed her in Anchorage's Loussac Library in 2022, listens to Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage, as he speaks at the July 11, 2024, signing ceremony for an omnibus crime bill passed during the legislative session. Claman, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, worked with Harris to craft a provision in the bill that requires the state to seek involuntary confinement at psychiatric institutions of offenders considered dangerous but mentally incompetent to stand trial. The man who stabbed Harris in the back was a stranger to her and had assaulted two women previously. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) Harris, invited by Claman to speak, wheeled to the front of the audience, held onto the podium to pull herself into a standing position, hugged Claman and spoke into the microphone. When the DA said my assailant could have murdered me and still walk the streets freely due to his incompetence and inability to be restored, I knew change needed to be made, she said. I pray that this is just the beginning of providing assistance with mentally ill persons who are a threat in our state. Thank you. Claman says the new law closes the loophole that allows people who may be dangerous to go free. He called it a gap between the criminal justice system and the behavioral health system. When somebodys not competent to stand trial and they reach a certain standard of dangerousness, what are we going to do about it? This is about initiating involuntary proceedings, he said after the bill passed in May. He said he hopes the result of the law is a reduction overdoses and sexual assault and a process wherein victims of crime to feel less burdened by the demands of the criminal justice system. Claman said he hopes to see future legislation move in a different direction, one where the state puts resources towards making communities safer. He gave the examples of persistently high rates of sexual assault and drug overdose. Thats not a question of Is it illegal? The question is, What are we doing about resources? he said. Weve got a long history of changing the laws, and not much has changed in the community. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Since last winter, when it was ranked among the top 3% in the country as a childrens hospital, Valley Childrens Hospital in Madera has had many other opportunities to celebrate a cherished institution that protects the health of our youngest residents. In December, Valley Childrens was one of only eight childrens hospitals recognized by The Leapfrog Group for achievements in patient safety and quality of care. The hospital, the largest pediatric hospital in the Valley and the 16th largest in the country, has had other reasons to toast its success: Opinion Last month, the International World Ag Expo delivered a $101,457.32 check to Valley Childrens Healthcare from the raffle of a pickup truck. Since 2015, such raffles have raised more than $730,000. In May, Valley Childrens Hospital became the first hospital in California and only the second in the country to be awarded the prestigious Sustainable Healthcare Certification by The Joint Commission for its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and combat climate change. Also in May, the hospital received a $15 million donation to create an advanced bone cell therapy program for pediatric cancer. Children who need transformational cancer therapies will no longer be sent to Los Angeles or the Bay area. Last month, the hospitals Precision Medicine Program announced it was the first team in the nation to employ a revolutionary genetic test that can quickly let a doctor know if their patient is at higher risk of hearing damage from a type of antibiotic (aminoglycoside). The doctor can then choose a different course of care to treat an infection. But a black cloud in the form of the eye-catching compensation for hospital CEO Todd Suntrapak (almost $5.2 million in the 2021-22 tax year) continues to eclipse those bright spots. Suntrapak is not the only hospital executive who enjoys a generous payday. His compensation, along with 22 other senior vice presidents and vice presidents, totaled more than $25.3 million that year, according to reporting by Fresno Bee reporter Tim Sheehan. Thus far, Suntrapak has not been transparent about his salary or those of other high-paid executives. In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, Suntrapak and five other Valley Childrens executives received a total compensation of more than $1 million. In an interview last month with ABC 30, Suntrapak said he has no input on his salary and instead relies on the board of directors to determine his pay. I dont choose what my compensation is. Our board determines what the appropriate compensation is for the CEO, and they rely upon external experts to advise them, and to do quite a bit of analysis, then they make a determination, said Suntrapak in that June interview. That is an inadequate response. As a non-profit organization, the non-profit must itemize its highest paid officers in a tax form that is ultimately available to the public. It was in March when 2021-22 tax records showed the exorbitant salaries for hospital executives like Suntrapak. Subsequent reporting by The Fresno Bees Erik Galicia and Sheehan has revealed the hospital reinvested the lowest amount of money into its region (only 2% of its total expenses on community benefits, while the next lowest hospitals were at 6% and 23%); the hospital assets are more than $2 billion, most of it in savings, investments, land, buildings and equipment; and, has plans for at least 40 acres of commercial development. The public has been a big supporter of Valley Childrens Hospital ever since it was founded in 1952, as evidenced by the popularity of Kids Day newspaper sales and business campaigns to get customers to round up their tab and send the extra donation to the hospital. That image, however, has now been tarnished by executive salaries that dwarf those of other area hospitals in a region where more than 70% of its children are covered by or eligible for Medi-Cal, the state insurance program for low-income residents. It is time for Suntrapak and the hospital to fully explain and justify those high salaries. Valley Childrens board used a national scale to pay its CEO. Thats extreme | Opinion What time does the RNC start today? How to live stream the Republican National Convention Republican delegates from across the county will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to select their presidential nominee in July during the 2024 Republican National Convention. Here's what to know about the RNC: What time does the RNC start? The main programming of the RNC, also referred to as the GOP Convention, is scheduled for July 15 through July 18 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. CST. You can find the RNC Master Event Calendar here. Which channels are streaming the RNC? The RNC will be available to stream on the following channels: YouTube, X, Facebook Live, Rumble, Amazon Prime, Twitch and Direct TV. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will also be streaming RNC events. Finally, FOX News Media will have coverage across all of its platforms including FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, FOX News Audio, FOX New Digital and FOX Nation. Find the schedule here. Where is the 2024 RNC? The official sessions will be held at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. CST. The nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the Baird Center will also be used as spaces for the event. Preparations are underway at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 for the upcoming Republican National Convention. The convention takes place from July 15 to July 18. - Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Who will be the Republican nominee for president? Former President Donald Trump is all but certain to be the party's nominee. Can I go to the RNC? No, the general public cannot attend the event in Milwaukee. The convention is closed to all but delegates, politicians, media members and volunteers. However, viewers can still watch events unfold on various media platforms and streaming services. What is the GOP? "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and is another name for the U.S. Republican Party. Along with the Democratic Party, it is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the country. People are also reading: U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett asks President Joe Biden to withdraw from presidential ticket What is the RNC? The Republican National Committee consists of thousands of GOP delegates and alternates who are selected by all 50 states and every U.S. territory. Those selected will meet during the RNC official sessions to select the Republican Nominee for President of the United States. Sineage is up as preparations are underway at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 for the upcoming Republican National Convention. The convention takes place from July 15 to July 18. Why was Milwaukee chosen to host the RNC? According to former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, it was a combination of the summer weather, the lakefront, the facilities and a mayor of a Democratic city open to hosting the RNC. It beat out Nashville for the event. Milwaukee had also already laid the groundwork for planning and hosting another convention the Democratic National Convention in 2020, until it became a mostly virtual event. When is the Democratic National Convention? The 2024 DNC is scheduled for August 19 through August 22 in Chicago, Illinois. More on the DNC: When is the Democratic National Convention? Here's what to know for DNC 2024. USA TODAY contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What time does the RNC start? How to watch 2024 GOP Convention NAIROBI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- International scientists on Friday called for home-grown research in Africa aimed at understanding genetic composition of early humans and their gradual revolution, describing the continent as the cradle of humanity. The consortium of scientists in a paper published by the American Journal of Human Genetics observed that collaborative research in Africa's immense human genetic diversity is key to shedding light on how societies emerged from pre-historic age. A team of 36 scientists from Africa, North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia co-authored the paper that was launched in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, calling for enhancing the capacity of African countries to conduct genomics research. Fredrick Manthi, director of Antiquities, Sites, and Monuments at National Museums of Kenya, noted that Africa is a repository of fossils and tools used by early humans that should be studied to help societies appreciate their interconnectedness. "The support for home-grown research on human ancestry is key to appreciating our common heritage despite our cultural, racial and ethnic diversity," Manthi said. Manthi stressed that African researchers should collaborate with their counterparts from the Global North and South to study and promote understanding of the genetic composition of ancient man. Elizabeth Sawchuk, associate curator of human evolution at Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the United States, said sustaining African-led research on evolution of species requires investments in supportive infrastructure like DNA labs alongside training of local scientists. According to Sawchuk, African policymakers, scientists, and local communities should be at the center of designing a more inclusive and equitable genomics research agenda. The scientific paper calls for developing a roadmap for ethical research on human evolution in Africa to win trust of local custodians of archeological sites where fossils and ancient tools are preserved. Christine Ogola, head of Archeology at the National Museums of Kenya, said that African scientists are committed to establishing a dynamic research ecosystem to revitalize studies on human evolution. In addition, Ogola said that African research institutions should foster community outreach aimed at improving understanding of genetic makeup of ancient and present human societies. ASHEVILLE - Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson held a fundraiser with a Western North Carolina church whose members are facing trial in Buncombe County on charges of beating a fellow member to get out his "homosexual demons." Robinson, a right-wing candidate known for extreme remarks, including recently telling members of an eastern North Carolina church that some folks need killin," was scheduled for a July 9 fundraiser hosted by four leaders of the church and alleged cult Word of Faith Fellowship. WILMINGTON, NC - SEPTEMBER 23: Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina, is seen during a Save America rally for former President Donald Trump at the Aero Center Wilmington. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images) The Citizen Times reached out July 11 to Robinson's campaign to ask about the fundraiser and if he had any reservations about receiving support from the highly controversial Rutherford County-based Word of Faith. For years the church has been accused of criminal behavior that included using slave labor and sexual and physical abuse of children, something leaders of the secretive group have denied. In 2004, church leader Jane Whaley was convicted of misdemeanor assault, a charge overturned after five years of appeals. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of N.C. based in Asheville prosecuted four members for fraudulent business activities, closing the investigation in 2019 on the members, three of whom were listed as a pastor or minister. Five members were charged with kidnapping and assault after Matthew Fenner told police in 2013 that he was beaten for hours to "break me free of the homosexual 'demons,'" the Associated Press reported. The cases faced setbacks, including juror contempt and a mistrial, and were moved to Buncombe County in 2017 and 2022. Of those, the case against Adam Bartley, Justin Covington, Brooke McFadden Covington and Robert Walker was still open, according to court files reviewed July 11 by the Citizen Times. There was no file for Sarah Anderson, who had also been charged. One reason for the absence of documentation in such instances can be that the charge was expunged. That is a process in which a charge is legally erased and its documentation destroyed. The files showed Bartley and Walker as represented by Asheville attorney Thomas Amburgey and another Asheville lawyer, Brian Gulden, as representing Justin Covington. Noelle Tin of Charlotte was listed as Brooke McFadden's lawyer. The Citizen Times reached out to all three attorneys. The last action taken in the cases was Brooke McFadden Covington's 2022 venue transfer to Buncombe. Prior to that the prosecution moved in 2020 to combine the trials into one. While the proceedings are now in Buncombe the case is being prosecuted by Rutherford District Attorney Ted Bell. The Citizen Times reached out to Bell to ask about the status of the legal proceedings, which have now stretched on for seven years. A staff member said Bell was out of the country on vacation. North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson speaks at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton on June 21, 2024 in Washington, DC. Under former DA Brad Greenway, two assistant district attorneys who were Word of Faith members derailed criminal investigations into the church, ex-sect members told the Associated Press. After the AP story was published the assistant prosecutors, who were working under DA David Learner in a different part of WNC, were let go, with Learner asking the State Bureau of Investigation to open an inquiry. A campaign spokesperson for the Democratic gubernatorial campaign of N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein criticized GOP candidate Robinson, saying it was "disturbing, but unsurprising," that he would raise money from Word of Faith. Just last Sunday, he said, Some people need killing. Mark Robinson promotes hate and violence. Hes too extreme and dangerous to be governor," said spokesperson Morgan Hopkins. More: Western NC resident eyes state Supreme Court appeal for 'fair elections' gerrymander suit More: Resignation after anti-LGBTQ attacks leaves open ACS board seat. How will it be filled? Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: GOP gov. hopeful campaigns at Western NC church linked to gay beating Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) on Thursday accused the angry feminist movement of emasculating men and said the U.S. should work our way back to 1960 if former President Donald Trump wins in November. In a House floor speech that could have been lifted from Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale, Grothman went after supporters of government-funded childcare programs and said President Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty took the purpose out of the mans life, because now you have a basket of goodies for the mom. He added, Theyve taken away the purpose of the man to be part of a family. And if we want to get America back to, say, 1960, where this was almost unheard of, we have to fundamentally change these programs. Grothman said the breakdown of the family was caused by the U.S. government in the 1960s and people like Angela Davis, well-known communist, people like the feminists who were so important in the 1960s. So I hope the press corps picks up on this, and I hope Republican and Democrat leadership put together some sort of plan for January, in which we work our way back to where America was in the 1960s, he added. Grothman, a fervent supporter of Trump, hailed the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, saying after the decision: Over the years, millions of children have had their dreams stolen before seeing the light of the day. But today marks a brighter future for the hearts and minds of unborn children, women, and families. I commend the six justices who voted to overturn Roe for having the courage to base their decision on sound legal principles rather than a fashionable line of thinking that rules academia, Hollywood, and the mainstream media. Wisconsin Nominates Wingnut to Congress Grothmans comments Thursday sounded eerily similar to the central theme of The Handmaids Talethat women are subordinate to men and should take on domestic and subservient roles, and that their worth is tied to becoming mothers. Since the overturning of Roe, the women of Atwoods fictional Republic of Gilead have become a battle cry for feminists who have donned the white bonnet and red cloak of the handmaids as they protest against the Supreme Courts decision. After Roe was overturned, Atwood took to Instagram to post a picture of her holding a coffee mug that read, I told you so. After coming under criticism for the post, the author wrote on X: When HandmaidsTale came out in 85, there was disbelief. I thought a religious-right takeover was possible in the U.S., and was Crazy Margaret. Premature, but unfortunately too close. That doesnt make me happy. 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. Gov. Lee appoints three new judicial positions in Maury, Sumner and Shelby counties Gov. Bill Lee attends an event announcing the JC Ford Companys move to Columbia, Tenn., on Thursday May 6, 2021. Gov. Bill Lee announced this week his appointments of three key judicial positions. Appointments include Jennifer Nichols to the 18th Judicial Circuit Court, Jessica Parrish to the 22nd Judicial District Circuit Court and Jim Newson to the 30th Judicial District Chancery Court. The 30th Judicial District serves Shelby County. The 18th Judicial District covers Sumner County, while the 22nd Judicial District covers Giles, Lawrence, Maury and Wayne counties. I am proud to announce the appointment of these highly qualified individuals and value the significant experience they will bring to their respective roles, Lee stated in a press release. I appreciate their leadership and am confident they will serve Tennesseans with integrity. Nichols currently serves as assistant district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. She earned her bachelors degree at University of Alabama and juris doctor at Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. Nichols has been appointed to a new judicial position created by the General Assembly, effective Sept. 1. Parrish currently serves as assistant district attorney for the 22nd Judicial District. She earned her bachelors degree at Austin Peay State University and juris doctor at Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at University of Memphis. Parrish has been appointed to succeed retiring Judge David. L. Allen, effective Aug. 3. Jessica Parrish was appointed by Gov. Bill Lee to serve the 22nd Judicial District's Circuit Court. "It means a lot to me to be able to step into this new role and represent the state of Tennessee and it's people in this way," Parrish said. "I am extremely honored and humbled by the appointment." District Attorney Brent Cooper of the 22nd Judicial District said he believes Parrish will "serve the position well," as she was his assistant DA for many years. "She's been a phenomenal prosecutor, and I think she will make a fantastic judge," Cooper said. "She's been great, and we are going to miss her on our staff." Newsom currently serves as special counsel at the Tennessee Attorney Generals Office. He earned his bachelors degree at Rhodes College and juris doctor at Vanderbilt School of Law. Newsom has been appointed as special judge during Chancellor Jim Kyles disability status, effective immediately. "The entire Attorney General's Office is keeping Chancellor Kyle and his family in our prayers as he steps away from the bench after many years of distinguished service to the State, said Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti. We are so proud of Jim Newsom for returning to the bench in Chancellor Kyle's absence. Jim's brilliant mind and unfailing integrity will serve Shelby County well." Jay Powell is a general reporter for The Daily Herald. Get up-to-date news in your inbox by subscribing to The Daily Herald newsletter at www.ColumbiaDailyHerald.com. This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Gov. Lee appoints 3 new judges in Maury, Sumner and Shelby counties RALEIGH, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper announced Thursday that he is commuting four sentences and pardoning four individuals. Ensuring thorough review of cases while taking executive clemency action is a responsibility I take seriously, said the governor. Governor Cooper agreed with a recommendation from the Juvenile Sentence Review Board that 45-year-old Kareem Phifer have his sentence commuted. Phifer has spent the last 30 years behind bars for two armed robberies that he was involved in at age 15. During those incidents, older members of the group kidnapped one of the victims, and one individual sexually assaulted that individual, authorities say. Phifer was the youngest of the group and got the longest sentence. Officials say that while in prison, Phifer was chosen as a speaker to offer guidance for at-risk youth, got his GED and has taken part in many self-improvement and vocational programs. Phifers sentence has been counted as time-served. His projected release date was in 2030. 16 and 18-year-old charged with murder in Charlotte shooting spree that killed 1, injured others: CMPD The remaining three commuted sentences were for Josiah Deyton, Andrew Deyton and Jonathan Koniak. They each served 16 years after being convicted of conspiracy and 11 counts of armed robbery following the 2008 robbery of Ridgeview Presbyterian Church. Their projected releases were in 2061. In addition, Josiah Deyton, 34, was also convicted of felonious larceny. He was 18 years old when the robbery happened. Deyton has stayed free of infractions and worked as a recreation clerk during his time in prison. Officials say he has gotten his GED and has been an avid participant of the New Leash on Life dog training program. His sentence has been counted as time-served. Andrew Deyton, 35, who was 19 at the time of the incident, has shown good behavior and worked diligently. He has sewn uniforms for the N.C. ferry system and achieved multiple certificates. The older Deytons sentence has been counted as time-served. Jonathan Koniak, 36, was 20 years old at the time of the robbery. He has taken part of many classes and vocational training programs, such as horticulture, computer technology, industrial sewing, and manufacturing. Koniak has been an apprentice for the manufacturing unit and a canteen operator. His sentence has been counted as time-served. All four of these men will be on supervised release with the required restrictions, meaning they cannot own a firearm, leave the state without permission or commit another felony. Walter Bryson, III, now 51, was convicted in Henderson County of two counts of misdemeanor larceny in 1991 and common law robbery in 1997. He was 17 and 24 years old at the time of the crimes. Bryson has been running a thriving business and serving his community as a firefighter and first responder. He attained the rank of captain while also earning the Medal of Valor for firefighting. He has received a full and unconditional pardon. Charged: Union Co. gang members fired 40+ shots in densely populated neighborhood Shavona Corbin was 23 when she was arrested in Cumberland County for Possession with Intent to Manufacture, Sell/Deliver Cocaine, Manufacturing Cocaine, Maintaining a Place for the Keeping of Controlled Substances and Conspiracy to Possess with Intent to Manufacture, Sell/Deliver Cocaine in 1997. She was later convicted of the crimes. Now 51, Corbin has worked since 2015 as a nurse in Fayetteville. She also does work for two non-profits, one of which where she helps patients work towards sobriety and the other, helping children impacted by psychiatric conditions. Corbin has received a full and unconditional pardon. Paul Cree, now 63, was convicted of common law robbery in 1979 after an arrest in Surry County at 16 years old. He has worked for several years in nursing and has received a full and unconditional pardon. Artimus Quick was 21 when he was arrested and later convicted for Driving While Intoxicated in Buncombe County. He has since completed several graduate degrees and, in the U.S. Army, has served in Puerto Rico, Poland, Germany and Kuwait. Quick earned the Army Achievement Medal, Army Commendation Medal and Good Conduct Medal. He has received a full and unconditional pardon. Each of the four pardoned has officially been forgiven of these crimes. This typically means an individual will regain some rights. The pardon would not apply to any potential or past crimes not listed. The commutations and pardons follow an intensive review of cases, including the circumstances of the crimes, length of the sentences, records in prison, and readiness to reenter communities successfully after prison, the governor said in a statement. Pardons are awarded to those persons who have made exceptional strides since completing their sentence, including examining any service to the community. All actions of clemency were reviewed by the Office of Executive Clemency, the Office of General Counsel and the Governor. 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. GPS jamming in Finland likely part of Russian hybrid campaign, ISW says Recent cases of GPS blocking in and near Finland are "likely part of Russia's intensifying hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO," the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on July 11. Russia has been accused of jamming GPS signals in Finland and the region as far back as the 2010s, but incidents have sky-rocketed in recent months, particularly over the Baltic Sea. A Finnish maritime pilot complained recently about a "massive GPS jamming and radar interference" between July 10 and 11 in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, saying that the GPS was unavailable for 90% of the trip between the Orrengrund pilot station and the Hamina harbor. Finnish authorities commented on the incident, saying that this week saw an unusually high level of GPS malfunctions, the Iltalehti newspaper reported. While no interference with radar frequencies was recorded in the Gulf of Finland, GPS malfunctions can affect radar devices, said the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom). According to the agency, most disturbances affecting aerial and maritime transport originate from Russia. "Russia's apparent GPS jamming is likely part of Russia's intensifying hybrid campaign directly targeting NATO states likely aimed at undermining support for Ukraine and NATO unity," the ISW said. In a pivot from its long-standing military neutrality, Helsinki joined NATO in 2023 in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia, not including the Gulf of Finland, has since then complained of various hybrid attacks from Russia's side. Helsinki accused Russia of deliberately bringing in high numbers of third-party migrants in an attempt to overload the Finnish border. Other countries have also complained about Russian GPS jamming in the Baltic region and Poland. Earlier this year, massive interference in the second-largest Estonian city of Tartu forced the suspension of flights in the local airport. Tallinn named Russia as the culprit. Read also: Swedish commander: Putin aims to control Baltic Sea, has his eye on Gotland Island Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Whenever Rae Chappelle gets a break from their Amazon delivery job, they fire off texts and Facebook messages about the Great Milwaukee Block Party. The weeklong event was conceived in January during a community meeting at Zao MKE Church, where people were discussing their opposition to Milwaukee hosting the Republican National Convention. As people of color and or members of the LGBTQ+ community detailed their safety concerns and mentioned trying to leave town for the week, Chapelle envisioned an alternative possibility: safe spaces for joyful rebellion. Stephanie Roades (left) and Rae Chapelle (right) meet about the Great Milwaukee Block Party. In their mind, they saw groups gathering for movie night on living room couches, porch parties with neighbors, group bike rides down city blocks, and an opportunity for underrepresented and marginalized Milwaukeeans to gather during a high-intensity political moment. Starting on Saturday, Chapelle's goal will be realized through the celebration of the Great Milwaukee Block Party, a weeklong lineup of events in Milwaukee promoting peace and community. In addition to opposing the RNC, the Great Milwaukee Block Party was created to offer an alternative for people who might feel unsafe or uncomfortable at mainstream protest events, Chappelle said. Since January, Chapelle said, their efforts to find community partners and support to bring the idea to life has been nonstop. "This is an opportunity for us to engage with the wider population of people within the city," Chappelle told attendees at an early planning meeting. "Let's not move out of just fear right now. Let's move with love of one another." Planning process ramped up in spring, but wasn't without struggles The spring planning meetings for the event often brought 30 to 40 attendees who packed themselves into a wide circle in the living room of Zao MKE Church, fueled by pizza and soft drinks. "Even if we have five spaces that people can go to get some kind of joy and connection during this event, that will feel like a success," Chappelle said at one of the group's early planning meetings in May. Since then, more than 25 events have been scheduled between July 13 and 20, during and around the week of the RNC. During a spring meeting of the Great Milwaukee Block Party planning committee, organizers display a PowerPoint at Zao MKE Church. Among Chappelle's first collaborators was Stephanie Roades, a telecommunications engineer and seasoned Milwaukee activist. Together, the pair serve as booking managers, location scouts, public relations and community engagement leaders for the event. Roades said the work can be overwhelming. Roades wakes up at 4 a.m. most days to check the group's email for updates and makes calls to confirm venue space. "This is not my job. I've never worked sound checks or planned this kind of stuff," Roades told the Journal Sentinel in the weeks leading up to the block party. "At the same time, when something starts to work out, I'm just like, "OK, this is what we're supposed to do.'" The planning process hasn't been without its challenges. Though the event garnered significant community attention in its early stages, the two organizers ultimately led significant portions of the planning, they said. The group hoped to establish safety trainings and guides for people who wanted to partake in physical protest near the convention, but failed to successfully draw adequate volunteers. Chappelle and Roades also agree one area of improvement is recruiting more organizers of color in the future. Block Party events include fashion show and political education training The Great Milwaukee Block Party logo. The block party's long list of events includes a Monday fashion show called "It's Raining Love" at X-Ray Arcade. The event will feature designs by Devin Billingslea and Sasha Solana Walton, live music by DJ Deeandra Schott, a burlesque performance and a series of drag performances by Carmel Bliss Karizma Mirage, Malaiya Marvel and more. On Tuesday, Voces de la Frontera will host a session of Freedom School, a political education program. At the event in Mitchell Park, organizers will offer civic education and political engagement training for young adults and people of color. In addition to other gatherings, a limited-edition Great Milwaukee Block Party candle called "communiTEA" from Wick + Bean Candle Company will be sold at the Kujichagulia Producers Cooperative at the Sherman Phoenix through the month of July. The group plans to continue accepting event suggestions through Saturday and has shared similar events by other organizing groups on their social media. Between meetings with local organizers and performers, Roades is planning a small gathering of her own to kick off the week's events. "I think that you're more likely to show up at things and in an unfamiliar place if you're not alone, so I'm doing this as a model, to get people to start doing that together," Roades said. Though the development of the Great Milwaukee Block Party was a major accomplishment, the two co-creators recognize there is a long way to go before they truly have an inclusive, accessible and representative event for the community. "Maybe this experiment happens every summer we do a week every summer and maybe it looks different next time," Roades said. Tamia Fowlkes is a Public Investigator reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at tfowlkes@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Great Milwaukee Block Party brings 'joyful rebellion' to RNC week Black-necked stilts and American avocets search for food in the Great Salt Lake near Antelope Island on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) Its been an incredibly fruitful and busy year for Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steeds office, which was created in 2023 to help coordinate efforts to bring more water to the lake. Earlier this month, the office issued a report detailing its inaugural year and whats in store for the Great Salt Lake. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The report comes as lake levels continue to decline since peaking on May 7, according to state data. On the south arm, levels have dropped about one foot, currently sitting at an elevation of 4,194.2 feet. The north arm, which is typically lower and saltier due to the railroad causeway that restricts the flow of fresh water, is at about 4,192 feet. Weve learned two main lessons in this first year, said Deputy Great Salt Lake Commissioner Tim Davis. First, it is going to take everyone voluntarily conserving, dedicating and delivering water to the lake, in dry and wet years, to get the lake to the healthy, target range. Second, there is no quick fix. We need to be committed to this effort for the long haul. Current levels are still not in whats considered the healthy range for the lake between 4,198 to 4,205 feet but they did buy the state some breathing room, according to the commissioners report. The last two years of above-average snowpack gave the state time to make the necessary changes while staving off a possible ecological collapse since the lake hit its historic low of 4,188.5 feet in November 2022. The lake reached its intermediate target elevation, where it has begun to transition out of adverse effects, but remains below the healthy target range, the report notes. Lake levels have now begun to fall again. Salinity levels have also stabilized and remain at or below the target levels for brine shrimp and brine flies in the South Arm. Great Salt Lake levels also got a boost from the states reservoirs, which as of Thursday remain at about 89% capacity, according to Division of Water Resources data (thats excluding Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which are both controlled by the federal government). The median for this time of the year is around 71%, and many reservoirs in northern Utah remain at above 90% full. Pineview is at 94%, Jordanelle is at 95%, and Deer Creek, Strawberry and Utah Lake are around 99%. According to the report, between January and July water districts released about 700,000 acre-feet of water from reservoirs in the Great Salt Lake Basin, conveyed through the Weber and Jordan rivers to the Great Salt Lake. A portion of the recently released water that has made it to the lake is from conserved water by water users and districts. When the conserved water left in reservoirs is spilled, it is able to make it to the lake. Because we cannot rely on this happening every year, we need to learn how to take advantage of future wet water years to get as much water as we can to the lake, the report reads. One of the most notable steps taken by the commissioners office this year was the development of the Great Salt Lake Strategic Plan, which lays out four goals to be carried out over the short, medium and long term. The are as follows: Ensuring better coordination between the various water districts, municipalities, businesses, stakeholders and 19 governmental agencies 12 at the state level and five federal that are all involved with the Great Salt Lake. Getting more water to the lake through releases, like the 700,000 acre feet conveyed this year through the Jordan and Weber rivers, and by meeting with water rights holders in northern Utah to discuss the importance of conserving, dedicating and delivering saved water to the lake through a variety of market-based tools. Protecting water and air quality by setting a salinity limit on the Great Salt Lake and hosting a forum to discuss toxic dust mitigation. Making decisions based on the best available science. That includes commissioning and reviewing a number of studies and plans, including the Great Salt Lake Basin Integrated Plan, various policy summaries, groundwater studies, researching wildlife on the lake, analyzing the impact of mineral extraction and increased data collection from the Utah Geological Survey. Having the plan in place is a milestone, said Steed, creating a common long-term vision for the lake. We have met with people throughout the Great Salt Lake Basin to hear their hopes, fears and solutions for the long-term health of the lake, he said in a statement. As a result, all Utahns can now work together, in the same direction for the lake. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The organization pushing for the relocation of the Oregon-Idaho border said it has formally invited Gov. Tina Kotek to further discuss the movement. According to the Thursday morning announcement, Greater Idaho contacted the governors office in an attempt to schedule a meeting at a time and place of her choosing. Oregon board considering conditional release of man who decapitated mother The meeting would happen as a result of the primary election, in which Crook County became the 13th Oregon county to vote in favor of potentially seceding the state. Preliminary data showed that nearly 53% of local voters approved the measure. Idahos House of Representatives passed a bill that allowed state leaders to discuss the relocation in more detail back in 2023. The leaders of the Greater Idaho movement President Mike McCarter, Vice President Sandie Gilson and Executive Director Matt McCaw told Kotek it was about time for more of Oregons elected leaders to get involved as well. On the campaign trail and throughout your One Oregon Listening Tour, you repeatedly state that you wanted to listen to communities and hear your constituents concerns, McCarter, Gilson and McCaw added in the letter to Kotek. As leaders of the most successful county ballot initiative movement in eastern Oregon history, we are ready to provide you with that opportunity. Portland-area patients may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis infections after possible protocol violation Those in favor of the movement argue that joining the Republican-leaning state of Idaho would benefit voters on the east side of the state who dont believe their values are represented by Democratic leadership. Idaho has had Republican governors since 1995, while Oregon has had Democratic governors since 1987. KOIN 6 has reached out to Koteks office 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 KOIN.com. Classrooms have become ground zero for cultural debates. Now, theres a push to expand religious teachings in public schools in some states. Roughly 50 million students were enrolled in public schools nationwide in the fall of 2021, according to federal data. In Oklahoma, public school enrollment is growing with more than 700,000 students in those classrooms statewide. I have two kids in public school. Im a graduate of public school. We know that this is where kids in Oklahoma are learning, and they deserve to be protected, said Erin Brewer. Brewer is a member of the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Advocacy Coalition (OKPLAC). Last year, the group filed a lawsuit against an effort to create a publicly funded religious charter school. It was the first attempt of this kind in the U.S. We were shocked and disappointed that here in Oklahoma, we had leaders who were going to choose to just ignore our freedom of religion and, and really violate our rights as taxpayers and parents, said Brewer. In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked that effort and ruled it was unconstitutional. We will consider all legal options and remain steadfast in our belief that St. Isidore would have and could still be a valuable asset to students, regardless of socioeconomic, race, or faith backgrounds, said Archbishop Paul Coakley, Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Bishop David Konderla, Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma in a joint written statement. But that ruling hasnt stopped some state officials. Every teacher and every classroom in the state, will have a bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the bible in the classroom, said Ryan Walters, Oklahoma state superintendent. Oklahomas superintendent of schools Ryan Walters recently issued this new mandate. He said the Bible falls within the states education standards. 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, said Walters. And is frankly, when we talk about the Bible, one of the most foundational documents used for the constitution at the birth of our country. This is just the latest attempt by conservative-led states to merge religious teachings into public education. Louisiana now requires schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Other states are considering laws that would incorporate off-campus religious programs for students. Some Oklahoma City parents said they welcome these efforts. I think that if it was more in the schools, that it would stop a lot of the violence that goes on in the schools and save more of our children from all of that, that goes on, said Jasmine Aldridge, mother. What happened at Oklahomas highest court will likely not be the end of discussions about religious public charter schools thats because some experts say these efforts could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Its because of the hope that you bring enough cases you can unravel existing law, you can get the Supreme Court right now when it seems to be favorable to really radical ideas, said Richard Katskee, professor at Duke University School of Law. Richard Katskee is the director of Dukes Appellate Litigation Clinic. He said if the high court were to take up this issue, it could have widespread implications. It seems to be hurrying to rewrite laws that have been our understanding of the way that the Constitution works for at least 75 years, said Katskee. And thats why parents like Brewer said theyre keeping a close eye on what happens next, not just in Oklahoma, but across the country. We know this is going to be a continued issue a continued attempt to violate our religious freedom, and we will continue to work to protect that, said Brewer. The Hague to create commission to decide on damages to be paid by Russia to Ukraine A meeting was held in the Hague on 9-10 July to establish a Claims Commission to review Ukraine's applications to the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Source: Register of Damage for Ukraine Details: A claims commission is a body that will be mandated to examine claims for compensation submitted to and recorded in the Register of Damage for Ukraine, assess such claims and evidence, and determine the amount of compensation due in each case. Participants of the preparatory meeting discussed various models for establishing a Claims Commission for Ukraine, including what form it will take, how it will be governed, and how to ensure its independence and impartiality. The Register of Damage for Ukraine was launched on 2 April 2024. Applications can be submitted through the Diia electronic system for damages related to damage and destruction of housing. The preparatory meeting at the Hague was organised by the Register of Damages for Ukraine in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Background: At the Council of Europe summit in Iceland in May 2023, an agreement was signed to create a register of damages from Russian aggression. In June 2023, Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi was appointed the Executive Director of the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Participants attending a Wing Chun masterclass pose for a group photo at the China Cultural Center in Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands, July 10, 2024. (China Cultural Center in Den Haag/Handout via Xinhua) THE HAGUE, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A Wing Chun Kung-Fu masterclass held here this week attracted more than a dozen martial arts enthusiasts. Some of them have developed a passion for this form of Chinese Kung Fu since decades ago. Erik Batstra, head instructor at the Wing-Chun Kung-Fu Association of the Netherlands, also attended the masterclass. On the sidelines of the event, he told Xinhua that he began practicing Wing Chun when he was 18 years old. "When I came in contact with Wing Chun, it became my life's passion," Batstra said. Since 1981, the Dutch martial artist dedicated himself to the study of Wing Chun, a Kung-fu martial art characterized by close-quarters hand-to-hand combat, rapid-fire punches, and efficiency. The Dutch Association founded in 1974 primarily studies the Wong Shun-Leung lineage of Wing Chun, which favors efficiency and directness. Wing Chun is on the list of China's national intangible cultural heritage. Attendees of the recent masterclass came to learn from Zheng Zujie, a Chinese Grand Master of Wing Chun. Zheng delved into the history and techniques of Wing Chun and elaborated on the Chinese philosophical and cultural principles underpinning the martial art. Participants had the opportunity to practice Wing Chun techniques under his guidance. Zheng noted the genuine passion for Wing Chun among the Dutch practitioners. In a comment to Xinhua, he said that his visit to the Netherlands aimed to foster close interactions with local Wing Chun practitioners. "They come from a wide range of ages, with some well into their sixties and seventies, yet all show a remarkable dedication to practicing Wing Chun, regardless of their age," he said. The veteran martial artists also expressed hope for further exchanges to connect people and jointly promote Wing Chun, emphasizing its benefits for health, happiness, and personal development. Expressing his enthusiasm for the Wing Chun masterclass, Batstra said he is looking forward to going to China for further exchanges to do with this martial art. Sebastiaan Kas, a 51-year-old dedicated Wing Chun practitioner, said he has been immersed in the art form since 2006. His journey into Wing Chun was inspired by his childhood fascination with martial arts films of the 80s and 90s, featuring icons like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. "Watching those films, I always said, that's what I want to do too," he said. Kas said Wing Chun has profoundly changed his life. "Wing Chun has become a part of my life that gives me mental and physical strength." The Dutch martial artist said the experience of practicing Wing Chun went beyond the physical movements. The respect for each other and the close brotherhood is an important aspect of this art for Wing Chun practitioners, who share knowledge and practice the art through various movements and lineages, he said. "You have brothers who train harder and work longer hours. Then boundaries are pushed, and you actually experience what the human body is capable of," Kas said. This intense dedication, he believed, fuels the passion and love for Wing Chun. During the masterclass, Kas shared a personal dream. "For me, being able to go to the South Shaolin Temple in Fujian, China, the birthplace of Wing Chun, is like a dream for me. I'm really looking forward to going." Zheng Zujie (R, back), a Chinese Grand Master of Wing Chun, hosts a masterclass for Dutch Kung Fu practitioners at the China Cultural Center in Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands, July 10, 2024. (China Cultural Center in Den Haag/Handout via Xinhua) Zheng Zujie (1st L), a Chinese Grand Master of Wing Chun, hosts a masterclass for Dutch Kung Fu practitioners at the China Cultural Center in Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands, July 10, 2024. (Photo by Sun Jingjing/Xinhua) State Police are alerting the public of an ongoing phone scam in which callers are impersonating state troopers and threatening arrest if the recipient does not make an immediate payment. The calls have come from a 603 area code. During the calls, scammers tell recipients they have an active warrant and must pay a fine or fee using Western Union or gift cards, state police said. Scammers have used the names of New Hampshire State Police employees and locations, state police said. They also have used personal information about the person they are calling, from online public databases including the New Hampshire Sex Offender Registry. The New Hampshire State Police never solicits payment of fines or fees over the phone and urges the public to remain vigilant for scams, state police said in a statement. Anyone who receives a call from someone claiming to be a member of the New Hampshire State Police who requests payment should not send money or engage with the caller. Anyone who has been a victim of this scam is asked to file a report with their local police department. 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 As a growing number of congressional Democrats call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election over concerns regarding his electability, some in the party have started grappling over the possibility of a nominee replacement. But the decision to step aside rests entirely with Biden, and the President has said that he is committed to staying in the race. Im determined on running, Biden told reporters at a news conference on Thursday night, suggesting that he would drop out only if polls showed there was no way for him to win. Theyre not saying that. No poll says that, he added. At the moment, 19 Democratic members of Congress have called on Biden to withdraw from the election, making up just over 7% of the caucus. Many have expressed concerns that a Biden-led ticket could threaten vulnerable down-ballot candidates, while others have questioned his mental acuity following his poor debate performance. So what does it look like if Biden ultimately decides to drop out of the race? Heres what historians say would happen in the event Biden steps down. Biden dropping out so late would be unprecedented If Biden were to bow out of the presidential race ahead of the election in four months, he would be the first to do so this late in the campaign cycle, according to multiple historians. But it wouldnt be the first time an incumbent president decided to withdraw their candidacy or not seek re-election. Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, says that former Presidents Harry Truman (1952) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1968) each decided to withdraw their re-election campaigns in March of their election years despite being eligible to run for a second term. It's not unprecedented for an incumbent president to decide not to run for reelection, Dallek says, but what would be unprecedented and what makes the Biden situation unique is that it is so late in the campaign. He adds that no candidate has ever withdrawn after securing enough delegates in the presidential primaries to be the nominee. (Biden clinched the Democratic nomination in March after winning more than 3,800 delegates). Kevin Boyle, an American history professor at Northwestern University, says that the closest parallel to a presidential candidate dropping out late in their campaign was in October 2016 when the infamous Access Hollywood tape and its audio of former President Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault was made public a month before the election. There was an awful lot of talk inside the Republican Party about replacing Trump as the nominee at an even later date than were talking about now, Boyle says. Many assumed the scandal would force Trump to step aside, but he stayed in the race and won. Read More: As Bidens Name Mix-Ups Draw Attention, Supporters Point to Trumps Similar Gaffes The complex process to replace Biden as a nominee Replacing a nominee close to Election Day would entail a complex process, but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) does have rules in place for such a scenario. Historians say that if Biden ends his campaign ahead of the Aug. 19 Democratic convention, his pledged delegates would be free to back other candidates and Democrats would choose a nominee at the event. However, the process could get messy if Biden were to not endorse a replacement candidate, which is what happened in 1968 after Johnson dropped out of the race, Boyle says. Dallek adds that if Biden were not to endorse his Vice President, then there would be a mini campaign to recruit and win the support of a majority of the delegates. During that mini campaign, the winning candidate would need to secure the support of a majority of delegates to capture the nomination. Vice President Kamala Harris, Bidens running mate, would enter the nomination fight with an early advantage but other potential candidates may have an inside track to a large number of delegates from their home states. Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University, warns that open conventions with several candidates competing for the nomination can sometimes be grueling and have multiple roll call votes. During the 1924 Democratic National Convention, it took a record 103 ballots before John W. Davis emerged as the presidential nominee. If Biden were to withdraw from the election after being nominated at the Aug. 19 Democratic convention, the DNC would need to select a new nominee by majority vote in a special session called by the chair, according to the National Election Task Force. That scenario occurred in 1972 when Thomas Eagleton withdrew as the vice presidential nominee, leading the DNC to select Sargent Shriver as his replacement on the ticket. How Biden could secure Kamala Harris the nomination If Biden were to withdraw from the race, political historians say the most likely scenario is that he would endorse Harris. Biden has persisted that he is not planning to drop out, but he did praise his Vice President on Thursday for her work on abortion rights and her time in the Senate. Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump [Harris] to be vice president [if I didnt] think she was not qualified to be president, Biden said at his press conference on Thursday. Several congressional Democrats have said they would endorse her if Biden decided to exit the race in large part because she would inherit Bidens campaign casharound $91 million as of May 30given that her name is already on the current presidential ticket. I don't care how talented you areyou cant put a campaign together instantly that's going to win a national presidential race, Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who would back Harris over outside candidates as the nominee, tells TIME. It's not realistic. Zelizer says fundraising would be more complicated with the other candidates since almost all of the money in the Biden-Harris campaign account would have to be refunded to donors if the nominee was another candidate. Did the Founding Fathers plan for this moment in the Constitution? Historians say the Founding Fathers never anticipated the modern complexities of political campaigns, including the potential need to replace a presidential nominee close to Election Day. They also never anticipated the emergence of political parties as dominant entities in American politics, nor did they foresee the intricate systems of primaries, conventions, and delegate selection processes that shape modern presidential nominations. While the Constitution requires a president to be at least 35 years old, there is no maximum age for the job. The Founders did, however, anticipate the need for a line of succession and included a provision in the Constitution for replacing the President if they were unable to fulfill their duties. Its worth remembering that life expectancy in the United States was way lower back then, Boyle says. I dont think this exact moment was in the purview of the Founders, Dallek says. We're living in a dramatically different world from the one they did. Get alerts on the biggest breaking news stories here Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com. Harvest Pizzeria in Clintonville is closed for the foreseeable future after overnight fire An overnight fire outside Harvest Pizzeria in Clintonville will shut the restaurant down for the foreseeable future, its owner said Friday morning. Columbus firefighters were called to the restaurant at 2885 N. High St. after Columbus police on patrol in the area spotted the fire in a dumpster at about 2:35 a.m., according to Battalion Chief Jeff Geitter. The fire spread to the building, he said. Paying it forward: Harvest Pizzeria gives back to agency that helped it get started Geitter said arson is not suspected. Owner Chris Crader said no one was in the building at the time. The dumpster fire destroyed outdoor coolers but didn't get inside the building. Crader said damage doesn't appear as bad as a fire in July 2022 that closed the restaurant for six months. He said he's unsure of when the Clintonville Harvest location will reopen, though. Crader and his wife opened Harvest Pizzeria in German Village in 2011. The restaurant operates today in Clintonville, the Brewery District, Bexley, Dublin and Granville. rvitale@dispatch.com Instagram: @dispatchdining This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Harvest Pizzeria closed after fire outside Clintonville location Hearing set for public to weigh in on proposed health insurance rate increases for 2025 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island is one of the health insurers with proposed rate increases for 2025. Seen here are the companys offices on Exchange Street in Providence. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current) A virtual town hall meeting will allow the public to provide feedback on rate increases ranging from 2.5% to 22.7% proposed by Rhode Islands health insurers. The meeting will be Monday, July 15, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. over Zoom. Further rules for submitting comments on the proposed rate increases are available from the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner (OHIC). In addition to the town hall, OHIC will accept written comments on the proposals through July 19. Commissioner Cory King is responsible for approving, modifying or rejecting the proposed rates. Premiums are paid monthly and maintain a persons coverage on their health insurance plan. The states health insurance commissioner reviews these rates annually, and insurers file their requested rate increases for the upcoming year. Rates differ according to whether a person is subscribed individually or through their employer. A companys size also affects the premium price, and smaller employers usually provide more expensive plans. The commissioners office cited increased use of health services, provider prices and prescription drug costs as reasons behind the proposed increases. This years rate increase proposals include: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island and Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island filed proposed increases for individual insurance purchased through a marketplace. Blue Cross, Neighborhood, UnitedHealthcare, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New England and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Insurance Company filed increases for small group rates, which typically covers companies with 50 or fewer employees. Companies with more than 50 employees, which qualify for large group rates, would see increases from Blue Cross, UnitedHealthcare, both Harvard Pilgrim insurers, Aetna and Cigna. The rates do not apply to self-funded employer groups, which accounts for approximately 65% of Rhode Islands employer-sponsored coverage, according to OHIC. Self-funded employers pay employee health expenses directly, but they also rely on health insurers for administrative services. Rep. David Morales, a Providence Democrat, encouraged the public to attend the town hall in a statement Friday morning urging Kings office to reject the proposed rate increases. Despite the quality of care remaining almost the same, private health insurance companies are proposing steep rate hikes that would impact over 150,000 Rhode Islanders, Morales said. Combined with the increasing cost of housing, energy, food and other basic amenities, working people cannot afford to pay more for medical services while health insurance executives continue to rake in millions in profit. The Office of Attorney General, which reviews and makes recommendations to OHIC on annual rate increases, could not immediately provide a comment Friday afternoon on the 2025 proposed rate hikes. In August 2023, Attorney General Peter Neronha criticized the rate increases proposed and urged the commissioner to reject the proposals. Rhode Islanders should not bear the full weight of rising health care costs alone, Neronha stated then. It should be a shared responsibility borne by all stakeholders including health insurance companies. Indeed, among all the players, they are by and large the strongest financially. Private insurers also pay far more for some services than publicly-funded Medicare or Medicaid do. A 2020 analysis by KFF found that, on average, insurers pay 199% of Medicare rates for hospital services. The commissioners office expects to release its decisions on the rate proposals in August. How to provide feedback via email To submit a written comment on the proposed rate increases, email HealthInsInq@ohic.ri.gov by Friday, July 19. Rate review documents can be viewed here. The post Hearing set for public to weigh in on proposed health insurance rate increases for 2025 appeared first on Rhode Island Current. Heat-related illness prompts search and rescue for 2 teens in Diamond Fork Canyon This is a developing story. ABC4 will update this post as new information becomes available. UPDATE: The teenagers have been rescued and one was transported to the hospital by ambulance. There is no additional information at this time. UTAH COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) Utah County Search and Rescue crews are working to rescue two teens in Diamond Fork Canyon. According to the Utah County Sheriffs Office, a call came in at 2:10 p.m. about a case of heat-related illness as the two teenagers were in Diamond Fork Canyon heading to the Fifth Water Hot Springs. A Department of Public Safety helicopter was called to help in the rescue, which is currently 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 ABC4 Utah. Its too hot to trot and now New York Citys horse carriage drivers are the ones getting cooked. Horse-drawn carriage drivers say they havent been able to work a full day since July 5 due to the unforgiving heat an unusually long work stop order from the city thats affecting their bottom lines. Under the citys administrative code, ride suspensions are issued by the Department of Health, which sends a text blast out to drivers when temperatures reach over 90 degrees or if the air temperature is 80 degrees Fahrenheit or above and the equine heat index is 150 or above. Its so bad, carriage owner Ahmet Bilici told The Post this week from inside Clinton Park Stables, located several blocks west of Central Park. We couldnt go out. Even when we go outside, its slow, theres not much tourists [as] there used to be Its killing us. Even when we go outside, its slow, theres not much tourists [as] there used to be Its killing us, one horse carriage owner told The Post. Robert Miller Bilici, 49, who has been a carriage driver for more than 20 years, said the heat-related suspension has even impacted his ability to pay his bills. A rep for Clinton Park Stables which houses 45 carriages and 90 horses said theyve been forced to cancel dozens of scheduled Central Park carriage rides in the past few days due to the extreme heat. Weve had a lot of disappointed customers that weve had to contact and say that our bookings are canceled because this is their once in a lifetime trip but you know, the laws the law, Christina Hansen, Clinton Park Stables spokesperson, told The Post Wednesday. [The] suspensions are definitely longer than I remember, and I dont remember this many days in a row with suspensions ever, NYClass executive director Edita Birnkrant said. AFP via Getty Images We cant help that theres a heat wave, she added. You never know what New York City weather is going to be like. While Hansen, 44, said the company is no stranger to work stoppages during the scorching summer tourism season, she noted the recent heat wave had lasted unusually long. Edita Birnkrant, executive director of non-profit NYClass that has fought to ban or restrict carriage horses, told The Post that this week has seen some of the longest suspensions in recent memory. Its been so extremely hot and humid, she said. I dont remember this many days in a row with suspensions ever. Even after a suspension is called carriage drivers often keep the horses on the streets well over an hour after the suspension has gone into effect, Birnkrant said. Helayne Seidman During cooler heat waves, Clinton Park Stables has typically been able to send out drivers first thing in the morning beginning at 9:30 a.m., or in the evening, but Hansen said the temperatures and high humidity in recent days have forced them to stable their horses altogether. Right now, the last few days, because it just hasnt cooled off overnight, and the humidity is so high, we havent been able to go back out at night or we havent been able to leave the stable in the morning, she said. Thats what happened today. Birnkrant said the DOHs directive hasnt stopped all drivers, some of whom were blasted by NYClass this week for driving just before another heat suspension was issued Thursday afternoon. Since July 5, Birnkrant has received dozens of reports of carriage horses working in the sweltering heat, she said. Even after a suspension is called carriage drivers often keep the horses on the streets well over an hour after the suspension has gone into effect its incredibly inhumane and dangerous for both the horse and everyone in Midtown if they collapse or run wild, Birnkrant said in an email. Theres really no enforcement of the drivers after the suspension is issued in terms of how much longer the horses are out there [or] how long a ride will continue, Birnkrant added. A spokesperson for the DOH told The Post it has received one heat-related complaint since July 5. AFP via Getty Images Drivers have 30 minutes to end their trips after the DOH text goes out, Hansen said, though it typically takes about 90 minutes or more to get horses back to the stable. Hansen also maintained that Clinton Park Stables strictly adhere to the work stoppage due to the hot weather. None of their drivers had received fines or tickets in recent days for violating the city order, she said. But she claimed the drivers have been unfairly targeted this summer by animal rights activists seeking to expose them for violating the rule when they would see a horse out when the temperature was 90 Fahrenheit or above. She noted many activists dont understand the company has unlimited time to get the horses back to the stables after the DOH advisory goes out as long as the trip is ended within 30 minutes, drivers are in the clear. A spokesperson for the DOH told The Post it has received one heat-related complaint since July 5, marking an increase from the zero reported heat-related complaints last summer. A follow-up from the NYPD found no violations, the DOH said. Robert Miller This summers lengthy suspension comes on the heels of legislation introduced last month by Council Member Robert Holden (D-Queens) to end the barbaric practice once and for all. Dubbed Ryders Law, after the frail horse that collapsed in Aug. 2022 and later died, the legislation would ban the carriage industry from city streets, free the animals and establish a workforce development program to help drivers find other jobs. Hansen noted that New York City has the lowest stop work temperature in the country at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In comparison, Philadelphias work stoppage temperature limit rests at anything above 91 degrees Fahrenheit. In Charleston, the temperature cut-off is 95 degrees. Think about how many horses are out doing things right now in places that are hotter than New York City, she added. New York City has the lowest stop work temperature in the country at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Paul Martinka Hansen, who monitored the weather forecast on her phone as she spoke with The Post, said she expected Clinton Park Stables drivers to be back in business for the weekend rush, or as early as Thursday morning. In the summertime, you do have to be more vigilant whenever theres extreme weather, Hansen said. But everythings fine. It would just be nice if we could get some work in sometime in the next couple days. But it is what it is. Its summer. The historic Samuel T. Hauser Mansion, 720 Madison Ave., in Helena. On Jan. 8, 2024, Gov. Gianforte and First Lady Susan Gianforte announced private purchase of the home and that it will be gifted to the State of Montana. (Photo courtesy of Big Bear Aerial Productions) The governor, along with the other five highest-ranking officials elected to lead state government, is supposed to reside at the seat of government, and Gov. Greg Gianforte clearly spends time in Helena. But, it doesnt appear hes made the capital city his regular residence, according to public records and interviews with neighbors. Public records show the governor votes absentee or by mail in Gallatin County, and he lists a Bozeman address for his Fish, Wildlife and Parks hunting licenses. Gianfortes wife, Susan Gianforte, electronically signed for a property tax rebate for their Bozeman home, and Gov. Gianforte is listed as a taxpayer. The law provides rebates for a principal residence, or one where a taxpayer has lived for at least seven months of the year. In January this year, the Governors Office announced the Gianfortes had purchased the historic Hauser House in Helenas mansion district, and MTN News said they planned to move into the 720 Madison Ave., home this summer. Gianforte and his wife, Susan Gianforte, previously had a residence down the street at 618 Madison Ave. Neighbors who live on the same block or had a line of sight to the 618 residence said this weekend the Gianfortes moved out roughly three weeks ago, and they generally spent Mondays and Tuesdays there, a scenario that aligns with a year of the governors calendar. In an email last week, Republican Gov. Gianforte declined to answer questions about his residency through a spokesperson. But questions about residency requirements have come up before in Montana and elsewhere. In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice was sued at least a couple of times for not residing at the seat of government, as that states constitution also requires. Justice eventually agreed to live in Charleston, but not before the West Virginia Supreme Court said reside means to live, primarily, at the seat of government, and requires a physical presence for the duration of his or her term of office, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Last year, the Montana Supreme Court found a county attorney in Roosevelt County wasnt eligible to run for office when he won his election because he hadnt been a resident at the time. In 2020, the Commissioner of Political Practices found a political candidate with ties to Helena in Lewis and Clark County was, nonetheless, a resident of Beaverhead County. In Montana, a Great Falls lawyer with a practice that focuses on ensuring even the powerful play by the rules said delegates to the Montana Constitutional Convention understood how to write a residency requirement, and they did so. But she said there is compelling evidence that Gianforte doesnt meet it. I view this as yet another example of how this governor thinks basic rules dont apply to him, said Caitlin Boland Aarab, with the Boland Aarab law firm. Records show Bozeman, Gallatin County addresses The Montana Constitution requires members of the executive branch to reside at the seat of government, a requirement that applies not only to the governor, but to the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction and auditor. Montana law also says a person may claim only one residence, unless a statutory exception exists. Jayson ONeill, who worked for the administration of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, for six years starting in 2007, requested the records related to Gianfortes place of residence and provided them to the Daily Montanan. The state of Montana owns a mansion that governors live in, but the house at 2 Carson St. is reported to be in disrepair. The Montana Legislature appropriated $2.3 million for renovations, first in 2019, but the state postponed the work. ONeill said he first became curious about Gianfortes place of residence after learning renovations there had stalled. He said he also wondered if Gianforte had taken advantage of his own tax rebate. He saw the First Lady had signed for it, so he decided to look at conservation hunting licenses and voting records to learn more about the governors own actions. Is he making any good faith effort to reside in the capital city as required by the law and the constitution? ONeill said of the question prompting his inquiry. All evidence Ive found shows Gianforte is not. ONeill also requested a calendar of all of the governors activities but narrowed the request to the 2022 year because of the high cost for the entire record. He paid $265.83 for the 2022 calendar, of which most was redacted. However, the calendar does indicate Gianforte held events on Madison Avenue on many Mondays and Tuesdays. ONeill is involved in separate but related litigation against Gianforte. In that case, he alleges the governor is illegally claiming a special but nonexistent privilege to withhold from the public forms his office used to track proposed legislation. The Montana Constitution protects the right to know, and a district court judge ordered the governor to turn over the documents to the court for a private review and possible disclosure. Gianforte appealed to the Montana Supreme Court, and oral arguments are scheduled for September. Neighbors see governor, activity, on Mondays and Tuesdays In an email last Friday, the Governors Office declined to answer questions about how much time Gianforte spends in Helena. Gianforte is a multimillionaire and has multiple residences. During the weekend, however, neighbors on the same block as 618 Madison consistently said the Gianfortes were present Mondays and Tuesdays. A couple of them also said they were exceptional neighbors. Lura Brown, who lives a couple of houses down, said the Gianfortes would hold meetings there Monday and Tuesday evenings, but she doesnt know how frequently the governor was present at the residence. I dont know how often he was actually there, said Brown, in the neighborhood since 2017. Pat Hunt, whose deck overlooks the 618 yard, also said the Gianfortes were at that residence Mondays and Tuesdays. When I talked to Susan, she said, We travel the state the rest of the week, Hunt said. Susan Gianforte declined to confirm or correct the statement through an email from the Gianforte Family Foundation; she directed questions to the Governors Office. The Governors Office did not respond to the question. Hunt, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than two decades, said she hasnt known the Gianfortes to have ever had the Madison house as a full-time residence, although while they were there, they were great neighbors. Another neighbor with a direct line of sight also said the governor held events at the house Monday and Tuesday nights for roughly an hour or so. The neighbor said he wouldnt typically see the governor there the rest of the week. However, he said he believes Susan Gianforte might have been there more frequently. A neighbor who lives near the Hauser House, Randy Sibbitt, said he saw the First Lady at 618 as well and hopes to introduce himself to the governor. I used to walk my dog past his house and saw his wife not inconsistently, said Sibbitt, whose pet recently died; he confirmed he saw Susan Gianforte likely more frequently than Mondays and Tuesdays and said he assumed the governor was close by. A couple of neighbors said the governor held an event at the Hauser House last Monday for probably the first time. In his email, the spokesperson for the governor pointed to a couple of other news articles from January 2024 for reference, one from the Montana Free Press and one from the Independent Record. The Free Press said Gianforte had previously split time between Bozeman and the 618 Madison house, and the IR also reported the governor split time in Bozeman. In another story about the Hauser House purchase, MTN News said the Gianfortes enjoy hospitality. We tend to entertain people every night when we are in Helena, Gianforte told MTN in January. Joe Menden, who lives almost kitty corner from the Hauser House, said he has seen the Montana and U.S. flags flying at the 618 house during events and sometimes security officers on the porch. He doesnt remember seeing the governor himself. I dont think either of the houses on this street are their permanent residence, said Menden, who works from home. Lawyer: Gianforte outside the bounds of Montana Constitution Aarab, the lawyer from Great Falls, said delegates to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention clearly wanted the governor and other members of the executive branch to live in Helena. They didnt set the same requirements when they didnt want them, such as for Montana Supreme Court justices, said Aarab, former editor in chief of the Montana Law Review. Aarab reviewed the public records ONeill provided to the Daily Montanan. She agreed the law must allow for some gray area and flexibility, but she said there are limits. There is no flexibility in the law in terms of where you register to vote, where you get your property tax rebate, where you pull hunting tags, said Aarab, who has clerked for the Montana Supreme Court and the federal Ninth Circuit. You get to pick one residence. If you, the governor, live so full time outside of Helena that you pull tags, you register to vote, you get your rebate (outside of Helena), I think were well outside the bounds of what is reasonable, Aarab said. She also said Gianforte made the choice to run for governor. He took office in 2021 and is running for his second term this year. Hes the one who wanted to give up his life to serve the people of Montana. And I think youd be hard pressed to find a governor of Montana of either party who hasnt uprooted his life to serve the state, she said. In a phone call, former Gov. Schweitzer said he wasnt the most popular person in his home when he told his children he was hauling everyone to Helena courtesy of the Montana Constitution. My kids had never lived in a town. My border collies had never lived in a town. And yet we did it because it was state law, Schweitzer said. Montana Supreme Court, Commissioner of Political Practices address residency questions In 2023, the Montana Supreme Court found a man who was appointed county attorney in Roosevelt County was not in fact eligible to be a candidate for the job because he did not reside in that county for at least 30 days before the election. Frank Piocos, who resided in nearby Valley County, filed to run for county attorney in Roosevelt County in January 2022 and won unopposed in November 2022, according to the supreme court order. Piocos, however, had continued splitting his time between Yellowstone County and Valley County. He never felt secure in his own employment with Roosevelt County to lay down roots, the order said. As a result, he lost his job as county attorney. A district court found the election was void because Piocos was not a qualified elector of Roosevelt County at the time, a state law requirement for county officers. The Montana Supreme Court pointed to Montana Code Annotated 13-1-112s residency requirements for voter registration in its decision. It describes a residence as a place where habitation is fixed and an individual has the intention of returning. An individual may not gain a residence in a county if the individual comes in for temporary purposes without the intention of making that county the individuals home, it says. The order said the lower court relied on a more general statute, MCA 1-1-215, not applicable to voter registration. However, it found the court made the right decision in determining Piocos wasnt a resident nonetheless. The more general statute says a residence is the place where a person returns when they arent working or where they repose. There may be only one residence, it says in part. If a person claims a residence within Montana for any purpose, then that location is the persons residence for all purposes unless there is a specific statutory exception. In Piocos case, the justices disagreed with his argument that a candidate could simply sleep in a county prior to the election to establish residency and meet the requirement of being a resident for at least 30 days. Merely sleeping in that county would not be enough to establish residency under 13-1-112(8) MCA, the order said. That potential candidate would have to show both an act of removal from the old county plus an intent to remain in the new county. The justices pointed to another residency case with the Commissioner of Political Practices as relevant, too. In 2020, the Montana Democratic Party director alleged James Brown, a Republican candidate for the Public Service Commission, was a resident of Lewis and Clark County, contrary to swearing he was a resident of Dillon in Beaverhead County. The Commissioner of Political Practices found otherwise, and the justices cited the case in their Piocos order: Brown was a Dillon resident while growing up there, but he lost his Dillon residency in 2013 when he relocated to Helena for several years. He then regained his Dillon residency when although he continued to maintain a residence and a law office in Helena he moved back to Dillon for a majority of his time, received his personal mail there, registered to vote there, listed his Dillon address in his passport, and registered his vehicle there. The Commissioner of Political Practices pointed to Browns voter registration change from Helena to Dillon as part of the evidence he had gained residence in Beaverhead County: Just because candidate Brown maintained business and personal ties to Helena after May of 2019 does not by itself mean that he remained a Helena resident. The rules dont apply to him Aarab said enforcing the residency requirement for the governor isnt a simple matter because theres no enforcement mechanism. She said a plaintiff could file a writ of mandamus, which essentially asks the Montana Supreme Court to require another member of government to follow the law. A request for a declaratory judgment for the court to state the meaning of the law from a district court might be possible as well, she said. However, she said a person would need to show standing, or prove theyve suffered as a result. This is a classic example of why we need elected officials to be in it for public service and not private benefit, Aarab said. This is just another example of him acting like the rules dont apply to him. We (citizens) dont have any recourse because weve never been forced to. Gianforte received a barrage of criticism, and still does, for vacationing in the Tuscany region of Italy when forecasted floods decimated communities near Yellowstone National Park in 2022. At the time, his office identified the work he had done remotely, such as verbally authorizing a state disaster declaration, although Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras had served as acting governor in his absence. The governor also returned to Montana the same week. In West Virginia, Justices lawyers had argued that the definition of reside wasnt clear, and the governor needed flexibility to travel. They also said the people of the state understood how much Justice had accomplished despite multiple lawsuits about his residency. They know hes on the job for them every day, either in Charleston or out among the 99 percent of West Virginians who dont live in the capital, said the statement from lawyers following allegations that Justice, a wealthy Republican, failed to abide by an earlier settlement to live in the capital. The Supreme Court disagreed with Justice, but in Montana, Gianforte wouldnt be the first statewide elected official to buck the requirement to reside at the seat of government, if public records and witnesses provide a sufficient account. The Governors Office declined to provide evidence of his Helena residency. The 618 house appeared vacant, and knocks on the door of the Hauser House on Sunday afternoon went unanswered. In 2019, the Legislative Audit Division found Secretary of State Corey Stapleton was inappropriately commuting between Helena and Billings. The audit dinged him for using a state vehicle to drive from Helena, where he was required to reside, to a worksite more than 30 miles away without authorization. Stapleton gave up the state truck. However, then-Deputy Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, now Secretary of State, told lawmakers Stapleton continued to telework in Billings, albeit on his own dime instead of the taxpayers, according to reporting from Lee Enterprises. In the case of Gianforte, ONeill concludes the governor is derelict in his duties to Montana, and his absence from Helena is another example of Gianforte acting as though laws dont apply to him, like some sort of anointed king. The governor cant lawfully claim residency in Helena for one purpose and residency in Gallatin County for other purposes at the same time, he said. Gianforte created the most expensive Montana in history because hes been mailing it in from his mansion in Bozeman or wherever he jet-sets, like Tuscany, ONeill said. Everyone is paying the price of Gianforte being derelict in his duties to Montana. If the governor is more frequently in Helena than it appears, he hasnt made a wide impression hes part of the community. A longtime Helena legislator remembers seeing Republican Gov. Judy Martz, of Butte, and Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock, of Helena, in town. Rep. Mary Caferro recalls her little boy getting a haircut at JCPenney, and his surprise when Martz, governor from 2001 to 2004, sat down in the chair next to him. She remembers Bullock, governor from 2013 to 2020, walking into Walgreens where she worked. Bullock was born and raised in Helena, but around as governor nonetheless. It really is a contrast from other governors, said Caferro, of Helena. 2022 Gianforte calendar COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) After a 29-year-old mother lost her life while trying to save her son from an attempted carjacking incident, her family is speaking out. According to Columbus Police, at around 1:30 a.m. officers found a woman who had been injured near the intersection of Blue Knoll Drive and Annual Drive. Alexa Stakely just got off work and went to pick up her 6-year-old son from the babysitters. Stakely brought out her child, who was asleep, and placed him in the back seat. According to police she then returned to the apartment to retrieve her belongings. UPDATE: Friends, co-workers remember Alexa Stakely after deadly carjacking Police say a suspect jumped into the car, which was left running and started to drive off. Stakely ran from the door and toward the car, screaming for her child, according to police. The car hit Stakely, throwing her to the ground and resulting in a fatal head wound. Now, her family wants the community to know the type of woman she was. We spoke with her two younger brothers, Hayden and Reed Swartz. They told NBC4 that she and her son were two peas in a pod. They did everything together. Many are calling her actions heroic, but her brothers say thats just who she was. Man pleads guilty in stabbing of former girlfriend She was always there for us as a kid when it came to learning. I had a speech impediment growing up. I think thats where it sparked, its like she just was always loving and she always cared so much, Reed said. Words cant describe what she does for people. Hayden and Reed said the only word they can use to describe this tragic incident is unreal. They all rushed to be by her side. They said they werent surprised by her actions after she saw the suspect get into her car and begin to drive away with her son sleeping in the back seat. Alexa was just like an extremely outgoing, resilient person and a mother. And just her character was unmatched, Hayden said. Alexa was a daughter, sister, teacher and, perhaps most importantly, a mother. Her brothers said she was also extremely dedicated to her job as a speech and language pathologist at Canal Winchester Schools. It definitely reflected on how her mom nature just kicked into play, Reed said. Really just shows how nurturing she was to her boy. Both brothers said Alexa was a bright light and theyll miss her. Right now, all they can do is remain positive for her son. New bill would increase penalties for disguised criminals Alexa would want us to be strong and love on him and just, you know, not be so sad and celebrate her life and what she did, Hayden said. Columbus police are asking anyone with information about the two males to contact them. They have released a QR code for people to submit anonymous tips. 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. 'Say her name': Protestors call for answers from police in Sonya Massey's death Looking for answers and demanding justice, dozens of protestors stood outside the Sangamon County Building Friday morning marking six days since the death of Sonya Massey at the hands of Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputies, who shot and killed the 36-year-old Springfield woman inside of her home. Illinois State Police, who is investigating the matter, have decided to not release the footage or any additional information to the public to "protect the integrity of the legal process," but said in a statement Wednesday that it will share more details with Massey's family when the time is right. More: 6 unanswered questions in the fatal shooting of a Springfield woman by local deputies That time is now, countered protest organizer Tiara Standage who wanted body camera footage and the names of deputies involved in the shooting revealed. "Why are they on paid leave at home, playing PlayStation with their kids?," she told the crowd. Sangamon County spokesperson Jeff Wilhite confirmed Thursday that the two deputies who initially responded are on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. "They need to be prosecuted to the highest extent of the law." Per the latest information from county officials and state police, deputies arrived at Massey's home on the 2800 block of Hoover Avenue at 12:50 a.m. on July 6 for a possible break-in. It has yet to be confirmed if the 911 call came from inside the home and if Massey placed it, but sentiment among her family and friends is that she did. The news release indicated that deputies reported shots were fired at approximately 1:21 a.m. Massey was later taken by ambulance to HSHS St. John's Hospital where she died at 1:47 a.m. according to Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon. It's a scene that has played out all too often for Black people nationwide, said Springfield Chapter of Black Lives Matter co-founder Sunshine Clemons, harkening back to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Trayvon Martin. "She should still be here," Clemons said. "Sonya Massey is her name, her name deserves to be said." Security was present and a yellow tape barrier running between Adams and Monroe allowing protestors to spill into one lane of Ninth Street. Those working at the county building saw a peaceful protest and encountered no difficulties getting into the building. Several cars and one RV, emblazoned with a sign saying "#StandWithSonya," also passed by and honked in support. The protest comes after it was announced that Massey's family had retained the services of civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump. Crump, based out of Tallahassee, Florida, has been involved in major civil rights cases and previously represented Earl Moore Jr.'s family in a wrongful death lawsuit. Following the protest, the City of Springfield and Springfield Police Department expressed gratitude that it was done peacefully but also urged for patience as the investigation develops. The incident occurred in an unincorporated part of the county. "In these challenging times, we encourage our community members to continue exercising their constitutional rights peacefully" the city and police department said in a joint statement. "Your voices are vital, and your support is crucial as we navigate this difficult period together. We are dedicated to maintaining the trust and safety of our cherished community." Steven Spearie of The State Journal-Register contributed to this report. Contact Patrick M. Keck: pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter. This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Protestors demand answers after Sonya Massey killed by Springfield-area deputies MOGADISHU, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Prolonged rainfall and flash floods in Somalia have led to an increase in cholera cases, disproportionately affecting displaced women and children, global charity CARE International warned on Friday. According to the charity, 123 lives were lost to cholera between January and June. The organization said that its national partners are working to provide affected communities with medical services, clean water and sanitation facilities. "We fear that the cases might increase as seasonal rains and flash floods are expected to affect at least 770,000 people in the next few months," Abdifarhan Gure, CARE Somalia deputy country director of programs, said in a statement issued in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Gure said flooding, which has mostly affected displaced women and children, threatens to worsen as communities lack access to clean water. Its supported health facilities treated over 11,925 acute diarrhea cases from January to May, with more than 60 percent of patients being children under five. Water infrastructure were destroyed, leaving thousands without clean water and sanitation, Gure said. The underfunding of the Somalia Humanitarian Response plan, with only 23 percent of the needed funds received, is a significant concern. According to CARE, it is essential to scale up support to address the growing needs and prevent further loss of life. Cases of AWD/cholera have risen across the East African country, which is attributed to limited access to potable water due to contamination of water sources that were submerged by flood water, high level of malnutrition among children, lack of proper sanitation, and difficulties in accessing health centers. According to the World Health Organization, Somalia is currently experiencing a cholera outbreak, exacerbated by the floods in December 2023, which destroyed sanitation facilities and caused further displacements. In 2023, more than 18,304 cumulative cases and 46 deaths were reported in Somalia over half being children aged below five years. Here's what Austin's city manager is proposing for police, property taxes in budget draft The average Austin homeowner would see an increase in property taxes and several utility fees under City Manager T.C. Broadnax's proposed city budget for the coming fiscal year. For the typical Austin homeowner, this proposal would mean a total increase of around $272 annually. The draft presented Friday is not the final city budget. The City Council will amend the budget over the coming several weeks before voting on a final draft in August. Fiscal years in Austin run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the following year. City Council offices may make proposals for changes on items of high importance to them. But if this year is anything like the budget amendment process of previous years, much of the initial budget draft presented by the city manager's office is likely to be approved. The budget includes everything from the general fund which pays for things like the parks, police and fire departments to enterprise funds like the city's electric and water utilities, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and more. The total budget being proposed by Broadnax's office this year is $5.9 billion, up $400 million from last year. In addition to setting the city's annual property tax and utility rates, the budget process is crucial to city services and programs, as city staffers and members of the City Council decide what programs to fund and how much to give city departments. The budget draft released Friday shows a glimpse into the recently hired city manager's priorities for several city departments at a time when money for the city's general fund is tighter than it has been in previous years due to a state-imposed property tax cap, volatile sales tax numbers and the drying up for federal funding granted during the COVID-19 pandemic. "The $5.9 billion proposed budget aims to prioritize critical needs in this community (and) also sets a cautionary tale for how we need to approach our investments going forward," Broadnax said at a news conference after Friday's budget presentation. Here are some highlights of what Broadnax has proposed in his first budget draft for Austin and what residents could see in their city tax and utility bills: Property taxes and utility rates The average homeowner is estimated to see a total increase of $272.42 annually, including property taxes, water and electric bills, and other utility fees. The average homeowner is estimated to see a $102.26 increase to their annual city property tax bill. The typical homeowner, as defined by the city, has a median non-senior homestead assessed value of $524,082 and net of 20% general homestead exemption. Austin Water customers can expect to see a $74.52 increase in their water bill. Average Austin Water customers use 5,800 gallons of water and 4,000 gallons of wastewater annually, according to the city. Austin Energy bills are projected to increase by $32.40. Average energy utility customers use 860 kilowatt-hours per month. Other increases include a $24.60 increase in Austin Resource Recovery fees and a $14.52 increase in drainage utility fees. Police funding Broadnax is proposing an increase of about $18.2 million to the Police Department's budget, bringing the proposed total police budget to more than $496 million. Police Department funding has been the subject of local and sometimes national attention for several years. In 2020, now-U.S. Rep. Greg Casar led a charge while on the City Council to cut the Police Department's budget by more than $150 million and reallocate money to other city services. That ruffled feathers in the Republican-led Legislature. In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that bars Texas cities from decreasing police department budgets from the year before. Since then, the City Council has raised the police budget every year. Last August, it approved an increase of more than $30 million from the previous fiscal year. The proposed increase comes as policing is top of mind for many amid ongoing contract negotiations with the Austin Police Association union and prolonged staffing shortages. Kerri Lang, a city of Austin budget officer, said the $18.2 million increase to the police budget includes the 4% wage increase to civilian employees proposed for all city employees as well as insurance increases, some internal services costs and the "legacy liability payment for the police retirement system." City minimum wage increase Broadnax in his budget is proposing an across-the-board 4% wage increase for city employees and a raise in the city's minimum wage for city employees from $20.80 per hour to $21.63 per hour. Last year, the City Council approved an increase in the minimum wage for city employees from $20 per hour to $20.80 in the budget adoption process. In 2022, the minimum wage was raised from $15 to $20. How state property tax caps are affecting Austin In 2019, Abbott signed a law prohibiting cities from adopting a property tax rate 3.5% greater than that of the previous year without voter approval. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, when outlining some of the financial struggles the city could be facing because of this cap in a February newsletter, wrote that before this the City Council was regularly adopting a rate near the previous 8% cap. Nearly half of the city's general fund revenue, which this year is projected at $1.4 billion, comes from city-collected property taxes. During Friday's budget presentation, Ed Van Eenoo, the city's chief financial officer, said that according to calculations from his team, if that law hadn't been signed, the city would have "$165 million more today to address community priorities." The city's financial staff had earlier in the year presented a growing deficit in the city's general fund over the coming five years. Friday's presentation showed a balanced budget for the next two fiscal years, meaning revenue is equal to expenses under Broadnax's proposal. Lang said at a news conference after the presentation that there "were very minimal reductions, no reductions or service areas, no reductions to any services given to the community" in the proposed budget. Friday's budget presentation still showed a general fund deficit in fiscal 2028-29, but it was down to $11.2 million from $59.9 million outlined by city financial staff earlier in the year. "We will continue to seek ways to balance our budget without having to cut services," Van Eenoo said at the news conference. "Longer term, we're going to have to look at tax rate elections." This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin city manager releases $5.9 billion budget draft. What to know Here's what each Sarasota School Board candidate had to say at Thursday's Tiger Bay forum Three of the five candidates for Augusts Sarasota School Board election participated in a public forum Thursday afternoon. District 2 candidate Liz Barker was present, while the incumbent board chairwoman Karen Rose was absent. District 3 candidates Thomas Babicz and Tom Edwards participated, but Greg Wood was absent due to a family illness. The three faced a crowd of more than 250 people at Michaels on East armed with questions and concerns for the future of the Sarasota County School District. The panel spanned a variety of topics from the upcoming school tax referendum vote to charter schools and political distractions at board meetings. Here is what each candidate had to say at Thursday's Tiger Bay Forum: If you had a magic wand, what is one thing you would do for Sarasota County Schools? Tom Edwards: Secure funding for a family engagement specialist in every Sarasota County school to ensure that every student arrives ready to learn. He added that a large portion of the Sarasota County community is at or below the poverty line, which can impact learning due to household traumas involved with poverty. Thomas Babicz: Send every teacher to learn how to teach phonics for literacy. He added that every Sarasota County graduate should know how to read. Liz Barker: Get families more involved, and build meaningful relationships between families and schools. She said family empowerment in schools should mean a lot more than a pile of permission slips. Sarasota County School Board's District 3 candidates Tom Edwards, Thomas Babicz and District 2 candidate Liz Barker with Sarasota Tiger Bay Club, board member and moderator Morgan Bentley. What metrics are you focused on in keeping the Sarasota County School Districts A rating? Tom Edwards: The work of the district's teachers and administrators combined with the support of families is the reason behind the district's perennial A rating, he said. Edwards pointed to the district's financial situation, the effect of Florida HB 1 and universal vouchers, as something of concern in maintaining the A rating. As the cost of construction continues to rise and money leaves the district to private schools through vouchers, that money is lost for investing in students. Thomas Babicz: Babicz said the best thing the district can do to maintain its A rating is to equip each student with a quality education and good self-esteem. Liz Barker: The board needs to focus more on the achievement gap, Barker said, and by working to close the gap, the district will continue its A rating. She also said eighth-grade reading scores, and other statewide test scores, should be focused on outside of just third-grade reading being a gauge for district status. Sarasota County School Board's District 2 candidate Liz Barker. The Sarasota Tiger Bay Club had a full house Thursday afternoon, July 11, 2024, with three out of the five candidates running for Sarasota County School Board in August took part in an open forum. If the Sarasota County Schools tax referendum does not pass, what are you eliminating first? Tom Edwards: Referendum funding is intertwined into many aspects of the district's budget, so losing referendum dollars would take cuts from more than one place. However, pointing to one item specifically, Edwards said he would look into obsolete programming in the district. Thomas Babicz: Evaluate every position in the district and see where cuts can be made. Also, Babicz said much budget cuts could be made in the savings from re-negotiating the district's contracts with outside entities, Liz Barker: Losing referendum dollars is not an option, she said. It doesn't matter who you vote for, be sure to vote in favor of the referendum. How do you curb distractions at Sarasota County School Board meetings? Tom Edwards: The school board is being run by extremists, he said. Edwards asserted that everyone at the forum, on both sides of the political aisle, would vote for a safe, high-achieving academic environment for all students Thomas Babicz: School should be free of politics, he said, adding that he'd work with both Democrats and Republicans while in office. Political activists create circuses at school board meetings, he said. Liz Barker: The majority of Sarasota School Board members are pushing a particular political agenda, and it distracts from the real issues facing the district, she said. If a school board is doing its job, the meetings should be boring and no one should feel like they have to come, she said. Sarasota County School Board's District 3 candidate Thomas Babicz. The Sarasota Tiger Bay Club had a full house Thursday afternoon, July 11, 2024, with three out of the five candidates running for Sarasota County School Board in August took part in an open forum. What is your position on charter schools in Sarasota County? Tom Edwards: Edwards said he supports school choice, and said Sarasota County had several wonderful charter schools that are a good fit for the community. He said that for-profit charter schools and the district's approval of two new for-profit charters were a "blatant misuse of our tax dollars" as it puts public funds into the pockets of private businesses. He said the district needs to send a message to the Legislature in Tallahassee that they need to evaluate parts of the state's charter school legislation because it isn't a "one-size-fits-all" solution. Thomas Babicz: Babicz said he is in total support of charter schools and the voucher program. He said the public has equal rights to the funds because they pay into it already with their tax dollars. Liz Barker: There should be more guardrails with vouchers because, as it stands now, there is not enough accountability in private/charter schools as there is in public schools, Barker said. She said that private schools are not required to take ESE students, which is why public schools are so vital. What is your position on the book removal process in Sarasota County schools? Tom Edwards: The district already has a robust opt-out policy that parents can use to avoid their children seeing content they don't want them to see. Edwards said he hasn't seen any pornography in the district's schools, and said that students should be taught to think critically something that diverse and sometimes controversial books often do. Thomas Babicz: Emphasized that he is running for school board on the platform of eliminating pornography and critical race theory from schools. He emphasized the difference between sexual education and explicit content. Babicz supports the current book removal process but wants every new instructional material to be checked by parents. Liz Barker: Believes the current process in Sarasota County works well and said the board hasn't banned any books. She cited personal anecdotes of teachers self-censoring and urged the board to support teachers and educators. Sarasota County School Board's District 3 candidate Tom Edwards. The Sarasota Tiger Bay Club had a full house Thursday afternoon, July 11, 2024, with three out of the five candidates running for Sarasota County School Board in August took part in an open forum. What are your thoughts on the Sarasota School Board candidates who weren't present at Tiger Bay? Tom Edwards: Questioned the trustworthiness of the candidates who did not appear Thursday, adding that it showed a lack of transparency. He commended Babicz for attending and said it showed integrity. Thomas Babicz: He said many people told him not to come because the audience could be hostile to conservative ideas, but he wanted to come. Liz Barker: She said she couldn't comment on why Rose wasn't present, but said that she was there herself because she values truth, honesty and transparency. She said she'd always answer a question from the public, even if someone doesn't agree with her. Do you support abolishing the federal Department of Education? Tom Edwards: No Thomas Babicz: Yes Liz Barker: No Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: What Sarasota School Board candidates said at Thursday's public forum (Bloomberg) -- In May, Kenyan President William Ruto was dining at the White House, the first African leader to be treated to a state dinner in a decade and a half a measure of his stature as one of the continents most preeminent leaders. Most Read from Bloomberg Since then hes presided over a brutal police crackdown on anti-tax protests that left at least 41 dead, withdrew a signature tax law that authorities argued would steady Kenyas shaky government finances and seen Moodys Ratings downgrade the nations debt. On Thursday, Ruto took the drastic step of firing almost all the members of his cabinet in a bid to address public anger over its performance. He had dreams of grandeur, he came to office with a determination to be popular globally and a spokesperson for Africa. He got the praise he wanted, said Macharia Munene, a professor of international relations at the United States International University in Nairobi. Things were going haywire at home but he wasnt listening. Things were piling up, everything was going wrong domestically. Now Ruto has to tackle Kenyas massive debt load, which stood at 10.4 trillion shillings ($80.5 billion) at the end of March, fill a $2.7 billion fiscal hole and rebuild trust with citizens disillusioned with his top-down style of governance. While frustration had been building for more than a year over a slew of taxes Ruto had previously introduced, the unrest triggered by the proposed additional levies caught the government by surprise. Sign up here for the twice-weekly Next Africa newsletter They lost the Kenyan heartbeat, Dismas Mokua, a political analyst, said in a phone interview. He should be citizen-centric: listen to the public, manage public expectations, he needs to listen. He has to come up with a plan to rebuild trust and confidence. Amid the fiscal squeeze, Ruto also needs to find a way to help his countrymen cope with surging living costs and create economic opportunities for the two-thirds of young people who are unemployed. Moodys this week downgraded Kenyas rating one notch to Caa1, or seven levels into junk a direct result of the withdrawal of a law that would have taxed everything from bread to diapers. The rating change reflects significantly diminished capacity to implement revenue-based fiscal consolidation that would improve debt affordability and place debt on a downward trend, it said in a statement. Rutos decision to dissolve the cabinet one of the protesters main demands was met with skepticism by markets. Yields on Kenyas eurobonds due in 2031 dropped six basis points to 10.41% by close of trading Thursday. The Kenyan shilling closed at its lowest in two weeks. Investors care as far as it cools down protests and allows them to re-focus on dealing with fiscal issues now that revenue-raising measures have been shelved, said Thys Louw, a portfolio manager at Ninety One UK Ltd.. A revised budget that includes spending cuts on non-essential expenditure like travel and hospitality is due to be presented to lawmakers when the National Assembly resumes on July 23. It will also include additional borrowing that will see the fiscal deficit widen to 4.6% of gross domestic product in the period through June 2025, from an earlier estimate of 3.3%. While the International Monetary Fund is likely to be sympathetic to the backlash in Kenya, conversations with authorities will still be centered around ensuring a fiscal consolidation path albeit tempered to ensure debt remains on a sustainable path, said Sthembiso Nkalanga, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. A further extension of the program could yet be on the table, Nkalanga said. The IMF is due to hold a board meeting to approve Kenyas seventh review of an ongoing $3.6 billion program due to end in March 2025. Rutos fiscal plans were dealt another blow on Monday, when a Kenyan court blocked his plan to carry out a forensic audit of the nations public debt, after two petitioners challenged the plan as unconstitutional. Ruto on Thursday said he will hold a national dialog next week, and seek to build a broad-based government, that may involve reaching out to an opposition that already smells blood. Ruto, once on top of the world, is now fighting for his political survival, said Charles Kanjama, a constitutional lawyer in Nairobi. The president is taking action to try and recover his political popularity to show that he is listening to Kenyans, said Kanjama, who sees a strong likelihood that the youth will continue their protests. For as long as they find they are making more and more progress, they will keep pushing, Kanjama said. You can follow Bloombergs reporting on Africa on WhatsApp. Sign up here. --With assistance from Colleen Goko and Bella Genga. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Tony Romeo shows off his shirt from the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum while on his 90-day expedition searching for Amelia Earhart's lost plane Tony Romeo shows off his shirt from the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum while on his 90-day expedition searching for Amelia Earhart's lost plane. (Submitted) Early this year, news outlets circulated a sonar image of what explorers believe to be Amelia Earharts lost Lockheed Electra plane. Earhart enthusiasts in Atchison were excited to see the discovery, and also to see the expeditions leader, Tony Romeo, sporting a T-shirt from the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum. Sonar images of the floor of the Pacific Ocean reveal an object that looks to be around the shape and size of the Lockheed Electra 10-E that Amelia Earhart took on her fated attempt to circumnavigate the globe The founder of Deep Sea Vision, the exploration company that took the sonar image at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, had visited the Atchison museum to see Muriel, a plane identical to the one Earhart took on her last flight. Romeo will return July 19-20 to Atchison with a slate of other explorers, Earhart theorists and a Smithsonian curator for a panel discussion. The events are presented by the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum as part of the annual Amelia Earhart Festival. Its very exciting to get internationally known people searching for Amelias plane into Atchison, where she was born, said Karen Seaberg, the museums founder. Adventure Amelia: A Conversation with Explorers in the Search for Amelia Earhart will be moderated by Dorothy Cochrane, a curator at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. Romeo and his brother, Lloyd Romeo, are panelists alongside Rod Blocksome, Gary LaPook and Liz Smith. Seaberg said the explorers and theorists might have a little bit of competitive tension as they take the stage at 11 a.m. Feb. 19 at the historic Fox Theatre in downtown Atchison. The panel itself is going to be fun, because all of these people are searching, or have ideas about Amelia Earharts lost plane, but they all are going about it a little different way, Seaberg said. At 9 a.m. July 20, Tony and Lloyd Romeo will share more about their expedition, which used marine robotics to scan more than 5,200 square miles of the Pacific Ocean floor. This conversation at the OMalley-McAllister Auditorium at Benedictine College will be moderated by pilot and author Amelia Rose Earhart, who circumnavigated the globe in 2014. Tickets are free but limited, so Seaberg urges folks to register online. In addition to the panels, the Amelia Earhart Festival offers craft vendors, live music, an airshow and fireworks above the Missouri River. Hiking in Utahs mountains this summer? Make sure to watch out for mountain goats The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is warning people about defensive mountain goats on Mount Timpanogos. | Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Utahns would be wise to remember that when hiking the Beehive States mountain ranges to escape the heat this summer, theres a chance they may be entering mountain goat territory. Utah is home to roughly 1,500 mountain goats throughout the entire state, and the animals are often found in high-elevation mountain areas with rugged, rocky alpine terrain, according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. In 1967 six Rocky Mountain goats were transplanted from Olympic National Park to the Lone Peak Wilderness, Utah Public Radio reported. Since then another 270 were released in various other locations. Utah goat populations peaked in 2011 around 2,100 animals. Interestingly, the Willard Peak herd has declined from around 200 to about 30 goats. The largest herds are located in the Uinta Mountains and the Tushar Mountains, per Utahs DWR, but scattered, smaller herds can be found in the Wasatch Mountain Range, including on Mount Timpanogos, Cascade Mountain, Provo Peak and in Little Cottonwood Canyon as well. Just last summer, Utah hikers urged pet owners to be vigilant and responsible when hiking with their pets after three dogs were gored and killed on Mount Timpanogos in just one month, KSL-TV reported. To prevent conflicts between humans and pets and mountain goats, DWR has some tips to stay safe while exploring mountain goat country. Be aware of mountain goat behavior Male mountain goats, or billies, and their female counterparts, or nannies, typically have different times of the year when they can show increased aggression. Billies are generally known to exhibit more aggressive behaviors during breeding season, according to DWR, which falls around the month of November. Nannies tend to be aggressive when they have baby goats, known as kids. Nannies typically give birth in late May, and then the nannies and kids join up and form large nursery herds, per DWR. During the summer months, in the subsequent period following the birth of a herds kids, nannies will commonly graze in meadow areas while nursing their young. Not surprisingly, the nannies are known to be territorial and protective of their kids during this time. What to do if you encounter a mountain goat The timing of DWRs warning is not random. Generally, the areas that are frequented by mountain goats are not even accessible to hikers due to deep snow, until the summer heat thaws and melts these areas, naturally making them easily accessible to humans. Hikers will most frequently encounter nanny and kid mountain goats in the lower-elevation meadow areas since those are easier to access than other, steeper mountain goat terrain, the division writes. If you are on a high-elevation stroll, hiking or backpacking, here are the DWRs tips to avoid a confrontation with a mountain goat: Give the goat(s) space, at least 150 feet or more the animals are known to stand their ground or charge if they feel threatened by someone or something being too close. If you can see a mountain goat coming down a trail you are hiking on, turn around and go back down the trail to avoid close proximity. Mountain goats, similar to other big game animals, can feel easily threatened and become aggressive towards dogs in particular. With this in mind, keep your canine companion leashed and under control. It is against Utah law to allow dogs to chase or harass protected hoofed wildlife, like mountain goats, per DWR. If a mountain goat seems like it may approach you, slowly back away to create distance between you and the animal. If it continues to approach, try to scare it away by waving your arms and making loud noises. Prior to beginning your excursion, talk to the agency that manages the area of land you are in to educate yourself on the wildlife population there. Stay alert, and look for trailhead signs to find out if a trail has a history of aggressive mountain goats. Dont ever attempt to feed a mountain goat or let it lick your skin. Mountain goats can impale you with their horns, so you dont want to risk coming into contact with one, Division of Wildlife Resources Once-In-A-Lifetime Species Coordinator Rusty Robinson says. Remember that they are wild animals, so always give them plenty of space. They are found in some pretty extreme terrain, so you dont want to risk getting too close to one while on the edge of a cliff. Be aware of your surroundings, stay alert and dont put yourself in those situations. If you need to turn around and cut your hike short, do it. A cyber attack on telecommunications giant AT&T obtained data on nearly all of its more than 100m cellphone subscribers. We have taken steps to close off the illegal access point, the company said in a statement on Friday. We are working with law enforcement in its efforts to arrest those involved in the incident. We understand that at least one person has been apprehended. The breach compromised files containing records of calls and texts, mostly between May and October of 2022, identifying telephone numbers customers interacted with, without capturing the content of those interactions or sensitive identification information like Social Security numbers or passwords, according to the company. The company became aware of the attack in April and reported it to federal officials shortly after, according to the Department of Justice, which said the hack wasnt initially publicly disclosed to protect the ongoing investigation. The most likely beneficiary of this specific data are foreign nation states or foreign actors, Chris Pierson, chief executive of the cybersecurity company BlackCloak, told The New York Times, describing how the phone data could be used to ascertain the communications network of high-value individuals like national security personnel. The compromised data was stored by cloud computing company Snowflake, according to The Wall Street Journal, and AT&T has described the hack as information being illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform. We have not identified evidence suggesting this activity was caused by a vulnerability, misconfiguration, or breach of Snowflakes platform, Snowflakes chief information security officer told Fast Company. In March, AT&T disclosed that it found a dataset on the dark web that contained identifying information like Social Security numbers for about 7.6 million current customers and 65.4 million former ones. The company will notify those impacted by the recent breach, and customers can request the company send them phone numbers that were accessed using their records. Holly Willoughby thanked the victims of Gavin Plumb's previous crimes for reporting them when they did - KEN MCKAY/ITV/SHUTTERSTOCK A plot to kidnap, murder and rape Holly Willoughby had catastrophic and life-changing consequences for her both privately and professionally. Gavin Plumb, from Harlow, Essex, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years following a week-long trial at Chelmsford Crown Court. Wearing a grey prison-issue jumper, Plumb apparently muttered 15 years to kill myself after he was jailed. The security guard had been attempting to live his ultimate fantasy and was described by the prosecution as someone who had an obsession with Willoughby. The TV presenter, 42, stepped back from presenting ITVs This Morning after 14 years in the wake of the plot. Gavin Plumb muttered as he was led away 'I've got 15 years to kill myself' Following Plumbs guilty verdict Willoughby thanked the prosecutors, the judge, and the members of the jury for ensuring that justice was done and that [Plumb] will not be able to harm any more women. She added: I would also like to commend the bravery of his previous victims for speaking up at the time. Without their bravery this conviction may not have been possible. Addressing Plumb in court on Friday, Mr Justice Edward Murray said the plot was hopelessly unrealistic and jailed him for life with a minimum term of 15 years and 85 days. He said: Holly Willoughby is a well-known and well-loved public figure, there is a result, a heightened public interest in this case. Like everybody else, she is entitled to respect for her private and family life. I simply note I am satisfied these offences have had life-changing consequences for her both privately and professionally. Your plan was hopelessly unrealistic for a number of reasons including your poor physical health but you clearly thought it was feasible. Although you talked about carrying out the plan on your own, I am sure that this was simply bravado. You always intended to carry out your plan to kidnap, rape and kill Ms Willoughby, but only if you could find the right man or men the right crew as you sometimes called it to help you do it. During the sentencing, the judge said Gavin Plumb's plot had be 'hopelessly unrealistic' - ELIZABETH COOK/PA The court heard how the offences have had a life-changing impact on the TV presenter, who wished for her victim statement to be private. In a submission made by the prosecution, Alison Morgan KC said: What I can say, and I make this submission from the prosecution It is abundantly clear that in making that statement the prosecution submits the impact of this offending has been life-changing for the victim of these offences both in private and personal terms private, personal and indeed professional. It is clear, the prosecution submit that the extent of the shock and fear caused by this offending has been impossible to convey. The week-long trial heard how Plumb had made an abduction kit, complete with metal cable ties, handcuffs, a ball gag and a blindfold, in preparation for the attack. He scouted Willoughbys home address in advance of a potential home invasion and searched for abandoned buildings where he could keep the former This Morning presenter, the prosecution told jurors. Officers stormed Plumbs flat on Oct 4 last year after he unwittingly revealed his plot to an American undercover officer online. Detectives examining his phone and devices discovered vast amounts of images of women 10,322 of which were of Willoughby. So vast was the amount of material that officers were only able to analyse around 10 per cent, amounting to more than tens of thousands of images, Det Con William Belsham, of Essex Police, told jurors. During sentencing, the court heard how Gavin Plumb worshipped and was obsessed with Ms Willoughby for years and is devastated to have been the cause of such pain to her. Taking to her feet, Sasha Wass KC, the defence barrister, said Plumb had read the very detailed victim statement made by the TV presenter. She added: Of course, Mr Plumb remains embarrassed and ashamed of the online conversations that formed the focus of this trial. They are conversations that he always expected would remain private. Plumb, a father of two, was also found to have made web searches including how to meet people who plan to kidnap celebs and what does it feel like to be raped in 2021. In sexualised messages between Plumb and a man called Marc, the pair exchanged 57 images of Willoughby across 46 WhatsApp messages between Jan 12 and Jan 19 2022. Nine of these images were deepfake pornography, Ms Morgan, prosecuting, said. Gavin Plumb planned to hold Holly Willoughby at his home according to messages shown at the trial - CPS/PA Prosecution maintain that Gavin Plumbs 'obsession' with Holly Willoughby was a lot more serious than fantasy - PA/CPS Jurors heard how Plumb had sent voice notes detailing his plan to hold Willoughby at his home, which he had rigged with CCTV cameras. As part of his preparations for the attack, he ordered bottles of Chloroform from a homoeopathy website, which he claimed were to clean a stain on the floor. Plumbs violence against women began in 2006, when he was given a 12-month suspended sentence after attempting to force two stewardesses off a train using a fake gun and a threatening note on two separate occasions. He was later jailed for 32 months after an attack on two teenage girls in 2008, in which he threatened them with a box-cutter/Stanley knife-type instrument. One of the women said that hearing details of the defendants plot to kidnap, rape and murder Holly Willoughby made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away. Gavin Plumb being questioned by Essex Police - ESSEX POLICE/PA Describing a victim impact statement from the woman during sentencing to the court, Ms Morgan said that the woman felt a permanent sense of worry that she would bump into him when he was released from prison. Hearing of these matters has made her think about what could have happened to her if she hadnt been able to run away from him, thankful as she is it didnt turn out worse, said Ms Morgan. Reading another victim statement from a woman Plumb tried to kidnap from a train in Stansted in 2006, Ms Morgan said the woman now feels extremely vulnerable and that she began to see all men as perpetrators. I clearly remember the feeling when Gavin Plumb grabbed my leg, the victim said in a statement read to the court by Ms Morgan. I remember how awful it felt to have his hand on me. It was a disgusting feeling. Det Chief Insp Greg Wood, the senior investigating officer in the case of Gavin Plumb, said outside court the defendant was a dangerous individual. Hes a dangerous individual with a history of kidnapping women and girls, Mr Wood said. He tried to claim throughout the trial that he was an obsessive fan and a fantasist that is simply not true. He planned this attack on Ms Willoughby over a two-year period, scoping her movements, seeking help from others and buying items to incapacitate and inflict violence. 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. 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 TUNIS, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia's maritime guards rescued 47 undocumented immigrants from sinking boats off the country's east-central coast, according to a statement released by the Tunisian National Guard on Friday. The National Guard said via its Facebook account that coast guard units on Thursday received a distress call about several boats being damaged at sea and water leaking on board, adding that those boats were carrying 47 Tunisian illegal immigrants, including a pregnant woman and an infant. The rescued migrants were given necessary aid and then transported to nearby ports for further medical care, registration, and legal processing, according to the statement. No additional details were provided. Thousands of illegal immigrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean every year through Tunisia as it is one of the main access to Europe through irregular channels. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is far from ancient history and still inflicts pain and trauma on the police officers and congressional employees who lived through it, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said Friday as she sentenced a member of the pro-Trump mob. The effects of that day are still being felt, Chutkan said before sentencing defendant Spencer Offman to 30 days in prison for breaching the building during the riot. Chutkan used Fridays sentencing in the relatively routine Jan. 6 case to make a case against complacency about the danger that the attack posed to democracy, characterizing it as a violent attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in which rioters were desecrating the center of our government. Chutkan, who is also presiding over Donald Trumps federal criminal case in Washington stemming from his efforts to subvert the 2020 election culminating in the Jan. 6 violence didnt mention the former president in her remarks or give any hint as to how she will handle the case following the Supreme Courts ruling that Trump is immune from prosecution for some of the events in question. But the Obama-appointed judge hinted at the possibility of future political strife as the 2024 election nears. She noted the prospect of another election that promises to be who knows? appearing to stop herself before delivering a more detailed assessment. Chutkan dwelled repeatedly on the horrors faced by Capitol police officers that day, saying she continues to hear from many who are experiencing PTSD or physical limitations, and some who are still getting vile threats and being called names for doing their jobs. Though Offman pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor offense for joining the mob inside the Capitol, Chutkan said his actions helped support the more sinister actors in the mob. You helped them by your presence, Chutkan said. You helped terrorize and terrify the people who were trying to keep it safe. Chutkans comments followed remarks by Offman that the judge said seemed to fall short of grasping the horror inflicted on people inside the Capitol that day. Offman, in a prepared letter to Chutkan, acknowledged his role in the mob and said he didnt intend to be malicious or destructive. Rather, he described himself as a risk taker who viewed his trip to Trumps Jan. 6 rally as an adventure. His characterization, though, seemed to undermine his case to the judge. It was not an adventure, it was horrifying, Chutkan said. The judge recounted seeing live footage of rioters storming the Capitol and officers being attacked, noting that members of Congress and employees were hiding in fear for their lives. She noted that several law enforcement officers died by suicide in the weeks and months following the attack, and she mentioned three members of the crowd who died amid the chaos as well, including Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol police officer as she attempted to climb through a window near the House chamber. Chutkan agreed that Offman was a seeker and someone who is moving through life and trying to learn and grow. She credited his willingness to travel the country and broaden his horizons while holding a steady job for 15 years. She also commended him for working on his sobriety following two DUI arrests. But she said that wasnt enough to avoid a modest jail sentence for his conduct. Everybody who went into that building, she said, knew they werent supposed to be in there. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) An Horry County veterinarian has been sentenced to treatment court for violating South Carolina drug distribution laws, according to the 15th Circuit Solicitors Office. Kelsey Strickland, the owner of Blue Ribbon Equine Services in Green Sea, was arrested in November after state authorities said she obtained quantities of the drug Butorphanol and falsely documented or failed to maintain documents relating to the administration of the drug for multiple horses owned by two different people between June 14, 2021, and Sept. 14, 2023. While in Treatment Court, she will be required to attend a minimum of two therapy sessions each week, abide by a curfew, maintain full-time employment, and will be tested for alcohol and drugs two-three times each week, a solicitors office spokesperson said. She will remain in Treatment Court for a minimum of nine to 12 months. If she successfully completes, the sentence will be considered satisfied. If she does not complete the program, her original sentence will become active. Her original sentence was three years in prison, according to online public records in Horry County. * * * Dennis Bright is a Digital Producer at News13. He joined the team in May 2021. Dennis is a West Virginia native and a graduate of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Follow Dennis on, Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read 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. PATERSON The former owner of a Paterson company that hauls antique and exotic automobiles has agreed to pay $455,000 to settle a state labor department case alleging its trailer drivers were mistreated. State officials had claimed Horseless Carriage Carriers and its former owner, Frank Malatesta, misclassified its trailer drivers as independent contractors instead of employees. The state also alleged the company took unlawful deductions from their pay. Under the settlement, either drivers or their next of kin will each get $45,500. The other $91,000 from the settlement will go to the New Jersey Department of Labor. State Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said the company and Malatesta tried to inflate their profits by taking shortcuts at the expense of their workers. Story continues below photo gallery Under the settlement, Malatesta is not admitting any wrongdoing. He sold the business in October 2022 to McCollisters Global Services, according to state officials. The case started with an employee complaint in 2019 and the states claims covered alleged driver mistreatment and misclassification from 2017 into 2019, officials said. As weve shown time and again with our partners in the Attorney Generals Office this business model wont work, and ultimately costs the company a lot of money, said Asaro-Angelo in a press release. The lesson here is, play by the rules. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Former NJ hauling company owner settles after drivers underpaid Doctors at Dignity Healths California Hospital are asking for help identifying a female patient. The woman, believed to be in her 40s, was found wandering inside a store at Magnolia Avenue and W. Washington Boulevard in Los Angeless Pico-Union neighborhood on July 3, hospital officials said. She was carrying no identification, and a photo released by the hospital shows she was intubated as of Thursday. She is 5 feet 6 inches and weighs approximately 290 pounds. Anyone with information is urged to call the hospital at (213) 507-5495 or (213) 742-5515. 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. A rancorous Republican congressional primary in Virginia that has been a proxy fight amid larger party divisions is heading toward a recount. House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good officially filed a recount petition Thursday in Goochland Circuit Court for the June 18 Republican primary in Virginias 5th Congressional District. Certified results by the Virginia Board of Elections show Good 374 votes behind state Sen. John McGuire. Goods campaign said in a statement Thursday that it had been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for the campaign to move ahead with the recount process. 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 posted on social media last week. The congressman faced a fierce effort to knock him out from a broad swath of the GOP in what became the most expensive House Republican primary of the cycle to date. As one of the chief architects of the move to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last fall, Good drew the ire of McCarthys allies, who spent millions seeking revenge. Good also lost former President Donald Trumps support after he endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. The race for the 5th District, which encompasses Charlottesville and parts of south-central Virginia, highlighted two contrarian trends seen in Republican primaries this primary cycle: a backlash against GOP extremism and a deeper embrace of the former president. Last month, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, another target of McCarthys revenge, fended off a primary challenge from an opponent backed by the former speaker and his allies. Mace, though, had Trumps support in her race. Other efforts to oust House Republican incumbents led by Goods own Freedom Caucus colleagues have also failed this year. Congressmen such as Texas Tony Gonzales, Nebraskas Don Bacon and South Carolinas William Timmons have prevailed over hard-line primary challengers. But Good faced steep odds heading into Election Day. The candidates and outside groups poured more than $14 million in ad spending into the race. Groups opposing Good spent about $7.5 million, while those backing the incumbent spent $5.6 million on their efforts. One anti-Good ad painted him as disloyal to Trump and featured a clip of him criticizing the former president. Others targeted his votes against government funding bills. McGuire also narrowly outraised Good through May 29, federal records show, bringing in $1.2 million to his opponents $1.1 million. Good had to weather direct attacks from Trump, who held a tele-rally for McGuire on the eve of the election in which he attacked the incumbent for not being sufficiently supportive. If hes reelected, Bob Good will stab Virginia in the back, sort of like he did with me, Trump told supporters on the call. Good had sought to get back into Trumps good graces once it became clear that the former president, and not DeSantis, would be the 2024 Republican nominee. He even appeared in New York City outside Trumps hush money trial, along with other Republicans seeking to show their support and devotion to Trump. Both Good and McGuire rode in Trumps motorcade on the way to the Manhattan courthouse. Despite those efforts, Trump declared on social media that Good was BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA. Trumps campaign also sent the congressmans team a cease-and-desist letter over signage that it said falsely implied that the former president had endorsed Good. And less than a week before Election Day, Trump appeared in an ad boosting McGuire and urging voters to turn out for a big and very important primary election. John McGuire is an American hero who served as a Navy SEAL. Hes strong on the border. Everyone needs to get out and vote for John McGuire, Trump said in the ad. Good may not be the only House Republican incumbent with a primary heading for a recount. In Utahs 2nd District, GOP Rep. Celeste Maloy leads challenger Colby Jenkins by 214 votes out of more than 107,000 cast in the June 25 primary, according to unofficial state election results. Under state law, that margin is within the threshold for Jenkins to request a recount after the state conducts its canvass on July 22. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com TOPEKA (KSNT) Local sheriffs deputies are helping move a house along a series of roads east of the City of Topeka Friday. The Shawnee County Sheriffs Office posted to social media on July 12 sharing the travel plans for the precious cargo. Deputies are helping with traffic control as the house is moved from Southeast 45th Street and Southeast Dupont Road to Jefferson County. The planned route is: Southeast 45th Street and Southeast Dupont Road East to Southeast Shawnee Heights Road North to Southeast Highway 40 West to Southeast K-4 Highway North to Southeast 24 Highway Slightly east to K-4 Highway Jefferson County line Topeka takes action to protect tenants from landlord retaliation The Shawnee County Sheriffs Office is helping the house move as far north as the Jefferson County line, at which point their assistance with the move ends. Drivers are advised to keep an eye out for the moving structure and take other routes when necessary. 27 News reached out to Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Herrig for more information on the house and its final destination. He said his deputies will take over escorting the home at the Shawnee County line at K-4 Highway. Deputies will help guide the house to Rock Creek then to a location northwest of the town where it will be dropped off. Patton House & Building Movers Inc. out of Paola is taking care of the moving service. West Ridge Mall to sell off things left behind by old tenants 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. 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. Hurricane Beryl may have already passed through Houston, but in its wake it has left power outages that have sent the citys residents and restaurants scrambling. Many of the citys dining establishments lost power because of the Category 1 storm, which hit Houston on Monday and resulted in at least nine deaths in the United States. Some of those restaurants have since had their power restored, part of the 1 million homes and businesses that have seen their power turned back on, Jason Ryan, the executive vice president of CenterPoint Energy, the citys largest utility, told the Associated Press on Thursday. But another half a million users will be without power until at least next week. More from Robb Report As of Friday afternoon, restaurants including Jun, Bludorn, Littles Oyster Bar, Feges BBQ, and all of the Goodnight Hospitality spots (March, the Marigold Club, etc.) were still without power. Aaron Bludorn, the chef-owner of his eponymous restaurant, told Robb Report in a text message this his other two establishments, Navy Blue and Bar Bludorn, had gotten power back Wednesday. But after trying unsuccessfully to use a generator to get Bludorn back up and running, the restaurant is still closed for service and its not clear when theyll be able to reopen. We havent really heard anything, Bludorn said, echoing the frustration other restaurateurs have expressed with the power company in the wake of the storm. Its all shrouded in secrecy! Inside Bar Bludorn, which got power back on Wednesday Thankfully for many restaurants, Beryl came through on a Monday, when many spots are already closed. And because there was advance warning that the storm would hit Houston, restaurants could somewhat plan in ahead and make sure they had fewer perishable goods on hand, a spokesperson for several of the aforementioned restaurants told Robb Report in an email. Jun, for example, was able to reseal its building to avoid flooding, and most food was put in the walk-in freezer, which hasnt been opened since the storm rolled in, the chef-owner Evelyn Garcia told Robb Report. But even then, once power is restored, a restaurant isnt simply able to go back to business as usual. If power had been turned on Thursday afternoon, the spokesperson said, a restaurant wouldnt be able to open until Friday night or even Saturday. Thats because once the power issue has been taken care of, a restaurant still has to order and prep food, and get staff back into the space. At a restaurant like Feges BBQ, the wait could be even longer, because items like the signature brisket take hours to prepare. (1/2) Mayor Whitmire has spoken with CenterPoints CEO & made it clear that the energy company needs to do a better job restoring power and communicating with the hundreds of thousands of customers who lost electricity due to the widespread power outage caused by #HurricaneBeryl pic.twitter.com/JNmZOrfSvv Houston Mayor's Office (@houmayor) July 12, 2024 For some restaurants, the hit from Beryl is being compounded by the fact that a derecho that came through Houston in May also resulted in shutdowns. Feges and Jun, for example, were both closed for a whole week back then, and now they have to contend with the hurricanes effects a mere two months later. Were still not recouped from last month, Garcia said. Were clearly learning a lot and trying to game-plan some more, because this is gonna keep happening So its like, how do we turn this aroundand quickly? While the restaurantsmany of them small businesseswill be adversely affected by a week of lost revenue, so will some of the restaurants employees. As hourly workers, they can lose about a quarter of their monthly income from a week-long closure, the restaurant spokesperson told Robb Report. Organizations like the Southern Smoke Foundation (which is taking donations) are working to get money to these employees, so that they can pay for things like groceries, gas, bills, and more. After the May derecho, the group was able to provide more than $329,000 to some 370 people in the industry. And its already received more than 100 applications for assistance following Beryl. The kitchen at Jun, which is still without power The restaurants are chipping in to help, too. Goodnight Hospitality is cooking off its inventory of ingredients today before the food spoilswith the help of a big smoker rig supplied by Southern Smokeand serving it to its staff as well as other industry people affected by the storm. And at Navy Blue, Bludorn is serving meals to hospitality workers tonight, with donations from spirits brands that work with the restaurant to cover the dinners. Theres no easy way forward from a natural disasterespecially at a time when theyre becoming more and more commonbut Houston restaurants are simply hoping that they get power back soon, so that they can continue sustaining themselves and their communities. As a business, you try to think, Okay, okay, how do we come back? Garcia said. Obviously, once we do come back, its just like plead our customers, Please come back. Please go to the smaller restaurants. Were definitely hurting. And we wont see it until we get back up and running. 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. Fatima Latifova A meeting was held at the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan with a delegation led by Jason McIlnerney, Special Envoy from the Office of International Religious Freedom of the U.S. Department of State, Azernews reports. The meeting was attended by Ayd?n Safikhanli, Head of the Ombudsman Office, and Zaur Valimammadli, Head of the Department for Cooperation with International Organizations and Civil Society Institutions. Ayd?n Safikhanli welcomed the guest and stated that religious tolerance is ensured in Azerbaijan, peoples religious beliefs are respected, freedom of religion and conscience is guaranteed, state-religion relations are regulated according to civil principles, and religious-spiritual, moral-ethical values have become an important part of public relations. He provided detailed information on the measures implemented by the Ombudsman in the protection of human rights and freedoms, including the fight against discrimination. It was highlighted that everyone, regardless of nationality or religion, can freely approach the Ombudsman, their complaints are investigated in accordance with the law, and appropriate measures are taken. It was noted that various ethnic minorities live in mutual respect and peace in Azerbaijan, their traditions are respected, special attention is given to their religious values, and their rights and freedoms are protected. The head of the office discussed the visits conducted under the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) mandate of the Ombudsman to institutions where individuals cannot leave voluntarily, noting that annual reports on NPM activities are prepared and proposals and recommendations for improving legislation are made. Zaur Valimammadli, Head of the Department for Cooperation with International Organizations and Civil Society Institutions, provided information about the institution's cooperation with international organizations, including the UN and its specialized agencies, as well as the recent amendments to the Constitutional Law on the Ombudsman that ensure the right to equality, prevent discrimination, and expand the Commissioners mandate in various areas, along with the creation of new relevant structural divisions in the Office. During the meeting, various topics of mutual interest were discussed. ABUJA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of students and teachers were trapped Friday after a two-story building collapsed at a local secondary school in Jos, the capital of Nigeria's north-central Plateau state, according to a rescue agency. The ill-fated building at the privately-owned Saint Academy in Jos collapsed while students were writing a promotional examination Friday morning. Sunday Abdu, head of the Plateau State Emergency Management Agency, told reporters that the facility housed several classrooms and offices. An unknown number of students and teachers were trapped in the building, Abdu said, adding that local emergency workers were immediately mobilized to rescue the victims. Here is a striking comparison. In the recent general election, just over 16.5 million people voted Labour or Conservative. In the Brexit referendum of 2016, 17.4 million people voted Leave. The two parties combined attracted fewer backers than the Brexit winning side. This comparison indicates the weakness of Labours victory on July 4 and the extent of the Conservative collapse. The two-party system is looking rickety. Until this century, voter endorsement of the two-party system always added up to more than 20 million people (despite much smaller total electorates than todays). Not now. This explains why both main parties are so guarded in their public arguments. Rightly sensing that the electorate doubts their legitimacy, they become risk-averse. Sir Keir Starmer spent all his six-week campaign not talking about what he would do. The two parties know that ever-growing numbers feel free to look elsewhere to (in descending order of magnitude) Reform, Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP, independents. More 40 per cent of registered voters feel free not to vote at all. This change excites supporters of proportional representation a worthy subject but not, you may be relieved to hear, what I am talking about here today. I am thinking more about the mismatch between conservative ideas and the Conservative Party. It seems reasonable to assume that most Leave voters held at least partially conservative ideas about national independence and identity, for example. This was successfully weaponised in the 2019 general election by Boris Johnson (Conservative vote: 13,966,454), but not this time (Conservative vote: 6,827,311, more than halved in one Parliament). Why the gap? Most answers readily given by the defeated involve blame. We were not proper conservatives, and we squandered Brexit, says the Right. We ceased to be grown-ups, says the Tory Left, We collapsed amid squalid internal quarrels and Brexit make-believe. Actually, there is truth in both these statements. Rather than plunging straight into this quarrel, however, it might be better to reflect. The last time the Western world rethought conservatism was nearly half a century ago. This was almost entirely an Anglosphere phenomenon, Continental conservatism being very different. The leaders were Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. They confronted grave problems notably economic failure and the threat from the Soviet Union. Their rethink was extensive. A comparable rethink is needed; but some things which bulk so large now were little considered then. Take immigration. Mrs Thatcher did have to deal with serious concerns, but she could. In those days, it was physically and legally possible for a British government, acting alone, to exercise reasonable control. It seems impossible now. Poor Rishi Sunak recently tried to prove that he could and proved the opposite. This is authoritys open wound. A related point is that communalism was small 50 years ago. Now it is big. This time, a predominantly Muslim vote won a few seats for Islamists and is causing serious rifts within the Labour Party in many cities. Almost the biggest Conservative majority in Britain now is Harrow East, where the strong Indian (mainly Hindu) vote is the decisive factor. A party committed to One Nation should be unequivocally opposed to communalism and the ugly racial politics which cares less for Britain than for Gaza (by which protesters all too often mean Hamas). But the Conservatives have never got this straight. Worried about accusations of racism, they have accepted many of the Lefts doctrines which exalt ethnic identity above all other values. Sir Keir Starmer took the knee to BLM but does not take it to God. It is the job of conservatives to challenge such ghettoising. Most of them dont dare. Another example is climate change. Mrs Thatcher was the first world leader to advance the theory of global warming. But she left office long before leaders had to confront what happens when governments force an economy to revolutionise its energy provision according to an arbitrary timetable. Traditionally, Conservatives care about how the misallocation of resources inflicts direct pain on citizens. The real costs of the rush to get rid of fossil fuels are vast, but the Tories, led in the wrong direction by, successively, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, disabled their capacity to challenge. The substantial Labour majority enables Ed Miliband to stop all drilling in new British oil and gas fields. The Governments new National Wealth Fund will seek 3 of private investment for every 1 of public money to back green projects. Every conservative instinct says this will lead to malinvestment. Our only real national wealth fund is the savings owned by the British people. They should be encouraged to invest for their best long-term returns. Everything else is just taxation under different names. When Mrs Thatcher pushed economic reform, she saw it as in part a culture war. I back the workers not the shirkers, she said just before being made party leader. Despite the huge controversy over many years, she won not just an economic battle, but a recognition that the workplace should be a place not of political combat, but of harmonious, productive labour. Barely visible then, but now universal in the public sector workplace (and growing in the private sector) is a takeover not by striking shop stewards but by woke warriors, often in HR. The Tory Left truckles to it. The Tory Right rails against it but offers few solutions. It feels as if conservative ideas have been relegated to luxury beliefs, circulated on X (formerly Twitter), but without useful practical effect. That is what Trumpery does. A common theme in the 14 years of Tory rule was a failure to approach tricky issues coherently and therefore the meek acceptance of remedies arising from a Left-wing ideology. These include the Cameron/Osborne golden era with China, Boriss capitulation to repeated Covid lockdowns, with saving the NHS as the priority rather than the more liberal policy his instincts favoured, and the statist idea of an energy price cap in response to Putins war. The Conservatives have cowered before the word equality. In most contexts, especially economic ones, the word acts as a rage against difference rather than a spur to improvement. Good words in the conservative vocabulary opportunity, freedom, fairness have been allowed to wilt. Perhaps what has withered most of all in 21st-century conservatism is the sense of a coherent culture which reaches beyond politics. This used to be strong in business and agriculture, in charities and in many professions, not only the armed services but also teachers, doctors and even vicars. That culture was not defined by the Conservative Party, but the party benefited from it enormously, drawing, through its mass membership, on a permanent national conversation with hundreds of thousands all over the country. I think this is what the Tory Left means when it laments the loss of sensible people, and I think it is broadly correct. These are the people from whose collective experience good policy is formed. But also in that conservative culture was a mixture, even more numerous, of the less educated or well-off police constables, the upper working class, artisans, young people with little money but aspirations to get on. The Tory Right and the Right that has left the Tories for Reform have identified such people as those forgotten by political correctness and global economic trends. I think they are broadly correct. In short, the schism between the Conservative Party and Reform has halved conservatisms collective political power. That is a tragedy. Weve had plenty of hubris, followed by nemesis; now for some catharsis. 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. Hundreds flock to Mirage Las Vegas for final weekend with $1.6 million in progressive jackpots on the line LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A Las Vegas icon is shutting its doors for good, and many are getting their last-minute look inside and trying their luck before its final day. The Mirage is the second property on the Las Vegas Strip to close this year. The Tropicana shuttered in April to make way for the As stadium. The closure of the Mirage, considered one of the first modern luxurious properties on the Strip when it opened in 1989, has many visiting the property before its doors close on Wednesday, July 17. The Beatles LOVE show opened at the Mirage Las Vegas in 2006 in a specially built theater. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images) The property was home to many permanent shows like Siegfried & Roy and LOVE. When guests entered the property, they were greeted by the famous volcano attraction outside the lobby doors. It was Steve Wynns first major casino on the Strip and the first of the new Las Vegas mega-resorts. Now the casino must give away $1.6 million in progressive jackpots before it closes because those jackpots belong to the gamblers under Nevada Law and all remaining balances must be paid out. Bill Krackomberger may be among those trying his luck at a place where he has a personal connection. I feel like when I am walking in there, I am walking through my parents footsteps. When they were in the Mirage the first time, they called me up and said Oh my God Billy it is so beautiful here the way they made them feel this was really different and I like walking through those footsteps one last time, he said. The Mirage is beautiful and its still beautiful it really is. A glorious place and a lot of history and I hope for Hard Rock to do well. While its a walk down memory lane for Krackomber, he also admits he would like to cash in a jackpot. I am just there for that bonus money. Hard Rock plans to start construction on the property in the fall and open the new Guitar Hotel Las Vegas in 2027. The legacy of the Mirage will live on because some of the signage will be given to the Neon Museum. 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. Hungary has questioned a proposal to treat a new generation of genetically modified crops as equivalent to strains produced through conventional breeding as it looks to reopen a controversial EU policy file in the first days of its six-month stint as chair of inter-governmental negotiations. While its EU Council presidency has so far been marked by anger over prime minister Viktor Orbans impromptu trips to Moscow and Beijing, diplomatic staff in Brussels have quietly put a proposal to revise EU rules on genetically modified (GM) crops on the agenda for a meeting of national delegates on 19 July. In a discussion paper dated 3 July and seen by Euronews, the Hungarian presidency notes a deadlock that has developed among member states since the European Commission proposed last year a deregulation of certain types of GM crops. The New Genomic Techniques Regulation would allow for light-touch regulation of a new category of crops created by tweaking the DNA sequence of an organism using techniques that were not available when the existing GMO Directive, which demands strict safety checks and monitoring, was adopted over 20 years ago. Belgium came close to forging a compromise position on the proposal as it sought to clear a legislative backlog before handing the reins to Hungary, but failed at the last attempt due to ongoing concerns over whether such new plant products should be patentable, which critics warned could lead to monopolies and limit choice for farmers. Anti-GM campaigners welcomed a further delay they said would give time for lawmakers to discuss broader aspects of risk assessment and examine an opinion from the French health and food safety regulator ANSES, which has argued against treating NGT products as equivalent to conventionally bred crops. It now looks like that delay could be yet longer, as Hungary seeks to reopen the debate over equivalence, arguing that assessment based only on the number and size of genetic modifications might not be sufficient for establishing the risk posed by a new GM product compared to a conventional crop with a long safety record. Among other points in the Hungarian paper, most of them raised at one point or another during the past year of negotiations, were concerns ranging from the labelling and identification of NGT plants to exports and the compatibility of the proposed deregulation with the UNs Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. While Hungary looks to re-open the debate, the European Food Safety Authority published yesterday (10 July) a long awaited assessment of the French proposal, in which it concluded that plants with genetic modifications within the threshold proposed for category 1 plants could arise spontaneously or by random mutation. Therefore, it is scientifically justified to consider category 1 NGT plants as equivalent to conventionally bred plants with respect to the similarity of genetic modifications and the similarity of potential risks, EFSA wrote. The EU regulators scientific opinion was seized upon by advocates of deregulation as further support for their position that NGT crops are not the same as GMOs where a gene is transplanted from one species to another. Petra Jorasch, head of innovation advocacy at the trade association Euroseeds, said reopening the equivalence debate could set the policy debate back five years. We consider the approach in the [Hungarian] paper as an attempt to slow down the adoption of the proposal and the advancement towards a fit for purpose and science-based regulation, denying the access of the agricultural sector to the advances in plant breeding innovation, Jorasch told Euronews. Greenpeace campaigner Eva Corral slammed EFSA for an opinion she said was also out of whack with the conclusions of the Austrian and German environment agencies UBA and BfN. EFSAs opinion contradicts European national agencies, including ANSES in France, that warn about the potential risks of new GMOs for human health and the environment and call for all new GMOs to be subject to safety checks and monitoring. The European Parliament has already agreed its position on the GMO regulation reform, and awaits an intergovernmental agreement before the process can move forward. The Hungarian government has accused its NATO partners of double standards and failure in dealing with Russia's war against Ukraine, causing a stir at the end of a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Hungary would continue to advocate for dialogue and diplomatic channels, a Szijjarto spokesman said. The minister argued that the current strategy of the past two and a half years had been a total failure. At the end of the NATO summit, Szijjarto represented Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had left Washington early to meet former US president Donald Trump in Florida. Szijjarto criticized NATO's inconsistent approach, pointing out that Israel was being encouraged to negotiate with Hamas while diplomatic channels remained closed in the Ukraine conflict. He also objected to the pressure on EU countries like Hungary to end nuclear cooperation with Russia, while trade between the United States and Russia, particularly in the uranium sector, was increasing. He also raised the question of whether secret negotiations might be happening behind the scenes. Regarding Ukraine's desire to join NATO, Szijjarto said that from a Hungarian perspective, Ukraine's NATO membership could weaken the alliance and it was important to carefully examine such a membership. After the summit, participants said that Hungary had been isolated during the discussion. Several allies had also clearly expressed their disagreement with the Hungarian foreign minister's statements. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, takes part in the working session of the last day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with former US president Donald Trump on Thursday, shortly after attending a NATO summit in Washington. Orban shared a picture of their meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on social media plaform X, writing: "Peace mission 5.0 ... We discussed ways to make #peace. The good news of the day: he's going to solve it!" Orban has maintained good relations with Trump since the former US president's election victory in 2016. The two men last met in March, after which Orban referred to Trump as the "president of peace," while Trump called Orban a "fantastic leader." Trump aims to reclaim the White House for the Republican Party after the US presidential elections in November, seeking to replace President Joe Biden who is expected to run for the Democrats again. In the days leading up to the NATO summit held in Washington this week, Orban made headlines with surprise visits to Russia, Ukraine and China, a trip he labelled his "peace mission." The trip to Moscow in particular, which came as Hungary took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union in July, sparked ire from Orban's EU and NATO allies. Several EU officials, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, later stressed that the Hungarian leader had no official EU mandate for negotiations with Russia. At the end of the NATO summit in Washington, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, representing Orban who had left early for Florida, caused a stir by accusing NATO partners of double standards and failure in dealing with Russia's war against Ukraine. Hungarian Prime Minister visited former President Donald Trump at his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence to discuss the war in Ukraine on Thursday night. Photo by Zoltan Zovacs/X July 12 (UPI) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited former U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, proclaiming afterward that he can bring an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Orban's spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the meeting with Trump is part of the prime minister's peace efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Orban has endorsed Trump's run for president and maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin while many others in Europe have stepped away from Moscow. "It was an honor to visit President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago today," Orban said on X. "We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: He's going to solve it." On Truth Social, Trump thanked Orban and called for an end to the war, though both gave no details on how to achieve that. "There must be peace and quickly," Trump wrote on his social media site. "Too many people have died in a war that should have never started." @PM_ViktorOrban held talks with @realDonaldTrump on Thursday evening as the next stop of his peace mission. The meeting, which took place at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, focused on the possibilities for peace. pic.twitter.com/hx78Qzeg6e Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) July 12, 2024 Orban had previously visited Moscow and Beijing for discussions on the war in Ukraine, angering European Union officials. Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union this month. Since then, Orban said he would use it to bring peace to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed doubt about Orban's efforts and his closeness to Putin. "With all due respect to all countries, big and small, we have to say that not all leaders can negotiate," Zelensky said, according to Politico. "You need to have certain power and strength for this." The meeting came after a NATO summit in Washington where President Joe Biden said that Trump has "made it clear he has no commitment" to the military alliance which he hailed as a necessary safeguard for nations like Ukraine. "For those who thought NATO's time had passed, they got a rude awakening when Putin invaded Ukraine," Biden said. "Some of the oldest and deepest fears in Europe roared back to life." Relief efforts are underway after Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on Monday, leaving a trail of destruction behind. According to USA Today, more than a half dozen people are dead, and over a million homes and businesses are without power after Beryl swept through parts of the Southeast this week. Several relief groups have since sprung into action to help those affected in Texas. Marita Salkowski, American Red Cross regional communications director, told The Enquirer that, as of Monday, 400 trained disaster workers from across the country, including six Red Cross volunteers from central and southern Ohio, had been dispatched to areas impacted by Hurricane Beryl. Salkowski said they are working around the clock with Texas government officials and community partners to provide "comfort, support, and relief services." "Our first priority is keeping people safe while providing shelter, food and a shoulder to lean on. We will expand our reach into more communities as soon as Texas officials say it is safe to do," she said. Anyone interested in helping those impacted by Beryl can donate to the Red Cross at redcross.org or by calling 1-800-Red-Cross. Duke Energy has not sent crews from the Midwest to assist with storm damage from Beryl. However, Jeff Brooks, manager of enterprise media relations, said the company did send crews from Florida and the Carolinas to assist in Texas. Approximately 130 lineworkers as well as 100 tree contractors, were sent down south to help with storm relief efforts. Matthew 25: Ministries will also not send local volunteers to Texas, but the non-profit disaster relief organization is shipping supplies to areas impacted by the storm, including Texas, Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Vincent. According to its website, the organization is seeking monetary donations online or via check, which can be sent to its office at 11060 Kenwood Road in Blue Ash. The organization also accepts product donations at its facility located at 11083 Kenwood Road in Blue Ash. Matthew 25: Ministries seeks to collect various essential items such as cases of bottled water, personal care products, cleaning supplies, paper products, baby and infant care supplies, first aid items, candles and flashlights, and more. For a full list of accepted items, visit m25m.org. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How to donate to victims of Hurricane Beryl from Greater Cincinnati HUTCHINSON, Kan. (KSNW) Firefighters with the Hutchinson Fire Department rotated through medical rehab late Thursday afternoon after battling a fire at a duplex. According to the HFD, crews responded at 4:32 p.m. for the report of a fire at a duplex in the 1100 block of W. 2nd. This embedded content is not available in your region. Upon arrival at the scene, crews found a single-story duplex with flames and smoke coming from multiple sides of the home and heard someone inside. Crews then began an aggressive, offensive attack on the fire while pushing their way inside to search for any possible victims. The man inside was able to walk out on his own. Fire attack crews found fire in the back part of the home that extended to the attic. The home appeared to be in a state of remodel, said the HFD. Crews were able to extinguish the fire with minimal extension. Wichita Fire Department responding to body found in south Wichita No injuries were reported, but firefighters rotated through medical rehab for heat stress monitoring due to the 100-degree outside temps. An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing. Reno County EMS, Kansas Gas, Evergy, the Hutchinson Police Department, and Reno County Emergency Communications assisted. 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. LILONGWE, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The Malawian government announced it would host a virtual mining investment forum for Malawians living abroad on Saturday. The event follows a successful 2024 Malawi Mining Investment Forum held in Lilongwe in April during the Agriculture, Tourism and Mining Week, said Malawian Minister of Mining Monica Chang'anamuno. On Thursday, the minister told local media that the upcoming virtual forum for Malawians living in the diaspora is part of the Malawian government's ongoing efforts to promote sustainable development and growth of the mining sector. The forum will include sessions designed for Malawians living abroad to explore unique investment opportunities in the growing mining sector of the sub-Saharan country. Chang'anamuno said the forum is expected to attract over 200 Malawians in the diaspora, adding that they will have discussions to explore strategies and solutions for developing Malawi's mining sector under the theme "Global Connections, Local Impact: Investing in Malawi's Minerals." Malawi is rich in mineral resources, including rare earth elements, graphite, uranium, gold and gemstones. Illinois Republican leaders are set to meet virtually Friday to select a successor to Don Tracy, who resigned the state GOP chairmanship last month in frustration over party infighting. The private meeting of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, made up of one representative from each of the states 17 congressional districts, comes just days before the state GOPs 64-member delegation heads to Milwaukee to formally designate Donald Trump as the partys nominee for president. Seeking to replace Tracy, who spent three years as party chair, are Aaron Del Mar, the Palatine Township Republican committeeman, Kathy Salvi of Mundelein, the partys 2022 unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate, and state Rep. John Cabello of the Rockford suburb of Machesney Park. Cabello was seeking the post on an interim basis only through the Nov. 5 general election, casting some doubt on the viability of his candidacy. The election of a new party chair comes amid long-simmering party tensions that boiled over following the GOPs state convention on May 25. Weeks after the convention, vice chair Mark Shaw of Lake Forest was stripped of his title over his failed attempts to leverage his political roles for the post of Republican National Committeeman. Tracy, of Springfield, questioning whether Shaw had received due process by the state central committee and citing constant infighting, resigned two days later, effective upon the selection of a new chairman. The Illinois GOP has long been beset by fighting between moderate and conservative wings. That conflict also has become a geographic battle between hard-core conservatives downstate and the more populous suburban areas, even as that regions reputation as a moderate Republican stronghold has faded and Democrats have made major inroads. Democrats now control all statewide offices, the Supreme Court and have supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate. Del Mar previously served in the Palatine Village Council and is also a former chairman of the Cook County Republican Party. In the 2022 Republican primary for governor, Del Mar was the running mate to Bull Valley businessman Gary Rabine, who spread COVID-19 pandemic misinformation and questioned the efficacy of the vaccines. Rabine finished fourth in the primary election. Salvi, an attorney, mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, of Hoffman Estates, in the 2022 general election. She also ran for Congress in 2006 but lost in the Republican primary. Her husband, Al, was elected as a state representative in 1992 and served two terms before making unsuccessful bids for U.S. Senate in 1996 and for Illinois secretary of state in 1998. Cabello co-chaired the Illinois delegation to the national GOP convention in Cleveland in 2016 when Trump was first nominated for president. Cabello, who has worked as a detective for the Rockford Police Department, is in his second stint as an Illinois House member, taking his northwestern Illinois seat last year after initially serving in the chamber from 2012 to 2021. One frequently mentioned potential candidate for the state party chairmanship, state Sen. Jason Plummer, of Edwardsville, told the Tribune on Thursday that he ultimately decided not to run for the position and declined further comment. An Illinois woman was shot and killed Saturday night in an incident involving two deputies from the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office, according to law enforcement. Two Sangamon County Sheriffs Office deputies were dispatched to a Springfield, Illinois, residence at about 12:50 a.m. to investigate a prowler, according to a statement from the sheriffs office obtained by ABC News. At approximately 1:21 a.m., the Deputies reported that shots had been fired, resulting in a female being struck by gunfire, according to the sheriff's statement. Deputies immediately administered first aid until EMS arrived. The woman was transported to St. Johns Hospital, where she was later pronounced deceased. No deputies were injured during the incident. Sonya Massey, 36, was pronounced dead at 1:47 a.m. on Saturday after being transported to an area hospital, Jim Allmon, Sangamon County Coroner, told ABC News in a statement. An autopsy was performed, and preliminary findings show Ms. Massey died from a gunshot wound, Allmons statement said. The death remains under investigation by the Illinois State Police and the Sangamon County Coroner. PHOTO: People attend a protest in front of the Sangamon County Building, on July 12, 2024, over the officer involved shooting death of Sonya Massey. (Thomas J. Turney/The State Journal-Register via USA Today Network) The Illinois State Police (ISP), who have taken over the investigation, told ABC News in a statement that they would not yet share body camera footage to protect the integrity of the legal process and the right to a fair trial in the event charges are filed. The sheriffs office told ABC News in a statement that it requested that the ISP conduct an independent investigation into the incident. ISP is collaborating closely with the Sangamon County State's Attorney's Office to conduct a timely, comprehensive, and transparent investigation, according to a statement by the state police. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who Masseys family has retained as legal counsel, says Massey was shot and killed in her own home after calling 911 to report an intruder. ABC News has been unable to independently verify this information. It is extremely hard to imagine how a woman who calls the police out of fear of an intruder ends up shot in the head by the police at her own home, Crump said in a statement to ABC News. We demand that all body camera footage from this incident be released immediately so that Sonyas family and the public can see what happened in those 30 deadly minutes. PHOTO: Jay Nikhol of Jacksonville holds up sign during a protest in front of the Sangamon County Building, on July 12, 2024, over the officer involved shooting of Sonya Massey. (Thomas J. Turney/The State Journal-Register via USA Today Network) MORE: Police body camera footage released of motorist killed during traffic stop Supporters of the family held a protest in Springfield, Illinois, on Friday demanding justice and accountability in Masseys death. John Milhiser, the Sangamon County state attorney, confirmed with ABC News in a statement that his office is working with state police on the investigation but could not release any further information at this time. Authorities did not release the name of the deputies on the scene when Massey was shot. When appropriate, additional information, including the video, will be shared with Sonya Massey's family before releasing further, according to a statement from state police. Illinois woman dies after being shot in deputy-involved incident originally appeared on abcnews.go.com I'm a mom of 3 in Israel. Every time my daughter walks into the room, I turn off the news. Deborah Danan and her husband are working parents, raising their three kids in Israel. They live in a mixed city where Jews, Muslims, and Christians live together. She's been surprised by her 8-year-old's capacity for both compassion and comprehension of what was happening. I've learned surprising truths about my children since the horror of the October 7 terror attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. I live with my husband and three kids in a mixed city in Israel, where Jews, Muslims, and Christians live together. I moved here over a decade ago from Jerusalem. Jerusalem, while officially considered a mixed city, largely consists of religiously homogeneous neighborhoods, making apartment blocks with Jews, Muslims, and Christians living together like mine far less common. I love the diversity in my city. I love that my children attend Christmas parades and are aware of the fact that as I write this essay on a June afternoon, our neighbors are celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha. But like everything else in this neck of the woods, living side by side can sometimes be fraught with complexities. When news started emerging of what took place on October 7, I did everything in my power to protect my three children, especially my eldest, a highly sensitive 8-year-old with a string of acronyms after her name that point to her various diagnoses. I made sure that in any room she entered, the news was switched off no small feat in a country where news consumption is basically a national pastime. I would stifle any conversation about the situation by family members that was within her earshot. I was terrified of scarring her for life I only let her know that hostages had been taken into Gaza after half of them including almost all of the children among them were released, more than 50 days into the war. But then came the day when she was home alone in our apartment during a rocket siren. It was inevitable, really. Rockets were raining down on our city on a daily basis, and my work as a journalist meant that I was often out of the house. My husband also found himself working around the clock when his boutique hotel, like many others across the country, was converted overnight into semi-permanent housing for some of the 300,000 internal refugees fleeing Israel's northern and southern borders, which were under attack. On that day, I called my daughter as soon as the Code Red app on my phone bleeped, alerting me to an incoming projectile. She told me that she was trying to close the iron blast door of the safe room but that it was too heavy for her. She said it matter-of-factly. I tried to mask the rising panic in my voice as I told her to try again, harder this time. It was useless, so I told her to go into the stairwell of our building, where there were no windows and less risk of falling shrapnel. Buildings erected in Israel since the 1990s have built-in safe rooms to avoid bombs and air strikes. For many Israelis living in older apartments, without safe rooms, this is the standard refuge from rocket fire. My Arab Muslim neighbor saw her on the way to the stairwell. She took her hand and guided her to her own safe room, where she looked after her until I returned. To my relief and surprise my daughter was completely unfazed by the whole episode. The author has been surprised by her daughter's level of compassion and comprehension. Deborah Danan Adjusting to the new normal Now, nearly 9 months after the October 7 attacks, we've settled into a routine. Schools in most of the country are operating, people are going out, life is continuing but the reminders that life is anything but normal are everywhere, puncturing the facade: from posters of hostages on every tree to the almost daily news of the deaths of loved ones to the imminent threat of a new war on a different front. But while even the most inconsequential event is cloaked in pain, I'm fully aware that my day-to-day as a mother is peachy compared to mothers in Gaza. In the midst of it all, I find myself still torn between a duty to let my children know what's happening around them to allow them to grow thick-skinned, to build resiliency, and hopefully, to seek solutions and the instinctual urge to shelter them, not just from rocket fire but from things I think children should never have to know. The night of the rocket fire, my daughter and I lay in bed. I spoke to her about our Arab friends and neighbors and what it means for them to be straddling a precarious duality in which they are scared about their own well-being, as Israeli citizens under fire, as well as that of their people sometimes even family members under bombardment in Gaza. I asked her to imagine that right now in Gaza, there was probably a girl of her age who may be scared for her life. And that maybe that girl has a cousin who lives right here, in our neighborhood. My daughter's capacity for both compassion for their plight and comprehension of what was happening right now, right here, to us, astonished me and continues to astonish me. Read the original article on Business Insider Immigrants make up nearly 16% of Philadelphias population of 1.6 million, according to a 2024 report from Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew reports this marks the largest percentage since the 1940s, and above the national percentage of 13.9%. I am a neonatologist a pediatrician whos trained to care for babies in the neonatal intensive care unit in the city. Im also a perinatal health services researcher and study the health care and health outcomes of pregnant mothers and their infants. Because of my dual jobs, I know how important preventive health care is for decreasing the risk of disease, disability and death. However, I also know that the political rhetoric around immigration as well as public policies that create fear or confusion about how medical care could affect immigration status discourage immigrants from seeking medical attention, a phenomenon described as the chilling effect. In 2021, working with community partners Puentes de Salud and Maternity Care Coalition, my research team interviewed 24 Latina immigrant mothers in Philadelphia and the Kennett Square area. Kennett Square is about 45 miles outside Philadelphia, and its large mushroom industry draws many immigrant laborers. All of the mothers we interviewed had been pregnant during or after the new public charge rules went into effect during the Trump administration. These new rules mandated, for the first time ever, that receiving public benefits like Medicaid and food assistance might make an immigrant ineligible for permanent residency. Although the final rule change did not go into effect until February 2020, an executive order describing the changes was leaked in early 2017 and received significant attention from national media and researchers. Although these expanded public charge rules were rescinded by the Biden administration in September 2022, fear and confusion persist among immigrant communities. Our paper, published in the June 2024 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Medical Care, discusses ways to overcome this chilling effect and improve health care for Philadelphias large and growing immigrant community. Evidence of the chilling effect In June 2015, Donald Trump kicked off his run for president with a speech calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals on national television. Xenophobic rhetoric and platforms became a hallmark of his campaign. Four years later, a study in Texas found that immigrant Latina women made fewer and later prenatal visits starting midway through the 2015 presidential campaign and through the first two years of the Trump administration. In Maryland, researchers looked at how adults and children who were presumed to be undocumented accessed health care after the 2016 presidential election. They found decreases in primary care visits among both adults and children. And there was an uptick in missed preventive pediatric visits among children of immigrant mothers in Boston, Minneapolis and Little Rock, Arkansas, both after the 2016 election and after the expanded public charge rules were leaked to the press. Consequences of less preventive care How this chilling effect may impact overall public health is also becoming more apparent. In the Maryland study mentioned above, researchers found that the rate of annual emergency room visits among the children in the study more than doubled. This suggests that medical issues that could have been addressed in a pediatricians office during preventive visits became more urgent and families ended up seeking emergency care. In addition, one study estimated there were 2,337 more preterm births than would be expected among Latina mothers in the U.S. in the year after the 2016 presidential election. Given what they controlled for in their analyses, the researchers concluded the increase was possibly related to added stress among this group around the election, perhaps secondary to fears around anti-immigration legislation, xenophobic rhetoric and increased deportations. The chilling effect has also been shown to affect immigrants use of food and nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the School Breakfast Program. There has been a steep decline in the use of many benefits by eligible immigrant families since 2016. Some mothers felt they were treated differently at their prenatal appointments because of their immigration status. SDI Productions/E+ Collection via Getty Images You feel you dont deserve the same quality The moms in our study who did seek out prenatal care reported both positive and negative experiences. Several reported feeling more comfortable when they heard their own language at a visit. For instance, one 30-year-old woman from Guatemala shared how good it felt when her health care providers made an effort to speak Spanish even though they are American. Those with friends or family members who had already been pregnant in the U.S. reported little difficulty finding a trusted prenatal care provider. However, they also reported misinformation around seeking care such as hearing that one needed a passport to receive medical attention or to have $10,000 in hand to deliver a baby. One woman from Honduras who had lived in the U.S. for three years shared that she has always been told to not get help because if you get it and you want to go back home, youre not going to be able to. Some also felt they were treated differently because of their immigration status. [T]hey look at you differently because you dont know English, said a 32-year-old woman from Mexico. You feel that you dont deserve the same quality as an American in medical care. I have the right to get information Participants offered suggestions for health care providers and health care systems to better meet the needs of pregnant immigrant patients. They spoke about their desire to learn about their rights as immigrants in health care settings and noted the difference it made when a doctor, nurse or entire clinic worked to correct their misconceptions. [My provider] made me feel more empowered to say, You know what? I have the right to get information from you, said a mother from Mexico who had lived in the U.S. for six years. Increased access to interpreters was also brought up often. Many of the women noted how challenging it was to communicate during the parts of a prenatal visit that occurred outside the exam room, such as phone calls to schedule appointments, or the check-in process. Ways to improve care Based on the 24 womens reflections and suggestions, I believe there are several actions health care providers and systems can take to make pregnant immigrants feel safer during their medical visits. First, medical schools and programs can include training on how to communicate with patients around their immigration status. Trauma-informed health care acknowledges patients adverse life experiences and how those experiences influence their medical decisions. It has been shown to improve relationships between patients and their health care providers and decrease burnout among medical providers. Yet its often lacking in training curricula for health professionals. Hospitals and clinics can also provide information sheets and signs that encourage immigrant patients to understand their rights to care within that system. And they can hire more interpreters. Nationwide interpreter shortages are a long-standing problem. A 2016 survey of hospitals showed that only 56% offered language interpretation services. Since inadequate insurer reimbursement for language services is thought to contribute to these shortages, improving access to in-person interpretation will likely require payer reform. Still, health care systems could better train staff in how to best use virtual interpretation resources, and include office personnel who interface with patients outside of exam rooms. Lastly, hospitals and prenatal care clinics could do a better job of integrating patient navigators and peer support specialists into their maternal care. Patient navigators and peer support specialists are typically community health workers who are trained to support pregnant people outside of hospitals and clinics and help them navigate prenatal care. They help identify and overcome barriers to health care that a specific patient might face. Early evidence indicates that prenatal patient navigation may be associated with healthier infant birth weights and also better recognition of postpartum maternal mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. Yet these roles currently exist on the margins of health care, supported by philanthropy and research grants. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Diana Montoya-Williams, University of Pennsylvania. Read more: Diana Montoya-Williams receives funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as well as the Center for Violence Prevention Research. Demonstrators gather outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as opinions were issued on June 28, 2024 in Washington, D.C. Credit - Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images Following allegations of impropriety relating to financial disclosures and conflicts of interest, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against two conservative Supreme Court Justices, marking the first attempt to impeach a Justice in more than two centuries. The unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court has now spiraled into a Constitutional crisis threatening American democracy, said Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, in a press release on Wednesday. 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. Alito has drawn scrutiny for an inverted flag flown outside his house, which allegedly symbolizes support for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Alito has said the flag was briefly raised by his wife. Thomas has been criticized for his failure to disclose trips paid for by Republican mega donor Harlan Crow. He has also refused to recuse himself from cases related to former President Donald Trump, despite his wifes political involvement in support of Trump as his Administration sought to overturn Joe Bidens victory in 2020. He has claimed that he did not have to report these trips because they were personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court. (In June, Thomas disclosed that Crow paid for travel expenses in Bali and California.) Eight months ago, the Supreme Court adopted its own code of conduct to alleviate the blowback against the Court in the last year, though the regulations are unenforceable. Read More: Breaking Down the Supreme Courts Ethics Rules as Justices Come Under Fire Ocasio-Cortez filed her resolution following the Supreme Courts decision that Trump and former Presidents have some degree of immunity from prosecution for official acts, which could affect the criminal cases against Trump. In all of American history, only one Supreme Court Justice has ever been impeached. Heres how the process works and what happened the only time it succeeded. How impeachment works Like in any other impeachment processincluding for Presidents and judgesthe power to impeach a Supreme Court Justice first lies with the House of Representatives. A House legislator must introduce an article of impeachment before a vote is held. If a majority of the House votes in favor of impeachment, the articles then move to the Senate for a trial. Two-thirds of the Senate must then vote to convict, which would remove the Justice from the court. Read More: What the Supreme Courts Immunity Decision Means for Trumps Criminal Cases It will be effectively impossible for Ocasio-Cortezs articles of impeachment to pass the Republican-led House, experts say. Not only would legislators in favor of impeachment have to overcome the conservative stronghold, but they would also have to work with the House Judiciary Committee, which is led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Frank Bowman, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, calls Ocasio-Cortezs impeachment efforts against the Justices performative. This is not the way you proceed if you're serious, he says. If you're serious, you develop a factual record. You allow representatives of the impeached or the suspected impeachable official to participate, at least in some way, in the process of investigating the question. You deliberate carefully before you engage the attention of the full House. Has a Justice ever been impeached? It has been relatively common in American history for judges to be impeached compared to other federal positions. Judges, under the federal system, are appointed during good behavior, effectively for life, and therefore it's really the only mechanism for getting rid of a bad judge, says Bowman. At least 15 federal judges have been impeached, according to the United States Courts. Only eight judges have been convicted, though experts say some others have resigned before their cases went to trial or any official articles of impeachment could be brought forward to them. But its only happened once for a Supreme Court Justice. The last time articles of impeachment were filed against a Justice was in 1804. Samuel Chase, who had been serving on the nations highest court since 1796, was impeached by the House and tried in the Senate over his partisan rhetoric. We think of [Supreme Court Justices] as being purely appellate judges who sit on only a few appellate cases every year. But Justices in those days did lots of other stuff, says Bowman. They were in circuit, meaning they went around the country, sometimes even acting as trial judges. And in that capacity, the Justice was vocally affiliated with the Federalist Party and vocally opposed to Thomas Jefferson's Democrats. Chase was ultimately impeached on the basis that he refused to dismiss biased jurors and of excluding or limiting defense witnesses in two politically sensitive cases, according to the United States Senate. He was also accused of promoting his political beliefs. Although a majority of the Senators voted that Chase was guilty, legislators still fell short of the two-thirds majority. Chase was acquitted by the Senate in 1805 on all counts. While Chase was the only Supreme Court Justice ever impeached, there have been other ethics scandals in the past. Former associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was up to become Chief Justice in 1968 when critics pointed out that Fortas had received $15,000 to teach university seminars. The money came from former clients of a law firm whose cases could potentially reach the Supreme Court. There were no ethics laws at the time requiring disclosure, but Fortas was forced to acknowledge that was an inappropriate thing for him to do, and the result was he withdrew his nomination as Chief Justice, says Michael Gerhardt, constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolinas School of Law. Contact us at letters@time.com. (Bloomberg) -- A Pakistan top court has decided to hand two dozen seats from this years elections to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs rivals, undermining the governments ability to pass through legislation in parliament for reforms. Most Read from Bloomberg The countrys supreme court handed 24 seats set aside for women and minorities, which were earlier given to the ruling alliance, to Imran Khans supporters that makes them a powerful block in the National Assembly, or parliaments lower house. The legislators had contested the Feb. 8 national election as independents after Khans party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, was barred from contesting over past irregularities. The legislators are part of the Sunni Ittehad Council, a religious group sanctioned by Khan after the election to get access to reserve seats. The group currently holds 84 seats in 336-member parliament. As a consequence of the verdict, the ruling alliance - which is set to lose 24 reserved seats - will weaken. The key stock index extended decline to as much as 1.8% before paring losses to 0.5% at 3pm local time. The government losing seats in the National Assembly would cause uncertainty in the market, Adnan Sami Sheikh, an analyst at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Co., said in Karachi The verdict could complicate the passage of key, government-backed legislation as it continues negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a new loan package. Currently, the ruling coalition has 209 members in the house and the courts decision means it will remain shy of the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution in order to pass critical legislation. Though a setback for government allies, there is no immediate threat to this coalition government, said Memoona Tanveer, head of corporate and high net worth individuals at Dawood Equities Ltd. The market can be negative for a few sessions but it will recover, said Tanveer. Even though the Supreme Courts verdict strengthens Khans hand, he himself continues to languish in prison, and faces about 200 cases stemming from his time in office and after he was removed from power in 2022 by a parliamentary vote. Khan denies all allegations and accuses the countrys powerful military and the US of orchestrating his ouster - a charge denied by both. (Updates with market movement) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. 'Incomprehensible to the average human': Gene Meyer sentenced to prison for 1988 sexual assault and murder of Betty Rolf APPLETON Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark Schroeder said Gene Meyer will more than likely spend the rest of his life in prison for the 1988 sexual assault and murder of Betty Rolf. After Meyer's sentencing hearing Thursday, Rolf's family members appeared relieved and gave each other hugs, many of them wearing matching T-shirts with an image of Rolf and the caption "Justice for Betty." They had waited more than 35 years for the closure. "We got justice today for my mother," Rolf's daughter, Sheila Wurm, told The Post-Crescent. Rolf was 60 years old when, on a walk to work the morning of Nov. 6, 1988, she was sexually assaulted and killed. Rolf worked at Country Aire Banquet Room, 2311 W. Spencer St. in the town of Grand Chute, under a mile's walk from her home on the 1300 block of the same road. Her body was located the next day underneath the Spencer Street bridge, behind a concrete abutment by the railroad tracks. Rolf was found partially clothed. She had been beaten and strangled with the strap of her purse. For more than three decades, police had few leads to identifying Rolf's killer. Then, investigators identified Meyer through a familial DNA search, and determined the odds were around 25 octillion to one that DNA taken from Rolf's body belonged to Meyer. In 2022, Meyer was arrested in Washington, where he had been living since shortly after Rolf's murder. Meyer, now 68, was convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault with use of a dangerous weapon after a seven-day trial in May. At the time of Rolf's homicide, he was 32. Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis said Meyer had no idea who Rolf was, and merely attacked her in a "sexually motivated" crime. "The amount of anger and violence that he perpetuated on a completely unknown person is ... incomprehensible to the average human," Tempelis said. Three family members made statements at the sentencing hearing. They requested their names and information not be shared in the media. Tempelis said it is challenging for most members of Rolf's family to speak in front of a courtroom full of people about the impact of her brutal homicide. "We're looking at 36 years of grieving and the impact it has had on multiple generations of Betty's family," Tempelis said. Rolf's murder also affected the community, Tempelis said, instilling fear over a seemingly random, unsolved act of violence. "People remember that day. People in the community who don't know the Rolfs remember that day," she said. During the trial, Meyer's public defenders, Ian Mevis and Jennifer Kelley, argued sufficient evidence did not exist to prove that Meyer sexually assaulted and murdered Rolf only that Rolf and Meyer had sexual contact at some point in the days before Rolf's death. Although Meyer was convicted on both charges, his attorneys have filed a motion for a new trial. Schroeder said future court proceedings will happen before he makes a ruling on that motion, but he denied a request by the defense attorneys to push the sentencing date back. Meyer chose not to make any statement before he was sentenced. Schroeder said he would not hold Meyer's silence against him, considering future court hearings will still take place. Schroeder sentenced Meyer to the prosecution's recommendation on the homicide charge of life in prison with eligibility for parole after 34 years, and a consecutive 20 years in prison on the sexual assault charge. RELATED: Gene Meyer found guilty of sexually assaulting, murdering Betty Rolf in 1988 RELATED: Cold case trial begins for man accused in sexual assault, murder of Appleton's Betty Rolf in 1988 Because Rolf's assault and murder was in 1988, the crimes Meyer was charged and convicted of and the sentencing structure are different than they would be had the crime been committed today. Wisconsin law did not allow for anyone to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole until 1995. But attorneys agreed that, especially considering health issues Meyer faces, he is not likely to live until that release eligibility date. Mevis had requested Meyer be eligible for release after 20 years. He explained that Meyer is no longer a threat to the public, and had no history of violence in his past besides the convictions in this case. Mevis also painted a picture of Meyer's history, including that he experienced abuse and trauma in childhood. Although Schroeder agreed that Meyer is not likely a threat to society today and has rehabilitative needs to address trauma in his past, the judge said the factors carrying the most weight in his sentencing decision were the gravity of the offense and punishment to Meyer. "The reality is that Betty Rolf was attacked, she was beaten and she was murdered. And she was left under the bridge as if she were a piece of refuse instead of a human being," Schroder said. "Those are the facts." A status hearing to continue addressing the defense's motions is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 18. 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: Gene Meyer sentenced for 1988 cold-case murder of Betty Rolf Attorney Lori Rook, State Treasurer Vivek Malek, state Rep. Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig are facing off in the Republican primary for the Missouri Treasurer's office (Annelise Hanshaw and Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent). Missouri State Treasurer Vivek Malek is facing a trio of Republicans running full-fledged campaigns to unseat him in the GOP primary next month, as the first-time candidate vies to earn a full term in the office he was appointed to in 2022. Malek faces off with state Sen. Andrew Koenig, state Rep. Cody Smith and attorney Lori Rook, with all four doing their best to flex their conservative credentials in a state that hasnt elected a Democrat to a statewide office since 2018. The winner of the primary will face Democrat Mark Osmack and Libertarian John A. Hartwig Jr. in November. But while they all agree on many issues, how they would run the office if elected reveals key differences. Vivek Malek Malek touts growth in multiple programs in his under two years in office. Throughout this short tenure, he has reiterated the importance of promoting all of the offices offerings. In his first year, the treasurers office beat the previous years record for the amount returned in unclaimed property, with $51.8 million returned to people, up from $50.2 million. Malek also set a record for the amount doled out to Missourians through MOBUCK$, a low-interest loan program advertised for small businesses and farmers using linked-deposit loans. After loaning $539 million in a year, with a cap at $800 million, the legislature passed a law at Maleks request to raise the cap to $1.2 billion. An application window for the MOBUCK$ program this January closed within hours as spots filled up with qualified loans. Malek said he is trying to ensure the program is open to smaller business owners by lowering the maximum loan amount available under MOBUCK$. Previously, the program offered $10 million loans. In August, the amount will be capped at $2 million. He also touts growth in savings programs MO ABLE, an investment account for people with disabilities, and MOST, which invests savings for education purposes. MO ABLE accounts grew by 13.7% in 2023, and the portfolios assets grew by 25%. MO ABLE is a growing program, first authorized by the state legislature in 2015. MOSTs assets grew by 13% in 2023, slightly below the national average of 15%, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve. Malek took office months after the MOScholars program was established. MOScholars provides a mechanism for taxpayers to direct general revenue funds into K-12 scholarships largely used for private school tuition, and it is managed by the treasurer. The program had $9 million in tax credits reserved in 2022 and $16.6 million in 2023, its second year of fundraising. In 2023, the program struggled with a funding cycle out of pace with the school year and demand for scholarships overwhelming funds. Malek believes he is the best fundraiser for the program, citing his own success raising money for his campaign. If (other candidates) think they are going to be such great fundraisers, why havent they been able to do that for their campaign? he told The Independent. I dont have to prove myself on that point. While Malek boasts about his fundraising prowess, much of his war chest has come from money he loaned himself or from his former employer. Malek has received over $1.6 million to his campaign, $800,000 of which is a loan from himself, and has $1.3 million on hand as of the April quarterly report. The pro-Malek PAC American Promise has received nearly $1.5 million in contributions, with $1.23 million on hand. Pacifica Consulting Services, which was registered to Malek before becoming treasurer, has donated $1.8 million to the PAC. His campaign messaging has included promises to stand up to the woke agenda and prevent the states investments from being used for environmental, social and governance aspects. These concepts, often abbreviated as ESG, measure a companys environmental and social impact and have received pushback from right-wing groups. The investment of money has to have the sole purpose of getting the best rate of return on investments, Malek said. A company with ESG policies wouldnt immediately be ruled out if it is a solid investment, he said, saying there is a ranking system if he believes it would be a poor investment. But he worries that environmental, social and governance metrics have tentacles to reach into the system. Malek has ideas for new initiatives, like working with the legislature to create a mandatory personal finance course for high schoolers. He would also like to create investment opportunities for small municipalities. Before being appointed treasurer, Melek was an attorney, with his St. Louis law firm focusing on immigration, naturalization and asylum. In his latest campaign TV ad, shot at the Mexican border, Malek proclaims a strict stance on immigration and vows to support policies to fortify the southern border and continue divesting from foreign adversaries. In December, he influenced the Missouri State Employees Retirement Fund to remove investments from companies based in China. It does not make any sense to strengthen our adversaries, he told The Independent. Anything that we are investing not only strengthens them but also puts our investments at risk. He was born in India and moved to Missouri to study business at Southeast Missouri State University. He holds an undergraduate law degree from Maharshi Dayanand University and, in addition to his masters degree in business, has a master of law from the University of Illinois. Cody Smith Smith, a state representative from Carthage, has been chairman of the influential House budget committee for six years, giving him massive influence over how Missouri spends taxpayer money. That has taught me a lot about the states finances, a lot about the management of the state treasury and a lot about appropriation law, he told The Independent. Running for state treasurer, Smith said, gives him the opportunity to continue my work in public service and continue to implement common-sense fiscal policy that saves taxpayers money and increases transparency around the use of their taxpayers dollars. His transparency initiatives include enhancing the treasurers offices website to make it as user-friendly and detailed as possible. Smith also sees the potential for increased transparency in the low-income housing tax credits administered by the Missouri Housing Development Commission. The treasurer is one of 10 members of the commission. I think (the tax credits) would be more successful if more was known about how they work and how businesses and individuals are leveraging those programs across the state to build more affordable housing, he said. Smith is most interested in MOScholars, he said, and sees opportunity to increase awareness statewide of the program. There arent many folks that know about it, he said, and so I want to have those conversations and look for ways to cut through the noise. His knowledge of MOScholars, through his work in the legislature authorizing the program, and understanding of education finance will help him promote the program, he said. Number two on his list of priorities should he be elected treasurer would be fighting corruption and woke ideology. Smith defines woke as the trend that we see in society to put politics ahead of taxpayers interests and do things like virtue-signal on a particular issue rather than focus on the fundamentals of good governance. As applied to the treasurers office, this would look like avoiding ESG in investments. Im interested in investing with primarily financial institutions within Missouri that arent caught up in the modern political atmosphere where investments can be made for political purposes rather than for fiduciary responsibility, he said. In 2023, Smith proposed cutting state aid to libraries after the Missouri Library Association joined a lawsuit challenging a state law that placed regulations on how children can checkout books in an effort to avoid obscene content. The library conversation was one about the use of taxpayers dollars and if they were using taxpayer subsidies to fund the lawsuit that they were engaged in, he said, adding that he learned taxpayers were not funding the library associations involvement in the litigation. He doesnt anticipate a similar scenario happening to require intervention as treasurer, but he said he would prevent taxpayer funds from going toward organizations in active litigation against the state, should the occasion arise. Smiths campaign has raised about $723,000 in the past year, $176,000 of which was donated after he filed his campaign for treasurer. Ozark Leadership Gateway, the PAC supporting him, has raised $140,000 in the same time. Together, the two committees had $505,000 on hand as of their April filings. Smith has a background in banking and currently operates a business providing ultraviolet decontamination to health care facilities. He is on the Missouri Childrens Trust Fund Board, a state-sponsored nonprofit dedicated to the prevention of child abuse. Andrew Koenig Koenig, a state senator from Manchester, has been a top advocate for the MOScholars, sponsoring the proposal for years before finally winning passage in 2021. If elected, MOScholars would be a big focus, he told The Independent. During the 2024 legislative session, Koenig sponsored a bill that was signed into law expanding MOScholars statewide, giving larger scholarship amounts to students needing specialized services, raising the cap on family income to be eligible for the program and allowing more tax credits to be claimed for MOScholars donors. He sees potential for additional changes, like removing the requirement for background checks for parents in MOScholars and adding a state grant to match donations to the program. Koenig also would like to make the program more transparent, he said, after he struggled during the legislative session to get data on MOScholars. I want to raise as much money as possible so as many kids can get their scholarships and really get that program up and moving in a faster way and create some transparency in the program, he said. Koenig envisions going to schools to help fundraise for MOScholars to get the word out about the program, he said. His campaign messaging says he supports removing barriers to adoption, as he is an adoptive father himself. In the treasurers office, he could add a component to MOScholars geared toward foster children, he said. Like his opponents, he is opposed to ESG investing though it has been less of a focal point of his campaign. Koenig would push to ensure pension boards were not using these standards in their investments, he said. Even though I am further to the right than most of the legislature, Ive been proven to work with people and actually accomplish big, conservative things, he said. Ive repeatedly proven myself to be highly effective. Koenig is an independent insurance adjuster and has served in the state legislature since 2009. He has a bachelors degree in business administration from Lindenwood University. His campaign has raised $196,000 in the past year and the pro-Koenig PAC Freedoms Promise has amassed $983,000, though both committees fundraising in this campaign cycle is under $100,000. Between the two, Koenig had $181,000 on hand, as of April. Lori Rook Rook is a managing partner and attorney at Ozarks Elder Law in Springfield who has never run for public office before. Rooks campaign leans on a promise to bring accountability and make state spending easily trackable via a new website. The state currently has the Missouri Accountability Portal, which tracks government offices spending and employees salaries, but Rook wants a redesign that calls out hidden spending. Pulling from her experience in elder law, Rook promises to lead a program to help protect Missouris elderly from scams. She also wants to educate youth with a program for students on credit-card debt and predatory lending, according to her website. Rook labels herself a self-funded outsider with $500,000 of her nearly $540,000 raised coming as a loan from herself. As of April, she has only spent $31,000 of those funds. She has a bachelors degree in criminology from Missouri State University and a law degree from Oklahoma City University School of Law. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Indian opposition leader Kejriwal gets interim bail in graft case but stays in jail Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses supporters and members of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in New Delhi NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's Supreme Court granted interim bail on Friday to opposition leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a graft case, but he will stay in jail due to his arrest in another case. Kejriwal was arrested in March by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), India's financial crime-fighting agency, over alleged corruption in the city's alcohol sales policy. A fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a former anti-corruption crusader, Kejriwal, 55, denies any wrongdoing and calls the case politically motivated. His lawyers had challenged his arrest in the top court, which referred the matter to a larger bench while giving him temporary relief. "Given that right to life and liberty is sacrosanct, and Arvind Kejriwal has suffered incarceration for over 90 days ... we direct that Arvind Kejriwal will be released on interim bail," Justice Sanjiv Khanna said. However, Kejriwal remains in detention because of his arrest last month by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's federal police, in another corruption case related to the Delhi liquor policy. His counsel Vivek Jain told Indian news agency ANI that he will seek his release on bail in the CBI case at the Delhi High Court on July 17. Kejriwal's decade-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has quickly risen in mainstream politics and voted to power in Delhi and in the northern state of Punjab, but its clout is still relatively smaller than older parties. He was previously granted temporary bail by the top court for three weeks until June 2 to campaign in national elections. (Reporting by Arpan Chaturvedi and Shivam Patel; Editing by Kim Coghill and Raju Gopalakrishnan) MANILA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Over 3 million international tourists have visited the Philippines since January this year, according to the Philippines' Department of Tourism (DOT) data. Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said tourism revenue from January to June reached 282.17 billion pesos (about 4.83 billion U.S. dollars), 32.81 percent higher than the earnings recorded in the same period last year. As of July 10, Frasco said the Philippines welcomed 3,173,694 inbound tourists. Of the tourist arrivals, she said 92.55 percent, or 2,937,293, were foreign tourists while the remaining 7.45 percent, or 236,401, were overseas Filipinos. South Korea remains the Philippines' top source of foreign tourists, with 824,798, or 25.99 percent of the total number of visitors entering the country. The United States came second with 522,667 (16.47 percent), followed by China with 199,939 (6.30 percent), Japan with 188,805 (5.95 percent), and Australia with 137,391 (4.33 percent). The Philippines aims to welcome 7.7 million international visitors this year. In 2023, over 5 million international visitors entered the country. A drug dealer from Indiana County was sentenced to prison Friday. According to Indiana County District Attorney Robert Manzi Jr., Sterling Friel, 26, was sentenced to a minimum of 19 months and a maximum of five years in a state correctional institution. Friel pleaded guilty to possession with intent to delivery 10 to 50 grams of cocaine, officials said. In June 2023, members of the Indiana Borough Police Department, Indiana County Drug Task Force and the Indiana County Sheriffs Office conducted a controlled purchase of narcotics. We will continue our aggressive investigations and prosecutions into drug trafficking within our county. Our task force continues to work with confidential informants, advanced technology and intelligence sharing throughout Western Pennsylvania. My best advise is stop selling that poison said Manzi. Our partners within the Indiana County Drug Task Force, including the Indiana Borough Police and Indiana County Sheriffs Office, are committed to continuing the fight against drug traffickers. Their work makes our community safer. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: ALF child actor Benji Gregory found dead with his service dog in car Primanti Bros. giving free sandwich to fans with mustache in honor of Paul Skenes All-Star selection PennDOT plan could fix traffic issues, reduce crashes on Parkway West near Fort Pitt Tunnel VIDEO: Police looking to identify suspect in Downtown Pittsburgh assault DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Indiana's governor and attorney general have asked to set an execution date for Fort Wayne's Joseph Corcoran, who was convicted in a 1997 quadruple homicide. (Courthouse photo from Allen County and mugshot from public record. Photo illustration by Casey Smith/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Attorneys for Indiana death row inmate Joseph Corcoran appealed the states request for an execution date on Thursday, maintaining that he is unquestionably seriously mentally ill and therefore should not be subject to the death penalty. Corcoran, who was convicted of murdering four people in Fort Wayne in 1997, filed his response with the Indiana Supreme Court two weeks after Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita announced that the states Department of Correction (DOC) has obtained the drug necessary to carry out the death penalty. State and federal public defenders said in their challenge that Corcoran has long been diagnosed as mentally ill and continues to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia that causes him to experience persistent hallucinations and delusions. As such, they said the state supreme court should deny the motion to set an execution date and hear oral arguments on whether executing Corcoran who they describe as unquestionably seriously mentally ill would be permitted under the Indiana and United States constitutions. An unspeakable tragedy took the lives of four people who unquestionably deserved to live, Corcorans lawyers said in Thursdays filing. This tragedy, however, has a nexus to a serious mental illness that persists through. There is still no execution date set for Corcoran. Its now up to the states high court justices how to proceed. Does mental illness preclude Corcoran? Corcorans public defenders specifically pointed to the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which restricts capital punishment to offenders who commit a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution. They noted, too, that individuals with severe mental illness, particularly those whose mental illness results in psychosis, like Corcoran, have many of the same features as juveniles and those with intellectual disabilities whom the United States Supreme Court rendered the death penalty as disproportionate punishment. Corcorans public defenders said he has consistently been diagnosed with a severe mental illness. They recalled that multiple experts testified in Corcorans trial that his mental illness prevents him from making rational decisions. They additionally argued that Corcorans overwhelming desire to escape his psychiatric symptoms likely led him to waive his earlier opportunities for appeals. Story continues below. Response to Motion to Set Execut (2) Corcoran would have avoided the death penalty altogether were it not for his mental illness which affected the decision-making process during Corcorans legal proceedings, his attorneys told Indianas Supreme Court justices. Corcorans lawyers also made the case that his symptoms of schizophrenic hallucinations and delusions existed even before the murders. They further referenced previous expert testimony from Dr. Phillip Coons, who said Corcorans ultimate refusal to accept either a plea bargain or a bench trial without the death penalty was a product of his mental illness. Moreover, a national consensus has emerged against executing the severely mentally ill, Corcorans attorneys continued. Every other contiguous death penalty state in this area of the Midwest has banned the death penalty for the seriously mentally ill. Many other states have also introduced bills to ban the death penalty or execution for people with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, the attorneys added. There is a regional consensus clearly established in this area of the Midwest as well as an emerging national consensus to ban the death penalty for the seriously mentally ill, they said in Corcorans filing with the state supreme court. An Ohio statute that took effect in early 2021, for example, prohibits the death penalty for defendants who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and whose mental illness significantly impaired the persons capacity to exercise rational judgment in relation to the persons conduct. The Ohio legislature specified that an offenders condition does not need to meet the standard to be found not guilty by reason of insanity or the standard to be found incompetent to stand trial. Kentucky followed in early 2022 with a law exempting offenders with active symptoms and a documented history, including a diagnosis from the death penalty. Corcorans counsel emphasized that one of the listed mental illnesses in Kentucky is schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Corcorans lawyers said Indiana also recognized this consensus in the case against Elijah Dorsey, who earlier this year was convicted in the killing of an Indianapolis police officer. Although Marion County prosecutors had sought the death penalty, they ultimately dismissed it after Dorsey was deemed mentally ill and ineligible for the death penalty. Ongoing questions about execution drug Corcorans legal counsel also called into question the execution drug, pentobarbital, recently acquired by the state but largely shrouded in secrecy by Hoosier officials. When asked last month by the Indiana Capital Chronicle where DOC acquired the drug and how much the state paid, Holcomb said he cant go into those details, by law. Lawmakers made information about the source of the drugs confidential on the last day of the 2017 legislative session. The Capital Chronicle has filed an official records request seeking the cost of the drugs. Advocates have additionally said its critical for the public to know who will be administering the drug and how as well as what training those individuals will receive. The State moved for a date after, at some point, most likely recently, acquiring drugs from some unknown source. While a secrecy statute is in place, the date should not be set until the State delivers the new protocol and affirms no state or federal laws were broken in obtaining the drugs. A secrecy statute cannot condone the illegal acquisition of controlled substances, Corcrans attorneys said. There has been no disclosure regarding the amount of the drug in their possession, whether they are expired, or their potency and sterility. The State should provide the Court and Corcoran this information. This can and should be done in a manner that complies with the secrecy statute prior to this Court permitting the execution to proceed. The one-drug method is a departure from the states protocol used since 1995, involving a series of three chemicals. Although no state-level executions in Indiana have used pentobarbital before, 13 federal executions carried out at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute have been carried out with the drug. Fourteen states have used pentobarbital in executions, too. After Indianas last execution in 2009, the state was effectively forced to pause. Increased scrutiny of lethal injection drugs led pharmaceutical companies to refuse to sell their products for use in executions. Holcomb said that made acquiring the necessary drugs harder to get. There are currently eight men on Indianas death row, including Corcoran. No one has been added to the states death row since 2014. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The Indiana Department of Child Services' Rachel Russell, ethics officer, and Aaron Atwell, chief of staff, appear before the Indiana Ethics Commission on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Indianapolis. (Leslie Bonilla Muniz/Indiana Capital Chronicle) The Indiana Ethics Commission on Thursday unanimously voted, 3-0, to allow a high-ranking Department of Child Services (DCS) staffer to take a job with a major contractor. Chief of Staff Aaron Atwell who has also worked as DCS chief financial officer has been offered a job as the chief financial officer of The Villages, a nonprofit child and family service provider. The Villages has had more than 100 state contracts, amendments or renewals worth a combined $231 million since 2006, per a Capital Chronicle review of the Indiana Transparency Portals public contract database. Atwell first sought an informal opinion from Indianas Office of Inspector General (OIG). When asked by OIG attorney Hope Blankenburger whether he could confirm that his compensation at The Villages wouldnt come from a state agency, Atwell wrote that DCS contracts are a primary resource for The Villages, per the commissions meeting packet. DCS Ethics Officer Rachel Russell then requested a formal opinion from the commission, housed within the OIG, on Blankenburgers recommendation. Atwell told the commission that The Villages didnt approach him about the job. Instead, he saw the posting and applied. Ethics questions Conflict of interest provisions in Indiana Code ban employees from participating in any decisions or votes on a subject if theyve got a financial interest in the topic, or have begun negotiations over a prospective job. DCS executed a conflict of interest screen on June 6 barring Atwell from participating in any decisions, votes, contracts or other matters involving The Villages, along with other restrictions, according to the commissions meeting packet. The agency filed the screen with the OIG. DCS filed a conflict of interest disclosure, which discusses the screen, with the commission on June 11. Commission members said they had no concerns with the screen. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US Indiana law also includes a one-year cooling off period prohibiting departing employees from becoming lobbyists and from joining employers with whom they interacted while working for the state. The ban applies to employees who negotiated or administered a contract and who were in a position to make a discretionary decision affecting the outcome of the contract negotiation or administration. Russell assured the commission that Atwells new role would include no lobbying. Atwell told commissioners that the contracts are awarded in a competitive bidding process. Employee teams throughout DCS put together the requests for proposals and the scoring systems. Atwell said that means he was not involved in scoring proposals or the outcomes of such competitive bidding processes, and that he wasnt in a position to make such discretionary decisions. The law also prevents former state employers from working on 12 particular matters in which they were involved while working for the state. That ban applies for the life of the application, contract, lawsuit, license, or other matter. Atwell confirmed to the commission that he has worked on no qualifying particular matters while at DCS. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX A man uses a laptop. (Mayur Kakade/Getty Images) The Indiana Office of the Inspector General last month cleared two state employees a supervisor and a subordinate of alleged ghost employment and more. But the office recommended that the Management Performance Hub, which employs the pair, take steps to avoid the future appearance of impropriety. The OIG received an anonymous complaint last August alleging that the hub let a subordinate attend an out-of-state conference unrelated to her duties, that she didnt attend the conference and that for about a year she was rarely in the office. The complaint also accused the supervisor of violating a remote work agreement and misappropriating state funds. OIG Special Agent Sam Stearley found that the supervisor let the subordinate attend the data software conference because he wanted her to learn how to use it. The hub paid for the rooms and reimbursed both employees for the flights, like it did with its other employee attendees. A hub employee told Stearley none of the attendees saw the subordinate attend any sessions. But the hub also didnt require sign-up sheets or any other way to document attendance. The OIG, per a June 19 investigative report from staff attorney Doreen Clark, found no evidence that any hub employees misused state dollars to attend the conference. The agency also didnt find evidence that either employee knowingly solicited, accepted or got any kind of gift from outside entities hoping to influence their actions: the hub purchased tickets to the conference for its employees, minus a free ticket from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. Outside the conference A hub employee told Stearley that when the State Personnel Department let the subordinate work from home due to health issues she typically spent less than three days a week in the office for the next year. The employee also said the supervisor didnt come into the office for about a month in summer of 2022, citing illness, and logging on for just two hours daily. Stearley found the hub doesnt require its employees to complete remote work logs, and that it had no remote work agreements on file for either the subordinate or the supervisor. Timesheets revealed that the subordinate indeed reported most of her regular work hours for the year in question as remote, and used holiday and sick time when not working. The supervisor, meanwhile, took accrued time off several times throughout July 2022. In August 2022, he reported being sick daily but still recorded between 2 and 5 hours of remote work each workday. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US The OIG said it wasnt able to prove the employees were doing something other than their jobs during work hours because there were no remote work logs that wouldve allowed investigators to track or correlate work hours and activities. And it didnt find enough evidence that either employee intentionally accepted payment for hours they didnt work, given that they used accrued time off when not working and noted when they worked remotely. Next steps The report also said the office learned of additional allegations involving the supervisor and subordinate but they were outside state jurisdiction. The OIG recommended that the hub require remote work logs for employees who work remotely, and that managers evaluate them regularly. That would permit both employees and their managers to keep track and manage their amount of work in correlation with the amount of time worked remotely, Clark wrote. The agency also recommended that the hub track employee attendance at future events, like a remote work log or a sign-up sheet. Keeping track of the employees attendance at conferences or outside events will leave little room for doubt or speculation regarding who may or may not have attended, Clark added. The OIG said it released the report publicly in hopes that other state agencies would adopt the recommendations. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX U.S. Rep. Jim Banks will be the only elected Hoosier official to speak at the 2024 Republican National Convention. (Nathan Gotsch/Fort Wayne Politics) U.S. Rep. Jim Banks will give a primetime speech at next weeks Republican National Convention, putting him on the same stage as major GOP politicians and signaling his continued rise within the party. Indianas Third District Congressman is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday on Banks 45th birthday. Hes expected to discuss his role in a new generation of conservative leadership and his fight to ensure that Republicans remain the party of the working class during his remarks. Banks who has working-class roots himself recently described to Politico his childhood growing up in a trailer park, for example. He emphasized that he also went to a public school and state college, shops at Walmart, and struggled during the pandemic because he and his wife couldnt afford full-time childcare. Hes expected to be Indianas only working GOP official to speak at the convention, though former GOP Chair Anne Hathaway will play a significant role as one of Indianas two Republican National Committeemen. The congressman is currently seeking Indianas open U.S. Senate seat. He easily secured the Republican nomination in May. He was ultimately unopposed on the primary ballot after Seymour egg farmer John Rust was removed. A GOP favorite, Banks earned an endorsement from Trump in early 2023 the former presidents first of the cycle. Hell face Democrat Dr. Valerie McCray, a clinical psychologist, as well as Libertarian Andrew Horning in the November general election. The Senate seat is being vacated by Republican Mike Braun, who secured the GOP nomination in Indianas gubernatorial race and will now face Democrat Jennifer McCormick and Libertarian Donald Rainwater in November. If elected, Banks will be one of the youngest lawmakers in the U.S. Senate. Republican lawmakers, delegates and other party figures will gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin July 15 to 18 to officially name former President Donald Trump the GOP nominee and see him announce his running mate. A detailed schedule of speakers has not yet been released, but the convention has historically provided leading party figures and up-and-coming GOP lawmakers valuable airtime to speak about the partys platform. RNC co-chair Lara Trump has additionally promised a number of surprise celebrity guest speakers, including model Amber Rose, as well as Sean OBrien, leader of the Teamsters union. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will also be speaking, though former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is not expected to attend. Both Republicans challenged Trump for the party nomination before bowing out of the race when they failed to secure primary wins. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Indiana wants to execute Joseph Corcoran. Here's why his attorneys say it would be wrong The Indiana Supreme Court should deny a request to set a date for the execution of convicted murderer Joseph E. Corcoran and, instead, determine whether the state and U.S. constitutions prohibit his execution due his "serious mental illness," the condemned man's attorneys said in a filing Thursday. The brief filed with the state's highest court by attorneys for Corcoran came in response to a June 26 request from Gov. Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita to set a date for his execution, which would be the first in Indiana since 2009. Holcomb said the Indiana Department of Correction has now acquired a drug to carry out lethal 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. The governor said he believes the death penalty, and resuming executions, will discourage particularly gruesome violent acts. Corcoran, 49, of Allen County was sentenced to death in 1999 for fatally shooting four people on July 26, 1997. He has been held on Death Row at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City longer than all but two of the seven other men facing the death penalty in Indiana. Joseph E. Corcoran: Allen County man who killed four is first in line when Indiana resumes executions Joseph E. Corcoran is one of eight men on Death row in Indiana. Corcoran is being represented in the case by two attorneys from Public Defenders of Indiana and a federal public defender. "An unspeakable tragedy took the lives of four people who unquestionably deserved to live," Corcoran's attorney noted. "This tragedy, however, has a nexus to a serious mental illness that persists through today." The attorneys said the state previously conceded Corcoran was mentally ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. And they say his mental illness persists. "No one contests that Corcoran suffers from a mental illness. This is clear from his delusion that prison guards torture him daily with an ultrasound machine, his conversations with individuals who are not there, and his delusion that he suffers from an involuntary speech disorder," they wrote. In fact, the attorneys said, Corcoran could have avoided the death penalty initially "if not for his mental illness which affected the decision-making process" during his initial prosecution. Corcorans ultimate refusal to accept either a plea bargain or a bench trial without the death penalty," the response said, "was a product of his mental illness. Corcoran's attorneys said the state's high court also must determine if the state and federal constitutions even permit the execution of a person with a severe mental illness. They note the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution "restricts the ultimate sanction of capital punishment 'to those offenders who commit a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution.'" Indiana Death Row: Eight killers facing death penalty held at Indiana State Prison They said the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated the key question is not whether offenders knew right from wrong or were legally competent, but rather does a mental impairment make it less defensible to impose the death penalty as retribution for past crimes and less likely that the death penalty will have a real deterrent effect? Laws enacted in Ohio in 2019 and Kentucky in 2022 prohibit the implementation of the death penalty for offenders with severe or active mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. Corcoran attorneys also raised concerns about a secrecy statute enacted by state lawmakers to protect the drug protocol and source of drugs used for lethal injections, an issue that was partially responsible for the state halting executions over the last 14 years. No execution date should be set "until the State delivers the new protocol and affirms no state or federal laws were broken in obtaining the drugs," Corcoran's attorneys said. "A secrecy statute cannot condone the illegal acquisition of controlled substances. There has been no disclosure regarding the amount of the drug in their possession, whether they are expired, or their potency and sterility," the attorneys argue. "Thus, the State should provide the Court and Corcoran this information. This can and should be done in a manner that complies with the secrecy statute prior to this Court permitting the execution to proceed." This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Here's why attorneys say Indiana should not execute Joseph E. Corcoran FILE PHOTO: Rahul Gandhi gestures during a media briefing at the party headquarters in New Delhi FILE PHOTO: Rahul Gandhi gestures during a media briefing at the party headquarters in New Delhi By Manoj Kumar NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's main opposition Congress party asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to impose an additional tax on the country's billionaires to generate funds for stretched public services like education and health. The annual budget will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 at a time of deepening income inequality and high unemployment despite India's world-beating economic growth of nearly 8% and booming stock markets. Jairam Ramesh, senior Congress party leader, said in a post on X that a 2% tax on the wealth of India's estimated 167 billionaires could raise as much as 1.5 trillion rupees ($18 billion) or about 0.5% of gross domestic product. "This could pay for schools, hospitals, renewable energy, and many more essential investments," he said, urging the government to tax the super-rich more. Wealth concentrated in the hands of the richest 1% of India's population is at its greatest level for six decades and its percentage share of national income exceeds that of countries including Brazil and the United States, research group the World Inequality Lab reported earlier this year. Opposition parties are pressing the government to take steps to increase spending on welfare programmes after Modi lost his majority in parliament and had to rely on coalition allies to return to office for the third time. Government officials earlier ruled out the possibility of taxing the wealth of the ultra-rich, arguing it could encourage them to move to low-tax countries. Congress also asked Modi to clarify what would be India's position at the G20 meeting in Brazil later this month on the issue of supporting a global tax on billionaires, a proposal pushed by Brazil, which holds the G20 presidency this year. Brazil's proposal, crafted by French economist Gabriel Zucman from the independent EU Tax Observatory, calls for an annual 2% levy on fortunes exceeding $1 billion, which could raise up to $250 billion annually from about 3,000 individuals. ($1 = 83.5066 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Manoj Kumar; editing by Mark Heinrich) Indigenous man missing since July 3 may have been traveling to Denver: CBI DENVER (KDVR) Law enforcement says a 36-year-old Indigenous man from Wyoming has not been seen since July 3. Dimitri Robb Gould was reportedly traveling to Denver from Wyoming to visit friends and possibly relocate to the area. He hasnt been seen since July 3, according to the Denver Police Department. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation shared images of Dimitri Gould, 36, of Wyoming, who was reportedly visiting Denver and last seen on July 3, 2024. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation shared images of Dimitri Gould, 36, of Wyoming, who was reportedly visiting Denver and last seen on July 3, 2024. Gould is an Indigenous man affiliated with the Northern Arapaho Tribe. Hes described as being 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes and a goatee. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Anyone who sees Gould should call 911 or the Denver police at 720-913-2000. 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. SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) Members of the influential San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) have announced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris if President Joe Biden bows out of his reelection bid. In an open letter Friday, the DCCC stopped short of calling for Biden to exit the race but called Harris the person best prepared to step in to lead and protect his legacy. The open letter signed by 7 members of the DCCC was submitted to Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, urging the DNC to consider Harris, should Biden step aside. Our party has fought to undo the work of the first Trump administration. If Donald Trump is re-elected President, he will take our country into a dark age. On abortion rights. On climate change. On LGBTQIA+ rights. On international security. On the basic freedoms that define our great nation. Unequivocally, Donald Trump cannot be the President again, said San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey and an elected member of the SF DCCC. No indication Australian CEO was assaulted in San Francisco, SFPD says In the letter, the members note their admiration for Biden and what hes achieved in his first term in office while striking a cautious note about the path forward. We cannot risk turning the clock back on the progress President Biden has made for America the stakes are too high, said DCCC member Bilal Mahmood. If President Biden chooses not to run, Vice President Kamala Harris is clearly the best prepared to step in to lead and protect his legacy, said DCCC member Joe Sangirardi. With only months until Election Day, we need to take decisive action now in order to build the necessary momentum to win. If President Biden decides to step down as the Nominee for President, this is the moment in which the Party should unite around a candidate who can best carry that torch, said elected SF DCCC member Parag Gupta. We believe that begins with Kamala Harris. Harris, who began her political career in San Francisco, serving as district attorney, is polling even with former President Donald Trump, according to Reuters. While President Biden is polling even, or even ahead of Trump in some polls, there has been intense scrutiny on his reelection chances since last months disastrous debate showing. On Thursday, Biden held a high-profile press conference where, despite at times displaying his acknowledged mastery of foreign policy, he made several gaffes, including referring to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. Prior to the speech, he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin. On Friday, California House member Mike Levin became the latest Democrat to call on Biden to exit the race. According to Reuters, Rep. Levin spoke to Biden directly on a virtual call Friday and told him it was time for someone else to lead. 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. Dry cleaner struggles to survive in empty downtown L.A. skyscraper. Welcome to the zombie economy A little before 8 one summer morning, the canyons of downtown Los Angeles still hold the cool of night. Santiago Lopez walks down 6th Street into the deep and familiar shade of a high-rise lofting above him between Hope and Grand. If any homeless resident bedded down beneath the buildings generous overhang, security has cleared them out. Lopez unlocks the door to Cleaners Depot. Hes pushing 10 years at a dry cleaner that's just like any other dry cleaner in any other town, except this is downtown Los Angeles and it's one of the few here. He wonders how much longer hell last. Since the pandemic, the service sector has been struggling. Sidewalks are quieter. Elevators are less packed, offices are experiencing record vacancies, and few buildings are emptier than his, 611 Place, still known as AT&T Center. A 42-story high-rise, 611 Place, is empty but for three small businesses on the street level. s. Referred to in real estate parlance as a zombie building, this 42-story giant, a modernist masterpiece from the late 1960s designed by William Pereira, is a hollow shell devoid of tenants but for three small businesses on the ground floor. Sheets of plywood, painted and repainted in shades of brown, have replaced the floor-to-ceiling windows that front the sidewalk. A skeleton crew watches over the marble-and-granite lobby, where elevators once whisked tenants and guests to offices and appointments high above the street. If there are any zombies, theyve all turned to ghosts. Settling into his routine, Lopez preps a few pressed shirts on hangers, first covering them with paper garment covers, then plastic bags. The air conditioning has been out for years. Hes turned on a small fan. A resident of Boyle Heights, Lopez, 36, has worked downtown long enough to recognize the ebb and flow: how businesses boomed in the early 2000s, tanked after 2008, recovered in the late teens. But today the aftermath of COVID feels different. Downtown seems perched as if on a teeter-totter, between recovery and failure. Don Kohan helps employee Santiago Lopez sort through garments. Don Kohan, the owner of Cleaners Depot, has seen little bounce-back in the last four years. Among his three cleaners two downtown and one in Century City business is off about 60% since peaking in 2019, he said. Im just breaking even with the stores downtown, he said, but I cant close them or Ill have three families without income. He feels an obligation to Lopez, who lives with his parents and has a fiancee, as well as to another employee, Abel Nunez, and to the manager of his other downtown store. Kohan opened Cleaners Depot on 6th Street in 2003 when the ground floor was bustling with a florist, a stationery store, a restaurant and a bank. One by one they fell. The building's last major tenant the Social Security Administration moved out during the pandemic. The mystery of the abandonment is compounded by the privacy of its owner. Garments hang on a conveyor belt at Cleaners Depot, which has been struggling since the COVID-19 pandemic. When a reporter called the building management company, Metcom, the person who answered declined to confirm the name of his employer (maybe, he said) and referred to Google for any information about the property before abruptly hanging up. 611 Places owner is listed as Joseph Chetrit, a media-shy New York-based real estate developer whose holdings in Los Angeles include the Clark Hotel on Hill Street and the Trinity Hotel on Grand Avenue, both empty and boarded up, zombies as well. If Chetrit is hoping that property values will increase as the neighborhood improves, he might be waiting awhile. Since the pandemic, the high-rise market in downtown Los Angeles has cratered. Working remotely delivered the first blow, while rising crime and persistent homelessness have kept new tenants away. Cleaners Depot is on the ground floor of a 42-story high- rise, 611 Place, which is nearly empty. Cleaners Depot is joined by two other tenants on the ground floor: an optometrist and Dental Arts Dentistry (Dentistry Youll Never Regret), which has been here almost as long as the cleaner. Its offices are conspicuously well-lighted and welcoming, despite a locked front door. After the George Floyd protests in 2020 left many panes broken, plywood went up. Dr. Han Tak successfully argued with the building management to have it removed from her windows. She didn't like the boarded-up look. Today, she and her husband, who also practices here, are considering a move to Pasadena when their lease is up next year. A nostalgia, if not sadness, inhabits spaces like the lobby of 611 Place where once was hope, promise, prosperity and even now, a reminder of what downtown was and aspired to be. But bank mergers and antitrust regulations have changed the course of this empire. Built on the site of the Savoy Hotel, 611 Place was the corporate headquarters for Crocker-Citizens National Bank until a Japanese real estate company purchased the building in 1982, and AT&T became the anchor tenant. Chetrit purchased the building years later and for a time planned to turn it into condominiums. Cleaners Depot employee Abel Nunez carts a rack of clean garments to a downtown customer. At 10 a.m., Lopez is joined by Nunez, who arrives with clothes he picked up from the Omni Hotel. The two men separate fluff-and-fold from dry cleaning and stuff orders into black bags that Nunez carries to a van. Hes headed to a cleaning plant near USC. Alone again, Lopez lets the late mornings languid pace take hold. Buses roar down 6th Street. Voices drift in from the sidewalk. Skateboarders clatter by. Hello, welcome says the automatic greeting when a customer trips the front-door sensor. The walk-ins drift in throughout the day. Ones the owner of a security business who needs two suits cleaned. Anothers an office manager for a law firm needing table cloths cleaned. With earbuds in, most are talking on the phone, conducting business with Lopez through pantomime. Steady clients include USC's Keck School of Medicine and the Federal Reserve. Others are downtown residents or employees of law firms or financial institutions that have not relocated, as so many have, to Century City, Westwood or Beverly Hills. Cleaners Depot employee Santiago Lopez, left, pulls garments out of a van driven by owner Don Kohan, right. Some people walk in just to talk to someone, and sometimes their intentions are less innocent. Last month, a man grabbed unclaimed clothes off a for-sale rack near the front door and took off down the sidewalk. Lopez ran him down and took them back. He hangs customer clothes deeper inside the shop. Downtown has become sketchier, said Lopez, who is on guard for any unwanted intrusions. He keeps a pocket knife in his left pants pocket. Ive never had to use it, he said, but youve got to be ready. One day, he came to work to find the shop had been robbed, uniforms from the Federal Reserve stolen. Another time, a man broke into the store at 3 a.m. A surveillance camera caught him watching pornography on the stores computer. Once, someone came in and tried to make off with a computer monitor by the front door. Every day is an adventure, Lopez said. Santiago Lopez sorts garments at Cleaners Depot. If everything plays out, he'll have a different job in a year, operating medical imaging machines. Sunlight, now higher overhead, dapples the sidewalk with shadows from tall ficus trees. Through the front door, Lopez watches the comings and goings at the Subway sandwich shop across the street. He is taking classes at Pasadena City College and hopes to become a radiologist. If everything plays out, hell have a different job in a year, operating medical imaging machines. By noon, he has listened to a podcast hosted by entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David and is streaming Peaky Blinders when the owner arrives. Kohan, 65, is wearing a white short-sleeved shirt stitched with his first name and company logo the city skyline above the breast pockets. A black kippah covers his gray hair. His cellphone is holstered on his belt. Lopez meets him at the curb to help bring in new orders. Kohan, he said, is like an uncle to him. He is loyal to the point of being protective, sensitive that the business might be targeted because of Kohans Jewish faith. Born in Iran, Kohan came to the United States in the late 1970s and studied business management at Woodbury University downtown. When he graduated in 1980, his parents told him not to come back home. The 1979 Islamic Revolution had changed their lives. He and a friend opened a liquor store in Burbank, but that didnt suit him, so he turned to dry cleaning. After success in Century City, he opened the shop downtown, eyeing an opportunity to serve business suit-wearing attorneys and stockbrokers in the financial district. Morning turns to afternoon, and the sidewalk shadows begin lengthening again. Kohan leaves, and Lopez is left with the slowest hour, 1 to 2 p.m. Nunez returns with more clothes to be sorted. At 2 p.m., Kohan texts Lopez and tells him to close in an hour for building maintenance. Lopez is happy to head out early; he knows Kohan will pay him for the 10-hour shift. For the last call of the day, Lopez gathers up five bags of table linens for delivery to a law firm at City National Plaza, two blocks away. Cleaners Depot employee Santiago Lopez works inside on the ground floor of a 42-story high-rise. "Every day is an adventure," he says. Hardly a zombie this property is nearly fully leased the sparkling lobby is alive with comings and goings. Two smartly uniformed security staffers register visitors at a long, white marble desk anchored by an arrangement of lilies and gladiolas. Lopez takes an escalator down a floor, walks past the barber shop and shoeshine stand and opens the door to the freight elevator. Its operator logs him in and takes him to the 27th floor. Ears pop. A little before 3 p.m., Lopez is back at the cleaners. He loads up his daypack, turns off the flashing OPEN sign, steps outside and locks the door before disappearing into the streets. 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. BROWN COUNTY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Investigators in Brown County are searching for a driver accused of hitting a pedestrian then fleeing the scene. The crash happened at mile marker 578 of Highway 67 just east of Bangs around 12:45 a.m. June 28. A press release from the Brown county Sheriffs Office states a 19-year-old was walking west down the highway when he was struck by a motorist who did not stop to provide information or render aid. The teen was hospitalized with serious injuries. No description of the suspect or vehicle has been provided. Investigators are asking anyone with information to contact Trooper Rachael King with Brownwood Highway Patrol at (325)646-6867. 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. FILE PHOTO: Iran's President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a gathering with his supporters at the shrine of Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in south of Tehran DUBAI (Reuters) - The United States should realise that Iran will not respond to pressure, President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement published on Saturday, in which he also highlighted his country's friendship with China and Russia. Pezeshkian, a relative moderate who beat a hardline rival in elections, also reiterated that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, adding that Tehran would expand ties with neighbours and engage with Europe. "The United States...needs to recognise the reality and understand, once and for all, that Iran does not - and will not - respond to pressure (and) that Irans defence doctrine does not include nuclear weapons," Pezeshkian said in the statement, titled "My message to the new world" and published in the daily Tehran Times. Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, has pledged to promote a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major powers to revive a 2015 nuclear pact and improve prospects for social liberalisation and political pluralism. However many Iranians are sceptical about his ability to fulfil his campaign promises as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the president, is the ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic. "China and Russia have consistently stood by us during challenging times. We deeply value this friendship. "Russia is a valued strategic ally and neighbour to Iran and my administration will remain committed to expanding and enhancing our cooperation," Pezeshkian said, adding that Tehran would actively support initiatives aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine. "The Iranian people have entrusted me with a strong mandate to vigorously pursue constructive engagement on the international stage while insisting on our rights, our dignity and our deserved role in the region and the world. "I extend an open invitation to those willing to join us in this historic endeavour," Pezeshkian said. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; editing by Miral Fahmy) Rescuers say they find dozens of bodies after Israelis scale back Gaza City fight with Hamas Palestinians gather to inspect the damages at the headquarters of UNRWA in Gaza City Palestinians gather to inspect the damages at the headquarters of UNRWA in Gaza City By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dawoud Abu Alkas CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza City overnight, after a fierce, week-long offensive that met with Hamas resistance, leaving dozens of dead and wrecked homes and roads in the Palestinian enclave's biggest urban area, rescuers said. The offensive, 10 months into Israel's campaign to eliminate Hamas militants, took place as U.S.-backed mediators sought to finalise a peace deal that would free remaining hostages taken by the militants in their cross-border rampage on Oct. 7. The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said teams had collected around 60 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces over the past week from the area of Tel Al-Hawa and the edges of the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City. While tanks withdrew from some areas, Israeli snipers and tanks continued to control some high ground, residents and rescue teams said, warning residents against trying to return. "There are bodies scattered in the streets, dismembered bodies, there are bodies of entire families, there are also bodies inside a home of an entire family that was completely burned," Gaza Strip Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said on Friday in comments carried by media in Hamas-run Gaza. Israel's military said it had found drones and other weaponry in what is called a Hamas combat complex inside the former UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and had evacuated civilians from the area before attacking. "The troops engaged in close-quarters combat with terrorist cells that had fortified themselves inside the UNRWA compound," it said, adding that it had also found an important Hamas tunnel nearby and weapons production under a university building. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they had attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar fire, killing and wounding many. There has been no Israeli army comment on those claims. Home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war, Gaza City was largely razed to the ground in late 2023, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to homes in the ruins before Israel once again ordered them out. Dozens of residents returned again on Friday to check the damage after civil emergency teams put out fires in the early hours. Reuters footage showed wrecked roads and buildings, including the former UNWRA headquarters. Bodies wrapped in white shrouds and bearing the names of the dead women and men lay on the floor at Al-Ahli Hospital. AID WORKERS KILLED Musa Al-Dahdouh recalled heavy aerial and tank fire and said Israeli forces had detained and interrogated his two sons and their wives and children before allowing them to leave. "My mother is in a wheelchair, my wife as well, as she has metal in her arms and legs. My grandson is paralyzed in the legs, his father had to carry him on his back," he said. In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza, Hamas media said four people working for the Al-Khair Foundation, a Muslim NGO based in Britain and Turkey, were killed in an air strike at an aid distribution centre. Arab mediators, backed by the United States, are trying to reach a ceasefire deal that would free Israelis held hostage by Hamas in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel. On Friday, a senior Hamas official blamed Israel for a failure to build on momentum created when the Islamist faction dropped a key demand in the U.S.-drafted ceasefire offer a week ago to clear the way for a deal. "Israel hasn't given a clear stance over Hamas proposal," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters, accusing Israel of "stalling and wasting time." There was no immediate comment from Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he remained committed to the Gaza ceasefire framework and accused Hamas of making demands that contradicted it, without saying what those demands were. Two Egyptian sources said on Thursday that talks had made progress but security arrangements and ceasefire guarantees were still being worked on. Part of the discussion concerned an electronic surveillance system along the border between Gaza and Egypt that could allow Israel to pull back its troops from the area, according to two Egyptian sources and a third source familiar with the matter. Israel dismissed the report as "absolute fake news" saying that Netanyahu insists that Israel remains in the area. Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's forces have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Dawoud Abu Alkas in Gaza and Christian Lowe in Jerusalem; editing by Philippa Fletcher) An Israeli tank manoeuvres, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli government's security cabinet has approved a plan to extend compulsory military service for men to 36 months from the current 32 months, Israel's Ynet news outlet reported on Friday. The 36-month rule will stay in force for the next eight years, Ynet reported, after a meeting of the security cabinet that took place late on Thursday. The measure is likely to be submitted to a vote in a meeting of the full cabinet on Sunday, it said. Israel's military commanders have said they need to boost manpower so they can sustain the war with the Hamas militant group in Gaza and a confrontation with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia. In a separate initiative, Israel is planning to send draft notices to thousands of ultra-Orthodox seminary students who were previously exempt from military service. (Reporting by Christian Lowe; Editing by Angus MacSwan) Italians, fireworks and legendary aircraft at the California Capital airshow (FOX40.COM) The California Capital Airshow returns to the historic Mather Airport for the 18th year. FOX40 was live throughout Friday morning at Mather Airport. The airshow runs from Saturday through Sunday and will feature the Italian Air Forces Frecce Tricolori as part of their first North American tour in 30 years. Joining Frecce Tricolori will be the United States Air Forces very own Thunderbirds. The USAF has also brought back the F-35 Lightning II demo team to demonstrate the capabilities of the air forces fifth generation fighter. Other performances include the US Navy F/A 18 Super Horner, USAF C-17 Globemaster III, Patriot Parachute Team, Sukhoi West and GhostWriter Airshows. With a later start for the show, CCA will light up the night with a firework and pyrotechnic display from the ground and aerobatic performers. There will also be dozens of static aircraft on display from WWII to the most cutting-edge aircraft. 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. Editors Note, July 15, 2024: We are re-upping this profile of J.D. Vanceoriginally published on July 12, 2024in light of the news that Donald Trump has selected the senator from Ohio to serve as his running mate. We will have more coverage of the selectionfrom the convention in Milwaukeeshortly. Never be like these fing losers who think the deck is stacked against them, J.D. Vances grandmother often told him when he was a child. You can do anything you want to do. To read Vances Hillbilly Elegy in 2016 was to admire Mamaw, Vances strong-willed and charmingly vulgar grandmother who gave him the much-needed stability he didnt get from a drug-addicted mother who cycled through several husbands and live-in boyfriends. To read Hillbilly Elegy again in 2024 is to sit in awe and wonder at the unrelenting ambition of J.D. Vance himself. By the time Vance graduated from high school, he writes in his memoir, he had aced the SAT but didnt think he had the discipline to succeed in college, so he enlisted in the Marines instead. After completing his service, which included a deployment to Iraq as a public-affairs specialist, Vance breezed through Ohio State University in a little less than two years, graduating summa cum laude. Then Vance became a Yale Law School graduate, D.C. lawyer, freelance policy wonk, venture capitalist, and New York Times best-selling author. Vance climbed the ladder of success not just by his own grit and talent, but by learning to adapt to a foreign culture. [S]ocial mobility isnt just about money and economics; its about a lifestyle change, he wrote. The wealthy and powerful arent just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. Vances ability to adapt has served him well in his two post-Hillbilly Elegy political campaignsboth of which were aimed at earning the vote of one man. In 2022, Vance won the Ohio GOP Senate nomination by securing the decisive endorsement of Donald Trump, and two years later the 39-year-old senator is the odds-on favorite to be selected as Trumps running mate. If Trump picks Vance and wins in November, Vice President Vance would become the prohibitive favorite for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028. And he would have a non-trivial chance of becoming president before then. (Trump turns 82 in 2028.) Winning over the former president was no small feat for Vance, who called Trump noxious, reprehensible, an idiot, and cultural heroin during the 2016 campaign. What percentage of the American population has @RealDonaldTrump sexually assaulted? Vance asked in one 2016 tweet that has been deleted. I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldnt be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that hes Americas Hitler, Vance wrote in a text message to a friend at the time. But when Vance launched his Senate campaign in 2021, he begged Trump and Republican voters for forgiveness. I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because Ive been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy, Vance told Fox News viewers that July. I think he was a good president. Trump is the leader of this movement, Vance told Time magazine, and if I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about, I need to just suck it up and support him. A Vance spokesman declined an interview request with the senator for this article. Before Vance had even launched his campaign, he leveraged his connections among the MAGA elite to woo Trump. In March 2021, Peter Thiel, Vances billionaire patron and onetime venture capitalist employer, brought Vance to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. A Vance ally told The Dispatch that at the Vance-Trump meeting, Trump busted his balls about the 2016 stuff, and then they just shot the shit for an hour and a half. Donald Trump Jr. had already liked what he had seen of Vance on Tucker Carlsons Fox News program, according to the Vance ally, and Trump Jr. told friends he was a fan of Vances book and never understood why Vance didnt support his father in 2016. The extent to which Vance transformed himself to win over Trump is somewhat more nuanced than one might expect. On an ideological level, he always had a populist streak. Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute first met Vance a few years before the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, when he was a young Washington lawyer interested in public policy. What strikes me from that time is actually mostly continuity. Id say J.D. was always a populist-minded conservative, Levin said. His thinking was about how working-class people could be part of the Republican coalition. On foreign policy, Vance wrote in a Facebook comment during the 2012 presidential primary that isolationist Republican presidential candidate Ron Pauls ideas on national defense are downright scary. If he get[s] the nomination I will donate every spare dollar I have to Barack Obamaat least he believes in a strong national defense. But Levin recalls that before 2016, Vance was already quite skeptical of military intervention. Vance expressed disdain over George W. Bushs foreign-policy record in a February 2016 USA Today op-edeven as he concluded in the same article that Trumps policies range from immoral to absurd. Theres no doubt, however, that the Vance who sought the GOP Senate nomination was far different temperamentally than the Vance who wrote Hillbilly Elegy. The J.D. Vance who wrote Hillbilly Elegy worried about racial prejudice in my own family and friends, but the J.D. Vance running for Senate in 2022 said Georgia congresswoman and conspiracy-theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who endorsed Vance, did nothing wrong when she spoke at a conference sponsored by the virulent anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. The central sociological point of Hillbilly Elegy was that the problems facing the white working class were primarily cultural. The solution to those problems, Vance wrote in the conclusion of the book, starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better. When Vance launched his Senate campaign, he told the crowd of Ohioans: The elites plunder this country and then blame us for it in the process. As a blogger for FrumForum.com while a Yale Law student, Vance preferred moderate Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to Texas conservative Rick Perry, praised Rep. Paul Ryans budget, and wrote: Of all the things I cant stand about politics, the tendency to emotionalize a difficult topic is probably the worst. As a Senate candidate, Vance often aped Trumps aggressive and nasty style. Honored to have Marjories endorsement. Were going to win this thing and take the country back from the scumbags, Vance tweeted in response to receiving the endorsement of Greene in January 2022. I gotta be honest with you, I dont really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another, Vance said on Steve Bannons podcast days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded the 24th Infantry Division in the first Iraq war, replied on Twitter that Vance was a shameful person unsuitable for public office. Vance responded: Your entire time in military leadership we won zero wars. You drank fine wine at bullshit security conferences while thousands of working class kids died on the battlefield. Oh, by the way, how much do you stand to gain financially from a war with Russia, Barry? The Russia-Ukraine war ultimately helped Vance win Trumps endorsement. When Vances leading opponent, Josh Mandel, endorsed a no-fly zone in Ukraine enforced by NATO allies, Donald Trump Jr. decided to throw his support behind Vance and encourage his father to endorse Vance. The former president also liked how Vance handled himself in debates and looked on TV, calling him a handsome son of a b-, according to Politico. The endorsement proved decisive with Vance beating Mandel 32 percent to 24 percent in a multi-candidate primary. But there was a political cost (to say nothing of the moral cost) of courting Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Donald Trump. Vance won the November general election by 6 points, but every other Republican on the statewide ballot won by 12 to 25 points. Vances performance was a couple points worse than Trumps 8-point victory in Ohio in 2020. The Vance ally told The Dispatch its embarrassingly wrong to compare Vances performance to the victory of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who was an incumbent with a well-known mainstream GOP pedigree and faced an opponent with few resources. Its true that Vance faced a bruising GOP primary and his Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan, was well-funded, but its also true that Vances efforts to court Marjorie Taylor Greene and trying to out-Trump Trump helped Ryan raise money and made those anti-Vance ads more effective. (Mitch McConnells super PAC spent more than $30 million to support Vance.) Theres no denying, however, that Vances approach to 2022 set him up well for the veepstakes in 2024. J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad, Trump said at a September 2022 rally with Vance. The Republican party is, of course, full of Trump ass-kissers. What made Vance so skilled at the practice that he became the veepstakes frontrunner before turning 40? For starters, he never let up. The day after the 2022 midterm election, when many Republicans were blaming Trump for the underwhelming electoral performance and looking at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a 2024 alternative, Vances campaign told the Trump campaign he would be endorsing the former president, according to a Vance ally. In February 2023, Vance endorsed Trump in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Vances relationship with Donald Trump Jr. also deepened after November 2022, and the presidents eldest son has been firmly behind J.D. for VP. On his podcast this week, Trump Jr. warned that if someone like Marco Rubio was Trumps vice president, RINOs in the Senate might vote to convict Trump in an impeachment because theyd prefer a President Rubio (but not President Vance) to Trump. There is something about having someone from outside the establishment to sort of further protect you from that establishment, he said. (Though, Trump Jr. joked, if his father really wanted to be assassination-proof, hed need Vice President Donald Trump Jr.) Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Charlie Kirk have also been lobbying Trump to pick Vance, according to the Wall Street Journal. But the backing of the MAGA elites would probably not be enough by itself for Trump to give Vance the nod. Trump has been impressed by the well-spoken Yale Law graduates media appearances on a wide variety of programs over several months, and Trump simply gets along with Vance, according to a Vance ally. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln, Trump said of Vance this week. Vance has also demonstrated an ability to fundraise: One event with billionaire David Sacks last month raised $12 million for Trump. While its unclear at the moment whether Trump will pick Vance, one can be fairly certain what the Democratic campaign against him would look like. A fair amount of attention will be devoted to Vances opposition to Ukraine aida Marquette Law School poll found voters in the key battleground state of Wisconsin back the aid by a 22-point margin. On abortion, Democrats will, like Tim Ryan did during the Ohio Senate race, focus on Vances comments on abortion in the case of rape. Asked whether he supports abortion ban exceptions for rape, Vance said: Two wrongs dont make a right. At the end of day we are talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded? But the federal 15-week limit abortion he supported included a rape exception, and he later said in a debate with Ryan that he supports reasonable exceptions. (The other two leading VP contenders, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have similar vulnerabilities on the issue.) Last week, Vance aligned himself with Trump when he said he supports access to the abortion drug mifepristone. And much attention will focus on threats to democracy and liberalism. In October 2021, Vance falsely claimed to an Ohio newspaper that in the 2020 presidential election there were certainly people voting illegally on a large-scale basis, and he has said that if he had been in Mike Pences shoes on January 6, 2021, he would have tried to send back the Electoral College results to the states. A self-described post-liberal, according to Vanity Fair Vance said on a podcast in 2021: We are in a late republican period If were going to push back against it, were going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.* Vance said he would support the president firing every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people, and if the Supreme Court tried to stop him, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say, The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. In other words, a Vance VP nomination presents the prospect not just of gambling on Trump for another four years, but of potentially handing the Republican Party over to postliberalism for a generationassuming Vice President Vance wouldnt change his political persona to adapt to different circumstances yet again. Correction, July 12, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect that two quotations from J.D. Vance were from a 2021 podcast. 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. A state-run ferry crosses the James River between Surry and James City County in July 2019. (Sarah Vogelsong/Virginia Mercury) Passengers worried their summer travel plans would be disrupted by a schedule change to the ferry service over the James River will now have smooth sailing after all. Last month, the Virginia Department of Transportation announced a reduced schedule to begin on July 8 because the service for the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry lacked a certified chief engineer and had employees on protected leave statuses. But the issue has been resolved at least for now. VDOT has been working hard to address this critical staffing situation and was able to reach sufficient staffing levels at the end of last week to sustain full-service operations at this time, said Brittany McBride Nichols, a spokeswoman for VDOTs Hampton Roads District, in a statement. However, VDOT, like similar services across the country, is still facing a shortage of people to fill maritime positions. Nichols said the total number of engineer positions for the ferry includes 10 full-time positions, one full-time contractor and four hourly positions. As of July 1, the ferry has two full-time VDOT vacancies and one full-time contractor vacancy for the ferry chief engineer positions. As [the chief engineer] position is required by the United States Coast Guard to operate the vessel, it is critical that we fill as many of our open positions as possible immediately to avoid any future schedule changes, Nichols said. Certified chief engineers are required to have extensive training, complete a specific engineering exam successfully, and have more than 10 years of experience to earn the necessary credentials. While this combination of advanced training and substantial experience ensures that chief engineers are highly qualified to maintain the safety and reliability of the ferry service, Nichols said the requirements have made the position more challenging to fill. Last year, the federal government announced a strategic plan to address mariner recruitment, training, and retention concerns. Some strategies include developing new mariner apprenticeship programs, identifying barriers for potential students to participate in the federal student aid programs by maritime institutions, and increasing federal support for maritime K12 programs. David White, executive director for the Virginia Maritime Association, said the shortage is a symptom of a more significant issue for the maritime industry. Until more people know about and take [an] interest in the many financially and personally rewarding career opportunities throughout our maritime and supply chain industries, positions that affect our everyday lives will go unfilled, White said in a statement. He added that the association is working to address the issue by introducing more students, specifically in K-12, to the opportunities available right in their backyard that will allow them to participate in the economic engine of our region. Last year, the ferry, which is free, saw an average of 2,185 vehicles per day travel across the river, an increase from the 1,922 vehicle trips in 2020. The ferry service has grown in popularity since the pandemic but has not reached its pre-pandemic ridership average of 2,506 trips per day in 2019. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara speaks during a press conference at his ministry in Tokyo, Friday, July 12, 2024. Kihara on Friday announced taking disciplinary action against more than 200 senior officials and service members over mishandling of classified materials and a spate of other misconducts, an embarrassment that undermines Tokyo's desire to work more closely with United States and other partners as a trusted partner. (Kyodo News via AP) TOKYO (AP) Japans defense ministry announced disciplinary action on Friday against more than 200 senior officials and service members over mishandling of classified materials and other misconduct, an embarrassment that could undermine Tokyos efforts to work more closely with United States and other partners in the face of China's growing threat. The Ministry and its Self Defense Forces have been under scrutiny over allegations that members of the navy violated the sensitive information protection law, as well as other misconduct such as falsely claiming allowances for special assignments, or wrongfully claiming free meals at base cafeterias. Ministerial staff were also accused of abuses of power. Defense Minister Minoru Kihara apologized, saying the problems significantly damaging to the public trust for the ministry and Japans defense forces. Im keenly aware of my responsibility. He blamed a lack of discipline across the organization. Kihara said the ministrys investigation found that classified information was mishandled on 38 destroyers and submarines, but said no sensitive information leaked outside of military or caused any harm. People without appropriate clearances were were routinely assigned to duties that involved sensitive information. But the issue is an embarrassment and could undermine Japans reputation as a trusted defense partner at a time Japan accelerates its military cooperation with the United States, Australia, U.K. and other western partners, in hopes of playing greater roles in areas that involve intelligence. Ensuring intelligence protection is extremely important for our cooperation with the ally and other like-minded countries, and we should never let this kind of problem happen again, Kihara said. He pledged to quickly and thoroughly carry out preventive measures so that we will not breach trust with other countries. Earlier this year, Japan passed a new security law that tightened rules on handling sensitive information. Japan also plans to enact legislation to bolster its cyber security defenses. Kihara said he is giving up his salary for a month, but that his responsibility is to stay on and continue on the reform of the organization instead of stepping down. At a time when we cannot let our guard down even for a second ... it is my responsibility to do everything to rebuild the Defense Ministry and the Self Defense Force under my leadership as quickly as possible and regain the public trust, Kihara said. On Friday, the 548-page Defense White Paper warned of a worsening security environment, citing threats such as China's growing tension with the self-governed island of Taiwan, as well as North Korea's advancing missile and nuclear capabilities and its ballistic missile shipments to Russia to aide the country's war on Ukraine. Japan particularly worries about rising tensions between Beijing and Taipei because any conflict on Taiwan could quickly spill over to the southwestern Japanese islands. Japan's westernmost island of Yonaguni sits only 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of Taiwan. Of the 218 people disciplined, 11 senior officials were dismissed, two were demoted, dozens suspended and 14 received pay cuts, while about half of them were warned. Among senior commanders and defense ministry officials to face discipline, head of Maritime Self Defense Force, Adm. Ryo Sakai, was to resign to take responsibility over some of the misconducts, to be replaced on July 19 by Akira Saito, currently Self Defense Fleet commander in chief, the minister announced. Students protest against a recruitment system for the government jobs in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 11, 2024. (Xinhua) DHAKA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Students in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and elsewhere in the country have been staging protests against a recruitment system for the government jobs. Students on Thursday marched and blocked busy intersections across the country, causing traffic disruption for the fourth day, demanding reforms to the government jobs policy that offers 56 percent quota. The daylong movement that began Thursday morning and continued until dusk. The blockade particularly in the areas surrounding to colleges and universities across the country has created severe traffic congestion. "As part of the program, all highways and railways across the country will be blocked Thursday," Nahid Islam, a Dhaka University student and an organizer of the movement, told a press conference in Dhaka Wednesday. He said the "Bangla Blockade" will continue until their demands are met. The protesting students demand that the "discriminator" quota system in all government jobs has to be abolished and as per the constitution quota will exist for the backward section at a reasonable level through the passage of law in the parliament. The system was reinstated by a separate court last month after was halted in 2018, following weeks of protests. Student-led demonstrations resurfaced following the Supreme Court's affirmation in early July of a High Court ruling that reinstated the quota system for government jobs. Under the existing government recruitment system, 56 percent of entry-level government positions were reserved for specific "entitled" classes: 30 percent for children and grandchildren of 1971 "freedom fighters," 10 percent for women, 10 percent for districts based on population, 5 percent for ethnic minorities, and 1 percent for people with disabilities. Because of this, protesters said only 44 percent of job candidates were able to secure positions on the basis of merit. In 2018, the government issued a circular abolishing all the 56 percent quotas in the public service in the wake of protests by university students and jobseekers demanding reforms to the quota system that had been introduced in 1972. Instead of court, the protesters said they are demanding the government's executive decision on the reformation of the quota system. Bangladesh's apex court temporarily suspended the system on Wednesday, but protesters say they would continue it until the impasse is resolved permanently. Students participating in the anti-quota movement are crossing limits, said the home minister on Thursday. He urged them to stop the protests and take their grievances to court. By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan warned on Friday that China risked escalating tension with Taiwan with an increase in military exercises that appeared aimed in part at readying Beijing's forces for a possible invasion of the democratically governed island. Japan's annual assessment of security threats, including those posed by neighbours China, North Korea and Russia, comes as Taiwan closely monitors Chinese air and sea exercises, including one with an aircraft carrier in the nearby Pacific. "Because of that increase in military activity we cannot discount the possibility of heightened tensions," Japan said for the first time in its annual Defence White Paper. The drills are the latest in a series including manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait last year that a senior U.S. general said would be key to any invasion. Tokyo's warning comes after NATO members meeting in Washington this week described China as a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war in Ukraine and said that Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security. The remarks drew a sharp response from Beijing. Japan worries that any conflict in Taiwan would spread to its territory. With its westernmost island only 110 km (68 miles) from Taiwan, Japan hosts more than 50,000 American troops, hundreds of U.S. military aircraft, and an aircraft carrier strike group that Washington could deploy to defend Taiwan. Japan's 548-page assessment also highlighted China's plans to double its nuclear arsenal to more than 1,000 warheads by 2030. It mentioned attempts by neighbouring North Korea to boost its nuclear strike capability with surveillance satellites and new, more advanced missiles, some with sufficient range to strike the United States. Japan also identified Russia as a concern, because of its military ties with China, and, more recently, with North Korea, which had begun supplying it with artillery shells and other ammunition for its forces fighting in Ukraine. In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a deal with North Korea's Kim Jong Un featuring a mutual defence pledge by which Moscow could offer military aid to Pyongyang. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) A transgender woman is the first person in Japan to be granted a legal gender change without having to undergo compulsory gender-affirming surgery. In order to legally change one's gender on official documents, a 20-year-old law in Japan requires that transgender people receive a gender identity disorder" diagnosis and undergo surgery reconfiguring their reproductive organs. The woman, in her late 40s, was first denied a gender change by lower courts in the country because she had not undergone surgery, despite her being unable to receive the procedure. The woman appealed her case to a higher court, arguing that the requirements presented her with huge financial and physical burdens, and was therefore in violation of her rights. The Hiroshima High Court ruled in her favor Wednesday, determining that the current requirements may be unconstitutional. The law previously required that those seeking a legal change have "no reproductive capacity," forcing transgender people to undergo sterilization procedures. The nation's Supreme Court ruled that the provision is unconstitutional in October, though it did not rule on the gender-affirming surgery requirement, and sent the woman's case back to the High Court. The woman said at the time that while it is very regrettable that [my] gender change was not approved by the Grand Chamber of Justice and that the case has been postponed, I am glad that the outcome of this case will lead to a positive direction. Now, Kazuyuki Minami, one of the woman's lawyers, said via The Associated Press that when he informed his client of the recent ruling over the phone, she cried in relief. The High Court's ruling did not encompass transgender people who are not on hormone replacement therapy, but it does pave the way for others seeking legal changes. The Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation said in a statement Thursday that the ruling can still be considered progress because it can open the door for transgender females to be able to legally change their gender without undergoing surgery. By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan on Friday disciplined more than 200 defence personnel, including the military's top brass and senior bureaucrats, for mishandling classified material and other incidents. The information security problems have occurred as Japan seeks closer cooperation with the U.S. and other western democracies, including in intelligence sharing, to coordinate responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with China. Doubts about Japan's ability to handle classified information could hinder that collaboration. The head of Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force, Ryo Sakai, resigned his post on Friday, effective on July 19, after reports that sailors without security clearance were allowed to access sensitive vessel tracking data of foreign military ships. Sakai's commander, General Yoshihide Yoshida, the Chief of Staff of Japan's Joint Staff, along with the commanders of the other military branches were also reprimanded, but will remain in their posts, Japan's Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara said at a news conference. Kihara apologized for the security lapses and other infractions, including fraudulent compensation claims by SDF personnel for diving assignments. Kihara and Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa are expected to push for closer cooperation with Washington later this month when they meet their U.S. counterparts for security talks. "We will take radical action to strengthen information security," Kihara said when asked whether the lapses would hurt cooperation. To align with other western countries, Japan in May passed a new security law to tighten rules on classified information handling and security vetting. It also plans legislation to allow the SDF to actively hunt out cyber security threats that could harm critical infrastructure or sensitive data. "I recognize that the situation is extremely severe, and in that context, I understand there is no room for error," Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in addressing the information security incidents in Washington D.C. earlier on Thursday where he joined a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leaders meeting. The fraudulent compensation claims and other alleged incidents including allegations that SDF personnel failed to pay for meals are also an embarrassment for Kishida at home as he looks to bolster the military. In 2022 he unveiled a plan to double defence spending to 2% of GDP to pay for missiles and other weapons meant to deter China from resorting to military action in East Asia. (Reporting by Tim Kelly and Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Michael Perry and Christian Schmollinger) Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been reshaping how he talks about abortion amid widespread speculation that he could be tapped as former President Trumps running mate. Much like Trump, who is expected to announce his vice president pick by this weekend, Vance has been trying to show he can moderate on the issue. During his campaign for Senate, Vance applauded the overturning of Roe v. Wade and supported Texass ban on abortion, which does not allow exceptions other than cases where the mothers life is at risk. Two wrongs dont make a right, he said in 2021 when asked whether abortion laws should allow for exceptions for rape and incest. When pressed about whether a woman should be forced to carry a child to term after being the victim of rape or incest, Vance said he rejected the premise of the question. Its not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, he said, but whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that childs birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to society. However, the next year, Vance said during a debate Ive always believed in reasonable exceptions. When voters in his home state approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, Vance called it a gut punch. In a post on X in November 2023, Vance said state anti-abortion laws need exceptions for them to have a chance at passing. This is not about moral legitimacy but political reality, he wrote. Vance has more recently praised and echoed Trumps position that states can make their own abortion laws, and said hes always believed that there needs to be exceptions for rape, incest and the mothers life. In a July 7 interview with NBCs Meet the Press, Vance called Trump a pragmatic leader for his leave-it-to-the-states approach. Thats in contrast to his Senate campaign, when Vance said during the debate in 2022 that some minimum national standard is totally fine with me. In the same Meet the Press interview, Vance also said he supports mifepristone being accessible, even as many conservatives want to ban the drug. The Supreme Court made a decision in saying that the American people should have access to that medication, Donald Trump has supported that opinion, I support that opinion, Vance said. Vance was referencing comments Trump made during the presidential debate last month, when he said he agreed with the Supreme Court and would not block access to mifepristone if he returns to the Oval Office. Last month, the court dismissed a challenge to expanded access to mifepristone for lack of standing. But the decision was only procedural and left open the possibility of future cases brought by different plaintiffs. The shifting stance of Vance, a Trump critic-turned-supporter, is emblematic of the GOPs complicated relationship with abortion, as the party struggles to get on the same page just days before the start of the Republican National Convention. I think the entire Republican Party is adjusting its messaging in a post-Roe world, said Mark Weaver, a veteran Ohio Republican strategist. Weaver said Vance is positioning himself to be Trumps running mate, and if Trump comes knocking, JD Vance will be dressed up and ready to go. But because the party is still trying to figure out the best way to talk about abortion, theres nothing lost in the venture if Vance isnt tapped, Weaver said. Indeed, much of the Republican party is embracing Trumps position: The partys formal platform doesnt explicitly call for a national abortion ban, nor does it explicitly call for legislation to give a fetus equal rights. Instead, it assumes the Constitutions 14th Amendment already grants fetal personhood and says states can pass laws to that effect. The debate over fetal personhood has been particularly tricky for Republicans trying to square their support for access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) with views of some Christian conservatives who argue fertilized embryos, often discarded in the IVF process, should be treated as people. While anti-abortion and religious groups said they thought the platform had been softened, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another potential VP pick, defended the change. I think our platform has to reflect our nominee, and our nominees position happens to be one ground in reality, he told CNNs Dana Bash. Trump has tread carefully on abortion, as he and other Republicans try to placate their base without losing moderate Republicans and independents. Trump has faced relentless political attacks from Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump appointed three of the justices whose votes triggered the overturning of the landmark ruling that had protected abortion access. The former president has said states should be left to enact individual laws on abortion via legislatures or ballot referendums, calling it a beautiful thing to watch as some states enshrine abortion rights and others enact restrictive bans without exceptions. He has criticized states that he thinks go too far in their abortion bans, like Florida and Arizona. But as president, his administration also threatened to cut federal funding from California unless it dropped a state requirement that private health insurers cover abortion. There have been no explicit campaign promises from Trump about abortion, but it has been a clear issue of focus as Trump mulls a vice-presidential pick. When asked about North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as a potential pick, Trump told Fox News Radio on Wednesday its an issue that Burgum signed a near-total abortion ban. You know, I think Doug is great. But it is a strong, hes taken a very strong stance, or the state has, I dont know if its Doug, but the state has, so its an issue, Trump said. Vance seemingly has no such baggage. As one Ohio Democratic strategist said, thats by design. If you want to know where JD Vance stands on anything you ask Donald Trump, said Jeff Rusnak, head of the Ohio-based R Strategy Group. His position on reproductive rights has nothing to do with understanding where the population is and what voters believe. Its all about, How do I appeal to Trump? 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. It was toward the end of the second victim's testimony about her interactions with Jeffrey Epstein that a member of the 2006 grand jury convened to consider his crimes finally asked a question about what he had done to her. Do you feel its wrong of him to take advantage of your youth? Yes I do, responded the witness, who was 16 years old when she met the middle-aged Palm Beacher. "And did he take away from your person, your being, your spirit? Yes. The exchange, captured in grand jury transcripts The Palm Beach Post sued to make public, gives just a glimpse of why Epstein's crimes would leave lasting damage to the girls he exploited. Jeffrey Epstein: 2006 grand jury documents are public. Read for yourself what happened Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse fit the definition of sex trafficking Epstein had established a system to have female high school students brought to his island home with a promise of quick cash in exchange for giving him a massage. The deal could include, the teenagers discovered, stripping, watching him masturbate and being sexually assaulted by him. All of this met the federal legal definition of sex trafficking: obtaining, patronizing or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act . . . induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age ." But unlike responses to sex-trafficking victims today, the needs of the nearly two dozen young women and girls Palm Beach police found that Epstein had abused were barely recognized then. The needs victims of sex trafficking are left with can spring from their memories of unwanted sexual encounters, humiliation from having been exploited and shame after being blamed for their own assault, said Jannifer Diaz, therapy coordinator of Palm Beach County Victim Services. More: Is Donald Trump all over Jeffrey Epstein documents released in Palm Beach Post suit? Help combatting shame part of help sex-crime victims need Young victims may also need help to learn how to protect themselves, recognize threats and trust their own perceptions. Diaz links sex-crime victims to immediate and intensive trauma therapy, counseling to help them cope with stigma and blame, and guidance for survivors to rebuild their lives and form supportive relationships. Family therapy can be necessary for sex-crime victims under 18. Those who need it can get long-term therapy through the county program, she said. Palm Beach County Victim Services also provides guidance for victims navigating intimidating and embarrassing encounters with police, prosecutors and the courts that can add to the trauma victims have already experienced. The recently released transcripts highlight the need that two of Epstein's young victims had for all of that support, as they testified in front of the grand jury convened by then-State Attorney Barry Krischer. Jeffrey Epstein secret transcripts: Victim was asked, Do you know 'you committed a crime?' 'I thought like it was going to be a massage . . . you keep your clothing on.' The first victim to testify about what Epstein had done to her was the one whose encounter had brought his crimes to police attention. She was 14 when a classmate accused her of trading sex for money and school officials found $300 in cash in her purse. Jeffrey Epstein on the U.S. Virgin Islands Sex Offender Registry She had been brought to Epsteins mansion days earlier by an acquaintance who had told her she could make $200 just for giving an aging rich man a back massage, she testified. She described being led to a room and shown the bottles of lotion she could use. And then and then she told me to get un well, not undressed, but like put keep your bra and panties on, the girl continued, And I was like okay. Had the acquaintance told her about that part before she got there? prosecutor Lanna Belohlavek asked. No, the girl responded. I thought, like it was going to be a massage, like, you keep your clothing on. Were you uncomfortable getting down to your bra and underwear? Belohlavek asked. Uh-huh. Like, at I was kind of hesitant, the victim said. I was like, sitting in the room for until Jeffrey came in, like, thinking like to myself, we, like whats going on? She learned that she would be asked to do more and that if she did as she was told, she would be paid more. Following that testimony, the police detective who had led the investigation explained Epsteins pay scale to the grand jury as he described the experiences of another young victim: The day that he forcibly entered himself into her, he paid her a thousand dollars. Jeffrey Epstein, the first failure: Why The Post sued to make grand jury transcripts public Trauma can haunt victims for the rest of their lives The outcome of the grand jury hearing in which these details unfolded led to a single charge of soliciting prostitution. It was a charge that allowed Epstein to return to hunting young girls and that further clouded the lives of his victims. Why prosecutors chose to further shame the victims, asking one to describe her underwear, defend her social-media use and acknowledge that she had committed a crime, remains unclear. In the years that followed, the crime of child prostitution was removed from Florida statutes. The importance of providing support and counseling for sex trafficking victims who are minors was enshrined in Florida law under the states Safe Harbor Act of 2012. It was also in 2012 that Palm Beach Countys Sexual Assault Response Team launched to meet the needs of all county sex crime victims. For some of Epsteins victims, who turned to sex work, committed petty crimes and went to prison, those changes came late. At least two of Epsteins victims died of drug overdoses, leaving young children behind. I think now that whole situation would be treated very differently, Palm Beach County Victim Services Program Manager Rene Boone said in the week following the release of the 2006 grand jury transcripts. And I think thats a good thing. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the Palm Beach County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center can help. Reach their helpline at 561-833-7273, or toll-free at 866-891-7273. Antigone Barton is a reporter with The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at avbarton@gannett.com. Help support our work: Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jeffrey Epstein victims needed quick, intensive help, experts say Biden heading on a delayed mission to reassure lawmakers over his political future after meeting with Jeffries President Joe Biden is launching a delayed outreach campaign to key groups of lawmakers the kind of effort Democrats have long called for after he met Thursday with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries following the presidents closely watched solo news conference. In the meeting, Jeffries directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together, the New York Democrat wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Friday. But Jeffries did not offer Biden one key thing: His endorsement. A person familiar with the meeting said Jeffries bluntly shared the views of the caucus as he stated in his letter but intentionally did not offer an endorsement or say publicly that the decision is Bidens to make. While it is uncertain if Biden directly asked Jeffries for his tacit endorsement, a person familiar with the matter said, Jeffries did not extend it at the meeting or in the public letter released Friday morning. Following the conversation, the president has embarked on a series of calls to key groups of Democratic lawmakers the kind of enterprise that many in Congress asked him to make weeks ago following his disastrous debate performance. CNN reported Friday that Biden had calls with the political wings of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday and a Saturday virtual meeting with both the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to sources familiar with those meetings. Ahead of those meetings, defections in Bidens Democratic coalition in Congress continued. Bidens performance during his news conference, which lasted just under an hour and during which he fielded 19 questions from reporters on topics ranging from his mental capabilities to foreign policy, was much stronger than his appearance during the CNN presidential debate, but it did not stem the steady stream of House Democrats coming out against Bidens efforts to seek a second term. More than a dozen Democratic House members and at least one Democratic senator have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from his reelection campaign. That list includes multiple House members in the nations most competitive congressional districts, but also senior Democrats on influential committees and members in safely Democratic seats. One of those Democrats, Rep. Mike Levin of California, told Biden directly on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus call that he should step aside, according to someone briefed on the call, which Biden joined an hour late. Its the first time CNN has reported on a member of Congress directly telling Biden to drop out of the race. Biden responded saying that it was important for him to get out in front of people and let them know that he was still moving well and healthy, according to a source briefed on the call. Dozens of other Democrats have stopped short of calling for Biden to end his campaign, but have either expressed concerns about Bidens chances, said hell lose out right or remain publicly undecided. Still, more than 70 members of the House and Senate have publicly reaffirmed their support for Biden as the partys presidential nominee following his disastrous debate performance late last month. The top Democrats in Congress Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Jeffries have made a series of public statement supporting Bidens bid this week. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi who remains in Congress and is among the most influential members of the party has privately expressed her concerns, CNN reported Thursday night. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler acknowledged anxiety from Capitol Hill, but insisted Biden will continue outreach to lawmakers to shore up his support. Does there continue to be anxiety? Yes, we understand that, the president understands that, he said. Thats why hes gonna continue to engage with folks on the Hill, thats why weve engaged with governors, mayors across the country, the vast majority of whom are firmly behind Joe Biden and understand the stakes in this election Biden on Thursday night was able to provide incisive remarks on everything from Israel to Russia to China to gun control in the United States. But he also had two notable flubs: During a NATO event before the presser, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin, and repeated a similar mistake during the presser, using Donald Trumps name to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris. The evening served as a sort of Rorschach test for Democrats feelings on Biden. Those who remain firmly in his corner seized on his extended answers on wonky foreign policy issues to prove he still has what it takes to lead the country effectively, while his Democratic doubters used his verbal miscues to reinforce their calls for someone to replace the president on the top of the ticket. Biden, for his part, came off as chastened during the news conference and was less defiant than in previous appearances. While he told ABCs George Stephanopoulos last week that only the Lord Almighty could convince him to remove himself from the race, Biden on Thursday night opened the door for other scenarios in which he would drop out of the contest. Pressed on whether he might reconsider his stance if he was shown data that had Harris performing better against Trump, he offered some openness to that possibility. No, unless they came back and said theres no way you can win, Biden said. A Biden ally who has spoken with the president multiple times following the June 27 debate told CNN that since that ABC News interview, concerns about the Lord Almighty comments have been conveyed to the president. Are you really so absolutely inflexible that even if we brought you compelling polling, you wouldnt move? is how the ally described the feedback that has been shared with Biden. And it has been impressed upon the president, they said, that its important for him to continue to show openness. The source acknowledged that Biden heard the criticism and appears to be shifting his approach by trying to turn down his instinct of: Youre not going to push me aside. He heard that level of fierce determination was misread by folks and hes not an arrogant man, the source said, adding, he was genuinely surprised by the criticism. Bidens campaign, meanwhile, has bluntly acknowledged the challenges it has faced since his debate performance two weeks ago. Biden campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon acknowledged to staff in a call Thursday that the period after Bidens disastrous debate performance have been hard, very bad and bad f***ing weeks, a source who was on the call said. Some of the details of what OMalley Dillon said were first reported by Axios. OMalley Dillon acknowledged when she fumbled words that she had not slept much recently. She tried to rally the troops on this call after first bluntly accepting that the most recent stretch has been deeply challenging, the source said. Her case, as this source described it, was: Its not just that we feel like we can win. We have a plan to get there. She laid out both external and internal polling numbers, and made the case that the data still backs up that Biden can defeat Trump. OMalley Dillon argued to her team that the Biden reelection campaign is going through a moment that they are built for, and that it is because of the team that the president would ultimately win. This story has been updated with additional reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com New Jersey Family Claims Negligence and Bullying After 14-Year-Olds Suicide: 'It's Not Conflict, It's Child Abuse,' Lawyer Says "If [schools] don't take [bullying] seriously...then children are going to continue to die," attorney Jeffrey Youngman tells PEOPLE GoFundMe Jocelyn Walters Jocelyn Walters, 14, died by suicide in September 2022 after reportedly being bullied by her classmates Her parents are suing the school district, board, teachers, fellow classmates and mental health clinic nurses for bullying and negligence The Walters' attorney tells PEOPLE her case is a combination of bullying and malpractice The parents of Jocelyn Walters, a 14-year-old who died by suicide in September 2022, are suing Middletown Township School District in New Jersey for negligence and allegedly failing "to take action to protect and support Jocelyn from bullying, per court documents obtained by PEOPLE. Jocelyn, a Middletown High School North student, died by suicide on Sept. 9, 2022, after she endured bullying and harassment from her classmates. The late students parents, Fred and Solangie "Soly" Walters, are suing Middletown Township School District, the school board, Jocelyn's teachers, a local mental health clinic's nurses and practitioners that participated in Jocelyns care, as well as 10 John and Jane Does "who harassed, intimidated, bullied and/or otherwise abused Jocelyn. "Our hearts go out to the Walters family. Out of respect for them, and because we generally do not comment on pending litigation, we intend to respond to their claims through the legal process and not in the press," district superintendent Jessica Alfone tells PEOPLE. Related: 8-Year-Old Boy Commits Suicide After Being Bullied at School The Walters are suing the various defendants for negligence in preventing Jocelyn's death by suicide. The court documents list 13 counts, including negligent hiring, supervision and retention, and vicarious liability against the board, district, school faculty, and nurses. Additionally, all defendants are facing counts of wrongful death. "Jocelyns death by suicide took place after an extended and persistent pattern of harassment, intimidation, bullying and abuse directed against her that took place during, and following, the 2021/2022 school year at the High School," the complaint states. "The High School, the Board/District and the Board Defendants were aware of this conduct and did nothing to protect Jocelyn from harm. GoFundMe Jocelyn Walters The Walters' attorney, Jeffrey Youngman, tells PEOPLE, "If the school does not take bullying seriously, and it's a simple word, but if they look at it in every instance where there's bullying, it's child abuse." He continues: "If they don't take it seriously, and there's not an adult in the room to actually deal with it and address it and protect the child number one, and meet out appropriate discipline to the children who are the assailants, the police, then children are going to continue to die." "I want Jocelyn's name to live on and make a difference," he adds. "I hear... 'It's a rite of passage.' No, it's not. It's not conflict; it's child abuse." Related: Family Speaks Out After 'Happy' 10-Year-Old Daughter Dies by Suicide Following Reports of Bullying Additionally, Jocelyn's parents allege that one defendant, identified only as J.M., would harass, intimidate, bully and abuse Jocelyn both in person and online. In August 2022, one month before her death, Jocelyn was treated for her depression and hospitalized. After she was discharged, she was referred to a nurse at a mental health clinic who "negligently doubled Jocelyns antidepressant medication without knowing the dosage she was taking" and "failed to notify Jocelyn's parents," per the court documents. Youngman notes for PEOPLE how Jocelyns case "combines issues of bullying and malpractice." GoFundMe Jocelyn Walters Then, on Sept. 8, 2022, one day before her death, Jocelyn visited the school nurse, "who failed to take appropriate action given Jocelyns history," and did not alert her parents, the complaint alleges. She died by suicide the next day. "Immediately thereafter, J.M. texted the following regarding Jocelyns death: [s]he died stop making controversy about it," the complaint alleges. Related: Colorado Mom Says 9-Year-Old Son Who Came Out as Gay Died by Suicide After School Bullying On Oct. 26, 2022, Middletown High School North launched an investigation into the bullying Jocelyn "may have been a victim of, per a letter from the school, reports Fox News. However, the Districts investigation did not find any evidence" confirming Jocelyn was bullied. "I'm fighting for my daughter, but through this, I just see so many failures," Fred told Fox News. Following his daughters death, Fred created 99 Smiles, a nonprofit focused on destigmatizing youth mental health and expanding resources. 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. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Jill Biden is headed to the Olympics, leading the presidential delegation to the Summer Games in Paris later this month. The first lady will touch down in France for the opening ceremony July 26, the White House announced Friday. Its not the first time that Biden has attended an Olympics event: She led the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, which were postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will head up the delegation at the closing ceremony in August, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) will lead the delegation for the opening of the Paralympic Games on Aug. 28. Duckworth is a military veteran who lost both of her legs when her helicopter was shot down over Iraq in 2004. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will represent the country at the closing of the Paralympic Games in September. The White House said additional members of the presidential delegation would be announced in 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. UPDATE: At his nearly hourlong press conference, Joe Biden countered perceptions of cognitive decline by delving into the details of complex national security situations. He insisted that he would keep moving in the presidential race, although he slightly opened the door to an exit if he sees that theres no way he can win. And he raised his voice at one point in addressing gun violence, a contrast to the weak raspy pitch at his disastrous debate with Donald Trump. But minutes after the president finished, the Democratic lawmaker calls for him to exit the race, with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) the latest. More from Deadline Its not really about tonight, Himes told MSNBC host Alex Wagner. And one of the really kind of sick aspects of this moment is that we are watching every speech, every rally, every debate and saying, How did he do today? And thats just not the way to think about the presidency of the United States. In Bidens first answer, to a question from Reuters Jeff Mason, he referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. Earlier in the evening, he called Volodymyr Zelensky President Putin. The gaffes obscured what was otherwise a much better night for Biden than two weeks ago. But that was Himes point, one also raised by George Clooney: Democrats are on pins and needles worried that Biden will sink into something resembling his feeble nature at the CNN debate. Nor was there a commitment to take a neurological exam, as some have suggested. Instead, Biden said, I am not opposed if my doctors tell me I should have another neurological exam. Ill do it. Bidens emphasis on foreign policy, a natural given the setting at the NATO summit, underscored the stakes of the election, as he cast himself as the strong leader standing up to Vladimir Putin while Donald Trump has told the Russian president do whatever the hell you want. The president insisted that world leaders fear a Trump presidency for his coddling up to dictators. But as Biden argued how dangerous a Trump presidency would be for the world order, it may also be reminder or Democrats of the risks in forging ahead in a candidacy that has fallen behind the former reality TV host in the polls. Biden said that another Democrat could beat Trump, but that he was the best qualified to do it. In the wrenching crisis going on in the party, though, there are many who disagree. PREVIOUSLY: Joe Biden wrapped up his press conference, lasting nearly an hour, by responding to a question about his verbal gaffe at the start. NBC News Peter Alexander noted that Donald Trump was using the gaffe to mock Bidens age and memory. Asked how he would address that criticism, Biden smiled and said, Listen to him. He also laughed off a verbal gaffe earlier in the day when he referred to Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as President Putin. Biden called on 11 reporters. A standout moment came when Biden raised his voice when talking about gun violence. Control guns, not girls More children are killed by a bullet than any other cause of death. The United States of America. What are we doing? We got a candidate promising the NRA, Dont worry I am not going to do anything.' But the event may be most remembered by how Biden countered concerns about his mental acuity by going into sometimes granular detail about national security and international issues, including the war in Ukraine and a cease fire proposal in Israel Gaza. It was a very different demeanor that he had at the presidential debate. That said, shortly after the press conference ended, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) called on Biden to drop out, becoming the latest lawmaker to do so. NBC News Hallie Jackson said afterward, In an alternate universe where that debate performance exactly two weeks ago tonight did not happen, there would likely be far less attention on the flubs, on the demeanor, on sort of the style points for President Biden here, and more of a focus on the substance. But the reality is, Democrats are concerned, more than a dozen of them have come out publicly now. PREVIOUSLY: President Joe Biden said that he would have another neurological exam if his doctors tell him he should have one. But he suggested that no one is going to be satisfied no matter how many exams he has. PREVIOUSLY: Joe Biden acknowledged that he has to prove to worried Democrats of staying in the race, telling reporters that Im determined Im running. But I think its important that I allay fears. Let them see me out there. PREVIOUSLY: President Joe Biden addressed his dismal debate performance, telling reporters at his press conference that it was a bad night and that he overextended himself with his travel schedule. He said that he needed to pace himself more, while suggesting that his staff that has been adding to his scheduled. But hes been using the backdrop of the NATO summit to lean into the foreign policy accomplishments, going into detail on Ukraine and Russia, and the situation in Israel-Gaza, while dismissing the notion that international leaders are concerned about him. Im not hearing any of my European allies come up to me and say, Joe, dont run. What I hear them say is, You got to win. You cant let this guy come forward. Hed be a disaster. He blasted Trump for saying at a rally that he just learned about NATO. Foreign policy has never been his strong point, Biden said. He said that the NATO summit was the most successful conference Ive attended in a long time, and find me a world leader who didnt think it was. Biden expanded on his remarks by talking of the need for the West needing a new industrial policy. PREVIOUSLY: President Joe Biden opened his press conference, carried across networks, by giving no signal that he is planning on exiting the presidential race. Instead, questioned on calls for him to step aside from George Clooney and on concerns from figures like Nancy Pelosi, Biden said that he was the most qualified person to run or president. Im in this to complete the job I started, Biden told reporters. That said, Biden did make a verbal gaffe as he started referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. He later said that he would not have picked Harris if I didnt think she was qualified to be president. Biden tried to assuage concerns over polling by pointing to other incumbent presidents who have trailed even later in the campaign. The idea that senators and congressmen running for office worry about the ticket is not unusual, Biden said. Theres a long way to go in this campaign, Biden said. So Im just going to keep moving. Biden started the press conference, held at the site of the NATO summit, by talking of the contrast between his approach to the alliance and that of his rival, Donald Trump. I made it clear that I will not bow down to Putin, Biden said. America cannot retreat from the world. It must lead the world, Biden said, while he also touted his administrations progress on the economy and to secure the border. The press conference was viewed as a critical moment for his campaign, a test of his performance in an unscripted environment following his dismal debate two weeks ago. The latter set off an expanding chorus of calls from Democratic donors, supporters and lawmakers for him to drop out of the race, frightened by recent polling showing that rival Donald Trump has opened up a lead in the campaign. Biden has done 164 press conferences and media interviews, as of June 30, according to figures that presidential scholar Martha Joynt Kumar provided to Axios. That is fewer than his last six predecessors. But Biden has done 588 smaller Q&A sessions with reporters, compared to Trump with 664 but far more than Barack Obama with just 103. The debate performance quickly triggered calls for the president to follow up with an unscripted news conference, to show that Biden had the agility to handle an unscripted and unpredictable environment given so many of his appearances have been via Teleprompter or heavily orchestrated. But in the time since the debate, many Hollywood donors and supporters have only grown more anxious, despite the campaigns efforts to assure them that they have a path to victory. Incredibly highly anticipated, Bidens first solo press conference since last November even saw Fox News beforehand broadcast aides and others setting up the presidential lectern and checking color balances on-screen a potential first. Its nothing new for Biden to be running late for official events and speeches. However, in a bit of an odd turn for a campaign that is supposedly trying to get back on track, the late start to the presser gave critics and pundits over 40 minutes of dead TV air to fill with one barbed comment after another. I dont think its an exaggeration to say that the fate of the world hangs in the balance, Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC. On CNN, Erin Burnett wondered if Biden was so damaged that no matter how well the press conference went every night would be Groundhog Day. At the end of the NATO Summit this week, Thursdays event comes as the president mistakenly called President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by the name of scorned Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The gaffe by the long-time gaffe prone Biden couldnt have come at a worst time, with the knives out in both GOP and Democratic circles. Former actor Zelenskyy tried to save the moment by quipping Im better as the president acknowledged his mistake by saying he was so focused on beating Putin. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. SOFIA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador Scholarships were handed out to 21 Bulgarian students from four universities on Friday for their outstanding study of Chinese. "This scholarship program will help the prosperous development of Chinese language education in Bulgaria and breathe new life into the friendship between China and Bulgaria," Chinese Ambassador to Bulgaria Dai Qingli said at an awarding ceremony at the Chinese Embassy in Bulgaria. She said the Chinese language has become a bridge for friendship between the two countries, and expressed her wish that all the students can fulfill their dreams, actively participate in the cultural exchange between China and Bulgaria, and enhance friendship between the two countries. Noting that this year marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and China, Nikolaj Vitanov, Bulgaria's deputy minister of education and science, expressed hope that "our successful cooperation will continue and we will achieve better results." Anastasia Bazhak, a student from Sofia University and scholarship receiver, told Xinhua that she is very interested in learning Chinese, and this award would enable her to study the language better. Another scholarship winner, Betizhe Akova from Veliko Turnovo University, said she would go to China for a four-year study next month, and this scholarship would certainly help her future studies there. Joe Biden, the US president, alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, during his gaffe-ridden Nato summit speech in Washington - WILL OLIVER/Shutterstock Donors are withholding $90 million in funding to the Democrat party unless Joe Biden pulls out of the presidential race. The money was on hold at the biggest pro-Biden political action committee, Future Forward, sources told The New York Times. Despite the latest opinion poll giving Mr Biden a two-point lead over Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, fears are growing among some major donors that the chances of retaining the White House are slim. One party apparatchik referred to a donor strike among the partys wealthy supporters which appears to have started after the presidents disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump. A campaign strategist told the Telegraph that some donors had been in wait and see mode until the Nato summit. Plans are under way by critics of Mr Biden to push him out of office amid renewed calls for him to step aside after a Nato press conference in which he referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. The never-ending verbal slip-ups are ringing alarm bells among some of Mr Bidens most loyal supporters. Hollywood donors, who normally dig deep during presidential campaigns, have called on Mr Biden to step aside. George Clooney wrote an op-ed in the New York Times pleading with Mr Biden to stand aside. Abigail Disney, the heiress to the family fortune, has called on the Democrats to bite the bullet and replace him as a candidate. Philanthropist Gideon Stein said he was pausing a planned $3.5 million to the Biden campaign but would continue supporting the partys candidates in Novembers congressional races. Reports in Washington suggest that other donors are following suit, or ready to do so. Its not that surprising. Especially with the prospect of a second Trump term, Democrats are looking for any bulwark they can get, Christopher Galdieri, professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire told the Telegraph. If they can win back control of the House or retain control of the Senate you would get a very different scenario than if Trump gets back in with control of the House and the Senate, which would not have moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake and John McCain. Underpinning the strategy is a series of internal polls showing that Democratic congressional candidates are outpolling Mr Biden in battleground states including Pennsylvania, New York and California. Mr Biden spent Friday campaigning in Michigan, the home of the US car industry and another swing state as he tries to hang onto the support of blue-collar union workers. Alarmingly for Mr Biden, leaders of the 400,000strong United Auto Workers Union are worried. Shawn Fain, the unions president who met with the unions executive board, has voiced his deep concerns about the election, despite the union endorsing Mr Biden in January. John Morgan, a Democratic fundraiser who still supports Joe Biden, has cancelled a fundraising event in Florida because of the uncertainty over whether Joe Biden will be the candidate. Some eople are holding back for their own reasons. It started after the debate and its all over the place, he told the Telegraph. He had been planning to hold a fundraiser at his home, but it now may not take place. I have already raisd a million dollars for an event may never happen. A lot of people write big cheques and get a picture. We have to get down the road and every day it becomes more likely he is going to run. But until we have a date I am not going to raise more money for someone who may not be in the race. Some of Mr Bidens closest allies from his long career, including Barack Obama, are also said to be concerned about him staying in the race. But Mr Bidens team gave a robust defence of the president and appear to be digging in to keep his campaign alive. Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, said he had met with Mr Biden on Thursday, as the number of members calling on the president to step aside rose to 20. Mr Jeffries said he expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward to and Mr Biden but did not give further details. 07:37 PM BST Blog closed The blog is now closed, thanks for following. Here is a look at the days big stories: President Joe Biden got a boost on Friday from two prominent Democrats who said he should stay in the White House race. The House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden yesterday to share lawmakers insight and heartfelt perspectives. A senior campaign official has called Joe Bidens performance on Thursday the worst of all worlds. Some Biden campaign aides reportedly celebrated the US presidents performance at Thursdays Nato summit press conference. Dozens of Democrat lawmakers are expected to soon call for Joe Biden to step out of the race for Novembers US presidential election, according to CBS News. 06:24 PM BST Biden gets boost from two Democrats President Joe Biden got a boost on Friday from two prominent Democrats who said he should stay in the White House race, as other members of his party weighed whether to say the 81-year-old incumbent is still fit for reelection. Im riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes, Representative James Clyburn said on NBCs Today program, the morning after Biden held a high-profile press conference to beat back doubts about his candidacy. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been floated as a possible successor, said he was sticking with Biden as well. Im all in. No daylight, he said in an interview excerpt released by CBS. Clyburn, 83, is a respected voice among Black Americans whose support is essential to Bidens 2024 campaign, while Newsom, 56, is one of several younger governors who are widely seen as the future of the party. 05:48 PM BST Biden hits campaign trail as calls to quit pile up Joe Biden returns to the campaign trail on Friday, pushing ahead with his reelection bid after a mixed performance at a major news conference failed to silence calls for him to quit. The 81-year-old will give a speech bashing rival Donald Trump in Detroit in the rust-belt state of Michigan, a crucial battleground state that the Democrat must win in Novembers election. A defiant Biden insisted in a pivotal appearance at a Nato summit on Thursday that he would run again, and win - despite concerns about his age and health following a disastrous debate performance two weeks ago. 05:30 PM BST Branson calls on Biden to make the right decision and step aside Richard Branson said Joe Bidens wish to carry on in the presidential race has created a dangerous distaction from the more important political issues that need to be discussed. Wrting on his Virgin website, Mr Branson said he was watching the discussion over Mr Bidens political future with growing unease. While Mr Biden has been an extraordinary president, said the businessman, he should now step aside. For him, standing down now wouldnt have to mean the end of a lifetime in public service, either. He could still do enormous good in the world. But his desire to carry on has created a dangerous distraction from the issues this presidential race should really focus on. Its not too late to make the right decision now and step aside for America, and for the free world, he said. Thoughts on the debate over Joe Biden: https://t.co/fZ7LbqwCyL pic.twitter.com/0CRF2GmtEH Richard Branson (@richardbranson) July 12, 2024 05:02 PM BST Donors moving their money to congressional races Major Democrat donors are reportedly moving money away from Joe Bidens presidential campaign to congressional races in November. Despite the latest opinion poll giving Mr Biden a two-point lead over Donald Trump in a head-to-head race, fears are growing among some major donors that the chances of retaining the White House are slim. One party apparatchik referred to a donor strike among the partys wealthy supporters which appears to have started after the presidents disastrous debate performance last month against Donald Trump. A campaign strategist told the Telegraph that some donors had been in wait and see mode until the Nato summit. 04:49 PM BST Democrats plot to push Biden out of White House A coalition of top Democrats is plotting behind the scenes to push Joe Biden out of the US presidential election after another string of gaffes overshadowed a set-piece Nato press conference. Veteran Democrats are lobbying former presidents, soliciting lawmakers, organising donors, and arranging polls to make the case for ending Mr Bidens run for re-election, according to Axios. The highly influential US news site has labelled the plotters as the Committee to Unelect the President who are now working full-steam on Mission Push Biden out of the presidential race. The journal said that the group is growing by the day and is commissioning polls showing that the Democrats would be the likely election winners with a candidate other than Mr Biden. This comes as Barack Obama, the former US president, and Nancy Pelosi, one of the most senior Democrats in Congress, were reported to have spoken about their concerns over Biden in private. James Carville, a top US political consultant, said that both Mr Obama and Bill Clinton, who was the 42nd US president, were signalling that Biden should go. Neither former commander-in-chief has publicly voiced support for the 81-year-old Mr Biden in over two weeks. Silence is a very loud form of speech, Carville said. 04:33 PM BST How the White House hid the truth about Bidens decline from the world Smoke and mirrors covered his many gaffes, but now a growing number of Democrats fear the 81-year-old President has made one slip too many, write Ben Wright, Rozina Sabur and Tom Teodorczuk. Following Joe Bidens disastrous performance against Donald Trump in their debate on June 27, White House reporters started poring through the visitors log at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One name kept cropping up again and again: Dr Kevin Cannard. The neurologist and specialist in movement disorders works at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which serves the President. Eagled-eyed journalists spotted that he visited the White House no fewer than eight times between last July and this March. The revelation forced a statement from the White House which suggested Dr Cannard had only seen Biden for his three annual physicals and the other visits were related to military personnel. Dr Kevin OConnor, the White House doctor, added: President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical. But even taken at face value, the statement prompts some additional questions. Firstly, why has the White House press corps taken this long to start investigating the medical comings-and-goings taking place under their noses? And, secondly, if the President really isnt seeing specialist doctors, why not? Read the full story 04:08 PM BST House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden on Thursday evening The House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries met Joe Biden yesterday to share lawmakers insight and heartfelt perspectives. In a letter to lawmakers, he said he was granted a private meeting with the president yesterday evening. Over the past several days, House Democrats have engaged in a thoughtful and extensive discussion about the future of our country, during a time when freedom, democracy and the economic well-being of everyday Americans are on the line. Our discourse has been candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. As House Democrats have done throughout this Congress, we will continue to work in the best interests of everyday Americans. Thank you for your continued leadership in service of the communities we are privileged to represent. 03:52 PM BST What do the polls say? An NPR/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50 per cent to 48 per cent, a slight increase from his position before the debate. Mr Biden fared slightly worse than Trump when third-party candidates were included in the questioning. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Mr Biden and Trump tied at 40 per cent each. But some nonpartisan analysts have warned that Mr Biden is losing ground in the handful of competitive states that will determine the outcome of the election. 03:34 PM BST Bidens performance was worst of all worlds, says campaign official A senior campaign official has called Joe Bidens performance on Thursday the worst of all worlds. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind ... Itll give some enough cover to back him publicly, only to say hes not up for it privately. Fundraiser Dmitri Mehlhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong, he told Reuters. Mr Biden leaving after his press conference at the close of the 75th NATO Summit on Thursday - Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images 02:50 PM BST Top Biden ally defends president after press conference debacle James Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman, defended Joe Biden in an interview with NBC News on Friday after the presidents verbal slip-ups overshadowed a set-piece Nato summit conference. I am all in. Im riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes, Mr Clyburn told the channels Today programme. He also downplayed Mr Bidens gaffes, attributing them to a stutter that the US president has suffered from since childhood. He sometimes mangles words and phrases but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering and they do focus a little more and when you focus a little more you tend to lose the flow, Mr Clyburn said. He is still working to overcome this ... he has one of the best minds that I have ever been around, he added. 02:02 PM BST Your views: Telegraph readers respond to the Democrat plot to oust Biden With top Democrats reportedly plotting to oust Joe Biden from the US election race, Telegraph readers have been getting in touch with their views on the situation in Washington. 01:57 PM BST US deep state hid Bidens true condition from the public, Kremlin says The US media and the so-called deep state have long hidden Joe Bidens condition from the public, according to the Kremlin. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry press spokeswoman, told reporters that those who wanted to depict Biden as fit for office had only worsened the situation. In an earlier post on her Telegram channel, Ms Zakharova joked that Russian interference could no longer be hidden after Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin during a Nato press conference on Thursday. There is a pro-Russian candidate being run by the hand of the Kremlin, she said, referring to Mr Bidens slip of the tongue. Deep state is a term popularised by Donald Trump. It refers to influential networks within US media, industry and federal agencies allegedly exercising power within or against the elected United States government. 01:38 PM BST Bidens gaffe has ruined months of our hard work, say European officials In Washington DC Joe Bidens gaffes have ruined months of hard work and undermined the Nato summit, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph. On stage, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz defended the president over a slip of the tongue in which he called Volodymyr Zelensky President Putin. The US leader went on to call Kamala Harris vice-president Trump. But roaming the corridors of the summit, aides were more frank in their verdict of the presidents performance. You can read the full story here. 01:27 PM BST Obama and Pelosi concerned over Bidens future CNN is reporting that Barack Obama and Democrat grandee Nancy Pelosi have been talking about the future of the ticket. The former president has not called on Mr Biden to drop out. But, according to the news station, he has said he will campaign energetically for the Democratic candidate. Mr Obama leapt to Mr Bidens defence after the debate fiasco, posting on X Bad debate nights happen, I know. CNN believes Ms Pelosi in particular could be pivotal in the drive to persuade Mr Biden to step aside. The Hill, meanwhile, says she is already working furiously behind the scenes to put pressure on Mr Biden not to run, even though she has not publicly called on the party to ditch him as its candidate in November. 01:15 PM BST Pictured: How the US media downplayed Bidens press conference debacle Americas biggest news outlets were relatively kind to Joe Biden in their website splashes on Friday morning. While the Washington Post acknowledged Mr Bidens stumbles, it chose to focus its splash headline on the presidents response to foreign policy questions and not his mistaking Volodymyr Zelensky for his Russian enemy Vladimir Putin. The New York Times took a similar approach, leading with Mr Bidens attempt to overcome previous gaffes with policy talk. The Wall Street Journal, however, led with an article on an upcoming Biden campaign rally in Detroit. The front page of the New York Times, Friday July 12 - New York Times The Front Page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday, July 12 - The Wall Street Journal 01:09 PM BST Poll: Which Democrat could beat Donald Trump in the presidential election? Top Democrats are reportedly planning to oust Joe Biden after a gaffe-strewn Nato press conference performance. Choose which figure you think could beat Donald Trump in Novembers election here: 12:46 PM BST Biden-supporting union has deep concerns over election chances Alarm about Joe Bidens prospects has spread to the United Auto Workers, according to reports in the US. The 400,000-strong union endorsed Mr Biden in January and its support is critical in Michigan, one of the pivotal states the president has to win if he is to win a second term. Shawn Fain, the unions president, is understood to have met with the UAWs executive board on Thursday night to discuss his deep concerns over Mr Bidens chances of beating Donald Trump. Mr Biden, who described himself as the most pro-union president in US history, met with the leadership of the AFL-CIO - the US equivalent of the TUC - to shore up support from organised labour. 12:07 PM BST Pictured: World leaders react to Bidens President Putin gaffe Nato and Nato partner leaders including Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada; Kishida Fumio, the prime minister of Japan and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, look on as Joe Biden introduces Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin. World leaders look on as Biden introduces 'President Putin' - Susan Walsh/AP 11:46 AM BST Biden aides celebrated presidents gaffe-strewn press conference Some Biden campaign aides reportedly celebrated the US presidents performance at Thursdays Nato summit press conference, where Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump. The Biden staffers were said to have been encouraged by the US presidents handling of questions relating to foreign policy. He exceeded expectations. He answered really f----g hard foreign policy questions beyond my personal capacity to answer. And he also had a couple of great lines that were going to be able to use in the campaign, one aide told US newspaper Politico. Hes got a core group of folks who have always believed!! And everyone is going to thank us when he wins! another Biden staffer added. 11:26 AM BST Watch: US officials react to Bidens Vice President Trump gaffe US secretaries Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, as well as national security adviser Jake Austin, react to Joe Biden calling Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. 11:23 AM BST The Kremlin: Like the whole world, we noticed the Biden mix-up Russia has said that the whole world saw Joe Bidens slips of the tongue at the Washington Nato summit on Thursday, but added that it was a matter for US voters. Its not our topic. Its a topic for the US. Let American voters determine the chances of the [presidential] candidates, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, said. Mr Peskov however said that the Russian government had taken note of what it called disrespectful comments that Biden allegedly made about Vladimir Putin. For us this was unacceptable. It does not make an American head of state look good, Peskov said. Mr Peskov did not say what those comments were, but Mr Biden referred to Putin at the Nato summit as a murderous madman. 10:34 AM BST Biden is a danger to the free world he should resign now With the Wests security at stake, Assistant Comment Editor Poppy Coburn argues that Joe Biden should be replaced long before Novembers US presidential election. Forget the candidacy, it is now increasingly doubtful whether Biden should even remain in his position as elected president now. If there were ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment, this is it. You can read the full article here. 10:21 AM BST Pictured: Kamala Harris on the campaign trail Amid calls from numerous Democrats for Joe Biden to step aside, Kamala Harris, the US vice president, is seen as the most likely candidate to take over the top ticket for Novembers US presidential election. The Biden campaign is understood to have run a test of Ms Harriss popularity against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in a head-to-head survey of voters this week. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, participates in a campaign event at James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina, 11 July - ERIK S LESSER/Shutterstock 10:02 AM BST The best of both worlds - how the Trump campaign viewed Bidens Nato gaffes Donald Trumps allies and advisers are said to have viewed Joe Bidens Nato press conference performance as the best of both worlds. A Trump adviser told US newspaper Politico that Mr Biden had been bad, but not bad enough to be forced out. He gave us enough new material and may stave off his insurrection, the adviser added. Trumps campaign prefers that Mr Biden remains in the race for the US presidential election in November, believing him to be the weakest candidate that Trump, the Republican nominee, could face. At the Nato summit press conference on Thursday, Mr Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin and referred to Kamala Harris, the US vice president, as Vice President Trump. 09:14 AM BST Poll: Should Joe Biden stand aside? 09:10 AM BST Pictured: Biden during Thursdays Nato summit press conference Joe Biden, the US president, introduced Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, as President Putin during a press conference at the close of the 75th Nato summit in Washington. Joe Biden speaks during a press conference at the close of the 75th Nato Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC - Mandel Ngan/AFP Joe Biden speaks alongside Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president - Ludovic Marin/AFP 08:56 AM BST Democrats test Harris popularity with voter survey Democrats are testing the popularity of Kamala Harris, the US vice president, against Donald Trump in a head-to-head voter survey, according to the New York Times. The Biden campaigns analytics team commissioned the poll, the newspaper said, citing anonymous sources. It is believed to be the first since Mr Bidens June 27 debate with Donald Trump that the US presidents aides have sought to measure how Ms Harris would fare running against the Republican nominee. The move comes after Mr Biden, 81, made a string of prominent gaffes, the latest of which came on Thursday when he referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, as President Putin at the Nato summit in Washington. 08:30 AM BST Trump responds to Bidens Vice President Trump gaffe In a post on social media, Donald Trump quipped Great job, Joe! after Mr Biden referred to Kamala Harris, the US vice president, as Vice President Trump at the Nato summit in Washington. Screenshot of Donald Trump's response to Joe Biden's 'Vice President Trump' gaffe - Truth Social 08:20 AM BST The Democrats who have already called for Biden to quit Lloyd Doggett, a representative from Texas, said after the June 27 debate with Donald Trump that it was time for Mr Biden to make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. Seth Moulton, the representative for Massachusetts Sixth District, said that he no longer had confidence that Mr Biden could defeat Trump. Mike Quigley, an Illinois congressman, said that it was time to let someone else do this. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said Mr Biden could no longer strongly make his case to the American people. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, warned that there is only a small window left to choose a replacement for Joe Biden. Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey congresswoman, said that the stakes were too high to stay silent and that Trump could not be allowed to return to the White House Earl Blumenauer said he hoped Mr Biden would end his bid because the election campaign was about not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy. Hillary Scholten, from Michigan, said: We just have too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines and be silent while we still have time to do something. Brad Schneider, from Illinois, said Mr Biden should heroically pass the torch to a new generation... to guide us to the future he has enabled. Ed Case, from Hawaii, issued a statement calling for Biden to end his candidacy. Greg Stanton, from Arizona, said it was time for Mr Biden to drop out of the race. Jim Himes, a Connecticut congressman, said on social media that Mr Biden was no longer the strongest candidate to confront Trump. Scott Peters, a California congressman, called for Mr Biden to withdraw in an official statement. Eric Sorensen, an Illinois congressman, said on X: I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for President. Peter Welch, of Vermont, told the Washington Post that Mr Biden should step aside. Pat Ryan, a New York Democrat, said Mr Biden needed to step aside due to the threat of a second Trump term. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona congressman, told the New York Times that Mr Biden needed to reconsider his candidacy. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington congresswoman, called for Mr Biden to end his re-election bid. 08:02 AM BST Dozens more Democrats expected to call on Biden to step aside Dozens of Democrat lawmakers are expected to soon call for Joe Biden to step out of the race for Novembers US presidential election, according to CBS News. Citing four Democrat sources, the broadcaster said that statements have been prepared and that planning for their release is being coordinated. The next three to four days could be brutal for Mr Biden, one unnamed source said, adding that by next week it may be untenable for the US president to continue his reelection campaign. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, would be the most likely candidate to take over from Mr Biden, another source added. 07:51 AM BST Hello and welcome to our live coverage Were bringing you the latest updates from the United States after Joe Biden introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin at the Nato summit in Washington on Thursday night. 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. In his first solo press conference since his June debate performance, Biden repeatedly insisted he will remain in the 2024 presidential race Mandel NGAN/AFP/getty President Biden speaking during the July 11, 2024 press conference at the close of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. President Joe Biden delivered a solo press conference on Thursday, June 11 his first since the disastrous June 27 presidential debate with rival Donald Trump that has rocked his 2024 reelection campaign. In what might once have been a run-of-the-mill press conference recapping this week's Ukraine-centered NATO Summit, the 81-year-old Democrat entered the room with a secondary, more difficult task: to convince the American people that he is the only one capable of defeating Trump in November. During the conference and at an event before, he spoke in depth about his work to protect NATO and his plans for a second term. But he also made two notable gaffes. Mandel NGAN/AFP/getty President Biden speaking during the July 11, 2024 press conference at the close of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. Introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he mistakenly called him "President Putin." Realizing his mistake, Biden said, "President Putin? You're going to beat President Putin." [Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, a key escalation in the ongoing conflict between the two nations.] Later, while fielding questions from the press, a reporter asked Biden about Vice President Kamala Harris, to which he replied, "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think she's not qualified to be president." Kevin Dietsch/Getty President Joe Biden at the 75th Anniversary NATO Summit on July 10, 2024, in Washington, D.C. After the press conference, Trump, 78, posted on Truth Social, "Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' press conference with, 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.' Great job, Joe!" Biden quickly fired back on social media, saying, "By the way, yes I know the difference. One's a prosecutor, and the other's a felon." At various points during the press conference, Biden who is facing increasing pressure from within his own party to step down amid concerns about his cognitive health remained steadfast that he would not be dropping out of the race. "I've got to finish the job," he said. Related: Can Joe Biden Be Replaced on the Democratic Ticket? What the DNC Rules Say About Switching Nominees At the end of the press conference, he was asked directly if he would step aside should polling show that Vice President Harris, 59, has a better chance than he does of beating Trump. EyePress News/Shutterstock Donald Trump (left) and Joe Biden at the June 27, 2024 debate. "No, unless they come back and say, 'There's no way you can win,' " he replied, adding, "no poll's saying that." 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 president previously suggested that concerns about his cognitive health and electability would be squashed when viewers saw his tact during Thursday's line of questioning, but a growing chorus of Biden skeptics within the Democratic Party asserted that their lack of confidence in his leadership could not be restored regardless of his performance. Going into the press conference, plans were reportedly already being assembled to force Biden out of the presidential race and make way for a new candidate to take his place on the Democratic ticket by the time of August's nominating convention. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Joe Engle, the first astronaut to fly in space aboard two different winged vehicles, has died at the age of 91. Engle's death on Wednesday (July 10) was announced in a note from his family shared publicly on Facebook. "Blessed with natural piloting skills, General Joe, as he was known to many, was at his happiest in any cockpit," read the note. "He lived a fulfilled life as a proud American, U.S. Air Force pilot, astronaut and Kansas Jayhawk. His passing leaves a tremendous loss in our hearts." Engle's first flight into space preceded him becoming a NASA astronaut by 10 months. As a test pilot in a joint U.S. Air Force and NASA-run research program, Engle flew the X-15 rocket plane above 50 miles (80 kilometers), qualifying him for his astronaut wings, on June 29, 1965. a smiling man in a silver flight suit stands in front of a black plane on a runway "I honestly recall that more important than going over the 50 miles was getting as close to [the] planned altitude profile as possible, and I think the fact that it came out very, very close meant more to me, really, than the fact that I'd gone over 50 miles," said Engle in a 2004 NASA oral history. Engle repeated the feat two more times out of his 16 total flights aboard the X-15 before being selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts in April 1966. His second winged ride into space was on the space shuttle Columbia. On Nov. 12, 1981, Engle launched with Richard "Dick" Truly on STS-2, the second mission of the Space Transportation System. The mission demonstrated that the space shuttle orbiter was reusable and was the first to "fly" the Canadarm remote manipulator system, or robotic arm. "We launched and went through the vibrations of launch, which was very impressive," said Engle at a 35th anniversary celebration of his STS-2 flight. "And very loud and noisy very unspacey, by the way it was like an old pickup truck with a lot of loose tools in the back." Truly and Engle also tested the vehicle's orbital maneuvering system engines, performed several science experiments, spoke live with President Ronald Reagan and were awakened by the Muppets ("Pigs in Space"). The planned five-day flight was then cut short due a failed fuel cell. On Nov. 14, 1981, with Engle at the controls, Columbia touched down at Edwards Air Force Base using the same dry lakebed in southern California where he earlier landed the X-15. Related: NASA's space shuttle: The first reusable spacecraft a man in a short-sleeved blue shirt operates a computer on the space shuttle Four years later, Engle commanded his fifth and last spaceflight (his second launch into orbit), NASA's STS-51I mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Flying with pilot Dick Covey and mission specialists James "Ox" van Hoften, Mike Lounge and Bill Fisher, Engle and his crewmates deployed three commercial communications satellites and retrieved and repaired another satellite that was launched on an earlier space shuttle mission. The week-long mission concluded with Engle landing Discovery at Edwards Air Force Base. In total, Engle logged nine days, 8 hours and 30 minutes while circling Earth 149 times. He is recorded as the sixth person to fly a suborbital flight and 104th to enter orbit in the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Space Travelers. Joe Henry Engle was born on Aug. 26, 1932 in Chapman, Kansas. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Kansas in 1955 and was commissioned with the Air Force through the school's Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. Engle earned his pilot wings in 1958 and and was assigned to fly F-100 Super Sabre jets for the 474th Fighter Day Squadron and, later, the 309th Tactical Fighter Squadron at George Air Force Base in California. Recommended by Chuck Yeager for the U.S Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Engle graduated in 1961 and then, again at the urging of Yeager, joined the third class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School. "I learned later that Chuck's philosophy was that the good pilots are the ones who have the most flying, who go after flying the hardest and take it serious, and I think that that probably influenced him to support and recommend me for the test pilot school more than anything else," said Engle. Prior to flying the X-15, Engle applied for NASA's third group of astronauts, but was diverted by the Air Force to fly the rocket plane. As a NASA astronaut, Engle first served on the crew of 2TV-1, a vacuum chamber test of the Apollo command module. For eight days, Engle, together with astronauts Joseph Kerwin and Vance Brand, lived inside the sealed capsule, simulating a spaceflight. Related: The Apollo Program: How NASA sent astronauts to the moon an astronaut in a white spacesuit, with his helmet off, poses for a portrait in front of an american flag Engle was then assigned as a support crew member for Apollo 10, prior to being named the backup lunar module pilot for the 1971 Apollo 14 mission. This put him in line to land on the moon on Apollo 17, but he was replaced by geologist Harrison "Jack" Schmitt due to pressure to fly a scientist before the lunar landing program ended. "Of course, that's what the lunar missions were all about [science], so it was a perfectly legitimate rationale," said Engle. "I think [the] first choice would have been to leave the crew intact, but I think that there was a great deal of pressure [to fly Schmitt], and understandably so." Engle was reassigned to the shuttle program, where he was paired with his future STS-2 crewmate, Truly, to be one of two teams that demonstrated the orbiter's ability to land like a plane as part of a series of approach and landing tests. Engle and Truly flew one "captive" flight with the prototype Enterprise remaining attached to the top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and two "free" flights, separating at altitude from the modified 747 jetliner to then touch down at Edwards. "A lot of the airplane systems had to be developed because the shuttle wasn't really an airplane, but you had to go through the airplane part of the shuttle to get it on the ground, the part where everybody could see you come back and land," said Engle in 2016. "And that was the important part." Between his first and second space shuttle missions, Engle served as deputy associate administrator for human spaceflight at NASA Headquarters from March to December 1982. Engle retired from NASA on Nov. 28, 1986. Two days later, he resigned from the Air Force and on Dec. 1 was promoted to the rank of major general. Engle's last active-duty military assignment was as the Air National Guard Assistant to the Commander in Chief for U.S. Space Command and North American Air Defense Command headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. In total, Engle logged more than 14,700 flight hours, 9,900 in jets while flying more than 185 different types of aircraft, including 38 different fighter and attack aircraft. a man in a blue flight suit kneels on a runway in front of a white space shuttle RELATED STORIES: NASA's space shuttle program in pictures: A tribute X-15 rocket plane & crew had the right stuff Space shuttle Columbia: NASA's first shuttle in space For his service to the U.S. space program, Engle was awarded U.S. Air Force and NASA astronaut wings, Air Force and NASA distinguished service medals, two NASA spaceflight medals and a NASA exceptional service medal, among other honors. He was a recipient of the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Robert J. Collier Trophy and the Iven C. Kincheloe Prize, the latter for his role in the space shuttle approach and landing test program. Engle was added to the Aerospace Walk of Honor in Lancaster, California in 1992 and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, and U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, both in 2001. In 2014, he was enshrined in the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in California. In 2021, the Astronaut Joe Engle Archive Collection debuted at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, based on a donation of his archives from the year before. Engle was preceded in death by his STS-2 crewmate, Truly, in February of this year. With Engle's death, all 12 pilots to fly the X-15 are now deceased. Engle was first married to Mary Catherine Lawrence, with whom he had two children and one stepchild. He is survived by his widow, Jeanie Carter Engle. Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2024 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved. In a distressing turn for LGBTQ + rights, Sen. Joe Manchin of ruby-red West Virginia , who recently became an independent after leaving the Democratic Party , has joined Senate Republicans in supporting amendments to the annual must-pass defense policy bill. These amendments, which restrict gender-affirming care for transgender military personnel and their families, have sparked outrage. During closed-door sessions last month, the Senate Armed Services Committee added amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. These amendments ban the use of Department of Defense funds for sex change surgeries and prevent the military health system from offering hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and other treatments for transgender minors. The amendments to the NDAA passed narrowly, 13-12, with Manchins support proving decisive. Manchins vote aligns with his past actions concerning LGBTQ+ rights. His low score from the Human Rights Campaign reflects a history of lukewarm and sometimes opposing stances on critical LGBTQ+ issues. Manchins inconsistent support for LGBTQ+ issues has earned him a dismal 55 out of 100. His vote to restrict essential healthcare for transgender service members and their families continues that pattern. Ian Thompson of the American Civil Liberties Union described the amendments as a dangerous affront to the rights and freedom of transgender servicemembers with no financial, legal, political, or medical justification. HRC president Kelley Robinson expressed strong condemnation. Everyone deserves medically necessary, best practice healthcare without politicians standing in the way. That includes those who serve their country bravely and their families. These attempts to hijack the National Defense Authorization Act are outrageous and will cause real-world harm. The Senate should reject these provisions and get back to ensuring those who serve their country are repaid with the dignity and respect they deserve, Robinson said, according to Erin in the Morning. The amendments, although passed in committee, still need approval from the full Senate. The bill must also be reconciled with the House version before it can become law. Historically, Senate Democrats have opposed anti-LGBTQ+ measures, signaling a tough battle ahead. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York , has already criticized the House version of the NDAA for being loaded with anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, anti-environment, and other divisive amendments guaranteed not to pass the Senate, The Hill reports . This sets up a significant clash between the two chambers, highlighting the deep divides in current U.S. politics . The fight over transgender rights in the military is part of a broader cultural and political struggle in the United States. Since the Obama administration allowed transgender troops to serve openly in 2016, policies have swung back and forth. Former President Donald Trump reinstated a ban on transgender service in 2017, a move that President Joe Biden reversed upon taking office in 2021. Despite these changes, conservative efforts to limit transgender rights have intensified. Johnson City man sentenced to up to seven years on sex crime charges SAYRE, Pa. (WETM) A Johnson City man was sentenced in July and could see up to seven years in prison after an investigation out of Bradford County. According to the Bradford County District Attorneys Office, 48-year-old Matthew Casterline was sentenced to a minimum of one year to a maximum of seven years in a Pennsylvania State Correctional Facility for the offense of corruption of minors, a felony in the third degree. Owego man arrested on over 400 sexually related offenses against a child The sentencing is a result of an investigation by Sayre Police in August of 2022, where the documents state that Casterline had acted in sexual conduct with a juvenile on several occasions. The documents state that Casterline faces similar charges in New York State which he will answer at a later date. 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. Mayor Brandon Johnson appeared set to throw his weight behind a proposal this week to fight chaotic Chicago teen trend meetups and illegal parties that sometimes end in gun violence, but backed away from the plan amid progressive pushback. Aldermen were discussing with the administration Thursday a draft ordinance to levy $10,000 fines against the organizers of certain unlawful gatherings including many of the raucous, social media-fueled get-togethers pulling crowds of young people together at city parks and abandoned buildings. The mayors administration wanted to push the measure through the City Council as soon as next week, Ald. Lamont Robinson, 4th, told the Tribune before it was pulled. The ambitious timeline for the crackdown suggested Johnson feels the need to do something about the parties, which have drawn attention for some high-profile acts of violence. However, his administration quickly changed its tune in the face of questions from aldermen about its ramifications, and instead planned to hold the draft ordinance by Friday morning. Despite the administrations intergovernmental affairs teams work to push the ordinance and its appearance on a council agenda, a Johnson spokesperson said Friday it had moved forward erroneously. A staffer erroneously submitted a proposal for an ordinance that is currently not moving forward, the spokesperson wrote. We will continue to have conversations on the most effective strategies, consistent with the mayors values, to prevent mass shootings. Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, said he told the administration he would vote no because of the policys potential to accidentally crack down on protests, such as the pro-Palestinian encampments that popped up at Chicago universities this spring. I could foresee it being used against those who would set up encampments to protest against unjust wars. I could particularly foresee how it could be used during the DNC, and that was not something that I wanted to have any part of, to be honest, the Northwest Side alderman said. La Spata suggested Johnsons team could rework it. I can understand the pressure that they are under from alders other than myself, but I I feel like theres got to be more thoughtfulness, he said. The mayors administration had planned to introduce the ordinance in the City Council Monday and pass it into law Wednesday, in an apparent attempt to squeeze the legislation in before the council breaks until September. It was taken off a committee agenda Friday afternoon. The ordinance aimed to target an issue that has rankled downtown, South Side and West Side aldermen: the sudden, sprawling gatherings of young people popping up across the city. The gatherings have become a fixture of Chicago summers in the last decade, springing up via social media flyers. While organizers in their public invitations share plans to dance, box or make YouTube videos, sometimes the gatherings have devolved into chaos and violence. The gatherings are just one aspect of what some council members have complained is a broader trend of violent acts committed by young people around Chicago. Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, unsuccessfully called for an 8 p.m. curfew in June after a group of unaccompanied minors committed an unprovoked and aggravated assault against a couple in Streeterville. The woman who was attacked said the beating she received caused her to lose a baby after two weeks of pregnancy. Hopkins said the city needs to address the chronic youth gatherings, which have proven to be an incubator for violent and lawless activity. Violence and large gatherings of young people at the Douglas neighborhoods 31st Street Beach have led Robinson to request more officers be stationed at the beach and at times close it earlier after a pair of late-June fatal shootings. We have been inundated with these takeovers, Robinson told the Tribune Thursday, praising the ordinance before it was pulled. We need to reclaim Chicagos streets from some of the late-night chaos and violence. Robinson said Friday morning that he has faith the mayor will amend the ordinance and address the sometimes violent gatherings. Legislation often needs to be reworked to pass, he added. I think that thats where we are, he said. But after the mayors statement suggesting the ordinance had moved forward in error, Robinson said again he had worked with the administration on the legislation, and said it was surprising to hear them say they didnt mean to try to pass it. Johnson has vowed to not demonize the young people involved when past meetups ended in tragedy. The mayor commended police last August after officers made made 40 arrests during one such gathering. The group gathered in the South Loop then had fought and stormed a convenience store. Still, the mayor took umbrage with the description of the crowd there as a mob. Thats not appropriate. Were not talking about mob actions, Johnson said then. We have to be careful when we use language to describe certain behavior. Theres a history in this city, and, I mean, to refer to children as like baby Al Capones is not appropriate. In recent months, the mayor has touted his efforts to hike the capacity of the citys teen summer jobs program. Johnsons administration poured an additional $76 million to add 4,000 One Summer Chicago job opportunities. The jobs-for-teens effort reflects a critical part of Johnsons view on crime: Many of the young people who break laws are acting out in part because they and their neighborhoods have been underserved by Chicago for decades. However, Johnsons typically long-term vision on crime and violence has taken a decidedly more short-term focus in recent days. After more than 100 people were shot, 19 fatally, over the long Fourth of July weekend, Johnson continued to highlight the need to address violences root causes, but more sharply called for punishment for those who make a choice to kill. This is a choice. Its a choice to kill. Its a choice to kill women. A choice to kill children. A choice to kill the elderly, Johnson said at a news conference Monday. These are choices that the offenders made and they calculated. Johnson started a new effort Friday to address citywide violence, hosting his first Take Back the Block event near the site of a recent West Side mass shooting. The event brought government officials, including the mayor and police brass, together in a bid to assure residents they can work with the city to address crime, Johnson spokesperson Ronnie Reese said. It also included efforts to connect people with resources like those of the Chicago Housing Authority and to clean and green the neighborhood with much-needed infrastructure fixes. The ordinance Johnson tabled targeted unpermitted publicly-advertised gatherings that occur between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. Under the legislation, the sponsor of any such event would face a fine not less than $10,000. The city in the past has tried to curb illegal behavior by fining transgressors, efforts that have met with limited success as it is often difficult to track down perpetrators and force them to pay up. Other efforts to hit criminals in their pocketbooks, such as Mayor Lori Lightfoots 2021 proposal to fine gang members and seize their property, fell apart because of concerns the laws could hurt the wrong people. Before Johnsons legislation was tabled, Robinson told the Tribune it was much needed to address both big gatherings in public spots and house parties occurring in abandoned buildings that resulted in violence. This is really about holding people accountable. They cannot continue taking over our city and not have any type of sanctions, he said. Enough is enough. Robinson backed the mayors loud calls to give Chicagos teens and young adults more safe, fun opportunities. He recently hired to his ward office a young man who had been using his massive social media following to organize many of the big gatherings. The Near South Side alderman is hosting a PeacePalooza music festival next weekend. The event will feature big-name artists such as Chicago rappers Joey Purp and Vic Mensa, but will also promote city resources and even include a session on applying tourniquets for gunshot victims. Our young people want to be able to hang out in a safe environment, Robinson said. Chicago needs to figure out ways to meet young people where they are. But meanwhile, as teens and young adults from as far away as Indiana continue to come to the chaotic meet-ups hitting his ward, Robinson said he does not think the proposed ordinance is too harsh. There is no price for someones life, he said. We have to get this stuff under wraps. jsheridan@chicagotribune.com Jon Stewart is angry the Democratic Party 'wasn't honest' about Biden and landed the US in a 'rock and a hard place' position Jon Stewart is angry the Democratic Party 'wasn't honest' about Biden and landed the US in a 'rock and a hard place' position Jon Stewart is upset that the Democratic Party failed to prepare for threats like Biden appearing weak. "I don't know if it was complacency, or deceit, or whatever it is," Stewart said. He worried that Biden's perceived ill health would lead to fascism rising in the US if Trump wins. Comedian Jon Stewart accused the Democratic Party of putting its voters between a "rock and a hard place" by failing to prepare them for any doubts about President Joe Biden's health before the 2024 election. And he's upset, he indicated in a Thursday episode of his podcast. "What do I do with my anger at a Democratic Party that honestly has put us in this rock and a hard place position?" he said. "That wasn't honest over this past year about what was happening internally in the White House, was not in any way preparing the public for Kamala Harris." Stewart and his podcast guests discussed the possible outcomes of Biden losing the election due to concerns about his age and health. Their key worry was that fascism in the US would rise if former President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Stewart is a regular critic of Trump. "I don't know if it was complacency or deceit, or whatever it is," Stewart said. He slammed the Democratic Party as having "missed all of the threats" and leaving itself vulnerable. Biden has been facing calls to abandon his 2024 reelection bid after a disastrous debate performance against Trump, where the president frequently mumbled and sometimes appeared lost. Some key Democratic figures, including 16 House lawmakers, have asked that he step aside in fear that he now cannot muster the voter support to beat Trump. If Biden were to acquiesce, Vice President Kamala Harris would be one of the most prominent potential candidates to replace him as Democratic nominee. His team has been researching whether she might fare better in polls compared to Biden, The New York Times reported on Thursday. But Biden has appeared adamant in his decision to stay in the race, saying in an interview after the debate that only "the Lord Almighty" would compel him to step aside. Even if he does, the Democratic Party would only have four months to gather momentum for his replacement before the November election. Support for Biden among the Democratic Party's highest echelons is also rumored to be disintegrating. Former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Chuck Schumer have been reported to be doubting behind the scenes that Biden is the man for a reelection bid. In public, however, they've stopped short of calling for Biden's withdrawal, with Schumer declaring his support for the president. Meanwhile, Stewart has been among several major celebrities voicing concern about diminishing voter confidence in Biden. The "Daily Show" host has often fretted since the debate that the president could lose to Trump. His comments come amid reports pushing back on the Biden campaign's description of his debate performance as a one-off. Several aides are alleged to have said that his mental stamina has seriously deteriorated in the last year. Hollywood star George Clooney stoked the furor even further when he wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on Wednesday, saying that he had seen Biden at a fundraiser looking as shaky as he did during the debate. Representatives for Biden's campaign and Stewart did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider An Arizona judge is allowing several people facing criminal charges for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results to travel to Milwaukee next week for the Republican National Convention. The Arizona delegation to the convention includes three fake electors who have been charged in that state for their alleged roles in the 2020 plot. Now they will help officially anoint Donald Trump as the GOPs 2024 presidential nominee. Earlier this month, the judge overseeing Arizonas election subversion case approved a request from defendant Nancy Cottle to travel to the RNC. She has been charged with multiple felonies in connection with her role as a pro-Trump fake elector from Arizona four years ago. IT IS ORDERED granting Defendant Cottle (and any other named defendant in this matter who may need a similar order) permission to travel to Wisconsin to attend the Republican National Convention scheduled for the week of July 15, 2024, the order from Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen states. Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who was recently elected to serve as the Arizona GOPs national committeeman, and state Sen. Anthony Kern also will be allowed to travel to Wisconsin for the convention. Cottle, Hoffman and Kern have all pleaded not guilty. All three defendants were required to obtain the courts permission to travel under their pre-trial release conditions. Six other battleground states also are sending fake electors and others who worked to upend the 2020 election results to represent their state parties at the RNC in Milwaukee. It is unclear if those charged with election-related crimes in other states have received or need permission to travel to the convention. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Courthouse for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Credit: Michael Moline A federal trial judge will not allow the state of Florida to enforce its law banning gender-affirming care for minors and restriction on adults pending appeal of his earlier ruling that the ban is unconstitutional, citing bias from legislators during floor and committee debate. In June, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the 2023 ban on puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for transgender minors, as well as restrictions for treatments for adults, singled out transgender people for disparate treatment. The plaintiffs included parents of transgender minors and transgender adults. The state appealed Hinkles June ruling and, while waiting for the appellate hearing, asked the judge to allow it to enforce the law, arguing that without it officials lacked control over gender-affirming care in the state. That is simply not true. The state has in place abundant means of ensuring that health care professionals adhere to the prevailing standards of care, Hinkle wrote in his denial of a stay on Thursday. The state allowed and even paid for gender-affirming care for many years before enacting the statute and rules at issue in a wave of anti-transgender bias. The state had argued that gender affirming care might not meet appropriate medical standards. Hinkle, however, pointed to statements by lawmakers during debate over the measure. The concern was that gender-affirming care was being provided at all, not that providers were failing to meet the prevailing standards. The defendants new-found concern with the manner in which care is being provided unsupported by anything in the record does not call for a stay, Hinkle wrote. Lawmakers called transgender people demons, imps, and evil, Hinkle noted. The evidence that animus motivated at least some legislators is overwhelming, indeed undisputed, Hinkle wrote. With legislators having loudly and proudly proclaimed their bias, the defendants ought not be allowed to hide from it now. In his 12-page ruling, Hinkle said that, despite its resources and range of discovery available, the state was unable to present evidence of a single instance of improper provision of care in Florida, including any violations of standards set forth by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Perhaps most importantly, the state was unable to present evidence of even a single patient who suffered adverse consequences or came to regret care received in this state, Hinkle wrote. He said the clearest factor against a stay is the risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide for people seeking gender affirming care. The public interest supports keeping this a medical issue, not a political one, until the constitutional issue is finally resolved, Hinkle wrote. Praise and disgust The case was litigated by various human rights organizations, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). We are pleased the court will continue to enforce this important decision, which correctly found that Floridas ban on lifesaving medical care for transgender youth and adults was based on bias, not facts, said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR in a prepared statement. Like other similar laws around the country, Floridas ban was passed impulsively, without any attempt to genuinely understand this area of health care or the best interests of transgender youth and their families, Minter said. When asked for comment about the denial of the stay, Gov. Ron DeSantis staff referred the Phoenix to the comments the governor made after Hinkles June decision. In a news conference at the time, DeSantis justified the states use of taxpayer dollars to defend the law. He added that rulings by liberal judges against state laws in the past have sometimes been overruled on appeal. If youre not willing to defend Floridas duly enacted statutes against liberal jurisprudence, then youre basically saying the people of Florida shouldnt govern themselves and that we should just turn over our destiny to some trial judge somewhere. That I refuse to do, DeSantis said. He referred to a January ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the same court that will hear the Florida appeal, in favor of an Alabama law imposing a ban on genital surgeries on minors, which was already banned in Florida and was not challenged in the case awaiting appeal. This will be reversed, theres no question this will be reversed, DeSantis said at that time. Alec Baldwin wept in court as a Santa Fe judge dismissed his involuntary manslaughter case on Friday after a day-long, dramatic and often bizarre hearing over how police and prosecutors treated a handful of bullets. The late discovery of this evidence has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stated in dismissing the case with prejudice, which means Baldwin cannot be re-tried. There is no way for the court to right this wrong. The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy. Early on in the unusual hearing, Judge Sommer slid on a pair of blue surgical gloves and sliced into an evidence bag containing the ammunition, which Baldwins attorneys have said the Santa Fe Sheriffs Office and prosecutors withheld from them. By the end of the day, one of the two special prosecutors in the trial, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, had resigned and special prosecutor Kari Morrissey had called herself to the witness stand. More from The Hollywood Reporter Opening statements started Wednesday in what was expected to be a two-week trial on whether Baldwin should be held criminally liable for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin and his attorneys left the courthouse after the trial without saying a word to press gathered outside. Morrissey stopped and spoke to cameras. I respect the courts decision, the prosecutor said, But there is absolutely no evidence that any of that ammunition was related to the incident with Ms. Hutchins. In the surprise motion to have the case dismissed that Baldwin filed Friday morning, his attorneys said prosecutors and Santa Fe sheriffs had concealed evidence from Baldwin that emerged in March, after the conclusion of the trial of the indie Westerns armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. On March 6, the filing says, retired Arizona police officer Troy Teske turned over a collection of live ammunition to the Santa Fe sheriffs office, where the bullets were accepted by crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, but not inventoried with the Rust case. Teske told Poppell that among the rounds he was handing over that day were Starline brass casings with nickel primers, matching the live bullet that killed Hutchins, according to Baldwins filing. The sheriff departments knowledge and possession of the rounds was not disclosed to the defense, nor were they presented at the defenses evidence viewing April 16, the filing said. By 10:15 am, the judge sent home the jury for the weekend. Im sorry, Sommer told them. Trials are fluid. The jurors would never end up returning to the courtroom. Baldwins attorney Alex Spiro first brought up the evidence in front of the jury on Thursday, referring to Teske at that time merely as a good Samaritan. Prosecutor Kari Morrissey later revealed that good samaritan to be Teske, a retired Arizona police officer who is a friend of Gutierrezs father, veteran Hollywood armorer Thell Reed. Reached by phone on Friday, Teske told THR, This trial is going down a path that I cant make any comments on it. I dont want to interfere. The shooting occurred inside a rustic New Mexico church set at roughly 1:40 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2021, when an old-fashioned revolver Baldwin was handling went off as he was rehearsing a cross-draw maneuver. Prior to that, assistant director David Halls handed him the loaded weapon, pronouncing it cold, an industry term to signify there was no live ammunition inside (Halls has testified armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed handed the gun directly to Baldwin). The revolver discharged in the direction of Hutchins, who was killed, and director Joel Souza, who was injured. Five live rounds mixed in with dummy rounds were found on set following the shooting. It remains unknown how they were introduced. The road to the filing of charges against the actor was long and winding. He was initially charged in January 2023, with prosecutors alleging that he shouldve assumed the gun he was handling was loaded with live rounds and known that the first rule of gun safety is never to point a gun at someone you dont intend on shooting. The charges were dropped three months later when New Mexico prosecutors announced a new investigation into whether the gun that discharged couldve been modified to fire without a pull of the trigger. They were then refiled in 2024 after a forensic expert issued a report clashing with an account of the shooting from Baldwin, who maintained that he didnt pull the trigger. Halyna Hutchinss widower Matthew Hutchins, who sued Baldwin and the other Rust producers for wrongful death in 2022 but agreed to a settlement later that same year, has recently re-opened his case against the producers because settlement payments have not been made. Upon Baldwins case being dismissed Friday, Matthew Hutchinss attorney Brian Panish issued a statement saying that, We respect the courts decision. We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr. Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna Hutchins. In his own statement, Baldwin wrote on Instagram, There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now. To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Key Insights Institutions' substantial holdings in Intelligent Monitoring Group implies that they have significant influence over the company's share price 57% of the business is held by the top 2 shareholders Insiders have bought recently A look at the shareholders of Intelligent Monitoring Group Limited (ASX:IMB) can tell us which group is most powerful. And the group that holds the biggest piece of the pie are hedge funds with 47% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). And last week, hedge funds investors ended up benefitting the most after the company hit AU$160m in market cap. The gains from last week would have further boosted the one-year return to shareholders which currently stand at 212%. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Intelligent Monitoring Group, beginning with the chart below. Check out our latest analysis for Intelligent Monitoring Group What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Intelligent Monitoring Group? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Intelligent Monitoring Group does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Intelligent Monitoring Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story. It would appear that 47% of Intelligent Monitoring Group shares are controlled by hedge funds. That worth noting, since hedge funds are often quite active investors, who may try to influence management. Many want to see value creation (and a higher share price) in the short term or medium term. Our data shows that Black Crane Capital is the largest shareholder with 47% of shares outstanding. In comparison, the second and third largest shareholders hold about 9.6% and 2.7% of the stock. To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 2 shareholders have a majority ownership in the company, meaning that they are powerful enough to influence the decisions of the company. Story continues While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known. Insider Ownership Of Intelligent Monitoring Group The definition of company insiders can be subjective and does vary between jurisdictions. Our data reflects individual insiders, capturing board members at the very least. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Intelligent Monitoring Group Limited. As individuals, the insiders collectively own AU$4.6m worth of the AU$160m company. Some would say this shows alignment of interests between shareholders and the board, though we generally prefer to see bigger insider holdings. But it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling. General Public Ownership With a 31% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Intelligent Monitoring Group. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Private Company Ownership It seems that Private Companies own 6.4%, of the Intelligent Monitoring Group stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Be aware that Intelligent Monitoring Group is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about... If you would prefer check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Actor Alec Baldwin, left, attends his trial for involuntary manslaughter on July 12, 2024, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ramsay de Give-Pool/Getty Images A judge on Friday dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, whom he accidentally shot and killed on the set of indie Western Rust in 2021. The decision in Baldwins case comes just days after his trial began in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Leading up to the move, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer had sent the jury home after defense attorneys presented a motion accusing prosecutors of burying evidence. Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice, barring the state from presenting a new trial. If convicted, Baldwin would have faced a maximum of 18 months in prison. According to a copy of the defenses motion, reviewed by HuffPost, the push to dismiss Baldwins case centered on one question: How did live ammunition end up on a movie set? Crime scene technician Marissa Poppell told the court Friday that five live rounds were discovered on the set in New Mexico. The defense motion stated that Troy Teske, a retired police officer in Mohave County, Arizona, delivered the live ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office and gave it to Poppell. Teske was unsure at the time whether this live ammunition would match the ammunition that killed Hutchins. Baldwins attorneys argued that the Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office was in possession of evidence but did not disclose this in the official case file or to his defense team. According to the state, the ammunition it was accused of withholding was irrelevant to the case. Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey called herself to the witness stand in an attempt to contest the claim that the state hid evidence. During her questioning, Morrissey told Alex Spiro, Baldwins attorney, that her fellow prosector Erlinda Ocampo Johnson resigned that same day due to the decision to have a public hearing into the motion to dismiss the case. As the judge announced the dismissal, Baldwin covered his face with his hand and sobbed, hugging his attorneys. Morrissey told reporters outside the courthouse that she disagreed with the judges decision but respected it. She disputed that the ammunition could have been key evidence for Baldwins defense. I believe that the importance of the evidence was misconstrued by the defense attorneys, she said. Hutchins was killed in October 2021 during a rehearsal when a .45-caliber revolver that Baldwin was holding fired a live round. The bullet also injured director Joel Souza. Baldwin was initially charged in January of last year but his case was dismissed months later due to new evidence. The case was revived earlier this year with a grand jury indictment. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who oversaw the prop weapons for Rust, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced in April to 18 months in prison. Gutierrez-Reed had been expected to testify in court Friday before the surprise hearing on the defense motion. Ocampo Johnson, the prosecutor, alleged in her opening statement that Baldwin was reckless and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety. But Spiro said that as an actor, Baldwin had no reason to check the gun and was not responsible for ensuring safety on set, as that was the job of other professionals. Related... A judge dismissed Rudy Giulianis Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, removing a shield that for six months froze two Georgia election workers efforts to collect their $148 million defamation judgment. The former New York City mayor had long pushed back on the mounting pressure from his creditors. But in recent days, he consented to dismissal after they increasingly asserted he acted in bad faith and could be liable for bankruptcy crimes, accusations Giuliani denies. In a 22-page ruling issued Friday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane tossed the bankruptcy, citing Giulianis continued failure to provide financial transparency. Mr. Giuliani has failed to provide an accurate and complete picture of his financial affairs in the six months that this case has been pending. Transparency into Mr. Giulianis finances has proven to be an elusive goal, Lane wrote. It ends a half-year detour that commenced after the two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, prepared to collect on a jurys $148 million defamation verdict over Giulianis baseless conspiracy that the duo committed mass election fraud in 2020. Giuliani has vowed to appeal. Filing for Chapter 11 automatically froze their case and Giulianis other civil lawsuits, all while enabling him to remain in control of his assets so he could propose a plan of reorganization which never surfaced. Giulianis creditors long cast the bankruptcy as a delay tactic, accusing him of hiding assets and spending egregiously. The election workers insisted bankruptcy law would have ultimately prevented the former federal prosecutor and Trump attorney from discharging the staggering judgment. In his ruling, Lane called Giulianis struggle to retain an accountant a clear red flag, chastising gaps in his financial reporting. The ruling blocks Giuliani from filing for bankruptcy again during the next year. When confronted with complaints about a failure to satisfy the Bankruptcy Codes obligations as to financial transparency, most debtors will respond by curing at least some if not all of the defects. By contrast, Mr. Giuliani has done nothing, Lane wrote. By dismissing the bankruptcy, as the election workers requested, their original lawsuit will unfreeze and again set the duo free to attempt to collect their sum. They are likely to recover far less than the $148 million, however, as a result of Giulianis limited asset pool, which mainly include his New York and Florida properties. The election workers lawyers contended proceeding in the bankruptcy system would instead send much of the available funds to professional fees. It is in the interest of creditors, for the victims of this man, to have their claims heard in the forums of their choosing, which are better positioned than the bankruptcy court to hear and decide these claims. If the opposite occurs, and we stay in Chapter 11, the cost of this process will just continue to pile up, Rachel Strickland, an attorney for the mother-daughter duo, said at a hearing this week. But dismissal could leave out to dry other creditors whose lawsuits against Giuliani remain in earlier stages. To bolster their prospects, the official creditors committee wanted to remain in the bankruptcy system but strip Giulianis control of his finances by appointing an independent trustee. The other committee members comprise electronic voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which also sued Giuliani over 2020 election conspiracy theories, and Noelle Dunphy, a former employee of the ex-mayor who sued him alleging sexual assault, harassment and nonpayment of wages. If the case remains in chapter 11, with the oversight of Your Honor, the trustee and the committee, we can do everything we possibly can to ensure theres an equitable distribution of that value to the people that have been aggrieved by the debtor, Phil Dublin, an attorney representing the committee, said at this weeks hearing. The judge opted against that option, writing in Fridays ruling that there is little reason to conclude that the Mr. Giulianis uncooperative conduct will change after the appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee. Giuliani had long resisted the increasingly drastic proposals from his creditors as frustrations grew, contending as recently as last month that he was still determined to propose a reorganization plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But with ever-increasing pressure and the judges repeated refusals to allow Giuliani to appeal his defamation judgment while the mother-daughter duos ability to collect it remains frozen, the former New York City mayor ultimately agreed to dismiss his bankruptcy. This whole bankruptcy case was burdened with many of the same voluminous and overly broad discovery requests and other actionsincluding regular leaks of informationintended to harm the mayor and destroy his businesses, Ted Goodman, Giulianis spokesperson, said in a statement. It is yet another example of the effort to punish Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the person most responsible for exposing Hunter Bidens laptop and to deter anyone else from asking questions or getting to the truth, Goodman added. Updated 5:30 p.m. EDT 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. NEW YORK A New York federal judge on Friday dismissed Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy case, saying the interests of his creditors, including two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation verdict against him, would be best served by the move. In a 22-page ruling, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane ridiculed Giulianis uncooperative conduct and failure to provide an accurate and complete picture of his financial affairs, citing his obfuscation as justification for dismissing the case rather than appointing a trustee who would control Giulianis assets. The decision allows the two Georgia women, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who won a defamation lawsuit against the former New York City mayor last year for falsely accusing them of committing election fraud in the 2020 election, to begin pursuing his assets. Their lawyer argued that a dismissal of the case would require Giuliani to liquidate his assets and begin immediately paying off his debts. Lane indicated earlier this week that he was likely to throw out the case rather than appoint a trustee, and in his decision he noted that months into the bankruptcy case, Giuliani had not yet hired an accountant, which is the most rudimentary of steps. Such a failure is a clear red flag, as has been previously noted by the Court months ago, Lane wrote. Lane also noted that Giuliani has multiple lawsuits pending against him, all of which have been paused as a result of the bankruptcy proceeding, and dismissing the bankruptcy case will allow those lawsuits to move forward. The plaintiffs in many of these matters have a right to a jury trial, making these cases better resolved outside the bankruptcy forum, Lane wrote. The judge also cited several other reasons for tossing the case. He noted the serious risk of Giuliani continuing to repeat the defamatory claims against Freeman and Moss, who are required by law to take precedence over his other debts. Such statements expose the estate to liability that severely threatens the recovery of any unsecured creditors, who can only recover after the Freeman Plaintiffs would receive payment on any such allowed administrative claim, Lane wrote. And he noted that Giuliani might simply refuse to earn any additional income if a trustee were to be appointed, a prospect that Giulianis own lawyer floated earlier this week. While Freeman and Moss had advocated for dismissal of the case, Giuliani, too, said it was his desired outcome, since it would circumvent the appointment of a trustee. By Andrew Hay SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) -A New Mexico judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin on Friday, agreeing with his lawyers that prosecutors and police withheld evidence on the source of the live round that killed "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021. Three days after Baldwin's trial began, New Mexico district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw out the case as the actors' lawyers alleged a "cover up" by prosecutors who have been plagued by missteps since first filing charges 18 months ago. Breaking down in tears, the multiple Emmy-award winning actor hugged his wife Hilaria Baldwin as other family members wept in the public gallery. Baldwin faced an unprecedented criminal prosecution as an actor for an on-set shooting and his lawyers said prosecutors dragged him through a "cesspool of improprieties." Baldwin and his family left court without speaking to reporters. "The state's withholding of the evidence was wilful and deliberate," Sommer said in delivering her decision. "Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice." The actor's lawyer Alex Spiro told the court that the Santa Fe sheriff's office took possession of live rounds in March as evidence in the case but failed to list them in the "Rust" investigation file or disclose their existence to defense lawyers. "The real reason you didn't inventory that evidence is because it could have jeopardized the law enforcement case," Spiro told Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office Corporal Alexandria Hancock, the lead investigator on the "Rust" case, in cross examination on Friday. Erlinda Johnson, one of the state prosecutors on the case, resigned on Friday, the fourth prosecutor to quit or be forced to step down. "I did not intend to mislead the court," lead state prosecutor Kari Morrissey said after taking the unusual step of defending herself from the witness stand. "My understanding of what was dropped off at the sheriff's office is on this computer screen and it looks absolutely nothing like the live rounds from the set of Rust." Many legal analysts said the case should never have been brought to trial by the Santa Fe County District Attorney's Office. "The prosecution felt it had to cheat to get the result it wanted," said legal analyst Duncan Levin, a New York defense attorney. "This is the worst of our system on display." Hutchins died in Hollywood's first on-set shooting in nearly 30 years when Baldwin was directed to point a revolver at her as she set up a camera shot during filming southwest of Santa Fe. The weapon fired a .45 caliber round inadvertently loaded by the movie's armorer Hannah Gutierrez. The Colt .45 rounds at the center of the dismissal were handed into the sheriff's office on March 6 by Troy Teske, a friend of Thell Reed, the stepfather of Gutierrez, on the same day she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for Hutchins' death. A sheriff's office crime scene technician, Marissa Poppel, testified on Thursday that the rounds did not match those collected on the set of Rust which were sent for FBI testing. But when defense lawyers inspected them they found some had brass casings with the Starline Brass logo and silver, nickel primers, just like the six live rounds found on the set of Rust. Others looked like inert dummy rounds taken into evidence on the set. That turned out to be completely false, didnt it? Baldwin's lawyer Spiro asked Corporal Hancock. Youre correct, she said. Judge Sommer asked Hancock who had decided to put Teskes ammunition into a separate case file number. Hancock said it was the decision of her supervisor, prosecutors and herself. Ms. Morrissey was part of that conversation? asked Sommer, growing visibly angry. Yes, replied Hancock. Spiro also questioned Morrissey about her attitude toward his client, saying witnesses had reported she had characterized him with expletives and said she would try to teach him a lesson. "I never said to witnesses that I would teach him a lesson," she said. Prosecutors had alleged Baldwin played a role in the death of Hutchins because he handled the gun irresponsibly. His lawyers said Baldwin was failed by Gutierrez and others responsible for safety on the set, and law enforcement agents were more interested in prosecuting their client than finding the source of the live round that killed Hutchins. Defense lawyers alleged prop supplier Seth Kenney supplied the live rounds to "Rust," an accusation he denied in testimony on Friday. It remains to be seen whether the dismissal of Baldwin's case would affect Gutierrez's conviction, which is under appeal. (Reporting By Andrew Hay; editing by Donna Bryson, Josie Kao and Diane Craft and Miral Fahmy) A federal judge has thrown out cash-strapped Rudy Giulianis bankruptcy case, opening the door for election workers he defamed to recover tens of millions of dollars owed to them for his baseless allegations surrounding the 2020 election. Giuliani also failed to change his case from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 in an attempt to liquidate his assets. A decision from bankruptcy court judge Sean Lane on Friday came days after Giuliani himself moved to dismiss his case, and after lawyers for the two election workers and other people the disgraced former New York City mayor owes money to had agreed that the move was the best path forward. The end of his attempts to get bankruptcy protection does not let him off the hook for his mountain of debts. His creditors will still be able to rely on the courts to collect what theyre owed, including pressing for court orders to seize his properties and other assets. Giulianis lawyer Gary Fischoff told the court on Wednesday that dismissing the case would give him the best chance of appealing the defamation verdict. Lawyers for the creditors committee asked the court to appoint a Chapter 11 trustee instead, which would mean Giuliani would relinquish control of his finances for the most equitable outcome for the creditors, many of whom have not yet resolved their litigation against him. Those cases have been on pause since Giulianis bankruptcy case began. The stays will now be lifted. Rudy Giuliani is pictured leaving a federal courthouse in December 2023 after he was ordered to pay $148 million to election workers he defamed. (REUTERS) In his order on Friday, Judge Lane said the courts record reflects Mr. Giulianis continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession. The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case, the judge added. It has been impossible to determine whether his financial arrangements are appropriate when Mr. Giuliani has completely failed to provide information about them, Judge Lane added. Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December in the wake of a nearly $150 million defamation judgment for his election lies. A bizarre monthslong behind-the-scenes courtroom drama that followed has laid bare his financial state as he battles criminal indictments across the country. The defamation verdict is among a growing list of legal obligations for Giuliani, including criminal charges in Georgia and in Arizona for his efforts to reverse Donald Trumps election loss in those states. He also is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal criminal case surrounding Trumps attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Former Georgia election workers Wandrea Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation and were awarded a $148m verdict. Giuliani later filed for bankruptcy protection to navigate his debts, a case that was dismissed on July 12. The women can now try to collect from him directly while he tries to appeal. (AP) A creditors committee navigating his bankruptcy case has repeatedly complained about his deficiencies in his financial reporting and disclosures, like discrepancies related to payments on his Florida condo; his unauthorized payments to his alleged girlfriend; and his failure to comply with discovery requests. Giuliani also is being sued by voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for defamation. A former Dominion executive has separately sued Giuliani. Creditors have also separately asked a judge to impose sanctions against him after failing to comply with document requests. This week, the committees lawyers accused him of treating the bankruptcy process as a joke, hiding behind the facade of an elderly, doddering man. Wednesdays hearing was nothing short of chaotic. Giuliani, who was in attendance via Zoom, interrupted the proceeding after a lawyer for the election workers suggested she would seek jail time for Giulianis alleged bankruptcy crimes. Would someone get them on the phone? Giuliani yelled, prompting the judge to request he mute his microphone. But Giuliani didnt listen and instead insisted the lawyers comments were highly defamatory, your honor. In a statement on Friday, Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said Giuliani was unfairly denied the ability to appeal the grossly unfair $148 million judgement and claimed that the whole bankruptcy case was burdened with many of the same voluminous and overly broad discovery requests and other actions including regular leaks of information intended to harm the mayor and destroy his businesses. We will continue to pursue justice and we are confident that in the long run our system of justice will be restored and the mayor will be totally vindicated, he added. A federal judge in New York on Friday threw out a bankruptcy case filed by Rudy Giuliani, the onetime New York City mayor and longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump. The decision is a victory for the two Georgia election workers who won $148 million in damages from Giuliani in a defamation suit last year, along with other creditors seeking reimbursement from the embattled former mayor. Giulianis decision to enter bankruptcy proceedings had prevented the women, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, from collecting. The judge barred Giuliani from filing for bankruptcy protections again for a period of one year. Giulianis repeated efforts to smear the 2020 presidential election as fraudulent helped land him in the dire financial straits he now finds himself in. He spread conspiracy theories about Moss and Freeman, falsely accusing them of hauling in suitcases full of ballots to skew the election results for Democrat Joe Biden. The mother-daughter pair first filed suit against him in 2021, but it wasnt until May of this year that Giuliani agreed to finally stop spreading lies about them. Other entities Giuliani owes money to include Brooks Brothers, American Airlines, Floridas Emerald Dunes golf club, assorted lawyers and the Internal Revenue Service for income taxes. In his 22-page opinion, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said Giuliani had omitted certain assets or income streams and refused full cooperation, noting Giulianis continued failure to meet his reporting obligations and provide the financial transparency required of a debtor in possession. Every single monthly operating report filed by Mr. Giuliani has been untimely, Lane wrote. Perhaps even more troubling, the information in the monthly operating reports has been incomplete or inaccurate. Giuliani has blamed the delays on the difficulty hes had in finding an accountant. While some of his creditors wanted the bankruptcy case to proceed, Lane ultimately sided with Moss and Freeman due to a fear that dragging out the proceedings would deplete the value of Giulianis estate. Continuing the bankruptcy proceedings would also delay other lawsuits Giuliani is named in including a sexual harassment suit filed by a former associate, Nicole Dunphy. Giuliani put his New York City apartment, worth an estimated $5.6 million, on the market earlier this year, but has tried to avoid selling his Florida condo worth an estimated $3.5 million. Related... Prosecutor Daniel Richenthal on Thursday urged jurors to convict Menendez and his two codefendants for their truly egregious betrayal of the publics trust. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Nine weeks after it started, the federal bribery trial of Sen. Bob Menendez is finally headed to the weary jury, with deliberations expected to start at the federal courthouse in Manhattan by midday Friday. Judge Sidney H. Stein began instructing jurors Thursday afternoon, after prosecutor Daniel Richenthal in a fiery rebuttal to defense summations urged jurors to convict New Jerseys senior senator and his two codefendants for their truly egregious betrayal of the publics trust. Lets just look at this for a minute a sitting U.S. senator is giving sensitive information to a foreign government through his girlfriend! Richenthal said. Menendez didnt become a senator last year. Do you honestly think he thought this was no big deal? Richenthals rebuttal ran most of the day longer than anticipated, just like the rest of the trial. Stein had told jurors in May, when they were first seated, the trial likely would end in six to eight weeks. But the accusations against Menendez, a Democrat, cover five years, implicate five total defendants, and involve 18 criminal counts, two Arab countries, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged bribes. Jurors heard testimony from more than 30 witnesses and considered countless pieces of evidence. Bitter clashes between prosecutors and defense attorneys, both in written filings and in court outside jurors earshot, dragged out proceedings and prompted regular rebukes from the beleaguered judge. Thursday was no different, with attorneys accusing each other of dirty tricks during a jury break and defense attorney Adam Fee asking if he could rebut Richenthals rebuttal. Stein said no. Richenthal bashed defense attorneys during his rebuttal for misstating evidence when they offered innocent explanations during closing arguments for their clients actions in short, that codefendants Wael Hana and Fred Daibes gave generous gifts to Menendez and his wife, Nadine, and that the senator in turn acted to help their businesses because they were good friends. That makes no sense at all, Richenthal repeated of defense attorneys various explanations. He singled out the senators blame-my-wife defense, in which he claimed he didnt know his wife was taking money and making deals, as especially unbelievable. You learned a lot about Nadine Menendez. Now, Im not trying to make fun of her. But does she strike you as a diabolical genius who concocted a plan with Menendezs friend and Wael Hana to dupe him for five years, including when theyre living together? Richenthal said. Do you think she could have pulled that off if she tried? The senator was not a victim, as his defense team has suggested, he added. He knows all about the payments. Hes taking actions. Hes part of it, Richenthal said. All three defendants attorneys urged jurors to beware of gaps in evidence where prosecutors said they could make inferences to draw conclusions, saying prosecutors expected them to instead speculate and assume the worst. Law allows juries to make reasonable inferences, like seeing someone come inside with a wet umbrella and concluding that its raining outside. Richenthal attacked back in his rebuttal, exhorting jurors to remember all the evidence and testimony theyve heard so far. Its not like seeing one wet umbrella, Richenthal said. Its like seeing a room full of wet umbrellas and seeing people with wet shoes and hearing thunder behind you. The evidence is clear. Menendez, 70, left court Thursday without stopping to talk to reporters, as he often does. He faces decades in prison if convicted of charges that include bribery, extortion, honest services fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors also charged Nadine Menendez, but she has not joined the rotating roster of relatives who have attended court since May to support the senator and his codefendants. She asked Stein to postpone her trial because she needed medical treatment for breast cancer. Last month, Stein ordered her attorneys to provide an update on her medical condition by July 3. They did not, according to an order Stein issued Thursday, so he set a new deadline of July 17 for them to comply. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Update: The judge dismissed the case against Alec Baldwin on Friday, July 12. Read the latest here. Our earlier story is below. The judge in actor Alec Baldwin's trial on a charge of involuntary manslaughter sent the jury home early Friday, as attorneys argued over a defense motion, including questioning a witness who had already testified in the case. Baldwin is charged in the 2021 on-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. If convicted, he could face up to 18 months in prison. He has pleaded not guilty, and has said he did not pull the trigger. Attorneys for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed the film's armorer, who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting had earlier said they expected her to be called to testify Friday. The judge earlier rejected a motion by the prosecution to compel her to testify. Her attorneys have said she plans to plead the fifth. Actor Alec Baldwin arrives in the courtroom for his trial on involuntary manslaughter at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 12, 2024. / Credit: RAMSAY DE GIVE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Gutierrez-Reed is already serving 18 months in prison for her role in the shooting on the set at Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular filming location near Santa Fe. The prosecution, which called both the gun's manufacturer and a representative of the firm that imported it to testify Thursday, ended the day by calling the case's lead detective, sheriff's Cpl. Alexandria Hancock, to the stand. Her testimony was expected to continue Friday, but after lengthy arguments before the jury entered the courtroom over the motion the judge elected to push back testimony to Monday and excused the jury. Thursday's testimony saw a lengthy cross-examination of crime scene technician Marissa Poppell by Baldwin's defense attorney Alex Spiro, who suggested the searches of a prop truck and a warehouse for the live ammunition that ultimately were loaded in Baldwin's prop gun, a revolver, were shoddy and subpar. Baldwin has been joined in the courtroom by his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, for each day of testimony in the trial, which is scheduled through July 19. Elise Preston, Kathleen Seccombe and Elizabeth Campbell contributed to this report. President Biden holds solo press conference after NATO summit | Special Report SpaceX Falcon 9 breaks apart after launch, and more top stories 3 tips to spot misinformation online A jury of 12 New Yorkers has begun deliberating in New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendezs (D) federal corruption trial the second hes faced in a decade. The three-term Democrat stood trial alongside two New Jersey businessmen who allegedly traded luxurious bribes for the senators political power. A third businessman previously pleaded guilty to several charges and testified against the others. During closing arguments, federal prosecutors said that Menendez put his power up for sale, using his powerful post on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to pile up riches for himself and his wife. Defense attorneys, however, contended that the government had not come close to proving the senator even accepted bribes. Last year, Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were accused of agreeing to and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes paid in the form of cash, gold, a Mercedes-Benz convertible and other lavish gifts in exchange for the senators clout, which prosecutors said enriched the businessmen and Egypt. Several superseding indictments followed, accusing the prominent senator of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Egypt, accepting gifts from the Qatari government and conspiring to cover up the alleged bribery scheme as prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York worked the case. Federal prosecutors presented testimony throughout the nine-week trial that more than $486,000 in cash and $100,000 in gold bars were found in the Menendezs home by the FBI and showed evidence that Nadine Menendez frequently served as a go-between for her husband and the businessmen. Jose Uribe, the New Jersey businessman who pleaded guilty, testified that he believed he struck a $200,000 to $250,000 deal with Menendez in 2018 to pressure the New Jersey attorney generals office to cease its investigation of his friends and family. Nadine Menendez was charged alongside her husband, but her case was severed from the others after telling the court she would undergo a surgical procedure for breast cancer. Her trial is scheduled for August, and she has pleaded not guilty. Menendezs attorneys at times sought to pin the blame on the senators wife, contending that she concealed her dealings with the businessmen from him and inherited the gold found in her bedroom during the 2022 FBI raid of their home. The senators sister, who testified in the defense case, told jurors that their family routinely stored large amounts of cash after their parents fled Cuba. The New Jersey Democrat faces 16 charges in total, including counts of bribery, extortion, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice. He has pleaded not guilty and did not take the stand to testify in his defense, telling reporters last week that the government failed to prove every aspect of its case and that testifying would give them another chance. Though the New Jersey Democrat once chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he stepped away from the powerful post last year after he was first indicted, in line with Democratic Conference rules. However, he has maintained his innocence and refused calls to resign, instead choosing to mount his reelection bid as an independent. Menendez previously faced federal corruption charges in 2015, but they were dropped after a jury failed to reach a verdict. Hes one of three congressmen currently facing criminal charges, in addition to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and now-expelled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.). 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. When we invest, we're generally looking for stocks that outperform the market average. Buying under-rated businesses is one path to excess returns. For example, the 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad (KLSE:SEM) share price is up 36% in the last 5 years, clearly besting the market return of around 6.7% (ignoring dividends). On the other hand, the more recent gains haven't been so impressive, with shareholders gaining just 2.4%, including dividends. With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies. View our latest analysis for 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad's earnings per share are down 13% per year, despite strong share price performance over five years. The impact of extraordinary items on earnings, in the last year, partially explain the diversion. This means it's unlikely the market is judging the company based on earnings growth. Since the change in EPS doesn't seem to correlate with the change in share price, it's worth taking a look at other metrics. We doubt the modest 1.4% dividend yield is attracting many buyers to the stock. On the other hand, 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad's revenue is growing nicely, at a compound rate of 7.0% over the last five years. It's quite possible that management are prioritizing revenue growth over EPS growth at the moment. You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values). This free interactive report on 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad's balance sheet strength is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further. What About Dividends? When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. We note that for 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad the TSR over the last 5 years was 48%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad shareholders gained a total return of 2.4% during the year. But that return falls short of the market. It's probably a good sign that the company has an even better long term track record, having provided shareholders with an annual TSR of 8% over five years. Maybe the share price is just taking a breather while the business executes on its growth strategy. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad that you should be aware of. But note: 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast). Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Malaysian exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com The jury in the federal corruption trial against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and his co-defendants began deliberations Friday after hearing from 37 witnesses over nine weeks of testimony. Jurors were dismissed for the day after deliberating for approximately three hours Friday and are expected to return to Manhattan criminal court at 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday to continue their deliberations. Menendez and his co-defendants, New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are accused of participating in a yearslong bribery scheme. 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 Menendez faces 16 counts including bribery, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent for his alleged role in the scheme. The senator has denied any wrongdoing and accused prosecutors of targeting him. He did not take the stand in his own defense during the trial. Prosecutors spent nearly seven weeks untangling the multiple corruption schemes that they allege Bob and Nadine Menendez and the co-defendants were involved in. Federal prosecutors structured their case by chapters, calling witnesses to testify about separate schemes allegedly brokered by the senator in tandem with his wife. According to evidence presented by prosecutors in court, the schemes involved Hana, Daibes and another co-conspirator, Jose Uribe, the New Jersey businessman who allegedly bribed the senator in exchange for legal favors. Uribe struck a plea deal ahead of the trial. Bob Menendezs attorneys consistently suggested in cross-examinations that the senator was not aware of the deals his wife struck with the co-defendants, which included offering the senators influence for a price. Prosecutors alleged that Nadine Menendez was an intermediary for communications between the co-conspirators and her willing husband. During the trial, the senators lawyers called five witnesses, including his sister, sister-in-law and the attorney for a friend of Uribe. A Menendez lawyer said the senator customarily stored cash due to familial trauma caused by the Cuban communist regime. (Menendez was born in New York City, and Fidel Castro had not yet come to power at the time his family left Cuba). In his closing argument, Menendezs defense attorney said the lack of evidence in the case against the senator made it shaky and rotten to its core. The trial has been largely overshadowed, first by former President Donald Trumps conviction in a nearby Manhattan criminal court at the end of May and then by the drama surrounding Joe Bidens political fate. But a verdict in Menendezs case could have broader consequences potentially imperiling Democrats narrow Senate majority and throwing New Jersey politics into a new round of disarray. Menendez, who is up for reelection in November, did not run in the Democratic primary this spring. Rep. Andy Kim, of South Jersey, is now the Democratic nominee, but Menendez has floated an independent bid to keep his seat if he is acquitted. That could lead to a messy, three-way race in which Kim and Menendez could split the Democratic vote, opening a path for Republican nominee Curtis Bashaw a scenario Senate Democrats are desperate to avoid given the many challenges they face in defending their narrow majority. This story has been updated with additional information. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com After two full days of deliberations, the jury in the Samantha Woll murder trial disclosed that it is deadlocked, which prompted the judge to give hung jury instructions Friday afternoon and send the panel home for the weekend. It is not known which counts the jurors are deadlocked on as they decide the fate of Michael Jackson-Bolanos, who is accused in the 2023 fatal stabbing of a beloved synagogue leader and political activist whose murder devastated the metro Detroit Jewish community and continues to torment her family. Woll's parents and loved ones appeared visibly frustrated as Wayne County Circuit Judge Margaret Van Houten took the bench and said the jury indicated it was deadlocked. She instructed the jury to go back into deliberations Monday morning to try and reach a unanimous verdict. 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. After sitting through four weeks of testimony, the jury is now trying to decide whether Jackson-Bolanos killed Woll during a home invasion, as the prosecution alleges, or if police arrested the wrong person, as his lawyer has argued. At trial, the defense argued repeatedly that Jackson-Bolanos was in the wrong place at the wrong time, 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. Her blood was found on his coat sleeve. 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 which is how he says the blood got on his sleeve 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. Michael Jackson-Bolanos and his attorney Brian Brown listen to Wayne County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ryan Elsey address the jury during his closing argument in the courtroom of Judge Margaret Van Houten at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Jackson-Bolanos is accused of stabbing and killing Jewish leader and Democrat activist Samantha Woll on October 21, 2023. 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 lied to police at least 40 times, and fled because he feared getting caught for the killing. According to Jackson-Bolanos' testimony, on the night he was breaking into cars, he had habitual offender status, and said that he knew he was facing at least another 25 years in prison if he got caught committing a similar crime. He also admitted that he initially lied to police about seeing and touching Woll's body, telling the jury: "I'm a Black guy in the middle of the night, breaking into cars and I found myself standing in front of a dead white woman. It doesn't look good at all." In closing arguments, the prosecution suggested to the jury that Jackson-Bolanos lied to the police for the same reason he allegedly killed Woll: he knew he could be facing a lot of prison time if he got caught. According to the prosecution, Woll's front door was open when Jackson-Bolanos was prowling through her Lafayette Park neighborhood in Detroit in the early morning hours of Oct. 21, 2023. She had returned home from a wedding around midnight and fell asleep on the sofa, police have said. At 4:20 a.m., a motion sensor detected activity in her living room. Four minutes later, Jackson-Bolanos was captured on video walking across a bridge about one-quarter mile from Woll's condo. At about 6:30 a.m., a neighbor found Woll's body on the sidewalk. The prosecution, however, presented no evidence that placed Jackson-Bolanos inside Woll's home a point the defense emphasized throughout trial. Specifically, the defense 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 had convinced himself that he killed Woll while in a state of delusion. It said police found no evidence linking the ex-boyfriend to her death and that all evidence points to Jackson-Bolanos. The ex-boyfriend testified at trial under immunity, and told the jury that he experienced a panic attack and became delusional after changing his anti-depressant medication, and falsely convinced himself that he caused Woll's death. Jackson-Bolanos is charged with felony murder, first-degree murder, home invasion and lying to law enforcement in connection to Woll's death. If convicted, he faces life in prison. Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Samantha Woll murder trial: Jury deadlocked Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., plans to run again for his senate seat as an independent if he is acquitted. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI July 12 (UPI) -- Jurors have begun deliberating in Sen. Bob Menendez's federal corruption trial in New York. The New Jersey Democrat and his co-defendants, businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are on trial for their role in a multi-faceted corruption scheme where prosecutors alleged the senator accepted luxurious bribes in exchange for political favors over several years. A third businessman, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty to several charges and agreed to testify against the other defendants prior to the trial. Menendez faces 18 federal charges of bribery, obstruction and acting as a foreign agent. Prosecutors alleged he used his power as a senator to benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar in exchange for gifts, and to interfere in the bribery investigations. His wife, Nadine Menendez, also is charged in the case, but will be tried separately in August after a judge granted a delay in her trial for her to undergo treatment for breast cancer. They both have pleaded not guilty. During nine weeks of testimony, jurors heard from 37 witnesses in the case, except for Sen. Menendez, who chose not to testify. "From my perspective, the government has failed to prove every aspect of its case, and for me to testify and give them another chance for a second summation ... it's simply something that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever," Menendez said. During closing arguments Monday, prosecutors accused the three-term Democrat of putting "his power up for sale" and exhibiting a "clear pattern of corruption." "Menendez was in charge. His wife, Nadine, was his go-between," prosecutor Paul Monteleoni said. Defense attorneys, however, said the government has "not come close" to proving Menendez even accepted bribes. Prosecutors during testimony presented more than $486,000 in cash and $100,000 in gold bars found during the 2022 FBI raid on the Menendez's home. A Mendendez lawyer claimed the stored cash was a habit born from family trauma after the senator's family fled the Communist regime in Cuba in 1951, but Menendez was born in New York, and Fidel Castro had not yet come to power at that time. Throughout the trial, the senator's lawyers also sought to lay the blame on his wife, arguing that she was in charge of the dealings and concealed them from her husband. This is the second time Menendez has stood trial on corruption charges. The senator in 2015 faced federal corruption charges in an unrelated case, but the charges were dropped after the jury failed to reach a verdict. Menendez, who is up for re-election in November, has faced repeated calls from Democrats to step down. He, instead, filed to run last month as an independent. If he is acquitted, he would run against Rep. Andy Kim, who won the spring primary for his senate seat. Senate Democrats worry the possible scenario could split the Democratic vote and leave the field open for Republican nominee Curtis Bashaw to swipe Menendez's seat, shrinking Democrats' already narrow majority. Menendez is one of three congressmen on trial for federal corruption, including Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and the recently expelled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. Vice President Kamala Harris rallied with Gov. Gavin Newsroom in 2021 against the effort to recall him, which he easily defeated. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) As rising stars in the California Democratic Party, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom dodged a potentially bruising campaign battle in 2015 when she chose to run for U.S. Senate and he announced his candidacy for governor. This week, Newsom said he would avoid an even bigger potential head-to-head fight with Harris over the White House. The California governor repeated that he would not run against Harris, standing by a comment he made last year that has new relevance after President Biden's performance in the June presidential debate left many in the party calling for him to leave the race. Although Biden has vowed to continue his bid for reelection, a decision Newsom has steadfastly supported, Harris and the California governor have been widely mentioned as potential replacements for the Democratic presidential nomination. As vice president, Harris appears to be the front-runner, and has the most legitimate claim given that she's already on the 2024 ticket. Of course, Newsom said when asked whether he would still decline to run against Harris. Yes. If it holds, his decision could save the party and its donors from having to choose between California's two most prominent politicians. Declining to challenge Harris if Biden drops out places Newsom on a longer track to the White House putting any potential presidential ambitions on hold for him until 2028 at the soonest. Harris, on the other hand, could find herself leading a last-minute rescue mission to salvage the Democratic Party's campaign against former President Trump and to make her own presidential dreams come true. For Newsom, averting the matchup is also a tacit acknowledgment of the political reality: Trying to skip over the vice president, and potentially the first Black female president, wouldn't bode well for the governor, or for most other Democrats. His own chances of becoming the Democratic nominee could also be better in four years. This is not the time to make that power move, and I think Gavin Newsom understands that," said Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People. Read more: Newsom stands by Biden, repeats that he wouldn't run against Harris Allison's group, which pushes for more women of color in elected office, advocated for Biden to select Harris as his running mate in 2020 and rallied voters to support the cause. Back then, many expected Biden to be a one-term president. In tapping Harris, he helped revive her political career after her own presidential campaign flopped, and raised the possibility that Biden might pass the baton to her before this year's primaries. Though Allison commended Newsom for his recent ad campaigns in conservative states to call out their efforts to rescind reproductive rights, and for his political attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, she said he has more work to do to introduce himself to the country. "My sense was, and still is, that a generational transition right now with Kamala Harris heading it is logical, and it's also the closest thing the Democrats have to winning strategy this late in the cycle," Allison said. Polls have shown Harris with a lead over other potential Democratic candidates. She also appears to be performing about the same as Biden has against Trump in surveys. The longer Biden holds out, the shorter the window and the harder it will be for someone else to launch a campaign if he steps down. At a news conference Thursday, Biden praised Harris as he vowed again to stay in the race. She is qualified to be president thats why I picked her, he said of selecting her in 2020 as his running mate. Newsom first said he wouldn't run against Harris in a September interview with Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press." Biden had already launched his reelection campaign, but rumblings persisted about whether the president should run again. The governor made it clear that he supported Biden, and said that Harris was naturally lined up to run if the president were to step out of the race. During a tour of swing states earlier this week to campaign for the Democratic ticket, Newsom said that as someone who has known Harris since before either of them got into politics, he believes Harris could beat Trump. I have no doubt about that, he told reporters in New Hampshire. If it comes to that. But I dont expect its going to come to that. Read more: Newsom praises Biden, shoots down post-debate questions about replacing him Harris, who was born in Oakland, spent 13 years as a prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco before she ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2003 and won. She went on to serve as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, then joined the U.S. Senate. As her contemporary, Newsom grew up in San Francisco, where he got his start as a parking commissioner in 1996. A businessman with a chain of wineries, hotels and retail shops, he was soon serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and was elected mayor in 2003. He served two terms as California's lieutenant governor and won the 2018 governor's race. The governor largely avoided directly answering questions about whether he would run to replace Biden in the aftermath of the late June debate in Atlanta, which he attended as a surrogate for the president. Biden's performance, in which he struggled to answer questions and occasionally trailed off, left Newsom facing a flurry of questions about his own ambitions as panic set in among Democrats. Newsom remained a soldier for the campaign, reiterating that he supported Biden as the party's nominee. Seeking to shore up support for the president, he swatted down concerns about Biden's mental capacity and attested to the presidents fitness based on their personal interactions. 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, Newsom in a news conference at Sacramento McClellan Airport on Wednesday upon his return from the campaign trip. Newsom also reaffirmed his stance that he would not run against Harris in a presidential campaign. Days earlier, another top Democrat, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, had also said she wouldn't consider running if Biden were to step down. Read more: Harris rallies in Las Vegas for Biden. Many Democrats agree, but some want her to face Trump Forgoing a Hail Mary bid to try to become the party's nominee at the August convention is smart politically for Newsom, said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego. Newsom can score points for unwaveringly supporting the Democratic ticket whether Biden or Harris is on top. He can continue to use the opportunity to act as a surrogate for the ticket, attending debates and traveling the country in a way that introduces him to more voters across the nation without stepping on Biden's or Harris' toes. Then he can wait for the dust to settle to determine his future presidential prospects. "He took a reality and made it a virtue," Kousser said. "Certainly, he gave up a short-term possibility of coming into this role and leading the Democrats to victory in 2024. He set himself up quite well for 2028 and beyond." If Harris or Biden wins in November, Harris would be a front-runner again in the 2028 presidential contest, which would leave Newsom in a tough position if he wants to run then. A Democratic loss in November could bring Harris' presidential hopes down with the campaign and open the door for Newsom, or someone else, to grab the nomination in four years. Such a loss would mean Newsom's last two years in the governor's office would be spent in a high-profile battle with an antagonistic Trump White House, which could set the stage for a 2028 campaign in which his top California competition is already neutralized. "If Joe Biden, or another Democrat loses, I think Gavin Newsom is the presumptive leader of the opposition against Donald Trump," Kousser said, "because he has been the most forceful critic of the direction that Donald Trump wants to take America." Times staff writer 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. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Kansas astronaut Major General Joe Engle (ret.) has died at the age of 91. According to NASA, Gen. Engle was born on Aug. 26, 1932, in Dickinson County, Kansas, and graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1956. He entered the USAF flying school in March 1956, and upon graduating, he was assigned to the Fighter Test Branch at Edwards AFB. It was while he was there that he became the youngest pilot ever to qualify as an astronaut. In March 1966, Engle was one of 19 pilots selected for NASA space missions. Flags to be lowered in Lyon County Friday From June through October 1977, General Engle was the commander of one of two crews that flew the initial Space Shuttle Enterprise Approach and Landing Test flights. The Space Shuttle was flown off the top of a modified Boeing 747 for a 2 minute glide test flight from 20,000 feet to landing, according to NASA. On 12 Nov 1981, General Engle commanded the second orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, launched from Kennedy Space Center, FL. On this flight, he became the first and only pilot to manually fly an aerospace vehicle from Mach 25 to landing. The American Space Museum & Space Walk of Fame says he was the first man to fly two reusable spaceplanes and the last surviving X-15 pilot. Space Shuttle astronauts Joe Engle, left, and Richard Truly, right, walk with George Abbey of NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, prior to a flight training session at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Nov. 5, 1981. (AP Photo) Space Shuttle astronauts Richard Truly, right, and Joe Engle, left, inside a van are returned from the Shuttle after a reported computer problem scrubbed their flight from Kennedy Space Center in Fla., Nov. 4, 1981. (AP Photo) Space Shuttle pilot Richard Truly, left, gestures while lunching with crewmen at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Sept. 12, 1977. At right is Joe Engle, the commander of the Enterprise which theyll fly in the second free flight. (AP Photo) Astronauts Joe Engle, Vance Brand, Henry Hartsfield Jr., and Gordon Fullerton, left to right, during a break in their round robbin of taking with newsmen at the Johnson Space Center at Houston on Monday, March 3, 1986. The Astronauts were speaking their thoughts on the Challenger disaster and the investigation. (AP Photo/EFK) Former NASA astronauts Joe Engle, left, and Gene Cernan, center, look over a collection of 30-year-old photographs with Idahos Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa at the Craters of the Moon National Monument Saturday, May 22, 1999 in Pocatello, Idaho. The astronauts were on hand to commemorate the 75th anniversary of National Monument designation for Craters of the Moon. Prior to their Apollo moon mission the astronauts had done geological studies at the location. Cernan was the last astronaut to walk on the moon. (AP Photo/Bill Schaefer) According to NASA, Gen. Engle flew over 185 different types of aircraft including 38 different fighter and attack aircraft. He has logged more than 14,700 flight hours 9,900 in jets and over 224 hours in space, said NASA. Gen. Engle earned multiple military decorations and awards. He leaves behind a wife, children and grandchildren. Read more about Gen. Engle in NASAs Biographical Data. 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. Melanie Haas, chair of the Kansas State Board of Education, says a task force will consider whether to recommend boundaries on non-academic use of cellphones by students in the classroom. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) Melanie Haas, chair of the Kansas State Board of Education, says a task force will consider whether to recommend boundaries on non-academic use of cellphones by students in the classroom. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA The Kansas State Board of Education plans to finalize in August parameters of a 30-member task force that would be formed to develop policy recommendations on non-academic use of cellular telephones by prekindergarten through 12th-grade students while at school. In public and private districts across the United States, officials are limiting or banning smartphones in classrooms to minimize distractions from academic obligations and to lower stress and anxiety among students. Some schools forbid students from accessing phones throughout the day, while others deprive students of devices during class time. Its going to take a concerted effort to address the amount of time our children spend on their own devices during instructional time, said state Board of Education chair Melanie Haas of Overland Park. We as parents and elected officials need to help our children use technology and social media in safer, more beneficial ways. Randy Watson, the state commissioner of education, was given the task of forming a task force that included least two state school board members, students, classroom teachers, administrators and other education representatives. He suggested the co-chairs could be a student and a principal. He anticipated the state Board of Education would ask the task force to provide a framework for state policy or guidance for school districts to address the issue. State board members plan to determine at their August meeting boundaries for the task force. The report would be due in late 2024. Then I would like the task force to present their recommendations to the board by November, no later than December, Watson said. In addition to addressing how our children are using their digital devices for non-academic purposes while theyre in the classroom, we also need to take a hard look at the impact social media is having on childrens mental health. Kansas universities are getting $35.7 million in state funding reinstated after complying with the Legislature's new restrictions on certain diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Blake Flander, CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents, indicated to the State Finance Council on Tuesday that university administrators have eliminated any DEI statement requirements that may have existed for students and staff. "We seek restoration of state funding, $35.7 million to the state universities for their operations," Flanders told the council, comprised of top legislators and Gov. Laura Kelly. "This is not new money; it's money from FY 2024 base budgets. I'm certifying that the 2024 House Bill 2105 took effect as of July 1, 2024, and that was part of the proviso on those funds." Blake Flanders, CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents, presented to the State Finance Council on Tuesday as part of the process for restoring funding tied to an anti-DEI mandate. Kansas lawmakers put anti-DEI proviso in budget Lawmakers wrote the anti-DEI mandate into the budget in a way that universities would lose a portion of their funding unless they certified that DEI statements are not used in hiring and admissions. Specifically, the budget proviso in Senate Bill 28 prohibited "asking for statements of commitment to or requiring examples of past, current or future experience with diversity, equity and inclusion" in hiring of employees or volunteers, admissions, tenure review, annual review, promotions and research proposals. Universities are also prohibited from having "training requirements in diversity, equity and inclusion" for any employee, volunteer or student. The budget law also included language that certification would not be required if House Bill 2105 became law, but the State Finance Council would still have to restore the funding. Kelly allowed that bill to become law without her signature, telling lawmakers, "I don't believe the conduct targeted in this legislation occurs in our universities." More: Millions in funding for Kansas higher education leveraged against DEI practices That law similarly prohibits DEI statements hiring and admissions. But the law also specifically noted that federal and state anti-discrimination laws must still be complied with, and that it should not be construed to restrict academic freedom of faculty. The law requires universities to share publicly on their website all training materials for students and faculty on nondiscrimination, DEI, race, ethnicity, sex or bias plus any university policies or other guidance. Violations of the law can result in an investigation by the Regents or Attorney General Kris Kobach's office and could ultimately lead to a court ordering compliance plus civil penalties. More: From hiring decisions to budget cuts, anti-DEI legislation targets Kansas universities Kansas universities have complied with anti-DEI law Flanders said the universities have complied with the website requirements. However, Pittsburg State University and Fort Hays State University haven't yet added the Title IX training to the website because they have not yet done the training, but "as that training becomes executed, they will put that in those links." Links to trainings at the University of Kansas are on the webpage for the office of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Kansas State University has links to its training on the page for the office of the vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Had universities not complied, the funding cuts would have been 5% of their state general fund accounts. That would have been: $8.4 million at KU. $6.4 million at K-State. $5.9 million at The University of Kansas Medical Center. $4.9 million at Wichita State University. $3 million at K-State Research and Extension. $2.3 million at Pitt State. $2 million at FHSU. $2 million at Emporia State University. $866,000 at K-State veterinary medicine center. Flanders also said the Board of Regents has complied with a separate proviso on student financial aid and asked for restoration of $21.8 million. That funding was cut until the regents certified that they complied with a legislative requirement splitting the comprehensive grant distribution 50-50 between state institutions, including Washburn University, and nonprofit private schools. 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 universities comply with anti-DEI mandate to get funds returned KCK police asking for publics help in suspicious fire investigation KANSAS CITY, Mo. The Kansas City, Kansas Police Department is asking for the publics help into an investigation of a suspicious fire that happened last month. The fire was reported on June 17, between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. in the area of Hutton and Hollingsworth Road in the citys Piper neighborhood. Retired KCPD officer attacked downtown thankful to be alive KCKPD said it is currently seeking information on a Toyota Prius with red wheels in connection to the fire. Police are asking anyone that recognizes the vehicle or has information that can help with the investigation to call the KCKPD Detective Bureau at (913) 573-6263. 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. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (L) looks on as US President Joe Biden speaks, where he introduced Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as "President Putin" during the closing ceremony, at the Nato 75th anniversary summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/dpa US President Joe Biden on Thursday closed a three-day NATO summit in Washington by promising to "keep NATO strong," in a press conference that focused heavily on US politics and concerns about his mental fitness. The 81-year-old US leader is facing calls to let another candidate from his Democratic Party replace him in this year's presidential race due to fears that he is suffering a mental decline. The opposing Republican Party is expected to nominate former president Donald Trump, 78, at its convention, which begins on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "My predecessor has made it clear he has no commitment to NATO," Biden said. "He's made it clear that he would feel no obligation to honour Article 5" of the NATO treaty, which commits all allies to respond if one is attacked. "But I made it clear a strong NATO is essential to American security. And I believe the obligation of Article 5 is sacred," Biden contrasted. "I will not bow down to Putin. I will not walk away from Ukraine. I will keep NATO strong." Biden's speech followed a three-day summit in which NATO leaders announced further military support for Ukraine's efforts to repel the Russian invasion, including air-defence systems and a pledge to spend 40 billion ($43 billion) in the next year. They also declared Ukraine's future path to NATO membership "irreversible." The United States and Germany also announced on Wednesday that the former would station long-range cruise missiles in "episodic deployments" in Germany to strengthen NATO's deterrence in Europe. But Biden's closing press conference was dominated by the forthcoming presidential election in his country, and whether he should persist in running for re-election. When asked whether he'd still be able to "deal with" Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping three years from now, Biden said he would not talk to Putin until the Russian leader changed course. "I'm dealing with Xi right now and [I'm in] direct contact with him," he said. "I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now. There's not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behaviour." "I'm not ready to talk to Putin unless Putin's ready to change his behaviour." At times during the hour-long press conference, Biden struggled to express himself coherently, and in one instance appeared to confuse Trump with Vice-President Kamala Harris. When asked for his opinion of Harris' ability to beat Trump, he said: "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, did I think she was not qualified to be president" [sic]. He went on to say, "I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president." This followed an earlier gaffe in a speech after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when Biden introduced the Ukrainian leader as "President Putin." "And now I hand over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination - ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said. Biden corrected himself a moment later, adding: "....to beat President Putin - President Zelensky!" In a post-summit press conference shortly before Biden's, Britain's newly-appointed Prime Minister Keir Starmer was repeatedly asked about Biden's mental fitness. Starmer said Biden "deserves credit" for the summit's achievements. "We have a bigger NATO, more countries, we have a stronger NATO. We have a real sense of resolve," Starmer said. "President Biden led through all of that." Earlier in the day, Finnish President Alexander Stubb told reporters he had no concerns about Biden's capabilities. "I have absolutely no concerns about the capacity of the current president of the United States to lead his country and to lead our fight for Ukraine and to lead NATO," Stubb told reporters. "I've had the opportunity to speak to President Biden on many occasions during the past 48 hours," Stubb said. "We human beings, when we're treated in the public eye, we're never as good as we sometimes look, and we're never as bad." AG&P LNG, a company specialising in LNG terminals and downstream infrastructure, has signed an agreement with Singapore-based BK LNG Solution (BKLS) to introduce the first spot cargo of LNG into China. This collaboration aims to meet growing demand in the Chinese LNG import market by utilising AG&P LNG's global sourcing expertise. The companies also agreed to work together on small-scale LNG initiatives, leveraging the Cai Mep LNG Terminal in Vietnam for breakbulk into China. AG&P LNG recently acquired a 49% stake in the terminal, which has a capacity of three million tonnes per annum (mtpa) and can be expanded to 6mtpa. The terminal, situated in the Vung Tau district of South Vietnam, is a significant regional asset valued at $500m. Through the alliance, AG&P LNG and BKLS aim to enter the Chinese market, which is expected to undergo significant growth in LNG imports. AG&P LNG CEO Karthik Sathyamoorthy said: Together, we aim to set new benchmarks in delivering reliable and sustainable LNG solutions to support China's growing energy demands. Diversifying energy sources with LNG enhances China's energy security and supports its economic growth. Our collaboration on small-scale LNG initiatives not only expands LNG distribution capabilities but also ensures quicker, more responsive delivery of LNG, crucial for meeting increasing demand across China. BK LNG Solution president Henry Kim said: We are pleased to announce the signing ceremony where we formalised our agreement to bring our first spot cargo into China. This collaboration demonstrates our dedication to providing innovative and diversified LNG solutions to meet the dynamic needs of the Chinese LNG market. Earlier in March, AG&P LNG, in consortium with other industry players, secured a 20-year contract from PLN Energi Primer Indonesia (PLN EPI) for LNG infrastructure development. The consortium, including AG&P Indonesia, Suasa Benua Sukses, and KPM Oil and Gas, will form a joint venture with PLN EPI to design, finance, construct, own and operate LNG import terminal infrastructure and downstream logistics in the Sulawesi-Maluku cluster in Indonesia. This project will include an LNG carrier, a floating storage and regasification unit and multiple onshore regasification sites. "AG&P LNG and BKLS sign deal to bring LNG spot cargo into China " 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. Flight Lieutenant Ken Souter, who has died five days before his 105th birthday, was an RAF pilot who flew Hurricanes in North Africa during the Second World War. Post-war, he was the lead pilot of the small unit of Lancaster bombers that featured in the film The Dam Busters. In 1954, the film company Associated British chose to make a film of the epic raid Operation Chastise when Lancaster bombers, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, attacked the Ruhr Dams in 1943 with Barnes Walliss bouncing bomb. Central to the film would be scenes of Lancasters operating at low level in the same manner as those that took part in the raid, including some shot at night. The Lancaster had last seen service in the RAF in 1950 and the Air Ministry released four from storage; these were modified to depict those that had taken part in the raid. They were leased to Associated British at the cost of 100 per hour for each engine running. Since the revolutionary bouncing bomb used in the raid remained classified technology until 1963, a replica was made using plaster of Paris and plywood that bore little resemblance to the original bomb. The Lincoln bomber in service with RAF squadrons at the time was a more powerful derivative of the Lancaster with similar flying characteristics. To fly the Lancasters, four experienced operational crews from the Lincoln-equipped 83 and 97 Squadrons were selected, led by Souter. Two of the pilots were Poles who had flown with the RAF throughout the war. The shooting of the flying scenes began in April 1954. The original 1943 crews had flown their training missions as low as 60 feet over Lake Windermere and at the Derwent Dam and reservoir. When Souters formation managed the same, the director Michael Anderson and his director of photography Erwin Hillier were unimpressed by the rushes. Hillier asked Souter to come down to 25 feet for extra drama. He was a bit Teutonic in his manner, Souter recalled to Jonathan Falconer, author of Filming the Dam Busters (2005). I told him straight that it was too bloody dangerous. Souter with his dog Butch Souter flew a sortie at 40 feet to add the more dramatic effect Anderson wanted. Over the Derwent Dam the propeller wash from the four engines created individual waterspouts. On another occasion, one aircraft returned with bits of branches and leaves on the underside of the fuselage. Souter described something of what was required on camera: Windermere was quite simple to fly along, but flying across the lake was a different matter altogether. We had to come down a slope then flatten out across the lake and climb up over a mountain on the other side. This was quite hairy because there was not enough power to get up over the other side. We got quite a bit of flak from the yachting fraternity on Windermere for our low flying, though! Derwent was just a swoop down between the two towers and not as prolonged as Windermere. Richard Todd, front, centre, who played Guy Gibson, with the film crew and flight crews who worked on The Dam Busters - Courtesy of family When filming was complete, the Lancasters were returned to storage and the four crews returned to their squadron. Remarkably, the crews received no screen credit for some of the finest aerial scenes captured on camera. Their contribution did not go unnoticed by some, and Richard Todd, the actor who played Guy Gibson, commented: those RAF chaps in the film took a lot of chances and did a wonderful job for us. Kenneth Place Souter was born on June 12 1919 in Sunderland to Jack Souter, a ship-owner who imported timber from Scandinavia for pit props in the local coal mines, and his wife Lilibet. Ken was a keen boxer, and wanted to go to art school, but in 1939 joined the RAF to train as a pilot. In late 1940 he joined 43 Squadron as a Hurricane pilot, and in January 1941 embarked on the carrier Furious, sailing to Takoradi in what is now Ghana. After taking off from the carrier, for which they had had no training, the squadron were led by a Blenheim across the heart of Africa, via stops in Nigeria and Sudan, arriving at an RAF airfield by the Suez Canal. The remains of Souter's Hurricane, which he wrote off while taking off in a sandstorm, aiming to rescue a friend who had crashed in the desert - Courtesy of family In February Souter joined 73 Squadron at Gazala in the Western Desert. During a patrol over Tobruk he intercepted and damaged a Junkers 88; it was later confirmed that the enemy aircraft had crashed into the sea off Bardia. A day later, however, he wrote off his Hurricane while taking off in a sandstorm, aiming to rescue a friend who had crashed in the desert. By 1942 he was employed as a test pilot on various modified and repaired aircraft. A damaged ear drum brought his time in the desert to a premature end, and he returned to England. He joined an air gunnery school in Scotland and was later seconded to the Naval Air Fighting Development Unit. On demobilisation, he spent two years in South Africa in business with his brother before rejoining the RAF in 1951, this time in Bomber Command. He converted to the Lincoln before joining 83 Squadron. In 1953 the squadron was detached to Singapore to fly bombing operations against the communist insurgents in the jungle during the Malayan Emergency. Souter meets Queen Elizabeth in 2019 when she opened a new housing development for armed forces veterans and the ex-service community in Morden, south London - Jack Hill/The Times/PA After filming The Dam Busters, he converted jets and joined a Canberra squadron based in Singapore. In 1958 he took early retirement and began a career in civil aviation, flying executive jets. He later owned a chain of fish and chip shops and lived for a time in Spain. He kept up his painting, and while in the RAF did ensemble cartoons of his squadron. Ken Souter married, first, in 1948, Vera Wiseman, and secondly, in 1971, Birgitta Takerhead. She predeceased him, and he is survived by a son from his first marriage and two sons from his second. Ken Souter, born June 12 1919, died June 7 2024 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 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Fives The Message to Public Enemys Fight The Power, hip hop has always been a powerful platform for young people of color to express themselves and speak out against the injustice around them. Thats exactly whats happening in Kenya right now, as young people are speaking out against the countrys 2024 proposed finance bill, which calls for higher taxes on essentials like bread and diapers in an effort to raise 2.7 billion dollars to reduce the national debt and continue to fund the government. As the resentment grew, one local rapper took inspiration from Kendrick Lamar to produce a battle cry for his generation. Reject Hio Bill by Sabi Wu samples Lamars Drake diss track Not Like Us and calls out the Kenyan government for the bill which has inspired protests across the country. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Wu said although he wrote the song, its emotion is felt by other young people who have been taking their opposition to the proposed tax plan to the streets. The song represents the sentiments of young Kenyans like myself who are living in tough economic times, Wu said. 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 adds that he was inspired by the combative and accusatory nature of Lamars track, which made it easy for him to write a protest song that other young Kenyans could relate to. I freestyled the chorus and first verse in under 15 minutes and put it up on social media not really expecting anything, Wu said. People resonated with it so much so I completed and released the song after. Since the protests, Kenyas President William Ruto has said he will not sign the controversial bill, which was passed by Parliament, into law. According to the BBC, he has promised to meet with young people in the country to hear their concerns, a move Wu believes makes his efforts worthwhile. In Kenya, politics has always been tribal, he said. 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. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A candle is held up during the July 9 vigil for the Florence mass shooting victims. (Photo by Hailey Roden | LINK nky) Over Fourth of July weekend, there was a mass shooting at a 21st birthday party in Florence (northern Kentucky, Boone County); four people were shot to death; three are recovering, including a 19-year-old girl. According to news reports, the 21-year-old shooter was on probation with a criminal history that included sexual assault of a 13-year-old. The 19-year-old girls father, while thankful for community support, said, I mean, Im not very hopeful for the future. I really am not after this has happened. I love the support, but its just so devastating. Now Im worried about things like this happening again. If it happened to me, it could happen to anybody. And I hate to see that other families are going to have to go through situations like this. He says guns are too easily accessible to people who shouldnt have them. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, Kentucky has the 15th highest rate of gun violence in the United States, and we continue to do not one damn thing about it. While we await more information on how a man with this criminal history had seemingly easy access to firearms and ammunition, here is your reminder that our Republican supermajority in Frankfort continues, year after year, to kick this deadly can down the road. We have some of the most free-for-all gun laws in the country: open carry, concealed carry, gun sanctuary, etc During the 2024 General Assembly, the GOP rammed through House Bill 5, a multifaceted, complex, omnibus addressing punishment of crimes after the fact while staggeringly leaving out gun crime prevention altogether. The American Civil Liberties Union called HB 5 an extremely bloated collection of regressive policies and regurgitated ideas, and if you spent any time following this years session, you could not miss the absolute, stubborn refusal of leadership to allow hearings, much less public votes, on simple, straightforward solutions like Senate Bill 13 crisis aversion, allowing firearm removal from people experiencing a mental health crisis or Senate Bill 56 to require safe storage of guns. During session, sponsors of HB 5 were repeatedly asked how HB 5 prevents gun violence **before** it happens. Primary sponsors like Reps. Jason Nemes and Jared Bauman never gave a clear answer. House and Senate leadership did not seem to care. Following the Old National Bank mass shooting in Louisville last year, the Kentucky Medical Association designated gun violence a public health crisis. Two of the KMAs proposals related to gun safety include barbed criticisms of Kentuckys GOP supermajority, which, as one resolution notes, has denied protection of our school children, citizens and police officers by ignoring control measures for assault rifles and killing enhancements by avoiding enactment of effective background checks and red flag laws. But as Senate Floor Leader Damon Thayer posted during KYGA 2024 on Mar. 4 on Twitter/X, Just because it is sent to committee doesnt mean it is on the move. On the contrary, it lacks the votes in committee & on the Senate floor. As the only legislator to win @NRA Defender of Freedom Award, I am opposed to SB 13 & all red flag laws. #kyga24 Of course, the very reason these bills lack votes in committee and on the Senate floor is because, as leader, Sen. Thayer ensures they are never heard in committee and do not make it to the floor. What a clever trick this is. Maybe if the KMA handed out look-at-me awards he could brag about on social media, Sen. Thayer and his caucus might be more amenable to listening to medical experts, the people on the front lines of gun violence, instead of the NRA. Sen. John Schickel and Rep.-elect TJ Roberts on X. After the Florence mass shooting last week, Sen. John Schickel posted his condolences on Twitter/X, stating that everyone is in his thoughts and prayers. Two questions for Sen. Schickel: How would HB 5 which he vociferously championed just a few months ago or any of his own proposed bills while in office, have thwarted this kind of tragedy? What has he done during his lengthy time in the legislature to address gun violence? Like Sen. Thayer, Sen. Schickel is leaving office at the end of this year, but he made sure to boost Twitter/X condolences from state Rep.-elect TJ Roberts of Boone County, who posted a Bible verse and referred to the Florence mass shooting as unfathomable evil. But dont expect much from Rep.-elect Roberts in addressing gun violence. You need only have followed his Twitter/X account the last few years to note his seeming obsession with guns. I have never met Roberts, but this time last year, after Id begun writing regularly about the Old National Bank mass shooting, it was no surprise to see him post, Kentucky journalist Teri Carter has to be the biggest Karen in Kentucky. Show off your guns and make her mad with photos of what appeared to be his guns. I tell you this not because men like Roberts sometimes behave childishly and irresponsibly on social media as law enforcement will tell you, responsible gun owners do not flash photos of their guns at strangers but because this kind of behavior, along with that of leaders like Sen. Thayer blocking discussion of potential gun laws, represents the mindset in our GOP supermajority, the people we count on to make laws, to behave responsibly, to keep Kentuckians safe. Gun violence is not unfathomable evil and will not be stopped with thoughts or prayers or burying good gun legislation in the basement of the Capitol. Gun violence is fathomable and preventable, and it continues to go unchecked here in Kentucky because our GOP supermajority, in their unfathomable cowardice, refuses to grow up and address it. As the father of Florences 19-year-old shooting victim said, guns are too easily accessible by people who shouldnt have them. What are we what are our GOP supermajority lawmakers going to do about that? Safer Kentucky Act among dozens of new laws set to take effect July 15 More than 200 new Kentucky laws take effect July 15. Here are some you should know about. Transportation Autonomous vehicles House Bill 7 allows autonomous (driverless) vehicles to operate on Kentucky roads and sets out the rules around autonomous vehicle operation. It requires very heavy vehicles (more than 62,000 pounds) to have a human driver onboard until July 31, 2026. Towing of cars House Bill 167 requires towing companies to provide their rate sheets to the nearest Department of Kentucky State Police post as well as other law enforcement agencies in their service areas. Windshield tinting Under Senate Bill 46, vehicle owners are allowed to tint their windshields if the tinting allows 70% light transmittance. The new law doesn't apply to other vehicle windows, and red and yellow tints are prohibited under this law. Current Kentucky law allows river and passenger doors can to be tinted, but must allow 35% of the light in. Windows on rear doors must allow at least 18% of light in. Alcohol and drugs Kratom House Bill 293 prohibits the sale of kratom to anyone under 21 years of age; puts additional limits on what ingredients can go into kratom products; and requires kratom products to include a label with a list of ingredients, the name and address of the vendor, a disclaimer that kratom is not intended to treat medical conditions, and other details. Self-distribution of spirits Senate Bill 50 allows craft distillers (those with a Class B license) to sell up to 5,000 gallons annually of spirits they distill directly to retailers. Social and emergency services Emergency medical services training grant House Bill 484 creates an emergency medical services education grant program designed to increase the number of paramedics in Kentucky. It includes tuition support for those employees of ambulance services who study to become paramedics as well as support for ambulance providers and training institutes. Parental rights House Bill 476 allows a parent to terminate their parental rights while a dependency, neglect or abuse proceeding is pending. Child abuse House Bill 271 makes several changes to Kentuckys law around child abuse, neglect and dependency cases. It adds new requirements to how the Cabinet for Health and Family Services determines risk to a child as well as steps the cabinet must take when a safety plan is in place for a child. It also changes the law so mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect can make oral, written or electronic reports; currently they can make only oral reports. It also requires the state to operate a 24-hour-a-day reporting system. Birth certificates for homeless people House Bill 100 allows homeless people to obtain birth certificates without having to pay fees. Adoption records House Bill 87 expands the list of people who can inspect adoption records to include the adult child, grandchild, or sibling of a deceased birth parent or deceased adoptee if certain other conditions are met. Child care benefits for foster parents Senate Bill 240 allows the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to provide child care benefits to foster care parents who telework inside the home. Caregivers for children removed from their homes Senate Bill 151 allows children who have been removed from their homes to, if they are able, provide a list of relatives or fictive kin caregivers they could stay with. Relative or fictive caregivers can also apply to the Cabinet of Health and Family Services to become foster parents for a child removed from a home. Background checks Senate Bill 145 allows health facilities and providers who offer care through Kentucky Medicaid to submit background checks for new employees to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services so the cabinet can check whether the new employee is listed in the child neglect and abuse or adult abuse registries. Health care Nursing regulations House Bill 459 changes the composition of Kentucky Board of Nursing and requires nurses and physician assistants to take a one-hour course on Alzheimers and dementia as part of their continuing education, among other changes. Cancer screening for firefighters House Bill 323 allows the Kentucky Fire Commission to reimburse firefighters for cancer screenings. Pharmacists and vaccines House Bill 274 allows pharmacists to administer vaccines to children aged five or older. Step therapy for biosimilars House Bill 220 allows health insurance companies to require insured people try biosimilars before providing coverage for equivalent brand-name drugs. Biologic drugs include Humira, Lantus, and Avastin. Biosimilars are similar to brand-name biologic drugs but typically cheaper. Violence against healthcare workers House Bill 194 expands the definition of who is a health care worker for the crime of assault against a health care provider. Criminal immunity for healthcare workers House Bill 159 provides healthcare workers immunity from criminal liability for harm or damages resulting from the care they provide except for in cases of gross negligence or wanton, willful, malicious, or intentional misconduct. Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy House Bill 166 will allow family members to request that coroners determine whether a persons cause of death is a direct result of a seizure or epilepsy. If the death is found to be a result of a "sudden expected death in epilepsy," or SUDEP, a copy of the death certificate will be sent to a national registry that is tracking such deaths. Anticoagulation management at home House Bill 31 requires state Medicaid insurers to provide coverage for at-home tests to check blood coagulation (clotting). Maternal health Some parts of Senate Bill 74 the Momnibus aimed at improving maternal health care in Kentucky take effect in July while others do not take effect until next year. Among those taking effect July 15: The Cabinet for Health and Family Services must start setting up the Kentucky Lifeline for Moms, a hotline to help healthcare providers find services for mothers with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. The bill changes duties and composition of the maternal and infant health collaborative administered by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The state Health Access and Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) program, which is a home visitation program for new and expectant parents, will provide information about breastfeeding and lactation consultants as well as the importance of safe sleep for babies. HANDS services can be provided virtually as well as in person. The state Medicaid providers must provide insurance coverage for lactation consultation, breastfeeding equipment, in-home substance use disorder treatment via telemedicine, and telehealth and digital health services related to pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Substance use disorder programs Senate Bill 71 requires substance use disorder programs to make arrangements for transportation for a person who wishes to leave the program. If the person is under a court order to attend the program and leaves before the program is over, the provider must notify the court. The bill also prohibits substance use disorder programs and recovery residences from recruiting out-of-state residents enrolled in Medicaid. Workers compensation House Bill 401 allows out-of-state physicians and retired physicians to make workers compensation determinations. Crime and public safety Safer Kentucky Act highlights House Bill 5 often called the "Safer Kentucky Act" is a wide-ranging bill making a long list of changes to Kentucky criminal law. Among those changes include: Creates a new crime of "unlawful camping" for sleeping on streets, sidewalks, cemeteries, in parks and under bridges. Creates the "three strikes" rule and prohibits probation, parole or early release for any person convicted of three violent felonies. Lets shop and business owners use a "reasonable amount of force" to prevent someone from escaping in cases of suspected shoplifting. Classifies carjacking as its own crime, a Class B felony Limits charitable bail organizations to bail payments of less than $5,000 and bans them from baling people out who are accused of violent crimes. Classifies selling or providing fentanyl to a person who dies from an overdose as manslaughter, a felony. The bill includes a Good Samaritan exception for those who seek help for an overdose. Seths Law House Bill 385 changes to state laws regarding decision-making for adults with limited mental capacities. The law adds an adult friend to the list of people who can make health care decisions for someone lacking decisional capacity. The law also expands the number of settings where a person accused of a crime can undergo an examination to determine whether the accused is competent to stand trial. Currently, those examinations are only allowed to be performed at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center. Porn age verification and changes to sex-crime-related crimes House Bill 278 prohibits school district superintendents from employing a person who has been convicted of a violent offense and expands the list of sex crimes for which a superintendent cannot employ someone. It increases the penalty for someone convicted of rape, sodomy, or using a communications system to procure a minor if that person was in a position of authority or special trust. The bill enacts stiffer penalties for human trafficking. It requires anyone convicted of distributing matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor to serve at least 85% of their sentence before being released on parole or probation. The bill also imposes age verification requirements for platforms that distribute pornography, meaning pornography websites must require people to submit identification proving they are at least 18 years old before they can access the content. Child sex dolls House Bill 207 creates new offenses of possessing, trafficking, importing and promoting child sex dolls. It also adds computer-generated images to the list of images considered illegal under the states child pornography law. Human trafficking Among other thing, House Bill expands the definition of human trafficking, adding reporting requirements, allowing the attorney general to establish a working group to study human trafficking in Kentucky as well as requiring airports, truck stops, bus stations and train stations to post signs with help information for victims of human trafficking. Crime victim compensation Senate Bill 319 requires the Crime Victims Compensation Board to create an electronic portal and tracking system for crime victims applying for compensation and expands the list of family members to whom compensation can be paid. Children can be tried as adults Under Senate Bill 20, children who are 15 years and older and charged with a Class A, B or C felony that involves the use of a firearm will be transferred to Circuit Court and tried as an adult. Requirement for sex offenders on social media Senate Bill 249 requires sex offenders who committed an offense against a minor must display their full legal name on social media platforms. Torture of a dog or cat House Bill 258 allows a person to be charged as a Class D felony and defines torture as intentional infliction of or subjection to extreme physical pain or serious injury or death to a dog or cat, motivated by intent or wanton disregard that causes, increases, or prolongs the pain or suffering of the dog or cat, including serious physical injury or infirmity. Cold cases House Bill 551 allows law enforcement agencies to contract retired police officers to assist with homicide cold cases. Criminal trespass Also known as the "ag gag bill," Senate Bill 16 adds commercial food manufacturing or processing facilities and animal feeding operations to a list of protected infrastructure assets. This means unauthorized recording or photography, by drones or otherwise, at those facilities is a misdemeanor. State police to establish Ashanti Alert System Under Senate Bill 45, the Department of Kentucky State Police is required to create a Kentucky Ashanti Alert System to notify the public when an adult is missing and may have been abducted or kidnapped. The system is similar to Amber Alert notification system for missing children. Environment and energy Air pollution audits in Louisville Companies that conduct an internal audit of their operations, discover a violation of local air pollution rules and voluntarily report that violation to officials are protected from penalties, with some limitations. House Bill 136 extends that protection to Jefferson County, the only place in Kentucky where a separate air pollution control district, rather than the state, actively regulates air quality and emissions. Nuclear energy Senate Bill 198 creates a Kentucky Nuclear Energy Development Authority to support and facilitate nuclear energy in the state. The authority will have a governing board of 30 members and will submit an annual report to the governor and Legislative Research Commission, with the first one due Dec. 1, 2025. A related resolution directs the state Public Service Commission to make staffing and organizational changes to prepare for the building of nuclear energy facilities. Environmental emergencies House Bill 583 requires the Energy and Environment Cabinet to notify mayors, county/judge executives, and the chief executive officer of other local governments within seven days of an environmental emergency declaration. Coal is the official rock House Bill 378 rectifies an earlier geological error. It changes coal from the official mineral to the (geologically correct) official state rock of Kentucky. It also designates Kentucky agate as the states official gemstone and calcite as the states official mineral. Elections No ranked choice voting and voter roll cleanup House Bill 44 prohibits the use of ranked-choice voting in any local, state or federal election. It also: Requires the Secretary of State, Board of Elections, and Administrative Office of the Courts to take steps to clean up voter rolls. Requires the Board of Elections to create annual reports with every address in each county listing a registered voter and the number of active and inactive voters registered at that address. The list will be available at each county clerks office and online with personal information redacted. Requires the Secretary of State and Board of Election websites to post links where people who are erroneously registered to vote in Kentucky can voluntarily cancel their registration, among other changes. Election recounts House Bill 53 requires each Kentucky county to have at least one hand-to-eye recount for at least one race on one ballot scanner in each county. If there is a difference between the original count from the vote tabulation machine and the hand-to-eye count, the county board of election will open an election investigation. Miscellaneous Service animals House Bill 335 changes Kentucky law about assistance (service) dogs. It adds new requirements to the rules that govern where an assistance dog can be taken in public. It also creates a separate category of emotional support animals and specifies establishments do not have to admit emotional support animals even if they do have to admit assistance dogs. The law also makes it illegal to misrepresent a dog as an assistance dog. Strengthen Kentucky Homes Program House Bill 256 creates the Strengthen Kentucky Homes Program to provide grants to property owners, contractors, nonprofits and others to help make Kentucky homes more likely to resist wind and hail. The bill requires insurance companies to offer premium discounts or rate reductions to policies that cover homes meeting certain construction standards. Time limits on coroners Senate Bill 17 changes the requirements around how long coroners have to sign certificates of death. Currently, coroners have to go through two separate procedures when a death is under inquiry or the cause of death is unknown. Coroners will be able to wait until the inquiry into the death is complete to sign paperwork and will have five working days to sign a death certificate. Nail technicians and estheticians Senate Bill 14 changes the composition of the Kentucky Board of Cosmetology by requiring one licensed nail technician and one licensed esthetician to sit on the board. It also allows nail technicians who have failed test or practical demonstration to retake that portion after one month. It allows nail technicians to use callus graters for callus removal and clarifies procedures for how the board deals with alleged violations of laws and regulations. Statues at Capitol House Bill 513 gives power to the legislature to approve the permanent installation or removal of "statues, monuments, or objects of art on permanent display" in the capitol's rotunda. The power to remove or add statues previously belonged to the Historic Properties Advisory Commission, and the bill also outlines the process for the commission to seek the general assembly's approval. Reach Rebecca Grapevine at rgrapevine@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @RebGrapevine. Reach reporter Hannah Pinski at @hpinski@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @hannahpinski. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Autonomous vehicles, Safer Kentucky Act: New KY laws go in effect July 15 Anti-government protests against the imposition of tax hikes by the government in Nairobi NAIROBI (Reuters) -Kenya's police chief Japhet Koome resigned on Friday following intense criticism of officers' conduct during anti-government protests last month in which at least 39 people were killed. President William Ruto's office announced Koome's resignation the day after he fired nearly his entire cabinet, bowing to the demands of protesters. Koome's deputy Douglas Kanja has been made acting police chief, it said. The demonstrations against proposed tax increases began peacefully but turned violent. Police fired tear gas, water cannon and live ammunition, and some protesters stormed parliament. Ruto scrapped the tax increases but protests have continued, with some activists demanding the president's resignation as well as far-reaching political changes to tackle corruption and poor governance. They have also accused police of using excessive force and abducting dozens of people as they tried to stop the protests. Ruto, in office since September 2022, said in an event hosted on social media platform X last week that reported abductions were regrettable and that any officers found responsible would be held to account. The body of Denzel Omondi, a protester who disappeared during the demonstrations, was discovered last week in a quarry outside the capital Nairobi, Amnesty International said. It called for an independent investigation into his death. Police officials have not yet commented on the Amnesty report. On Friday, at least eight other bodies were found in a quarry in Mukuru, a collection of slums in Nairobi, Reuters eyewitnesses and rights groups said. "Most of them have decomposed but one was fresh. We don't know if we can relate it to protests or it's femicide since most of them are women," said Miriam Nyamuita, an activist with the Mukuru Community Justice Centre. She and other human rights activists called for immediate investigations. A government spokesperson shared a police statement on X saying that the authorities were analysing samples to identify the deceased and that investigations were underway. (Reporting by Humphrey Malalo, Ediwin Okoth and Monica Mwangi; Writing by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Aaron Ross, Frances Kerry and Hugh Lawson) Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), whose support saved President Joe Bidens flailing primary campaign in 2020, said Friday he believed Biden remains mentally fit enough to run for reelection but he would support Vice President Kamala Harris if the president decided to drop out. Clyburns vote of confidence, albeit somewhat qualified, comes on the heels of BIdens high-wire NATO press conference performance Thursday night meant to dispel doubts and amid a continued string of defections by Capitol Hill Democrats who would like to see a new party standard-bearer against Donald Trump in November. Asked on NBCs Today show if Biden was still the same man Clyburn endorsed in the 2020 South Carolina primary, Clyburn said, Physically? I dont think so. Mentally? I do think so. He is still grasping what this country is all about. He knows what a democracys all about. He knows what we need to do as a country to take advantage of the future and maintain our relationship with all of our allies around the world and what we need to do for our constituents throughout the country, Clyburn said. Clyburn, 83, backed Biden in his states primary in 2020 after Biden had stumbled badly in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bidens win in South Carolina was seen as a turning point for his successful campaign for the White House and Clyburns support was seen as a major factor in that win. Despite Clyburns vote of confidence in Biden, he also said the president who reiterated again Thursday night he was staying in the race should be allowed to make his own decision on running again. The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative to his election and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions, Clyburn said. Hes earned that right and I am going to give him that much respect. While Biden did a better job of answering questions and keeping his train of thought Thursday night than he did in his disastrous June 27 debate against Trump, three more House Democrats Reps. Eric Sorensen (Ill.), Scott Peters (Calif.) and Jim Himes (Conn.) jumped ship and called on Biden to not seek reelection afterwards. They followed five more House Democrats who had defected earlier in the day. Clyburn said Democrats had until Aug. 19, when the national convention begins in Chicago, to decide the issue, but he threw his backing to Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden did step aside. Absolutely. Theres no question about that, he said. I think shes demonstrated, especially these recent weeks, when all of this microscope has been focused on her and him, she has acquitted herself famously, he said. General secretary of Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) Marta Rovira arrives in Barcelona after she spent several years out of the country to avoid the Spanish Justice for their involvement in Catalonia's failed 2017 independence bid. Kike Rincon/EUROPA PRESS/dpa Influential Catalan separatist leader Marta Rovira is back in Spain after more than six years in exile in Switzerland. The 47-year-old crossed the border between France and Catalonia in a car with four fellow campaigners. Shortly afterwards, she gave a combative speech in the border community of Cantallops: "We have come back to finish what we left unfinished," she shouted to the cheers of many supporters. They carried a banner reading "Freedom for Catalonia." Catalonia's pro-independence movement reached a high point in late 2017 with an independence referendum, although it was later declared illegal. A group of separatists leaders fled the country after the referendum to avoid prosecution. Rovira, who despite being in exile all these years has retained the post of Secretary General of the Republican Left (ERC), which governs Catalonia, said she had "often dreamed of this moment." The various representatives of the movement would have to act as one again, Rovira said. "But this democratic and unstoppable movement will never use violence to defend its ideas," she said. In May, parliament passed an amnesty law for Catalan separatists. The return of Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont is now eagerly awaited. However, this is proving to be more complicated because the judge responsible does not want to grant the former regional president immunity from prosecution and is upholding an arrest warrant against the 61-year-old. The judge argues that Puigdemont is guilty of embezzlement by using public funds in the independence referendum which he says also violated the financial interests of the EU. According to the judge, the amnesty law does not provide protection from prosecution for these cases. Puigdemont has vowed that he would nevertheless return. He would like to become premier of Catalonia again in the wake of the regional elections in mid-May. He has been living in exile in Belgium. General secretary of Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) Marta Rovira arrives in Barcelona after she spent several years out of the country to avoid the Spanish Justice for their involvement in Catalonia's failed 2017 independence bid. Kike Rincon/EUROPA PRESS/dpa Department of Corrections Director Heidi Washington | Casey Hull The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday called on Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) Director Heidi Washington to resign, pointing to safety concerns created by a shortage of corrections officers. The lack of effective leadership is directly undermining the mental health and wellbeing of those who put their lives on the line every day to keep our communities safe. Our officers, and our state, deserve better. It is time for Director Washington to resign, said state Rep. Sarah Lightner (R-Springport) in a statement. The Michigan Corrections Organization (MCO), the union representing Michigan corrections workers, has raised numerous concerns about staffing in recent years, pointing to dangerous working conditions including unsafe prisoner-to-officer ratios and demoralizing mandatory overtime requirements. According to an analysis from the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency, the total number of corrections officers has decreased since 2019, when the state employed 6,070 total corrections officers. As of the end of June, MDOC employed 4,632 active corrections officers, corrections transportation officers and corrections medical officers across its 26 facilities, which house 32,984 prisoners. Despite the evident crisis, Director Washington has failed to implement a plan to address the critical staffing shortages, which has resulted in severe low morale, depression, anxiety, and fear among our dedicated corrections officers, Lightner said in a statement. Washington has served as MDOC director since July of 2015, when she was appointed under Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder. Washington was the only carryover from Snyders cabinet, with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reappointing her to the position in 2019. Both the House and Senate are controlled by Democrats. On July 3, the MCO sent a letter to Whitmer requesting National Guard support while working directly with the organization to find permanent relief to staffing concerns. Governor Whitmer, your state corrections officers in the Michigan Department of Corrections need you to take immediate action to address the dangerous working conditions that have persisted and worsened throughout your time as governor, MCO President Byron Osborn wrote in the letter. Under your watch, state corrections officers continue to suffer unlike any other state employees ever have in the history of Michigan. They are STILL being forced to work exhausting, demoralizing numbers of mandatory 16-hour overtime shifts per week, Osborn wrote They are not being allowed to have a normal, healthy life with their families. None of your other state employees are being subjected to these conditions. Osborn also said the lack of corrections officers has resulted in unsafe prisoner-to-officer ratios, with officers being forced to work alone in isolated areas jeopardizing their safety and the safety of their prisoners. The state prisons are not pleasant facilities filled with well treated officers that are churning out rehabilitated prisoners. The state prisons are STILL dangerous facilities that are only about two-thirds full of exhausted officers that are dealing with a gang-riddled prisoner population that has taken advantage of lax MDOC policies on prisoner discipline, classification, and use of segregation, Osborn wrote. The only people happy with the current conditions in the prisons are the prisoners, theyre being coddled at the expense of officer safety. The governors office did not respond to an inquiry as to whether Whitmer had responded to the letter. In a statement, Washington responded to staffing concerns, acknowledging several years of staffing challenges and thanking its staff for working high levels of voluntary and mandatory overtime. Michigan's Department of Corrections Over this period the department has focused on recruitment and retention efforts, including advertising positions, holding hiring events and hosting four corrections officers academies each year. The state has also negotiated raises totaling 18% since 2020, Washington said, noting these efforts as a whole have helped some facilities achieve staffing stability. As of the MDOCs last report to the Legislature in April, the vacancy level at facilities ranged between 4.3% and 36.3% for officers. Half of the MDOCs prisons are now operating with vacancies under 15% and 8 facilities have a vacancy rate at 5% or below, Washington said. The department and other stakeholders need to remain focused on efforts to stabilize staffing in the long term, Washington said, including promoting benefits for the career. These include having an active role in keeping their communities safe, serving in a role that can change lives, and the ability to reach annual maximum pay of $68,500 after just three and a half years of service as an Officer, Washington said, noting the change would take effect Oct. 1. According to Lightners office, the Michigan Auditor General is currently conducting an investigation into staffing shortages and other alleged violations of federal and state labor regulations within the Michigan Department of Corrections, with Lightner sending a letter requesting a review in 2023. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Key GOP lawmaker calls on Michigan prisons head to resign over staffing concerns appeared first on Michigan Advance. Bear Grylls has been made a figurehead for the countrys young military recruits after the King appointed him Honorary Colonel of the Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate. The former SAS trooper and popular television adventurers new role will see him champion the spirit and camaraderie of the key military training base. Grylls said he was so proud to have been appointed to the role. He said the college played a vital role in building the character, competence, and resilience of young people to help them succeed in life and within the military. Grylls added: No matter where you come from, if youre willing to do your best and live by the Armys values and standards then the college offers adventure, challenge, qualifications, friends for life, and confidence that will last a lifetime. Watch this space for many adventures ahead and respect to all of you. Grylls, a former Territorial Army SAS soldier and the current Chief Scout, is also an Honorary Colonel of the Royal Marines Reserve, a post he has held since June 2021. Grylls with the King, who was the Prince of Wales at the time, at a scout event at Windsor Castle in 2010 - Katie Collins/PA His first official duty will be as senior inspecting officer at the colleges August graduation, overseeing around 600 junior soldiers as they march off to start the next phase of their training. AFC Harrogate, the only such establishment in the Army, offers under 19s the skills needed for a future career in the Armed Forces. Its programme includes a mix of military training, personal development activities and education. As Honorary Colonel, Grylls will support the unit command team but will not be involved in the day-to-day running of the site. Grylls served as a soldier with the Territorial Army Lieutenant Colonel Mike Butler, AFC Harrogates Commanding Officer, described Grylls as an inspirational character for junior soldiers and said everyone at the unit was thrilled by his appointment. He added: His message of Courage, kindness and never give up is a perfect match for the British Army values and standards we strive to live by. 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. What to Know About Case of Steven Bryan, Indiana Boy Found Hidden 2 Years After Disappearance Steven Bryan had last been seen with his mother's boyfriend in 2022. Now 5, he was found safe on Tuesday, more than two years after his disappearance National Center for Missing & Exploited Children; Mooresville Police Department Steven Bryan (left), Deborah Bryan and Caleb Blevins A little more than two years ago, Steven Bryan disappeared after he was last seen with his mothers boyfriend. Now, in an unexpected turn of events, he has been found safe and reunited with his father and other family members he hasn't seen in years. Steven was rescued on Tuesday, July 9, from a Bloomington, Ind., home where he was found alongside his mother Deborah Bryan and her boyfriend Caleb Blevins, according to a Mooresville Police Department statement, as reported by WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59. Here's what to know about the case: Summer 2022: A 3-year-old disappears Steven Bryan vanished on June 9, 2022 at the age of three, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. (Some news outlets report Steven's date of disappearance differently, but NCMEC lists Steven as missing since June 2022). He was last seen with his mothers boyfriend Caleb Blevins, Indiana State Police said at the time, according to FOX 59. NCMEC said Steven was likely with his mother Deborah Bryan. The child's father, Tyler Bryan, alleged that Deborah left with Steven from her Mooresville, Ind., home and severed all contact between the child and his father, PEOPLE previously reported. Related: Gone Without a Trace: Help Us Find These 10 Missing Children What was going on when Steven vanished? At the time of Steven's disappearance, Tyler and Deborah were in the middle of a divorce, he told PEOPLE in January. Deborah's uncle, Tom Cash, says Deborah was trying to "save" her son when she allegedly took off. Shes truly afraid for her childs safety and wellbeing and his life, Tom Cash told FOX 59 after the child's rescue. Thats what motivated her to try to save her son. It wasn't immediately clear what kinds of safety concerns the family had with regards to Steven. Mooresville police did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on Friday. Mooresville Police Department Steven Bryan An 'active and playful' child with a speech impediment With Bryans whereabouts unknown for almost two years, his father told PEOPLE in January that he did not know if his child, who has a speech impediment, had gotten better. He was very active and playful a lot of fun to be with, Tyler, 30, said at the time. July 2024: Authorities find Steven safe after 2 years On Tuesday, July 9, Indiana authorities found Steven in a home with Deborah and Blevins, Mooresville Police Department said, according to WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59. Mooresville Police Chief Kerry Buckner alleged Deborah "was just hiding [Steven] out" while embroiled in a custody battle with the child's father, WIBC reported. Related: Steven Bryan, Found Hidden 2 Years After Vanishing, Is Now Living with Dad and 'Having a Whole Bunch of Fun' (Exclusive) Steven's mother is charged After Steven was found, Indiana authorities arrested Deborah on a charge of interfering with custody, according to Mooresville PD, WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59 reported. Blevins, who was with Steven and Deborah at the time of their rescue, may face charges if an investigation reveals he allegedly assisted Deborah in the interference of custody, per FOX 59 and WANE 15. It wasnt immediately clear if Deborah has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on her behalf. Blevins was not reachable when PEOPLE tried to contact him on Friday. Taylor Bryan Steven Bryan with dad Taylor Bryan 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. Related: Boy, 5, Was Last Seen 2 Years Ago with Mother's Boyfriend. Police Just Found Him Hidden in a Home What's ahead for Steven? Legos and adventures, says dad Since Steven was found, he has been returned to his father, Tyler told PEOPLE on Friday. Steven has been playing with Legos and spending time with his cousins, his father says, adding that they were planning to get sausage and hash browns for breakfast and to go swimming. "Just feels amazing," Tyler told PEOPLE. "I can't wait for all of our adventures." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Convicted murderer and fraudster Alex Murdaugh is challenging the 40-year sentence for financial fraud that he received in April from a federal judge, calling it cruel and unusual punishment. In a brief filed Thursday with the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Murdaughs attorneys wrote that the 40-year financial fraud sentence handed down by U.S. Judge Richard Gergel in April is grossly disproportionate compared to other similar financial crime sentences. The District Court effectively sentenced Murdaugh to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Murdaughs brief said. The U.S. Attorneys office could not be reached for comment. Murdaugh is seeking to vacate Gergels 40-year sentence and wants a new sentencing hearing presided over by a new judge, preferably one from outside South Carolina, the brief said. Moreover, because Murdaugh was 55 when Gergel sentenced him, a 40-year sentence is effectively a death sentence, Murdaughs lawyers argued. With good time credit, he will be eligible for release after serving 85 percent of his sentence, or 34 years, the brief said. However, his life expectancy is only 24.14 years, according to the Social Security Life Expectancy Table. As the government acknowledged at the sentencing hearing, even a sentence of 30 years is a death sentence. Murdaugh, who turned 56 in May, was also sentenced in state court last November to 27 years in state prison for roughly the same criminal conduct for which he was sentenced to 40 years in federal court. With good time, he could be released in 23 years. Murdaughs (federal) sentence is harsher than any other handed down in South Carolina state or federal court, the brief said. Murdaughs sentence is twice as harsh as sentences imposed in federal courts in the United States since 2018... Murdaugh was not convicted of murder in federal court. Yet, he received a sentence which is more appropriate for a murder conviction. Murdaughs thefts consisted mostly of schemes to embezzle more than $8 million from settlements in personal injury and wrongful death claims. A lawyer, he stole over some 15 years from his fellow lawyers, clients and even his own brother, Randy Murdaugh. At the April hearing, Gergel at times seemed to take almost personal offense at the betrayals committed by Murdaugh to the states legal profession, a class of lawyers that prides itself on honor and trust. The defendants conduct has brought disgrace and disrepute to himself, his law firm, the Hampton County bar, the South Carolina bar, if not the entire court system, Gergel said, underscoring the fact that while disgrace is not a crime, it was to Gergel one of Murdaughs greatest offenses. Story continues All the client victims received a portion of their settlement proceeds and were unaware that Murdaugh was skimming off the top, the brief said. Murdaugh used these stolen funds to support a severe opioid addiction. When he was confronted about missing fees by his law firm, Murdaugh readily confessed to his misdeeds. Murdaugh is also serving two consecutive life sentences in state prison for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in June 2021. After a six-week trial in early 2023, a Colleton County jury found Murdaugh guilty of the two killings. Judge Clifton Newman sentenced Murdaugh to the life sentences. At the April federal financial crimes hearing, federal prosecutor Emily Limehouse said the federal charges were brought in part to provide a backstop to the state murder convictions in case they are overturned on appeal, Murdaughs brief said. We always intended to charge him for the federal financial crimes and hold him fully accountable, but really with the goal of providing a backstop, that, should anything fall through with those murder convictions, we would have charged him and held him accountable, Murdaughs brief quoted Limehouse as saying. Limehouse also said at the hearing that federal prosecutors believe Murdaugh may have stolen as much as $6 million more than the nearly $9 million in stolen funds he pled guilty to. The 40-year sentence handed down by Gergel was 10 more years than the 30-year sentence federal prosecutors were requesting for Murdaughs financial crimes. Although Murdaugh had a federal sentencing guideline range of up to about 22 years when compared to similar defendants, Gergel went out of his way to compare Murdaugh with one of the nations worst embezzlers, Bernie Madoff, who for years operated a pyramid con scheme in New York that sucked in billions from gullible people, the brief said. In 2009, Madoff received 150 years in prison and died in 2021 at a federal prison in North Carolina. Madoff had stolen $13.6 billion, Murdaughs lawyers wrote, while Murdaugh had stolen less than $10 million. Sentences which are grossly disproportionate to the crimes committed are unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, Murdaughs brief said. Gergel should have conducted a proportionality review but failed to do so, Murdaughs brief argued. Murdaughs lawyers who filed the brief are Jim Griffin and Margaret Fox. Murdaughs federal crimes included money laundering, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and wire fraud affecting a financial institution. What to know about legal battles on details of abortion rights ballot measures across US FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering over 800,000 petition signatures to the capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot Wednesday, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. Abortion access ballot measures are the center of a new wave of legal and procedural questions across the U.S., including Arizona, where there's a dispute over language to describe a measure. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) Abortion access ballot measures are the center of a new wave of legal and procedural questions across the U.S. Opponents of abortion access have focused on the technicalities at a time when votes have been siding with abortion access advocates. That side has prevailed on all seven ballot questions in the last two years. Abortion-related measures are on November ballots in six states and that number could grow. There have been disputes about how official documents should describe the measures and the details of whether they qualify for the ballots at all. Here's what to know about the latest wave of legal questions. How should Arizona's measure be described? In Arizona, election officials are still verifying whether there are enough valid signatures to add a measure protecting abortion rights to the ballot. Even with that question lingering, there's a dispute over how to describe the measure in a pamphlet to be provided to voters as a resource. A Republican-led legislative committee wants it to describe a fetus as an unborn human being. Arizona for Abortion Access this week filed a lawsuit trying to block the use of that phrase, arguing it's politically charged and chosen to rally opposition to the measure. Did Arkansas advocates file sufficient paperwork? Arkansas election officials on Wednesday rejected petitions to put an abortion-rights measure to voters there, sparking a disagreement that hasn't moved to the courts yet. The secretary of state's office said the petitions submitted earlier this month did not include the required statements regarding paid signature gatherers. The group pushing for the ballot measure, Arkansas for Limited Government, said they did turn in what they were supposed to. But the state maintains its position, and it could be headed to court. Who can sign Montana petitions? The organizations behind two Montana ballot measures including one to ensure abortion rights this week sued the secretary of state's office over changes it made to the rules about whose signatures may be accepted to support ballot measures. Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen told counties last month that they must reject the signatures of voters who are inactive those who fail to vote in a general election and who have not responded to efforts to confirm their mailing address. The groups promoting the ballot measures say that position runs afoul of the state constitution, which calls for petitions to be signed by qualified electors U.S. citizens over 18 who meet registration and residency requirements. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Tuesday. Petitions for amendments to protect abortion rights and to eliminate partisan primary elections were submitted in June. Are these fights common? The developments this week are just the latest round of conflicts about abortion ballot questions. In South Dakota, the Life Defense Fund last month sued to block an abortion rights measure thats on the November ballot. That case is still pending in court. Judges' rulings have been crucial in getting amendments to guarantee abortion rights on the ballot in Florida and Nevada. The top state court in New York on Thursday agreed with a lower court decision that put an amendment to bar discrimination over gender identity and pregnancy outcomes before voters. A judge in May took it off the ballot after finding a procedural error by lawmakers who had put it there. Last year, Ohio voters rejected a requirement that constitutional amendments get 60% of the popular vote just months before approving an amendment to add abortion rights to the state constitution. The ballot questions are part of a resetting of state abortion policies after a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended the nationwide right to abortion. Most Republican-controlled states have begun enforcing restrictions including 14 that now have bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. The Kremlin has said that it finds U.S. President Joe Bidens comments at the NATO Summit to be unacceptable and that the world paid attention to the errors that Biden makes. At the NATO Summit on Thursday, Biden drew gasps from the crowd as he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin, to which Zelensky reacted by smiling and shaking his head. When Zelensky took the microphone, he said, Im better than Putin. Biden responded, Youre a hell of a lot better. Biden also called his own Vice President Kamala Harris, Vice President Donald Trump, at a time when he had to prove to the world that he was fit to serve another four years in office. Biden has repeatedly voiced his disdain for the war in Ukraine and called for a united approach to supporting Ukrainians. He has called Putin a bully and warned that if he is not stopped and if he wins Ukraine, the war will only continue. However, during the three-day summit, Biden also referred to Putin as a murderous madman regarding his brutal, nearly two-and-a-half-year-long war in Ukraine. We continue to consider it absolutely unacceptable and impermissible behavior for a head of state to make such disrespectful remarks about other heads of state, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to remarks Biden made on Putin, without going further into detail. This is unacceptable to us, and we dont think it in any way makes an American head of state look good. This is something that we pay direct attention to and something that is absolutely unacceptable to us, he added. Peskov said in regards to the Biden turmoil and the upcoming U.S. election that it was an internal U.S. topic, despite there being constant reports that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and rumors that the country might be working to ensure that former president Donald Trump secures another term in office. The NATO Summit was held in the U.S. this week as members pledged their unwavering support for Ukraine as it fights against Russias war of attrition. Russia is making gains on the frontlines of Ukraine, as the country faces a shortage of manpower and weapons at a crucial point in the war. However, the purpose of the NATO Summit, which saw the 32 members agree to a minimum baseline funding of $43 billion to Ukraine over the next year, appeared to be overshadowed by calls for Biden to pull out of the presidential race. Zelensky has not made comments on yesterdays mix-up, but in regards to the latest aid package for Ukraine, Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X on Friday, We are doing everything to make Russian terror lose. And not only our country needs it, but everyone needs it, every partner, all nations. And I thank everyone who supports Ukraine. Thank you for the important decisions that help defend lives. 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 Rheinmetall AG logo can be seen in front of the headquarters. Thomas Banneyer/dpa A Kremlin spokesman on Friday denied Russia's involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate the head of German arms maker Rheinmetall, which has provided critical military aid to Ukraine. Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Moscow that he could not comment on the allegation, which was first reported by US broadcaster CNN on Thursday. "You can't take such reports seriously," he said, arguing that the article was unsubstantiated and based on anonymous sources. According to the report, which has since been corroborated by the German Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, US intelligence earlier this year uncovered Russian government plans to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall. The report has provoked outrage in Berlin, with German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser saying the government is taking Russian threats "very seriously." Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, is taking part in the Day of German Industry 2024 organized by the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa Kroger has agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement to resolve lawsuits related to the opioid addiction crisis. Cobb County, which has led Georgia in opioid deaths in recent years, will get money from the settlement. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Channel 2s Tom Regan was in Cobb County Friday, where officials plan to use the funds to support recovery efforts for those struggling with addiction. We believe Cobb has been affected more than any other county in the state, said Cobb County Spokesman Ross Cavitt. TRENDING STORIES: Kroger was just one of many retailers across the country sued in the wake of the opioid epidemic that spaned a tidal wave of overdose deaths across the nation, including in Georgia. Cobb County joined thousands of plaintiffs in litigation against pharmacy chains like Kroger, as well as manufacturers and distributors of opioids. The exact amount the county will receive is still unclear. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] It depends on how many others agreed to be part of the settlement, and this is over an 11-year period, so we really dont know how much money we are going to get, said Cavitt. The county has formed an Opioid Abatement Advisory Council to determine the best ways to use the settlement money. The Davis Direction Foundation, which helps thousands of people in recovery, will be seeking assistance. We try to help (addicts) get ready to re-enter society and become a contributing member this time, said Missy Owen from the Davis Direction Foundation. Owen, who lost her son to drug addiction, said that while prescription opioid deaths are decreasing, fatal overdoses from illicit fentanyl are increasing rapidly. Fentanyl is everywhere. Its in every illicit drug. Anywhere. Every illicit drug you get off the street, you can count it has fentanyl in it, Owen said. Cobb County has already received $5.2 million from previous opioid settlements. Regan reached out to Kroger for comment on their settlement but hasnt gotten a response yet. Kyiv expects to get up to 20 F-16s in 2024, Bloomberg reports Ukraine expects to receive the first six F-16 fighter jets this summer and up to 20 of them by the end of 2024, Bloomberg reported on July 12, citing undisclosed sources in NATO. During this year's NATO summit, held on July 9-11 in Washington, the U.S., Denmark, and the Netherlands announced that the first F-16 fighter jets were "on their way" to Ukraine. NATO is yet concerned about logistical difficulties in maintaining these aircraft and the lack of suitable runways in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg. "The challenges have been so severe that they've raised doubts about the wisdom of sending the jets to Ukraine and whether doing so now amounts to a very costly show of support to President Volodymyr Zelensky," the article read. A NATO official who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity listed three main reasons that raised doubts about the aircraft's delivery to Ukraine. The fighter jets must be reconfigured depending on their tasks, such as reconnaissance or combat, while the logistics of supporting the planes are complex, from the need for spare parts to maintenance demands to finding engineers, according to the source. Ukraine also does not have enough long, high-quality runways required for the F-16s, as well as shelters to protect them from Russian strikes, the source added. Another NATO official told Bloomberg that Ukraine is trying to achieve "in a matter of months" what usually takes "three to four years." "The result is that Ukraine may be able to field a squadron of F-16s, anything from 15 to 24 jets, well short of the 300 its leaders have called for," Bloomberg said, citing an undisclosed source. Read also: F-16s are nearly in Ukraine will they live up to the hype? Ukraine was expected to receive the first F-16 jets this summer, a year after Denmark and the Netherlands established the "fighter jet coalition" with nine other countries at the previous NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023. In addition to the Netherlands and Denmark, 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. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A homeless man stands in front of a tent in Venice on July 10, a block from where the Venice Dell project is to be built as housing for homeless people. Advocates for low-income housing sued the city of Los Angeles this week, accusing City Councilmember Traci Park, City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto and other officials of violating fair housing laws by blocking a proposed affordable housing development in Venice . The project, known as the Venice Dell, includes 140 units of housing for low-income and formerly homeless residents on whats now a city-owned parking lot along the neighborhoods famed canals. Plans for the housing began in 2016 and the city approved an agreement with nonprofit developers Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corp. to move forward in the summer of 2022. A homeless man runs past a parking lot where the Venice Dell project will be built at 200 N. Venice Blvd. in Venice. But the development has stalled amid legal action taken by nearby community groups and, according to the newly filed lawsuit, the efforts of Park, who represents the area, and Feldstein Soto. Both city officials opposed Venice Dell while running for office. "Councilmember Traci Park and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, acting on animus against the Project and the chronically homeless, disabled, and Black and Brown Angelenos it would house, have pursued a number of backdoor strategies to thwart and obstruct Venice Dell, the complaint said. Among the alleged actions cited in the complaint were city officials cutting off regular meetings with the developers, requiring all communication to be routed through the city attorneys office and failing to sign off on approvals needed before Venice Dell could break ground. The lawsuit also faults Mayor Karen Bass for deferring to the council member and not directing city officials to advance the project. Read more: Lawsuit filed July 10, 2024 fair housing violations at proposed Venice affordable housing project The plaintiffs are nonprofit progressive organization LA Forward Institute, a 60-year-old homeless resident who lives in a motorhome in Venice, a Venice homeowner and a Loyola Law School professor who was born in Venice. They're seeking a court order requiring the city to move Venice Dell forward. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that by not allowing Venice Dell to proceed the city is preventing the construction of low-income homes in a neighborhood thats wealthier and whiter than the rest of the city and therefore violating fair housing and equal protection laws. As a city, we could be creating far more affordable housing if only we weren't being obstructed at every turn by people who don't think their part of town needs to do their fair share, said David Levitus, executive director of LA Forward Institute, at a news conference at the site Thursday. Venice residents join attorneys with LA Forward Institute and Western Center for Law and Poverty at a news conference on Thursday to discuss a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for what they say are attempts to block 140 units of new affordable housing in Venice. The image in the foreground is an artist's rendering of what the property could look like. Feldstein Soto and Park did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit or the project. Clara Karger, a Bass spokesperson, said that the mayor was reviewing the lawsuit, and pointed to her efforts to expedite permitting of affordable housing. "Mayor Bass continues to support affordable housing across the city," Karger said. In a July 1 response to a letter sent by plaintiffs' lawyers, Chief Assistant City Atty. John Heath said that there were a number of items both the developers and city needed to address before Venice Dell could go ahead, including parking agreements and an appraisal. "The city has continuously worked with [the developers] to identify a viable path to help move his project forward," Heath wrote. He added that the plaintiffs' allegations were "unhelpful to this collaborative process." Patrick Baxter, 60, who has been homeless for 34 years, stands near an encampment a block from where the Venice Dell project is to be built as housing for homeless people. The 2.7-acre Venice Dell site is bisected by the canal and each side of the project is planned to have a three-story apartment building and multi-story parking garage. Of the 140 units, roughly half will be reserved as supportive housing for formerly homeless residents and the other half low-income housing, including some set aside for artists. The project also will have retail, restaurant and community space and additional parking. Separately, L.A. County Superior Court judges have dismissed two lawsuits from Venice neighborhood groups that aimed to overturn the citys approvals for the project, one alleging faulty environmental reviews and the other that the citys agreement with the developer was improper. The environmental case is being appealed. Venice Community Housing Co-Executive Director Becky Dennison said that shed hoped the court rulings would spur the project forward. But instead, she said that at a meeting with city officials last week, Ken Husting, an executive with the citys transportation department, told her that the city was recommending that Venice Dell be redesigned to change the layout for the parking. When she asked why, she said Husting told her that administrations had changed since the projects approvals. Neither Husting, who is on vacation, nor a transportation department spokesperson responded to a request for comment. Read more: Are L.A. leaders trying to sabotage homeless housing in Venice? Dennison said that complying with the request would further stall the project by at least two years, reduce the number of units and require scrapping the citys existing approvals. Its like a recommendation to start all over, Dennison said. As is, Dennison said, the lack of action has delayed her pursuit of financing for the project, cost her $100,000 in interest payments on a predevelopment loan and prevented construction of permanent homeless housing in a community with little of it. The folks that are sitting on these streets, thats the biggest frustration, Dennison said. Yes, its a huge financial commitment and a lot of risk. But there were promises made to folks in this community. A homeless person sleeps with belongings on the beach a couple of blocks from the Venice Dell project at the end of North Venice Boulevard on July 10. While the city still needs to sign off on the ground lease and the other applications, Dennison said the biggest remaining hurdle is approval from the California Coastal Commission, which is required because the site is in the coastal zone. Dennison said the city also has stalled in responding to the commissions questions about Venice Dell. Joshua Smith, a spokesperson for the commission, said that the agency was continuing to work with the city on a plan. The prospect of a 100% affordable housing project at this location is a rare opportunity, and we would like to bring this to a final vote as soon as possible, Smith said. Read more: Why Leo Pustilnikov is buying 1,500 Skid Row apartments and wants to build thousands more The project has attracted the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsoms administration. In February, the Department of Housing and Community Development sent the city a letter requesting details on why the project wasnt advancing. A spokesperson told The Times that the department was continuing to monitor the situation. Members of the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights and others protest Saturday in Venice, calling on Mayor Karen Bass and other city leaders to intervene on behalf of the homeless on the Westside. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Charles Rosin, a retired television producer and Venice resident who led the neighborhood lawsuits against the project, said that the case filed by supporters this week was an attempt to cover up the developers' own problems, including securing financing. Rosin said the district elected Park in part because of her opposition to Venice Dell in contrast with her predecessor, Mike Bonin, who backed the effort. "The voters wanted a change in policy," Rosin said. Dennison said she is hoping for Venice Dell to break ground in 2026 and open in 2028. 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. How Labour eco-donor Dale Vince is unleashing a legal blitz to fight off his critics When Dale Vince, the millionaire eco tycoon and top Labour donor, aired his views about Hamas last year, he was met with a fierce backlash. During an interview with Times Radio, in which he was asked whether a Hamas terrorist attack was Palestine defending itself, Vince said: I think one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, right? Thats how it works. Angela Rayner, now deputy Prime Minister, branded the comments appalling, while a slew of media outlets published reports suggesting the businessman had expressed support for the terrorist group. Yet rather than backtrack, Vince has stood by his remarks and launched a wave of libel lawsuits against his detractors. Now the tycoon is stepping up his assault as he seeks a court order that would effectively block access to the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog. For Vince, who donated 5m to Labour in the run-up to the general election, the campaign is the most important piece of the puzzle as he tries to clear his name. But the move has sparked accusations that Mr Vince is using a tactic most commonly deployed in copyright cases in an effort to silence his critics. Following widespread coverage of the comments, Vince went on the defensive. Lawyers for the businessman filed a string of lawsuits, claiming the clip was used to imply that he was supporting Hamas actions, including mass murder, kidnapping and rape, during the October 7 attacks. He has already successfully sued GB News and the Daily Mail for libel over their reporting as both outlets agreed to pay substantial damages and cover Vinces legal costs. In addition, Vince has started proceedings against Reform chairman Richard Tice and Tory peer Shaun Bailey, while legal threats against a trio of current and former Conservative MPs triggered swift apologies. Dale Vince joined Just Stop Oil activists during a protest in central London last year - Aaron Chown/PA Now, though, the former Just Stop Oil donor who switched his allegiances to Labour last year, has stepped up his campaign with a lawsuit against Paul Staines, the editor of political blog Guido Fawkes. Staines has long boasted that his Irish nationality and the fact his blog is hosted in the US means he can ignore British court orders. However, the blogger has declared that on this occasion he will forgo any safe haven protection and defend the lawsuit head on. In a blog post last week, he said: We have no intention of apologising for reporting and commenting on his disgraceful equivocation. Were going to make a stand and defend free speech and our reporting of the words he said. Staines also said he has given Vince the opportunity to put on the record unambiguously that he does not think Hamas are freedom fighters, but that he declined to do so. Alongside the libel claim is a second legal threat that has raised eyebrows in the legal community and sparked a furious response from the political blogger. Vince has said he is seeking a website blocking order that would require British internet service providers to restrict access to Guido Fawkes. These orders are most commonly used by media companies as a means of combatting infringements of their intellectual property rights, such as shutting down illegal streams of Premier League matches or piracy of new blockbuster films. The orders, which are directed at broadband firms such as BT or web hosting services, are particularly helpful where an infringing website has moved offshore and out of the reach of English courts. No application has been filed yet and it is understood that a blocking order would only be deployed if Staines refuses to voluntarily take down material from his blog or comply with any injunction forcing him to do so. Nevertheless, the threat has sparked accusations of communist-style censorship. In a characteristically inflammatory blog post, Staines branded Vince a thin-skinned megalomaniac rich bully and accused him of trying to create a Chinese-style internet firewall to censor him. Paul Staines, the editor of political blog Guido Fawkes, has pledged to 'make a stand' against Dale Vince and 'defend free speech' - Ken McKay/Shutterstock This case has obvious implications for freedom of speech and in my view Dale Vince is attempting a SLAPP a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation to intimidate critics like some Russian oligarch using his wealth and power to bully opposition politicians and other political critics, Staines told The Telegraph. He has used his wealth to intimidate people scared of the legal costs, he menaces people like Shaun Bailey with ruinous costs. Even media organisations settle rather than risk lengthy costly legal battles with a thin-skinned rich narcissist. Lawyers report an increase in the number of clients using web blocking orders as a tool in defamation case, as well as deploying copyright laws, as it can help to circumvent tricky arguments over free speech. The balancing act between something thats defamatory and something thats freedom of speech is very nuanced, says Emily Nuttall-Wood, an intellectual property lawyer at Addleshaw Goddard. It can be more straightforward to rely on IP rights because if youve got a trade mark or youve got a copyright work and its clearly just being reproduced and theres no fair use exception, then its infringement and its likely more straightforward to prove your case. However, Nuttall-Wood says the use of a website blocking order is unusual. So far the blocking orders have been used largely for larger-scale copyright and trademark misuse, but I havent seen a lot of it being used where the actual underlying cause of action appears to be libel. Legal experts say blocking orders cannot be disproportionately wide or long-lasting, and the court must be persuaded that they are not shutting off access to legitimate content. Still, even the attempt to shut down Guido Fawkes on copyright grounds is enough to anger Staines, a vocal free speech campaigner. Guido would in Dales fantasy become [dissident samizdat material], read in Starmers Britain only by tech savvy users or on the dark web, he wrote last week. Vince, who is represented by law firm Brett Wilson, said in a statement: Through Guido Fawkes, Paul Staines set out an entirely false narrative around my views on Palestine, it became a right wing pile on in the media and on social media he did it intentionally in my view. And so its more than a little rich to be running some kind of freedom of the press argument. The press in our country are free, but not free to tell lies. That is what this case is about. 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. How Labour eco-donor Dale Vince is unleashing a legal blitz to fight off his critics When Dale Vince, the millionaire eco tycoon and top Labour donor, aired his views about Hamas last year, he was met with a fierce backlash. During an interview with Times Radio, in which he was asked whether a Hamas terrorist attack was Palestine defending itself, Vince said: I think one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, right? Thats how it works. Angela Rayner, now deputy Prime Minister, branded the comments appalling, while a slew of media outlets published reports suggesting the businessman had expressed support for the terrorist group. Yet rather than backtrack, Vince has stood by his remarks and launched a wave of libel lawsuits against his detractors. Now the tycoon is stepping up his assault as he seeks a court order that would effectively block access to pages on the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog. For Vince, who donated 5m to Labour in the run-up to the general election, the campaign is the most important piece of the puzzle as he tries to clear his name. But the move has sparked accusations that Mr Vince is using a tactic most commonly deployed in copyright cases in an effort to silence his critics. Following widespread coverage of the comments, Vince went on the defensive. Lawyers for the businessman filed a string of lawsuits, claiming the clip was used to imply that he was supporting Hamas actions, including mass murder, kidnapping and rape, during the October 7 attacks. He has already successfully sued GB News and the Daily Mail for libel over their reporting as both outlets agreed to pay substantial damages and cover Vinces legal costs. In addition, Vince has started proceedings against Reform chairman Richard Tice and Tory peer Shaun Bailey, while legal threats against a trio of current and former Conservative MPs triggered swift apologies. Dale Vince joined Just Stop Oil activists during a protest in central London last year - Aaron Chown/PA Now, though, the former Just Stop Oil donor who switched his allegiances to Labour last year, has stepped up his campaign with a lawsuit against Paul Staines, the editor of political blog Guido Fawkes. Staines has long boasted that his Irish nationality and the fact his blog is hosted in the US means he can ignore British court orders. However, the blogger has declared that on this occasion he will forgo any safe haven protection and defend the lawsuit head on. In a blog post last week, he said: We have no intention of apologising for reporting and commenting on his disgraceful equivocation. Were going to make a stand and defend free speech and our reporting of the words he said. Staines also said he has given Vince the opportunity to put on the record unambiguously that he does not think Hamas are freedom fighters, but that he declined to do so. Alongside the libel claim is a second legal threat that has raised eyebrows in the legal community and sparked a furious response from the political blogger. Vince has said he is seeking a website blocking order that would require British internet service providers to restrict access to Guido Fawkes. These orders are most commonly used by media companies as a means of combatting infringements of their intellectual property rights, such as shutting down illegal streams of Premier League matches or piracy of new blockbuster films. The orders, which are directed at broadband firms such as BT or web hosting services, are particularly helpful where an infringing website has moved offshore and out of the reach of English courts. It is understood that a blocking order would only be deployed if Staines refuses to voluntarily take down material from his blog or comply with any injunction forcing him to do so. Nevertheless, the threat has sparked accusations of communist-style censorship. In a characteristically inflammatory blog post, Staines branded Vince a thin-skinned megalomaniac rich bully and accused him of trying to create a Chinese-style internet firewall to censor him. Paul Staines, the editor of political blog Guido Fawkes, has pledged to 'make a stand' against Dale Vince and 'defend free speech' - Ken McKay/Shutterstock This case has obvious implications for freedom of speech and in my view Dale Vince is attempting a SLAPP a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation to intimidate critics like some Russian oligarch using his wealth and power to bully opposition politicians and other political critics, Staines told The Telegraph. He has used his wealth to intimidate people scared of the legal costs, he menaces people like Shaun Bailey with ruinous costs. Even media organisations settle rather than risk lengthy costly legal battles with a thin-skinned rich narcissist. Lawyers report an increase in the number of clients using web blocking orders as a tool in defamation case, as well as deploying copyright laws, as it can help to circumvent tricky arguments over free speech. The balancing act between something thats defamatory and something thats freedom of speech is very nuanced, says Emily Nuttall-Wood, an intellectual property lawyer at Addleshaw Goddard. It can be more straightforward to rely on IP rights because if youve got a trade mark or youve got a copyright work and its clearly just being reproduced and theres no fair use exception, then its infringement and its likely more straightforward to prove your case. However, Nuttall-Wood says the use of a website blocking order is unusual. So far the blocking orders have been used largely for larger-scale copyright and trademark misuse, but I havent seen a lot of it being used where the actual underlying cause of action appears to be libel. Legal experts say blocking orders cannot be disproportionately wide or long-lasting, and the court must be persuaded that they are not shutting off access to legitimate content. Still, even the attempt to shut down Guido Fawkes is enough to anger Staines, a vocal free speech campaigner. Guido would in Dales fantasy become [dissident samizdat material], read in Starmers Britain only by tech savvy users or on the dark web, he wrote last week. Vince, who is represented by law firm Brett Wilson, said in a statement: Through Guido Fawkes, Paul Staines set out an entirely false narrative around my views on Palestine, it became a right wing pile on in the media and on social media he did it intentionally in my view. And so its more than a little rich to be running some kind of freedom of the press argument. The press in our country are free, but not free to tell lies. That is what this case is about. 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) -- Labours plans to drive rapid green investment into the UK through a National Wealth Fund rest in the hands of the countrys statisticians. Most Read from Bloomberg When the fund is set up, the Office for National Statistics must make a critical accounting determination on whether it counts as national debt. If the ONS keeps the fund off the books, Labour will be able ramp up investment while sticking to its fiscal rules. If its on the books, those rules will prove a major constraint. The ONS decision may affect the success off the whole program. Labour wants a catalytic fund that uses equity as well as financial products like first-loss debt, guarantees, and price assurances to draw private capital into projects like green steel, green hydrogen, industrial decarbonization and gigafactories. The task force helping to design the NWF, led by Green Finance Institute Chief Executive Officer Rhian-Mari Thomas, said earlier this week that a five-fold increase in investment is required by 2030 to achieve net zero, with sustained annual investment of 50 billion ($65 billion) a year after that. The panel estimates that as much as 56.9 billion of extra investment is needed by 2030 over and above existing announcements of public and private funding. The NWF will provide 7.3 billion but, even if it hits its goal of raising three times more from the private sector, it will fall 27.7 billion short. The NWF task force acknowledged in its report that Labours fiscal rules may be an obstacle. Further review of implications on fiscal rules (in particular Public Sector Net Debt) are required to ensure consistency with objectives, it said. Such a review may wish to consider the exclusion of certain public development institutions from PSND calculus through necessary governance reforms, changing the treatment of assets, or at least reducing emphasis on PSND in the fiscal rules. Mark Carney, chair of Bloomberg Inc.s board and a former Bank of England governor, also sits on the task force. The ONS determination is likely to be months away yet. It said several models are being considered for how to treat the fund but Labours current plans assume it remains on balance sheet. The precedents are the UK Investment Bank and the British Business Bank, both of which are treated as part of central government and so put on the books. The economic sector classification will not be determined until further details are available, the ONS said in a statement. The NWF is still being developed, with several models being considered. There will be nothing definite to consider until that point. The Treasury declined to comment but a person familiar with the plans said details will be set out in the budget later this year alongside wider tax and spending plans that are consistent with Labours fiscal rules. Labours binding rule is that national debt must be falling as a share of GDP in the fifth year of the Office for Budget Responsibilitys forecast. Economists have warned that Chancellor of he Exchequer Rachel Reeves may face a 30 billion fiscal hole in her first budget under that measure. A group of economists from the London School of Economics and Andy King, a former director of the OBR are considering alternatives. King said Reeves could either use a debt measure that excluded development banks or switch the rule to public sector net financial liabilities. PSNFL would net financial assets off against the liabilities rather than use just one side of the balance sheet, as with PSND. Given that development banks have roughly the same amount of financial assets as liabilities, PSNFL would effectively remove them from the debt measure. In the past, governments have played the ONS accounting rules in an attempt to keep debts off balance sheet. Doing so also runs the risk of the ONS bringing them on balance sheet, however, as happened with housing associations and student loans. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. President Ilham Aliyev's two-day visit to Pakistan on July 11 was widely covered in Pakistan's local media. In the published articles, the grand welcoming ceremony of the head of state of Azerbaijan, as well as the strategically important documents signed between the two fraternal countries during the meetings were specially emphasized. The Pakistan Observer news site, which cooperates with Azernews newspaper, published one of the similar articles. Azernews presents that article: President Aliyev, a true friend of Pakistan THE warmth with which Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev was received on his arrival in Pakistan for a two day visit is not without a reason as the distinguished guest is a true friend having unreserved commitment to strengthen and diversify relations with Pakistan. As President Aliyev alighted at Nur Khan Airbase from his special aircraft, he was warmly greeted by PM Shehbaz Sharif and his cabinet members amid formal welcome ceremonies reflecting closeness of ties between the two countries. The wide-ranging talks between the leadership of the two countries would surely pave the way for taking the bilateral relationship to new heights as per repeated resolve of the Azeri President. The visit assumed special significance after an announcement a day earlier by Pakistans Minister for Petroleum Dr. Musadik Malik, who disclosed that Azerbaijan was considering investing $2 to 3 billion in Pakistan and the Foreign Office also expected that the visit would give a boost to economic cooperation. In a related development, speaking at the inaugural Pakistan-Turkiye-Azerbaijan trilateral summit in Kazakhstan this month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proposed the establishment of tripartite institutional mechanisms in economic and investment areas to further strengthen cooperation among the three nations. Groundwork for this important visit was laid during visit of Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in May when he held all-encompassing discussions with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and the two sides agreed to further strengthen bilateral strategic relations and broaden the scope of cooperation in all areas of interest, including trade, investment, energy, defense, education, climate action, and regional connectivity. All this shows the two countries, especially their leadership, has will and resolve to forge economic ties with focus on trade and investment. It is a matter of pride for Pakistan that Azerbaijan has consistently been supporting the just cause of people of Kashmir for their right to self-determination. Azerbaijan supports peaceful resolution of the dispute based on the norms and principles of international law and relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council. This expression of solidarity with Pakistan and people of Jammu and Kashmir is not unilateral as Pakistan also unequivocally extended firm moral and political support to Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia. We hope that the immense goodwill that exists between the two countries and understanding reached during the visit will be translated into concrete projects and programmes to forge ties in diverse fields to their mutual advantage. Amidst a dynamic global financial landscape, the Singapore market continues to offer intriguing opportunities for investors looking at stable returns through dividend stocks. In light of recent regulatory actions in international banking sectors emphasizing the importance of robust risk management and data governance, investors might consider the resilience and strategic compliance of companies as key factors when evaluating potential dividend stock investments in Singapore. Top 10 Dividend Stocks In Singapore Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating BRC Asia (SGX:BEC) 6.90% UOB-Kay Hian Holdings (SGX:U10) 6.76% Multi-Chem (SGX:AWZ) 8.07% UOL Group (SGX:U14) 3.72% Bumitama Agri (SGX:P8Z) 6.71% Civmec (SGX:P9D) 5.69% Singapore Exchange (SGX:S68) 3.51% Singapore Airlines (SGX:C6L) 6.81% YHI International (SGX:BPF) 6.70% Sing Investments & Finance (SGX:S35) 6.00% Click here to see the full list of 20 stocks from our Top SGX Dividend Stocks screener. Below we spotlight a couple of our favorites from our exclusive screener. Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Multi-Chem Limited, primarily an investment holding company, operates in the distribution of information technology products across regions including Singapore, Greater China, Australia, and India, with a market capitalization of approximately SGD 271.19 million. Operations: Multi-Chem Limited generates revenue from its IT business in India (SGD 40.56 million), Australia (SGD 54.60 million), Singapore (SGD 372.78 million), Greater China (SGD 34.96 million), and other regions totaling SGD 153.93 million, alongside a smaller PCB business in Singapore contributing SGD 1.79 million. Dividend Yield: 8.1% Multi-Chem Limited, a Singapore-based company, maintains a dividend payout ratio of 80.7% and a cash payout ratio of 88.1%, suggesting that its dividends are well-covered by both earnings and cash flows. However, the company's dividend track record over the past decade has been unstable and unreliable, marked by volatility in payments. Recent board changes include the appointment of Chong Teck Sin as Independent Non-Executive Director and Board Chairman on April 30, 2024, potentially influencing future financial strategies and governance. SGX:AWZ Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited operates a financial services business across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Greater China, and other Asia Pacific regions with a market capitalization of SGD 68.32 billion. Story continues Operations: Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited generates its revenue through financial services across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Greater China, and other Asia Pacific regions. Dividend Yield: 5.5% Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation has a mixed dividend profile, with a history of volatile payments despite recent growth in earnings by 14.6%. The dividends, yielding 5.53%, are below the top quartile in Singapore's market but are reasonably covered by earnings with a payout ratio of 52.9%. Recent activities include multiple fixed-income offerings and share repurchases, indicating active capital management but also reflecting challenges in maintaining stable dividend growth amidst financial expansions and obligations. SGX:O39 Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX: S68) operates as an integrated securities and derivatives exchange with related clearing houses in Singapore, boasting a market capitalization of SGD 10.36 billion. Operations: Singapore Exchange Limited generates revenue primarily from two segments: Segment Adjustment at SGD 0.84 billion and Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities at SGD 0.37 billion. Dividend Yield: 3.5% Singapore Exchange offers a consistent dividend yield of 3.51%, underpinned by stable dividends over the past decade and a recent increase. The dividends are well-covered by both earnings and cash flows, with payout ratios at 63% and 79.1% respectively, suggesting sustainability. Despite its reliability in dividend payments, its yield is lower than the top quartile of Singapore dividend stocks at 6.3%. Recent activities include participation in industry conferences, highlighting its active engagement in sectoral developments. SGX:S68 Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Summing It All Up Delve into our full catalog of 20 Top SGX Dividend Stocks here. Have a stake in these businesses? Integrate your holdings into Simply Wall St's portfolio for notifications and detailed stock reports. Maximize your investment potential with Simply Wall St, the comprehensive app that offers global market insights for free. 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 SGX:AWZ SGX:O39 and SGX:S68. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Kari Lake is appealing to the Arizona Supreme Court to have the courts reconsider her case over her 2022 gubernatorial election loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) after a panel on the Court of Appeals tossed out her case last month. Lawyers for Lake wrote in their filing, obtained by Arizonas Law, that a new election should be conducted or 275,000 ballots should be struck, which would deliver a victory for Lake, after claiming that based on new information, a majority of vote center tabulators in Maricopa County failed and averaging over 7,000 ballot rejections every thirty minutes shortly after polls opened to polls closing. The lawsuit claims Maricopa did not conduct pre-election logic and accuracy (L&A) testing on any vote center tabulators used on Election Day and that Maricopa County allegedly had evidence before Election Day of faulty vote center tabulators but didnt fix the problem beforehand. Lake has refused to concede the results of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, where she narrowly lost to Hobbs by less than 20,000 votes. The former local news anchor has filed multiple lawsuits over the results, though theyve largely been rejected by the courts. Lake is now running for Senate against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). An aggregate of Arizona polls surveying the Arizona Senate race compiled by Decision Desk HQ show Gallego leading Lake, 45 percent to 43 percent. Gallego slammed Lakes latest filing, writing on social platform X, As @KariLake begs Arizonans to make her the next Senator, shes pushing the courts to overturn the 2022 election and make her the Governor. Shes delusional. Shes unfit to serve. Shes too extreme for Arizona, he added. However, Lakes campaign argued in a statement that she was keeping her word by fighting to make sure Arizonans votes counted. While Ruben Gallego is in DC fighting to allow illegal aliens to vote, Kari Lake is keeping her word to the people of Arizona that she will continue to fight in the courts so that every legal vote in Arizona counts, Caroline Wren, a senior advisor to Lake, told The Hill in a statement. The Maricopa County recorders office said it had no 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 The Hill. Lakeland officials are considering whether to raise city's property tax rate for the first time since 2016, but not all are convinced it's the right decision. Commissioners will consider raising Lakeland's property tax rate from $5.43 to potentially $6.05 per $1,000 of assessed value. This would allow the city to raise over $6 million more in revenue for fiscal year 2025 to help pay for increased services, many of which residents have asked for and enjoyed the past two years. For the average Lakeland homeowner with an assessed property value of $152,000, this would increase their property taxes by about $94, to a rough total of $920 per year. The tax increase would require a super majority or approval by five of seven commissioners to implement. Not all commissioners are convinced that a tax increase is necessary, and they may settle on a lower tax rate before September. Commissioner Chad McLeod was the only vote against setting a proposed maximum millage rate of 6.0529. "I would like us to leave the rate where it is this year," McLeod said. "There is still an increase property owners are experiencing due to increasing property values." McLeod said many property owners face skyrocketing home insurance premiums in addition to general inflation, as families are seeing their budgets stretched tight. Plus, the city plans to raise its water and wastewater rates for utility customers, including those outside city limits. Financial Director Mike Brossart advised the commission against holding the tax rate flat, or potentially lowering it, given the city had added a number of recurring costs in new employees, services and programs in the past two years and will need more to keep up with Lakeland's rapid growth. "It is kicking the can down the road," he said. Recurring city costs add to the bottom line In the past two years, Lakeland has added more than $9.7 million in new programs, employees and initiatives that have significantly increased the city's overall budget, according to Brossart. Most of this spending has been focused on improving public safety. "We have seen a marked increase in the level of expenses added to the budget, not for any wrong reasons," Brossart said. "Growth has required so much investment into public safety, we've needed to do those things." Lakeland Fire Department received about $1.7 million in last year's budget to hire an additional 24 firefighters. The city has already set aside more than $1 million annually to hire 12 officers for the future Fire Station 8. Starting in December 2023, Lakeland Police Department was equipped with body-worn cameras after years of public debate. The system carries an annual recurring costs of a little over $1 million per year. The police department has added 13 officers, at a cost of roughly $1.8 million annually, and taken back in its 12 school resource officers, at $1.65 million, after all contracts were shifted to Polk County Sheriff's Office. Lakeland Fire Department received about $1.7 million in last year's budget to hire an additional 24 firefighters to implement a "Kelly Day," or a system that provides officers an additional day off to reduce scheduled overtime. The city has already set aside more than $1 million annually to hire 12 officers for Fire Station 8 despite Fire Chief Doug Riley saying it would be "optimistic and aggressive" to have it operational by 2026. The commission committed to setting aside $1 million annually to incentivize affordable housing in fiscal year 2023. And last year, it dedicated $1 million per year to its Transportation Fund to improve maintenance of the city's roads. Despite adding these program and staff, the city has been able to avoid raising its tax rate. This has largely been possible because of rapid growth in Lakeland's tax base, as the gross value of taxable property within the city grew by nearly 15% in 2022 and almost 13% last year. This provided Lakeland with a significant boost to its property tax revenues without raising its rate. By comparison, the city's taxable property value grew about 5.4% last year. This won't provide quite the same windfall as the previous two years. "We can't keep saying yes without knowing how we are going to pay for it," Commissioner Mike Musick said. Proposed additions to this year's budget Lakeland commissioners are being asked to approve a number of one-time purchases and additional city employees in the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget. Various city departments are asking for more than $3 million for one-time equipment purchases ranging from massive vehicles to compute software. Oscar Torres, Lakeland's director of information technology, has requested $1.1 million to upgrade the city's IBM Maximo computer software and help with migration, a project that's been planned for several years as its slated to be obsolete by next September. Other large purchases include more than $775,000 for the Water Utilities department to purchase an industrial vacuum truck that will help reduce time for pipeline repairs and shorten water outages to customers. The stormwater department has asked to purchase a tandem dump truck to help haul away aquatic vegetation harvested from the city's lakes as part of its water management program, according to City Manager Shawn Sherrouse. "They are not wants, they are needs, as we have hopefully been able to demonstrate," Sherrouse said. There is funding requested to add roughly 17 employees to the city's payrolls next year. Overall, there's been a request to add 12 new organization positions, including funds to hire an additional five police officers, adding two positions at Lakeland Linder airport and several staff members at Lakeland Electric. Sherrouse said several city departments are seeking to change seven contract positions to city employees in an effort to save money. One of these would be a marketing liaison for the airport, three multicraft operators and a plant mechanic for Lakeland Electric. LPD Chief Sam Taylor made clear to commissioners that the police department needs to add about 35 officers over the next five years in effort to keep up with recommended law enforcement staffing for the city's rapidly growing population. This year's budget will include five officers, but he plans to ask for funds to hire another seven next budget cycle. "One thing we have not compromised is public safety and being able to build that into the future in a realistic way," Mayor Bill Mutz said. Short changing the future Brossart warned city commissioners that failing to raise the city's tax rate incrementally this year could require a significant hike in future years or cutbacks in services. The commission has a goal of having an estimated 45 to 60 days' operating cash in its general fund reserve three years out, in fiscal year 2027, based on a projected estimate of its adopted budget. This is to ensure the city's bond rating remains high when it needs to borrow money for capital improvements or an emergency. Southwest sewage spill: Lakeland has an estimate of how much it will cost to clean up near Carillon Lakes Brossart said he estimates the city would have only reserves for 47 days in 2027 based on its proposed budget at the current tax rate, $5.43 per $1,000 of assessed value. If the City Commission approves pay and benefits increases for its first responders which is under consideration to improve recruitment and retention rates its fund balance could dip to 25 days. Potential budget cuts? Lakeland officials are eyeing the city's $1 million annual setaside for affordable housing incentives as a possible cutback to help offset any increase in the city's tax rate. "It might be a good year to pass on the $1 million for affordable housing we would typically allocate into this budget otherwise as part of the offset," Mutz said. Under the current year's budget, Lakeland has about $7.42 million for various affordable housing projects and incentives, Brossart said. However, some of the funds, such as $2.5 million from the State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program, come with specific restrictions. The Midtown Community Redevelopment Agency's funds for affordable housing are geographically limited to being spent within Lakeland's Midtown District. "We have dollars carried forward from previous budget years, if there was a year we want to pass we have prioritized affordable housing in years past. It can still be a priority if we have a different budget allocation or skip it altogether," McLeod said. For several years, Lakeland has set aside money for affordable housing incentives. Whether to cut back on that money in next year's budget to help avoid a property tax increase was a big topic of discussion at Thursday's budget workshop. For next year, the city's dedicated funding for affordable housing is proposed at $2.7 million. Lakeland expects to receive significantly less in state funds, potentially contribute $1 million from the general fund and $500,000 in the Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency. Commissioner Stephanie Madden said she's concerned about making sure the city can pursue some of the opportunities it has been presented for future affordable housing projects. But some commissioners have suggested reducing or eliminating the $1 million setaside to help prevent a tax increase. Musick, Guy Lalonde and others discussed whether the funds should be used instead to help support the launch of senior center or a new PAL building. Groups behind both projects have solicited the city for financial support. What's next? City commissioners will likely hold another budget meeting in August to narrow down a more precise tax rate. It will also provide a final opportunity for commissioners to make cuts or suggest reallocating money toward specific initiatives. An exact date and time has not yet been announced for this commission workshop. Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl. This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland commissioners are considering a property tax increase Louisiana Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson shared tax reform proposals Thursday, July 11, 2024, with a joint committee of lawmakers focused on state tax policy. He is pictured here during his run for governor in 2023 at a forum held in Shreveport. (Henrietta Wildsmith for the Louisiana Illuminator) Lower many of the state taxes Louisiana collects, but collect them from more sources. Thats the gist of policy changes Gov. Jeff Landrys tax policy pointman put before a panel of state lawmakers Thursday in hopes theyre amenable to rewriting a portion of the Louisiana Constitution. Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson stopped short of endorsing a comprehensive tax reform strategy in his presentation to a joint meeting of the Louisiana House and Senate tax committees, but he did float several concepts the Legislature could consider. One involves removing constitutional exemptions for state sales taxes on food bought for home preparation, residential utilities and prescription medicine. Nelson also said a new tax on digital products, including streaming television services, should also be considered. Lawmakers face the politically tricky and time-sensitive task of finding ways to address a $550 million-plus revenue loss next year, when a temporary 0.45% portion of the state sales expires. Republicans comprise a supermajority in the statehouse and have indicated they arent likely to extend the tax or seek new taxes. The GOP, which includes the governor as a member, has long called for updates to Louisianas corporate tax structure, but they acknowledge any such changes could exacerbate the so-called fiscal cliff that lies ahead. Theres no perfect tax policy. You really have to make a tax choice, Nelson told lawmakers. But youre not helping anyone by delaying that choice. Tax changes floated In his presentation, Nelson suggested increasing the standard deduction Louisiana residents can claim on their state income taxes from $4,500 for all filers to $12,500 for individuals and $25,000 for married couples. The current tax brackets, which range from 1.85% for the lowest earners to 4.25% for anyone making more than $50,000 annually, would be consolidated to a flat rate no higher than 3.5%. Another proposal calls for the exemption on retirement income from state taxes to be doubled from $6,000 to $12,000. Sen. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport, told Nelson that could ultimately lead to more money being put into the economy. Sales taxes in Louisiana are the highest in the country when factoring in what local governments add on to the states rate. On average, the local sales tax rate in Louisiana is 5.1%. The states 4.45% rate is 38th highest in the country, and that will fall even lower once the 0.45% goes away July 1, 2025. The state constitution exempts groceries, home utilities and prescription drugs from sales tax, costing $584 million last fiscal year. Those protections could be removed if lawmakers wish and voters approve, but conventional wisdom suggests voters arent likely to raise their own taxes. Nelson said tax increases could also be considered for services such as landscaping, car washes and pet grooming expenses wealthier taxpayers are more likely to incur. Any such changes would have to be packaged within a thorough overhaul of state tax policy, he said. Specifically, that would take an entire rewrite of Article VII of the Louisiana Constitution, which deals entirely with state taxes. Steven Procopio, president of the nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, pointed out that 80% of the more than 200 amendments made to the constitution since it was ratified in 1974 have involved Article VII. Nelson said his preference would be to place the entire updated Article VII before voters, rather than the more than 50 amendments needed to change it. In addition to making the ballot item more easily digestible, it would also address concerns that Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzales, raised about potential imbalances if voters rejected individual taxes but failed to replace the revenue. Tax Foundation influence Multiple times in his presentation, Nelson referenced the Tax Foundation as an information source and measuring stick for how Louisiana compares to other states in terms of fiscal policy. For example, Assistant Revenue Secretary Luke Morris noted Louisiana has the highest corporate income taxes in the South and the nations second highest corporate franchise rate. Sen. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, challenged the context of the Tax Foundations rankings, explaining that it doesnt take into account what the state actually collects in revenue once incentives are awarded. Numbers the revenue department provided showed the state granted more than $834 million in corporate income tax exemptions last year. We say were the highest, but in reality were not, Abraham said. Louisiana ranked 12th best for its tax burden and 15th for the percentage of tax burden based on income, according to figures Abraham provided from the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal policy thinktank, is widely considered a pro-business organization that leans to the center-right politically, with Republicans prominent among its board leadership. Next move for lawmakers If they want voters to consider any tax policy changes this year, the Legislature would need to act by Aug. 23 in order to put a proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot. The deadline to add items to the states Dec. 7 general election ballot is about a month later, but turnout for that date is expected to be significantly lower than the prior months presidential race. Legislative leaders dont appear to have a red carpet ready for the Landry tax plan, though the messages from House Speaker Phillip DeVillier have been mixed. In an interview Thursday morning, he indicated any special sessions are unlikely and told the Illuminator it would be challenging to convince lawmakers to remove protections on food, utilities and prescriptions. I believe other states are joining us in exempting food for home consumption. So it is going to be something that is going to be difficult to ask people on the ballot to tax themselves on it, DeVillier said. Yet after his comments were published, DeVillier said on social media he would be open to a special session in August if legislators choose to have one. While the tax committees met Thursday, a daylong joint hearing on insurance and civil law was taking place at the Capitol. Theres a good chance lawmakers could hold a special session solely on that topic. Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, was more definitive this week on his special session stance. Nothing to report, he said in response to a text asking about the likelihood of a constitutional convention. The question arose after major Republican donor Lane Grigsby emailed a working document to lawmakers, suggesting they meet next month to redo the constitution. The state election calendar also puts pressure on the Legislature to get any constitutional changes before voters soon. After this falls elections, there isnt another statewide vote until 2026. Julie ODonoghue contributed to this report. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Landry administration offers first glimpse at tax reform strategy appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator. LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) Lansing is soon going to start manufacturing electric vehicles following a $500 million investment from the U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. Energy Secretaryand former Michigan governorJennifer Granholm was in Lansing on Thursday to tour General Motors Grand River Assembly Plant, which will soon switch to producing electric vehicles. Secretary Granholm at the GM plant (WLNS) The United States is back in the global game of getting manufacturing to come here, rather than see it go overseas, said Granholm. This plant will stay open, and your jobs will remain right here in Lansing, Michigan. The conversion was made possible by hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding from the DOE. Brian Williams has worked at the Grand River Assembly Plant for 29 years, and while its been making internal combustion engines since its inception, he says the switch to electric vehicles is a matter of job security. Theyll be a place to work, theyll be jobs here, and we can continue to do what we do best, said Williams. Williams was one of the dozens of workers Granhom met today as she toured the facility that produces 160 Cadillacs a day. Cars on the line at the assembly plant (WLNS) I knew that even though our current product was expiring, they would put something here, said Williams. Its too good of a place to not build cars. The $500 million investment is being combined with a $900 million investment from GM to refurbish the plant and train new workers in electric vehicle assembly. GM and the UAW. have a great relationship, said Lansing Mayor Andy Schor. They are coming off, they get training, they come back on, so they work out of schedule to make sure the workers are taken care of. Todays announcement had not only backing from city leadership but from union officials as well. (WLNS) If you want it built better, and you want it built right, you got to bring it to Lansing, said Benjamin Frantz, president of UAW Local 652. For workers like Williams, this is just a new chapter for the plant. I dont think anyone is scared of the challenge, said Williams, Weve converted car after car after car here its great for our town, I have lived in Lansing my whole life, and I will continue to, so its exciting news. Governor Gretchen Whitmer celebrated the announcement today, which she says will help keep Michigan competitive in the future of advanced manufacturing. She describes the funding as a proactive step by the white house to keep the American auto industry located in Michigan. 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. Insights from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Financial Times, and The Telegraph The News Several European leaders defended US President Joe Biden at this weeks NATO summit, as questions about Bidens political future, as well as a series of gaffes at the gathering, threatened to overshadow the alliances intended message of unity and strength. Biden has had a strong presence in all the discussions and set the agenda with his comments, Norways Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre told Semafor on the sidelines of the summit on Thursday. French President Emmanuel Macron told Semafor that he had spoken with Biden at length during a White House dinner and saw as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well. Responding to Biden mistakenly introducing Ukraines Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin, Macron said, lapses happen to everyone, and that could happen to me tomorrow. In a PBS interview taped before Bidens solo press conference where he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it would be a big mistake to underestimate Biden, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Biden was on really good form and mentally agile during their first meeting. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. European media offers damning verdicts on Bidens performance Sources: The Telegraph, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The Washington Post, The Guardian's Andrew Roth Unlike European leaders support for Biden, the foreign press gathered in Washington offered a damning verdict of his performance at the summit. Biden looks finished, the UKs Telegraph wrote, while Germanys Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called Bidens solo press conference on Thursday a humiliation. Bidens performance could soothe some fears, The Washington Post argued, adding that the cleared bar was low. The Guardians Andrew Roth observed that there was a massive gulf of opinion between media who watch Biden a lot and think he managed well tonight and those who dont and thought it was quite a flawed performance. NATO members quietly reach out to Trump advisers Sources: Financial Times, Politico European leaders and senior officials conducted a quiet outreach campaign to former Donald Trump associates such as Richard Grenell and Keith Kellogg, who are expected to play key roles in a future Republican administration. European officials are determined to have a better understanding of Trumps priorities this time compared with 2016, when many were blindsided by his victory. One told Politico shortly after meeting with former Trump staffers that a second term wont be that bad and NATO will survive. Bidens performance did not quell Democrats concerns Sources: Semafor, Politico Bidens press conference at the NATO summit was a Rorschach test for Democrats, a House aide told Semafor; Bidens supporters highlighted his nuanced answers on foreign policy, while detractors focused on his gaffes and occasionally rambling answers. Jim Hines, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on Biden to drop out within minutes of the press conference, while other representatives subsequently joined the rebellion against his nomination. Republicans, meanwhile, have been gleeful about the Democratic chaos: It has been glorious to watch. Finally, the shoe is on the other foot, Rep. Nancy Mace said. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A person was injured after a shooting early Friday morning, July 12, in Central El Paso, according to El Paso Police. The shooting happened at the 4100 block of Nashville Avenue and the call came in at 4:43 a.m. Police say a male was transported to a hospital. The severity of his injuries and his age were not disclosed. Fire dispatch says the incident involved a vehicle and closed off Gateway South and Pershing. The shooting led to a heavy police presence in the area and red tape was also seen blocking off the area. No further information has been released. This story will be updated as soon as we learn more. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) The mother and aunt of two toddlers killed in a senseless car crash were sentenced to jail and prison time, respectively, Thursday in a dramatic court hearing that left an entire family in tears. The toddlers, two-and three-year-old sisters, died after a car crash in December 2022 outside multiple residential communities on Scott Robinson Boulevard and Casa Verde Drive, near the Lone Mountain Road and Clayton Street intersection in North Las Vegas. The younger sister was decapitated and died on the scene and the elder died at University Medical Center. (Van following suspected DUI crash that killed two toddlers (Credit: North Las Vegas Police Department) In court Tuesday, the mother of the children Raenysha Washington was sentenced to 364 days in Clark County Detention Center as a precursor to five years probation on a considerably longer suspended prison sentence for felony child abuse or neglect. Court records detail how Washington, 25, let her children into a van with no car seats. In fact, at Thursdays hearing, Clark County District Court Judge Erika Mendoza expressed concern that Washington had sold the childrens car seats ten days before the crash. The problem is Im not sure that all of these mistakes are things that could happen to a responsible parent, Mendoza said when she sentenced Washington. In December 2022, Kaleah Manning, 25, (left), and her sister, Raenysa Washington, 23, faced charges in a DUI crash that killed Washingtons two toddlers. On Thursday, July 11, 2024, they were sentenced for the crime. (Credit: NLVPD) Washington had asked to turn herself in Monday so she could spend the weekend with her young son who was born after the toddlers died. Mendoza insisted Washingtons jail sentence start immediately at the end of Thursdays hearing and Washington, who is pregnant with another child that she will now most likely deliver in CCDC custody, was taken into custody and escorted out of the courtroom amidst her heaving sobs. The toddlers aunt, Kaleah Manning, 27, was drunk and driving the van, which she told police had mechanical issues when it crashed. Mendoza sentenced Manning to three-to-ten years in state prison for the two deaths while driving under the influence. Kaleah Shaelle Manning in the drivers seat following a suspected DUI crash that killed two toddlers (Credit: North Las Vegas Police Department) Both women must pay a victims fund of $10,000 that helped pay for the childrens funerals in addition to a mandatory $2,000 fine under the relevant criminal statute. Manning and Washington were emotional throughout the hearing, as was their mother, who spoke at the hearing begging Mendoza to show leniency to her daughters. Edwina Mannings impassioned plea ended in heartwrenching, deep sobs and a family member had to lead her out of the courtroom and into the hallway where her crying turned into wailing. Kaleah Manning in court in January 2023. (KLAS) To that end, Mendoza acknowledged that both women avoided considerably harsher sentences because the victims were their own family members and not people in a separate vehicle. There wouldnt be much to talk about and youd be going to prison for a really, really long time, Mendoza said. But because theyre your family I certainly understand that the mental trauma you all are experiencing eclipses any punishment I could give you. 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. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Las Vegas police have arrested a second suspect in a May shooting that left a man dead and injured two other people. At around 4 p.m. on May 18, officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department responded to the report of a shooting in the 7300 block of Prairie Falcon Road. Officers found three victims suffering from gunshot wounds. Medical personnel pronounced one of the victims, Carl Chester, Jr., 41, dead at the scene. They took the other two victims to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police said that the victim and his family hosted a birthday at a nearby business around 1 p.m., during which people in three different vehicles, a Lexus, a white Cadillac CTS, and a white Dodge Charger, worked together to ambush the victim, according to an arrest report. As the three victims left the business, two people got out of the Lexus and ambushed them, police said. They shot at them, hitting Chesters brother in the chest, and a juvenile who was with them in the arm. Chester got into a fistfight with two of the men, during which the Lexus pulled forward as Chester moved in front of it. The Lexus hit him before hitting a tree. Police said the vehicle was later reported stolen. The driver of the Lexus then got out of the vehicle and joined the fight. Chester was able to get up and run across the street but the fight continued and Chester was shot by two of the three suspects. Chester fell to the ground and was shot several more times by the suspect, according to the report. The suspects then left the scene in the Cadillac. Police were able to identify the driver of the Cadillac as Keveon Glenn, 29, and arrested him on May 23. He faces one charge of murder, two charges of attempted murder, and a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Keveon Glenn, 29, is facing a murder charge in a deadly shooting on May 18, 2024. (Credit: LVMPD) Through investigation, detectives identified Michael Mays, 63, as a second suspect in the shooting. The Criminal Apprehension Team location Mays on July 10 and took him into custody. Michael Mays faces charges after police named him as the second suspect in a deadly shooting. (LVMPD) Mays was booked into the Clark County Detention Center for open murder with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, and owning or possessing a gun as a prohibited person. He is being held without bail. His next court appearance is scheduled for July 15. 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. Last-minute settlement in lawsuit against corrupt CPD Sgt. Ronald Watts could be a key test for 175 more A lawsuit alleging misconduct by notorious ex-Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts settled for an undisclosed amount on the eve of trial, records show, the first of scores of related lawsuits to reach a resolution in what could be a massive fallout for the cash-strapped city. Alvin Waddy alleged in his lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court in 2019 that Watts and his crew of tactical officers pinned a phony drug case on him in 2007 at a building in the the now-demolished Ida B. Wells housing complex on the South Side. According to the lawsuit, police came rushing into the lobby, searched Waddy, and came up empty then arrested him for drugs they allegedly found at the other end of the hallway. After more than five years of legal wrangling, including several trial dates that were continued at the last minute the case had finally been set to go before a jury on Monday at the Daley Center, records show. On Thursday afternoon, however, paperwork was filed indicating the parties had reached a settlement agreement, and the trial was canceled, court records show. While the amount of the settlement was not disclosed, the court records show it was subject to approval by the City Council, indicating its at least a $100,000 payment. The citys Finance Committee is scheduled to meet next week, so its unlikely to be taken up until at least August. When asked about the Waddy settlement and the prospect of a global resolution to Watts-related cases, a spokeswoman for the citys Law Department declined to comment, saying the litigation is still pending until the City Council votes on the Waddy deal. Lawyers for Waddy also had no comment Friday. Watts was arrested in 2012 along with another member of his team, Officer Kallatt Mohammed, for shaking down a drug courier who turned out to be an FBI informant. Watts received 22 months in prison and was released in 2015. In the years since, Watts and his tactical officers were accused of orchestrating a reign of terror at Ida B. Wells, systematically forcing residents and drug dealers alike to pay a protection tax and putting bogus cases on those who refused. More than 200 Watts-related convictions have since been thrown out, and there are some 175 pending lawsuits against Watts. Waddys lawsuit was filed in Cook County, while the remainder are in Chicagos federal court. The first trial is scheduled for January. The amount that the city has agreed to pay Waddy could be an important factor on how the rest of the cases play out in what threatens to be one of the most expensive police misconduct scandals in Chicago police history. Aside from whatever payments are made to the plaintiffs through settlements or jury awards, the costs to taxpayers are already piling up into the millions because the city is using several outside law firms to handle the litigation. Records obtained by the Tribune through an open records request show that through April, the city had paid more than $1.2 million to outside counsel in the Waddy case alone, and that figure is likely to have grown significantly as the case neared trial. In federal court, the cases have been consolidated for discovery purposes since many of the facts and allegations overlap. The first lawsuits against Watts came in 2016 amid the fallout of the shooting death of Black teen Laquan McDonald by white Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke. The plaintiffs are almost all Black men who lived in the Ida B. Wells complex and were familiar with Watts and his crew. In case after case, the lawsuits allege when Watts targets complained to the Police Department or in court judges, prosecutors and internal affairs investigators all believed the testimony of Watts and other officers over their accusers, records show. The cases also highlighted a broken system of police discipline that allegedly protected corrupt officers and punished those who tried to expose his corruption. Despite mounting allegations, Watts continued to operate for years amid a lengthy police internal affairs probe as well as investigations by the states attorneys office and the FBI, according to court records. In fact, two Chicago police officers who alleged they were blackballed for trying to expose Watts corruption years ago won a $2 million settlement in their whistleblower lawsuit. Watts has denied wrongdoing in every lawsuit. He moved to Las Vegas after his release from federal prison and has kept a low profile. Records show he currently lives in Arizona. Last year, Watts told a conservative radio host in a lengthy interview that he spent his career disrupting violent drug dealers and is now the victim of a smear campaign by ex-criminals and lawyers trying to cash in. Hes been deposed several times under oath as part of the lawsuits, but those records remain under seal. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com The Latest: Biden returns to the campaign trail following high-stakes news conference President Joe Biden gestures while speaking to supporters at a campaign event at Renaissance High School in Detroit, Friday, July 12, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) WASHINGTON (AP) Yesterday, President Joe Biden opened his highly anticipated news conference with a forceful defense of his foreign and domestic policies and batted away questions about his ability to serve another four years, even as he flubbed a reference to former President Donald Trump in one of his first answers. Now Biden and his team are continuing on their relentless sprint to persuade lawmakers, donors and voters that he is still up for the job with a trip to Michigan, part of the trio of blue wall states that his campaign now says is the clearest path to victory in November. Over a dozen members of Congress have called for him to bow out of the campaign. 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: Biden backer says rally speech should ease concerns about presidents candidacy Ken Jacobs said President Joe Bidens remarks in Detroit, which stretched to over 30 minutes, should put to rest any talk that he couldnt handle another four years in office. He should repeat that exact speech at the Democratic convention, Jacobs said. It shows that he has the stamina for this. Jacobs, a 71-year-old Detroit-area Democrat, conceded that Biden had a bad performance during the debate but said he doesnt care about debates. Jacobs questioned whether Democratic lawmakers who have asked the president to step aside may have an ulterior motive. Another rallygoer, 62-year-old Anne Baxter, said her impressions of Biden changed after the speech: You see the things on TV and the clips, she said. He was far more animated and better speaking than I thought. She, too, criticized those are calling for Biden to step down. Im glad hes not listening to these knuckleheads, because its not the base, she said. You heard these people here. Biden goes after Trump at rally, briefly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protester Some of the loudest crowd reactions during President Joe Bidens speech in Detroit came when he mentioned his opponent, former President Donald Trump. Biden said the media have been hammering him since their recent debate while Trump has gotten a free pass. Donald, no more free passes, Biden said. Today, were going to shine a spotlight on Donald Trump. At times the crowd chanted in reference to Trump: Lock him up! Bidens speech was interrupted by a lone pro-Palestinian protester, who was escorted out by security and continued to chant, Free, free Palestine. Biden resumed speaking after the brief disruption, saying that he understands her passion. This war must end, Biden said. At rally, Biden addresses candidacy questions and says he is staying in the race President Joe Biden acknowledged speculation about his candidacy during a rally in Detroit but insisted that he is running. Im not going to change that, he told a raucous crowd in a high school gym. You made me the nominee, Biden said, referring to the millions of Democrats who backed him in the primaries. You the voters. You decided. No one else. And Im not going anywhere. He added that he is the only Democrat or Republican that has beaten Donald Trump ever, and Im going to beat him again. As he took the stage Friday evening, the president was greeted with a deafening cheer and chants of Dont you quit! He was introduced by Cindy Rudolph, a pastor, who called him a transformative leader. We want to give him four more years, Rudolph said, prompting the crowd to chant, Four more years! In his remarks, Biden also proclaimed that Motown is Joetown and vowed to win Michigan again in the 2024 election. The 3 leading candidates for Trump running mate will not be at Saturday rally The three men at the top of Trumps short list to be his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, are not scheduled to be at the former presidents Pennsylvania rally tomorrow, according to two people familiar with the events schedule who were not authorized to speak publicly. That makes it unlikely Trump plans to announce his vice presidential pick at his last event before the convention. Trump could make the announcement at the RNC when it kicks off Monday or post on social media, like he did in 2016 when announcing he chose Mike Pence. Politico first reported that the three top contenders would not be at Saturdays event. The Democratic Party crisis after Bidens debate spirals with no clear ending For more than two weeks, the Democratic Party has been mired in crisis. And there is no sign yet that the threat to Joe Bidens reelection is nearing a conclusion. The president has dug in even as a growing chorus of Democratic officials, donors and strategists calls for him to step aside. Donors and high-profile endorsers are repudiating Biden, morale inside and outside the campaign is weak and some top Democrats are pondering whether to make a move against the president. One of Bidens allies privately described a cycle of alternating hope and despair in the style of the movie Groundhog Day. Meanwhile Republicans are celebrating the chaos heading into their convention, which starts Monday. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders try to guide their party through Biden uproar The uproar over President Joe Bidens ability to win reelection is leaving Democrats at a standstill, at odds over whether to stick with Biden or press on with trying to persuade him to end his reelection bid. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jim Clyburn, a veteran leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, are playing oversize roles. They are generational allies of the president but also trusted voices who can bring frank concerns to Biden. That is giving space to the current congressional leadership House Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to navigate the partys political future. At Bidens Detroit rally, political allies warm up the crowd Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said in remarks before President Joe Bidens appearance that lately theres been a lot of noise about this election, but he has always had our back and Michigan will always have his, she said. Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer said the Biden administration will protect womens reproductive rights and urged people to reject Donald Trump once and for all. And Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan recalled that when times were tough in the city, Joe Biden showed up for us. But if youve been watching the news the last week, it seems like its Joe Biden versus everybody, Duggan said. I want you when he comes out here to let him know, Detroiters never forget. He has been there for us. Were going to be there for him. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson framed the vote as a fight for democracy and fair elections, saying, In 2020 in Michigan, we fought back successfully against an unprecedented effort to overturn the accurate election results. She did not mention the president in her remarks. Late-night comics have long been relentless in skewering Trump. Now its Bidens turn Since Donald Trumps emergence on the political scene, late-night comics have made him a relentless target. But after President Joe Bidens poor showing in the debate with Trump two weeks ago, the comics have retrained their guns. Stephen Colbert of CBS Late Show joked this week that I think that Biden debates as well as Abraham Lincoln if you dug him up right now. He had company: Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon have all found comedy fodder in Bidens stumbling performance and in Democrats internal debate over whether the president should drop his campaign for a second term. It shows that comedy not political favoritism ultimately rules their world, television expert Robert Thompson says. Sen. Susan Collins says she will write in Nikki Haley on her ballot in November Collins, a longtime moderate Republican senator from Maine, didnt vote for Donald Trump for president in 2016 or 2020. And the third time will not be the charm, because she said Friday that she intends to write in the former South Carolina governor, who is not on the ballot. I publicly endorsed Nikki Haley, and I wanted her to win. Shes still my favorite candidate, and I think she could do a great job. Shes my choice, and thats how Im going to express it, Collins told WMTW-TV. In 2016, Collins said she wrote in then-House Speaker Paul Ryan for president over Trump. Collins is the only New England Republican in Congress and the only Republican holding statewide office in Maine, where Trump has twice won an electoral vote. Michigan Democratic official wont weigh in on Biden as nominee Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, one of the more prominent Democratic leaders appearing with President Joe Biden in Detroit on Friday, would not give an opinion when asked whether she believes he should still be the partys presidential nominee. Im just focused on making sure people know whats at stake this year. And know how to exercise their vote, Benson said. Benson has seen her profile rise as a target of violence following the 2020 election and as a national advocate for secure elections. She said that she feels good about the states preparedness ahead of this years vote due to several new laws. But she said officials are contending with a more sophisticated, coordinated effort to try to delegitimize democracy than we have in the past. Biden supporters back president ahead of rally in Detroit Carole Chi, 72, said she came with a group of enthusiastic friends to cheer him on and tell him to stay in there. In her view, Trump should be the one to leave the race. She called him a crook. He speaks like an old man, sure. Who cares? Chi said of Biden. He knows what he is doing. Donna Harper, 71, said she was disappointed by Bidens debate performance but encouraged by his NATO press conference Thursday. Let him just be Joe, Harper said. And I saw more of that last night. Frat bros. War heroes. Trumps former golf caddy. The Republican National and Trumps campaign released a list of everyday Americans who will be speaking at next weeks Republican National Convention. Among the names: A group of students and fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who were captured on video protecting an American flag during campus protests Family members of people who were killed by repeat offenders, people living in the country illegally and from fentanyl-laced pills Men and women who say they are struggling to make ends meet due to high inflation John Nieporte, the head Golf Pro at Trump International, who worked his way up from being Trumps former golf caddy, and Carrie Ruiz, the Golf General Manager at Trump National Doral. Rep. Mike Levin told Biden to drop out during Hispanic Caucus call, before releasing public statement Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif. told President Biden on a virtual call with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday that he should step down as the Democratic nominee, according to three sources familiar with the call. It marks the first time that one of Bidens growing internal detractors confronted the president with their opposition to his reelection campaign. Biden had joined the call around noon to acknowledge the concerns that many Democrats in Congress had raised about his capabilities to serve a second term and to reaffirm that not only can he finish the campaign, but that he intends to win in November, according to one of the people, who like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a private call. Another person told AP that the call began on a positive note, with Biden soliciting feedback from members on how to appeal to the Hispanic vote and what campaign events to join. The call allowed for a few questions of the president, which is when Levin raised his hand to launch what was described as a soliloquy on what hed heard from his Southern California district, with voters telling him that the president should not be on top of the partys ticket for 2024. Levin, according to two of the people, then encouraged the president to listen to those constituents and step down. Biden responded in kind, according to one person, saying that he understands the threat Democrats face against GOP candidate Trump but that he had a plan to win. The president wanted to answer more member questions after that but the call was abruptly ended by the organizers. California Democrat says Biden should drop out after Hispanic Caucus call The steady drip of defections from Bidens camp has continued today as vulnerable Democratic Rep. Mike Levin of California called on him to let someone else take over at the top of the ticket. Levin put out the statement shortly after Biden joined a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The representative from a competitive district in Southern California said hes heard from hundreds of constituents and supporters since Bidens faltering debate performance. He called the president an outstanding leader, but said hes no longer sure he can prevail against the incalculable threat posed by Trump. It is time to move forward. With a new leader. Together, he said in a statement. Trump calls picking his VP a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice Trump is comparing his vice presidential search to the reality TV show he helmed years ago. Its like a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice, Trump said on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show amid intense speculation over his pick. The presumptive GOP nominee once again made clear his preference to unveil his pick at the Republican National Convention, which kicks off Monday in Milwaukee. Trump said hed love to do it during the convention or just slightly before the convention, like Monday. He also said hes down to a handful of really, really good candidates. I may be leaning one way and that changing sometimes you know all of a sudden you see something that you like or you dont like and you lean a little bit differently ... but we have a very good bench. Biden meets with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus President Biden spoke viritually with with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to a Democratic aide, granted anonymity to discuss the private call. The groups chair, Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., put out a statement of support for Biden after his debate, but many of her members have yet to do the same and some, including Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., have publicly stated that Biden should step down. The president has faced criticisms from Hispanic members and outside groups in response to a series of immigration decisions hes made over the last several years and the group is a crucial voting bloc for the Democratic Party. Biden in 2020: I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else President Joe Biden today will return to the same Detroit high school where as a candidate in 2020, he vowed to be a bridge to the next generation of leaders. I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else, Biden said in March 2020 while flanked by Kamala Harris and other party leaders at Renaissance High School. Theres an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country. Four years later, many in his party are now pleading for him to fulfill that very promise and step aside. At his event on Friday, President Biden aims to boost enthusiasm for his campaign and solidify support from Michigans prominent Democratic leaders. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with President Biden Jeffries of New York said in a letter to colleagues Friday that he met with the president Thursday evening and directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. This comes as more than a dozen Democrats in the House have called on Biden to step aside, while others want the president to stay in the race. Jeffries said Democrats have had an extensive discussion about the countrys future. And the conversations have been, as he said earlier in the week, candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive. Two White House officials confirmed the meeting but declined further comment. Melania Trump to attend RNC Former first lady Melania Trump will attend the Republican National Convention. That's according to two people familiar with her plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity before full details were released. It will be a rare public appearance in Milwaukee for a woman who has been largely absent from the campaign trail as her husband runs to return to the White House. It remains unclear whether she will deliver a speech or have any formal role in the proceedings. The news was first reported by CNN. GOP group behind Project 2025 floats conspiracy theory that Biden will use force to keep power A conservative think tank that is planning for a complete overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win is suggesting that President Joe Biden might try to hold the White House by force if he loses the November election. The Heritage Foundations warning which goes against Bidens own public statements appeared in a report released Thursday that the group said resulted from a role-playing exercise gaming out potential scenarios before and after the 2024 election. Key Insights Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, Apex Healthcare Berhad fair value estimate is RM2.15 Apex Healthcare Berhad's RM2.85 share price signals that it might be 32% overvalued Analyst price target for AHEALTH is RM2.81, which is 30% above our fair value estimate How far off is Apex Healthcare Berhad (KLSE:AHEALTH) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. We will use the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model on this occasion. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example! We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you. See our latest analysis for Apex Healthcare Berhad The Method We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM74.7m RM79.1m RM82.9m RM86.5m RM90.1m RM93.6m RM97.2m RM100.9m RM104.6m RM108.4m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 4.75% Est @ 4.39% Est @ 4.14% Est @ 3.96% Est @ 3.84% Est @ 3.75% Est @ 3.69% Est @ 3.65% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 8.6% RM68.8 RM67.0 RM64.6 RM62.1 RM59.5 RM57.0 RM54.5 RM52.0 RM49.7 RM47.4 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM583m The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (3.6%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 8.6%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034 (1 + g) (r g) = RM108m (1 + 3.6%) (8.6% 3.6%) = RM2.2b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM2.2b ( 1 + 8.6%)10= RM966m The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is RM1.5b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of RM2.9, the company appears reasonably expensive at the time of writing. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. dcf Important Assumptions We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Apex Healthcare Berhad as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 8.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Apex Healthcare Berhad Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry. Debt is not viewed as a risk. Dividend is in the top 25% of dividend payers in the market. Weakness No major weaknesses identified for AHEALTH. Opportunity Annual revenue is forecast to grow faster than the Malaysian market. Good value based on P/E ratio compared to estimated Fair P/E ratio. Threat Dividends are not covered by cash flow. Annual earnings are forecast to decline for the next 3 years. Moving On: Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. Can we work out why the company is trading at a premium to intrinsic value? For Apex Healthcare Berhad, there are three further factors you should further research: Risks: Case in point, we've spotted 3 warning signs for Apex Healthcare Berhad you should be aware of, and 2 of them don't sit too well with us. Future Earnings: How does AHEALTH's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Malaysian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Clemsons lawsuit against the ACC had ups and downs this week. The universitys motions to stay and dismiss were rejected by Judge Louis A. Bledsoe III in North Carolina. In contrast, Judge Perry H Gravely dismissed the ACCs motion to dismiss in South Carolina. Wednesdays ruling in North Carolina came after hearing Clemsons argument to dismiss based on sovereign Immunity, which prevents the government from being sued without its consent. Judge Bledsoe wrote that Clemsons commercial ventures outside government functions waive its sovereign immunity protections, therefore, allowing the case to forward. However, Clemson will partially get what they want. Although the motion to stay was denied, Clemson has appealed the courts decision, triggering an automatic stay. The lawsuit will not move forward until a decision on the appeal is made. That gives Clemsons lawyers time to work on its case in South Carolina. The ACC argued that its business dealings in South Carolina werent substantial enough to justify the states jurisdiction. Clemsons lawyer, Rush Smith, hit back, arguing that the ACCs branding throughout all ACC-sponsored sporting events at Clemson and the leagues alleged coercion for Clemson to sign away its Grant of Rights was more than enough evidence that the ACC has been doing business in the state. The ACC amended its motion to dismiss, asking to postpone the suit in South Carolina until Clemsons appeal in North Carolina could be heard. That started a back-and-forth reminiscent of one youd hear on the playground in elementary school. Clemson stated that a decision in North Carolina could take a very long time, going as far as the Supreme Court before its made. In a desperate attempt to sway the judge, the ACC accused Clemson of only wanting a conflicting ruling to take back to North Carolina. Smith responded saying, We filed first. If there is a conflict, it is not because we filed our lawsuit. Story originally appeared on Clemson Wire An Israeli soldier dismounts from his tank near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Friday, July 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) A United Kingdom-based aid group said one of its senior employees in Gaza was killed Friday in an Israeli strike that hit its warehouse located in an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone. The strike also killed three staffers from other aid groups using the warehouse, the Al-Khair Foundation said in a statement. The Israeli military said Husam Mansour, the Al-Khair Foundation member who was killed, was in fact a senior Hamas militant. Israel said he used his position with the humanitarian group to raise money for Hamas. After a two-week Israeli offensive in northern Gaza, dozens of bodies were collected throughout Gaza Citys Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and brought to Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning. Civil defense workers said they were still recovering dead and wounded from destroyed streets and buildings. 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. Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in a Gaza City district after Israeli assault. Argentina designates Hamas a terrorist group in a show of support for Israel. Head of U.S. 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 U.S. shows. Follow APs coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. Heres the latest: UNRWA raises enough funds to keep up humanitarian operations through September UNITED NATIONS The head of the United Nations agency helping Palestinian refugees says a donors conference raised enough money to keep its operations in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon running until the end of September. Philippe Lazzarini told the pledging conference at its opening Friday morning that the agency known as UNRWA only had funds until the end of August. At the end of the conference, he told reporters the total amount in pledges wouldn't be known until the following week. But he said he is confident there will be enough new money in its $850 million annual budget to keep the agency running for another month and pay its 30,000 staff who provide education, primary health care and other development activities to about 6 million Palestinian refugees. In the coming months, Lazzarini said UNRWA will be seeking funds to keep its operations going through December and for emergency appeals for $1.2 billion for the Gaza war and $460 million for the Syria crisis, both of which are less than 20% funded. UNRWA has been underfunded for years, but 2024 has been dire since Israel alleged that 12 of the agencys 13,000 workers in Gaza participated in Hamas Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza. The agency terminated the contracts of all those employees. Still, 16 countries suspended funding UNRWA, amounting to about $450 million. Lazzarini told reporters that 14 donors have officially resumed funding and he believes very soon a 15th country the United Kingdom will come back. The United States, which was the biggest donor to UNRWA, providing the agency with $340 million in 2022 and several hundred million in 2023, was among the countries halting funding. The U.S. Congress has prohibited any payments to UNRWA until March 25, 2025. UN chief seeks crucial funding to help Palestinians in Gaza facing 'ever deeper circles of hell' UNITED NATIONS The United Nations chief launched an appeal for the beleaguered U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, accusing Israel of issuing evacuation orders in the war-torn territory forcing Palestinians to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the donors conference at U.N. headquarters Friday that the agency, known as UNRWA, faces a profound funding gap and Palestinians are also seeing widening gaps in respect for international humanitarian law, and recognition of their human rights and dignity. The U.N. is appealing for $1.2 billion to cover critical humanitarian needs in Gaza and the West Bank through the end of the year, UNRWAs Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said. This appeal and the emergency appeal for Syria, Lebanon and Jordan are less than 20% funded, he said. The agencys ability to operate beyond August depends on member states disbursing planned funding and making new contributions to the core budget. The U.N. is appealing for funds for its $850 million annual budget as well as $1.2 billion in emergency funds to cover critical humanitarian needs in Gaza and $460 million for the Syria crisis, he said, adding that the Gaza and Syria appeals are less than 20% funded. Guterres said nothing justifies Hamas Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, and nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. The Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people mostly civilians and led to the abduction of about 250 people. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300 people in Gaza, according to the territorys Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Guterres said Israels latest evacuation orders in Gaza City have seen more civilian suffering and bloodshed, and UNRWA hasnt been spared: 195 UNRWA staff members have been killed, the highest staff death toll in U.N. history. They are the backbone of humanitarian operations in Gaza," the secretary-general said. Israeli forces kill a Palestinian man in the northern West Bank RAMALLAH, West Bank The Palestinian Health ministry said a 26-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces on Friday near the West Bank city of Ramallah, as ongoing violence roils the Israeli-occupied territory. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces opened fire at a group of Palestinians who were hurling bricks and explosive devices at troops during a military raid into the village of Abwein, 37 kilometers (22 miles) north of Ramallah. No further information about the shooting was made public. The military later released a photo of what appeared to be a homemade pipe bomb allegedly found at the scene. Violence has spiked in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza erupted last October. Over 570 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since then, according to data from the Palestinian Health Ministry. UK-based aid group says Israeli strike kills a worker at its warehouse inside Gaza safe zone DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip A U.K.-based aid group said one of its employees in Gaza was killed Friday in an Israeli strike that hit its warehouse located inside an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone. It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of a senior aid worker, Engineer Husam Mansour who was killed in an air strike on a warehouse where essential food items were being prepared for aid distribution, Al-Khair Foundation said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. Imam Qasim Rashid Ahmad, the groups director in London, said the strike also killed three staffers from other aid groups using the warehouse. The Israeli military said that Mansour was in fact a senior Hamas militant. It said he used his position with the humanitarian group to raise money for Hamas. The warehouse was located in Muwasi, a largely rural area on Gazas Mediterranean coast that is part of a humanitarian safe zone where Israeli has told Palestinians fleeing its offensives to take refuge. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in makeshift tents are crowded in the approximately 60-square-kilometer zone (23 square miles). Still, Israel has carried out airstrikes inside the zone. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to APs request for comment on Fridays strike. Al-Khair Foundation is an Islamic non-governmental organization based in London and Turkey. Hamas wants written guarantees Israel won't resume Gaza war after first hostages are released BEIRUT A Hamas political official said Friday that the Palestinian militant group is still insisting on written guarantees from mediators in the ongoing cease-fire negotiations that Israel will not resume the war after the first group of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are released. While the two sides have agreed on a general framework for a deal, the main sticking point remains that Hamas wants it to result in a permanent cease-fire, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that any agreement must allow Israel to return to fighting until all the objectives of the war are achieved. Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas political office in Lebanon, said Hamas has been flexible on some points but continues to insist that negotiations should continue for a permanent cease-fire until a permanent cease-fire is reached, as opposed to the wording in the current proposal, under which the cease-fire should continue as long as negotiations continue. Netanyahu can stop the negotiations and thus resume the aggression at any time, he said. We want something in writing to ensure that negotiations continue in order to reach a permanent cease-fire. He denied reports that the groups leadership inside Gaza had pressured political leaders outside to accept the deal on the table due to the military pressure it is facing, saying that the military situation is very solid for the resistance (Hamas) and is better than the early days of the war. Abdul-Hadi said that Hamas does not expect to resume its role as the ruling party in Gaza after the war but wants to see a Palestinian government of technocrats. However, he said the form that future governance in the enclave should take is a Palestinian matter that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people and is not on the table in the current negotiations. We do not want to rule Gaza alone again in the next phase, he said. We want to have a partnership and national consensus. Abdul-Hadi said a meeting between Hamas and its main rival, Fatah, is expected to take place in China later this month and that We hope that this meeting will result in a national consensus. The meeting was previously scheduled to take place last month but was postponed, with the two sides trading blame for the delay. Emergency workers collect bodies in Gaza City Dozens of bodies collected throughout a western neighborhood of Gaza City arrived at Al-Ahli Hospital on Friday morning as Palestinian emergency workers said they continued to unearth the dead throughout the neighborhoods destroyed streets and buildings. The hospitals director, Fadel Naem, told The Associated Press that people both dead and wounded had been brought to the hospital from the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, transported in groups of up to 10, amid sniper fire and the buzz of helicopters. Meanwhile, emergency crews from the civil defense were continuing to recover bodies scattered in destroyed streets and buildings, where entire families appear to have been killed by artillery fire and aerial bombardment, Mahmoud Basal, the groups spokesperson said. The Israeli army said it could not comment on its activities in the area. There are homes that we cannot reach, and there are those who were burned inside their homes, Basal said, noting many of those who were killed had left nearby shelters after being ordered to evacuate. In recent months, Israel has intensified operations in various neighborhoods of Gaza City, including the Shati refugee camp and the Shijaiyah district, and has issued multiple evacuation orders in the north of the territory. The scenes in Tel al-Hawa mirror those in other Gaza City neighborhoods from which Israels military has withdrawn in recent days. On Thursday, civil defense workers found 60 bodies in Shijaiyah under similar circumstances, with more believed to be buried under rubble. Israeli soldier killed in cross-border fire with Hezbollah JERUSALEM Israels military said Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat in northern Israel as the countrys army and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continue to trade cross-border fire. The military did not specify how the 33-year-old sergeant was killed. The Iranian-backed group and Israel have been trading near daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last year. Hezbollah says it is striking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, another Iran-allied group that ignited the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. The groups leadership says it will stop its attacks once there is a cease-fire in Gaza, and that while it does not want war, it is ready for one. 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. Lawyer for Town of Natick is asking judge to dismiss former dispatcher's civil suit DEDHAM The lawyer representing the Town of Natick and Ashland Police Chief Cara Rossi has asked a judge to dismiss a civil lawsuit filed by a former Natick police dispatcher who was sexually assaulted by a former Natick police sergeant. Madison Harris-Parks, who represents the town and Rossi, argued the motion Monday in Norfolk Superior Court. Judge Michael A. Cahillane has taken the motion under advisement. The dispatcher, whom the Daily News is not naming due to her being a victim of a sexual assault, filed the $1.2 million lawsuit last September in Norfolk Superior Court against the town, Rossi and James Quilty. Earlier: Victim of ex-Natick police sergeant's assault has filed suit against him, town Quilty pleaded guilty in December 2022 to sexually assaulting the woman on April 12, 2020, when he was a police sergeant and she was a dispatcher. Quilty later resigned from the department before the Select Board had a chance to vote on whether to fire him. In her lawsuit, the woman alleges sexual harassment; the town having a hostile workplace based on gender; gender discrimination; retaliation; aiding and abetting in discriminatory practices and coercion; intimidation; threats; and interference with the right to be free from discrimination. The lawsuit claims Quilty harassed her after the incident and intimidated her. She also claimed Rossi, who was a Natick police lieutenant at the time, intimidated her into not filing a formal complaint against Quilty. Attorney argues alleged incidents occurred in different county In her motion, Harris-Parks argued the case should be dismissed because the alleged incidents all occurred in Middlesex County. "Plaintiff has not alleged any unlawful practice by the defendants occurred in Norfolk County," according to Harris-Parks' motion. The motion to dismiss also argues that two of the allegations retaliation and aiding and abetting should be handled in a Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) complaint. The motion notes the woman did file a complaint with the MCAD, but that this occurred after the legal time frame. 'He hasn't responded': Former Natick dispatcher seeks automatic judgment against ex-officer In addition, Harris-Parks' motion says the retaliation count should be dismissed because the woman did not show she was retaliated against by cooperating with the investigation. The motion argues the woman took a leave of absence on her own and did not come back to work; she was never involuntarily let go by the department. The woman's lawyer, Dan Bair, argued that Norfolk Superior Court is a valid venue because Quilty texted the woman repeatedly after the incident, intimidating her. The texts were received while she was at her home, which is in Norfolk County. But even if the judge rules the case was filed in the wrong court, it shouldn't be dismissed, Bair argued. Pleads guilty to indecent assault: Natick police sergeant must register as a sex offender "Even if the court were to find the venue is not proper in Norfolk County the appropriate remedy is to transfer the case to a venue the court deems appropriate, not dismissal," according to Bair's court filing. Bair also argued that the filings with the MCAD were not late. The dates cited in the defendants' motion were amendments, which are allowed. Victim's attorney argues Rossi's behavior caused a hostile workplace Bair also argued that Rossi's behavior caused a hostile workplace, making it "intolerable for his client to return to work." Quilty was not involved in the motion. Another of the former dispatcher's attorneys, Kevin Mullen, said Quilty has not acknowledged the lawsuit and that neither he nor a lawyer representing him has appeared in court or filed any sort of a response. A judge has previously issued a judgment against Quilty. While no monetary damages have been assessed as of yet, that will likely occur at the conclusion of the civil case. Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.c.om For up-to-date public safety news, follow him on X @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime. This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Defendants in lawsuit filed by former Natick dispatcher seek dismissal 'I was laying on him': Foster parent charged with reckless homicide in death of 10-year-old boy A Northern Indiana foster parent has been charged with reckless homicide for the death of 10-year-old Dakota Levi Stevens, the Porter County Sheriff's Office announced Friday. Jennifer Wilson, 48, of Valparaiso was arrested the following day in Berrien County, Michigan, just north of the Indiana border, authorities said. Reckless homicide, a level 5 felony, is punishable by up to six years in prison. Dakota was rushed to the hospital on April 25 after an argument with Wilson, who the Department of Child Services placed with Wilson about a month earlier. Wilson told police that Dakota ran away earlier that day, and she brought the boy home after finding him at a neighbor's house. After they got home, Dakota was "acting up" and threw himself to the ground outside Wilson's house, according to a probable cause affidavit. Porter County authorities are investigating the death of 10-year-old Dakota Levi Stevens, who family members said died while in foster care. Wilson said she was lying on the boy's body to keep him under control while she called his caseworker. Dakota screamed and eventually stopped moving. At first, Wilson told police, she thought the boy was faking, but when she rolled him over his eyelids were pale. Wilson told investigators she was on top of the boy for about five minutes. Dakota weighed 91 pounds. Wilson weighed 340 pounds. The death of Dakota Levi Stevens: Police investigating death of boy placed in foster care by Department of Child Services Wilson looked "visibly distraught" when police arrived at her house in the 200 block of Falcon Way in Valparaiso, according to the affidavit. The boy, who had spent the last five years of his life moving through different foster homes, was not breathing and had no pulse. Dakota was airlifted from Porter Memorial Hospital to South Bend, where he was taken off life support two days later. Doctors found swelling in the boy's brain consistent with oxygen deprivation for an extended period of time. He was pronounced dead two days later. The St. Joseph County Coroner's Office later ruled the boy's death as a homicide. Dakota died from mechanical asphyxia, a kind of asphyxiation in which an object or physical force stops a person from breathing. A 20-second clip from Ring video cameras showed Wilson lying across Dakota's neck and head area as the boy screamed, the affidavit says. Another 20-second video shows Dakota still screaming while Wilson was on top of him, her right arm and elbow planted on the ground. A third video shows Wilson still on top of Dakota near his buttocks area, the affidavit says. The boy, whose arms were above his head, was no longer moving. A fourth video shows the two still in the same position, with Dakota still not moving. Dakota Levi Stevens: 10-year-old boy in Department of Child Services foster care died of homicide, coroner says A fifth video shows Wilson on her knee facing Dakota who was facedown on the ground. "Dakota!" Wilson screamed several times. She later asked one of her other kids to call 911. "I was laying on him and he was acting bad," Wilson can be heard saying. Wilson had three other children in her house; all were adopted. Brian Heinemann, a spokesman for DCS, said last month that Wilson's license is on hold pending revocation, and no other children are currently in her home. Dakota was at least the second child involved with DCS to have died in April, which Gov. Eric Holcomb had designated as Child Abuse Prevention Month. His death has left questions among family members who said they have tried unsuccessfully for several years to gain custody of the boy to remove him from the foster care system. The case also raises concerns about the ability of DCS to adequately protect children who are either in the agency's care or in abusive family situations. Dakota's parents lost custody of him and his younger sister in 2018, after DCS concluded they were unable to care for the children, family members told IndyStar. Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at kphillips@indystar.com. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Dakota Levi Stevens died while in the care of DCS foster parent A second person has died in Vermont amid heavy flooding from persistent torrential downpours Beryl dumped on the state Wednesday and Thursday as it moved through the United States. John Rice, 73, died when he drove his vehicle through a flooded street in Lyndonville, Police Chief Jack Harris told NBC5. Rice was seen driving through a road that was closed due to rushing water on Thursday. Police say his vehicle was swept off the road and later found submerged under 10 feet of water in a hayfield. A second man, 33-year-old Dylan Kempton, was found dead in South Peacham Brook, just east of Montpelier. He was riding an ATV when floodwaters swept it away, Vermont State Police said. State officials say flash flooding has caused "extensive" damage in Vermont, and it will take some time to understand the full scope. In addition to flash flooding, there was some main stem river flooding. Barre, Plainfield, Richmond, Bolton, Lyndon, Lyndonville, Williamstown, Barton, St. Johnsbury and Groton are among the towns impacted. "Much of northern Vermont saw between 2 and 6 inches of rain," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tyler Roys said. "Port Henry recorded 5.69 inches, Monkton received 5.38 inches, St. Johnsbury-Fairbanks recorded 5.12, Pittsburg recorded 5.04 inches, and Lydonville saw 4.91 inches of rain." Adding to the emotional toll, the downpour fell on the one-year anniversary of devastating floods that took place in some of the same towns. In the small city of Barre, which was devastated by the storm last summer, flooding was extensive, with the downtown area underwater and some homes completely washed away. "People have a sense of PTSD with what we went through a year ago, and now we're dealing with what seems like deja vu," Chris Violette, the town manager in Barre Town, a separate municipality that surrounds the city, told The NY Times, which reported that at least a dozen swift-water rescue teams made 118 rescues from Wednesday into Thursday. "Since last July's flooding that left the capital city of Montpelier under waist-high water, it's been a battle with insurance companies, the adjusters, the city, the state and FEMA and the federal government, and nothing is in line with anything else," Lisa Edson Neveu told The Associated Press. Neveu said she and her two sons still live in their home despite unrepaired damage. Appearing on AccuWeather Early on Friday morning, Montpelier Mayor Jack McCullough said that, ironically, events were scheduled Wednesday commemorating the catastrophic flooding that hit Montpelier and surrounding areas exactly one year ago, although this time, the capital city was largely spared. "Unfortunately, there are towns and cities around us that were hit hard a year ago and were hit hard again this year, and so Montpelier is not an island, we recognize that while we did well, we are certainly hoping for everything that can be done to help Barre, Waterbury, Middlesex and other towns that were hit hard." Although Montpelier has come a long way since last year's flooding, McCullough says many issues still need to be addressed. "The downtown business district has come back quite a lot. Most of our businesses have been able to reopen, and other businesses have relocated, but we still have a vital downtown economy. We have some residents displaced whose homes were devastated, and those people are not all back in place," McCullough said. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, speaking at a press briefing Friday morning after spending Thursday assessing damage, said emergency officials are still in response mode, which means they are focused on saving lives and other urgent needs before they have a complete understanding of the damage and what is needed for recovery. "From roads and bridges washed out to homes destroyed, the damage is significant. But as I visited towns yesterday and spoke with people, I was reminded of how resilient Vermonters really are," he said. "Even in the face of devastation, I saw them come together, doing what they can for their neighbors to get through this." Gov. Scott also acknowledged the pervasive fear that this kind of severe weather is a harbinger of what is to come. "I can't assure people this won't happen year after year," the governor said. "Climate change is real, and we have to deal with it and build back stronger, safer and smarter than we have before." For at least a decade Quinault Nation has tried to escape the rising Pacific. Time is running out Pelicans fly near the shore as waves from the Pacific Ocean roll in Tuesday, May 14, 2024, on the Quinault reservation in Taholah, Wash. Facing increased flooding from a rising Pacific, the tribe has been working for over a decade to relocate Taholah, their largest village, to a new site on higher ground. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson) TAHOLAH, Wash. (AP) Standing water lies beneath the home Sonny Curley shares with his parents and three children on the Quinault reservation a few steps from the Pacific Ocean in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The back deck is rotting, and black mold speckles the walls inside, leaving the 46-year-old fisherman feeling drained if he spends too much time in the house. You can tell your bodys not right; its fighting, said Curley, standing in the familys kitchen. Youre using your energy to fight something thats not supposed to be there. These are the effects of an ocean that has moved ever closer since Curley's parents bought the house about 15 years ago in Taholah, the tribe's largest village, where the Quinault River empties into the Pacific. He estimates the ocean was about 30 feet away back then. Now waves sometimes top a 15-foot seawall, and the family's been forced to evacuate three times in the past four years, just as Curley's 84-year-old mother struggles with advancing dementia. Its scary, said Hannah Curley, Sonny's sister, who lives three blocks away and hasn't had to evacuate. Nights when its really stormy, Ill go and check on them a couple times during the night, and then I have cameras up too, so we can see if its getting really bad. Faced with rising sea levels and increasing flooding, the Quinault Indian Nation has spent at least a decade working to relocate hundreds of residents and civic buildings in Taholah to higher ground. There's also the threat of an earthquake and tsunami from a major offshore fault line. But that relocation depends on money, and a patchwork of federal and state grants has fallen far below the estimated more than $400 million needed. Where are we going to go if the house does get in a state where its not livable? Sonny Curley wondered. Where are my parents going to go and where are my kids going to go? ______ EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change. ______ Across the U.S., tribes suffer some of the most severe impacts of human-caused climate change but typically have the fewest resources to respond. Along the coasts, where a federal report has predicted seas will rise 10 to 12 inches (0.25 to 0.3 meters) by 2050, tribes have taken key steps toward relocation. That includes the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, just 91 miles (146 kilometers) south of Quinault, and Newtok Village on the western coast of Alaska. When you move people to marginal lands and you marginalize them within society, you layer climate change on top of that ... theyre vulnerable to climate, said Michael Spencer, who researches and teaches on social work and public health among Indigenous people at the University of Washington. The Quinault, historically known as skilled fishers and hunters who traveled the water for trading, ceded millions of acres to the U.S. government more than 150 years ago in exchange for a roughly 200,000-acre reservation on the coast. The tribe was promised peace and a permanent home, tribal leadership have said. But now a key section is threatened. Taholah is close to the ocean and rests on estuary soils and fill that are infiltrated more easily by saltwater. With tidal ranges that average 9 feet, the sea level rise that is expected to accelerate in coming years will have significant impact, said John Callahan, climate scientist for NOAA. Quinault has made flooding-related disaster declarations 26 times from 1957 to 2022, and they have become more frequent. About one-quarter have come since 2016, despite the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers raising the seawall by about 4 feet (1.22 meters) in 2014. The flooding has left some homes plagued by mold and destroyed several outbuildings. Likely worse is in store: Taholah is expected to see a sea level rise of 1 to 2.6 feet by the year 2100, according to a 2018 Washington Coastal Resilience Project report. Weve seen the ocean come over the berm and actually come up against and even on top of the roofs of homes. In my 50-something years, Ive never seen something like that, said Quinault President Guy Capoeman. The more than 3,000-member tribe has an economy powered by the timber industry, its seafood store and a beach resort and casino. About one-fourth of the people live below the poverty line, according to Census data. The tribe published a relocation plan in 2017, and laid out 59 residential lots with sidewalks, street signs and fire hydrants on a site about a half-mile away and 130 feet above sea level. Around 300 dwelling units are planned. They've already moved their Generations building, which includes elders programs, Head Start and day care. The new village is planned as a climate-resilient space, with a farm to provide food if they are cut off during a disaster and solar and biomass for energy. But progress has been slow. More than half of $25 million awarded by the Interior Department most of it planned for building the first homes -- has been held up for a lengthy process of submitting planning and design documents. I guess when being awarded the funds, youre thinking: Lets get this going. We have the money, were ready to do this. Lets move, said Alyssa Johnston, project developer for the relocation. But after a few months of being in this position, you just kind of learn that theres a lot more to it, to acquiring the funding. Theyve gotten $12 million through Washington states Climate Commitment Act, but most will go toward relocating another Quinault village, Queets, which also has flooding issues. A small amount has been earmarked to study salmon declines due to glacier melt and rising river temperatures. The tribe relies on the fish for everything from food to jobs to cultural traditions. In 2020, Quinault took an $8 million loan for the Generations building and has continued to search for additional funding. But last year the tribe was turned down for two key federal grants. Tribal leaders say no one will be forced to move, and some residents don't want to. From his small home perched 17 feet off the ground, James DeLaCruz Sr. has watched the landscape change over the past 30 years. He once planned to build a sitting area on the beach outside his door, but it's no longer wide enough. Yet DeLaCruz, 75, calls the ocean his happy place, finding comfort from the sound of waves. He even enjoys storms. At any day, the earth can split out there; a great big wave. If thats our calling, thats our calling. So I dont worry about it, he said. Ive lived next to the ocean for 75 years. Im still here. And he worries about the cost. So does the Curley family, with the parents afraid of starting over with a new mortgage long after retiring. They'd be doing it without Sonny's help; declining salmon numbers have sharply cut his income, and he recently had to stop contributing to payments. But Sonny and Hannah know it's time to go. Its kind of a love-hate relationship that all of us have in this area, because we are a people of the water, of the ocean, the river, Hannah Curley said. But on the other hand, the ocean has a mind of its own and you cant change things. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. An election judge helps a voter submit his ballot at the Millwood Field House during the June 18 primary election. Precinct worker pay doubled July 1. (Photo by Emma Murphy/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY Precinct officials pay for a workday has doubled. Effective July 1, precinct officials received a pay increase from $110 a day to $225 a day for inspectors and from $100 a day to $200 a day for judges and clerks. Oklahomas 77 county election boards are required to have these three precinct officials. Misha Mohr, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Election Board, said precinct officials serve in Oklahomas nearly 2,000 precincts. So were hoping to make sure that we are able to fill all of those positions, and its especially important, like I said, when it comes to that November general election, because all of our precincts do need to be filled, Mohr said. Lawmakers approved the pay in 2023 with SB 290. Oklahoma State Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax said in a statement that he thinks the pay increase will improve recruitment efforts. Precinct officials are vital to the success of elections, Ziriax said. We are extremely grateful to our state leaders for passing legislation that not only shows our current poll workers how much we appreciate them but also supports recruitment and retention efforts across the state. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but poll workers are required to arrive an hour early and stay until the last ballot is cast. Workers verify voter identification, distribute ballots and ensure election integrity. Officials oversee the election process and deliver ballots to their respective county election board headquarters at the end of the day. In September, workers said the raise was desperately needed and a wonderful thing. No experience is needed to serve as a precinct official, but officials must work in the county they are registered to vote in. Mandatory training is provided. Mohr said precinct officials are absolutely vital to the states elections. Without them, our county election boards could not run elections, Mohr said. We depend on them to man each and every one of those polls. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Legislative Branch Takes Some Stabs At Doing Something, Anything About The Unchecked Judiciary Democratic members of Congress took some steps this week to take as-yet-untried stabs at Supreme Court accountability after this months striking immunity ruling, which gave former President Trump, and all future presidents, sweeping criminal immunity. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to appoint a special counsel to investigate potential violations of ethics, false statement, and tax laws by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the benefactors who have supplied him with undisclosed gifts. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), meanwhile, introduced articles of impeachment in the House against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito for their refusal to recuse themselves from key cases in which theyre credibly accused of having a conflict of interest. And this afternoon Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that his panel will hold a hearing in September on the immediate legal and policy ramifications of the high courts immunity ruling. The decision, sweeping and vague, surprised even legal experts who are clear-eyed about the courts recent, radical lurch to the right, and who are concerned it essentially greenlights a January 6 redo. The dissenting liberals noted that the majority opinion could be read to allow a president to do something as extreme as assassinating a political rival without any accountability. During this upcoming hearing, we will examine the breadth of future misconduct that may be immunized from prosecution, consider the unprecedented nature of this immunity in American history, and discuss legislative solutions to the dangers of this decision, Durbin said in a statement Thursday. This dangerous decision immunizes presidents who commit crimes, no matter how serious, as long as they claim their offenses were official acts, he continued. The far-right justices responsible for this decision like to claim that they are guided by textualism or originalism, but the reality is that theyre engaged in judicial activism unmoored from the text of the Constitution and intentions of our framers. While the strong words from Durbin dont do much of anything in the practical sense of holding the rouge court accountable for the disastrous immunity ruling, a legislative hearing is a start. The Best Of TPM Today The Far-Right Wolves Are Still Circling While The Biden Saga Drags On Someone Forgot To Give Hannity The Memo? Gut Checks and Decisions Yesterdays Most Read Story The Do-Something Caucus Responds In Force David Kurtz What We Are Reading US ban on at-home distilling is unconstitutional, Texas judge rules Reuters Ballot deadlines add urgency for Democrats weighing Bidens fitness to run WaPo One candidate is patently unfit for the White House. Its not Biden LA Times Local police and fire departments were kept busy not only on the Fourth of July, but in the weeks leading up to it. Illegal fireworks were the target of most of their holiday-related efforts. While the days leading up to Fourth of July resulted in the confiscation of large amounts of illegal fireworks, most department officials described the holiday itself as quieter than in recent years. The Tulare Police and Fire departments seized more than 1,000 lbs. of illegal fireworks in the weeks leading up to July 4th. Visalia Fire Department On the Fourth of July, Visalia firefighters responded to 65 calls, according to Fire Marshal Corbin Reed. At least three of them were caused by illegal fireworks, Reed added. Reed said that patrols were conducted throughout June and early July. We issued citations to responsible parties and homeowners for illegal fireworks, he said, but wouldnt say how many citations were issued or how many pounds of illegal fireworks were confiscated. We dont release any numbers before we present them to (the Visalia City) council, so we have no numbers to give out, he said, but noted that the numbers appeared to be less than last year. It looks like things are trending down, he said. In recent years, weve been seeing a decrease (in the use of illegal fireworks) in the community. In 2023, the department issued 63 citations to first time offenders (resulting in a $2,000 fine), two citations to second-time offenders ($3,000), and two citations to people with three or more prior offenses ($4,000). The fire department did not make any arrests last year. Typically, over 100 pounds (of illegal fireworks) is when we start going down the criminal route, said Reed, who estimated that a total of about 150 pounds of illegal fireworks were confiscated last year. Reed said he hopes that the decrease is because of our public education efforts, but he also suggested the possibility that people are running out of money to spend on illegal fireworks. He also credits the partnership of fire departments and law enforcement agencies in the county for all working together to find out what works. Tulare City Fire and Police The Tulare City Fire Department partnered with the Tulare Police Department to conduct patrols in the days leading up to the Fourth of July holiday. Their efforts resulted in 41 administrative citations issued this year for the possession or use of dangerous fireworks. Three $10,000 citations were issued for the sale of illegal fireworks, and more than 1,000 pounds of illegal fireworks were confiscated. The fire department also reported that its fire crews responded to two reports of injuries and one grass fire resulting from fireworks. Porterville Police Department The Porterville Police Department had 84 fireworks-related calls for service, and issued 20 in-person administrative citations for illegal fireworks, according to Sgt. Clayton Ibarra. He expects that additional citations will be issued based on the citys Social Host Ordinance. When someone suspected of using illegal fireworks runs into a crowded house at a Fourth of July party, the police department will not chase them through a crowd of people, he explained, adding that the ordinance allows citations to be issued after the holiday. We review footage and mail citations to persons responsible for the property or the gathering, he said, adding that it requires several days to review footage. Three mail citations were issued in the first week after the holiday. In the month leading up to the holiday, the department had two large fireworks busts: one on June 13 that led to the confiscation of 1,254 pounds of illegal fireworks, and a larger one on June 21 that resulted in 2,337 pounds of illegal fireworks being seized. These busts also involved at least one arrest for other criminal activity. The department issued 20 citations leading up to and including the Fourth of July holiday, five fewer than last year, reported Ibarra. This year seemed a lot less intense than last year, he said. Tulare County Fire Department This year, we were primarily in the north part of the county, said Fire Capt. Mike Canales of the Tulare County Fire Department (TCFD), adding that there were two units assigned, resulting in eight citations and no arrests. Canales estimated that about 10 pounds of illegal fireworks were seized. Most of the detail was in the Cutler-Orosi area, he said. There were probably a few more citations written last year because we had four units assigned to the detail last year, Canales said. With half as many units this year than last year, Canales said, It was definitely busier this year. It seemed like there were a lot more (illegal fireworks) in the areas we were in. Tulare County Sheriffs Department The Tulare County Sheriffs Office worked with the county fire department during the Fourth of July season. We had 70 calls for service related to illegal fireworks from July 1-7, Sgt. Shawn Hermosillo said. We had two deputies assigned to assist county fire on the holiday. While patrols responded to calls about fireworks in the area, it was [Tulare County Fire Department] that was called to the scene for seizures and citations. This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Big illegal fireworks busts in Tulare County NEW YORK (AP) The founder of Archegos Capital Management, a hedge fund that collapsed in 2021, was convicted Wednesday of securities and market manipulation fraud in a scheme that prosecutors said cost global investment banks billions of dollars. Bill Hwang looked straight ahead as the verdict was read, taking several sips of water as the jury found him guilty of 10 criminal counts. He was acquitted of one charge of market manipulation but was convicted of six others. Federal prosecutors in New York said Hwang and his co-conspirators artificially inflated the values of nearly a dozen stocks before the investments collapsed, wiping out $100 billion in market value along with the company he created. Hwang's lawyer had argued that his client was an honest investor who put money into stocks he believed in. Prosecutors said Hwang lied to banks to get billions of dollars to grow his investment firm, which was based in New York. Its portfolio grew from $10 billion to $160 billion. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Rothman told jurors at the start of the case that Hwang, who was a billionaire, wanted to be a legend on Wall Street and engaged in a scheme involving trades of stock derivatives to secretly build extraordinarily large positions in just a few companies. Hwangs attorney, Barry Berke, said in his opening statement that his client didnt live the life of a billionaire and didn't make any misrepresentations to any banks about his business. In a closing argument earlier this week, Berke told the jury that his client was innocent, saying, Mr. Hwang bet big on stocks he believed in. That is not a crime. The indictment said the investment public did not know Archegos had come to dominate the trading and stock ownership of multiple companies because it used securities that had no public disclosure requirement. At one point Hwang and his firm secretly controlled over 50 percent of the shares of ViacomCBS, prosecutors said. The risky maneuvers, however, made the firms portfolio vulnerable to price fluctuations in a handful of stocks. Margin calls in late March 2021 wiped out more than $100 billion in market value in just days, the indictment said. Nearly a dozen companies as well as banks and prime brokers duped by Archegos lost billions as a result, according to the indictment. The jury also convicted the companys former financial officer, Patrick Halligan. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) For several weeks, Multnomah County leaders have met behind closed doors to discuss a program that could allow people caught using drugs to avoid arrest and possibly walk away without mandated treatment. Thursday offered the public a chance to weigh in on the deflection program and whether its the best way to introduce House Bill 4002 when it goes into effect in September. Very dangerous time: 100 PNW wildfires since June were human-caused The bill, signed by Gov. Kotek in April 2024, will effectively reverse the voter-approved Measure 110 by reintroducing criminal penalties for those who possess drugs in the state. But recent meetings led by Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson with District Attorney Mike Schmidt, the Portland police chief and others have now garnered criticism from the public. During the meeting, both commissioners and community members expressed concerns that the county has yet to define the deflection process while key decisions continue to happen without public input. There must be a binary choice, jail or mandatory treatment, Buckman resident Rick Johnson said. Charles Johnson of Multnomah County added, This $25 million might be the most expensive revolving door in American history. Commissioners Sharon Meieran and Julia Brim-Edwards have been the most vocal against the private meetings, claiming the plan will simply reroute Measure 110 back to before it was amended by HB 4002. Gable claims he was framed for Franckes murder in federal lawsuit In fact, Commissioner Meieran had previously claimed that her fellow commissioners have not been involved in the conversation at all. Its going to include a screening, its going to include access to services, and its gonna include some kind of engagement accountability that were still working on, Chair Vega Pederson said. And so were going to continue that conversation today and in the days and weeks to come. It remains unclear just how many people the site will serve and who is eligible for deflection. However, the Chair did clarify the he details would be finalized before Sept. 1. The first order of business should have been saying what deflection is going to be, who were going to serve, what the voluntariness is now and thats actually not rocket science, Commissioner Meieran said. Homemade explosive goes off outside Gresham home: Deputies Presenters speaking on behalf of the leadership team confirmed that when the new site opens on Sept. 1, it will not offer sobering services or take in anyone who is heavily intoxicated until the second quarter of 2025. So who is this center for? Because it doesnt seem like its screening out pretty much every one that we think is going to choose deflection, Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards said. Stay with KOIN 6 News as this story 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 KOIN.com. To the Editor: I support Rep. John Ragan for Tennessee House District 33. Ragan is not a single-issue incumbent, but he is being challenged by single-issue challengers. For brevity, I will discuss only three of the many areas he has earned my support. Economy Rep. Ragan has placed Tennessee in an economically enviable position. U.S. News and World Report rankings place Tennessee first in the nation for roads, second-lowest debt in the nation, fifth most fiscally stable in the nation, sixth-best economic growth in the nation, 12th best economy in the nation; Cato Institute rankings position Tennessee fourth most economically free in the nation; and the National Conference of State Legislatures ranks Tennessee third-lowest taxed in the nation. Education Rep. Ragans work on numerous education committees is exemplary. His dedication to providing for the education of Tennessee children resulted in Tennessee moving from one spot above the bottom to 22nd in average academic achievement by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) cited Tennessee as one of the fastest-improving states in educational achievement. Protection of children Ragan achieved the outstanding educational improvements by openly defying the National Education Association (NEA) and their Tennessee branch, the TEA. This organization is in lockstep with the American Library Association. E. Anthony T. Allen Anderson County commissioner, District 6Oak Ridge This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Letter: Three reasons to re-elect TN Rep. John Ragan in District 33 President Joe Biden pumps his fist as he poses with NATO leaders for an official photo at the NATO summit in Washington on Wednesday. (Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press) To the editor: President Biden, angrily pushing back on the suggestion that he be replaced on the top of the Democratic ticket, reminds me a lot of trying to take the car keys away from my dad. Im sure many of us can relate to that difficult and uncomfortable scenario. We want to give our parents as much agency as possible and keep their sense of control of their life intact, but take into account the others who might be affected by their decision to keep driving. My dad, a WWII Navy veteran, was an excellent driver and drove for 72 years. There wasnt anyone I felt safer with in the car. He never had an accident or got a ticket. He never got lost. As my dad was starting to slow down, small errors occurred and I began to always offer to drive. Then I had to start insisting. There were arguments, but I always wanted my dad to feel that he was still in control of his life. After a few lapses in judgment and a near miss, we told him those mistakes were adding up. We had to take away his keys. It was better for everyone. He survived. He adjusted. He lived another eight years until age 94, and is remembered and beloved by all. President Biden commandeered the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, expanded benefits and services for veterans exposed to toxins, and more. With him in the drivers seat many things have become possible. But at this point, I dont want to ride in his car as a passenger anymore. Time to pass on the car keys to an experienced, younger Democrat. Kristi Golden, Mission Viejo .. To the editor: All you Democrats out there who have been openly saying Biden should step aside have lowered yourselves to Trump and his cronies standards. Trump is best at fear-mongering. He is excellent at making people doubt, and by always saying negative things, people start buying into his rhetoric. If you had doubts about Biden, they should have been asked privately to him or his staff, not in the public domain. You are as much to blame for this problem as Trump. It's too late in the election year to change candidates. Biden has an excellent cabinet and an excellent vice president. There is no doubt that the last four years have been much better under Biden, and we need to keep him in office. Trust Biden, his cabinet and his VP. Make sure all Democrats get out and vote; show your support for Biden; you, yourselves can turn this campaign election around. Trump will not win; nobody wants a dictator, even the Republicans. S. George Russell, Shawnee, Kan. .. To the editor: No one can know the future. Replacing Biden as the Democratic candidate is far from a sure path to a Democratic president in 2025. I keep thinking of Lyndon B. Johnson bowing out of his reelection campaign in 1968. That decision brought us President Richard Nixon. Kevin Smith, Iowa City, Iowa .. To the editor: Donald Trump must be living right the cosmos is certainly doing everything possible to make sure he secures a second term. The Supreme Court just gave him a get out of jail free card. Fani Willis ruined the Georgia corruption case by having an affair with a colleague; Jack Smith took years to bring a case against Trump for having incited a riot that resulted in deaths and dozens of injuries to police officers; Joe Biden got older and more frail; and the democratic leadership is so blindly loyal that they are sticking with the only person to defeat Trump never mind that the Biden who beat Trump is no longer the same. Whatever happened to the law of karma? Bernard Schwartz, Laguna Beach .. To the editor: I am certainly not one of the elites, just a concerned member of the "ordinaries." President Bidens current fitness is questionable and his unfitness for four more years obvious. As a lifelong average citizen and Democrat who has never voted for a Republican, my president should, at a minimum, have the ability to think cleverly on his feet in this challenging world. President Biden, a true hero with those traits needed to oppose the revolting Trump, has fallen victim to the political disease Arrogant Ginsburg-itis. Like the justice and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, he thinks hes irreplaceable. Please join me in the fervent hope he makes a complete recovery before its too late. This decent mans blindness is not helping, but actually increasing the amazing possibility of a felonious criminal further disgracing the presidency. Mark J. Diniakos, Thousand Oaks This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. No 500-bed jail needed Do we really need a 500-bed jail in Monroe County? We just had a new hospital built for 210 patients. At the Regional Academic Health Center, where IU Health Bloomington Hospital is located, they spent over $557 million to build this 210-bed hospital and 117,000-square-foot Health Sciences Building. Monroe Hospital has just 32 beds. To propose a jail of over 500 beds is going overboard! How many millions is this going to cost taxpayers? This needs to be evaluated because our jail is supposed to be short-term holding facilities for awaiting trial or sentencing. We do not need to have a large jail with capacity of this size. If we cannot get by with 300 beds, then people need to be moved through the justice system faster instead of being held for long periods of time. Is there not a rule of 180 days? No 500-bed jail in Monroe County. Debbie Deckard, Bloomington People's Cooperative Market celebrates 100 million meals served with Project DASH As a local organization serving Bloomington, Indiana, Peoples Cooperative Market (PCM) is thrilled to join DoorDash in celebrating 100 million meals through Project DASH. In partnership with DoorDash, we have been able to provide critical programming for our community, including free home delivery of local nutrient-dense food. Providing vulnerable neighbors with nutritious and continuous food resources has a tangible impact on combating nutritional insecurity and ensuring every member of our community has access to the food they need. We are proud that our 300+ deliveries are a part of this 6 million deliveries and 100 million meal milestone. At PCM, we work tirelessly to meet the people we serve where they are, every week. Programs like Project DASH are critical to ensuring that our efforts break down even more barriers and meet the challenges of our local community, reaching those most in need. If you would like to support our mission, please visit peoplesmarketbtown.org or donate to the work were doing to end food insecurity and build a supportive food system. Peoples Coop Market Planning Committee, Bloomington This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Letters: No 500-bed jail, People's Market celebrates Project DASH Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green speaks to a crowd of more than 75 demonstrators protesting Senate File 2340 on Monday, July 1, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. Stop unjust immigration law Thanks to Ryan Hansen for his article on July 3. We're not criminals. His report highlights the pain and heartache from our unjust border laws. It reminds readers that most of us will do what it takes to make life better. We work, save and sacrifice for our loved ones and families. Like us, new immigrant Iowans work hard for their families, too. New immigrant Iowans work hard for Iowa. They work at home to provide safety and success for the ones they love. Many work with us in our homes to do the same. Immigrant Iowans work with us to build our homes and care for them. We work together on our farms, fields and factories, shops, stores and schools, etc to make Iowa work better. The work of new Iowa immigrants makes Iowa better! There are real solutions that create a fair immigration process and make the border work. MAGA Republicans block them. They want chaos and conflict to distract us from how theyre damaging our state and taking away from what our families need. The recent court action stopping the start of the unjust immigration law shows me that we can defeat big money and organized people power works to make our world a better place. Thats why we rallied on July 1st. Lets stop MAGA Republican hate peddling and keep working together for our freedoms, families and futures. Tom Mohan is a member of the Iowa Movement for Migrant Justice. He also is a volunteer at the Iowa City Catholic Worker House and a supporter of Escucha Mi Voz. U.S. Supreme Court versus U.S. citizens This United States Supreme Court has seen fit to rule in favor of politicians and big business and against U.S. Citizens. They have used flawed and corrupt logic to allow corporations and politicians and their powerful attorneys to trample on U.S. Citizen's rights. They have allowed air and water polluters to ignore EPA regulations and to pollute without consequence. It has given them the right poison U.S. Citizens. They have allowed politicians immunity to act above the law and the ability to direct others to also act above the law. I suspect Supreme Court justices have the same immunity. U.S. Citizens have no such immunity. They have denied a woman's fundamental right to choose and have turned it into a political issue for states to manipulate. States are now denying women many other freedoms and rights. They have allowed gun and ammunition manufacturers complete freedom to sell their wares with little oversight. U.S. Citizens are denied freedom from gun violence. They have allowed corporations to provide unlimited funding to political candidates and action committees. U.S. Citizens can't compete with that. They have allowed themselves to ignore their own ethics rules and are using their power to serve special interests and their own agenda rather than the interests of U.S. Citizens. Healthcare and public education may soon be targets of this Supreme Court and U.S. Citizens could be denied even more rights. Corruption has tarnished this Supreme Court. This current Supreme Court is a threat to our democracy. They have joined politicians who also threaten our democracy. Democracies should serve their citizens and not just the rich and the politically powerful. The Supreme Court must be revamped and reorganized to serve U.S. Citizens. The Constitution requires all branches of government to serve U.S. Citizens. Steve Bundy Iowa City This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Letters: Stop unjust immigration law Ivy Hill, an activist with the Campaign for Southern Equality, speaks during a rally opposing a bill banning certain procedures and treatments for transgender youth Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. Hill said their group would consider suing the state if the bill passes into law. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette) COLUMBIA When Dylan Sutherland, a transgender man, learned he would lose access to his hormonal treatments through the Medical University of South Carolinas health system, he knew he couldnt wait until his prescription ran out to find another doctor. The first few health care providers he called had no openings. The 27-year-old from Mount Pleasant eventually got an appointment at Roper Hospital, but he worries not everyone will have the same luck in finding a new doctor. Its been quite difficult to swallow, Sutherland told the SC Daily Gazette on Friday, adding hes yet to hear from his MUSC doctor. After the Medical University of South Carolina confirmed Wednesday to the Gazette that its health system would no longer offer gender transition procedures to anyone, regardless of age, LGBTQ advocacy organizations are anticipating an influx of people like Sutherland, who are losing their doctor and need to find someone else. North Carolina-based nonprofit Campaign for Southern Equality, working with local advocacy organizations, has some funding available to cover initial appointments in addition to helping people find doctors with open appointments. MUSC pointed to a law that went into effect in May as the reason behind its decision. While the laws primary focus was banning the treatments for children, it included a sentence that prohibited the use of public funds directly or indirectly for gender transition procedures. Because MUSC receives public funds, it decided to stop offering the treatments entirely, Dr. Patrick Cawley, MUSCs chief executive officer, said in a statement Wednesday. The hospital system did not answer questions about how many people would be affected, when it would stop providing these services, exactly what services it would stop providing, or when officials made this decision. Patients wont be let go immediately. Anyone whos a patient as of Aug. 1 will be phased off their gender-transition medications. The systematic reduction must end by Jan. 31, 2025. But given the limitations of this law, doctors are encouraged to transition the patient to another provider as soon as possible, according to a three-page list of frequently asked questions and answers sent to MUSC doctors and obtained by the SC Daily Gazette. MUSC is leaving the specifics, to include patient notification, up to each provider. MUSC honors the patient-centered care model, the hospital system said in a statement sent Friday to the Gazette. We chose to have our providers reach out directly to the patients affected by this law, it continued. They would be better positioned to answer their patients questions or concerns. House Majority Leader Davey Hiott, the laws main sponsor, said the laws sentence on public funds was meant to ban the state health plan from paying for gender-transition treatments. Hiott praised MUSC for extending it to all patients, even if that wasnt his intent. Chase Glenn, director of LGBTQ nonprofit Alliance For Full Acceptance Action, estimates several hundred patients will need to find other options for treatment. Its going to be an all-hands-on-deck situation, Glenn said. Anyone who is losing coverage, including parents of children affected by the new law, can fill out a form on the Campaign for Southern Equalitys website about their situation. The nonprofit will connect them with a doctor who offers the treatment they need, while taking into considering things like whether the practice accepts a persons insurance, said Adam Polaski, spokesman for the Campaign for Southern Equality. People worried about how theyll afford their medication can ask for a patient care fund to cover the cost of their first visit to doctors who have agreed to use that form of funding. That includes public employees across South Carolina covered by the state health plan. Theres no cap on how many people can ask for financial help. The funding, which comes from private donations, should hold up even with an influx of patients, Polaski said. The project was really built to be a bridge for such a situation, he said. We were sort of bracing ourselves for this to happen. The nonprofit also offers $500 grants for families of children who are losing access to care, which can cover the cost of traveling to a doctor in a different state. So far, more than a dozen South Carolina families have requested those grants, Polaski said. The funding piece can be essential, Sutherland said. As an employee of MUSC, he gets his insurance through the state health plan. Under his insurance, he was paying around $10 each month for his testosterone. He expects that to go up to as much as $100 per month out of pocket. Not that thats an incredible increase, but its still an increase in an economy that is completely awful, Sutherland said. But going without would be worse, he said. Quitting treatments can take a toll mentally on a person if their body no longer aligns with their identity, he said. On top of that, stopping hormonal treatments can cause withdrawal symptoms. Sutherland had to stop hormone replacement therapy briefly last year for medical reasons and had headaches so bad he couldnt focus, he said. Im terrified of, if I had to quit cold turkey, how would I feel? Sutherland said. Would I even be able to function? What is LifeWise? What to know about the group teaching the Bible during school hours LifeWise Academy is a Hilliard-based Christian nonprofit that teaches public school children the Bible during school hours, with over 30,000 students nationwide enrolled in the program. Here's what to know about LifeWise: What is LifeWise? LifeWise, founded in 2018, is a division of Stand for Truth, an event-based nonprofit ministry with a mission to reach public school students. It offers Bible education during school hour that is off school property, privately funded and parent-permitted, often during an elective class period. More: LifeWise fires new school director after past sexting scandal with students comes to light The organization has been at the center of several notable Columbus-area stories in recent weeks. It is suing a former Ohio man for copyright infringement, claiming he improperly uploaded and shared proprietary instructional materials with families. It is retrofitting a former Hilliard scuba facility to house its operations. And this week the organization fired Renee Beck, who had been slated to serve as director of a program launching in the Firelands Local School District in northeast Ohio. Beck had been fired from her previous job in 2018 at Loudonville High School, part of the Loudonville-Perrysville Exempted Village School District, after the board voted to terminate her employment as a result of a "report of her serious misconduct and abuse of a minor student," according to the Wooster Daily Record. In a statement, a spokesperson for LifeWise said that when the nonprofit first learned about the allegations against Beck, it "immediately placed her on administrative leave and investigated the matter." Joel Penton, the founder of LifeWise Academy, talks about the programs growth during an interview. Also this summer, LifeWise founder Joel Penton testified in favor of House Bill 445, which would require public school districts to excuse students for off-campus religious instruction. Penton said during a hearing on the bill that the organization works with 200 schools across Ohio and 23 school districts have turned down LifeWise Academy in Ohio. "As we all know, some parents remove their children from public school to send them to private Christian school or home school, often for the purpose of providing religious instruction," Penton said. "This is simply not feasible for all families. But that does not mean that parents dont want religious instruction for their children." LifeWise is also currently rennovating a former Hilliard scuba-diving facility once home to an 18-foot deep pool, which will become the headquarters for the nonprofit when completed, The Dispatch previously reported. LifeWise purchased the former Aquatic Adventures building located by Interstate 270 off Cemetery Road in Hilliard for nearly $3 million. Earlier LifeWise coverage of program LifeWise was the subject of an earlier in-depth article on the program by the USA TODAY Ohio Network. Give them hope: How Bible study is becoming part of the day for some public school kids LifeWise will be moving into the former Aquatic Adventures Ohio building in Hilliard later this year. Related | School board member: Scandal not surprising. Lifewise Academy committee member came at me. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: LifeWise Academy teaches the Bible during school hours Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban during their meeting in Moscow. -/Kremlin/dpa Lithuania will temporarily not send ministers to Hungary for EU meetings after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's recently visited Russia without consulting other EU member states. "For the time being, we have simply decided to limit our participation at a political level in Hungary," Zygimantas Pavilionis, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Lithuanian parliament in Vilnius, told the BNS agency. Orban had recently travelled to Moscow to visit Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin without consulting other EU states, a move that drew strong criticism - including from Lithuania. Since the beginning of July, Hungary has held the rotating presidency of the European Union, which changes among the 27 EU member states every six months. This also means that Hungary will hold a series of informal meetings in Budapest and usually bring together the respective ministers of departments from EU countries. According to the BNS agency, Lithuania does not want to participate at ministerial level, but could possibly send deputy ministers. It has not yet been decided whether President Gitanas Nauseda will attend an informal EU summit in Budapest, a spokesperson for the presidential chancellery was quoted as saying. Sweden also announced on Thursday that it will participate in meetings in Hungary during July only at civil servant level. Hungary's actions had been harmful, and there had to be consequences, Swedish EU Affairs Minister Jessika Roswall said. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Poland are also intending to react to Orban's actions in a similar way, according to Roswall. LITTLE RIVER, S.C. (WBTW) One of six non-Homeowners Association homes in Little River is making its mark on the community after placing various trailer trash objects in their yard. 10 pink flamingos, both Trump 2024 and Biden 2024 flags, a trailer, multiple signs and more is what homeowner Anna Marie has placed in her yard. Marie shared her voice on TikTok about how a South Carolina HOA has caused her and her family grief about the various objects in her yard. The neighborhood HOAs are Carolina Crossing and Waccamaw Management. Both told News13 that they have not been in contact with Marie, as shes not in their HOA. Marie posted multiple videos on TikTok to get back at the South Carolina HOA that she claims to have been giving her trouble. One of them showing her daughter helping her draw one of the signs. Other non-HOA residents in the community said that Marie is allowed to do what she wants with her yard. Maria Morales said shes lived in the community for six years and hasnt had any issues with the HOA herself and said that Marie shouldnt either. Morales said that some community members are bothered by both presidential flags being placed next to each other and the two trailers being left in her yard. But Morales said that Marie tends to keep to herself and doesnt seem to be wanting to cause trouble. I mean technically they dont have an HOA, so like, I guess, they have their own say of what they do to their house, Morales said. * * * Gabby Jonas joined the News13 team as a multimedia journalist in April 2024. She is from Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Kent State University in May 2023. Follow Gabby on X, formerly Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, and read 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 WBTW. AUSTIN (KXAN) Central Texans are donating fans and money Friday to help keep people cool this summer. Its part of Family Eldercares Summer Fan Drive. People can drop off box fans from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at KXAN, Roger Beasley Mazda Central, Roger Beasley Mazda of Georgetown, Roger Beasley Mazda South and Whittlesey Landscape Supplies Round Rock. They can also donate online. Family Eldercare has been hosting the drive for more than 30 years. The Austin-based organization provides case management, supports those needing housing and community services, promotes health and wellness and does advocacy and outreach work. Live blog 3 p.m. As of 3 p.m., $80,477 and 722 fans had been donated. 2 p.m. By 2 p.m., there had been $66,356 and 668 fans donated. KXANs Kristen Currie with Mary who helped donate fans during the 2024 Summer Fan Drive (KXAN Photo) KXANs Kristen Currie with a donor of the 2024 Summer Fan Drive (KXAN Photo) 1 p.m. 1 p.m. donation totals were $50,029 and 652 fans. 12 p.m. At noon, the donations totals were $46,549 and 495 fans. The Rotary Club of Austin NXNE presented Family Eldercare with a check for $1,100. Rotary Club of Austin donates $1,100 to Family Eldercare for the 2024 Fan Drive. (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) Rotary Club of Austin donates $1,100 to Family Eldercare for the 2024 Fan Drive. (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) Photographer Ed Zavala helps Avery Travis and Family Eldercare staff members tell viewers about the 2024 Fan Drive. (KXAN Photo) 11 a.m. As of 11 a.m., $22,922 and 455 fans had been donated. KXAN helps out with 2024 Summer Fan Drive, benefitting Family Eldercare (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) KXAN helps out with 2024 Summer Fan Drive, benefitting Family Eldercare (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) 2024 Summer Fan Drive (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) Donations being dropped off for the 2024 Summer Fan Drive at KXAN (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) Mike Rush helps spread the word about the 2024 Summer Fan Drive (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) Mike Rush helps spread the word about the 2024 Summer Fan Drive (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) 10 a.m. $16,212 raised with more than 330 fan donations! 9 a.m. $5,795 and 49 fans 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at KXAN (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) 8 a.m. By 8 a.m., donation counts totaled $2,860 and 34 fans. KXANs Sally Hernandez and Frank Martinez along with H-E-Buddy help spread the word about the 2024 Summer Fan Drive benefitting Family Eldercare. (KXAN Photo) 7 a.m. People can start donating fans to support Family Eldercares Fan Drive at 7 a.m. Last year, the effort raised more than $231,000 and collected 740 fans. Family Eldercare makes sure all those fans go to people who cant afford or dont have air conditioning. Those looking to get a free fan can look up their closest distribution site online. 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at Roger Beasley Mazda South (KXAN Photo/Frank Martinez) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at Roger Beasley Mazda South (KXAN Photo/Frank Martinez) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at Roger Beasley Mazda South (KXAN Photo/Frank Martinez) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at KXAN (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at KXAN (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) 2024 Summer Fan Drive with Family Eldercare underway at KXAN (KXAN Photo/Kristen Currie) Participate in the 2024 Family Eldercare Summer Fan Drive today As of July 5, Family Eldercare said it had distributed 3,977 fans to help more than 6,000 people in 18 counties in Texas. It was down to fewer than 240 fans left. 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. Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com? So, the natural question for BenevolentAI (AMS:BAI) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn. See our latest analysis for BenevolentAI Does BenevolentAI Have A Long Cash Runway? A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. When BenevolentAI last reported its December 2023 balance sheet in March 2024, it had zero debt and cash worth UK73m. Importantly, its cash burn was UK58m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of around 15 months as of December 2023. Importantly, analysts think that BenevolentAI will reach cashflow breakeven in 3 years. Essentially, that means the company will either reduce its cash burn, or else require more cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years. How Well Is BenevolentAI Growing? It was fairly positive to see that BenevolentAI reduced its cash burn by 25% during the last year. Unfortunately, however, operating revenue declined by 31% during the period. Considering both these factors, we're not particularly excited by its growth profile. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years. Can BenevolentAI Raise More Cash Easily? Even though it seems like BenevolentAI is developing its business nicely, we still like to consider how easily it could raise more money to accelerate growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn. BenevolentAI's cash burn of UK58m is about 83% of its UK70m market capitalisation. Given just how high that expenditure is, relative to the company's market value, we think there's an elevated risk of funding distress, and we would be very nervous about holding the stock. How Risky Is BenevolentAI's Cash Burn Situation? Even though its cash burn relative to its market cap makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought BenevolentAI's cash burn reduction was relatively promising. One real positive is that analysts are forecasting that the company will reach breakeven. Summing up, we think the BenevolentAI's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 3 warning signs for BenevolentAI you should be aware of, and 1 of them is potentially serious. If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com CEDAR BLUFF, VA (WVNS) It was a smooth landing over at the Tazewell County Airport on the afternoon of Thursday, July 11, 2024. The landing corresponded with the arrival of the Ways and Means Supply Chain Tax Team from Washington D.C. U.S. representatives Carol Miller of West Virginia and Morgan Griffith of Virginia both are acting as part of the team. So what brought up the visit? These politicians were actually in the area to tour a Mine Methane Capture Facility. Cognitive decline and the hidden factors you may not know about Miller claims mine methane emission is not just an issue here in the mountain state. When you look at Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, we all have similar economies in our mountains. Weve been energy producers for generations and we want to continue to fuel our country and sell energy abroad. U.S. Representative Carol Miller, (R) West Virginia In Tazewell County, the mine methane extraction facility is operated by CNX Resources. Once the methane is captured, it can be used in a variety of beneficial ways including electric generation, home heating, and as a source of alternative fuel. A representative for CNX said they are excited about what the future holds. I think the important goal for us is to make sure this region continues to have energy and the energy resources and energy jobs. And this region continues to supply the broader region for its energy needs and whatever that energy is. Ravi Srivastava, President of New Technologies for CNX Resources Miller, along with several colleagues, introduced the Methane Reduction and Economic Growth Act in 2023. Kick loose and get Footloose with Theatre West Virginia This bill would requalify methane and update a tax credit to include any mine methane. Miller said these tours will hopefully educate the public and Congress about mine methane capture. Its just part of educating Congress about what we can do in our country, because we are, we have, and can continue to be energy independent and sell our energy abroad. U.S. Representative Carol Miller, (R) West Virginia 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. SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. (PIX11) With his wife at his side, Suffolk County Police Officer Michael La Fauci walked haltingly into Suffolk County Court in Riverhead a little more than a year after being shot while pursuing a robbery suspect. He came face to face with the man who almost killed him. More Local News Janell Funderburke who pleaded guilty last month, was sentenced to 25 years to life by Judge Anthony Senft who called him, An absolute menace and a wannabe thug who has offered nothing positive to society. You have only hurt the community and society, the judge added. Standing next to his lawyer, Funderburke hoped for forgiveness, I am truly sorry for my actions, he said, adding, Thank god he wasnt killed. Im very sorry for the trouble I caused. My hopes and prayers are that the officer will forgive me. That wasnt happening. In an emotional statement, Officer La Fauci said, 25 years to life may sound like a lot of time to some people. However, to me, no amount of time will create forgiveness or even will be able to make up for what you did to me. My life has forever changed and not in a good way. I hope you spend the rest of your life behind bars and think every day about what you did to put yourself there. Long Island man who killed woman during Valentines Day rendezvous gets prison: DA Furderburkes attorney, Christopher Cassar, claimed the odds were stacked against his client. The system failed my client. He grew up in a single family. His father was in jail. His brother was in jail. There were red flags all along that were issues with him and they werent addressed. Police officials however claimed it was the New York legislatures lenient bail laws that failed Officer La Fauci. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rob Waring declared, He should have been in jail. He shouldnt have been out on the street to shoot Officer La Fauci. He was out on the street because that crime was non-bail eligible, meaning our prosecutors could not even ask that he remain in jail. Suffolk County PBA President Lou Civello used the opportunity to warn, If you attempt to kill a cop in Suffolk County, you will meet with the harshest of penalties and you will forfeit the better part of your own life. MS-13 leader pleads guilty in case that includes deaths of 2 girls on Long Island Officer La Fauci left court pleased that this chapter in his life is over, but said he still has to live with the physical and mental pain the shooting has caused. But his doctors maintain that considering the damage the shooting caused, hes very lucky to be alive. Trauma surgeon Dr. James Vosswinkle was quite clear about that. To be quite honest, he declared, Hes not dead. Hes a miracle, really is. As stiff as the sentence was, it could have been more severe had Funderburke not taken the guilty plea. Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said he was pleased with the 25 year minimum sentence noting that it reflected the gravity of the defendants action. 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. From kindergarten through his senior year, Aristofanes (Aris) Cedeno attended eight different schools, moving around his native Panama for his fathers career. You grow not attached to anybody, any place, anything like that, he said. Thats the first trajectory of my life. Instead of letting the constant resettling negatively impact his childhood, Cedeno said it influenced him positively in how he approached his life and career, specifically in his almost 33-year tenure with Kentuckys Governors Scholars Program (GSP), the last eight as executive director and academic dean. That allows me to be flexible and adaptable, two things that I teach in the GSP as traits ... to be successful, he said. The program was founded in 1983 when Kentucky leaders were concerned that too many of the commonwealths best and brightest high school graduates were leaving to pursue opportunities in other states. The governors office, Kentucky legislators and private business executives came together to financially create the summer residential program. The mission of the program, which is offered without charge, is to enhance the next generation of Kentuckys civic and economic leaders. Rising high school seniors attend their Governors Scholar session at one of three college campuses across Kentucky, with the campuses changing on a three-year cycle. At the end of the programs 2024 sessions at Centre College, Morehead State University and Murray State University, Cedeno, 68, will retire from his role as executive director. His time with the program began in 1992, a year after starting at the University of Louisville as an associate professor of Spanish literature. He said his love of learning drew him into the programs values. The program provides that intellectual growth that people like me are looking for, he said. When I first applied, I liked it, like everybody else does. Every summer, you like it. Cedeno saw what the program had to offer as an environment for intellectual growth. It is looking at knowledge as the basis for life, he said. What makes the program an extraordinary endeavor, which then made me want to stay with the program, is that combination of intellectual approach. There is no pressure, there are no grades, there are no academic credits. (It is) learning for the sake of learning. Years later, after becoming executive director, the University of Louisville nominated him for a national fellowship with the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., to prepare him for administrative roles in higher education. Following his fellowship, Cedeno would receive calls from search firms offering him jobs he could apply to in administrative roles, but he always found himself back in the commonwealth with the scholars program. I always applied, and I went for certain interviews, and I said, Uh uh, I (will) stay with the governors scholars, he said. Following the opening of his last campus a few weeks ago, Cedeno said there were a few tears shed at the end of the journey, but he always will Move on. If you know me, I live in the here and now, he said. I embrace every single aspect of the program from the beginning. He highlighted the programs Friday talent shows as an example of embracing what the program was. It was an event that wasnt required by faculty to attend, but he went to every show he could. Cedeno said he even performed in the showcase, dancing when he was still able to. He brought his Spanish language class for a few performances and taught ballroom dancing as an extracurricular too. I engaged myself beyond the classroom in activities, so everybody knew me on the campus, he said. Former Governor Scholar Jennifer Price did not have any classes with Cedeno but remembers taking some of his ballroom dancing classes for her extracurricular. She would return to as a resident adviser in the 1990s with Cedeno as her campus director. After leaving Kentucky for her education, Price would come back to the program later while working as a psychology professor at Georgetown College, developing a close relationship with Cedeno as she moved up the program ranks into a campus director position for six years, and eventually academic dean. He has been an incredibly important mentor to me within the program, and then just professionally through the years as well, she said. Gov. Andy Beshear, a former Governors Scholar who had Cedeno as campus director in 1995, announced July 11 that Price would be succeeding Cedeno as the next executive director of the program. What makes this program special is the way it brings together gifted young people from across a very diverse state, offering students an opportunity to take intellectual risks in the context of a supportive community built on a foundation of mutual respect, Price said. The GSP has meant so much to me, and I am deeply honored to serve in this new capacity. In Cedenos time with GSP, he had three main goals: to have all 120 counties in Kentucky represented in the program, acknowledge merit as the overriding principle of the selection process and to have three sites for the GSP each year. Modeling the motto of the state of Kentucky, United we stand, divided we fall, has been an important factor in order to keep this program alive, he said. Price said her priority is to continue the legacy of the program while continuing to expand the reach of the program. We make an effort to make sure we have representation from all 120 counties in Kentucky, but, of course, there are some parts of the state where we discover every year that there are people who dont know about us, she said. There are smart kids in every county in Kentucky and we really want to make sure that those opportunities are extended to all Kentucky high school rising seniors. Cedeno said, that while he lives firmly in the moment, his most important words for the future of the GSP are to continue building and rebuilding the relationships with the people of the Commonwealth and make them stronger while maintaining relationships with the GSPs more than 37,000 alumni. We cannot just sit on our laurels and rest on our laurels that we have done a good job for 42 years and not tell new generations of parents This is an opportunity for your kids, he said. We cannot just rely on our information on the website, we need to go out and talk to the people because we need to build that trust for those parents. Cedeno joked that during the last gubernatorial election, he knew his retirement was on the horizon. I always said this: I will retire happily when I leave in the governors office one of our alumni, he said. The race was between Bashear and Daniel Cameron, who was also a governors scholar. I wouldve retired anyway with one of them! he said. Cedeno said he might stay in Kentucky, or maybe go back to Panama, but will need to do some thinking on what retirement has in store for him, continuing to reiterate his here and now mantra. However, knowing what he would like to be remembered for does not require much contemplation. When I die, I want to be remembered as an educator, he said. Not as a teacher or as a professor. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) These are folks that have been here for 40 plus years, with the proper planning and more time in advance, the proper infrastructure could have been built and now theres a lack of infrastructure and the roads are not there. So now theyre like oh, lets go take their houses, said Lorena Silvestre-Tobias. Silvestre-Tobias is a leader for the El Paso Interreligious Sponsoring Organization and a resident of the Bauman neighborhood in Socorro, Texas where the city could build an arterial road. The City of Socorro held a workshop on Thursday, July 11 at Socorro High School exclusively for residents who live in areas adjacent to sites where the road could be laid out. The project named Arterial one would see the construction of a four-lane divided roadway extending from I-10 to Socorro Road, to help address increased traffic volumes that have resulted from increased population and development in the City. There were initially only three alternate sites for the project, but the City of Socorro expanded it to six after receiving backlash from residents, specifically those who live along Bauman Street and Vineyard Road. Alternative one is one of the projects that would demolish many homes along those neighborhoods. Bauman Street, Socorro, TX Why didnt they build that road earlier? Ive lived here since 89, said Luis Betancourt, a resident on San Ysidro Road in Socorro. They want to demolish houses and properties after weve been here for so long. They didnt warn us with time and they have built a lot of new homes in the time since. Be open with us, what will be done and what wont be done, said Betancourt. The neighborhoods along the Alternative one site are some of the oldest in the City and comprised primarily of low-income and elderly residents, who have lived there for decades. Betancourt, like many residents along these neighborhoods, said that they dont oppose the arterial roads construction and acknowledge the need for it, but not at the cost of their homes. The majority of us are older and retired. Having to start from scratch and look for a new place to live? Its not fair. And were all really good and close neighbors, weve lived here peacefully, so its difficult to imagine that this could happen, said Antonio Silvestre, a resident off of Bauman Street. Part of their frustration, residents said, is that the City has lacked transparency, clarity and felt that the other alternatives had been a more viable option. The residents say that the City allowed for the development of the new residents and business in those areas because they were fixated on Alternative one becoming the choice. Officials with the City of Socorro said the project is just in the exploration phase and are not anywhere near making a decision. They hope that Thursdays workshop and the discussions to be had, will serve to clarify misinformation and provide residents with the answers they seek. Theres no route that has been determined, there is no action currently pending. What we do want to get is feedback from all of our residents to make sure that theyre aware of whats going on and give us the opportunity to have a conversation with them, to explore and educate them on what it is were trying to do here, said Public Information Officer for the City of Socorro, Victor Reta. We wanted to put the residents point of view out there so the city would hopefully consider and seek elsewhere, because for these folks its not only about their home, its about their livelihood, these are individuals who came into this country and built those homes, said Silvestre-Tobias. There will be two other workshops held at Socorro High School on Friday, July 12 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday July 13 from 10 a.m. to 3 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 KTSM 9 News. Look at the details of Project 2025 and see how dangerous Trumps plan really is | Opinion Project 2025 As to Project 2025, I wonder what the people in general and specifically the MAGAs are thinking. The Supreme Court just told the SEC it cannot levy fines but must go to court with any charges. Great, how speedy will that process be? Greenlight to cheat. Changing the EPA: What will happen to clean air and water standards, and where will the drilling for oil and gas begin? National parks, I guess. Changing OSHA rules: Workers safety no longer matters. Do you think many employers will care? Do you think changing FAA rules and airline disaster investigative teams will help? Oh, I get it. Boeing does not need checks and balances; just tell their CEOs to shape up, and all will be OK. How about Food and Drug Administration? Just tell the food producers and pharmaceutical industries to be good guys. Finally, the Department of Justice. Want to eliminate it? What about the FBI division that tracks criminals who cross the border? They actually are giving support to those conservatives who are complaining about the border. Most people no longer think about the issues. Daniel Bacon, Middleton Non-citizens voting Things must be pretty slow in the offices of the Governor and the Secretary of State this summer, so they decided to take up political grandstanding. Gov. Little issued an executive order Tuesday called the Only Citizens Will Vote Act. For years now, voter registration forms include these statements: Any elector who supplies any information, knowing it to be false is guilty of perjury, which is punishable by imprisonment and a fine of up to $50,000. AND Are you a citizen of the United States of America? If you check no do not complete this form. AND UNDER PENALTY OF LAW: By signing this card, I certify that I am a citizen of the United States I declare under oath or affirmation that the information supplied herein is true. Who is going to risk a $50,000 fine, imprisonment and deportation to cast one vote? It is against the law for non-citizens to vote in federal elections and it is the rare exception that in some municipalities in other states that they are allowed to vote in local elections only but not in Idaho. Dont be conned into thinking this is a thing here, because it is not. Ken Twedt, Boise Hurt feelings Im so tired of conservative and liberal culture warriors getting their panties in a wad over anything and everything that upsets and hurts their feelings, whether its Chik fil A or Pride Parades. The First Amendment says: Chik fil A as a privately owned company can donate to whomever they want and Pride Parades can occur wherever they want. Feel whatever you want about any of this, but the First Amendment is there and it doesnt give a hoot or holler if you think any of it is mean or sinful. In this country, we get to say what we want, when we want, and where we want. Dont like that? Move to Russia or Venezuela. If youre going to live in this country, youll have to put on your big kid pants, stop whining and moaning about how offended you are about everything, and learn to be a mature adult when you disagree with people. Tim Van Vliet, Idaho Falls Open primaries The Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting initiative set for Nov. 5, is another scheme by leftist Democrats and soft Republicans to cheat in elections. So, what else is new? Democrats have been cheating in elections since the earliest days of New Yorks Tammany Hall. Democrats know they cannot field quality and moderate candidates to win statewide and other elections, so theyve concocted a scheme that just might help them and turn Idaho blue, which is their dream, all along. Jim Jones, the ardent leftist Democrat who claims to be a Republican, and others say open primaries and ranked choice voting is the only way to bring civility to the legislature and other bodies. Mr. Jones also claims the open primaries and ranked choice voting have worked so well in Alaska. Alaska voters found the system to be simple, (according to the Statesman). Alaskas open primaries and ranked choice voting is so popular in Alaska, that there is a new initiative on its November ballot to repeal it. Lets face it, the Idaho and national news media is the Praetorian Guard of the Democrat Party machine. In a Statesman story about this issue, organizers of the open primaries and ranked choice voting schemes were never labeled as leftist-Democrats, but rather, Idahos organizers. Vote no Nov. 5. Daniel Murphy, Boise Radical leftists Radical leftist policies have opened our southern border to millions of illegal immigrants from more than 160 countries. They have assaulted police, raped and murdered mothers and little girls, and several with ties to ISIS were recently apprehended in multiple major cities. Theyre currently siphoning $150 billion a year from taxpayers. Under the leftist guise of civil liberties, Pride month has turned into 30 days of stomach-turning perversion. June now boasts fully naked men gyrating on rainbow floats and floppily strutting down main urban drags while waving and blowing kisses to kids. This year in San Francisco, an entire stretch shut down to car traffic offered up such things as a man in black leather whipping upturned bare bottoms over a stool and others in a plastic kiddie pool receiving urine into their gaping mouths. K-12 public schools are home to fanatical leftist teachers who are brainwashing children with the doctrine of gender malleability. This curriculum has the potential to advance into a graduating regimen of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and, ultimately, genital mutilation. If right wing is an ideological remedy to all of this, where the heck do I sign up? Scott R. Hammond, Boise The first horses to cross the new bridge,1949. Sometimes they had to wear hoods so they wouldnt be spooked by the water visible through the mesh grating. Fourth and last in a series recognizing the 75th anniversary of the dedication of Charlevoixs current Memorial Bridge on July 30, 1949. CHARLEVOIX The past three Looking Back have looked back at the need for our current bridge, its construction, and how that two-year period of industrial activity affected the community. This final installment will tell a few tales of both high and low drama about the bridge since then. Once, in the early years, on a torrid summer day it opened and stayed that way for quite a while. The two leaves, or roadbeds, were up long enough for the steel to expand in the heat; when they were lowered, the leaves wouldnt mesh properly. An older resident recalled that this had happened with the fourth bridge a few times. The solution then, and now, was to call the fire department and use cold channel water to hose down the swollen ends in order for the steel to shrink back. It might take an hour, but the solution worked. On another torrid August day, in 1987, the bridge opened at 12:30 p.m., then a high voltage switch on the south side of the channel blew, affecting some 400 businesses and homes plus the bridge. Traffic started to back up and eventually reached beyond the city limits on both sides of town. The combined lines of vehicles stretched an estimated five miles in length. A crew of eight, including the police chief and workmen on the new Edgewater Inn, assembled to hand crank the bridge back down, crews of two plus backup under each of the bridges four corners. In the scorching midday heat, in cramped sauna-like quarters, they could only turn a few revolutions before having to stop from exhaustion. After 40 minutes of work, the beast was tamed just as the power came back on at 1:40 p.m. But the bridge had to reopen immediately to let a backlog of vessels pass. After 90 minutes, vehicles full of enraged, perspiring drivers began to crawl across the bridge and the jam-up gradually dissipated. T-shirts were produced proclaiming survival of the gridlock of 1987. In 1988, after a few rejected grandiose and expensive plans, the state spent a mere $9,000 for simple electrical switching equipment that could utilize another circuit should one of the two main power lines that junction at the bridge ever go out again. Subscribe: Check out our offers and read the local news that matters to you Any time the bridge malfunctions while open, many drivers opt to travel the 40-odd miles around Lake Charlevoix through Boyne City and East Jordan. Bridgetender Chick Gallagher had to explain to inquirers, more than once, why the bridge sidewalks had to go up the same time as the roadbeds. When the bridge was new in 1949, Hookers Horses were a daily sight in summer passing through town from their stable at Antrim and State streets, now Olesons loading dock area. They clomped up State to Park Avenue, swung a right to Bridge Street, then a left to the bridge. Theyd been doing this for years, headed for their destination paddock at Burns and Division streets for resorter and tourist equine recreational purposes. On the bridges new openwork mesh roadbed, some of them had to be hooded so they wouldnt be spooked and bolt. Or the horses might cross on canvas tarps laid across the grating so they wouldnt see the water directly below them. In July of 1973 the bridge was raised 1,166 times. Over a 27-year career between 1971 and 1998, bridgetender Charley Bergmann estimated that he alone had raised the bridge about 91,000 times. For 2022, Michigan Department of Transportation statistics reveal that the bridge went up in the neighborhood of 3,400 times. Streakers running across it when streaking was a fad, daredevils dressed only in their skivvies diving into the channel from the bridge railing and not getting caught, Evel Knievels threading around the lowered traffic gates and racing their motorcycles over the widening central gap as the bridge begins to open, automotive titan Ransom E. Olds, founder of Oldsmobile and a summer resident of Charlevoix for 25 years, bemoaning the low buzzing sound that car tires made when they crossed the grating as the groans of the taxpayers, an overlooked dog once raised into the air on the south leaf sidewalk our Memorial Bridge has seen it all. Newly refurbished earlier this year, with tender loving care it should be good for another 75 years of unique sights and sounds. Oh, by the way, give a stab at how many vehicles crossed the bridge in 2022. MDOT statistical procedures guesstimate the number is around 5,225,000. Understandable when trying to get onto Bridge Street from the Olesons corner, even on a Sunday morning in February. Take some time sometime and just go down there and watch what goes over the bridge, loved, tolerated and loathed as it has been for the last seven-plus decades. To recognize this important anniversary year, on Tuesday, July 16 this writer and the Charlevoix Historical Society will be presenting a completely illustrated program on the eventful history of all six of Charlevoixs lower channel bridges at the Charlevoix Public Library Community Room, 6 p.m., admission free. Call (231) 547-0373 for more information. This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Looking Back: From streakers to stuck traffic, Charlevoix bridge has seen it all This week, a federal court in Louisiana dismissed a lawsuit against protest organizer DeRay Mckesson, putting an end to a case that stretched many years and threatened to chill First Amendmentprotected speech. In July 2016, police officers in Baton Rouge shot and killed Alton Sterling, a black man selling CDs outside a convenience store, while they pinned him to the ground. The shooting sparked protests around the country. At a Black Lives Matter march in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department just days later, protesters scrapped with police, in some cases throwing water bottles. One demonstrator allegedly threw a rock or a piece of concrete that hit Officer John Ford in the head, causing severe head injuries and knocking out teeth. That protester was never identified, but it was not Mckesson, an activist who allegedly organized the protest. Regardless, Ford (initially identified as "Officer John Doe Police Officer") sued Mckesson in November 2016. The lawsuit claimed negligence, charging that Mckesson "knew or should have known [his] actions could cause and/or lead to serious personal injury." While admitting that Mckesson never committed or even directly encouraged violent acts, Ford claimed in an amended complaint that Mckesson had "justified" violence in interviews. In September 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana granted Mckesson's motion to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning Ford could not refile. Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson cited NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982), in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that "the right to associate does not lose all constitutional protection merely because some members of the group may have participated in conduct or advocated doctrine that itself is not protected," including violence. Since Ford "failed to plead sufficient, nonconclusory factual allegations that would tend to demonstrate that Mckesson exceeded the bounds of protected speech," Jackson wrote, "Mckesson cannot be held liable for the conduct of others with whom he associated." But in December 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the dismissal and remanded the case back to the district court. "By ignoring the foreseeable risk of violence that his actions created, Mckesson failed to exercise reasonable care in conducting his demonstration," wrote Judge E. Grady Jolly for the majority. "Mckesson owed Doe a duty not to negligently precipitate the crime of a third party. And a jury could plausibly find that a violent confrontation with a police officer was a foreseeable effect of negligently directing a protest." "'Negligent protest' liability against a protest leader for the violent act of a rogue assailant is a dodge of Claiborne Hardware and clashes head-on with constitutional fundamentals," Judge Don Willett noted in dissent. "Such an exotic theory would have enfeebled America's street-blocking civil rights movement, imposing ruinous financial liability against citizens for exercising core First Amendment freedoms." Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to the Supreme Court's 2023 decision Counterman v. Colorado. "The Court explained that 'the First Amendment precludes punishment [for incitement], whether civil or criminal, unless the speaker's words were "intended" (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder,'" Sotomayor wrote. This week, the district court again decided in Mckesson's favor, finding Ford's claims insufficient under both Louisiana law and the First Amendment, once again dismissing his lawsuit with prejudice. In its decision, the court even spelled out the absurdity of some of the suit's underlying claims. "According to Defendant, he 'did not engage in any acts of violence at the protest,'" Jackson again writes for the majority. "Plaintiff attempts to rebut this, responding that Defendant 'likely threw his water bottle at police,' and citing to briefing in which Plaintiff argues that because police officers and Plaintiff saw Defendant retrieve a bottle of water, '[o]ne may infer that [Defendant] likely threw his bottle of water at police.'" Jackson calls this an "absurdly speculative inferential leap," especially since Ford testified that "'[he] never saw [Defendant] throw a water bottle' and nobody 'told [him]' Defendant had done so." "The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others, and we're delighted to see that the district court came to the same conclusion," said David Cole, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which acted as part of Mckesson's legal defense team. Indeed, the decision is a positive outcome. But the case stretched on for an absurdly long stretch of time. In a statement, Mckesson called it "a grueling eight-year process"eight years in which an injured police officer sought to use the legal system to punish him despite never accusing him of direct violent action. And in that time, dueling court decisions couldn't come to an agreement over whether nonviolent protest activity was truly protected by the First Amendment. The post Louisiana Federal Court Affirms the Right To Peacefully Protest appeared first on Reason.com. Loved ones are mourning the victim of a mass stabbing that left two dead and three others hospitalized in Huntington Beach. The violence erupted during a Fourth of July fireworks celebration near 16th Street and Pecan Avenue at around 11 p.m. A large group was gathered outside in the neighborhood when suddenly, a Mini Cooper pulled up and a man got out and began stabbing people. The violent confrontation left two people dead and three others injured. The two victims who died were identified as Eric Hodges, 42, and his friend William Collins, 47. Hodges was stabbed in the heart and Collins was stabbed in the lung and neck. The other victims were left with non-life-threatening stab wounds and were only identified as two 35-year-old men and a 68-year-old man. Eric Hodges, 42, is pictured with his fiancee, Jourdan. (Adam Cook) Eric Hodges, 42, is pictured with his fiancee, Jourdan. (Adam Cook) The scene in Huntington Beach where five people were stabbed on Independence Day. July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) The suspect being arrested outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) Adam Cook speaks with KTLA on July 11, 2024. (KTLA) The suspect, Logan Christopher Kelley, 26, was seen on camera during a court hearing on July 9, 2024 in an Orange County courthouse. (KTLA) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) A makeshift memorial honoring the victims of a deadly mass stabbing during a fireworks celebration in Huntington Beach on July 4, 2024. (KTLA) Eric Hodges is seen with friends. (Adam Cook) Adam Cook and Eric Hodges pictured together during happier times. (Adam Cook) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) Police investigate outside a Huntington Beach apartment complex where a mass stabbing left two people dead and three others hospitalized on July 4, 2024. (OC Hawk) The suspect, Logan Christopher Kelley, 26, of Redondo Beach, had allegedly been drinking alcohol and taking hallucinogenic drugs at the time. Kelley was tackled to the ground by two men at the celebration and subdued until officers arrived. At one point, Kelley assaulted a teen boy who had helped detain the man, police said. Loved ones are remembering Hodges and how much he meant to those around them. Honestly, hes one of the best people you would ever meet, said Adam Cook, Hodges best friend. He was an anomaly. He was the guy who was always happy no matter what. He meant the world to me, but especially to his fiancee. Hodges and his fiancee, Jourdan, were planning to be married in September. Those two, theyve been together for 17 years and I always told them, Its like you guys just met last week, Cook said of the couples love for each other. They were in this constant honeymoon phase. Hodges, Collins and their group of friends were sitting outside their apartment complex enjoying the local fireworks show when they were murdered. Investigators said Kelley did not know the group of victims before the deadly attack. From what I can gather, the people in that Mini Cooper were going block to block causing havoc and escalating things as they moved [in our direction] and when they got here, Kelley just got out of the car and started stabbing people, Cook said. He was charged with two felony counts of murder with the special circumstance of multiple murders, three felony counts of attempted murder, one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon, and one misdemeanor count of battery on a police officer. He was also charged with a felony enhancement of the personal use of a deadly weapon. The special circumstances murder charges make Kelley eligible for a maximum sentence of the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole, said the Orange County District Attorneys Office. Kelley is accused of spitting on a Huntington Beach police officer and using a racial slur while he was being arrested. A day of celebrating America and all the freedoms we all enjoy turned into deadly chaos at the hands of a stranger, said O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer. Violence of any kind will never be acceptable and while we mourn the loss of Eric and William we remain steadfast in our commitment to justice to hold their killer accountable for their deaths and the trauma he inflicted on those he injured and those who witnessed this carnage. A GoFundMe to help Hodges family with funeral service expenses can be found here. He was a beacon of light in all of our lives, Cook said. He inspired all of us and he will be greatly missed. 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. A woman and her baby head to West Oakland on a BART train. A thousand residents of West Oakland will be receiving prepaid debit cards with $320 on them for use on public transit. (Liz Hafalia / Getty Images) After a 2021 pilot program showed potential benefits of "universal basic mobility" in Oakland, the city has doubled down on incentives for public transit. A thousand residents of West Oakland will be receiving prepaid debit cards with $320 on them for use on public transit, the city said in a statement Thursday. The criteria? Participants in the pilot program must reside or work in West Oakland and earn less than the area's median income: $103,500. Though a six-figure salary may not strike many as "low-income," the city's news release categorizes it as such. Read more: This L.A. County city is the latest to offer unconditional cash. It aims to provide relief to families The cards, issued on a first-come, first-served basis, can be used for Clipper cards or on individual fares from "BART, AC Transit, BayWheels bike share, Lime and VeoRide E-scooters, Amtrak and other forms of public transportation," the city said. In total, the project will cost $400,000, and draws on a 2021 pilot program in East Oakland that distributed up to $150 in prepaid cards to 500 residents. In the 2021 pilot, "40% of participants changed the way they traveled," the city said, and 23% drove alone less often. Read more: South L.A. residents can get $150 a month in transit funds. What you need to know "Too many West Oakland residents struggle to afford their transportation costs," said Josh Rowan, a spokesman for Oakland's Department of Transportation. The project will help people use more sustainable transit options "while reducing auto dependence and wear and tear on our roads," he said. Universal basic income has been a popular topic in California, with a number of cities, including Pomona, giving out cash to help struggling residents. Universal basic mobility programs are more rare. A 2022 pilot program in South L.A. offered $150 in credits in a "mobility wallet" for 2,000 residents to use on public transit. 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. WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) A man was sentenced to over 10 years imprisonment for fentanyl and cocaine trafficking. Dexter Yard, 36, of Wilkes-Barre, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years and 10 months imprisonment on the charge of distribution of fentanyl and cocaine. Explosion destroys Wayne County home According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, Yard previously pleaded guilty and admitted that on August 17, 2021, he distributed fentanyl and cocaine to another individual in Luzerne County. The charge comes from a sting operation in which members of the Wilkes-Barre Police Department and the Pennsylvania State Police made a purchase of fentanyl and cocaine from Yard and then arrested him. According to the report, a search of the vehicle Yard was driving resulted in the seizure of a fully loaded .38 caliber handgun, drug paraphernalia, and the money police used to purchase the drugs from Yard. 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. A Macomb County child has a confirmed case of measles and exposed others to the virus at a motel and a hospital emergency department as well as potentially other places across southeastern Michigan from June 24-July 2, state and Macomb County health officials said Friday. The child was diagnosed with the highly contagious virus on July 3, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported. Anyone who was in the following places at the following dates and times is advised to contact the Macomb County Health Department or their medical provider and monitor for symptoms for 21 days after the exposure: Motel 6, 8300 Chicago Road, Warren: June 26. Children's Hospital of Michigan Troy emergency department, 350 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy: 1:30-4 p.m. June 30. The Macomb County Health Department is continuing to do contact tracing to identify other exposure sites, times and dates. Exposed workers from the motel and hospital have been notified and are being monitored by local health departments. The measles virus This is Michigan's sixth case of measles this year. Measles is so infectious, viral particles can remain in the air for as long as two hours after an infected person leaves the room and 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed will become infected. Those infected can spread measles before noticing symptoms. "Along with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, we continue to monitor this case," said Andrew Cox, director/health officer of the Macomb County Department of Health and Community Services, in an emailed statement to the Free Press. "We have not been able to identify any record of vaccination for the child. Because measles is vaccine preventable and very contagious, we encourage everyone to make sure they're up-to-date on their measles vaccine. If you're not up-to-date, contact your health care provider or your local health department to get your vaccine as soon as possible." Although the child's measles infection was identified on July 3, it wasn't until nine days later that the state and local health departments alerted the public. That's well beyond the cut-off date for when post-exposure prophylaxis can be used to prevent infection. Chelsea Wuth, a spokesperson for the state health department, told the Free Press Friday that the Macomb County Health Department "immediately reached out to notify any potentially exposed individuals." She added: "While health officials believe there is minimal risk to public health, as a precaution, MDHHS is notifying the public of possible exposure sites in parts of southeast Michigan from June 24 to July 2, 2024." No known international travel is associated with this case, health officials said. More: State's top doctor: Measles outbreak likely in Michigan because of low vaccination rates What should I do if I think I was exposed to measles? If you believe you were exposed to the virus at Children's Hospital of Michigan Troy or at Motel 6 in Warren or any other location, contact your health care provider or the Macomb County Health Department at 586-783-8190 for vaccination information and additional guidance. Also, monitor for symptoms for 21 days after the date of potential exposure. If symptoms develop, call ahead before visiting a doctor, urgent care center, or hospital emergency department so they can take precautions to avoid exposing others. What are symptoms of measles? Symptoms typically start within seven-14 days of exposure, but also have been known to appear as long as 21 days after initial exposure and can include: Fever, which may rise above 104 degrees. Respiratory symptoms such as runny nose, cough, and red, watery eyes. Two to three days after symptoms begin, tiny white spots, known as Koplik spots, may develop on the inner cheeks, gums and roof of the mouth. Three to five days after symptoms begin, a rash that is red, raised and blotchy appears. It usually begins on the face and spreads to the trunk, arms and legs. How serious is a measles infection? Measles can cause serious illness, long-term disability and death in people of all ages. So far in 2024, 167 people in the U.S. have had confirmed measles cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Of them, 53% were hospitalized for treatment of complications; the majority of hospitalizations were among children. About 1 in 20 kids with measles develops pneumonia. Roughly 1 out of every 1,000 children who have measles infections will also have encephalitis. Brain swelling from encephalitis can lead to convulsions, permanent hearing loss, intellectual disability and death, according to the CDC. Anywhere from 1 to 3 out of every 1,000 children with measles dies from respiratory or neurologic complications from the virus. How can measles be prevented? Preventing measles is simple all residents should get vaccinated to prevent this disease, said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state's chief medical executive, in a statement. Vaccination can prevent illness and provide peace of mind in case you or your family member is exposed. As we get ready for back-to-school season, now is a great time to check with your health care provider to make sure you are current with all your vaccines. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the following when it comes to the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine: A first dose for children at 12-15 months old, with a booster dose administered between ages 4 and 6. Anyone born during or after 1957 without evidence of immunity against measles or documentation of having been vaccinated with two doses of MMR vaccine should get vaccinated. The second dose should be given no sooner than 28 days after the first. People exposed to measles who cannot document immunity against the virus should get post-exposure prophylaxis a dose of the vaccine to potentially provide protection within 72 hours of initial exposure, or immunoglobulin within six days of exposure. A single-dose vial of the measles-mumps-rubella virus vaccine live, or MMR vaccine is shown at the practice of Dr. Charles Goodman in Northridge, Calif., on Jan. 29, 2015. In addition to the latest case in Macomb County, MDHHS also reported the following other measles infections this year: A 4-year-old from Detroit who was unvaccinated had a confirmed case of the virus in April, and exposed others at DMC Children's Hospital of Michigan, an urgent care center and a pharmacy in the city. Two cases were identified in March in Washtenaw County. The second person is believed to have been exposed to the virus at Trinity Health Ann Arbor's waiting and triage area, where another Washtenaw County resident contagious with measles had gone for care. An adult from Wayne County who had traveled internationally and had no record of measles immunization had the virus in February. An Oakland County child who was unvaccinated and had traveled internationally was the first known case of measles in Michigan this year, state health officials announced Feb. 23. Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Free Press. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The child was diagnosed with the highly contagious virus on July 3. Music thumped and air hissed as Milwaukee Public Schools students filled balloons Friday in advance of the Republican National Convention and former President Donald Trump's speech as the party's nominee. The students filled nearly 100,000 red, white and blue balloons at Fiserv Forum before the convention, which kicks off Monday. The balloons will be dropped at the end of Trump's speech accepting his party's nomination to run for a second term in the White House. The students expressed excitement at being part of a unique moment in their city's history. "We were here; we did this," said Edward Cook, incoming senior at Golda Meir School. "I made history somehow, just to be a part of it, I made history." The balloon release is part of a student ambassador program for local high school students. Milwaukee high school students part of local program The 20 students from eight schools were selected in March to participate in a five-week program through the Marcus Corp. It includes customer service training, in addition to information on the RNC process and its economic impact. During the RNC week, students will be assigned to one of three Marcus Hotels to assist guests with recommendations and directions. They will be compensated through the Employ Milwaukee Earn and Learn program. Catherine Rufer, teacher-leader for the internship program, said it is apolitical and focuses on providing opportunity for students, regardless of their political ideologies. "Our groups helped to make these thousands of balloons happen in a pretty historical event that most people will never attend, much less see the inside of," Rufer said. "It's a really cool experience." Who are the students filling balloons for the RNC? Rufer said many students did not have an interest in politics before joining the program but have since become motivated to expand their knowledge. For one student, his involvement in the political program holds special meaning. "I hold value being here as an African-American male," said Keith Neely, incoming senior at Washington High School. "It shows that I have a hand and a voice in these things." Balloons are collected in a net July 12 as Milwaukee Public School students fill some of the nearly 100,000 balloons that will be lifted into place for the final minutes of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum. Another student from Ronald Reagan High School said the arrival of the RNC and the former president could draw unwanted attention, but she hopes it also helps Milwaukee's economy. As a first-time voter, Emeline Weisnicht hopes for one thing: "We need change," Weisnicht said. "I probably will vote for Trump, specifically because everything has been so bad with Biden in office. We need something different." Emeline Weisnicht, a 17-year-old rising senior at Ronald Reagan High School, inflates a balloon July 12 as Milwaukee Public School students fill some of the nearly 100,000 balloons that will be lifted into place for the final minutes of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum. Cook said he is apolitical and does not feel any specific way about the RNC's arrival in Milwaukee. "I don't feel scared, I don't feel angry," Cook said. "I just feel like it's just a guy who's coming to Milwaukee. He's coming to our city, and that's pretty cool." But another student said she's excited to have the RNC in Milwaukee. "It gets everyone more involved in politics, and I think that's what we need," said Elise Mucker, an incoming senior at Ronald Reagan High School. "A lot of people, they don't do much research on what's actually happening here. I think it'll be good for the city.' Elise Mucker, a 17-year-old rising senior at Ronald Reagan High School, talks about taking part in the July 12 balloon inflation process. Milwaukee Public School students filled some of the nearly 100,000 balloons that will be lifted into place for the final minutes of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum. Making a mark on history at the Republican National Convention Cook said he was excited to help with the balloon drop because it gave him an opportunity to be part of something big. "It's going to be a huge memory because I'm a part of that, because I created it. I was involved in it," Cook said. But it wasn't just the students who got to make a mark. "It's pretty surreal because you're going to see all this on TV," Rufer said. "I've never been a part of history like this." Jolan Kruse can be reached at jkruse@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPS students fill thousands of red, white, blue balloons for RNC NEW YORK (AP) Toward the end of his closely watched news conference Thursday night on the sidelines of the NATO summit, President Joe Biden was talking about being examined by doctors for his mental acuity. Suddenly, a little frustration slipped through. No matter what I did, he said, "no one's going to be satisfied. That's the challenge Biden faced during his meeting with American and international reporters, two weeks after a poor debate performance ignited calls for him to step aside and let another candidate take up the Democratic campaign against former president Donald Trump. Biden was animated at times, particularly during an opening statement when he spoke about the importance of the NATO alliance and delivered a defense of his presidency on issues of the economy and the border with Mexico. He relished an opportunity to talk about the nation's relations with China and where that might go. But on the very first question put to him, he also rewarded viewers, opponents and journalists who were looking for gaffes: He referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Donald Trump. He rambled at times, dropping in stray facts inexplicably, and came across as tired, particularly as the hour drifted past 8 p.m. Eastern. His voice was gravelly and, at times, tentative. Ultimately, the news conference was an ink-blot test for people who were watching him, NBC News' Hallie Jackson said at the end. Supporters were likely encouraged by his grasp of issues, she said, but if you think he should step off the ticket, this probably didn't change your mind." Pressed by journalists and appearing determined Biden appeared determined and gave no indication that he doubted his ability to be the best candidate to take on Trump in the November general election. Yet the news conference indicated how difficult it will be for him to change the subject. The first five questions, taken together, formed a volley on the same topic: his ability to perform in the office. Even reporters who brought up other topics Ukraine, China, NATO usually mixed in questions about his fitness to serve moving forward. Even after Biden had called an end to the news conference, NBC's Peter Alexander asked a question about his flub with Harris' name and how Trump was already using it as ammunition against him.. The news conference had been widely anticipated throughout the week, leaving pundits to repeatedly emphasize the stakes. Tension between journalists and the Biden team has been running high, an outgrowth of the president giving relatively few news conferences and interviews compared to his predecessors. Little of that hostility was evident at the news conference, but the questions he faced were still pointed. Story continues Have you spent time thinking about what an election loss would mean for his legacy? Is Vice President Harris ready to serve as president? How can you say you'd be able to handle the rigors of the job in two or three years? How can you reassure Americans that there won't be more bad nights like the debate? Are you open to taking more cognitive tests? ABC's George Stephanopoulos bored in on the same issues during their prime-time interview last week, and NBC's Lester Holt is likely to do the same with their interview scheduled for Monday. Assessments across the media spectrum Some of the immediate pundit reaction on live newscasts was as expected: MSNBCs Joy Reid suggested gaffes like mixing up a name arent likely to hurt Biden, because theyre what people who know him have come to expect. On Fox, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said, it was hard to watch. It was a car wreck. How much is it gonna take? Fox News' Jesse Watters said. Is this guy that pain-tolerant that he can withstand this type of beating from now until the convention? Yet Fox's Martha MacCallum said, I think he was able to get out there and do fairly well given how low the bar has become. David Axelrod, a former aide to President Barack Obama who has angered some on the Biden team with candid assessments of the campaign as a commentator on CNN, said he didn't think the news conference was likely to change too many minds. The issue really isn't about his record or history, Axelrod said. It's about his ability to move forward. And when he was asked those questions, he really didn't have a great answer for what people should expect in the future. The debate had been over for mere minutes on some networks, just seconds before pundits and reporters began talking about how that discussion will continue. ___ David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder. Madeline Soto case: Jail emails released between man accused of killing teen and his family The family of the man accused of killing Madeline Soto seems to think hes covering for someone. Channel 9 obtained emails on Thursday between Stephen Sterns and his family since hes been in jail. One email from a relative named Chris says he is, Disgusted that she is free, and you are not when this is not all your fault. Read: Madeline Soto case: Stephan Sterns murder trial delayed The name of the person hes talking about was blocked out by law enforcement. That e-mail also mentions a child, saying, I think of the craziness they lived through, and said it was not a stable life at all for a child. Read: I miss her so much: Madeline Sotos biological father speaks out about death, disappearance Sterns is set to be back in court in October. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. MAGA congresswoman Lauren Boebert was reportedly pulled over for speeding in May and then failed to pay her fine on time, causing her case to be escalated to court. Boebert, who recently won the Republican nomination for the US House in Colorados 4th Congressional District, was driving on the Vail Pass portion of I-70 westbound in Colorado on May 12, the Colorado State Patrol told CBS. It was around 10:05 a.m. when she was caught driving 84 mph in her black Mazda CX-50, speeding 19 mph over the 65 mph speed limit. As a result, the Republican was issued a $174.50 ticket with no other charges on her citation, state patrol said. Colorados Department of Revenue mandates that tickets must be paid off within 20 days of the violation to prevent the citation from being sent to court. If a ticket is more than 40 days old, the department says it can no longer accept payment, and the case will be referred to court. Court records seen by CBS show that Boebert had her citation referred to an Eagle County court due to a late payment. This is not the first time Boebert has had a brush with the law over her actions behind the wheel. (AP) Drew Sexton, the congresswomans campaign manager, confirmed that the speeding ticket was eventually paid off on July 3. Sexton also told Westword, a Denver publication, that Boebert had sent a check for the ticket to the revenue department rather than paying it through the online system, but the check somehow wound up being sent back to her. The spokesperson said it was unclear why she sent a check rather than using the online system. I dont know what happened before the ticket came to us, an Eagle County court clerk told the local outlet. "She called and said, I have a ticket with a court date and I need to take care of it. She contacted the court on July 3 and paid it online." The court records reportedly show that the case was closed on July 9 with a plea agreement. This is not the first time Boebert has had a brush with the law over her actions behind the wheel. She recalled another incident from 2016, when she and her husband were driving home after closing up her restaurant, in her 2022 book My American Life in a chapter titled Pretty Little Mugshots. In order to get home, she said she had to drive up Stephens Hills, the steepest and most dangerous road in town. Its a tough drive during the day, but especially so at night. Theres a tight hairpin turn with no guardrail where plenty of people have had accidents; some have even died, she wrote. With that in mind, I drove slowly up the hill, but danger was literally around the corner as my front wheel caught the edge of the shoulder, and the truck slid off the side and flipped into a ditch fifteen feet below. Boebert and her husband left the crash site and walked home to call in the accident. When they returned to the scene to meet with a state trooper, he cited her for reckless driving. Months later, Boebert found herself in a position that many parents have faced: She was running late to drop her kids off at school. She admits that she started speeding as she rushed to drop them off and got pulled over by a police officer. She soon learned that there was a warrant out for her arrest as she had failed to pay her first ticket for reckless driving on the night she flipped her truck, and she was arrested. "This was not a proud mom moment," she wrote. Despite laying out in detail all of the extenuating circumstances and perceived injustices that colored her arrests, Boebert does take responsibility for her actions near the end of the chapter. "But when it gets down to it, I dont really have an excuse. I should have shown up to court. I should paid the tickets on time. I should have shown law enforcement the respect they deserve," she wrote. "I should have played by the rules." The Independent has contacted Boeberts campaign for further comment. Democratic donors are reportedly freezing $90 million in pledged donations to a Biden super PAC. The donors plan to withhold the cash unless Biden steps aside, sources told the NYT. Already, some megadonors and Hollywood bigwigs have publicly pressured Biden to end his campaign. Donors told a leading Biden super PAC that they're pausing around $90 million of promised funds unless the president steps aside, two sources told the New York Times. Some of the pledges were going to stretch into the eight-figures. Future Forward is the biggest super PAC supporting Biden and declined to comment on the fallout. A spokesperson did tell The Times that the PAC expects donors to return once the uncertainty about the campaign sorts itself out. Biden, for one, seems sorted he is digging in his heels about staying in the race, but Democrats are reluctant to accept his answer. The withheld donations illustrate the depth of the president's post-debate woes and upward battle. Though the campaign touted huge June fundraising numbers to try and assuage spooked Democrats, it is gearing up for a tough money cycle in July. Some huge donors and longtime Hollywood supporters have already asked the president to end his campaign. The president's consequential press conference following the NATO summit did little to soothe Democrats' anxieties, but did not tank his reelection bid, either. Several more congressional Democrats publicly asked him to pass the torch following the presser. Even Biden's own campaign staff seems to understand the depth of his current crisis. His analytics team reportedly conducted a survey measuring Kamala Harris' performance in a head-to-head battle against Donald Trump. While Biden has tried to brush off calls for him to step down as elitist or out-of-touch with everyday Americans, new polling indicates broad concern with his campaign. And elitist or not, Democrats need money to run a campaign, especially as Republicans have eroded their cash advantage. Read the original article on Business Insider Man, 74, shot and killed in possible drug-related hit in East Village: sources Man, 74, shot and killed in possible drug-related hit in East Village: sources EAST VILLAGE, Manhattan (PIX11) A masked gunman opened fire in an East Village park, killing a 74-year-old man and injuring another in a possible drug-related incident Friday morning, according to police and sources. The suspect allegedly shot the 74-year-old man and another man, 44, in the back in Tompkins Sqaure Park near East Seventh Street and Avenue A at around 9:45 a.m., according to the NYPD. Sources said the men were targeted in a possible drug-related dispute. More Local News The victims were rushed to the hospital where the 74-year-old man died, police said. The younger man is in critical condition, as of Friday afternoon. One of the men stumbled into a nearby deli, where he collapsed, sources said. The store workers tried to help him before calling 911. Both victims have extensive criminal records with more than 30 arrests between the two of them. Surveillance video showed the gunman wearing all black minutes before he shot the two victims, police sources 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. CARTER COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) A man who was reportedly seeking asylum in the United States was charged with fraud and financial exploitation of a Carter County woman, police released on Friday. According to the Carter County Sheriffs Office, an investigation began on Nov. 6, 2023, after a woman called 911 reporting she had been a victim of fraud. The woman reportedly told police she had received a notification on her computer stating it had a virus and she needed to contact the number provided. THP: Driver cited after boat trailer crash in Carter County The woman said she called the number and was told that someone was attempting to access child pornography on her computer, the CCSO said in a news release. She was then transferred to the fraud department after the person on the phone told her someone was trying to gain access to her financial information and bank account. The woman was then told she needed to withdraw $30,500 from her financial institution to give to a man who would come to her home, the release stated. The person on the phone reportedly told the woman not to inform anyone of the transaction. A man, later identified by police as Xiaozhong Zheng, 50, of Brooklyn, New York, came to the home, showed the woman an identification card and collected the money. The CCSO stated the woman told police Zheng laughed when she handed him the money. Investigators then contacted the Department of Homeland Security Investigations due to Zhengs identification card being labeled as a temporary visitor to the United States. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Crime Watch An investigation found that Zheng had an active employment authorization document (EAD) allowing him to work in the United States. He also reportedly applied for asylum in the United States, the CCSO stated. A warrant for Zhengs arrest was issued on May 1. He was arrested in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and was extradited to Carter County. Zheng was charged with the following: Financial exploitation of elderly or vulnerable persons Fraud Theft of property Zheng was booked into the Carter County Detention Center on Wednesday. As of Friday, he remains without bond pending 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 WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. Man accused of murdering 13-year-old Florida girl on Fourth of July Man accused of murdering 13-year-old Florida girl on Fourth of July TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A man has been arrested after a 13-year-old was found dead on the Fourth of July in Orlando, NBC affiliate WESH reports. The Orange County Sheriffs Office said it arrested 28-year-old Jerry Loreeson Dorisme and charged him with first-degree felony murder. WESH reports the victim, Rose Thalie Dieujuste, was found unresponsive with signs of trauma on the holiday. She was rushed to the hospital where she died from her injuries. Deputies told WESH they located Dorisme thanks to help from the community after releasing a video showing a suspect leaving the parking lot where the girl was found. The Orange County Sheriffs Office will hold a news conference Friday at 10 a.m. to provide details on the 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 WFLA. A man was arrested this week on suspicion of homicide after a person was killed in a south Sacramento shooting last month, the Sacramento County Sheriffs Office said. Deputies were called to assist firefighters at 4:30 a.m. June 17 near I Parkway and Forest Parkway for a man who had suffered a gunshot wound. The man was pronounced dead and later identified as 31-year-old Sherman Gage, the Sheriffs Office said in a news release. Sheriffs detectives and investigators interviewed witnesses and collected evidence as part of their investigation into Gages death. From their investigation, Homicide Detectives identified 23-year-old Denisho Collins as a suspect in the homicide, the news release stated. The suspect was in possession of a loaded gun when he was arrested, the Sheriffs Office said. Collins was booked Tuesday into the Sacramento County Main Jail. Jail logs online show he is ineligible for bail. Collins is scheduled to appear in Sacramento Superior Court next Thursday, sheriffs deputies said. The investigation into Gages murder is ongoing. The Sacramento County Sheriffs Office called on anyone with information to contact them at 916-874-5115 or Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers at 916-443-HELP (4357). FAIR LAWN, N.J. (PIX11) A man allegedly caused a crash and hit a person with his vehicle Monday evening in Fair Lawn, according to police. Noberto Herrera, 66, was arrested for assault by auto, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to report an accident, unsafe lane change, and careless driving charges. More Local News Police located a 70-year-old victim and his son on Bergen Avenue at around 7:20 p.m. The victim told officers that he was driving on Plaza Road at Fairmount Place when he was struck by a white Hyundai Sonata, which drove away. The victim and his son allegedly followed the vehicle to try and identify the driver. When the victim got out of his vehicle, he was struck, police said. Girl, 1, and mother, 16, go missing in the Bronx: NYPD The victim was taken to the Hackensack University Medical Center for treatment. 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. Chester sheriffs deputies arrested a man for trafficking fentanyl Thursday after a chase where law enforcement video shows the suspects truck flipped up on its front end at the end of the pursuit, officials said. Eric Bernard Jones, 51, is charged with trafficking fentanyl and methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute drugs, failure to stop for blue lights and driving with a suspended license, according to Chester County jail records and a statement from the Chester County Sheriffs Office. The pursuit that reached 85 mph happened after 6:30 a.m., officials said. It went across town from the J.A. Cochran Bypass to Ashford Road, according to officials and video released on the sheriffs office Facebook. Officers made a traffic stop on Jones close to Chester High School, officials said. The video shows Jones talking to deputies before closing the drivers door and driving away. Officers followed Jones to nearby Ashford Road where the truck went off the side of the road and flipped up before coming to rest on its tires, the video shows. The released video of just over one minute includes clips from police dash cam and body cameras, sheriffs office spokesperson Londa Pringle said. Law enforcement searched the truck and seized around 112 grams of drugs believed to be fentanyl, and approximately 56 grams of a substance believed to be meth, the sheriffs office said in the statement. The sheriffs office said $4,373 in cash and other pills were also seized. In a statement, Chester County Sheriff Max Dorsey said the amount of fentanyl seized converts to about 56,000 potentially deadly doses. Thats nearly double the population of the rural South Carolina county. This is not just statistics; its about the lives of families, friends, and neighbors that we are working tirelessly to protect from this deadly threat, Dorsey said. Jones was taken to a hospital for treatment after the wreck, then taken to the Chester County jail where he remains without bond, the sheriff statement said. Fentanyl, meth laws and dangers A trafficking law for fentanyl in South Carolina went into effect in 2023. Before the law took effect, fentanyl cases were prosecuted under a lesser charge. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA says fentanyl is inexpensive, widely available, highly addictive, and lethal. Meth is a powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) The man who was fatally shot by a police officer in La Jolla after walking toward police with a knife has been identified, authorities said. On Saturday around 7 a.m., authorities received multiple reports about a man with a knife causing a disturbance in the 5400 block of La Jolla Blvd, San Diego County Sheriffs Department said in a news release Thursday. When police arrived on scene, officers found a man in his 20s next to a car stopped in the road. New arrest made in connection with surfers deaths in Baja California As officers approached, the subject advanced toward them with a knife. The officers drew their service weapons and gave the subject verbal commands to drop the weapon, police said. One of the officers fired his weapon and struck Dejon Marques Heard, 25, of San Diego, according to authorities. The suspect was taken to the hospital where he later died. The officer who fired his weapon was Tarik Andrew, a patrol officer at SDPDs Northern Division who has been with the department for three years. 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. Big Lots will close 35 to 40 stores this year as the company struggles with a tough consumer market. In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the discount retailer said it planned to close 35 to 40 stores this year and open three. The company reported 1,392 operating stores at the start of 2024, down from 1,425 in the first quarter of 2023. In 2024, the U.S. economy has continued to face macroeconomic challenges including elevated inflation, which has adversely impacted the buying power of our customers, the filing from Big Lots said. Here's what to know about the Big Lots closures and how Arizona might be affected. Why is Big Lots closing? A logo of Big Lots is seen outside a store in Niles, lllinois, U.S. May 23, 2016. The retailer, like many others, has grappled with declining sales amid rising prices and a downturn in consumer spending. According to the financial disclosure, sales dropped 10.2% between the first quarters of 2023 and 2024, equating to a loss of about $114.5 million. The company also took on an additional $72.2 million, bringing the total from $501.6 million in the first quarter of 2023 to $573.8 million for the first quarter of this year. The company also said it had "substantial doubt" about the ability of the company to continue operation, leading to speculation of a potential bankruptcy filing. More: Babies R Us shops are coming to 200 Kohl's locations. See where in Arizona they will be Which Big Lots stores are closing? The document did not disclose the locations at which stores would be closing. Big Lots did not immediately respond to requests for comment and closing information. More: These stores are offering big deals before Amazon Prime Day. Here's how to shop them Big Lots stores in Arizona There are 34 Big Lots locations in Arizona, with 18 in metro Phoenix. These are the addresses, according to Apache Junction : 10603 E. Apache Trail Bullhead City : 2350 Miracle Mile Casa Grande : 1346 E. Florence Blvd. Flagstaff : 1416 E. Route 66 Gilbert : 2817 S. Market St. Glendale : 17510 N. 75th Ave.; 6660 W. Cactus Road Goodyear : 409 N. Litchfield Road Green Valley : 18705 S. I-19 Frontage Road Kingman : 3320 N. Stockton Hills Road Lake Havasu City : 1799 Kiowa Ave. Laveen : 3630 W. Baseline Rd. Mesa : 1110 W. Southern Ave.; 2840 E. Main St.; 2840 E Main St. Payson : 400 E. SR 260 Peoria : 24760 N. Lake Pleasant Parkway Phoenix : 2020 N. 75th Ave.; 230 E. Bell Road; 2330 W. Bethany Home Road; 3543 W. Thunderbird Road; 4727 E. Bell Road; 4835 E. Ray Road Prescott : 1260 Gail Gardner Way Scottsdale : 10220 N. 90th St. Show Low : 4421 S. White Mountain Road Sierra Vista : 135 S. Highway 92 Surprise : 14537 W. Grand Av.e Tempe : 940 E. Baseline Road Tucson : 2520 S. Harrison Road; 3900 W. Ina Road; 4525 N. Oracle Road; 7025 E. Tanque Verde Road Yuma: 1625 S. Fourth Ave. Story continues Other stores closing locations Several prominent restaurant and retail chains have filed for bankruptcy since the pandemic, including Red Lobster and Bed Bath & Beyond. Other companies have announced rounds of store closures, including Walgreens and Hooters. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Big Lots is closing up to 40 stores. Will any Arizona locations close? MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) A man charged in the death of Dennis Day, an original cast member on Walt Disneys Mickey Mouse Club television program in the 1950s, has been sentenced to just over four years in prison after entering a modified guilty plea this week. Daniel Burda, 41, pleaded no contest Monday to charges of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of a corpse. Burda was a live-in handyman at Days home in Phoenix, Oregon, but Day, 76, had been trying to evict him around the time he disappeared in mid-2018. A no-contest plea is a concession that the state can prove criminal charges at trial and carries the same legal effect as a guilty plea. More Local News Prosecutors said Burda caused Days death and then used Days identity to spend money. Days badly decomposed body wasnt discovered for nine months, beneath a pile of clothes at the home. His family has sued the Phoenix Police Department, saying its failure to discover his remains in his own home for so long despite having been to the home multiple times caused emotional distress. During one search, police stepped on Days body, causing fractures to the corpse, but they still didnt find it until April 2019, when Oregon State Police came with a cadaver-sniffing dog, the lawsuit said. The delay prevented the medical examiner from being able to determine a cause of death, it said. The police department has denied the allegations. A trial is set for October in Jackson County Circuit Court. Burdas criminal case was long delayed by trips to the Oregon State Hospital to determine his mental fitness to assist in his own defense as well as other legal challenges. He faced several other charges while out of custody, court records show, and he has also recently been sentenced to two years to be served separately in a burglary case meaning he faces just over six years in all. 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. Man with gun arrested at UNLV, officials say no threat to campus LAS VEGAS (KLAS) University Police arrested a man who brought a gun to the campus of UNLV Thursday afternoon, according to an alert sent to students from the university. At around 12:50 p.m. on Thursday, July 11, University Police received reports of a man with a concealed weapon in the Financial Aid and Cashiering Offices, located on the southwest part of UNLVs Maryland Parkway Campus. Police responded and approached the suspect, who ran away from the officers. According to the university, officers were able to apprehend the suspect on campus without further incident. The suspect did not brandish the weapon at any time during the incident, the university said. The suspect is being booked into the Clark County Detention Center on charges of possession of a firearm on school grounds, resisting arrest, and trespass. The university said in the alert that this was an isolated event and there is no ongoing threat to the UNLV Maryland Parkway campus, but there will be an enhanced visible presence by police in the area of the incident and throughout the campus. The university did not say how long the enhanced visible presence would be on campus. 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. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) A man was sentenced to three terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 75 years to life, for the 2000 shooting and killing of three people, including a baby, prosecutors said. Sergio Contreras, 47, was found guilty in the shooting deaths of 27-year-old Michael Plummer, 18-year-old Adah Pearson and 22-month-old Julio Rangel, Jr., San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a news release Thursday. In September 2000, Contreras began to shoot into an apartment after one of the residents didnt pay for a small amount of illegal drugs, according to prosecutors. This San Diego County freeway is one of the most dangerous in California, study says Contreras shot Plummer more than a dozen times, Pearson was shot in the heart while sleeping on the couch and another shot went through the wall and struck Rangel, Jr. in the head as he was asleep on a bed. Following the shooting, Contreras left the scene. The case went cold for several years until 2007 when murder chargers were filed as more witnesses came forward. Contreras, who was serving time in Mexico for an unrelated robbery and murder, was extradited to San Diego in 2023. 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. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) After federal investigators found a mans photos of stacks of cash and conversations about selling cellphones, a jury convicted him of transporting stolen electronics from Michigan to Illinois as part of a criminal conspiracy. A jury convicted Tayseer Yousef, 48, of Tinley Park Illinois, of two counts of transporting stolen goods on the interstate and one count of conspiring to do so. U.S. Attorneys say in 2020 and 2021, members of a crime ring in West Michigan stole electronic devices like cellphones and tablets from Target stores and cellphone stores like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Federal charges in brazen cellphone store robbery ring In an indictment, federal attorneys called them hostile takeover-style robberies. Multiple masked people went into the store, took electronic devices and quickly drove away. Sometimes, weapons were brandished and employees and customers were threatened, attorneys said. Yousef was convicted of buying cellphones after two of those robberies. The first happened on Nov. 15, 2020 at the AT&T store on Alpine Avenue NW in Grand Rapids. Five masked people forced store employees to a safe and stole over 60 electronic devices worth over $47,000, according to federal attorneys. The second was on Jan. 20, 2021. Three people robbed a T-Mobile store on 84th Street SW in Byron Township, shoving an employee to a back room and forcing them to open a safe. They stole six apple watches and over 40 cellphones worth more than $39,000, the indictment says. According to court documents, Yousef then met up with the thieves to pick up the stolen phones and drove them to the Chicago area to use or sell at his own cellphone store in Tinley Park. Some he sold and shipped to China and Dubai, according to evidence investigators found. After getting a warrant, federal investigators found photos of Yousef with bundles of cash, as well as photos of stacks of cellphone boxes and other devices. They also found text conversations about selling and buying cellphones. Yousefs sentencing date has not yet been scheduled, but he could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for conspiring to transport stolen goods on the interstate. For the two counts of interstate transportation of stolen goods, he could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. 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. ST. LOUIS A Ferguson, Missouri, man who orchestrated a plot to steal checks from U.S. mail appeared in federal court on Thursday to be sentenced. Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said Dareon Graham, 23, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit mail theft, bank fraud, and possession of stolen mail matter. A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Graham to 27 months in federal prison. Graham admitted that he obtained a stolen mail collection box key in 2022 and then gave that key to Tyrell Hardin. Graham agreed to pay Hardin to steal mail from certain collection boxes in and around St. Louis County. St. Louis bill would rename street outside City Hall after Michael Brown Hardin would give the stolen mail to Graham, whod open the mail and remove the checks. Prosecutors said Graham recruited account holders at local banks and credit unions to deposit the stolen checks after Graham had altered them. Graham either deposited or oversaw the deposit of fraudulent checks totaling at least $103,457; he obtained $46,434 in proceeds from the scheme. Co-defendant Hardin pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail theft and two counts of mail theft. 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. Man pleads guilty to dozens of counts of animal cruelty in Topeka TOPEKA (KSNT) Charles Solomon, a man accused of animal cruelty after almost 100 animals were found in deplorable conditions in Topeka, pleaded guilty to all charges on Friday. The Shawnee County District Attorneys office says Solomon pleaded guilty to all 26 counts of animal cruelty. On Jan. 30, 2023, Topeka police served a search warrant to seize animals that were at a home in the 1400 block of Southwest Fillmore Street, according to a press release from a spokeswoman with the Office of the Shawnee County District Attorney. The Topeka Police Department (TPD) announced it found 91 animals in the house. They seized 73 living animals and recovered 18 dead. TPD and the Humane Society of the United States discovered more than 10 dead animals in a freezer in the house. Dogs, cats, a guinea pig, a rat, a wild bird and a hawk were inside the home along with chicken remains in a bathtub near the back of the property. City of Topeka projects $15 million general fund deficit Solomon has a court hearing scheduled for Sept. 5, 2024 to schedule his sentencing. Court records show the other suspect, Desiree Therrien who is facing eight counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty, has her next court hearing in August. No trial date is listed. 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. 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. A man charged in the death of Dennis Day, an original cast member on Disneys Mickey Mouse Club television program, has been sentenced to slightly more than four years in prison. Daniel Burda, 41, pleaded no contest Monday to charges of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors said Burda caused Days death and then used his identity to spend money. More from Deadline Burda was a live-in handyman at Days home in Phoenix, OR. The two fell out, and Day had been trying to evict him around the time he disappeared in mid-2018. A no-contest plea is a concession that the state can prove criminal charges at trial and carries the same legal effect as a guilty plea. Days body wasnt discovered for nine months but eventually was found beneath a pile of clothes at the home. His condition left the medical examiner unable to determine a cause of death. His family has since sued the Phoenix Police Department, claiming emotional distress. Burdas criminal case was delayed by trips to the Oregon State Hospital to determine his mental fitness to assist in his own defense, as well as other legal challenges. He faced several other charges while out of custody, court records show. Burda was originally taken into custody on suspicion of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, abuse of a corpse, criminal mistreatment, and identity theft in connection with Days death, The Oregonian reported. He was already in custody on an unrelated robbery case when he was additionally charged in Days death. The arrest came after police picked up two Oregon women in June 2019 on charges related to the theft of several of Days personal items. Wanda Garcia and Lori Declusin faced felony charges for allegedly stealing the former actors white 1990s Ford Escort station wagon. Garcia also was accused of selling a brooch that belonged to Day in July 2018, less than a week after he was last seen alive. Born in 1942, Day began acting at age 6. The former Disney star was 76 when he was first reported missing by his husband, Ernie Caswell. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Correction: A previous version of this article included the misspelling of the individuals name, the correct spelling has been added. BRADFORD COUNTY, Pa. (WETM) A Florida man was sentenced this week to a maximum of 12 years in a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution for sex crimes he committed in December 2023. Corning sex offender arrested on child sex assault charges According to the Bradford County District Attorneys Office, 23-year-old Brandon Oneal Allen of Davenport, Florida, was sentenced to a minimum of five years to 12 years in state prison for the following offenses: Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a felony in the first degree. Corruption of minors, a felony in the third degree. Documents state that Allen was in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl in the fall of 2023 until December 2023. Following Allens time in prison, he will go through three years of probation and be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. The documents stated that failure to follow the requirements could result in more felony charges for Allen. 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. Man seriously injured in late-night Northgate shooting Seattle police are investigating a shooting that left a man seriously injured in the Northgate neighborhood late Wednesday night. Shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, officers responded to reports of a shooting in a parking lot near Stone Avenue North and North 100th Street. When they arrived, officers found a 52-year-old man suffering from gunshot wounds to his lower hip. Officers provided aid until Seattle Fire Department medics arrived and transported the man to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition. The investigation revealed that the man was involved in an altercation with a male suspect before the shooting. The suspect fled the scene in a dark-colored vehicle in an unknown direction. As of now, no suspect has been identified. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Seattle Police Department Violent Crime Tip Line at 206-233-5000, or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. Big Lots is warning investors that it might not be around much longer. The discount chain, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warned there was substantial doubt about the Companys ability to continue as a going concern. Big Lots has reported net losses and burned up its cash reserves in 2022, 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. In May, it reported a quarterly loss of $205 million, citing a continued pullback in consumer spending by our core customers, particularly in high ticket discretionary items." In the remainder of the year, Big Lots said, it plans to open three new stores, but will close between 35 and 40. (The company reported 1,392 locations at the start of 2024.) It did not disclose in the filing which locations were at risk of shutting down. The company also said it has an increasing long-term debt load, which jumped $72.2 million, from $501.6 million in the first quarter of 2023 to $573.8 million in the first quarter of 2024. Despite the dire tone of the filing, Big Lots said it plans to vigorously pursue its plans to enhance its liquidity [and] improve the performance of the business. Big Lots isnt the only discount retailer to find itself in distress this year. 99 Cents Only filed for bankruptcy in April and announced plans to close all 370 locations across the country. (A sizable number of those storefronts will be taken over by Dollar Tree.) And last month, Dollar Tree said it was exploring the sale of Family Dollar, which it acquired in 2015 for $8.5 billion. Any sale price is likely to be significantly lower, as the company has since closed nearly 1,000 stores and Dollar Tree was fined more than $40 million for a rat infestation at a warehouse, forcing hundreds of stores to close temporarily. The chain has also been in hot water with OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for hazardous conditions, including blocked exits and improper access to fire extinguishers. Dollar Tree has not set a deadline for a decision on the potential sale. Big Lots investors, though, are surprisingly optimistic. The companys shares were up more than 17% in mid-morning trading on Thursday. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Police are on the scene of a shooting and car crash in northwest Atlanta. Paramedics took one man to the hospital. Atlanta police told Channel 2 Action News that the shooting happened after 2 a.m. on Chattahoochee Ave near Defoor Circle. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] When officers arrived, they found a Dodge Durango that crashed into a Chevrolet Corvette. Inside the SUV, a man had been shot in his right hip. Police said the man was injured during a shootout or drive-by shooting, which caused the man to crash. The victim, who has not been identified, is currently stable at the hospital. Police said the Corvette was not involved in the shooting. TRENDING STORIES: IN OTHER NEWS PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) The man who shot two 17-year-olds in 2020, killing one, was sentenced Monday, more than four years after the crime. 17-year-old killed in shooting on Cherokee Road in Portsmouth Marque A. Mills accepted an Alford Plea which means he says he is innocent, but agrees the Commonwealths Attorney has enough evidence to convict him. Officers were called to the 1000 block of Cherokee Road the evening of March 1, 2020 and arrived to find a male teenager dead at the scene. Another 17-year-old who was shot survived. Mills turned himself in to detectives a week after the crime. He was originally charged with second-degree murder, aggravated malicious wounding, and two counts of use of a firearm. As a part of the plea, one of the use of a firearm charges was dismissed by the Commonwealths Attorney and the aggravated malicious wounding was reduced to malicious wounding, a lesser charge. The plea agreement obtained by WAVY News 10 stated Mills would not serve more than 15 years. However, court documents indicate Mills was sentenced to serve 23 years in jail. 10 On Your Side reached out to the Portsmouth Commonwealths Attorney regarding this sentencing discrepancy. Antoinette Ramseur with the CAs office explained that Mills would serve 15 of those years because some of the time runs concurrently, or at the same time. His time served will be followed by 10 years of supervised probation. In January of this year, a judge rejected an earlier draft of the plea agreement because it stated Mills would only serve 14 years behind bars. A lot comes to mind when viewing a situation like this. We have a person who is shot dead, and another who is shot in the head requiring multiple surgeries. This agreement says that this defendant can get no more than 14 years in the penitentiary. Portsmouth has the reputation rightly or wrongly in some places as being one of the most dangerous cities in the State of Virginia. I find this plea agreement outrageous. The Court emphatically and steadfastly rejects it. There can be no circumstances of where someone can shoot someone dead, and shoots another person in the head, and then come in here and claim Im only going to do 14 years. Not going to happen . This Court is outraged that this would even be presented in this Court. Its rejected. Judge Kenneth Melvin, according to court documents. Mills plea agreement included almost a dozen letters of support from friends and family, including his mom, dad, grandma, and employer. 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. NEW MEXICO (KRQE) A federal judge has sentenced 39-year-old Castulo Amaya, from Tularosa, New Mexico, to 78 months in prison after illegal possession of a firearm during a smuggling effort. The incident began in 2023, when U.S. Border Patrol spotted a vehicle drifting across lanes and showing suspicious driving behavior, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says. Agents questioned Amaya, who claimed the other people in the car were his children and relatives. Albuquerque Police raid downtown massage parlor for alleged prostitution After looking into those people, however, the agent concluded that six of the individuals were illegally present in the U.S. They all claimed they were from El Paso, the DOJ says. During a search, law enforcement found a loaded pistol, but Amaya was barred from possessing a gun as a previously convicted felon, the DOJ says. Another passenger, Vanessa Rodriguez-Solorio, was a U.S. citizen, but eventually pled guilty to conspiracy to transport illegal aliens and said Amaya had hired her to transport people. Then, in February of 2024, Amaya pled guilty to knowingly possessing the firearm found during the incident. After pleading guilty, Amaya has now received a 78-month prison sentence. After his release, he will have to remain under supervision for three years. 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 in Wisconsin accused of using a skateboard to threaten employees amidst a theft incident, arrested MADISON, Wis. (WFRV) A 26-year-old man in Wisconsin is accused of stealing from a wine shop and threatening employees with a skateboard. According to the Madison Police Department, a 26-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly threatened employees with a skateboard during a theft. The alleged theft happened at a wine shop, according to police. Officials say that on July 11 around 8:30 p.m. officers were sent to a store on South Bassett Street for the report of the theft. The man reportedly left the area but returned to the shop when police showed up. Cemetery in Wisconsin vandalized with swastikas, authorities looking for culprits He allegedly then ran from the officers who were there. The release says the suspect was arrested for felony bail jumping, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct while armed and retail theft. No additional information was 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. Senator Joe Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, told The Independent maybe I made a mistake when he voted on amendments that would restrict gender-affirming care for US servicemembers and their families. Earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which would cover Fiscal Year 2025. The NDAA provides authorization to appropriate money for the Department of Defense, the Department of Energys nuclear weapons programs and other defense-related activities. Republicans recently have sought to include conservative policy priorities into the bill because of its must-pass nature. Earlier this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee released its version of the bill as it prepares for a full Senate vote. But tucked into the bill are two amendments that would restrict gender-affirming care. One amendment would prohibit the coverage under the TRICARE program of certain medical procedures for children that could result in sterilization. TRICARE is the health care program for active duty US service members, their families, members of the US National Guard and Reserves, their families, retirees and their families as well as certain former spouses who were married to US service members. Around 9.6 million people use the program. A second one would prohibit the performance by the Department of Defense of sex change surgeries. Manchin, formerly a Democrat who recently became an independent, announced last year he would not seek re-election. The senator voted with every Republican on both amendments while every Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee voted against the amendments. But when asked about the amendments, Manchin said he did not know he did. I better check on that, huh? Maybe I made a mistake, he told The Independent. The Independent reached out to Manchins office for clarification. Senator Manchin believes that Americans who want to serve our country and can meet the standards should have the chance to do so, a spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent. However, taxpayer dollars should not be used to pay for any services or treatments that are associated with gender transition. The spokesperson did not clarify why Manchin said he might have made a mistake hours earlier. The US Armed Forces is the largest employer of transgender people in the United States, according to the International Center for Transgender Care. The ACLU criticized the the inclusion of the two amendments in the defense bill. This is a dangerous affront to the rights and freedom of transgender servicemembers with no financial, legal, political, or medical justification, Ian Thompson, the ACLUs senior legislative advocate, said in a statement. These treatments serve as the foundation of the lives transgender people lead, lives that trans servicemembers have offered in service to the United States armed forces. Democrats have feared that gender-affirming care might be at risk under a Trump presidency, especially considering provisions listed in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations proposed agenda for a future Republican administration. A longtime Democrat from the conservative state of West Virginia, Manchin announced in late May that he had re-registered as an independent. But for committee purposes, he continues to caucus with the Democrats. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed its version of the NDAA last month. That legislation specifically includes an amendment to prohibit coverage of certain gender transition procedures and related services under TRICARE program. I don't think that taxpayers dollars should be used for surgeries that change the physical appearance, Representative Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana who authored the amendment, told The Independent. The Senate has yet to vote on their version of the NDAA. But if it were to pass, the House and Senate would go to conference to create a compromise bill. Manchins vote almost increases the likelihood that any final version of the defense bill includes restrictions to gender-affirming care for US servicemembers and their families. Manufacturer of Gun Alec Baldwin Held in Fatal Rust Shooting Testifies Its Impossible to Fire Unless Trigger Is Pulled Alec Baldwin has repeatedly denied pulling the trigger of the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021 Luis Sanchez Saturno/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP (Left-right:) Alex Spiro and Alec Baldwin on July 8 The second day of Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial explored whether or not the actor pulled the trigger of the gun that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The 66-year-old actor-producer, who has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 18 months in prison, has repeatedly stated that he didnt pull the trigger of the prop gun that fired off a live round on the set of his Western film in 2021. Baldwin remained stoic and attentive throughout the Thursday, July 11 proceedings at Santa Fes 1st Judicial District Court of New Mexico, including during the testimony of Alessandro Pietta, a weapons manufacturer of collectible firearms. Pietta said on the stand that the Colt .45 model in question, from his company Pietta Firearms, cannot fire without a pull of trigger because the mechanics and design of trigger was made to work in this way," If you want to release the hammer, you need to pull the trigger, he added. Related: Prosecutor Paints Alec Baldwin as 'Reckless' in Opening Statements at Rust Trial During cross-examination, Baldwins attorney confirmed that Pietta did not inspect the gun that killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, and other than a picture of the gun during a previous interview via Zoom did not see or have knowledge of its condition on the Rust set. The defense had previously objected to Piettas testimony. Ross D. Franklin - Pool/Getty Alec Baldwin on July 10 Pietta testified that his guns go through quality control at his company and the government's regulatory body in his native Italy. When the prosecution team asked Justin Neal, owner of the marketing firm responsible for the importing and distribution of Pietta Firearms, if hed ever heard from customers of a Pietta revolver going off by itself, Neal responded: Never. Neal also told the prosecutor that the gun "was in perfect condition before being sold to the movies prop company, PDQ Arm and Prop, LLC. During a break in the proceedings, Baldwins wife Hilaria, dressed in a dark suit, approached her husband at the defense table. The couple whispered together for a few minutes, carefully turning their heads so others could not read their lips. Baldwin gave a small smile when she stroked his shoulder as she returned to her seat in the second row next to the 30 Rock Emmy winners brother, fellow actor Stephen Baldwin. Related: Alec Baldwins Wife Hilaria Has Faith He Will Be Found Not Guilty at End of Stressful Trial (Exclusive Source) FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin on July 10 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. The trials presiding judge, Mary Marlowe Sommer, took time early in the day to scold members of the media for not cleaning up their cups and water bottles in the courtroom. Among those attending the proceedings is Baldwins sister, Beth Keuchler. She and Stephen were spotted leaving the courtroom hand-in-hand, walking behind the Beetlejuice star and his wife. Sommer also oversaw the March trial of Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for her role in Hutchins death and earned the maximum sentence of 18 months in prison. It remains to be seen if Gutierrez-Reed will be called to testify during Baldwins trial, which is expected to run through July 19. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Many in Lebanon fear they will be caught in Hezbollah-Israel crossfire Father Jawhar Tannous sits in the Church of Transfiguration in Rmeish, Lebanon. (Diego Ibarra Sanchez / For The Times) From her balcony on the edge of this Lebanese border village, Greta Nakhleh-Allam, 33, can see Israel in almost every direction. And every morning, as the shelling between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militants starts anew, she wonders whether the clashes will end or turn into an all-consuming conflagration. "I'm tired of this war, tired of the life we're living," said Nakhleh-Allam, watching her 11-year-old son Jacob chase the family dog, Bella. "We thought it would last a week. Then we thought a month. Christmas passed. New Year passed. Easter passed. And we're still waiting for the fighting to end. And now they say it will get bigger." Clergy members celebrate Palm Sunday in Rmeish, a Lebanese village near the border with Israel, on March 24, 2024. (Mohammed Zaatari / Associated Press) That question will the fighting end or escalate? is being asked across Lebanon these days, but perhaps nowhere with more urgency than Rmeish. This village of about 11,000 people, the largest of the dozen Christian areas scattered across the Hezbollah-dominated south, finds itself on the front line of a fight that few here see as theirs. "It's not our cause. It's not our business to do this for [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar," said Said Allam, a 42-year-old onetime soldier and now supermarket owner. Sinwar is believed to be the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and sparked a ferocious counteroffensive in Gaza that health authorities there say has claimed more than 38,000 lives. Read more: With temperatures and tensions soaring, forests are burning in Israel and Lebanon The day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted, Hezbollah a Shiite Islamist paramilitary group and political party that is part of an alliance with Hamas fired missiles into Israel in a "solidarity campaign." Israel retaliated, and Allam watched half his neighbors join the more than 90,000 Lebanese displaced by the violence; in Israel's north, roughly 60,000 have been evacuated. Economic life in Rmeish ground to a halt. Most tobacco farmers couldn't reach their fields, losing not only their crops the main source of income here but also the chance to plant for next season. Summer engagements and weddings, bringing in an annual $2 million in business for restaurants, were canceled or relocated. And the Lebanese expatriates who would crowd the village during vacations and holidays have mostly stayed away. Black smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village seen from Rmeish in southern Lebanon on Nov. 21, 2023. Tension has been rising along the Lebanon-Israel border after the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Israel. (Hussein Malla / Associated Press) "I've invested half a million dollars in this store and I'm just watching it lose money," Allam said, pointing to a row of well-stocked shelves. As if addressing Hezbollah, he added: "You want Jerusalem? Go get it, but not like this, because you've destroyed everyone along with you." Allam's frustration shared by many here cuts to the core of the schism over Hezbollah and, in broader ways, Lebanese society's support for the Palestinian cause. Read more: A halfway war pulses on Israel's border with Lebanon. Will it escalate? Hezbollah has a long history of clashes with Israel. Its support for Gazans has won it praise among Lebanon's Sunnis and the wider Arab world, where people contrast the group's activism with the inaction of their own governments. But many Lebanese also remember the late 1960s, when Palestinian factions turned the south into what some called "Fatahland" a reference to Fatah, the largest of them and used it as a staging ground for attacks against Israel. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon in a bid to rout Palestinian fighters and create a buffer zone a campaign that metastasized into an occupation that prompted the rise of an Iran-backed Shiite Islamist group that came to be Hezbollah. After the Israelis withdrew in 2000, Hezbollah by then not only a guerrilla force, but also a well-organized political and social party kept its weapons, arguing that "Islamic resistance" was the only deterrent against future Israeli assaults. Hezbollah fighters in Majadel village, in southern Lebanon, raise their group's flag and shout slogans as they attend the funeral procession of Bilal Nemr Rmeiti, a fellow fighter killed by Israeli shelling on Oct. 22, 2023. (Hassan Ammar / Associated Press) The two sides faced off again in 2006, in a devastating war that killed around 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and saw wide swaths of Lebanon obliterated by bombs before it ended in a stalemate. Rmeish suffered damage, though nowhere near as much as Shiite villages loyal to Hezbollah. Instead, it became a sanctuary for about 30,000 fleeing the violence. The war's end brought relative peace. Until nine months ago, the two sides had kept a wary but cordial distance, with only an occasional tit-for-tat shelling. If a wider war were to erupt, Israeli officials have vowed to inflict greater destruction than in 2006. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently threatened to turn Beirut into Gaza. Read more: Israel's 'GPS spoofing' tricks missiles, but also commercial airplanes, dating apps in Mideast But Israeli military planners acknowledge that Hezbollah with more than 100,000 fighters and advanced weaponry would be a far tougher foe than Hamas, one that could strike deep into Israel. And Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said any Israeli offensive would spur combat with "no restraint and no rules and no ceilings." Nevertheless, Hezbollah has to take Lebanon's other communities into consideration, said Michael Young, a Lebanon expert with the Carnegie Middle East Center. "Everyone knows a war is the worst option, and yet Hezbollah has embarked the country on this conflict," he said. "Hezbollah is aware that if the situation spun out of control, their position would be damaged. They want to avoid this." A villager looks through a window damaged by Israeli shelling in Kfar Kila, a southern Lebanese village near the border with Israel, on April 18, 2024. Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces have been exchanging fire after the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. (Mohammad Zaatari / Associated Press) Among residents displaced from the now-emptied Shiite villages in the south, support remains strong at least outwardly. "We, the people of the south, it's our sons, sisters and loved ones who are getting killed, to protect our country," said Balqis Dawood, a 50-year-old homemaker from Kfar Kila, one of the towns hardest hit by Israeli barrages. People carry the coffin of Hezbollah senior commander Taleb Sami Abdullah, 55, during his funeral procession in Beirut's suburbs. He was killed in an Israeli strike on June 11, 2024. (Bilal Hussein / Associated Press) At the funeral of a senior Hezbollah leader assassinated by Israel this month, Dawood was defiant, saying that though her house had been destroyed and her family displaced, they would return and rebuild. To those among her compatriots who questioned Hezbollah's fight, she said: "We're the people of the resistance. Those who don't like it should leave Lebanon." Standing nearby was Ali, 33, who works at a protein supplements company and serves as a reservist with Hezbollah. Dressed in fatigues and a crimson beret, he said he would fight in the south if called. "If someone comes into your home and invades it, do you do nothing?" he said. "The Israelis have said after Gaza they're coming here. So we're going to stop them." There has been talk in Israeli political circles of reoccupying southern Lebanon as a buffer zone against Hezbollah, a situation that would certainly see Rmeish fall under Israeli control. It wouldn't be the first time. During Israel's occupation, southern Lebanese villages such as Rmeish became part of an Israeli-backed mini-state. Fighting age males were obliged to join the South Lebanon Army many did so willingly and ran security operations alongside Israeli troops, including the imprisonment and torture of their compatriots. Others forged economic ties: About 4,000 Lebanese crossed the border every day to work in farms and industrial areas in the Galilee and Tel Aviv. "All the fancy houses you see in Rmeish were built with that money," said Najib al-Amil, the 72-year-old priest of Rmeish's Maronite Church. "If you shouted in Hebrew in the street, three quarters of the people here would answer you back," said one grocer, who didn't give his name to avoid harassment. Few would welcome another occupation. "I know Israel has designs on the area, but I can't stop them with a rifle," Al-Amil said, a note of exasperation in his voice. "Escalate or stop, either war or no war. But now there's no war and no peace. It cannot stay like this." Young, of the Carnegie Middle East Center, said that reoccupying to create a buffer zone ignores the long-range arsenal Hezbollah has at its disposal, rendering moot any security cushion the Israeli army can realistically carve out in Lebanon. "There will be no stability in northern Israel unless there's stability in southern Lebanon," Young said. "The best thing that the Israelis can hope for is a negotiated settlement or a return to the status quo." So far Rmeish has remained removed from the fighting, even as Hezbollah uses forests and grasslands on the village outskirts to wage attacks on Israel. In March, when armed men came to set up a mobile rocket launcher in the village, residents rang church bells to scare them off; Hezbollah denied it was involved but agreed with village leaders to keep Rmeish out of its operational area. That has provided some solace to residents, though less so as the months drag on and hostilities escalate. An Israeli airstrike that hit a house also killed hundreds of goats in the Toura mountain region in southern Lebanon, on July 8, 2024. The strikes come amid heightened tensions between Lebanon's Hezbollah group and the Israeli military along the nations' border. (Mohammad Zaatari / Associated Press) "If it stays like this, it's fine, so long as we're not displaced," said Allam, the supermarket owner. Still, he had taken precautions: He was sending his two sons, 21 and 18, to Munich, Germany, to find work. "I wanted them to stay here and build something together in this village, which we all love. But everything is telling me there's no future," he said. Allam said he sees his presence in Rmeish as a matter of preserving Christianity in the area. He would be staying no matter what, he said, pointing to bullet wounds in his shoulder and stomach he sustained during his army service in 2007. "These should have killed me, so now every day is a new life," he said. "Whatever happens, I won't go." 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. Amidst calls for Joe Biden to step down from the 2024 presidential election, the latest Marist College poll shows that the Democrat has held his own against Donald Trump, despite worries about his cognitive health. The margin is within the margin of error, but it is Bidens favor: 50% of registered voters said they would support the president, while 48% said they would vote for Trump. Still, 59% think Trump will win the election, PBS reported. The last Marist poll, in June, found the two candidates tied at 49% a piece. We have a race that didnt change much, political analyst Amy Walter told PBS. If youre Biden, this poll suggests youre in fine shape to continue. According to the survey, about two-thirds of Americans dont think Biden is mentally fit. At the same time, a majority of Americans also dont think Trump has the right character to serve as president while Biden does. Based on this survey, whats most important is the actual vote hasnt changed since the debate, but theres a crisis of confidence among Democrats that the president needs to address, Navin Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, told PBS News. However, other polls do provide reason for concern. Trump leads Biden 47% to 45% in an average of recent national polls, according to The New York Times, and trails in each battleground state. If those numbers hold in November, Democrats would be looking at a landslide defeat in the Electoral College. Luisa Melchionne is charged with sexual assault Norwalk Police Department Luisa Melchionne A Connecticut school guidance counselor was accused of sexually abusing a middle school student, with police alleging she gave the child lap dances among other sexual acts. Luisa Melchionne, 47, who worked at Nathan Hale Middle School, was arrested on July 11 and is charged with sexual assault and risk of injury to a child, the Norwalk Police Department said. It is not immediately clear if she has entered a plea. According to an arrest warrant published by WFSB, an anonymous caller told police in April that he had discovered inappropriate messages allegedly sent by Melchionne to a student after borrowing her phone. The caller later sent police screenshots of alleged text exchanges containing explicit photos and money transactions between Melchionne and the student, according to the reported warrant. After discovering the identity of the child, police interviewed the boy, who told police that Melchionne had sent him nude photos and asked for them in return, the warrant alleges. The boy also told police that she would send him money for food and Uber rides. The child, a 7th grader when he began interacting with the guidance counselor in 2023, informed detectives that he would meet Melchionne in her office, where she would perform sexual acts, including giving him lap dances, the warrant alleges. 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. Melchionnes defense attorney, Mark Sherman, told The Hour that his client resigned from her position at the school. Court records indicate she was released on bond. These are just accusations, Sherman told the paper. What we do know is that these charges are being brought against a devoted wife and mother who has dedicated over 20 years to her profession, and its going to take some time to investigate this case. The Hour also reported that in court, a prosecutor said the boy was 13 years old. If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Marshfield Clinic plans to merge with Sanford Health. What you should know about the South Dakota-based health system. Sanford Health announced Wednesday the potential of merging with a physician-led integrated health system serving rural Wisconsin and Michigans Upper Peninsula, Marshfield Clinic Health Systems. This is Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanfords fifth attempt at merging with another health care system, four of which fell through, within the last seven years, another chapter in Sanfords drive to expand. Sanford currently serves communities in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. This time is different, according to Sanford's Director of Media Relations Paul Heinert and Marshfield's Senior Media Relations Specialist Jeff Starck. Heinert and Starck said both parties are extremely optimistic and the time is right, citing the two health systems shared values, culture and visions for the future. 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. We are who we are today because of combinations with care delivery organizations in rural communities across Americas heartland. These opportunities have allowed us to follow through on our promise to deliver world-class health care to every patient we serve no matter their ZIP code, and we are eager to continue building on this track record with Marshfield Clinic Health System. Interim CEO of Marshfield Clinic Health System Brian Hoerneman, M.D., echoed this, stating the partnership presents an incredible opportunity for our organizations to unify and establish the premier rural health system in the nation. More about the Marshfield Clinic merger: What we know and don't know about the proposed merger between Marshfield Clinic Health System and Sanford Health A crisis in rural health care: Wisconsin hospital systems face increasing challenges in providing services in rural communities What will happen if the merger is successful? Upon completion of the merger, Marshfield will become another region within Sanford Healths footprint with Gassen serving as president and CEO of the combined system and headquarters remaining in Sioux Falls. Marshfields medical campus will maintain its regional leadership and Hoerneman will fulfill the role of president and CEO of the Marshfield region. Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic Health System have announced a nonbinding Memorandum of Understanding to combine... Posted by Sanford Health on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 The next phase, according to Heinert and Starck, is to begin working on a definitive agreement that will define how the two health systems will combine into one organization. Sanford's press release on Wednesday disclosed a nonbinding Memorandum of Understanding to combine their complementary assets and capabilities and create an integrated health system dedicated to advancing world-class care in the rural Midwest. Marshfield, an integrated health system that began in 1916, has more than 1,400 providers of 170 different specialties, a health plan and research and education programs. The health system cares for patients at more than 60 clinics and 11 hospitals, as well as the Marshfield Childrens Hospital, in a total of 45 communities. More than 12,000 employees are employed by Marshfield. Combined, Sanford Health and Marshfield would have more than 56,000 employees, 56 hospitals, 4,300 providers, two integrated health plans, specialty pharmacies and nationally recognized research institutions. The integration of the two health care systems is expected to close by the end of this year. Marshfield Medical Center located in Marshfield, Wisconsin, cares for patients from throughout central, northern and western Wisconsin. What happens until the merger is complete? Heinert and Starck said that until the merger is final, Sanford Health and Marshfield will remain separate organizations and will keep operating business as usual, with no plans for any changes. Expanding their employee base is their goal according to Heinert and Starck. In other words, no layoffs for now. The merger, according to Sanford's press release on Wednesday, should improve patient outcomes, provide more advanced technology such as virtual care, AI and genomic medicine, expand research capabilities, which include access to nearly 1,000 active clinical trials and studies to develop new treatments and patient cures, invest more in clinical needs, enhance training and support for future physicians and caregivers and create new opportunities for research and collaboration, peer networks and professional development. The two organizations respective health plans, Sanford Health Plan and Security Health Plan, will allow the fully integrated system to serve more than 425,000 members, maximizing the benefits it can deliver to patients and members through shared governance, according to Sanfords press release Wednesday. Specialized cancer care at the Sanford Cancer Center takes a team approach to improve the patient experience. Best (and worst) of times As for Sanford's past merger history, here's a closer look at the health care nonprofit's previous attempts and successes: In March 2017, the Good Samaritan Society National Campus in Sioux Falls laid off more than 100 positions. A little more than a year later in June 2018, Sanford announced the health care system would acquire the Society effective Jan. 1, 2019. During this time, another Sanford merger was announced in October 2016 with Mid Dakota Clinic, which served the Bismarck-Mandan, North Dakota, area. However, in June 2019, the deal fell through after the Federal Trade Commission and the North Dakota Attorney Generals Office objected and the merger was blocked by a judge. In the same month, Sanford was also pursuing another health care system, UnityPoint Health, one of Iowas largest health providers. By November 2019, UnityPoint Health abandoned Sanford Health at the alter due to contrasting structures and cultures. A year later, Sanford Health began negotiations with Utah-based health care system Intermountain Healthcare in October 2020. Not even two months later, this plan also fell through following longtime former CEO Kelby Krabbenhofts sudden resignation in November 2020. The Sanford Health Board of Trustees appointed Gassen as the organizations new president and CEO shortly after. In October 2022, Sanford announced a number of nonclinical staff reductions to streamline leadership structure and simplify operations in a few focused areas. The following month, Minneapolis-based nonprofit Fairview Health Services and Sanford announced plans to combine to better serve the rural, urban and Indigenous populations across the Midwest. This was Sanfords second attempt to pursue Fairview Health, with the first being in 2013. Alas, Minnesota officials, attorneys and residents all protested the deal in 2013, forcing then-CEO Krabbenhoft to walk away. History repeated itself in July 2023 when current Sanford CEO Gassen stated in a press release it was in the best interest of Sanford Health to discontinue the merger process. Marshfield Health is also just coming out of a rough patch with Duluth, Minnesota-based Essentia Health. In July 2023, the two health systems announced a proposed merger by signing an integration agreement. This January, the two called it quits citing Marshfields financial challenges, saying it just wasnt the right time. Looking ahead With the newly proposed marriage of Sanford Health to Marshfield Clinic Health Systems, the two organizations seem to be moving on with hope. On behalf of both Sanford and Marshfield, Heinert and Starck said as collaboration and partnerships become more common, the organizations are confident their aligned missions and commitment to rural health will transform the future of health care and positively impact the well-being of the patients, residents, health plan members and communities we serve for decades to come. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Marshfield Clinic Health System to merge with Sanford Health of South Dakota BOSTON A fiscal 2025 state budget that's already 11 days overdue is unlikely to get to Gov. Maura Healey's desk until at least Tuesday, and Massachusetts is on the verge of becoming the only state in the country still lacking a finalized annual spending plan. Massachusetts State House One day after a Republican negotiator said lawmakers were "extremely close" to reconciling differences between the House and Senate spending plans, the House adjourned Thursday for a long weekend with plans to return in an informal session Monday. Lawmakers typically do not take up accords produced by conference committees during informal sessions, and they're especially unlikely to do so on a bill as significant as a roughly $58 billion annual state budget packed with policy riders. That leaves a hypothetical Tuesday formal session as the earliest date for the budget, which still has not emerged from closed-door talks, to get the final needed votes. The House could still change its plans at the 11th hour. Speaker Ron Mariano's office advised representatives around 2 p.m. Thursday to pencil in a "potential" formal session for Monday. "We're working through it. I mean, we're getting closer every day, but still not there yet," House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz told the News Service on Thursday. "So (we've) still got some work to do, and probably have to carry that through over the weekend here." Lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey previously agreed to a $6.9 billion interim budget that could keep state government funded through about the end of July, giving negotiators more time. Beacon Hill has not had an annual state budget in place on time in 14 years. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are the only two states that have new fiscal years that started July 1 without a final annual budget in place, according to data tracked by the National Conference of State Legislatures. However, Pennsylvania lawmakers reportedly plan a series of votes Thursday on a budget accord that could send that spending plan to Gov. Josh Shapiro by later in the day. Action in Pennsylvania would leave Massachusetts as the lone outlier across the country. Major legislative business for the term is set to end on July 31, and in addition to the overdue state budget, Democrats who wield supermajority margins in both chambers have not completed work on half a dozen other major negotiations and even more priority bills that still need additional votes in at least one chamber. Sam Doran contributed reporting. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mass. due to be last state to pass budget Mass. shark tracker: Interactive map with real-time tools shows where great whites are lurking Mass. shark tracker: Interactive map with real-time tools shows where great whites are lurking Shark season off the coast of Massachusetts is in full swing. The Chatham-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancys Sharktivity app has reported great whites coming as close as 50 feet from the shoreline at some Cape Cod beaches in recent days. Several other reports indicated that sharks are swimming about 50 yards offshore. Sharks are coming within feet of Massachusetts beaches In addition to the shark sightings, predations involving dead seals have also been reported by Sharktivity users. The conservancy shared this interactive map with Boston 25, showing reported shark sightings in real-time and sightings with photos, as well as confirmed acoustic detections of tagged sharks. The maps menu tools allow users to filter shark sightings as recent as 48 hours, over the last 30 days, or between a custom date range. The icons on the map indicate the following: Red alert icon : A white shark sighting is confirmed close to a public beach Blue shark fin icon : A confirmed white shark sighting Orange shark fin icon : An unconfirmed white shark sighting Yellow icon : A receiver that detects white sharks tagged with acoustic tags and transmits the data in real-time Purple icon : A real-time detection of a shark tagged with an acoustic tag that is less than an hour old Orange icon : Detections of sharks tagged with acoustic transmitters Green icon: The sharks dorsal fin breaks the surface and the tag transmits to overhead satellites The Sharktivity app, which is available to download on iPhone and Android, 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: Not just a Cape thing: Scientist urges beachgoers to be aware of growing white shark population 2,600-pound great white shark returns to Massachusetts after lengthy voyage 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. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) says he is amused by the conspiracy theories surrounding his wifes death last month. In a Thursday post on social platform X, Massie told his followers that he would be returning to Congress to work just two weeks after announcing the death of his wife, Rhonda Massie. Although I first reacted with indignation to internet conspiracy theories about her death, Ive since been amused because I know Rhonda would have laughed, and if I were on the outside I might have similar concerns, he posted. The Kentucky congressman said he can dismiss one of the conspiracy theories floating around: She did not take the COVID shots. Massie said he and his wife were both seropositive by the time they became available. He tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies in July 2020 and said he planned to donate plasma. Massie had opposed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that drew broad bipartisan support. In his post, he said that their house was very secure and family was with Rhonda the night she died. An autopsy has been conducted, but the results have not yet been returned to the family. Massie announced the death of his wife in late June. The two were high school sweethearts who went to prom together and both attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They have four children and were married for more than 35 years. I have joked that after poring through hundreds of photographs of us since high school, the only credible conspiracy I can offer is a gorgeous girl who was a literal genius conspired to make a congressman, who would be steerable by no one but her, out of an awkward nerd by taking him as her boyfriend at age 16 and committing to decades of continuously molding him into something better, Massie wrote. The Kentucky Republican said he is returning to work and asked for forgiveness for missing votes during his time away. He added he hopes to summon the grace and patience and wisdom she quietly and selflessly dedicated to the effort serving you. 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. Actor and author Matthew McConaughey is welcomed to the stage by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey called on the countrys leaders to leave entertainment to celebrities during Utah Gov. Spencer Coxs final Disagree Better event as chair of the National Governors Association on Friday. McConaughey, a philanthropist and advocate for being aggressively centric, told the group of around a dozen governors and several hundred attendees at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City that they needed to find out how to sell a politics of hope instead of the fearmongering that fills airwaves and too often the halls of Congress. The extremes on the right and left, they have the microphone. Its more entertaining, McConaughey said during a conversation with Cox and NGA vice chair Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. This 60% in the middle where we do agree on the basic values ... we got to take the mic back. The actor, known for his leading role in movies like Dallas Buyers Club, Mud and Interstellar, joined Cox to talk about the role of culture in polarization as part of the NGA summer meeting. The event has seen appearances from former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and scholars discussing the success of the governors Disagree Better initiative. The schedule on Friday revolved around a visit from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy which included the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Utah and Kyiv Oblast. Actor and author Matthew McConaughey speaks as hes joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor and author Matthew McConaughey speaks as hes joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Colorado Gov. Jared Polis invites actor and author Matthew McConaughey to the stage with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor and author Matthew McConaughey speaks as hes joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks as hes joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, left, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, center, during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks as hes joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey shakes hands with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis after an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Actor Matthew McConaughey speaks during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News What did McConaughey say about Disagree Better? McConaughey confirmed on Friday he is interested in possibly seeking elected office in the future. But before the entertainer decides whether to trade the red carpet for public service, he said elected officials need to remember theyre not on a movie set. Im in the entertainment business our leadership and leaders dont need to be in the entertainment business, McConaughey said to a round of applause. You know when you see me in a film that its basically fictional Ive read a script, Im playing a character. Thats not the role that the leaders of our nation need to be playing. Real leadership is not casting the other side as the enemy or perfecting talking points to undermine a caricature of their policy views, McConaughey said. Instead, its getting onto the field (one of McConaugheys many football analogies) with players from the other team and negotiating from a place of mutual understanding. This means that real leadership requires real disagreement, McConaughey said. But that can be a good thing if the goal is longterm solutions instead of short term political gain. Were not having real confrontation right now. If I invalidate your position off the bat thats a lack of courage on my part right out of the gate thats not good confrontation with somebody, McConaughey said. At the root of the problem is that marketing successful negotiations is more difficult than cutting a quick ad for partisan pugilism, according to McConaughey. Fear is easier to sell than hope, he said. Were all, right now, caught up in short term, short money wins. And so we come to the table, and we argue and we call each other names, McConaughey said. I want to hear more vision from our leaders rather than just I want to do the opposite of what they want. Actor Matthew McConaughey, right, laughs with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, left, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, center, during an event titled Disagree Better - Role of Culture in Polarization as part of the National Governors Associations 2024 Summer Meeting held at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday, July 12, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Why was Matthew McConaughey in Utah? The governors tenure as NGA chair, beginning in July 2023, gave him the opportunity to promote any message of his choice. Cox chose Disagree Better, or the idea that Americans must learn to disagree without hating each other, which he saw as one of the central problems facing the United States. The initiative has seen Cox film dozens of Disagree Better ads with governors on both sides of the aisle modeling constructive ways of navigating divisive issues. Friday was Coxs final day as chair before passing on the gavel to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Cox said he thought of inviting McConaughey to the event to get Disagree Better into the cultural bloodstream. Its one thing to have politicians say this stuff and thats important to see good faith people that we disagree with, Cox said. But its much better to have important cultural figures actually talk about this as well, and say what were saying and walking the walk. Outside of his acting career, McConaughey has made a name for himself calling for bipartisan action on reducing gun violence. After the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting in 2022, when 21 students and teachers were killed, McConaughey a Uvalde native spoke before Congress and launched Greenlights Grant Initiative, an organization that helps schools access federal funds for enhanced security measures. McConaughey also founded the just keep livin Foundation that funds after-school fitness programs in 45 inner-city high schools to encourage teens to make positive life choices. When asked by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy whether he would run for public office, McConaughey said he has been exploring the option for a few years. Im on a learning tour, and have been for probably the last six years, to understanding what this category means, what it takes, do I have the instincts, the intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good fit for it, I would be useful. Im still on that learning tour, McConaughey said. This is something Ive been thinking about and something I have great reverence for. FILE - Then First lady Melania Trump speaks to a small group of supporters as President Donald Trump looks on at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Jan. 20, 2021. Former first lady Melania Trump will attend the Republican National Convention next week in Milwaukee. Thats according to two people familiar with her plans who spoke on condition of anonymity before full details are released. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez, File) NEW YORK (AP) Former first lady Melania Trump will attend the Republican National Convention next week in Milwaukee, according to two people familiar with her plans who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity before full details were released. Melania Trump has largely refrained from public appearances, noticeably missing key moments such as former President Donald Trump's Super Tuesday victory party and his 78th birthday party last month. She also did not accompany the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on any of the days of his more than monthlong hush money trial in New York. Her presence at the convention where her husband will be officially nominated as the Republican candidate will be a boost for the party as it tries to present a united front compared to the crisis the Democratic party faces as some are calling for President Joe Biden to withdraw his reelection bid following his debate performance. Melania Trump's plans have not been formally announced, and it is not yet clear whether she will deliver a speech or have any role in the proceedings. The news was first reported by CNN. Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. After she had been largely absent from the campaign trail earlier this year, reporters asked the former first lady about her plans. Her response: Stay tuned. The few times she has been seen have been when she and Trump voted in Florida's primary, at a couple of fundraisers and at their sons high school graduation. After the Republican Party of Florida announced earlier this year that the son, Barron Trump, was selected to serve as one of 41 at-large delegates from Florida to the national gathering, Melania Trump's office responded two days later by saying he would decline to participate due to prior commitments. Barron Trump was seen for the first time since he turned 18 at a campaign rally at his father's golf resort in Doral, a Miami suburb. ______ Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report. Former first lady Melania Trump is planning to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, making a rare campaign appearance alongside her husband, former President Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. Discussions are still underway regarding whether she will speak onstage or be a formal part of the convention program, the sources said. Melania Trump has maintained a low profile throughout her husbands campaign, having attended just two public appearances since he launched his third presidential bid his campaign kickoff in November 2022 at their Mar-a-Lago home and a brief appearance in March when she accompanied her husband to vote in the Florida presidential primary. A spokesperson for Melania Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The former first ladys return to the spotlight for one of the most high-profile moments of Donald Trumps campaign comes as questions over whether she will ramp up her public schedule in the run-up to the 2024 general election continue to go unanswered. She notably did not attend any of her husbands court appearances in New York for his hush money trial earlier this year, nor did she appear with him for CNNs June 27 presidential debate in Atlanta. Trump campaign advisers and close allies insist that the former first lady is supportive of her husband and his political ambitions and that she has been focused on raising their, son Barron. They added that she is very selective in choosing her political appearances. Melania Trump has appeared infrequently at private events in recent months, including hosting a fundraiser for a conservative LGBTQ group, the Log Cabin Republicans, at her residence at Trump Tower in New York on July 8 as well as attending an April fundraiser alongside her husband at the home of investor John Paulson. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Former first lady Melania Trump is expected to attend next weeks Republican convention, though it remains to be seen whether she will deliver remarks there. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the former first lady will be in attendance for the Milwaukee, Wis., gathering where her husband, former President Trump, will accept the partys nomination. Her exact role in the proceedings has not been finalized. CNN first reported on Melania Trumps plans to attend. Melania Trump delivered remarks at the 2016 GOP convention, which later drew scrutiny for similarities to a Michelle Obama speech, and she spoke again at the 2020 convention. The former first lady has mostly been absent from her husbands 2024 White House bid. She appeared at Trumps campaign launch in 2022, but she has not joined him at any of his campaign rallies; she did not appear on stage with him following victories in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary or Super Tuesday primaries; and she did not attend the first debate between Trump and President Biden. Melania Trump was also absent throughout the former presidents trial in New York City, where he was eventually found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money scheme during the 2016 campaign. The first lady hosted a fundraiser for the LGBTQ group Log Cabin Republicans at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in April, hosted another fundraiser for the group in New York City this week, and she appeared alongside Trump in March when the two cast their ballots in the Florida primary. 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. MENTOR, Ohio (WJW) An ongoing debate over controversial library books offered to students in the Mentor Public School District prompted the board of education to approve a new policy on books on Thursday night. During a contentious meeting before the vote on the policy changes at school libraries across the district, taxpayer Jacqueline McCormick told board members, if you truly want a safe environment for all children, sexually explicit material should not be allowed in our schools, especially given to children by trusted adults. The policy debate in Mentor began after parental challenges earlier this year to library books that children have access to, including Right Now! Real Kids Speaking Up for Change and Empire of Storms. Olmsted Township bar closed after fire causes significant damage Some parents say the books contain content that is not appropriate for children, but the board voted 3 to 2 in March to keep the two books in circulation. During Thursdays meeting, one parent told the board, thats not a decision that a teacher or librarian should make because every child is different, every parent is different, and it should be squarely on the shoulders of parents to make those decisions for their own children. As part of the new policy approved by the board, Mentor Schools will no longer accept donated books, amid what educators say is an organized effort from outside of the district to influence what students see and read. I dont think that we should be involved in deciding politically which side of the aisle the books are coming from because were here to educate with our regular curriculum, were not here to worry about politics, said Mentor School Board President Maggie Cook. As part of the new district policy, parents will also receive email notifications about books their children would like to check out from school libraries, and if they so choose, parents will have the option to say no to the request. Not only does this policy let parents know exactly what their children are reading, it also gives complete control over what books their children can and cannot read to those parents who want it, said parent Lyndsie Wall. Dollar General agrees to pay $12M fine to settle alleged workplace safety violations Mentor parents will continue to have the right to challenge any book that their children can see or read, but under the new policy, each challenge will be considered by a committee of educators rather than just the superintendent. A survey by the school district found that 75% of Mentor residents are not concerned about books in the school libraries, but a vocal critic told the board Thursday night that voters will ultimately decide if Mentor Public Schools are maintaining standards that protect children. The audience applauded after McCormick told the board, continue to maintain this harmful material and the next levy will fail. We will have an effort to ensure that it does. 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. Dave Ramsey Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey recently spoke to a 28-year-old caller who asked for advice concerning when it would be safe to start enjoying the money he has saved. Check Out: 5 Frugal Habits of Mark Cuban Read Next: $10K or More in Debt? See If You Could Become Debt-Free (for Less Than You Owe) The caller, Derek, said he earned approximately $130,000 a year and saved $3,000 to $4,000 a month. Sometimes I worry that, you know, maybe Im not enjoying life as much as I would because Im just so focused on saving money and budgeting and calculating my net worth every two weeks, he told Ramsey (per YouTube). So I just wanted to get your guidance on when you really decide and how you can tell you know that you need to start enjoying life more with the money that youve saved. Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them. Debt Comes First, Per Ramsey First, Ramsey asked Derek if he carried any debt which he does, $16,000 in student loans and told him to pay it off right away. Derek also said he didnt have any credit card debt as he just uses debit cards and that he invests more than 15% of his earnings, which is a point mentioned in Ramseys baby steps plan. Learn More: 6 Things the Middle Class Should Sell To Build Their Savings Ramseys Baby Steps Key To Success The baby steps a money management plan intended to help you build wealth and ditch debt includes seven steps. Save $1,000 for your starter emergency fund. Pay off all debt (except the house) using the debt snowball method. Save three-six months of expenses in a fully complete emergency fund. Invest 15% of your household income in retirement. Save for your childrens college fund. Pay off your home early. Build wealth and give. Ramsey walked Derek through the steps, and mentioned that as Derek is renting, he recommended focusing on a downpayment rather than over-saving. Further, Ramsey advised Derek start building an emergency fund. Always Incorporate a Bit of Fun In Your Budget (Mostly After Eliminating Debt) Finally, in regard to Dereks initial question about when he should start enjoying his money, Ramsey said he needs to budget some fun and have some generosity in your budget. You dont have any debt, you ought to have some fun and you ought to save some and invest some and you ought to have some generosity, said Ramsey. According to him, these are the three things in your budget you should aways have. If you have all three in there then youve got a pretty good, balanced life, Ramsey concluded. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Dave Ramsey: This Is the Point When You Can Start Enjoying Your Money RUIDOSO, N.M. (KRQE) The Mescalero Apache Tribe donated $30,000 and sandbags for Ruidoso residents affected by fire and floods. The sandbags are available for pickup at: Fire Station 2 Wingfield Park All American Park Ruidoso Downs Local non-profit Eco Servants is filling sandbags at Wingfield Park and Fire Station 2. Community volunteers are filling bags at All-American Park. 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. Metro Democrats say theyre still energized despite calls for President Biden to step aside Just a day after President Joe Bidens all-important news conference, the Biden-Harris campaign opened up a field office in Douglas County. Despite his debate performance a couple of weeks ago, Ingrid Landis-Davis, a long-time Douglas County Democrat, said Bidens base is energized. Following Thursday nights news conference, she told Channel 2s Richard Elliot that she believes Biden reassured his own party that he can be their nominee. To me, it just seems like a bunch of pundits talking, but thanks, do us a favor, tell us dont vote for Joe Biden and see what we do, Landis-Davis said. I appreciated President Biden saying President Trump would be ready on day one, Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon is referring to a gaff made by Biden when he called his vice president Trump, not Harris. McKoon is with other state Republicans in Milwaukee for their convention. RELATED NEWS: He told Elliot that Bidens news conference proved to him hes not ready to serve another four years. They have a nominee who is not fit to serve in the office of president who should step down, who is not going to do that, and they cant really figure out what to do next, McKoon said. Sen. Ossoff confirmed he was at the meeting between Bidens inner circle and other Democratic senators, and he said he supports the Presidents campaign. Still, he says Biden needs to reassure those moderate and independent voters. That is the task of the president, his campaign team, is to reassure those voters that hes got what it takes to win this election and for another four years in the Oval Office, Ossoff said. Biden was back on the campaign trail Friday. RELATED NEWS: NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) The Metro Nashville Police Department is asking for the publics help identifying a group of juveniles who are accused of robbing multiple people at gunpoint. The children, believed to be between the ages of 10 and 14, are suspected to have been involved in at least four robberies that occurred last weekend in North Nashville. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) (Courtesy: Metro Nashville Police Department) In photos provided by the police department, at least two of the minors can be seen holding what appear to be guns. Authorities said the group approached multiple victims and demanded their personal items. Anyone with information about these incidents or who can identify any of the suspects is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox. Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee. This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new 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 WKRN News 2. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) Several fire departments in New Mexico are sending crews to Oregon to fight fires in the state. Albuquerque Fire Rescue said they are sending a Type 6 brush truck which is used to help fight fires off roads along with three crew members. Theyll be joined by firefighters from Sandoval County, Santa Fe, Red River, and the Town of Bernalillo as part of a joint strike force. The strike force is being led by Los Alamos firefighters. Albuquerque Fire Rescue celebrates promotions of 16 members There are currently three major fires burning in Oregon including the Larch Creek Fire east of Portland. That fire has burned more than 10,000 acres and is 0% contained causing evacuations in nearby towns. AFR said the strike force will be assigned to a specific fire when they arrive in Oregon. 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. GHENT, WV (WVNS) A Michigan man was arrested and charged after a search warrant was carried out in Raleigh County. 28-year-old Harold Burton, of Detroit, Michigan, was arrested and charged with two counts of delivery of Fentanyl. Raleigh County man arrested and charged with Fentanyl crime Raleigh County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force and Raleigh County Sheriffs Office Special Response Team members executed a search warrant at a house on Walker Street in the Ghent area of Raleigh County on Thursday, July 11, 2024. When carrying out the search warrant, members of law enforcement found two guns, suspected pressed Fentanyl pills, and suspected Fentanyl. Burton was taken to Southern Regional Jail with a $150,000 bond. Pennsylvania man sentenced for felony drug crime in Fayette County Members of the Raleigh County Sheriffs Office, Beckley Police Department, the West Virginia State Police, the FBI, and ATF make up the Raleigh County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. According to the Raleigh County Sheriffs Office, all suspects/defendants are believed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of 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 WVNS. No, its not a bird. And its not quite a plane, either. Up in the sky over Fowlerville on Thursday was 85-year-old Michigan native Kim Knor, completing her 698th skydive. Knor is a long-term skydiver, taking her first jump at age 20, before taking a 37-year hiatus to raise a family. Now, as a great-grandmother, Knor is eagerly jumping her way across the country toward her lifelong goal of 1,000 skydives. She travels in a mobile home by herself, jumping out of airplanes whenever she can. I go coast to coast, its addictive, Knor said. Stay busy: Things to do in metro Detroit this weekend Knor, originally from Cadillac, found a passion for the sport when she was young and her uncle was training to be a naval pilot. She heard stories about him jumping from planes and became captivated by it. I said I have to do that, and it took a while, but I did, Knor said. This weekend, Knor will return to the site of many of her first jumps in the 1950s, in Grand Haven, to complete her 700th skydive on World Skydiving Day. She will be a part of skydivers across the globe hoping to set a world record for most skydives in one day. Daniel Castillo, a third-generation skydiver and instructor at iSkydive Detroit, in Fowlerville, said Knor motivates him to keep jumping at just 38 years old. I would love to do it as much as she has done it, Castillo said. The passion she has for it is amazing. Knor knows that at 85, she is racing against the clock to earn her United States Parachute Association Gold Wings for making 1,000 skydives, but she is determined to do it. God is in charge, so I dont know. Its up to him, she said. But he gave me this idea to do it, so Im doing it, Knor said. And at nearly 700 jumps, shes not too far away. Im not in a wheelchair, Im not in a rocking chair, I dont sit on the couch and I dont watch TV, Knor said. So what do I do? I go jump out of airplanes. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan native Kim Knor, 85, wants to skydive 1,000 times LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) The Michigan State Police will deploy 35 uniformed personnel to assist with the security at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The troopers will be deployed for 7 days, beginning July 13. The troopers will be led by Capt. Gregory Morenko, commander of the Michigan State Police Third District. The troopers will be on hand to assist with security and crowd management outside the convention center, MSP officials announced in a news release. (File/WLNS) The convention begins July 15 and runs through July 18. The city of Milwaukee requested assistance through a security compact between multiple states. We stand ready to assist our colleagues in Milwaukee with this high-profile event, said Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP, in a news release. As state troopers, our members are trained in crowd management and scene security to ensure a safe environment for everyone. We have planned our mobilization to ensure we leave adequate staffing here in our state. Troopers have been deployed under the security compact to assist in responses to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005, to help in severe flooding in Minnesota in 2009 and in 2011 to New York City to assist after Hurricane Irene hit the city as well as to respond to the 2012 Hurricane Sandy impact in New Jersey. The agency also deployed personnel to the Republican National Convention in 2016. 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. I have been watching the White Houses damage control effort after President Bidens catastrophic debate performance two weeks ago. The White House staff and the Biden campaign are doing what they must as good political operatives insisting that President Biden is all in for the upcoming Democratic Convention and November election but the response from the candidate himself is not robust enough to eliminate concerns about his fitness for office. On July 5, President Biden gave an exclusive interview to ABCs George Stephanopoulos intended to reverse the damage done at the June 27 debate. The reviews were not complimentary, except for The Washington Post, who raved over Stephanopoulos sensitive interview technique, but in the main ignored the candidates performance. Merritt Hamilton Allen The situation grew more dire on July 8 when it was discovered that White House visitor logs showed that a Parkinsons expert from Walter Reed had made eight visits to the White House in the last year. White House physician Dr. Kevin OConnor later that day confirmed that the expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, had seen President Biden three times in his three and a half years in office as part of his annual physicals, but did not elaborate whether Cannard was consulting about President Biden during is other visits. (While this may seem cryptic and vague from the White House, it should be noted that under the Trump administration, the previous voluntary policy of disclosing White House visitors was rescinded, so there is no public record of what physicians or medical providers visited the Trump White House. Moreover, there have been military inspector general investigations into Trumps medical team, led by now Congressman Ronny Jackson, involving improper personal behavior toward subordinates, and improper handling of controlled medications. Jackson, a naval officer, was demoted from the rank of rear admiral to that of captain as a result.) I am not unsympathetic to those who endure chronic health conditions. In fact, I am one of them. I left the Navy 25 years ago with a 60% disability rating. I have a condition that is a best pesky and at worst incapacitating. I make a point of disclosing it early in my relationships with business partners. I learned recently that I am not fit for jury duty because of it. If I am unfit for jury duty, I am probably not up for the rigors of the Presidency. I know accommodations can be made, and I have long championed the cause of employment and career opportunities for disabled people. That said, I know my own limits. Prominent Democrats are starting to see President Bidens. I remember thinking when he came into office at the age of 78 that President Biden was a fine transitional commander in chief. He could reset the country to normal operating status and go enjoy a well-deserved retirement. I confess I was surprised that no one at the DNC seemed to have a plan for 2024 past Joe Biden. It seems they are coming up with one now. And they must, if they want to win. Bidens numbers in key states are slipping, even in once-safe New Mexico, since the debate. I, myself, would be very interested to see a candidate under 70 with some decent policy points. This means a Biden replacement cannot be a member of the Squad. The Democratic nominee must be more centrist to balance Trumps own move to the center (Project 2025? Never heard of it!). Im not sure Vice President Harris has the energy to draw the votes needed to beat Trump at this point in the race. Democrats need to get over whose turn it is and focus on winning at all costs. Ive not often agreed with Joe Biden throughout his five decades of public service. However, he has served his state and his country with general good will, I believe. Its truly uncomfortable to watch him in his current state of decline. He should be released from this dilemma. Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: There might be a choice, after all "I have a mighty guardian angel," says woman whose home was damaged in Russian attack on Kyiv The 8 July Russian missile attack on Kyiv damaged the Okhmatdyt children's hospital, the ISIDA and ADONIS private medical clinic, and residential areas of the capital. Missile wreckage also struck Anastasiia's house. The woman's flat was severely damaged, and her car, which was parked near the house, burned to the ground. Anastasiia has shared more details of that day with Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia. Anastasiia mentioned that she always went to the shelter whenever an air-raid warning was issued. However, she feared she wouldn't have enough time to reach it this time. So she and her dog took cover using the two-walls rule. [A safety rule whereby a person keeps two walls without windows between them and the street during attacks ed.] "When the attack started, I was in the bathroom, which ended up saving me. My dog and I sheltered behind two walls, and it turned out to be the safest place in the flat. We were not hurt," she says. Anastasiia admits she was very lucky because her rented apartment was located halfway up the apartment block section's stairway As a result, some of her belongings survived, and she was able to take them with her. "There were cracks in the walls in some places, and in the bathroom and in the corridor they spread. The windows were completely smashed, and even the frames on the balcony were blown out, as they were wooden," she says. The aftermath of the 8 July Russian attack on Kyiv Photo: Anastasiia on Instagram Anastasiia explains that she had not locked the door before the attack, so she was able to quickly get out of the apartment. As she was going down the stairs, she heard other residents of the building struggling to open their doors, banging on them and calling for help. "Because I was in a state of shock, I couldn't find my shoes, so I grabbed my dog and ran to the shelter barefoot. As a result, I got a lot of glass in my feet. I consider it a trifle because the main thing is that we survived," she says. Anastasiia notes that although she was not badly injured, she needs psychological support. "There is no need for treatment as my legs are recovering. Once we find accommodation, I will focus on my mental state. I was already terrified of alarms and explosions before this incident, and now I am unsure how I can mentally return to my normal life. But these are all trifles. I have a mighty guardian angel, and now I have two birthdays," Anastasiia concludes. The woman and her dog are now searching for new accommodation while the apartment's owners are in the process of repairing the damage. Background: On 8 July, Russian forces fired over 40 cruise missiles on Ukraine. In particular, one of them hit the Okhmatdyt children's hospital, where more than 600 Ukrainian children were being treated. Paediatric nephrologist Svitlana Lukianchyk was killed in the attack. Support UP or become our patron! House Speaker Mike Johnson relied on some flimsy facts to back the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, to make it harder for noncitizens to vote in the U.S. elections, something that is of course, already illegal. The bill, which would require a Real ID or U.S. passport for voting rather than the standard drivers license, passed the Republican-led House Wednesday, but it was built on a false premise and backed by baseless claims. To attract support for the bill, Johnson circulated a white paper that included some claims about voting by undocumented immigrantsthat arent backed up by any evidence, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. In one section, Johnsons handout referred to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who had ordered 137 noncitizens to be removed from the states voter rolls. But LaRose has yet to provide any actual evidence of illegally cast ballots. LaRose even acknowledged in a May press release that some of those people couldve been included as the result of an honest mistake. These may be well-meaning people trying to pursue the American dream, and communication barriers sometimes result in a registration form being submitted in error, LaRose said. We need to help them get that cleared up before an accidental registration becomes an illegal vote that could result in a felony conviction or even deportation. Under federal law, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is required to offer voter registration forms to state residents seeking any service. As a result, some forms are filled out by noncitizens, who even mark themselves as ineligible to vote, but the forms are still processed anyway. Another possible explanation is that those voters have been naturalized but have yet to visit the BMV to officially change their status. If the evidence isnt really adding up, theres a good reason for that: Noncitizens dont really vote in state or federal elections. In 2016, noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Noncitizen voting is a right-wing conspiracy, though, and in reality, the only ones concocting a scheme to fake votes in the last election were in Donald Trumps camp. The SAVE Act is ultimately doomed to fail, but that may be by design. It will never pass the Democratic-led Senate, and President Joe Biden has already promised to veto it. But its failure sets the stage for Republicans to run rampant with claims of widespread voter fraud in the upcoming election, even though the numbers dont support it. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev held an expanded meeting with Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad, Azernews reports. Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif said at the meeting: - My very dear brother, President Aliyev and honorable members of your delegation. Let me once again welcome you and your delegation from the bottom of my heart on behalf of the Government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan. It is a great pleasure and honor to welcome you and to meet you once again after the meeting in Astana. I am very grateful to you for accepting this invitation, which I conveyed to you during our telephone conversation and exchanged greetings. And you have been so generous that you accepted my invitation, within no time, fixed these dates. I wanted to show you that the people of Pakistan are very happy today to have seen your glimpses on television and social media. They know that my dear brother, President Aliyev is a very staunch supporter of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan. And the people of Azerbaijan love the people of Pakistan, and vice versa, the people of Pakistan have very great appreciation and love for the people of Azerbaijan. So it is like one soul and two hearts. And this friendship, this brotherhood is not new. It has spanned for over decades. And Pakistan has always stood by Azerbaijan no matter what, and Azerbaijan has always stood by Pakistan under all circumstances be it support to people of Kashmir for their due rights enshrined under UN Security Council resolutions and, of course, commitment by world at large for their right to have a plebiscite. And Pakistan has always supported Azerbaijans stand on Karabakh and never stopped it. And this is I think the strength of our relationship, friendship and brotherhood. Today, your visit will be a game changer, your visit will transform our relations. We are ready with many MOUs to be signed, agreements to be signed. And just now you gave me a plan how to beautify Islamabad. That shows your interesting commitment for Pakistan. I am very grateful. We will try our best. Your experts will do the best. But I dont think we can match beautification of Baku under your great leadership. Your Excellency, I think, it is high time that we now move towards joint collaborations and joint investments in areas which are feasible and which are profitable. My team is ready. Where is Dr. Musadik Malik, Minister of Petroleum. I had two sessions with him to prepare and prepare meticulously, to offer his counterparts propositions, which are most profitable and which can bring dividends to both countries, to both peoples. And in that context, I earlier proposed modest investment from Azerbaijan in these areas provided you approve that, your team approve them, to start with two billion dollars. Then we can really move forward. And then, of course, how can I not thank you for your great favor for Pakistan for our rice exports. There is no duty, total exemptions. No other country has done this, except Azerbaijan. Thats how we feel so good about this unique relationship. Your Excellency, I will further develop a few more points, but now for time being I give the floor to you. xxx President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in his remarks: - My dear brother, Prime Minister. First of all, thank you for invitation. I am very glad to be back to brotherly Pakistan and continue our active dialogue with you. We met on several occasions on the sidelines of international events and also during your official visit to Azerbaijan last June. As you correctly mentioned, we agreed about this visit just when we were celebrating each other with Eid less than a month ago. Our teams worked very hard and actively in order to prepare the visit. So, it is well prepared. We will sign 15 documents, which embrace many areas of our cooperation. But you are absolutely right that the foundation of our partnership is our brotherhood, the brotherly feeling of the peoples of Pakistan and Azerbaijan towards each other. We always were side by side during difficult times. We, of course, remember that during the liberation war of 2020, Pakistan was one of the countries, which openly provided political support to Azerbaijan by its statements, expressing a straightforward position on territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Now, our position on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is well known. We are members of the Contact Group of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. We strongly support the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and of course, support the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions. So, the truth is on your side. Justice and international law are on your side. Azerbaijan is one of the countries, which straightforwardly expresses and defends its position. We elaborated the broad agenda of bilateral format. Investment opportunities are one of the areas. As we discussed prior to our meeting, today, we want to see a practical proposal on investments projects in Pakistan. Our teams will of course engage today. By Anna Tong and Katie Paul -ChatGPT maker OpenAI is working on a novel approach to its artificial intelligence models in a project code-named Strawberry, according to a person familiar with the matter and internal documentation reviewed by Reuters. The project, details of which have not been previously reported, comes as the Microsoft-backed startup races to show that the types of models it offers are capable of delivering advanced reasoning capabilities. Teams inside OpenAI are working on Strawberry, according to a copy of a recent internal OpenAI document seen by Reuters in May. Reuters could not ascertain the precise date of the document, which details a plan for how OpenAI intends to use Strawberry to perform research. The source described the plan to Reuters as a work in progress. The news agency could not establish how close Strawberry is to being publicly available. How Strawberry works is a tightly kept secret even within OpenAI, the person said. The document describes a project that uses Strawberry models with the aim of enabling the companys AI to not just generate answers to queries but to plan ahead enough to navigate the internet autonomously and reliably to perform what OpenAI terms deep research, according to the source. This is something that has eluded AI models to date, according to interviews with more than a dozen AI researchers. Asked about Strawberry and the details reported in this story, an OpenAI company spokesperson said in a statement: We want our AI models to see and understand the world more like we do. Continuous research into new AI capabilities is a common practice in the industry, with a shared belief that these systems will improve in reasoning over time. The spokesperson did not directly address questions about Strawberry. The Strawberry project was formerly known as Q*, which Reuters reported last year was already seen inside the company as a breakthrough. Two sources described viewing earlier this year what OpenAI staffers told them were Q* demos, capable of answering tricky science and math questions out of reach of todays commercially-available models. A different source briefed on the matter said OpenAI has tested AI internally that scored over 90% on a MATH dataset, a benchmark of championship math problems. Reuters could not determine if this was the "Strawberry" project. On Tuesday at an internal all-hands meeting, OpenAI showed a demo of a research project that it claimed had new human-like reasoning skills, according to Bloomberg. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the meeting but declined to give details of the contents. Reuters could not determine if the project demonstrated was Strawberry. Story continues OpenAI hopes the innovation will improve its AI models reasoning capabilities dramatically, the person familiar with it said, adding that Strawberry involves a specialized way of processing an AI model after it has been pre-trained on very large datasets. Researchers Reuters interviewed say that reasoning is key to AI achieving human or super-human-level intelligence. While large language models can already summarize dense texts and compose elegant prose far more quickly than any human, the technology often falls short on common sense problems whose solutions seem intuitive to people, like recognizing logical fallacies and playing tic-tac-toe. When the model encounters these kinds of problems, it often hallucinates bogus information. AI researchers interviewed by Reuters generally agree that reasoning, in the context of AI, involves the formation of a model that enables AI to plan ahead, reflect how the physical world functions, and work through challenging multi-step problems reliably. Improving reasoning in AI models is seen as the key to unlocking the ability for the models to do everything from making major scientific discoveries to planning and building new software applications. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year that in AI the most important areas of progress will be around reasoning ability. Other companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft are likewise experimenting with different techniques to improve reasoning in AI models, as are most academic labs that perform AI research. Researchers differ, however, on whether large language models (LLMs) are capable of incorporating ideas and long-term planning into how they do prediction. For instance, one of the pioneers of modern AI, Yann LeCun, who works at Meta, has frequently said that LLMs are not capable of humanlike reasoning. AI CHALLENGES Strawberry is a key component of OpenAIs plan to overcome those challenges, the source familiar with the matter said. The document seen by Reuters described what Strawberry aims to enable, but not how. In recent months, the company has privately been signaling to developers and other outside parties that it is on the cusp of releasing technology with significantly more advanced reasoning capabilities, according to four people who have heard the companys pitches. They declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak about private matters. Strawberry includes a specialized way of what is known as post-training OpenAIs generative AI models, or adapting the base models to hone their performance in specific ways after they have already been trained on reams of generalized data, one of the sources said. The post-training phase of developing a model involves methods like fine-tuning, a process used on nearly all language models today that comes in many flavors, such as having humans give feedback to the model based on its responses and feeding it examples of good and bad answers. Strawberry has similarities to a method developed at Stanford in 2022 called "Self-Taught Reasoner or STaR, one of the sources with knowledge of the matter said. STaR enables AI models to bootstrap themselves into higher intelligence levels via iteratively creating their own training data, and in theory could be used to get language models to transcend human-level intelligence, one of its creators, Stanford professor Noah Goodman, told Reuters. I think that is both exciting and terrifyingif things keep going in that direction we have some serious things to think about as humans, Goodman said. Goodman is not affiliated with OpenAI and is not familiar with Strawberry. Among the capabilities OpenAI is aiming Strawberry at is performing long-horizon tasks (LHT), the document says, referring to complex tasks that require a model to plan ahead and perform a series of actions over an extended period of time, the first source explained. To do so, OpenAI is creating, training and evaluating the models on what the company calls a deep-research dataset, according to the OpenAI internal documentation. Reuters was unable to determine what is in that dataset or how long an extended period would mean. OpenAI specifically wants its models to use these capabilities to conduct research by browsing the web autonomously with the assistance of a CUA, or a computer-using agent, that can take actions based on its findings, according to the document and one of the sources. OpenAI also plans to test its capabilities on doing the work of software and machine learning engineers. (Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco and Katie Paul in New York; editing by Ken Li and Claudia Parsons) Luxury real estate agent Tal Alexanderwho, along with his brothers Oren and Alon, is facing sexual assault claims and an FBI probeclaimed Thursday that a rape accusation leveled against him is nothing more than a shakedown. Alexander has been sued by Angelica Parker, who alleges that the realtor and his brother Alon raped her in fall of 2012 in an assault planned and facilitated by Oren at the millionaire brothers Soho apartment. Parkers suit alleges the siblings preyed on her and a friend whod visited their pad: The women were offered ecstasy, and Alon made drinks for the women. But the friend fled after Alon allegedly hit on her and groped her. She worried about Parkers safety and she stayed in a stairwell, the complaint alleges. Alon and Tal then raped Parker, the legal filing states, while Oren sat by and watched. But on Thursday, Tals legal team filed an answer to Parkers suit, denying her allegations and calling her a professional plaintiff who has brought at least two other actions accusing individuals of sexual misconduct, one of which was dismissed after a New York State judge concluded the suit was frivolous. While other women have sued 36-year-old twins Alon and Oren for sexual assault, Parker was the first to name Tal, 38, as an alleged rapist. Parkers lawyer, Michael J. Willemin, told the Daily Beast that Tals response to her suit smacked of victim shaming. Millionaire Realtor Brothers Probed by FBI Over Rape Allegations It seems that the defendants in this action are already in the process of trying to victim shame our client because she has experienced more than one trauma in her life, Willemin, a partner at Wigdor LLP, said in an email. It is unfortunately typical for alleged perpetrators of sexual assault and rape to attempt to shame their victims. These tactics did not work in the cases against the likes of Roger Ailes, Diddy and Harvey Weinstein. It wont work in this case either. In 2011, Parker (then known as Angelica Cecora) sued boxer Oscar De La Hoya for battery and false imprisonment over an encounter at the Ritz-Carlton. The judge dismissed the case, calling it without merit, the New York Post reported at the time. Willemin recently told the Post that if his clients lawsuit against De La Hoya were filed today, he didnt think it would be tossed because of a change in how courts and the public view sexual assault accusations. At the end of the day according to the reporting, Willemin added, theres been dozens of women that have confirmed the Alexander brothers predilection for sexually assaulting women. Parker alleges in her suit that in the years after the attack, she encountered the broker bros through their many mutual friends and acquaintances, adding that they made various defamatory statements about her, gratuitously telling her friends that they had sex with her. The lawsuit accuses Tal of trying to assault Parker again years laterthis time, in the guest room of someones home. That alleged attempt was foiled after Parker screamed, and Tal nicknamed her the kings rat because he was booted from the house as a result. Parkers suit adds that shes aware of numerous other women who were sexually assaulted by one or more of the Alexander brothers. She would learn that it was common knowledge that the Alexander brothers often forcefully raped women, drugged women and tricked women into having sex by pretending to be one of their brothers (i.e., Alon would pretend to be Oren and vice versa), the filing continues. Not long after Parker filed her suit, Tal stepped down from his billion-dollar brokerage firm OFFICIAL so, in the words of his attorney, he could focus fully on clearing his name. Tals Thursday filing claims Parker attempts to use the court system to pursue fabricated allegations for financial gain. The truth sits in stark contrast to the lurid and inflammatory allegations contained in the Complaint. 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. Milwaukee police referred four charges of felony murder in the death of D'Vontaye Mitchell, a 43-year-old man who died after being held facedown on the ground outside the Hyatt Regency hotel, to the district attorney, a police spokesperson said Thursday. Sgt. Efrain Cornejo told the Journal Sentinel the department has been in consultation with the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office since July 5 and that it subsequently referred the charges. The District Attorney's Office has not made a decision on whether to file charges, he said. The four people aren't in custody and police aren't seeking them at this time, Cornejo said. Friday, the Milwaukee Police Department said in a press release that it also referred an "underlying charge of battery" against the four people. "Evidence was reviewed by both civilian and sworn investigators," the press release said. "On July 5, 2024, felony murder charges with the underlying charge of battery were referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office against four individuals." The district attorney's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The office previously said it was reviewing Mitchell's death as a homicide case. In Wisconsin, a conviction for felony murder carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. By contrast, a conviction for first-degree reckless homicide is punishable by up 60 years. Anyone convicted of first-degree intentional homicide faces a mandatory life imprisonment. Mitchell died June 30 outside the Hyatt Regency hotel, 333 W. Kilbourn Ave., at about 4 p.m. Hotel security held him facedown before he died, with knees on parts of his back. Mitchell's death has invoked the police killing of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died in a similar fashion as police held him down with their knees on his back. One of the Mitchell family attorneys, Will Sulton, had strong words for the police department Thursday for not contacting the family with the decision to refer criminal charges and for not making arrests. "They need to follow Marsy's Law," Sulton said. Wisconsin voters approved the state's version of Marsy's Law in 2020 as a constitutional amendment after it passed the state Legislature twice. The victims' rights law is named after Marsy Nicholas, who was murdered by a former boyfriend in California in 1983. He confronted her family a week after she died, when the family was unaware he'd been released on bail. Her billionaire brother started efforts to expand victims' rights, which became the national Marsy's Law movement. The 2020 amendment and other legislation passed in 1993 and 1980 protect crime victims' right to privacy but also mandate that they're treated with dignity, such as in communication from police. Opponents say it bogs down the legal system and argue the wording on the 2020 ballot was confusing for the average voter. It was challenged in court, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the amendment in 2023. "The (Mitchell) families are now crime victims, and that means they have rights," Sulton said. "Among those rights is a right to communication. The Police Department did not reach out to the family. They should have, and they need to do so in the future. "They need to provide regular updates on the progress of their investigation and where things are, and I really do not understand why the Police Department and Chief (Jeffrey) Norman are treating the family like this. We demand more from the Police Department here." Sulton, who's part of a team of lawyers that includes well-known civil rights attorney Ben Crump, has met with the District Attorney's Office on multiple occasions and reviewed evidence, including video from inside the hotel. "(Police) made the determination that this was not a criminal investigation. ... It was onlookers and family gathering evidence, which led to meetings with the District Attorney's Office, which led us here now. "And, let's be clear here, we have body camera footage of security officials at Hyatt lying on camera saying, 'I didn't strike him. I didn't see anybody strike him,' even though that's all on camera. You see them punching him, kicking him, hitting him with a broom, hitting him with a baton. ... It is just completely outrageous." Sulton said it is "shocking" that police will not be pursuing arrests despite referring felony charges. "I think the behavior of the Police Department is really, really wrong and really, really appalling," he said. On Wednesday, the family, attorneys and supporters held a demonstration outside a downtown Milwaukee police and court building. Sulton said video shows Mitchell ran from Hyatt security and into the womens bathroom, where two women described Mitchell as being scared. Upon exiting the bathroom, Sulton said Hyatt security punched down at Mitchell. "DVontaye was trying to run for his life, Sulton said Wednesday. When he was confronted by the guards, he had his hands up, but was dragged to the floor and beaten, begging for the blows to stop, according to the attorneys. The Journal Sentinel has not independently reviewed the footage the attorneys reference. Members of Mitchells family told reporters they were "repulsed and shocked" by the video. An initial police news release said that security held him down following what it described as a disturbance and subsequent fight as he was escorted out. A family attorney said Mitchell was having a mental health crisis. Earlier Thursday, Mitchell's family held a funeral for the 43-year-old man. Prominent civil right activist and minister Al Sharpton gave the eulogy, and hundreds attended the service. Aimbridge Hospitality, the operator of the Hyatt hotel, said it had fired the employees involved in the incident on Wednesday night. That came after a Hyatt spokesperson said the company supported firing the employees and issuing criminal charges against them. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: D'Vontaye Mitchell death in Milwaukee: 4 murder charges referred to DA Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is now cancer free, the 64-year-old confirmed in a post on X Friday, which began with the sentence I want to share an update about my health. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI July 12 (UPI) -- Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is now cancer free, the 64-year-old confirmed in a post on X Friday, which credited her diagnosis to early detection and care from her doctor. Klobuchar, the first female senator from Minnesota, said she got the news from her doctors after a regular six-month checkup. The former presidential candidate publicly revealed in 2021 she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer, calling the news "scary at times." She later underwent surgery and radiation treatments. "I recently had my routine 6-month exam at Mayo Clinic, which I have had regularly ever since being diagnosed with Stage 1A breast cancer and successfully treated in 2021," Klobuchar said in the post. "Thanks to early detection and diligent follow-up visits, my doctor says I am now cancer-free." Amy Klobuchar, the first female senator from Minnesota, said she got the news from her doctors after a regular six-month checkup. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI The former corporate lawyer and Yale Law School graduate on Friday urged all Americans to be diligent when it comes to cancer detection. At the time of her cancer diagnosis, the mother of one admitted she'd skipped routine checks because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., publicly revealed in 2021 shed been diagnosed with breast cancer, calling the news scary at times. She later underwent surgery and radiation treatments. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI "I want to again encourage every Minnesotan and every American to get their routine screenings, exams and follow-ups. It made a huge difference for me, and I know it can make a huge difference for so many others. Our health is not something we can ever take for granted, and this is another reminder that each day is a gift," Klobuchar said in the statement. Klobuchar is the senior senator from Minnesota, having first been elected to office in 2007. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI She currently chairs the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. In 2020, she sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination before eventually dropping out of the race and endorsing then-candidate Joe Biden. Senator Amy Klobuchar credited early detection and diligent follow-up visits for her cancer-free diagnosis. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar says her doctor found a small calcification during a recent six-month check up that was successfully removed during a "minimally invasive outpatient procedure." In a post on social media, Klobuchar said she's again "cancer-free" but will "will have a few days of radiation as a precaution." The DFL senator, who is seeking re-election this fall, has touted the benefits of routine screenings and exams since she was first diagnosed with stage-one breast cancer in March of 2021. She again encouraged "every Minnesotan and every American to get their routine screenings, exams, and follow-ups." "It made a huge difference for me, and I know it can make a huge difference for so many others," she wrote. "Our health is not something we can ever take for granted, and this is another reminder that each day is a gift." Klobuchar has had routine exams every six months at Mayo Clinic since her diagnosis. She underwent a successful lumpectomy and a round of radiation treatment in 2021. Doctors told Klobuchar that her treatment had gone well and her chances of developing cancer again are no greater than the average person. "Thanks to early detection and diligent follow-up visits, my doctor says I am now cancer-free," Klobuchar wrote. Miracle Bash returns to raise money for NICU babies for 19th year HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) In just a few weeks, a fun event will happen in Huntsville to benefit the Melissa George Neonatal Memorial Fund. The 19th annual Miracle Bash is on Friday, August 2 at The Royal at Stovehouse. Huntsville City Schools adopting Handle With Care program for upcoming school year The Rio Carnival-themed event is for people who are 21 and older and will feature games, Brazilian-inspired food, live music from local band Junctional Rhythm, a special opportunity to honor NICU babies and one of the biggest silent auctions in town. And its all for a good cause! The money raised through the event pays for lifesaving equipment for sick and premature babies through the memorial fund named after Melissa George. The fund was established in 2005 in memory of Amy and Chris Georges infant daughter Melissa Suzanne. Amy gave birth to twin daughters Melissa and Ann Catherine 14 weeks early that year. Melissa passed away just a few hours after she was born. Get breaking news, traffic and weather alerts directly to your smartphone. Download the News 19 App After spending 68 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Huntsville Hospital for Women & Children, Ann Catherine has grown into a healthy young woman. The care their daughters received inspired Amy and Chris to give back in hopes of giving the tiniest, most vulnerable patients their best chance of survival. Every year, the HH NICU cares for more than 1,200 infants from around the region. In 2023, the Miracle Bash event raised $210,000 which paid for high-tech infant beds and warmers for the NICU along with new computers and mounts for NICU nurses providing bedside care. Celebrate local farmers, and farm animals, at the Providence Market This year, organizers say the proceeds from Miracle Bash will pay for 80 high-tech syringe feeding pumps, so the NICU nurses can feed their tiniest patients who are too small or sick to take bottles. The Miracle Bash event starts at 6:00 p.m. on August 2, 2024. To buy tickets online by July 25, 2024, click here. If you cant attend the event but are still interested in donating towards the cause, click here. If you have any questions, call (256) 265-8077. 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. A hearse and van sit outside the Return to Nature Funeral Home in October 2023 in Penrose, Colo. Investigators found stacks of partially covered human remains, bodily fluids several inches deep on the floor, and flies, prompting state lawmakers to enhance funeral home regulations in Colorado. (Photo by David Zalubowski/The Associated Press) The headlines were the stuff of nightmares. One Colorado funeral home owner let the body of a woman decompose for two years in a hearse parked outside a house he rented, while hoarding the cremated remains of dozens of others inside. Last year, authorities discovered nearly 200 improperly stored bodies at another Colorado funeral home after receiving an odor complaint from neighbors. Investigators later learned that the funeral home had sent fake ashes to families that had paid for cremation services. The incidents, which led to criminal charges, sparked public outrage and traumatized families already coping with grief. But they also highlighted the states lax regulation of the funeral industry. For 40 years, Colorado had some of the nations most lenient rules for funeral homes. It was the only state where a professional license wasnt required to be a funeral director. That changed this year. Amid nationwide workforce challenges, some states have looked to make it easier to work in funeral homes and crematoriums. But after grisly incidents at some facilities, lawmakers in Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan have sought to tighten control over this essential but often overlooked industry. It was just, We have to do something. We have to fix this problem, said Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat who was among the bipartisan sponsors of a new law tightening funeral home regulation . People just assume funeral homes are safe and clean, she said, and that the workers embalming, cremating and burying the dead are doing so with care. With the grief these families went through, it was like they died again. And I dont think a lot of people think about it that way until something like this happens, Titone said. That trust was broken on a sacred thing. One Michigan lawmaker is trying to change state regulations to ensure bodies are refrigerated as they await burial or cremation. The effort follows discoveries of unrefrigerated bodies decomposing in a Flint funeral homes garage and a Detroit funeral home storing more than 50 infant and fetal remains without families permission. When a loved one dies, we deserve to know that their remains will be treated with the utmost respect, Democratic state Sen. Kevin Hertel wrote in a local newspaper opinion piece on the legislation he sponsored. As we grapple with grief and trauma, the last thing we should worry about is that a parent, sibling, spouse, or child who has passed is neglected in death. Hertel did not respond to requests for comment. His legislation has not advanced. Credentials In Colorado, one law passed in 2022 expands the states ability to inspect funeral homes and crematories. Another one passed this year requires funeral directors, embalmers, and cremationists to be licensed by the state they must obtain certain academic degrees or have enough professional experience or certain industry certifications. Its a huge deal, said Faith Haug, chair of the mortuary science program at Arapahoe Community College, Colorados only accredited program. Haug, who holds professional licenses in several other states, was surprised to learn that none was required when she moved to the Centennial State a decade ago. When I first moved here, it was a little insulting, she said, noting that people with extensive education and experience were treated the same under the law as those with none. While even the states funeral industry supported the legislation this year, it did raise concerns about retaining existing workers who havent had to obtain professional credentials before. Beginning in 2027, the law requires that funeral directors complete an accredited educational program, pass a national board exam and have work experience. But the law does give existing funeral directors several options to obtain provisional licensure, including passing national exams or having 4,000 hours of documented work experience. The biggest concern is just workforce disruption, Haug said. If you dont have different paths to licensure, the fear was that the workforce would essentially collapse. A tight labor market has pushed some states to expand eligibility for licensed funeral workers. For example, Missouri lawmakers in recent years have sought to expand licensure, which now requires passing an exam. Proposed legislation would allow workers who have completed an approved apprenticeship to become licensed. A bill passed the state House but did not make it out of the Senate before the end of this session. Its not easy getting people in the profession, said Chris Farmer, general counsel for the National Funeral Directors Association. While he said he understands the urge to regulate in some cases, he said all industries include bad actors: Even in the most stringent states, somebodys going to do something bad. You cant prevent it. Composting Recently, state legislatures have been busy passing measures covering new practices such as human composting and so-called water cremation . Farmer noted that funeral directors perform some 2.4 million funerals each year and the vast majority of them never result in headlines. Unfortunately, it is a reactive situation, he said. Funeral service only gets their attention when something goes wrong. That was certainly the case in Illinois. A local coroner last year uncovered inconsistencies with cremated remains that dated back years. Authorities said at least 80 families around the country received the wrong remains some of which had to be exhumed from a national cemetery. We found that there were families that were impacted from the West Coast to the East Coast and all places in between, said Illinois state Sen. Doris Turner, a Democrat. Turner sponsored successful legislation this year that requires funeral directors to use unique identifiers on the body, body bag, or any donated body part or organ of the deceased. She said that chain of custody should prevent future problems with funeral homes mixing up remains. For me, this is probably the most important piece of legislation that I have been able to pass during my time in the General Assembly, she said. Some families had spread ashes in meaningful places, and one woman told Turner how she had for months talked to an urn in her home that she thought contained the remains of her mother. Those families later learned that what they had were the remains of strangers. Those are things that you cant correct, Turner said. Ground up concrete Sheila Canfield-Jones, who lives about an hour outside of Denver, never thought to question the funeral home she found online after her daughter died of a heroin overdose in 2019. The Colorado facility promoted natural funeral services and promised to plant a tree in her daughters honor. Four years later, the FBI notified her that she hadnt received her daughters cremated remains; shed gotten a box of ground-up concrete. Her daughters body was among those left to rot inside the Return to Nature Funeral Home for years. You have nightmares, she said. You think, What did she look like? What did the room look like? There were 190 bodies. There was an infant in there. Canfield-Jones said the hellish stories and the testimony of affected families were too much for lawmakers to ignore. We pestered the hell out of them, she said. So they had to listen. While she believes the legislation was a solid first step in addressing industry problems, she said it will take a long time to rebuild trust. In the meantime, she said, she wouldnt want to be taken to a Colorado funeral home. If I die tomorrow, Id be in a car going to Kansas, she said. Until all this comes down, I dont know that I could trust anybody. You want to believe theres good people in this industry that do a good job. And Im sure there are. But how do you know? This report was first published by Stateline, with the Phoenix part of the States Newsroom nonprofit news network. Stateline maintains editorial independence. The ongoing lawsuit between the Lizzie Borden House and Miss Lizzies Coffee has turned ugly, with the owner of Miss Lizzies claiming a witness has intimidated him on the museums instructions, trying to bully him into bankruptcy. US Ghost Adventures, which owns the museum and bed-and-breakfast at 230 Second St., last year sued its cafe neighbor at 242 Second St., alleging that Miss Lizzies Coffee is violating Lizzie Borden-related trademarks that USGA owns. USGA has filed statements from employees and customers claiming people have mistakenly believed the two businesses are related. In a brief filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Miss Lizzies Coffee owner Joseph Pereira writes that a witness for US Ghost Adventures has posted Pereiras criminal record throughout the Internet and [sent] copies to several vendors and agencies that [Pereira] uses in an attempt to embarrass him. Miss Lizzie's Coffee at 242 Second St. in Fall River advertises itself as the "most haunted coffee shop in the world." Pereira adds that the witness admitted to him that he was instructed by [US Ghost Adventures] to intimidate the Defendant so the Defendant would go out of business through humiliation. When contacted by phone on Thursday and asked about evidence to support the allegations in his brief, Pereira said he would not comment, saying he preferred to litigate the allegations during oral arguments in court. Did Lizzie Borden use an alias? 5 facts you never knew about Fall River's infamous murders Coffee shop owner claims a witness was bought off with week at B&B In earlier filings, USGA has provided affidavits from witnesses who claimed that customers have falsely believed the two businesses are connected. Those witnesses included tour guides at the house and customers themselves. Pereiras brief notes that there are several clearly placed signs at Miss Lizzie's noting the two businesses are unrelated. As for employees, Pereira's brief says that Lizzie Borden House employees are forced to go along with the narrative the Plaintiff desires. The Lizzie Borden House and Miss Lizzie's Coffee are side-by-side on Second Street in Fall River. The two unrelated businesses are in a lawsuit over use of the Lizzie Borden name and iconography. It also alleges that one B&B guest who provided a statement in favor of USGA received a Free Week as a special guest as payment for their affidavit. USGA has not yet responded to a request for comment on the allegations. Does Pereira have a criminal record? Pereira has a criminal record going back decades, having been arraigned dozens of times on larceny-related charges since 1982, and arrests as recent as December 2019. According to past reporting by The Herald News and The Standard-Times, in 1996 Pereira pleaded guilty to stealing over $119,000 from more than a dozen people and spent 15 months in prison. He posed as a lawyer and mortgage broker, taking deposits from people, many in Portuguese-speaking communities, and promising to help them get mortgages and home financing. In 2009, Pereira was arrested multiple times on fraud allegations, including an arrest on charges he swindled a widowed immigrant and mother of two out of $18,000 by promising to get her a green card for her citizenship. The next year, he pleaded guilty to 15 separate charges of fraud and practicing law without a license, was sentenced to three to five years in prison and ordered to pay restitution. Lizzie's fame: 11 ways pop culture took a whack at the legend of Fall River's Lizzie Borden Pereira has, more than once, been in trouble for passing himself off as an attorney, including allegedly posing as a lawyer in New Bedford Housing Court in 1993. In 2009, one victim told Fall River police that a law degree hung on the wall of an olive oil import business operated by Pereira, and that Pereira identified himself as a lawyer who had worked with attorney F. Lee Bailey on the Dr. Sam Sheppard case, which inspired "The Fugitive" television show and movie. In a phone interview on Thursday, Pereira would not discuss his past legal troubles. He said his criminal record was irrelevant to the Miss Lizzie's lawsuit beyond his allegation that USGA has used it to embarrass him. Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future, Pereira said. Breakdown of the whole lawsuit so far A portrait of Lizzie Borden is pasted into the window at Miss Lizzie's Coffee at 242 Second St. in Fall River. US Ghost Adventures owns multiple trademarks relating to the image and name of Lizzie Borden in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Borden was accused of killing her father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden, with a hatchet in their Second Street home in August 1892; she was acquitted after what became the trial of the century. The house is now a tourist attraction that welcomes true-crime enthusiasts from across the world. When Pereira opened Miss Lizzies Coffee next door in 2023, US Ghost Adventures claimed trademark infringement and sued in U.S. District Court in Boston. USGA said customers mistakenly think the two businesses are related and that the cafe's name and logos are too similar to trademarks that USGA owns. Miss Lizzies has denied any customer confusion or infringement. Signs are posted at the cafe noting that it's not part of the museum. Late last year, USGA asked for a preliminary injunction asking the court to stop the cafe from doing business until the lawsuit is resolved. A judge denied that request, and USGA appealed that ruling. Whats currently being argued is that appeal. Both that appeal and the lawsuit are pending. Pereira was initially represented by a lawyer, but has been acting as his own attorney since April 24. US Ghost Adventures owns the Lizzie Borden House at 230 Second St., running it as a museum and bed-and-breakfast. Does US Ghost Adventures have any skeletons in its closet? USGA, founded by owner Lance Zaal, operates ghost tours in dozens of cities across America. In October 2023, owners of a several businesses contacted by The Herald News claimed USGA created and exploited customer confusion by naming its tour companies after existing locally-owned tour companies. Some suspected that USGA guides had followed their tours and used material from their scripts. 'Infuriating': Ghost tours nationwide have an axe to grind with Lizzie Borden House owner What comes next? This appeals process decides whether the U.S. District Court judge made a valid decision to deny USGAs motion to close Miss Lizzies until the lawsuit is over. USGA filed its appeals brief in March, and Miss Lizzies Coffee has filed its answer brief. USGA now has until Aug. 1 to file a response. A panel of judges will consider all the briefs and rule on the appeal, which effectively would decide if Miss Lizzies can stay open pending the suit. There's no timetable for that ruling. Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today. This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Lizzie Borden trademark lawsuit: Cafe owner says B&B intimidated him CHICAGO Police are seeking help from the public in the search for a teen girl who has been missing since Wednesday. Chicago police say 16-year-old Jaleel Denton was last seen on Wednesday, July 10, in the 5300 block of South Hermitage Avenue, in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the citys South Side, and has not been contacted since. LATEST CASES: Missing people in Chicagoland Officers say the teen girl, who stands 5-foot-4 and weighs around 100 pounds, has blonde hair and brown eyes. 16-year-old Jaleel Denton was last seen on Wednesday, July 10, in the 5300 block of South Hermitage Avenue, in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the city's South Side, and has not been contacted since. A photograph provided by CPD also shows the teen with a nose piercing, but it is unclear if she had one when she went missing. Officers did not provide a description of what the teen girl was last seen wearing. Read more: Latest Chicago news headlines Authorities notified the public about the teens disappearance in a news release sent out on Friday. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of 16-year-old Jaleel Denton is asked to contact the CPD Area 1 Detectives at 312-747-8380 or dial 911. Those with information that could help authorities in their investigation can also leave a tip at CPDtip.com. Tips can be filed anonymously. 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. MISSING: Columbus police seek information on juvenile last seen near Buena Vista Road COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) The Columbus Police Department is asking for the publics help with finding a missing juvenile. Police say Chamiya Bradley, 14, was last seen around Buena Vista Road and Illges Road on Wednesday at about 10 p.m. She was wearing a black t-shirt, blue joggers and black slides. Bradley is described as standing at 5-foot-7 and weighing 190 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call 911, CPDs special victims unit at (706) 225-3449, or Detective Stice at (706) 225-4366. 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. ENTERPRISE, Ala (WDHN) Enterprise Police is asking for help finding a missing 17-year-old. According to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Lolita Tsaregorodtsev was last seen on Wednesday, July 10, in the area of Grayton Lane. Troopers say Tsaregorodtsev was seen wearing a black shirt and black distressed jeans, and may have a guitar or backpack. If you have any information on Tsaregorodtsevs whereabouts, you are asked to call the Enterprise Police Department at 334-347-2222. 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. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The NATO summit in Washington showcased a series of significant deals for top U.S. defense companies and others, including RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Norway's Kongsberg Defense and Sweden's SAAB. Here are some of the weapons procurements that were highlighted, many of which have been in development for months, if not years. Many date to before the summit, with the exception of the Stinger contract which was first publicly announced at the summit. HIGHLIGHTED DEALS A $680 million contract for 940 Stinger missiles made by the Raytheon unit of RTX. Shoulder-fired Stingers have been in hot demand in Ukraine, where they have successfully stopped Russian assaults from the air. Neighboring European countries have sought the weapon, fearing they may also need to beat back Russian forces. Patriot GEM-T missiles, made by COMLOG, a joint venture between RTX's Raytheon and MBDA valued at $5.5 billion. NATO in January said its procurement arm would support a group of member countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain, with a contract to buy up to 1,000 Patriot air defense missiles. 155 mm artillery shell components, made by various companies including General Dynamics, valued at $365 million, have been ordered. The most pressing need for Ukraine two years after Russia's full-scale invasion is artillery ammunition, much of which has been supplied by the U.S. and other NATO members. An extension program for NATO's AWACS airborne radar for $1.2 billion that is being built by Boeing, Italy's Leonardo, Spain's Indra, Airbus, Thales, Jacobs, and Kongsberg. HIGHLIGHTED CO-PRODUCTION AGREEMENTS Norway's Nammo and RTX's Raytheon business unit agreed to partner to build rocket motors. These engines have become a hot commodity to propel a wide range of rockets and missiles in Ukraine and for future weaponry across NATO. The Ground Launched Small-Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) produced by SAAB and Boeing has been used successfully in Ukraine. Portions of interceptors for Lockheed Martin's Patriot missile defense system will be produced by Poland's Wojskowe Zakady Elektroniczne. The United States this week also announced a second $2 billion foreign military financing direct loan deal with Poland as part of a major modernization program that will include buying U.S. defense equipment. Kongsberg and RTX's Raytheon business unit are working to improve the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, also called NASAMs. Originally announced in October 2023, NASAMs have become an important part of missile defense in Ukraine. (Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Jamie Freed) 2 accused of kidnapping Louisiana girls and killing one of them are indicted in Mississippi A man accused of killing a Louisiana woman last month and taking her 4-year-old and 6-year-old daughters to Mississippi one of whom also was found dead has been indicted in Mississippi on murder, kidnapping and other charges in the childrens cases, court records show. Daniel Callihan was indicted by a grand jury on seven counts capital murder in the death of the 4-year-old; two counts of kidnapping; three counts of sexual battery; and possession of a stolen vehicle, court papers filed June 28 in Mississippis Hinds County show. A woman accused of being his accomplice, Victoria Cox, also was indicted in the childrens cases, including capital murder in the 4-year-olds death; kidnapping; and sexual battery. Louisiana authorities accuse Callihan, 36, of killing the childrens mother, Callie Brunett, at her home in Loranger, Louisiana, last month, abducting the two girls and taking them to Mississippi. On June 13, the 4-year-old girl was found dead and the 6-year-old was found injured but alive on a property in Jackson, Mississippi, authorities said. Both Callihan and Cox, who were arrested in Mississippi on June 13 and June 14, respectively, also were indicted on state charges in Louisiana last month, and Callihan additionally faces federal charges. An attorney representing Callihan on the charges in Louisiana told CNN he could not comment on the indictment in Mississippi. CNN could not locate legal representation for Callihan in Mississippi. Coxs Hinds County public defender, Christopher Routh, told CNN in an emailed statement: An indictment is nothing more than a formal charge and is no indication of guilt or culpability. Every person charged or accused of a crime in this country is presumed innocent. Ms. Cox maintains her innocence and will plead not guilty at her arraignment. Authorities in Louisiana had found Brunett dead in her Loranger home, and then issued an Amber Alert June 13 for her daughters, who were missing. Hours after the Amber Alert, law enforcement in Jackson, Mississippi some 130 miles north of Brunetts Louisiana home arrested Callihan in a wooded area near a Jackson house and authorities found the body of the 4-year-old, authorities said. The 6-year-old was found injured and was taken to a hospital, police said. Investigators said the wooded area, which had small cages and small wiring enclosures, could be tied to human trafficking. Investigators believed Callihan had dated Brunett off and on, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriffs Office Chief Jimmy Travis said last month. A GoFundMe campaign created in loving support of the Brunett family in a time of unimaginable suffering has raised more than $62,000. Charges in Louisiana In Louisiana, a grand jury indicted Callihan on June 20 with two counts of first-degree murder one in the death of Brunett and one in the death of the 4-year-old, according to court documents filed in Louisianas Tangipahoa Parish. He also was charged there with aggravated kidnapping of a child and second degree kidnapping. The Louisiana grand jury also indicted Cox on a count each of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnaping of a child, second-degree kidnapping of a child, and accessory after the fact in first degree murder, according to Scott Perrilloux, district attorney for a judicial district that includes Tangipahoa Parish. Louisiana will seek the death penalty against Callihan for the two first-degree murder counts, according to court documents filed Friday in Tangipahoa Parish. Callihan pleaded not guilty to his Louisiana state charges on Monday, according to court documents. CNN has sought comment from Callihans attorney. Callihan also has been charged in federal court in Louisianas eastern district with kidnapping and transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. CNNs Raja Razek, Jamiel Lynch, Elizabeth Wolfe, Mallika Kallingal, Sarah Dewberry and Ashley R. Williams contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled that nothing in federal law prevents pharmacy manufacturers from limiting the number of contract pharmacies they will supply with 340B discounted products (Getty Images). A bill favoring Missouri pharmacies and health care providers in a national dispute with drugmakers will become law without Gov. Mike Parsons signature. The legislation, which passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities, bars pharmaceutical manufacturers from limiting where they will deliver drugs purchased at a discount under a federal program intended to help providers serving people in rural and high-poverty areas or with specialized health needs. It allows medical providers qualifying for the program, known as the 340B Drug Pricing Program for the section of federal law where it is found, to enter contracts with an unlimited number of pharmacies to dispense the drugs to their patients. The bill is flawed, Parson wrote in a letter explaining his action, but ultimately is better for patient access and affordability than if he vetoed it. Most troubling, the 340B program lacks requirements for cost savings to be passed onto patients and further lacks transparency as to how those cost savings are used, Parson wrote. Parson made his decision as he announced action on the last of 26 non-budget bills passed during this years legislative session. He had 45 days until Sunday to make his decisions and any bill not signed and not vetoed becomes law as if he had signed it. Parson did not veto any bills. The stakes nationally in the 340B program are huge, in a medical market with escalating prescription prices and increasing concentration of medical providers in direct employment by hospital groups. Nationally, pharmaceutical manufacturers sold nearly $100 billion in discounted drugs in 2021 and 2022 through the 340B program. In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled that nothing in federal law prevents pharmacy manufacturers from limiting the number of contract pharmacies they will supply with 340B discounted products. But those limits go only so far, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled when it upheld an Arkansas law very similar to the bill passed in Missouri that bans manufacturer-imposed limits on contracts. The use of contract pharmacies by covered entities under the program among other programmatic concerns is an issue that should be addressed by Congress, Parson wrote. The legislation, while laudable in intent, ensures the expansion of a flawed federal program within the state of Missouri. Because many health care providers did not have in-house pharmacies when the 340B program was begun in 1992, a change in 1996 allowed a single contractor for each provider. That was expanded starting in 2010 to allow unlimited contracts. The number of contract pharmacies grew from 2,321 in 2010 to 205,340 in 2024. Pushing back against the growth, pharmaceutical companies have targeted the programs use by disproportionate share hospitals, generally serving large populations of patients without insurance or on Medicaid or Medicare. Those hospitals account for about 80% of all drugs purchased through the 340B program, $41.8 billion in 2022 and $34.3 billion the year before. Those hospitals should be required to show how they use the money to help the patients that cannot pay for doctor visits and medications, Nicole Longo, deputy vice president of public affairs at PhRMA, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, said in an interview last month with The Independent. They buy low and they sell high, Longo said. Patients bear a lot of that cost, and so thats a major concern of the industry. In a statement, Stami Williams, PhRMA spokesperson, said the association agrees that the 340B program is flawed and in need of an overhaul by Congress. The bill that will become law, she said, does not help vulnerable patients more affordably access medicines. This legislation is a handout to large hospital systems, chain pharmacies, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The Missouri Hospital Association, in a statement following Parsons action, said the legislation will maintain access to essential medications. The overwhelming majority in favor of the bill recognized that, said Jon Doolittle, the associations president. In doing so, they rejected artificial limits on pharmacies participation, to ensure members of their communities could access their medication and health care services close to home, Doolittle said. In addition, they recognized that the 340B program supports services that would not otherwise be available in many communities without the protections added through the legislation. The program is essential for keeping rural providers open and giving patients access to prescriptions near their homes, said Joe Pierle, executive director of the Missouri Primary Care Association. The association represents federally qualified health centers, which serve patients regardless of their ability to pay. The health centers are the second-largest group of providers using the 340B program. This whole contract pharmacy (issue) is really about allowing us to contract with local pharmacies so that patients in the Mark Twain National Forest can can drive a mile or two to pick up a prescription instead of having to traverse the hills and mountains down there, which are difficult to navigate, to sometimes go to a different county to get the drugs, Pierle said. Criticism of contract pharmacies is a smokescreen, he said. Their whole focus, Pierle said, was trying to get everybodys focus off the massive profits that theyre making and the high cost for medications that Missourians are having to pay. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Missouris Josh Hawley embraced Christian nationalism in speech. What does that mean? 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. Sen. Josh Hawley began his speech Monday night at the National Conservatism Conference with Augustine of Hippo. As the Roman Empire was crumbling, Hawley said, the Christian philosopher was writing about a City of God a civilization built on the love of the Bible, family and labor. The Puritans, Hawley said, brought that vision to the United States and made the nation in Augustines vision. Im sure some will say now that Im calling America a Christian nation. So I am, Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said. Some will say that Im advocating Christian nationalism. So I do. My question is: Is there any other kind worth having? Hawleys open embrace of Christian nationalism the idea that American politics and culture are, and should be, rooted in the Christian faith marked a significant change. While the Missouri Senators work has often centered his faith from writing his college thesis about President Theodore Roosevelts faith to working on Supreme Court cases protecting religious freedoms he has chafed at being called a Christian nationalist. The belief is often associated with anti-democratic impulses, like being more supportive of authoritarian leaders and believing that a certain type of American citizen like Christian families deserve to be held in higher esteem than others. But in the midst of a reelection bid, Hawley is among a group of conservatives seeking to redefine the term as he tries to build support among his base of rural, working-class voters. I think it speaks to the ongoing efforts to normalize the idea of Christian nationalism, said Ruth Braunstein, a sociology professor at the University of Connecticut. And in some ways, to kind of reclaim the title and to make it politically palatable. What is Christian Nationalism? In surveys of the American public, researchers dont ask people if they consider themselves Christian nationalists. Instead, they rely on five questions: whether the government should declare America a Christian nation, whether the countrys laws should be based on Christian values, whether they believe we will not have a country if the country moves away from Christian foundations, whether being Christian is part of being a good American and whether God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society. If someone agrees with all or most of the questions on the list, they are considered an adherent or sympathizer of Christian nationalism. The Public Religion Research Institute found that 30% of Americans qualify as sympathizers or adherents, including 40% of Missourians and 38% of Kansans. Christian nationalism is not new to American politics. Its been around since before the American Revolution and played a significant role in efforts to forge a national identity as politicians grew concerned with the rise of communism in the 1950s. It can have a broad definition there are people who are on the extreme end, who embrace white nationalism, and people who are drawn to a more moderate version of the ideology, that focuses more on Judeo-Christian values and is more tolerant and inclusive. But researchers have found that people who are open to Christian nationalism often have anti-democratic instincts. Christian nationalists tend to see the world as a chaotic place and are comfortable with a strong ruler to enforce order. They are open to efforts to limit access to voting and consider certain people as more authentically American. Theres key threats in limiting access to the vote, said Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Theres key threats in embracing political violence, and then key threats and kind of giving over power to an authoritarian leader and denying a fair, free election to ensure that who they want to be in power, stays in power. Hawleys definition Hawley thinks the old Republican Party is dead. Over the past two years, hes strongly denounced the traditional Republican establishment in Washington in favor of a new coalition focused on the rural, working-class voters who helped elect former President Donald Trump in 2016 and turned Missouri from a bellwether state into a solidly conservative one. His speech Monday night was the latest example. He used Christian nationalism to argue that the Republican Party has abandoned Church-going voters of all races in favor of helping large corporations chase greater profits. Hes not only embracing Christian nationalism, but hes kind of yoking it to his version of economic populism, where the bad guys in his version of the Christian nationalist narrative are corporate elites, Wall Street, the money crowd, usurers, Braunstein said. Hawley argued that the Republican Party should back policies that are geared toward helping families from supporting private labor unions so that Americans can support a household on just one salary to giving larger tax breaks to families. These Republicans forget that economics is first and last about people and the things they love, Hawley said. About providing for family, about personal independence, about having a place to call home and a job that gives you pride. Hawley also said he supported a Christian nationalism of tolerance and defending liberty, rather than one focused on despair and fear. He condemned Christian nationalism that was centered on ethnicity. But he repeatedly claimed progressives were seeking to eliminate religion and replace it with support for the LGBTQ community. The left wants religion. They want the religion of the pride flag, Hawley said. We want the religion the Bible. He argued for removing the pride flag from federal buildings and replacing it with the countrys motto In God We Trust. Later in the speech, Hawley claimed progressives saw diversity, equity and inclusion as their new Holy Trinity. Instead of Christmas they want pride month. Instead of prayer in schools they venerate the trans flag, he said. Braunstein said that Hawley appeared to be trying to present a more mainstream version of Christian nationalism, one that fits in with Americas Judeo-Christian heritage, similar to efforts during the Eisenhower administration to make In God We Trust the national motto. But his speech still reflected several elements that have come to define the ideology, including efforts to portray Christians in a fight with a common enemy in Hawleys case the corporate executives and the LGBTQ community and its allies. He wants to promote this as something thats not extreme, she said. But its really important to recognize that that will resonate with extremists. ST. LOUIS The Missouri Supreme Court has overruled a motion to withdraw a warrant of execution for Marcellus Williams, who awaits another court hearing on his claim of innocence in the murder that landed him on death row. For now, the state will continue to carry out the execution of Williams as previously scheduled for Sept. 24. However, that could change, as a ruling to determine whether Williams is innocent is set for Aug. 21 in St. Louis County. Williams, 55, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle during a robbery of her suburban St. Louis home. Missouri woman says residents should unite against states attempt to reclaim pandemic money He was hours away from execution in August 2017 when he was given a reprieve. Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens halted the process, citing that testing unavailable at the time of the killing showed that DNA on the knife matched someone else, not Williams. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate Williams murder conviction. Bell cited the new DNA evidence and said he believed Williams was not involved in Gayles death. While of course we would prefer that this motion before the Missouri Supreme Court had prevailed and there were no longer an execution date looming for Marcellus Williams, our focus is on the motion we filed before the 21st Judicial Circuit and the effort to have our concerns about the conviction of Mr. Williams heard in court, said Bell in a statement to FOX 2. A Missouri law that took effect in 2021 allowed prosecuting attorneys, like Bell, to file a motion to vacate a conviction if they believe an inmate could be innocent or was otherwise erroneously convicted. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Tricia Bushnell, an attorney for Williams, shared the following statement on Fridays Supreme Court ruling: We will continue to pursue justice in the circuit court. We are confident that any court, when presented with all the evidenceincluding the DNA evidencewill come to the same conclusion as St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell: that Marcellus Williams is innocent and his conviction must be overturned. No court has ever held a hearing to consider all of the exculpatory evidence of innocence. There is still time to right this wrong. No one wants to see Missouri execute an innocent man. Before his murder conviction, investigators claimed that Williams broke a windowpane to get inside Gayles home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husbands laptop were stolen. Gayle was a social worker who previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 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. trad wives, polyamory, and hot celibacy summer After a brief assessment of President Bidens strategy to shut down his critics, Ben and Nayeema move on to the larger culture and gender wars that will define the 2024 election, regardless of who ends up on the Democratic ticket. They look at recent upheavals of a media-fueled myth that women can have it all and dig into how trends of trad wives, polyamory and hot celibacy summer pierce that mythology, as does the conservative Project 2025.Then they connect with Lindsay Peoples, editor-in-chief of The Cut, to discuss vibe shifts, the politicization of gender roles and whether the publication is putting its thumb on the scale for Kamala Harris. Finally, Max Tani joins to rid us of our blindspots, replete with DC spin and (national security) influencers in the wild. If you have a tip or a comment, email us mixedsignals@semafor.com Find us on X: @semaforben, @nayeema @maxwelltani or on Instagram @nayeemaraza Sign up for Semafor Medias Sunday newsletter: https://www.semafor.com/newsletters/media Mixed Signals from Semafor Media is presented by Think with Google Subscribe to Mixed Signals Full Episode Transcript Ben Smith: Even men are texting each other about these articles. Nayeema Raza: Really, even men? Ben: Even my text groups are blown up with Cut pieces. My very boring, sad text groups. Nayeema: When youve hit the men, you really hit the fringes of culture and you know shits about to take off. Ben: Thats right. [MUSIC] Ben: Im Ben Smith. Nayeema: Im Nayeema Raza. Ben: And this is Mixed Signals from Semafor Media. Nayeema: Today were going to take a little bit of a break from the DC drama and instead talk about an even more urgent if ongoing crisis, and that is the media-manufactured conspiracy that women can have it all. Ben: Not sure which of these crises is going to be resolved first. Nayeema: Definitely the presidency, but were going to talk about why this kind of can women have it all, is not actually a womens issue, but its an everyone issue. Its a societal issue. It plagues our culture and it is in some weird way shaping the backdrop from everything that we see from the Tradwife Trend, the Polyamory Bubble, Project 2025. Were going to bring in The Cuts editor-in-Chief Lindsay Peoples for part of that conversation. The Cut, which is part of New York Magazine, has been at the forefront of this latest vibe shift. Theyre on fire right now on Ben: On fire. Nayeema: And they have had some key pieces on Vice President Harris of late, so well ask her about that too to satisfy your political itch, Ben. Ben: I dont know if Kamala can survive the vibe shift though, actually. Thats what I want to ask Lindsay about. Nayeema: What can survive the vibe shift? The memes of Kamala. I think those are historic. Ben: Yeah, that may be all that survives. Nayeema: So, hi Ben. We both fled the US where things are getting a little Dear Leadery. Ben: Yeah, I think we wanted to go to sort of more stable political environments to consider it more clearly. Nayeema: Yes, and Ive in fact done that. I am currently in Italy. Im in Rome on my way to Tuscany. I actually think Im technically on Australian soil because Im at the home of a middle school friend of mine who is now the Australian Ambassador to the Vatican, so Im in more stable terrain. Where are you, Ben? Ben: The Vatican actually does seem like a sort of model for American governance right. Now Im in Riyadh. Nayeema: Are you raising some Saudi money? Ben: It is interesting. I mean it was a big finance guy recently told me this is literally the only place in the world that anybodys coming to raise money anymore, but thankfully Semafor is a going concern. Were actually here recruiting. We are launching a Gulf G-U-L-F edition soon and looking for some great journalists here and in the United Arab Emirates [inaudible 00:02:29] around the region. Nayeema: Golf journalists, G-O-L-F, journalists need not apply, it seems. Ben: Thats correct. They cover presidential debates now. Nayeema: If you had asked me would I have in my bingo card six years ago the fact that Saudi women would be shedding their abayas, driving and almost doubling the rate that theyre in the workforce over five or six years while the US overturned Roe, V. Wade and women were trying to become Tradwives and churn their own butter. I wouldnt have had that on my bingo card, but that is whats happening. Ben: Honestly, both incredible stories. Nayeema: And at the heart of what were going to talk about today as we get into the culture and get into the gender wars. But Ben, first of all, lets talk quickly, we dont want to get dragged deep into it, but lets talk quickly about whats happening right now in Washington. Isnt the president just doing what part of the problem we diagnosed in the last episode, which is kind of twofold. One really tight hold around the president, really impermeable White House, kind of keeping it as tight to the vest as they can, and two, waving around this narrative that has a pretty chilling effect on the public, if not the media and maybe both, saying that if youre not for me, youre for Trump. Which really kind of has the haunting of the Bush 43 with us or against us kind of vibes. Ben: Or I mean a little of Donald Trump. I mean, let me just stop trying [inaudible 00:03:51] the situation, just sort of speak for myself, which is to say the media. I mean, yeah, Bidens people have built this wall around him to try to prevent the media from knowing what the hell is going on and now I think theyre upset with the medias coverage. But theyve been at best totally opaque at worst dishonest with us and I think theyre reaping the rewards of that right now. Nayeema: And I think the other thing thats come out recently is the president has gone on a bit of a press tour, so distill whats going on here in terms of the White Houses media strategy and responding to this. Ben: To date, it has been the absolute worst case for Democrats, which is to say Biden has done some interviews and has done just well enough to kind of keep the crisis going. Not well enough to dispel doubts, not badly enough to have the whole thing collapse and his ability to communicate in public is right on the line of whether he can continue to run for president. And so the crisis continues. Nayeema: I feel like if I were to write an op-ed on this right now, which I will not do... Ben: Or if someone were to stop you in the street. Nayeema: If someone were to stop me in the street, Id probably say I think that President Bidens issue right now is not his age, but its a question of his integrity. He is becoming the thing that he so despises and kind of the antithesis of the person he was. Hes kind of culturally in the media been seen as this good Joe, not a power clinging guy, and he is becoming this person who is u11nconvinced unmoved by, able to gaslight and say, this is just a battle between him and the media. And I am the only one that can do this. Look at what Ive done with NATO, look at what Ive done... Its very chilling. It speaks to something that is very frustrating in the culture right now also, which is this gerontocracy and the desire for I think young people to feel that theres a future. I think Semafor had a piece on this, Shelby Talcott or someone had written around this poll, how young people perceive government. Ben: Im looking for the headline, I cant find it. Incredible piece, one of the great headlines: A Dying Empire Led by Bad People". Nayeema: And I think this kind of idea of a dying empire led by bad people, it gets to this general culture of this political election, this election thats going to happen in the United States. And a big part of that has been the culture wars and the gender wars in particular. And I think that was a huge backdrop to the last time Biden and Trump went head-to-head. Right? Me Too, the anger around Trump, and abortion has been a leading issue in each of the races whether it was the 2020 election, whether it was the 2022 midterms and every kind of ballot election weve seen on abortion. And I do think gender is the backbone of this election, which is why Im so excited to discuss a kind of conspiracy on this todays episode, which is a conspiracy I fallen prey to that women can have it all. Ben: And you like President Biden blame the media. Nayeema: I do. I mean actually, yeah. This is a place where Ben and I like to bring our grievances. Ben brings grievances around Amtrak. I bring grievances around the culture, but it is about the media. Ben: I have very narrow interests. All right. Nayeema: Yeah. Well, I would love to dedicate this whole episode to the trials and thrills of my dating life. But I think theres this kind of tricky reality of how gender roles have shifted in our modern life and how this idea, I think the promise of female liberation for so long, whether it was Friedans book, the Feminine Mystique to second wave feminism, it all promised female liberation, but actually all it did was not liberate women but add more shit onto their plate. And then you get to this moment in 2024 where the Kansas City Chiefs Harrison Butker who is like, what is his? Is he a kicker? What is his role? Ben: Hes a kicker. Nayeema: Hes a kicker. Ben: Youre really embodying gender roles here. Is this a shtick or is this real? Nayeema: No, I actually dont know, but Harrison Butker in May of 2024 decides to tackle this gender issue in his commencement address at Benedictine College, which is a Catholic college. Lets hear a clip of that speech. Harrison Butker: For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles youre going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. Nayeema: The children you will bring into the world. Ben: But honestly, it sounds just like you, I feel like Ive heard you say that this is a diabolical conspiracy. Nayeema: It does sound like me. And I think that the interesting thing is this has been pegged to the conservative movement. And in fact, if you look at the president of the Heritage Foundations summary of the principles that outline even Project 2025, the first of those is to restore, this is from Kevin Roberts, is to restore the family as a centerpiece of American life and protect our children. And the details of that are a little bit Handmaidens Taley, right? Ben: I mean, hes saying in this very sort of over the top literal sense, something that I do think the current conservative movement is often more subtly saying about a return to much more traditional gender roles, something Donald Trump really kind of personally embodies. Nayeema: But I do think although this is a conservative platform, it hits a chord. The reaction to this Harrison Butker speech was amazing because you saw people wanting to cancel him all of a sudden on Instagram, you saw people trolling him for being homosexual because he dressed too nice. We just got into all these weird spaces. And you saw people like Whoopi Goldberg come to his defense on The View. But also I think he hit at some, he was the wrong messenger, but he was hitting at some principle that isnt just a uniquely conservative principle. I think there are women who have been told careerism is the path, especially amongst millennials. I think thats shifting and he was kind of onto something there. Ben: Nayeema, I know this is your abiding obsession. Where does the phrase, the idea of having it all come from? Nayeema: I wanted to blame capitalism for this, but it turns out that you can blame a journalist for this. While the ideas around having it all came from Betty Friedmans, Feminine Mystique, Madison Avenue really tried to push this idea to sell women, newly liberated women, stuff. It really didnt come to the fore until the 1980s when the Cosmo editor, Helen Gurley Brown had this book come out called Having it All, Love, Success, Sex, Money, Even If Youre Starting With Nothing. That was her- Ben: incredibly influential figure. Nayeema: Did you know her coming up at all? You interacted with her? Ben: No, not at all. And I think she maybe overstayed her welcome at Cosmo, but she was there for 30 years starting in the eighties. But she kind of created this what we think of as Cosmopolitan magazine, this very bold, sexualized, but also very professional woman. I am not sure she wouldve called herself a feminist, but the kind of idea of pro-sex feminism was born in her 1980s Cosmo, I didnt know she wrote a book of that title, but thats almost too on the nose. Nayeema: But that is the generation I grew up in and I think a lot of millennials grew up with that, if not the kind of after effects of the Helen Gurley Brown model. Ben: Yeah. The politics sorted themselves out a little, but just the core idea of, I mean her title of having it all and not having to choose in any way between your career, your personal life, your looks. Nayeema: I feel like I grew up between these two cultures. Pakistan is very traditional, a more traditional patriarchy where women run stuff behind the scenes but not out front necessarily, in America where women are girl bossing all over millennial culture. But I also was sold, I was a Sex and the City generation, that came up in Anne-Marie Slaughters piece, Women Cant Have It All, Sheryl Sandberg telling you to lean in at the same time, this huge kind of conflicting message. And then in 2016, Me Too happens, and then you kind of hit the zenith of the women can have it all culture with the Tatler piece in 2019, which talks about the new trophy wife. Do you remember this, Ben? Ben: Yeah, this was the top of the market. Do you want to say who the new trophy wife is? Nayeema: Yeah, I mean I just want to read you a quote from the top of the piece lead. It goes, Blondes, Birkins and boob jobs are out, PhDs pencil skirts and polemics against the patriarchy are in. The old school trophy wife has been assigned to the scrap head of history and todays discerning bachelor now pines for a power player in her own right. Shes a Meghan Markle, a Priyanka Chopra, a Lady Bamford. Her high priestess Amal Clooney. Ben: Oh my God. Just to bring this back to this moment, the sort of conspiracy theory this week is that the reason that George Clooney turned on Joe Biden and wrote this op-ed saying he was told old to be president was because the White House had criticized Amal Clooney over Gaza. So this comes full circle and George Clooney, in fact in this very traditional way is standing up for his wife. Nayeema: Oh gosh, I guess everybodys a Lady Macbeth, behind every man is a woman orchestrating it all, so to say. Ben: I think hes just a wife guy. Nayeema: But after this 2019 piece, which I hate to tell you is it doesnt last for long the peak, theres a total vibe shift, right? This overdue vibe shift. People like Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein are now pretty much out of sight, out of mind. And I think at that point is when The Cut starts talking about, and were going to have Lindsay Peoples on in a moment, this vibe shift away from what was the hyper-beast woke era into a backlash. And the evidence of that backlash is like Tradwives are on the rise, not just in ballerina farms, but across the world. Theres this TikTok trend of soft life coming out of Nigeria. You also have the girl boss take down around the same time. You have people like [inaudible 00:13:36] et cetera, theyre coming for the female bosses. Liberals like Sheryl Sandberg is coming out and apologizing saying that Lean In was a privilege for white women. Ben: Yeah, I think you see it in politics, and you see it in media where these new spaces are opening. I mean, I dont know, I think it is in some ways kind a conservative impulse, so I know you dont want to politicize it. Nayeema: I think that its being co-opted by conservatives, but theres no liberal offering that Im seeing. The right, thats been the weird thing about American politics, is the right has really co-opted family, which is bizarre because everybody has families. Ben: The right has at least spoken about this problem even if in ways that offends a lot of people. And I think the left and the media have had trouble talking about it in certain ways. Nayeema: But at the same time I think that its not just conservatives, but the culture started seeing women staying home. All of a sudden pandemic, people are staying home more. Theyre cooking for themselves and theres this value to care. Theres Instagram, a place where you can put your perfectly plated food or whatever it is, and places like New Yorker and Washington Post and really The Cut start covering this new woman saying, hey, theres these new trends out there. There are Tradwives, there are these really happy divorced women. There are these really happy celibate women, there are really happy polyamorous women and to some extent theyre all trying to solve the same equation, which is that the lie youve been sold doesnt work. And so you need a new solution and you can configure one that works for you, for your own dynamics. And its not political, its just how you want to live your life. Ben: Its obviously political. People just dont want to see it. We can add the, [inaudible 00:15:14] we can discuss it in the third Trump administration. Nayeema: Ben, I dont know if we can discuss it then because Ill probably be put in some kind of red robe and hat and made to bear children every 18 months. But I understand why you think its all politics. For me, its not inherently political. Its been politicized, I think, not just in the US, but globally, and its largely been politicized by men who feel they stand to lose something. And I dont mean you. Ben: Thank you for that, Nayeema: But we can keep discussing this with Lindsay Peoples, editor of The Cut right after the break. [MUSIC] Nayeema: All right, were back. Were going to talk more about gender and the culture wars and where were going with the vibes of our current cultural and political moment, and were going to talk to Lindsay Peoples as part of that. Ben, why dont you tell people who Lindsay is? Ben: Yeah, Lindsays the editor of The Cut at New York Magazine, and I think the envy of a lot of editors right now because theyre just producing just consistently buzzy, sometimes somewhat deranged, personal essays, commentary that have really opened the aperture I think on cultural coverage in a pretty powerful way. Nayeema: Deranged, Ben, youre going to get called out for supporting hysterical women ideas. Ben: Oh, everybody knows Im pro-deranged. Im just concerned were not publishing enough deranged stuff. Nayeema: Thats good. Ben: Thats what Im taking away from this. Nayeema: Its good to interview people youre jealous of. Ben: Absolutely. Nayeema: Lets go ahead and bring Lindsay in the room. [MUSIC] Nayeema: Hi Lindsay, thanks for being here. Lindsay Peoples: Thank you for having me. Nayeema: We know youre so busy making the rest of media just look like grandparents, Lindsay, over there at The Cut. Lindsay: No, its been a busy time, but no, I mean our team is incredible. Ben: But honestly congratulations. The Cut is just on fire and I feel like Im constantly sending people links and wishing that I had some excuse to do one of these stories. Lindsay: Thank you, I appreciate it. Nayeema: So in the first part of this episode, Ben and I kind of took a walk down memory lane to talk about the history of media, the kind of women can have it all boom bust cycles and the most recent vibe shift. But do you think this narrative still is defining for the culture or are we in kind of a new phase now that is defined with hustle culture is dead or is women have it all still the guiding narrative? Lindsay: No, I mean I think the narrative has changed and I think that there has traditionally been a lot of pressure on women, I mean obviously since the beginning of time, but I think that theres been a lot of pressure on women to be what others think that we should be or to fit into certain narratives. And so I do think that its so indicative of why I think our coverage is the way that it is because its not siloed as to saying just heres some solutions for all of your problems. Its also in conversation with women about things that we want to openly complain about that I think that people have been too shy to talk about before. So many of the theme weeks, the ideas really come from a place of it being the things that you only talk to your therapist about or the things that you only Google because youre too embarrassed to talk to your friends about or you dont want to actually consult people in your life about. And so I do think that this idea of women having it all, that feels very 10 years ago, girl boss era. Were now in this era, we can talk about all the things of wanting to quit your job or wanting to be in an age gap relationship and not having shame around a lot of these topics that I think traditionally people have felt like womens media couldnt talk about in an elevated way. Ben: Yeah, I think all the time about that incredible Alison Davis piece from 2022. When we were setting up Semafor I was specifically thinking about the vibe shift, the term that I think she popularized Id say in that piece. Lindsay: She did. Ben: She popularized Sean Monahans report on the vibe shift. And I am curious as you edit and assign these stories about these very diverse womens lives, essentially, I mean I think she just sort of described the previous vibe as hyper-beast slash woke. And the new one is post political in some sense and Im curious how the way youre directing this publication fits that, the new vibe. Lindsay: It always changes. I always think that were in a different position because I dont ever come from this place of being so sure of my own rightness or from this position or pedestal in the industry of saying that we know how people feel. I think its our approach and our tone, honestly, what people are picking up on. So when I think about vibe shift or any pieces that weve done that have gone viral, it is honestly I think the vulnerability that people are responding to, not necessarily the naming of the thing. I think obviously that sometimes does help, but I think that were always looking to either start a conversation or finish it better than other people. Nayeema: Yeah, one of the things is that it feels like a lot of the last generation of womens magazines had a sense of who their reader was. Like the Cosmo woman, the Seventeen woman, and it feels like youre kind of getting at a kaleidoscope of women in these stories. But I want to run through some of them because for people listening who may not be reading The Cut or seeing the electric Instagram posts and TikToks of Cut content. Ben: Who arent yet up on the vibe shift. Nayeema: People outside of the vibe shift. So lets give a couple of examples and maybe Lindsay you can talk about what do you think this piece reflects in the broader culture? So one of the essays The Cut published this year, that kind of electric shock to the internet was the case for marrying, an older man by Grazie Sofia Christie, in which the author argues that young women should kind of capitalize on their youth and beauty while they have it. In her case, in her twenties when she snuck into a party I believe at HBS to pick up her man who is 10 years older. So you should use their youth and beauty when they have it to pick up a well-off partner who can be like a mentor for them in life. And she makes this case for ease. It allows her to have the access to write as she does now. What does this reflect to you or why did this story resonate? Lindsay: It resonated with me because honestly, I think that people would initially write about that from a place of feeling judgment and shame. And I really feel like actually a lot of people identified with the fact that life is expensive, but also just being honest with your desires and not having any shame around if you want to be a writer and you dont come from wealth, then what is the path to that? I think it was one of those pieces that I saw so many people sharing and privately having conversations and them coming back to us and saying, because they were embarrassed to talk about their own feelings about it, but agreed with a lot of the things that she said. But I think that were always coming from a place of Im pro-women living exactly the kind of life that they want to live, and I would never judge or tell another woman how to live their life, but also Im very invested in the decisions that we make and how that affects the trajectory of your life as a woman. Nayeema: Another essay that kind of hit a chord, or a couple of essays, were on this topic of divorce. You had Molly Rosens Happily Ever Divorced feature last year, and then Emily Goulds, Should I Leave My Husband? The Lure of Divorce. Spoiler alert, she doesnt in the end. Ben: Poor Keith. Nayeema: But it gave you the sense of the fantasy of separation and in the case of Molly, the joy of separation. Which I think really resonated because I think some of the happiest people I know are people who are divorced with children and then are kind of having a romantic life with a new partner. So what did that piece say to you? Why did you want to run that? Lindsay: The relationship stuff, I mean obviously weve done a ton of that, so that wasnt anything necessarily as new for assigning. But weve done a lot around divorce and relationships and we saw a shift in just the tone in that during the pandemic and post-pandemic of how people were actually taking the time and the space to have real conversations around the pros and cons. And I remember talking with Emily and telling her we should just do an actual list, a graphic, of you doing the pros and the cons of the things that you listed through. But I think that there is a level of contemplation that goes into a lot of these things that most people when they write an essay about it is just very straight and it required, I think to me, just a spectrum of emotions that you go through when you are deciding such a big life decision. I think whats also so interesting is when people give me notes on personal essays and tell me somebody else has written a divorce essay but that one wasnt as good, is often I think that its just too trying to get straight to a point in deciding, whereas thats not the reality of your life. You can say today that you feel this way, but then next year completely rebrand and decide to be a different new person. Nayeema: And you always have the Excel sheet that you can refer back to with the pros and cons so you can decide. Poor Keith. Another one was we went from hot girl summer to a summer without sex, this year. Celibacy is all the rage right now. This has been a big topic of conversation, not just with you, but with the Bumble advertising campaign. Kelsey Osgood wrote this piece for you guys. What do you think the power of celibacy or boy sobriety movement, which seems to be in the culture right now, I see it around a lot of women in their thirties. What do you think is going on there? Lindsay: I mean, Angelina Chapin, she just did a big piece for us last month that was everywhere, around is dating a total nightmare for you right now? And I think that for me, its always a lot of those conversations traditionally felt like this is just something happening thats too low brow for us to try to report. And a big thing for me at The Cut has always been, we want to be the thing that youre sharing with your friends. We want to be the thing [inaudible 00:24:42]. And that was immediately something that I was like, theres a sense of despair around dating right now that is very different. Obviously up to the election were leading up to a place where I think people are just sick and tired of being sick and tired, and in the opposite place of the divorce stuff, I just saw very clear pipeline of people talking about divorce and dating and celibacy in succession. And so I think a lot of that for me was us figuring out a way to elevate the conversation but also do some reporting around it so it isnt just... A lot of these, yes, we do the personal essays, but we do a lot of service. We do a lot of reporting. So it isnt just a one note. Ben: Sounds tough out there. Nayeema: Bens just happy because hes been married since he was in his early [inaudible 00:25:27], he got married young. Ben: Most of what I read in The Cut these days reaffirms that decision. Lindsay: I think also engagement for The Cut is really important to me. So Im constantly looking at the comments, especially on social. And so Im always looking at what are the things that people want to really discuss, but also how can we be part of that conversation and create community around it? And I think also some fun, I think a big part of The Cut is that we have humor and energy and a little bit of attitude, and so its a mix of a lot of different things. But in the midst of that, we just did our Smut and Romance week. The romance books are the number one sellers for publishers right now. And so I wanted to celebrate that because I found a common thread in all of this was like, yes, theres a lot of single people and a lot of people complaining about dating, a lot of people talking about celibacy, but there was also this huge industry now around romance books. And I mean, Emily Henrys books just got picked up to do five different, I think Netflix or some kind of films. And so we did a big week on that as well. Nayeema: Isnt that part of defining for our culture and maybe even our politics right now, which is the fantasy is better than the reality in almost everything. And thats so much of what youre writing. But that comes back to this idea of the political question that Ben was asking before. I mean, you defining in the kind of there is no Cut woman the way there was this Cosmo woman, but you can attract and marry rich dudes. You can live a soft life. You can be a Tradwife, you can homestead, you can be a polyamorous, you can play with celibacy or boy sobriety, you can have a lavender marriage with your gay best friend, all these different types of women. But arent they all responding to the same political and social problem, which is this problem of women cant have it all, which is this problem of society has put us in this place, had these expectations. And theres kind of two competing worldviews right now. One is kind of crystallized in this Project 2025, conservative Harrison Butker view of the world, which is like your life will begin when you are a mother and a wife. And by the way, I dont want to say it in a judgy way because I also come from a culture where being a wife and a mother has a value to it. Caregiving has a value to it both for your children but also for your elders. And I think that is represented in this kind of conservative viewpoint. And then on the left you see this kind of polyamory and this kind of communal living, which is saying, hey, we want to do these things. We want to have homes, we want to have a family. We want to make rent, but one person cant do it alone. Two people cant figure it out, so were going to build a community and social infrastructure that government didnt give us. Lindsay: Yeah, I think both ends are really important but thats indicative of The Cut. Were not just one note. And I think a lot of these lanes that youre speaking of, traditionally publications only thought these are the only topics that women want to have as far as if its fashion, its got to be shiny. If its relationships, its just a sex column. It was very checking a box where I think that we found a lot of these things on the spectrum of you may want a relationship or you may not, you may want to have a hot girl summer or you may have a voiceover summer. Theres levels to each of these things that I think we always want to play into, but its also, were not looking at it as trends. I think these are all conversations that were all having with our communities, but also were never too high up in thinking that we need to tell people how to live their life. No. Ben: I mean, I do think of The Cut historically and where it comes from is basically kind of progressive in its politics. But actually I think a lot of your most read stuff and a lot of the things I was just talking about are really conservative and are really talking about a return to the Tradwife is the caricature of it, but to much more traditional gender roles in a way that, I dont know, it is probably embodied by Donald Trump in certain ways. And Im curious, it feels like theres some cultural shift happening there that Im myself trying to figure out how to navigate, and Im curious how you think about it. Lindsay: I mean, yeah, I think that obviously its really important for my team to be progressive, but also just inclusive in tone and voice. I think that is indicative of the kind of publication that Ive always wanted to make. The kind of publication I always wanted to read was one that wasnt leaving me out of the equation as a young black girl from Midwest. So I think that thats always the goal. But I do think that honestly, the thing that Im trying to solve with a lot of politics is we write so much of it that people just dont want to read and then trying to figure out how to get them to be part of it. I mean, we wrote about Project 2025 today. We write about abortion stuff every single day. A lot of the politics, just straight politics things, I think people are feeling already an exhaustion around. Ben: But do you feel like on gender roles specifically, do you feel like youre sort of feeling or feeding a shift to the right or shift backward toward more traditional roles? Lindsay: No, I dont. Nayeema: I think its almost a trap, Ben. I want to jump in for Lindsay a little bit and say it was a bit of a vibe shift. Ben: It was a trap, sorry. Nayeema: Men are always trying to be trapping us. Its like a vibe shift that went from hype beast and woke to kind of this post-political. I think there was this expectation as a woman, and I certainly felt it growing up on Sex in the City and graduating into the Sheryl Sandberg era and all this stuff, but there was a sense that you couldnt, when Harrison Butker said that thing, that quiet, youre like, oh, I cant feel like maybe hes onto something, even if hes the absolute worst poster child for the message. But I think thats what The Cut is doing. But dont you think, Lindsay, it pisses off some of your progressive readers that marry the older man piece, there were a lot of parodies and people kind of attacking the writer and her name and her excessive use of commas and the mention of Lolita. Lindsay: Yeah, I think that theres always going to be people that dislike some of the takes that we put out, but I am careful in curating what kinds of takes because Im not trying to lift up a voice, because I think that people will hate it. Im lifting up a voice because I think that she had something important to say about the world in which we live in. And I do think that her experience is no better than an opposite experience. And honestly, to me, thats the importance of it. But I dont think that, yeah, were never trying to elevate one or the other. It is always a balance game for sure. Nayeema: Do you think youre bringing the men along, Lindsay? Lindsay: I think we are. Its kind of strange because that was unexpected, but I think we are. Nayeema: Are you getting more male subscribers to The Cut? Lindsay: I mean, Im not sure of the exact numbers, but I do hear a lot more men talking about the issue. Were doing a lot more men in our upcoming September issue than we have before. Ben: Thank you for that. Its important to me to see myself in The Cut, so I really appreciate that. Nayeema: I mean, Lindsay did say they were striving for an inclusive magazine, Ben, I want to make sure you are included. Lindsay: We totally are. Nayeema: Do you think that The Cut, part of what we talk a lot about on the show a bit is this idea, is media the invisible hand or is media just a mirror? And do you think that The Cut is reflecting the culture or do you think youre shaping it? Lindsay: A bit of both. Nayeema: Give me a percentage, like 60/40, which way? Lindsay: No, honestly, I would say- Nayeema: Come on Lindsay... Lindsay: No, I think... Nayeema: Do the girl math. Lindsay: No, its not girl math. I think its maybe 60/40. I think that a lot of it is, Ill be reading something and Ill just notice a sentence that Im like, I dont even think that they realize, but theres a nugget in there of something that I think we should chase after. And sometimes its not always the most magical thing that someone said, but its usually in the way that they said it that Im picking up on, that theres something there that we need to dig further. When we are trying to anticipate what it is its usually were anticipating it that its going to be bigger than what other people are thinking and so were kind of trying to beat that moment. But yeah, I only hesitate with that one because it really doesnt come from a place of arrogance. It comes from a place of we know this is going to be something that you love and that youre going to want to devour, and how can we be with you in that moment when youre ready. Nayeema: What youre describing is having your finger on the pulse and seeing where things are headed. Its kind of like in fashion, are you choosing what style of jeans were wearing or youre just noticing that people are no longer going to be wearing these jeans and youre telling us? Lindsay: Yeah, but I think sometimes we do choose, I notice a lot of people are wearing Capris right now. I dont want to write about Capris because I dont think that they look good, and I dont want people to bring them back. Nayeema: Theyre not good. Dont bring Capris. Ben: A thumb on the scale there. Nayeema: Do not wear Capris, Ben. Okay? Ben: No threat of that. Lindsay: But we offer a lot of other things that were like, this is going to be the next thing. When youre tired of these and you realize that these were a bad mistake, this is going to be the next thing. Nayeema: On the vibe shift where do you notice it going? Because that original piece from Alison where she had spoken to Sean Monahan about the kind of vibe shifts that he had been observing, and he had these four to six year periods, the God, Im going to forget what they were. Ben: It was the hipster indie period, then the internet techno period followed by the hype- beast woke period. And I guess then the question just is whats next? Nayeema: Yeah, whats next? Lindsay: I mean, honestly, were planning a lot of this for our September issue, and I still havent landed on what I really want it to be. I just sense a heavy exhaustion with a lot of our readers because I think so much is happening in the world and how do we provide some relief from that? But also what are the areas of release that we can give them, whether it is a funny moment, but also then pushing them to understand that theres some important conversations that we have to have with them or that we want them to participate in. And so yeah, I mean thats honestly the one that Im noticing right now. Ben: Yeah, I mean, is it just pure escapism? Lindsay: A little bit. But I think its fair because I do think that theres so much heavy in the world right now that I understand. And I think that was a lot of the reason why the Smut and Romance books are doing so well, because it takes you to another destination, another place. Nayeema: Yeah, smart AI. It also could be a bit of a, it fits a boom bust cycle for feminism, a bit of a boom, right? Lindsay: Yeah, totally. Nayeema: Thats the way the pendulum would go, maybe. Especially if Trump is back in office, I presume, because therell be a villain. Lindsay: Yes. Nayeema: You mentioned earlier not putting your thumb on the scales except for maybe Capris and some other issues, but it seems like lately The Cut has published at least a few articles about the vice president in this kind of critical moment where people are floating her name to be the heir apparent if Biden were to step off the ticket, or the heir apparent if he were to stay on and not make it for four years. But you had a few pieces. You had, Why Not Kamala? The Rebecca Traister interview with Brittney Cooper, you had conservatives are already attacking Kamala as a DEI hire, and then is it time to take the coconut pill? Which had a collection of memes links. Are you putting your thumb on the scale? Is The Cut entering the K-Hive? Lindsay: You know I- Nayeema: Dont try to hide from the question Lindsay, I beg you, answer the question. Lindsay: No, I wont hide from the question. Im not trying to predict too early because honestly, I dont think any of us know what is going to happen with Biden yet. I think that that is still to be determined. Every single day theres a new headline about his health and so I dont think that any of us really honestly do know what is going to happen on this ticket. But I do think that its really important for The Cut to be at the front and center of how we talk about women in this election. I think weve done so much work in the past with Traister on abortion being such a big part of this election and people really ignoring it, and how it really just quite frankly, pissed us off and felt like people werent paying attention enough. And so the interesting thing about this job is these are all issues that weve been talking about, writing about, for so long, and then now people just start paying attention, obviously, because were nearing the election. But I think that more often than not with this, that I want people to make a concerted effort of why were doing what were doing when we go into this election. And so when it comes to, I mean, we had a piece today that Dania Issawi wrote about how Arab-American women feel conflicted about this upcoming election. I think that its important for us to be the place that is having those really hard conversations because I do think that people feel really conflicted. And I think people feel really unhappy about the state of the world and where its going, but dont really feel like we have any options or place to talk about that in a way that feels that were not shaming or judging anyone, but just feeling like this is not the way in which we want to be in this world. Nayeema: Yeah, I think one of the things The Cut does really well is an approach I take when I make a documentary film, its like an honor their truth approach to the essay or to the story or to the profiles. But I dont know that the culture does that, too. I think the culture will react. The culture will still shame. Lindsay: Yeah. Ben: Yeah. And Im curious, just to come back to Kamala, maybe to bring these two threads together. In reading the coverage of Kamala, Brittneys quote about we have to watch white men be terrible, it put us in the brink of destroying the whole democracy, and then maybe a black woman can help us. I worry, and I wonder if you think, it seems to me that logic, and some of The Cuts coverage of Kamala feels in some ways from the previous moment and that the kind of, maybe right-left isnt the right way to say it, but the kind of vibe shift that a lot of the other stuff on The Cut embodies is going to make it hard for Kamala Harris and this maybe is a tough moment for her. Im curious when you sort of pull back with your galaxy brain, thoughts on that? Lindsay: Yeah, I dont ever want to make it tough or hard for another woman of color, and obviously, I mean, shes in a tough spot, so thats not ever our intention. But I do think that specifically one thing that we do really well on The Cut is provide critique in a really fair and level way. And especially as a black woman, I think that a lot of times we shy away from having these conversations because you dont want to publicly talk about another person of color in a way that is critiquing them and not feel like you can have that critique, but also support at the same time. And so a lot of times I think somebody, even like Professor Britney Cooper, is able to have those conversations in a nuanced way and not trying to make it harder for anyone else, but as a black woman, you are allowed to. Ben: I mean, I guess I just mean its more sort of like were in this moment of backlash, and a lot of your coverage in some ways is picking up the energy of that backlash. And I guess I do wonder how thatll play out for Kamala. Nayeema: I mean, for example, Lindsay, you are already seeing this narrative come out, imagine what could be unburdened by what has been, and youre going to see those constant plays. Ben: Its pretty funny. Nayeema: Cant help, but it is very funny. So youre going to see the attack on, and I think youve been covering some of the women that have been writing essays in the pages of Cut are not necessarily reflected by the progressive women. So does Kamala do well in that world? Does she do less well? I think is thats what Bens kind of getting to. Lindsay: Yeah. But I think that honestly, people dont really know how to feel about her right now, which is why were covering it in this way. I think that honestly, people are a hundred percent conflicted and are concerned. I mean, I was concerned before the debate, but I felt like it woke people up in a new dimension after watching the debate and feeling a sense of dread and concern and urgency. And I mean, social media was crazy for the past couple of days because of that after the debate. And so I dont think that were trying to sway people in one way or the other. I think that weve been having a lot of these conversations and obviously now people are just noticing that in a larger way. Nayeema: Yeah. I do want to pick back up what youre saying when you dont want to make it harder for a woman of color, and I understand what youre saying there. But I also think as a journalist, of course, you are, I imagine dedicated to pursuing... Theres not an affirmative action on how you are going to cover Kamala Harris. You are going to cover her in a dogged way, I imagine. Lindsay: Of course. But I think that it is not a secret. I mean, a lot of the reporting investigators, journalists, et cetera, arent usually people of color in the industry. And so when were doing a story that is about someone who may be controversial or may have done accusations, allegations, et cetera, it is a different process when it is another person of color. I think a lot of times of the Kerby Pyer-Moss story that we did a couple of years ago. Hes a really well-known black designer, hes beloved. We knew that there were a lot of allegations, accusations. Most people didnt want to touch it because they felt like it would have to come from the right person, and it would have to come from a person of color in the industry who knew all of these nuances and understanding of him as a designer and as a black figure who people really looked up to, and understanding that experience. You do just handle it a little bit more delicate, and you dont handle it in a way that youre giving someone favoritism, but you handle it in a way where you understand this is all really important to the culture, but what matters is how fair we cover this conscious of what we are doing is not just to tear somebody down at all, but ever to... I mean, I think the reporting on that was really stellar because we were incredibly fair. Ben: I mean, I totally agree on that piece. But dont you think that public figures sometimes use that to shut down fair coverage? Lindsay: A hundred percent. But thats why I did the story anyway. Nayeema: Yeah, I mean, part of the challenge for the vice president would be that the way she was hired into the process immediately puts a target in her back. And I always hated that moment where then candidate Biden was like, well, we need a woman whos held state office. It was so specific in terms of the criteria as opposed to, were going to hire the best person for the job and find out that its Kamala Harris. And people could speculate on the dynamics, but to make them explicit in the way that they were made, I think that media narrative will already be out there on the right and is. Lindsay: I mean, that was a conversation we had when we did Stacey Abrams on the cover. That was a conversation we had a while ago. So yeah, its not a new one, but I think its a resurrected conversation that now I think obviously there was a sense of urgency around. Nayeema: Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Lindsay for being with us. Ben: Thanks, Lindsay. Lindsay: Thanks, you guys. [MUSIC] Nayeema: Ben did that Brittney Cooper quote about having to watch white men be terrible hurt your feelings? Ben: No, it just felt like it was from a different era. It felt like it was copy and pasted from Twitter seven years ago or something. Nayeema: Yeah, it felt like it was from the hype-beast woke era, you mean? Ben: Yeah, it was from the hype-beast woke era. I think its really interesting to watch a really, really smart, progressive editor grapple with the fact that a lot of the journalism shes publishing is truly reactionary in the literal sense of that word and traditionalist and conservative, and theres this deep tension there. Its so interesting. And the work theyre publishing is so good, Nayeema: Yeah. But I think thats applying this dualist polarized worldview onto what is really the guts of life struggle that every woman or every person who seeks to partner or have family has. Ben: Maybe its more, youre right, maybe Im kind of over polarizing, its more just a step away from this idea that the personal is political, which comes intensely in and out of fashion in America and was deeply in fashion a few years ago and maybe is a little out of fashion now. Nayeema: Yeah. Or I think that the construct of actually seeing something as political when its personal is seen to be inauthentic and out of touch with the current vibe a little bit, right? Thats in the woke vibe era. And now were in the like youre just living your fucking life and some of its on the internet and some of its private. And I dont presume to know whats going on in your life so if you want to homestead, thats cool. If you want to be with an older man, thats cool. It doesnt mean that I need to do that, although I would love to homestead with an older man. I mean, what a life. Ben: Yeah, I was going to say, you dont have a right to judge, and yet I sometimes feel judged, so I dont know. Nayeema: Do you feel judged? Ben: Maybe, once in a while, Nayeema: Ben? Ben: For my Tradwife lifestyle, Nayeema: Youre hardly a Tradwife. I dont want to make you feel ganged up on Ben so lets take a quick break. Were going to let you spend some time with Josh Spanier from Think with Google on this ad break, and then well be back with Max. [MUSIC] Ben: Womens NCAA Championship, beat out the mens, and I saw GroupM is planning to double the money it spends on womens sports. A bunch of major advertisers, including Google, have signed on. Is this going to last? Josh Spanier: I hope so. I mean, it should do, right? Its actually super exciting. One of the things about marketing and marketers is were kind of herd- like, right. We want to be cool, we want to be hip. We feel like its our responsibility to actually represent the voice of the customer and what theyre interested in, we are interested in, so we follow the trends. So in some regard, the surge in womens sport has actually been great because as marketers, we then follow it and we spend more money behind it, and it helps these leagues develop and grow. Im really proud of a bunch of work that weve done with our team to actually help create that. So three years ago, we signed a deal with ESPN where, as part of that partnership deal for the WNBA, we made it mandatory that ESPN actually show more games on television and try and break that cycle of, well, theres no one watching, so youre not showing games. So were not going to show games. So no one ends up watching. And actually, if you increase the coverage, youll increase the popularity. Now, Im not claiming that Caitlin Clark and the success of the Womens Game and NCAA is anything really to do with what weve done as a marketing organization. But brands that are looking ahead, are looking for opportunities, are looking to separate and find differentiation, can identify and spot there is a thirst, there is a hunger, there is an interest in this topic. So tap into it, help enable it, use your Ad and marketing dollars to help grow it. And we continue to see that success. Im very excited for the new season of the WNBA. Its healthy to have competition in the sense of that theres more options than just the mens game. Ben: Do you have a team? Josh Spanier: I have multiple teams. I like all of them because we are an official partner of the WNBA, so Im not going to name a single one. [MUSIC] Nayeema: Were back and heres Max Tani. Max, you must be super busy right now reporting. Max Tani: Im a little busy, yeah. The summer is usually a pretty slow time for media, in particular for media reporting because everybody in media goes on vacation in July and August, but this year is a little different. Ben: Hey, now some of us work. Nayeema: Bens hanging out in Riyadh. Im in Italy, and Max Tani is holding down the fort in the United States. Max: Thats right. Nayeema: Max, thank you for joining us today. You have some blind spots, things that were missing in our elite vacation slash recruiting bubbles. Max: Thats right. I dont know if theyre talking about this in Riyadh or wherever you are in Italy, but apparently according to the Biden campaign, things arent actually that bad for Joe Biden. Nayeema: Oh, phew. Im so glad to hear that. Thats going to make my Tuscan vacation so much better just knowing. Max: Yeah. Ben: I would say people in Riyadh are concerned. So Ill spread the word. Max: No, but things arent actually that bad, thats what Im saying. Its just not piercing your media bubble. And thats according to a new report from Northeastern University and their data led project CHIP50, which was quickly blasted out by the Biden campaign today. The report, which surveyed the same group of people before and after last months presidential debate, said that Bidens performance had little, if any, impact on peoples voting preference. The reports author hopes, it helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data. Ben: Do you buy it? Nayeema: Yes. Do you buy it? And how does it square with applied data? Max: I was going to ask if you guys buy it? Nayeema: Well, whats the methodology? What is CHIP50? What is this? Sounds like Baskin-Robbins 31. Max: I think its slightly different though. A little bit less exciting. I think basically the methodology, as far as I understand it, they found a random sampling of people, but they surveyed the same group of people before and after. So its like a focus group where you can see if things moved. So its not a different group of people, its the same, but its using polling methodologies apparently. And its supposedly a kind of cutting edge survey technique thats supposed to be better than other ones. But again, this was posted by Bidens senior comms advisor, TJ Ducklo, who said that it was supposed to be a corrective to the media narrative. Personally, thats against every other poll that were seeing across the country, very reliable, long-running polls. So I dont quite buy it, but that is what were hearing from the Biden campaign. Ben: Yeah, I think the grain of truth in there, because speaking as someone who sort of basically also doesnt buy it, is that a lot of Americans already thought Joe Biden was totally out of it. Most Republicans and a lot of Democrats already thought he was too old, or basically expected him to stumble out there and mumble a lot. And so when they saw that, we were like, yeah, thats my president, including people who were going to vote for him, by the way. And so obviously the political situation has in fact changed contra that poll. But I do think that basically the American people on a whole were better informed than the White House Press Corps on this question. Nayeema: I feel like you are taking a lot of mea culpa for the press. I feel like- Ben: Mea culpa, Im just randomly attacking my colleagues. Nayeema: Oh, okay. You knew everybody else didnt. This is your version of the Biden letter coming out right now. Ben: I wrote about it last year. I took a lot of flack for it. So Im lashing out. Nayeema: Yes. I also said it on a podcast in September of 2023. I feel like everybody, a lot of people in media knew. Ben: Were all going back to the time we said it. Nayeema: Were all... Max: I admitted in our media newsletter that I thought I was kind of wrong about this and I underestimated Bidens change. I mean, though, I will say I did note that when I saw him and he went on pool duty with Inn at Rehoboth that he was walking pretty slowly. Ben: I saw it at the White House Christmas party, which was full of the media in which Biden, and I wrote about this stuff, was there to prove. All he had to say was You idiots, Im fine. Stop tolling me old. Im fine. That was it. That wouldve been the speech. And instead he just sort of randomly wandered into his stump speech, went on for a while, finally Jill said, Joe, its a party. And he said, Ah, great. Its a party. Enjoy. And I was actually sort of surprised that didnt get more coverage, in front of the whole Press Corps. He also thanked the White House Press Corps for putting our lives in danger, which seemed a bit much to me, I felt like. Nayeema: I think he was talking about reporters in more fronts. But yeah, I dont buy this CHIP50 thing, but I do think that its a bit of a rubber band in the sense that if Bidens on the ticket in November, theyre just going to have to hope that not Trump is enough of a admit for voters and that thats going to take people past the finish... And you hear from a lot of voters who are like, okay, if I have to, I vote for him. This is a person who, 77% of people in polls are saying hes too old, including 69% of Democrats, and he was still pulling 40 plus percent of the vote. This is back late last year. So that cognitive dissonance could still work in the presidents favor if he continues to be on the ticket, that seems to be the bet, but it does not seem like a positive warm vibe. And I dont mean about the media, I mean in terms of the culture. Ben: Kadia had that incredible line in her story of this top democratic operative saying that a dead or comatose Joe Biden was outperforming Kamala Harris in their survey research. So here we are. Thank you, Max. I had missed that one, so I appreciate you and TJ Ducklow bringing it to my attention. Max: Absolutely. Im here to bring the campaign spin. Nayeema: Campaign spin that were not seeing because the media is so after Biden. Ben: Its probably the Twitter algorithm. Nayeema: What are people on the right not seeing? Max: So I veered a little bit in this one because I kind of thought this is something... I know, yeah, I veered a little bit from our presets... Nayeema: You with the liberties. Yes. Max: Yeah. I kind of wanted to get a little bit creative because I thought that the story was kind of interesting and I feel like it was something that maybe was registering on national security TikTok, the channels for hawkish Americans and people abroad. Ben: Is that a place? Wow. Max: Apparently it is a place. Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post had a really interesting story this week about NATO doing PR by giving access to influencers. And so this is according to the Post, as part of its Protect the Future Initiative, which is intended to raise awareness of and support for NATO among young audiences across the Alliance, NATO paid for numerous influencers to attend its major summit in Washington this week, including several TikTok stars who cover current events and politics. One who is an educational content creator, another who is a former Air Force fighter pilot and motivational speaker. An influencer who Taylor described as someone who covers legal and political commentary in African-American vernacular, a teacher who makes comedic videos about history and a UK news content creator among others. Ben: Can we just pause to appreciate the newspaper language here of a social media influencer who covers legal and political developments in African-American vernacular. What are the odds that Taylor Lorenz typed those words? Like zero. Right? Max: It was an interesting one. It also does include a hyperlink. So the Post allows you to delve into that one if you want to understand more about what that means. Ben: But I still love that its still somebodys job to translate English into whatever that is. Nayeema: Excellent. So influencers in the wild, gone global for NATO. Max: Yeah. I thought, I did think it was interesting in the sense that for the previous generation, people in the West understood the value of NATO. But weve reached the point where there are a lot of younger people, people of my generation, who didnt exist during the Cold War and really dont understand the value of NATO as much. So I guess I understand the desire to reach out to influencers, and I understand influencers wanting an all expenses paid trip to Washington, though not necessarily in July. Nayeema: So heres a question for you, Ben, because you noted what a bad PR play it was for TikTok to use its own platform to get young people animated about the TikTok ban. How do you feel about NATO countries bringing in surrogates to sell something on their platform? Doesnt that make TikTok a little more neutral? Ben: It makes me a little despairing for the future of free societies, right? Russia is so good at this stuff. The idea that they invited a few TikTokers to speak in African-American vernacular with their policies. Great job guys. But these countries and militaries have massive propaganda operations that move the hearts and minds of millions of people in a concerted way. And I think that democracies have really, really struggled to do that. And its like you sort of see the lameness of this versus the concerted efforts you have. And by the way, the Ukrainian government is incredible at this. Ukraine won the propaganda war in the opening hours of that war on TikTok. And for all the people say its sort of a Russian-Chinese whatever, the Ukrainian message just absolutely dominated. And the American sympathies, it just swept everything before it, I think in a way. But I just feel like these democracies and organizations like NATO are just inevitably terrible at this. Nayeema: Yeah. This is probably not going to hit as hard as a fancy bear hack from the Russians or a kind of concerted influence operation from Eastern Europe or from China. Ben: Yeah. An influencer operation isnt quite the same. Nayeema: Well, I do think democracies also have a way of doing this covertly. The United States was able to interfere in other countries elections pretty effectively for a period in time, not necessarily through the internet. Max: I kind of just think they lose nothing by doing a cringe, invite a bunch of random influencers to DC to do this. I mean, look, heres the other thing that we know about influencers is theyll take your free money anytime you want to give them something for free. I mean, there was all those influencers who went to go to the Shein factory in China and made these videos about it, went viral. Ben: Its incredible. Max: Which I always thought was really, really funny. I think that you can actually marshal a bunch of influencers to do really anything that you want if you tell them that its free. Nayeema: Who even is an influencer anymore? Are you an influencer, Max? Max, I feel like youre an influencer, but youre bound by journalistic ethics unfortunately. Max: I think news people are, you increasingly have these news influencers, right? Nayeema: Yes. Max: We used to have this with, hes not a perfect example anymore, but Yashar was a great example of this. Nayeema: Oh yeah, Yashar Ali. Max: Yeah. Hes like a random guy who Tweets a bunch of stuff and has a bunch of followers, but hes not really so much of a journalist, a kind of complicated, weird, ethical person. So theres definitely people who exist in the news journalist space of which were not necessarily too far off. Ben: Yeah, its a blurry space where were all influencers now. Nayeema: Podcast host. Max: Thats very close to influencer. Ben: I know when you were describing random people who Tweet a lot, I was like, are you talking about me? Nayeema: Yeah. All right, guys. Max, thank you for being with us and for relieving us of our international blind spots today. Max: Thanks guys. Nayeema: Thanks for listening to Mixed Signals from Semafor Media. Our show is produced by Max Tani, Allison Rogers, Sheena Ozaki, Alan Haburchak, and Andrea Lopez-Cruzado. With special thanks to Britta Galanis, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, and Jules Zirn. Our engineer is Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Billy Libby. And our public editor is Harrison Butker, who was a voice of truth at the wrong time, through the wrong vessel, at the wrong location. If you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to leave us a review. Ben: And if youre watching on YouTube, give us a like and subscribe to Semafors channel. Max: And remember to read Semafors Media Newsletter, subscribe, it publishes every Sunday night. Send us your tips for the Republican National Convention in good media stories. Nayeema: Yes, Im sure well get a tip from the White House that theyre doing just fine. Theyre doing just fine. Dont worry about it. Max: Well look into it. MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recognized the Mobile County Health Departments work to clean up the water and coast. The work highlighted on the CDCs website was the 35th annual Alabama Coastal Cleanup. How the Mobile Airport Authoritys new purchase will impact the area According to the MCHD release, the cleanup was made possible by the departments Health Equity Office which was established in 2021 due to grant funding from the CDC to address health disparities from COVID-19 and community partners including the Alabama Coastal Foundation, Mount Vernons Willing Workers Community Action Group, and the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians. Together the groups cleaned up over 3,000 pounds of trash along the coast and waterways. The CDC noted on its website that the project did more than just clean up trash it helped to reduce the prevalence of COVID-19 since Research has shown that [social determinants of health] indicators, such as access to clean water, healthcare, food security, and employment can help reduce the prevalence and severity of illnesses like COVID-19. We are honored to be acknowledged for our efforts in advancing health equity and environmental justice within our community, said Dr. Kevin Michaels, Health Officer for Mobile County. Health equity partnerships play a crucial role in improving the overall well-being of community members by addressing disparities and ensuring that everyone has access to the resources they need for a healthy life. Mobile County Public Schools superintendent gives big bonus to all full-time employees what we know For more information on the HEO, visit the Mobile County Health Departments website. The full recognition for the cleanup work can be found on the CDCs 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 WKRG News 5. Citrus Heights City Hall turned into a cooling center on Thursday night and again Friday for dozens of people who lost power in a Citrus Heights mobile home park amid the capital regions scorching heat wave. According to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, a transformer caught fire Thursday night which caused 190 mobile homes to lose electricity at the Imperial Manor Mobile Home Park. The property sits on the 5900 block of Auburn Boulevard near Manzanita Avenue in Citrus Heights not far from the border with Carmichael. Weather gauges in the area recorded the high temperature Thursday as 114 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The Sacramento Metropolitan Utility District said the equipment failed just after 7 p.m. SMUD found the mobile home fire originated from damaged customer equipment, which spread to the transformer. Fire officials said around two dozen people had been taken by bus or vehicle to cool off at City Hall. Crews are currently on scene at 5935 Auburn blvd, Imperial Mobile Home Park. An an electrical transformer fire earlier today shut off power to all 190 mobile homes. Metro Fire is working with @SacramentoOES and @RideSacRT to provide resources, and evacuate residents in the park pic.twitter.com/E7SMk958Mj Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) July 12, 2024 Metro Fire crews worked alongside the Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services, Sacramento Regional Transit and the Citrus Heights Police Department to provide resources and evacuate mobile home residents to places with air conditioning, said Battalion Chief Parker Wilbourn, a spokesman for Metro Fire. SMUD officials said that crews were working to replace the transformer and that power could be restored as soon as noon Friday. Without electricity, Wilbourn said, the heat posed a risk to the mobile home parks elderly and disabled residents as temperatures were expected to climb above 105 degrees. We expect the number of evacuees will swell greatly in the triple-digit heat tomorrow, Wilbourn said. The weather service said Thursdays high temperature at the downtown Sacramento gauge was 113 degrees, a new record for July 11 and hotter than the previous record of 110 set in 1961. It was the 10th day of the month in which temperature exceed the century mark, and the eighth day in which Sacramento was at or above 105 degrees. Temperatures near Imperial Manor on Friday were expected to reach 113 degrees, forecasters said, as the capital region and most of Northern California remained under an excessive heat warning until Saturday night. Mom of boy who says he was raped at Wayne Co. juvenile jail sues county, state officials The mother of a boy who says he was beaten and raped last year by five other youths in Wayne County's juvenile jail is suing county and state officials, saying they created a "sexually hostile detention environment where the predictable but preventable happened." The mother, who filed the lawsuit in federal district court in Detroit on Thursday, says Wayne County, its Executive Warren Evans and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services officials violated her son's constitutional rights, including protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The Detroit Free Press is not naming the mother to protect the identity of the youth. The newspaper has reported since 2022 on the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Center's problems with overcrowding and understaffing, creating conditions critics have called inhumane. The Free Press first reported on the alleged rape in March 2023. The mother's lawsuit, filed by attorney Cary McGehee, states that staff put her son, who was 12 at the time, in a unit with older youths, including an 18-year-old and at least one other juvenile who had a history of criminal sexual conduct. She is suing for more than $1 million in damages. "Defendants had the power and the financial means to implement the above corrective actions long before (the boy's) detention and sexual and physical assaults," the lawsuits reads, referring to steps taken by officials after the incident. "Defendants had actual and constructive notice that the conditions of the (facility) were such that if these and other actions were not taken, it was substantially certain that a youth in the facility would sustain cruel and unusual conditions of detention, a sexually hostile prison environment would be created, and serious injury, including severe physical and sexual assaults would occur." Officials with Wayne County and MDHHS said they had no comment on the pending litigation. The boy told police he was punched, stomped in the head and raped in the facility in separate incidents off and on over several hours. A state probe found fault with staffers whose jobs were to ensure the youth's safety and the county forced six out of their jobs. The incident prompted the county's Evans to take the unusual step of declaring a health emergency at the county-run detention facility. Evans has blamed the state for failing to deal with a shortage of long-term centers where youths who have been ordered there by the courts can be treated. At the time of the assault, the lawsuit states that youths were allowed out of their rooms without required supervision and that "that youth were staying in each others rooms all the time." That was after months of complaints from youth advocates and families that the facility kept residents confined to rooms for days and lacked basic care, including daily showers, recreation time and medication. The lawsuit said county officials knew it was a dangerous situation. "Prior to (the boy) being physically and sexually assaulted, a (facility) staff member told his supervisor that due to residents being unsecured and out of each others rooms he was worried there was potential for sexual inappropriate behavior and assaults," the lawsuit reads, citing a Michigan State Police investigation. State officials also knew about the conditions inside the facility and had "the power, authority, and resources to have access to the (the facility) and to oversee it to ensure that it provides proper care to the youthful detainees," the lawsuit reads. An official with the Michigan State Police said Thursday that they are still investigating the March incident, which could include criminal charges for the youths who allegedly assaulted the boy. "They are working on a couple of requests from the prosecutor," Lt. Michael Shaw, wrote in a text to the Free Press on Thursday. The facility is under increased state oversight because of past violations. The state told the county in February that it intended to downgraded the facility to a "second provisional license," which could ultimately lead to license revocation. The county at the time indicated it planned to appeal the state's decision. Evans has said this spring that they've made significant improvements, including adding more in-house mental health treatment, hiring about 100 new staffers and boosting pay by 35%, funded by a $10 million budget increase. There have been other allegations of sexual assault at the facility this year, including two separate incidents involving adults. In January, a state staffer on-site to monitor operations at the county facility was arrested in an investigation into whether she sexually assaulted a 15-year-old male resident. A spokesperson for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said they received a warrant request in that case but it was denied "because there is insufficient evidence that a crime occurred." And in May, a former county employee was charged with sexually assaulting two teen boys in the facility. Contact Christine MacDonald: cmacdonald@freepress.com or 313-418-2149. Follow her on X: @cmacfreep. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mom sues after boy says he was raped at Wayne County juvenile jail Teresa Saavedra Woorman, center, nominated Thursday to fill a vacancy in District 16 in the House of Delegates, is flanked by one of the district's delegates, Marc Korman, and the district's state senator, Sara Love. Photo courtesy of Del. Korman's Facebook page. Members of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee picked one of their own Thursday to fill a vacancy in the House of Delegates. The central committee voted to forward the name of Teresa Saavedra Woorman, a 32-year-old aide to Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) with a wealth of Annapolis experience, to Gov. Wes Moore (D) for approval. Woorman prevailed over eight other Democrats who had applied for the open House seat in District 16. Assuming Moore goes along with the recommendation, Woorman will take the seat that was held until recently by Sara Love (D), who was elevated from the House to the Senate last month. The vote to recommend Woorman came during a central committee meeting that lasted almost three hours Thursday night, with all nine applicants for the seat making their pitches for the nomination and answering questions from committee members. Woorman, who was Elrichs campaign manager in 2022 and works in the Montgomery County Public Information Office, won on the third ballot, taking 14 votes to 10 votes for Melissa Bender, a board member of the Womens Democratic Club of Montgomery County and former aide to two Annapolis lawmakers. Bender was also the runner-up a year ago when the central committee recommended now-Del. Sarah Wolek (D) for a House seat. Any one of you could have done an amazing job of representing District 16, said Saman Qadeer Ahmad, chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee, after the final tally was announced. Woorman pitched herself as a young, dynamic political up-and-comer who had seven years of legislative experience under her belt. Ive worked for a number of Montgomery County elected officials and Ive learned a lot from each of them, she said. But people who know me know I also stand on my own two feet. An immigrant from Mexico who moved to Maryland at age 9, she also suggested that she could reach and relate to residents of the Bethesda-based district who are often left out of the political process. People think our District 16 streets are paved with gold, she said. I promise to be a delegate for all the residents of District 16. Woorman said she would make housing affordability and health equity top priorities in Annapolis. She also pledged to pursue political reforms as part of her legislative agenda, including greater disclosures for registered State House lobbyists, and public financing for legislative campaigns. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE When the candidates were asked which committee theyd like to be assigned to, Woorman said she was comfortable with the Environment and Transportation Committee, where one of her ex-bosses, former Del. Jim Gilchrist (D-Montgomery), served, but also expressed interest in the House Health and Government Operations Committee. Thats where a lot of my priorities that I want to address if I serve in Annapolis will come up, she said. If named by Moore, Woorman will become the 15th lawmaker in the 35-member Montgomery County delegation to be appointed, rather than initially elected, to their seats. About one-quarter of the members of the legislature were originally appointed to their seats as legislative succession becomes a topic of increasing controversy in Annapolis. The 16th District has been a fulcrum of legislative instability and appointed lawmakers since early 2023. Thats when Moore picked then-Sen. Susan C. Lee (D) to serve as his secretary of state; Lee was replaced in the Senate by then-Del. Ariana B. Kelly (D), who subsequently replaced in the House by Wolek. This spring, Kelly announced she was leaving the Senate to become executive director of the Maryland Commission on Women. She was replaced in the Senate last month by Love, who was first elected to her House seat in 2018 after prevailing in the Democratic primary by just 12 votes. In the District 16 delegation, only Del. Marc Korman (D), chair of the Environment and Transportation Committee, has won election to the seat he currently holds. The latest appointment process was roiled by an apparent attempt to derail the candidacy of one of the applicants, Diana Conway, a longtime party activist and community leader. Court papers were circulated surreptitiously to media outlets in the days leading up to the central committee vote, showing that Conway had been arrested for drunken driving, assault and destruction of property in Frederick County a decade ago. (Disclosure: Conway and her husband were early financial supporters of Maryland Matters, hosting fundraisers in their home in 2016 and 2022 for the publication.) Conway addressed the controversy head-on during Thursday nights central committee meeting. Like 48 million others in the United States, I have a substance abuse disorder, she said. I am an alcoholic and I have been working in recovery ever since that incident a decade ago. Conway, who has twice been president of the powerful Womens Democratic Club of Montgomery County, urged the central committee to consider her 30 years of activism as she pitched her candidacy. She wound up finishing third in the first round of balloting with five votes, behind Woormans nine and Benders eight. Two other candidates, Jason Nunez and Amol Tripathi, each got one vote. On the second round, Conway slipped to four votes, while Woorman took 11 and Bender took nine. Thirteen votes were needed to win, which Woorman surpassed on the third ballot. The post Montgomery County Democratic Committee picks Woorman for District 16 vacancy appeared first on Maryland Matters. More Than 2,400 Oregon Patients May Have Been Exposed to HIV and Hepatitis by 1 Doctor Several hospitals in the Portland area used an outsourced anesthesiology group whose physician may have exposed thousands to disease KGWNews8/YouTube Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center sign More than 2,400 patients in Oregon may have been exposed to infectious diseases including Hepatitis B and C, as well as HIV. An anesthesiologist, who was employed by Oregon Anesthesiology Group (OAG) and worked at several Oregon hospitals, may not have followed comprehensive infection control practices, the Providence medical group said in a statement Thursday. The physician was not named, but had worked at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center, Providence Portland Medical Center and other non-Providence hospitals in the Portland area. The actions of this physician might have put patients at a low risk of exposure to possible infections, including hepatitis B and C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the statement continued. Related: Tuberculosis Outbreak in Long Beach, Calif., Has Left 1 Dead, 9 Hospitalized and 170 People Exposed The statement added that Providence no longer works with OAG, which has since terminated the physician. Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center which also used OAG issued a similar statement regarding exposure to their patients, according to NBC News. The affected patients have been notified; In its statement, Providence said Out of an abundance of caution, we are encouraging these patients to get a blood test to screen for the aforementioned infections, at no cost. If a patient tests positive, Providence will reach out to discuss their test results and next steps. 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 exact ways the infection control practices were not followed were not disclosed, but per the American Society of Anesthesiologists, protocols include use of double gloves, disinfecting high-touch surfaces on the anesthesia machines, and using syringes and vials for only one patient." Related: 2 Dead, 10 Hospitalized After Exposure to 'Unknown Contaminant' at N.Y. Senior Living Community In total, about 2,200 patients from Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center, two patients from Providence Portland Medical Center and 221 patients from Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center were exposed. The safety of our patients is our top priority, Scott Gallagher, a spokesperson for OAG, said in a statement to local outlet Oregon Live. When we learned that the physician had violated infection control practices, we suspended him, informed our partners Legacy Health and Providence, and then began an investigation that resulted in the physicians termination. Even though the risk of infection was low, new protocols and procedures have been put in place to prevent similar incidents in the future. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc. said on Friday that hackers stole a cache of six months worth of mobile-phone customer data, disclosing for the first time a massive cybersecurity breach that threatens national security. Most Read from Bloomberg The breach at the telecommunications giant included calls and text information for nearly all of its cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to Oct. 31 of that year, and it included the numbers they were calling and a smaller subset of location data. The trove represents a potential minefield of potential privacy and national security issues, for intelligence agents, police officers, stalking victims, journalists, therapists, an endless list of disturbing possibilities. AT&T has almost 115 million customers. The Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the breach, and federal law enforcement authorities said they worked with AT&T to delay announcing it amid potential risks to national security or public safety. AT&T said in a statement to Bloomberg that as part of its effort to cooperate with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation into the hack, it delayed the announcement to avoid undermining law enforcements work. The company said it believes at least one person has been apprehended in connection with the incident. AT&T said it has taken additional security measures in response to the cyberattack, in which records were illegally downloaded from a workspace account at the cloud-service provider Snowflake Inc. The unlawful access has been shut off, the company said, adding it began notifying affected customers Friday. But urgent questions remain, including what became of the haul of sensitive data and who was behind the hack? Did AT&T pay the hackers to keep the trove from going public? AT&T doesnt believe the information has become publicly available at the time of its July 12 filing on the matter with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But the company has declined to comment on other questions. It told investors it doesnt believe the breach was likely to materially impact its financial condition or results of operations. Tim Hickman, the head of the data, privacy and cybersecurity practice at the law firm White & Case LLP, said AT&Ts disclosure that it delayed notification of the breach until Friday indicates the stolen records no longer poses a threat. That suggests a few possible scenarios, he said: Law enforcement neutralized the threat through arrests or other measures; AT&T paid the hackers a ransom; or the company learned enough to conclude that it was no longer a threat. Story continues Still, the intrusion is a blow for the company, which has $122 billion in annual revenue. AT&T touts its services not only as a major retail and business provider but also as a government contractor to US intelligence and defense customers. It provides telephone service for the US military customers and a nationwide emergency response network. The hack is also a sobering reminder that cyber crooks remain a national scourge, despite massive efforts by Western governments and security companies to thwart them. Between companies failing to protect consumers privacy and executive agencies neglecting to secure our critical infrastructure, one thing is clear: we ought to be prioritizing our cyber defenses starting yesterday, US Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican from Iowa, said in a statement. From where Im sitting, the to-do list on cyber gets longer and more urgent with each passing day. Within hours of the announcement, critics were warning of the potential dangers. An unknown entity now has an NSA-level view into Americans lives, John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, said in a post on X. James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that although AT&T has said no content or personally identifiable information was exposed, You could still correlate metadata to see who is interacting to whom. Any intelligence agency that got hold of the information could use it to examine, for example, who in China is talking to Americans, to try to determine who might be spying for the US, Lewis said. Criminal hackers might find it harder to monetize such data, however, he said. In its filing Friday, AT&T said the compromised records didnt include the content of communications or personal information such as Social Security numbers. However, AT&T said the logs identify the telephone numbers with which AT&T customers and customers of other wireless service providers that use its network interacted during that period. While the data does not include customer names, there are often ways, using publicly available online tools, to find the name associated with a specific telephone number, the company said. In other words, with a little effort, someone could determine who was calling and texting with whom. For a subset of the stolen records, identification numbers for cell sites, such as towers or antennas, was included, providing some location information on users. A spokesperson for the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it was aware of the incident and working with AT&T and other government agencies to assess the impact. Bloomberg News reported on April 1 that personal data from about 73 million current and former AT&T customers was leaked on the dark web. That information appeared to be from 2019 and earlier and isnt connected to the breach reported Friday, a spokesperson told Bloomberg. Last month, Snowflake said that hackers had targeted its customers. The intruders used stolen login details to access the accounts of as many as 165 Snowflake customers including Lending Tree Inc., Advanced Auto Parts Inc., Pure Storage Inc. and the Ticketmaster division of Live Nation Entertainment Inc. The hackers didnt breach Snowflake but used credentials that were available in places like cyber-criminal forums to access customer accounts, which lacked security measures such as multifactor authentication. A spokesperson for Snowflake referred Bloomberg News to a statement from May. We have not identified evidence suggesting this activity was caused by a vulnerability, misconfiguration or breach of Snowflakes platform, Chief Information Security Officer Brad Jones said at the time. --With assistance from Charles Gorrivan, Katrina Manson and Christopher Palmeri. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Three more House Democrats called on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race after Thursday nights key press conference, a troubling sign for the incumbent as he plows ahead with his campaign despite concerns following last months disastrous debate performance. Democratic Reps. Jim Himes (Conn.), Scott Peters (Calif.) and Eric Sorensen (Ill.) said Biden should step aside minutes after he concluded his roughly hourlong press conference, arguing he is not the strongest candidate to defeat former President Trump in November. They join 13 other House Democrats and one Senate Democrat, Peter Welch (Vt.), who have urged the president to step aside. While the newest trio of opponents is fewer than the wave of resistance some had predicted would erupt after the press conference which capped off the NATO summit hosted in Washington, D.C. the number reflects the growing discontent with Biden inside the Democratic Party, and it is fueling questions about whether he can survive at the top of the ticket. The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism, Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, and I hope that, as he has throughout a lifetime of public service, he will continue to put our nation first and, as he promised, make way for a new generation of leaders. Peters, who has served in the House since 2013, wrote in a statement that the Presidents record of accomplishments will not translate into similar success in his reelection campaign. The debate raised real concern among elected leaders, supporters, and voters that the President will not be able to wage a winning campaign, he added. This was not a blip. In 2020, Joe Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party, Sorensen, a front-line lawmaker, said in a statement. Today, I am asking him to do that again. Biden fielded questions from reporters for roughly 50 minutes during the press conference, touching on Ukraines war against Russia, the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, the rising threat of China and, the most prominent topic, concerns about his fitness for office and viability as the Democratic Partys presidential nominee. Theres a long way to go in this campaign, Biden said. So Im just going to keep moving. Keep moving and, because, Ive got more work to do. Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job I started, he added at another point. Perhaps the two most memorable moments of the night, however, were a pair of gaffes that put a spotlight on the presidents vulnerabilities that have been worrying Democrats since last months debate. During his response to the first question of the evening, Biden referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. And shortly before the press conference, when introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden said ladies and gentlemen, President Putin, before correcting himself. Really terrible. Of all of the gaffes, a House Democrat told The Hill of the Zelensky-Putin mix-up. The press conference was the latest test amid the fallout from Bidens disastrous debate performance last month, during which he stumbled over his words and at times appeared to lose his train of thought, prompting calls for him to bow out of the race. The reaction to Thursday from House Democrats was a mixed bag. While the three lawmakers joined the calls for Biden to step aside, some of his allies defended him on social media. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), for example, wrote on the social platform X that she was #RidinwithBiden, lauding his handling of foreign policy and national security issues. The House Democrat, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said Bidens performance was mixed. Another Democratic lawmaker, who has previously told The Hill they think Biden should step aside, said I think he was strong. They did not respond when asked if the evening would affect their thoughts on Bidens future. The press conference and reaction to it are fueling questions about if, or when, more lawmakers may join the effort to push him out of the nomination. Himes, who said he purposely waited to release his announcement until after the NATO conference concluded, signaled that more House Democrats could follow his lead in the coming days. Im far from the only Democrat that believes this, that the numbers, the trajectory, what Americans feel in their bones right now suggest not only that Joe Biden would lose this race but that he or we would lose the Senate and the House, he said on MSNBC in an interview. And the stakes are so high that we need to set aside that loyalty and that poetry and that romance and the charge of the light brigade and we all go down together, in favor of some really hard-nosed analysis about whether this is the way forward, he added. The congressman offered a warning to his colleagues: If you dont look at this in a cold hard way, you will be complicit in Donald Trumps second presidency. 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. Most Americans now think immigration should be decreased: Gallup Most Americans now think immigration should be decreased: Gallup For the first time since 2005, a majority of Americans believe immigration levels should be decreased, according to a Gallup poll conducted in June. The survey found 55 percent of respondents want reduced immigration, 25 percent want levels to remain the same and 16 percent want immigration to increase, the lowest level since 2009. Thats a sharp drop from a peak of 34 percent who wanted to increase in May 2020 and 33 percent in June that year, the only two months on record when more respondents wanted immigration levels increased than decreased. The record low in the number of respondents who wanted a decrease in immigration was May 2020, when only 28 percent of respondents said they wanted to reduce immigration. Between 1993 and 1995, support for reduced immigration peaked with 65 percent of respondents supporting the idea. Support for increased or decreased immigration over the past three decades tracks closely with the issues prominence in national politics. The 65 percent peak of support for reduced immigration in the mid 1990s was a lead-up to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), to date the most significant and most hawkish immigration reform bill since 1986. IIRAIRA was aggressively pushed by House Republicans under then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), making immigration a key issue ahead of the 1996 midterm elections. Other peaks in support for reduced immigration track major political moments: In June 2001, only 41 percent of respondents wanted reduced immigration; in October of that year, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that number jumped to 58 percent. Support for decreased immigration decreased overall from that point until 2020, with peaks around major events like the beginning of the Obama presidency and the lead-up to Arizonas SB 1070 immigration crackdown in 2010. Support for increased immigration, conversely, barely registered from the 1960s until it began a slow and steady climb in the mid 1990s, peaking in the Trump administration. Pro-immigration sentiment has steadily decreased during the Biden administration, as Republicans have successfully pushed border security and immigration to the center of national politics. The ups and downs of immigration sentiment were roughly in line with total immigration levels since the 1990s until the big shift in perceptions over the past three and a half years. The overall number of immigrants in the country and the number of immigrants as a percentage of the U.S. population have both grown consistently since 1970, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Until 2021, pro-immigration sentiment had consistently grown on average as the countrys immigrant population increased, while support for reduced immigration had followed a consistent downward trend. Updated at 12:17 p.m. EDT 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 Russians have continued their active offensive operations and are trying to break through Ukrainian defences across the entire front line. A total of 120 combat clashes have occurred over the past day. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 08:00 on 12 July Quote: "According to updated information, over the past day, the aggressor has launched one missile strike (using five missiles) on our troops' positions and settlements, dropped over 100 guided bombs and fired 4,480 times on our positions and settlements." Details: The Russians conducted airstrikes, including near the settlements of Mali Prokhody, Lyptsi, Vesele, Vovchansk, Slobozhanske, Hlyboke, Kupiansk, Stepova Novoselivka, Hlushkivka and Borova (Kharkiv Oblast); Lyman, Vyimka, Ivano-Darivka, Kalynivka, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pivnichne, New-York, Oleksandropil, Vozdvyzhenka, Yelyzavetivka and Kostiantynivka (Donetsk Oblast); Mala Tokmachka (Zaporizhzhia Oblast); and Tiahynka and Tokarivka (Kherson Oblast). On the Kharkiv front, the Russians continued their active operations, including six assaults near the settlements of Vovchansk and Hlyboke, supported by aircraft. On the Kupiansk front, seven combat clashes occurred over the day. Ukraines defence forces repelled attacks near the settlements of Synkivka and Vilshana (Kharkiv Oblast) and Berestove (Donetsk Oblast). On the Lyman front, Ukrainian forces thwarted 11 Russian assault actions near the settlements of Makiivka and Nevske. On the Siversk front, Ukraines defence forces repelled eight attacks near the settlements of Bilohorivka (Luhansk Oblast) and Verkhnokamianske, Rozdolivka and Vyimka (Donetsk Oblast). On the Kramatorsk front, Ukrainian defenders stopped five Russian attempts to break through near the settlements of Klishchiivka, Chasiv Yar and Ivanivske (Donetsk Oblast). On the Toretsk front, the Russians conducted 18 attacks near the settlements of Toretsk, Pivnichne, Zalizne and New-York (Donetsk Oblast). On the Pokrovsk front, Ukrainian defenders repelled 41 Russian attacks near the settlements of Novooleksandrivka, Vozdvyzhenka, Kalynove, Novoselivka Persha, Sokil, Prohres, Yasnobrodivka and Karlivka (Donetsk Oblast). The Russians concentrated their efforts near Novooleksandrivka, where 14 combat clashes occurred. On the Kurakhove front, Ukraines defence forces continue to hold back the Russians near the settlements of Heorhiivka, Krasnohorivka, Paraskoviivka and Kostiantynivka, where the Russians conducted six assaults. On the Vremivka front, the Russians launched 11 assaults, with the most active actions taking place near the village of Urozhaine (Donetsk Oblast), where they conducted seven attacks. The situation did not change significantly on the Huliaipole front. The Ukrainian forces repelled one Russian attack near the city of Huliaipole. The General Staff emphasised that no positions were lost there. On the Orikhiv front, two combat clashes occurred, including near the village of Mala Tokmachka (Zaporizhzhia Oblast). On the Prydniprovske front, the Russians continued to try to push Ukrainian units out of their positions on their bridgeheads, with two attacks that were unsuccessful. "On the Volyn and Polissia fronts, the operational situation has not changed significantly. There is no evidence of the formation of offensive Russian groups. On the border with Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts, the enemy is maintaining its military presence, conducting sabotage and reconnaissance activities and bombarding settlements from the territory of the Russian Federation," the General Staff added. Over the past day, Ukraine's Air Force and Rocket Forces and Artillery struck six command posts, an artillery system, an electronic warfare station and a cluster of Russian personnel. "In summary, over the past day, the Russian invaders lost over 1,030 personnel killed and wounded. In addition, our forces destroyed nine tanks, 23 armoured combat vehicles, 48 artillery systems, two air defence systems, 26 tactical UAVs, five missiles, 84 vehicles and eight pieces of special equipment," the General Staff concluded. Support UP or become our patron! Mother of 'Miracle Baby' Found Abandoned on Highway Is Charged with Murder After Death of Her 4-Year-Old Aaliyah N. Jack, 25, has been charged with murder, cruelty to a juvenile and failure to report a missing child, per police Mississippi law enforcement Aaliyah Jack A Louisiana woman has been charged with murder in connection with the death of her 4-year-old son, days after her 1-year-old son was found alive in a ditch along a highway. Aaliyah N. Jack, 25, was arrested on Monday, July 8, and initially charged with failure to report a missing child, police said. She has now been charged with additional offenses, including murder. Her 1-year-old son, who the local sheriff has dubbed our miracle baby, was rescued by a trucker on a Louisiana highway after the child reportedly spent two days outside alone, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary Stitch Guillory said at a press conference, according to the Associated Press. On Tuesday, July 9, Calcasieu Parish deputies responded to a sighting of the child and soon were able to identify him, the department said in a statement. Related: Grandma of 'Miracle Baby' Found Alone on Highway Says Infant's Mom Allegedly Fled With Them Before Disappearance Authorities were already on the lookout for the child due to an investigation into the childs mother, which began earlier this week. On Monday, Calcasieu Parish police were notified of a body in the water at a rest stop in the parish, per the departments statement. Once they identified the child, whose name has not been released, police received information that he was last seen with his mother and his 1-year-old sibling. Authorities then issued an arrest warrant for Aaliyah for failure to report a missing child, police said. They soon located Aaliyah in Mississippi but without her 1-year-old son, who would be found on the highway the next morning. On Wednesday, police charged Aaliyah with second-degree murder, cruelty to a juvenile and failure to report a missing child, the sheriffs office said in a press release. Related: 1-Year-Old 'Miracle Baby' Saved by Trucker After 2 Days Alone on Side of Highway, Brother, 4, Found Dead The children's grandmother, Conswella Jack, told the Acadiana Advocate she's navigating her mixed emotions. 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. I was so blessed to hear the baby survived but also so hurt because one is now gone, she said, per Acadiana Advocate. A judge has set Aaliyah's bond at $9.1 million, per police. It wasn't immediately clear if Aaliyah has entered pleas or retained an attorney to speak on her behalf. 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. RILEY COUNTY (KSNT) A motorcyclist was injured following a crash near Ogden on Thursday. The Riley County Police Department (RPCD) posted to social media just before 3 p.m. on July 11 warning drivers to avoid the area near the intersection of Skyway Drive and Wildcat Creek Road. Police said westbound of Skyway Drive was completely shut down at Wildcat Creek Road due to a crash. This embedded content is not available in your region. RCPD spokeswoman Ashley Tokoi told 27 News the crash was first reported at 2:40 p.m. involving a single motorcycle rider. This individual was left injured in the aftermath of the crash and transported to a Manhattan hospital for treatment. The area of the crash is now open to traffic. Semi-truck flips on U.S. 75 Highway near Holton, KHP responding 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. 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. How much has Pat Ryan, a top fundraiser among Dems in hot races, raised for House bid? Rep. Pat Ryan added a hefty $1.2 million to his campaign war-chest in the three last months as he readies for a fall race against a Republican who so far has trailed far behind in fundraising. The Hudson Valley congressman ranks as one of the top fundraisers among the 31 "frontline" House Democrats who represent swing districts and may face tough re-election races. He has now raised $5.2 million in all this term and had a $3.5 million balance in his account as of June 30, according to a preview by his campaign of totals it will formally report on Monday. GOP challenger Alison Esposito hasn't revealed her numbers yet, but she last reported $345,000 in her coffers on June 6 a tenth of what Ryan now has. The campaign report she's due to file on Monday will include donations from at least one high-profile event: a fundraiser headlined by House Speaker Mike Johnson in Orange County last month. Rep. Pat Ryan of the 18th C.D. in New York, photographed in downtown Newburgh Jan. 12, 2023. Ryan, an Iraq war veteran and former Ulster County executive, won a close race in 2022 for New York's 18th Congressional District seat, which takes in Orange County and parts of Ulster and Dutchess. Esposito, his opponent in this year's race, is a retired New York City police precinct commander who made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2022. Republican Alison Esposito has entered the 2024 race for New York's 18th Congressional District to challenge Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in the 18th District, and the upcoming race leans in Ryan's favor, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. But Republicans have one hopeful sign: though President Joe Biden won the district by nine points in 2020, voters swung to Republican Lee Zeldin over Gov. Kathy Hochul by two points in the 2022 governor's race. What are the other swing House districts in NY in 2024? The 18th District is one of as many as seven in New York that are primed for battle this fall. Five of those seats are held by Republican freshmen. Two belong to Democrats: Ryan and Rep. Tom Suozzi of Long Island, who reclaimed his former seat in Congress after a special election in February to replace ousted Republican George Santos. Two Democrats trying to unseat Republicans in swing districts next to Ryan's have raised more money than most other House challengers across the country. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones, who's taking on Rep. Mike Lawler in the 17th District, reported $3.6 million in his coffers as of June 5. Josh Riley, who's taking on Rep. Marc Molinaro in the 19th District, had $3.4 million on hand by then. Ryan one of three battleground Dems to call for Biden to step aside Ryan is one of three Democratic frontliners to urge President Biden to step aside for another Democratic nominee in recent days. Ryan made his plea on Wednesday, becoming the first prominent New York Democrat to do so since Biden's disastrous debate performance on June 27. Fellow frontliner Angie Craig of Minnesota preceded him on Saturday and Hillary Scholten of Michigan followed on Thursday. 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: Pat Ryan a top fundraiser among Dems in hot races. What hes raised PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) As Multnomah County leaders continue to face criticism for meeting behind closed doors while discussing a controversial deflection program, local businesses are joining forces to oppose the countys direction. On Friday, the Portland Metro Chamber sent a letter to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson on behalf of local businesses that are concerned with the programs impact. I-5 Bridge Replacement Project gets $1.49B boost as lawmakers aim to upgrade ancient bridge In the letter, The Chamber expressed deep concerns that the current direction is not consistent with the intent of House Bill 4002 and will repeat errors that the county has made in the past several years with implementation of other treatment facilities and programs. The deflection programspearheaded by Chair Vega Pederson among other county leaderswould allow people caught using drugs to avoid arrest and possibly walk away without mandated treatment when House Bill 4002 goes into effect on Sept. 1. Signed by Gov. Tina Kotek in April 2024, HB 4002 was originally proposed as a reintroduction of criminal penalties for those who possess drugs in the state after years under the controversial voter-approved Measure 110. But since its passage, private meetings between Chair Vega Pederson, District Attorney Mike Schmidt, Portland Police Chief Bob Day, and others have garnered criticism from the public. Oregon list of heat-related deaths climbs to at least 16 during July 2024 heat wave We have deepening concerns that the county deflection system will be an endless run around the intent of HB 4002 and the [Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards] sobering center plan; will be out of alignment with the rest of the region and will simply continue the ongoing lethargic county response to the interrelated fentanyl and homelessness crises we see on our streets every day, the letter from Portland Metro Chamber read. The Chamber shared four points of contention: Deflection and 24/7 sobering should be implemented simultaneously as a single integrated system. Treatment Readiness Center must not repeat the mistakes of the Downtown Behavioral Health Resource Center (BHRC). Multnomah Countys deflection system must require registration, tracking and accountability. Transparency with the County Board of Commissioners and the community. Details of these points can be found in a copy of the letter shared below. This embedded content is not available in your region. In response, Chair Vega Pederson shared the following statement with KOIN 6 News: I always appreciate engagement from partners about the critical work Multnomah County is doing, but the letter from PMC did contain inaccuracies. Standing up a continuum of care at this new facility over time, including sobering and medication for opioid use disorder, is the plan. Well have 10 sobering beds open even sooner than the proposed plan. The county is also working closely with the neighborhood and local businesses on a good neighbor agreement meetings have already moved forward with the Central Eastside Industrial Council and the Buckman Neighborhood Association. I am committed to, and convening partners to develop, a local program that increases access to treatment, successfully deflects people from our jails on September 1 and meets the crisis on our street with new and accountable resources. Connecting people with treatment first, before jail, will mean more people struggling with addiction are likely to recover, heal, and thrive. In a public meeting held Thursday, commissioners and community members expressed concerns that the county has yet to define the deflection process while key decisions continue to happen without public input. There must be a binary choice: jail or mandatory treatment, Buckman resident Rick Johnson said. Instead, Chair Vega Pederson said, Its going to include a screening, its going to include access to services, and its gonna include some kind of engagement accountability that were still working on. Were going to continue that conversation today and in the days and weeks to come. Greater Idaho leaders invite Gov. Kotek to discuss potential border movement Commissioners Sharon Meieran and Julia Brim-Edwards have been the most vocal against the County Chairs private meetings, claiming commissioners have not been a part of the conversation. The first order of business should have been saying what deflection is going to be, who were going to serve, what the voluntariness is now and thats actually not rocket science, Commissioner Meieran said. Stay with KOIN 6 News as this story 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 KOIN.com. Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said former President Trumps team was celebrating that President Biden didnt crash and burn at his press conference after the NATO summit. Heres what I know, is that the team at Bedminster right now is cheering, Mulvaney, who served in Trumps administration, said, referring to the former presidents New Jersey property. They were afraid to death that Joe Biden would crash and burn, and he didnt. Mulvaney, who joined NewsNations Cuomo on Thursday evening after the press conference, said Trumps team was also concerned that Biden would knock it absolutely out of the park. And he didnt, he said in comments highlighted by Mediaite. The slow bleed is going to continue. There has been widespread panic among the Democratic Party in the two weeks since Bidens poor debate performance. Some Democratic colleagues are calling on him to step aside, and some donors are withholding funds until the party chooses someone new to take on Trump this fall. The president has been insistent that he is not going to drop out of the race and that he is the most capable person of taking on Trump. Recent reporting by The Atlantic and other outlets point to Trump and his campaign very badly wanting Biden to stay in the race. They think, with Biden leading the ticket, it will propel the former president to victory in a way that replacing Biden may not do. Mulvaney agreed, saying Thursday that Democrats dont have a way to get rid of Biden, since the decision must be made by the president himself. The likely head of the ticket in November is going to be Joe Biden, and nothing is better for Donald Trump than that right now, Mulvaney said. Hes going to win the election if Joe Biden is on the other side of the ticket. Period. End of story. NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill. 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. Mark Edgington of Hudson knows his murder conviction will make his run for the House difficult. (Courtesy) Hudson and Litchfield voters will have three choices in a two-seat floterial House race in the September Republican primary: a longtime incumbent, a former legislator, and a man who moved into a Hudson rental about two months ago. Mark Edgington, 53, is unique in other ways too. In 1989, Edgington pleaded no contest to the second-degree murder of a Florida man he says he did not kill. A candidate running on fiscal responsibility, Edgington declared bankruptcy in 2004. He sued an FBI agent in 2021 after his Keene radio station was raided as part of a child pornography investigation. (He was never charged.) Edgington, who arrived in New Hampshire in 2006, is a transplant from Florida via the Free State Project, and he distrusts the government. He is also the only candidate in the race with the backing of House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, an Auburn Republican who has called Edgington a close friend for 20 years. Im going to do what I can to get him elected, Osborne said. I know there is one (candidate) I can count on for a vote every time. The other two, Im not sure. The other two served alongside Osborne for years: Rep. Ralph Boehm, of Litchfield, who is seeking a ninth term, and former House member Kimberly Rice of Hudson. Rice did not return a message and Boehm believes Osborne recruited Edgington to oust him over a bill that sought to change the date of the state primary election. Osborne backed it. Boehm did not. It failed. Osborne and Edgington, who moved from Walpole to run in Hudson, rejected that claim. Edgington said he would have moved and run elsewhere had he known two Republicans were running for the two seats. I can see why people would come to this conclusion, Edgington said. But I would ask people, Would you seriously pick me to primary somebody? In a pair of interviews this week, Edgington laid out a short list of undefined legislative priorities parental rights, gun freedoms, and reining in government spending and the reasons he believes hes a good choice for voters despite his recent arrival to the district and his 1989 conviction for murder, something he referred to as a mistake. I would prefer that the whole world forget about it, Edgington said. Thats not going to happen. I dont know why my biggest mistake at 17 is so very important when so rarely are someones mistakes at 17. Edgington was sentenced to 25 years in a Florida prison in 1989 for the murder of a motel manager in Manatee County, Florida. It was five years shorter than his co-defendants, Carmen Tungate. Edgington was initially charged with being an accessory after the fact, not murder, in the beating and strangulation death of Ballapuram Umakanthan. Edgington said this week that charge was warranted because he hid in the bathroom while Tungate beat Umakanthan to death. Edgington then helped Tungate escape to Florida and later lied to the police, he said. Authorities upgraded the charge to first-degree murder after someone reported to the authorities that Edgington had described having a bigger role in the murder, according to a police affidavit. In the affidavit, a police investigator recounted what the informant had reported. (Tungate) held (the victim) down while (Edgington) strangled him until he was dead (defendant saw blood come out of Ballapuram ears), it said. (Edgington) then drove (Tungate) to the airport. Edgington said this week that the informant concocted that story out of spite because they were vying for the attention of the same woman. And, he was someone who liked to be listened to, Edgington said. Edgington and Tungate negotiated their first-degree charges down by pleading no contest to second-degree, accepting their sentences without admitting guilt to the murder. Edgington maintained his innocence this week and said he accepted prison time because he believed Floridas sentencing laws would let him leave in three years, about as long as it would take to go to trial. He served eight. Im not claiming to have been innocent. Im not saying that, Edgington said. I am saying I was charged inaccurately. And had I not been there, the outcome would have been the same. This is something I cling to. I really really believe the outcome would have been the same had I not been there. Edgington left prison in 1998. He found his way into radio, selling ads and then launching a radio show in Florida. On Labor Day 2006, he and a friend from the station, Ian Freeman, heard about the Free State Project and relocated to New Hampshire. Freeman was sentenced to eight years in federal prison in 2023 for a bitcoin money laundering scheme and in February ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution to 29 victims. In 2004, while still in Florida, Edgington declared bankruptcy, estimating his debts to be between $100,000 to $500,000. That included nearly $60,000 in credit card debt. Edgington said he eventually paid off individuals who had given him money but not the credit card companies. I made some investments that in retrospect were too risky, he said. I found the best way out was to get out of it. I do not claim to have been a completely whole person when I walked out of prison. Edgington was back in court in 2021, this time in New Hampshire, when he sued an FBI agent who had seized equipment from his Keene radio station during a child pornograpy investigation. Edgington said he believes someone set him up; no charges were filed. In his federal lawsuit, Edgington demanded the items be returned and a non-apology letter from the FBI acknowledging the inconvenience the seizure of his equipment had caused. Osborne told the Bulletin he was pleased but surprised when Edgington told him he was running. He knew the murder conviction would be hard to overcome. Edgington knew that too, he said. Hed prefer voters consider his long career in radio, the absence of further criminal charges, and his work as a volunteer firefighter. The best thing I can do is live my life in the best way I can, to be the best person I can be, he said. And to do good things. Ive been given a chance and I feel I havent squandered that chance. I dont drink anymore. I dont smoke anymore. I dont do drugs anymore. I make good decisions and get good outcomes. Murder-suicide ruled as cause in Poinsett County, AR deaths MEMPHIS, Tenn. Two people are dead in Poinsett County, Arkansas in what authorities are now calling a murder-suicide. The bodies of Ashley Rawls, 39, and Justin Wiggins, 44, were found June 28 inside a home on Marlene Drive in Lepanto, Arkansas. Two found dead in Arkansas home Friday, July 12, the Poinsett County Sheriffs Office provided an update based on an autopsy and investigation. They said Rawls was killed in a homicide, and Wiggins died by suicide. Evidence located at the scene by detectives supports the same conclusion as the Medical Examiner, the sheriffs office stated. 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. Mandalay Resources (TSE:MND) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 23% over the last month. Given that stock prices are usually aligned with a company's financial performance in the long-term, we decided to study its financial indicators more closely to see if they had a hand to play in the recent price move. Particularly, we will be paying attention to Mandalay Resources' ROE today. Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments. Check out our latest analysis for Mandalay Resources How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Mandalay Resources is: 6.8% = US$13m US$194m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024). The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. Another way to think of that is that for every CA$1 worth of equity, the company was able to earn CA$0.07 in profit. What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth? We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a companys earnings growth potential. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics. A Side By Side comparison of Mandalay Resources' Earnings Growth And 6.8% ROE When you first look at it, Mandalay Resources' ROE doesn't look that attractive. We then compared the company's ROE to the broader industry and were disappointed to see that the ROE is lower than the industry average of 9.1%. Despite this, surprisingly, Mandalay Resources saw an exceptional 46% net income growth over the past five years. We reckon that there could be other factors at play here. Such as - high earnings retention or an efficient management in place. Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Mandalay Resources' growth is quite high when compared to the industry average growth of 30% in the same period, which is great to see. The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Mandalay Resources''s valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry. Story continues Is Mandalay Resources Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively? Given that Mandalay Resources doesn't pay any regular dividends to its shareholders, we infer that the company has been reinvesting all of its profits to grow its business. Conclusion In total, it does look like Mandalay Resources has some positive aspects to its business. With a high rate of reinvestment, albeit at a low ROE, the company has managed to see a considerable growth in its earnings. Having said that, the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down, as forecasted in the current analyst estimates. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) departs from a briefing for U.S. Senators at the U.S. Capitol Building on September 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington has formally requested that federal auditors review health care services in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and the agencys compliance with its own detention standards. Murrays Thursday letter to the Government Accountability Office was sent several months after a 61-year-old detainee, Charles Leo Daniel, died at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a detention center in Tacoma, spurring calls for a federal investigation. ICE has a responsibility to maintain safe, humane conditions for detained noncitizens, the letter reads. An ICE spokesperson told the Standard that the agency is firmly committed to the health, safety, and welfare of all those in its custody and that it has limited detention resources to secure detainees. Daniel had numerous medical and psychiatric issues and often refused to take medications, according to ICEs detainee death report, which is required by Congress. The Pierce County medical examiner said in a report released last month that Daniel died of natural causes related to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Northwest ICE Processing Center is run by a Florida-based company, The GEO Group, which contracts with ICE. The company is embroiled in two separate lawsuits brought by Washington state agencies attempting to inspect the Tacoma facility. GEO has so far blocked state inspectors from entering the detention center by arguing in court that only federal authorities have the right to review standards for detainees. Researchers at University of Washingtons Center for Human Rights have documented a range of troubling practices at the site, including allegations of medical neglect, unsanitary food and reports of sexual assault and abuse. Angelina Snodgrass-Godoy, director of the UW center, said that theres already more than enough research into ICEs practices in detention centers, including previous GAO audits. What she and advocates want to see is more action: We dont need more studies, Snodgrass-Godoy said. We need actual accountability markers [that] make sure people stop dying. Its particularly disappointing coming from Senator Murray, because she holds the purse strings, Snodgrass-Godoy said. She has extraordinary access to the ability to hold ICE accountable. Snodgrass-Godoy also pointed to a recent report from several human rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, that found that the facility has one of the highest death counts among immigration detention centers in the country. In response to Snodgrass-Godoys comments, Murrays office pointed to numerous provisions in the most recent Senate Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, signed into law in March, that ensure stronger oversight of federal detention facilities. One provision prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using certain funds to contract for detention services if the facility receives less than adequate ratings in two consecutive performance evaluations by ICEs Office of Professional Responsibility. Hunger strikes by detainees protesting conditions are common at the Tacoma facility. La Resistencia, a group calling for the detention centers closure, has tracked six hunger strikes this year, including one involving 40 detainees that began three days ago. Northwest ICE Processing Center also uses solitary confinement more than any other immigration detention facility in the country, UW researchers say. According to the researchers, Daniels death on March 7 happened while he was in solitary confinement and he had been put in solitary confinement for four years while in ICE custody. Daniel also spent nine years in solitary confinement while in Washington prisons, The Seattle Times reported. Both ICE and GEO have noted Daniel requested to be put in solitary confinement. Snodgrass-Godoy said that reflects how Daniel may have felt in the facility: I dont think thats people loving solitary confinement. Its because people feel extraordinarily vulnerable. In a June 17 response to a March letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from several U.S. senators, including Murray and Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, the federal agency claimed it does not use, or place, detained noncitizens in solitary confinement. However, ICE does use segregation, which is a distinct practice, to ensure the welfare of detained noncitizens, as well as staff, wrote Patrick J. Lechleitner, deputy director at ICE. Unlike conditions generally associated with solitary confinement, detained noncitizens in segregation experience basic living conditions akin to those provided to the general population, he added. What ICE calls segregation meets the United Nations definition of solitary confinement. Snodgrass-Godoy said its just not true that people in solitary confinement experience the same basic living conditions as other detainees. While they may receive the same meals and have access to phone calls, the key difference is theyre isolated from individuals and kept in the cell for the overwhelming majority of the day, she said. Theyre splitting hairs and trying to distract us from the reality, she said. Itd be foolish to fall into that trap of obfuscation. Lechleitner said ICE uses two forms of segregation. The first is administrative, used when detained individuals are scheduled for release, waiting to hear back about various proceedings or to protect detained individuals, staff or the security of the facility. The second is disciplinary, which the agency says only serves as an effort to regulate the detained noncitizens behavior and is imposed for a maximum sanction of 30 days per incident, except in extraordinary circumstances. Nationwide data presented in Lechleitners letter shows the average length of stay across ICEs facilities from 2017 to 2023 in Special Management Units or what the agency would call segregation was 29 days. The United Nations considers solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days a form of torture. ICE has placed people in Special Management Units a total of 20,675 times from 2017 to 2023 nationwide. While the agency notes that it used these units as overflow space during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to high numbers, last year saw the most placements 3,800. UWs Snodgrass-Godoy said ICEs numbers dont line up with independent research, including her own, which often comes up with much longer average stays, based on how the data is calculated. The letter doesnt note ICEs methods for coming up with the numbers, and Snodgrass-Godoy believes they may be averaging numbers across all forms of ICE detention, including jail cells, rather than focusing on detention centers similar to Northwest ICE Processing Center. I just think theyre throwing a bunch of categories together, Snodgrass-Godoy said. That doesnt really tell you any meaningful information. GEO said in an April statement that Daniels housing status was reviewed weekly and was evaluated by the ICE Health Services Corps to ensure that the decision to accommodate Mr. Daniels request to remain in a Special Management Unit was safe from a mental health perspective. GEO referred the Standards request for a statement to ICE. The ICE spokesperson said that the agencys national detention standards and other ICE policies require facilities to provide comprehensive medical and mental health care from the moment noncitizens arrive at a facility and throughout their time in ICE custody. This story has been updated. Prince George's County Council Chair Jolene Ivey listens to testimony from Dan Smith during a June 9 council meeting. Photo by William J. Ford. This falls elections in Prince Georges County could be the start a game of political musical chairs that sparks two more special elections next year and a shakeup in county leadership. Voters are already set to go to the polls Aug. 6 to fill a vacant at-large county council seat, and later this fall the state elects a new U.S. senator. With two county officials in the running for those offices County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) for Senate and Council Chair Jolene Ivey (D) for the at-large seat the outcome could start a scramble to fill the offices they leave behind. And the winners of those races could lead to yet more shuffling and special elections. The special primary election next month for a countywide, at-large council seat could create the first falling domino. It features about a dozen candidates, including Ivey, who represents the countys 5th District. If Ivey wins the Democratic primary she would the odds-on favorite to win the seat on Nov. 5 in the heavily Democratic county. In that case, the county would have to hold a special election next year to fill Iveys vacant 5th District seat. In an interview this week, Ivey explained why she wants to switch seats on the council. The issue for me is that Ive worked so hard as council chair to kind of bring our council back together and to try to get along in a more collegial way, and to look out for the best interests of the county, she said. I am trying to figure out ways to grow our tax base. Im also just trying to hold the line on spending. I need to make sure that there are enough people on the council who agree with that, so that we dont run ourselves into a financial hole. Ivey first has to get past a crowded primary field that includes state Del. Marvin E. Holmes Jr., former Del. Angela M. Angel, Bowie Mayor Tim Adams, Tamara Davis Brown, Gabriel Njinimbot, Judy Mickens-Murray and Leo Bachi Eyombo. A ninth Democrat, Keisha D. Lewis, said in an email Wednesday night that she is ending her primary campaign. The four Republican candidates are Kamita Gray, Michael Riker, Isaac Toyos and Jonathan White. The winner will replace Jamel Mel Franklin, a council member for the past 14 years who abruptly resigned June 14, a week before he was charged with multiple counts in what authorities said was a theft scheme that involved more than $133,000 from his campaign account. His replacement will serve the remaining two years of his term. Ivey has already racked up endorsements from former County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) and state Sen. Ron Watson (D-Prince Georges). But shes taking on some criticism over the cost of the special election that would be needed to fill her 5th District seat. The special election for Franklins seat is expected to cost at least $1.3 million. One of Iveys District 5 constituents, Cheverly resident Dan Smith, testified before the council Tuesday about the potential cost of an election to fill Iveys seat. Smith said in an interview Thursday that Ivey has every right to run for the at-large seat, but it is inconsistent with the position that she took for trying to address the budget deficit in the county. From a standpoint of fiscal responsibility, it doesnt make sense. She still would remain on the council and have a vote, said Smith, who serves on the countys Fair Election Fund Commission, which is overseeing the rollout of a public campaign financing program scheduled to go into effect in 2026. The Prince Georges County Democratic Central Committee and the Prince Georges County Young Democrats have scheduled a forum for the Democratic candidates at 6 p.m. on June 23 in the New Carrollton Library. County Executive choices Meanwhile, a November victory for Alsobrooks in her race for Senate against former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) could create another special election next year, if she resigns her county executive post before the first Monday in December. If she stays after that senators are not sworn in until Jan. 3 the county charter gives the council 14 days to appoint her replacement. If the council cannot agree in that timeframe, the council chair shall succeed to the Office for the balance of the unexpired term. That could trigger yet another special election next year to choose a person to fill another council members seat. County Council at-large member Calvin Hawkins (D) said Thursday hes all in for the county executives job, should it open up. Hes worked in county government for about 30 years that includes with the Department of Public Works, Office of Emergency Management and as an adviser to Baker and an aide to the late County Executive Wayne K. Curry. Prince Georges County Council member Calvin Hawkins on June 9. Photo by William J. Ford. Besides improving economic development, education and public safety, Hawkins also said the countys infrastructure needs to be dealt with. For instance, heavy rains can cause flooding around parts of Fort Washington and in areas near the county courthouse in Upper Marlboro. I believe the next county executive must be engaged in demonstrating the leadership to get our infrastructure together, Hawkins said. If we dont pay attention to our infrastructure and continue to build, our infrastructure will collapse. Another person who expressed interest is Baker, the former county executive who served from 2010 to 2018. He also ran for governor in 2018 and 2022, but didnt get out of the Democratic primary either time. Certainly thats something Im seriously considering, Baker said in an interview Wednesday before traveling to attend this weeks National Association of Counties convention in Tampa, Florida. I think there are a lot of steps that have to go through before that comes to fruition. Her [Alsobrooks] seat is too important. We need her in the Senate with everything that is going on nationally. As for why he is contemplating to a return to his old job, Baker noted a few reasons such as making sure the FBI headquarters relocates to Greenbelt and redeveloping the Blue Line corridor. Being able to actually have someone to come in [and] understand how government is run. Its different from being anything else but county executive, he said. States Attorney Aisha Braveboy (D) did not commit to running for county executive if the seat comes open, but she did not rule it out either, according to a statement from Friends of Aisha Braveboy Campaign. The States Attorney loves Prince Georges County and will consider opportunities to serve as they become available. Right now, her focus is on the important job that she has been entrusted with, said the statement that was sent via text message Thursday evening. One other person who may seek the county executive position is Ivey. I am not ruling out anything, she said Tuesday. But the thing that I have before me right now is this office, this at-large council seat. Thats what Im running for right now. The post Musical chairs could be in Prince Georges immediate electoral future appeared first on Maryland Matters. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been ramping up criticism of U.S. President Joe Biden, has donated to a political group working to elect rival presidential candidate Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources. The report did not indicate how much Musk donated but added it was "a sizable amount" given to a group called America PAC. Bloomberg reported that the PAC - a group that can receive unlimited contributions for political activity - is next required to disclose its list of donors on July 15. In March, Trump, a former U.S. President who is expected to be formally nominated next week as the Republican Party's candidate for the Nov. 5 election, met with Musk and other wealthy donors. In response to reports of the meeting, South Africa-born Musk posted on X: "Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President." In May, he also denied media reports that there had been talks over a potential advisory role for him in any Trump presidency. Musk, the world's richest person who runs electric car maker Tesla, rocket maker SpaceX, social media company X and other companies, did not respond to Reuters' request for comments. Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said that Musk knows Trump is "a sucker who will sell America out, cutting his taxes while raising taxes on the middle class by $2,500." "Joe Biden has been standing up to people like Elon and fighting for the middle class his entire career and its why hell win in November," Singer said in a statement. Musk in recent years has more fully embraced the Republican Party, which has weighed on the reputation and sales of Tesla, the biggest source of his wealth. Trump last month reiterated his pledge to immediately abandon the Biden administration's "mandate" to support the electric vehicle industry. But he added: "I'm a big fan of electric cars. I'm a fan of Elon." "He does an incredible job with Tesla." Musk said they had "some conversations" and Trump is a "huge fan of the Cybertrucks," referring to Tesla's electric pickup trucks. While he has publicly criticized Biden's policies on immigration and electric vehicles and even his age, Musk has not made any formal endorsement in November's contest and Trump has said he did not know if he has Musk's support. He has also endorsed antisemitic comments on X, though Musk has denied being antisemitic. Musk's views have hurt his standing among some consumers, according to a CivicScience survey shown exclusively to Reuters. (Reporting by Jasper Ward and Hyunjoo Jin; additional reporting by Nandita Bose;Editing by Chris Reese and Miral Fahmy) EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) Celebrating the second anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope beginning science operations, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released new images of two interacting galaxies. For its second birthday, the Webb Telescope took photos of Interacting Galaxies Arp 142, or also known as the Penguin and Egg galaxies on Friday, July 12. Interacting Galaxies Arp 142, also known as the Penguin and Egg Galaxies. Photo courtesy to NASA The first spiral galaxy is at the eye of the penguin and the second elliptical galaxy is the egg to the left, according to NASA. Interacting Galaxies Arp 142, also known as the Penguin and Egg Galaxies. Photo courtesy to NASA In just two years, Webb has transformed our view of the universe, enabling the kind of world-class science that drove NASA to make this mission a reality, said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Webb is providing insights into longstanding mysteries about the early universe and ushering in a new era of studying distant worlds, while returning images that inspire people around the world and posing exciting new questions to answer. It has never been more possible to explore every facet of the universe. Comparison of Arp 142 taken by the Hubble Telescope and the Webb Telescope. Photo courtesy to NASA. Since President Biden and Vice President Harris unveiled the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope two years ago, Webb has continued to unlock the mysteries of the universe, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. With remarkable images from the corners of the cosmos, going back nearly to the beginning of time, Webbs capabilities are shedding new light on our celestial surroundings and inspiring future generations of scientists, astronomers, and explorers. The James Webb Space Telescope launched on Dec. 25, 2021 and is currently taking photos of stars and galaxies much like its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, according to the NASA website. Unlike the Hubble Telescope which orbits the Earth, the Webb Telescope is actually orbiting the sun, over 1 million miles away, according to NASA. According to NASA, the galaxies are estimated to be about 100,000 light-years apart and roughly 326,000,000 light-years from Earth. 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. NASA hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s; here's how they will get there NASA is readying to send astronauts to Mars by the 2030s and the agency's first, yearlong simulated mission took one giant leap toward making that goal a reality. Marking the first completed installment of three planned programs from NASA's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), four crew members recently emerged from a simulated habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The volunteer crew members logged 378 days in the 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed habitat called Mars Dune Alpha, which simulated what a real-life mission to the Red Planet would entail. PHOTO: The crew members of the first CHAPEA mission, Kelly Haston shakes hands with NASA Deputy Director Flight Missions Kjell Lindgren, as other crew Ross Brockwell, emerges from their craft, July 6, 2024, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. (NASA via AP) Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones entered the habitat on June 25, 2023, and completed the program this week on July 6. "This was an incredibly successful mission," Dr. Suzanne Bell, lead of the behavioral health and performance laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center and co-investigator on the CHAPEA project, told ABC News. Bell explained that the program has been "monumental" in NASA's efforts to send astronauts to Mars in the coming decades by testing how humans can live, research, eat and sleep in a resource-restricted environment for such a prolonged amount of time. PHOTO: Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat. (Bill Stafford/NASA) The mission is designed to mimic what researchers would expect of a Mars mission, according to Bell, who noted the "incredible amounts of data" from the experience proved it to be a success. Simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise and crop growth were among the crew members' daily activities during the mission. MORE: Life on Mars: How volunteers in NASA's Mars simulator will live for a year "Mars is our goal," Stephen Koerner, deputy director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, said during the press conference Saturday when the crew members emerged. "As global interests and capabilities in space exploration continue to expand, America is poised to lead," he said, adding, "The completion of the CHAPEA-1 mission is an important step in this goal." PHOTO: Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) is a series of analog missions that will simulate year-long stays on the surface of Mars living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated 1,700 square foot habitat. (Bill Stafford/NASA) So what would a human-led mission to Mars entail? Bell explained that the 378 days the crews logged in the simulated habitat was a design reference mission for the amount of time an astronaut crew would spend on the Martian surface. "That length of time and the entire mission was built along this idea of trying to replicate, as best we could, what it would be like to have a Mars surface habitat mission," Bell said. PHOTO: Mars (NASA) The transit period to get to Mars is approximately nine months each way, according to Bell, and the astronauts would spend over a year on the planet collecting data and assessing the planetary alignment that would allow the spacecraft to land and depart from Mars on the same orbit. MORE: Water frost detected on Mars' volcanoes in 'significant' first discovery: Study Likening the orbit to a coin donation funnel, Bell explained that the spacecraft would go into an oblong orbit and intersect with Mars to descend to the surface in a circle instead of only using fuel to get there. PHOTO: NASAs Orion spacecraftthe crew module and European-built service moduleis being lifted, Dec. 1, 2019, into a thermal cage and readied for its move into the vacuum chamber at NASAs Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. (NASA) Going to Mars and back will log more than a billion miles on the spacecraft's odometer, according to NASA, which is more than a thousand times the distance that Orion, the Artemis I spacecraft orbiting the moon, traveled. Missions to Mars have higher energy needs, demand much longer system service life and have stricter departure timeframe constraints than moon missions, according to the agency. Looking to the future, NASA's next CHAPEA mission is slated for spring 2025, and the third is expected to begin in 2026. "Completing the CHAPEA mission was really exciting, and we are just thrilled at the success of the mission," Bell said, adding, "That's going to enable us to plan for the future, to compare it to other crews and position us to be able to someday land on Mars." NASA hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s; here's how they will get there originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Mazi Pilip, the Republican candidate in the upcoming election to replace George Santos in the United States House of Representatives, speaks during a news conference outside the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center migrant shelter on Thursday, January 25, 2024 in Queens, N.Y The Nassau County legislature plans to pass a law banning demonstrators from hiding their identities with masks to tackle rising antisemitism and hate crimes the first local government to do so. Talk is cheap. What Im asking for is action. We are going after the thugs who are terrorizing the Jewish community. Im sick and tired of it, said Nassau Legislator Mazi Pilip. No one is being held accountable. Its been very vicious. Weve seen it from California to New York, said Pilip, an Ethiopian -born Jew from Great Neck. The Nassau County legislature plans to pass a law banning demonstrators from hiding their identities with masks to tackle rising antisemitism and hate crimes the first local government to do so. Getty Images Pilip said she hoped Nassaus law expected to be approved in two weeks will put pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature and Mayor Eric Adams and the Council to follow suit. The bill would prohibit anyone over 16 years of age from wearing masks or other face coverings on public streets and property with exceptions for healthy and safety reasons or religious custom. Violators could get slapped with fines up to $1,000 or up to a year in jail, a misdemeanor crime. Pilip, who ran as the Republican candidate in the special election for 3rdh Congressional District covering parts of Nassau County and Queens in February, said protesters should not be permitted to exploit free speech rights to promote hate and commit crimes. We do not cover our faces. We do not hide, she said. One New York City lawmaker praised Pilips bill. Talk is cheap. What Im asking for is action. We are going after the thugs who are terrorizing the Jewish community. Im sick and tired of it, said Nassau Legislator Mazi Pilip. James Keivom Great to see decisive action coming out of Nassau County. Now its time for New York City to do the same same!, said Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn). Are we going to continue allowing masked criminals and cowards run our streets because we prioritize protecting their ability to hide over all else?, added Vernikov, who supports a citywide and statewide mask ban. National civil-rights leaders from Jewish and black communities last month launched a #UnmaskHateNY coalition as part of a campaign to deter bigots from using masks to hide their identities likening the movement to bringing down the Ku Klux Klan. The #UnMaskHateNY organizers include leaders of the Urban League, the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League and clergy. Pilip said she hoped Nassaus law expected to be approved in two weeks will put pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature and Mayor Eric Adams and the Council to follow suit. AFP via Getty Images Localities taking action can only be viewed as a positive step, and we hope this move by Nassau County will increase momentum for a much-needed statewide ban on masked intimidation to ensure that all New Yorkers are safe from targeting, terror and harassment by those who hid their identities to menace with impunity., a spokesman for the #UnMaskHateNY campaign said. The New York Civil Liberties Union opposed the mask ban as stifling the right to protest and questioned its legality. Banning masks puts Nassau County residents health and safety at risk and it wont stop crime its a lose-lose proposition, said Susan Gottehrer, Nassau Country Regional Director of the NYCLU. Jewish New Yorkers are concerned about rising antisemitism. Nearly half of Jewish voters have felt at risk because of their religious identity while living in the Empire State while more than a third said that New York is no longer a safe haven for their people, according to a poll released Wednesday by the pro-Israel New York Solidarity Network. New York State had a two century old ban on public mask wearing, which was repealed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect public health. Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday reinstituting a mask ban under state law is the best way to address bigotry. As someone who has participated in numerous protests to defend my beliefs, I can confidently say that those fighting for a noble cause do not hide behind masks cowards do, the mayor said. New York City will always defend the right to free speech and will continue to protect public health, but we are increasingly seeing masked protestors using anonymity to intimidate, threaten, and break the law,. This behavior is unacceptable, and we will not tolerate it. Adams continued, Our team has been consulting with our state partners and we believe the best path forward is to reinstate the state-wide mask ban that was in place for over 175 years, or to adopt a similar one to address the unacceptable behavior we are seeing. LONG ISLAND, N.Y. (PIX11) Nassau County lawmakers are proposing a ban on masks used for concealing an individuals identity in a public place. The law proposes banning masks not worn for health or religious reasons in an effort to curb criminal acts. Gov. Kathy Hochul pushed for a similar law that would apply to New York City subways. More Local News It would ban facial coverings on public property for people over the age of 16. For private properties, it would be up to the owners discretion. The law also proposes that anyone caught wearing a face covering could be charged with a misdemeanor and punished with a fine of no more than $1,000 or a prison sentence for up to a year. Erin Pflaumer is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered both local and national news since 2018. She joined PIX11 in 2023. 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. Triple-digit temperatures continue this week in Redding and throughout the Sacramento Valley. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for Redding, in effect until 9 p.m. Saturday, July 13. The weather in the Northern Sacramento Valley brings "dangerously-hot conditions with high temperatures 105 to 115" with "limited overnight relief with lows mainly in the 70s to lower 80s," the weather service said in its heat warning. Here are a few questions the Record Searchlight asked the National Weather Service's Sacramento office about summer temperatures in Redding. How many consecutive days has it been over 100 degrees in Redding since the first day of summer, June 20? National Weather Service: As of Thursday, July 11, daytime highs reached 100 or higher every day since Friday, June 28. That run wont likely end over the next week. What about the number of days Redding has been over 110 degrees since summer began? National Weather Service: Redding also had six consecutive days when afternoons reached 110 degrees or higher this summer. That happened from July 3 to July 8. Temperatures only reached 109 on Tuesday, July 9, then popped up to 113 on Wednesday, July 10. Is it normal for Redding to have consecutive weeks with days hotter than 110 degrees? National Weather Service: Its pretty common for Redding to have at least one day per week when temperatures reach 110 from mid-July through August. The area gets a lot of high-pressure weather settling over the region in summer. Thats what's happening in early July. That high pressure pushes the heat into the Sacramento Valley, bottling it in. What has been the hottest day so far this summer in Redding? National Weather Service: Redding hit 119 degrees on Saturday, July 6, breaking its previous all-time heat record of 118 degrees. That temperature was recorded at a sensor located at Redding Municipal Airport. On Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6, the weather matched the previous heat record: 118 degrees. More: What's the best temperature to set your air conditioner thermostat in California? What is the average high temperature for Redding in July? National Weather Service: Reddings historic average daytime high temperature in mid-July is 100101 degrees. The hottest time of the day is usually in the late afternoon. 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. How long can we expect this heat wave to last? National Weather Service: The heat wave in Redding will continue through Saturday, July 13, when afternoon highs reach 113 degrees. Reddings heat wave will finally break on Sunday, July 14. That's when temperatures are expected to drop closer to normal for July in the range of 101 to 103 degrees. That cooling trend is projected to last at least through Thursday, July 18. What are cooling centers hours this week? Shasta County has closed all its temporary cooling centers, due to lower overnight temperatures and reduced risk of power outages, according to its website. Instead, county health officials recommended that people go to air conditioned public places, including libraries, for relief from the heat. For cooling center updates go to shastacounty.gov/health-human-services/page/cooling-centers-and-heat-safety or call the Extreme Temperature Information hotline at 530-229-8882. What is Reddings forecast over the next seven days? Here are temperature highs and lows for the next week, according to the weather center. Friday, July 12 Daytime high: 113 Nighttime low: 79 Saturday, July 13 Daytime high: 112 Nighttime low: 79 Sunday, July 14 Daytime high: 103 Nighttime low: 79 Monday, July 15 Daytime high: 102 Nighttime low: 71 Tuesday, July 16 Daytime high: 101 Nighttime low: 70 Wednesday, July 17 Daytime high: 101 Nighttime low: 71 Thursday, July 18 Daytime high: 103 Nighttime low: 70 Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you. This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: National Weather Service answers questions about Redding heat wave NATO leaders in D.C. condemn Russia as Zelenskyy thanks Congress for Ukraine aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, meets with House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., at the U.S. Capitol on July 10, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images) WASHINGTON Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited U.S. lawmakers Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, where world leaders are pledging additional support to the Eastern European nation as it battles Russias continued assault. Zelenskyy met House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senators behind closed doors as the 32 NATO members huddled across town crafting a summit declaration that stopped short of a full invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance. Zelenskyy last visited Capitol Hill in December as a Republican lawmakers and the White House wrangled for months over new aid to Ukraine nearly two years after Russias full-scale invasion. Congress later approved $60 billion in assistance in April. That measure spent two months stalled in the House as Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, held a series of meetings on whether that chamber should act. Johnson ultimately decided to move forward, releasing four bills that would each receive separate votes, before being bundled as one package and sent to the Senate. Johnson told reporters after Wednesdays meeting that Zelenskyy provided an update on the situation in Ukraine and that the two shared a good conversation. And you know, expressed their gratitude for the assistance of the United States and their hope that they can prevail there and that you know, good will triumph over evil, according to a transcript provided by Johnsons office. When asked if he supported restrictions on how Ukraine can use weapons provided by the U.S., Johnson responded, I explained that the, the will of Congress was to allow them the flexibility to use the weapons and assistance that were sent to prosecute the war as they see fit. So Im a supporter of that. I believe thats what Congress intended. The Biden administration recently permitted Ukraine to use U.S. weapons for limited strikes over the Russian border. Invitation to visit Ukraine Prompted by a reporters question prior to the meeting, Zelenskyy invited Johnson to visit Ukraine, but the speaker responded that his schedule will be tight until after the presidential election in November. Its difficult to find a time to go, but Id certainly like to, Johnson said. The face-to-face sit-down with Johnson followed Zelenskyys earlier meeting with a bipartisan Senate delegation led by Schumer and McConnell. Video published by C-SPAN shows Zelenskyy shaking hands with the New York Democrat and Kentucky Republican before entering the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building, where he awarded them the Ukrainian Order Of Merit First Class. Zelenskyy said in a statement he and the lawmakers discussed the current battlefield situation and American defense support. I informed them about Russias increased missile terror against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure. I extend my gratitude to the President of the United States, both chambers of Congress, both parties, and the American people for their support of Ukraine, he wrote on social media shortly after the meeting. Schumer described the honor of welcoming Zelenskyy to the Senate. MAGA extremistsled by Trumpwanted to just let Putin have his way, Schumer wrote on social media, referring to Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, and echoing his earlier comments on the Senate floor. The Senate showed what leadership looks like by pushing to deliver the support Ukraine needs. America stands with Ukraine, he said. McConnell posted a statement on X saying that decades ago, President Ronald Reagan reminded the world that support for freedom fighters is self-defense. Theres no daylight between Americas interests and the cause of Ukraines defense. Proud, as always, to welcome President @ZelenskyyUA to the U.S. Senate. Russia condemned Late Wednesday afternoon, NATO members announced their official summit declaration, condemning Russia as the most significant and direct threat to Allies security and committing additional military equipment, training and funding for Ukraine. 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 Summit decisions by NATO and the NATO-Ukraine Council, combined with Allies ongoing work, constitute a bridge to Ukraines membership in NATO, the declaration later stated. President Joe Biden opened the NATO meeting with brief public remarks Wednesday afternoon ahead of a closed-door working session among the member nations. Right now, Russia is on a wartime footing with regard to defense production, Biden said. We cannot, in my view, we cannot allow the alliance to fall behind. Biden also delivered opening remarks for the alliances 75th anniversary event Tuesday night in Washington during which he declared NATO as more powerful than ever. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post NATO leaders in D.C. condemn Russia as Zelenskyy thanks Congress for Ukraine aid appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. Ukrainian leaders are mostly satisfied with the results at the NATO Summit in Washington especially since it couldve gone much worse. Kyiv didnt get everything it wanted, but NATO agreed to declare that the countrys eventual membership is irreversible, an upgrade from last years summit declaration in Lithuania that left Ukrainian leaders fuming about a lack of commitment from the alliance as it fought to halt Russias invasion. Yet leaders are still pleading for more fighter jets, more air defenses, faster pilot training and getting rid of rules on striking inside Russian territory. And the specter of Donald Trumps return to the White House added an air of uncertainty to the entire proceedings, leaving even seasoned foreign hands to guess as to what the former president will do if he wins in November. But for now, Ukrainians are ready to take the win. Things are better than they were after last years summit in Lithuania, said Yehor Chernev, a Ukrainian parliamentarian at the summit. There was no chance that Kyiv would be formally invited to become the 33rd member of the alliance while in Washington, as leaders in Kyiv had long since been told no invitation would be forthcoming this week. But the promise it did receive was the result of months of contentious wrangling within the alliance that belies the difficult path ahead for Kyiv, even if the West continues to keep the weapons flowing. Irreversible, OK, but it's not an invitation yet, Chernev said. With the war slogging through what has amounted to a deadly stalemate, expectations have shifted, and the need for more air defenses and other weapons is more pressing to thwart relentless Russian strikes by cruise and ballistic missiles and constant infantry assaults across the front lines. What is most important for Ukraine right now is that we send them ammunition and also lift restrictions levied by the U.S. and other allies on using donated weapons such as long-range missiles inside Russia, Finlands Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said in an interview. When it comes to the particular wording of Ukraines eventual ascension to NATO, everybody knows that it wouldn't happen overnight anyway, so I don't think we should spend too much time thinking about the wording in relation to this, but concentrate on actually the delivery of material, Valtonen said. Diplomats at the summit expressed satisfaction with the language that is allowing NATO to hold Ukraine a little bit closer, but there was little appetite to kick-start the path to full membership any time soon, even from states along the alliances eastern front where anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian rhetoric is burning hottest. I understand Ukraine's ambition, and Ukraines will to become a full-fledged member of NATO but also they must be realistic about the current situation, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said in an interview. They are now in a full-scale war, so I think the wording that when time is appropriate is good, and while I would like to see Ukraine in NATO tomorrow, let's be realistic. Ukrainian forces will be bolstered by more American arms after Congress passed the $60 billion aid package in April, and with the arrival of new weapons from several European countries. Ukraine estimates that while over the winter the artillery disadvantage was 20 to 1 in Russias favor, its down to five to one today. The summit this week also established a new NATO command in Germany that will coordinate arms flows into Ukraine and ensure more prompt delivery of promised weapons, adding a much-need coordination function to the often ad hoc nature of country-by-country pledges. The alliance will also station an ambassador in Kyiv, pulling the country more closely under NATOs umbrella, even without formal membership. A Czech initiative to get European Union countries to fund the purchase of artillery munitions from third countries has also paid dividends, with 50,000 shells arriving monthly, and about 500,000 expected to arrive by the end of the year. But that aid can do only so much against the crushing weight of Russias infantry attacks, where Ukrainian troops are forced to expend munitions to blunt the constant attacks. The back and forth is yielding few gains for either side, though the Russians are making progress at a few key points. Ukraine will continue to get the supplies and weapons from the West that it needs to defend itself, said one NATO diplomat, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive situation. I think that they have been able to stabilize the front, but obviously the war remaining a stalemate for the rest of this year is what we expect. During a conversation at the Council on Foreign Relations this week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen expressed frustration that the alliance has moved too slowly and imposed limitations on the use of defense aid that has hamstrung Ukrainian forces. Im not working with any red lines, she said. If you ask me, its very difficult to win a war if you put red lines on the table that enemies can read. The red line I have is that Russia cannot decide on the future of Europe. Another NATO diplomat expressed similar frustration with the limitations the Biden administration has imposed on Ukraine, observing that while Ukrainians have now gained a lot of advantages with the [Army Tactical Missile Systems], and they will degrade the Russian capabilities, but it's unlikely that this will lead to any serious breakthrough, particularly if they are blocked from using these weapons against Russian military targets inside Russia. Many leaders were adamant about the cost of not supporting Ukraine as it defends itself, whatever frustration there may be in how quickly it happens. This is not a cliche. This is the truth, Finlands Valtonen said. The Ukrainians are fighting for us. And we simply can't let those people down. Eli Stokols contributed to this report. CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misquoted the NATO Summit pledge to eventually allow Ukraine into the alliance. The word they used was "irreversible." Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO Summit in Washington. Photo: Getty Images US President Joe Biden has reaffirmed his commitment to continuing the United States' policy of global leadership in supporting Ukraine and strengthening NATO, emphasising that it is a matter of national security for the US. Source: Biden at a final press conference after the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday; Ukrainform Quote: "I will not walk away from Ukraine. I will keep NATO strong. That's exactly what we did, and exactly what we'll continue to do now." Details: Biden emphasised that the future of US policy depends on the American people, who will make their choice in November. However, Biden warned that this is much more than a political issue, "it is a national security issue". He added that it is not about his political campaign but about the coming decades. In this context, he recalled how his predecessor Donald Trump refused to commit to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of collective security. In addition, Biden recalled that Trump called the Russian dictator Putin a "genius". Background: On 11 July, 23 states and the EU signed a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! The three-day NATO summit in Washington, D.C., concluded on July 11 with the launch of the Ukraine Compact, a security framework signed by 32 allies. Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine was a key focus of the Alliance's 75th-anniversary summit. Multiple countries announcing aid packages and security agreements, though Kyiv did not receive any definitive news about its future membership. The newly announced Ukraine Compact builds upon the joint G7 declaration made at last year's NATO summit in Vilnius. "(T)his historic Compact creates a unified and comprehensive security architecture to support Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace," a White House press briefing said. The compact states that members will support Ukraine's defense needs through training, military aid, and economic assistance, while also accelerating Ukraine's efforts to strengthen its defense capacities. Signatories also agree to "convene swiftly and collectively at the most senior levels to determine appropriate next steps" in the event that Russia launches a future armed attack against Ukraine. "In the short term, we will continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons, ammunition, and training necessary to repel Russian forces," U.S. President Joe Biden said at the unveiling of the compact. "In the medium term, we will help build the forces and capabilities to defend Ukraine and deter further aggression." The Ukraine Compact announcement was somewhat overshadowed by Biden's flubbed introduction of President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he referred to Zelensky as "President Putin." Zelensky laughed off the gaffe and thanked Biden, calling the Ukraine Compact "a solid architecture of security guarantees." "This Ukraine Compact we are forming takes our relations to a new level a significant achievement for Ukraine and all of us," Zelensky said. Read also: Opinion: If not membership, NATO should offer Ukraine security guarantees Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The NATO summit was about Ukraine and Biden. Here are some key things to know President Joe Biden, joined by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaks during an event on the Ukraine Compact on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington, Thursday, July 11, 2024. Biden launched the Ukraine Compact, signed by 25 countries and the European Union, as part of a commitment to Ukraine's long term security. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) WASHINGTON (AP) NATO leaders met this week to celebrate the alliances 75th anniversary under the cloud of deep political uncertainty in its most powerful member the United States. But even as questions swirled about President Joe Bidens future and the implications of a possible return to the White House by NATO skeptic Donald Trump, the 32 allies put a brave face on their strength and unity going forward, particularly in relation to Ukraine. Over three days in Washington, Ukraine, Russia, the threat posed by an increasingly aggressive China and NATOs future dominated the formal summit discussions, although all eyes were on Biden. He hoped to use the summit as a symbol of his strength as leader of the free world as he struggles to salvage his reelection campaign. Biden is facing growing calls to withdraw after a poor debate performance against Trump last month. Here are key takeaways from the summit: Biden gets some slack Biden stunned the audience at a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council on Thursday by referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin before quickly correcting himself. At his news conference later at the conclusion of the summit, he mistakenly called Vice President Kamala Harris Vice President Trump. NATO leaders paid great deference to Biden by either ignoring or sidestepping questions about his comportment, appearance and grasp of the issues. They praised his leadership and the achievements that NATO has made during his tenure in the White House, including rallying the allies to oppose Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the addition of Finland and Sweden as members. French President Emmanuel Macron and new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were asked repeatedly about the gaffe but declined to answer directly. We can all have a slip of the tongue," Macron said. Its happened to me. Im sure it will happen to me again tomorrow, and Id ask you to be just as kind to me. Macron said he had a long discussion with Biden during Wednesdays dinner with NATO leaders and heard his discussions in meetings during the summit. He described Biden as very much on top of things. He knows the issues, and around the table, he is amongst those who has the greatest depth of knowledge on these international issues, Macron said. Starmer, who made his debut on the international stage at the summit, ducked multiple questions about the gaffe, instead praising Biden for his leadership and his preparation in putting an event together to secure solid outcomes for Ukraine. I want to look at the substance of whats been achieved over these two days, he said. Trump looms over the summit A potential Trump presidency has raised concerns in some European capitals. Trump has repeatedly questioned NATOs relevance, has suggested 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. Biden said at his news conference that he's the best qualified person to ensure that the 32-member transatlantic alliance remains strong and that Ukraine does not fall to Putin. Foreign policy has never been his strong point and he seems to have an affinity to people who are authoritarian, Biden said of Trump. That worries Europe, that worries Poland, and nobody, including the people of Poland, think if (Putin) wins in Ukraine, hes going to stop in Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said hes not concerned about the U.S. commitment to the alliance if Trump is returned to the White House, because it has bipartisan support in Congress and a record number of allies are hitting their goals for military spending. Trump was asked this week on Fox News Radio whether he wants the U.S. to exit NATO. He answered, No, I want them to pay their bills. Zelenskyy, meanwhile, gave a speech to friendly Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the sidelines of the summit, saying he hopes the U.S. never leaves NATO. I hope that if the people of America will elect President Trump, I hope that his policy with Ukraine will not change, Zelenskyy said in a question-and-answer session with Fox News host Bret Baier after his speech. Ukraine brings in aid Although they stopped short of offering Ukraine an invitation to join, the allies affirmed that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to NATO membership and pledged to maintain a baseline of roughly $43 billion in annual support to Kyiv as it defends itself from Russias invasion and attempts to deter future aggression. There were new pledges of air defense support, including Patriot missile systems and F-16 fighter jets, as well as promises that individual security deals being signed by NATO members with Ukraine constitute a bridge to NATO. As part of that bridge, NATO agreed to start up a new program to provide reliable military aid and training to Ukraine and help it get ready to join the alliance. Ukraines future is in NATO, the allies said in their joint communique Wednesday. Zelenskyy embraced the support of allies who have provided substantial new military aid and a path to joining NATO, but he emphatically pushed for the help to arrive faster and for restrictions to be lifted on the use of U.S. weapons to attack military targets inside Russia. If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations, Zelenskyy said alongside Stoltenberg in the final hours of a summit that saw Ukraine receive fresh commitments of weapons to firm up its defense against Russia. Harsh words for China NATO leaders have been concerned about China and its increasing aggressiveness for some time. But in a first, they adopted significantly stronger language calling out Beijing for its support of Russia in its war against Ukraine. The communique labeled China a decisive enabler of Russia's war effort, saying Chinese investments and exports of dual-use items are rebuilding Russias defense industrial sector. That is helping Russia overcome Western sanctions to ramp up the production of weapons for use in Ukraine. China has opposed NATOs reach into the Indo-Pacific region, saying it hurts Beijing's interests and disrupts peace and stability in the region, said Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman. The four Indo-Pacific countries attending the summit Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia issued a joint statement to strongly condemn the illicit military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, showing how the military alliance and its Pacific partners are forging closer ties to counter what they see as shared security threats. We must work even more closely together to preserve peace and protect the rules-based international order," Stoltenberg said when meeting officials of the four Pacific partners. Our security is not regional. It is global. A Native American Marine reservist who recently received a religious waiver to grow his hair out believes the approval will lead to more Indigenous service members serving. Cpl. Bradford Flores, who is a Navajo Anti-Tank Missile Gunner in the 4th Marine Division, says successful instances where Marine Corps members get to practice their faith and cultural traditions will signal to others that similar opportunities exist for them. It makes it easier for Indigenous men in the Marine Corps to be able to do this and thats what I want, said Flores, the first Marine authorized to wear his hair long in honor of Navajo tradition. Military.com first reported this news in June. The approval grants Native Americans an opportunity to express their identity freely, allowing it to be recognized more, he said. Its bigger than us, said Flores. Its just a way for us to be able to share our culture with other Indigenous people, but also share our culture with people that dont really understand it and give us a teaching opportunity, saying this is why its significant. Soldier is first to get approval for traditional Samoan hand tattoos Flores split his time between Oklahoma City and Norman, Oklahoma growing up, enlisting in the Marine Corps in 2021. He credits his father for instilling in him both a reverence for his roots and a dedication to serving his country. Emblems of Navajo tradition such as art, pottery, and baskets lined the walls of his childhood home and Flores says he was given his first pair of moccasins as a baby. If you think Im Native now, just wait till you get to our house, Flores said hed tell friends growing up. His father was equally invested in work and service, he said, so much so that cutting his long hair, a symbol of strength in the Navajo tradition, never seemed to bother him as it was what his job in the Air Force required. Flores prioritized the work like his father when he first joined the Marine Corps and wasnt bothered by the requirement to cut his hair. Typically, Flores said, the act of cutting his hair involves a ceremony where he burns the hair with sweetgrass or sage, which he couldnt do during Marine Corps recruit training. It wasnt until a car ride with a Comanche staff sergeant in his first year of service that Flores considered applying for a religious waiver. In a conversation about shared traditions and similar backgrounds, Flores admitted how cool it would be to grow his hair out in uniform. The staff sergeant agreed and said if Flores ever decided to pursue it, hed offer his support. Obviously, youd be the first, Flores said the sergeant told him. Thats what kind of started the gears. From there, the idea percolated furhter until eventually, Flores reached out to Airman 1st Class Connor Crawn, whod received a religious waiver to grow his hair out in 2022. Flores had seen Crawns videos on TikTok and he reached out to him on the social media platform. They began a correspondence, Flores asked for advice on how to begin the process, and Crawn obliged. Flores applied for his religious waiver between in early 2023. He filled out paperwork detailing the reasons behind it, had an interview with officials, and submitted a letter from hist church pastor explaining the significance of his long hair, which he said represents his identity as a Navajo and a warrior. During the process, he says he used other Marines successful efforts to get religious waivers as a way to make his case. He pointed to a Sikh Marine who in 2023 graduated from boot camp with a turban and beard after being granted a religious accommodation. He was at Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center in Arkansas when he got word of his waivers approval. The first thing he did, he said, was send a photo of the acceptance letter to his family, who were ecstatic. Hes already started to receive messages from other Native American service members seeking guidance on the religious waiver process. I just want to be able to help others get their process started, said Flores. The Marine Corps has at times fought religious waivers, initially denying a Sikh Marines 2021 request for accommodations to wear a beard and turban in honor of his faith. A federal appeals court eventually ruled in 2022 that the Corps refusal to accept the accommodation went against the Marines right to religious liberty. The Marine Corps places a high value on the rights of members of the military services to observe the tenets of their respective religions, including their right to hold no beliefs as well as other sincerely held beliefs based on conscience and moral principles, said a Marine Corps spokesperson in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times. The all requests for religious accommodations are assessed on a case-by-case basis, according to the statement. Flores said as of now, his hair is growing out, but its in the awkward stage. He said his fiance is just as excited for him to grow it out. Now shell get to braid my hair, said Flores. With large shortages of teachers like the one pictured here, some states are not requiring Praxis Core or other basic skills exam to enter a teacher education program. (Photo Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images) North Carolina has focused for years on how to retain its best and brightest in the classroom. But it has also been struggling to increase the number of professionals who are entering the educator pipeline. North Carolina had more than 2,800 vacancies in K-12 teaching positions at the start of the 2023-24 school year, according to the Public School Forum. And the state has seen a 26% decline in enrollees in teacher prep programs from 2008-2021, according to a recent analysis by the College of Education at Penn State University. a chart showing CORE test pass rates Teacher pay has dissuaded some from entering the field, while others have shied away because of the Praxis Core, a requirement for entry into North Carolinas Educator Preparation Programs. The Praxis Core covers math, reading, and writing and supporters say it helps evaluate fundamental skills before entering a teaching program. But critics argue the Praxis Core assessment may actually hinder diversification of the teacher pipeline. The Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission (PEPSC) which advises the North Carolina State Board of Education (SBE) recommended earlier this year the removal of the Praxis Core as a requirement for admission into teacher preparation programs. In an 8-3 vote, the state Board of Education voted Thursday to accept PEPSCs recommendation, adding the item to their legislative agenda. Dr. Olivia Oxendine was among the most vocal critics of the recommendation that North Carolina abandon the testing requirement. Dr. Olivia Oxendine It just bothers me to know that a little bit at a time, there seems to be, not just in this state, but maybe across the nation, a chipping away of high standards, Oxendine told her colleagues on the state board. I understand that there are other ways, once the teacher is in the classroom and is performing hopefully up to par or exceeding that, then that gives us some satisfaction that weve done the right thing in terms of admitting the best possible candidates into our teacher education programs, but I just havent settled in my own mind any level of comfort with the removal of this admissions, this competency admissions test to teacher education. Oxendine was joined by State Treasurer Dale Folwell and Lt. Governor Mark Robinson in opposing the change. For now, the Praxis Core will not be going anywhere. The Board of Education would need the General Assemblys blessing to act. Still many other states have already taken that step. Fewer than a dozen states require teacher candidates to clear this hurdle before they enter a teacher preparation program. Oxendine was reluctant to suggest that the testing requirement was the reason why North Carolina is not attracting more individuals to the teaching profession. I just want us to be mindful and super sensitive to any thought that remotely says students of color, people of color are incapable of specifically passing an exam therefore, we need to eliminate standards, cautioned Oxendine Its also about lowering expectations. We have to avoid doing that. The North Carolina Association of Colleges for Teacher Education lists elimination of the Praxis Core among its top strategic priorities. The group notes that the current requirement may be discouraging prospective students from even considering teaching as an undergraduate field of study. The cost for an aspiring teacher to take the Praxis Core combined test is $150. In an op-ed for EdNC, NCACTE wrote, We believe removing the entry requirements will open more doors to future teachers, and our programs rigor and summative assessments will ensure their readiness to teach. When the entrance exam requirement was waived during the pandemic, enrollment in teacher prep programs actually increased by more than 34% from the previous year. The post NC Board of Education advances plan to end testing requirement for entry into teacher prep programs appeared first on NC Newsline. After nearly a month, the Little Twist Fire is now 60% contained BEAVER, Utah (ABC4) The Little Twist Fire, which has been burning in southwestern Utah for nearly a month, is now 60% contained, according to Utah fire officials. In the latest update Friday, officials said that the blaze, located roughly four miles southeast of Beaver, has scorched 5,367 acres in Fishlake National Forest since June 13. Closure orders remain in place. 8 Utah counties now under Stage 1 Fire Restrictions On Thursday, the Great Basin Type 3 team transitioned command back to the local unit, officials said. Crews will continue work to contain the fire amid the scorching summer heat. The ongoing heat wave is expected to continue into the weekend, when forecasters say temperatures in the Beaver area will be in the mid-90s. Along nearly all of Utah, the southwest portion of the state is currently under an excessive heat warning. Additionally, a fire weather watch has been issued for the Central and Color Country mountains this weekend as dry thunderstorms and 40 mph winds threaten to create critical fire weather conditions. Earlier this week, much of central Utah, including Fishlake National Forest east of Beaver, was put under Stage 1 fire restrictions. Violations bring potential penalties of up to six months in jail and fines up to $1,000. Along with the Little Twist Fire, the Silver King Fire is also burning in Fishlake National Forest. Currently the largest wildfire in Utah, the Silver King Fire has burned more than 15,000 acres. As of Friday morning, it was 2% contained. 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. Nearly all NY House Democrats up for re-election have publicly sided with Biden despite prezs numerous gaffes, disastrous debate President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, United States on July 5, 2024 President Biden has watched helplessly in recent weeks as a growing number of supporters have publicly voiced misgivings about whether the 81-year-old incumbent has what it takes to defeat Donald Trump a second time. Since the presidents dreadful showing at the June 27 debate in Atlanta, prominent doubters have emerged in a steadily increasing drip, from news outlets and media personalities to A-list celebrity boosters and even fellow Democratic politicians. Democratic Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine made the worrying assertion this week that he believes New York should be considered a battleground state this election cycle. President Biden has watched helplessly in recent weeks as a growing number of supporters have publicly voiced misgivings about whether he has what it takes to defeat Donald Trump a second time. Anadolu via Getty Images But almost every House Democrat in the Empire State whos coming up for re-election in November has, for now, voiced their support for the embattled president. The Post on Thursday asked New York House Democrats if theyre still ridin with Biden as the partys 2024 nominee. Heres what they said: Rep. Tom Suozzi District 3 (Parts of Long Island, Nassau and Queens) Suozzi is one of the few NY House Dems who not only didnt respond to The Posts flash survey, but also has not made any public statement for or against Bidens continued candidacy. Rep. Gregory Meeks District 5 (Queens) Meeks press office didnt respond to The Posts emails seeking comment on Thursday, but he voiced his support for the president on MSNBC Monday, telling host Jose Diaz-Balart, The president has done a great job. The only reason were having this conversation is one horrible debate. Rep. Grace Meng District 6 (Queens) Reached by The Post, Meng responded with the statement she issued on X Monday: Lets focus on the work ahead and get ready to beat Trump and MAGA extremists in November by re-electing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Rep. Nydia Velazquez District 7 (Parts of Brooklyn and Queens) Velazquez office directed The Post to reach out to her campaign communications staff on X. In a statement issued on the social media platform Tuesday, Velazquez said, Joe Biden has been one of the most impactful Presidents in recent memory. I support Joe Biden, and it is time to focus on reelecting him in November. When asked at a Thursday press conference if he considered Biden a liability to vulnerable Democrats in down-ballot races, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said No. Getty Images Rep. Hakeem Jeffries District 8 (Bronx) Jeffries has made several recent public statements in defense of the president. When asked at a Thursday press conference if he considered Biden a liability to vulnerable Democrats in down-ballot races, the Democratic Minority Leader said No. At the same press conference, he characterized recent conversations with Biden as candid, comprehensive and clear-eyed, and they are ongoing. The Post left a voicemail at his office but did not immediately hear back. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke District 9 (Parts of Brooklyn) Speaking to NY 1 on Wednesday, Clarke said, Ive heard from many of my constituents and my personal take in consultation with them is that we should continue to support the Biden-Harris ticket Rep. Daniel Goldman District 10 (Parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn) Goldman did not immediately return The Posts request for comment, but affirmed his support for Biden in a post on X Monday, writing, Joe Biden has been an outstanding president who has preserved democracy at home and abroad. The candidate who should drop out is the twice-impeached, convicted felon who has vowed to destroy our democracy. Rep. Jerry Nadler District 12 (Parts of Manhattan) Nadler was among a group of four high-ranking House Democrats who reportedly told colleagues last week that he believes Biden should step aside. But in an apparent about-face, Nadler subsequently has voiced support for the president, telling reporters, hes our candidate and were going to support him. Rep. Adriano Espaillat District 13 (Parts of Manhattan, Bronx) Espaillats most recent public comment about Bidens candidacy came Monday, when he touted the administrations achievements and unequivocally stated he wants him to stay in the race. I know Joe and have witnessed firsthand the progress we have made since he first took office. He was fit then, and he is fit now, and I remain steadfast in my support, the statement read in part. The far-left Democratic rep is still licking her wounds from her failure to rally enough support to keep fellow Squad member Jamaal Bowman from losing his seat, but told reporters Monday that she had no doubts Biden would remain the nominee. Ron Sachs CNP for NY Post Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez District 14 (Parts of the Bronx and Queens) The far-left Democratic rep is still licking her wounds from her failure to rally enough support to keep fellow Squad member Jamaal Bowman from losing his seat, but told reporters Monday that she had no doubts Biden would remain the nominee. I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. Ocasio-Cortez press office did not immediately respond to The Posts email seeking a fresh endorsement. Rep. Ritchie Torres District 15 (Parts of the Bronx) In a statement issued on X Thursday, Torres offered some qualified, downright reluctant support for President Bidens re-election bid. He dismissed talk of Biden only having one bad debate, calling the reality were all facing evidence of a deeper challenge. If the President formally becomes the Democratic nominee, we will have no choice but to make the best of a complicated situation. But there is no point in denying the complications, he said candidly. Reached Thursday, a Torres spokesperson told The Post that his missive on X is all were providing right now. In a statement issued on X, Rep. Richie Torres said, If the President formally becomes the Democratic nominee, we will have no choice but to make the best of a complicated situation. But there is no point in denying the complications. Ron Sachs CNP for NY Post Rep. Pat Ryan District 18 (Hudson Valley, parts of Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties) An outlier among his House Democratic colleagues, Ryan said on X Wednesday that he no longer believes Biden should be the partys standard-bearer in this years race. Joe Biden is a patriot, but is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump. For the good of the country, I am asking Joe Biden to step aside to deliver on his promise to be a bridge to a newer generation of leaders. Ryan represents the 18th Congressional District a swing district and is facing a challenge from Republican Alison Esposito. Rep. Paul Tonko District 20 (Parts of Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga and Rensselaer counties) Rep. Joe Morelle however was one of the influential House Democrats along with Rep. Jerry Nadler who reportedly told colleagues last week he believes Biden should step down. Ron Sachs CNP for NY Post Tonkos press team said they had no comment, and has made no known public statement about Bidens status as the 2024 Democratic nominee. Rep. Joseph Morelle District 25 (Rochester area) Morelle was one of the influential House Democrats along with Nadler who reportedly told colleagues last week he believes Biden should step down. But hes since made a number of fence-sitting statements when it comes to his support for Bidens continued candidacy, telling reporters, I mean, are Americans convinced that youre in the kind of shape to both stand for the campaign, but more importantly, can you continue to serve as president? I think thats the challenge. I dont think hes met that challenge yet. He needs to continue to work at it. The Post left a voicemail at his office Thursday. Rep. Tim Kennedy District 26 (Buffalo, Niagara Falls and surrounding counties) Speaking to Buffalo radio station WBEN, Kennedy voiced his support for Biden, hailing the administrations accomplishments and knocking Trump for his 34 felony convictions. I think President Biden is the nominee of our party at the moment, and he will be in November and were going to back him 100%, because we know not only can he do the job, and will he do the job as hes done over the last four years to turn America in the direction that works for working families. His office did not respond to an email from The Post Thursday. Additional reporting by Aneeta Bhole Neighbors devastated after NYPD recruit dies in sweltering heat: He would have been a good cop Heartbroken neighbors of a 33-year-old NYPD recruit who died in sweltering heat at a Bronx firing range said theyre still reeling after losing a good person just days before he joined New Yorks Finest. Im devastated, neighbor Susan DelValle said of fallen recruit Edgar Ordonez. I was so proud of him when he told me he was going to be a police officer. I was cheering for him. He was polite, loving, friendly, very respectful, DelValle said. He was a quiet guy. He was so close to [graduation] day and look what happened. Susan DelValle said her neighbor, NYPD recruit Edgar Ordonez, was like a son to her before he died while training in the Bronx on Wednesday. Georgett Roberts/NYPost Edgar Ordonez, 33, was due to graduate from the NYPD police academy on Monday, but died Wednesday while training in sweltering heat in the Bronx. NYPD Ordonez, who was due to graduate and join the force on Monday, was training at the departments firing range at Rodmans Neck in the Bronx shortly before 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday when he collapsed in an apparent heat-related episode, according to police and sources. An ambulance was called to the scene around 11:25 a.m., with Ordonez arriving at Jacobi Medical Center nearly 30 minutes later, where he was pronounced dead, according to sources. A row of city cops lined up in silent salute as his body was taken to a waiting ambulance. Authorities have not announced an official cause of death, but Ordonezs died in the midst of a brutal heat wave in the five boroughs, with the heat index nearing 100 degrees on Wednesday. According to sources, NYPD trainees are often forced to wear heavy gear including helmets, long pants and heavy boots regardless of the weather part of the rigors of joining the Big Apple force. I think it was too hot to be outside, an Ordonez neighbor who only identified himself as Mr Sow told The Post. This heat is too much. Its like sad. Grieving relatives of NYPD recruit Edgar Ordonez leave Jacobi Hospital after he was pronounced dead Wednesday. Peter Gerber Police officers salute as the body of NYPD recruit Edgar Ordonez is placed into an ambulance outside Jacobi Medical Center on Wednesday. Peter Gerber I believe he would have been a good cop, he added. He would have been out there taking bad guys off the streets, out there serving the community. DelValle recalled seeing Ordonez leaving their South Bronx building just two days before his death. He told me, My day is coming up! I got up and hugged him and he hugged me back, she said. I said to him, Im very proud of you. He said, Thank you for being proud of me.' Germanys health minister, Karl Lauterbach, is reportedly mulling a ban on supervised or accompanied drinking that allows 14- and 15-year-olds to consume alcohol. Present German law states that 16-year-olds can consume beer and wine legally but that only those above 18 years of age can buy spirits. However, 14 and 15-year-olds can drink alcohol if supervised by a parent or guardian. Health minister Lauterbach told the German media channel, RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, that: From a health policy perspective, there can be no two opinions on this issue. The presence of adults does not change the harmfulness of alcohol for children. That is why so-called supervised drinking should be prohibited. According to reports from local radio station, Radio Bamberg, a number of German health officials have also stated that they believe the consumption of alcohol by under-16s needs to be examined. These include Bavarian health minister Judith Gerlach, Lower Saxony health minister Andreas Philipp and the Berlin health senator Ina Czyborra. The health ministers of state are said to have met last month to discuss the countrys federal Youth Protection Laws, in which legal ages for alcohol consumption are set. The conference decided that supervised alcohol consumption needed examination by experts. The German Center for Addiction Issues (DHS) has previously advised that any adolescents under the age of 18 should refrain from alcohol consumption during what it called a decisive phase of life. In a paper, DHS wrote that: In Germany, the consumption of alcohol is widespread and is generally appreciated and encouraged. Even where adolescents are concerned, the German population only regards the consumption of alcohol as problematic if it leads to severe alcohol intoxication or violent crimes. Experts, on the other hand, have been very concerned for years about the very prevalent alcohol consumption among children and adolescents which on average begins at age 14. Last year, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction warned that no level of alcohol consumption is without risk. Its report concluded that if members of the public do wish to drink, they should consume no more than two drinks in any given week. This represented a drastic drop from previous guidance, which argued for a maximum of ten drinks a week for women and 15 drinks for men. "German health minister considers end to supervised drinking for under-16s" 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. Neo-Nazi group uses copies of Little Village magazine to distribute sticker in Iowa City A ripped sticker from the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group, distributed in the Northside Neighborhood this week in the group's latest co-opting of Little Village magazine. Several Northside Iowa City residents received an old copy of Little Village magazine this week, held together by a sticker from a national neo-Nazi group. The magazines, adorned with a National Alliance decal, have been used on numerous occasions over the past six years to spread white supremacist messages. The stickers billed itself as a "health warning" to "white women and girls," citing U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data about HIV rates in straight Black men from 2010. The sticker incorrectly depicts the rate of HIV transmission in straight Black men compared to straight white men, saying that HIV rates are "more than 19 times higher." The 14-year-old CDC data shows a far smaller gap. The sticker also cited the U.S. Census Bureau's Quick Facts page, though it was unclear why. That page directs readers to 2020 census data or current general bureau estimates about race, ethnicity and employment. The sticker also directs residents to the National Alliance website and provides its eastern Tennessee mailing address. According to the National Alliance "About" page, the organization requires all prospective members to be white, disparages interracial relationships and multiculturalism and advocates for the "Building of a New White World." Iowa City police confirmed through a spokesperson that they have received multiple calls this week from Northside residents about the stickers. Officers are investigating. The First Amendment often protects the mass distribution of flyers and stickers, the spokesperson added. The police department did not say whether the use of the Little Village magazine warrants legal action. More: Kyle Ricke convicted of murder in 2023 death of Algona police Officer Kevin Cram Little Village denies connection to National Alliance Little Village quickly clarified that "it should go without saying" that the magazine has no affiliation with the group beyond relevant reporting. Little Village News Director Paul Brennan said in a column Wednesday, July 10 that the stickers are intended to "stoke fears of Black men" and bill it as a "health warning." The free, independent magazine published in Iowa City has been used to spread similar white supremacist messages on at least two other occasions, though Brennan said it was unclear how so many old copies of the publication were obtained. Brennan's article said the National Alliance sticker was wrapped around a 2019 edition of the Little Village. "Whoever is distributing the National Alliance material in eastern Iowa always chooses publications that can be picked up for free from public locations," Brennan wrote. "Its an indication of the threadbare status of the National Alliance." More: From the archives: More than 25 years of shopping and activities at Coral Ridge Mall Northside neighborhood shuns Neo-Nazi message The Northside Neighborhood Association released a statement on Thursday disparaging the National Alliance's "propaganda materials." The statement encouraged residents to report any "white supremacist materials" to the Iowa City Police Department along with the evidence. "The NNA values diversity in our neighborhood and condemns messages intended to foment fear, discrimination, and intimidation," the association wrote in a statement provided to the Press-Citizen. From 2018: White supremacist fliers distributed in Iowa City's Wetherby Park neighborhood Similar flyers have popped up infrequently over past decade Police have received 17 total reports of flyers, stickers, posters, bulletins and other materials sharing similar white supremacist sentiment since 2016, when the department began tracking such reports. In 2018, flyers were distributed around Wetherby Park on the city's south side, calling for people to "Love Your Race." The flyer also linked to the organization's website. The flyers were also attached to a small, free local publication, the Davenport-based River Cities Reader, and prompted an investigation by the Cedar Rapids' FBI office. In 2019, copies of Little Village were used to spread the National Alliance's message. A large number of the organization's magazines were rolled up with a white supremacist flyer and redistributed to residential doorsteps. More: Copies of local alt-weekly co-opted by neo-nazi propaganda Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@press-citizen.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ryanhansen01. This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Neo-Nazi group attaches stickers to copies of Little Village magazine RENO, Nev. (AP) Two top officials in Nevada are asking the state Supreme Court to step into a fray over a vote earlier this week by Washoe County commissioners not to certify recount results in two local races. Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron D. Ford filed a petition with the court Wednesday, seeking confirmation of the commissioners legal obligations when it comes to canvassing and certifying election results. They also want the court to require the full commission to certify the recounts from last months primary no later than Aug. 22, when the statewide canvass must be complete to ensure the contents of general election ballots are finalized in accordance with Nevada law. The certification flap has potential implications for how the November elections could play out in one of the nations most important swing counties. Aguilar in a statement acknowledged that the circumstances in Nevadas second most populous county could set a dangerous precedent. It is unacceptable that any public officer would undermine the confidence of their voters, he said. The three Republican members on the five-member Washoe County board voted Tuesday to reject the results of recounts in one race for a commission seat and another for a local school board seat. The move instantly spurred questions about what would happen next. Aguilar and Ford followed the next day with a nearly 60-page petition. While not an emergency request, they noted in the filing that the court should act swiftly as the legal and broader policy impacts of Respondents decision not to canvass election results are severe. It wasnt immediately clear Thursday how soon the court would take up the petition. Its also possible the commission could vote again at its next meeting July 16, with a vote to certify heading off the pending request before the Supreme Court. Once seen as a mundane and ministerial task, election certification has become a pressure point since the 2020 election. During the midterms two years later, a scenario similar to what is unfolding in Washoe County played out in New Mexico after that states primary, when a rural county delayed certification of the results and relented only after the secretary of state appealed to the states supreme court. According to the petition, Nevada law makes canvassing election results including recount results by a certain date a mandatory legal duty for the county commission. It also states that commissioners have no discretion to refuse or otherwise fail to perform this duty. Two of the Republican Washoe County commissioners Jeanne Herman and Mike Clark have consistently voted against certifying results and are supported by the wider movement within the county that promotes election conspiracy theories. Republican Clara Andriola, who that movement has targeted in the primaries, joined them in voting against certification of the recounts, one of which involved the primary race she won. On Tuesday, Andriola referenced several hiccups by the elections department along with public comments that alleged irregularities in voting systems. She had said more investigation was needed. However, the next morning she asked commission Chair Alexis Hill in an email if they could redo the vote on whether to certify the results from the two recounts. Andriola declined to comment on how she will vote. Hill on Wednesday commended Andriola for asking that commissioners vote again, saying she too has made bad votes and has asked for reconsideration. None of us are perfect, she said. Barring an order from the Supreme Court, officials in the county which includes Reno and surrounding areas have said they do not know what concrete steps lie ahead in approving the results after last Tuesdays vote. Any commissioner on the prevailing side of the vote can request a reconsideration, which the commission chair can approve or reject. According to county statute, this can only happen at the meeting where the vote took place or the next commission meeting. Hill expects a vote at the commissions next meeting July 16. 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. The roundabout at Fourth and West Main streets in downtown Newark has improved traffic safety since installation in November 2022, according to crash statistics. The roundabout includes 1,500 flowers this summer. NEWARK Statistics show the roundabout at Fourth and West Main streets in downtown Newark reduced traffic crashes, but City Engineer Brian Morehead said his ears provided that information before he even saw the numbers. The informal science is we havent heard those accidents at the corner of City Hall, Morehead said. Brakes squealing and metal crunching. Matt Hill, technical study director for the Licking County Area Transportation Study, presented crash statistics on the Newark intersection at Tuesdays study meeting. From 2013 to 2017, there were 16 injury crashes and 37 property damage crashes, for a total of 53, or 10.6 per year, at the traffic signal at Fourth and Main. In 2023, with the roundabout, there were no injury crashes and four property damage crashes. The roundabout opened in November 2022, with the city and state sharing the $1.4 million cost. It has had a phenomenal impact for our community, in every way, Hill said. This was a really great project. It really improved the safety and accessibility of downtown. Roundabouts have eight potential conflict points versus 32 at a traditional intersection, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration studies show when roundabouts replace a traffic signal, there is a 48% reduction in crashes and nearly 80% drop in serious injury and deadly crashes. Newark Mayor Jeff Hall said it makes sense that roundabouts reduce crashes. You think red lights are there to protect you, but sometimes they stop cars and other cars run into the back of them, Hall said. You remove that in a roundabout. And not everybody stops at a red light, and that causes a T-bone effect that has exponential-type crash injuries. The safety and efficiency has improved for pedestrians, as well as motorists, local officials agreed. You dont have to wait two, three minutes to cross one roadway and another three minutes to cross the second roadway, Hill said. You just walk up and cross one lane at a time. Morehead said hes heard only positive comments about the roundabouts impact on pedestrians. The crossings are shorter and theyre broken up, because you have the splitter islands in the center, as opposed to the old intersections, where you had 70-foot of crossing all at one time, Morehead said. The mayor said traffic signals forced motorists to look up at the signal, but roundabouts allow them to look down at the crosswalk. I cannot believe the difference, Hall said. It seemed like somebody just threw a switch. As soon as the roundabouts opened, people started stopping their cars for pedestrians. It just amazed me how quick people slowed down. Theyre going slow enough around the roundabout, and theyre looking down, and they see somebody, and they stop. Newark Fire Chief Brandon Metzer said the roundabouts in Newark have had a positive impact. "It's increased efficiency, alleviating heavy traffic flows and issues," Metzger said. "There's been a significant decline in calls for auto accidents; that's for sure." The mayor said roundabouts around schools are particularly helpful because there is heavy traffic twice a day but may not otherwise warrant a traffic signal. Waiting to get out onto Sharon Valley was terrible (by Liberty Middle and Legend Elementary schools), Hall said. And now you dont have that, so it really is more conducive for the buses. I think everybody in that pattern of picking up and dropping off kids, including the bus drivers, loves the roundabouts. Power outages are another example of roundabouts improving safety by eliminating the chaos that often ensues at malfunctioning traffic signals, the mayor said. Motorists do not always follow the proper procedure of treating the intersection as a four-way stop. You sit there," Hall said. "Well, how long do you sit there until you run it. And then, thats not safe. The roundabout under construction at Horns Hill, Waterworks and Cedar Run roads will be the city's 10th. Another roundabout under construction will connect Thornwood Crossing, Reddington Road, Thornwood Drive and a relocated River Road. kmallett@newarkadvocate.com 740-973-4539 Twitter: @kmallett1958 This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: 2024 crash data: Roundabout making downtown Newark traffic safer Newhouse, Smiley take aim at each other. TV ads trade jabs in crowded 4th District race Republican Tiffany Smiley is one of seven challengers looking to oust Washington 4th District U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse. Fourth Congressional District incumbent Dan Newhouse and challenger Tiffany Smiley are trading sharp jabs in their latest round of TV campaign ads. Its a preview of whats likely to come if both Central Washington Republicans make it past the crowded Aug. 6 primary and advance to the general election. The two candidates currently see each other as priority opponents in an eight-person race for the states most conservative congressional district. Smiley also took aim at Newhouse and fellow Republican challenger Jerrod Sessler in a recent TV ad that featured a pair of Central Washington farmers. In it, the farmers discussed how Newhouse voted to impeach former President Donald Trump and how Sessler, the Trump-endorsed candidate in the race, is a vegan and wants to tax our beef. There is only one choice and its Tiffany Smiley, one farmer says. Sessler called the claim that he wants to tax beef a complete lie, in a story published this week by the Spokesman Review, and said he has made an effort to eat fresh and raw food since he received a cancer diagnosis more than two decades ago. Then, this week, Newhouses camp published an advertisement claiming Smiley deceived donors to Endeavor PAC, the political organization she founded to boost political outsiders after she was trounced by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray in the 2022 general election. The ad claims that of the $800,000 her PAC raised, only $24,800 went to candidates. The rest went to luxury travel and to pay off a more than $1 million debt she accrued as part of her Senate campaign; April 2024 filings with the FEC show Smiley has paid down the amount to about $460,000. Tiffany Smiley deceived her donors. Dont let her deceive you, a narrator said. Both candidates also OKd ads on a pair of political issues front and center to conservatives this cycle: the border and fentanyl. One ad highlights Newhouses visit earlier this year to the border, declaring the congressman had a solution for criminal illegals flooding our southern border, and fentanyl flooding our streets. We need to keep pushing hard, working hard, to stop the illegal flow of people and the illegal flow of drugs, Newhouse said in a Daily Wire interview featured in the ad. From the banks of the Columbia River, Smiley highlights her priorities to secure the border and lower the cost of living in another ad. Its a thousand miles from here, but our open southern border is costing us billions and bringing deadly drugs into our communities, Smiley said. The rich are doing just fine, but working families are struggling. Neither ad lays out specifics on how to tackle the tough issues. 5-term incumbent vs. the MAGA GOP Newhouse, a Republican from Sunnyside, is seeking a sixth term in Congress this year, but faces primary challenges from seven other candidates two of them Trump-aligned Republicans. MAGA Republicans tried unsuccessfully to oust Newhouse in 2022 over his vote to impeach Trump due to his role in fomenting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building. Nine people including five police officers died in connection to the event. Now, conservatives are trying to oust Newhouse yet again, but in a more focused fashion. Instead of six Republicans, just Smiley and Sessler have stepped up in the primary. Ballots for the Aug. 6 primary will be mailed out by July 19 to registered voters. Its unclear where Democrats goals lie less than a month out from the primary election and with very little substantial messaging released. Three candidates from that party Barry Knowles, John Malan, Mary Baechler and Birdie Jane Muchlinski, Benancio Benny Garcia have filed to run. Newhouse handily won reelection to Congress in 2022, overtaking Democrat Doug White in a general election landslide that saw him lead by 35 percentage points. Financial, polling front runners The Sunnyside farmer also appears to be the financial front runner so far. Newhouse raised more than $908,000 and spent nearly $490,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2024, according to FEC data. He had about $433,000 in cash left on hand. Sessler raised nearly $83,000 and spent nearly $76,000 as of March 31, but that was before the Prosser businessman earned the endorsement of Trump through a post on Truth Social. In her first two months campaigning, Smileys campaign reported $550,000 in donations from 6,000 contributors. But its unclear how much she has spent so far. Candidates have until Monday, July 15 to file Q2 finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. While no independent polling has been conducted in the race, both Smiley and Sessler have reported internal numbers showing they can beat Newhouse. One survey of 400 likely primary voters released by the Smiley camp showed the Pasco veterans advocate led Newhouse by 9 percentage points. About 19% surveyed said they were undecided. We dont share internal polling, but I will say that what the Smiley campaign shared isnt anywhere close to any other poll Ive seen on the race, Newhouses campaign manager said in a statement. The Fourth Congressional District encompasses central Washington, stretching from the U.S.-Canada border down to the Columbia River. It includes Omak, East Wenatchee, Moses Lake, Yakima, the Yakama Indian Reservation and the Tri-Cities. The Cook Partisan Voting Index rated Washingtons Fourth Congressional District R+11 in 2023, meaning its strong Republican-leaning district. NH man facing assault charges after unresponsive baby boy flown to Boston hospital, police say A baby was flown to a Boston hospital with serious injuries after being beaten by a New Hampshire man on Sunday afternoon, according to authorities. 37-year-old Jesse Warren is charged with felony first-degree assault on a child under the age of 13, second-degree assault, and endangering the welfare of a child. On July 7 at 3 p.m., Manchester Police say an unresponsive baby boy was brought to Eliot Hospital. Medical staff at the hospital reportedly found bruising on the babys face and head and determined the infant suffered significant head trauma. The child was then airlifted to a Boston Hospital due to the serious nature of the injuries, according to police. The babys condition is unknown at this time. Detectives determined Warren was in care of the child at the time of the injury. On Thursday, officers went to Warrens Manchester residence and arrested him without incident, according to police. He was placed on preventative detention pending a court hearing. 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 Nicolas Cages son Weston Cage has turned himself in to police in Los Angeles after an incident that took place earlier this year. According to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department, the younger Cage voluntarily surrendered himself to authorities on Wednesday, following an incident on April 28 in which he allegedly punched two victims multiple times, causing injury. LAPD responded, and after meeting with all parties, a police report was completed, the statement continued. The case was then presented to the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office last month, and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon were filed against Cage, leading to a felony warrant and bail set at $150,000, the statement said. In a statement sent to CNN on Friday, Westons mother Christina Fulton said, On April 28th, 2024, around 5:30 pm I received urgent messages from friends of my son, Weston Cage regarding his deteriorating mental state, urging me to come help. When I arrived to offer support and console him, he was already in the midst of a manic rage. Within minutes, I was brutally assaulted and sustained serious injuries. Despite my desperate pleas to the responding Police officers to detain him for a mental health evaluation, the Police officers refused my request and neglected my urgent need for my medical attention, Fulton continued. As a mother, I am deeply saddened and concerned about Westons on-going mental health crisis. It is imperative that he receives the help he desperately needs. CNN has reached out to LAPD for further comment, as well as to representatives for Nicolas Cage and Weston Cage. Weston Cage, a 33-year-old musician and actor, is Nicolas Cages eldest child. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A West African court has found the Nigerian government guilty of human rights abuses during its suppression of the 2020 #EndSARS protests against alleged police brutality. The Abuja-based Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice imposed a financial penalty on the country for forcefully cracking down on peaceful protesters who demanded that a notorious police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, be shut down. Around two weeks into the 2020 protests, Nigerias security forces opened fire on young people demonstrating peacefully at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, killing and wounding several people. The court found credible evidence of disproportionate use of force and violations of the right to liberty and security, assembly, free speech, and dignity, said a court statement, which highlighted particularly its (Nigerias) disproportionate use of force at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on October 20, 2020. In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, the regional court ordered the Nigerian government to pay N2 million (around US$ 1,200) in compensation to each victim named in the suit. The case was brought before the court by three Nigerians who were at the protest: Perpetual Kamsi, Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka and Obianuju Catherine Udeh. Udeh live-streamed the shootings on her Instagram page. According to a statement by the court, Kamsi was responsible for protesters welfare and was hospitalized after inhaling tear gas, while Adeyinka recounted narrowly escaping being shot. Udeh was forced into hiding and eventual asylum after receiving threatening phone calls, the statement added. Their lawyer, Bolaji Gabari, described the verdict as a significant victory for the #EndSARS movement. CNN has reached out to the Nigerian government for comment. The court also ordered the country to investigate and prosecute the operatives responsible for the human rights abuses and provide an update in six months on the investigation and payment of compensation to those affected. The #EndSARS movement started in 2020 as a protest against police brutality and violence. But the marches morphed into protests campaigning for police reform and ending bad governance in the oil-rich country. The Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution at the Lagos Court of Arbitration, a government-appointed panel, determined that the incident at the Lekki Toll Gate could be considered a massacre after a yearlong investigation. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By Alessandro Parodi (Reuters) - Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by 13% in June versus the same month in 2023 driven by growth in China, while they dropped in Europe, market research firm Rho Motion said. China accounted for over 60% of the total, as rising availability of electric vehicles and strong sales by BYD contributed to an increase in the domestic market share of PHEVs in the first half of the year, Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester told Reuters. BY THE NUMBERS PHEV sales worldwide reached 1.4 million in July, of which 0.86 million were in China, where they were up 25% year-on-year, Lester said. In Europe, monthly sales were down 7% to 0.30 million, with Finland, Ireland, and the Netherlands leading losses, while Italy recorded a 34% increase following the introduction of government incentives, he added. In the United States and Canada, PHEV sales were up 6% to 0.14 million in the same month. BYD sales surged in Brazil, contributing to more than tripled figures from June 2023, Lester added. KEY QUOTES "The overall picture is that 2024 is not going to see the ambitious growth some may have hoped for the industry and we have lowered our forecasts by 5% to 16.6 million electric cars sold this year", Lester said in a statement. "Regional disparities are quite remarkable", he added. CONTEXT Sales demand for electric cars has cooled in recent months after rising dramatically for several years, as consumers wait for more affordable models to hit the market opt for hybrid alternatives. The EU imposed last week tariffs of up to 37.6% on imports of electric vehicles made in China, EU officials said, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing in Brussels' largest trade case yet. (Reporting by Alessandro Parodi, editing by Alexandra Hudson) In Nightmare News, Tampons Have Been Found To Contain Arsenic And Lead When it comes to health and exposure concerns, tampons are particularly concerning as the skin of the vagina has a higher potential for chemical absorption than skin elsewhere on the body, according to Futurity. However, researchers believe that despite this, tampons are still woefully under-studied and, in fact, a new study has revealed that millions of tampons actually contain toxic materials such as arsenic and lead. Lead author Jenni A. Shearston, a postdoctoral scholar at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said: Despite this large potential for public health concern, very little research has been done to measure chemicals in tampons. 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. Of course, this is alarming but the health implications of it are far more frightening. The_burtons / Getty Images Berkeley Public Health said: Metals have been found to increase the risk of dementia, infertility, diabetes, and cancer." They can damage the liver, kidneys, and brain, as well as the cardiovascular, nervous, and endocrine systems. In addition, metals can harm maternal health and foetal development. Coauthor Kathrin Schilling, assistant professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health said: Although toxic metals are ubiquitous and we are exposed to low levels at any given time, our study clearly shows that metals are also present in menstrual products, and that women might be at higher risk for exposure using these products. For now, we dont know if these metals are contributing to negative health effects but researchers have stated that further studies will test how much of these metals can leach out of the tampons and be absorbed by the body, as well as measuring for other chemicals. Shearston said: I really hope that manufacturers are required to test their products for metals, especially for toxic metals." It would be exciting to see the public call for this, or to ask for better labelling on tampons and other menstrual products. Well, indeed.This article originally appeared on HuffPost. The New Jersey Lottery offers multiple draw games for people looking to strike it rich. Heres a look at Thursday, July 11, 2024 winning numbers for each game: Pick-3 Midday: 9 - 3 - 1; Fireball: 3 Evening: 9 - 8 - 4; Fireball: 5 Check Pick-3 payouts and previous drawings here. Pick-4 Midday: 7 - 4 - 8 - 6; Fireball: 3 Evening: 7 - 5 - 3 - 5; Fireball: 5 Check Pick-4 payouts and previous drawings here. Jersey Cash 5 06 - 22 - 04 - 42 - 17 (Bullseye); Xtra: 2 More: Jersey Cash 5 now $2; what is the NJ Lottery Bullseye Check Jersey Cash 5 payouts and drawings here. Cash4Life 05 - 14 - 31 - 42 - 52; Cash Ball: 02 Check previous Cash4Life drawings here. Pick-6 25 - 29 - 30 - 46 - 08 - 11 Double Play: 15 - 42 - 36 - 16 - 11 - 02 Check previous Pick-6 drawings here. Winner: New Jersey grandmother of 10 planning Disney trip after winning $1 million in Powerball Quick Draw Drawing are held every four minutes. Check winning numbers here. Cash Pop Drawing are held every four minutes. Check winning numbers here. Beware: No, a lottery jackpot winner isn't giving you money. How to spot a scammer Gambling too much? You can get help by calling 1800-GAMBLER or clicking on www.800gambler.org This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Lottery Pick-3, Pick-4 winning numbers for Thursday, July 11 EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) President Joe Biden authorized an amendment to the major disaster declaration, providing additional disaster help in response the South Fork and Salt fires and subsequent flooding that hit the Ruidoso and Mescalero Apache region, according to NM Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams Office. Under the presidents major disaster declaration issued for the state on June 20, federal funding was made available to help individuals, households, and businesses. Public assistance, including debris removal, was also provided for Lincoln and Otero counties, including the Mescalero Apache Tribe. This amendment adds federal funding for roads and bridges, water control facilities, public buildings and contents, public utilities and parks, recreational and other facilities, the governors office said. Further designations may be made if requested by the state and justified by the results of ongoing damage assessments, the governors office said. Individuals in Lincoln County and Otero County including the Mescalero Apache Tribe who have been affected by the South Fork and Salt fires or flooding can apply for assistance from FEMA through the following ways: Visit a Disaster Resource and Recovery Center Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. o Horton Complex, 237 Service Road, Ruidoso o Mescalero Apache School, 249 White Mountain Dr., Mescalero Apply online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov. Call the FEMA application phone number at 1-800-621-3362 (TTY: 800-462-7585). Calls are accepted every day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mountain time. Help is available in most languages. If you use a relay service, such as video relay (VRS), captioned telephone or other service, give FEMA the number for that service. 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. A school crosswalk sign at an Albuquerque high school on Sept. 7, 2023. (Photo by Anna Padilla for Source New Mexico) High school students in New Mexico who studied law enforcement, architecture, manufacturing, information technology and other career technical areas showed success in the classroom last year. For the more than 64,000 New Mexican high schoolers who were part of their local school districts Career Technical Education programs, 95.7% graduated in 2023. The overall statewide graduation rate for all students was 76.7%. Last school year Janelle Taylor Garcia went on several visits to high schools in Gadsden, Bernalillo and Hatch with her boss, Public Education Department Secretary Aresenio Romero. They observed how millions in new state investments, and changes to graduation requirements, set up a successful path for students participating in career tech classwork that want to enter the workforce right out of high school. Taylor Garcia described program leaders at various school districts as innovative and hands-on. When I toured the (Hatch Valley Public Schools) campus this past semester, I met with Principals, CTE faculty, fiscal and data systems staff members, and learned about exciting educational programming, she said. At Hatch Valley Public Schools they saw career technical education referred shorthandly as CTE curriculum in classrooms that students can use immediately in areas such as agricultural power structures, greenhouse development, animal care and services. The instruction on those areas provided students with realistic hands-on experience at school, Taylor Garcia said. Bernalillo Public Schools expanded its Innovative Learning Space where students can learn about advanced technology and robotics. And the Gadsden Independent School District is actively responding to student requests for CTE Programs of Study, said Taylor Garcia, the public education spokesperson. The district established a law enforcement program of study based on student request and the demand for those workers in the area. Taylor Garcia also explained that recent legislative funds and outside grants have assisted in expanding the reach of CTE programs. The New Mexico legislature devoted $40 million in both 2023 and 2024 to CTE programs through general appropriations and the funding has been made available at the local level through statewide grants. House Bill 198 in 2023 expanded the reach to include schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education to accept career technical education grants. Taylor Garcia said programs vary by school, but the career concentrations that use the most state funding for CTE are architecture, construction, manufacturing, information technology and health sciences. Other recent CTE funding includes a Careers2Communities grant awarded to the College and Career Readiness Bureau in 2020 and a new grant awarded to the department in 2023. This funding was directed to develop a curriculum that embeds career exploration into core academic content, especially math courses, Taylor Garcia said, as well as make CTE resources more accessible to students with disabilities. House Bill 171 in 2024 also changed the graduation requirements for students entering ninth grade in the 2025-2026 school year. Students will be required to take one unit of a career cluster course, workplace readiness or a language class other than English. A two-unit pathway for students that can include CTE programs will also be required. Students are considered part of the CTE program if they complete two or more courses in a career cluster program. Graduation rates were also higher in at-risk subgroups of students in a CTE track. New Mexico is mandated to reform its education models for these students. The Yazzie-Martinez lawsuit, that is the courts order to the reform, identifies this group as students with disabilities, living in poverty, English learners and Native Americans. Graduation rates for these students who are in CTE concentrations were all above 97% in 2023, according to the state. Going forward, a Career and Technical Education Statewide Advisory Board will launch in August and to unify the different groups already established in the state to support CTE programs, Taylor Garcia said. The board is a collaboration between the Career Technical Leadership Project and the PEDs College and Career Readiness Bureau. The first meeting is scheduled for Aug. 9 and will include business, industry and education representatives from across the state. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, participate in the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27 in Atlanta. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished unless you have a Getty subscription.) A new world is straining to be born, and at some point it requires new American leadership. Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the last of their generation, are both trying to stand in its way. Trump hopes to block and even reverse the emergence of that new world through brute authoritarian force, trying to Make America Great Again by taking us back, back to a time in our nations history that never existed, that we should never allow to exist, that is contrary to our traditions. What Trump proposes is not conservative leadership but radical leadership, leadership in which his loud voice is the only one that matters. By contrast, Biden seeks merely to extend that receding world, which is his world, the world in which he is comfortable because he helped to create it over a 50-year career in high office. He offers himself as a bridge from his generation to the next, from this world to that new world but just not yet, he says. Biden comes from a world of Corn Pops and punching time clocks, of formica kitchen tables on linoleum floors with an AM radio playing in the background. Trump comes from dark Manhattan restaurants and steaks covered in ketchup, of backroom deals and yes men and white men and compliant secretaries in a Mad Men world. Trump has never googled, has never used google as a verb and has never asked Siri a damn thing, and I doubt that Biden has either. For the moment, for now, that is not necessarily a disqualification. Biden has been a more-than-competent president during a difficult four years, but he has also given even his supporters cause to doubt whether he can do so for the four years still to come. That concern is not a media fabrication, it is not a Republican psy-op. If Bidens chilling performance in the Atlanta debate was an accurate indication of his remaining capabilities, then his time in a leadership role may be coming to an end. So far, his aides and many Democratic officials keep telling us that the debate was a glitch, a rare occurrence. It would be a great relief if that proves true. However, their words of second-hand reassurance are not sufficient to overcome what millions of Americans witnessed firsthand a week ago. Do not tell us; show us. And if you cannot show us, then arrangements should be made. I do not know the logistics of trying to change horses in midstream; I dont know the election laws and campaign finance regulations that would have to be navigated to pull off that feat. Few if any know these things, because it has never been attempted before. And again, maybe that wont be necessary. If Biden can still reassure the American people by his performance that he remains the best hope for defeating Trump, that he can still serve as the bridge to the next generation, then he should remain the nominee. However, those in the Democratic Party who bristle that the question is even being asked are doing their party, their candidate and the country no good whatsoever. The question must be asked because four months from the election, six months from an inauguration, we have to know the answer. The obvious replacement for Biden, should that become necessary, is Vice President Kamala Harris. Most of the criticism directed at Harris seems based more on her gender and race than on her actual performance in office, in part because the performance of a vice president is so difficult for outsiders to accurately judge. Vice President Harry Truman was considered a non-entity when he took the reins from FDR; he went on to serve as a strong, even visionary leader. Much earlier in our history, Vice President John Tyler was also held in low esteem when he took office after the death of William Henry Harrison. In that case, the low regard in which Tyler was held at the time proved to be an accurate gauge of his capacity as president. Either way, though, I have absolutely zero doubt that Harris would perform far better in the White House than the man who tried to cling to it through fraud and even violence, who has called for the termination of the Constitution itself if that means he can be returned to the power he craves. If Joe Biden can demonstrate that he still has the capacity to serve as candidate and as president, he should remain in those roles. If he cannot, he should finish out his term and allow Harris to become head of the ticket, knowing that by doing so he gives his country its best chance to stay true to itself and its bright future. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST (KRON) The San Francisco Police Department is pushing back against reports that an Australian CEO was assaulted while in San Francisco. SFPD told KRON4 Thursday that there is no indication that Grain Producers Australia CEO Colin Bettles was assaulted or was the victim of a crime. Other media outlets have reported otherwise, such as one website saying Bettles was viciously bashed by thugs. Bettles was reported missing after he was found unconscious on Market Street on July 4. Newsom increases Oakland CHP deployment, calls out Alameda County DA News outlets reported that Bettles was in an induced coma after an attack that left him with a fractured eye socket and without his phone and wallet. However, police said Bettles was in possession of his items when he was found at San Francisco General Hospital on Monday. Surveillance video does not support claims of an attack, SFPD said. The investigation revealed that Bettles was found unconscious on the 1000 block of Market Street shortly after 11 p.m. on July 4. Paramedics transported him to San Francisco General Hospital, police said. SFPD reviewed surveillance video from the scene and found no indication that Bettles was assaulted or the victim of a crime. He was in possession of his property at the hospital. SFPD said it is working to find Bettles and investigate how he was injured, including seeking out witnesses and surveillance footage. Anyone with information is asked to call SFPD at (415) 553-0123. SFPD wishes Mr. Bettles a speedy recovery, police said. Bettles bio for Grain Producers Australia says he has been its CEO since 2021. Before that, he worked as a journalist with Rural Press/Fairfax Media. KRON4 has reached out to Grain Producers Australia for further comment and is awaiting 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 KRON4. A narrow median in Nob Hill in Albuquerque, pictured May 2023. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is pushing for a bill at the upcoming special session that would ban loitering on medians less than 3 feet wide where the speed limit is 30 mph or higher. So far, no state legislator has agreed to sponsor the bill. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) With less than a week until a special legislative session focused on public safety, no lawmaker has yet signed up to sponsor a bill pushed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham related to pedestrian safety and panhandling. Lawmakers will gather in Santa Fe on July 18 to address a handful of proposals related to public safety and criminal justice, including bills related to civil confinement, criminal competency and pedestrian safety. A draft version of the governors proposal would make it illegal to linger on medians less than 3 feet wide in roads where the speed limit is 30 mph or greater. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to access, use, occupy, congregate or assemble on those medians, with some exceptions, including for people crossing the street or using public transit. Lawmakers have referred to the bill as the median safety bill and the panhandling bill, noting that many of those affected would be people who stand in medians asking for donations from passing drivers. The governors office called its draft bill the Unsafe Use of Highways and Medians Act and cited the high rates of pedestrian deaths in the state in its preamble. Her office has also stressed that the bill does not target panhandlers in particular, but instead aims to reduce pedestrian deaths across the board. The governor called for a special session after many related bills did not pass in the 30-day session this January, including one related to panhandling introduced by Sen. Leo Jaramillo (D-Espanola) that died in committee. Ahead of the session, she released draft bills she is hoping lawmakers will introduce and is working to find sponsors for them. According to spokespersons for House and Senate Democrats, none of their members has agreed to carry the governors bill, as of Thursday afternoon. Also, some lawmakers, speaking at an interim committee meeting last month, seemed skeptical that the bill would withstand legal scrutiny. The joint Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee met June 27 and 28 and listened to a legal presentation on the case law behind similar ordinances to the draft proposal. They also discussed the way federal courts have interpreted and sometimes struck down similar legislation. Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos), chair of the committee, told Source New Mexico that its possible people are not rushing to volunteer to shepherd the proposal through the Legislature. I havent been through many special sessions, but I am surprised that there has not been a sponsor identified yet, Chandler said of the governors pedestrian safety bill. Jodi McGinnis Porter, spokesperson for the governor, said Thursday afternoon that no sponsor had yet been identified for the bill but that it was still under discussion. In defense of the bill, Porter cited New Mexicos repeated designation as the countrys most dangerous for pedestrians, including pedestrian fatalities. Chandler, who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said that lawmakers are far from reaching a consensus on multiple pieces of legislation as the clock ticks toward the session. Lujan Grishams preferred legislation, as written, would likely be referred to judiciary committees in both chambers. Theyd need to clear that hurdle before going to the full chambers for approval and eventual passage. She couldnt predict whether any legislation would pass, she said. Were still at a place where its gonna be a heavy lift in getting these bills over the finish line, including the median safety bill, she said. Wheres the data? At the committee meeting in late July, lawmakers publicly questioned whether they had enough information to determine whether the governors draft bill on pedestrian safety was well-suited to reduce pedestrian deaths without unnecessarily restricting Constitutional rights, including the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled that soliciting charitable donations amounts to protected speech. And courts have regularly upheld medians as traditional spaces where speech is protected and allowed, including protests, covering news, panhandling and personal conversations, according to Simon Suzuki, a staff attorney with the Legislative Council Service. He was invited to give an independent, expert analysis of what types of median safety laws could be upheld in court. Over the years in New Mexico and across the country, cities have passed local ordinances restricting loitering on medians, Suzuki said. That happened in 2017 in Albuquerque, for example. Often, those cities are sued for violating First Amendment rights, where judges require cities to demonstrate that they arrived at their panhandling ordinances by considering local conditions and crafting a policy narrowly tailored to protect pedestrians while also ensuring it doesnt overly curb free speech rights. To justify their ordinances, cities often need to present data showing how many people were struck by cars on medians and describe how the ordinance they enacted is targeted to preventing those collisions and reducing deaths. In the Albuquerque case, a court struck down the ordinance, and the city later amended its ordinance to apply only to a handful specific medians that they described as particularly unsafe for panhandlers or other pedestrians. The cases Suzuki cited all related to local ordinances, not statewide statutes. At the committee meeting June 27, Rep. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) asked Suzuki whether a statewide ban would be harder to justify, given that it could be harder to tailor it to local conditions and therefore withstand a lawsuit and judicial scrutiny. Other lawmakers said they shared her concern. Suzuki agreed that any judge would likely pose the question to a state official defending a statewide ban. What is narrowly tailored for one community is not going to be narrowly tailored for another community, he said, based on his view of the case law. Chandler, in the interview Thursday with Source NM, said she agrees the state has a problem with pedestrian safety. But she will be looking for data that will help settle the question as to how the governors proposed law could apply to the whole state but also be narrowly tailored such that it would avoid or win a lawsuit. Shes raised the issue with the governors office, she said. Its a constitutional issue, a First Amendment issue, wherein theres heightened scrutiny, she said. Shes also not convinced the state has a problem specifically with panhandlers being struck by cars; instead, she said, the data shes seen related to pedestrian collisions is of people being struck while crossing. My understanding is that data relates to people crossing the streets, in crossing both sidewalks and jaywalking, and thats a different situation than standing in the median, Chandler said. Porter, the governors spokesperson, did not address in questions from Source NM whether the office intends to compile or present data to demonstrate to lawmakers how the bill was crafted to balance public safety without impinging on free speech rights for New Mexicans across the state. Instead, she cited the statistics about New Mexicos high rate of pedestrian fatalities. However, she did say the bill was narrowly-tailored, noting that it only limits loitering on medians fewer than 36 inches wide in areas with speeds at 30 mph or above. And she noted that it applies to all manner of speech on medians, not targeting panhandlers or protesters or any particular group for punishment. For example, it does not allow vendors to sell newspapers or distribute political flyers, she said. It applies evenly, across-the-board to everyone. No suspects identified yet after death of Ohio mother who died while trying to stop car theft Columbus police held a briefing Friday afternoon to announce they have not identified any suspects in connection with the death of a mother who suffered fatal injuries while trying to stop her car from being stolen with her son sleeping inside. Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday morning after suffering a critical head injury while trying to stop her vehicle from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside of it. Sgt. James Fuqua, a spokesman for the Columbus Division of Police, said police were "still trying to identify suspects" and asked residents who live in the area where 29-year-old Alexa Stakely was killed. "Please take a look at your home video footage if you live in the area," stressed Fuqua. Fuqua said police believe that there were multiple suspects involved in the attempted vehicle theft but was unable to provide a specific number. In a media release sent out on Thursday, police said there was video footage of a group of males looking inside apartments. When asked if police were able to identify suspects from the video, Fuqua said that it was "just breadcrumbs" and that police did not want to release any additional details until they had stronger evidence. "We want to be careful about what we release," said Fuqua. Police have also gone over Stakely's car for fingerprints and DNA, he said. Columbus police provided a map of the apartment complex where Stakely was struck by her vehicle after trying to stop multiple people from stealing it. Officers have been busy canvassing the area for evidence, Fuqua said. They have also taken possession of Stakely's Honda CRV and are taking "critical pieces of evidence" from it as they investigate. Columbus police provided a map that they believe is the path that suspects took when they attempted to steal Stakely's Honda and the direction they took when they fled the scene into a neighboring apartment complex. Fuqua also took time to urge the suspects to turn themselves in to police. "They know what they did," said Fuqua. He said that he doesn't believe the suspects meant to kill Stakely, and that turning themselves in could possibly soften whatever punishment they get if they cooperate with police. "I'm a parent myself," said Fuqua. "I would've done the exact same thing (that Stakely did). Mother and teacher, critically injured and later dies at hospital after trying to thwart vehicle theft Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday after being struck by her own vehicle. Stakely had been trying to stop the car from being stolen while her 6-year-old son was inside. Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday morning from injuries sustained while trying to stop someone from stealing her vehicle. Her 6-year-old son was in the vehicle and is unharmed. Stakely had picked her son up around 1:30 a.m. Thursday from a babysitter at a Southeast Side apartment complex. Columbus police said she had brought her sleeping son out to her Honda SUV and then realized she had forgotten something. Stakely left the vehicle running while going to the front door of the home. When she turned around to go back to her SUV, she saw it backing out of the driveway and ran after it, yelling for her son. The SUV then struck Stakely. Body camera footage released by Columbus police Friday shows an officer finding the SUV with Stakely's son asleep in the backseat. After verifying the child's name, the officer asked the boy if he had seen who was driving, but the boy said he was asleep. Police said that the boy is now under the care of family members. Columbus police are urging any witnesses to come forward with information and have provided a QR code for people to submit anonymous tips. Stakely had worked as a speech pathologist for Canal Winchester Local Schools and was working a second job as a waitress to support her son. An online fundraiser has been created to assist Stakely's son. Police said two males were seen running from the area where Stakely had been struck, jumping a fence and running and into a neighboring apartment complex while Stakely lay on the ground. Surveillance video caught a group of males looking into apartments in the Castenea Way area, a block away from Blue Knoll where the incident with Stakely occurred, according to police. Two of the males in that group matched the description of those who witnesses saw running past Stakely after she was hit, police said. Anyone with information including doorbell camera footage that may have captured what happened is asked to contact Columbus police homicide detectives at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS. All calls to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Columbus police also provided a QR code for witnesses to submit information anonymously. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Alexa Stakely death: Columbus Police say no suspects found Global Parametrics, a company owned by Swiss-based CelsiusPro Group, has partnered with One Acre Fund, an organisation that provides financial services and training to smallholder farmers. The collaboration aims to provide insurance coverage for smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi, safeguarding them financially from crop losses caused by drought. Global Parametrics and One Acre Fund have created a water-balance index that determines insurance payouts. This index utilises data collected and verified by One Acre Fund directly from individual farmers. It assesses the equilibrium between rainfall and evapotranspiration during a defined time frame, providing an indicator of water availability for crops. The index also leverages weather data sourced from external third-party providers. During this season, payouts for droughts triggered by the El Nino phenomenon have already been distributed, benefitting approximately 77,600 smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi, Global Parametrics said. The total payments amounted to more than $812,600. The Natural Disaster Fund (NDF), overseen by Global Parametrics, provides risk capacity for One Acre Fund's portfolio of loans to smallholder farmers. The NDF, supported by UK and German governmental entities through a public-private partnership, is tasked with providing risk coverage for parametric solutions. These solutions aim to strengthen climate resilience and protect poor and vulnerable communities from natural catastrophes. Germanys Hannover Re shares the risk with the NDF. CelsiusPro Group CEO Mark Rueegg said: Thanks to the index-based solution, farmers do not need to present proof of loss or undergo lengthy damage assessments. If the water balance index falls below a specified threshold, payouts are triggered. One Acre Fund Zambia country director Luke Viljoen said: Smallholders manage the majority of Zambias arable land, so supporting them and building their resilience is paramount. With our growing base of farmers, more can access innovative solutions that protect them from drought and floods. Providing them with much-needed financial relief will help accelerate sustainable agriculture transformation and improve agricultural resilience for the nation. CelsiusPro acquired Global Parametrics in September 2023. "Global Parametrics partners with One Acre Fund to insure farmers in Zambia and Malawi " was originally created and published by Life Insurance 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. North Andover man hit with nearly 200 additional charges in district court A North Andover man already accused of keeping an illegal arsenal in his house, is now facing nearly 200 new charges. 64-year-old Daniel Medina appeared at Lawrence District Court Friday for a dangerousness hearing in his case. He was first arrested on July 3 for allegedly possessing an illegal cache of weapons in his house. But while in court, prosecutors filed 182 new charges against him. The case started when a neighbor heard an explosion at a car outside his North Andover home, and called police. The State Police bomb squad responded. In a search warrant, authorities say they discovered an arsenal of weapons. In total, they located 32 firearms, numerous of those firearms had magazines inside of them that were located with ammunition that rendered them large capacity firearms, said Essex County ADA Jessica Fleet. The new charges include possession of large-capacity firearms, rifles, assault weapons, explosives, chemicals and ammunition. According to a prosecutor, Medina told police he built some of the guns himself. The defendant clarified to the officer that having these firearms are a hobby in addition to having the homemade explosives are a hobby as well. He also acknowledged that he was most proud and aware of his 50-calibre large capacity weapon that he had said was in pristine condition, Fleet added. Medinas lawyer, Dawnangela Minton, said that her client denies making any statements to police and that he denies all of the charges against him. Medina was ordered held without bail until at least November. 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 Greg Hoffman was named chief information officer for North Dakota. (Photo provided) Greg Hoffman will serve as the next chief information officer of the North Dakota Information Technology Department, Gov. Doug Burgum announced Thursday. Hoffman assumed the position in an interim capacity in June after his predecessor, Kuldip Mohanty, resigned for family reasons. Hoffman had been deputy chief information officer since April 2022. Before that, he was director of the Information Technology Departments Administrative Services Division. Greg possesses a deep understanding of NDITs operations and knows the importance of strong customer service. He collaborates with agency partners to deliver technology solutions to best serve North Dakota citizens, Burgum said in a Tuesday announcement from the Governors Office. Hoffman holds bachelors degrees in accounting and business administration, as well as a masters degree in business administration, according to the release. I am committed to building on our recent progress by focusing on customer service, leveraging emerging technologies like AI, growing the data literacy of government overall and continuing an emphasis on our cybersecurity posture, Hoffman said in the announcement. North Dakota Information Technology has 479 full-time employees, which operate across five areas: Data, Technology, Security, Customer Success and Operations, according to the announcement. Alexander Jacobs stood before his future wife, Lilia, over 30 years ago and vowed to love and honor her, for better for worse and in sickness and in health, for the rest of their lives. It was an oath that Jacobs would later break. Seated before a judge Friday morning, his frail body having been moved from a wheelchair to a table to join his defense attorney, Jacobs, 79, was handed a sentence of 15 years in state prison for the first-degree aggravated manslaughter of Lilia Jacobs. The couple was inside their Selmar Place home in East Hanover in March 2020 when Alexander Jacobs pulled out a handgun and, according to a judge and family members, shot his wife at point blank range with a hollow nose bullet. She died instantly, and Jacobs was initially charged with murder. Alexander Jacobs looks at the prosecutors as he gets ready to stand following his sentencing in state Superior Court in Morris County on July 12, 2024. Jacobs, 79, was sentenced to 15 years after admitting he fatally shot his wife in 2020. On Friday, Jacobs, who will receive credit for four years he has spent in jail, was handed a sentence by Judge Stephen Taylor that fell on the lower end of the first-degree manslaughter charge, but was what prosecutors had agreed to. His attorney, Joseph Pedicini, argued for a 10-year sentence, describing his client as a once-flourishing doctor working as a physicist at a hospital with a "stellar" prior record as a citizen, turned into a man struggling with suicidal thoughts in the months leading up to the shooting. Jacobs, who must serve 85% of his sentence, will likely serve another eight years in prison before he is eligible for release. He was initially facing up to life in prison for murder. Jacobs had no intention to kill his wife, said Pedicini, who instead proffered that his client had become a distraught "caretaker" after it was believed his wife had dementia family contests she was ever diagnosed and he was trying to protect her when she was shot. Lilia Jacobs had crashed her car into a dry cleaner business in Livingston three months before the shooting, raising concerns over her deteriorating health. She wanted to go to the store on the day of the shooting, but Jacobs wouldn't give her the keys, Pedicini said. It was from there even the judge said evidence from various sources, including police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and even family, caused a great deal of concern. But what did seem apparent to the judge was what he believed to be a lack of remorse by Jacobs, an observation Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Sandler stressed on Friday. Jacobs had gone upstairs to retrieve his gun, which he purportedly kept for self-defense, and returned downstairs to the living room with the gun in his pocket. Pedicini had claimed his client had shown signs of suicidal thoughts in the weeks prior, such as giving personal belongings away. In a disheveled and stressed state of mind, Jacobs' only intention with the gun was to "feign" that he was going to commit suicide to "scare" her into getting medical treatment, which she had allegedly declined to do, Pedicini said. Sandler, however, called Jacobs' behavior reckless and pointed to his admissions of guilt and lack of remorse following the shooting. "At no time has Mr. Jacobs expressed any remorse for what has happened," Sandler said. He does not mention [Lilia's] name one time in all the recordings of statements that he made subsequent to his arrest. His callous attitude at that time has continued throughout these entire proceedings." Alexander Jacobs speaks to his attorney, Michael Pedicini, during his sentencing in state Superior Court in Morris County on July 12, 2024. Jacobs, 79, was sentenced to 15 years after admitting he fatally shot his wife in 2020. In sickness and in health It was unclear whether Jacobs had tried to "shock" his wife, accidentally shot her or had instead planned to turn the gun on himself a statement he allegedly made to his granddaughter but his admission of guilt was enough to move forward on Friday. "I'm very sorry," he said in a very slow, mumbled statement as he remained seated in court Friday. "I accept responsibility." Lilia Jacobs' son, Jeff Shulman, said on Friday that his mother had "cherished and trusted [Jacobs] with everything she had." She was a loving grandmother who helped guide her grandchildren, but had been with a man whom Shulman described as a "callous and manipulated monster" who had an arrogance whose only vow was to serve his ego. Alison Shulman, Lilia Jacobs' granddaughter, who struggled through tears to complete her statement, recalled moments she had with her grandmother, noting that her death has led her to struggle with sadness, anger, stress and anxiety. She recalled the moment she went into her grandmother's bedroom for the first time nearly 18 months after the shooting, laying on her bed, going through her clothes and smelling her grandmother's perfume. "I miss her every day and will forever be scarred in the violent matter of which she was taken from us," she said. Alison Shulman, at right, spoke fondly of her grandmother, Lilia Jacobs, during the criminal sentencing of her grandfather, Alexander Jacobs, as Morris Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Sandler, at left, and Judge Stephen Taylor, center, look on in state Superior Court in Morris County on July 12, 2024. Taylor pulled statements from each family member, noting that "trust" as a married couple was shattered the day Jacobs killed his wife. "Everyone knows that aging is a difficult process. When you get older, you can't do the things the same that you did when you were younger," Taylor said, "and everyone is aware of that fact. Part of the vows you take when you get married is to take care of your spouse as you get older. That's the element of trust." What is telling, Taylor said moments before sentencing Jacobs, was that Lilia Jacobs had only three months prior exhibited signs of cognitive decline, so it wasn't a situation where "Mr. Jacobs was suffering along with his wife for years, and years, and years." "I think that indicates a significant amount of selfishness on the part of Mr. Jacobs," Taylor said, adding that it appeared Jacobs saw his wife's decline and "didn't want to deal with it" moving forward. The case's conclusion was a long-time coming and appeared to be heading for trial; Jacobs' mental and physical health had delayed the case, along with several motions by defense attorneys to dismiss the indictment and to suppress Jacobs' admissions of guilt to police. Prosecutors said Friday Jacobs made a suicide attempt in the Morris County jail in July 2023 that led to his hospitalization, and in 2021, and his former attorney, Vincent Nuzzi, died in 2022. In 2021, it was also believed Jacobs' physical health had declined so rapidly, Nuzzi told the court he believed his client would "not last" a year. Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook. This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Morris County husband gets 15 years in prison for fatal shooting (FOX40.COM) One day after California State Parks revealed the removal of about 6,000 pounds of marijuana grow waste from a series of parks throughout the state, a Northern California agency has announced the discovery of even more illegal marijuana in the region. On Thursday, the Yuba County Sheriffs Department said its marijuana enforcement team executed 15 search warrants over two weeks from the end of June to the beginning of July and found over 25,000 marijuana plants and over 3,000 pounds of processed marijuana. The sheriffs department added that 59 environmental violations and 64 water code violations were issued as a result of their discovery. Eight hazardous, illegal, or banned pesticides were also found. $10 million marijuana clone operation busted in Northern California The majority of the warrants were served in the Rackerby and Brownsville areas, the Yuba County Sheriffs Department said. Law enforcement added that its most recent search, held on July 9, led to the arrest of two Northern California residents, a 72-year-old from Stockton and a 75-year-old from Woodland. Both people were booked at a Yuba County jail on suspicion of marijuana cultivation, possession of marijuana for sale, conspiracy, and possession of an illegal/restricted pesticide. The sheriffs department said it was assisted in its investigation by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the National Guard, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the California State Water Board, and the Department of Cannabis Board. 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. Norway provides almost US$100 million to Ukraine for air defence systems Norway is allocating an additional NOK 1 billion (about US$94 million) to Ukraine for air defence systems. Source: press service of the Norwegian government, European Pravda reports Details: Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre says Ukrainians need stronger air defences to protect their population from Russian bombs and missiles. "The brutal attacks we have seen this past week show why it is so vital for the Ukrainians to have greater protection from Russian air attacks. In cooperation with Germany, Norway will donate a complete IRIS-T air defence battery to Ukraine this autumn," Prime Minister Stre said. The donation is funded under the Norwegian Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine, a Norwegian civilian and military support programme of NOK 75 billion covering the period 2023-2027. In addition to increasing its allocation to the German Air Defence Initiative, Norway is providing funds for international efforts to repair and maintain air defence equipment in Ukraine. This support is being provided through third countries. In the revised state budget, the Norwegian government has determined that up to NOK 4 billion (about $375 million) under the Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine will be used to finance air defence activities until 2024. A significant part of these funds will be allocated to the German Immediate Action for Air Defence initiative. As reported, during the opening of the NATO summit, US President Joe Biden announced the supply of five air defence systems to Ukraine, including Patriot. Support UP or become our patron! A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. ___ Michigan bill does not prohibit recounts based on allegations of election fraud CLAIM: A bill signed into law this week by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer prohibits vote recounts based on election fraud allegations. THE FACTS: The bill, SB 603, does not prohibit such recounts, according to two state senators involved in updating the laws around recounts. It stipulates that candidates may request a recount if they have a good-faith belief that they would have had a reasonable chance to win the election if not for an error in the vote counting process. That means that the number of votes the petitioning candidate requests to be recounted must be greater than the difference of votes between them and the winning candidate. After Whitmer, a Democrat, signed the bill on Monday, social media users misrepresented what it will mean for the ability to obtain recounts. Holy Fvck! Michigan Gov. Whitmer signed bills into law that will prohibit election recounts conducted due to allegations of voter fraud, reads one X post that had received approximately 43,000 likes and 23,500 shares as of Friday. Democrats will stop at nothing to prevent election fraud from being exposed! But recounts can still be initiated by fraud allegations under SB 603, according to its sponsors. They say the bill was written to make obtaining a comprehensive recount easier, if there is legitimate reason to believe it could change the result of an election, and to prevent frivolous ones. It also clarifies how suspected fraud should be investigated. This whole piece about fraud is just honestly based on a lot of misinterpretation, of which I think some of its probably intentional misinterpretation, said Democratic state Sen. Stephanie Chang, the bills primary sponsor. State Sen. Jeremy Moss, the primary sponsor of a companion bill, SB 604, explained that SB 603 does the opposite of what the claims spreading online allege. It is modernizing the law so that all ballots can be subject to a recount, said the Democrat, who is chair of the Michigan Senate elections and ethics committee. This is making the integrity of the election results stronger. And this is subjecting more, if not all, ballots in a given election to a recount. SB 603 states that a candidate must be able to allege a good-faith belief that, but for error in the canvass or returns of the votes, the candidate would have a reasonable chance of winning the election. It further stipulates that the number of votes requested to be recounted must, at minimum, be greater than the difference in votes between the petitioning candidate and the winning candidate. Similar guidelines for ballot questions are outlined in the bill. Accusations that the bill doesnt allow for recounts because of fraud grow in part from a wording change in SB 603, which replaces the words fraud or mistake with error. Chang and Moss explained that fraud is included under the error umbrella, and that the language was condensed in part because there have been candidates who were hesitant to request a recount if fraud wasnt a concern. Critics, however, have suggested that this change could be detrimental to a fair electoral process. They ultimately work to discourage the notion that fraud could be a reason for a discrepancy, state Rep. Jay DeBoyer, a Republican who serves on the House elections committee, wrote in a May press release about SB 603 and SB 604. That is an extremely reactive policy that discards transparency and doesnt deliver a better elections system. State Rep. Jaime Greene, also a Republican, said in a June statement that watering down protections is counterproductive when several red flags have arisen within the states elections process. There have been instances where precincts couldnt be recounted if they were out of balance, meaning the number of people who signed into the poll book didnt match the number of submitted ballots. During a recount of a close election for Detroit city clerk in 2017, for instance, votes from 33 precincts representing more than 7,000 votes couldnt be re-tallied, according to local newsreports from that time. One example of why a precinct might be out of balance is if a voter signs the poll book, but decides not to vote and throws out their ballot, or leaves the precinct with it. SB 603 is intended to ensure that more precincts will be eligible for recounts if necessary, so that all valid ballots can be included. The bill also adds and lowers thresholds for automatic recounts. It takes into account if theres a reasonable explanation of why a precinct can be out of balance, Moss said. Additionally, SB 603 clarifies the limits of a recount and stipulates that a board of canvassers, whose duties include conducting recounts, is not responsible for investigating fraud. It states that a recount is an administrative process limited to determining the number of votes cast on ballots for each candidate seeking a particular office or determining the number of votes cast for or against a ballot question and not an investigation or an audit of the conduct of an election. Possible fraud should be reported to local prosecutors or the state attorney general, according to the bill. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson issued a press release in May reminding boards of canvassers that the states constitution and election law does not authorize them to conduct investigations. It explains that statutes define the obligation of canvassers as a ministerial, clerical and nondiscretionary duty to certify election results based solely on election returns. Whitmer signed SB 603 into law on Monday. It will go into effect the 91st day after the final adjournment of the Michigan legislatures 2024 regular session, which is currently scheduled to end in December. ___ Video of Florida voter registration drive used to mislead on proof of citizenship question CLAIM: A video shows a worker at a voter registration drive in Florida registering people to vote without asking for proof of citizenship. THE FACTS: Its true workers at the drive did not ask for proof of U.S. citizenship, but thats because the law does not require such proof to register to vote. However, federal and state law stipulates that Florida voters must be U.S. citizens to cast a ballot in any race. Voters confirm their citizenship under penalty of perjury. Noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare in the U.S. as states, including Florida, have processes to prevent it. Shortly before the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, social media users shared a video of a voter registration drive in Palm Beach, Florida, to raise questions about noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. In the video, a worker with Mi Familia en Accion speaks with a man and a woman outside the Central Palm Beach Service Center. The pair questions the worker about whether people register to vote inside, why she and her colleagues are wearing blue shirts, if she is registered to vote, if she is a U.S. citizen, and who funds Mi Familia en Accion. The woman then asks the worker, What do you have to have to sign up to vote? A drivers license? The worker replies, No no, no, no, you have to be a U.S. citizen. Its a felony. After the woman asks how registrants prove their citizenship, the worker says that you have to trust in the people and reiterates that lying about U.S. citizenship on a voter registration form is a felony. Mi Familia Vota worker in Palm Beach is registering voters near the DMV, reads one X post that shared the video. Proof of citizenship isnt required. It had received approximately 21,000 likes and 11,700 shares as of Wednesday. The video was first posted on X by Jeff Buongiorno, a Republican candidate for supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County. Buongiorno asked whether this is what Floridians had in mind when the state constitution was amended in 2020 to require voters in Florida elections to be U.S. citizens. Mi Familia en Accion and Mi Familia Vota are nonprofit, nonpartisan sister organizations that support the Latino community. The latter is registered in Florida as a third party voter registration organization. Mi Familia en Accion confirmed that the video shows a voter registration drive it hosted in Palm Beach and that the worker is a temporary paid canvasser, but refuted the baseless implication about fraudulent activities related to the event. Mi Familia en Accion is a non-partisan organization, voter registrations are part of our day-to-day work to strengthen our democracy, the organization wrote in a statement. We do not encourage or register non-citizens to vote. Buongiorno told The Associated Press that he is 100% concerned that theyre registering noncitizens and that Floridas current laws are disenfranchising citizens from coming out and voting. Im concerned of fraudulent registrations by noncitizens, Im concerned about synthetic identities, and we need to tighten this up in the state of Florida or our elected officials who certify the elections, theyll be committing perjury when they certify the 2024 election, he continued. Although it is true Florida voters are not required to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, all voters in the state must be U.S. citizens, according to federal and state law. They must confirm as much under penalty of perjury upon registration. Voting as a noncitizen, or even just registering to vote, can be punishable by fines, prison or deportation. Though research shows there have been incidences of noncitizen voting over the years across the U.S., its exceedingly rare, in part because of the risk involved. States, including Florida, have additional mechanisms to prevent it, though there isnt one standard protocol they all follow. People, by and large, do not falsely submit voter registration applications when they dont believe that theyre eligible because the risk is just too high, Valencia Richardson, legal counsel for voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, told the AP. The consequences, particularly for noncitizens, are simply not worth it. A handful of municipalities in other states allow noncitizens to vote in some local elections. Noncitizens are never allowed to cast ballots at the federal or state level. Richardson explained that both federal and state law require Florida election officials to maintain accurate voter lists. This means removing anyone who is ineligible to vote, including noncitizens, but also ensuring that eligible voters are not unlawfully removed. She said there are many ways to confirm citizenship, such as checking department of motor vehicle records, asking the secretary of states office or getting in touch with the voter themselves. The Florida Department of State did not respond to a request for comment. Research and audits in several states show that there have been noncitizens who successfully registered to vote and cast ballots, although it happens rarely and is typically by mistake. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, for example, recently found 137 suspected noncitizens on the states rolls out of roughly 8 million voters and said he was taking action to confirm and remove them. In 2023, Florida removed 268,521 active voters from its registration rolls and as of May 31, had removed 113,166 in 2024 so far. The data does not break down why they were removed. In addition to not being a U.S. citizen, reasons for removal can include death, a felony conviction, not listing a valid Florida residence, or moving out of state. Florida currently has approximately 13.4 million active registered voters. When registering, new applicants must provide a Florida drivers license or identification card number, or the last four digits of their social security number. Alternative forms of ID for those who do not have any of these numbers include a U.S. passport, debit or credit card number, utility bill, or bank statement. Voters must present a picture ID with their signature when voting at a polling place. The House on Wednesday passed the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act, a Republican proposal that would institute a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration. It is unlikely to advance through the Democratic-led Senate and the Biden administration said its strongly opposed to the legislation because it says safeguards already are in place to verify voter eligibility and enforce the law against noncitizens trying to cast ballots. Democrats are also concerned that the bill would disenfranchise some U.S. citizens. ___ Posts falsely blame Ukraine for a missile strike on Kyiv childrens hospital CLAIM: Ukraine is responsible for a missile strike that hit the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv on Monday. THE FACTS: Ukraines Security Service wrote in a statement on Telegram that it found wreckage from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the hospital and has opened proceedings on war crime charges. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed without evidence in a Telegram post that images from Kyiv showed the damage was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile. As supposed proof of Ukraines responsibility, social media users shared oldphotos, falsely claiming they showed shrapnel from such missiles that was found at the hospital following Mondays attack. After Ukraines largest childrens hospital was struck as part of a daytime barrage that saw dozens of Russian missiles target five Ukrainian cities, posts circulated social media falsely claiming that Ukraine was at fault for the hit. Ukraine blew up their own childrens hospital in Kiev this morning with an American air defense missile, reads one X post that had received approximately 9,200 likes and more than 4,300 shares as of Monday. Stop sending these TERRORISTS BOMBS @POTUS. But Ukraines Security Service wrote on Telegram that it found wreckage from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the site including fragments of the rear hull with a serial number and a rudder and opened proceedings on war crimes. The Kh-101 is an air-launched missile that flies low to avoid detection by radar. Ukraine said it shot down 11 of 13 Kh-101 missiles launched Monday, The Associated Press has reported. The International Criminal Courts founding charter says it is a war crime to intentionally attack hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives. Russias Defense Ministry, also on Telegram, 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 at the hospital was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile. Since early in the Russia-Ukraine war that is well into its third year, Russian officials have regularly claimed that Moscows forces never attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, including AP reporting. Some posts are sharing photos they claim show shrapnel from Ukrainian air defense missiles found at the hospital as supposed evidence that Ukraine is at fault for the attack. One image has been online since at least 2022 and another since at least May. Two other photos were originally posted on Telegram by a Ukrainian media outlet with the caption, Debris from rockets is found in Kyiv after a massive rocket attack. The post, written in Ukrainian, does not specify what kind of rockets the debris is from or where in Kyiv it was found. At least 31 people were killed and more than 150 wounded in Mondays missile barrage, the AP has reported. It was Russias heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months, hitting seven of the citys 10 districts. Seven people were killed in the capital, including two staff members at the hospital, where three children were hurt. Strikes in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyys birthplace in central Ukraine, killed 10. The attack unfolded a day before Western leaders who have backed Ukraine were scheduled to begin a three-day NATO summit in Washington to consider how they can reassure Kyiv of the alliances unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can survive Europes biggest conflict since World War II. ___ Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck It's now GOP policy to build a US Iron Dome. Here's what Trump's plan could mean. As Republicans look toward their party convention in Milwaukee next week, the new Donald Trump-style approach to national security represents a dramatic departure from the GOP's past. Eight years ago, the party called for a military large enough to fight more than two major wars at once and wanted tougher sanctions against Russia. Now, the new 2024 GOP platform talks of avoiding conflict because "wars breed inflation." Official GOP policy also calls for a American-built national missile defense system similar to Israel's Iron Dome something the military hasn't asked for and experts say could have limited utility for the United States. "PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, RESTORE PEACE IN EUROPE AND IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY -- ALL MADE IN AMERICA," the 2024 GOP platform states of the party's new goals. So, where did this talk of a U.S. Iron Dome come from? And is it even realistic? PHOTO: Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, on July 8, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images) Here's what to know: Trump wants 'the greatest dome of them all' Iron Dome was developed by Israel to zap rockets and mortar fire out of the sky -- acting as a kind of shield over a country under the near-constant threat of short-range and medium-range missile attacks. The multi-billion system played a major role in successfully defending Israel last April when Iran launched some 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander. MORE: Iran launches attack on Israel: What is the Iron Dome? Iron Dome's success caught the attention of Trump, who had already been tossing out the idea at campaign rallies that the U.S. could build its own version of the technology considering the U.S. had spent some $3 billion to help Israel manufacture and maintain the system. Trump's comments on a U.S. Iron Dome often prompted loud cheers from his supporters, much as it had in 2016 when he called for building a wall at the U.S. southern border with Mexico. "In my next term, we will build a great Iron Dome over our country, a dome like has never seen before, a state -of-the-art missile defense shield that will be entirely built in America," Trump said at a June rally in Wisconsin as the crowd applauded. "We're going to build the greatest dome of them all," he promised. The military hasn't asked for an Iron Dome, and it wouldn't protect against the latest threats anyway On its surface, experts say replicating an Iron Dome system for the U.S. wouldn't make much sense. With allies north and south of the U.S., and oceans on either side, the U.S. doesn't face the same kind of short-range missile threat as Israel. But what about a nation-wide missile defense system that's like the Iron Dome but tailored for the U.S.? According to a U.S. defense official, U.S. Northern Command -- the military combatant command charged with defending the homeland from foreign missiles -- has not expressed interest in a nationwide missile defense system. The military already employs multiple systems "that together provide agility in responding to potential threats, which increases available options for the nation's leaders," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. MORE: Biden launches NATO summit by pledging new air defense support for Ukraine Among those systems is Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program, which was designed to knock down rogue long-range missiles from a country like North Korea. It would, however, have more limited utility if there were ever a large-scale attack from a country with a hefty arsenal like Russia. Expanding that system to cover every inch of the U.S. though would likely cost billions of dollars at a time when the country also is trying to protect against attacks in cyber and space. China and Russia are now pursing hypersonic weapons, while administration officials this spring acknowledged Russia's pursuit of nuclear capabilities in space, greatly complicating what it means for any one system to keep the U.S. safe. MORE: GOP warning of 'national security threat' is about Russia wanting nuclear weapon in space: Sources "You can't defend the entire United States. It's unrealistic, unaffordable and unachievable," said Gen. Glen VanHerck, who retired this year as head of U..S Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Instead, he said, whoever is in the White House next year should develop clearer policy on what U.S. assets to defend beyond critical military infrastructure -- something he said he pressed for during his tenure as head of NORTHCOM. "Ultimately, it goes back to policy. What are your priorities? What do you want us to do? And then we can make realistic decisions with the force we have today, and we can then budget and resource for the forces of the future," he said. PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, July 9, 2024, in Doral, Fla. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP) Just like his border wall, Trump's calls for a US Iron Dome is likely shorthand for something else Party platforms and campaign rhetoric tend to be more political crowd-pleasers than pragmatic blueprints for how to run a country. In 2016, for example, Trump called for a "big, beautiful" wall along America's southern border with Mexico; when he left office, only about a quarter of the border had new fencing -- most of which replaced smaller existing structures. Trump's demands for a border wall were essentially shorthand for hardline immigration policies. Military analyst Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine Corps colonel and an ABC contributor, said calling for an Iron Dome over the U.S. probably doesn't make much sense from a strategic standpoint considering the new threats from space. More notable, he said, is what's missing from the document. For the first time in decades, the party isn't calling for increased spending for a bigger fighting force or extending U.S. military reach globally. "It just strikes me as how isolationist it is, particularly in comparison to past Republican platforms," Ganyard said. For former Trump advisers, refocusing US spending on homeland security is a good thing. "It's a very strong document that has sound common-sense principles that include building up the American military base," Elbridge Colby, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development during the Trump administration, said of the new GOP platform. The platform forces on protecting the homeland, "not looking for monsters to destroy," Colby said. It's now GOP policy to build a US Iron Dome. Here's what Trump's plan could mean. originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Nudists in the Castro save tourist from 'crazy pirate' with blowtorch using mean right hook A tourist in San Franciscos famed gayborhood was just saved from an attacker by an unlikely source: nudists! Pete Sferra and Lloyd Fishback were strolling through the Castro without a stitch of clothing when they witnessed a crazy kind of pirate guy threatening a man with a blowtorch and immediately sprang into action. According to the San Francisco Standard, a man identified as 38-year-old Zero Triball threatened a Brazilian tourist with a blowtorch when the unexpected heroes stepped in. A viral video, which has already been viewed more than 14 million times on X, shows someone grabbing the blowtorch away from Triball before he starts punching the tourist. Then, Sferra can be seen calling the police while Fishback punches the attacker and then smacks his face, causing Triball to walk away. (@) x.com My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy, Sferra told the publication. But he didnt waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook. Related: 11 top of Airbnb's top-rated LGBTQ+ friendly cities The intense attack could have been much worse had the good samaritans not stepped in because Triball also threatened to burn the tourists face, according to Petros Fanourgiakis, owner of the nearby Aegean Delights. Tribal, who has a history of causing problems in the neighborhood, is currently in county jail and suspected of assault with a deadly weapon, according to official records obtained by the San Francisco Standard. Sferra called Fishback the real hero of the day and said he hates seeing tourists experience that kind of stuff. He added that he wants to normalize nudity in the Castro, but this idea hasnt always gotten a warm reception. Over the years weve been doing this, weve tried to show the neighborhood that were regular peoplewe just have a relaxed idea of what were supposed to wear, he said. We just want to be seen as good contributing members of the community. Saving an innocent tourist from a violent attack is a good start! The prostitute Carina stands at the side of the road in front of a club. The number of registered prostitutes in Germany is on the rise but remains below the number working before the coronavirus pandemic, according to government figures released on Friday. Felix Horhager/dpa The number of registered prostitutes in Germany is on the rise but remains below the number working before the coronavirus pandemic, according to government figures released on Friday. At the end of 2023, around 30,600 prostitutes were registered with the authorities in Germany, 8.3% more than in the previous year, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Although this is a further increase, it remains lower than the number of registered sex workers in the country before the pandemic. At the end of 2019, 40,400 prostitutes were registered. German law has required sex workers to register since 2017. Unregistered sex workers are not included in the statistics. According to the data, three quarters of registered prostitutes were between 21 and 44 years old, around one fifth (21%) were 45 years or older and 4% were between 18 and 20 years old. Only 18% of registered sex workers had German citizenship. The most common nationality was Romanian (36%), while 11% had Bulgarian nationality and 7% had Spanish nationality. The government does not track gender information for sex workers, which is not required to be disclosed when registering. The number of valid or provisional permits for a prostitution business remained unchanged compared to the previous year at 2,300, according to the statistics authority. At the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the number of registered prostitution businesses was 2,200. Physical establishments such as brothels made up 93% of the prostitution businesses registered at the end of 2023. Another 5% of businesses were prostitution agencies and 2% were prostitution vehicles or events. Prostitution businesses require a permit in Germany. The agency said no information could be provided about businesses operating without the required permit. Germany's Prostitution Act in 2002 designated prostitution as a normal trade in the country. Since 2017, the Prostitute Protection Act has also stipulated that brothels require an operating license. Prostitutes are obliged to register their activity and undergo regular health counselling. Iowa Workforce Development manages unemployment claims filed on behalf of Iowans. (Photo by Getty Images, logo courtesy the State of Iowa) A social worker for an Iowa nursing home was justified in quitting after the facility failed to inform her and others of residents who had serious, contagious diseases, according to a judges ruling. State records indicate Mary Lovejoy Castaneda was employed by the nursing home chain Care Initiatives as a fulltime social worker at Cedar Rapids Heritage Specialty Care from March through May of this year. She resigned after citing stress and anxiety related to the job, which entailed working with hospice patients. Castaneda also cited concerns regarding an unsafe work environment created by the facility failing to share information about residents with serious contagious diseases. Twice during the week of May 5, 2024, Castaneda interacted with residents by sharing paperwork and pens with them without first being informed by the nursing staff that the residents had a contagious illness. In one instance, a member of the nursing staff allegedly encountered Castaneda as she exited a residents room and expressed surprise that Castaneda wasnt wearing personal protect equipment. When Castaneda pointed out that the nursing staff had not posted the required notice that the resident had a contagious disease, the nursing staff member allegedly replied that the staff had forgotten to post such a notice. Castaneda subsequently resigned and applied for unemployment benefits. Care Initiatives challenged the request, which led to a recent hearing before Administrative Law Judge James Timberland. In his ruling, Timberland stated that the companys lack of notice regarding residents with contagious diseases prevented Castaneda from using appropriate personal protective equipment and unreasonably exposed (her) to the risk of contracting serious illnesses. Timberland also noted that when Care Initiatives hired Castaneda the company assured her it would refrain from assigning her hospice patients, only to later begin doing so. That action suggests a bait-and-switch whereby the employer waited for (Castaneda) to adjust to the work environment and then substantially changed the nature of the work. Timberland awarded Castaneda unemployment benefits, ruling that she had quit her job for good cause. The post Nursing home worker was needlessly exposed to contagious disease, judge rules appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. For beginners, it can seem like a good idea (and an exciting prospect) to buy a company that tells a good story to investors, even if it currently lacks a track record of revenue and profit. But as Peter Lynch said in One Up On Wall Street, 'Long shots almost never pay off.' While a well funded company may sustain losses for years, it will need to generate a profit eventually, or else investors will move on and the company will wither away. If this kind of company isn't your style, you like companies that generate revenue, and even earn profits, then you may well be interested in Oriental Interest Berhad (KLSE:OIB). While profit isn't the sole metric that should be considered when investing, it's worth recognising businesses that can consistently produce it. Check out our latest analysis for Oriental Interest Berhad How Fast Is Oriental Interest Berhad Growing? If you believe that markets are even vaguely efficient, then over the long term you'd expect a company's share price to follow its earnings per share (EPS) outcomes. Therefore, there are plenty of investors who like to buy shares in companies that are growing EPS. Oriental Interest Berhad managed to grow EPS by 13% per year, over three years. That growth rate is fairly good, assuming the company can keep it up. Top-line growth is a great indicator that growth is sustainable, and combined with a high earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margin, it's a great way for a company to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. On the revenue front, Oriental Interest Berhad has done well over the past year, growing revenue by 21% to RM586m but EBIT margin figures were less stellar, seeing a decline over the last 12 months. If EBIT margins are able to stay balanced and this revenue growth continues, then we should see brighter days ahead. The chart below shows how the company's bottom and top lines have progressed over time. For finer detail, click on the image. Since Oriental Interest Berhad is no giant, with a market capitalisation of RM595m, you should definitely check its cash and debt before getting too excited about its prospects. Are Oriental Interest Berhad Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders? It's pleasing to see company leaders with putting their money on the line, so to speak, because it increases alignment of incentives between the people running the business, and its true owners. So it is good to see that Oriental Interest Berhad insiders have a significant amount of capital invested in the stock. Indeed, they hold RM64m worth of its stock. That shows significant buy-in, and may indicate conviction in the business strategy. As a percentage, this totals to 11% of the shares on issue for the business, an appreciable amount considering the market cap. It means a lot to see insiders invested in the business, but shareholders may be wondering if remuneration policies are in their best interest. A brief analysis of the CEO compensation suggests they are. For companies with market capitalisations under RM937m, like Oriental Interest Berhad, the median CEO pay is around RM465k. The Oriental Interest Berhad CEO received total compensation of only RM55k in the year to August 2023. You could consider this pay as somewhat symbolic, which suggests the CEO does not need a lot of compensation to stay motivated. While the level of CEO compensation shouldn't be the biggest factor in how the company is viewed, modest remuneration is a positive, because it suggests that the board keeps shareholder interests in mind. It can also be a sign of a culture of integrity, in a broader sense. Does Oriental Interest Berhad Deserve A Spot On Your Watchlist? One important encouraging feature of Oriental Interest Berhad is that it is growing profits. The fact that EPS is growing is a genuine positive for Oriental Interest Berhad, but the pleasant picture gets better than that. With company insiders aligning themselves considerably with the company's success and modest CEO compensation, there's no arguments that this is a stock worth looking into. Even so, be aware that Oriental Interest Berhad is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about... While opting for stocks without growing earnings and absent insider buying can yield results, for investors valuing these key metrics, here is a carefully selected list of companies in MY with promising growth potential and insider confidence. Please note the insider transactions discussed in this article refer to reportable transactions in the relevant jurisdiction. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com 'Today has been a long time coming,' said nursing home worker Nessa Higgins at a news conference after Minnesota's first labor standards board voted on April 29, 2024, to raise the minimum wage for nursing home workers to $20.50 per hour by 2027. There's currently a public comment period on the proposal. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer. The phrase staffing crisis has been thrown around recently to describe the state of Minnesotas nursing homes. But sometimes what these discussions lose sight of is where this staffing crisis comes from: low pay, poor benefits and disrespect. Since COVID-19 began, Ive watched many of my most dedicated coworkers leave an industry they love for better pay and respect on the job. Im faced with the same dilemma. I care deeply for the people I work with, and I dont want to abandon the residents Ive known throughout my decade on the job. But the pull of a better-paying job with stable hours is always there. The numbers dont lie. With a 41% staffing shortage, Minnesota has the dubious honor of holding the highest long-term care vacancy rate in the country. More than 1,000 nursing home workers from 12 different nursing homes went on strike in March to fix our broken nursing home system. Thats because even though the states been spending hundreds of millions of dollars for long-term care, industry executives have padded their bottom lines instead of raising wages for frontline workers. Thats led to fewer and fewer people pursuing work in nursing homes while our growing senior population needs skilled care. The workers who went on strike wanted to show the misplaced priorities of the nursing home operators are accelerating rather than fixing the staffing crisis. Low wages and burn out have driven many great care workers to find jobs in better paying industries. Short-staffing has created chaos with our schedules, leaving many of us to fill the gaps through exhausting double shifts and overtime. All of these issues make it increasingly difficult to provide residents with the care they deserve, despite our best efforts. Minnesotas newly created and first in the country nursing home workforce standards board was tasked with enacting real solutions to the crisis. In their brief time, theyve done just that. In April, the nursing home workforce standards board voted to raise the minimum wage of nursing home workers to at least $20.50 per hour (much more for many), while guaranteeing overtime pay for 11 state holidays that nursing home workers cant just take off. Before these standards can become law, the public can provide input until July 24th. We need your voice. At my nursing home, we need these standards to create the change we couldnt create for ourselves. This past year, my coworkers and I tried to form a union to address the issues our industry is facing. Ironically, another way Minnesota nursing home operators spend money that should go towards resident care is union busting. Despite our employers telling us how important and valued we are as essential workers, when we tried to join together collectively through a union, we were met with weeks of union busting. We havent been successful in forming our union (yet), but thanks to the advocacy of union members across Minnesota, our entire industry will benefit from new standards. At some point in our lives, we will know someone or need long-term care ourselves. Serious investment is needed now to ensure every generation has the best care possible. These new standards are a sign that real change is in our future and policymakers are taking us seriously. For me, my coworkers, and the residents we care for, it cant come soon enough. NYs Hochul doubles down on support for Biden after Lt. Gov. Delgado calls for prez to drop out: He is in command Gov. Kathy Hochul isnt saying bye to President Biden unlike her lieutenant governor. Hochul doubled down Thursday on her support for Biden and downplayed the apparent rift with Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who a day earlier sent political shockwaves across New York and beyond by calling for the 81-year-old president to drop his re-election bid. Its not a surprise that there are various voices that emerge with different opinions within the Democratic Party, Hochul said during an unrelated news conference. I stand firmly with the President. Gov. Kathy Hochul brushed off an apparent rift with her lieutenant governor. Robert Miller Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race. WireImage Delgado is one of an increasing number of Democrats whove taken their private anxieties over Bidens electability public after his doddering debate performance June 27 against former President Donald Trump. One source described Delgados call for a new Democratic presidential nominee as just weird, given its break with Hochuls steadfast support for Biden. Hochul said Thursday that Delgado gave her a heads up on his move. She also brushed off a report by City & State New York that she was furious with her lieutenant governor. Do I look furious? she rhetorically said to a staffer during the news conference. Well, there is your answer. At least one prominent New York Democrat expressed something other than bafflement or condemnation toward the Hochul-Delgado drama. Former Gov. David Paterson said Hochuls move to let Delgado speak his mind about Biden was masterful considering the lieutenant governor rarely gets the spotlight. But he was quick to point out that other governors, himself included, werent nearly as lenient. Hochul said her personal interactions with Biden make clear hes fit to serve. AFP via Getty Images If you had done that, your new office would be at a seaport or on the Canadian border somewhere and your staff would be cut and your office itself would be constructed of cardboard, he told The Post. Paterson noted that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, also a Democrat, once gave him some leeway when he was lieutenant governor on a disagreement the two had about legislation trying to address police use-of-force. But he acknowledged that was far different than calling for the partys national standard bearer not to run for re-election. Its not even in the ballpark, he said. Hochul tried to refocus the conversation from Bidens fitness to the Trump-linked Project 2025. Getty Images for Accountable.US Hochul argued that focusing on Bidens age distracted from the existential threat of Donald Trump becoming president again. In attempt to re-focus the conversation from Bidens fitness for office, she hauled out a summary of Project 2025 a controversial policy blueprint for a second Trump administration that includes calls for sweeping abortion and immigration restrictions and contended it will cause nightmares. Private meetings with Biden, including right after the debate, leave no doubt hes fit to serve, Hochul said. Ive seen him have these conversations, theyre engaged, theyre thoughtful, they show that he is in command, said Hochul, who last saw Biden in Washington DC on July 3. I saw nothing to be concerned about in terms of his ability to make sure that we are victorious against Donald Trump in November. NY proposal would allow licensed weed shops to offer discounts NY proposal would allow licensed weed shops to offer discounts NEW YORK (PIX11) Licensed weed shops in New York could soon offer discounts. State cannabis regulators want to get rid of several rules so that dispensaries have a competitive edge over illegal sellers. More Local News Legal shops would be able to offer discounts on gummies, oils and other items to seniors, students and military veterans. Customers would also be allowed to enroll in loyalty programs, and advertisements could go up in windows and on sidewalks. Regulators are also considering lifting the ban on selling cannabis in packaging with bright colors. The proposed rules have to get input from the public before securing final 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 PIX11. Two of the Democratic Partys most influential figures have privately expressed their concerns that President Joe Biden cannot win against Donald Trump. CNN reported on Friday that former President Barack Obamaa and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been holding conversations behind the scenes, and fielding concerns from party members and lawmakers about the Bidens unraveling position at the top of the ticket. On Wednesday, Pelosi appeared on MSNBC and left the door open when asked about Bidens potential exit from the race. Its up to the president to decide if he is going to run, the former Speaker said. Were all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short. Off-camera, Pelosi has been counseling House members on how to approach the Biden debacle. I think at this moment, if Biden ends up stepping down as the nominee, she will prove to be the most important Democratic leader, one House Democrat told CNN. Shes the one in a situation like this, especially generationally, who has the credibility to weigh in on something that is so sensitive and important. Obama, on the other hand, has remained extremely guarded in private conversations with lawmakers and other concerned Democrats. According to CNN, the former president is attempting to operate as a sounding board and impartial adviser neither endorsing or rebuffing calls for Bidens exit from the race. Sources told CNN that his caution stems largely from fears that any explicit position he takes would quickly leak and carry significant weight. And there have been leaks. According to a Thursday report from Politico, before publishing his unvarnished op-ed in The New York Times calling on Biden to step down from the nomination, actor George Clooney reached out to Obama to give him notice about the article. Two sources told Politico that Obama neither encouraged nor attempted to dissuade Clooney from publishing. The role Pelosi and Obama are taking behind the scenes remains amorphous, and Democrats have yet to come to a consensus on what to do about the aging president but something might be in the works. The Super Friends are assembling, on Democratic lawmaker told Politico on Friday. Theres a group of people who are going to go make their case to whomever they can get to at the White House that he needs to step aside and were going to get our asses kicked if he doesnt. According to the anonymous lawmaker, Pelosi would be one of the ideal world candidates to participate in this reality check with Biden, but as the clock ticks toward the Democratic National Convention in August, time is running short. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Biden campaign officials have been making their disappointment in the former Obama staffers calling on the president to drop out of the 2024 race well known. And now the pod bros themselves are firing back. On Fridays new episode of Pod Save America, co-hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, who previously served as former President Barack Obamas chief speechwriter and communications director, respectively, took several minutes to respond to the criticism they have received for speaking openly and honestly to their listeners about the risks of keeping President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. About halfway through the hour-long episode, the 41-year-old Favreau brought up both Morning Joe host Joe Scarboroughs suggestion that Biden is deeply resentful of his treatment under the Obama staff and a passage from The New York Times that characterized Bidens advisers as dismissing the Pod Save America bros as operatives who worked for a cerebral, cool-guy president and never understood the world according to the scrappy kid from Scranton. Care to respond, my fellow elitist pod bro? Favreau asked Pfeiffer, 48, speaking from his home in the Bay Area in front of a wall of framed Obama paraphernalia. I have tried to maintain a very even temper through this process, Pfeiffer prefaced his response, explaining how personally uncomfortable he has felt about speaking out against Biden and his inner circle. But that New York Times piece just pissed me off to no end, he said, because the idea that we are doing this, that we are raising questions about whether Joe Biden can win, purely out of personal animus is so fucking infuriating. Then, after laying out how much he loves Biden personally, the fellow Delaware native, added, The idea that this is somehow some personal attack on Joe Biden because he didnt go to an Ivy League school or I dont understand Scranton or we dont understand Scranton is just so infuriating. Its infuriating personally, but its more infuriating because it explains why they have fucked up the response to this debate so bad. As he put it, none of this is about Joe Biden the man, its about beating Donald Trump. As a political operative, Pfeiffer said, The incompetence of spending your time fighting Pod Save America, David Axelrod, George Clooney, and the most popular figure in the Democratic Party [Obama] at a time when you were struggling with Black voters is fucking insane! F*cking Disaster: Former Obama Aides Stick the Knife Into Biden Favreau, who appeared even more fired up than usual as he sat behind his microphone wearing a trim gray T-shirt at Crooked Medias L.A. headquarters, echoed that sentiment when he said the Biden team has bigger fucking fish to fry, asking, What are you spending time on us for? Go fucking just beat Donald Trump or help your candidate be on message! Also, if he was the scrappy kid from Scranton, Id be fucking thrilled! Favreau added. I love that Joe Biden. The Joe Biden I dont love is talking about fucking NATO all the time! He even went so far as to compare Biden to Trump, saying, The idea that theyre doing this fucking Trump grievance bullshiteveryones counting Joe Biden outits just so silly and its so counterproductive. Theyre so focused on remaining the nominee that theyve lost the thread, that the goal here is to be re-elected president, Pfeiffer said, before acknowledging that if he were on Bidens team he would hate us too. Angry Jon Stewart Says Joe Biden Is Becoming Trumpian 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 Buddhist Church of Sacramento is holding festivities Saturday and Sunday in celebration of Obon, a Japanese Buddhist holiday commemorating the dead and honoring ancestors. In Japan, Obon, an annual festival rooted in Japanese Buddhist tradition, is often celebrated in mid-August, but celebrations will take place in Northern California cities this year throughout July. Throughout the morning and early afternoon of July 13, Obon services will be held at major cemeteries including Sacramento Memorial Lawn, East Lawn Memorial Park, and Odd Fellows Cemetery, as well as the Hondo, or main hall, of the Buddhist Church. The Bon Odori dance will take place in the evening at 7:30 p.m. at the temple. Thats a huge thing for our tradition is honoring the dead, and it comes from the influence of Chinese ancestor worship on Japan, said Matt Hamasaki, a resident minister at the Buddhist Church of Sacramento. The church follows the Jodo Shinshu tradition, a school of Japanese Buddhism. Obon is a time when the souls of deceased ancestors are believed to return home for three days, and many visit the gravesites of loved ones to clean and decorate them. Obon festivals traditionally include a dance known as Bon Odori, which takes place near the end of the festival in the evening. This year, the Buddhist Church will be featuring a new dance, which community members had the chance to learn during group dance practices in the weeks leading up to Obon. This is a chance to showcase Japanese culture, Japanese dance, and ... it really is this cross section of the community, said Sharon Ito, a member of the Churchs 125th anniversary committee. They come out and they enjoy learning the dance, and then people hopefully its not too hot will enjoy coming out and see some of the dancers in their kimonos and then their yukata, which is the cotton kimono. The Church, which was founded in 1899, is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year with a banquet in November. Obon festivals will also be held this month in other major cities in the region, such as San Francisco and San Jose. The Obon festival in San Joses Japantown is one of the largest in the United States, drawing thousands of attendees and more than 2,500 dancers each year, according to the festivals Facebook page. The free festival at the Buddhist Church will also include a memorial tribute video showing community members who have passed away throughout the Bon Odori. Finally, a Hatsubon service, the first service a family observes after the passing of a loved one, will take place the next morning, on Sunday. Food such as beef teriyaki sandwiches and Gunthers Freezes will be available for attendees starting at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Thats another part of the culture where it isnt necessarily tied to the burial grounds like the cemetery, Hamasaki said, referring to Obon celebrations. Theres that culture of going (to the cemetery), but then also, at the temple that we host, theres that feeling of connecting with your loved ones, which is not tied to a physical place. LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) A Pennsylvania State Trooper was charged with public drunkenness after being involved in a bar fight at a downtown bar in Lancaster City when he was off-duty, court documents show. Robert Miller, 33, of Lancaster, was cited for getting involved in a bar fight between staff at Tellus 360 on June 23 when they tried kicking out someone he was with, according to the citation filed by Lancaster City Police. According to LNP, Miller was off-duty at the time of the incident. According to court records, the fight broke out after Millers companion was told to leave and refused. When staff tried to kick them out, police say Miller grabbed the staff and pulled them off of the person he was with. These actions disrupted bar patrons, staff, and took multiple security personnel to stop. This did endanger and annoy bar staff and patrons, the citation reads. Miller also smelled like an alcoholic beverage, the court docs say. It did not state how long he had been drinking at the bar or his BAC. Miller graduated from the Pennsylvania State Police Academy as part of the 163rd class in 2022 and was assigned to Troop J in York. A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson responded with no comment after an inquiry from abc27 News was sent Wednesday evening. 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. Official distraught after error allows accused killer access to ex-girlfriend in South MS An employees mistake let a man accused of kidnapping and beating his girlfriend leave a Nashville jail last month with no bond conditions days before South Mississippi authorities charged him in the womans murder, the Nashville Criminal Court Clerks office said. The employee sent a release order to the Davidson County Sheriffs Office, which supervises the Nashville jail. The order did not include a judges demands that the defendant, Bricen Rivers, be released with an ankle monitor and stay in Nashville, Chief Deputy Clerk Julius Sloss said Thursday. Theyre distraught, Sloss said of the employee who made the error and his supervisor. There have been tears. The lapse let Rivers, 23, return to Mississippi against the courts orders. He led authorities on a manhunt last week after police said he fled from a car where they found the body of Lauren Johansen, his former girlfriend. The Harrison County Sheriffs Department arrested Rivers hours later. Bricen Rivers Nashville police arrested Rivers in December 2023 and accused him of beating and badly injuring Johansen inside a car during the couples vacation. He remained jailed until he posted a lowered bond last month, records show. Once released, Johansens father said Rivers returned to Mississippi with no oversight and found his daughter. I told the court, the DA, and the judge he would kill her if they let him out, Lance Johansen wrote on a gofundme page after his daughters death. He said Nashville authorities released Rivers after hours and that he was let loose onto the street. Rivers posted a $150,000 bond through a Nashville agency at 4 p.m. June 24, according to the Davidson County Sheriffs Office. A Nashville judge lowered Rivers bond from $251,000 this year, records show. The judge released Rivers from jail last month on several conditions, including that he report to a bonding company for a GPS monitor, remain in Davidson County, Tennessee and have absolutely no contact with Johansen, according to a court order first posted by WSMV-TV in Nashville. Release paperwork dated June 24 specified none of those conditions. That paperwork should have contained any bond conditions, Sloss said. The employee did not do that. Our release order from the courts was a standard bond-out and did not specify GPS was a condition of release, said Jon Adams, communications director at the Davidson County Sheriffs Office. Rivers, Adams said, was released to himself, and was responsible for contacting his bonding agent. Through their grief, Johansens family and domestic violence victims advocates raised questions this week about how Nashville authorities handled the case. More aggressive steps by the court and law enforcement could have saved Johansen, advocates said. They also said the tragedy showed more must be done to protect women across Mississippi who face domestic violence every day. A bonding company outfitted Rivers with a GPS monitor later on the day he was released, Sloss said. The bonding company took Rivers to a different GPS monitoring company than the judge required, News Channel 5 in Nashville reported. That GPS monitoring company was unaware the court prohibited Rivers from returning to Mississippi, the station reported. The Criminal Court Clerks office will build a new system that requires employees to verify all bond conditions are listed before they can print a jail release, Sloss said. He said he will also work with the Sheriffs office to create the same system. The employee at fault will be disciplined, Sloss said. He did not say what measures that person would face. No amount of sorry, no amount of I wish I wouldve done something differently is going to bring her back, Sloss said. They feel some culpability. HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) The Coast Guard has actively suspended its search for a missing man who jumped overboard from a boat Thursday afternoon about a mile and a half from Grandview Beach in Hampton. Zach Widgeon, a spokesperson for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), confirmed on Friday the man is 58-year-old Keith Thomas Henley of Providence Forge, Virginia, which is in New Kent County. His family has been notified. VMRC will continue to search and will be assisted by the Department of Wildlife Resources. Search continues for man who fell off boat off the coast of Hampton Widgeon said Henley was on a boat with one other person, when Henley went in the water to retrieve a fishing net. Henley was not wearing a lifejacket. He started drifting, and the other boater tried to throw a line to him, but the current was too strong. [The] net went overboard. He (Henley) went to get it. He had a friend on the boat with him. His friend was inexperienced. He didnt know how to operate the boat; couldnt even turn it on to go get him. Had basically to just watch as he disappeared. The friend called 911. Hampton Fire and Rescue sent their marine unit out. One of the captains of the vessels for Hampton Fire and Rescue found the boat and drove the boat in to Wallaces marina, Widgeon explained. According to Hampton Battalion Chief Anthony Chittum, they received a call around 12:30 p.m. Thursday about the man who went into the water. The Hampton Division of Fire and Rescue, along with Norfolk Fire-Rescue and the Coast Guard initially responded to start searching for the man. The search expanded into the Chesapeake Bay and the Coast Guard was out through the night. Regional assets resumed their search Friday morning. Chittum said there were three helicopters, one from the U.S. Coast Guard and two from the U.S. Navy, that aided in their search efforts. The Coast Guard roughly covered 1,800 nautical miles between its water and airborne assets, before suspending its search at 1:40 p.m. Friday. At this time, the Coast Guard has saturated that area with our other government agency partners, Lt. Mike Long with the U.S. Coast Guard told WAVY Friday. Crew from the CGC Sailfish (WPB-87356) maintain a vigilant watch during a search for a missing swimmer off Buckroe Beach in Newport News, Virginia, July 12, 2024. Rescue crews, comprised of federal, state, and local first responders, searched for a combined 80 hours and covered an area more than 700 square miles. (Courtesy photo provided by Master Chief Petty Officer Tim Abrams) The Incident Command Post for the search of a missing swimmer off Buckroe Beach in Newport News, Virginia, July 12, 2024. Rescue crews, comprised of federal, state, and local first responders, searched for a combined 80 hours and covered an area more than 700 square miles. (Courtesy photo provided by Lt. Mike Long) An Mh-60 Jayhawk from Air Station Elizabeth City flies over the CGC Sailfish (WPB-87356) during a search for a missing swimmer off Buckroe Beach in Newport News, Virginia, July 12, 2024. Rescue crews, comprised of federal, state, and local first responders, searched for a combined 80 hours and covered an area more than 700 square miles. (Courtesy photo provided by Master Chief Petty Officer Tim Abrams) Before heading out on the water, Lt. Long said boaters should always leave with a float plan. A plan of where you are leaving out of, where you are going to, and where you will be returning. Leave it with a loved one. If youre going out there, be sure your radio is working, you have enough floatation devices, and if you have a cell phone, make sure you have a cell phone charger that works with your vessel or a portable battery to keep your cell phone battery on. He said there is another helpful tool in the palm of your hands. Most smart phones come equipped with a compass app. If youre in distress and you need to call the United States Coast Guard or 911, that compass app will actually give you a latitude and longitude position that you can give that will pinpoint your position precisely for search and rescue efforts. 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. Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed. So, the natural question for Calix (ASX:CXL) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway. See our latest analysis for Calix When Might Calix Run Out Of Money? A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at December 2023, Calix had cash of AU$48m and such minimal debt that we can ignore it for the purposes of this analysis. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$41m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from December 2023 it had roughly 14 months of cash runway. While that cash runway isn't too concerning, sensible holders would be peering into the distance, and considering what happens if the company runs out of cash. Importantly, if we extrapolate recent cash burn trends, the cash runway would be noticeably longer. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years. How Well Is Calix Growing? Notably, Calix actually ramped up its cash burn very hard and fast in the last year, by 143%, signifying heavy investment in the business. On the bright side, at least operating revenue was up 28% over the same period, giving some cause for hope. In light of the data above, we're fairly sanguine about the business growth trajectory. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years. How Easily Can Calix Raise Cash? Even though it seems like Calix is developing its business nicely, we still like to consider how easily it could raise more money to accelerate growth. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate). Calix's cash burn of AU$41m is about 22% of its AU$189m market capitalisation. That's not insignificant, and if the company had to sell enough shares to fund another year's growth at the current share price, you'd likely witness fairly costly dilution. How Risky Is Calix's Cash Burn Situation? Even though its increasing cash burn makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Calix's revenue growth was relatively promising. Looking at the factors mentioned in this short report, we do think that its cash burn is a bit risky, and it does make us slightly nervous about the stock. Readers need to have a sound understanding of business risks before investing in a stock, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Calix that potential shareholders should take into account before putting money into a stock. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts) Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Officials rejoice after fish populations expected to rebound following 'historical' dam removal: 'It was a beautiful' In the town of Naples, Maine, experts expect local salmon populations to rebound after the removal of a dam, News Center Maine reported. The town voted to remove the Edes Falls Dam after a contentious public battle that saw some residents rail against the removal of the dam and the construction of a new park slated to be built next to Crooked River. However, the coalition of environmental groups and government institutions that led the effort to remove the dam including the Sebago Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, Lakes Environmental Association, and at least eight others said that the move was crucial to allowing salmon populations to spawn. With the dam's removal, previously landlocked salmon and brook trout can now access critical spawning habitats upstream. "It was a beautiful, historical dam, and I don't think anyone took it lightly," said Lakes Environmental Association Executive Director Colin Holme. "There is some loss with the historical structure, but the gain is for the native landlocked salmon of Sebago Lake." While many dams seemed necessary or served an important purpose in the past, these structures changed the natural flow of rivers and disrupted ecosystems as they were intended to function. That's why, these days, many historic dams are being removed to give wild animals the best possible chance to flourish in their natural habitats. Dam removal projects are also known to help improve long-term water quality for residents. In Washington, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe rejoiced recently after two ecosystem-disrupting dams were removed, allowing them to fish for coho salmon for the first time in more than 100 years. The Elwha River dam removal in Washington resulted in the local ecosystem thriving, with more flora and fauna than before the removal. A time-lapse video posted to Instagram from Ohio displays how magnificently an ecosystem can recover after a dam removal and those are just a few of the many examples of river restorations happening all over the country. Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. LEWISBURG In a rare meeting in the 5th District Congressional primary, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles and his challenger Nashville Metro Council member Courtney Johnston both made their pitch to Marshall County Republicans at their annual dinner in Lewisburg on Thursday night. While both have campaigned voraciously in recent weeks, the event was one of the few this cycle that theyve made their pitch to the same room. Afterward, voters told The Tennessean their support for Ogles was solidified, though several quietly left the building carrying signs for Johnston. On Thursday, about 230 people gathered at the Lewisburg Parks and Recreation facility, an 80 minute drive south of Nashville, for a fried chicken dinner, door prizes which included four handguns and speeches from state and federal elected officials. U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, drove over from East Tennessee to headline the night, and state Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, and Rep. Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill, also spoke. Trump hats and flags were on sale in the back for $10. U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., greets guests during the Marshall County GOP annual dinner at the Lewisburg Recreation Center in Lewisburg, Tenn., Thursday, July 11, 2024. The mayor just called, and asked all the politicians to please park their cars on the left side of the parking lot, Marshall County GOP Chair Craig Blackwell joked, kicking off the evening with a hearty laugh from the crowd. Johnston was a new face for many in the room, as she has worked to build name recognition in rural counties outside of Nashville and its suburbs where she better known. Introducing herself, Johnston touted her work fighting tax hikes and securing resources for police while being "completely outnumbered" as a conservative on the 40-seat progressive Metro Council. The crowd listened politely. Ogles scrolled on his phone. "I think we deserve at a baseline level to be represented by people with a heart for public service, that want to make a difference, that have character, integrity, and the ability to tell the truth," Johnston said. "We have to trust who is representing us." Nashville Metro Council member Courtney Johnston speaks with guests during the Marshall County GOP annual dinner at the Lewisburg Recreation Center in Lewisburg, Tenn., Thursday, July 11, 2024. Johnston is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Columbia, in the upcoming GOP primary. Ogles has made headlines for misrepresenting a $320,000 loan he reported to the federal election commission for two years that he later admitted was never available in his campaign account. He instead called it a pledge to self fund if needed. He has also drawn national criticism for misrepresenting his resume. Just over 10 miles from his farm, it's Ogles home turf. He won the county with 37% of the vote in a crowded 2022 primary. How many people miss Donald Trump? I said, how many people miss Donald Trump? Ogles yelled as he went onstage, to cheers from the crowd. "I was the first member of Congress that Donald Trump endorsed for 2024. I have a relationship with the president, and I can tell from my conversations with him that he's ready for the job." Ogles invoked the former president's name 10 times during his 8-minute speech as he touted his efforts to help secure the Southern border and cutting government spending primarily by introducing 131 pieces of legislation, though only 4 have been referred to committee so far. Ogles told the crowd that while his legislation has not yet moved forward, it is important because it will be taken up when Trump gets back in the White House. Ogles also touted his new bill to allow the death penalty for unlawful migrants who assault, rape, or kill U.S. citizens which earned him a big round of applause from the room. Votes are counted in a straw poll between U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles and Nashville Metro Council member Courtney Johnston during the Marshall County GOP annual dinner at the Lewisburg Recreation Center in Lewisburg, Tenn., Thursday, July 11, 2024. Several attendees said their views on the race were solidified by Ogles remarks. "I'm impressed with what our existing congressman has done for us," voter Jack Cathey told The Tennessean. "I support him and the job he's doing." When we go into January, and we have the White House, we have the Senate, and we have the House of Representatives, we've got to get it done," he said. "You're going to see a lot of executive orders by the President. We're going to start rolling back all this nonsense from Joe Biden. You're going to see this legislation that we're putting forward start coming to the Senate." Ogles declined to speak to The Tennessean at the event, directing the reporter to contact his press secretary. Ogles' Congressional office and campaign team have not responded to interview requests from The Tennessean for several weeks. In a straw poll held at the end of the evening, Johnston earned 27 votes to Ogles 155. Ogles held a fundraiser with Burchett at a donors home in Lewisburg immediately before the event, and many attendees came directly over, still wearing their nametags from the other event. Last month, Ogles operatives recruited attendees to the Davidson County Republican Party Picnic to pack the straw poll held there, the Tennessee Journal reported. Vivian Jones covers state government and politics for The Tennessean. Reach her at vjones@tennessean.com or on X @Vivian_E_Jones. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 5th District race: Ogles, Johnston make their pitch in Marshall County The State Medical Board of Ohio rejected efforts last month to add autism and female orgasmic difficulty disorder to the list of conditions for which a patient can get medical marijuana. The decision came June 12, in the start of a summer where Ohioans will soon have more choices for what kind of marijuana they get and from whom they get it. The Division of Cannabis Control is going through the approval process for medical marijuana dispensaries to begin selling recreational marijuana to adults 21 and older, though the state mandates that dispensaries must still stock medical products for patients in the medical program. Medical marijuana products have a lower THC level cap, 70%, than what voters approved in November for recreational, 90%, and combustibles aren't available in the medical program. But medical marijuana isn't subject to the 10% tax that adult-use will be, among other differences between the products available. It's not yet clear when recreational sales will begin. More: What you need to know as Ohio prepares to launch recreational marijuana sales Petitions old and new before the state medical board Cresco Labs in Yellow Springs grows its first marijuana crop for Ohio's new adult recreational use program in this May file photo. Medical marijuana advocates and state lawmakers alike have been fighting for people with autism to be allowed to use cannabis for many years but continue to be rejected by the state board. Several other states like, neighboring Michigan and Pennsylvania, include it among their qualifying conditions for medical cannabis use. Female orgasmic difficulty disorder, a condition in which a woman is unable to reach orgasm during sexual stimulation, recently cleared Connecticut's Medical Marijuana Board of Physicians and is now a qualified condition in their medical marijuana program. Autism also joined that list. The research is scarce, but a 2022 study found female orgasmic difficulty disorder can be improved with cannabis use. A panel in Illinois also voted to make the disorder a qualifying condition for medical marijuana. Qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Ohio More: State Medical Board OKs irritable bowel syndrome for medical marijuana use The state currently has 26 qualifying conditions for medical marijuana: AIDS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Alzheimers disease Cachexia Cancer Chronic traumatic encephalopathy Crohns disease Epilepsy or another seizure disorder Fibromyalgia Glaucoma Hepatitis C Huntington's disease Inflammatory bowel disease Irritable bowel syndrome Multiple sclerosis Pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable Parkinson's disease Positive status for HIV Post-traumatic stress disorder Sickle cell anemia Spasticity Spinal cord disease or injury Terminal illness Tourette syndrome Traumatic brain injury Ulcerative colitis Samantha Hendrickson is The Columbus Dispatch's medical business and health care reporter. She can be reached at shendrickson@dispatch.com. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio rejects medical marijuana for autism, female orgasmic disorder Summer is here, and as temps rise, so have Ohio's COVID-19 numbers. The Ohio Department of Health reported 3,153 cases from the week of July 4-10, a roughly 26% increase from the 2,506 cases reported June 28 to July 3. The numbers are more than 80% higher than those reported two weeks ago. As summer approached, with more people gathering in warmer weather for seasonal fun, COVID cases were expected to rise in what experts refer to as a "summer surge," especially around the Fourth of July holiday weekend. COVID-19 summer surge? What Ohio experts say about FLiRT and other variants 'Very real threat': Here's how COVID guidelines have changed May's case count totaled a little over 3,800, but cases nearly doubled in June, with 6,472 reported. Just over 3,900 cases have been reported in the first 11 days of July. Ohio health officials optimistic despite rise in COVID cases While these leaps in case numbers appear large, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Health called the rise "modest" and said "it is important to note that the weekly numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain much lower 80 to 90% lower than they were at the beginning of the year." According to data from the department, over 41,000 cases were reported in January 2024 alone. The state's health department encourages Ohioans to stay up to date on their vaccinations and like them, look to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's best practices for guidance. See latest CDC data: COVID-19 variant KP.3 remains dominant in US, rises to 36.9% of cases Samantha Hendrickson is The Columbus Dispatch's medical business and health care reporter. She can be reached at shendrickson@dispatch.com This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: COVID cases surge in Ohio after 4th of July weekend, ODOH reports Ohio EPA investigating release of a non-hazardous material at BASF in Darke County A chemical spill at the BASF site in Greenville the company is describing as the inadvertent release of a non-hazardous material is under investigation by the company and the Ohio EPA. >> Rapid roadside drug testing could happen soon during OVI stops in Ohio Plant personnel at the BASF site, 1175 Martin St., became aware of the inadvertent release of a non-hazardous material from a storage tank and responded immediately to begin mitigation and cleanup, a BASF spokesman said in a prepared statement released Thursday evening. Automotive paint products are produced at the plant, the company spokesman said. An investigation is underway to determine the root cause of the incident, according to the statement, which notes BASF is cooperating with the Ohio EPA and all other authorities. EPA investigators are at the site this evening (Thursday), agency spokeswoman Katie Boyer told News Center 7. She said a chemical spill was reported to the Ohio EPA Wednesday afternoon. We contacted the company . . . and were told a paint bonding material discharged into a stormwater retention pond on the property, she said. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is working to gather more information from BASF and the Darke County Emergency Management Agency, Boyer said. Ohio Mom Killed While Trying to Stop Car from Being Stolen with Her 6-Year-Old Son Inside Police are searching for the suspects accused of hitting Alexa Stakely Canal Winchester Schools/Facebook Alexa Stakely An Ohio mother was killed as she tried to stop two carjackers from stealing her car with her 6-year-old son inside. Alexa Stakely, who was a speech pathologist for the Canal Winchester, Ohio, school district, suffered traumatic injuries after she was struck by a car early on the morning of July 11, the Columbus Division of Police says. Police say Stakely, a single mother, had just finished a shift at her second job as a waitress and was picking up her son from a babysitters house. After putting her son in her SUV and starting the vehicle, Stakely ran back toward the home to get something from the babysitter. As Stakely was returning to the vehicle, it began backing out and she began running after it, according to police. The 29-year-old mother was then struck by the SUV and thrown onto the pavement, police say. The SUV was then driven through an apartment complex and abandoned, with Stakelys son sleeping inside. The child was unharmed, police say. Two male suspects who were seen running past the scene are being sought by police. Stakely was pronounced dead later that morning. 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. Alexa was passionate about children and speech-language therapy, the Canal Winchester School District said in a Facebook post. She was smart and compassionate, and she cared so much about helping children develop their ability to communicate. She was a great mom who was incredibly dedicated to her son. Ms. Stakely made a difference in the lives of the students and families she worked with and will be missed by so many in our community and beyond." Stakely was known to her students as "Ms. Alexa," according to the post, and worked with preschoolers in the district. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Ohio police are looking for two male suspects in connection with the death of a mother who attempted to stop her car from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside at a Columbus apartment complex. The Franklin County Coroner's office confirmed 29-year-old Alexa Stakely died at Mount Carmel East Hospital Thursday morning. Columbus police said that Stakely went around 1:30 a.m. Thursday to the 6300 block of Blue Knoll Drive at the White Oak Park Condominiums to pick up her son from a babysitter. She brought the sleeping boy out to her Honda CRV, which she left running, while she met the babysitter in the doorway to get the boy's belongings, police said. As Stakely began to return to her vehicle, she saw someone inside beginning to back out onto the roadway. Stakely ran out toward the Honda and was heard screaming for her child and telling the driver to stop. Alexa Stakely, 29, died from her injuries Thursday morning after trying to stop her car from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside the vehicle. Columbus police are searching for at least two suspects. At some point, police said Stakely was struck by the Honda and knocked to the pavement, suffering a "fatal wound" to her head. The vehicle was abandoned a short distance away from where Stakely was struck. Two males were seen running northbound past where she was on the ground, jumping a fence and escaping into a neighboring apartment complex, police said. Earlier that same morning, police said surveillance video caught a group of males looking into apartments in the Castenea Way area, which is a block away from Blue Knoll where the incident with Stakely occurred. Two of the males in that group matched the description of the males who were seen running past Stakely after she had been hit, police said. Medics transported Stakely in critical condition to Mount Carmel East Hospital, where she later died from her injuries at 8:43 a.m. Elementary school mourning death of 'Ms. Alexa' Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday morning from injuries sustained while trying to stop someone from stealing her vehicle. Her 6-year-old son was in the vehicle and is unharmed. Stakely was a speech-language pathologist for Winchester Trail Elementary School in the Canal Winchester Local Schools, the district confirmed Thursday. "Ms. Alexa," as she was known to students, had been with the district for five years, according to a media release. Stakely, a single mother, also worked a second job as a waitress in order to support her 6-year-old son. She had just finished her shift and was picking up her son from the babysitter's home. "Alexa was passionate about children and speech-language therapy. She was smart and compassionate, and she cared so much about helping children develop their ability to communicate," the district said. "She was a great mom who was incredibly dedicated to her son. Ms. Stakely made a difference in the lives of the students and families she worked with and will be missed by so many in our community and beyond." A resident of Pickerington, Stakely graduated from Ohio State University with a master's degree in speech-language pathology, according to her LinkedIn page. Anyone with information including doorbell camera footage that may have captured footage of what happened is asked to call Columbus police homicide detectives at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS. All calls to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio mom dies trying to stop car from being stolen with son inside Columbus police are looking for two male suspects in connection with the death of a mother who attempted to stop her car from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside at a Southeast Side apartment complex. The Franklin County Coroner's Office confirmed 29-year-old Alexa Stakely died Thursday morning at Mount Carmel East Hospital. Columbus police said Stakely went around 1:30 a.m. Thursday to the 6300 block of Blue Knoll Drive at the White Oak Park Condominiums to pick up her son from a babysitter. She brought the sleeping boy out to her Honda CRV, which she left running, while she met the babysitter in the doorway to get the boy's belongings, police said. 'Understaffed and underfunded': The law barred Florence mass shooter from having a gun, but who enforces it? Alexa Stakely, 29, died Thursday morning from injuries sustained while trying to stop someone from stealing her vehicle. Her 6-year-old son was in the vehicle and is unharmed. As Stakely began to return to her vehicle, she saw someone inside beginning to back out onto the roadway. Stakely ran out toward the Honda and was heard screaming for her child and telling the driver to stop. At some point, police said Stakely was struck by the Honda and knocked to the pavement, suffering a "fatal wound" to her head. The child was unhurt. The vehicle was abandoned a short distance away from where Stakely was struck. Two males were seen running northbound past where she was on the ground, jumping a fence and escaping into a neighboring apartment complex, police said. Florence police investigating: NKY couple found dead in suspected murder-suicide Earlier that same morning, police said surveillance video caught a group of males looking into apartments in the Castenea Way area, which is a block away from Blue Knoll where the incident with Stakely occurred. Two of the males in that group matched the description of the males who were seen running past Stakely after she had been hit, police said. Medics transported Stakely in critical condition to Mount Carmel East Hospital, where she later died from her injuries at 8:43 a.m. Winchester Trails Elementary School mourning death of 'Ms. Alexa' Stakely was a speech-language pathologist for Winchester Trail Elementary School in the Canal Winchester Local Schools, the district confirmed Thursday. "Ms. Alexa," as she was known to students, had been with the district for five years, according to a media release. Stakely, a single mother, also worked a second job as a waitress in order to support her 6-year-old son. She had just finished her shift and was picking up her son from the babysitter's home. "Alexa was passionate about children and speech-language therapy. She was smart and compassionate, and she cared so much about helping children develop their ability to communicate," the district said. "She was a great mom who was incredibly dedicated to her son. Ms. Stakely made a difference in the lives of the students and families she worked with and will be missed by so many in our community and beyond." Alexa Stakely, 29, died from her injuries Thursday morning after trying to stop her car from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside the vehicle. Columbus police are searching for at least two suspects. A resident of Pickerington, Stakely graduated from Ohio State University with a master's degree in speech-language pathology, according to her LinkedIn page. Anyone with information including doorbell camera footage that may have captured footage of what happened is asked to call Columbus police homicide detectives at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS. All calls to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. bbruner@gannett.com smeighan@dispatch.com This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police investigate death of mom who tried to stop theft of car Oil companies are seeking to expand offshore drilling for a surprising reason critics say is not worth the risks: 'The concern and worry is there ... because we have been burned once' Oil companies like Shell continue to drill, according to The New York Times, because "the world will continue to need oil." Countries and companies have pledged to get the use of dirty energy sources to net zero by 2050, but the oil companies are betting that won't happen. Besides, the world will still use oil in 2050. To get to net zero, beyond reducing pollution, they will need to balance the toxic gases that go into the atmosphere with an equal amount of removal not an easy task. Either way, oil companies are planning on continuing to be highly needed into 2050 and beyond, for better or worse, and the perhaps surprising development is some of them are exploring ways to reduce pollution during the drilling process. "The world will continue to need oil even in 2050," Wael Sawan, an executive at Shell, recently told the Times. "It will have to be lower and lower emissions." What's happening? Oil companies recently paid $382 million to drill more in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, they are working on expanding their deepwater drilling operations there, as they say offshore drilling "releases fewer greenhouse gases than drilling on land," per the Times report. This means building giant drilling platforms like Shell's Appomattox, which encompasses 100,000 metric tons (over 110,000 U.S. tons) of steel in the middle of the Gulf. These are similar to the Deepwater Horizon platform, which exploded in 2010 and leaked approximately 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. It damaged beaches, tourism, the fishing industry, and countless marine animals. Why is expanding offshore drilling important? While oil companies claim that they have taken steps to make these new platforms safer than before and allegedly with lower pollution (though the Times report casts some doubt on the significance of the difference), they still present a serious potential for disaster. "The concern and worry is there for the right reasons because we have been burned once," Najmedin Meshkati, a University of Southern California professor who studied that spill, said in the Times report. In addition, the continued focus on drilling means less focus on moving to clean energy sources. Brettny Hardy, a lawyer for Earthjustice, pointed out to the Times that "There's really a dire need to accelerate this shift to clean energy. The things the [oil] industry is doing now is not going to help that transition." What's being done about offshore drilling expansion? Though the oil companies might not be helping, people across the United States are working to help us all move to cleaner energy sources. The federal government invested $391 billion in climate technology, and investment in clean energy from other sources has gone up, too. Individual communities are helping, too, like one Chicago neighborhood that invested in geothermal heat pumps for nearly 100 buildings. From asking your electric company about its energy sources to messaging your elected officials about clean energy, every small step takes us a little closer to that 2050 goal. Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. Key Insights DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad's significant public companies ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public The largest shareholder of the company is DKSH Holding AG with a 74% stake Using data from analyst forecasts alongside ownership research, one can better assess the future performance of a company A look at the shareholders of DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad (KLSE:DKSH) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 74% to be precise, is public companies. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company. Meanwhile, individual investors make up 12% of the companys shareholders. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad, beginning with the chart below. View our latest analysis for DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad. The company's largest shareholder is DKSH Holding AG, with ownership of 74%. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. Pangolin Investment Management Pte Ltd is the second largest shareholder owning 2.7% of common stock, and Eastspring Investments (Singapore) Limited holds about 1.4% of the company stock. Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily. Insider Ownership Of DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it. Story continues I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad. It has a market capitalization of just RM815m, and insiders have RM30m worth of shares, in their own names. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but we usually like to see higher insider holdings. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying. General Public Ownership With a 12% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders. Public Company Ownership We can see that public companies hold 74% of the DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad shares on issue. This may be a strategic interest and the two companies may have related business interests. It could be that they have de-merged. This holding is probably worth investigating further. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Berhad (including 1 which doesn't sit too well with us) . If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com The Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital intends on selecting a construction company next week that will eliminate the consequences of the Russian missile attack and begin to reconstruct the hospital; around UAH 800 million (approx. US$19.5 million) has already been raised from benefactors. Source: Interfax-Ukraine news agency Quote: "At the beginning of next week, Okhmatdyt will choose a construction company that will carry out construction work to eliminate the consequences of the missile attack," said Ukraines Minister of Health Viktor Liashko. Details: He went on to say that the hospital and the ministry are working on a technical task for the design of a new building to replace the one that has been entirely destroyed. Lyashko stated that more than UAH 800 million had already been received from partners through charitable foundation accounts. The money will be used, in particular, to construct a new building on the location of the demolished one. According to preliminary estimates, as Lyashko said, the clinic will require equipment replacement costing between UAH 360 and 400 million (US$8.8-9.7 million). He also verified that equipment manufacturers have been offering the delivery of their hardware. The list of equipment needed will be determined by Okhmatdyt. Background: United24 and monobank raised roughly US$6 million for the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv. The participants of the UNITED24 and monobank initiative in support of Okhmatdyt have already gathered US$3.4, with a target of almost 5 million, despite the fact that the project was only launched late Monday evening. United24 and Monobank's fundraiser for Okhmatdyt, which began on Monday, has ended; US$3.7 million were collected, three times the initial target amount. Support UP or become our patron! TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (KNWA/KFTA) An Oklahoma man was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for fatally stabbing a person more than twenty times, according to the United States Attorneys Office Eastern District of Oklahoma. Isaac Newman Sockey, 39, of Tahlequah, Okla., was given life in prison for a first-degree murder charge stemming from a fatal knife attack at a Tahlequah residence on September 8, 2023. Sockey was found guilty on December 12, 2023, following a jury trial at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee. Sockey grabbed a butterfly knife from his bedroom and placed it against the victims throat, according to evidence and testimony presented at the trial. The victim pushed the knife away and tried to disarm Sockey. Oklahoma man sentenced for involuntary manslaughter in connection with fatal crash Sockey then stabbed the victim more than 20 times in the neck, head and torso, according to the release. Life-saving measures were given but the victim died from his injuries. I want to commend the Tahlequah Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation who conducted the investigation, and the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who indicted and prosecuted this case, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Wilson said. Because of their dedication and commitment, Sockey will pay for his vicious and senseless act of violence. The charges came from investigations done by the FBI and the Tahlequah Police Department. Sockey will remain in custody of the U.S. Marshals pending transportation to a United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence, according to the 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 KNWA FOX24. Old Rubio confidant accused of acting as Venezuela agent can go to RNC, judge says A federal judge is allowing embattled former U.S. Rep. David Rivera to travel to Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention. The question is: does U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio want him there? Rivera, whos charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Venezuela President Nicolas Maduros government, has a decades-long personal and political relationship with Rubio. The two men have known one another for decades, and even owned a home together in Tallahassee at one point. They served alongside one another in the Florida state House and Rivera won his U.S. House seat the same year Rubio was elected to the Senate. But their paths have diverged wildly since then. Rivera lost reelection after a single term in Congress and went on to face a litany of legal troubles. Rubio, now in his third term in the U.S. Senate, is a top contender to serve as former President Donald Trumps running mate. The two men may find themselves in the same place again next week during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump will formally accept the GOPs presidential nomination and name his vice presidential pick. Rivera, an elected convention delegate, was freed up to attend the convention after Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres granted his request to travel to Milwaukee. Rivera declined to discuss the trip to Milwaukee on Friday. But his attorney made clear in a June motion that Rivera enthusiastically and fully plans to attend the convention. A spokesperson for Rubio did not respond to the Miami Heralds request for comment. While Rubio is expected to attend the convention next week, its unclear whether hell have a speaking slot at the event. The Republican National Committee has yet to release a full speaker schedule for the convention. Former U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Miami Republican who served two terms representing a South Florida congressional district, said that Riveras presence at next weeks convention, while carrying little actual significance for Rubio, is still a minor distraction at what could be a triumphant moment in Rubios political career. Its a distraction and it could create an awkward situation, Curbelo said. Thats been the case for a long time. The charges The charges against Rivera center on his work as a consultant to help the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuelas state-owned oil company, PDVSA, improve its blemished image in the United States. Federal prosecutors argue that Rivera was working to further Maduros interests without registering with the U.S. Justice Department as a foreign agent an infraction that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Rivera, however, argues that he was actually working for the Venezuelan oil companys U.S. subsidiary, not directly for Maduros government, and didnt violate any U.S. laws in doing so. In addition to being accused of working as an unregistered foreign agent on behalf of Venezuelas government, federal prosecutors also accused Rivera late last year of failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, and funneling some of that money through a political campaign account to himself. Rivera has maintained that while he was lobbying for Venezuelas U.S. oil subsidiary, he was working behind the scenes to weaken Maduros government. His consulting companys contract with the Houston-based subsidiary, PDV USA, did not mention opposition work as part of the job. As he awaits trial, Riveras ability to travel is limited. Under the conditions of his bond, his travel is restricted to the Atlanta, Orlando and Miami areas, as well as New York City. In addition to his request to travel to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention which was granted on Monday Rivera has also asked the courts permission to travel to Mexico as a consultant for an educational institute and to Venezuela for work as a consultant for a candidate challenging Maduro in the countrys upcoming presidential election. Esther Nuhfer, a political associate of Rivera who has also been charged in the case, was also granted permission to travel to the Republican convention. While Rivera has largely been exiled from Rubios orbit, the former congressmans legal troubles have, at times, raised questions about his relationship with Rubio, who was never accused of wrongdoing. In 2016, when Trump and Rubio both sought the Republican presidential nod, Trumps campaign unveiled an ad hitting Rubios friendship with Rivera. Keep Marco and his friends out of the White House, the ad warned. Years later, when Rivera was charged in 2022 in the illegal lobbying case, for example, the indictment mentioned a 2017 meeting between Rivera and a U.S. senator. That senator was eventually acknowledged to be Rubio. At the time, Rubios office said that Rivera never told the senator that he was lobbying on behalf of the Venezuelan government. Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report. SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) One person was killed and two others were injured after a shooting in San Franciscos Mission District early Tuesday morning, the San Francisco Police Department said. There had been another shooting on the same block six days earlier. SFPD responded to the 1900 block of Mission Street at 12:17 a.m. for the report of a shooting and car crash. X plans to sublease San Francisco headquarters: report Officers arrived at the scene and found that a car had collided with several parked cars. The victim was found dead at the scene with a gunshot wound. Officers learned there were two other possible victims. One victim was evaluated at a hospital for potential injuries, and another had a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. No arrests have been made, SFPD said. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (415) 575-4444 or text a tip to TIP 411 and begin the message with SFPD. On July 3, another shooting happened on the 1900 block of Mission Street. A male victim was hospitalized with life-threatening 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 KRON4. NEW YORK Rashawn Jones learned early that in order to stay safe at a Bronx juvenile jail, he could make a key ally: a female counselor with outsized influence over daily operations at the facility. So when Jones, then 16, was called into Natalie Medfords office at Horizon Juvenile Center where he was locked up in 2012 for snatching another kids cellphone he said she offered him a deal that could make or break his time in detention. If I look out for her, shell look out for me, Jones recalled being told, an episode outlined in an interview with the Daily News and in court documents. Medford, more than double Jones age, then pulled down his pants and performed oral sex, according to Jones and a lawsuit filed this spring in Bronx Supreme Court. After that first exchange, I knew exactly what it meant, he said. Jones estimates he was sexually abused by Medford five times while he was detained. Jones was one of a dozen plaintiffs who claim the staffer sexually abused them at Horizon. They are among 250 former detainees who have filed a blockbuster legal claim, currently suing New York City over sexual abuse in juvenile jails. Their civil lawsuits are being brought under a local law that has temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on gender-based violence. Misconduct dating back decades Medford made headlines in the late 2010s for three federal lawsuits against the city that named her and accused her of sexual abuse. She filed counter claims against the city and the victims, saying the allegations were false and malicious, and demanded they pay up for the harm they allegedly caused. The suits were all eventually settled. The latest complaint claims her alleged misconduct dates back further than publicly known, to at least 2005. The Administration for Childrens Services, which operates juvenile jails, confirmed Medford was employed by the city from 2005 to 2015. She continued to receive government checks until 2016, payroll data show. A spokesperson for the agency would not say if Medford was terminated or if they referred the matter for prosecution, but ACS has a zero-tolerance policy on sex abuse that after a thorough investigation could result in termination. Medford could not be reached for comment and is not a named defendant in the lawsuit, which takes aim at the citys policies and procedures that the plaintiffs lawyer said are inadequate, and a culture of secrecy in its juvenile jails. As bad as Natalie Medfords misconduct was, this is not a case of a single bad actor in the system, said Jerome Block, a partner at Levy Konigsberg LLP. Her misconduct is very much consistent with a pattern and practice of sexual abuse that weve seen among many of these adult juvenile detention staff members that has affected hundreds of our clients. Another plaintiff, Gamel McFarland, was in Horizon a few years earlier than Jones. He had just moved back to New York from Ohio where he lived with his mom after fleeing domestic violence and was fighting with his dad, who had spent most of his life in and out of prison. He says he turned to a family friend he considered a cousin, and was roped into assaulting and stealing a few hundred dollars from an older man they knew. At Horizon, McFarland, then 16, received special treatment from Medford, according to interviews and the lawsuit. As he remembers it, she smuggled in Burger King from next door or marijuana between two buns, and let him use her phone. She passed letters between McFarland and a female detainee, he said, dressing her in male uniforms and sneaking her to the boys side of the facility. Medford started visiting McFarlands room before her shift ended, telling him stories about her ex-husband and kissing him on the lips, according to the lawsuit and interviews. Sometimes during those stories, he alleged she would fondle his genitals over his clothes or while he was naked. Shes talking to me while shes doing this, he said. She took advantage of emotions and feelings so you kind of like got no choice but to either say I do not care at all or you feed into it. Medford had promised McFarland a birthday party, which he said they celebrated together after he was released by having sexual intercourse, according to the lawsuit and interviews. She later coerced him into living with her in her home, he and court documents said. I feel like it changed me in ways that I honestly didnt start realizing until recently, he said. Even trusting people, I was putting a lot of trust in her with stuff, I was feeling like she was going to have my back That still effects me with people, as far as me thinking that they really have my back or they really mean what they say or they really care. Warning signs According to the lawsuit, a Horizon employee contacted the city Department of Investigation about Medford, saying she was found naked on top of the detainee inside of the detainees cell, The News reported in 2017. The Bronx district attorneys office confirmed at the time its child abuse and sex crimes unit was investigating but did not return requests for comment last week on the result. Manhattan federal prosecutors also launched a probe into allegations of sexual abuse at Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx, according to a 2018 media report. As lawsuits were filed, a Horizon supervisor ordered records related to the case to be shredded. There is no indication arrests were made. While the case is under review by the Law Department, ACS spokeswoman Marisa Kaufman said the current administration has taken steps to prevent sex abuse from occurring in its facilities. There is a compliance manager with the law at each facility, and other staff have to conduct at least one unannounced inspection during each shift, according to the agency. All uniformed staff who work with detainees have to complete an initial sexual misconduct training and biannual refreshers. Sexual abuse and harassment is abhorrent and unacceptable, and we take these allegations against a former employee very seriously, Kaufman said. It is our mission to provide the highest quality care to youth. But for Jones, the reforms are too late. A Bronx resident, now 26 and living a stones throw away from Horizon, Jones said he used to struggle with suicidal thoughts and learning that men can be victims of sexual abuse. Today, hes hoping to apply to law school and represent young kids who were lost like him. I didnt have the perspective to understand that I was being taken advantage of. I just saw what I was getting out of the deal, Jones said. Speaking to my therapist, she broke it down to me in a way that was so profound. She told me like I was a child. My brain wasnt even fully developed yet. And I was in a place where we are all taught to survive off the meanest of our instincts. UPDATE: SULPHUR, La. (KLFY) Mark Hayden Jr., 37, of Sulphur was killed in the shooting, according to Louisiana State Police. Authorities said the Sulphur Police Department was investigating an earlier domestic incident involving Hayden. Hayden left the scene of the domestic incident before officers arrived, but was later located. During the encounter, Hayden sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene. The Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office assisted in processing the scene. ORIGINAL: SULPHUR, La. (KLFY) One person was killed in an officer-involved shooting that occurred in the 600 block of South Kent Street in Sulphur Thursday evening. The Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division were requested by the Sulphur Police Department to investigate the incident that happened just after 6 p.m. Thursday evening. State Police said no officers were harmed during the shooting. This is an ongoing investigation, and more information will be shared when made available. Anyone with information and/or pictures and video is urged to share that information with State Police. You may anonymously report information through the Louisiana State Police online reporting system by visiting State Police website and clicking on Report Suspicious or Criminal Activity, or calling the LSP Fusion Center Hotline at 1-800-434-8007. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest 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 KLFY.com. One of Kyiv's top tax officials accused of taking bribes, faces 10 years in prison The acting deputy head of the State Tax Service in Kyiv has been detained and accused of taking bribes from companies in exchange for granting entrepreneur licenses, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on July 12. In a post on Facebook, the SBU said the man in question had allegedly taken money from the director of a Kyiv-based company that deals with the wholesale selling of fuel. "In exchange for a monetary 'reward,' the official promised to grant the entrepreneur licenses to sell fuel," it said. He allegedly used an intermediary to receive the bribe in two parts. They were observed by the SBU during the first transaction, and detained whilst making the second. "Investigative actions are being carried out aimed at identifying and prosecuting all perpetrators," the SBU added. He has been charged under section 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine acceptance of an offer, promise, or receiving an improper benefit by an official. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Read also: Opinion: How corrupt is public procurement in Ukraine? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. You dont know who Sandy Miller was but you should. Forty years ago, she started bringing food to First United Methodist Church in North Liberty, where she worshipped and started a small pantry for people in need. Church leaders commended her for doing so and, according to the churchs history, established North Libertys Food Pantry in 1985. Since then, that pantry has grown from a small, church-based mission to a partnership with the city of North Liberty and other civic groups into the North Liberty Community Pantry, at 89 N. Jones Blvd. The pantry has outgrown space in that spot next to the church, which moved to 85 N. Jones Blvd. 24 years ago. You read in the Press-Citizen last month about the need to expand the community pantry to a new location, at 350 W. Penn St., that can serve better people who come through its doors. The North Liberty Community Food Pantry is pictured at, 89 N. Jones Blvd., Tuesday, June 18, 2024 in North Liberty, Iowa. The need to do so is real. The pantry broke a single-month distribution record when it handed out 61,492 pounds of food in May, it reported in a mailing to supporters at the beginning of July. Four of every five families using the pantry say their trips there account for 20% of their food each week. Four years ago, that number was one of every five families, the pantry reported. The pantry had distributed 17,800 clothing items through May this year, three times the 5,800 items distributed just two years ago. What you didnt read in the news story is that the pantry grew from someones compassion for hungry people and how that compassion spread through a local church. Sandy Miller, who passed away some time ago, had little means but her heart was huge. She gave what she could to her church and to people in need. Her giving infected others. A two-shelf pantry emerged in the church basement. Partnerships started with North Liberty First United church groups the youth group, for example, held a yard sale and car wash in 1991 to benefit the pantry. Other church members started distributing childrens clothing that year. In 2000, when the church moved, its campus included a standalone building for outreach ministries that centered around a larger pantry. The food pantry found a niche and was in business serving those in need, the churchs history from 1841-2000 reads. New partnerships with the city and other groups outside the church gave the pantry a true community mission of helping those in need of food and clothing. The pantry moved into its current, larger building on the church grounds in 2013. Even then, however, the growing number of people living with food insecurity 10 years down the road was easy to see. Donations some huge ones from caring resources will be needed to go along with a $100,000 city grant for a facility estimated to cost around $3 million. Hopefully, efforts during a fund drive also can dig into the root causes that send people to North Libertys pantry and others like it in eastern Iowa and put a dent in those causes. But worth remembering will be how the pantry got to where it is today. One person, then a handful, then an armful, then a village, all of them seeds that have grown into a large, collaborating community that can accomplish a lot. It had to start somewhere. Lyle Muller is a retired, long-time Iowa journalist and former executive director-editor of the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism. He is a member of North Liberty First United Methodist Church and researching its history for updates. This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: How one person's generosity birthed a valuable food pantry One of Russian drones launched at Ukraine on 11 July peacefully hovered over Belarus for an hour One of the Shahed kamikaze drones, launched by Russia during another attack on Ukraine on the evening of 11 July, flew into Belarus and remained in Belarusian airspace for at least one hour. Source: Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian Telegram channel monitoring military activity on the territory of the Republic of Belarus Details: Analysts said that the drone entered the Belarusian airspace from Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast in the area of the village of Loyew and headed northwest (towards Mazyr). There is another important detail. When first information emerged about the UAV entering Belarus, a Mi-24 helicopter of the Belarusian Air Force had already been in the airspace over Gomel for more than an hour. The helicopter had taken off from the Machulishchy airfield at around 19:00, and a fighter jet from Baranavichy had taken off even earlier, at around 18:30. This at least indicates that the Belarusian air defence forces had detected the Shahed's entry into Belarus long before the information appeared on Telegram channels, and the drone had entered their airspace at around 19:00. Moreover, at the time of the first public reports, the Belarusian Air Force fighter jet had taken off from Gomel Oblast, and shortly afterward, the helicopter returned to Machulishchy. The Belarusian forces may have been aware of the upcoming manoeuvres and were controlling the airspace over Belarus in case of unexpected behaviour from one of the Shahed drones, noted Belaruski Hajun. Support UP or become our patron! On July 11, 2024, Kimberly Rutledge, Chief People Officer of Q2 Holdings Inc (NYSE:QTWO), sold 1,953 shares of the company. The transaction was reported in a recent SEC Filing. Following this sale, the insider now owns 115,436 shares of Q2 Holdings Inc. Q2 Holdings Inc specializes in providing cloud-based virtual banking solutions. The company's offerings help financial institutions deliver secure and intuitive interaction with their retail and commercial account holders. Over the past year, the insider has sold a total of 21,403 shares and has not made any purchases. This recent transaction is part of a broader trend observed at Q2 Holdings Inc, where there have been 58 insider sells and no insider buys over the past year. Shares of Q2 Holdings Inc were trading at $65 on the day of the sale, giving the company a market cap of approximately $3.94 billion. According to the GF Value, the intrinsic value estimate for the stock is $47.97, indicating that the stock is significantly overvalued with a price-to-GF-Value ratio of 1.36. The GF Value is calculated based on historical multiples such as price-earnings ratio, price-sales ratio, price-book ratio, and price-to-free cash flow, along with a GuruFocus adjustment factor based on past returns and growth, and future business performance estimates from Morningstar analysts. Insider Sale at Q2 Holdings Inc (QTWO): Chief People Officer Kimberly Rutledge Sells Shares Insider Sale at Q2 Holdings Inc (QTWO): Chief People Officer Kimberly Rutledge Sells Shares This insider sale could be of interest to investors monitoring insider behaviors and evaluating the valuation levels of Q2 Holdings Inc's stock. This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. How would an open Democratic convention work? WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) President Joe Biden says hes continuing his campaign, as calls grow louder in his own party for him to step aside. Its fueling speculation that Democratic convention delegates could be tempted to choose another nominee. During a high-stakes news conference Thursday, President Biden said Democratic delegates should vote their conscience at the Democratic convention next month. Theyre free to do whatever they want, Biden said. And if that means voting for another candidate, he says, Thats the democratic process. Its not going to happen. Nearly 4,000 delegates have committed to nominating President Biden, but they can change their minds. The delegates make the decision, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said. California Congressman Brad Sherman supports the president but knows his debate performance is hard to forget. If the delegates feel that the candidate before them in August is June 27 Joe Biden, they may go in another direction, Sherman said. While some have said an open convention discredits millions of Democrats who voted for the president in the primaries, others say its the right move. Connecticut Democratic Congressman Jim Himes is one of the latest lawmakers to call on the president to drop out. He defends the idea of delegates making their own decision. We shouldnt be afraid of what we purport to defend, which is a democratic process: delegates coming together and deciding, Himes said. George Washington University Professor Casey Burgat explains what exactly a contested convention might look like. There will be speeches made on behalf of those nominees. There will be backroom dealings, Burgat said. Burgat says if the president withdraws, it could be a free-for-all at the DNC. They make their case for why they should be the nominee going forward, and then the delegations would vote in alphabetical order, and the first one to a majority would win, Burgat said. Sherman said that seems unlikely, for now. In the absence of a consensus, the delegates will vote for Joe Biden, Sherman said. The Democratic convention starts Aug. 19 in Chicago. 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. A former OpenAI worker says he quit the company after realizing that it was putting safety on the back burner to pursue profit. During a recent episode of tech YouTuber Alex Kantrowitz's podcast, former Superalignment team member William Saunders used an apt analogy to explain why he left. "I really didn't want to end up working for the Titanic of AI, and so that's why I resigned," he said. "During my three years at OpenAI, I would sometimes ask myself a question. Was the path that OpenAI was on more like the Apollo program or more like the Titanic?" Saunders argued that the Titanic may have been called "unsinkable, but at the same time there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone and so when disaster struck, a lot of people died." The former employee accused OpenAI of "prioritizing getting out newer, shinier products," just like White Star Line, the now-defunct British shipping company that built the doomed Titanic. His comments highlight growing concerns over companies like OpenAI developing AI systems that are capable of superseding the abilities of humans, an idea dubbed artificial general intelligence (AG) something that currently remains entirely theoretical, but is a source of great interest to executives like OpenAI's Sam Altman. We've already seen several other former employees coming forward, accusing leadership of turning a blind eye to these concerns and stifling oversight. OpenAI's commitment to safety is also shaky as far as its ever-shifting corporate structure is concerned. Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that he was dissolving the safety-oriented Superalignment team which Saunders was once a part of and installing himself at the helm instead. At the time, the company said it was creating a new "safety and security committee." The leader of the now-dissolved team, former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, announced last month that he was starting a new company called Safe Superintelligence Inc, which according to him will have a "straight shot, with one focus, one goal, and one product." Critics have long pointed out that despite Altman claiming from the very start that he was looking to realize AGI in a safe way, the company has played fast and loose with the rules and prioritized pursuing the release of shiny new chatbots, major rounds of funding, and billion-dollar partnerships with tech giants like Microsoft. To Saunders, these concerns were enough of a reason for him to quit. Instead, he hoped OpenAI would operate more like NASA's Apollo space program. "Even when big problems happened, like Apollo 13, they had enough sort of like redundancy, and were able to adapt to the situation in order to bring everyone back safely," he told Kantrowitz. "It is not possible to develop AGI or any new technology with zero risk," he added in an email to Business Insider after the publication pointed out that the Apollo program saw its own fair share of safety oversights. "What I would like to see is the company taking all possible reasonable steps to prevent these risks." Of course, it remains unclear whether any of these risks will turn out to be justified. After all, we're still far from an actual AI that can outwit a human, and experts have pointed out that the tech may not end up going anywhere. Nonetheless, Saunders' comments paint a worrying picture of how OpenAI is being run and the changes Altman has made over the last couple of years. More on OpenAI: Expert Warns That AI Industry Due for Huge Collapse There have always been two Joe Bidens, Jon Lovett wrote on social media recently. Lovett, a podcast host and former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, explained that one Biden is a decent, big-hearted leader while the other is a blowhard with a chip on his shoulder, stubborn, [with] something to prove. At the July 11 press conference on NATOboth Bidens showed up. The big-hearted leader displayed a deep knowledge on difficult topics including China aiding Russia in its aggression toward Ukraine and the need to defeat Hamas and establish a two-state solution in the region. At the same time, blowhard Biden heaped praise on himself, refusing to share credit with others. When challenged to respond to calls that he should withdraw from the race, Biden staunchly defended himself. Am I getting the job done? he replied. Can you name me somebody whos got more major pieces of legislation passed in three-and-a-half years? I gotI created 2000 jobs just last week. But the president didnt score these achievements single-handedly. It seemed strange that Biden didnt include a shoutout to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and past and present House Speakers Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries who rallied Congress to get that legislation passed. With the exception of one mention of my team, Biden kept the spotlight on himself for the entire hour. He only mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris when asked by a reporter about her accomplishments over the last four years. While Biden voiced enthusiasm for HarrisIn the Senate, she was really goodhe then turned the focus back on himself, reminding the audience, I wouldnt have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be President. That speaks to his good judgment, not hers. Because the focus of the press conference was NATO and foreign policy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin all attended. In answer after answer about conflicts around the globe, Biden never acknowledged the Herculean efforts of these three men sitting in the front row. Biden passed over so many opportunities to spread praise. When talking about the rebounding economy, he could have mentioned the expertise of Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellin. Why not single out Pete Buttigiegs impressive work in reopening the Port of Baltimore which was important to the economy? Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre probably would have deeply appreciated if Biden had commended her work with this group of journalists. Instead, Biden clung to the notion that he was responsible for all the success. One reporter pointed out that Biden had once called himself a bridge candidate for a new generation of Democratic leaders but wasnt following through. The reporter asked, what changed? What changed, Biden responded, was the gravity of the situation I inherited, in terms of the economy, our foreign policy and domestic division. And I thinkI wont put words in anybodys mouthmost presidential historians give me credit for having accomplished more than most any president since Johnson and maybe before that. If he was watching at home, Obama might have raised an eyebrow at this statement. After all he signed the Affordable Care Act into law in his second year in office and that was a big effing deal. Bidens puffery seemed ungenerous and potentially self-destructive for a politician who is facing cries from his own party to drop out of the race. Instead of praising his inner circle, Biden actually took a swipe at them. I love my staff, he said when talking about his overloaded schedule. But they add things. They add things all the time. Then Biden finished with a subtle dig at Dr. Jill Biden. Im catching hell from my wife, he added. Ah, the old ball and chain. At 81, Biden has admitted that his capacities have diminished so the press conference could have been used to remind people that the presidency is not just him. Jon Stewart has criticized Bidens claims that he alone could hold NATO together. Stewart even categorized the presidents self-centered attitude as Trumpian. But self-aggrandizement is rampant among a lot of powerful white men. The problem for Biden is that he has recently shifted from the most privileged group to an -ism. And in the face of ageism, he must adjust his privilege. Women who have faced sexism their whole lives learn early that they have to be a team player if they want to succeed. Its a tactic supported by the work of Stanford sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway who found that Females in male groups (low external status members) achieved fairly high influence and status when they appeared group-oriented, but very low status when self-oriented. Sadly for Biden, he is now part of a lower-status group. Ten years ago, he might have gotten away with a statement like, Weve never been here before. And thats the other reason why I didnt, you say, hand off to another generation. I gotta finish the job. But today, the President might want to consider changing pronouns. That may sound woke, but a simple switch from I to Weas in We gotta finish the jobcould make Biden sound like more of a leader and less out for himself. 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. Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher. Its not just the battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump the world should be watching. Elections this November on the state and local levels will be crucial to the future of America, says The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy on this weeks podcast. Joining Levy is Aaron Kleinman, director of research for The States Project, who breaks down the importance of getting Democrats elected in crucial state elections. I think the states with competitive state legislative elections where either control of a chamber or a supermajority threshold is up, really overlaps a lot with the traditional presidential battle grounds, Kleinman says. Were talking about states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, where in 2022 we were able to help win majorities that have been really passing a lot of great bills. Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast. Wisconsin, Kleinman adds, is another one to keep an eye on after the state Supreme Court recently ruled that their old maps were unconstitutional. Democrats Should at Least TRY Gaslighting Their Way Out of Bidens Age Crisis Then, investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica, Phoebe Petrovic, joins the show to talk about her latest article, The Gospel of Matthew Trewhella: How a Militant Anti-Abortion Activist Is Influencing Republican Politics. According to The New Abnormal co-host Danielle Moodie, the report brings us behind the scenes of something that is even more sinister than what we usually discuss on The New Abnormal, about how Republicans are using right wing theocratic beliefs to solidify some of their most egregious policy ideas. Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher. 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. Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de Leon recently introduced motions to rename Pershing Square after Bridget Biddy Mason, who got her freedom from bondage in Los Angeles in the 1850s. His effort to reimagine the long-beleaguered public space, which is undergoing renovations, may be well-intentioned. But it is also disconcerting. For one thing, Biddy Mason Memorial Park, opened in 1989, already recognizes her accomplishments at her homestead a few blocks northeast of Pershing Square, at Third and Spring streets. Why hasnt De Leon considered other worthy Los Angeles Black settlers who owned property and enterprises downtown so that more of the citys pioneering African Americans could be recognized? Black Angelenos whose stories are less known could be honored at the site. It seems all too possible that De Leon is pandering to the Black community, women and others to make up for that infamous racist conversation among city leaders exposed in 2022. Given their redundancy with an existing memorial, his efforts do not seem truly directed at showcasing Los Angeles overlooked histories and historical figures. Read more: Column: Is Kevin de Leon's push to honor Black L.A. history heartfelt, or cynical? Take, for instance, Robert and Winnie Owens and their children, Sarah, Martha and Charles, who were also prominent formerly enslaved people and have yet to be appropriately recognized by the city. Robert Owens purchased his and his familys freedom from bondage, and they migrated from Texas to Los Angeles between 1852 and 1853. The Owens family owned real estate and a livery venture and provided other business services in Los Angeles. By the time the formidable Robert Owens died, in 1865, he was considered the wealthiest African American in Los Angeles County. This family along with Los Angeles Manuel Pepper and San Bernardino Countys Elizabeth Rowan, both African American, and a few white allies helped Mason, her children and members of her extended family escape enslavement in 1856. Mason and her children, Ellen, Ann and Harriett, initially lived with the Owens family as newly free people in Los Angeles while forming a relationship with their adopted community. This helped the elder Mason develop her successful midwife practice. She eventually became the first African American woman who was a sole owner of real estate she purchased. Biddy Masons daughter Ellen married Charles Owens, merging the two families. Louis (or Lewis) Green, a barber who held other occupations in his lifetime, is another Black Angeleno pioneer worthy of broader recognition in our civic memory. After he overcame racist subterfuge by white locals, Green became the rst African American to register to vote in Los Angeles County in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black men. Biddy Mason Memorial Park was among the first significant efforts to acknowledge the histories of working people and communities of color in Los Angeles public spaces. Created by the nonprofit group the Power of Place, the project was a result of years of historical research, community engagement, collaboration, wrangling over permitting and policy and fighting with dismissive city leaders. Thirty years later, in 2019, when then-Mayor Eric Garcetti convened advisors, historians, cultural critics and designers as the Civic Memory Working Group, the Power of Place initiative remained an important touchstone. Read more: 13 historical sites that made Central Avenue the cultural lifeline of South L.A. Yet it seems too easily forgotten. In proposing to rename Pershing Square for Biddy Mason, De Leon has derided the Memorial Park, which is in his district, as dark and secluded . Its unclear if or how he intends to fix that. The city seems to have done little to sustain Biddy Mason Memorial Park. There are no big entrance signs; two small metal plaques on Spring and Third Streets, both defaced, offer no directional guidance. The lighting and seating do not invite visitors to look at the weathered commemorative features, which are overdue for rehabilitation. These include Biddy Masons Time and Place, designed by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, a commemorative wall with imprints and artifacts of Masons life and times. Adjacent to it is Biddy Mason: House of the Open Hand, by the renowned Los Angeles-based African American artist Betye Saar, whose installation offers a glimpse of what Masons home looked like based on historical photographs. The city has long lacked a process and policies for addressing commemorative sites. The Mayors Civic Memory Working Group was formed to address this gap. In a 2022 report by the group , then-Chief Design Officer Christopher Hawthorne wrote a chief lesson is that broad-based discussions about memorialization and commemoration are needed, and that Los Angeles has not yet engaged in that conversation to the degree it needs to, especially when it comes to initiatives launched from City Hall. L.A. needs to reconsider civic memory beyond renaming places, removing statues and creating new commemorative efforts. This requires more comprehensive review and maintenance of past efforts. The report also stresses the need for community involvement, acknowledgment of multilayered histories and a thorough process involving historians, Indigenous leaders and community elders. De Leon should join us in calling on his fellow City Council members and Mayor Karen Bass to take the steps clearly laid out by the Civic Memory Working Group to honor Biddy Mason and others like her. Alison Rose Jefferson is a historian, curator, heritage conservation consultant and the author, most recently, of Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era. Catherine Gudis is a professor of history and the director of the public history program at UC Riverside, the scholar in residence at the Los Angeles Poverty Department's Skid Row History Museum & Archive, and a former member of the Civic Memory Working Group. 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. While it's difficult to boil down any Supreme Court term to a single theme, this one was marked by the court's determination to make the country safe for corruption. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) In the three years since conservatives seized a Supreme Court supermajority, they have overruled at least one major precedent a year. This year, from crippling federal agencies to giving presidents sweeping protection from accountability, they showed no signs of slowing down. While its difficult to boil down any Supreme Court term to a single theme, this one was marked by the courts determination to make the country safe for corruption. Officials who abuse their offices including Supreme Court justices eager to seize power at the expense of democracy had a very good year. Take, for example, Snyder vs. United States , in which the court rewrote federal anti-corruption laws to permit rather than prohibit corruption. Read more: Litman: Will Trump's conviction survive the Supreme Court's immunity ruling? It's complicated The case concerned a trucking company that paid an Indiana mayor $13,000 for consulting services after his city awarded the company a $1.1-million contract. In considering whether state and local officials may receive gifts, tips or gratuities for official acts, the courts six Republican-appointed justices concluded that such rewards are perfectly legal even though, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson explained in dissent, they are functionally indistinguishable from taking a bribe. Jackson pointedly wrote that the majoritys absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only todays Court could love. Indeed, the majority that decided the case included Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who themselves have accepted gifts and rewards from billionaires, some of whom have a stake in the courts business. The courts penchant for insulating abuses of power from accountability is not limited to public corruption. In a series of less noticed cases, the court gave powerful corporations a kind of immunity from regulation even when they endanger the public. These cases are technical, but their effects are profound. Read more: Opinion: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has vast power and life tenure. So what's his problem? In one such case , the court overruled the 40-year-old so-called Chevron doctrine, asserting that the federal courts, not federal agencies, have the power to determine when corporations violate federal environmental, consumer protection, workplace safety and public health laws. Under Chevron, when a statute was ambiguous, courts were required to defer to the judgments of expert administrative agencies. Now the courts, many of them stocked with conservative judges who are hostile to regulation and keen on catering to corporate interests, have the last word. Thats not all. The court also claimed the power to second-guess and pick apart agency regulations, making it easier for companies to challenge them. In Ohio vs. Environmental Protection Agency , five Republican justices blocked an EPA anti-pollution rule because they didnt think the agencys experts had sufficiently explained their efforts to control ozone pollution. (It was not clear that the court itself possessed the expertise to render this determination. The majority opinion initially confused nitrogen oxides, which cause smog, with nitrous oxide, the laughing gas often used for dental procedures.) In another attack on agency authority, the court hobbled the Securities and Exchange Commissions ability to enforce federal securities laws. In SEC vs. Jarkesy , the conservative bloc held that agencies cant use administrative law judges and internal procedures to impose civil penalties on companies that violate federal securities laws. Rather, the court declared that companies are entitled to have these cases heard in the federal courts, which are slower than the agencies and populated with Trump appointees handpicked by the Federalist Society partly for their enthusiasm for deregulation. The ruling is likely to force agencies to triage their enforcement of securities laws, focusing on the most egregious violations while abandoning smaller claims often brought by individual investors. On the last day of the term, the court tilted the legal landscape even further in favor of corporations by inviting more challenges to regulation. In an under-the-radar case , the six conservatives held that plaintiffs may challenge even long-standing agency regulations as long as they claim some new injury from them. As Justice Jackson warned in dissent, this means any new business can contest even thoroughly established regulations, and well-heeled litigants can game the system by creating new entities to challenge such rules. The finale of a term preoccupied with protecting corrupt abuses of power was, of course, the decision effectively crowning the president a king unbound by the constraints of law. In Trump vs. United States , the court granted presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution when they are exercising their core constitutional authority even if they are abusing that authority for corrupt ends. That means special counsel Jack Smith, for instance, cant prosecute Donald Trump for pressuring the Department of Justice to gin up baseless allegations of voter fraud. This decision is all the more terrifying in light of the former presidents promise to seek retribution and prosecute his political rivals and critics. The majoritys embrace of an executive absolutely unfettered by judgment or law was so chilling that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Jackson, was moved to write, With fear for our democracy, I dissent. But the immunity decision goes even further by cloaking presidents with at least a presumption of immunity for any actions that fall within the perimeters of their official duties. There too, the court insisted that the presidents motives are irrelevant even if he corruptly abuses the powers of his office say, by ordering his subordinates to prosecute or assassinate a rival. Indeed, the court even made it difficult to prove abuses of presidential power by prohibiting prosecutors from introducing evidence of the presidents motives for official acts, which effectively blocks any criminal prosecution of such conduct. In all, its been a banner term for public and private corruption, which the courts conservatives repeatedly blessed in its various forms. Even in dodging any substantial holding on two key abortion cases, which on the surface had little to do with government or corporate accountability, the court seemed to be striving to limit the salience of reproductive rights in the coming election. So as the court was seizing power and using it to enable corruption, it also invited suspicion that it was corruptly using its own power to boost the electoral fortunes of the party it favors. Leah Litman is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. Melissa Murray is a professor of law at the New York University School of Law. They are co-hosts of the Strict Scrutiny podcast. 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. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images The most significant thing about President Bidens Thursday press conference following the NATO summit was that while he was doing it, his opponent in the race was meeting with one of Vladimir Putins errand boys at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. That errand boy, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, had spent the past week meeting with Putin in Moscow and Xi Jinping in Beijing and had wanted to complete his world tour with Americas No. 1 fan of authoritarianism and Putins No. 1 useful idiot. In contrast, President Biden delivered in an hour-long press conference a strong defense of the NATO alliance that Bidens opponent has denigrated and threatened to pull out of. Biden condemned Vladimir Putin for the monster he is, even as it is clear that his opponent and Orban were not only eager to do the Kremlins bidding but they were also determined to contrast themselves with the pro-democracy, pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia leaders who made up all the other attendees at the NATO summit. While media outlets started focusing on Biden gaffes even before the press conferenceciting his introduction of Ukraines President Zelensky that featured the U.S. president saying, Ladies and gentlemen, President Putinthe gaffes were hardly the most notable feature of Bidens performance. And yes, there was more than one gaffe. He also referred to his own running mate as Vice President Trump. And he misspoke about his destinations on some trips. How Biden Muffled the Medias Fury at NATO Press Conference But that was all superficial. It was exciting to the media because they were eager to use this press conference to move along the narrative that Biden was not up to the job and that his stumbles would lead his party to dump him and seek a different candidate. But sadly for the cable news networks and others in the press who were frothing at the bit to describe a doddering president being torn apart by the sharks of the media that just didnt happen. Biden did just fine. He showed an extensive knowledge of foreign policy issues. He displayed a solid memory and a good command of facts. If you were grading the event, youd probably give him a B, taking points off for his presentation, which was pretty lackluster, and the fact that he also did not put the story of whether he should be the candidate to rest once and for all. Within moments of the end of the press conference, one of Congress most respected and knowledgeable members, Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, called upon Biden to drop out of the race. Others followed. Democrats messaged each other with frustration that Bidens messages continued to be defensive, and his overall appearance was of a guy who might well make it through the election but who was visibly slowing and who was unlikely to remain effective throughout a second term. One wrote me and said what she was seeing made her sad. Another wrote to say it was the worst of both worlds because Biden and his team were likely to come out of feeling they did OK, but that nothing that occurred suggested Biden would be able to dig himself out of the dead heat with Trump that he has been in for many months. Substantively, there were two areas in which Bidens performancefor all of its strengthsdeserved some criticism. In the first instance, frankly, while his foreign policy answers showed his experience, he did not effectively address real weaknesses in his foreign policy. He defended his Israel-Gaza policy and fumbled for an answer about whether he had any regrets about his handling of it although even the casual observer given the carnage in Gaza knows there is plenty to regret about administration policy there and the way they have been played by the Netanyahu government in Israel. He also hemmed and hawed his way around a question about why the U.S. would not allow Ukraine to use the weapons we provide to strike more deeply into Russia. That said, in both cases, he demonstrated more mastery of the subjects and sound thinking than Donald Trump has ever mustered about any foreign (or domestic) policy topic in his life. In fact, as Biden sharply pointed out, Trump the other day acknowledged that he did not even know what NATO was until he became president. Sad. But the above are the kind of policy questions we should be grappling with after a post-NATO presidential news conference. Indeed, they are kind of debates that have been going on within Bidens inner circle of advisors too. Nothing wrong with any of that. Of greater concern was that Biden seems to think he is the only one who can beat Trump or lead America at this moment. He even said in response to one question that while he promised to be a bridge president he gave up on that because the issues we faced were so big. That implied the next generation of leaders were not up to dealing with them. That is patently wrong and indeed, I think it is dramatically wrong. Next generation leaders and ideas are precisely what we need right now and frankly, one reason the electorate is pretty turned off by this election is that we have the two most elderly candidates in history saying as Trump once did, I alone can fix it. No: no one alone can fix it and generations with a greater stake in the future must play an ever bigger role in shaping the solutions they must live with. Further, Biden was defensive on what might make him step down in ways that suggested that he was not hearing the concerns of the rest of the party. It is clear he believes that if only tries harder, does more, that they will see hes still up to it and everything will be fine. Unfortunately, for all the questions that were posed during the press conference, the one that was not answered is whether Joe Biden is right or not about whether now is the time for a change atop the Democratic ticket. And so nothing much changed. So on to the next big campaign drama. And then on to the contest that will pit Biden, a man who clearly understands the role America must play to keep the peace and to lead in the world, against Donald Trump, who not only does not but who is clearly working to advance the interests of our enemies. 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. This article was originally published in The Conversation. Black youth show up in emergency rooms with gunshot wounds or other violent injuries at an alarming and disproportionate rate in the United States. Some hospitals have violence interventions that can be effective in keeping these kids safer after they are treated, but in most cases victims are sent back into the world to continue their struggles. What if there were a way to prevent these kids from ending up in that hospital room in the first place? What if, years earlier, we could identify factors that predict which children are most likely to head down paths to violence? Im a social scientist focused on this question, and my research has led me to an answer that I believe is at once obvious and profound: Find these children early in public schools and help them then and there. The study I led provides evidence that kids who grow up in poverty or who are referred to child protective services are significantly more likely to become victims of violence when they become teenagers. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter A unique study with unusual access to information To do our study, my team looked at records for 429 Black youths who had been sent to the ER for gunshot wounds or injuries from severe assaults over a one-year period. They included hospital, child protective service and juvenile court records, among others. This was made possible because the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University keeps troves of identifiable records on each of the 700,000 children who live in Cleveland. The records include information from more than 30 administrative agencies. This rare resource allowed us to follow the life path of these young people from birth all the way to their arrival at emergency rooms with their injuries. The children ranged in age from 5 to 16 but averaged about 12. We compared this study group with a control group of 5,000 youths who were not victims of gunfire or assault in that year but who grew up in the same neighborhoods and were similar in race, age and gender as the injured group. As a result, we built a sophisticated picture of the childhood experiences that lead to violent injuries for low-income Black youths. Our objective was to find points of potential intervention. Juvenile delinquency is not the most important predictor Two factors that figure prominently in the backgrounds of violently injured youth are kids who have had interactions with both the juvenile court and child protection systems. Studies have shown they are at the highest risk of eventually suffering a violent injury, so a large portion of public resources go to addressing these children. In our study, victims of violence were four times more likely to be involved with juvenile court than noninjured youth in the control group. Yet kids who endured both factors are also a minority of the youths in our study who were violently injured. In fact, 75% of violently injured youths fell into two other groups. One was those who attend public school and had received public assistance in early life. The other was those who attended public school and had been involved in the child welfare system before they were 5. Kids and teens in our study who ended up in the emergency room by age 13 as victims of violence were nearly three times more likely have been in foster care by age 4 compared to noninjured kids in our control group. Likewise, injured kids were twice as likely to have lived in a homeless shelter by age 7. And violently injured kids were chronically absent from school at rates 1.5 times higher than non-injured kids. That is an important revelation. It shows that poverty and domestic problems loom larger than interactions with juvenile courts in foretelling eventual violent injury. Public schools are the common denominator School is where we can identify these children in their high-risk groups. To be clear, going to public school is not itself a risk factor; its just an opportune situation to help them. Its an ideal place because it is both a compulsory and, ideally, a nonthreatening environment. Still, there are important barriers to doing this effectively. In the best-case scenario, public schools could provide special attention to students whose families have been on public assistance or investigated by child protective services as early as age 5. But to do so, they or whichever agency is in a position to help would need information from individual records that are often private and unavailable. In Cleveland, much of this information is being integrated by Case Western and available to us as researchers on grounds we do not divulge details that could identify a specific child or family. Child protection services records in particular are almost always confidential and unavailable to anyone not directly involved in a particular case without a court order. What can be done Those privacy safeguards are important but not insurmountable. At least one community, Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, has found a way to identify families in need that has proven effective. Communities that dont have access to integrated data like Alleghenys model can instead use school screening questionnaires that strike a balance between getting information and permitting families a level of privacy about what they share. These youths are reachable long before they show up in the ER. Our research tells us where to find them. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Somewhere in the great beyond, Sherman S. Smith is smiling. Smith was a populist, which was just as rare in the Utah Legislature at the dawn of the 20th century, when he served as a representative of Ogden, as it is today. Yet he somehow got lawmakers to pass an amendment in 1899 to the state Constitution allowing the people to pass or modify laws directly through initiatives or referendums. Voters then ratified this at the ballot box in 1900, and generations of Utah lawmakers have been fighting it ever since. That battle took another turn on Thursday this time decidedly in favor of the people. The drawing of political maps may never be the same. But history suggests this wont be the last word. Back in 1900, lawmakers tried to ignore the whole initiative thing. They waited 16 years to pass any sort of law outlining how this new right was to be exercised, then spent more than a century trying to either water down or entangle it in a labyrinth of rules. But they have never been able to navigate around one huge obstacle Smiths amendment still sits in the Constitution, right where he helped to place it. On Thursday, the state Supreme Court said that has to mean something. The peoples constitutional right to alter or reform their government is protected from government infringement, said the unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Paige Petersen. We could not hold otherwise, as the Declaration of Rights of the Utah Constitution states explicitly that: All political power is inherent in the people; and all free governments are founded on their authority for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform their government as the public welfare may require. And when they do so, these rights (are) protected from government infringement. In 2018, Utah voters passed three citizen initiatives into law. Lawmakers ended up rewriting all three, to some extent. One of those was a measure that created an independent redistricting commission to redraw the states political maps every 10 years. Lawmakers enacted changes that were challenged through a lawsuit by a group that included the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a group of Salt Lake voters. They said Republican lawmakers were drawing these maps in ways that preserved their own power. Or, in other words, they were trying to choose their voters, rather than let voters choose them. Voters approved this initiative, but before new maps could be drawn in 2021, state lawmakers had passed a law that, among other things, allowed them to reject the new commissions recommendations without comment. The original initiative had required them to publicly state their reasons for rejecting those recommendations and to explain why their maps better satisfie(d) the neutral redistricting standards and requirements the initiative called for. Now, the Supreme Court has sent this case back to a lower court. More importantly, it has ruled that the state Constitution limit(s) the Legislatures authority to amend or repeal an initiative that reforms the government. Thats a decision that likely will reverberate through Utahs halls of power for a while. Judging by a strongly worded statement by the House speaker and Senate president, which accused the court of moving Utah more toward California, the battle will continue. Lawmakers do have some good reasons for disliking initiatives. Voters elect state lawmakers to represent them in the arduous task of writing laws. Generally speaking, bills are subject to committee hearings, where they can be amended and where the public can voice opinions. Still, members of the public that attend such meetings get a few minutes to speak and sometimes leave believing lawmakers have made up their minds long before the committee meeting. Initiatives, on the other hand, are presented to voters for an up-or-down vote, period. Also, lawmakers have a duty to look out for the welfare of the entire state and its budget. An initiative, on the other hand, could raise taxes or reallocate funds for one narrow purpose without considering its effects on other parts of the state. Two other 2018 initiatives one legalizing medical marijuana and one expanding Medicaid were either broadly written or included tax increases. Lawmakers are left to deal with the unintended consequences of such things. And yet, lawmakers sometimes ignore things the public has said it wants. Also, voters have at times risen up to kill laws they didnt like, from a school voucher law in 2007 to a tax reform package in 2020. Back in 1900, when Smith still roamed the Capitol, Utah was only the second state to adopt an initiative and referendum process, behind South Dakota. Yet it wasnt until 1961 that one actually passed. Today, Utah is one of only 26 states that allow initiatives, referendums or both, according to Ballotpedia. In other words, these are not rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Even though it was 124 years ago, Utah voluntarily chose to put itself in this pickle. But democracy never was intended to be easy. When representative government has to contend with direct democracy, that is at least doubly so. The result of this struggle, however, could be better laws and outcomes. At least, thats what I imagine Sherman S. Smith would tell us if he were here. Inspired Plc (LON:INSE) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 14% in the last quarter. But that is small recompense for the exasperating returns over three years. Regrettably, the share price slid 63% in that period. So it is really good to see an improvement. While many would remain nervous, there could be further gains if the business can put its best foot forward. So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress. Check out our latest analysis for Inspired Given that Inspired didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth. In the last three years, Inspired saw its revenue grow by 25% per year, compound. That's well above most other pre-profit companies. The share price has moved in quite the opposite direction, down 18% over that time, a bad result. This could mean hype has come out of the stock because the losses are concerning investors. But a share price drop of that magnitude could well signal that the market is overly negative on the stock. The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). If you are thinking of buying or selling Inspired stock, you should check out this FREE detailed report on its balance sheet. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Inspired, it has a TSR of -60% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return. A Different Perspective Inspired shareholders are down 18% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 13%. Even the share prices of good stocks drop sometimes, but we want to see improvements in the fundamental metrics of a business, before getting too interested. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 7% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. Even so, be aware that Inspired is showing 5 warning signs in our investment analysis , and 1 of those can't be ignored... If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: many of them are unnoticed AND have attractive valuation). Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on British exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Today we are in the middle of a hype cycle in which companies are racing to integrate artificial intelligence tools into products, transforming fields including logistics, manufacturing and healthcare. The global AI market was worth approximately $200 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow more than 20% each year to nearly $2 trillion by 2030 . There are no exact numbers of how many workers participate globally in the industry, but the figure is in the millions. And if trends continue at their current rate, their number will expand dramatically. When we use AI products, we are inserting ourselves into the lives of these workers . Many tech companies present a vision of their products as shining, autonomous machines computers teaching themselves as they go from huge quantities of data rather than the reality of the labor that trains them and is managed by them. Read more: Would you want a chatbot to help you through grief? The illusion of autonomous AI has historical roots. In the late 18th century, a supposedly automated chess-playing machine, the Mechanical Turk, was developed to impress the empress of Austria. The inventor of the machine, Wolfgang von Kempelen, claimed it could play chess automatically of its own accord, but hidden inside the box was a human chess master who operated it through a series of levers and mirrors. Todays AI benefits from a similar illusion. Sophisticated software functions only through thousands of hours of low-paid, menial labor workers forced to work like robots in the hopes that AI will become more like a human. Amazon even coined the term artificial artificial intelligence to describe this process of keeping human labor integrated into seemingly automated processes. From a labor perspective, AI is really an extraction machine. Beneath the polished exterior of our devices lies the complex network of components and relationships necessary to power it. When AI breaks down or does not function properly, human workers are there to step in and assist algorithms in completing the work. When Siri does not recognize a voice command or when facial recognition software fails to verify a persons identity, these cases are often sent to human workers to establish what went wrong and how the algorithm could be improved. Interviewing workers from Kenya, Uganda, Ireland, Iceland, the United Kingdom and the U.S., we found that the rise of AI is being powered by data annotators, content moderators, machine learning engineers, data center technicians, writers and artists. In Kenya and Uganda, we spoke to dozens of data annotators working 10-hour days for less than $2 an hour performing repetitive, mind-numbing tasks with no opportunities for career progression. In Ireland, a prominent voice actor recounted discovering a synthesized version of her own voice produced without her knowledge using AI tools. In Iceland, we visited data center workers who documented the energy-intensive nature of these centers, which consume more electricity than Icelandic households combined. Read more: Opinion: It's not just hype. AI could revolutionize diagnosis in medicine And facilitating AI systems is not the only way the technology extracts from workers. When AI is put into action, particularly in the workplace, it is often through management systems that centralize knowledge of the labor process and reduce the level of skill required to do a job by routinizing and simplifying it. Such systems extract more effort from workers by forcing them to work harder and faster for their employers benefit. In the United Kingdom, we interviewed warehouse workers whose working lives were governed by a complex series of AI systems that reduced them to human automatons. For many of us, this will be how we are most exposed to the damage caused by the extraction machine. We might not become content moderators anytime soon, but the same machine that entraps data annotators affects other jobs too. The widespread adoption of current AI tools may feel inevitable. But that doesnt have to preclude a fairer and more just future of work. Four principles should drive the expansion of AI. First, we need to build and connect organizations devoted to exercising the collective power of workers. This entails not only institutionalizing local unions and worker associations, but also fostering a truly transnational workers struggle with campaigns and organizations that cross national boundaries and connect the struggles of blue- and white-collar workers throughout the global production networks of AI. Read more: California lawmakers are trying to regulate AI before it's too late. Here's how Second, because AI is often embedded in consumer goods and services, there are important openings for civil society and social movements to exert pressure on companies to guarantee minimum standards of pay and conditions for all workers throughout the supply chain. Third, because some companies will be able to inoculate themselves against consumer pressure, governments should establish regulations to mandate minimum working standards for all workers. The risk for governments in regulating companies that profit from outsourced jobs is that work can quickly flow away to other companies and corners of the planet. Thus we need global agreements that set minimum standards, such as an International Labour Organization convention, which covers and updates fundamental principles and rights at work. We also need to examine the potentials of regulation such as the European Unions supply chain directive , which will mandate that large companies impose ethical and environmental standards across supply chains. Fourth, there is a need for more expansive worker-led interventions not just to build collective power, but also to explore meaningful ways of implementing workplace democracy. Those could include cooperatives where workers collectively own and manage an organization, or company boards with half the seats reserved for workers of the company who share equal governance power on the board. Should these four attempts at rewiring the machine be successfully put into practice, global capitalism might still stand in the way of improving the lives of AIs global workforce. Faced with restrictions of the kind listed above, capitalists in the past have threatened to withdraw investment unless they can negotiate more favorable conditions. But this shouldnt stop us working together to defend workers' rights against the latest generation of venture capital-funded tech titans. James Muldoon is an associate professor in management at the University of Essex. Mark Graham is the director of Fairwork and the professor of internet geography at the Oxford Internet Institute. Callum Cant is a senior lecturer in management at the University of Essex. They are authors of the forthcoming Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.," from which this piece is adapted. 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. 'Opportunity to do something special': Why one officer made the decision to return to LMPD Kenneth Christian recalls striking up a conversation with a Louisville mayoral candidate two years ago when his past as an officer at Louisville Metro Police came up. Christian was with the Middletown Police Department then, but his tenure at LMPD had stretched nearly two decades before he left. That candidate, Craig Greenberg, began making a case for his return. "He said, 'Maybe we can get you to come back,'" Christian remembered. "I said, 'No, I'm not coming back. I'm happy where I'm at.'" Fast forwarding to this year, Greenberg recalls thanking a police officer for his service on his way out of an event when that officer pulled him aside. "Do you remember me?" Christian asked the now mayor. "Well, I'm coming back." According to Christian, his decision to return to LMPD was based on a myriad of factors, but he credits some big changes from increased officer salaries to the department's structural improvements for solidifying his homecoming. Greenberg and LMPD leaders hope Christian won't be alone in being persuaded to return as the department seeks to fill 250 open officer positions closing a shortage that's continued to plague the city in recent years. "The best days of LMPD and our city are ahead of us," Greenberg said. Newly re-hired LMPD officer Kenneth Christian talks about his return to the Louisville Metro Police Department. June 25, 2024 Salary bump, restructuring catch former LMPD officer's attention Christian originally joined the Louisville police department in the 1990s, a few years before the city-county merger. Through his time there, he remembers experiencing several once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, such as being part of the security detail during then-President Barack Obama's visit to Louisville. Christian retired in 2016 to better care for a family member. But after briefly working in Indiana, he found his way back to LMPD in 2018. He stayed for two years, then left again for Middletown's then-newly formed police department. He thought he would stay there for the rest of his career. But recent changes in LMPD piqued his interest especially an increase in pay. This year, Louisville Metro Council passed a new contract that bumps starting salaries for new officers to $60,552, beginning July 1, and gradually increases every officer's wages each year. Over the contracts' four years, officers stand to receive an approximate 22% total increase. Greenberg, who worked with LMPD's union representatives on the proposal, has said the boost in pay was in part designed to increase officer recruitment. "Pay certainly helps," Greenberg told The Courier Journal, later adding, "but I think it's more than that. I think people want to be a part of a police department that is policing in new ways, that is focused on preventing crime from happening in the first place, that is focused on community policing, that can engage with people who live in neighborhoods small business owners, members of the clergy and others (and) get to know the neighborhoods that they're serving and want to be part of a team that really is in it for the right reasons." Newly re-hired LMPD officer Kenneth Christian talks about his return to the Louisville Metro Police Department. June 25, 2024 Greenberg to critics: 'Be part of the solution' Christian has just now rejoined LMPD as an officer after finishing academy training. It's been a bit of a learning curve with the new technology at his disposal, but he said he has enjoyed his fresh start back. Greenberg hopes Christian's hiring will not be an outlier case but the start of a wave of people expressing interest in LMPD. Applications to work for the department fell slightly between fiscal years 2023 and 2024, from 1,543 applications to 1,328. Meanwhile, LMPD's police academy has seen a noticeable dip in graduates, with 28 people graduating or expected to graduate this year, along with 15 recruits scheduled to graduate in early 2025. By comparison, LMPD had 61 new recruits graduate last year and 75 graduate in 2022. But with the new police contract, many in Louisville Metro are hoping that number will tick back up. Greenberg stressed applicants do not necessarily have to have prior experience in law enforcement to go through the academy. "We need to continue to recruit a diverse group of individuals, who are diverse in background and race and gender but also diverse in experiences," he said. "Yes, we need to recruit people who have previous experience in law enforcement. But it'd be great if we can recruit some social workers, some teachers and people who have been in the business world that would add to the strength of our LMPD. In recent months, LMPD has again been the center of public controversy after former Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel resigned less than two weeks after she was placed on administrative leave for her handling of internal sexual harassment allegations. The suspension coincided with the public release of a recording that seemingly documented her promoting Maj. Brian Kuriger to a senior leadership role less than a minute after fellow major Shannon Lauder said he had "sexually harassed and attacked" her. Two additional LMPD officers, Sgt. Lauren Carby and Officer Christine Silk, have since filed lawsuits against LMPD, alleging sexual harassment within the department. Many officers named in the allegations have since been placed on administrative leave pending active investigations. Former Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey has since been promoted to interim chief, with Greenberg saying the city is not searching for a permanent replacement at this time. Greenberg added LMPD's priorities should be more centered around improvement of its anti-sexual harassment policies, its fight against violent crime and its consent decree negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice. As the DOJ said in their findings report, the vast majority of our officers are good people, who are part of the LMPD team for the right reason, that are committed to keeping our city safe (and) that are committed to public service," Greenberg said. "... Unfortunately, there's a small number of folks that are making it harder for everyone else at LMPD, everyone else in the city government, to do our job and to achieve our goals." Greenberg said the department's recent shake-up in leadership and pending investigations should not dissuade people from joining LMPD. Instead, people should be encouraged by recent and ongoing reforms made to improve officers' training and personal wellness. While many continue to have concerns about LMPD, Greenberg said: "Consider joining the LMPD. Be a part of the solution. "We are working on continuous improvement at LMPD, just as we are with all of Metro Government," he said. "I know we need to do more in many areas. And you will see a lot of change (and) a lot of improvement with focus and speed in the coming weeks and months ahead. That will continue, and I think that is attracting folks to come back, to be a part of that. We have the opportunity to do something special here." Reach reporter Rachel Smith at rksmith@courierjournal.com or @RachelSmithNews on X, formerly known as Twitter. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville recruits officers to fill ongoing shortage at LMPD Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with former U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on July 12, the Hungarian leader said on social media. The visit, described by Orban as "peace mission 5.0.," took place at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort after the NATO summit in Washington, where partners launched the Ukraine Compact, a security framework signed by 32 allies. Prior to that, the Hungarian leader visited Ukraine, Russia, and China in what he presented as an effort to promote a ceasefire and peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. During his visit to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Orban's ceasefire proposal. "We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he's (Trump) going to solve it," Orban wrote on X. The Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee has repeatedly said he could end Russia's war within 24 hours if elected president, without specifying the steps for reaching a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow. "Thank you Viktor. There must be peace, and quickly," Trump said following the meeting. Orban has a long-standing relationship with conservatives in the U.S. and is the only European leader who is openly friendly toward the Kremlin. He has spoken highly of Trump on several occasions since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, praising him as "a man of peace." The Hungarian prime minister also said in March that Trump would stop funding Ukraine if elected. Zelensky said that he is "potentially ready" to meet with Trump and urged him to reveal his plan for ending Russia's war against Ukraine so Kyiv can be prepared for any risks such a plan might entail. Read also: EU members blasted Orban over rogue diplomacy but pitched no ways to rein him in, media reports Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. (Bloomberg) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban traveled to Florida to meet Donald Trump in the latest stop on his self-styled peace mission to resolve the war in Ukraine, which has angered Western allies. Most Read from Bloomberg Orban posted a photo with the Republican nominee and former US president at his Mar-a-Lago resort, showing the pair giving a thumbs up, in a post by the Hungarian leader on social media platform X. Hes going to solve it, Orban said on X, an apparent reference to his assertion that a Trump presidency could bring a quicker end to Russias war in Ukraine. Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly, Trump said in a post on the right-wing social media platform Truth Social. Too many people have died in a war that should have never started! Orban is the European Unions leader with the closest contacts with Russias Vladimir Putin and has worked to stall Western aid to Ukraine. He met Trump in March, when he said the former US president pledged to not give a penny to Kyiv if he returns to the White House. Orban said that would force Ukraine to abandon its military resistance and try to seek a deal with Moscow. The Hungarian leader made his way to Florida from the NATO summit, where his country rejected taking part in the military alliances deepening support for Ukraine. After visiting Kyiv last week, Orban blindsided and angered Western allies by also making a trip to Moscow and Beijing to meet with the Russian and Chinese leaders, leveraging Hungarys rotating six-month presidency of the EU to lend the talks more weight. Ministers from Sweden, Finland, Poland and three Baltic nations Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will skip informal meetings in Hungary during the first phase of its six-month EU presidency this summer, to protest Orbans freewheeling diplomacy, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters on Thursday. His government will send lower-level officials instead. Orban is, in effect, abusing the presidency, kidnapping it for his own purposes, Kristersson told reporters on Thursday at the NATO summit in Washington. Ive been very clear that he doesnt speak for other heads of government, and even less so for the EU system, when he travels to Russia. --With assistance from Deana Kjuka and Andras Gergely. (Updates with Trumps comment in third paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Viktor Orban posted a photo of himself and Donald Trump, with both giving the thumbs up after their meeting on Thursday - AFP via Getty Images Viktor Orban met Donald Trump in Florida in the latest leg of his controversial peace mission for Ukraine, saying the former president is going to solve it! in reference to the war. The Hungarian prime minister had already sparked anger in the West by holding talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and his close ally Xi Jinping in China less than a week ago after meeting Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Mr Orban is an outlier among Nato and EU members for his Ukrainian ceasefire demands, cosy relationship with Putin, refusal to send weapons to Kyiv and opposition to sanctions against the Kremlin. The strongman was in the US for a Nato summit aimed at demonstrating Western unity and resolve in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. After the summit he flew to Florida and Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort, without holding talks with Joe Biden, with whom he has a strained relationship after the president criticised his backsliding on democratic standards. Mr Orban and the Republican candidate at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday - AFP via Getty Images Mr Orban, who has repeatedly backed Trump in Novembers US presidential election, posted a photo of himself beaming with the Republican candidate and both giving the thumbs up after the meeting on Thursday. We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: hes going to solve it!, Mr Orban said, as he hailed his peace mission 5.0. Thank you Viktor, Trump replied on social media. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should have never started! he added. Mr Orban, who has forged close ties with US conservatives, has previously said that Mr Trump would end the war in Ukraine soon after winning the White House. Jake Sullivan, Mr Bidens national security adviser, said on Thursday: The US position, the Biden administration position is: Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians consent or support is not something thats consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States. Mr Orban (centre) during a group photograph at the Nato summit in Washington on Wednesday - Ting Shen/Bloomberg The Nato summit was overshadowed by fears over what a Trump victory would mean for US support for Ukraine, which was recently delayed for months by Republicans in Congress In his first term, Trump strongly criticised his European allies for failing to meet defence spending targets and recently suggested the US would not defend Nato members from Russia unless they paid up. European leaders have distanced themselves from Mr Orbans freelancing, which comes as Hungary holds the rotating six month presidency of the EU, which means it chairs meetings on policy between member states in Brussels. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, stressed that Mr Orbans visit to Moscow did not come with an EU mandate and that he was not representing the bloc. The Hungarian prime minister met with Putin in Moscow on July 5, three days before a massive Russian missile attack on Ukraine which killed at least 28 and hit a children's hospital - VALERY SHARIFULIN/AFP via Getty Images) There is frustration at Mr Orbans hijacking of the presidency, which is traditionally a bloodless, bureaucratic role as an honest broker in internal negotiations on EU legislation. Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland plan a partial boycott of ministerial meetings planned in Budapest in July for the presidency. They will only send officials rather than ministers to the event in protest in a sign of their displeasure over the so-called peace mission. President Zelensky also criticised the July 5 Moscow visit, which came three days before a massive missile attack on Ukraine which killed at least 28 and hit a childrens hospital . Mr Orban embarked on his peace mission less than a month after he suffered his worst election result in 15 years in European Parliament elections. His Fidesz party remained the largest Hungarian parliament but the pro-EU opposition sapped its support. After the elections, Mr Orban played an important role in the formation of a new hard-Right and Eurosceptic group, which has become the third largest in the European Parliament. 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. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) The former Colton resident who was sentenced to Oregon State Hospital after decapitating his mother and bringing her severed head into an Estacada grocery store in 2017 could be released to another facility. As first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, OSH representatives met with the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board for a hearing on the potential release of 43-year-old Joshua Webb on Wednesday. Gable claims he was framed for Franckes murder in federal lawsuit Per Oregon law, the state hospital must request a hearing if its clinical team has determined someone under their watch can be controlled with proper care, medication, supervision and treatment if conditionally released. This is based on an internal review process, and the new facility being considered for the conditional release must also accept the patient. A 24-hour locked residential treatment center in Umatilla County was proposed as Webbs next facility. The Board now has 30 days from the hearing to issue an order. Webb has been held in the state hospital since 2018, over a year after he beheaded his 59-year-old mother, Tina Webb, on Mothers Day and carried her head into the Harvest Market Thriftway that Sunday afternoon. Oregon lawmakers weigh in on Bidens presidential campaign following CNN debate Witnesses said they saw him covered in blood and holding a knife, before stabbing a longtime cashier. The clerk survived the incident. Other store employees held Webb until authorities arrived on the scene. At Webbs first court appearance, a Clackamas County judge ordered for him to be held without bail. He was charged with murder, attempted murder and first-degree abuse of a corpse. Very dangerous time: 100 PNW wildfires since June were human-caused He was also accused of first-degree animal abuse, in connection to the dead dog that was found inside the same residence where his sister found their mothers body. In late June 2018, Clackamas County Judge Robert Herndon ruled that Webb qualified for a guilty plea by reason of insanity after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. 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. A man, whos accused of killing an 18-year-old young lady sitting in the backseat of a car while shooting at another woman on a Miami street early last month, was extradited Thursday to Miami-Dade County after being arrested out of state. Wayne Sanders, 29, is facing charges for second degree murder with a deadly weapon, felony in possession of a firearm and possession of a machine gun. As of Thursday night, the Orlando man remains in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center without bond. On June 1, Miami-Dade police rushed to the scene of 2000 block of Northwest 65th Street where a woman was found shot to death in a car. A Crime Stoppers post on X later identified the victim as 18-year-old Shakeria Denise Williams, who died from gun shot wounds to the chest. READ MORE: Two people shot to death in cars minutes away from each other in Miami-Dade, cops say Surveillance cameras revealed Williams was in the car talking to several other people when Sanders got into an altercation with an unidentified woman outside of the vehicle. The altercation turned physical after the woman threw a drink at Sanders and he threw a cellphone back at her. Later, he threatened to kill the woman before retrieving a pistol from an unknown man. The woman also armed herself sometime during the spat. Sanders then shot the pistol in the air, as the unknown woman ran for cover behind the vehicle Williams was sitting in. Sanders continued to fire the pistol in the area of the car, striking Williams in her chest, ultimately killing her. When Sanders realized he killed Williams, he fled the scene in a Mercedes Benz. The unknown woman never discharged her weapon. She fully cooperated with police during their investigation. Law enforcement officers eventually tracked down and apprehended him in Georgia. Though the exact date, location and additional information related to his arrest were not immediately available. Investigators did note that Sanders may be connected to another murder that occurred less than ten hours later in Miami-Dade; further details on the killing werent specified in the warrant. Sanders had previously been released from prison in March 2022 after serving a 10-year stint for first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery, court records show. Orlando, Tampa Fringe ask governor to restore art funding after veto An Orlando Arts and Theatre group is fighting back against Gov. Ron DeSantis after he vetoed $32 million in art funding. When asked why he did it, the governor specifically said it was inappropriate for tax dollars to go to the Fringe Festival, calling it a sexual festival. Leaders are asking the governor to restore Florida art grants. In the letter, Fringe Festival leaders said they would sacrifice the funds they were supposed to receive this year so hundreds of arts organizations dont miss out on funding. Read: Fringe Orlando Responds: Governor cuts $32 million in arts funding because of sexual festival The organization also said the Governor completely misunderstood what the organization stands for. It was clear that he has never been to the Fringe, or any Fringe, said Tempestt Halstead, Orlando Fringe Festival director. Fringe prides itself of artists freedom of expression, allowing them to create art without censorship. They have had a variety of programs, such as Shakespeare, comedy shows, and even shows for kids. The festivals do have adult content; however, Halstead says there are warnings. Read: Insidious gives a fright at Universal Orlandos Halloween Horror Nights Were very careful in the way that we do age ratings and restrictions on that, and we let our audiences decide whether or not they want to consume that kind of material, Halstead said. The festivals were expected to receive about $78,000 in funding, which is .002 percent of the $32 million DeSantis cut in art funding. Despite the groups disagreement with the governor, Halstead says theyre proposing giving up their grant for this year so that 600 other arts organizations can receive the vital funding. Read: Orlandos Zymarium Meadery opens new events space So if we are the direct reason why take us out of it, we dont want that on our shoulders. We, as an organization, are very community minded, and it definitely follows our mission of supporting artists, not just in our festival, but in the entire state of Florida, Halstead said. When asked what the takeaway would be if DeSantis doesnt take action after the open letter, Fringe Executive Director Scott Galbraith said, I believe it devalues the argument that it was all about the Fringe. Fringe leaders invited the Governor to check their programs in person. We asked the Governors Office Thursday if DeSantis had any comments on this letter. The office responded, referring to his previous statement about the nonprofit. Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Countdown is on! 33rd annual Orlando Fringe Festival returns to Lock Haven Park Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. ORLANDO, Fla. An Orlando woman detained in the Turks and Caicos Islands for carrying a small amount of ammunition is back in Central Florida after a nearly two-month ordeal that sparked cries from U.S. officials for leniency. Sharitta Grier, 46, received a 23-week suspended sentence and $1,500 fine and was freed Thursday. Im happy. I am overwhelmed, Grier told reporters at the Orlando International Airport, adding that she was looking forward to spending time with family and eating some good food. Turks and Caicos officials discovered the ammunition in Griers bag during a May 13 search at the Howard Hamilton International Airport in Providenciales. Grier visited the islands for a Mothers Day vacation with two stray bullets in her luggage, according to the Florida Department of State, which pushed for Griers return. Grier told a U.S. television station she previously had used the bag to carry a gun for self-protection and was unaware the bullets remained there. Grier faced a sentence of up to 12 years in prison under the British territorys gun laws. U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, along with Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd and other officials, called for mercy for Grier and other Americans who they said inadvertently carried ammunition into the country. We are thankful and relieved that Ms. Grier is finally on her way home and can put this unfortunate incident behind her, Byrd said in a prepared statement. Four other Americans detained on the island for carrying ammunition avoided prison time but had to pay fines. Americans visiting the Turks and Caicos Islands are urged to carefully check their luggage for stray ammunition or forgotten weapons before departing the country, the U.S. Department of State warns in a travel advisory. Orlando Sentinels broadcast partner Spectrum News 13 contributed to this report. _______ Outdoor water use banned in Hildale, Colorado City after major water well damaged HILDALE, Utah (ABC4) Southern Utah officials barred outdoor water usage in Hildale after the areas largest drinking water well stopped working. Hildale City officials reported Thursday that the well which is the largest drinking water well in the Hildale and Colorado City area was damaged and is no longer functioning. This is dangerous heat: Utah hits record high temperatures With the intense record setting heat wave, we need to maintain drinking water for peoples health and safety in our community. We also need to make sure we have adequate water for fighting any potential fires, the announcement read. City officials said crews are actively working to fix the issue and will keep the community up-to-date during the process. The restrictions on all outdoor water use could last up to several days. Please be considerate of your family, friends and neighbors during this time, the city said. Hildale is located in southern Utah just minutes from the Utah-Arizona border. Colorado City is directly across the border located on the Arizona side of state lines. 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. We think that it's fair to say that the possibility of finding fantastic multi-year winners is what motivates many investors. Mistakes are inevitable, but a single top stock pick can cover any losses, and so much more. One bright shining star stock has been Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) Limited (Catalist:5UL), which is 629% higher than three years ago. It really delights us to see such great share price performance for investors. With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies. Check out our latest analysis for Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price. Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) became profitable within the last three years. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here. The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image). Dive deeper into Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore)'s key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore)'s earnings, revenue and cash flow. A Different Perspective It's nice to see that Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 9.4% over the last year. However, the TSR over five years, coming in at 38% per year, is even more impressive. The pessimistic view would be that be that the stock has its best days behind it, but on the other hand the price might simply be moderating while the business itself continues to execute. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) that you should be aware of. Of course Atlantic Navigation Holdings (Singapore) may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Singaporean exchanges. Story continues Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, is taking part in the Day of German Industry 2024 organized by the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa German politicians are outraged after a CNN report detailed an alleged Russian plot to assassinate the head of German arms maker Rheinmetall, a company that has been key in providing German military aid to Ukraine. According to the CNN report published on Thursday, US intelligence uncovered Russian government plans to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall, earlier this year. CNN, which cited "five US and western officials familiar with the episode," said German authorities were notified of the plot and as a result increased security for Papperger at the time. The US broadcaster said a German government official confirmed that Berlin had received the warning. Rheinmetall has so far not commented on the report. The chairman of the Defence Committee in the German parliament, Marcus Faber, was among those who immediately reacted to the alleged plot. "It shows once again that Russia is also bringing its war and terror to Europe," Faber told Germany's Bild tabloid. "The Putin regime is now also seeking the lives of German citizens." The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth, told Bild that Russian President Vladimir Putin "isn't only waging a war of annihilation against Ukraine, but also against its supporters and our values." Rheinmetall boss Papperger, who has openly criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, is said to have had personal security for some time. Rheinmetall is one of the largest European suppliers of armour technology and artillery shells for Ukraine and, according to its own account, the largest manufacturer of artillery ammunition in the western world. In June, the company opened a repair workshop for armoured personnel carriers in western Ukraine. It also has plans to produce new tanks. According to CNN, the foiled assassination attempt against Papperger was part of series of planned attacks on the leadership of arms makers across Europe that supply Ukraine with weapons. German defence policy expert Serap Guler, from the conservative opposition Christian Democrats, told Bild: "In my opinion, our response to this can only be increased support for Ukraine." Foreign policy expert Roth, from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, called for a German response that mirrors "the rigour of the democratic constitutional state." Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in comments on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington that Russia was waging a hybrid war of aggression. Both individuals and companies have been attacked on European territory, she said. The Rheinmetall AG logo can be seen in front of the headquarters. Thomas Banneyer/dpa German politicians voiced their outrage on Friday after a report by US broadcaster CNN detailed an alleged Russian plot to assassinate the head of German arms maker Rheinmetall, which has provided critical military aid to Ukraine. According to the CNN report, which was published on Thursday, US intelligence uncovered Russian government plans earlier this year to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall. Citing "five US and western officials familiar with the episode," CNN said German authorities were notified of the plot and subsequently increased security for Papperger at the time. The broadcaster said a German government official confirmed that Berlin had received the warning. Rheinmetall has not yet commented on the report. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was among politicians from across the country's political spectrum reacting to the alleged plot on Friday. "We are taking the significantly increased threat of Russian aggression very seriously," she said, adding: "We will not be intimidated." Faeser said Germany has ramped up protective measures in the face of Russian threats since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. "We will continue to do everything we can to prevent Russian threats in Germany," the minister stated. Opposition figure Roderich Kieswetter, a former member of Germany's armed forces, called on the government to strengthen the country's intelligence agencies in the wake of the plot. "It's about enabling our intelligence services to provide better reconnaissance," Kiesewtter told public broadcaster ZDF on Friday. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in comments on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday that Russia is waging a hybrid war of aggression. Both individuals and companies have been attacked on European territory, she said. In further reaction, the chairman of the Defence Committee in the German parliament, Marcus Faber, told the Bild tabloid that the attack showed "once again that Russia is also bringing its war and terror to Europe." "The Putin regime is now also seeking the lives of German citizens," Faber added. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth, told Bild that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is not only waging a war of annihilation against Ukraine, but also against its supporters and our values." Roth called for a German response that mirrors "the rigour of the democratic constitutional state." German defence policy expert Serap Guler, from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told Bild: "In my opinion, our response to this can only be increased support for Ukraine." Rheinmetall: a critical supplier for Ukraine Rheinmetall is one of the largest European suppliers of armour, technology and artillery shells for Ukraine and, according to its own account, the largest manufacturer of artillery ammunition in the Western world. In June, the company opened a repair workshop for armoured personnel carriers in western Ukraine. It also has plans to produce new tanks. Rheinmetall's Papperger, who has openly criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is said to have had personal security for some time. According to CNN, the foiled assassination attempt against Papperger was part of a series of planned attacks on the leadership of arms makers across Europe that supply Ukraine with weapons. Over $400,000 in federal funding has been awarded to Miami Valley fire departments. >>New video shows moments leading up to officer shooting suspect in Xenia These were allocated funds under the Department of Homeland Securitys Fiscal Year 2023 Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) Program, according to Dayton Congressman Mike Turners office. The funding will go to Beavercreek Township, the City of Dayton, and Trotwood fire departments. The Miami Valleys firefighters and EMTs put the safety of our community members above their own, and they deserve every resource made available by the federal government, said Congressman Mike Turner. Supporting our first responders has been a top priority of mine since my time as Mayor of Dayton, and I will continue to advocate in Washington for our communitys finest. Beavercreek Township will receive over $330,000 in federal funds while the City of Dayton will get at least $58,000. Trotwood was awarded more than $42,000 in federal funds. More than $11 million in federal funding has been awarded since 2015 to area fire departments from the AFG. NATIONAL CITY, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) Dozens of license plate reading cameras have officially been installed across National City, authorities announced Thursday. This comes after the National City Police Department was awarded roughly $935,000 in September of last year as part of Californias Organized Retail Theft Prevention Grant Program. The funding, as explained by state officials, is meant to help law enforcement agencies crack down on organized retail theft and vehicle theft. One seriously injured in suspected DUI crash; man arrested After accepting the grant, NCPD entered a contract to install a total of 91 of these automated license plate reading cameras throughout the city. On Thursday, police confirmed 77 are now operational with the remainder expected to be installed in the coming weeks. These cameras will be instrumental in helping to keep our neighborhoods safe while we work with our community to solve and prevent crime, the department stated in a press release on the matter. How do they work? Police explained that the cameras are designed to capture license plates and vehicle characteristics, not people or faces. According to officials, all the data captured by these cameras is automatically deleted after 30 days, unless its determined to have evidentiary value. The cameras have shown to be instrumental in helping to solve and reduce property crime, violent crime, and locate missing and wanted persons. The cameras are not being used to enforce minor traffic or parking violations. Additionally, the cameras are not used for immigration enforcement, the department stated. If you think youve spotted a camera hovering over a National City street while driving, youre not imaging 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 FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. Despite much pushback, millions of American white collar workers are eligible for overtime pay this month under a new federal law that boosts the wage levels employers must use to decide which employees qualify for overtime and which are exempt. In Minnesota, an estimated 10,000 workers are expected to benefit. The rule changes mainly apply to executive, administrative and other professional employees. It is not expected to affect construction and factory workers, who operate under a different set of wage rules and customs. The law updates the U.S. Department of Labor's Fair Labor Standards Act in two stages one effective July 1 and the second effective Jan. 1, 2025. Before the change, any white collar worker making more than $684 a week or $35,568 a year was exempt from overtime pay. As of July 1, that threshold jumped to $844 a week or $43,888 a year. On Jan. 1, it jumps again to $58,653 a year or $1,128 a week. "This will immediately improve the lives of the over 4 million lower-wage workers who will benefit by no longer working overtime for free," said Brian Walsh, who heads the Workers' Protection Unit in the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. After two decades with little change to overtime rules, the law is finally "being modernized so that more salaried workers who are the lowest paid now get overtime pay. [Those impacted are] equivalent to the bottom 35% of all salaried workers in the lowest wage census region," Walsh said. Some employers are expected to simply boost the salaries of their lowest paid workers to $58,653 in an effort to avoid having to pay more overtime. But other employers have fought the rule change by testifying before Congress, filing lawsuits or petitioning the U.S. Labor Department for more time to implement the federal rule that was first announced in April. Opponents in Texas sued, and on June 28 a judge in the Eastern District of Texas temporarily struck down the new overtime limits for state employees pending further court proceedings. Other districts or states may follow with lawsuits of their own, human resource experts said. Increasing overtime pay has long been a contentious topic as workers, labor advocates, business groups and politicians battle it out. Former President Barack Obama tried to increase the overtime pay exemption limits from $23,660 to $47,000 a year, only to face lawsuits and pushback. In 2019, former President Trump's administration increased the limit to $35,568 a year. Now, such challenges may be playing out again. Labor advocates, such as Walsh, acknowledged the new overtime wage rules will require adjustment for some employers but noted the changes affect less than .01% of all the wages employers pay. That's not mollifying everyone. "Betting that legal challenges to the 2024 overtime rule will prevail, some employers are postponing compliance with the first July 1 deadline to either raise workers' salaries so that they remain exempt or start paying them overtime," officials from the 300,000-member Society for Human Resource Management recently posted in a member bulletin. "Even if a district court does block the rule, litigation to keep the rule alive likely will continue, at least during the Biden administration." Challenges could zing back and forth until the matter lands before the U.S. Supreme Court. Still, David Epstein, a SHRM director of human resources and talent strategy at Mobilization for Justice Inc. in New York, advises employers to get ready. "You still must prepare for the changes and their impact on salaries, fiscal, and so on. But at the same time, prepare for a court challenge that causes a delay or change in implementation," Epstein said. Expanding overtime eligibilities has its fans, even in groups that won't benefit from the change. The Minneapolis community labor advocacy group CTUL (Centro Trajabadores Unidos En La Lucha) said its members mostly work in restaurants, hotels, construction, manufacturing and janitorial jobs. Their hourly pay is not covered by the new overtime protections. "Though this does not offer new protections for our members, a new rule like this is generally good for everyone in the sense that a rising tide raises all boats," said CTUL President Brian Merle Payne. Chamber of Commerce officials noted the new overtime pay rule is just the latest of several new regulations employers are juggling. In January, Minnesota adopted a new "sick and safe time" law that lets nearly all workers earn paid sick days. While that law affects nearly all workers in the state, the new overtime rule is expected to affect fewer than 10,000, so its impact is not nearly as broad, officials said. Mary Knoblauch, law partner and head of the employment and labor practice at Minneapolis-based Maslon LLP, said clients are calling asking how they should enact the new rule. Most have an option of going two ways change affected workers' classifications from salaried/exempt to hourly/overtime eligible, or simply raise the salaries of law-affected employees so they remain exempt from overtime pay requirements. "Employers need to decide now," she said. Either situation can challenge an employer, Knoblauch added. Smaller employers with tight budgets may struggle with cost hikes. Others may see wage compression or morale issues as employee pay scales suddenly become out of whack with peers. There are some employees, though, that prefer the flexibility of being salaried and not having to "clock in" and track their hours. "These options can cause morale issues. But businesses tend to rise to the challenges," Knoblauch said. Walsh believes many overlooked health care workers, in particular, will feel some relief. "And [they] will reinvest their new earnings into the economy and time with their families," he said. Owner wants to save historic Als Grocery from being torn down Owner wants to save historic Als Grocery from being torn down DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) Als Grocery is one of the oldest remaining shops in one of Alabamas oldest communities. But the building is set for demolition. Parent suing Limestone County Board of Education, former East Limestone High football coach Als Grocery, positioned in the heart of Old Town Decatur on Vine Street, has a long history. Its a history the owner wants to preserve. During the previous Decatur City council meeting there was a lot of discussion between the city leaders and owner ALs Robinson about what to do to save Als from demolition. But time is running out for Robinson. The citys building inspector says that the building is not up to code and needs to be torn down. How you can help firefighters beat the heat this summer Its one of those situations where weve tried to work with the owner of the building for a long time. Its in disrepair and it can become a safety issue for the community, Decatur City Council President Jacob Ladner said. Vine Street was once vibrant with a multitude of shops and stores owned by African Americans. Most of the shops were demolished during the citys urban renewal project during the 1970s. Historian Peggy Towns said Frank Namie Sr. built Als Grocery store in the late 1920s and started a wave of black businesses to open. There were a lot of restaurants, doctors offices, attorneys offices, and they were all here on Vine Street, Towns explained. Download the WHNT News 19 App to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WHNT News 19 newsletters to have news sent to your inbox. Edward Greene, a trustee for Kings Memorial United Methodist Church, located directly across the street from Als, told News 19 that he would like the building to remain a part of Old Town. This grocery was up and running when I moved here in 1974, Greene said. It was a thriving business back in the day so, to save the building for historic purposes would be great. Robinson purchased the grocery in 1993. He and his wife ran the store until its closure more than a decade ago. The city council granted Robinson a 30-day extension to come up with a plan to save the building. 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. Fact checked by Nick BlackmerFact checked by Nick Blackmer People who take Mounjaro may lose more weight than those who take Ozempic, according to a new study. Mounjaro's active ingredient is tirzepatide, while Ozempic contains semaglutide. Despite the new findings, experts said the drugs are comparable and health insurance coverage often dictates which one a person is prescribed. A new study has found that tirzepatide, Mounjaros active ingredient, may be more effective at helping people lose weight than semaglutide, Ozempics active compound. The research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, revealed that people on tirzepatide were significantly more likely to achieve weight loss than those taking semaglutide. Both tripeptide and semaglutidepart of a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonistsare injectable medications. The Food and Drug Administration has approved Mounjaro and Ozempic for type 2 diabetes, but some doctors prescribed them off-labelor for a different purpose than approved by the FDA, a permissible practiceto help with obesity. More recently, the FDA has approved Wegovy, which also contains semaglutide, and Zepbound, which contains tirzepatide, for weight loss. Tirzepatide and semaglutide work to promote weight management in part by stimulating insulin production in the pancreas and delaying stomach emptying, making people feel fuller for longer. Experts said the studys findings will help provide doctors who prescribe these relatively new drugs with more insight into their effectiveness. These medications have changed the way doctors treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, but little data exist to compare the effectiveness of the two most common, Ozempic and Mounjaro, Tricia Rodriguez, PhD, MPH, principal applied scientist at Truveta Research and study author, told Health. This research with real-world data has the power to greatly improve our understanding of how these medications are being used in everyday practice and the effect that theyre having. The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty Images Comparing the Two Drugs The study authors wanted to explore the differences between tirzepatide and semaglutide to shed more light on two drugs that have been growing in popularity, Rodriguez said. With over 70% of US adults having overweight or obesity, GLP-1s have the potential to be used by a large number of people, she said. There has been evidence that these medications are effective for weight loss, but it hadnt been clear just how effective they are, particularly in relation to each other. For the study, Rodriguez and her team analyzed the electronic health records of 18,386 people taking either tirzepatide or semaglutide between May 2022 and September 2023. The mean age of the participants was 52 years old, 70% were female, and the majority77%were White. Just over half had type 2 diabetes. The team tracked how much weight the participants lost three, six, and 12 months after starting the medications. Our findings were broadly consistent with placebo-controlled clinical trials, finding that the majority of patients on both medications experience clinically meaningful weight loss within a year of treatment, Rodriguez said. However, patients on tirzepatide were over two times more likely to experience a 10% weight loss and three times more likely to experience 15% weight loss within a year, compared to patients on semaglutide. This could be because, in addition to activating receptors for the hormone GLP-1, tirzepatide also stimulates another gut hormone called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), Dusty Price, APRN-CNP, a nurse practitioner at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center specializing in weight loss, told Health. This adds another mechanism for producing weight loss. That small polypeptide alone could be life-changing if youre suffering from overeating, Price explained. Both Drugs Can Be Great Options GLP-1 agonists can come with side effects, and gastrointestinal symptoms are among the most common. Nausea, vomiting, constipation, and diarrhea have all been linked to the medications. On this front, theres no evidence to suggest tirzepatide is better than semaglutide. While tirzepatide was significantly more effective than semaglutide, patients on both medications experienced substantial weight loss, and we observed no difference in the risk of GI adverse events, study author Nick Stucky, MD, PhD, an infectious disease physician at Providence Portland Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, and vice president of Truveta Research, told Health. Both drugs are great options, and both have comparable side effects, added Reena Bose, MD, an obesity medicine specialist at Cleveland Clinic. Many factors inform a doctors decision about whether to prescribe tirzepatide or semaglutide, Bose told Health. When Im deciding, [Im asking,] Are these drugs on the patients insurance plan? Is it going to be cost-effective? she said. Many insurance [companies] are still taking their time to include these medications in coverage. The medication a patient ends up taking could depend on their insurance plan or the final cost of the drug. Availability is also a factorsome doses of GLP-1 agonists are often hard to access. There are a lot of challenges, so for each patient, I individualize their care, Bose said. Related: Menopausal Women May Benefit From Weight Loss Drugs Like Ozempic, Wegovy Related: What Happens to Your Body on Ozempic? For more Health.com news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Health.com. The boulder with the two Paleo-Arabic inscriptions. The top inscription was likely carved by Hanzalah bin Abi Amir, a companion of Muhammad. | Credit: Taif-Mecca Epigraphic Survey Project, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, directed by Ahmad Al-Jallad and Hythem Sidky A Paleo-Arabic inscription on a boulder near an abandoned mosque in Saudi Arabia may have been carved by Hanzalah bin Abi Amir, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a new study finds. Although many inscriptions from the early days of Islam are known, their authorship remains unconfirmed, except for one in Saudi Arabia's al-Bahah region that can be securely attributed to Muhammad's companion, who later became the governor of Mecca. The inscription, which researchers analyzed in a new study published in the April issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, is only the second confirmed inscription whose attribution connects to Muhammad. Unlike the former text, this one was carved in the early seventh century before Islam came to dominate Arabia, making it an important witness to the pre-Islamic Hijaz (the region where Mecca is located) and the religious background of the Quran's audience. However, not everyone is fully convinced about the authors' identities. The finding sheds light on the early days of Islam, the researchers said. "Contrary to the popularly held belief that Islam was born in the full light of history, we don't know much about the rise of Islam from contemporary sources," Ahmad Al-Jallad , a professor of Arabic studies at The Ohio State University and the study's co-author, told Live Science. "That period of time is shrouded in mystery. These inscriptions provide a verifiable foundation for the writing of an evidence-based history of this period." Yusef Bilin, a Turkish calligrapher visiting an ancient mosque in the city of Taif that's believed to have been built by Ali b. Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph of Islam, noticed two inscriptions on a prominent boulder approximately 330 feet (100 meters) away. In 2021, he brought it to the attention of the study's authors. The inscriptions were written in Paleo-Arabic script, which describes the late pre-Islamic phase of the Arabic alphabet. The authors of the top and bottom inscriptions identified themselves as Hanzalah, son of Abd-Amr-w and Abd al-Uzze, son of Sufyan. Related: '4,000-year-old wall found around oasis in Saudi Arabia likely defended against raids from nomads' The text translates to "In your name, our Lord, I am Hanzalah [son of] Abd-Amr-w, I urge (you) to be pious towards God" and "In your name, our Lord, I am Abd al-Uzze son of Sufyan, I urge (you) to be pious towards God." The authors studied the traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad and genealogical records of Arabs and found that the combination of these names was exceedingly rare. One person with the name Hanzalah, whose father was Abd-Amr, fit the bill. This person belonged to the Aws tribe based in Yathrib (now known as Medina) and features prominently as a companion of Muhammad in early Islamic literature. The use of Paleo-Arabic easily puts these inscriptions in the late sixth or early seventh century and closely matches the timeline of Hanzalah, the companion, who died in the battle of Uhud in A.D. 625. The name of the second person, Abd al-Uzze, refers to the Arabian pagan goddess al-Uzza, further supporting the idea that the inscriptions were made by individuals who were not Muhammad's followers or at least not yet. These observations led the researchers to conclude that Hanzalah is most likely the same one associated with Muhammad and that he etched these words while traveling through Taif, possibly with someone named Abd al-Uzze, before he accepted Islam. RELATED STORIES 7,000-year-old cult site in Saudi Arabia was filled with human remains and animal bones Mysterious and 'beautifully carved' life-size camel carvings discovered in Saudi Arabian desert 7,000-year-old animal bones, human remains found in enigmatic stone structure in Arabia "It's basically inconceivable that this inscription was made after Muhammad began his ministry, because the people in Taif were extremely hostile to him, and it's unlikely that one of his followers went there and left this inscription," study co-author Hythem Sidky , executive director of the International Quranic Studies Association in Washington, D.C., told Live Science. Al-Jallad added that the patina of the inscription and the weathering patterns indicate that it had been there a long time, ruling out the possibility of a modern forgery. "The article is a very impressive piece of scholarship," James Montgomery , a professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "It is careful, meticulous and circumspect in its use of evidence, with every claim being properly substantiated by reference to all relevant and available evidence." Although Montgomery thinks the identification is most likely accurate, he remained agnostic about the claim that the Hanzalah mentioned in the inscription is the same one of Islamic tradition. "I would like to reserve judgment until we have two more inscriptions that also satisfy the stringent dating criteria the authors employ," he said. Key Insights Evonik Industries' estimated fair value is 32.29 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity Evonik Industries' 18.97 share price signals that it might be 41% undervalued Analyst price target for EVK is 22.24 which is 31% below our fair value estimate Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Evonik Industries AG (ETR:EVK) as an investment opportunity by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward. Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model. View our latest analysis for Evonik Industries The Method We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 Levered FCF (, Millions) 866.1m 926.0m 804.0m 803.7m 805.1m 807.8m 811.3m 815.4m 820.0m 824.8m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x6 Analyst x4 Analyst x1 Est @ -0.04% Est @ 0.18% Est @ 0.33% Est @ 0.43% Est @ 0.51% Est @ 0.56% Est @ 0.60% Present Value (, Millions) Discounted @ 5.9% 818 825 676 638 604 572 542 515 488 464 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = 6.1b After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (0.7%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 5.9%. Story continues Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034 (1 + g) (r g) = 825m (1 + 0.7%) (5.9% 0.7%) = 16b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= 16b ( 1 + 5.9%)10= 8.9b The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is 15b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of 19.0, the company appears quite undervalued at a 41% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind. dcf The Assumptions We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Evonik Industries as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 5.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.140. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Evonik Industries Strength Debt is not viewed as a risk. Dividend is in the top 25% of dividend payers in the market. Weakness No major weaknesses identified for EVK. Opportunity Expected to breakeven next year. Has sufficient cash runway for more than 3 years based on current free cash flows. Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%. Threat Paying a dividend but company is unprofitable. Moving On: Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Evonik Industries, we've compiled three important aspects you should look at: Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Evonik Industries you should know about. Future Earnings: How does EVK's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every German stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Looking for the top stories featured on the July 12 episode of our Palm Beach County News in 90 Seconds? See the story blurbs/links below. Jeffrey Epstein secret transcripts released: Victim was asked, Do you know 'you committed a crime?' The Jeffrey Epstein saga began and could have ended in Palm Beach County in 2006. The Palm Beach Post sued in 2019 to find out why it didn't. Now, secret documents detailing what happened 18 years ago when Epstein was indicted on only a single prostitution charge are public. When presenting her case against Jeffrey Epstein to a 2006 grand jury, a Palm Beach County prosecutor asked one of two teenage victims testifying whether she was aware she "committed a crime, according to secret transcripts published Monday in a Palm Beach Post lawsuit. Is Donald Trump: all over Jeffrey Epstein documents released in Palm Beach Post suit? Members of the grand jury echoed the accusatory tones of assistant state attorneys Lanna Belohlavek and Mary Ann Duggan, posing questions that sounded more like condemnation. Tap here for the full story Heres what HOAs in Palm Beach County cant do to you anymore as of Monday, July 1 For many Florida and Palm Beach County homeowners, Monday, July 1, marked the day they could finally relax a little. As of July 1, a new law limiting what homeowner associations in the state and Palm Beach County can do to their members went into effect. Homeowner associations (HOAs) were created to maintain standards, uniformity and a sense of community while collecting dues to pay for common areas, services and general neighborhood improvements. But it seems that many people who have lived in an HOA have horror stories about petty or arbitrary fines that keep increasing, harassment, overly restrictive rules regarding the appearance of homes and lawns, the lack of management availability and transparency, or just the ongoing grind of living under the watchful eyes of HOA busybodies with tape measures and a lot of free time. Tap here for the full story How Palm Beach County students tested in 2024. One grade was way below state. Which one? The results are in on the new statewide English and math standardized tests for Palm Beach County students. FAST exams replaced the FSA statewide exams in 2023. The tests measure reading and mathematics in grades three, seven and 10. The state tests math in grades three and seven. Palm Beach County students in grades three, seven and 10 vary only a percentage point with statewide averages in their performance on the English and language arts exams. It's the same for third grade math, but when it comes to seventh grade math, the state average outpaces the county's by 11 points. Tap the link in bio for more Diamond Walker is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at dkwalker@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County News: Jeffrey Epstein documents; Florida HOA laws DENVER (KDVR) A man fell 80 feet while paragliding in Boulder County Thursday and was taken to the hospital after being rescued by Boulder Fire-Rescue and partnering agencies. According to Boulder Fire-Rescue, the man fell near Sixth Street and Locust Avenue around 12:15 p.m. The area is close to Foothills Park and Wonderland Lake. First responders found the man aafter his fall and helped him down the hill on foot. He was then taken by ambulance to Boulder Community Hospital. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Todays response demonstrated a really good, collaborative effort by everybody on scene, said Boulder Fire-Rescue acting Battalion Chief Joe Gross in a release. We are grateful we were able to get the patient on his way to the hospital as quickly as possible. Two Boulder Fire-Rescue crews responded to the crash, along with Rocky Mountain Rescue, Boulder County Sheriffs Office and Boulder Open Space Mountain Parks Rangers. Multiple first responders prepared the patient for transport, Boulder Fire-Rescue reported. The agency did not provide information on the patients condition after arriving at the hospital. 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. The parents of an Arizona teenager who died after being attacked while leaving a Halloween party last year have filed a lawsuit naming the seven teens and young adults suspected of beating him as well as the residents of the home where the party took place. Preston Lord, 16, died at a hospital following the Oct. 28 party at the home of Roberto and Emily Correa in Queen Creek, Arizona, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday and obtained by FOX affiliate KSAZ-TV. His death, ultimately ruled a homicide, sparked a lengthy police investigation that resulted in murder charges for the seven suspects, who ranged in age from 17 to 20. The civil lawsuit accuses them and the Correas of negligence, alleging the two adults were responsible for the almost 200 people, many of them minors, who attended the party. Preston Lord, 16, shown in a photo posted to a GoFundMe page, was found severely beaten Oct. 28, 2023, following a Halloween party. He died at a hospital Oct. 30. GoFundMe The lawsuit said the house party was advertised on social media as a Halloween Rager, with an open invite where alcohol was served. The Correas were inside the home at the time and allegedly not supervising the people in their backyard. Roberto Correa only ended the party after hearing about an altercation, the lawsuit stated. Queen Creek police previously said in a news release that they received a call to their nonemergency line about 9 p.m. Oct. 28 and later found a number of young people leaving the party. Officers were then diverted to a higher-priority call. Police returned to the party less than an hour later to a call of an assault and found Lord in the road with life-threatening injuries, according to the news release. He was taken to the hospital and died two days later. The Maricopa County Attorneys Office toldmultiplelocal outlets that tensions began when Lord and a friend tried to get back a gold chain that had been taken from a friend, and the indictment accused several of the suspects of taking property from the victims. The suspects, whose ages are listed when the attack occurred, Talan Renner, 17, Talyn Vigil, 17, William Owen Hines, 17, Dominic Turner, 20, Taylor Sherman, 18, Treston Billey, 18, and Jacob Meisner, 16, were each charged as adults with murder and kidnapping, according to court records reviewed by HuffPost. Billey and Meisner were additionally charged with aggravated robbery, and all of them have pleaded not guilty. According to the lawsuit, they were intoxicated at the time and pursued Lord and his friends and restrained him. They then allegedly struck Lord in the head and other parts of his body until he became unconscious. Renners parents were also named in the lawsuit, which said they were negligent and should have known of their sons propensity to engage in violence and inflict physical harm upon others. The lawsuit cited multiple instances of Renners violence, including an alleged assault between 2022 and 2023 on another resident at a treatment center in Hurricane, Utah. Bryn DeFusco, an attorney representing the Lord family, told HuffPost in an email that they are seeking justice and accountability for all those who contributed to Prestons death. This lawsuit brings them one step closer to achieving that goal. They are grateful for the community support and are determined to see this through to the end, DeFusco said. Previous reports by AZFamily highlighted the police attention on the Renners. Police reports cited by the outlet alleged that his father took Talan Renner to stay at a family cabin about three hours away from their home following the assault. The fathers ex-girlfriend told police that their attorney had advised him to let his sons hands heal before bringing him back into town, according to the outlet. She reportedly described Renner as an angry kid who holds in a lot of aggression, and when he snaps, he snaps. Attorneys were not listed under the suspects and parents civil record. Talan Renners criminal attorney did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. Related... A Parkland man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other felonies for killing a 2-year-old girl he was a caretaker to and hurting her two brothers told the judge who sentenced him Thursday that the girls death was an accident. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Angelica Williams had a different word for what Sarai Brooks and her siblings endured at the hands of Augustino Seu Maile between January 2021 and March 11, 2022, when a social worker found Sarai dead in an apartment hallway: torture. This is 15 months of what amounts to torture to these kids, Williams said before sentencing Maile to a little more than 16 years in prison. The judge said by Mailes own admission in his guilty plea statement he had fractured a bone in a boys inner thigh, bit another boy to the point of leaving lasting marks, bit Sarai several times and ultimately killed her. If I could give you more time, I would, Williams said. Prosecutors and the defendants attorney agreed to recommend a sentence just beyond the middle of the standard sentencing range for defendants prosecuted in similar cases, 146 to 194 months in prison. The recommendation was 14 months shorter than was Williams imposed, 194 months. Williams told Maile he was lucky that she couldnt hand him a punishment greater than the standard range. She said he had obviously been well-represented by his attorney, Carrie Fulton-Brown. Prosecutors originally charged Maile with homicide by abuse and two counts of second-degree murder, but the murder charges were dismissed and the homicide by abuse charge was reduced to manslaughter as part of plea negotiations, according to court records. Maile also pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree assault of a child for assaults on Sarais brothers. Augustino Maile flashes a smile and throws up a peace sign to family members in the gallery ahead of his sentencing for first-degree manslaughter in the death of 2-year-old Sarai Brooks and two counts of second-degree assault of two other children, in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Tacoma. At Thursdays sentencing hearing, family members were present in support of Maile, and family members were there in support of Sarai, according to Mailes defense attorney. Tensions simmered throughout the hearing, with Williams giving at least one admonishment to the courtroom gallery for an interruption. Things boiled over in the hallway after court adjourned, with people from both sides shouting at one another and getting in each others faces before Sheriffs Department deputies separated them. Both Maile, 32, and Sarais mother, Jharmaine Baker, 24, were charged in the girls death in March 2022 and jailed with multi-million dollar bail amounts. Sarai and her two brothers had been taken by Child Protective Services in April 2021, records state, after Auburn police suspected Baker of physically abusing her children. They were returned to the couple three months before Sarais death. An autopsy found bruises on the girls face, arms, thigh, hands, buttocks and feet, according to the probable cause document. The Pierce County medical examiner found bruising on her head and behind her ears, abrasions on her cheek and lacerations inside her mouth and on her lip. She also had a possible hemorrhage on her spinal cord. The toddlers death was ruled a homicide, and her cause of death was determined to blunt head trauma. After Bakers children were removed from her home, she submitted a letter to law enforcement that stated it was Maile who hurt her children and that she allowed him to beat them so she wouldnt get beaten, prosecutors wrote in charging papers. A protection order issued in 2021 barred Maile from being close to Bakers children, according to court records, but he was in the apartment with Baker when authorities found Sarai dead. He reportedly gave deputies a fake name, and Baker referred to him as her cousin rather than her boyfriend. Baker pleaded guilty in June last year to first-degree criminal mistreatment and two counts of second-degree assault of a child. Records show a charge of second-degree murder was dismissed as part of plea negotiations. She was sentenced June 22, 2023 to six years in prison. At Mailes sentencing hearing Thursday morning, deputy prosecuting attorney Kelly Montgomery said the three children Maile harmed in this case lived a miserable existence for 15 months. She said once Maile came into their lives, they suffered beatings with belts, bites and blunt-force trauma. The mom of these children has already pled and has been sentenced, and she didnt protect them, Montgomery said. There was really nobody there in this household to protect these little kids. Sarais grandmother, Danielle Benson, and the girls father, Jalen Brooks, also spoke before Mailes sentence was imposed. She was a fierce little girl, Benson said. Sarai was one of six of Bensons grandchildren, she said, and as the only girl, she had to be tough. But Sarai could be a little diva, her grandmother said. Her third birthday was just a month after her death, and Benson said Sarai had been asking what they were going to do. The plan was to go shopping with her grandmother, followed by pedicures and manicures. Benson said she was looking forward to that day, but it was taken away from her, along with everything else shed hoped to one day see Sarai accomplish. Benson said shed never see the girl graduate or get married. Danielle Benson, grandmother of Sarai Brooks, holds up a photo of Sarai while testifying to the court during the sentencing hearing for Augustino Maile in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Tacoma. Maile was sentenced for first-degree manslaughter in the death of 2-year-old Sarai Brooks and two counts of second-degree assault for abusing two other children. Benson held a photo of the young girl as she spoke, at times speaking through tears while she pleaded with Williams to impose the longest sentence possible. She said Maile would one day get out and have a life again, but he took away Sarais chance at life. The girls father then approached the judges bench to speak. He said he didnt have much to say. She was 2 years old, the father said. I just dont know what makes a person, a grown man at that, beat a 2 year old. Still trying to figure that out. Jalen Brooks stood before the judge in silence for nearly a minute, then said he had nothing else to say and returned to the courtroom gallery. Mailes defense attorney, Fulton-Brown, of Vindicate Criminal Law Group, a firm with offices in Tacoma, Seattle, Bellevue and Everett, spoke next. She said this had been a hard case for everyone involved. Fulton-Brown said her client had no similar criminal history, and he had already served 767 days in custody, with a substantial amount of time still to be served in the Department of Corrections. She added that Maile had taken responsibility in the case by making a factual plea. One of Mailes aunts, who attended the hearing with about nine other relatives, spoke in support of the defendant. The aunt said she was sorry for the loss of Sarai because they had all played a part in her life. The aunt said they were Samoan by nationality, and they had raised Maile as a family. She said this was not Mailes character, so they didnt know what happened in this situation. Maile was someone who works hard and comes home, she said. The aunt asked the judge to understand that Maile was not the only one at fault. She said there were so many adults involved, as well as organizations and people that are not taking accountability. When it was Mailes turn to speak, he stood and pulled a note from the breast pocket of his jail uniform. I want to apologize and give my deepest condolences to the families affected in this accident, Maile said. Augustino Maile reads a letter he wrote while addressing the court during his sentencing hearing Thursday. The defendant said he never intended or expected anything like this to happen. He said he had been surrounded by family his entire life, and he always tried to work hard and take care of his kids and family. Maile said he felt that the odds or the evidence had been stacked against him, but he accepted a deal and planned to use every opportunity he is given to show hes not the person hes been painted as. Before Williams imposed Mailes sentence, she said neither Baker nor any organization made him kill Sarai. Those are decisions that you made to these three helpless children, ultimately resulting in Sarais death, Williams said. Thats not an accident. Parsippany mayor calling for help after 8-year-old died in NJ Parsippany mayor calling for help after 8-year-old died in NJ PARSIPPANY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (PIX11) Parsippany Mayor James Barberio is calling on Morris County and the NJ DOT to partner with the town on traffic safety following the death of 8-year-old Avyaan Gupta. Gupta was hit and killed by a car while riding his bike Tuesday evening on Littleton Road, just blocks away from home. Girl, 1, and mother, 16, go missing in the Bronx: NYPD They lost the most precious thing that God gives you, and thats a child, said Mayor Barberio. Falit Seghal, a neighbor who knows the boys family, described Littleton Road as very busy. Cars come up there with speed, said Sehgal. They also cant see the road ahead of time because it curves down, then goes up. This is a very busy area, and I wouldnt be comfortable letting my kids go onto the roads, said mom Sudha Basupalli. Guptas death marks the third pedestrian fatality and the fourth traffic-related in Parsippany since the spring. According to the Morris County Prosecutors Office, 73-year-old Sonia Diaz of Bayonne was hit and killed on April 8th while trying to cross Route 46. On May 6th, a 36-year-old driver was killed in a car crash on West Hanover Avenue. On June 6th, 55-year-old Gerald Calcagno of Bloomfield was hit and killed on Route 46. Every major highway goes through Parsippany, said Mayor Barberio. Parsippany lies at the crossroads of several major roadways, including I-80, I-287, I-280, and Routes 46, 202, 10, and 53. Barberio wants to collaborate with Morris County and the NJ DOT to enhance safety measures on Parsippany roads. I want them to implement more signage, said Barberio. He said Parsippany Police will also be out in full force. Were going to be out monitoring, ticketing, said Barberio. Whoever is texting is gonna get tickets. In a statement to PIX11 News, a DOT Spokesperson wrote: The death of Avyaan is a tragedy. We extend our deepest sympathies to Avyaans family and the Parsippany community. The New Jersey Department of Transportation stands ready to assist the Mayor and Morris County Officials to fund bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements through its Local Resource Center and the many grant opportunities available to ensure that tragedies like Avyaans never happen again. A DOT spokesperson also told PIX11 News that the commissioner contacted Mayor Barberio 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 PIX11. U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen speaks at a press conference about federal funding coming to Colorado for abandoned mine land reclamation efforts on Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023 in Lakewood. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline) U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood is the first member of Colorados Democratic congressional delegation to call for President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, amid mounting fears that concerns about his age and fitness make him likely to lose to former President Donald Trump in the November election. Joe Biden saved our country once, and Im joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again, Pettersen said in a statement posted to social media Friday morning. Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, who is the greatest threat to the foundation of this country that we have ever faced. Pettersen is reportedly the 18th House Democrat calling for Biden to step aside in the two weeks since Bidens dismal June 27 debate performance reignited concerns among Democrats about his electability. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX National polling averages show that Biden has slipped from a statistical tie with Trump prior to the debate and now trails the presumptive Republican nominee by 2.2 percentage points, and polls in key swing states, where in many cases Biden already trailed Trump, also show the president losing ground post-debate. Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado went public with his fears that Trump is on track to win the election in a landslide, but stopped short of calling for Biden to drop out. Pettersen, a former state legislator, is serving her first term as the representative of Colorados 7th Congressional District. Calling Biden a good man who has served this country faithfully and admirably, she urged him to do what she said was the right thing for the countrys future. I have deep admiration and love for Joe Biden and all he has done for our country, which is why this decision is so painful, but my son and my constituents cant suffer the consequences of inaction at this critical moment, she said. Editors note: This story was updated at 1:04 p.m., July 12, 2024, to correct Rep. Brittany Pettersens hometown. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST A pastor was found dead in his submerged car one week after he vanished. His fellow clergyman believes its foul play A pastor was found dead in his submerged car one week after he vanished. His fellow clergyman believes its foul play A father-of-five pastor has been found dead in his car submerged in the Des Plaines River near Chicago one week after he vanished without a trace. And now, a fellow pastor is claiming that it could be foul play. Warren Beard, 53, who was an assistant pastor at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, was last seen on July 2 when he went to Joliet, Illinois, to visit friends. He failed to return home that night and didnt show up to work with the Preservation of Affordable Housing Wednesday morning. His wife Wanda said, prior to his body being found, that it was unlike him not to come home. My husband goes to work. He comes home, he goes to work out and he goes to church. For the most part, thats thats what he does, she told Fox32. To not come home, hes never done that in all the years. Weve been married 16 years. Beards Aunt, Theresa Boss-French, also told NBC Chicago: We are all hurting right now. We all know Reverend Warren Beard is not someone who would just disappear without saying a word to his family. The family said that Beard, a married father-of-five and a beloved member of his church community, often visited Joliet because he had friends in the area. On Tuesday, Rockdale officials revealed at a press conference that Beard had been found dead. 53-year-old Warren C. Beard was found dead inside his submerged vehicle (Chicago Police Department) The 53-year-olds body was located in the front seat of his car underwater just after 2.45pm that afternoon, just hours after officials discovered video footage of the car entering the Des Plaines River around 150 yards West of Brandon Road in Rockdale. The Rockdale Fire Protection District said in a statement it had been contacted by the Brandon Road Lock Master shortly before noon after reviewing security footage from a week earlier. The footage showed a vehicle going into the water at around 10.47pm on July 2. According to authorities, the footage shows the vehicle going around a barricade and through a 5.5-foot gap beneath a raised drawbridge before entering the river. 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, said Rockdale Police Department Chief Robert Bake. The vehicle was located and was found using sonar. The Will County Coroners Office confirmed in a press release that Beard was pronounced dead at 6.20pm. An autopsy was set to be performed on Wednesday to determine cause and manner of death. New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Chenier Alston, who served with Beard at the church on Chicagos South Side for 18 years, has insisted that Beard was not suicidal and has theorized that foul play could be involved. At a press conference, Alston said: What I want answered is, Who did this? The fact that his car launched off that bridge, [there] were barricades there that had to be driven around, he said, Church Leaders reported. Authorities searched the Des Plaines River after video footage of the car heading into the water was found (WGN) 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 added: This is not like him. He would not abandon his family and not come home. "He was the greatest person, one of the greatest men Ive ever met in my life, and this is painful," Alston told WLS. "We want answers. Words cant even begin to describe how we feel." The Illinois State Police continues to investigate the incident. 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. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the speaker emerita, left, arrives at the Democratic National Headquarters with other Democratic members of the House of Representatives to discuss the future of President Biden running for the presidency, Tuesday, July 9, 2024 in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell) WASHINGTON (AP) Nancy Pelosis phone lit up the night of President Joe Bidens debate performance with a question that has yet to be fully resolved: Now what? Calls kept coming the morning after Biden's agonizing face-off against Republican Donald Trump, and anxious lawmakers surrounded Pelosi later on the House floor. Two weeks on, the situation shows no signs of letting up. The uproar that has shaken the 2024 election, and siphoned attention away from Trump and his MAGA agenda, leaves Democrats at a painful standstill, at odds over whether to stick with Biden as their presumptive nominee or press on with the once-unthinkable option of trying to persuade the president to end his reelection campaign. Pelosi as the former House speaker, along with Rep. Jim Clyburn, a veteran leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, are playing oversized roles as generational allies of the 81-year-old president but also trusted voices from Capitol Hill who can bring frank concerns to Biden. Their work, in public and private, is giving space to the current congressional leadership headed by House Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to navigate the Biden question and the party's political future. Watching in disbelief at what the past weeks have brought, Democrats fear not only the White House, but control of the House and Senate in Congress, could be wiped out this November, leaving them essentially powerless to confront Trump and the far-right Project 2025 agenda, which they warn is a dire threat to American democracy. Democrats believe they have a solid message to bring to voters, but worry that Biden, despite all he has done to bring their policy victories, may not be the best messenger to deliver it. Biden insists he's staying in the race to finish this job because so much is at stake, and his team is working steadily to move on from the debilitating debate and return the political gaze back to Trump, as Republicans prepare for their nominating convention next week in Milwaukee. After a more satisfactory performance by Biden in a much-anticipated press conference Thursday evening, the president hit the campaign trail to battleground Michigan and engaged Friday in private talks with lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Biden's advisers understand there is more to be done to shore up support, and additional public events and private outreach are scheduled. But the mood on Capitol Hill is not at all settled. Several more Democrats spoke out publicly Friday that Biden should step aside from the race including Rep. Mike Levin of California who in a remarkable moment told Biden directly that he should bow out during the call with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it Levin said in a statement later, The time has come for President Biden to pass the torch. The congressman warned that Democrats must prevail against the incalculable threat Donald Trump poses to the American institutions of freedom and democracy. He said Trump actively seeks a bleak authoritarianism and the overthrow of the values which have guided the country for nearly 250 years. While the floodgate of dissent that was expected from House Democrats did not open after Biden delivered what for many was a more than competent performance in his Thursday evening news conference, it also did not slam shut. All told, almost 20 House Democrats are calling on Biden to bow out, a mix of younger and older lawmakers, those in some of the most competitive districts for reelection but also senior lawmakers who worry about the party's ability to win in fall. One Democratic senator has joined the chorus, so far. The Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are confronting a situation like no other, testing a new era of leadership, helmed by Schumer and Jeffries, both New Yorkers, who are saying little publicly other than that they stand with Biden as they balance the competing views of their caucuses. Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if Democrats win the majority in November, met privately with Biden Thursday night at the White House, and expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together. In a letter to colleagues, he said House Democrats have had an extensive discussion about the countrys future. And the conversation has been, as he said earlier in the week, candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive. Schumer, with a slim Senate majority at stake this election, is also encouraging senators to personally dial up the president and his team to share their views, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. In his own conversations, including with senators and donors, Schumer has not foreclosed on any options. The Senate leader invited Bidens team to meet privately with Senate Democrats this week in a session that was heated at times with strong questions and opinions, but little assurances for senators from the presidents staff about the path forward. What is most telling from the Democratic leaders is that they are having these conversations at all: It lays bare the reality that Democrats have not closed the door on an alternative to Biden. The leaders are all being bombarded with advocates from all sides, on and off the Hill, pressing them to take action. Pelosi, because of her stature as the party's formidable former speaker, and Clyburn as the leader who helped deliver the presidency for Biden in 2020, have particular clout, among those who could bring their influence to bear on the president. Having twice led Democrats to taking back control of the House majority, Pelosi is trusted by lawmakers for her political insight, strategy and timing as happened this week when she appeared on Biden's preferred news show, MSNBC's Morning Joe, and said it's up to the president to decide what to do, when Biden had already emphatically declared he's staying in the race. Pelosi is also known for doling out advice often in public catch phrases Don't agonize, organize. Start with a feather, end with a sledgehammer all of which could be applicable at this moment. __ Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Farnoush Amiri and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. SDI Productions / Getty Images When it comes to saving money, theres no one-size-fits-all strategy. What might work for some people wont always work for others. Depending on your goals and financial situation, you might be able to save more aggressively than others. Or you might only be able to save small amounts at a time over a long period. Check Out: Im a Self-Made Millionaire, but I Still Opt For the Budget Versions of These 6 Items Try This: 5 Subtly Genius Things All Wealthy People Do With Their Money Whatever the case, if youre trying to build long-term wealth, its crucial to find the savings strategy or strategies that work best for you. If you havent found yours yet, dont worry its never too late to get started. GOBankingRates spoke with Teri Williams, president and COO at OneUnited Bank, about which savings strategies she swears by for long-term wealth and which ones she would outright avoid. Heres what she said. Automate Those Savings One of the first things Williams suggested was setting up an automatic savings account. What wealthy folks know is that you MUST set up an automated process such [as] that funds transfer from your paycheck to a savings/investment account, she said. If money goes into your pocket, you are more likely to spend it. Most banks and credit unions, as well as online banking services, will allow you to connect two accounts like a checking and savings account and automate your savings contributions. Depending on your goals and finances, you may be able to set it up to where a certain amount of money gets deposited into your savings account each month. Or you might be able to have a specific percentage of your paycheck put into your savings. Check over your budget and see how much money you can comfortably save each month. You can always make adjustments as you go, but the important thing is getting started. Money Expert: Mark Cuban Reveals Why He Keeps a Strict Budget Everyday Prioritize Increasing Your Income If youre trying to save money to build long-term wealth, youve probably been told to cut out that daily latte habit or cancel those extra streaming service subscriptions. And while cutting back on things you dont need, want or even use doesnt hurt, its not the way to become wealthy. Instead, Williams suggested focusing on your income over your expenses. The wealth gap, as an example, is largely due to the income gap, rather than a difference in how we spend our money, she said. Avoiding purchasing a cup of coffee or lunch is not as important as improving your job skills and career path. Story continues These small cut-backs might help in the moment, but your actual earnings are what are more likely to push you into greater financial stability and wealth over time. Keep Your Expenses Reasonable Of course, you dont want to spend more than you can reasonably afford either. Just because your neighbor or coworker gets something new or expensive doesnt mean you should automatically follow suit. Your situation is going to be different from theirs and you might not even know the full story. Avoid keeping up with the Jones (or the Kardashians)! You can see what people own but not what they owe! said Williams. Avoid overspending and increasing credit card debt to match what you see on social media. In many instances, the lifestyles you see online are just a mirage. Buy Property More specifically, if you truly want to build long-term wealth, find a way to break free of the rental cycle and buy your home. Buy a home, even if its a hut! said Williams. There are many reasons to own a home, including building home equity and avoiding the increasing cost of rental housing. Purchasing a home can be tough, especially if youre a first-time buyer and dont currently have one to sell and help with the down payment. But the long-term payoff no more rent payments, no more interest charges on your loan, the feeling of accomplishment, etc. is worth it. Of course, consult a financial advisor to make the best decision for you and your family, Williams added. If youre not in a position to buy a home right now, build up to it. Increase your savings, work on your credit score and save up for a larger down payment. Find a true starter home, too, one that gives you what you need even if it doesnt have all the luxurious amenities. Avoid These Money Moves If Youre Trying To Build Long-Term Wealth Just as there are some great savings strategies for those who want to build long-term wealth, there are also a few things you shouldnt do. Here are some of the biggest ones, according to Williams. Dont fall for scams. Avoid scams! If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! There has been an increase in fraud attempts with get rich quick schemes. Do not believe them! Do not give them money or credentials to access your bank accounts, she said. Dont give money to loved ones if you cant afford it. Do not invest money with friends that you are not willing to lose, she said. Your family and friend relationships are more important! Dont put all your money in investments. Have some money in FDIC-insured savings accounts, said Williams. Yes, investments are great, but they require risk-taking. You need to have a cushion for emergencies. Long-term wealth is just that something that takes time to accumulate. But by practicing mindful spending, automating your savings, increasing your income and, when the time is right, buying a house, its entirely doable. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Im a Banker: 4 Saving Strategies I Swear By for Long-Term Wealth For the fifth year in a row the Pennsylvania state budget does not include an increase to Penn States general support appropriation, but university leadership anticipates that will change next year as the state will move toward a performance-based funding model. This years budget, passed by the general assembly and signed by Governor Josh Shapiro Thursday evening, kept Penn States general support appropriation at $242.1 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year that began July 1, according to a release from Penn State. The budget does include a funding increase of $4 million (13%) for Pennsylvania College of Technology, level funding of $57.7 million for Penn State Agricultural Research and Extension, and restores line-item funding of $2.35 million for Invent Penn State, the release states. The funding received from the state goes toward the universitys education budget and, according to the release, allows Penn State to offer an in-state tuition discount. But the appropriation is far less than the $483.4 million Penn State requested as part of Pennsylvanias annual budget process in September. In the release, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said the commonwealth funding is critical to our public mission to serve Pennsylvania students at our campuses across Pennsylvania, and noted shes looking forward to seeing the performance-based funding model implemented. As we enter a fifth consecutive year without a funding increase, I look forward to working with the General Assembly and Gov. Shapiro to implement performance-based funding for 2025-26 as a means to increase the states investment in public higher education while also meeting shared goals for Pennsylvanias long-term success, Bendapudi said. While the state appropriations at one time made up the majority of the universitys education budget at 62%, it has shrunk to only 10% of the education budget, according to the release. To fill the gap, tuition and fees have increased over time. The last time Penn States general support appropriation was increased was for the 2019-20 fiscal year when it received a 2% increase. State appropriations breakdown General Support: $242.1 million. This helps fund the discounted in-state tuition rate for Penn State students. It is also invested in academic programs. Agricultural Research and Extension: $57.7 million. This supports Penn State Extension and research conducted by the College of Agriculture Sciences. Pennsylvania College of Technology: $34 million. Penn College is a Penn State affiliate that offers technology education. Penn State Health and the College of Medicine: $15.1 million, the same level as last fiscal year. These dollars are used for medical assistance to give access to high-quality health care for residents with limited finances. Invent Penn State: $2.35 million as a co-investment with Penn State. Funding will be used for Invent Penn States LaunchBox and Innovation Network, and to further expand access to the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program. What is performance-based funding? Bendapudi and Penn State have long been advocating for a performance-based funding model; its also supported by other state-related schools University of Pittsburgh and Temple University. Performance-based funding is designed to reward institutions for achieving outcomes-based metrics in support of student success and workforce development, with specific metrics to be determined by a new Performance-based Funding Council before the start of the next fiscal year, the release states. Bendapudi said the much-needed update to funding will allow the state to work with universities on shared goals for a number of areas, including workforce and economic development, college access and affordability, and successful student outcomes. I am eager to partner with the state and fellow university leaders to develop a performance-based funding model that rewards institutions for achieving outcomes-based metrics that align with the needs and priorities of the state, our students and our universities, she said. The funding model, according to the release, is intended to increase degree attainment, encourage higher education affordability and meet workforce needs. The general assembly passed a bill that will establish the Performance-based Funding Council. It will develop recommendations for a process that utilizes performance-based metrics to allocate money to Penn State, University of Pittsburgh and Temple University. The council will include five voting members from the state government, including the secretary of education, a member of the Senate appointed by the president pro tempore, a member of the Senate appointed by the minority leader, a member of the House appointed by the speaker, and a member of the House appointed by the minority leader, and three non-voting members from the state-related universities, including Penn States president or a designee. The council will consult with state agencies and experts to develop recommendations for the funding model, as well as hold public hearings at each participating university, according to the release. Mike Stefan, Penn States vice president for government and community relations, called it a transformative opportunity. This is a transformative opportunity for the state and universities to work together to better support Pennsylvania students and employers, Stefan said. Penn State is already a valued part of so many Pennsylvania communities, and this much-needed update to the way we fund higher education only works to expand our impact and historic land-grant mission of teaching, research and service to the commonwealth. The council will have an April 30, 2025 deadline to submit its recommendations to the governor, a newly created State Board of Higher Education, the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the General Assembly, and will include draft legislation to implement the process to distribute funding. The council will reconvene every five years to reevaluate the metrics utilized for the distribution of funds, the release states. I want to thank the General Assembly, especially those who have continued to advocate for this new future in the way we fund higher education in the state, Stefan said. Were eager to continue working with the state and our peer universities to ensure we are delivering for our students and all Pennsylvanians. The Pennsylvania Senate passed a $47.6 billion budget Thursday night, nearly two weeks into the fiscal year which began on July 1. The plan does not increase sales or income tax rates and requires $3 billion in surplus cash to balance. This will leave more than $10 billion in reserves. Its really a good product and gets a lot of things done to address the issues facing Pennsylvanians, said Rep. Nick Pisciottano, D-Allegheny County. The plan comes with a 6% increase and most of the new money is going to public schools and human services. Public schools will see an additional $900 million for instruction and special education, as well as hundreds of millions more in new subsidies for school construction. It will also go to tuition for private and cyber charter schools, AP reports. As part of the budgets school code, districts across the state will now be required to have at least one district staff member trained to use a firearm. They will not be required to carry one. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, said the budget reflects a strong moral compass. This budget makes one of the most historic investments in what is our most valuable resources, and that is our children, Harris said. Nursing home operators will get a slight increase in rates. Counties will see a $20 million increase for mental health services. Gov. Josh Shapiro originally proposed a $48.3 billion plan, which included $280 million in additional funds for public transit, a 20% increase. Republicans agreed to $80 million. We had to work really hard to come to some kind of compromise. Nobody loves everything in these bills on either side of the aisle. We found an area in most places where we could tolerate and we could live, Sen. Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, said. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: ALF child actor Benji Gregory found dead with his service dog in car Pittsburgh-area shop on New York Times readers favorite pizza places list Coraopolis supermarket hit with consumer alert VIDEO: Warning issued to used car buyers over faulty air bags DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Permission to strike Russia with UK missiles 'not a done deal,' British officials tell Telegraph Editor's note: The article was updated with comments from European Pravda's interview with U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Ukraine has not received permission to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory, unnamed U.K. official sources told the Telegraph in a comment published on July 11, explaining that the situation is "more nuanced." Later the same day, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in an interview with European Pravda that the matter is still under consideration but refused to provide details. The confusion began when new U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer apparently signaled on July 10 that Ukraine could use Storm Shadow to hit military targets inside Russia. 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. Starmer's remarks echoed the words of former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who said early in 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 Presidential Office disputed the statement at the time, saying that there was no green light from the U.K. After his meeting with Starmer, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the two had discussed "the practical implementation" of the U.K.'s permission to use Storm Shadow against targets in Russia. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov also mentioned "Britain's permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military facilities in Russia" in a post on social media. The Telegraph reported soon after that despite Starmer's remarks, the country has not relaxed its policy on long-range missile use, as officials fear such a step may lead to an "escalation." The newspaper's senior defense source claimed that the situation "was more nuanced" than Zelensky suggested. The permission for long-range missile strikes on targets inside Russia would require the approval of three countries. Though the sources did not specify the other two countries, France produces its own variants of Storm Shadow called SCALP/T, which have also been supplied to Ukraine. When asked if Ukraine would fire Storm Shadow into Russia, the source told the newspaper that "it is not going to happen." The sources also said that the missile had not been used this year, adding that Zelensky would have to "seek assurances elsewhere" before Ukraine could launch Storm Shadow on Russian soil. The assurances "were not a done deal," they said. The Kyiv Independent requested comment from Ukraine's Defense Ministry, the U.K. Defense Ministry, and Zelensky's office but did not receive a response at the time of publication. 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. Read also: The Counteroffensive: Crossing the gray zone from Russia into Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) A person was stabbed to death in Manhattan Thursday evening, police said. The stabbing happened around 5:45 p.m. at 159-38 Harlem River Dr., located near the Polo Grounds Towers, according to the NYPD. More Local News A person was fatally stabbed in the torso, police said. Another person was slashed and injured in the incident, authorities said. No arrests have been made. Additional information about the incident wasnt immediately available. 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). 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. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Chicago. | Andrew Harnik A former editor of The New York Times has accused the White House of conducting a massive cover-up of the degree of the presidents feebleness and his serious physical decline and chastised the press for not covering the story until after Joe Bidens disastrous debate with Donald Trump. Its clear the best news reporters in Washington have failed in the first duty of journalism: to hold power accountable. It is our duty to poke through White House smoke screens and find out the truth, Jill Abramson said, adding, It is simply astounding for the entire country, including its most seasoned reporters, to be as shocked as everyone was by the ugly and painful reality of (President Joe) Bidens debate performance. Many consumers of conservative media, however, were quick to point out that they were not shocked. Bidens missteps both literal and figurative have long been recurring features on Hannity and other talk shows, to the point where any serious questions raised about the 81-year-old presidents limitations were dismissed as partisan attacks, or deflected by concerns that they would harm the national medias candidate of choice. I worry that too many journalists didnt try to get the story because they did not want to be accused of helping elect Donald Trump, Abramson said. Silence, as Biden has repeatedly said, is complicity. And the legacy news medias silence about Bidens deteriorating condition in recent years is prompting soul-searching among journalists and a new combativeness between the press and the White House. In one exchange described as heated and tense, Ed OKeefe of CBS News pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to share details about reports that a Parkinsons disease specialist had visited the White House multiple times. A clearly annoyed Jean-Pierre seemed to reveal in her response just how rarely she is strongly challenged, saying, please, a little respect here, and theres no reason to go back and forth with me in this aggressive way. Actually, there were plenty of reasons, articulated by The Guardian in an article entitled Warning signs: A history of Joe Bidens verbal slips in which the newspaper recounts incidents over the past three years that, in retrospect, should have been cause for greater scrutiny by the press. These range from Biden stumbling three times as he boards a plane, confusing Iraq with Ukraine, and inexplicably ending a speech about gun safety by saying God save the queen, man. And these are just a sampling of worrisome incidents that are undisputed. There have been many others that might be open to interpretation, most recently a moment in last weeks interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos, when Biden appeared to say that he would be satisfied if he had done his goodest job in trying to defeat Trump, and a kerfuffle later erupted between the press and the White House over what he actually said. And of course, Biden provided new sound bites for his critics today when he, among other stumbles, introduced Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin at the NATO meeting in New York City and called Kamala Harris Vice President Trump at a rambling news conference that lasted nearly an hour. Biden did better than many people expected at the news conference, in which he answered questions from pre-selected reporters ranging from Ukraine aid to modifications to his schedule. He is not going anywhere, Meghan McCain posted on X. But the performance cannot erase all the calls that have been made for Biden to pull out of the race, nor the sense that the press has helped to put Democrats, and perhaps the nation, in the pickle that theyre in. There may not have been a nefarious conspiracy of collusion, as British commentator Piers Morgan has charged, but there was certainly fear by some in the media of helping Donald Trump. There was also a lack of willingness to ask probing questions when the president faltered, and to do the kind of bootstrap reporting that might reveal, as independent journalist Alex Berenson did on July 6 (two days before The New York Times published its story), a curious series of visits to the White House by a doctor who specializes in Parkinsons disease. Much of the reporting that is now coming in a deluge the friendly interviews that feature the same White House-supplied questions, the light scheduling, the scant number of news conferences Biden has held compared to his predecessors all could have been written months ago. Its fair for Americans to question whether Bidens condition was intentionally concealed not only by the White House, but by journalists, who seemed to have plenty of time to report on every questionable thing that Donald Trump did or said. In a thoughtful discussion on Columbia Journalism Reviews The Kicker podcast, Josh Hersh talked with an Axios reporter who is among a handful of journalists who have been writing stories about Bidens health, pre-debate. Alex Thompson noted that its easy to make pronouncements about the presidents decline when youre a pundit like Sean Hannity, less so when youre a reporter who must produce on-the-record sources and other evidence for every paragraph you write. And when youre writing about a Democrat, those on-the-record sources cant all be Republicans which was a flaw in The Wall Street Journals June 4 report on Bidens signs of slipping, Thompson said. Its one thing to write about Bidens physical limitations falling off a bike, or tripping while walking up stairs but quite another to take on the question of is he mentally limited? Thompson said, adding, You cant report that someone is in decline or slipping without access to him. And a protective White House staff has sharply limited the press access to Biden and apparently even his own advisers. Chuck Todd of NBC News said on his podcast that a pretty senior cabinet secretary told him two years ago, He cant run again like this. Todd said that he replied, Well, you have more interaction with him than I do, and the cabinet secretary said, I dont have a lot of interaction with him. Todd added, Its the story everybody knows, and that everybody was afraid to talk about. Fear, then, might have played an outsized role in reporting on Bidens condition fear of a Trump win by a left-leaning press, fear of White House reprisal, and even fear of being wrong. One thing that the public doesnt understand about journalists is how much we fear getting things wrong. (This played into the medias unwillingness to report on Hunter Bidens laptop in 2020, too.) On The Kicker podcast, Thompson talked about looking around nervously when others werent reporting the same story he was about Biden he feared he might be reading Bidens missteps wrong, and he also feared that his professional peers might see him as a right-wing hack in mainstream media clothes. That said, Thompson was writing about Bidens decline while many other reporters were writing stories explaining why things that looked like decline actually werent. In a thread on X, Drew Holden compiled a list of these headlines, among them: How misleading videos are trailing Biden as he battles age doubts in The New York Times and Cheapfake Biden videos enrapture right-wing media but deeply mislead in The Washington Post. 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 Its hard to overstate how much the media has flipped on the subject of Biden in just 14 days. Jake Tapper, a moderator at the June 27 debate, has spoken out strongly about Bidens condition, calling his refusal to leave the race Operation Defiance and devastatingly reading snippets of Bidens disjointed answers in recent interviews, which we all know were not cheapfakes manipulated for political advantage. Theres no question that the internet is awash in deceptive images, which makes the media all the more suspicious of them. But theres also no question that public distrust in the media, which has deepened over the past eight years, is related to the open hostility toward Trump and his supporters among some members of the media. Until the media remembers that its job is not to keep Trump out of office, but to hold power accountable, as Abramson said, and to do so without partisan bias, our favorable ratings will remain even lower than Bidens. DENVER (KDVR) Police departments across Colorado are reminding people to never leave dogs unattended in a hot car. We will keep hammering this point until people realize it is not okay to leave your dogs in the car in this heat, the Wheat Ridge Police Department said in a post on Wednesday. Is it legal to break a car window to save a person or dog from heat in Colorado? On Tuesday, Wheat Ridge community service officers responded to a call reporting a dog left unattended in a truck at the Applewood Village shopping center. It was 83 degrees outside at the time, and despite back windows being cracked one inch, officers measured the internal temperature of the truck and found it to be 91-93 degrees inside. Research shows that cracking windows does little to nothing when it comes to cooling down a car in the summer heat. Police said they entered a nearby restaurant and found the dogs owner having lunch. According to police, the owner said they had been in the restaurant for about 20 minutes. According to the National Weather Service, the temperatures of vehicles in hot weather increases quickly. If it is 85 degrees outside, the inside of a car can get up to 104 degrees within just 10 minutes. If its 90 degrees outside, how hot is it for your dog inside the car? The police department said officers issued a summons to the owner on two counts of animal cruelty/inhumane treatment. Theres no real quick in these temperatures. A dog can actually die of overheat in six minutes, so thats not even enough time to actually order food, one officer said in a video of the response posted by WRPD. In the video, an officer said the dogs temperature was at 100.5 degrees. Authorities respond to hundreds of calls reporting dogs in hot cars This was not an isolated incident. Last month, Lt. Josh Rolfe of Denver Animal Protection told FOX31 that people are making bad choices. Denver Animal Protection and other local agencies have responded to dozens of cases of dogs being left in hot cars so far this year. Denver Animal Protection: Dozens of pets found confined in hot cars since January Leaving dogs in hot cars can lead to heat exhaustion or heatstroke and can even be deadly. The Westminster Police Department said its agency alone has responded to two heat-related animal deaths this year. This weekend, record-breaking heat in the triple digits is expected in some parts of Colorado. As we approach triple-digit temperatures, please think of your pet. If its too hot for you, its too hot for them, Westminster police said in a post on X. The Humane Society says body temperatures of 104 degrees and hotter is a sign that a dog is suffering from a heat-related illness. Keep animals safe from heat According to the Humane Society, signs of a dog suffering from a heat-related illness include: Heavy panting Excessive drooling Glazed eyes Rapid pulse Unsteadiness Bloody nose Diarrhea Vomiting Dry, deep red or purple tongue Hemorrhages in gums or under the skin Body temperatures over 104 degrees Watch: Dog rescued from hot trailer by Wheat Ridge police The Humane Society recommends seeking veterinary care as soon as possible, even if the dog appears to be improving. In the meantime, you can provide care with these steps from the Humane Society: Move the dog to a cool area Apply cool, not cold, water or soak in a cool bath Place cool, wet towels over the back of the neck, armpits, paws, ear flaps, groin area Direct a fan on wet areas to speed evaporative cooling Offer fresh, cool water if the dog is alert and wants to drink, but do not force it What to do if you see a child or animal stuck in a hot car A bill was passed in Colorado in 2017 that protects people who render emergency assistance to an at-risk person or animal locked in a hot car. The bill provides immunity from civil and criminal liability, but the person must check all the following steps listed in the bill: Ensure the vehicle is not a law enforcement vehicle Reasonable belief that the person or animal is in imminent danger of death or suffering serious bodily injury Verify the vehicle is locked Make a reasonable effort to locate the owner or operator of the vehicle Contact a law enforcement or other first responder agency before forcibly entering the vehicle and do not interfere with the actions of any such responding law enforcement agency Use no more force than reasonably necessary to enter the locked vehicle Remain with the at-risk person or animal in a safe location close to the vehicle until law enforcement or other first responder arrives at the scene; except if the person rendering assistance has to leave the scene before the owner or operator of the vehicle returns, prior to leaving the scene, the person rendering assistance must leave a notice on the vehicle with his or her name and contact information and the name and location, if any, of the facility to which he or she took the at-risk person or animal. Also prior to leaving the scene, the person rendering assistance shall contact law enforcement, animal control or other first responder to provide them with the same information. The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment says if you see a dog in a hot car, you should call 311 or Denver Animal Protection at 720-913-2080. 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. (Getty Images) A bill to regulate pharmaceutical industry middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers has passed both chambers of the Pennsylvania legislature. It will go to Gov. Josh Shapiros desk, and hes expected to sign it. The broad bipartisan support for this common-sense legislation provides stronger patient protections through enhanced transparency and oversight of PBMs, Victoria Elliott, CEO of the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association, said in a statement following the bills passage. The bill passed the House on Thursday afternoon after making its way through the Senate Wednesday. It creates a host of new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers, however it also allows for significant exemptions to those rules. The bills sponsor, Rep. Jessica Benham (D-Allegheny) said, It is a piece of legislation that is going to go a long way towards addressing the issues that our community pharmacies are facing and its also going to save patients some money. Pharmacy benefit managers are middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Theyre hired by insurance companies to administer the prescription drug sides of their health insurance plans. In that role, they negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers often receiving rebates in exchange for placing expensive drugs on an insurance plans list of covered drugs. Its also a pharmacy benefit managers job to reimburse pharmacies for the drugs they dispense when the patients insurance covers all or part of the cost. But reimbursement rates for some of the most expensive drugs pharmacists dispense often fail to cover what it costs to stock and dispense them. Pharmacists say these low reimbursements, along with anti-competitive practices, have led to the closure of dozens of pharmacies across Pennsylvania. Without reform, pharmacy trade groups have warned that the rate of closures will only increase. Since 2023, more than 120 independent and small chain pharmacies across Pennsylvania have closed, according to . Pharmacies are often on the front lines of health care, providing services like vaccinations and free medical advice for patients. Pharmacy benefit managers have also been accused of raising the costs of drugs by forcing manufacturers to account for kickbacks when they price the medications they produce. Just this week, the Federal Trade Commission announced plans to mount a lawsuit against the nations three largest pharmacy benefit managers CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRX over their role in inflating drug costs. Greg Lopes, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a national trade group representing some of the countrys largest pharmacy benefit managers, said the blame for high drug costs lies with manufacturers. And he warned the legislation would empower them. Drug companies alone set and raise drug prices, and Big Pharma is left completely out of the bill, Lopes said in a statement, Instead, the legislation targets the only free market actor working to lower drug costs for Pennsylvania patients. By significantly restricting the tools that pharmacy benefit managers use to lower drug costs the legislation will significantly increase drug costs for Pennsylvania health plans and patients. Phil Blando, a spokesperson for CVS Health, owner of the nations largest pharmacy benefit manager, also blamed pharmaceutical manufacturers for high drug costs. Any measure concerning prescription drugs must be judged by whether it reduces drug prices for employers and consumers, Blando wrote in a statement. CVS Caremark will continue to do so, and we welcome the opportunity to work with legislators addressing the root cause of high drug costs Big Pharmas high list prices. The bill is the result of bipartisan negotiations involving Senate Republicans and House Democrats, as well as lobbyists representing pharmacists and the pharmacy benefit managers themselves. It does not, however, include the policy most requested by pharmacists: Setting a minimum reimbursement rate for drugs that they sell, ensuring that pharmacies never have to dispense drugs to patients at a loss. However, the bill does require the state insurance department to produce a report on what effect a reimbursement rate floor would have on the cost of medicine and insurance to the state. Thats an incredibly important provision as we look at what steps we would like to take next, Benham said Thursday. I didnt get everything that I would have liked to have seen in this legislation. Its obviously a product of compromise. The bill also takes aim at numerous practices that pharmacists, lawmakers and regulators have described as anti-competitive. However, it includes notable exemptions, excluding certain insurance plans from the new regulations. The bill bans whats called patient steering, which is when pharmacy benefit managers direct patients towards a preferred pharmacy, often owned by the same parent company. It also bans whats called spread pricing, which is when pharmacy benefit managers pay one price for a drug, reimburse a pharmacy for less and profit off the difference. The bill will also give the insurance department new authority to regulate what drugs pharmacy benefit managers can define as specialty drugs,those that require special handling or care. For example, drugs that require refrigeration, or frequent dosage adjustments, or are prescribed for chronic and complex conditions. The bill also gives pharmacies more leeway to give patients a broader number of standard vaccinations, ensuring an important stream of revenue. However, the provisions of the bill will not apply to a large number of pharmacy transactions. It contains a carveout for insurance plans covered by a federal law called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which includes most employer-provided insurance plans. The insurance department has not returned multiple requests for data about how many insurance plans in Pennsylvania would be exempt from the new regulations. Benham said Thursday its not an insignificant number of plans. Philippines rejects 'use of force' to undermine its South China Sea interests Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano arrives to meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the prime minister's office in Tokyo By Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippines rejects the "use of force" to undermine its interests in the contested South China Sea but it does not want any conflict and has agreed with China to ease tensions in a contested shoal, officials said on Friday. "We don't want war," National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano told reporters in Manila. Ano said efforts were underway to de-escalate tensions in the disputed waterway, where Manila and Beijing have accused each other of aggressive behaviour involving their ships and of damaging the marine environment. Central to recent standoffs is the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a rusty warship manned by a small crew that it deliberately grounded in 1999 to reinforce its maritime claims. It regularly sends supply mission to troops stationed there. Last month, Manila accused the China Coast Guard of intentionally ramming and deliberately puncturing navy vessels and seizing weapons to disrupt a military resupply mission, seriously injuring a Filipino sailor who lost a finger. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including the Second Thomas shoal, and rejects a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague that Beijing's expansive claims had no basis under international law. The case was brought to the court by the Philippines. "We reject any attempt to deny our strategic agencies, especially by the use of force that seek to coerce and subordinate the national interests of the Philippines," Ano separately told a forum marking the eighth anniversary of the Hague ruling. Ano said the way forward was to uphold the 2016 award and oppose efforts to undermine its significance. "It is not and will never be a mere piece of paper," he said, alluding to how the former president Rodrigo Duterte described the award as he sought closer ties with Beijing. China maintains its actions in the South China Sea have been lawful and professional. Ano repeated that the Philippines was "committed to the cause of peace". "We are committed to address and manage difficult issues through dialogue and through diplomacy," he said. On Friday, the European Union (EU) issued a statement to mark the anniversary of the arbitration ruling on the South China Sea, saying all parties must "respect and honour the award" which was "legally binding". China rebuked the EU for its statement, saying the latter ignored historical and objective facts and "blatantly endorses" what it called the Philippines' violation of its sovereignty. United States State Secretary Antony Blinken, in a statement on the ruling's anniversary, said his country remains "deeply concerned" about China's actions in the disputed waters. "We continue to call on the PRC (People's Republic of China) to abide by the 2016 arbitral ruling, to cease its dangerous and destabilising conduct," Blinken said. (Reporting by Mikhail Flores and Karen Lema; Editing by John Mair and Michael Perry) DENVER (KDVR) West Metro Fire Rescue was on the scene of a reported plane crash Friday afternoon. The agency said just before 12:30 p.m. that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. Smoke visible in Boulder from wildland fire near NCAR Officials were not sure where exactly the crash was until a Douglas County helicopter spotted the crash from above. The helicopter crew found the plane a few miles southwest of Sedalia, landed, and then helped the pilot to walk out to where a medic unit with West Douglas County Fire Protection District was waiting to evaluate him, West Metro Fire Rescue said in a post on Facebook. According to West Metro Fire Rescue, the pilot said the engine was sputtering and then the plane lost power at 2,000 feet, but he was able to make a landing. The agency posted photos at the scene with an update around 1:45 p.m. The plane appeared to be upright and on its wheels in a grassy field. West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: West Metro Fire Rescue) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. Friday that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: Douglas County sheriffs Office) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: West Metro Fire Rescue) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. Friday that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: Douglas County sheriffs Office) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: West Metro Fire Rescue) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. Friday that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: Douglas County sheriffs Office) West Metro Fire Rescue said just before 1 p.m. Friday that its crews were responding to reports of an experimental plane crash in or near Roxborough State Park. (Photo: Douglas County sheriffs Office) The Douglas County Sheriffs Office was on the scene and said no injuries were reported the pilot was the only person on board. One of the wings and the front propeller were damaged. The plane is a VANS RV4, single-engine aircraft, built in 1993. It is a home built or kit airplane, WMFR said. At the scene, firefighters looked for potential fuel leaks and dug a fire line around the site as a precaution. 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. Pine Bluff man arrested in Louisiana in connection with Fort Smith shooting FORT SMITH, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) A Pine Bluff man has been arrested in connection with a shooting that happened on North 50th Street and Wirsing Avenue in Fort Smith on June 21. Keno Johnson, 33 (Courtesy: Fort Smith Police Department) According to a press release from the Fort Smith Police Department, Keno Johnson, 33, was arrested in Ville Platte, Louisiana on July 11. Pine Bluff man wanted in connection with Fort Smith shooting Johnson is the sole suspect in the shooting that left one person with non-life-threatening 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 KNWA FOX24. Pinellas County mayor wants more Floridians to understand how preemption laws are affecting them Redington Beach Mayor David Will in the state Capitol on Jan. 19, 2024 (photo credit: Mitch Perry) Over the past several years, Redington Beach Mayor David Will has made the four-hour trip to Tallahassee on numerous occasions during legislative sessions to testify against the short-term vacation rental bills that have gone before the Legislature. Hes extremely pleased that Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed this years proposal, but is aware that a similar proposal come surface next year. His lobbying efforts have made him an evangelist of sorts in advocating for home rule and a huge critic of preemption bills presented by the Legislature that take away authority from local governments and give it to the state. Now hes created a nonprofit organization called the Home Rule Coalition, which he said is all about bringing more awareness to the general public about something that affects us all, a legislative practice which he maintains is an insult to basic functioning of democracy. What Im trying to do with this is spread the word, he said. This is advocacy through education to inform people about what preemption is, and to ask their legislators how they feel about preemption and that they would like to be part of the process to give their opinion. Local lawmakers from all political stripes (Will is a Republican) have blasted state lawmakers for years for what they say is running roughshod over their communities, to little avail. Former Tampa City Councilman Joe Citro spent the last part of his term in office bemoaning what preemption had done to his city. Hes quick to cite specific proposals that had received approval at the local level but ultimately were thwarted by preemption legislation from the capital. Tree ordinance One of those was the citys tree ordinance. After more than year of deliberation involving citizens, builders, activists, and attorneys, the Tampa City Council produced what some members labelled an historic compromise on providing protections for its tree canopy. But that ordinance imploded after Gov. DeSantis signed legislation in June 2019 banning local governments from regulating tree removal and re-planting on private property. On the tree ordinance, we had the builders. We had the community. We had attorneys. We had so many people working on that ordinance and, like I said, it was the best tree ordinance in the whole damn country, Citro reminisced bitterly on Friday. And with one little swoop of the pen, it was gone. Then there was the resolution Citro sponsored in 2021 to bring Tampa in sync with at least ten other local governments in Florida to commit to a 100% renewable energy portfolio in city operations, which would later evolve into a similar mandate for the whole city. Citro withdrew his proposal even before state legislation prohibiting local governments from committing such actions was passed and signed by the governor. Heres the problem, Citro says. We all have codes, laws, and ordinances in every city and every county in the state. And when somebody doesnt like it, its like a small child. When mommy says no, they go up to daddy in Tallahassee, hoping that daddy will say yes. And thats not the way that it should be. Will says most members of the public that he encounters arent familiar at all with preemption, which is the raison detre for his new organization. We want to educate people on what preemption is, that it is actually happening and to pay attention to that, and also what to ask when you talk to your legislator, he said. Whenever theres a new bill that is proposed, I always ask myself, What problem exists and what will this bill solve? And then who benefits from the bill? And hopefully there are good answers to that. Hopefully, its our community that benefits. The actual residents who benefit. Also, I would like our residents to be involved at your local level and ask your officials how they feel about preemption. National trend The issue is hardly unique to Florida. According to a report issued last month by the Local Solutions Support Center, nearly 500 preemption bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country this year. More than 100 of those proposals regarded education, with 62 targeting LGBTQ+ issues coming in second place. The report found a serious efforts or underway to advance home rule reform and make it more difficult to abuse preemption laws in Ohio and Virginia. Longtime Tallahassee lobbyist Jack Cory applauds Wills new organization. Preemption has become a pronounced problem over the past decade in the Capitol, he said, attributing part of the problem to term limits that prevent legislators from accumulating the knowledge to become better lawmakers. If they want to serve on a city council or county commission, I recommend they serve on a city council or county commission, he said of the Tallahassee lawmakers behind the rash of preemption bills introduced in recent years. In an interview with the News Service of Florida, incoming House Speaker Daniel Perez said hes going to put more pressure on House members to justify some of their legislative proposals, which could perhaps reduce the number of preemptions bills next year. Are you fixing or are you creating a problem? Or are you finding a solution for a problem that doesnt exist? Perez said. Perhaps the most notable preemption bill the Florida Legislature approved this past session was HB 433, banning local governments from requiring employers to provide protections for outdoor workers who toil in extreme heat, as well as preventing local governments from controlling what their contractors pay their employees. In his letter explaining his veto of the short-term vacation rental bill last month, DeSantis wrote, I encourage the Florida Legislature and all key stakeholders to work together, with the understanding that vacation rentals should not be approached as a one-size-fits-all issue. Redington Beach Mayor David Will said he couldnt put it better. Having the Legislature removing the ability for you to weigh in on the decision-making process in your community I just think is wrong, he says. A one size-fits-all does not work for our state. State Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, speaks against a permit for Summit Carbon Solutions at a gathering July 10, 2024 in Coon Rapids. (Photo by Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch) Several groups that oppose a recently approved carbon dioxide pipeline network in Iowa plan to launch challenges to that approval in the coming days that will likely be decided months or more than a year from now in court. Summit Carbon Solutions wants to build a sprawling pipeline system in five states that would transport captured carbon dioxide from dozens of ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground storage. More than 1,000 miles of pipe would be laid in Iowa, of the overall 2,500 miles. Last month the Iowa Utilities Commission then known as the Iowa Utilities Board said it would issue a permit for Summits initial proposal in Iowa with some conditions, including that no construction could begin until Summit has secured approval for the project in the Dakotas. The deadline to ask the commission to reconsider that final order is Monday. That is the first step to challenge it. Four groups have indicated to the Iowa Capital Dispatch that they will make reconsideration requests, and they represent a coalition of unlikely allies with sometimes fierce ideological differences on other topics. They plan to challenge aspects of the commissions decision with arguments that are nuanced by their differing priorities. Our allies are our allies, said state Rep. Charley Thomson, a Charles City attorney who is part of a group of Republican legislators who have challenged Summits permit application and supported legislation that would impede it. Im not going to pick a fight with the Sierra Club because we differ on some other issues. We are going to march together. The legislators, the Sierra Club of Iowa, a large group of affected landowners represented by attorney Brian Jorde, and seven counties affected by the project have indicated they will seek reconsiderations. The counties were the first to file a request, on Friday. A primary argument that the groups plan to make is that Summits project should not be eligible for eminent domain, a government-sanctioned procedure by which Summit can force landowners to allow its pipeline to be built and operated on their properties. Summit does not take outright ownership of the land but has a right to use it indefinitely as long as the pipeline is still operating. The company had sought eminent domain for about a quarter of its initial 688-mile route in Iowa. The IUC decided the service to be provided by Summit Carbon will promote the public convenience and necessity, which is required to obtain a pipeline permit and the power of eminent domain. Thomson said the commissions 507-page order was disturbingly weighted to find what they set out to find. It comes across as a justification for a decision that was made prior to any of the hearings, he said this week at a meeting hosted by the Free Soil Foundation in Coon Rapids. It was, in effect, grabbing evidence that would support them and ignoring evidence that would not. Opponents of the project have long griped that the outcome was predetermined because of the political influence of those who would benefit from it. That suspicion was bolstered last year when Gov. Kim Reynolds appointed a new chairperson to the three-person commission, the former chairperson abruptly resigned, and Summits permit process was accelerated. The company had hoped to start construction in 2024, but setbacks in the Dakotas have delayed its plans. Commissions findings The IUC is charged with determining whether to issue a permit for a carbon dioxide pipeline and is the primary arbiter of its route. It used what it described as a balancing test of factors to determine whether Summits system would benefit the public. The commission said most of the factors it selected favor a permit for Summit. Those included: the projects eligibility for federal tax credits; the potential for ethanol plants to sell their fuels in low-carbon fuel markets; potential effects on climate change; overall benefits to ethanol producers; benefits for the states economy; and the superiority of pipelines over other transportation methods. Commissioners said two further factors the impact to landowners and safety weigh against granting a permit. However, the commission said Summits proposed safety precautions and the conditions the commission placed on the permit alleviated the negative weight of safety concerns. We think it just benefits the pipeline company and the ethanol industry, and it really doesnt address climate change to the extent necessary to get approval, said Wally Taylor, a Sierra Club attorney. He doubts the IUC will change its mind about the permit approval and that the Sierra Club and others will file lawsuits in district court. The commission must respond to the requests to reconsider its decision within 30 days. Jorde, the landowners attorney, declined to immediately reveal what arguments he will make against the commissions decision: I cant discuss strategy or what are the most egregious of the many errors. We are evaluating them all and will pick the ones we think the district court will find most compelling. The counties also disagree that the project has enough benefit to the public to merit a permit and argue Summit has failed to attempt to conform its route to local regulations and future development plans, said Tim Whipple, an attorney for the counties. The counties have made arguments to the utilities board that the company should be required to comply with local zoning ordinances, particularly setbacks, he said. Several counties that adopted ordinances to keep Summits pipeline farther away from cities, houses and other places have been sued by the company. A federal judge sided with Summit, but two appeals of the judges decisions are pending and might not be resolved until sometime next year. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Pipeline opponents are poised for Summit permit challenges appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. UPDATE: Police say Alice Irankunga has been found safe. Pittsburgh police are asking for the publics help to find a missing 11-year-old girl. Alice Irankunga was last seen at her house in the 100 block of Hazlett Street, police said. Alice is described as being 5 feet, 2 inches tall and 100 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. Police said Alice is believed to be staying with extended family at an unknown address in the Hill District. She is known to spend time in the Zone 1 area, specifically Northview Heights, as well as the pool in the Hill District and Downtown Pittsburgh. Anyone who has information on Alices whereabouts is asked to call (412) 323-7141 or 911. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Window washers rescued from scaffolding stuck on side of Downtown Pittsburgh skyscraper 1-year-old found crawling on highway after brother found dead, mother arrested Police looking for armed and dangerous suspect in Sharon grocery store stabbing; 2 others charged VIDEO: Police looking to identify suspect in Downtown Pittsburgh assault DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts UPDATE: She has been found safe. Pittsburgh police are searching for a missing and at-risk 75-year-old woman who has dementia. Kathleen Sacco was last seen at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday when police say she wandered away from her family near the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Edmond Street. Sacco is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds. She has blonde hair and green eyes. Police say Sacco was last wearing white capri pants, a pink top, white shoes and was carrying a brown purse. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call 412-323-7141 or 911. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: ALF child actor Benji Gregory found dead with his service dog in car Pittsburgh-area shop on New York Times readers favorite pizza places list Coraopolis supermarket hit with consumer alert VIDEO: Warning issued to used car buyers over faulty air bags DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts A fast-moving grass fire was burning Friday afternoon in a rural area north of Roseville, prompting Placer County sheriffs officials to briefly issue an evacuation warning. The Athens Fire had burned about 260 acres of dry grass and had a dangerous rate of spread, the Cal Fire Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit said in social media posts. Cal Fire officials said the grass fire spread from a vehicle at Athens Avenue near Fiddyment Road; it was reported at 100 acres at 2:15 p.m. Cal Fire just after 3 p.m. said the fire was 50% contained. 3pm Athens Fire Update: Fire reported to be 260.3 acres in grass off Athens Ave near Fiddyment Road in west Placer County. pic.twitter.com/t6BmKRxErN CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit (@CALFIRENEU) July 12, 2024 The Placer County Sheriffs Office issued the evacuation warning at 2:20 p.m. Friday for structures along Athens Avenue east to Industrial Avenue; those along Industrial Avenue south to Sunset Boulevard; and those along Athens Avenue south to Sunset Boulevard. Sheriffs officials said they had notified Thunder Valley Casino Resort, but staff and customers at the casino were not being evacuated at the time. Authorities had closed Sunset Boulevard at Cincinnati Avenue, Athens at North Foothills and Fiddyment Road at Sunset Boulevard. At 3:50 p.m., the Sheriffs Office announced that the evacuation warning had been lifted. https://x.com/PlacerSheriff/status/1811875426962407933 Plan second summer holiday in case your first gets cancelled, experts warn Travel experts have warned holidaymakers to plan two holidays this summer in case of flight delays and cancellations. This summer, bad weather and air traffic delays threaten millions of peoples planned getaways. Experts warned that your route, destination and accommodation should all be able to be easily changed at the last minute for fear of cancellations. In June, Manchester Airport was left in chaos after a power cut led to the cancellation of a quarter of all flights, delays and lengthy queues Examples of bad weather affecting travel included Mallorcas airport shutting in June after torrential rain flooded the runways. Earlier in July, British tourists were warned to avoid travelling to the Caribbean as Hurricane Beryl smashed its way towards Mexico. Only last weekend, more than 10,000 passengers were hit by flight cancellations at UK airports because of bad weather and air traffic control staff shortages in Europe. At least 125 scheduled flights were grounded on Sunday and Monday, including 82 British Airways flights to and from Heathrow. Paul Charles, chief executive of The PC Agency, told The Telegraph: Passengers need to be prepared for some disruption, partly because of the uncertainties of air traffic delays and weather, which caused enormous delays and cancellations in June and early July. I would say, those travelling should be prepared for a plan B. So that if they are delayed or their flight is cancelled, they have a back-up plan. For example, that means allowing extra hours for connections. It means having potentially refundable holiday accommodation if they should arrive a day after they plan to, due to a flight delay or cancellation. Echoing Mr Charles advice, travel expert Jane Hawke added: Its always good to have a plan B anyway. You do need to have a belt and braces approach to travel. Ms Hawke also suggested holidaymakers pay by credit card or buy package holidays so that they can claim their money back and replacement flights and accommodation if needed. She added: Some online travel agencies have very limited customer service options. So far this year, airline flights across the Continent have been delayed by more than a million extra minutes compared with last year, EU air traffic control agency Eurocontrol said. Particularly challenging A spokesman told The Telegraph that this summer is set to be particularly challenging thanks to a record-breaking number of flights combined with adverse weather. Large parts of the European air traffic network are experiencing between 10 to 20 per cent more traffic than 2019 this is the highest year ever in terms of air traffic in Europe, said the spokesman. Conceding that soaring delays need to be brought under control, Eurocontrol said bad weather was mainly to blame. Weather has played a major part in this increase, with weather delays en-route having increased from 1.3 million minutes in June 2023 to two million minutes in June 2024, said the spokesman. The organisation is closely coordinating with representatives of European air navigation service providers, aircraft operators, airports and ground handlers to address the soaring delays in the European air traffic control network, the spokesman added. News of increasing weather delays causing potential holiday disruption comes ahead of the Euro 2024 final. Met Office weather forecasters said conditions would be pleasant for Sunday nights match, which sees England taking on Spain. Meteorologist Aidan McGivern said temperatures would be a little closer to average for the time of year on Sunday. He said: Its warming up slightly its certainly going to feel more humid in the south when the sun comes through, 23C or so, thats not far from average. Although thunderstorms were set to hit the South West on Friday night, there are no weather warnings in place for the remainder of the weekend. Forecasts for Berlin on Sunday night report expected temperatures of 24C, cooling to 22C by 11pm local time. No rain is expected over the German capitals open-air Olympiastadion, the stadium hosting the final. 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. Fawley Waterside was the vision of businessman Aldred Drummond, who owns the neighbouring Cadland Estate - Handout material Plans to build a 2.3 billion Venice of Britain new town development on the south coast have been scrapped. In 2017, proposals to build one of the most beautiful new towns in England were unveiled, with a canal running through the heart of it. The landmark project promised a state-of-the-art waterside town with driverless cars, 1,500 homes, grazing donkeys and ponies, a marina, and even its own amphitheatre. Architects involved in the designs for the new town Fawley Waterside were some of King Charles favourites, who have worked on projects for the monarch and his estates. However, the planning applications for the areas redevelopment have been formally withdrawn and the future of the site is unknown. The proposed 300-acre site in Fawley is located on the water at the edge of the New Forest National Park. In a statement, a Fawley Waterside spokesperson said: The decision to withdraw the applications has not been taken lightly but multiple assessments of the current scheme have shown that it is not viable. Fawley Waterside will continue working closely and collaboratively with both New Forest District Council and The New Forest National Park Authority to consider the most appropriate development strategy for the site. Fawley Waterside was billed to be one of England's 'most beautiful new towns' and would include 1,500 homes, grazing donkeys and a marina - Handout material In a statement issued by the developers, Leader of New Forest District Council, Councillor Jill Cleary, added: The council had been waiting for the signature of the applicant on the legal agreements for over a year, while the viability of the proposed vision for the site from Fawley Waterside Limited evidently became more at risk. As leader of the council, I am pleased that there is now clarity as to the state of play. We look forward to working with Fawley Waterside, and their newly appointed team, to consider viable alternative development options for the site, that help us deliver on our Corporate Plan aspirations for People, for Place, and for Prosperity. Recognising the Freeport designation of the site, and the recently committed review of the New Forest District Council local plan, it is timely for us all to be able to consider how best this site can help to deliver benefits to the New Forest community, economy and environment. Fawley Waterside was the vision of wealthy businessman Aldred Drummond, who owns the neighbouring Cadland Estate. Mr Drummond is regarded as one of the 'leaders of Great Britain' - Handout material In 2017 there was celebration when it was announced a new town would come to the south coast, promising modern homes, a school, a hotel, a new nature park, and thousands of jobs. There was even talk of a revolving restaurant 650ft in the sky at the top of Fawleys chimney while it still existed. Fawley Power Station where scenes from Han Solo and Mission Impossible 5 were shot has been demolished to make way for the town. In 2020, the New Forest National Park Authority and New Forest District Council gave it the go-ahead on the condition legal agreements were signed. Businessman Mr Drummond dubbed one of the leaders of Great Britain has had ties to the area since the 1950s, when his familys manor house was knocked down to make way for the power station. 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. Platform launched by Arkansas nonprofit aims to help veterans combat opioid addiction LITTLE ROCK, Ark. An Arkansas nonprofit dedicated to supporting military personnel, veterans, and their families launched a new platform aimed at combatting the opioid crisis. The platform is called Called2Duty and its mission is to combat the opioid crisis by providing education and empowerment at the city, county and state levels. Arkansas community coming together to try to curb national opioid crisis A vital aspect of this initiative is the Naloxone training program, which will be available in all 75 counties of Arkansas to help save lives by reversing opioid overdoses. When veterans return home from combat, some go down a dark road of addiction. Michael Springer is Called2Dutys Veteran Peer Support Specialist and said he turned to meth and dealt with 16 years of active addiction, incarceration, homelessness and just hopelessness. Springer fought in Iraq and said he suffered from survivors guilt after a friend of his was killed. Springer said hes found his mission again with helping other veterans out of the darkness with Called2Duty. Called2Duty will have a robust Veteran Peer Support network to navigate mental health and recovery resources and educational, career, and transition support. Camp Alliance CEO Jody Bergstrom said Called2Duty is being used as an extension of service to fight the war on drugs. If we know were going to combat a war situation, who better to call than our service members, veterans and first responders in the community, Bergstrom said. Arkansas officials to distribute more than 15,000 naloxone kits to fight against opioid overdoses On top of the naloxone training, Called2Duty said theyll provide education on drug trends & threats, after the save resource navigation and continuity of care. Its not just administering the naloxone, its about that recovery position as well, she said. Called2Duty is co-led by Arkansas Drug Director Tom Fisher who said Called2Duty is trying to saturate the state of Arkansas with naloxone. In those years that led us up into COVID, between 2019 and 2021, Arkansas has an 85 percent increase in the amount of overdose deaths, Fisher said. Fisher added that after COVID-19, the Natural State saw a 13% decrease in overdose deaths. He said naloxone training has contributed to that. Many veterans like Called2Duty peer support coordinator Justin Works didnt know support was there when returning home. Called2Duty looks to be that connecter. Just trying to help them navigate the system that can be complicated, Works said. Works said asking for help was one of his toughest challenges. Ive learned that asking for help takes a lot more courage than suiting up and lasing my boots up, he said. A big project thats in the works for Called2Duty is the Fort Roots transitional living and recovery center for veterans. Arkansas organizations get big boost in funds to fight opioid crisis Its a vital building project to establish a chem-free pre- and post-treatment center for Veterans of the Fort Roots North Little Rock VA campus. More information on Called2Duty can be found at Called2Duty.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 KLRT - FOX16.com. Anna Moneymaker/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock / Anna Moneymaker/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock With election day just months away, there is no clear favorite for who will be the next President of the United States. President Joe Biden and former president and now convicted felon Donald Trump both have very low approval rates, with recent polls indicating that nearly half of voters would prefer to replace both candidates if given the chance. Read Next: Im a Financial Advisor: Heres Why My Rich Clients Identify With the Middle Class Try This: 7 Reasons You Should Consider a Financial Advisor Even If Youre Not Wealthy Unfortunately for these voters, thats not exactly likely to happen. The next president will either be Biden or Trump again, and given the way stock markets and the broader economic environment tend to react to elections, its to your benefit to understand if the election results might affect your financial situation for good or ill. So, if Biden is the victor, who stands to benefit the most? GOBankingRates spoke with experts to find out. Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them. Small Business Owners Philip Wenthworth Jr. is the CEO and co-founder of Rockerbox, a technology platform that helps small businesses take advantage of employer-based tax credit programs. He sees a Biden economy having a significant positive impact on small businesses and their cash flow. Small businesses often struggle with liquidity, and Bidens proposed tax relief for middle-income earners can indirectly boost their revenues. Reduced tax burdens on the middle class increase disposable income, leading to higher consumer spending. This uptick in spending benefits our clients, such as those operating in consumer-facing sectors like retail and services. For businesses in designated Empowerment Zones, the additional tax incentives can significantly reduce operational costs, permitting reinvestment into business growth, Wentworth said. Wentworth also believes that the Biden administrations focus on clean energy and infrastructure investments can catalyze opportunities for businesses in a variety of industries, including construction and technology. For companies investing in R&D to develop eco-friendly products or improve existing processes, the R&D tax credits provide essential financial support. This allows smaller entities to compete more effectively with larger firms, fostering a more competitive market and encouraging innovation. Find Out: Net Worth for US Families: How To Tell If Youre Poor, Middle Class, Upper Middle Class or Rich Young Professionals While small business owners may be the group most benefited by another Biden administration, there are others who stand to reap significant financial advantages. David Brillant is a tax and estate lawyer and the founder of Brillant Law Firm. He believes that the Biden student loan forgiveness programs will profoundly impact young professionals. Story continues Reducing student debt means increased disposable income and financial stability for many. This is crucial for clients employing young professionals who are often one of their biggest assets. For instance, when billionaire Robert F. Smith promised to pay off student loans for the Morehouse College class, potential tax ramifications were a major concern. Bidens policies streamline such complexities, making financial planning easier and less burdensome for both benefactors and recipients. This ensures that more young talents are retained in smaller firms, driving innovation and productivity, Brillant said. Its important to remember the existing student loan reduction programs continue to face legal challenges from a coalition of Republican states led by Missouri and Kansas. As that legal battle continues to play out, it could end up slowing down or even completely halting the Biden administrations efforts. Commercial Real Estate Investors Brillant also cited the Biden administrations emphasis on clean energy and infrastructure investment. He thinks it will be of significant benefit to commercial real estate investors, who can leverage incentives to retrofit existing buildings to meet new energy-efficiency standards, enhancing their propertys value. In my experience handling complex litigation cases like the successful challenge to Alameda Unified School Districts Measure H, Ive seen how regulatory changes can impact property values. Bidens clean energy initiatives offer a proactive way to increase asset value without the adversarial nature of litigation, he said. Of course, many people wont fit into the above categories. Consulting a financial planner or tax professional is a great way to find out what your benefits could be if Biden wins reelection, and how to position yourself to best take advantage of them. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Who Might Benefit Most From a Biden Economy? MARYSVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) A true crime podcaster from Florida is investigating a central Ohio homicide alongside local law enforcement and the victims family, with the goal of closing the decades-old case. John Bernie Burnside, 32, was found dead in his Marysville home on Dec. 11, 1993, just 10 hours after reporting a break-in to police. Burnside had cerebral palsy, a condition affecting ones movement and muscle coordination. His death was originally ruled a suicide but was later determined to be a homicide. Unsolved Ohio: Woman vanishes after man seen driving her car with new bullet holes The manner of death that he was found, it didnt make sense to me to rule it a suicide, said Podcast Host and Investigator Melissa Sandberg. So I just had a lot of questions about the whole thing. John Burnside (Photo Courtesy/Paula Troyer) John Burnside (Photo Courtesy/Paula Troyer) John Burnside (Photo Courtesy/Paula Troyer) Sandberg said she became interested in the case after seeing a post on social media now, shes decided to take an in-depth look at the mans death, bringing listeners along with her in her new podcast Dog with a Bone. I [was looking] for a case that has not received a lot of attention or coverage, Sandberg said. I found a Facebook page called, Who killed John Burnside and there were only 22 people in that group, 22. And I was shocked. And I was like, who is fighting for justice for Bernie? Episodes detailing an investigation into the Burnside case will mark the first season of her podcast, but this will not be her first time investigating a homicide. Sandberg has been examining cold cases for more than three years, recently as part of an independent group of investigators called Safe Haven, sponsored by American Military University. With that group, Sandberg helped investigate the 2008 murder of Judith Judy Petty out of Parkersburg, West Virginia, bringing new leads to the investigation. Unsolved Ohio: Ohio State student who disappeared at bar still missing 18 years later Ive always had a passion for trying to help and bring justice to cold cases and still having the victims be heard and finding justice for the family, she said. After Sandberg began to look into the case and reach out to different law enforcement agencies, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation decided to review the case. The podcaster will be providing the information she finds to the BCIs Cold Case Unit, which said its now in the early stages of looking into the homicide along with the Union County Prosecutors Office, Union County Sheriffs Office and Marysville Police Department. Im so excited and honored that the BCI is taking another look at this case, Sandberg said. They actually had it back in [early 1990s]. They did take a look at it, but nothing since then has happened. Sandberg works in the healthcare industry and investigates cold cases on the side. She spends money out of her own pocket to fly to the places where victims lived, to talk with their family, friends and law enforcement. On Thursday, she flew to Ohio to work on Burnsides case. Mother dies after attempting to stop carjacking with 6-year-old in back seat This is free, Sandberg said. I dont charge the family. I dont look to raise any donations or funds. This is me doing this because I have a passion to do this. Sandberg is part of a larger trend of civilians taking on the role of detective to help solve crimes. She said those like herself, who are not law enforcement but investigate crimes, can have unique advantages to breaking a case open. In the Judy Petty case, we were able to bring new leads, new information that law enforcement had never heard before, Sandberg said. By utilizing different platforms, it is drawing in more information. And not everybody wants to talk to a police officer at first, right? When youre dealing with a crime, you might be dealing with people who have done crimes themselves, and have had experiences with law enforcement, and so theres more of a comfort level talking to somebody like me who isnt law enforcement. The main goal of her investigative podcast is to lend a hand to law enforcement by bringing in new leads and information. She plans to release more seasons on different cold cases in the future. Weekly episodes on the Burnside case will be released on platforms that stream podcasts, such as Apple and Spotify. Sandberg said the first episodes will be released in the near future updates can be found on the podcasts Facebook page. Anyone who has information on the homicide of John Burnside may message Sandberg through the podcasts Facebook, as well as contact the Ohio BCIs tip line at 800-282-3784. 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. Sejm, the lower chamber of Poland's parliament, passed a resolution on July 12 to commemorate the victims of the Soviet genocide of Crimean Tatars in 1944. "The deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 and its consequences were an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar nation," reads the resolution. Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea. The Soviet authorities forcibly deported nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars, including women, children, and the elderly, across thousands of kilometers from Crimea to Central Asia and Siberia in May 1944. An estimated 8,000 Crimean Tatars died in the process. Estimates of total deaths from harsh exile conditions range from 34,000 to over 100,000. The resolution was supported by 414 deputies, 16 voted against, and two abstained, according to a statement on the Sejm's website. The resolution also mentioned the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, after which "Russia began to persecute the Crimean Tatars living on the peninsula systematically." "In 2016, Russia, under false allegations, banned the activities of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar parliament," reads the resolution. "Dozens of (Crimean) Tatar activists, including the long-time chairman of the Mejlis Mustafa Dzhemilev, were again expelled from their land, and others found themselves in Russian prisons for many years." The Sejm stressed that the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity and the provisions of international law and the United Nations Charter. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Body camera footage from Sen. John Fettermans (D-Pa.) car accident last month has been released by the Maryland State Police. The video, obtained by The Washington Post, shows Maryland State Police officers responding to the crash that left Fettermans black Chevrolet Traverse and a red Chevrolet sedan with heavy damage. According to the video, police officers recognized Fetterman. The senator did not announce his identity as he and his wife, Gisele, gathered with the other driver on the side of the highway. One officer said he thought he recognized Fetterman as that real big, tall guy and the senator of Pennsylvania. The Post noted that Fetterman politely answered questions from police. That same officer later said in the footage that Fetterman was flying, and she wanted to merge, and he just smashed her. After the June 9 crash in Maryland, it was revealed that Fetterman was traveling at a high rate of speed, well over the posted speed limit. The police report, obtained by The Hill, listed Fetterman as at fault for the incident. The senator, his wife and the other driver were all treated for injuries after the crash. According to the video obtained by the Post, a first responder recognized Fetterman as he approached the scene. As soon as I walked up, I saw him in the shorts and the sweatshirt, and [I said], Good morning, senator, he said. In 20 years of doing this, Ive never, never had a politician. Fetterman was treated for a bruised shoulder, and his wife was transported to the hospital. They were evaluated at a local hospital after the crash; a spokesperson said they were doing well shortly after it. The senator, who previously was the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, used to have a driver in that role but now drives himself most of the time. He often makes the drive from Washington, D.C., to Braddock, Pa., himself, the Post reported. 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. Police have identified the three suspects who are facing charges in connection with an armed robbery at a barbershop in Boston on Thursday that led to an hourslong SWAT standoff at a nearby home. James Mendes, 32, of Randolph, Eric Hines, 32, of Roslindale, and Hendrick Davis, 41, of Brockton, are all slated to be arraigned Friday in Roxbury District Court on charges including larceny of a firearm, armed robbery, carrying a firearm without a license, kidnapping, breaking, according to the Boston Police Department. Mendes faces additional charges of kidnapping and assault with a dangerous weapon, while Davis is also charged with intent to distribute Class A and B drugs. Officers responding to a report of an armed robbery at Edwards Barber Shop on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury around 4 p.m. learned that three armed suspects with firearms had entered the business and robbed individuals inside before fleeing, police said. Police say detectives identified two of the suspects through video surveillance from inside the business and used city cameras to obtain a partial plate of the fleeing vehicle. One of the victims stolen watches then led detectives and officers about a mile and a half away to an apartment building at 86 Adams Street in Dorchester, where the vehicle in question was found parked in a driveway, according to investigators. A perimeter was set up around the home and a six-hour standoff ensued. Boston police cruisers swarmed the street, blocking any other traffic from driving down the road as officers in tactical gear negotiated with the suspects in the home. A SWAT team used de-escalation tactics, leading to two of the suspects being removed from the house without incident, but a third remained inside. Officers had force their way into the house to get that suspect out. Officers ultimately secured the scene pending a search warrant around 10 p.m. There were no reported injuries in the standoff. An investigation is ongoing. 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 Police have identified a motorcyclist who was killed in a head-on crash in Groton on Wednesday. Officers responding to a report of a crash on the westbound side of Boston Road just before 4:30 p.m. learned a vehicle had veered into the eastbound lane and struck a motorcycle head-on, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Groton Police Chief Michael Luth. The motorcyclist, who Ryan and Luth identified as 27-year-old Cody Trudell, of Ayer, was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The operator of the vehicle involved in the fatal wreck, a 20-year-old Townsend woman, remained at the scene. Police didnt release the drivers name or say if shell face charges. State troopers assigned to the Middlesex District Attorneys Office are assisting Groton police with an investigation. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Two overnight car crashes at separate businesses in Woburn are under investigation. One vehicle drove through a fence, slammed into a tree, and flipped over on Holton Street outside Spry Moving around 11:30 p.m. Firefighters say the rollover left the motorist trapped in the wreckage. There was no immediate word on their condition. Around the same time, firefighters responding to a report of a crash on Main Street found a Ford pickup truck crumpled against the side of a hair salon. Photos from the scene showed debris scattered on the sidewalk, a damaged light police, and a smashed brick wall. There was no word on injuries to the pickup truck driver. Boston 25 has reached out to Woburn police for comment on the crashes. 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 Police look to ID woman for alleged bank fraud STROUDSBURG, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) Police are searching for a woman allegedly involved in a bank fraud scheme. The Stroud Area Regional Police Department is investigating a crime on June 27 at the First Keystone Community Bank on Main Street in Stroudsburg. SARPD SARPD Police look to ID man for alleged bank fraud Police say a woman tried to deposit a high-dollar fraudulent check using a false identification card. Anyone with information is asked to submit a tip on the Stroud Area Regional Police 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 PAhomepage.com. Police looking for armed and dangerous suspect in Sharon grocery store stabbing; 2 others charged Two people were arrested and another is wanted after a stabbing at a grocery store in Sharon. The Sharon Police Department said officers were dispatched to City Foods on Division Street at 7:20 p.m. Thursday. Police found a man with a severe laceration to his face. He said he was robbed and was taken to a local trauma center. Police said officers were able to identify three male suspects who fled the scene in a car. The car was later found at a house in the 1300 block of Charles Street in Hermitage, with at least one of the suspects confirmed to be inside. The homeowner told police he was not home and that no one else should have been inside his house, police said. The Mercer County Critical Incident Response Team was called to the scene after the suspects refused commands to leave the house. Two of the suspects surrendered just before 10:50 p.m., when officers got a search warrant for the home. Shannon Clarke, 48, and Larry Moore Jr., 34, both from Hermitage, are charged with robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and aggravated assault. They are both being held in the Mercer County Jail. Police issued an arrest warrant for the third suspect, identified as Robert Lee Pegues III, 35, from Farrell. He is facing the same charges and is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information on Peguess whereabouts is asked to contract Sharon police at (724) 983-3210 or the Mercer County 911 Center at (724) 662-6110. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: ALF child actor Benji Gregory found dead with his service dog in car Primanti Bros. giving free sandwich to fans with mustache in honor of Paul Skenes All-Star selection PennDOT plan could fix traffic issues, reduce crashes on Parkway West near Fort Pitt Tunnel VIDEO: Police looking to identify suspect in Downtown Pittsburgh assault DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) When we think of teen job options fast food or retail come to mind. After all, back in high school, thats where many of us started out. But a Mount Holly entrepreneur wants to offer more than a paycheck. I hope itll give them a good idea of what they want to do moving forward, says Katherine Patrick, owner of Katherine Patrick State Farm. She believes teenagers arent too young to learn job skills and explore the idea of owning a business someday. Patrick has hired three sales assistants who are Gen Z-ers, giving them a chance to learn on the job and dream a little. Morgan Smith, Andrew Cook, and Addison Royall have quickly made a comical name for themselves. I guess were the Minions now? says Cook, a recent East Gaston High grad, referring to the moniker inspired by the famous animated characters. The Minions, what do the Minions want to do? Patrick explained. And I guess then it just kind of stuck, ha-ha. She pays the interns 15 bucks an hour. Each Minion is assigned with a sales rep. You kind of get to dip your toes into what the real world is like, says Royall. They teach them how to do their follow-up calls, they help us with mailings, Patrick said. She hopes maybe this puts them on a fast track to entrepreneurship like hers. The fact that shes so young and has done so much in her life is very much an inspiration, Addison told Queen City News. When Patrick graduated from Florida State, she thought her future was in the medical field. But she fell in love with insurance. When Patrick up shop in 2022, she was the youngest State Farm agent in the country at 23. I mean it was exciting! she says. I have not slept a lot in the past two and a half years, Ive just been grinding it out. And my goal is to be number one in the company one day. Absolutely, if I do end up working in insurance my end goal is to open up an agency like Katherine did, said Cook. The idea is to set them up for success in whatever they pursue by giving them more responsibility than other employers might think they can handle. Sometimes, they think high schoolers arent capable of doing a mature job, Addison says. Patrick encourages more businesses to hire high school students because they have a lot to offer. These kids are going somewhere in their life; theyre going to do something one day. And to catch them before they start doing that, said Patrick. Who knows, maybe down the road their names will be on a business sign like hers is. Chances are, theyll go on to accomplish big things. So, now is the time to joke with them about being Minions. Story continues Its much better than your typical high school job, said Morgan. Its just a great opportunity for me and the other Minions to be working here, Cook concluded. 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. ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (WOOD) Police say a man who carjacked a woman in the parking lot of a St. Joseph Dunkin Donuts was arrested in Indiana. The carjacking happened shortly before 8 a.m. Friday at the Dunkin Donuts on Niles Avenue at Highland Avenue, the St. Joseph Department of Public Safety said. The woman told police that a man pulled her out of her car and then stole it. Investigators say they quickly identified the suspect as a 43-year-old Hartford man. This embedded content is not available in your region. The suspect was later found by Indiana State Police and arrested. Police say he will be extradited back to Michigan to face charges. 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 police officer carries away a roll of caution tape in Rigby, Idaho. Larger police departments, which usually serve more densely populated communities, are seeing more officers move to smaller agencies due to increased scrutiny. Natalie Behring/The Associated Press Four years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the police murder of George Floyd, many big-city law enforcement agencies are struggling to fill their ranks. Departments have tried offering hiring bonuses, expediting background checks and increasing salaries. Some have dropped bans on visible tattoos, lowered physical fitness exam requirements and expanded eligibility to noncitizens. Yet the hiring that has happened is not enough, data shows. Some law enforcement agencies dont face a shortage of officers but need other key personnel, such as crime analysts and victim advocates. The cause of the shortages is unclear; the pandemic shuffled the employment picture in many industries, and a recent Duke University study suggests the Floyd-related protests of 2020 didnt significantly reduce police ranks. But some experts say law enforcements national reckoning had an effect. We are definitely in uncharted territory when it comes to the future employment of police officers, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national nonprofit think tank on policing standards. Larger agencies, which usually serve more densely populated communities, are seeing more officers move to smaller places, often to escape the intense scrutiny found in big cities, Wexler said. Some of the job incentives are working, especially in smaller agencies. More sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall resigned or retired, according to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, which included responses from 214 law enforcement agencies. In the groups survey, small and medium-size departments reported more sworn officers than they did in January 2020. But large departments remain more than 5% below their staffing levels from that time, despite a year-over-year increase in officers from 2022 to 2023. We are definitely in uncharted territory when it comes to the future employment of police officers. Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum Federal estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the median annual salary for police and sheriff's officers has increased by about 14% over the past four years, from $63,150 in 2019 to $72,280 in 2023. The estimated number of employed officers, however, has seen both slight increases and decreases throughout the same period. In 2023, the estimated number of employed officers decreased for the second consecutive year, from 655,890 in 2022 to 646,310 in 2023. However, the bureaus statistics do not measure hiring or separation, and they include many non-sworn employees at local agencies and many federal agencies. Additionally, the data does not measure how many officers are transferring from one department to another. A turning point? Lack of interest in the policing profession, the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers have all contributed to officer shortages across the country, Wexler said. Although the organization first noticed a dip in employment in 2019, 2020 was a real turning point, Wexler said. But not everyone agrees with that assessment. A non-peer-reviewed study published in June by Ben Grunwald, a law professor at Duke University, suggests that the activism following Floyds death in May 2020 likely did not cause officers to leave the profession. Grunwald studied employment data from nearly 7,000 local law enforcement agencies and found that the increase in separations at those agencies after the summer of 2020 was smaller, later, less sudden, and possibly less pervasive than the retention-crisis narrative suggests. The impact on the total police labor force by the end of 2021 was just 1%, according to Grunwalds findings. But Grunwald also found that some larger departments lost more than 5% of their staff by the end of 2021. Many larger departments have increased officer pay or offered incentives such as signing bonuses to attract new hires and retain current officers, but departments nationwide are competing with one another. Some of the highest-paying large departments are struggling. The Los Angeles Police Department, for example, has been dealing with a shortage of officers since 2020 and has not met its hiring goals for several years, according to Officer Norma Eisenman, a department spokesperson. The department currently employs 8,200 officers but has 470 vacancies. The department advertises a starting salary of about $88,000 for people still in the academy and $97,000 for a full-time police officer, according to its recruitment website. The city's budget passed and reportedly is close to the proposed plan, but details werent available. Under the proposal, the budget would provide authorization, but not all of the funding, for a force of up to 9,084 officers. The funding would cover a sworn workforce of 8,908 officers. Last year, Democratic Mayor Karen Bass called for an expansion of the LAPD to about 9,500 officers. In Oregon, the Portland Police Bureau is working to fill 61 officer vacancies. The bureau currently employs 605 officers and has hired 40 officers this year, halfway to its annual hiring goal of 80 officers, according to department spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Allen. The bureaus recruitment website advertises an $82,000 starting salary and a $5,000 bonus. It isnt about the money Wexler, though, said job candidates want more than just high salaries. It isnt about the money. It is about the quality of life in that particular department, he said. You have large departments on the West Coast that are paying six figures ... that are still hard-pressed to hire police officers. Mike Butler, a retired public safety chief who oversaw the police and fire departments in Longmont, Colorado, for 26 years, echoed Wexlers point. There are a number of cities that have raised the ante on their salaries or given big bonuses. Those things are kind of cosmetic and short-lived with people, Butler said in an interview with Stateline. If you get a $15,000-$20,000 bonus but you're working in an incredibly unhealthy, toxic culture, that begins to show and has great wear and tear on a persons soul and psyche. Instead of focusing on hiring incentives, what police departments should do, Butler argues, is shift their cultures in a way that suggests that its adding greater value to a community. That, in and of itself, would be a huge magnet, a huge draw for people, especially younger generations, Butler said. Police Chief Booker Hodges, who now serves Bloomington, Minnesota, a city with roughly 87,000 residents, said he has seen how changing an agencys work culture can improve hiring. Working in previous departments that were short-staffed when he arrived, he said, he managed to bring them to full strength by promoting a greater sense of purpose and building stronger community relationships. Hodges implemented this same strategy at the Bloomington Police Department, where he has been chief for about two years. The department has been fully staffed for the past 18 months and overstaffed for the past six months, he said. When people are looking for something purposeful, and they see an agency with a purpose, they see us, Hodges said in an interview with Stateline. That has helped us attract and retain officers. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Milwaukee police say a critically missing 52-year-old woman has been found safe. Police said the woman was last heard from Thursday afternoon, but officials sent an update Friday that she was located safe. "Critically missing" is a label police apply to people who may be especially vulnerable due to a variety of factors. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee police say critically missing woman found safe Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk takes part in the press conference following the German-Polish government consultations. Michael Kappeler/dpa Poland's parliament has narrowly rejected a proposal to liberalize the country's very strict abortion law by decriminalizing assisting an abortion. The bill was voted was defeated in parliament by a vote of 218 against and 215 in favour. Among those who rejected the bill were lawmakers from the Prime Minister Donald Tusk's coalition. The vote is a setback for Tusk, who had promised to strengthen women's rights during the election campaign, and reveals deep divisions within his coalition over the issue of abortion. Abortion law in Poland is currently among the strictest in Europe. Abortion is only permitted after rape, incest or if the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. If the unborn child has severe deformities, women are not allowed to have an abortion. Abortion itself is not punishable by law, but abetting an abortion is punishable by up to three years in prison, a penalty that can also be applied to husbands, partners or relatives who provide a pregnant woman with abortion pills. The proposal to make abortion free of punishment in future came from the left-wing The Left alliance, which is part of Tusk's coalition government. However, another coalition partner split against the vote, with lawmakers from the Christian conservative Third Way, including Defence Minister Wladyslaw Koszyniak-Kamysz, voting against the change. Two members of Tusk's own party, the liberal-conservative Civic Coalition, abstained from the vote. The women's organization Federa described the vote as a "slap in the face" of every woman. "Doctors will continue to be able to hide behind the fear of making themselves liable to prosecution if they help their patients. Families and friends will continue to risk their freedom if they help their loved ones," the group said in a statement. The Polish Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament) adopted a resolution on Friday, 12 July, which commemorates the victims of the 1944 genocide of Crimean Tatars when they were deported from Crimea by the Soviet authorities. Source: European Pravda Details: The resolution was approved by the Polish Sejm, with 414 members voting in favour, 16 against, and two abstaining. The resolution emphasises that the Soviet authorities initiated the deportation of Crimean Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula on the morning of 18 May 1944, forcibly relocating nearly 200,000 people to Central Asia and Siberia within three days. It also states that "the deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 and its consequences were an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar people". "The Ukrainian state honours the memory of the victims of the Soviet genocide on 18 May, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the 1944 Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People," the resolution of the Polish Sejm reads. Polish lawmakers separately recalled the annexation of Crimea in 2014, "which was one of the first chords of Russia's war against Ukraine" and is a violation of the principle of territorial integrity and a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter. Background: In 2022, Canada's House of Commons unanimously recognised the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide. Before that, the deportation of Crimean Tatars was recognised as genocide in Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania. Support UP or become our patron! From the G-File on The Dispatch Dear Reader (except those of you defecating us affirmatively and not cleaning it up), Im on a brief vacation, which has given me a little critical distance from events in Washington. I needed the respite. But following events from afar has actually made me more dyspeptic about politics. Because outside the fishbowl, things look even more embarrassing. Look, I usually recoil when people say theyre embarrassed to be an American. Such statements are usually a kind of too-cool-for-school virtue signaling or cover for the real gripe. Sometimes that gripe is ideological, sometimes partisan, and sometimes just snobbish. For instance, people who want socialized medicine often say theyre embarrassed that America doesnt have it. Some folks who say theyre embarrassed for the country actually just really dislike the current president and whatever he is doing. And, sometimes, people who have a stunning self-regard for their rarefied tastes think its unseemly that the country doesnt share their opinions. I dislike all these poses for a wide range of reasons, including a certain baseline patriotism. I love this country, full stop. But I also dislike this stuff because, very often, it conflates and confuses one aspect of American life with the whole of America itself. America is more than its government. I have no problem being embarrassed or appalled by any given president or party. But the way to think about it is not that America is embarrassing, but that so-and-so is embarrassing America. Which brings me to the current moment. Its embarrassing. This is not a partisan statement. Yes, Im embarrassed by Donald Trump and his enablers. But Im also embarrassed by Joe Biden and his. Im also embarrassed by the inability or unwillingness of people who share this embarrassment from rising to the occasion. Take a step back for a moment. And forget the who started it stuff. Imagine an astronaut who left earth in the 1960s, went into cryo-sleep for a half-century or so, and landed back here today. Instead of discovering that intelligent, talking apes now ruled the world, he arrived this week in our corner of reality. And you had to get him up to speed on whats going on. Theres a lot of stuff that would make him very proud to be an American. We beat the Soviet Union without a nuclear war. We ended Jim Crow. Got a lot richer and invented a bunch of cool stuff. Some things would take some time to get his head around, like gay marriage and TikTok videos. But then imagine trying to explain our political situation. The current president and his predecessor are locked in a statistical tie. The current president is in hot water because many in his own party think hes too mentally debilitated to beat his opponent, who often brags that he passed a test for dementia. Note, I did not say that they were worried hes too cognitively impaired to be president, just that hes too cognitively impaired to beat the guy who brags about meeting the minimum requirements for mental health. (Passing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test is not a sign of mental superiority, its a sign that you dont need to be treated for Parkinsons, Alzheimers, or some other forms of dementia.) The party of the guy who passed the broken-brain test insistsprobably correctly!that the incumbent couldnt pass that same test, but those same partisans also insist that the incumbent president stay in office and on the ticket. Theyd rather risk losing to a guy they believe has severe dementia than face a candidate who doesnt. Meanwhile, defenders of the incumbent insist that the challenger is such a threat to democracy that he must be defeated at all costs. But the incumbent says that if he loses, so long as he did his goodest job campaigning against him, his conscience will be clear. The challenger, who tried to steal the last election, has denied any involvement with what some call an insurrection. But, he says, the people arrested for the violence done on his behalfincluding beating up cops with American flag poles on the steps of the Capitolare political prisoners and hostages. He says the criminal charges brought against him in relation to that effort are an outrageous affront, the weaponization of the criminal justice system. On social media, that same guy recently boosted calls for televised military tribunals for members of his own party because they refused to go along with his attempt to steal the election or endorse the lies he told in that effort. But he also argues that presidents should have total and complete immunity from criminal prosecution. His lawyers even treated the question of whether or not the president could order the political assassination of his political opponents as somewhat open. Under this theory, the current president could simply order the murder of his rival and be done with it. I could go on like this for hours. I could concede that the 34 felony convictions against Trump are kind of bogus and evidence of a politicized criminal justice system. But wed also have to concede that hes perfectly fine with dragging this country through scandal and embarrassment because he lacks a tiny fraction of the patriotism required to put America first, even though thats his slogan. We could talk about how both candidates accuse each other of spending so irresponsibly that we are becoming crippled with debt. And how theyre both right! But you get the point. Democrats behaved so irresponsibly that they make Donald Trump a plausible contender. Republicans have behaved so cravenly that millions of people are willing to vote for a president they believe is suffering from dementia. And everyone claims that they have sole claim to the right of calling their team the patriotic one. Its just frickin embarrassing. Again, America is more than its government. But in a democracy, politicians respond to the incentives of the political marketplace. Thats not just the voters, its also the institutions that guide and shape our politics, including the media, donors, and interest groups. And weve all played some part in embarrassing our country. Various & Sundry Im on a short vacation. The beasts are in capable hands. One of Kirstens proteges is house-and-quadruped sitting the beasts. Theyre all fine. Kirsten still comes by for the midday adventures and theyve been having a grand time. The Fair Jessica goes home Sunday. I go straight to Milwaukee for the GOP convention. I am not finding it difficult to contain my enthusiasm about that. ICYMI Last Fridays G-File Jonah pleads: Get serious, people! Were on the island of misfit toys.. Rocky VI (The Remix) Everyone is losing it! Press conference post-mortem Weird Links Bird vs. Machine There are snakes in my pants! Wait, nothere are gerbils in my pants! The third Council of Nicaea concerns Looney Toons Venomous revengeFreudian slip 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. Polk County authorities ask for publics help finding man wanted in car burglaries POLK COUNTY, Texas (KETK) Officials in Polk County said on Friday they are asking for the publics help in finding a man who is wanted in a car burglary case. FEMA recovery centers reopen after Beryl According to the sheriffs office, 27-year-old Jordan Freeman is suspected in car burglaries that happened along FM 350 S on Thursday night. Freeman was also involved in an accident and is possibly injured, authorities said. He is believed to be with his brother who could also possibly be injured. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Polk County Sheriffs Office at 936-327-6810. Anonymous tips can be made online, using the P3 app or by calling Polk County Crime Stoppers at 936-327-STOP. 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. Poll: What state do you want to see Breeze Airways fly to from Vero Beach Regional Airport? Editor's note: Scroll down for the survey. Breeze Airways on Wednesday announced another New York destination from the Vero Beach Regional Airport, starting in November. Newburgh will be Breeze's third New York and fifth northeast destination from Vero Beach. The airline also flies to Connecticut and Massachusetts out of the northern Treasure Coast airport. Some people on social media asked Breeze to consider flying into different states and regions from Vero Beach. Breeze hasn't announced any further expansion plans, but hypothetically where else would you want to see Breeze's Airbus 220 blue aircraft take you? Vote in our poll below. Can't see the poll? Click here to vote. This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Besides New York, where do you want Breeze to fly to from Vero Beach? PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) More than 2,000 patients from two Portland-area hospitals might have been exposed to several types of infections after a physician possibly violated hospital protocols, Oregon health officials and Providence and Legacy health systems announced on Thursday. In a statement, the Oregon Health Authority said its healthcare-associated infection program is working with Legacy Mt. Hood Medical Center in Gresham and Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City on their investigations into the breached practices. In the announcement, a spokesperson for Providence said the hospital recently learned that a physician, who has not been publicly identified, may not have followed Providences infection control practices during some procedures at Portland-area hospitals including Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center, Providence Portland Medical Center, and other non-Providence hospitals. Providence did not detail which protocols might not have been followed but said the physician put patients at low risk of exposure to infections including hepatitis B and C, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Kroger-Albertsons selling 186 Oregon, Washington stores in merger bid. Here is the full list The physician was employed by the Oregon Anesthesiology Group, which no longer provides services for Providence, the hospital system spokesperson said, noting the physician no longer works for OAG. Providence said the hospital is notifying about 2,200 patients seen at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center along with two patients seen at Providence Portland Medical Center by mail or a MyChart notification about their possible exposure to the infections. Out of an abundance of caution, we are encouraging these patients to get a blood test to screen for the aforementioned infections, at no cost. If a patient tests positive, Providence will reach out to discuss their test results and next steps, Providence said in a statement. Patient safety is our number one priority, and our patients have our full commitment to a thorough review of this issue and appropriate action. Oregon board considering conditional release of man who decapitated mother As of Thursdays announcement, OHA said the agency is not aware of any reported illnesses associated with the breach. Oregon Health Authority acknowledges the worry, pain and loss suffered by anyone affected by a health care-associated infection (HAI) an infection acquired while they are receiving care in a hospital or other health facility. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in 31 hospital patients in the U.S. has at least one HAI on any given day. HAIs can have devastating impacts for patients as they can increase the length of stay, delay recovery from illness, cause emotional stress, and can lead to sepsis or even death. OHAs response to HAIs can involve different divisions with separate consultative and regulatory functions, OHA said. The state health agency furthered, While news of this infection control breach at Legacy Mt. Hood Medical Center and Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center may be distressing for some people, its important to know that Oregons health care providers employ highly qualified and skilled infection preventionists and laboratory staff who lead the charge to prevent HAIs. In addition, local, state and federal public health agencies work closely with healthcare settings to implement effective infection control practices and equip health care providers with the tools that keep patients, visitors and the public safe. Let drug users deflect treatment? Residents discuss MultCo. leaders controversial program A spokesperson for Legacy Health said they are notifying 221 patients who may be impacted by the breach. In a statement, Legacy Health said, The safety of our patients is our highest priority. We are in the process of sending letters notifying 221 patients who may have been impacted. Upon learning of this situation, we immediately suspended the provider and launched a comprehensive investigation in accordance with regulations and with our policies and procedures. Our community should know that this was an isolated situation involving a single provider, contracted with the Oregon Anesthesiology Group to provide care at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center for approximately six months beginning in December of 2023. This is a developing 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 KOIN.com. By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Elon Musk's social media company X breached European Union online content rules and its blue checkmark deceives users, EU tech regulators ruled on Friday in a finding that could lead to a hefty fine and significant changes in how it operates. The charges by the European Commission, the first issued under the Digital Services Act (DSA), follow a seven-month long investigation. The new rules require very large online platforms and search engines to do more to tackle illegal content and risks to public security. The EU executive's preliminary findings or charges sent to X targeted the company's so-called dark patterns that shape user behaviour, its advertising transparency and data access for researchers. X said it disagreed with the EU's assessment on how it complies with the DSA while owner Musk threatened litigation. "We look forward to a very public battle in court, so that the people of Europe can know the truth," Musk said on X. Earlier he said that the Commission had offered X an illegal secret deal to censor speech without telling anyone which the company did not accept unlike other unnamed platforms. EU industry chief Thierry Breton fired back. "Be our guest," he wrote on X. "There has never been and will never be any 'secret deal'. With anyone. The DSA provides X (and any large platform) with the possibility to offer commitments to settle a case." "Up to you to decide whether to offer commitments or not. That is how rule of law procedures work. See you (in court or not)," Breton said. The Commission said X's verified accounts which carry a blue checkmark do not correspond to industry practice and negatively affect users' ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts they interact with. After buying the platform then known as Twitter in 2022, Musk altered the use of the blue checkmark, which previously indicated that an account belonged to a public figure whose identity was verified but was changed to indicate it belonged to a paid subscriber. The commission said X had also failed to comply with a DSA requirement to provide searchable and reliable information about advertisements in a library for easy access. X was also charged with blocking researchers from accessing its public data. The company, which will have several months to respond to the charges, could face a fine of as much as 6% of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching the DSA. "X has now the right of defence but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines and require significant changes," Breton said in a statement. Story continues The Commission said separate investigations continue into dissemination of illegal content on X and measures it has taken to counter disinformation. ByteDance's TikTok, AliExpress and Meta Platforms are also being investigated under the DSA. (Reporting by Foo Yun CheeEditing by Jason Neely, David Evans, Peter Graff and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) A Portland man who led Oregon City police on a high-speed chase was sentenced to federal prison on Wednesday for his role in a large-scale fraud scheme, authorities announced. Cody Stewart, 43, was sentenced to just over four years in prison with five years supervised release and ordered to pay more than $200,000 in restitution to his victims. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Stewart worked with two accomplices identified as Felicia Hawkins and Patrick Balan who stole large quantities of mail to obtain their victims personal information between April 2020 and April 2023. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke joins cast of Portland-filmed series Authorities said that information was used to open unauthorized bank accounts and apartment leases. Around 3 p.m. May 22, 2023, Oregon City police saw Stewart drive a Mercedes sedan over a curb near Meyers Road before speeding away from the police car sparking a police chase with Stewart reaching speeds over 100 miles per hour. After officers stopped his car with a PIT maneuver on Highway 212, police said Stewart refused arrest and put unknown pills in his mouth. This Portland restaurant has the best fried chicken in Oregon, according to Yelp Officials said Stewart ended up surrendering to police after officers used a 40-millimeter less lethal projectile to break the drivers side window. During his arrest, police discovered Stewart had warrants for his arrest related to a large-scale bank fraud and identity theft investigation led by the Department of Homeland Security. Because he swallowed unknown pills, Stewart was taken to a local hospital and authorities said they later found mail and bank cards belonging to others in the sedan. Portland-area patients may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis infections after possible protocol violation During a search of his home, investigators found drugs, counterfeit identification and financial documents, stolen mail, and paper to make counterfeit checks and cash. In April of 2023, a federal grand jury in Portland returned a 12-count indictment charging Stewart, Hawkins, and Balan with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, using or trafficking an unauthorized access device, producing, using or trafficking a counterfeit access device, aggravated identity theft and possession of stolen mail. Stewart pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in March. Kroger-Albertsons selling 186 Oregon, Washington stores in merger bid. Here is the full list In January, Hawkins pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank fraud and was later sentenced to federal prison with five years supervised release. Balan is on pre-trial release pending a four-day jury trial set to begin Aug. 6. 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 man killed in a drive-by shooting on July 7 in Southeast Portland has been identified by authorities. According to the Portland Police Bureau, 49-year-old Portland resident Walter E. Mulberry was killed in the shooting that happened near Southeast 9th Avenue in the Buckman Neighborhood just after 1 a.m. Mulberry was identified as working as a security guard at the time of the shooting and his family, who provided a photo of him for the public, was notified, officials said. A medical examiner confirmed the cause of death was homicide by gunshot. Portland-area patients may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis infections after possible protocol violation A 17-year-old boy was also injured in the shooting. PPBs Thursday update on the case did not include additional information about any suspects but they did say the case was still being actively investigated by homicide detectives. However, police said earlier this week that no arrests had been made. KOIN 6 News spoke with Mulberrys daughter, Emily Shute. She said her father was an avid outdoorsman and always looking out for others. Somebody knows something. somebody saw something. My father, my daddy was a great man, its not like a video game where hes just another NPC on the street. He was a person. He had a family, he had a kid, he had grandkids, Shute said. During the initial investigation, officers found evidence suggesting dozens of shots had been fired, as well as multiple parked cars and other objects in the area struck by bullets. Both the man and the teen were taken to the hospital, but the man soon died from his injuries. The teen is expected to survive. Police said they think the suspect or suspects fired shots from a moving vehicle towards a group of people on a nearby sidewalk. A GoFundMe page has been set up by Mulberrys family to help fund his memorial. Police said they believe there are additional witnesses who have yet to speak with authorities. Anyone who has information about the shooting is encouraged to contact police. 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. PORTSMOUTH Hate crime charges have been handed down by a county grand jury against the Portsmouth teenager allegedly responsible for a deluge of hateful graffiti on downtown businesses, buildings and places of worship in February 2023. Loren Faulkner, a juvenile at the time of the incident but now 18 years of age, faces 12 enhanced misdemeanor charges out of Rockingham County Superior Court, announced in the courts June indictments. Each charge is a criminal mischief count designated as a hate crime tied to the widespread incident last year, which saw business owners, religious leaders and homeowners wake up to find hateful messaging and symbols, including swastikas, spray painted on their respective buildings. Portsmouth police released images of the suspect seen on surveillance footage spray painting hateful graffiti on numerous locations in and around downtown early Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. Teenager Loren Faulkner faces hate crime charges from a county grand jury in the wake of the widespread incident. Charging documents from the court note each count is punishable by upwards of two to five years in New Hampshire State Prison and a maximum $2,000 fine. Faulkner is scheduled to be arraigned at the Rockingham County Superior Court in Brentwood on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 1 p.m. In April, Faulkner turned himself in to the Portsmouth Police Department on an arrest warrant for 31 misdemeanor alternative theory charges of criminal mischief and hate-motivated criminal mischief. He was released on personal recognizance bail. The case was headed for trial in Portsmouth District Court on Oct. 9 after Faulkner pleaded not guilty in June and waived arraignment at the Parrott Avenue courthouse, according to state court records. But now, Deputy Rockingham County Attorney Kristin Vartanian said the trial has been canceled and the matter will be taken up in Superior Court instead following the grand jurys indictments. Weve taken the case over from (Portsmouth) District Court, she said Wednesday. The county grand jury charges accuse Faulkner of being substantially motivated to vandalize the numerous structures in and around downtown Portsmouth because of hostility toward the victims religion, race, creed, sexual orientation as defined in (state statute), national origin, sex, or gender identity. The county charging documents allege Faulkner targeted Portsmouth Smoke and Vape; Macro Polo; Temple Israel; St. Johns Episcopal Church; a Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire historical marker at St. Johns Episcopal Church; Stroll Cafe & Wine Bar; St. Johns Masonic Lodge; Cotillion Bureau; the Portsmouth Place Apartments; Deadwicks Ethereal Emporium; Cup of Joe Cafe & Bar, owned by Assistant Mayor Joanna Kelley; and Grim North Tattoo & Piercing. The incident occurred in the early morning hours of Feb. 21, 2023, with the suspect allegedly caught in the act on surveillance wearing a hooded red sweatshirt, khaki pants, white shoes and orange-rimmed glasses. The state charges against Faulkner are merely allegations. However, in March, Faulkner and the Rockingham County Superior Court entered a consent decree regarding New Hampshire Attorney General John Formellas April 2023 Civil Rights Act complaint against the teenager. The settlement between Faulkner and the court effectively acknowledged the teenager was responsible for the racist and antisemitic messaging in downtown Portsmouth. Formellas now-resolved complaint hit Faulkner with 22 counts of violating the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act, charges that would have each been punished with a maximum civil penalty of $5,000. In the consent decree, Faulkner was ordered to pay a civil penalty of $50,000, though all but $2,500 of the fine was suspended for a three-year period if he complies with all of the terms of the agreement. The 18-year-old is barred from coming within 250 feet of the locations he targeted for the next three years, as well as the owners, staff, congregants, and residents of those places, according to Formella. Seacoast Media Group did not name Faulkner in previous coverage of the incident because he was a juvenile at the time of the spree. New Hampshire court records identify attorney John MacLachlan as being Faulkners counsel for his Civil Rights Act violation proceedings. It was unclear whether Faulkner had retained the lawyer or obtained new counsel for the county hate crime charges. MacLachlan did not respond to a request for comment this week. More: Portsmouth pushes back on overnight wave of hateful graffiti targeting Temple, businesses This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH man faces criminal charges related hate graffiti spree ATLANTA The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are investigating many severe illnesses associated with the Diamond Shruumz-brand edible chocolates, cones, and gummies that frequently appeal to children or teenagers. Diamond Shruumz products are alleged to potentially contain harmful and undisclosed ingredients that can cause both severe illnesses and alter brain function when eaten. According to the FDA, people who became ill from Diamond Shruumz-brand products reported a variety of severe symptoms, including hallucinations, uncontrolled movements, fast or slow heart rate, high or low blood pressure, flushed skin, and gastrointestinal effects (such as nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain). Other severe adverse effects have been reported, including seizures, decreased level of consciousness, loss of consciousness, confusion, sleepiness, and respiratory failure. A report from the FDA shows that as of July 8, 2024, 58 illnesses had been reported in 27 states, including at least one in Alabama and several reports in Georgia that are being investigated. Of the people who became ill, more than half were hospitalized, and one potentially associated death is under investigation. The investigation is ongoing to identify other cases. Diamond Shruumz products are commonly available at consumable hemp retailers and tobacco and vape shops but can also be purchased online. The products have been recalled but may still be available for sale in some places, though retailers have been advised to remove them from their shelves. Consumers should also discard any purchased products. Should you have already consumed the products and are experiencing symptoms, seek immediate medical attention or call the Georgia Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222. 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. MEMPHIS, Tenn Three women are accused of jumping a pregnant woman, who then later lost her child, Memphis Police say. Dalayah Suggs, 21, and Tennille Luster, 25, are charged with Aggravated Assault. 19-year-old killed in shooting; family seeks justice On July 2, the victim allegedly received a text message from Suggs saying to meet her at a field so they could fight. About 10 minutes later, she got another text from Suggs saying, We here. The victim remembered her car was parked by the field, so she went to move it. At that point, Suggs reportedly punched her and they began to fight. Records state the victim fell to the ground and Lester and another suspect, Lasheka McCraney, began kicking her in her back and stomach. Another woman stood and recorded the incident. The victims sister attempted to break up the fight and got assaulted as well. MPD says the victim was three months pregnant and lost the baby on July 6. Both Suggs and Luster could face up to 15 years in prison and a $1,000 fine if convicted of the aggravated assault charges. We asked Memphis Police why the three suspects were only being charged with aggravated assault. They say, After [the DAs office] reviewed the facts of the case, she determined that the probable cause supported this charge. Charges can be amended. Reports detail whats been happening inside 201 Poplar Luster and Suggs told the judge on Friday morning they are not sure if they can hire a lawyer, but they are certain their family will bail them out. If you are still here and they havent hired you a lawyer, I will give you a public defender, said Judge Sheila Bruce Renfroe. Suggs and Luster are both being held on $25,000 bonds. The bail review hearing for both suspects is scheduled for Monday. A warrant was issued for Lasheka McCraneys arrest, police say. We reached out to the victim and her family members but we have not heard back. 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. When embattled President Joe Biden visits Austin on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the library of the president who signed the landmark legislation into law, the head of the Texas Democratic Party and at least two senior area congressmen in the president's party will not be part of the event. State Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said Friday that he has a scheduling conflict and will be unable to attend the midday event at the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas. The absence is notable because Biden will arrive in Austin his first visit since becoming president as calls are growing within the party for him to step aside as a candidate for reelection after his unsteady performance June 27 in a debate with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. In an interview with the American-Statesman, Hinojosa did not expressly join those calls, but he didn't offer his full-throated support for Biden to remain as the 2024 Democratic standard-bearer. "If he makes a decision to stay, then so be it. We have to make the best of that," Hinojosa said. "And we need to do everything possible to make sure that that does not affect our down-ballot races in Texas, some critical down-ballot races that are going to be affecting the future of Texas." Asked directly if Biden should be the party's nominee, Hinojosa replied, "I want to make sure that the person that has the best chance of beating Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket." The president's visit to Texas, a reliably Republican state, is being billed by the White House as an official visit, meaning it's not part of his reelection effort. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a former Democratic state senator, plans to greet Biden when Air Force One touches down at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and will be on hand at the LBJ Library, his office said. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who this month became the first prominent Democrat to call for Biden to stand down, will not be at the event. An aide said Doggett had made another commitment before going public with his concerns about Biden's ability to defeat Trump and before the president's Austin visit was announced. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, also has a scheduling conflict, his office said. Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin plans to attend the event, his office said. More: Joe Biden says he will not step aside as he faces further calls to bow out State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, the head of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, plans to be there, his office said, as do several other Democratic state House members. Also on Friday, five Democratic former members of Congress from Texas sent a letter to Biden asking him to gracefully exit the race. The single-page letter, copied to the Democratic congressional leadership, praises the 81-year-old president for his long career in public service, and says, "The entire nation is eternally indebted to you. "(W)e believe that it is time for you to encourage a new generation of leaders to step forward to unite and lead the nation at this critical time. Therefore, we believe that you should withdraw from the presidential race and allow a new nominee to be considered," says the letter from former U.S. Reps. Michael Andrews, John Bryant (now a member of the Texas House), Chet Edwards, Charlie Gonzalez and Max Sandlin. But at his news conference Thursday evening, carried live by the major networks and cable news outlets, Biden vowed to remain in the race, saying he is the best Democrat to take on Trump after defeating him four years ago. The president insisted he is up to the job, though some Democrats have since joined in calling for him to bow out. "If I slow down and can't get the job done, that's a sign I shouldn't be doing it," Biden told reporters Thursday, adding that it's important that he try to "allay fears" among voters. "But there's no indication of that yet. None." President Lyndon Johnson hands a pen he used to sign the Civil Rights Act to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on July 2, 1964. Biden's plan to visit the LBJ Presidential Library to commemorate Lyndon Johnson's July 2, 1964, signing of the historic act that outlawed Jim Crow-style segregation, was announced last week. The legislation was forcefully pushed by the Democratic president with help from enough congressional Republicans to overcome the objections of segregationist Southern Democrats. More: Joe Biden says he will not step aside as he faces further calls to bow out: Replay In his final public appearance Dec. 12, 1972, just weeks before his death Jan. 22, Johnson expressed hope that the law would bring about lasting racial equality in the United States. "Let us close the springs of racial poison," Johnson said in his remarks at the library that bears his name. "Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole." A decade ago, then-President Barack Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter attended the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library to commemorate the Civil Rights Acts 50th anniversary. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Democratic uncertainty will greet President Joe Biden in Austin When embattled President Joe Biden visits Austin on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the library of the president who signed the landmark legislation into law, the head of the Texas Democratic Party and at least two senior area congressmen in the president's party will not be part of the event. State Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said Friday that he has a scheduling conflict and will be unable to attend the midday event at the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas. The absence is notable because Biden will arrive in Austin his first visit since becoming president as calls are growing within the party for him to step aside as a candidate for reelection after his unsteady performance June 27 in a debate with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. President Joe Biden will be at the LBJ Presidential Library on Monday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, which was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. In an interview with the American-Statesman, Hinojosa did not expressly join those calls, but he didn't offer his full-throated support for Biden to remain as the 2024 Democratic standard-bearer. "If he makes a decision to stay, then so be it. We have to make the best of that," Hinojosa said. "And we need to do everything possible to make sure that that does not affect our down-ballot races in Texas, some critical down-ballot races that are going to be affecting the future of Texas." Asked directly if Biden should be the party's nominee, Hinojosa replied, "I want to make sure that the person that has the best chance of beating Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket." The president's visit to Texas, a reliably Republican state, is being billed by the White House as an official visit, meaning it's not part of his reelection effort. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a former Democratic state senator, plans to greet Biden when Air Force One touches down at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and will be on hand at the LBJ Library, his office said. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who this month became the first prominent Democrat to call for Biden to stand down, will not be at the event. An aide said Doggett had made another commitment before going public with his concerns about Biden's ability to defeat Trump and before the president's Austin visit was announced. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, also has a scheduling conflict, his office said. Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin plans to attend the event, his office said. More: Joe Biden says he will not step aside as he faces further calls to bow out State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio, the head of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, plans to be there, his office said, as do several other Democratic state House members. Also on Friday, five Democratic former members of Congress from Texas sent a letter to Biden asking him to gracefully exit the race. The single-page letter, copied to the Democratic congressional leadership, praises the 81-year-old president for his long career in public service, and says, "The entire nation is eternally indebted to you. "(W)e believe that it is time for you to encourage a new generation of leaders to step forward to unite and lead the nation at this critical time. Therefore, we believe that you should withdraw from the presidential race and allow a new nominee to be considered," says the letter from former U.S. Reps. Michael Andrews, John Bryant (now a member of the Texas House), Chet Edwards, Charlie Gonzalez and Max Sandlin. But at his news conference Thursday evening, carried live by the major networks and cable news outlets, Biden vowed to remain in the race, saying he is the best Democrat to take on Trump after defeating him four years ago. The president insisted he is up to the job, though some Democrats have since joined in calling for him to bow out. "If I slow down and can't get the job done, that's a sign I shouldn't be doing it," Biden told reporters Thursday, adding that it's important that he try to "allay fears" among voters. "But there's no indication of that yet. None." President Lyndon Johnson hands a pen he used to sign the Civil Rights Act to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on July 2, 1964. Biden's plan to visit the LBJ Presidential Library to commemorate Lyndon Johnson's July 2, 1964, signing of the historic act that outlawed Jim Crow-style segregation, was announced last week. The legislation was forcefully pushed by the Democratic president with help from enough congressional Republicans to overcome the objections of segregationist Southern Democrats. More: Joe Biden says he will not step aside as he faces further calls to bow out: Replay In his final public appearance Dec. 12, 1972, just weeks before his death Jan. 22, Johnson expressed hope that the law would bring about lasting racial equality in the United States. "Let us close the springs of racial poison," Johnson said in his remarks at the library that bears his name. "Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole." A decade ago, then-President Barack Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter attended the Civil Rights Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library to commemorate the Civil Rights Acts 50th anniversary. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Democratic uncertainty will greet President Joe Biden in Austin Price of US first-class mail stamp to rise to 73 cents FILE PHOTO: A United States Postal Service mailbox is seen in Manhattan, New York City By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The price of first-class U.S. mail stamps will rise on Sunday to 73 cents from 68 cents, the latest in a series of price hikes. The plan, announced in April and approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission in late May, raises overall mailing services product prices by 7.8%. So-called Forever first-class stamps can be used at any time - even after prices rise. The U.S. Postal Service in November reported a $6.5 billion yearly net loss as first-class mail fell to the lowest volume since 1968. On Sunday, stamp prices will have risen 46% over 2019 when they were 50 cents. USPS has been aggressively hiking stamp prices as it has lost over $100 billion since 2007. It is in the middle of a 10-year restructuring plan announced in 2021 that aims to eliminate $160 billion in projected losses over the next decade. USPS is the worlds largest delivery operation, handling 123 billion pieces of mail and packages annually. It says it accounts for 44% of the worlds mail. The agency has said it expects its "new pricing policy to generate $44 billion in additional revenue" by 2031. First-class mail volume, which fell 6.1% in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2023, to 46 billion pieces, is down 53% since 2006 - to the lowest volume since 1968. It is used by most people to send letters and pay bills and is the highest revenue-generating mail class, accounting for $24.5 billion, or 31% of USPS 2023 revenue. In April 2022, U.S. President Joe Bidensigned legislation providing USPS with about $50 billion in financial relief over a decade. In May, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy agreed to pause further planned consolidation of the Postal Service's processing network until at least January after a bipartisan group of senators raised concerns about the impact on mail deliveries. (Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis) China strives for law-based governance with focus on reform, innovation Xinhua) 08:16, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- With over 15 years of experience working in a court, Sha Li is accustomed to encountering plaintiffs and defendants with a wide range of personalities, but a litigant appearing in court in pajamas was beyond acceptable. Sha is a judge at the Hangzhou Internet Court, the first of its kind in China that specializes in internet-related lawsuits and allows relevant parties to attend trials online. The court was officially launched in August 2017, following a plan adopted at a Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform meeting in June that year to establish such a court in the e-commerce hub of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Sha was among the first judges appointed to serve in this court, and everything was new for her and her colleagues, with no precedents to refer to. "Back then, with no existing rules for online trials, litigants sometimes dressed overly casually, and some even chatted during the proceedings," Sha said. The judges had to navigate their way forward, addressing issues such as dress code while also working to carefully define rules tailored to trials in the information age, both in terms of procedural and substantive regulations. In one case involving an e-commerce dispute, Sha noticed that the two parties lived in China and Canada, respectively, with a time difference of over 10 hours. "The overseas party could participate in the proceedings online, but they had to attend the hearing at midnight," Sha said. To better tap into the advantage of online proceedings, the president of the court proposed an "asynchronous procedure," which allows the bench, the litigants and their lawyers to attend procedures at different times but within a given time limit, thus making it possible for relevant parties to present evidence, conduct cross-examination and engage in court debate at any convenient time. Sha also understands well that the value of an internet court lies not only in the use of technology but also in advancing the rule of law. In another case concerning a dispute over unfair competition involving big data in 2018, Sha, based on her study of industrial development and research by scholars, established clear guidelines in her ruling on the proper collection of user data by internet enterprises, thereby setting a precedent for judicial protection of data-related rights and interests. One of her rulings was also the first to confirm the validity of digital evidence using blockchain technology. The establishment of the Hangzhou Internet Court was a significant institutional innovation for the judiciary to actively adapt to the trend of internet development. "If you asked me 10 years ago if someone could get their judicial case solved without leaving home, I would have taken it as a joke," Sha said. "But now, it only takes a few seconds to file a lawsuit or upload evidence online, even when it is two o'clock in the morning. Isn't it convenient, just like online shopping?" Today, there are three internet courts in China, located in Hangzhou, Beijing and Guangzhou. Besides, online court procedures are now accessible at all Chinese courts and the online filing of cases can be done during weekends or non-working hours. Over the past decade, various reform and innovation measures in the realm of legislation and law enforcement have been put in place to boost law-based governance in China. On May 28, 2020, the National People's Congress adopted the milestone Civil Code, a fundamental law that holds an important position in the Chinese socialist system of laws. A major innovation of the Civil Code is embodied in the personality rights section, which includes provisions on a civil subject's rights to life, body, health, name, portrait, reputation and privacy. According to jurists, this section shows that China has reached new heights in protecting people's dignity. The code also addresses modern fields that need regulation, including new problems emerging from urbanization, environmental protection, the application of AI technologies, and the development of the digital economy. The Chinese legislature has promulgated or revised a considerable number of laws, ranging from ensuring food safety and combating air pollution to building a barrier-free environment. Government agencies are also exploring new ways to improve their services for the public and create a better business environment. The southern island province of Hainan has introduced a series of measures for the reform of comprehensive administrative law enforcement to streamline related procedures. A total of 15 provincial-level law-enforcement teams were disbanded and over 290 teams in 19 cities and counties have been dissolved. Instead, special facilities were launched to communicate the needs of companies to relevant departments. Personnel from multiple departments were organized to form an integrated team to carry out inspections of enterprises together, so that the businesses do not need to deal with repeated examinations by different agencies. "The goal of Hainan's reform of comprehensive administrative law enforcement is to create a stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment governed by the rule of law, so as to meet the needs of various business entities and minimize unnecessary disruptions," said Yao Jianzong, a law professor at Hainan University. For Sha and other law professionals in China, their work to explore better law-based governance and to advance the rule of law is a lasting endeavor. "I feel honored to contribute to judicial efforts that embrace the evolving changes in the legal sector, aligning with the ever-evolving needs of the society," she said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Key Insights Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, Padini Holdings Berhad fair value estimate is RM2.61 Padini Holdings Berhad is estimated to be 34% overvalued based on current share price of RM3.49 Our fair value estimate is 35% lower than Padini Holdings Berhad's analyst price target of RM4.02 Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Padini Holdings Berhad (KLSE:PADINI) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Models like these may appear beyond the comprehension of a lay person, but they're fairly easy to follow. Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you. Check out our latest analysis for Padini Holdings Berhad What's The Estimated Valuation? We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM249.1m RM216.5m RM130.0m RM141.0m RM152.0m RM141.5m RM136.1m RM134.0m RM133.9m RM135.3m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x3 Analyst x3 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ -6.92% Est @ -3.78% Est @ -1.58% Est @ -0.04% Est @ 1.04% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 11% RM225 RM177 RM96.0 RM94.2 RM91.8 RM77.2 RM67.2 RM59.8 RM54.0 RM49.3 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM992m The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (3.6%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 11%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034 (1 + g) (r g) = RM135m (1 + 3.6%) (11% 3.6%) = RM2.0b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM2.0b ( 1 + 11%)10= RM723m The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is RM1.7b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of RM3.5, the company appears potentially overvalued at the time of writing. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. dcf Important Assumptions Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Padini Holdings Berhad as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 11%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.113. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Padini Holdings Berhad Strength Currently debt free. Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows. Weakness Earnings declined over the past year. Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Specialty Retail market. Opportunity Annual earnings are forecast to grow for the next 3 years. Good value based on P/E ratio compared to estimated Fair P/E ratio. Threat Annual earnings are forecast to grow slower than the Malaysian market. Moving On: Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it is only one of many factors that you need to assess for a company. DCF models are not the be-all and end-all of investment valuation. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. What is the reason for the share price exceeding the intrinsic value? For Padini Holdings Berhad, we've put together three essential factors you should further examine: Risks: Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Padini Holdings Berhad , and understanding these should be part of your investment process. Future Earnings: How does PADINI's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Malaysian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com The Sunrise Movement, a progressive, youth-led climate group, is calling on President Biden to step aside from the 2024 race after his abysmal debate performance spurred Democratic anxiety about his ability to beat former President Trump. To young people: losing this election could alter the rest of our lives, Sunrise Movement Executive Director Aru Shiney-Ajay said in a statement. Joe Bidens next climate legacy-defining act must be to pass the torch to a new nominee, Shiney-Ajay added. The statement appears to make Sunrise the first major climate or environmental advocacy group to publicly call for Biden to step down. It also represents a rare break from some of the groups top political allies, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), both of whom are backing Biden despite calls from other Democrats for him to drop out. More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race. The Sunrise Movement has been withholding a formal endorsement from Biden. While the group has backed a number of the presidents climate policies, it has said he should go even further, including by declaring a national climate emergency. But Shiney-Ajay now said, In order to fight for our generation and our future, we must vote for the Democratic nominee. She said the group will try to persuade young voters to vote against Trump regardless of whom the Democratic candidate is, but their efforts would be more successful with someone other than Biden. With another ticket that energizes young volunteers, we could contact up to twice as many voters this fall, she 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. Progressives are standing behind President Biden, turning their constant critique of him into solidarity at a pivotal moment. The question is: For how long? Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the rest of the squad are defending the 81-year-old president as several of their moderate colleagues on Capitol Hill have called for him to step down. Publicly, their support is an effort to quell concerns over his chances of winning the White House against former President Trump. But some strategists and sources close to progressive members say they may be playing a longer game behind closed doors, where they could help persuade him delicately in private if more elected Democrats say he should drop out. I think theyre buying time and creating space for private pressure, said one Democratic strategist close to key progressives in Congress. This is very much a ball game. Democrats have been all over the map since the Atlanta debate two weeks ago. A scattering of centrists in the House have urged Biden to step down in the wake of his disastrous showing. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has expressed that he is open to someone besides Biden at the top of the ticket, according to Axios, while Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) was the first in the upper chamber to outright call for him to halt his campaign. But high-profile progressives have either remained notably vocal in their support of Biden or uncharacteristically mum at least for now. Its corporate Democrats that are driving this carriage off the cliff, said Angelo Greco, a progressive organizer who worked for Sanderss 2020 campaign. Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as perhaps one of the most surprising public defenders of Biden. I have spoken with him extensively, she told a gaggle of reporters in Washington. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed, she concluded. But the past 24 hours have demonstrated otherwise. Several more House Democrats have added their voices to the growing chorus of party members calling on the incumbent to drop out of the race. None of them are in the squad, even as some of the high-profile progressives have criticized Biden in no uncertain terms over his stance on issues like the Israel-Hamas war. One source close to Ocasio-Cortez, who has worked with her on strategy, told The Hill that she provides a lot of cover by being so outwardly vocal for Biden. The same goes for Sanders, who, since losing to Biden last presidential cycle, has been a reliable ally by squashing any speculation that he may support a progressive stepping in. Alexandria is an outspoken supporter at this point, the source close to the New York congresswoman said. Another leading progressive, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose primary election is on Aug. 13, also lent Biden her support, despite vehemently disagreeing with his response to the war in Gaza. Outside a few outliers I think everybodys supporting the president, Omar said this week. Hes been the best president of my lifetime, and we have his back. Omar has been one of the most widely targeted progressives and has rankled even some within her own party, as her regular criticism of Israel and calls for a cease-fire have been in contrast with Bidens foreign policy. The lack of left-wing dissent has come from the top of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, where Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said she is listening carefully to the thoughts of our members from all over the country in swing and safe states and districts. Jayapal, who has been more sympathetic to Biden and speaks regularly with advisers in his inner circle, also acknowledged that Democrats are having many conversations among our members. Some Democrats interpreted that to leave room for a possible change of posture as the party continues to struggle to put forward a united front around the nominee just weeks before the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Others say that the apparent coalescing around Biden, albeit muted, shows that progressives can support an incumbent with whom they have regularly pushed to go further left on domestic election issues like health care. You really want to call the president out and ask him to step down when you cant protect your own and then trigger a youth movement due to irrational fears and stoke the flames of protest more with four months from when a dictator can become president? said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who has worked for Sanderss and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigiegs presidential campaigns. They would be blamed, he said. With the clock ticking toward Election Day, many in the progressive movement are also planning around the possibility that they could take the heat if Biden falls short against Trump, despite his multiple felonies, former impeachments and other political vulnerabilities that make him a polarizing choice. The left and everyone associated with it is terrified of being blamed for Biden losing to Trump, the progressive close to Ocasio-Cortez said. Biden, meanwhile, has essentially put his hands over his ears to block out the noise. He has been adamant that he plans to go forward with his White House campaign, a decision he insisted is motivated by keeping Trump out of the Oval Office for the second time. His firmness has caused many Democrats to walk on eggshells amid growing fears that his debate performance gave a glimpse into potential age-related problems with speech and recall. A postdebate poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos showed that 2 in 3 voters surveyed said they believe Biden should drop out of the presidential race. Bidens brain trust has been on damage control to get him in a better position, most recently agreeing to an interview with George Stephanopoulos. While some political observers said the sit-down went better than the debate, many expressed concerns including Stephanopoulos himself that Biden may not be capable of serving out another full four-year term. While Biden continues to double down, centrist Democrats, from Obama veterans to at-risk House members up for reelection, are urging him to halt his campaign. A dozen Democrats in Congress have so far made that case, while progressives have been aligned with Bidens own decision to stay in the race. Some progressives are also considering their own competitive elections and navigating the question carefully. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats this cycle, has not answered the question directly about whether she thinks Biden should keep running for reelection. Campaign operatives who have seen progressives get lashed out over election losses, dating back to Sanderss 2016 primary challenge against Hillary Clinton, are watching cautiously for any cracks in the coalition. If they want to come out and ask for a president with the most progressive record to date to step down because they want to describe him as senile, then do it, Ceraso said. But dont whine when Dems hate you and the institution blocks you out, 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 The Hill. The Department of Education would be eliminated, student loans would be privatized and federal legislation on parental rights would be pushed under Project 2025, the conservative wish list of policies put together for the next Republican president that has sparked widespread controversy. The education portion of the sweeping platform, put together by a coalition of right-wing organizations that support former President Trump, would fundamentally change how K-12 and higher education funding and curriculum work. Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025 as it gains attention, with experts saying the far-right platform would do substantial damage to the federal government on a variety of fronts, including for schools and students. It is not hyperbole to say that Project 2025 would be a wrecking ball to public education in this country, and it seeks to radically undermine and undercut the ability of people to get a quality education in this country, and then even goes further and seeks to transform our public education system and our public schools into ideological extremist spaces, said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. The project, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for demolishing the federal Education Department, long a goal of many conservatives, though observers say the plans dont detail how the system is supposed to move forward. If the goal is to reduce the size of government, youre not doing that, youre just sort of playing games with where these programs. So, to me, it looked like a lot of what theyre doing is just that kind of that reshuffling in ways that dont feel well-supported or grounded in any kind of rationale for why they should work, said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. The proposals also aim to reorganize programs including Title I, which supports low-income schools, and have states take over their funding aspects within 10 years. Before states take the reins, the federal government would give them block grants for Title I, but would not make requirements on how the money is spent. The plan looks to me like the very dismantling of Title I, Valant said, adding he does not believe states would use money for Title I if it was not specifically allocated for that purpose. An account for Project 2025 recently posted on the social platform X seeking to correct information around its policies it said has been twisted. The group denies, for example, advocating for the end to free school breakfasts and lunches for certain students, saying it only condemns the Biden administrations decision to threaten schools that do not comply with radical transgender policies. The same line is used for those concerned that the project would end civil rights protections and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Mandate for Leadership calls for respecting the civil rights of all Americans, including those who have been censored by the government or had it weaponized against them. Mandate advocates for the end of divisive, race-based, anti-American propaganda in the federal workforce, Project 2025 said. The conservative platform also emphasizes it has nothing in its measures about African American or gender studies and does not mention book bans about slavery. Its unclear how much of Project 2025s goals would actually be part of a potential Trump agenda, as the former president has said he knows nothing about the wish list created by many of his supporters. I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 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. But Democrats are trying to pin the plan on Trump, saying it is a road map to what his presidency would look if he beats President Biden in November. 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 page on the Biden campaign website reads. While Project 2025 largely wants education out of the hands of federal government, there are multiple proposals it wants to see implemented in Congress. The big goals would be a parental bill of rights, laws against using a students preferred pronouns without parental consent and school choice initiatives. They also put forth some ideas which are a little bit odd because part theres sort of a theme to the rhetoric that says that the federal government should be less involved in education. But they kind of, in passing, they propose what sounds like a massive tax and federal tax credit scholarship program, Valant said. And higher education isnt left out of the conservative agenda, with one of the biggest proposals changing how student loans are conducted. The group wants to phase out income-driven repayment programs and eventually make it impossible for loan forgiveness to happen under the federal government. Student loans would move to the Department of Treasury, with an ultimate goal of private companies running the show. Although student loans and grants should ultimately be restored to the private sector (or, at the very least, the federal government should revisit its role as a guarantor, rather than direct lender) federal postsecondary education investments should bolster economic growth, and recipient institutions should nourish academic freedom and embrace intellectual diversity, Project 2025 reads. But others argue this would put those seeking a college degree in a difficult position. The proposal is incredibly concerning in that respect. It would seek to block certain student loan cancelations that would be devastating, with respect to access. It would also bring back ballooning balances with respect to student loans, predatory practices that has really undermined the ability of people to both access education and also pursue economic opportunity, Perryman said. Millions of borrowers will be denied their own earned debt relief because its seeking to undermine the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which, of course, many people rely on, Perryman 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. What is Project 2025? Is it Trump's plan? What to know about the right-wing plan for a conservative nation Social media has been abuzz with the ultra-conservative initiative Project 2025. So just what is it? The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank out of Washington, D.C., launched the 2025 Presidential Transition Project to "assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State." It is based on a more than 800-page "Mandate for Leadership," published in April 2023 by the Foundation, reimagining the executive branch and as a plan to overhaul multiple federal government agencies, including the FBI, Department of Justice and Department of Education, and that isn't even talking about the want to ban certain words from the legislature and what jobs in the federal government will be appointed. All of this is intended to be the playbook for the next conservative president to follow. Here's what we know about Project 2025 and what it could mean for the 2024 presidential election. What is Project 2025? For many it is being referred to as just Project 2025, and it has become a hot topic among celebrities, political figures, media and on social media in recent weeks. The "Mandate for Leadership" outlines conservative agendas that would mean the repeal of parts of initiatives President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama brought forth during their tenure at the White House, including student debt forgiveness and the Affordable Care Act. Beyond that, the deportation of undocumented immigrants is high up on Project 2025's to-do list. There is also a section of this plan that appears to undo LGBTQ+ rights in multiple different areas, including banning people with HIV or those who are transgender from serving in the military, rescinding regulations that bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics, and also seems to oppose same-sex marriage and gay couples adopting children by seeking to "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family." Here are just some other items that Project 2025 entails: Passing sweeping tax cuts and changes to the tax code which will impact those with lower incomes while benefiting those with a higher income. Reversal of DEI programs Development of new nuclear weapons and building of more nuclear power plants Dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration due to it being "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry. Ending Head Start and dismantling the Education Department Outlawing pornography Why are people worried about Project 2025? One of the main things in this playbook? The reinstatement of a Trump executive order augmenting a president's power to hire and fire federal officials by replacing civil servants with political appointees throughout government. Project 2025 has been pre-screening the ideologies of thousands to become part of the federal government once a conservative takes office to have, a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists." Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation leadership have also called this group "conservative warriors," and enacted imagery of them marching into Washington, D.C., like an army. While the Heritage Foundation's nearly 900-page mandate is a blueprint for a far-right way of "taking back control" of the federal government, it is also the rhetoric that is coming from people like the group's president, Kevin Roberts. We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be, Roberts said on a conservative media outlet called Real Americas Voice. "Project 2025 should scare every single American," said President Joe Biden, in a speech slamming former President Donald Trump for having any part of Project 2025. "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." Is Project 2025 part of Trump's plan if he wins the 2024 presidential election? Though the plan's organizers want Trump to follow Project 2025 if he wins the November election it even has his name in different areas throughout the plan the businessman turned politician has tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation after Biden slammed him in the press for being affiliated with the group. Trump took to his Truth social media account in an attempt to lead the narrative away from his affiliation with Heritage Foundation writing. "I know nothing about Project 2025. 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." In a post early Thursday morning he wrote, " I know nothing about Project 2025. I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it. The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING! DJT" And while Trump denies knowing the people who are "in charge of it," some are members of his previous staff. Russ Vought (Project 2025 writer) headed the Office of Management and Budget under Trump John McEntee (senior adviser for Project 2025) was the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump Paul Dans (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer Spencer Chretien (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer Troup Hemnway (head of Project 2025 team), former Trump staffer 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." Who is involved with Project 2025? The Heritage Foundation has pulled together 100 coalition partners of conservative groups in the country. Here are the partners of Project 2025 reported by the Heritage Foundation: 1792 Exchange American Accountability Foundation American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists Alabama Policy Institute Alliance Defending Freedom ACLJ Action American Commitment American Compass American Cornerstone Institute The American Conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni American Family Association America First Legal American Juris Link American Legislative Exchange Council The American Main Street Initiative American Moment American Principles Project The American Family Project The American Redistricting Project Americans United for Life AMAC Action California Family Council Centennial Institute Center for a Secure Free Society Center for Equal Opportunity Center for Family and Human Rights Center for Immigration Studies Center for Military Readiness Center for Renewing America Citizens Against Government Waste The Claremont Institute Coalition for a Prosperous America Competitive Enterprise Institute Concerned Women for America Conservative Partnership Institute Defense of Freedom Institute Discovery Institute Eagle Forum Ethics and Public Policy Center Fairer America Family Policy Alliance Family Research Council Feds for Freedom First Liberty Institute For America Forge Leadership Network Foundation for American Innovation Foundation for Defense of Democracies Foundation for Government Accountability Freedoms Journal Institute The Frederick Douglass Foundation Calvert Task Group The Heartland Institute The Heritage Foundation MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates Hillsdale College Honest Elections Project Independent Womens Forum Institute for Education Reform Institute for Energy Research Institute for the American Worker The Institute for Womens Health Intercollegiate Studies Institute Dr. James Dobson Family Institute The James Madison Institute Job Creators Network Keystone Policy The Leadership Institute League of American Workers Liberty University Mackinac Center for Public Policy The Malone Institute Media Research Center Mississippi Center for Public Policy Moms for Liberty Mountain States Policy Center National Association of Scholars National Center for Public Policy Research Native Americans for Sovereignty and Preservation Noah Webster Educational Foundation Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs Project 21 Black Leadership Network Pacific Research Institute The Palm Beach Freedom Institute Palmetto Promise Patrick Henry College The Patriot Foundation Trust Personnel Policy Operations Public Interest Legal Foundation Recovery for America Now Foundation Republicans Overseas Foundation Stop Abusive and Violent Environments Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services Students for Life of America Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Tea Party Patriots Texas Public Policy Foundation Teneo Network Turning Point USA Young Americas Foundation USA TODAY contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What is Project 2025? What Trump says about Heritage Foundation's plan The Republican National Convention in 2016, the same year delegates approved a party platform condemning the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. (Associated Press) Defining marriage as only between one man and one woman a bedrock of the GOP platform for decades is notably absent from a proposal backed by former President Trump that will be voted on next week at the Republican National Convention. Its a dramatic change for a party that has long used opposition to same-sex marriage to rally social conservatives. It also reflects broader changing societal views about such relationships as well as how much Trump has changed the GOP. The platform language is by no means a full-throated defense of same-sex marriage or gay rights. In fact, many queer rights organizations condemned the platform as particularly dangerous for transgender people and youth and the party as virulently anti-LGBTQ+. Who cares what they put in the party platform? What matters is the actions taken, said Rep. Robert Garcia, an openly gay member of Congress from Long Beach. If you look at the House, the amount of anti-LGBTQ legislation is at historic levels." Still, the removal of same-sex marriage from the platform was a victory LGBTQ+ Republicans have sought for years. This is a platform that is inclusive of many communities, including LGBT Americans. It promotes the sanctity of marriage, but doesn't exclude our marriages, said Charles Moran, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a GOP group founded in California in 1977 that advocates for gay rights and faces varying degrees of acceptance, and opposition, in the party. This is a pro-family platform, but it provides a place for our families too, said Moran, an RNC delegate from San Pedro. The data and the facts lead to an inescapable conclusion: Every child deserves a married mom and dad 2016 Republican Party platform Democrats argue that the platform change was a meaningless move designed to paper over Republicans concerted efforts to reduce rights for gay, lesbian and trans Americans. Garcia, citing initiatives in Congress and state legislatures, said Republicans have gone from attacking education and books that teach gay history, "to attacking health education, to attacking something as simple as pride celebrations, obviously attacking trans families and rolling back protections on everything from workplace rights to just the active dehumanization of people. The proposed Republican platform mentions marriage just once, in a paragraph about families: Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports working parents. The 2016 platform the last one adopted by the RNC contains nearly two dozen references to marriage. The data and the facts lead to an inescapable conclusion: Every child deserves a married mom and dad, the platform reads. It also condemned the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide. Read more: 4 takeaways from the new Republican Party platform or Trump's playbook The 2024 platform, approved by a party committee Monday, is just 16 pages, significantly shorter than prior ones. Notably, it scrapped previous language opposing abortion in the aftermath of Roe vs. Wade being overturned. Though it says, "We proudly stand for families and Life," it also called for the matter to be decided by the states. This policy shift has received the lions share of attention and criticism from conservatives. However, some Republicans have also lamented the lack of language on marriage, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and the National Assn. of Christian Lawmakers. When we heard there was an organized effort to whitewash the GOP platform on the issues of life and marriage, we could hardly believe it, said South Carolina state Rep. John R. McCravy III, who also serves as the Palmetto states chair of the association, in a statement before the platform committee vote. He added, I sincerely pray that RNC delegates will not surrender on these important principles. The matter will be voted on next Monday, the opening day of the convention in Milwaukee. But given Trump's backing of the proposal, its almost certain to pass. Sasha Issenberg, the author of The Engagement: America's Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage, said Trumps views are not surprising. The party platform is a political document. This is an area where Trump has been incredibly pragmatic, said Issenberg, who teaches political science at UCLA. Same-sex marriage does not divide voters the way it did 20 years ago, Issenberg said, adding that to "state the obvious," Trump is "not a guy who is terribly moralistic about the sanctity of marriage or a real prude on sexual issues. In the past, the GOPs opposition to same-sex marriage was an effective way to win votes. Such was the case in 2004, when Gavin Newsom, then mayor of San Francisco, allowed the issuance of marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. A handful of officials in other local jurisdictions did the same. Then-President George W. Bush, who was running for reelection, pounced on the issue, framing those actions as "lawlessness," Issenberg said. Give me a break. Americans won't be fooled. Gov. Gavin Newsom on GOP's 2024 platform State constitutional amendments to prohibit same-sex marriage were placed on the ballots of more than a dozen states, and some Democrats partly blamed Newsoms actions for Democrat John Kerrys loss to Bush. Newsom, now governor of California, was dismissive of the GOP platform change. Give me a break, he said. "Americans won't be fooled. This is nothing more than an election year stunt to hide their anti-freedom agenda. Years ago, Newsom was an outlier among Democrats on LGBTQ+ issues. His partys platforms did not explicitly call for same-sex marriage rights two decades ago, saying the matter should be left to the states. (The 2004 platform did, however, oppose Bushs effort to promote a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman.) In the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, nearly every Democratic candidate, including then-Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, opposed same-sex marriage. By the 2012 campaign, Obama and Biden expressed their support for same-sex marriage, a reflection of dramatically changing attitudes nationwide. In 1996, 27% of Americans believed same-sex marriages should be recognized as valid, according to a Gallup poll. Earlier this year, that number in the same poll had increased to 69%. Read more: Americans approve of LGBTQ+ people living as they wish, but their support drops for trans people, poll shows Issues such as gender-affirming care and trans athletes remain far more controversial among voters, which partly explains Republican dichotomy on LGBTQ+ issues, Issenberg said. Indeed, the proposed platform pledges to ban men from playing in women's sports, not allow taxpayer funds to be spent on gender-affirming surgery which the platform calls "sex-change surgeries" and other prohibitions aimed at the trans community. Still, the GOP has shown signs of being more accepting of people who are not heterosexual. In 2016, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel made history when he said from the podium of the Republican National Convention that he is gay. (Openly gay men previously spoke at conventions but did not mention their sexuality.) As president, Trump named Richard Grenell as U.S. ambassador to Germany and then as acting director of national intelligence. Grenell, who did not respond to a request for comment, was the highest-ranking openly gay member of a GOP White House administration. Grenell, the RNC delegate from Manhattan Beach, is expected to speak at the convention on Wednesday, and is likely to hold a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration. Members of the Trump family have also been supportive of Log Cabin, notably the former presidents wife, Melania. The former first lady has headlined fundraisers for the group, including events at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump residence in Florida, and Trump Tower in New York City. Two events in New York City raised $1.4 million the same day that the platform committee approved the new platform. It is important that we do not allow society to define us based on superficial characteristics, but rather focus on the common values that bind us as Americans, she said, according to a transcript of excerpts of her remarks at a second event. The Log Cabin Republicans have been instrumental in championing this message, and I am proud to stand alongside you. 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. Prosecutor in Alec Baldwin Rust Trial Seems to Be Throwing Defense Off Their Game: Legal Expert (Exclusive) Prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey is taking control of the court' and the defense seems 'frustrated, says Emily D. Baker, a legal expert not involved in the case RAMSAY DE GIVE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Alec Baldwin in court July 11. A prosecutor in Alec Baldwins involuntary manslaughter trial seems to have thrown the defense team off their game, according to a legal expert who is watching the proceedings. As the trial enters its third day, former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Emily D. Baker, who is not involved in the case, says the methodical and commanding approach of Kari T. Morrissey seems to have Baldwins defense attorneys, including high-profile lawyer Alex Spiro, "frustrated." Kari Morrissey is taking control of the courtroom and the defense seems very frustrated by it. She interrupts, she objects, she speaks out in the court, notes Baker. It seems to be throwing the defense off their game." (Morrissey is also working with prosecutor Erlinda Johnson, who gave the prosecution's opening statement.) Baker points to the defense asking what she calls an improper question of Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician for the Santa Fe Sheriff, about evidence she collected from the set of Rust in 2021 following the accidental and fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Related: Alec Baldwin Wants to Be 'Brave' and Attend Trial 'Alone,' But Family Will Be There 'to Support Him' (Source) You personally believe that Alec Baldwin committed no crime, is that correct? Spiro asked her. Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office/ZUMA Press Wire Service/Shutterstock Alec Baldwin on the set of 'Rust' Morrissey, instead of saying objection and ground, she just said in an exasperated way, Your Honor, please. And then the judge looked at the defense attorney and said, Don't do that. Don't do that again, continues Baker. It just goes to show the way the attorneys are interacting. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter. He was indicted by a grand jury in January for his role in Hutchins death. The 66-year-old Emmy winner was rehearsing a scene in a church on the set when the gun discharged, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, who recovered from his wounds. Baldwin has insisted he did not pull the trigger or know how the gun contained live ammunition. The prosecutors have claimed Baldwin was reckless on set and flouted standard gun safety protocol while they aim to prove he did indeed pull the trigger. Luis Sanchez Saturno/Santa Fe New Mexican via AP Attorney Alex Spiro and Alec Baldwin in court on July 8. On Thursday, July 10, Alessandro Pietta, who manufactured the gun in question, testified at the trial, saying the gun cannot fire without a pull of trigger because the mechanics and design of trigger was made to work in this way. During cross-examination from the defense, which had objected to Piettas testimony, confirmed that Pietta did not see or have knowledge of its condition on the Rust set. Related: Alec Baldwins Wife Hilaria Has Faith He Will Be Found Not Guilty at End of Stressful Trial (Exclusive Source) Baker says she is impressed and surprised that the prosecutors went the extra mile to fly in Pietta from Italy to help make their case. Its incredibly thorough, she says. Eddie Moore-Pool/Getty Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer (center) talks with prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey (left) in February. We're going to know what happened with this gun from the moment it was made to the moment it ended up in Baldwin's hands, she says. Morrissey also prosecuted Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of the weapons on set. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March for her role in Hutchins death. Spiro, notes Baker, had the advantage of watching the Hannah Gutierrez trial. Very rarely do you get to watch tape like this especially when you are an out-of-state attorney [watching] an attorney you're facing off with in court. He had an entire trial to learn Kari Morrissey's gameplay. She's doing the exact same thing in this trial. So he was prepared, and it has still thrown him off. Baldwins trial is expected to go through Friday, July 19. If convicted, he potentially faces up to 18 months in prison. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) The Shiawassee County Prosecutor decided that Deputy Nathon Kirbys use of deadly force in the death of 43-year-old Daniel Silver was legally justifiedand that criminal charges do not apply. Silver died in Durand on April 13, 2024 when Kirby shot him after conducting a traffic stop. Shiawassee County Prosecutor Scott A. Koerno made the announcement Thursday, accompanied by a review of the Michigan State Polices investigation into the incident, saying: In Durand, fundraiser for family of shooting victim Based on a review of the facts and law, it is clear that Deputy Kirby had an honest and reasonable belief that he was in danger of being killed or seriously injured due to Silvers actions. Silver ignored lawful commands, drove aggressively toward Deputy Kirby, striking him, and then quickly accelerated toward Deputy Kirby who was standing immediately in front of the vehicle. Such actions justify the use of deadly force in self-defense by anyone, and so justified the decision of Deputy Kirby to discharge his service weapon during the incident. Therefore, the actions of Deputy Kirby were legally justified under the doctrine of self-defense. The unfortunate death of Daniel Silver was not a criminal act. Statement from Shiawassee County Prosecutor Scott A. Koerno, July 11, 2024 Find a detailed breakdown of Koerno and MSPs findings below: Suspect who died in Durand following a traffic stop identified Timeline of the Incident The incident began when Officer Kurt Moffit of the Durand Police Department ran the plates on a truck parked on S. Oak Street during routine patrols on April 13, 2024. He discovered that its owner had two outstanding warrants for failure to appear in court, and met up with Kirby to discuss locating the owner. This embedded content is not available in your region. According to the release, Kirby recognized that the registered owner of the vehicle was also on the Michigan State Polices list of suspects in transporting and selling drugs in Shiawassee County. Upon approaching the running truck, Moffit told Kirby that Daniel Silver, who was in the drivers seat, had outstanding warrants for delivery of methamphetamine, ammunition possession by a prohibited person, and furnishing contraband within a jail. Moffit attempted to order Silver to open the door of the truck multiple times. Silver then rapidly reversed the vehicle toward Kirby, who was standing at the rear of the truck and attempted to get out of the way, hitting him in the leg. Silver, after turning the car around, then drove the car directly toward Kirby, who was still standing in the road. Kirby then pulled out his gun and shot Silver, who continued to drive the truck away from the scene southbound down Oak Street. While chasing Silver, Kirby reported to dispatch that shots were fired, that there was a chase, and that emergency medical services would likely be needed. Silver was found to the east of Durand Road just south of Durands city limits, where the truck he was driving crashed into a deep creek. Both Kirby and Moffit reported that Silver was dead on the scene. This embedded content is not available in your region. 1 dead after officer-involved shooting in Durand: MSP After the Incident Kirby reported that he believed SIlver intended to purposefully hit him with the truck before he shot him. Three other witnesses corroborated this statementwith one of them believing that the deputy was actually hit. Sparrow Forensic Pathology conducted an autopsy of Silvers body and found that his cause of death was due to multiple gunshot wounds. Neither the Shiawassee County Sheriffs Department nor the Durand Police Department utilize in-car video or body cameras, but the investigation analyzed video from homes, businesses, and social media. None of them, he says, captured the shots fired by the deputy. Prosecutors Ruling Koerno concluded in his release that Kirby and Moffits approach to the truck and attempted arrest of Silver were lawful, as they knew that the registered owner of the truck had warrants out for his arrest. Additionally, after identifying Silver, they knew that he also had active warrants. Therefore, Koerno concludes that the officers were legally justified in attempting to arrest him. Additionally, Koerno says that Silvers attempts to evade arrest and hit Kirby with the truck constituted at least four additional felonies that he would be charged with had he survived the incident, specifically: Failing to obey an officers lawful command to exit a vehicle Failing to stop for law enforcement and fleeing Assault with intent to murder Use of a vehicle as a weapon Koerno then goes on to conclude that since the officers were acting lawfully and Silver was both acting unlawfully and in a manner that threatened Kirbys life, Kirby was justified in using deadly force and shooting Silver in response and therefore not subject to criminal charges. Attorney calls for transparency in Shiawassee shooting Find the prosecutors full release here: Officer Involved shooting news release ShiawasseeDownload 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. Police have responded to a shooting that involved an officer in Taylor Mill Sunday evening, according to Kentucky State Police. A Covington police officer, who fatally shot a knife-wielding suspect during a hostage situation in Taylor Mill, has been cleared of wrongdoing and will not face prosecution. In a letter to the Kentucky State Police, Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders said that after reviewing the evidence his office found no probable cause to believe the officers involved broke any laws. Officers from several police departments, including Taylor Mill and Covington, responded to Grand Avenue in the afternoon of June 30 for a reported hostage situation, according to prosecutors. When Covington SWAT officers entered the home, they found David Dalhover, 71, in the living room standing over his wife and holding a knife to her chest, prosecutors said. More: The law barred Florence mass shooter from having a gun, but who enforces it? Body camera video shows the officers entering the home with their rifles drawn and ordering Dalhover to back away from his wife and drop his weapon. "I'll do it," Dalhover replies. Specialist Joshua Denny, a 10-year veteran of the Covington Police Department, fired a single round at Dalhover, killing him. "It is obvious Specialist Denny was justified in his belief Dalhover posed a serious, imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the victim at the time he used deadly force against Dalhover," Sanders wrote. "Denny was not required to command Dalhover to drop the weapon, but he did, more than once," Sanders added. "Dalhover had the opportunity to avoid the deadly use of force against him but refused to drop his weapon." Kentucky State Police were called to investigate the shooting. Many jurisdictions in Kentucky do not investigate incidents of their own officers shooting citizens. Kentucky State Police often offer to conduct independent investigations at the request of the local agencies. Dalhover had been involved in another standoff with police just days earlier, prosecutors said, adding that a Kenton County District Court judge ordered Dalhover to hospitalization after finding him to be a threat to himself and others, however, he was later released. "This case is a sad, but all too common example of how Kentucky fails to protect the public from the mentally ill, and if this isn't addressed, it will not be the last time police have to shoot someone to save an innocent victim," Sanders said in a statement. The June 30 shooting was the second time this year Covington police fatally shot a knife-wielding suspect. Two Covington police officers were likewise cleared of wrongdoing after the March 14 shooting of 34-year-old Charles Neace, who approached the officers while armed with a knife. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Officer cleared in killing of knife-wielding suspect in Taylor Mill FILE - Karen Read smiles during a news conference in front of Norfolk Superior Court, Monday, July 1, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Prosecutors in the Read murder case filed a motion Friday, July 12, arguing against dropping any charges in the case. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File) BOSTON (AP) Prosecutors in the Karen Read murder case filed a motion Friday, arguing against dropping any charges after her mistrial. Read was accused of ramming into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a snowstorm in January 2022. Her two-month trial ended when jurors declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a judge declared a mistrial on the fifth day of deliberations. The defense said she abruptly announced the mistrial without questioning the jurors about where they stood on each of the three charges Read faced, and without giving lawyers for either side a chance to comment. Prosecutors described the defense request to drop charges of second degree murder and leaving the scene of a deadly accident an unsubstantiated but sensational post-trial claim, based on hearsay, conjecture and legally inappropriate reliance as to the substance of jury deliberations. Contrary to the defendant's claims, throughout the jury deliberations the defendant was given a full opportunity to be heard, the jury's communications to the court explicitly indicated an impasse on all charges, and the court carefully considered alternatives before declaring a mistrial, prosecutors wrote. The jury did not reach any verdicts partial or otherwise, prosecutors wrote. Reads defense filed motions asking for the murder and leaving-the-scene charges to be dismissed. They contend that four jurors have said the jury had unanimously reached a not-guilty verdict on those two charges. They said the jurors reported being deadlocked only on the charge of manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol. Trying her again for murder would be unconstitutional double jeopardy, they said. As they push against a retrial, the defense wants the judge to hold a post-verdict inquiry and question all 12 if necessary to establish the record they say should have been created before the mistrial was declared, showing they unanimously acquitted the defendant of two of the three charges against her. But prosecutors argued the defense was given a chance to respond and, after one note from the jury indicating it was deadlocked, told the court that there had been sufficient time and advocated for the jury to be declared deadlocked. Prosecutors wanted deliberations to continue, which they did before a mistrial was declared the following day. Contrary to the representation made in the defendant's motion and supporting affidavits, the defendant advocated for and consented to a mistrial, as she had adequate opportunities to object and instead remained silent which removes any double jeopardy bar to retrial, prosecutors wrote in their motion. Read, a former adjunct professor at Bentley College, had been out drinking with her boyfriend John O'Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police who was found outside a Canton home of another Boston police officer. An autopsy found OKeefe died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma. The defense contended OKeefe was killed inside the home after Read dropped him off and that those involved chose to frame her because she was a convenient outsider. The main aim of stock picking is to find the market-beating stocks. But even the best stock picker will only win with some selections. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Hiap Hoe Limited (SGX:5JK), since the last five years saw the share price fall 25%. So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress. See our latest analysis for Hiap Hoe While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price. Hiap Hoe became profitable within the last five years. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time. We don't think that the 1.0% is big factor in the share price, since it's quite small, as dividends go. Arguably, the revenue drop of 6.0% a year for half a decade suggests that the company can't grow in the long term. This has probably encouraged some shareholders to sell down the stock. The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). It's probably worth noting we've seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. On the other hand, we think the revenue and earnings trends are much more meaningful measures of the business. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Hiap Hoe's earnings, revenue and cash flow. What About Dividends? It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Hiap Hoe, it has a TSR of -21% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! A Different Perspective While the broader market gained around 7.0% in the last year, Hiap Hoe shareholders lost 13% (even including dividends). However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Unfortunately, last year's performance may indicate unresolved challenges, given that it was worse than the annualised loss of 4% over the last half decade. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Hiap Hoe better, we need to consider many other factors. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Hiap Hoe (1 is significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here. Hiap Hoe is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of small cap companies at attractive valuations which insiders have been buying. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Singaporean exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said in his Inaugural address during the Great Depression in 1933, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Fear is an unpleasant feeling that something is wrong, that danger may be just around the corner. Fear is akin to dread, which makes one not want to accept or deal with something bad. Elaine Harris Spearman A German proverb says that fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. There is one thing that is certain if you are a true believer: God wants to remove fear and replace it with courage. He says in Hebrews 13:5, He will never leave you nor forsake you. Americas medium of exchange has engraved on coins and bills, In God We Trust. There is no greater representation of the fact that these words form a foundation upon which American principles are built. Comingling of religion and law did not just begin. There are law school courses with this very title that are not easy subjects to teach. More: Republican committee signs off on a Donald Trump RNC platform - including abortion Theological seminaries still grapple with the issues that are raised by religion and the law. It becomes a part of what ordained ministers have to balance in their service to their parishioners, and the total community. America is in turmoil, but this country has been in turmoil before. All you have to do is look at its history. The sad thing to realize is much of the turmoil that America continues to have comes from within its own borders. The external pressures only add to its tremulous state. As they lived and grew older, many people had the hope that America would get better as it grew older, and that each generation would prove, in some way, to be better than the generation it followed. Americans are cloaked in fear, and fear can be paralyzing. Courage is essential to overcome challenges. Fear can hinder progress and prevent us from moving forward. The country is as divided now as it was when 81 million people rejected former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. From my research, the people who supported Trump then are the same who support him now. After a scary debate, the people who supported Biden are the same who support him now. The GOP can stop backslapping and high-fiving on a debate win. How do you champion continuous lies and an unknowledgeable bigot? America is deathly afraid of a person who worships foreign dictators. The Democratic Party can stop the hand wringing and its own taking it to the street questioning. Get quiet and get busy. The lesson learned is if the candidate has a cold, is ill and suffering from jet lag, cancel! There is no one, no matter the age, who has not had to give in to mental and bodily fatigue. More: Biden? Harris? I don't care. Stopping Trump and Project 2025 is all that matters. Interestingly, or not, the MAGA Republicans are not calling for a person to step down who, after bragging on stage about his cognitive test, did not know his doctors name. You could question whether such an examination ever occurred. The same person referred to Nikki Haley as Democrat Nancy Pelosi while on stage. Neither of these sad performances (thats what they are), caused the GOP to call out these failures of cognitive skills. What fears do Americans have that could not be anticipated in 1933? The No. 1 fear is that Donald John Trump is the GOP candidate for president of the United States, and like any candidate running in an election held in the United States of America, has a possibility of winning. No. 2 is Project 2025, run by former Trump minions. It is a plan to, among several things, purge the government of civil servants and others. The Project 2025 group is devising plans to make it easier to place Trump-thinking people in our government. Accompanying any win by Trump would be the fear of having accessible health care as he attempts for a second time to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. People fear being purged from voter rolls, rendering them unable to participate in a democracy (as a foreign dictator would). The cast of characters that would accompany him is frightening. A USA Today columnist said it clearly: Donald Trumps administration was full of family members and lackeys. He took nepotism to levels no one has ever seen and likely will ever again. This has already begun with the placement of the serpent tongued daughter-in-law second in command of the Republican National Committee. The Kushner Companies (run by son-in-law Jared Kushner) paid $3.25 million to the State of Maryland, settling a lawsuit filed by beleaguered tenants, wherein the attorney general alleged unfair rental practices and serious maintenance problems in the rental units. A New York Times Magazine article highlighted the litigious treatment of tenants. Tenants paid excessive fees and rent despite serious maintenance problems. The problems included the rats and maggots that Donald Trump referred to in his infamous statement wherein he tagged Baltimore as a rodent infested We fear a person who cannot gracefully accept losing. He believes that you run a country in the same way that you run your private business: intimidate, lie, cheat and deliver the lies with conviction, no matter how untrue. More: When is the Democratic National Convention? Investors are fretting about the 2024 election. It sows uncertainty which the markets hate. It is an old Wall Street saying that gives rise to the anxiety investors are experiencing. Republicans have piously stated that the Constitution contains the bedrock principles of the nation. How could they possibly foist a person upon the American public who publicly advocates that the Constitution be destroyed? This, in and of itself, puts fear in hearts of most Americans. Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald Co-wrote This Is It initially as a love song, but Loggins changed it into an inspirational song. I lean on one of the verses: Make no mistake where you are. Youre going no further. Until its over and done. No one can tell what the future holds. You make the choice of how it goes. This is it Its up to you. The pre-chorus says: You think that maybe its over, only if you want it to be. Are you gonna wait for a sign, your miracle? Stand up and fight. Elaine Harris Spearman, Esq., a Gadsden native, is an attorney and is the retired legal advisor to the comptroller of the City of St. Louis. The views expressed are her own. This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Trump as president, Project 2025 cause fear | ELAINE HARRIS SPEARMAN Protesters of police shooting of Kilyn Lewis set sights on Aurora town hall AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) Angered over comments made by an Aurora City Council member, protesters over the police shooting death of Kilyn Lewis stormed a town hall meeting on Thursday night. Family, friends and supporters of Lewis showed up to a town hall meeting hosted in part by Council Member Stephanie Hancock. Lewis, 37, was shot and killed by an Aurora police officer in May as authorities were attempting to serve an arrest warrant on attempted homicide. Aurora police said after Lewis refused commands, one hand disappeared from view. When that hand reappeared, authorities said he was holding an object. One Aurora officer fired a shot, which would ultimately kill Lewis. It was later determined that Lewis was holding a cell phone. Protesters pack city council meeting with hands raised Aurora protesters collect signatures for censure On Monday, protesters walked into the city council meeting to demand that the officer in question be prosecuted. During the meeting, Hancock is heard making a reference to terrorists. On Thursday night, protesters organized a car caravan to Hancocks town hall meeting. Protesters are demanding that the council denounce Hancocks comment or they will work to gain enough signatures for a censure. A protest organizer said they have collected 250 signatures so far. They are aiming for 1,000. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Late Thursday, FOX31 reached out to Hancock via email. Hancock had not yet responded as of Thursday night. 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. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) Dozens are rallying in front of the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office, calling for more transparency in the investigation of 36-year-old Sonya Masseys death. Two sheriffs deputies responded to Masseys home just after midnight on July 6. Family and friends at the rally say Massey was the one that called the police. She was allegedly worried there was someone trying to break in, according to the county. After being on scene for half an hour, one of the deputies shot Massey. She was taken to the hospital, where she died from the gunshot wound, according to the Coroner. Woman dead after deputy-involved shooting in Springfield Outside of an initial press release Saturday and confirming one of the sheriffs deputies was the one who shot Massey, the Sangamon County Sheriffs office and the Illinois State Police have declined to release any additional information, including any information about what happened in the 30 minutes leading up to Massey being shot. WCIA has submitted FOIA requests for body camera footage and recording of scanner traffic from that night. Responses have not been given, although the statutory deadline for granting those requests has not passed. The State Police took over the case in the hours following the shooting. The State Police sent out a statement Wednesday saying they will be withholding the body camera footage and additional information regarding the case to ensure the integrity of the legal process and the right to a fair trial in the event charges are filed. Sangamon Co. Sheriff, ISP address transparency concerns on deputy-involved shooting Protestors refused to accept that answer. They repeatedly called for the release of the body camera footage and for the deputies involved to be prosecuted. The two deputies involved in the case are currently on paid administrative leave, a standard department procedure, according to the county. The family has hired nationally renowned civil rights lawyer Ben Crump to handle their legal battle. Crump represented George Floyds family in the case of his murder, and he is also representing the family of Earl Moore Jr., a Springfield man who died from asphyxia. Prosecutors are charging two EMS workers with murder as a part of the 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 WCIA.com. Wes Streeting is said to want to renew the Conservatives' ban on puberty blockers with a view to make it permanent A ban on puberty blockers could be made permanent as the Labour party takes a harder stance on transgender issues, The Telegraph can reveal. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, intends to stop powerful hormone blockers being given to children via any means, subject to the outcome of a legal hearing. Laws to ban the blockers being supplied to children by private or off-shore clinics were passed by his predecessor, Victoria Atkins, in emergency legislation ahead of the general election. These are due to expire on Sept 3 and the new Government has to decide whether to pass a law to make it permanent. It is understood that Labour will now seek to renew the ban with a view to making it permanent. It comes against a backdrop of criticism of the party for its stance on womens rights. The appointment of Anneliese Dodds as minister for women and equalities sparked a row this week, with Lesbian Labour, which claims to represent the voices of lesbians in the Labour Party, saying that Ms Dodds doesnt get it. JK Rowling, Martina Navratilova and other feminist campaigners attacked the Prime Ministers decision to appoint Ms Dodds, who has previously said that there are many definitions of a woman. The decision to pursue a permanent ban on puberty blockers is one of the first decisive steps on trans issues made by the new Government, which is keen to fully implement the findings of the independent Cass Review. Dr Hilary Cass, the paediatrician who led the review, has warned that the drugs may permanently disrupt the brain maturation of adolescents, potentially rewiring neural circuits that cannot be reversed. Her review urged giving children time to think before sending them down an irreversible path because people were changing their minds up until the age of 25. It led to the NHS stopping under 18s being seen by adult clinics and given cross-sex hormones. Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for Sex Matters, a human rights charity, said it was an excellent sign that Labour intends to take an evidence-based approach to child gender medicine, and to prioritise child safeguarding. As the Cass Review showed, there is no research to support using these life-altering drugs for gender confusion. Mr Streeting now needs to go further, and rein in the private sale of oestrogen and testosterone, she said. Otherwise unregulated online clinics will continue to profit from desperate teenagers and young adults, who have been misled by trans lobbyists into thinking of these powerful hormones as a panacea. The NHS halted all prescriptions of puberty blockers with a view to starting a clinical trial, but there were fears about the number of children accessing the blockers via private online clinics such as Gender GP, which is based in Singapore. The emergency legislation brought by Ms Atkins sought to put an end to that after a campaign to impose a widespread ban led by Liz Truss, the former prime minister. But the decision to ban the drugs is being challenged in the High Court by the Good Law Project and activist group TransActual, with a hearing beginning on Friday morning at the High Court. Jolyon Mougham, director at Good Law Project and the lawyer bringing the challenge, said before the hearing that Mr Streeting had made his position clear to the judge. Wes Streetings position is that, subject to the outcome of the court proceedings and consultation, he will renew it and convert it into a permanent ban, he said. The High Court was told that Ms Atkins had overruled officials and acted on her personal views when she used emergency legislation to ban puberty blockers. At a hearing on Friday, lawyers for TransActual and a young person who cannot be named told the High Court in London that the legislation made by the previous government on May 29, which prevented the prescription of the medication from European or private prescribers, and restricted NHS provision to within clinical trials, was unlawful. The Department of Health and Social Care and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland are defending the claim and have said the case should be dismissed. 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. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Two years after a Tennessee law passed making it a felony to camp on public property, News 2 discovered only a handful of people have been arrested, but some advocates say its still made an impact, both good and bad. The law, which went into effect July 1, 2022, didnt pass without opposition from some legislators, advocates, and those it directly affects. However, the bills sponsor, Rep. Ryan Williams (R-Cookeville) told lawmakers its intent was to give law enforcement officers an actionable opportunity to approach those experiencing homelessness. Nashville Rescue Mission seeing record number of people seeking shelter Cookeville Vice Mayor Luke Eldridge, who has worked to help the homeless community for decades and went homeless multiple times himself to learn more about the problem, advocated for the legislation as it progressed through the General Assembly because of what he believed the law could potentially do. It at least gave us a boundary finally to where now people start talking about, How do we help? Whats a long term solution? and thats not a long term solution, Eldridge said. It just gave us a point to start talking with individuals. Not just homeless individuals, but local groups. What do we do?' Eldridge told News 2 the law has helped start some conversations on ways to address homelessness, but there is still a lot of work to do. He is not aware of anyone in Cookeville who has been arrested or charged under the law, which appears to be a trend statewide. Dozens of public records requests filed by News 2s State Capitol reporter, Tori Gessner revealed just four arrests have been made from the time the law went into effect in July of 2022 to June 25, 2024. According to the arrest numbers obtained, two people in Knoxville on the University of Tennessees campus, one person within Knoxvilles city limits, and one person in Nashville on Tennessee State Universitys campus were arrested under the law in the past two years. However, district attorneys offices across the state told News 2 no one has been prosecuted with the felony. Despite that, Elliot Pinsly, CEO of the Behavioral Health Foundation, believes simply having the law on the books is harmful enough. This is a law that does not seem to follow best practice when it comes to what we need to be doing to help people who are experiencing homelessness, Pinsly said. Pinsly told News 2 the law does nothing to help homelessness, but instead punishes people experiencing homelessness for merely living where they can when they have nowhere else to go due to full shelters and the lack of affordable housing. In addition, he argued having a felony on ones record makes it even more difficult to find a job and a place to live, which are necessities when trying to get out of homelessness. We really hope were not going to arrest these folks, but its very possible that people could be arrested and prosecuted, or that people could be charged with these kinds of crimes and then plead down to lower offenses, Pinsly said. This could be used as a way to essentially pull someone into the criminal justice system and start putting them in situations where they feel less like they have a choice of what they do next. Is $50M enough to solve homelessness in Nashville? Both Pinsly and Eldridge are both advocates of creating more supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness, but they know theres no such thing as one quick fix. We need to come together, state, local, we all need to come together, What can we do? Eldridge said. Im a Bible man, and the Bible says, The poor will always be with you, and you can use that word however you want to, but were always going to have somebody, theres always going to be somebody on the streets. Youll never cure homelessness because its so multifaceted. 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. (WHTM) The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) moved to reduce the revenue increase sought by Pennsylvania American Water Company (PAWC) on July 11 and launched an investigation into water quality concerns. According to the PUC, the sought-out revenue increase will be cut by over 50% of what PAWC initially requested. After a lengthy investigation and a series of public input hearings across Pennsylvania, more money will be put into customer assistance programs. The PAWCs initial request was for a $202.4 million increase, but the revised rate changes increase revenue by $99.3 million a yeara 9.99% increase compared to the initially proposed 20% increase. The PUC said the commission voted four to one to favor a motion to scale back rate changes for water and wasteland services and take other steps to safeguard consumers and enhance affordability programs. Today, I believe that the Commission struck a balance by approving a significantly lower increase than requested while expanding customer benefits and access to the companys various consumer assistance programs, said Chairman DeFrank. Additionally, the Commissions action today enables cumulative quality of service issues raised in this proceeding to be properly addressed. The motion will also launch a PUC investigation into service quality issues raised at public hearings and reject a proposal for PAWC to include an adder to boost the companys returns as a reward for quality work. According to Vice Chair Kimberly Barrow, customers concerns in Northeast Pennsylvania sparked an internal investigation into service quality. A large number of customers testified at public input hearings. The PUCs Law Bureau and the Bureau of Technical Utility Services (TUS) will head the investigation. According to the PUC, the investigation will investigate the root cause of complaints about dirty, discolored water and recommend the PAWC to correct said issues. Quality issues will be referred to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the PUCs independent Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement if necessary. Some of the customer service enhancements proposed include an additional $1 million donation by PAWC shareholders to the utilitys customer Hardship Fund, which would double the funds size. The PUC said the PAWC will also expand income eligibility guidelines so more consumers can benefit from the fund grant program. The Commission rejected several of the PAWCs proposals in the rate case, including: Rejection of PAWCs requests for rate recovery related to Butler Area Sewer Authority, Farmington Township (water and wastewater), Audubon Water Company, and Sadsbury Township Municipal Authority. Rejection of a winter average billing proposal for wastewater services which might have a disproportionate adverse impact on low-income customers while higher income customers would likely benefit from this proposal. Rejection of PAWCs proposed Revenue Decoupling Mechanism, noting, among other things, that it appears that the proposed mechanism would hinder customer conservation efforts and could cause customers who take measures to reduce their water consumption to share some of the bill savings with PAWC. Rejection of a proposed Environmental Compliance Investment Charge, which would have allowed PAWC to adjust rates between PUC rate cases based on costs related to complying with new or updated environmental regulations on several grounds, noting that the only way to assess the impact of such a charge, along with other expenses, is to review those costs within a rate case. PAWC must file revised tariffs for water and wastewater services reflecting the commission-approved changes. The rates will be effective for service on August 7, 2024. 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. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Purdue University junior Derrick Arndt went home to Atlanta for the summer confident of moving into his new apartment at Benchmark III in August. But Purdue University Residences upended Arndt's plans. Benchmark III is what I signed up for in November," Arndt said. "I believe they said the housing arrangements would not change. But his did change. It was shocking," he said. "It also was very disheartening. I signed that lease all the way back in November. I assumed it was locked in. An email Wednesday from Purdue University Residences to hundreds of Purdue students, including Arndt, informed them that their housing leases signed in November were being unilaterally changed because the university has 1,600 more incoming students than it anticipated. Derrick Arndt, a junior studying civil engineering at Purdue University, originally was set to live near campus at 440 S. Grant St. Purdue informed him and his three roommates Wednesday they would be relocated to the Wabash Lofts Apartments. But after a backlash, he said Purdue reversed course for them and others Thursday, ultimately offering the move as their choice. Photo taken Thursday, July 11, 2024, in West Lafayette, Ind. The good news is that student backlash forced Purdue to reverse course, sending out a second email about 2 p.m. Thursday. Thursday's email doesn't address how it will house the additional 1,600 incoming Purdue students expected to arrive next month. "Housing notifications from yesterday (July 10) were not what many of you had expected," Thursday's email states. "We have heard your concerns and are working diligently to find a solution that will best serve both our returning students and our incoming class of first-year students." Purdue spokesman Trevor Peters said late Thursday, "Purdue issued housing notices on July 10 to returning students. Of the 7,442 upperclass students who chose to live in University Residences, just over 700 received room assignments that were different than what they expected. "The university has been working through solutions for those students and this afternoon offered the following options: 1. Keep your original housing contract. This is the default. You don't need to do anything to keep it. 2. Completely voluntarily as your choice, if you choose (you dont have to) the alternative given to you on July 10, then your annual room fee will be reduced by $4,000 in addition to any automatic change due to occupancy. (Example for First Street Towers double occupancy: $5,800 - $4,000 = $1,800 a year.) 3. You may also choose to be released from your contract without penalty. "Those who dont explicitly choose an option by 5 p.m. EST Sunday, July 14, will default to option 1: keeping the original plan from last November/December." The news stunned many. Were very surprised about the reversal," Arndt said, "but were also kind of little distrustful of university housing. I dont know how theyre going to manage what they said theyll do. Im glad theyre noticing all the backlash." Purdue students' 24 hours of anger over housing changes In November, Arndt and his three roommates signed a lease to live in a two-room apartment in Benchmark III for $950 per person. The apartments are at the south end of Grant Street within walking and biking distances to campus. Being near campus means they won't have to own a car, pay car insurance or buy gasoline, Arndt said. Wednesday's email informed Arndt and his roommates that they were being relocated to Wabash Lofts in the northwest corner of the city. Walking to campus was out. So was biking. The unilateral reassignment of housing accommodations meant they'd have to buy cars, which is cost-prohibitive, Arndt said. Derrick Arndt, a junior studying civil engineering at Purdue University, originally was set to live near campus at 440 S. Grant St. Purdue informed him and his three roommates Wednesday they would be relocated to the Wabash Lofts Apartments. But after a backlash, he said Purdue reversed course for them and others Thursday, ultimately offering the move as their choice. Photo taken Thursday, July 11, 2024, in West Lafayette, Ind. I definitely would like to keep my current housing right now," Arndt said during a Thursday afternoon phone interview with the Journal & Courier. "Im not sure any of the benefits that they would be willing to throw in would be worth the extra commute of car, insurance and gas. The idea that you can just move people from places where transportation is literally just walking or biking to places where you have to drive or you have to rely on the bus service is kind of reprehensible, he said. Its been very stressful the last day-and-a-half." Purdue president reacts By Thursday morning, the internet was filled with seething Purdue students and parents about the unilateral changes, and Purdue President Mung Chiang responded on LinkedIn, a social media site for professionals. Initially, Purdue expected to accept fewer incoming students for the 2024 school year to avoid overcapacity challenges experienced in the last few years, Chiang said. "The university continues to work through housing assignments for first-year students, working on master leases for additional local apartments, and we expect to issue those assignments within the coming week," Peters wrote. "Although we targeted smaller enrollment and admitted fewer percentage of undergraduate applicants for fall 2024 than ever, during the crucial late April and May decision-making period this spring, students voted with their feet to Purdue, accepting their offers of admission at historically unprecedented levels, resulting in more students than ever before requesting housing in university residences." After April 25 pro-Palestinian protests and arrests at other campuses, including Indiana University, Purdue received a flood of students accepting offers here, Chiang said in his statement. Influx of new students comes after protestors arrested at IU At IU, police officers in riot gear arrested 55 protestors on campus between April 25 and April 27, and photos appeared of officers on building roofs holding rifles. In contrast, protests on Purdue's campus did not result in any arrests and did not draw a large police presence. Then suddenly in the following two weeks, about 1,600 additional, beyond all historical yield rate expectation, high school seniors and their families leaning toward other universities in Indiana and in other states pivoted to accept Purdues admission instead, based on the different campus conditions they saw, Chiang said in his Thursday post. The influx caused the fall 2024 yield rate above 31%, instead of the lower rate university officials planned for, Chiang wrote. New dorms planned to open next year, coupled with lower admission rates, should avoid this problem in fall 2025, Chiang said, pledging that the university is working to find the best housing solutions for the fall 2024. 'Every year the housing crisis gets worse' It seems like this is a perpetual problem where they do this every year," Arndt said, "and then they apologize for it, and then they dont change any of their actions. Every year the housing crisis gets worse. Purdue really needs to address this problem," Arndt said. "If it happened once, that would be understandable. But it happens four times on four different years, clearly you have a systematic issue that needs to be addressed. Arndt's experience of Purdue housing has him questioning his decision to be a Boilermaker. He certainly would not recommend the university to his friends, and if they insisted on attending classes here, he would advise them to live off campus. When it comes to where he might live his senior year, it's off campus, he said. Clearly theyre not focused on addressing the issues," Arndt said. "I doubt its going to be any better next year unless some serious changes happen. I just dont trust them anymore. Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2. Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal and Courier. She can be reached via email at jellison@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @ellison_writes. This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue University reverses its unilateral changes of students' leases Do you qualify for Wisconsin Shares help with child care costs? Here's how to find out, and apply Wisconsin Shares, a subsidy program that assists families statewide with child care costs, has been in the news a lot recently. With recent changes to the program, more families are estimated to qualify for Shares, and those who use the program may receive more financial help. But what exactly is Wisconsin Shares, and what does your family need to know? Here are the basics: Related: More Wisconsinites will see help with child care costs starting in July. Meet the dad who led the change. What is Wisconsin Shares? Wisconsin Shares helps qualifying families by paying a portion of their monthly child care costs. It is not meant to cover the full price of child care, said Gina Paige, the communications director for Wisconsins Department of Children and Families, the agency responsible for administering the program. In some circumstances, it can also help with registration fees. Wisconsin Shares is primarily funded by two federal sources: the Child Care and Development Fund and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Block grant. More: Parents may now see greater Wisconsin Shares subsidy payments, help with registration fees How does Wisconsin Shares work? Participants in Wisconsin Shares receive monthly subsidy payments via an electronic benefit transfer card. Families can only use this EBT card to pay for child care at their authorized provider. Families using Wisconsin Shares are responsible for paying the difference between what their provider charges and what they receive on their EBT card. In cases where the program assists with registration fees, those funds are also loaded onto the card. Families are responsible for paying the difference between what the providers charge in registration fees and the assistance they receive through Shares. Does my family qualify for Wisconsin Shares? To qualify for Wisconsin Shares, a family must: Live in Wisconsin and have a child younger than 13, or a child with a disability who is younger than 19. The children must be United States citizens or qualifying immigrants. Have parents/guardians participating in an approved activity, such as work or school In the vast majority of cases, families must have a monthly gross income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level for their family size. Families can stay in the program if their income rises above this threshold up until their income reaches 85% of the state median income. More: Wisconsin's child care subsidy program is changing. Here's what to know Do all child care programs accept Wisconsin Shares? No. Regulated child care providers must participate in YoungStar, the states quality child care rating system, and have at least a 2-star rating to participate in Wisconsin Shares, according to DCF. However, just because a program meets these qualifications does not mean they necessarily accept Wisconsin Shares payments. Check with your child care provider to see if they participate in the program. How do I apply for Wisconsin Shares? Families can apply for Wisconsin Shares using ACCESS, Wisconsins online application tool. They may also apply in person or via phone with their local Income Maintenance Agency. If they are deemed eligible, they will receive a notice of eligibility. Then, they will need to choose a provider who accepts Shares and submit the providers name, address and other information about child care needs to their local agency. Families in Milwaukee County should contact the Milwaukee Early Care Administration. Those with an ACCESS account can schedule an appointment to complete this step via the online MyWIChildCare Parent Portal. Once that information is approved, families will receive an authorization notice. DCF provides a detailed step-by-step guide to the process online at bit.ly/applyWisShares. How do I know what my subsidy payment will be? A lot goes into calculating how much assistance families can receive per child, including whether they are subject to a copayment. The subsidy amount will be listed on the authorization notice. To estimate your subsidy amount, use USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsins step-by-step online guide, available at bit.ly/calculateWisShares. Madison Lammert covers child care and early education across Wisconsin as a Report for America corps member based at The Appleton Post-Crescent. To contact her, email mlammert@gannett.com or call 920-993-7108. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to Report for America by visiting postcrescent.com/RFA This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Am I eligible for child care help? What to know about Wisconsin Shares For surfers in South Africa, sharks are the foremost fear when it comes to dark shadows lurking beneath the surface. Great whites, to be exact. The country is notorious for large, curious sharks. Case in point, can you remember a time recently when the WSL held an event at J-Bay, and there wasnt a pause in competition due to a shark sighting? But now, theres another thing SA surfers have to worry about: sealswith rabies. According to a report from The Guardian, nine seals in the Cape Town area have recently tested positive for rabies, amidst reports of aggressive attacks on surfers. In fact, theyre calling it, the worlds first significant outbreak of the disease in marine mammals. And its not just the positive tests; surfers are experiencing the outbreak firsthand. Back in May, a single seal rampaged through the lineup at Cape Towns Muizenberg Beach, attacking multiple surfers in just a matter of minutes. Deon Bing, a South African surfer and documenter, interviewed surfers following the incident on video. He came up, just sort of biting my board, said one surfer. I paddled away. I thought it was just a one-off mistake or something. But he came back, and came back. Even when I was in the surf, he came looking for me. I saw another attack, and I paddled over. Clearly, he was trying repetitively to bite people and get ahold of them. I think the seal was a bit confused. We need to find out whats going on. After this incident, and others like it, authorities and researchers have begun testing the animals. Hence the nine rabies-infested seals mentioned above. Related: Surfer Survives Shark Attack at Jeffreys Bay However, interestingly, despite the attacks and the detection of rabies in the animals, there has been no reported transfer of the disease from seal to human. In The Guardian article, Gregg Oelofse, a coastal manager for Cape Town council, said: We think quite a few people have been bitten by rabid seals, but luckily no human has got infected yet. We dont know why. Perhaps the transfer rate is low? Does salt water in their mouth reduce the viral load? Related: Navigating South Africas Scariest Big Wave, with Grant Twiggy Baker For now, as officials attempt to figure out exactly whats going on, how the seals are getting infected, and why it isnt transferring to humans, Oelofse urges people to exercise caution. As a piece of advice to area surfers, he offered: If a seal is behaving weirdly or aggressively, stay well away and report it to the authorities. A relaxed seal is unlikely to pose a threat. *** Don't miss another headline from SURFER! Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram, and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of surfing. We're always on the lookout for amusing, interesting and engaging surf-related videos to feature on our channels. Whether you're a professional surfer or just an amateur, we want to see your best footage and help you share it with the world. Submit your video for a chance to be featured on SURFER and our social channels. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch high-quality surf videos. A Raleigh man was arrested Wednesday after a federal grand jury indicted him on allegations of fraudulently obtaining over $1 million in COVID-19 relief money. Wilson Alfredo Olivera Borda, 44, is accused of falsifying loan applications for five separate businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), pandemic relief assistance paid for by the Small Business Administration (SBA). According to Tuesdays indictment, he misrepresented employee and payroll information for the businesses to receive nine PPP loans. Through additional fabrication, he received forgiveness on those loans, which were paid off by the SBA, according to the indictment. That was all after obtaining an initial $370,000 in pandemic relief money for a sixth company called Ameriserv, his Garner-based insurance firm, according to the indictment. Jamie Vavonese, one of Olivera Bordas lawyers, told The News & Observer she had no comment on the case Friday. Charged with nine counts of wire fraud involving disaster-related benefits, Olivera Borda could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted, according to a news release from the Eastern District of North Carolina U.S. Attorneys Office. Since the CARES Act, a pandemic relief law, took effect in 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted more than 150 defendants and seized over $75 million in PPP fraud cases, the release. stated. As of March, the Internal Revenue Service had investigated over 1,600 pandemic tax and money laundering cases related to COVID fraud potentially totaling $8.9 billion nationwide, according to an IRS news release. Almost 800 people had been indicted for alleged COVID-related crimes and 373 people had been sentenced to an average of nearly three years in federal prison as of Feb. 29, the agency reported. Olivera Borda is scheduled to appear in court Monday morning for a detention hearing. When a single insider purchases stock, it is typically not a major deal. However, when multiple insiders purchase stock, like in 2 Cheap Cars Group Limited's (NZSE:2CC) instance, it's good news for shareholders. While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. Check out our latest analysis for 2 Cheap Cars Group 2 Cheap Cars Group Insider Transactions Over The Last Year Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Independent Chairman of the Board Michael Stiassny for NZ$86k worth of shares, at about NZ$0.84 per share. That means that even when the share price was higher than NZ$0.80 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. To us, it's very important to consider the price insiders pay for shares. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price. In the last twelve months insiders purchased 207.27k shares for NZ$175k. But insiders sold 3.50k shares worth NZ$3.1k. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by 2 Cheap Cars Group insiders. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! 2 Cheap Cars Group is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find small cap companies at attractive valuations, this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Does 2 Cheap Cars Group Boast High Insider Ownership? Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. It's great to see that 2 Cheap Cars Group insiders own 81% of the company, worth about NZ$29m. I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders. What Might The Insider Transactions At 2 Cheap Cars Group Tell Us? There haven't been any insider transactions in the last three months -- that doesn't mean much. But insiders have shown more of an appetite for the stock, over the last year. It would be great to see more insider buying, but overall it seems like 2 Cheap Cars Group insiders are reasonably well aligned (owning significant chunk of the company's shares) and optimistic for the future. While it's good to be aware of what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for 2 Cheap Cars Group you should know about. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com (WIVB) Rayzors Dawg House is offering free ice cream on Saturday to give back to those affected by the tornadoes that wreaked havoc across Western New York earlier this week. Located at 8178 N. Main St. in Eden, the restaurant is only asking customers to consider giving donations for Eden families in need. Whatever is raised, owner Jeff Walker and his wife Kimberly will match. The restaurant will work with Town of Eden Officials to make sure all donations go to those effected by the storm. A portion of the sales will be donated that day. Eden was placed under a State of Emergency Wednesday after a tornado and strong winds caused damage in the town. It was one of four tornadoes to touch down in Western New York on Wednesday. No fatalities were caused by the severe weather, but significant damage was reported in the storms path. For more information you can call Walker at 716-480-8569. Update: The one-day event raised a total of $3,500. Walker and Kim pledged an additional $3,500 to match the donations. An additional $500 was added from the net sales that were made on Saturday. A total of $7,500 will now go toward Eden residents who were affected by the tornadoes. Rayzors will have a bucket for donations out until next Sunday. Latest Local News Kayleigh Hunter-Gasperini joined the News 4 team in 2024 as a Digital Video Producer. She is a graduate of Chatham 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 News 4 Buffalo. With President Joe Bidens debate and subsequent interview with ABCs George Stephanopoulos on everyones mind, some attention has shifted to a man who might have profound insight into his overall condition and whether he remains fit to serve: White House physician Kevin OConnor. OConnor has implicitly cosigned the view that Biden is capable of the job. In February, he released a routine summary of Bidens health, which noted that he has sleep apnea, a common and easily treated condition, as well as some other conditions, including atrial fibrillation and peripheral neuropathy (the latter of which probably affects his steadiness walking but is not particularly concerning). This week, OConnor published a letter in response to murmurs that a Parkinsons expert has been making extra visits to the White House. Biden, he wrote, meets with the neurology consultant and other specialists during his (again, routine) annual physicals. OConnor revealed nothing alarming in the letter. It should be said that all reports are that OConnor is respected and admired for his integrity. Ive heard several insiders say that if push came to shove, hed do the right thing. But what is that? What questions can the physician to the president really answer? Can Biden lead the country in his current state? Sure. Could a replacement do better? Thats not his doctors call. The information we want to know about Biden may seem medical. But its mostly not. Much comes down to prognostics, less to diagnostics. Were the president to undertake a fresh battery of neurologic and cognitive tests, the results themselves would provide only a snapshot of the present. Although Ive long argued that older politiciansespecially obviously ailing onesshould do this and make the results public, interpreting them is not as easy as many imagine. Lower scores on validated tests like the Montreal Cognitive Assessment correlate with higher risks for a variety of relevant conditionsbut the results say nothing about the slope of things. A person scoring perfectly today may suffer a stroke and have a lower score tomorrow. That score could remain stable for years, with little effect on important daily tasks. Meanwhile, a person with a progressive neurological condition might score 1 point lower on successive tests taken every six months. When precisely that decline inhibits crucial daily functions depends on the person and, importantly, the specific activities in question. Indeed, plenty of people with Parkinsons disease should not drive. But many of them can still do math. At the hospital where I work, Ive spoken to patients who are retired Nobel laureates whoI couldnt help askingkeep up with their highly technical fields. Nevertheless, I wouldnt want them operating heavy machinery around me. At issue are the various and often unique responsibilities of the modern presidency. A presidents doctor can say his patient can take the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call tonight. But he cannot usually predict, based on any test, whether that ability will still be there in a year. Likewise, cognitive tests provide very little context for how a person will function out in the world. As Biden suggested to Stephanopoulos, no test other than the presidency itself possesses the diagnostic information we covet. Nor is it the purview of the presidents physician to determine whether his patient is performing his duties with sufficient independencethat is, without a team of advisers hovering over him. If the president needs a team to do a lot of extra meeting preparation for him but he nonetheless arrives prepared, what medical insight would override that? Whats the appropriate level of support in this jobregardless of ageanyway? This isnt the Olympics, where a wind-aided time in the 100 meters doesnt count for the record books. Some pundits have observed that Biden appears sharp enough to be a successful president but, paradoxically, not to run for reelection. But, in essence, his doctor implicitly clears him for the concrete campaign activities daily: traveling the country, giving speeches, shaking hands. This again becomes a question of effectiveness, not fitnessone that is political, not medical. Even if his doctor says He will have bad days where he makes gaffes or has lapses, why would a physician be responsible for assessing the resulting political optics? Importantly, a physician cannot answer specific questions like how well his patient might perform in a very peculiar cognitive test indeed: another televised debate. Whether Biden has the mental sharpness to quickly and convincingly call out and refute a steady stream of lies that Donald Trump flings in the next debate isnt something any cognitive test can determine. Thats what were really after and, perhaps, what makes the debate format uniquely interesting in this particular moment. In fact, everything a president (or anyone) does can be viewed as its own kind of in situ test. I drove to work today. I passed that particular test. Will I be able to tomorrow? Probably. If not, and I need help getting there, can I still do my job? The answer to that is far more complicated, depending as much on the support systems available and the expectations of my employer as on whatever biological change or accident occurred to make operating a motor vehicle impossible. This is not to say that physicians cant help patients and their families navigate aging safely, based in part on neurocognitive test results placed into their specific contexts. Many of us have been involved in these conversations. Should Dad still drive? Does Mom need to retire? Do we need to hire help to come to the house? Specialists can add insights. But it may surprise you that how these discussions go is often a reflection more of the stakeholders than of the patient. Important decisionslike whether a parent should undergo another round of chemotherapyare heavily influenced by the emotions of their families. The adult daughter who has dutifully and daily attended to her ailing mother for years, who has seen the suffering caused by prior treatments up close, might say, Enough is enough. The best treatment is to maximize quality, not quantity, of life. Conversely, a usually absent brother who just flew across the country in a time of crisis may disagree, not realizing the role that guilt plays in forming opinions. In the case of a president, even one who holds the opinions of his family in high esteem, people other than family also weigh in on and influence major choices. Crowded around the proverbial exam table are other politicians and people with powerpeople who will lose their status if Biden does not soldier on, people who may genuinely feel that the country will be better off if they continue to back their guy. With the stakes as high as they are, I am warmed that many people still believe in the wisdom and insight that a trusted physician can offer. But my colleagues and I have our limits. We cant just read test results and tell you whether the president can win the election or stave off another attack on democracy. Indeed, above all, theres one question about Bidens ability to continue that no doctor can answer: Whats the alternative? The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views and opinions of Brigham and Womens Hospital. JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) As things start to heat up over the next few days, wildfire risk in our state is increasing. Jefferson County Open Space has been trying to stay ahead of catastrophic fires by pre-thinning trees near communities. But some environmental groups have been calling out the method. After 2 dogs die in hot cars, pet owners warned of dangerous heat Pre-thinning trees is a practice Jefferson County has been using for several years. Their forest health plan helps them identify which areas to work in. Thats where we start everything from, said Steve Murdock, natural resource team leader for Jefferson County Open Space. Once weve identified those areas, then we go out and do whats called a pre-thinning inventory, where we go out and we measure tree height, tree size, the numbers of trees, things like that. Pre-thinning of trees underway in Jefferson County Murdock said a lot of research goes behind how many trees and which kinds of trees they thin out. Thats run through our wildlife ecologists, our botanists, to get their feedback on how the wildlife and the plant species are going to respond, and that entire picture together informs our treatment, Murdock said. The process is all to help prevent a major wildfire from sparking and getting out of hand, which can happen if there are a lot of trees close together. When a fire starts naturally, instead of creeping across the ground and burning around the thick bark of the larger trees, it catches the needles of the smaller ones, and then runs up the ladder and gets into the crown of the trees. And then we have a running crown fire, Murdock said. That is what were trying to prevent. Envrionmental group questions pre-thinning trees However, some environmental groups have disputed this method, first saying that thinning a forest is not effective at keeping communities safe. The studies show that that does not help protect communities, and in fact, what theyre doing is making the forest hotter and drier and then theyre opening it up to winds, said Josh Schlossberg, Colorado organizer for Eco-Integrity Alliance. And the winds are what spread the fire. How the worlds only acoustically perfect natural amphitheater formed in Red Rocks Schlossberg said the last time he was at Alderfer/Three Sisters Park, where some of the thinning has taken place, he noticed there were older trees that had been cut down. Just last week, I found theyre cutting trees over 200 years old. I counted one tree cut to 211 years old. So that doesnt even abide by their own forest health plan, Schlossberg said. He said older trees tend to be more fire-resistant than the younger trees, growing a thick bark that has adapted to withstand fires in the past. Population growth near forests affects wildfire patterns Jefferson County Open Space said that was how the system worked hundreds of years ago before people began to settle in these areas. Once we started moving into the area and putting out fires during that aggressive fire suppression period, those trees were allowed to unnaturally continue to grow in the absence of fire, Murdock said. He said this means there is a much higher density of trees than what normally should be there. There are some trees out there that are 150, maybe even 200 years old that would have been thinned out by a historic fire that were not, he said. That means, unfortunately, we have to cut some larger trees from time to time. Murdock said they still look out for old-growth trees that still exhibit those characteristics, which is where their foresters come in. Our foresters identify those trees that are (exhibiting) those traits. We mark them to protect them. We are not removing those old-growth trees at all, Murdock said. Over $300K in checks stolen from blue postal boxes Schlossberg said he has heard from some people who now refuse to hike in some of these open spaces because they no longer look the same. Its barely a park anymore. Its just a sacrifice zone. And I did speak to somebody who specifically said to me, Weve been coming here for years, were never coming back,' Schlossberg said. We kind of equate forest management work to open heart surgery Murdock acknowledged the pre-thinning can look intimidating, but he said it is better than looking at a burn scar if a giant wildfire comes through and leaves nothing but matchsticks. We kind of equate forest management work to open heart surgery. Immediately after that open heart surgery, you got a big nasty scar, bruising, it looks messy. But over time, that slowly heals, the bruising goes away, and youre better off for it. The forests are in the same position, Murdock said. Other concerns Schlossberg presented were a lack of communication and a lack of willingness to work with Eco-Integrity Alliance and others who do not believe this method of tree thinning works. Were not saying that they should only be taking our perspective. Were saying please incorporate our perspective, participatory democracy. We go to their town hall meetings, they dont let us speak. Its been really, really difficult, he said. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox However, Jefferson County Open Space said they are always open to listening to the community and encourage anyone with questions to give them a call. Its a big change, and were here to answer questions. Its complicated, Murdock said. And just try to help move people along to appreciate what a healthy forest actually looks 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 FOX31 Denver. FAULKNER COUNTY, Ark. Recent conditions at Lake Conway have led to dead fish lining the outer edges of the lake. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officials said competition for oxygen amid lower water levels caused by the renovation of Lake Conway and high temperatures have led to hundreds of dead fish appearing in the lake. Lake Conway treasure hunt underway as lake is drained for the first time in 75 years Randy Zellers, assistant chief of communications at the AGFC, said this is inevitable. This is unsightly, I do understand that, but this is a part of that process to make the lake better in the long run, Zellers said. Jimmy Larker said he grew up visiting the lake from time to time. Having not seen the lake during the renovation, he was shocked at what its become. It is a waste, a lot of dead fish, Larker said. But I mean, what can you do? Fishing limits have been lifted during the renovation process, with hopes to keep the number of wasted fish to a minimum. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission lifts limits on Lake Conway Zellers asks the community to remain patient during what he calls growing pains amid the renovation, acknowledging that the dead fish are an unfortunate part of the process. 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. Despite not being a real thing, the phrase late-term abortion has made its way into public discourse once again. Not only did the presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump include a very misinformed discussion about late-term abortions before Roe v. Wade was overturned. But more recently, the Republican Party adopted a Make America Great Again policy platform ahead of its national convention that stated in a 16-page document the party will oppose "late-term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments). This isnt the first time anti-abortion advocates have made it seem as if abortions were happening well into the third trimester of pregnancy or after an infant has been born. But the fact remains that late-term abortion is nothing more than a made-up phrase that has no basis in medicine. And when politicians perpetuate this term and the made-up idea it only further harms pregnant people in America who choose to terminate their pregnancies at later gestational ages. First and foremost, just the term late-term abortion is not a medically sound term, there's no consensus about what that means, Dr. Michael Belmonte, an OBGYN in Washington D.C. and Darney-Landy Fellow with The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) told Salon. A lot of people misleadingly define that as anything at or around 13 weeks of pregnancy or later, when we use the term late-term in a medically sound way that refers to a pregnancy at around 41 weeks. Indeed, as explained by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) the word term in pregnancy refers to the two to three-week period before and after a due date. To be even more clinically accurate, ACOG refers to early term 37 weeks through 38 weeks and six days of gestation, full term 39 weeks through 40 weeks and six days of gestation, and late-term 41 weeks through 41 weeks and six days of gestation. Abortion does not happen during this period, ACOG emphasizes. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. When anti-abortion advocates say late-term abortion, an intentionally vague term, they are typically talking about abortions that occur in the second trimester at or after 13 weeks of gestation. But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2021 about 81 percent of abortions in the U.S. occurred at nine weeks of pregnancy or earlier; 94 percent happened in the first 13 weeks, 3 percent occurred between 16 and 20 weeks of gestation and less than 1 percent occurred after 21 weeks of gestation. Unlike what many anti-abortion advocates try to portray, claims of abortions occurring moments before birth or even after birth are completely false. Reasons pregnant people might seek abortion care after 21 weeks of gestation are usually to terminate for medical reasons such as the fetus having a fatal anomaly or maternal life endangerment. In fact, as noted by the health policy organization KFF, abortions occurring at or after 21 weeks of gestation have historically been hard to obtain and prohibitive. The post-Dobbs landscape has only worsened this situation. As Salon previously reported, the stories of two women who had to leave Idaho to terminate their nonviable pregnancies in their second trimesters were full of trauma and barriers. The landmark Supreme Court ruling on abortion access known as Roe v. Wade, which was overturned in June 2022, had two key parts. One was that at the time, in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that before viability it is a pregnant persons decision whether to continue a pregnancy not the governments decision. Viability is usually defined by gestational age, but many doctors disagree with this. In fact, many physicians would prefer that abortion laws dont include gestational-age limits. Viability is an amorphous concept, David Hackney, a Cleveland-based maternal-fetal medicine specialist, told Salon. If you were to go with Roe, [it] had a viability limit, a lot of the ballot initiatives that have been passed have viability as a limit. It's not generally preferred that viability be listed as an exact week because it depends on context if a fetus has a life-limiting birth defect, then it may never be viable, even at a later gestational age. The better definition of viability is the potential to survive outside the uterus, Hackney said. Even with high-tech pediatric intervention, he said. And that's a medical judgment usually made between the obstetrician, pediatrics, and the patient, and that's the preferred definition. Hackney said not restricting viability to a specific age is also important because as medicine progresses, viability may change. Viability was very different in the 1970s than it is now, he said. Viability was very different when I started training than it is now. And viability will change as we project further down the road. Dr Stacy Seyb, an Idaho-based maternal-fetal medicine specialist, told Salon over the last few years viability is roughly to be accepted after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Most places in the United States are going to promote resuscitation and full support of a baby, Seyb said, referring to an infant being born after 24 weeks. But there are conditions, some lethal anomalies or very severe birth defects, that are very extreme, with potentially very poor outcomes, like holoprosencephaly, which has a horrible neurological outcome. In these cases, the question becomes how much does someone want to put an infant through with such a potential outcome and for what purposes. In these cases where life is unlikely to be sustained, Seyb said, doctors will provide comfort care, including keeping the patient warm, allowing them to be with their parents, and keeping them comfortable. The idea that infants are being born in the third trimester of pregnancy and being aborted after birth, which Trump promoted during the presidential campaign, is not true. I think it's primarily a scare tactic, Seyb said. And I think I think its an insult to the medical profession. Hackney said to talk about abortion after birth doesnt make sense. You define abortion as prior to birth. I think an analogy would be if you were talking about a stillbirth a stillbirth is defined as a fetal loss prior to birth, Hackney said. If someone delivered, and the baby was born alive with a heartbeat, and the baby lived for 24 hours and then passed away, that would be tragic, but that wouldn't be a stillbirth. Hackney emphasized that some people conflate neonatal hospice and pediatric comfort care with abortion. It's important that those are two separate things, he said. We will sometimes induce labor without the intent for either the fetus to pass away during the labor process, but not intervening in a life-prolonging way, and allowing the neonate, after being born, to pass away in the context of comfort care. But such language circling around late-term abortions is reckless and unsafe. You don't know who's going to believe this, he said. You don't know who's going to want to take justice into their own hands. An illustration showing what the structures may have looked like 7,000 years ago. | Credit: Thalia Nitz, courtesy RCU/University of Western Australia/University of Sydney Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have excavated eight ancient "standing stone circles" that they say were used as homes. About 345 of these structures were identified through aerial surveys across the Harrat 'Uwayrid, a lava field near the city of AlUla in northwestern Saudi Arabia, the team reported July 2 in the journal Levant . The circles range from 13 to 26 feet (4 to 8 meters) in diameter and have at least one standing stone at the center. The circles date back around 7,000 years and have the remains of stone walls and at least one doorway. They would have had roofs made of either stone or organic materials, the team wrote. During their excavations, the archaeologists discovered the remains of many stone tools made of basalt. Five of the standing circles alone yielded nearly 500 pounds (225 kilograms) of stone tools or debris, the team wrote. The archaeologists also found the remains of bones from sheep, goats and cows. Also among the finds were a variety of seashells, all of which came from the Red Sea, which is located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) to the west. The presence of the seashells "suggests developing networks of trade and exchange, concurrent with mobility," the team wrote. Related: Vast 4,500-year-old network of 'funerary avenues' discovered in Saudi Arabia A circle of stones on a dusty landscape The artifacts found in the circles, combined with the circles' similarity to ancient homes excavated in Jordan, suggest that many, if not all, of the standing stone circles are also domestic structures, the team noted. While modern-day people may sometimes associate stone circles like those at Stonehenge with a ritual purpose, it's important to note that many early domestic structures were circular. "Globally, early domestic architecture was always round, and rectangular houses only appear in the later Neolithic," Jane McMahon , an honorary research fellow at the University of Western Australia and lead author of the paper, told Live Science in an email. Image 1 of 2 Some of the stone tool remains the team found by AlUla. Image 2 of 2 An array of arrowheads and spear points Different landscape Around 7,000 years ago, the environment in northern Saudi Arabia was much wetter than it is today, but farming had not yet come into use. "There's no evidence of farming domesticated species of plants like wheat and barley, but gathering wild plants likely took place, and perhaps manipulating the landscape to increase the likelihood and yield of wild species," McMahon said. When these standing stone circles were in use, another form of stone structure, known today as a mustatil (Arabic for "rectangle"), was being built as well. Excavations at the mustatils suggest they had a ritual purpose that may have included the sacrifice of cattle. The contemporaneous use of the mustatils and standing stone circles indicates that it is "likely that these two megalithic structure types are aspects of a single cultural entity," the team wrote. Gary Rollefson , a professor emeritus of anthropology at Whitman College and San Diego State University who was not involved in the research but has conducted extensive archaeological work in the region, said he thinks the people who built the standing stone circles and mustatils are descended from people who lived in Jordan and Syria about 500 years earlier. Image 1 of 3 An aerial photo showing archaeologists excavating the site Image 2 of 3 A close-up aerial view of one of the circles Image 3 of 3 A further away aerial shot of a stone circle RELATED STORIES 4,000-year-old wall found around oasis in Saudi Arabia likely defended 'against raids from nomads' Mysterious and 'beautifully carved' life-size camel carvings discovered in Saudi Arabian desert Humans were living in a lava tube 7,000 years ago on the Arabian Peninsula He told Live Science that the architecture of the standing stone circles is similar to that of structures found in Jordan dating to about 500 years earlier, and the people who built the structures in Jordan also herded sheep, goats and cattle. The migration may have been spurred by an increase in population brought about by new hunting technologies, such as the "kite," a series of stone walls used to force wild animals into a kill zone . These hunting advances dramatically increased the supply of food, which, in turn, led to an increase in the human population in the Jordan/Syria area. "They were building up a large population in eastern Jordan and [parts of] Syria," Rollefson said, and they needed to find new hunting grounds, which would have led them to gradually go south, into what is now Saudi Arabia. Sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County. Stock.adobe.com photo by Yvonne Navalaney. By Timothy B. Wheeler Chesapeake Bay Journal The Chesapeake Bays health, which has waffled between middling and poor for decades, ticked upward in 2023 to its best condition in more than 20 years, according to the latest annual report from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. In a report card issued Tuesday, the university gave the Bays overall health a C-plus for 2023, a half-letter grade improvement from the previous years mark. It earned a 55% score, up four points from 2022. How much real progress that represents is an open question. The university has only been issuing Bay report cards since 2006, but in looking back at water quality, habitat and underwater grass data for previous years, it found that the Bays health received exactly the same score in 2002. This report card comes at a critical time, as the Bay restoration effort is falling short of key goals for the third time in its 41-year history. The state-federal Chesapeake Bay Program is now looking to tweak its most recent strategy, adopted in 2014, to extend it beyond its 2025 deadline. Some scientists and environmental advocates, though, contend that a fundamental overhaul is needed to set different and more realistic goals. State and federal officials hailed the latest report card as evidence that massive public investments to upgrade wastewater plants and control runoff from farms and development are making headway in restoring the Bays water quality, habitat and fisheries. Adam Ortiz, mid-Atlantic regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, called the report card a strong indicator of progress, showing that the restoration effort is back on track and gaining ground. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) declared that the Susquehanna River, the Bays largest tributary and a major source of its pollution, is the cleanest its been in two decades. Environmentalists, while acknowledging that the C-plus grade is an improvement, stressed that much more needs to be done. Chesapeake Bay Foundation Vice President Alison Prost said a report produced by a group of Bay scientists shows there are approaches to Bay cleanup that could be more effective and efficient, and also help us optimize the use of resources. The UMCES report card found modestly improved conditions since 2022 in 11 of the Chesapeakes 15 regions. The lower Bay scored highest at 70%, enough for a grade of B, followed by the upper Bay. Heavily influenced by the Susquehanna, the upper Bay garnered its highest-ever score of 61%. This improvement is a testament to efforts to reduce nutrients in the Susquehanna River watershed, said UMCES Vice President Bill Dennison, underscoring the hard work in the state of Pennsylvania on nutrient reduction and riparian buffers. At least some of the improvements, though, can be attributed to the weather: 2023 was a dry year, with river flows falling to record lows amid drought conditions. Lack of rainfall and snow melt reduced the amount of water-fouling nutrient and sediment pollution flushing into the Bay and its tributaries. By comparison, in 2019, a year of record rainfall, UMCES rated the Bays health much lower, at 44%. Despite weather-influenced oscillations, UMCES scientists say the Chesapeakes health has trended modestly upward since the restoration effort began in earnest in 1983. After earning a 55% score in 2002, nearly two decades into the cleanup effort, Dennison said that the bottom dropped out of the estuarys condition in a rainy 2003, including the deluge of a tropical storm that blew right up the Bay. The good news is that its not going as low as it was, he added, and its steadily, slowly creeping up. Even with less runoff in 2023, though, the overall condition of the rivers and streams flowing into the Bay through its 64,000-square-mile watershed showed no improvement from the previous year. Their overall 52% score and C grade remained unchanged. The highest scoring tributary was the upper James River, which earned a B-minus, while the lowest was the Choptank River, which rated a D-plus. Most Bay tributaries on the Eastern Shore showed at least some improvement from 2022, which UMCES said might be attributed to dry weather in 2023 causing less farm runoff. But rivers on the upper Eastern Shore are still trending slightly downward. With 40% of the peninsulas land devoted to farming, the report card suggested that controlling agricultural runoff is key to making real gains there. UMCES has expanded its report card in recent years to evaluate a range of economic and social factors that could also be affecting the Bays health. Overall, it found the watershed lost ground or stayed the same on those fronts, with scores ranging from D-plus to B-minus on individual factors. This year, UMCES said it is developing an assessment of another environmental threat: debris in the water. Scientists have teamed up with the Ocean Research Project to survey the Chesapeake for micro-debris on or near the waters surface and in bottom sediments. The post Report card gives Chesapeake Bay a C+, its best grade in 21 years appeared first on Maryland Matters. (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co.s largest union is now calling on employees at one of the companys most advanced AI memory chip plants to walk off the job, switching tactics after their campaign for higher pay showed signs of losing steam. Most Read from Bloomberg Several hundred employees joined protests Thursday and Friday in front of Samsungs high-bandwidth memory site in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, after the union called a general strike this week. Thats a far cry from the thousands that turned up at a public rally outside of Samsungs main facility in Hwaseong Monday, but union leaders told Bloomberg News theyre now targeting a small but strategically important complex in hopes of amping up the pressure. The Pyeongtaek site is the nerve center for Samsungs efforts to carve out a slice of an important market. The chipmakers in the process of trying to convince Nvidia Corp. to use its high-bandwidth memory a prerequisite for it to catch smaller rival SK Hynix Inc. in the booming AI arena. Targeting the high-end chip production line is the most effective measure against management, said Lee Hyun-kuk, deputy secretary-general of the union. Shares of Samsung fell as much as 4% in Seoul on Friday, their biggest intraday decline in more than two months amid a broader selloff in Asian technology stocks. Despite the dwindling numbers, this weeks string of walkouts and protests marked the biggest and most widespread labor protests in Samsungs half-century history. Its biggest labor union of more than 30,000 workers declared a general strike Thursday a surprise move that raised the risk of production disruption. Samsung has repeatedly said since Monday that impact so far on production has been minimal. Samsung Electronics remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union, the chipmaker said in a statement, adding it hopes to resume talks soon. The company currently is producing as planned, and has not incurred any problems meeting or responding to customer needs. Its unclear how many in total will eventually respond to the unions call, but the concern is that the escalating action may snowball and hurt the countrys best-known corporation, or trigger similar responses across a recovering tech and chip industry. Story continues On Thursday, Son Woo-mok, head of the National Samsung Electronics Union, told Bloomberg Television he was getting reports of significant disruptions at factories where equipment lay idle after staff downed tools. But he wouldnt estimate how many workers may eventually join a general strike. The company is saying that there is no production disruption, but thats not true, Son said. Im hearing that theres a lot of equipment thats shutting down, but they dont have the manpower to handle it. So theres a lot of equipment thats going idle. The labor unions previously said it would first target production lines that use 8-inch silicon wafers and rely more on human labor. Such early-generation manufacturing lines account for a small part of Samsungs total semiconductor output. Much of the companys overall production is automated, though the company can ill-afford manufacturing snarls in coming weeks. Shares of Samsung fell 3.7% on Friday. They had been largely unchanged the previous day, after the union called a general strike. Son however said there could be internal issues that havent emerged. When youre producing semiconductor parts, obviously you have to do inspections and things like that, Son said. And theres a lot of that backlog right now, so theres definitely going to be quality issues. --With assistance from Katria Alampay, Lauren Faith Lau and Yoolim Lee. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Across the country, school districts must balance equal access to education with keeping students safe. In some schools, that means having police officers on campus. Now a new watchdog report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals arrests or referrals for arrests are more common in K-12 schools where police are involved with discipline. >> School district mourning death of teacher, tried saving son from stolen SUV Arrest rates more than doubled in schools with police present compared to similar schools without police, according to GAOs analysis, the report said. It found K-12 student arrests and referrals are disproportionately affecting students of color and students with disabilities. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native students were arrested at rates that were two to three times higher than White students. For boys who had a disability, the differences in arrest rates widened further, the report said. The report is based on 2017-2018 data, the most recent available before the pandemic. Arrests and referrals to police are rare in schools, but when they happen it is disproportionately affecting kids who are already vulnerable, said Jackie Nowicki, a Director for GAO. You are removing them from the learning environment, involvement with the criminal justice system sometimes called the school to prison pipeline it has lifelong implications on kids and communities. The report pointed to an example in Florida where the Justice Department found a district violated the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against kids with disabilities. Justice stated that the district routinely relied on suspensions and referrals to law enforcement to respond to students disability-related behaviors that it could have addressed through proper behavioral interventions and supports, the report said about the Pasco County, Florida investigation. >> Do you recognize him? Police searching for suspect accused of using counterfeit money In California, the report said the federal government found a school district disciplined Black students more often and more harshly than white students in similar situations. It also said the district placed school police and campus security officers only at schools with larger shares of Black students. The report said as of May of this year, the Education Department had multiple investigations underway involving policing in schools. When you start to see patterns like this people should be asking why is that and what can we do to help kids moving forward? said Nowicki. Congress requested the report from GAO because lawmakers wanted a better understanding of how often arrests are happening in schools and which students are most affected. GAO made three recommendations to the Education Department, which include collecting more complete data on student arrests and referrals and making sure districts are informed about changes in the data collection. The Education Department agreed with the recommendations. He reported a possible H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows. It took officials weeks to respond Mark McAfee stands out in a field with some of his dairy cows at sunrise. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) The virus has so far caused only minimal illness among humans, yet has spread rapidly among birds, sea mammals and other species with devastating effect. Although U.S. health officers have repeatedly assured Americans that H5N1 bird flu poses little risk to their well-being, some experts have become increasingly critical of what they see as the government's failure to aggressively monitor the spread of virus among cattle and other farm animals. The virus has been reported in 145 dairy herds across 12 states, but critics say this is likely an underestimate. They point to stories they have heard anecdotally from physicians and veterinarians in farming communities about mystery illnesses and cover-ups. And they point to perplexing "hits" of H5N1 in municipal wastewater far from any infected dairy herds. "I think our government officials are are not doing the thorough investigation they should be doing," said Rick Bright, a virologist and the former head of the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. "I think they are continually minimizing this outbreak and this virus." Read more: Is bird flu in cattle here to stay? The worry among some experts is that H5N1-infected farm animals could serve as "mixing vessels" for new viral strains that could more easily infect people. They point to research released this week showing that the virus has receptors for both birds and humans. And they note that up to 75% of human infectious diseases are derived from pathogens that originated from animals. Now, amid this heated debate over viral monitoring, a raw milk dairy farmer and longtime critic of the Food and Drug Administration has accused the government of ignoring his tip about a suspected H5N1 outbreak among a herd of dairy cows in early May. Cows leave a dairy barn after milking. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) Although it remains unclear whether an outbreak actually occurred, neither federal nor state officials investigated the matter for weeks. Raw milk is not allowed to be sold across state lines, the FDA pointed out. In states that allow it, including New Mexico and California, regulation falls to state agencies. Only after inquiries by The Times did New Mexico officials look into the report. The state said the herd veterinarian did not find symptoms of H5N1 bird flu. The delayed response, some experts say, suggests a disturbing lack of oversight on the part of government officials. "I think that once everybody decided it wasn't going to kill people and pasteurized milk and herds could get over it, then all that was left was to take these stopgap measures voluntary reporting, voluntary testing, testing when going across state lines that don't look anything like a really serious effort to go ahead and stamp it out," said Michael Payne, a researcher and outreach coordinator at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis. The outbreak claim comes from Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farms, a raw milk dairy producer with herds in Fresno and Hanford. On June 17, McAfee who is also the president of the Raw Milk Institute, an advocacy group emailed the FDA's acting director, Donald Prater, to say that he'd been told a raw milk dairy herd had been infected and that people had probably consumed the contaminated milk. According to McAfee's email, which was shared with The Times, a subset of a farmer's cows were suffering yellowish, runny diarrhea; low milk production; thick, yellowish colostrum; and general weakness. The farmer told McAfee he had separated the sick cows about 10% of his herd and discontinued milking them. Mark McAfee walks by cows feeding at his raw milk dairy. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) "The farmer reported that for certain, humans had consumed the raw milk at some level," McAfee wrote to Prater, adding that the farmer's veterinarian "told the farmer to not report anything to anyone" because the virus would pass and "he did not want the FDA to swoop in and cause a media frenzy." McAfee said he fields lots of questions and calls from raw milk farmers around the nation. Because he's president and founder of the Raw Milk Institute and the largest producer of raw milk in the country his advice and counsel is often sought by smaller dairy farmers. Within 90 minutes of sending the email, Prater responded that he appreciated the time McAfee had taken to write the note and "for sharing these perspectives." He then added that he and his agency would "take note of the points you raised and come back to you if we have any questions." According to McAfee, the FDA did not follow up with him. The state of New Mexico, where McAfee says the herd was infected, was made aware of the tip only last week, after the Times inquired. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would not comment for the record on the matter, referring questions to the state. Read more: Are pet dogs and cats the weak link in bird flu surveillance? Critics say whether the outbreak occurred or not, the lack of an immediate, or even timely, response underscores the absence of urgency and leadership in the face of a potential health threat. "If you turn your back on this virus, you're kind of inviting it in to bite you in the ass," said Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology and co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Bright, the virologist, said the delay was a problem. Carlos Rodriguez squeezes a cow's teat to check the quality of the milk coming out of it. Alvaro Hernandez hangs a milking cluster high to avoid contamination after a cow has been milked. Mark McAfee checks bacteria levels in his raw milk every day and spends over $300,000 on testing. Tomas Ovalle / For The Times "This is the stuff that drives me crazy," Bright said. "I always tell people, it's not necessarily the data that we have in front of us that's most concerning. It is what's being hid from us that's most concerning." Farmers do not have to let government officials test their cattle, he said, which makes it hard to verify weeks after the fact whether an outbreak had occurred. If a dairy farmer allowed it, researchers could check for H5N1 antibodies in the blood. "I really don't think they want to know," he said of the U.S. government, and the FDA in particular. The FDA disputes that. A spokeswoman said the agency has been in contact with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, which is investigating, and hasn't been able to substantiate the claim that raw milk from an infected herd was sold to the public. And to be sure, the FDA and McAfee's Raw Milk Institute have had a long, contentious history. "To be quite frank, your source, Raw Milk Institute, are known advocates for repeatedly amplifying what they say is a lack of evidence that drinking raw milk with H5N1 is bad for you," said Janell Goodwin, an FDA spokeswoman. The FDA position is that pasteurization makes the U.S. milk supply safe. It and other government agencies recommend that people do not drink raw milk. McAfee, on the other hand, said he reported the outbreak because he believed it showed that unpasteurized, yet infected, raw milk was not a threat. "No one got sick from that outbreak," he insisted. Mark McAfee, a raw milk dairy farmer and longtime critic of the FDA, has accused officials of ignoring his tip about a possible H5N1 outbreak among dairy cows. (Tomas Ovalle / For The Times) But epidemiologists The Times spoke with expressed skepticism on this point, suggesting that maybe nobody had "reported" being sick, noting that many dairy workers are migrants who may not relish a government visit. And they pointed to experimental and observational studies of barn cats that consumed H5N1 contaminated raw milk and "had about a 50% mortality rate and really unpleasant symptoms," said Hanage, the Harvard professor. Drinking raw milk is "something that is a risk that we would rather people didn't take just for their own sake," he said. McAfee noted that he has received a certificate of good standing by California's Department of Food and Agriculture for voluntarily testing his cows' milk for H5N1. A spokesman for the agency confirmed that as of July 1, the farm's milk was clear of the virus. Read more: Despite H5N1 bird flu outbreaks in dairy cattle, raw milk enthusiasts are uncowed This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Former President Donald Trump will be officially renominated this week to be the Republican Partys standard-bearer for the third presidential election in a row as he seeks to return to the Oval Office. The moment comes at a tense time for Trump, who survived what the FBI called an assassination attempt Saturday after a gunman opened fire at him during a rally. GOP delegates from around the country are gathering in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, with much of the country following along through the primetime speeches each night. These speeches have historically allowed presidential candidates to unify discord from aggressive primary campaigns, and the conventions offer a high-profile platform to sway undecided voters. Thursday's RNC speaker lineup According to a Republican National Convention source. All times in Eastern Time. 6:30-7PM Sen. Steve Daines (MT) Rep. Richard Hudson (NC), Chair of National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) 7-7:30PM Diane Hendricks, everyday American Diane Evans, everyday American Linda McMahon, former Administrator of Small Business Administration Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State 7:30-8PM Pastor Lorenzo Sewell John Nieporte, everyday American Steve & Zach Witkoff 8-8:30PM Alina Habba, President Donald J. Trump's attorney Tucker Carlson, founder of Tucker Carlson Network 8:30-9PM Carrie Ruiz, everyday American Hulk Hogan, professional entertainer and wrestler Annette Albright, everyday American 9-10PM Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Eric Trump Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship 10-11:30PM President Donald J. Trump Below is a list of headline and keynote speakers who are slated to take the podium at the RNC, in addition to Trump himself. Family: Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump Lara Trump Kimberly Guilfoyle Entertainers, Celebrities, & Industry Leaders: Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks T.V. host Tucker Carlson T.V. personality Savannah Chrisley Renowned faith leader Franklin Graham Singer Lee Greenwood Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Alina Habba ABC Supply owner Diane Hendricks Former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan Singer Chris Janson Businessman Perry Johnson TPUSA CEO Charlie Kirk Teamsters President Sean OBrien Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy Influencer Amber Rose Yammer CEO David Sacks Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue UFC CEO Dana White Businessmen Steven and Zach Witkoff RNC Leadership: RNC Chairman Michael Whatley COA Chairwoman Anne Hathaway Host Committee Chairman Reince Priebus Ala. Sen. Katie Britt Ark. Sen. Tom Cotton Fla. Sen. Rick Scott Fla. Sen. Marco Rubio Mo. Sen. Eric Schmitt NRSC Chairman / Mont. Sen. Steve Daines Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance S.C. Sen. Tim Scott Tenn. Sen. Marsha Blackburn Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Wis. Sen. Ron Johnson Ariz. Senate candidate Kari Lake Ind. Senate candidate Jim Banks Mich. Senate candidate Mike Rogers Mont. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy Nev. Senate candidate Sam Brown Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno Pa. Senate candidate Dave McCormick Va. Senate candidate Hung Cao Wis. Senate candidate Eric Hovde W.Va. Senate candidate / Gov. Jim Justice House Speaker Mike Johnson House Majority Leader Steve Scalise House Majority Whip Tom Emmer NRCC Chairman / N.C. Rep. Richard Hudson House GOP Conference Chair / N.Y. Rep. Elise Stefanik Fla. Rep. Matt Gaetz Fla. Rep. Michael Waltz Fla. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Fla. Rep. Byron Donalds Fla. Rep. Brian Mast Ga. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Mich. Rep. John James N.J. Rep. Jeff Van Drew S.C. Rep. Nancy Mace Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson Texas Rep. Monica De La Cruz Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt Ark. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis N.D. Gov. Doug Burgum S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Va. Gov. Glenn Youngkin Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway Former Amb. Nikki Haley Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson Former Counselor to President Kellyanne Conway Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell Former Director of United States Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Former Administrator of SBA Linda McMahon Former House SpeakerNewt Gingrich Former N.Y. Rep. Lee Zeldin The RNC also released names and bios for "everyday Americans" who will be featured at the convention: Annette Albright Former School Teacher & Corrections Officer A former corrections officer, Annette is a schoolteacher in North Carolina who wants to make a difference in her students lives as a positive mentor. Annette was a lifelong Democrat and even ran for local office as a Democrat. After seeing a decline in her community and realizing how Democrats have failed Black Americans, she will proudly be voting for President Donald J. Trump for the first time this year. Robert Bobby Bartels, Jr. Business Manager, Steamfitters Local 638A Bobby is the business manager of Steamfitters Local 638A, a union with an almost century-and-a-half history in the Greater New York City Area. Four generations of Bobbys family including his maternal grandfather, great uncle, father, brother, cousins, and son have been members of Steamfitters Local 638A. A lifelong Democrat, Bobby has become a powerful voice representing union workers who are now supporting President Trump. David Bellavia Decorated War Hero David is a former U.S. Army soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Second Battle of Fallujah the first and only currently living recipient of this honor for service during the Iraq War. David also received the Bronze Star Medal, two Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals, and the New York State Conspicuous Service Cross. In 2005, David was inducted into the New York Veterans Hall of Fame. He has subsequently gotten involved in politics in western New York State. Madeline Brame Criminal Justice Reform Advocate Madeline Brame is a national victims rights advocate and is involved with several not-for-profit groups that assist victims of violent crimes with financial and moral support and counseling to navigate a justice system geared to protect violent felons. She is an outspoken critic of bail reform and lesser sentences for repeat offenders. Her son, Sergeant Hason Correa, was murdered by career criminals. While the first district attorney prosecuting her sons killers was confident in securing convictions and lengthy sentences, the soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took over the case and attempted to negotiate generous plea bargains with all four of Hasons killers, declining to seek murder charges against two of the four assailants. That injustice spurred Madeline to act and stand up for other victims. Jim Chilton Rancher Jim is a fifth-generation rancher from Arivaca, Arizona. His family has been in the cattle business for nearly 140 years. His ranch extends to the US-Mexico border and is located in a top corridor of drug smuggling and human trafficking. Jims concerns and issues with the border are shared by other ranchers in the Tucson Sector, regardless of whether their ranches also touch the border. Linda Fornos Mother & Life Insurance Industry Worker A legal immigrant from Nicaragua residing in the Las Vegas area, Linda is a single mother of three children. She has sorely felt the impact of inflation under the Biden-Harris administration, especially as she works to rebuild her life after she lost nearly everything when her home burnt down in 2022. Linda will be voting for President Trump for the first time after repeatedly being let down by the Democrats she had previously supported. Diane Evans Property Manager & Trump Force 47 Captain Diane is a 30-year resident of Florida but was born and raised in New Jersey. She owns a property management company that specializes in seasonal rentals. Diane never had any desire to get into politics until President Trump got elected in 2016. Although her husband admonished her that it was impossible for President Trump to win, Diane got involved with volunteering for the campaign in 2019 and got the bug to stay involved with getting President Trump elected. She is committed to work day and night to make sure that President Trump is re-elected this November. Vanessa Faura Mother and Activist Vanessa is a legal Peruvian immigrant and mom. She has spent much of her career working with other mothers and communities she has seen harmed by Joe Bidens America unable to pay for groceries, canceling family vacations, and struggling to pay for college. Anne Fundner Mother In 2022, when Anne was living in California with her husband and three children, she experienced the unexpected and devastating loss of her 15-year-old son who was poisoned by fentanyl-laced pills. Shortly after her sons death, Anne and her family moved to the East Coast to be closer to family and find a community to support them; California authorities would not pursue prosecution for her sons overdose. Benjamin Josephs Small Businessowner Ben and his wife live in Macomb County, Michigan with their six children. The Biden economy has taken a toll on his familys small business, reducing his disposable income. Hes already had to cut back on vacations and outings for his family. Ben has also taken on the burden of caring for his ailing father, and business partner, who, in this economic climate, has been left without much. Benjamins American Dream of living in their own home has been shattered as he and his family are now having to move in with his parents. Shabbos Kestenbaum Jewish American & Alumnus, Harvard University Shabbos is a proud American Jew and recent graduate of Harvard University. Shabbos has watched Joe Bidens America threaten the lives of everyday Jewish Americans. Shabbos and his classmates are currently engaged in a lawsuit with their alma mater, Harvard, to fight for Jewish students at the university. Shortly after October 7, Shabbos shared that he, along with a few classmates, made a deliberate decision to reach out to Harvard and try to work with the administration to combat antisemitism on campus and create safe spaces for Jewish students. The response they received was that Harvard was unable or unwilling to show Jewish students that they belong at the school. Shabbos is a lifelong Democrat who will be voting for President Trump for the first time this year. Erin Koper Community Activist Erin thought shed be living the American Dream when she and her husband moved into their new home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Instead, Erin is living the American Nightmare with her community overrun by homelessness, drugs, and crime; she often wakes up in the morning to find used needles on the sidewalk in her neighborhood and fears going outside when its dark. Instead of giving up hope and accepting the decline of her neighborhood, Erin is an active member of her community and leads cleanup days. David Lara Businessowner & Community Activist David is the owner of Desert Water, a water purification business serving Yuma County, Arizona. As a community leader and activist, David takes the future of Arizona seriously; David serves on the Yuma Union High School District #70 school board, among other volunteer roles. David is a firsthand witness to the negative impacts of illegal immigration overrunning and overburdening his community. Mark Laws Grandfather & Retiree Mark is the proud grandfather of 13 grandchildren. Retired life has not been easy for Mark; over the last four years inflation has made living off Social Security difficult; draining his savings. Mark hopes to one day take his grandchildren on a family trip to Disney but cannot afford to under the Biden-Harris administrations abysmal economy. Michael Morin Rachel Morins Sibling Michael lost his sister, Rachel, after she was brutally murdered on a hiking trail near her home by an illegal immigrant. Rachel was a mother of five. Scott Neil Decorated War Hero & Founder, Horse Soldier Bourbon Scott is a retired special forces veteran with significant executive, operational, and combat experience, having served as a senior advisor to several general officers, senior civilian policy makers, national members of interagency task forces, and several Congressional committee members. Following the tragic events of 9/11, Scott conducted numerous successful special forces combat missions as part of the Commanders In-Extremis Forces; he was one of the first to lead America's direct action and counter-terrorism charges into Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa. Scott has since become a voice in the veteran community as part of his drive to ensure our veterans receive the necessary support to ensure successful re-integration into civilian society. Recently, Scott started a craft distillery called American Freedom Distillery along with other special operations veterans in the Tampa Bay Area. John Nieporte Head Golf Pro, Trump International John worked his way up from an assistant golf pro and Donald Trumps caddie to become the head golf pro at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. John has tried to qualify for the U.S. Open more than 20 times, and it started with his boss, Trump, pushing him to concentrate on his game and follow his golf dreams. Sgt. William Pekrul Decorated War Hero US Army William (Bill) Pekrul, a native of Milwaukee, entered the US Army during WWII at the age of 17. He was in the 29th Infantry and the 75th Infantry but also trained with the 5th Rangers at Ft. Benning, GA. Bill was part of the second wave of troops in the assault on Normandy on June 6th 1944. Wounds led to his having to recover in a hospital in England for 42 days, after which he was assigned to the 75th Infantry. Bill was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Silver Star for his performance in WWII. Bill and his wife Rose Mary have been married for 76 years and have 11 children. Sarah Phillips Petroleum Engineer Originally from West Virginia, Sarah is a petroleum engineer who has spent much of her career working in oil fields. Sarah works to educate others about the impacts and importance of energy for our economy and country. Sarah is particularly passionate about one of the greatest gifts our country is endowed with: natural gas. Sarah has witnessed a decline in her industry under the Biden-Harris administration, which has doubled-down on their Green New Deal-inspired agenda; the worst-hit by this agenda are the everyday Americans who are unable to live an affordable life due to higher energy prices. Carrie Ruiz Golf General Manager, Trump National Doral Carrie has been at the Trump National Doral property for years. During that time, she witnessed firsthand how the Trump family and its patriarch put hundreds of millions of dollars along with their sweat and tears into the Doral property after its acquisition. Carrie noticed how the Trumps went far beyond the usual, lazy touchups like new carpeting and a paintjob that real estate developers typically make with new properties. The Trump family instead put hundreds of millions of dollars along with their sweat and tears into the property; the legendary resort was stripped down to its core and rebuilt all while the resorts rich history and legendary status as one of the greatest golf resorts in the world was maintained. Lorenzo Sewell Pastor Lorenzo was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up in a physically and verbally abusive home. High school was an emotionally challenging experience for Lorenzo with his father going to prison and his younger brother getting killed. As a result, Lorenzo became heavily involved in drug use and dealing, ultimately becoming a gang leader. But despite this rough start in life, God had other plans for Lorenzo; on April 18, 1999, during his senior year at Fraser High School, Lorenzo had a Damascus Road encounter with Jesus Christ that set his heart on fire. In January 2019, Lorenzo became the Lead Servant of Evangel Ministries in Detroit, a thriving urban congregation with a heart for gospel-centered service and discipleship. Lorenzo came to Evangel from Woodside Bible Church, where he was the lead pastor of the Pontiac Campus. Lorenzo also served as the director of the Dream Center of Pontiac. Randy Sutton Founder & Chairman, Board of Wounded Blue & Retired Law Enforcement Officer Randy has spent most of his adult life serving his community. Randy spent over 30 years as a police officer, detective, and lieutenant in an active-duty law enforcement role. Randy is one of the most highly decorated police officers in the Las Vegas Police department history, with awards for valor, community service, and saving multiple lives. Randy founded Wounded Blue to support injured and disabled law enforcement officers. UNC Fraternity Members A group of students and fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill patriotically protected an American flag that had been disturbed by demonstrators during an anti-Israel protest on their campus. The students gained national attention as videos of the protest showed them standing strong to protect the American flag, even as protestors antagonized them. Sara Workman Mother Sara is a single mother who moved from California to Arizona to provide a better life for her son. Although she still struggles to make ends meet in Joe Bidens economy despite working a second job at the expense of precious time with her son, Sara maintains her faith in God and Gods plan for her and her family. Sara is a passionate supporter of President Trump and his vision to ensure a better future for her son The site of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Alex Brandon/AP) Tennessee state Sen. Steve Southerland, R-Morristown, spent nearly $50,000 in campaign funds on a new car, the third vehicle he has purchased through his campaign account in the past decade. A recent campaign finance report filed by Southerland on July 9 shows Southerland paid $45,652 at a Morristown Toyota dealership on March 22, in addition to more than $4,000 in taxes on the purchase. Though politicians are prohibited from using campaign funds for personal purposes, lawmakers have received permission for vehicles purchses in the past if it is used to travel to Nashville or on official campaign business. In a response to an inquiry from The Tennessean, Southerland said he received permission from the director of campaign finance and ethics in 2014 and again this year for the vehicle purchase. State Sen. Steve Southerland, R-Morristown (District 1) Southerland said an up-front vehicle purchase can save his campaign account up to $10,000, per his calculation of mileage rates and current reimbursements he is eligible for as a sitting legislator. Southerland said he does not reimburse himself for mileage driven in his district, though he receives mileague reimbursement during General Assembly sessions for trips to Nashville. The recent campaign finance filing indicates he deposits this reimbursement back into his campaign account. "I represent five counties and I average 40,000 miles per year in driving to attend official state business meetings and campaign events," Southerland said. Senate District 9, which Southerland represents, spans Tennessee's eastern border from Sevier County to Unicoi County. In 2019, The Tennessean reported Southerland had spent $71,600 in 2019 and 2014 on two vehicles from another Morristown dealer. More: Cigar bars, a new car and hotels in France: How some lawmakers spend their campaign cash Both vehicles were traded in on the subsequent vehicle purchased, Southerland said. Southerland also used campaign funds to buy a $277 air fryer from Amazon, which Southerland said was for his General Assembly office staff, though there are several kitchenettes open for use in the legislative office building. "My employees are working through the lunch hour and by the time we get out of committee, a lot of the food in the lunch room is already gone. This appliance allows my employees to fix a meal in the office when they do not have time to take lunch," Southerland said. "For the past several years, the committee that I chair is the first to close. This gives other committees additional meeting time and helps speed up the legislative session. When I was first elected in 2002, the legislative session ran until July 4th. Several sessions after that ran into June. Now, we try to get out in April or no later than the first week in May. By closing session early, we save thousands of dollars per day in per diem for our 132 legislators." This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: GOP TN lawmaker spends $50k on new car, air fryer with campaign funds RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) Both Republicans and Democrats are fighting hard to get millennials and Gen Z voters to support their party in North Carolina. CBS 17 found that theyre adopting new strategies to engage these voters. Im definitely into the election, but I wish we had better choices, Katie Okuma said. It has been an interesting election cycle, but I will vote, Raheim Hayes said. I think voting is important regardless of whether you like the candidates. NC governors race among most expensive, watched in the country Emily Stack, the chair of the North Carolina Federation of Young Republicans, says theyre getting creative. We are reaching out to voters through social media and our clubs, Stack said. We have clubs and a College Republican group we work with across the state. Democrats are also trying new recruiting techniques. We have to meet them where they are this year outside concert venues, honestly going to bars and venues on Saturday night, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said. As we approach the Republican and Democratic conventions, both parties are ramping up their efforts to sway these voters. The anticipation is high, with many like Riley Madden eagerly waiting to see what unfolds in the next couple of weeks. NC supporters of Trump, Biden react after 90-minute presidential debate Others say more social media will help register more young people to vote. Theyre going to have to start coming at them in different ways with social media to get them to vote, Gabria Savage said. Both parties are committed to their outreach efforts. They plan to continue their hard work to engage millennials and Gen Zers. Additionally, they are expanding their teams to include more young people, ensuring a sustained effort to engage these groups until 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 CBS17.com. (Bloomberg) -- Retail investors withdrew 1.8 billion ($2.3 billion) from UK equity funds in May, the worst month on record for the unloved sector. Most Read from Bloomberg The figures add to a dismal trend for UK equity funds, which have seen eight years of continuous outflows, while underscoring the extent of the challenge facing the Labour government as it seeks to revitalize the countrys beleaguered capital markets. Since 2016, 54 billion has been withdrawn from UK equity funds by retail investors, according to Investment Association data, with 13.6 billion withdrawn last year alone. The latest numbers coincide with the publication of the Financial Conduct Authoritys much-awaited overhaul of the UKs listing rules, part of a concerted effort to draw more initial public offerings to London following a dramatic drop in the number of new listings and a spate of high-profile departures to markets such as New York. The new rules come amid much hand-wringing in the City over the fate of London as a global financial center, as it suffers from less liquid markets after Brexit and a dearth of high-growth tech stocks. The regulators proposed changes are unlikely to have any impact on retail fund flows, which do not ebb and flow based on the number of companies listing in London, Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, said in a statement. There are deep structural changes in the way retail investors buy funds which have led to the exodus from UK equities. Of the $11.9 billion raised via IPOs in Europe this year through May, just over 2% was in the UK the lowest in decades, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares to an average share of 31% between 2012 and 2023. Retail investors are also redistributing their portfolios given the rise of global benchmarking. UK equities make up only a small proportion of the world index and increasingly struggle to compete with the heft of the US stock market. Investors and their advisers continue to reallocate outside of the UK, with strong inflows for global, European and North American funds, the Investment Association said. There has long been talk of government-led plans to pull the UKs stock market out of the doldrums, including reorganizing the countrys pension industry to encourage more investment in equities. Rishi Sunaks Conservative government also toyed with the idea of introducing a British ISA, designed to channel more funding into UK companies by giving high earners a tax incentive to invest their money in local stocks. However, the new Labour government hasnt committed to introducing one. --With assistance from Loukia Gyftopoulou. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) A $5,000 reward is being offered for information regarding the whereabouts of Tracy Marie Kroh, who disappeared in 1989 at the age of 17. Kroh was last seen in the area of Alex Acres Trailer Park off Route 147 in Halifax on August 5, 1989, when she tried to visit family in the park. Kroh dropped off a grill and some coupons on their front step but never returned home to Millersburg. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Breaking News Krohs 1971 Mercury Comet was found the next day in Millersburg and her belongings were missing until 1993. Her wallet and other contents were found along Wiconisco Creek off Rakers Mill Road in Washington Township. Kroh has not been seen since and police believe she was abducted, probably by someone she knew. Any persons with information relative to the disappearance of Tracy Marie Kroh are asked to contact the Troop H Criminal Investigation Assessment Unit at 717-671-7534 or PSP Tips Toll-Free at 1-800-4PA-TIPS (8477) 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 ABC27. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing renewed blowback for allegedly sexually assaulting a former family babysitter after he reportedly decided to shoot her a late-night apology text. The former babysitter, Eliza Cooney, accused Kennedy in a bombshell Vanity Fair piece of rubbing her leg, reading her diary, asking her to rub lotion on his back, and trapping her in the pantry and groping her, all on separate occasions in 1998, when she was 23 and Kennedy was 45. Kennedy apparently thought the best way to smooth things over was via text. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings, Kennedy wrote in a text message to Cooney, sent just after midnight on July 4 and obtained by The Washington Post. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so. The presidential candidate then proceeded to invite Cooney to continue the conversation either by telephone or preferably, face to face. I recognize that this might not be possible. I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends, Kennedy added. The message was not well receivedas unsolicited, late-night texts from men usually are. It was disingenuous and arrogant, Cooney told the Post in reference to the message. Im not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they dont admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse. And she was further surprised by the invitation to continue the conversation with her alleged abuser in person. Meet face to face? What woman wants to do that? Cooney added. Kennedy initially brushed off the accusations in an interview on Breaking Points, chalking up the sexual harassment claims to his very, very rambunctious youth. In terms of the other allegations, listen, I have said this from the beginning: I am not a church boy. I am not running like that, Kennedy said. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote I could run for king of the world. He also derided the rest of the Vanity Fair expose, which included a photo of Kennedy posing next to what veterinarians identified as a barbecued dog, calling the article a lot of garbage. RFK Jr sent apology text to woman who accused him of sexual assault for inadvertent harm, report reveals RFK Jr allegedly texted the women who accused him of sexual assault days after the accusations were launched (Getty Images) Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr texted a woman who recently came forward with allegations of sexual assault and apologized for the incident, which he claimed to have no memory of, according to a new report. Kennedy reportedly sent the text two days after Vanity Fair published the article on July 2. In the piece, Eliza Cooney accused Kennedy of groping her and making inappropriate comments toward her in 1998 while she was working as a babysitter for his children. Cooney accused Kennedy of discretely stroking her leg while they were seated at a table, asking her to rub lotion on his bare back and putting his hands on her hips and breasts. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings, Kennedy allegedly texted Cooney early on July 4, according to The Washington Post. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so, he added. He then asked Cooney to meet face to face. If you feel comfortable, Id [sic] like to tell you this by phone, and preferably, face to face. I recognize that this might not be possible. I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends, Kennedy wrote. Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr speaks at the Libertarian National Convention on May 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. He texted a woman who recently came forward with allegations of sexual assault and apologized for the incident, which he claimed to have no memory of, according to a new report (Getty Images) Kennedys message to Cooney was reportedly sent after he publicly declined to comment on the allegations but admitted he is not a church boy and has so many skeletons in his closet. The 2024 presidential candidate told The Washington Post: The text message speaks for itself but declined to elaborate. The Independent has asked the Kennedy campaign for comment on the matter. Cooney, now 48, told The Post she felt Kennedys text message was disingenuous and arrogant and sent for damage control purposes. She told the newspaper she doubted Kennedy failed to remember the incident. Im not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they dont admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse, Cooney said. Cooney was 23 when she began working as a part-time babysitter for Kennedy and his wife in the fall of 1998. At the time, Cooney was interested in pursuing a career in environmental work, something that aligned closely with Kennedys career as an environmental lawyer. That fall, Cooney kept a diary where she documented her life and an alleged incident in which Kennedy made unwanted sexual advances at her, Vanity Fair reported. In the entry, she recounted how Kennedy allegedly fondled her thigh underneath a table while they were having a meeting in the family kitchen. Cooney told Vanity Fair that weeks after the first incident, she found Kennedy in the bedroom she was staying in at their home, shirtless, and standing where her diary was open next to her bed. She claims he requested she rub lotion on his back, something his wife typically did. In a third instance, Cooney alleges that Kennedy came up behind her while she was in a corner of the family kitchen and began to put his hands on her hips, making his way up her rib cage until he was touching her breasts. She claims another house staff member walked in and interrupted. Cooney told The Washington Post that she consulted an attorney about the sexual assault but that the criminal statute of limitations had passed. Though she could pursue charges under the New York Adult Survivors Act, she has chosen not to do so. Stock pickers are generally looking for stocks that will outperform the broader market. And the truth is, you can make significant gains if you buy good quality businesses at the right price. For example, the Scientex Berhad (KLSE:SCIENTX) share price is up 50% in the last 5 years, clearly besting the market return of around 7.7% (ignoring dividends). On the other hand, the more recent gains haven't been so impressive, with shareholders gaining just 26%, including dividends. Now it's worth having a look at the company's fundamentals too, because that will help us determine if the long term shareholder return has matched the performance of the underlying business. Check out our latest analysis for Scientex Berhad In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). During five years of share price growth, Scientex Berhad achieved compound earnings per share (EPS) growth of 12% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 8% average annual increase in the share price. Therefore, it seems the market has become relatively pessimistic about the company. The image below shows how EPS has tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail). We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. This free interactive report on Scientex Berhad's earnings, revenue and cash flow is a great place to start, if you want to investigate the stock further. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. As it happens, Scientex Berhad's TSR for the last 5 years was 69%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! A Different Perspective Scientex Berhad provided a TSR of 26% over the year (including dividends). That's fairly close to the broader market return. That gain looks pretty satisfying, and it is even better than the five-year TSR of 11% per year. Even if the share price growth slows down from here, there's a good chance that this is business worth watching in the long term. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Scientex Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Scientex Berhad you should know about. Story continues Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Malaysian exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in 2023. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0 A state representative and a political newcomer are angling to unseat incumbent Stephen Richer in the July 30 Republican primary for Maricopa County Recorder. Generally, races for county recorder arent as high-profile as this one, but Maricopa County and its elections have been in the national spotlight off and on since 2020, when Donald Trump and some of his followers claimed the election was stolen from him in several states, including Arizona. Additionally, the position of recorder in Maricopa County carries more weight than many other counties since it is home to more than 60% of Arizonas population and is the fourth-largest county in the nation. Richer has faced constant criticism and harassment from election conspiracy theorists since shortly after he took office in 2021 and began defending Maricopa Countys elections. He is currently in the midst of a defamation suit against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake for falsely accusing him of rigging the 2022 election after she lost the race for governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX One of Richers challengers is Rep. Justin Heap, of Mesa, who was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2022 and is a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus. Both Heap and Richer are attorneys. The third candidate in the race, Don Hiatt, is a political newcomer with a background in information technology who has described himself as the only MAGA candidate in the running. Heap has been endorsed by Lake, as well as Arizona Congressmen Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar and Eli Crane, who are all members of the congressional House Freedom Caucus, while Richer has the backing of more traditional Republicans like former Govs. Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey. While Heap has not publicly said that he thinks the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen from Republican candidates like Lake and Trump, his comments during the Houses Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee meetings and his voting record on controversial election integrity bills speak for themselves. Heap has voted in favor of bills that would ban electronic tabulation of ballots and force hand counts, that would eliminate the option to vote early for most Arizonans and that would bar the use of voting centers to be replaced by precincts capped at 1,000 registered voters each. Those are all ideas that are inspired by election fraud conspiracy theories. All have been opposed by Arizona counties, and election officials have widely panned the proposals as completely unworkable. Rep. Justin Heap on March 2, 2023. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0 Maricopa County elections are a laughing stock, Heap posted on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, on Feb. 28. Voter confidence is at an all-time low. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Im running for Recorder to restore honesty, transparency & integrity in our elections. In Maricopa County, the recorder is in charge of early mail-in voting and maintaining the voter registration database, while the countys Board of Supervisors oversees in-person voting and tabulation. When Richer ran for recorder in 2020, he released a lengthy review of the countys election administration in the 2018 election, when the office was headed by Democratic now-Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. But soon after taking office, Richer began defending the countys election practices and the integrity of its election results amidst claims of a stolen election and a now-debunked partisan audit of Maricopa Countys election results ordered by Republicans in the state Senate. Hiatt has criticized Heap for refusing to say whether he believes prior elections were stolen. But Hiatt and Heap both boasted similar action plans for once they took office, including moves they claim will prevent fraud, make elections more secure and transparent and clean up the voter rolls. Heap also promised faster election results, something he would not fully have control over as county recorder. Richer is running on his record of cleaning up the voter rolls, traditional conservatism and openness and transparency regarding election processes. The winner of the Republican primary will face Democratic candidate Timothy Stringham in November. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST The Richland County commissioners are going to have to re-advertise for proposals for food service for the county jail and Community Alternative Center less than three months after awarding a contract to Trinity Services Group Inc. The board learned at its meeting Thursday that the Oldsmar, Florida, company has exercised its contract right and given a 90-day cancellation notice. Captain (Chris) Blunk, who oversees the jail, received notice from Trinity, our food service vendor, that their submitted pricing was lower than they expected by mistake, County Administrator Andrew Keller said. Under the contract, Trinity does have the right to terminate the contract at will with 90 days' notice, and thats what theyve done, so its back to the drawing board in putting out an RFP for food services at the jail. Richland County commissioners must seek new bids for jail food service after Trinity Services Group Inc. cancelled the contract approved in the spring due to a pricing error. Trinity was one of three firms that submitted proposals earlier this year and was awarded a one-year contract with the option for three one-year renewals at an initial cost of $2.02 per meal based on an average of 701 to 750 meals per day. The other proposals were from Summit Food Services of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with a price of $2.26 per meal, and Aramark, of Philadelphia, with a figure of $2.46 per meal. I believe Captain Blunk had some conversation with Trinity about some potential irregularities in their original submission and Trinity reassured him this is their intention. Now theyre telling us its lower than they intended, Keller said. Richland County paid $1.87 per meal under the contract with Trinity that expired May 28, which was an 8.6% increase over 2022. The contract that was awarded this year represented an 8% increase. Richland County spent $458,928 for jail food service in 2023 and has budgeted $596,000 for this year. Commissioners were asked if they will have to increase the budget considering that the county will have to seek new proposals. Thats to be determined, Commissioner Tony Vero said. Youre seeing why were looking at making some budget tweaks in terms of oversight in 2025. Officials expect the same three companies will respond when the county goes out again for proposals. These are larger companies that are in this business, so we would certainly hope for submissions from all the interested companies, Keller said. Commissioners OK COVID cost reimbursement In other business, commissioners approved the expenditure of $381,442 from the countys American Rescue Plan Act allocation to reimburse the county for COVID-19-related inpatient, outpatient and professional medical expenses for county employees. The figure was obtained from the County Employee Benefits Consortium of Ohio, which administers the countys self-funded health insurance program. Our intention is to reimburse those costs and we would direct those to each department in proportion to their relative share of the premium for CEBCO, Keller told the board. Commissioners also made a $22,050 allocation of ARPA funds to reimburse for administrative expenses for ARPA and $2,042 for the cost of a federally required audit of ARPA expenditures. Regional planning contract approved Commissioners also approved a two-year agreement with Richland County Regional Planning to administer the countys longstanding revolving loan fund which has a current balance of around $50,000. This agreement is just laying out the terms that we will take good care of the funds while we do the proper due diligence reporting regarding the fund, said Regional Planning director Jotika Shetty. Shetty said the program provides loans that can be as much as 2% below current interest to provide gap funding for businesses applying for traditional loans for expansion or the purchase of equipment. Projects must create or retain low- and moderate-income jobs, must be approved by a program loan committee of financial professionals with loans providing up to half the cost. Shetty told the board that while no loans have been made since one in 2008 to the Skyway East restaurant, an application can be made to the Ohio Department of Development for additional money if a request is more than what the loan fund has on hand. She said businesses interested in seeking a loan can contact her at regional planning, noting that the City of Mansfield has its own, similar revolving loan program. In other business, commissioners approved a resolution accepting a $1.2 billion settlement with the Kroger Company involving litigation over the manufacturing and distribution of opioids. The State of Ohio will receive a share of the settlement and provide a share of that to Richland County to cover expenses related to the opioid crisis. This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Richland County commissioners seek new jail service food contract bids MANHATTAN (KSNT) Thursday and Friday are the Battle of the Badges in Riley County. This is the 21st annual blood drive competition between the different first responders in the area. Donors arriving for the competition are given a choice for which unit theyd like to represent. The Riley County Police Department is the reigning champion. Jordan Drake is a Riley County Police Correctional Officer, and was at the event on July 11. It gives us some bragging rights, Drake said. A little picking on each other for the next couple months. Itd be really great if people could come out. They can help donate, and you know just help this community. Popular Topeka race track auction closes soon The Red Cross is hosting the drive at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Manhattan. On Friday, July 12 people are welcome to walk in from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 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. More than a dozen of the cases in Goma were detected in displacement camps on the outskirts of the city - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph At least 25 people have contracted a dangerous new strain of mpox in a major city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising fears that the virus could cross international borders. Mpox previously known as monkeypox sparked a global epidemic in 2022, when it spread to more than 100 countries, predominantly affecting gay and bisexual men. But the DRC is struggling to control a much deadlier form of the virus, known as clade 1, which kills up to 10 per cent of those infected. The country has reported over 11,000 cases so far this year, killing 443 people the vast majority of them children. But in April, alarm bells were raised when scientists identified a new strain of mpox with pandemic potential in Kamituga, a poor and densely packed gold mining town with a highly itinerant population and a substantial sex trade in the province of South Kivu. Dubbed clade 1b, the virus appears to be better at spreading between people, predominantly through sexual contact, and has mutations that evade detection by some existing tests. Hundreds of thousands of people who have fled nearby conflict are living in cramped, unsanitary conditions - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph Analysis now suggests that the strain has been circulating widely in South Kivu since October 2023. But there are also worrying signs that it has spread further afield and closer to the border with Rwanda and Burundi as health authorities this week confirmed 25 cases in the city Goma, a major hub in North Kivu. There is a risk that the outbreak could go outside the country, and that risk is increasing, Dr Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, head of epidemiology and global health at the University of Kinshasa, told the Telegraph. He added that he is especially concerned that more than a dozen of the cases in Goma were detected in displacement camps, where hundreds of thousands of people who have fled nearby conflict are living in cramped conditions. You know how people live in these camps, with poor sanitary conditions, these factors that can lead to a large outbreak in this area, Dr Mbala said. As Goma is connected to other countries not just Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania, but there are also flights to Europe theres also a potential risk of an outbreak outside the continent. At a press conference earlier this week Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, reiterated that mpox remains a global health threat and that the outbreak in the DRC shows no sign of slowing. There is a risk of cross border, of the virus continuing to move, because borders are very porous with neighbouring countries, added Dr Rosamund Lewis, the WHOs technical lead for mpox, warning that she is very concerned about the situation. Although the DRC recently approved mpox vaccines to combat the upsurge in infections, none are currently available outside of clinical trials and it is not clear when this will change, nor how many will be delivered. But recent analysis by Dr Mbalas consortium, published as a preprint on Virological, demonstrates just how difficult the virus is to control. At the start of the epidemic there were 10 cases each week in South Kivu but the number has now swelled to more than 160. Dr Mbala said there have now been more than 2,000 cases across the region, which had never before seen widespread mpox outbreaks. While not all infections have been sequenced, he suspects the vast majority are clade 1b. In the preprint, scientists also tracked three early cases in Goma detected in June. The individuals had no epidemiological links, showing there have been multiple spillovers from South Kivu and reiterating how closely connected the regions are. Yet Dr Mbala stressed that focus should not be on clade 1b alone although the strain appears highly contagious, clade 1 appears deadlier and is killing hundreds of children. While we are orienting to understand clade 1b, we should not be distracted from the worse situation in endemic regions, where we see a growing number of cases of clade 1 with high mortality, he said. At the moment, clade 1b seems more transmissible and easier to go through sexual contact, but clade 1 remains more dangerous and associated with higher mortality. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security 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 Republicans in Milwaukee approved new party rules that will likely prevent protests of the partys platform, after grumbling from anti-abortion activists. At Thursdays meeting of the RNCs rules committee, the party raised the threshold to bring up a minority report an official criticism of the platform from 25% to 35% of members. To suspend rules and force a vote will require support from a majority of the 57 states and territories represented at the RNC, up from just seven. Social conservatives had planned for worse. As the meeting began, party leaders hoped to raise the minority report threshold to 47%, a reference to how Trump, if elected, would become the 47th president. Harmeet Dhillon, a California RNC member who ran unsuccessfully for party chair in 2023, was among the members urging the 35% compromise. But the change would likely be enough to doom a one-page minority report offered by social conservatives as a declaration of principle, endorsing a human life amendment to the Constitution. The committee, which like the platform meeting was closed to press, also approved changes to the nominating process. In 2028, states with closed primaries will get a bonus delegate to the convention. This year, states that allowed non-Republicans to vote in their primaries were generally more favorable to Nikki Haley including Vermont, where she won. Davids view At the risk of understatement, Republicans had a lucky week. The Democratic panic over President Joe Bidens debate performance drowned out most news about the final platform negotiations. The stories that did run were not bad at all for the Trump campaign, describing a softened GOP stance on abortion, undercutting Democratic messaging about how a second Trump term could limit abortion rights. The truth of those stories was that anti-abortion activists felt insulted by this years platform and rules processes. It was the first since 2016, when Trumps rough path to the nomination and Ted Cruzs strength with conservative voters gave their faction more power. Delegates who wanted to affect the platform spent extra money to arrive early in Milwaukee, only for a Trump-approved document to be gaveled through in minutes, with no changes. The View From Social Conservatives It is obvious the RNC realizes they are leaving a sizable minority, if not majority, behind as they drop their historic commitments to the sanctity of life and the family, said Tony Perkins, the chairman of Family Research Council Action, who helped draft the text of that minority report. Notable For ABC News, Will Steakin and Soo Rin Kim report on how conservative policy scholars who the Trump campaign has distanced itself from were part of the platform-writing process. The senior officials tasked with drafting the Republican platform named Russ Vought as the platform committees policy director and Ed Martin as deputy policy director. Both have ties to Project 2025. In National Review, Dan McLaughlin argues that the platform could have gone further without contradicting Trump. What is conspicuously absent here is any discussion of what the federal government under Joe Biden is already doing to promote abortion with federal funds, on federal property, through federal executive order and federal agency action, and in lawsuits aimed at restricting states from enforcing their pro-life laws. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently texted an apology to the woman who accused him of sexual assault, saying he doesnt recall the incident, The Washington Post reported. The woman, Eliza Cooney, provided the text from Kennedy to the Post, which verified it was sent from his phone number. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings, read the text, which was sent on July 4, two days after Vanity Fair published her accusations. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so. The text continued: If you feel comfortable, Id [sic] like to tell you this by phone, and preferably, face to face. I recognize that this might not be possible. I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not respond to requests for comment on the apology text published by The Washington Post. Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images Kennedys campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from HuffPost. He told the Post: The text message speaks for itself. In Vanity Fair, Cooney accused Kennedy of making inappropriate sexual advances toward her when he employed her as a nanny in the late 1990s. Among the incidents she alleged was one in which he, then 45, approached her, 23 at the time, from behind and groped her. Kennedy was married with five children then. Cooney, now 48, was not satisfied with her text from Kennedy. It was disingenuous and arrogant, she told the Post. Im not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they dont admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse. As for his suggestion that they meet face to face, Cooney retorted: What woman wants to do that? Kennedy has refused to address Cooneys accusations, telling CNN last week that hes not going to comment on it. The candidate known for his anti-vaccine activism and other unfounded conspiratorial beliefs is proving to be an impactful candidate in the presidential race. Hes currently polling around 9%, threatening to be a serious spoiler for Joe Bidens or Donald Trumps campaigns. Hes one of the best-polling third-party candidates in more than 30 years. Related... Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized last week to a woman he allegedly sexually assaulted in the late 1990s, according to a text message seen by The Washington Post and NBC News. Eliza Cooney told Vanity Fair earlier this month that Kennedy forcibly groped her when she was in her 20s and worked for the Kennedy family as a babysitter. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings, Kennedy said in the text message to Cooney. Kennedy campaign manager Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, press secretary Stefanie Spear and communication director Del Bigtree did not respond to a request for comment. The Vanity Fair article details allegations that Kennedy made physical advances with Cooney on multiple occasions, including rubbing her leg under a table and approaching her from behind and then running his hands on her body and breasts. Kennedy gave an interview to the Breaking Points podcast shortly after the article was published in which he called the Vanity Fair Article "a lot of garbage but conceded that Im not a church boy. Kennedys history of infidelity during his second marriage to Mary Richardson Kennedy was widely reported in the tabloids after the divorce. Instances of infidelity in his first marriage to Emily Black, including while they were dating, were also previously reported in an unofficial biography of the political family scion. Kennedy told Breaking Points that he has skeletons in his closet. And in an interview with The Boston Globe, Kennedy said Well see what happens, when asked if there would be more stories of sexual assault or harassment to come. The independent presidential candidate is campaigning as an alternative to both parties and Democrats were quick to say the revelations about the alleged assault could limit his ability to draw support. RFK Jr. continues to offer dismissive and inadequate excuses in response to these sexual assault allegations, said Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the DNC, in a statement. Like Donald Trump, RFK Jr. is not only plagued by scandal and a closet full of skeletons, but he has no shame or regard for the women he assaulted and harassed. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized to Eliza Cooney via text message after she publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. She said she feels the third-party presidential candidates apology was disingenuous and arrogant. The text message was first reported Friday by the Washington Post. Hey Eliza. Its Bobby Kennedy. I hope you are well. Please call me if you have a moment, Kennedy wrote in his first text to Eliza, which was sent on a Wednesday. Kennedy followed up the next day with a second message saying he has no recollection of the alleged assault, but maintained that he feels remorse if he caused her harm. Hey Eliza. I tried to reach you by phone. Id prefer to say this in person, he wrote. I read your description of an episode in which I touched you in an unwanted manner. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did that offended you or hurt your feelings. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so. If you feel comfortable, Id like to tell you this by phone, and preferably, face to face. I recognize that this might not be possible. I have no agenda for sending this text other than making the most sincere ernest amends. NBC News has confirmed WaPo's reporting of a text from RFK Jr.'s phone number apologizing to Eliza Cooney, the woman who alleges Kennedy sexually assaulted her in the late 1990s. Asked whether more women might be coming forward, Kennedy told the Boston Globe "we'll see." pic.twitter.com/l2qQi6xnpB Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) July 12, 2024 In a follow-up inquiry from the Post, the paper questioned Kennedy about how likely the possibility is that other women would come forward with allegations against him. His answer: well see. The Posts article comes after Cooney spoke with Vanity Fair in an exclusive titled RFK Jr.s Family Doesnt Want Him to Run Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets, published on July 2. Vanity Fair details several accusations, including the Kennedy familys push for Kennedy to drop out of his the presidential race, with issues including Kennedy allegedly meeting with Trump and Cooneys accusations. Cooney, who worked as a weekend nanny for the Kennedys during the late 90s, said Kennedy sexually assaulted and/or harassed her on at least three separate occasions. In the first incident, she accused him of groping her from behind while in a pantry when she was 23. Kennedy was 45 and married with five children at the time. While he wouldnt provide a comment to the Post about Cooneys accusations, he said that the text message speaks for itself. From Cooneys perspective, she felt Kennedys text-based apology lacked honesty. It was disingenuous and arrogant, Cooney said of Kennedys text message, according to the Post. Im not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they dont admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse. And as far as Kennedys suggestion to meet in person to discuss he matter. Meet face to face? What woman wants to do that? Cooney questioned. Cooney, who had been interested while working for Kennedy in going into environmental law, detailed the ordeal in her journal, in which she pondered Kennedys intentions. Kennedy made his name as an environmental lawyer. It seemed like he thought I was somebody else or wasnt paying attention, she wrote at the time. Like he would come to every once in a while and snap out of it or I would move away. It was like he was on something or really tired or was missing Mary or testing me. She also opened up about two other instances of Kennedys alleged inappropriate behavior, including a situation in which Kennedy came up to her shirtless and asked her to rub lotion on his back. In a third incident, she said, Kennedy approached her from behind, placed his hands on her hips and caressed the sides of her breasts. I remember being like, Oh my God, what is even happening right now? Cooney told the Post. Its very much like being quiet because youre hiding from somebody under the bed or something, you know? Thats how I felt. Cooney shared that she was nervous to leave the job, fearing shed never land her dream career. I felt as though if I walked away, all the investment I put in would be for naught, she said. It was my first job. I didnt want that to be a failure. And it was for Bobby Kennedy, who was at the time a prominent environmental lawyer, which was the work I wanted to go into. Cooney never went further with an environmental litigation career, the Post noted. Kennedy remains in the race as a controversial independent presidential hopeful whos yet to put down his dukes in his brawl against President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. On April 19, 2023, Kennedy launched his presidential campaign in Boston for his shot at a seat in the Oval Office. Aside from him being a member of the Kennedy family and anti-vaccine activist, hes also an environmental lawyer who has described himself as a teller of truths and claims he will end the division in the U.S. The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Texts Apology to Woman Who Says He Sexually Assaulted Her appeared first on TheWrap. Can robots unravel the mystery of why bacteria are beating our best antibiotics? Jessica James, second year PhD student, analyses the behaviour of bacteria using photomicrography and AI - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph Walk down a few flights of stairs in a grey building in the centre of Oxford and youll find it an underground lab where a group of researchers work away amidst a myriad of wires, test tubes, and computer screens. To the untrained eye, the room, littered with beakers and pipettes, doesnt appear that different from a GCSE chemistry classroom. But the team here consisting of about 20 researchers, engineers, software developers, and PhD students are actually part of a US government-funded research project, named Defeating Antibiotic Resistance through Transformative Solutions (DARTS). Their mission is to develop new technologies to diagnose and treat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) a phenomenon where pathogens evolve to evade the drugs designed to kill them. Termed the silent pandemic, AMR currently claims 1.2 million lives annually, with projections suggesting this figure could rise to 10 million by 2050, equalling the death toll from cancer and surpassing those from malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis combined. Dr Harrison Steel, associate professor of engineering science at the University of Oxford - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph Led by engineer Dr Harrison Steel, the University of Oxford research group has been tasked with building AI-powered machines to monitor drug-resistant infections in critically ill patients and determine effective treatments. They have developed two systems one named the Evolution Machine and another yet to be christened to combat AMR. Currently, these machines resemble a tangle of wires and tubes a Heath Robinson aesthetic but the goal is to refine them into affordable, accessible devices that can be widely used in hospitals and clinics worldwide to help tackle one of the most pressing health issues of our age. Heres how they work. The first step is diagnosis. A blood sample is taken from an unwell patient, and inserted into the diagnostic machine to quickly figure out what bacterial infection the person has contracted. In normal clinical settings, samples are cultivated for days to allow enough bacteria to grow for human analysis, confirming the diagnosis. But by that time, it is often too late conditions like sepsis require early intervention for successful treatment. In the Oxford lab, there is no real wait. Within minutes, the software can identify the bacteria infecting the patient from a blood sample. Dr Idris Kempf, control engineer and postdoctoral researcher, who wrote the software for the AI-linked photomicrography - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph Currently, the samples arent from actual patients but are purchased from labs, with E. coli being used as the test bacteria. The theory, though, is that the method could work for all sorts of bacteria, including MRSA and C. diff common hospital superbugs. But the machines dont stop there. Once they have identified the bug, technicians move the samples to the second system the Evolution Machine and feed in different antibiotics to see which will effectively kill it off and curb the infection. An AI then projects the early results forward, meaning a technician knows exactly how to treat the bacteria in question completing the entire process in less than half an hour. In really serious cases of sepsis, theres a five to 10 per cent increase in mortality every hour so you need something really quick. If someone has a drug-resistant infection, theres no time to try different options. With our robotics, you can test different drugs very quickly and see how they will affect the infection, explained Dr Steel. Thats the theory, at least but its not a silver bullet. Lab equipment for maintaining bacterial cultures - Simon Townsley/The Telegraph Experts emphasise that the real issue is the dwindling effectiveness of current antibiotics, making the development of new drugs to combat bacterial infections the most urgent priority in addressing AMR. Currently, just 27 new antibiotics for the most threatening infections are in the clinical trial stage of drug development to compare, there were more than 1,300 cancer drugs in clinical trials in 2020. Out of those, the WHO considers only six of them innovative enough to overcome antibiotic resistance, and just two capable of targeting the most resistant bacteria. Without a robust pipeline of new antibiotics, even the best diagnostic tools cannot overcome the fundamental issue of dwindling treatment options in the face of rising resistance. New antibiotics are not the only answer to solve AMR, however argued Prof Christopher Schofield, Director of Chemistry, Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research. Whilst we need new drugs, without mechanisms to preserve them, importantly diagnostics tests that will help doctors prescribe the right antibiotics at the right time, bacteria will inevitably become resistant to them, said Prof Schofield, adding that innovations like this have the potential to revolutionise the treatment of bacterial infections. It is hoped the method could work for all sorts of bacteria, including MRSA and C. diff common hospital 'superbugs' - Rodolfo Parulan Jr/Moment RF The machines are still in early development, but plans are underway to ship three of them to hospitals in the US for clinical trials in partnership with Harvard Medical School, starting early next year. There, they will be tested using real patient samples, with the eventual goal of developing the tech into something a medical professional could run themselves, with limited expertise, in any hospital or clinic. Typically, it takes about ten years for a new treatment to progress from initial discovery to launch, but Dr Steel believes the DARTS inventions will be ready for roll-out within the next three years. The next issue is cost. Dr Steel doesnt have exact numbers, but estimates the devices will cost tens of thousands of pounds to procure. But for much of the developing world where the burden of AMR is particularly high the high price tag means procuring technology like this simply wont be feasible for years to come. We need to ensure healthcare equity across the world so that innovative technology such as this is accessible in every country, not just high-income countries like the UK, said Prof Schofield. Its vital not only to have robust diagnostic methods as lives are on the line, but also cost-effective solutions for cash-starved healthcare systems, including in low-and-middle-income countries that currently have the highest burden of antibiotic-resistant infections, he added. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security 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. Amid a backdrop of mixed global economic signals, the Hong Kong market has shown resilience with the Hang Seng Index marking a modest gain in a holiday-shortened week. In such an environment, growth companies with high insider ownership in Hong Kong can be particularly compelling as these firms often benefit from aligned interests between shareholders and management, fostering robust long-term strategies even in uncertain times. Top 10 Growth Companies With High Insider Ownership In Hong Kong Name Insider Ownership Earnings Growth iDreamSky Technology Holdings (SEHK:1119) 20.2% 104.1% Pacific Textiles Holdings (SEHK:1382) 11.2% 37.7% Fenbi (SEHK:2469) 32.8% 43% Tian Tu Capital (SEHK:1973) 34% 70.5% Adicon Holdings (SEHK:9860) 22.4% 28.3% Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology (SEHK:9863) 15% 73.4% DPC Dash (SEHK:1405) 38.2% 90.2% Beijing Airdoc Technology (SEHK:2251) 28.7% 83.9% Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) (SEHK:2315) 13.9% 100.1% Ocumension Therapeutics (SEHK:1477) 23.1% 93.7% Click here to see the full list of 54 stocks from our Fast Growing SEHK Companies With High Insider Ownership screener. Let's dive into some prime choices out of from the screener. Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: Kuaishou Technology operates as an investment holding company in the Peoples Republic of China, offering services such as live streaming and online marketing, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$207.67 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through domestic operations, which amounted to CN114.72 billion, and a smaller portion from overseas activities totaling CN2.94 billion. Insider Ownership: 19.2% Earnings Growth Forecast: 22.5% p.a. Kuaishou Technology, a notable growth company in Hong Kong with significant insider ownership, has recently demonstrated robust advancements in AI technology, enhancing its commercial ecosystem. At the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the company unveiled upgrades to its AI models such as Kling and Kolors, boosting user engagement and commercial applications. Financially, Kuaishou reported a substantial turnaround with Q1 earnings of CNY 4.12 billion in 2024 from a loss the previous year and is executing a share buyback program worth HK$16 billion valid until 2027. Despite trading below analyst price targets and perceived fair value, expectations for revenue growth are optimistic relative to the market. Story continues SEHK:1024 Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: BYD Company Limited operates in the automobile and battery sectors across China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and internationally with a market capitalization of approximately HK$755.62 billion. Operations: The company's revenue is primarily derived from its automobile and battery segments across various regions including China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Insider Ownership: 30.1% Earnings Growth Forecast: 15.3% p.a. BYD, a growth-oriented company in Hong Kong with high insider ownership, has shown impressive performance with strong sales and production increases year-over-year as of June 2024. Despite trading at 47% below estimated fair value, BYD's revenue is expected to grow faster than the Hong Kong market average. Earnings are also projected to expand annually by 15.29%. The company recently enhanced its product line with the launch of BYD SHARK in Mexico, marking its first global product introduction outside China and underscoring its innovation capabilities and expansion strategy. However, it should be noted that earnings growth is not considered significantly high compared to industry benchmarks. SEHK:1211 Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Growth Rating: Overview: ESR Group Limited operates in logistics real estate development, leasing, and management across regions including Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, and Europe with a market capitalization of approximately HK$50.56 billion. Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through fund management at HK$774.64 million and new economy development at HK$105.48 million. Insider Ownership: 13.1% Earnings Growth Forecast: 26.5% p.a. ESR Group, a key entity in Hong Kong's growth sector with substantial insider ownership, is navigating a complex landscape. Despite trading 36.6% below its fair value and facing challenges like low forecasted Return on Equity at 7.3%, ESR's earnings are expected to surge by 26.5% annually, outpacing the local market's growth. Recent strategic moves include potential privatization discussions led by significant shareholders and consortiums, reflecting a dynamic shift in its operational focus and ownership structure amidst fluctuating market conditions. SEHK:1821 Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024 Key Takeaways Click this link to deep-dive into the 54 companies within our Fast Growing SEHK Companies With High Insider Ownership screener. Have a stake in these businesses? Integrate your holdings into Simply Wall St's portfolio for notifications and detailed stock reports. Simply Wall St is your key to unlocking global market trends, a free user-friendly app for forward-thinking investors. 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.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 SEHK:1024 SEHK:1211 and SEHK:1821. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Rock Hill vet known for service within community loses home in fire A local veteran who is used to helping others needs help himself. On July 5, an early morning fire destroyed his home at the Quail Meadows Trailer Park in Rock Hill. Channel 9s Gina Esposito learned the community is trying help him though the tragedy. ALSO READ: Nonprofits join forces to help find local veteran safe place to live Roy Ives says he was planning to create a backyard oasis before the fire hit. It destroyed his deck and mobile home and made it unlivable. A couple more things to do, and hang up my hammock, and I would have been content, Ives said. Instead of peace and relaxation, hes is picking up the pieces. He said his cat Angel woke him up to the large fire outside his trailer. Ives is legally blind, but he said he saw a bright light outside. The fire was going up that and onto the trailer. And fortunately, being prepared and knowing what to do, I kept it from consuming the whole trailer, Ives said. Ives said he used a hose to knock down the fire before firefighters arrived. Most of his items inside were saved, but he said his trailer is a total loss. At this point, he doesnt know what caused the fire. ALSO READ: Fire forces 5 out of southeast Charlotte home, investigators say Linda Dickson is a friend from church who started a GoFundMe to help Ives find a new place to live. My heart just broke in talking with him because he doesnt have a lot, she said. Hes not a man of possessions. But hes got a strong heart and hes good to everybody. Ives is an Army veteran who Dickson said does a lot in the community to support other veterans. Shes hoping that same community can help him now. I appreciate everything youre trying to help me get back on my feet again, Ives told Dickson. Esposito reached out to the Lesslie Fire and Rescue Department, but at this point, they have not said what caused the fire. Ives is staying at a motel until he can find a new place to live. (WATCH BELOW: Lightning strike sparks fire at north Charlotte home, investigators say) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft and several astronauts is launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 23, 2021, to the International Space Station. (Aubrey Gemignani / Associated Press) SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which carries astronauts to the International Space Station, experienced a rare failure Thursday night after blasting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on an uncrewed mission. The rocket, which had a payload of 20 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink internet network, took off without incident about 7:30 p.m. Pacific time, but the second stage of the rocket that delivers the satellites into their final orbit failed. SpaceX said the failure resulted in the satellites reaching a lower orbit than intended. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday evening that after engineers attempted to restart it, the second stage experienced an "RUD," an acronym for "rapid unscheduled disassembly," typically shorthand for an explosion. On Friday, SpaceX said in an update said that a liquid oxygen leak had developed in the second stage of the rocket, but it survived the unsuccessful restart, though the satellites' orbit is too low for them to remain in space. The failure prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground the rocket pending the outcome of an investigation into the cause of the accident. SpaceX said it will conduct a full investigation in coordination with the agency. Laura Forczyk, executive director of space industry consultancy Astralytical, noted that satellites were not destroyed when the rocket's second stage failed. If this had been a flight carrying SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, she said, it would not necessarily have been catastrophic since the capsule could return to Earth using its parachute system. The 20 satellites are expected to burn up in the atmosphere and not pose any threat, SpaceX said Friday. The rocket has launched SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule with astronauts aboard to the space station more than a half dozen times since 2020. It was scheduled to launch another crew in August. In all, the Falcon 9, which has a reusable first stage, has launched a total 352 missions, according to SpaceX. The company said the first stage used in Thursday's night launch returned to Earth safely. Prior to Thursday's launch, the Falcon 9 had not failed in more than 300 flights. The rocket last failed in flight in June 2015 when it was carrying out an uncrewed cargo resupply mission to the space station. A Falcon 9 also exploded on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in September 2016 during fueling while carrying a satellite payload. A lengthy grounding of the rocket would deal a blow to the U.S. space and global satellite industries, which rely on the rocket to launch satellites not only for SpaceX but other customers. SpaceX said Friday that "With a robust satellite and rocket production capability, and a high launch cadence, were positioned to rapidly recover and continue our pace as the worlds most active launch services provider." NASA has relied on the rocket and the Crew Dragon to ferry astronauts to the orbiting lab since awarding SpaceX a $2.6-billion contract in 2014 to develop the capsule. The space agency awarded a larger $4.2-billion contract to Boeing to build its own capsule called the Starliner, but that program is years behind SpaceX and only launched its first human test flight last month. That mission, repeatedly delayed on the launchpad, was supposed to last only eight days but now may be extended for months because of problems with the Starliner propulsion system. There had been speculation that NASA might have to send a Crew Dragon to the station to bring the astronauts back down. The agency has denied that it has any such plans. But if the Starliner cannot be used, the Russians' Soyuz craft could serve as an alternative. The next human flight of the Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled for July 31 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, when it was expected to launch billionaire Jared Isaacman to space in a private tourist flight. That flight and the August mission to the space station are now in limbo. 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. The News President Bidens appearance at the NATO summit offered grist for his Democratic critics, like when he mixed up Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin and later Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and for his defenders, like his nuanced answers on foreign policy. It was, as one House Democratic aide put it, a Rorschach test. I thought it went well, said Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat. He transposed a name but that happens to everyone including Trump. And the opening speech was very strong. But Democrats opposed to Bidens candidacy also sent a clear and direct message afterwards: We dont care either way. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called for Biden to drop out within minutes of the press conferences end. It was untenable, he told MSNBCs Alex Wagner, for Democrats to sit and wait for the next slip up. He had seen enough. One of the really kind of sick aspects of this moment is that we are watching every speech, every rally, every debate and saying How did he do today? Himes said. Thats just not the way to think about the presidency of the United States. While Himes said his move was not part of a coordinated effort with other Democrats, it certainly was strategic. The timing of the announcement, as well as Himes specific expertise in national security, was clearly intended to step on any discussion of the press conferences relevance to the discussion over Bidens fate. Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat who had earlier called on Biden to step aside, made the same point on CNN. Biden did a fine job, he said but Democrats cant survive holding our breath constantly worrying about his ability to do the job. Not long after Himes initial statement, Politico reported that Rep. Scott Peters, a California Congressman known for his work on climate issues, would ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign. He was followed within an hour by Illinois Rep. Eric Sorensen, who said Biden should make way for a candidate who can communicate a positive vision for every person in this country. The continued drumbeat of opposition angered Biden supporters who had hoped for positive headlines out of an event in which the president, on substance at least, had successfully showcased his deep knowledge and experience on foreign policy. The sky only falls when you chip at it, texted California Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove. Instead, they were back where they started: Facing a growing rebellion against his nomination with no obvious way to move past it. Kadia and Benjy's View Thursdays various anti-Biden rollouts were the latest sign that the opposition to his nomination in Washington is growing more organized and emboldened. Its also not yet clear how deep Bidens own support is while he has more on-paper backers than detractors, their response to the last thirty-six hour of crises has been relatively muted. Biden is perhaps the ultimate arbiter of his fate, but the prospect of moving forward soon if ever with a united party is looking more and more remote. The outcome also wasnt entirely surprising. Some Democrats had suggested to Semafor ahead of the press conference that it was misunderstood as a make-or-break test for Biden. In fact, they said, there was already more criticism waiting around the corner that was being held back by the ongoing NATO Summit, because some members feared undermining the president while he was representing the US on the world stage. That pushback might not always come in the form of dramatic statements demanding Biden to drop down (though more such statements are likely). Members are extremely nervous about their own races and are losing hope of taking back the House, one House Democrat told Semafor ahead of the press conference. But the lawmaker said that some members are trying to make the case to Biden and his team privately, even as they fear he seems to be digging in on his position in response to public criticism. Room for Disagreement Some Democrats argued Biden made headway with members who might have been on the fence. I think he convinced a lot of people he should stay in the race, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said on CNN. Notable Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have discussed how to handle Bidens struggling candidacy, CNNs Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jeff Zeleny report. Neither is quite sure what to do, they write. NASA astronaut James Buchli smiles next to a plaque of himself after being inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2019. (Contributed/Office of the North Dakota Governor) Astronaut James Buchli will receive the 49th Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award at a July 30 ceremony at the University of North Dakota, Gov. Doug Burgum announced Friday. The ceremony is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and will take place at the universitys Robin Hall, located at 4275 University Ave. in Grand Forks. Itll be followed by a reception, according to the announcement. Buchli, who hails from New Rockford, was the first North Dakotan to fly in space. He was first selected for NASAs space shuttle program in 1978, and went on to complete four space flights over his career. In total, Buchli spent 20 days in space, orbited the Earth 319 times and traveled more than 7.74 million miles. Following his flight career, Buchli was deputy chief of the astronaut office for NASA where he facilitated astronaut training and operations. He holds a masters degree in aeronautical engineering systems from the University of West Florida, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a Marine Corps veteran. In 2019, he was inducted in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Theodore Roosevelt got it right when he said that without the time he spent in North Dakota, he would never have been president, Buchli said in a May statement. North Dakota has given me the work ethic, determination and tenacity to succeed, just as it has for many others. For that gift, I am truly grateful. The Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award honors North Dakotans who have achieved national recognition for their accomplishments. Award winners are granted the rank of colonel in the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Riders. Previous winners include Lawrence Welk, Roger Maris, Peggy Lee, Phil Jackson, Angie Dickinson, Bobby Vee and Doug Burgum. Rudy Giuliani scores rare legal win as judge dismisses bankruptcy case but it comes with a huge asterisk A judge dismissed Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy case, freeing him to appeal a $148 million judgment. It comes with a big asterisk: Giuliani can't seek bankruptcy protection again for 12 months. Now, all the civil lawsuits against Giuliani can continue to play out in courts. The judge overseeing Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy granted him a rare legal win. In a court order Friday, the judge dismissed the Chapter 11 case and allowed him to appeal the $148 million defamation judgment he owes. But there's a catch: Giuliani isn't allowed to file for bankruptcy again over the next 12 months. And his creditors are ready to pounce. They can now battle Giuliani in other courts as the ex-New York mayor tries to appeal a $148 million judgment forming the bulk of his debt. Throughout the bankruptcy, Giuliani has failed to sufficiently provide crucial information about his own assets and his businesses. "The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case," the judge, Sean H. Lane, wrote in a memorandum Friday. But dismissing the bankruptcy is exactly what Giuliani asked for, buying him time and rescuing him from the potential appointment of a trustee who would have the power to quickly liquidate his assets. "Mayor Rudy Giuliani was denied the ability to appeal the grossly unfair $148 million judgement in Washington, D.C. during this proceeding," Giuliani's spokesperson Ted Goodman said in a statement. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December, claiming he couldn't pay his $152 million in debt. The bankruptcy froze all the other civil litigation against Giuliani, including defamation cases from election technology companies and a lawsuit from Noelle Dunphy, who accused him of sexual abuse. Nearly all of Giuliani's debt was the $148 million judgment a Washington, DC, jury awarded to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, two election workers he defamed by falsely claiming they manipulated votes in Georgia. Giuliani's assets were worth about $10 million depending on what he could get if he sold his Manhattan and Florida apartments not nearly enough to satisfy all the debt. The creditors also want the judge to put Giuliani on the hook for $350,000 in fees already incurred in the case by a legal discovery vendor. Under a plan they proposed, Lane would also place control of Giuliani's Upper East Side condo, which is up for sale, in the hands of a lawyer representing his creditors. If Lane approves their request, a chunk of the potential proceeds from the sale would go toward legal fees, and the rest would be held in escrow. Over the past few months, Giuliani has filed inconsistent financial disclosures and appeared to squirrel away streams of income, his creditors have complained. Giuliani said he had trouble finding an accountant a claim his creditors found hard to believe. Lane expressed frustration with "the difficulties we've had in terms of transparency in this case" in a hearing earlier this week. "When confronted with complaints about a failure to satisfy the Bankruptcy Code's obligations as to financial transparency, most debtors will respond by curing at least some if not all of the defects," Lane wrote Friday. "By contrast, Mr. Giuliani has done nothing." At the same time that Giuliani was filing odd financial statements, he also made it clear in court filings that he wanted breathing room to appeal his $148 million judgment. After months of wrangling including a last-ditch effort to convert the bankruptcy to a Chapter 7, which would have further slowed the process Giuliani and lawyers representing Freeman and Moss arrived at a rare agreement, coming to it for very different reasons. On Wednesday, they both told the judge that dismissing the bankruptcy altogether was the best move. The draft order provided by Giuliani's legal team included a line that would forbid the 80-year-old from filing for bankruptcy protection again for one year. In the Southern District of New York, where the case is playing out, bankruptcy judges customarily forbid debtors from re-filing for some period of time if they believe the debtor sought the protection in bad faith, according to Eric J. Snyder, the chair of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander LLP. "Twelve months is a long time. Normally, it's six months," Snyder said. "But in this type of case, because of Giuliani's behavior, I think 12 months is probably consistent." Dunphy will continue her fight in court Dismissing the bankruptcy would unfreeze all of Giuliani's other civil cases, allowing him time to appeal the massive defamation judgment against him. It also means all the other litigants suing Giuliani can continue to pursue their cases against him in other courts, which are mostly taking place in New York, where he was once the mayor and top federal prosecutor. The legal team representing the unsecured creditors who still had pending cases before the bankruptcy including Dominion Voting Systems and Dunphy objected earlier this week to dismissing the bankruptcy case. They wanted to get a slice of Giuliani's finances through the appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee. Rudy Giuliani has continued to support former President Donald Trump, who is running in the 2024 election. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In a rowdy hearing Wednesday, they asked Lane to allow their disputes to play out in the bankruptcy process rather than other courts. Lane said at the hearing that he was inclined to dismiss the case. He said appointing a Chapter 11 trustee to take over Giuliani's assets would eat up administrative fees, and that Giuliani's lack of financial transparency posed a persistent problem. "That's not going to magically change if you continue the case in 11 with the trustee," he said. With the bankruptcy over, other people suing Giuliani can now pursue their cases against him. "Our client Noelle Dunphy remains as strong and steadfast as ever in her commitment to pursuing justice," Dunphy's lawyer Justin Kelton told Business Insider in an email earlier this week. "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 also has plenty of other legal woes stemming from his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump. The ex-president's former attorney was disbarred in New York and may soon lose his law license in Washington, DC. He is also the subject of two criminal cases, in Arizona and Georgia, over his efforts to overturn the election results. This story has been updated. Read the original article on Business Insider A rural Wisconsin church has a plan for survival: Become essential to people who don't go to church LUCK By almost any measure, West Denmark Lutheran Church is a small congregation. About 35 members gather to worship on a typical Sunday. But on a sunny day this spring, its parish hall was bustling with a crowd ten times the size of the congregation. Diners hungry for a Danish pancake dinner lined up outside the white clapboard building before its doors even opened. As soon as they filled long cafeteria tables, others sat in rows of chairs waiting to take their spots. Young children to nonagenarians volunteered as cooks and dishwashers and servers, weaving between tables, frying pancakes and greeting customers with friendly chit-chat. In Wisconsin, fundraising dinners at churches are commonplace and ingrained in the culture. (Think Friday fish fries and parish festivals.) But to the members of West Denmark, the dinner was part of something bigger: their vision for their future. It's not just survival the members are after. Their goal is to remain relevant for years to come. For many rural churches today, that's a tall order. Congregations are aging, shrinking and saddled with old buildings that require expensive upkeep. With fewer people attending regular services and donating money, churches struggle to stay afloat. Those forces threaten to close an estimated 100,000 American churches in the next decade. West Denmark, nestled in the woods of northwest Wisconsin, isn't immune to those headwinds. But its leaders have leaned into events and programs that connect the church with the broader community, from a summer fiddle workshop to regular Nordic music concerts. And in response to a lack of child care in the area, they soon will open a Danish-style forest preschool, where children spend most of their days outdoors, learning through hands-on activities. They know that in a village like Luck, churches provide a sense of belonging, and a space for entertainment and socialization that isnt easily found elsewhere. They're going beyond Sunday services, and trying to make themselves essential to the Polk County community and its surrounding area. We talk about this at every single council meeting. This is something we consider all the time, said church council president Terry Speiker, a retired social worker. Its our job as a congregation to try to keep connected to the community. Pastor Linda Rozumalski walks underneath a model of traditional Danish sailing ship in the sanctuary of West Denmark Lutheran Church in Luck. The ship, built by a member of the congregation, points toward the cross, signifying church members' aim of a Christian life. The congregation traces its origin to 1873, when Danish settlers to the area gathered in each other's homes for Lutheran services. Several current members are descendants of the Danes who oriented their lives around the church in its early days. Proud of their roots, they are fierce advocates for West Denmark. If they had their way, the elegant white church on Little Butternut Lake would live another 151 years. But that won't just happen on its own. And West Denmark doesn't function in a vacuum. It is one of about seven churches in 10 miles. Congregations open to new people, ideas are more likely to survive Luck is about 70 miles northeast of the Twin Cities. The community draws retirees and families seeking a quiet, peaceful life along the Big and Little Butternut lakes. That doesn't mean people want social isolation, and Pastor Linda Rozumalski understands that. The church has a reputation as a mainstay of the community, from hosting the dinner of Danish pancakes or bleskiver (pronounced ah-bleh-skee-ver) to offering the parish hall for wedding receptions, 4-H club meetings, even a local farmer's forum on food insecurity. People arent only hungry for food. Theyre hungry for companionship, and fellowship, and art and music, said Rozumalski, who joined the church nearly 25 years ago when her husband became pastor. People have visited West Denmark for its Nordic music concerts, then joined the church because they liked it so much, Rozumalski said. But the main goal isnt always adding new members. Its about adding value to peoples lives, whether they come to church here or not, she said. Whether a church is involved in the broader community is a predictor of its success, said Steven Deller, a professor of applied economics and an expert in rural economic development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Congregations that are internally focused and closed off to new ideas and newcomers are "going to struggle," Deller said. "Is this the kind of community that the common response is, 'Well, you're not from here, so you don't understand?'" Deller said. "That kind of attitude can be the kiss of death." But churches with a more open-minded culture, in which leaders are proactive in trying new things and welcoming new people, can become indispensable to a rural community, he said. And they are more likely to survive financially, as people who aren't members take part in the church's programs and donate in support. "They've got a fighting chance," he said. Church members Bill Brumfield and Pat Pearson share a laugh while volunteering at the Danish pancake, or bleskiver, dinner in May at West Denmark Lutheran Church, which is located about 70 miles northeast of the Twin Cities in Polk County. Erik Carlson, a pastor in coastal Michigan, took it one step further when he was in rural Dawson, Minnesota. In a 2018 essay for the Collegeville Institute, he wrote that faced with declining membership, his church had to confront the question: Why are we here? The answer was to accept change, and begin thinking of itself as a regional church with a "welcoming posture." "Our church has become a landing spot for people whose churches have closed," he wrote. "We have been a middle ground for couples coming from different denominational backgrounds. People who are new to our region feel welcomed as contributors since weve become flexible and invitational." Some longtime members lamented not having the little country church of old, and not recognizing newcomers. But Carlson wrote that Christians in rural areas needed to focus on what unites them, not divides them. These "open-valved" churches also can make living in a community more appealing overall, Deller said. Rural towns with a high quality of life have things to do: farmers markets, arts festivals, volunteer organizations. They offer places to network and exchange ideas with others. Churches can contribute to that mix. "Churches sometimes can be like an anchor institution for a lot of communities. They can be the ones to be that conduit, or sparkplug, to provide that dynamic that makes a community really livable," Deller said. More: Wisconsin's oldest Methodist congregation closes due to high bills, low turnout. It's a familiar story nationwide. There's a broad shift away from mainstream religions The challenge to rural churches coincides with a broad movement away from regular church attendance across the country. Just three in 10 Americans now say they attend religious services every week or almost every week, according to a Gallup Poll released earlier this year. Nearly every faith has seen a decline. Other Gallup data showed a general decline over the last decade in the importance of religion in the lives of respondents. Mainline Protestant groups like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which includes West Denmark, have been on a steep downward slide for longer than that. In 1990, about 36% of the Polk County population was mainline Protestant, according to the U.S. Religion Census. In 2020, it was about 18%. Even as the Polk County population remained steady in recent years it increased 2% from 2010 to 2020 ELCA membership in the county declined by nearly 20% in the same time frame. The trend is not unique to northwest Wisconsin. Nationally, the ELCAs numbers are dire. Since the denomination was formed by a merger in 1988, it has lost more than 2 million members, or more than 40% of its original membership. One academic, using denomination data, warned that ELCA Sunday worshippers would dwindle to just 16,000 nationwide by 2041. Another, citing the rise of evangelicalism, said in 2017 that mainline Protestantism had 23 Easters left before trend lines crossed zero. Church closures bring tough decisions, mixed emotions In the decades since immigrants settled across the Midwest, the role of a church as the center of people's social lives has shifted, said Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at Notre Dame's Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate. Johnson has discovered bowling alleys in church basements that look like time capsules from the 1950s. They still can be hubs for community health and education, hosts for vaccination clinics, blood drives and polling places, and sites of food pantries or meal programs. A church structure that's "potentially largely empty on Sunday might actually be really vibrant throughout the week, even pulling volunteers who aren't affiliated with the church, not to mention people who benefit from those services," Johnson said. West Denmark Lutheran Church is going beyond Sunday services and trying to make themselves essential to the Polk County community and its surrounding area. More: From Christian Scientists to Baptists to Pentecostals, historic Milwaukee church begins a new chapter More: How do you sell a church? Just ask this Realtor. When a church does get to the point of closure, a congregation can face tough decisions and mixed emotions. It can be a relief to shed the albatross of a time- and budget-sucking building, Johnson said. But who buys the property matters. A congregation could be unaware of its true value and sell it for too little to a developer. Or it could sell for a higher price, cutting out a prospective nonprofit buyer who might have carried on a piece of the church's mission. "There's just a lot of opportunity for missteps," she said. Then there's the question of the lingering symbolism a church carries. Is a church-turned-brewery disrespectful, or innovative? Johnson hears a lot of both opinions. But people generally agree that a public space the community can use is better than, say, privately owned condos. Leaders see need to get people in the door West Denmark leaders know their congregation ultimately will only survive if it maintains a high profile. Its one reason why Mark Pedersen, of nearby Barron, organizes the concerts and the fiddle school at West Denmark, which trains 60 musicians each year and draws some big names in the field. It brings people into the church, he said. Youre not going to get people (to join) if they never step in the door. And this May, they did, pulled in by Scandinavian treats and the chance to celebrate a cultural heritage. Freshly fried bleskiver rest in a cast-iron pan in May at West Denmark Lutheran Church. Among the customers eager for pancakes, fruit soup and spiced sausage: Bonnie Fredrickson of Amery and Esther Thompson of Deer Park each a more-than-30-minute drive from the church. They arent members but have made the trek for the last 30-plus years to be transported back in time through food. We ate fruit soup when I was a kid, said Thompson, who has Norwegian and Swedish roots. And there are the volunteers who chip in year after year. Sarah Petersen, of St. Paul, Minnesota, told her cousins, Carrie and Christa Petersen, of Luck, to save a burner for me, and drove up for the weekend. Together, the three likely have made thousands of bleskiver over 25 years, pouring batter into round divots in specially made frying pans, then delicately turning them over with skewers. We are a pretty special church, so its fun when other people can see all the things we do, Christa Petersen said. Still, as it charts a path forward, the church faces challenging fiscal realities. The parish hall, which hosts so many of West Denmark's functions, was built about a century ago for folk dances, gymnastics classes and lectures. Updates are needed to allow more rentals, and bring in more revenue, from a new dining room floor and fire escape to a remodeled stage area with a new speaker system. Members are applying for a grant through the Nordic Churches Project, a program through a nonprofit called Partners for Sacred Places. The program trains leaders of Nordic churches in the Upper Midwest to find new ways to use their buildings, engage with the broader community, and preserve their cultural heritage. The idea is in keeping with the history of Nordic churches. From 1820 to 1920, more than 2 million immigrants from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland settled in the Midwest, said Emily Sajdak, senior project manager of the Nordic Churches Project. Their settlements really made a significant contribution to both the physical and the cultural landscape, she said. Members play to their strengths to sustain church Notably, half the donations to West Denmark come from friends and supporters that is, people who arent members and dont attend services regularly, but feel connected to the church or its heritage. A sizable group of people returns each summer for West Denmarks family camp, where they reunite with old friends, hear speakers and participate in outdoor activities. That support is a big factor in West Denmark staying afloat. Its not something every struggling church can count on. Henrik Strandskov directs guests to the downstairs dining area at West Denmark Lutheran Church. Another major windfall: donations from a now-deceased wealthy man who lived in a cabin on the church property during the Great Depression with his single mother and several siblings. Beyond that, members know how to leverage their strengths. The nature school for preschool-age children, a response to a shortage of child care in the area that's set to open in the fall, is led by retired early education specialists. More: Three West Allis Catholic churches to merge in latest case of local parishes restructuring More: In another sign of membership trends, St. Bernard in Wauwatosa will close, merge with Christ King At West Denmark, will the traditions and values pass down to future generations? Some older members grew up hearing their parents or grandparents speak Danish at home. That doesn't happen anymore. Judy Grumstrup posed the question to other longtime West Denmark allies who gathered at the bleskiver dinner. Are your kids going to go here? Are they going to do all this? she asked. No one had an easy answer. Even with all they do to engage people, the perception is that young people arent as interested as their predecessors in being involved in church communities at least not this kind of church community. If you cant attract a few young people, then youre in a little bit of trouble, said Paul Petersen, 67, a West Denmark member since childhood. But Petersen has been around long enough to have faith in the future of West Denmark. He and his two brothers rebuilt West Denmark in the 1980s after it burned down. (The church that burned was itself a rebuild in 1937, a lightning strike destroyed the original 1899 building.) Fifty years ago, my dad said we wont survive very much longer, he said. I can hear people saying the same thing my dad said 50 years ago. But West Denmark has survived this long, he said, and were doing actually pretty good. Volunteers sell baked goods at the Danish pancake dinner in May at West Denmark Lutheran Church. The challenge to rural churches coincides with a broad movement away from regular church attendance across the country. For Mark Pedersen, who coordinates the music concerts and the fiddle school, keeping the church active and vibrant is a personal mission. One of his great-grandfathers, a Danish immigrant, was ordained as a pastor at the West Denmark seminary in the late 1800s and became the churchs minister. Another did the original chapels wood carvings. His mother grew up across the street. He got emotional thinking of what would happen if he and others didnt try to preserve that heritage. He said he could imagine the property sold, the buildings leveled, and summer homes constructed on the shore of Little Butternut Lake. Then he gazed around the bustling parish hall, where red tablecloths and T-shirts and aprons nodded to the Danish flag. He saw families happily eating and volunteers serving desserts. He saw a community in action. Theres too much history here to have it disappear, he said. Sophie Carson is a general assignment reporter who reports on religion and faith, immigrants and refugees and more. Contact her at scarson@gannett.com or 920-323-5758. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: As rural churches wane, this Wisconsin congregation has a model vision FRANKLIN, Ala. (WHNT) The Russellville Police Department is asking for help looking for a man who is wanted in three states, including Alabama. According to the police department, Billy Joe Williams has recently been in the area. He is thought to be using the name Jerry Williams, which police say is a stolen identity. HPD: 3 injured after shooting on Brett Road In addition to the felony charges he faces from RPD, he is also facing other charges: Georgia failure to appear for the charges of robbery by force aggravated assault exploitation and intimidation of disabled adult, elder person or resident giving false information to a law enforcement officer. Mississippi probation violation on the charge of aggravated assault If you have seen him or know anything about his whereabouts, please contact RPD at 256-332-2230. 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. Outgunned and outmanned, Ukrainian soldiers struggling to hold the front line in a brutal, months-long Russian siege of Chasiv Yar are increasingly worried about their army's ability to protect their rear. If key supply lines from the west are cut off and if troops to their south are overrun, they risk being choked. "It would be critical if the main road for resources, ammunition, and everything is captured, or if the Russians approach closer to it," said a sergeant in an artillery unit who serves with the 80th Air Assault Brigade deployed near Chasiv Yar and goes by the name of Bohdan. After retreating west from the Donetsk Oblast city of Bakhmut just over one year ago, Ukraine's forces have used the higher ground around Chasiv Yar to inflict massive losses on advancing Russian troops who this spring made incursions into the town's eastern outskirts. But the predicament for Ukrainian troops struggling to hold Chasiv Yar worsened in past weeks after a poorly organized rotation of Ukrainian soldiers to the south allowed Russian forces to advance towards the Ukraine-held towns of Toretsk and Niu York. To make matters worse, Russian forces have been advancing swiftly to the southwest after the fall of Avdiivka in February 2024. Russian troops have made it as far as the village of Novooleksandrivka. From there, they are pushing hard and are just over six kilometers away from Highway T0504, a key supply route for Ukrainian troops in the entire region that could become a path for Russian forces to attack to the west, east, or both ways. Read also: With all eyes on Kharkiv, Russian troops take one Donbas village after another The Ukrainian military is still using T0504 as a supply route at a limited capacity even if it is dangerous due to Russia's drone and artillery strikes, a company commander with the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade and an acting Battalion Chief Sergeant with the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade told the Kyiv Independent. "It is a very serious threat, because after two years of war, the enemy has the ability and determination to break through the front line and not in one or two places, but in several (places) to threaten logistics," an infantry company commander with the 110th, who goes by the name Mykhailo, said of the Russian advance toward T0504. "Any blocked logistical route affects the situation at the front, because all roads are important and perform strategic tasks, and various logistical tasks are assigned to them." A map showing Russian offensives in Donetsk Oblast, the capture of which remains Moscow's priority. (Lisa Kukharska) The highway is one of several critical major supply arteries for some of the last Ukrainian-held cities in Donbas, the main route from the southwest. There are rural and major roads to the north that can be used as alternatives. Still, it's a main road that was in the past used to connect Pokrovsk, a supply hub to the west, with three of the largest Donbas cities still held by Ukraine: Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, and nearby Sloviansk. Senior Sergeant Viktor Boichenko, who has also fought in the Chasiv Yar sector until recently with the 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, echoed the concern about logistics, saying it would be "severely complicated" as the alternative road into Kramatorsk and the nearby town of Druzhkivka would be "much further and much worse." Chasiv Yar has other supply routes from the north. However, concentrating supplies on fewer roads makes them more vulnerable to Russian air strikes. In turn, this further jeopardizes logistics for Ukrainian forces already grappling with ammunition shortages. Ukraine's general staff said on July 11 that the fiercest fighting was currently raging near the village of Vozdvyzhenka about five kilometers away from a middle section of the highway. Russian troops are attacking from Novooleksandrivka, a village they captured in late June, according to military analysts. "This is the initial stage of a big offensive on the Toretsk agglomeration," said Oleksander Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military and political analyst with the Kyiv-based think-tank Information Resistance. Lieutenant Colonel Nazar Voloshyn, spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces in the region, denied that Russian forces have pressed on to T0504, claiming that the Ukrainian military "securely holds the defense" there. Ukrainian soldiers with their weapons wait inside a US-made M113 armoured personnel carrier to depart for the front in an undisclosed area in Donetsk Oblast on June 19, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images) A view of damaged building at the town of Niu-York, Ukraine, on June 30, 2024. (Marek M. Berezowski/Anadolu via Getty Images) But Kovalenko said the "peak moment" could arrive early in August. Moscow, he added, successfully seized a moment to launch an offensive on Toretsk and nearby Niu York this June during a poor rotation of Ukrainian units. Kovalenko said Russian troops would likely focus on reaching the highway and possibly pushing towards Pokrovsk further west before intensifying their offensive in the Niu York-Torestsk axis. Toretsk and Niu York are devastated towns that endured war since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 but have been calmer sectors of the front line during the past two years of Russia's full-scale invasion. Read also: Battle of Chasiv Yar begins: On the ground with Ukrainian forces defending city key to Russias plans U.S.-based military expert Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who routinely visits the battlefields in Ukraine, said the Russian advance toward Pokrovsk "threatens to anchor out potentially creating large pockets around Toretsk and south of Pokrovsk." "Russian advances have typically devolved into small unit attacks by assault groups. Russian forces are steadily pressing into defenses, pursuing an attritional approach, which yields incremental gains but can't generate momentum." Russia is increasing pressure on Chasiv Yar and Toretsk and advancing northwest to capture Kostiantynivka, according to Serhiy Hrabskyi, a retired Ukrainian colonel and military analyst. Seizing Toretsk and Chasiv Yar would allow Russian troops to push toward Kostiantynivka from the south and north, which Hrabskyi says is Russia's goal. Kostiantynivka hosts an intersection point between two key highways T0504 and T0514, with the latter leading up to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. An aerial view of the ruined town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast, shown in an image captured on a ruined and uninhabitable city on July 3, 2024. (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images) A child plays as women rest on a bench in front of destroyed by shelling residential buildings in the city of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast on June 22, 2024. (Roman Pilipey/AFP via Getty Images) Kovalenko said the amount of Western military aid deliveries, a top topic of discussion at this week's NATO summit in Washington DC, is crucial to determining the outcome of these battles. Bohdan and several other soldiers deployed on the Chasiv Yar front said they anticipate even fewer shells being delivered due to worsening logistics in the coming months. Bohdan said his artillery battery unit currently receives a small fraction of shells daily compared to 2023 supplies. The shortage forces his unit to conserve shells, leaving him and fellow artillerymen unable to provide fire support for their infantry against Russian mortars, armored vehicles, and tanks. Critically lacking people to replenish the heavy infantry losses, Ukrainian battle-torn brigades deployed in and around Chasiv Yar have struggled to hold off relentless Russian assaults. Being unable to provide fire support for the already depleted infantry leads to more casualties when combat-capable soldiers are already few. "We try to show that we have something, but honestly, we have nothing (to defend Chasiv Yar with)," Bohdan said over the phone a day after returning from a combat mission, shocked at how critical the shortage of crucial resources from ammunition to air defense missiles had gotten. Following a Ukrainian retreat from the easternmost Kanal neighborhood earlier in July, the front line in Chasiv Yar is currently along the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal that divides Russian and Ukrainian-held territories. Russian troops could either aim for an operational encirclement by surrounding Chasiv Yar from the northern and southern flanks a tactic previously used to force complete Ukrainian withdrawal from cities like Avdiivka and Bakhmut or try crossing the canal to intensify assaults on the main part of the town. "We are holding the defense (of the Chasiv Yar sector)," Bohdan said, adding: "But little by little, we are withdrawing because we have nothing (to fight with)." Read also: Russias move on Kharkiv has bogged down. But was it a failure? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Rospatent (the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property) has issued a certificate of "exclusive right" to the Melitopol Cherry brand in favour of the occupation administration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Source: Russian news agency TASS Quote: "The Federal Service for Intellectual Property has issued the first certificate of exclusive right to a regional brand. This was for the Melitopol Cherry geographical indication." Long before that, in 2020, Melitopol sweet cherries received the official title of a geographical brand in Ukraine. The Association of Melitopol Cherry Producers filed the application for registration of the geographical indication in December 2019. Support UP or become our patron! iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI MicroStrategy is the latest company to announce a 10-for-1 stock split as its shares hit $1,340. Record-high prices for stocks popular with investors have driven a stock-split boom this year. A market expert told BI that a handful of companies with shares above $500 could be candidates for split. It's been a big year for stock splits. MicroStrategy became the latest company to announce a split on Thursday, with a 10-for-1 share split set to go into effect in early August as its shares hover around $1,340. Other major companies that have implemented stock splits or announced plans to do so this year include Nvidia, Walmart, Broadcom, Chipotle, Williams-Sonoma, Cintas, Sony, Lam Research, and Texas Pacific Land. So, why are so many firms splitting their stock? Simply put, they want to attract more investors. Many stocks that split this year are household names, like Nvidia, which has become nearly synonymous with AI. The pricier and more popular the stock, the more likely it is to split, one expert said. "The market is up a lot and the most popular stocks among individual investors are among those leading the charge. The rise in the market means that more stocks are now expensive enough to justify a split while the popularity with individuals is what prompts managements to consider splits," Interactive Brokers chief strategist Steve Sosnick told Business Insider. "Frankly, if a stock has little interest from individuals, then there is little reason for a company to consider splitting." As to which stocks could be ripe for a split, Sosnick pointed to a handful of names trading above $500 a share as potential candidates. He highlighted companies like Autozone, MercadoLibre, Eli Lilly, KLA Corp, Netflix, Intuit, Adobe, and Meta Platforms. According to Bank of America, stock splits can be rocket fuel for prices. "Average returns one year later are 25% vs. around 12% for the broad market. Splits seem to be bullish across market regimes, something management teams might consider if shares look too expensive for buybacks," Bank of America said in a note in May. Bank of America But according to Sosnick, stock splits can also have a "buy the rumor, sell the news" impact on the share price, at least in the short term. "Because they don't change the underlying value of the company, it is not uncommon to see a run-up in advance of the split, then a sell-off when no new demand arrives. [Chipotle] is a good recent example of this," Sosnick said. Shares of Chipotle have dropped 12% since its shares split 50-for-1 in late June. It represented one of the largest stock splits in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. Read the original article on Business Insider By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) -Joe Biden has shown he is "a pro-Russian candidate being controlled by the Kremlin," Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman joked on Friday, after the U.S. president misspoke and introduced Ukraine's leader as "President Putin" before correcting himself. Video of the gaffe at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday featured prominently on news bulletins in Russia, where state TV commentators have long depicted Biden, 81, as a senile old man who risks stumbling into World War Three unlike Putin, 71, whom they portray as a strategic genius. Biden mixing up the names of his Republican rival Donald Trump with that of Kamala Harris, his vice-president, was also given coverage. Olga Skabeyeva, a pro-Kremlin TV commentator, posted a clip of Biden's Putin name fumble on her social media feed with a crying with laughter emoji. "The show from Joe goes on!," she wrote separately beneath footage of the Trump/Harris name mix-up. Biden's gaffes come at a moment when he is facing calls from some fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid. The president has insisted he is staying in the race and is the best placed to beat Trump in the November election. The Kremlin said Biden's errors had been widely noticed. "We noticed that the whole world paid attention to what happened... It's clear that these were slips of the tongue," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He said Biden's gaffes were "an internal U.S. topic" but that the Kremlin had also noted his disrespectful comments about Putin, whom the U.S. leader referred to as "a murderous madman". "This is unacceptable to us, and we don't think it in any way makes an American head of state look good," said Peskov. But it was Biden's verbal slips that dominated media coverage and commentary inside Russia. Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said anyone could make a mistake, but that Biden seemed to make one every day because he was "retarded". Maria Zakharova, Russia's high-profile Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, published a sarcastic commentary that used Biden's error in introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" to mock what Moscow says are false U.S. allegations it has meddled in U.S. politics. "It seems to me that the notorious 'Russian interference in the American elections' cannot be hidden any longer - there is a pro-Russian candidate (Biden) who is controlled by the 'hand of the Kremlin,'" Zakharova joked on her official Telegram account. ALLEGED COVER-UP Later, at an official news briefing, Zakharova accused "the U.S. deep state," U.S. officials and the U.S. media of covering up Biden's real condition for years in the same way she alleged they obscured what Washington was doing in Ukraine. She said Biden's performances and the public reaction of his top advisers meant it was no longer possible to keep up the pretence. "The question arises - is this same Biden signing all these cheques (for Ukraine)?," she said. "The same Biden who doesn't know what country he's talking about. And he is the one signing cheques for billions of dollars? Of course he can be given any piece of paper to sign," she said. Hawkish Russian foreign policy commentators said Biden's slips were further proof of his declining mental abilities and some expressed alarm that the world's most powerful military power was led by someone whose cognitive abilities appeared to be getting progressively worse. The Kremlin is watching the U.S. election closely. U.S.-Russia relations plunged to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, in what it calls "a special military operation" that it says is designed to protect its own national security. Washington is Ukraine's biggest sponsor and Moscow has sent signals in recent weeks that it is open to a deal to end the war, albeit on maximalist terms that Kyiv has dismissed as tantamount to surrender. While Putin has said the outcome of the U.S. presidential election is unlikely to change anything for Russia, he has taken a public interest in Trump's reported ideas to end the conflict. Putin said earlier this month that he believed Trump was sincere about wanting to end the war, but did not know how Trump - who has praised Putin in the past - planned to do so if elected. (Reporting by Andrew OsbornAdditional reporting by Dmitry Antonov Editing by Frances Kerry) Kremlin, asked about possible resumption of Black Sea grain deal, says it does not rule anything out MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia does not rule out any scenarios regarding the possible resumption of the now-defunct Black Sea grain deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday. On Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, speaking after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said they had discussed navigational security in the Black Sea, including the grain deal. Russia allowed the Turkish- and United Nations-brokered deal, which for a year facilitated Russian and Ukrainian agricultural exports via the Black Sea, to expire in July 2023. At the time, it said that it would only renew the deal if obstacles to its own agricultural goods reaching world markets were lifted. Asked about a possible renewal of the deal on Friday in light of Erdogan's comments, Peskov said: "The Kremlin does not rule out any agreements. The Kremlin has said, President (Vladimir) Putin has repeatedly said, that he is open to dialogue." Peskov said any agreement on grain would have to be reached as part of a package of issues "within the general context of the current situation". (Reporting by ReutersWriting by Felix Light/Maxim RodionovEditing by Andrew Osborn) Finnish authorities have reported an increase in the number of GPS "malfunctions" over the past week and that most of the malfunctions of aviation and maritime GPS and radar systems are originating from Russia. Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW) Details: The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, revealed on 11 July that there has been a surge in GPS "malfunctions" over the past week, linked to a specific incident in the Gulf of Finland on the night of 10-11 July. A Finnish maritime pilot took to X (formerly Twitter) to report experiencing significant GPS and radar failures while navigating near Kotka and Hamina on Finland's southern coastline. He posted a video showcasing his malfunctioning radar and stated that GPS was unavailable for 90% of his journey between the Orrengrund pilot station and Hamina harbour. This disruption is suspected to be caused by Russian jamming from Kaliningrad. Similar interference had previously affected the GPS of a plane carrying the then UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps and had compelled Finnish airline Finnair to cancel several flights departing from Finland. The Baltic region has also seen Finnair suspend flights to Tartu, Estonia, until an alternative approach method not dependent on GPS was implemented at Tartu Airport. This apparent GPS jamming by Russia is likely part of a broader hybrid strategy aimed at NATO member states, with the intent of weakening support for Ukraine and creating discord within NATO. To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 11 July: Russian authorities reportedly attempted to assassinate leading figures in the European defene industrial base (DIB), likely as part of Russian efforts to disrupt and deter Western aid to Ukraine and Russia's wider efforts to destabilise NATO members. Finnish authorities reported an increase in GPS "malfunctions" in the past week and that most disruptions to aviation and maritime GPS and radar originate from within Russia. Ukraine intends to hold a second meeting of the Global Peace Summit by the end of 2024 and reportedly plans to invite Russia to participate. European Union (EU) leadership is reportedly considering restricting Hungary's power as EU Council president following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow and his efforts to present himself as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine. The Russian government continued efforts to root out critical voices and consolidate control over the Russian information space. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that it prevented a terrorist attack against an Orthodox church in Maykop, Republic of Adygea on 11 July. Ukrainian forces advanced north of Kharkiv City; and Russian forces recently advanced south of Siversk, northwest of Avdiivka, and west of Donetsk City. Russian federal subjects (regions) continue to use monetary incentives as part of Russia's crypto-mobilisation recruitment efforts. Support UP or become our patron! Russia Has Been Quietly Influencing U.S. Elections to Push Voters Toward Trump and Defeat Ukraine United States intelligence officials warned that Russia is using social media and direct messaging channels to target specific voting blocs SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hold a meeting during the 2017 G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany Russia has reportedly been meddling in United States elections to undermine the Democratic Party and sway voters towards reelecting Donald Trump, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Trump is friendlier to Russia than Joe Biden, who has called Vladimir Putin a "war criminal" and has remained committed to backing Ukraine since it was invaded in 2022. (This week, Biden announced additional aid for Ukraine as he met with European leaders to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the NATO alliance.) Related: Joe Biden Makes Surprise Visit to Ukraine Ahead of First Anniversary of Russian Invasion Russia's undertaking a whole-of-government approach to influence the election, including the presidential race, Congress and public opinion," an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters during a July 9 briefing, via CNN. The official said that the Kremlin has been using social media accounts and coded direct message channels to quietly target swing state voters in an effort to diminish support for Ukraine and rally support for Russia. The ODNI said that in terms of Russia's favored candidate, intelligence officials "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." Related: Moving Photos from the First Year of the Ukraine War, as Russia Continues Its Attacks Mikhail MetzelTASS via Getty Vladimir Putin in 2019 Russian influence on U.S. elections dates back to at least 2016, when "persistent Russian cyber efforts" gained "access to election infrastructure," according to U.S. intelligence. During the 2020 election, "Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Bidens candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US." Related: Putin Now Says He Prefers Biden over Trump. The White House Tells Him to Stop Stirring the Pot Trump, 78, often touts his relationship with Putin, 71, and says that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day if he returns to the White House. He also previously said that Russia helped him get elected in 2016. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty; Anna Moneymaker/Getty; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, Donald Trump Elsewhere in the July 9 briefing, the ODNI assessed that in addition to Russia, China and Iran may try to sway the United States ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Russia is a preeminent threat. Iran is a chaos agent, and China is holding fire on the presidential race, the agency said, via CNN. The three countries have denied interfering or influencing United States elections, which are scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 5. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart for the second time in less than a month and one day after the NATO summit wrapped up in Washington with a focus on countering Moscow, according to the Pentagon. During the call with Russian Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov, which was initiated by Moscow, Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russias ongoing war against Ukraine, deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters. Austin last spoke with Belousov on June 25, about 2.5 weeks earlier. Prior to that, the Pentagon chief had not directly spoken with his Russian counterpart since March 2023. Communications between Washington and Moscow have almost entirely broken down since Kremlin forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But Russia appears to be roiled following the NATO Summit, during which alliance members issued a joint communique laying out new military and financial support for Ukraine and pledged their support for an irreversible path to future membership for the embattled country. Whats more, NATO has backed Ukraines push for more latitude in its use of Western-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia, with the United Kingdom announcing it would allow Kyiv to hit targets over Russian borders with British-provided long-range missiles. In addition, the U.S. and Germany on Wednesday announced the movement of more strategic weapons into Europe, including long-range fires such as undeveloped hypersonic missile systems, starting in 2026. Moscow, which has long viewed the expansion of NATO as a national security threat, said it would retaliate against the U.S. missile deployment plans. NATO once again very clearly confirmed its essence. It is an alliance founded in an era of confrontation with the aim of continuing confrontation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday during a press conference with Russian news agencies. We see in fact that the alliances military infrastructure is constantly and gradually moving towards our borders. All of this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated and effective responses to deter and confront the alliance. Adding to tensions, reports emerged this week that U.S. and German intelligence had foiled a Russian assassination plot against the CEO of a German manufacturing company sending munitions to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has since said allies are increasing intelligence sharing to combat such Russian attacks. Asked whether the Pentagon has any intelligence corroborating the Russian assassination scheme, or if Austin brought up the foiled plot with Belousov, Singh declined to provide further details. Of course we always, with any of our allies and partners, always share intelligence and information, but I just dont have more to add, she 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 The Hill. Russia targeting Ukrainian airfields before F-16s arrive shows its fear of the jets, experts say Russia is targeting Ukrainian airfields before the first of Ukraine's F-16s arrive. Experts told BI that Russia is wary of the boost the aircraft will likely give to Ukraine. One expert said Russian forces are "going to go for every F-16 base they can find." Russia is targeting Ukraine's airfields before the first F-16 fighter jets arrive in the country, and air warfare experts told Business Insider it's because it's worried about what Ukraine can achieve once it has them. Ukraine has been promised dozens of F-16s by Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium, with the exact number due in the first wave not publicly known. The F-16s, the first of which are due to arrive this summer, will be more advanced than the Soviet-era aircraft Ukraine has been using since Russia launched its invasion. Ukraine has not confirmed where it will keep its F-16s, but Russia said after one recent airbase strike that it was targeting airfields it believes Ukraine will use to house the planes. Russian strikes have been recorded at multiple Ukrainian bases in recent weeks. This includes Russia claiming to have hit Ukraine's Mirgorod air base, 100 miles from the border with Russia, destroying five Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets. Ukraine confirmed the attack and said there were some losses, "but not the ones the enemy claims." Michael Clarke, a Russia and Ukraine expert and a UK national security advisor, said Russia is "very worried about the F-16s because of their capabilities, no question about that." He also warned that Russian forces "are going to go for every F-16 base they can find." US Air Force F-16s. Staff Sgt. Jasmonet Holmes/US Air Force Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, said that Russia is focused on the advanced weaponry coming from the West. "I think their belief is that the more Western weaponry Ukraine has of all sorts, the more formidable its military will become," he said. Meanwhile, Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, said Russia's military likely believes the F-16s are "going to change the balance slightly against us." He said that once they arrive, Russian aircraft will probably have to be more cautious over Ukrainian territory. That means efforts to limit the jets' effects now present a tempting prospect for Russia. Ukraine has steps it can take The potential impact of Russia's efforts, and whether it manages to damage or destroy more air bases, is unclear. F-16s need particular long and smooth runways, as well as protective hangars. Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, said the answer from a Ukrainian perspective is obvious: more air defenses. Ukraine has repeatedly asked for more air defenses from its allies, to better enable it to stop Russian drone and missile attacks. An F-16 Fighting Falcon banks left over Leiria, Portugal. US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Chanceler Nardone Ukraine also says it is building underground stores and bunkers at its bases to prepare for the F-16s, and will disperse the jets to different bases to make it harder for Russia to detect them. A Ukrainian Air Force official also said in June that Ukraine would store some of its F-16s abroad, so Russia cannot attack them. It's hard to take out airfields Robinson said that destroying air bases is not an easy task. "Is it very, very difficult to shut an air base completely down," he said, especially given that they can be repaired. To keep one out of commission, he said, you have to strike again and again something that would be particularly hard if Ukraine uses more air defenses to protect bases where it has its F-16s. Still, Ukraine's F-16s being destroyed soon after they arrived or not being able to be used because airfields are destroyed would be a huge practical as well as symbolic blow for Ukraine. Clarke said the past Russian airbase strikes indicate "incompetence" by Ukraine, but said that the "silver lining" was that it was a good lesson one that has taken place before any F-16s arrive. F-16s are expected to aid Ukraine F-16s are not expected to be a game changer for Ukraine, but analysts say they should boost its fightback against Russia. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that the F-16s will allow Ukraine "to effectively defend themselves." As well as replenishing aircraft Ukraine has lost so far, the F-16s are expected to work as defenses that can stop Russian drone and missile attacks. They can also launch attacks on Russian weaponry and troops, though experts say Ukraine has not been promised enough to be able to use them in such an attacking role, and that it would be politically damaging to lose one because so few have been committed. Robinson also previously told BI that the F-16s would "make Russian pilots there a little bit more kind of wary, a little bit more careful about what they're going up against." Read the original article on Business Insider Russia continues its attempts to undermine stability in Ukraine's society through its disinformation operation, trying to threaten Ukrainians with the possibility of new attacks. Source: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, quoted by Russian media, Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation (CCD) Details: Zakharova claimed that Ukraine was preparing to destroy the dams of the Kyiv hydroelectric power plant and the Kaniv water storage to blame Russia. "These statements are aimed at causing panic among Ukrainians by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, narratives about the need for "peace by any means necessary", i.e. de facto surrender, are being thrown into Ukrainian society. The Russians are hoping that Ukrainians will be driven by fear and demand concessions to Russia," the CCD emphasises. Quote: "Despite the fact that Zakharova's statement looks like an attempt to provide Russia with an alibi before the attack, Russia does not have the means and opportunities to destroy the dams near Kyiv and Kaniv. It is impossible to destroy these facilities with missile strikes, and the option of sabotage is ruled out, as the dams are heavily guarded." Background: Russia does not recognise its involvement in the blowing up of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in June 2023. Back then, the Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka HPP, destroying the turbine hall and the dam. The destruction of the Kakhovka HPP caused an environmental disaster. Support UP or become our patron! Insights from Bloomberg, The i, and Der Spiegel The News Russian officials have vowed to respond militarily to a US plan to station long-range missiles in Germany for the first time since the Cold War, sparking fears of an arms race between the two nuclear powers. In an effort to bolster Europes defenses, the US will periodically deploy long-range, ground-based missiles in Germany from 2026, it announced at this weeks NATO summit in Washington. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov vowed the Kremlin would react with a military response to the new threat, while the Russian foreign ministry said it had already begun work on countermeasures. Similar missiles were banned by Russia and the US until 2019, seen as uniquely destabilizing in the Cold War because of flight times of as little as 10 minutes. SIGNALS Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories. Warnings of return to Cold War arms race Sources: The i, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policys Tobias Fella, Federation of American Scientists Jon B. Wolfsthal Arms control experts fear the move could spark tit-for-tat escalation from the Kremlin, warning that it could lead Russia to deploy nuclear-capable missiles in response. The systems mentioned can hit strategic targets in Russia with high precision and speed. The Kremlin will see this as a further erosion of the strategic balance and will likely react, Tobias Fella of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Berlin told Semafor. We have recreated one of the most dangerous components of the Cold War in Europe and things will only get worse from here, Jon B. Wolfsthal, who worked on nuclear policy in the Obama administration, wrote on X. New missiles could make up for Europes desperate air defense shortfall Western officials defended the decision, saying it improves Europes ability to defend itself and shows the US standing by its commitment to protecting its NATO allies. Because European countries have given away much of their air defense systems to Ukraine, the long-range missiles will help compensate for this shortfall, one senior NATO official told a briefing on the sidelines of this weeks summit, arguing that the Germany-based strike system would also be a form of air defense. If you can take out the [missile] launchers you can stop the attacks coming towards you, the official said. I view that very much in the context of the desperate need to get more air defense into Europe. European nations aim to build up stockpile of long-range missiles Sources: Bloomberg, Der Spiegel Long-range missiles provided by France and the UK have proved crucial for Ukraine, allowing Kyiv to strike deep behind enemy lines. But the weapons are in short supply, forcing Paris and London to weigh further donations with their own military needs. Meanwhile, several European nations plan to build their own long-range missiles, in an effort to strengthen the continents military muscle. This is clearly a segment we dont have, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on the sidelines of the NATO summit. So far, Poland, Germany, France, and Italy have agreed to develop missiles with a range of more than 300 miles, making them capable of striking deep into Russia. It comes as Moscow has bolstered its own arsenal of the weapons in recent years, Der Spiegel reported. Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day killed at least seven civilians and injured at least 43, with children among the casualties, regional authorities said early on July 12. Ukrainian air defenses shot down all five Kh-101 cruise missiles targeting Starokostiantyniv in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, as well as 11 of the 19 Shahed-type drones launched overnight, the Air Force said. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two people were injured during Russian drone and artillery attacks against the Nikopol district on July 11, Governor Serhii Lysak said. In Donetsk Oblast, four people were killed and 21 were injured over the past day, according to Governor Vadym Filashkin. This reportedly included a 15-year-old boy killed and 13 people injured including two 13-year-old boys when Russia struck the town of Myrnohrad twice on July 11, damaging around 20 buildings. One person was killed and three injured in Raihorodok, one killed and two injured in Novoselivka Persha, one killed and two injured in Siversk, and one injured in Lyman, Filashkin reported. In Kharkiv Oblast, three people were killed and 13 injured, Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported. A Russian strike against the village of Bilyi Kolodiaz in the Chuhuiv district on July 11 killed two men and one woman and injured nine people. Four more civilians were injured when Russian forces attacked the Borova village in the Izium district the same day, the governor said. Russian attacks against Kherson Oblast injured seven people over the past day, according to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. Infrastructure facilities, gas pipelines, agricultural and communal enterprises, residential buildings, and other property were reportedly damaged. Two civilians were injured when Russia attacked the Seredyna-Buda community in Sumy Oblast on July 11, the regional administration said. Chernihiv, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also came under attack, but no casualties were reported. Read also: Russian pilot leaked personnel data on Russian aviation division to Ukraine, source says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Stop & Shop on Friday said it plans to close nearly three dozen underperforming grocery stores, including several in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, by November. The New England-based grocery store chain will close 32 stores on or before Nov. 2, company officials said in a statement. Store associates who work at stores slated to close will be offered other work within the company, Stop & Shop President Gordon Reid said in a statement. After the closures, Stop & Shop will continue to have a strong presence across its five-state footprint with more than 350 stores, Reid said. Stop & Shop is proud of the deep roots and community ties we have developed as a neighborhood grocer of more than 100 years, and we remain committed to nourishing our associates, customers and communities, Reid said. As we announced in May, Stop & Shop has evaluated its overall store portfolio and made the difficult decision to close underperforming stores to create a healthy base for the future growth of our brand. Stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island that are slated to close are: Massachusetts o 932 North Montello St., Brockton o 36 New State Highway, Raynham o 341 Plymouth St., Halifax o 539-571 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury o 165 Needham St., Newton (bfresh Market) o 415 Cooley St., Springfield (1600 Boston Rd. and 1277 Liberty St., Springfield will remain open) o 545 Lincoln St. Worcester (940 West Boylston St. and 949 Grafton St., Worcester will remain open) o 24 Mattakeesett St., Pembroke (125 Church St., Pembroke will remain open) Rhode Island o 11 Commerce Way, Johnston o 176 Pittman St., Providence (Eastside Marketplace) The company will also be closing several stores in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Our associates are a strong community dedicated to growing and working together, and all of our store associates will continue to have a place in the Stop & Shop family as we look forward to serving customers at other nearby locations, said Reid. Stop & Shop will communicate specific store closing dates to local customers well in advance of any store closures, Reid said. He added the company remains committed to serving its communities through other store locations, online shopping and home delivery services. Stop & Shop is focused on growing through large, multi-year price investments and a stronger customer value proposition, both in-store and online. This means well be focused on delivering lower everyday prices, as well as even more savings for our customers through strong promotions, said Reid. Story continues Since 2018, we have completed more than 190 store remodels, with the customer shopping experience in mind. These stores are outperforming other Stop & Shop stores that havent been remodeled, Reid said. Were taking these learnings and implementing them at other stores as we build upon our strong foundation, similar to our new Boston flagship location, opened last month in the Allston Yards development. We look forward to continuing to serve and care for our communities and to grow Stop & Shop as a local brand for many years to come. After the store closures are complete, Stop & Shop will operate more than 350 stores spanning five states, including 81 stores in Connecticut, 115 in Massachusetts, 47 in New Jersey, 91 in New York and 25 in Rhode Island, Reid said. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Australia has charged two Russian-born Australian citizens with preparing for an espionage offense after allegedly obtaining military information that they planned to hand to Russian authorities. The married couple had been in Australia for more than 10 years and were arrested Thursday at their home in Everton Park, a northern suburb of Brisbane, according to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The Russian-born woman, 40, was an army private working as an information systems technician with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for several years, the agencies said in a joint news conference on Friday. She became an Australian citizen in 2016, and her Russian-born husband, 62, a self-employed laborer, obtained Australian citizenship in 2020, they added. The AFP will allege the individuals worked together to access Australian Defence Force material that related to Australias national security interests, said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw. No significant compromise, had been identified and no other individuals appeared to be involved, Kershaw added, though he said the investigation was in its early stages. The couple appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday and were remanded in custody to next appear in court on September 20. AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw speaks to the media after two Russian-born Australians were charged with a spying offense. - Australian Federal Police Australian Federal Police will allege the woman went to Russia without notifying Australian authorities while she was on long-term leave from the ADF last year. We allege that while she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home, Kershaw said. We allege her husband would access requested material and would send [it] to his wife in Russia. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities. Kershaw said a key focus of the investigation is whether that information was handed over to Russian authorities. If it was, the charge could be upgraded to espionage. The investigation will include how the woman obtained security clearance to access sensitive ADF material, and how she was able to bypass systems to apparently travel undetected to Russia. There was some misleading on her behalf of where she was allegedly at and what country, Kershaw said. Its the first time an espionage offense has been used since new laws were introduced in 2018. The charge of preparing for an espionage offense carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. An upgraded charge carries a maximum term of 25 years in prison to life. ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said the arrests demonstrated the strength of Australias national security culture, not its deficiency. The espionage threat is real. Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australias secrets. We cannot be naive and we cannot be complacent, he said. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The Russian modernized deep-sea vehicle AS-36 was damaged during tests in the Norwegian Sea, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) reported on July 12. According to the agency, the crew of the vehicle's carrier, the rescue ship of Russia's Northern Fleet Mikhail Rudnitsky, "lost control" while launching AS-36 on July 1. The ship's hull and the AS-36 collided, the agency said. "As a result of the incident, the Russian deep-sea vehicle sustained damage that does not allow it to continue testing," military intelligence wrote on Telegram. The AS-36 has reportedly been modernized at the shipyard in St. Petersburg since 2017. Russia is currently assessing the damage and time required to repair the vehicle, the agency said. Russian officials have not reported the incident. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims. Ukraine's Navy said in June that the Russian anti-submarine ship Admiral Levchenko was on fire in the Barents Sea after an engine malfunctioned and caught fire. Around 30% of Russia's Black Sea Fleet had been destroyed by Ukrainian forces as of December 2023, according to the Ukrainian military. Read also: Russian defector involved in Russias Baltic Fleet vessel sabotage, military intelligence says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russian losses in Ukraine reached "conflict highs" during May and June, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on July 12. In an intelligence report on X, the ministry said average daily Russian casualties both killed and wounded reached 1,262 and 1,163 in the two months, respectively. "In total, Russia likely lost in excess of 70,000 personnel over the past two months," the statement read. The ministry said the losses were due in large part to Russia's failed attempt to advance into Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast, which opened a new front in the war in early May. "Although this new approach has increased the pressure on the front line, an effective Ukrainian defense and a lack of Russian training reduces Russia's ability to exploit any tactical success, despite attempting to stretch the front line further," the ministry said. "Russia's casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day over the next two months as Russia continues to try to overmatch Ukrainian positions with mass." European Pravda reported on June 13 that according to its undisclosed NATO source, Russian losses in the Kharkiv offensive have been "astronomical." The source estimated that "Russia likely suffered losses of almost 1,000 people a day in May." President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on May 25 that Russia's losses during the offensive were eight times higher than those suffered by Ukraine's Armed Forces. As of July 12, Russia has lost 556,650 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported. The figures could not be independently verified. Read also: As Russian losses in Ukraine hit 500,000, Putin buries future demographic risks at home Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russian and US defence chiefs have brief telephone call US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during a press conference. Uwe Anspach/dpa US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov on Friday. The Russian Defence Ministry said the telephone call was "initiated by the Russian side." "They touched upon the issue of preventing security threats and reducing the risk of potential escalation," it continued. In Washington, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the "secretary emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine." The two had most recently spoke in June. Neither side provided details about the latest conversation. Earlier this week, Germany and the US announced an agreement to station long-range US missiles on Germany territory beginning in 2026, the first time such weapons have been stationed in Germany since the end of the Cold War. The US weapons are to include Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometres capable of striking deep into Russia, as well as SM-6 air defence missiles and newly developed hypersonic weapons. Russian officials have reacted harshly to the announcement, accusing Germany and the United States of driving up tensions and pushing toward an arms race. At least 5 civilians have been killed and over 10 injured in Donetsk Oblast due to Russian attacks on 12 July. Source: Vadym Filashkin, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "Myrnohrad is under attack for the second day in a row. Early reports indicate that the city has been hit twice today: near the local authority building and a public transport stop." Photo: Vadym Filashkin on Telegram Details: The official noted that two people are known to have been killed and six more have been injured. Information on the total number of casualties and damaged property is being gathered. Photo: Vadym Filashkin on Telegram The Russians also targeted the city of Kostiantynivka. They struck the premises of a local facility, claiming the lives of two people and leaving three more injured. Photo: Vadym Filashkin on Telegram Updated: Later, Filashkin added that the number of casualties in the Russian attack on the town of Myrnohrad had increased, with 3 people reportedly killed and 10 others injured. The Russians also dropped an aerial bomb on the town of Lyman, leaving four people injured. Filashkin noted that the bomb fell in a residential area, damaging houses and destroying cars. Updated at 21:17. The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutors Office has specified the information regarding Russian attacks launched on the oblast, the casualties and the fatalities. The investigation reports that the Russians struck the settlements of Toretsk and Novomykolaivka in Cherkaske hromada, as well as the town of Chasiv Yar on 12 July 2024 [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories ed.]. Three men aged 37, 47 and 60 were injured in the attacks. The town of Kostiantynivka also came under Russian fire. Two employees aged 26 and 34 died under the rubble of a destroyed building on the territory of a private facility. Three more civilians received injuries of various degrees of severity and have been hospitalised. The Russians also struck the city of Lyman, injuring seven civilians aged from 24 to 75. In addition to this, Russian troops launched a missile attack on the town of Myrnohrad. One of the missiles struck a public transport stop. As a result 3 people were killed and 10 were injured, including a 16-year-old teenager. One of the people injured died in hospital. The type of weapon used and the number of people injured is being specified. Support UP or become our patron! Mikhail Galuzin, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, has stated that Russia expresses great regret over Armenia's attendance at the NATO Summit in Washington. Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti, citing Galuzin, as reported by European Pravda Details: Galuzin claimed that "by deepening cooperation with those whose goal is Russia's strategic defeat, Yerevan risks seriously destabilising the situation in the South Caucasus, harming its own security, among other things, by its own hands." "I believe that experienced experts and politicians in Armenia understand the possible consequences of such rash steps," he said. "Armenia prefers to increase cooperation with NATO or individual members of the Alliance, especially in terms of implementing NATO standards, purchasing weapons or conducting joint training activities, not to mention attending the summit of this military-political bloc held in Washington. This cannot but cause nothing but extreme regret," the official stressed. Galuzin further noted that Armenia remains a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and is a party to numerous bilateral agreements in the defence and defence technology sectors. Background: In late June, Armenia confirmed its attendance at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Summit in Washington. A few months ago, Armenia began cautiously discussing its potential path towards EU membership. Support UP or become our patron! A Target location in Sacramento was reportedly almost issued a public nuisance citation over the last year by the City Attorneys Office for repeated calls to police about retail thefts. As first reported by The Sacramento Bee, a person who knew about the warning but was not authorized to speak publicly about it said that the store in question was at a Target on Riverside Blvd., just south of downtown Sacramento. The outlet reported that a police spokesperson also confirmed the location. The alleged warning to the store, along with similar actions by other California cities, prompted criticism from law enforcement agencies and led lawmakers to amend a retail theft-related bill that would outlaw such actions by cities against businesses, the Bee reported. Photo of sign apparently mocking California retail theft law goes viral Public nuisance citations are more often associated with bars, nightclubs, or restaurants open late into the night that do not have adequate security or rules in place to disperse customers who may gather right outside of the establishment. The alleged warning considered by Sacramento has drawn criticism from law enforcement agencies because it would involve citing a business that was calling to report a legitimate crime. Citations like these could deter businesses from making reports, a criminal justice professor told the Bee. The outlets article also reports that a Public Records Act request showed that city officials, including the city attorneys office and police, met with officials from Target to adequately respond to incidents. Fight over retail theft is testing California Democrats drive to avoid mass incarceration policies The meeting was followed by several changes at the store in question, including alarms, cameras, security, light fixtures and other measures. Californias state and local governments have been trying to address retail theft in recent years, and an initiative backed by district attorneys that is eligible for the November ballot would increase penalties for thefts, rolling back some of the changes from Proposition 47, which voters approved in 2014. State lawmakers are trying to push through several bills that would increase some penalties, hoping that the reforms may help convince the district attorneys to drop their initiative, which will be listed as Proposition 36. 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. (FOX40.COM) The Sacramento County Sheriffs Office said it has arrested a man accused of killing another man in south Sacramento about one month ago. Deputies said Denisho Collins, 23, was recently arrested as a suspect in the homicide case of 31-year-old Sherman Gage, who was found on the ground near I Parkway and Forest Parkway around 4:30 a.m. on June 17 with gunshot wounds. Vacaville officer struck, killed while making a traffic stop After interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence, Collins was identified as a suspect. When he was arrested, deputies said they found him with a loaded gun. Collins was taken to the Sacramento County Main Jail and booked into custody for murder. His bail is set at $50,000 and he is scheduled to appear in court on July 18. The investigation remains ongoing, and the Sacramento County Sheriffs Office encourages anyone with information about this incident to contact them at 916-874-5115 or Sacramento Crime Valley Stoppers at 916-443-HELP (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. Detectives believe its possible two missing children were dropped off somewhere in Southern California at some point after their mother was found dead in a Sacramento home and their father was spotted heading south into Mexico. In a Thursday evening update on the missing persons case, the Sacramento Police Department urged anyone who has seen Athena Lee, 4, and Mateo Lee, 2, to call authorities immediately. The childrens mother, identified by coroners officials as Angelica Marie Bravo, 28, was found dead Monday evening. Detectives have been looking for the children since Tuesday, when they determined the children were missing and believed their father, Camron Lee, took them. Shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, the California Highway Patrol issued an endangered missing advisory alert for the two children and their father. It was in effect for Fresno, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Merced, Orange and San Diego counties. Police officials were informed on Tuesday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection cameras spotted the gray 2023 Honda Passport investigators believed Camron Lee was driving heading 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. Bravos body was found after officers were called shortly before 7:30 p.m. Monday to the 3700 block of Didcot Circle in the Oak Knoll neighborhood, police said. 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. How Bravo died is unclear. The Sacramento County Coroners Office has classified the death as undetermined until a further autopsy has concluded. On Wednesday, the police spokesman said the womans death has not been confirmed to be a homicide, because investigators are still trying to determine the cause of her death. Other family members have told police the children were last seen Saturday, two days before their mother was found dead. Endangered Missing Advisory Alert - Fresno, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Merced, Orange and San Diego Counties Last seen: Didcot Cir., and Morey Ave., Sacramento@SacPolice IF SEEN, CALL 9-1-1 pic.twitter.com/oMPfs4BvVL CHP - Alerts (@CHPAlerts) July 11, 2024 Investigators also have stopped short of calling Lee a suspect in the womans death. Gamble has said detectives continue to look for Camron Lee, as well, and were asking federal authorities to help with that search in Mexico. He said the childrens information has been entered into the missing persons database and shared with the U.S. Department of Justice. 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. It looks like Can-One Berhad (KLSE:CANONE) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. This means that investors who purchase Can-One Berhad's shares on or after the 15th of July will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 26th of July. The company's next dividend payment will be RM00.04 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed RM0.04 to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that Can-One Berhad has a trailing yield of 1.3% on the current share price of RM03.07. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing. Check out our latest analysis for Can-One Berhad Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Can-One Berhad has a low and conservative payout ratio of just 15% of its income after tax. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. What's good is that dividends were well covered by free cash flow, with the company paying out 8.5% of its cash flow last year. It's positive to see that Can-One Berhad's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut. Click here to see how much of its profit Can-One Berhad paid out over the last 12 months. Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. Fortunately for readers, Can-One Berhad's earnings per share have been growing at 14% a year for the past five years. The company has managed to grow earnings at a rapid rate, while reinvesting most of the profits within the business. This will make it easier to fund future growth efforts and we think this is an attractive combination - plus the dividend can always be increased later. Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Can-One Berhad has seen its dividend decline 2.2% per annum on average over the past 10 years, which is not great to see. It's unusual to see earnings per share increasing at the same time as dividends per share have been in decline. We'd hope it's because the company is reinvesting heavily in its business, but it could also suggest business is lumpy. The Bottom Line Is Can-One Berhad worth buying for its dividend? It's great that Can-One Berhad is growing earnings per share while simultaneously paying out a low percentage of both its earnings and cash flow. It's disappointing to see the dividend has been cut at least once in the past, but as things stand now, the low payout ratio suggests a conservative approach to dividends, which we like. There's a lot to like about Can-One Berhad, and we would prioritise taking a closer look at it. On that note, you'll want to research what risks Can-One Berhad is facing. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Can-One Berhad you should know about. Generally, we wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see. Here's a curated list of interesting stocks that are strong dividend payers. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Saluda Co. man charged by SLED with criminal sexual conduct with minor SALUDA COUNTY, S.C. (WJBF) A Saluda County man has been charged by South Carolina Law Enforcement (SLED) with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. According to SLED, 27-year-old Martavius Avery Andrews Griffin was charged on July 11 with two counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct with a Minor (victim under 11 years of age) in the 1st degree. ALSO ON WJBF: Two arrested for alleged Arson in North Augusta apartment fire In the arrest warrant, authorities state that Griffin committed sexual battery with the victim between June 1 and July 27, 2023, as well as another incident when the victim travelled to Burlington, North Carolina for fall break in October 2023. The victim disclosed the abuse after having pain while bathing. According to SLED, Griffin has been booked into the Saluda County Detention Center. 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. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) A San Angelo mans family is rallying together and asking the community for help raising funds for an urgent liver transplant. According to a GoFundMe published on July 11, Walker Whitten is facing a life-threatening condition. Family members share that he is currently in the ICU at Dallas Methodist. Whitten is described as a dedicated, loving person, who has always been the first to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. Money raised for Whitten will help with the cost of surgery, post-operative care and ongoing treatments. On the morning of July 12, $6,520 of the $100,000 goal had been raised. Every donation, no matter the size, brings Walker one step closer to recovery and gives him a chance to continue being the incredible person we all know and love, the GoFundMe read. Please help us give Walker the gift of life. Click here to donate. 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. Summer is blue-green algae season, and the potentially toxic mess is starting to show up in various places around south Florida and in the Lake Okeechobee system. From the heart of the Everglades to Cape Coral canals, blue-green algae is being reported in typical locations and at moderate levels, but water advocates are concerned the bloom could grow into a damaging event. Blue-green algae can turn toxic and take over the Fort Myers-Cape Coral region, as it did in the summer of 2018. Water from Lake Okeechobee flows through the W.P. Franklin Lock in Alva during lake releases in 2020. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started releasing water from the lake to the Caloosahatchee River recently. "There are both freshwater and brackish blooms to be found, but most of what I've seen popping up are in the tidal canals in Southeast Cape (Coral)," said Calusa Waterkeeper volunteer Jason Pim, who lives in Cape Coral. "Is it local rainfall and stormwater runoff or just the hot, long, still days triggering all the nutrients?" More: Florida asks feds to let more than 1,000 permits slide after judge rules process illegal The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said on July 2 that approximately 50% of Lake Okeechobee's surface showed bloom conditions. That DEP report is typically issued weekly, but no report was available for July 9 as of Friday afternoon. Bloom conditions becoming typical on Okeechobee Col. James Booth, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Jacksonville office, said Friday that bloom conditions were present in various parts of the lake. "There's quite a bit of bloom activity on the lake and that's pretty typical for the last few years for this time of year," Booth said. "I think it's north of 400 square miles of algal potential on the lake, and you can see that green from the satellite imagery level." Booth, who is retiring later this month, said conditions are bad in the Port Myakka area but that the west side, where the Caloosahatchee River is connected, has been relatively free of algae. "We're seeing much lower levels of surface scum along our Caloosahatchee structures, but at S77 (a gated spillway where the lake connects to the river) it's been pretty clear and we're not seeing bloom conditions," Booth said. Booth said the agency is targeting a release that will equate to 2,000 cubic feet per second of flow as measured at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam in Alva. More: Will sargassum wreak havoc on SWFL beaches this summer? The Army Corps often targets a flow of 2,000 cubic feet per second at that structure as it's within the safe threshold for the downstream estuary. Since 2008, the Army Corps has used what is called the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule, or LORS, to keep the surface of Lake Okeechobee between 12.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level. The Army Corps is expecting a step called a "record of decision" on a new schedule, called the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, or LOSOM, which will likely take effect in late August. Pim said summer blooms are part of a pattern that has held strong in recent years. "I've documented (bloom conditions) in Cape Coral canals from the Midpoint Bridge to the Yacht Club around June 15 for three consecutive years now," he said. "In the tidal canals and in North Fort Myers and the Cape, it always seems to be flashing green from July 4 on." This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Blue-green algae blankets half of Lake Okeechobee, sparking concern A heartbreaking case involving a South Carolina bride killed hours after her wedding by an alleged drunken driver last year recently took a dramatic turn. Progressive auto insurance, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and three bars alleged to have wrongly served alcohol to the driver, settled a lawsuit that will pay the womans husband, who was injured in the crash, more than $800,000. The development has rekindled the debate over liquor liability laws and the cost to popular bars of maintaining insurance policies designed to cover such tragedies. But when carefully considered, there isnt much to debate. The problem is not liability laws, which are necessary for aggrieved parties to pursue justice. The problem is the greed of many insurance companies. Right now, bars, restaurants and venues that serve alcohol in South Carolina are being driven out of business by rising liquor liability insurance rates. In Piedmont, the Golden Grove Farm & Brew cited high liquor liability rates as the reason it was taking an indefinite hiatus from serving alcohol in February. In Greenville, liquor liability costs were a big reason Smileys Acoustic Cafe closed last year, while Piney Mountain Bike Lounge had to tear out its popular bike track to help pay alcohol insurance premiums. South Carolina legislators must step in to protect these venues from insurance companies outrageous premiums. Insurance companies are blaming attorneys for pushing them out of the market with frivolous lawsuits, but heres the truth: Lawyers dont decide how much you pay for liquor liability insurance premiums insurance companies do. And while lawyers are forbidden from filing lawsuits that they dont believe are legitimate, there is no cap on corporate greed. Berkshire Hathaway, one of the insurance companies with the most earned premiums from liquor liability policies in the state, made $364.5 billion last year. Another insurer with a big piece of the market, Liberty Mutual, made $49.4 billion. Insurance companies are not hurting. As a personal injury attorney, I can tell you this it is difficult to build a successful lawsuit against a venue for overserving someone who later drives drunk. You must prove that the bartender knowingly served alcohol to an underage or intoxicated person. The first place that victims often look to for recovery is against the drunken driver. Holding careless venues responsible is necessary when law enforcement patrols can only do so much to stop drunken driving. Hilton Head Island taxpayers paid more than $500,000 between 2013-2020 for sheriffs office bar detail mostly for extra patrol at the Barmuda Triangle, a district known for partying. Nevertheless, in 2021, a drunken driver caused a fatal crash after leaving the Triangle. There is no doubt that liquor liability laws save lives. According to a study published in Traffic Injury Prevention in 2015, liquor liability laws are associated with significantly reduced alcohol-related car crash rates for underage drinkers. A 2011 study found strong evidence that liquor liability laws reduce alcohol-related harms, and a 1994 study found that these laws reduce mortality rates from traffic accidents. South Carolina venue owners shouldnt have to pay unreasonable and ever-rising liquor liability insurance premiums. Legislators should encourage insurers to use a sliding scale of rates, one that rewards responsible venue owners for exercising safe alcohol service practices. Insurance companies already do this in other types of policies, such as safe driver discounts for businesses whose drivers take traffic safety classes. South Carolina representatives should also support legislation enforcing ignition interlock devices for those with drunken-driving convictions, who would have to pass a breathalyzer test before their car starts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ignition interlocks reduce driving while impaired (DWI) repeat offenses by about 70% while they are installed. Liquor liability insurance rates should be reasonable and reflect how well venue owners protect their customers by not overserving. State legislators can keep South Carolinians safer from drunken drivers without allowing insurance premiums to drive our bars out of business. Fudge is a personal injury attorney and litigator with the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin in North Carolina and South Carolina. Scholz says US missiles in Germany will help in 'preventing a war' German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference at the end of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday again rejected fears that the planned stationing of long-range US missiles in Germany could lead to an escalation with Russia. The weapons are intended as a deterrent, Scholz said after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Berlin. "What we are always concerned with is preventing a war," Scholz said. Earlier this week, Germany and the US announced an agreement to station long-range US missiles on Germany territory beginning in 2026, the first time such weapons have been stationed in Germany since the end of the Cold War. The US weapons are to include Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of up to 2,500 kilometres capable of striking deep into Russia, as well as SM-6 air defence missiles and newly developed hypersonic weapons. The chancellor on Friday again pledged that Germany would control its arms deliveries to Ukraine in such a way that they would not lead to a direct confrontation with Russia. "It is just as clear that the decisions we make here always have the security of our country and the alliance in mind. And that includes ensuring that we are sufficiently strong," said Scholz. "This includes air defence and the possibility of deterrence, of course." Russian officials have reacted harshly to the announcement, accusing Germany and the United States of driving up tensions and pushing toward an arms race. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke of a "chain link in the escalation course" of NATO and the US towards Russia, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that his country and NATO "are well on the way to a Cold War." German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference at the end of the NATO summit. Kay Nietfeld/dpa This article was originally published in Nebraska Examiner. OMAHA The last petition circulators eyeing Nebraskas November ballot are still chasing voters, days after last weeks deadline for other groups to submit signatures to the Secretary of States Office. Support Our Schools has two additional weeks to turn in signatures because of when the Legislature changed the school choice law that the groups previous petition had sought to repeal. The group has until July 17 to collect 61,000 valid signatures from about 5% of registered voters statewide to force a fall vote on repealing the latest iteration of school choice law. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Tim Royers of Support Our Schools says the group is confident it will collect enough signatures, as well as the legally required baseline from 5% from voters in at least 38 of Nebraskas 93 counties. Royers said one of the groups challenges is explaining to voters that the petition on the same issue that they signed last year doesnt count for this one, that they need to sign again. That honestly has been one of our largest obstacles this time, Royers said. Obviously we know who signed last time. Weve reached out to them, and weve gotten pushback (that theyve already signed). Revised law spurred new petition effort Sponsoring State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha has acknowledged that she revised the Opportunity Scholarships Act that lawmakers passed in 2023 partly to sidestep a petition drive against it. State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, left, meets with State Sens. Anna Wishart of Lincoln (center) and Lynne Walz of Fremont. April 9, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) She and other supporters of the 2023 law, including State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, touted the importance of giving parents more options for where to send kids who have struggled in their public schools. People arent putting themselves in a position of parents who have a child who is not succeeding that is miserable and they have an option here that might work, Linehan said. Linehan said the new law addressed many concerns some education advocates raised about Legislative Bill 1402s predecessor, LB 753. Lawmakers also added new funding for K-12 schools, including $1 billion put toward baseline state aid and special education. LB 1402 will repeal its predecessor, LB 753, in late October and its $25 million-a-year tax credit for people funding scholarships for needy students attending private K-12 schools. LB 1402 instead sets aside $10 million a year in state money to create and fund the states first voucher program for students attending private K-12 schools. Supporters hope to increase the amount appropriated over time and to increase the number of students eligible. No Decline to Sign campaign Unlike last time, school choice advocates have not organized a Decline to Sign campaign. Some pointed to more than $700,000 that Support Our Schools has spent on this petition effort, after having spent $1.4 million on the 2023 push to oppose LB 753. Much of that funding came from state and national teachers unions, many of which have participated in similar campaigns in other states in previous years. Linehan has said it is tough to compete financially with teachers unions and Omaha philanthropist Susie Buffett, who oppose LB 1402. The choice laws have had the backing of U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Support Our Schools has said most Nebraskans do not want public dollars spent on private K-12 education. It argues that such programs impact education funding in other states that have created and grown voucher programs. Voucher program fears Public school advocates argue that voucher programs in other states started by offering help to kids with limited means and then expanded to cover mainly kids already attending private schools. Some have described the programs as a way to weaken support for public schools. Others say they are a boon to religious education at a time of declining church attendance. Karen Kilgarin of the Nebraska State Education Association, which is helping Support Our Schools, said Nebraskans just want an opportunity to let the Legislature know where they stand. It shouldnt be so hard to let people vote, especially when theyve already made it clear they want to vote on this issue, she said. Public interest in program Linehan said some parents dont have time to wait for public school systems to improve. They need help now for their kids, she said, and they lack the financial flexibility to send their children to private schools More than 2,100 students families have signed up for the initial program through the states largest scholarship-granting organization for the 2024-25 school year. Lauren Gage of Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska said her group has received more than $2.15 million in pledges for scholarship funds and calls from parents seeking more information. Contributions have been picking up this summer, Gage said. And we expect many more taxpayers taking advantage of the tax credit as LB 753 sunsets. Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and X. Perp Walk A Spanish court has sentenced 15 teenagers to one year of probation for using AI to create fake nude images of female classmates, The Guardian reports. The perpetrators, all aged 13 to 15, were convicted in Badajoz, Spain on 20 counts of creating child abuse images and 20 counts of "offenses against their victims' moral integrity," according to the Guardian. They were tried as minors, and their collective conviction marks one of the first in a growing pool of cases involving minors and the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual, AI-driven deepfake pornography in middle and high schools. "The sentence notes that it has been proved," the court told the Guardian in a statement, "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." Case by Case News of the incident surfaced last September when the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that a cohort of school-aged girls had discovered that classmates had created sexually explicit AI-generated images of them and circulated those photos throughout four schools via two WhatsApp groups. "Mom, they say there's a naked photo of me going around," one impacted student told her mother, as quoted by El Pais. "That they did it with an artificial intelligence app. I'm scared." At the time of the El Pais report, prosecutors were still investigating whether AI-generated nude images of minors, also generated by minors, constituted a crime. In the US and abroad, laws and regulations that shroud the use of AI to generate fake nude images often live in legal gray area it's an obviously repugnant and invasive act that can leave lasting negative impacts on victims, but not always necessarily illegal. This grayness has also been reflected in uncertain and flat-footed school responses, which in some cases have been heavily criticized. Following a recent incident at an affluent New Jersey high school, for example, school officials were accused of attempting to sweep wrongdoing under the rug. "It seems as though the Westfield High School administration and the district," Dorota Mani, the mother of an impacted student, at a school board meeting in March, according to an April New York Times report, "are engaging in a master class of making this incident vanish into thin air." But as the number of incidents continues to rise, whether such incidents are considered criminal, and what punishment looks like, continues to take firmer shape. In March, Wired reported that two Miami teenagers were charged with felonies for creating AI nudes of classmates. The same month, the FBI declared that AI-generated sexual imagery of minors is indeed illegal. Sadly, though, as laws and norms around emerging AI technologies continue to develop, we're likely to see more similar cases. More on AI deepfakes: Police Investigating AI-Generated Nudes of New Jersey High Schoolers Schumer has doubts about Biden but wont undermine him, say Democrats Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has confided to some Democratic senators in private conversations that he too has serious doubts about President Bidens ability to beat former President Trump, but he has also underscored to colleagues that its ultimately up to Biden whether to stay in the race, according to Senate Democratic sources. These sources say Schumer agrees Bidens chances of winning in November dont appear promising, but he hasnt reached the conclusion that the incumbents reelection campaign is irretrievable. Schumer has told colleagues he doesnt want to say anything publicly to question Bidens viability as a candidate or to pressure him to abandon his campaign, because he fears that would undermine the president and could hurt Democrats downballot in the fall election, Senate sources say. Schumer has made these points to colleagues amid rising frustration in the party and in his caucus, with some Senate Democrats grumbling that their leader hasnt done enough to press Biden to reconsider his decision to continue his reelection bid. Its a bit of a contrast to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosis behind-the-scenes work. The California Democrat has been working to put pressure on Biden to reconsider his decision to stay at the top of the partys presidential ticket, a number of Democratic lawmakers familiar with her efforts told The Hill. Concerns within the Democratic Party are widespread. Several Democrats told senior Biden officials at a meeting hosted at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters Thursday that they do not think Biden appears up to the job of serving another four years as president, and noted they have heard the same from many of their own constituents. The meeting grew heated at times, according to one person familiar with the discussion, because some senators in the room felt the campaign had largely ignored the advice of colleagues to put Biden in more unscripted moments or adversarial television interviews to demonstrate to voters that he can think clearly on his feet in challenging situations. Biden made another embarrassing flub at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday when he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin to the audience. Some Democrats saw Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murrays (D-Wash.) pointed warning to the Biden campaign Monday night that we need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future as stepping in to fill a leadership void created by Schumers careful neutrality on Bidens future. But Schumer has earned praise for not trying to steer the conversation one way or another during Tuesdays Democratic caucus lunch, when he gave both Bidens defenders and critics an equality opportunity to express their views. And Schumer invited the top-level Biden campaign staff to brief Senate Democrats and to directly respond to their concerns. He last spoke to Biden the Wednesday before July Fourth, according to a source familiar with his communications with the president. Democratic senators spent more than an hour venting their concerns with senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti and Biden campaign Chair Jen OMalley Dillon at Thursdays meeting. Senators pressed Bidens advisers to explain how they expected to overcome the incumbents trailing position in several key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. And they demanded to know how the campaign saw a path to victory when Bidens favorable rating is more than 20 percentage points lower than his unfavorable rating. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted after the debate showed Biden with a 36 percent favorable rating and 61 percent unfavorable rating. Bidens political team, however, pointed to a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Biden and Trump are in a dead heat with 46 percent and 47 support, respectively. It surveyed 2,431 adults July 5-9, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Bidens advisers argued to senators that they are in the zone of being competitive and pointed out that Labor Day, when undecided voters traditionally start paying more attention to the campaigns, is still weeks away. They did not, however, provide any details about Bidens mental acuity or physical health to address the question raised by several Democratic lawmakers of whether the presidents poor debate performance was just one bad night or emblematic of a lasting condition. I need to see and hear more of the analytics and the data that show a path for victory, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said after the meeting. My concerns remain. More important than my concerns, Joe Biden needs to address the questions that have been raised by the American people, he added. He described the meeting with Bidens team as constructive, serious, frank. Publicly, Schumer has uttered the same refrain over and over this week when asked about Bidens mental acuity and physical stamina: As Ive said before, Im with Joe. He used that line three times when asked at a press conference Tuesday about Democrats concerns about Bidens viability as a candidate. Privately, Schumer has steadfastly refused to give definitive answers to colleagues about taking action to pressure Biden to abandon his campaign, and he hasnt circulated any specific metric, such as a polling floor, that would prompt him to take action. By keeping his options open in some conversations with Democratic donors, Schumer has fueled speculation that he is ready to dump Biden from the ticket. Schumer released a statement Wednesday evening in response to a report by Axios that he is open to dumping Biden by reiterating his support for the president. As I made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensure Donald Trump is defeated in November, he said. Democratic senators acknowledge the public criticisms from Democratic lawmakers about Bidens fitness to serve a second term will likely fuel Republican attack adds. Republicans will take anything we say about Biden now and put it in ads that will hit us in the face in the fall, warned one Democratic senator who said Schumer has a really tough decision. The stakes are very high, and no one knows the future, the lawmaker said. Some Democratic senators think theres a 50-50 chance that Schumer will join hands with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and possibly other prominent Democrats such as Pelosi or former President Obama to reach out to Biden to urge him to drop out of the race. I suspect hes pondering whether he and Jeffries and Pelosi need to make an all-out push to encourage Biden to do the best thing for the country. We really dont know, one Democratic senator said of Schumers next move. The senator said at least two-thirds of the Senate Democratic caucus do not see a pathway for Biden to win this. The senator said theres widespread worry among Democratic lawmakers that poor voter turnout for Biden would hurt Senate incumbents such as Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who told colleagues in a meeting Tuesday they think Biden will lose to Trump. It puts a whole bunch of Senate races at risk. If you get a small drop in turnout, even if people still support Tester and Brown if they dont bother to show up because theres not a head of the ticket they want to vote on, we could lose a bunch of races. And thats certainly a concern to Schumer, the lawmaker said. And the Democratic senator complained that Bidens campaign is not letting him do unscripted events. Why are they not letting him do that? We think its because they know that hes not really up to the task. That is why so many senators feel it would be the right thing for him to stand down, the lawmaker 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. (Bloomberg) -- A hack that has compromised millions of AT&T Inc. customers communication and location records undermines US national security and represents one of the worst breaches of an American telecommunications provider on record, according to privacy and security experts. Most Read from Bloomberg On Friday, AT&T disclosed that an unknown hacker had compromised its network in April and stolen records of calls and text messages from nearly all of AT&Ts more than 100 million wireless customers through a five-month period in 2022 and 2023. AT&T, the No. 3 wireless company in the US, said the data didnt include the audio of calls or the written contents of messages, but included records showing when a call or text was made between individual phone numbers as well as location data associated with some of the numbers. At scale, such information known as metadata can be used to create an intimate portrait of peoples lives and relationships. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Torontos Citizen Lab, said he was flabbergasted by the scale of the intrusion. I cant think of another breach that has these features its pretty unique and horrible, he said. Its a comprehensive view into peoples private worlds, Scott-Railton added. Its an absolute goldmine to anybody trying to figure out both peoples secrets and the US government secrets. The telecommunications sector is often a ripe target for hackers due to the sensitive personal information that it holds, which is useful to criminals for the purposes of extortion and for foreign governments to spy on politicians, journalists, activists and others. In 2021, cybersecurity experts accused Chinese hackers of infiltrating telecommunications companies across Southeast Asia for the purposes of espionage. Suspected Russian hackers have allegedly compromised Ukrainian telecommunications firms. Meanwhile, Western intelligence agencies have adopted similar tactics. In 2010, the British surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters infiltrated the network of Belgian carrier Belgacom in order to eavesdrop on communications, according to top-secret documents leaked by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Story continues Common Occurrence In the US, data breaches have been a common occurrence across the telecommunications sector. In March 2023, AT&T disclosed another hack in which it said some 9 million customers account details had been accessed. Separately, T-Mobile in January 2023 said that hackers had stolen data on some 37 million customers, but that trove contained names, addresses and dates of birth, rather than records of calls or texts. The latest AT&T attack appears to be far greater in scope than previously disclosed breaches affecting the telecommunications sector in the US, touching not only almost all of the companys wireless subscribers but also those of unnamed mobile virtual network operators who were using AT&Ts wireless network. This data is some of the most detailed data that a telephone company holds on its customers, said Gus Hosein, executive director at London-based rights group Privacy International. Drawing out who is speaking to who, and when gives you a map of our personal lives. This is why law enforcement and intelligence agencies are always trying to get their hands on exactly this data, and its why it must be secured. The hacker illegally downloaded the data from an AT&T workspace on a third-party cloud platform, according to AT&Ts disclosure on Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said that the breach had not had a material impact on AT&Ts operations, and AT&T does not believe that this incident is reasonably likely to materially impact AT&Ts financial condition or results of operations. However, privacy experts say the company is likely to face blowback from lawmakers and regulators. The breach represented a devastating privacy issue, said Nathan Wessler, deputy director of the American Civil Liberty Unions Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Under US law, Wessler said, customers phone records are supposed to be protected at the highest level. People with subpoena power and regulatory power should be taking a look at this, said Wessler. If AT&T is at fault here, either because it didnt secure systems or misled customers about the security of systems, it should be held to account. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation said it has been contacted by AT&T about the breach, and the Federal Communications Commission said its investigating the matter. --With assistance from Evan Gorelick. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Astronauts might soon find out what its like to live on the fictional planet of Arrakis from Dune. Well, kind of. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine are taking a page out of Frank Herberts book and have developed a real-life stillsuit inspired by the costumes worn by the Fremen in the sci-fi novels and film series, which stars Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet, The Wall Street Journal reported. More from Robb Report In a study published on Friday in Frontiers in Space Technologies, a team of scientists introduced the design of a filtration system that can capture urine and turn it into recycled water that the wearer can safely drink. Currently, NASA astronauts wear spacesuits equipped with a waste collection garment, which is essentially a disposable adult diaper. Rather than astronauts having to wear diapers, the system collects the urine and then filters it and returns it as potable water within the suit, Sofia Etlin, an author of the study, told the newspaper. The full-body stillsuit prototype is made from a flexible, lightweight fabric and includes a collection cup. A vacuum pump then transports the urine to a filtration system, which wearers would carry on their back. The system itself weighs roughly 17.5 pounds and can filter 17 ounces of urine in approximately five minutes with the help of a 20.5-volt battery. The recycled water is then infused with electrolytes and pumped into an in-suit drinking bag, or IDB, for astronauts to consume. Were talking about a completely new set of commercial astronauts that might not be as interested in using diapers, added Etlin, who published the study alongside Christopher Mason, professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine. RELATED: This Futuristic Dubai Villa Is Inspired by the Dragonfly Ornithopters From Dune According to the researchers, current spacesuit designs only allow for an IDB that holds 32 ounces of water, which they believe isnt enough for physically demanding spacewalks that can last anywhere from eight to 12 hours. As we all know, its good to stay hydrated, said Mason. The new filtration system thats been designed doesnt process excrement, however, the team who published the study admits that the ability to recycle feces into drinkable water is a goal theyre working towardsin addition to creating a garment thats more comfortable and functional overall. The scientists plan on testing their real-life stillsuit this fall during a clinical trial at the Cornell lab. 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. DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. (WKRG) Dauphin Island Sea Lab researches the Gulf Coast marine ecology while also implementing educational programs. But the Sea Lab is not your average classroom the programs allow students to make discoveries while learning about local marine biology. Alleged child abuse under investigation at Saraland daycare; mother speaks Attendees get to learn about birds, sharks, water quality, and more on what the Mobile Bay has to offer. Every day is a new experience to broaden the knowledge of young scientists. Well, Im not doing the same thing every day because I have 17 kids back there, some of which have been to the ocean before and seen some of these things, but others that havent, Marine Educator, Jo Ann Moody, said. You know, a young lady from West Virginia, this may all be new to her. And so, yes, I have seen a million hermit crabs, but Im getting to see them anew with new kids and new experiences. Programs range from K-12, Undergrad, Graduate, Community Connections and Citizen Science. ONLY ON NEWS 5: Family, friends speak about tragic loss of Avery Pickle Emily Parrish, a senior at the University of South Alabama, said this experience has helped her gain an idea of what her goals are after graduation. Ive got the opportunity to see that I love the hands-on. I love being on the boat and getting messy with the field work and getting to do it in person, said Parrish. And its really solidified for me that this is what I want to do, and I think thats priceless. And I really look forward to seeing how this pushes forward. The work and experiences here highlight the local bounty of species and environments and get the word out about Dauphin Island and the Gulf Coast. In our programs, our academic programs, we are just trying to improve awareness of what we have right here in our own backyard, said Moody. Sometimes we forget how amazing the Gulf of Mexico is and how amazing Mobile Bay is. THE BIG STORY: 13 people injured, no deaths after crash on Dolly Parton bridge Classes and programs are available year-round, and students of any age are welcome to take part. You can find more information about the Dauphin Island Sea Lab on their 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 WKRG News 5. Sean Combs mother hospitalized in the Miami area. Heres what we know so far Sean Diddy Combs summer just got worse. His 83-year-old mother has been hospitalized in South Florida, TMZ first reported. Janice Combs (nee Smalls) was suffering from chest pains and sought medical care on Wednesday, according to the outlet. She reportedly has a home in the area and has been spotted at her sons Star Island mansion in the weeks since the feds raided it as part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation. READ MORE: Where in the world is Diddy? The stress of everything has been a lot for her, an insider tells NBC News. TMZ sources say Combs, 54, has been at the hospital to be at her bedside. The retired teacher/model raised Diddy and his younger sister Keisha as a single mom after their fathers death in 1972. Melvin Combs, an alleged associate of infamous NYC drug dealer Frank Lucas (who inspired the movie American Gangster) was gunned down after a botched drug deal. The case was reportedly never solved. Mother and son have always been tight. On her 80th birthday in December 2020, Diddy posted a picture of them together on his since deleted Instagram account: I only exist because of this beautiful, hardworking, loving, hilarious, ass-whooping, always telling me the truth, genuine, smart, fly absolutely amazing Black Goddess Queen!! said the homage. READ MORE: Diddy spotted in Miami after apology video goes viral The womans health news comes about a week after yet another person filed a lawsuit against the fallen Bad Boy Records founder. According to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, Adria English accuses the rapper of drugging her and using her as a sexual pawn for his party guests while she was employed as a go-go dancer. English is seeking unspecified damages. Search underway for person of interest in Texas deputys murder (NewsNation) A search is underway in Texas for the gunman who allegedly ambushed and killed an on-duty deputy Wednesday night, authorities said. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez identified 44-year-old Ronnie Palmer as a person of interest in the capital murder of Harris County Sheriffs Deputy Fernando Esqueda. Esqueda, a five-year veteran of the sheriffs office, was a member of the Violent Person Task Force. Live: Biden hosts news conference amid debate performance woes We pray with Deputy Esquedas family, friends, and colleagues during this incredibly difficult time. Deputy Esquedas commitment to duty and his sacrifice will always be remembered, Gonzalez wrote. He said the suspect came into the location to pick up a pizza he ordered but got upset when his order was incorrect. During a news conference Thursday, Harris County Sheriffs Office Chief Deputy Mike Lee said deputies responded to an aggravated assault at a Little Caesars around 10 p.m. on Wednesday, according to ABC News. Lee said the suspect allegedly verbally assaulted an employee before pistol-whipping them with a gun and leaving. The employee called the police and provided details about the getaway car. Esqueda eventually spotted the suspects car and informed another detective over the phone that he had located the vehicle, Lee added. Taylor Caseys family seeks help on missing womans 42nd birthday While on the phone, our deputy apparently was ambushed and shot multiple times, Lee said. Esqueda was rushed to the hospital, where he died from his injuries. Anyone with information regarding Palmers whereabouts should contact Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-8477. 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 Queen City News. A second person has died in Vermont flooding from Hurricane Beryls remnants, officials say PLAINFIELD, Vt. (AP) A second person has died in Vermont in the flooding from Hurricane Beryls remnants, officials said Thursday. The driver was swept away in his vehicle by floodwaters Thursday morning in Lyndonville, Lt. Charles Winn of the Vermont State Police said. The driver ignored bystanders warnings to turn around and continued through the roadway, which was covered by several feet of moving water. Authorities found the vehicle later in the day, Winn said. The drivers body was recovered several hours later after floodwaters had receded. His name has not been released. Another man, identified as Dylan Kempton, 33, was riding an all-terrain vehicle late Wednesday when it was swept away by floodwaters in Peacham, Vermont State Police said in a statement. His body was recovered Thursday morning. The remnants of Hurricane Beryl dumped heavy rain on Vermont, washing away much of an apartment building, knocking out bridges and cutting off towns, and retraumatizing a state still recovering from catastrophic floods that hit a year ago to the day. More than 100 people were rescued by swift-water teams during the worst of the rainfall, which started Wednesday and continued into Thursday, officials said. In Plainfield, residents of a six-unit apartment building had mere minutes to evacuate before water destroyed it, the towns emergency management director said. Stunned residents emerged Thursday to assess damage in a series of small towns along a hilly corridor on the Winooski River, connected mostly by U.S. Highway 2. Parts of the artery were closed, along with dozens of other roads. Shelters opened in several communities. Its just mud everywhere, said Art Edelstein, who assessed the destruction at a home he has owned for 50 years in Plainfield. This is, in my impression, catastrophic. Ive just never seen anything like this. The deluge dropped more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain on parts of Vermont, and the heaviest rainfall was in the same areas devastated on July 10, 2023, said Marlon Verasamy, of the National Weather Service in Burlington. Rivers had crested at virtually all locations by late Thursday afternoon. Its not lost on any of us the irony of the flood falling on the one-year anniversary to the day when many towns were hit last year, Gov. Phil Scott told reporters. The towns hit hardest by Beryls rains lie east of the capital, Montpelier, which flooded last year but escaped serious damage this week. In Plainfield, a concrete bridge that collapsed and tumbled downstream was likely responsible for ripping off part of an apartment building with five units, said Michael Billingsley, the towns emergency management director. The occupant of another home was pulled through a window to safety moments before it was swept downstream, and a mobile home floated away with four pets belonging to a family that narrowly escaped, he said. Hilary Conant said she had to flee her apartment as the Great Brook rose, just as she did a year earlier. Its like rewind to last year, she said. The water was coming up, so I knew it was time to leave with my dog. Its very retraumatizing. A neighbor offered a camper. She and her dog, Casper, sheltered Thursday at Goddard College, which opened dorm rooms to displaced residents. Around the corner from her home was the apartment building that collapsed. The front still stood, but the rest was wrecked or gone. Its otherworldly, she said. Its devastating. In small Moretown, the ruin appeared worse than a year ago, and the school was once again damaged, said Tom Martin, chair of the town board. Workers hoped to install a temporary bridge Thursday to restore the main road access to town. They say were Vermont strong. Well get through it, Martin said. A police cruiser crashed down a 30-foot (9.1-meter) embankment Wednesday night when the officer tried to avoid a utility pole and power lines blocking the road in Monkton, south of Burlington. The officer was not seriously injured, state police said. Beryl, blamed for at least nine U.S. deaths and 11 in the Caribbean, landed in Texas on Monday as a Category 1 hurricane and left millions in the Houston area without power. It then cut across the interior U.S. as a post-tropical cyclone that brought flooding and sometimes tornadoes from the Great Lakes to Canada and northern New England. Six tornadoes hit western New York on Wednesday, damaging homes and barns and uprooting trees, the weather service said. Some areas of the state got 4 or more inches (10 or more centimeters) of rain, causing water to rush down streets in the village of Lowville. Flash flooding also closed roads in several northern New Hampshire communities, including Monroe, Dalton, Lancaster and Littleton, where officials said 20 people were temporarily stranded at a Walmart store and crews made water rescues. Resilience efforts appeared to pay off in Vermont. Flood control dams were performing phenomenally other than the breach of one dam with minimal impact to property or roads, said Jason Batchelder, state environmental commissioner. But the damage coming as some residents still await federal disaster-assistance checks from the floods a year ago was still a bitter pill to swallow. Its tough to watch folks in your community suffer and go through this again, said Thom Lauzon, the mayor of hard-hit Barre. Even though Vermont is not a coastal state, it has experience with tropical weather. Tropical Storm Irene dumped 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain on parts of Vermont in 24 hours in 2011. The storm killed six in the state, washed homes off their foundations, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 bridges and 500 miles of highway. In May, Vermont became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by extreme weather fanned by climate change. Scott, a Republican, allowed the bill to become law without his signature, saying he was concerned about the costs of a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged a need. Climate change is real, Scott said Thursday. I think we all need to come to grips with that regardless of your political persuasion and deal with it, because we need to build back stronger, safer and smarter. \Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Secoriea Turners family sets up scholarship in memory of 8-year-old killed in 2020 protests The family of a 8-year-old girl shot and killed during protests in 2020 is setting up a scholarship in her memory. Secoriea Turner died on July 4, 2020 after she was shot in the car she was riding in with her mother. The shooting happened near the Wendys off University Ave where armed groups set up blockades after Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] On Friday, Turners family and community members unveiled Secorieas Social Justice Scholarship. The funds will support college students who share a desire to effectuate change. The scholarship program is in partnership with Black Womens Lab, Let Us Make Man and Black Man Lab nonprofits. During the press conference, representatives from those nonprofits and other community members pledged to donate to the scholarship fund, bringing it to $10,000. We are proud to support Secorieas Social Justice Scholarship, young women dedicated to justice and equity as they achieve their educational goals in college. We want to help young women become powerful advocates for their communities in Secorieas name, a Black Womens Lab representative said in a statement. You can make a donation here. RELATED STORIES: [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Have you seen them? Boston Police Department updates Most Wanted list The Boston Police Department has updated its Most Wanted list. Detectives are currently working to track down and arrest the following individuals, according to the Boston Police Department: Jairo Marcano : Wanted on a drug trafficking charge Dharol Joyner : Wanted on firearms and drug trafficking charges Jose Gonzalez : Wanted for failing to register as a sex offender Lawrence McQueen : Wanted on an assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge John McNeil : Wanted on a larceny over $1,200 charge Peter Brewer: Wanted on an assault to murder charge Anyone with information about the whereabouts of these individuals is asked to call CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or text the word TIP to CRIME (27463). Calls or texts to CrimeStoppers are answered by police officers and trained personnel who forward the information to the appropriate investigators, the department said in a statement. You do not have to reveal your identity to the police to provide information about a crime. Police also said that photos and videos of possible suspects can be submitted here. 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 YORK After nine weeks and well over a million words of testimony and lawyer arguments, jurors in Sen. Bob Menendezs corruption trial began deliberations on Friday afternoon. They will decide whether a sprawling, yearslong federal investigation and high-stakes political prosecution is a righteous takedown of a corrupt New Jersey Democrat or a catastrophic and misguided waste of time. Their decision will determine the fate of a famed New Jersey politician who wielded enormous influence on the local, national and world stage over the course of his 50-year career. At 70, a guilty verdict could very well mean Menendez will spend the rest of his life in prison. But an acquittal or hung jury, like in his 2017 trial would amount to a historic and extraordinary legal feat for a senator who has long accused the Justice Department of hunting him. The jury left for the weekend without reaching a verdict. Afterward, Menendez said: I have faith in God and in the jury. The corruption case is, to be sure, complex. Prosecutors allege the senator was involved in a series of overlapping schemes to disrupt state and federal criminal investigations and help Egypt obtain American military aid in exchange for cash and gold found when the FBI searched his home. But prosecutors from the Southern District of New York say their case boils down to a simple story about an entitled elected official selling himself. The trial opened in mid-May with jurors being shown those goods piles of cash and over a dozen bars of gold. The 12 jurors, who included a doctor and retired economist, have a daunting task ahead. Prosecutors are attempting to prove beyond a reasonable doubt 18 separate charges against Menendez, a pair of businesspeople and the senators wife Nadine. A third businessperson already pleaded guilty and testified against Menendez. His wife will be tried separately because of a breast cancer diagnosis. On Thursday and Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein spent about four hours giving the jurors instructions. Some of those jury instructions were based on relatively fresh Supreme Court rulings that have made it harder than ever for prosecutors to combat political corruption. And whatever jurors decide may not be the final word. If they convict Menendez on one or more of the 16 counts he faces, the senator will almost certainly appeal. At the most basic level, the jurors main task ahead is who to believe: prosecutors or Menendez. Yet, it became clear in the final days of the trial that there is a third side of the story. Attorneys for the senators co-defendants Egyptian-American meat mogul Wael Will Hana and prominent New Jersey developer and longtime Menendez friend Fred Daibes acknowledged or left open the possibility that their clients gave gifts of cash or gold to the Menendezes that the senators legal team spent the whole trial suggesting he did not receive. Instead, Hana and Daibes defense is that cash and gold was not given in exchange for any particular official act by the senator. Steins jury instructions included a relatively novel section that made clear not every gift to a public official, like Menendez, is a bribe. Were these bribes or were they gifts, were they something criminal, or were they something generous? Hana attorney Larry Lustberg told jurors. Don't, as the government asks you to do over and over and over, just assume the worst. While all the defendants argued there were no bribes, the competing defenses add to what the jurors must reconcile. They didnt give me any gifts whatsoever, Menendez told POLITICO as he left the courthouse on Wednesday. But authorities found Daibes fingerprints on envelopes of cash found in the Menendez home and have traced back some of the cash to when it was printed and put into circulation. The fingerprints of Hana associates have been found on other envelopes. At other times, Menendezs attorneys have tried to portray their clients wife as doing things behind his back. Daniel Richenthal, one of the federal prosecutors, urged jurors to reject this defense. I'm not making fun of her, he told jurors Thursday. But does she strike you as a diabolical genius who concocts a plan with Menendez's friend and Wael Hana to dupe him for five years, including when they're living together? You think that she could have even pulled that off if she tried? No matter what the jury decides, Menendezs political life is all but over, though he is mounting a long-shot reelection bid as an independent. Until he was indicted last fall, Menendez was among the most powerful people in the world as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a post he was forced out of amid accusations from this case that he was working as an agent of the Egyptian government. In a sign of how diminished he is, compare where he was on primary day in New Jersey. As Menendez was stuck in court on June 4 listening to an FBI investigator testify about a stakeout that caught him dining with an Egyptian intelligence officer, New Jersey Democrats went to the polls and selected Rep. Andy Kim as his likely replacement. But Menendez is not going to go down without a fight. Almost each day of the trial, his team of attorneys have made objections meant to preserve grounds for an appeal and provoke Judge Stein into making a ruling that could be used to overturn the whole case. The judges mid-trial rulings have ranged from mundane instructions on basic rules of evidence to complex interpretations of the Constitutions speech or debate clause. That language was meant by the nations founders to insulate members of Congress as they deliberate, and is seen by Menendezs attorneys as fertile ground to plant an appeal aimed at Supreme Court justices who are increasingly hawkish in carving out immunity for elected officials. University of Nebraska, state and federal leaders ceremonially break ground on the new U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service Naitonal Center for Resilient and Regenerative Precision Agriculture at Nebraska Innovation Campus in Lincoln. May 6, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN A U.S. Department of Agriculture research center being built on the University of Nebraska-Lincolns Innovation Campus would receive another $16 million in federal funds under a bill the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced Thursday. U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, a member of the committee, touted the new money as a worthy investment in a hub for research [that] will attract students, scientists, and industry leaders focused on turning research into products and solutions in the field. Broke ground in May USDA and UNL broke ground on the new research facility in May. Its purpose is to find new ways to produce more food for a growing global population while using fewer natural resources. Fischer, in a statement, said the new funding, if approved by the full Senate and the House, could expand Nebraskas leading role in agricultural innovation. It was part of an agricultural, food security and rural development bill. Fischer also celebrated the inclusion of $3 million in new funding for the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL and $1 million for a new cooperative focused on protecting agricultural research data from online theft and threats. Part of $160 million project The $16 million in construction funds for the $160 million National Center for Resilient and Regenerative Agriculture follows $25 million that the Nebraska delegation steered last year toward the facility, which will combine USDA and UNL research. Part of that combination will happen at the Nebraska Ag-Tech Innovation Accelerator, built by NU and the state to take strong agricultural research to the marketplace, much like a similar center for medical technologies at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. New University of Nebraska President Dr. Jeffrey Gold thanked the states congressional delegation for keeping NU at the forefront of ag research. This builds on the 67 USDA scientists NU officials have said are already working on East Campus. This facility is going to be a game-changer for our state, Gold said. I look forward to continuing to work closely with our elected leaders, university colleagues, philanthropic partners and farmers and ranchers across the state. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., and his predecessor in the 1st District, Jeff Fortenberry, have also secured millions in federal funding for the project. The post Senate Appropriations sets aside more money for USDA-UNL research center appeared first on Nebraska Examiner. For many, the main point of investing is to generate higher returns than the overall market. But in any portfolio, there will be mixed results between individual stocks. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad (KLSE:TCHONG), since the last five years saw the share price fall 39%. So let's have a look and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business' progress. Check out our latest analysis for Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad Given that Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad didn't make a profit in the last twelve months, we'll focus on revenue growth to form a quick view of its business development. Shareholders of unprofitable companies usually desire strong revenue growth. As you can imagine, fast revenue growth, when maintained, often leads to fast profit growth. In the last five years Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad saw its revenue shrink by 12% per year. That puts it in an unattractive cohort, to put it mildly. It seems pretty reasonable to us that the share price dipped 7% per year in that time. This loss means the stock shareholders are probably pretty annoyed. It is possible for businesses to bounce back but as Buffett says, 'turnarounds seldom turn'. You can see below how earnings and revenue have changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image). Balance sheet strength is crucial. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on how its financial position has changed over time. What About Dividends? When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. Arguably, the TSR gives a more comprehensive picture of the return generated by a stock. In the case of Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad, it has a TSR of -32% for the last 5 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return. A Different Perspective Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad shareholders are down 15% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 25%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 6% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Take risks, for example - Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of. Story continues Of course Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Malaysian exchanges. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed its first batch of government funding bills for fiscal 2025, greenlighting hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending for much of next year. The bills lay out full-year funding proposals for the departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the legislative branch, which also covers operations in the House and Senate. The bills passed with unanimous support as both sides touted highlights. The biggest bill in the batch would fund the VA, military construction and related agencies, calling for more than $129 billion for nondefense discretionary funding and roughly $210 billion for mandatory funding. The bill also sets aside about $20 billion for military construction and family housing for most of 2025. Negotiators say the fiscal 2025 agricultural and rural development funding bill would allow for an $821 million bump compared to current levels, with north of $27 billion proposed overall for the spending measure. That includes increases in areas like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), rental assistance, and agricultural research, among other areas. The committee also approved $7 billion in discretionary funding for the legislative branch, including increases for the Government Accountability Office, Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service and Library of Congress all the while upholding a freeze on pay increases for members. The passages come the same day House GOP negotiators took a victory lap after their funding committee reported out the last of its 12 annual funding bills for fiscal 2025 this week. We could go conference now, once you pass them out of committee, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said alongside the chambers GOP spending cardinals Thursday. We can sit down with our counterparts in the United States Senate when theyre ready to do so and start the process of arriving at what ultimately will be a bipartisan product. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Thursday that a bipartisan deal was reached in the upper chamber to plus up funding beyond the budget caps agreed to last year after both sides struggled to reach a compromise on overall funding for fiscal 2025. Theres no shortage of serious funding challenges were facing in the coming year, Murray said. I made clear alongside many members on both sides of the aisle, the 1 percent increasing funding that the [Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA)] provides for nondefense and defense alike and [fiscal 2025] is simply inadequate. So, Im pleased that Vice Chair [Susan] Collins and I reached a bipartisan agreement to provide much-needed additional funding for nondefense and defense alike. The agreement will provide an additional $13.5 billion in emergency funding for nondefense programs and $21 billion for defense programs beyond the FRA levels. The move means a wider gap between the bills the Senate and House will bring to eventual bipartisan talks, potentially later this year, when they prepare to hash out a compromise on fiscal 2025 funding. The bills that have been reported out of the House committee have also been more partisan in nature compared to the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass both measures. Congress currently has until late September when fiscal 2024 is set to come to a close. But members on both sides have already acknowledged a stopgap measure will be needed to keep the government funded beyond the November elections, as lawmakers run short on time to make progress. The outcome of the races is also expected to have an impact on what government funding could look like for fiscal 2025, as either side could see major leverage as a result of bicameral funding talks. 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. Sentencing for a Mount Vernon man convicted in a federal fraud case in Virginia has been postponed two months after he was granted permission to represent himself. Derickson Lawrence, a former candidate for Congress and for Mount Vernon comptroller, faces up to 30 years in prison after he was found guilty in March of defrauding a pandemic relief program and mid-Atlantic restaurant workers who relied on his company, MarketView Resources, to pay them, obtaining $260,000 that he then spent on risky options trading. U.S. District Judge John Gibney in Norfolk approved Lawrence's bid for self-representation and rescheduled sentencing from July 19 to Sept. 27. Derrickson Lawrence of Mount Vernon photographed in front of Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site in Mount Vernon Oct. 5, 2016 His two federal public defenders supported the request, saying that it was not a way to delay the case but that Lawrence "fundamentally disagrees with defense counsel regarding post-trial defense strategy and believes that only he can present a successful defense to the criminal charges against him." They will remain as stand-by counsel to assist Lawrence. Lawrence is preparing a motion for a new trial. In his first filing representing himself, he opposed the government's motion for an order requiring Lawrence to forfeit $565,000 in the case. Lawrence was active in Mount Vernon issues for several years and twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress and once for city comptroller. He chaired the city's Charter Revision Commission in 2019 and 2020 that led to voter approval requiring comprehensive plans for development and charter revision commissions every 10 years, annual audits and quarterly financial reports. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon's Derickson Lawrence gets sentencing delay in fraud case A serial projectile sniper has been targeting pedestrians along a stretch of road in Ventura for what may be as long as a year, leaving many of the victims with painful injuries. Several victims are speaking out because theyre concerned that someone is going to suffer more serious injuries when the person strikes again. One woman, who asked to remain anonymous because the shooter has not yet been captured, said that on the night of July 7, she was walking down Thompson Boulevard near MacMillan Avenue, just a few blocks from the Ventura Pier, when she was struck on the back of her neck. I felt a really painful, fast, sharp pain on the right side of my neck, she explained. I immediately fell to the ground. What hit her, she quickly learned, was a red marble-sized object that looked like a paintball or a gumball. I initially thought it was a rock coming up or something that got kicked up by a car, but it was clear that somebody was intentionally targeting pedestrians in this area, she added. Later, the victim wrote about her experience and posted it on the social media platform Reddit, where nearly a dozen other people responded with similar incidents that had happened to them. I felt a terrible sting on the back of my shoulder, very painful, a woman identified only as April told KTLAs Rachel Menitoff. An injury to a womans neck seen here from a red projectile shot at her in Ventura on July 7, 2024. (viewer pic) A projectile that struck a woman in Ventura on July 7, 2024. (viewer pic) A projectile that struck a woman in Ventura in June 2023. (viewer pic) She said she was targeted on June 15 in the exact same area after having breakfast with her family at Cafe Nouveau. The projectile, in this case, was a similar size and purple-colored. I think somebody could be seriously injured, possibly be hit in the head or the eye or the temple or something like that, she said. Another woman, identified only as June, was struck by a yellow-colored gumball last year around this time when she was picking up a propane tank from a U-Haul facility. Normal people dont go around shooting people, she said. To find out that its happening to so many people on this same little stretch of road is very concerning. All the incidents have happened within a block-or-two radius and each time the force of the objects caught the victims completely off guard. Police officer in Orange County accused of raping woman in her home: report Two of the three victims who spoke to KTLA said they reported the shootings to police. The third said she didnt even realize she was on the receiving end of a crime until she started comparing notes with others who had been similarly shot. Mucho Gusto Barbershop, owned by Alfred Leon, is right across the street from where one of the snipers victims was struck. He says post-COVID, hes watched this area of Ventura go through a positive resurgence and this lone shooter is putting a damper on that. I finally started seeing people walk with their dogs [again], he explained. So, to actually see and hear about people getting shot in the neck isnt really community-like. Its not fun for anybody. Authorities with the Ventura Police Department told KTLA that about a month ago it responded to reports of someone shooting out of a car window in the area, but the person responsible was never identified. Several of the victims claim they saw a white pickup truck take off after they were struck. 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. SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Seven defendants including southwest Missouri residents and Mexican nationals, are indicted by a federal grand jury for their roles in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, according to the Department of Justice for the Western District of Missouri. The defendants in the case are: Pacheco-Salazar, 36, Mexico/Springfield Frank Lee Chapman, 35, Joplin Omar Rosales-Olmos, 51, Mexico/Joplin Jaime Francisco Figueroa, 42, Carthage Issac Alan Schilling, 32, Carthage Evan Lance Masters, 47, Sarcoxie Indelfonso Vazquez-Martinez, 52, Mexico Each were charged in a 16-count indictment returned in late June that was made public recently following the public arrest of all defendants except Vazquez-Martinez. The indictment alleges all seven participated in the conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Greene, Jasper, Newton, and Vernon Counties from January 1, 2020 to May 1, 2024. Vazquez-Martinez and Rosales-Olmos are alleged to have participated in a conspiracy to commit money laundering of drug-trafficking proceeds as well. Pacheco-Salazar is charged with one count of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. Pacheco-Sanchez allegedly possessed a Remington 7mm rifle on April 4, 2021, the DOJ release continues. Chapman, Schilling, and Masters each are also charged with one count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. Chapman received a charge with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm as well for possessing a pistol in September 2023. Figueroa is also charged with three counts of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. 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. People and rescuers gather at the scene of a collapsed two-storey building in Jos, Nigeria, Friday, July, 12, 2024. At least 12 students have been killed after a school building collapsed and trapped them in northern Nigeria, authorities said on Friday. (AP Photos) ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) A two-story school collapsed during morning classes Friday in north-central Nigeria, killing 22 students and sending rescuers on a frantic search for more than 100 people trapped in the rubble, authorities said. The Saints Academy college in Plateau states Busa Buji community collapsed shortly after students, many of whom were 15 years old or younger, arrived for classes. A total of 154 students were initially trapped in the rubble, but Plateau police spokesperson Alfred Alabo later said 132 of them had been rescued and were being treated for injuries in various hospitals. He said 22 students died. An earlier report by local media had said at least 12 people were killed. Dozens of villagers gathered near the school, some weeping and others offering to help, as excavators combed through the debris from the part of the building that had caved in. One woman was seen wailing and attempting to go closer to the rubble as others held her back. Nigerias National Emergency Management Agency said rescue and health workers as well as security forces had been deployed at the scene immediately after the collapse, launching a search for the trapped students. To ensure prompt medical attention, the government has instructed hospitals to prioritize treatment without documentation or payment, Plateau state's commissioner for information, Musa Ashoms, said in a statement. The state government blamed the tragedy on the schools weak structure and location near a riverbank." It urged schools facing similar issues to shut down. Building collapses are becoming common in Nigeria, Africas most populous country with more than a dozen such incidents recorded in the last two years. Authorities often blame such disasters on a failure to enforce building safety regulations and on poor maintenance. Six decomposing female bodies were found in a quarry in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Friday, according to police, sparking a protest at a nearby police station. The alarm was raised following the discovery of six severely mutilated bodies, all female, in various stages of decomposition in the quarry, which was being used as a dumpsite, according to a statement by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations. The area has been cordoned off as a crime scene, and preliminary investigations suggest a similar mode of killing of the deceased, the statement said. The bodies were found wrapped in nylon papers and reinforced with nylon ropes and have been transported to a mortuary where they await postmortem examinations, police added. The identities of the dead or how long the bodies had been at the quarry were not immediately clear. It appears to be a dumping site for bodies and I suspect there could be more, Hussein Khalid, executive director of human rights group Vocal Africa told CNN. They were all women, all tied with the same color of ribbons, and same color of sacks, he said. Angry residents who marched to the nearby Kware police station were dispersed by teargas as shots rang in the air. CNN has reached out to the police for comment. The horrifying scene comes after weeks of anti-government protests over a since-scrapped finance bill. The protests resulted in scores of civilian deaths amid a heavy-handed response from Kenyan police. Human rights groups have also accused security forces of abducting Kenyans during the protests. The discovery of the bodies on Friday has sparked fresh public anger and brought a new spotlight to Kenyas femicide crisis, just months after thousands of women marched on the streets with banners reading: Stop killing us. Fallout from protests Dozens of people were killed in police shootings across the country in just one day of the anti-government protests in June, according to Kenyas Police Reforms Working Group (PRWG). A CNN team outside the Kenyan parliament on June 25 witnessed security forces shooting at unarmed protesters. The CNN crew also filmed Kenyan police beating and later arresting some paramedics who were helping injured protesters in Nairobi. Kenyas presidency announced that Japheth Koome, the countrys police chief, resigned on Friday. His deputy, Douglas Kanja, has been named acting police chief. Fridays move comes after nearly all of President William Rutos cabinet was fired, with the exceptions of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi. The decision was taken upon reflection, and a holistic appraisal of his cabinet, he told reporters from State House Nairobi. This is a developing story and will be updated. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Sex crime charges against a University of Kentucky professor were dismissed Friday in Fayette County Circuit Court. Kevin Real, 67, was previously facing charges of first-degree sexual abuse of a person under the age of 12, incest of a person under the age of 18, sodomy, fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) and evidence tampering, according to court records. The charges were dismissed on the motion of the Commonwealth Attorneys Office, who reviewed all the evidence in the case before filing the dismissal motion. The case was dismissed without prejudice. I want to thank God. All glory and honor is his and I want to thank my attorney Chris Spedding and Steve Schroering. I want to thank my family and my friends for all their support and all their prayers on my behalf, Real said in a statement after Fridays hearing. Im happy that the correct result was found. Im actually relieved that this long and painful ordeal is over with. Real is a professor of communication at UK and the former chair of the department. UK spokesperson Jay Blanton verified Thursday that Real remains a member of the faculty but is not currently working on campus. Blanton said Real has a research appointment. Real has been an employee at UK since 2002 in several roles, according to his resume. He was hired as assistant professor and has also been an associate professor and professor in the department of communication. Real appeared to be well-liked among colleagues and students and was described by one colleague as a model teacher, according to his UK personnel records the Herald-Leader obtained through an open records act request. Kevin Real is innocent of the charges that were brought against him, attorneys Spedding and Schroering said in a statement. Today, after carefully reviewing all the evidence related to this case, much of which we provided, all charges were dismissed on the motion of the prosecutor. Real was arrested in September and placed on administrative leave by the university. At the time of his arrest Reals bond was set at $30,000, but it was lowered to $15,000 the following day at his arraignment. Real paid the bond and was released from jail under the condition of remaining at home on electronic monitoring with limited releases. His bond conditions were loosened roughly one month later, which allowed him to leave house arrest as long as he continued to be electronically monitored and stay in Fayette County. Kevin is grateful that the correct outcome was reached and looks forward to moving past this incredibly difficult and painful part of his life, attorneys Spedding and Schroering said in a statement. Herald-Leader reporter Taylor Six contributed to this article. In 2016, I went to the polls with the intention of holding my nose and voting for Hillary Clinton. I was told that the election (my first) would be the most important one in my lifetime, that a Republican victory represented an existential threat to our democracy, that to sit it out or vote third-party was a clear vote for Donald Trump. I was in disbelief over the choices in front of me but resigned to the fact that voting in the United States wasnt about whom the majority of voters wanted to lead, so much as a four-year obligation to prevent the greater evil from taking over. Eight years later, as the Democratic Party scrambles to find a viable replacement for President Biden and weighs the options among Vice President Kamala Harris, who trails behind Trump in head-to-head polls, and a list of pre-vetted party insiders, I feel a vertigo-inducing sense of deja vu. Remarks Clinton made in April about Bidens candidacy ring bitter in my ear: Get over yourself. Those are the two choices. It was precisely this condescending tone and line of thinking that led to her shocking defeat in 2016. Today were at risk of repeating the same fatal mistake. To those whove stated that theyd vote for Biden even if he were in a coma, I have this to say: We can and must do better. Voters will not be inspired to turn out to the polls because our candidate has a pulse. Our democracy thrives on the strength of our collective imagination. We need to cultivate a national dialogue centered on hope, possibility, and the belief that we can build a more just and prosperous future together. We have to imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been. We should not settle for the expected, but strive for the exceptional: a leader who embodies our collective dreams and aspirations. There is only one person in my mind who fits this bill, and its Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union. After leading nearly 150,000 workers in their historic stand up strike against the Big Three automakers, Fain now serves as the clearest embodiment of the democratic project to rebuild the middle class and reinvigorate American manufacturing. Fain, I must disclose, is not just someone I admire deeply on a personal level. My husband serves as outside counsel to the UAW and acted as a negotiator during bargaining with the Big Threea landmark labor victory that won 25 percent wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments, expanded retirement benefits, and a tangible path toward a green energy future. But this personal connection has only allowed me to see more closely what an impressive person Fain is. Should Fain be given a shot at national office, Im confident he would replicate these successes on a much larger scale. Fains outlook on life is shaped by his working-class background. He was born and raised in Kokomo, Indiana, to a nurse and the citys chief of police. Hes the grandson of two UAW members and has served extensively in his local, as shop chairman, as a skilled trades committeeman, and as an international representative for the union. In 2009, Fain helped organize protests against Chrysler plant closures and served as a national negotiator for the union during the companys bankruptcy proceedings. The 55-year-old populist, who begins each day by reading the Bible (as opposed to hawking them), carries his grandfathers pay stub with him as a reminder of where he came from. Hes a lifelong union member who worked his way up to becoming the face of a revitalized labor movement after decades of declining union density, stagnant wages, and spiraling wealth inequality. In March 2023, Fain won the UAWs first direct election for union leadership by fewer than 500 votes against the incumbent president, Ray Curry, a member of an old-guard caucus that exercised total control over the union for roughly 70 years. Fain ran with Unite All Workers for Democracy, a reform caucus advocating for greater transparency in the face of the unions nasty corruption scandal, more robust rank-and-file engagement, and a more aggressive approach to bargaining. Fain was sworn into office on his grandmothers Bible. Fain is certainly an anti-Trumper. If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldnt be a UAW member, he would be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker, Fain said during his endorsement of Biden in January. He remains steadfast in his backing of Bidens presidential campaign. But I believe someone needs to take it upon themselves to make his case, if only to open our collective imaginations and break us out of our panic-stricken state. A resounding 75 percent of Americans across the political spectrum supported striking autoworkers during the UAWs 2023 strike, suggesting a broad appeal that could win over swing voters and those disillusioned by establishment politics. Fain has made good on his promise to take on the billionaire class and speaks to the deep economic pain that plagues our nation. Hes championing a four-day workweek with no loss in pay and has taken a bargaining for the common good approach to organizing and negotiations to fight for all U.S. workers, not just those in the industries he represents. If he were the candidate, hed have the advantage of being able to secure the support of organized labor and would likely win a landslide victory in the key state of Michigan, home to the unions Detroit headquarters. In contrast to Trumps anti-trade agenda and record of factory closures, Fain was able to negotiate the reopening of a shuttered Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois, and a $3.2 billion investment in a new electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Kokomo. In contrast to Trumps hateful rhetoric and policies toward Mexico, the UAW has launched a solidarity project to support Mexican autoworkers in their struggle against a common enemy. Since December, the UAW has been calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and has created a Divestment and Just Transition Committee to look into the unions economic ties to the Israel-Palestine conflict and explore a just transition for U.S. workers from war to peace. In doing so, the UAW is presenting an exciting alternative foreign policy vision that members of both parties have been hungry for. I know youre thinking that this is totally unrealistic, and perhaps it is. But if theres one thing we can learn from European elections, its the need for the center-left and center-right to put aside their differences and unite behind a strong candidate in the face of a dangerous far-right coalition. As Jon Stewart recently pointed out on The Daily Show, France and the U.K. held their elections in a matter of weeks, adding, Four months is for-fucking-ever. There are contestants on The Bachelor, who havent even met yet, that will get married and divorced between now and the election. We have nothing but time. Should Fain at any point become interested in running for president, be it in 2024 or 2028, he should know that he has a generation of younger voters behind him waiting to pick up where the Bernie Sanders campaign left off. (The UAW represents over 100,000 academic workers across the nation and more graduate students than any other union.) Id add that were all having a miserable time, and we really need someone who inspires hope and change in this moment. Fain is a nationally recognized ally of the Biden administration who sits sufficiently outside of the party to excite voters who are tired of the status quo. In many respects, Fain is the perfect candidate to carry on Bidens economic legacy. Biden vowed to be the most pro-union president in history and made good on that promise. In September, Biden became the first sitting president to walk a picket line when he joined Fain at an old Ford factory in Michigan that used to make B-24 bombers during World War II. Fain referred to the site as the arsenal of democracy and railed against the billionaire class: They think they own the world, but we make it run. In his 2024 State of the Union address, Biden referred to Fain as a great friend, and a great labor leader, and emphasized one of the core beliefs of his administration: The middle class built this country! And unions built the middle class! In an era where political cynicism is rampant and trust in institutions is waning, approval ratings for unions are at the highest theyve been since 1965. The Democratic Party has a unique opportunity to present a candidate who embodies the common good. A Fain presidency would signal a return to the partys roots. Amends for the Democrats historical betrayal of organized labor. However, I dont believe Biden can just hand the election to a new nominee after running noncompetitive primaries and spending months avoiding the national media. Nor do I think Fain should run an insurgent presidential campaign without Bidens blessing. Im confident Fain would be a strong candidate in a blitz primary, an idea proposed by Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown Law professor who served in the Obama and Clinton administrations, and Ted Dintersmith, a philanthropist, venture capitalist, and democratic donor. Brooks and Dintersmiths memo imagines a process whereby Biden would step down in mid-July and open the race to other candidates who would compete in a primary sprint that would involve viral outreach with the help of figures like Michelle Obama and Taylor Swift. Delegates would then select a candidate through ranked-choice voting at the convention in August, where the final nominee would be presented by Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. Brooks and Dintersmith write that Democrats can make this Our Finest Hour or limp to shameful, avoidable democracy-ending defeat. When I got into the booth in 2016 and saw Hillary Clintons name on the ticket, I felt a knot in my stomach and did something I thought I had talked myself out of: I voted for Jill Stein. In the days following the election, I agonized over my decision, particularly since I made it with the expectation that Clinton would lose the race. In deep blue Brooklyn (I was living in Hakeem Jeffriess congressional district at the time), I rationalized my choice by telling myself that it would likely come down to the Electoral College, and if the voters in those crucial margins were not convinced, it was no ones fault but her own. The party ran a losing candidate because they felt it was her time, and chose to listen to the polls over the disgruntled voices of their own base. Today, we dont even have a lead in the polls. Today, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, a Democrat, is calling New York a battleground state. I voted for Stein because I believed, as I still do, that we always need a few strong outside voices who demand that we collectively dream bigger. To chart a path to a future where we have something to vote for, and not against. As long as I gave it my all, as Biden put it to George Stephanopoulos, is not an answer to the very real threat of fascism we now face. Similarly, you cannot run as the democracy candidate and then hand the nomination off at the very last minute and expect voters to feel like their voices have been heard. Biden ran in 2020 on his electability and has left a legacy that he can be proud of. But today, a sizable chunk of the American public, the national media, and party insiders alike are telling him he is no longer that candidate. If those who are serious about defeating Donald Trump lose this election in November, it will be the fault of the Democratic Party, not the voters. Biden has stated clearly that he is unwilling to leave the election. He appears poised to drag us into the worst-case scenario: too late to pivot to another candidate and unable to convince the public that his true mission in staying in the race is to defeat Trump. The proposal above depends on Biden realizing that this is his choice alone to make, and it must be made soon. Should Biden do what is expected of him and pass the torch to Kamala Harris, or should she be selected through a blitz primary or a similar open processa proposal even Representative Jim Clyburn has gotten behindshe would be wise to consider Fain as her running mate. In the meantime, it appears as though the fate of our republic remains in the hands of the Lord Almighty. TOPEKA (KSNT) Shawnee County Commissioner Aaron Mays joined the 27 News Morning Show to discuss various happenings around the county including the Shawnee County Courthouse and Oakland Pool renovations. Mays told 27 News that the Shawnee County Courthouse renovations are 87% complete. These renovations include a new HVAC system, new exterior windows, LED light fixtures and new roof. According to Mays, the Oakland pool is nearing completion. Mays said he expects the pool to be partially open on Aug. 1 with a ribbon cutting planned for Aug. 2. The Oakland pool is 60 years old, approximately, so it needed to be torn out and replaced and that project is almost done as well, Mays said. Part of I-70 to close in Topeka for viaduct work 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. A convicted child abuser stalked and then stabbed a 13-year-old girl at an Orange County apartment complex July 4, and may have sexually assaulted her, according to law enforcement. Sheriff John Mina offered new details about suspect Jerry Loreeson Dorisme, 28, who is charged with the first-degree murder of Rose Dieujuste, during a morning news conference at the agencys Central Operations on Colonial Drive in Orlando. He said Dorisme was arrested Thursday night and was at the Sheriffs Office for eight hours but refused to speak, leaving investigators to try to piece together the truth and possible motives from surveillance video and testimony of people in the community. Roses murder shook our community, and our agency. Anytime a child is murdered, we all collectively grieve. Im a father, our detectives are all parents, and this is very, very hard on them and of course, the community, Mina said. And we cant even imagine the pain and anguish that Roses family and loved ones are going through right now. In the end, this was a result of great detective work, our help from the media partners and tips from many people in the community. No known connection Dorisme a Haitian immigrant who came to the U.S. legally in 2008 did not appear to know Dieujuste but used to live in the area, frequently visited and had been seen watching girls there, Mina said. Community members, some of whom were able to identify him by name, were crucial in his arrest. The sheriff said there were signs Dieujuste was sexually assaulted but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is still collecting and analyzing evidence for confirmation. In my 33 years of law enforcement experience, this is a crime that is hard to predict and hard to prevent, Mina said. So when our community sees people who are acting strangely and suspicious, they dont need to be afraid, they need to call us and let us know that hey, were concerned about this person, you know, and maybe we can do something to prevent something like this from happening. Prior criminal history Dorisme was arrested for lewd and lascivious molestation on a child in 2020, a charge ultimately reduced to child abuse, the sheriff said. He was sentenced to 366 days for the child abuse charge in 2021, according to court records. Mina said a few weeks ago deputies were called after someone saw him walking down the street with a knife. After they arrived, he dropped the knife but ended up punching three deputies. He was Baker Acted as a result. The Baker Act, a state law passed in 1971, allows for involuntary psychiatric examination for up to 72 hours. Affidavit provides timeline An affidavit for the arrest warrant of Dorisme was released shortly after the news conference with additional information about the day of the crime. The Sheriffs Office believes Dieujuste was on her way to visit a friend in another building early in the afternoon at the Palmetto at Lakeside apartment complex on South Rio Grande Avenue when she was attacked, according to the affidavit. Surveillance video from the complex shows someone now believed to be Dorisme following behind Dieujuste as she walked to her friends building. Her friend found Dieujustes cellphone and shoes in a stairway and told Roses family. The affidavit said Dieujustes brother then began knocking on doors to see if anyone had seen her, eventually opening a utility closet door underneath the stairs where he found her lying on the ground unresponsive. He pulled her out and did CPR until emergency personnel arrived. The affidavit said upon arrival around 2:25 p.m., deputies found Dieujuste partially naked and stabbed. She was transported to a hospital where she was declared dead at 3:14 p.m. Evidence points to Dorisme The affidavit said police found packaging for a large knife, believed to be the murder weapon, at the scene. They then uncovered video from a store in a shopping plaza across the street that showed a man of similar appearance to the one following Dieujuste in the complexs surveillance video now believed to be Dorisme using cash to buy that same kitchen knife around 11:30 a.m. that day, the affidavit said. Minutes later, video surveillance shows him entering the apartment complex. Dieujustes father, brother and cousin were all home the day of the murder. They said they left their apartment for less than 15 minutes to walk to the gas station to get beer, which video from the complex supports. When they left, they saw no cellphone or shoes on the stairway. The affidavit said when they returned, they saw an unfamiliar man walking away from the stairway now believed to be Dorisme. They then saw the shoes and cellphone on the stairs. Detectives believe the killing occurred in that short timeframe according to the affidavit. Dieujustes father went back outside after he saw the shoes and cellphone but the man was gone, the affidavit said. Community aids arrest The Sheriffs Office released a photo and video of the suspect Wednesday and included a bulletin from Crimeline offering a $5,000 reward for information that could identify him. Dorisme was arrested Thursday night at an apartment complex leasing office on Silver Star Road after a 911 call from someone who identified him from the news release, according to the affidavit. Detectives then located Dorismes father, who identified him as the person in the complex surveillance footage, according to the affidavit. He then took detectives to Dorismes aunts house, where he sometimes stays. Detectives found a large bucket there containing the clothing worn in the surveillance footage and a blue drawstring laundry bag carried in the footage, the affidavit said. The pants found in the bucket tested positive for blood. Ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com Graphcore chief executive Nigel Toon says pension funds are refusing to back high-growth businesses - Simon Dawson/Bloomberg Pension funds are failing British savers by refusing to back high-growth businesses, the boss of the British microchip company Graphcore has said. The start-up has become the latest high-tech firm to sell to an overseas buyer. Nigel Toon, its chief executive, said that pension funds tend to focus on cost rather than growth and that this is a problem for the long-term value of peoples retirement savings. It came as the AI chip company announced a sale to SoftBank worth hundreds of millions of pounds the second time in a decade that the Japanese tech conglomerate has acquired one of Britains best microchip companies after its takeover of Arm in 2016. The long-rumoured deal came after Graphcore, which had raised hundreds of millions of dollars from overseas investors, struggled to compete against Nvidia, the Silicon Valley giant that briefly became the worlds biggest company last month. Mr Toon said: We have about 4.6 trillion of capital managed in London as a result of pension funds and insurance. A tiny, tiny percentage of that goes into private companies today. I think theres a huge opportunity here. Our pension funds tend to focus on cost, rather than on growth [and] performance. And that creates its own issues in terms of whats the future value of your pension going forward? And how do we expose some appropriate portion to the high-growth opportunities that some of these scale-up opportunities represent. I think theres a massive opportunity to do that, but theres a lot of structural things still, I think that needs to be fixed. Mr Toon pointed out that the majority of the money invested in Graphcore, from shareholders such as Microsoft, the venture capital fund Sequoia and the giant Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, came from overseas. He said: Thats the piece that were going to need to fix going forward. British pension funds have faced repeated criticism for their risk-averse approach to investing from the lines of Sir John Bell, a leading scientist who led Britains Covid response. Opponents argue that as well as failing to maximise savers returns, the industrys failure to back promising companies also means that talent and profits go abroad instead. Graphcore, founded in 2016, sought to ride the artificial intelligence revolution that has catapulted Nvidia to a $3 trillion (2.3 trillion) valuation. However, sales of its intelligence processing units have struggled and the company admitted last year that it needed to raise new cash. The business was valued at $2.8bn in 2020. Neither it nor SoftBank have disclosed the sale value, although sources and disclosures from public investors have indicated a value of around $500m. Mr Toon said the figure was not accurate but declined to elaborate. Story continues Bristol-based Graphcore has committed to keeping its headquarters in the UK and Mr Toon said it plans to hire more staff. The company is also expected to work closely with Arm, which went public in New York last year but is still 89pc owned by SoftBank. The Telegraph revealed last week that the deal was going through a national security review as the two companies finalised the takeover. It has also been cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority. SoftBank recently led a $1bn investment in Wayve, the London-based driverless car company. British pension funds agreed to invest 5pc of members funds into unlisted assets such as start-ups in a Mansion House compact struck by former chancellor Jeremy Hunt last year. However, they still invest significantly less in private companies than in other countries. 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 controversial statue by Pakistani-American sculptor Shahzia Sikander one of a handful of public pieces by the celebrated artist has been beheaded at the University of Houston. Witness, a larger-than-life, 18-foot golden statue of a levitating woman, was originally commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy in Manhattan and an appellate court of the Supreme Court of the State of New York nearby. Created as a celebration of women and justice, the statues hair was braided into two ram horns (a symbol of strength, according to Madison Square Parks exhibition guide) and features a large hoop skirt inspired by the stained-glass ceiling dome at the courthouse smattered with shards of painted mosaic pieces: A woman decorated by a broken glass ceiling. The intact work of art, seen while on display in Madison Square Park in 2023. - Lynda Churilla But these artistic features, particularly the braided horns and abstract branch-like arms, have drawn criticism and attention. In February, a Texas anti-abortion group called the piece which also features an intricate lace collar - a satanic memorial of the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and staged a protest demanding the removal of the artwork. The university cancelled an opening celebration of Sikanders work along with a scheduled talk from the artist. Earlier this week, as Hurricane Beryl moved through Houston, it was revealed that the sculpture had been severely vandalized and the artworks head removed, an event Sikander believes was captured on surveillance cameras. In a statement emailed to CNN, Sikander said she holds the university accountable and wants the violated work to be shown without cover as a testament to its power. Anti-abortion groups in Texas protested the statue and demanded its removal. - Abdurrahman Danquah This was a violent, hateful, and misogynistic act, the artist said in a statement to CNN. And I hold the University of Houston accountable for their inadequate response and failure to protect the art. I urge them to release the footage of the perpetrator. The despicable narrative should not be cloaked by the hurricane. The act of violence is part of the history of the work and a testament to its power. I have asked the university to remove the tarp and show the violated work. They need to respect the wishes of the artist. In initial statements to CNN, the university said they were disappointed to learn the statue was damaged early Monday morning as Hurricane Beryl was hitting Houston, and that the damage is believed to be intentional, adding, the University of Houston Police Department is currently investigating the matter. A university spokesperson also said that the facility was respecting the artists wishes that we leave the sculpture as is without any repairs. The university did not respond to CNNs request for comment about Sikanders allegations that they failed to protect the art and did not address the alleged existence of surveillance footage. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) WIVB News 4 is learning more about how and why the City of Buffalo hired a local political donor who has been charged with federal crimes such as money laundering and wire fraud. Its a story we first told you about and have been staying on top of for months. Back in March, WIVB was first to report how the City of Buffalo hired Hormoz Mansouri, an indicted political donor. He and his firm were awarded a six-figure contract to be the consultant on two city park projects. The revelation led to Mansouris resignation and Mayor Byron Brown calling the situation embarrassing. WIVB filed a public records request to find out how and why the hire was made. New documents obtained by WIVB show who signed off on the contract to award Mansouri and his firm the EI Team a $166,000 contract to work on the two park projects. The documents also show who gave Mansouris company high scores in an evaluation process, even though hes facing a 40-count federal indictment. Hormoz Mansouri from EI Team, we are the architect and engineer of record for the master plan, Mansouri said in March during a meeting with residents on the Shoshone Park project. Three years ago, Mansouri was charged by the feds with wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud & bank fraud and money laundering. Hes accused of lying on loan applications, inflating payroll expenses to get more than $3.5 million dollars in COVID-19 relief funds and routinely transferring money back and forth through numerous bank accounts to conceal the alleged scheme. Federal prosecutors say Mansouri brazenly paid more than half a million dollars to a casino using COVID funds. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, the case against Mansouri resulted in the seizure of nearly $2 million. But still, after a selection process, Mansouri and his firm were hired by the city last summer to be the consultant on the redevelopment of Shoshone and Trinidad parks. Once WIVB started asking questions about the hire, Mansouri and his company resigned from the park projects. WIVB (in March): Would you say that this is embarrassing that the city hired a contractor/consultant who was under federal indictment? BROWN: Theres no question that it is embarrassing, but again as I mentioned, the selection committee looked at the federal list of companies that are debarred, companies that are not allowed to bid on federal contracts and this company did not appear on that list. Instead, during the selection process, the EI Team pitched itself as a company with an exceptional track record. Public documents show Department of Public Works Commissioner Nate Marton signing off on both the Notice to Proceed and the contract with Mansouri. Documents on the citys scoring criteria for consultants, show the citys principal engineer Steve Buccilli and Deputy Commissioner for Parks and Recreation Andy Rabb giving glowing scores to the EI Team on the Shoshone and Trinidad park projects. Emails News 4 has received, showing discussions between city officials and the EI Team, make no mention of any legal issues Mansouri or his companies are facing. We did not have that information in front of us and kind of readily, readily available so we moved forward with the evaluation of the EI Team based on what we had in front of us, Marton said. Shoshone Park is in the University District, which city council member Rasheed Wyatt represents. People who heard the story they were just kind of shocked and I was shocked, Wyatt said. Since Mansouris resignation, the city has been in search of two new consultants. Even with no lead consultant, Wyatt said the redevelopment of Shoshone Park remains on track. A lot of the heavy lifting was done already, Wyatt said. That was the good news, there are still some other pieces that need to be worked on, but for the most part its still moving forward. The City of Buffalo has now hired two new companies to replace the EI Team on the park projects, nearly four months since their resignation. GPI will work on the Trinidad Park project, while Wendel Engineering will work on the project for Shoshone Park. We know that its not gone as smoothly as we had liked, Wyatt said. So again, I hope that were not going to have any more issues going forward. The citys Department of Public Works said construction on both park projects is expected next year. In terms of reforms moving forward, the citys Department of Public Works said it plans on adding a questionnaire for consultants in the citys bidding process. Federal prosecutors said Mansouri faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Hes scheduled to go on trial this fall. According to campaign finance records, Mansouri and LLCs named in the federal indictment have given Brown about $10,000 over the years. But Brown said in March this has nothing to do with the contract Mansouri received. Jeff Preval is an award-winning anchor and reporter who joined the News 4 team in December 2021. 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. Significant damage: Car crashes into day care near St. Lukes in Boise. No one hurt The Little Lukes child-care facility was closed Friday and will be Monday as well as officials assess repairs that will be needed after a car crashed into the east side of the building on Thursday afternoon. Police said a driver suffered a medical emergency, drove through a fence and struck the building. No one inside or near the building was hurt, police and St. Lukes officials said, though the driver was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Fortunately, no injuries were reported among children or staff on site, a St. Lukes spokesperson said in an email. The building suffered significant damage .... Impacts range from flooding to structural damage to that part of the building. Further damages are being assessed. The car hit the east wall of the building, the spokesperson said. The Treasure Valley Family YMCA runs the child care at Little Lukes. St. Lukes said the Y was in touch with all of the affected families at the center. A YMCA spokesperson said in an email that 32 children were on site when the crash happened. The facility serves about 100 kids. Fort Street was closed for a couple of hours after the crash Thursday, police said. Situation is challenging: Ukraine has lost almost all of its peaking power generation Ukraine has lost almost all of its peaking power generation due to Russian attacks. Source: Lana Zerkal, a former advisor to Ukraine's energy minister, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda Details: Zerkal noted that the situation in Ukraine's energy sector is challenging and that the issue is not just about recovering it but actually building a new one. "We still have basic nuclear generation. However, we have almost lost everything related to peaking generation," Zerkal said. The recovery of generation hinges on the confidence of companies like DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, in the safety and effectiveness of the recovery efforts. "All these plants have been fired upon. Some of them have been hit up to 20 times. Without sufficient air defence and secure airspace, the recovery effort could become endless," Zerkal added. Background: Ukraine should have started creating decentralised power generation as early as 2022, but no one took the need for it seriously. Lana Zerkal said she did not believe that 1GW of gas-powered generation would be completed by the end of the year, as previously announced by President Zelenskyy. In the early morning hours of 11 April, the Russians utterly destroyed the Trypillia thermal power plant (TPP) in Kyiv Oblast in a large-scale missile attack. The Trypillia TPP provided electricity to almost 3 million people and was the largest electricity supplier in Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Cherkasy oblasts. Centrenergo, a major electric and thermal energy-producing company in Ukraine's centre and east, consisted of three thermal power plants: Trypillia TPP in Kyiv Oblast, Zmiivka TPP in Kharkiv Oblast, and Vuhlehirsk TPP in Donetsk Oblast. On 22 March 2024, Zmiivka TPP was utterly destroyed. On 25 July 2022, Russian forces occupied Vuhlehirsk TPP. This resulted in Centrenergo losing 100% of its power generation. Support UP or become our patron! Two North Coast districts have settled an acrimonious, months-long battle over the future value of access to a water well that belongs to one of the districts, but that is located on the other districts property. Thursday, the Cambria Community Services District board unanimously approved a settlement agreement with the Coast Unified School District about the disputed well the former drilled in 2000 on the Coast Union High School property on Santa Rosa Creek Road. The settlement allows the CSD to make a one-time payment of $260,000 for continued access to that well in perpetuity, serving its ratepayers, as it has for decades under lease agreements that the services districts general manager estimates has cost the agency more than three-quarters of a million dollars. The school board approved the settlement agreement June 27, the terms of which had been hammered out in a series of mediations that began in April. Under the settlement agreement, the CSD also will construct a new access route to the well and reimburse the school district $5,000 for its appraisal of the property. The high school irrigates its fields from a well near the one the CSD has labeled SR4, however the school district gets its potable water from the CSD. The districts mediations capped months of acrimony, with varying proposals for leases, purchase or a combination, lawsuit threats and the possibility that the CSD could file for eminent domain over the wells location. Other propositions had been for escalating lease payments starting at $80,000 a year. All in all, the often contentious negotiations about the issue stretched out for the better part of a year, CSD General Manager Matt McElhenie said Thursday as he introduced the settlement agenda item. The CSD also will pay to develop the new, shorter access road to the well, which will provide an alternate route for the services district. It had been using an existing, serpentine route that winds through the campus, the increased use of which posed a possible safety issue, especially for students when school is in session. Jim Green, utilities department manager, told the Board initial estimates for that new route have been approximately $40,000 for the road and up to $60,000 for a fence around it. In 2000, the services district began taking water from the well to supplement the communitys supply, replacing water that had been provided by an inadequate CSD well, closer to town and near Santa Rosa Creek. The well was being threatened by a plume of MTBE, making the water from the well unusable. Since that time, the CSDs use of its well on the school districts property has become a critical part of the CCSDs source of water for the community, according to McElhenies report to the board in September. CCSD draws the majority of its water from a narrow aquifer on San Simeon Creek Road, but says that in dry seasons and droughts, that source can be inadequate to supply the entire community and provide a buffer for fires. The SR4 well is in the Santa Rosa Creek aquifer, too, but is higher up the creek than the CSDs other wells there. SLO doctors license suspended for mental condition. Lawsuit says he did meth in the office A San Luis Obispo doctor who recently had his medical license suspended did meth in the office and sexually harassed his medical assistant, according to a lawsuit filed by the former employee. David Jackson Levin, 44, worked as an ear, nose and throat doctor in San Luis Obispo. According to a suspension order from the California medical board, his license was suspended in interim on June 21 because he is unable to practice medicine safely due to a mental condition. A lawsuit filed in May states Levin sexually harassed his lead medical assistant for nearly four years, did meth in the office, incorrectly performed medical procedures, and took painkillers he was prescribing, among other allegations. The lawsuit alleges sexual harassment, sexual battery, sex discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and violating whistleblower law. When The Tribune called Levins office, a voicemail said the office, located at 100 Casa St. in San Luis Obispo, was permanently closed. Due to unforeseen circumstances, our office is now closed effective immediately and will not be reopened, the voicemail said. This closure was unexpected, and we sincerely apologize for the lack of notice. Our staff is actively working to expedite any referrals to alternative ENT providers in our area. When reached by text message asking if he wanted to comment, Levin replied no. Levin has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit in court. The San Luis Obispo office of Dr. David Levin on Casa Street is closed with a notice on the door seen here on July 11, 2024. He had his license suspended on June 21, 2024. According to a lawsuit filed May 27, 2024, Levin allegedly did meth in the office and sexually harassed his lead medical assistant. Lawsuit lists variety of accusations against SLO doctor All of the allegations in the lawsuit against Levin occurred between October 2020 and March 2024. The medical assistant witnessed Levin perform a variety of unsafe medical practices during that time, the lawsuit said. Among those unsafe practices were doing drugs in the office, the lawsuit alleged. The former medical assistant allegedly witnessed Levin prescribe painkillers to patients before taking the drugs himself, snort powder that appeared to be drugs and do meth in the office. On one occasion, the lawsuit said, the medical assistant found a drug pipe in the office that reportedly belonged to Levin. Levin allegedly had previously told the assistant methamphetamine was his drug of choice, the lawsuit said. In addition to drug use, the lawsuit said, Levin also allegedly used un-sterile equipment on patients, used unsanitary needles after dropping them, carried out procedures incorrectly and failed to use proper protective equipment. The medical assistant attempted to stop Levin from engaging in this misconduct several times, the lawsuit said, but was told to stay out of it. The assistant brought the drug pipe she found to the office manager and reported the other unsafe practices she observed, the lawsuit said, but nothing was done in response to the complaint. The San Luis Obispo office of Dr. David Levin on Casa Street is closed with a notice on the door seen here on July 11, 2024. He had his license suspended on June 21, 2024. According to a lawsuit filed May 27, 2024, Levin allegedly did meth in the office and sexually harassed his lead medical assistant. Lawsuit: Doctor sexually harassed, battered, lead medical assistant In the same lawsuit, the medical assistant said Levin had sexually harassed her on multiple occasions over the course of four years. Levin allegedly told the woman he would have sex with her if he liked women, asked about the size of her husbands penis and told her 17-year-old-son something to the effect of trying it in the butt, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit claims Levin also showed her a photo of himself in lingerie and images of penises and told her he would love to motorboat her breasts, the lawsuit said. He also asked inappropriate questions about the medical assistants body, sniffed and pulled her hair, blew in her ear, grabbed and poked her breasts, and rubbed himself against her buttocks, the lawsuit said, while also repeatedly telling her about his sexual encounters. The lawsuit said Levin also told her she had a double chin, said she shouldnt eat chocolate because she would gain weight and advised her she needed to exercise more. According to the lawsuit, the woman was shocked and dismayed at Levins unwanted behavior and asked him to stop being inappropriate each time this behavior happened. Assistant threatened to report doctor to medical board and was fired, lawsuit said According to the lawsuit, the medical assistant told Levin she was going to report him to the state medical board in February, but Levin told the assistant no one would believe her. About a month later, the lawsuit said, Levin fired the medical assistant citing financial challenges. Thats when the woman reported Levin to the medical board, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit claims the womans firing was in retaliation for her threat to report Levin to the medical board. Levins conduct caused the woman to suffer physical and emotional distress, the lawsuit said, including nervousness, humiliation, depression, anguish, embarrassment, fright, shock, pain and anxiety. She also lost wages and other compensation benefits upon her firing, the lawsuit alleged. Doctor accused of incorrectly removing nerves from patient In a separate lawsuit filed in May 2022, a former patient of Levin, Amy Lessi, said that he botched a nasal surgery she underwent, causing her to lose her sense of taste and smell. Lessi filed a lawsuit against Levin and ENT Medical and Surgical Care, French Hospital Medical Center and an anesthesiologist for negligence, battery and loss of consortium in May 2022. In April 2019, the lawsuit said that Lessi underwent nasal repair surgery to alleviate sinus pain and chronic sinusitis, a condition that causes inflamed and swollen sinuses. The lawsuit said that after the surgery, Lessi lost her sense of taste and smell. Levin told Lessi in multiple follow-ups that she was either not differentiating flavors or that the senses would eventually come back, the lawsuit said. But when Lessi received a second opinion from a different doctor, the lawsuit said, she became aware that her olfactory nerves had been removed without her knowledge or consent, resulting in the loss of her senses of taste and smell. According to September and October 2022 responses filed in court, Levin, French Hospital Medical Center and the anesthesiologist declined all the allegations. Lessis lawyer Tyler Saldo confirmed the hospital and the anesthesiologist were removed from the lawsuit in late 2023, but Levin is scheduled to go to trial in the case in April 2025. Saldo said that at this point, the case is in litigation. It says a lot about our politics that very few of our leaders are talking about one of the most important issues. The small businesses that anchor our economy are about to face a devastating tax hike that will hurt workers and weaken communities. As the owner of one of those job creators a third-generation family-owned manufacturing company in Cuba, Missouri Im calling on Washington, D.C., to wake up and protect the tax cut that small businesses desperately need. The tax cut in question is the small business deduction, also known as Section 199A or the qualified business income deduction. Its part of the centerpiece of the 2017 federal tax reform, and while that law passed on a partisan basis, the small business deduction has bipartisan support. Basically, this tax cut lets small businesses like mine deduct 20% of our income. Without this relief, the 2017 tax cuts would have almost entirely benefited Wall Street corporations. The small business deduction was designed to help Main Street continue to compete. But theres a problem. The laws corporate tax cuts are permanent, while the relief for small businesses is temporary. The deduction expires next year, and if it disappears, job creators like me will find it much harder to hire and grow and stay competitive. We wont be able to do all the good things that the small business deduction has made possible. I remember when I realized how transformative this tax cut is. We didnt fully understand it when the 2017 law passed, but when we filed our business taxes the next year, we discovered that wed been given a tremendous gift. Within days, we began reinvesting that money right back into the business. The first thing we did was expand our factory and warehouse space to give us room to keep growing in the years ahead. We also began to upgrade our equipment, to keep us on the cutting edge. But the biggest and best benefits have flowed to our employees. The tax cut has helped us boost starting wages, which are now about 50% higher than they were in 2018. Our annual wage hikes are also 50% higher. Weve also covered more of our team members health insurance costs, while expanding coverage for their families. And since 2018, weve been able to offer bigger bonuses than ever before. At first, we doubled them, but since 2022, weve tripled our annual bonuses. Without the tax cut, our 100-plus employees wouldnt be doing nearly as well. Actions like ours are exactly why Congress created the small business deduction to kick-start a new era of wage growth, job growth, and business growth. Yet that growth will begin to fade if the deduction expires next year. Thats basic math: When your taxes rise overnight by 25%, you have to cut back. For my small business, the first step wed have to take would be a hiring freeze. Were currently looking for five full-time employees, but Im not sure we could hire any of them. Wed probably also institute a wage freeze, since we wouldnt have the money to keep giving raises. The same goes for new equipment and more manufacturing space. We wouldnt have to put everything on pause indefinitely, but wed have to do a lot less. That doesnt benefit anyone who works for us or the community in which we live. Washington cant let this happen. Our leaders must save the small business deduction before it expires next year. I realize that politicians like to wait until the last minute, but their failure to act immediately is already hurting small businesses. We have to plan years ahead, and right now, we dont have the certainty and confidence to make big investments. I simply dont know if the small business deduction will continue to exist. Until I have that clarity, I cant do all the things I want to do for my team and my hometown. Our leaders Republicans and Democrats alike need to make the small business deduction permanent, and they need to do it as soon as possible. That means this year, or failing that, first thing next year. My small business and our workers are counting on it. So are millions of job creators in Missouri and across America. We cant afford for our leaders to keep ignoring this critical issue. The longer they delay, the more damage theyll do. Nathan Garden owns Versa Tags, a manufacturing small business in Cuba, Missouri. Hes a member of the National Federation of Independent Business. He was not compensated for this commentary. Small Nashville museum wants you to know why it is returning artifacts to Mexico Pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico are displayed as part of the 'Repatriation and Its Impact' exhibit at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the pieces back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) When Bonnie Seymour took a job as assistant curator of Nashville's Parthenon museum, one of the first things she did was to look through the collections. Among paintings by American artists and memorabilia from Tennessees 1897 Centennial Exposition the event for which the Parthenon was built she found a random assortment of pre-Columbian pottery from Mexico. The artifacts had almost no identifying information, and Seymour knew next to nothing about them. But she knew they did not belong in a Nashville storage room. My first thought was, well, its going to get repatriated. It's got to go home, she said during a recent interview. That goal led to an exhibit, Repatriation and Its Impact," along with the discovery of the collection's strange origins, and even a quest to change the city's charter. It all started with a tax deduction. Colima dogs It was the 1960s and Rich Montgomery says his father, an Oregon doctor, and some friends were looking for ways to lower their income taxes. Somehow they came upon the idea of using museum donations for deductions. In order to acquire objects to donate, they sent a college-aged Rich and his brother to Mexico in a Chevy Suburban they had tricked out for extra storage. Rich had spent a year of high school in Mazatlan and was familiar with artifacts called Colima dogs pottery representations of small, chubby hairless dogs that were often placed in tombs. As the name implies, they are associated with the Colima region. That gave the Montgomery brothers a place to start. So we we headed straight into Colima and we started asking about these items," he said. Youd get on these dirt roads and wander up into the hills, and down into the valleys, and along the rivers, and come to these little pueblos and just ask around for this stuff. People would come up with it, and we would buy them. The pieces they bought included figurines and ocarinas. They had little apparent value to the local farmers Montgomery said the people considered them junk and were happy to sell them for a few pesos each. He also emphasizes that they did not try to smuggle them out. At no point did we ever think or feel that were doing anything illegal, he said. We would show this stuff to the Mexican authorities as we left the country, and those guys could care less about it. And when we came into the US, we would show it to the customs people here on this side. And the rules back then were very clear. If its an antique, it's over 100 years old, there was no duty on it. Off we'd go. Repatriation Mexico had laws, even back then, to prevent artifacts from leaving the country, but they were not evenly enforced, said Javier Diaz de Leon, the Mexican consul general in Atlanta who has been working with Seymour on the repatriation. In recent years, people have become more aware of the ethical issues around keeping artifacts that were taken from other countries without proper authorization, Diaz de Leon said. Its a greater conscience," he said. People come to us, are coming to us, all over the world, voluntarily saying, I got this. It came to our hands. But we dont think we should have it. We think we belongs to the Mexican people. And that is the sort of transition that we are very happy about. The consul general has nothing but praise for Seymour. When she began this effort two years ago, the Parthenon had no policy for deaccession removing an item from a collection. Meanwhile, Nashville's charter required the artifacts to be treated as surplus property, which is normally either redistributed within Metro government or sold at auction. Seymour worked with council members on an ordinance to allow their return to Mexico. It was approved in May, but it was a one-time fix. Her next step is to revise the charter. Meanwhile, she hopes the collection will find a more appropriate home at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City where it will fit into the institutions mission. Hopefully, theyre going to research them and put them on display, she said. While she is sad to see the collection go, Seymour has commissioned a 3-D printed model of a Colima dog they can use to continue to tell the story. Ultimately, she said repatriation is simply the right thing to do. At the Parthenon its not being utilized. Its a waste. Outside the Parthenon's mission Montgomery has no idea how his father got connected with the city's Parthenon, which operates a small museum inside a full-scale replica of the ancient Greek temple in Nashville's Centennial Park. However it happened, the museum now has 255 pre-Columbian pieces donated by Montgomery and someone named Edgar York, whom Seymour knows even less about. That lack of information is part of the point in the exhibit, which displays a selection of the collection's small adornments, zoomorphic images, ceramic pots, musical instruments and hand tools with only generic labels, their exact provenance unknown. It notes that research by Vanderbilt University students in the 1990s raised questions about the authenticity of some pieces. A 2014 review determined they were outside the Parthenon's mission. Some people can have a finders-keepers attitude toward repatriation efforts, while others blame museums for holding onto artifacts looted from other countries, so Seymour wanted to be very transparent. Museums arent evil institutions trying to keep peoples stuff away from them. We are actually trying to figure out what to do, she said. Smoke in cabin after American Airlines flight lands in San Francisco; plane evacuated Smoke was reported inside a plane cabin during an American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Miami on Friday, injuring three people. The incident occurred while passengers were boarding Flight 2045 at San Francisco International Airport when the crew reported smoke coming out of the cabin, the airport wrote on X. Fire officials quickly evacuated passengers, who were taken to a different terminal, the airport confirmed. Three people had minor injuries, with one of them needing to be medically transported, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. Fire caused by laptop inside passenger bag The source of the smoke was a laptop inside a passenger's bag, American Airlines told USA TODAY. "The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft," American Airlines said in a statement. "We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience." Some passengers exited the Airbus A321 on emergency slides while others deplaned using the jet bridge. Plane caught fire in Florida earlier this week The Friday flight is not the first American Airlines flight that didn't entirely go smoothly this week. On Wednesday, an American Airlines aircraft headed to Phoenix caught flame when a tire blew upon takeoff in Tampa, Florida. That flight was delayed due to the "mechanical issue" with Boeing 737-800 tires, American Airlines spokesman Alfredo Garduno told USA TODAY. All 174 passengers and six crew members, were safely evacuated to the terminal and no other flight operations were affected by the incident, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The passengers were then rebooked on other flights to Phoenix. A United Airlines aircraft from Los Angeles to Denver lost a wheel upon takeoff on Monday but was able to land safely. Contributing: Amaris Encinas This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: American Airlines plane evacuated for smoke in cabin in San Francisco (Reuters) -Tesla is delaying the launch of robotaxi by about two months to October as the design team was told to rework some elements of the car, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the decision. Shares of Tesla, which is betting on self-driving vehicles over less-expensive cars, closed more than 8% down at $241.03 on Thursday following the news, ending 11 straight sessions of gains that had pushed the stock up 44%. Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Musk had announced the Aug. 8 unveiling day of its robotaxi after Reuters reported on April 5 that Tesla had canceled its long-promised inexpensive car and would continue developing self-driving robotaxis on the same small-vehicle platform. "Tesla has been playing this game for nearly a decade of promising 'next year, next year'. And I've seen no indication that Tesla ... is on track for a meaningful deployment of the kind of automated driving system that Tesla has consistently promised," said University of South Carolina law professor Bryant Walker Smith, with expertise in autonomous vehicle law. Except for announcing an unveiling date, Musk has given minimal details about robotaxi so far. He has only said that some vehicles will be owned and operated by Tesla, while others will be owned by individuals but rented out on Tesla's network. Analysts and industry experts have said the race to develop autonomous driving systems and robotaxis will be arduous and take years as the technology faces engineering and regulatory hurdles. "I think the (launch) event will be a disappointment as we were probably gonna get a CyberTaxi, not a RoboTaxi ... Nobody's going to be able to knit socks on their way to work or nap while the vehicle brings you to gramma's," said Craig Irwin, senior research analyst at Roth MKM. Still, some investors said they were not overly concerned by the development. "Honestly, it seemed like a quick pivot, so I'm not surprised by the delay at all. In the grand scheme of things, two months don't change the picture," said Jamie Meyers, senior analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments, which holds positions in Tesla. "I actually think it's a good thing that Elon and company are getting their ducks in a row to do this launch right." Musk has been focusing on artificial intelligence, autonomous driving software, robotaxis and the humanoid robot named Optimus to combat a slowdown in EV sales, which generate more than 80% of Tesla's quarterly revenue. Story continues He said in the company's first-quarter earnings conference call in April that Tesla would introduce "new models" by early 2025 using its current platforms and production lines. During the call, he had outlined ambitious visions for diversifying Tesla's business into AI, humanoid robots, and operating a fleet of millions of autonomous vehicles - all based on software and hardware products Tesla has not yet fully developed. A source told Reuters in April that Musk had visited Beijing that month on an unannounced visit to discuss the rollout of its full self-driving software and other data-transfer permissions. (Reporting by Deborah Sophia, Akash Sriram and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Maju Samuel) Generous Scottish tax-payers are to spend 2 million on a pilot scheme to give free bus travel to asylum seekers. The largesse is being provided by the Scottish Government and a range of publicly-funded civic society groups who want to demonstrate their support for new arrivals in Scotland, who must hereafter be referred to as New Scots. The justification? In the words of the SNPs equalities minister at Holyrood, Kaukab Stewart: Scotland has a proud history of welcoming those fleeing war and persecution, and we are dedicated to helping them integrate into communities from the day they arrive. It is vitalpeople seeking asylumunderstand their rights and access employment and services to help them to rebuild their lives in Scotland. The Scotland Act, which denotes which policy areas are reserved to Westminster and which are devolved to Edinburgh, makes asylum and immigration the responsibility of our national parliament in London. This is a point of frustration to the SNP, who, despite having lost their battle for independence, frequently behave as if Scots voted Yes in 2014. Their ministers gallivant around the globe on the tax-payers shilling pretending to have responsibility for foreign affairs and defence, while at home, they connive to trim away any authority the UK government might have north of the border. This latest public relations initiative is an example of such. No one in the Scottish Government has the authority to make asylum policy or to authorise asylum seekers to work while they await the decision on their applications for refuge. So instead they use devolved powers to signal their virtue on the issue. Yet the initiative is a risky one. Especially in the council housing estates which turned their backs on the SNP at last weeks general election, the nationalists performative sympathy with asylum seekers is not wholly reflected. As an MP I frequently had to challenge misconceptions that were regularly spread in those communities about how well off asylum seekers were, that they were being favoured in the queue for social housing, that they were being given unlimited benefits but were nevertheless cheating the system to fatten their bank balances. It was pretty appalling stuff, but to be expected in communities that are suffering the most in the economic steeplechase and where decent, quality housing is a rare and much sought-after thing. Which is why the SNPs latest initiative is dangerous, because it risks fuelling simmering resentments that are already there, not far below the surface, in exactly the areas in which asylum seekers are housed while they await a decision on their applications. Unlike housing, there is plenty of room on most local buses for new arrivals in the country. But most Scots dont have the privilege of free bus journeys, and might raise an eyebrow at asylum seekers receiving a benefit that they do not. If this were a simple act of charity rather than an obvious virtue-signalling attempt to emphasise the exceptionalism of Scots, it would be bad enough. But included in the Scottish Governments new strategy for welcoming asylum seekers and refugees is a commitment to seek permission from the UK government for asylum seekers to have the right to work while they await their decisions on refugee status. This has long been a demand by those who are employed in the refugee industry, who claim that having a job would help applicants integrate more easily into their new country. But such an assertion is surely based on the assumption that every applicant will be successful. What about those applicants who manage to secure a job but who are then informed that their application has been refused, that it has been discovered they are not, after all, fleeing war and persecution but are in fact economic migrants? Would those fighting for asylum seekers right to work then accept with a shrug of their shoulders that thats just too bad and have a safe journey back to your own country? Hardly. Then the campaign against the injustice of removing someone from the country someone whos actually working and paying taxes would begin. Governments of both colours have refused to allow asylum seekers to work because it would inevitably act as a magnet to other asylum seekers. SNP ministers dont seem to disagree with this risk; rather, they welcome the prospect of many, many more asylum seekers choosing to make Scotland their home. Except that while the SNP are welcoming all those New Scots and promising them homes, jobs and free bus travel, the Scottish Parliament has declared a housing emergency due to the scandalous shortage of available homes for the existing population. Earlier this year, Jim McBride, the head of homelessness at Glasgow City Council told Holyroods Social Justice Committee that the authority was attempting to house up to 10 households per day. Weve identified the fact its going to be an almost impossible challenge for us to manage, he said. That challenge will only become greater if, as the SNP Government hopes, asylum seekers can use their free bus pass to get to work, and even greater if others in the same boat (as it were) head for Scotland to sample the tartan utopia being constructed here for asylum seekers. The competition for housing may be about to get a lot worse, and racial tensions may become inflamed. 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. Listen to WGNs Very Own weather Producer Bill Snyder discussing Chicagos weather stats and what is to come! Bill breaks down what is happening and why its happening! 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. SOMERSWORTH Representatives of SAU 56 say they are very happy with the new contract for Somersworth Association of Clerical and Aides (SACA). They're optimistic the improved pay and benefits will encourage more job applicants to fill vacancies in the city's schools for 2024-25. The Somersworth School District announced a new and competitive collective bargaining agreement for its paraeducators and administrative assistants in the SACA union effective July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2027. Leah Lainez, president of the NEA-NH affiliated support staff union SACA said, "Our contract negotiations were successful because the Somersworth School Board and the Somersworth City Council listened to us. They heard about the things we face daily. They understood that too many open positions hurts our ability to provide what Somersworth's students deserve. We hope the new agreement will attract more great employees to work with our students." Somersworth Association of Clerical and Aides employees of SAU 56 schools are celebrating their new contract and hope to encourage people to come and work with them. School Board Chair Maggie Larson said the board is very pleased with the result of the contract negotiations. "This agreement exemplifies our dedication to recognizing and rewarding the invaluable contributions of these essential staff members," Larson said. We aim to attract and retain passionate staff who align with our mission to create a secure, innovative learning atmosphere. We're seeking individuals dedicated to fostering an environment where student achievement and well-being are at the forefront of everything we do. These improvements reflect our ongoing commitment to excellence in education and investment in our staff and students futures." How much is pay going up for paraprofessional educators and school clerical jobs in Somersworth? Lainez, the union president, said the increases in pay and benefits make Somersworth schools truly competitive with surrounding communities. She provided examples of wage increases. In the past contract, a secretarial position paid (hourly) $19.94 at Step 1 and went up to $24.55 for employees at Step 5. A paraprofessional position began at $15.23 and went to $18.68 at Step 5. (Employees with no experience start at Step 1 and move up a step each year, Lainez said. Employees with past experience may start at a higher step.) The new three-year contract has higher pay at all levels in the first year and goes up each year. In 2024-25 a secretarial position will start at $21.14 for Step 1 and will be $26.80 for Step 5 employees. A paraprofessional begins at $16.25 and to $20.77 at Step 5. In the final year of the new contract, the secretarial pay range will be $23.30 to $29.55, and the paraprofessional range will be $17.92 to $22.90. Administrators are looking to hire about 20 paraprofessional and clerical positions at the Somersworth middle and high schools, as well as the Idlehurst and Maplewood elementary schools. Information is available at sau56.org/about_us/employment and job listings can be found by searching for Somersworth at edjobsnh.com. New era for Somersworth schools' ability to attract employees? Larson said the new contract represents a significant step forward, offering competitive salary adjustments aligned with industry standards, a comprehensive health and wellness benefits package, innovative stipends for professional development and specialized roles, enhanced paid time off to promote work-life balance, and recognition for district longevity and New Hampshire retirement. Previous story: John Shea named next superintendent of Somersworth, Rollinsford schools "We need employees right now, as do many districts," Lainez said. "We have about 20 vacancies right now at all grade levels, and our hope is that people looking for these jobs will take a close look at what we have to offer. In my opinion, we now have one of the most robust contracts in the area. It covers insurance, takes into consideration changes in federal laws and details the necessary qualifications for the roles we are looking to hire. We want to not only hire, but we want to keep the great employees we already have. These people work very hard. Students' needs are greater now, and the requirements to care for them are more rigorous." Lainez said the longevity of Somersworth's support staff is very high, and that speaks to how employees are valued. "SAU 56 is a great place to work," she said. "We are looking for people who are educated, and who have a passion for learning and for teaching students. This is an amazing district, and we have amazing kids. Join us." This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Somersworth school leaders hopeful new contract will attract staff The family of a woman who was mistakenly declared dead and placed in a body bag for two hours is suing a nursing home for the unthinkable blunder, court papers allege. Janet Balducci had been at Waters Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, Long Island when a nurse declared her dead on Feb. 4, 2022, sending her off in a body bag to be embalmed, according to a Suffolk County Supreme Court lawsuit. But once the 82-year-old reached the Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York an employee opened the bag to discover she was still breathing and had a pulse, Balducci family lawyer Peter DeNoto told The Post. Janet Balduccis sons sued a nursing home for mistakenly declaring her dead and placing her in a body bag while alive. Provided by Balducci family The funeral home called emergency services which brought Balducci to the hospital where she survived for another day but ultimately passed, DeNoto explained. Balduccis sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are suing the nursing home and the funeral home for negligence and wrongful death and are hoping the lawsuit will help them get some answers about how such an error was allowed to happen DeNoto said. Did the nurse follow the criteria for determining whether somebody is dead and did a doctor confirm what the nurse found? DeNoto said are some of the questions the family is seeking answers to. Balduccis sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, also brought claims of wrongful death against the home for failing to catch and treat their mothers deep vein thrombosis that ultimately killed her. Provided by Balducci family There really is no excuse for putting a live person in a body bag and sending them to a facility for embalming, the lawyer said. DeNoto said the case highlights a larger problem where the elderly are often neglected at long-term care facilities even when they have loved ones who are highly involved with their care. There was nobody there advocating for her as an elderly person, the lawyer said. She was definitely at the end stages of her life, unfortunately. That happens to all of us. But here it seems that it was too easy to say she is not alive anymore lets send her to a facility. The sons are seeking damages from Waters Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center. Waters Edge Rehab & Nursing Center at Port Jefferson Balducci had been living independently until she took a spill at her home on Aug. 1, 2022 landing her in the hospital before she was eventually placed at Waters Edge on Sept. 6, 2022, DeNoto said. The facility prematurely declaring Balducci dead caused Robert and Joseph genuine mental and/or emotional distress, according to their suit from last month. Not only were the sons grappling with the guilt of their mother being placed in such a facility but they also have to live with knowing what happened to her in her final days, DeNoto said. It really is a sad case, DeNoto said. The end game is to send a message that you have to take your job seriously and you have to treat human beings with dignity and respect. The sons are also suing the funeral home, O.B. Davis Funeral Home for the unthinkable flub. Dignity Memory O.B. David Funeral Homes The sons are also suing for premature and wrongful death after the nursing home failed to identify and treat Balduccis deep vein thrombosis, the court papers claim. DeNoto said another question hes hoping will be answered is whether Balduccis condition developed before or after she was placed in the body bag. The sons are suing the nursing home for unspecified damages for its extreme and outrageous conduct. The day of Balduccis death, the case was referred to the New York State Attorney Generals Office and to the Suffolk County police. But DeNoto said hes filed two records requests with both agencies and the sons havent yet received any information about the status of those probes. We havent gotten any information as to what findings that have been made, DeNoto said, adding they can only assume the investigations are still ongoing. The nursing home and a lawyer for the funeral home didnt immediately return requests for comment Thursday. ROCK HILL, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) Justices with the nations highest court recently ruled cities can enforce laws blocking homeless people from camping in public areas even if they have nowhere else to go. More than 1,000 people in York County lack stable housing. Local organizations like the Catawba Area Coalition for the Homeless (CACH) in Rock Hill are urgently moving to get those people in homes quickly. SC Board of Education threatens to take away funding if cellphone ban not met We dont have affordable housing, and people can be arrested for not being able to afford housing, said Melissa Carlyle, CACH executive director. Then it just becomes this vicious cycle where people are either criminalized or theyre fined. Then it makes it even harder for them to remove themselves from the situation of homelessness. Carlyle is one half of the homeless response system in York, Chester and Lancaster counties that includes advocacy work and outreach programs. They educate the community on homelessness and perform data reporting. This includes a street outreach program where they visit encampment sites, the downtown areas, and other areas where people are known to frequent. Were just now starting a rapid rehousing program where were going to be transitioning people from homelessness into housing by providing rental assistance for up to 12 months, Carlyle said. CACH was working on that before the recent Supreme Court ruling granted cities the power to enforce laws banning homeless people from sleeping in public places. Grant funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development will help them with their rapid rehousing mission. Melissa Carlyle of CACH, serving York, Chester and Lancaster counties. It provides a subsidy for security deposit, utility deposit, as well as a rental subsidy for individuals to live in a market rate unit quickly so they can quickly get out of homelessness, said Corinne Sferrazza, the community development coordinator for the city of Rock Hills Housing and Community Development Department. Theyre all in different stages across the three counties. In York County, you see a lot of shelters, but the shelters still arent enough. We have over a thousand people experiencing homelessness in York County that we know of and were sure that there are many more hundreds if not thousands more people that we dont know that havent entered our official homeless system, she said. So York County is really trying to focus on switching to a housing mindset where were increasing the supply of affordable housing, where we have housing programs in addition to our emergency shelters. Chester and Lancaster counties dont have true emergency shelters. Carlyle says theyre working to implement facilities in those areas so theres a place for people to go. Simultaneously, theyre trying to expand housing services to those counties to provide more options. You need a 6-figure down payment to have an affordable mortgage in Charlotte: report During our point-in-time count this year, we had almost a 26% increase in the number of unhoused individuals, Carlyle said. We actually saw unsheltered homelessness go down. But I think thats actually just because its gotten harder to locate individuals who are unsheltered. And part of that kind of ties back to this Grants Pass issue of, if people are worried about being fined or criminalized for sleeping outside, then they try to stay hidden from, not only community members but from law enforcement. They might be fearful to reach out for help if theyre worried that theyre going to be arrested, she continued. So thats part of the reason we implemented the street outreach programs. Its all about access to affordable housing, Carlyle explained. In Rock Hill, that means individuals dont pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Its also hard for people to hold down jobs or to access employment if they dont have stable housing. They might not have an address that they can put on application forms, she said. They might not have transportation to get to work every single day. We have some people who are unsheltered simply because of their work schedule, they get out after the shelter is closed. Rock Hill has several affordable housing developments either waiting for permits and zoning or nearly complete. The citys housing and community development department has housed at least 19 people so far this 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 Queen City News. In June, South Florida saw a string of murder-suicides that killed eight people, including an elderly couple, a 3-year-old boy sitting in a car seat while his mother was in an ATM drive-thru line and a 3-month-old in Broward. There were four well-publicized incidents. In three of the cases, the shooters all men killed themselves. In the Broward case, one shooter tried to kill himself but he survived. While murder-suicides are often in the news, they are rare, making it even more unusual for several to occur over a two-week period in South Florida, experts say. There have been an average of 630 murder-suicides in the United States annually from 2019 to 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archives, a database compiled by a nonprofit that tracks gun violence through law enforcement and media reports. In Florida, there have been 30 murder-suicides through June 30, outpacing the 46 in all of 2023, according to the Archives. Murder-suicides typically begin with someone contemplating ending their life. Media coverage and a possible copycat effect can influence similar cases but will not be a driving force, said Meggen Sixbey, a suicide expert at the University of Florida. It doesnt give them the idea, Sixbey said. They already have the idea. It just now makes it a viable idea. In South Florida, the three incidents where the shooter killed himself as well as his victims began in early June: On Sunday, June 2, police found four bodies in a Kendale Lakes house. Police say 62-year-old Jesus Regueira Jr. shot and killed his mother Mercedes Morato, 84; father Jesus Regueira Sr., 83; and wife Kerstyn Stahre, 61, before turning the gun on himself. READ MORE: Woman whose body was found in Kendall home had not been heard from for days, neighbor said According to a neighbor, Reguiera Jr. was distraught when nurses came to the house to care for Morato, whose health was declining. Four days later, on June 6, 61-year-old Matthew Vincent Roll killed his live-in partner Lusine Melikynan, 41, before turning the gun on himself in a Coral Gables apartment near Coral Gables High, police said. The womans 20-year-old son was wounded but survived the attack in the Gables Ponce building at 310 Granello Ave. READ MORE: Man kills woman, injures her son before taking his own life in Gables apartment, police say A day later, on Friday morning June 7, Michael Andres Pineda Lozano, 41, gunned down his ex-girlfriend Odalys Bancroft, 43, and her 4-year-old son, Theodore Couto, while they were in a car in the ATM drive-thru lane of a West Kendall Chase bank. Bancrofts brother, Michael Trujillo, told NBC6 that his sister was going through a breakup with Lozano, who shot and killed himself. Bancroft had started her career as an operating room nurse at Jackson Health System before becoming director of regulatory affairs for the Miami-Dade public hospital network. She was mourned deeply by her Jackson colleagues. ...Odalys has been a valued member of our team, known for her unwavering dedication, kindness, and exceptional talent, Jackson President and CEO Carlos Migoya said in a statement to employees. In Broward County, the shooter tried to kill himself but failed to end his life. READ MORE: Unimaginable tragedy. Friends remember woman killed with child in Kendall murder-suicide On June 13, Andre Lanns, 27, shot and killed Marrina Guadagnino, 23, and their 3-month old son Andre Lanns II in a Deerfield Beach home in Broward County, police said. Lanns tried to kill himself, police said, but he survived. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. READ MORE: Survivor in a murder-suicide case charged with the deaths of an infant boy and woman Risk factors, mindset of shooters Mental health, a history of domestic violence and access to firearms are the most common risk factors identified in murder-suicides, according to the National Institute of Justice, a division of the Department of Justice. Its also a crime overwhelmingly perpetrated by men, according to a 2020 study by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control. Part of it is comfort with previous exposure to violence and physicality, said Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University. There is a kind of narcissistic entitlement in the line of thinking that My death necessarily means others deaths, and men seem much more prone to that state of mind. In his 2014 book The Perversion of Virtue, Joiner delved into the mindset of people who commit murder-suicides. These acts, he said, often stem from a distorted belief that the act is virtuous or justified. The acts are usually aimed at family members or romantic partners. A persons mind may twist virtues, such as justice, mercy, duty or heroism, to rationalize the murders, Joiner said. The action, he said, could be triggered when someone feels abandoned or is facing separation, leading to intense emotional distress and suicidal thoughts. Joiner outlined four common motives: Mercy: The perpetrator believes they are sparing loved ones from suffering. Duty: The perpetrator feels responsible for preventing their loved ones from enduring hardship or suffering. Justice: The perpetrator seeks to right a wrong by killing those they believe have wronged them before taking their own life. Glory: Less commonly linked to domestic murder-suicides, the perpetrator seeks notoriety or leaving a significant impact. What to watch for Recognizing warning signs of suicidal behavior can be key to preventing murder-suicides, Joiner said. Sudden changes like not being able to sleep, eat or socialize could be concerning. Another kind of social or interpersonal variable thats important is when people feel that theyre a burden on others and that therefore, if they died, it would be a relief to others, he added. Suicide rates, including murder-suicides, often peak in late spring and early summer in the northern hemisphere, Joiner said. The reason why is unclear, though it may be due to increased energy levels. ...Lethal suicidal action, as opposed to just sitting around thinking about it, takes a lot of arousal, a form of energy that is considerable, Joiner said. That arousal level goes up for everybody. And for some people, its too much, and it gives them the energy to do something horrible. If we can recognize the signs and assist with somebody whos feeling suicidal, then we can prevent murder, said UFs Sixbey. Anyone who is experiencing suicidal thoughts should contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (988) or Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741) for immediate support. Regular check-ins with primary care physicians and clergy members, who often have insights into community resources, can also be beneficial, Joiner said. Miami Herald staff writers David Goodhue and Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report. South Korea plans to double its contributions to NATO's trust fund for Ukraine to $24 million in 2025, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on July 11, Yonhap news agency reported. The president made the announcement during a NATO summit in Washington, where the allies gathered to discuss further support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. "(South Korea) will continue to provide security support, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction assistance (to Ukraine)," Yoon said. "Next year, we will double our contribution to NATO's Ukraine Trust Fund compared to this year." Seoul donated $12 million to the NATO-Ukraine Trust Fund for healthcare and rehabilitation of injured soldiers in 2024. South Korea has provided Kyiv with extensive economic and humanitarian aid, pledging $300 million in short-term aid in 2024 and $2 billion in long-term loan interest loans. While initially refusing to provide direct lethal military support, the country recently said it is revising this stance in light of deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea, its chief rival. Media reports emerged in 2023 that South Korea, a major arms producer, is indirectly supplying Ukraine with artillery shells via the U.S., but Seoul has denied this claim. Read also: NATO summit ends with 32 countries signing Ukraine Compact Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A longtime Ontario city council member was arrested earlier this week after authorities said he was driving under the influence, hit another driver and then fled the scene. Jim Bowman, who was first elected to the council in April 1986, was arrested Monday after the Ontario Police Department received reports of a traffic collision in the area of Euclid Avenue and Mission Boulevard around 5:05 p.m. Witnesses told officers that a crash between two vehicles occurred, but one of the drivers drove away. 6 foreign nationals in Southern California charged in massive ATM skimming scam According to police, 911 dispatch received a call just one minute later from the involved party who reportedly left the scene who was in the area of Locust Street and Laurel Avenue. An Ontario Traffic Investigator responded to the scene and began a thorough investigation of the incident. Councilmember Bowman was determined to be at fault and was placed under arrest, police said. Bowman, who faces charges of driving under the influence and hit-and-run with injuries, was transported to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment. The other driver was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said. The case was submitted to the San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office for review. Bowman initially served on the Ontario City Council from 1986-1998. During an eight-year hiatus, he worked for the Ontario Fire Department and served as Fire Chief for the City of Upland for one year. He returned to office in 2006 and has remained a council member since. His current term expires in December 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 KTLA. A San Bernardino County couple was hospitalized after armed burglars assaulted them and ransacked their home. The violent burglary occurred Thursday at a home on the 1600 block of North Orange Street in Redlands at around 3 a.m. The victims, a couple in their late 60s, were sitting outside in their backyard when three masked men suddenly appeared. We were sitting in the backyard, we get up early, said Kim Flores, the victim. The [suspects] sprayed us with pepper spray and they start beating on us. The suspects demanded the couple hand over their valuables and after ransacking their home, escaped with around $2,000 worth of jewelry and other personal items. The couple, left bloodied and bruised, were transported by officers to the hospital for treatment. The home where a Redlands couple was violently assaulted on July 11, 2024. (KTLA) Kim Flores, one of the victims, was beaten on her face and left bruised and swollen. (KTLA) Police search for witnesses and surveillance video after a Redlands couple was violently assaulted at their home on July 11, 2024. (KTLA) The home where a Redlands couple was violently assaulted on July 11, 2024. (KTLA) A neighbor, Anthony Velasquez, recalls seeing the injured couple after the brutal attack. I saw [the husband] sitting at his front doorstep this morning and he was bleeding on his face, Velasquez said. He had a gash on his face. Flores was left with serious bruising and swelling on the left side of her face. Im just worried about him, Flores said of her husband, who was treated for more serious injuries. Burglary crew disguised as construction workers ransack Southern California homes Investigators are asking neighbors for any surveillance footage that might have captured the fleeing burglars. The violent home invasion has left residents on edge. Velasquez considers the victims his friends and said he feels terrible they were assaulted like this. Knowing that the cops just literally tagged your house, searched it and did all this forensic and evidence [procedures], thats very unsettling for them because now theyve lost their peace of mind, Velasquez said. Its unclear whether the couple was targeted by the thieves. No descriptions of the suspects or their getaway car were provided as the case remains under investigation. Anyone with additional information is asked to call Detective Liu at 909-798-7659 or the Redlands Police Department at 909-798-7681, use extension 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 KTLA. A Centralia man was sentenced for crimes relating to distribution of meth, possession of a firearm by a felon and tampering with a witness. DeAndre Owens, 37, sold 18 grams of meth to an undercover agent during the sting operation, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Illinois. An agent also taped Owens with a video recording device, according to court documents. Due to a prior felony conviction in 2016, Owens was not allowed to own a firearm, but in December 2019, his car was searched by police, who found a pistol, according to a press release from the court. Owens also attempted to pay a person off so they wouldnt testify against him, the court records state. The Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with multiple police and sheriff departments in the area on the case. Owens was caught during a sting operation in March of 2022. This substantial sentence underscores DeAndre Owens criminal history as a career offender, Acting Special Agent in Charge Jermaine Deans said. According to court records, Owens has has five felony charges in the past decade. He pleaded guilty to two of them a theft and possession charge. After Owens imprisonment, he is subject to eight years of supervised release, according to the press release. Thames water worker One of Thames Waters finance bosses has left the business amid growing concerns about its future. David Gregg has resigned as director of corporate finance at the troubled utility giant, which has said it risks running out of cash in less than a year. His departure comes just 18 months after joining Thames from Yorkshire Water, during which time the company has edged ever closer to special administration. David Gregg has resigned from the business, which was recently placed into special measures by Ofwat Uncertainty over the future of Britains largest water company has increased in the past week after it was put into special measures by regulator Ofwat in response to its precarious finances, which remain burdened by a 16.5bn debt pile. Bosses said earlier this week that the company is seeking fresh investment of up to 3.25bn to shore up its balance sheet. Thames expects to burn through its 1.85bn cash reserves by May 2025. Mr Gregg, who would have played a key role in liaising with potential investors, is exiting Thames Water next month to take up the role of chief finance officer at Sizewell C. He will join the nuclear power station later this year. It is understood Fred Maroudas, a former director at Network Rail and Heathrow, will replace Mr Gregg on Monday. He will join Alastair Cochran, chief finance officer, in battling to help Thames Water stave off collapse. Chris Weston, chief executive, addressed the threat of nationalisation at Thames Water earlier this week, saying that it was something not in the interests of any of our stakeholders or the UK taxpayers. He said: I cant put any probability on whether it will or wont happen, but it is a long way off if it were to happen and there is a lot more that we can do and will do and are focused on doing over the coming months to make sure that that does not happen. Thames Water is poised to face more intrusive oversight from Ofwat after special measures were announced on Thursday. The watchdog said it was taking the step after criticising Thames Waters inadequate business plan, which it said was submitted late and lacked ambition. Ofwat also revealed that parts of its plan did not have the assurances of Thames own board, which led to it limiting the amount the company can charge customers. Chris Walters, an Ofwat director said: It is difficult for us to stand behind a plan that a board cant stand behind. The so-called turnaround oversight regime being imposed on Thames is the first time that Ofwat has been forced to step in and place a water supplier into a form of special measures since its formation nearly 40 years ago. Ofwat said it is also considering the appointment of an independent monitor to report back to the regulator about the groups financial status. 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. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fleet has been grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration after a Thursday launch from California produced an upper-stage failure that deployed a batch of Starlink satellites into an eccentric orbit. The FAA grounding has immediate impact on the Space Coast's launch schedule which is off to a record-breaking pace this year. All told, 46 of the 50 missions thus far during 2024 have been Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and adjacent NASA's Kennedy Space Center. In a Friday statement, the FAA said, "an investigation is designed to further enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective actions to avoid it from happening again." "A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements," the statement said. Falcon 9: SpaceX logs the Space Coast's 50th launch of 2024 with Turksat 6A satellite mission Monday In the short term in Brevard County, the Falcon 9 program grounding could indefinitely postpone: Sunday's early morning Starlink 10-4 mission, which was set to lift off before dawn from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Another early morning Starlink mission scheduled for Wednesday. The Polaris Dawn mission led by commander Jared Isaacman, which will send four civilians into orbit to conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk. The high-profile launch was set for no earlier than July 31. Thursday's ill-fated Falcon 9 mission took flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying a payload of 20 Starlink satellites. In a statement on the SpaceX website, company officials said a liquid oxygen leak developed on the upper stage, which only deployed the satellites 135 kilometers above the Earth less than half the expected perigee altitude. These satellites will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and "fully demise," the statement said, and, "they do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety." "This event is a reminder of how technically challenging spaceflight is. To date, we have completed 364 successful Falcon launches safely carrying astronauts, customer payloads and thousands of Starlink satellites to orbit making the Falcon family of rockets one of the most reliable in the world," the SpaceX statement said. "SpaceX will perform a full investigation in coordination with the FAA, determine root cause, and make corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions," the statement said. "With a robust satellite and rocket production capability, and a high launch cadence, were positioned to rapidly recover and continue our pace as the worlds most active launch services provider," the statement said. SpaceX's major mishaps have been rare in Florida. In June 2015, a Falcon 9 broke apart 2 minutes and 19 seconds after liftoff from then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. That rocket was carrying a SpaceX Dragon capsule packed with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies bound for the International Space Station. Engineers blamed a broken strut that triggered an oxygen tank explosion. Then in September 2016, a Falcon 9 spectacularly exploded on the pad during a fueling test at the Air Force station, destroying a $200 million communications satellite. The explosion led to changes in helium loading operations. Isaacman previously financed Inspiration4, the first all-private orbital space mission that launched aboard a Falcon 9 in September 2021 from KSC. In a Friday tweet, he praised SpaceX's "incredible track record" with the workhorse rocket. "I can say from personal experience they are very transparent when issues arise. I have no doubt they will arrive at a cause quickly and ensure the most cost-effective and reliable launch vehicle keeps delivering payload to orbit," Isaacman said in the tweet. "As for Polaris Dawn, we will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship and operations," he said. Aside from the 46 Falcon 9 missions, only four other orbital rockets have lifted off this year from the Space Coast: In light of Friday's FAA decision, the next rocket definitively scheduled on the Space Coast calendar is USSF-51, a July 30 ULA Atlas V launch on a Space Force national security mission. The rocket will take flight from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space. Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets grounded by FAA, halting Space Coast liftoffs The failure of a SpaceX rocket's upper stage engine late Thursday that stranded 20 Starlink internet satellites in a low, non-survivable orbit will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and likely will delay at least one and possibly two upcoming piloted flights of the company's Falcon 9 rockets. The mishap ended a remarkable string of 344 successful Falcon 9 flights in a row dating back to 2015. The FAA, which licenses commercial launch operations in the United States, said in a statement Friday a joint failure investigation is required before the workhorse Falcon 9 will be cleared to fly again. An unusual buildup of ice can be seen near the base of a Falcon 9 rocket's second stage during the first of two planned firings late Thursday, presumably caused by a liquid oxygen leak cited by SpaceX as the cause of an engine failure late in the climb to orbit. A large chunk of ice can be seen just to the left of the engine nozzle, vaporizing in the heat of its exhaust. / Credit: SpaceX "A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety," the FAA said. "In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements." In the meantime, the planned July 31 launch of entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and three crewmates on a commercial flight that will include the first spacewalk by private citizens Polaris Dawn is in limbo. The failure also could impact NASA's plans to launch its next long-duration crew to the International Space Station. Liftoff of the Crew 9 mission currently is targeted for around Aug. 19, but that assumes the SpaceX failure investigation is complete by then and that NASA concurs with the findings. For his part, Isaacman was not deterred, posting a note on social media that he and his crew, including two SpaceX employees, have full confidence in the Falcon 9. "SpaceX has an incredible track record with Falcon 9," he said. "I can say from personal experience they are very transparent when issues arise. I have no doubt they will arrive at a cause quickly and ensure the most cost-effective and reliable launch vehicle keeps delivering payload to orbit. "As for Polaris Dawn, we will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship and operations." Given SpaceX's high flight rate and the ability to launch its own payloads Starlinks the company may be able to recover in fairly short order. But that will depend on what went wrong, what might be needed to fix it and when the FAA grants a new launch license. SpaceX founder Elon Musk thanked Isaacman for his support, saying the company "will investigate the issue and look for any other potential near-misses. We are tracking to do more Falcon flights this year than shuttle did in 30 years, the vast majority of which are uncrewed." "A major advantage of this super-high flight rate is that we can identify and resolve problems that may only occur once every 1,000 flights. This is impossible on a low-flight-rate vehicle." However it plays out, the incident underscores NASA's ongoing push to certify Boeing's Starliner capsule after its ongoing test flight is complete. The space agency wants two crew ferry ships from different suppliers to keep the International Space Station staffed with NASA astronauts if a failure grounds one or the other. Boeing has had its own problems with the Starliner, including a series of software and hardware problems that delayed launch by four years. The spacecraft is currently is docked at the space station, but its return to Earth from its first piloted test flight is on hold pending additional analysis of helium leaks and problems with its thrusters. Prior to Thursday's launch, SpaceX had suffered just one in-flight failure in 354 launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets dating back to the system's maiden flight in 2010. A Falcon 9 carrying a Dragon cargo ship loaded with supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station exploded during launch in June 2015 when an internal strut failed, allowing high-pressure helium to rupture the second stage's liquid oxygen tank. In a post on his social media platform early Friday, Musk said the Starlink launch failure occurred during an attempt to restart the rocket's second stage Merlin engine to put the craft in the proper Starlink deploy orbit. He initially said the failure resulted in "an engine RUD," a tongue-in-cheek acronym that stands for "rapid unscheduled disassembly," implying the stage either blew up or at least suffered some sort of structural failure. But the company said later the failure was the result of a liquid oxygen propellant leak and that the stage survived the aborted engine firing. But while it managed to deploy the Starlinks, they were left in an elliptical orbit with a low point far below a manageable altitude. "After a planned relight of the upper stage engine to raise perigee or the lowest point of orbit the Merlin Vacuum engine experienced an anomaly and was unable to complete its second burn," SpaceX said on its website. "Although the stage survived and still deployed the satellites, it did not successfully circularize its orbit. This left the satellites in an eccentric orbit with a very low perigee of 135 kilometers (84 miles), which is less than half the expected perigee altitude." At that altitude, the satellites are being pulled down during repeated passages through the extreme upper atmosphere. Even at full power, the thrust from onboard ion thrusters "is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites," the company said. "As such, the satellites will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and fully demise (burn up). They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety." President Biden holds solo press conference after NATO summit | Special Report SpaceX Falcon 9 breaks apart after launch, and more top stories Biden trying to rally support in Detroit amid more calls for him to drop out By Joey Roulette WASHINGTON (Reuters) -SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket was grounded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday after one broke apart in space and doomed its payload of Starlink satellites, the first failure in more than seven years of a rocket relied upon by the global space industry. Roughly an hour after Falcon 9 lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket's second stage failed to reignite and deployed its 20 Starlink satellites on a shallow orbital path where they will reenter Earth's atmosphere and burn up. The attempt to reignite the engine "resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote early on Friday on his social media platform X, using initials for the industry term Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly that usually means explosion. The Falcon 9 will be grounded until SpaceX investigates the cause of the failure, fixes the rocket and receives the FAA's approval, the agency said in a statement. That process could take several weeks or months, depending on the issue's complexity and SpaceX's plan to fix it. The botched mission of the world's most active rocket ended a success streak of more than 300 straight missions during which SpaceX has maintained its dominance of the launch industry. Many countries and space companies rely on privately owned SpaceX, valued at roughly $200 billion, to send their satellites and astronauts into space. Musk said SpaceX was updating the software of the Starlink satellites to force their on-board thrusters to fire harder than usual to avoid a fiery atmospheric re-entry. "Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it's worth a shot," Musk said. The satellites pose no threat to the public, SpaceX wrote on Friday evening on X. The company did not estimate when they would make their reentry, which would appear as streaks of light across the sky. "Shooting stars," Musk said, replying the SpaceX post. Their altitude is so shallow that Earth's gravity is pulling them 3 miles (5 km) closer toward the atmosphere with each orbit, SpaceX said earlier in the day, confirming they would "re-enter Earth's atmosphere and fully demise." NASA said in a statement on Friday it monitors all of SpaceX's Falcon 9 missions. "SpaceX has been forthcoming with information and is including NASA in the company's ongoing anomaly investigation to understand the issue and path forward," a U.S. space agency spokesperson said. SpaceX said the second stage's failure occurred after engineers detected a leak of liquid oxygen, a propellant. 'INCREDIBLE RUN' The mishap occurred on Falcon 9's 354th mission. It was the first Falcon 9 failure since 2016, when a rocket exploded on a launch pad in Florida and destroyed its customer payload, an Israeli communications satellite. "We knew this incredible run had to come to an end at some point," Tom Mueller, SpaceX's former vice president of propulsion who designed Falcon 9's engines, replied to Musk on X. "... The team will fix the problem and start the cycle again." The failure will likely stymie SpaceX's intensifying Falcon 9 launch pace. The rocket's 96 launches last year were its most to date and exceeded the annual launch total in any country. By comparison, China, a space rival to the United States, launched 67 missions to space in 2023 using various rockets. "It is extremely rare for Falcon to fail. They have a much better rate than almost any other rocket developed in terms of the success of their mission," said Will Whitehorn, chair of the venture capital firm Seraphim Space Investment Trust. Although Thursday night's Falcon 9 flight was an in-house mission, the rocket's grounding is likely to impact upcoming SpaceX customer missions. Falcon 9 is the only U.S. rocket capable of sending NASA crews to the International Space Station. NASA was expecting to launch its next astronaut mission in August, with SpaceX's Crew Dragon astronaut capsule launching atop the rocket. NASA has been trying to help fix unrelated problems with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which is in the midst of a test mission to prove it can become NASA's second astronaut ride to orbit alongside Crew Dragon. SpaceX was poised to launch as early as July 31 its Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon mission sending four private astronauts into orbit for a few days to conduct the first commercial spacewalk using the company's newly designed spacesuits. Jared Isaacman, head of the Polaris program and a mission crew member, said he expects SpaceX to quickly recover from the failure. "As for Polaris Dawn, we will fly whenever SpaceX is ready and with complete confidence in the rocket, spaceship and operations," Isaacman wrote on X. Musk replied that "we will investigate the issue and look for any other potential near-misses." SpaceX has launched about 7,000 Starlink satellites of various designs into space since 2018 for its global broadband internet network. Industry analysts have said the satellites on Thursday's mission could be worth at least $10 million combined. (Reporting by Joey Roulette; Additional reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh and Akash Siram; Editing by Will Dunham, Barbara Lewis and David Holmes) New Species of Magic Mushrooms Discovered in Africa Are Unknown to Science Planet Earth is home to possibly hundreds of species of magic mushroom that contain the hallucinogen, psilocybin. Systematic fieldwork surveys of the genus, Psilocybe, however, are "entirely lacking" for many regions of the world. Now, a new paper describes two species of magic mushroom in southern Africa that are wholly new to science. That brings the total number of reported Psilocybe mushrooms on the continent from just four to six. One of the species, called Psilocybe maluti, is the first scientifically documented magic mushroom with traditional, spiritual uses in Africa. P. maluti was originally photographed in 2021 growing on cow manure in the Free State province of South Africa. The golden caramel cap of the fruiting body was collected by self-taught mycologist Daniella Mulder, who sent the unusual looking specimens and some images of them to mycologist Breyten van der Merwe from Stellenbosch University in South Africa for further morphological and genetic analysis. Psilocybe maluti, photographed in the Kingdom of Lesotho, 31 December 2021. (Cullen Clark) When it was determined to be a new species, another self-taught mycologist named Cullen Clark along with scientists at Stellenbosch went searching for other mushrooms like it. They found matching specimens in the Kingdom of Lesotho, a landlocked nation fully surrounded by South Africa. The team got in touch with Mamosebetsi Sethathi, a traditional healer of the kingdom's most prominent ethnic group; the Basotho people. Sethathi kindly shared their traditional uses for the fruiting bodies of P. maluti. According to anecdotes, local Basotho healers called lingaka (plural) or ngaka (singular) consume the conically capped mushrooms as part of spiritual tradition. Basotho shamans, called linohe, use the mushrooms to "foresee the future". Other healers, known as ngaka-chitja, occasionally use the mushrooms in association with their "vast knowledge of herbs and remedies" to treat others. Along with the psychoactive plant Boophone disticha, the magic mushrooms are steeped in a strong tea known as koae-ea-lekhoaba, which is sometimes used in traditional medicine or hunting poison. When a patient drinks the brew, they enter a "trance-like state" and are placed in front of a reflective surface, so they may relay what they are seeing to the healer. The healer then interprets the results and advises the patient on how best to proceed. "This appears to be the only recorded firsthand report of hallucinogenic mushrooms being used traditionally in Africa and the first mention of hallucinogenic mushroom use in Sub-Saharan Africa," write the Stellenbosch University led team. "The knowledge shared and discussed in this study has been passed down through generations by word of mouth." The other newly described species found in Africa has been named P. ingeli. Found in 2023 by amateur mycologist Talan Moult in a coastal province of South Africa, the fruiting bodies of this novel species were growing on grass enriched with cow manure toward the end of the rainy season. Psilocybe ingeli, photographed in Kwa-Zulu Natal Province, South Africa on 28 February 2023. (Talan Moult) The gills are light colored and the cap is dark compared to the species' closest genetic relative in Asia, called P. keralensis. Unlike P. maluti it has only been found growing in this one province. Researchers at Stellenbosch hope that their current paper will encourage further research into southern Africa's diversity of mushrooms. The lead authors, van der Merwe and microbiologist Karin Jacobs, say they are indebted to self-taught mycologists who are helping to survey Africa's Psilocybe mushrooms. "There are only a handful of mycologists in Africa documenting local biodiversity," says Jacobs, who runs the lab at Stellenbosch. "Collaborating with citizen mycologists is therefore hugely beneficial. In addition to more material, collaboration also opens avenues for conversation and exploration, which can lead to documenting mycophilia (the love of mushrooms) on the African continent." The study was published in Mycologia. Related News Spirit Airlines celebrates 25 years at LAX with some $25 flights for 1 day only Spirit Airlines, one of the worlds most well-known ultra low-cost carriers, is celebrating a major milestone in Southern California and is inviting travelers to join in on the festivities. Spirit is marking 25 years of service at LAX, and as part of the celebration, the airline is offering deep discounts on its one-way flights, including three departures for only $25. But the discounts are not here to stay; the special offer must be booked on Friday, July 12. The flights must take place some time between Aug. 13 and Oct. 10 aboard one of the 40 nonstop flights to the 25 destinations that Spirit services of LAX. The $25 flight deal applies to Los Angeles flights to Oakland, Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. The complete list of discounted flights and their frequency out of LAX is below: Los Angeles (LAX) Service Destination Frequency Anniversary Fares Atlanta (ATL) 2x Daily $57* one way Baltimore (BWI) 2x Daily $77* one way Boston (BOS) NEW SEASONAL Daily $63** one way Charlotte (CLT) Daily $77* one way Chicago (ORD) 2-3x Daily $59* one way Cleveland (CLE) Daily $59* one way Columbus (CMH) Daily $129* one way Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) 3x Daily $69* one way Detroit (DTW) 3x Daily $89* one way Fort Lauderdale (FLL) 4x Weekly $114* one way Houston (IAH) 3x Daily $59* one way Kanas City (MCI) Daily $64* one way Las Vegas (LAS) 4-5x Daily $25* one way Louisville (SDF) 4x Weekly $89* one way Nashville (BNA) Daily $32* one way Newark (EWR) Daily $134* one way New Orleans (MSY) Daily $74* one way Oakland (OAK) 1 2x Daily $25* one way Philadelphia (PHL) Daily $99* one way Pittsburgh (PIT) Daily $64 one way Portland (PDX) Daily $32* one way Reno (RNO) Daily $25* one way Salt Lake City (SLC) Daily $39* one way San Antonio (SAT) Daily $34* one way San Jose (SJC) 2x Daily $32* one way Seattle (SEA) Daily $42* one way In addition to the direct flights, Spirit is offering travelers who belong to its rewards program bonus points for one-way and roundtrip flights that takeoff between Aug. 15 and Oct. 31. We first landed at Los Angeles International Airport 25 years ago and are proud to have grown to be one of the largest low-fare airlines at LAX, thanks to the support of our Guests and long-term partners at Los Angeles World Airports, said Spirit Airlines CEO Ted Christie. The budget airline also celebrated the 25-year milestone by making a $25,000 donation to the L.A. nonprofit TreePeople. The sizable donation will advance the organizations support of sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, volunteer community-based action, and advocacy, a Spirit news release states. Christie says the airline is looking forward to continuing to serve L.A. travelers and investing in the local community through the Spirit Charitable Foundation. To read more about the limited time deals and additional fees and restrictions, 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 KTLA. Springfield City Manager Jason Gage gives a report to the Springfield City Council as it meets at the Springfield Regional Police and Fire Training Center on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023. After serving as Springfield's City Manager for six years, Jason Gage has surfaced as one of four finalists for a city manager role in Manhattan, Kansas. Gage was hired in 2018 after working in Salina, Kansas, for 18 years also as city manager. When he was hired, he made $220,000, but the most recent amendment, fourth of its kind, to his employment agreement put his salary at $267,644.52 in September. "Springfield is a terrific community and the city organization has been very good to me," Gage told the News-Leader via text. "If selected for the Manhattan position, there is much I would miss about Springfield. Manhattan is also a vibrant town and the possibility of being closer to family is very appealing." According to a city of Manhattan news release, the four finalists were selected from a field of 50 applicants. Gage has the most experience from the four in local government. The city is holding in-person interviews and community engagement events July 22-23. During Gage's tenure, the city has experienced a turnover in leadership both from resignations and retirements. Within the past three years, city has seen resignations from leaders of Workforce Development, Building Development Services and Planning and Development and has also dealt with long-time employees retiring from City Attorney and director of Planning and Development and Springfield-Greene County Health Department positions. The city has also embarked on a number of infrastructure projects during this time, include the Grant Avenue Parkway and Jefferson Avenue Streetscape projects. The city has also laid the groundwork for daylighting Jordan Creek and reopening the historic Jefferson Avenue footbridge. Assistant Director of Public Information Melissa Haase said the city did not have comment on Gage being a candidate for the position in Kansas. Known as the "Little Apple," Manhattan is located in the northeast of the state roughly 60 miles west of Topeka and home to Kansas State University. According to the Decennial Census data, Manhattan has a population of approximately 54,000 in comparison to Springfield's 169,000. Marta Mieze covers local government at the News-Leader. Have feedback, tips or story ideas? Contact her at mmieze@news-leader.com. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield city manager Jason Gage one of 4 finalists for Kansas job HELENA, Mont. (WCIA) A Springfield coffee shop owner and pilot has died after her plane crashed while fighting a wildfire in Montana. Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, parts of which are burning in the Horse Gulch Fire, announced that Juliana Turchetti passed away while collecting water from a reservoir. Her plane, an Air Tractor 802, crashed into the water and she did not survive. Turchettis plane was under contract by the Idaho Department of Lands and was on loan to the U.S. Forest Service to aid in firefighting efforts. Springfield Police, Lincoln Land Community College announce Cadet Program Our hearts and prayers go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Juliana. The IDL firefighting and aviation community has been hit hard by this tragedy, said IDL Director Dustin Miller. Wildland firefighters, by air and by ground, step up to do this dangerous work to protect our communities and lands. Juliana has given the ultimate sacrifice. Our hearts are heavy and she will not be forgotten. Prior to living and working in Idaho, Turchetti was born in Brazil, where she became one of the countrys first female agriculture pilots. After immigrating to the United States and settling in Illinois capital city, she became an advocate for agricultural aviation and was a frequent guest of local aviation groups and historical societies. The Latin American Aviation Historical Society and the Springfield chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association both paid tribute to her with posts on their Facebook pages. An EAA spokesperson told WCIA that Turchetti often provided free coffee at their events and that the last time they spoke with her, she said I cant wait to get back to what I love doing. Photo courtesy of the EAA Chapter 770 of Springfield Photo courtesy of the EAA Chapter 770 of Springfield In addition to her love of flying, Turchetti loved brewing Brazilian coffee and was the owner of Aviatori Coffeehouse on Logan Avenue. After running the coffee shop for two years, Turchetti sold the business in the spring after accepting her firefighting job in Idaho. In a video posted to the business Facebook page in March, Turchetti said it was her ultimate goal in aviation to help fight fires from the air. Officials react to grain bin rescue in Champaign County Turchettis passing was also recognized by the Governors of Montana and Idaho, Greg Gianforte and Brad Little, who issued the following joint statement: We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the young female wildland firefighter who tragically lost her life responding to the Horse Gulch fire in Helena, Montana. 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. Governors Greg Gianforte and Brad Little Turchetti is survived by her 17-year-old son who lives in Brazil. 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. St. Louis bill would rename street outside City Hall after Michael Brown ST. LOUIS A new St. Louis board bill calls to rename part of a street near City Hall after Michael Brown Jr., nearly a decade since his death in Ferguson, Missouri. Alderman Rasheen Aldridge formally introduced Board Bill 69 on Friday, which would create an honorary street name of Michael O.D. Brown Way. The bill proposes to rename a stretch of Tucker Boulevard from Clark Avenue to Market Street after Brown. The board bill reads, in part, Michael Browns legacy on the City of St. Louis should be recognized for the impact that his life had on our City, on our nation, and across the world. Missouri woman says residents should unite against states attempt to reclaim pandemic money On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson following an altercation. Police documents from 2014 allege Brown was killed after he was suspected of stealing from a local convenience store. Browns death drew national attention to police brutality and racial inequality in the United States, coinciding with the early stages of the Black Lives Matter movement. His death led to weeks of unrest and protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, including violent confrontations between demonstrators and law enforcement. According to the bills text, Browns death forged a political coalition helped reform St. Louis city politics and elect more Black candidates to city offices. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Aldridge, who introduced the bill, has previously served with the Ferguson Commission to study social and economic conditions in the St. Louis region following Browns death. According to St. Louis City ordinances, the bill would require at least 60 percent support among registered voters who reside or own a business along the stretch of Tucker Boulevard that could be renamed for an honorary street. Those registered voters would need to sign a petition. After that, the Board of Aldermen would need to formally recognize the petition before any changes. There are a few honorary street names in the City of St. Louis right now named after former Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck, former Blues player Brett Hull and Civil Rights activist Dred Scott. 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. TOPEKA (KSNT) Police say staff at a local business shot a dangerous individual Wednesday in north Topeka. Rosie Nichols with the City of Topeka told 27 News in a written statement officers with the Topeka Police Department (TPD) were called just after 11 p.m. on July 10 to a shooting in the 200 block of NW Independence Avenue. Law enforcement was told an individual entered a local business after it had closed for the day. This embedded content is not available in your region. The individual allegedly pulled out a weapon and began threatening staff. This prompted staff to shoot the individual who then fled the area, eventually arriving at a local hospital. Nichols said the individual is in stable condition and that officers have made contact with everyone involved in the incident. The investigation into this matter is ongoing. Indiana men arrested after Kansas sheriff finds 100 pounds of weed in traffic stop 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. An aerial view of a construction site at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue that locals have dubbed "WeHo Lake." (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) The Melrose Triangle mixed-use development project with 80 residential units, featuring home office pod spaces, a two-level cafe and retail shops was expected to transform a highly visible intersection in West Hollywood. Instead, with construction on hold, the site has become a large, swampy pool that neighbors have nicknamed "WeHo Lake" because of the accumulation of green-hued water, presumably colored by algae. Over the last several months, the water has inundated the construction site at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue, providing a home for a new type of tenant mosquitoes, ducks and other water-loving critters, residents say. It is unclear when the structural part of the project will begin. Read more: Home prices are rising nearly everywhere. Not in Hollywood Jack Kurchian, a project manager for developer Charles Co., told The Times that the water began to stagnate after many of the 34 groundwater pumps installed on the property were vandalized. The pumps have since been repaired and the water level has been reduced, but the company is getting additional pumps to remove the rest of the water. "It's been receding. We've probably pumped it down two or three feet already with the pumps that are there," Kurchian said. "It's just not happening fast enough." West Hollywood city officials said the development is situated on a high water table where the ground soil is more saturated. The city's code enforcement team gave the property owner a notice of violation June 24 and is working with the owner to ensure that the water is drained, according to a city news release. The city said Los Angeles County West Vector Control District inspectors have visited the construction site to monitor mosquito activity , but the agency could not be reached Friday to comment further. Kurchian said representatives told him they did not find active mosquitoes. Read more: With vacancies soaring, developer abandons plans for L.A. Arts District office tower Video recently taken at the site shows a pair of ducks swimming in the murky water. The development has been in the works for at least a decade, but has hit roadblocks including a lawsuit that questioned the adequacy of the city's environmental review of the project. Local advocacy groups, including the Los Angeles Conservancy, had called for developers to preserve the former building on the site, which housed the Jones Dog & Cat Hospital as part of the project. They cited its importance as one of the city's few examples of Streamline Moderne commercial architecture. The building was demolished in 2018. 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. As global markets navigate through varying economic signals, the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong has shown resilience with a modest gain during a holiday-shortened week. Amid these fluctuating conditions, dividend stocks continue to attract attention for their potential to offer steady returns. In this context, selecting strong dividend-yielding stocks can be particularly prudent, providing investors with a possible buffer against market volatility while potentially enhancing long-term investment portfolios. Top 10 Dividend Stocks In Hong Kong Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating CITIC Telecom International Holdings (SEHK:1883) 9.37% China Construction Bank (SEHK:939) 7.77% S.A.S. Dragon Holdings (SEHK:1184) 8.97% China Electronics Huada Technology (SEHK:85) 8.14% Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank (SEHK:3618) 7.97% China Overseas Grand Oceans Group (SEHK:81) 8.57% International Housewares Retail (SEHK:1373) 9.11% Bank of China (SEHK:3988) 7.26% China Mobile (SEHK:941) 6.24% Sinopharm Group (SEHK:1099) 4.45% Click here to see the full list of 91 stocks from our Top SEHK Dividend Stocks screener. We'll examine a selection from our screener results. Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Xtep International Holdings Limited, based in China, specializes in the design, development, manufacturing, and marketing of sports footwear, apparel, and accessories for adults and children with a market capitalization of approximately HK$12.67 billion. Operations: Xtep International Holdings Limited generates revenue primarily through three segments: Mass Market at CN11.95 billion, Fashion Sports at CN1.60 billion, and Professional Sports at CN0.80 billion. Dividend Yield: 4.3% Xtep International Holdings offers a dividend yield of 4.28%, which is modest compared to Hong Kong's top dividend payers. While its dividends are supported by earnings and cash flows with payout ratios of 48.8% and 58.6% respectively, the company has experienced volatility in its dividend payments over the past decade. Recent operational updates indicate a positive retail growth trajectory, yet changes in executive roles and amendments in company bylaws suggest transitional phases that could impact future financial strategies and dividend policies. SEHK:1368 Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Tsingtao Brewery Company Limited operates globally, focusing on the production, distribution, wholesale, and retail sale of beer products with a market capitalization of approximately HK$85.88 billion. Operations: Tsingtao Brewery Company Limited generates its revenue primarily through the production and sale of beer products globally. Dividend Yield: 4.3% Tsingtao Brewery recently approved a final dividend of RMB 2 per share, payable on August 9, with changes in its board and auditor signaling a strategic realignment. While the company's dividends have shown growth over the past decade, its current yield of 4.25% is low compared to Hong Kong's top dividend stocks. Despite trading below fair value by 36.7%, concerns about coverage by earnings and free cash flows persist, as indicated by a high cash payout ratio of 145.5%. SEHK:168 Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: Overview: Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited operates as an investment holding company that manufactures and sells jewelry products in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and other international markets, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$83.70 billion. Operations: Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited generates HK$89.70 billion from its Mainland China operations and HK$19.92 billion from its combined Hong Kong, Macau, and other international markets. Dividend Yield: 6.6% Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited reported a robust financial year with sales reaching HK$108.71 billion, up from HK$94.68 billion the previous year, and net income increasing to HK$6.50 billion. Despite this growth, the company's dividend history shows variability, with a recent proposal of HK$0.3 per share for 2024. The dividends are well-covered by earnings and cash flows, with payout ratios at 84.6% and 42.7% respectively, suggesting sustainability despite past fluctuations in dividend consistency. SEHK:1929 Dividend History as at Jul 2024 Key Takeaways Gain an insight into the universe of 91 Top SEHK Dividend Stocks by clicking here. Shareholder in one or more of these companies? Ensure you're never caught off-guard by adding your portfolio in Simply Wall St for timely alerts on significant stock developments. Invest smarter with the free Simply Wall St app providing detailed insights into every stock market around the globe. Ready For A Different Approach? 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:168 and SEHK:1929. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com How Stanislaus Countys farmers are helping workers, livestock and crops beat the heat As the daily high temperatures linger in the triple digits, dipping only into the upper 90s in the days ahead, farmers in Stanislaus County persevere in the heat. Daniel Bays, a farmer in Westley, adjusts his routine during the heat wave. He and his employees begin work earlier in the morning, taking advantage of the cooler hours and aiming to wrap up by noon. Some days, they opt for shorter work periods. Tasks that demand fieldwork are scheduled for nighttime, despite it being harder to see. He notes that its hottest between 2 and 6 p.m. Productivity takes a hit during hot weather as everyones energy levels decrease. Despite this challenge, he said he strives to maintain crop vitality, achieve a successful year in business and ensure everyone is fed. We try to stay flexible with whatever Mother Nature throws at us and take care of each other so were all here for tomorrow, next week and next year, Bays said. Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies, has observed a rise in both the intensity and frequency of heat waves in the Central Valley. Western United Dairies employs various technologies to beat the heat, including large-scale evaporative cooling fans, drip systems and air conditioning. Despite preparations including backup generators for power outages, Raudabaugh remains concerned about potential grid failures. I am worried about the length of this heat wave. I dont know what were gonna do, she said. I think well persevere through it, but its going to be a miserable week. Agricultural workers face higher risk Cal/OSHA implemented the heat illness prevention standard, which includes mandates for employers when temperatures exceed 95 degrees, such as providing at least 10-minute breaks every two hours. Water, rest and shade are the three elements that need to be provided, said Anna Genasci, communication and education director at the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau conducts annual heat illness prevention classes in both English and Spanish, ensuring that employees receive necessary training on preventing heat-related illnesses. Farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die from heat-related stress than workers in other industries, according to research. In 2008, a pregnant 17-year-old agricultural worker died from a heat stroke while tying grape vines on a farm near Stockton. The incident catalyzed the water, rest and shade campaign and raised awareness about heat illness among agricultural workers. Symptoms of heat-related illnesses include heavy sweating, elevated body temperature, dizziness and confusion. If someone starts exhibiting any sort of fatigue, its essential to get the person to a hospital quickly, Genasci said. Some agriculture employers are providing electrolytes and ice pops to their employees to help them stay cool and hydrated, Genasci said. She advises avoiding alcohol, energy drinks and caffeine, which can make you more dehydrated. Bays said some workers are reluctant to work shorter days because it reduces their hours. Under Wage Order 14, which applies to most agricultural workers, there are regulations specifying that if employees are asked to report for work but sent home early due to heat, they are entitled to a minimum amount of pay. Even if hours are cut due to heat conditions, workers must still receive compensation for a specified duration. Raudabaugh said her greatest concern is for undocumented farmers, because many feel compelled to endure extreme heat conditions without complaint. The pregnant teen who died in 2008 was undocumented. Raudabaugh hopes for a shift in this mindset if there were greater security in their immigration status. Impact on crops and livestock Raudabaugh said dairy cows dont handle heat well, so keeping them cool is important. Farmers use fans, evaporative coolers, waterbeds and cold water dripping down the animals backs. When older cows are exposed to really excessive heat, they start to die, she said. They cannot handle it, she said. Genasci said some crops also become stressed in the heat, so its best not to disturb them too much by, for instance, fertilizing or overwatering. Obviously, we want the work to get done. But we got to take care of our people or theyre not going to take care of the crop, she said. Sir Keir Starmer declined to comment on his own children's mobile usage asking that they continue to be kept out of politics - STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA Sir Keir Starmer has rejected calls to ban mobile phones for children under the age of 16. The Prime Minister said he was willing to look at restrictions on the content young people can access online. Last year Esther Ghey, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, called for phones to be fitted with restrictions for the under-16s, so they cannot access harmful content. Miriam Cates, the Former Tory MP, went further and said those under 16 should not be able to have phones at all. Asked about the calls by ITVs Good Morning Britain, the Prime Minister said: Our children have mobile phones and Im not in favour of simply banning them for children under 16. I think theres a serious question as to what the content is and the control of the content and that is something where I think we need to look again. Esther Ghey has called for restrictions to be brought into place to stop under-16s accessing harmful content - LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES EUROPE Sir Keir would not answer questions about how he limits social media use for his children. Im not going to; we dont name our children, he said. We dont have photographs with our children. Im not going to start introducing them into interviews if you dont mind because Ive taken a strong decision with my wife that we will not be bringing our children into politics, but generally, I do think we should look at what is available online to children. But in relation to simply banning phones for under-16s, I dont think thats a good idea. I dont think thats a practical way forward. I will sit down with anyone to look at how well put in place better protections because all parents and everybody across the country is concerned about what can actually be accessed on a phone. In May, Ms Cates called for under-16s to be banned from using smartphones saying: If they were a drug, phones would be removed from the market. Earlier this week, Ms Ghey said she hoped Sir Keir would bring in tough action to protect children on their phones. What I am calling for is for there to be more research as the term age appropriateness is being thrown around all the time, but what age is appropriate? he said. We dont know, so more research on how social media and smartphone use is actually affecting mental health and wellbeing. Brianna was forced into this online world (during lockdown), and social isolation and the ease of getting social contact online overtook her, and she became really addicted to her phone Something I really struggled with as a parent was being able to monitor and safeguard her online, so I would like to see devices that have simple safeguarding and parental controls. Esther Ghey, right, has campaigned for stricter online safety rules following the death of her daughter Brianna, left, who was murdered in February 2023 Sir Keir said he did not know whether he would be able to finish work at 6pm on Friday night. He said just before the election that he liked to do so to spend time with his family. The Prime Minister said: I dont know about that, yet. Weve been working around the clock actually for weeks on end now, because we came off the back of the campaign. And so its been non-stop: thats not a complaint. All I ever said was an aspiration to spend time with my wife and children, which I think is important but weve been hard at it Weve really done what we said we would do, which is to hit the ground running, to understand the nature of the challenge we have that was left by the last government, roll up our sleeves and get on with the first steps to fixing it. Esther Ghey said it is difficult as a parent to monitor and safeguard children's activity online - PAUL GROVER FOR THE TELEGRAPH It comes as the Prime Minister suggested laws banning assisted dying will not be repealed for at least 18 months. In a blow for campaigners, the Prime Minister said he had other priorities for his first year in office. Any vote to legalise assisted dying would be introduced by a backbencher, but if it is to pass into law it would require the government to ensure there was enough Parliamentary time. Calls for a change in the law have gained traction since Dame Esther Rantzen, the former Thats Life presenter, revealed she had late-stage cancer and had joined the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Assisted dying reform was last voted on in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated at second reading by 330 votes to 118. But the new Labour-dominated Commons is much less religious than in previous years, with two in five MPs having declined to swear their allegiance to God. It means a change in the law may be more possible. Sir Keir said: What I said was that we would provide time for this, obviously, by way of a private members bill , and there will be a free vote, that remains my position. Having probably got more experience than most people, having personally looked at tens of cases in my time as Director of Public Prosecutions. As to the timing of it, I havent made a commitment on timing and I dont want to. Im not going back on the commitment I made, but we have got to set out priorities for the first year or so, but I will double down on the commitment, we will allow time for a private members bill, and there will be a free vote. It takes a few months for legislation to pass through both Houses of Parliament, meaning that if it is not introduced in the first year, it would not pass in the first 18 months of Sir Keirs government. Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to be robust with China. It sounds better than his predecessors talk of robust pragmatism, but it must be accompanied by specific action. Tough talk, by itself, is next to meaningless if concrete measures do not follow. In its manifesto, Labour promised a cross-Whitehall audit of China policy. This is welcome, as long as it is not an excuse for equivocation. It should involve serious reflection on the grave human rights crisis in China and how we hold the perpetrators of atrocities to account, an acute awareness of the transnational repression campaign waged by Beijing, and high alertness to the increasing security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the free world. The audit, I would politely advise, should include consultation with civil society, security experts and diaspora communities, not least the more than 200,000 Hong Kongers who have made the UK their home, as well as Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese dissidents. It should build on the multiple warnings by the head of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ about Chinas espionage threat to this country, and last years report by Parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee, which warned that China has penetrated every sector of our economy in a whole of state assault, and that the UKs response is completely inadequate. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping As I have written many times for The Telegraph: China under Xi Jinping poses the single most important foreign policy challenge of our time. If you look at almost every other crisis around the world, you will find Chinas fingerprints in some form. From enabling Putins war in Ukraine, as Nato leaders recognised this week, to its shadowy role in the Israel-Hamas conflict and across the Middle East, from facilitating brutal dictatorships in Myanmar and North Korea to threatening Taiwan, one of Asias most vibrant democracies, the regime in Beijing is the biggest threat to the international rules-based order. But it is not only a foreign policy challenge it is also a profoundly significant domestic policy concern. From its influence in our universities to its penetration of the City, from the cyber-security and espionage threats to transnational repression, Chinas CCP regime should be recognised for what it is: not the epoch-defining challenge which Sunak called it, but a clear and present danger. Labours stated China policy to co-operate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must is admirably balanced. But to be realistic, the scope for co-operation is likely to be limited with a regime as aggressive and belligerent as Xis, and so the Government must be prepared to compete and challenge. There are many steps that should be taken. Here are just a few ideas. First, the government should declare a ban on the import of products made by forced labour in China, require British businesses manufacturing or importing from China to ensure their supply chains are free of slave labour and prohibit new trade agreements with a regime credibly accused by the US government, our Parliament and an independent tribunal chaired by one of Britains top barristers, Sir Geoffrey Nice, KC of genocide. They could facilitate this by ensuring all products made in China and potentially made by victims of modern slavery and genocide are labelled so. Second, sanction those responsible for dismantling Hong Kongs promised freedoms, in total breach of a UN-registered international treaty, the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Over the past five years, Hong Kongs freedoms have been torn up and what was once one of Asias most open cities transformed into one of its most repressive police states. Freedom of expression, assembly and protest have been shut down, the independent media forced to close, civil society severely curtailed, pro-democracy politicians expelled and excluded from the legislature and hundreds of activists, including elected legislators, jailed. To allow those responsible to get away with this with impunity, with no consequence, simply emboldens them to extend their repression further. Protesters attend a demonstration demanding Hong Kong's leaders step down and withdraw the extradition bill, in Hong Kong, China, June 16, 2019 Third, the prime minister, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, should meet Sebastien Lai, son of one of Hong Kongs highest profile political prisoners, 76 year-old British citizen and entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, at the earliest opportunity. Lai, who has been in prison for over three and a half years, is currently on trial under Hong Kongs draconian National Security Law and could die in jail. Sunak never responded to Sebastiens repeated requests to meet, and it was not until last December three years after Lai was first jailed that a Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, agreed to do so. Sir Keir and Lammy should do so urgently, and should make it a priority to demand Lais release. Fourth, Britains universities should receive help to reduce dependency on China, diversify funding sources and their international student intake. That does not mean rejecting Chinese students, but it does mean scrutinising their backgrounds more carefully, being more selective about what institutions in China to partner with, and crucially, broadening the pool of international students so that our higher education sector is not tilted to one particular market above others. The CCPs influence on our campuses represents a serious threat to academic freedom, freedom of expression and our long-term security, and must be countered as a matter of urgency. Fifth, the new government should take transnational repression seriously, and develop a range of tools to prevent infiltration, intimidation or harassment of both diaspora communities and prominent British critics of the CCP. I am not alone in having been on the receiving end of threats and attacks indeed, several British Parliamentarians and scholars have also endured endless harassment. These incidents, and the cyber attacks from China on Parliament, the Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Defence and other institutions cannot go unchallenged. And if there is ever a repeat of the appalling incident in October 2022, when peaceful Hong Kong protesters were beaten up and dragged into the grounds of the Chinese Consulate in Manchester by Chinese diplomats, the new government must respond much more robustly than the last. It should instantly expel such agents, and declare them persona non grata. Sixth, Sir Keir might like to review what progress there has been in stripping out Hikvision surveillance cameras from government buildings; he might ensure that hospitality is not offered to CCP representatives while UK Parliamentarians are sanctioned by Beijing; and he should reassure Hong Kong British National Overseas (BNO) status holders that they are welcome in this country, that their government will fight for their right to access their pension savings from Hong Kong and that, if they wish to study here, they will pay domestic, not international, fees. At the UN, he might ensure the UK plays a leading role in championing human rights resolutions on China in New York and Geneva. And lastly, seventh, economic growth it is vital that the sources of trade and investment underpinning that growth are diverse, that we reduce dependency on any one market and derisk business relations with China. No one would seriously suggest we stop all trade with China, but we should think seriously about which sectors we allow Chinese investment in and the ethics of our supply chains. We should screen investment and reduce the exposure of our critical infrastructure to authoritarian regimes. And in its goal to deliver clean energy, the government should be wary of the dangers of dependency on Chinese electric vehicles and their potential to be used for surveillance. These are just some of the things that Sir Keir needs to think about. He also needs to consider how to hold China accountable for inflicting the Covid-19 pandemic upon the world, and make it a priority to stand with Taiwan and do everything possible to deter an invasion of that beautiful democracy and prevent a war that would be catastrophic for us all. He also ought to have at least a courtesy call in person or online with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, currently recovering from knee surgery in New York. Only then will he fulfil his vow to be robust on China. Benedict Rogers is co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch, an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and author of The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Partys Tyranny. 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. Correction: This story was updated to correct a detail about the county's prior Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy approved by then-Monroe County Sheriff Brad Swain. Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marte has been sued by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who claims the sheriff's policy regarding undocumented immigrants violates state law. After filing a lawsuit against East Chicago earlier this week, I am now taking similar action in Monroe County over an Immigration and Citizenship Status policy, which we find also violates state law," Rokita said in a news release. Marte did not immediately respond to a voicemail message Friday, but the sheriff's department emailed a statement to say that it has no plans to change its policy. Rokita filed the suit Thursday in Monroe Circuit Court. The sheriff's office had not submitted a response as of Friday morning. Ruben Marte According to the lawsuit, Rokita said the sheriff implemented a policy that prohibits or limits Monroe County Sheriffs Office personnel from voluntary cooperation with federal officials in enforcement of federal immigration laws. Among other things, Rokita said, the local policy prohibits MCSO personnel from request(ing) or attempt(ing) to ascertain (i.e. run) immigration or citizenship status of an individual that they encounter related to their official duties unless required to do so. Rokitas suit cites a new state law that prohibits a governmental agency from enacting or implementing a local law or policy that prohibits or in any way restricts another governmental body from taking certain actions with regard to information of the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an individual. Rokita said his office sent Marte a letter on May 14 to notify the sheriff of his unlawful policy, and subsequent communication indicated Marte planned to revise the policy. However, after reviewing a draft of the revised policy, Rokita said he notified Marte the revision also would violate state law. The sheriff implemented the unlawful version of the local policy anyway, according to the suit. Rokita has asked a court to compel Marte to stop violating state law, the suit reads. In an emailed statement, the sheriff's office quoted two lines from its policy: MCSO employees shall not detain individual(s) solely based on a non-criminal/administrative ICE detainer. MCSO employees shall not hold an individual(s) beyond their scheduled release date based on a non-criminal/administrative ICE detainer. "There is no plan to change that policy," the statement read. Immigration battle: Rokita threatens legal action against Monroe County sheriff over ICE detention policy The countys prior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy, part of the Monroe County jail directives since 2014, was reviewed and approved by then-sheriff Brad Swain in 2018. It allows foreign nationals, but with local ties, to be released from jail when charged with low-level crimes instead of being held for federal immigration detention. Federal law allows 48-hour ICE holds. Back in 2020, Swain said there was no written rule, but instead a mutual understanding between local and federal officials about which inmates would be detained for ICE officials. Book-in fingerprints go into a nationwide database that allows ICE to know who has been arrested. Swain said then that he considered the arrested persons local connections, criminal history and risk to the public when deciding whether to report the arrest to federal authorities. Rokita filed suit July 8 against East Chicago for its "Welcoming City" ordinance. A spokesperson told the IndyStar Rokita worked with West Lafayette to change its policy and in a statement Rokita said his office "will continue evaluating other local units of government" for potential violations. Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana attorney general sues Monroe County sheriff over detention policy South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Secretary Kevin Robling, center-left, and Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden, center-right, honor conservation officers on July 12, 2024, at Good Earth State Park for rescuing dozens of people from June floods in the southeastern part of the state. (Courtesy of GF&P) South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Secretary Kevin Robling, center-left, and Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden, center-right, honor conservation officers on July 12, 2024, at Good Earth State Park for rescuing dozens of people from June floods in the southeastern part of the state. (Courtesy of GF&P) State officials honored South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks conservation officers Friday for responding to over 30 rescue calls and saving about 60 people from flooding last month in the southeastern part of the state. Many of the individuals who were rescued from rising floodwaters were quite literally pulled from dangerous situations, said GF&P Secretary Kevin Robling. Game, Fish and Parks Conservation Officer Don Allaway rescues a resident from a home during historic June 2024 flooding in southeastern South Dakota. (Courtesy of GF&P) The officers were recognized during a GF&P Commission meeting at Good Earth State Park near Sioux Falls. Conservation officers, formerly known as game wardens, are typically tasked with enforcing hunting and fishing laws and regulations. The flood was triggered by three days of historically heavy rain across southeast South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota. The downpour caused the Big Sioux River to crest at a record 44.98 feet in North Sioux City. The deluge flooded many roads and basements across a large area and destroyed about 30 homes in the community of McCook Lake. Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden lauded the officers actions. South Dakota is a special place, and we have a lot of special people, Rhoden said. And at the top of that list are the people that will put themselves in harms way to defend others. GF&P employees honored The list of employees honored for their actions during flooding: Trey Kelderman Dan Altman Matt Talbert Craig Fishel Justin Harman Jared Hill Christopher Schiera Tony Stokely Taylor Etherington Tanner Pietz Alex Osborn Dylan Urban Shane Pedersen Jeremy Roe Taylor Kirchner Don Allaway Josh Vanden Bosch Source: Department of Game, Fish and Parks SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) The state of Michigans 2025 fiscal year budget allocated $39 million to Ingham County to fund critical County projects, Ingham County Controller Gregg Todd announced Friday. Four projects received funding from the state budget, including $1.5 million to pave the Kinneville Road/Kirby Road corridor. This embedded content is not available in your region. We are really excited about the funding Ingham County received, and incredibly thankful to our legislative delegation, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sarah Anthony, Senator Sam Singh, and Representatives Kara Hope, Julie Brixie, Penelope Tsernoglou, and Emily Dievendorf, said Ingham County Board of Commissioners Chairperson Ryan Sebolt. Without the States support, we would not be able to proceed with these important projects without putting additional burdens on our taxpayers. $12.5 million will help fund replacing the Ingham County Youth Center. The project required $32 million in funding, but the county will use the Juvenile Justice Millage to offset the remaining $19.5 million, allowing the project to proceed. The existing Youth Center was built in 1986, and the Raise the Age legislation, which was passed by the State in 2021, has led to a population of older juveniles with more serious charges, Ingham County Law & Courts Committee Chair Commissioner Mark Polsdofer said. Raise the Age requires the state to reimburse 100% of the cost of providing juvenile justice services when a juvenile is over 17 years old but under 18. This older population has led to challenges in appropriately segregating juveniles, longer-term detention stays, and a greater need for programming and behavioral and mental health care, which was not a consideration 40 years ago, said Polsdofer. The proposed new state-of-the-art facility will address these issues. $10 million of the allocation will go to renovating the historic Feline Primate Building at the Potter Park Zoo. This includes: Building a new cat holding area Renovating the current outdoor cat exhibits Renovating indoor and outdoor primate exhibits Replacing the roof and HVAC system Renovating the public area to be more accessible and natural Replacing aging and insufficient infrastructure Ensuring the Zoos facilities address the welfare of the animals is essential to maintaining the accreditation of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Ingham County Human Services Committee Chair Commissioner Irene Cahill said. The Feline Primate Building currently houses an African lion, an Amur tiger, a snow leopard, ring-tailed lemurs, and spider monkeys, and this renovation is critical to ensuring the sustainability of these incredible animals at the Potter Park Zoo. Potter Park Zoo (WLNS) $15 million will go to the Ingham County Housing Trust Fund. $5 million of that allocation will be specifically dedicated to projects in the City of Lansing. This will support previous projects that began with Ingham County allocating $9 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to the Housing Trust Fund in 2022. The funding provided by the State for affordable housing initiatives is incredibly timely due to the fact that the original allocation of ARPA funds have been committed, said County Services Committee Chair and Housing Trus Fund Committee Member Commissioner Robert Pena. This generous allocation will ensure that we can continue to provide innovative and cost-effective housing solutions to address Ingham Countys affordable housing crisis. 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. HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) The Supreme Court of Alabama denied convicted murderer Amy Bishop Andersons request to review her appeal on Friday. A Court of Criminal Appeals previously denied Bishop Andersons attempt to appeal her conviction. In response to that ruling, she filed a petition for a review of the appeal by the states supreme court in June. 37-year-old woman arrested after domestic shooting in Huntsville Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker along with Justices Brady Mendheim Jr., Greg Shaw, Tommy Bryan and Jay Mitchell concurred on the decision to deny her petition. Bishop Anderson pleaded guilty to the shooting of six people in the Shelby Center on the Univeristy of Alabama Huntsville Campus back in February of 2010. She entered that guilty plea on September 11, 2012. Three died in the shooting Dr. Adriel Johnson, Dr. Gopi Podila and Dr. Maria Ragland Davis. Three others were wounded, but survived: Stephanie Monticciolo, Dr. Joseph Leahy and Dr. Luis Cruz-Vera Despite the guilty plea, later that month Bishop Anderson still had to stand trial, because Alabama law requires the state to prove its case in any capital murder situation. Get breaking news, traffic and weather alerts directly to your smartphone. Download the News 19 App After less than 30 minutes of deliberations, a jury found Bishop Anderson guilty of capital murder and sentenced her to life in prison without parole on Monday, September 24, 2012. Judge Alan Mann then sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bishop Anderson exhausted her appeals in August 2013, but filed a Rule 32 petition in July 2014 challenging her conviction. She claimed she should be relieved from her conviction because her plea was involuntary, evidence favorable to her case was withheld by the prosecution, her attorneys were ineffective, she did not receive an adequate psychiatric evaluation and new evidence has been discovered. In October 2014, that petition was denied by a Madison County circuit judge who ruled her claims were without merit. Bishop Anderson is serving out her life sentence at Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka. 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. Do statins cause dementia? Florida cardiologist reacts Do statins cause dementia? Millions of patients in the U.S. take the medication to help lower cholesterol levels. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Some researchers have raised the question of whether that type of drug later causes cognitive impairment. Dr. Rajesh Shah, an interventional cardiologist at Advent Health in Central Florida, said the recent concern from researchers could be linked to an aging population. As our population gets older, there are more people with cognitive impairment and more people on statin therapy, Dr. Shah said. There has been some loose associations of the use of statin therapy and cognitive impairment. CLICK HERE to read the full story by WFTV. Read: Federal judge give go-ahead to challenge Florida pronoun law [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. (SOUTHERN COLORADO) Several government agencies have issued heat warnings and advisories, cautioning people living in Southern Colorado that temperatures will reach dangerous levels in the coming days. From Friday, July 12 through Monday, July 15 temperatures are expected to reach the mid-90s to lower 100s across Southern Colorado. People living in El Paso, Pueblo, and Fremont counties should be advised that these temperatures are in fact dangerous and can cause heat-related illnesses and even death. Current Heat Advisories for Southern Colorado: El Paso Countys X page recommends people stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, stay indoors when possible, and make sure pets are safe from the heat. A similar post from the National Weather Service in Pueblo mentioned that there is a heat advisory in place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and added that its a good idea to check up on relatives and neighbors, being aware of any signs of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. RELATED: Tourists still flock to Death Valley despite searing heat wave blamed for several deaths The Forest Service also urged visitors to the Comanche National Grassland to exercise caution while hiking and exploring this weekend. They encouraged hydration, light, breathable clothing, and frequent breaks from the sun. Early morning hours are best for hikes, they said. We want all visitors to have a safe and enjoyable visit to the Comanche National Grassland, especially during extreme heat conditions, said Comanche District Ranger Kurt Staton. Plan ahead by bringing plenty of water and take immediate action to cool down as soon as you notice any heat-related illness to ensure that everyone can have a great time while staying safe. Heat Stroke and Heat Exhaustion: Signs and What to Do Signs of heat stroke are confusion, dizziness, rapid heartbeat and lack of sweating, high body temperature (above 103F), and unconsciousness. Heat stroke is a medical emergency. If you see the signs of heat stroke, call 911 immediately. Reduce body temperature with cool clothes or a cool bath, and do NOT give fluids. Signs of heat exhaustion are heavy sweating, pale skin, muscle cramps, a fast, weak pulse, nausea or vomiting, and fatigue. It will help to loosen clothing, apply cool, wet clothes to as much of the body as possible, and sip water. If vomiting occurs and continues, seek medical attention immediately. The PDF attached below, from the Forest Service, provides more detailed information about heat-related illnesses and can be downloaded for reference. Heat_Related_IllnessDownload Children, the elderly, and people with chronic medical conditions are especially vulnerable, but anyone can be affected by these heat-related illnesses. It is important to always have access to water and a cool environment, in order to preempt these emergencies. 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. HOWARD, Wis. (WFRV) Beware of the summer heat. With temperatures on the rise, health experts recommend decreasing the amount of time you spend outside. We should take the warnings that are given seriously and limit our time in the heat, stated Dr. Stacee Goedtel Birr. Exam shows horses who were suspiciously killed in Wisconsin died from intentional blunt force trauma Family medicine physician Dr. Stacee Goedtel Birr recommends keeping a water bottle closed. Even if you are hanging out in the water, people sometimes think if you are in the water, you do not need to drink water. Well, thats not true. You still need to have water with you, said Goedtel Birr. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are common illnesses many face during the summer; experts say staying hydrated and ventilated will prevent it. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers declares state of emergency after flash floods Make sure that you have fluids with you at all times, even if you dont plan to be out in the heat for too long. Make sure we have air conditioning. Maybe check your air conditioners and make sure theyre up to date and in service so they dont go out, stated Goedtel Birr. The Howard Quarry is open from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., but wristbands must be purchased through the city for access to the beach. 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. Steven Bryan, Found Hidden 2 Years After Vanishing, Is Now Living with Dad and 'Having a Whole Bunch of Fun' (Exclusive) Steven Bryan is now living with his dad days after found safe with his mother Deborah Bryan and her boyfriend Caleb Blevins National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Steven Bryan Steven Bryan, the 5-year-old who was found hidden in an Indiana home two years after his disappearance, is now living with his dad Tyler Bryan, the father confirms to PEOPLE exclusively. Steven was last seen in July 2022 with his mothers boyfriend, Caleb Blevins, per Indiana State police, FOX 59 reported at the time. Tyler alleged at the time that the child's mother, Deborah Bryan, took Steven from her Mooresville, Ind., home and cut off contact with Tyler, PEOPLE previously reported. On Tuesday, July 9, Indiana authorities located Steven with Deborah and Blevins, marking an end to the search. Mooresville Police Chief Kerry Buckner accused Deborah of "just hiding [Steven] out" amid a custody battle, WIBC reported. Related: Boy, 5, Was Last Seen 2 Years Ago with Mother's Boyfriend. Police Just Found Him Hidden in a Home Now, two days after his rescue, Tyler says Steven has been reunited with many of his family members and friends he "didn't know he had. So he's been having a whole bunch of fun." Tyler says he rushed to the local child protective services offices on Tuesday after receiving the call about Stevens rescue. He [was] kind of shocked. He wasnt planning to see me, but he just walked right up to me at first, Tyler says, adding, He knew right who I was and its been great." Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. According to Tyler, Steven has been playing with Legos and spending time with his cousins. Tyler said he planned to take him out to breakfast to get sausage and hash browns and to go swimming. Mooresville Police Department Deborah Bryan (left), and and Caleb Blevins Promptly after Steven's rescue, Indiana authorities arrested Deborah on a charge of interfering with custody, WRTV, 21 Alive News and FOX 59 reported, citing Mooresville police. Authorities said Blevins might face potential charges if he assisted Deborah, per FOX 59 and WANE 15. It wasn't immediately clear if Deborah has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on her behalf. 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. There will still be 500,000 without power almost a week after Beryl, Acting Gov. Dan Patrick says AUSTIN (Nexstar) Three days after Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc on Houston and southeast Texas, Acting Gov. Dan Patrick said by Sunday, the number of Texans without power would drop to 500,000 from the current count of over 1 million. The energy company CenterPoint continues to be responsible for the majority of Beryl-related power outages as the company has the most customers in the affected area. As a Category 1 storm, Beryl not only caused these immense power outages but also decimated local infrastructure and generated a large haul of hazardous debris. Patrick addressed the reason for the storms seemingly severe nature despite its low categorization in a press conference on Thursday. The eyewall came over a large part of the city with the most sustained winds and gusts, and it maintained itself for three or four hours, Patrick said. So I think as people have gotten out of their neighborhoods, if they can get gas in their car to go somewhere, if they can, theyve seen this damage, its really unbelievable. Patrick also said he would investigate the response to such debris and power issues and ensure they are better prepared for inevitable future storms that will hit the area. I know that we have a plan, CenterPoint has a plan to continue to invest to harden their transmission, Patrick said. The transmission lines as well as the standards that hold those. And I think thats a wise investment they should take. Patrick emphasized CenterPoint is accountable for its operations and is not state-controlled. He also claimed President Bidens allegations and the Houston Chronicles reporting were inaccurate and said there was no deliberate delay in providing or receiving disaster relief. We do not want the people of Texas to think they are going to be shortchanged for what they deserve to get, bottom line, Patrick said. They were told one thing, and another thing happened. Nim Kidd the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said CenterPoints punishment for the outages will be up to the Public Utility Commission to decide. This could look like fines, fees or any other regulatory actions. But right now, I want every person at CenterPoint to have one job, Patrick said. Get the power back on. Jason Ryan the executive vice president of CenterPoint Energy testified in a Public Utility Commission hearing that CenterPoint prepared for the storm by requesting 10,000 crew members to pre-position themselves outside of their area of service to be ready to respond to storm damage once the affected area was deemed safe. Our crews are working around-the-clock, 16-hour work shifts, Ryan said. We will continue to assess whether or not we have the right number of crews and whether we should bring additional ones in, and we will not stop our work until the work is done. Patrick said both himself and Gov. Greg Abbott plan to open an investigation into CenterPoints preparation and response to the natural disaster. 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. Sen. Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican, is proceeding with plans to remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy from office. (Photo: John Partipilo) Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy dropped a policy dealing with non-violent felons and gun possession before it ever started. Yet Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor wants to get rid of him anyway. Nothing political here. Taylor confirmed to the Tennessee Lookout he still plans to sponsor a resolution to oust Mulroy, a Democrat, when the Legislature convenes in January for the 114th General Assembly session. A two-thirds vote is required for this type of removal, and Republicans hold supermajorities in the Legislature about 75 of 99 in the House and 27 of 33 in the Senate making Mulroys removal plausible. Taylor, who replaced embattled former Sen. Brian Kelsey in a gerrymandered district, calls the felon-gun policy the straw that broke the camels back and says hes looking into more issues with the DAs Office as he prepares the resolution. Hes also been fired up about Mulroys refusal to prosecute aggravated prostitution cases, which hasnt been done in decades, and setting low bail for offenders, which is decided by judges, not prosecutors. Taylor even has a hotline for leads from people inside and outside the DAs Office to hammer Mulroy. Who has the legal expertise to determine whether complaints are legitimate? Taylor says hes going over information with staff. He also notes hes had multiple conversations with Lt. Gov. Randy McNallys people to prepare a resolution requesting House and Senate speakers appoint an ouster committee, which would hire a special prosecutor to go over the information. The special prosecutor would have subpoena and investigation power to determine whether a basis exists to remove Mulroy and would draft a report for a legislative committee to decide whether the DA should be ousted. I happen to believe there is, Taylor says. You cant remove somebody because of policy differences or philosophical differences. You have to identify acts or omissions that are wrongful conduct. So far, he hasnt identified any. I dont know what hes talking about. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, referencing Memphis Sen. Brent Taylor's claims Mulroy, who defeated Republican District Attorney Amy Weirich in August 2022, issued a statement in June saying the diversion policy for non-violent felons caught carrying weapons was never put into place and then was withdrawn. The idea wasnt to allow felons to have weapons but to allow those without a violent criminal history to have an alternative to prison. Mulroy considered it incorrect to say his office wasnt prosecuting those felons. Diversion was going to depend on criminal history, but it would have applied to such a small number of people, the DAs Office dropped it before it started because it wasnt worth a fight. Theres never been a removal based on what are essentially policy differences in the history of Tennessee, and theres a reason for that, because Tennessee Supreme Court says theres a for-cause standard, Mulroy says. You cant remove somebody because of policy differences or philosophical differences. You have to identify acts or omissions that are wrongful conduct. So far, he hasnt identified any. I dont know what hes talking about. The point is moot on felons and guns, and, technically, it cant be a reason for ouster. It appears, though, Taylor is willing to bank his political future on Mulroys removal. TDOC on the hook U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger ruled this week the Tennessee Department of Correction violated federal laws by failing to provide sign language interpreters for prison programs, medical appointments, religious services and legal processes. Trauger also found the department failed to provide videophones for deaf prisoners. Several prisoners and the advocacy group Disability Rights Tennessee filed suit in 2020, claiming the state broke the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Trauger said in her opinion, The plaintiffs have identified hundreds of high-stakes interactions in which interpreters were not provided, many of which involved situations such as receiving medical care in which effective communication is an inherently vital component. She added, While there may be room for disputing whether certain specific listed encounters fall within the scope of TDOCs violations, there is no longer any basis for disputing that such violations generally existed and were manifestations of a continuous, ongoing policy or practice. A trial is scheduled for January 2025 when several other claims will be decided, as well as a remedy for the violations. Chalk up another L Rep. Gino Bulso cant seem to win for losing. The Tennessee Journal reports that Bulsos client, Sumner County developer Bill Charles, lost a defamation and false light lawsuit when the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the case. Charles, the homeowners association president for Hendersonville neighborhood Durham Farms, entered the legal fight after Google reviews came out criticizing Freehold Communities for plans to put in a rental only area and to make other alterations in the planned community. Though were certain Bulso has garnered some legal wins along the way, in addition to passing stupid bills, hes also had some sloppy losses. Foremost, Bulso had his rear end kicked in an expulsion hearing more than a year ago even though a kangaroo court was set up in his favor. In questioning state Rep. Gloria Johnson about her role in a House floor protest led by Democratic Reps. Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones, Bulso committed the cardinal sin of asking a question for which he didnt know the answer. Rep. Gino Bulso, perhaps contemplating a string of losses. (Photo: John Partipilo) The result gave Johnson an opening and eventually led some Republicans who had promised to vote for Johnsons ouster to change their minds. (House Republicans also displayed an idiotic video showing Johnson standing to the side of Pearson and Jones mouthing some words and twiddling her thumbs. We dont know if that was Bulsos idea, but it might as well have been.) Bulso displayed his legal acumen again this year with an unconstitutional bill that would have removed state courts from challenges of House rules. He cited a case from an intermediate appellate court that, Im told, had little to do with the matter. He also fought for a bill to remove PRIDE flags from public school classrooms, saying hed heard of an instance in which a Williamson County teacher had such a flag on the desk. Pictures or some sort of documentation would have helped sell the story. But alas, the bill died. Then, Bulso put his political career on the line this spring by making one of the strangest legal arguments in legislative history as he opposed a bill outlawing first-cousin marriage in Tennessee. Bulso tried to use Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that led to same-sex marriage nationwide, to make the case that if the marriage of gay first cousins isnt a public health concern, then it should be OK for first cousins to marry. (I almost forgot to mention Bulso noted in a committee meeting that his grandparents from Italy were first cousins and had to move to Tennessee from Ohio so they could marry. No doubt, the Bulsos are a proud clan.) Some might consider this piling on. But in the case of the Brentwood Republican, its just another embarrassment. Speaking of embarrassments Republican state Rep. Paul Sherrell of Sparta went to the mat recently against the governors private-school voucher bill. During an election forum in Warren County, Sherrell said he opposed the measure because it would have allowed Muslims and LGBTQ folks to open schools and, by God, we dont want that. This is the same Sherrell who said Tennessee should revive lynchings and who wrote checks for cash at volunteer fire department ham breakfasts, purportedly to buy firefighters a biscuit but then never even bought a cup of coffee. Republican challengers Tim Lewis and Robert McCormick also said they opposed private-school vouchers but mainly because the move would take money from public schools, not because they would lead to Islamic and LGBTQ schools. To be sure, some Democrats used this same argument when the governors initial education savings account bill came up in 2019. The idea that an Islamic school could be formed using state money was sure to scare Republicans. The argument didnt exactly latch on. Instead, Republicans were scared the public school people in their districts would hammer them if they voted for Gov. Bill Lees voucher deal. Theyre still scared, and Lee couldnt push his number one initiative across the finish line. Yet were going to be put through another round of voucher fights in 2025, and itll be interesting to see if the winner from District 43 sticks with his opposition. No polling? The Nashville Rotary Club isnt always the best place for Republican governors to speak. Theyre friendly folks, but when it comes to the Q&A portion of the show, the questions can be a little pointed. Such was the case this week when one of the Rotarians asked Gov. Bill Lee why most of his policies run counter to statewide polls and the wishes of most Tennesseans. Lee countered that poll results depend on the way questions are asked. For instance, people are passionate on both sides of abortion, he pointed out. Polls are helpful, but we all know theyre not the answer, Lee said. Ultimately, he noted, elected officials, including himself, can be removed from office by voters. (Apparently, Lees gubernatorial campaign never used polling.) In other words, whatever he and supermajority Republicans say should go because theyve been returned to office consistently over the last 15 years. Forget about gerrymandering. Its either vote me out or learn to deal with it, which for most people would be difficult to say in a blue city where rednecks love to hang out. My how the years have flown / But there was a time, back in my prime * (* As Good as I Once Was, Toby Keith.) SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Retired astronaut Joe Engel died at the age of 91 on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of NASA/Website July 11 (UPI) -- Friends, family and former colleagues are mourning the death of retired astronaut Joe Engel, 91, who died in his Houston home on Wednesday, NASA announced. Engel was a U.S. Air Force major general and the only astronaut to pilot both the X-15 experimental aircraft and the space shuttle. "A natural pilot, Gen. Joe Engle helped humanity's dreams take flight -- in the X-15 program, the Apollo Program and as one of the first commanders in the Space Shuttle Program," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. "He was one of the first astronauts I met at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. I'll never forget his big smile, his warmth and his courage. We all will miss him." Engel's tenure reached back as far as the Apollo program in 1977, when he served as a backup pilot for the Apollo 14 mission, and then commanded the space shuttle Discovery in 1985, which was known as one of NASA's most challenging missions. Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, flies over the Washington skyline on April 17, 2012. Astronaut Joe Engel, who commanded the Discovery on a mission in 1985, died Thursday at 91. UPI/NASA/Robert Markowitz The Discovery crew deployed three commercial satellites, then retrieved, repaired and redeployed another malfunctioning satellite that had been launched on a previous shuttle mission. "As we mourn the immense loss of Joe, we're thankful for his notable contributions to the advancement of human spaceflight," said Vanessa Wyche, director at the NASA Johnson Space Center. "Joe's accomplishments and legacy of perseverance will continue to inspire and impact generations of explorers for years to come." Engel acquired a lot of significant numbers as a pilot and an astronaut. He logged more than 14,000 flight hours as a jet pilot, 224 hours in space and flew more than 180 different types of aircraft over his career. He earned his pilot wings in 1958 and was selected as an astronaut at the age of 32 after an already successful and respected career as a highly decorated and awarded Air Force pilot. Engel was born in Chapman, Kan., in 1932, and graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955. "Joe Henry was a loving husband, father and grandfather. Blessed with natural piloting skills, Gen. Joe, as he was known to many, was at his happiest in any cockpit. Always with a smile, he lived a fulfilled life as a proud American, U.S. Air Force pilot, astronaut and Kansas Jayhawk," his wife, Jeanie, said in the NASA statement. "His passing leaves a tremendous loss in our hearts. We take comfort that he has joined Tom Stafford and George Abbey, two of the best friends anyone could ask for." Ongoing concerns about the UW System appeared to be wide ranging during the study committee's first meeting on Thursday. (Screenshot | Wiseye) A study committee made up of lawmakers and members of the public will spend the next few months discussing the future of the University of Wisconsin system and solutions for ongoing concerns, which appeared to be wide ranging during the panels first meeting on Thursday. The group will provide legislative recommendations when it wraps up its work late this year. It comes after a legislative session that was marked by a showdown over diversity, equity and inclusion, controversy over free speech on campuses as well as the financial future of the UW system. Committee chair Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) noted during the meeting that the UW system faces challenges that include declining enrollment on many campuses along with fiscal constraints at individual institutions and at the system level. She said the committee would be a place to openly, honestly and respectfully discuss the issues in a public setting, even though conversations may be intense and uncomfortable at times. We all are here because we share the goal of taking action that will support the function of the UW system as an effective economic driver in our state going forward, Nedeweski said. The committee is made up of four state lawmakers including Nedweski, Sen. Cory Tomczyck (R-Mosinee), Rep. Alex Joers (D-Middleton) and Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) as well as 14 members of the public, who have an array of stakes in and ties to the UW system. It is planning to meet four other times between now and November. Bob Atwell, a former UW regent who resigned in June, said the challenges that the UW System faces arent unique but are part of broader trends across the United States. He noted a few concerns, including the demographics of the UW System as well as the closures of two-year campuses. Atwell said that while on the board he wasnt sure if there was a real plan when it came to closing two-year campuses, but they were closing one by one nevertheless. In recent years, more and more two-year campuses, including UW-Plattevilles Richland campus, UW-Milwaukees Washington County campus and UW-Oshkoshs Fond du Lac campus, have closed. We have an opportunity to take a step back, look, and instead of letting life happen to us and being left with decisions that appear to be sort of bad and worse, Id love to see us stake out a bold creative confident vision for the future of the UW system to serve the state for the long term, Atwell said. The viability and funding of UW campuses were a repeated concern for committee members. Shauna Froelich, an associate professor of communication law at UW-Green Bay, said that she is a big proponent of the Wisconsin Idea, the guiding philosophy that the resources of the UW System should be made available to people across the state, students and nonstudents alike. She loves teaching, she said, but has noticed over the last year an increasing fear among faculty around deficits and around the uncertainty of the two years and four years. There was a growing fear throughout the entire academic year, and what that would look like was What email are we going to get next? Whats the next, you know, penny thats going to drop here in the system? Froelich mentioned that the cost of tuition is also a top concern for her. It should not fall on the backs of students to increase loan use, she said. UW-La Crosse Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Betsy Morgan said the precipitous drop in funding is extraordinary and had a direct impact on the retention of high quality faculty and staff. Peter Kies, a member of the UW Foundation Board of Directors, said that he is discouraged by the UW system becoming a punching bag and concerned that it isnt being set up for the next 10 or 50 years. I do believe this is the single greatest economic engine in the state, Kies said. He called for every UW institution to identify a mission and to be set up with the resources and a flexible governance model they need to be successful. The UW system does not have the authority to take on debt on its own, and Ananth Seshadri, chair of the economics department at UW-Madison, said that should change. We are the only major research university that does not have bonding authority, Seshadri said. Can we get to a place where the Legislature is willing to give us that freedom so that we can build on it? He said the Madison campus could have built an engineering and a chemistry building 15 years ago if it had that authority. A new engineering building is a project that only recently got the greenlight from the Legislature after negotiations over DEI. Scott Beightol, a former UW regent, said he also would like to see bonding authority, at least for the research institutions at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. He also said that the UW system needs additional funding from the state, but that wont necessarily come without more efficiency. Were going to have to convince the Legislature that if we show that we can do better with efficiency, we can increase state support and do better for our state, Beightol said. I think we have to be bold and we have to show the Legislature that this is what can be done and that they need to fund the University. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Stuff that has to be done: Breakdown of Jacksonville Sheriffs Office $630M budget request The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office is requesting more money from the city this year ahead of Mayor Donna Deegans budget proposal presentation on Monday. The agencys budget is always one of the biggest items the city pays for each year. Last year, it accounted for more than one-third of the $1.75 billion total city budget. The sticker shock tends to grab headlines each year, especially when an increase is requested. This year, JSO is seeking a $32 million budget increase, bringing the agencys total proposed budget up to $630 million. RELATED: City leaders eagerly awaiting Mayors budget proposal Monday amid slowing revenue increases Its a big chunk of change, but as Sheriff T.K. Waters explained, more than 80% of the funding goes straight to salaries and benefits. About 5 percent of our overall budget is discretionary spending. The rest of it is salary, benefits, contractual costs that are there and other operating expenses. Stuff that has to be done, Waters said. This years increases include more than $1 million to hire 40 new officers to help meet the sheriffs goal of hiring 200 additional officers during his first term. READ: We have nothing to hide: Jacksonville police serve search warrant to local tow company Waters argued those new officers are necessary to ensure the success of the new patrol districts he rolled out last year, and also to keep up with the citys growing population. We want to make that traveling time and response a lot quicker to make sure we have people in that area basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Waters said. Additionally, theres nearly $3 million to help facilitate the move of JSO headquarters out of the Police Memorial Building and into the Florida Blue Building. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Waters said the move is expected to be complete within 12 to 18 months, and will ultimately save the city money by not having to build a new headquarters from ground up. Right now, the projections for a new administration building, $300 to $400 million. Thats a lot of money and we dont want to have to do that, Waters said. Well find out how closely aligned the mayors budget proposal and JSOs asks are on Monday when Deegan presents her proposed budget to the city council. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Thanks to a new state law passed this year, Waters noted hell have the flexibility to move money around throughout the year to ensure the agencys needs are met. Well use that to make sure that we dont run short in certain places and listen, if we have to cut some place within our own agency then well have to look at the best place to do that, Waters said. The pay raises and pension benefits in the new police union contract the mayor negotiated are not factored into JSOs $630 million budget ask. 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. By Emma Farge, Michelle Nichols and Nafisa Eltahir GENEVA/UNITED NATIONS/CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudan's warring parties are in Switzerland for U.N.-led talks aimed at brokering possible local ceasefires to facilitate aid and protect civilians, but only one side showed up for the start of discussions on Thursday, the United Nations said. War erupted in April last year between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) over the integration of the forces in a transition to free elections. The war has sparked waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF and the U.N. says nearly 25 million people - half of Sudan's population - need aid, famine is looming and almost 10 million people have fled their homes. The talks in Geneva have been convened by U.N. Sudan mediator Ramtane Lamamra, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in New York. A U.N. spokesperson in Geneva said the parties would negotiate via Lamamra instead of meeting face to face. "Regrettably, one of the delegations did not come to the session planned for today. (Lamamra) and his team later met with the other delegation as planned," said Dujarric, adding that Lamamra had invited both sides to continue talks on Friday. He declined to say which party did not show up for talks. Another U.N. spokesperson said the two delegations in Geneva were made up of senior representatives of the leaders of both parties. An RSF source confirmed to Reuters that its delegation was in Geneva. The army did not respond to a request for comment. In a speech on Thursday, Sudanese army chief Abdelfattah al-Burhan rejected negotiations unless the RSF withdraws from civilian infrastructure and homes. "We will get full revenge for every Sudanese who has been harmed (by the RSF). There are no negotiations in Switzerland, Jeddah, or anywhere else," he said in a video of the speech seen by Reuters. The U.N. effort is the latest is a series of mediation attempts by various countries and entities, none of which have succeeded in achieving a sustained pause in fighting. Talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between the army and RSF sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia broke down at the end of 2023. LOCAL CEASEFIRES The RSF on Thursday continued its attempt to take over Sennar state, part of its effort to consolidate its control over the center and west of the country, displacing more than 200,000 people according to state news agency SUNA. "We urge the Sudanese delegations to rise to the challenge and engage in constructive discussions with (Lamamra), for the sake of the Sudanese people," Dujarric said. On Wednesday, African Union-led talks between Sudanese political factions began, although in the absence of the largest anti-war civilian coalition, which protested what they said was the presence of allies of former autocrat Omar al-Bashir. Dujarric said the discussions convened by Lamamra "seek to identify avenues for advancement of the identified humanitarian and protection of civilian measures through possible local ceasefires, as requested by the Security Council." U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Thursday that there is no military solution in Sudan. "We are seeing the devastating impact of this war fought between two generals who have no interest in their civilian population," she told BBC World News. "There has to be a political solution. It has to take place at the negotiating table." (This story has been officially corrected to remove the reference to the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello being in Geneva for the U.N.-led talks, in paragraph 15) (Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Michelle Nichols in New York and Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo; additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Dubai; writing by Michelle Nichols; editing by Thomas Seythal and Sandra Maler) NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on Friday, India said, just days after the U.S. raised concerns with New Delhi about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sullivan and Doval "discussed a wide range of issues of bilateral, regional and international concern" during their phone conversation, India's foreign ministry said in a statement. The statement did not mention if they discussed Modi's two-day visit to Russia earlier this week. In Moscow, Modi told Putin that death of innocent children was painful, a day after a lethal strike at a children's hospital in Kyiv. Though India has not condemned Russia for its war in Ukraine, Modi also told Putin that a resolution can only be found through talks, and not on the battlefield. However, both Russian and Indian officials later rejected reports that there were any disagreements between their leaders during their meetings. In their conversation Sullivan and Doval "agreed to work closely to further advance India-US relations, which are built on shared values and common strategic and security interests" and reiterated the need to work collectively to address global challenges to peace and security, the Indian statement said. The U.S. State Department had said on Monday that it had shared its concerns with New Delhi about India's relationship with Moscow. Modi's visit to Russia coincided with a NATO summit in Washington, which was dominated by Western concerns over Ukraine. Russia has been one of India's closest strategic partners, and its largest weapons supplier for decades. However, the U.S. has been trying to forge closer ties with New Delhi as a counterweight to an ascendant China in the region. (Reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Frances Kerry) What its like to go to summer camp in North Korea Even for locals, travel inside the isolated nation officially known as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is heavily restricted. But arranging a trip was much easier for Russian national Yuri Frolov, 25, who spent two weeks in the hermit kingdom as a high-school student in 2015 and 2016. Yuris fascination with North Korea began with a TV documentary that portrayed the country as besieged by capitalist neighbors. This curiosity led him to join a Solidarity with North Korea group on VKontakte, Russias Facebook equivalent. Through this group, he found an opportunity to attend Songdowon International Childrens Camp in Wonsan, on North Koreas east coast. About $500 covered all expenses for a 15-day trip. His parents consented, and he traveled alone from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, joining other children and Communist Party officials on the journey. Earlier this year, 100 Russian nationals were the first tour group allowed to visit North Korea since the pandemic, a sign of Russias increasing popularity as Pyongyang deepens ties with Moscow. Before the pandemic, the largest source of inbound tourists to North Korea wasnt Russia it was China. Upon his arrival at Songdowon International Childrens Camp in summer 2015, the camp staff greeted Frolov and his group warmly. The camp hosted children from various countries, including Laos, Nigeria, Tanzania and China. However, interactions with North Korean kids were limited to the final day, a deliberate move to prevent any exchange of real experiences. The camp offered typical summer activities like beach outings and sandcastle-building competitions but also included peculiar rituals. Campers were required to wake at 6 a.m. and clean statues of former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, even though professionals already maintained the monuments. Having reported from North Korea 19 times, I find Frolovs experiences both relatable and eye-opening. The heavy emphasis on propaganda, the strict supervision, and the bizarre mix of freedom and control are aspects Ive encountered repeatedly. One of the more bizarre activities at the summer camp involved a computer game where players, as a hamster in a tank, had to destroy the White House. This game reminded me of an exchange I had with two North Korean campers playing a similar game. When I asked who they were shooting, they responded, Our sworn enemy, Americans. I then asked, What if I told you Im an American? Do you want to shoot me too? Without hesitation, they replied, Yes. After reassuring the youngsters I was a good American, they decided I should be allowed to live. And then they smiled and waved as we said goodbye. This is the paradox of North Korea. People were usually friendly and polite, even as they told me the United States should drown in a sea of fire. Despite the heavy propaganda, Frolov remained skeptical. The strict schedule frustrated him, especially when he wasnt allowed to skip early-morning exercise despite being sick. The camps food was another challenge, with Frolov saying he mostly subsisted on rice, potato wedges and bread, leading to an 11-pound weight loss over the 15 days. His craving for familiar food was so intense that upon returning home, he bought a feast from Burger King, though he couldnt finish it all. Frolov recounted a memorable incident in Pyongyang: There was a girl, very young, wearing a dress styled like the American flag in the city center. Surprisingly, no one was angry with her, even though she was told not to wear it again. It was a bizarre moment in such a controlled environment. Many things seemed fake, especially the science and innovation buildings. They were not convincing, even for a kid, he reflected. It wasnt a totally awful experience. I was mostly just bored. Apart from the lack of internet, it felt like any basic Russian camp for children. Despite the unpleasant and tightly controlled environment, he opted to return to the camp the following year, partly due to the Communist Partys arrangements and what he describes as his aversion to confrontation. Music lessons -- where propaganda songs were translated into Russian -- were a requirement at the summer camp. - Yuri Frolov In hindsight, Frolov acknowledges the decision as foolish but appreciates the unique stories he can share about North Korea. His account offers a rare glimpse into the experiences of foreign children at a North Korean summer camp, highlighting the countrys efforts to indoctrinate young minds through a mix of cultural exchange and propaganda. Yuri Frolovs story is a powerful reminder of the lengths to which North Korea will go to shape perceptions and cultivate loyalty. His experiences at Songdowon International Childrens Camp highlight the regimes use of propaganda and control to influence young minds, a strategy Ive observed firsthand during my reporting trips. Despite the stark differences in our roles him as a camper and me as a journalist our experiences reveal the same underlying truth about North Koreas relentless pursuit of ideological control. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain met with the union's executive board late on Thursday to discuss his deep concerns with President Joe Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump in the November election, three sources familiar with the matter said. Fain called together top officials at the nearly 400,000-member union to discuss concerns and what the union's options are, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified. The union is considering its next steps, the sources said. Fain and the UAW, which endorsed Biden in January, are important allies of Biden and are expected to play a critical role in helping Biden win in key swing states including Michigan, where the UAW is based. Biden and Trump have both made several appearances in Michigan to woo voters, especially those employed by U.S. automakers like Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Jeep-maker Stellantis. UAW communications director Jonah Furman and the Biden campaign declined to comment. Fain, who announced the UAW's endorsement of Biden in January, has repeatedly rebuked Trump, the Republican former president. More: UAW President Shawn Fain accused of seeking benefits for fiancee and her sister More: Scholten is 1st Michigan member of Congress to call for Biden to step down as nominee "Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a society," Fain said in his January endorsement of Biden. On Wednesday, Biden met with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of U.S. trade unions, to shore up support among labor unions. Fain attended that meeting. "I think of you as my domestic NATO-not a joke, he said. Biden also thanked union leaders for their support, and shared his plans for the future, seeking to cast aside doubts over his reelection campaign. Fain backed Biden after the president joined a union picket line during a six-week autoworkers strike last year that resulted in historic wage increases for workers at the Detroit Three carmakers. Biden was the first U.S. president to walk with striking workers. Fain also received a mention from Biden at this year's State of the Union address, which Fain attended. Biden, who has characterized himself as the most pro-union president in U.S. history, has recently leaned on key labor leaders to drum up support among his base. Biden is facing a growing calls to step aside as the Democratic candidate after a shaky debate performance that has raised questions about his mental fitness for office. For nearly two weeks, 81-year-old Biden has sought to stem defections by Democratic lawmakers, donors and other allies worried he stands to lose to Trump, 78. Story continues At least 12 U.S. congress Democrats have called on Biden to end his reelection bid so far. On Wednesday, actor George Clooney, a Democrat who has backed Biden, withdrew his support in an opinion piece in the New York Times. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW considering next steps on worries Trump could beat Biden, sources say New 'Superman' movie likely filming in Cincinnati next week. What we know Superman appears to be landing in Cincinnati. "Superman: Legacy," the newest Clark Kent-centered film that's set to release in July 2025, has been filming in Ohio throughout June and July. Next week, the Queen City could be the epicenter of the movie's production. Here's what we know. 'Genesis' is a codename for 'Superman: Legacy' A film called Genesis was awarded more than $11 million in tax credits from Ohio in February to film in Cincinnati and Cleveland, according to a press release. Film buffs and DC Comic fans speculated that Genesis was a working title for Superman: Legacy." The "Genesis" tax credit application, previously obtained by The Enquirer from the Ohio Department of Development, confirmed it has the same director, producer and starring cast as the "Superman" film. According to the application, production for the movie was expected to start in Ohio on April 1 and last until Aug. 23. Christopher Reeve's costume from "Superman," seen in 2003. The newest Man of Steel film, "Superman: Legacy," appears to be coming to Cincinnati next week. When will the movie film in Cincinnati? A June Facebook post from Angela Boehm Casting, a Cleveland-based casting agency, said "Genesis" was searching for "real police officers to be extras." According to the casting sign-up form, filming in Cincinnati and Cleveland was set to take place between June 17 and July 18. A separate Google Docs form said filming for police extras in Cincinnati would take place June 24 and 28, as well as July 3, 8 and 18. Filming may take place at Cincinnati Museum Center and Lytle Tunnel The Cincinnati Museum Center, located at Union Terminal, is regularly closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Next week, however, it is also closed for a private event Thursday, July 18, the last day Angela Boehm Casting listed for filming with police extras. A portion of the Lytle Tunnel will also close next week for the filming of a new Warner Bros. movie. The Ohio Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that the southbound lanes of Interstate 71 will close at the tunnel from 4-6 p.m. July 18. Closures will last for up to 15 minutes at any time. The frequency of the closures may vary, but according to a traffic advisory, only two 15-minute closures are anticipated during the two-hour time span. Union Terminal was the inspiration behind the Hall of Justice, the hero headquarters of the Justice League. Kathleen Fuller, a public information officer for ODOT, told The Enquirer the department issued a permit to a Warner Bros. Studios production crew to close the tunnel, so that they could shoot a scene for an upcoming film. Fuller could not confirm which movie would be shot in Lytle Tunnel. Warner Bros., however, is producing "Superman: Legacy." S&K Pictures, Inc., which shares an address with Warner Bros., and Lex Pascual, vice president of production incentives at Warner Bros. Discovery, also applied for the "Genesis" tax credit in November. It is unclear whether the sets will be closed to the public while filming. The Enquirer reached out to Film Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Museum Center for confirmation on filming dates and location but did not get a response. Why Cincinnati Museum Center/Union Terminal? Union Terminal is a logical setting for "Superman" to film. It was the inspiration behind the Hall of Justice, the hero headquarters of the Justice League. The close resemblance debuted in the "Super Friends" animated series, as Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting owned the show's production company, Hanna-Barbera. Surveying the Queen City for ideas, cartoonist Al Gmuer and Joe Barbera found inspiration in Union Terminal. The Hall of Justice later appeared in DC comic books. 'Superman: Legacy' has taken over Cleveland Cameras are rolling again at Progressive Field for Superman Friday and the Man of Steel himself is too as he brawls with villains on Friday. Video/Photos: Josh Duke, David Petkiewicz, https://t.co/a4YA4W3agW pic.twitter.com/x1a7Ys17zN clevelanddotcom (@clevelanddotcom) July 12, 2024 Cleveland has been "Superman" headquarters since last month. Signs for The Daily Planet, a fictional newspaper in the "Superman" universe, started appearing around town in June. Local media outlets have captured images and videos of movie sets throughout the last few weeks, the most recent coming Friday when Cleveland.com filmed action taking place at Progressive Field, the home of the Cleveland Guardians. David Corenswet will star as Superman and Clark Kent in "Superman: Legacy." 'Superman: Legacy' cast Here is the reported cast for the James Gunn-directed movie, according to IMDB. David Corenswet (Superman/Clark Kent). Milly Alcock (Supergirl). Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane). Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl). Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern). Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho). Maria Gabriela de Faria (Angela Spica/The Engineer). Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific). Wendell Pierce (Perry White). Enquirer reporter Victoria Moorwood contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Is 'Superman' filming in Cincinnati? Here's what we know Support is coming in for an embattled Biden from Trumpworld Support is coming in for an embattled Biden from Trumpworld It sure looks like Donald Trump's campaign team doesn't want Joe Biden to drop out of the race. "I think he's doing okay enough to stay," Donald Trump Jr. said of Biden's latest press conference. Trump's people believe that they'll win by a landslide if Biden stays on, per The New York Times. President Joe Biden is still under pressure to drop out of the race after his uneven performance at Thursday's press conference. But he's getting some support and it's coming from Trumpworld. Former President Donald Trump is slated to face off against Biden this November, and it looks like his family and campaign team are rooting for Biden to remain his opponent. "I think he's doing OK enough to stay. The press, I think their mission was to try to get him out with this, but I don't think they are going to," Donald Trump Jr. said in a livestream on Thursday. Trump's eldest son weighed in on Biden's candidacy in the latest episode of his podcast, "Triggered with Don Jr." Notably, Trump Jr. sprinkled in some praise for Biden while volleying insults at him. "I don't think anyone wants to call this guy at an emergency at 3 o'clock in the morning but you know, he did an hour. It's almost an hour," Trump Jr. said midway through Biden's press conference. "I think he did better than I actually thought he was going to do. I don't think it was a great job by any means, but I think it's a big one," he said near the end of the podcast. Will Biden be able to limp through tonights presser? They scheduled it past his bedtime. My live reaction along with Kari Lake @KariLake - see you at 6 pm et on Rumble!!!https://t.co/SCVTUQbMSc pic.twitter.com/DxZoiZys83 Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2024 The Trump camp is itching for a 2020 rematch The New York Times' Jonathan Swan reported on Thursday that people close to Trump are rejoicing that Biden performed decently at the press conference. Swan wrote that Trump's people believe it'll now be harder for the Democratic Party to boot Biden off the ticket and they're holding on to hope that Trump can secure a landslide victory if Biden stays his opponent. Also on Thursday, Politico spoke to a Trump advisor who was granted anonymity to discuss the campaign. "Democrats' worst nightmare is unfolding," the advisor told the outlet. "He gave us enough new material and may stave off his insurrection." The Trump campaign had already expressed its preference for Biden as a candidate even before Biden's disastrous debate on June 27. Trump's campaign advisor Susie Wiles also called Biden a "gift" in an interview with The Atlantic's Tim Alberta in mid-June, which was published Wednesday. When approached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump pointed to a clip of Trump speaking at a campaign event in Florida on Tuesday. "Despite all the Democrat panic this week, the truth is, it doesn't matter who they nominate because we are going to beat anyone of them in a thundering landslide," Trump said. PRESIDENT TRUMP: Despite all the Democrat panic this week, the truth is, it doesnt matter who they nominatebecause we are going to beat ANY ONE of them in a thundering landslide this Novemberbecause we have the policies that will Make America Great Again, and they dont. pic.twitter.com/5JBtLa5FnZ Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 10, 2024 Biden has repeatedly insisted that he'll not step away from his 2024 bid, but his party might not share that same zeal. At least 16 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have called on Biden to quit following his poor debate performance. Others, like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, haven't explicitly called for Biden's removal but held back from endorsing him as the party's candidate. "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," Pelosi said during an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday. Representatives for Biden didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider The Supreme Court sidestepped major questions involving the internet in its last term, even as it weighed issues with the potential to be highly consequential for online speech and social media rights. The courts docket included a handful of cases that raised questions about efforts to curb misinformation online and companies rights to moderate content on their own platforms, each standing to transform how social media is regulated by the government and consumed by users. Instead, the court generally stuck to a modest note. This term had the potential to be a referendum on the relationship between the First Amendment and social media, and the cases that went up to the court asked at a fundamental level what role, if any, the government could have in regulating social media, said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. Thankfully, the court treaded pretty carefully, he said. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that public officials can sometimes be sued for blocking their critics on social media, while still affirming that those officials have private lives and their own constitutional rights. In a case involving the Biden administration, the justices rejected challenges to federal officials communications with social media companies aimed at combating misinformation online. They determined that the Republican attorneys general and private parties who claimed a campaign of censorship against them online did not have legal standing to bring the case, skirting the major First Amendment question at the heart of the challenge for a procedural solution. And on the final day of its busy opinion season, the high court wiped lower court rulings on two state laws aimed at barring social media companies from banning users based on their political views. The decision kicked a major First Amendment challenge down the road but seemed to preserve social media companies right to make editorial decisions. [The term] didnt fully resolve all of the merits of the questions presented. But by and large, Id say that this term was a huge positive for the First Amendment, said Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. And the courts reluctance to give final answers in all of the cases was, to me, more of an indication of the courts concern for moving slowly and not precipitously coming up with the wrong answers. The justices have never purported to be experts on the internet. During an argument last term as they grappled with the scope of a liability shield for internet companies, Justice Elena Kagan joked that she and her colleagues are not the nine greatest experts on the internet. I mean, were a court, she said at the time. We really dont know about these things. As more issues involving social media landed at the Supreme Court this term, the justices displayed that same sense of modesty in each of their decisions, Corn-Revere said. Basically, what the court did was hold the line. Because a lot of novel interpretations of [the] First Amendment were presented to it, he said, adding that in each case, the justices reaffirmed traditional principles that the First Amendment protects citizens and private companies from the government not the other way around. Despite steering clear of the big questions this term, the justices tipped their hands at how future cases involving internet speech and the rights of social media companies could play out. For example, the justices appeared inclined to recognize that social media news feeds bear more similarities to traditional media, like newspapers, as opposed to common carriers, like the companies that operate telephone systems and railroads a framing that could vastly impact how social media companies are regulated by the government, said Samir Jain, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Its that frame through which theyre going to be analyzing the First Amendment issues here, as opposed to suggestions by some that social media companies really should be treated as common carriers or looked at as not making editorial decisions, Jain said. The high court also seemed to open the door for new questions that could form the basis for future challenges particularly in relation to artificial intelligence (AI). Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett both raised questions about whether algorithms used by social media companies to moderate content qualified as actual editorial decisionmaking, or something else, in concurring opinions for the cases involving laws in Texas and Florida that were challenged by the tech industry group NetChoice. [The majority] unreflectively assumes the truth of NetChoices unsupported assertion that social-media platforms which use secret algorithms to review and moderate an almost unimaginable quantity of data today are just as expressive as the newspaper editors who marked up typescripts in blue pencil 50 years ago, Alito contended. Jain said its apparent that the majority of justices recognize that, in many cases, algorithms are simply implementing human choice, therefore maintaining First Amendment protections. But as Alito and Barrett probed, that could change if an AI algorithm is the one making the choices, he said. Though technology will continue to advance, presenting new challenges to the court, the Supreme Courts latest term demonstrated that the justices knowledge base on matters involving the internet has grown, experts agreed. I think there is a greater appreciation and understanding of how these online services work, Jain said. I dont think the justices would claim to [be] experts, necessarily, still. But I think they certainly have a much better understanding today than they did two years ago. 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. SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) A 37-year-old man accused of kidnapping a teenage girl at Powell Street BART station has been charged by the San Francisco District Attorney. Jamall Ali Blue is facing one count of kidnapping by force or fear and one count of sexual battery. The DAs office has moved to have him detained pending trial due to the public safety risk he poses. I would like to thank the BART Police and San Francisco Police Department for their successful collaboration to identify a suspect and make an arrest in this case, said San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins. There is absolutely zero tolerance for these acts in the City and County of San Francisco. Our most vulnerable must be protected, and when they are targeted and preyed upon, the perpetrators will be held accountable. Oakland man with peculiar to-do list arrested Blue was arrested Tuesday night after police were notified of a kidnapping just after 8 p.m. The reporting party told police that a man forcibly removed the victim a 17-year-old girl from the station and pulled her to the vehicle. Surveillance video from the station corroborated the polices information, showing the suspect, later identified as Blue, forcing the girl out of the station. The victims parents later filed a missing persons report. San Francisco Police Department officers located and arrested Blue at around 3 a.m. Wednesday. The victim was found later Wednesday morning. Blue and the victim knew each other, and this was not a random incident, according to BART Police Chief Kevin Franklin. Blue is due to be arraigned on Friday afternoon. Police say an investigation into the incident 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 KRON4. Former President Donald Trump is expected to announce his running mate in the coming days, with the focus zeroing in on Sens. Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Trump has been teasing his vice presidential pick for months and whoever he chooses will speak at the Republican National Convention next week. On the "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show" on Friday, Trump said he would like to announce his vice presidential pick during the RNC next week or slightly before that -- suggesting Monday as a possibility. MORE: Trump speaks on VP hopefuls: Vance's facial hair, Rubio's Florida residency, Burgum's abortion stance "I'd love to do it during the convention, which would be, you know, or just slightly before the convention, like Monday," Trump said. "I'd love to do it on Tuesday or Wednesday, actually, but for a lot of complex reasons that you people understand, pretty much don't do that." During the interview, he compared the selection of his running mate to a "highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice." PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump attends a campaign rally at his golf resort in Doral, Fla., July 9, 2024. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) His senior adviser, Jason Miller, said earlier this week that Trump could announce his choice "any time this week" as the RNC approaches. All eyes will be on Trump as he hosts a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday -- just days before the RNC kicks off. As his supporters and others in the political world await Trump's announcement of his running mate, his top contenders continue their usual activities, patiently waiting for the former president's call. Both Rubio and Vance were in Washington, D.C., this week -- on Capitol Hill. ABC News asked Vance if he had talked to the president about serving as vice president. He said no. MORE: How Trump's top VP hopefuls have criticized him in the past After Trump's debate with President Joe Biden, Burgum avoided questions about being Trump's running mate. Asked if he were still actively being vetted for the job, Burgum ignored the question, responding, "Tonight's all about President Trump." Before his return to Washington, Rubio took the stage at Trump's rally in Doral, Florida, on Tuesday evening, lauding Trump for his administration's accomplishments. During the rally, Rubio said that Biden wanted the 2024 campaign to focus on anything other than the comparison between Biden and Trump. "Well, that's what this campaign is. That's what this campaign is all about. That's why he was the 45th President of the United States, and that's why Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States of America," Rubio said. PHOTO: In this Nov. 6, 2022, file photo, former President Donald Trump stands behind Sen. Marco Rubio at a political rally in South Florida. (Carl Juste/Miami Herald via TNS via Newscom, FILE) Trump's pick for his No. 2 comes at a critical time in the campaign cycle as a growing number of Democrats call for Biden to step aside as the party's nominee and rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Over the past few days, Trump and his vice presidential contenders have targeted Harris as talk grows about wanting her to challenge the former president in November. MORE: The rise of JD Vance: From 'never-Trump guy' to potential VP pick "Despite all the Democrat panic this week, the truth is it doesn't matter who they nominate because we are going to beat any one of them in thundering landslides," Trump said on Tuesday night in Doral. On Tuesday night, Vance accused Harris of being part of a cover-up on Biden's fitness for office. "This is a person who, for four years, has saddled the United States with a president who can't do the job, and she did it all for political power," Vance said about Harris on Fox News. "She knew that whether it was now or four years from now, she would be the person who stood to inherit the presidency." ABC News' Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report. Suspense builds around Trump's vice presidential pick originally appeared on abcnews.go.com CORCORAN, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A man suspected of homicide was arrested by the Central Valley Regional SWAT team Wednesday night, the Corcoran Police Department announced. Police say at 11 p.m., the SWAT team executed a search warrant at the suspects apartment on the 1700 block of Dairy Avenue. There they found and arrested 27-year-old Alex Barrera. Investigators say Barrera allegedly shot and killed a man who was driving in Corcoran on the evening of July 2. Officers were alerted to the incident after responding to a call of a vehicle crashing into a building on the 1000 block of Dairy Avenue. The driver, identified as 40-year-old Jason Pico, was found unresponsive and suffering from a gunshot wound. Officers say he was shot inside his vehicle before crashing. Pico was pronounced dead at the scene. Barrera is currently booked at the Kings County Jail on homicide charges where he is being held without bail, officers say. Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to call the Corcoran Police Department at 559-992-5151. 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. AT&T says 'nearly every' cell customers' data accessed by hackers in 2022 AT&T on Friday said data from "nearly all" of its cellular customers was breached by hackers in 2022. File Photo by Justin Lane/EPA-EFE July 12 (UPI) -- Data from "nearly every" AT&T cellular phone customer was downloaded and accessed by hackers during a six-month period in 2022, the telecommunications giant confirmed Friday. Customer data including call and text records identifying phone numbers that AT&T phone numbers interacted with and counts of calls or text and total call durations for specific days and months was illegally downloaded from the Dallas-based company's workspace on a third-party cloud platform, AT&T said in a media release. "Our investigation found that the downloaded data included phone call and text message records of nearly all of AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2022, as well as on Jan. 2, 2023," the company said in the statement. "We started an investigation and engaged leading cybersecurity experts to help us determine the nature and scope of the issue. We have confirmed the access point has been secured." The company did not say exactly how many customers were affected, but its investor profile claims AT&T "provides more than 100 million U.S. consumers with communications experiences across mobile and broadband." AT&T said it does not believe the data is publicly available at the present time and said the breach doesn't include content of any calls or texts, time stamps for those exchanges or personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers or dates of birth. "While the data doesn't include customer names there are often ways to find a name associated with a number using publicly available online tools," the company said. The company also said it believes authorities have identified at least one person related to the hack. "We continue to work with law enforcement in their efforts to arrest those involved. Based on information available to us, we understand that at least one person has been apprehended," it said in the statement issued Friday. AT&T first learned this past April that hackers had accessed its customers' information, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents were filed the following month, on May 6, 2024. The SEC also found AT&T disclosed knowledge of the incident and filed the correct documents in a timely fashion. This past March, AT&T said it was investigating a security breach after data from nearly 8 million current and 65 million former customers was leaked on the dark web in 2019. That information included personal information like social security numbers, leading AT&T to issue a message to customers, urging them to change their passwords. (Bloomberg) -- A court in Taiwan ordered a former vice premier detained while he is investigated for corruption, the latest development in the highest-profile graft probe in the democratically run archipelago since President Chen Shui-bian in 2008. Most Read from Bloomberg Cheng Wen-tsan, who was vice premier in the Tsai administration from January 2023 to May this year, must be held because of the risk of collusion with other people involved in the case, a court said in a statement late Thursday. He is also a flight risk given the charges against him are felonies, said the court in Taoyuan, near the capital of Taipei. Prosecutors have accused Cheng of taking bribes using his position in the government, without providing more details. He was earlier granted bail twice but both times prosecutors appealed. Cheng is a senior figure in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and has been viewed by some as a potential presidential contender. On Sunday, he resigned as head of the Straits Exchange Foundation, which facilitates civil links between Taiwan and China. He served as mayor of the northern city of Taoyuan from late 2014 to 2022. Chen Shui-bian was president of Taiwan from 2000 to 2008. He was charged with corruption when his second term ended, later handed a prison sentence of 20 years and then given a release on medical grounds in 2015. Chengs case is unrelated to investigations in the legislature that the opposition parties have kicked off into the government. Earlier this year, the Kuomintang and Taiwan Peoples Party pushed through changes to the law that give lawmakers greater power to probe government officials and others. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan will withdraw the military honour guards at the memorial hall for former leader Chiang Kai-shek as part of ongoing efforts to end the "veneration of authoritarianism", the culture ministry said on Friday. Generally lauded in life as an anti-communist hero, today many in Taiwan revile Chiang as a despot who imprisoned and killed opponents during his rule. Chiang withdrew to the island with his Republic of China government in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's Communists. When he died in 1975, his son Chiang Ching-kuo took over and began tentative steps towards more political openness. The elder Chiang's memorial, with its giant bronze statue, dominates central Taipei. The culture ministry said that from Monday the military honour guards will be relocated from their ceremonial duties inside the hall to the square in front of it. "The Ministry of Culture also takes 'removing the cult of personality' and 'ending veneration of authoritarianism' as the transitional justice goals of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall at this stage," it said in a statement. Taiwan, which is now a democracy, has a Transitional Justice Commission that is in charge of investigating cases of political persecution that took place during the "white terror" campaign against dissent of Chiang's rule. Martial law only ended in Taiwan in 1987 with the first direct presidential election held in 1996. Taiwan has in recent years gradually reduced Chiang's public footprint, including in 2006 when it renamed the island's main international airport from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport to Taoyuan International Airport. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by Miral Fahmy) By Richa Naidu and Radhika Anilkumar (Reuters) -Unilever plans to cut a third of all office roles in Europe by the end of 2025 as a part of a push by the CEO to revive growth at the consumer goods giant. The company, whose shareholders include billionaire activist investor and board member Nelson Peltz, has already been trying to streamline its business. CEO Hein Schumacher, who took over last year, laid out plans in October to win back investor confidence after it had underperformed in the past few years. Unilever told senior executives on Wednesday that as many as 3,200 roles would be cut in Europe by the end of 2025, according to details of a company-wide call. "We are now, over the next few weeks, starting the consultation process with employees who may be impacted by the proposed changes," a Unilever spokesperson said in an email. The Financial Times first reported the details. The cuts are part of a productivity programme announced in March, which included as many as 7,500 layoffs. "The expected net impact in roles in Europe between now and the end of 2025 is in the range of 3,000 to 3,200 roles," Constantina Tribou, chief human resources officer, said during the video call. These measures mean the biggest job cuts in Unilever for decades," Hermann Soggeberg, the head of Unilevers European Works Council said in a letter to staff seen by Reuters. He said it was a misnomer to call the cuts a "Productivity Programme" as people who had worked and been productive were now set to lose their livelihoods. Unilever has already taken steps to shake up its business as part of its plans to revitalise growth. In March, it announced it would spin off its ice cream business, home to popular brands such as Magnum and Ben & Jerry's. "From a shareholders point of view, a turnaround was clearly required at an underperforming business, the presence of an activist on the shareholder register is typically an obvious indicator of that," Jack Martin, a portfolio manager at Oberon Investments, said. "The ice cream business sale was the first step but moves to streamline the workforce in the coming months speak to the further work that is required to deliver value to shareholders. (Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru and Richa Naidu in London; editing by Savio D'Souza, Jason Neely and Jane Merriman) Wisconsin U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson this week gave their nods of approval for the nomination of a Green Bay personal injury attorney to fill a longtime vacancy in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Both Baldwin, a Madison Democrat, and Johnson, an Oshkosh Republican, late Thursday submitted their "blue slips" to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the nomination Byron Browning Conway, aides to both senators confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Blue slips are used by home-state senators to signal support for a judicial nominee, and a senator can effectively veto a nominee by refusing to return the slip. President Joe Biden earlier this month formally nominated Conway, an attorney with the Green Bay-based firm Habush, Habush & Rottier, for the post after Baldwin and Johnson recommended Conway and Brown County Circuit Judge Marc Aaron Hammer for consideration last summer. To be confirmed, Conway will need to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for approval before his nomination faces a full Senate vote, where he'll need the support of a majority of the chamber. "Byron Conway is a highly qualified candidate with the experience necessary to serve Wisconsins Eastern District with fairness and impartiality," Baldwin said in a statement. "I was proud to recommend him to the White House alongside Senator Johnson for this position and look forward to getting this vacancy filled as quickly as we can." Johnson's office declined to comment on the move. This week's blue slip submissions from both senators increased the chances of filling the vacancy created by the 2019 retirement of Judge William C. Griesbach that has since been the subject of controversy. Johnson in February 2022 announced his opposition to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Pocan's nomination to the federal court post the night before Pocan was due to appear for a confirmation hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee. Johnson at the time said he had been "hearing concerns from the Green Bay legal community that they needed a judge who is locally based and actively involved in their community," though Pocan signaled he planned to relocate to Green Bay. The Oshkosh Republican also linked Pocan, the brother of Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, to a previous bail decision given to the suspect in the November 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade tragedy. But Pocan was not involved in that case, and Johnsons office later pointed to another case. The episode contributed in part to calls to do away with the blue slip process. Still, there is no indication that process will change. Conway has been with his current firm for 18 years and was previously an associate at the Milwaukee-based firm Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, LLP from 2002 to 2006. He graduated from Santa Clara University in 1998 and received his law degree from Marquette University Law School in 2002. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Baldwin, Johnson both back Biden pick for federal judge in Green Ba Tarrant jail inmate, 68, with medical issues dies at hospital, Sheriffs Office says Read the latest in our coverage of the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. and other issues in Tarrant County jail. A 68-year-old Tarrant County Jail inmate who authorities say had a history of medical issues died in custody this week at a Fort Worth hospital, the Tarrant County Sheriffs Office said Friday in a news release. McLendon Caldwell died at John Peter Smith Hospital on Thursday. He had been transported to JPS multiple times for ongoing medical issues since being booked into the jail in February, according to the Sheriffs Office. Caldwell was arrested by Fort Worth police on a charge of harassment of a public servant, a third-degree felony. The Tarrant County Medical Examiners Office will release his cause of death. All in-custody deaths are reviewed and investigated by Tarrant County Sheriffs Office jail staff, the TCSO Criminal Investigations Division, an outside law enforcement agency, JPS medical staff, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, the Tarrant County Medical Examiners Office and the Texas Attorney Generals Office, according to the release. More top stories from our newsroom: Fire destroys Baby Dolls strip club in Fort Worth Were tales of the Lake Worth Monster real? Gateway Church settled 2 lawsuits this year [Get our breaking news alerts.] Lawmakers and politicians seeking state office are focusing intently on property taxes. (Getty Images) Its always popular for politicians to promise to cut your taxes. But is it realistic? Small changes are absolutely possible, and Indiana lawmakers have cut taxes regularly over the last decade. But some of the proposals being tossed around this year are approaching clickbait at their worst. Property taxes are getting most of the attention as property values skyrocket with the hot housing market. Assessed value growth doesnt automatically mean your taxes will go up because the second part of that calculation is the tax rate charged by local governments. But it has a high correlation. Property taxes bring in about $8.2 billion a year. And it would be higher, except that lawmakers have created deductions, credits and caps that save property owners an additional $1.5 billion a year. Before I go further, I want to emphasize that I dont have any problem with Indianas property tax system. I expect my bill to go up because the cost to run cities, towns, schools and libraries goes up. Maybe thats a firefighters salary or the materials to pave a road, insurance for teachers or the cost to run a judicial system that protects the public. But I do think the assessment system leaves something to be desired. Most people dont understand it. The values are based largely on sales of similar properties to your own and its difficult to grasp that. Its even harder to contest it without a specific appraisal of your property. A few years ago, we noticed our assessment starting to rise and we decided to monitor it. It kept growing until we disagreed our house was worth that much. It just so happened that, near that time, we had done an appraisal of our home for a home equity loan. We appealed and our assessed value was lowered by around $100,000. But not everyone can afford an appraisal. My preference would be that lawmakers consider an annual cap on how much assessed value can rise. This would give local governments some room for revenue growth but also keep in mind that some Hoosiers especially those on fixed incomes simply cant afford large jumps in property tax bills. I took Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch to task in the primary for her axe the tax proposal because she wanted to eliminate the income tax but didnt offer any specific budget cuts to accommodate the potential $8 billion annual loss to state revenues. I feel I should do the same with Libertarian Donald Rainwaters property tax plan in his campaign for governor. He wants to cap residential and agricultural property tax bills not assessments at 1% of the purchase price of the property. Additionally, property owners would only pay a maximum of 7% of the purchase price, whether they paid for the property all at once at closing or escrowed the amount and paid 1% per year for 7 years. He says this would provide owners with predictability and stability. Yes, it would definitely save taxpayers money though Rainwater offers no estimate on how much. Billions, likely. But savings mean a loss to governments trying to service their citizens, a fact that cant be ignored. It would mean many homeowners would pay nothing after seven years, while expecting their services to continue or even improve in quality. As a result, Rainwater wants state government, which in recent years has experienced higher than usual revenue, to backfill at least some of that loss. The state has previously engaged in backfilling but theres little appetite among lawmakers to get back into that business. Word is that Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun will soon have a property tax plan as well. I welcome an addition to the conversation but hope he will include specifics so it can be fairly judged by voters. Its not enough to say lets cut taxes or that government can be more efficient. Voters deserve specific, constructive and realistic plans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX WHITE COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is investigating a deadly shooting in White County Thursday afternoon. The TBI said in a press release that preliminary evidence indicated that the incident happened just after 3 p.m. in a home on Olen Road when deputies with the White County Sheriffs Office followed up on an earlier disturbance call. CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee The subject, identified by the TBI as 40-year-old James John Fox, left his home and fired a rifle at deputies. Deputies then fired back, killing Fox. TBI agents are working to independently determine the series of events leading to the shooting, including collecting evidence and conducting interviews, the release said. Investigative findings will be shared with the District Attorney General for further review and consideration. Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go. Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox. Find todays top stories on WKRN.com for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee. This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new 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 WKRN News 2. A 27-year-old South Carolina teacher was accused of stalking an 11-year-old girl to whom authorities say he sent over 60 love letters, the Anderson County Sheriffs Office announced. Starr Elementary School teacher Dylan Dukes was charged with stalking after deputies said he was inappropriately communicating with a former student, according to the news release. After an investigation began Monday, detectives who searched Dukes classroom reported that they found several photographs of Dukes and the 11-year-old stowed in his desk, according to the news release. Authorities stressed that the photos were not sexual in nature. Starr Elementary School in Starr, South Carolina. Google Maps Deputies said that Dukes had been stalking the girl since August 2023 and feared his actions were leading toward criminal sexual conduct, according to an arrest warrant obtained by HuffPost. Dukes had allegedly given the girl more than 60 love letters, one for each day of the week during summer break, inside a personalized box, according to the news release. In addition to the letters, Dukes had also given the girl gift cards, ornaments and pictures, and had given her unwanted hugs, all of which made her feel uncomfortable, according to the warrant. Detectives were able to stop the harassment and stalking before it became anything physical which the juvenile was in fear of, the sheriffs office said in its news release. As she spoke at his bond hearing on Thursday, the girls mother started crying when she described the letters, in which she said Dukes told the girl he loved her. The mother said Dukes had manipulated the family and even joined their church to see the girl. She said she wanted to ensure no other child experienced the stress and fear her child had. My child has had to endure moments of uncomfortability in places like church, school and sports, where my child should be comfortable and able to enjoy being a child, the mother said. The girls mother said that the access Dukes had to her child had continued to grow his obsession. The father asked the judge to consider his familys safety when deciding whether to grant Dukes bond request. Given Mr. Dukes unrestricted access to our family over the years and the unknown intentions of his obsession, I cannot feel secure knowing that he is not going to put my family in danger, the father said. An attorney representing Dukes at his hearing urged the judge to grant him bond, stating that he is not a flight risk and adding that he had been named Starr Elementarys teacher of the year in 2023. Dukes bond was ultimately set at $50,000, and he was ordered to not have any contact with the girl or her family. In a statement to WYFF-TV in Greenville, South Carolina, Kathy D. Hipp, superintendent of Anderson School District 3, said Dukes was placed on administrative leave following his arrest. Related... Sean O'Brien speaks to UPS workers outside a distribution center in Brooklyn, New York, on 14 July 2023. Sean O'Brien speaks to UPS workers outside a distribution center in Brooklyn, New York, on 14 July 2023. Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters The Teamsters International president, Sean OBrien, has been accused by senior members of the union of disgracing it by agreeing to an unprecedented appearance at next weeks Republican national convention. OBriens decision was branded unconscionable by John Palmer, vice-president at large at the Teamsters, who accused him of lending support to the most anti-union party and president in a generation. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Palmer urged members of the union to demand that OBrien cancel his planned appearance. The Teamsters did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Teamsters is one of the largest labor unions in the US, with 1.3 million members. While other large labor unions and the largest coalition of labor unions, the AFL-CIO, have already endorsed Joe Biden, the Teamsters has yet to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election. Related: From boosters to critics: how Pod Save America turned its back on Biden The Republican convention is set to begin on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. OBriens scheduled appearance has drawn criticism from both leaders and members within the Teamsters, and anti-union groups. The Center for Union Facts, an organization founded by staunch union opponent and lobbyist Rick Berman, has paid for billboards in the Milwaukee area accusing the Teamsters of being a partisan group due to the unions political action committee (Pac) predominantly supporting Democratic politicians. OBriens speech at the RNC will be the first time a Teamsters president has spoken at the convention. In January 2024, the Teamsters Pac donated $45,000 to both the Democratic and Republican national committees, marking its first large donation to the Republican party in years. Earlier this year James Curbeam, national chairman of the Teamsters National Black caucus, warned members that Trump was a scab masquerading as a pro-union advocate in a letter, reported by the New York Times, responding to OBriens meeting with the former president. As OBrien prepares to speak in Milwaukee, Palmer sounded the alarm. A speaking engagement at the Republican national convention by Teamster president Sean OBrien, regardless of the message, only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and president Ive seen in my lifetime seem palatable, he wrote in his letter, outlining anti-union policies being pushed by Trump and the Republican party. Palmer pointed to the recent supreme court decision overturning the Chevron decision which paves the way for corporate challenges to rules meant to protect workers, and cited the open opposition to union drives from Republican leaders. It is unconscionable for any labor leader to lend an air of legitimacy to a candidate and a political party, neither of which can be said to have done, or can be expected to do, anything to improve the lives of the workers we are pledged to represent, he added. The Teamsters conducted a poll of which the majority of members chose not to support Donald Trump. Members should demand that president OBrien not participate in the Republican convention, nor allow himself to disgrace this union by creating the false impression that Teamsters members support Trump and all he stands for. ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) A 13-year-old girl was fatally stabbed on the Fourth of July at her apartment complex in a random attack, according to the Orange County Sheriffs Office. Rose Dieujuste was found partially naked in a utility closet at the complex, with stab wounds. Man accused of murdering 13-year-old Florida girl on Fourth of July The sheriffs office said the girl was believed to have been walking to meet a friend. The friend found the girls phone and shoes on a staircase and told Dieujustes family. The family went around knocking on doors trying to find her. Orange County Sheriffs Office, Florida Video from the complex shows the suspect, Jerry Dorisme, 28, following Dieujuste as she walked to her friends building. Deputies said she was barely alive as she was transferred to a nearby hospital. She later died from her injuries. Man shoots cat in head in front of children to put it out of its misery, Polk deputies say She should not have died this way, Orange County Sheriff Mina said in a press conference. At the murder scene, deputies found a 12 knife, believed to be the murder weapon. Footage obtained from a nearby store showed Dorisme purchasing the knife before the murder. Deputies said there were signs of sexual abuse but it has not yet been confirmed. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating to determine if it was a sexual assault. Orange County Sheriffs Office, Florida Orange County Sheriffs Office, Florida According to nearby residents, Dorisme used to live in that area and was known to walk around and watch girls. Roses murder shook our community and our agency. Anytime a child is murdered, we all collectively grieve, Sheriff Mina said. We cant even imagine the pain and anguish that Roses family and loved ones are going through right now. Corrections officer arrested for using fraudulent handicap tag at Publix, Polk deputies say Dorisme was arrested Thursday on charges of first-degree felony murder. He had a previous arrest for lewd and lascivious behavior on a child, the Sheriff revealed. While at the sheriffs office for eight hours, officials said Dorisme never opened his mouth once. The case 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 WFLA. A Sikh worshipper tried to tackle a sword-wielding teenage raider who attempted to assault people at a gurdwara in Kent. Avtar Singh, 44, said he and other worshippers chased the boy, who was brandishing two swords in the Siri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend on Thursday. A 17-year-old boy from Gravesend was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and a religiously aggravated public order offence, after police were called to the gurdwara at 8.10pm on Thursday. Kent Police said nobody was seriously injured during the incident but two women required medical attention for cuts and bruises. A bladed weapon was recovered from the scene and footage showed a blood-covered male being detained by police officers and members of the public. Nobody else is being sought in connection with the incident. Mr Singh said he tackled a man who he said was brandishing two swords in the gurdwara. He said: Wed been told, suddenly, everyone just go out of the temple and I was just wondering what they were saying it like that. So I was sending my kids and missus downstairs and as soon as I heard they were calling me Avtar, Avtar come upstairs so I just went upstairs, I didnt know what was going on. When I went into the hall, the guy was sitting there on the money pot sitting there with the two swords in his hands and nothing on his head. I cant see that this is against our religion. I just went straight to him, tried to tackle him he put a sword onto me as well, then I fell on the floor, then we hit him with the thing to try to hold him, he fell on the floor as well. Then he ran away around the other side, he ran around the other way, and we chased him all the way along to the Trinity School and then two Indian lads stopped him there, held him and by that time the police came. Det Supt Ian Dyball, of Kent Police, said: We understand the communitys concerns in relation to the events at the gurdwara, however we are treating it as an isolated incident. Patrols will remain in the area for reassurance and we thank the community for their ongoing support and assistance. Reports of a large knife Speaking to Kent Online, one local resident said: The police helicopter was circling over the town centre at around 8pm, shortly afterwards the air ambulance landed in the grounds of the gurdwara. There were two ambulances and five police vehicles parked in Trinity Road, which was taped off by Holy Trinity primary school. A neighbour said that shed heard that two people had been stabbed inside the gurdwara with a large knife. Lauren Sullivan, the Labour MP for Gravesend, said: I am shocked and saddened by the incident at the gurdwara in Gravesend this evening. My thoughts are with those hurt, the family, and their community. She added: I would like to thank the emergency services for their swift response to this awful event. Full details are still emerging and there are many rumours running about it so it is right that we let the emergency services deal with the situation and complete their investigation and release the information as they can. Dan Jarvis , the security minister, said he was being kept updated about the attack. In a message on X, formerly Twitter, he added: All communities must be safe in their places of worship. Jagdev Singh Virdee, the Gravesend gurdwara spokesman, said the temples security team had called police after seeing the alleged attacker. He said: A person has been arrested by Kent Police on suspicion of attempted murder, after entering the gurdwara and creating an incident in one of the Darbar Halls. The gurdwara is cooperating fully with Kent Police who are treating the incident very seriously, with the district commander on site to support whilst the investigation is ongoing. The person was spotted by the gurdwara security team and police were called immediately. He said the incident happened after Sukhasan, a Sikh closing ritual, had taken place. 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 billboard from Republican Voters Against Trump features Scott Morris of Nashville. (Photo: Republican Voters Against Trump) A billboard from Republican Voters Against Trump features Scott Moore of Nashville. (Photo: Republican Voters Against Trump) Two Middle Tennesseans will be featured on billboards erected near Milwaukees Fiserv Arena, site of the 2024 Republican National Convention, as part of an advertising campaign organized by Republican Voters Against Trump. The campaign includes 15 billboards and a 60-second ad running in four battleground states. Scott Moore, a 63-year-old from Nashville, is one of the featured Tennesseans. An U.S. Army veteran, Moore said he was a Republican voter from the time he registered to vote at 18 he voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and that the choice to connect with the group was difficult. I always thought a businessman could shake up the good ole boy system. I wasnt thrilled about him but I thought he was a successful businessman, said Moore of his 2016 vote. Later, I saw that what he was doing was about him and not about our country. Donna Harris Redick, featured on a billboard at the 2024 Republican National Convention. (Photo: Republican Voters Against Trump) Donna Harris Redick said the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol was the tipping point for her. I realized the election wasnt stolen, she said. Democracy, she added, is her biggest concern. Republican Voters Against Trump is a project of the Republican Accountability PAC, a political action committee formed inmate 2020 to oppose the reelection of Trump. As a super PAC, the group can accept unlimited contributions. Moore, who did not vote for president in 2020, said the choice is clear to him this time. Im country first. I will do what is best for our country and that means voting Democrat, he said. I would do anything legal to keep Donald Trump out of office. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The University of Kentucky will pay Deloitte Consulting more than $1.3 million for services that resulted in the creation of new advisory bodies, public records show. UK contracted Deloitte, an international consulting firm, at the end of last year for services related to an initiative called Project Accelerate made up of five work groups looking at various aspects of the university and its operations. The university agreed to pay Deloitte up to $600,000 for work on the more readiness group and up to $750,000 on the more responsiveness group a total of $1.35 million, according to contracts obtained through an open records request. As of July 11, UK has paid Deloitte $375,000 and $468,750 for their work on Project Accelerate, and Deloitte will be paid the full amounts listed in the contract, said UK spokesperson Jay Blanton. Blanton said Deloitte was hired because of the companys experience in higher education, and to provide a broader overview of UKs structure and general education requirements called UK Core compared to other universities and best practices. With their assistance, and with our Boards approval, we now have significantly streamlined and clarified our Governing Regulations the most important principles that guide our institution and we have bolstered the voice that students and staff have in our shared governance structure, Blanton said. They also have provided us a comprehensive sense of best practices in terms of general education requirements that will help guide us as we think about how our UK Core continues to evolve in ways that best prepare students for success at UK and in the future when they leave our community. UK board votes to dissolve university Senate, outlines role of new faculty body The findings of one Project Accelerate work group, which was tasked with looking at the universitys responsiveness, ultimately resulted in the restructuring of the universitys governance, moving the university senate from a policy-setting role into an advisory faculty senate. The more readiness work group has been tasked with evaluating and revising UKs general education curriculum. Deloitte assisted with research and interviews for both groups. UK is paying the Deloitte in monthly installments, and is also responsible for actual and reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by Deloitte while working on the project, according to the contract. The statements of work between UK and Deloitte were obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request and subsequent appeal to the attorney general. Story continues Deloittes contract ran from Dec. 1, 2023, through June 14, 2024, the date of the most recent board of trustees meeting. University senate to faculty senate As part of Project Accelerate, Deloitte representatives made a presentation at the February board meeting, presenting data that showed UKs governance structure as differing from other, comparable universities. At that meeting, the university announced it would be examining the role of the university senate. After the presentation, university senate leadership said they had not been interviewed or consulted during Deloittes research and interviews. Deloittes presentation at that board meeting has been a point of contention for faculty, during which a representative from Deloitte said their interview process was not intended to be scientific, while the university referenced it when deciding to make changes to the governance structure. Over the next several months, the board of trustees voted to eliminate the university senate, replacing it with an advisory faculty senate and adding an advisory presidents council made up of faculty, staff and students. Following the May board meeting, the senate voted no confidence in President Eli Capilouto, citing concerns about the process used to create new governing regulations and the new governance structure. At the June board meeting, UK outlined a process to determine how the new faculty senate will be created, with elections being held no later than Oct. 31. Until then, a provisional faculty senate executive committee led by Provost Robert DiPaola will be in place. It will be composed of 22 members, including the provost as chair, the two faculty trustees and one faculty member from each college, who were announced last week. Though the university senate will cease to exist, several committees and councils will continue, including the UK Core Education Committee and the faculty Senate Advisory Committee on privilege and tenure. Tennessee holds its state and federal primaries on Aug. 1, in addition to a series of county and municipal general elections across the Volunteer State. The only statewide race on the ballot this year is a battle for the U.S. Senate, where incumbent U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, is seeking a second six-year term. Meanwhile, all nine U.S. House seats are up for election this year and all 99 seats in the Tennessee House of Representatives. Only the even-numbered state Senate seats are up for grabs in 2024. U.S. Senate Border security, abortion, and the economy are key issues as Tennesseans head to the polls to decide who will represent the Volunteer State in the U.S. Senate for the next six years. Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn is seeking a second term, while the Democratic primary could prove a key early test for a member of the Tennessee Three, the group of state lawmakers that faced ouster votes in 2023. Learn more about the U.S. Senate candidates. U.S. House Tennessee U.S. House races in the Aug. 1 primary include some notable races to watch. All eyes will likely fall on the 5th Congressional District Republican primary, the first reelection campaign for U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Columbia. Ogles faces a serious contender in Courtney Johnston, a Metro Nashville council member with a well-funded campaign. Still, it's often an uphill battle to unseat incumbents in the congressional delegation. U.S. House Districts 2, 3 and 7 feature unopposed candidates in the Republican and Democratic primaries. Learn more about the candidates in competitive U.S House primaries. Tennessee state Senate School vouchers. Gun control. Third-grade reading. All are top issues before Tennessee voters head to the polls on Aug. 1 to cast ballots in primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and the state legislature. In the state Senate, half of the 33 seats are up for a vote this year. In 2024, even-numbered districts face election for four-year terms and there are competitive Republican or Democratic primaries in nine districts. Independents will appear on the ballot in November. Here's what you need to know about the competitive primaries on the Aug. 1 ballot. Learn more about the candidates in competitive state Senate primaries. Tennessee state House Voters across Tennessee will have a chance to vote in all 99 Tennessee House of Representative districts this year, as all seats are up for a vote in 2024. But candidates in dozens of those races do not face primary opposition. Infrastructure concerns, Second Amendment issues, health care access and the conflict between pro-voucher and public education advocates are major priorities this election cycle, according to the candidates vying for a seat at the Tennessee Capitol. Learn more about the candidates in competitive primaries in the Middle Tennessee area. Davidson County Five Metro Nashville Public Schools board seats are up for grabs this year, with all but two candidates running unopposed. Those are among the most high-profile Davidson County general election races on the ballot this year. Issues in the school board races include the state's push for an expanded school voucher program, arming teachers and the controversial third-grade retention. Learn more about those running for school board in Nashville. Williamson County There are six contested school board races on the ballot in the upcoming general election, scheduled for Aug. 1. Learn more about the Williamson County candidates. Wilson County Two school board seats and the county assessor of property are all contested races in the upcoming general election, scheduled for Aug. 1. Learn more about the Wilson County candidates. Sumner County Meanwhile, two county school board seats are being contested this election cycle, and depending on who wins each race, it could mean big changes for the district and its policies. Learn more about the Sumner County candidates. Robertson County Two seats are contested during this election cycle, one on the county's school board and one on Greenbrier's Board of Alderman. Learn more about the Robertson County candidates. Cheatham County Alderman, City Council member and mayor of the Town of Ashland City are all contested races in the Cheatham County general election scheduled on Aug. 1. Learn more about the Cheatham County candidates. Dickson County Voters have only one contested race on the Aug. 1 local general election ballot, a seat on the Dickson County school board. See who is running for the Dickson County school board. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voter Guide: Key competitive races in the Aug. 1 election Voters across Tennessee will have a chance to vote in all 99 Tennessee House of Representative districts this year, as all seats are up for a vote in 2024. Infrastructure concerns, 2nd Amendment issues, health care access and the conflict between pro-voucher and public education advocates are major priorities this election cycle, according to the candidates vying for a seat at the Tennessee Capitol,. Here's who will be on the Republican and Democratic ballots for contested primaries in middle Tennessee: Tennessee State House of Representatives District 13 Tennessee House District 13 includes part of Rutherford County. Jami K. Averwater, Republican Jami Atwater, an attorney and title business owner, is currently a member of the Murfreesboro City Council. Atwater's legislative priorities include improving public safety and maintaining low taxes. Rep. Robert Stevens, R-Smyrna Incumbent Rep. Robert Stevens, R-Smyrna, is running for his second term in the General Assembly. Prior to his election to the legislature, he served 12 years on the Rutherford County Commission. Last year, Stevens sponsored legislation to remove certain taxes from adoption cases and support further streamlining adoptions in Tennessee. Stevens' legislative priorities include anti-abortion policies and Second Amendment rights. Jonathan Yancey, Democrat Jonathan Yancey is running unopposed in the Democratic primary for District 13. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 56 Tennessee House District 56 includes part of central Davidson County. Nick Forster-Benson, Democrat Nick Forster-Benson is a public policy researcher and current student at Vanderbilt University. Forster-Benson's legislative priorities include increased health care access, including Medicaid expansion, and support for rural community health centers, and housing opportunities to include rent stabilization and funding for public housing. Forster-Benson also supports a $20 minimum wage and mandated paid time off for Tennessee workers, among other priorities. Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville Incumbent Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville, is running for reelection in House District 56. He was first elected to office in 2018. Freeman, president of one of Middle Tennessee's largest real estate and property management companies, has carried bills related to domestic violence resources, sexual harassment and assault interventions and consumer protections. In recent months, Freeman has advocated for gun safety reforms and health care access. Freeman opposes the school voucher effort in the General Assembly. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 60 House District 60 is an open district following the resignation of Rep. Darren Jernigan, D-Nashville, who is leaving the General Assembly to lead state relations for Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell. The district encompasses northeast Davidson County in the Old Hickory area. Chad Bobo, Republican Chad Bobo first became involved with conservative advocacy on a volunteer level. Bobo, who formerly worked in insurance and logistics, lists jobs and economy issues among his top legislative priorities, including cutting red tape for small businesses and developing more manufacturing and production jobs. Bobo's legislative priorities also include increasing vocational and technical training for high school students and increasing infrastructure investments in the growing middle Tennessee region. Christopher Huff, Republican Christopher Huff, a Hermitage native, previously mounted an unsuccessful bid for the District 60 seat in 2022. If elected, Huff pledges to expand gun rights in Tennessee. Huff's legislative priorities are anti-abortion policies, business recruitment and lowering taxes. Shaundelle Brooks, Democrat Shaundelle Brooks began lobbying the General Assembly for gun safety reforms after the shooting death of her son, Akilah, in the 2018 Waffle House mass shooting. Brooks, a Hermitage resident and parole officer, ranks gun violence prevention as her top legislative priority. Brooks supports gun safety reforms such as red flag laws, purchase waiting periods and a ban on assault weapons. Brooks opposes school vouchers while listing affordable housing, health care access and reproductive rights among her slate of priorities. John Parrish, Democrat John Parrish is a U.S. Navy veteran and former committeeman with the Davidson County Democratic Party. Tyler Brasher, Democrat Tyler Brasher, a health care financial professional, first became involved in Davidson County civic life through the Donelson Hermitage Neighborhood Alliance. The Nashville Metro Council later elected Brasher to a six-year term on the city's Health and Educational Facilities Board. Brasher's legislative priorities include supporting public education through increased teacher salaries and overall funding. Brasher opposes voucher programs for public schools. Gun safety reform, increased funding for public transit and increased health care and abortion access are among his stated priorities. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 61 Tennessee House District 61 includes a swath of northern Williamson County. Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood Incumbent Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Brentwood, is unopposed in the Republican primary for the District 61 seat. Claire Jones, Democrat Claire Jones, a Williamson County hospice nurse, began advocating for gun safety reform following the shooting death of a coworker and the 2023 Covenant School shooting. Jones' legislative priorities include increased funding for public education, Medicaid expansion, reproductive health care and gun safety. Kurt Kosack, Democrat Kurt Kosack is a former U.S. Navy flight officer who later became a Nashville teacher before retiring in 2020. Among his campaign priorities are "reasonable" gun regulations, including red flag laws, and abortion rights. Kosack also support legislation to require that all elected officials work at least 3 days per year in local schools. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 64 House District 64 encompasses east Maury County. Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka Incumbent Rep. Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka, is chair of the education instruction subcommittee and this year was the lead House sponsor pushing Gov. Bill Lee's school voucher plan. Cepicky, a mortgage broker and rancher, has long been an advocate for conservative education policies in the General Assembly. Lee endorsed Cepicky's reelection ahead of an expected renewed push for vouchers next year. Cepicky has listed Second Amendment rights, anti-abortion values and states rights as among his top priorities. Ray Jeter, Republican Ray Jeter, a retired chief deputy sheriff from the Maury County Sheriff's Department, was first elected to the county commission in 2022. Jeter refers to himself as a "pro-life," pro-Second Amendment conservative who advocates for smaller government. Jeter's legislative priorities include reforming the Tennessee Department of Children's services and making it easier for families to adopt, in addition to career and technical education for Tennessee youth. Alex Pierce, Democrat Alex Pierce, a Columbia native, is an activist who lists gun safety among his top priorities. A gun owner himself, Pierce believes the General Assembly should pass safe storage laws and walk back legislation that arms some teachers in Tennessee schools. Pierce opposes schools vouchers and supports increased public school funding, in addition to advocating for cannabis legalization. Eileen H. Longstreet, Democrat Eileen Longstreet, a retired health insurance executive, relocated home to Tennessee in 2018. Longstreet's legislative priorities include adequate education funding, raising teacher pay and homeowners' rights and protections. Longstreet supports expanding Medicaid access, lowering costs for the uninsured and pro-choice policies for women. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 65 House District 65 is up for grabs following the retirement of Rep. Sam Whitson, R-Franklin. The district encompasses part of Williamson County. Brian Beatherd, Republican Brian Beatherd is a Williamson County commissioner and current chair of the commission. Beatherd opposes school vouchers, a defining issue of the 2024 election, arguing any voucher program would distribute Williamson County's "hard-earned tax dollars" to private schools. Beatherd pledged to secure "equitable" funding for Williamson County schools. Beatherd is critical of state overreach and prioritizes local control in his campaign platform. Second Amendment rights and immigration issues are among his campaign priorities. Outgoing Rep. Sam Whitson has endorsed Beatherd for the open seat. Michelle Foreman, Republican Michelle Foreman is a Franklin native and frequent Republican candidate for Middle Tennessee offices. Foreman's top-stated issue is closing Tennessee's open primaries, which allow people to vote in a political party primary without being a registered party member. At a recent local forum, she also said she would reject federal education funds for Tennessee schools. In 2022, Foreman unsuccessfully ran for the Tennessee House in District 59. Foreman last year was ordered to pay $100,000 in sanctions to former Metro Nashville council member Dave Rosenburg after she lost a defamation lawsuit against him. Lee Reeves, Republican Lee Reeves is a real estate lawyer whose pro-voucher education platform secured him an early endorsement from Gov. Bill Lee, who is backing voucher supporters in the 2024 elections ahead of a renewed voucher legislation push in 2025. Reeves lists Second Amendment rights and limited government among his top priorities. LaRhonda Williams, Democrat LaRhonda Williams is unopposed in the Democratic primary for District 65. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 68 District 68 is an open seat following the retirement of Rep. Curtis Johnson, R-Clarksville. The district encompasses part of Montgomery County. Carol Duffin, Republican Carol Duffin first moved to the Clarksville area 25 years ago after her husband was stationed at Fort Campbell with the U.S. Army. If elected, Duffin said she will prioritize infrastructure improvements for the district. She also lists "parental rights" issues such as school choice, economic development and property rights issues among her top priorities. Greg Gilman, Republican Greg Gilman is a retired combat veteran and instructor pilot who first moved to Clarksville on an Army assignment. He is a reserve deputy with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, where he also works as a director of the reserves program. Gilman supports term limits for General Assembly members and cites infrastructure and congestion as his number one issue to address if elected. Aron Maberry, Republican Aron Maberry, a Clarksville native, is a pastor at a Clarksville church and an elected member of the Clarksville-Montgomery County school board. Maberry lists infrastructure needs, Second Amendment rights and fiscal responsibility among his top issues. Maberry also supports school choice and Gov. Bill Lee's voucher program, and Lee has endorsed Maberry in the race. Joe Smith, Republican Joe Smith grew up in unincorporated Sango before joining the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from Clarksville High School. Smith later served as a first responder with Clarksville Fire and Rescue before he was elected to the county commission. Smith would prioritize infrastructure upgrades to support the rapid growth of the area, Second Amendment rights while supporting education and training for responsible gun owners and support school choice options. Garfield Scott, Democrat Garfield Scott is unopposed in the Democratic primary in District 68. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 69 House District 69 includes Hickman, Lewis and part of Dickson counties. Rep. Joseph M. "Jody" Barrett, R-Dickson Incumbent Rep. Jody Barrett, R-Dickson, is seeking his second term in the General Assembly in House District 69. This year, Barrett sponsored legislation blocking local governments from establishing red flag gun laws. Barrett also cast vote against the final version of a large corporate tax refund this spring. Barrett's legislative priorities include 2nd Amendment rights, immigration enforcement and business development. Ronny George, Republican Ronny George is a former Hickman County commissioner. George has no campaign website and could not be reached for comment. Tennessee State House of Representatives District 78 House District 78 includes Cheatham and part of Dickson counties. Rep. Mary Littleton, R-Dickson Incumbent Rep. Mary Littleton, R-Dickson, is running for reelection in District 78. Littleton was first elected to the legislature in 2012 and currently chairs the children and family affairs subcommittee. On her campaign website, Littleton cites her support for immigration enforcement, business-friendly policies and human trafficking prevention training among her top issues. This year, Littleton sponsored legislation passed into law that would require teachers to potentially out transgender students to their families and codified protections for protections for anti-LGBTQ foster parents. Justin Spurlock, Republican Justin Spurlock, a teacher in Dickson County Schools, said his former career as a social worker and child abuse investigator informs his top legislative priority. If elected, Spurlock would work to strengthen child abuse laws and enforcement statutes. Spurlock lists Second Amendment rights, small business support and public schools investment among his top priorities. Deborah Castle Doyle, Democrat Deborah Castle Doyle is running unopposed in the Democratic primary for District 78. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voter Guide: The key Middle Tennessee state House races Tennessee Voter Guide: A look at candidates in the Wilson County Aug. 1 general election Wilson County voters will soon be heading to the polls. Two school board seats and the county assessor of property are all contested races in the upcoming general election, scheduled for Aug. 1. Here is a look at the candidates in those contested races. Wilson County School Board District 1 Carrie Pfeiffer Carrie Pfeiffer, Independent: Pfeiffer, 47, and the incumbent is a professional educator by training, with more than 13 years experience. She is currently a homemaker. I initially ran for school board because I was frustrated with my own board members leadership on serious issues from the budget to building maintenance to transportation, not to mention rigorous academics, Pfeiffer said. Rapid growth challenges, a safe school environment and rigorous academics are leading issues for Pfeiffer. Greg Hohman Gregory Hohman, Republican: Hohman, 51, is a civil engineer and small business owner who moved to Wilson County from California about three years ago. Hohman believes there are warning signs that lessons on critical race theory, gender confusion and pedophilia he believes were incorporated into curriculum in California are making their way to Tennessee and Wilson County. I am willing to stop the direction we are heading before it mirrors California and their failing school systems, Hohman said. Wilson County School Board District 5 Brittany Ash Brittany Ash, Democrat: Ash, 34, works as the director of children's services at a foster care agency for children with special needs and is a lifelong resident of Wilson County who attended Wilson County Schools for K-12. Higher profile issues like vouchers, arming teachings, culture wars and book bans along with less publicized challenges like bus driver shortages, teacher turnover, cell phones in schools and space capacity are all on Ashs radar. Donnie Self Donnie Self, Republican: Self, 50, is a former law enforcement officer who became a teacher at Watertown High School from 2015-2019 and now owns and operates Advantage Roofing Contractors while also working as a real estate agent. School safety, teacher compensation and retention along with overall district-wide school growth are leading issues for Self, who believes education will be a fundamental factor to determine whether Wilson County prospers or declines in the years ahead. Aaron Fulcher, Republican: A 21-year-old "conservative" candidate has qualified as a write-in and will be eligible for District 5 school board seat, but will not appear on the ballot. Fulcher is a 2021 graduate of Lebanon High School and currently attends Cumberland University in Lebanon. I know what its like to be a student and that is a different perspective and opens a different way to view things, Fulcher said. Assessor of Property Stephen Goodall Stephen Goodall, Republican: Goodall, 44, is the incumbent who has held the seat since 2016 for a county he says has more than 70,000 parcels of property. Recording property improvements to the tax roll immediately so everyone has an accurate appraised value is a leading component to the job. Goodall points to experience and asks to train other counties on programs at the request of the State Division of Property Assessments. Derrick Hammond Derrick T. Hammond, Democrat: Hammond, 49, is a senior tax manager with about 30 years of experience in property assessment with multiple certifications. Feedback Hammond has received include a better understanding on how the assessors office directly affects residents as citizens, and modernization of the office with the best appraisal tools the industry has to offer. This means equitable assessments that ensure all property owners pay their fair share of taxes. Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles. The new Wilson County Election Commission headquarters on Gay Street in Lebanon. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Wilson County voter guide: Who's running for school board, other seats Tennessee Voter Guide: A look at candidates in the Wilson County Aug. 1 general election Wilson County voters will soon be heading to the polls. Two school board seats and the county assessor of property are all contested races in the upcoming general election, scheduled for Aug. 1. Here is a look at the candidates in those contested races. Wilson County School Board District 1 Carrie Pfeiffer Carrie Pfeiffer, Independent: Pfeiffer, 47, and the incumbent is a professional educator by training, with more than 13 years experience. She is currently a homemaker. I initially ran for school board because I was frustrated with my own board members leadership on serious issues from the budget to building maintenance to transportation, not to mention rigorous academics, Pfeiffer said. Rapid growth challenges, a safe school environment and rigorous academics are leading issues for Pfeiffer. Greg Hohman Gregory Hohman, Republican: Hohman, 51, is a civil engineer and small business owner who moved to Wilson County from California about three years ago. Hohman believes there are warning signs that lessons on critical race theory, gender confusion and pedophilia he believes were incorporated into curriculum in California are making their way to Tennessee and Wilson County. I am willing to stop the direction we are heading before it mirrors California and their failing school systems, Hohman said. Wilson County School Board District 5 Brittany Ash Brittany Ash, Democrat: Ash, 34, works as the director of children's services at a foster care agency for children with special needs and is a lifelong resident of Wilson County who attended Wilson County Schools for K-12. Higher profile issues like vouchers, arming teachings, culture wars and book bans along with less publicized challenges like bus driver shortages, teacher turnover, cell phones in schools and space capacity are all on Ashs radar. Donnie Self Donnie Self, Republican: Self, 50, is a former law enforcement officer who became a teacher at Watertown High School from 2015-2019 and now owns and operates Advantage Roofing Contractors while also working as a real estate agent. School safety, teacher compensation and retention along with overall district-wide school growth are leading issues for Self, who believes education will be a fundamental factor to determine whether Wilson County prospers or declines in the years ahead. Aaron Fulcher Aaron Fulcher, Republican: A 21-year-old "conservative" candidate has qualified as a write-in and will be eligible for District 5 school board seat, but will not appear on the ballot. Fulcher is a 2021 graduate of Lebanon High School and currently attends Cumberland University in Lebanon. I know what its like to be a student and that is a different perspective and opens a different way to view things, Fulcher said. Assessor of Property Stephen Goodall Stephen Goodall, Republican: Goodall, 44, is the incumbent who has held the seat since 2016 for a county he says has more than 70,000 parcels of property. Recording property improvements to the tax roll immediately so everyone has an accurate appraised value is a leading component to the job. Goodall points to experience and asks to train other counties on programs at the request of the State Division of Property Assessments. Derrick Hammond Derrick T. Hammond, Democrat: Hammond, 49, is a senior tax manager with about 30 years of experience in property assessment with multiple certifications. Feedback Hammond has received include a better understanding on how the assessors office directly affects residents as citizens, and modernization of the office with the best appraisal tools the industry has to offer. This means equitable assessments that ensure all property owners pay their fair share of taxes. Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles. The new Wilson County Election Commission headquarters on Gay Street in Lebanon. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Wilson County voter guide: Who's running for school board, other seats Border security, abortion, and the economy are key issues as Tennesseans head to the polls to decide who will represent the Volunteer State in the U.S. Senate for the next six years. Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn is seeking a second term, while the Democratic primary could prove a key early test for a member of the Tennessee Three, the group of state lawmakers that faced ouster votes in 2023. Here's who will be on the ballot in the Republican and Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate on Aug. 1. U.S. Senate Republican Primary U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee Blackburn, 72, is the senior U.S. Senator from Tennessee, seeking reelection to a second term. Prior to her election to the Senate, Blackburn served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and before that served in the Tennessee Senate. Blackburn is a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, decrying his criminal conviction as a "total witch hunt." She has earned Trump's endorsement and rumors remain that she may be considered as a potential running mate. During her time in the U.S. Senate, Blackburn has sponsored successful bipartisan legislation aimed at creating new ways to protect children from exploitation online, and legislation seeking to curb smuggling and trafficking of women and girls. She has also been a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party, and advocate for securing the southern border, sponsoring legislation to end inclusion of people unlawfully in the United States for Congressional district apportionment. Partnering with colleagues across the aisle, Blackburn has also sponsored legislation seeking to increase transparency in live event ticket sales and establish new consumer protections a matter she also grilled LiveNation-Ticketmaster executives on during Congressional hearings in 2023 after the Taylor Swift ticketing debacle. Blackburn has voted against U.S. financial aid to Ukraine, and voted against Democratic-led legislation codifying the right to in-vitro fertilization, condemning the vote as an election year political stunt and arguing that IVF is already legal in every state. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaks during the Tennessee Republican Partys Statesmens Dinner at Music City Center in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, June 15, 2024. Tres Wittum Wittum, 36, is a former longtime Tennessee Senate staffer. He came in last in a crowded GOP primary in Tennessee's 5th Congressional District race in 2022, earning 398 votes. At the time, Wittum touted his experiences leading college Republicans at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and working on the Hannah Montana movie. He made statewide headlines after being escorted out of the GOP Statesmen's Dinner in 2022 following an outburst directed at House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the Tennessee Journal reported. According to his campaign website, Wittum is seeking to "bring a fresh perspective to the race," focusing on tackling the $34.5 trillion national debt, imposing term limits for Congress, and repealing the federal income tax. Wittum also supports repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end direct election of U.S. senators and return power to appoint senators to state legislatures. Tres Wittum listens during a debate for the 5th Congressional District Primary at the Memorial Building in Columbia, Tenn., Monday, June 27, 2022. U.S. Senate Democratic Primary Marquita Bradshaw Bradshaw is a longtime activist and South Memphis native. A single mother who raised her son on a working-class salary, Bradshaw is a longtime advocate for environmental justice, having founded Sow Justice, a Memphis nonprofit that organizing against hazardous waste and increase community engagement in environmental policymaking. She also holds leadership positions for the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, the International Coalition to Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons, and the African American Environmental Justice Network. Bradshaw was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020, ultimately losing to now-U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty after earning 35% of the vote. According to her campaign website, Bradshaw would work toward the Green New Deal, expand community policing and restorative justice, establish universal background checks for guns, raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, and protect DACA recipients. Executive Director of Sowing Justice Marquita Bradshaw speaks during a Blue Oval Good Neighbors press conference calling for Ford to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement with local residents outside Cedar Grove Baptist in Mason, Tenn., on Wednesday, June 19, 2024. Lola Denise Brown Brown is chair of the membership committee of the NAACP in Nashville. She is the daughter of Dr. Dorothy Lavinia Brown, a surgeon who also became the first African American female to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly. Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville Johnson has represented part of Knoxville in the Tennessee state House since 2012. She was catapulted to a national platform when the Republican-controlled state House attempted to expel her alongside two other Democrats in 2023 after she participated in gun control protest at the House podium in the middle of a legislative session. Republicans fell one vote short of expelling Johnson, as one member of the supermajority did not feel there was enough evidence to warrant expulsion. Johnson, alongside Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis who were both expelled, reappointed by their local legislatures, and ultimately reelected in special elections have come to be known as the "Tennessee Three." Their expulsion prompted a visit to Nashville from Vice President Kamala Harris, and the trio visited the White House last year following the expulsion hearings. Johnson is a 27-year veteran special education teacher, who is an outspoken supporter of fully funding public education and gun safety laws. She is also a vocal advocate for abortion rights, herself a survivor of a medically necessary abortion. Gloria Johnson is photographed in the News Sentinel photo studio on Monday, June 3, 2024. Civil Miller-Watkins Miller-Watkins is a middle school teacher and native of Bolivar, Tennessee. A mother of eight and grandmother of 10, Miller-Watkins has served as vice-chair of the Fayette County Board of Education, and is a former chair of the Fayette County Democratic Party. According to her social media and campaign website, if elected, Miller-Watkins would work to lower gas costs, improving public schools, common sense gun safety laws, and expanding affordable housing. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voter Guide: GOP and Democratic primaries for US Senate More than a dozen members of Texass congressional delegation are pressing President Biden in a letter Friday to approve additional federal assistance for Texans impacted by Hurricane Beryl. Many residents in and around the Houston area have been without power for several days with heat indexes exceeding 100 degrees daily, the letter from 19 lawmakers reads. They urgently need the resources FEMA can provide. The bipartisan group of legislators, led by Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), is calling on the White House to approve funding under FEMAs Individual Assistance program. The program provides financial assistance to households with uninsured or underinsured expenses following a disaster. The administration has already approved two forms of federal assistance through the Hazard Mitigation Assistance program, which funds disaster prevention, and Public Assistance for state and local government. More immediately, though, the vast majority of our constituents require Individual Assistance (IA), the lawmakers wrote, as they are much more vulnerable on an individual basis in their respective homes while their communities focus on the recovery and rehabilitation of their municipalities at large. Hurricane Beryl made landfall near Matagorda, Texas, on Monday, causing significant flooding and wind damage to several parts of the state. Federal aid to the state was not approved until Tuesday, which Biden said was due to Texas officials failing to make a formal request for a major 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) has stepped in as acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is abroad on an economic development trip. The aid was approved once Biden and Patrick connected Tuesday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter from lawmakers. 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. Texas needs money to keep the lights on during extreme weather. Its funding more fossil fuel instead Keeping the power on can be the difference between life and death, a scenario bearing out this week in Houston as temperatures spike while hundreds of thousands of people suffer through brutal heat without air conditioning. The city was struck by massive back-to-back storms: A powerful derecho in May blew out skyscraper windows and left downtown Houston dark. Then Category 1 Beryl swept through in an unusually early start to hurricane season, knocking out power for more than 2 million customers. Texass electrical infrastructure cant keep up. Downed trees and strong winds toppled neighborhood power lines, and the May derecho even felled some massive transmission towers, warping them into twisted metal. But rather than shuttling money into strengthening its grid to make sure the lights and A/C stay on during increasingly extreme weather, Texas is pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into new natural gas-fired power plants. Adding more electricity to the grid isnt necessarily a bad thing because the state is facing higher demand, said Texas energy expert Doug Lewin, founder of consulting firm Stoic Energy. But flooding the energy grid with more planet-warming fossil fuels wont make power lines resilient to stronger storms. Large-scale gas generation doesnt do anything for you in a situation like a hurricane, Lewin told CNN. The problem is transmission lines cant carry that power. You could have all the power in the world; if you cant get it to where its needed, its not going to do anybody any good. The move to build more natural gas plants came in the wake of another massive power outage: the deadly deep freeze in February 2021 killed more than 200 people and left millions of customers without power and heat for days. Despite Texas Republicans anti-wind energy rhetoric, natural gas plants going offline accounted for the bulk of the outages. More recently, mass outages have come from downed power lines. The weak point is the wires and poles, and basically always has been, Michael Webber, an energy expert and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told CNN. But its not a priority for the state. The state prioritizes natural gas power plants or backup natural gas generator systems. It is not focused on hardening the grid. Three months before Beryl slammed into Texas, Houston utility Centerpoint Energy estimated in an April report it would need $2 billion to harden its system against worsening extreme weather. Centerpoint and other Texas utilities are no stranger to extreme weather. Since 2015, Houston alone has endured three hurricanes, two tropical storms, extreme heat and cold, flooding and the rare May derecho with tornado-like winds. Centerpoint worked to restore power after 15 extreme weather events between 2019 to 2023. In addition to extreme weather, the companys service area also experiences heavy precipitation and extreme temperatures, the company wrote in the report. Many of the resiliency measures in the companys resiliency plan will address and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather-related resiliency events. Back-to-back storms have taken a toll on electrical infrastructure particularly old wooden electrical poles, Joshua Rhodes, an energy research scientist at UT Austin, told CNN. This is the third major event that has hit the region; that just takes a toll with infrastructure, Rhodes said. If another storm comes through, that can take out more infrastructure that wasnt fully fixed from the other storm. Much of Texass electrical infrastructure was built in the 1970s and 1980s, when weather was less extreme, Rhodes said, and many of the electrical poles are made of wood. That wood is getting more brittle with extreme heat, followed by floods. And as Texas is now hit with storm after storm, that is taking a toll. Its not a surprise the infrastructure built for milder weather is failing more often, Rhodes said. Some utilities are starting to replace wooden poles with stronger fiberglass materials; some are contemplating burying electrical lines underground, which is an expensive process. Some experts CNN spoke to pointed to another factor among Texas officials: A lack of willingness to talk about a dramatically warming climate and how it is fueling stronger storms. State officials required utilities like Centerpoint to submit weather resilience plans but havent doled out much money to help them make the fixes. Since the Texas political leadership doesnt admit to climate change, (utilities) can talk about extreme weather, but they cant say extreme weather is being exacerbated by climate change, its going to get worse and we to plan to get ahead of it, said Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant based in Texas. All this stuff costs money, and customers are the ones who pay for it. Lewin stressed that one solution is microgrids powered by both solar and natural gas smaller networks of power infrastructure separate from the main grid, which can be used to power nursing homes and hospitals during a major event like a hurricane. Microgrids did receive more than $1 billion in state funding in the same bill as the gas plants money that Lewin said has been sitting dormant at the Texas Public Service Commission, not yet able to be applied for. Weve got to make sure that 90-year-olds have power when its 105 degrees out period, Lewin said. Thats just mission critical. Anything less than 100% success is not okay. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com John Guerrero Jr.s first day on the job was also his last day on Earth. The 46-year-old was part of a crew framing walls for a luxury apartment building sprouting in East Austin on May 16, 2022. The heat index that day reached 96 degrees. At that time, Austins water break ordinance had not yet been struck down by the state, and the contractor made sure water and Gatorade were available. Guerrero drank both, but he told others he still wasnt feeling well. He stopped sweating, a sign his body was dangerously overheating. Guerrero finished his shift, then died of heat stroke. Even with access to beverages, the OSHA inspector noted, the employee was not trained on how to identify the symptoms of heat illness and their severity. Studies suggest heat exposure is among the top causes of worker deaths responsible for 600 to 2,000 U.S. fatalities a year, not to mention roughly 170,000 workplace injuries, according to a Public Citizen analysis yet federal action has been infuriatingly slow. Experts have been urging OSHA to set heat safety standards since 1972. OSHA finally launched that rulemaking process in September 2021. The result of that long-awaited effort, a proposed rule unveiled this past week by the Biden administration and championed by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, is promising. It would require rest breaks and access to shade and water when a job site reaches a heat index of 80 degrees. Importantly, employers would have to provide training and establish emergency response plans for heat-related injuries efforts that could have saved the life of Guerrero and many others whove died on the job. A worker takes a drink of water while framing a new home in Montopolis in 2016. OSHA has developed proposed safety standards for those working in the heat, but finalizing such rules could take a few more years. While heat stroke can afflict workers within a matter of hours, finalizing OSHAs heat safety rule could take at least a year or two. Federal officials say they recognize the urgency, though. At a recent Workers Defense Project event, OSHA assistant secretary of labor Doug Parker called the heat safety rule "our No. 1 rulemaking priority at OSHA," adding that, "we've done this rule faster than most of these types of complex rules have ever been done since the 1980s." The risk to workers is particularly acute in Texas, which saw one-fifth of all U.S. heat-related deaths last year, according to an Associated Press analysis. Climate change is contributing to longer and hotter summers, while at the same time, Texas lawmakers last year struck down water break ordinances in Austin and Dallas as part of a massive bill nullifying various local regulations. David Chincanchan, policy director for the Workers Defense Project, noted some employers already take the right steps to ensure a safe worksite. But other folks are willing to trade 10 or 15 minutes of productivity, which is how long a water break would take, for potentially a human life, and obviously it's not worth it, he told me. I kept thinking of Chincanchans words as I read through the OSHA reports of the heat-related worker deaths in Texas just during the time the proposed federal rule has been in the works: May 15, 2022: While replacing the roof on a home in Ennis, Jose Armando Tobar, 63, became ill and fell off the building to his death. OSHA found heat exhaustion caused the fall. June 21, 2022: Jorge Gomez spent the morning framing a new house in Liberty Hill, and he then couldnt stand up after his lunch break. The 49-year-old complained of chest pains before collapsing. OSHA records say his death was caused by heart failure related to heat exposure. June 23, 2022: Gabriel Infante, 24, toiled under the San Antonio sun, using a hand shovel to dig out a fiber optic cable. Around 5:30 p.m., he became so combative that police were called; then he collapsed and died at the hospital from severe heat stroke. An OSHA report said Infantes core body temperature had reached 110 degrees. Aug. 8, 2022: Christopher Strickland, 31, spent the day digging narrow trenches with a pickaxe for a sprinkler system outside a San Angelo office building. He collapsed and died of heat stroke, OSHA records said. June 20, 2023: Postal carrier Eugene Gates, 66, collapsed while walking along his delivery route in Dallas. OSHA found the heat exacerbated Gates fatal heart condition. June 27, 2023: After handling cinder blocks at a Rockport construction site, Eloy Maldonado Valdez, 59, told a co-worker he didnt feel well. He laid down in the shade. He never got up. All of them might still be with us, if only the right safeguards had been in place for those working in the heat. OSHA has crafted such a rule. It should move swiftly to finalize it before any more workers trying to provide for their families join this list. Bridget Grumet is the Austin American Statesmans Metro columnist. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas workers cant afford to wait years for federal heat safety rule Apple CEO Tim Cook. Jeff Chiu/ Associated Press Wall Street sees Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 setting off a big upgrade cycle. Bank of America increased its price objective for Apple stock in a note on Thursday. The model's generative AI features will drive demand from consumers, analysts wrote. Apple's next iPhone is stirring up fresh bullishness on Wall Street. Bank of America was the latest to raise its price objective on the stock, estimating $256 per share. The target indicates a nearly 12% gain from where the stock was trading around 11:00 a.m. ET on Thursday. The bank highlighted the next iPhone upgrade as the key to taking Apple stock higher. Excitement for generative artificial intelligence and aging devices currently held by consumers will fuel a multi-year upgrade cycle, it said. Other analysts are similarly bullish on the upcoming iPhone 16, which is due for release in September. The phone will be Apple's first device built with AI capabilities in mind, such as a revamped Siri, text summaries, and image generation. These tools, featured during Apple's WWDC event, will come in the iOS 18 release. The AI system is known "Apple Intelligence," and can only be accessed on Apple models 15 and older. "Post WWDC, the percentage of respondents answering their intention to upgrade their smartphone in 2024 increased, which we view as bullish," BofA wrote on Thursday, citing a survey it conducted. It added: "In our view, this survey result signals higher confidence in users' purchasing decisions, which could be driven by the introduction of Apple Intelligence." In a note Thursday, Wedbush Securities estimated that shipments of the new phone would come close to 90 million, exceeding Wall Street's expectations. The firm holds a price target of $275 on the stock. But the iPhone 16's features aren't the only catalyst there's pent up demand for a new model, Wedbush said, estimating that 270 million iPhone users have not upgraded their devices in four years. BofA agreed. In its survey, the bank found that a large percentage of users were still using older models, and saw an uptick of consumers willing to upgrade more frequently. Preference for Apple increased above other smartphone brands. Meanwhile, the threat of a Chinese consumer pullback a headwind worrying investors a year ago is dimming, with buyers in the country also demanding Apple products. "In China, while there seems to have been a drop in respondents' interest in upgrading to an iPhone (and a corresponding increase in preference for Huawei) for the periods Sep-Oct 2023 and Mar-Apr 24, in both instances, the effect was transitory, and Apple quickly regained share in both periods," the bank said. Read the original article on Business Insider The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is now operating in the Middle East, replacing the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower after the Ike underwent a lengthy deployment with multiple extensions. The Theodore Roosevelt and its carrier strike group arrived in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations on Friday to deter aggression, promote regional stability, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region, according to U.S. Central Command. The Pentagon announced in June that the Roosevelt, based in San Diego, would get underway and replace the Eisenhower in June. Although the East Coast-based aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman was expected to replace the Ike, it is still undergoing work ups to certify for deployment. The Navys ongoing carrier conundrum The Ike originally deployed in October and became the first carrier since the end of the War in Afghanistan since 2021 to enter those waters. There, the carrier strike group shot down a barrage of Iran-backed Houthi drones and missiles on a near-daily basis. The crew received the Combat Action Ribbon, or CAR, for their actions in the Middle East. The award is for sailors and Marines who actively participated in ground or surface action, and one that has rarely been given to sailors since the 1991 Gulf War. A general view of rubble of the damaged sites during Collapse of tower scaffolding. Eric Dubost/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa Three workers have died after construction scaffolding that they were using collapsed in Switzerland. A further eight people were injured, four seriously, in the incident in the Swiss town of Prilly, near Lausanne, according to police. The accident occurred on the construction site of a wooden 19-storey building that is part of a shopping complex. Police said the building is nearly 60 metres high. Witnesses told the Swiss news agency Keystone-SDA that a freight elevator fell down and took the entire scaffolding on the north side of the building with it. The authorities initially provided no details about the accident or the possible cause. The police cordoned off the area around the accident site. Firefighters and specialist companies were deployed to secure the remaining scaffolding on the other three sides of the building. A general view of rubble of the damaged sites during Collapse of tower scaffolding. Eric Dubost/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa Three of Mississippi's Historically Black Colleges and Universities are set to receive more than $3.1 million in total to help preserve historical structures on their campus. The National Park Service announced via a press release that the organization awarded $10,670,000 to 15 projects in eight states as part of the Historic Preservation Funds Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant program. The program is aimed at repairing historic structures across HBCU campuses in the United States. According to the news release, Congress appropriated funding for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Grant Program in Fiscal Year 2023 through the Historic Preservation Fund, where funding is provided by Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas lease revenues, not tax dollars. Alcorn State University, Jackson State University and Rust College are set to receive a combined total of $3,170,964 in funds from the grant program for specific projects. Its vital for Americas HBCUs to preserve their vibrant history, ensuring that the places and the events that happened there are not forgotten, said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams in the media release. Im proud that the National Park Service can support this locally-led stewardship. Jackson State University celebrates commencement at the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center on the Jackson, Miss., campus on Saturday, May 4, 2024. Alcorn State University, Lorman Harmon Hall Repairs, Phase 1 award amount: $722,400 Dormitory No. 2 Rehabilitation award amount: $750,000 Belles Lettres Hall Rehabilitation award amount: $750,000 Alcorn State University is grateful to the National Park Service for awarding us over $2 million to preserve and rehabilitate our historic structures. We appreciate their commitment to conserving the rich heritage of our nations HBCUs. In addition, I would like to thank our Economic Development and Community Engagement team for their grant writing efforts, which brought this work to fruition," Alcorn State President Tracy Cook said in a statement to the Clarion Ledger. More: Alcorn State new president shares visions and goals for the university Jackson State University Preservation of the Zachary T. Hubert Health Center (former health center) award amount: $198,564 "We deeply appreciate this generous grant award from the National Park Service. This funding will be instrumental in preserving the history of our Zachary T. Hubert Health Center, once a vital resource for the healthcare needs of our neighbors, students, faculty and staff. Safeguarding this facility helps us in our mission to honor and uplift the Jackson State legacy. We are grateful for the continued support to maintain our historical assets and resources, said Jackson State President Marcus L. Thompson in a statement to the Clarion Ledger. More on: Unfinished Margaret Walker novel surfaces at long last for publication Rust College, Holly Springs Leontyne Price Library Rehabilition award Amount: $750,000 More on: Civil rights veterans highlight role of Rust College during movement "Rust College, Mississippi's oldest HBCU and the state's second oldest institution of higher education, is pleased and proud to announce grant funding from the National Park Service that will be used to restore Leontyne Price Library. Rust College continues to meet the educational needs and aspirations of the citizens of Mississippi, the Nation, and many foreign countries. The Leontyne Price Library is not only at the geographic and educational center of our campus, but it is a historic structure, which has been and remains an integral element in numerous campus activities and functions," Robert Dixon, president of Rust College, said in a statement to the Clarion Ledger. This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Alcorn State, Jackson State, Rust College receive federal grant funds Tim Sneller, a former lawmaker and veteran of the Michigan Legislature, dies at age 68 LANSING Former state Rep. Tim Sneller, D-Burton, who was a candidate to return to the state House in the 68th District, died Thursday, legislative officials announced Friday. He was 68. Former State Rep. Tim Sneller, D-Burton Lawmakers from both parties praised Sneller, who was a longtime legislative staffer before he was first elected to the Legislature in 2016. Sneller served three two-year terms, representing the 50th District through 2022, and was able to run again this year due to a constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2022, that allows lawmakers to serve up to 12 years in one chamber. Details on Sneller's cause of death and funeral arrangements were not immediately available. "His death is an incredible loss for our state," said U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township. Sneller was openly gay and praised as a champion for LGBTQ rights. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she was heartbroken to learn of the death of a man she considered a friend. "As one of the first openly gay Michiganders to serve in the state Legislature, he fought hard to expand civil rights and build a more welcoming Michigan for all," Whitmer said in a news release. The Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ caucus issued a statement that said Sneller provided mentorship and guidance for LGBTQ+ officeholders. "For all of us, he served as an unwavering example of a true public servant," the statement said. Sneller was the only Democrat on the Aug. 6 primary ballot in the 68th House District, which includes parts of Genesee and Oakland counties. Officials at the Bureau of Elections are "aware of the situation," and "discussing options with the clerks involved," Cheri Hardmon, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of State, said late Friday. State Rep. David Martin, R-Davison, the only Republican on the ballot in the 68th District, issued a statement praising Sneller. "While we found ourselves on opposite sides of the political aisle, I always respected his dedication to public service," Martin said. Sneller graduated from Bentley High School in Burton and worked at GM in Flint while pursuing a bachelor's degree in political science from U-M Flint, according to his campaign website. He worked for decades as an aide to several Genesee County lawmakers, including former state representative and senator Bob Emerson and former Sen. John Cherry. House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, said Sneller was known for his work ethic and other qualities. "Tim was a fixture in Democratic politics for decades," Tate said in a news release. "He was the salt of the earth and known for his humor and indelible spirit." Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan legislative veteran Tim Sneller dead at age 68 Bullet holes cover the bedroom wall of hostage Ariel Bibas, 4, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Friday, June 21, 2024. Ariel was kidnapped on Oct. 7, with his infant brother, Kfir, his mother, Shiri, and his father, Yarden. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) KIBBUTZ NIR OZ, Israel (AP) The empty bedrooms of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 remain frozen in time. Nine months into their captivity in Gaza, some hostages bedrooms still show signs of that days violence and struggle: blood-stained floors, bullet-riddled walls, scorched and toppled furniture. Others exude tranquility and routine: their beds are left unmade and their belongings trophies, stuffed animals, framed photos remain untouched at the behest of shell-shocked families as a testimony to their absence. Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, and kidnapped around 250 many taken from their bedrooms. Since then, the Israeli army has killed over 38,000 Palestinians while fighting Hamas in Gaza, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and militants in their count. Around 120 hostages remain in Gaza, though Israel believes at least 40 of them are dead. During a November cease-fire, 105 hostages were released. A few hostages have been rescued alive, and the Israeli military has recovered the bodies of others during military operations. For many of those kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, their bedrooms or entire homes were destroyed. All that remains of the charred bedroom of David Cunio and Sharon Alony Cunio are the curled springs of their mattress, lying in a pile of soot. This was a place of joy until Oct. 7, of joy, of the gift of togetherness, of giving, of love. Now, its not just a war zone, but a place of massacre, said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, as he leaned against the door frame of the destroyed bedroom of his son, Sagui. Dekel-Chen wonders how his family now living with other members of Kibbutz Nir Oz in temporary housing an hour away will ever regain their sense of security. Saguis wife, Avital, was seven months pregnant on Oct. 7 and survived the attack with her two daughters by hiding for hours in the familys safe room. She gave birth to a third daughter during Saguis captivity. In a suburb of Tel Aviv, plastic sheeting covers the furniture in the empty home of Or and Einav Levy. Or was kidnapped and Einav was killed when militants attacked the Nova music festival in southern Israel. Their three-year-old son, Almog, now lives with his grandparents. The family of Naama Levy, 20, a soldier kidnapped from an army base near Gaza, has kept most everything intact in her bedroom. But theyve also filled her bedroom with photo collages and presents that people have made for Naama when she returns. Amit Levy, Naamas 21-year-old brother, said he sometimes sleeps in his sisters room when hes feeling especially low. It helps me feel her, to be in her room and her pictures around me, Im not sad because Im always thinking that shell come home soon. In the bedroom of Omer Shem-Tov, 21, who was kidnapped with some 40 others from a music festival, the light never goes off. His mother, Shelly Shem-Tov, put a piece of tape over the light switch on Oct. 8 with instructions that nobody should touch or clean up the room until he comes home and does it himself. Omers room is strewn with mementos, including a Torah scroll, that have been blessed by rabbis. I get strength from that room, said Shem-Tov, who is active in pressuring the Israeli government to bring her son and all of the hostages home. This bedroom has energy, said Shem-Tov, who prays in it every morning and evening and has long talks with her other children as they lay sprawled on Omers bed. I feel that he can feel me when Im in there. Time may not be a fundamental element of the universe but rather an illusion emerging from quantum entanglement, a new study suggests. Time is a thorny problem for physicists; its inconsistent behavior between our best theories of the universe contributes to a deadlock preventing researchers from finding a "theory of everything," or a framework to explain all of the physics in the universe. But in the new study, researchers suggest they may have found a clue to solving that problem: by making time a consequence of quantum entanglement , the weird connection between two far-apart particles. The team published their findings May 10 in the journal Physical Review A . "There exists a way to introduce time which is consistent with both classical laws and quantum laws, and is a manifestation of entanglement," first author Alessandro Coppo , a physicist at the National Research Council of Italy, told Live Science. "The correlation between the clock and the system creates the emergence of time, a fundamental ingredient in our lives." It's about time In quantum mechanics , our best theory of the microscopic world, time is a fixed phenomenon an inexorable, unidirectional flow from the past to the present. It remains external from the bizarre and ever-changing quantum systems it measures and can be seen only by observing changes to outside entities, such as the hands of a clock. Related: Atoms squished closer together than ever before, revealing seemingly impossible quantum effects Yet, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity which describes larger objects, such as our bodies, stars and galaxies time is interwoven with space and can be warped and dilated at high speeds or in the presence of gravity. This leaves our two best theories of reality at a fundamental impasse. Without its resolution, a coherent theory of everything remains out of reach. "It seems there is a serious inconsistency in quantum theory," Coppo said. "This is what we call the problem of time." To resolve this problem, the researchers turned to a theory called the Page and Wootters mechanism. First proposed in 1983, the theory suggests that time emerges for one object through its quantum entanglement with another acting as a clock. For an unentangled system, on the other hand, time does not exist, and the system perceives the universe as frozen and unchanging. By applying the Page and Wootters mechanism to two entangled but noninteracting theoretical quantum states one a vibrating harmonic oscillator and the other a set of tiny magnets acting as a clock the physicists found that their system could be perfectly described by the Schrodinger equation , which predicts the behavior of quantum objects. Yet, in place of time, their version of the famous equation ran according to the states of the tiny magnets acting as a clock. This insight is not new, but the team's next step was. They repeated their calculations twice, assuming first that the magnet clock and then the harmonic oscillator were macroscopic (larger) objects. Their equations simplified into those for classical physics, suggesting that time's flow is a consequence of entanglement even for objects on large scales. "We strongly believe that the correct and logical direction is to start from quantum physics and understand how to reach classical physics, not the other way around," Coppo said. RELATED STORIES Scientists made the coldest large molecule on record and it has a super-strange chemical bond Exotic, fifth state of matter created on the space station Weird quantum boomerang predicted 60 years ago spotted for the first time Other physicists have expressed caution. Despite finding the Page and Wootters mechanism a fascinating idea for the quantum origins of time, they said it has yet to produce anything testable. "Yes, it is mathematically consistent to think of the universal time as the entanglement between quantum fields and quantum states of 3D space," Vlatko Vedral , a professor of quantum information science at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the work, told Live Science. "However, no one knows if anything new or fruitful will come out of this picture such as modifications to quantum physics and general relativity, and corresponding experimental tests." Despite these doubts, building ground-up theories of time from quantum mechanics may nonetheless be a promising place to start so long as they can be shaped to fit experiments. "Maybe there is something about entanglement where it plays a role," Adam Frank , a theoretical physicist at the University of Rochester in New York who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. "Maybe the only way to understand time is not from some God's-eye perspective, but from the inside, from a perspective of asking what is it about life that manifests such an appearance of the world." A tip from a pest control technician who treated a North Texas residence for bed bugs in mid March led to the discovery of a human trafficking ring in Collin County, court documents state. The employee showed up at a house in the 1000 block of Ginsburg Lane in Princeton, according to probable cause affidavits supporting the arrest of 31-year-old Dwaraka Gunda and 24-year-old Chandan Dasireddy. He was met by two men outside the residence who gave him permission to enter. The door was locked, and two young women who looked like they might be teenagers answered his knock. When the women showed the technician where they thought the bed bugs were, he noticed a large amount of suitcases in the open areas of the residence and three to five women sleeping on the floor in each room where the door was open. Most of the women were sleeping on bed rolls, the affidavits state. The only furniture in the house consisted of one air mattress and some folding tables. The employee told police he thought there were around 15-20 young women at the residence. Investigators recognized that the lack of furniture and the large number of women living out of suitcases and sleeping on the floor are signs of human trafficking, according to the affidavits. Princeton police executed a search warrant at the house and found 15 women from 23 to 26 years of age. The women told investigators they initially came to the Ginsburg Lane house for an internship to learn Java scripting with a company owned by Gunda and her husband, 31-year-old Santhosh Katkoori. They identified Dasireddy as the one who picked them up from the airport and said he was working with Gunda and Katkoori. Once the females obtained employment, their jobs would pay Katkoori and (Gundas) company directly, the affidavits state. In return, they would take approximately 20% of their salary then pay the females the remainder. Investigators attempted to interview Katkoori at the Ginsburg house. He initially agreed to talk, and said his wife owns the company that employed the women. A short time later he said he didnt want to talk anymore, according to the court documents. Officers also tried to interview Dasireddy at some point in the investigation, but he declined to speak without an attorney, according to his arrest warrant affidavit. Officials seized cell phones, multiple laptops, printers and fraudulent documents while executing the warrant at Katkooris house on Ginsburg Lane, Princeton police said in a news release. Investigators determined several other locations in Princeton, Melissa and McKinney were employing men and women for forced labor. Additional cell phones, laptops and documents were seized from those locations. Katkoori, Gunda, Dasireddy and 37-year-old Anil Male have all been charged with trafficking of persons, which is a second-degree felony. More top stories from our newsroom: Fire destroys Baby Dolls strip club in Fort Worth Were tales of the Lake Worth Monster real? Gateway Church settled 2 lawsuits this year [Get our breaking news alerts.] When the Gaza sunshine was at its hottest, Andrey Kozlov said the Hamas fighters would cover him with blankets, leaving him to stew in his sweat. When he asked about his family, they would say they had forgotten him. When they pulled the blindfold from his eyes, they said they would kill him and film his murder. The 27-year-old said he suffered intense psychological and some physical abuse at the hands of Hamas. He cannot bring himself to describe all that happened to him and the two other hostages he was kept with during his eight months of captivity in Gaza. After being snatched from the Nova music festival on October 7, Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, said he was tied up for three days with rope, then until the middle of December with chains. During these months he was subjected to creative forms of punishment: One guard told us a lot that Israel wants to kill us and that they were a problem from which Israel was trying to rid itself. Kozlov strove not to believe the lies, he said, but the result was that, when Israeli soldiers last month burst into the building in which he was being held, he thought they had been sent to kill him. Instead, it was a stunning rescue operation that brought him and the two others home as well as Noa Argamani, who was held in a nearby building. But it left in its wake a trail of destruction: Gaza authorities say at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the raid and the ensuing firefight with Hamas militants. In an interview with CNN, Kozlov detailed his months of captivity in Gaza, the psychological torture he weathered, the threats he faced, and his desire for Israel and Hamas to strike a deal to release the remaining hostages. Kozlov being treated in hospital after his rescue. - IDF spokesperson People walk among debris in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in the area where the hostages were rescued, in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, June 9, 2024. - Abed Khaled/Reuters Kozlov was nearing the end of his shift as a security guard at the Nova festival when Hamas fighters began to pour over the border. He had moved from Russia to Israel two years earlier, and taken the job because it was easy money. When he clocked off, Kozlov thought I will come back home, I will sleep and everything will be good. But no, it didnt happen. Minutes later, he was sprinting through a forest with maybe 200, 300 people, panicked by the sound of gunshots and a stream of gruesome nearby videos that had already emerged online. But as they stumbled out into a field, Kozlov saw he recalled in broken English a car full of guys in green uniform. And they shoot in the air, they shoot already on us. Hiding in the bushes was no help. He was swiftly found and taken to Gaza, where he was held in several different places with Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv, before their eventual rescue in Nuseirat, in the center of the enclave. On his first day, his captor took the fabric from my eyes and showed me with signs what he was planning to do. The man pointed to himself I then tapped his watch tomorrow then pointed to Kozlov you then made a camera sign, clicking its shutter film then made a gun with his fingers, pulling the trigger kill. Kozlov said he thought that day would be his last, but as the hours passed that fear slowly subsided. Days later, he said he understood that probably theyre not gonna kill us. Using signs again, they explained to Kozlov that they wanted to swap him: Youre going to Israel, our people go to Gaza and the West Bank. For the first three months, the sound of Israeli bombing was constant, Kozlov said: We were afraid of every bomb that we heard. Every time you started to hide in the corners of our room. His captors laughed, he said, asking what they were afraid of. Kozlov arrives back in Israel after the rescue operation on June 8, 2024. - Marko Djurica/Reuters They were moved between houses several times, Kozlov said, with some places giving them enough food. After being unchained in December, some places where he was held gave him the chance to exercise squats, pushups and the like. But he was exposed to prolonged psychological abuse, he said, by guards watching over them wearing masks, holding Kalashnikovs and a big knife. The main guard, he said, had a split personality and often got crazy. He has two personalities, Kozlov said. He told us: I have two faces: A good one, but I dont want you to see the second face like, I can kill you. Some mornings, the guard would be friendly, offering to play cards with them. But in other mornings Kozlov would wake up and you understand ah, the second face. You dont talk with him at all. Kozlov would be punished for arbitrary things, he said. Once, after washing his hands with drinking water before eating, the guard noticed and he said, I told you not to do this, yes? The guard had someone cover Kozlov with really thick blankets, in the middle of May, and leave him in the heat for an hour and a half. Kozlovs testimony chimes with that of other rescued hostages. The doctor in charge of medical treatment for Kozlov and the three others rescued in the Israeli operation said they were beaten and described their captivity as a harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day. There have been periods where they got almost no food whatsoever, there were other periods where it was a little better, but all in all, the combination of the psychological stress, malnutrition or not getting enough food have a significant effect on health, Dr. Itai Pessach told CNN last month. Still, Kozlov considers himself lucky. He said he saw other hostages during his eight months in Gaza, but I dont want to talk about it Its painful and its gonna be dangerous for them, he said. Were they in worse shape than him? Yes they were. For that reason, Kozlov implored Israeli officials to try to understand how we (the hostages) felt all this time. We need to bring them home as soon as possible. I dont know how. But we need to do this immediately. Optimism about a ceasefire-for-hostages deal has waned this week, however, as Hamas warned that Israeli actions in Gaza could jeopardize the talks. Last week, a US official told CNN that a framework agreement is in place and an Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorized his negotiators to enter into detailed negotiations, signaling a potential breakthrough. Talks resumed in the Qatari capital Doha last Friday. Over the weekend, Hamas agreed to compromise on a major sticking point for Israel that Netanyahus government commits to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza before signing an agreement. But a statement from Netanyahus office on Sunday cast doubt on the deal, laying out several principles Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza until all objectives of the war have been achieved. For Kozlov, the days he was captured and rescued have become landmarks in his life. October 7 became his second birthday; June 8, his third. He wants the 120 remaining hostages to be able to mark their own dates. Correction: This story has been updated to correct the date of Kozlovs third birthday, when he was rescued on June 8. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The Enquirer wants to talk to Fifth Third Bank customers affected by these practices. Email reporters Amber Hunt (ahunt@enquirer.com) or Alex Coolidge (acoolidge@enquirer.com) to share your story. The 35,000 Fifth Third Bank customers set to be reimbursed after the bank was fined for shady practices by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau don't have to lift a finger to get their money back. But they do have to be patient. It could take months for Fifth Third Bank to seek out the affected customers and repay them, according to the regulator. Fifth Third Bank, pictured here in downtown Cincinnati, has been ordered to pay $20 million in penalties and to reimburse 35,000 customers after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found it forced vehicle insurance policies on customers and opened fake accounts. CFPB spokespeople declined an on-the-record interview request but provided answers to Enquirer questions over email. "Consumers eligible for redress do not have to take any action," the regulator said. "Fifth Third will be contacting affected consumers about relief." Fifth Third case: What happens next The CFPB order requires Fifth Third to create a comprehensive written plan and submit it to the agency within 30 days, detailing how the bank will handle the paybacks. The plan needs the bureau's OK to be implemented. If the CFPB doesn't object to the plan, it would be entered as a judgment and final order. Fifth Third would then submit a "comprehensive written plan for identifying and providing redress to affected consumers." What did Fifth Third do? The bureau on Tuesday announced it had fined Fifth Third $20 million in penalties and ordered the bank to reimburse 35,000 customers for pushing junk auto insurance and opening fake accounts in the names of thousands of customers. The regulators said the illegal activity took place between July 2011 and December 2020 and resulted in roughly 1,000 customers getting their cars repossessed. Of the penalties, $5 million is connected to forcing vehicle insurance on borrowers who already had coverage or got it elsewhere. Fifth Third customers paid more than $12.7 million in "illegal, worthless fees" for insurance that provided no value and were "unnecessary and duplicative," the regulator said. The remaining $15 million in penalties are in connection with bank personnel opening fake accounts to meet sales quotas. The CFPB is proposing a court order that would ban the quotas, which it said incentivized the fraud. What is Fifth Third Bank? Based in downtown Cincinnati, Fifth Third is a regional bank with nearly 1,100 branches in in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. With nearly $214 billion in assets and almost 19,000 workers, it is ranked as the nations 17th-largest bank, according to regulator the Federal Reserve. Story continues Reporter Alex Coolidge contributed. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: After Fifth Third Bank fined by CFPB, impacted customers told to wait I took a luxurious sightseeing train in Japan for just $12. The stunning views weren't even the best part. I took a luxurious sightseeing train in Japan for just $12. The stunning views weren't even the best part. I paid $12 to take a luxurious sightseeing train in Japan from Nara to Kyoto. Because I was traveling solo, I had to purchase two twin seats, sold as a pair. The train had comfortable plush chairs, a cafe, a reading nook, and a bidet in the bathroom. Japan may be known for its network of high-speed bullet trains, but one of the country's trendiest train trips takes around 35 minutes and screams luxury. The Kintetsu Railway's Sightseeing Limited Express "Aoniyoshi" train connects Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto and makes train travel stylish and convenient. While solo traveling in Kyoto this winter, I planned a day trip to Nara: a city known for its wild deer, Buddhist temples, and historic sake breweries. Although I decided to take a basic train there, I decided to treat myself to a trip on the Sightseeing Limited Express Aoniyoshi train on the way back. That decision came at a negligible cost both in money and in time and the ensuing ride encapsulated some of the best parts of Japan. Here's what my trip on Japan's Aoniyoshi train was like. The train required multiple tickets, which was a little confusing. Because I was traveling solo, I had to purchase two seats on the train as well as a basic-fare ticket. Anna Staropoli The Limited Express train requires all passengers to pre-book their tickets, so I bought mine online two nights before my trip. Seating options ranged from salon chairs, which could fit up to four people, to twin seats that either faced the window or each other. Because I was traveling solo, I had to purchase both twin seats, sold as a pair. I purchased an adult and child fare, which cost me 1,100 yen, or about $7 in total. At the end of the day, though, I only would've saved a few dollars if I had split the cost of two adult tickets with a friend. Kintetsu's website succinctly outlined how to buy an Aoniyoshi ticket, but the multi-step process still confused me. Eventually, I realized that I also needed a basic-fare ticket to use my reservation, so I bought one at Kintetsu-Nara station for 760 yen (about $5) before my train left. The boarding process was quick and easy. The train had a beautiful floral design on the outside. Anna Staropoli Despite minor hiccups in securing a ticket, the trip itself proved seamless. After the train in its purple, floral glory clattered into the station, I boarded quickly, grateful for my pre-booked seat. Once on board, I was delighted by the trains interior and scenery. The sightseeing windows offered beautiful views of Japan. Anna Staropoli With long windows, ample space, and a purple-and-green theme, each car's aesthetic evoked a combination of Wes Anderson and Willy Wonka in the best way. Archways bordered the salon seats in one of the cars, while rugs and ceilings throughout the train varied in patterns, surrounding me with details. The external views proved equally breathtaking. As we wound between Japanese cities, the sightseeing windows offered glimpses of temples and towns alike. The journey passed too quickly to enjoy all the amenities. The tiny cafe sold desserts that matched the train's purple interior. Anna Staropoli When we first boarded the train, I noticed lots of passengers flocking to Car Two, where a tiny cafe sold desserts that matched the train's purple interior. The cafe also sold beer in specialty bottles depicting the train's likeness. Given the trip's length, however, I didn't have time for a snack. The couple seated across from me spent nearly the entire journey in the cafe line and had to chug their beers upon reaching the station in Kyoto. Even so, the cafe car was a nice touch, and I appreciated the railway's focus on the passenger experience. In the United States, the closest comparison is perhaps Florida's Brightline train, which offers great scenery, clean cars, and food and drink services. However, I found the Aoniyoshi train distilled even more amenities into a whirlwind of a ride. For example, I noticed one car had both seating and a library nook with an adjacent sofa. The bathrooms were also spacious and clean, with yes bidets. The train capped off an ideal day of sightseeing. I wished the train ran more frequently so I could've spent more time in Nara. Anna Staropoli By the time I arrived back in Kyoto, I didn't care that I'd spent a few extra dollars and minutes securing my ticket. I only wished that the Aoniyoshi train ran more frequently I left Nara with more artisan shops to visit, deer to feed, and mochi to taste, and would've liked to extend my afternoon there. Yet even with limited operations, the ride captured Japan's attention to detail, hospitable nature, and love of whimsy all in under an hour. Read the original article on Business Insider Dems Kick Off Calls for Biden to Scram After Make or Break Presser Just minutes after President Joe Bidens so-called big boy press conference ended on Thursday night, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee called for him to step aside and allow another presidential nominee to take his place, presaging a potential flood of Democrats expected to similarly break ranks over the next few days. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said in a statement that he no longer believed the strongest candidate to confront the threat posed by Donald Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism was Biden. I hope that, as he has throughout a lifetime of public service, he will continue to put our nation first and, as he promised, make way for a new generation of leaders, he said. In a statement on X, Himes praised Biden for his record of public service, remarking that his legacy as a great president was secure. He urged the 81-year-old not to risk that legacy and American democracy itself in order to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump. In a subsequent interview on MSNBC, the Connecticut representative said that it was vital to set aside that loyalty and the poetry and the romance and the Charge of the Light Brigade and we all go down together mentality keeping his colleagues in lockstep with Biden. If you dont look at this in a cold, hard way, Himes added later, you will be complicit in Donald Trumps second presidency. Joe Bidens record of public service is unrivaled. His accomplishments are immense. His legacy as a great president is secure. He must not risk that legacy, those accomplishments and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/FMMrTK8pb8 Jim Himes (@jahimes) July 12, 2024 Half an hour later, Politico published a statement from Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) echoing Himes words. Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign, he said. The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course. Not long after, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL) posted a statement on X, writing that in 2020, Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party. Now, Sorensen said, he wanted Biden to do that againand withdraw. I believe our best days are still ahead, he continued in part. And today, I am hopeful President Biden will step aside in his campaign for President. Earlier, as Americans waited for Biden to kick off his first solo news conference since November, CBS News had reported that potentially dozens of Democrats were expected to call for Biden to stand down over the next 48 hours. The planning is coordinated, sources with knowledge of the matter told the network. Himes told MSNBC on Thursday night that his statement, at least, was not part of any coordinated effort. More than a dozen House Democrats have now called for Biden to abandon his campaign. Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) is the first, and so far only, U.S. senator to chime in. Several prominent Democratic donors, including Oscar winner George Clooney, have also pressed Biden to pull out. The Thursday press conference eventually began two hours after its scheduled start, at 7:30 p.m. local time in Washington, D.C. The president trundled along, reading competently off a teleprompter as he recited his accomplishments at the NATO summit that occurred throughout the week. But his gaffes and slip-ups both before and after that speech threatened to overshadow it entirely. First came the mistake of introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky onstage at a NATO ceremony as President Putin. He quickly corrected himself, rushing back to the microphone to excuse his error as the product of his focus on beating Putin. But then, while answering the first question at the news conference, Biden referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as Vice President Trump. This time, he appeared not to notice his blunder. How Biden Muffled the Medias Fury at NATO Press Conference Biden has given no indication that the mounting calls to mothball his bid for re-election are working to change his mindor even sway him from his course. Im determined on running, but I think its important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there, he said at the news conference. The president added that he understood lawmakers would act in their own self-interest. (Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly been encouraging vulnerable Democrats to take whatever stance on the matter they need to in order to secure re-election.) If they think that running with Biden at the tops gonna hurt them, run away! the president said. I get it. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who previously said Biden should step aside, called the presidents performance a fine job, but added that the party couldnt keep holding its breath every day. The majority of the Democrats on Capitol Hill have remained publicly supportive of Biden. Some said they felt reassured by his Thursday performance. He has been a great president and hell be the Democratic nominee, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee told The Daily Beast. Hes running against the worst president in history. He cant lose if we all get together and support him and quit trying to tear him apart. He may not be perfect, but he is man of rectitude and knowledge. 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. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with President Joe Biden after his NATO press conference Thursday night amid the dissension about Biden within his caucus but didnt reveal whether he advised Biden to stay in the presidential race. In a letter Friday morning, Jeffries said he expressed to Biden the views of House Democrats, but he offered no other details of the meeting or Bidens response. On behalf of the House Democratic Caucus, I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden. The meeting occurred yesterday evening, Jeffries wrote. In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together. The letter was anything but a ringing endorsement of Biden as the partys presidential nominee. Congressional Democrats have struggled to project an enthusiastic united front in support of the 81-year-old president as new polling shows Biden trailing in swing states and reports suggest the presidents campaign is seeing fundraising slow. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a short letter to his caucus after his meeting with President Joe Biden. via Associated Press Jeffries letter follows Bidens press conference Thursday in which he answered questions about his health and stamina at the conclusion of this weeks NATO summit in Washington, D.C. Biden made it through the solo presser, flexing his foreign policy muscle while also accidentally referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as Donald Trump. Earlier in the day, he mixed up the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, but corrected himself a few seconds later. Bidens press conference was supposed to stem the tide of House Democrats calling for Biden to step aside, but immediately following it several more asked Biden not to run. Since last months debate, 17 House Democrats and one Senate Democrat have explicitly called on Biden to step aside to make way for a younger candidate that they see as having better odds of beating former President Donald Trump whose allies seemed delighted by the fact that Biden performed just well enough Thursday to keep a full-on Democratic rebellion at bay. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a freshman from a Colorado swing district, on Friday became the latest House Democrat to call on Biden to resign. I have deep admiration and love for Joe Biden and all he has done for our country, which is why this decision is so painful, but my son and my constituents cant suffer the consequences of inaction at this critical moment, she wrote on social media. Ed Miliband, the Energy Security, is seeking a path to net zero, which is likely to include nuclear power - Anadolu A state-backed nuclear laboratory at the heart of Britains proposed mini-reactor revolution is facing closure in a headache for new Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Researchers and staff at Sheffield Universitys Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) have been warned of possible redundancies amid a major overhaul. The centre, which employs about 150 people, is focused on engineering the specialist steel needed to build small modular reactors (SMRs) a key element of Britains strategy to quadruple nuclear power by 2050. Staff have been told that only about 30 of them will be retained and they will be absorbed into the larger university-run Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, which employs about 700 workers. The plan represents a blow to Britains nuclear ambitions and a challenge for Mr Miliband as he seeks to chart a path towards a low-carbon future. Nuclear energy is regarded as a crucial part of the countrys net zero mix because it can supply constant power output when there is no wind or sunshine. SMRs were championed by the previous government because they are far smaller and cheaper to build than a traditional nuclear plant. The AMRC closure means dozens of engineering and nuclear specialists could be lost with many likely to be recruited by largely overseas companies now leading in nuclear manufacturing. The centre is owned by the University of Sheffield but is overseen by industrial partners such as Rolls-Royce and French energy giant EDF, which have made multimillion-pound investments at its site on the Sheffield-Rotherham border. Sheffield, Derby and Warrington are often regarded as the UKs nuclear triangle because of the number of advanced engineering companies located in or between them, also including Rolls Royces Derby plant. Koen Lamberts, Sheffields vice-chancellor, said the proposed redundancies and changes to the current structure of the Nuclear AMRC would help to deliver our priorities around clean energy research and innovation. He said: Our work to support the design and production of SMRs will continue to grow and offer significant opportunities for the South Yorkshire region. Nuclear AMRC is one of seven High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres that were brought together in 2011 by Innovate UK to support commercialisation of new products and processes. Mr Lamberts said: The proposals have been shared with our Nuclear AMRC staff and there will be a 90-day consultation to consider the proposals and explore future options. We are actively working to reduce the need for redundancies. The plans propose that the Nuclear AMRCs core manufacturing research and development activities will be retained by the University of Sheffield. We continue to work with the nuclear sector and funders to look at options for some of the Nuclear AMRCs wider work including supply chain development, policy work and business development. Its core facility is an 8,000 sq metres custom-built research factory containing more than 35m of state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment tailored for nuclear industry applications. The building acts as a research factory for innovative and optimised processes in machining, welding and other key areas of large-scale manufacturing technology. Another custom-built facility at Infinity Park, Derby, focuses on engineering research for the nuclear supply chain. It includes a massive workshop with 50 tonne cranes to build large fabrications, plus a range of 3D printing and other prototyping. The overhaul comes as Great British Nuclear (GBN), a government arms-length body created to drive forward delivery of new nuclear-generating capacity in the UK, runs a competition to select two designs of SMR to take forward for development. France has been experimenting with SMR technology such as this Poseidon unit - NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP Five out of six shortlisted firms have just submitted initial tenders. GE-Hitachi, Holtec Britain, NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse Electric Co all successfully submitted their documents this week. EDF was the one shortlisted company that did not submit documents, instead opting to withdraw from the competition. SMRs are nuclear power stations that have lower capacity than large-scale nuclear plants. They are in theory quicker and cheaper to deploy thanks to their modular design, which will see parts created in a factory. So far however, none have been built and their economic viability remains uncertain. A government spokesman said: The University of Sheffield is legally responsible for NAMRC, including its staff. It has launched a consultation with affected employees that will end in early October. The UK is a leading global player on nuclear research and development with a wide range of world class capabilities and researchers across the sector. 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 34-year-old Topeka man, who was allegedly driving the wrong way on Interstate 29, is facing manslaughter charges in the head-on, hit-and-run crash that killed three people and injured three others in Platte County. Kyle Anthony Waymon Mendez has been charged with three counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and one count of leaving the scene of the crash that resulted in a death, all felonies, according to a news release from Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd. The crash early Thursday killed 55-year-old Joel Similien, 54-year-old Sheyla Similien and 52-year-old Michelet Metellus, all of Kansas City. The collision also injured three other passengers, ranging from 33 to 54 years old. Another passenger was not injured. According to court documents and a preliminary crash report by the Missouri Highway Patrol, the crash occurred shortly after 12:10 a.m. Thursday on southbound I-29 near Dearborn, Missouri. At the time of the crash, Joel Similien was driving south on I-29 in a 2007 Honda Odyssey mini-van with six passengers. Meanwhile, according to the report, Mendez was headed north in the southbound lanes. What happened in the crash A witness had called the highway patrol, reporting that a vehicle had crossed the median near Mile Marker 29 and began traveling north in the southbound lanes, according to court documents. Mendez crashed head-on into the mini-van, sending it off the right side of the highway and into a concrete barrier, according to the report. The crash occurred near Mile Marker 29.4 on the bridge over Bee Creek, according to the crash report. After the crash, Mendez ran away on foot from the crash scene, according to court documents. A highway patrol trooper responding to the scene noted that both vehicles had significant damages. The deceased were pronounced dead at the scene, and the injured were taken to hospitals. The highway patrol asked Kansas City, Kansas, police to contact the registered owners of the Edge to find out who was driving the vehicle. The owners told police that their grandson, Mendez, had taken the Edge without their permission on Wednesday and had not returned it. The search for a driver on the run Authorities searched for Mendez using a drone and police dog but were unsuccessful. Shortly after 8 a.m. Friday, Platte County Sheriff deputies, who were using a drone, reported they had found Mendez in a bean field just south of Missouri Route H and I-29. Mendez was using a stick to hold himself up. Mendez was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries. While at the hospital, he allegedly admitted that he was driving the Edge and had been involved in the crash. Mendez told a trooper he was traveling north to St. Joseph, Missouri, to meet a couple. While on his way, he decided not to go. He turned into the median and began driving north in the southbound lanes. Mendez said he thought he was on a two-lane road, and when he saw vehicles traveling at him, he didnt understand why. He realized he was traveling the wrong way on the highway just before the crash. Mendez said he checked on the people in the minivan before running from the scene. According to court documents, he told a trooper he ran because he didnt think anyone would believe him. Mendez remains in custody and was ordered to be held without bond. No court dates have been set. TOPEKA (KSNT) The City of Topeka announced Friday morning it is rolling out updates to its retaliatory action ordinance to help protect tenants in the area. City of Topeka spokesman Dan Garret said in a press release on July 12 a collaboration between City Prosecution, Property Maintenance, Housing Services and the Fire Marshals Office as part of the Changing Our Culture of Property Maintenance initiative resulted in changes to the ordinance in May earlier this year. This followed initial discussions by Topeka City Council members in July 2023 on the ordinance, which allowed landlords to be held accountable for harassing and evicting tenants out of retaliation. The City of Topeka is now raising awareness about these changes and reminds tenants they have a right to a clean, safe and sanitary environment to live in without fear of retaliation. The updated ordinance emphasizes that no tenant in good standing should face eviction as a result of retaliation or harassment. The thorough amendments to the City of Topekas Retaliatory Action ordinance have strengthened protections for tenants (renters), said Tenant/Landlord Counseling and Education Program Manager Abi Panecatl with Housing and Credit Counseling, Inc. Now, the priority is to educate our community about these changes. Informing landlords is crucial to help them recognize and address retaliatory behaviors. Equally important is empowering tenants to utilize the available remedies and enforcement mechanisms at their disposal. West Ridge Mall to sell off things left behind by old tenants If you think you or someone you know has suffered retaliatory eviction or action, click here. The city also encourages you to call Housing and Credit Counseling, Inc., at 785-234-0217 or Property Maintenance Division at 785-368-3171 for more information. Garrett said the city will also have several training sessions in the near future. The full schedule for these is below: Thursday, July 25 Landlord Training 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. KRLTA, including retaliation 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Fair Housing Thursday, Aug. 1 Tenant/ Tenant Advocate Training 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Renter Preparation, including retaliation 5:15 p.m. to 7 p.m. Fair Housing Thursday, Sept 19 Landlord Training 10 a.m. to noon KRLTA, including retaliation 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Fair Housing Thursday, Sept. 26 Tenant/Tenant Advocate Training 10 a.m. to noon KRLTA, including retaliation 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Fair Housing Flyer-Topeka Landlord Training 7-25-24 by Matthew Self on Scribd This embedded content is not available in your region. 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. 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. LOWER SWATARA TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WHTM) Earlier this morning, a tractor trailer struck a Wendys fast food restaurant. According to Lower Swatara Township Police Department, on Friday, July 12 around 2:43 a.m., police came upon a tractor trailer that had struck the Wendys located on 801 Eisenhower Boulevard in Middletown. Once on scene, police made contact with the tractor trailer driver who had sustained some facial injuries as a result of the crash. Police say the driver told them that they were on their way from Lancaster to Washington State. The driver also told police that their glasses fogged up and they could not see, which resulted in the driver going straight off of PA 283 into the Wendys restaurant, which sustained moderate damage. The driver was then transported by Life Lion EMS to the Hershey Medical Center. According to police, the incident is still under investigation. This is a developing story. abc27 news will keep you updated as we learn more. 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. Would-be nuclear fusion pioneer Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is shipping a pair of its specialized magnets to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. The move comes years before CFS anticipates starting its demonstration reactor, SPARC. Its the first such deal, though possibly not the last, suggesting that the fusion sector has matured to the point where it supports supply agreements in addition to research and development partnerships. We recognize that the magnets are useful for other things, Bob Mumgaard, CEO of CFS, told TechCrunch. If were going to build a ladder, lets not kick the ladder down. If others are going to come up behind, how can we help them? Nuclear fusion is the reaction that powers the sun and other stars; most nuclear plants on earth today run on nuclear fission instead. The idea that fusion could someday provide cheap, nearly limitless power has been around for decades, but its proven incredibly challenging to control a reaction on earth. In recent years, however, scientists have begun to show some progress getting fusion reactions to positive output -- that is, to produce more energy than it requires to kick them off -- and venture money has been pouring into several startups in the space. CFS is one of the most notable, spun out of research done at MIT and with a war chest of over $2 billion in venture money (according to Pitchbook). Mumgaard is perhaps understating the importance of Commowealths magnets. If it werent for them, the company probably wouldnt exist. The startup worked with scientists at MIT to develop a new type of rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) magnet that produces an incredibly strong magnetic field. Because the magnets are so strong, they can be made smaller and still confine the white-hot plasma within the reactor. Smaller magnets are cheaper, require less supporting material and equipment, and so on. Those savings cascade throughout the power plant, making a commercial version possible. Given all those advantages, its no surprise that other parties would be interested in buying some of Commonwealths magnets. The company isnt letting potential competitors in, at least not yet; not only is the project at UW-Madison a research experiment, its a different reactor design entirely. Known as WHAM, the reactor creates a tube of plasma instead of a doughnut like in Commonwealth's tokamak. The funds that the university is using come from the federal governments ARPA-E program. (WHAM is also associated with another startup, Realta Fusion, which spun out from the experiment, though CFS and Realta arent partners themselves.) Story continues As a part of the deal, Commonwealth is shipping completed magnets along with the necessary assemblies, cooling and control systems. The startup said its software will also control the magnets operations. The deal isnt entirely magnanimous, of course, since the university is paying Commonwealth for the magnets, though it didnt disclose the sum. The fact that we have these magnets, and that we spent a lot of money developing them. Well, thats a good business for us, Mumgaard said. https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/29/7-founders-explain-what-fusion-power-needs-to-go-mainstream National and statewide traffic safety organizations are coming together to promote speed enforcement along Route 66. The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Region 7, in collaboration with the National Park Service, Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation, Missouri State Highway Patrol and ThinkFirst Missouri, is hosting a speed enforcement tour through the Midwest next week. NHTSA's Region 7 includes Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas and Nebraska. The organizations will be promoting the nationwide speed campaign "Speeding Slows You Down" at several locations along Route 66, including at 10 a.m. July 17 at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. Representatives from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Missouri Department of Transportation, a physician from Mercy Hospital and others will be at the national park to discuss the dangers of speeding and riding unbelted. Members of the public are welcome to attend the free event. The tour will also be stopping in St. Louis, Fort Leonard Wood, Carthage, Joplin and Galena, Kansas, next week. Enforced by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the "Speeding Slows You Down" marketing campaign will be heavily pushed through the remainder of July to drivers. Aspects of the campaign include social media posts, roadway message boards and digital advertisements. Greta Cross is the trending topics reporter for the Springfield News-Leader. She has more than five years of journalism experience covering everything from Ozarks history to Springfields LGBTQIA+ community. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretacrossphoto. Story idea? Email her at gcross@news-leader.com. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Traffic safety organizations to discuss speeding at Wilson's Creek A helicopter crash off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii on Thursday has left one person dead and two people missing, according to authorities. The crash was reported around 1.20pm, a quarter of a mile off the north shore of Kauai near the Na Pali coast. When rescuers reached the wreck site an hour later, they found one of the occupants dead, according to the Kauai Police Department. A search is underway for the missing passengers. The identities of those on board have not been released to the public. Authorities learned of the crash thanks to hikers walking on the nearby Kalalu Trail. The hikers witnessed the helicopter crash into the water, and immediately called for help, according to police. It's unclear what caused the crash. The National Weather Service in Honolulu had issued a forecast on Thursday warning of strong trade winds and low cloud cover across most of the Hawaiian islands. The mountainous terrain near Kauai, Hawaiis Na Pali coast. A helicopter operated by Alii Kauai Air Tours and Charters crashed off the Na Pali coast on July 11, leaving one person dead and two others missing (stock image) (Getty Images/iStockphoto) The Robinson R44 helicopter was operated by Ali'i Kauai Air Tours and Charters, according to police. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have launched an investigation. According to the company's website, Ali'i Kauai Air Tours, based in Lihue, offers hour-long helicopter tours along the Na Pali coastline on Kauais northern edge. The last fatal helicopter crash in Hawaii was on Kauai in 2019, according to the NTSB's database, when a pilot and all six passengers died. The NTSB determined that the pilot had proceeded with a tour despite worsening weather conditions, and had lost sight of the mountainous terrain before crashing the helicopter. Mayor Derek Kawakami of Kauai County offered his condolences to concerned loved ones and assured them first responders were working to find the missing passengers. We are incredibly sad to hear of the life tragically lost today, and the two other individuals who are still missing after a helicopter crashed into waters off Kauais Na Pali Coast. While we do not know all the details surrounding the incident at this time, we do know that our first responders are doing everything they can in this emergency operation, he said. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all involved. Acting Governor Sylvia Luke also issued a statement regarding the crash. We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those involved in this terrible incident, she said. As search and recovery operations continue, the State stands fully prepared to work in tandem with the County of Kauai and our Federal partners. We thank all responders and agency partners for their assistance during this difficult time. In addition to the Kauai County first responders, the US Coast Guard and crews from Hawaii Emergency Management were dispatched to assist with the search effort. The FAA has issued a temporary flight restriction over the search area, according to Kauai County officials. FORT LIBERTY Fort Liberty officials are distancing themselves from training slides shared on social media that characterize anti-abortion groups as terrorists. Officials said in a statement Thursday that the slides were developed by a local garrison employee to train soldiers who work at Fort Liberty access control points. After conducting a commanders inquiry, we determined that these slides were not vetted by the appropriate approval authorities, and do not reflect the views of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense, garrison spokeswoman Cheryle Rivas said. Fort Liberty officials say that training slides calling anti-abortion organizations terrorist groups do not reflect Fort Liberty views. The slides show logos for the National Right to Life Committee, Operation Rescue and an anti-abortion license plate under the heading terrorist groups." Bullet points on the slide also listed a terrorist group those who are pro-life, protest and picket outside crisis centers or oppose Roe v. Wade, the recently overturned Supreme Court ruling that protected abortion access. These slides will no longer be used, and all future training products will be reviewed to ensure they align with the current DoD anti-terrorism guidance, Rivas said. Local members of Congress respond North Carolina's Republican Sens. Ted Budd and Thom Tillis issued statements on social media Thursday admonishing the slides. In his statement, Budd said smearing pro-life Americans as terrorists is despicable. The materials briefed at Fort Liberty are disturbing, he said. As soon as I became aware of it, I directed my team to contact Army and Fort Liberty officials. They have begun an investigation. The Army must get to the bottom of this and see that it never happens again. Hudson said he also directed his staff to reach out to the Army "to get answers." Labeling Americans who value human life as 'terrorists' is disgusting and goes against Army values, Hudson said. Tillis said his office also contacted Fort Liberty officials, and "it is beyond disgraceful for anyone to radically equate patriotic Americans who value life" as terrorists. "It is imperative that measures are taken to make sure this kind of incident never happens again," Tillis said. Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528. This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fort Liberty denounces slides calling anti-abortion groups terrorists The terrified whispers of an 18-year-old woman pleading with a 911 operator to send help as two gunman shot her east Modesto housemates were heard by a jury Tuesday. Her muffled words were hard to hear, but were transcribed so jurors could follow along. In the early hours of March 3, 2012, 16-year-old David Siebels, 19-year-old Alyxandria Tellez and 31-year-old Edward Joseph Reinig were shot and killed in their home. The triple murder resulted in a yearslong investigation, with legal proceedings lasting over a decade. Jurors heard the 911 call during opening statements in the trial of Richard Tyrone Garcia, 41. He is accused of ordering Armando Osegueda and Joseph Luis Jauriqui to kill an 18-year-old hed previously dated, along with everyone she lived with. The teen, whom prosecutors allege was the intended target, was the sole survivor of the order. She is referred to as Jane Doe in court. Where are you at? asked the 911 operator. Im hiding in the bathroom, Doe said softly. You dont know who it is that had the gun? said the dispatcher. No, Doe answered. Do you know what they look like? No, said Doe. How do you know that anybody was shot then? the dispatcher continued. Because I heard the shooting, Doe said, louder and clearer. These are the victims of the March 2012 triple homicide in east Modesto. The victims, from left, are 31-year-old Edward Joseph Reinig, 19-year-old Alyxandria Tellez and 16-year-old David Siebels. Prosecution delivers opening statements Garcia, dressed in a suit, followed along, generally without reaction. Garcia already is serving a life sentence, plus three years, for ordering the murder of his cellmate, who was scheduled to testify against him. The hit was never carried out, as law enforcement caught wind of it beforehand. Several members of the Norteno regiment Garcia is alleged to have led the Empire Boyz will testify over the course of the trial, Chief Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira announced. Prosecutors said they believe they have more than enough evidence to convict him and hope it will establish the motive. We dont know if anyone above him knew what (the killers) were doing. But clearly, Richard Garcia ordered these hits, Ferreira said in her opening statement. And the motive, you will learn, would be because he was getting rid of the witnesses that were interrupting the primary activities of the gang. Ferreira said the Garcia-led Empire Boyz mainly were in the business of gun-running to Oregon and methamphetamine distribution. The criminal activity, which netted about $10,000 per month, had not been going well for Garcia, whod amassed debt to his superiors, she said. His main reason for the debt, prosecutors alleged, was because Juan Jose Nila Jr., one of Garcias gun-runners, was caught by police near Redding on his way back from Oregon. Garcia lost nearly a months worth of revenue from the seizure. Nila is scheduled to testify against Garcia. With financial pressure mounting, Garcia could not afford any other setbacks from law enforcement and a major one was on the horizon. Three weeks prior to the murders, Garcia allegedly held Doe captive for days, torturing, binding and beating her. Photos were presented to the jury, reportedly taken by Garcia, of Doe bound and gagged. Photos of her injuries, which included bruises, burns and a black eye, also were presented. Garcia was arrested on suspicion of this crime but was out on bail the next day. The charges are now attached to his current ones. Doe was set to meet with the Ceres Police Department, who was handling the false imprisonment and torture case, the day after the murders occurred. Garcia, expecting that she also would provide information on his other criminal activities, couldnt let that happen, Ferreira said. A search warrant was executed on Garcias apartment in Ceres as part of Does case. During the search, officers found ammunition, drugs, cash, pay/owe slips and guns. This was another big setback for the Empire Boyzs business, Ferreira alleged. The order a few weeks later to kill Doe and everyone she lived with was evidenced by text messages sent by Garcia to his assassins Jauriqui and Osegueda. Your house is a go, Garcia allegedly wrote in a text. Please proceed with extreme prejudice. Once the order was given, Osegueda responds with no regrets. Its his tagline, the prosecution alleged. The prosecutions account of the murders Nila is said to have driven Jauriqui and Osegueda to the McLure Road home, where they entered through a side door attached to the garage, armed with a .45 caliber handgun and a FN Five-seveN handgun loaded with blue polymer-tipped rounds, the prosecution alleged. They allegedly walked into the home through the garage and found Siebels sleeping on the couch in the living room. Siebels was tasked with protecting Doe, Tellez and Reinig a shotgun was found behind the couch he was sleeping on. He was shot twice in the back of the head. The duo then went up the stairs and searched the bedrooms, one of which was where Doe was sleeping. Peering through the blankets she was under, she could make out two figures using a cell phone as a flashlight, searching for her. Unable to find her, they went into the bedroom occupied by Tellez and Reinig. Tellez was shot several times throughout her body. At some point, Reinig put up his hands to defend himself. He was shot through his hands, crime scene photos show. Doe said she could smell the gunpowder from where she was hiding, the prosecution said. After the shootings, the men fled the home and Doe called 911. She was terrified to leave the bathroom where she was then taking shelter, fearing the gunmen would return, the prosecution argued. She waited until the arrival of Modesto Police Department officers, who discovered the scene. The confirmation text Garcia received after the murders read, three confirmed not with us anymore. Before, during and after the shootings, Garcia is alleged to have communicated with Jauriqui and Osegueda. In February 2023, Jauriqui pleaded guilty for his involvement. Oseguedas next court appearance is set for Aug. 2, for a case management conference. Whats next in the trial? Garcias representation deferred its opening statements at the beginning of the trial. His attorneys can wait until the prosecution rests its case, before the defense begins its own. After the defense finishes, closing statements will be given before the case goes to the jury. Based on the prosecutions opening statements, its possible Garcia will argue that his alibi is sufficient to acquit him. He was not in the area at the time of the murders but was on his way to Oregon. The prosecution took aim at that strategy, alleging Garcia intentionally stopped at gas stations and stood in front of surveillance cameras to solidify his alibi. Garcias trial is being held in Department 8 of the Stanislaus County Courthouse. A Bureau of Indian Affairs office at Fort Thompson on the Crow Creek Reservation. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) A Bureau of Indian Affairs office at Fort Thompson on the Crow Creek Reservation. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) FORT THOMPSON The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe has disbanded a security task force formed a year ago after the homicide of a young man in Fort Thompson. Task force members were not sworn law enforcement officers, but responded to public safety incidents to de-escalate situations and provide aid. The Crow Creek tribe doesnt have its own police force. Many of South Dakotas tribes do have their own police departments, but Crow Creek is among the tribes without one. Crow Creek Tribal Chairman Peter Lengkeek said the hope was to transition the task force into a federally funded, tribally managed police force. That was one of the goals of this, said Lengkeek, who added that the tribe remains interested in moving toward a local force. Officers with the federal governments Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office of Justice Services provide law enforcement services for Crow Creek and the neighboring Lower Brule Reservation. But Crow Creek leaders have argued that BIA officers arent always able to respond to calls in a timely fashion. The tribe declared a state of emergency after the killing of a young man in 2023 and launched its task force. Task force members were paid by the tribe and received training from a private security firm headquartered on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The dissolution of the task force follows the election of three new members last month to the tribes seven-member council. Lengkeek, who retained his seat, confirmed this week that the security task force has been disbanded. In May, Lengkeek told South Dakota Searchlight hed hoped to be able to fund the force through the tribes marijuana dispensary business and its farming operations. But he also said that we need to get some funding to keep the force going. This week, Lengkeek said the endeavor was not fiscally sustainable without federal support. Lengkeek said he met with the states congressional delegation, and made them well aware of the situation in the state of emergency and asked them to take the state of emergency where it needs to go for consideration and funding. None of this has happened and no communication has come back to the tribe on the status of this, Lengkeek said. Congressional reaction The Department of Interiors BIA, Lengkeek said, has yet to address the issue. Questions sent by South Dakota Searchlight to the BIA on the matter early this week had not been returned as of Friday. Members of the states congressional delegation have addressed public safety in tribal areas directly in several forums and formats over the past year. Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson and Republican Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds asked Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for more public safety funding for tribes in a June 2023 letter. Rounds sent another letter to Interior in December, and another to the Government Accountability Office in March, in that case asking a series of pointed questions about budgets and calls for service he said have been left unanswered by Interior. In April, he sent a letter requesting a meeting on a regional BIA law enforcement training center, and he signed on to a bipartisan letter from senators in May asking for a budget increase for tribal public safety. Also in May, he talked about tribes setting up their own ad hoc security forces during a congressional hearing. Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Peter Lengkeek, left, and Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Chairman Clyde Estes, right, with U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, in November 2023. (Courtesy of Rep. Johnson's office) In response to the police shortages, some residents of tribal communities have even resorted to establishing citizen patrols to look out for crime, Rounds told Assistant Interior Secretary Bryan Newland during a May oversight hearing by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Rep. Johnson had a virtual meeting with Crow Creek leadership last August. A spokesperson for his office pointed out that while the emergency declaration had no specific ask for funding, Johnson has also pushed for a regional law enforcement training center, and has called for a congressional field hearing on tribal land. Tribal communities are desperate for relief The federal government [should honor] the commitment we made and work to meet the law enforcement needs of Indian Country, Johnson said in a press release on the field hearing request. Johnsons office also referenced letters to the House Interior Appropriations Committee that directly referenced public safety emergency declarations from Crow Creek and the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Backdrop of controversy The launch of Crow Creeks task force came about seven months before Gov. Kristi Noem gave a speech to lawmakers linking illegal border crossings to alleged drug cartel activity on reservations. Lengkeek and other tribal leaders pushed back on the speech and Noems later comments suggesting that some tribal leaders are personally benefiting from a drug cartel presence on their lands. Yolanda Aguilar, Crow Creek tribal secretary, was a member of the task force and remains a member of the tribes suicide response team, a volunteer group that came before the security task force and will continue on in its wake. Aguilar said its unfortunate that the task force is over, but said she and other members wont waste their training. If she sees a situation and she feels that she can help, she doesnt plan to ignore it. Im still going to help out, she said. Its about being a good neighbor. Jennifer Wounded Knee, who lives near the location of the 2023 homicide that preceded the task forces creation, said its a shame the group has disbanded. Wounded Knee didnt see it as an adequate replacement for law enforcement, but it helped. When they would drive by, people would kind of disperse, Wounded Knee said. Fort Thompson resident Alphonso Drapeau said in the end, the force wasnt able to move the needle on violence in the community. Weve still got gang violence over here, Drapeau said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST After receiving national attention for holding up an American flag during a campus protest, UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity brothers are now slated to speak at the Republican National Convention next week, according to an announcement from former President Donald Trumps campaign. The group will be among two dozen individuals or groups described as everyday Americans to speak at the four-day event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Trump campaign described the speakers as people who have faced immense hardship and are worse off under the Biden-Harris administration. The campaigns announcement did not state how many fraternity members would speak. As the announcement described the incident, a group of students and fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill patriotically protected an American flag that had been disturbed by demonstrators during an anti-Israel protest on their campus. The students gained national attention as videos of the protest showed them standing strong to protect the American flag, even as protesters antagonized them, the announcement stated. A June 10 update on the viral GoFundMe fundraiser for the brothers identified Pi Kappa Phi, AEPi, Delta Upsilon, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi Gamma Delta and Zeta Beta Tau as the fraternities that had members participate in holding up the flag. A group of counter-protesters hold up an United States flag after pro-Palestinian protesters replaced the flag with a Palestinian flag on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at UNC-Chapel Hill. Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police while the Palestinian flag was removed and the American flag was replaced. Fraternity fundraiser goes viral The members went viral this spring for keeping the American flag that hangs on UNCs Polk Place from touching the ground after pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to remove it on April 30, a day that saw 36 people charged in connection to a Gaza Solidarity Encampment that had been set up on the quad for several days. The protesters attempted removal of the flag marked the second time that day they had done so. An earlier attempt was successful, and interim Chancellor Lee Roberts led police in restoring it to the flagpole. Once Roberts left the quad, the pro-Palestinian protesters quickly attempted to remove it again, but a group of counter-protesters largely made up of the fraternity brothers held it up before taking it to police. The day after the hours-long flag stand-off, the GoFundMe online fundraiser appeared in honor of the fraternity members, asking for money to throw em a rager. Armored in Vineyard Vines and Patagonia, fueled by Zyn and White Claws, these triumphant Brohemians protected Old Glory from the unwashed Marxist horde laughing at their shrieks and wails and shielding the Stars & Stripes from Soviet missiles, the original post on the GoFundMe read. With an original goal of $15,000, the fundraiser eventually garnered more than $500,000. The money is being used to plan and throw Flagstock 2024, an invite-only event to be held on Sept. 2 with a performance by John Rich of the country duo Big & Rich. Leftover funds not used for the party will be donated to charities, possibly including Back the Blue NC, Wounded Warrior Project, Children of Fallen Patriots, and Zeta Beta Tau Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism, according to the GoFundMe. Reached by email Friday and asked about the fraternity brothers upcoming speaking gig at the RNC, John Noonan, who originally organized the GoFundMe, said: Those triumphant bros earned the right to speak where they want. Who are NCs delegates to the Republican National Convention, and what will they do? This image made from video provided by KPLC shows a truck passing along the highway where a 1-year-old child was found on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. Speaking at a press conference, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary Stitch Guillory said the miracle baby survived two days of sometimes stormy weather before a truck driver spotted him crawling along the road the day after his 4-year-old brother was found dead and his mother was arrested in Mississippi. (KPLC via AP) NEW ORLEANS (AP) Reginald Walton had just rolled his 18-wheeler into Louisiana, eastbound on Interstate 10 after making a Texas delivery, when he spotted what looked like a discarded baby doll sitting on the embankment. Then he saw movement. I noticed that it moved and I called 911 and told them I thought I saw a child on the side of the road, Walton told The Associated Press in a Friday telephone interview. Walton, of Texarkana, Texas, didn't know it as he maneuvered his semitrailer to the roadside Tuesday morning, but the abandoned child had been the object of an intense search since his 4-year-old brother was found dead the day before. The sheriff of Calcasieu Parish later called the surviving child a miracle baby, saying the 1-year-old boy had been left outside and alone for around two days as intermittent storms spun off of Hurricane Beryl, which hit Texas Monday. Walton said authorities stayed on the phone with him while he stopped his rig. Running about 65 or 70 miles an hour in a tractor trailer, it took me about a quarter of a mile to even come to a complete stop. He then walked back to where he had spotted the child while police made their way there. When I got to him, he was sitting down and as soon as he made visual contact with me, he smiled, Walton remembered. And then he stood up, started crying and walked toward me. And once I grabbed his hand, he stopped crying. Walton, who also related his story to KADN-TV in Lake Charles, only learned the full backstory hours later on the internet. On Monday, authorities in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, had pulled the boy's 4-year-old brother from a lake behind an interstate welcome center near the Texas line. The children's mother was arrested hundreds of miles away in Meridian, Mississippi, and faces multiple charges in Louisiana, including second-degree murder. Hours after Walton rescued the baby, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary Stitch Guillory said the child appeared to be in good condition, although he had numerous insect bites. The child was to be turned over to state family services authorities. It was just sad to know someone would leave a child by the side of the road, Walton said Friday. I was just glad that I was the one to be there to be able to help him. Former President Donald Trumps advisers and allies viewed President Joe Bidens press conference as the best-case scenario for the Republicans campaign: not enough to force him out but with enough errors that they can mine the event for opposition material. Trumps campaign is still hoping Biden stays in the race, believing he is the weakest candidate for the former president to face in November. His strategy, in part, centers on the notion that Biden is not mentally fit to be president. Fred Doucette, a New Hampshire state representative who chaired Trump's prior presidential campaigns in the state, said: "This is great. Sit back and let [Democrats] do this. You dont attack an enemy thats attacking themselves. And that bandwagon [calling on Biden to get out] is only going to get bigger." As the press conference unfolded, Trump mocked Biden for mistakenly calling Vice President Kamala Harris Vice President Trump, and his campaign quickly turned that moment into a video clip, highlighting the error and sarcastically posting: Great job, Joe!" But the press conference, according to allies and advisers, affirmed their belief that the former president is best positioned to beat Biden, who faces widespread worries from members of his own party that he may not have the stamina or mental acuity to campaign for president. Already, at least 17 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have called on the president to step aside. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Thursday showed Trump beating Biden, 46-47%, but in a matchup against Harris, trailing 49-46%. A Trump adviser, when asked about Biden's performance, said "Democrats' worst nightmare is unfolding. ... He gave us enough new material and may stave off his insurrection." "Best of both worlds," said a Trump ally, echoing the adviser. "Bad but not bad enough to be forced out." Both were granted anonymity because they werent authorized to speak publicly. Donald Trump Jr. said on his Rumble livestream that Biden did better than he thought he would do. I think he did fine enough to be able to stay in it he doesnt want to go. He later shared a social media post of Harris and Trump faces blended together reading Vice President Trump. When asked whether the campaign has any comment, a spokesperson referred to Trumps posts. Earlier, Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who flew to Mar-a-Lago at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington. Orban said they talked about peace. He will figure it out! Orban wrote. Since Bidens dismal June 27 debate, the Trump campaign has largely allowed the president to dominate the news cycle preferring to let Biden draw headlines about his gaffes and Democrats questioning his fitness. But Republicans are preparing for their convention starting Monday, when Trump will need to step into the spotlight and once again dominate headlines. In the coming days, he is expected to announce his running mate, though campaign staff concede theyre content in the meantime to hand over the news cycle to Biden. Donald Trump urged the judge in his New York hush money case to dismiss his conviction in light of the Supreme Courts ruling on presidential immunity last month, according to a new court filing. Trumps lawyers argued in a 55-page filing that the jurys guilty verdict should be vacated because the district attorneys office relied on evidence at trial related to Trumps official acts as president, which Trumps lawyers asserted should not have been permitted in light of the Supreme Courts recent immunity decision. In order to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine, and protect the interests implicated by its underpinnings, the jurys verdicts must be vacated and the Indictment dismissed, Trumps attorneys wrote to Judge Juan Merchan. The Manhattan district attorney violated the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause by relying on evidence relating to President Trumps official acts in 2017 and 2018 to unfairly prejudice President Trump in this unprecedented and unfounded prosecution relating to purported business records, Trumps attorneys wrote. Much of the unconstitutional official-acts evidence concerned actions taken pursuant to core Executive power for which absolute immunity applies. The district attorneys office declined to comment for this story. Last week, Merchan postponed Trumps sentencing to allow Trump to file his motion to dismiss the guilty verdict. The district attorneys office will respond later this month, and Merchan said he will decide the matter in September, with a potential sentencing scheduled on September 18, if necessary. Merchan had initially set Thursday as the day that Trump would be sentenced following his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, when Trump became the first former US president to be convicted of a felony. But that schedule was scrapped after the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity last month, in which the courts conservative wing found that presidents have absolute immunity for core official acts. In their filing, Trumps lawyers pointed to testimony at trial including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout they argued should not have come before the jury, as well as tweets he sent while president. All of Hickss testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on core Article II authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity, Trumps attorneys argued. Trump specifically forbids prosecutors from offering testimony from a Presidents advisers for the purpose of probing the official act. The filing says Westerhout was forced to testify about national security matters and her work for Trump, calling prosecutors questioning invasive. This invasive compelled testimony included information regarding President Trumps official-capacity work habits, preferences, relationships and contacts, and social media practices at the White House, Trumps lawyers argued. Trumps attorneys pointed to a March 2018 text message that Westerhout sent Hicks while they were White House advisers working on Trumps behalf: Hey- the president wants to know if you called David pecker again. In addition, Trumps lawyers wrote that Trump, while president, used his Twitter account as one of the White Houses main vehicles for conducting official business. More broadly, permitting prosecutors to use a Presidents public statements on matters of public concern in criminal proceedings would chill the Presidents willingness and ability to communicate with the public, they wrote. That would result in an impermissible intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch and the enfeebling of the Presidency. Trumps attorneys also criticized the district attorneys office for not waiting for the Supreme Court before taking the case to trial. At bottom, the pressure campaign theory turned on DANYs efforts to assign a criminal motive to actions that President Trump took in 2018 as the Commander in Chief responsible for the entire Executive Branch, his lawyers wrote. The Manhattan district attorney urged this Court to front-run the Supreme Court on a federal constitutional issue with grave implications for the operation of the federal government and the relationships between state and federal officials. The record is clear: DANY was wrong, very wrong. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Trumps lawyers filed a letter earlier this month to the judge asking permission to file the motion to set aside the verdict. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs team responded earlier this month by asserting that Trumps argument was without merit, but also that they did not oppose postponing the sentencing while Merchan decided Trumps motion. The judge announced that same day that he would allow the two sides to file briefs this month and that he would rule on the matter on September 6. Trumps sentencing would be postponed until September 18, Merchan wrote if such is still necessary. The district attorneys reply to Trump is due on July 24. This story has been updated with additional developments. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Investors weren't particularly open to the idea of owning E2open Parent Holdings (NYSE: ETWO) stock on Wednesday. Following the release of its latest set of quarterly results, the specialty tech company saw its stock close down by almost 7% that day. That was a far steeper drop than that of the S&P 500 index, which dipped by less than 1%. Top- and bottom-line declines In its fiscal first quarter of 2025, E2open saw its revenue decline on a year-over-year basis. It fell to just over $151 million from 2024's Q1 tally of $160 million. The dynamic was similar with the company's non-GAAP (adjusted) net income; this came in at $13 million, or $0.04 against the year-ago profit of nearly $16 million. Despite the drops, E2open met the average-analyst estimate for profitability. It fell short on the top line, however, as prognosticators tracking its fortunes were collectively expecting slightly over $155 million. The company said that it was making progress on its long-term strategy of returning to growth. It experienced several hiccups during the quarter, however, including what it termed "temporary deal closure delays." Sticking with previous guidance In the earnings release, E2open reiterated its subscription and total-revenue guidance for the entirety of fiscal 2025. It anticipates overall revenue will land between $630 million and $645 million. The consensus-analyst estimate of just over $637 million falls within this range. That's on the back of the company's foundational-subscription revenue, which at a forecast $532 million to $542 million means essentially flat year-over-year growth. Should you invest $1,000 in E2open Parent Holdings right now? 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Why E2open Parent Holdings Stock Dived by 7% Today was originally published by The Motley Fool Former President Trump made his formal push to toss his criminal conviction in the wake of the Supreme Courts presidential immunity decision, contending hes being treated unfairly and unlawfully. The 52-page brief, made public on Thursday, insists the Manhattan district attorneys office (DANY) improperly brought in evidence protected by presidential immunity. Trumps lawyers are asking New York Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the recent trial, to not only throw out the guilty verdict but also dismiss last years indictment. The record is clear: DANY was wrong, very wrong, wrote Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove. Be that as it may, Your Honor now has the authority to address these injustices, and the Court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Courts decision. In late May, a New York jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts of falsifying business records with an intent to unlawfully influence the 2016 election by disguising reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, as a legal retainer. Just before Trump won the presidency, Cohen had paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies any affair. The Supreme Courts decision last week carving out at least presumptive criminal immunity for presidents official acts has given Trump a new pathway to attempt to toss his verdict. Unlike his three other criminal cases, Trump had not argued he was immune from the hush money charges themselves. But the Supreme Courts ruling blocks prosecutors from bringing in protected acts as evidence, even if the charges concern unofficial conduct. Trump contends prosecutors improperly cited official acts as evidence at both his blockbuster trial this spring and last years grand jury proceedings that led to the first indictment of a former president in U.S. history. The evidence in question includes one of Trumps government ethics forms, some of his social media posts issued while in office and testimony from two of his White House aides. The former presidents lawyers contend much of it implicated core executive functions, which the Supreme Court made clear are absolutely protected. In order to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine, and protect the interests implicated by its underpinnings, the jurys verdicts must be vacated and the Indictment dismissed, Trumps attorneys wrote. The brief was filed Wednesday and made public Thursday, the same day as Trumps originally scheduled sentencing. His judge delayed the sentencing until Sept. 18 so he could first weigh the immunity argument. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs (D) office, which did not oppose the delay, previously signaled it believes the conviction should stand. They are due to respond in court filings later this 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. Trump-backed MAGA candidate Bernie Moreno, who is campaigning to oust longtime Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, walked himself into a faceplant on Thursday while attempting to tout his accessibility in contrast to his opponent. I can tell you this, if Im here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown wont do that, Moreno declared before claiming Democrats shielded Biden from visibility to hide his physical decline. If you cant come out here and address the media and talk to reporters and give your position and be unequivocal and clear, you have no business being in elected office. Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio took Moreno up on this offer, asking if his position on abortion conflicts with the Republican Partys new platform. Moreno responded, Look, were not here to talk about abortion. Outside Sen Browns office this morning, his GOP opponent, Bernie Moreno, gaggles with reporters, saying, I can tell you this, if I'm here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown won't do that. He then immediately got a Q from pic.twitter.com/FLp1epSvYf Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 11, 2024 The Republican Party recently approved a policy platform crafted by Trumps campaign that softens the partys stance on abortion, supporting access to IVF and contraceptives while opposing abortion in the second trimester. Moreno previously has expressed support for a 15-week abortion ban, while the new GOP platform has removed references to a 20-week national abortion ban. Moreno has since tried to backtrack to say he supports the new platform. Brown is facing headwinds heading into reelection in November, with Ohio shaping up to vote for Trump but polling appearing to favor Brown. According to The New York Times, Moreno is the Democratic Partys preferred contender against Brown due to his extreme positions and bizarre moments in the spotlight. Moreno has previously called for reparations for white people and argued that women dont need abortions, they need help carrying strollers. Donald Trumps aides are discussing having the former president reveal his running mate on stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday night, according to two people familiar with the planning. The planning is still fluid, aides stressed. The finalists are expected to be at the convention, and if Trump decides to keep quiet over the weekend, there could be a reality show-style reveal on the conventions opening night. It would be a dramatic end to his monthslong casting call for a running mate. The choice remains so closely held that even his top advisers insist they remain uncertain about who Trump will pick. Nobody knows, said one Trump campaign official. The official echoed, with insistence, the same response campaign staff have given for months. For the record I dont know who it is! top Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita posted on social media, mocking the press for speculating about Trumps decision. Speaking on "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show" on Thursday, Trump hinted that hes eyeing a convention reveal. Id love to do it during the convention, or just slightly before the convention, like Monday, Trump said. Multiple Trump officials and advisers interviewed for this story were granted anonymity because they werent authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The campaign has provided all the information he needs to make his decision, and we are all in agreement that it's his decision to be made, said a second Trump campaign official, and whenever that decision is made we are ready to go. Trump is facing an increasingly tight deadline to announce his running mate. The GOP convention in Milwaukee starts on Monday. Officials with the Republican National Committee have yet to say when a roll call vote will be held to officially nominate Trumps running mate but the former president must announce before then. Its like a highly sophisticated version of 'The Apprentice,' if you think about it, Trump said Thursday on the Clay & Buck show, explaining he had narrowed it down to four or five people, but declining to specify if he had made a final decision. He said he is looking at the final contenders in great detail, but that his decision is more of an instinct. I have some really good candidates, Trump continued. I may be leaning one way, and that changes sometimes. All of a sudden you see something that you like or you dont like, and you lean a little bit differently. Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who are widely believed to be the final contenders in the running mate contest, are each expected to address party faithful at the convention regardless of who Trump picks. Trump on Thursday also mentioned that he was pleased with Sen. Tim Scotts performance in a television interview the day before. Eight Republicans were once on Trumps short list. Trump has only one campaign event remaining before the convention: a rally Saturday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has prompted guesses that Trump might make the news there as well as observations that the rally location is not far from Vances Rust Belt turf in Ohio. However, as of Friday, Burgum, Vance and Rubio were not scheduled to be at the Pennsylvania rally, according to two campaign officials. At a rally Tuesday in Miami, Trump teased that many of the reporters in attendance had expected him to announce Rubio as his running mate. Trump famously makes decisions based less on traditional political strategy and more off his instincts as both a showman and unpredictable businessperson. Back in 2016, Trump continued to waffle over his decision to pick Mike Pence as late as the night before he made his running mate reveal in New York. He has had little imperative to move quickly this year, content to keep focus on the unfolding crisis surrounding President Joe Bidens campaign after his poor debate performance last month. Once Trump makes his announcement, the campaign is prepared to quickly print signs and merchandise emblazoned with Trump and the name of whomever he picks. And a private plane for the potential running mate, called Trump Force Two, is currently parked and ready at an undisclosed hangar, according to one of the campaign officials. In the meantime, Trump has appeared to enjoy toying with the public and his potential picks over the who and where of his decision. It increases the excitement, said former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally. Plus, if you're watching your opponent fall apart, why get in the way? Woodrow Wilson once said, Never murder a man who is in the process of committing suicide, and you're watching Biden and the Democrats drift into a civil war. Why get in the way? Bill White, a donor and longtime friend of Trump, said he believes Trump has already chosen his running mate, and has shared it with a maximum of two people. The only person who knows at the end of the day is him, and I think the only two other people whod know right after him, when nobody else knows, are his wife and Susie Wiles, White continued, noting Trumps fondness for Wiles, one of two of his top campaign advisers. But another person close to Trump noted that the former president has had ample time this week in between meetings and rallies to still be swayed. If you're an adviser, this is probably the worst time for Trump because he has downtime and he can continue to get input from friends and anyone he encounters at his club, the person said. While Rubio appeared with Trump on Tuesday in Florida, Burgum addressed Trump campaign volunteers in Michigan that evening, speaking by video call at a Trump Force 47 training, an appearance that was set up by the campaign and RNC, according to a person familiar with the plans. Staff of Scott, who was long mentioned as a major contender for the role, but who has faded from the spotlight in recent weeks, has remained in contact with the Trump campaign on matters of fundraising and communication, according to another person with knowledge of the situation. Trump has not given Scott any indication about his decision one way or the other, the person said. Scott is expected to speak at the convention. Trumps running mate is scheduled to address the convention on Wednesday night. Trump, at least publicly, has continued to bring up Vance, Rubio and Burgum. In a Fox Radio interview Wednesday, Trump both praised and expressed reservations about Rubio and Burgum, while complimenting Vances appearance as a young Abraham Lincoln. He denied a report this week that Trumps distaste for beards would disqualify Vance. While complimenting Rubios performance at Trumps rally the night before, Trump on Wednesday said the constitutional issues that could arise from both men being Florida residents Rubio would likely have to resign from office and relocate to a new state makes it more complicated. There are people that dont have that complication, Trump said, though adding it still doesnt rule out Rubio. On Burgum, Trump told host Brian Kilmeade that he is a great guy, but conceded that the six-week abortion law Burgum signed in North Dakota is an issue, describing it as a pretty strong ban. I think Im pretty well set in my own mind, Trump said, when asked if there are any remaining contenders besides Rubio, Vance, Burgum and Scott. But, you know, you got some good people, and I have changed a little bit, but theyre all great. Further scrambling things are questions about Bidens political fate. Trump told Fox News on Monday night that questions within the Democratic Party about Bidens candidacy have also impacted his thinking, and he wanted to wait and see if Vice President Kamala Harris is his rival instead. With Trump coming up against the clock to make his decision, some prominent conservative leaders and allies of the former president have made last-minute pitches for their preferred candidate, or, in other cases, merely against one they dont like. That includes Donald Trump Jr., who recently announced on his podcast that he supports Vance as Trumps running mate. Others have taken swings at running mate candidates they dont like, such as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins bashing Rubio this week, and Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, sharing an X pollhe conducted that showed few of his followers wanted Burgum. White said he is imploring Trump supporters with strong feelings about the running mate selection process to quickly accept whoever Trump decides. Whoever President Trump picks as his vice president, what we all should say as a chorus of love and support is, Oh, my God, I couldnt have imagined a better choice, White said. And other Republicans are still viewed as possible contenders. During an appearance on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump should consider someone like Scott, his longtime friend and ally who is Black and could help expand the map. But he acknowledged the case to be made for the other three men currently in the mix, and added in one other person. But somebody thats not being talked about that should be, in my view, is [Glenn] Youngkin from Virginia, Graham said. If we win Virginia, we win. It is over. So I'm hoping President Trump is looking for a VP pick that not only can carry on the American first agenda after he leaves, but also win in 2024. Jonathan Martin contributed to this report. Donald Trump is reportedly assessing his vice-presidential contenders hair quality as much as their political ideology as he finalises his choice of running mate. JD Vance and Marco Rubio, both senators, as well as Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, are said to be the three leading candidates to join Trump on the Republican 2024 ticket. The former president has teased the announcement for months, encouraging the contenders to audition for the role through the media, reminiscent of the ruthless style Trump endorsed as a judge on the TV series The Apprentice. It comes as Trumps family, in particular his wife Melania and his eldest son Don Jr, are said to be battling to install their preferred pick. Trump has said his criteria include whether the candidate can help his election and whether they can do a fantastic job as president, but insiders suggest a telegenic appearance may be more critical than their credentials. The 78-year-old, whose own blond coif is central to his image, is known to place a premium on what he likes to call the TV-ready central casting look, with a particular fixation on hair. Hes very seriously looking at each candidates hair, a Trump source told the website Puck. Dougs got great hair; thats what [Trump] demands in his VP. Sources within Trumps orbit suggested Mr Vances beard could be an obstacle to his selection, with the Republican presidential candidate said to favour a clean-shaven appearance. Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, is one of the leading candidates to be vice-president - AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais Trump, however, laughed off the suggestion during a recent Fox News interview. It looks good. It looks like a young Abraham Lincoln, he said. He has also told his inner circle the Ohio senator has got the look, describing him as one handsome son of a b---h, according to the Daily Mail. The 39-year-old Mr Vance has been enthusiastically backed by Don Jr, who happens to sport his own beard, and who has described Mr Vance as a clear example of Trumps America-first platform. The blue-eyed, brown-haired senator has notably trimmed down in recent months and been prolific across US media outlets as he campaigns for Trump. A former venture capitalist and Marine veteran, Mr Vance first rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, widely praised for its vivid picture of the social and economic decline of middle America. Mr Vances connection to the Rust Belt, whose voters will be critical to determining the 2024 White House race, could be a major asset. So too is his close friendship with Peter Thiel, his Silicon Valley billionaire former boss, and an influential Republican donor. The Ohio senator once described himself as a never Trumper, saying the Republican leader could be Americas Hitler. Marco Rubio ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016 - AP/Rebecca Blackwell Yet his political conversion has seen him dubbed the Maga whisperer, and he now aligns with Trumps base more closely than Mr Burgum or Mr Rubio. However, Mr Vances public speaking skills and his youth have seen him touted as a future Republican president himself, and some campaign insiders fear he could threaten to overshadow Trump in a lame-duck second term. They have no such fears about Mr Burgum, 67, whom they say has a quality shared by Mike Pence, Trumps former vice-president: someone too low profile to be a star in his own right. Before entering politics, the two-term governor started out as a chimney sweep before literally betting the farm by selling his familys land to start a software business that he turned into a billion-dollar company. Mr Burgum reportedly has the backing of Mrs Trump, in part because she occasionally collaborated with his wife, Kathryn, on projects while she was first lady. Meanwhile Mr Rubio, who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, appeared alongside his former rival at a rally in Florida this week where Trump teased the prospect of choosing him as a running mate. Significant resistance Noting the proliferation of journalists at the event, Trump told the crowd: I think they probably think Im going to be announcing that Marcos going to be vice-president. The 53-year-old senator for Florida would have to move out of the state to join Trump on the ballot, since the US constitution prohibits a president and vice-president from residing in the same state. Mr Rubio has also faced significant resistance from Don Jr, who has described the senator as an establishment favourite. Theres something about having someone outside the establishment to sort of further protect you from that establishment, he said on his podcast, Triggered. Mr Trump is expected to keep all three contenders guessing until the 11th hour at the Republican National Convention, which takes place in Milwaukee next week. A late change to the convention rules could allow Trump to hold off his announcement until the last minute, a move that appeals to his love of dramatic suspense but is reportedly driving his advisers nuts. I think it would be a very interesting build-up, Trump told Fox of a potential late announcement. 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 lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPMs Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. The Other Shoe Just Dropped In a new filing Thursday, former President Donald Trump launched a wholesale attack not just on his conviction in the New York hush money case but on the underlying indictment, too relying heavily on the Supreme Courts unprecedented ruling in his favor on presidential immunity. You knew this was coming, but there was a jolt in reading the particulars of the motion. Perhaps it was the effect of seeing anew that the Supreme Court gifted Trump so many angles of attack by issuing such a broad, vague ruling and tacking on to it a newly invented evidentiary rule that benefits Trump and future lawless presidents in myriad ways. It was the high courts new evidentiary rule that evidence of official acts cant be used in a criminal proceeding against the former president ostensibly because it would deprive him of the benefits of the immunity protection the court bestowed on him that opened the door for Trump now to challenge the underlying indictment. Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted DANYs grand jury proceedings as well as the trial, Trump argued in the new filing. Trump is asking the trial judge to dismiss the indictment and vacate the conviction. Most legal observers think the conviction will likely survive review in New York state, but the scope of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity means the high court will almost certainly get a chance to weigh in and is likely to take that chance. That was not the case, or at least was much more of a stretch, before the immunity ruling, when there were few if any real constitutional issues in the New York case that would have been a basis for Supreme Court intervention. To reiterate, close observers recognized right off the bat that the immunity ruling posed a threat not just to the Jan. 6 case in DC and the RICO case in Georgia but also to the hush money conviction and the Mar-a-Lago case. Yesterdays filing was evidence of those chickens coming home to roost. The Supreme Court Is Gaslighting Us All Jesse Wegman: At the close of one of the most consequential and least constitutional terms in the Supreme Courts history, its hard to ignore one particularly offensive trend: the right-wing justices repeated and patronizing attempts to minimize the importance of their unprecedented decisions. Roger Parloff: [T]he SCOTUS majority in Trump v US contemptuously chided the bipartisan lower courts for trying to let justice be done before Trump has a chance to abuse power to derail it. They even purported to be acting expeditiously though we are, right now, pointlessly counting 32 more days off the calendar for SCOTUSs ruling to become final, because the court declined to make it immediate. (The pause permits the losing party to seek rehearinginconceivable here as the Court well knows.) An Impossible Feat As I suggested in yesterdays Morning Memo, Joe Bidens press conference to wrap up the NATO summit was a trap more than a potential escape route for the embattled president. Despite a strong showing that effectively muted concerns that Biden had suffered a sudden and irreversible cognitive decline in recent months, the news coverage universally took on the bitter flavor of he did fine but it wont matter a hall of mirrors of political analysis that seems destined to be the surreal place American politics is going to spend the next few days, weeks, and maybe even months. The one bit of good news yesterday for Biden was that a meeting of Democratic senators with Bidens campaign triumvirate was not followed by a series of Senate defections. That number still stands at one. Bidens Shrinking Electoral College Map The Biden campaign sent a memo to campaign staffers yesterday that amounted to a concession that the Electoral College map for the president has shrunk to the blue wall of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Associated Press reports: The fresh emphasis on the blue wall states by the campaign, which has heavily invested in other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia, acknowledges that the path to defeating Donald Trump in November is narrowing, even as the team insists the Sun Belt states are not out of reach. Democratic political strategist Doug Sosnik cites the campaign memo as he reassess the current political map in a NYT op-ed out today. Sosnik paints a grim picture for Biden: Unless the basic contours of the race change and some of the Sun Belt battleground states become more competitive (which is unlikely), Mr. Bidens only viable path for winning is to carry Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Each of the three states poses particular challenges for Mr. Biden. Current polling shows him trailing Mr. Trump by as many as five points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and more narrowly in Michigan. I should add one note for the discerning reader: The Sosnik op-ed, while sound, also reads like part of the internal party drumbeat for Biden to exit the race. Thats not to denigrate the analysis just to heighten your awareness. The McCain Precedent Brian Beutler has a insightful callback to the desperate measure GOP nominee John McCain reached for in 2008 to try to change the trajectory of his losing campaign: Sarah Palin. Quote Of The Day Its fucking awesome. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), on seeing congressional Democrats swarmed by reporters this week and having to face uncomfortable questions about President Biden The Looming Menace, Part I TPMs Josh Kovensky: What Viktor Orban brought to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last night. The Looming Menace, Part II WaPo: U.S. intelligence officials warned the German authorities earlier this year that Russia was plotting to assassinate the head of Europes biggest weapons producer, according to two Western officials, amid an escalating sabotage campaign by Moscow to raise the cost of Western support for Ukraine. From The You Cant Make This Up File Via NBC News Frank Thorpe V: Outside Sen Browns office this morning, his GOP opponent, Bernie Moreno, gaggles with reporters, saying, I can tell you this, if Im here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown wont do that. He then immediately got a Q from @AndrewDesiderio about if his stance on abortion conflicts with the party platform. Moreno: Were not here to talk about abortion. Outside Sen Browns office this morning, his GOP opponent, Bernie Moreno, gaggles with reporters, saying, I can tell you this, if I'm here, I will talk to you at any point in time, even take tough questions. Sherrod Brown won't do that. He then immediately got a Q from pic.twitter.com/FLp1epSvYf Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 11, 2024 Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know! Donald Trump has mocked Joe Biden for mistaking him for Kamala Harris at a Nato summit press conference. In a series of blunders on Thursday night, Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, as President Putin and called Kamala Harris Vice-president Trump. The stumbles are set to worsen the crisis already engulfing his presidency. Trump sarcastically wrote on Truth Social: truth social screenshot Asked a question about Ms Harris, Mr Biden said, Look, I wouldnt have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there. Mr Bidens gaffes came at the end of a Nato summit in Washington DC, which had been pitched as an opportunity to rescue the presidents ailing reelection campaign. The White House had dubbed it a Big Boy press conference as it was Mr Bidens first solo, unscripted appearance in eight months. The missteps at such a high-profile event have only added fuel to the fire for his critics and have raised concerns about his ability to effectively lead on the global stage. In another post, Trump shared a video clip of Mr Biden struggling to get his words out while referring to his commander-in-chief, despite the president holding that title himself. Trump captioned the clip with a mocking tone: Im following the advice of my commander-in-chief mymymy Crooked Joe has a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome! he added. Mr Trumps son Eric added: Wow! That was not good! I didnt pick Trump to be Vice President Despite these missteps, Mr Biden and Trump remain in a dead heat in the polls at 46-47 per cent, respectively, according to the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey. 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. This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here. To submit a question to next weeks Friday Mailbag, email onthetrail@deseretnews.com. Hello, friends. Im headed to Milwaukee this weekend ahead of the Republican National Convention. More coverage coming soon. I was recently asked why On the Trail 2024 didnt include more tips on the best hikes in Utah. (Ha, ha.) Heres one: Grandeur Peak Trail up Millcreek Canyon. Its largely shaded and has panoramic views at the top. If youre looking for something lighter like I was after a picnic dinner up Millcreek on Wednesday the Pipeline Trail crosses near Grandeurs trailhead. Its flat and picturesque. 3 things to know The Big Idea Trumps return to the spotlight This week was supposed to be Trumps week. Yesterday, July 11, was the date scheduled for Trumps sentencing for his hush money convictions. It was widely expected that Trump would name his vice president this week. And with the Republican National Convention teeing up Monday, the GOP and Trump, as its flag-bearer were to take center-stage. Then, two major events threw the election cycle off the rails. First, the June 27 debate, when Bidens stumbling performance plunged Democrats into a crisis over the strength of their presumptive nominee. And then, on July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution for actions taken in their official capacity as president. Instead of a Trump-dominated week, the election narrative has taken a sharp turn to the left to Democrats detriment and Trump-fans delight. The Supreme Court decision punted Trumps sentencing date to mid-September, after the date planned for the second debate. Instead of talking about Trumps convictions, the media cycle is locked into Democratic panic, where each day another prominent Democrat seems to call on Biden to drop out. Trump, meanwhile, has shown a rare dose of restraint. Instead of announcing his VP pick and stealing the spotlight, hes remained mum, content with the in-fighting Democrats taking the spotlight. Aside from a rally on Tuesday near his home in Florida, hes limited his public appearances. And after spending the better part of a year questioning Bidens stamina and fitness for office, hes sitting back while the presidents own party continues the conversation. But some in Trumps corner now question whether the strategy was too successful. According to a new dive into the Trump campaign by The Atlantics Tim Alberta, Trumps top campaign staff Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles are scared that Democrats might actually do the unthinkable: shelve the very-beatable Biden for a more formidable candidate. They know their campaign has been engineered in every way from the voters they target to the viral memes they create to defeat Biden, Alberta wrote. And privately, they are all but praying that he remains their opponent. (Albertas full story is well worth the read.) Questions about Bidens fitness arent going anywhere. But starting Monday, when the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee, Trump has no choice but to reenter the spotlight. The Biden team is working desperately to push Trumps warts back in front of voters Kamala Harris public appearances this week have largely focused on the perils of Project 2025 and the convention will surely give them more fodder to do so. (The Republican platform, which will go up for a vote next week, is already causing a rift within the party.) The question is: how will Trump handle it? Will the former president, who exhibits little self-restraint when given a microphone and a camera, allow the Democrats internal battles to ride out? Or will his aides terrified that Democrats will pull the plug and serve them a tougher opponent encourage a different approach? The answers await in Milwaukee. Weekend reads Inside the divorce divide: Divorced men are more likely to vote for the thrice-married Trump than any other group, based on gender and marital status: More than any time in the recent past, American politics is pushing men and women apart rather than bringing them together. Divorced Men for Trump (Daniel Cox, American Storylines Substack) Biden needs young voters to turn out. But he faces a host of challenges with Gen Z: they think Biden is too old, many disagree with his stance on Israel-Gaza, and they dont always turn out in elections. Several youth-run progressive groups are trying to fix that. Their biggest challenge, though, is convincing 20-something-year-olds that an octogenarian should lead the country. Would it be better if Biden were thirty-five years old? A thousand per cent, one activist said. But thats who we have. Do Democrats Have a Gen Z Problem? (E. Tommy Kim, The New Yorker) Democrats have over a month before their national convention. But the Biden campaign is already working to make sure delegates are in line, according to new reporting: Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Bidens aides are telephoning individual delegates to next months Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president. Act of Desperation? Bidens Team Checks Delegates for Loyalty (Jonathan Martin, Politico) See you on the trail. Editors Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here. Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court as jurors are expected to begin deliberations in his criminal hush money trial in New York, Wednesday, May 29, 2024. A filing on Thursday, July 12, 2024, by Trumps attorneys requested that the judge overseeing his criminal case dismiss it completely based on the recent Supreme Court ruling over presidential immunity. | Yuki Iwamura A filing on Thursday by former President Donald Trumps attorneys requested that the judge overseeing his criminal case dismiss it completely based on the recent Supreme Court ruling over presidential immunity. Thursday also happened to be the original sentencing date for Trump in the hush money case, in which he was found guilty in May. The Manhattan criminal case made history, as the jury found him guilty on all 34 counts, making Trump the first U.S. president to be convicted of a felony. Last week, Judge Juan Merchan delayed Trumps sentencing after both parties agreed, following the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that protects former presidents from being prosecuted with evidence regarding official acts they made as president. The new sentencing date is set for Sept. 18, which comes after the Republican National Convention, where Trump is expected to become the GOPs presidential nominee. On Thursday, Trumps legal team told Merchan that the hush money case should be disregarded because the prosecution used official acts Trump made as president as evidence against him, noting that they had warned about this prior to the start of the trial. In order to vindicate the presidential immunity doctrine, and protect the interests implicated by its underpinnings, the jurys verdicts must be vacated and the indictment dismissed, the filing said, according to CNN. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his prosecution team in the case violated the presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause by relying on evidence relating to President Trumps official acts in 2017 and 2018 to unfairly prejudice President Trump in this unprecedented and unfounded prosecution relating to purported business records. Attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove led Trumps defense in the case, where he was found guilty of falsifying business records to apparently hide a $130,000 payment made by his then-attorney Michael Cohen to adult film actress Stormy Daniels leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Trumps defense said in the filing that multiple witnesses should have never testified in the criminal case against him, including Hope Hicks, his former White House communications director, and Madeleine Westerhout, former director of Oval Office operations, as well as his social media posts. Because of the implications for the institution of the presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted the case, the filing added, per The New York Times. These transgressions resulted in the type of deeply prejudicial error that strikes at the core of the governments function. Some legal experts are skeptical of the credibility of using the Supreme Courts ruling as a reason to dismiss the criminal case. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the president a cover-up of an embarrassing event, Judge Alvin Hellerstein said to ABC News. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a presidents official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the Presidents official duties. Braggs office has not yet commented on the actions made by Trumps defense and has until July 24 to respond. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index saw a modest gain of 0.46% during a holiday-shortened week, reflecting cautious optimism in a mixed economic environment marked by underwhelming manufacturing data and ongoing property market challenges. This backdrop sets an intriguing stage for investors to explore undervalued small-cap stocks that may offer potential growth opportunities amidst broader market uncertainties. 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 2.85% Wasion Holdings 11.6x 0.8x 31.39% Xtep International Holdings 11.4x 0.8x 41.12% Sany Heavy Equipment International Holdings 7.9x 0.7x -23.01% Ever Sunshine Services Group 5.8x 0.4x 15.78% China Leon Inspection Holding 9.4x 0.7x 30.64% Kinetic Development Group 3.9x 1.7x 20.88% Nissin Foods 14.6x 1.3x 40.40% Transport International Holdings 11.6x 0.6x 44.35% Giordano International 8.4x 0.8x 37.68% Click here to see the full list of 19 stocks from our Undervalued SEHK Small Caps With Insider Buying screener. Below we spotlight a couple of our favorites from our exclusive screener. Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: Xtep International Holdings is a sportswear company that operates in mass market, fashion sports, and professional sports segments with a market capitalization of approximately CN7.64 billion. Operations: The company generates its revenue primarily through three segments: Mass Market, Fashion Sports, and Professional Sports, with the Mass Market segment contributing significantly with CN11.95 billion. Over recent periods, it has experienced a gross profit margin of approximately 42.17%, indicating the cost-effectiveness of its operations relative to sales. PE: 11.4x Recently, Xtep International Holdings demonstrated strong insider confidence with a significant purchase by Shui Po Ding, who acquired 2 million shares for HK$14.15 million. This move underscores belief in the company's value amidst its positive retail growth projections of 10% year-on-year for the next quarter and high single digits for the half-year period. Despite operational shifts and executive changes enhancing focus on financial strategy, Xtep maintains commitment to shareholder returns, evidenced by a recent dividend increase to HK$0.08 per share. Story continues SEHK:1368 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: K. Wah International Holdings is a diversified company primarily engaged in property development in Hong Kong and Mainland China, as well as property investment, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$7.36 billion. Operations: The company generates significant income from property development, particularly in Mainland China which contributed HK$4.45 billion to revenues, alongside notable contributions from Hong Kong property development and investment properties. Over recent periods, it has experienced a gross profit margin ranging around 30% to 60%, reflecting varying profitability across different reporting dates. PE: 6.8x K. Wah International Holdings, a notable player in the Hong Kong market, recently saw insider Mo Chi Cheng purchase 200,000 shares, signaling strong confidence in the company's prospects. This move aligns with K. Wahs financial strategy amidst its earnings forecast of an 8.63% annual growth rate and reliance on higher-risk external borrowing for funding. Despite a reduction in dividends announced on June 26, 2024, to HK$0.09 per share with a scrip option effective July 24, Cheng's investment highlights potential unrecognized value within this enterprise. SEHK:173 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Simply Wall St Value Rating: Overview: Comba Telecom Systems Holdings specializes in wireless telecommunications network system equipment and services, primarily serving operator telecommunication services with a market cap of approximately HK$1.48 billion. Operations: The business generates a significant portion of its 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. Over recent periods, it has experienced a gross profit margin of approximately 27.79%, reflecting the cost efficiency relative to its revenue generation in the highly competitive telecom sector. PE: 315.8x Recently, Comba Telecom Systems Holdings demonstrated insider confidence as Executive Chairman Tung Ling Fok invested US$930,371 in the company by acquiring 1.83 million shares. This move underscores a strong belief in the company's prospects despite its modest profit margins of 0.1%, down from last years 3%. At a recent conference in Shanghai, leadership highlighted strategic initiatives likely to enhance shareholder value. With no customer deposits and all liabilities funded through external borrowing, financial agility remains central to their strategy. SEHK:2342 Share price vs Value as at Jul 2024 Turning Ideas Into Actions Gain an insight into the universe of 19 Undervalued SEHK Small Caps With Insider Buying by clicking here. Hold shares in these firms? Setup your portfolio in Simply Wall St to seamlessly track your investments and receive personalized updates on your portfolio's performance. Unlock the power of informed investing with Simply Wall St, your free guide to navigating stock markets worldwide. Looking For Alternative Opportunities? 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:173 and SEHK:2342. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com Trump wants to vacate his hush money conviction and he might have a shot, thanks to SCOTUS Former President Donald Trump asked a New York judge to set aside his hush money trial conviction. Before the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling, such an endeavor may have seemed hopeless, but now Trump has a more serious argument. The July 1 high court ruling from Republican-appointed justices already grabbed headlines for knocking out portions of former President Donald Trump's federal election interference indictment, helping shield him from another 2024 criminal trial, and potentially emboldening him in a future presidency. But the ruling may be an even bigger gift to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee because one portion of it, which deals with trial evidence, raises questions about the criminal trial Trump already lost. Trump was convicted in Manhattan on May 30 of 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal a conspiracy to unlawfully interfere in the 2016 presidential election through a scheme involving hush money paid to a porn star. In his Monday motion, Trump said improper evidence tainted not only the trial but also the grand jury proceedings that resulted in his indictment. In order to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine the jurys verdicts must be vacated and the Indictment dismissed, according to the motion. Judge Juan Merchan delayed Trump's scheduled July 11 sentencing more than two months, until Sept. 18, to give defense lawyers and prosecutors time to file written arguments on whether the convictions can stand. Andy Grewal, an Iowa University law professor, told USA TODAY that the delayed timeline suggests Merchan is taking the issue seriously, especially when juxtaposed with Merchan's quick handling of some of the earlier motions in the case. "That doesn't tell me which way he will rule, but that's a good sign for the defense," Grewal said. 'Nail in Mr. Trump's coffin': Why trial testimony could be a problem During the trial, Trump lawyer Emil Bove objected to testimony from former Trump aide Hope Hicks about statements by Trump while he was president. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo responded that the evidence was permissible, saying that "evidence of otherwise immune conduct is nonetheless admissible in a trial regarding criminal conduct for non-immune acts." However, five members of the Supreme Court's six-person conservative wing appear to have now said the opposite when it comes to presidential immunity. "If official conduct for which the President is immune may be scrutinized to help secure his conviction, even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct, the 'intended effect' of immunity would be defeated," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in a portion of the majority opinion that was joined by all the Republican-appointed justices except Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In their letter to Merchan following that ruling, Trump's lawyers pointed to Hicks' testimony that Trump, while president, asked her how a 2018 news report on his former lawyer Michael Cohen's 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels "was playing." Cohen paid the money less than two weeks before the 2016 election to keep Daniels silent about an alleged affair with Trump. "And I think Mr. Trump's opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election," Hicks testified. Hope Hicks, a former top aide to former U.S. President Donald Trump, is cross examined by defense lawyer Emil Bove during Trump's criminal trial on charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York City, U.S. May 3, 2024 in this courtroom sketch. "[T]his testimony puts the nail in Mr. Trump's coffin," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass later told jurors in his closing argument. Steinglass said the testimony showed Trump's main motivation for the payment was to help his 2016 election chances rather than shield his wife Melania Trump from Daniels' allegations that she had an affair with the real estate mogul. That bolstered the prosecution's argument that the payment was a campaign finance violation. Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, said on the Just Security Podcast that he views the Hope Hicks testimony as Trump's strongest argument on this issue, though not a surefire argument. "She's in her role, you might say, operating as crisis management for the White House," Goodman said. "Is the holding of this U.S. Supreme Court opinion saying that there is in fact a plausible claim that that is evidence derived from official conduct of the president and therefore cannot be used?" Goodman asked. Other evidence under attack The Hicks testimony isn't the only evidence Trump's lawyers are attacking. They have also targeted social media posts by Trump while he was president, records on calls Trump had at that time, and a government ethics form in which Trump said Michael Cohen incurred expenses in 2016 and was "fully reimbursed" in 2017. The ethics form was relevant to the charges because prosecutors said Trump falsified records by mischaracterizing reimbursements to Cohen for the Daniels hush money payment as monthly expenses under a legal retainer agreement that didn't actually exist. Steinglass said in his closing statement that the form was an admission "that the payments to Cohen were reimbursements." Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks after the guilty verdict on May 30, 2024, in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records in New York. Defending the conviction: Was it official? Prosecutors have at least a few lines of attack. They may say some or all of that evidence doesn't constitute official conduct under the ruling. For instance, they could argue that calls by Trump about his business affairs or the payment to Daniels aren't rendered official conduct simply because he was president. But some of the language from the high court's opinion is favorable to Trump. For instance, Roberts wrote that while there may be instances of unofficial public speech by a president, "most of a Presidents public communications are likely to fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities." An appeal that could go back to the Supreme Court Prosecutors could also argue that any impermissible evidence under the high court's ruling was a harmless error that shouldn't upend the conviction. One challenge with that argument is it may require them to eat their own words when it comes to statements to the jury about the evidence's significance. But even if Judge Merchan or, ultimately, an appellate court deems the evidence harmless, the Supreme Court could say a different standard applies in the newly-charted waters of presidential immunity. Roberts states in the immunity ruling that questions about whether the president may be held liable need to be addressed before trial because even the burden of a trial may render a president "unduly cautious in the discharge of his official duties." He also says a jury's inspection of the president's motivations for official actions would "seriously cripple" the exercise of official duties. That could give rise to arguments that no evidence error when it comes to presidential immunity is harmless. "Maybe the analogy is, well, the admission into evidence is itself the harm to the presidency there is no harmless error exception," Grewal said. "Who the hell knows?" Was the immunity issue raised in time? Prosecutors may also say Trump waived the issue by failing to raise his objections earlier. In early April, Merchan rejected a request by Trump to delay the trial and to exclude evidence based on president immunity, stating that Trump knew of the immunity question for several months and was raising it too late. Merchan pointed to a New York law that requires pre-trial motions to be filed within 45 days of a defendant's arraignment. Trump was arraigned about a year earlier. However, Trump's legal team is arguing that the New York law doesn't apply to motions seeking to keep evidence out of a trial. Contributing: David Jackson This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Trump's request to toss out his New York conviction could succeed TSA firearm discoveries at South Carolina checkpoints up overall in first half of 2024 MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) More firearms were seized at Myrtle Beach International Airport during the first half of this year than the first half of 2023, according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. Eight firearms were seized in the first six months of 2024, while only seven were seized at the airport during that time frame in 2023. Fifty-four total firearms were seized at South Carolina airports through June. TSA screened more than 440 million passengers and crew at airports across the U.S. the first six months, marking a 7.3% increase from the same time period last year. In South Carolina, TSA screened nearly 6.84 million departing travelers at South Carolina airports, a nearly 11.5% increase from 2023. Nationwide, a firearm was detected for every 135,560 passengers screened, according to TSA. The rate was much higher in South Carolina, however, with a firearm being discovered for every 70,113 passengers. For more information on what you can and cant bring while checking through airport security, click here. * * * Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read 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. Transportation Security Administration agents are seeing an increase in guns found in carry-on luggage at Kentucky airports through the first half of 2024, the federal agency reported. TSA agents found 62 guns in carry-on luggage in Kentucky, a 26% increase from the first half of last year.By comparison, there has been a 1% increase in the number of guns found in carry-on luggage nationwide, TSA said. The airport reporting the highest amount of guns located in carry-on bags was Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport with 27, followed by Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport with 25, according to TSA. Lexingtons Blue Grass Airport was next on the list with nine guns found in carry-on bags, followed by Barkley Regional Airport in Paducah with one. Nearly 4.27 million passengers have traveled through Kentuckys airports this year a 10.8% increase over the 2023 midyear total, TSA said. There was one firearm discovered for every 68,857 passengers screened, a rate that is almost twice the national average. In 2023, there was a record-tying amount of guns found in carry-on luggage at Kentucky airports at 119 guns. There also were 119 guns found in carry-on luggage in 2021. What happens when a gun is found in carry-on luggage? Firearms can only be transported on a commercial aircraft if they are unloaded and packed in a locked, hard-sided case in checked baggage, TSA said. Any type of replica firearm is prohibited in carry-ons. The local airport law enforcement agency is immediately contacted when TSA detects a gun at a security checkpoint. What happens to the firearm and the firearms owner is up to the discretion of the airport law enforcement agency. A law enforcement officer is in charge of removing the firearm from the X-ray tunnel and making initial contact with the traveler, according to TSA. The traveler could face criminal citations or arrest, according to TSA. They could also face civil penalties up to nearly $15,000 per violation. Whether the firearm was loaded and whether there was accessible ammunition is considered when determining the penalty, according to TSA. Eligibility for TSA PreCheck is also revoked for a maximum of five years for people who bring a gun to a TSA-security checkpoint. TSA said people would be subject to enhanced screening during future trips. A gang boss suspected of being linked to a drive-by shooting that left a nine-year-old girl fighting for her life in east London has been assassinated in Moldova. Izzet Eren, leader of the Tottenham Turks, was shot seven times as he sat outside a cafe in the capital Chisinau on Wednesday. The 41-year-old is said to have been killed by a gunman riding an electric scooter and wearing a helmet. Police in the UK are reportedly investigating a possible connection to the shooting in Dalston in May, when a girl and three men aged 26, 37, and 42 were wounded when a gunman opened fire near a restaurant on Kingsland High Street. The Telegraph understands the girl, whose family come from Kerala in southern India, is believed to have suffered a gunshot wound to the head and remains in a stable but critical condition in hospital. She was having dinner with her family at Evins restaurant in Hackney when shots were fired from a motorbike. One of the intended targets is believed to be a member of the Hackney Bombers who had previously been shot in the neck by a possible Tottenham Turks member. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: The Metropolitan Police are aware of reports of the death of a 41-year-old man in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. At this time the name of the man who died has not been officially confirmed by Moldovan authorities. Professional attack Moldovas interior ministry said that a convicted Turkish drug dealer seeking asylum was shot dead while sitting on a cafe terrace in Chisinaus Riscani district. The gunman escaped and police chief Viorel Cernauteanu said the shooting bore the hallmarks of a highly professional attack. Police in the UK previously said Eren was a senior member of the Tottenham Turks, which had a long-running feud with the rival Hackney Turks. Eren was jailed in October 2015 for 21 years after being caught carrying a loaded pistol and a machine gun in north London while allegedly on his way to carry out a shooting. While serving his sentence he was transferred to a prison in Turkey in August 2019. He absconded from the jail a month later before being arrested in Moldova in 2022. Met Commander Fiona Mallen said at the time that extradition proceedings were under way but Eren was reportedly later released. He is believed to have been involved in masterminding his crime groups operations in the UK while on the run, according to the Mirror. 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. Police and paramedics were called to this apartment building on Sherman Way in Canoga Park, where two toddlers were found unresponsive. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) A 3-year-old boy died Thursday and his twin brother is in grave condition after they were exposed to or ingested deadly drugs, according to law enforcement sources who spoke with The Times. LAPD officials on Friday declined to expound on the substance involved, but law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case said the toddlers had come into contact with drugs that were laced with fentanyl, the highly potent synthetic opioid. The sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said the drugs were easily accessible in parts of the Canoga Park home where the boys were found unresponsive Thursday morning. Emergency crews responded just after 11 a.m. to the home on Sherman Way, where paramedics tried to perform life-saving measures on the children, according to a Los Angeles Police Department news release. Both boys were taken to the hospital, but only one arrived alive. Josiah James was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner. He had just celebrated his third birthday two days before. His brother, whose name was not given, is still hospitalized. Law enforcement sources said he was in grave condition. Read more: In the fentanyl crisis, infants and toddlers become unsuspecting victims The twins' mother, Jestice James, was arrested on suspicion of murder. James, 22, is being held in lieu of $2 million bail. LAPD officials said no other residents of the home were being investigated, but they provided few details about the case. The overall probe, including the cause of the child's death, remains ongoing. The family has a history with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services, according to law enforcement sources. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case. Read more: His toddler overdosed on fentanyl. Dad says L.A. County welfare failed, will sue for $65 million Officials and doctors have recently pointed to a concerning trend of babies and toddlers being increasingly killed by fentanyl, highlighting the deadly capabilities of the extremely potent and addictive opioid. Earlier this year, a 2-year-old boy in Lancaster died after being exposed to fentanyl during a visit with his mother that had been approved by Los Angeles Countys Department of Children and Family Services. The child had been in foster care but was visiting his mother when he came into contact with the countys most deadly drug. His father, who was separated from his mother, plans to sue the county's child welfare systems for failing to protect the toddler. 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. Two arrested for alleged Arson in North Augusta apartment fire NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (WJBF) On June 2nd, North Augusta Public Safety responded to a structure fire at Palmetto Place Apartments, Apt. 107, located at 1200 West Martintown Road. Upon arrival officers reported heavy smoke coming from the apartment. Fire crews entered the apartment and put out the fire and began clearing the smoke from the apartment. At that time, authorities discovered there were multiple fires in different rooms of the apartment. It was secured and North Augusta Public Safety investigators responded to the scene to begin a possible Arson investigation. South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Arson Investigators were notified and responded to the scene. Thru a joint investigation with North Augusta Public Safety, SLED Arson Division and SLED Forensics Division, two suspects were identified and arrest warrants were obtained for Arson 2nd degree. On June 11th, the two were arrested in Darlington, S.C. and booked into the Darlington County Detention Center. The suspects have been extradited back to Aiken County and are being held in the Doris C. Gravit Detention Center. Theyve been identified as 41-year-old Nelson Dwayne Locklair and 30-year-old Brian Keon Byrd. 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. Two men were arrested in Darlington, South Carolina on Thursday in connection to an alleged arson at Palmetto Place Apartments in North Augusta. Nelson Dwayne Locklair, 41, and Brian Keon Byrd, 30, are charged with arson in the second degree and were extradited back to Aiken County on Friday, according to a news release from the North Augusta Department of Public Safety. They are being held in the Doris C. Gravit Detention Center. On June 6, North Augusta Public Safety officers responded to a structure fire at an apartment in Palmetto Place Apartments, located at 1200 West Martintown Rd. When officers arrived, they reported heavy smoke coming from one of the apartments, according to the release. Fire crews entered the apartment, extinguished the fire, and began clearing the smoke from the apartment. Mall shooting update: Alleged Augusta Mall shooter, victim also involved in 2022 gunfight Initially, fire crews noticed there were multiple fires in different rooms of the apartment, according to the release. The apartment was secured and North Augusta Public Safety investigators responded to the scene to begin a possible arson investigation. South Carolina Law Enforcement Division arson investigators were notified and responded to the scene, according to the release. Through a joint investigation with North Augusta Public Safety, SLED Arson Division and SLED Forensics Division, Locklair and Byrd were identified and arrest warrants were obtained. This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Two people charged in North Augusta arson investigation Rep. Bob Good, R-5th, has formally filed for a recount of the Republican primary race he lost to state Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland. Good lost that election by 374 votes, or 49.30% of votes cast to McGuires 50.3%. He filed his petition for a recount with the Goochland County Circuit Court, and posted a $3,270 bond, online court records show. Virginia law says losing candidates can request a recount if they lost by 1 percentage point or less. If the difference is 0.5 percentage point or less, the state picks up the cost, but Goods 0.6 percentage point gap means the cost will fall on him. Former President Donald Trump played a significant role in the race when he endorsed McGuire and attacked Good, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, as insufficiently loyal. Good had endorsed Ron DeSantis in the Florida governor's short-lived bid for the presidency before backing Trump. Trump said Good had stabbed him in the back and that the congressmans subsequent endorsement was not enough to offset that. This is a breaking story and will be updated. Jamie Fernandes joined Ryanair as a second officer in 2022, before being promoted to junior first officer last year and then first officer this year Two Ryanair pilots have been named as the victims of a crash involving a car and two lorries on the M62 motorway. Captain Matt Greenhalgh, 28, and Senior First Officer Jamie Fernandes, 24, were travelling to Liverpool Airport in a taxi when the collision happened near St Helens at 5.31am on Thursday. Both men died at the scene, between junctions seven and eight on the motorways westbound carriageway. The taxi driver is being treated in hospital for serious injuries. The driver of one of the two lorries, a 61-year-old man, has been arrested on suspicion of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving. Traffic at the scene after the taxi and lorry collided on the M62 - MEN MEDIA Cheshire Police said next of kin were being supported by specialist officers, and urged anyone with information or dash camera footage to contact the force. According to Mr Fernandes LinkedIn page, he joined Ryanair as a second officer in 2022, before being promoted to junior first officer in 2023 and then first officer in 2024. The Liverpool Echo said its readers had sent in tributes to the two men. One tribute read: Just so so heartbreaking. Two people gone just like that. Two families heartbroken. Thoughts and prayers go out to both families and friends, may you all find strength to get through this devastating time. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A mother is in custody on suspicion of murder after one of her 3-year-old twin boys died from an apparent overdose in Los Angeles Winnetka neighborhood, according to police. Officers and paramedics were called to an apartment building in the 20100 block of Sherman Way around 11:15 a.m. Thursday. The two 3-year-old toddlers were found in cardiac arrest following a possible overdose, according to a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson. Preliminary investigation revealed that the children had ingested, or been exposed to, an unknown substance, LAPD said in a news release. Police respond to a possible overdose involving two toddlers A witness told KTLA that the parents were hysterical as a neighbor attempted to perform CPR on the children. I came in, theres a kid sitting on the table, and I started giving him CPR, and my friend says, Oh my God, theres another one, said neighbor Chris Burko. The twin brothers were transported to a local hospital as police remained at the scene to investigate the incident, which was described as suspicious. One of the toddlers, identified as Josiah James by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, died at the hospital later in the day, according to the case report. The second boy, who has not been identified, was listed in critical condition. The twins mother, identified by police as Jestice James, was booked on suspicion of murder. Her bail was set at $2 million, according to the Police Department. Anyone with further information was asked to call police at 818-374-5415. Anyone wishing to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477. 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 KTLA. Two weeks that imperiled Biden's presidency left him on probation in the court of Democratic opinion FILE - President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign rally in Raleigh, N.C., June. 28, 2024. It's been two weeks since Biden's debate with Donald Trump and there's rampant gloom in the party about Biden's chances in the fall if he stays in the race. On Thursday, July 11, the 11th lawmaker joined the list of Democrats calling on Biden to end his candidacy. After days of reckoning, many more are known to be harboring that wish. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley, File) WASHINGTON (AP) Joe Biden's tribulations were previewed in Hollywood days before he got on the debate stage. At a fundraiser organized by George Clooney and packed with luminaries including former President Barack Obama, Biden was a listless figure, perhaps merely jet-lagged after flying straight from Italy but clearly not the man they knew. Oh brother, where art thou? Clooney wondered. It was a flashing-light moment for the actor, producer and prodigious Democratic donor and for others in the crowd. Then came the debate debacle, which set off 50 shades of panic among Democrats and pitted Biden loyalists against those now convinced a successor should take the party into November. Two weeks after debate night, more than 15 Democratic lawmakers have gone out on a limb and called publicly for a president theyve long supported to exit the race. Many more kept their newfound alarm about Biden semi-private. Mega-donors froze in the moment, wondering if they were plowing fortunes into a lost cause. The bleeding of support continued past Biden's NATO news conference Thursday night. Immediately afterward, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, posted on X that Biden should end his campaign. Several others did as well. From Michael Moore to James Carville to Rob Reiner, voices from the intelligentsia and liberal Hollywood pitched in over the past two weeks to tell the president he should go. He said hell no. It's been an excruciating reckoning for all in the family, and it's not over. Lawmakers were furious that the White House kept Biden in such a bubble for so long that Americans could be blindsided by how bad he was on the stage with Trump. Bidens camp was furious at the public show of disloyalty by those who want him replaced on the ticket and the relentless focus on Bidens every word and step. Most stayed with Biden over those two weeks as dissent alternately flared, faded and sparked anew, like tamped-down embers in a dry forest. Democrats on both sides of the Biden divide were left fearing the prospects of a Donald Trump win. I think we could lose the whole thing and its staggering to me," Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado told CNN, speaking for many others as well as himself. He meant the presidency, the Senate and the House, in what he worries may be a Trump landslide. On Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told colleagues in a letter that he met Biden after the press conference the night before and directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. How did Democrats get here? Some boiling points and turning points along the way: June 27 With the calendar rushing toward the Democratic convention in August, the debate in Atlanta upended Democratic officials, lawmakers and voters. Biden was befogged from the first words he uttered, or muttered. Voters had long felt Biden, now 81, was too old to be effective but they had never seen him like this. More than 51 million people watched it. Biden hadn't been on his game for some time before June 27. He appeared pale and his movements were slow after the Group of Seven summit in Italy nearly two weeks earlier. After the long flight from Europe, Biden was unable to turn it on for his 30-minute onstage conversation with late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Obama at the June 15 fundraiser. It's not often a popular former president and the brightest Hollywood stars join to rally behind a candidate, and donors and other Democrats hoped the event would get Biden's motor running. He was conspicuously lackluster. It is devastating to say so, Clooney wrote in The New York Times this week, but the event convinced him that Biden, a man he loves, should go: He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. The White House, in the first of its shifting explanations for Biden's troubling demeanor, said he was sick with a cold or the like when going into the debate. (The White House initially said Biden did not see a doctor, then said he had. Its explanation for Biden's frailty evolved to jet lag.) The debate left even some of Biden's aides questioning privately whether his campaign could be salvaged. Some longtime Biden supporters called immediately for him to exit the campaign. But the prevailing view in the party was that he should stay for now and prove himself fit for the race, and fast. He was, essentially, placed on probation in the court of Democratic opinion. At his NATO news conference, he acknowledged he has fears to try to put to rest. I've got to finish this job," he said. I've got to finish this job. He was not gaffe-free at the NATO summit. In a pair of passing name jumbles, he referred to the Ukrainian president as Putin and his own vice president as Trump. But he displayed a wide-ranging and detailed command of policy that had been lacking in the debate. The bedwetting brigade The morning after the debate, the illness cited by Biden's people seemed to have disappeared. He was spirited in scripted remarks at a North Carolina rally, but many Democrats weren't shaking off what they had seen the night before. After watching the debate, I had to take a few more antidepressants than usual, cracked Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York. The most prominent Democrats talked up the past Biden's accomplishments and the strength of the team supporting the president. Democratic leaders said people should focus instead on the lies Trump told. But it never goes very far when elites tell people what they should be talking about. In an early sign of trouble, one Democratic senator did not presume that Biden would hang in for the election. It's his decision what he wants to do going forward, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed told WPRI-TV. That weekend, the Biden campaign emailed supporters about a flash poll purporting to show that Biden was best positioned among potential replacements to defeat Trump. Actually, like other public polls, it showed no clear advantage for Biden over other possible candidates. Other public polling released in the immediate aftermath of the debate found that most watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden, although neither candidates favorability ratings shifted meaningfully. In the email, deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty branded the Biden doubters the bedwetting brigade. More sheets were about to be soiled. The freak-out On the Sunday news shows, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman stepped up to offer a defense of the president. He, too, had epically flopped in a debate. Five months after a stroke, Fetterman was hopelessly muddled against his sprightly Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz. As with Biden, Fetterman's people wondered why the candidate, on a long road to recovery, had ever agreed to go on that stage just days before the 2022 midterms. Same kind of a freak-out, he said. "And I smoked Oz by five points. With no chance of recovering from being 81 to 85 in the next four years, Biden saw the cracks in his support widen, but, crucially, Democrats as a whole did not rush to judgment. Old as he may be, Biden has had time on his side in this late-in-the-game crisis. With each tick of the clock, it becomes harder for Democrats who want him out to replace him. But on July 2, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi lent credence to the doubts about Biden, saying she was hearing mixed opinions on whether he should stay. I think its a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? she said on MSNBC. The first cracks Within hours, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first lawmaker to say Biden should go. I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw, he said. For days, Democrats had been imploring Biden to get out more, call more lawmakers and put himself in unscripted situations to show what he can do. Come on, pick up the phone, said Rep. Nanette Barragan of California, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a Biden supporter. Bidens dilemma was clear. The more he was encouraged to do in public, the more he increased the chances of making a mistake. Still, he agreed to sit down for questions with ABC's George Stephanopoulos later that week. But first, as scattered defections were picking up, Biden spoke in person and remotely in a closed session with Democratic governors. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, firmly behind Biden, called it a bitch session by unnerved governors. In large measure, governors came away sounding supportive of Biden or at least quiet about discontent, and reported that he seemed on top of things. Yet the session played into public perceptions of Biden as stretched thin, as he acknowledged he needs to get more sleep and limit evening events so he can go to bed earlier. The president joked that his health was fine and it was his brain that was the problem. The crack fell flat. Panic 2.0 In 22 minutes with Stephanopoulos on July 5, Biden avoided another debacle like his debate a matchup that had been proposed by his campaign and accepted by Trump's. But the ABC interview left few Democrats reassured. Biden's ill-timed pauses, meandering moments and garbled words made some even more alarmed than they were before, because now the debate could not be written off as just one bad night. The ground shifted. An architect of Obamas two presidential election victories, David Axelrod, said it was all too much. Biden, he said, is dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have about his capacities moving forward and his standing in this race. Rob Reiner, the Hollywood director, Democratic Party donor and Meathead of long-ago All in the Family fame, posted an expletive on X with his opinion that Its time for Joe Biden to step down." Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker who forecast Trump's 2016 victory when most others on the left (and the right and the center) figured he would lose, appealed to Biden to not let your enablers hound you into doing what your body is begging you not to do. Among governors, those who have been floated as presidential prospects voiced firm support for Biden, surely in part to avoid being seen as pretenders to the throne. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California left no daylight between the president and themselves. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear told a news conference Thursday, I support him as long as he is our nominee but the Biden campaign needs to set an aggressive campaign schedule and provide "the information on his health that I think people have been asking for. For all that, the debate among Democrats over what to do in the aftermath of June 27 has been most pronounced in Congress, where Biden made career-long friendships in his decades as a senator. Its the place where Biden, as president, has scored improbable wins for some of the top items on his agenda. In inconclusive Capitol Hill meetings this week, more Democrats spoke up for Biden than against him, even as many suggested the private feelings were moving swiftly away from the president. The Congressional Black Caucus offered unqualified support and other groups circled the wagons, too. The list of Democratic House members who called for him to get out of the race grew, but the floodgates didn't open. On Monday, Biden sent a forceful open letter to congressional Democrats declaring: "Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. Its time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump. Gone Fishing Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola was off fishing. She'd stepped back from the fray and headed home to spend the week packing fish into freezers for the winter, her summer ritual. Theres nothing quite like being out on the water, she posted on X on Monday with photos of her wharf-side. With Biden's allies stepping up pressure, the ground appeared to shift again, this time in his favor. One of those who had urged him to quit, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, walked that back. There was a lull in defections. But only for a blink of time. On Wednesday, Pelosi again weighed in. Her words were exquisitely measured but instantly taken as a setback for Biden. On MSNBC's Morning Joe, she dodged when asked if he should run for president again, instead saying it's his decision to make. Days earlier, Biden had vowed only the Lord Almighty would make him quit. Pelosi did not take that yes as his answer. In short order, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont became the first senator to call openly for Biden to quit the campaign. This, after several others had held back from such an announcement while leaving no doubt in their public comments that the president had become a liability in their minds. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington was among them. 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, she said Monday. "President Biden must seriously consider the best way to preserve his incredible legacy and secure it for the future. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who took steps early on to bring colleagues together to assess the damage from the debate, said Biden needed to burst out of his protective bubble and hear directly from a broader group of voices." Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the longest serving Democrat in Oregons House delegation, became the ninth House Democrat to ask Biden to exit the campaign, followed Thursday by more. The naysayers, though a distinct minority, aren't outliers. Rather they are a mix of senior Democrats and some newer members who won closely watched races in swing districts and feel especially vulnerable now. They have given voice to many more who have said, whether publicly or privately, that Biden puts Democrats on a path to defeat. Among the veterans, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, while stopping short of urging Biden to quit the campaign, said people are rightfully asking whether the president has the vigor to defeat Trump. There's only one reason it is close, he said of the 2024 race. And thats the presidents age. He added, "Everything is riding on this. ___ Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Colleen Long and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report. Short-term rental restrictions in tourist destinations have made local and global headlines for over a decade, begging the question: Could Hilton Head Island consider getting rid of short-term housing for vacationers? In residential neighborhoods, Georgias Tybee Island voted to stop issuing short-term rental permits and prohibit their transfer upon sale in June. The same month, in Spain, Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni announced plans to ban short-term rentals starting November 2028. His announcement didnt stop Barcelona residents from demonstrating against overcrowding and housing shortages caused by short-term rentals by squirting water guns at visitors. Hilton Head Island is undeniably different than Tybee Island and Barcelona. Still, local Facebook and NextDoor pages, and conversations between residents hold similar sentiments to the European protesters holding tourists go home and you are not welcome, signs. During the Town of Hilton Head Islands discussion last month over whether to move forward with the William Hilton Corridor project, dozens of residents attended meetings condemning the project and saying that Hilton Head tourism is big enough. To make matters more complicated, much of Hilton Heads economy is tourist-dependent. A boardwalk view of homes along Bradley Circle on Thursday, April 1, 2021 on Hilton Head Island where more than half the homes are short-term rentals. Phasing out short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, as Tybee Island is, would be a major change for the island. Hilton Head Island Mayor Alan Perry said that the Town Council hasnt discussed what the neighboring island is doing and if it would apply to Hilton Head. We have not had a chance to dive into short-term rentals, what Tybee has done, or what anybody else has done recently, Perry said. In June town meetings he pointed toward stricter regulations. Perry said that Hilton Head Island doesnt have occupancy caps on short-term rentals, hasnt implemented its parking plan, and lacks a municipal court so it could issue parking tickets. He also said the town needs to address its Land Management Ordinance and get rid of eight units an acre. We dont control what we are, he said. If we talk about how to reduce traffic, weve got to put these policies in place to make certain that we are addressing it. The town started to address short-term rentals in 2023 with an ordinance requiring renters to buy a $250 short-term rental permit and have business licenses to operate. Is the money worth the noise? Sea Pines collected millions of dollars in gate fees last year. At the same time, tourists going into the gated resort can back up traffic at the Sea Pines Circle for what feels like an eternity. The entrance to Harbour Town illustrates the crux of the discussion: whether the economic impact is worth the disruption to residents. Government representatives at a neighboring beach with the same conundrum believe so. To protect tourism revenue the City of Myrtle Beach approved a nine-month moratorium on turning short-term rentals into long-term properties in April. On Hilton Head theres added debate over whether the traffic, noise and parking problems can be attributed to short-term rentals or to day-trippers driving onto the island from Hardeeville and Bluffton. But regardless of where theyre coming from tourists stimulate the economy with what they spend on the island. Secondary homeowner dollars are also a major contributor to local schools. In South Carolina, primary homeowners are exempt from school operation taxes. Instead, funding comes from secondary homeowners and local sales and use taxes. Thirty-seven thousand people cannot sustain this island and everything it has to offer, Realtor Peter Geary said of Hilton Heads around 37,660 full-time residents. We only are successful with tourists. There are about 6,700 active permitted short-term rental properties on the island, according to the towns dashboard. Last year, the town logged 335 short-term rental complaints by 153 complainants through its complaint form. Most of the complaints were noise or trash-related. Homeowners tell horror stories of living among rentals, sometimes advertised for 30 people, in residential neighborhoods. They have also proven dangerous. In 2022, a Palmetto Dunes rental property caught fire, killing one occupant. The other side of the coin is exactly that: coin. Home and villa rentals on Hilton Head Island had a direct economic impact of $985,790,272 in 2023, 8% more than in 2022, according to Charlie Clark at the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce. She said they use data from a third-party travel research firm called KeyData to get the amount. The number is nearly $1 billion and about one-third of the $3.1 billion tourism brought to Beaufort County in 2023. At the same time, slightly fewer people are renting homes and villas. Clark said rentals are down 3.2% over the same time frame and the increase in economic impact despite fewer visitors can be attributed to higher rental rates, which hover at an average of $318 per night, compared to hotels average of $282 per night. I think its really important for the island, but I also think it needs to be regulated, Geary said, mentioning that a ban or extreme regulation would also impact the real estate market. Impact to Hilton Head real estate A moratorium on short-term rentals would fundamentally change how Realtors market homes and eliminate the segment of buyers who want to use homes and villas as rental properties. If we change the use of a property, then that limits who would buy it, Hilton Head Area Realtors CEO Jean Beck said. She also mentioned that with the areas gated communities, buyers can already self-select the community they want based on whether the community policies align with short-term rentals. For example, about one-third of Sea Pines properties are short-term rentals, said Geary, who works at Sea Pines Real Estate. On the contrary, another large community, Hilton Head Plantation, doesnt allow rentals for fewer than six months. Geary said that many of his clients look to purchase property that they can rent short-term, but its not because theyre looking to make money. Instead, many buy properties and temporarily rent them short-term during the busy season as a step toward home ownership, he said. Theyre getting into the market, Geary said. Theyre using the property in the off-seasons, but ultimately they want to retire and theyre using the rental market to cover their costs. When will the discussion about new rules happen? As to when the Town of Hilton Head Island will discuss potential changes to short-term rental regulations and managing the tourist population, Well be talking about short-term rentals, parking, occupancy, and all that later in the summer, Mayor Alan Perry said. U.S. Attorney General to meet law enforcement leaders in Las Vegas on Monday LAS VEGAS (KLAS) U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland will be in Las Vegas on Monday, July 15, to speak at the National Bar Associations convention. His scheduled appearance at Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South, is set for about 11:30 a.m. Garland will speak on the U.S. Justice Departments commitment to upholding the rule of law, keeping our country safe and protecting civil rights, according to a Thursday news release. Garland is scheduled to visit the District of Nevada office at 501 Las Vegas Boulevard South in the early afternoon. The building is just south of the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse. President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas on Monday after a stop in Austin, Texas. Bidens visit will continue into Wednesday as he speaks at conventions at MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay. Garland will meet with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sue Fahami, along with federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement leaders. 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. CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA) With a rare, double emergence of cicada broods in the past, researchers are looking at the damage done to fruits. Karuna Kafle, a researcher within the University of Illinois Department of Crop Sciences, is requesting that fruit growers report any sustained damage done to trees, bushes or vines. The most obvious damage would be slits on small branches. Urbana landscaper shares tree care tips for cicada aftermath These slits can be minor to severe, and they could weaken a branch to the point that it would snap off in the wind. Photo courtesy of the University of Illinois College of ACES (taken by Karuna Kafle) Anyone who has any level of damage to their fruit plants are asked to send their name, location and contact information to Kafle via email. Her lab will then follow up to arrange a visit to assess the damage. 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. Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington began in 1933 and was completed in 1942. It is the largest hydropower producer in the U.S. and also part of the Columbia Basin Project, irrigating more than 600,000 acres. (Bureau of Reclamation) The United States and Canada have reached a preliminary agreement renewing and modernizing the Columbia River Treaty, which has governed the rivers dams and reservoirs for 60 years. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the tentative pact while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was visiting Washington, D.C. It will be finalized in the coming weeks. Since 1964, the treaty has managed hydropower production and flood control operations along the river a waterway crucial to both countries economies. The two nations began negotiations in 2018 to update the agreement to address changing needs. The deal announced Thursday aims to rebalance hydropower generation between the two countries while improving environmental stewardship, preparing for greater flood risk, and working with tribes and other communities along the river, according to the White House. Once finalized, it will guide management of the river and some of its tributaries for the next 20 years. The long-awaited agreement was welcomed by many who say it will improve power generation between the two countries. But it disappointed others who say it does not do enough to support the rivers health and its salmon populations. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who has helped lead the push for an updated treaty, said the agreement is a positive step to optimize the states hydroelectric system. I appreciate President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau reaching a smart agreement to grow clean energy capacity in both countries and create opportunities for future cooperation that could expand electricity generation at a time when the region has big demands for more power, Cantwell said in a statement. The Columbia River basin and the dams within it generate 40% of the United States hydropower, irrigate $8 billion in crops and carry 42 million tons of commercial cargo every year. Under the treaty, Canada is entitled to some of the power generated in the U.S. in exchange for allowing the U.S. access to water storage behind Canadas dams, which are used for flood control and flow control for fish and irrigation. The newly proposed terms will result in a substantial reduction in power given to Canada in an effort to rebalance the system. Immediately, there will be a 37% cut in the hydropower that the U.S. delivers to Canada. By 2033, there will be a 50% reduction from current levels. Under the existing treaty, the provision allowing flood storage in Canada automatically ends this year. The new agreement again provides the U.S. with storage in Canadian reservoirs and will allow for more certainty in flood risk management, according to the White House. The U.S. will make a direct payment to Canada of about $37.6 million over the next 20 years in exchange for the storage space, according to senior Biden administration officials. Canada will gain some added flexibility with how much space it reserves for the U.S. Neil Maunu, executive director at the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, praised the framework, which he said will help with transportation, flood control and hydropower in the region. There will be many long days ahead to ensure the details of a modernized treaty and operations plan meet the requirements of our industry, Maunu added in a statement. Environmental concerns Conservation groups, tribal organizations and other local community members had pushed for the new treaty to focus more on the environmental management of the river basin, specifically to benefit salmon. But Joseph Bogaard, at Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said the initial agreement does not put enough of an emphasis on the rivers health and salmon recovery needs, and instead continues to focus primarily on power production and flood management. Thats a missed opportunity, Bogaard said. It makes harder work for everyone else in the basin if the treaty is not there to be a tool that can contribute to solving problems. Bogaard also chairs the Columbia River Treaty NGO Caucus, a coalition of advocates and nonprofit organizations that focuses on conservation in the Columbia River Basin. He said his group was disappointed with the agreement and that many details on its ecological benefits remain unclear. Biden administration officials said the new agreement will allow the U.S. to continue working with Canada to increase river flow during the spring and summer to help salmon. But Bogaard said conservationists were hoping for an even larger increase in the amount of water that flows when the fish are migrating, which he said is crucial for salmon. Under the new agreement, not much will change for salmon, he said. The agreement focuses on revenue for [the Bonneville Power Administration] and customers while the salmon and Columbia River are left with a status quo that was already inadequate, said Bill Arthur, chair of the Sierra Clubs Snake/Columbia River salmon campaign. During the last few years of negotiations on the agreement, conservation organizations and tribal governments in the U.S. expressed concerns that the United States was not doing enough to take their voices into consideration. They called on the Biden administration to be more transparent and inclusive. To increase tribal collaboration, the agreement will set up a new body with government officials and tribal representatives that will make recommendations on environmental issues, particularly about salmon. Bogaard said the new governing body is a move in the right direction, but a lot will depend on how it is implemented and what power it will actually have in managing the basin. U.S. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement that she pushed the administration to engage with tribes and others in the Northwest as openly as possible and she will continue to do so during the drafting process. Once the agreement is finalized, it will have to be approved by the U.S. Senate. I am hopeful the agreement successfully meets our objectives and works for ratepayers, Tribes, river users, our local ecosystems, and everyone on our side of the border, Murray said. Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington began in 1933 and was completed in 1942. It is the largest hydropower producer in the U.S. and also part of the Columbia Basin Project, irrigating more than 600,000 acres. (Courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation) Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington began in 1933 and was completed in 1942. It is the largest hydropower producer in the U.S. and also part of the Columbia Basin Project, irrigating more than 600,000 acres. (Courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation) The United States and Canada have reached a preliminary agreement renewing and modernizing the Columbia River Treaty, which has governed the rivers dams and reservoirs for 60 years. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the tentative pact while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was visiting Washington, D.C. It will be finalized in the coming weeks. Since 1964, the treaty has managed hydropower production and flood control operations along the river a waterway crucial to both countries economies. The two nations began negotiations in 2018 to update the agreement to address changing needs. The deal announced Thursday aims to rebalance hydropower generation between the two countries while improving environmental stewardship, preparing for greater flood risk, and working with tribes and other communities along the river, according to the White House. Once finalized, it will guide management of the river and some of its tributaries for the next 20 years. The long-awaited agreement was welcomed by many who say it will improve power generation between the two countries. But it disappointed others who say it does not do enough to support the rivers health and its salmon populations. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who has helped lead the push for an updated treaty, said the agreement is a positive step to optimize the states hydroelectric system. I appreciate President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau reaching a smart agreement to grow clean energy capacity in both countries and create opportunities for future cooperation that could expand electricity generation at a time when the region has big demands for more power, Cantwell said in a statement. The Columbia River basin and the dams within it generate 40% of the United States hydropower, irrigate $8 billion in crops and carry 42 million tons of commercial cargo every year. Under the treaty, Canada is entitled to some of the power generated in the U.S. in exchange for allowing the U.S. access to water storage behind Canadas dams, which are used for flood control and flow control for fish and irrigation. The newly proposed terms will result in a substantial reduction in power given to Canada in an effort to rebalance the system. Immediately, there will be a 37% cut in the hydropower that the U.S. delivers to Canada. By 2033, there will be a 50% reduction from current levels. Under the existing treaty, the provision allowing flood storage in Canada automatically ends this year. The new agreement again provides the U.S. with storage in Canadian reservoirs and will allow for more certainty in flood risk management, according to the White House. The U.S. will make a direct payment to Canada of about $37.6 million over the next 20 years in exchange for the storage space, according to senior Biden administration officials. Canada will gain some added flexibility with how much space it reserves for the U.S. Neil Maunu, executive director at the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, praised the framework, which he said will help with transportation, flood control and hydropower in the region. There will be many long days ahead to ensure the details of a modernized treaty and operations plan meet the requirements of our industry, Maunu added in a statement. Environmental concerns Conservation groups, tribal organizations and other local community members had pushed for the new treaty to focus more on the environmental management of the river basin, specifically to benefit salmon. But Joseph Bogaard, at Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, said the initial agreement does not put enough of an emphasis on the rivers health and salmon recovery needs, and instead continues to focus primarily on power production and flood management. Thats a missed opportunity, Bogaard said. It makes harder work for everyone else in the basin if the treaty is not there to be a tool that can contribute to solving problems. Bogaard also chairs the Columbia River Treaty NGO Caucus, a coalition of advocates and nonprofit organizations that focuses on conservation in the Columbia River Basin. He said his group was disappointed with the agreement and that many details on its ecological benefits remain unclear. Biden administration officials said the new agreement will allow the U.S. to continue working with Canada to increase river flow during the spring and summer to help salmon. But Bogaard said conservationists were hoping for an even larger increase in the amount of water that flows when the fish are migrating, which he said is crucial for salmon. Under the new agreement, not much will change for salmon, he said. The agreement focuses on revenue for [the Bonneville Power Administration] and customers while the salmon and Columbia River are left with a status quo that was already inadequate, said Bill Arthur, chair of the Sierra Clubs Snake/Columbia River salmon campaign. During the last few years of negotiations on the agreement, conservation organizations and tribal governments in the U.S. expressed concerns that the United States was not doing enough to take their voices into consideration. They called on the Biden administration to be more transparent and inclusive. To increase tribal collaboration, the agreement will set up a new body with government officials and tribal representatives that will make recommendations on environmental issues, particularly about salmon. Bogaard said the new governing body is a move in the right direction, but a lot will depend on how it is implemented and what power it will actually have in managing the basin. U.S. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement that she pushed the administration to engage with tribes and others in the Northwest as openly as possible and she will continue to do so during the drafting process. Once the agreement is finalized, it will have to be approved by the U.S. Senate. I am hopeful the agreement successfully meets our objectives and works for ratepayers, Tribes, river users, our local ecosystems, and everyone on our side of the border, Murray said. Washington State Standard, like Oregon Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and X. The Biden administrations top diplomat to the United Nations accused fellow members of the Security Council on Friday of blocking U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against a former senator and head of the Haitian Senate who is accused of financing armed gangs. The politician, former Senate president Youri Latortue, exerts considerable control over political and economic life in the Artibonite department including through the use of violent gangs, which he has been financing and arming, said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. , citing a report from a Haiti panel of experts. The panel was put in place by the U.N. in October 2022 after the Security Council unanimously approved sanctions for Haiti, the first authorization since 2017, and the first for a country in the Western Hemisphere. The panels job is to make recommendations, based on its investigations, on people who should be sanctioned because they pose a threat to Haitis peace and stability. U.N. sanctions are among the most stringent of punishments, and would freeze a persons assets while barring them from traveling to most countries around the world. So far, the U.N. has imposed sanctions on just five gang leaders, which has led to criticism about the effectiveness of the measure because the gang chiefs usually do not keep their money in banks and do not have visas to travel to other countries. The U.S., along with France have pushed for the inclusion of both gang leaders and politicians on the list, which the expert panel has proposed. We were deeply disappointed by the unexplained hold placed on Youri Latortue, Thomas-Greenfield said about the prominent Haitian politician. We urge the hold to be lifted expediently. Thomas-Greenfields comments came after all 15 members of the Security Council voted unanimously to renew the mandate of the U.N. political office in Haiti for another year. The resolution, penned by the U.S. and Ecuador, tasks the U.N. Integrated Office, known by its French acronym BINUH, with overseeing the success of the new political transition in Haiti as well as the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission, MSS. The renewal is a much-needed victory for the people of Haiti who have lived for far too long in crisis, she said, adding that the U.N. political office will play a key role in supporting a democratic transition in Haiti, which hasnt had elections since 2016. There is a clear and direct link between the success of BINUH and that of the MSS. If the MSS mission can succeed in supporting the Haitian national police and improve Haitis security environment, BINUH will be better able to implement its mandate and make a positive impact on Haitis future, she said. But the Security Council, Thomas Greenfield added, must do more to promote accountability by considering sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for or complicit in actions that threaten peace and freedom in Haiti. In his latest report to the Security Council on Haiti, Secretary General Antonio Guterres stressed that Haiti continues to be plagued by alarming levels of violence. The number of intentional homicides has risen significantly, with his office in Port-au-Prince recording 3,252 between January and May, compared with 2,453 in the previous five-month period. The number of kidnappings was 971 during the first five months of this year. Guterres special representative to Haiti, Maria Isabel Salvador, told the council ahead of Fridays vote that indiscriminate gang violence has been spreading beyond Port-au-Prince to the Artibonite region and other parts of the country. She said the recurrent attacks since Feb. 29 continue to hamper efforts to beef up the police to deal with the security challenges, and she called on the council to issue sanctions against those in Haiti backing armed groups. Across the country, gangs have carried out unthinkable atrocities, killings, mass rapes, kidnappings, forced recruitment, exploitation and trafficking in children. Nearly 5 million people are grappling with severe food insecurity; food, water, medicine and other essentials are in short supply, Thomas-Greenfield later told the media after the vote. People are living in need and in fear, and they deserve better. Noting that the U.S. remains committed to ensuring the success of the armed multinational security mission mission following the deployment of the first 200 Kenyan police officers last month, Thomas-Greenfield stressed that more needs to be done to ensure accountability for atrocities including through sanctions to stem the flow of arms and enforce the arms embargo to create durable political solutions. Thomas-Greenfields comments about sanctions and Latortue are likely to reverberate in Haiti, where observers have questioned whether the U.S. and other countries are still committed to pursuing sanctions following an initial aggressive campaign targeting designated members of the political and economic elite.. A longtime politician who once served as an adviser to former President Michel Martelly, Latortue was one of the countrys most powerful politicians when he was in office. Today, hes among a handful of Haitian politicians who have been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Canadian government. He has denied all allegations against him and hired a lawyer to fight the designation, which freezes any assets he has in the U.S. and Canada. Thomas-Greenfields unusual admission are the first public acknowledgment of an effort by the U.S. and others at the Security Council to impose sanctions against Latortue and other powerful politicians in Haiti, and is a window into the divisions on the council over who should be sanctioned. Though no one admitted publicly to blocking the sanctions against Latortue, the representative of the Russian Federation, which is serving as president of the council this month, alluded to the friction in his comments. READ MORE: Facing budget woes, Haiti Olympic Committee struggles to get Team Haiti to Paris games Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russias first deputy permanent representative at the U.N., said that when it comes to sanctions, he hopes the interests of individual members of the council will not be placed higher than the task of supporting an inclusive political dialogue. Though Russia signaled last week that it had no problems with sanctioning individuals other than gang leaders in Haiti, as long as the evidence supports the demand, the country has gone on record accusing both the U.S. and Canada of using sanctions to clear the political field in Haiti. Polyanskiys comments reflect a wider debate in the international community about how best to address Haitis multidimensional crisis and whether those believed to be behind the instability should be given a seat at the table or punished. Its an issue even the U.S. doesnt appear to handle consistently. Haitian politicians were recently invited to a reception at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti last week, and though none of the invitees had been sanctioned by the Treasury Department, at least one had had his U.S. visa revoked. U.S. Faces Calls To Halt Arms Sales To Israel, After Medical Journal Says Gaza Death Toll Likely Worse The Biden administration is facing increased calls to halt its weapons sales to Israel, after a letter recently published in a top British medical journal warned that the human toll from the ongoing offensive in Gaza is far worse than anticipated. The Lancet, a medical journal that says it takes a neutral position regarding territorial claims, published a letter on July 5 by three public health scholars titled, Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential. The Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry, which has counted the dead at roughly 38,000, is widely regarded by both apolitical experts and political leaders as a credible source, even as it faces hurdles due to the destruction of infrastructure. Citing that number, the letters authors say that, applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death, ... it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. If that estimate holds, it would amount to almost 8% of Gazas population of 2.3 million. These indirect deaths are those caused in the longer term by destroyed infrastructure, famine, lack of sanitation and dysfunctional hospitals problems made dire by the Israeli offensive. Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable and non-communicable diseases, the letter states. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water and shelter; the populations inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organizations still active in the Gaza Strip. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed on Tuesday that the Biden administration has seen the Lancet letter, saying, Whatever the number of civilians that have actually died as a result of this conflict, we know that its far too many. The death toll could very well be more, he told reporters. We know there are potentially people who are under rubble who have not been counted. During a press meeting on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the US is aware that the death toll in Gaza could very well be more than what has been reported. pic.twitter.com/Gqs4Mim9it Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) July 10, 2024 In the wake of the Lancet letter, several groups renewed their demands that the Biden administration immediately halt their military and financial support for Israel, which continues to face accusations at the international level of committing genocide against Palestinians. If President Biden wants to demonstrate, meaningfully, that he believes in our shared humanity, he needs to change his policy. That means putting an end to this genocide, an end to the U.S.s arming of this genocide, and an end to the occupation of the Palestinian people, said Abbas Alawieh , campaign manager for the Uncommitted National Movement, which mobilizes Democratic voters who dont want to vote for Biden over his support for Israel. Alawieh spoke Thursday at a Netroots panel in Baltimore on voter apathy. The group secured about 30 uncommitted delegates for the Democratic National Convention next month, including Alawieh himself. Its members have joined many other Muslim delegates and allies in urging Democrats to include support for a cease-fire in Gaza and a halt in U.S. weapon transfers to Israel as part of the partys official 2024 platform. The U.S. policy of supplying Israel with bombs while simultaneously dropping symbolic food aid to Palestinians is cynical, abhorrent and inhumane, the coalition of delegates and allies said in their platform recommendations, which were sent Thursday. The U.S. must take immediate steps to save lives, which means ceasing the supply of weapons and applying tangible pressure on Israel to stop obstructing humanitarian aid. Multipleoutlets reported this week that the Biden administration has released about half of the heavy bomb shipment it has withheld from Israel since May, and will resume sending 500-pound bombs to Israel, while continuing to withhold 2,000-pound bombs. As the world witnesses the mass slaughter and wholesale destruction the far-right Israeli government is carrying out in Gaza, it is unconscionable that the Biden administration would send more American taxpayer-funded bombs to kill and maim more women, children and men in Gaza, Nihad Awad, national executive director of Muslim civil rights group CAIR, said in a statement on Wednesday. This madness must stop. Related... U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., offered a resolution on July 10, 2024, to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt for refusing to turn over audio tapes of a special counsels interview of President Joe Biden. (Screenshot from U.S. House website.) WASHINGTON In the latest U.S. House Republican attempt to secure audio tapes from the U.S. Justice Department special counsels interview with President Joe Biden, the U.S. House on Thursday rejected Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Lunas resolution to fine Attorney General Merrick Garland for withholding them. The measure which was turned down 204-210 would have levied a daily fine of $10,000 against Garland under the Houses seldom-used inherent contempt power until he complies with a subpoena to release the tapes of the interview between special counsel Robert K. Hur and Biden surrounding his handling of classified documents. Four Republicans voted against Lunas measure, including California Reps. John Duarte and Tom McClintock, along with Ohio Reps. David Joyce and Mike Turner. The resolution is part of a wider effort among Republicans to secure the audio a drive thats only intensified since Bidens disastrous debate performance two weeks ago. During floor debate on Wednesday, Luna described the effort as a way to hold Garland accountable to the legislative branch. With Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice refusing to follow the law, we have been left with no choice but to rely on inherent contempt, she said. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, on Wednesday called the measure stupid, and noted Republican leaders tepid support for it. Republican leadership knows this is a stupid resolution, he said. Their own members know this is a stupid resolution, but theyre beholden to the craziest MAGA members in their conference. So, this is what we get: stupid resolutions on the floor because theyre too chicken to stand up to the extremism in their own party. The debate was delayed for more than 20 minutes after Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith asked for McGoverns words to be stricken. After the pause, McGovern conceded to having his words stricken and did not use the word stupid for the rest of his remarks. I urge a no vote on this Ive got to take this word out now on this resolution, he said. The Justice Department declined to comment on Lunas effort Wednesday. GOP leadership Former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, took to Truth Social on Wednesday to show his support for Lunas effort. 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! Trump wrote. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed some skepticism over Lunas measure, saying at a Tuesday press conference that as a former constitutional law litigator, my preference is to follow the legal process, the legal proceedings, that protect the institution. Johnson, of Louisiana, said he would rather focus on the civil suit from House Judiciary Committee Republicans, though he said that if the Luna measure came to the floor, he would vote for it. Id rather do it in a way that weve done in our present litigation, but well let the chips fall where they may, Johnson said, adding that every member has the right to bring a privileged motion like that, and Annas very committed to this principle and I am, too. We all are. I think every Republican is. Lunas resolution also signaled a walkback from her earlier effort introduced in May, which called for the House sergeant-at-arms to detain Garland. Historically, Congress has shied away from the lengthy and burdensome inherent contempt move which has not been used in either chamber since the 1930s prompting questions about how the House could actually enforce the fine. Republicans push for tapes Garland has been hit with several attempts by House Republicans to try to secure the audio tapes. Last month, House Republicans voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress after he agreed with Bidens assertion of executive privilege over the tapes. Garland also faces a civil lawsuit from the House Judiciary Committee filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which seeks to overturn Bidens assertion of executive privilege. House Republicans are still pushing for the audio despite the Justice Department offering up a transcript of the interview between Hur and Biden to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Garland tapped Hur to investigate Bidens handling of classified documents back in January 2023. Hur, a federal prosecutor during the Trump administration, wrote in the report that Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. However, Hur declined to prosecute the president. He noted that at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. The octogenarian fiercely rejected the characterization of his memory. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post U.S. House fails to pass measure to hold attorney general in inherent contempt appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., offered a resolution on July 10, 2024, to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt for refusing to turn over audio tapes of a special counsels interview of President Joe Biden. (Screenshot from U.S. House website.) U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., offered a resolution on July 10, 2024, to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt for refusing to turn over audio tapes of a special counsels interview of President Joe Biden. (Screenshot from U.S. House website.) WASHINGTON In the latest U.S. House Republican attempt to secure audio tapes from the U.S. Justice Department special counsels interview with President Joe Biden, the U.S. House on Thursday rejected Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Lunas resolution to fine Attorney General Merrick Garland for withholding them. The measure which was turned down 204-210 would have levied a daily fine of $10,000 against Garland under the Houses seldom-used inherent contempt power until he complies with a subpoena to release the tapes of the interview between special counsel Robert K. Hur and Biden surrounding his handling of classified documents. Four Republicans voted against Lunas measure, including California Reps. John Duarte and Tom McClintock, along with Ohio Reps. David Joyce and Mike Turner. The resolution is part of a wider effort among Republicans to secure the audio a drive thats only intensified since Bidens disastrous debate performance two weeks ago. During floor debate on Wednesday, Luna described the effort as a way to hold Garland accountable to the legislative branch. With Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice refusing to follow the law, we have been left with no choice but to rely on inherent contempt, she said. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during an event at the Justice Department on June 15, 2021. Photo by Win McNamee | Getty Images Meanwhile, Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, on Wednesday called the measure stupid, and noted Republican leaders tepid support for it. Republican leadership knows this is a stupid resolution, he said. Their own members know this is a stupid resolution, but theyre beholden to the craziest MAGA members in their conference. So, this is what we get: stupid resolutions on the floor because theyre too chicken to stand up to the extremism in their own party. The debate was delayed for more than 20 minutes after Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith asked for McGoverns words to be stricken. After the pause, McGovern conceded to having his words stricken and did not use the word stupid for the rest of his remarks. I urge a no vote on this Ive got to take this word out now on this resolution, he said. The Justice Department declined to comment on Lunas effort Wednesday. GOP leadership Former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, took to Truth Social on Wednesday to show his support for Lunas effort. 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! Trump wrote. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed some skepticism over Lunas measure, saying at a Tuesday press conference that as a former constitutional law litigator, my preference is to follow the legal process, the legal proceedings, that protect the institution. Johnson, of Louisiana, said he would rather focus on the civil suit from House Judiciary Committee Republicans, though he said that if the Luna measure came to the floor, he would vote for it. Id rather do it in a way that weve done in our present litigation, but well let the chips fall where they may, Johnson said, adding that every member has the right to bring a privileged motion like that, and Annas very committed to this principle and I am, too. We all are. I think every Republican is. Lunas resolution also signaled a walkback from her earlier effort introduced in May, which called for the House sergeant-at-arms to detain Garland. Historically, Congress has shied away from the lengthy and burdensome inherent contempt move which has not been used in either chamber since the 1930s prompting questions about how the House could actually enforce the fine. Republicans push for tapes Garland has been hit with several attempts by House Republicans to try to secure the audio tapes. Last month, House Republicans voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress after he agreed with Bidens assertion of executive privilege over the tapes. Garland also faces a civil lawsuit from the House Judiciary Committee filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which seeks to overturn Bidens assertion of executive privilege. House Republicans are still pushing for the audio despite the Justice Department offering up a transcript of the interview between Hur and Biden to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Garland tapped Hur to investigate Bidens handling of classified documents back in January 2023. Hur, a federal prosecutor during the Trump administration, wrote in the report that Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. However, Hur declined to prosecute the president. He noted that at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. The octogenarian fiercely rejected the characterization of his memory. U.S. House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal races Voters walk into cast their ballots. (File photo by 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. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post U.S. House passes bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal races appeared first on Ohio Capital Journal. 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. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images) WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill this week that would require individuals registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship to participate in federal elections. The legislation, passed 221-198 on Wednesday, would also require states to check their voter rolls for registered noncitizens. North Dakota Rep. Kelly Armstrong voted yes. 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. North Dakota does not have voter registration. The National Voter Registration Act already has an exemption for states that dont require voter registration. Because of that exemption, the new proof-of-citizenship requirements would not affect North Dakota. 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. The North Dakota Monitor contributed to this report. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) This week the U.S. House approved the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, which contemplates dramatic changes to the way Americans register to vote and cast their ballots. The measure is a priority for House Speaker Mike Johnson, and he invoked dubious reports of noncitizens on Ohios voter rolls in a white paper backing the bill. The proposal demands documentary proof of citizenship to vote, and the list of acceptable documents is narrow. In Ohio, most voters would probably need to present a passport or a birth certificate and photo ID to register. More than 21 million eligible voters dont have those documents at the ready, according to a recent study conducted by the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement. Realistically, the SAVE Act is likely dead-on-arrival in a Democratically controlled U.S. Senate. President Biden has committed to veto it if it made it to his desk. But critics warn thats not the point. Instead, they argue the bill could lay the groundwork for spurious allegations of voter fraud following the election this fall. My statement on the passage of the SAVE Act: pic.twitter.com/Id1v9zEDqz Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) July 10, 2024 This is the first act, Americas Voice senior research director Zachary Mueller said during a press conference ahead of the vote. The organization works to advance immigration reform that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people. Already, Johnson and other Republicans are framing Democratic opposition as trying to allow noncitizens to vote. And if Republicans lose elections in November, Mueller went on, the SAVE Acts failure offers an antecedent for the GOP to argue the reason why we didnt win is because immigrants looted the ballot box and stole this election with the support of Democratic elites. And that lie is extremely, extremely dangerous. Ohio connections To drum up support, Speaker Johnsons office sent around a white paper insisting there is irrefutable evidence of noncitizens illegally registering and voting in U.S. elections. Among his examples was Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRoses recent report of 137 suspected noncitizens on Ohios voter rolls. Although its possible some of those individuals have committed fraud, LaRose hasnt proven it. And in an interview with conservative talk radio host Bob Frantz, he acknowledged those registrations could be the result of an honest mistake. Under federal law, the BMV and other state agencies have to offer people seeking services voter registration forms. Thats part of the so-called Motor Voter law that has been on the books since the mid-1990s. In some cases, ineligible people fill out the forms, and even identify themselves as ineligible, but their registration is processed anyway. Another potential explanation for those 137 flagged registrations may be for people who were recently naturalized. While a new citizen is an eligible voter as soon as they take the oath, until they visit the BMV, they might still look like a noncitizen in state records. Of the 500-plus cases LaRose flagged before this latest batch, an Ohio Capital Journal investigation showed just one resulted in charges. Although Republican officials regularly invoke the threat of noncitizens voting, theyve yet to produce evidence of any widespread fraud. Brennan Center for Justice voting rights director Sean Morales-Doyle argued thats because the consequences are severe and theres no discernible benefit for the fraudulent voter. Its a fairly unique crime, he said, in which the way you commit the crime is by putting down on paper, in a government record, your information, and the proof that you are committing the crime. He described it as an infinitesimally rare phenomenon for a noncitizen to vote illegally. And frankly, most of the time it turns out it was an accident, he said. Its someone who misunderstood or often was misled about their eligibility, because someone whos going in fully informed just isnt going to take this kind of risk. Still, without evidence, Speaker Johnson claimed, it is highly likely many more noncitizens remain registered to vote in Ohio. The speaker pointed to Ohios list maintenance program and argued its too cumbersome a process for identifying and removing alleged noncitizens. But Ohios process for removing active voters reflects requirements laid out in the Motor Voter Act. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the process. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito described how Ohios system follows federal requirements to the letter. The SAVE Act does nothing to alter those restrictions. Acceptable documents Under the SAVE Act, voters would need to establish they are who they claim to be and that theyre a citizen of the country. That might seem simple, but it gets complicated quickly. A drivers license alone doesnt work, unless it indicates citizenship. A handful of states offer that feature, including for instance, some along the border with Canada. But many states like Ohio do not. A Social Security number wont help either. Johnsons white paper argues asylees, parolees waiting for a court date and people who have overstayed their visa could have gotten one for work authorization or benefits. Notably, there are three different kinds of social security cards, and those groups get restricted versions. Rather than taking steps to wall off those Social Security numbers from voter rolls or to develop an alternative system for work and benefit access the SAVE Act eliminates social security numbers as a form of verification altogether. In terms of singular documents, the bill allows for any valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a Federal, State or Tribal government showing that the applicants place of birth was in the United States. But in practice, the only option in many states and situations would be a valid passport. That means most voters would have to provide a photo ID and a document related to their birth, adoption or naturalization. Morales-Doyle argued there would be devastating consequences for voter eligibility if those restrictions were allowed to take effect. Nine percent of adult American citizens dont have documentary proof of citizenship handy, he said, referencing the University of Maryland study. When you think about it, whether you have an up-to-date and accurate, with-your-current-name-on-it passport or birth certificate that you can grab when you go to register to vote, literally (21.3) million adult American citizens dont have that. Contingency plans Even if a prospective voter has or can get the necessary documents, they could face further hurdles if their name doesnt match up say because of marriage or a divorce. The legislation doesnt explicitly lay out how to account for those discrepancies. Instead, it directs the federal Election Assistance Commission and each state to develop guidance on what additional documentation a citizen needs to provide. For Americans who simply dont have documentary proof of citizenship, the bill offers a similar catch-all process. The voter would have to bring whatever evidence they have and sign an attestation under penalty of perjury that theyre an eligible citizen. The election official would also have to sign an affidavit approving their application and explaining why their documents were sufficient. Mueller from Americas Voice dismissed that provision as a fig leaf, and Morales-Doyle noted the bill also threatens election workers with fines and jail time if they wind up registering a noncitizen. Morales-Doyle added one state in particular already tried the same idea. Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach led the charge on legislation requiring voters there to show proof of citizenship to register. The law had its own alternative route, Morales Doyle explained, where voters could provide other documents to demonstrate their citizenship. But in practice it led to more than 30,000 voters having their registration suspended or canceled. A federal judge struck down the law in 2018 and an appeals court upheld that ruling in 2020. The judges wrote that in 19 years, at most, 67 noncitizens registered or attempted to register to vote. More to the point, Morales-Doyle argued, if the measures backstop amounts to swearing an oath and signing a document, it threatens havoc for election administrators around the country only to recreate the current system where voters affirm their citizenship on a voter registration form. If all it is doing is saying that well, actually, if you dont have documentary proof of citizenship, you can just swear youre a citizen, then its just leaving us exactly where we stand now anyway, he said. Which goes to show that this is not really a solution of any kind. Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The Department of State under Secretary Antony Blinken on Thursday leveled sanctions targeting those accused of being involved in extremists West Bank violence. File Photo by NATO Presse/UPI July 12 (UPI) -- The United States has again leveled sanctions targeting those fueling violence and instability in the West Bank, as the Biden administration increases its pressure on Israel to curb extremist violence in the occupied Palestinian territory. The State Department said it blacklisted three Israelis and five entities "connected to acts of violence against civilians in the West Bank." "The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel's own security," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. The Biden administration has sought to simmer extremist violence that has increased amid Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, and has grown critical not only with how its waging its fight but also with its reluctance to take action in the West Bank. Miller on Thursday urged Israel to take "immediate steps" to hold those responsible for such violence to account, while warning if they don't, "we will continue to impose our own accountability measures." Among those blacklisted Thursday are Lehava, a radical right-wing Jewish supremacist group that was previously sanctioned by the European Union, and two leaders of U.S.-designated TZAV 9, a violent extremist organization that has been accused of blocking aid sent to Gaza. The State Department described Lehava as "the largest violent extremist organization in Israel" at more than 10,000 members, some of who have engaged in acts of violence against Palestinians. The Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based anti-Semitism watchdog, said in a statement online Thursday that it has long called Lehava out for its racism, xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of hate. "We once again urge Israeli officials to take legal steps against Lehava and prevent them from further harming Israeli society and democracy," it said. The two leaders of TZAV 9 hit were identified as Reut Ben Haim, 37, and Aviad Shlomo Sarid, 27. The State Department said the four other entities it hit were outposts that Miller said were controlled by sanctioned individuals "who have weaponized them as bases for violent actions to displace Palestinians." "Outposts like these been used to disrupt grazing lands, limit access to wells and launch violent attacks against neighboring Palestinians," he said. Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights are widely regarded as illegal under international law, and greater attention has been placed on Israel's occupation of them amid its war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Extremist settler violence in the occupied West Bank as increased since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7. The White House has labeled such violence as a threat to peace, security and stability throughout the Middle East. The sanctions imposed Thursday come under an executive order issued on Feb. 1 by President Joe Biden. In December, the State Department also announced a new policy to ban entry to Israeli settlers accused of committing violence in the occupied West Back. The Thursday sanctions, which freeze all U.S. assets in their name and bar U.S. persons from doing business with those designated, also come on the same day the Group of Seven nations condemned Israel's recent move to legally recognize five unauthorized Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) A growing number of congressional Democrats are publicly calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, but El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar isnt one of them. On Friday, July 12, Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., became the 19th congressional Democrat to go on record saying President Biden should step aside. This following last months debate and Thursdays much-anticipated news conference at the NATO summit in Washington, where Biden mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump in the opening question. He also introduced Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as President Putin earlier in the day at the summit. Despite facing pressure from fellow Democrats to drop out of the race, Escobar one of Bidens seven campaign co-chairs has recently taken to social media to show her support for the President. Im damn proud to be #RidingWithBidenHarris2024, said Escobar in a post to X on Thursday, July 11. I remain as committed as ever to electing the man who enacted historic investment in: climate change, infrastructure, manufacturing and innovation here in the U.S. and who will continue to fight like hell to restore the freedoms Republicans have taken from us, added Escobar in a post to X earlier this month. As he has throughout the week, Biden rejected any suggestion that he should or would drop out of the race, insisting there is no one more capable of beating former President Donald Trump in November than him. Biden did, however, concede that he would consider exiting the race if his team concluded there was no way he could win. According to NBC News, Democrats chose Biden as their nominee four years ago because they thought he was the most electable. Now, the party is threatening to ditch the president because they are convinced he cant win again and may take the rest of the party down with him. NBC News reported the Biden Campaign is quietly polling how Harris would fare against Trump if she were at the top of the ticket. President Biden was back on the campaign trail Friday with a trip to Detroit. 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. U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut calls on Joe Biden to drop out Congressman Jim Himes of Greenwich, Conn., is serving his eighth term Connecticut's 4th Congressional District seat. (Official portrait) U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, called on Joe Biden to exit the presidential race, becoming the first member of Connecticuts congressional delegation to publicly say he no longer has confidence in the presidents ability to win reelection. Himes statement on X Thursday night that Biden should step away came moments after the president held an hour-long press conference after the NATO summit and as Democrats continued to express public and private concerns about his fitness for office. The congressman whose Fourth District covers most of Fairfield County and some of New Haven County reportedly expressed private reservations about Bidens candidacy on a Sunday call with other high-ranking Democrats. For the past few days, he declined to make a public comment about where he stood on Biden and if he remained fit to run for office against Donald Trump. Joe Bidens record of public service is unrivaled. His accomplishments are immense. His legacy as a great president is secure. He must not risk that legacy, those accomplishments and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/FMMrTK8pb8 Jim Himes (@jahimes) July 12, 2024 Like other Democrats who have called on Biden to drop out, Himes praised his tenure over the past three years on gun safety, health care and infrastructure and argued that he should look to preserve his legacy. It is because of those traits, and in consideration of that legacy, that I hope President Biden will step away from the presidential campaign, Himes said in a statement. The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, and I hope that, as he has throughout this lifetime of public service, he will continue to put our nation first and, as he promised, make way for a new generation of leaders, he added. So far, the rest of Connecticuts delegation has not called on Biden to withdraw from the race, but many of them have said the president needs to do more to assuage voter and party concerns about his ability to win reelection. The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation. Connecticut Mirror is a content partner of States Newsroom. Read the original version here. The post U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut calls on Joe Biden to drop out appeared first on Rhode Island Current. Russian forces average daily losses in killed and wounded in May and June 2024 have risen to the highest level in the entire period of its war of aggression against Ukraine. Source: UK Defence Intelligence review on 12 July Details: UK intelligence noted that Russia lost 1,262 people killed and wounded in May daily and 1,163 more in June, which is its highest average daily loss rate for the entire duration of the war. In total, over the past two months, intelligence reports that Russia has probably lost more than 70,000 servicemen in killed and wounded. UK Defence Intelligence stressed that the increase in losses reflects Russia's opening of a new front in Kharkiv Oblast while maintaining the same pace of offensive operations along the rest of the line of contact. "Although this new approach has increased the pressure on the frontline, an effective Ukrainian defence and a lack of Russian training reduces Russias ability to exploit any tactical successes, despite attempting to stretch the frontline further," they said. The UK Ministry of Defence also suggested that the average number of Russian casualties is likely to continue to exceed 1,000 per day over the next two months as Russia continues to try to capture Ukrainian positions with large-scale offensives. Background: UK intelligence reported that over the past year, the frequency and effectiveness of Ukraine's strikes against Russia's Black Sea Fleet had increased significantly. Earlier, it analysed how the state of education in Russia was affected by the Kremlin's decision to take control of universities. Prior to that, the UK Ministry of Defence noted that Russia was stepping up its blocking of VPN services and seeking to shut down Internet telephony to restrict citizens' access to truthful information and increase surveillance. Support UP or become our patron! UK has not yet agreed on Ukraine using Storm Shadow missiles on Russian territory The UK government has stated that it has not yet given Ukraine authorisation to fire Storm Shadow missiles against targets on Russian territory, despite statements by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leading many to believe otherwise. Source: The Telegraph, as reported by European Pravda Details: On Thursday, Downing Street stated that the government's attitude on Ukraine's deployment of UK-provided long-range weaponry "had not changed", notwithstanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer's statement that the use of Storm Shadow missiles is up to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later stated that he "had been granted permission to use strategic cruise missiles in Russia" and that he discussed this with Starmer during their initial meeting. Sources told reporters that this year Storm Shadow has not yet been deployed. One of the sources stated that the issue is "more nuanced" than it appears and that using these cruise missiles against targets in Russia will require the coordinated approval of three countries, one of which is the United Kingdom. The second country is certainly France, which co-produces these missiles, and the third is most likely the United States. Zelenskyy has previously stated publicly that the UK is maintaining constraints on the employment of the cruise missiles it has donated, specifically because of the US position. On the subject of whether Ukraine will begin to employ Storm Shadow on Russian territory, the source stated that "it's not going to happen", but it is unclear whether he meant the immediate future, the need for coordination among allies or the long term. Support UP or become our patron! UK police say human remains found in 2 suitcases discovered in southwestern England are from 2 men This image issued on Thursday July 11, 2024 by Avon and Somerset Police shows a man they want to speak to after two suitcases appearing to contain human remains were found at the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, south west England. Police found two suitcases believed to contain human remains after responding to reports of a man acting suspiciously on a bridge. (Avon and Somerset Police via AP) LONDON (AP) Human remains found in two suitcases discovered near a bridge in the southwestern England city of Bristol are from two adult men, police said Friday. A manhunt for a man seen behaving suspiciously before the discovery Wednesday has widened. He is believed to have traveled from London earlier in the day, and London's Metropolitan Police are now leading the investigation. The victims have not yet been formally identified but both are believed to be adults. One autopsy was deemed inconclusive, while a second post-mortem examination remains ongoing. A crime scene has been set up in the west London neighborhood of Shepherd's Bush. Police urged the public to call emergency services in the event they spot the suspect. Do not approach him,'' said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Valentine, who is leading the investigation for the Met. Avon and Somerset Police officers arrived on the iconic Clifton Suspension Bridge at around midnight Wednesday, 10 minutes after receiving reports of a man behaving strangely. But the man, who had travelled there by taxi, was already gone. The landmark bridge spans the Avon Gorge, and was designed by noted Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in 1864. We recognize this has caused significant concern to residents in the Clifton area and will cause concern among those who live and work in west London,'' Valentine said. Extra officers will be on patrol in the area over the coming days and I would encourage anyone with any concerns to speak to them. UK still thinking whether to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets in Russia David Lammy, UKs Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has said that the UK continues to assess Ukraines request to deploy British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles to strike military targets in Russia. Source: David Lammy in an interview with European Pravda Details: Lammy was asked whether Ukraine can deploy Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian military airfields located further away from the Ukrainian-Russian border. "I've heard what Mr Zelenskyy has said. He's shared some views with us that we're reflecting on further. And as I said, I support Ukraine's right to self-defence now even more, because of that brutal attack on a children's hospital a few days ago," Lammy said in response. The European Pravda interviewer said that the US limited the use of its weapons to strike targets in Russia to areas near the border, and asked Lammy whether the UK might allow the use of its missiles further afield. "I can't comment on the United States. But for the UK, we have had discussions with Mr. Zelensky over the course of the last few days, and we've undertaken to go away and look at some other things. But I'm not going to get into operational decisions for very, very good and serious reasons," Lammy replied. Later on in the interview, he made it clear that he shares the position of Ukraines other partners who oppose excessive caution due to fear of escalation because delays in supplying Ukraine with certain types of weapons make them less effective on the battlefield. "Putin poses a systemic risk to European security. And that's why we have to be steadfast in our support across the whole of the NATO family. If we allow dictators and authoritarian leaders to invade their smaller neighbours, and if Putin wins this battle, then I'm afraid the security of the whole global community is at risk," Lammy stressed. Background: The UKs new prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that it was Ukraine's call on how to use the Storm Shadow missiles provided by the UK, which some pundits have interpreted as permission to use these missiles to hit military targets inside Russia. On 10 July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he "learned about the permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets on Russian territory" and discussed this with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during their first meeting. The UK government later explained that it has not yet given Ukraine any authorisation to fire Storm Shadow missiles against targets on Russian territory, despite statements by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that lead many to believe otherwise. Support UP or become our patron! Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed on July 12 that Kyiv was allegedly preparing to destroy the dams of the Kyiv hydroelectric power plant and the Kaniv reservoir. Zakharova claimed at the weekly press briefing that Kyiv is allegedly planning "another provocation against Russia" with the intention to put the blame on Moscow and request additional military assistance from the West. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry denied Zakharova's accusations later in the day, calling them "absurd." "There can be no realistic purpose or motive for Ukraine to destroy its own infrastructure or endanger its own people," the ministry's statement read. "As for 'putting the blame on Russia,' the Russian regime is doing a good job there with its own war crimes." Zakharova's statement comes slightly over a year since Russian forces blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant and the adjacent dam in Kherson Oblast, causing a large-scale humanitarian and environmental disaster across southern Ukraine. The ministry brought up the recent Russian strike against Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's hospital, on July 8. The strike killed three people, destroyed one building, and damaged four others in the hospital complex. "The only reason for the threats to civilians and the destruction of critical infrastructure in Ukraine is Russian aggression," the ministry said. "If Moscow carries out any criminal intentions against the dams of the Kyiv hydroelectric power station, the Kaniv reservoir, or other infrastructure, the aggressor state of Russia will be solely responsible for such actions." The real purpose of such statements by Moscow is to intimidate Ukrainian society and mislead the international community and the media, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Read also: Looking back at the Kakhovka Dam explosion one year later (Photos) Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation reiterated the ministry's statement, saying that Russia continues to try to "destabilize the situation in Ukraine" as part of its disinformation operation "Mir" ("Peace" in Russian). The operation aims to intimidate Ukrainians with the threat of new terrorist attacks and cause panic, the center says. "At the same time, narratives about the need for 'peace at any cost' are being thrown into Ukrainian society. That is, de facto surrender," the statement read. Zakharova's statements look like an attempt to provide Russia with an alibi before the attack, but Moscow does not have the means and capabilities to destroy the dams, according to the center. "It is impossible to destroy these facilities with missile strikes, and the option of sabotage is excluded, as the dams are under enhanced protection," the center added. Russian troops blew up the Kakhovka plant and the adjacent dam on June 6, 2023. The floods caused by the breach killed at least 32 people in Ukrainian-held territories, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry. Russia, in turn, claimed that 59 people died in the territory it occupies, while an Associated Press investigation discovered that in the town of Oleshky alone, the number is at least in the hundreds. Read also: Deer and boar could roam forests in the Kakhovka reservoir in 5 years, head of national reserve says Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine has captured a sufficient quantity of Russian troops to exchange them for Ukrainian defenders. At the same time Russia opposes the idea of an all-for-all exchange, specifically when it comes to the defenders of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Source: Dmytro Lubinets, Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, as reported by Ukrinform Details: Lubinets stated that even though Russia has more prisoners of war at the moment, the situation is changing in favour of Ukraine. Dmytro Lubinets notes that Ukraine has piled up "a big exchange bank". "We are filling the third camp for Russian prisoners of war and started repairing the fourth one. So if the Russians had wanted it [an all-for-all swap], we would have long brought back all our people. But this doesnt happen solely due to Russias disinclination," Lubinets explained. Russias unwillingness to agree to exchanges becomes especially acute when it concerns soldiers of the 36th Marine Brigade, the members of which defended the city of Mariupol from the Russian troops at the beginning of the full-scale war. "I have to admit that the Russians are very reluctant to release the defenders of Mariupol from captivity. In the beginning we saw how they held demonstrative trials for the members of the National Guard of Ukraine, and now theyre doing something similar to the prisoners of war from the 36th Marine Brigade. They gathered them in one penitentiary where the conditions are extremely bad, many of Ukrainian soldiers are being tortured, and our marines get huge prison sentences," Lubinets added. He stated that Ukraine is focused on bringing back severely injured soldiers and female soldiers. "The two criteria, established by the Geneva Convention, are a priority for me when it comes to bringing the PoWs from Russia. Firstly, these are severely injured soldiers, secondly women. As of now we have managed to bring back 198 women but over 400 still remain in Russian captivity," Lubinets said Background: According to the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner of Ukraine, Russia forcibly holds over 14,000 Ukrainian civilians. Bringing this category of prisoners of war back is harder than reaching an agreement on releasing children and soldiers. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine hopes to receive six F-16 fighter jets this summer and 20 by year's end Ukraine is expecting to receive six F-16 fighters from its Western partners this summer and a total of up to 20 aircraft by the end of 2024. Source: Bloomberg, citing its own sources, as reported by European Pravda Details: According to sources familiar with the situation, the process of sending military aircraft to Ukraine is still being hampered by spare parts shortages and the language barrier between Ukrainian pilots and their instructors. Those involved are particularly concerned that Ukraine does not have enough runways, and those it does have are vulnerable to Russian strikes. According to one of the sources, Ukraine will likely be able to deploy a squadron of F-16s ranging from 15 to 24 aircraft. Another agency spokesperson stated that Kyiv expects to receive six F-16s this summer and up to 20 by the end of the year. The F-16 challenges are so serious that they have raised concerns about the feasibility of sending aircraft to Ukraine and whether this is a costly show of support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Bloomberg says. A senior NATO officer who spoke to the agency identified three major concerns for F-16 delivery planners. First of all, the aircraft must be reconfigured according to their mission, such as reconnaissance or combat. Second, Ukraine has few of the long, high-quality runways required for the F-16, or shelters to protect them from Russian strikes. Third, the aircrafts support logistics are complex, ranging from the need for spare parts to maintenance and finding engineers. Another NATO representative noted that Ukraine is trying to achieve in a few months what usually takes three to four years. In an email responding to queries from journalists, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-16, stated that "we continue to support the US government's response to the conflict in Ukraine", but did not elaborate on how service or components for the jets will be managed. Jake Sullivan, Biden's top national security adviser, confirmed on Thursday that aircraft transfers have now begun. On 10 July, the leaders of the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands, who head the fighter jet coalition, announced that Ukraine will receive its first F-16s this summer. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine sees surge in female soldiers with over 10,000 women serving on front lines, Deputy PM says Over 10,000 women are currently carrying out combat roles on Ukraine's front lines, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna confirmed on July 11. The total marks a significant increase in the number of women serving active combat roles, which was around 5,000 women during the first year of the full-scale invasion. "An increasing number of women are serving in the defense forces, with over 10,000 women now performing combat duties on the front line," Stefanishyna said at a panel on female leadership at the NATO Public Forum. "Ukrainians are standing united against Russian aggression both women and men, Stefanishyna added. Ukraine's Defense Ministry previously reported that over 67,000 women serve in Ukraine's Armed Forces - up from 41,000 in 2022. The updated totals include 19,000 employees working in non-military roles, with the rest serving as military personnel. Women are not currently subject to mobilization, which only applies to men between the ages of 25 and 60. In December 2023, Ukraine's Defense Ministry approved specially designed body armor for women - the first of its kind. The new vests feature a curved armor plate and narrower shoulders to provide a better fit for female soldiers, and is made domestically by the company Ukrainian Armor. Read also: NATO affirms Ukraines irreversible path toward membership, $43 billion in funding for next year Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine and its soldiers weigh in on whether Biden should step aside Editors note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names only. As calls mount for U.S. President Joe Biden to step aside in the upcoming presidential election among Democratic party allies in Washington, Ukrainian soldiers more than 5,000 miles away on the front lines are also voicing their concerns over the U.S. leader's ability to help them fight Europes bloodiest war since World War II. Bidens latest gaffe in an address at the NATO summit on July 11 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he accidentally introduced as Russian President Vladimir Putin, had Ukraines troops worried enough to tune into live feeds of the debacle or watch clips on social media, even amid fierce battles in the countrys east and south. They expressed fears their countrys top Western ally and main source of weaponry to push back on Russias full-scale invasion risks being led by a leader not coherent enough to govern and not able to beat Donald Trump. The former president and presumptive Republican candidate in the upcoming elections has questioned assistance for Kyiv and has expressed fondness for Putin. "I believe that (Biden) needs to be removed urgently," Pavlo, a junior lieutenant at Ukraine's 63rd Mechanized Brigade, deployed in the Donbas, told the Kyiv Independent. Pointing to Bidens age, 81, he added: "Any reasonable Democrat will be better than him." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L), President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky (C), and U.S. President Joe Biden take part in the working session at the NATO summit on July 11, 2024, in Washington, U.S. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Getty Images) Biden was also lambasted for mistakenly referring to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as Trump just a mere couple of hours after the Zelensky-Putin mixup. Since his poor performance in the June 27 presidential debate with Trump, pressure has been increasing on Biden to step down in favor of another Democratic candidate. Biden's old age and health problems have also prompted doubts about his ability to lead the West and beat Trump in the election. Ukraine has also been worried about its key ally's potential political instability and possible problems with U.S. military and financial aid depending on the outcome of the election. Despite this, Biden has so far refused to step down. Pavlo from Ukraine's 63rd Mechanized Brigade believes that Biden's performance at the presidential debate and the July 11 news conference was "very bad." He is also afraid of Trumps potential victory. I have a bad opinion about Trump and hope that he will not come to power," Pavlo said. "I believe that (the Americans) will not vote for him because there are wise people in the U.S." Oleh, a drone operator who works under the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said that between the two (Biden or Trump) I would choose Biden." "Despite his age and the fact that he needs to be more active, he is a friend of Ukraine, while Trump is a populist maybe he (Trump) is a good businessman, but a good businessman and a good president are two different things," he added. U.S. President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump face off in the first presidential debate as it is displayed on a TV screen in Virginia, U.S. on June 27, 2024. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images) Oleh added, however, that Biden "is unfortunately already old and we need someone more active, productive and younger. Some Ukrainian soldiers like one named Marian, who used to be with the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, downplayed Bidens gaffes but instead criticized him for restricting the use of U.S. weaponry on Russian territory to push back and defend Ukraine against a genocidal war waged by its northern neighbor. Theyre giving us weapons not to win but to avoid losing, Marian said. Politicians and investors also concerned Representatives of the business community shared concerns about the uncertainty looming ahead of the U.S. election and questions about the political stability of a country that for decades represented a beacon of democracy. With just over 100 days to go until the U.S. elections, Ukraine is watching very closely how events unfold across the Atlantic," Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Independent. "Strategists are scratching their heads on what a post-Nov. 5 U.S.-Ukraine relationship may look like. A lot is at stake, as Russia is aiming to annihilate Ukraine, so building the right partnership and coalition based on trust and mutual understanding is absolutely essential. There are also concerns among Ukrainian lawmakers. "To be honest, yesterdays press conference was a failure, I dont think it looked very good, a source in Ukraines parliament told the Kyiv Independent. It was supposed to be such a winning summit for him (Biden) before the election, and unfortunately, this whole press conference only again underscored all the issues that appeared in the debate. A source close to the Zelensky administration believes the situation in the U.S. shows "a disconnect between the reality of Ukraine and D.C. politics." I think D.C. has gone on to business as usual," the source said. "Some officials in D.C. feel like the war is won, when in reality war is far from won in Ukraine. There was a feeling at the NATO summit that everything is temporary because Trump will come in and change it all." A leading representative of Ukraine's civil society who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter said that he did not expect any decisive positive steps from the U.S. soon due to the focus on elections. The unstable situation in the U.S. is also negatively affecting reforms in Ukraine, he said. "Currently they have a weak president and a weak administration and are focused on the election," he added, saying that the U.S. has less influence on reforms in Ukraine as a result. But if Trump is elected, he will not be interested in promoting reforms in Ukraine at all, the civil society representative argued. Instability is a challenge Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko agreed that "problems with instability in the U.S. are a great challenge for us." Support for Ukraine may also be undermined if the election triggers a political crisis in the U.S., he added. Fesenko said that, as concerns about Biden's health mount, voters will be less motivated to vote for him but "Democrats have no strong candidate who could beat Trump." He argued that both Biden and Trump pose problems for Ukraine. "Biden's position is very cautious and not always consistent," Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent. "The Biden administration is aiming to prevent Ukraine from losing but it has no strategy for victory." But the main problem with Trump is his unpredictability, Fesenko said. Fesenko disagrees with the view that Trump is pro-Russian. However, there are both pro-Ukrainian and anti-Ukrainian groups around Trump, he added. "This is the Americans' choice," Fesenko said. "We should support neither Biden nor Trump (in the election). Our interest is bipartisan support for Ukraine and preserving political stability in the U.S." Former President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters after his win at a New Hampshire primary night watch party on Jan. 23, 2024. (Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Yevhen, a drone engineer at Ukraine's 25th Airborne Brigade, echoed Fesenko's view that there are concerns both about Biden and Trump. "Biden was very useful for Ukraine during the war but he did not fight against Russia strongly enough," he told the Kyiv Independent. And Trump is a chaotic person from whom we don't know what to expect," he said. He regretted that the Democrats had not prepared a stronger and younger candidate. Yevhen hopes they will back Harris, "who would be a better president than both of them." Concerns exaggerated? Meanwhile, a former Ukrainian foreign minister told the Kyiv Independent that fears about the U.S. election are overblown, pointing to recent elections in Europe, where concerns about right-wing political groups that had been friendly with Russia turned out to be unjustified as voter support for them was less than feared. He said that, if Trump is elected, Ukrainian politicians will simply have to learn to communicate with him. According to the source, Trump is a businessman who is focused on making a political profit, with ideological concerns being secondary. "The sooner Ukrainian politicians will realize how to deal with Trump as a businessman, the better," the source told the Kyiv Independent. "They should figure out what can be leveraged (in talks with Trump)." President Volodymyr Zelensky thanks members of Congress after presenting a flag signed by members of the Ukrainian military to former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris during a joint meeting of Congress on Dec. 21, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Oleksandr Merezhko, a lawmaker from Zelensky's Servant of the People party and head of parliament's foreign policy committee, also said concerns about Biden and the U.S. election are exaggerated. First of all, quite frankly, I dont see any problem in it because it was just a slip of the tongue which can happen to anyone. It happens to me," he told the Kyiv Independent. "I think its been overemphasized just because his debates have not been as successful as what was hoped for and for this reason, hes under a microscope right now. He added that Biden's reaction to the slip of the tongue had a "sense of humor," and "he managed to turn it into a joke. Ukrainian soldiers obliged to share views with US brothers Back on the front lines of Russias war against Ukraine, Mykola Melnyk, a senior lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, first said "it is wrong for Ukrainians to comment on the elections in the U.S." "We have our own country and it is to our president that we have to address our demands," he told the Kyiv Independent. But, he added: "At the same time, the Ukrainian soldier is obliged to turn to our American brothers, ordinary citizens of the U.S., every day, because now Ukraine is fighting for the values on which the U.S. was built democracy, freedom, equality." Ukrainian soldier crouching in a trench in his infantry position as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in the direction of Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine on March 10, 2024. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images) Continuing, he said it's "important for the American voter to realize that either the U.S. is fighting with us, not behind our backs, or Ukraine will lose and Russia will attack other NATO countries and then the Americans will have to bury their soldiers in coffins." Melnyk added that "there is a chance to prevent this, to provide Ukraine with all the necessary weapons." Not all Ukrainian soldiers had the opportunity to watch Biden's recent news conference with Zelensky, as they were too busy on the battlefield. One of them, Valentyn from Ukraines 72nd Mechanized Brigade said: "No matter what, we will stand here until the end because we have to do all this dirty work." Andrea Januta, and Chris York contributed reporting to this article. Read also: Russias advance toward key eastern highway threatens Ukraines grip of Donetsk Oblast Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine is on track to make 'significantly' more 'mortar drones' than it planned, defense industry official says Ukraine set out to produce more than 1 million small, attack drones by the end of the year. A top Ukrainian official said Kyiv will make "significantly" more than the original target. The country's defense-industrial base has taken off, as homemade weaponry skyrockets. A top Ukrainian official said that his country is on track to churn out "significantly" more small attack drones by the end of the year than it originally set out to make as it continues to expand its weapons production capacity. Oleksandr Kamyshin, who serves as Ukraine's minister of strategic industries, shared in December that Kyiv planned to produce 1 million first-person-view, or FPV, drones by 2025. He said the country is also able to make over 10,000 mid-range attack drones capable of traveling hundreds of miles and more than 1,000 drones that can specifically reach targets more than 600 miles away throughout the year. "This year we will produce significantly more than 1 million" of the FPV drones, Kamyshin told Business Insider this week, providing an update on the production efforts but declining to provide specific figures. "Mid-range strikers, long-range strikers the goals will be outperformed as well," he said. Throughout much of Russia's brutal war in Ukraine, FPV drones have been heavily featured in combat. Both sides have effectively managed to turn these systems which are cheap and in abundance into precision munitions by strapping explosives to them and using them to strike everything from armored vehicles to the soldiers in the trenches. Ukrainian FPV drone operator from the 53rd Mechanized Brigade launches a drone toward Russian positions in Donetsk Oblast. General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Kamyshin said during an interview with BI on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, DC, that the FPV drones are a "significant share of the war in these days." He referred to FPV drones as "mortar drones" and "artillery drones" in a nod to their explosive potential that's similar to the ranged weapons. Ukraine has other unmanned systems as well and regularly uses its medium- and long-range attack drones which are larger than the cheap, hobby-style FPV ones to carry out strikes deep inside Russian territory and target high-profile military and energy facilities. These homemade weapon systems have given Kyiv the capability to greatly extend its reach beyond the border, especially as it continues to face restrictions on using Western-provided weapons for such purposes. "We proved that there are no red lines," Kamyshin said. "Now, we can reach Russia by deep inside, like 1500 kilometers easily, and we showed that dozens and dozens if not hundreds of times," he said, noting that "that's the impact our industry is making in this war." A small quadcopter drone carrying a bomb in Ukraine. Paula Bronstein /Getty Images The increased drone output comes amid broader efforts to scale-up Ukraine's defense-industrial base. The country has gone from almost nonexistent production before Russia's full-scale war to now cranking out weapons at a breakneck pace, which is helping to grow the domestic economy. Kyiv is also taking greater steps to integrate its growing defense industry with that of NATO and the West and just opened an office in Washington to achieve that goal. Meanwhile, Ukraine is taking its homemade weapons and modifying them for other missions. For instance, the country has outfitted its naval drones with missile and rocket launchers, and it has turned one of its anti-ship cruise missiles into a land-attack weapon. These innovations have helped Kyiv to inflict losses upon Russia. Kamyshin attributed this to Ukrainian "resilience the capability to withstand under the pressure, under the fire." Ukraine, however, is not the only side boosting its defense output in this war. Russia has placed its economy onto what experts say is a "Soviet-style" war footing and is rapidly producing its own weaponry, triggering alarm bells among some NATO allies. Read the original article on Business Insider Key developments on July 12: Russian losses in Ukraine reached 'conflict highs' in past 2 months, UK Defense Ministry says Permission to strike Russia with UK missiles 'not a done deal,' British officials tell Telegraph Ukraine's Prosecutor General urges ICC to prosecute Russian attack on Kyiv hospital 'Depends on circumstances,' Danish PM says on Ukraine using F-16s to strike inside Russia Russian losses in Ukraine reached "conflict highs" during May and June, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on July 12. In an intelligence report on X, the ministry said average daily Russian casualties both killed and wounded reached 1,262 and 1,163 in the two months, respectively. "In total, Russia likely lost in excess of 70,000 personnel over the past two months," the statement read. The ministry said the losses were due in large part to Russia's failed attempt to advance into Ukraine's Kharkiv Oblast, which opened a new front in the war in early May. "Although this new approach has increased the pressure on the front line, an effective Ukrainian defense and a lack of Russian training reduces Russia's ability to exploit any tactical success, despite attempting to stretch the front line further," the ministry said. "Russia's casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day over the next two months as Russia continues to try to overmatch Ukrainian positions with mass." European Pravda reported on June 13 that according to its undisclosed NATO source, Russian losses in the Kharkiv offensive have been "astronomical." The source estimated that "Russia likely suffered losses of almost 1,000 people a day in May." President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on May 25 that Russia's losses during the offensive were eight times higher than those suffered by Ukraine's Armed Forces. As of July 12, Russia has lost 556,650 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported. The figures could not be independently verified. Read also: Russias advance toward key eastern highway threatens Ukraines grip of Donetsk Oblast Permission to strike Russia with UK missiles 'not a done deal,' British officials tell Telegraph Ukraine has not received permission to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian territory, unnamed U.K. official sources told the Telegraph in a comment published on July 11, explaining that the situation is "more nuanced." Later the same day, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in an interview with European Pravda that the matter is still under consideration but refused to provide details. The confusion began when new U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer apparently signaled on July 10 that Ukraine could use Storm Shadow to hit military targets inside Russia. 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," Starmer said during the NATO summit in Washington. Starmer's remarks echoed the words of former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who said early in 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 Presidential Office disputed the statement at the time, saying that there was no green light from the U.K. After his meeting with Starmer, President Zelensky said that the two had discussed "the practical implementation" of the U.K.'s permission to use Storm Shadow against targets in Russia. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov also mentioned "Britain's permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military facilities in Russia" in a post on social media. The Telegraph reported soon after that despite Starmer's remarks, the country has not relaxed its policy on long-range missile use, as officials fear such a step may lead to an "escalation." The newspaper's senior defense source claimed that the situation "was more nuanced" than Zelensky suggested. The permission for long-range missile strikes on targets inside Russia would require the approval of three countries. Though the sources did not specify the other two countries, France produces its own variants of Storm Shadow called SCALP/T, which have also been supplied to Ukraine. When asked if Ukraine would fire Storm Shadow into Russia, the source told the newspaper that "it is not going to happen." The sources also said that the missile had not been used this year, adding that Zelensky would have to "seek assurances elsewhere" before Ukraine could launch Storm Shadow on Russian soil. The assurances "were not a done deal," they said. The Kyiv Independent requested comment from Ukraine's Defense Ministry, the U.K. Defense Ministry, and Zelensky's office but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Read also: F-16s are nearly in Ukraine. Will they live up to the hype? Ukraine's Prosecutor General urges ICC to prosecute Russian attack on Kyiv hospital Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russia's missile attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, he told Reuters on July 11. Russian forces launched a missile strike on Ukraine on July 8, killing at least 44 people and injuring nearly 200 others. One Russian missile directly struck Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's medical center. The attack there killed three people, destroyed one building, and damaged four others in the hospital complex. Thirty people have been killed elsewhere in the capital. "For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC," Kostin told Reuters in The Hague. If the ICC starts investigating the strike on the hospital, it could help establish a pattern of attacks that show Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Kostin said. Kyiv is open to providing the court with any evidence and details of its investigation, he added. A team from the ICC Prosecutor's Office visited the site of the attack. While the ICC has not publicly commented on what charges it is investigating, it has warned that anyone found responsible for an attack on civilian objects could be prosecuted, Reuters wrote. The Russian military struck Okhmatdyt with a Kh-101 cruise missile, according to the preliminary data obtained by the State Security Service (SBU). A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Independent that the missile was launched in accordance with a programmed route. Over 600 patients and at least as many staff members were at the Okhmatdyt and the Ukrainian Center for Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, located near the hospital, at the moment of the attack. Read also: I want Russians to feel it on their own skin: Shock, fury at the site of childrens hospital attack 'Depends on circumstances,' Danish PM says on Ukraine using F-16s to strike inside Russia The permission for Ukraine to strike inside Russia with Danish-supplied F-16s will "depend on the circumstances," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told RFE/RL on July 12 while confirming that it will be allowed in some cases. Copenhagen previously indicated that its F-16s, which should be already on their way to Ukraine, can be used by Kyiv to strike at targets in Russia "within the rules of war." When asked about the matter by an RFE/RL reporter in Washington, Frederiksen said, "You cannot put that question and expect simple answers because it all depends on the circumstances. It has to be according to international law." "But it is possible also to reach targets outside Ukraine, yes," the prime minister added. In addition to Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway have also promised to supply Ukraine with their F-16 jets. The pledged aircraft have so far amounted to 79, including 19 from Copenhagen. The Netherlands indicated that it would allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia, while Belgium said that its F-16s are intended only for use on Ukrainian territory. Frederiksen echoed President Zelensky's statement that the number of F-16s currently pledged is not sufficient in the face of Russian airpower. "That's one of the reasons why we have built an international F-16 coalition," Frederiksen said, voicing hopes that other countries will offer further assistance with training and aircraft. Read also: Ukraine dismisses Russias accusations of preparing false flags at 2 Ukrainian dams Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine's Energy Ministry on consequences of Russian nighttime missile attack: there were some blackouts Over 1,800 consumers in ten settlements have been left without power following the Russian missile attack in Chernihiv Oblast. Source: press service of Ukraines Ministry of Energy Quote: "In Chernihiv Oblast, as a result of a missile attack, 1,821 consumers in ten settlements were simultaneously left without power," the report said. During an air-raid warning in the central region, a high-voltage overhead line was also disconnected. Furthermore, hot weather persists in Ukraine, triggering increased electricity consumption, particularly due to the active use of air conditioners. In Kharkiv Oblast, an oblenergo [an oblast electricity distributor] repair brigade came under Russian attack, but no one was affected. As of this morning, 479 villages were left without power due to hostilities and technical violations. Background: On Friday, 12 July, power engineers will shut down four consumption groups simultaneously from 14:00 to 24:00, rather than the previously anticipated 16:00 to 23:00. During the evening of 11 July and the night of 12 July, air defence forces shot down five Russian missiles and eleven unmanned aerial vehicles. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry responds to Russia's threats to blow up dams in Kyiv and Kaniv The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has refuted and called absurd the claim of Maria Zakharova, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, that allegedly "Ukraine is preparing to destroy the dams of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant and the Kaniv Reservoir". Ukraines Foreign Affairs Ministry stressed that the aggressor state would be responsible for any criminal intentions regarding the dams. Source: the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Quote: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine categorically refutes Russias absurd accusations that Ukrainian authorities allegedly plan to blow up the dams of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant, the Kaniv Reservoir or other infrastructure, to then blame Russia for it." Details: The statement says that Ukraine can have no realistic goal or motive for destroying its own infrastructure or creating threats for its own people. "As for blaming Russia, the Russian regime excels at this task on its own by committing war crimes. Russias barbaric missile strike on the children in Ukraines main childrens hospital, Okhmatdyt, speaks for itself," Ukraines Foreign Ministry stated. The ministry also pointed out that the only threat for Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure is Russian aggression. "In case Moscow commits any criminal intentions against the dams of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant, the Kaniv Reservoir or other infrastructure, the responsibility will lie exclusively on the aggressor state of Russia," Ukraines Foreign Ministry stressed. The comment says that "the real goal of such claims by Moscow is an attempt to intimidate Ukrainian society and deceive the international community and media". "Russia has many times demonstrated the following strategy: blame others for something it commits or plans to commit. Russian fantasies about the Dnipro River dams is a reason for the international community to pay closer attention to Russias actions," the ministry stressed. It stated that last year Russia committed the biggest man-made crime in Europe over the last few decades by blowing up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, and this barbaric act which led to ecocide and humanitarian disaster was accompanied by an intense disinformation campaign. Ukraines Foreign Ministry urged international media outlets "not to quote Russian spokespersons without additional information about the background of their lies and not to present Ukrainian and Russian statements as equal". Background: On 12 July, as part of a disinformation campaign, Maria Zakharova claimed that Ukraine was allegedly preparing to destroy the dams of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant and the Kaniv Reservoir to then blame Russia for it. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's Health Minister: Okhmatdyt hospital's destroyed building will not be restored, new one to be built Work is underway at the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital to restore the interior spaces, prepare for glazing, and repair the facade following the Russian missile attack on 8 July. It will cost approximately UAH 400 million hryvnias (US$10 million) just to re-equip the medical facility. Source: Viktor Liashko, Ukraine's Health Minister, at a briefing on 12 July At the same time, some buildings, notably the toxicological unit, are not eligible for rebuilding. Quote: "We are well aware that this building is not eligible for reconstruction. Currently, a technical inspection process of the old technical building is underway. Most likely, it will also be demolished," said Liashko. In addition, a comprehensive assessment of the damages is ongoing. Volodymyr Zhovnir, Director General of the Okhmatdyt Hospital, said that all hospital buildings were affected, but the degree of damage varies. The first defective report on the damages to the newly constructed building at the Okhmatdyt is slated for completion next week. Based on this assessment, priority will be given to restoring medical services, starting with the operating rooms, intensive care units, paediatric oncology, ophthalmology, urology, and neurosurgery departments. Afterwards, the hospital will select a company to conduct construction work and announce the start date and duration of the project. Additionally, the Ministry of Culture will assess the damage caused to the historical buildings located within the Okhmatdyt premises. Once this is done, planning for the new building on the site of the destroyed and critically damaged buildings can begin. The Ministry of Health has announced that a list of essential medical equipment needed to restore crucial medical services has already been compiled. Quote: "In the list of prioritised equipment, there are over 55 types of items (totalling 242 units of equipment) with an estimated value of UAH 400 million. We are receiving numerous proposals from manufacturers and donors for its supply, so together with the Okhmatdyt, we will coordinate this process for greater efficiency and clear alignment with the hospital's needs," says Liashko. The Ministry of Health is asking international organisations, representatives of foreign states, and businesses willing to contribute medical equipment to the departments of the Okhmatdyt to contact them at ohmatdythelp@moz.gov.ua. "Our specialist will then contact you and provide full information on the current needs of the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialised Hospital and their specifications," they note. The minister said that a total of over UAH 800 million ($20 million) have been allocated for restoration, including funds received in charitable accounts of the hospital and state funds. These funds will enable the commencement of priority restoration works. "Our priorities include repairing damaged facilities, creating opportunities for critical medical services, and constructing a new building to replace the destroyed and damaged emergency structures," the minister stated. Background: Water and power supply was restored at the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv, which was damaged in a Russian missile strike on 8 July. Operating rooms will be repaired next. Support UP or become our patron! Ukraine's navy is harassing Russian forces with 16 new armored assault boats built by Sweden Ukraine's navy has acquired at least 16 Swedish-made patrol boats this year to counter Russia. The CB90 assault craft can deploy on various missions, such as troop delivery and mine reconnaissance. They're also configurable able to act as an armored raider or floating command center as needed. Ukraine's navy added three Swedish-made patrol boats to its fleet earlier this month as it continues to hammer Russian naval forces in the Black Sea. The recent CB90 delivery came after Sweden announced its massive $682 million military aid package to Ukraine in February, which included 10 CB90 vessels and 20 other riverine boats. The Netherlands similarly provided three more CB90s to Ukraine a month later, for a total of at least 16. Turning the tide in the Black Sea Swedish Marines also operate the CB90-class fast assault craft. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Danielle Serocki Steel Front, a military-assistance initiative run by the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, sent Ukraine the new CB90-class fast assault crafts, which are already in operation in waters near Crimea. Following a six-month effort by Steel Front and the Ukrainian steel giant Metinvest, the three vessels and crew training for Ukrainian forces cost more than $4.1 million. "There is no doubt the Black Sea is an important front," Oleksandr Vodoviz, an executive at Metinvest, said in a statement, "and our aim is that these powerful boats will make a significant difference to Ukraine's ability to defend itself." In total, Sweden has provided at least 13 CB90s to Ukraine's navy. The Netherlands donated nearly two dozen inflatable and armored boats, including three CB90s, to Ukraine in March. The Finnish ministry of defense also delivered landing crafts to Ukraine, and while it wasn't immediately clear what type of vessels were sent, Finnish media speculated that they operated similarly to the Swedish CB90. Inside the CB90 Swedish and US Marines draping a cover over the frame of a Swedish CB90 to conceal it. US Marine Corps photo by MSgt. Robert Brown Dockstavarvet, a shipyard owned by the Swedish defense manufacturer Saab, originally developed the CB90 for the Swedish Navy. The 52-foot-long patrol boat is propelled by twin diesel engines that allow it to travel at speeds of up to 40 knots or 46 miles an hour with a range of more than 240 nautical miles. Two partially ducted water jets make the lightweight CB90 highly maneuverable. It can make sharp turns and come to a complete stop in about 130 feet. Armed to the teeth US Marines disembarking a CB90 during military exercises. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tayler P. Schwamb The combat boat is equipped with a gun mount atop its wheelhouse, which can mount a .50-caliber machine gun, 40mm grenade launcher, or remote-controlled weapons. In addition to its top-mounted guns, the CB90 can deploy Hellfire anti-ship missiles, 2.8-ton sea mines, and depth charges. A versatile vessel A CB90 during exercises in Harstad, Norway. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tayler P. Schwamb Designed to patrol and defend coastal waters, the shallow-draught CB90 can be deployed in both open waters and rocky shores for missions such as ferrying troops, mine reconnaissance, or landing troops for amphibious raids. From gunboat to command post US Marines preparing to disembark during military exercises. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tayler P. Schwamb The vessel's aft is also configurable; it can accommodate a range of gear, such as remote-controlled weaponry and additional radar and communications equipment. Armed and armored The CB90's ballistic protection safeguards the crew and equipment. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Danielle Serocki Whether operating as a combat-ready gunboat or a floating command post, the CB90 has a durable hull made of lightweight polyethylene lining and safety glass, offering ballistic protection to shield its personnel and vital components during hostile operations. "With its armament and ballistic protection, the CB90 can deliver its troops in the face of enemy fire with a degree of survivability for both the craft and embarked troops," Pete Pagano, a retired US Navy officer, wrote in an article for the US Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine. While the armed and armored CB90 can survive the potentially high-risk delivery, Pagano wrote that the Swedish-built vessel alone "could provide limited supporting firepower for the embarked troops during the vulnerable approach to and landing on the beach," calling for support from other landing craft to bring in heavy equipment. Transport for troops and cargo A Norwegian Coastal Ranger commando carrying a simulated casualty to a CB90 during medical evacuation drills. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Miguel A. Rosales The boat is typically operated by a crew of two officers and one engineer, with two operator seats and a middle jump seat in an aircraft-style cockpit. The CB90's midsection has a compartment that can carry 21 combat-ready Marines and up to 4.5 tons of cargo, making it an efficient method to deploy troops or extract casualties. Deployed by naval forces around the globe A Marine aboard a CB90 in Stockholm. Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific/DVIDS Since being commissioned in 1991, more than 200 CB90 boats have been operated by naval forces worldwide. The US Navy even contracted the US boat manufacturer SAFE Boats International to build CB90s as riverine command boats. The combat boat's design and capabilities have also been modified over the years. Dockstavarvet optimized the boat's design in its next-generation variant, the CB90 HSM, altering the engine position to make it quieter and more efficient. The CB90 HSM features a new combat management system and surveillance sensors, making it "a whole new breed, ready to take on the coasts of Sweden," according to a press release. Supporting Ukraine's riverine flotilla A CB90 sailing down a shallow river. Saab While the new combat boats are operating near Crimea, CB90 boats supplied by Ukrainian allies have bolstered the country's riverine units, which have been hammered by Russian forces. Explosive-laden Russian drones and artillery have decimated Ukrainian boat crews defending the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine. Last October, a Russian ace drone pilot, identified by the call sign "Moisey," struck nearly 400 Ukrainian marines and three dozen vessels. "We were sitting in the water at night, and we were shelled by everything," a Ukrainian marine named Maksym, who was stationed at the river's east bank, told The New York Times in December. "My comrades were dying in front of my eyes." Maksym added that Russian aircraft continued to pummel the left bank with glide bombs as the Ukrainian platoon tried to evacuate. "The left bank was like purgatory," he said. "You are not dead yet, but you don't feel alive." The Swedish CB90s, among additional donated boats from other allied nations, have been integral to Ukraine's efforts to fend off Russian forces in the region. Read the original article on Business Insider Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russia's missile attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, he told Reuters on July 11. Russian forces launched a missile strike on Ukraine on July 8, killing at least 44 and injuring nearly 200 others. One Russian missile directly struck Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's medical center. The attack there killed three people, destroyed one building, and damaged four others in the hospital complex. Thirty people have been killed elsewhere in the capital. "For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC," Kostin told Reuters in The Hague. If the ICC starts investigating the strike on the hospital, it could help establish a pattern of attacks that show Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Kostin said. Kyiv is open to providing the court with any evidence and details of its investigation, he added. A team from the ICC Prosecutor's Office visited the site of the attack. While the ICC has not publicly commented on what charges it is investigating, it has warned that anyone found responsible for an attack on civilian objects could be prosecuted, Reuters wrote. The Russian military struck Okhmatdyt with a Kh-101 cruise missile, according to the preliminary data obtained by the State Security Service (SBU). A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Independent that the missile was launched in accordance with a programmed route. Over 600 patients and at least as many staff members were at the Okhmatdyt and the Ukrainian Center for Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, located near the hospital, at the moment of the attack. The ICC issued in late June arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, for war crimes against Ukraine related to Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. The Hague court also issued arrest warrants in March 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the forcible transfer of children from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Read also: Ground zero: How a Ukrainian boy battling cancer and his mother survived Russias missile strike on childrens hospital Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukrainian air defence shot down five Russian missiles and 11 UAVs on the evening of 11 July and the night of 11-12 July. Source: Air Force on Telegram Quote: "On the evening of 11 July 2024, the occupiers attacked from strategic aircraft with five Kh-101 cruise missiles (launched from Russias Saratov Oblast). On the night of 11-12 July, they used 19 Shahed-131/136 attack UAVs and unidentified drones from the areas of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Russias Kursk Oblast. The main target of the strike was Starokostiantyniv." Details: The missiles were shot down in Khmelnytskyi, Sumy and Cherkasy oblasts. Air defence also shot down 11 Shahed drones and unidentified drones in Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Kherson and Sumy oblasts. The remaining eight drones, as the Air Force reported, were lost in the area. The military suggested that the Russians were using imitators of attack drones to overload Ukrainian air defence. Support UP or become our patron! As many as 139 combat clashes occurred in the combat zone on 12 July. The situation on the Pokrovsk front remained the most intense. The Russians are also active on the Kurakhove and Toretsk fronts. Source: evening report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine On the Kharkiv front, the Russians launched attacks near the settlements of Hlyboke, Vovchansk, Starytsi and Lyptsi but to no avail. Early reports say 27 Russian soldiers were killed and 52 were injured on 12 July. Ukrainian forces managed to destroy 3 artillery systems, a Pantsir-S1 air defence system, 38 drones, 5 vehicles and three units of special equipment, as well as to damage 2 tanks, 5 artillery systems and a vehicle of the Russians. On the Kupiansk front, the Russians have been trying to advance on Ukrainian positions near the settlements of Synkivka, Stepova Novoselivka, Pishchane and Berestove for six days. On the Lyman front, the Russians were quite active today, launching 16 attacks near Nevske, Serebrianka forest, Makiivka, Terny and Torske. Four combat clashes are ongoing, the rest were stopped by Ukrainian troops. Russian losses are being established. On the Siversk front, the Russians tried to break through Ukrainian defences near the settlements of Bilohorivka, Rozdolivka and Vyimka four times. The fighting is still ongoing. The situation is under control. On the Kramatorsk front, 11 combat clashes occurred. Nine attacks near Ivanivske, Andriivka and Chasiv Yar were unsuccessful. The Russians are suffering losses. The situation is tense, the fighting is ongoing in two locations near the settlement of Chasiv Yar. On the Toretsk front, Ukrainian forces repelled 19 Russian attacks near Toretsk, Pivnichne, Zalizne and New-York. Fourteen attacks were repelled by Ukrainian troops, the Russians had no success. The fighting is ongoing. The Russians were the most active on the Pokrovsk front today. In total, the Russians have tried to drive a wedge into the Ukrainian defence near the settlements of Oleksandropil, Novoselivka Persha, Novooleksandrivka, Prohres, Lozuvatske, Sokil, Yasnobrodivka, Vozdvyzhenka and Karlivka 40 times. As of now, 33 Russian attacks have been repelled, seven combat clashes are ongoing. Ukrainian forces take measures to stabilise the situation and prevent the Russians from advancing deep into Ukrainian territory. The Russians are suffering considerable losses early reports say the Russian lost 166 soldiers on this front today, 69 of them were killed. An infantry fighting vehicle, a car and three artillery pieces of the Russians were destroyed. Three more artillery pieces were considerably damaged. On the Kurakhove front, the Russians attacked Ukrainian positions 17 times. They were the most active near the settlements of Paraskoviivka and Kostiantynivka but to no avail. On the Vremivka front, Ukrainian forces repelled five Russian attacks near the settlements of Vodiane and Urozhaine. Two combat clashes are still ongoing. On the Orikhiv front, the Russians assaulted Ukrainian positions near the settlements of Mala Tokmachka and Robotyne but to no avail. There were no significant changes to the operative situation on other fronts. Support UP or become our patron! July 11, 2024, Washington, United States: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend an event to launch the Ukraine Compact aimed at supporting the country's security needs on the final day of a NATO summit meeting in Washington on July 11, 2024. (Kyodo). | Kyodonews/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom Biden's "big boy" press conference: Yesterday, President Joe Biden tried his very darndest not to have any verbal gaffes during the final session of NATO's 75th anniversary summit and the subsequent press conference. Unfortunately, the 81-year-oldwho appears to be ailing from dementia, Parkinson's, or some other age-related cognitive issues, and is still reeling from his abysmal debate performance two weeks agowas not able to pull off that feat. "Now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," said Biden when introducing Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country is currently being razed to the ground by Vladimir Putin. (Biden did correct himself quite quickly, saying, "Going to beat President Putin, President Zelenskyy. I am so focused on beating Putin.") Later, a reporter asked Biden if America's standing in the world was damaged by the Putin-Zelenskyy gaffe, gesturing at the cognitive decline scandal. "Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference?" retorted an indignant Biden, striking a Trumpy note. "Have you seen a more successful conference? What do you think? I thought it was the most successful conference I've attended in a long time and find me a world leader who didn't think it was." Later, when a Reuters reporter asked Biden if he was confident in his vice president, Kamala Harris, Biden got confused for a moment. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," he said. Some people, of course, found Biden's performance good. The only trouble is that they all happen to be on the White House payroll: To answer the question on everyone's minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs. He's just that fucking good. Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) July 12, 2024 As for the rest of us who aren't paid Biden shills, the performance did not instill much confidence. It did not put to rest the concerns most political observers have about Biden running for president again. He remains embroiled in crisis. But perhaps more importantly, there remains very little most of us can do about it. Those in Biden's inner circlewhich includes his family, like son Hunter, wife Jill, and sister Valerie, as well as a cadre of loyal staffers who have been with him for decadeshave no incentive to give up power or to persuade Biden to call it quits. Instead, they stage-manage his performances, tightly controlling press access and feeding reporters softball questions. One reporter, Andrea Lawful-Sanders of WURD in Philadelphia, resigned after it became public that she had used questions fed to her by Biden's press people. The Earl Ingram Show, a Wisconsin radio show that had received a list of questions from Biden's handlers prior to the interview, admitted yesterday that it had cut two chunks of the show before it aired at the behest of the Biden campaign. The total amount removed was allegedly about 16 seconds long and included a chunk in which Biden called African Americans "blacks"precisely the type of thing that would play very poorly on social media and among the progressive left. "I have more blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions," said Biden at one point during the interview. The second cut was to cull odd, incoherent comments about the Central Park Five. It's not just the campaigning, though; it's also the governing. Cabinet meetings are infrequent and members of the Cabinet say they do not know much about Biden's condition due to how rarely they see him. (The last one was on October 2, for example.) The gatekeepers: "What Democrats need to admit to themselves is that Biden is denying them the information they need to answer that question," writes Ezra Klein in The New York Times. "Since the debate, he has done a small handful of short interviews. He called into two radio shows where the hosts would ask preapproved questions. His interview with George Stephanopoulos lasted 22 minutes. He called into 'Morning Joe,' which has been the friendliest place for him in cable news, for less than 20 minutes. He has not gone to the Hill and talked, in a lengthy and unscripted way, with either the House or Senate Democratic caucuses. It's not nearly enough." To be clear, the questions of whether Biden can govern well and whether he can campaign well are somewhat separate, but it's through the work of campaigning that a presidential candidate convinces voters he can govern well, and Biden is denying voters the opportunity to anticipate what that might look like. Whether he's nimble, energetic, and reliable is not tangential to the governing questionthese are important attributes that voters have every right to weigh. Politics is about both perception and reality. The reality may well be that Biden is strong on foreign policy particulars behind closed doors, but if the perception is that he's a weak and impotent leader, that surely matters too. One cannot help but wonder: If we had a media more interested in attempting to reveal the truth rather than aiding and abetting the man in power, how might things be different? How much sooner might we have learned about Biden's deteriorating condition? And how much harder would it have been for his inner circle to maintain and uphold the delusion that he's a suitable candidate for another four-year term as president? Scenes from New York: New York hotels will no longer be allowed by the government to provide tiny plastic shampoo and conditioner bottles to their guests, as of January 1. The only other nation that disrespects their tourists in this manner is California. QUICK HITS Little Marco's big glow-up. Violet Affleck, daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, appeared before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to engage in some truly stunning COVID-19 hysteria. "I demand mask availability, air filtration and far UV-C light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities," the 18-year-old celebrity-kid said. The whole saga is noteworthy not because Affleck's opinions matter in any way whatsoever, but rather because it suggests just how deeply some COVID insanity has burrowed into teenagers' brains. "The magic of the supermarket is that it hides the inherent variability of agriculture," writes Yasmin Tayag at The Atlantic. But that era may be ending. Good ol' even-keeled Rachel Maddow: "I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the fate of the world hangs in the balance" @Maddow speaking on MSNBC ahead of the Biden press conference Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 11, 2024 The post Ukrainian PresidentPutin? appeared first on Reason.com. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanks Utah for support in war between good vs evil during first visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanks Utah for support in war between good vs evil during first visit SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit to Utah, speaking during the National Governors Association summer meeting held in Salt Lake City. During his speech, Zelenskyy told the nations gathering of state governors that he was thankful for their support in what he called one of the most transparent battles between good and evil. Ukraine has been embattled in an ongoing war with Russia since the latter launched a full-scale military invasion in February 2022. The invasion began in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. In the years since, Zelenskyy has made several visits to the United States and other Western nations pleading for support and munitions to repel the Russian attack. Most recently, Zelenskyy visited the White House in Washington, D.C., to meet with President Joe Biden. Zelenskyy said in each of his meetings he thanked Americans for their support for Ukraine in their continued fight against Russian aggression. She joined the shooting club at U of U. Now shes headed to Paris for her 2nd Olympics His speech in front of a Utah congregation was no different, saying, Today, I want to personally thank you, for your support. The State of Utah, other states, many American hearts, many American communities, all those who do not want and will not allow evil to prevail. Zelenskyy said Ukraine had done nothing wrong and the pain and suffering of his country was only the result of Russias criminal actions and sick desires. He said it was vital to have the support of a united people to save Ukraines freedom and common human understanding that evil must always lose. Prior to Zelenskyy taking the stage, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said while its sometimes hard to tell who the good guys and the bad guys are, the ongoing war in Ukraine was not one of those times. There is evil in this world and there is good in this world, said Cox. And we have to be on the side of good or we stand for nothing. Year-long closure of busy Bangerter Highway intersection starts Friday Cox said he had the pleasure of spending time with President Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska, calling the two good people who did not sign up for the conflict. And yet, when this conflict came to them, when this evil came to their doorstep, lesser people would have got on that plane and run, said Cox. And this man and this woman did not do that. They stood up to evil and their country rallied around them and we must rally around them too. Zelenskyy called on the nations governors to visit Ukraine and witness first hand the countrys suffering. He asked them to continue supporting the country so they could build back to normal, which he said was all they needed to repel Russia. 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. FILE PHOTO: U.N. Security Council meets to address the situation in the Middle East at a ministerial level, in New York By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations chief Antonio Guterres declared on Friday that there is no alternative to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and 118 countries backed the relief organization as indispensable, amid stepped up efforts by Israel to dismantle it. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted nine months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, U.N. officials have stressed UNRWA is the backbone of aid operations. "My appeal to everyone is this: Protect UNRWA, protect UNRWA staff, and protect UNRWA's mandate - including through funding," Guterres told an UNRWA pledging conference in New York on Friday. "Let me be clear: there is no alternative to UNRWA." Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long-called for UNRWA to be dismantled, accusing it of anti-Israeli incitement, and Israel's parliament is currently considering designating UNRWA as a terrorist organization. Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency's staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Most donors have since resumed their funding, while the U.N. is conducting an internal investigation. UNRWA has been hit hard during the conflict in Gaza - 195 staff have been killed. "UNRWA is also being targeted in other ways," Guterres said. "Staff have been the subject of increasingly violent protests and virulent misinformation and disinformation campaigns." "Some have been detained by Israeli security forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and even torture," he said, adding that in the West Bank the presence and movements of UNRWA staff have also been severely restricted by Israel. The Israeli military has said it acts according to Israeli and international law and those it arrests get access to food, water, medication and proper clothing. Israel accuses UNRWA of complicity with Hamas, saying the militant Islamist group was embedded within the U.N. agency's infrastructure. UNRWA was created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war. Jordan's U.N. Ambassador Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud said on Friday ahead of the pledging event that 118 countries had signed on to a joint statement supporting UNRWA and its work. The statement underlined "that UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza, and recognizing that no organization can replace or substitute UNRWA's capacity." (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Frances Kerry) The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on July 11 demanding that Russia withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) and restore full control of the facility to Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its position near the front line has led to heightened nuclear safety risks throughout Russia's full-scale war. Ninety-nine countries voted in favor of the resolution, which "demands that the Russian Federation urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately return the plant to the full control of the sovereign and competent authorities of Ukraine to ensure its safety and security." The resolution also condemns Russia for failing to implement safety protocols set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and calls on Moscow to allow IAEA inspectors full access to the plant's facilities. "Today, another important step has been taken on the way to restoring respect for the UN Charter and international law," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. "The resolution confirms the need for demilitarization and deoccupation of the ZNPP against the backdrop of Russia's failure to comply with the resolutions of the IAEA governing bodies." Zelensky said the U.N. vote represents "a continuation" of talks held at Ukraine's global peace summit in Switzerland in June. Read also: Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant costs Ukraine over $5 billion Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. The UN General Assembly has adopted a Ukrainian-initiated resolution on the security and safety of Ukrainian nuclear facilities, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Source: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Twitter (X) Details: Zelenskyy called this a "significant step toward restoring respect for the UN Charter and international law". The resolution emphasises the necessity for the demilitarisation and liberation of the ZNPP due to Russia's non-compliance with the resolutions of the IAEA governing bodies. Quote: "The resolution reiterates the need to demilitarise and de-occupy ZNPP in light of Russia's failure to comply with IAEA governing bodies' resolutions. This vote builds on the discussions and decisions made at the first Peace Summit, where point one of the Peace Formula, 'Radiation and nuclear safety,' was a key issue." More details: Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to all partners for their assistance in restoring safety in all areas affected by Russian aggression. He noted that the fundamental norms of international law and shared values can be protected through joint efforts. Background: After the NATO summit, Zelenskyy stated that the discussion on the three issues identified for discussion at that time, including nuclear safety, food security and bringing prisoners of war and deported children back, could result in "absolutely practical steps". Support UP or become our patron! UNC-Chapel Hill police obtained a warrant to review private Instagram account information for the student group that organized a May commencement day protest on campus. The warrant sought a wide range of details from the UNC Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestines social media account, including subscription information, direct messages and location data. It was obtained as part of UNC Polices ongoing criminal investigation into the significant damage inflicted on South Building on May 11, when a group of protesters defaced the 230-year-old building with oil-based paint and graffiti, campus spokesperson Kevin Best said. The warrant stated that informing the UNC SJP could jeopardize this investigation and interfere with the enforcement of the laws of the State of North Carolina. Sophia Brown, an SJP member, confirmed that members of the group did not know a warrant had been issued. She called its accusations ridiculous and denied the group organized or participated in defacing a historic building on campus. A group of autonomous actors acted after a morning protest concluded, said Brown, a UNC staff member. A post from the Instagram page of UNCSJP shows red paint on the steps of South Building on the UNC campus. Investigator linked protest to vandalism The warrant, signed by Orange County judge Allen Baddour on May 15, sought basic subscriber information for the groups Instagram account. It also sought name, address, phone number, credit card information, account creation information, IP address, direct messages, location data, device data and connection logs from May 2-13. Investigator D.L. Brown with UNC Police sought the warrant two days after pro-Palestinian protests took place on and near the UNC campus on May 11, the same day as the universitys spring commencement. Graduates get their photos taken at the Old Well as pro-Palestinian demonstrators surround it at UNC Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, N.C., Saturday, May 11, 2024. The group advertised a rally called The Peoples Graduation on Franklin Street that morning. In the afternoon, individuals spattered red paint and wrote pro-Palestinian messages on the South Building, which houses the chancellors office. Brown, who points out in the warrant that the group posted photos of the damage, believes the individual or individuals running the uncsjp Instagram account planned and participated in the damage that was caused on May 11, according to the warrant. Brown indicated he was investigating the crimes of injury to real property and conspiracy to commit injury to real property, both misdemeanors. This type of search warrant is a part of the process afforded by the courts for criminal investigations, Best said. The University supports peaceful demonstrations, but the right to free speech does not include causing considerable damage to a historic building. Best confirmed no arrests have been made in connection to crimes alleged on the warrant. A shift in UNC policing? Adam Scott Wandt, an associate professor of public policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the warrant represents an extremely common practice by police in investigations of alleged crimes, including those that occur at protests. When warrants are sought in connection to protests, Wandt noted, they generally are not based on the protest itself, since the right to protest is protected under the First Amendment. Instead, police may seek warrants related to an extremely specific crime they believe has been committed during the protest. Workers clean off graffiti from the South Building at UNC Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon May 11, 2024. The use of search warrants for social media activity and information has become more popular among law enforcement since 2010, Wandt said. Using the warrants in relation to protest activity, when crimes are allegedly committed, became a flashpoint in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests as Twitter battled a court order to turn over protesters posts and user data. Eyewitness testimony is something that we like dealing with less and less, Wandt said. One of the great things about social media for law enforcement is that people actually type out and document their thoughts, their processes, what theyre doing, their motivations, and communications with others. But Jaelyn Miller, an attorney who represents people criminally charged after a previous pro-Palestine encampment on campus, said she isnt aware of other groups social media accounts being searched following previous protests. To her, the search warrant represents a shift in how UNC officials investigate damage after protests, said Miller, a staff attorney for the civil rights organization Emancipate NC. UNC police have gone from investigating individuals to investigating a larger group, she said. She questioned why they would use such resources and invade peoples privacy while investigating misdemeanors. UNC officials made the request knowing it would chill free speech and make people afraid to participate in protests, she said. I think just when it comes to this specific conflict, there seems to be a deep desire to crush out the movement at its core, she said. 14,500 Instagram followers Social media accounts and the information stored within them are protected under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Stored Communications Act, which generally prohibits electronic communications providers from sharing users information unless government officials seek a subpoena or warrant to obtain it. I hope law enforcement would not apply, and judges would not approve, any sort of search warrants just based on protest activity alone, and I havent seen that, Wandt said. But when crimes are committed in conjunction with protests, law enforcement are very quick to be able to go in and handle it. Maintenance workers pressure-wash the steps to UNCs South Building after protesters splattered red paint on them earlier this afternoon. The UNC SJP Instagram account is public, with posts generally available for anyone from its nearly 14,500 followers or the general public to see. But the account does not have a name publicly associated with it and, like any other account, its direct messages and other account details are not available for view to anyone other than those logged into the account. Clicking Instagrams About this account feature on the profile reveals only that the account joined Instagram in September 2019 and that it is based in the U.S. Meta, which owns Instagram and the company to which the warrant is addressed, did not respond to a request for a comment. Wandt said the company complies with warrants nearly all of the time in U.S.-based investigations in his experience if they meet all legal standards and Metas requirements on the issue. Social media companies generally reserve the right to choose whether they inform users that their account will be searched under a warrant, Wandt said. Meta states that the companys policy is to notify users of the searches unless we are prohibited by law from doing so or in exceptional circumstances. Brown, the SJP member, said she views the warrant as another step to silence demands that UNC disclose and divest investments linked to Israel. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) FBI agents released a suspects identity Friday in connection to the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl from Ogden and her two cousins in Mexico City. Elizabeth Ely Gonzalez was visiting her grandmother in Mexico City when family members say she walked to a nearby store with her two cousins Sofia Mailen Moreno Zamora, 6, and Regina Morena Zamora, 4. PREVIOUS STORY: 14-year-old Utah girl missing in Mexico, FBI asks for help Video surveillance captured the girls getting into a taxi and investigators said they were likely manipulated by an adult to do so. On Friday, July 12, the FBI named Antonio Moreno, 31, as a suspect and said he is Gonzalezs uncle and the biological father of Sofia and Regina Zamora. They say Moreno has been living in Kaysville and abruptly traveled to Mexico City on June 30, the day of the girls disappearance. The FBI named Antonio Moreno, 31, as a suspect in the disappearance of a Utah 14-year-old and her two cousins in Mexico. Moreno lives in Kaysville, Utah. (credit: FBI Salt Lake City Division) The FBI named Antonio Moreno, 31, as a suspect in the disappearance of a Utah 14-year-old and her two cousins in Mexico. Moreno lives in Kaysville, Utah. (credit: FBI Salt Lake City Division) The FBI named Antonio Moreno, 31, as a suspect in the disappearance of a Utah 14-year-old and her two cousins in Mexico. Moreno lives in Kaysville, Utah. (credit: FBI Salt Lake City Division) Investigators say their mothers did not permit Moreno to take them and the girls have not been seen or heard from since. An Amber Alert is currently active in Mexico for Elizabeth and her two cousins. While the FBI does not have the authority to investigate the disappearance of her cousins, they are working closely with their Mexican counterparts and believe all three girls are together. We believe the girls are in danger and still in Mexico, the latest FBI news release read. Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI Salt Lake City Division at 801-579-1400 or submit their tips online 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 ABC4 Utah. Jack Curtis, of the United Kansas Party, appears for an April 23, 2024, recording of the Kansas Reflector podcast. United Kansas Party chairman Jack Curtis says the minor political party filed lawsuits in Saline and Reno county district courts to challenge constitutionality of a state law blocking candidates from accepting nomination from more than one political party. The suits urge the courts to declare a 1901 law prohibiting cross-party nominations to be a violation of the Kansas Constitution's Bill of Rights. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA The newly formed United Kansas Party and eight individuals collaborated to file a pair of lawsuits in an attempt to overturn a state law adopted more than a century ago to forbid candidates from accepting more than one political party nomination for the same office. United Kansas chair Jack Curtis said the anti-fusion election law in Kansas, and comparable restraints adopted by Republican or Democratic majorities elsewhere in the United States, unconstitutionally forbid cross-party alliances among major party nominees and Populists, No Labels, Prohibitionists, Libertarians and others. He argued such laws were imposed to reinforce dominance of the two-party system and make minor parties electorally irrelevant. The nearly identical lawsuits filed Thursday in the Saline and Reno county district courts only plaintiff candidates and voters differ alleged violation of the Kansas Constitutions Bill of Rights in terms of the right of free speech, to assemble and to have equal protection under law. The complaints seek to have Kansas anti-fusion statute declared unconstitutional and enable candidates to accept more than one party nomination for an elective office. Any law invalidating our nominees undermines the fundamental rights of candidates to associate with the parties of their choice, and of parties and voters to choose their preferred nominees, Curtis said. Were taking legal action to ensure the rights of our party, our candidates and Kansas voters are respected and the Kansas Constitution is honored. Defendants in the suits are Scott Schwab, the Kansas secretary of state; Donna Patton, the Reno County clerk; and Jamie Doss, the clerk in Saline County. In June, Deputy Secretary of State Clay Barker sent a letter to Wichita attorneys Scott Poor and Sarah Foster, who represent the plaintiffs, that said candidates nominated by two or more recognized Kansas political parties would be compelled by state law to renounce all but one of the nominations. If a candidate didnt file notice of which nomination would be retained within seven days after party nominations were made official, Barker said the secretary of states office would unilaterally decide which nomination would survive and place the candidates name on the November ballot. The state Board of Canvassers plans to meet no later than Sept. 1 to certify primary election winners and issue party certificates of nomination. Given the unpredictability of election dynamics, Barker said, until early September no action can be taken by our office on the possibility of an individual receiving two nominations. Barkers correspondence pointed to a state law that had prohibited since 1901 an individual who received two or more party nominations from appearing on the ballot more than once. His letter referenced the potential of dual nominations in 2024 for J.C. Moore, a Haysville Republican and United Kansas candidate for Kansas Senate; Lori Blake, an Assaria Democratic and United Kansas candidate for Kansas House; and Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democratic and United Kansas candidate for the House. I accepted United Kansas nomination because the party fits my values, Moore said. As the two major parties drift further apart and extreme voices increasingly drown out common-sense candidates, fusion voting is the best way to ensure every Kansan once again feels represented and heard. Moore is competing in the August GOP primary against Sen. Chase Blasi, R-Wichita. The 26th District Senate race also features Democratic candidate Raymond Shore of Wichita. Blake is an uncontested candidate in the Democratic primary for the 69th District House seat, a race that includes Rep. Clarke Sanders, R-Salina. Probst is seeking reelection in the 102nd District of the House. The two Republican candidates in the district are Kyler Sweely and Tyson Thrall, both of Hutchinson. United Kansas was founded this year by Curtis and Sally Cauble, a former member of the Kansas State Board of Education who serves as the partys vice chair. In May, the secretary of states office declared United Kansas met requirements to be formally recognized in Kansas as a political party. In addition to the Democratic and Republican parties, United Kansas joined a roster with the No Labels Party and the Libertarian Party. A core principle of United Kansas, which intends to support centrist candidates for local and state office, was incorporation into the electoral system of multiple political party nominations. Party officials say the reform would allow a broader spectrum of voters to have a voice in elections. In such a structure, votes would be tallied separately by party and added together to produce a final result. Fusion voting would encourage minor political parties to organize around policy issues and attempt to influence outcome of elections without playing spoiler roles, United Kansas officials said. Since I got to the statehouse in 2017, Ive watched polarization grow worse with each session, said Probst, who accepted the United Kansas nomination and has no opponent in his Democratic primary. Now is the time for good people from both sides of the aisle to collaborate and get things done for Kansans, which is why I accepted United Kansas nomination. The Orlando Police Department told PEOPLE that the passenger was "transported to [an] area hospital for evaluation" Urbanandsport/NurPhoto/Getty A United Airlines flight takes off from Barcelona on Feb. 29, 2024 A United Airlines flight headed from Miami to Newark, N.J. this week diverted to Orlando, Fla. after a passenger was captured on video biting a flight attendant and becoming what the airline called "aggressive and disruptive." In footage originally shared by TMZ, a woman on United Flight 762 could be seen with her hands tied behind her back in the plane's aisle as she yelled at flight attendants and fellow passengers. While the airline employees tried to restrain her, the woman appeared to bite an attendant's shoulder before apparently spitting on another person. Citing an eyewitness, TMZ also reported that the woman threw punches during the ordeal. "People are recording me," she said at one point in the video, which was also shared by Good Morning America, before alleging an "attitude problem" with United employees, threatening to kill someone and calling a passenger an "old lady" before telling her to "go back to Russia." Related: Passenger Kicked Off WestJet Flight for Excessive Bathroom Use After Trip to Mexico The video ended with passengers applauding as police removed the woman from the flight, which TMZ reported was ultimately delayed three-and-a-half hours. In a statement to PEOPLE on Friday, July 12, United Airlines confirmed that the flight from Miami to Newark on Tuesday, July 11 had stopped in Orlando after the passenger "became aggressive and disruptive." Urbanandsport/NurPhoto/Getty "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," the airline said in a statement. They added, "Were grateful to our team for their professionalism and for looking out for the safety of our customers and their fellow United employees." 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 Orlando Police Department told PEOPLE in a statement on Friday that officers "responded to Gate 41 (United Airlines) in reference to a passenger aboard a flight." "The individual was transported to [an] area hospital for evaluation," an OPD spokesperson said. "No arrest has been made." Robert Alexander/Getty United Airlines flight in Nashville in September 2019 Per FlightAware, the plane left Miami International Airport at 5:38 p.m. and was in the air for roughly an hour and a half before being diverted to Orlando. A man who identified himself as a fellow passenger told the Daily Mail that the altercation began when the woman "apparently verbally and then physically attacked a family in the back of the plane after not being able to go to the bathroom at one moment." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Children work on tablets during a preschool class in Cincinnati in 2023. Many states are expanding pre-K, but there are barriers to attendance for many families. Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press 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 Maine 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. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 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. Everybody doesnt define universal the same way. You cant just wave a magic wand. Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University 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 story was originally published at Stateline. Like Maine Morning Star, 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. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST The University of Iowa Cambus system will use a federal grant to bring on six electric buses and expand its facilities. (Photo courtesy of the University of Iowa) A $16.4 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration will allow the University of Iowa to phase out a portion of its bus fleet with electric vehicles and update its facilities, putting the university in a better position to meet its sustainability goals and welcome new technological advances. According to a UI news release, the universitys Cambus system will use the grant funding to purchase six new battery-electric buses to replace some of the fleets oldest diesel buses and update and expand the Cambus facility to make it capable of housing electric buses. UI spokesperson Steve Schmadeke said in an email that the grant dollars will fully cover the bus purchases, which are expected to arrive in 2026, and between 80-90% of the facility updates and expansion, with the rest being covered by Cambus. Electric vehicles are the way the transit industry has been moving and investing in, said Cambus Operations Manager Mia Brunelli in the release. The technology has gotten to a place where it makes sense in our Cambus system, based on the routes we have, how long buses stay out on them, and how many miles we need our buses to travel. We know the university is committed to reducing greenhouse gases on campus, and these vehicles will contribute to that goal by reducing transportation emissions. Founded in 1972 by students with a six-bus fleet, Cambus now employs about 170 students and 10 full-time employees, Schmadeke said in the email. The 37-bus fleet operates fixed routes, on-demand and paratransit services, the news release stated. The Cambus facility currently doesnt have the space or technology to support electric vehicles, the release stated, as its ceilings are too low and the infrastructure to power them isnt in place. The new facility will expand by about 20,000 square feet on the north side of the current building on Madison Street in Iowa City, according to the release. It will bring all Cambus employees under one roof in addition to hosting new maintenance bays, offices and training areas. Brunelli said in the release that the new facility will also allow Cambus to accommodate future developments in transportation, like alternative types of fuel. Were very excited, Brunelli said in the release about the future changes. We were very focused in putting this grant application together to set Cambus up for many more years. Cambus marked 50 years in 2022, and this facility modernization and expansion and the use of alternative fuels will ensure continued success. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post University of Iowa awarded FTA grant for electric buses, facility expansion appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch. ST. PAUL, Va. (WJHL) The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) issued recreational water and fish consumption advisories for Lick Creek in Wise and Russell counties due to contaminated water. The advisories are for the part of the creek from the 628 bridge to the confluence with the Clinch River. For the safety of people and pets, VDH is advising that recreational water activities, such as swimming and wading, be avoided in this area of the waterway, the Virginia Department of Health said in a release. VDH is also issuing a fish consumption advisory, recommending not consuming any fish taken from the Lick Creek headwaters to its confluence with the Clinch River. Advisories are effective Friday, July 11 until further notice. Person in child sex crime investigation involved in Wise County shooting According to the VDH, the advisories were issued out of an abundance of caution due to an ongoing release of an unknown substance with unknown origin. The substance is believed to be human sewage, but other contaminants, such as oil or petroleum, have not been ruled out. Due to the uncertainty of the substance being released which is ongoing, VDH is still learning what adverse health effects someone may experience, VDH said. Touching the liquid substance, which is a dark liquid with a strong sewage odor, or consuming contaminated fish taken from the waterway, are ways the public may be exposed. It is advised to stay away from the impacted area and to contact your medical practitioner if you feel like you have been affected. Local plant experts offer lawn, garden solutions for heat The VDH said it had not observed any impacts on drinking water so far. The department issued the following tips: Avoid contact with Lick Creek from the 628 bridge to the confluence with the Clinch River and observe advisory signage posted at waterbody access points. Avoid any area of the waterbody where there is water with a foul or chemical odor, dead or dying fish, or discolored water. Promptly wash skin with soap and water if you cannot avoid contact with water in the vicinity. Rinse or wash items that come into contact with the water, such as clothing, fishing gear, life vests, ropes and paddles. Follow the fish consumption advisories in place for impacted waterways and to avoid eating any fish with oily residue, lesions, or odor. Seek medical care and notify your practitioner of the waterbody exposure if you experience adverse health effects after contact with the waterbody. 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. Republican Nevada county officials are joining the election disinformation crusade a few months early. On Tuesday, the Washoe County Commissioner Board voted 3-2 against certifying the results of an official recount of contests from Nevadas June 9 primary, in a move slammed by the states attorney general as undemocratic. The two races, a county commissioner district and a school board trustee spot, saw the same results as the initial tally in the recount. The Boards decision is unlawful, and besieges core tenets of fair elections in our State, the states Attorney General Aaron Ford wrote in a court filing on behalf of the Secretary of State. Nevada law makes canvassing election results including recount results by a certain date a mandatory legal duty for the Board. The vote went down along party lines, with Republican commissioners citing unfounded irregularities that, despite the recount, warrant further investigations, emphasizing the spread of right-wing attacks on election legitimacy since Donald Trumps efforts to deny and subvert the results of the 2020 race. This vote has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for elections in Nevada. It is unacceptable that any public officer would undermine the confidence of their voters, Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said in a statement. Per the Nevada Current, a similar stunt in Arizona resulted in Cochise County supervisors being forced to certify their countys election results in 2022. It landed two of the supervisors in felony investigations. Nevada, which has stalled its case against Trump supporters who sent a slate of fake electors to Congress as part of a national scheme to overturn the election, is considered a crucial swing state, awarding its electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020 after a contentious battle against the states counting efforts from the Trump campaign. DENVER (KDVR) A vehicle fire along U.S. 285 on Thursday afternoon led to a small wildfire near homes and horses and closed the southbound lanes for about an hour. It happened around 2:38 p.m. along U.S. 285 and Sunrise Lane, near Hillview, according to a release from Elk Creek Fire Protection District. A van pulling a trailer caught fire, and the flames spread into the grass and trees near the highway. Bookmark this: Live traffic map for Colorado from FOX31 There were residences just adjacent to this area, as well as horses, reads the release from Elk Creek Fire. When responders arrived on scene, exposures were immediately protected, and the fire was prevented from spreading to the adjacent residences. The wildfire grew to about a half-acre. No injuries were reported. The cause of the vehicle fire was unknown as of Thursday afternoon, according to Elk Creek Fire. Black smoke and flames billow from a van with a trailer in tow along a grassy roadside with trees Elk Creek Fire said the department provided mutual aid to Inter-Canyon Fire Protection District, whose crews were the first to arrive on the scene. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office and Colorado Department of Transportation also responded. The fire comes as heat advisories are set to begin starting Friday and lasting through the weekend across the Front Range. Triple-digit temperatures are expected, raising concerns about fire danger as dry conditions persist. Pinpoint Weather: The latest warnings, watches, and alerts The Fire Protection Districts wish to remind all residents and recreationists to be extremely wildfire aware as we move into a weekend with extremely high heat and low humidity predicted, Elk Creek Fire 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 FOX31 Denver. US defence secretary talks with new Russian defence minister Pentagon US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held his second phone conversation with Andrei Belousov, the new minister of defence of Russia, on 12 July. Source: Sabrina Singh, spokesperson of the Pentagon, at a briefing, as reported by European Pravda Details: Singh stated that the conversation between Austin and Belousov occurred following the results of the NATO Summit in Washington on 9-11 July. "Secretary Austin emphasised the importance of maintaining the lines of communication amid Russias ongoing war against Ukraine," she added. Singh then specified that the call "was initiated by the Russian side". This was the second conversation between US Defense Secretary Austin and Russian Defence Minister Belousov the previous one was held on 25 June. Before that the conversation between the heads of defence of the US and Russia was held in March 2023. The contacts between Moscow and Washington have reduced significantly since the beginning of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine. Background: Russian ruler Vladimir Putin replaced Sergey Shoigu with Andrei Belousov on the post of the minister of defence of Russia on 12 May. Commenting on the Kremlin's personnel changes, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said that new Russian Defence Minister Belousov would be "another of Putin's puppets". The US Department of State noted that reshuffles in the Russian Defence Ministry were a sign that Putin wanted to continue his war of aggression against Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! US Navy pilots come home after months of shooting down Houthi missiles and drones Lindsay Nelson kisses her husband, Robert "Fat Goose" Nelson, after he returned to NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., on Friday, July 12, 2024. The pilots returned after a nearly nine-month deployment with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot via AP) VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) U.S. Navy fighter pilots came home to Virginia feeling relieved Friday after months of shooting down Houthi-launched missiles and drones off Yemen's coast in the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II. F/A-18 Super Hornets swooped over waiting families in a low formation before landing at their base in Virginia Beach. Dressed in green flight suits, the aviators embraced women in summer dresses and kids carrying American flags. Some handed red roses to their wives and daughters. Were going to go sit down on the couch, and were going to try and make up for nine months of lost time, Cmdr. Jaime Moreno said while hugging his two young daughters, ages 2 and 4, and kissing his wife Lynn. Clearing the emotion from his voice, Moreno said he couldn't be prouder of his team and everything that the last nine months have entailed. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group, which includes three other warships, was protecting merchant vessels and allied warships under fire in a vital Red Sea corridor that leads to the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain in what they say is a campaign to support the militant group Hamas in its war the Gaza against Israel, though they frequently have targeted ships with no clear links to Israel or its supporters, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade. The U.S. and its allies have been fighting back: One round of fire in January saw F/A-18s from the Eisenhower and other ships shoot down 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis. U.S. Navy sailors have seen incoming Houthi-launched missiles seconds before they are destroyed by their ships defensive systems. Officials in the Pentagon have been talking about how to care for the sailors when they return home, including counseling and treatment for possible post-traumatic stress. Cmdr. Benjamin Orloff, a Navy pilot, told reporters in Virginia Beach on Friday that most of the sailors, including him, weren't used to being fired on given the nation's previous military engagements in recent decades. It was incredibly different, Orloff said. And Ill be honest, it was a little traumatizing for the group. Its something that we dont think about a lot until youre presented with it. But at the same time, Orloff said sailors responded with grit and resilience. Whats impressive is how all those sailors turned right around - and given the threat, given that stress - continued to do their jobs beyond reproach, Orloff said, adding that it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The carrier strike group had left Virginia in mid-October. Its deployment was extended twice because of the importance of having a powerful carrier strike group, which can launch fighter jets at a moment's notice, in the volatile region. The months of fighting and extensions placed extra stress on roughly 7,000 sailors and their families. Caitlyn Jeronimus, whose husband Keith is a Navy lieutenant commander and pilot, said she initially thought this deployment would be relatively easy, involving some exercises with other NATO countries. But then Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and plans changed. It was going to be, if you could call it, a fun deployment where hes going to get lots of ports to visit, Jeronimus said. She said the Eisenhower's plans continued to change, which was exacerbated by the knowledge that there were people who want to harm the ship. Jeronimus leaned on counselors provided by the Navy. Her two children, aged 5 and 8, were old enough to understand that daddy has been gone for a long time, she said. It was stressful." South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol accompanied by first lady Kim Keon Hee, left, with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena Zelenska, far right, on the Blue Room Balcony as President Joe Biden welcome NATO allies and partners to the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, on the South Lawn for the 75th anniversary of the NATO Summit. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) SEOUL, South Korea (AP) The U.S. and South Korea signed joint nuclear deterrence guidelines for the first time, a basic yet important step in their efforts to improve their ability to respond to North Koreas evolving nuclear threats. Meeting Thursday on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington, President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol commended what they called the tremendous progress that their countries alliance has made a year after creating a joint Nuclear Consultative Group. The two leaders authorized the U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula, which were signed by defense officials Thursday, according to South Koreas presidential office. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Koreas official name. Last year, the U.S. and South Korea launched the consultative body to strengthen communication on nuclear operations and discuss how to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons in various contingencies. The U.S. has long promised to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend South Korea if it is attacked, but faced suspicions that it lacks plans on how it would exercise its extended deterrence for its Asian ally. The consultative body was established as North Korea has sharply accelerated its missile testing activities and openly threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively in potential conflicts with its rivals. South Korea has no nuclear weapons. The presidents underscored that the Guidelines document provides a solid foundation for enhancing U.S.-ROK extended deterrence cooperation in an integrated manner, said a joint statement by Biden and Yoon. Du Hyeogn Cha, an analyst at Seouls Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the guidelines mark substantial progress in deterrence plans, but the allies will still need to fill in the details and conduct military exercises to test them. Kim Tae-hyo, a deputy national security director in South Korea, told reporters that South Korea and the U.S. will conduct joint military exercises to help implement the deterrence guidelines. He said the U.S. would commit specific nuclear assets to a role in deterrence plans, but experts added that this does not mean it would permanently place nuclear weapons in South Korea. Specifics of the guidelines, which Seoul called confidential, were not available, though the U.S. will certainly retain control of its nuclear weapons. The key is how to integrate South Koreas conventional weapons and Americas nuclear weapons to launch joint, massive retaliation to North Korea, when it carries out nuclear strikes on South Korea, said Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Koreas Korea Institute for Military Affairs. He said prospects for South Korea-U.S. coordination are bright if Biden is re-elected in the November election, but could suffer a setback if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House. North Korea is expected to respond angrily to the announcement, as it has previously accused its rivals of using the consultation group to plot a nuclear attack on the North. Worries about North Korea have further deepened since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signed a deal requiring each country to provide aid to the other if it is attacked, and vowed to boost other cooperation. Analysts say the accord represents the strongest connection between the two countries since the end of the Cold War. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox says hes not voting for Donald Trump, instead will write somebody in SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Utah Gov. Spencer Cox didnt vote for Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections, and he doesnt plan to vote for him come November. In an interview Wednesday on The Source with Kaitlan Collins, the Beehive States governor told the CNN host hell write somebody in as hes done in past election years. Im not going to vote for either presidential candidate this year, Cox said. Progressives circle wagons around embattled Biden The Republican moderate known for his Disagree Better initiative said that he had concerns over former President Trump, specifically mentioning the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Even so, Cox told CNN that he wants the Republican party to win in November, because the nation needs the right people in the right positions. Trumps pick for his running mate is something Cox said he is anxiously watching. He mentioned North Dakota Gov. James Burgum as someone who could unite Republicans in the general election. He called Burgum an incredible leader. An announcement on Trumps V.P. pick could come as soon as Monday, when the Republican National Convention is set to kick off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Huge mistake Earlier this year, Cox said that both Republicans and Democrats were making a huge mistake in setting up a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden. I think the party that figures this out first and nominates someone else, though that may be four years from now, is going to clean up in a big way, he said in a February press conference. Trump and Biden are the presumptive presidential nominees for their respective parties. However, some Democrats have recently expressed concerns over whether Biden is fit to run following his poor debate performance last month. Despite calls for him to step down, Biden has not called off his 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 ABC4 Utah. The entrance to the Utah Supreme Court inside the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City is pictured on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) The Utah Supreme Courts ruling on Thursday, which handed a major win to plaintiffs in an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit, was a watershed moment. Thats how the plaintiffs attorney, David Reymann with Parr Brown Gee & Loveless, described it during a news conference celebrating the ruling. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In a unanimous opinion released that day, Utah Supreme Court justices ruled a district court erred when it dismissed a claim that the Utah Legislature violated the Utah Constitution in 2021 when it repealed and replaced a voter-approved ballot initiative that would have enacted an independent commission to draw Utahs new political districts in its redistricting process. While legislative leaders at the helm of Utahs Republican-supermajority Legislature have argued its well within lawmakers constitutional authority to change ballot initiatives and ultimately adopt their own version of the maps, the Utah Supreme Courts opinion clearly stated there are limits to that authority. Although the Legislature has authority to amend or repeal statutes, it is well settled that legislative action cannot unduly infringe or restrain the exercise of constitutional rights, Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the opinion. Consequently, when Utahns exercise their right to reform the government through an initiative, this limits the Legislatures authority to amend or repeal the initiative. Such a ruling has major implications not just for the lawsuit that now goes back to 3rd District Court but also, depending on how the rest of the court case plays out, for Utahs future congressional district boundaries, perhaps as early as 2026. It could also lay the field for a whole new game when it comes to other voter initiatives and the Utah Legislatures legal ability to tweak them. What the (Utah) Supreme Court did today was establish a new framework in Utah that doesnt just apply to citizen initiatives about gerrymandering, but any democracy-furthering, government-reform initiative, Reymann said. What now? Its impossible to predict exactly what will come next, given the case will now go back to 3rd District Court for a trial. However, Reymann said he believes the Utah Supreme Court strengthened his clients case by making clear the Legislatures powers have limits. At its core, what the Supreme Court ruled today was that the Legislature cannot constitutionally ignore the will of the people when they act to reform their government. It is not, as the Legislature tried to put it, a harmless game of ping-pong between the Legislature and the citizens, Reymann said. Its a fundamental right, and if the Legislature wants to change something the citizens have done to reform their government, then they need to satisfy the highest level of scrutiny known to the law, he said. And that is something we dont think theyll be able to do in this case. Supporters of an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit gather at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City for a press conference celebrating the Utah Supreme Courts ruling in favor of the plaintiffs on July 11, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) When asked what the ruling means for Utahs 2021 redistricting process and its resulting maps, Reymann said we dont know the ultimate end game, but the Utah Supreme Court ruled the district court must decide whether the Utah Legislature can satisfy its burden of overcoming this level of scrutiny. If they cannot, then the repeal that the Legislature put in place that took away Prop 4 (SB200), will be invalid, and the laws that were enacted by Prop 4 will be the law of the land, he said. And then, the maps that the Legislature has put in place have to be tested against those standards (in Proposition 4). And we dont think they will satisfy them for many reasons. Ultimately, Reymann said his clients hope is that Proposition 4 will govern the redistricting process. That new law would ban partisan gerrymandering and requires the Legislature, if it doesnt adopt maps put forth by an independent commission, to adopt maps that adhere to neutral criteria outlined in the proposition. Its hard to know exactly how that process would play out whether the Legislature would adopt the previously-discarded maps drawn by the 2021 independent commission, whether new maps would need to be drawn, and when or if Utah would adopt new maps. But Elevate Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm, said the ruling could pave the way for new redistricting maps as soon as the 2026 election cycle. As news of the ruling spread, it sent shockwaves across Utah. It was joyous news for anti-gerrymandering groups like Better Boundaries, which originally sought the 2018 voter initiative, and the lawsuits plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and individual Salt Lake County residents who alleged they were disenfranchised by unlawful gerrymandering. For Utahs Republican legislative leaders, it was also earth shattering but in the worst way. Ruling destroys our basic Republic, Utah Senate president says Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, issued a seething statement that did not mince words, calling the ruling one of the worst outcomes to ever come out of the Utah Supreme Court. They said the ruling effectively made a new law about the initiative power, creating chaos and striking at the very heart of our Republic. Im sad and disappointed, an audibly heated Adams told Utah News Dispatch in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. I never thought this would happen in Utah, of all states in the nation. Basically, theyve changed this from a rule of republic to a rule of referendum. So why would you ever come to the Legislature to pass a law if you can just just do it by referendum, and it becomes super status? Utah Senate President Stuart Adams Adams said he fears it could open the door for California-style politics in Utah, ruling by referendum by creating a whole new statute a super law that cant be changed. Basically, theyve changed this from a rule of republic to a rule of referendum, Adams said. So why would you ever come to the Legislature to pass a law if you can just just do it by referendum, and it becomes super status? That destroys our basic Republic, Adams said, painting a glum picture of what the ruling spells for Utahs future. Utah, he said, leads the nation in economic development and upward mobility. Were the happiest state in the nation. Were the most philanthropic. Were the most humanitarian. We do so many great things. Were the best-managed state in the nation. And the (Utah) Supreme Court potentially changed all that today, Adams said. With a new management style that I believe will be difficult for Utah to stay in that type of status. Weve taken away the Republic. When you destroy the Republic, thats a sad day. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, is pictured during a press conference on the first day of the legislative session at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) Other lawmakers also took to social media to decry the ruling, including Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan. In a lengthy post on X, Teuscher said the decision is a stark deviation from the principles that have guided our state so effectively. While grassroots, citizen-led initiatives can have value, this ruling creates a rigid and unmanageable system. By allowing initiatives to become immutable super laws, the Court has opened the door to potentially devastating consequences, Tuescher wrote. Utah now faces the risk of becoming like California, where large sums of outside money influence laws that do not reflect the values of our citizens. The nations founders wisely designed a democratic republic to prevent the chaos of direct democracy, he continued. This ruling disrupts that balance, leaving Utah vulnerable to the whims of special interests and fleeting majorities. Im afraid that if something isnt done to mitigate the consequences of this decision, Utah will be a shell of its former self. How will Utah lawmakers respond? Its unclear what if anything the Utah Legislature could do to respond to the ruling. As voter initiatives have risen in popularity in recent years, Utah lawmakers have explored various ways to make it more difficult to successfully get them on the ballot. When pressed on whether the Legislature can or will do anything, Adams didnt have a specific answer. Im not sure what we can do, he said. But were going to continue to stand up to protect the peoples right, to elect their elected officials and have them govern. Asked for specifics, Adams said Thursday lawmakers will do whats within our constitutional power. We dont know what those are. Were still reading the report, it came out this morning. Were going to react accordingly. What theyve done, Adams said of the Utah Supreme Court, is basically said if you have enough money and you can buy signatures if you have enough money to pay for the ads, whether its Facebook ads or social media ads or TV ads you can pass a super law. That super law, whatever it is, is untouchable by the Legislature. And that means you put the power in the people who have the money. And thats not what our constitution stands for. Katie Wright, Better Boundaries executive director, speaks at a press conference celebrating the Utah Supreme Courts ruling in favor of an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City on July 11, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) Katie Wright, executive director of Better Boundaries, said there has been ongoing, consistent efforts almost every legislative session to make it harder for all of us to enact our constitutional right to ballot initiatives. I do not see that slowing down. I absolutely see it ramping up, she said, noting Better Boundaries has been working to fight those efforts, including legislation that would have increased the required signature threshold to place an initiative on the ballot. We anticipate that coming back. A ballot initiative is core to our practice of representative democracy, and were committed to protecting it, Wright said. And yes, we believe its under attack and will remain under attack. Asked if lawmakers could potentially create new laws to make it more difficult for voters to put voter initiatives or referendums on the ballot something that could potentially be questionable legally now under the Utah Supreme Courts ruling Adams said, right now, I dont think that matters. People will do what they have to do to pass a super law, he said. If those that want to have enough money, theyll do whatever they can to pass a super law. I mean, its crazy. Why would you come to the legislative body to pass any type of statute if you can just do it by referendum and have it unchangeable? Can the ruling apply to other voter initiatives? While Adams comments paint the Utah Supreme Court ruling in a broad stroke, implying it has implications for all voter initiatives, Reymann told reporters Thursday the question of whether the ruling could apply to other voter initiatives that arent targeted so specifically at government reform like perhaps medical cannabis or medicaid expansion, which voters also passed in recent years is yet to be answered. David Reymann, attorney with Parr Brown Gee & Loveless representing plaintiffs in an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit against the state of Utah, speaks at a press conference at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City celebrating the Utah Supreme Courts ruling in his clients favor on July 11, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch) Its a good question and its one they left for another day, Reymann said. They said in this case theres no question that this initiative was exercising the peoples right explicitly to reform their government, but there will be other initiatives that will be considered government reform initiatives, and it will be left to those cases to decide where the boundaries lie. While Adams and Schultz said in their joint statement that as the lawsuit makes its way through district court, we believe the Utah Constitutions text shows that the Legislature should ultimately prevail, Adams told Utah News Dispatch he was very concerned about the legal standing the Utah Supreme Courts ruling puts the Legislatures case in. Again, I think the Supreme Court basically took away the ability for duly elected officials to be able to do their job, he said. As for whats next, Adams said its unchartered territory. Im not going to say where were going from here, because I dont know, he said. But I do know that I believe the Supreme Court made a mistake. Theyve all taken an oath to abide by the constitution. Theyve all taken an oath to follow the law, to follow the statute. And I just believe theyve made a severe mistake today. Reymann said its not uncommon to see lawmakers respond to court decisions by changing the law, but the importance of this decision is it places limits on the ability to do that, and it makes clear that the Legislature simply does not have unfettered power to just simply change laws that the citizens enact. To comments from lawmakers upset with the Utah Supreme Courts decision, Reymann said claiming that the judiciary has overstepped is usually what people say when they dont like the result. Its not a reasoned attack on the decision. We think (the ruling) is well-rounded and the Supreme Court went to great lengths to detail how well-grounded it is in the history of the state, he said. So they can say whatever they want about it, its not going to change the outcome. DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST Iraq's Assyrian Community Defies Extinction LiCAS News Syriac Orthodox Christians attend the Easter Mass at the Saint Mary church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, on May 5, 2024. ( Zaid AL-OBEIDI/AFP) Speaking during an online conference organized by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Archbishop Semaan drew parallels between the enduring nature of olive trees and the steadfast spirit of the Christian Iraqis. "ISIS tried to eradicate us, but they failed," he said, reflecting on the horrors that began ten years ago. This metaphor captures the essence of a community determined not only to survive but to thrive against all odds. The conference also highlighted the geopolitical tensions that continue to simmer in the region. Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil voiced concerns about these tensions, noting the precarious position of Christians, who often find themselves as targets or collateral victims in the broader regional conflicts. Despite the absence of direct threats from ISIS today, the remnants of its divisive ideology linger, posing challenges to communal harmony. Archbishop Semaan criticized the ongoing sectarian isolation, which segments communities into "isolated islands," lacking interaction and mutual understanding. He underscored the critical role of education and legal frameworks that prioritize human dignity over religious distinctions, aiming to cultivate a culture of respect and inclusion. ACN has been instrumental in reviving the Christian presence in the Nineveh Plains by funding reconstruction projects that have encouraged many to return. Regina Lynch, executive president of ACN International, said the organization's multifaceted support to Iraq's Christian community, started with emergency aid in 2014 and led to extensive rebuilding efforts. "Over the following years, we helped first to secure the basic needs of the displaced, then housing, and finally, the rebuilding of their homes, so that those who wished to return to their towns and villages could do so, once ISIS had been pushed back," she said. Today, signs of recovery are evident across towns like Qaraqosh, where nearly half of its pre-ISIS Christian population has returned. The community's reintegration, however, is tempered by the reality that many who have resettled abroad may never return permanently, particularly those with children who are now rooted in foreign lands. Archbishop Warda highlighted various initiatives, such as the Pope Francis Scholarship Program, which extends educational support to non-Christian communities like Muslims and Yezidis, embodying the Gospel of solidarity through practical acts of kindness. "The Church is not merely a spiritual refuge but a lifeline for the people," Archbishop Warda said, illustrating how it transcends its religious functions to provide social support, embodying a sanctuary that remains open around the clock. FILE PHOTO: Vanuatu Prime Minister Tabimasmas addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S. WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai has asked the Bank of China to set up operations in the Pacific Island nation, his office said in a statement on Friday. The statement, posted on Facebook, said Salwai had made the request during a visit to bank officials in China. A decision has yet to be made on the Port Villa branch, which could be used as a clearing bank for yuan, it added. Bank of China did not respond to a request for comment. The announcement comes as the United States and Australia scrabble to devise a plan to improve financial access in the strategic Pacific Island region, which global banks have been steadily leaving due to small populations and vast distances that mean little prospect of profit. Many countries also lack the resources to find and prosecute financial crime, raising the risk that banks get embroiled in embarrassing and expensive scandals. Earlier this week, The United States and Australia co-hosted a meeting in Brisbane to find solutions to improve financial access in the region in which China is also jockeying for influence. The Vanuatu government statement said a yuan clearing facility would help reduce prices of Chinese-made goods, as these were currently being paid for by a strong U.S. dollar. Bank of China has offices in New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Earlier this year, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Nauru to explore banking solutions. Salwai, who travelled to Shanghai on Tuesday, is visiting China before attending a Pacific Island leaders meeting in Japan next week. Earlier this week Salwai visited technology company Huawei in Shenzhen. (Reporting by Lucy Craymer in Wellington and Kirsty Needham in Sydney; editing by Miral Fahmy) John Companion, left, dumps a bucket of muddy water while helping his friend Scott Mackie, right, clear his flooded basement while cleaning up the remnants of Hurricane Beryl in Waterbury, Vt., on Thursday. Mackie said his basement was filled with nearly five feet of mud, which friends and neighbors are helping to empty. (Charles Krupa/AP) Exactly one year since historic flooding ravaged northern Vermont, heavy rains remnants of Hurricane Beryl triggered flash floods on Thursday that washed aways roads and bridges, toppled an apartment building and left at least two people dead. Up to six inches of rain fell in a matter of hours in virtually the exact same area that was devastated by the historic 2023 flooding. The edge of a collapsed riverbank is seen in Plainfield, Vt., on Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) In Plainfield, Vt., a six-unit apartment building was swept away by floodwaters. Michael Billingsley, the towns emergency management director, said residents of the building had just 15 minutes to evacuate before it was washed away. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement The water was coming up, so I knew it was time to leave with my dog, Hilary Conant, who fled her second-floor Plainfield apartment, told the Associated Press. Conant, who had to evacuate the same building during last years floods, said having to do it again was very retraumatizing. A cyclist pauses to look at the Winooski River, which overflowed its banks covering nearly a quarter mile of roadway in North Williston, Vt., on Thursday. (Charles Krupa/AP) But others were not as fortunate. A 73-year-old man identified as John Rice died when his vehicle was swept off a roadway in Lyndonville, Vt., and into a hayfield that was submerged under 10 feet of water, officials said. Vermont State Police said Rice had ignored bystanders warnings to turn around. His body was recovered several hours later. Dylan Kempton, 33, died when his all-terrain vehicle was swept away by floodwaters in Peacham, Vt., late Wednesday. His body was recovered Thursday morning. Floodwaters triggered by the remnants of Beryl are seen in Waterbury, Vt., Thursday. (Hasan Jamali/AP) The deluge came a year to the day of the historic and catastrophic floods of July 11, 2023, which drew comparisons to the devastation wrought by Tropical Storm Irene more than a decade earlier. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement "The damage is significant," Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said Friday. "It will take a few days before we have a more complete understanding of the damage and what is needed for recovery." "But as I visited towns yesterday and spoke with people, I was reminded of how resilient Vermonters really are, even in the face of devastation," he added. "I saw many community members come together doing what they can for their neighbors to help them get through this." Vermont and parts of northern New York and New England remained under flood watches or warnings early Friday, the National Weather Service said, as thunderstorms associated with Beryl were forecast for much of the region. See more photos of Thursday's flooding in Vermont: A rocking chair sits on the edge of a collapsed riverbank in Plainfield, Vt., on Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) A vehicle is partially buried in silt following the flooding in Plainfield, Vt., on Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Jack Arpey, of Underhill, Vt., walks through floodwaters to recover his mom's stranded car at a commuter parking lot in Richmond on Thursday. (Charles Krupa/AP) Debris from floodwaters is seen in Plainfield, Vt., Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Scott Mackie shovels mud away from his home while cleaning up the remnants of Hurricane Beryl in Waterbury, Vt., Thursday. (Charles Krupa/AP) Debris is seen after a flash flood in Plainfield, Vt., on Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Residents clean up following the flooding in Plainfield, Vt., Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Downed trees lay across a damaged bridge over the Winooski River in Plainfield, Vt., Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) A woman looks at the remains of a road that was washed away by floodwaters in Plainfield, Vt., Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Floodwaters from the Winooski River are seen in Plainfield, Vt., Thursday. (Dmitry Belyakov/AP) Jody Tanner, of the Vermont Transportation Agency, talks with co-workers at a high-water point of the Lamoille River along Route 15 after remnants of Hurricane Beryl caused flooding in Cambridge, Vt., on Thursday. At rear is the Gates Farm Covered Bridge. (Charles Krupa/AP) VERNON COUNTY, Mo. Earlier this year, the Vernon County Republican Committee filed suit to keep eight people from appearing on the August primary ballot. Friday, we were able to catch up with a couple of them, who told us that to them, this was about ensuring the voters right to choose their candidate. Mike Buehler is one of the candidates running for sheriff in Vernon County on the Republican ticket. He says one of the reasons he chose not to go through the vetting process was his past experience. Buehler served two terms as county clerk in Vernon County and says during that time, he had the full support of the local party. Meanwhile, Kelsey Westerhold is finishing up her first term as Vernon County administrator. She says her job, serving as a court-appointed guardian and conservator, isnt a political one and that the vetting process could potentially turn it into one. Since they allowed me to be on the Republican ticket four years ago, they accepted my filing fee, and then this comes about, I want to know what I did wrong, said Westerhold. I feel like as the sheriff, I have to be non-biased, and by me signing that contract or taking their test, going through the vetting process, that binds me to one party, said Buehler. We were also able to catch up with Vernon County Republican Committee Chair Cyndia Haggard. She told us while none of the eight candidates they sued to keep off the ballot have been vetted, the legal battle was never about that process. Instead, she says the fight centered around whether or not County Clerk Adrienne Lee had the authority to take the filing fees from those candidates. As for the vetting, Haggard says the local party has become dissatisfied with the performance of people they believe run as a Republican but then operate with a different set of values once in office, especially at the state level. We asked her: If the concern is at the state level, then why focus on vetting candidates on the county level? County-level elected office is traditionally the stepping stone to higher office. So one of the complaints we hear is, Im Republican enough, you know, Ive already shown Im a Republican, Ive been elected by the voters. Well, most of the time youre running unopposed, or the first time you ran, you had opposition and the party helped you, after that you run unopposed. So, you cant really say the voters have vetted you if they dont have any other choice, said Haggard. Last week, the Missouri Appellate Court dismissed the lawsuit, saying it was too late to add or remove names from the ballot, but left in place an order placing those names on the ballot. An appeal for the State Supreme Court to hear the case has been rejected. Haggard says the committee will speak with its legal counsel before deciding what steps it takes next. 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. The Cheboygan Area Public Library will also host a blood drive from 12-5 p.m. on Thursday, July 25. CHEBOYGAN Versiti Blood Center of Michigan is sounding the alarm and making a plea for donations as the state faces a dangerously low blood supply. In a press release dated July 8, the organization said certain blood types have less than a day's worth of availability. They also noted that summer donations have dropped drastically, and are reaching a critical low. According to the press release, all blood types are needed, with O-positive and O-negative being the most in demand. "The demand for blood simply does not match the number of donors coming through our doors," said Dr. Dan Waxman, vice president of transfusion medicine and senior medical director at Versiti, in a statement. "While we deeply appreciate our loyal donors who consistently show up, it's important to recognize that about 3 percent of people who are eligible to donate blood actually do. If it's been a while since your last donation or you're a first-time donor, we are excited to welcome you." Subscribe: Check out our offers and read the local news that matters to you In Northern Michigan, Versiti has donor center locations in Traverse City, 2575 Aero Park Drive, and Gaylord, 133 W. Main St. Suite 101. The Cheboygan Area Public Library will also host a blood drive from 12-5 p.m. on Thursday, July 25. Those interested in donating will register, be screened, donate and spend a few minutes with snacks. The process takes an hour or less, and their donation will be available within 48 hours. Walk-ins are welcome. You can sign up with a call to Versiti at (866) 642-5663 or visit versiti.org. The library regularly hosts blood drives. For more information, call or stop by the library at 100 S. Bailey St. in Cheboygan. Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com. This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Versiti Blood Center makes emergency plea for donations, Cheboygan library to host July 24 blood drive Who is JD Vance? Vice presidential candidate has multiple ties to Columbus J.D. Vance grew up in Middletown, Ohio, as he details in his 2016 book "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," but that doesn't mean the vice presidential candidate doesn't have ties and love for the Columbus area. In 2016, Vance told a Dispatch reporter: "I went to Ohio State and really love central Ohio." Vance, a United States Senator for Ohio elected in 2022, lives in Cincinnati but has claimed Columbus as home. He graduated from Ohio State University and briefly lived in German Village splitting time between a rental there and Washington D.C. in 2017 and early 2018 after moving to Ohio from San Francisco. Presidential candidate Donald Trump selected him as his running mate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, July 15, 2024. The now 39-year-old told the Dispatch in July 2017 that he frequented local favorite Stauf's Coffee Roasters on South 3rd Street while living in German Village. "I definitely feel at home in Columbus. I went to Ohio State," he said at the time. "I think it's a really awesome city, underrated in some ways." Where did J.D. Vance attend and graduate college? JD Vance at an April 2022 rally with former President Donald Trump at the Delaware County Fairgrounds. Vance has Columbus connections, though he grew up in Middletown. Vance attended Ohio State University and graduated in 2009. In 2017, he was a scholar in residence in Ohio State's Department of Political Science and spoke at his alma mater multiple times. He spoke about his book and his nonprofit in 2016 and 2017, as well as about how he thought the problems facing Ohio could be solved. His memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," made him a name in Ohio and elsewhere. It details his childhood, which included drug addiction, abuse and poverty while he grew up in Middletown, largely in the care of his grandmother, who he called Mamaw. Vance spoke at a sold-out Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon in 2017 as part of a panel on poverty and his book was honored in 2017 by the Ohioana Book Awards, hosted that year at the Ohio Statehouse. Vance wrote about Columbus, Ohio State University in 'Hillbilly Elegy' Chapter 11 of Vance's memoir begins as he arrives at Ohio State for orientation in September 2007. In the book, he describes his excitement, his south campus house and beautiful weather. "Columbus felt like an urban paradise," he wrote, comparing it to Middletown. "It was (and remains) one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, powered in large part by the bustling university that was now my home." Vance once worked at the Ohio Statehouse While studying at Ohio State, Vance took a job at the Ohio Statehouse. He was working for former late State Sen. Bob Schuler, a Republican who he describes in his book as "remarkably kind." Vance wrote about how seeing the political process internally made him appreciate it. "Mamaw had thought all politicians were crooks, but I learned that, no matter their politics, that was largely untrue at the Ohio Statehouse," Vance wrote. He goes on to say he got a second job to pay his bills and detailed his life in college by saying: "I liked staying up late to work on assignments, waking up early after only three or four hours of sleep, and patting myself on the back for being able to do it." Vance declined a handshake from former OSU President Gordon Gee Vance, who served in the Marine Corps in Iraq, was motivated to finish college fast after hearing a fellow student talk of how he thought those who served first were less intelligent than people who went to college immediately. He took summer classes and more than double the full-time course load some semesters to graduate summa cum laude with a double major in August 2009. He writes that he didn't want to attend his graduation ceremony, but did at the insistence of his family. "When Gordon Gee, then president of the Ohio State University, paused for an unusually long photograph with the girl who stood in front of me in line, I extended my hand to his assistant, nonverbally asking for the diploma," he wrote. "I may have been the only graduating student that day to not shake his hand." In Chapter 12 of "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance talks of applying for law school and writes that Ohio State is "a big place." Later, he writes "I loved Ohio State and its people for an incredible education and experience." The next year, Vance went to Yale University for law school. Vance founded a nonprofit in Ohio A venture capitalist, Vance also started Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit with Jai Chabria, a public relations strategist and former top adviser to former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The charity was founded a day after the 2016 presidential election, according to reporting by the Associated Press. It was intended to help solve the opioid crisis but was closed by Vance in 2021, shortly after he got the Ohio Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. "I'm looking for opportunities to contribute and get some traction on the issues I talk about in the book and the issues I care about," he said in an interview with The Dispatch in November 2016. Vance 'always wanted to move back' to Ohio and has invested in central Ohio In 2021, Vance's Cincinnati-based venture capital fund, Narya Capital, invested in a West Jefferson start-up. AmplifyBio, housed at Battelle's West Jefferson campus, opened that year as a $200 million gene therapy start-up. Vance spoke of Ohio to The Dispatch in 2017, saying that he had "always wanted to move back, because it's home." dking@dispatch.com @DanaeKing This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: JD Vance is Trump's running mate. See his Columbus ties (EL PASO COUNTY, Colo.) Victims of the Return to Nature Funeral Home will have to wait until the fall to find out what happened to their loved ones and why, if the case goes to trial. Should Jon and Carie Hallford accept a plea deal that was brought to the table in July, victims may never get those answers, and thats a contingency that doesnt sit well with many. On Thursday morning, July 11, Carie Hallford appeared in El Paso County Court for an arraignment hearing. Jon Hallford was not in the courtroom, as he is in federal custody, but that didnt stop a new judge on the case from issuing a bench warrant. A plea deal brought forth earlier in July by the 4th Judicial District Attorneys (DA) Office was on the table on Thursday, where it remains until Sept. 20thats the date set for the final arraignment hearing, in which the Hallfords will decide either to take the plea deal or proceed to trial. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Final arraignment hearing for Hallfords scheduled These court hearings, Im beginning to think this whole thing is a joke, its just getting dragged out more and more, lamented Angelika Stedman, who said her daughter has yet to be identified. Courtesy: FOX21 News file photo Courtesy: FOX21 News file photo Courtesy: FOX21 News file photo A trial is exactly what victims like Stedman want, so they can finally learn more about the investigation, and possibly, what happened to their loved ones. If they [the Hallfords] plead guilty, this whole thing is just going to go away, as far as the justice system is concerned, and were never going to get any answers, argued Stedman. We want to know what the investigation brought out, we want to know what the evidence is, we want to be able to get information on what happened to our loved ones. And we wont get that if it doesnt go to trial. Stedman said she trusted the Return to Nature Funeral Home with her daughter, and now she worries she may never know what happened to her child. My daughter still has not been identified. The justice system does not see me or my daughter as a victim because she has not been identified as a body down there. But there is no answer to what happened to her or where she is at, Stedman said. Crystina Page also trusted Return to Nature with her son. She thought his remains were in a vial she wore around her neck. My son was identified in the building. He was there for about four years in an inoperable refrigeration system, said Page. Instead, the ashes she carries with her are unknown. Well never know, because the DNA is destroyed in the cremation process, Page said. The Hallfords are currently staring down 15 federal charges for COVID relief fraud, and more than 200 criminal counts in state court for Corpse Abuse, Money Laundering, Theft, and Forgery. The plea deal offered earlier in July by the DA could put Jon and Carie Hallford behind bars for up to 20 years. As victims watch the days and weeks tick by in the wait for justice, theyve formed a new family they never once thought they would need. Angelika Stedman and Crystina Page, victims of the Return to Nature Funeral home, embrace outside a July 11 arraignment hearing for funeral home owners Jon and Carie Hallford. Courtesy: FOX21 News photojournalist Matthew Putnam Nobody likes to be in this group that we are in, Stedman said, as she held hands with Page. But we are glad we all have each other. 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. July 12 (UPI) -- A Vietnamese pheasant that escaped from a zoo in Wales was safely returned to the facility the following day after an extensive search. The Plantasia Tropical Zoo in Swansea said Thursday that the male Vietnamese pheasant, also known as an Edwards' Pheasant, was found to be missing from his enclosure and was believed to have flown the coop. "The pheasant is not in any way dangerous but it might be shy and scared which is why we are asking anyone who spots it to report that sighting to us immediately rather than approaching the bird," the zoo said on social media. A follow-up post Friday said the pheasant, named Jack, had been found after numerous reported sightings Thursday night and Friday morning. "Thanks to several helpful leads, our team searched the areas mentioned late last night and early this morning. I'm delighted to confirm that at 10:15 a.m., Jack was safely retrieved and returned to Plantasia Tropical Zoo," the post said. Officials wrote Jack does not appear to be injured and "seems unfazed" by his adventure. "For now, he will remain in a quarantined area of the zoo for close monitoring and a full health check by our vet before returning to roam our hot-house with the rest of his family," the post said. "A thorough investigation is underway to understand how he escaped, and we will take measures to ensure this doesn't happen again." MANHATTAN (KSNT) A unique dining option is coming soon to downtown Manhattan. In less than two weeks, Pho Viet will be opening its doors to become the first Vietnamese restaurant in Manhattan, and the only one for nearly 50 miles. When Jason Le and his wife moved to Manhattan 14 years ago, they were surprised that there was no food from their native country, Vietnam. After five years of owning a local nail salon, Manhattan Nails, Jason wanted to change that. The top of my bucket list, that Im really accomplished, Le said. I feel really accomplished my life dream. Because, I always wanted to have a restaurant. New restaurants, brewery moving in to Aggieville area this fall Les goal is to make his customers happy. I dont want to disappoint them, Le said. I want to have a nice, hot, steamy bowl of pho come right in on the table in front of them and they can smell the scent of pho, the herbs. If youve never tried it, he said theres nothing to be afraid of. Its beef, Le said. If you live in Kansas, of course you know the steak, you know the beef. If you want to order special, he said the menu is fully customizable, and you will know what youre getting when you order. This is my dream come true, for I would say 75%, Le said. Then, the other 25 is the grand opening day to see every single customer step in with a surprise smile, and leave the place with a smile, and spread the word for others and continue coming back. Now, when I see that, now that I consider success of my dream. Manhattan closes in on new city manager pick Pho Viet is scheduled to open Wednesday, July 24. The restaurant is also hiring for all positions. Le encourages potential employees to walk in and apply at 405 Poyntz Ave. 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. Hungarian leader Viktor Orban is set to meet with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday evening, sidestepping the White House after a week of travel to Ukraine, Russia, China, and Azerbaijan. Orban himself framed the trip in grandiose terms, saying that it was a peace mission while comparing himself at one point to the French leader who brokered an end to Russia and Georgias 2008 war. But fragments of what Orban learned and advocated on his trip to the countries have emerged over the past week. Apart from burnishing his own image as an erstwhile international peacemaker, the trip is the latest example of Orban trying to align his country with the MAGA side of American partisan politics. In this case, it could mean preparing the ground to push the Ukrainians into a deal that falls dramatically short of their stated desires before a victorious Trump takes power. I put forward the idea that a new president-elect will face pressure to present a rapid political outcome, even before taking office, Orban told European officials, per Spanish newspaper El Pais. A ceasefire that precedes the peace talks, as well as rapid and intense peace talks, could be of interest to a new administration. Theres no sign that the Ukrainian leadership is open to such a deal; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Orbans efforts. But the looming, potential election of Donald Trump in November could completely change the calculus for Ukraine, which depends on Washington for military and intelligence support. A plan created by two Trump allies that the GOP candidate has reportedly reviewed would see his administration cut off aid to Ukraine; thats certainly an inducement for Kyiv to take what it can get. Orban is making the trip to Mar-a-Lago after assuming the role of rotating president of the EU, typically a ceremonial position. Orbans slogan for that position is Make Europe Great Again. Theres a domestic policy component to this, as well. When Orban won reelection in a landslide in 2014, he promised to transform Hungary into an illiberal state. Hes largely succeeded in doing that: under his leadership, Orban stacked the countrys constitutional court, reined in the free press, and, according to international monitors, made extensive use of state resources to sway elections in his favor. Orban and those around him have also deepened ties with Trumpworld over the past several years. The Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 fame) recently signed a cooperation agreement with the Danube Institute, an Orban-aligned Budapest think tank. The National Conservatism conference this week hosted Orbans political director alongside the heads of Trump-aligned think tanks and reactionary influencers. But Thursdays Mar-a-Lago trip parallels that cross-pollination only in that it potentially offers Trump a blueprint for bringing an end to the Ukraine war. In Orbans own telling, its to do with giving the Trump campaign a foreign policy boost. I think new leadership will provide new chances, Orban said this week, referring to the U.S. election, while calling Trump a man of peace. The trip began in Kyiv, where, per Ukrainian press, Orban proposed that Ukraine make the first step towards peace by ordering its soldiers to stop firing. I asked Zelensky to think about whether it wouldnt be possible to do things differently: cease firing first, and then hold peace talks, Orban said. Because ceasing fire could guarantee that these talks would go faster. Orban later traveled to Moscow, where he said that he spent more than three hours speaking with Vladimir Putin. Fortunately for us, Orban brought a journalist from a right-wing Swiss magazine on the plane with him, who posted an English-language interview with the Hungarian leader. After the first question (whats it like talking to someone with so many nukes?), Orban said that he was trying to find the shortest and quickest way to peace, and that he believed another round of peace talks would begin before the end of this year. He also said that he pitched the idea of holding a ceasefire before beginning negotiations, but Putin indicated that he was not optimistic about the proposal. Both Ukraine and Russia have released public-facing versions of their conditions for ending the war since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine wants Russia to withdraw troops back to the 1991 borders and to receive reparations for all of the damage wrought, along with war crimes tribunals; Russia demands that Ukraine retreat far beyond lines it currently holds, giving Russia full control of four of its regions while renouncing its NATO aspirations. The two sides did hold peace negotiations in Istanbul in the first weeks and months of the war; those ended in mid-April 2022. Per a New York Times report, the final drafts included an agreement to exclude the status of Crimea, a concession that Ukraine would renounce its NATO ambitions, but got stuck on a provision by which Russia would be able to veto security guarantees provided to Ukraine. Per Orban, Putin said that he was open to picking up where the Istanbul negotiations left off. Izvestia, a leading Russian newspaper, reported that Orban could pass information he has collected to Trumps team. On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order mandating the introduction of "cell phonefree education" in Virginia public schools. "The necessity of implementing cell phonefree education in Virginia's K-12 public schools is increasingly evident," Youngkin's order reads. "Parents, public health professionals, educators and other stakeholders across the Commonwealth are expressing concern over the alarming mental health crisis and chronic health conditions affecting adolescents, such as depression and anxiety, driven in part by extensive social media usage and widespread cell phone possession among children. Cell phonefree education will significantly reduce the amount of time students can be on phones without parental supervision." Youngkin's directive orders state health and education bureaucrats to draft guidelines for schools, including a detailed definition of "cell phonefree education," model implementation plans, and alternatives for parents to contact their children when necessary during the school day. "Creating a cell phonefree 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 reads. Some critics have been suspicious of the widespread claims that phone use is the direct cause of increases in teen anxiety and depression. A much better case can be made that phones simply distract students, making teaching more difficult. "One study from 2016 found that 97 percent of college students said that they sometimes use their phones during class for non-educational purposes," wrote psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt last year. "Nearly 60 percent of students said that they spend more than 10 percent of class time on their phones, mostly texting. Many studies show that students who use their phones during class learn less and get lower grades." Youngkin's order is a better alternative to laws enacting sweeping bans on social media use by minors. While the precise changes to school policy are still unknown, the state government would do well to allow considerable flexibility, giving individual school districts and principals the ability to customize changes to best serve the needs of parents and students in their communities. However, some skepticism might still be in order here. Virginia has enacted freedom-curbing anti-tech legislation in the past in the name of protecting children. For example, Youngkin signed a bill into law last year requiring age verification for porn website access in the state. The post Virginia To Enact 'Cell PhoneFree Education' in Public Schools appeared first on Reason.com. TAMPA (BLOOM) Shenae Monique Turner, a 47-year-old woman from Norfolk, Virginia, who dedicated her life to helping others, is now in critical need of support. Born and raised in Norfolk, she is a devoted animal lover and an active member of her church, passionately involved in soup kitchens, worship, vacation bible school, and teaching children. Her dream is to start an organization to find homes for animals and give them purpose by placing them with individuals in need. On July 7th, during a Carnival Cruise, Shenae began experiencing severe health issues. Her feet became numb, she struggled to breathe, and suffered chest pains. Tragically, she fell into a medically induced coma after two seizures and cardiac arrest. Thanks to the swift actions of the Carnival Cruise medical team and Tampa General Hospital, she is now stable and receiving continuous dialysis, but she remains in critical condition. The emotional and financial toll on her son Demontae and his family is overwhelming. As the only child and primary caregiver, Demontae is desperate to transport his mother back to Norfolk, Virginia, to be with family and continue her treatment at Norfolk General. However, the cost of the air and ambulance transport is a staggering $33,700, which is not covered by insurance. Despite reaching out to various organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the American Red Cross, he has been unable to secure the necessary funds. Demontae has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money needed for his mothers transport and medical expenses. So far, they have raised $1245, but they still need $32,865 to reach their goal. Every donation, no matter the size, brings them one step closer to reuniting Shenae with her loved ones and providing the care she urgently needs. How You Can Help: Donate: Visit their GoFundMe page to make a donation. Spread the Word: Share their GoFundMe link on your social media platforms to reach more potential donors. Personal Message from Demontae: Think of if it was your mother. Wouldnt you do everything in your power to save her, to hear her voice, her laugh, to feel the warmth of her hugs and love? She is all that I have and my light in this dark world. She has impacted countless lives with her vibrant personality and loving nature. Please help me bring her home and surround her with her loved ones. Stay Connected and Follow for Updates To stay updated on this story and many others like it, follow me on Instagram. By following, youll get the latest updates, behind-the-scenes insights, and additional stories that matter. Your support on social media helps spread the word and makes a difference. Follow me on Instagram: [@browoodd] Thank you for your support and for being a part of our community. 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. Visalia is closer to getting a new logo. How much will the city pay the winning artist? Visalias search for a palatable, sesquicentennial logo is lumbering to an Aug. 5 finale when the city council could select one of five designs that were whittled down from 87 entries. The search which the council started shortly after the minimalist Breaking Through the V logo which was part of a larger rebranding campaign that cost the city $150,000 (including a recruitment strategy and marketing) was roundly booed on social media when it was unveiled in May has lumbered forward. One of the many logo design guidelines includes that the logo should be a reimagining of the Breaking Through the V logo with a strong V design element clearly visible with the word Visalia in or at the bottom. The five-member committee could not agree on a prize for the winning entry, and instead recommended at its Wednesday meeting at the convention center a minimum of $1,500. A logo redesign committee member, Nick Miller, refused to vote for a monetary recommendation because in this room weve heard it can be $10,000 or $200 bucks. Miller received hate messages on social media after he was quoted in local media, including The Fresno Bee, about the logo selection process. The committee decided on entries No. 7, 34, 35, 56 and 59 at a Monday meeting, and stuck with those five on Wednesday. The city will display the five logos from July 15 through 5 p.m. on July 26 and solicit public comment. The council is expected to make a decision at its Aug. 5 meeting. Discussion about payment to artist The committee was split on how much the winning artist should get. Whoever designed this thing, whoever solved this problem, needs to be compensated, right? Like we need to pay them. I dont want to give them a plaque, Miller said. The submission process indicated that those submitting their artwork will donate the artwork to the city. However, the council asked staff to work with the committee to recommend a prize amount. Were awarding somebody a gift for what they did, and I think $1,500 for the proposals that we received thats like a generous gift for one logo in two weeks, said committee member Mary Jo Eastes, vice president at each of the board of directors of Arts Visalia and Arts Consortium. Its a nice pat on the back. Committee members Raymond Macareno and Carrie Groover look at the finalist entries No. 7, 34, 35, 56 and 59 during Wednesday, July 10 meeting at the Visalia Convention Center. Committee member Carrie Groover said the entries were submitted for free, with that intention that they were not expecting compensation, whatever that looks like. We can make any recommendations, we are not the decision, Groover said. Committee members Raymond Macareno, Lauren Walters, and Groover agreed with Eastes in recommending a $1,500 honorarium in thanks for providing the chosen logo and appropriate recognition if accepted. Miller recused himself. Macareno said the $1,500 should be the minimum that the winner should be compensated. Less than a dozen people showed up Wednesday night. Some voiced concerns that the prize amount that would be recommended by the committee wont be a fair amount. Some said the prize amount should be something discussed between the city council and the individual who created the chosen entry. The final logo will complement the Legacy Logo, and becomes the property of the city. If the winner and the city do not reach an agreement on transferring the right, title and interest in the artwork, the council will decide on another entry. Vista Fire in San Bernardino forest slows down, but over 400 structures still threatened An army of 697 firefighters attacked the flames of the stubborn Vista Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest Friday as the wildfire expanded to more than 2,879 acres in size, with more than 400 structures potentially in its path, authorities said. Firefighters had managed to build containment lines around 17% of the fire's perimeter as they continued hammering it from both the ground and the air, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Following five days of unrelenting heat and low relative humidity levels, fire behavior on Thursday night was hampered by a "marine influence that settled over the fire around midnight," the agency said in a written statement. "The cooler weather and increased humidity provided some relief to firefighters after several days of hot and dry weather." The Vista Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest grew to more than 2,800 acres on Friday, July 12, 2024. The fire showed its heaviest activity along its southern end, pushing into the Cucamonga Wilderness, driven primarily by steep terrain, officials added. Authorities said the fire was burning about 7 miles to the northwest of the community of Lytle Creek, and less than a mile from the Mt. Baldy Ski Resort. The resort remained under an evacuation order. Officials also issued a closure Friday for roads, campgrounds, picnic areas and other recreational sites in the Vista Fire area. July 12th, morning operational update. U.S. Forest Service - San Bernardino National Forest California Interagency Incident Management Team 15 and San Bernardino County Fire are in Unified Command.#VistaFire Posted by U.S. Forest Service - San Bernardino National Forest on Friday, July 12, 2024 Lytle Creek Road was closed to the public at Glen Helen Parkway, with only residents being allowed in. Incident commanders said they were optimistic that a chance of scattered rain and thunderstorms expected on Saturday would provide much-needed moisture and relief to firefighters. But the incoming weather also presented its own challenges. The Vista Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest grew to more than 2,800 acres on Friday, July 12, 2024. "The potential for gusty outflow winds will test containment lines, and dry lightning strikes could lead to new fire starts," according to the Forest Service statement. "The incident management team has staged initial attack crews who are ready to augment forest resources and respond to any new starts on the forest." California Interagency Incident Management Team 15 Operations Section Chief Travis Ederer said crews were continuing to build and strengthen containment lines, as well as "seek and destroy" small hot spots. "Right now, we're feeling pretty confident about the fire. We'll see what the weather does to it in the next couple days, and then we'll go from there," he said. "We're well prepared with other opportunities and other strategies in case it sneaks out where we don't want it to," Ederer said. "We've got lots of contingency lines planned, and we're just looking to engage when the time is right." Incident commanders hosted a community meeting for Lytle Creek residents on Thursday evening at the Lytle Creek Community Center. Vista Fire Community Meeting - July 11th, 2024 The Vista Fire community meeting will begin at approximate 6:00 P.M. PST. Live from Lytle Creek Community Center.California Interagency Incident Management Team 15 San Bernardino County Fire San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department Posted by U.S. Forest Service - San Bernardino National Forest on Thursday, July 11, 2024 More: New Chinook Helitankers battle Vista Fire from the air More: Vista Fire uncontained at 2,700 acres; firefighters face challenges The cause of the Vista Fire, which first ignited on Sunday morning, remained under investigation. This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Vista Fire near Mt Baldy Ski Resort reaches 2,800 acres Smoke rises from the Vista fire as seen from a flight into Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday over Los Angeles. (Corinne Chin / Associated Press) The Vista fire continued to burn in the San Bernardino National Forest Thursday, covering more than 2,700 acres as of that morning, officials announced. About 500 firefighters are battling the blaze, which ignited Sunday around 1 p.m. on the south side of Lytle Creek and soon threatened the Mount Baldy area, including its nearly 100-year-old resort, U.S. Forest Service officials said. Portions of the Pacific Crest Trail were closed, in addition to trails below the resort. Hundreds of people were evacuated from nearby recreational areas, said Nathan Judy of the U.S. Forest Service. An estimated 416 structures were threatened by the flames. Firefighters reported no containment of the blaze as of Thursday morning, with a community meeting scheduled for Lytle Creek residents at 6 p.m. at the Lytle Creek Community Center, park officials said. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Mount Baldy is the highest point in Los Angeles County and boasts some of the most iconic trails in the region, including the 10-mile loop that climbs up Devil's Backbone. Read more: Post fire becomes California's largest wildfire of the year The resort will be closed Friday but might be able to reopen over the weekend, officials said in a Thursday afternoon update. "We are not 100% in the clear just yet, but it appears that the greater Mt. Baldy area has dodged a bullet," the resort said. The fire almost doubled in size overnight from Wednesday, with fire crews working to build containment and contingency lines, according to officials. Low humidity, high temperatures and windy conditions continued to fuel the blaze. The complex terrain, hot weather and winds, combined with hazards such as falling dead trees and rolling material, make control of this fire a challenge, Operations Section Chief Scott Grasmick said in a Forest Service update. 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. "I think it's been decided, as obviously as it possibly can be, that America First is the future direction of the Republican Party," former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy tells me. Given the close association of "America First" with tariffs, industrial policy, and calls to close the borders, even to legal immigration, this might not seem to augur promising things for libertarians. But Ramaswamy sees two distinct live possibilities for what the phrase should actually mean. "From where I sit," he says, "the most important debate for the country to have is the intraRepublican Party and even intraAmerica First debate between the national protectionist and national libertarian wings." During an evening keynote at the fourth National Conservative Conference in Washington, D.C., this week, Ramaswamy laid out these alternatives in some detailand gently made the case that attendees of the nationalist event should rethink their indulgence in protectionism. Both nationalist wings reject the "historical neoliberal consensus" that he says prioritized economic growth above all else, including national security. But they do so "for different reasons and with very different implications" for trade and immigration policy. "The national protectionist answer to this recognizes the failures and risks of the neoliberal view," he said Tuesday night. "But it commingles those concerns with a totally separate concern about protecting American manufacturers from the effects of price erosion from foreign competition, including but not limited to China.The national libertarian view is different. It is focused entirely on eliminating U.S. dependence on China in those critical sectors for U.S. security"namely, military equipment and pharmaceuticals. As a cynical libertarian, I naturally raise an eyebrow at the invocation of "national security," which seems capacious enough in the hands of most nationalists to justify quite literally any government action they happen to wish to take. But Ramaswamy was forthright about what his vision would mean: "Here's the rub: If we were really serious about decoupling from China in those critical sectors, that actually means more, not less, trade with allies like Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam." That's a correct and important point. "There's no way to actually decouple from China in those areas that are critical for U.S. security interests, at least for the foreseeable future, without near-shoring those supply chains to allies," Ramaswamy continued. "If your top objective is to protect American manufacturers from the effects foreign competition, then you're necessarily going to extend the time period it's going to take to actually decouple from China in those critical sectors. There's no free lunch." On immigration, as on trade, he makes a distinction. National protectionists call for reducing immigration because they want to protect native-born Americans from low-wage competition, he says. National libertarians think we need to be more selective about who we allow into the country because "we are in the midst of a national identity crisis. We have lost our sense of who we are, and sloppy immigration policies have only worsened that crisis." Here again there are reasons to be skeptical. I would be curious to know what evidence Ramaswamy has that newcomers to our countryAmericans by choice, as opposed to the overwhelmingly native-born progressives who populate the faculties of elite colleges and the editorial boards of elite newspapershave played a significant role in "fraying" our national unity. Moreover, those who invoke identity in the national conservative context frequently turn out to favor policies aimed at preserving the ethno-religious makeup of America from "dilution" or "contamination" by those from other backgrounds. When I press Ramaswamy on that second point during a follow-up call, he assures me that he doesn't buy the "genetic-lineage, blood-and-soil argument," which "tries to reinvent the U.S. national identity through the lens of the way most historical nations have been built." "You just smoked out the subtext of much of the difference in the conversation about what does it mean to be an American," he says. "To me, that is tied to a set of civic ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. I often think a good answer to the question of what it means to be an American is to go back and ask what Thomas Jefferson would have said. Would he have said that you're more of an American because you're a member of a specific religion or ethnic background? No. He would not have said that. I wouldn't say that today either." That's encouragingand represents a genuine departure from a number of his allies. Just a day after Ramaswamy's speech, Sen. J.D. Vance (ROhio) took the stage and mocked the idea that America is a "creedal nation." Still, the practical elements of Ramaswamy's approach to immigration leave open some big questions. Since his goals are "to protect U.S. national security, to preserve U.S. national identity, and to promote U.S. economic growthin that order," he supports a crackdown at the southern border and an end to both dual and "birthright" citizenship. He shorthands his view using the following three maxims: No migration without consent; consent should only be granted to migrants who benefit America and who share our national values; and migrants who enter unlawfully, without consent, must be removed. I suspect most Americans would find that to be an eminently commonsense platformuntil confronted with the problem of how to operationalize it. Just try to imagine the kind of expansive, intrusive police state that would be required to find and deport the more than 10 million undocumented immigrants who are currently living and working in communities across the United States, some of whom were brought here as small children and have never known life anywhere else. When I ask how he would even begin to enforce the tenet that illegals "must be removed," Ramaswamy backpedals. His speech "was a first principles vision, which is a different topic than the implementation of it," he says. "All of it should be done in a manner that advances the interests of the United States of Americaand to me the most important of those interests are the liberty interests enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution." "The Constitution comes first, always," he adds, pointing to the fact that he opposed reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as proof that civil liberties are core values for him. It sounds like he views the removal of illegals as a theoretical ideal rather than a programmatic objective. But in the hands of less-scrupulous natcons, that ideal could still open the door to some horrific violations of individual rights. His claim during Tuesday's address that 90 percent of his immigration policies would probably overlap with a national protectionist's did not put my mind at ease either. There is at least one subject, though, where Ramaswamy's "national libertarianism" does give bona fide supporters of free minds and free markets some cause to celebrate: "The national protectionist view believes at its core in reshaping and redirecting the regulatory state to achieve objectives that advance the interests of American workers and American manufacturers," he said during his speech. "By contrast, the national libertarian view is different. We don't believe in reshaping the regulatory state to accomplish any objectives. We believe in dismantling the regulatory state. Not because we don't care about American workers or manufacturers but because we believe this is the way to best advance the interests of American workers and manufacturers." When the crowd at the Capital Hilton applauded, he called them out with a list of natcon policy proposals that would grow the power of agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the U.S. Department of Education. "Do we as national conservatives really want to be handing woke government agencies like the CFPB more power?" he asked. "The national libertarian answer to that question is simple: Hell no!" "I don't care to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state," Ramaswamy declared at NatCon. Or as he puts it during our follow-up conversation: "I think that's a mistake the left has long made, using the administrative state as a way to coddle certain groups of Americans. And I don't think we're going to beat the left by becoming the left." The post Vivek Ramaswamy Debuts 'National Libertarianism' at NatCon 4 appeared first on Reason.com. GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - JULY 11: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to a crowd during a campaign event at James B. Dudley High School on July 11, 2024 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Vice President Kamala Harris painted a picture of a dystopian America under a Donald Trump second term, describing a hateful, chaotic country under a want-to-be dictator whom the U.S. Supreme Court has given free rein. Harris spoke to an energized and cheering crowd of about 700 at James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro as the national Democratic Party is suffering through a chaotic period of its own. Some Democrats in Congress and wealthy campaign donors have urged President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race after his shaky debate performance two weeks ago. Calls for Biden to leave the race continued even after he said unequivocally he was staying in a Tuesday letter to congressional Democrats. Harris obliquely addressed some of Bidens challenges of the last two weeks, using some of his own words. Running for President of the United States is never easy, nor should it be, she said. Well, one thing we know about our President Joe Biden is that he is a fighter. He is the first to say, When you get knocked down, you get back up. We will continue to fight. And we will continue to organize. And in November, we will win. Some at the rally rejected the idea that Biden should step aside. We all have good and bad days, said Deborah Pollard of Durham. She is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Every day, he has met the challenges of that office, she said. Why now say, You should leave? Its his decision. If Biden wants to step aside, Pollard said she would support Harris moving to the top of the ticket. I think she would be excellent, Pollard said. But Harris replacing Biden as the presidential candidate is something they would have to decide, she said. Gov. Roy Cooper introduced Harris. He has been mentioned as a potential Harris running mate should Biden drop out and Harris ascend to the top of the ticket. Throughout her speech, Harris sought to contrast Bidens accomplishments, such as capping insulin prices for people on Medicare, signing a bipartisan gun safety law, and working to forgive student loan debt, with Trumps plans for a second term. Biden is hosting the NATO summit this week, and was set to hold a closely watched news conference. Biden deserves credit for making NATO more united and effective, Harris said, while Trump would weaken the military alliance. Trump is critical of NATO and shocked allies this year when he said the U.S. would not defend a country that was not spending enough on defense, and would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to to countries that werent paying. Trumps plans for another term should be considered in light of the decision of the Supreme Courts conservative majority that gives presidents absolute immunity for official acts while in office, Harris said. Consider that Donald Trump has openly vowed if reelected he will be a dictator on day one, she said. And he will weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies. Round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country. And even, I quote terminate our Constitution. Trump told Sean Hannity last year he would not be a dictator except for Day One. Let us be very clear. Someone who suggests we quote terminate our Constitution should never again have the chance to stand behind the seal of the President of the United States, Harris said to loud applause. Shana Shumate of Summerfield praised Harris as more than qualified to run for president, having served as a prosecutor, a US Senator and vice president. If she were to replace Biden, Harris would be the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket. Is America ready for that? Shumate asked. Probably not. Jennifer Taylor of High Point wants the questions about Bidens fitness to end so the focus can turn back to the campaign. Im just eager for this to be over because we have work to do, she said. Vice President Kamala Harris in Greensboro, NC The post VP Kamala Harris boosts Biden at Greensboro rally while questions about his fitness linger appeared first on NC Newsline. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to a crowd during a campaign event at James B. Dudley High School on July 11, 2024, in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Vice President Kamala Harris painted a picture of a dystopian America under a Donald Trump second term, describing a hateful, chaotic country under a want-to-be dictator whom the U.S. Supreme Court has given free rein. Harris spoke Thursday to an energized and cheering crowd of about 700 at James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro, North Carolina, as the national Democratic Party is suffering through a chaotic period of its own. Some Democrats in Congress and wealthy campaign donors have urged President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race after his shaky debate performance two weeks ago. Calls for Biden to leave the race continued even after he said unequivocally he was staying in a Tuesday letter to congressional Democrats. Harris obliquely addressed some of Bidens challenges of the last two weeks, using some of his own words. Running for President of the United States is never easy, nor should it be, she said. Well, one thing we know about our President Joe Biden is that he is a fighter. He is the first to say, When you get knocked down, you get back up. We will continue to fight. And we will continue to organize. And in November, we will win. Some at the rally rejected the idea that Biden should step aside. We all have good and bad days, said Deborah Pollard of Durham. She is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Every day, he has met the challenges of that office, she said. Why now say, You should leave? Its his decision. If Biden wants to step aside, Pollard said she would support Harris moving to the top of the ticket. I think she would be excellent, Pollard said. But Harris replacing Biden as the presidential candidate is something they would have to decide, she said. Gov. Roy Cooper introduced Harris. He has been mentioned as a potential Harris running mate should Biden drop out and Harris ascend to the top of the ticket. Throughout her speech, Harris sought to contrast Bidens accomplishments, such as capping insulin prices for people on Medicare, signing a bipartisan gun safety law, and working to forgive student loan debt, with Trumps plans for a second term. Biden hosted the NATO summit this week and held a closely watched news conference Thursday night. Biden deserves credit for making NATO more united and effective, Harris said, while Trump would weaken the military alliance. Trump is critical of NATO and shocked allies this year when he said the U.S. would not defend a country that was not spending enough on defense and would encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to to countries that werent paying. Dictator Trumps plans for another term should be considered in light of the decision of the Supreme Courts conservative majority that gives presidents absolute immunity for official acts while in office, Harris said. Consider that Donald Trump has openly vowed if reelected he will be a dictator on day one, she said. And he will weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies. Round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country. And even, I quote terminate our Constitution. Trump told Sean Hannity last year he would not be a dictator except for Day One. Let us be very clear. Someone who suggests we quote terminate our Constitution should never again have the chance to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States, Harris said to loud applause. Shana Shumate of Summerfield praised Harris as more than qualified to run for president, having served as a prosecutor, a U.S. Senator, and vice president. If she were to replace Biden, Harris would be the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket. Is America ready for that? Shumate asked. Probably not. Jennifer Taylor of High Point wants the questions about Bidens fitness to end so the focus can turn back to the campaign. Im just eager for this to be over because we have work to do, she said. VSP investigating crash on I-95 in Spotsylvania County, no reported injuries SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now) Virginia State Police (VSP) are investigating after a two-vehicle crash caused I-95 to back up for several miles in Spotsylvania County on Friday morning. The crash happened on I-95 North around mile marker 119, going toward Fredericksburg. State police said the collision involved a Dodge Charger and a Honda CRV. No one was hurt. VSP: 6 killed in crashes over Fourth of July holiday in Virginia As of 11:50 a.m., several lanes on the Interstate were blocked off and traffic was being diverted to one lane. VDOT said the crash delayed traffic for more than three miles. 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. ABINGDON, Va. (WJHL) A Richlands woman pled guilty to federal charges after receiving and distributing prescription drugs without being a licensed healthcare provider, the Virginia State Police said in a social media post. Melissa Bandy, 54, waived her rights to be indicted and pled guilty to one count of receiving misbranded drugs in interstate commerce and delivering and proffering for delivery the misbranded drugs for pay. Washington County, Va. issues ban on burning, declares local emergency Bandy accessed prescription drugs through black-market websites specializing in products manufactured overseas, the post said. Many of Bandys orders were for drugs that required needle injection, such as Saxenda and Innotox. Unlicensed individuals who sell unapproved and misbranded Botox-like products and other prescription drugs put their unsuspecting customers at risk because FDA has not found these products to be safe and effective for their intended uses and they cannot be safely administered without the supervision of a licensed medical practitioner, FDA Special Agent George Scavdis said. Taking the drugs without legitimate medical supervision can result in serious adverse health effects, such as thyroid c-cell tumors, acute pancreatitis, and acute gallbladder disease, according to the post. Bandy resold the black-market products with improper branding and unapproved doses to numerous individuals, according to the VSP. Bandys sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 1. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Virginia State Police and the Richlands Police Department were on the 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 WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. WA Supreme Court will consider dispute over printing budget effects of initiatives on ballots Temple of Justice the Washington Supreme Court building in Olympia, Washington. (Getty Images) Washingtons Supreme Court will decide whether information about how three initiatives could affect the state budget will appear alongside the measures on the November ballot. The court on Thursday agreed to take up the case against public investment impact disclosures 15-word-or-less statements that are required by law to be printed next to ballot measures that are expected to change state revenue. Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh and Mainstream Republicans of Washington Chair Deanna Martinez both supporters of the three initiatives sued the state last month over the statements, which they refer to as warning labels. They argue the initiatives, which would significantly change programs that generate billions of dollars for the state, dont fit the criteria to require the disclosure statements. If approved, the initiatives would end the states cap-and-trade program, repeal its capital gains tax, and make participation in a state-run long-term care program optional. Last month, a Thurston County Superior Court judge ruled against Walsh and Martinez. They appealed, and now the state Supreme Court will consider the case on an accelerated timeline to have a decision before November ballots are finalized. The court plans to deliberate over the case in a special, closed-door meeting with all of the justices on Aug. 9, using legal briefs filed by the parties. The secretary of state says it needs all materials to be printed in the November ballot by Aug. 13. A 2022 law requires the disclosures if a ballot measure repeals, levies or modifies a tax or fee, and if it would cause a net change in state revenue. In their opening brief to the state Supreme Court, attorneys for Walsh and Martinez argue none of the three initiatives fit this criteria. For example, they say, cap-and-trade lets businesses purchase allowances to offset pollution if needed, but it does not impose a tax. The long-term care program administers an insurance premium, not a tax, according to the lawsuit. And, attorneys for Walsh argue the capital gains tax should be considered repealed given a separate initiative that the Legislature approved earlier this year banning any tax on personal income. The state is still collecting the tax. The state has until July 22 to file its response with the Supreme Court. In their argument during the trial court proceedings, attorneys representing Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and Office of Financial Management Director David Schumacher called the lawsuit meritless and urged the court to reject the cynical attempt to keep voters in the dark. If the Office of Financial Management finds that a ballot measure fits the necessary criteria to require a disclosure statement, the attorney generals office writes a short statement explaining their effect and sends it to the secretary of state for final approval by July 23. The attorney generals office has already submitted a statement for the long-term care initiative. It reads: This measure would decrease funding for Washingtons public insurance program for persons requiring long term care. This article has been updated to clarify that the state Supreme Court will not hold a public hearing on the case. How the Walton County Sheriffs Office used a digital body scanner to find fentanyl on an inmate WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG) The Walton County Sheriffs Office used its digital body scanner on a female inmate last week and found fentanyl. Jerry Seinfeld to perform in Mobile According to a Walton County Sheriffs Office X post, deputies on July 3 arrested a female accused of possession of a controlled substance. The sheriffs office used its new digital body scanner, which is equipped with narcotic detection software, to scan the female once she arrived at the Walton County jail. The scan identified an abnormal change in color on the body scan suggesting contraband, the WCSO post said. The inmate was then strip searched by two female @WCSOFL detention deputies, which she produced Fentanyl from a body cavity. She was then charged with the introduction of contraband into a detention facility, according to the post. Per Florida State Statute 901.211, all individuals admitted on capital felonies, violent felonies, and felony drug charges are required to undergo a strip search, the post said. Additionally, all individuals being booked at the Walton County Jail are scanned with the digital body scanner before being accepted into the facility. Okaloosa County deputy arrested, fired after allegedly racing, tampering with evidence Any new intake at the Walton County Jail may be strip searched if requested by an agency member and approved in writing by the jail supervisor in accordance with Florida State Statute 901.211. 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. Warrick County Commissioners' legal issues 'orchestrated,' but they won't say by who BOONVILLE, Ind. The felony charges all three Warrick County Commissioners face are part of an "orchestrated" effort against them, according to commission attorney Andrew Skinner. "These individuals have used our local media, judicial system, electoral system and even law enforcement to further personal agendas, settle old scores, tarnish reputations and attempt to achieve positions of authority," Skinner said. But when the Courier & Press asked who the orchestrators were that were working against commissioners Terry Phillippe, Dan Saylor and Robert Johnson, Skinner wouldn't name names. "I think that is fairly obvious by the complaints that have been made and the lawsuits that have been filed, and the interviews that have been given to media," Skinner said. After prompting from a WFIE-NBC14 reporter asking if Skinner could elaborate, he said, "no." Warrick County commission attorney Andrew Skinner addresses the media at a press conference in reference to charges filed against county officials in Boonville, Ind., Thursday, July 11, 2024. The news conference was announced earlier this week, and was the first time in around eight months where commissioners and their legal representation in that capacity would address directly the accusations against them. Prior to statements, Skinner said they couldn't cover all subjects, but they would work to offer "facts over fake news." Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson face charges of obstruction of justice, false informing and official misconduct. Phillippe also faces a perjury charge. They've all said they're innocent of the charges. Warrick County Health Administrator Marlin Weisheit was also recently charged by the Indiana State Police with a charge of official misconduct, a Level 6 felony, and two misdemeanor counts of conversion based on accusations that he paid himself for work out of the wrong county fund. Weisheit, along with his private attorney in that case, Anthony Long, were both part of the news conference Thursday. Long took the opportunity, in part, to lay out his issues with the state police investigation. "I don't quarrel with police. My whole philosophy practicing criminal defense law is not to tackle with police, unless they don't do their jobs. If you don't do your job, count on getting called on it," Long said. "In this case, this investigation has been incompetent." Long has made these comments before, and ISP issued a statement in response last week. "The Indiana State Police stands by the integrity of the investigation completed by Sergeant Brock Werne, a 17-year veteran who has represented countless victims of crimes and has sought to hold those responsible accountable for their criminal actions," the statement read. "There will be no further public comment on this matter while we allow the court system to adjudicate charges that were reviewed by both a special prosecutor and a Warrick County judge prior to being filed." Long said he agreed the situation has been orchestrated, and that it all began when commissioners fired former Health Administrator Aaron Franz. State police alleged Phillippe, Saylor and Johnson sought to fire Franz as retaliation after the public health official refused to carry out what he described as "unethical" and "illegal orders." The three commissioners have publicly stated they fired Franz due to poor job performance. Stacey Franz, Aaron's wife, filed to run for Commissioner Johnson's seat, Long said, calling it "interesting." Stacey Franz won her primary election with 56% of the vote. "The bottom line is it was politically orchestrated," Long said. This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Attorneys say Warrick County officials' legal charges 'orchestrated' JASPER COUNTY, Mo. A suspect in a bus station assault incident from earlier this year has been identified, and issued a warrant, according to the Jasper County Sheriffs Office. Jasper County Detectives say they have identified the man seen on surveillance camera footage back in January (below) as David Bostic, 47, of Bellevue, Washington. A warrant for his arrest was issued on a first-degree assault charge. The victim in the assault, an 18-year-old man from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma suffered severe injuries including a stab wound to his neck. He was treated and released from the hospital almost a week later. Anyone with information on Bostic is asked to contact the Jasper County Sheriffs Office or their local law enforcement agency immediately. He is considered armed and dangerous and allegedly has ties to multiple states including Missouri, Utah, Washington, Arkansas, and New York. 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. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is seen rolling her eyes during Nato summit A video of Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, rolling her eyes appears to have stolen the show at the Nato summit in Washington DC. The footage shows the world leader grimacing and crossing her eyes in apparent frustration at the 20-minute delay to the scheduled arrival of Joe Biden, the US president, to the summit. Ms Meloni was caught on camera with her arms folded as she made the gesture while waiting with Alexander Stubb, the Finnish president, and other officials. She also pretended to look at an imaginary watch on her wrist to indicate her impatience. Mr Stubb was then seen checking the time on his phone before the prime minister again rolled her eyes with a disgruntled look on her face. She then appeared to smile briefly for the cameras. It is not the first time Ms Meloni has rolled her eyes in public. She has also been seen making the gesture in apparent frustration during television interviews. At the end of the Nato summit, the prime minister reiterated Italys support for Ukraine and indirectly chided Matteo Salvini, her deputy premier and transport minister, after he suggested that sending military aid to Kyiv was only prolonging the war. The balance sheet of this Nato summit is positive, Ms Meloni told reporters. 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. TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) A man involved in a hit-and-run was rescued by Florida deputies after flipping his vehicle in Collier County, according to an arrest report. Just after 2 a.m. on July 1, deputies responded to a car accident behind El Cubano Restraut in Immokslee. Bicyclist hit, killed by Sarasota County deputys patrol car The driver, Lucas Lopez-Juarez, 22, fled the scene at a high rate of speed after the deputy attempted to approach his vehicle. According to the affidavit, Lopez-Juarez began zigzagging and driving the wrong way in traffic. Consequently, Lopez-Juarez collided head-on with another vehicle, causing the suspects car to turn onto its side. Deputies said Lopez-Juarez was trapped inside his vehicle and was unable to get out. The suspect was also seen bleeding from his nose, the affidavit said. The other driver suffered a laceration on the top of his head. The video shows officials using a jersey claw to brake Lopez-Juarezs front windshield to help him out of the car. Her character was unmatched: Family remembers mom who died after attempting to stop carjacking with child in backseat The suspect was handcuffed, telling deputies that a girl had asked him to go to her house and he was rushing to get there. He then admitted that he drank six beers before the crash, before claiming that he was driving straight but couldnt explain how the crash occurred. The suspect refused to provide a blood sample to determine his alcohol content. According to the affidavit, a witness told deputies that Lopez-Juarez struck the vehicle behind the restaurant four times and that he had to run out of the way to avoid being struck by his car. Lopez-Juarez was arrested and charged with DUI, DUI with property damage or bodily injury, leaving the scene of an accident, not having a valid drivers license, and reckless driving with damage to property or a person. 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. Representative James Clyburn pledged his support to whatever Joe Biden decides, including whether he changes his mind. NBCs Savannah Guthrie asked Clyburn Friday morning about whether hes leaving the door open just a little bit for continued questions about Biden staying on as the Democratic nominee for president. I took him at his word, and thats why I am all in, Clyburn said, referring to Bidens stated desire to stay on as president. Im ridin with Biden, no matter what direction he goes, no matter what method he takes; Im with Joe Biden. But the South Carolina Democrat offered a caveat. And if he were to change his mind, Ill just answer the question, I would be all in for the vice president, Clyburn said, referring to Kamala Harris. JUST IN: @savannahguthrie: "Did you leave the door open just a little bit for these continued questions about President Biden?" Rep. Jim Clyburn: "I am all in. I'm riding with Biden no which direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. I'm with Joe Biden." pic.twitter.com/yQ8H8FeWRY TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 12, 2024 With that answer, Clyburn somehow both affirmed his support for Biden but also for Harris to succeed him. He further elaborated on what he meant when NBCs Craig Melvin asked him, Should the conversation about the president getting out of this race, should that conversation continue? No it shouldnt, Clyburn said. The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative to his election, and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions about his future. Hes earned that right, and I am going to give him that much respect. If he decides to change his mind later on, then we would respond to that. If Project 2025 were to become the law in any form, that is where our focus ought to be, Clyburn added. .@craigmelvin Should the conversation about the President getting out of this race, should that conversation continue? Rep. Jim Clyburn: No it shouldnt. pic.twitter.com/ycdrGRcoeE TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 12, 2024 Clyburns latest remarks build on what he said nearly two weeks ago after Bidens poor debate performance, when he gave a stronger endorsement of Harris. Now Clyburn still supports Harris, but only if Biden were to decide himself to step down. On Thursday, Biden held a rare press conference that didnt allay many peoples concerns about his fitness for office. He stumbled starting off, and concluded chaotically after he attempted to answer a question about Harris replacing him. This press conference may have won over Clyburn, but hes clearly still giving Biden room to drop out. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) Its one of the slowest pursuits youll ever see. A Vespa moped with less than a 50cc engine went through neighborhoods, down major roads and through multiple parks in Clay County, Missouri. It started simply enough, two men on a moped ran an Avondale stop sign just before midnight Sunday night. They assumed they were just going to pull them over write them a citation something like that, Sarah Boyd, Clay County Sheriffs public relations manager, said. Audio from the deputys dashcam demonstrates the deputys disbelief, Red scooter, two white males. I dont know if hes going to stop actually, the deputy said. But soon the Clay County deputy would figure out the men werent stopping and were attempting to outrun them. The deputy kept fellow law enforcement up to date on the pursuit, Hes still going east on Cates, speeds are up to 21 miles per hour, he said. Both men on the hill were a little too much for the Vespa, as they had to put the ped in moped by running it with their feet before one man gave up and made a run for it. The passenger was never found. Passenger just hopped off, going Westbound between houses, the deputy said. Kansas court says healthcare providers not required to keep medical records private Five minutes into the chase and with plenty of sirens blaring, the driver headed into a park with the deputy off-roading behind him. He then went down a narrow path into a neighborhood where he may have been before. Oh my goodness, thats hilarious. He should have just got off and walked. He might have gotten just as far down the road, Todd Hurd said. Hurd knows how fast the Vespa can go because its his. It hadnt been running well last month when video showed a thief taking it from his driveway. Thats the park where the driver may have thought he was going to get away when the deputy took some time to jump the curb. But he quickly caught up as the driver headed into backyards. Finally about 10 minutes after it began, the 41-year-old driver crashed. And hes bailing, the deputy said as pieces of the moped littered the road. He was apprehended in the backyard but wasnt charged in the pursuit. Ultimately, the speeds did not raise to the limit of being able to charge him for the pursuit because it wasnt fast enough, Boyd explained. But he still could face charges for resisting arrest and drug paraphernalia found in the Vespas compartment. Its pretty funny that he tried to run the cops on it. Hes going to have to tell his cellmates, Yeah, I was running from the cops on a moped,' Hurd laughed. The man wasnt in jail Tuesday night. In fact, he was back in the same park where he led deputies in the pursuit Sunday. He declined an interview, saying he didnt want his face on camera and rode away on a bicycle. The owner said he was happy to see the Vespa and learn it had been recovered, albeit wrecked. But right now, hed have to pay $550 to get it out of the tow lot, which is probably more than its worth. 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 (and what) to watch at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee The Republican National Convention kicks off Monday in Milwaukee, with delegates from around the country gathering to officially nominate Donald Trump for president in the wake of an attempt on his life over the weekend. Trumps nomination is a given, but there is still intrigue: How will Saturdays shooting in Pennsylvania, which killed one attendee and grazed Trump, influence the convention? Who will Trump pick to be his running mate? And what kind of reception will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis receive after trying to topple Trump? Here is all you need to know about what to watch and when and how during the convention. How to watch the RNC? The Republican National Convention will take place from July 15 to July 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Major news networks such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC will be covering the convention live. The RNC will stream the event on YouTube, X, Facebook Live, Rumble, Amazon Prime, Twitch and Direct TV, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Daily Show will not air from Republican convention in Wisconsin as planned What is on the calendar? You can find the Master Event Calendar at the RNCs website. The activities that delegates will attend include breakfasts, luncheons, movies, trainings and official sessions. Organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Hispanic Leadership Coalition will be hosting some of the events. Trumps nomination speech is expected on Thursday. What is happening with Trump? Trump shared on Truth Social Sunday morning that he was looking forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin. He was expected to leave New Jersey for Milwaukee that afternoon. When will Trump announce his running mate? Trump said Friday on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show that he would like to announce his running mate during the convention. Id love to do it during the convention ... or just slightly before the convention, like Monday. Love to do it on Tuesday or Wednesday actually, he said, but for a lot of complex reasons that you people understand, you pretty much dont do that. On the shortlist are Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Sen. JD Vance and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Trump also mentioned South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott during the interview. Its like a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice, if you think about it, Trump said. Who from Florida will be attending? Over the weekend, the RNC announced its headlining speakers, releasing a list that included a number of Florida officials. Rubio will address the convention, as will Sen. Rick Scott. U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz, Michael Waltz, Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds and Brian Mast were also on the list. Gov. Ron DeSantis will be in attendance and will have a speaking slot, according to the RNC. He will also be at a town hall hosted by Moms for Liberty and at the Southern States Fest being held at the Milwaukee Brewers stadium. Other Florida officials expected at the RNC: Attorney General Ashley Moody, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Florida will also be sending 125 delegates to the convention, including state Sens. Joe Gruters and Debbie Mayfield, and former Miami Congressman David Rivera. Among Trumps children serving as delegates are Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Tiffany Boulos. Miami Herald staff writer Max Greenwood contributed to this report. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) A water main break near State Street and Cleveland Avenue in Salt Lake City left part of the road flooded with water, according to the Department of Public Utilities and the Salt Lake city Police Department The break happened on the 1400 South block of Main Street and affected northbound traffic on State Street from Cleveland Avenue to 1300 South, SLCPD said. The road has one lane open as crews work to repair the damage. The Salt Lake Public Utilities Department said the work was expected to continue throughout the night. As of Friday morning, July 12, the Utah Department of Transportation reported traffic in both directions of State Street near 1300 South was still affected. Utah officials are cautioning drivers to be careful near the area and follow the signs. They expect crews will be working to fix the issue through the night. Were grateful our crews quick response mitigated impacts and we appreciate their dedication in making repairs as quickly and safely as possible, the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities 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 ABC4 Utah. It's a safe bet that presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be on Colorado's general election ballot this year, though it remains to be seen whether he'll be listed as an independent or as the Libertarian nominee. Waterfront Park isnt sinking into Beaufort River. But it will take millions to fix it Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, photographed on Feb. 14, 2024, overlooks the Beaufort River and the Beaufort Downtown Marina was opened in 1979 and is built upon a series of 570 pilings. Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall would not be surprised if the cost of repairing the deteriorating waterfront structures at the citys Waterfront Park reaches $100 million. Thats more than the citys annual budget of $55 million, which includes spending on capital projects. Marshall acknowledges his estimate is a wild guess that is not based on an official estimate from an engineer or consultant. However, a triple-digit price tag in the millions, Marshall adds, wouldnt surprise me. Its a huge unplanned expense, Marshall says. Next week, the city will begin looking for a consultant to guide it through the process of fixing the park thats often referred to as a crown jewel. The parks infrastructure problems were found by engineers during an inspection in April and publicly explained to city officials in June. Marshall discussed the waterfront and the challenge the city faces in fixing it and how it plans to proceed from here in an interview Thursday, on the eve of the citys famed Water Festival, whose main venue is Waterfront Park. Some 50,000 people are expected to attend over 10 days. The park is not sinking into the Beaufort River, Marshall said. But the park, which opened in 1979, needs a major fix, he says. The April inspection found that a sizable number of concrete pilings that support waterfront and seawall structures below the water line were deteriorating. Extensive shoaling also has been noted. Shoaling is silt build-up. The city already has told American Cruise Lines it can no longer tie up cruise ships at the waterfront because of the problems. Cruise ships typically bring about 2,730 visitors to the city a year. Its a small boon to our economy downtown, Marshall said. Over the years, funds were not set aside for long-term repairs to the park, Marshall said. I wish that had been the case, said Marshall, who joined the city in January 2023. Marshall has said previously the city will be looking to state and federal sources of funding for the repairs. Were looking at all options, he said Thursday. The city already has spent just over $1 million on stabilizing Waterfront pilings between 2018 and 2022. But the 2024 inspection found a marked acceleration of the piling deterioration and shoaling problems since the last inspection in 2019. The latest report recommended that the city take immediate action including suspending cruise ship moorings, increasing the frequency of inspections, fixing the bad pilings and initiating studies and securing funding for replacement of the structure. Age and wear-and-tear are taking their toll on the waterfront structures, which have a life span of 50 to 70 years, Marshall said. The problem now is that, with the shoaling, its difficult to even inspect the pilings. On Friday, a representative with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was scheduled to be in Beaufort to take a look at the situation and meet with city officials. Marshall hopes that somebody within that federal agency has seen a similar problem. WAVYs Navy Ship Salute is a feature on WAVY News 10 Today. Each month, in partnership with the U.S. Navy, WAVY-TV 10 will profile a different ship based at the worlds largest Navy base: Naval Station Norfolk. The series aims to better introduce our viewers to some of the largest floating taxpayer assets there are, as well as life aboard a U.S. Navy ship. NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) After 37 years in service, USS Leyte Gulf is being prepped for decommissioning. The Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser is one of few left in the Navy. It returned to Naval Station Norfolk in May, and now, parts of the ship are being taken off so its legacy can live on in other vessels. For this WAVY Navy ship salute, we were welcomed on board by a very enthusiastic crew. Commissioned back in 1987, this guided-missile cruiser was sent out during the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom. It also had its fair share of missions countering drug runs and pirates. After nabbing a makeshift submarine with more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine, the Leyte Gulf finished its final deployment in early 2024. Were going through the ship, clearing everything out, finding all the good equipment and pulling that off the ship and giving it to other ships on the waterfront so they can be ready to go over the horizon, explained Commanding Officer Brian Harrington. The cruiser is named after the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. We brought 283 ships to that fight, said Lieutenant Junior Grade Beaux Davis. Just ourselves against the Empire of Japan. Of those ships, we only lost eight. So the plaque downstairs commemorates those ships and those that we lost at sea. Above that plaque, we have two swords. We have a naval officer sword and a Japanese naval officer sword from that battle. The crew brought our news team all the way up to 0-6 level. Up top, ET1 Jaidan Parra showed WAVYs Nick Broadway the sat comms system he was dismantling. Ive been on board for four years, and Ive worked on all sorts of equipment ranging from radar systems, communication systems to phones, you name it. Parra said. Anything with a circuit card and electricity running through it. Previous commanding officers will revisit the ship in late September during its decommissioning ceremony in Norfolk. 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. Waynesboro man headed to prison after teen says she was impregnated STAUNTON A Waynesboro man accused of impregnating a teenager was sentenced to prison Thursday after pleading guilty to five felony charges in Augusta County Circuit Court. Carlton J. Williams III, 26, was convicted on three felony counts of possessing child pornography and two felony counts of enticing a child to perform in child pornography. Williams also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of having consensual sex with a juvenile. Augusta County Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Alexandra Meador said the allegations against Williams came to light in January after the juvenile made a report with the Augusta County Sheriff's Office and claimed Williams had fathered her child. After authorities obtained a search warrant for Williams' phone, Meador said they found images of the victim in various stages of undress. There was evidence on the phone that Williams asked the girl for nude photographs, according to Meador, who said there was also a photograph of him and the girl. The prosecutor said some messages on Williams' phone appeared to show him reaching out to other juveniles. Meador said the girl was under the age of 17 when Willams, 24 at the time, had consensual sex with her. The girl gave birth in December 2023, the month before she went to the sheriff's office. In a plea agreement, Williams was sentenced to a total of five years in prison and placed on five years of probation. He will also be registered as a sex offender and must complete sex offender treatment. Given a chance to address the court, Williams, who was represented by Trey Raines of the Staunton Public Defender's Office, declined comment. Authorities arrested Williams on March 29, just days after he was indicted on the charges by the Augusta County grand jury. He remains at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona. Williams will eventually be transferred to the Virginia Department of Corrections to serve his sentence. More: Augusta supervisors reject companion pigs in residential zoning More: VDOT: More lights slated for I-64 on Afton mountain, warning system in works More: VSP: Driver ejected, killed in Augusta County crash Brad Zinn is the cops, courts and breaking news reporter at The News Leader. Have a news tip? Or something that needs investigating? You can email reporter Brad Zinn (he/him) at bzinn@newsleader.com. You can also follow him on X (formerly Twitter). This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Waynesboro man headed to prison after reportedly impregnating teen President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference, Thursday, July 11, 2024, on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington. | Jacquelyn Martin President Joe Biden begins the weekend under increased pressure about his decision to stay in the 2024 presidential race despite several public missteps and questions about his fitness for office, prompting calls from within his party to step down. Following a press conference on Thursday, Biden met with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Per MSNBC, in a statement about the meeting, Jeffries said he directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together. The statement did not clarify whether Jeffries advised Biden to withdraw from the race, however CNN reported that Jeffries did not offer Biden his endorsement. Additionally, according to The New York Times, wealthy donors have placed approximately $90 million in pledged donations on hold pending Bidens withdrawal from the race. Calls for Biden to step down began after his lackluster performance in the June 27 presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Thursdays press conference aimed to reaffirm Bidens capability to lead and address concerns about his well-being due to his age. Press conference does not dispel doubts During the press conference, Biden sought to dispel doubts about his fitness for office, asserting his qualification to lead and defeat Trump. I think I am the best qualified I know I believe Im the best qualified to govern, Biden said, per ABC News. And I think I am the best qualified to win. Despite his reassurances, Biden made several notable blunders during the hourlong conference. According to The Associated Press, in one instance early on, he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris, as Vice President Trump. A few hours earlier at a NATO event he made an even larger blunder by introducing Ukraines leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin. Biden realized the mistake and corrected himself, saying, President Putin? Youre going to beat President Putin. Who called for Biden to withdraw? After the press conference, three additional House Democrats joined the call for Biden to step down, bringing the total to 18 Democratic members of the House and Senate urging his withdrawal, according to The New York Times. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut praised Bidens accomplishments in a post on X, but urged him to step down to preserve his legacy. The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism, Himes said. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden... Reps. Scott Peters of California and Eric Sorensen of Illinois also called for Biden to withdraw. Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign, Peters said in a statement, per NBC News. The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course. In 2020, Joe Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party. Today, I am asking him to do that again, Sorensen echoed in a statement on X. Bidens efforts to build support In an effort to bolster his candidacy, Biden has scheduled meetings with four groups of House Democrats, per Politico. These groups include the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, and the Progressive Caucus. As support wanes for Biden, a popular alternative to run for the 2024 presidency is Vice President Kamala Harris. When questioned about whether she would run, in an interview with CBS, Harris said, Look, Joe Biden is our nominee. We beat Trump once and were going to beat him again, period. According to The Associated Press, during Bidens press conference Thursday when questioned about Harris capability as a prospective alternative for the 2024 presidency, he said, I wouldnt have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. However, after being directly asked whether he would step down in favor of Harris if polls showed she stood a better chance of beating Trump, he reiterated that he remains the best candidate. No, unless they come back and said theres no way you can win, he said. NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) A weekend full of homecomings for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group kicked off Friday morning at Naval Station Norfolk with a handful of the more than 6,500 sailors returning after a nine-month deployment supporting Operation Prosperity Guardian. USS Eisenhower to return home after nine-month deployment Members of the VRC-40 Rawhides arrived around 7:15 a.m. Friday with a flyover, followed by the return and flyover of the VAW-123 after a nine-month-long deployment. WAVY 10 photojournalist Corby Slaughter captured images of people reuniting Friday morning. WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo WAVY photo More groups were expected to return to Naval Air Station Oceana Friday, including the VFA-83, VFA-131, VFA-32 and VFA-105. The HSC-7 is expected to arrive at Naval Station Norfolk Saturday afternoon. Father and daughter duo coming home on Eisenhower The USS Eisenhower was engaged in combat operations in the Middle East from Nov. 2023 to June 2024, when they then traveled to the Gulf of Aden to defend commercial ships against Houthi rebels. They deployed last October, so family and friends were ready to see their loved ones back home. While deployed to the Red Sea, these squadrons, along with air force assets and coalition partners, led strikes against Houthi drones and missiles. Their mission was to maintain maritime freedom and ensure safe passage. Families gathered at Naval Station Norfolk and NAS Oceana early Friday morning. Lt. Commander Robert Nelson, also known as Fat Goose, got a warm welcome from his wife and parents. I might have been tearing up a little bit in the cockpit, Nelson said. After two extensions, it just felt too good to be true, but seeing him flyover made it all real and its just the happiest day! Lindsay Nelson said, hugging her husband. Very busy, sustained combat operations for six months, multiple missile WEZs (weapon engagement zones) throughout, multiple operations occurred, Nelson said. Everyone came back safe and sound. Just happy that Im back home with my wife. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is set to return to Naval Station Norfolk Sunday. 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. Barry Doane, 72 of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada, shows off on Thursday, April 11, 2024 how intense the heat from the wildfire was as it melted some of the chrome from his motorcycle. The Barrington wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 and which he had to be evacuated from left him with nothing. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. FORT McMURRAY, Alberta Gertie Byrne rushed to escape a looming wildfire bearing down on her home. Again. It was May 14, and authorities had given her two hours to throw important belongings in the car and flee Fort McMurray, her hometown. She headed to her brothers house in Edmonton, about four and a half hours away, as a wildfire edged toward her neighborhood. Again. Gertie Byrne, 65 of Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada talks on Monday, May 20, 2024 about this most recent and second time she and her family had to evacuate their home in the Beacon Hill area of the city on May 14, 2024 because of a wildfire that was starting to get too close. The last wildfire that happened in this area and to her was in 2016, one of the worst wildfires and it burned her house and many others in this suburb down. "At least we could take some of our valuables," Byrne, 65, told the Free Press days after her return. "The last time we ran for our lives, really. And we lost everything." The last time was the Horse River Fire in May and June of 2016, the worst wildfire in Canadian history. That blaze caused $9.9 billion Canadian in damage (about $7.23 billion U.S.) and destroyed more than 2,400 houses and buildings in and around Fort McMurray including Byrne's home. Less than eight years later, wildfire was again at Fort McMurray's doorstep. About 2,100 miles away, Detroit resident Toyia Watts spent weeks of last summer enveloped in a murk of Canadian wildfire smoke. "It was bad it was so foggy and smoky in our neighborhood, and I didn't know where it was coming from until the news broke it down," she said. "I didn't know we could get that quantity of smoke coming into the Detroit area from far up in Canada." Toyia Watts, 67, of Detroit sits in her family home in this file photo from Thursday, June 17, 2021. Watts, 69, said she has asthma, and the smoky days kept her mostly in her house. She worries about the impact on her community's quality of life if summers like 2023 become more frequent. "Especially for people like me with allergies, with asthma; kids playing in the fields, just people who want to walk outside," she said. "It's a big issue." Canada has a wildfire problem research shows its wildfires are growing in intensity and area burned. Last year, it reached nightmarish proportions and became America's problem, too. Canada didn't just break its wildfire records in 2023, it obliterated them. Nearly 58,000 square miles of the nation burned an area about the size of Illinois in more than 6,500 wildfires coast-to-coast from April to October, according to revised numbers from the Canadian Forest Service. That more than doubled Canada's previous wildfire record and was more than seven times the nation's historical average. The smoke from those fires caused unhealthy air quality in American cities in the Northeast, Midwest and Plains throughout the spring and summer of 2023. Something has changed in Alberta, Byrne said. "I've been here 44 years," she said. "If we saw a fire on the side of the highway, that was no big deal. We'd always see fires here, but nothing as big as these. We never lived in smoke last summer it was so smoky here, it was ungodly." What caused Canada to burn last summer? Is it going to happen more, making smoke-choked summers the new normal there and in the U.S.? Can anything be done about it? The Free Press, with support from the Pulitzer Center, this spring traveled across Canada, from its Atlantic to its Pacific coasts, venturing into its seemingly endless forests, to try to help answer those questions. A changed forest collides with a changed climate Calling Canadas wildfires in 2023 unprecedented doesnt capture the magnitude of what happened, said Michael Flannigan, a professor specializing in wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. "Sometimes we have bad fire in the west, sometimes in central Canada and occasionally in eastern Canada. But at times in 2023, the whole country was basically on fire," he said. "I've been working fires fairly closely since the 1970s. I have never seen a situation like we saw in 2023." The conditions leading up to 2023's cross-country inferno have been building in Canada for more than a century. Two key factors are involved, Flannigan and other experts say: Human-driven climate change has caused temperatures to rise and soil moisture to decrease, and has intensified extreme weather that helps whip up fires. Generations of putting out wildfires to protect cities and industries has broken the natural cycles of fire in the forest, leading to much denser tree populations and accumulated dry, dead materials on the forest floor that act as fuel. Canada's area burned in wildfire has doubled since the 1970s "if you include 2023, we can say it's quadrupled," Flannigan said. The western U.S. has also quadrupled its area burned in wildfires in that time, for much the same reasons. "The increases we are seeing are due almost exclusively to climate change," Flannigan said. "A warmer world means more fire." And it means a more frequent public health issue in America. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compiles an Air Quality Index, measuring the five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide all of them health hazards, all worsened by or potentially present in wildfire smoke. The higher the index number, the worse the air. Detroit's worst Air Quality Index daily score in 2022 was 133. The city had nine days last summer that met or exceeded that mark, with a high of 200, one point below the index category of Very Unhealthy, according to EPA data. Smoke from Canadian wildfires lingers in downtown Detroit skyline off of Woodward Avenue on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The air quality was even worse in Philadelphia and New York. Smoke from Quebec wildfires on June 7, 2023, caused "Very Unhealthy" air quality in those two U.S. cities, with Philadelphia's score of 290 just 10 points below "Hazardous," EPA's most severe Air Quality Index category, a condition where the health of anyone who breathes the air is at risk. The FAA issued a ground stop for flights at LaGuardia Airport in New York that day due to poor visibility from the thick Canadian wildfire smoke. And researchers reviewing data from 53 hospital emergency departments in New York found asthma-related ER visits increased nearly 44% over those smoky few days around June 7. Canadian wildfire smoke similarly caused air quality to plummet in other U.S. cities throughout the Northeast and Midwest, south to cities like Nashville and west into the Dakotas. New research by the nonprofit World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch Initiative and the University of Maryland found the 2023 Canadian wildfires released 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide nearly four times the carbon emissions of the global aviation sector in 2022. One of the world's largest forests To begin to understand Canada's wildfire threat, first understand the vastness of Canada's forests. With about 1.4 million square miles of forest land, Canada is the third-most forested country in the world, trailing only Russia and Brazil. Canada's forest is 15 times the surface area of all of the Great Lakes combined. "I got a lot of calls in the summer when the smoke was everywhere 'Why arent you putting out these fires?' " Flannigan said. "You fight all of your fires in the western United States, and the area burned has quadrupled there. Just because you fight them doesnt mean you can put them out." Canada's is the largest remaining intact forest on Earth, even larger than the Amazon rainforest. The Canadian portions of the North American boreal forest total 1.2 billion acres - the largest intact forest in the world. "People around the world probably don't really comprehend just the scale of the forested area that we have," said Richard Carr, a physical scientist and fire research analyst with the Canadian Forest Service in Edmonton. "You can get into the northern parts of the provinces and the territories and there's places where you could drive for several hours without running across a town just huge expanses of forest with not many people there. So trying to put a fire out in that takes a lot of time to get people and equipment into those areas, if it's even necessary." Canada's predominant forest type is boreal, a cold-hardy ecosystem dominated by cone-bearing evergreen trees: various types of pine, larch, spruce and fir, along with nonconiferous poplar, birch and aspen. The forests tend to grow very densely, the tree canopy allowing little sunlight through to the forest floor. Canada's boreal forest stretches from the Yukon near Alaska east to Newfoundland and Labrador on the Atlantic Coast, more than 1.2 billion acres. A changing climate increasing temperatures and reducing moisture, and a thickening forest where fires are often combated and put out, have primed conditions for larger, more intense wildfires, Flannigan said. "A lightning strike that hits the ground or a tree in the 1950s maybe doesnt even start a fire," he said. "And today, because things are drier, it starts a fire that grows to 20,000 acres." Some fire experts and scientists have been aware of the problem and its increasing intensity for decades. "It is clear that a successful record of fire suppression has led to a fuel buildup in the forests of British Columbia. The fuel buildup means that there will be more significant and severe wildfires, and there will be more interface fires (reaching human structures) unless action is taken." That was the finding of a blue-ribbon panel's report to the British Columbia government in January 2004, following a record-breaking year of wildfires the previous summer in which about 1,000 square miles of the province burned. More than 10 times that area, nearly 11,000 square miles, burned in British Columbia wildfires last summer. The report on the 2003 wildfires recommended a much more significant effort be undertaken on fuel reduction in the forests. It mostly went unheeded, said Robert Gray, a co-author of the report and wildland fire ecologist. "Certainly, those initial problems we identified have not been addressed," he said. Gray runs his own company, RW Gray Consulting based in Chilliwack, British Columbia, that works with groups and local governments on understanding and mitigating their wildfire risks. He's done similar work on the American side of the border. Robert Gray, a wildland fire ecologist who studies fire behavior and how fire affects the environment inside a forest in Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada on May, 30, 2024. Since the time of that report on the 2003 wildfires, the forests have piled up even more fire fuels, Gray said. A significant mountain pine beetle epidemic about 10 years ago killed more than 77,000 square miles of forest in British Columbia, he said, leaving dry, dead trees that create an even better recipe for large wildfires. "And then over that 20-year period, climate change has really kicked into overdrive," he said. Canada had its warmest summer on record last year, dating to the start of national recordkeeping in 1948, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada, the nation's equivalent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The temperature from May to July 2023 exceeded Canada's previous national temperature records for the two-month period by 0.8 degrees Celsius, about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Including May and September, each province and territory in Canada recorded its warmest five months on record, with the exception of its Atlantic region. "So we've got the bottom-up problem, the fuels, which has not gotten better; and then we have the top-down side which is the weather and climate," Gray said. Quebec saw nearly 17,400 square miles burned in 2023 wildfires, a record for area burned in the province. A study last year by researchers with the Canadian Forest Service; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Imperial College in London, United Kingdom; the University of Quebec at Montreal; and others found that due to its impact on hotter temperatures, less moisture and more extreme weather, "climate change made the cumulative severity of Quebec's 2023 fire season to the end of July around 50% more intense, and seasons of this severity at least seven times more likely to occur." "Peak fire weather like that experienced (in 2023) is at least twice as likely, and the intensity has increased by about 20% due to human-induced climate change," the study found. Record-setting coastal wildfire: 'That doesn't happen in Nova Scotia' The Atlantic coast community of Barrington, Nova Scotia, is dubbed the Lobster Capital of Canada. Many of the city's 6,600 residents have some tie to lobstering; modest house after house has stacks of rectangular lobster traps in the driveway. A daily, steady flow of fishing boats moves into and out of the nearby harbor. Scenes of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada on Friday, April 12. 2024. Known as the lobster capital of Canada, the town relies on tourism and was hit hard on May 26, 2023 when a wildfire went out of control and was fought by hundreds of firefighters but it still burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. LEFT: Fishing boats are seen docked in Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada on Friday, April 12. 2024. RIGHT: A sign on Highway 3 on Friday, April 12, 2024 welcoming people to Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada, the lobster capital of the country is surrounded by burned trees from a wildfire that started on May 26, 2023. A foggy marine layer descends over the area almost every night, and often multiple times a day. Firefighters here said they've watched that atmospheric moisture from the ocean and nearby lakes snuff out small wildfires without them even needing to deploy their hoses. Barrington - Port La Tour Fire Chief Paul Thomas has worked for the department for more than four decades, since 1980. He couldn't recall a wildfire that took longer than a day to put out. Then came May 26, 2023 the start of the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia's recorded history. What happened near Barrington Lake that day isn't fully clear, at least to the public though local speculation has run rampant. But according to Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, a local man, Dalton Clark Stewart, 22, of Villagedale, Shelburne County, was charged under the province's Forests Act with: Lighting a fire on privately owned land without permission of the owner or occupier. Failing to take reasonable efforts to prevent the spread of a fire. Leaving a fire unattended. Stewart has pleaded not guilty and the case is pending in a provincial court. If convicted, he could face a fine of up to $50,000 Canadian and/or up to six months in prison. "At the time the fire started, it was very dry, windy and low humidity just the perfect storm of bad conditions for a fire," said Dwayne Hunt, fire service coordinator and director of the emergency management office for the Municipality of Barrington. A provincial Natural Resources firefighting crew, along with a local department, were on the Barrington Lake fire that afternoon and evening, and seemed to make headway with it, Hunt said. Dwayne Hunt the fire service coordinator for the Municipality of the District of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada drives around on April 11, 2024 to some of the many acres of burnt and charred forest Hunt and many Barrington Port LaTour Fire Department firefighters and volunteers from other department from the surrounding areas worked at putting out smoldering fires in Barrington during a wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 and burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. Dwayne Hunt, the fire service coordinator for the Municipality of the District of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada shows on a fire map on April 11, 2024 the areas in red where the Barrington wildfire happened on May 26, 2023. Hunt and many Barrington Port LaTour Fire Department firefighters and volunteers from other department from the surrounding areas worked at putting out smoldering fires in Barrington a fire that burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. The crews stopped their work overnight, a standard practice, and the Natural Resources crew returned the next day Saturday, May 27, 2023. That's when the fire got away from them, Hunt said. The crews told Thomas they expected the wildfire to spread to the Clyde River and the community's main route, Highway 103, by Sunday morning, May 28. It reached both just after midnight that night. Emergency officials evacuated affected homes. Air temperatures didn't drop, and humidity didn't fall overnight. At midnight, the fire was crowning, spreading through the tops of trees, the most intense type of wildfire, Hunt said. "That doesnt happen in Nova Scotia," he said. Paul Thomas, the fire chief for the Barrington Port LaTour inside his fire station in Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada on Friday, April 12, 2024. Sunrise on Sunday brought many more evacuations. The relentless wind kept shifting directions, and the fire zigged and zagged, destroying homes and cottages as it went, doubling back on areas it had earlier passed and spared. "This fire just kept growing in every direction," Hunt said. By that weekend, it was the largest wildfire Thomas had seen in the area in his more than four decades of fighting fires there. It would grow and spread for another week out of control, ultimately burning more than 90 square miles relatively small by the standards of big wildfires in Quebec, Alberta or British Columbia, but the largest wildfire ever in Nova Scotia. At one point, three fire crews extended 16, 100-foot sections of hose into the woods to spray down trees and try to suppress the fire. A Natural Resources helicopter pilot radioed in that the fire was headed in their direction, out of control and fast. The crews were forced to uncouple their hoses, leave them lying on the forest floor, and beat a retreat. "Before the fire ever got to a house, it was so thick and so hot, the smoke, you couldnt fight it," Barrington-Port La Tour deputy fire chief Arthur Doane said. "There was no way you could stand in front of it, or stand to the side and put water on it. The smoke was so thick and so hot, it was super-heating everything before the actual flames got there. Even if we were there when a house caught fire, we wouldnt have been able to put it out. The smoke was so thick you couldnt see your hand in front of your face." By Monday, May 29, 2023, the wildfire had doubled in size, Hunt said. By nightfall Monday, it had doubled in size again. An aerial view, photographed by Barrington Port LaTour Fire Department, show a large area of charred forest in Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada where an out of control wildfire started on May 26, 2023. LEFT: Barrington Port LaTour Fire Department firefighters work at putting out smoldering fires in Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada during a wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 and burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. RIGHT: An aerial view shows a main bridge used by residents of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada that burnt and collapsed due to wildfires making their evacuation route out of the community more difficult. For many residents of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada, the Barrington wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 got too close to home. The smoke and fires could be seen for miles while Port LaTour Fire Department firefighters worked at putting out the fires which burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. Response was complicated by wildfires popping up in other parts of Nova Scotia, pulling away resources, including one on May 28, 2023, in Halifax that forced the evacuation of thousands and ultimately damaged or destroyed more than 200 homes and other buildings. Fire officials thought they would have to evacuate thousands in Barrington as the fire bore down on the community. Then on Saturday, June 2, 2023, at last nature gave the firefighters a break. A steady rain developed that helped bring the fire under control. "Without that rain, we might have lost hundreds of homes," Thomas said. The fire took another two months to fully extinguish. Over 100 properties were damaged, including some 31 camps, cottages and houses. Twelve primary residences were destroyed, and seven of the homeowners didn't have insurance, Shelburne County senior safety coordinator Shawna Symonds said. "We were completely overwhelmed. We were not prepared for something like this," she said. Fire victims who lost their homes pick up the charred pieces of their lives Barry Doane, a resident of nearby Goose Lake, received a call on Saturday, May 27, 2023, from his son, who was frantically packing up and evacuating his cottage on Barrington Lake. "He said, 'The fire is coming your way,' " Barry Doane said. "I just didn't figure it would." Doane no known relation to Barrington - Port La Tour deputy fire chief Arthur Doane began to see helicopters descending on the lake a stone's throw from his house, scooping buckets of water to drop on the incoming fire. That afternoon, a first responder came to Doane's door and told him he might have to evacuate "within a couple of hours," Barry Doane recalled. About five minutes later, the first responder was back. "You need to leave now," he said. Barry Doane grabbed his cat, some cat food, a suitcase full of clothes and not much else. He figured he would be back soon. Barry Doane, 72 of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada stands on Thursday, April 11, 2024 where a garage once was before the Barrington wildfire that housed many of his items including the trailer and canoe behind him. The wildfire that started on May 26, 2023. Doane along with 6,000 others had to be evacuated from and when he was able to return he came home to nothing as the out of control fire took everything. Over the week that Barry Doane stayed with a friend, rumors spread of different houses being destroyed. But he heard from a few fire and law enforcement personnel who had passed through the area that his home was intact. Later, he heard it wasn't. By the time he was able to return about a week later, he found his home destroyed. Doane had no insurance. "I just sat in my truck and cried," he said. "I started raking through stuff and it was useless. It was just so much of a mess." Doane now lives in a modular home, rebuilt over the ashes of his former residence through the assistance of Shelburne County, the province of Nova Scotia and the Red Cross. Traumatic reminders of the fire surround him everywhere blackened trees, a boat trailer with charred wooden beams and melted taillights. "I dream of good things when I go to bed," he said. "But then it's 3 a.m. and thoughts of the fire come back, thinking about what you lost. "Just little things play tricks on your mind." The trailer home on Thursday, April 11, 2024 on the property of Barry Doane, 72 of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada. Hes been living here since the Barrington wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 that forced him to evacuate. Doane, who had no insurance, lost everything in the fire. Doane is thankful for the community support he has received: clothes, blankets, furniture and more. But he's concerned he may potentially have to take over mortgage or rent-to-own payments on his home after a couple of years' grace from the Red Cross. "I'm 72 years old this July," he said. "With all my expenses and everything, where's it going to come from, or where am I going to go? It gives you uncertainty about the future." "You've got to get out" Norma Mcgray, then 88, lived near Clyde River her entire life. On Sunday, May 28, 2023, she went to church that morning, and saw smoke from the Barrington Lake wildfire in the air. By the time she returned from the service, her street was blocked and fire trucks were everywhere. "They were knocking on my door, saying, 'You've got to get out,' " she said. "They kept yelling at me to get out. Norma McGray, 89 inside of her small apartment in Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada on Thursday, April 11, 2024. McGray was one of thousands of people in the area that the Barrington wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 affected. This fire burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. "You didn't know what to take; you didn't have time to take anything. But I did go back and grab my important papers. They were still yelling at me to get out, so the fire must have been close. They had a sense of urgency in their voice." She stayed with a friend who had an apartment in Barrington. Still not knowing the fate of her house, Mcgray spent her time volunteering at the local Lions Club where she was a member, feeding fellow displaced residents and helping get donated items to them. "I could not just sit around and do nothing," she said. After a week, Mcgray learned her trailer, her home since 1975, was destroyed in the blaze. When she finally got to return to the site, everything was gone. "I was just devastated," she said. Mcgray, now 89, lives in a senior apartment in Barrington that opened up within a few weeks of her being displaced. It's the lost memories that affect Mcgray the most the photo albums full of pictures of her son's graduation, or his time in the military, compiled when digital images weren't around, she said. She also lost most of her favorite jewelry, but not all of it. As the emergency officials were yelling for her to evacuate, as she went back in to grab important documents, "I got halfway across the living room and I thought about the ring that my son had bought me from Europe," she said. Norma McGray, 89 of Barrington, Nova Scotia, Canada shows off on Thursday, April 11, 2024, all that she was able to save from the Barrington wildfire that started on May 26, 2023 . This fire burned close to 23,000 hectares forcing more than 6,000 people to be evacuated. She got the ring, as well as another prized jade ring. But everything else, all of the items collected over a lifetime, are gone. Nothing from her past colors the place where she will probably live out her remaining days. "I'm not the only one; everybody whose house burned lost the same kinds of things," she said. "I'm here now. I mean, this is nice, but it's not home. But you're glad to find a place." A city of more than 20,000 flees wildfire Among the record-shattering aspects of Canada's 2023 wildfire season was the number of people it displaced. Approximately 232,000 people had to leave their homes across the country a number greater than the 10 largest wildfire evacuations since 1980 combined. In Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, the entire city of more than 20,000 residents was forced to evacuate for three weeks. People line up outside of a local school to register to be evacuated, as wildfires threatened the Northwest Territories town of Yellowknife, Canada, August 17, 2023. REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY The fire threatening the city had started in mid-July. But when strong winds pushed the fire beyond a line that public safety officials were comfortable with, the community scrambled to evacuate, Mayor Rebecca Alty said. "Looking at the weather forecast, the fire subject matter experts made the recommendation that we do a whole-community evacuation on that Wednesday," Aug. 16, she said. "It looked like the fire was going to reach our boundary by about Friday. With only one way in and out of Yellowknife by road, there was also that need of, if the fire is going to threaten the community, we have to move sooner rather than later." The city was lucky the mass evacuation wasn't even more of a logistical nightmare, Alty said. "A week later, I think we would have had even more residents in town because school was just about to begin again, so there were still a lot of people that were on vacation and out of town," she said. "And with the fires being as close as they were, we had poor air quality for a couple of weeks. So some folks had already left town just to get to better air quality." The majority of residents drove out of town once the evacuation order was issued, and those without their own vehicles were flown out on government-chartered aircraft. Evacuation of the local hospital and nearby senior care facilities were the most challenging, and the Canadian military assisted where needed, Alty said. Chuck Davidson of Matrix Aviation, loads supplies for firefighters as wildfires threatened the Northwest Territories town of Yellowknife, Canada, August 18, 2023. For those without friends and family to drive to, care facilities and hotel rooms were arranged in Alberta, with the closest reception center about 18 hours away. For some, it was more of a financial challenge than others, Alty said. "It was a lot like COVID we were all in the same storm, but different boats," she said. "Some residents had an 'evac-cation' of three weeks off, a great time to spend with family and friends. For others, it was very difficult financially. Three weeks in a hotel with a family of five, it gets challenging." One of the largest wildfires in Quebec's record-breaking 2023 occurred near Chibougamau, the largest town in Nord-du-Quebec, the largest but least populous of 17 administrative regions of the province. The region has nearly 290,000 square miles of land area, about 55% of the total land area of Quebec, but with only about 0.5% of the province's population. The town of about 7,600 residents was forced to evacuate in early June, and residents were away for six days before the all-clear to return was issued. "The fire was at around 20 or 25 kilometers from Chibougamau but we had the impact of the smoke," Mayor Manon Cyr said. "SOPFEU (the provincial wildfire fighting agency) was worried that they didn't have any control on the fire and they were unable to guarantee the safety of our population." Normally, nightfall brought more humidity, less wind and less dryness, Cyr said. But that wasn't happening. Like many remote communities in Canada's vast forests, Chibougamau has only one route in and out, Cyr said. Wildfires nearby are not uncommon. "But every time (in the past) it was not like it was last summer the size of it, the lack of control, they were quite different," she said. A multibillion-dollar problem The total cost of the 2023 wildfires across Canada in damage, response and recovery, is still being calculated. "Its into the billions of dollars," said Harjit Sajjan, Canada's minister of emergency preparedness. The stunning Canadian wildfire season of 2023 didn't cause a seismic shift in Canadian government thinking or action, Sajjan said. Previous years of megafires had already done that: Fort McMurray in 2016; the 1,300 wildfires in British Columbia in 2017 that burned 4,600 square miles of the province, displaced 65,000 British Columbians and cost the province more than $564 million Canadian; the 323-square-mile wildfire in Lytton, British Columbia, in June and July 2021 that led to two deaths, more than 1,000 evacuations, and more than $200 million Canadian in costs. The Canadian government launched the Firefighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate program beginning in 2022, providing $256 million over five years to provinces and territories to purchase wildland firefighting equipment and increase capacity to prepare for and prevent fires. Canada has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in WildFireSat, a monitoring satellite set to be launched by 2029, that will monitor Canada's wildfires from space and provide real-time data to managers determining what fires need prioritizing, and where. The nation's efforts include an expansion of FireSmart, a program providing training and resources for citizens to better prepare their homes and properties to withstand wildfires, such as clearing ignitable materials from near their homes. But all of those efforts don't lower summer temperatures, or combat drought, or increase winter snowpack to saturate the ground in spring that keeps coming earlier than ever. Public Safety Canada on June 12 issued an updated forecast for the 2024 wildfire season, predicting high wildfire risk to continue over coming months, especially in regions of the country continuing to experience intense drought such as northwestern Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and southern Northwest Territories, as above-normal temperatures are predicted throughout the summer. The work will continue on how to better prevent, predict, respond to and recover from wildfires, Sajjan said. "If these situations are going to occur and the scientists are telling us that they will then we need to be looking at preventing the impacts of those wildfires, especially on people and on property," he said. Canada and the U.S. should prepare to see more fire and smoke going forward, Flannigan said. "Not every year is going to be a bad fire year; some years are going to be cooler and wetter as Siberia gets the heat wave, or Europe gets the heat wave, and that's where the problems are," he said. "But our fire activity is going to increase." Wildfire is a natural occurrence that can actually improve the health of forests. But unnatural conditions through fire suppression and a warmer, drier climate have caused wildfires burning too large, with shortening gaps between wildfires in the same location, Flannigan said. About 5% of Canada's massive forestland burned in 2023. "People say, 'If the fire increases, the forests are going to disappear.' And they are right," Flannigan said. "It may well be that is happening already in certain places where you get repeat fires too close together. "We are going to see more fires. And if the forest does disappear, what replaces it? Grasslands? Shrub lands? Grass can burn every year in fact, grass can burn twice a year." Said Sajjit, "The reality is, we are dealing with this. We have to learn and get better at how we live with it." Detroit Free Press reporter Keith Matheny and photographer Eric Seals are the Pulitzer Center's 2024 Richard C. Longworth Media Fellows. Contact Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Canada's wildfires, smoke became a problem for US West Ridge Mall to sell off things left behind by old tenants West Ridge Mall to sell off things left behind by old tenants TOPEKA (KSNT) Topekas West Ridge Mall is looking to clear up space this month by selling off a variety of items left behind by former tenants. KSNT 27 News spoke with West Ridge Mall Manager Casey Richardson about some upcoming events at the mall locals can attend. She highlights an upcoming mall fixture sale set for 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, July 20 in the former GAP location. The sale will be cash-only and be on a first-come, first-serve basis. We will have quite a large variety of fixtures for sale ranging from tables, racks, mannequins, restaurant items, hangers, and other miscellaneous retail fixtures, Richardson said in a written response. New downtown Topeka restaurant will offer margaritas on tap, Mexican food Photos of what people can purchase during this sale will be posted to West Ridge Malls Facebook account next week. You can keep tabs on their Facebook posts by clicking here. In addition to the mall fixture sale, there will be several other events happening in July Richardson encourages people to attend. These include: Back to the Future Movie Night at the Mall 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 13. Old Victorias Secret location. Free event. Petland Dog Wash 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 20. Just outside the mall near the Petland entrance. Free event but donations will be accepted for Second Chance Animal Refuge Society (SCARS). Dogs will be washed with flea and tick shampoo. Bring your own towel to dry off your pet. Back to School Sidewalk Sale 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 20. Located throughout the interior of the mall. Various deals from mall tenants on back to school clothes. West Ridge Topeka Car Cruise-In 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 20. Large West Ridge Mall parking lot. Hosted by the Topeka Auto Enthusiasts Group. Attendees will cruise the malls parking lot. Dillards Kids Day Fashion Show 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 27. Outside the lower mall entrance. More details to be announced soon. For more information on events happening at West Ridge Mall this year, click here. Part of I-70 to close in Topeka for viaduct work 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. 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. (FOX40.COM) Multiple ducklings were rescued by firefighters after being trapped in a storm drain in West Sacramento, according to the West Sacramento Fire Department. Officials said they received a call on July 6 that reported trapped ducklings in a storm drain in a neighborhood on Bodega Bay Road. Three earthquakes recorded near major California fault line When a crew arrived, residents in the area directed them to a storm drain where chirping could be heard. Officials said an adult Mallard duck, the ducklings mother, was pacing the area with one duckling. Firefighters lifted the storm drain cover and found six ducklings about two feet below and lifted them to safety. The ducklings were reunited with their mother and went on their way, 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 FOX40. GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) Due to a low volume of children needing care, West Springs Hospital announced Thursday that it is temporarily closing its pediatric wing. The hospital plans to reopen the unit in early August, coinciding with the beginning of the new school year. According to the hospital, it has seen less than two children per day as of late. This isnt unusual for this time of year as there usually is a decrease in adolescent admissions, especially during the second half of summer school, West Springs said. If the volume increases sooner, the hospital will reopen the unit. Youth who come through the hospitals psychiatric emergency department will be evaluated in the psychiatric emergency department as normal and treated onsite or transferred to other appropriate behavioral health facilities, ensuring the well-being of patients and smooth transitions of care while still providing critical care and a critical access point in the community, according to West Springs Hospital. 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. West uncovers Russia's plans to conduct sabotage operations and murder of notable supporters of Ukraine Western special services have uncovered Russias plans of murder, arson and other sabotage operations in Europe against the companies and people connected with support for Ukrainian soldiers, including Armin Papperger, CEO of the Rheinmetall armament production concern. Source: an anonymous Western official cited by , as reported by European Pravda Details: APs source said that Russias plans include recruitment of criminals from other countries to carry out the attacks. The official specified that one of such attacks was planned against Papperger. The source refused to provide any details about other actions of Moscow. AP states that European leaders discussed the fight against the escalation of hybrid attacks, which they blame on Russia and its allies, at the NATO summit in Washington this week. These attacks include recent fires at industrial and commercial facilities in Lithuania, Poland, the UK, Germany and other countries, as well as the migration pressure initiated by Minsk and Moscow. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, also confirmed that the Alliance identified a large-scale coordinated hybrid campaign which Russia had started simultaneously against a number of NATO member states. In April the German authorities arrested two citizens of Russian-German origin on suspicion of the preparation of sabotage attacks, including those against US military facilities, with the aim of undermining the military support for Ukraine. Earlier it was reported that Germany had facilitated the highest level of protection for Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall, after the Russian attempted to assassinate him was revealed. Support UP or become our patron! On a split vote late Tuesday night, the Whatcom County Council agreed to ask a Superior Court judge to decide whether a citizen initiative to repeal the countywide child care tax can appear on the Nov. 5 election ballot. Petitions seeking to overturn the tax, which passed by 20 votes in 2022, were filed with the Whatcom County Auditors Office on June 3, and they had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot as an initiative. Tuesdays vote to seek a judicial opinion was 4-2, with councilmembers Ben Elenbaas and Mark Stremler opposed. Councilman Tyler Byrd abstained. Elenbaas and Stremler represent districts that include rural Whatcom County north of Bellingham and the cities of Ferndale, Blaine and Lynden. I feel like democracy is under attack here. Whats it going to cost us to put this on the ballot? Nothing. In fact, that is our charge. I just think were way out of line here, Elenbaas said Tuesday during discussion on the issue. County Council members have debated the topic in recent committee meetings, where Councilman Todd Donovan said the ballot measure should have been filed as a referendum. That would have required a larger number of petition signatures and put time constraints on its filing. By definition, an initiative asks voters to make a new law, while a referendum is used to repeal an existing law. Democracy means playing by the rules. I think these are clear-cut in the charter. Maybe a court will (disagree), Donovan said. Donovan, who represents the northern part of Bellingham, is a political science professor at Western Washington University whose research focuses on political behavior, direct democracy and elections, among other topics. George Roche, the lawyer from the Prosecuting Attorneys Office who advises the County Council on legal issues, has told the council that nearly all citizen ballot measures ultimately wind up in court. Because the initiative was certified by Whatcom County Auditor Stacy Henthorn, the County Council is required under the county charter to either put the measure on the ballot, present a competing measure or enact it into law. Several Whatcom County residents addressed the proposal to seek a court ruling during the open pubic comment part of Tuesday nights meeting. In addition, the League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County sent a letter of support. Political action committee Washingtonians for a Sound Economy asked the County Council to let the voters decide if they want to keep paying the tax. We find it ironic that the county is complaining about the impacts of the initiative to its budget and deals with it by authorizing expensive litigation by the county attorney, the PACs Ashley Butenschoen said in a statement. Washingtonians for a Sound Economy funded the signature drive to repeal the tax, raising $62,500, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission. Critics of the repeal say that the PAC falsely claimed that it will lower property taxes by 25% and didnt mention the measures full intent. We believe that signatures on the propositions were collected with misleading information. People were led to believe that their property taxes would go down 25%. That is not true. My personal property tax would go down about 3%, Eileen McCracken, president of the League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County, said in a letter that was included on the County Council agenda. Called the Healthy Childrens Fund, the tax charges property owners 19 cents for every $1,000 of assessed valuation, raising an estimated $10 million annually. That means that the owner of a home assessed at $500,000 is paying $95 a year over the 10-year life of the tax levy. The measure received broad support among employers in Whatcom County, who said that the high cost of child care is a weight on the local economy. Spending includes $7 million every year on direct child care programs, according the the Whatcom County Department of Health and Community Services. (Bloomberg) -- NATOs European members have long thought they would prefer an ailing Joe Biden to an unpredictable Donald Trump. But now theyre coming to terms with the fact that whoever wins the election US priorities are increasingly going to shift elsewhere. Most Read from Bloomberg At the same time as their summit in Washington was overshadowed by speculation on what the presidents decline means for his partys prospects of defeating Trump in November, there were noises off-stage sharpening the visitors focus on what comes next. At a rally this week Trump dug in on criticisms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, indicating he was prepared to ignore its central pillar: the clause on collective defense. But European officials say theyre expecting both he and his democratic counterpart to concentrate more on China at the expense of Europe. Europe should not be helpless, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview Friday. We need to get serious about defense of the EU because the US officially no longer has the capacity to fight two wars at the same time, he said, pointing at increasing American tensions with China. Prodded by French President Emmanuel Macron, who called NATO brain-dead five years ago, Europe has rushed to shore up its own defense capabilities. The continents lack of preparedness was laid bare by both Russias 2022 invasion of Ukraine as well as Trumps time in the White House, when he lashed out at NATO members reliance on their most generous member. Even so, its not so much a Trump presidency as the international environment that are changing things for Europe, according to Camille Grand, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior NATO official. The difference could be the manner in which any retreat is brought about: With Biden it would be much more step-by-step, with Trump itd be more disruptive, Grand said. At his rally, Trump recounted a threat not to come to the aid of allies that dont meet their spending commitments. Acting on that behavior would flout how the alliance operates and create a huge crisis, according to a senior European diplomat, who wasnt authorized to give candid views so spoke on condition of anonymity. In the meantime, Washingtons focus on Beijing has prompted China to feature more prominently in European officials discussions with US politicians and think tankers on both sides of the aisle. In an interview on the NATO summits sidelines, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics appealed to the next US administration to keep troops in Europe and continue supporting Ukraine. He said rowing back those commitments would only hinder the USs China strategy by raising doubts among allies in its region. If there is no efficient response by NATO where the United States is part of it, Rinkevics said, Why on earth would anyone in Asia trust the United States? NATO has collectively started to focus more on China, in part to stay relevant to the US. On Wednesday, its leaders issued their starkest language yet toward Beijing. They accused it of being a decisive enabler of the conflict in Ukraine, after US officials briefed allies about the extent of Chinas aid to Russias war. The US pivot to counter China is already showing up in budget priorities. The Biden administration requested $9.1 billion for its Pacific Deterrence Initiative for this year, compared with $3.6 billion for the European initiative. With the US shifting focus to Asia, European nations keep underlining that theyre picking up the slack partly out of hope thatll keep Washington engaged. For Germany, the European Unions economic engine, the summit was a turning point, and prompted the realization that it will have to boost its defense capabilities irrespective of a Trump or a Biden White House, according to officials familiar with the governments thinking. For them, this was mainly due to the political volatility in the US. We have to understand that even if Biden wins another term, the USs attention will increasingly shift to the Indo-Pacific, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told Deutschlandfunk radio on Thursday. That means what they do more of there, theyll do less of in Europe. Around 23 out of 32 NATO allies will hit a goal of spending at least 2% of output on defense this year up from just 10 countries last year. But with Europe struggling to both arm Ukraine and rebuild its stocks, its still got a long way to go to be able to defend the region without American help. France, Germany, Italy and Poland took a step toward filling a critical military capability for which the blocs so far been relying on the US, when on Thursday the countries agreed to design and build their own long-range missiles. But its unclear whether those efforts will be enough to assuage the next White House, particularly if its Trump who wins a second term. Defense spending is not in and of itself something that Trump really cares about, said Sumantra Maitra, a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, which was founded by Russ Vought, a former official in Trumps cabinet. Fundamentally, he doesnt really like being in a situation where he thinks he is being taken advantage of. Theres a constant demand from eastern Europe for the US to spend more money in Ukraine, Maitra said, adding he doesnt speak for the Trump campaign: Those are fundamentally not American concerns. --With assistance from Arne Delfs, Slav Okov, Piotr Skolimowski, Kasia Klimasinska and James Mahoney. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. While Biden fumbles at the podium, Kamala Harris is doing her best at playing presidential While Biden fumbles at the podium, Kamala Harris is doing her best at playing presidential While Biden continuously fails to reassure voters of his fitness, Harris has been doing the opposite. On Thursday, Harris did her level best to shore up support at a rally in North Carolina. Harris may be one of the most likely replacements for Biden if he were to step aside. While President Joe Biden tried to keep it together at his big boy press conference on Thursday, his vice president was at a rally in North Carolina putting up a much stronger show. The pressure to perform well was high in Biden's live press appearance his first unscripted dialogue since the disastrous CNN debate that had Democratic lawmakers and donors questioning his fitness to run for reelection. And Biden did not provide much reassurance to his supporters. On Thursday, he fumbled with gaffes like calling Vice President Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump," and mistakenly addressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin." In contrast, Harris was out on the campaign trail in North Carolina, delivering strong, articulate messages about the president's capabilities. "If there is one single person who deserves credit, in the world, for strengthening NATO, making it stronger, making it more united and more effective, that is Joe Biden," she said. VP: Understand as Trump bows down to dictators, he makes America weak and that is disqualifying for someone who wants to be commander-in-chief of the United States of America pic.twitter.com/n55nBCgLfn Acyn (@Acyn) July 11, 2024 "And having made it more effective, then together with our allies around the globe, we are standing up to the dictator Putin. All to ensure that America is strong and Americans are safe," she added with her voice raised, to loud applause and cheers. Harris' performance, particularly in contrast with Biden's, did not go unnoticed. Rep. Jared Huffman of California reposted Harris' North Carolina campaign speech on X on Thursday, writing: "VP Harris is on fire. She's vetted, tested, and has been Democrats' strongest messenger throughout this campaign. He added: "Let me be very clear: if/when President Biden passes the torch, I'm all-in for Kamala Harris!" Former CNN correspondent and political commentator Brian Stelter echoed Huffman's sentiments, saying on X: "Many powerful sound bites from VP Kamala Harris on the nightly newscasts right now." Harris may be quietly gearing up for a 2024 run Rumors have been brewing that Harris may be quietly preparing to take over the Democratic presidential ticket from Biden. For one, her staff changed her schedule after the June CNN debate, having her appear alongside Biden for the Fourth of July fireworks and picnic at the White House, something she has not done before, The New York Times reported. She had always traditionally celebrated the day at a local fire station. And Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader who spoke to Harris on July 5, told The Times that people around Harris were gearing up for the possibility that they might have to make her the Democratic candidate. "I think there are some that are independent of her that are getting ready," he told The Times. And surveys have shown that Harris may be a viable Biden replacement. A new Thursday poll, conducted jointly by ABC News, Washington Post, and Ipsos, showed that if Harris ran for the top job instead of Biden, she would have a two-percentage-point edge over former President Donald Trump. Biden's campaign manager has also said that if Biden quits, most of his campaign's sizable war chest will go to Harris. It's not just members of the Democratic Party. In a video posted on his Truth Social account on July 3, Trump, too, acknowledged the possibility of running against Harris rather than Biden. "I got him out the race, and that means we have Kamala," Trump said in the clip. In anticipation of a switch of candidates, Trump is already trialing some nasty nicknames for Harris, including "Laffin' Kamala Harris" and "Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris." Harris has remained loyal for now Despite mounting pressures on Biden to step aside in favor of a younger and more viable candidate, Harris has stood resolutely behind the president. And to be sure, while Harris is Biden's most likely replacement, other names have been floated, like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and more. Newsom and Whitmer have both publicly affirmed their support for Biden, saying they would not challenge him in the race. And Biden, too, is hanging in there despite at least 16 House Democrats and one Democratic senator calling on him to quit. In a letter to House Democrats on Monday, he said: "I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024." Representatives for Harris did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider DETROIT Kermit Williams is a political organizer with the Oakland Forward Action Fund, a grassroots organization that focuses on the Black community in some of Detroits northern suburbs. Following Joe Bidens dismal performance in last months presidential debate, Williams said he felt pretty rattled until he spoke to his mother. She put it in really good perspective for me, Williams told HuffPost on Wednesday. She said Joe Biden has never been the most phenomenal speaker, but hes got phenomenal morals. This is the sort of sentiment that Biden is counting on to save his embattled presidential candidacy. With an increasingly loud chorus of pundits, activists and elected Democrats calling on Biden to step aside, the president has repeatedly cited his popularity with the partys core voting groups. At the top of the list are Black voters, who have played the role of political savior before. Back in the 1990s, Black voters and their representatives in Congress rallied behind Bill Clinton when other party leaders were ready to cut him loose after the revelations about his sexual relationship with a White House intern. Much more recently, Black voters gave Biden a critical boost when he was nearly vanquished in the 2020 Democratic primaries and then, in the general election, when Biden nearly lost his lead against then-President Donald Trump. The Rev. Wendell Anthony, the president of the Detroit Branch NAACP, and U.S. President Joe Biden embrace during the Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner on May 19, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan. Monica Morgan via Getty Images On Friday, Biden is set to hold a rally at a Detroit high school. Its a chance to get media coverage in Michigan, the fourthswingstate hell have visited since Junes debate debacle. Its also a chance to showcase Bidens support in what was historically and may still be the nations largest majority-Black city. But support for Biden isnt the same as a conviction that he should keep running. National polls have found Black voters to be divided on that question, just like other Democratic voters are. The surveys include a YouGov/Economist poll out Wednesday in which a 49% plurality of Black voters said they favored Biden making way for another candidate. And at least among such voters in Detroit, local organizers and activists told HuffPost this week, those numbers reflect mixed, conflicted feelings about the limits of Bidens abilities, the perils of a late switch, and even the implications of Vice President Kamala Harris taking his place at the top of the ticket. Love For Biden, Anxieties About His Political Abilities Biden didnt always have great standing in the Black community, though its easy to forget now. For years there were bad feelings over the way Biden as Senate Judiciary Committee chair handled the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas and accusations by Thomas former employee Anita Hill that hed made sexually inappropriate comments. But that changed in 2008 when Biden signed on to become Barack Obamas vice presidential candidate, according to the Rev. Charles Williams II, a pastor at the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church. During a conversation about local politics at a downtown diner Thursday afternoon, the reverend, who also chairs Michigans chapter for the National Action Network civil rights group, said many voters he knew thought the Obama nod said a lot about Bidens values and his willingness to take action, rather than just make promises, when it comes to standing up for the Black community. He sealed the deal when he gave Obama legitimacy with white voters, said the reverend. And then he showed himself again when he picked Kamala Harris to be his own vice president. Since then, Bidens performance as president appears to have made an impression of its own. Jonathan Kinloch, a county commissioner whose history in local and state politics goes all the way back to his high school days in the 1980s, marvels at the construction that is (finally) spreading prosperity into Black-owned businesses and heavily Black neighborhoods. I think these voters like Joe Biden actually, they love Joe Biden.Norman Clement, the founder of the Detroit Change Initiative Speaking in the shadow of a newly rising downtown skyscraper Thursday, Kinloch said a big part of that economic revival is money from Bidens pandemic relief, infrastructure and green energy legislation. And while lots of Detroit voters dont make the connection, Kinloch acknowledged, almost all know about Bidens history of overcoming personal tragedy and defying doubters. This mans life has been nothing like a bed of roses, Kinloch said. His whole life has been people telling him he cant. But even the affection for Biden has some complicating layers when it comes to how Detroits Black voters think about his future in presidential politics. I think these voters like Joe Biden actually, they love Joe Biden, Norman Clement, the founder of the Detroit Change Initiative, a voter engagement nonprofit, said in a phone interview Wednesday. But following Bidens debate performance, Clement said, he and his colleagues heard from voters concerned about the presidents well-being. They dont want to see him in a state where that stressful job is taking such a toll on him that hes no longer the same person, Clement said. And they want him to leave with some dignity and respect. Of course, he and other organizers made clear, voters are more worried about the country and whether Biden still has what it takes to stop Trump, the GOPs presumptive presidential nominee. Its not so much that Black voters doubt Bidens ability to serve as president, the organizers stressed. Its that they doubt Bidens ability to assuage voters who have less faith. People are open-minded; they just know we have to win, Clement said. Williams, the pastor, said hes hearing similar sentiments: Theyre not married to Biden. He is still a means to an end. And whatever warm feelings Black voters have toward the president, there have been signs for a while that they are not as energized about his candidacy as they were in 2020. At 77%, the percentage of Black voters leaning Biden in a spring poll from Pew Research Center was significantly lower than the roughly 90% support he got in the 2020 election, or that Hillary Clinton got in 2016. Even if Biden can bring those numbers back up, turnout could be an issue, especially among younger Black voters for whom the Civil Rights revolution and the decades of Democratic Party support that followed are something they know mainly from history books. The issue with the people that I talk to is not Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, or the Democratic candidate versus Donald Trump, Kermit Williams said. Its Joe Biden versus the couch, right? Theres an enthusiasm gap that you have to make up before November, especially in Michigan, when you have the issues with Gaza and other things, and then you just have overall voter apathy. Big Questions About Harris, Too All of that would seem to make the choice about dumping Biden easy, or at least not that difficult, for Black voters especially given that Harris would become the first Black woman to serve as president if she got the nomination and won. Theres little doubt, the organizers said, that Harris would generate a lot of excitement. But they said they were already sensing wariness too, especially when it comes to the mechanics and repercussions of a switch at the Democratic National Convention. I think its hard for people to shift gears, to go from voting for somebody that they voted for in the past as an incumbent to voting for somebody new, Kermit Williams said, adding that some voters he and his colleagues have contacted seem confused about whats happening. What Im hearing is that a lot of people dont know what the convention is. They dont know what an open convention will be. Kinloch, who has worked on previous political campaigns, warned that its easy to underestimate just how disruptive a change could be. I think a lot of people will be like: What the hell is this? Weve been told to back Joe Biden, and now its somebody else? he said. The election is only four months away, Kinloch noted. Its almost impossible to run for president when you dont have a years start, he said. They're not married to Biden. He is still a means to an end.The Rev. Charles Williams II, a pastor at Historic King Solomon Baptist Church And for all of the interest that a potential Harris presidential candidacy is already stirring, the organizers said, its also stoking anxiety over a possible backlash. The fear is that and I heard this in outreach we did this morning is that white voters wont support her, Clement said. Another issue for Harris could be one that plagued her run in the 2020 presidential primaries: her experience as a prosecutor in California. Its been a real challenge for some people, said Williams, the reverend. They look at her and think she was a prosecutor who was putting Black men in jail. Ive heard from people who are not that happy with her. He added that the Black community has the same sorts of gender and class divides as any other group, and that some voters especially young Black men, who polls suggest are least attached to the Democratic Party might not embrace Harris as much as others. The pastor was careful to say he could see Harris winning over these voters, or most of them, especially if she promotes concrete initiatives that would affect their lives. More than just spicy hot sauce in her bag, he said, she needs to have some vigorous policy. He also said it would help to get Harris out from behind a podium, whether through social media visits with influencers or direct personal contact with voters. The best thing that Harris can do is really reach, grab, hug, talk to people make a personal connection, he said. Ive gotten to meet her, to feel that warmth. Its the real deal. A Determination To Stop Trump The organizers made clear that the Detroit voters theyve met feel genuinely conflicted and uncertain about the best way forward and that they understand why. I dont believe that President Biden is where he was eight years ago or four years ago, Kermit Williams said. But I do believe that as a person hes able to set the vision for the country, hes capable and has great staff around him. So I think that nationally, theyre trying to paint this narrative of Super Joe, and I just really need him to be Average Joe. Whatever the concerns about Bidens abilities and whatever the anxieties about switching to Harris or some other nominee, its all taking place against the backdrop of an election with high stakes for Black Americans. And voters in Detroit are increasingly aware of this, the organizers said. One reason for that is the publicity around Project 2025, the proposed governing agenda from the right-wing Heritage Foundation. The plan calls for everything from restricting abortion drugs to slashing federal funding for early childhood education and health insurance. The agenda also envisions a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a rollback of voting rights. They're trying to paint this narrative of Super Joe, and I just really need him to be Average Joe.Kermit Williams, a political organizer at Oakland Forward Organizers said they started hearing about Project 2025 from voters after actor Taraji P. Henson issued a warning on the proposal while hosting the BET Awards late last month. Since then, voters have been asking questions and researching on their own, they said. Trump has recently tried to distance himself from the plan, even though its the handiwork of current and former aides. It may not make a difference. The Detroit organizers said theyre hearing from voters even more determined to keep Trump out of the White House no matter which Democrat is on the ballot. I think the questions are going on because this election is so monumental, its so impactful, Clement said. At this point, we cant have egos involved. People are saying if you are healthy enough, all right, well ride with you 100 percent and go from there. And if youre not healthy enough? Then thats an issue. This article has been updated to properly identify Kermit Williams organization as the Oakland Forward Action Fund. Why some Christians cheered the recent layoffs at the Southern Poverty Law Center In this Jan. 31, 2016, photo, former Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks at Inspired Grounds Cafe in West Des Moines, Iowa. | Kiichiro Sato When news broke last month that the Southern Poverty Law Center was laying off about a quarter of its staff, some Christian leaders rejoiced. About time! They lost their way years ago, tweeted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is also an ordained pastor. They are a hate group that labels others hate group. Huckabee is among those who believe that the center, which became famous amid its fight against the Ku Klux Klan, unfairly lumped conservative faith-based groups in with violent racists. The Southern Poverty Law Center has been highly critical of organizations that use religious freedom law to fight for changes to laws promoting LGBTQ rights, as the Deseret News previously reported. Far-left propaganda group SPLC is tanking. About time! They lost their way years ago. Sat on big bank account of millions & pretended to be fighting for "little guys." They are a hate group that labels others "hate group." https://t.co/otIN5zgjvV Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 13, 2024 Southern Poverty Law Center layoffs The recent layoffs at the Southern Poverty Law Center came amid a company restructuring, according to The Associated Press. Plans are currently being formed to combine some teams and end less essential programs, the article said, noting that the organization recently went through a leadership change. The Southern Poverty Law Center said the reductions were a difficult but necessary decision to focus and align our work with our programmatic priorities and goals, The Associated Press reported. Although the center is best known for its hate groups watchlist, it works on a variety of other initiatives aimed at combatting racism, protecting vulnerable communities and strengthening democracy. Its latest report on hate and extremism took a look at 1,430 different groups operating in the U.S., including some law firms that focus on religious freedom cases. Faith groups as hate groups The Deseret News explored the tension between such law firms and the Southern Poverty Law Center in a 2017 article on the rise of name-calling in politics. Faith-based organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel told the Deseret News that they felt it was unfair to be labeled a hate group over their work on lawsuits related to LGBTQ rights since those lawsuits centered on religious freedom claims and since their firms worked on a wide variety of other cases. Faith traditions within the three major Abrahamic religions hold that same-sex marriage is harmful and wrong. To reduce (that belief) to hatred and bigotry is just wrong, said Richard Mast, an attorney for Liberty Counsel, to the Deseret News in 2017. In a statement, Southern Poverty Law Center told the Deseret News at the time that conservative Christian groups earn the hate group label when they make false or exaggerated claims about the LGBTQ community in order to win support for their lawsuits. A major misconception is that the SPLC considers opposition to marriage equality or the belief that homosexuality is a sin as the sole basis for the hate group label. That is false, the statement said. The faith-related groups that have been labeled hate groups dont accept that explanation, which is why some more conservative Christians have cheered the Southern Poverty Law Centers recent layoffs. In a guest column for Fox News, the Alliance Defending Freedoms Jeremy Tedesco wrote that Southern Poverty Law Center is suffering now due to what he feels was a problematic definition of hate. For years (the center) has lumped together KKK holdouts with mainstream conservatives and conservative organizations including my employer, Alliance Defending Freedom in a blatant attempt to push us to the margins of American life, Tedesco argued. Montana GOP Headquarters in Helena, MT. Credit: Keith Schubert Its truly a mystery right now watching the incredible efforts by Montanas Secretary of State, Christi Jacobsen, to try and disqualify voters who signed citizen initiatives from being counted. Their twisted logic and faulty interpretation of the Montana Constitution reflects a deep paranoia on the part of the Republicans toward Montanas citizens and voters. The burning question is what are they so afraid of? It doesnt take a long memory to recall how the GOP went into Trump-fueled hysterics over election integrity in 2020, in which Republicans won every statewide office. Other than mimicking Trumps endless and baseless stolen election lies, one might wonder what they intended to find and why? What, were the Republicans going to say their own election victories were illegitimate and challenge the right of their own candidates to hold office? Were they going to call for endless recounts so maybe a hapless Democrat could win at least one statewide office? Since none of that sounds even marginally reasonable, it appears the GOP simply doesnt trust the good people of Montana nor the hundreds of election workers who have and continue to dedicate themselves to free, open, and dang near error-free elections as they have for many years. Were one to look at whats going on now and has gone on in the past it seems pretty clear that the Republicans are trying their best to gut Montanas constitutionally-guaranteed right to the citizen initiative process. And why might they being doing so? Because the GOP cannot exert the kind of absolute control over citizen initiatives that they can and do enforce in the legislative and executive branches. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to realize Montanas citizens have passed initiatives the legislature never would have let out of the first committee. Going way back to 1978, the good and sensible voters of Montana passed an initiative to mandate that citizens had the right to vote on the installation of nuclear power plants in our state. That was overturned on a GOP party-line vote in the 2021 legislative session, transferring the authority away from the citizens and to, of course, the legislature. Then there was the citizens initiative to ban the use of cyanide heap leach gold mining Montanans approved in 1998, which still stands despite numerous efforts to overturn it. Does anyone believe the legislature would ever have passed a law to prohibit the mining industry from poisoning our waters with cyanide? Or how about the citizens initiatives legalizing the use of both medicinal (2004) and recreational (2020) marijuana? The legislature would never have approved such laws and was sued for wading into the initiatives language after the election to weaken and alter the provisions the citizens overwhelmingly approved. Now, Jacobsens office is being sued this time by proponents of three pending initiatives. CI-128 asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access, CI-126, which instills open primaries, and C1-127, which requires a candidate to receive over 50% of the vote to win. Ironically, the proponents of the election initiatives are Jacobsens fellow Republicans. Its a foundational truth that power never relinquishes power without a fight. Whats strange is that Montanas Republican Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Governor all seem to fear their almost unassailable hold on power is somehow being threatened by the very citizens they were elected to serve not command, control, and intimidate for exercising their constitutional right to the initiative process. Over 100 Ohio medical cannabis dispensaries are on their way to selling recreational marijuana but they still have a few boxes to check before sales can begin. The Division of Cannabis Control began accepting applications last month from medical marijuana businesses that want to participate in the adult-use market. Ohioans voted last year to legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, but the licensing process for operators couldn't begin until the division finalized those rules. More: What you need to know as Ohio prepares to launch recreational marijuana sales As of Thursday, the state had issued 112 provisional dual-use licenses to dispensaries and 78 to either cultivators, processors or testing labs. Businesses with a provisional license must do the following before regulators grant final approval: Notify local officials and law enforcement. Train employees. Ensure security equipment is up to date and meets state standards. Dispensaries must also pass a test to show they can properly distinguish and sell medical and adult-use products. Ohio medical cannabis dispensaries could soon start selling recreational marijuana to adults 21 and older. It's unclear how long the process could take. Some industry officials initially predicted a June or early July launch, but that timeframe already passed. Division of Cannabis Control spokesman Jamie Crawford said the turnaround depends on how quickly applicants can meet the various requirements. Business owners still expect recreational sales at existing dispensaries to begin sometime this summer. The state is required by law to approve dual-use licenses for medical marijuana operators by September. Dispensaries will likely be busy in the weeks after they launch recreational sales, but many have increased staffing to meet the demand, Cresco Labs spokesman Jason Erkes said. "The state has been running this at lightning-fast speed compared to other launches provisional licenses a week after applications were submitted is unheard of," Erkes said. "This is a big effort with a lot of compliance and regulatory requirements and while it might seem like hurry up and wait, I know the Commerce Department wants to make sure it's done right instead of done quickly." Separately, the Division of Cannabis Control has received nearly 200 applications for brand new dispensaries known as 10(B) licenses. Under the law passed last year, large cultivators can apply for three dispensary licenses at new locations, while smaller growers get one. Medical dispensaries that aren't affiliated with a cultivator or processor are eligible for another dispensary license. Those stores will take more time to get off the ground, potentially not opening until sometime next year. See which dispensaries have dual-use provisional licenses below: This embedded content is not available in your region. Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Why Ohio recreational marijuana sales still haven't started This image provided by Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) shows the presidential election ballot ahead of the July 28, 2024 election. (CNE via AP) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) His smile is confident, his hair well-combed and his eyes are squinting slightly: The first candidate you'll likely see on the ballot in Venezuela's upcoming presidential election is Nicolas Maduro, the incumbent seeking reelection. Unlike some of his nine challengers, Maduro shows up not once or twice, but a whopping 13 times on the ballot and he's certain to catch the voters' attention. Each time, it's for one of the several political groups he is representing in the highly anticipated July 28 presidential election. Maduro takes up the entire first of the ballots four rows while the rest of the candidates photos are sprinkled here and there, including that of former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the only contender with real chances of denying the president a third term. Still, the sheer number of Maduro's images appearing on the ballot belies the seriousness of the moment. Venezuela faces its toughest electoral test in decades. The outcome could give Maduro another six years in power or end the self-described socialist's policies that once successfully boosted anti-poverty programs but whose sustained mismanagement later pushed the country into an ongoing economic crisis. Venezuelas electoral rules allow for candidates pictures to appear on the ballots the electronic ones within Venezuela and printed for those voting abroad as many times as the number of parties that support them. This years ballot has 38 pictures, each with every candidates name and party underneath. Seasoned Venezuelan voters are also used to seeing many candidates on the touchscreens used in the South American countrys elections. But for some, that many photos could be confusing. I get dizzy when I see Maduro so many times on that card, but I know that the danger is in the candidates who do not represent us, said Sonia Guevara, a 38-year-old office worker, referring to some opposition candidates who are seen close to the government. Such an example is the case of Luis Martinez, the candidate from Accion Democratica Democratic Action party or AD for short a traditional opposition group whose leadership was suspended months ago by the Maduro-loyal top court. Martinez decided not to support Gonzalez, the contender of the oppositions Unitary Platform coalition. This is confusing. I have had to explain to my mother many times that the AD on the card is not the AD she always votes for, Guevara said. My mom is 71 years old, and I tell her not to vote for AD this time. Gonzalez is featured three times on the ballot. Martinez, who is considered a government ally, shows up six times. The number of eligible voters ahead of this month's election is estimated to be around 17 million. Another 4 million Venezuelans living abroad are registered to vote, but only about 69,000 met the government-set requirements to cast ballots overseas. Costly and time-consuming government prerequisites to register, lack of information and a mandatory proof of legal residency in a host country kept many migrants from signing up to vote. Francisco Maldonado, a 50-year-old merchant in Caracas, is ready to vote. At this point, I think we all know who we are going to vote for, but more than ever we have to be careful, the same care we have when we use an ATM, Maldonado said. We cannot make a mistake when marking. Venezuela's exact population is unclear as the last census in the South American country was conducted in 2011. At the time, it concluded there were 27.2 million people but since the countrys political, economic and social crisis over the last decade, more than 7.7 million have left. Laura Dib, Venezuela Program Director at WOLA, a Washington-based nongovernmental organization focused on human rights in the Americas, said that even if its common that a candidates face is repeated on the ballot, being 13 times on it, makes Maduro visually the easiest to identify. Considering that the opposition faction supporting Gonzalez has no access to official media in Venezuela, Dib said the opposition has a harder time educating voters on how to vote. She also noted there are other confusing matters some parties are using the same colors on the ballot as those supporting Maduro. And one candidate from an opposition faction was allowed to use the same color as the main opposition candidate group. That, Dib said, also creates confusion and it violates the rules of the CNE, she said, referring to the acronym in Spanish for the national electoral council. Additionally, the electoral law allows parties to substitute candidates 10 days before election day, although that change may not be reflected on the ballots, which have already been programmed on the electronic machines or printed for the vote abroad. If people vote for a candidate who has been replaced, Dib said, those votes casted will be null. ___ Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this report. ___ Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america The Scene BALTIMORE The most important press conference of Joe Bidens life was underway sixty critical and crucial minutes at the NATO summits close, where any mistake could stagger his presidential campaign. Forty miles away, hundreds of Democratic activists at the annual Netroots Nation conference were relaxing at a roof deck happy hour. Catering and drinks were supplied by the Black Male Voter Project. A DJ played Kendrick Lamars Not Like Us. There were no TV screens. This circular firing squad, its very Democratic, said Markos Moulitsas, whose Daily Kos blog birthed the 18-year-old conference. The blogs commenters were pissed off, he said: Project 2025 is finally going viral, people are finally paying attention to it, and Democrats would rather complain about Joe Biden, whos got the nomination sewn up. Two weeks after the disastrous Atlanta debate, the president is still cleaning up the damage 18 members of Congress begging him to quit the ticket, celebrity donors fretting that hes too feeble to beat Donald Trump again, Nancy Pelosi nudging him to perhaps take the gold watch. But there is no ideological edge to the panic, or to the fight-back. Among progressives, who were the least pro-Biden faction when he won the 2020 nomination, the mood is mixed. Some, like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have praised Bidens record, urging him and the party to refocus on it. Others, whod protested Bidens support for Israel in Gaza, see an opening but do not want progressives to be the face of a DNC putsch. Polling by Our Revolution, a group founded by Sanders, found most Democrats wanted Biden to quit. But the debate over whether he should do so is taking place largely outside the movement. In Washington, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has mostly stayed in wait-and-see mode while other players look to influence Bidens decision. I am fully behind him as our nominee until hes not our nominee, chair Pramila Jayapal told reporters this week. This is the first time that the progressives are not being blamed, California Rep. Ro Khanna said in a panel discussion. I spent, as co-chair of Bernie Sanders campaign, one year listening to James Carville on CNN say that Bernie Sanders was unelectable. Im glad now hes talking about Joe Biden being unelectable. Know More Forty-eight hours before the debate, progressives and the Democratic Partys leadership were in a standoff. Pro-Israel groups, including some GOP donors, had crushed Rep. Jamaal Bowman in his New York; Gaza ceasefire protesters were confronting the president and his surrogates whenever they could find them in public. Those dynamics arent gone. Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who is facing her own pro-Israel primary challenge next month, warned the conference that extremists had flooded our airwaves with lies about me and about this movement. The Biden administration, unlike the Obama administration, has stayed clear of the conference; attendees earned a reputation over the years for heckling or interrupting party figures who werent meeting progressive demands. But the drawn-out Biden crisis, which has consumed Democrats and drowned out their messaging, has exhausted party loyalists. That included many progressives, who had their theories of how to win sell the administrations pro-labor record, highlight its anti-monopoly and anti-poverty policies, make the Heritage Foundations Project 2025 infamous, and make the election about Trump again. They could do a lot of that without Biden. But he wasnt making it easy. Im going to snatch the wigs of the entire senior staff of Joe Biden who let him walk out into the debate like that, said author and investor Cheryl Contee. Activists who were already pressuring Biden said that the debate and Democratic panic had strengthened their hand. Abbas Alawieh, a pro-ceasefire uncommitted delegate to the DNC, said that the presidents campaign had diminished the concerns of critics all year. After the debate, more people had seen that the campaign was overconfident, and not listening to some people who wanted to beat Trump, but thought that the candidate was making that impossible. If there were a change in the candidate, our advocacy would continue to focus on the current administration, because they need to change the policy, said Alawieh, a former Hill staffer for Rep. Bush. If it happens to be Vice President Harris, whose team has been sending out leak after leak saying that she doesnt agree with President Bidens Gaza policy, she would need to differentiate her Gaza policy very quickly. Room for Disagreement Bidens crisis also activated Democrats who demanded a new nominee and some of them were progressives. Aaron Regunberg, a former Rhode Island legislator who lost a 2023 special congressional election to a former Biden White House veteran, reacted to the debate by launching Pass the Torch, a group that was contacting members of Congress and party activists and urging them to abandon Biden. The stakes are high, said Regunberg. Theyre running a ticket that is threatening to give Trump a GOP governing trifecta. The Democratic Party has been saying all year that this is an existential threat election, that its our democracy on the line. I think most Democrats believe that. Maybe the operatives whove been writing those fundraising emails dont. Pass the Torch had conducted polling, with YouGov, that found most Democrats ready for a new ticket, likely led by the vice president; it organized 2,800 emails to members of Congress, and started to have positive conversations with delegates, nearly all of whom are bound to Biden. Clint Keaveny, a Wisconsin activist who waved a sign at a post-Biden rally that read pass the torch, Joe, had not been working with the group when he did that. But hed since been let go by the congressional candidate he was working for, and signed up with Regunbergs group, which warned that Republicans wanted Biden to stay atop the ticket. Our opponents dont want us to change, said Abby Clark, who called herself an establishment Democrat, but began working with Pass the Torch as soon as she could. They feel great about the situation were in. Theyre already attacking the vice president were getting all the downside and none of the upside. Davids view Progressives see two impediments in their long, unfinished march to power: The Democratic establishment, and the media. The Democrats giving blind quotes about how Biden must go have begun to remind activists of the dogpile that took out Howard Dean in the 2004 primary, and the panic that convinced Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to consolidate behind Biden after Sanders won the 2020 Nevada caucus. (Like Zelig, James Carville keeps showing up in these stories.) Khanna wasnt the only person at the conference relieved that the party couldnt blame its mess on progressives. But most people I talked to were pragmatic, viewing Biden the way that social conservatives once viewed Trump. There were things they could never do if they lost the presidency, and things they could if a weakened Biden held on. I detected some worry about Harris leading the ticket, because she hadnt proven herself like the president who had next to zero support in this crowd in the 2020 primary. Notable In HuffPost , Daniel Marans explains why progressives whove been critical of Biden have his back now. Progressive lawmakers reticence to come out against Biden reflects an appreciation of the grave stakes of a Trump victory for vulnerable communities, on working-class people, people of color and women. In Politico, Ben Jacobs captures the jubilant mood of Republicans as they watch Democratic panic about blowing the election: Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) pleaded into a reporters phone for the embattled Biden to stay on the presidential ticket. A gray wolf. (Getty Images) With a controversial vote planned next week on whether to loosen protections for wolves in Washington, wildlife advocates are raising alarm that officials could be relying on flawed wolf count figures from a tribe in the northeast corner of the state. Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members have been told by agency staff that wolves have made an impressive recovery to the point that their endangered status is no longer required. The states latest population report recorded an increase of 44 wolves last year, the largest in state history. But skeptics say the wolf count produced by the Department of Fish and Wildlife is implausibly high, and fear commissioners are being fed a rosy picture of the wolves status as theyre asked to downlist the species. The numbers just didnt pass the smell test, said David Linn, a longtime wolf advocate and treasurer of Washington Wildlife First. At issue are numbers reported to the state by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The tribes oversee wolf management on the reservation and adjacent North Half lands on which they retain hunting rights. This year, the tribes reported a population explosion among the wolves in their territory, despite a significant number of wolves killed by tribal hunters over the same period. The big surge followed a 2022 report that showed only a 5% increase statewide well below what some conservation groups say is expected for a recovering wolf population. While Washington law prohibits hunting of wolves, the Colville and other tribes are sovereign nations with the authority to set their own regulations on tribal lands and other areas on which they retain hunting rights via treaty agreements. The numbers provided by the Colville account for most of the increase in the states wolf population last year. Carter Niemeyer, a retired biologist who spent more than 20 years as a wolf specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, said theres little precedent for the kind of rapid growth the tribes have reported. I would be shocked at those kind of numbers, said Niemeyer, who has worked with the Colville tribes in the past. If I was in [WDFWs] shoes, I would require a spreadsheet detailing how many flights, how many radio collars put out, how many trail cameras and the methodologies with coming up with those numbers, because they do sound exceptional for that area. Wildlife advocates say the tribes have provided little information on how they gathered their data, and theyre suspicious of the Department of Fish and Wildlifes willingness to take the numbers at face value. But agency staffers say they have no reason to doubt the Colville numbers. And they say the downlisting vote is based on years-long recovery trends, not a single population report. Its not out of the realm of possibility to have those numbers, even with harvest, said Ben Maletzke, WDFWs wolf specialist. He added that population modeling suggests that wolves are at low risk of disappearing in the state. Were doing incredibly well, he said. The Colville tribes directed an inquiry to Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson, who declined an interview request. It doesnt make sense At the end of 2022, the Department of Fish and Wildlifes report of documented wolves counted 35 on Colville lands, with 157 elsewhere. A year later, the tribes reported an additional 23 wolves, while the entire rest of the state saw an increase of only 16. The final statewide totals are slightly higher, as the state increases its projections to account for lone wolves. The Colvilles increase came despite the fact that tribal hunters killed 22 wolves last year, the largest source of wolf mortality in the state. Adding the harvested wolves back to the total, the tribe would have seen an increase of more than 100% in its wolf population. If you kill 22 wolves, youve got to replace those just to be even, Linn said. It just doesnt make sense that they had that kind of increase with that kind of mortality. The tribes have also pledged to provide up to 15 wolves to Colorado to support reintroduction of the animals there. Some wildlife advocates think the tribes hunting and export of wolves could undermine recovery efforts increasing their skepticism of the reported population boom. Maletzke, the state wolf specialist, acknowledged that the tribes have used varying levels of detail when reporting their wolf counts to the state. While this years numbers were shared over a conference call, he said the tribes have been a crucial partner in wolf recovery and he trusts their count. Yeah, weve had spreadsheets in the past, he said. Its not the identical methodology we use, but its still a methodology. Wildlife advocates note that the wolf packs reported on tribal lands average more than seven wolves each, while the packs documented by state biologists average five. Niemeyer, the former federal wolf specialist, said the Colville territory likely has room for five or six packs of wolves. In areas with extensive hunting, he said, pack sizes generally number about three or four wolves each. But Maletzke said its not unheard of to see rapid growth within certain sub-populations of wolves, and theyve proven resilient to hunting. Tribal management Wolves in Washington were driven to extinction in the 1930s. By the time they began reentering the state in 2008, they had been classified as endangered under state law. In the western two-thirds of the state, wolves remain covered by the federal Endangered Species Act, but most of Washingtons wolf population resides east of the Cascades and falls under Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife management. While no one disputes the Colvilles authority to hunt wolves, some have been surprised by a recent uptick in tribal hunting. In 2019, the tribes extended wolf hunting to a year-round season with no harvest limits. Forty-six wolves have been killed by Colville hunters over the past three years, with another nine harvested by Spokane Tribe members. In a February hearing before state lawmakers, Erickson, the Colville chairman, said the tribes have not experienced conflicts with wolves. He said the tribes regulations do not allow for hunting when wolves are denning or with their pups. That hearing covered a proposal, since passed and signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, requiring the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Colville Tribes to work together on gray wolf management. The law requires the agency and the tribe to update their 1998 cooperative agreement, which determines how state and tribal governments manage fish and wildlife on Colville lands. During the hearing, the departments legislative affairs director, Tom McBride, conceded that the agency needed to improve its data sharing with the tribes. Its unclear if the legislation would affect how population counts are shared or hunting regulations are determined. Approaching a vote On July 19, members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will cast their votes on downlisting wolves from endangered to sensitive. The move would lower penalties for the illegal poaching of wolves and make it easier for livestock owners to access permits to kill wolves that come into conflict with their herds. Agency staff have argued that downlisting wouldnt have much of a practical effect on how the animals are protected or managed. The commission is made up of volunteers appointed by the governor, but the upcoming vote was prompted by the Department of Fish and Wildlifes professional staff under a process known as a periodic status review. In testimony before the commission, agency staff recommended the reclassification, pointing to projections that wolves will continue to recover in the state. But commissioners also heard from wildlife advocates who raised doubts about the figures being provided by the agency and who opposed the proposed downlisting. Barbara Baker, who chairs the commission, acknowledged questions about whether the state and tribal biologists are comparing apples to apples and using the same foundations of data. Thats especially true in northeast Washington, where theres questions about whether the numbers make any sense or not, she said. Baker added that the tribes have been a valuable partner in wolf recovery, and the agencys interest in retaining that relationship makes it difficult to publicly question their figures. Fred Koontz, a former Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner who became a target of hunting groups and resigned in 2021, believes the agencys long history of suppressing tribal fishing rights now considered a black mark in the states history has made agency staffers wary of challenging the Colville numbers. Theres a swirl of stories, but nobodys willing to take on the tribal part of it, he said. Shouldnt the department have a more sophisticated joint cooperation [with the Colville Tribes]? During the commissions June meeting, other commissioners asked for more information on the Colville count. Maletzke expressed faith in the tribes work, and added that last years figures only made up a small portion of the 15-year growth rate the state has tracked. Baker said theres also confusion about the recovery criteria commissioners should use to cast their votes. The 2011 wolf plan that has guided the agencys work defines recovery as reaching four breeding pairs of wolves in each of three geographic regions. That objective has not yet been met in the region that spans the southern Cascades and northwest coast. However, Washington law regarding endangered species is more narrowly focused on the threat of extinction. Washingtons wolf population currently occupies an area essential to their long-term survival and is not in danger of extinction or becoming endangered with their current distribution and population trend, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff wrote in their status review summary. Agency lawyers, Baker said, have argued that the legal code, rather than the wolf recovery plan, should guide the commissions vote allowing staff to push for downlisting even though wolves have not yet repopulated some key areas of their habitat. Baker said she would not hint at how she plans to vote, nor has she consulted other commission members on their intentions. A gray wolf is caught on a trail camera in Washington state. (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) With a controversial vote planned next week on whether to loosen protections for wolves in Washington, wildlife advocates are raising alarm that officials could be relying on flawed wolf count figures from a tribe in the northeast corner of the state. Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members have been told by agency staff that wolves have made an impressive recovery to the point that their endangered status is no longer required. The states latest population report recorded an increase of 44 wolves last year, the largest in state history. But skeptics say the wolf count produced by the Department of Fish and Wildlife is implausibly high, and fear commissioners are being fed a rosy picture of the wolves status as theyre asked to downlist the species. The numbers just didnt pass the smell test, said David Linn, a longtime wolf advocate and treasurer of Washington Wildlife First. At issue are numbers reported to the state by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The tribes oversee wolf management on the reservation and adjacent North Half lands on which they retain hunting rights. This year, the tribes reported a population explosion among the wolves in their territory, despite a significant number of wolves killed by tribal hunters over the same period. The big surge followed a 2022 report that showed only a 5% increase statewide well below what some conservation groups say is expected for a recovering wolf population. While Washington law prohibits hunting of wolves, the Colville and other tribes are sovereign nations with the authority to set their own regulations on tribal lands and other areas on which they retain hunting rights via treaty agreements. The numbers provided by the Colville account for most of the increase in the states wolf population last year. Carter Niemeyer, a retired biologist who spent more than 20 years as a wolf specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, said theres little precedent for the kind of rapid growth the tribes have reported. I would be shocked at those kind of numbers, said Niemeyer, who has worked with the Colville tribes in the past. If I was in [WDFWs] shoes, I would require a spreadsheet detailing how many flights, how many radio collars put out, how many trail cameras and the methodologies with coming up with those numbers, because they do sound exceptional for that area. Wildlife advocates say the tribes have provided little information on how they gathered their data, and theyre suspicious of the Department of Fish and Wildlifes willingness to take the numbers at face value. But agency staffers say they have no reason to doubt the Colville numbers. And they say the downlisting vote is based on years-long recovery trends, not a single population report. Its not out of the realm of possibility to have those numbers, even with harvest, said Ben Maletzke, WDFWs wolf specialist. He added that population modeling suggests that wolves are at low risk of disappearing in the state. Were doing incredibly well, he said. The Colville tribes directed an inquiry to Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson, who declined an interview request. It doesnt make sense At the end of 2022, the Department of Fish and Wildlifes report of documented wolves counted 35 on Colville lands, with 157 elsewhere. A year later, the tribes reported an additional 23 wolves, while the entire rest of the state saw an increase of only 16. The final statewide totals are slightly higher, as the state increases its projections to account for lone wolves. The Colvilles increase came despite the fact that tribal hunters killed 22 wolves last year, the largest source of wolf mortality in the state. Adding the harvested wolves back to the total, the tribe would have seen an increase of more than 100% in its wolf population. If you kill 22 wolves, youve got to replace those just to be even, Linn said. It just doesnt make sense that they had that kind of increase with that kind of mortality. The tribes have also pledged to provide up to 15 wolves to Colorado to support reintroduction of the animals there. Some wildlife advocates think the tribes hunting and export of wolves could undermine recovery efforts increasing their skepticism of the reported population boom. Maletzke, the state wolf specialist, acknowledged that the tribes have used varying levels of detail when reporting their wolf counts to the state. While this years numbers were shared over a conference call, he said the tribes have been a crucial partner in wolf recovery and he trusts their count. Yeah, weve had spreadsheets in the past, he said. Its not the identical methodology we use, but its still a methodology. Wildlife advocates note that the wolf packs reported on tribal lands average more than seven wolves each, while the packs documented by state biologists average five. Niemeyer, the former federal wolf specialist, said the Colville territory likely has room for five or six packs of wolves. In areas with extensive hunting, he said, pack sizes generally number about three or four wolves each. But Maletzke said its not unheard of to see rapid growth within certain sub-populations of wolves, and theyve proven resilient to hunting. Tribal management Wolves in Washington were driven to extinction in the 1930s. By the time they began reentering the state in 2008, they had been classified as endangered under state law. In the western two-thirds of the state, wolves remain covered by the federal Endangered Species Act, but most of Washingtons wolf population resides east of the Cascades and falls under Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife management. While no one disputes the Colvilles authority to hunt wolves, some have been surprised by a recent uptick in tribal hunting. In 2019, the tribes extended wolf hunting to a year-round season with no harvest limits. Forty-six wolves have been killed by Colville hunters over the past three years, with another nine harvested by Spokane Tribe members. In a February hearing before state lawmakers, Erickson, the Colville chairman, said the tribes have not experienced conflicts with wolves. He said the tribes regulations do not allow for hunting when wolves are denning or with their pups. That hearing covered a proposal, since passed and signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, requiring the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Colville Tribes to work together on gray wolf management. The law requires the agency and the tribe to update their 1998 cooperative agreement, which determines how state and tribal governments manage fish and wildlife on Colville lands. During the hearing, the departments legislative affairs director, Tom McBride, conceded that the agency needed to improve its data sharing with the tribes. Its unclear if the legislation would affect how population counts are shared or hunting regulations are determined. Approaching a vote On July 19, members of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will cast their votes on downlisting wolves from endangered to sensitive. The move would lower penalties for the illegal poaching of wolves and make it easier for livestock owners to access permits to kill wolves that come into conflict with their herds. Agency staff have argued that downlisting wouldnt have much of a practical effect on how the animals are protected or managed. The commission is made up of volunteers appointed by the governor, but the upcoming vote was prompted by the Department of Fish and Wildlifes professional staff under a process known as a periodic status review. In testimony before the commission, agency staff recommended the reclassification, pointing to projections that wolves will continue to recover in the state. But commissioners also heard from wildlife advocates who raised doubts about the figures being provided by the agency and who opposed the proposed downlisting. Barbara Baker, who chairs the commission, acknowledged questions about whether the state and tribal biologists are comparing apples to apples and using the same foundations of data. Thats especially true in northeast Washington, where theres questions about whether the numbers make any sense or not, she said. Baker added that the tribes have been a valuable partner in wolf recovery, and the agencys interest in retaining that relationship makes it difficult to publicly question their figures. Fred Koontz, a former Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner who became a target of hunting groups and resigned in 2021, believes the agencys long history of suppressing tribal fishing rights now considered a black mark in the states history has made agency staffers wary of challenging the Colville numbers. Theres a swirl of stories, but nobodys willing to take on the tribal part of it, he said. Shouldnt the department have a more sophisticated joint cooperation [with the Colville Tribes]? During the commissions June meeting, other commissioners asked for more information on the Colville count. Maletzke expressed faith in the tribes work, and added that last years figures only made up a small portion of the 15-year growth rate the state has tracked. Baker said theres also confusion about the recovery criteria commissioners should use to cast their votes. The 2011 wolf plan that has guided the agencys work defines recovery as reaching four breeding pairs of wolves in each of three geographic regions. That objective has not yet been met in the region that spans the southern Cascades and northwest coast. However, Washington law regarding endangered species is more narrowly focused on the threat of extinction. Washingtons wolf population currently occupies an area essential to their long-term survival and is not in danger of extinction or becoming endangered with their current distribution and population trend, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff wrote in their status review summary. Agency lawyers, Baker said, have argued that the legal code, rather than the wolf recovery plan, should guide the commissions vote allowing staff to push for downlisting even though wolves have not yet repopulated some key areas of their habitat. Baker said she would not hint at how she plans to vote, nor has she consulted other commission members on their intentions. Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and X. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) Wichita has been selected as the host city for the Travel Blogger Exchange (TBEX) Summit for 2025. Kansas Tourism and Visit Wichita will co-host the event, which will bring leading travel bloggers, influencers, journalists, content creators and tourism industry professionals from around the world to Kansas from Oct. 1 to 5, 2025. Visit Wichita is extremely thrilled to be hosting the 2025 Travel Blogger Exchange Conference, consisting of content creators and travel journalists from all across the country and internationally, says Visit Wichita President and CEO Susie Santo in a news release. Not only will this conference provide an opportunity to showcase the heart of the country and result in direct economic impact for our area, but it also brings in a great deal of organic and earned media exposure for Wichita and many of its local businesses. Pre-conference tours will be held to showcase the city of Wichita. Following the conference, Kansas Tourism will host select attendees on trips across the state to each of its 6 regions and different niche attractions found across Kansas. Wichita budget to be presented at city council meeting Hosting the worlds largest gathering of travel industry professionals presents an incredible opportunity to showcase the diverse landscapes, rich history and warm hospitality that define our great state, says Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland. The collaboration and partnership between Kansas Tourism and Visit Wichita only underscores the growing prominence of Kansas as a premier travel destination. Hosting TBEX Summit is a testament to Kansas growing appeal as a travel destination, says Kansas Tourism Director Bridgette Jobe. We are excited to partner with Visit Wichita to host this conference and to highlight Kansas as a travel-to destination for visitors worldwide. Hundreds are expected to attend the conference, which will include workshops, seminars, and networking events. Kansas Tourism and Visti Wichita believe it will be a landmark event for Wichita and Kansas. For more information about the TBEX Summit, visit their 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 KSN-TV. Winona auto parts plant starts to close later this month; 117 employees to be laid off An auto parts manufacturer has set the first of several dates for laying off employees and closing one of its plants in Winona. BCS Access Business Systems will start its first round of layoffs on July 26, the company told the state in a letter earlier this week. About 117 employees will lose their jobs. The company filed what's called a WARN notice in March with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) about the layoffs and closure. BCS officials updated that notice this week as it notifies salaried staff about the upcoming layoffs, according to plant manager Aaron MacLennan. The layoffs will affect workers only in the manufacturing plant, which is known as BCS Automotive Interface Solutions. Workers at BCS's nearby engineering facility are not expected to be affected by the downsizing. The plant, which has operated in Winona since 2018, makes keyless entry parts for automobiles, the company said. BCS' layoffs are sizable for Winona, a city of roughly 26,000 in southeast Minnesota. The FedEx Freight operation laid off 30 workers in October there as well. These Wisconsin beaches aren't safe for swimming. See which have elevated E. coli levels Elevated rates of bacteria can result in unsafe swimming conditions at local beaches during the summer. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources monitors water quality to determine whether it's safe to swim at your favorite beach. The state has about 190 beaches along the Lake Michigan and Lake Superior coasts, and about 106 of those are regularly tested for bacteria in the water. Here's a look at which beaches in the Milwaukee area are closed and/or under advisory status as of July 11, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Which Milwaukee area beaches are currently closed for swimming? A sinkhole at Big Bay Park on North Lake Drive in Whitefish Bay is seen on Monday, June 10, 2024. Big Bay Park Beach (Whitefish Bay): Closed due to the sinkhole at the entrance of the park. Which Milwaukee area beaches are under advisory status? Milwaukee County: South Shore Beach: Under advisory due to elevated E. coli levels. Racine County: Zoo Beach : Under advisory due to dangerous currents North Beach: Under advisory due to dangerous currents Myers Park Beach: Under advisory due to elevated bacteria levels. To search for the latest beach report, you can click here. Why are beaches closed in Wisconsin? Most beach closures are caused by bacterial contamination, with E. coli being the one tested as an indicator of the possible presence of other pathogens, said Water Resources Management Specialist Diane Packett. Sources of E. coli levels vary by particular beach. The greatest sources of the E. coli contamination, according to research done by the UW-Milwaukee's School of Freshwater Sciences, are: Storm water runoff Gulls and waterfowl excrement Boat mooring fields City of Milwaukee health officials preemptively close Bradford, Bayview, McKinley and South Shore beaches for rainfall. What are the classifications for Wisconsin beach closures? Local health departments post signs to inform beachgoers about the most current water conditions based on testing for E. coli. A level of 235 colony-forming units is advisory level, and 1000 is closure level, said Packett. Wisconsin beachgoers can find these signs posted at the beach with information on water conditions. What Milwaukee beaches are closed most frequently due to E. coli? South Shore beach is the most frequently closed beach due to bacterial contamination, said Packett. Water circulation is poor at the current location, which borders a boat mooring. The swimming beach is being relocated to the south closer to the opening in the breakwater that allows more mixing with lake water. You can find more about the project plan on the county's website. What is E. coli? According to the Wisconsin DNR, E. coli is a bacteria commonly found in natural bodies of water. Strains of E. coli at beaches usually pose a low risk for making swimmers ill, and instead serve as an indicator of other possible health risks in the water, such as bacteria, viruses and other organisms. E. coli is also found in feces, which means that if high levels of E. coli are detected in water, there's a significant chance that fecal matter is in the water. RELATED: Milwaukee's on this list of five great beach cities for travelers to check out RELATED: Almost 9 out of 10 pounds of Great Lakes beach litter each year is plastic, new report finds Drew Dawson contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Which Milwaukee,Wisconsin beaches have, or are closed for, E coli? Wisconsin man who used multiple homes to store, sell large quantities of cocaine receives prison sentence BELOIT, Wis. (WFRV) A man from southern Wisconsin who reportedly used multiple homes to store and sell large quantities of cocaine was sentenced to federal prison on Thursday. A release provided by the United States Attorneys Office for the Western District of Wisconsin stated that 41-year-old Kelvin Haley, Jr. of Beloit was sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine from July 2021 to August 2023. Texas woman who defrauded Wisconsin business owner sentenced to federal prison, pay over $1 million in restitution A federal investigation during that time frame led authorities to discover multiple homes in the Beloit area that were reportedly used by Haley to store and sell cocaine. Law enforcement conducted recorded purchases of cocaine from Haley on multiple occasions between November 2022 and March 2023. Haley was sentenced to eight and a half years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge William M. Conley. Judge Conley had also previously convicted Haley for drug trafficking, the release noted. Judge Conley stated how Haley was a central figure in selling large amounts of cocaine in the Beloit area. Man in Wisconsin accused of using a skateboard to threaten employees amidst a theft incident, arrested Haleys prison term will be followed by 10 years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty on March 25. The investigation into Haley was conducted by the Rock County Sheriffs Office, Beloit Police Department, Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement 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 WFRV Local 5 - Green Bay, Appleton. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Middle and high schoolers in Arkansas needing help with addiction recovery have a new way to regain control of their lives. The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) Teen Center opened July 11 in Little Rock providing Arkansass first community-based youth recovery program, addressing the urgent need for youth addiction support. Pulaski County partnership bringing life-saving Naloxone in fight against opioid epidemic YEP curriculum coordinator Rebecca Webber has been working for months as part of the Wolfe Street Foundation to open their Rainwood Road location with the help of the Blue and You Foundation. You often have to wait until it gets really bad until you get support, and thats the beauty of a prevention program, Webber said. You dont have to wait. According to the Arkansas Department of Human Services, one in seven adolescents in the state struggle with substance use disorders. To help the kids in the program understand how to navigate those struggles and others, a semester-long empowerment curriculum is in place, staffed by certified peer support specialists like Billie Jean Mayben. (There are) an endless amount of possibilities of what they (kids) can do with their life regardless of where they came up, and I know that thats true because Ive done it, she said. Arkansas drug overdose deaths dropping, outpacing national rate Mayben said she first tried illegal drugs at age 14. Before dropping out of high school, she was arrested, addicted and even tried taking her own life. But the programs she went through as an adult helped her turn things around. Now it is one of her goals to help other kids find that place sooner. I was a youth that could have used a program like this, Mayben said. YEP is working closely with schools, courts and behavioral health specialists to bring teens through the door, but some like Brailyn Levingston found them moving into his neighborhood. His mother thought he could use some help overthinking things and controlling his emotions, so Levingston agreed and signed up. As part of the pilot program in July, he is setting goals and seeing them through. The lessons here were great, Levingston said. I get to play around. I get to talk to some of the kids around here. I basically get to push out my close circle. New recovery center in Warren bringing hope to those who struggle with addiction Enrollment for the Fall semester is open at the Wolfe Street Foundation 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 KARK. Road Rage A California resident has been arrested for allegedly slashing the tires of Waymo vehicles in 17 separate incidents in San Francisco, showing in high relief that these driverless robotaxis are a sore point with many city residents. Ronaile Joshua Burton, 36, of Castro Valley, is facing charges for the crime spree, which happened over a span of three days in late June in the city's crime-ridden Tenderloin neighborhood, according to a statement from the office of the San Francisco District Attorney. Cameras on Waymos apparently captured Burton damaging these vehicles, according to law enforcement. Burton is also connected with another incident in which cameras caught Burton allegedly slashing the tires of a three-car Waymo caravan. "We can confirm that charges have been brought against the individual who aggressively vandalized a number of Waymo vehicles, some with riders present," said a Waymo spokesperson, as reported by NBC News. While nobody was reported injured, NBC reports, law enforcement have placed Burton in custody with no bail "because of the public safety risk" Burton poses. Deputy Public Defender Adam Birka-White said in a statement obtained by NBC that Burton needs help and not imprisonment. "Ms. Burton is someone in need of help and not jail, which is why our social workers are actively working to identify and secure appropriate services, as we continue to advocate for her release from jail," said Birka-White. Street Avenger Birka-White also blasted Waymo in the same statement. "The District Attorney continues to prioritize punishing poor people at the behest of corporations, in this case involving a tech company that is under federal investigation for creating dangerous conditions on our streets," Birka-White said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is indeed probing the Waymo company, looking into numerous accidents and moving violations involving Waymo vehicles. Waymo and others like it have become a flashpoint among critics who see these driverless cars as reckless and unsafe. Earlier this year, some California residents and activists banded together to call for government officials to ban the cars. Beyond Burton's arrest, others have vandalized these vehicles in the past, such as when an angry crowd set fire to a Waymo in February. No word on what they think about Burton's arrest, but no doubt a few may view her as a city folk hero. More on Waymo: Self-Driving Waymo Spotted Plowing Down Wrong Side of Street (KRON) A womans purse was stolen after a suspect smashed her window as she was parking her car, according to Daly City Police Department. The theft occurred at Manila Oriental Market on King Drive at 11:40 a.m. on July 1. While a victim was parking her car at the market, a man smashed her front passenger window and grabbed her purse. The suspect then fled into a black SUV with dark window tint. Man found lying on ground with fatal gunshot wound in Antioch The victim informed police the purse contained a cell phone, $100, a CA drivers license, an ATM card, credit cards, an EBT card, a Medicare card and a medical card. Police later found the purse and returned the item to the victim. According to Daly City police, the $100 was missing out of the purse. However, the rest of the contents were returned. Police said the victim described the suspect as a man wearing a large black hoodie, black gloves, and black pants. Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact the Daly City Police 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 KRON4. Woman wanted in connection with January 2023 homicide turns herself in to Columbus police A second woman charged with murder in connection with the January 2023 killing of a man turned herself in Wednesday, Columbus police report. Stephanie Denise Moore, 20, of the city's East Side, is charged with murder and robbery in the death of 40-year-old Juan Pablo Aleman. Moore is the second suspect in police custody in connection with Aleman's death. Amira Reid, 20, of Columbus, was arrested on June 27in Toledo by members of the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Fugitive Task Force. Reid has been charged with murder, aggravated murder, robbery, and tampering with evidence, and is in custody at the Franklin County jail, according to jail records. Court records state that Reid and Moore had spoken with Aleman earlier in the day in text messages and agreed to go to his apartment on Riverview Drive on the city's North Side to give him a private dance. A confidential informant told Columbus police detectives that Reid and Moore went to Aleman's apartment around 7:15 p.m. that night, court records say. The women brought two men with them, one of whom was armed. Video from Aleman's apartment showed four people running away from the apartment about 15 minutes after arriving. Aleman's body was found two days later. Police found Aleman's cellphone, which had been stolen, on June 17, 2024, and forensically examined it. That examination found text messages between Reid and Aleman in which the pair discuss Aleman paying Reid for sex, court records state. The messages included one from Moore that said "we here" at 7:20 p.m. on the night Aleman was shot. Moore is in custody at the Franklin County jail. Her next court appearance is scheduled for July 19 at 9 a.m., court records show. smeighan@dispatch.com @ShahidMeighan This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Stephanie Moore, wanted for January 2023 Columbus homicide, surrenders World's first hydrogen-powered commercial ferry to run on San Francisco Bay, and it's free to ride The MV Sea Change, the first commercial passenger ferry powered by hydrogen fuel cells, is seen on the water, Friday, July 12, 2024, in San Francisco. The MV Sea Change will begin offering free rides to the public along the San Francisco waterfront on Friday, July 19. (AP Photo/Terry Chea) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The worlds first hydrogen-powered commercial passenger ferry will start operating on San Francisco Bay as part of plans to phase out diesel-powered vessels and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, California officials said Friday, demonstrating the ship. The 70-foot (21-meter) catamaran called the MV Sea Change will transport up to 75 passengers along the waterfront between Pier 41 and the downtown San Francisco ferry terminal starting July 19, officials said. The service will be free for six months while it's being run as part of a pilot program. The implications for this are huge because this isnt its last stop," said Jim Wunderman, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, which runs commuter ferries across the bay. "If we can operate this successfully, there are going to be more of these vessels in our fleet and in other folks fleets in the United States and we think in the world. Sea Change can travel about 300 nautical miles and operate for 16 hours before it needs to refuel. The fuel cells produce electricity by combining oxygen and hydrogen in an electrochemical reaction that emits water as a byproduct. The technology could help clean up the shipping industry, which produces nearly 3% of the worlds total greenhouse gas emissions, officials said. Thats less than from cars, trucks, rail or aviation but still a lot and its rising. Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association, said the ferry is meaningful because its hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vessels. The real value of this is when you multiply out by the number of ferries operating around the world, he said. Theres great potential here. This is how you can start chipping away at the carbon intensity of your ports. Backers also hope hydrogen fuel cells could eventually power container ships. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates commercial shipping, wants to halve its greenhouse gas releases by midcentury. As fossil fuel emissions continue warming Earths atmosphere, the Biden administration is turning to hydrogen as an energy source for vehicles, manufacturing and generating electricity. It has been offering $8 billion to entice the nations industries, engineers and planners to figure out how to produce and deliver clean hydrogen. Environmental groups say hydrogen presents its own pollution and climate risks. For now, the hydrogen that is produced globally each year, mainly for refineries and fertilizer manufacturing, is made using natural gas. That process warms the planet rather than saving it. Indeed, a new study by researchers from Cornell and Stanford universities found that most hydrogen production emits carbon dioxide, which means that hydrogen-fueled transportation cannot yet be considered clean energy. Yet proponents of hydrogen-powered transportation say that in the long run, hydrogen production is destined to become more environmentally safe. They envision a growing use of electricity from wind and solar energy, which can separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. As such renewable forms of energy gain broader use, hydrogen production should become a cleaner and less expensive process. The Sea Change project was financed and managed by the investment firm SWITCH Maritime. The vessel was constructed at Bay Ship and Yacht in Alameda, California, and All-American Marine in Bellingham, Washington. ___ Associated Press journalist Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island. ST. LUCIE COUNTY Following a trend taking place across the Treasure Coast, Democrats, independents and third-party voters in St. Lucie County may have little say about who is elected to represent them for two seats this election. The only two races in the county that might have had open Aug. 20 primaries with no Democrats filing for County Commission District 3 or for property appraiser both will be closed primaries because write-in candidates qualified for the Nov. 5 general election. There are currently 148,208 registered voters in St. Lucie County who are not registered as Republicans and will not be able to vote in those primaries. Instead, they will be able to vote in the general election, where the only name on the ballot will be the winner of the primary, with an option to write-in. Registered Republicans, about 36.8% of registered voters here, will solely decide which individual candidate appears on the November ballot. Skip Hickman (left) and Janet Brady, both of Port St. Lucie, exit precinct 11 after voting on Election Day at Port St. Lucie Civic Center on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Port St. Lucie. "I'm so excited about voting today," said Brady. "He was out of town for a month and we waited until he came home so we could vote together." In the property appraiser race, incumbent Michelle Franklin is seeking her third term. After two previous runs as a Democrat, Franklin is this time running as a Republican. She faces primary opponent Joseph James, a Realtor and broker who describes himself as a "lifelong Republican." If it were just the two Republicans facing each other, the primary would be open to all registered voters, under a constitutional amendment overwhelmingly passed by Florida voters in 1998. That amendment was aimed at giving minority-party voters a say when there is no general election challenger. However, a write-in candidate can qualify without declaring a party, gathering signatures or paying a fee. In the property appraiser race, write-in candidate Mary Jane Keegan has locked out Democrats, independents and other non-Republicans. She has no biography or other information on her candidate page, nor does she appear to have official campaign websites or social media. She did not respond to a request for comment. A similar scenario is playing out in the District 3 County Commission race. Incumbent Linda Bartz is also seeking her third term, and also doing so as a Republican for the first time after previously running twice as a Democrat. Her Republican primary opponent is Erin Lowry, a wedding-venue owner who touts her history as a "registered Republican in St. Lucie County since 1999." Preventing an open primary in that race is write-in candidate Stephanie Robyn Holden. Like Keegan, she has no biography or other information on her candidate page and appears to no have official campaign websites or social media. She, too, did not respond to a request to comment. Notably, Holden's husband, Steve Holden, donated $120 to Lowry in February. More: 'Ghost candidates' deprive tens of thousands of Treasure Coast residents voting choices More: When is the primary election? Deadlines to know for August and November 2024 elections Non-Republican voters in St. Lucie County who wish to vote in these races are left with only one option: become Republicans. Voters have until July 22 to change their party registrations. However, that would bar them from voting in Democratic primaries such as for U.S. Senate and County Commission District 5. The write-in phenomenon is common across Florida and the Treasure Coast, with at least one primary being closed this year because of a write-in candidate in Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties. Wicker Perlis is TCPalm's Watchdog Reporter for St. Lucie County. You can reach him at wicker.perlis@tcpalm.com. This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Democrats and Independents will get less say in St. Lucie this year FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) The CEO of a Fresno County-based supplier of raw milk is firing back against claims his products were the cause of a salmonella outbreak. Raw Farm CEO Mark Mcafee acknowledged an outbreak happened but claims it was far smaller and less severe than what was reported. Theres nothing new here about this at all. Yes, we caused some illnesses that occurred in September and October of 2023, but theres been nothing since, said McAfee. The claims are outlined in an article by the Associated Press, which added that the outbreak ended May 4. The article alleged that at least 165 people across four states were sickened with salmonella infections from his raw milk products as of February of this year; the article says that resulted in 20 people being hospitalized. Raw milk only lasts seven days, so youre not going to have ongoing illnesses and it was a very short period of time with one code date, and was affected by one cow that was sick in our herd, said McAfee. McAfee claims the outbreak ended well before the end of last year when they voluntarily recalled some products. I do know that there were a couple of people that went to the hospital overnight, but everybody fully recovered and were very happy about that, said McAfee. According to the Fresno County Department of Public Health, only two recent cases of salmonella in the county have been linked to Raw Farm. Those were back in October and December of 2023 were not aware of additional cases here in Fresno County since then, said Dr. John Zweifler, medical consultant, Fresno County Department of Public Health Fresno County could not confirm the numbers from the Associated Press but did say that even with clean vetted tested processes used by raw milk suppliers like Raw Farm the county recommends caution. Pasteurization is basically heating up milk to kill anything that may be in there. In particular bacteria, viruses, or parasites. The CDC recommends you do not drink raw milk and you instead drink pasteurized milk, said Dr. Zweifler. On Friday afternoon, the California Department of Public Health sent yourcentralvalley.com a statement regarding the investigation, which concluded on May 4. In October 2023, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) was alerted by San Diego County Public Health about multiple Salmonellosis cases. CDPH conducted a public health investigation in concert with local officials and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), which regulates raw milk producers in California. CDPH, working with CDFA, asked firm management at Raw Farm for a voluntary recall. Raw Farm was cooperative and posted a recall on October 25. The majority of cases had an illness onset date between late September and December, 2023. The case investigation handled by CDPH ended on May 4, 2024. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was aware of the investigation and assisted with some coordination with cases in other states. California Department of Public Health. 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. Yosemite Park officials scold visitors about dirty habit that's 'all too familiar' Yosemites National Park Service urged visitors to keep things clean and classy recently, offering toilet paper disposal advice in a cheeky new post. NPS took to Instagram Monday to shed light on a sight of the toilet tissue variety, one that has become all too familiar at the California park, even in wilderness areas. Picture this: Yosemite's majestic wilderness, stunning vistas, and... surprise! Used toilet paper waving hello near Rancheria Falls a full roll too! NPS wrote in the caption. The Park Service warns that the most common technique to dispose of toilet paper, by way of burial, is easily exposed by weather or erosion and can be dug up by animals looking for nesting material. NPS offers a solution for visitors who have to respond when nature calls, stating that a sealable plastic baggie is a good place to stash all used and unused toilet paper. And they add that the bag be covered with 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 Let's keep things clean and classy out there, by packing out whatever you carry in, NPS concluded. Proper waste disposal is easy, NPS says The "cheeky" post has garnered thousands of like and hundreds of comments since it was shared on Monday. A majority of those who commented agreed with the Park Service's stance, offering alternative options like dog poop bags, travel bidet, an antimicrobial pee cloth, cleaning yourself with water as well as placing dryer sheets or baking soda in the bag to mask smell. "Sadly I see this all too often and its only getting worse. If youre too lazy to take it back out after carrying it in, DONT go. The wilderness doesnt want you," Tina Grimm wrote in the comments. NPS offers guidelines for how to dispose of waste properly online, offering four simple tips so visitors #LeaveNoTrace. Pack it in, pack it out. Inspect your campsite and rest areas for trash or spilled foods. Pack out all trash, leftover food, and litter. As appropriate, pack out trash you find. Deposit solid human waste in catholes dug in soil six inches deep at least 100 feet from water, camp, and trails. Cover and disguise the cathole when finished. Pack out toilet paper and hygiene products. To wash yourself or your dishes, carry water 100 feet away from streams or lakes and use small amounts of biodegradable soap. Scatter strained dishwater. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Yosemite guests scolded by National Park Service IG over toilet paper YORK, Pa. (WHTM) The York County Society and Prevention of Cruelty of Animalss SPLISH SPLASH ADOPTION BASH event has been canceled due to multiple cases of a highly contagious disease affecting dogs. Half-price adoptions will still be available by appointment to ensure the safety of the dogs. The event, which was scheduled to take place at the Brougher Companion Animal Shelter on Sunday, July 14, is canceled after three recently admitted dogs tested positive for canine parvovirus (parvo). Managing the spread of infectious diseases is an important function of shelter medicine. Our medical team works tirelessly to quarantine sick animals so that we can get them healthy and ready for adoption while keeping our entire shelter population healthy, said SPCA in a statement. According to SPCA, the majority of dogs in their care are vaccinated and are at low risk for contracting the disease. Still, the parvo-positive dogs will remain isolated from the rest of the population for at least two weeks. All dogs in the shelter are being monitored closely, and safety procedures are in place to mitigate the disease spread. The SPCA said that all three of the positive dogs came from a small part of York City: two from Madison Avenue and the other from King Street. The SPCA is urging residents in the area to be cautious when walking their dogs. The York County SPCA has been operating at capacity for dogs of all sizes and cannot take in more dogs in need. Because of this, the SPCA will be holding a half-price dog adoption event from July 14 to July 20, but for appointments only to ensure the dog is not at risk. The dogs available during the event will be vaccinated, asymptomatic, and at low risk for contracting the virus. Visit here for more information. To make an adoption appointment, call SPCA at 717-764-6109 or email them at info@ycspca.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 ABC27. New Zealand prime minister says to stand up for international rules-based order By Lucy Craymer (Reuters) - New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Thursday that his country needed to stand up for the international rules-based order as potential military flashpoints loom in the Indo-Pacific region. "We need to stand up for this international rules based system that has actually served New Zealand incredibly well... When it is under threat, and you've actually got to call it out, and you've got to stand up and make your contribution," Luxon told media after two days of meetings at the NATO summit in Washington. While not a member of the NATO alliance, New Zealand is part of a group of countries referred to as the Indo-Pacific Four(IP-4), which also includes Japan, South Korea and Australia. The IP-4 held sessions with NATO and EU leaders, while Luxon had bilateral meetings with a number of leaders including from Canada, France and Spain. Luxon said in a statement after he chaired the IP-4 meeting that it made sense for four of the most advanced democracies in the region to work together to support international stability. New Zealand is "making sure that we are going to be a trusted good partner to them to our friends and allies," Luxon later told reporters. New Zealand on Friday announced it would extend its contribution to the U.S.-led coalitions operating in the Red Sea. Luxon also warned a situation like Russia's invasion of Ukraine had the potential to occur in East Asia. "When you think about the situations we have with North Korea firing missiles over Korean and Japanese airspace, when you think about the challenges in the Second Thomas Shoal reef with respect to the Philippines, and the behavior that we saw from China there, when you think about Taiwan, you know, we have potential flashpoints in our region," Luxon said. New Zealand this week announced a further NZ$16 million ($9.74 million) in support for Ukraine and further sanctions against seven individuals and 12 entities providing military assistance to Russia. ($1 = 1.6434 New Zealand dollars) (Reporting by Lucy Craymer in Wellington; Editing by Jamie Freed) President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 12 to address U.S. state governors at the National Governors Association summer meeting. The surprise visit to Utah comes after Zelensky's stay in Washington, D.C., for the annual NATO summit. The allies gathered in the U.S. capital to outline further support for Kyiv in the face of Russian aggression. "We're honored to welcome President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Zelenska to Utah and the National Governors Association," Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox said. "Utah stands behind Ukraine and we look forward to hearing his message to the nation's governors." John Freedman, the honorary consul of Ukraine in Utah, said that Zelensky's visit came after three weeks of hard work and at the invitation of Cox, who currently chairs the National Governors Association. "I expect that President Zelensky will talk about the current plight that they're facing," Freedman said, referring to Russia's deadly July 8 strike against the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv. According to the honorary consul, Utah leaders will also sign a sister-state relationship with Kyiv Oblast. Zelensky wrapped up his visit to Washington with additional pledges of assistance from the allies, including a new military aid package from Washington. The meeting concluded with the signing of the Ukraine Compact, a security framework backed by all 32 member states that creates "a unified and comprehensive security architecture to support Ukraine today and in the future, in war and in peace." Read also: NATO summit ends with 32 countries signing Ukraine Compact Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. WASHINGTON, D.C. This years NATO summit ended better than last years, but with no firm invitation to enter the alliance and Ukraines needs on the battlefield mounting, some observers believe the lack of commitment gives Russia the green light to carry on with its war. While Ukraine didnt get the firm commitment it wanted to join NATO at the alliances summit this year, the 32 allied countries did declare Ukraines path to membership irreversible in a move largely seen as an improvement from last years summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. We welcome the concrete progress Ukraine has made since the Vilnius Summit, NATOs official declaration reads, on its required democratic, economic, and security reforms. As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. If the country didnt get the invitation it wanted, Ukraine did receive more air defense systems, $43 billion in funding, a NATO representative in Kyiv, and new bilateral security agreements during the Alliances 75th-anniversary celebration. But it is calling for more, as an end to Russias war is nowhere near in sight and the specter of another Donald Trump presidency looms. President Volodymyr Zelensky characterized the summit as a success for Ukraine. We are very close to our goal. It seems to me that the next step will be an invitation (to NATO), and then membership... Today we see success for all our people, our nation, Zelensky said during a joint press conference with outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Read also: NATO summit ends with 32 countries signing Ukraine Compact The reaction stands in contrast to last year, when the lack of a clear path to membership left the president and other Ukrainian leaders furious. Zelenskys choice to call the summit a success may have been a way to appease allies who chafed at his reaction after the Vilnius summit last summer. To avoid repeated disappointment, NATO managed expectations ahead of this years ceremonial summit, resulting in various bilateral agreements and long-term commitments to protect Ukraine leading up to the summit. The wording around Ukraines future in NATO, which was continuously referred to as being on a bridge toward membership, was at times conflicting. In comments on the summits final day, Stoltenberg said that the only way for Ukraine to become a member is that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign independent nation in Europe. In separate comments, he said the clearest way to make sure Russian aggression stops is to get Ukraine into NATO. For some, the language of irreversibility only gives Russia the green light to continue its war against Ukraine. It was a very good week for NATO, but Ukraine is not in NATO, so it was only a so-so week for Ukraine, said Adrian Karatnycky, the former president of Freedom House, the human rights and democracy advocacy non-profit. There was nothing concrete given other than a message to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that if you want to keep Ukraine out of NATO, just continue the war. To Luke Coffey, a former official in Britain's Defense Ministry and current fellow at the Hudson Institute, the whole issue with the communique was the language around Ukraine. At the next summit, theyll need a very large English-language thesaurus because Im not sure how many ways there are left to say the same thing, he added. While much frustration and confusion was expressed over irreversible, Steve Pifer, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, said this language is a success. Read also: Biden announces new aid package for Ukraine at NATO summit Its definitely a positive step compared to the Vilnius language, he said, referring to last years summit when the language fell short of extending Ukraine an invitation, as it did again this year. The alliance instead stated last year that NATO will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met. Karatnycky, who is the author of a recently published book on the history of modern Ukraine, said that for Ukraine, NATO isnt so much a military alliance as it is an alliance of military producers and donors for the countries not protected by the charter's Article 5. The article says that if any member is attacked, each allied country considers it an attack against all members and thus is required to take the actions it deems necessary to assist the ally attacked. NATOs requirement that member nations spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense was another favored topic of discussion at the summit, with U.S. officials calling for higher spending among European countries. The U.S. spends about 3.5% of its GDP on defense and is joined in surpassing the threshold by Poland, Britain, the Baltic States, and a growing number of others according to NATO numbers from 2023. Many countries like Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany spend around 1.7%. In a meeting of the Baltic States Defense Ministers on July 9 on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, Hanno Pevkur of Estonia, said NATOs requirement to spend 2% of GDP on defense, which was enacted in response to Russias illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, is not enough. Restrictions on US weaponry on Russian territory One question raised repeatedly over the three-day summit was whether the U.S. would fully lift restrictions on Kyivs use of American weapons against Russian territory. So far, Washington has only allowed for the use of its weapons on Russian territory located close to Ukraines northeastern borders near Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts. U.S. officials repeatedly said they will continue to monitor developments on Ukraines frontline but for now, the restrictions are to remain in place. Russias July 8 missile attack on Kyiv's Ohkmadyt Childrens Hospital which killed two and injured over 30, led to louder calls to let Ukraine strike deep inside Russia. Officials at the summit made frequent mention of the attack, to minimal avail. Overall, the attack on Kyiv that day killed 33 people. More than a dozen were killed and over 60 were injured in other cities across Ukraine in similar attacks on July 8. Zelensky referred to the question of why Kyiv isnt allowed to strike the Russian airfield from which the deadly attack was launched as crazy. If we want to win, we need to lift all limitations, Zelensky said. Zelensky stepped outside the confines of the heavily guarded summit to meet members of Congress on Capitol Hill, including the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. "I explained that the will of Congress was to allow them the flexibility to use the weapons and assistance that were sent to prosecute the war as they see fit. So I'm a supporter of that, Speaker Johnson said after meeting with Zelensky. Read also: Opinion: NATO at 75 is whistling past the graveyard Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. Source: European Pravda; Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Twitter (X) Details: Zelenskyy informed Giorgia Meloni about the situation at the contact line and the Russian air terror against Ukrainian cities. Quote from Zelenskyy: "We discussed Ukraine's key needs, including air defence." In Washington, I met with Italys President of the Council of Ministers, @GiorgiaMeloni. I informed her about the situation on the frontline and the Russian air terror against Ukrainian cities. We discussed Ukraine's key needs, including air defense. I am grateful that pic.twitter.com/0vnbvXbwGZ Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 12, 2024 The president also thanked the Italian prime minister for prioritising Ukraine's defence capability and reconstruction for the Italian G7 presidency this year. Background: The day before, Zelenskyy expressed his expectation that the promised air defence systems would arrive in Ukraine as soon as possible. As reported, US President Joe Biden announced the supply of five air defence systems, including Patriot, to Ukraine during the opening of the NATO summit. Support UP or become our patron! U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat, on Friday called on Joe Biden to "pass the torch" to another candidate, becoming the first member of Colorado's congressional delegation to declare the president should drop his reelection bid. Calling her decision "painful," the first-term lawmaker said Biden needs to step aside to increase the Democrats' chances of defeating former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. "Joe Biden saved our country once, and I'm joining the growing number of people in my district and across the country to ask him to do it again," Pettersen posted to X. "Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump, who is the greatest threat to the foundation of this country that we have ever faced." Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet stopped short of saying Biden should end his campaign, while warning that Trump is on a path to win the presidency in November, possibly "in a landslide," in the wake of Biden's weak performance in the June 27 presidential debate. Bennet said Biden's falling prospects also risked Democrats losing control of both chambers of Congress, a potential outcome he called "staggering." For me, this isnt a question about polling, its not a question about politics its a moral question for the future of our country, Bennet told CNN's Katilan Collins on Tuesday. Pettersen's statement arrived the morning after Biden held an hour-long news conference at the conclusion of a NATO summit in Washington. While Biden drew high marks for his command of complicated foreign policy topics, attention focused on some of the president's trademark gaffes, including referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." More than a dozen Democratic House members have called on Biden to exit the race since the debate, including three others who voiced their positions late Thursday following Biden's press conference. So far, just one Democratic senator, Vermont's Peter Welch, has urged Biden to step aside. Featured Local Savings During Thursday's press conference, Biden reiterated his vow to stay in the race. "I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president," Biden said. Referring to Trump, he added: "I beat him once, and I will beat him again." Pettersen, a former state lawmaker, represents the Democratic-leaning 7th Congressional District, which covers Jefferson County, Broomfield and mountain counties stretching as far south as Canon City. Like other Democrats who have called on Biden to withdraw, Pettersen decades-long record as president, vice president and U.S. senator from Delaware. "President Biden is a good man who has served this country faithfully and admirably over his decades of service," Pettersen said, adding that her work as an organizer on Biden's 2008 presidential campaign was a "big reason" she pursued a career in public service. "I have deep admiration and love for Joe Biden and all he has done for our country, which is why this decision is so painful, but my son and my constituents can't suffer the consequences of inaction at this critical moment," Pettersen said. "You have done so much for our country, and I know you will continue to do what's right for our future." Zelenskyy and Macron discuss preparation of next defence package for Ukraine President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. Source: European Pravda, citing Zelenskyy on X (Twitter) Zelenskyy noted that they discussed the implementation of the decisions of the Peace Summit, as well as the preparation of the next defence package, security cooperation, and military training. On the sidelines of the NATO Summit, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, we discussed the implementation of the Peace Summit decisions, as well as the preparation of the next defense package, security cooperation and training of our military. I am grateful to the pic.twitter.com/Hls7vnMhL1 Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) July 12, 2024 "I am grateful to the President Emmanuel Macron and the French people for their principled and unwavering support," Zelenskyy added. Background: On 6 June, the French President announced the transfer of several French Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine and the training of additional Ukrainian military personnel as part of a new cooperation with Kyiv. Later, Macron said preparations for training Ukrainian pilots and mechanics for Mirage 2000-5 fighters would begin on the French territory. On 7 June in Paris, Ukraine and France's presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron signed agreements to provide help for the repair of Ukraine's critical infrastructure. Support UP or become our patron! This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, Digital Trends and Yahoo Inc. may earn a commission. Joe Maring / Digital Trends The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 has officially landed. Well, almost. You can preorder the phone today, at least. In fact, its your last chance to grab these preorder deals, because the phone launches on Wednesday, July 24. Here, well go through each major carrier and the unlocked version of the phone, picking the best deal for each one. The best unlocked Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 preorder deal To get a fresh, unlocked Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 your best bet is to go directly to the manufacturer. Typically, the 512GB version of the phone would cost $1,220 but now you can get it for as low as $400. Part of this is because the 512GB version of the phone now costs the same as the smaller 256GB phone, a double storage savings bonus of $120. Then, there are enhanced trade-in values. For example, your old Pixel 6 Pro (Samsung accepts Samsung, Apple, Google, and other phones with the first three categories giving the best returns) would typically only fetch you an $80 discount. Today, that same phone gets you $300. Trade-in credit is capped to $650. PREORDER NOW The best Verizon Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 preorder deal If youre looking for the best deal on a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and want it tied to Verizon, you have two options. The first is simple and for current Verizon customers, where you get the same deal outlined above. Just go to the Galaxy Z Flip 6 with Verizon selected and all of the same trade-ins will apply. But what if youre interested in a completely new Verizon line? Verizon will let you get trade-in credit up to $800, all while letting you get the 512GB upgrade for free. This is best reflected in the monthly payment price. From Verizon, with a new line and max trade-ins, you can get your new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 for as low as $8.33/month over 36 month (Total: $350). Compare this to the best monthly offer from Samsung, $18.75/month over 24 months (Total: $450) and you can see that youve got a good deal here. PREORDER NOW The best T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 preorder deal T-Mobile users have two choices for their Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 order. If you like your current T-Mobile plan, just order via Samsung, choosing the Galaxy Z Flip 6 with T-Mobile selected. This, however, is not the best deal. The absolute best deal on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 from T-Mobile comes from T-Mobile itself, where you can essentially get the phone for free. When you add on a Go5G or Go5G Next (theyre among the best cell phone plans) T-Mobile will slowly reimburse you for your payment of the phone over the months the come. You wont be able to cancel the service, of course, as the payments will stop, but it is a free phone on offer if youre willing to get a great phone plan with it. PREORDER NOW The best AT&T Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 preorder deal The absolute best way to get a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 for AT&T customers is clear, go directly to AT&T. With AT&T (and an eligible unlimited plan) you can trade in up to the full price of the phone, making it free, and preorders also get the double storage for free. Trade-ins are limited to Galaxy S, Note, and Z series smartphones. PREORDER NOW The best US Cellular Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 preorder deal Wanting to use US Cellular with your new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6? You may very well be able to get the phone for free from US Cellular. Youll be locked to the phone (and plan) for 36 months, where youll get monthly bill credits to cover the costs of the phone. To do so, youll need to get the phone with an Unlimited Data-Even Better 3.0 or Business Unlimited Data-Even Better 3.0 plan and either have a new account, add a line, or be upgrade eligible. PREORDER NOW Why you should buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is one of the latest phones from Samsung and is slated to be one of the best flip phones ever made. As a flip phone, it is split between a 3.4 inch AMOLED cover screen with 720 x 748 pixels and a 1080p, 6.7 inch dynamic AMOLED main unflipped screen. Its cameras include dual-lens 50MP wide and 12MP ultrawide rear-facing and 10MP ultrawide front-facing cams, with video shooting up to 4K at 60 fps. Other stats include its 12GB of RAM and storage split between 256 and 512GB, but if youre preordering you should effectively only consider this a 512GB phone, as nearly all preorder deals price the larger and smaller storage options in the same way. Statistics only tell part of the story, though, when it comes to phones. Our hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 only lasted a couple of hours, but some things were immediately noticeable. In both a visual and tactile way, this phone is incredible. While there are some classic colors like black and white (both available from Samsung alone) youll also find a few pastel colorations that make the phone look like a tasty macaroon. The phones exteriors are smooth-looking, with the exception of the black, which has exterior grooves. (You can also customize your phones exterior with any of these Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 cases.) But the most impressive thing we saw in our hands-on with the phone was actually something we didnt see too much of a crease! You wont feel it with your finger as you swipe and, at least with a newer phone, wont see it without having the lights just right. PREORDER NOW 'AI' and 'AI PC' are, of course, two big buzzwords these days and not only in the U.S. and Europe, but also in China, where openKylin just released what it's calling an operating system for AI PCs. OpenKylin is an open source OS based on Linux and maintained by the OpenKylin community, which is backed by a number of Chinese companies including Hygon and Phytium. Clearly, Chinese PC makers are interested in getting in on the AI PC craze but Windows remains China's most-used OS. The new version of openKylin launched Sunday, and is "deeply" integrated with AI, featuring support for on-device large language models (LLMs), an AI-assistant, and text-to-image generation, according to a report by the South China Morning Post. OpenKylin wants to get in on the AI PC trend, which has been driven by hope that AI applications will reinvigorate demand for PCs. The company says that AI integration is designed to boost "productivity and user experience" for those using domestic operating systems. AI PCs are generally equipped with advanced processors capable of running generative AI tasks locally instead of having to rely on cloud processing. It's unclear how the OS is supposed to accelerate AI workloads, and also whether it can take advantage of a CPU's built-in AI capabilities. Also, while Microsoft's Copilot+-badged PCs require neural processing units capable of handling at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), it's not clear whether openKylin has any performance requirements for CPUs or NPUs. PC maker Lenovo sees China as a unique market for AI PCs due to its data-localization requirements, so openKylin might be correct in assuming it can get big in China with AI capabilities. On Monday, China's state-run newspaper, Science and Technology Daily, described the AI-enhanced version of openKylin as "secure, stable, and controllable." This is because, unlike Windows, openKylin is developed entirely in China by 3,876 developers from 271 different companies. OpenKylin resembles Microsoft Windows, and is part of China's effort to decrease its dependence on foreign operating systems (and American technology in general). This initiative has been ongoing for a while, and was given an extra boost by the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China. Despite these efforts, home-grown operating systems have struggled to gain significant traction and Windows remains the dominant operating system in China with nearly 80% of the market as of June 2024, according to StatCounter. Elon Musk is gloating on X over fumbles at Biden's 'big boy' press conference Elon Musk is gloating on X over fumbles at Biden's 'big boy' press conference Elon Musk couldn't hide his amusement at President Joe Biden's latest gaffe. Biden accidentally referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." "This is real!!??" Musk said in an X post on Thursday. President Joe Biden can count Elon Musk among those who caught at least part of his highly anticipated press conference on Thursday night. And Musk, who has frequently derided Biden and his administration, couldn't stop himself from poking fun at Biden's gaffes. "This is real!!??" Musk said on his social-media platform, X, in response to a clip in which Biden accidentally referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump." Biden misspoke during Thursday's press conference when he was asked whether he had any concerns about Harris' ability to beat former President Donald Trump if she took over from him. "I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president," Biden said. This is real!!?? Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024 Musk also poked fun at the muted facial expressions Biden's Cabinet members had when he made the mistake. "Reality is beyond parody!" he wrote a few minutes later. "The most entertaining outcome is the most likely," Musk said in another post referencing the incident. Reality is beyond parody! Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2024 There were, however, parts of the press conference that observers deemed to have gone well namely, Biden's command of issues regarding foreign policy. But the mixed reaction is probably a downer for Biden, whose team saw it as an opportunity for him to quell the growing doubts surrounding his mental acuity. During a press briefing on Monday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, and the national security communications advisor, John Kirby, jokingly referred to the event as Biden's "big boy" press conference, a term coined by the Bloomberg reporter Justin Sink. Musk's amusement shouldn't come as a surprise to many. The mercurial businessman has been an outspoken critic of Biden ever since Tesla was excluded from the president's electric-vehicle summit in 2021. Musk, who said he voted for Biden in 2020, has slammed Biden for his approach toward the Southern border crisis and accused the Democratic Party of being "controlled by the unions." That said, Musk has stopped short of endorsing Biden's rival, Trump. (The former president has had his own share of name mixups, too; earlier this year, for instance, he confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.) "I think I would not vote for Biden. I'm not saying I'd vote for Trump," Musk told Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Summit in November. It's worth noting that Musk has used X to platform several GOP figures. In May last year, he helped Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida kick off an ultimately failed presidential bid via an X stream riddled with technical difficulties. And while Musk has stopped short of endorsing Trump, he's admitted to meeting privately with the GOP candidate. "I was at a breakfast at a friend's place, and Donald Trump came by, that's it," Musk told the former CNN host Don Lemon in an interview that aired on March 18. "I'm not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form. And he did not ask me for money." During a June 13 Tesla shareholder meeting, Musk said of Trump, "He does call me out of the blue for no reason." "I don't know why, but he does," Musk continued. Representatives for Musk 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 Weve heard about many rumored features and specs for the iPhone 16 series. Now, were learning about a major reason why this years iPhone lineup will be so important for Apple. Per a new report, Apple is aiming for a 10% increase in iPhone shipments by the end of the year with the launch of the iPhone 16 lineup, according to Bloomberg. The company hopes its recently announced AI features will drive the success of the new series, which is expected to arrive in September. In June, Apple announced the introduction of Apple Intelligence, a new set of tools available on the latest iPhones and also compatible with some older devices, such as the iPhone 15 Pro series. According to insiders, the company has grown confident that the introduction of Apple Intelligence will help the iPhone better compete with AI-enhanced smartphones from rivals like Samsung and Xiaomi. With a 10% increase in iPhone sales, Apple hopes to ship 90 million iPhone 16 devices before the end of the year. Interestingly, Wall Street believes iPhone revenue will drop in the years second half. For some context, Apples iPhone sales dropped 10% year-over-year from January through March. This quarter marked the most significant decline since July through September 2020, when the global pandemic affected iPhone sales. Considering all of that, such a big boost in sales would be big news for Apple. If the iPhone 16 sells the way Apple supposedly expects it to, thatll be a significant win for the tech giant. Much of this decline in iPhone sales during the last quarter has been attributed to decreasing sales in China. However, a rebound is said to have occurred since April thanks to discounts that led up to Chinas nationwide June 18 shopping event. Apple will announce sales numbers for the April through June quarter on Thursday, August 1. Andy Boxall / Digital Trends Apple is expected to introduce four new iPhone models this year: the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Anticipated updates include larger displays for the Pro models, potential improvements to battery life, a redesigned camera system for the entry-level models, and more. The company will officially release iOS 18 this fall, along with new iPhones. The software update was announced at this years Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and will bring new customization tools to the iPhone, along with significant updates to the Photos and Messages apps. The Control Center is also getting a face-lift. However, none of these changes are as significant as Apple Intelligence. This new tool incorporates AI features to enhance imaging, writing, communication, Siri, and more. The tool is expected to be released in stages beginning this fall. A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a voting rights challenge to Colorado Springs' municipal election schedule, brought by four civic groups seeking to force the city to move its April elections to November to reduce turnout disparities among voters of color. The parties submitted hundreds of pages of evidence disputing whether April elections in odd-numbered years should be considered a discriminatory practice under the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs argued participation from Black and Hispanic voters was only on par with White residents in November elections in even-numbered years, while the city maintained the lawsuit sought to establish a "national election day" for municipalities that federal law does not require. Ultimately, U.S. District Court Judge S. Kato Crews did not analyze any of those arguments. In a July 9 order, he concluded the organizations suing the city had no basis to bring their claim going so far as to suggest the plaintiffs attempted to manufacture standing solely for the lawsuit. "The City has held its municipal elections in April as early as 1873. The Plaintiff organizations were founded multiple decades (and sometimes over 100 years) later, meaning the City conducted April elections for numerous years before these organizations existed, and it has continued to hold April elections well after," Crews wrote. "This chronology demonstrates the abstract nature of Plaintiffs claimed injuries, which seem to be supported only by their decision to now oppose the timing of the April elections in federal court, and to do so without any voters as plaintiffs and without suing on behalf of their individual members." Crews, an appointee of President Joe Biden, largely relied on a less-than-one-month-old U.S. Supreme Court decision, Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In that case, a group of medical associations opposed to abortion challenged the government's longstanding approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone, even though they did not prescribe or dispense the drug themselves. The Supreme Court unanimously found the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. Daniel Hessel, an attorney with Harvard Law School's Election Law Clinic who represented the plaintiffs challenging Colorado Springs' election schedule, said he was disappointed by Crews' decision to apply fresh Supreme Court precedent without input from the parties. "We would have readily briefed that issue had the court invited us to do so. Our clients are weighing options to ensure that Colorado Springs ends its discriminatory and outlier practice," Hessel said. A spokesperson for Colorado Springs said the city was pleased with the decision to dismiss the lawsuit. Around the beginning of 2022, Harvard's Election Law Clinic contacted the plaintiffs about suing the city. The groups that joined the lawsuit Citizens Project, Colorado Latinos Vote, the League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region and the Black/Latino Leadership Coalition alleged they suffered an injury from the city's practice of holding April elections. Featured Local Savings Specifically, their voter education and get-out-the-vote activities required "additional effort" and diversion of resources in April of odd-numbered years that could be avoided if the city aligned its own election with the state's November election. The plaintiffs cited statistics showing Black and Hispanic participation in the city's April elections was roughly half that of White voters, but the gap substantially narrowed during November elections. The lawsuit sought to require Colorado Springs to move its elections to November because of the allegedly discriminatory effect of April elections on voters of color. "Plaintiffs do not contend that minority voters face scheduling hurdles in spring elections that white voters do not confront," the city's lawyers responded. "Plaintiffs instead contend that there is only one right election date specifically, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and every other day is wrong." Colorado Springs also submitted a declaration from Mayor Yemi Mobolade, who is Black, stating his opposition to the lawsuit. He added the plaintiffs had not, to his knowledge, sought to alter the election schedule legislatively and he was "unaware of any grassroots effort in the Black and Hispanic communities to change the timing of Colorado Springs elections." Crews, in his order, noted the civic groups were suing based on alleged negative effects to their own voter education activities stemming from April elections. But he noted the Supreme Court's recent decision in the mifepristone case rejected the idea that merely spending resources always amounts to an injury. An organization "cannot spend its way into standing simply by expending money to gather information and advocate against the defendants action. An organization cannot manufacture its own standing in that way," wrote Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Crews blasted the plaintiffs for making a "reckless and untrue" assertion that he would be the first judge anywhere to find voting rights organizations lack standing to sue. Instead, he agreed the plaintiffs, like those in the mifepristone case, had not shown a specific injury from the city's 151-year-old practice. "Plaintiffs have already been using their respective resources on voter education programs and initiatives to educate Black, Hispanic, and other voters," Crews wrote. The case is Citizens Project et al. v. City of Colorado Springs et al. The Colorado Springs man who shot two people at the New Havana Grill and Bar last year was sentenced to 90 days in jail Thursday at a highly contentious sentencing hearing. Zain Frank Aguilera-Valdez, 22, was arrested on March 18, 2023, after he shot two people in the parking lot of the New Havana Grill and Bar on the east side of Colorado Springs during an altercation that sparked as his group was being kicked out of the bar. Both of the people who were shot by Aguilera-Valdez survived. He was arrested and faced more than 25 charges, including six counts of attempted first-degree murder. According to court records, Aguilera-Valdez pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree assault and one violent crime sentence enhancer in April. At Aguilera-Valdez's sentencing hearing Thursday his attorney, Austin Vos, made it clear that despite a guilty plea being entered it was his belief that his client was fully innocent, and that he only discharged his firearm in self-defense. The topic of whether Aguilera-Valdez acted in self-defense the night of the shooting took up the bulk of Thursday's sentencing hearing as Aguilera-Valdez's sentence was still yet to be determined heading into the hearing. Aguilera-Valdez was rejected from Community Corrections which according to Judge Catherine Mitchell Helton was the recommended sentence from the pre-sentence investigation report leaving either a probation sentence or a several-year stint in the Department of Corrections as the two sentencing options. Prosecutor Keeley Deback opened the hearing by calling an expert to testify about how the prosecution believes that Aguilera-Valdez did not need to discharge his firearm and was not acting in self-defense. The expert went through screenshots from security footage of the shooting, highlighting how Aguilera-Valdez escalated the incident from an altercation to a shooting. Vos, as well as several family members of Aguilera-Valdez who spoke to the court, disagreed. Vos spoke about how the defense's expert on self-defense decided that Aguilera-Valdez's actions were justified. Vos said the incident began because security guards were allegedly assaulting and beating Aguilera-Valdez's girlfriend as they were being kicked out of the bar, which led to Aguilera-Valdez being punched in the face by a guard which prompted him to begin shooting. "That day I thought I was going to lose my girlfriend," Aguilera-Valdez told the court during his impact statement. Aguilera-Valdez's family members, as well as Vos, also spoke at length about how they felt the prosecution and police mistreated Aguilera-Valdez through the whole process, putting him in a situation where he needed to plead guilty to a crime for which they say he is innocent. Featured Local Savings At one point Vos stated the conduct of the prosecution and police are part of the reason people have "mistrust in the system." After two hours of impact statements and testimony Helton issued her sentence, opting to not send Aguilera-Valdez to the Department of Corrections. Helton instead sentenced Aguilera-Valdez to 90 days in jail and eight years probation. "This was not an easy choice to make," Helton said. "If you are not 100% compliant I will put you in prison." Helton said the decision was difficult because although it was clear from video footage there was provocation that put Aguilera-Valdez in real danger, it was illegal for him to be in possession of a firearm and he did shoot recklessly into a crowd of people. "You could have killed someone," Helton said. As Helton read the sentence audible gasps of excitement could be heard from Aguilera-Valdez's family in the courtroom. "Oh my god," Aguilera-Valdez's girlfriend said as she wept when the sentence was read. The New Havana Grill and Bar, just off North Academy Boulevard, was the location of several shootings before it closed late last year. Last week, Oscar Jovet Palomares and Jose Noriega Demarco were sentenced to nine years in the Department of Corrections for attempting to shoot a man in the parking lot of the New Havana Grill and Bar in 2022, according to court records. In 2023 Carnel Davis was sentenced to 48 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shooting and killing Glenn Fruster at the New Havana Grill and Bar in 2022. The New Havana Grill and Bar has been permanently closed, and the building where the bar was located remains unoccupied. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify that Judge Helton stated Aguilera-Valdez was illegally in possession of a firearm at the time of the shooting. Offshore oil and gas platforms in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan. Fot. Alamy Stock Photo / BE&W During a press conference alongside his Azerbaijani counterpart, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjartoemphasized that MVM's 5% stake marks "a historically unprecedented situation for Hungarys energy supply," as it will shield the country more effectively against "major energy market price fluctuations and uncertainties." Natural gas from Azerbaijan will enter the Hungarian market through liquefied natural gas (LNG) and existing pipeline networks, including the Southern Gas Corridor and various interconnector pipelines across the Balkan region. Budapest's recent venture into the Azerbaijani offshore gas sector underscores Hungarian leadership's interest in enhancing energy cooperation with the Caspian countries. In June 2023, Prime Minister Viktor Orbanvisited Turkmenistan and emphasized Ashgabat's potential as a significant partner for Europe and Hungary. Furthermore, in December of the same year, the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, in partnership with Ural Oil and Gas LLP, began gas production at the Rozhkovskoye field in Western Kazakhstan. However, concerns have been raised about the impact of this agreement on Hungary's longstanding relationship with its traditional energy partner, Russia. Since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, EU and NATO members have provided military assistance to Kyiv and sought to decrease dependence on Russian energy. In contrast, the Hungarian government has consistently opposed Ukraine's EU membership and delayed aid agreements, expressing skepticism about Ukraine's ability to resist Moscow's advances. Observers attribute these actions to Budapest's significant reliance on extensive oil and gas imports from Moscow. Therefore, it is legitimate to wonder to what extent Hungary can balance increasing cooperation with Baku, a trajectory also pursued by the EU, while maintaining stable energy relations with the Kremlin. Probably the answer to this question transcends the energy sphere. Hungarys reliance on Russian Gas Hungary stands out among EU countries due to its heavy reliance on natural gas in its national energy mix and substantial dependence on imported fossil fuels. Prior to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Budapest's energy dependence exceeded 50%, with over 90% of its oil and natural gas imports supplied by Russia. Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban attend a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 5, 2024. Fot. REUTERS/Valeriy Sharifulin This dependency is compounded by Hungary's status as a landlocked country. Despite recent adjustments, where current Russian gas prices via pipelines more closely align with European exchange rates than in previous years, they remain a more cost-effective option for Hungary compared to importing LNG during periods of price volatility. In 2021, Moscow and Budapest signed an agreement for Hungary to purchase 4.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas over 10 years, with the possibility of extending the contract for an additional 5 years. Currently, Russian natural gas enters Hungary through two primary pipelines. One route utilizes the TurkStream pipeline and its extension, the Balkan Stream, which traverses the Black Sea and the Balkans. The second pathway passes through Ukrainian territory. However, the transit agreement governing the latter pipeline is set to expire by the end of this year, and Kyiv has already declared its intention not to renew it with Moscow. Given Hungary's significant dependence on imports from Russia, the country remains highly sensitive to geopolitical developments arising from the conflict in Ukraine. As stated by EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson in November 2023, "Even Hungary acknowledges that by continuing this activity, they grant Russia the ability to manipulate their market." Hungary and Azerbaijan's Strategic Role in European Markets The signing of the "Contract of the Century" on September 20, 1994, between Azerbaijani officials and 11 major foreign oil companies, including the UK's BP and the US's Exxon, marked a pivotal moment. This agreement led to the implementation of the Baku-Supsa and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines, and later the Southern Gas Corridor network. In 2020, this network began delivering natural gas from the Caspian shores to Italy through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, and Albania. In July 2022, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Baku to sign an agreement aimed at doubling Azerbaijani gas exports to the EU by 2027. Azerbaijan gained prominence in Hungarian foreign policy in the early 2000s during the Nabucco pipeline project era. Through this initiative, the European Commission aimed to transport Caspian and Middle Eastern gas to Central Europe. However, due to Russian opposition and conflicting interests among EU members, the Nabucco project faltered. Azerbaijan subsequently redirected its gas toward southern European markets. Despite this backset, Hungary's energy ties with Azerbaijan deepened. MOL acquired a significant stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil field and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. In December 2022, leaders from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, and Hungary signed an agreement in Bucharest to implement a 1,200-km underwater cable under the Black Sea for electricity transmission to Europe. They also agreed to develop the Solidarity Ring (STRING) gas corridor, aimed at enhancing cross-border infrastructure to increase gas supplies from Azerbaijan to the EU. Orbans"Eastern Opening Policy" Hungary's relations with Russia and Azerbaijan are not solely rooted in energy ties but are part of a broader political strategy known as the "Eastern Opening Policy," championed by the Orban administration. This policy includes fostering cooperation with Russia, South and East Asian countries, and Turkic nations. Hungary's decision to become an observer state of the Organization of Turkic States in 2018, justified by Prime Minister Orban'sbelief that Hungarians are "Kipchak Turks" who "consider themselves late descendants of Attila, of Hun-Turkic origin" reflects this strategic pivot. The latter has been driven in part by Budapest's increasing isolation within the EU over the past decade, exacerbated by Eurosceptic rhetoric and violations of core EU principles under the Fidesz government. This handout photograph released by The Press Office of the Presidency of Turkey on November 11, 2022, shows (L to R) Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Uzbekistans President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, former Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Azerbaijans, President Ilham Aliyev, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, stand during the ninth Summit of the Organisation of Turkic States at Eternal City Convention Center in Samarkand. Fot. HANDOUT/AFP/East News While recent Hungarian efforts to maintain advantageous political and economic ties with Russia have drawn scrutiny, less attention has been focused on Hungary's relationship with Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev has governed Azerbaijan for two decades amid allegations of authoritarianism and corruption. In September 2023, Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh, displacing over 100,000 Armenian residents and facing accusations of ethnic cleansing. Hungary notably blocked a joint EU statement condemning Baku's military actions against the local Armenian population. Recently, the Azerbaijani government has intensified its suppression of rights activists and independent journalists. Aliyev's uncontested victory in local elections this year was criticized for lacking democratic principles, although Orbandescribed it as "huge and indisputable." Hungary's support for Azerbaijan has been controversial since 2012, when Azerbaijani Lieutenant RamilSafarov, convicted in Budapest in 2006 for the murder of Armenian officer GurgenMargaryan, was transferred to Azerbaijan. Initially sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hungarian court with the possibility of parole after 30 years, Safarov was sent to Azerbaijan under the Azerbaijani government's promise that his sentence would be upheld. However, upon his return, he was controversially pardoned and promoted. Additional controversy arose in 2017 when the "Azerbaijani Laundromat" investigation revealed over USD 7 million had been transferred to various Budapest bank accounts around the time Hungary handed over Safarov's custody to Baku. Hungary and the Russian-Azerbaijani-Turkish axis Following Hungary's announcement of acquiring a 5% stake in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto attended the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum. During his visit, he expressed Hungary's satisfaction with its cooperation on gas supplies with Russia and affirmed Budapest's intention to continue purchasing gas from Moscow despite external pressures. Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto (R) talks with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak (L) during the session held as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia on June 06, 2024. Fot. Abaca/East News While Hungary aims to diversify its import sources, uncertainties persist regarding whether imports from Azerbaijan will effectively shield Budapest from price fluctuations and reduce dependence on Moscow. This dilemma mirrors broader concerns within the EU. Despite Baku's commitment to increase gas supplies to the EU under a 2022 agreement, the specific sources of this additional gas remain unspecified. Since the events of February 2022 and the EU's "energy divorce" from Russia, Moscow has shifted its export focus on two fronts. On the one hand, discussions on the "Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan Gas Union" suggest new avenues for Russian gas towards Central Asia. On the other, Azerbaijan began importing gas from Russia in late 2022 to meet its export commitments while satisfying domestic demand. During this period, Russian company Lukoil increased its stake in the Shah Deniz gas project from 10% to 19.99%. Recent Russia-Azerbaijan cooperation extends beyond energy. Geopolitical events in Eurasia underscore an alignment of interests between Moscow and Baku, including Russian support during Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh offensive and Azerbaijan's strategic role in Russia's North-South Corridor linking Europe to the Indian Ocean. Turkey's pivotal role in this alignment is evident, as Ankara has supported Azerbaijan politically and militarily in its conflicts with Armenia. Despite NATO membership and verbal condemnation of Russia's actions in Ukraine, Turkey has refrained from joining Western sanctions against Moscow due to energy dependence and deep economic ties. In August 2023, Hungary's MVM signed a gas agreement with Turkey's BOTAS, securing up to 275 million cubic meters (mcm) of natural gas. Despite Turkey's efforts in gas extraction, about 40% of its gas imports still come from Russia, raising concerns that gas transported to Hungary via Turkey could originate from Russia. Therefore, while the Hungarian government acknowledges the urgent need to diversify its energy supplies to maintain affordable consumer utility prices and ensure domestic electoral support, the pursuit of gas agreements with Azerbaijan and Turkey as alternatives to Russian gas raises concerns. Budapest's strategy appears to be driven more by established geopolitical alignments under the Fidesz government's "Eastern Opening" policy than solely by energy security considerations. The fresh newsletter for the International Community in Hungary - described by readers as a "Great read each week" - is now available for your interest and use via the link below. Yes, lets do it but then were going to have to wait until after theyve left. Do you know what color paint they planned to use? Do they have the needed materials there? Though I wasnt particularly eager to see Cousin Josh, Joyce, and their family leave for a two week trip to Montana, we were eager to have their house empty and tackle the project of dry walling and spackling, and painting the garage after they left. It was supposed to be a surprise, of course. It was only a little token to show love and support to their family, especially since he had been ordained a minister a few weeks before. Their family was outgrowing their living quarters, and they were in the process of adding a garage with several bedrooms and space to host guests. Now that they were planning a trip to Montana to spend time with Joyces parents and a couple of her siblings, someone suggested we go in and see what we could do til they returned home to Illinois. The day after their departure, tractors were breezing back Joshs driveway, hauling the tools needed for the job. One of the church brothers took charge and organized the job so as to utilize hands ready to help. The sun shone brightly, the air remained toasty and humid during the day and most evenings. Tim, the leader, persistently organized crews to put up drywall, do plumbing, electrical work (which will be generated by a solar system), and the like all without the regular hotlines wed generally use, in order to keep Joshs from getting information on what was happening back home. One afternoon we received the message that Joshs youngest daughter, Lanelle had been in a vehicle accident. It felt like a dream - or more like a nightmare. Shes between our six-year-old boys in age and plans to go to first grade with them when school starts. Could it be true? How could she be okay, considering the story that she ended up being pinched under a jeep which had flipped on its top? Memories of Daniels accident were distinct. We could all too well picture the scene of Joshs with their daughter in an ambulance, then came the news that shes being life flighted. Really? A couple of our children declared they wont be able to sleep that night. They were somewhat comforted when they heard that Joyce was able to go with her on the life flight. Reports were better the following morning. Lanelle was doing better, her skull fracture and a couple gashes were the only concerns, and she was on the mend. Praise God. I found quietness in the bedroom as my emotions let loose. So, God does allow some people to pull through?! I marveled. It was true, God spared her life and used her uncle, who decided at the last minute, to drive with them, to scamper out of the overturned vehicle in seconds, and simply lift the vehicle off his little niece. Touching absolutely amazing! Our children were spellbound by the story and the reality that God spared the life of their precious friend. We were surprised to be able to talk to Lanelle that morning. Her sweet soft voice was a bit quieter than usual, but it was unmistakably her. We were comforted. At home there was fresh zest to wrap up the project before Joshs family came back. Best of all was the day before they returned home. Concrete had been poured and gravel spread, inside the garage, building materials had been cleaned up and the ceilings were painted and walls had primer. A welcome home poster, signed by everyone in church hung on the front door and food was stacked on the table, in the fridge, and freezer. I keep thinking of Lanelles grandma and the rest of their family, back in Montana. Some of you know what its like to have distant family. The miles can be long and a bit glaring. No doubt all they went through together in Montana made them miss each other even more. Lanelles grandma, Mrs. Weaver, has always been an amazing example of tender quietness, even through the hard parts of life. I treasure the many years they lived here in Flat Rock with us. There was hardly a work day or sewing she missed, and when she came she did whatever needed to be done and was not in a hurry to go back to her own work at home. It would only seem right to share the Flat Rock pudding recipe with you which we used many times over during those early years in Flat Rock when Mrs. Weaver helped with many a meal for guests, church, or whoever needed a lift. The Flat Rock pudding was a yummy dessert we all enjoyed, and with time and money being a bit tight over those first years, it was something we could make with extra milk and eggs. FLAT ROCK PUDDING 6 cups milk cup all-purpose flour 2 cups sugar Pinch of salt 1 teaspoons vanilla extract 4 large egg yolks 3 cups whipped topping 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies Peanut butter, for sandwiching the cookies Heat 4 cups of the milk in a large saucepan over medium heat until the milk is scalded (180F). Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, vanilla, egg yolks, and the remaining 1 cups cold milk. Stir into heated milk, stirring continuously. Boil for a few minutes then remove from the heat and allow to cool. Fold in the whipped topping. Spread some peanut butter between two chocolate chip cookies to form a cookie sandwich. Repeat until all four dozen cookies have been used. Cut or crumble the cookie sandwiches into the pudding mixture, and stir until well combined. By Melanie Asmar Chalkbeat Colorado is one of four states set to launch a new public-private program this fall aimed at addressing both the growing mental health needs of teenagers and a lack of providers. Called the Youth Mental Health Corps, the program will train young adults ages 18 to 24 to act as navigators serving middle and high school students in schools and in community-based organizations, according to a press release from Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primaveras office. The Youth Mental Health Corps website says corps members will connect youth to needed mental health supports and resources in close collaboration with practitioners and community partners. The federal AmeriCorps service program will work with the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration and the Colorado Community College System to recruit and deploy the navigators, who will get a stipend and be eligible for student loan forgiveness and other help paying for college, the press release says. By joining this national initiative, we are not only addressing the urgent need for mental health resources but also creating meaningful pathways for our young adults to pursue careers in this vital field, Primavera said in a statement. Featured Local Savings Childrens Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health state of emergency in 2021, and both public agencies and private organizations in the state responded with programs to address the crisis. The programs include the pandemic-era state-funded I Matter, which provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school and which Colorado lawmakers recently made permanent. The Schultz Family Foundation, founded by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and his wife, Sheri, and the online platform Pinterest are backing the Youth Mental Health Corps program, according to a news release from AmeriCorps. The press release mentions broad concern about the impact of social media on the mental health of young people and says the Corps will help students navigate social challenges online such as harassment, bullying and bias. Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas will launch Youth Mental Health Corps programs in September with hundreds of navigators across the four states, the news release says. Seven other states California, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Utah are set to launch programs in the fall of 2025, it says. Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org. BMW vs Godwin Boateng Case In US: German car manufacturer BMW is famous for making high-end luxury cars. BMW cars are equipped with modern technologies, and many of the company's cars feature a soft door close mechanism. This feature allows the car doors to close quietly and slowly. If anything comes between, sensors immediately detect it, and the door does not close. However, this feature has proven costly for BMW. In the United States, the soft door close feature of a BMW X5 failed, causing the upper part of a person's thumb to be severed. The incident occurred in 2016, and the victim took the company to court. Now, the Brooklyn federal court has ordered BMW to pay the victim $1.9 million (approximately INR 16 Crore) in damages. The victim, Godwin Boateng, is a software engineer from New York. When the incident occurred, he was sitting in his BMW X5 with one hand resting on the edge of the driver's side. The car door was half-open when it suddenly closed forcefully, and Boateng's thumb got caught in the door. By the time he managed to open the door and free his hand, the upper part of his thumb was severed. According to media reports, Godwin Boateng stated that the door closed so quickly that he did not have a chance to move his hand. He was immediately taken to the hospital, but doctors couldn't reattach the severed thumb. Upset by the technical flaw in the expensive car, Boateng filed a lawsuit against BMW. The company argued in court that no technical defect was found during the car's inspection, according to the reports. The case went on for nine years before ending in Boateng's favor. Were very happy with the award, said Boatengs lawyer, Avi Cohen, as reported by the New York Post. Yesterday on DNA, we showed you disturbing images of attacks on Hindu homes and temples in Bangladesh by extremists. Today, we delve deeper into this issue. A recent incident in Dhaka targeted Hindus, part of a larger plan to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state by 2040. This means Hindus in Bangladesh have only 15 years left. But how will this mission unfold? Who is behind it? These are questions you need answers to. In fact, it's not just a question but the future of Hindus in Bangladesh that's at stake. The preparation to transform Bangladesh into an Islamic state has already begun. There's no place for Hindus in this vision. Currently, Bangladesh is home to 1.7 million Hindus, and extremists aim to eliminate them by 2040. Now, radical forces in Bangladesh have started targeting Hindus. Yesterday on DNA, we showed you how a mob attacked Hindus in Miranji Colony, Dhaka, damaging temples and homes, leaving 60 Hindus injured. Today, we hear the voices of those Hindus living in fear in Bangladesh, where the situation is worsening by the day. Seeing the plight of Bangladesh's Hindus and hearing their cries, you must understand why we say Bangladesh is on the path to becoming an Islamic state, where there will be no place for Hindus. And if you still have doubts, listen to the announcement of a Bangladeshi cleric who predicts that by 2040, only Muslims will remain in Bangladesh. Watch today's DNA for a detailed analysis of the issue here: Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday used his social media account to appeal in favor of BJP leader and former Union Minister Smriti Irani. Taking to X, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi urged trolls to refrain from making demeaning and derogatory remarks against her. His attempt to quell slurs against the BJP leader came after Smriti Irani faced hate, allegedly from Congress supporters, following her loss in the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi and her vacating of her official bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi last week. Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter, said LoP Rahul Gandhi on his X handle. Winning and losing happen in life. I urge everyone to refrain from using derogatory language and being nasty towards Smt. Smriti Irani or any other leader for that matter. Humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 12, 2024 In a message to trolls, LoP Gandhi stated that humiliating and insulting people is a sign of weakness, not strength. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Smriti Irani defeated Rahul Gandhi by around 55,000 votes in the Amethi constituency, earning the tag of 'giant slayer.' However, in the recently concluded 2024 elections, she lost the seat to Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma by about 1.6 lakh votes. The defeat of Smriti Irani by a relatively unknown Congress candidate sent party workers into a frenzy, with many mocking her and calling it a "humiliating" and "shameful" loss. However, the Leader of Opposition's post did not win any favor with the BJP, as the party's IT cell in charge criticized him, calling it the "most disingenuous" attempt to discredit her. After unleashing Congress leaders, like a pack of wolves, on the woman who defeated him in Amethi and smashed his arrogance to smithereens, this is rich, Amit Malviya said. He also said that such 'gibberish' talk by the Congress leader won't detract from the fact that it was due to Smriti Irani that the 'Balak buddhi' was compelled to relinquish the Amethi Lok Sabha seat. Andhra Pradesh police have registered an "attempt to murder" case against former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, two senior IPS officers, and two retired officials. The complaint was lodged by TDP MLA K Raghurama Krishna Raju. The accused include senior IPS officers PV Sunil Kumar and PSR Sitaramanjaneyulu, retired police officer R Vijay Paul, and former Guntur Government General Hospital superintendent G Prabhavati. Raju alleged that he was subjected to "custodial torture" and that the accused conspired against him. The case, which dates back to Raju's arrest in May 2021 during the Covid-19 second wave, was registered under various IPC sections, including 120B, 166, 167, 197, 307, 326, 465, and 506 read with 34. The case was booked at Nagarampalem police station in Guntur. The case was registered at Nagarampalem police station in Guntur. TDP leader Raghurama Krishna Raju's 2021 arrest case resurfaced in Andhra Pradesh after he lodged a complaint against former CM Jagan Mohan Reddy and some officials on June 10. He accused the former CM and senior officials of plotting a criminal conspiracy against him. Raju, 62, alleged in his complaint that senior IPS officers Sunil Kumar and Sitaramanjaneyulu, police officer Vijaya Paul, and government doctor Prabhavathi were part of this conspiracy. He was arrested in May 2021, during the second wave of Covid-19. "A false case was registered against me by the CB-CID of the Andhra Pradesh government. On May 14, 2021, I was arrested without due process, I was bullied, unlawfully physically pulled inside the police vehicle, and forcibly taken to Guntur the same night," Raju alleged in the complaint. When Raju was arrested, Kumar was heading the CID, Sitaramanjaneyulu the Intelligence wing, Paul was ASP CID and Reddy was the CM. The MLA said though he had undergone an open heart surgery "some weeks" before his arrest, Raju claimed he was abused. Also, he alleged there were threats to kill him for "criticising the chief minister (Jagan)." "I was arrested without due process, including the absence of a medical examination or adherence to proper legal procedures...I was kept in the CB-CID office, Guntur from 9:30 pm onwards (May 14, 2021). I was not given my medicine despite having had an open heart bypass surgery," Raju, who was an YSRCP MP from Narasapuram, claimed. Raju also alleged that when the Magistrate had sent him to Guntur Government General Hospital, the then superintendent of the hospital, Prabhavathi, had colluded with Sunil Kumar to create false medical reports that no injuries were inflicted on his person. "Due to police brutality, I was shifted from Guntur to Secunderabad Army Hospital by the orders of the Supreme Court and thereafter I was granted bail by the Supreme Court," said Raju. The bail came a week later. Among other allegations, he demanded that a case be registered against all the accused persons and said in his complaint that "these criminal offences must be addressed promptly and justice be done." For several months preceding his arrest, Raju was accused of abusing the then CM Jagan Mohan Reddy on a daily basis through select media houses from Delhi and Hyderabad. Reacting to the FIR filed against him, Sunil Kumar wondered how a "new FIR" can be filed in a three-year-old case "rejected" by the Supreme Court. "I leave it to your wisdom to understand how an FIR can be filed anew in a case that has already been dismissed by the Supreme Court after three years of proceedings," Sunil Kumar said in a social media post. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday scheduled to deliver its verdict on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case linked to the excise policy scam. Now, the top court has granted interim bail to the Delhi Chief Minister in an excise policy case. The Apex Court referred his petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to a larger bench. But the Chief Minister remained in custody as his bail in the CBI case is still pending. A bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna referred Arvind Kejriwal's petition challenging his arrest by the ED to a larger bench. Granting interim bail in the ED case, the Supreme Court noted that the Delhi Chief Minister has suffered incarceration of 90 days and it's conscious that he is an elected leader. Supreme Court grants interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister and AAP National Convener Arvind Kejriwal in the Delhi excise policy case. The Apex Court refers his petition challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to a larger bench. pic.twitter.com/9s40JBWJhV ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 CM Kejriwal's lawyer Rishikesh Kumar said, "The Supreme Court has granted him interim bail and the issue of section 19 and necessity of arrest has been referred to a larger bench. CM Kejriwal will remain in custody as his bail in the CBI case is still pending. This is a big victory..." #WATCH | On Supreme Court granting interim bail to CM Arvind Kejriwal, CM Kejriwal's lawyer Rishikesh Kumar says, "The Supreme Court has granted him interim bail and the issue of section 19 and necessity of arrest has been referred to a larger bench. CM Kejriwal will remain in pic.twitter.com/et9ectf34R ANI (@ANI) July 12, 2024 On May 17, the bench, comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, had concluded a hearing and reserved judgment on Kejriwal's petition. Earlier, on April 17, the SC asked response from the ED on Kejriwals plea against his arrest in the Delhi excise policy case. The trainee IAS officer Pooja Khedkar is now part of another controversy besides the alleged fake OBC and disability certificate, she has a total of 21 pending challans on her Audi, as per a senior Pune Police officer. After the allegations of misusing her authority mounted, Khedkar was transferred to Washim district from Pune. The charges involve accusations of irresponsible driving and failure to follow traffic regulations. As per reports, officials have served Puja Khedkar a notice demanding a fine of Rs 27,000. It added that the police will act as per the Motors Vehicle Act. The Audi in question had earlier become the talking point after she allegedly used unauthorised red beacon lights and a "Government of Maharashtra" sticker on her private Audi sedan. Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar reached Khedkars residence in Pune on Thursday. Following which Kumar told ANI, "We are here to act. The gate is closed, but we will proceed with the investigation once it is opened. Pune Police will examine the Audi car used by Trainee IAS Officer Pooja Khedkar under the Motor Vehicles Act." While talking to media the Pune Police said that using beacon on private vehicle is a violation of traffic rules, also it ia illeagal to write Maharashtra Government on private vehicle. The authorities further said that the vehicle has not been recovered yet. Allegations On IAS Trainee Khedkar Puja Khedkar, an IAS probationer who ranked 821 in the UPSC exams is facing accusations of misusing her position. Serving as an assistant collector in Pune, Khedkar allegedly utilized privileges reserved for senior officers, such as reportedly affixing a red-blue beacon and a "Maharashtra Government" placard on her private Audi car. She reportedly occupied ante-chamber of Additional Collector Ajay More and replaced the Furnitures without consent. Following a directive from Pune Collector Suhas Divase to the Maharashtra Chief Secretary, Puja Khedkar has been reassigned to Washim district to complete her probation as a supernumerary assistant collector. Allegations have surfaced suggesting Khedkar's father, a retired administrative officer who recently contested the Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat on the Vanchit Aghadi ticket, exerted influence on the District Collector's office to meet his daughter's requests, intensifying the controversy. Pune RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar has also raised concerns about Khedkar's appointment, claiming her father's assets exceed Rs 40 crore, potentially disqualifying her from OBC non-creamy layer status. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir & Ladakh has issued a landmark decision, directing the administration to protect Hindu temples, shrines, and holy springs left neglected after the mass migration of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990. This ruling follows a significant court case initiated by Kashmiri Pandits concerned about the state of these religious sites. The court emphasized the government's duty to safeguard these historical places and invoked the J&K Migrant Immovable Property Act, granting authority to the district magistrate for their preservation. The petitioners also raised alarm over encroachments at the sole Hindu cremation ground in Ganderbal district. The court recognized the urgency of this issue, ordering the removal of encroachments within eight weeks. Additionally, the court addressed a disputed lease on one shrine property, ruling it expired and prohibiting any extension. This judgment paves the way for addressing future grievances, allowing any concerned party, including petitioners and previous stakeholders, to report encroachments to the Ganderbal district magistrate for prompt action. The court's directive states, "For the reasons mentioned above, and without delving into the competing claims of the petitioners and respondents regarding shrine management and properties, it is sufficient to say that the District Magistrates, who have vested authority over migrant properties since the enactment of the 1997 Act, must immediately assume responsibility for safeguarding, preserving, and managing temples, shrines, and their associated properties. The DC shall take necessary steps to prevent any encroachments on temple properties." This ruling has been welcomed by Kashmiri Pandit petitioners, including Sanjay Tikoo, head of KPSS (Kashmir Pandit Sangharsh Samiti), representing those who remained in the valley after the 1990s exodus. Presently, approximately 900 Kashmiri Pandit families reside in Kashmir, with around 3,000 temples, shrines, and holy springs. Of these, only 105 are well-maintained, highlighting the urgent need for restoration efforts. Sanjay Tikoo emphasized, "We have identified 1,800 temples, along with 600 cremation grounds and 600 holy springs. Only 100 temples have remained active since the 1990s; the rest are in ruins. We advocate for all temples to be handed over to respective DCs under the 'Kashmiri Pandit Property Act,' ensuring local committees manage them. Revenue from these properties should go to DCs to prevent misappropriation, with necessary funds released for renovations." Since 2007, KPSS and other organizations have sought protection for these neglected religious sites. Sanjay Tikoo expressed satisfaction with the court's intervention but voiced concerns over previous orders not being implemented. KPSS seeks a CBI inquiry into temple properties from 1989 onwards to uphold their original status. "We have fought since 2007, and now with the court's support, we feel hopeful," Tikoo stated. "However, previous orders were ignored, raising doubts about the current order's implementation. The court has given one month for DCs of Ganderbal, Srinagar, and Anantnag to assume control of these temples. We await this period to assess its execution." Kashmiri Pandit organizations remain optimistic that more orders will follow, ensuring all temples, shrines, cremation grounds, and holy springs are entrusted to respective DCs, restoring them to their pre-1990 state. 1. "Jammu & Kashmir High Court Orders Protection for Neglected Kashmiri Pandit Temples" 2. "Landmark Decision: J&K High Court Directs Administration to Safeguard Hindu Shrines" 3. "Victory for Kashmiri Pandits: Court Orders Preservation of Abandoned Temples and Shrines" 4. "Court Directive: Preservation of Kashmiri Pandit Religious Sites After Decades of Neglect" 5. "Historic Ruling: J&K High Court Acts to Protect Shrines of Kashmiri Pandits" The ruling alliance in Maharashtra won all nine seats it contested in the biennial elections to 11 Legislative Council seats on Friday, a victory that will boost the party's morale ahead of the assembly polls. However, the opposition MVA suffered a setback when a candidate supported by Sharad Pawar's party lost. 12 candidates competed in the high-stakes elections earlier in the day, and the results were released in the evening. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won five seats, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Ajit Pawar and the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena won two seats each. All three parties are part of the Mahayuti (grand alliance) in power, which did not fare well in the most recent Lok Sabha elections, taking home only 17 of the 48 seats available in Maharashtra. The winners of the elections were Congress candidate Pradnya Satav and close Shiv Sena (UBT) aide Milind Narvekar of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). But the MVA suffered a setback when Jayant Patil, the Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate, lost the polls. Patil was backed by the Nationalist Congress Party (SP), led by Sharad Pawar. The MVA, which won 30 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, is made up of the Shiv Sena (UBT), the Congress, the NCP (SP), and a few smaller parties. But Jayant Patil, the Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate, who was backed by the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) led by Sharad Pawar, lost the polls, which dealt a blow to the MVA, which had made a strong showing in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 30 seats. On July 27, eleven members of the legislative council (MLCs) will have served out their six-year terms, making the election necessary. The electoral college for the polls was the 288-member legislative assembly, which currently has 274 members. A minimum of 23 first-preference votes were needed for each victorious candidate. With 103 members, the BJP is the largest party in the assembly. The NCP (42), Congress (37), Shiv Sena (38), Shiv Sena (UBT) (15), and NCP (SP) (10) are the next largest parties. The BJP had fielded five candidates - former Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot, and its ally Shiv Sena two - former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali. NCP had given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar. The Congress had nominated Satav for another term, while Sena (UBT) had fielded Narvekar. The third MVA constituent, NCP (SP), did not field its nominee and instead extended support to PWP's Jayant Patil. At least seven Congress MLAs defied the party's whip while voting in the council elections, results showed. The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the victory of all nine Mahayuti candidates in the council polls was a trailer ahead of the assembly polls due in October. Talking to reporters, Shinde said a false narrative was set by the opposition in the Lok Sabha polls and people were misled. "Mahayuti has registered a big win. This is a good start. A false narrative (that the Constitution will be changed by the BJP) was set. People were misled. Mahayuti's victory (in the legislative council polls) is a trailer," he said. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the opposition was claiming a candidate of the ruling alliance would lose but the results showed the Mahayuti got votes of not just its constituents but even from MVA legislators. Another Deputy Chief Minister, Ajit Pawar, said he, Fadnavis and Shinde held multiple meetings to ensure better coordination and responsibilities were shared, which led to the victory of Mahayuti candidates. Ajit Pawar, whose party could win just one Lok Sabha seat, maintained Mahayuti will work unitedly to ensure victory of the alliance in the upcoming assembly polls. NCP candidates Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar won despite the Ajit Pawar-led party falling short of votes. "We (NCP) had 42 votes but MLAs gave more votes to Vitekar and Garje. There were rumours there will be a split (in the NCP and some of its MLAs could cross vote)," Ajit Pawar said. New Delhi: The new political drama is unfolding in Maharashtra as the state gears up to hold an election for 11 legislative Council seats on Friday. Two years ago, during Maharashtra's Legislative Council elections, unexpected outcomes were seen which caused the defeat of Congress's Chandrakant Handore. After this, it caused the downfall of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government shortly after by a rebellion led by Eknath Shinde and caused the split of the Shiv Sena. Now the tables have turned as the ruling Mahayuti alliance feels the pressure while the opposition MVA alliance aims to secure victories for all three of its Candidates, supported by MLAs from the ruling bloc aligning with either Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena or Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Resort politics has made a comeback in Maharashtra after its unexpectedly good performance in the recent Lok Sabha Election, in which the alliance managed to secure 30 seats out of the state's 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. With 12 candidates in the fray for 11 seats in the elections scheduled to be held on Friday, all three ruling parties have sensed the danger and shifted their MLAs to five-star hotels to prevent cross-voting. In the Opposition camp, only the Sena (UBT) has asked its MLAs to gather in one place. In today's election in Maharashtra, 12 candidates contesting for 11 seats, all three ruling parties have recognised the risk and moved their MLAs to five-star hotels to avoid cross-voting. On the other hand, in the Opposition camp, only the Sena (UBT) has instructed its MLAs to assemble at a single location. Following the unexpected victory in the Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections 2024, the ongoing MLC polls are important for the political parties. The Maharashtra Assembly consist of 288 seats and currently has 274 members which means that every MLC candidate needs 23 first-preference votes to get elected. The ruling Mahayuti is a part of the NDA alliance which consists of the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar wing of the NCP, has nominated nine candidates in the polls and has 201 MLAs, including Independents and smaller parties. The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the money laundering allegations tied to the Delhi excise policy case. However, the court refrained from issuing any directives regarding his role as Chief Minister. But the CM will remain in jail, as he was later arrested by the CBI in a related matter. The SC also referred the questions pertaining to the legality of Kejriwals arrest in the ED case to a larger bench. What SC Said Regarding The CM Position The SC said that it is not sure whether a court can direct an elected leader to step down from his responsibilities. "We are conscious that Arvind Kejriwal is an elected leader and the Chief Minister of Delhi, a post holding importance and influence. While we do not give any directions as we are doubtful whether a court can direct an elected leader to step down or not to function as a Chief Minister or a Minister, we leave it to Arvind Kejriwal to make a call," reported Live Law. Excise Policy Case So Far According to the Supreme Court's cause list for July 12, a bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna will deliver the verdict. On May 17, the bench, which also included Justice Dipankar Datta, concluded hearings and reserved judgement on Kejriwal's petition. On April 17, the SC requested a response from the ED regarding Kejriwals plea against his arrest in the Delhi excise policy case. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader has appealed against the Delhi High Court's April 9 ruling, which upheld his arrest in the case, to the Supreme Court. The high court had deemed Kejriwal's arrest lawful, stating that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had "little option" after he ignored multiple summonses and refused to cooperate with the investigation. The chief minister was arrested by the ED on March 21 in connection with the money laundering case and was granted bail by a trial court on June 20 with a bond of Rs 1 lakh. In the intricate web of policies that govern the lives of military families, the 'Next-of-Kin' (NOK) policy stands as a cornerstone. This policy ensures that the families of soldiers who lay down their lives in service to the nation are provided for. However, the recent case of Captain Anshuman Singh, martyred in the icy heights of Siachen, has brought to light significant concerns. His parents, Ravi Pratap Singh and Manju Singh, have vociferously called for reforms in the NOK policy after their daughter-in-law, Smriti Singh, became the center of a contentious family dispute. This article delves into the Army's NOK policy, the specific grievances of Captain Anshuman Singhs parents, and the broader implications for military families across India. Understanding the Army's Next-of-Kin Policy The 'Next-of-Kin' (NOK) policy is designed to provide financial and emotional support to the families of soldiers. Initially, the parents are registered as the nearest kin when a soldier enlists. Upon marriage, this designation shifts to the spouse. In the tragic event of the soldier's death, the spouse is entitled to receive financial assistance and military benefits. This system aims to ensure that the immediate family, particularly the spouse, is taken care of in the wake of their profound loss. However, this policy can inadvertently create tensions, as seen in the case of Captain Anshuman Singh. His parents argue that the current structure overlooks the contributions and sacrifices of the soldiers parents, especially in situations where the relationship between the spouse and the in-laws is strained. Captain Anshuman Singh: A Legacy of Valor On July 19, 2023, Captain Anshuman Singh was martyred in the unforgiving terrains of Siachen. His bravery and dedication were recognized posthumously with the Kirti Chakra, one of India's highest gallantry awards. The honor was received by his wife, Smriti Singh, and his mother, Manju Singh, at a solemn ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The event was both a moment of pride and profound grief for the family, with Smriti's emotional acceptance of the award capturing the hearts of many. The Grievances of Anshuman Singh's Parents Following the ceremony, Captain Anshuman Singh's parents raised serious concerns regarding the NOK policy. Ravi Pratap Singh, his father, has been particularly vocal about the issue, highlighting how the current policy has left them feeling marginalized and bereft. Statement from Father Ravi Pratap Singh Speaking to a news channel, Ravi Pratap Singh stated, The current NOK criteria are not right. I have informed Defense Minister Rajnath Singh about this. My daughter-in-law changed my sons permanent address without our consent. What do we have left now? This rule should be changed. Whether the daughter-in-law stays with the family or not, the responsibilities of the martyrs family should be considered. My son received the Kirti Chakra, but my wife could not even touch it. I raised this issue with Rahul Gandhi two days ago in Rae Bareli. Rahul Ji assured me that he would speak to Rajnath Singh and try to resolve this. Statement from Mother Manju Singh Captain Anshuman Singhs mother, Manju Singh, echoed her husband's sentiments, adding, I told Rahul Gandhi that what happened to me should not happen to anyone else. The rules should be changed so that no other parents of an Anshuman Singh face such problems. Daughters-in-law are leaving, and such incidents are increasing in society. Smriti Singhs Family and the Dispute Smriti Singh, Captain Anshuman Singhs wife, comes from Gurdaspur, Punjab. According to Anshumans father, she left for her parental home the day after his thirteenth-day ritual and has not returned since. This departure has intensified the dispute, with the martyrs parents feeling abandoned and neglected. They argue that the NOK policy should be amended to consider the parents' rights and roles, particularly in cases where the spouse may choose to distance themselves from the martyrs family. The Need for Policy Reform The call for change in the NOK policy is not just about financial benefits but about recognizing the emotional and psychological support that parents of martyred soldiers need. The current policy, while well-intentioned, seems to lack the flexibility to address the unique and often complex family dynamics that can arise. Parents like Ravi Pratap Singh and Manju Singh dedicate their lives to raising and supporting their children, often enduring immense hardship when they choose to serve the nation. When their child is martyred, the loss is profound and life-altering. The NOK policy should, therefore, ensure that these parents are not left feeling abandoned or marginalized. Broader Implications for Military Families The issues raised by Captain Anshuman Singhs parents highlight a broader problem that many military families may face. In a society where the joint family system is prevalent, the role of parents is significant. The NOK policy needs to evolve to reflect these cultural realities and ensure that all stakeholders are considered and respected. This case has brought to the forefront the need for a more inclusive approach to policy-making in the military, as per reports. It underscores the importance of balancing the needs and rights of the spouse with those of the parents, ensuring that both receive the support they need during such trying times. New Delhi: Bollywood actress Kriti Sanon recently made her major investment with The House of Abhinandan Lodha (HoABL) by acquiring 2000 sq feet of land in their premium Alibaug project, Sol de Alibaug. KRITI SANON'S ALIBAUG LAND Located just 20 minutes away from the Mandwa Jetty and a mere 60-minute journey from South Mumbai by sea, the project is nestled in the picturesque town of Alibaug. Speaking on her first investment with HoABL, Kriti Sanon said, "I am now a proud and happy landowner at The House of Abhinandan Lodhas, beautiful development, Sol De Alibaug. Buying land on my own has been quite an empowering journey and I have had my eyes on Alibaug, for a while. I was pretty clear about what I was looking for - peace, privacy and a great investment addition to my portfolio! Even my father was impressed with this investment. It is a prime location, less than 20 minutes away from Mandwa jetty, right in the heart of Alibaug, so this opportunity checked all the boxes. What I appreciated the most was how easy HoABL made the process of buying land for me. There is no better time to invest in Alibaug than now! Recently, megastar Amitabh Bachchan acquired a 10,000 sq feet plot in the same project in Alibaug as well. This was after his first investment with HoABL at The Sarayu in Ayodhya earlier this year where he had bought a 10,000 sq ft plot. New Delhi: The entire industry will be making their dazzling appearance at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants grand wedding, but sadly Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar will have to skip the wedding as he has reportedly tested COVID positive. As per reports, Akshay who was busy promoting his latest release Sarfira fell sick and after he got himself tested, he unfortunately tested COVID-19 positive. Reports by HT stated Akshay had been unwell for a few days and after getting tested for COVID-19 he immediately isolated himself. A close source to HT said," The actor tested positive on Friday morning, and would end up missing the last leg of promotions, as well as Anant Ambanis wedding for which Anant had personally gone to invite him". The source added, "Its disappointing but the responsible guy that Akshay is, he has immediately isolated himself". Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's grand wedding will be held today July 12 followed by Shubh Aashirwad and reception. Talking about Akshay his latest release Sarfira is receiving all the accolades and fans are calling it the best film of the superstar to date. Washington: According to TMZ, Gregory was discovered dead in his car on June 13 at a Chase Bank parking lot in Peoria, Arizona. Reports suggest he may have fallen asleep in his car while attempting to deposit checks the previous day. His death is believed to be due to vehicular heatstroke, as temperatures in Arizona reached as high as 109 degrees Fahrenheit on June 12. His service dog, Hans, was also found dead in the vehicle.The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office has stated that the exact cause of his death is still pending.Rebecca Hertzberg-Pfaffinger, Gregory's older sister, shared with TMZ that Gregory struggled with depression, bipolar disorder, and a sleep disorder that often kept him awake for days.Gregory gained fame for his role in ALF, where he portrayed Brian Tanner across 101 episodes from 1986 to 1990. The show revolved around the Tanner family's encounters with an alien named Gordon Shumway, referred to as ALF. Puppeteer Paul Fusco, along with Tom Patchett, co-created the series.In 2018, Warner Bros. announced plans for an ALF reboot, but the project was later canceled in the same year after failing to find a platform. Recently, Shout! Factory obtained the rights to ALF and intends to develop new related content.ALF is currently available for streaming on Peacock and Amazon Prime. Just look at how Radhika Merchant soon-to-be Ambani bahu always wins hearts with her simplicity. Radhika is the perfect combination of a modern girl with traditional values and time and again she has been lauded for her down-to-earth personality. As there are several pictures from Radhika and Anant Ambanis wedding festivities going viral on the internet, this one picture is winning hearts. New Delhi: In this picture one can see Radhika sitting on the floor along with soon-to-be niece Aadiya Piramal- daughter of Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal, this picture only shows how Radhika is like no other bride who loves to spend time with the kids from the family during their wedding functions. Checkout the picture of Ambani choti bahu Radhika Merchant sitting on the ground along with Isha Ambani's daughter Aadiya from her wedding ceremony Radhika is compared to her father-in-law Mukesh Ambani as the netizens call her the most down-to-earth in the family. One user commented, "Radhika's nurturing presence with Aadiyashakti is truly heartening." One more user said, "The bond between Radhika and Aadiyashakti is adorable." Radhika and Anant will tie the knot today and it's going to be one grand affair. The wedding guests have arrived at the venue and everyone is waiting to have the final glimpse of Radhika and Anant as bride and groom. After the wedding the celebration will continue on July 13, that is Shubh Aashirwad followed by the grand reception on July 14, 2024. Hollywood beauty Kim Kardashian has arrived in Mumbai to be a part of the wedding and the netizens hail Ambani's as the most powerful and influential family in the world. The story so far: Veteran American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Butch Wilmore have been docked at the International Space Station (ISS) since June 6. They have faced delays, space debris threats, helium leaks and technical issues with Boeings Starliner spacecraft they travelled on. The two NASA astronauts who travelled to the ISS last month said on Wednesday (July10), that they were confident the capsule would safely bring them back to Earth. However, their return has been delayed indefinitely as NASA and Boeing work to figure out the cause of multiple failures of thrustera small rocket engine used to control the movement, or direction, of spacecraft by providing short bursts of propulsionand the problem of helium leaks. During a brief press conference from the space station, Barry Wilmore, 61, who has flown twice before, said they were completely confident about the return journey. Despite the problems that beset their journey to the space station, The Washington Post quoted Wilmore as saying that the Starliner spacecrafts performance was really impressive. When he manually took control of the autonomous spacecraft as it neared the ISS on June 6, he noticed that the thrust was not as strong. He later stated that, at that moment, the reason for this fault was not known since it had just occurred. You could tell the thrust was weaker, but it was still quite impressive. Indian-origin Sunita Williams, 58, also on her third spaceflight, said she was confident that the spacecraft would bring them back home safely. However, it is still uncertain when that will happen. NASA and Boeing are now working to figure out why five of the spacecrafts reaction control thrusters got non-functional while it approached the space station. Four of the five thrusters eventually started working again, which allowed Starliner to successfully dock. NASA has decided not to depend on the fifth thruster on the journey back to Earth. The spacecraft has 28 thrusters in total on its service module. On top of those issues, Starliner has developed five small helium leaks in its propulsion system. NASA has stated that the leaks are minor and that the spacecraft has enough helium, which is used to pressurize the propulsion system, ensuring a steady and reliable flow of fuel to the engines for efficient operation to complete the mission. In a separate briefing on Wednesday (July 10), Steve Stich, head of NASAs commercial crew programme, stated that, if the tests showed no major problems with the thrusters, the crew could return by end-July. He added that they would review the data step by step and decide the best time to undock from the space station. This is Starliners first mission with humans on board, serving as a test to evaluate the vehicles performance before NASA approves it for carrying four astronauts to the space station for up to six months. SpaceX, the other company NASA uses for crew transport, has been flying astronauts to the space station in its Dragon capsule since 2020. Williams and Wilmore were originally scheduled to stay on the space station for about 10 days. The undocking and return of Starliner, initially set for June 18, were postponed to June 22, then June 25 and later to July 2. Ultimately, NASA delayed the return indefinitely to better understand the spacecrafts issues. The White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico is the new testing theatre, where the Starliners flights to and from the ISS are being replicated to figure out the reason for the glitches. According to Stich, they were actually taking the time to thoroughly check everything and make sure there were no surprises left. In a briefing late last month, he clarified that the members of the crew were not stuck in space and that no rescue operation was planned. Stich said Wilmore and Williams were not stranded in space and they would be brought back on the Starliner when the time proved right. On Wednesday (July 10), he reiterated that the main plan was to return Wilmore and Williams on the Starliner and there was no reason to change that as of now. He also mentioned SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft, noting that they had two vehicles and two different systems to bring the crew back. That gave them more time to review the data and decide if any changes were required. The SpaceX spacecraft, which transported four astronauts to the ISS in March, can take more people in an emergency. However, this would be the last resort if the Starliner were not functional. He also mentioned that there had been no talk of sending another Dragon to rescue Wilmore and Williams. NASA has consistently stated that the Starliner was approved to fly the astronauts home in an emergency. Late last month, Wilmore and Williams had to board Starliner when a satellite broke apart in orbit, possibly endangering the space station. The debris floated by without causing any damage. NASA flight director Ed Van Cise said the Starliner was working very well. While on the station, Williams and Wilmore have continued testing the spacecraft, in the process putting four astronauts aboard it to check out the life-support systems. Williams said that being on the space station felt like returning home. It felt good to float around and work there with the ISS team. She also said that it was great to be up there and was not complaining about staying a few extra weeks. (Girish Linganna is a Defence and Aerospace Analyst based out of Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. The views expressed in this article are of the author only.) In a bid to reassure Democratic lawmakers, allies, and potential voters in this year's election, President Joe Biden (81) held a news conference aimed at dispelling concerns about his health and vigor by his performance in the June 27 debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump. However, the address soon backfired on him as Biden made two notable flubs during his speech as he referred Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President Putin" and then called Kamala Harris Vice President Trump when asked about her by a reporter, reported AP. But Biden gave a detailed response when asked about him securing the second term despite the growing demand from Democrats for him to step aside, he also briefed about his work to preserve NATO. One of President Joe Biden's most notable errors during the press conference occurred early when he mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump, explaining he chose her because he believed she could defeat Trump. This misstep followed a similar incident at the NATO summit, where Biden had already fumbled an important name, thereby lowering expectations for his press conference performance. As per AP, while introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Biden said, Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. The blunder elicited immediate gasps from the audience as Biden quickly corrected himself while speaking to Zelenskyy by saying, President Putin? Youre going to beat President Putin. Biden just introduced Zelensky as "President Putin" before correcting himself. Wow! This is insanely insulting. pic.twitter.com/ANLx73kGZw Ridvan Aydemir | Apostate Prophet (@ApostateProphet) July 11, 2024 When a reporter mentioned his "Vice President Trump" slip and noted the Republican nominee's campaign was already capitalizing on it, Biden responded defiantly, saying, "Listen to him," before exiting the stage. Minutes later, Rep. Jim Himes, a House Democrat from Connecticut, issued a statement urging the president to withdraw from the race. Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter. Colorado hot springs expands with new pools inspired by famed mineral waters found around the world High expected temperatures reaching the lower 100s across southeast Colorado have prompted weekend heat advisories for portions of El Paso, Pueblo and Fremont counties. The issued heat advisories will go into effect at 10 a.m. Friday and last through Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service in Pueblo. Some areas may see temperatures reaching 104. Residents are encouraged to drink lots of water and to stay indoors if possible, the Weather Service said. Extra precautions are encouraged when outside such as wearing lightweight and loose-fitting clothing as well as limiting strenuous activity to mornings or evenings. If anyone is suffering from a heat-related emergency, call 911 right away. Sign Up for Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. For more information about health and safety during heat advisories, visit Ready.gov. To keep up with weather alerts, follow the Weather Service on X, formerly known as Twitter. If the legendary Chinese poet Li Bai were alive today, he would be astonished to find himself beloved by modern youngsters, not just for his lyrical genius but also because his verses now grant free entry to many scenic spots. Lushan Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage site in east China's Jiangxi Province, is offering free entry to students who can successfully recite Li Bai's 200-character poetry masterpiece, "A Ballad of Lushan Mountain." As of Thursday, more than 480 tourists have passed the test and received the ticket free of cost, normally priced at 160 yuan (about 22.43 U.S. dollars), thanks to the renowned Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet. "Lushan Mountain rises by the Southern Dipper Like a screen penetrating the silky cloud Its shadow falls into a lake with green luster Two ranges are giant gates above the ground" "The landscapes described by Li Bai are no longer confined to books; it's as if I'm standing alongside him, admiring the beauty of Lushan together," said a 21-year-old tourist surnamed Liu, who is a postgraduate student from east China's Zhejiang Province. Liu managed to finish the recital in less than two minutes, with only two errors. "I seized every opportunity to practice before arriving here, whether on the high-speed train or in a taxi," she said. This intriguing initiative is part of a recently launched campaign by Jiangxi, allowing students worldwide to gain free or discounted access to its tourist attractions by reciting designated poems or other classics. A total of 123 scenic spots in Jiangxi have joined this poetry recital campaign, which runs from June 15, 2024 to February 28, 2025. Jiangxi aims to leverage traditional Chinese culture, represented by these poems, to attract visitors and enrich their travel experience, said Kuang Kai, an official of the provincial culture and tourism department. "Jiangxi has long been a land rich in poetic heritage, with many poets leaving behind thousands of verses over the centuries," said Kuang. "The selection of the poems is tailored to reflect the unique cultural and tourism characteristics of each city and scenic spot." An increasing number of Chinese tourist attractions are now pursuing long-term development by tapping into their cultural treasures. In the first half of this year, over 32,000 tourists earned free tickets to Tengwang Pavilion in Jiangxi by successfully reciting "Preface to Tengwang Pavilion" by Tang Dynasty poet Wang Bo. In Qufu in Shandong Province, the birthplace of the prominent Chinese philosopher Confucius, visitors can enjoy free entry to many historic sites after passing a test related to "The Analects of Confucius." Learning Chinese classical literature has become a popular trend in China. The televised Chinese Poetry Competition, a hallmark of this movement, has captivated audiences for years. Participants from all walks of life -- scientists, students, deliverymen, police officers and pilots -- showcase their knowledge and passion for classical poetry. "The classics are cultural genes embedded deep in the blood of the Chinese people," said Peng Min, an editor who won the fifth edition of the Chinese Poetry Competition. "These works are not only alive today but continue to enrich the spiritual lives of contemporary people with their enduring vitality." In an interview with Xinhua, Zhang Yiwu, a professor at Peking University, expressed his belief that poetry recital activities can encourage visitors, especially the young, to gain a deeper appreciation for traditional classics. "Our livelihood has improved significantly, allowing people to pursue higher spiritual goals," he said. Standing atop Lushan Mountain and gazing at the surrounding peaks, Liu, the tourist from Zhejiang Province, can't help but wonder if, over 1,000 years ago, Li Bai experienced the same, climbing the mountain amid drizzles and marveling at the scenery. "Poetry always offers me boundless inspiration to be brave enough to explore and passionate enough to truly live," Liu said. An East Helena man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on July 10 to firing a gun during a gas station robbery in Townsend. Samuel James Collins, 34, pleaded guilty to possessing and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence and faces a mandatory minimum sentence. The minimum sentence was 10 years in prison and he faces a possible $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney's Office. Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris presided in Great Falls. The court will review U.S. sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors before determining a sentence. Sentencing was set for Collins on Nov. 24. According to court records, on Oct. 16, 2023, Broadwater County Sheriff's deputies responded to an armed robbery at the Town Pump gas station in Townsend where two employees were present. They told law enforcement a man entered wearing a hooded blanket coat without pants or shoes and fired a pistol. The documents said the suspect demanded money and left in a Ford F-150 pickup truck with about $330 in cash. Video surveillance was retrieved from the business and around 20 minutes later Meagher County Sheriff's deputies stopped the truck used in the robbery. The driver was identified as the defendant, so deputies searched the vehicle, documents said. Deputies retrieved a loaded 9mm pistol, $329, a purple hooded sweatshirt and other items. Investigators determined the shell casing found in the Town Pump was fired from the pistol seized by deputies. Collins is the former owner of the shuttered Toi's Thai restaurant in downtown Helena. Xie Zhenwei explains the features of a Shabu-Kiln celadon censer as primary school students listen in Shabu Township, Huangyan of Taizhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, July 11, 2024. Originated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and flourished in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), the Shabu Kilns are considered as transitional kilns during the development of southern celadon industry from Yue Kilns to Longquan Kilns. Xie Zhenwei, a young porcelain artisan and a native of Shabu Township, has been making efforts to reproduce the celadon wares in the style of Shabu Kilns, which is characterized by exquisite carved patterns. To achieve his goal, Xie learned techniques from Yue Kilns and Longquan Kilns and kept using local materials. At present, Xie has successfully made celadon wares like censer, jug and powder boxes, in the style of Shabu Kilns. He also set up a workshop to display the culture of this art. (Xinhua/Weng Xinyang) US college students are experiencing China firsthand through a cultural exchange program that aims to dispel stereotypes and foster environmental awareness. Ruan Yangyang (center), a pianist from Nanjing county in Fujian province, performs with other young musicians, including students from the United States, at a concert in Zhangzhou on Tuesday. A group of 110 students from the US are on a visit to Fujian and will cover Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou over 10 days as part of an exchange program. ZHANG JINCHUAN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE The China-US Youth Exchange Camp, which began on Monday at the Xiamen campus of Huaqiao University, is jointly organized by the Fujian Provincial Department of Education and Huaqiao University. About 110 students from the United States will visit cities including Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou during the 10-day exchange program, which is focused on music, the environment and culture. Han Mei, director of the Chinese Music and Culture Center at Tennessee State University, said the US students had been diligently preparing for months, studying and practicing Chinese musical instruments. Han and two other teachers are leading a group of 16 TSU students at the camp. The camp aims to promote educational exchanges and cooperation between Fujian province and the US, fostering mutual understanding and building bridges for future cooperation between young people from both countries. Beyond cultural immersion, the camp prioritizes environmental sustainability. Students participated in "Xiamen Practice" environmental volunteer activities, gaining firsthand knowledge of river management and ecological governance. They cleaned tidal flats of garbage and learned about "sponge campus" construction, a water management system. "We in America get a lot of interesting things told to us about the people here and the culture," said William Sprayberry, a freshman at Middle Tennessee State University. "But you don't really see that as reality because it's so far from our everyday depictions of China. As a matter of fact, we're all just people. We have different cultures, different customs, but at the end of the day, we're all just trying to live here." The historical Socrates, like the historical Jesus, is impossible to know. Neither men wrote the texts for which they're best known, but figure as main characters in the writings of others. In the case of Socrates, these second-hand sources aren't in agreement over how Socrates lived and what kind of philosophy he employed to understand the world around him. The impossibility of knowing the real Socrates is called the "Socratic problem" and it complicates any easy reading of the three main historical sources on Socrates. The playwright Aristophanes, for example, features a character called Socrates in his comedy "Clouds," but the character is more of a caricature of all intellectuals disheveled, impious and intent on warping the minds of the youth than an unbiased portrait of the man. Advertisement " " This 1821 illustration shows Socrates (R) teaching Alcibiades, a prized pupil who later became an Athenian statesman. Bettmann/Getty Images Aristophanes and Socrates were contemporaries, but the men didn't see eye to eye. Aristophanes blamed the sophists and natural philosophers for poisoning the minds of Athenian youth, and his caricature of Socrates in "Clouds" became so well-known that it hounded the philosopher his entire life. By the time of his trial, Socrates blamed Aristophanes' plays for poisoning the jurors' minds against him. A second source is Xenophon, a soldier-historian who, like Plato, was 45 years younger than Socrates. Xenophon has a solid reputation as a reliable historian of Athens, but he was a practical man with practical concerns. So, his quotations of Socrates have to do with mundane topics like estate management and moneymaking and may reflect Xenophon's views more than those of Socrates himself. Plato's dialogues are the richest and best-known sources on Socrates, because Socrates is the main character in nearly all of the texts. Plato wrote the dialogues like plays, dramatizations of encounters that Socrates may or may not have had with real Athenians, some known to history. In the dialogues, the character of Socrates is an ingenious and often humorous interrogator, quick to confess his own ignorance while coaxing and teasing his fellow conversants toward philosophical revelations about morality and nature. But are the dialogues historically accurate? Plato was 25 when Socrates was tried and executed. While Plato was undoubtedly inspired by Socrates, it's impossible to untangle which philosophies came from Socrates and which were Plato's alone. Further complicating the Socratic Problem is that ancient writers like Plato didn't distinguish between biography, drama, history and fiction. All Peoples Church of Jesus Christ Worship at 11 a.m. Sunday at American Legion Post 172. Pastor: Prophet Roland Jordan delivers the message. Ann Street United Methodist Church 335 Ann St., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Randy L. Wall. In person and Facebook Live worship at 11 a.m. Bethpage United Methodist Church 109 Fellowship Ave. at West C Street, Kannapolis. 704-932-5296. Pastor: Rev. McKenzie Sefa. Christian education at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m. Bogers Chapel United Methodist Church 1775 Flowes Store Road E., Concord. Pastor: Eric Shaver. Sunday school at 9 a.m. Worship service at 10 a.m. (in person or on Facebook). Opening Reading: For Others, The Lives We Actually Have: Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie, page 154. Sermon: Gather Together. Scripture: Mark 6:14-29. Calvary Lutheran Church 950 Bradley St., Concord. 704-782-6923. Pastor: Rev. Debbie Frye. In-person worship at 8:30 a.m. (casual worship) and 11 a.m. (traditional worship with childrens church and staffed nursery). Coffee/cookie social from 9:30-11 a.m. At 9:45 a.m. is Sunday school for all ages. Childrens area and nursery are available at all times. All services livestreamed and available anytime on the Calvary Lutheran Concord YouTube channel with easy access through the church website at www.clconcord.org or the church app Calvary Lutheran ChurchNC. Sermon Topic: Gods Grace and Mystery. Center United Methodist Church 1119 Union St. S., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Brian Crady. Sunday school for In Betweens and young adults at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m. Nursery is provided during the worship service. Website is www.centerumcconcord.org. Join us for our service. Sermon: Salvation Anytime, Anywhere, Anyone. Scripture: Acts 8:32-39. Cold Springs Global Methodist Church 2550 Cold Springs Road, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Cliff Wall. Worship at 10 a.m. on Sundays. Visit online at https://youtube.com/@coldspringschurchconcord. Crossroads Church 220 George W. Liles Parkway, Concord. Pastor: Lowell McNaney. Live worship streamed on Facebook, Crossroads Concord Church app or mycrossroads.co website at 9:30 a.m. and 11:11 a.m. Crown Pointe Baptist Church 703 Tennessee St., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Doug Crawley. Sunday school at 9 a.m. Worship at 10 a.m. in the sanctuary or view online at the church Facebook page. Series: Established. Message: Hearing from God. Scripture: John 10:27-29 (ESV). Eastside Missionary Baptist Church 199 Elgin Drive, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Stephen Burrow. In-person services: Sunday school at 9:30 a.m. Worship services at 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Recorded worship services and other information at EastsideMissionaryBaptist.org. Practice social distancing. Epworth United Methodist Church 1030 Burrage Road NE, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Dennis Marshall. Sunday school at 9 a.m., followed by worship at 10 a.m. We welcome all to join us in person, or you can livestream or watch the recorded service on the church website at www.epworthnc.com. First Presbyterian Church 201 Vance St., Kannapolis. 704-938-4623. Pastor: Eddie Spencer. Coffee fellowship at 9:30 a.m. Sunday school at 10 a.m. Worship service at 11 a.m. in person and also livestreamed on YouTube. www.firstpresb.org. Forest Hill United Methodist Church 265 Union St. N., Concord. Senior pastor: Rev. Mandy Neill. Associate pastor of worship and mission: Rev. Justin Snyder. Associate pastor of congregational care: Rev. Wes Judy. Contemporary worship at 9 a.m. Small groups at 10 a.m. Traditional worship at 11 a.m. Both the contemporary and the traditional worship services will also be livestreamed at facebook.com/foresthillumc. For more information, visit foresthillumc.org. Grace Church of Concord A Global Methodist Community 28-B Branchview Drive NE, Concord. Lead pastor: Michael Dominick. Worshipping every Sunday at 10 a.m. Sermon: The Big WHY? Scripture: John 9:1-7. Series: You Asked For It! Topic: Why does God let bad things happen? You are cordially invited to join our Summer Series, You Asked For It!, where members of the congregation request various topics of interest for Pastor Mike to preach and teach. To learn more about the church, visit www.graceconcord.org where you will find links to the Sunday morning livestream and more. Harmony Church Concord 101 White St. NW, Concord. Pastor: Thad Brown. Sunday school begins at 10 a.m. followed by a worship service at 11 a.m. Sermon: The Older Shall Serve the Younger. Scripture: Genesis 25:19-21, Genesis 25:22-23, Genesis 25:24-26, Genesis 25:27-28, Genesis 25:29-34, Hebrews 12:16. We welcome everyone to come worship with us. The service is broadcast live on Facebook.com/NancyCranfordBebber. For more information, call 704-467-0179 or 704-791-2883. Jackson Park United Methodist Church 715 Mable Ave., Kannapolis. Pastor: Laurie Knoespel. Adult Sunday school at 9:30 a.m. Worship at 10:30 a.m. Nursery will be provided during worship service. Kirkwood Presbyterian Church 900 Klondale Ave., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Dennis B. Craft. Worship at 11 a.m. in the church sanctuary on Sundays. No mask restrictions. McGill Baptist Church 5300 Poplar Tent Road, Concord, in-person services. Pastor: Rev. Steve Ayers. McGill will stream a worship service Sunday at 10 a.m. on www.facebook.com/mcgillbaptistchurch/ and on YouTube. The services will be live and also available on recording afterward. 8th Sunday after Pentecost. Sermon: The Problem with Kings. Scripture: Amos 7:7-15, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark 6:14-29. Midway United Methodist Church 108 Bethpage Road, Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Craig Allen. Come join us on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. for Sunday school and 10:30 a.m. for worship. Our service is also livestreamed on the web at midwayunitedmethodistchurch.org or facebook.com/midwayUMCWorship. Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Series: Words Matter. Theme: Anxiety tied for fourth place. Message: Is Anxiety the Faith-Killer? First Reading: Psalm 23. Second Reading: 1 Peter 5:1-7. Suggested Hymns: UMH 568, Christ for the World We Sing, and UMH 381, Savior, Like A Shepherd Lead Us. Mt. Mitchell Global Methodist Church 6001 Old Salisbury-Concord Road, Kannapolis. Pastor: Joel Locklear. Office phone: 704-933-0155. Office hours: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday Bible Study at 7 p.m. Sunday school at 9:45 a.m. (adult and children classes.) Worship at 11 a.m. in person or on Facebook. Nursery available for children up to 5 years old. Multiply Church Concord 150 Warren C. Coleman Blvd. N., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Douglas Witherup. 8:30 a.m. service held at 280 Concord Parkway S., Suite 15, Concord. Services at 150 Warren C. Coleman Blvd. N., are worship and sermon at 9:30 a.m. and worship and sermon at 11:15 a.m. New Gilead Reformed Church 2400 Old Salisbury-Concord Road. 10 a.m. Sunday school followed by 11 a.m. worship in the sanctuary or worship live on YouTube. We hope that you can connect with us online if you cant be with us in person. Oak Grove Baptist Church 200 Sims Parkway, Harrisburg. Pastor: Rev. Franklin D. Watkins. 10 a.m. In-person worship service. Also available on Facebook Live and YouTube Live. Rodgers Park Baptist Church 309 E. 24th St., Kannapolis. Weekly message from KJV Bible by Pastor Joel Ervin. Sunday school at 9:45 a.m. Worship at 10:45 a.m. Facebook Live at 11 a.m. Second Presbyterian Church 1578 Dale Earnhardt Blvd., Kannapolis. Pastor Sue Black, minister. Assistant minister: Rev. Aaron Price. Sunday school at 10 a.m. Worship at 11 a.m. Sermon: Two Small Coins. Scripture: Mark 12:38-44. St. Johns Lutheran Church 100 St. Johns Church Road, Concord. Pastor: Rev. Matt Hansen. Sunday school at 9 a.m. Worship service at 10 a.m. St. Johns Reformed Church 901 N. Main St., Kannapolis. Pastor: Rev. Chris King. Sunday school for all ages at 9:30 a.m. Worship service at 10:30 a.m. Website: www.ourstjohns.org. Email/phone: ourstjohns@gmail.com / 704-932-3656. Sermon: Jesus as The Door. Scripture: John 10:6-10. Trinity United Church of Christ 38 Church St., Concord. Pastor: Rev. Nathan King. Worship at 11 a.m. in person or on Facebook (live or watch later). Website: commachurch.com. Hybrid platform company Cloudera unveiled two new offerings for Cloudera Observability Premium to simplify and automate platform administration. Cloudera said the tier features provide a single source of observability across all cloud-based and on-premises data centres. Clouderas two new solutions in its Cloudera Observability suite include: Cloudera Observability Premium On-Premises allows customers with secure networks to run observability entirely within their data centres. This solution ensures optimal monitoring, troubleshooting, financial governance, data observability, and automated actions, even in air-gapped configurations. Cloudera Observability Premium for Public Cloud Data Hub extends all the advanced premium capabilities to public cloud users, including real-time monitoring, advanced financial governance, automated actions, and data observability. With the addition of both these offerings, enterprises can now leverage real-time monitoring for Data Hub clusters, jobs, and queries, financial governance with new cost factors and capacity forecasting, workload views, alerts, and automated actions, along with data observability with hot and cold table analysis. "Implementing advanced observational capabilities is critical for enterprises as they provide real-time system insights that enable proactive issue resolution and enhance security, ultimately leading to operations and reduced risks. Clouderas expanded Observability offering enables enterprises to tackle this head on by building a new standard for hybrid data observability across on-premises and public clouds, notes industry analyst Sanjeev Mohan. Cloudera Observability helps enterprises maximise cost-efficiency, enhance performance, and unlock intelligent insights. The new premium additions deepen these insights for enterprises and builds on our commitment to help customers take back control of their data, analytics, and AI, says Cloudera chief product officer Dipto Chakravarty. Australian enterprises are struggling to manage increasing data volumes, escalating costs, and tool sprawl in their digital and data transformation journey, observes Cloudera ANZ regional vice president Keir Garrett. Businesses especially are seeking observability solutions to optimise their visibility and insights across their most sensitive data estates in real time and at speed and scale. These high-value capabilities make administration of the platform easy and automated for our customers, helping them improve total cost of ownership, accelerate time to value and achieve their business outcomes faster. COMPANY NEWS: Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, recently concluded its highly anticipated Asia Channel Summit, held from 30 June to 3 July, 2024, in Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Resort, Siem Reap, Cambodia. The summit, attended by more than 200 attendees, comprised industry leaders, channel partners, distributors, and government stakeholders, for insightful sessions, networking opportunities, cultural activities, and a partner awards ceremony. This years summit, themed Vertiv Velocity, focused on Vertiv's latest power and cooling innovations to advance the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The conference provided insights into the companys strategic channel roadmap, underlining Vertivs commitment to customer-centric innovations in a market where IT professionals increasingly need solutions to power and cool their high-density critical digital equipment. A significant highlight was the launch of the Vertiv AI Hub on Vertivs website, which features strategic resources on accelerating todays data centres to support the proliferation of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) services and applications. Vertivs broad product, solutions and services offerings enable channel partners to bridge the gap between IT and critical digital infrastructure to support AI deployment and high-density computing. Vertivs collaboration with leading AI chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA and Intel Corporation demonstrates expertise in this area. His Excellency Kong Vibol, Minister Attached to the Prime Minister, Delegate of the Royal Government in charge as Director General of General Department of Taxation, delivered the keynote message during the plenary session. He emphasised the vital role technology plays in powering todays society and how Cambodia is quickly adapting technology for its development. The Vertiv Partner Awards Ceremony was another highlight of the conference. The event honoured partners who have been instrumental in delivering innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers in the region. The summits gala dinner provided a platform to acknowledge, appreciate, and celebrate these partners' exceptional achievements and invaluable contributions in 2023. Vertiv senior director ANZ LuLu Shiraz added: We recognise the vital role our partners play in bringing Vertivs solutions to the Australia and New Zealand region, and we thank them for their continued support. We congratulate our partners who have contributed to Vertivs success in 2023. This conference is a great event for us to not only strengthen our connections but also as an avenue for us to recognise our partners contributions. We look forward to stronger partnerships for many years to come. 2023 Vertiv Partner Awards Winners Distribution: 2023 Distributor of the Year - Asia: Orion Computers Black Diamond: 2023 Black Diamond Partner ANZ: Power Quality Group Diamond: 2023 Diamond Partner M&E - ANZ: UPS Solutions 2023 Diamond Partner IT - ANZ: Datacom Systems 2023 Emerging Partner for South Pacific: Virtualflex Solutions Product Excellence: 2023 Product Excellence Award for Medium UPS (ANZ): Natural Power Solutions 2023 Product Excellence Award for ITMS (ANZ): Ingram Micro (NZ) 2023 Product Excellence Award for Thermal (ANZ): Air Water Power Business Development 2023 Business Developement Award for Strategic Accounts: Ingram Micro (NZ) To know more about Vertivs partner program, visit Partners.Vertiv.com. About Vertiv Vertiv brings together hardware, software, analytics and ongoing services to enable its customers vital applications to run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. Vertiv solves the most important challenges facing todays data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, USA, Vertiv does business in more than 130 countries. For more information, and for the latest news and content from Vertiv, visit Vertiv.com. GUEST OPINION: Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage has surged forward relentlessly in the last two years with its remarkable ability to identify patterns and generate new content. As a result, generative AI (genAI) has emerged as a formidable disruptor within the cybersecurity sector. GenAI-based digital tools have the potential to accelerate business growth by delivering new opportunities for enhanced innovation, productivity, accuracy, and efficiency. In line with this growth, many organisations are also adopting AI-based solutions for threat detection and prevention, significantly improving their ability to respond to threats in real time. Governments throughout APAC, including Australia, have also recognised the strategic importance of AI and have devised national strategies and supporting policy frameworks to help countries navigate potential AI risks while also helping organisations unleash its undeniable ability to do good. A great example of this is the Artificial Intelligence Expert Group, introduced by the Australian Government to help inform policy development and regulatory frameworks. When integrated carefully, genAI models can be highly effective tools in proactive security defence programmes. However, on the flip side, they can also be used against an enterprises cyber defence in ways that we cannot afford to ignore. Recent research suggests that 75% of cybersecurity professionals have seen an increase in AI-powered cyberattacks over the past year, with 85% attributing it to threat actors weaponising AI. Most recently, genAI tools like ChatGPT have been seen as instrumental in the latest surge in email phishing attacks in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics a fertile breeding ground for threat actors to infiltrate their victims Microsoft 365 networks. Customers are also experiencing increasing incidents of attackers abusing Microsoft Copilot with living off the land techniques this removes latency in attacks giving perpetrators accelerated access to enterprise networks and critical data. While Microsofts intent with Copilot as an innovative genAI productivity tool is in the right place, there are multi-facets to this argument. Copilot biggest risk includes identity-based threats, and when compromised, the impact on business continuity can be devastating. This is because AI-enabled tools like Copilot gives the attacker the same advantages that it gives the legitimate enterprise user. This means that, once a Copilot-enabled account is hacked, the attacker can launch a genAI-driven attack by using the power of enterprise-level AI against the enterprise itself. As such, speed becomes crucial. Without AI-driven behavioural analysis capability, SOC teams have little chance of discovering the breach, much less stopping it. Therefore, it is important to put guardrails in place that match the AI-driven attack with the speed of AI-driven behavioural analytics to ensure the integrity of the organisations security posture. Yet despite all the above, Copilot promises a significant leap in AI-driven workplace productivity enabling data-driven insights from GenAI models and claiming to save the average user up to 14 minutes a day (or five hours a month) through the removal of mundane tasks. Copilot for Security also empowers SOC teams to respond to cyber threats at the speed and scale of AI. AI in cybersecurity is the future and businesses that dont look at AI as a critically important component of their defence against automated attacks will be vulnerable. Advanced AI delivered in an integrated attack signal could stop todays most challenging hybrid cyberattacks. It also helps take the ambiguity out of security analysts day and enable them to focus on what matters. As AI technology matures and security specialists address specific challenges, organisations can expect even more powerful applications and a more proactive approach to security for a safer digital world. This photo taken on July 11, 2024 shows a press conference of the Fourth China (Ningxia) International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. [Photo/Xinhua] International experts and enterprises involved in the wine industry are set to gather in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China's leading wine-producing area, for an expo in August. The Fourth China (Ningxia) International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo will be hosted by the regional government from Aug. 9 to 11 in Yinchuan, Ningxia's capital, according to the organizer on Thursday. The expo, with the theme "Chinese wine, A Marvel to the World -- Good Wine Originates from Unique Terroir," will invite experts and enterprises in the wine-making industry from both home and abroad, as well as officials and representatives of embassies, ministries and international organizations. More than 60 wineries and exhibitors from countries including France, Australia, Italy, Spain and Chile will attend the three-day expo, which will feature a wine carnival, competitions and other events. Huang Siming, director of the management committee of a wine industrial park at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, told Xinhua that Ningxia has since 2012 hosted nine editions of the International Wine Expo at Helan Mountains' Eastern Foot and three editions of the International Wine Culture and Tourism Expo. "The upgrade of the wine expo makes a bigger circle of friends for Ningxia, and helps the region expand its market, share the opportunities and achieve win-win deals with friends through cooperation," said Huang. Ningxia boasts a unique terroir for making top-class wine, with its prolonged sunshine and a cool, dry climate aiding the cultivation of grapes. After more than 40 years of development, Ningxia has emerged as China's largest wine-producing region. It boasts 602,000 mu (about 40,133 hectares) of grape plantations and 253 wineries and grape-growing enterprises that produced 140 million bottles of wine in 2023. STEWARDSON Communities are mourning the loss of three Shelby County girls who died from injuries sustained in a Wednesday evening crash. Shelby County Coroner Brad Phegley has identified the victims as Karly M. Wetherell, 13, of Stewardson; Edie J. Wittenberg, 14, of Strasburg; and Sienna R. Bostedo, 14, of Mode. Phegley said one of the girls died at the scene, while a second died at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Coles County. The third girl was airlifted to Sarah Bush, then transferred to a hospital in Indianapolis where she died from her injuries, Phegley said. The girls were involved in a crash between a utility terrain vehicle and a semitruck grain hauler. Illinois State Police said it was contacted at approximately 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to County Road 1200N and County Road 3150E, southeast of Windsor in Shelby County. According to the preliminary investigation, one of the girls was driving south in a 2022 UTV that failed to yield at a stop sign. The vehicle pulled into the path of the southbound truck driven by a 40-year-old man from Gays. The three girls were incoming freshmen at Stewardson-Strasburg High School. The school district administration invited students and staff to meet with counselors beginning at 4 p.m. Thursday in the school library. This will be an opportunity for those students and staff to process and be supported in a caring environment with their school family, Stewardson-Strasburg school Superintendent Justin Deters posted on the schools Facebook page. The community also was invited to a prayer vigil Thursday night at the school. Located near Effingham and Shelbyville, Stewardson-Strasburg is a school of approximately 400 students districtwide. Were a community thats trying to deal with an event that is definitely going to impact our school and our families, Deter said during a phone interview with the Herald & Review. We need as much support and prayer as possible. HanesBrands Inc. is helping parents and students get ready for back-to-school with a five-day warehouse sale of Champion apparel, footwear and accessories. All items will be priced at $10 or less, and there will be daily doorbuster deals. The sale will take place on July 18-22 in the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds at 360 Deacon Blvd. Operating hours are: noon to 7 p.m. July 18; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. July 19; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 20; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. July 21; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 22. The back-to-school sale is an offshoot of Hanesbrands annual community sale, which features discounted items from brands such as Bali, Champion, Hanes and Maidenform. The 2022 sales raised more than $200,000. The Champion sale could be a one-time offering given HanesBrands announced June 5 plans to sell the brand for between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion to Authentic Brands Group Inc. The sale had been rumored by industry analysts and media sources since Nov. 1 about six weeks after HanesBrands board of directors and executive management said that selling off Champion was an option as part of a broad range of alternatives to maximize shareholder value. Champion apparel is sold in more than 90 countries, with more than 40% of its $2 billion in fiscal 2023 sales coming from outside North America. The transition could come with significant production and operations job cuts in the U.S. since Authentic prefers to outsource manufacturing and most production, while most of HanesBrands production and operations are handled internally. Axios Pro reported that part of the difference in the potential sale prices is Champion has manufacturing assets that are expensive to operate and will be costly to wind down, and are likely the reason for the price reduction. HanesBrands reported having 48,000 employees in 29 countries as of Dec. 31, of which 88% are located outside the United States, mostly in supply chain facilities in Central America, the Caribbean Basin and Asia. Authentic plans to convert the Champion business into a licensed model. The company said it is in discussions with several existing and potential operators in key regions to manage the manufacturing, physical retail, e-commerce and wholesale operations of the business and maintain the brands global footprint. HanesBrands said it will provide certain post-sale production services for Champion, including operating the business in select regions through a transition period. Carlos Lomeli knew hed have some customers when he opened El Alteno Taqueria in Lincoln a month ago. I came to open here because too many people were driving to Omaha to get tacos, said Lomeli, who for three years has operated another El Alteno Taqueria there. We came here with everything the same." The tacos the Lincolnites were driving an hour to get are quesabirrias, one of El Altenos specialties and one of its most popular offerings for a reason. The two small corn tortillas filled with melted cheese and beef that has been marinated in a traditional spice mixture and then cooked in broth are beyond tasty, a perfectly spiced blend of tender beef, cheese and extra broth that can be spooned on at the table. Quesabirrias are a prime example of the Authentic Mexican Food Served Fresh Daily, promised on the signage of the restaurant at the corner of North 48th and St. Paul streets. Theyre on a menu filled with dishes rooted in the southwest Mexican state of Jalisco, where Mariachi music and Mexican rodeo and the quesabirrias, like nearly everything else on the menu, are made from scratch in the restaurants kitchen, even the delicious, flavorful tortillas that can immediately be identified as homemade. For the plates, burritos, enchiladas, everything, we make (the tortillas), Lomeli said. Except for the small ones, for tacos, he said. There are too many of those. I have to purchase them." The tortillas also feature prominently in another El Alteno customer favorite chilaquiles verdes o rojos. The chilaquiles, softened crisp triangles of tortillas garnished with crema and a sauce (I chose the red) are served with strips of meat (my choice was steak). The combination, along with the beans or rice, was delicious with the sauce providing just enough heat. It was also filling and plentiful. The portions on all three of my visits were large, so much so that takeaway boxes were required for a couple of dishes I didnt sample the third favorite dish Lomeli listed brisket tacos. Nor did I have any of the soups, seafood or desserts you cant eat everything on the menu in three visits. But I did have a standard beef taco, chile relleno and pork and chicken tamales as part of a combination plate, again all very authentic and very good, as was the dried beef and tortillas in the scrambled egg huevos revueltos con machaca, one of 10 breakfast dishes. I was also impressed with the authenticity of the mole con pollo estilo ranchero that came out as a quarter-chicken covered in a spicy mole sauce, which meant that the tender meat, which wanted to fall off the bone, had to be forked off, rather than usual presentation of the pulled chicken and sauce. It needs to be noted that the taqueria serves Mexican food. The only items on the menu that would be seen as American are Super Fries, basically loaded nachos with French fries replacing the chips, and chicken tenders and fries from the kids menu. Entree prices range from $10.99 for three quesabirrias to $17.99 for shrimp fajitas. Tacos and sopes (thick corn tortillas with beans, meat, pico de gallo, sour cream and cheese) are available on the Street Menu for $3-5. El Alteno also makes fresh drinks, Aguas Frescas, that are flavored with a choice of hibiscus, mango, cucumber and lime, and strawberry and coconut. The latter was sweetly refreshing and, in the large size, more than enough to accompany the meal. As for the restaurant itself, El Alteno Taqueria took over the space that was formerly occupied by a Honduran restaurant and retained the booths and tables in the two rooms and the bar in the south space. It is now decorated with paintings of Mexican figures as well as tiles and banners and, very pleasantly, has Mexican music playing at low volume, creating a perfect environment for dining on the authentic offerings of Lincolns newest excellent Mexican eatery. Here are some of Lincoln's hidden gem restaurants, according to Reddit Daffodil Mediterranean Cuisine and Catering Lila Mae's Southern Kitchen and Lounge Heoya Afghan Village Cuisine Norm's on 48th El Potro Mexican Restaurant L's Kitchen Vung Tau Pho Grill Fattoush Restaurant Rolling Wok Blessing Thai Restaurant Super Taco Tandoor Indian Restaurant Biji's Best Panda Garden The Nebraska Department of Education recently received a $4.5 million federal grant to continue its apprenticeship program for teachers. The funding comes from the State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula grant program through the U.S. Department of Labor, which is intended to help states develop the workforce with increased apprenticeship opportunities. Nine states were chosen as grant recipients and $49 million was awarded through the program in total. Nebraska plans to use the new grant money to expand the statewide teacher apprenticeship program that the Department of Education began this spring, according to David Jespersen, a spokesman for the department. Nebraska was able to launch the program in March with the help of $1 million allocated by the Legislature, and this new federal grant will allow the department not only to continue it but expand it to include more schools and teachers across the state, Jespersen said. The apprenticeship program was created to help curb the ongoing nationwide teacher shortage in Nebraska by helping classified staff like paraeducators and office staff who already have bachelor's degrees receive their teaching certification. Three Nebraska school districts Lincoln Public Schools, Omaha Westside and North Platte Public Schools have partnered with the state through the "grow your own" program, which is in its pilot period. Each district is partnering with a Nebraska college or university through the program. LPS is partnered with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Omaha Westside is partnered with Midland University and North Platte is working in conjunction with Chadron State College. Participants' tuition is paid for through the funding, and they are able to receive their teaching certificates in just one year, rather than two. Top Journal Star photos for July 2024 China slams U.S. for spreading disinformation Xinhua) 08:20, July 12, 2024 BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China firmly opposes the continued spread of ungrounded false information by the United States about Russia's so-called "defense industrial base fueled by China," foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Thursday. Lin's remarks came after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's accusation at the 2024 NATO Public Forum. "We express strong dissatisfaction with and firm opposition to the erroneous remarks made by the U.S. side," Lin told a daily press briefing. Lin said that right after the Ukraine crisis broke out, the United States claimed that China was providing military support to Russia. Till this day, the United States has not offered any substantial evidence. Even U.S. military chiefs admitted that China did not provide military assistance to Russia in the Ukraine crisis. "Statistics show that over 60 percent of Russia's imported military components and dual-use items come from the United States and other Western countries, 95 percent of Russia's key components destroyed by Ukraine come from the West, and 72 percent of Western parts of Russian-made weapons come from U.S. companies. How does the United States explain that?" the spokesperson said. "What is more, the United States and its allies have yet to stop trading with Russia. Last year, their trade with Russia reached over 130 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 18 percent of Russia's foreign trade. Most countries in the world do not engage in the sanctions against Russia or stop their trade with Russia," Lin said, adding China is anything but scapegoat of the United States. Lin said it is hypocritical and double standard for the United States to accuse China of its normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia, while passing legislation to provide massive aid to Ukraine. The United States has often claimed itself to be the so-called champion of justice, human rights defender and world policeman, but what it has done is to fan the flames, sow discord and create confrontation and rivalry, Lin said. "Who is the culprit of the Ukraine crisis? Who is behind the regional conflicts and wars and protracted crisis? Who is the biggest source of instability of global peace and stability. The world is clear-eyed," Lin added. "China is not the creator of the Ukraine crisis nor a party to it. That said, we have not just sat by and watched the crisis unfold. Instead, we have worked actively to enable talks for peace and a political solution. We've never sought to fuel the flames, never profiteered from the crisis and still less given weapons to any party to the conflict. This position is clear and consistent," Lin said. On that basis, there is normal, legitimate trade and business cooperation between Chinese companies and other countries, including Russia, in line with WTO rules and market principles, which is not for certain countries to judge, the spokesperson said, adding the United States might as well reflect on the root cause of the crisis and do something for peace rather than being an unfair judge in this crisis. The United States must never expect China to pay for the mistake the United States has made, and China will never accept U.S. blame-shifting, bullying and coercion, Lin said. China will continue to take resolute measures to safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights, the spokesperson added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) An aerial drone photo taken on May 15, 2024 shows the container ship COSCO Shipping Camellia at the Pacific International Container Terminal of Tianjin Port in north China's Tianjin. [Photo/Xinhua] Representatives from global shipping industry have expressed the hope that the sector will seek more robust and sustainable growth models under new circumstances. At the ongoing Tianjin International Shipping Industry Expo 2024, representatives of about 400 shipping companies, ports and industry associations from the world discussed development trends, paths and opportunities of the shipping industry. Maritime shipping is crucial to the world economy as 85 percent of all global trade is seaborne, and China plays an important role in this, according to Steve Gordon, global head of Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a shipping research institution. "In many areas of the maritime economy, China is incredibly important and has secured market leading positions globally," said Gordon. China has become the world's largest trader of goods. According to the General Administration of Customs, in the first five months of this year, China's foreign trade in goods stood at 17.5 trillion yuan (about 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars), up by 6.3 percent year on year, said Wang Shouwen, vice minister of commerce. Zhen Hong, director of the Shanghai International Shipping Institute Academic Committee, believes that the development of a port-based economy is an inevitable requirement for the development of new quality productive forces in ports. Ports need to break away from the development model that simply pursues port throughput and transform into a model where the port drives the high-quality development of a port-based economy, Zhen said. This will help make a port more efficient, resilient, and convenient in terms of service, to better serve the high-quality development of the economy, Zhen explained. In recent years, the global shipping industry has encountered unprecedented challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic tested the fabric of the global supply chain, causing widespread disruptions but also showcasing its incredible resilience. "Red Sea threats and disruptions in the Panama Canal have added complexity to our operations, yet these events have also driven us to develop more robust and flexible solutions," said Joseph Edward Kramek, president and CEO designate of the World Shipping Council. Kramek added that, despite these challenges, the ocean supply chain has held fast. "The fight against climate change is paramount, and our industry must lead the charge towards zero-emission fuels. This challenge also presents a significant opportunity for innovation in green technology, opening new markets and creating sustainable growth," Kramek said. STURTEVANT Ritu Raju often hears from people who want to learn the basics of artificial intelligence. On Thursday, educators at Gateway Technical College and other Wisconsin technical colleges did just that. The AI bootcamp training is a partnership between Gateway and Microsoft. It took place at Gateways SC Johnson iMET Center, 2320 Renaissance Blvd. Raju, Gateway president and CEO, believes the training will inform educators, who will in turn assist students. Its going to help students learn better and perform better, Raju said. The possibilities are exciting. The possibilities are endless. About 20 people were there in-person for the training, while others attended remotely. Participants learned two fundamental Microsoft AI courses. The training lasted three hours and is the first of three sessions. The next two will occur remotely during the next several weeks. Michelle Schuler, U.S. program manager of TechSpark Microsoft, said Thursday was the first AI bootcamp training Microsoft has done in Wisconsin. The goal is for instructors to learn AI skills and give them the comfort level to bring it into any classroom and teach all students, Schuler said. Schuler said more companies are using AI, so it is helpful to offer proactive training. The rapid adoption of AI is why our educators want to be ahead of that, so they know whats coming, Schuler said. Takis Kinis, Gateway information technology department chair and web software and data analytics instructor, attended the training. He said employers he has spoken to are incorporating AI into their businesses, so it is helpful to know more about the technology Its on everybodys radar, and its what everybodys talking about, Kinis said. Do your due diligence There is hesitation along with excitement about a new technology like AI, according to Raju. She said it is crucial to learn more about AI so educators can teach themselves and students how to responsibly use the technology. Instructors need to know how to design their learning materials and assignments to teach students how to use AI constructively, Raju said. We need to help students understand the tools and use them in the proper manner. For example, putting an essay question into ChatGPT and copying the answer from the AI model is not responsible. It is important for faculty in departments such as computer science and information technology to understand AI because they can directly teach its uses to students. Gateway, for example, tweaked its data analytics program to incorporate more AI, and the college offers an AI data specialist associate degree. Raju also believes it is vital for educators in areas like history and communications to learn about AI so they understand how it can be a tool in their classes. Schuler thanked faculty for attending the training. You are the gateway to so much more, Schuler said. You guys are such a huge backbone to everything thats molding our state. J. Chris Perez, dean of the Gateway school of manufacturing, engineering and information technology, went through the training. Like Raju, Perez said it is important to learn about the pros and cons of AI. One thing that people have to do is make sure you do your due diligence, Perez said. Be aware of how it can be used or misused, and I think thats one thing this (training) will help us understand. A very important piece Thursdays session is one of many ways that Microsoft is working with Wisconsin employers and higher education institutions. The training is a very integral piece to this whole ecosystem, Schuler said. How do we reach people in new ways? Our education system is one of those avenues and a very important piece of a puzzle. The training took place about two months after Microsoft announced plans to spend $3.3 billion during the next few years building an artificial intelligence data center in Mount Pleasant. President Joe Biden touted the plan during a speech in Sturtevant in May. Building the data center is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs by 2025, according to Microsoft. Brad Smith, Microsoft president and vice chair, said in May that the tech giant has received tremendous support for its project from elected officials, schools and businesses. We are a country where people come together, where people work together, where they address hard challenges, and we get great things done, Smith said. We wont let you down. The work scheduled for the next few years is the first phase of Microsofts development. In May, Smith said he fully expects that there will be a phase two and likely a phase three, but details have not been finalized. In addition to AI training in phase one, Microsoft plans to partner with Gateway to develop a Data Center Academy, which is expected to train 1,000 students by 2030; create a manufacturing-focused Co-Innovation Lab on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus; and utilize Gener8tor, a startup accelerator already working in Wisconsin, to train business leaders to adopt AI. Microsoft aims to train more than 100,000 people across Wisconsin by 2030 on generative AI, according to a May news release. Raju likes that Microsoft is trying to democratize the technology and bring AI to many people. She also appreciates that instructors from across the state received training Thursday. Im very excited that we will have a group of very proficient educators that will be able to go into their respective communities, their service areas and help their communities understand what AI is, maybe demystify it and help people understand what the potential is, Raju said. This is an all-Wisconsin effort. Six photos of Microsoft AI training at Gateway's iMet SC Johnson Center Ritu Raju often hears from people wanting to learn the basics of artificial intelligence. On Thursday, Wisconsin technical college educators did just that. Ritu Raju Ritu Raju, Gateway Technical College president and CEO, believes Microsoft artificial intelligence training will inform educators, who will in Takis Kinis Takis Kinis, Gateway Technical College information technology department chair and web software and data analytics instructor, takes part in a J. Chris Perez J. Chris Perez, left, dean of the Gateway Technical College school of manufacturing, engineering and information technology, was one of a few Michelle Schuler Michelle Schuler, U.S. program manager of TechSpark Microsoft, talks during an artificial intelligence bootcamp training Thursday. Schuler sai Liz Butowicz Liz Butowicz, Microsoft training services partner, was one of the instructors leading an artificial intelligence bootcamp training Thursday. A Raju Ritu Raju, Gateway Technical College president and CEO, said it is crucial to learn more about artificial intelligence so educators can teach Microsoft AI training at Gateway 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 China's first-ever carbon-sink trading project in a national park's tropical rainforest has been transacted in the tropical island province of Hainan, marking another move to achieve the country's dual carbon goals. Three companies signed a cooperation agreement with the Diaoluo Mountain branch of the Management Office of the National Park of Hainan Tropical Rainforest on Wednesday for the purchase of a total of 350,000 yuan (about 49,000 U.S. dollars) worth of tropical rainforest carbon sinks, according to the provincial forestry department. The carbon sinks traded originate from the Diaoluo Mountain area of the national park by removing Merremia boisiana, a vigorous invasive twining vine that is harmful to trees, in an area of 667 hectares of forest. The removal of the vines will help accelerate the growth of trees, resulting in an estimated reduction of 109,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years, with the carbon-sink trading value exceeding 10 million yuan. The three companies purchased carbon sinks for 150,000 yuan, 100,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan, respectively, to offset their carbon emissions and contribute to carbon neutrality. China has made a commitment to the dual carbon goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Outgoing Lake Geneva City Administrator Dave Nord has ridden off into the next chapter of his life. Nord has retired from his job as Lake Genevas city administrator after serving in the position for about six years. His last official day was Sunday, July 7. Nord was hired as Lake Genevas city administrator in November 2018 to replace former City Administrator Blaine Oborn, who left the position in July 2018 to accept a similar job in the state of Washington. Reflecting on his time in Lake Geneva The outgoing city administrator said he has enjoyed his time in Lake Geneva, stating that Lake Geneva is the first tourist community he has worked in during his 38-year city administration/management career. Its been very interesting, Nord said. Ive dealt with towns that had some tourism, but to work in one thats so well recognized around the country its certainly well known in the Midwest I never had to explain where I worked after I said the name of the place. Nord said he is pleased with what has been accomplished in Lake Geneva during his time as city administrator including completing a compensation study for city employees. He said, since the study has been completed, city staff is being paid a competitive salary compared to the current market rates and surrounding communities. The turnover has dropped off a lot now that the city employees are being paid what the going rate is in the market, Nord said. That took a lot of time, but were really happy that it happened because our turnover has reduced. During Nords time as city administrator, Lake Geneva aldermen approved to revise and update the citys impact fee ordinance for the first time in about 20 years. Impact fees are financial contributions developers pay to municipalities to help fund projects that are needed as a result of their development. Funding from impact fees may be used to help pay for traffic control signals, police and fire stations, parks, libraries, medical facilities, roads and sewage treatment facilities. The citys impact fee ordinance has been updated to include a sanitary sewer impact fee, public works impact fee and library impact fee. Thats going to go a long way to getting some revenues generated based on the additional people moving into town, because the population is still climbing and the housing permits are still coming in, Nord said. To be able to tap into the impact fees, thats going to be helpful. Nord said city officials also implemented a new paid parking system which included updated parking kiosks and and a program which allows people to pay for their parking by downloading an app. Some people dont love it but the fact that its more automated, theres less opportunity for error. That makes the world run a little smoother for everybody, Nord said. It seems to be running really well and most people are using the app as opposed to paying with cash. Nord said another item that was accomplished during his time as city administrator is having a live streaming camera installed by the Riviera building. He said since that camera was installed, there has been less vandalism near the Riviera. According to the employees who work down there, the vandalism has dropped significantly, Nord said. So I hope that over the years that maybe they will add a few more, because theyre cool to see online. Challenges and changes Nord said, despite some of the things that have been accomplished during the past few years, he feels there should be some changes to how the citys government operates. He feels elected officials should serve four-year terms instead of two-year terms because that would give them more time to become familiar with the responsibilities of their position. Some people say two years is great because we can get rid of a bad one earlier, Nord said. But at the same time, if you go to four years which is fairly common in the United States those people have time to get into the position, learn what theyre doing and actually get something done. Nord said having four-year terms could make it easier for city officials to complete planned tasks and projects. The problem that Ive experienced is staff and I will work toward a specific goal that was set by the council, and sometimes those take two or three years, so you get right to the goal line, youre ready to finish that project and the new people come in and say, What are we doing that for, we dont want to do that, Nord said. Its like, Ok, we will put this in a file and we will give it another try. Nord also feels that Lake Geneva government has too many committees. The problem is when you focus on a single topic as a committee, youre not taking into consideration the impact on the other committees, Nord said. Theres got to be a balance. When theres so many committees that focus on these tiny things, the bigger picture kind of gets lost. Getting started in city administration Nord became interested in city administration/management while attending a class at Augustana College taught by then Rock Island, Illinois City Manager Neal Nelson. Just the way he presented it Im like, I got to do that, Nord said. He explained local government to me like its season one, two and three of Parks and Recreation. The things that they showed on that show, I would roll over and laugh. My kids were like, Whats your problem? I would say, That actually happens. I experience that. Nord graduated from Augustana College in 1984 with a bachelors degree in public administration and political science, and from Northern Illinois University in 1988 with a masters degree in public administration. After graduating from college, Nord worked as the village administrator for Cherry Valley, Illinois for about 25 years. He then worked as the city manager for Dixon, Illinois for about three years. Before coming to Lake Geneva, Nord served as an interim public works director for the city of Beloit. The Lake Geneva city administrator position came up fairly quickly after that and I was like, I know that town. Ive been going there since I was a little kid. I thought that would be a really interesting community to work for, and I was proven right, Nord said. But I dont regret applying. I certainly dont regret taking the position. I hope I left it better than I found it and best wishes to the new administrator when they come on board. Reasons for retiring Nord said the reason he is retiring from his city administrator position is to move to Indiana to live closer to his grandchildren. Ive been advised by Mrs. Nord that were moving to Indiana to live closer to our only grandchildren, Nord said. Theyre just getting to the age where theyre going to be fun. So we sold our house a couple of months ago, and we turned around and bought a house about a month ago. So Im the proud owner of two homes. Nord said he still may seek another job after moving to Indiana. If I can secure another local government job as a manager or administrator, I would probably do it for maybe three more years, Nord said. But if thats not going to be the case, then I guess I will go for a career change and who knows. Nord said he also plans to spend more time with his music instrument collection. Some, Ive never touched and some Ive practiced on, Nord said. So I look forward to spending more time with the musical instruments. He also plans to continue his exercise routine of running up and down stairs of buildings. I will just find some tall buildings and climb stairs, Nord said. That is one hobby I do like. Talk about no talent, just make sure you dont fall up or down the stairs. Ive done those in Chicago. Im looking forward to a couple of them in Indiana. Last days on the job As part of his last days in Lake Geneva, Nord cleared his office of personal items and wrote a list of current and upcoming issues for the city of Lake Geneva on a whiteboard for the future city administrator. Its just a list of things to say, Hey, new person heres a list of things going on, Nord said. Its just all of the things that the city has going on. That way they dont have to run through a bunch of notes. Nords advice to the future city administrator is to communicate effectively with city staff and aldermen and ask them if there are any issues they are dealing with or if there are any issues they may be dealing with in the future. I always ask, Whats out there?, Whats going on?, Just tell me these things so I know ahead of time, and Im not looking to assign blame, Nord said. I just want to know what it is so we can get it taken care of. You are here: China The 11th Beijing Xiangshan Forum will be held in the Chinese capital from Sept. 12 to 14, a defense spokesperson said on Friday. Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, said in a press release that this year's forum will focus on the theme of "promoting peace for a shared future." China has invited delegates from over 100 countries and international organizations, as well as security experts and scholars from home and abroad to attend the forum, said Zhang, adding that preparations for the event are currently underway. Initiated in 2006, the Beijing Xiangshan Forum is a high-level security and defense forum in Asia-Pacific with significant international influence. On 11 July Colombias government held a fifth round of peace talks with three factions of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), the largest grouping of dissident units of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group. End of preview - This article contains approximately 397 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options This week on Everyday Grammar, we answer a question from Kyosuke, a loyal reader in Japan, who asks: I have a question about the article "When Colleges Close, Some Students Never Go Back." It reads, It kind of just saps your motivation to do anything. I was not able to understand the structure and meaning of this sentence. What is the subject and what is the verb? Especially, I didn't realize (the meaning of) "it kind of just. The story Kyosuke read told about how the University of the Arts in Philadelphia closed suddenly. That affected a lot of students. One first-year student there was unsure of his next steps. He said he did not know where to start looking for another place to study. Let us look at the structure of the statement first. It kind of just saps your motivation to do anything. The subject is It -- a pronoun that refers to the school closing. The verb is sap which means to use up the supply of something. We often use it to talk about reducing energy or strength. Here is an example: Waiting in the long line at the store sapped my energy. In the students statement, the verb sap has a direct object motivation. He is saying that he has less desire now to apply to other schools. Qualifiers The next part of the statement is kind of. This phrase is in the group of words we call qualifiers. A qualifier is a word, usually an adjective or adverb, that changes the meaning of another word or phrase. Some qualifiers strengthen the force of a statement, like very and too. Others weaken the force, like somewhat and seem. In his statement, the student uses kind of just before the verb sap to show he is not firmly saying that the event has had this effect. We can say he is hedging. A hedge in language is often a way to express uncertainty or reduce the force of a statement. Kind of For example, if you do not want to stay at a party you might tell a friend: Im kind of tired, can we leave the party a little early? You are not saying you are very tired and need to leave immediately; you simply want to introduce the idea of leaving early. Using kind of is one way that speakers preserve their relationships with others. For example, a friend asks you if you like the band playing at an event. You might answer: Their music is okay, but its kind of loud for me. You might think the music is much too loud, or even bad, but if your friend likes it, you do not want to hurt their feelings. So, you can hedge, or protect their feelings, by using kind of. Just Another part of the statement our reader asked about is the word just. It is also a qualifier. Just can change the meaning of the words that follow. In such a case, it can mean nothing more than or only. For example, if you are at an event with a friend, they might ask: Why do you keep checking the time? Arent you enjoying the show? You might answer, I just dont want to miss the last bus. Its getting late. I hope this helps you understand the expression better, Kyosuke. Do you have a question about English Grammar? Write to us at learningenglish@voanews.com. And thats Everyday Grammar! Im Jill Robbins. Jill Robbins wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English. _______________________________________________ Words in This Story kind of adv. to a moderate degree; somewhat, more or less motivation n. a force or influence that causes someone to do something qualifier n. (grammar) a word (such as an adjective or adverb) or phrase that describes another word or group of words hedge v. to avoid giving a promise or direct answer Do you have a question about English grammar? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. American farmers are using an ancient tree from India to produce beans for making protein-rich foods and biofuels. The tree is called pongamia. It is native to India, Southeast Asia and Australia. But farmers in the southern state of Florida have found the tree grows well there too. In some parts of Florida, pongamia trees have now replaced citrus trees, which have long faced major struggles with disease. Pongamia trees produce a small brown bean known as a legume. The legume can be used in the production of several products, including cooking oil and protein-rich foods. The beans can also be used to produce a biofuel, mostly for airplanes. Pongamia do well in Florida because the trees like hot temperatures and can survive in dry or rainy conditions. They also do not require special additives, called fertilizers, or chemicals to kill insects and other life that might threaten growth. And unlike fruits like oranges and grapefruit, the beans do not require teams of workers to pick. Instead, they can be easily collected with a machine that shakes the trees and makes the legumes fall to the ground. A San Francisco-based company, called Terviva, has invented a process that removes substances from the bean that gives it a bad taste so it can be used for food production. The companys founder, Naveen Sikka, told The Associated Press that Terviva has been able to offer Florida farmers a new chance to replace their failed citrus crops. Pongamia, he said, is the perfect fit to help them rebuild their businesses. Ron Edwards is the chairman of Terviva's board of directors. He is also a long-time Florida citrus grower. He told the AP that turning this wild tree into an agricultural success story was not easy. There are no books to read on it, either, because no one else has ever done it, Edwards said. In addition, he said bees and other pollinators that feed on the trees flowers help support the local environment. Edwards added that an estimated one half hectare of the trees could provide the same amount of oil as about 1.6 hectares of soy beans. The pongamia bean also produces a high-quality protein that can be used to make many plant-based products. Theres a lot of potential for the food industry and the oil and petroleum industry, Edwards said. Experts say the problems linked to Floridas citrus crops disease and climate issues have also affected most of the worlds top citrus-producing nations. For example, this year's harvest in Brazil the worlds largest exporter of orange juice is expected to be the worst in 36 years. The Brazilian citrus group Fundecitrus made that prediction after a period of major flooding and then extended dryness. But Edwards noted that climate and disease have little effect on pongamia trees. Its just tough, a jungle-tested tree he said. It stands up to a lot of abuse with very little caretaking." Pongamia also grows well in Hawaii, where it is now being used on land where sugarcane once grew. John Olson is a Florida farmer who replaced his grapefruit trees with 87 hectares of pongamia. He told the AP he felt he had little choice because, For the most part, the citrus industry has died in Florida. Olson said his grapefruit business was a profitable operation throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although the farm was not large. Edwards said he is happy that pongamia trees have replaced some citrus trees in Florida. And he said he likes that pongamia oil can replace some oils that are more environmentally damaging to produce. Im Bryan Lynn. The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. ___________________________________________ Words in This Story citrus - n. a kind of fruit that includes oranges, lemons, grapefruits, etc. pollinate v. to carry pollen from a male part of a flower to the female part of another flower of the same kind petroleum n. a dark, thick oil that comes from the ground and is used to produce gasoline and other products tough adj. able to take great force jungle n. an impenetrable thicket or tangled mass of tropical vegetation Pieces of bones in a cave in the Tibetan highlands have given researchers new evidence of the mysterious human ancestors known as Denisovans. International researchers examined more than 2,500 bones found inside Baishiya Karst Cave. Most of the bones were from animals hunted by the Denisovans. The scientists studied proteins found in the bones to learn more about the Denisovans and the animals they depended on for food. Baishiya Karst Cave is at a high altitude, or height above sea level, of 3,280 meters in the Tibetan Plateau. The researchers discovered that the Denisovans hunted many different kinds of animals for food including sheep and a large, hairy animal called a woolly rhinoceros. The scientists published their findings this month in Nature. Animal resources Most of the bones were identified as belonging to blue sheep that still live in the Himalayan Mountains. Other animals included the woolly rhinos, yaks, small mammals such as marmots, birds and the spotted hyena, a dog-like creature that lived in an area called the Ganjia Basin. In the cave containing animal bones, the researchers also discovered a rib bone from a Denisovan individual believed to be from 48,000 to 32,000 years old. That would make it the most recent Denisovan remains yet discovered. The researchers believe the Denisovans killed the animals for their meat. There was evidence found on the bones suggesting the cutting, or butchering, of meat and processing of animal skins. There was also evidence of animal bone tools. Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, was one of the leaders of the research. He said, It is the first time we have gotten an understanding of the subsistence behaviors of Denisovans. Welker added that these human ancestors were able to use a wide range of animal resources. Dongju Zhang, an archeologist with Lanzhou University in China was another study leader. He said, I think the diverse animal remains found in Baishiya Karst Cave suggest that this location offered relatively better resources compared with the neighboring higher Tibetan Plateau to the west and the Chinese Loess Plateau to the north The Denisovans Scientists did not publish evidence of Denisovans until 2010, when research identified a bone that came from Denisova Cave in Russias Siberia area. Genetic examination showed that Denisovans were closely related to Neanderthals, other human ancestors who lived in Eurasia. Both groups are believed to have interacted a lot with Homo sapiens, or modern man, and are believed to have interbred with modern humans. Welker said, From genetics, we know they diverged from Neanderthals around 400,000 years ago. Denisovans are known only from remains found in three places. They are Denisova Cave, Cobra Cave in Laos and Baishiya Karst Cave in Tibet. The wide separation suggests they lived in many different areas. Zhang said their presence in such a wide area implies that Denisovans had high flexibility to adapt to different environments. Another bone found in Baishiya Karst Cave is a lower jaw bone of a young Denisovan. It is believed to be 160,000 years old. The researchers said they thought the human ancestors lived there as early as 200,000 years ago. But the piece of rib suggests their presence was more recent. We dont know if the rib was from an adult or a child, nor its genetic sex, said Welker. He added it was the first time a Denisovan rib has ever been discovered. Scientists say Homo sapiens did not populate the Tibetan Plateau until about 40,000 years ago and first appeared in Africa a little more than 300,000 years ago. But what happened to the Denisovans seems to be a mystery. We know so little, Welker noted, adding, We know that Denisovans interbred with modern humans. We know that based on some Denisovan DNA that is present in the genomes of some modern humans living today. He then said, But when, where and why Denisovans ultimately went extinct, that we dont know anything about. Im Mario Ritter, Jr. Will Dunham reported this story for Reuters. Mario Ritter, Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. ______________________________________________ Words in This Story anthropologist n. a scientist who studies human race, society and behavior subsistence adj. related to the most basic needs for life such as food, shelter, protection and social structure diverse adj. involving many different kinds of related or similar things interbreed v. when two different species have mate and have babies imply v. to suggest adapt v. to change behavior to better meet the demands of new conditions genome n. to whole group of genetic information of a living thing We want to hear from you. Our comment policy is here. The China Travel Service (CTS) has processed approximately 50 applications for the new visa cards that will allow non-Chinese nationals who are permanent residents of Macau to travel to the mainland for an extended period of up to 90 days. Applications started on Wednesday (July 10), and CTS claimed to have processed around 50 of those requests on the first day. According to the same source, 55% of the applications referred to residents who are Portuguese passport holders, while 40% are from people holding Canadian passports. The remaining 5% were from people holding different Asian passports including Malaysia, the Philippines, and other countries. The same entity is said to have received over 500 bookings for application procedures on the first day that will be distributed over different timeslots over the next month. The new travel permit is estimated to be applicable to approximately 19,500 individuals, which accounts for 2.7% of the total population, government data shows, as cited in multiple reports. In Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, the CTS office has established two specialized counters for handling applications, and the processing time for applications is anticipated to be 20 working days. According to Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, the initiative has garnered positive feedback, as online reservations are almost fully booked. Macaus gaming sector is likely to see a slowdown in EBITDA growth in June and July due to the mainlands crackdown on illegal money exchange operations in Macau, according to a recent forecast by Morgan Stanley. Chinas Ministry of Public Security has launched a major campaign to target money exchange gangs providing large-scale cash exchange and loan sharking services to mainland Chinese gamblers in Macau. These illicit activities have been facilitating the flow of funds out of China, which authorities view as a threat to financial stability. The crackdown has already yielded results, with police across China reporting successful operations that have uncovered millions in illegal exchange activities and the arrest of dozens of suspects. However, analysts warn that disrupting these unofficial currency exchange channels could potentially lead to a slowdown in mainland Chinese travel to Macaus gaming industry. Praveen K Choudhary, Gareth Leung, and Stephen W Grambling of Morgan Stanley project that the second quarter will see the first negative quarter-on-quarter growth in both mass gross gaming revenue (GGR) and corporate EBITDA since the post-Covid-19 reopening. Mass GGR is expected to decline 2% quarter-on-quarter, reaching 113% of 2019 levels, while corporate EBITDA is forecast to decrease 7% quarter-on-quarter, reaching 80% of pre-pandemic levels. The brokerage firm predicts that June and July will see a slowdown due to the money exchange crackdown, while weaker macroeconomic conditions, consumption, and retail sales in China could persist in the third quarter and further impact the Macau market. The analysts also anticipate that the fourth-quarter results will be negatively affected by the expected visit of Chinas President Xi Jinping to mark the 25th anniversary of Macaus handover to China. Nadia shaw * Tragic Detention A local couple is accused of unlawfully confining and manipulating their domestic helper, which tragically resulted in her suicide: PJ * Finance | Top banks honored for innovation and excellence * GBA VIEWS | Hengqins hotel sector boosted by new policy measures * The gaming sector is likely to see a slowdown in EBITDA growth due to the mainlands crackdown on illegal money exchange operations * Businessman Jorge Chiang announces Chief Executive election bid * Vendors abandoning public markets claim insufficient business DOWNLOAD PDF Friday, July 12, 2024 edition no. 4522 The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) is collaborating with Guangzhou Zoo to protect white-cheeked gibbons. This month, the white-cheeked gibbon from Seac Pai Van Park will be transferred to Guangzhou Zoo as part of efforts to conserve national rare wildlife. The gibbon is currently in quarantine, with keepers closely monitoring its well-being. White-cheeked gibbons are considered first-class protected animals in China and are listed under Appendix I of CITES. They live in groups in the wild, feeding on leaves, buds, and fruits. The gibbon at Seac Pai Van Park, known as Blackie, was abandoned there in 1995 and has since become a beloved member of the community. Blackie has been identified as having excellent genes, making it crucial for the protection of the national white-cheeked gibbon population. The relocation plan to Guangzhou Zoo is set for this month after negotiations, health checks, and quarantine procedures. Staff Reporter The Macau Institute for Corporate Social Responsibility in Greater China announced the launch of the All for 17, 17 for All 2024 Macau SDGs Photography Activity. The institute aimed to showcase the citys journey towards achieving the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the lens of local students. The objectives of this activity are clear: to promote the implementation and development of the SDGs in Macau, to encourage greater awareness of sustainability among the public, especially students, and to showcase the current sustainable development and social responsibility achievements of Macau. By capturing these achievements through the art of photography, the competition hopes to elevate social understanding and mutual support for sustainable development. To enter the competition, students are required to submit original photographs that visually represent any of the 17 SDGs. The images must be taken within Macaus borders and reflect the unique character of the city. Each entry must be accompanied by a short description, explaining how the photograph relates to the chosen SDG and its significance to the photographer. The competition will run until October. Outstanding photographic works will be exhibited in the institutes themed exhibition which is proposed to be launched by the end of 2024 at various public venues in Macau. Staff Reporter Over 2,700 Sands China team members are celebrating their 20-year, 15-year or 10-year company anniversaries in 2024, with Sands China honouring them recently at ceremonies at Sands Macao, The Venetian Macao, The Parisian Macao, and The Londoner Macao. Among them were more than 1,200 founding team members who joined the company before May 18, 2004, when Sands Macao was opened. They celebrated their milestones at dedicated recognition ceremonies at Sands China properties in April and May. They were personally recognised by Sands China Ltd. Executive Vice Chairman Dr. Wilfred Wong and Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director Grant Chum at the ceremonies, where they extended Sands Chinas gratitude for their loyalty and continuous contributions to the development of the company. With Sands Macao celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, it is the perfect time to recognise our founding team members, without whom Sands Macao could not have become the instant success that it was, said Dr. Wong. Whats more, those founding team members have shown incredible loyalty and dedication in helping the company to grow into what it is today, all the while witnessing their own professional development within the company. Many of them have taken a journey from front-of-house team members to executive leadership positions today. We are incredibly proud of them and grateful for their invaluable contributions to the success of Sands China and the development of Macao into a world centre of tourism and leisure. At the celebration for the founding team members, they were presented with a founders card, entitling them to lifelong Sands China benefits, alongside other commemorative gifts. By the end of 2024, over 15,000 team members will have served Sands China for 10 years or more; among them, more than 6,600 and 1,500 will have worked at the company for more than 15 and 20 years, respectively. Meanwhile, the percentage of local residents on Sands Chinas management team has witnessed significant growth over the years, soaring from 20 percent in 2004 to 92 percent currently. Female team members account for 46 percent of the entire management team. Flash Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Thursday rejected the claim by leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that Tehran was providing Moscow with military support in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He made the remarks in a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, reacting to part of a joint declaration issued at the end of a summit of NATO states' leaders in Washington on Wednesday. NATO accused Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea of "providing direct military support" to Russia in the war with Ukraine, thus fueling the conflict. Kanaani said Iran considered the claim to be "completely baseless and politically motivated" and rejected any bid to link the war in Ukraine to cooperation between Iran and Russia. Kanaani stressed Iran's commitment to helping ensure sustainable stability and security in the region and around the world, reiterating that Iran had never supplied Russia with any drone for use against Ukraine. He added Iran still insisted upon the political resolution of the Ukraine crisis and the establishment of lasting peace. Ukraine, as well as some Western countries, have accused Iran of exporting suicide drones and other arms to Russia for use in the ongoing conflict with Ukraine. Iran has repeatedly rejected the accusations as "baseless," saying it had only given "a limited number" of drones to Russia months before the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Judiciary Police (PJ) has reported a troubling case involving the alleged unlawful detention and manipulation of a victim, resulting in her tragic death. The investigation has led to the arrest of two suspects who are now facing serious criminal charges. According to the police investigator spokesman, the incident took place on April 29 in the Areia Preta area. The victim, a non-resident worker, was allegedly held captive and mentally tormented by two suspects. The suspects are a 36-year-old female, who is a police officer from the Public Security Police and a 34-year-old male. The investigation revealed that the couple believed the victim, who was their domestic helper, had stolen MOP60,000 from them. They proceeded to confront the victim when she returned home, confiscating her passport and mobile phone to prevent her from leaving. Under hours of relentless pressure, the victim eventually admitted to the alleged theft. The two defendants, in order to prevent the victim from leaving, kept the victims mobile phone and passport. The couple used a transparent tape to tie up the victims hands and interrogated her from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. the next day, demanding she tell them how to solve the issue. Tragically, the situation took a distressing turn when the victim sought refuge in the bathroom, where she resorted to self-harm by cutting her fingers and eventually, unable to withstand the intense pressure, took her own life by jumping out of the bathroom window. The suspects, instead of immediately notifying the authorities, deliberately concealed the true nature of the incident, claiming the victims suicide was related to the alleged theft. The two defendants did resort to appropriate means to call the police, the Chief Investigation Officer of the PJ stated. Instead, they withheld the victims passport, mobile phone, and tied up the victims hands to prevent her from escaping. They also interrogated her for an extended time period, pushing her to suicide. The police have arrested the two suspects and charged them with a series of serious offenses, including the unlawful detention of the victim and their involvement in her death. In accordance with Article 238 of the Criminal Procedure Act, authorities strongly urge all individuals to refrain from taking the law into their own hands and unlawfully detaining suspects. Victoria Chan For six years, Steve Decker has thought of himself as a UW-Milwaukee faculty member. Decker, a professor of communication and theater arts who spent two decades teaching at Universities of Wisconsin branch campuses and earned tenure there, was a one-man show at UW-Milwaukee at Waukesha County when that branch merged with UW-Milwaukee in 2018. During the merger, UW-Milwaukees theatre department asked him to teach at the main campus. Decker was granted a split appointment, spending half of his time at UW-Milwaukee and half in Waukesha. His Waukesha campus roots, though, put Decker in a different category from his Milwaukee co-workers and now, as a result, he and his branch campus colleagues may lose tenure, the job security they thought theyd earned. Decker was based in the College of General Studies, the academic unit that oversaw academics at UW-Milwaukees two branch campuses, in Washington and Waukesha counties. Now, for the first time, the UW system is turning to a decade-old faculty layoff policy that expands the circumstances under which tenured faculty can be laid off and outlines the process for doing it. With Milwaukees branch campuses closing, the UW system is eliminating the College of General Studies and putting Decker and about three dozen UW-Milwaukee tenured faculty at risk of being laid off. Even though I clearly am wanted, and it would make sense to have me go over (to the main UW-Milwaukee campus), I dont know whats going to happen as far as that goes, Decker said. It might help my eventual appeal process of saying, Wait, Ive got this relationship here for six years. It really doesnt change nearly as much as you think it would if I went over there full time. Rule change Faculty tenure used to be enshrined in state law, and that law prevented faculty from being laid off for reasons other than just cause, and only after due process and a hearing. In 2015, however, under then-Gov. Scott Walker, tenure was taken out of state law, and the UW Board of Regents now sets tenure policy. Under the regents policy, faculty can be laid off in times of financial emergency or because of program discontinuation. Thats specifically impacting UW-Milwaukees branch campuses and not the other branch campuses facing closure because when the UW system put branch campuses under the purview of the four-year institutions in 2018, Milwaukees branch campuses were integrated with the main campus in a different way from the others. In March, UW-Milwaukee announced it would shutter the College of General Studies as part of the closure of the Waukesha branch campus in summer 2025, in favor of letting Waukesha County Technical College supply liberal arts transfer degrees in the county. UW-Milwaukee plans to have a small footprint on the WCTC campus and has strengthened direct admissions agreements with nearby technical colleges. The UW system closed the Washington County campus whose faculty are also a part of the College of General Studies in West Bend this summer. Therefore, UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone said, the college is no longer needed and its tenured faculty would be laid off. Were operating in the UW system today with a mandate to balance our budget. And as we look at that, and we look at the types of subsidies, the types of support that we need, in our two-year campus, its pretty clear that it was going to be difficult to continue, Mone said during a news conference on the closure in March. On July 3, Mone announced his plans to step down as chancellor at the end of the next academic year and return to the faculty ranks. A final vote The UW Board of Regents will make the final decision on laying off the tenured faculty in late August. Between now and then, UW-Milwaukees Faculty Senate will vote on Mones proposal to lay off the faculty; should the Faculty Senate vote no, Mone will need to justify his reasons for pressing forward to the regents. At the same time as tenure was removed from state law, the decision-making power once held by campus shared governance groups was thrown out, making institutional boards such as faculty senates and student governments purely advisory and giving UW system chancellors and the UW Board of Regents the final say. Critics of Mones layoffs proposal, many of whom are faculty or branch campus students, say UW-Milwaukees interpretation of the layoff policy is incorrect. While regent policy authorizes tenure layoffs if a program is eliminated, critics say the college isnt itself a program just because a physical location is closed or changed doesnt mean the academic unit must close with it. The result has been this attempt to find a policy justification for laying off tenured faculty, said Tait Szabo, a philosophy professor who has taught at the Washington County campus since 2008. The administration has sometimes used the right language: Were very sorry, significant headwinds, difficult choices, all those buzzwords, very politician-like, but then the process has just been to cram it into policy in a way that, frankly, I dont think actually works. Why Milwaukee is different Tenured faculty at the Washington and Waukesha county branch campuses are in a more precarious position in part because of the way UW-Milwaukee integrated the campuses. Three years after tenure was removed from state law, the UW system paired its then-13 two-year branch campuses with nearby four-year universities as a way to prop them up after a 2015 consolidation couldnt stem losses from declining enrollment and stagnant or reduced state aid. Most of the branch campuses were paired with UW system comprehensive schools; Washington and Waukesha counties were tied to UW-Milwaukee. It presented a quandary for UW-Milwaukee the other receiving universities didnt have: Because Milwaukee is an R1 research university, faculty there are required to conduct and publish more research to receive tenure, resulting in fewer teaching responsibilities. At the UW systems other 11 four-year schools and branch campuses, the inverse is true: More time is spent teaching to earn tenure. Schools such as UW-Platteville and UW-Oshkosh absorbed branch campus faculty into main campus departments. But at Milwaukee, it was feared that integrating the Washington County and Waukesha County faculty into main campus departments would damage their careers, Faculty Senate Chair Kathy Dolan said. If we integrated those faculty into main campus departments, we would have two very different profiles for what a faculty member job was, and it would be very hard for branch campus faculty to meet the expectations and the requirements for tenure, or to meet the expectations for promotion to full professor, Dolan said. We really saw it as putting them at a disadvantage, because they were going to be held to a significantly higher standard of expectation than they had been on their campuses. Financial woes Now, bringing the branch campus faculty into the Milwaukee campuss College of Letters and Science, where most of the matching departments are housed, would cause significant strain for the college, Dolan said. As enrollment has declined by 22.5% in the past decade across the entire university, its hit the College of Letters and Science hard. The college has been spending more than its been bringing in for years and expects to do that again in the coming year before it can stabilize its budget. In the past 15 years, the college has lost between 75 and 80 faculty members to attrition, as people left or retired and were not replaced, Dolan said. Instructional academic staff, who teach but do not have the protections of tenure, have been cut, as have summer classes and travel funds. We have cut all different kinds of things because the campus rightly says you cant run a deficit forever, she said. So, for the College of Letters and Science to have to take on 36 new faculty would be almost impossible for the budget ... its just a terrible and impossible situation. Its all driven by enrollment declines and financial limitations, and its not fundamentally different than what were seeing around the (UW) system. But thats a frustrating justification for the branch campus faculty. The cost of wages and benefits for branch campus faculty, about $9.4 million, make up 2.5% of all of UW-Milwaukees current $371 million salary and benefits budget line, according to data shared by Anne Widmayer, an English professor who taught at the Washington County campus. Of UW-Milwaukees entire $635 million budget, branch faculty wages make up 1.4%. At a University Committee meeting where administrators shared their financial justification for eliminating faculty, Widmayer said, Most of the discussion was about how terrible UW-Milwaukees finances are and how they couldnt possibly have taken on any more. It sounded like if we dont get rid of (College of General Studies), this is the beginning of the end for UW-Milwaukee, she said. You know, its just not that much money. A threat to tenure When tenure was removed from state law, critics then warned it was a threat to tenure for all UW system campuses. The critics of UW-Milwaukees faculty cuts say the same now. Widmayer, who will teach at the Waukesha campus this year now that Washington County has closed, said that laying off branch campus faculty would hollow out tenure protections across the UW system, both for other branch campuses and main campuses. Itll especially hurt UW-Milwaukee, she fears, which will gain a reputation for taking away tenure. If faculty tenure at (UW-Milwaukee) is so tenuous, what do you think will happen at other UW four-year institutions? Widmayer wrote in public comment to the Faculty Senate in late May. Will Wisconsin ever again be able to hire the best and the brightest for tenure-track positions when tenure in fact means nothing? ROCHESTER Engineers are working to control and repair a sinkhole that is disrupting traffic on a county highway that was rebuilt last year. Racine County highway officials said shifting earth below County Highway D has caused pavement to sink and crack on the two-lane road on Rochesters west side. Officials have lowered the speed limit and patched the pavement for the safety of 2,300 motorists a day on average who use the east-west road, known locally as Main Street and as Washington Avenue outside Rochester. But it could take several more months before engineers are certain the earth has stopped shifting, allowing crews to feel comfortable about attempting to make permanent repairs. County Highway and Parks Superintendent Patrice Brunette said county and state officials are hoping to have the situation resolved by this fall. Were just waiting to see what happens, she said. The sinkhole developed after the Wisconsin Department of Transportation completed a reconstruction project on Highway D between State Street and Heritage Road west of the village. Crews attempted to raise the roadbed in a marshy area. But after their work was done, the pavement failed and started to sink, as the earth settled beneath the weight of the rebuilt highway. According to a report from the county, Geotechnical investigation and testing revealed compressible soils far beneath the original roadbed that were not identified in design. Chris Verhyen, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said state officials have been working with the county since reconstruction of Highway D was completed last fall. Verhyen said the pavement conditions seem unchanged in recent weeks. Monitoring and discussions are ongoing, he said. The problem most noticeable from the uneven pavement is just west of State Street, and is worse in the westbound lanes than the eastbound lanes. The speed limit has been lowered temporarily from 35 mph to 25 mph. Rochester Village Administrator Chris Bennett said village officials have fielded many questions from motorists who have encountered the sinkhole while traveling on Highway D. Its pretty unsettling when you drive over it, he said. Its an unfortunate situation. No traffic accidents or injuries have been reported. The village has been in contact with county highway officials, and Bennett expressed confidence in the countys ability to handle the situation. The village also published a newsletter explaining to residents how the problem relates to last years highway reconstruction job. Youd like to think that construction always goes right, Bennett said. But it doesnt. County officials are getting help from state transportation engineers to analyze the sinkhole and to develop a strategy for fixing it. Brunette said she is uncertain whether the state will pay for the repairs. The rebuilding of Highway D last year cost about $2.9 million. State construction crews could have identified the potential for a sinkhole in a perfect world, Brunette said, but the county is not looking to assign blame for the situation. I dont think anyone saw this coming, she said. Its just that Mother Nature had a different plan. South African authorities have arrested a Vietnamese man accused of attempting to illegally sell lions, an anti-wildlife trafficking group said on Thursday. Huu Tao Nguyen, 53, was arrested with another man identified by police as Nico Scoltz, 32. - Advertisement - Police said the duo were arrested during an undercover sting operation that followed a tip-off that an Asian man was illegally selling lions. The Netherlands-based Wildlife Justice Commission, a foundation helping law enforcement agencies fight wildlife trafficking, said Nguyen offered to sell six of the big cats to undercover agents. He introduced the detectives to Scoltz, who took them to a farm where the animals were kept. After the transaction was completed, the men were arrested, police said. A firearm and 50 rounds of ammunition were found inside their vehicle. They appeared in court this week facing charges including contravening biodiversity laws. Vietnam is a transport hub for illegal wildlife. Wildlife Justice Commissions executive director Olivia Swaak-Goldman described the arrests as significant. It is an important result as South Africa moves towards closing down commercial lion farms and taking action against criminal activities connected to these facilities, she said on Thursday. In April, South Africa laid out plans to phase out the captive breeding of lions for hunting purposes as it moves to ban the controversial business. Breeders will have two years to voluntarily withdraw from the sector and change their business model before the ban kicks in. Between 8,000 and 12,000 lions are kept on about 350 farms across South Africa, according to estimates by animal rights groups that regularly denounce the conditions in which the animals are held. The number of wild lions in comparison totals only around 3,500, according to the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a South Africa-based NGO. MIAMI Hungarys nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban jetted off to Florida on Thursday (Friday Manila time) to meet with former US president Donald Trump after the end of the NATO summit in Washington. The sit-down at Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate is likely to further upset Budapests allies after Orban drew widespread ire from European counterparts for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. - Advertisement - Right-wing Orban, whose country took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and last met the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful in March. We discussed ways to make peace, Orban said in a post on social media Thursday evening with a picture of the two leaders meeting. The good news of the day: hes going to solve it! The post did not elaborate further. Orban sparked uproar in the EU by jetting to Moscow to hold talks with Putin on what the Hungarian leader described as a peace mission over the war in Ukraine. His Russia visit followed a trip to Kyiv for talks with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The 27-nation EU bloc has condemned Russias invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow. Viktor Orban has no mandate from the alliance, nor from the European Union, to conduct any form of negotiations, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the NATO summit. He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose. Speaking to reporters Thursday, US President Joe Biden, set to face Trump in November, said that I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now theres not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior. Orban, like Trump, has expressed skepticism about the role NATO countries are playing in support of Ukraine, and refuses to send Kyiv weapons saying it would fuel the conflict. His meeting with Trump, who has been critical of the central role played by the United States in NATO, came after Biden sought to rally the alliance at the Washington summit. The president was also seeking to reassure NATO counterparts and US voters about his leadership and fitness for office in the wake of a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate last month rekindled concerns about his age. Biden is 81, Trump 78. Flash People are seen on a street with destroyed buildings in the Shujaiya neighborhood in east of Gaza City, on July 11, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] More than 60 bodies were recovered from the rubble in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya after a prolonged Israeli ground offensive, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported on Thursday. Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have destroyed more than 85 percent of residential buildings in Shujaiya, rendering the area uninhabitable, WAFA said. "Entire residential blocks have been leveled, streets obliterated, and critical infrastructure targeted throughout the area," the report said. Meanwhile, the Israeli forces continued their incursion into Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and several others in Gaza City, it added. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Wednesday that the Israeli troops completed their mission in the Shujaiya area, which lasted approximately two weeks. On the last day of the operations, Israeli soldiers destroyed several underground tunnel routes and found weapons, laptops and communication equipment inside the tunnels, according to the statement. The IDF said it conducted the operations upon intelligence reports indicating the presence of "terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" in the area, adding that it took several steps before the strike to "mitigate harm to civilians." Israel has been conducting 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. During the past 24 hours, the Israeli military killed 50 people and wounded 54 others across the enclave, bringing the total death toll to 38,345 and injuries to 88,295 since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out in early October 2023, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Thursday. Burkina Fasos military government has announced plans to ban homosexual acts, joining a growing list of African nations tightening restrictions on LGBTQ rights. The decision marks a significant shift for the country, where same-sex relations were previously not criminalized. Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala revealed that the juntas cabinet has approved legislation to make homosexuality a punishable offense, though specific penalties were not disclosed. This move is part of a broader overhaul of marriage laws, which now only recognize religious and customary unions. The proposed law still requires approval from the military-controlled parliament and the junta leaders signature. Burkina Faso, previously one of 22 African states without laws against homosexuality, has seen a pivot towards Russia since the military takeover in 2022. This development aligns with a wider trend across Africa, where several countries have recently adopted or strengthened anti-LGBTQ legislation. Notable examples include Ugandas harsh new law and Ghanas pending bill imposing prison sentences for LGBTQ identification. International reactions to such laws have been swift, with Western nations and financial institutions threatening or implementing sanctions and funding cuts. As Burkina Faso moves forward with this legislation, it may face similar economic and diplomatic pressures from the international community. Human rights activists in Uganda have filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, contesting a lower courts decision to uphold the countrys controversial Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA). The appeal follows an April ruling by the constitutional court that largely maintained the law, only striking down a few sections deemed inconsistent with rights to health, privacy, and religious freedom. The petitioners, including a lawmaker and prominent LGBTQ rights campaigner Frank Mugisha, argue that the constitutional court erred in dismissing their claim that the law violates human dignity and protection from inhuman treatment. They seek an expedited hearing, hoping for a swift resolution to the case. The AHA imposes severe penalties, including life imprisonment for same-sex intercourse and the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality. It also criminalizes the promotion of homosexuality with up to 20 years in prison. Since the laws enactment, rights groups have reported over 1,000 cases of violations against sexual minorities, including arrests, torture, and evictions. The legislation has drawn international condemnation, with the United States imposing sanctions and the World Bank halting new loans to Uganda. As the appeal moves forward, the LGBTQ community and their allies anxiously await the Supreme Courts decision, which could have far-reaching implications for human rights in Uganda. Representatives from Sudans warring factions have arrived in Geneva for UN-mediated discussions on potential local ceasefires to protect civilians. The talks, involving the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), faced an early setback as one delegation failed to attend the first session. The conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has had devastating consequences. Over 14,000 people have been killed, 33,000 injured, and more than 11 million displaced. The crisis has created the worlds largest displacement emergency, with warnings of impending famine for 755,000 individuals. Previous negotiations in Jeddah collapsed late last year, prompting this renewed UN effort. The current talks aim to identify avenues for implementing humanitarian measures and protecting civilians through localized ceasefires, as mandated by the Security Council. The UN has taken a low-key approach to these discussions, hoping to provide space for progress without raising expectations. Despite the initial hiccup, both parties have been invited to continue talks, with the UN urging constructive engagement for the sake of the Sudanese people. As the humanitarian situation in Sudan continues to deteriorate, the outcome of these Geneva talks could be crucial in alleviating the suffering of millions and paving the way for a broader peace process. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.026 As we age, our immune systems start to flag, leaving us more susceptible to cancer and infectionsand less responsive to vaccines and cancer immunotherapies. Going to the heart of the problem, Jonathan Kagan, Ph.D., a researcher in immunology at Boston Children's Hospital, has identified a way to rejuvenate the elderly immune system. His team's findings, published in the journal Cell, could lead to stronger vaccine adjuvants to help fight cancer and infectious diseases in older people. Mobilizing dendritic cells For our immune systems to effectively defend against cancer or infections, certain key things need to happen. Dendritic cells, also known as antigen-presenting cells, are first responders: They take a snapshot of the invader, travel to the lymph nodes, and show T cells the snapshot. T cells then rally: CD4 T cells activate other types of immune cells, while CD8 T cells fight invaders directly. However, with age, dendritic cells lose their ability to migrate, so T cells never receive their intelligence. "When dendritic cells can't migrate, it's like having a house invader and having no phone to call the cops," Kagan says. On top of that, older people also make fewer T cells, in particular fewer killer CD8 T cells. Using an elderly mouse model of cancer, Kagan's team turned to hyperactivators, naturally-occurring fatty molecules found in inflamed tissue that stimulate immune responses. Could some of these responses be useful for immunization? "We've investigated hyperactivators for quite a while," Kagan says. "We began isolating them in 2014 or 2015 and asked how they behave when added to dendritic cells." When the team gave hyperactivators to elderly mice, dendritic cells did indeed migrate to the lymph nodesat more than 250 times the rate seen with commercially available vaccine adjuvants like alum and LPS. Reviving tumor-killing ability Although CD8 T cells were largely depleted in elderly mice, the hyperactivated dendritic cellssomewhat surprisinglywere able to induce CD4 T cells, which acquired long-lasting killer functions and were able to eradicate implanted tumors. In contrast, checkpoint inhibitorsa common type of cancer immunotherapydid not protect elderly mice. Kagan is further investigating how the hyperactivators mobilize dendritic cells and broader immune responses. In this study, the compounds increased numbers of a receptor called CCR7 on dendritic cells. "CCR7 senses chemokines produced in the lymph nodes," Kagan explains. "Without the receptor, dendritic cells can't see the signals to migrate." Compounds in development Boston Children's has filed patent applications on Kagan's work and licensed them to Corner Therapeutics, co-founded by Kagan in 2019. (Kagan currently serves as an advisor and board member.) The company is focused on developing proprietary versions of the hyperactivators that can be used clinically. In the lab, Kagan now wants to demonstrate that hyperactivators are effective in more human-like cancer models, as well as in infectious diseasesstarting with influenza. His ultimate goal is to create cancer vaccines as well as next-generation infectious disease vaccines that mobilize dendritic cells. "The last 10 years have been the age of T cell-targeting therapies," he says. "But because T cells are diminishing with age, these therapies lose their usefulness as people get older. We need to diversify the targets of immunotherapies." More information: Dania Zhivaki et al, Correction of age-associated defects in dendritic cells enables CD4+ T cells to eradicate tumors, Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.026 Journal information: Cell 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: Seventeen women in nine states have fallen ill after getting fake Botox shots, with 13 of them landing in the hospital and one requiring a ventilator, a new report warns. In the report, published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers provided alarming details of patients getting injections outside of a medical setting and then falling ill a few days later. In one instance, four women attended a gathering at a relative's home in Tennessee to get Botox injected into their faces to smooth fine lines and wrinkles about three days before their symptoms began. An investigation later showed the injected product was counterfeit and was administered by a person who was not licensed to do so. "In some cases, providers were concerned about patients' breathing to the point where they were admitting them to intensive care units to be able to monitor them more closely," report author Dr. Christine Thomas, a medical director at the Tennessee Department of Health, told NBC News. She called the situation a "perfect storm." "We were seeing the injections happening in homes from people who weren't licensed, and there was counterfeit product," Thomas said. One of the most frightening cases detailed in the NBC News report involved a Colorado woman who got what she thought was Botox. Her vision soon blurred, and she became unusually weak. Nine days went by before she was hospitalized with trouble swallowing and breathing, and doctors had to intubate her and put her on a ventilator to help her breathe. They had no idea what was wrong with her until a relative mentioned the woman had recently received Botox injections. That likely saved her life, Grace Nelson, a disease intervention supervisor at the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment who helped lead that investigation, told NBC News. The family information prompted Nelson's team to give the woman botulinum antitoxin, to prevent the poison from causing further damage. Even so, the woman was hospitalized for more than two weeks and needed further rehabilitation, Nelson added. Fake Botox is not a new problem, George Karavetsos, former director of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, told NBC News. "Counterfeit Botox has been in the U.S. supply chain for at least 20 years," Karavetsos said. "I have personally investigated and prosecuted cases of people who were either importing counterfeit Botox or formulating their own version of counterfeit Botox here in the U.S. to sell to the domestic market, to med spas and other clinicians." Efforts to catch people responsible for the tainted products in other countries have been largely unsuccessful, Karavetsos added. Still, there are several ways to spot risky situations, experts said. Thomas noted her team found misspellings on the counterfeit bottles. And according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the outer carton on counterfeit Botox products: Displays the active ingredient as "Botulinum Toxin Type A" instead of "OnabotulinumtoxinA." Indicates 150-unit doses, which is not a unit made by AbbVie or its subsidiary, Allergan Aesthetics. Is printed in a language other than English. If you do decide to get Botox, have it done in a medical setting by a licensed provider. Thomas recommended making sure providers are licensed appropriately ahead of time. Don't be fooled by appearances: "People go in and see a person wearing a white coat. They see what purports to be professionals administering Botox. They're unwitting victims," Karavetsos said. Pricing can be a big clue: One of the women treated in Tennessee "reported paying less for their injections than we know botulinum toxin costs," Thomas said. The average price for Botox is about $15 a unit, so a reasonable charge would be $12 to $25 per unit, Dr. Kate Dee, a Seattle physician and spa founder, told NBC News. More information: Christine M. Thomas et al, Notes from the Field: Illnesses After Administration of Presumed Counterfeit Botulinum Toxin in Nonmedical SettingsTennessee and New York City, March 2024, MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (2024). DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7327a3 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: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods have significantly higher activity of stress-related genes, new research suggests, which could contribute to higher rates of aggressive prostate cancer in African American men. The study, which was co-led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), was published in JAMA Network Open. African American men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer and are more than twice as likely to die from the disease than white men in the U.S. They are often diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and at an earlier age, but the reasons are not well understood. "Our findings suggest an impact of living in disadvantaged neighborhoodswhich more commonly affects African Americanson stress-related genetic pathways in the body. We believe this may increase an individual's risk of aggressive prostate cancer and contribute to prostate cancer disparities by race," said the senior author, Kathryn Hughes Barry, Ph.D., MPH, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at UMSOM and a cancer epidemiology researcher at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. The study found that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with significantly higher activity, or expression, of stress-related genes. Experiencing extreme hardships or trauma can affect how much the genes in our DNA are expressed, setting off a cascade of events that can give rise to cancer or other negative health consequences. Five genes that had higher expression in this study are related to inflammation, which is relevant to prostate cancer, among other health conditions. Increased inflammation has been linked with a higher chance of developing prostate cancer or a higher likelihood that the cancer will progress in men who have the disease. The gene with the strongest link was HTR6, part of the serotonin pathway, which helps carry messages between the brain and other parts of the body. HTR6 also contributes to other pathways that are thought to help regulate the body's immune response, and various HTR genes have been linked with lethal prostate cancer. Dr. Barry said this observational study, which analyzed 105 stress-related genes from more than 200 African American and white men with prostate cancer, is among the first to suggest a possible link between neighborhood socioeconomic factors and RNA expression in prostate tumors. RNA (ribonucleic acid) comes from DNA and is involved in producing proteins that help the cell function. "We need to conduct larger studies to investigate the interrelationships of different neighborhood factors, individual-level factors, tumor biology, tumor aggressiveness, and patient outcomes to help inform interventions to reduce prostate cancer disparities," Dr. Barry said. She and her colleagues plan a broader follow-up study that would include data from patients in other regions of the U.S. Dr. Barry said that the levels of RNA produced by genes can change in response to various environmental factors. "An individual's RNA levels can change in response to stress, and we and others hypothesize that resulting biologic effects, such as increased inflammation, may contribute to increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer," she said. Joseph Boyle, Ph.D., the study's first author who is a postdoctoral research fellow and biostatistician at the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center at VCU, added, "The findings from our study support and build on existing research on the emerging importance of neighborhood factors and chronic stress to better understand aggressive prostate cancer and persistent racial disparities." David C. Wheeler, Ph.D., MS, MPH, Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at VCU and a biostatistician at the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, was co-senior author of this study. The research team analyzed tumor tissue from 218 men with prostate cancer who underwent radical prostatectomy surgery to remove their prostate at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) from 19922021. Of these, 168, or 77%, reported their race as African American and the remaining 50 patients reported their race as white. Researchers evaluated neighborhoods where patients lived at the time of their diagnosis, relying on two indexes that measured neighborhood deprivation, taking into account income, education, employment and housing quality. They also looked at racial segregation and historical redlining in which certain neighborhoods were systematically denied mortgage applications or refinancing, often based on race. While historical redlining occurred in the 1930s, such racist housing policies have led to long-term disinvestment and disadvantage that have been linked with worse health outcomes, including cancer outcomes, in the present day. Supporting the long-term impact of such policies, the current study observed that neighborhoods in the Baltimore area that were formerly redlined also tended to have higher disadvantage today. Consistent with previous research, the current study also found that African American participants were more likely to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods than their white counterparts. Higher degrees of disadvantage occurred in Baltimore City compared with the rest of Maryland. Within Baltimore, higher disadvantage occurred in the central and western areas of the city. "The research reveals a complex interplay between environment and genes, which is becoming increasingly important in the study of cancer health disparities," said Mark T. Gladwin, MD, who is the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean of UMSOM, and Vice President for Medical Affairs at University of Maryland, Baltimore. "It provides support for a potentially harmful effect of living in economically disadvantaged communities on stress-related genetic signaling pathways, such as the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity, and underscores the importance of developing interventions to improve the health and well-being of our minority populations." More information: Neighborhood Disadvantage and Prostate Tumor RNA Expression of Stress-Related Genes, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.21903 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: Study design. Credit: Nature Cancer (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43018-024-00787-0 Combining the principles of evolution with artificial intelligence (AI), scientists have proposed a new way to predict the chance of prostate cancer returning. In a recent study, they harnessed computational methods to capture specific tumor measurements relating to the tumor's ability to change over time. They then showed that these measurements correlate with disease recurrence more than a decade after the initial diagnosis. This approach could help clinicians systematically categorize patients according to their risk of disease recurrence. Based on this, they may be able to determine which patients only need localized treatmenttypically radiotherapy, often alongside hormone therapy, or surgeryand which should receive additional treatment. The study, led by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, could ultimately help clinicians better personalize treatment for prostate cancer. The findings have been published in Nature Cancer. This work also uniquely combined certain tumor measurements in an evolutionary way, further validating the application of an evolutionary biology model to cancer. Scientists at the Center for Evolution and Cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) are at the forefront of cancer evolution research, which they are confident will lead to new effective treatments for multiple types of cancer. Addressing the lack of predictive markers in prostate cancer It is particularly difficult to predict outcomes in prostate cancer because the disease has extensive heterogeneity, meaning that there are significant differences between the cancerous cellsboth within each tumor and across patients. In addition, cancer often develops at more than one site within the prostate, producing two or more tumors in proximity. As a result, it is often difficult for clinicians to determine the best treatments for their patients. In some cases, clinicians can adopt a "watch-and-wait" approach, sparing a person from the side effects of treatment while it is not necessary. However, this strategy could prove fatal for people with aggressive cancer or cancer that is more likely to recur. Although other studies have evaluated the use of tumor measurements to predict outcomes, these used limited numbers of patient samples, only considered early-stage disease and were often not carried out in a clinical trial setting. In addition, they primarily included patients who had already undergone surgery to remove the cancer. Believing that treatment decisions should be made ahead of surgery instead, the team behind the new study set out to find a new way to predict tumor progression in people diagnosed with high-risk locally advanced prostate cancer. Identifying new measurements The researchers used a form of AI called machine learning to analyze a total of 1,923 samples from 250 participants on the IMRT (intensity modulated radiotherapy) clinical trial, with a focus on the spatial tissue structure. They also used a purpose-built AI technique to perform Gleason gradinga scoring system that grades cancerous tissue from one to five based on the pattern of its cells. Cancerous cells that look very similar to healthy cells are assigned grade 1 while those that look significantly different are assigned grade 5. At the same time, the researchers assessed the genetic differences between the cells within individual tumors, using 642 samples from 114 participants in radiotherapy trials at The Royal Marsden. These samples overlapped with the first set, providing the team with integrated information about the cells' genomics and morphology, as well as the patients' outcomes over more than a decade. The researchers found genetic divergence and AI-measured morphological diversity (the difference in the shape, size and structure of the cells) to be indicative of the tumor's ability to evolve, which allows the disease to adapt and survive. They measured this diversity by looking at the extent of the differences between cells in different areas of the tumor, known as intra-tumor heterogeneity. The findings showed that this "evolvability" was a strong predictor of recurrence, with the combination of the two measurements identifying a subgroup of patients who experienced disease recurrence in half the length of time compared with the rest of the patients. The team was also able to identify a correlation between the loss of a specific chromosome and a reduced presence of immune cells in the tumor, which may affect its response to certain treatments. This additional information could further support better treatment decisions. The next step is for the researchers to test their evolution-based measurements of recurrence risk in a larger group of people with a broader range of disease characteristics. They will also need to factor in external factors, such as hormone levels. 'New methods such as ours are urgently needed' Joint first author Dr. George Cresswell, who was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Genomics and Evolutionary Dynamics group at the ICR when the research was carried out, is now Principal Investigator at St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute in Vienna, Austria. Cresswell said, "We are pleased to have found new measurements that can be taken from standard prostate cancer biopsies to predict the risk of recurrence in people with prostate cancer. Doctors don't currently have specific enough ways to measure which patients have the lowest and highest risk of their cancer returning, meaning new methods such as ours are urgently needed. "Our work has also demonstrated the combined potential of evolutionary genomics and artificial intelligence to enhance our study of cancer tissues when we apply it in the context of clinical trials. We hope that this approach will accelerate our progress towards using evolutionary biomarkers in clinical practice for both prostate cancer and other types of cancer." Joint senior author Professor David Dearnaley, Emeritus Professor at the ICR and retired Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden, said, "This study shows the power of a combined approach in which we assess both genomics and spatial morphology. "We believe that our findings will make it possible to identify the patients with high-risk localized cancer who are most likely to benefit from early treatment with life-extending medications. Until now, we've not been able to separate out the patients who have the very highest risk of recurrence, but our novel analyses could change this by significantly improving our ability to predict whether cancer will return." The other senior author, Professor Andrea Sottoriva, Professor of Cancer Genomics and Evolution at the ICR at the time of the research and now Head of the Computational Biology Research Center at Human Technopole in Milan, Italy, said, "It's exciting that we have taken new measurements with innovative evolutionary interpretations that have never been shown before. "As well as producing better prognostic biomarkers for prostate cancer, our study serves as additional evidence that the evolutionary biology paradigm applied to cancer has a remarkable predictive power. "By applying a computational approach to multiple datasets, we have been able to decipher some of the dynamics of cancer progression and treatment resistance. This type of research is key to furthering our understanding of how and when to treat cancers, including prostate cancer." More information: Javier Fernandez-Mateos et al, Tumor evolution metrics predict recurrence beyond 10 years in locally advanced prostate cancer, Nature Cancer (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43018-024-00787-0 Journal information: Nature Cancer It was another lawsuit brought by another victim whose fun-filled vacation turned into a voyeuristic nightmare: A woman was secretly recorded undressing at a rental property, her images stored on the computer of an alleged sexual predator accused of spying on unsuspecting renters for years. Airbnb, one of the worlds largest short-term rental companies, had seen this sort of scenario before. Typically, the company seeks to settle hidden camera cases quickly and confidentially. But this one played out differently. An Airbnb representative testifying at a court-ordered deposition early last year offered a rare glimpse of the companys hidden camera problem: Airbnb has generated tens of thousands of customer support tickets related to surveillance devices in the last decade. During the hours-long deposition, the Airbnb employee also revealed that when a guest complains of a hidden camera, the company doesnt as a matter of practice notify law enforcement, not even when a child is involved. The company may, however, reach out to hosts about complaints as part of internal inquiries a move law enforcement experts say could hinder criminal investigations because it gives suspects time to destroy evidence. A CNN investigation found that Airbnb consistently fails to protect its guests despite knowing hidden cameras are a persistent concern within its industry. Airbnbs corporate strategies, moreover, have been aimed at preventing regulation of the short-term rental market to allow the company to distance itself from responsibility for guest safety and privacy. Thousands of images have been recovered from short-term rental hosts by law enforcement. Hidden cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms show guests during their most private moments changing clothes, being with their children, even having sex, according to CNNs review of court and police records, as well as interviews with nearly two dozen guests who found surveillance devices at short-term rental properties or were told by police they had been secretly recorded. Victims say they live under a shadow of fear that those private moments will become internet fodder. This is not my Social Security number or my email address. This is my naked body, said one woman whose host secretly recorded her having sex with her husband at a cottage in Texas. Airbnb declined CNNs request for an interview. However, in a written statement, a spokesperson said that hidden camera complaints are rare, but when they do occur we take appropriate, swift action, which can include removing hosts and listings that violate the policy. The spokesperson added that Airbnbs trust and safety policies lead the vacation rental industry and include background checks on US-based hosts and guests. CNN found that some of the policies touted by Airbnb come with significant disclaimers. The companys website, for example, tells users they should not rely on its background checks to identify all past criminal convictions or sex offender registrations or other red flags. And even if Airbnb discovers a user has a criminal background, convictions of murder, terrorism, rape or child molestation are not automatic disqualifiers under the companys policy. The Wild West Brian Chesky was unemployed when he and his roommate came up with the idea for Airbnb in 2007 while struggling to make rent in San Francisco. For $80 a night, they opened their home to three travelers, offering them air mattresses, breakfast and Wi-Fi. They called their start-up Air Bed and Breakfast. Thirteen years later, the company went public in the largest IPO of 2020, with a valuation of $47 billion. Today, Airbnb which is valued higher than Hyatt Hotels Corporation and Marriott International combined continues to chase the benefits of being an international hotel chain while shouldering few of the costs or responsibilities. Unlike hotels, Airbnb doesnt control the properties it advertises or employ on-site staff such as security guards, receptionists or cleaning professionals. Instead, it leaves the costs of maintaining and protecting short-term rentals to hosts. And, while hotels can be held legally responsible for guests harmed on their property, Airbnb frequently is not. In fact, Airbnb has fought against such liability in court, arguing it has little control over what happens at its listings despite collecting roughly 17% of each booking. The multi-billion-dollar short-term rental industry paints a rosy picture with advertisements highlighting how home sharing improves human connection and offers intimate, private spaces for busy travelers. Still, violent crime and prostitution, as well as traveler deaths, have repeatedly forced Airbnb and its competitors into the international spotlight. One security concern, which has gone largely unchecked by Airbnb and the rest of the short-term rental market, is hidden cameras. Airbnb has known about the problem for at least a decade and has repeatedly notified its shareholders of the issue in annual reports since the company went public. We were aware of it, there were an abundance of cases coming in, said one former Airbnb employee who asked to remain anonymous due to a non-disclosure agreement with the company. The employee, whose team dealt with safety and privacy issues, said hidden cameras were among the groups top concerns. Despite those concerns, the company for years allowed video surveillance by hosts in common areas, if the cameras were disclosed to guests. Chloe LeBrument, who traveled to London, Ontario, last summer with her fiance for a music festival, found a camera hidden in a charger in the bedroom at an Airbnb rental. Im sure theres many, many people that have left the room having no idea that they had been recorded, said LeBrument, whose host has been criminally charged with voyeurism. LeBrument described feeling angry and disappointed by the experience. It felt really gross, she said. In January, CNN began reaching out to former Airbnb employees to ask about hidden camera concerns within the industry. In early March, Saturday Night Live mocked how ubiquitous the issue is in a skit. Just over a week later, the company announced it would ban all indoor cameras as of April 30. The company said nothing about how it would force hosts to comply with the rules. You can have all these great rules, but if no ones checking that the rules are being followed its still kind of the Wild West, said attorney Bianca Zuniga-Goldwater, who represents several hidden camera victims in suits against Airbnb and Vrbo. CNN reviewed more than a dozen police investigations and lawsuits across the US involving at least 75 victims and found Airbnb often moves swiftly to contain user complaints and resolve them out of court. One attorney told CNN that Airbnb settled during a phone call after she gave them a heads up that she was going to file a lawsuit on behalf of a guest who said they found a camera hidden in their room at an Airbnb rental. Airbnb seeks to compel complainants into arbitration, a process that hides cases from public view, according to six attorneys who represented clients in cases against the short-term rental platform. When a settlement is reached, Airbnb has required users to sign confidentiality agreements, which bar them from discussing details of the deal. Airbnb told CNN its use of arbitration and non-disclosure agreements are standard practices within the industry. One man, who was recorded having sex with his wife at an Airbnb rental and received a financial settlement from the company, said he felt dirty signing a confidentiality agreement. We were gagged, he said. Last years court-ordered deposition, which was part of an ongoing case against Airbnb and has not previously been reported, should have detailed the scope of the companys hidden camera problem. The company, through its representative, was supposed to comply with a court order to quantify how many complaints or reports had been made to Airbnb by people who had been recorded by surveillance devices since December 1, 2013. The Airbnb representative came to the table with a number. Her testimony revealed the company generated 35,000 customer support tickets about surveillance devices in the preceding decade. In the deposition, the Airbnb representative sought to downplay the significance of the number of tickets, testifying they could reflect instances such as a malfunctioning doorbell camera or a tablet with recording capabilities left out on a coffee table. The representative did not provide any statistics detailing the number of claims she suggested were innocuous among the 35,000 tickets. The Airbnb spokesperson told CNN that a single report could create multiple tickets. The company declined to specify how many unique complaints there have been. CNN reached out to more than 130 former employees who handled safety issues or fielded security concerns for Airbnbs support line. Of the 24 who responded, nearly half said they couldnt speak about their experience due to non-disclosure agreements with the company. The few who agreed to be interviewed said one of the most common concerns they heard came from guests who feared they were being surreptitiously recorded. Ive never received a call about a doorbell, one former employee said. The scariest moment of my life in Comfort, Texas David Wyzynajtys and his girlfriend had never used Airbnb before booking a romantic weekend away in July 2021. When the couple spotted a remote property in Texas Hill Country with numerous positive reviews and a host who had earned Airbnbs coveted superhost status, they booked it. But after the pair arrived at the cottage in Comfort, Texas, and changed for the night, Wyzynajtys noticed something that terrified him: a hidden camera plugged into the wall and pointed directly at the bed. The scariest moment of my life, Wyzynajtys recalled. Wyzynajtys and his partner frantically left the property and drove nearly 10 miles down a dark, winding road to check into a hotel. Rattled, they reached out to Airbnb via a customer support chat feature asking that someone call them. No one did. Instead, the couple received an in-app chat message from Airbnb later that night. According to court records, an Airbnb representative sought permission to report their complaint to the host, a man named A. Jay Allee. Do you mind if we contact the host and get his side of the story? Wyzynajtys recalled the Airbnb representative asking in the message. The couple was fearful of Allee they worried he could have been watching them through a livestream as they discovered the device and hurried to leave. Wanting to avoid a confrontation, Wyzynajtys denied Airbnbs request. Wyzynajtys said Airbnb was totally just negligent or didnt care about it at all. The next day, Wyzynajtys contacted law enforcement. Police obtained a search warrant and raided Allees property, confiscating cell phones, computers, and the camera, which Allee had been using to record guests for much of a year. Among the more than 2,000 recovered images, law enforcement identified more than 30 victims, including several children. Many guests who booked the same property either through Airbnb or Vrbo were captured in various stages of undress. Some were recorded having sex. Allee was later charged with 15 counts of invasive visual recording and pleaded guilty to six of them. Thirteen people who stayed at Allees cottage including two minors sued Airbnb in California state court in July 2022. Airbnb settled with the plaintiffs six months later. A suit against Vrbo, filed by three couples who stayed at Allees property and were all recorded being intimate with their partners, is ongoing. Allee held Airbnbs superhost status. The rank, which is granted by the companys algorithm, provides higher visibility and earning potential, according to Airbnbs website. On Vrbos platform, he was similarly designated as a premier host. One of Allees victims said that superhost status was one of the reasons he and his family had chosen the property for their weekend away. It kind of infers that a lot of people have good experiences there, said the victim, who asked not to be named due to privacy concerns. Some victims who spoke to CNN left positive reviews for stays thus feeding the algorithm for a hosts elevated status only to later learn from law enforcement they had been secretly recorded. Thank you for sharing your beautiful ranch with us, one of Allees victims, who was recorded having sex with his partner, wrote in a Vrbo review after their stay in 2020. We had an amazing time for our anniversary. We enjoyed feeding the animals and sitting by the fire at night just enjoying the silence. We will stay here again! A Vrbo spokesperson noted the company prohibits any cameras that capture the inside of a property and that trust and safety are part of Vrbos legacy. Vrbo didnt respond to questions about Allee or its policies. Lt. Butch Matjeka of the Kendall County Sheriffs Office notified Airbnb of his investigation into Allee in October 2021, police records show. Almost two months later and five months after Wyzynajtys found the camera Allees listing remained active on Airbnbs site, according to a lawsuit against the company. From a law enforcement perspective, if I tell you that Im investigating then you should stop hosting that individual on your site until the outcome of my investigation, Matjeka said. Regulations are bad for business Earlier this year, lawmakers in the European Union agreed to groundbreaking regulations governing the short-term rental industry. The new rules will require host registration, data sharing by the company and quality control of listings. Airbnb hailed the regulations as a watershed moment for the industry and praised the EU-wide approach. Its public praise belies the fact that Airbnb has fought European cities for attempting to regulate the industry, said Kim van Sparrentak, a member of the European Parliament, who steered the legislation through the governing body. Airbnb is similar to other sharing economy companies on a municipal level that means filing lawsuits as soon as any regulation is proposed, she said, referring to the companys strategy of fighting regulations in court. There are no similar federal regulations in the United States. Instead, local municipalities have been left to govern the fast-growing industry. In the cities that have been successful in introducing regulations such as requiring hosts to register with local authorities it has, at times, been difficult to get Airbnb to comply. Some of those regulations could assist with criminal investigations. When the city of New York enacted a law last year that requires hosts to register with the city and prohibits platforms from processing transactions for hosts that fail to comply, Airbnb responded by filing a lawsuit calling the measures extreme and oppressive and said the restrictions would cause the company irreparable harm. Its bad for business for them to follow regulations, said Murray Cox, who runs the nonprofit watchdog organization Inside Airbnb. Complying with rules, he said, often means excluding business from Airbnbs platform, which cuts into the companys bottom line. Its about corporate greed. Airbnbs legal weapon of choice in its fight against regulations and in at least one case against a guest who claimed she was injured while staying at an Airbnb rental stems from a decades-old law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law, often propped up as a defense by tech giants such as Facebook and X, states the platforms cannot be held responsible for user-posted content. But for Airbnb, the argument has not always been successful. The judge presiding over the New York case, for example, pointed out that this legal protection didnt apply to Airbnb because the company makes money on booking transactions. They say that if youre going to participate in the transaction, then (Section 230) is off the table, said Cox. To Shannon Schott, a Florida-based attorney who settled with Airbnb after her client said he found a hidden camera at his rental, Airbnbs use of Section 230 should be concerning to users who value their privacy and safety. Theyre not arguing: This didnt happen, your client isnt injured. Theyre arguing: We arent responsible, Schott said. Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has introduced legislation that aims to curb big technology companies use of Section 230, argued that the platform would be safer if Airbnb were forced to take responsibility for what happens at its listings. Right now, Section 230 is used as a get out of jail free card, the Democratic lawmaker said. Broken promises Less than 20 miles from Airbnbs San Francisco headquarters, a 2019 Halloween party turned deadly at a rental property in Californias wealthy Orinda community. People fled as shots rang out, and when the dust had settled, five people were dead. The crime remains unsolved. The carnage prompted Airbnb to re-examine parts of its business model, cracking down on party homes and vowing to verify all listings and user identities. Every home and every host on Airbnb will be reviewed with the objective of 100% verification by the end of 2020, Chesky, the companys CEO, promised after the shooting. In March, Airbnb disclosed only about 20% of its property listings worldwide had been verified. However, the company has boasted that every host, co-host and booking guest is identity-verified. That accomplishment comes with a big disclaimer: Its identity verification badge does not guarantee that someone is who they claim to be, the companys website states. Nor does Airbnbs identify verification process necessarily uncover a users criminal history. Earlier this year, Airbnb guests in the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, were shocked to learn their host, with whom they shared their rental home, was a registered sex offender. According to a local news report that reviewed the listing at the time, Airbnb had verified the identity of the host. However, the identification process didnt appear to surface the 11 charges of sexual assault on a mentally disabled person for which the host spent more than four years in prison. Airbnb told the news outlet it suspended the hosts account after it learned of the criminal conviction. Background checks appear to go beyond identity verification and involve searching public databases for users information. The checks, which Airbnb says are conducted by a third party, could notify the company of users criminal histories. However, the company makes no guarantees to perform them on every user worldwide. On its website, Airbnb says it may run a background check if it has at least a first name, last name and date of birth for U.S.-based users who create listings. Still, the company warns travelers they shouldnt rely on its background checks to uncover all convictions, sex offender registrations or other red flags for its users. Digital content is forever Allee was released from jail in February following a one-year sentence. His attorney didnt respond to requests for comment. Police identified more than 30 suspected victims who stayed at Allees cottage but could only file charges in connection with 15. To some of those victims, his brief stint behind bars didnt suit the crime. Less than a month for every victim, said Wyzynajtys, the guest who found Allees hidden camera. However, Allees lenient sentence was not unusual. In most states, and on the federal level, video voyeurism is a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than a year behind bars. In 2022, Airbnb superhost Peter Madden pleaded guilty to seven counts of violation of privacy in connection with recording five guests at his property in Maine, according to the Cumberland County District Attorney. During an interview with police, Madden initially denied ownership of the camera, which was concealed in a clock radio and pointed at his guests bed. Then, he said he put it there for security reasons. Ultimately, Madden, whose attorney didnt respond to CNNs requests for comment, admitted hed been recording guests engaged in sexual activity. Theres stuff of a couple of couples playing around or getting changed, he conceded when pressed by an officer about what images the camera captured. Are you a voyeur? the officer asked, according to a recording obtained by CNN. In response, Madden laughed. Im an artist, he said. I look at everything, I study everything. Madden served 14 days behind bars. Victims, on the other hand, suffer lengthier consequences. All of Allees victims who spoke with CNN, seven in total, said they suffered long-term trauma due to Allees actions. They also detailed the crippling fear that their images or those of their kids will one day end up online, if they havent already. What is made into digital content is forever, said the woman who was secretly recorded having sex with her husband at Allees cottage. An intensive care nurse who visited Allees property at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to suffer from social distress around the personal nature of the recordings and the possibility that they will become public, according to the lawsuit she filed against Vrbo. Several images on Allees computer showed the nurse undressed and being intimate with her husband. Others captured her infant son, police records show. Vrbo didnt respond to CNNs inquiries about the case. One couple who stayed there to celebrate an anniversary said they felt shocked and appalled by the experience and worried that strangers had seen images of their private moments. One woman said she now takes medication to treat feelings of paranoia. Its violating, she told CNN. Who knows where that footage went and who saw that? About this report Senior Investigative Correspondent: Kyung Lah Executive Producer: Patricia DiCarlo Managing Editor: Matt Lait Deputy Managing Editor: Samira Jafari Video Producer: John General Supervising Producer: Logan Whiteside Photo Editor: Austin Steele Contributor: Yahya Abou-Ghazala 10 incredible Airbnb rentals 1. Dome Sweet Dome 2. The Chuck Wagon at Ocoee Riverside Farm 3. True Cold War Relic Atlas F Missile Silo 4. Cheese Wedge Cabin on an Idyllic Farm 5. Outside-the-Box Geodesic Dome in the Outer Banks 6. Gingerbread House Tower in the Berkshire Hills 7. The Bloomhouse 8. Unique Oasis Silo Barn 9. The Barkhouse TreehouseTopia 10. Hobbit Style Underground Cabin A former jail officer at the Missoula County Detention Facility has been accused of sexually assaulting a female inmate while on duty. Justin Christopher Andrews, 35, has pleaded not guilty in Missoula County District Court to one count of sexual intercourse without consent, a felony, and one misdemeanor count of official misconduct. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, six months in jail and up to $50,500 in fines. The charges were filed on June 17, following an investigation by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, an agency within the state Department of Justice. Andrews was released without bail on his own recognizance following his initial appearance last month. The investigation started in January, after another detention officer found sexually explicit letters in an inmate's cell, according to charging documents filed by Missoula County Deputy Attorney Sarah Woolman. The inmate eventually told jail staff that the letters were written by a detention officer, but she refused to name the person because she was worried she would get in trouble, the charges state. The sheriffs office requested that DCI handle the investigation. State investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the jail that showed Andrews and the inmate appearing to pass notes back and forth, the charges state. In a Feb. 29 interview with a DCI agent, the inmate said she had first met Andrews in August 2023, when he was working in her unit, according to court documents. Soon after, the two began exchanging notes, she said. Andrews accuser told investigators she showed the officer her breasts after he asked her to, and that she performed oral sex on the detention officer in August 2023 in the inmate worker closet, which contained no cameras. Surveillance footage from August and September was unavailable to investigators because of the detention centers retention policy, the charges state. She also told investigators that Andrews provided her with a pen which inmates are not allowed to possess and that at one point he smuggled a cannabis edible into the jail for her. Charging documents also allege that notes written by Andrews stated, Im glad you liked your treat, and I will get that edible as soon as I can. Its obviously harder now, but I will get you. In an interview with investigators, Andrews denied providing any drugs or the pen to his accuser. He also denied having any sexual contact with her, according to the charges. He said the inmate would sometimes expose her breasts to him while he was on duty, and that she once tried to kiss him in the inmate worker closet. However, he admitted to writing the letters, the charges state. In one letter he allegedly wrote, that was such a rush and damn you are not joking your skills are unmatched to anyone out there. Investigators also asked him about another excerpt in which he allegedly wrote, that was so f*****g amazing. I dont regret a thing and I cant stop thinking about it. Other letters contained more explicit references to sexual acts. Asked about those excerpts by investigators, Andrews allegedly responded that he was "just playing a part." He continued, according to court documents, I never initiated this um, when I realized what was going on that we were corresponding um, I thought I could handle it, and I thought I could just play this part for her. And just get through it and she was out, gone, whatever, she would just be out of my life forever. Andrews submitted his resignation on March 8, several days after the interview. He had worked for the sheriff's office since December 2020. The Missoula County Sheriffs Office also launched an internal investigation into the incident, alongside the countys human resources department, to determine if there were violations of internal policies, sheriff spokesperson Jeannette Smith wrote in an emailed statement Friday. "The Missoula County Sheriffs Office is committed to ensuring the safety, security, and dignity of inmates in its custody. Allegations of this nature are taken with great seriousness," Smith wrote. The internal investigation was terminated once Andrews submitted his resignation, Erica Grinde, with the county's benefits office, said in an emailed response to questions Friday. "Anytime there are allegations of this nature, the Missoula County Sheriff's Office reviews policies and procedures to ensure officers are held to standards that ensure the safety, security and dignity of the inmates," she wrote. "After review, it was determined no changes to policies or procedures were needed nor was there a need for additional policies or procedures." In his resignation letter, Andrews apologized and wrote, There is no excuse for my actions. I understand the compromising position I have created. I want to emphasize the responsibility of that is mine alone. Andrews is being represented by Jordan Kilby, an attorney with Missoula-based law firm Stephens Brooke PC. Kilby did not immediately return a phone call Friday afternoon. Fire danger on the Lolo and Bitterroot national forests around Missoula, the Bitterroot Valley and the lower Clark Fork River increased to very high on Friday as fire fuels like brush and timber continued to dry out amid an unrelenting heat wave across the region. "Very high" is the second-highest of five levels of fire danger used by state and federal agencies and local governments to describe the risk of wildfire ignition and spread. The Lolo along with Missoula County and the Bitterroot National Forest had moved up to high fire danger two days prior, on Wednesday. "Vegetation continues to dry out rapidly," the Forest Service stated in announcing Friday's fire danger increase on the Lolo. "When the fire danger is 'very high,' fires will start easily from most causes. The fires will spread rapidly and have a quick increase in intensity, right after ignition. Small fires can quickly become large fires and exhibit extreme fire intensity, such as long-distance spotting. These fires can be difficult to control and will often become much larger and longer-lasting fires." As of Friday, there were no general fire restrictions in place on public lands, such as the Stage 1 or 2 restrictions that govern things like campfires and open-flame cooking stoves. However, the Forest Service and state and local agencies have urged caution when visiting public lands or conducting activities that could ignite a fire. Campfires should be drowned with water and stirred until the ashes are soaked through and cool to touch. Trailer safety chains should not drag on the pavement. Off-road vehicles and equipment with small engines should have spark-arrestors on their exhaust systems. And vehicles should never be parked in tall grass or brush. According to the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and other local and federal agencies, 75% of wildfires in Montana and Missoula County are caused by humans. "With conditions dry and with no reprieve in sight, it is critical that the public exercise caution while recreating and working outdoors," Ashleigh Burwick, fire management officer for the DNRC's Missoula Unit, said in a statement earlier this week. "Many of our recent human-caused wildfires have been from illegal debris burning, bonfires, fireworks and equipment." PHNOM PENH, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The unilateral arbitration on the South China Sea issue by the so-called South China Sea Arbitration Tribunal eight years ago has given no solution to the dispute, but "created more distrusts between China and the Philippines," said a Cambodian expert. Seun Sam, a policy analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, told Xinhua in a recent interview that the so-called South China Sea arbitration, unilaterally initiated by the Philippines, are "not effective at all" in resolving the South China Sea issue between China and the Philippines. From the standpoint of historical facts, international law and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, "bilateral negotiations will, instead, be the most effective way to solve the issue" to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea, Sam told Xinhua. "Countries directly concerned should hold friendly discussions and never allow extraterritorial countries to interfere in their dialogues and communications," he said. He added that outsiders, or countries not directly involved in the issue, should stop either hyping up or interfering because their interference is "helpless, but harmful." "External countries such as the United States and Japan should not continue to stir up problems in the South China Sea under the pretext of freedom of navigation," Sam said. "Their interference has not only fueled tensions in the South China Sea, but also affected joint efforts made by China and the ASEAN in addressing the issue." He said a solution through peaceful negotiations by countries directly concerned is the most important thing to ensure regional peace and stability, and to maintain close ties and cooperation between China and ASEAN. "The outsiders should not try to douse gasoline on fire," he said. At the 26th ASEAN-China Summit in September 2023, China and ASEAN adopted the Guidelines for Accelerating the Early Conclusion of an Effective and Substantive Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea. These guidelines set out a road map for the COC negotiations, including a timeline for concluding the agreement and a list of key issues to be addressed. "The swift conclusion of an effective and substantive COC will significantly contribute to strategic trust building, peace, security, stability and sustainable development in the region," Sam said. Funding for a Seeley Lake sewer system got one vote closer to reality after the U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved its Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act on Wednesday. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who sits on the committee, earmarked $10 million for Seeley Lake's sewer system, which proponents of the project say is needed because of widespread nitrate contamination from septic systems. In total, Zinke requested $20 million of federal dollars for seven Montana rural infrastructure projects, with the Seeley Lake sewer as the largest expense. In Zinke's request for funding, he cited the closure of Pyramid Mountain Lumber, which shuttered because a lack housing in the area led to a lack of employees. "The town of Seeley Lake is very rural and unable to build additional housing because it does not have a municipal (waste) water system to support additional housing and the existing septic system is at capacity and contaminating the groundwater," the request said. "Building a (waste) water system will allow developers to invest in affordable, workforce housing to support reopening the mill and growing jobs and economic activity in the region." The community of Seeley Lake has been working to develop a sewer for decades. A 2021 project would have built the sewer for about $17 million, with more than $10 million covered by grants, but voters resoundingly rejected the plan. Zinke originally requested $15 million for the Seeley Sewer last month, but $10 million made the cut into the bill text. The downtown Seeley Lake area has been in a special Missoula County management area since 2015 because of the concern over water contamination. Last fall, the Seeley Lake sewer board reported widespread nitrate contamination across most of the special management area. The Seeley Lake Sewer Board now plans to build a sewer using only grant funding, according to a meeting last month. Members of the board said the project will likely cost more than $10 million. The district has applied for grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and other funding buckets in partnership with the Missoula City-County Health Department. Other local funding requested passed through the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday include $5 million for a wastewater treatment plant in Ravalli County, $1 million for North Fork Road guardrails in Flathead County, $1 million for the Groff Lane Bridge replacement, $1 million for Old Corvallis Road repairs, $700,000 for the Troy Library, $820,000 for the town of Lincoln's rural airport and $977,000 for repaving Marten Creek Road. A final vote from the U.S. House of Representatives is expected in the last week of July, according to Zinke's Chief of Staff Heather Swift. From there, the money could be included in a joint funding package approved by the House and Senate to be signed by President Joe Biden. Missoula County is considering filing a lawsuit against a Salt Lake City company because an expensive climbing structure installed in the Missoula Public Library years ago still hasn't passed two safety inspections. On Thursday, the Missoula County commissioners discussed authorizing the use of the county risk fund for litigation involving the contractor responsible for design and construction of the "DNA Climber" inside the library. Erica Grinde, the director of the county's risk and benefits department, said the city was awarded a $1.3 million Science Education Partnership grant from the National Institutes for Health in 2019. At least $365,000 of the money, which came from the federal government, was used to build a two-story structure modeled after DNA in the library, and it was supposed to be climbable by kids and accompanied by exhibits. The company that was selected to build the exhibit is called Process Curiosity, based in Salt Lake. Two subcontractors, L&S Distribution and Beecher Walker and Associates, also worked on the project. The project was completed in 2022 on the east side of the library, and the county took over management of the structure because the county manages the library. Public officials touted the structure before it was built, saying it would be a unique and attractive amenity for the library. With large windows allowing the public to view the structure from the outside, it was to be the signature piece of the library design on that side of the building. But the county's excitement over the structure soon turned to disappointment. "It hasn't opened because it has not passed (two) safety inspections to date," Grinde told the county commissioners. "We continue to engage with (Process Curiosity) so we don't have to reach full-blown litigation, but we are truly reaching this nexus of litigation is where we may need to go." At that point, the county commissioners closed the meeting to the public because further discussion would be "detrimental" to the county's litigation strategy, according to chief civil deputy attorney Brian West with the county attorney's office. Library director Slaven Lee said there was an "iterative process" with input from kids and other potential users to change the design of the DNA Climber from the original renderings to what it looks like today. Lee said she's disappointed that the project hasn't been functional. "My disappointment is sort of the least of my worries, but I am extremely disappointed," Lee said. "The public is very disappointed as well. I spend a lot of time out on the floor, and small children regularly ask, 'When can I play on that thing?' It's heartbreaking to tell a kid they can't play on it." Lee said that the DNA Climber isn't holding back the success of the library overall, however. "It doesn't affect our success at all," Lee said. "It's just the thing that isn't working as it should be in the building. But people still love the library. They use it all the time, hundreds of people come in for activities every month." Process Curiosity still has the project listed on their website as one of their completed projects. Nobody at the company returned a call seeking comment. "This project began as a community-based co-design project," the Process Curiosity website states. "The goal was to be both an architectural sculpture for the building and an interactive climber. We created conceptual images at the projects beginning through collaboration with the community, library, and architects. The design evolved into a climbable DNA Strand, named the DNA tornado by the Missoula community. This led us to the fabrication of a multi-storied climber that is a functional play area and beautiful artwork." According to Montana James, the deputy director of the city's community development division, the selection of Process Curiosity was made by a large group of people. "The former library director Honore Bray (part of the original proposal project team) led a group decision-making process that engaged key partners, organizational leaders, architects, project team members, community members, and library trustees," James explained. "Pre-contract, library and city leadership held a launch meeting with each entity's attorneys and key representatives assembled to flesh out their partnership on the climber. Additionally, the library director, mayor, project leadership and Principal Investigator, Holly Truitt, met to discuss the collaborative process. The vendor selection was not at the discretion of the principle investigator (Truitt), but rather followed institutional processes at both the Library and City of Missoula, including review by the Library Board of Trustees, City Attorney, and ultimate contract approval by Missoula City Council." BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Over the past century, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has guided China through profound transformations, achieving remarkable success. It will continue to advance the country's reform and development. Through interparty exchanges with the CPC, foreign political leaders have gained insights into the ruling party's governance approach, its commitment to a people-centered philosophy at home and its devotion to human well-being across the board. Leaders say they look forward to enhancing cooperation with the CPC to bolster the modernization drive in their own country and contribute to global prosperity. PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST In 2018, Bounnhang Vorachith, then general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and president of Laos, visited Shibadong, a village home to the Miao ethnic group in central China's Hunan Province that was once a poor mountain-locked village. Bounnhang wrote to the villagers in 2019, acknowledging the village's success and highlighting its potential as an inspiration for his country's poverty reduction strategies. The village, where Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, first proposed "targeted poverty alleviation" in 2013, has become a model of success in poverty reduction. Having developed industries like tourism, bottled mineral water and Miao embroidery, residents' per capita income has surged from 1,688 yuan (232 U.S. dollars) in 2013 to 23,505 yuan (3,235 dollars) in 2022, and the collective economy has grown from zero to 3.8 million yuan (523,012 dollars). Like Bounnhang, many from countries such as Spain, Namibia, Nepal and Singapore, who stepped foot in rural China, have witnessed firsthand the CPC's efforts to improve the well-being of people and their increasing recognition and trust in the ruling party, which they believe offers valuable insights for political parties in other countries. "There is general satisfaction and comprehensive acceptance of the policies pursued by the Chinese state ... tangible results that are reflected in the reality of the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese people," Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Shaaban, secretary-general of the Egyptian Socialist Party, told Xinhua, noting the leadership role of the CPC "appears to be a matter subject to historical consensus." Shaaban participated in dozens of meetings with Chinese officials and visited multiple locations in the country. Shaaban said he was "amazed that social transformation was not limited to improving housing or education conditions or improving the economic conditions of these areas, but rather the success was completed by training farmers on how to sell their produce in a bid to further improve their economic standing. Under the CPC's leadership, China has within a decade successfully helped around 100 million people leave absolute poverty behind, winning the battle against destitution in a country of 1.4 billion people. It also established the world's largest education, social security and healthcare systems. The fundamental purpose of the century-old CPC has always been to be a political party of, by, and for the people. The CPC has consistently adhered to the governance principle of "putting people first," serving as a valuable example for political parties worldwide, Sykhoun Bounvilay, a retired senior diplomat of Laos, told Xinhua. Jose Luis Centella, president of the Communist Party of Spain, said the CPC has maintained close ties with the Chinese people, placing them at the center and treating their everyday concerns as a major priority. Under the leadership of the CPC, China has demonstrated to the world that a socialist system can create wealth, achieve social equity and lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, enabling them to enjoy a moderately prosperous life. A PARTY OF REFORMERS "The people's aspiration for a better life is what we have been striving for, and promoting reform and boosting development boils down to that ultimate goal as well," Xi said while presiding over a symposium attended by representatives from businesses and academia in May. Throughout its 103-year history, the CPC has consistently demonstrated the courage and wisdom necessary for reform, say observers. During crucial moments in the country's development and pursuit of national rejuvenation, the party has demonstrated sharp insight and decisive action. This has led the people to confront challenges and overcome difficulties, constantly advancing the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. "The CPC has always tried to resist dogmatism by going back to Marxism, rereading the classics constantly, creatively, dynamically, and rethinking the connections between theory and practice, adapting Marxism to concrete local conditions, said Vinnie Molina, president of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), recognizing that this is one of the important experiences from the CPC in leading China to make continuous progress. Since 1978, when China embarked on reform and opening up, there have been profound changes in the lives of ordinary people. In 2012, when Xi was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China had become the world's second-largest economy, with a per-capita GDP of over 6,000 dollars. Instead of resting on past laurels, the CPC, under Xi's leadership, remains committed to continuing reforms. "The easy part of the job has been done to the satisfaction of all. What is left are tough bones that are hard to chew," Xi said in 2012. At the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, held in 2013, Xi listed a series of challenges facing China's development, including corruption, unsustainable development and environmental issues. During this session, a decision on "major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms" was also approved. In the ten years since then, the CPC has put forward more than 2,000 reform measures, enabling the country to address challenges like poverty alleviation, pollution control and anti-corruption with realistic and problem-oriented approaches. The CPC's measures to strengthen discipline and combat corruption are areas of significant interest for many foreign political parties and experts seeking valuable practices to adopt. Chea Munyrith, president of the Cambodian Chinese Evolution Researcher Association, told Xinhua that what is most admirable about the CPC is its spirit of self-reform as a ruling party. This is a significant distinction between the CPC and many other political parties worldwide and is one of the key reasons for its long-term governance, Munyrith said. He said China's remarkable developmental achievements are closely linked to the CPC's commitment to improving Party conduct, building integrity, and combating corruption. The CPC continuously works to enhance its systems for exercising thorough and effective self-governance within the Party. Such practices provide valuable lessons for others, Munyrith added. On July 15, the CPC will convene the third plenary session of its 20th Central Committee in Beijing. At this session, a series of reforms are expected to be discussed to chart the course for the world's second-largest economy. The CPC has the ability "to keep moving, never losing the principles of dialectical materialism, always correcting errors and fronting up to new challenges," said Molina, noting that his party maintains regular communications with the CPC and that a report from a CPA delegation who visited China recently was "very positive." COMMITMENT TO HUMAN PROGRESS Led by the CPC, China is widely praised not only for its own development but also for leading the international community, especially developing countries, forward, said Jacques Cheminade, chairman of the French party Solidarity and Progress, noting that in the current global landscape, the CPC is a beacon of mutual learning and exchanges. In March 2023, Xi put forward the Global Civilization Initiative at a dialogue between the CPC and other global political parties held via video link. It is a clear demonstration of the CPC's sincere willingness to work with political parties from different countries to advance modernization with distinct national characteristics, promote global civilization exchanges and mutual learning, and contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind. The CPC prizes interparty exchanges. These interactions have increased cooperation and provided numerous opportunities to learn from China's poverty alleviation measures. Munyrith, who has participated in bilateral poverty alleviation projects, told Xinhua that these measures are now bearing fruit in Cambodia. Take the Cambodia-China Friendship Village for Poverty Alleviation Project. Under the project, concrete roads, clean drinking water system, solar power, drainage system in flood prevention, and other essential public facilities have been developed in the far-flung Tanorn village in Cambodia, bringing remarkable transformations to this small rural town. Inter-party exchanges are vital for developing national relations. They provide opportunities for political parties from various countries to share experiences in governance and collaborate to find effective solutions to common problems and challenges. In recent years, the CPC has actively promoted interparty exchanges and shared its wisdom at numerous high-level political dialogue platforms. Many officials and experts say they appreciate the CPC's dedication to advancing human progress and promoting harmony worldwide. "Through these interactions, we can work closely together and contribute to solving global issues such as climate change, poverty reduction and public health issues," said Mohammed Ali Mohamed, chairperson of Tanzania's Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Youth League. Mohamed added that enhanced exchanges among political parties can also promote cultural understanding and build trust, which is essential to maintaining global peace and stability. Firefighters still are working Friday to get ahold of a fire on Burkemont Mountain. What started as a 30-acre fire on a mountain just south of Morganton early Friday morning has grown to about 60 acres, according to a press release from Burke County Emergency Management. Firefighters still are working to get the fire contained, said Phillip Jackson, public information officer for the North Carolina Forest Service. The forest service is calling the fire the Hidden Hill fire. People are asked to avoid the area to make sure emergency crews and residents have clear access to the fire. No evacuations are recommended at this time, and buildings in the area are being monitored by firefighters, the release said. No structures were threatened by the fire as of Friday afternoon. Firefighters from Salem, George Hildebran, South Mountain, Enola, Oak Hill, Triple Community, Brendletown, West End and Glen Alpine fire departments all have responded to the scene along with N.C. Forest Service BRIDGE crews. Burke County EMS is providing medical help for the responders, and Burke County Emergency Management is providing support, the release said. Burke County 911 is assisting with communications. Donations of drinks and snacks can be dropped off at Salem Fire Rescues new station on Salem Road in Morganton. Bring donations around to the back of the building. Juveniles cited Just after 3 a.m. Friday, three teenage boys had allegedly lit a firework behind Hamilton Street, causing a small fire. Officers were able to douse the fire with extinguishers. The three juveniles were cited for possession of intoxicating substances and taken home to their parents. Dangerous drugs On Monday, Butte law enforcement assisted in the arrest of Brandi L. Etheridge, 42, of Jurupa Valley, California, for criminal distribution of dangerous drugs. Her bond has been set at $75,000. Knock it off At about 2 a.m. Monday, some people were lighting off fireworks in the 200 block of West Daly Street. Officers arrived and told them to knock it off. The early-morning revelers decided to pack it in. Outside warrant Police assisted Adult Probation & Parole Monday in the arrest of Cody R. Yankey, 41, of Butte. He had a warrant for his arrest out of Missoula County. His bond has been set at $50,000. Throwing rocks On Tuesday afternoon, a man was in the 1000 block of East Front Street yelling and throwing rocks at people. When the officers arrived, he had already left the scene. Bicycle theft The theft of a bicycle was reported late Tuesday afternoon in the 2200 block of Farragut Avenue. Shots heard Just before 3 a.m. Wednesday, gunshots were heard in the 200 block of Bavaria in Williamsburg. When the officers arrived, there was no one in the area. Thursday search During a search at two separate Butte addresses on Thursday by Adult Probation & Parole, methamphetamine reportedly belonging to Beau R. Verrall, 31, of Butte and Christian E. Bridenstine, 31, also of Butte was found. Verrall was arrested for criminal possession of dangerous drugs. Bridenstine was taken into custody for parole violation and criminal possession of dangerous drugs. In violation People living at a residence in the 900 block of South Dakota Street have a restraining order out on Patricia K. Howard, 49. Howard, who is homeless, arrived at the residence on Thursday. She was arrested for violating the protective order. Two men arrested While investigating a disturbance Thursday in the 10 block of West Pacific Street, officers arrested two men, Gavin D. Mogan, 40, of Deer Lodge and Jeremy Wade, 44, of Butte. Mogan had a warrant out for his arrest out of Missoula County. Wade had three outstanding warrants issued by the Montana Highway Patrol. No complaint A woman called 911 on Thursday to report she had been assaulted but did want to file a formal complaint. One of the men police say received over four pounds of meth and fled an arrest on May 29, has pleaded not guilty to charges and is seeking a lower bond. The incident involved a high-speed chase that ended in a crash and gunshots, police say. According to court records, attorneys for Isidro Barajas Jr., 29, of Muscatine, filed a motion Thursday for a bond hearing to request a reduction. He is being held under a $30,000 cash only bond. A pretrial conference for charges of controlled substance violation and failure to affix a drug stamp is set for Sept. 27. Controlled substance violation is a Class B felony which can bring up to 25 years in prison. Failure to affix a drug tax stamp is a Class D felony that can bring up to five years in prison. Barajas also faces a charge of parole violation. A hearing will be set by the parole board. Barajas served eight years after being sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013 after pleading guilty in Scott County Court to first-degree arson, second-degree robbery and willful injury. As part of a plea agreement, a charge of first-degree kidnapping was dropped. According to the court documents, on May 29, members of the Muscatine County Drug Task Force conducted a controlled delivery of an amount of methamphetamine to an address in Muscatine. The package was reported to contain more than 2,000 grams and was reported to be received by Juan Alto Beltran-Delgado. The report states, Both the defendant and co-defendant fled from law enforcement in a vehicle with the package. According to a news release from the city of Muscatine, Barajas and Beltran-Delgado allegedly led law enforcement on a high-speed chase on Highway 61 until their vehicle was involved in a collision at Cedar Street. The suspects fled the scene on foot and several gunshots were fired at the scene," the release states. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) reported Barajas and Beltran-Delgado were receiving treatment at a medical facility. It also was reported that an officer who fired a weapon is a member of the Drug Task Force. The officer has been placed on critical incident leave pending completion of the investigation by DCI. Further details have not yet been released. KIGALI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The East African Community (EAC), a regional bloc, launched its election observer mission Friday to monitor Rwanda's upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. Veronica Mueni Nduva, secretary general of the EAC, inaugurated the observer mission in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, where she appointed David Maraga, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Kenya, as the head of the EAC election observation teams. Maraga said that the mission was deploying the observation teams to all the 30 districts in the four provinces and the capital Kigali. He added that since the mission's arrival in Kigali on July 8, the observers have been interacting with various electoral stakeholders in the country to further understand the preparations for the electoral process, including training on principles, practices and ethos of regional and international election observation. "Prior to the arrival of the larger team, the EAC had an advance team that carried out a detailed and technical analysis of the preparations and measures being undertaken by various institutions, agencies and stakeholders in the country. The findings from this analysis have formed the basis of further strategies for election observation, including the deployment of teams across the country to observe the polls," Maraga explained. He said that the observers from the EAC partner states and the East African Legislative Assembly were expected back at the mission headquarters in Kigali on July 16. Maraga said that the mission had so far observed a generally calm electoral, political and security environment ahead of the polling day, adding that a peaceful and successful general election will not just be a victory for Rwanda but the entire EAC. Later in the day, Chairperson of the Rwanda National Electoral Commission (NEC) Oda Gasinzigwa met with all accredited election observers for Rwanda's presidential and parliamentary elections. She briefed them on the current status of election preparedness. During the meeting, Gasinzigwa revealed that more than 1,100 observers have been accredited to observe the elections. The accreditation of observers will continue until July 14. The elections are scheduled for July 14 for Rwandans living abroad, July 15 for those residing in the country, and July 16 for special category representatives. Two of Iowa's Democratic congressional candidates are calling on President Joe Biden to end his campaign for president. Iowas 1st District Democratic candidate Christina Bohannan became the first prominent, active Iowa Democrat to urge Biden to drop out. In an emailed statement Thursday afternoon she cited concerns she's heard from Iowans "that it seems he is not up to the task of a strong, vibrant campaign that will provide a compelling vision for our future." Shortly after, 2nd District Democratic candidate Sarah Corkery sent reporters a prepared statement calling on Biden to "pass the baton to Vice President (Kamala) Harris." After a halting debate performance against former President Donald Trump June 27, Democrats nationwide have expressed anxiety about continuing with 81-year-old Biden as the nominee, but few prominent Democrats have called on him to leave the race. Biden and his campaign have said he plans to stay on the ballot and tried to quell any concerns about his age and ability to do the job another four years by doing a blitz of campaign events, TV interviews, and phone calls with prominent Democrats. According to a running count by the New York Times, 12 U.S. representatives and one U.S. senator have called on Biden to leave the race. Former U.S. senator from Iowa, Tom Harkin, had scathing words for Biden after the debate in a private letter that was later published in which he called the debate a disaster. Other than Harkin, however, Iowa Democrats, including Corkery, had largely said it's up to Biden to decide whether to stay in the race. Corkery previously said she didn't think anyone was encouraged by Biden's debate performance, but "he alone needs to make that decision; not Sarah Corkery, but I hope he's getting good counsel. She seemed to reverse that position on Thursday. "I have the utmost respect for President Biden," she said. "He was the right person to lead the country over the last four years and his legacy will be remembered forever. And now it's time for him to pass the baton to Vice President Harris. She will continue the fight to keep out democracy alive." Corkery said she changed her position because constituents she's spoken with say they feel strongly that it's time for change. Bohannan, in her emailed statement wrote that country deserves a better choice for president than Biden versus Trump in a high-stakes election. "The easy thing to do at this moment would be to stay silent," Bohannan said. "After all, many Washington politicians, both Democrat and Republican, put allegiance to their party over the people they represent. It is time for a change. Over the past couple of weeks, people all across Iowa have shared with me their grave concerns about President Biden that it seems he is not up to the task of a strong, vibrant campaign that will provide a compelling vision for our future. I owe it to them to speak my mind. It is time for President Biden to withdraw from this campaign and pass the torch to a new generation of leadership. Ryan Melton, a Democrat running in the heavily Republican 4th Congressional District, referred to a social media post he made on July 2, in which he said questions of Biden's mental fitness are warranted but did not call for Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Melton said Harris, as the vice president, is "the only option" for an alternative to Biden if he does drop out of the race. Melton also said the questions being asked about Biden's mental competency should also be asked of Trump. I think its fair to question Bidens fitness to serve a second term, just as I think its fair to question Trumps. I think we deserve more transparency regarding medical records, cognitive tests, etc. from both," Melton said. "... I do think its very telling that the Republican Party thinks Bidens cognitive health is fair game while not questioning Trumps. His lies, threats, unrestrained racism, and inability to answer simple questions all suggest hes lost his grasp of reality." Tom Barton and Caleb McCullough contributed to this report. Embarking on a career in Christian ministries is about much more than job titles and daily tasks; its a profound journey of faith, service, and personal growth. For those who feel a deep calling to serve and lead within their communities, this path offers a unique opportunity to integrate ones spiritual beliefs with professional endeavors. This integration not only enriches ones own life but also has the potential to profoundly impact the lives of others. Education plays a pivotal role in this journey. By pursuing a degree in Christian ministries, particularly through flexible options like online programs, aspiring ministry professionals can gain the necessary knowledge and skills while maintaining their current responsibilities. This article explores the multifaceted benefits of a career in Christian ministries, from the personal to the communal and from the spiritual to the professional. Whether you are seeking to deepen your faith, help those in need, or lead a community, a career in Christian ministries offers a pathway to fulfill these goals while fostering personal and professional growth. Educational Paths Christian ministries offer a unique blend of spiritual fulfillment and community service, providing a career path that is both impactful and rewarding. For those feeling a call to serve, education is a critical first step. One effective route is pursuing an online Christian ministries degree, which not only offers flexibility but also exposes students to a broad range of theological studies and practical ministry skills. This path is particularly suitable for individuals balancing other life commitments, as online programs provide the opportunity to study from anywhere at any time. Its important, however, to choose an accredited program that offers a comprehensive curriculum tailored to your future ministry goals. Foundational Skills Gained A Christian ministry education equips students with several key skills essential for both professional and personal life. Critical thinking is sharpened through theological debates and ethical discussions, preparing students to tackle complex moral questions. Ethical decision-making is another cornerstone crucial in guiding ones actions and leadership within a community based on Christian values. Additionally, interpersonal communication is a major focus, as conveying messages clearly and compassionately is vital in pastoral roles and community outreach. These skills are developed through various courses ranging from biblical studies to pastoral counseling, all designed to build a solid foundation for effective ministry. Spiritual Growth and Personal Development Embarking on a career in Christian ministries often leads to significant personal and spiritual growth. This journey typically fosters a deeper understanding and connection to ones faith, an aspect that is both personally enriching and professionally necessary. Training in ministries not only prepares individuals to lead others spiritually but also encourages them to integrate their faith into their professional lives. This integration helps maintain a strong ethical framework and provides a sense of purpose and direction, which is essential for long-term satisfaction and impact in ministry roles. Community Impact and Social Outreach Professionals in Christian ministries play a pivotal role in their communities, offering support, guidance, and leadership. Their impact can be seen in various social outreach programs, from local food banks and homeless shelters to international humanitarian projects. These initiatives often extend beyond spiritual support, addressing social injustices, and providing essential services to underprivileged groups. The training received through a Christian ministries program empowers graduates to design and lead such programs, making a tangible difference in the lives of others and fulfilling the Christian call to serve the needy and uplift the community. Diversity of Career Paths in Christian Ministries A career in Christian ministries is not limited to traditional pastoral roles; it encompasses a variety of positions that cater to different interests and skills. Beyond the church, ministry professionals can find roles in mission organizations, Christian educational institutions, and even healthcare chaplaincy. Each role utilizes a unique set of skills learned through a ministry education, from theological expertise in pastoral positions to administrative and leadership skills in organizational management. The diversity of career options available means that individuals can tailor their ministry path to align with their specific calling and skills, ensuring both personal fulfillment and professional effectiveness. Interdisciplinary Opportunities and Further Education Christian ministries offer a gateway to various interdisciplinary opportunities that extend beyond traditional ministry roles. The skills acquiredsuch as counseling, teaching, and leadershipare highly transferable to other fields. For instance, many ministry professionals find fulfilling careers in counseling, where they can provide spiritual and emotional support in more secular contexts. Education is another common field, with opportunities ranging from teaching at private Christian schools to developing educational programs in churches. Furthermore, the continual pursuit of education, such as obtaining advanced degrees in theology or social work, can enhance ones qualifications and open doors to higher-level positions within and outside the religious community. Challenges and Considerations in Ministry Careers Despite the many rewards, a career in Christian ministries comes with its own set of challenges. Job stability can vary, especially for positions reliant on church funding or donations. The emotional toll is also significant, as ministry workers often deal with individuals in crisis or experiencing significant life challenges. Additionally, public scrutiny can be higher for ministry workers, as they are expected to uphold certain moral and ethical standards. Overcoming these challenges requires a strong personal conviction and support network, as well as professional resilience and flexibility in adapting to various circumstances. Networking and Community Building in Ministries Building a robust network is crucial in the world of Christian ministries. Networking with other ministry professionals can provide support, insight, and opportunities for collaboration. It can also lead to job opportunities and increased influence within larger community and religious projects. Effective community building involves participating in or even initiating inter-church events, conferences, and workshops. These gatherings are not only opportunities for learning but also for forming strategic partnerships that can amplify the impact of ones ministry and provide critical support systems. Long-term Career Prospects and Growth The demand for ministry professionals is influenced by both the spiritual needs of the population and the social roles that churches and religious organizations play in society. As communities face more complex social issues, the need for compassionate, well-trained ministry professionals is likely to grow. Additionally, the path in ministries is often marked by lifelong learning and professional development. Attending workshops, pursuing further education, and staying updated with theological discussions are all important for career growth and effectiveness in ministry roles. Conclusion A career in Christian ministries is uniquely rewarding, offering both personal fulfillment and the opportunity to make a significant impact in the lives of others. It is a path characterized by growth, challenges, and profound satisfaction. Those considering this career should reflect deeply on their commitment to their faith and their desire to serve, as these are the core motivations that will sustain them through the challenges and rewards of this calling. Ultimately, a career in Christian ministries is not just about personal achievement but about fostering a community of faith and compassion that can bring about positive change in the world. Through education, skill development, and a dedicated heart, those in Christian ministries can look forward to a meaningful and impactful career. The High Court has declined to temporarily suspend sections of the Affordable Housing Act, including the collection of the levy, citing public interest in allowing the law to continue until the petitions are resolved. A three-judge bench underscored that laws enacted by Parliament are presumed constitutional, and unless there is clear evidence of rights violations, the court cannot halt their implementation. Chief Justice Martha Koome consolidated six petitions challenging various aspects of the Affordable Housing Act of 2023 and assigned Justices Olga Sewe (presiding), John Chigiti, and Josephine Mongare to hear the cases. Dr. Magare Gikenyi and other petitioners argued that the absence of a governing board to oversee the fund and uncertainty over the levys collection exposed the funds to potential theft and misuse, contravening Article 10(2) of the Constitution, which emphasizes national values, good governance, integrity, transparency, and accountability. They also pointed out that the Commissioner General of the Kenya Revenue Authoritys mandate is limited to overseeing the authoritys affairs, not collecting the housing levy. Moreover, they informed the court that the housing levy, set at 1.5%, lacked a detailed operational plan as required by law before collecting public funds. In defense, the government asserted the presumption of constitutionality for all Acts of Parliament. Parliament reinforced this by arguing that the Affordable Housing Act provides a legal framework for the levy, emphasizing that levies are commonplace in Kenya, citing examples like the Road Maintenance Levy and the Petroleum Levy. The judges concluded that the petitioners failed to show that the contested provisions posed significant risks to life or limb, or sufficiently violated the Bill of Rights to warrant the requested injunctions. They expressed doubt that denying the injunctions would undermine the effectiveness of the petitions. It is our finding, therefore, that the petitioners have failed to show that the impugned provisions pose a danger to life or limb or that they threaten the Bill of Rights to warrant the orders sought. We are not persuaded that the petition will be rendered nugatory if the orders sought are not granted, the judges said. In a historic first, the Pakistan Army has promoted a Christian Brigadier, Julian Moazzam James, from the elite Special Services Group (SSG) to reach the rank of Major General. Christian leaders celebrated the accomplishment as the Prime Minister and other Pakistani officials recognized the contribution of the Christian minority and welcomed it as a positive sign of career opportunities provided to non-Muslims. Born in Narowal District of Punjab Province and a graduate of the 92nd Long Course, Major General James was commissioned into the Air Defense Regiment before joining the SSG. He has commanded the SSG Brigade in Tarbela and the Air Defense Brigade in Sargodha and served as a Defense Attache in Nigeria for three years. He completed a wide range of military education, including the Air Defense Staff Course, Intelligence Staff Course, Pakistan Staff Course, and the National Security War Course. His elder brother, Farukh James, also served in the Pakistan Army and retired as a Major. Gens James promotion was lauded widely in Pakistan with citizens and government leaders from across the religious divide taking to the social media to felicitate the Christian army officer. Its a day of immense pride for Christians in Pakistan as we celebrate the promotion of a remarkable individual to the rank of Major General. Making history as the first SSG Christian Commando Officer Major General Jullion Moazzam James in the 76-year history of the Pakistan Army, this milestone fills us with pride, announced Bishop Azad Marshall, the moderator bishop of the Church of Pakistan, in a tweet on X, formerly Twitter. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up It's a day of immense pride for Christians in Pakistan as we celebrate the promotion of a remarkable individual to the rank of Major General. Making history as the first SSG Christian Commando Officer Major General Jullion Moazzam James in the 76-year history of the Pakistan Bishop Azad Marshall (@BishopAzadM) July 5, 2024 Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his good wishes to Gen James for his future, the Prime Ministers Office said in a press release on Sunday. Major General Jamess professional capabilities and his hard work and passion had been a beacon of guidance for the young generation, he added. The prime minister further said that the contributions of the Christian community to the progress, prosperity and defense of the country were unforgettable. Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a former senator and head of Pakistan-China Institute and Pakistan-Africa Institute for Development & Research, lauded James for becoming the first non-Muslim in the militarys Special Services Group to attain the rank of a two-star general. Matter of pride that Pakistan Army has inclusive approach of merit-based promotions Equality of opportunity for All Pakistanis, irrespective of caste, creed or religion! Heartiest congratulations to Major General Julian Moazzam James on well-deserved promotion as first non-Muslim Pakistani in the Pakistan Armys elite Special Services Group (SSG) commandos to become a two-star General! Matter of pride that Pakistan Army has inclusive approach of pic.twitter.com/g46oBUxITr Mushahid Hussain Sayed (@Mushahid) July 7, 2024 Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Sherry Rehman echoed the same thought, saying that inclusion and merit should be paramount in all vertical mobility. Many congratulations to Major General Julian Moazzam James on his promotion as Pakistan's first non-Muslim in the Pakistan Armys elite Special Services Group (SSG) commandos to become a two-star General. Inclusion and merit should be paramount in all vertical mobility. pic.twitter.com/UN5lcIFq7C SenatorSherryRehman (@sherryrehman) July 8, 2024 Christians recognized for their contribution to defending their motherland James isnt the first Christian major general in the Pakistan armed forces overall. Julian Peter, who passed away in March 2023, accomplished that milestone after fighting in the 1971 India-Pakistan war as part of the 4th Frontier Force Regiment in the Hilli Sector in what was then East Pakistan, todays Bangladesh. Similarly, Noel Israel Khokhar, another Christian officer, was promoted to major general in 2009. He has served as the ambassador of Pakistan to Ukraine after his retirement. In June this year, Dr Helen Mary Roberts was promoted to brigadier the first Pakistani Christian woman to reach the rank, as reported by Christian Daily International. Roberts has served as a senior pathologist in the Pakistan Army Medical Corps and as the first female surgeon general of the Pakistani military. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) had said that Robert was another living example of merit and national representation in the Pakistan Army. Similarly, members of the Pakistani Christian community have served in the Pakistan Air Force. They include Air Commodore Nazir (Bill) Latif and Wing Commander Abraham Qaiser, who fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Wing Commander Mervyn Leslie Middlecoat was another well-known pilot in the Pakistan Air Force from the Christian community. During the 1971 war, his aircraft was shot down over the Indian Ocean. In September 2023, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Asim Munir had commended the Christian communitys contributions to Pakistans national development and praised their outstanding role in defending the motherland. The army chief had made the remarks during a meeting with a Church of Pakistan delegation headed by its president bishop, Azad Marshall who called on him at the General Headquarters. According to the 2017 national census of Pakistan, Christians make up nearly 1.27 percent of the countrys total population, which amounts to roughly 2.6 million practicing Christians in a 207 million-strong population. Spirit, unity overcome threat of floodwaters 08:26, July 12, 2024 By Zou Shuo ( China Daily Rescuers work to block the dike breach next to Dongting Lake in Huarong county, Hunan province, on Monday. As of Monday afternoon, 180.5 meters of the 226-m breach in the dike had been sealed, according to the Yueyang flood control and drought relief headquarters. (CHEN ZEGUO/XINHUA) When he heard loudspeakers issue an emergency warning at 4 pm on July 5 about the breach of a dike separating his township in Hunan province from China's second largest freshwater lake, Wang Jinlong's first thoughts were for his elderly parents. Wang, 60, lives in Tuanzhou, Huarong county, which sits beside Dongting Lake, and he has a prosthetic leg due to an accident he had in 1999. While his home is located about 1 kilometer from the breach, he did not heed the warning to immediately head to higher ground. Instead, he hobbled in the opposite direction to the house of his parents, who were both in their mid-80s. He moved as fast as he could because he knew how destructive floodwaters can be. Water from a similar dike breach struck the township in 1996, leaving 14 people dead. Wang lost his home in that flood. He eventually reached his parents and they had enough time to make their way to a safe section of the earth-and-rock dike. From his vantage point, Wang could see the floodwaters rising over his house. A pig, dozens of chickens, a fish pond, and all his worldly possessions disappeared before his eyes. He realized the waters had taken everything from him for a second time. "My heart is broken and I am devastated," he said. Wang and his parents spent the night on the dike before local authorities transferred them to a temporary shelter at a county vocational school the next day. Rescuers drain floodwater from an area near Dongting Lake in Huarong county on Tuesday. (CHEN SIHAN/XINHUA) Rapid response The dike breach followed 17 days of heavy downpours in Hunan, the longest continuous period of heavy rain since 1961. Dongting Lake connects major rivers in the province with the Yangtze River, and authorities issued the first flood warning for the year on June 30. By 5:48 pm on July 5, water had begun rushing through channels in the dike. The breach in the dike eventually expanded to 226 meters after failed attempts to fill the gap. An area of 47.6 square kilometers 92.5 percent of the township ended up being flooded, but there have so far been no reports of casualties. When Liu Guanghui, 67, heard the notice from the loudspeaker, he thought that it might be his time to die. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage five years ago and has since had to use a wheelchair and rely on a part-time caregiver. His wheelchair is not in good working order and it is difficult for him to get around. Liu lives by himself as his three adopted sons all live in Changsha, the capital of Hunan. "Luckily, two of the village officials, one named Zu Shuang and another who I do not know, came to my house and carried me and my wheelchair to a safe location," he said. "I did not have time to thank them before they rushed off to save more people." Despite the initial concerns of a potential disaster, by Monday night the breach was sealed, just three days after the accident happened. By Tuesday, rescue crews had started to drain floodwater from Tuanzhou, which is expected to take 17 days to complete. All 7,680 people living in Tuanzhou have been transferred to safe places, with around 4,000 of them settled temporarily at five schools in the county. The remainder are staying with friends and family. Zhang Yingchun, executive deputy governor of Hunan, said more than 4,200 emergency rescuers and over 3,000 pieces of equipment were assisting in the relief and rescue efforts. Lessons from the past Jia Mengjun, 58, and her husband Yu Minghu, 60, both villagers from nearby Qiannan county came to see the dike and embankment on Monday afternoon because they were worried. In 1996, the couple were among the frontline volunteers patrolling and defending the embankment. After failed attempts that year to stop a breach, their house collapsed and their belongings were washed away. "Seeing how well organized the rescue efforts were this time and how much effort the Party and government have made to protect us, we feel safe," they said. Peng Juxiang, 63, another villager from Qiannan, also went to the embankment. After the dike was breached in 1996, she lived on the embankment for more than three months waiting for the water to recede so her family could start rebuilding their home. "When I heard the dike had breached, I wanted to cry," she said, recalling the painful memories and hardship she went through 28 years ago. "The rescuers were so young and worked so hard. The weather was too hot, I felt sorry for them," she said. According to Yueyang city's records, on July 19, 1996, a dike breach occurred at Tuanzhou, leaving 14 people dead and causing direct economic losses of 550 million yuan ($75.6 million). On July 27, 1996, the embankment was breached again, killing 17 people in Qiannan and resulting in economic losses of 2.36 billion yuan. Shelter, kindness By Tuesday morning, one of the temporary shelters set up in Huarong Vocational Secondary School had accepted around 1,400 villagers. They are living in the students' dormitories while the students are on summer vacation. The dormitories are equipped with air conditioners, and the displaced villagers are provided daily necessities, free meals and support from volunteers. Li Junhui, the principal of the school, has a hoarse voice after dealing with more than 200 phone calls every day. He has had very little sleep. He said the school immediately started preparation and coordination work after they were notified by the local government on Saturday that it would be used as a shelter for people made homeless by the floods All of the school's 200 staff, including teachers, are working as volunteers, while some students and outsiders have also joined the support efforts, he said. Li said he had experienced of a similar situation. When he served as a primary school principal in another township, his school was used as a shelter for flood-affected people, he said. "The first and most important thing for us is to comfort them, talk with them, and answer their questions," he said. "They have lost their homes, and we need to do our best to make sure they live comfortably at our school." Luo Jiayi, 19, is a college student at the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology and a native of Huarong. After learning about the flooding, he immediately took a train from Hohhot to Huarong. The house of his grandfather, who lives in Tuanzhou, was inundated with water. The elderly man suffered a foot fracture while fleeing the floodwaters. Luo has volunteered to work at the shelter. He does everything from registration to distribution of items and heavy lifting of items. "I want to make the greatest effort and do my part," he said. "Many of them (the homeless) are the same age as my grandfather and I often chat with them. After several encounters, they treat me very nicely," he said. A villager receives a medical checkup at a makeshift shelter in a vocational school in Huarong on Sunday. (XUE YUGE/CHEN ZHENHAI/XINHUA) Staying, or leaving? He Chunlian, 68, and her second husband Zhang Youquan, 57, are among the people being temporarily relocated. He has heart disease. She said after she learned from the loudspeaker that the dike had breached, her heart started racing and she fell down and injured her knee. The couple have a small 50-square-meter apartment in Tuanzhou, which is now flooded. All the family's electric appliances have been destroyed, He said. Zeng Yuanxiu, 85, is staying in a dormitory. Her home is about 100 meters away from where the dike was breached. She said she probably would have been washed away if it had not been for the quick actions of her neighbors who knocked on her door and carried her to the dike. She did not have time to grab any of her possessions. "I was so terrified. Even though I am 85, I am still afraid to die," she said. Zeng's two daughters live in other provinces, and she has lived on her own since her husband passed away. The couple were among the first group of people to move to Tuanzhou when the township was established in 1977. They moved from a mountainous township in Huarong to take advantage of the fertile land in the floodplain. Recalling all the hard work she and her late husband did to rebuild their house after the 1996 flood, Zeng said she still wants to go back to see her home, but possibly for the last time. She wants to move back to her mountain home as she has experienced enough floods in her lifetime. "In 1996, the breached dam was rebuilt by our villagers. Words cannot describe how much hardship we have endured," she said. Liu Xiaorong, 69, is one of the lucky ones. Her house was not flooded because it is located in a higher area of the township. However, she was still transferred to the school because there was no electricity or drinkable water in the township. "The volunteers treat me so nicely that I do not want to go back," she joked. However, after a few moments of reflection, she said: "I still want to go back, as nowhere compares to home. Tuanzhou is a place that nurtures great people as hardships forge people." (Web editor: Tian Yi, Zhong Wenxing) The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again has recommended that the State Department designate Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), citing the countrys blasphemy laws as a prime source religious freedom violations. The U.S. State Department does not accept all USCIRF recommendations in its annual designation of countries that practice or tolerate egregious religious freedom violations, but it has designated Pakistan as a CPC every year since 2018. Pakistan continues to witness widespread abuses of religious freedom, including blasphemy laws, forced conversions of minority girls, and targeted violence against religious minorities, according to the 2024 USCIRF report. The blasphemy laws, particularly Sections 295-A, B, and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, have been criticized for broad and vague provisions often misused to settle personal scores or target people of minority religions in the 96-percent Muslim country. The USCIRF report documents numerous cases of individuals, including Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, being falsely accused and imprisoned under these laws. The mere accusation of blasphemy can lead to mob violence, extrajudicial killings, and mass protests, creating a climate of fear and intimidation, the USCIRF noted. The recent high-profile case of Zohaib Masih, a young Christian who was wrongfully detained and tortured on false blasphemy charges, exemplifies the ongoing misuse of these laws, it stated. Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up The report also highlighted forced conversions, particularly affecting young Christian and Hindu girls who are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to their abductors. These incidents often go unpunished due to societal and institutional biases. In addition, the USCIRF report pointed to numerous instances of targeted violence against religious minorities. Attacks on places of worship, including churches, temples, and Ahmadi mosques, continue to be a serious concern. The lack of adequate government response and protection for these communities exacerbates the situation, it noted. The USCIRF urged the U.S. State Department to designate Pakistan as a CPC, which would subject the country to potential sanctions and other diplomatic measures aimed at improving religious freedom conditions. The commission also recommended increased U.S. support for civil society organizations working to promote religious tolerance and human rights in Pakistan. In the most recent CPC designations, Pakistan joined Burma, the Peoples Republic of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan on the list of the countries that most practice or tolerate violations of religious freedom. The Pakistani government has often dismissed such reports as biased and politically motivated. USCIRF insisted, however, that its findings are based on thorough investigations and credible sources, urging Pakistan to undertake significant legal and policy reforms to address the violations. The USCIRF recommendation drew reactions from international and domestic observers as church leaders and rights organizations welcomed the report, calling for immediate action to protect religious minorities in Pakistan. Church of Pakistan President Azad Marshall said that the report adequately reflects the grim situation of religious minorities in Pakistan. The international community should not only push Pakistan to address these issues but also support it in any way possible, Marshall told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. We want a secure, free and fair environment for religious minorities in Pakistan, and it is the responsibility of the state to fulfill this constitutional duty. Pakistani officials, however, criticized the USCIRF recommendation, arguing that it overlooks the efforts made by the government to promote interfaith harmony and protect minority rights. We are committed to ensuring the safety and rights of all our citizens, said a spokesperson for Pakistans Ministry of Religious Affairs. We reject any biased assessments that ignore our progress. Samson Salamat, chairman of advocacy group Rawadari Tehreek (Movement for Equality), rejected the governments stance, saying that repeated acts of mob violence in the name of Islam and continued persecution of minorities contradicted the government narrative. The USCIRFs recommendation to designate Pakistan as a Country of Particular Concern underscores the urgent need for addressing severe religious freedom violations in the country, Salamat told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. He said that there has been alarming increase in blasphemy allegations in recent years. This has also resulted in violent attacks on Christian settlements and individuals, he added. Spike in Blasphemy Cases Hundreds of people in Pakistan were incarcerated on blasphemy charges in 2023, many on the basis of a mere accusation without evidence, with 552 detained in jails in Punjab Province alone, according to a recent report by Lahore-based Center for Social Justice (CSJ). Moreover, at least 103 people have been charged with blasphemy between January and June of this year, it noted. Government data submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Committee presented an exponential increase in blasphemy cases over four years a 30 percent jump from 2019 to 2020, and a further spike of 62 percent from 2021 to 2023, according to the report. The government report acknowledged that 53 percent of all complaints were false allegations (398). The government data about complaints from 2018 to 2023 acknowledged that the conviction rate under blasphemy laws was around 1 percent, with seven acquittals against every single conviction. Nevertheless, all convictions so far have been overturned by the high courts and supreme courts of Pakistan, indicating that even 1 percent of convictions lacked merit. Muslims accounted for 98.40 percent of those accused of blasphemy, the report stated. About 100 persons have been killed in connection with blasphemy allegations since 1987, including 63 Muslims, 26 Christians, seven Ahmadis, one Hindu, one Buddhist, and the religion of two persons was not known. The CSJ report also noted the upsurge in religiously-motivated killings and lynching in the past two years. In 2023, at least six persons or individuals were killed by private persons after the alleged blasphemy accusations, the report added. Along with two extrajudicial killings, another three persons alleged of blasphemy died in jail between June 2023 and 2024. Hence, a total of 11 persons alleged of blasphemy have lost their lives in the past 18 months, including the latest incident in Madyan, Swat. The CSJ report also criticized giving the Federal Investigation Agency powers to investigate cybercrimes related to blasphemy laws, as well as empowering anti-terrorism courts to prosecute cases under Section 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code. This has resulted in abuse of authority and miscarriage of justice, the report stated. Therefore, an exponential increase in the number of alleged blasphemy cases with FIA. On the other hand, the perpetrators of mob violence in particular get away with through the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year. The central government is trying to achieve self-sufficiency in the production of pulses in the country, highlighted Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan during his review meeting of Kharif crops in Delhi. "Achieving self-sufficiency in pulse production is a priority for the country" said Chouhan. During the meeting on Friday the minister also expressed happiness over increase in area of pulses cultivation during ongoing Kharif sowing this year. The Minister noted that area under pulses have increased by over fifty percent particularly for Tur/Arhar. He also reiterated that central government is committed to have 100 per cent procurement for Urad, Arhar and Masur in all the states and called for generating awareness on the issue so that more and more farmers come forward for pulse cultivation. "Centre is committed to have 100 per cent procurement for Urad, Arhar and Masur in all the states" said the Minister. The officials also briefed the minister about the onset of monsoon, groundwater situation and availability of seeds and fertilisers. The minister stressed for the timely availability of fertilisers, both for Kharif and Rabi crops. He also advised the department of fertiliser to ensure availability of DAP fertlisers as per demand of states. The meeting was attended by the officials of Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare along with senior officials of the Ministry. The officials from Indian Meteorological department, Central Water Commission and Department of Fertilisers were also present during the meeting. The government's efforts to boost the production include encouraging farmers to shift towards pulse cultivation. This is being facilitated through pre-registration initiatives by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) and the National Cooperative Consumer's Federation of India Ltd (NCCF). These pre-registration drives aim to ensure that farmers are well-prepared for the Kharif sowing season. In Madhya Pradesh alone, 8,487 Urad farmers have registered through NCCF and NAFED. (ANI) PRNewswire Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 12: Zinnov Awards 2024 celebrated the Titans of Tech from the India technology ecosystem. Zinnov, a leading global management consulting firm, hosted the 15th edition of its awards, the longest-running GCC awards, honoring visionary individuals and organizations who have created a significant global impact from India. The winners were meticulously curated from the 470+ nominations received from across 200 companies. The awards featured nine categories, including Innovation, Customer Centricity, Excellence, and Intrapreneurial Leadership. The 28 winners were chosen following a rigorous 4-step evaluation process spanning 2 months, and by an eminent panel of 50 jurors--comprising experts and leaders from the technology fraternity. What made the awards and the ceremony more memorable, was the collective acknowledgment of the value being created by the ecosystem. The focus on the exceptional talent being nurtured within India underscores the maturity of global organizations operating from here, reflecting in the increased number of global roles, and AI charters being driven from here. Lauding the winners, Nitika Goel, Chief Marketing Officer, Zinnov said, "India has emerged as the GCC capital of the world and Zinnov Awards is a reflection of the key trends shaping this ecosystem. Our goal is to celebrate individuals and organizations who continue to demonstrate agility with excellence and an entrepreneurial spirit. These remarkable winners have not only created impact and value within their organizations, but on the ecosystem at large, by harnessing cutting-edge technologies and disrupting the status quo. Congratulations to all the winners on their well-deserved victory." She further added, "These awards highlight our country's commitment to fostering innovation and nurturing exceptional talent, particularly in response to the rapid advancements driven by AI. With over 1700 GCCs steering the next phase of growth, these awards mark a significant moment, emphasizing India's pivotal role as a global technology leader." ABOUT ZINNOV Founded in 2002, Zinnov is a global management and strategy consulting firm, with presence in New York, Santa Clara, Houston, Seattle, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Pune, and Paris. Over the past 22 years, Zinnov has successfully consulted with over 250+ Fortune 500 enterprises to develop actionable insights to help them accelerate their technology journeys to create value - across dimensions of revenue, transformation, and optimization. With core expertise in Digital Engineering Talent, Digital Transformation, Innovation, and Outsourcing Advisory, Zinnov assists clients by: * Enabling global companies to design, build, transform, and scale their global engineering talent footprint through center setups and accelerators - in an as-a service model, as well as optimizing their global portfolios, to achieve higher R&D efficiencies, innovation, and productivity; * Advising global PE firms in asset shortlisting and target evaluation, commercial due diligence, and value creation including global footprint accretion; * Growing revenue for companies' products and services in newer markets through account intelligence, market entry, and market expansion advisory; * Helping global companies outline and drive their open innovation programs, design and operate accelerator programs, and enable collaboration with start-ups across specific use cases and predefined outcomes; * Structuring and implementing Digital Transformation levers enabled by technologies like AI/ML, Intelligent Automation, Cloud, IOT, etc. With their team of experienced consultants, subject matter experts, and research professionals, Zinnov serves clients from across multiple industry verticals including Enterprise Software, BFSI, Healthcare, Automotive, Retail, and Telecom in the US, Europe, Japan, and India. For more information, visit http://www.zinnov.com. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/694742/4557721/Zinnov_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) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed the first mothership "San Fernando " at the Vizhinjam International Seaport in Kerala on Friday. Welcoming the ship, the CM highlighted that now India had entered the global map through Vizhinjam port and called it a proud moment for India. "India enters into the global map through Vizhinjam. It is a huge port among world ports. The biggest ships in the world can berth in Vizhinjam. The operation is starting through a trial run. And will start completely functioning soon. This is becoming the mother port and it is a proud moment" said CM Vijayan. He also added "Now the first phase is completing. Phase two to Phase four were scheduled to be completed by 2045. But it will be completed fully by 2028,17 years' advance" Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal also attended the event as the chief guest Adani Ports MD Karan Adani was also present during the welcome ceremony by Kerala CM. The ship reached at the Vizhinjam International Seaport on Thursday. The first container ship 'San Fernando' owned by SFL Corporation Ltd and chartered by Maersk- (AP Moller Group), Denmark, reached the outer area of the port around 7 am on Thursday and berthed at the port by 9:50 am. It was welcomed with a water salute. The San Fernando, carrying over 1,000 containers, is anchored at the port as part of a trial run ahead of the commencement of commercial operations. This is a trial run and it will continue for two months. The commissioning of the seaport is expected by October. Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal also said this port will be a remarkable one in the economic growth of the country. He also attended the meeting of stakeholders on Thursday at Vizhinjam lighthouse. Vizhinjam seaport is very close to the famous Kovalam beach. It has water connectivity to many regional and international ports. This is the first transhipment port in the country. Till now India was dependent on Colombo, Dubai and Singapore ports for transhipment. Now Vizhinjam International Seaport will be the transhipment port of the country. The Vizhinjam International Seaport has been built by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, (APSEZ). The port is built with a total investment of Rs 8,867 crore. The state government of Kerala has contributed about Rs 5,595 crore while the central government contributed Rs 818 crore for the port. Built on the public-private partnership, Vizhinjam International Port's construction started in 2016. The project was allotted to APSEZ on December 5, 2015, after the Government of Kerala and Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Ltd. (AVPPL) agreed to a concession agreement on August 17, 2015. "This is the largest port project in the PPP mode in the country which is designed, built, Finance, Operate and Transfer, the project outlay is Rs 8,867 crore with a state government contribution of around Rs 5,595 crore" said, K S Srinivas, Principal Secretory Port Department during the event. On Thursday Gautam Adani, Chairman and founder of the Adani group of companies called the welcoming of the mothership 'San Fernando' at the Vizhinjam International Seaport a historic occasion. "Historic Day as Vizhinjam welcomes its 1st container vessel! This milestone marks India's entry into global transhipment and ushers in a new era in India's maritime logistics, positioning Vizhinjam as a key player in global trade routes. Jai Hind!" Gautam Adani posted on X. (ANI) PNN Pune (Maharashtra) [India], July 12: Ceratec Group, a distinguished leader in Pune's real estate sector, proudly commemorates 25 years of innovation, quality, and community commitment. Founded in 2000, the group began its journey in the marble business, quickly expanding into the ceramic retail industry with 5 massive showrooms by 2007. With a vision to redefine urban living, the group began its journey with a dedicated team of 10 individuals. Today, with a workforce exceeding 100 professionals, the Group has completed over 65 acres of projects renowned for their futuristic design and affordability. "As we celebrate Ceratec Group's 25th anniversary, we are immensely proud of our remarkable journey. Our excellence is evident in iconic developments like Ceratec City, which have redefined luxury living, while strategic expansion showcases responsiveness. Throughout our 25-year legacy, we have remained steadfast in our belief that a customer's investment represents profound trust, earned through ethical practices, professionalism, and timely deliveries," said Anand Agarwal, Managing Director, Ceratec Group. In 2011, the group made its foray into the real estate sector, launching the iconic Ceratec City project. Ceratec Group's diverse portfolio includes residential complexes, commercial spaces, and mixed-use developments. Their portfolio includes iconic properties like Ceratec City, which have redefined luxury and sustainability in Pune's real estate landscape. The group's role in Pune's market extends beyond construction; it actively promotes green initiatives and utilizes cutting-edge construction techniques to optimize every square foot for functionality and aesthetics. With over 12 successfully completed projects, Ceratec Group continues to expand its footprint across Pune. Ongoing projects in Ravet and Hinjewadi, along with upcoming ventures in Balewadi and Baner, highlight the group's strategic growth and unwavering responsiveness to market dynamics. With a strong track record of delivering quality projects and a commitment to innovation and sustainability, Ceratec Group continues to be a leader in Pune's real estate sector. Beyond its role as a leader in real estate, Ceratec Group has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The group's CSR initiatives are integral to its ethos, focusing on programs that positively impact the environment and community. This includes extensive plantation drives to enhance green cover and promote environmental sustainability, as well as educational support programs for the children of Ceratec Group employees. As Ceratec Group celebrates its 25th anniversary, it looks forward to launching major initiatives that include expansive projects totaling 7 million square feet, further expansion into West and East Pune, and innovative community engagement programs. The group also has a renewed focus on sustainability through water harvesting and solar panel installations. With a clear vision for the future and a strong foundation built on quality, innovation, and customer trust, the group remains committed to enhancing the lives of its residents and contributing to the growth of Pune's real estate landscape. Website: https://ceratecgroup.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) VMPL New Delhi [India], July 12: Step into a realm where luxury intertwines with lifestyle. Welcome to LuxeCode Magazine, the definitive source for everything related to luxury living and design. In an era where style meets functionality, LuxeCode Magazine is your go-to publication for the latest trends, insights, and inspirations in high-end interiors and architecture. Whether you are an industry professional, a design enthusiast, or someone with a penchant for the finer things in life, LuxeCode Magazine offers a curated experience tailored to elevate your lifestyle. Our Vision LuxeCode Magazine is more than just a publication; it is a movement towards embracing the art of sophisticated living. Our mission is to provide readers with cutting-edge design concepts, sustainable practices, and timeless elegance. We believe that true luxury transcends opulence and is about creating spaces that resonate with personal style, comfort, and functionality. What We Offer Exclusive Features and Interviews: LuxeCode Magazine brings you closer to the industry's top designers, tastemakers, architects, and influencers. Through in-depth interviews and exclusive features, we delve into the minds of creative visionaries who shape the world of luxury design. Learn about their inspirations, design philosophies, and the latest projects that set new benchmarks in the industry. Trend Spotting: Stay ahead of the curve with our comprehensive coverage of emerging trends in interior design, architecture, and lifestyle. From the latest colour palettes and materials to innovative technologies and eco-friendly practices, LuxeCode Magazine keeps you informed about what's hot and what's next in the world of luxury. Inspirational Projects: Our magazine showcases some of the most stunning residential and commercial projects from around the globe. Each edition features detailed case studies and photo spreads of exquisite homes, chic office spaces, and luxurious hospitality venues that epitomize elegance and sophistication. Discover how top designers turn visions into reality and gather ideas for your next project. Design Tips and Expert Advice: LuxeCode Magazine is a treasure trove of practical advice and expert tips. Whether you're planning a renovation, seeking inspiration for a new build, or simply looking to refresh your living space, our articles provide actionable insights to help you achieve your design goals. From space planning and lighting to furniture selection and decor, our experts guide you through the nuances of creating a harmonious and luxurious environment. Product Reviews and Recommendations: In the world of luxury living, quality and craftsmanship matter. LuxeCode Magazine offers honest reviews and recommendations of the finest products, from designer furniture and lighting fixtures to bespoke accessories and state-of-the-art appliances. Our curated selections help you make informed decisions about the best investments for your home. Lifestyle and Beyond: At LuxeCode Magazine, we understand that luxury extends beyond the confines of your home. Our lifestyle section covers everything from travel and wellness to art and culture, providing a holistic view of what it means to live luxuriously. Discover the best destinations, indulge in gourmet experiences, and explore the latest in fashion and beauty. Join the LuxeCode Community LuxeCode Magazine is more than a publication; it is a community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for excellence and refinement. By subscribing to LuxeCode Magazine, you become part of an exclusive network that celebrates the art of luxurious living. Engage with our content, participate in events, and connect with fellow design aficionados who inspire and elevate each other. In a world where design and lifestyle are constantly evolving, LuxeCode Magazine stands as a beacon of luxury, guiding you through the latest innovations and timeless classics. Join us on this journey and discover how to infuse elegance, sophistication, and functionality into every aspect of your life. Welcome to LuxeCode Magazine - where luxury is redefined. Explore our editions, where elegance meets excellence. (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) Ahead of the Budget for 2024-25, the US-India Tax Forum has suggested the government to bring parity in tax payable by domestic and foreign players in multiple sectors. This, dedicated Tax Policy Forum of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), has submitted to the government that it would ensure a level playing field in sectors like banking, where foreign banks' branches pay high taxes in India. The Tax Forum was officially launched on February 25, 2020. Acknowledging the global developments around the minimum tax deal, the Tax Forum has highlighted the inherent need to rationalize corporate tax rates. The US-India Tax Forum has submitted its recommendations on tax amendments for the Union Budget 2024-25, to be presented by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman, on July 23. The US-India Tax Forum has around 350 member companies and is a leading platform that allows Indian policymakers, global tax experts, and the business community to engage and advocate for a tax environment that is conducive to making India an attractive investment destination. The Tax Forum said it was recently invited to present industry recommendations on Union Budget 2024-25 at the Ministry of Finance. The forum's recommendations focus largely on advocating for a stable and predictable tax environment, which it said is extremely imperative to boost investment sentiment across sectors. An investment-led growth strategy is essential to support India's economy. To achieve this, measures are needed to enhance the ease of doing business, rationalize the cost of doing business, and simplify tax rates and tariffs, it asserted. The simplification of the withholding tax regime is among the top asks of the Tax Forum. With increased adoption of technology and use of data analytics, the scope of Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax Collection at Source (TCS) provisions needs to be rationalized, it said. Tarun Bajaj, Chairperson of US-India Tax Forum and former Revenue Secretary, Government of India, said, "The ensuing budget of the government is expected to build on the reforms previously implemented. It is expected to introduce targeted reforms in direct taxes and customs policies, aimed at enhancing India's economic partnerships globally." Bajaj said that the industry should anticipate measures to streamline corporate tax structures and transactions, incentivize investments, and simplify customs procedures to facilitate smoother trade flows. "These initiatives are crucial for fostering a conducive business environment and strengthening bilateral economic ties, ensuring mutual prosperity and competitiveness in the global market. Additionally, they will further build on the ease of doing business for industries in India," Bajaj said. USISPF President and CEO, Dr. Mukesh Aghi said, multinational corporations anticipate Budget 2024-25 to prioritize stable tax policies, robust infrastructure investments, innovative incentives, and sustainable development initiatives "Our recommendations are largely aligned towards these areas, seeking clarity and consistency in regulations," Aghi said. Largely in the interest of inbound investments, the Tax Forum has suggested significant reforms in the capital gains tax structure, which it said is currently complex. It said there is a need to bring parity among tax rates and holding periods for investments across equity, debt, and immovable property, which are currently quite fragmented. This it said would lead to a simpler capital gains tax structure and reduce the compliance burden. Under indirect taxes, the Tax Forum's recommendations are largely centered on the rationalization of custom duty rates on specific products. As India seeks to capitalize on the China plus one strategy, it is imperative that the import of critical supply chain components is made cost-effective and the process of bringing goods into the country is streamlined. "Customs duty relaxations on the import of supplies which strengthen domestic capabilities are the need of the hour, which will not only improve domestic efficiencies but also add to India's competitiveness," said the Forum. The interim budget, tabled on February 1, took care of the financial needs of the intervening period until a government was formed after the Lok Sabha polls, after which a full budget was supposed to be presented by the new government in July. With this upcoming Budget Presentation on July 23, Sitharaman will surpass the record set by former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who as finance minister, presented five annual budgets and one interim budget between 1959 and 1964. Sitharaman's upcoming Budget speech would be her sixth. The government last Saturday announced the dates of the budget session of Parliament which will start on July 22 and conclude on August 12. (ANI) SMPL Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], July 12: MSLive, a leading digital marketing agency in Chennai, proudly marks its 10th anniversary, celebrating a decade of setting benchmarks in the digital marketing industry. Founded with a visionary approach to online marketing, MSLive has consistently emphasized the importance of measurable results that drive substantial business growth. The company's ethos centers on metrics that matter most, such as leads and revenue, viewing its clients' success as the ultimate testament to its performance. Over the past ten years, MSLive has developed a reputation for delivering real, tangible results that propel businesses forward. At the core of MSLive's success is its unique approach to digital marketing. Unlike many in the industry, MSLive understands that while each digital channel offers distinct advantages, their true power is unleashed when strategically integrated. This understanding has led MSLive to offer comprehensive, full-service strategies that utilize a mix of digital channels to enhance visibility, drive conversions, and increase revenue for clients. From Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Google Ads Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Creation & Marketing, YouTube and Facebook Ads Marketing, Corporate Branding, and E-Commerce Marketing, MSLive provides a wide range of services tailored to meet the diverse needs of its clients. Each service is designed to optimize the client's online presence, ensuring higher rankings on search engines, better user engagement, and ultimately, more sales and revenue. A significant part of MSLive's journey has been its dedicated team of award-winning marketers, designers, and developers. This talented group is the backbone of the company, driving its innovative strategies and delivering exceptional results. MSLive's team is known for its expertise and commitment to excellence, ensuring that each client receives personalized, data-driven insights and strategies that lead to success. The company's dedication to full-funnel ROI tracking and custom strategies highlights its commitment to maximizing the impact of each campaign. "Reaching our 10th anniversary is a testament to the hard work, dedication, and innovation of our entire team," said Mr. CM Sundaram,CEO & Marketing Expert at MSLive. "Our journey over the past decade has been driven by a commitment to our clients' success and a passion for staying at the forefront of digital marketing. We look forward to continuing to help businesses thrive in an ever-changing digital world." Mr. CM Sundaram, born into a business community, had a passion for entrepreneurship from a young age. As a child, he earned pocket money by recording Ilayaraja and A.R. Rahman songs from CDs onto cassettes for his friends. He developed a keen interest and talent in projectors, speakers, and sound systems, quickly mastering any gadget he used. His cinematography skills, honed while working on ad films, earned praise from cinema celebrities under Sundaram's direction and cinematography. The company prides itself on its high customer retention rate and exceptional responsiveness, with a promise to return emails and calls within one business day. This client-centric approach is complemented by affordable pricing, making MSLive's top-tier digital marketing services accessible to businesses of all sizes. The company believes that building strong relationships with clients is key to mutual success, and this philosophy is reflected in its service delivery. As MSLive celebrates this milestone, it remains steadfast in its commitment to fostering a positive company culture. Creating an environment that goes beyond being just a workplace has always been a priority for MSLive. This nurturing culture not only inspires and motivates the team but also translates into better service and innovative solutions for clients. MSLive believes that a happy, motivated team is crucial for delivering the best possible outcomes. Looking ahead, MSLive is excited to continue driving growth and expansion for its clients through innovative digital marketing services. The company's customizable approach and proven track record of helping businesses navigate market disruptions and industry changes position it well for future challenges. With a commitment to turning challenges into opportunities, MSLive is poised to help more businesses achieve their goals and adapt to the ever-evolving digital landscape. For more information, please visit the website at https://www.mslivetechnologies.com/. (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) The central government has excluded kabuli chana from the purview of the stock limit. This move is expected to help importers bring in more Kabuli chana into India ahead of the festival season. Pulses, including kabuli chana, are widely used in snack making and consumed as a source of proteins. An official gazette notification was put out late on Thursday, but it did not mention the reasons behind the exemption given on this particular pulse. On June 21, the government imposed stock limits on pulses applicable to wholesalers, retailers, big chain retailers, millers, and importers, to prevent hoarding and unscrupulous speculation, and also to improve affordability to the consumers. Under this order, stock limits were imposed for tur and chana, including Kabuli chana, until September 30, 2024, for all States and Union Territories. Stock limits applicable to each of the pulse individually will be 200 MT for wholesalers; 5 MT for retailers; 5 MT at each retail outlet and 200 MT at the depot for big chain retailers; last 3 months of production or 25 per cent of annual installed capacity, whichever is higher, for the millers. In respect of importers, the importers are not to hold imported stock beyond 45 days from the date of Customs clearance. The respective legal entities are to declare the stock position on the portal (https://fcainfoweb.nic.in/psp) of the Department of Consumer Affairs and in case the stocks held by them are higher than the prescribed limits then, they shall bring the same to the prescribed stock limits by July 12, 2024. The imposition of stock limits on tur and chana is a part of a slew of measures taken by the Government to crack down on prices of essential commodities. The Department of Consumer Affairs has been closely monitoring the stock position of pulses through the stock disclosure portal. The Centre had, in the first week of April 2024 communicated with State governments to enforce mandatory stock disclosure by all stockholding entities, which was followed up with visits to major pulses producing States and trading hubs across the country from the last week of April to May 10, 2024. The government reduced the import duty of 66 per cent on desi chana from May 4, 2024 in order to augment domestic production. "The duty reduction has facilitated imports and elicit higher sowing of chana in major producing countries. As per report, chana production in Australia is estimated to increase from 5 lakh tons in 2023-24 to 11 lakh tons in 2024-25 which is expected to be available from October 2024 onward," the food ministry had said in June. Sowing of Kharif pulses like tur and urad is expected to increase significantly in this season due to high price realization by farmers and above-normal monsoon rains predicted by IMD. Further, import of the current year's crop of tur from East African countries are expected to arrive from August 2024 onward. These factors are expected to help in bringing down the prices of Kharif pulses like tur and urad in the coming month. The arrival new crop of chana in Australia and its availability for import from October 2024 will help in maintaining the availability of chana to consumers at affordable prices. India is a large consumer and grower of pulses and it meets a portion of its consumption needs through imports. India primarily consumes chana, Masur, urad, Kabuli chana, and tur pulses. Despite several measures, including various incentives to farmers, India is still dependent on imports of pulses for its domestic requirements. Pulses imports have almost doubled in 2023-24. (ANI) PRNewswire New Delhi [India], July 12: Fateh Education, a leading study abroad consultancy known for their higher education counselling services for the UK and Ireland, is excited to announce their upcoming Inter-School Quiz Competition, 'Quest to Conquer 2024,' - an event designed to provide students with an opportunity to showcase their skills, network, and learn in a competitive yet collaborative environment. It will also help students gauge their aptitude and interest which will enable them to choose the right and futuristic courses resulting in better student outcomes. This quiz will also be extended on the same day in the second half to college students and working professionals who are looking to challenge their knowledge and understanding while also utilising this platform to network and grow. Quiz competitions have been an essential component of India's intellectual landscape since they help with education, skill development, cultural enrichment, and the development of a competitive spirit in their participants and it is this spirit of learning and development that Fateh Education through 'Quest to Conquer 2024' strives to keep alive. Speaking about 'Quest to Conquer 2024', Suneet Singh Kochar, Founder and CEO of Fateh Education, said, "This quiz competition is an opportunity for students to discover their potential, connect with peers, and embrace the joy of learning. Young people look forward to successful quiz takers as role models and are often inspired to pursue education and expand their horizons. We hope this competition becomes a stepping stone for many children to conquer their dreams." He further added, "Through this quiz, we at Fateh Education want to encourage participants to delve into various fields of knowledge, including science, history, current affairs, literature, and more, as this promotes a culture of continuous learning and intellectual curiosity while also honing skills such as quick thinking, problem-solving, logical reasoning, and effective communication. We have always maintained that we are the doers behind the dreamers and this competition is an extension of bringing that vision to the student community in India." Speaking about the upcoming event, Quiz Master, Arindam Bhattacharya said, "We are thrilled to partner with Fateh Education for the 'Quest to Conquer 2024' Inter-School Quiz Competition. Our team at Cradle Solutions is dedicated to creating a stimulating and dynamic quiz experience that will challenge and inspire students. I strongly believe that quizzes nurture a spirit of excellence and participants are motivated to strive for improved performance through healthy competition which benefits both personal growth and academic achievement. We are excited to meet the brilliant young minds and enjoy the eclectic atmosphere." With a legacy of empowering students to carve their paths toward successful careers, Fateh Education invites educators and students to participate in this prestigious event that will help students understand their strengths and areas for improvement, aligning with the global trend of practical and skill-oriented education. The details of participation are as follows: Registration Deadline: Friday, July 19, 2024 Registration Email: registration.questtoconquer@gmail.com Date of the Quiz for School students: Friday, August 2, 2024 - Written Elimination Round, Semi-Finals, and Final Location: The quiz for all will be conducted only in the in-person mode at Kamani Auditorium, 1, Copernicus Marg, Opposite Doordarshan Bhawan, Mandi House, New Delhi, Delhi 110001 Eligibility: Students from classes 9th to 12th Theme: General Knowledge encompassing History, Politics, Culture, Heritage, Art, Food, Fashion, Sports, Science, Technology, Business, Literature, Mythology, and Current Affairs Team Composition: Maximum of 4 members per team; unlimited teams per institution About Fateh Education: Founded in 2004, by an alumnus of IIM-Calcutta, Fateh Education has been providing personalized international higher education consulting to study in the UK and Ireland. Fateh has over 120 university partnerships and 200 plus employees across 9 offices in India. The organization is also a member of the British Council with UCAS accreditation and is an authorized partner of Education in Ireland. Since its inception, Fateh has guided over 35000 students to conquer their dreams. Started as an IELTS training institute in Delhi, Fateh bagged the coveted "Award of Excellence" Extra Learn by the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations. To further cater to the needs of students, Fateh ventured into study abroad counselling with the UK and Ireland as the key focus markets. Fateh Education is also the proud winner of 'The Best Consultant award' from Enterprise Ireland; 4 years in a row, a recognition signifying the market leadership for Irish higher education consulting in India. They are a close second for UK higher education consulting. Fateh Education envisions being the market leader in the study abroad consulting space for the UK and going beyond excellence to provide the finest quality of personalized services to its students while maintaining market leadership for Irish higher education consulting. For further information log onto - www.fateheducation.com For more details please contact: Good Relations India Kritika Nagar | kritika.nagar@gri.co.in; Lubna Das |lubna.das@gri.co.in Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2460008/Fateh_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) New Delhi [India], July 12: Are you a Bangladeshi citizen dreaming of exploring the dazzling cityscape of Dubai or the cultural richness of Abu Dhabi? Your journey to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) just got easier! DuDigital Global Ltd is thrilled to announce a game-changing service for Bangladeshi nationals worldwide. Bangladeshi citizens can now apply for UAE tourist visas through DuDigital Global Bangladesh, regardless of their current location. A Booming Travel Trend The launch of this service couldn't be timelier. In 2023, over 200,000 Bangladeshi citizens travelled to the UAE for tourism and personal visits, marking a significant increase from previous years. This surge reflects the growing fascination with the UAE's blend of modernity and tradition. From the futuristic skyline of Dubai to the cultural treasures of Abu Dhabi, the UAE offers a wealth of experiences for Bangladeshi travellers. Whether you're seeking a shopping paradise, a cultural adventure, or new business opportunities, the UAE has something for everyone. Documents Needed for Getting the Visa * Passport (6 months validity)* Valid Visa Copies of US, UK, Canada, Schengen, Japan, Australia, China* 2 recent photographs with a white background* NID* Bank Statement (6 months)* Hotel Booking* Tickets Ready to Start Your UAE Adventure? Applying for your UAE visa has never been easier. Visit www.dudigitalglobal.com to begin your journey today. Our team is ready to assist you every step of the way. For More Information or to Speak with Our Friendly Customer Service Representatives: Dhaka: +880 19 7379 9244Chittagong: +880 18 1335 5616 & +880 18 2478 6183 (WhatsApp) Contact Information: DU Digital Technologies Ltd Address: 17th PBL Tower (13th Floor), Gulshan Circle 2, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh Email: manoj@dudigitalglobal.com Phone Number: +880 19 7379 9244 Embark on your UAE adventure with confidence. Choose DuDigital Global for a hassle-free visa experience today! (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) The Adani Group's Vizinjham port will reduce the logistics cost and time of Indian manufacturers, said Adani Ports and SEZ's CEO Karan Adani. "I think with this port we are able to reduce the transit time for our customers, that is the manufacturers of the country by almost 30 to 40 percent. And that itself is a big benefit that the Indian manufacturers will have and make them more competitive at the global scale and obviously with the reduction in the transit time, you will definitely see reduction in the logistics cost as well," Karan Adani told ANI. He expects a 4-5 per cent reduction in logistics cost through this port. Adani Ports and SEZ on Friday announced the arrival of the first mother ship at its Vizhinjam port. This milestone event marks India's entry into the global transshipment and ushers in a new era in India's maritime history, positioning Vizhinjam as a critical player in the international trade routes. "Once we get the approval, environment clearance approval, we want to go ahead and complete the full phase phase two three and four -- the balance 1.2 kilometers of berth length," said Karan Adani. "We're very confident from a business perspective because of the kind of traction and kind of excitement we see from our customers. We are very confident that we will be able to fill up the whole capacity," he added. The port's full master plan capacity would be 5 million TEUs. Asked what were the challenges in developing the port, he said there will always be challenges in the greenfield site, but did not got into specifics of it. "But I think we look forward to working with the communities nearby. We look forward to scaling the local youth so that we can employ them into this port, and into the operation," he said. "And it's one of the most technologically advanced port, not just for India but whole of South Asia. We are very confident with the kind of talent which is available over here that we will work very closely and hopefully have 100 per cent local people running this whole port. That's our aspiration. But as you know, challenges keep coming, but we look forward to working with the community to solve each one of them and have a holistic development, a sustainable and a holistic development of the port." So far, he said the Group has spent almost 65 crores in CSR. Asked how was the support from the Kerala government, other political parties, and did it face any kind of problems related to the trade unions, he said, "I think if you ask me, this is one port, very unique port that we have experienced where we have got support from all political parties, whether it is BJP, Congress, or Left." "As you know, the port was given by Congress government, then development happening during the Left government. Your MP is from Congress, your MLA is from Congress. So it is interesting to get support from all across the board. And I think all political parties are working towards the betterment of the state," he further noted. Today's milestone event was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, and the gathering was presided over by VN Vasavan, the Minister for Ports, Kerala. Sarbananda Sonowal, the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, was the chief guest. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that India had now entered the global map with this transshipment port. "A monumental day for Kerala! We proudly celebrated the arrival of the mothership San Fernando at Vizhinjam International Seaport, making the dreams of millions of Keralites come true. With an investment of Rs 8,867 Cr and the creation of over 5,000 jobs, this project exemplifies the power of public-private partnership...This is an achievement and a testament to our collective vision and dedication. Here's to a brighter, prosperous future for Kerala and our country!" the CM wrote on his X timeline. This event also marks the debut of India's first automated port with state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities, capable of handling large ships, with its modern container handling equipment and world-class automation and IT systems. San Fernando, the 300-meter-long container vessel operated by Maersk with a capacity of 8,000-9,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), will be availing the services at the port to offload about 2,000 containers and for 400 container movements within the vessel. Currently, 25 per cent of India's container traffic is transshipped en route to the destination. Until now, despite India's rising trade with the world, the country did not have a dedicated transshipment port, resulting in three-fourths or 75 per cent of India's transshipped cargo being handled by ports outside India. Vizhinjam, will not only facilitate the movement of transshipment traffic into India but the strategically located port will also play a pivotal role in handling traffic along major routes connecting India, such as traffic between the US, Europe Africa, and the Indian subcontinent as well as US, Europe, Africa and the Far East, and thus playing a critical role in the international trade routes. Vizhinjam International Seaport in Kerala is a critical economic infrastructure project promoted by the Government of Kerala in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. It is the largest private sector investment in Kerala. After winning the bid, Adani Ports and Logistics formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited (AVPPL), to develop the project. AVPPL entered into a concession agreement with the Department of Ports, Government of Kerala, on August 17, 2015, for the development and operation of Vizhinjam International Seaport. Overcoming multiple challenges, the port is now in the advanced stages of competition. APSEZ has 15 ports--seven strategically located ports and terminals on the west coast (Mundra, Tuna, Dahej, and Hazira in Gujarat, Mormugao in Goa, Dighi in Maharashtra and Vizhinjam in Kerala) and 8 ports and terminals on the East coast of India (Haldia in West Bengal, Dhamra and Gopalpur in Odisha, Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Kattupalli and Ennore in Tamil Nadu and Karaikal in Puducherry, representing 27 per cent of the country's total port volumes. The company is also developing a transshipment port in Colombo, Sri Lanka, operates the Haifa Port in Israel and a container terminal in Dar es Salaam Port, Tanzania. (ANI) PRNewswire Alwar (Rajasthan)/ Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], July 12: Tractor Junction proudly organized the 5th Edition of Indian Tractor of the Year (ITOTY) Awards, sponsored by CEAT Specialty, on July 10, 2024. This esteemed event celebrated and honoured excellence in the agricultural industry. Commencing at 3:30 PM at Taj Vivanta Dwarka in New Delhi, the event featured keynotes, panel discussions, and awards recognizing excellence in the tractor and farm equipment sector. Gearing up the event was the Partner Showcase, followed by the Deep Prajwalan Ceremony led by all jury members and partners. Thereafter, Animesh Agarwal -- Co-Founder and COO of Tractor Junction -- delivered the keynote address. Talking about the event's 5th edition, he said, "With the 5th ITOTY Awards, we continue our dedication to empowering farmers, by recognizing excellence in tractors, farm equipment and financiers. We received over 300 nominations across 36 categories. Choosing the winners wasn't easy, but our jury, with over 200 years of combined experience, worked alongside public voters to make sure the process was fair and transparent. The final decision was 60% from the jury and 40% from public votes. Together, we've highlighted the true champions of the agricultural industry." Among several categories, here are the top categories along with respective winners: * Indian Tractor of the Year: Swaraj 855 FE* Best Design Tractor: Mahindra OJA* Best Tractor for Agriculture: Farmtrac 50 Powermaxx* Indian Tractor Manufacturer of the Year: International Tractors Limited* Rotavator of the Year: Maschio Gaspardo Virat Rotavator The ceremony progressed with the winner announcement in the Tractor HP Category Awards, honouring the best tractors across various horsepower ranges. Below is the category-wise winner list: Following this, Jay Doshi, Head of Global Marketing at CEAT Specialty, delivered a special speech. Panel Discussion: Evolving Needs Of Farmers For The Tractor and Farm Equipment Industry A panel discussion on the evolving needs of farmers, for the tractor and farm equipment industry, included insights from the leaders: Ravi Mathur, VP Sales & Marketing at ShaktimanRajeev Rellan, Chief of Sales & Marketing at Swaraj TractorsAnjaneya Prasad, CEO of Iffco Kisan FinanceSurajit Sinha - R&D - Domestic Market, CEAT SpecialtySujit Ghalsasi, Head of Vehicle Finance at RBL BankC R Mehta, ITOTY Jury ChairmanPushan Sharma, Director at CRISIL Limited Dr. C R Mehta, Director of ICAR - Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering and ITOTY Awards 2024 Jury Chairman, delivered an insightful and inspiring speech. The jury, comprising esteemed experts from various sectors of the agricultural industry, demonstrated exceptional knowledge and dedication. Their rigorous evaluation process ensured the recognition of the most deserving candidates. This further highlighted their commitment to recognising the advancing excellence in the tractor and farm equipment sector. Progressing further, the announcement began for the next category of awards, Farming Implements: Bank/NBFC Awards Presented at the ITOTY 2024 The event also included a speech from FADA and the presentation of the Financier Awards. The 5th Edition of the ITOTY introduced an additional award category for Banks and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Companies). Below are the award names, along with their respective winners: ITOTY 2024 Honors Excellence in CSR Initiatives The next category award announcement that began was CSR -- a segment that honoured companies that made outstanding contributions to corporate social responsibility initiatives: The much-anticipated award title announcement -- Indian Tractor of the Year -- went to Swaraj 855 FE,for embodying a blend of modern style and advanced features in tractor design. Also, Amit Tolani, Chief Executive of CEAT Specialty, expressed his appreciation for the winners, by saying, "Congratulations to all the winners of the Indian Tractor of the Year 2024 awards. The event celebrated incredible advancements and innovations within the tractor industry. As the title sponsor, CEAT Specialty is honoured to support and encourage these achievements, helping to drive the future of agricultural machinery. Your commitment to innovation and excellence is truly commendable, and we eagerly anticipate the significant impact it will have on the industry's future." The evening wrapped up with the closing remarks followed by a thanks note. This segment featured contributions from YouTube influencers, Agri Insight Partner CRISIL, Institutional Partner FADA, Media Partners Krishi Jagran & News India, and the jury members. It was an evening of celebration and recognition of the best in the tractor and farm equipment industry. About Tractor Junction Founded in 2018, Tractor Junction is India's top digital marketplace for farmers. With a vision of 'Revolutionizing the Rural Auto Ecosystem', the company aims to empower rural communities with advanced auto solutions, for sustainable growth and prosperity. Committed to supporting and advancing the tractor industry, Tractor Junction hosts the annual ITOTY Awards, celebrating excellence and innovation. For more information about the ITOTY Awards 2024, please visit Tractor Junction. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2460094/Tractor_Junction_ITOTY_2024.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) NITI Aayog released the report of SDG 2023-24 on Friday. In the report, Uttarakhand has met the criteria of Sustainable Development Goals and secured the first position in the entire country, jointly with Kerala. Congratulating all the people of the state, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that this achievement has been achieved with the blessings and cooperation of the people of the state. "Under the able leadership of respected Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, due to the development-oriented efforts of our double engine government, today our state has moved forward towards becoming a leading state. Uttarakhand getting the top position in the report of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG INDEX) 2023-2024 released by NITI Aayog is a direct proof of this," Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said on X. Our government is continuously moving towards 'developed Uttarakhand' with the coordination of ecology and economy. Our top priority is to establish a transparent system in the state and bring about comprehensive and all-round development," the X post read. The SDG India Index 2023-24 scores for States range from 57 to 79, while for UTs they range between 65 and 77. This marks an improvement over the 2020-21 scores, where States ranged from 52 to 75, and UTs ranged from 62 to 79. Uttarakhand and Kerala lead as top States with scores of 79 each; Chandigarh maintains top spot among UTs with a score of 77. Tamil Nadu took the third spot followed by Goa and Himachal Pradesh. SDG India Index 2023-24, the fourth edition of the country's principal tool for measuring national and subnational progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) was released today by NITI Aayog. The Index was launched by Suman Bery, Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog in the presence of BVR Subrahmanyam, CEO, NITI Aayog; Shombi Sharp, UN Resident Coordinator in India; Dr. Yogesh Suri, Senior Advisr, NITI Aayog and Isabelle Tschan Harada, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP. SDG India Index 2023-24 measures and tracks national progress of all States and UTs on 113 indicators aligned to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation's (MoSPI) National Indicator Framework (NIF). The SDG India Index computes goal-wise scores on the 16 SDGs for each State and UT. (ANI) Shelley Duvall, the iconic actress known for her captivating performances in films such as 'The Shining', 'Popeye' and 'McCabe & Mrs Miller', has died at the age of 75. Her passing occurred in her sleep due to complications from diabetes, as confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter. Duvall, recognized for her unique screen presence and collaborations with director Robert Altman, had a distinguished career that included notable roles in 'Nashville', 'Popeye', and '3 Women'. She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her remarkable performance in '3 Women,' showcasing her extraordinary talent. Dan Gilroy, her life partner since 1989, expressed his sorrow, stating, "My dear, sweet, wonderful life partner and friend left us. Too much suffering lately, now she's free. Fly away, beautiful Shelley," according to a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. The actress faced significant personal challenges in recent years. In a 2016 appearance on 'Dr Phil', she revealed her struggles with mental health, stating, "I am very sick. I need help," as per The Hollywood Reporter. Duvall was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 7, 1949. Her rise to fame began after she was discovered while attending junior college in Houston, leading to her first role in 'Brewster McCloud' (1970). Throughout her career, she became known for her collaboration with Altman, who provided her with diverse and challenging roles. Reflecting on her relationship with Altman, she once noted, "He offers me damn good roles. None of them have been alike." One of her most memorable performances came in Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining', where she portrayed Wendy Torrance, a woman trapped in a nightmarish situation with her husband, played by Jack Nicholson. The filming process was grueling, with Duvall later stating, "I will never give that much again." Reports obtained by The Hollywood Reporter indicated she performed one iconic scene an exhausting 127 times. Beyond acting, Duvall also made significant contributions to children's programming. She produced the acclaimed series 'Faerie Tale Theatre' and 'Tall Tales & Legends', both of which featured star-studded casts and received critical acclaim. Duvall's legacy extends beyond her film roles; she remains a beloved figure in both cinema and children's television. She is survived by her three brothers, Scott, Stewart, and Shane. (ANI) Clad in a yellow embellished lehenga, Ananya was seen posing for shutterbugs, flaunting her customized outfit with the words "Anant's Bridage" emblazoned on the back of her blouse. The wedding celebrations that commenced in full splendour with the Ambani residence Antilia, transformed into a spectacle to mark the joyous occasion. Mukesh Ambani, paid homage to his late father Dhirubhai Ambani and ensured that the presence of the businessman who founded Reliance Industries in 1958 was felt at the wedding. A portrait of the visionary industrialist was prominently displayed at the venue, a touching gesture amidst the grandeur of the celebrations. The wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant has drawn an array of luminaries from across the globe. Pre-wedding celebrations, included a lavish Sangeet ceremony on July 5 that featured performances by global pop sensation Justin Bieber and witnessed the convergence of renowned global personalities. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. Earlier this year Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's union was preceded by a series of pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar, where they welcomed a distinguished guest list. (ANI) Dressed in a golden-toned kurta pyjama set, Rajinikanth posed with his wife Latha Rajinikanth and daughter. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811741638504378783 Actor Arjun Kapoor was spotted wearing a kurta with 'mere yaar ki shadi hai' written on it. Ananya Panday, Khushi Kapoor and Shanaya Kapoor dazzled in vibrant lehengas flaunting 'Anant's brigade' message inscribed on the back of their ensembles. WWE champion and actor John Cena surprised everyone with his desi look. The professional wrestler and actor Cena happily posed for shutterbugs in a powder blue bandhgala suit. He elevated his appearance with his signature "you can't see me" pose. Global sensations Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian who arrived in Mumbai last eveing were graciously welcomed with a luxurious reception at the iconic Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, setting the stage for their immersion into the wedding festivities. The wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. The opulent affair promises to be a celebration of Indian culture, spirituality, and tradition on an unparalleled scale. The wedding decor theme is 'An Ode to Varanasi,' paying homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts, and Banarasi cuisine. Mukesh Ambani, paying homage to his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, has ensured his presence is felt at the wedding. A portrait of the visionary industrialist has been prominently displayed at the venue, a touching gesture amidst the grandeur of the celebrations. The wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant has drawn an array of luminaries from across the globe. (ANI) Former United States Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Mumbai a while ago. He has been invited to attend the wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811737462735274094 Wedding celebrations are underway at Mumbai's Jio World Drive. Celebrities like John Cena, AR Rahman, Anil Kapoor, MS Dhoni, Khushi Kapoor, Shanaya Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan have already arrived at the venue. They even posed for the shutterbugs. Just a day before the wedding, American influencer Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe Kardashian landed in India rapper Rema. This is reportedly Kim's first trip to India. Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson also arrived in India on Thursday night. The opulent wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant promises to be a spectacular celebration of Indian culture, civilization, spirituality, Indian folk art, craftsmanship, music, cuisine, and much more. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine.Banarasi street food like chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas are on the menu. The carefully curated stalls and dedicated guest services have been designed for attendees to not only enjoy the event but also take away lasting memories of their journey through the ghats of Banaras. From chaat to chai, Ode to Banaras features the culinary delights from one of the world's oldest living cities. Apart from these, sweets, paan and mukhwas, kharik from Ahmedabad, chaat counters, malai toast and chai, lassi and lemon tea the food counters set up for guests promise to bring the Banaras' rich and varied food culture to Mumbai. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. (ANI) Actors Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon were also spotted during the ceremony. Music maestro AR Rahman along with his wife were seen posing for the camera as they arrived to attend the lavish ceremony. Reliance Foundation Chairperson Nita Ambani's mother Purnima Dalal along with Mamta Dalal looked stunning as they posed for the camera. Power couple Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh graced the red carpet of the Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant's wedding. Actor Arjun Kapoor was spotted wearing a kurta with 'mere yaar ki shadi hai' written on it.Ananya Panday, Khushi Kapoor and Shanaya Kapoor dazzled in vibrant lehengas flaunting 'Anant's brigade' message inscribed on the back of their ensembles. WWE champion and actor John Cena surprised everyone with his desi look. The professional wrestler and actor Cena happily posed for shutterbugs in a powder blue bandhgala suit. He elevated his appearance with his signature "you can't see me" pose. Global sensations Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian who arrived in Mumbai last eveing were graciously welcomed with a luxurious reception at the iconic Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, setting the stage for their immersion into the wedding festivities. The wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. The opulent affair promises to be a celebration of Indian culture, spirituality, and tradition on an unparalleled scale. The wedding decor theme is 'An Ode to Varanasi,' paying homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts, and Banarasi cuisine. Mukesh Ambani, paying homage to his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, has ensured his presence is felt at the wedding. A portrait of the visionary industrialist has been prominently displayed at the venue, a touching gesture amidst the grandeur of the celebrations. The wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant has drawn an array of luminaries from across the globe. (ANI) He was spotted at the airport. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811623956081688741 Global sensations Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian who arrived in Mumbai last evening were graciously welcomed with a luxurious reception at the iconic Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, setting the stage for their immersion into the wedding festivities. 'Calm Down' sensation Rema arrived at Mumbai airport for the much-awaited wedding. The wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. The opulent affair promises to be a celebration of Indian culture, spirituality, and tradition on an unparalleled scale. The wedding decor theme is 'An Ode to Varanasi,' paying homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts, and Banarasi cuisine. Mukesh Ambani, paying homage to his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, has ensured his presence is felt at the wedding. A portrait of the visionary industrialist has been prominently displayed at the venue, a touching gesture amidst the grandeur of the celebrations.The wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant has drawn an array of luminaries from across the globe. (ANI) Actor couple Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal left everyone awestruck during the Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding ceremony at Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai on Friday. Katrina opted for a red sari with golden border that she teamed up with a matching blouse. She looked gorgeous in an open-straight hairstyle. The 'New York' actor completed her look with golden jhumkas and a stunning neckpiece. Vicky, on the other hand looked dapper in a sherwani with floral motifs and brown shoes. Actor Ajay Devgn who arrived with his son Yug in tow also arrived to attend the wedding ceremony. King Khan Shah Rukh Khan slayed the red carpet with his presence and dapper look at the star-studded wedding. The 'Pathaan' actor accompanied by his beautiful wife Gauri Khan looked striking in a green Pathani sherwani-styled set in green. King Khan's children Suhana and Aryan Khan also joined the star-studded guest list at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. While Suhana wore a golden-silver-toned stylish saree, Aryan looked chic in a black suit. The siblings were all smiles as they posed for shutterbugs. Other celebrities who were spotted at Mumbai's Jio World Drive venue of the wedding included Priyanka Chopra with her husband Nick Jonas, John Cena, AR Rahman, Anil Kapoor, Khushi Kapoor, Shanaya Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan. Each of them posed for shutterbugs.Just a day before the wedding, American influencer Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe Kardashian landed in India. This is reportedly Kim's first trip to India. Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson also arrived in India on last night. The opulent wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant promises to be a spectacular celebration of Indian culture, civilization, spirituality, Indian folk art, craftsmanship, music, cuisine, and much more. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine.Banarasi street food like chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas are on the menu. The carefully curated stalls and dedicated guest services have been designed for attendees to not only enjoy the event but also take away lasting memories of their journey through the ghats of Banaras. From chaat to chai, Ode to Banaras features the culinary delights from one of the world's oldest living cities. Apart from these, sweets, paan and mukhwas, kharik from Ahmedabad, chaat counters, malai toast and chai, lassi and lemon tea the food counters set up for guests promise to bring the Banaras' rich and varied food culture to Mumbai. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. (ANI) Adding to the glam quotient at the wedding celebration of Anant Amban and Radhika Merchant was Bollywood couple Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra who joined a glittering array of guests at the Mumbai venue. Kiara looked gorgeous in a pink and purple bandhani lehenga choli. Giving a Gujarati vibe, the 'Good Newwz' actor wore a pink stylish blouse with a purple lehenga to give a contrast to her look. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811782516732272860 She wore statement earrings and bangles for the occasion opting to leave her neck bare. Handsome hunk Sidharth opted for an off-white embroidered Indo-western look. Before heading to the venue of the wedding Kiara gave a glimpse of her look on social media. https://www.instagram.com/p/C9U3WySIFA8/?img_index=2 Other celebrities who were spotted at Mumbai's Jio World Drive venue of the wedding included John Cena, AR Rahman, Anil Kapoor, Khushi Kapoor, Shanaya Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan. Each of them posed for shutterbugs. Just a day before the wedding, American influencer Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe Kardashian landed in India. This is reportedly Kim's first trip to India. Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson also arrived in India on last night. The opulent wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant promises to be a spectacular celebration of Indian culture, civilization, spirituality, Indian folk art, craftsmanship, music, cuisine, and much more. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine.Banarasi street food like chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas are on the menu. The carefully curated stalls and dedicated guest services have been designed for attendees to not only enjoy the event but also take away lasting memories of their journey through the ghats of Banaras. From chaat to chai, Ode to Banaras features the culinary delights from one of the world's oldest living cities. Apart from these, sweets, paan and mukhwas, kharik from Ahmedabad, chaat counters, malai toast and chai, lassi and lemon tea the food counters set up for guests promise to bring the Banaras' rich and varied food culture to Mumbai. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. (ANI) After Bollywood celebs, several politicians too joined the guest list at the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav arrived at the wedding venue on Friday. BJP leader Smriti Irani along with her husband attended Anant and Radhika's wedding ceremony. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811799862549094656 Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi was also spotted on the red carpet of the wedding ceremony. https://x.com/ANI/status/1811799213396664610 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also attended the wedding in Mumbai. Celebrities who were spotted at Mumbai's Jio World Drive venue of the wedding included John Cena, AR Rahman, Anil Kapoor, Khushi Kapoor, Shanaya Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan. Each of them posed for shutterbugs. The opulent wedding of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with Radhika Merchant promises to be a spectacular celebration of Indian culture, civilization, spirituality, Indian folk art, craftsmanship, music, cuisine, and much more. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine.Banarasi street food like chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas are on the menu. The carefully curated stalls and dedicated guest services have been designed for attendees to not only enjoy the event but also take away lasting memories of their journey through the ghats of Banaras. From chaat to chai, Ode to Banaras features the culinary delights from one of the world's oldest living cities. Apart from these, sweets, paan and mukhwas, kharik from Ahmedabad, chaat counters, malai toast and chai, lassi and lemon tea the food counters set up for guests promise to bring the Banaras' rich and varied food culture to Mumbai. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. (ANI) The College of Fisheries Tripura, affiliated with Central Agriculture University Imphal, is conducting a research study to replace the use of antibiotics with medicated fish fodder developed through scientific processes. Speaking exclusively to ANI on Wednesday, Dean of the College Professor Arun Bhai Patel said, "We are doing multiple studies and one of them is related to replacing antibiotics with medicated feed. We have also inventoried the whole fish species found in the whole North Eastern states in our fish museum." "Around 303 varieties of fish that are available in all eight districts of the state could be found here in one place at the fish museum developed here in the fishery college. We have travelled extensively to collect all the varieties," he said. Notably, Fisheries College Tripura observed National Fish Farmers Day and to mark the occasion, a workshop on blue transformation was held. In the workshop, stakeholders of different levels attended and exchanged their thoughts with the fish farmers. "The purpose of the workshop is three-fold. Firstly, to bring the farmers and hear their issues; besides, entrepreneurs, financiers and other stakeholders have also been invited here to find out solutions to the problems. The larger motive is to bring a blue transformation to the state," said the dean. Stating that, despite aquaculture being an integral part of the society and communities living here, scientific fish culture has not yet been properly adopted, said Patel. "For example, feed costs are very high in Tripura. To tackle the situation, we are working on some projects that can lead to food abundance. For instance, some crops can be used for fish fodder and can be grown easily by the farmers themselves. We are also working on increasing the profitability of the farmers through the introduction of more varieties of fish and the preparation of quality seed," he added. Speaking about the research, he said that apart from the medicated feed, the institution is working to introduce alternatives for traditional feed such as mustard oil cakes, maize and wheat. "We have found that with slight modifications, we can use Colocasia and Tapioca as viable alternatives to the traditional fish feed. We have also discovered a whole new technique for Shidol (fermented fish) preparations in much less time and in better hygienic conditions. In addition, Pengua fish is also being introduced at a larger scale in the state," Dean Patel told ANI. Among the others, Professor Ranjit Sharma Director of Extension Central Agricultural University, Imphal, General Manager NABARD, Head of ICAR-R BU Choudhury et al attended the event. (ANI) He also said that the Central government would be requested to consider the proposal. Speaking to ANI, Maharashtra Minister Dadaji Bhuse said, "The 7 railway stations on this rail route which had English names since the British era, to name them after the original names of those places before the British came, a proposal has been passed in the Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad." He further said that the reaction from the Railways is positive and the Central government would be requested to consider renaming the seven railway stations. According to the proposal, Currey Road will be renamed as Lalbaug, Marine Lines as Mumbadevi, Charni Road as Girgaum, Cotton Green as Kalachowkie, Sandhurst Road as Dongri, Dockyard Road as Mazgaon and King's Circle as Tirthankar Parshavnath. (ANI) Main Street Pizza & Pasta is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff Its been a year of churn for the citys Italian scene, with two high-profile closings and a 40% turnover in my new ranking of San Antonios Top 10 Italian restaurants. But the energy generated by that list radiates beyond just 10. So here are five more Italian restaurants that fought the good fight for a place on that Top 10 list, the ones joining the upwardly mobile ranks of our Tied for 11th series. TOP 10 ITALIAN: San Antonios best in 2024 Aldino at The Vineyard is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff Aldino at The Vineyard When it opened at Central Park Mall in 1992, Aldino was known more informally as Baby Aldo, the sequel to Aldos in the Medical Center six miles to the west. Aldino is all grown up now. In 2002, it helped settle the wild northern frontier when it moved to Loop 1604 at Blanco Road, one of the first vines in The Vineyard before people even knew to call it The Vineyard. Its a cathedral space with a towering foyer, Doric columns and a painted nod to the Sistine Chapel on the back wall, a white-tablecloth restaurant with actual white tablecloths. Those tables might carry an artful burrata salad, classic mussels in white wine sauce, chicken Gorgonzola thick enough to stand a fork, a country-style lasagna and a not-so-country salad with avocado and lump crab. 1203 N. Loop 1604 West, 210-340-0000, aldinos.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Allora at Pearl is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff Allora Last year, two relative newcomers made my list of the citys Top 10 Italian restaurants. Those places were Allora and Arrosta, a one-two punch from Peter Selig and his Maverick Restaurant Group. Just a block away from each other at Pearl, the two restaurants aimed for distinct identities: Allora was upscale Italian seafood; Arrosta was rustic Italian comfort food. In late February, the restaurants announced they would essentially swap concepts. Then Arrosta closed in June. Allora has brought in Ed Ebert as executive chef to guide the restaurants new direction, which they say will incorporate Arrostas fritto misto, bruschetta, chicken Parmigiana, seafood fettuccine and more, with a $30 three-course Chefs Prix Fixe menu to sweeten the deal. My first taste of the new Allora-in-progress was uneven, so I pulled it from this years Italian Top 10 until the dust settles. But it warrants a place on this watchlist for its elegant, sun-splashed cathedral space and for its potential to fill that space with new energy. 403 Pearl Parkway in the Credit Human building, 210-979-9950, allorapearl.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Capparelli's on Main is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff Capparellis on Main Capparellis is on the short list of names San Antonians associate with Italian food, and it made the news this month when the location on Thousand Oaks Drive closed. The name carries on at other locations around town, most notably the family-owned flagship on North Main Avenue in the Monte Vista neighborhood. The two-story space is a study in dusky earth tones and dark wood, a tasteful aesthetic if you can look past all the Hollywood Mafia artwork. Id rather focus on the food, a broad representation of red-sauce and trattoria standards, including pizza with a rugged artisan crust, the kind of lasagna you fell in love with as a kid, and thoroughly grown-up linguine with baby clams in garlic and white wine sauce. 2524 N. Main Ave., 210-735-5757, capparellisonmain.com La Sorrentina Italian Restaurant is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff La Sorrentina Italian Restaurant Judging from its small, boxy shape, metal roof and cinder-block construction, the red, white and green building on the West Side near St. Mary's University could be a taqueria, a barbecue joint or a sandwich shop. Instead, its a one-room showcase for the Italian cooking of Juan Pepe Rangel, who started La Sorrentina in 2011 after a long kitchen career in Chicago and San Antonio. The menu ranges from the Italian red-sauce canon of noodles and baked pasta to white-tablecloth renditions of veal Marsala, shrimp scampi and a greatest-hits collection of chicken Parmesan, fried eggplant and prosciutto over spaghetti called Chicken Sorrentina. 3330 Culebra Road, 210-549-0889, lasorrentinaitalianrestaurant.com Advertisement Article continues below this ad Main Street Pizza & Pasta is one of five more Italian restaurants to love in San Antonio. Mike Sutter/Staff Main Street Pizza & Pasta An emergency meeting of the Water Resources Department has been called on Friday at Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's residence after the Cauvery Water Control Committee recommended releasing 1 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu every day. Karnataka Dy CM and Water Resources Minister DK Shivakumar, senior officials of the department, Minister of Cauvery Valley will participate in the meeting. The meeting will be held at Chief Minister's Home Office Krishna at 3 pm. Earlier, after facing a severe water shortage, the Karnataka Government had said that it will not be in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu even if the centre asked it to do so. Denying allegations by the BJP that the Karnataka government is releasing water from the Cauvery River to Tamil Nadu, the Karnataka Chief Minister said, "That's all lie what BJP is saying, we can release water only if we have water. That's a lie. When we don't have water to release, we don't even give a single drop of water to Tamil Nadu or any others. Even Tamil Nadu didn't ask for water." Siddaramaiah further said that his state will not be releasing water to Tamil Nadu even if the Center directs it to do so. "We don't have water to release. There is no question of releasing water. Even if Tamil Nadu asks or the Center tells us to release (water) we'll not release. We will not give water to whoever it may be," the Chief Minister said. The governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been locked in a protracted tussle over the sharing of Cauvery waters. The river is seen as a major source of sustenance for the people in either state. The Centre formed the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) on June 2, 1990, to adjudicate disputes between Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Puducherry with respect to their individual water-sharing capacities. (ANI) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday announced a compensation of Rs 4 Lakhs each for the bereaved families of 4 people who died due to lightning in Siwan, Supaul and Rohtas. Taking to X CM Nitish Kumar posted, "It is unfortunate that 2 people died in Siwan, 1 in Supaul and 1 in Rohtas due to lightning. Deep condolences to the bereaved families. Rs 4 lakh each will be given as ex-gratia to the families of the deceased. People are requested to be very cautious during bad weather. Follow the suggestions issued from time to time by the Disaster Management Department. Stay indoors during bad weather and stay safe." Lightning claimed two lives in Siwan and one each in Supaul and Rohtas districts since Wednesday, officials said. Earlier Nitish Kumar condoled the death of 12 people due to lightning in seven districts in Bihar and announced an ex-gratia of four lakh rupees each to the dependents of the deceased. "The Chief Minister has expressed deep condolences on the death of three people in Jamui, three in Kaimur, two in Rohtas, one in Saharsa, one in Saran, one in Bhojpur and one in Gopalganj due to lightning in the last 24 hours," a press release by the state government said on Monday. The Chief Minister said that he is with the affected families in this hour of disaster. "The Chief Minister has today given instructions to give an ex-gratia grant of four lakh rupees each to the families of the deceased," the release added. The Chief Minister also appealed to the people to exercise full caution during bad weather. In case of bad weather, follow the suggestions issued from time to time by the Disaster Management Department to protect themselves from lightning. Stay indoors and stay safe during bad weather, the release said. The Chief Minister also conducted an aerial survey of rising water levels of rivers in West Champaran, East Champaran and Gopalganj districts of the state on Monday. (ANI) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) launched a scathing attack on Revanth Reddy and Rahul Gandhi, accusing them of deceiving and insulting unemployed youth and students. KTR made this statement while addressing a meeting of Bharat Rashtra Samithi Vidyarthi (BRSV) student leaders KTR criticised Revanth Reddy, asserting that he should apologize to students and unemployed people for his actions and comments. "Revanth should apologize to students and unemployed youth for insulting them with his derogatory comments in the Mahabubnagar meeting," KTR demanded. He highlighted that Revanth had promised a Mega DSC with 50,000 jobs while in opposition but has only offered around 6,000 additional posts since coming to power. KTR also accused Rahul Gandhi of exploiting students for political gain, stating, "Rahul Gandhi used students for power." He criticized the Congress party for using unemployed individuals as election tools and criticised Congress for not delivering on promises of job creation. KTR accused Revanth Reddy of having an autocratic mentality, intolerant even of social media posts. He pointed out the police attacks on journalists and students, questioning, "The question is whether attacking the people is Praja palana or Indiramma Rajyam that congress promised to bring". The BRS leader further warned that the names of the police involved in these attacks on youth have been recorded by students and will be held accountable. He criticized the Congress party for cancelling welfare schemes and failing to keep their promises to the people. He highlighted the party's permission for seven new private universities, which he claimed was a move contrary to their earlier stance. Emphasizing the achievements of his tenure, KTR mentioned that over one lakh sixty-two thousand government jobs had been filled, with another 40,000 in the process. He highlighted that the BRS party government provided 95 per cent local reservation for students in jobs. KTR said that the party successfully produced many leaders who are now serving as public representatives, chairmen, mayors, and district-level presidents. He also underscored the vital role of student leaders, particularly when in opposition and encouraged them to fight against government injustices and to continue the legacy of the student movement from 2009 to 2014. (ANI) There is a monsoon trough and a cyclonic circulation has also developed over Mumbai which has resulted in strong westerly winds, the Met Department said. An orange alert is issued in case of extremely bad weather. It affects the transport facilities including rail, road and air. The Palghar region of Maharastra has also been experiencing heavy rain since this morning, as the IMD issued an orange alert in the region in their nowcast warning. The IMD said there will be heavy spells of rain at isolated places in Mumbai for the next three to four hours. "Intense spells of rain are very likely to occur at isolated places in the districts of Mumbai during the next 3-4 hours, the IMD said. The IMD has further issued a yellow alert in the Thane and Raigad regions in their nowcast warning today. The city faced major waterlogging and traffic issues due to heavy rainfall a few days ago. The IMD earlier issued a yellow alert for today in Mumbai and Palghar regions and an orange alert for Thane and Raigad regions. IMD had predicted heavy rainfall at isolated places in Mumbai until July 12. Heavy to moderate rainfall was also expected in Palghar, Thane, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Nasik, Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Sholapur, Aurangabad, Jalna, Parbhani, Beed, Hingoli, Nanded, Latur, Osmanabad, Akola, Amravati, Bhandara, Buldhana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim, and Yavatmal up to July 12. (ANI) The Ludhiana Police arrested the third accused today in the case of attack on Shiv Sena leader Sandeep Thapar. The third accused has been identified as Jaswinder Singh, aka Sunny. As per the press release issued by the police, the two other accused identified as Sarabjit Singh aka Sabha and Harjot Singh aka Jota have already been arrested in the case. During the investigation by the police, it has been found out that apart from the previously two accused, Sunny had also committed the crime. He was arrested by the police based on the secret information they received. Earlier, on July 6, Sandeep Thapar was attacked by three unknown people with a sword in Ludhiana, as per information from the police. According to Jaskaran Singh Teja, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Ludhiana, Thapar was attacked on July 6 at around 11: 30 a.m. "Around 11:30 a.m., three unknown people attacked Sandeep Thapar with a sword. He got injured and is under treatment in the hospital. The accused have been identified and they will be arrested soon," DCP Ludhiana said. After the incident, the police had issued an alert in the entire area and arrested two accused people, Sarabjit Singh and Harjot Singh on July 6 in connection with the case. "We had received instructions from DGP, CP Ludhiana and an alert was issued in the entire area. The two accused, who were wanted were arrested near the university area. A scooty was also recovered. An alert has been issued to arrest the third accused as well. Both the arrested accused, Sarabjit Singh and Harjot Singh, are residents of Ludhiana itself. They have been handed over to the Ludhiana Police, said SSP Fategarh Sahib Rajvot Grewal. "We have arrested two accused, Sarabjit Singh and Harjot Singh. The third accused is still wanted. Further investigation is underway," Kuldeep Singh Chahal said. (ANI) The Bar Council of India (BCI) has announced a joint virtual meeting to address the ongoing strikes by advocates, hampering judicial work across various districts in Uttar Pradesh. In the meantime, the Bar Council of India has requested the High Court Bar Association of Allahabad High Court to recall the strike and resume court work. A statement issued stated that the Bar Council of India is committed to addressing the grievances of the High Court Bar Association and will take the necessary steps to resolve these issues at the earliest. However, the continuation of the strike/boycott/abstention cannot be allowed. The Bar Council of India fully understands the problems faced by members of the Bar and will discuss and deliberate on these issues during the meeting to find an effective solution. This meeting is scheduled for Sunday, 14th July 2024, at 1:30 PM. The participants to the meeting with office bearers of BCI would be, Office Bearers of the Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh, Office Bearers of the Prayagraj District Bar Association, Office Bearers of the High Court Bar Association, Allahabad. The agenda of the meeting would be a discussion on the Supreme Court's Directives -- Addressing the prohibition of strikes by lawyers, as reiterated in a series of judgments; Exploring Compliance Strategies -- Developing methods to ensure adherence to these directives. Grievance Resolution through Dialogue -- Formulating plans to address grievances without resorting to strikes; Soliciting Feedback -- Gathering suggestions from all concerned parties for effective resolution of the matter; Framework for Continuous Engagement -- Developing a framework for ongoing consultation with the Bar Council of India, State Bar Councils, and respective Bar Associations. Immediate measures to prevent further strikes, effective communication and grievance resolution without strikes, the role of the Bar Council of India, State Bar Councils, and Bar Associations in facilitating dialogue and addressing concerns and harbouring a culture of compliance and cooperation among all members, establishing a permanent grievance redressal mechanism within each Bar Association, regular virtual and in-person meetings between the Bar Councils and Bar Associations to promptly address issues of the Bar would be discussed therein, said BCI statement. (ANI) On Friday, a new group of pilgrims departed from the Pantha Chowk Base Camp to begin their trip in the Amarnath Yatra. With much excitement, the pilgrims set out for the sacred location amid tight security, heading for the base camps of the Baltal and Pahalgam Yatras, where they would connect with their faith and seek blessings. The Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board organises the Amarnath Yatra, which is divided into two routes: one that goes through Pahalgam and the other that goes through Baltal. Baltal serves as the camping ground for pilgrims in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. A devotee travelling from Chittorgarh in Rajasthan said, "The services are great. I thank the brothers from the army; because of them, we are able to successfully complete the yatra. We didn't have any problems; the services were very good. I prayed to God to keep everyone happy and at peace. I also prayed for the brothers in the army; because of them, we are safe here." Another pilgrim said, "I have been doing the Amarnath Yatra for the past 11 years. This time the services were great, and the pilgirms are facing no issues. From medicine to food, we are getting every facility from here." This year, the Amarnath Yatra is taking place amid a significant increase in the number of terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. On July 8, five soldiers lost their lives and many were injured in an ambush by terrorists in Kathua district. 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. On Wednesday, the Inspector General of Police of Kashmir, VK Birdi, convened a crucial coordination and security meeting at Nunwan Base Camp to work in close coordination to ensure a safe and secure Amarnath Yatra. 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) A minor boy was murdered on Thursday night in Jaffarabad street number 8 falling under the station area of North East Delhi. The incident occurred at 9 p.m. on Thursday when the deceased, a 16-year-old, had come to buy clothes with his brother and his friend. The deceased's brother was also a minor. As per investigation by the police, it has been found out that some miscreants had come to the market and followed him. DCP North East Joy Tirkey spoke about the murder and said that after an initial investigation, it was found out that the miscreants who had followed the deceased knew him. "The incident occurred at 9 p.m. yesterday when a 16-year-old boy had come to buy clothes with his elder brother, who is also a minor. The investigation revealed that three to four boys had come on two scooters and knew the deceased," he said. Further, he said "The accused wanted to take the minor to some place with them but on refusal from the minor, a spat occurred between them. After the spat, one of the boys fired a bullet which hit the deceased on the shoulder." "He fell injured on the ground and after being brought to the hospital, he was declared dead," he added. Tirkey further added that some of the names of the accused have come to light and further investigation on the case is on. "The names of some of the accused have come to light. Further investigation on the case is on." Earlier, on Thursday, a 28-year-old man who was working in a tour and travel business was stabbed to death in Gamri Extension under the Bhajanpura Police Station area. The incident occurred when the deceased, identified as Sumit, was sitting in a street and had a verbal spat with three to four boys. The boys attacked Sumit with a knife after the spat. Sumit suffered from 17 injuries and was taken to the JPC Hospital immediately where he was declared dead. (ANI) "The fire has been brought under control. There is no chance of spreading fire. 13 fire tenders are working and when the fire broke out there were 20 fire tenders at the spot. This is a factory where the fire broke out," Arun Ghosh, an officer in charge of Lake Town Fire Station told ANI. The officials further said that no casualties have been reported so far. Upon receiving information on the blaze, fire tenders were rushed to the scene and operations were initiated to douse the blaze. The exact cause of the fire could not be ascertained. Further details are awaited. (ANI) Harpreet Singh was arrested along with two others, namely Sandeep Arora and Lovepreet on Thursday evening, an official said. The police also confiscated 4 grams of ice (a synthetic drug) from them, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ankur Gupta, Jalandhar Dehat Police said. "Three people identified as Lovepreet, Harpreet and Sandeep Arora have been arrested. They were arrested last night. 4 grams of ice (a synthetic drug) have been recovered..." Gupta said. Amritpal Singh, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Khadoor Sahib, is originally a resident of Jallu Kheda village in Amritsar and is currently lodged in jail in Assam's Dibrugarh district. He used to live in Dubai prior to his return to Punjab in 2022, after the death of Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu. After his return, he became the chief of Deep Sidhu's pro-Khalistani organisation, Waris Punjab De. He was arrested from Moga's Rode village after he and his supporters on February 23, 2023 staged a protest at the Ajnala police station and clashed with police personnel in an attempt to free one of his aides who was taken into custody for making inflammatory and pro-Khalistan statements. Punjab Police registered a case against Amritpal Singh under the National Security Act (NSA) and he was sent to Dibrugarh Jail in Assam. In the 2024 parliamentary elections, Amritpal Singh won from the Khadoor Sahib seat. He was recently granted a four-day custody parole and brought to Delhi so that he could take oath as a Lok Sabha member. (ANI) As Hays County deals with rapid growth and an influx of new residents, its commissioners are considering asking voters to approve $450 million in bonds to improve roadways. William Luther, Staff Photographer / Staff photographer Hays County voters could be asked in November to approve $450 million in bonds for more than 30 road projects to improve safety and mobility throughout the fast-growing county. The Hays County Commissioners Court is considering a transportation program that, if approved by voters, would fund construction, design and purchasing rights of way for future projects. Representatives from infrastructure design firm HNTB presented the potential projects to the Commissioners Court this month. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Dan Wegmiller, the countys financial adviser, said the impact on the property tax rate to support a $450 million bond would likely be about 2 cents per $100 in taxable value, or an annual increase of $80 for a $400,000 home. The bonds would not be issued all at once, he said, and that estimate is based on conservative growth projections. County voters last approved bond money for transportation in 2016, when they authorized $131.4 million in financing. Hays County is experiencing rapid growth: It has more than 280,000 residents, according to the Census Bureau, a 16% increase since 2020. The population has grown by almost 80% since 2010. READ MORE: Hays County clerk resigns amid lawsuit seeking to remove him from office Each of the countys four precincts would see between $104 million and $118 million in spending, according to the proposal. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In Precinct 1, which covers the eastern side of the county, the largest project would be on Bunton Lane, Heidenrich Lane and Grist Mill Road on the east side of Interstate 35 near Kyle. The 4-mile project would include reconstructing two lanes and shoulders, at a cost of about $39 million. The bond would also fund a new five-lane, 1-mile stretch of Goforth Road in the same area, including construction, utilities, rights of way and design, for more than $25 million. The seven projects in Precinct 2, which runs along I-35 from Buda to Kyle, include three on Windy Hill Road southeast of Buda. Construction of about 2 miles and a new roundabout, along with design for another 2 miles, would cost more than $40 million. On the west side of the county, Precinct 3 would see more than $60 million to realign about 6 miles of RM Road 150, from I-35 to west of Arroyo Ranch Road, with 4 miles completed through construction and two more with design and acquisitions for future construction. The proposed funding would also cover 10 projects in Precinct 4, in northwest Hays County, including $41 million to rebuild the two-lane Darden Hill Road, near Driftwood, and almost $27 million to design and acquire rights of way for almost 4 miles of Fitzhugh Road, near the Travis County line. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Some of the projects connect to each other across precinct lines, and Cory Grell, a project engineer with HNTB, said conversations have started about coordination with cities within Hays County, including Kyle and San Marcos, and with Caldwell and Travis county. Commissioners are expected to vote in August on whether to call the election. The decision must be made by Aug. 14 in order to be on the November ballot, according to HNTB. Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe said the Commissioners Court needs to be aware of the impact on families but that roads and transportation are among the top issues she hears about from residents. Precinct 2 Commissioner Michelle Cohen said That number, I understand, is a big pill to swallow, absolutely. But she was very optimistic and excited about the potential. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She said she felt more optimistic after hearing Wegmiller's projection of a 2-cent increase, calling it a little bit of a sacrifice for safer roads and savings on gas and time spent in traffic in the future. Precinct 4 Commissioner Walt Smith praised the thought and process thats gone into this since the county started working on a transportation master plan in 2021. He said his goals for a bond program are addressing safety concerns and looking at ways to increase volume or capacity on existing roads, before looking at new roads. That includes areas with existing safety issues, high numbers of crashes and locations where we see the growth and development in our area promoting unsafe conditions for our citizens, Smith said. But he also acknowledged the magnitude of the program, and he said the county will need to have honest and transparent conversations with residents about the impacts during the budget process. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its probably the biggest bill Ill ever vote for or against, whenever we get to that point, Smith said. County Judge Ruben Becerra said he believes the plan will help address magnificently huge disparities between the east and west sides of the county and will help improve roads on the east side. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that there was no endorsement of the proposal to include Manusmriti in the syllabus of Delhi University's law course. "Yesterday, some information came to us that Manusmriti will be part of the Law Faculty course (in DU). I inquired and talked to the Delhi University Vice-Chancellor. He told me that some law faculty members have proposed some changes in the jurisprudence chapter. Today there is an Academic Council meeting. There is no endorsement of any such proposal in the authentic body of the Academic Council," Pradhan told reporters. "Yesterday itself, the Vice Chancellor rejected that proposal. We are all committed to our Constitution, and to a futuristic approach. The government is committed to upholding the true spirit and letter of the Constitution. There is no question of including any controversial portion of any script," he added. On Thursday, Delhi University Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Yogesh Singh, announced that the proposal to include the Sanskrit text 'Manusmriti' or Laws of Manu, which belongs to the Dharmastra literary tradition of Hinduism, in the LLB curriculum was rejected. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) National President and the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati on Friday welcomed the decision of the Delhi University Vice Chancellor to reject a proposal to include 'Manusmriti' in the syllabus of its Law Faculty stating that strong opposition was natural and the decision to cancel this proposal was a welcome step. "Strong opposition to the proposal to teach Manusmriti in the Law Department of Delhi University, which goes against the honour and dignity of the Indian Constitution and its egalitarian and welfare objectives, is natural and the decision to cancel this proposal is a welcome step," she said in a post on social media platform X. She further stated that the Manusmriti doesn't match the principles on which Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar composed the Indian Constitution and such attempts to include the Manusmriti in the curriculum were not appropriate. "Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar composed the universally accepted Indian Constitution, especially keeping the self-respect of the neglected people and women as well as humanism and secularism at the core, which does not match with Manusmriti at all. Therefore, any such attempt is not appropriate at all," Mayawati further stated. (ANI) The CM instructed officials to carefully listen to complaints, communicate effectively with complainants, and take appropriate action. During this, citizens presented a range of issues, including problems with the police, land encroachments, and transfer requests. CM Yogi listened to each complaint and assured the attendees that their concerns would be addressed promptly. He emphasised the importance of satisfying the victims in all valid cases. Among the attendees was a teacher who requested a transfer due to personal issues. The Chief Minister forwarded the application to the Directorate of Education for necessary action. Another petitioner sought a job under the deceased dependent quota, and CM Yogi assured him that the application would be sent to the concerned department for relevant action. The Chief Minister personally reached out to each victim, listened to their complaints, and handed over their applications to the officials for further action. He also directed officials from the respective districts to take action on issues related to the police and land encroachments, reinforcing his commitment to addressing public grievances and ensuring their safety, prosperity, and happiness. (ANI) The Government of India on Friday announced that June 25 will be remembered annually as "Constitution Murder Day" in remembrance of the Emergency declared by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the day would serve as a reminder of the significant sacrifices endured by those who faced the severe hardships of the 1975 Emergency, highlighting their immense contributions. "On 25 June 1975, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, showing her dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of Indian democracy by imposing an emergency in the country. Lakhs of people were jailed without any reason and the voice of the media was suppressed. The Government of India has decided to celebrate 25 June every year as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas', Shah wrote in a post on X. "The decision made by the government led by PM Shri @narendramodi Ji is intended to honour the spirit of millions who struggled to revive democracy despite facing inexplicable persecution at the hands of an oppressive government. The observance of 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will help keep the eternal flame of individual freedom and the defence of our democracy alive in every Indian, thus preventing dictatorial forces like the Congress from repeating those horrors," the Home Minister added. Earlier on June 26, the Lok Sabha adopted a resolution condemning the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Speaker Om Birla read out the resolution condemning the act and said that June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India. On the occasion of the completion of 50 years of Emergency imposed in 1975, Birla praised the strength and determination of all those who strongly opposed the Emergency, fought and protected India's democracy. Birla said, "This House strongly condemns the decision to impose emergency in the country in 1975. Along with this, we appreciate the determination of all those people who strongly opposed the emergency, fought an unprecedented struggle and took the responsibility of protecting the democracy of India." He added, "The day of June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India." The Emergency of 1975 in India stands as a stark chapter in the nation's history marked by widespread political turmoil and civil liberties suppression. Declared by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Emergency saw the suspension of fundamental rights and the imposition of strict censorship, aiming to quell political dissent and maintain order. It resulted in the arrest of thousands of opposition leaders, activists, and journalists without due process, leading to a climate of fear and uncertainty. The period witnessed significant curtailments of press freedom and civil liberties, with media outlets facing censorship and restrictions on reporting. The Emergency was lifted in 1977 following widespread public outcry and electoral defeat for the ruling party, underscoring the resilience of democratic institutions and the importance of upholding constitutional values in India's political landscape. The legacy of the Emergency continues to serve as a reminder of the fragility of democratic freedoms and the necessity of safeguarding them against authoritarian tendencies. (ANI) Security measures have been increased, and vehicles are being inspected on the Jammu-Akhnoor highway as a search operation is being carried out in Akhnoor after locals reported sighting an unidentified person in the area. Jammu Akhnoor Highway has been put on high alert, with tight security checks at Nakas. This comes after five soldiers lost their lives and eight sustained injuries when a group of heavily armed terrorists ambushed a patrolling party of the Army in the Badnota area of Kathua on July 8. 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, officials had said. The recent terror attacks occurred during the annual Amarnath Yatra pilgrimage, which started on June 29 and will conclude on August 19, lasting 52 days. The devotees of Lord Shiva undertake this challenging journey to the holy cave located in the Kashmir Himalayas. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a bail plea moved by Bibhav Kumar, a close aide of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in the Swati Maliwal alleged assault case. The bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta while refusing bail said there is apprehension that Kumar could influence the witnesses On July 10, 2024, during the hearing, Swati Maliwal was present in the court and submitted that "Not only was I brutally assaulted by the PA, later the 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 those of my family are under threat. I went for a medical in a relative's car and even that car's details were made public. Please give me justice," stated Swati Maliwal. Senior advocate Sanjay Jain who appeared for the Delhi Police strongly opposed the bail plea of Bibhav Kumar and submitted that they will file the chargesheet in the case on July 16. "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 and 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 a 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. Swati Maliwal earlier alleged that her family and extended family members have been 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 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) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar hit back at the Bharatiya Janata Party over the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam and termed all the allegations "baseless". "BJP is doing politics. Their allegations are baseless, and we will respond to them at an appropriate time. Whatever happened has happened during the BJP rule and we will fight this false propaganda," Shivakumar told reporters on Friday. A complaint was filed by by social activist Snehamayi Krishna against Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and nine others for allegedly forging documents to claim compensation from the Mysuru Urban Development Authority. The complainant alleged wrongdoings by Siddaramaiah, his wife Parvathy, his brother-in-law Malikarjuna Swamy Devaraj, who claimed to be a landowner and his family. It further alleged that MUDA cheated by creating fake documents and obtaining plots worth crores of rupees. Snehamayi Krishna has raised several questions in his complaint. BJP has alleged a scam of more than Rs 5000 crores in the alleged MUDA scam and has demanded the investigation to be handed over to CBI. Earlier in the day, the Karnataka BJP chief Vijayendra held a protest in Mysuru against Karnataka government over the alleged Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam and demanded to hand over the investigation of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Vijayendra and several other party leaders were later detained by the police. Speaking to ANI, Vijayendra said, "There should be an impartial investigation. There cannot be an SIT investigation headed by the state government. BJP is demanding that the CM should hand over the investigation of this case to the CBI. Secondly, when the CM himself is involved in this scam, he should resign. Not only the CM's family but many ministers and their relatives are also involved in this scam. It is a scam of more than Rs 5000 crores. So the CM cannot escape responsibility. Being the CM of the state, he should answer to the people of Karnataka. We demand that he should hand over the investigation of this case to the CBI." Meanwhile, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar also held discussions with legal experts on the issue of releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu. Following the meeting, he said the state government will also hold discussion with the officials of the Irrigation department. "We have had discussions with our legal team, including Anil Dewan and Katharaki, on the future course of action, and we will soon have a discussion with the officials of the Irrigation department," he said. Notably, the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments are locked in a protracted tussle over the sharing of Cauvery river water. The river is seen as a major source of sustenance for the people in either state. Earlier on Thursday, the Cauvery Water Control Committee directed Karnataka to release 1 thousand million cubic feet of water to Tamil Nadu every day. Following this, an emergency meeting of the Water Resources Department was called at Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's residence. (ANI) Nearly a year after he was suspended for allegedly misbehaving with a woman tourist at a Goa beach club, a 2009-batch IPS officer from AGMUT cadre was reinstated by President Droupadi Murmu and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has transferred him to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. However, officials, privy to the case, told ANI that the inquiry against the IPS officer Dr A Koan is ongoing. Koan was suspended by President Murmu on August 16 last year following a report by the Goa Police to the MHA, accusing him of misbehaving with a woman tourist at a beach club in North Goa while intoxicated. At the time, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant stated in the Assembly that "strict action would be taken" against Koan and that such behaviour would not be tolerated. In a fresh update, the MHA issued two separate orders on July 11. One of the orders mentions "President, after considering the facts and current circumstances of the case, has come to the conclusion that continuation of the suspension of Dr A Koan, IPS (AGMUT: 2009) is no longer in the public interest and, therefore, his suspension may be revoked". It clearly pointed out that the President exercised the powers conferred under Rule 3 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, and revoked the suspension of Koan with "immediate effect" and "reinstated" him in service. Another order reads that "with the approval of the Competent Authority, Koan, is "transferred from Goa and posted to Andaman and Nicobar Islands with immediate effect and until further orders" Following an MHA order dated August 16, 2023, Koan was placed under suspension as disciplinary proceedings were contemplated against him, in terms of Rule 3 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969. The suspension of Koan has been reviewed from time and time in terms of Rule 3 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969 and, based on the recommendations of the Review Committee, the suspension tenure of the officer was extended for 180 days beyond February 10, 2024 till August 7, 2024. Inquiring Officer of the case V Candavelou, an IAS officer of the 1997 AGMUT cadre and Presenting Officer Omvir Singh Bishnoi, a 2004-batch AGMUT cadre IPS officer have been appointed in respect of the disciplinary proceedings initiated against Koan and has been observed that "the inquiry in respect of the disciplinary proceedings against Koan is ongoing". "However, there are no allegations of corruption against Koan, and neither any criminal proceedings nor any judicial inquiry is pending or contemplated against the charged officer as of date." The President, after considering the facts and current circumstances of the case, concluded that the continuation of the suspension of Koan was no longer in the public interest and his suspension was revoked. Koan allegedly misbehaved with a female partygoer at a nightclub in North Goa's tourist hotspot of Calangute in August 2023. While on medical leave, on the intervening night of August 7-8, 2023, Koan allegedly visited Las Olas Bar and Restaurant and misbehaved with a woman tourist at the restaurant in an inebriated state. A video of the incident later went viral. (ANI) Singh was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Thursday morning after he complained of back pain. Singh turned 73 on Wednesday. "Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's condition is stable and he remains under observation," AIIMS Delhi said in a statement. A Member of Parliament from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh is heading the Ministry of Defence for the second time in a row. He also served as Union Home Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first term in 2014. 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. 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. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the 1975 Emergency as a "dark phase of Indian history" and announced that June 25 will be commemorated annually as Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas to honour those who suffered during that time. In a post on X, he wrote, "To observe 25th June as #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas will serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over. It is also a day to pay homage to each and every person who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency, a Congress unleashed dark phase of Indian history". Echoing similar sentiments, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, stated that the day will be oberseved as a "dark spot" in democracy. "On 25 June 1975, the then government committed a very reprehensible act of insulting the Indian Constitution by imposing emergency on the country. The audacity of the then Congress government to kill the Constitution in the arrogance of power will be remembered as a black spot on democracy," Dhami wrote in a post on X. "The decision of the Central Government to celebrate 25th June every year as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' is welcome. This decision will remind us of the great contribution of all the revolutionaries who resisted dictatorship despite facing many tortures to protect the democracy of the country during the dark period of Emergency," he added. Earlier on June 26, the Lok Sabha adopted a resolution condemning the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Speaker Om Birla read out the resolution condemning the act and said that June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India. On the occasion of the completion of 50 years of Emergency imposed in 1975, Birla praised the strength and determination of all those who strongly opposed the Emergency, fought and protected India's democracy. Birla said, "This House strongly condemns the decision to impose emergency in the country in 1975. Along with this, we appreciate the determination of all those people who strongly opposed the emergency, fought an unprecedented struggle and took the responsibility of protecting the democracy of India."He added, "The day of June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India."The Emergency of 1975 in India stands as a stark chapter in the nation's history marked by widespread political turmoil and civil liberties suppression. Declared by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Emergency saw the suspension of fundamental rights and the imposition of strict censorship, aiming to quell political dissent and maintain order. It resulted in the arrest of thousands of opposition leaders, activists, and journalists without due process, leading to a climate of fear and uncertainty. The period witnessed significant curtailments of press freedom and civil liberties, with media outlets facing censorship and restrictions on reporting. (ANI) Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on Friday said that people can't forget what Indira Gandhi did in 1975 after imposing the Emergency in the country. His reaction came hours in response to the Centre's announcement to observe June 25 as "Constitution Murder Day". "I want to clear up one thing to the democratic loving people through the media whatever Indira ji did was the Samvidhan ka Hatya (Murder of Constitution). People can't forget this," Joshi told reporters. "That is why, we should always (be) aware what the Congress party has done to Samvidhan and Prajaprabhutva (Public Supremacy). To keep that awareness, we are doing this. Everybody should remember that day, " he added. To pay tributes to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency 1975, the Central government has declared June 25 as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' (Constitution Murder Day). Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) made the announcement in a gazette notification pointing "a proclamation of Emergency was made on 25th June 1975, following which there was gross abuse of power by the government of the day and people of India were subjected to excesses and atrocities". The notification reads "Whereas, people of India have abiding faith in the Constitution of India and the power of India's resilient democracy; Therefore, Government of India declares 25 June as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' to pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power, in future". Soon after the notification was issued, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted on X, "On June 25, 1975, the then PM Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of our democracy by imposing the Emergency on the nation. Lakhs of people were thrown behind bars for no fault of their own, and the voice of the media was silenced." Shah added, "The Government of India has decided to observe the 25th of June every year as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas.' This day will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency." 49 years ago on June 25, Indira Gandhi's government unleashed a wave of repression, imprisoning lakhs of people without justification and muzzling the media. The Emergency stripped citizens of their fundamental rights and undermined the country's democratic fabric. As per the fresh MHA notification, 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' serves as a solemn reminder of the struggles and sacrifices made by those who fought for India's democracy during the 1975 Emergency. The day will commemorate their bravery and resilience in the face of oppression, ensuring that future generations remember the importance of upholding democratic values and protecting the Constitution. (ANI) 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. Hours after the Centre announced that June 25 will be remembered annually as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' in remembrance of the Emergency declared by the then Indira Gandhi government in 1975, leaders from the opposition INDIA bloc hit back at Bharatiya Janata Party alleging that it has been "murdering" the Constitution every day for the last 10 years. "Since 2014, BJP has murdered the Constitution every day," Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Priyanka Kakkar told ANI on Friday. Highlighting instances where the ruling BJP was on the "wrong side" of the Constitution, Kakkar said, "Recently, during the Chandigarh mayoral elections, Anil Massi murdered the Constitution on camera and free and fair elections were not taking place. In Delhi, after a 9-year-long fight, the Delhi government got services under it, but the BJP brought a law and negated the SC order. This is the murder of the Constitution." Continuing her attack, Kakkar said, "The Constitution was murdered when BJP brought the unconstitutional electoral bonds. Even the Supreme Court said that this is an unconstitutional scheme. This is the murder of the Constitution. This was a constitutional fraud." The AAP leader said that had the BJP won more than 400 seats along with its allies, it would have removed reservations in the country. "We were saved. They were raising "400 paar" slogans but were stopped at 240. Otherwise they would have removed reservations," she said. She further slammed the ruling BJP over the "misuse" of central investigative agencies. "BJP has continuously murdered the Constitution by abusing the CBI and the ED by using them for extortion," Kakkar said. Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh also echoed similar sentiments and said while the Emergency episode was an "event in history," the BJP is trying to play this "old card" to its advantage. "She (Indira Gandhi) has been criticized, Indira Gandhi lost once and Indira Gandhi came back to power as the Prime Minister. So that chapter was just one page of history and years later BJP is trying to divert attention from its anti-people policy, disasters and the bad condition of the country, they are trying to play this old card," Ghosh said speaking to reporters on Friday. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MP Mahua Maji questioned whether the ruling BJP can maintain communal harmony in the country in accordance with the Constitution. Maji also claimed that the BJP wants to mislead people ahead of elections in four states. "BJP which had raised the slogan of crossing 400 could not get 400 and had to limit itself to 200...INDIA got the mandate that they got because the Constitution was in danger...We should talk about what development are you (BJP) doing at present, in which direction are you taking the country, are you able to maintain communal harmony here as per the Constitution or not...Now elections are going to be held in four states for the BJP. Before the elections, they want to mislead people," Maji said speaking to ANI on Friday. Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Manoj Jha hit out at the ruling BJP saying that they should hold a mirror in front of them for designating June 25 as Samvidhan Hatya Divas. Jha also claimed that people will not fall for their "jumlas" (lies). "Look who is talking?... They have destroyed the Constitution...They should keep a mirror in front of them. A few years ago Partition Horrors Remembrance Day was announced, but they are not talking about it....The people of India will not fall for your 'jumlas' now..." Jha told ANI. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party leader Fakhrul Hasan Chaand said that if the Congress cannot be forgiven for the Emergency in 1975, the BJP also cannot be forgiven for the poor state of the country currently. "The agencies and laws were misused in the BJP government and many leaders from the opposition were troubled. Emergency, whether declared or undeclared, is not right for democracy. It weakens the democracy. If the Congress party cannot be forgiven for the emergency in 1975, BJP cannot be forgiven for today's situation," Chaand told ANI. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also slammed the BJP over the decision and termed it a "headline-grabbing exercise." He further alleged that the "non-biological" PM had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years. "Yet another headline-grabbing exercise in hypocrisy by the non-biological PM who had imposed an undeclared Emergency for ten long years before the people of India handed him a decisive personal, political, and moral defeat on June 4, 2024 - which will go down in history as ModiMukti Diwas," the Congress general secretary said on X. "This is a non-biological PM who has subjected the Constitution of India and its principles, values, and institutions to systematic assault," his post added. He added, "This is a non-biological PM whose ideological parivar had rejected the Constitution of India in Nov 1949 on the grounds that it did not derive inspiration from Manusmriti. This is a non-biological PM for whom democracy means only demo-kursi". Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to X informing that the government has decided to celebrate 25 June as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' every year. "On 25 June 1975, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, showing her dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of Indian democracy by imposing an emergency in the country. Lakhs of people were jailed without any reason and the voice of the media was suppressed. The Government of India has decided to celebrate 25 June every year as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas', Shah wrote in a post on X. "The decision made by the government led by PM Shri @narendramodi Ji is intended to honour the spirit of millions who struggled to revive democracy despite facing inexplicable persecution at the hands of an oppressive government. The observance of 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' will help keep the eternal flame of individual freedom and the defence of our democracy alive in every Indian, thus preventing dictatorial forces like the Congress from repeating those horrors," the Home Minister added. Appreciating the decision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the 1975 Emergency as a "dark phase of Indian history". "To observe 25th June as #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas will serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over. It is also a day to pay homage to each and every person who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency, a Congress unleashed dark phase of Indian history," PM Modi posted on X. Earlier on June 26, the Lok Sabha adopted a resolution condemning the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Speaker Om Birla read out the resolution condemning the act and said that June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India. (ANI) The All India Bar Association (AIBA), a lawyer's body, on Friday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about new criminal laws and suggested that for effective implementation, there is a need to increase the strength of police personnel, judicial officers, public prosecutors, managers for court management, Forensic Science Laboratories (FSL) and evening courts. Dr Adish Aggarwala, chairman of the All India Bar Association and outgoing President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), stated in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that certain pivotal steps are necessary to ensure that your remarkable vision of ensuring the timely completion of trials, swift registration of FIRs, and expedient completion of investigations, through the three new criminal laws, reaches fruition and effectively so. Under the new criminal laws, which came into force on July 1, 2024, FIR is to be recorded within three days of complaints submitted through electronic communication, providing impetus to the initial phase of criminal cases. The competent court has to now frame charges within sixty days from first hearing on the charge. A novel inclusion in the new criminal laws is the introduction of trial in absentia against proclaimed offenders after ninety days from charge framing, expediting proceedings and ensuring timely delivery of justice to victims and society at large. The criminal courts have now been mandated to pronounce judgments within 45 days after a trial stands concluded to ensure swift justice delivery. Further, the said courts have to upload the judgement within seven days from the date of pronouncement, on their respective portals, improving access to justice for all. These reforms have sparked an undercurrent of hope among the masses that finally the proverbial era of "getting dates one after another, but not justice," shall cease to exist, said Dr Adish Aggarwala. "Notably, when I had the opportunity to highlight the achievements of the government, spearheaded by you, in ringing in reforms through the three new criminal laws in public debates, the critics of the same were pointing out that provisions for such time-bound completion of trials are pre-existing in matters such as matrimonial cases, disputes under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, MACT claims etc. which were put in place by the then Congress/UPA regime. These arm-chair critics cited the example of the said Congress/UPA era laws to put forth the contention that such time-bound processes invariably end up being paper tigers, as their implementation is merely in principle and not practical," he stated. "However, I would like to bring to your notice, a subtlety which eludes these critics. The Congress/UPA era laws for time-bound judicial processes never succeeded as such. When I refer to the necessary infrastructure, I primarily emphasise the numerical strength of the judicial officers, courts, forensic experts, and even police personnel. The Congress/UPA era laws were destined for failure, as the said regime lacked the gumption to increase the number of judges or to bring about other ancillary reforms, which in turn deprived the public of the desired result of expediting the disposal of various kinds of cases," he added. "Speaking of the current times, the citizenry of our great democracy, have by and large received your reforms positively, and see you as a beacon of hope, who put an end to colonial-era relics by enacting the three new laws. Indeed, no one but a leader of your courage and strength could have ensured smooth passage of the enactment of the new laws at the risk of unsettling the status quo that plagues our snail-paced judicial and police systems," said Dr Aggarwala. Everyone in India, even the opposition leaders were happy with the far-sighted changes that you have brought by way of these three new criminal laws. These 3 bills were then sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs for consideration and scrutiny, which even comprised Congress Leaders including Digvijay Singh, MP and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and others, Suggestions thereof were accepted by the government. No bar leader objected to these above-mentioned three Bills, given the fact that your government has taken all steps to protect the interest of the citizens of India, the complainants and even accused persons, after giving appropriate opportunity to all the stakeholders to put forward their suggestions regarding these three new criminal Bills. The Parliamentary Standing Committee invited everyone to elucidate their views about these three Bills. Pertinently, many eminent retired judges and bar leaders appeared before the said Parliamentary Committee which also included Law Commission Chairman, Justice (retd.) Rituraj Awasthi. Thereafter, both the Houses of Parliament (Lok Sabha on December 22, 2023 and Rajya Sabha on December 21, 2023) passed all these three Bills. The President of India provided her assent to these Bills on December 25, 2023, said Dr Aggarwala. Now that you have taken over as the Prime Minister of India, for a historic & record third term, with the support of TDP and JDU, some frustrated elements who never earlier opposed these three criminal laws are suddenly up in arms against the new laws despite the fact that even the sitting Chief Justice of India Dr Justice DY Chandrachud, who happens to be the third longest serving Chief Justice of India, for an ongoing period of two years - after his father Mr Justice (retd) YV Chandrachud (7.5 years), and Mr Justice (retd) KG Balakrishnan (3.5 years) - has welcomed these Acts by publicly asserting that the new Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) provides a holistic approach to deal with crimes in the digital age, said Dr Aggarwala. (ANI) Dehradun Police on Friday arrested five accused for carrying radioactive material and a radiographic camera from the Rajpur Road area of the Dehradun district in Uttarakhand. These accused were arrested from a house in Brook and Woods Colony, situated on Rajpur Road in Dehradun. The arrested accused hails from Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Ajay Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police of Uttarakhand's capital Dehradun, while speaking exclusively to ANI, said that the police have arrested five people from a house in Brook and Woods Colony on Rajpur Road in Dehradun, from whom radioactive material and radiographic camera were found. He stated that when the police tried to open the box, the arrested individuals told them that opening it could be difficult because of the presence of radioactive chemicals inside it. The SSP said that the arrested people are residents of Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. SSP Ajay Singh told ANI that on interrogation it was found that the radioactive material box with which these people had come to Dehradun was going to be dealt for crores. The SSP said that after an investigation by the intelligence agencies and the SDRF team, it was found that there was radioactive material in this box. SSP Ajay Singh said that Bhabha Atomic Research Center, which is a premier agency, has also been contacted. Further investigation is being carried out. The rules for radioactive materials are governed by the Atomic Energy Act, of 1962. The central government can prohibit the manufacture, possession, use, transfer, export, import, transport, and disposal of radioactive substances without written consent. Radiography cameras use X-rays or gamma rays to create images of the inside of an object or body. These images can be used to inspect industrial objects. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Haryana government to remove the barricading at the Shambhu border near Ambala, where farmers have been camping since February 13. A bench of justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan questioned authorities of the Haryana government to block the highway. "How can a State block a highway? It has a duty to regulate traffic. We are saying open it but regulate," said the bench to the counsel appearing for the Haryana government. The observation of the bench came after the counsel said the Haryana government is in the process of filing an appeal against the July 10 Punjab and Haryana High Court order which had directed it to open the highway within seven days. "Why do you want to challenge the High Court's order? Farmers are also citizens of this country. Give them food and good medical care. They will come, raise slogans and go back. I think you don't commute by road," said the bench. On July 10, the High Court ordered the Haryana government to clear within a week the barricading at the Shambhu border. In February, the Haryana government had set up barricades on the Ambala-New Delhi National Highway after the farmers' bodies announced that they would march to Delhi in support of various demands, including a legal guarantee of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops. The apex court was hearing a plea of the Haryana government challenging a March 7 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to set up a committee to probe into the death of a 22-year-old farmer Shubhkaran Singh during the agitation of farmers at the Punjab-Haryana border. The Supreme Court on April 1 had declined to stay the judicial probe ordered by the High Court. Singh, a native of Bathinda in Punjab, lost his life on February 21 during clashes between security personnel and the farmers at the Khanauri border. The incident took place when some protesting farmers were trying to head towards barricades and were stopped by security personnel from crossing the State border and marching to Delhi. The High Court had formed the Committee headed by retired High Court judge Jaishree Thakur to inquire into the various aspects of the case, saying the investigation regarding the death of Singh, cannot be entrusted solely either to Punjab or to Haryana for "reasons obvious as both states have several things to cover up". The committee was assisted by Punjab Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Promod Ban and Haryana ADGP Amitabh Singh Dhillon. (ANI) Mohammed Shafiq, a resident of a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir has qualified UPSC (CAPF) Central Armed Police Forces exam as an assistant commandant officer despite inadequate facilities and set an example for the region. Shafiq hails from one of the remote villages, Hyatpura in the Manjakote Tehsil of Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. Hyatpur is situated 40 km away from the district headquarters. By qualifying the tough examination despite suffering from lack of amenities in the region, he has become a source of inspiration for many young individuals by reflecting the academic prowess and determination of Kashmiri students. Shafiq opened up about his approach to conquering one of India's most challenging exams - UPSC. He emphasized that his journey was full of hurdles and troubles but due to constant support from family and with continuity and consistency, he eventually succeeded. Speaking to ANI, Mohammad Shafiq said, "I am a resident of village Hyatpura of Manjakote Tehsil of Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. I have studied at government institutions only and I have worked at various places. My journey was indeed difficult but I have worked continuously and consistently and qualified UPSC exam." "Our financial condition wasn't that sound due to which we went to school in Manjakote on foot only. I have done my college from Rajouri. Due to financial constraints, I couldn't stay in Rajouri which is why I have to travel to Rajouri daily. I used to board the first bus from Manjakote, then I took an auto and after changing 2-3 times I used to reach college. After all these efforts, my attendance was above 95 per cent." He highlighted the constant support from his parents and termed them the reason behind his success. "Of course, my parents have supported and encouraged me a lot since childhood. They have supported me in my failures too. They are the reason behind my success," Shafiq said. Opening up on his challenging journey further, Shafiq highlighted that he always wanted to serve the country. He also lauded the role of Indian Army in supporting the locals and youths in the region. "My journey was challenging and tough due to financial constraints and a lack of awareness. But slowly-slowly I got different opportunities and got to know the different avenues of life after which I worked on myself. Since childhood, I wanted to serve the nation, as our first exposure is from the military and paramilitary. The way the Army has supported us a lot under the Sadhbhavana operation has impacted a lot of youths who want to serve the nation," he further stated. Shafiq's parents also opened up on their son's success and said that he has achieved this after facing a lot of difficulties in life. They also emphasised the value of education. "We all are very happy. Our family is happy. He will serve the nation. he had faced various difficulties since childhood," Shafiq's mother, Shamim Akhter said. "We are residents of Hyatpura, Manjakote. After hard work, we have taught our children. Our children have worked a lot. They have also studied after a lot of hurdles in their way. There was no road to the school which is why they had gone to the school on foot. Whether the parents are rich or poor, it's their responsibility to send their children to school so that they can serve their nation. We live in Hindustan this is our country and we are Hindustani. we should serve our nation," his father Barket Hussain said. His brothers Bilal Choudhary and Mohammed Rafiq also lauded Shafiq's success and said that he underwent a lot of difficulties and they are very proud of him. "We are very happy for his success. He has faced a lot of difficulties in studying but eventually succeeded and we are proud of him. We will also follow in his footsteps and I hope we will also become something with his support. Currently, I am also studying with him," Bilal Choudhary said. "We all are proud that our brother has achieved this success and made our area infamous. The message is that our parents have supported him in his journey and worked hard so that he can study, we can study," Mohammed Rafiq said. Hashim Khushal, who is a cousin of Mohammad Shafiq, also opened up on his success saying, "Since childhood, he has worked a lot...He is very hardworking, and patient and loves to lead a simple life. In our area, we didn't have the atmosphere for studying but he stayed self-motivated, kept his vision simple and worked hard to achieve his goals. He is a source of motivation for all our family members." (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday directed officials to complete construction of the Sanay Dham by October 15. CM directed to complete the construction work within the estimated budget of Rs 94 crore for this. Dhami also instructed the engineers not to take any kind of laxity in the quality of the construction work of the Sanaya Dham. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, while chairing the meeting of the high-level committee organized in the Secretariat regarding the construction of the military shrine on Friday, directed the Minister of Sainik Welfare to continuously monitor the construction work of the military shrine so that there is no further delay in this work. He also asked to make a proposal to increase the financial assistance given to the dependents of the martyred soldiers, said officials. He directed to immediately take action to employ the dependents of all such cases including the dependents of the five brave martyrs of the state martyred in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir. The Chief Minister directed to make such arrangements in future in such cases that the work of employment in government service should be done without delay and a time limit should be fixed for this. He also asked to take immediate action to name the roads and schools around the villages of the five martyrs after these brave martyrs. He said that after the construction of the Military Dham, the MDDA should be given the responsibility of its maintenance and operation. The Chief Minister has directed the District Magistrate Dehradun to resolve the land dispute arising in the construction of the Military Dham. He said that our state is not only Devbhoomi but also Veerbhoomi. Military Dham is also a symbol of respect for the soldiers and the rich military tradition of the state. It will also become a place of inspiration for our youth. In the meeting, it was also decided to cancel the order issued regarding banning construction work within the radius of 500 meters of the Military Dham and to make this system rational. (ANI) In reaction to the central government announcing that it would celebrate June 25 annually as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' in remembrance of the Emergency declared by the then Indira Gandhi government in 1975, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hit back saying that the Narendra Modi government has celebrated "Constitution Murder Day" every day during the last 10 years. "In the last 10 years, your government has celebrated "Constitution Murder Day" every day. You have snatched away the self-respect of every poor and deprived section of the country every moment," Kharge said in a post on 'X' on Friday. Slamming the BJP, the Congress president questioned, "...when a BJP leader urinates on tribals in Madhya Pradesh, or when the police forcibly cremate the Dalit daughter of Hathras in UP... then what is that if not murder of the Constitution?" Speaking about atrocities against Dalits, houses of minorities being demolished, the Congress president said, "When every 15 minutes a major crime against Dalits takes place and every day 6 Dalit women are raped... then what is it if not the murder of the Constitution? When minorities are subjected to illegal bulldozer justice, in which 1.5 lakh houses are demolished in just 2 years and 7.38 lakh people are rendered homeless... then what is that if not murder of the Constitution?" Kharge also took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not visiting conflict-ridden Manipur ever since violence broke out in the state months ago. "When Manipur is in the grip of violence for the last 13 months and you do not even want to set foot there... then what is it if not murder of the Constitution?" he said. The Congress president also pointed out that the BJP-RSS-Jansangh had "never accepted the Constitution" and had once state that there is nothing "India" in it. "Modi ji, you do not like talking about the Constitution. BJP-RSS-Jansangh never accepted the Constitution. Is it not true that RSS mouthpiece Organiser had written in its editorial in its November 30, 1949 issue that - "The worst thing about this new Constitution of India is that there is nothing Indian in it" and here did RSS not clearly stand against the main architect of the Indian Constitution i.e. Baba Saheb Dr. Ambedkar ji and in support of Manusmriti?" Kharge said. Hitting out at the Congress over the sudden demonetization exercise which led to several people queuing up before banks, Kharge said, "When you arbitrarily implemented demonetization, crushed an institution like RBI, killed 120 people by making them stand in queues in banks, and mocked the common people by clapping and saying "there's a wedding at home, but no money"... then what is that if not murder of the Constitution?" On hastily imposing a countrywide lockdown ahead of the pandemic leading to hundreds of people walking on streets, the Congress president said, "When you did not provide buses and trains to lakhs of workers during the Covid pandemic and forced them to walk hundreds of kilometres, without caring about the blisters on their feet, because you felt that a lockdown had to be imposed without any preparation... then what is that if not a murder of the Constitution?" Speaking about the government's interference in judicial processes, Kharge said, "When 5 sitting judges of the Supreme Court held a public press conference and questioned your government's interference in the court...then what else is that if not murder of the Constitution?" Kharge gave examples of several instances pointing out that the ruling BJP had allegedly acted in a high-handed manner and thwarted constitutional norms. The Congress chief claimed that the BJP-RSS combine intends to do away with the Constitution and implement the law of the Manusmriti so that the rights of Dalits, tribals and backward classes can be curtailed. "Mr. Modi, BJP-RSS wants to abolish the Constitution and implement Manusmriti. So that the rights of Dalits, tribals and backward classes can be attacked! That is why they are insulting Babasaheb Dr. Ambedkar by adding the word "murder" to the sacred word "Constitution"," Kharge claimed. (ANI) Hitting out at the Congress Party over the Emergency imposed in 1975, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Kiren Rijiju said the Union government has taken a big step to observe June 25 as the "Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas" to ensure that an incident like the Emergency is never repeated. Taking a jibe at Congress for holding a copy of Constitution, Rijiju said that the Congress party "murdered" the Constitution in 1975 and is now doing "drama" by holding a copy of it. "We can never forget how the Constitution was murdered on the night of 25th June 1975...We have to set an example that what Congress did is not repeated. It is our duty to save the Constitution..." Kiren Rijiju told ANI. "It is very important for the country. Important for the Constitution. It is our obligation to protect the Constitution given to the country by Dr BR Ambedkar Sahib," he added. His reaction came hours in response to the Centre's announcement to observe June 25 as "Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas"(Constitution Murder Day). The government said that every year on June 25, the country will remember the great contribution of those who endured the "inhuman pain" of the Emergency of 1975. A notification has also been issued by the Government of India to celebrate June 25 as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas'. Recounting the events that unfolded during the days of Emergency, Rijiju further said, "Congress party murdered the Constitution and then stages a drama by holding a copy of the Constitution. It is a very wrong thing. Those who were persecuted in 1975...the kind of torture done by the Congress party on the innocent people, putting an end to civil rights, Freedom of press, expression, all was finished. To avoid such incidents, (the government has) taken a big step." To pay tributes to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency 1975, the Central government has declared June 25 as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' (Constitution Murder Day). Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) made the announcement in a gazette notification pointing "a proclamation of Emergency was made on 25th June 1975, following which there was gross abuse of power by the government of the day and people of India were subjected to excesses and atrocities". "Whereas, people of India have abiding faith in the Constitution of India and the power of India's resilient democracy; Therefore, Government of India declares 25 June as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' to pay tribute to all those who suffered and fought against the gross abuse of power during the period of Emergency and to recommit the people of India to not support in any manner such gross abuse of power, in future," the notification read. Soon after the notification was issued, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted on X, "On June 25, 1975, the then PM Indira Gandhi, in a brazen display of a dictatorial mindset, strangled the soul of our democracy by imposing the Emergency on the nation. Lakhs of people were thrown behind bars for no fault of their own, and the voice of the media was silenced." Shah added, "The Government of India has decided to observe the 25th of June every year as 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas.' This day will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency." Appreciating the decision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the 1975 Emergency as a "dark phase of Indian history". "To observe 25th June as #SamvidhaanHatyaDiwas will serve as a reminder of what happens when the Constitution of India was trampled over. It is also a day to pay homage to each and every person who suffered due to the excesses of the Emergency, a Congress unleashed dark phase of Indian history," PM Modi posted on X. Earlier on June 26, the Lok Sabha adopted a resolution condemning the Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as Speaker Om Birla read out the resolution condemning the act and said that June 25, 1975, will always be known as a black chapter in the history of India. (ANI) Hours after the Supreme Court granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Delhi Excise Policy case, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday, stated that the Aam Aadmi Party national convenor has not yet been acquitted and remains in judicial custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He further said that the apex court had neither given a clean chit to Kejriwal nor had it termed his arrest as "illegal." Speaking to ANI, Rijiju said, "The Supreme Court has granted the bail. However, he (Arvind Kejriwal) hasn't been acquitted. The Supreme Court has not declared the arrest as illegal. It has just granted the bail as the case has been referred to the larger bench." "I want to clarify the misinformation being spread about the Supreme Court's interim bail order regarding Arvind Kejriwal. Supreme Court has not given a clean chit to Arvind Kejriwal nor the arrest has been termed illegal...The case against Kejriwal will proceed, and he will have to face the consequences," he added. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister also emphasised that the court has left the decision to resign as CM on Kejriwal's conscience. "The Supreme Court has also made an important observation on morality, stating that a Chief Minister should resign when arrested, but has left the decision to Kejriwal's conscience. The prosecution will continue to pursue the case against Kejriwal, which is of a serious nature," Rijiju said. The Supreme Court today granted interim bail to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in the case in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy, registered by the ED. The court while granting interim bail to Kejriwal in the ED case observed that the Delhi Chief Minister has suffered incarceration of 90 days and it's conscious that he is an elected leader. The top court had reserved the verdict on Kejriwal's plea on May 17. However, the Delhi CM will continue to remain behind bars as he was also arrested by the CBI. The Rouse Avenue Court on Friday extended the judicial custody of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the CBI case in connection with the excise policy. Aam Aadmi Party hailed the Supreme Court decision to grant interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on his plea challenging arrest by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in the alleged liquor scam case and slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party for "hatching a conspiracy" against the AAP. "BJP knew that he (Arvind Kejriwal) has been granted bail by the Rouse Avenue Court, they know that he will get bail by the Supreme Court too. That is why, they hatched another conspiracy and the day on which the bail hearing was scheduled to come up before the Supreme Court, they made CBI arrest Arvind Kejriwal a day before that. Why was he arrested by the CBI? Because if he received bail in the ED case, he would come out of jail and work for the people of Delhi 10 times faster," Atishi said. Terming the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as a "black law", Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said the onus to provide evidence now rests with the CBI. "PMLA is a black law. The provisions for bail under this are so difficult that it is almost impossible to get bail... First, the lower court granted him bail and observed that "ED is acting with bias"... So, today's bail by the Supreme Court is a huge thing. Centre had anticipated that Supreme Court would grant him bail in the ED matter. So, to ensure that he continues to be in jail even after bail, the CBI arrested him... The burden of proof lies on the CBI. So, I don't think there will be much issue. It's just a matter of time, Arvind Kejriwal will come out of jail," Bharadwaj told ANI. Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on March 21 in connection with a money laundering probe relating to alleged irregularities in the now-cancelled Delhi excise policy 2021-22. (ANI) Union Minister for the Development of the North East Region Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday launched the North East Region Agri Commodity E-Connect (NERACE) designed to benefit the farmers of the region and help position it as a hub of high-value horticultural products in the international market. The NERACE app is intended to support agricultural and horticultural products such as spices, fruits, vegetables, pulses, cereals, and minor forest products. Furthermore, the NE-RACE App is designed to promote Northeast as a reliable partner in the international agricultural value chain. Taking it to a social media post on X, Scindia wrote, "Digital India for North-East farmers! Delighted to launch NE-RACE App - an online global platform for North East Farmers, which will play a pivotal role in positioning the Northeast as a hub of high-value horticultural products. It will make the farmers of the region not just the producers but also as a reliable partner in the international agri value chain." Scindia also met the Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and discussed future plans for making Meghalaya more prosperous towards growth. The discussion was focused towards creating Viksit Purvottar (developed Northeast), a vision under PM Modi's Vikshit Bharat resolution. In a post on X, Union DoNER Minister wrote, "Today with CM Shri @SangmaConrad Ji held a productive meeting with officials of Meghalaya govt, @NEC_GoI And @MDoNER. Together we strategised on key areas of work and future plans. With a focus on "Technology, Environment and Tourism" we strive to strengthen regional connectivity, build robust infrastructure, maximise Meghalaya's competitive & comparative advantages and drive Meghalaya to a more prosperous era of growth. #ViksitPurvottar." Earlier on Tuesday, the Union Minister Scindia held a review meeting and discussed the 100-day action plan of the Department of Posts. Under his dynamic leadership and guidance, the Department of Posts aims to transform service delivery and enhance efficiency through key initiatives to benefit the nation and its citizens. According to the Ministry of Communications, the Department of Posts will be organizing 5,000 Dak Chaupals across the country in 100 days. "This initiative aims to bring essential government and citizen-centric services directly to rural areas, improving accessibility and convenience. Dak Chaupals will serve as vital links between rural residents and government functions, reducing barriers such as distance and accessibility," it added. Dak Ghar Niryat Kendra Scheme is set to bolster rural exports by supporting small-scale exporters. This initiative provides essential services including documentation assistance, market information, bar-coded label printing, and paperless customs clearance. (ANI) Banerjee had arrived in the city to attend the wedding of Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani's son Anant Ambani with Radhika Merchant. After meeting with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, the West Bengal chief minister said, "I will definitely come to Maharashtra to campaign for Uddhav Ji during assembly elections." NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar, however, said the discussion was about family and friends. "The discussion was totally about family and friends, nothing else. Didi (Mamata Banerjee) has known Sharad Pawar for a long time. They have very good family relations. This was more of a family visit," Rohit Pawar said. Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also arrived in Mumbai to attend the wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Among other politicians who attended the wedding included former Bihar Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yadav accompanied by his son Tejashwi Yadav and family, had departed from Patna airport earlier today for Mumbai. The wedding held at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai attracted an array of high-profile guests. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine. The main ceremonies will commence on Friday with the auspicious Shubh Vivah, or wedding function and according to sources, guests are encouraged to embrace the spirit of the occasion by dressing in traditional Indian attire. The celebrations will continue on Saturday, July 13, with Shubh Aashirwad. The final event, Mangal Utsav or the wedding reception, is scheduled for Sunday, July 14. On July 3, Ambanis organised a grand Mameru ceremony- a Gujarati wedding tradition where the bride's maternal uncle (mama) visits her with sweets and gifts. On July 5, the Ambani family also hosted a Sangeet Ceremony which saw participation by a constellation of celebrities. Global pop sensation Justin Bieber also performed at the sangeet ceremony. Earlier this year, the couple hosted a series of pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar, which saw a star-studded guest list from around the globe. (ANI) Ahead of the grand wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sonia Gandhi sent a written congratulatory message to the Ambani couple on behalf of the Gandhi family, said sources. Earlier, on July 4, sources had reported that business tycoon Mukesh Ambani himself came to 10 Janpath to give an invitation to the Gandhi family to attend his son's wedding. However, no one from the Gandhi family attended the wedding ceremony. Also, there is no restriction on any Congress member from attending the wedding ceremony, said sources. Meanwhile, various political party leaders including SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav, TMC President Mamata Banerjee, BJP leader Smriti Irani and RJD Supremo have reached Mumbai to attend the wedding ceremony of the Ambani couple. The wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant is held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. The opulent wedding promised a spectacular celebration of Indian culture, civilization, spirituality, Indian folk art, craftsmanship, music, cuisine, and much more. The wedding decor theme of 'An Ode to Varanasi,' pays homage to the eternal city, its traditions, piety, culture, arts, crafts and Banarasi cuisine. Banarasi street food like chaat, mithai, lassi, chai, khari, paan, and mukhwas are on the menu. The carefully curated stalls and dedicated guest services have been designed for attendees to not only enjoy the event but also take away lasting memories of their journey through the ghats of Banaras. From chaat to chai, Ode to Banaras features the culinary delights from one of the world's oldest living cities. Apart from these, sweets, paan and mukhwas, kharik from Ahmedabad, chaat counters, malai toast and chai, lassi and lemon tea the food counters set up for guests promise to bring the Banaras' rich and varied food culture to Mumbai. Today's wedding ceremony will be followed by 'Shubh Aashirwad' on July 13 and culminate with the Mangal Utsav or wedding reception on July 14, promising three days of revelry and jubilation for the Ambani and Merchant families. (ANI) After Taiwan's fishing vessel, Da Jin Man No 88 was seized by the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG), Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh stressed the release of the fishing vessel and its crew member as soon as procedures such as payment of fines have been completed, Focus Taiwan reported. The MAC said on Thurday that the incident should be considered "a matter for Chinese law enforcement." MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh said at a news conference on Thursday, that "crew members found to be fishing illegally should be released as soon as procedures such as payment of fines have been completed." According to Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA), Da Jin Man No. 88, a Taiwanese fishing vessel registered in Penghu, was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel at a location east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay 17.5 nautical miles outside Taiwan-controlled "restricted waters" of the Kinmen Islands on July 2. Further, CGA said, the vessel, along with its two Taiwanese and three Indonesian crew members, were detained by the Chinese authorities for illegally operating in Chinese territorial seas, as per Focus Taiwan. As per Chinese law, fishing vessels are prohibited from operating in China's territorial seas during the closed fishing season. As of Thursday evening, Da Jin Man No. 88 and its crew have been detained for nine days, and it is not known when they may be released. "We consider this a matter for Chinese law enforcement," Liang said, adding that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should respect each other's approaches to enforcing their respective laws. "We promptly release detained Chinese fishing vessels after completing relevant procedures," Liang added, implying that the Chinese authorities should similarly release the boat and the five crew members as soon as possible. Before the incident involving Da Jin Man No. 88, Taiwanese vessels were detained by the Chinese authorities for fishing during China's closed fishing season on two occasions in the past 21 years: five boats were seized in July 2003 and six more were seized in July 2005. According to the CGA, in both cases, all 11 of these Penghu-registered ships were released after paying fines and returned to Penghu within two days after being seized. Meanwhile, China has increased its military activities around Taiwan, including regular air and naval incursions into Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) and military exercises near the island. Taiwan has been governed independently of China since 1949. However, China considers Taiwan part of its territory and insists on eventual reunification, by force if necessary. (ANI) The United States has imposed sanctions on several Israeli settlers and affiliated groups, accusing them of engaging in violent activities or threatening civilians in the West Bank, Al Jazeera reported. The sanctions, announced by the US Department of State and Department of the Treasury on Thursday, target three individuals Isachar Manne, Reut Ben Haim, and Aviad Shlomo Sarid and four illegal settlement outposts, Manne Farm, Meitarim Farm, Hamahoch Farm, and Neriya's Farm. The US government also made claims that these individuals and groups have seized property and engaged in actions that undermine security in the region, as per Al Jazeera. The US also blacklisted Lehava, an umbrella group for Israeli settlers, which it described as the "largest violent extremist organisation in Israel" with more than 10,000 members. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement on Thursday that "US is deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel's own security." Further, he added that "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 imposed by the US government mean that the individuals and groups targeted can no longer access any assets they have in the US, and American citizens are prohibited from engaging in business with them. In response, the group Lehava condemned the US decision and President Joe Biden, saying the group will not stop its actions. "Biden's measures won't deter us - we'll continue to act fearlessly to save Israel's daughters, much to the dismay of Biden and Israel's other enemies," it said. The European Union had already punished Lehava earlier by freezing their assets and visa ban blacklist, due to their violent attacks on Palestinians. The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence in the past year, particularly since Israel's war on Gaza erupted in October. Since then, at least 553 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the territory, and 9,510 have been detained, according to Palestinian officials. About 3 million Palestinians live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and more than 500,000 Israelis reside in more than 100 settlements across the territory. (ANI) US President Joe Biden who is under intense scrutiny over his advanced age on Thursday introduced Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at a NATO event and later at a solo press conference in Washington mixes up the name of his vice president, Kamala Harris with the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden,81, said at the NATO summit in Washington on July 10, drawing gasps from those in the room. After a two second pause, he immediately corrected himself and said, "Going to beat President Putin, President Zelensky. I am so focused on beating Putin." Zelensky responded to Biden's comments with "I am better (than Putin)," to which Biden replied "You are a hell of a lot better," as some in the room laughed, before Zelensky began his own address. Fellow leaders at the NATO summit fielded questions about Biden, and their answers have largely been supportive. "We all slip up sometimes," said French President Emmanuel Macron, "It's happened to me and it could happen again tomorrow. I would ask for your indulgence." Later on at a solo press conference, Biden was repeatedly asked about the concerns over his age on his candidacy. He responded with "I've gotta finish the job." In an embarrassing gaffe, he mistakenly referred to his Vice-President Kamala Harris as "Vice-President Trump". "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," Biden stated as he responded to a question about his confidence in Harris. CNN reported that Trump pounced on the verbal stumble to to post on Truth Social to highlight the moment. "Crooked Joe begins his 'Big Boy' Press Conference with, 'I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.' Great job, Joe!" Trump wrote, along with a video clip of the moment, CNN reported. Biden's re-election campaign has been struggling for the past two weeks, following his debate performance against his opponent, Donald Trump, who is 78 years old. Meanwhile, four more Democrats in the House of Representatives called on Biden to end his campaign: Brad Schneider of Illinois, Greg Stanton of Arizona, Ed Case of Hawaii, and Hillary Scholten of Michigan. "For our country's sake, it is time for the President to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders," Stanton said in a prepared statement. Following this, some Senate Democrats said they were still uncertain about Biden's ability to win after meeting with Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and other top aides. (ANI) Abu Dhabi [UAE], July 12 (ANI/WAM): The UAE delegation to the United Nations (UN) High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development met with the UN's Deputy Secretary-General on Wednesday to discuss how to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next six years. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed met with the delegation, led by Abdulla Nasser Lootah, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Competitiveness and Knowledge Exchange and Chairman of the National Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, at the UN's headquarters in New York. Discussions centered on opportunities for knowledge exchange, international cooperation and partnerships that embody SDG17, partnerships for the goals. In the meeting, the UAE delegation presented some of the country's initiatives designed to support inclusive development to benefit individuals, society and the planet, while preserving resources for future generations. As well as Lootah, the delegation included Rashid Mubarak Al Mansouri, Acting Secretary-General of the Emirates Red Crescent, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director-General of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, Lieutenant Colonel Dana Humaid Al Marzooqi, Director-General of International Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Interior, and Hashem Al Attas, Senior Portfolio Manager MENA at Masdar. Amina Mohammed said, "I look forward to continued cooperation with the UAE to accelerate sustainable development for the 2030 Agenda and beyond, ensuring a better future for communities around the world." Abdulla Nasser Lootah stated, "The UAE is committed to enhancing cooperation with the United Nations to eliminate poverty and hunger, promote climate action, establish strong and effective institutions, and create partnerships that support sustainable development goals.""Under the vision of its leadership, the UAE continues to establish strategic global partnerships, especially with UN development programs, to enhance knowledge exchange, stimulate sustainable development, and introduce innovative approaches - including the UAE's - to achieving sustainable development." He added, "Today, after decades of hard work and close cooperation with countries, governments and organizations, the UAE has become a reliable global partner in achieving development goals and supporting peace, justice, and international institutions, including the United Nations." A large UAE delegation is participating in the UN HLPF on Sustainable Development, which runs until 17th July. Around 1,000 officials, experts, and specialists from around the world are taking part under the theme "Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions." (ANI/WAM) Jakarta [ Indonesia], July 12 (ANI/WAM): Puan Maharani, Speaker of Indonesia's House of Representatives, received His Eminence Prof Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and Chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders, at the Parliamentary Complex of Indonesia which was established by Sukarno, Indonesia's first president in 1965. The Speaker expressed her great pleasure at this cherished visit by the Grand Imam to Indonesia and the honour it brings to the Indonesian Parliament. She noted that this visit sends a message from His Eminence supporting Indonesian women amid the spread of incorrect fatwas about women's empowerment and leadership roles, falsely accusing Islam of being anti-women. "As the first woman to chair the House of Representatives of the largest Muslim country, Indonesia, I thank you for your consistent positions that emphasise Islam's respect for women, its preservation of their status, and its elevation of their role as partners and equals with men in all aspects of life," she said. The Speaker affirmed the Indonesian people's trust in Al-Azhar as a scientific beacon and a moderate religious reference and noted that Al-Azhar's stance against the aggression on Gaza reflects the deep bitterness felt by Indonesians who also look forward to Al-Azhar's continued role in raising awareness of the suffering in Gaza. She emphasised that Indonesia and Al-Azhar share common goals of promoting religious and moral values, combating Islamophobia, and creating global Islamic entities capable of defending Muslim issues on a global level. She further stated that Indonesia has adopted a path of pluralism, acceptance of others, and providing an environment conducive to mutual coexistence and respect. This approach stems from the belief that diversity is a gift and wisdom from God intended for this universe. She explained that Indonesia relies on Al-Azhar to maintain Islamic moderation in the country, with its graduates and students serving as a soft power to uphold their cohesive social fabric. Hence, Indonesia invests in Indonesians studying at Al-Azhar and has a genuine desire to double their numbers. For his part, the Grand Imam expressed his happiness at visiting the Indonesian Parliament, highlighting the strong Egyptian-Indonesian relations, noting that Egypt was one of the first countries to support and recognise Indonesia's independence in 1946. He explained that Al-Azhar has been a crucial factor in strengthening these relations, with over 14,000 Indonesian students currently studying at Al-Azhar's institutes and university and that Al-Azhar also offers 200 scholarships, and this number will be increased during this visit in appreciation of the Indonesian people. The Grand Imam praised Indonesia's development and progress, alongside its commitment to preserving religious and moral values. He noted that Indonesia serves as a pioneering model of pluralism, religious tolerance, and social peace, maintaining stability within the framework of unity. He stressed that the moderation of Islam is the secret to its endurance and distinction, keeping it far from extremism and excess. He also emphasised that the history of excluding women and marginalising their participation in social life is long, rooted in a mix of societal traditions with religious rulings, resulting in biased jurisprudence that hindered women's progress out of fear of societal judgment. He pointed out that proper education and highlighting women's role in building Muslim society alongside men have liberated women from long-standing fears and anxieties. (ANI/WAM) Pakistan's urban population would probably have to grapple with a shortage of flour as the All-Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) went on strike as a mark of protest on Thursday against the new withholding tax, Pakistan-based daily, Dawn reported. Flour dealers and owners of atta chakkis (small wheat grinding units joined the protest, causing disturbances in the supply flow of flour, Dawn reported. Chairperson of PFMA, Asim Raza said that the measure has made flour mills withholding agents for tax collection. He said the tax is expected to increase flour prices by Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 8 per kg. Raza said that he would continue the strike until the demands are met and the strike would adversely affect the supply chain. "The tax measure is unacceptable and impracticable as flour dealers are refusing to lift their consignments instead of sharing their tax details for withholding tax purposes," he said. Raza said that the imposition of a PKR 600 tax on a bag of flour worth PKR 11,000 is inappropriate. He refuted the Punjab Food Minister Bilal Yasin's claim and said that the strike had not been postponed until Ashura (July 17). He added, "Neither the government nor the FBR has contacted us for talks or to reconsider the strike." Iftikhar Ahmed Mattoo, chairman of PFMA's Punjab chapter, said, "We don't wish to trouble the public during Muharram, which is why the industry continued to supply flour to the market until July 10 despite bearing a tax burden of millions of rupees." Mattoo said that now it was not feasible for them to bear the burden of tax. So, "extreme measures have to be taken". He said that flour mills across the city joined their call to ensure the survival of the industry, Dawn reported. The strike reportedly halted wheat supply all across the nation, bringing the flour availability and that of its related products to a grinding halt. Aamir Abdullah, PFMA's chairman for Sindh, confirmed an indefinite strike until the government withdraws the tax measures, noting that the suspension of wheat supply has also affected the bran supply for livestock. (ANI) Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) shadowed four China Coast Guard vessels that entered Taiwan-controlled waters around offshore Kinmen County on Thursday, Central News Agency (CNA) reported. In a statement, the CGA said that four Chinese vessels approached the outer boundary of "restricted" waters around Kinmen and intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters at 7 am (local time) from four different points to the east and southeast of Liaoluo Bay, the south of Zhaishan, and the south of Fengzui. It was China Coast Guard vessels' first intrusion in July and 31st in 2024, according to Taiwan's CGA. The Taiwan's CGA sent four ships to shadow the intruders and broadcast warnings, the statement said, according to CNA report. The Chinese ships left the restricted waters at 9 am (local time) and re-entered at 10 am (local time) when Taiwan's Coast Guard again dispatched four vessels following Beijing's action. Later, Chinese vessels left Taiwan-controlled waters between 12 pm (local time) to 1 pm (local time). The Taiwan's CGA said that the China Coast Guard's actions undermined maritime safety and do not help cross-strait exchanges. The CGA stated that it will continue to uphold Taiwan's rights in the sea. As the Kinmen County and Xiamen are in close proximity, China's territorial waters encompass all of Kinmen, leaving Taiwan with a compromise measure as it demarcates "prohibited" and "restricted" waters around the Kinmen Islands that extend 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters from the shores of the archipelago, according to CNA report. Earlier in June, Taiwan's Coast Guard (CGA) monitored four China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels in restricted waters off the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, Central News Agency (CNA) reported. The intrusion was reported to the CGA's Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch sometime after 5 am (local time). CGA's Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu Branch said that they dispatched three patrol boats to keep a watch on the Chinese vessels and collect evidence until they left the area at 8 am (local time). The branch said that four Chinese boats, numbered 14609, 14603, 14513, and 14605, paired up and respectively entered the restricted area from east of Beiding Island and south of Fuxing Island for sorties that lasted about two hours. Taiwan's CGA stressed that the actions of the Chinese Coast Guard do not maintain the ties between Kinmen and Xiamen, nor do they advance regional stability. However, the China Coast Guard (CCG) said its actions were legal. According to Taiwan's CGA, China's Coast Guard have frequently intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters near the Kinmen Islands since the capsizing of an unnamed and unregistered Chinese speedboat on February 14, Central News Agency (CNA) reported. On February 14, Chinese speed boat collided with Taiwan CGA's patrol vessel and capsize in waters near Kinmen while being pursued, resulting in deaths of two Chinese crew. Since then, China has sent coast guard vessels into the Taiwan-controlled waters, stressing that it has the right to legally patrol the area. (ANI) The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday issued bailable arrest warrants against the country's former information minister Fawad Chaudhry in a case of contempt against the poll body, Pakistan-based daily, Dawn reported. A four-member bench of the ECP, headed by Nisar Ahmad Durrani, the member from Sindh, issued warrants for Chaudhry because he constantly failed to turn up in the court, Dawn reported. The bench resumed hearing the contempt cases against Chaudhry and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan for allegedly using extreme language and derogatory remarks against the ECP and the chief election commissioner. A junior lawyer told the bench that he had the power of attorney because Khan's counsel Shoaib Shaheen was busy in the Islamabad High Court, Dawn reported. In a similar case against the former prime minister, ECP's deputy director Law said there is no injunction in this case for Khan in the High Court. When the case was last heard in High Court in January, the court had prevented the ECP from passing the final order but proceedings could be held. Imran Khan's assistant counsel said that the ECP can ensure the virtual attendance of the respondent, as attendance is mandatory in criminal cases. The assistant counsel said that in the law of evidence, technology can be used and, therefore, the court can allow virtual attendance. The ECP member asked where Fawad Chaudhry or his lawyer is, as a junior of counsel said that Faisal Chaudhry is also in Islamabad High Court. "Let us issue a warrant for Fawad Chaudhry, for he is not in jail, let us issue his warrant, the presence of a lawyer will be exempted, but where is Fawad Chaudhry," the bench said. The assistant lawyer maintained that the case of Chaudhry was underway in the high court. A member of the bench said that Chaudhry's presence in the High Court was not necessary; while the commission is independent and not subordinate to anyone. The bench issued Chaudhry's arrest warrants and adjourned the hearing till August 7. (ANI) Maj. Gen. Phillip A. Stewart, right, a decorated combat aviator and former head of the 19th Air Force at Randolph AFB, stood trial on sexual assault charges last month. A jury acquitted him of sexual assault but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and dereliction of duty. William Luther/San Antonio Express-News Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewarts trial on charges of sexually assaulting a female subordinate was a rarity, only the second court-martial of a general officer in Air Force history. There's another reason the trial was historic: It was among the last such cases to be handled under a military legal system dating back more than 250 years. Since George Washington led the Continental Army, commanders have decided when military personnel should stand trial for murder, rape and other serious offenses. No longer. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Under a law that took effect at the end of last year, professional military prosecutors now make those decisions. The law, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, made sweeping changes in the way the armed services prosecute what the American Bar Association calls "victim-centric" crimes. An Office of Special Trial Counsel in each of the services now has exclusive authority to decide whether soldiers or officers accused of 14 serious crimes including murder, manslaughter, sexual assault, kidnapping, domestic violence, stalking and child pornography should stand trial. Sexual harassment will be added to the list effective Jan. 1. The special trial counsel "are fully independent from the military chain of command," according to an executive order signed by President Joe Biden. The aim is to ensure that troops facing credible charges of sexual misconduct in particular will go before a court-martial more frequently. Sexual assault victims and advocates are betting that will happen. They contend that commanders, acting as the convening authority for courts-martial, too often were unwilling to send sexual assault cases to trial. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Some experts in military law, however, say theres no compelling evidence the old system was broken. They describe the reforms as a solution in search of a problem. 'An extremely difficult decision' Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall III said he was committed to the success of this path forward but added that much will depend on the willingness of sexual assault victims to come forward. We know this can be an extremely difficult decision, he said. We will do everything we can to ensure victims are supported and justice is done. The new rules took effect Dec. 27. Alleged crimes committed before that date will be handled the old way. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Stewarts case fell into that category. The general, a decorated combat aviator and former commander of the 19th Air Force, the services San Antonio-based pilot training arm, was accused of sexually assaulting a female officer during a business trip to Altus AFB in Oklahoma in April 2023. He went on trial in June before a jury of eight three-star generals, two of them women, at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. The jury acquitted Stewart of two counts of sexual assault but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and dereliction of duty. As punishment, he was restricted to Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph for two months and ordered to forfeit $60,000 in salary over six months. He will also receive a reprimand and could have his rank reduced. He is expected to put in his retirement papers within a few months. Critics of the old system have long contended that cases such as Stewarts were not the norm and that the number of military trials for sexual assault has been abysmally low. Out of thousands of sexual assault complaints, only a few hundred a year go to trial. The Pentagons 2023 Sexual Assault Prevention and Response survey found that 29,000 active-duty members reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact of some kind. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Some 1,821 sexual assault complaints were both substantiated and unrestricted, meaning the victims were willing to cooperate with investigators. Of those, 402 led to formal charges. Even then, accusers didnt necessarily get their day in court. Retired Col. Don Christensen, a former Air Force judge who once served as the services chief prosecutor, said that in 92 of the 402 cases, the defendants were discharged from the military or resigned before trial. In 74 others, the charges were dismissed. Only 234 went to trial, Christensen said. "The military has increasingly shied away from courts for suspected sex offenders," said Christensen, a former president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault. The military now prefers administrative actions such as discharges. In the 2013 fiscal year, the armed services brought charges in 71% of the sexual assault cases deemed substantiated, and only 12% of those cases were resolved administratively, Christensen said. By 2023, the percentage of substantiated cases referred for prosecution had dropped to 36%, and 47% were resolved through administrative action, he said. Spc. Vanessa Guillen complained to her family about being sexually harassed at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos). Her abduction and murder led to the sacking of 14 commanders at Fort Hood and spurred Congress to overhaul the military justice system. Jay Janner, MBR / TNS 'Pervasive lack of confidence' Victim advocates and some members of Congress tried for years to overhaul the military justice system. They finally made headway after the high-profile disappearance and killing of Spc. Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) in 2020. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Guillen, 20, of Houston, had told her family about being sexually harassed, but investigators said she never reported it to authorities at Ford Hood. When she disappeared, social media erupted with testimonials from former service members who described sexual harassment and assaults. Guillen's remains were found months later. Her accused killer, Spc. Aaron David Robinson, shot himself as police closed in on him. An independent investigation found that a deficient climate at Fort Hood had placed female soldiers at risk. The posts sexual assault prevention program was so ineffective that it resulted in a pervasive lack of confidence, fear of retaliation, and significant underreporting of cases, particularly within the enlisted ranks, the review found. In response, the Army removed or suspended 14 officers, including the posts acting commander, Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt. The scandal gave new life to legislation pushed by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and then-U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., to take prosecutorial decisions out of the hands of military commanders. "As someone who worked on reform for a decade before we achieved it, I 100% believe Vanessas murder is what tipped the scales," Christensen said. "The Army lost all credibility when it falsely claimed Vanessa wasnt sexually harassed, only to admit a year later that she was. Vanessa galvanized the issue on the Hill. Her family deserves huge credit for not staying silent and demanding reform." An independent review commissioned by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III found that service members did not believe their commanders "could be trusted to handle legal decisions related to sexual assault." Olivier Matthys, STR / Associated Press Lackland scandal Most victims still do not report sexual assault, but the proportion who do increased after earlier congressional reforms triggered by a sexual assault scandal that erupted at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in 2011. Instructors at Lackland, the hub of Air Force basic training, were accused of preying on female trainees. Thirty-five instructors were investigated for misconduct, and 29 went to trial. In one of the most egregious cases, Staff Sgt. Luis Walker was convicted in 2012 of sexually assaulting 10 women and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He committed suicide in 2014 by hanging himself in his cell at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The scandal led to a makeover of Air Force basic and technical training and a congressional rewrite of military law, including a requirement that airmen convicted of rape be dishonorably discharged. But the perception persisted that the military justice system was ineffectual when it came to sexual assault. Staff members for the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military, established by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in 2021, interviewed hundreds of unit commanders, enlisted service members and survivors of sexual assault. The review found that service members did not believe that commanders, who have no legal training, could be trusted to handle legal decisions related to sexual assault, such as whether there is probable cause to charge someone for a crime. Defenders of the old system contend that commanders ability to order trials or not based on advice from legal advisers in the Judge Advocate General corps, is crucial to maintaining good order and discipline. Lackland AFB in San Antonio is the hub of Air Force basic training. Above, trainees run a simulated attack drill. An investigation that began in 2011 found that some Lackland instructors preyed on female trainees. The scandals led to trials and convictions for sexual assault and to congressional reforms. KAYLEE GREENLEE BEAL 'What problem are we solving?' Retired Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn, a career Army lawyer, said proponents of the latest reforms were wrong in suggesting that commanders referred fewer sexual assault cases than they should have, resulting in fewer convictions. "There was never good evidence that general officer-level convening authorities were suppressing cases," said Corn, the George R. Killam Jr. chair of criminal law and director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law. "The problem we were solving was the problem of advocates creating a solution in search of a problem." Retired Army Lt. Col. Dru Brenner-Beck, a former professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, echoed that sentiment. "We are now removing the commander from making decisions on sexual assault and other felonies. Why? Because the reports of assault continue?" she said. "There was no objective evidence of a systemic failure of commanders to follow their JAGs advice. So what problem are we solving?" Frank Spinner, a former Air Force lawyer who now represents service members as a civilian attorney, said the argument that military prosecutors will be less susceptible to pressure and better able than commanders to judge cases on their merits is flawed. He noted that military lawyers move from one position to the next and live with the same concerns about being promoted that every other officer or enlistee has. They're also vulnerable to pressure from members of Congress, he said. Spinner pointed to Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin's forced retirement after he reversed the sexual assault conviction of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson. The decision sparked outrage on Capitol Hill and among sexual assault advocates. 'Always looking over your shoulder' Wilkerson, an F-16 fighter pilot, was convicted in 2012 of sexually assaulting a physicians assistant in Aviano, Italy, where he was based with the 31st Fighter Wing. Franklin, then commander of the Third Air Force, overturned the verdict and reinstated Wilkerson, who later was demoted to major and permitted to retire. Spinner, who defended Wilkerson against the sexual assault charges, said Franklin wrote a lengthy and detailed explanation of his decision. "And nobody cared. It terminated his career anyway, and every general in the military got the message," Spinner said. The fallout from the case was profound. Commanders were stripped of their right to reverse guilty verdicts. That kind of pressure won't go away just because the law has changed, Spinner said. Singh thanked Tshering for joining the International Big Cat Alliance, a global initiative of India. He said that both countries share the same geography, and ecosystem, and the common values of democracy. Singh also said that climate change is a common concern for both countries. Singh said on X, "H E Gem Tshering, Minister for Energy and Natural Resources, Royal Government of Bhutan calls on at Paryavaran Bhawan, today. We discussed issues pertaining to mutual relations, environment, forest, wildlife management and climate change, in detail." https://x.com/KVSinghMPGonda/status/1811375355758018653 Tshering talked about successfully hosting the Sustainable Finance for Tiger Landscape Conference in April 2024 in Paro. He said that Bhutan is a carbon-negative country and obtains its major share of energy from hydropower. Both- India and Bhutan agreed to work together to combat climate change, air quality, forest, wildlife management, and capacity building in the field of environment and climate change. India suggested to hold the Joint Working Group Meeting. On Thursday, as the first day of BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat concluded, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said that the deliberations between all seven nations' ministers covered the whole gamut of BIMSTEC collaboration that will contribute to solid outcomes and practical collaborations at the forthcoming summit in Thailand. EAM Jaishankar thanked the ministers of Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka for joining the meeting. "A productive 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat. Thank FM @AmbPoohMaris, FM @DrHasanMahmud62, @FMBhutan DN Dhungyel, DPM and FM U Than Swe, MoS @TharakaBalasur1, FS @Sewa_lamsal and Secretary General @IndramaniPR for joining," he posted on X. "Our conversation covered the whole gamut of BIMSTEC collaboration," Jaishankar stressed. (ANI) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council on Friday said that Taiwan's future should not rely on the goodwill of China's leaders, Taiwan-based Taiwan News said. The MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said that the key issue of the crisis between the two countries is China's refusal to acknowledge the objective existence of Taiwan, Taiwan News said. Chui-cheng said that China's propaganda and threats were the root cause of the air of uncertainty across the state of Taiwan Strait, Taiwan News said. Chiu defended President Lai Ching-te's policy of maintaining the status quo to safeguard regional peace and stability, Taiwan News reported, quoting Radio Taiwan International. He said the government will stand by the Constitution and that Taiwan is a separate entity with its sovereignty, repeating a comment from Lai's May 20 inauguration speech, which had angered China. He also reiterated its call on Taiwanese travelers to exert caution if they need to travel to China, Hong Kong, or Macau. They should register at the MAC website before their trip to obtain assistance when necessary. The concern over the safety of Taiwanese travelers peaked after China threatened to sentence supporters of Taiwan's independence to death last month. As a result of the Chinese threat, Taiwan raised its travel advisory from yellow to orange, cautioning against non-essential travel. Earlier on Thursday, Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) shadowed four China Coast Guard vessels that entered Taiwan-controlled waters around offshore Kinmen County. In a statement, the CGA said that four Chinese vessels approached the outer boundary of "restricted" waters around Kinmen and intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters at 7 am (local time) from four different points to the east and southeast of Liaoluo Bay, the south of Zhaishan, and the south of Fengzui. It was China Coast Guard vessels' first intrusion in July and 31st in 2024, according to Taiwan's CGA. (ANI) An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Thursday dismissed incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan's allegations of "political victimisation" in cases related to the riots of May 9, 2023, in a written verdict issued on his bail pleas, Pakistan-based The News reported. Khalid Arshad, an ATC Judge said in a four-page verdict, that "reasonable grounds" existed to link Imran Khan with the alleged offences committed in the May 9 riots last year. The court turned down the pleas seeking extension in the interim bails granted to the incarcerated PTI leader in three cases related to the May 9 violent protests two days ago. The May 9 riots broke out in many parts of the country last year following the ex-PM's arrest in a corruption case. The civil and military authorities booked the supporters of Imran Khan under Army Act after they attacked several state buildings including military installations. The verdict stated that two witnesses told the court in their testimonies that a meeting was held at Khan's Zaman Park residence in Lahore on May 7, 2023, which they attended along with 15 senior leaders of the former ruling party. In the meeting, Imran Khan said that he feared that he might get arrested in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on May 9, the verdict read, adding that he also ordered the PTI leaders to gather the party workers under the leadership of Yasmin Rashid in case of his arrest. The party leaders, were instructed by Imran Khan to "attack military installations, government properties and the police officials to create pressure on the government and armed institutions for his release," the verdict read. The ATC verdict stated that the "recovery of alleged articles used for the recording of video messages of instigation is to be affected from the petitioner." The court also rejected the allegations of "political victimisation" on behalf of the party leader, terming it the claims were "not appealing to prudent mind." (ANI) Several people injured, including six police personnel, were injured and 27 people including five women arrested on Thursday after clashes erupted between supporters of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and police during a rally organised for the recovery of missing students, Pakistan-based Dawn reported. Several police vehicles were damaged as police fired tear gas and batton-charged supporters of BYC. Firing was also reported during the clashes. The clashes started after police attempted to push BYC supporters from the Red Zone area where the protesters wanted to hold a sit-in, according to Dawn report. Supporters of BYC have been holding a sit-in for over a week in Sariab area against the disappearance of Zaheer Baloch and other Baloch missing persons. However, the protesters marched on several roads of Quetta and attempted to move to the Red Zone to hold their sit-in there which led to clashes between police and BYC supporters. In a video posted on X, BYC's Central Organiser Mahrang Baloch stated that the family of Zaheer Baloch had been holding protest on Sariab Road for many days. However, the government did not give any response despite the protest by the family. Subsequently, the family of Zaheer Baloch decided to move towards the Red Zone on Thursday. Mahrang Baloch said, "The participants of the rally were attacked, baton-charged and fired upon, resulting in severe injuries to protesters. Two of the injured are in critical condition at the Civil Hospital's trauma centre." She further said that six female protesters have been arrested and taken to the Civil Line Police Station. She noted that the six female protesters after their arrest have been moved to an unknown location from there, Dawn reported. While sharing the video on X, Mahrang Baloch wrote, "We give the state and government of Balochistan half an hour if Baloch women and youths are not released within half an hour, we will march from Saryab to Quetta red zone and hold an indefinite dharna in front of the red zone." "While we also make it clear that we will not be afraid of violence and arrests, rather our struggle will emerge with greater intensity in response to them. I appeal to the people of Quetta to reach the Saryab sit-in as soon as possible," she added. https://x.com/MahrangBaloch_/status/1811420086948769890 Zaheer Baloch is one of the many victims of the sustained problem of enforced disappearances in Pakistan's Balochistan. On July 4, BYC said that he was abducted in late June without stating any charges. In a post on X, the BYC stated, "Zaheer Baloch, who was abducted on June 27, is among the latest victims. In response, his family has staged a sit-in and road blockade protest at Sariyab Road in Quetta. They are demanding his safe recovery and the lodging of an FIR against the latest culprits in the Baloch Genocide CTD, who abducted Zaheer without any charges. Today, the family organized a protest rally from the sit-in camp to further highlight their plight." https://x.com/BalochYakjehtiC/status/1808577282061316228 In the same statement, BYC stated, "Enforced Disappearances have become a tragic norm in Balochistan, with Baloch people being subjected to such brutal practices on a daily basis. Despite condemnation from reputable international organizations and steadfast resistance by the Baloch people, the state continues to perpetuate these disappearances." (ANI) The top members of trader associations belonging to the Pakistan Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) recently organized a press conference at the Gilgit Press Club, to speak against several issues that are persistently becoming a hindrance in the growth of the business sector in PoGB, WTV, a news network from PoGB reported on Wednesday. The majority of these traders who were gathered at the press conference are dependent on China-Pakistan trade coming from across the border. The traders complained that the Federal Board of Revenue of Pakistan (FBR) has not made any adequate policies regarding the trade. The protestors stated that they are being heavily taxed, therefore their businesses are not able to survive. The traders also demanded a 20 per cent exemption in sales tax, income tax and land route valuation, calling it a viable and well-deserved demand. "We will not compromise at these conditions, we have the pieces of evidence and required documents and will not refrain from reaching the court. According to the rules, we are not liable to pay income and sales taxes and we will not pay it anymore. As per the agreement between China and Pakistan, the barter of goods with goods is not taxable. And no taxes should be levied on small amounts of goods", a trader stated. The association members also complained that PoGB has reached a point where neither can new industries enter PoGB nor the existing ones survive and sustain. Such circumstances will have an adverse result in the area's future for the area. A top member of the business association in the press conference said, "We have raised these issues repeatedly, and we are going to raise them again. But the complaints bring us no relief. We have knowledgeable and educated people here in PoGB but no industries can survive here. Where will we employ our people's potential and solve the problems of unemployment?" The associations blamed the government for their miseries. (ANI ) Foreign Ministers from the BIMSTEC member countries held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed ways to strengthen regional cooperation, including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people-to-people exchanges. During the meeting, PM Modi conveyed full support to Thailand for a successful BIMSTEC Summit. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Union Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs, Pabitra Margherita, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval also attended the meeting. In a post on X, PM Modi stated, "Glad to meet BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers. Discussed ways to strengthen regional cooperation, including connectivity, energy, trade, health, agriculture, science, security and people-to-people exchanges. Conveyed full support to Thailand for a successful Summit." Foreign Ministers from the BIMSTEC member countries have gathered in the national capital for a two-day retreat meeting to bolster cooperation among Bay of Bengal countries. BIMSTEC is a regional organisation comprising 7 member states - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. On Thursday, S Jaishankar welcomed colleagues from across the world for the second Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Foreign Ministers' Retreat being held in Delhi from July 11-12. EAM Jaishankar articulated India's strategic alignment with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), highlighting its significance within the country's broader geopolitical frameworks like - Neighbourhood First, Act East Policy and SAGAR vision. While addressing the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat in New Delhi on Thursday, Jaishankar said, "For India, BIMSTEC represents the intersection of its 'Neighbourhood First' outlook, the 'Act East Policy' and the 'SAGAR' vision. Each of these endeavours is being purposed with a specific focus on the Bay of Bengal, where collaborative potential has long remained underrealised." He added, "Our challenge is to change that for the better, and to do so rapidly. The retreat is meant to exchange ideas openly, candidly and fruitfully. We all benefited from the last such exercise in Bangkok." Stressing the importance of the Summit, he said, "This one now has a particular importance as it serves to prepare strong outcomes for the Summit to be held later in the year. Our message should be clear - that we are all determined to infuse new energies, new resources and a new commitment into cooperation among the Bay of Bengal nations." Highlighting the recent developments within BIMSTEC, Jaishankar noted, "The BIMSTEC Charter, for a start, has come into effect from 20 May this year. Global and regional developments also make it imperative that we find more solutions amongst ourselves." Jaishankar expressed optimism about the outcomes, stating, "Our hope is that these would be expressed as shared and ambitious BIMSTEC Vision." Highlighting the topics that were under consideration, EAM Jaishankar said, "Our discussions, in the first part, will revolve around connectivity, institutional building, cooperation in trade and business, collaboration in health and space, digital public infrastructure, capacity building and societal exchanges, as well as weighing on the merits of new mechanisms." The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers' Retreat was held in Thailand's Bangkok on July 17, 2023. In an earlier press release, Ministry of External Affairs (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." (ANI) Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has suspended the membership of Sher Afzal, who was elected to the National Assembly in the February 8 polls this year, local media reported. The decision regarding the firebrand leader was taken after PTI members met with the incarcerated party founder, Imran Khan reported Pakistan-based ARY News. A party leader claimed that Sher Afzal Marwat had been constantly violating party discipline and over the past month. "During the meeting with Imran Khan, it was agreed that no leader is above the party and all other leaders would face the same fate if they crossed the party line," the leader added as cited by ARY News. Earlier on May 11 this year, the PTI had issued a show-cause notice to Marwat for violation of its code of conduct and policy. The notice, issued by the PTI's central secretariat, stated that Marwat has issued "irresponsible statements" that harmed the PTI's reputation and interests despite being given clear instructions by party founder Imran Khan. According to the notice Marwat has damaged his relations with fellow PTI members and stakeholders through his actions and words. The PTI's central secretariat has asked Marwat to explain himself in writing within three days of the show-cause notice. He has been asked to explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against him. The show-cause notice against the PTI leader read, "If your reply is unsatisfactory or you do not respond, further action will be taken as per party policy and rules." Marwat has been grabbing headlines due to his blunt and controversial remarks and has been at loggerheads with several PTI leaders, including Taimur Khan Jhagra, Omar Ayub and Shibli Faraz. Earlier on May 9, Omar Ayub said that PTI expelled Marwat from it's core and political committees on the orders issued by Imran Khan. He said that Marwat was warned time and again against violating the PTI's policies. (ANI) Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) has said that 18 Chinese military aircraft and eight naval vessels operating around Taiwan were detected from 6 am (local time) on Thursday to 6 am (local time) on Friday. According to Taiwan's MND, 14 of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern, southwestern and eastern Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ). In response to China's armed forces, Taiwan sent aircraft and naval ships and deployed coastal-based missile systems to monitor the PLA activity. In a post on X, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) stated, "18 PLA aircraft and 8 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 14 of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's northern, southwestern and eastern ADIZ. #ROCArmedForces have monitored the situation and responded accordingly." So far in July, the Taiwan's MND has detected Chinese military aircraft 294 times and naval ships 84 times, Taiwan News reported. Since September 2020, China has intensified its use of gray zone tactics by increasing the number of military aircraft and naval vessels operating around Taiwan. According to Taiwan News report, gray zone tactics are "an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one's security objectives without resort to direct and sizable use of force." This latest incident adds to a series of similar provocations by China in recent months. Beijing has increased its military activities around Taiwan, including regular air and naval incursions into Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) and military exercises near the island. Taiwan has been governed independently of China since 1949. However, Beijing considers the island as part of its territory and insists on its eventual reunification, by force if necessary. Earlier on Thursday, Taiwan's Coast Guard shadowed four China Coast Guard vessels that entered Taiwan-controlled waters around offshore Kinmen County, Central News Agency (CNA) reported. In a statement, the Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said that four Chinese vessels approached the outer boundary of "restricted" waters around Kinmen and intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters at 7 am (local time) from four different points to the east and southeast of Liaoluo Bay, the south of Zhaishan, and the south of Fengzui. It was China Coast Guard vessels' first intrusion in July and 31st in 2024, according to Taiwan's CGA. The Taiwan's CGA sent four ships to shadow the intruders and broadcast warnings, the statement said, according to CNA report. The Chinese ships left the restricted waters at 9 am (local time) and re-entered at 10 am (local time) when Taiwan's Coast Guard again dispatched four vessels following Beijing's action. Later, Chinese vessels left Taiwan-controlled waters between 12 pm (local time) to 1 pm (local time). The Taiwan's CGA said that the China Coast Guard's actions undermined maritime safety and do not help cross-strait exchanges. The CGA stated that it will continue to uphold Taiwan's rights in the sea. (ANI) NATO officials are in discussions about reclaiming some Chinese-owned infrastructure projects in Europe if a broader conflict with Russia arises, as reported by CNN based on information from three officials involved in these talks. A decade ago, Europe, recovering from the global financial crisis, saw Chinese investment in infrastructure as a beneficial influx of funds. Today, however, with the most significant land war in Europe since World War II underway and the West raising alarms over Beijing's support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, NATO allies now perceive these investments as potential liabilities. Discussions are ongoing about ways to reclaim these projects preemptively, the officials revealed. A US official expressed concern that Beijing might use its European infrastructure to aid Russia if the conflict expands. Therefore, NATO aims to develop strategies well ahead of any possible escalation, according to CNN. These discussions highlight NATO's increasing focus on China. The joint declaration from the recent 75th-anniversary summit in Washington by the 32 NATO leaders explicitly criticised Beijing's support for Moscow, marking a significant shift as such references were absent in the 2023 declaration. The declaration stated, "The deepening strategic partnership between Russia and the PRC and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut and reshape the rules-based international order are a cause for profound concern." The infrastructure discussions are still in their early stages, with varying levels of engagement among NATO member countries. According to one NATO diplomat, the US, leading these talks, might need to secure bilateral agreements to gain the necessary support. China has invested tens of billions of dollars in European infrastructure through its Belt & Road Initiative since 2013. These investments include rail lines connecting Eastern Europe to China and ports in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. A NATO official said that if a war erupted, the infrastructure "would almost certainly be nationalized, or nations would temporarily assume operating control, under emergency security measures. China can sue them in court after the fact." US officials see a precedent for such actions in how European nations forced Russia to sell assets following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. For example, Finland repeatedly blocked business activities at Helsinki Shipyard, a producer of ice-breaking ships formerly owned by a Russian entity, until the company was sold to a Canadian entity in late 2023. A senior US official mentioned that discussions have expanded to include high-tech sectors such as quantum computing, semiconductors, and telecommunications infrastructure. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted that the Ukraine war has made European and Asian nations more aware of their interconnected security concerns. Blinken remarked at a NATO forum, "Maybe this was crystallised by Ukraine, when Prime Minister Kishida of Japan said that what's happening in Europe today could be happening in East Asia tomorrow. When Russia committed its aggression, its renewed aggression against Ukraine, and Japan stood up, South Korea stood up, Australia, New Zealand, this was a reflection of that recognition that these challenges are linked." Despite widespread concern among NATO member states regarding Chinese-owned infrastructure, some officials, particularly from France, argue that the issue should be handled by the European Union, which oversees other economic matters. This tension influenced the declaration's language, as some countries believe NATO is not the appropriate platform to challenge China. Nonetheless, many member states fear that Beijing could leverage these assets against the alliance and continue to advocate for NATO to address the threat. In mid-June, speaking in Washington ahead of the summit, outgoing Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg emphasised that Beijing should face consequences for supporting Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine, CNN reported. (ANI) A key report by the United Nations has highlighted significant demographic changes for Pakistan, projecting a substantial population increase over the coming decades, ARY News reported. According to the UN's World Population Prospects 2024 report, Pakistan's population, currently over 245 million, is expected to continue growing until 2054, potentially peaking at 404.68 million by the year 2092. The report indicates that Pakistan's population will surpass Indonesia's by 2048, reaching 331.29 million at that time. Between 1998 and 2017, Pakistan experienced an average annual population growth rate of 2.40 per cent. For a population exceeding 220 million, this growth rate translates to an increase of approximately 5.28 million people per year. Pakistan's high birth rate, which stands at 22 births per 1,000 people, contributes significantly to its population growth. The report points out, "Very few women use any type of birth control in Pakistan, and the surging population can put too much pressure on water and sanitation systems, result in millions of unemployed people, and overwhelm health and education systems." Since gaining sovereignty in 1947, Pakistan's population has increased markedly. This growth is partly due to the influx of people who moved their families and businesses to the area, feeling more comfortable settling in the newly established country. Compared to other nations in the region, Pakistan's growth rate is about 2.1 per cent higher, as reported by ARY News. The report predicts that if the current growth trend continues, Pakistan's population could double what it was in 2001 within the next 35 years. Given the significant population increase observed over the past decade, this projection does not seem far-fetched. Although the current growth rate is close to 2 per cent, it is expected to decrease to less than 1 per cent by 2050, at which point Pakistan's population is projected to exceed 300 million. Globally, the report states that the world population reached nearly 8.2 billion by mid-2024 and is expected to grow by another two billion over the next 60 years, peaking at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. It is then expected to decline to approximately 10.2 billion, which is 700 million lower than projections made a decade ago. These findings were revealed in the report published by the UN to coincide with World Population Day. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised the importance of accurate population data, stating, "Our rich human tapestry is only as strong as its weakest thread. When data and other systems work for those on the margins, they work for everyone. This is how we accelerate progress for all." The 28th edition of the World Population Prospects (WPP), published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) since 1951, provides the latest demographic data for 237 countries from 1950 to 2024 and projections up to the year 2100. The WPP is crucial for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals, with about a quarter of the indicators relying on its data. The report highlights that global fertility rates are dropping, with women having one child fewer on average compared to around 1990. In more than half of all countries and areas, the average number of live births per woman is below 2.1, the level required for a population to maintain a constant size. Nearly a fifth of all countries and areas, including China, Italy, South Korea, and Spain, now have "ultra-low fertility," with fewer than 1.4 live births per woman over a lifetime. As of 2024, population size has peaked in 63 countries and areas, including China, Germany, Japan, and the Russian Federation. The total population of this group is projected to decline by 14 percent over the next thirty years. Additionally, the average age of the global population is increasing. By the late 2070s, the number of persons aged 65 years or older is projected to surpass the number of persons under 18. This shift is partly due to the overall increase in life expectancy and decrease in mortality rates over the past three decades. By the late 2050s, more than half of all global deaths will occur at age 80 or higher, a substantial increase from 17 percent in 1995. While population growth or decline is occurring mainly in high-income countries, rapid population growth will continue in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. Specifically, very rapid growth is projected in Angola, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, and Somalia, with their total populations expected to double between 2024 and 2054. This population growth will increase demand for resources, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Combined with poorly managed urbanisation and rising living standards, this will exacerbate environmental impacts. Climate change, a significant challenge, affects these countries the most, where many people rely on agriculture, and food insecurity is prevalent, according to ARY News. In countries including India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the United States, the population is also expected to increase through 2054 and could potentially peak in the second half of the century or later. Central to population and development is the "recognition that women's sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights are cornerstones of sustainable development," said Secretary-General Guterres. Particularly in low-income countries, early pregnancies remain a significant challenge. In 2024, 4.7 million babies, or about 3.5 per cent of the total worldwide, were born to mothers under the age of 18. Of these, some 3,40,000 were born to children under 15, with serious consequences for the health and well-being of both the young mothers and their children. Investing in the education of young people, especially girls, and increasing the ages of marriage and first childbearing in countries where these occur early, will yield positive outcomes for women's health, educational attainment, and labour force participation, according to WPP data. These efforts will also contribute to reducing the scale of investments required to achieve sustainable development while ensuring that no one is left behind, the report added, as ARY News reported. (ANI) U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack, shown in this 2008 photo, has been the states de facto foster care czar since 2011. Now, Texas child welfare officials want a higher court to remove Jack from the case. Todd Yates/AP On a chilly morning last January, U.S. District Judge Janis Jack was visibly on edge in her Corpus Christi courtroom. She leaned in and cast a hard look at Cecile E. Young, the Texas Health and Human Services executive commissioner appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott during the pandemic. Commissioner Young, Jack said. Have you ever seen the inside of a jail cell? Advertisement Article continues below this ad The threat was that Young who had worked in state government for more than 30 years would be led out of the courtroom in handcuffs alongside Stephanie Muth, another Abbott appointee at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, if their agencies didnt produce right now documents Jack had previously requested that showed whether their agencies had been complying with court orders regarding Texas beleaguered foster care system. It was a provocative and extremely tense moment, though by far not the only such exchange during that dayslong court hearing. And it crystallized the combative and rancorous relationship that has festered between Jack and Texas welfare officials as theyve fought over a costly class action lawsuit filed in 2011 on behalf of children who had been removed from their parents and become wards of the state. Now, Texas child welfare officials want a higher court to remove Jack from the case, the only one she is overseeing after moving in 2010 to senior status, a sort of semi-retirement for federal judges. Since 2011, shes been the states de facto foster care czar. Among their arguments: She will never let them succeed. The record is replete with instances of hostile remarks and actions toward the state defendants and their counsel hostility that has unfortunately infected the district courts substantive rulings and that casts a cloud over its future decisions in this case, reads the states June court filing asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to remove Jack. Advertisement Article continues below this ad At the center of the battle are the roughly 9,000 children in permanent state custody, removed from their homes due to circumstances that can include abuse at home, complex health needs that parents are unable to manage without help, or the loss of family caregivers. The children often represent the most tragic stories and have some of the most complex mental and behavioral needs of any child in the system, yet they are often left in dangerous homes and residential centers with poor supervision frequently overmedicated, trafficked and unable to get help if theyre continuing to be abused. The state relies on long-term care facilities, hotels, churches, apartments and rental homes to house them. Children in these placements can be as young as 10 but are often teens with complex trauma and behavioral needs. The states extraordinary request to take her off the case is considered to be the nuclear option, triggered after the judge issued her third contempt order against the state in April. The state has spent $100 million in taxpayer money trying to comply with Jacks orders to clean up Texas foster care and stop putting vulnerable youth in its care at risk, an endeavor that has seen some improvements in the conditions Jack and other judges had said were damaging to the kids. But the state also has spent much on fighting them, bringing their arguments to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on several occasions. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The agencys efforts have been met repeatedly with smackdown rulings delivered alongside caustic reprimands and mocking by the judge, new requirements or deadlines, three contempt findings, exhaustive oversight by expensive court monitors, enormous and ongoing fines and the threat of a complete court takeover of the system. In April, Jack issued a bombshell ruling that found Young and Texas Health and Human Services in contempt of court for the third time and fined the state $100,000 per day until the state could show an attempt to address its routine neglect of investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect of children in the system. The state has appealed the ruling. The concerns over the appearance of bias and prejudice are only heightened by the district courts stated position that there is no end in sight for its supervision of the States foster-care system, the states June request reads. As the court (Jack) has put it, I dont see how you ever are going to get off monitoring with this attitude. I dont know how youre going to ever turn the corner. The 5th Circuit is set to hear oral arguments Aug. 5 on the states appeal of the fines and latest contempt ruling as well as the request to remove Jack. A routine status hearing on the lawsuit is set for September, proceedings that often have resulted in further orders, contempt rulings or reprimands. Attorneys for the children dispute that Jacks orders and courtroom rebukes are anything other than responses to a yearslong pattern of the states repeated efforts to cover up conditions in the system and shortcut, sidestep, block or altogether ignore orders and advice on what child welfare officials should do in order to protect the children in their care. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Replacing Jack, who knows the foster care system better than almost anyone else involved in the case, with someone who has less background would be deeply cynical and a huge setback for the children whose lives and health depend on the states foster care system, said Paul Yetter, the attorney who is representing the children in the lawsuit. Shes tough, but she cares deeply about these children and knows the system. Her expertise is critical to achieve the reforms we need to keep children safe, Yetter said in a statement. The state wants a new judge who doesnt know the system or how badly it has hurt children. The states appeal of Jacks April contempt order, which required the state to improve its investigations into allegations of foster children with disabilities being abused, is just one more sign that Texas isnt ready to be let off the hook yet, Yetter said. The state is asking for permission to ignore children who are disabled some of whom are nonverbal and cannot cry out and are in perpetual danger inside the system, Yetter said. Thats a tragedy waiting to happen. Removing Jack from the case and starting over is widely regarded as the most strident attempt yet to change the course of the seemingly endless court fight. But its been building toward this tumultuous peak for more than a year, when lawyers for the children announced they would be asking the court to put the entire foster-care system into receivership. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The state acknowledged in its brief that removing Jack from the case would be disruptive, but those consequences pale in comparison to the need to preserve the appearance of impartiality, fairness and justice. By comparison, an official court takeover of the state-run system would pose logistical and official nightmares for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which share responsibility for the states foster children. Some contend that Jacks 2015 ruling and continued oversight are the primary drivers for what improvements have been made. Critics say the suit has sucked up financial resources that DFPS could have used to improve foster care. Either way, with its costly attempts at compliance falling short, and court monitors repeatedly uncovering fresh reasons for Jack to continue her oversight and push for change through the lawsuit, Texas is looking for a new exit strategy. A different judge is the first big step to finally getting out from under the courtroom battle and moving its focus back to taking care of its foster kids, the state contends. DFPS agency officials declined through a spokesperson to comment, saying they were limited by the pending litigation. Struggling under critical eye Jack first ruled in 2015 that Texas had violated the constitutional rights of foster children to be free from an unreasonable risk of harm, saying that children often age out of care more damaged than when they entered. Jack has since issued several orders aiming at widespread reform. Abbotts office, HHSC and DFPS are all named in the court orders, which the state challenged and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partly upheld. Among the orders that were upheld: The state must increase oversight of residential facilities that house kids, speed up state investigations into abuse and neglect in foster homes, and build software to alert caregivers about child-on-child sexual aggression. The state had been taking a more cooperative approach to the lawsuit since 2019, when the judge found the system in contempt the first time, levied $250,000 in fines against the state for not enforcing 24-hour watches on the kids in its care, and appointed two monitors who serve as watchdogs to observe the states compliance. Last year, the state appeared to escalate its ongoing legal fight after lawyers representing the children asked the judge to hold the state in contempt of court a third time this time for placing children in unlicensed facilities, mismanaging psychotropic drugs and failing to inform kids how to report abuse and neglect and requested the judge put the system into receivership. Then in May 2023, the state hired three high-profile appellate attorneys to come to its defense. Allyson N. Ho, a conservative star in her own right, is married to James Ho, a sitting judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the very court that will rule whether Jack should remain on the case. Ho has said he would recuse himself from any hearing his wife is part of. The state also hired two other lawyers that have clerked for other sitting 5th Circuit judges. After the first monitors report in late 2020 uncovering hundreds of foster children sleeping in unlicensed placements resulted in a second contempt order and threats of more fines by Jack, Abbott ordered Texas child welfare officials in a letter to ensure that your agencies fully comply with the remedial orders at issue and submit certifications of compliance by the required dates in order to avoid unnecessary fines. The agencies responded that measures were being implemented, including creating a department within HHS that would be dedicated solely to complying with the orders. At the time, the number of children without placements had surged to the highest point in at least four years with nearly 300 children spending at least two consecutive nights in February 2021 in unlicensed placements, usually sleeping in offices, hotels or community organizations, because no beds were available in licensed facilities, according to DFPS data. At one point during a hearing on those children, Jack suggested that she serve the same treatment to a states attorney, as well as Muth and Young, that their caseworkers were giving to the children without placements. I should sentence (the state defendants counsel) and Ms. Muth and Ms. Young to one of these ... cheap motels, where they can live off of McDonalds, she told them during a recent hearing. Or they might be subject to the tasering or the handcuffs. What followed was a $100 million effort to respond to some 60 remedial orders. The state says the agency has taken extraordinary measures to fix issues identified by the orders, noting that those have been confirmed both by the court in recent court proceedings and in previous updates by monitors Jack assigned to track the states progress. Texas child welfare officials reassigned staff to focus on monitoring the unlicensed motels and rental homes that house some of the most vulnerable children in the foster care system. Caseworkers are better trained, their caseloads are lower, and investigators were responding more quickly to protect foster children and youth, all in compliance with most of Jacks orders, the state argued. Currently, the agency has reached full compliance with two orders that require that caseworkers take professional development training and that supervisors be more mindful of recommended caseload guidelines when distributing more cases to employees, DFPS attorneys said. The state agency notes that it also has reached 90% compliance or higher with 10 other court orders designed to improve the speed and quality of child abuse and neglect investigations. Higher priority child abuse and neglect victims now are required to be interviewed in person within 72 hours of an initial report and those investigations must be completed within 60 days. Documentation for those completed investigations must be filed and the parties notified in a timely manner. And caseworkers are now notified of any abuse or neglect accusation that doesnt trigger an investigation. The number of children regularly in unlicensed facilities has dwindled sharply to just 19 on a daily average, according to DFPS data. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Karachi, Tariq Islam issued guidelines for the officials and said that the anti-encroachment police personnel have been warned against going alone on official duty during Muharramul Haram in the wake of recent attacks. The notification further warned that government officials could be targeted in Karachi during Muharram. The officials were directed to use police vans for official assignments and avoid wearing uniforms and shoes while returning home after finishing duties. Earlier on Monday, the federal government approved the deployment of armed forces across the country to ensure security during the month of Muharram, as reported by ARY News. This comes following the request of the authorities in Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad to deploy military to control the law and order situation. The Pakistan government under Article 245 of the Constitution, authorised the "deployment of army troops/assets and civil armed forces troops/assets" to ensure peace, according to ARY News. Pakistan's Interior Ministry clarified that the deployment of the army will be based on the ground situation and that the provinces will have the authority to determine the deployment locations. Earlier, Pakistan's Punjab government requested country's interior ministry for a 'temporary suspension' on social media platforms from July 6-11 during Muharram processions, Dawn reported. Heightened security measures are currently underway across various regions of the Islamic Republic, as reported by Pakistani media. It has been reported that 502 locations in Punjab have been identified as 'sensitive areas', prompting the deployment of army and Rangers personnel. Muharram holds profound significance for Shia Muslims. However, Pakistan has faced recurrent sectarian violence during this period between Sunni and Shia communities. (ANI) Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal was ousted from his position on Friday after failing to secure a vote of confidence during a floor test in the House of Representatives, Kathmandu Post reported. Dahal, who had been in office for over one year and six months, required 138 votes to pass the trust motion but received only 63 votes in his favour. Out of the 275-member House of Representatives, 194 lawmakers voted against him, while one member abstained. A total of 258 lawmakers were present during the meeting. Dahal called for the floor test in accordance with Article 100(2) of the constitution after the CPN-UML withdrew its support from the government. This decision came following a deal between the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress to form a new coalition, reducing Dahal's government to a minority. While presenting the trust motion earlier in the morning, Dahal stated his commitment to upholding and defending the Constitution. "The Maoist Centre has made a big sacrifice in the course of making this constitution. Therefore, the Maoist does not make it weak and it also does not allow it to be enfeebled," Dahal said in his address to the House, as reported by Kathmandu Post. Dahal emphasised the significance of the constitution, which was built on the foundations of a decade-long revolt and subsequent movements by oppressed classes, regions, genders, and communities. He stressed that the Constitution has been protected by the support of the people and will continue to be defended in the same manner. "This constitution, made on the foundation of a decade-long revolt and the subsequent movements of the oppressed classes, regions, genders and communities, has been protected with the support of the people from the streets, and it will be defended in the same manner in the coming days as well," he declared. This floor test marked the fifth for Dahal since his appointment on December 25, 2022. His first floor test was on January 10, 2023, where he received 268 votes. He faced his second-floor test three months later after breaking ties with the CPN-UML and forming an alliance with the Nepali Congress, securing 172 votes. The third-floor test occurred when Congress withdrew its support following Dahal's renewed alliance with the CPN-UML and other parties on March 4, in which he received 157 votes. Dahal faced his fourth floor test after a split in the Janata Samajbadi Party, Nepal, in May, and secured 157 votes again. With Dahal's failure to pass the vote of confidence, President Ramchandra Paudel will now call for the formation of a new government. Speaker Devraj Ghimire will inform President Paudel of the results. The UML is planning to claim the formation of a new government with the support of over two-thirds of the lawmakers. According to the agreement between the Nepali Congress and UML, UML chair KP Sharma Oli will lead the new 'national consensus government' for a year and a half. For the remaining term of the current parliament, Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba will assume the role of prime minister, Kathmandu Post reported. (ANI) The issue of Indian fishermen being arrested by Sri Lankan authorities has once again come to the forefront with Sri Lanka's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Tharaka Balasuriya terming it as a "persistent problem" between the two countries. The visiting Sri Lankan minister, however, did not discuss the issue with his counterpart, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, but emphasised that it is important to find a solution for the sake of "poor fishermen". "This is a persistent problem. But I also would think that especially the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and the people of Tamil Nadu should realise that the people in the north and east have suffered the most during the war. After 30 years' war, for 30 years they suffered because of the war," Balasuriya told ANI, emphasising the longstanding nature of the issue. Highlighting the scale of the problem, he noted, "If you see the numbers, it's not just like one or two fishermen coming to Sri Lanka, but it's thousands of boats from India coming and poaching the fish." He underscored the need for bilateral discussions to find a solution, pointing out that the poor fishermen from the north and east of Sri Lanka are the ones who suffer the most. Balasuriya suggested that enhancing connectivity and developing tourism in the affected areas could provide alternative livelihoods for the fishermen. "At the moment when they don't have any other options they resort to fishing, but I think, through bilateral dialogue, we should be able to resolve this issue amicably," he stated. Recently, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also wrote to EAM Jaishankar, urging him to secure the release of all fishermen apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy. Responding to Stalin, Jaishankar said the Indian High Commission in Colombo and the Consulate in Jaffna have been expeditiously and consistently taking up such cases for the early release of those detained. Jaishankar assured Stalin that efforts to address the interests of the Indian fishing community would continue. In response to another question about the Katchatheevu Island issue, which has also been a point of contention between the two countries, Balasuriya told ANI that India has not recently raised the matter in bilateral discussions. "During the Indian elections, I think it was raised in the context of that as a historical mistake. But thereafter, it has not been raised with the government of Sri Lanka," he said. Balasuriya provided a brief history of the discussions around Katchatheevu Island, noting that it has been raised in bilateral discussions three times. Initially, it was discussed when the island was used by the Royal Air Force for bombing during the British colonial period. Subsequent discussions addressed fishing rights and historical smuggling activities. However, he stressed, "The sovereignty of the island was not, I don't think even historically it has been discussed." The island, located between Rameswaram (India) and Sri Lanka, was traditionally used by both Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen. In 1974, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi accepted Katchatheevu as Sri Lankan territory under the "Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement". The 1974 Agreement regarding historic waters between Sri Lanka and India in the Palk Strait and the Palk Bay formally confirmed Sri Lanka's sovereignty over the island. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the Congress for "callously" giving away the island to Sri Lanka during the tenure of the Indira Gandhi government. (ANI) State Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka Tharaka Balasuriya called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "charming" and a "very visionary man", and said that he agrees with PM Modi's assessment that if there's more connectivity between not just Sri Lanka and India, but also Myanmar and Thailand, there will be more opportunities. Tharaka Balasuriya arrived in New Delhi on Thursday to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Foreign Minister's Retreat. He emphasised that the BIMSTEC Foreign Minister's Retreat was very well organized. "Since it was a very informal setting, we were able to share our ideas candidly and openly," she told ANI. Talking about his experience of meeting with PM Modi, Balasuriya said, "I think this is the first time I met the Prime Minister, and he's a completely charming man. And he's also a very visionary man. One thing that struck me was when he stated that what he feels is that whereas the European Union succeeded in, let's say, South Asia and Southeast Asia, where we lag behind is mainly because of connectivity. So in that regard, we need to concentrate on connectivity." He added, "I do agree with the Prime Minister's assessment that if there's more connectivity between the - not just between Sri Lanka and India, but also between India and Myanmar and Thailand, there will be more opportunities for businesses to flow in this part of the world that connects countries around the Bay of Bengal to promote economic growth and trade." Answering how Sri Lanka is approaching its participation in regard to energy, cooperation, trade, transportation, and others, he highlighted that they have put them under three verticals, namely, energy security, food security, and people's security. "Whatever the other areas which we spoke of are being taken under these verticals. So, for example, let's say people-to-people connectivity. Now, India is coming forward with an e-visa application for medical tourism. So anybody in the BIMSTEC areas can apply for e-visa for medical tourism," he told ANI. He mentioned that they also spoke about space and BIMSTEC satellites and nanosatellites, which India has worked with in Nepal in this regard. When asked about whether Sri Lanka requires more attention in terms of growing tourism, trade, businesses, exports, and imports in the country, Balasuriya said, "Of course. So that's why we are looking at more connectivity with India. If you look at the one thing Prime Minister Modi commented today if we generate enough wind power alone in the northeast and the northwest of Sri Lanka, that alone will give us new revenue streams." (ANI) Head of the British government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Felicity Oswald stressed that China and North Korea are among the world's most worrisome countries in terms of cybersecurity threats, adding that the evolving Chinese threat should be a cause for worry for everybody, reported Nikkei Asia. China and North Korea are among the world's most worrisome countries in terms of cybersecurity threats, but that is not the full extent of the risks, head of the British government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said in an interview to the Tokyo-headquartered publication. Oswald, the NCSC's COO and interim CEO said that they are concerned about the proliferation of cyber challenges. "Increasingly, we're worried about the proliferation of cyber challenges, which allow any country in the world to purchase cyber, malware or other challenges to hit us or businesses in our countries," Oswald told Nikkei. Responding to what according to her is an assessment of China's cyber capabilities and potential risks, she said that they are extremely focused on the cyber threats. "But the Chinese actors' approach in cyberspace over the last 18 months should worry us all," she said. She continued that for the UK, there are other worrying indicators of the Chinese approach in cyberspace. "We're particularly concerned about Chinese approach to vulnerabilities under the national security legislation. So anyone in China who finds a vulnerability in software has to report that first to the government. For us, that goes against long-held processes and procedures in the cybersecurity community where when you find a vulnerability, they are shared by default for common good," Oswald said. She further highlighted that threats emanate from criminal actors all around the world, including in Russia, but also from nation states. "The threats we face from cyber range from criminal actors all around the world, including in Russia, but also from nation states," she said. The National Cyber Security Centre mainly talk about four big nation states: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, she added. "Increasingly, we're worried about the proliferation of cyber challenges, which allow any country in the world to purchase cyber, malware or other challenges to hit us or businesses in our countries," she said. (ANI) Local land owners and cattle herders in the Pakistan-Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) are protesting against land grabbings "orchestrated" by the Pakistan government in 2009, Pamir Times, a local media outlet reported. The protest took place in the Kilishaye Minimerg area of the Astore district in the Pakistan-Occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB). The protestors called out the government saying that the settlement that was given to them at that time was "nothing but a bogus document" signed by local leaders and the land mafia of PoGB. "This is the only settlement from that era which has been signed by land mafia and local administration only this was the only document where the land was grabbed in kilometres rather than kernels, acers, and hectares, this proves how bogus this document was," a protestor said. They also demanded that a notification must be issued by the government to cancel the same order, and the culprits be punished according to law. Gulam Haidar Khan, the leader of a local village supported the demand and stated, "I totally support the demand, as our livelihoods depend on this decision. And we will take the matter further if the administration does not take adequate action towards our demands. We demand that the lands that were taken away by the land mafia in 2009 must be returned to our people and the administration must leave us in peace." A similar protest was previously organized by locals from the Olding area of Skardu, as residents demanded the swift completion of reconstruction and renovation projects halted by the local administration. The public voiced frustration over the neglect of projects that have been stalled for over three years. People from various walks of life participated in the protest, including youth, women, children, and members of the business community. The demonstrators expressed their discontent, stating that despite raising concerns with responsible officials multiple times, they have only encountered empty promises and disregard. They vowed to continue peaceful demonstrations until receiving written assurances and witnessed tangible improvements in Olding's conditions. A local leader Shiaz emphasised the prolonged neglect of crucial projects, saying, "These projects are vital for our city and have been on hold for three years. Every time we've raised our concerns, we've been ignored. This time, we won't back down until our demands are met." Regarding the severe impact of the stalled projects on infrastructure, Shiaz pointed to the dilapidated roads that have remained unchanged for years. "Take this road, for example," he gestured towards the blocked road during the protest, "it has been in this dire condition for over three years, affecting the lifeline of our city. No one is willing to address our grievances," Shiaz said. In addition to infrastructure woes, protesters highlighted issues such as severe load shedding during the hot summer months. One of the protesters lamented, "Despite contributing our water resources to generate electricity at Satpara Dam, not a single watt of electricity has been provided to the people of Olding." The local community expressed frustration over the situation, with another protester stating, "Our city resembles a graveyard due to these unfinished projects. The local administration continues to delay developmental work, promising future dates that never materialise." (ANI) The Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano in a statement clarified that the Philippines will stand its ground over its dispute with China, in the South China Sea, Al Jazeera reported. The move came when Manila and Beijing had been repeatedly engaging in a series of severe confrontations over the strategic waterway. Notably in these confrontations, both sides accused each other of performing dangerous manoeuvres near the disputed area of the Second Thomas Shoal near the Spratly Islands, Al Jazeera reported. The Philippine National Security said, "We will continue to stand our ground and push back against coercion, interference, malign influence and other tactics that seek to jeopardise our security and stability." Ano said this while participating in an event celebrating the anniversary of an international ruling on the dispute that sided against China. However, the Philippine National Security Adviser clearly said that they will always refrain from the use of force, adding that it seeks "to coerce and subordinate the national interests of the Philippines" but is "committed to the cause of peace". "We are committed to addressing and managing difficult issues through dialogue and through diplomacy," Ano added, according to Al Jazeera. Currently, China makes its claims on more than 90 per cent land mass of the South China Sea. This includes the water boundary that falls within exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. However, an international Tribunal in The Hague in 2016 notified that China has "no legal basis" over these lands. However, Beijing has always rejected such reports calling them Null and Void. China has repeatedly displayed such acts of expansionism in the South China Sea. These incidents included the dispute between the Chinese and the Philippine coastguards last month. During that time, the Chinese coastguard personnel with knives, sticks and an axe surrounded and boarded three small Philippine Navy vessels sent on a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal. As a response, the island country has strengthened its relations with the United States and its allies. (ANI) PAANK, the Human Rights Wing of the Baloch National Movement, on Friday, slammed the local administration and its security agencies for "suppressing" peaceful human rights protests in Pakistan's Balochistan province. In a post on 'X', PAANK stated "In recent times, the Balochistan government and its subordinate security agencies have been under scrutiny for their actions towards peaceful protesters." "The authorities have been accused of violating the country's constitution and laws while attempting to justify their failures and resorting to violence against those who are peacefully protesting. This behaviour has sparked outrage and raised concerns about the state of democracy and human rights in Balochistan," it added. https://x.com/paank_bnm/status/1811736562432114993 It further mentioned that the Balochistan government, led by Chief Minister Sarfiraz Khan Bugti, has been facing criticism for its handling of various issues within the province. "One of the major grievances is the government's use of brute force to silence protesters. The behaviour of subordinate security agencies is even more concerning, as they seem to be operating outside of the law," it added. Moreover, several cases of "arbitrary arrests and detentions" have been reported, with many individuals being held without any charges or due process. "This is a clear violation of the country's constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial for all citizens," the post stated. The rights group further mentioned that the government and its security agencies have been attempting to defend their acts by designating their nonviolent protestors as violent provocateurs. "This narrative has been repeatedly used to justify the use of force against innocent civilians, leading to further repression and human rights abuses. It is a tactic that has been used by authoritarian regimes to silence dissent and undermine the democratic process," it stated. "The Balochistan government and its subordinate security agencies must understand that the right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right, protected by the country's constitution. It is a means for citizens to raise their concerns and demand accountability from their elected representatives. By denying this right and resorting to violence, the government is reneging on its responsibility to uphold the rule of law and protect the welfare of its citizens" PAANK added. Furthermore, the continued detention of peaceful protesters without any charges is a blatant violation of the universal principle of "innocent until proven guilty. "These individuals are being denied their basic human rights, and their families are left in a state of uncertainty and fear. It is a grave injustice that cannot be overlooked," it added. PAANK also urged that such acts of violence against peaceful protestors must come to an end, and the ones responsible must be punished as per law. "The country's constitution and laws must be upheld, and the democratic process must not be undermined. It is time for the government to take responsibility for its failures and address the grievances of its people, rather than resorting to violence and repression", it stated. (ANI) Abu Dhabi [UAE], July 12 (ANI/WAM): Every year on April 30, 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, capital of the United Arab Emirates, will serve as the Global Host of the 2025 edition of International Jazz Day. 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. Mohamed Al Mubarak, Chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, said, "We are honoured 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." "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," said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO. 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 30th 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 recognised by the United Nations General Assembly, International Jazz Day brings together countries and communities worldwide every 30th 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 organisation charged with planning, promoting, and producing International Jazz Day each year. (ANI/WAM) Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a June 28 campaign rally in Las Vegas. Harris is being floated as Bidens potential replacement at the top of the Democratic ticket amid calls for the president to step aside. Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal For as unpopular as President Joe Biden is among Texans, Vice President Kamala Harris has even fewer fans. Harris, who is being floated as Bidens potential replacement at the top of the Democratic ticket amid calls for the president to step aside, has a 56% unfavorability rating among likely voters in Texas, according to a recent poll by the University of Houston /Texas Southern University. Thats worse than Bidens unfavorability rating of 55% and former President Donald Trumps rating of 49%. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The poll of likely voters was conducted from June 20 to July 1, meaning many Texans were surveyed before the June 27 presidential debate that sparked calls from high-profile Democrats and donors for the president to withdraw over concerns about his health and stamina. The New York Times reported Thursday that the Biden administration has been testing Harris in a head-to-head against Trump as they weigh the path forward. But the polling suggests Harris has a long road to winning over voters in Texas, which went strongly for Trump in 2020. However, more recent national polling shows Harris surging ahead of Biden against Trump. Senior Executive Director of Hobby School of Public Affairs Renee Cross, who helped conduct the poll, said she doesnt think there would be a dramatic shift in opinions about Biden and Harris among Texans after the debate. Most of the (Texas) Democrats, while they may have to hold their nose, theyre still supporting Biden just because they dont like the other guy, Cross said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Cross added that Harris might have seen a small bump in her favorability, but she wont bet on it. Harris biggest opportunity to increase her favorability in the state would be to concentrate outreach with voters of color and younger voters, Cross said. When broken down by demographics, Harris has a slightly higher approval rating 81% among Black voters than Bidens approval rating of 79%. Harris recently has been stumping to shore up support for their ticket with voters of color. She was in Dallas for a stump speech Wednesday as the keynote speaker for Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically black sorority of which she is a member, but didnt answer any media questions after the event. Harris is dealing with flak from both sides, Cross said. Republicans dislike her for being a Democrat, and more progressive Democrats dislike her for her tough-on-crime approach as a prosecutor in California. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She has seen a slight increase in popularity since the last poll conducted by the University of Houston /Texas Southern University in January, when her favorability rating among voters was 36%, compared with her latest favorability of 42%. Generationally, Bidens only lead among Texans is with millennials who prefer him to Trump by 6 percentage points. Trump has a 3-point lead among Gen Z voters, according to the polling. A theoretical Harris presidential campaign also could help Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas in his bid for the Senate, said Josh Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project. It might create less headaches for Allred, who has already made efforts to distance himself from Biden, Blank said. The latest poll also shows Allred within striking distance of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Cruz, who is seeking a third term, is leading with support from 47% of likely voters, while Allred has 44%. With 6% of voters being undecided; 3% plan to vote for the Libertarian candidate Ted Brown. A UT-Austin poll last month showed Allred behind by double digits. Texas Democrats also have expressed worry about how Bidens debate performance would affect down-ballot races. Blank said Harris could see an increase in her favorability with Texas Democrats because she is being compared with an unpopular Biden and is not in a crowded field like in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Last week, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin became the first Democratic member of Congress to call for Biden to withdraw from the ticket after the debate. Earlier this week, Biden sent a letter to congressional Democrats saying he is firmly committed to staying in the race. But Democrats calls to drop out havent stopped. Biden is speaking at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin on Monday. He also will sit down for another one-on-one interview with NBC in Austin to air Monday night. Abu Dhabi [UAE], July 12 (ANI/WAM): Dubai Police has successfully concluded the three-day awareness event of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, held at Dubai Mall under the slogan 'My Family... My True Wealth'. The event, organised by the General Department of Anti-Narcotics, aimed to raise community awareness about the dangers of narcotics and psychotropic substances. It featured a range of educational activities carried out in collaboration with Dubai Police's strategic partners, including the Community Development Authority, Dubai Customs, Erada Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation, Health Authority, Al Ameen Service, Emirates Health Services, and the National Rehabilitation Centre. Major General Expert Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansoori, Assistant Commandant for Criminal Investigation Affairs, attended the closing ceremony and emphasised Dubai Police's unwavering commitment to combating drug abuse through community outreach and prevention efforts. He stated, "We firmly believe that awareness and education are essential steps to protect the community from the scourge of drug abuse. From this perspective, the Force and security authorities work to implement comprehensive awareness campaigns targeting all members of society, including youth and families, to increase awareness of the health, psychological, social, and economic harms of narcotics and to equip individuals with the necessary knowledge to avoid falling into the trap of addiction." Meanwhile, Major General Eid Mohammed Thani Harib, Director of the General Department of Anti-Narcotics at Dubai Police, pointed out that the department, represented by the Hemaya International Centre, closely collaborates with educational, health, and social institutions to provide comprehensive preventive and awareness programs. He added, "We firmly believe that the family plays a crucial role in protecting children from falling into the trap of drug abuse. Therefore, through various exhibitions and events, Dubai Police, along with strategic partners, work to highlight the means of prevention, awareness, treatment programs, and community support initiatives. We also encourage the public to use confidential communication channels with Dubai Police to provide information and feedback." The Community Development Authority also contributed by delivering workshops and awareness lectures for families on the dangers of drugs and methods of prevention. Meanwhile, Dubai Customs conducted awareness sessions highlighting the risks of using others' belongings during travel. Additionally, the Erada Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre in Dubai and the National Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre showcased a range of specialised treatment programs. The Health Authority also organised awareness workshops for parents on the dangers of drugs. Meanwhile, the Al Ameen Service outlined its role and communication channels. The Emirates Health Services Corporation elaborated on the significance of addressing the psychological dimension and its part in the treatment of addicts. Additionally, the Criminal Investigation Department presented information on the E-Crime platform for reporting cybercrime and guidance on adequately handling and reporting anonymous electronic messages through the platform. Furthermore, the Positive Spirit Council and the Council of People of Determination participated in the event by organising side events, which included a free art workshop for children, recreational competitions, and awareness lectures in sign language. Major General Expert Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansoori, Assistant Commandant for Criminal Investigation Affairs, honoured the strategic partners for their efforts in making the event a success. (ANI/WAM) Ammunition vending machines are a thing now. Will they be at Indiana grocery stores? Bread, milk, eggs... shotgun shells? If bullets aren't already on your grocery list, wait awhile. A north Texas company has begun installing high-tech vending machines dispensing 9mm rounds and 12-gauge shotgun shells across a handful of southern states. IndyStar reached out to the CEO of American Rounds, the company behind the ammo dispensers, on whether it has plans of expanding into the Midwest. The short answer? Possibly. Here's what we know. Can you buy ammo from a vending machine? Depending on where you live, you can purchase an assortment of ammunition from vending machines in select stores across three U.S. southern states. The first Automated Ammo Retail Machine, or AARM unit, was installed in November 2023 at a grocery store in Alabama. What states have ammunition vending machines? As of Thursday, American Rounds has installed ammo vending machines in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, with plans to expand into Colorado by next week. Lawrence Songer, left, and Grant Magers stand in front of a new ammunition dispensing machine from their company American Rounds. The machines have been installed in at least 8 stores in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama since the company's founding in 2023. Where are the ammo vending machines? Up to eight U.S. grocery stores, which include Fresh Value, Super C Mart, and Lowe's Market now have ammo vending machines. One store in Alabama recently removed its dispenser after questions arose concerning its legality, according to a FOX TV news-affiliate in Chattanooga. Are ammo vending machines coming to Indiana? Possibly, but the exact timeline isn't known yet, according to Grant Magers, CEO of American Rounds, who told IndyStar he's received more than 200 requests from retail outlets across nine states including Indiana from businesses interested in the dispensers. "We have had several requests to place our machines in Indiana and Kentucky," said Magers, who declined to name which stores reached out to the company. "We have plans of future growth throughout the country and we would consider it an honor to be a part of the Indiana and Kentucky communities." Are ammo vending machines safe? That depends on who you ask. Magers stressed AARM units help keep ammunition more secure than what's currently sold on the shelves, which can be pocketed, he said, by thieves. The dispenser, however, encases ammo behind several layers of steel inside a 2,000-pound machine. It utilizes facial recognition software as well as scanning a potential buyer's driver's license as an age verification check to prevent unlawful sales. "People have in their mind the old type of vending machine that drops a candy bar to the bottom or a bag of chips, Magers told USA TODAY. Thats not how these operate. Experts warn the dispensers could only make it easier for criminals to get ammo. If it was a system that did do a background check, then we could talk about a system that prohibits unlawful sales, David Pucino, legal director for the Giffords Law Center, told USA TODAY. According to the Giffords Law Center, which serves as the policy arm of the anti-gun violence organization started by former Arizona Congresswoman and mass shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, the machines don't address instances where local locals go beyond federal regulations. Ammo vendors in Sacramento, for instance, have to maintain sales records, which prosecutors have used to identify illegal purchases, according to the Giffords Law Center. Magers said AARM dispensers don't retain purchaser data. Tennessee law also prevents vendors from selling to intoxicated people. It is nice that its requesting IDs or age verification; none of those things are required, Pucino said. But what theyre not doing is having human intervention to check for red flags. Is it legal?: Can you leave kids home alone in Indiana? What the law says, what's recommended USA TODAY reporter Michael Loria contributed to this article. John Tufts covers trending news for IndyStar and Midwest Connect. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at JTuftsReports. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ammo vending machines are now a thing. Are any coming to the Midwest? 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. Manawa mill pond dam, as seen at about 5 p.m. Friday night, July 5 from a bridge on State 22 in Manawa, Wisconsin. After flooding eroded the side of the dam Friday, water flowed into the Little Wolf River until the water levels became the same. State Governor Tony Evers on Friday declared a state of an emergency in Outagamie, Waupaca, Calumet and Winnebago counties, as communities continue to recover from recent flooding. This comes after a July 5 storm hit northeastern Wisconsin, causing flooding in several areas including Manawa, which saw more than 5 inches of rain, and Appleton, which experienced 2 1/2 inches of rain. Residents evacuated in portions of both cities, and the rain also led to a breach of the embankment alongside the Manawa Mill Pond dam. More: Families on Viola Street in Appleton dig out after flooding crashed their Fourth of July weekend Communities in Northeastern Wisconsin are still recovering from abrupt flooding that endangered lives and damaged infrastructure, said Gov. Evers in a press release. Were working to ensure folks and communities have the support the state can make available to help rebuild, restore, and recover quickly by getting relief to those impacted. According to the press release, Wisconsin Emergency Management, a division of the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, is working with counties to asses damages caused by the flood. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is also working with nursing homes in Manawa to ensure residents and staff are safe. Thanks to the declaration, DHS will be able to pay for "extraordinary expenses" which may arise in relation to evacuations, such as those which took place in Manawa. The executive order states how significant flooding impacted homes and businesses throughout the given counties, while causing substantial damage to properties. Evers directed all state agencies of Wisconsin to assist the counties during this time, even calling the Wisconsin National Guard to provide security and assistance for residence. Rashad Alexander can be reached at ralexander@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Outagamie, Waupaca counties in a state of emergency following flooding State Sen. Rick Brattin, standing, chats with Tom Mendenhall while campaigning for the 4th District Republican congressional nomination in April 2022 at Boone County Lincoln Days in Columbia (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent). Tom Mendenhall of Columbia was just about packed and ready to drive to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention when he got word not to bother. Mendenall, who has attended seven previous conventions, was told that the conventions Credentials Committee had voted unanimously to reinstate the delegation selected at the May 4 state convention in Springfield. Mendenhall was on the replacement slate selected July 3 by the state partys executive committee when a challenge displaced the Truly Grassroots for Trump slate. Hes not certain about what will happen with his hotel room reservation only delegates and people with official passes can stay close to the convention hall and hes not happy with the conflict over the delegation. If there was ever a time for unity and getting people together, its now, but, but that episode down there in Springfield was pretty bad, Mendenhall said. The confrontation that has played out over the past two weeks between party regulars and insurgents who took over the convention will likely leave no one satisfied. The 54-member at-large delegation 27 delegates and 27 alternates has been discarded, replaced and reinstated all within that time. The final decision came when the 95-member Credentials Committee took time to listen to the evidence amassed by backers of the Truly Grassroots for Trump slate, said Coby Culins, a member who prepared the appeal heard Friday. During the two-hour period set aside for questions, he said, the committee displayed hostility to the decision to remove the convention-elected delegation and the state party leadership decision to replace it. As we answered questions, and we did our arguments, and you can just kind of feel the room shift, Cullins said. The dispute over the delegation began with a challenge from two candidates for delegate who claimed that the actions of the chaotic gathering should be discarded because the results could not be trusted. The contests committee of the Republican National Committee agreed, and ordered the state party to select replacements after it found alarming irregularities in the credentialing of delegates to the state convention. That meant a slate that included gubernatorial candidates state Sen. Bill Eigel and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft among its membership could not attend the convention except as guests. Now both can attend as delegates. The contests committee turned down a request for a rehearing on Monday, setting up the Credentials Committee review. The state-party-selected delegation set aside included former U.S. Rep. Billy Long; state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a candidate for secretary of state; and Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right to Life. The replacement slate did include five members of the Truly Grassroots for Trump slate, but they were not informed they would be included and three of them told The Independent they would only attend as part of the original slate. The Missouri Republican Party never contested the convention or the original delegate slate, and we are pleased the RNC has finally settled this matter so we can focus on delivering our Partys 54 national convention delegates to President Donald J. Trump, and electing Missouri Republicans up and down the ballot this November, the state party said in a statement emailed by spokeswoman Erica Choinka. The statement from the party isnt inaccurate but it is misleading, Cullins said. They certainly didnt support us when they had the chance, Cullins said. They chose their own slate. But I cannot contradict anything in that. Cullins amassed affidavits from state convention delegates, obtained a video recording of the 12-hour meeting and argued that the party apparatus led by chairman Nick Myers is being rewarded for a problem it created. The credentials committee was the first national body to review the video or accept in-person arguments, Cullins siad. The dispute was about more than who could shout Trumps name the loudest as he is renominated, Cullins said. It is about integrity in the process within the party, he said. The state convention was comprised of delegates elected by grassroots Republicans at mass meetings, he noted. Those are all elected delegates for our Republican Party, Cullins said. For them to ignore the 848 delegates at the state convention, and try to do something different, was a slap in the face. That was a steal. They stole our delegates, is what we believed. This story has been updated to provide comments from the Missouri Republican Party and the appellants. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Hungary will not support Nato becoming an anti-China bloc Nato must not become an anti-China bloc amid rising tensions between the Western alliance and Beijing, Hungary has warned. Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said Nato should avoid tension with China after it condemned Beijing for enabling Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine. It comes after Hungarys prime minister Viktor Orban - who has consistently delayed EU military aid to Ukraine - made a surprise visit to Beijing after similar trips to Moscow and Kyiv to discuss an immediate ceasefire. Nato is a defence alliance. We cannot organise it into an anti-China bloc, Mr Szijjarto said when asked about Natos presence in the Indo-Pacific. On Thursday, China accused Nato of smearing the country after the organisation said Beijings regime was a decisive enabler of Mr Putins war in Ukraine. US president Joe Bide with Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg at the alliances summit, where China was accused of enabling Russias invasion of Ukraine (EPA) Nato keeps playing up the interlink between Europes security and the security in Asia-Pacific. We urge it to stay within its role as a regional defensive organisation in the north Atlantic, Beijing said. Nato should not become the disrupter of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific or a tool used by certain great powers to maintain hegemony. The heated rhetoric comes as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand joined the Nato summit, a practice that started after Russias full-scale assault on Ukraine in 2022. In response to the growing regional power of the Peoples Liberation Army, US allies in Asia, including Japan and the Philippines, have stepped up joint planning, exercises and weapons deployments. Chinese military officials have previously denounced Washingtons efforts to strengthen ties with its allies in the region as a plot to create an Asian Nato. Chinese military officials have previously denounced Washingtons efforts to strengthen ties with its allies in the region as a plot to create an Asian Nato (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) This week, the Chinese military also began joint military drills in Belarus, an ally of Russia, close to the border of Nato state Poland. The joint military exercises by two of Russias most important allies come after Belarus became the 10th member of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during its 24th meeting of heads of council in Astana, Kazakhstan. Belaruss government said the drills will allow the laying of a foundation for further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops. Beijing described the drills as anti-terrorist training and said the drills were according to an annual plan and consensus. In May, the US also sanctioned nearly 300 companies and individuals from China, Russia, and several other countries for allegedly supporting Russias defence industry and helping it evade American sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Kenyan president reshuffles Cabinet after weeks of deadly protests Xinhua) 09:10, July 12, 2024 This photo taken on July 11, 2024 shows Kenyan President William Ruto delivering a speech on TV. Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday dismissed all cabinet secretaries except the deputy president and the prime cabinet secretary who is also the cabinet secretary for foreign and diaspora affairs. (Xinhua/Dong Jianghui) NAIROBI, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday dismissed his Cabinet following three weeks of anti-government protests over tax hikes. Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, Ruto announced the sacking of 22 cabinet members, retaining only his deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, and Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi. "I have decided to dismiss with immediate effect all the cabinet secretaries and the attorney-general from the Cabinet of the Republic of Kenya, except the prime cabinet secretary and cabinet secretary for foreign and diaspora affairs," Ruto said. The president said that he would engage in extensive consultations across different sectors and political formations to establish a broadly-based government. Ruto justified the move as essential to addressing the burden of debt, raising domestic resources, expanding job opportunities and eliminating wastage and unnecessary duplication within government agencies. During this transition, government operations will continue uninterrupted under the guidance of principal secretaries and other relevant officials. He emphasized that the decision was made after "reflection, listening to Kenyans, and a holistic appraisal of my Cabinet." Recent events, including the withdrawal of the Finance Bill 2024, were pivotal factors necessitating the Cabinet reshuffle, Ruto said, noting that the bill's withdrawal required a review and reorganization of the budget and fiscal management, bringing the government to an inflection point. The Finance Bill 2024, which sparked widespread protests, aimed to raise an additional 346.7 billion shillings (about 2.7 billion U.S. dollars) through new taxes. Protesters were particularly outraged by provisions that would raise taxes on essential goods and services, such as bread and mobile money transfers. According to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, at least 41 people were killed and more than 360 injured during the anti-tax hike protests in the country. Despite the turmoil, Ruto said his government has achieved significant progress in increasing food production by reducing the cost of farm inputs, thereby lowering the overall cost of food and living. This photo taken on July 11, 2024 shows Kenyan President William Ruto delivering a speech in Nairobi, capital of Kenya. Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday dismissed all cabinet secretaries except the deputy president and the prime cabinet secretary who is also the cabinet secretary for foreign and diaspora affairs. (Photo by Joy Nabukews/Xinhua) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing) Mayor Ron Nirenberg delivers one of his last State of the City addresses at a luncheon hosted by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce at Marriott Rivercenter on Tuesday, April 9, 2024 in San Antonio. Salgu Wissmath/San Antonio Express-News Mayor Ron Nirenberg is sticking with Joe Biden, even as increasingly panicked Democratic lawmakers and other party insiders call for the president to withdraw from the race against Donald Trump. Im standing with Biden-Harris because they know that mayors and cities matter, Nirenberg said in an X post this week. BIDEN IN TEXAS: Biden to speak in Austin as Republican convention kicks off in Milwaukee Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Democratic Mayors Association is also backing Biden. Nirenberg, who sits on the group's board of directors, reposted the groups statement on X. We need a President and Vice President who will champion working families, defend our democracy, and protect our freedoms, the association said. Nirenberg's continuing support for Biden puts him at odds with former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, who was one of the first national Democrats to publicly say Biden should step aside or risk losing the White House to Trump. Castro unsuccessfully sought the party's presidential nomination in 2020. President Joe Biden speaks during an event to announce new measures aimed at helping communities deal with extreme weather, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House Campus, Thursday, July 27, 2023, in Washington. From left, Julie Su, Acting Labor Secretary, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell, Biden and Rick Spinrad, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Evan Vucci/Associated Press Castro, 49, said Vice President Kamala Harris could replace Biden in the upcoming election. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Biden's sometimes bumbling, sometimes meandering and always hoarse statements during the June 27 debate with Trump left even some of his diehard supporters questioning whether the 81-year-old had the mental acuity to continue serving as president. Castro raised the same question about Biden's mental fitness for office in televised debates with Biden four years ago. 14 visits to White House Nirenberg was on a call with Biden and nearly 200 Democratic mayors Tuesday night in which Biden acknowledged his poor debate performance and took softball questions from several mayors, including Nirenberg, the New York Times reported. Friday morning, he praised the president's performance during a closely watched news conference the night before. "At his NATO press conference, with all that is at stake in our democracy and around the world, @JoeBiden shows us once again why he is the right person for the job," Nirenberg said in an X post. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The 47-year-old mayor has long been seen as a potential Biden appointee. Almost as soon as Biden won the 2020 election, rumors began circulating around City Hall that Biden would soon tap Nirenberg for his administration maybe as labor secretary. Speculation last year had the mayor in line for a Transportation Department or Housing and Urban Development appointment. That is, if Biden wins a second term this year. Cabinets traditionally see a lot of turnover in a presidents second term. Last July, Nirenberg joined Biden via video link from his City Hall office for a White House announcement of new measures to protect workers enduring long stretches of scorching temperatures. On cue, Nirenberg launched into a roundup of San Antonios efforts to provide relief to residents from high heat and to combat climate change, such as ending CPS Energys use of coal to generate electricity within five years. Some political observers took it as a sign Biden was testing Nirenberg's ability to perform in the spotlight. Nirenberg appears to be staying in close proximity to Biden and his staff. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In February, Nirenberg canceled a City Council meeting so he could travel to Brownsville to meet with Biden when he visited the U.S.-Mexico border. Nirenberg has visited the White House 14 times during the Biden administration, according to Bruce Davidson, the mayor's communications director. Most of the meetings were with White House staff, not Biden. The president likes current and former mayors for high-profile roles in his administration. At one time, four of his cabinet secretaries were ex-mayors. Nirenberg got his start in politics in 2013 when he was elected District 8 councilman. In 2017, Nirenberg defeated incumbent Mayor Ivy Taylor. Hes serving his fourth term the final one allowed under the city's term limits. A Lynchburg man will spend the rest of his life in prison for a June 2021 shooting that killed a city man and severely injured the defendants ex-girlfriend. Devan Rashod Wooding, 25, was sentenced to life plus 43 years in prison Tuesday afternoon for first-degree murder, use of a firearm, attempted murder, use of a firearm second offense, breaking and entering into a dwelling house with a deadly weapon with the intent to commit murder and possession of a firearm by a violent felon. Police were called to 3526 Fort Ave., Apt. 5 in Lynchburg on June 1, 2021. Camron Malike Jones, 22, of Lynchburg, was found unresponsive in the yard with eight gunshot wounds total to the head, neck, torso and limbs with two being direct shots to the head; and Amia Thurman suffered a gunshot wound and was treated at Centras Lynchburg General Hospital, police said at the time. Thurman said in court Tuesday, she met Wooding in 2018 through social media and the two moved in together in South Boston before moving back to Lynchburg. She said the two broke up in March 2021. Police were called to the residence on an open line 911 call, according to a release from the Lynchburg Commonwealths Attorneys Office. The release further states noise and screaming were heard before Thurman exclaimed Oh my God! and at that moment, she was shot in the face by Wooding. The call to Lynchburg Emergency Communications remained open where Jones was heard pleading and begging for his life: I have kids, you can have her, and please let me go. Wooding stated I cant, and a series of gunshots followed, the release said. Thurman would have testified she and Jones were watching a movie in the apartment just before midnight when Wooding forced his way in and shot them, according to prosecutors at the preliminary hearing. Officer N. Ruble observed Wooding walk from the direction of the apartment building and appear to sneak through cars, the release said. Ruble identified himself as police and called for Wooding to stop several times. Wooding then got into a vehicle and drove away from the scene, according to the release. Several officers who responded to the scene testified at the preliminary hearing to pursuing Wooding as he fled in his vehicle, traveling at a high rate of speed on Langhorne Road and upon turning onto Rivermont Avenue threw a dark object outside the vehicle which an officer said during the preliminary hearing was a firearm. The high-speed pursuit ended on Rivermont Avenue and North Princeton Circle. Thurman explained in court, the shooting caused nerve damage on the right side of her face, surgeries, hearing loss in both ears and post-traumatic stress disorder. She explained the bullet went through her jawline, adding its still hard to talk three years later. Thurmans mother, Moneake Bransford, said in court her daughter hasnt been the same since the incident, adding the events of that night still hurt. Seeing her laying in the [hospital] bed no parent wants to see that for their child, she said. Jones mother, Amy Jones, said in court her son was a really good father and his death impacts her everyday life. Its something that plays in my head over and over again, she said. His father, Wayne Jones, said the death of his son is something he thinks about each day. It just ruined our life, he said. Woodings attorney, Charles Cosby Jr., argued Tuesday for some grace in the sentencing, stating the case isnt as simple as the commonwealth has laid out. Cosby said with Woodings history his friend being shot and killed and childhood abuse from his stepfather created a significant mental health problem. Cosby also mentioned Woodings intoxicated state at the time which Cosby argues exacerbated the situation. I want the court to consider the other end of the spectrum, he said. The suffering that he had unfortunately led to this. Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Andrew Childress said this case isnt about mental health or past traumas, it was instead a planned ambush. Childress said if Wooding had made one different decision, the parties wouldnt be here today. No prior mental health diagnosis can justify this, he said. Before sentencing, Wooding apologized to Jones and Thurmans families. This shouldnt have ever happened, Wooding said. These crimes that I have committed are not me as a person. Dominion Energy is taking a first definitive step to bring a new kind of nuclear technology to Virginia and says if it comes, it will come next to its workhorse North Anna nuclear power station in Louisa County. The utility is asking the roughly half-dozen firms that are developing small modular reactors power plants less than a third the size of North Anna to submit proposals for a small reactor at North Anna. Although its not a commitment to set up a small reactor at North Anna, its a critical first step, Robert M. Blue, Dominions chairman, president and CEO, said Wednesday at the ceremonial signing of legislation. It would allow the utility to ask regulators at the State Corporation Commission to approve a surcharge to cover the costs of developing a small modular reactor. Dominion expects to apply for the surcharge, Blue said. While the legislation allows for a charge of up to $1.40 a month for a typical 1,000-kilowatt-hour bill a bill that now totals $138 Blue said he expects any surcharge would be substantially less than that. Its request for proposals from developers will allow it to review the roughly half-dozen different options currently available for reactors capable of generating 250 to 400 megawatts of electricity enough to power between 62,500 to 100,000 homes. That evaluation will cover the status of design engineering, operational flexibility, construction timelines, availability of supply chain and the ability to obtain necessary licensing and permitting, company officials said. In addition, the proposals would involve a detailed look at the feasibility of the North Anna power station site, including water supplies and how the reactor would be plugged into Dominions grid. The company is hoping to have a small modular reactor up and running by 2033. Today we are celebrating a milestone leading to the first commercial deployment of a small nuclear reactor in the commonwealth of Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said, after Blues announcement. He said small modular reactors are an exciting option because they can be made in a more assembly-line fashion than multibillion-dollar plants like North Anna, which means lower costs. At the end of the day, Virginia needs more power we dont have enough wind and we dont have enough solar. In order to power Virginia, were going to need the Chesterfield gas plant, we need small modular reactors, he said, referring to Dominions proposal to build a 1,000-megawatt plant that would kick on when electricity demand peaks. He said developing hydrogen as a fuel for power-generating plants and technology to remove carbon dioxide from the air and from emissions are also key to what Virginia needs to do to address climate change. The Chesterfield gas plant proposal has drawn strong opposition from environmentalists, who say it flouts the Virginia Clean Economy Act and its goal that Dominion would stop burning fossil fuel to generate power by 2045. Some Chesterfield residents have also protested the companys plans to put the new plant on or next to the site of its gas- and oil-fired plant in the county, saying the new facility would be a public health hazard. Some environmentalists have termed Youngkins call for what he has described as a moonshot effort to bring the first U.S. commercial small modular reactor online a distraction from Virginias need to develop wind and solar generation. Theyve argued that the technology is too new and untested. Ontario Power Generation, owned by the province of Ontario, is building four small nuclear reactors at its Darlington, Ontario, power station. OPC expects its first small modular reactor to come online in 2029. Earlier this week, Dominion announced it is acquiring an offshore windfarm lease just to the south of its $9 billion offshore wind farm in the Atlantic, 27 miles off the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, in a move to further expand its renewable generation capacity. PHOTOS: Dominion's offshore wind turbines Jul 12 (ITSUKA JAPAN) - This time, I enjoyed a journey from Asakusa to Tobu Nikko on the new limited express Spacia X by Tobu Railway. On the way there, I rode in the luxurious cockpit suite, and on the way back, I relaxed in the comfortable compartment seats. Ill showcase the attractions of each seat and the stunning views from the windows! YANGON, Jul 12 (News On Japan) - A Japanese man detained in Myanmar over the sale price of rice has been charged and will face trial on Friday, July 12. Hiroshi Kasamatsu, 53, an executive of the local subsidiary of retail giant Aeon, was detained by Myanmar authorities last month for selling rice at prices higher than regulated. He was being interrogated at a police station in Yangon, the largest city. According to the Japanese embassy in Myanmar, Kasamatsu was charged on the 11th of July. His health is reported to be in good condition. According to military sources, Kasamatsu's trial is scheduled for the 12th of July. He faces up to three years in prison, with the possibility of prolonged detention. The Japanese embassy continues to urge local authorities for Kasamatsu's early release. TOKYO, Jul 12 (News On Japan) - On hot and humid days in Tokyo, nothing beats a matcha gelato. A specialty matcha gelato shop in Asakusa was bustling with foreign customers on Thursday. The shop offers seven types of matcha gelato, each with varying degrees of richness. The most popular is made with the highest quality matcha, which has won the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award. A woman visiting from Thailand, smiling broadly, took a bite and shared her thoughts. Visitor from Thailand: 'Delicious. Japanese matcha is the best. This is matcha!' Another woman commented on the differences between matcha in America and Japan. Visitor from the USA: '(American matcha) doesn't have such a strong flavor. It's less pure, more like milk with a lot of sugar.' The charm of matcha is often discovered through social media. Visitor from the USA: 'I saw it on TikTok a while ago. They said it was the best matcha shop.' Foreign Tourists Mesmerized? The popularity extends beyond sweets. A matcha latte made with high-quality organic matcha and smooth milk is also a hit. A matcha cafe that attracts about 50,000 visitors a month is bustling with foreign patrons. Visitor from France: 'This matcha is creamy and very delicious.' Visitor from Ireland: 'I'll try it. I like it.' The cafe also features live tea preparation, which captivates curious foreign visitors, many of whom are busy filming. Tea Ceremony Experiences: Why Is Matcha So Popular? Foreign interest in matcha goes beyond just tasting. At "Asakusa Chazen," visitors can experience authentic tea ceremonies. About 90% of reservations are made by foreigners, and bookings are filled daily. Stephen and Megan, newlyweds from America, are staying in Japan for five days. Stephen: 'We came to this tea ceremony to learn more about the culture, history, and tea.' Megan: 'We love tea.' The couple moved to a traditional Japanese room to start the tea ceremony experience. Instructor: 'Hold it with your right hand, on top of your left hand.' The instructor, who provides guidance in English, created a solemn atmosphere as the couple practiced making matcha themselves. They seemed very satisfied. Stephen: 'I was very surprised. It was so sweet and delicious even without sugar. I could have had six more cups.' Rie Takeda, head of Chazen, commented on the growing interest. Takeda: 'In the past, many people had never tried matcha or were tasting it for the first time. However, in recent years, more people want to try authentic Japanese matcha.' Source: ANN TOKYO, Jul 12 (News On Japan) - To address the severe aviation fuel shortage in Japan, a new initiative has been launched as part of an emergency response formulated by the public and private sectors. According to government officials, efforts are underway to import fuel from South Korea and other overseas sources. Additionally, the government aims to communicate flight schedule increases to oil refineries in advance, so they can adjust their production plans accordingly. The government is expected to hold a meeting of relevant ministers as early as next week to finalize the emergency measures. Source: FNN NAGOYA, Jul 13 (News On Japan) - A 37-year-old man arrested for entering a women's bath in Nagoya, has denied his intention was to see naked women. The incident took place at a hot spring facility in Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya City. The man was dressed as a woman at the time and partially covered his body while bathing. According to police investigations, the man stated, "I did not enter to see naked women. My heart is female," among other remarks. EHIME, Jul 13 (News On Japan) - A landslide at Matsuyama Castle has left three people missing, with warnings of heavy rain continuing through the holiday weekend starting on July 13th. On Friday morning, the slope of the mountain where Matsuyama Castle in Ehime Prefecture is located collapsed, and contact has been lost with three residents of a wooden house that was caught in the landslide. A nearby resident described the scene: 'There was a loud roar, followed by a tremendous crash that shook the ground.' Police and firefighters are manually clearing debris to carry out rescue operations, but progress has been slow. A Level 5 emergency safety alert remains in effect for the area around the site. In Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture, approximately 30 meters of a prefectural road collapsed. One car fell, causing minor injuries to a man in his 30s. From July 13th, the stationary seasonal rain front over western and eastern Japan is expected to bring heavy rain over a wide area. Residents in Matsuyama and Onomichi are urged to remain vigilant against landslides, even with light rain. Source: ANN Jacob Beltran covers crime, breaking news and general assignments for the Express-News. He can be reached at jbeltran@express-news.net. A San Antonio native, Jacob began his journalism career in 2010. He's worked for the student-run newspaper for San Antonio College, The Ranger, and for Texas A&M University-San Antonio, The Mesquite. He enjoys video games, photography and exploring during his free time. TOKYO, Jul 13 (News On Japan) - Japan's Defense Ministry has announced disciplinary action against 218 personnel following a series of misconduct cases, including inappropriate handling of classified information and power harassment. This unprecedented move affects top officials from the Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense Forces. Defense Minister Minoru Kihara apologized, stating, "I deeply apologize to the public." The large-scale disciplinary action, described as the "largest ever," includes several significant cases. The leakage of classified information has involved 113 personnel, while fraudulent receipt of submarine allowances has implicated 74 personnel. Additionally, there have been unauthorized dining incidents within Self-Defense Force facilities and power harassment by senior Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Force officials. Among those disciplined, Maritime Staff Office Chief Yoshinori Sakai announced his resignation effective July 19. He will retire following a salary reduction, effectively being dismissed. Five other senior officials, including Vice Minister of Defense Masuda and Joint Staff Chief Yoshida, also received reprimands. Past incidents have also led to significant disciplinary actions within the Defense Ministry. Two years ago, a special defense inspection resulted in 245 personnel being disciplined for numerous cases of power and sexual harassment following complaints from former Ground Self-Defense Force member Rina Gonoi. In 2017, then-Defense Minister Tomomi Inada resigned after it was revealed that daily logs from the Ground Self-Defense Force's South Sudan mission had been concealed. Commenting on the extensive misconduct, Defense Minister Kihara remarked, "The lack of legal compliance, ethical awareness, mission consciousness, and strict discipline among the involved parties is alarmingly evident." In the case of the fraudulent submarine allowance, records of diving hours were habitually falsified, resulting in a total of 430 million yen in illicit payments over six years. Moreover, 22 personnel engaged in unauthorized dining within Self-Defense Force facilities over three years, with one member failing to pay for 921 meals worth 300,000 yen. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, currently on an overseas trip, also issued an apology, stating, "I must apologize to the public for causing concern." Despite the scandal, Kishida expressed his intention to retain Defense Minister Kihara. The government has outlined a plan to significantly strengthen defense capabilities, proposing a defense budget of approximately 43 trillion yen over five years. However, with growing public distrust, this scandal could impact discussions on defense tax increases. Source: TBS By Henry Umoru Calls for immediate compliance CHIEF Whip of the Senate, Senator Ali Ndume, APC, Borno South has said that President Bola Tinubu has liberated the Local Governments from Governors suffocation following Supreme Courts ruling that has barred the 36 Governors of the federation from further retaining or utilizing funds that are meant for the 774 Local Government Areas, LGAs, in the country. In a statement on Friday in Abuja, Ndume hailed the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for initiating a court action at the Supreme Court, which has now birthed a new financial regime for Local Governments Councils across the country. In its judgment, the apex court directed that local government allocations from the Federation Account should be paid directly to them, going forward. The Supreme Court declared that it was unconstitutional for state governors to hold onto funds meant for Local Government Areas. Ndume who described the judgment as the biggest achievement of President Tinubu so far since he assumed office in May 2023, also called on President Tinubu to immediately commence the implementation of the court judgment without further delay, nothing that the people at the grassroots must begin to feel the impacts of good governance. The former Leader of the Senate, said that since state governors hijacked the Local Government administration in Nigeria, by relying on a controversial section of the 1999 Constitution as amended, no meaningful development has happened at the grassroots. Ndume said: This court action instituted at the behest of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the biggest achievement of his achievement. Im very happy about the development, and Im hoping that this will be the beginning of the liberation of local governments in Nigeria. I urge the President to immediately commence the implementation of the Court judgment. Local Government Councils need to start getting their monthly allocations immediately without any further delays. The people at the grassroots levels will begin to feel the impacts of good governance now. The National Assembly made several attempts to amend the 1999 Constitution and address this grey area. But governors didnt allow the State Assemblies to give the constitutional concurrence. That was how the attempts failed. President Muhammadu Buhari also tried to intervene. Governors didnt allow him. With this Supreme Court judgment, the issue has finally been rested. No more unnecessary deductions from funds earmarked for local governments. The people can now hold the Council chairmen accountable on how they spend their monthly allocations. Theyll begin to demand true accountability and judicious use of the funds theyll be getting. I salute the courage of President Tinubu. Also that the apex Court in its lead judgment, read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the highest court in Nigeria, observed that the refusal of State Governments on financial autonomy for Local Governments has gone on for over two decades. Justice Agim said Local Governments have since stopped receiving the money meant for them from the state governors who act in their stead. He noted that the 774 Local Government Councils in the country should manage their funds themselves. The revered Justice dismissed the preliminary objections of the defendants (state governors). Young Kenyans on Friday dismissed President William Rutos decision to sack most of his cabinet, with some warning that they would resume street protests unless he steps down. Ruto has been scrambling to contain the fallout of deadly protests against proposed tax hikes, after last months peaceful rallies descended into violence and tapped into widespread anger against his government. Organised online and led largely by young, Gen-Z Kenyans, the protests have plunged Rutos administration into the most serious crisis of his two-year presidency, forcing him to abandon the finance bill containing the tax hikes. In the latest move to defuse tensions, Ruto on Thursday dismissed all cabinet ministers including the attorney-general, with the exception of Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. But the announcement, while welcomed by some, did not appease some young Kenyans frustrated with Rutos failure to deliver on his 2022 election promise to create jobs and boost their fortunes. Hyrence Mwangi, 25, said: We will be back on the streets until Ruto goes. He has wasted two years in office travelling and telling lies. Initially peaceful, the protests sharply escalated when police fired at crowds who stormed parliament, ransacking the partly ablaze complex. While large-scale street protests have subsided, anger against the government has not, particularly towards the police, with rights groups saying that 39 people were killed in the demonstrations. When we first went to the streets, Ruto dismissed us as a bunch of hired goons and criminals, only to come later and start saying he will make changes, said 27-year-old Jackson Rotich. We cant trust him. Law student Melisa Agufana, 24, said she wanted to thank the president for listening, adding that ministers had wasted two years doing nothing apart from being driven around with our national flag. Analysts said the move offered the possibility of a fresh start, but warned of further risks. The challenge that Ruto now faces is forming a new cabinet that includes various vested interests, whilst simultaneously calming popular anger, Gabrielle Lynch, professor of comparative politics at the University of Warwick, told AFP. Last week, Ruto announced sharp cuts to government spending, including travel and refurbishment costs, and said he would increase borrowing to pay for some services even as Kenya grapples with massive foreign debt equivalent to roughly 70 percent of GDP. The crisis led US-based Moodys to downgrade Kenyas debt rating further into junk territory, warning of a negative outlook, which will make borrowing even more expensive for the cash-strapped government. Ruto said Thursday that he would immediately engage in extensive consultations across different sectors and political formations, with the aim of setting up a broad-based government, without elaborating further. The piece of legislation also sought to make provisions for control, monitoring and supervision of transactions conducted in the Foreign Exchange Market. The bill was sponsored by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Sani Musa (APC-Niger) during plenary. The proposed law is titled: The Foreign Exchange (Control And Monitoring) Bill, 2024 (SB. 353) was read for the first time on Tuesday, Feb. 20. In his Lead debate, Musa described the bill as an important legislation that sought to repeal the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provision) Act, Cap. F34, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. Musa said the proposed law would provide for regulation, monitoring and supervision of the transactions conducted in the market and for related matters. He said it would also contribute to the sound development of the national economy by striving to facilitate foreign transactions and maintain an equilibrium of balance of international payments. The Bill seeks to stabilise the value of currency by ensuring the liberalisation of foreign exchange transactions to maintain an equilibrium of balance of International payments. It will also stabilise the value of currency by ensuring liberalisation of foreign exchange transactions and of other foreign transactions by revitalising market functionality. The newly introduced clauses will enable the CBN to determine the basic exchange rate of purchase and sale of foreign exchange, Musa said. Most senators in their various contributions, expressed fears that a fresh legislation, seeking to monitor or control activities of the foreign exchange market apart from what the CBN was doing, could be counter productive. Some of the senators who expressed serious reservations over the proposed law were Solomon Adeola (Chairman Committee on Appropriation ); Tokunbo Abiru (Chairman, Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions) and Aliyu Wadada (Chairman, Senate Public Account Committee). For instance, Sen. Ibrahim Dankwambo (APC-Gombe) noted that the law, if passed, would confuse Nigerians. He was of the opinion that any further law aimed at regulating the foreign exchange market should come from the executive arm of government to avoid crisis in the sector. Also contributing, Sen. Adams Oshiomhole (APC-Edo) said: we have to be careful because we cannot speculate. Anything done in this house, Nigerians will take it very seriously, because we have the power to make laws. Senators who have spoken, have summarised and amplified meticulously, the contradictions and negative implications of passing the law. I believe that the bill should not attract further hearing because we are trying to take over the monetary policy regulations of the CBN if we go ahead with it. If the executive arm of government likes, let them bring a Bill to further strengthen the regulatory powers of the CBN. It is not our work. The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, urged Musa to withdraw the proposed law for further consultations but the senator refused to do so. Akpabio subsequently called for voice vote to determine its approval or rejection for second reading and majority of the lawmakers voted against it By Richard Ogunsile The Delta State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has issued a warning to VIP escorts, local vigilantes, anti-cult squads, and other non-state actors ahead of the weekends local government polls in the state. In an official statement signed by the commands Public Relations Officer, SP Bright Edafe, on Friday, the force command warned the groups to avoid polling units. Accordingly, the command has provided specific telephone numbers for reporting complaints or distress situations. The statement noted that there will be a restriction on vehicular movement from 0800 hours (8 AM) to 1500 hours (3 PM) on 13/07/2024 (Saturday). Only officials on emergency and essential duties, such as accredited election monitors and observers, will be permitted to pass during this period. The police said NABTEB examination students are also exempted from this movement restriction. The statement added: While regretting the inconveniences this will cause, members of the public are therefore advised to adhere to this instruction as anyone found wanting will be made to face the full wrath of the law. The ban on VIP escorts during the elections will also be enforced. They are therefore advised not to move with their security details on Election Day, as any officer found wanting will be arrested and sanctioned accordingly. The CP also advises all non-state actors (vigilante, anti-cult volunteers, hunters etc.) that they will not be playing any role whatsoever during the elections, so they are to steer clear of the polling units and the entire election process, as any of them found meddling in the election process will be decisively dealt with. While wishing residents in the state a hitch-free election, its pertinent to note that the success of this election, to a large extent, lies on how the electorate conducts themselves. The CP therefore urges all residents to be law-abiding, and rest assured that the command will not compromise in carrying out its primary responsibility of ensuring the protection of lives and property, as well as the preservation of public tranquillity before, during, and after the elections. Naija News reports that the Delta State Government has granted permission for employees in the State Public Service to end their workday at 12 noon on Fridays. This decision was announced by Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in an official statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Kingsley Emu. This is to enable public servants in the state to participate fully in the Local Government elections coming up on Saturday, July 13, 2024, as part of their civic responsibilities. However, workers in essential services such as the health sector, security, and media, who would need to render services should adopt a flexible schedule to enable them to exercise their franchise, the statement reads. Femi Falana, SAN A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and human rights activist, Femi Falana has called on Nigerians, to be prepared to monitor the activities of the local government officials in the wake of the judgment by the Supreme Court. The apex court had on Thursday in its lead judgment read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, mandated the Federal Government to begin immediate and direct payment of local government funds to the latters exclusive accounts. The Supreme Court scolded the decades-long refusal of the state government on financial autonomy for local governments. Following the judgment, Falana a guest on Channels Televisions flagship programme, Sunrise Daily on Friday, noted that the only way to both political stability and security in the country, would be for Nigerians to monitor the activities of local, state and federal governments. He said, The judgment is going to advance the struggle for accountability if Nigerians can own the system. If Nigerians can prepare to monitor the activities of local government officials, state government officials, and federal government officials- this is the only way we can have political stability and security in our country. Falana also expressed support for the Supreme Courts decision, saying it was not meant to strip the state governments of its influence on the Local Government Areas as is being feared, but, rather, would promote accountability at the grassroots level. I have been part of the local government autonomy struggle since its inception. And I think it is a struggle that will enhance accountability if the public can hold the struggle if Nigerians can be prepared to monitor the activities of the local, state and federal government officials. The SAN traced the beginning of the LG autonomy struggle to the administration of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The battle started in 2004 when former president Olusegun Obasanjo ordered that the funds of the local government in Lagos state be confiscated because the Bola Tinubu administration had created new local governments. That order was directed at four states local governments but it was only Lagos state that stood its ground, and it won the case at the Supreme Court, that the president had no power to order the confiscation of the LG statutory allocations. Thereafter, the national assembly made the law for monitoring local government funds with the state government, by appointing monitoring committees. All the state governments went to court, and the Supreme Court said the federal government had no power to monitor the funds meant for local governments because the local government chairmen are democratically elected. He said the judgment of the Supreme Court as of then, had led to diversion of funds meant for the development of the local governments by the state governments. So since 1999, money meant for local government has been diverted in the majority of states in the country. This was what informed the decision of the federal government this time around, to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. And the Supreme Court did so. It is now left for the Nigerian people, to actualise the terms of the judgment to the benefit of our people. The implementation of the Supreme Court judgment rests on the people, because right now, it is difficult to talk about the autonomy of the local government because the political structure of the LGAs is manned by the state governments. And what they have done over the years is to manipulate the local government elections in a way that only the candidates of the ruling parties would be declared the winners. Malis military rulers allowed political parties and the civil society to resume normalcy after a ban that was imposed 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. In August 2020, the Malian army staged a coup under the command of Colonel Assimi Goita, who is now acting as kingmaker in the country that has been battling violent extremist groups and independentist Tuareg movements for decades. The suspension in April was in response to a call by more than 80 political parties and associations for a return to constitutional order by holding presidential elections as soon as possible. Since the coup, Mali has sacked western troops and forged an alliance with Russia, whose Wagner militias have been fighting together with the Malian army against Tuareg rebels. Bamakos ties soured with neighboring ECOWAS countries that demand a return to constitutional order. Mali and military ruled neighbors, Burkina Faso and Niger, said they left ECOWAS for good and announced at a summit held in Niamey on July 6 the creation of a confederation that will bring the three nations under one institutional umbrella. Moroccos Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York and the OCP Group jointly organized a high-level event on the food security in Africa, as part of the High-Level Political Forum of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Sustainable Development taking place July 8-17. The meeting, held under the theme Sustainable Development Goals in action. Shaping the Africa we want. Effective partnerships to eradicate poverty, build food sovereignty, mitigate climate change, was co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya. The exchanges that took place on this occasion allowed Africas voice to be heard by the international community. This event kicked off with introductory remarks from the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed and Moroccos Ambassador to the UN, Omar Hilale, as well as a presentation by the Chairman and CEO of the OCP Group, Mostafa Terrab. This initiative reflects Moroccos firm attachment to its African depth and its unwavering commitment to the co-development and prosperity of Africa within the framework of a mutually beneficial South-South cooperation. In his opening statement, Omar Hilale stressed that Moroccos commitment to eliminating hunger and promoting sustainable agriculture emanates from a collective awareness of the challenge posed by food security in the world in general and on the African continent in particular, noting that this is why King Mohammed VI has placed food security at the heart of his strategic priorities for Africa. The diplomat recalled Moroccos keenness to promote investment in agriculture at home, as well as through south-south cooperation in Africa, which has more than half of the uncultivated arable land in the world. The Kingdom has undertaken to share its experience and good practices with African countries, he said. This action is supported by the recommendations of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, which calls for strengthening partnerships and encouraging public-private investments to unlock the full potential of sustainable agriculture, the ambassador continued. He noted that it is in this context that the multidimensional strategy of the OCP Group in the African continent comes into play. Through this presence, the Moroccan Group is today the main global supplier of phosphate products, but also the main African partner and provider of expertise in agriculture. For his part, Mostafa Terrab stressed that Africa is embarking on a true green revolution, saying he is convinced that the accelerator of this revolution will be the continents capacity to produce its own fertilizers based on its abundant natural resources. The Chairman and CEO of the OCP Group noted in this regard that while arable land per capita in the world is decreasing, 60% of this unused arable land on the planet is in Africa, deeming it necessary to change the perception vis-a-vis Africas role in terms of food security. Africa will have to play a positive role on a global scale in terms of food security, he said, explaining that this security depends on the nutrition of the soil and plants. Without fertilizers, we will only be able to produce half the food output we produce today, Terrab said. Wondering why Africa does not use fertilizers enough, he noted that the continent is the largest exporter of natural resources that go into manufacturing fertilizers, at a time when Africa was also a net importer of finished fertilizers. As a result, the African farmer has had the fundamental problem of having fertilizers that sometimes cost two to three times the price of fertilizers elsewhere, even if those fertilizers were made from the continents own natural resources, he deplored. This situation changed when the OCP Group deployed its multidimensional strategy and decided to produce fertilizers in Africa, allocating a significant quantity of these fertilizers to countries on the continent. Now 65% of fertilizers used in Africa are manufactured on the continent, he said. He also exposed the OCP Groups evolution since it made massive investments in the production of fertilizers, emphasizing that the Group has reached more than 30% of the global market share in fertilizer production. This performance allowed the Group to rise to the number one position in terms of fertilizer production, he said, noting that OCP Group now has a capacity of 15 million tons and has earned a significant share of the market in finished fertilizers worldwide. For Africa to ensure its food security, it is important, according to Mostafa Terrab, that it produces its own fertilizers, uses appropriate fertilizers in order to boost productivity, contribute to the achievement of SDG 13 on action climate and make soil health and nutrition planning affordable for smallholder farmers. Speaking on this occasion, the UN Deputy Secretary-General welcomed the investments made by Morocco to develop the agricultural sector, through the promotion of local production, and the establishment of political frameworks that catalyze sustainable development and resilient food systems. This dynamic has created jobs and strengthened the role of women in Moroccan society, she said, noting that sustainable food systems are not only about those who consume, but also about those who manage and who harvest from production to the table. Africa is a region with enormous potential, representing 60% of the planets arable land, the UN official said, expressing her confidence that it is possible to overcome food insecurity and develop sustainable agricultural practices. She stressed the importance of leveraging partnerships to realize the continents vision enshrined in Africas Agenda 2063, calling for keeping the promise not only for the SDGs and their acceleration, but for Africa desired by Africans as well. The Permanent representatives to the UN of Ethiopia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, and Cote dIvoire who took part in the event have all welcomed the partnership existing between their respective countries and Morocco in the agricultural sector through the OCP Group. This partnership with the Kingdom and the OCP Group has been instrumental in the process of transforming the agricultural sector in these African countries and helps to accelerate efforts to achieve the SDGs. They also outlined the OCP Groups contribution to ensure food security in sub-Saharan Africa, including through the establishment of fertilizer plants in some African countries, the promotion of new nutrient management practices, and farmers capacity building thanks to good agronomic and soil health practices and climate-smart agriculture. Such initiatives help Africa ensure its food sovereignty and progress towards a more sustainable and inclusive future, they said. Vehicles from law enforcement agencies head toward downtown Houston on Thursday in support of Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Fernando Esqueda, who shot and killed this week in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. The San Antonio Police Department sent 23 officers to Houston to help patrol in the city as it recovers from the storm. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer The San Antonio Police Department is one of several agencies sending officers to help patrol in Houston as the city deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Thursday that 100 officers were headed to Houston to help patrol the city, much of which remains vulnerable due to ongoing power outages, broken traffic signals and other issues. San Antonio is sending 23 officers to assist. Those officers left for Houston on Thursday morning and are expected to stay through Sunday, said SAPD spokeswoman Camelia Juarez. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Officers are needed to both help with traffic enforcement and to relieve Houston officers who have been working 12-hour shifts. "This is a great program of collaboration providing public safety, looking out for our first responders," Whitmire said. Hurricane Beryl blew through Houston on Monday, leaving 3.1 million without power. As of Thursday, about 1 million customers were still without power, according to the Houston Chronicle. Houston's Acting Chief Larry Satterwhite said the department went to full mobilization on Tuesday and intends to remain at that status through Sunday, as crews work to restore power. Full mobilization means half the department works the day shift, the other half works during the night. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "We know we have vulnerable neighborhoods and we have all kinds of needs," Satterwhite said. Officers have been fielding calls for distribution of water, food and shelter. READ ALSO: Houston restaurant used generator to cook 200 free meals for community after Beryl knocked out power Satterwhite said there are people taking advantage of the post-storm chaos to commit crimes. The department has photos of suspects that they intend to distribute at a later time, Satterwhite said. Houston authorities are on high alert after Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Fernando Esqueda, 28, was killed Wednesday while sitting in his patrol car in northeast Harris County. Another officer was shot in the leg on Monday night. That officer is recovering, police said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Satterwhite said Texas Division of Emergency Management chief Nim Kidd told him on Wednesday that the state would help fund and mobilize police officers from other Texas cities to relieve Houston officers. "This is the right thing to do," Kidd said. "The only ones who will question this program are the criminals." Satterwhite said a Houston officer will work alongside each officer from another city to help increase effectiveness. Along with San Antonio, officers were sent from Fort Worth, Dallas, Corpus Christi, Allen, Grand Prairie, Plano, Trophy Cub, McKinney, Carollton, Mesquite, Garland, Houston Oaks and Azle.Their deployment is expected to last four days, although that could change depending on circumstances. Satterwhite assured residents that Houston has the capacity to protect its people. Advertisement Article continues below this ad As was expected, the civilian facade of the Algerian military regime Abdelmedjid Tebboune has officially announced that he will bid for a second term during the early elections he set for September 7. The announcement came in a video on the facebook page of the presidency, in which the president bragged about a new Algeria. In 2019, Tebboune won presidential elections with low turnout nearing zero in the breakaway Kabyle region. He decided to cut short his term by announcing early elections in September instead of December. When asked in a TV interview in March about the reasons for early elections, Tebboune mocked himself and showed a disdain for the Algerian people saying that cutting short his term was a technical measure. Tebboune downplayed the seriousness of his decision to cut short his mandate. His critics say that not only is his decision arbitrary, but also denotes a lack of respect for the Algerian electorate and for his responsibility to finish his term or resign. Even before announcing his re-election bid, Tebboune engaged in an early electoral campaign showcasing stadiums launched during the era of his predecessor Bouteflika. In kabylie region, the hot bed of the pro-democracy Hirak movement and where an independence movement is gaining traction, Tebbounes visit this week was largely boycotted and wooed. Tebboune has failed economically to set the Algerian economy on a diversification track, leaving disenchanted youth between the hammer of unemployment and the anvil of illegal migration through the hazardous sea crossing to European shores. The president has found a solution though: manipulating figures to project a factionary economic development. He promised to double Algerias GDP to 600 billion dollars! Currently, the GDP stands at 195 billion dollars thanks to increased oil and gas revenue after the war in Ukraine. The new GDP includes the estimated revenue of the large informal sector, a move that is taken by Algeria to downsize its debt to GDP ratio. The Moroccan government plans to increase the salaries of nurses and technicians in public hospitals by 1000 dirhams, following recurrent strikes and protests. The salary hike was announced by government spokesman, who said health reform was at the heart of government priorities. His words did little to calm down angry unions representing nurses and health workers whose protest in Rabat on Wednesday was dispersed using water cannons. Main unions representing health workers said they will launch another strike till July 26. The nurses demand higher salary hikes, an organization to represent their professional interests and better working conditions. Meanwhile, medicine students have largely boycotted exams risking a gap year. They are rejecting a government reform to shorten their medical training by one year and demand better learning conditions. The government argues that cutting the duration would help have more graduated doctors to fill in vacancies across the country. Up to 1400 doctors trained in Moroccan universities leave the country, mostly to Europe, where many countries are vying to attract foreign medics. To meet increasing demand on health services and population growth, the government has adopted a 300-million-dollar strategy to increase the number of healthcare graduates to 90000 by 2025. This should increase the number of medical staff per 10,000 people to 45 by 2030, from 17 currently. Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday (11 July) fired almost all the ministers in his cabinet, including the attorney general, with immediate effect and promised to form a new government as the current one has struggled with discontent over a cost-of-living crisis and the East African countrys debt. In a televised address, Ruto promised that the new cabinet will be lean and efficient, run by their permanent secretaries, after three weeks of protests over high taxes and poor governance in which protesters stormed into parliament on 25 June after it passed a finance bill that proposed tax increases. 39 people had been killed and 361 were injured in the countrywide protests, according to Kenyas National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). The president also said that Prime Cabinet Secretary and Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi, a key ally, and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, would remain in their positions. Ruto also noted he made the decision after listening to the people and that he would form a broad-based government after extensive consultations across different sectors and political formations and other Kenyans, both in public and private, with the aim of setting up a broad-based government. When Ruto appointed 21 cabinet ministers following his election in 2022, critics accused him of choosing political cronies and departing from the previous practice of picking technocrats to be in charge of ministries. The deadly protests are widely seen as a turning point that forced the president to back down on planned tax hikes. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Suppose, in the immediate aftermath of January 6, 2021, you predicted the following events: Disgraced coup plotter Donald Trump would evade impeachment and then prison. He would not only regain control of the Republican Party but deepen his mastery over it, driving his skeptics within the party into retirement or terrified silence. He would win renomination without the slightest drama. The Supreme Court would rule that he is entitled to commit crimes in office. And then he would win a second term virtually unopposed. Only the most addled QAnon cultist would have envisioned such a triumphal rise from ignominy to redemption. But now all but the last item on this list has come to pass, and that, too, is on course to transpire with severe and possibly long-lasting repercussions for the legitimacy of the party that has taken on the task of preventing Trumps return. Here is the situation in all its surreality. Joe Biden is the only candidate standing (if we define the term loosely) between Trump and a far more powerful version of the office he previously occupied. Before his shambolic debate with Trump, Biden was already in deep trouble: dragged down by a sub-40 approval rating and trailing in several states he won four years ago, even with the benefit of a saturation-bombing ad campaign in swing states that Trump does not yet (but soon will) have the funding to reciprocate. After the debate again, using the term loosely, since it takes two to debate, and only one candidate actually joined the argument matters look far more grim. Biden has lost his best, and perhaps only, high-profile forum to change the races contours. The voters have now seen, and cannot unsee, Biden in what appears to be the grips of advanced cognitive breakdown. Trump could have spent the entire 90 minutes with his pants at his ankles and he still would have won. Election outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty. Theres always a chance that something happens to alter the race or that the polls are systematically underrating Biden. But there is no good reason to assume either of these is true and considerable reason to believe the opposite. Contrary to Bidens claim that he was underestimated in 2020, the polls underrated Trump in both of his last two elections. (Republicans have underperformed in midterm and special elections when Trump was not on the ballot he seems to draw out certain voters who dont talk to pollsters and whose only loyalty is to him personally.) And the most obvious game-changing event that could occur is another incident exposing Bidens frailty. Age-related decline is a one-way ratchet. Biden has responded to the catastrophe in depressing but expected fashion. He has portrayed his fiasco as one bad debate, a phrase meant to obscure both the frequency with which similar episodes have popped up in other settings and the sheer level of dysfunction it revealed. He has leaned more heavily on the advice of family members, whose loyalty rests primarily with him rather than their party or country. And he has pressured Democrats to shut up and fall in line without taking any convincing steps to assuage their concerns. This response is sadly consistent with the behavior of aging leaders who refuse to sacrifice their power for the greater good. Ruth Bader Ginsburg insisted on her own indispensability, as if the cause of liberalism would suffer by replacing her with a younger, non-cancer-stricken jurist. Dianne Feinstein denied her own cognitive decline to the point where she was too impaired to recognize her own impairment, surrounded by aides whose professional incentive was to sustain the illusion of competence. This is the trajectory Bidens campaign is following. If it continues, the presidency will probably fall into Trumps lap as easily as Ginsburgs Supreme Court seat did. Democrats have responded to this calamity in three ways. One faction, consisting mostly of moderates in Congress, has implied or stated directly that Biden should leave the race. A second faction, heavily concentrated among his partys left wing, has echoed Bidens insistence that the decision has been made and the debate is over. I have spoken with him extensively, said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed. Never mind how debilitated he is or may become; to invert a phrase made famous by Trump, Biden wouldnt lose their support if somebody shot him on Fifth Avenue. The third faction of Democratic officials has publicly endorsed Biden, albeit with less enthusiasm, while some privately wax fatalistic. Were riding this horse at this point, a House Democrat, who privately wishes Biden would withdraw, told the political website NOTUS. And so Im shifting gears. Im gonna make my best case that we should pick the old guy against the crazy guy. Another Democrat confessed to NBC, I wish I was more brave. The strategy adopted by the hand-wringers is to hope the decision gets made for them. They have prodded Biden to open up his cloistered campaign to more interviews and freewheeling events such as a rare press conference on July 11 at the NATO summit in Washington which would theoretically either give him the opportunity to show he has the vigor and mental velocity to make the case against Trump or leave himself vulnerable to the risk of another meltdown, which would force the issue. The trouble is that the latter possibility is exactly why Biden has refused to expose himself to more than a handful of unscripted appearances. The halfway measure of allowing Biden to keep the nomination while asking him to change his public style has the least chance of success. The threat of a total revolt is the only leverage discontented Democrats have. If they settle for vague promises of incremental change, their leverage dissipates, and Biden can just wait them out. The more time passes, the harder it will get for Democrats to organize a new nominee (or new nominating process), and the less incentive Biden will have to make unscripted appearances. More Democrats are starting to understand this, signaling before the NATO press conference that they were prepared to demand he step aside. If Democrats suppose it is safe to quietly go along with a losing campaign rather than stick their necks out for a change with an uncertain result, they are not thinking dynamically enough about how their own voters would respond in the aftermath of defeat. Ezra Klein recently reported private conversations with elected Democrats who say, I can live with Donald Trump winning. The partys organizing basis since the first day Trump took office has been to treat him as a civic emergency. This is the basis for demanding donations, volunteering, and sacrifice. If they are not willing to endure the relatively modest discomfort of a contentious intraparty debate to minimize the chance of a second Trump term, theyll have broken faith with their supporters. In the meantime, the result of this paralysis is a crippled Biden dragging a mostly unwilling party to what it regards as certain defeat. Three and a half years ago, one could have imagined Trumpian authoritarianism returning to power in a blaze of violence. Instead, history may record that he took power again when his opposition essentially abdicated. Photo: Lev Radin/Sipa USA/AP A Vanity Fair feature that ran earlier this month laid out several startling revelations about presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including details on his anti-vaccine work and a graphic photo showing the candidate with a purported dog carcass. But most concerning was an account from Eliza Cooney, a woman who alleges that she was assaulted by Kennedy in 1998 when she worked for his family as a babysitter. The Washington Post reported Friday that Kennedy has reached out to Cooney and apologized via text message while stating that he doesnt remember the incident she described. NBC News later confirmed the Washington Posts reporting and shared a screenshot of the text message in question: NBC News has confirmed WaPo's reporting of a text from RFK Jr.'s phone number apologizing to Eliza Cooney, the woman who alleges Kennedy sexually assaulted her in the late 1990s. Asked whether more women might be coming forward, Kennedy told the Boston Globe "we'll see." pic.twitter.com/l2qQi6xnpB Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) July 12, 2024 In the message sent to Cooney on July 4, Kennedy began by saying he attempted to reach her by phone and preferred to speak in person. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feeling, he wrote. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so. Kennedy said he had no agenda for reaching out besides making the most sincere and ernest [sic] amends. The message was sent two days after Vanity Fairs piece with her account had been published. Kennedy did not explicitly deny the allegations in an interview after the piece ran, saying, Im not a church boy. In 1998, Cooney was a 23-year-old recent college graduate who moved into Robert and his wife Mary Kennedys New York home to watch their children. She also worked at Kennedys environmental-law clinic at Pace University. In the Vanity Fair piece, Cooney recounted a moment during a meeting in the kitchen when Kennedy, who was 45 at the time, moved his hand up and down her leg under the table, an incident she described in her personal diary, which was viewed by the publication. Cooney described other incidents involving her former boss, including one where a shirtless Kennedy pressured her to put lotion on his back and another where she alleges Kennedy came up behind her in the kitchen pantry, ran his hands up her body, and groped her breasts. My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me, Cooney, now 48, told the outlet. I was frozen. Shocked. In an interview with the Post, Cooney did not seem to buy Kennedys apology. It was disingenuous and arrogant, she said. Im not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they dont admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse. Photo: Doug Mills/POOL/AFP/Getty Images Its been a tumultuous few weeks in the legal saga around Donald Trump, and suddenly the future has come into sharper focus. After months of high-stakes uncertainty, now we know for sure that Trump will not face trial on the biggest cases against him relating to 2020 election subversion, January 6, and classified documents at Mar-a-Lago before the 2024 election. He might never be convicted on anything beyond the Manhattan hush-money case, and that one stands on increasingly rickety legal footing. And the chances that Trump ever winds up behind bars are vanishingly slim. Theres no use spinning fairy tales: All four Trump cases are circling the drain. Heres how dire its gotten for anti-Trump legal crusaders. Theyve gone from Dont worry, hell be tried and convicted on the big cases before the election! to Dont worry, the hush-money appeal will take long enough that a reversal wont happen until after the election! Before we get to the legal fallout, Trumps chances to snuff out all four cases at once, by winning the 2024 election, have decidedly risen over the past few weeks. Its a sad state of affairs that we accept the inevitability that, if Trump wins, all his indictments are cooked but its also true. He would almost certainly have his Justice Department dismiss the two federal indictments, and the state cases would be, at best, on hold until he left office in 2029. The chances of a Trump 2024 win have long been roughly 50-50. But now, in the wake of President Joe Bidens haggard debate performance, the polls tell us that its more likely than that. Even if Trump loses the election, he has received a golden gift in the Supreme Courts presidential immunity decision. I dont buy the most ominous scenarios floated by the cases dissenting justices; theres no realistic way any judge would find that ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival is an official act entitled to immunity. (Actually, Justice Clarence Thomas might ) But I do agree that the majoritys ruling is astonishingly broad and will create confounding outcomes starting with the current slate of cases against the former commander-in-chief. The Supreme Courts ruling leaves Special Counsel Jack Smiths 2020 election-subversion case in tatters. The justices sent the case back down to the District Court with pointed guidance: Trumps communications with the Justice Department are official acts and entitled to immunity, while the former presidents dealings with his vice-president and his public statements are presumptively immune, too. Remove those evidentiary pillars Trumps effort to deploy DOJ to find nonexistent proof of voter fraud, the pressure campaign toward Mike Pence, the January 6 fight like hell Ellipse speech and theres little left standing. Perhaps prosecutors can salvage Trumps arm-twisting of state officials and the fake-electors scheme. But its not clear thats sufficient to sustain Smiths broad conspiracy charges or that theres enough evidence left for prosecutors to tell a coherent, compelling story to a jury. Judge Tanya Chutkan now has to pick through the wreckage, and she wont have the final say. The Supreme Court noted sharply that it was unimpressed with the lower courts expedition of this case [and] the lack of factual analysis, and it gave Trump explicit permission to appeal the judges new determinations right back up the chain, before trial starts. Thisll take a while, and Smith wont like the results. The Fulton County indictment, which largely recasts Smiths allegations and converts them into Georgia state-level charges, faces the same immunity problems. Beyond that, District Attorney Fani Williss overhyped, overcharged case is collapsing on its own set of self-inflicted wounds. The Georgia Court of Appeals has taken up the defendants claim that Willis has a disqualifying conflict of interest due to her relationship with since-departed lead prosecutor Nathan Wade, and that Williss legally improper (as the trial judge found) out-of-court public statements constitute prosecutorial misconduct. Not only has the appeals court accepted the case (when it didnt have to), it has ordered the trial court to stand down entirely while it considers the issue. Not a great sign for the DA. Smiths classified-documents case seems least likely to feel the impact of the new immunity ruling because all of the charged criminal conduct unlawful retention of national-security materials and obstruction of justice occurred after Trump left office. That said, Trumps team will argue that he obtained the documents in the first place as a core exercise of his presidential duties as chief executive and commander-in-chief, and his retention of them arose from those official acts. I dont buy it, but itll give Trump a hook, and hes got a shot with Judge Aileen Cannon (who already has granted a postponement to consider the immunity issue) and then, if necessary, the appeals courts. The Supreme Courts immunity decision even poses a threat to the Manhattan district attorneys conviction of Trump for falsifying records of hush-money payments. While the vast majority of the prosecutions trial evidence related to Trumps pre-presidential conduct during the 2016 campaign, it also included key events that happened after he took office: conversations with White House communications director Hope Hicks, tweets sent from the official White House account, and a financial-disclosure form required of the president. If a court finds that Trumps conduct was an official act, then it should have been immune and was improperly admitted against him at trial. Given his rulings thus far, Judge Juan Merchan seems unlikely to side with Trump. Look for the judge to find that Trumps conduct while president did not relate to official business and hence is not immune. But will the appellate courts including, potentially, the Supreme Court itself see it the same way? If communications between the president and DOJ are automatically immune, and talks between the president and vice-president are presumptively immune, are talks between the president and his White House communications director all that different? Keep in mind that the Court has instructed that in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the Presidents motives, and that the primary focus should be on the identity of the officials involved in the communication, rather than the substance. The Manhattan DAs case was already built on a treacherously shaky legal foundation, and now the immunity issue gives the defense another arrow in the appellate quiver. Even if Judge Merchan rejects Trumps motion and then sentences him to prison time, the Courts new ruling essentially ensures that he wont have to begin serving any sentence until after his appeals, likely a year or more from now. (And, if hes president again by then, forget about it.) In classic Trumpian fashion, he has done nothing to earn these newfound rewards though, in some instances, his adversaries have hurt their own causes by delay and over-pursuit. And while there are plenty of valid criticisms of the Supreme Courts immunity decision I join in some of them theyre academic now. This is the law; its binding on every court in the nation. And the Court has made clear that it will aggressively police application of its ruling. The Supreme Court has spoken, and everything has changed. This article also appeared in the free CAFE Brief newsletter. You can find more analysis of law and politics from Elie Honig, Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance, and other CAFE contributors at CAFE.com Photo: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg/Getty Images South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn has long been one of President Joe Bidens staunchest allies. Most famously, the former House majority whips 2020 endorsement played a key role in Bidens come-from-behind primary victory in 2020. After Bidens disastrous debate performance last month, Clyburn has stood behind the president amid calls from other Democrats for Biden to quit his reelection campaign. But he has also expressed an openness to Vice-President Kamala Harris taking the mantle from Biden, as well as a third, more chaotic scenario. If youve listened to Clyburns comments over the last two weeks, you might be a little confused about what he actually wants. Heres how his stance has evolved: Clyburn defends Biden in debate aftermath The day after the debate, Clyburn told the Associated Press that he planned to speak to the president later that day and advise him to stay the course. Over the next few days, Clyburn hit the airwaves and the campaign trail on Bidens behalf. On CNN, he attributed Bidens debate performance to preparation overload. He told Milwaukee voters that the showdown between Biden and Trump showed the stark differences between the candidates. Joe Biden has never been a show horse, hes always been a work horse. Just the opposite is true with his opponent, he said, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. .@RepJamesClyburn blames Bidens bad performance in the debate on preparation overload, telling @DanaBashCNN that if theres another debate, the preparation for that debate needs to be different. pic.twitter.com/pprbFncl2a State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) June 30, 2024 but he reportedly wasnt so sure in private However, NBC News reported that Clyburn, along with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Representative Nancy Pelosi, expressed concerns about Bidens viability behind closed doors following the debate, citing sources. Spokesmen from all three House offices denied that such conversations took place and said their bosses are firmly behind the Biden-Harris ticket. Clyburn suddenly floats a mini-primary During an interview with CNN on July 3, Clyburn described a scenario in which Biden dropped out and outlined what might happen from there. The Democratic Party, he said, should hold a mini-primary between Vice-President Harris and other prominent names in order to select the best possible candidate. You can actually fashion the process thats already in place to make it a mini-primary, and I would support that, he said. We cant close that down, and we should open up everything for the general election. I think that Kamala Harris would acquit herself very well in that kind of a process, but then it would be fair to everybody. Many observers understandably viewed Clyburns remarks as support for finding a new Democratic nominee. But Brianna Frias, the congressmans spokesperson, tried to shut down that line of thinking, even though Clyburns comments made her job difficult. It is quite obvious that Congressman Clyburn was responding to a hypothetical question, she said to Politico. He was not calling for a mini-primary. Instead, he was explaining the existing process. The Congressman fully supports President Biden at the top of the ticket and it would be irresponsible to report anything otherwise. Clyburn: Were ridin with Biden On July 9, House Democrats held a highly anticipated meeting where members of the caucus were expected to express their views and concerns about Bidens candidacy and whether he should make room for a new nominee. Though reactions from members exiting the meeting were notably mixed, Clyburn offered his full-throated support for the president over and over again. Clyburn again says hes with Biden following NATO press conference On Thursday, Biden held a high-stakes solo press conference after hosting dozens of world leaders in Washington, D.C., for the NATO Summit. After Bidens largely competent performance, Clyburn appeared on NBCs Today show on Friday, arguing that people need to focus on Bidens substance rather than honing in on the occasional verbal miscue. He has one of the best minds that Ive ever been around, and the people who have been around him will tell you that, he said. Clyburn said that the conversation about Biden should focus on his record and the ramifications of a Trump victory in November. but then opens the door to Kamala Though Clyburn hardly broke with Biden on Friday, he did express an openness to one candidate in particular: Vice-President Harris. When asked if he would support Harris in the event Biden stepped aside, he was emphatic. Absolutely. No question about that, Clyburn said. She has acquitted herself well in the job of vice-president and he never wouldve picked her in the first place if he did not think that she was capable of being president. And I think that shes demonstrated, especially in these recent weeks when all of this microscope has been focused on her and him, she has acquitted herself famously. .@craigmelvin: Hypothetically, if the President does decide to step aside and its Vice President Harris, does she have your full-throated endorsement? Rep. Jim Clyburn: Absolutely. No question about that. pic.twitter.com/vPhBeppj09 TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 12, 2024 The congressman was asked if he was leaving the door open for more questions about Biden by saying that the decision on his future is up to him, considering the president has made it clear that he has no plans on leaving. I take him at his word, and thats why I am all in, Clyburn said. Im riding with Biden no matter what direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. Im with Joe Biden. JUST IN: @savannahguthrie: "Did you leave the door open just a little bit for these continued questions about President Biden?" Rep. Jim Clyburn: "I am all in. I'm riding with Biden no which direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. I'm with Joe Biden." pic.twitter.com/yQ8H8FeWRY TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 12, 2024 He continued, And if he were to change his mind Ill just answer the question then I would be all in for the vice-president. Girl stop. ILU but enough Reply Thread Link i also loathe her Reply Parent Thread Link As long as her fans keep throwing money at her she's not gonna stop. Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly. It's called supply and demand. Ppl hate on Taylor for it, but, hey, her fans keep on buying. If every other fanbase would buy like hers, just about every other artist would do it. Reply Parent Thread Link here we go again Reply Thread Link This is just embarrassing. Reply Thread Link She should just discount the album to 99 cents and stay #1 forevvvverrrr!!! Reply Thread Link oop Reply Parent Thread Link haha I completely forgot about that Reply Parent Thread Link STOOOOOOOP. IT'S ANNOYING. IT'S NOT A GOOD ALBUM. Reply Thread Link who is she trying to block on the charts THIS time? Reply Thread Link Eminem Reply Parent Thread Link Hope she succeeds tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link Zach Bryan lol. It was close at the beginning of the week and then she restocked her signed CDs and added these for extra buffer. Her fans are about to be like see, its not just women!! Reply Parent Thread Link Katy's new song/video came out today but tbh Taylor wasted the effort....Katy fucked her own self over with that one lol Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Zach Bryan was projected to be number one without any physicals, which is crazy. So yeah shes blocking him but next week I think Eminem will be number one Reply Parent Thread Link Julia Fox Reply Parent Thread Link Katy Perry Reply Parent Thread Link My peace of mind. Reply Parent Thread Link jojo siwa Reply Parent Thread Link Is this a joke......... Reply Thread Link it's live from Stockholm, but have her fans realized they're victim to the syndrome as well? Reply Thread Link Genius Reply Parent Thread Link You have everything and you still want more Reply Thread Link she's sick Reply Thread Link OP did say she dropped 3 new variants, so Reply Parent Thread Link We're doing digital variants now? Ffs Taylor what's your damage Reply Thread Link Just release them individually to stream and stop milking your fans. Omg. Available until tonight ITS DIGITAL!! Shes like an oily car salesman. There needs to be an asterisk with this album when it talks about its accomplishments. Edited at 2024-07-12 03:05 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link Are these julys first variants? Reply Thread Link IWho is blocking now? Katy? Or does she just want to get to 13th weeks? Edited at 2024-07-12 03:09 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link wait what? digital variants? aside from explicit and censored versions of albums online i didnt even realize digital variants like this was a thing. so what usually should be 3 live bonus songs in whatever deluxe version that would be considered only one variant album, shes gonna individually release those 3 live songs tacked on to the standard album so each variant is considered a diff full album purchase? basically found a loophole that theyll need to tweak the rules again for after? Reply Thread Link lol shes been doing this thing multiple times already with the digital album. She did it during Billies release week too. Shes on like variant 38-40 and most are the standard cd or digital album plus one bonus song or voice note. The fact that they havent already closed the loophole is embarrassing for billboard Reply Parent Thread Link dang. i mean the physical variants annoy me and seem wasteful, but i at least understand it more as a collector thing. but dear god the fact people will actually buy each of these digitally... the wasted money sheesh Reply Parent Thread Link at least people like him and us can sleep at night we know we are on the right side of history Reply Thread Link i heard today there was some kind of new deal that hamas and israel were both tentatively looking at? any word on how true or not that is? Reply Thread Link it doesn't matter as long as Netanwahoo is still in charge. he will NEVER be for a complete Ceasefire, which is what Hamas definitely will not budge on. Reply Parent Thread Link thats what i was thinking. i dont think he actually wants peace of any kind, so hearing that they were both coming to the table had me like ?? Reply Parent Thread Link they've met many many times, Hamas has been ready with the same ceasefire agreement for months, to which the US now pretends is their and Israhell's plan that Hamas keep rejecting, when actually it's cuz Bibi (netanwackoooo) refuses to NOT keep slaughtering Palestinans and taking their land. The IOF has shot and killed 100s times more hostages than the handful they've saved and then silence bc they all universally say they were treated HUMANELY by Hamas. every "negotiation meeting" is merely a stall tactic where they blame Hamas again for not agreeing to let them continue killing Palestinians, so the US can APPEAR like they give a crap while funneling more weapons while lying through their teeth about being "concerned" about the genocide they are gleefully enacting. Reply Parent Thread Link But can he withstand Hezbollah as well? Because that is what has even many of his allies within Israel breaking ranks with him. Reply Parent Thread Link Biden will jump in to protect him from Hezbollah and he knows it. Reply Parent Thread Link I actually don't think any of us know how far the US would go to help Israel against Hezbollah. Supply weapons? Sure. Go to war with Iran? Um, no. Sure as fuck not right before an election. Reply Parent Thread Link Pretty sure the Biden administration has proved at this point that it will do anything "Israel" asks them to do. Reply Parent Thread Link Again, no. You are speaking with hyperbole born of emotion, not actual fact. The US has supplied Israel with weapons against Hamas. But they have not sent in US soldiers to attack Palestine. And they would definitely not do so to help Israel against Iran. Which is capable of producing nuclear weapons. The US has NO intention of starting a nuclear war, which is exactly what sending troops into Iran would do. The same reason the US has supplied weapons and aid to Ukraine, but has not actually entered into the fight with Russia. Reply Parent Thread Link Hasn't it widely been reported by Palestinian journalists there were American soldiers on the pier they made pretending it was to "help" with aid and the US aided the massacre to save the 4 hostages that killed 300 Palestinians. The US hasn't confirmed there are troops but there's been a lot of on the ground reporting that there is. Reply Parent Thread Link The US soldiers were there to build the pier. It is entirely possible that they crossed the line of their "official" duties and helped Israeli soldiers to kill Palestinians. But that will not be something easily proven in international court. Israel would need a lot more than a handful of US soldiers helping out on the downlow in order to make a difference in Iran. They would need actual, official regiments of US troops deployed. The US putting troops on the ground in Iran would be an act of war. And Iran, unlike Palestine, has the capability to respond with nuclear force. Again, the US is NOT starting a nuclear war in order to back Israel. Reply Parent Thread Link It's not easy to be proven in court especially as the US and UK keep trying to block justice in the court. Assuming they wouldn't do it is incredibly naive, Biden has shown Middle Eastern lives don't matter to him and with Afghanistan the US has shown they're happy to throw their soldiers out to protect their interests (aka "Israel" in this case). They'd say the 'need to defeat the threat of Hezbollah' and what are they risking? Nothing. Nuclear war isn't gonna affect them and they know it. Reply Parent Thread Link Nuclear war isn't gonna affect them and they know it. What?? Nuclear war absolutely affects the US. As does the HUGE threat of a world war, with Russia being allies with Iran, and China having similar ties. Again, there is a reason the US has not attacked Russia on behalf of Ukraine, and it is not because they fear Russia's military. Not escalating things to nuclear attacks and world wars is a pretty clear line in the sand. You are conflating Palestine and Iran, and the flat reality is, US foreign policy does not view them the same. At all. Reply Parent Thread Link The US literally flew in to block the missiles sent by Iran when "Israel" attacked their embassy? The US is bombing Yemen to defend "Israel". Like...no. Reply Parent Thread Link Absolutely not, that's definitely a ray of hope there!!! Especially with so many of their soldiers committing suicide now and getting TROUNCED by the Resistance (who have drone footage of so many crucial bases now!!!!!! theyre scared shitless cuz they got all the footage quietly while their idiot "soldiers" were sleeping) and are now conscripting which scares the fuck out of them because the "Israeli soldiers" are all only used to killing civilians, not a REAL militia. The hostages' families (those who actually love their family more than they hate Palestinians) are furious and know Bibi doesn't care about getting their family members back. Their own cops are being violent to such protestors who point this out. No one has confidence in Biden anymore, especially after he CALLED ZELENSKYY "PRESIDENT PUTIN" and KAMALA "TRUMP". It's a powder keg and the Resistance is carefully navigating until the match is struck. I hope my former comment didn't evoke more of a learned helplessness like it's completely hopeless btw, just more of knowing what kind of foul stubborn PSYCHO that Bibi is. We have to keep up the protests and calling out propaganda and voting for pro-ceasefire reps in gov't and be careful who we give our money to with regards to the BDS Movement, since Empire cares about $$$$$$$ more than lives. Reply Parent Thread Link Bibi flat out said there will be no ceasefire. Only when Hamas is gone. Oh and then it will be Hezbollah. They will never stop. I write this as the daughter of a rabbi. Reply Parent Thread Link Biden is pretending that's what's happening, but most reports are that Ne10yahoo keeps sabotaging already agreed upon things with mediators. Reply Parent Thread Link If you cant say Free Palestine or speak out on any injustices against humanity across the world or at home without fear of losing a job, an opportunity, a connection, a title, or a platform, then youre not free either and thats the point. Ivie Ani (@ivieani) July 9, 2024 Reply Thread Link Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ Reply Thread Link Israels chokehold on the world is something that needs to be studied. Just openly committing a genocide with the blessings and support of the most powerful governments in the west. Edited at 2024-07-12 10:37 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link Anwar El Ghazi hosts a charity game to raise money for the children of Gaza. The friendly was the first time a UK-based charity game involving current and former players has been organised to raise money for Gaza. MORE: https://t.co/nVW2fP9HWP pic.twitter.com/bZAeDgFH7S VERSUS (@vsrsus) June 3, 2024 Grateful, blessed and honoured to have been a part of this amazing event. Big thank you from the bottom of my heart to @Nujumsports and all the players who played a massive part in making this happen. We will continue supporting the Children of Gaza today, tomorrow and forever pic.twitter.com/MoSDShvrCj Anwar El Ghazi (@elghazi1995) June 4, 2024 Displaced children in Gaza send thank-you message to Anwar El Ghazi, Sam Morsy, Adama Traore and all players who joined yesterdays Children of Gaza charity game. From Gaza, we love you@elghazi1995 @sammorsy08 @AdamaTrd37 @AbubakerAbedW @a_abdulruhman pic.twitter.com/WdlTQLncqz Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) June 2, 2024 This was always a bullshit decision by Mainz. I'm glad he won and that he not only refused to stop talking about it, but used his position as a footballer to organize a charity match with proceeds going to Islamic Relief's Palestine Emergency Appeal. Good for him, fuck Mainz and free Palestine. Reply Thread Link Harris County Sheriffs and Houston Police close off the neighborhood around Italian Cypress Trail, where a Harris County Sheriff Deputy was shot a killed on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Harris County deputies on Thursday arrested a 44-year-old man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old deputy late Wednesday, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. Law enforcement arrested Ronnie Palmer at a residence at the 12300 block of Ghita Ln., about 15 miles northeast of downtown Houston. Palmer was also wanted on an aggravated assault charge for an incident earlier Wednesday in the 15000 block of Wallisville Road, Gonzalez said. Gonzalez said Palmer is the lead suspect in the death of Fernando Esqueda, a five-year veteran with the sheriff's office. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "None of us are ever prepared for such an untimely death and our members need your prayers and support. Our thoughts are with his family as they come to terms with this horrible news," Gonzalez said across two posts on X. THURSDAY LIVE UPDATES: Over 1M customers still without power in Houston as storm chances could slow recovery Esqueda had been a member of the Violent Persons Task Force. Authorities were called at 10:10 p.m. Wednesday about an alleged aggravated assault at Little Caesars at 15634 Wallisville Road. A customer reportedly became upset because his order was wrong and attacked the pizzeria's clerk, according to the department. The customer first verbally assaulted the worker before pistol-whipping the person and fleeing, Chief Deputy Mike Lee said. The Little Caesars worker identified the car the attacker drove away in, authorities said, and officers used a Flock camera system to identify an area where the car's plates tended to turn up. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez talks to the media to update a fatal police shooting that followed an physical altercation at Little Ceasers Pizza on Wallisville Road on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Harris County Deputy Fernando Esqueda, 28, was shot and killed shot overnight in northeast Harris County, officials said. Deputy Esqueda was a five-year Harris County Sheriffs Office veteran Harris County Sheriff's Office Local media gathers in front of a Little Ceasers Pizza where an employee was pistol whipped over a wrong oder, leading to a police search for the suspect, who is now accused of ambushing a Harris County Sheriffs Deputy Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer A police tactical robot makes its way through a neighborhood where a Harris County Sheriffs Deputy was shot a killed on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Harris County Sheriffs and Houston Police close off the neighborhood around Italian Cypress Trail, where a Harris County Sheriff Deputy was shot a killed on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Harris County Sheriffs and Houston Police close off the neighborhood around Italian Cypress Trail, where a Harris County Sheriff Deputy was shot a killed on Thursday, July 11, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Authorities said when they arrived at the pizzeria they didn't find the car, but Esqueda circled back and found the car had returned to the location. "We know he had a phone conversation with one of the other detectives, let him know that he did have the suspect vehicle in sight, didn't have the suspect in sight, and then during that phone conversation, our deputy, apparently, was ambushed," Lee said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Other officers returned to the location and found Esqueda in his car with multiple gunshot wounds. Lee said they brought him to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, where he died. For the first time in five years, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Russia for a state visit on Monday, where he is holding talks with President Vladimir Putin to help re-energize relations between the two countries, with an eye on strategic deals. One item on the top of the agenda is Modis desire to finalize a long-term uranium supply deal with Russia, in a bid to secure a stable and reliable source of uranium for India's expanding nuclear power sector. It would be a big score for both India and Russia, and Washington is paying attention closely because India is the key element of the U.S. plan to contain China, first and foremost, and Russia, secondarily. Modi can influence them both. India already gets a pass on Russia oil and gas sanctions, and Washington will have little choice other than accept the same for Russian uranium. The two allies are likely to agree on a long-term uranium supply pact for a nuclear power plant coming online in Tamil Nadu, said senior officials with knowledge on the matter. Cooperation in the civilian nuclear sphere doesnt fall under the sanction regime by the U.S. and its western allies for Russias war on Ukraine. Russias state nuclear company Rosatom previously supplied nuclear fuel to Indias Kudankulam nuclear plant in 2022 and 2023. Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant units 1 and 2 have already become operational, and the work is progressing on units 3 and 6, Indias Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Friday, adding that Moscow remains an important partner for Indias energy security and defense. Currently, India gets the bulk of its uranium from mines in the northern state of Jharkhand. Unfortunately, the states uranium reserves are fast depleting while efforts to exploit deposits in other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya have failed to meet expectations thus forcing the country to increasingly rely on imports. India currently relies on spot deals for the procurement of the fuel with nations including Kazakhstan, France, Russia, Canada and Uzbekistan. India To Drive Future Global Oil Demand The global nuclear sector is enjoying a new dawn, with the U.S., Europe, and now India increasingly embracing nuclear as a low-carbon energy source. However, Indias economy is likely to continue relying on fossil fuels as its primary energy source for decades to come. For decades, China has done the majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to global oil demand growth thanks to an economy that maintained a blistering growth clip for a long stretch. Chinas economy grew at an average 10% annual clip ever since Beijing embarked on economic reforms in 1978, taking GDP from $1.2 trillion in 2000 to nearly $18.5 trillion in 2024. But the law of large numbers has already kicked in, with economic pundits now predicting that Chinas economic growth rate will slow down to between 2 and 5 percent in the coming years thanks to a declining population and slowing productivity. More importantly, analysts have projected that India will soon replace China as the main driver of global oil demand growth. Over the past decade, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 79% of global oil demand growth with China alone accounting for 58%. Chinas role as a global oil demand growth engine is fading fast, Emma Richards, senior analyst at London-based Fitch Solutions Ltd, has told The Times of India. According to the analyst, over the next decade, Chinas share of emerging market oil demand growth will decline from nearly 50% to just 15% while Indias share will double to 24%. Indias rapidly growing population--which has likely surpassed Chinas--is expected to be the main driver of consumption trends in India. Indeed, India's oil consumption increased by 3.7 million tonnes (4.8 per cent) in the first four months of 2024 compared to the corresponding period in 2023, with consumers, rather than industry, driving the growth. Meanwhile, the countrys transition from traditional gasoline and diesel-fueled transport is expected to lag other regions, in sharp contrast to Chinas skyrocketing adoption of electric vehicles and clean energy in general. India was always going to exceed China in a matter of time in terms of being the global demand growth driver, mainly due to demographic factors like population growth, Parsley Ong, the head of Asia energy and chemicals research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong, has told Bloomberg. India has also doubled down on coal. Last year, Indias coal minister declared that the country will not ditch coal from its energy mix any time soon. Addressing a parliamentary committee, minister Pralhad Joshi said that coal will continue to play an important role in India until at least 2040, referring to the fuel as an affordable source of energy for which demand has yet to peak in India. "Thus, no transition away from coal is happening in the foreseeable future in India," Joshi said, adding the fuel will continue to play a big role until 2040 and beyond. The stunning declaration came across as defiance to calls to countries to phase out the carbon-heavy fossil fuel. Last year at the COP27 talks, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for urgent action to cut emissions, including phasing out coal by 2040 globally. By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com German RWE, the largest power generating utility in the UK, has urged the new Labour government to speed up the expansion of offshore wind capacity if it is to meet its own net-zero targets. We would urge them to increase [the budget] significantly and ensure theyre getting all the advice of all the relevant experts to work out how to do that, Tom Glover, UK head of RWE, told the Financial Times. This is the second call on the new government in less than a week to do more about wind power capacity growth, after climate NGO Ember urged the Labour cabinet to start offering higher prices for the electricity generated from wind installations in order to motivate growth. The UK incentivizes new wind and solar capacity by guaranteeing minimum long-term prices for the energy produced from such installations via contracts for difference. Yet the prices that the government has been ready to offer recently have fallen short of developers funding needs, reducing interest in new projects. RWE and Ember appear to be in agreement on what needs to be done in order for the planned wind power capacity to get built: increase the subsidies. These subsidies are believed to be instrumental for motivating comparable private investment, which in RWEs case is a planned budget of 8 billion euro until 2030, equal to about $8.7 billion. However, governments do not have unlimited funds at their disposal, which makes responding to such calls tricky. Germany recently decided to change its subsidy mechanism for wind and solar, going from a guaranteed minimum prices over an extended period of time (the same as the UKs CfDs) to a lump sum granted to wind and solar developers in advance. The move is evidence that the subsidy support cannot be a long-term approach to securing the profitability of wind and solar installations, which would in turn draw more private investors in. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Russian shipments of oil products dropped by 4.2% in June compared to May, on the back of stronger domestic fuel consumption and unplanned maintenance at refineries, according to Reuters estimates and data from industry sources. While oil product shipments from the Baltic ports increased last month by 11.7% from May levels, seaborne exports from the Black Sea and Azov Sea ports slumped by 23.8% month-on-month in June, according to the data crunched by Reuters. Russias Artic ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk saw oil product shipments jump by 28.7%, while exports from the ports in Russias Far East went down by 3.9%. The primary refining capacity which was offline in June rose by 7.9% compared to May, per Reuters calculations. Ukraine continues to target refineries in Russia and some of these attacks have affected further product supply from Russian refineries. Combined with higher domestic fuel demand in the summer, Russias oil product shipments are estimated to have dropped in June compared to May. For example, last month a fire was ignited by a drone attack on an oil depot in the southern Russian region of Rostov. According to a Reuters report, the drone attack had been carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine. Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and other energy infrastructure have become a fixture this year, with drones the weapon of choice for conducting the strikes. In May, Russia raised its fuel exports by sea compared to April as Moscow lifted a gasoline export ban and some refineries returned from maintenance, according to Reuters estimates and data from industry sources. Russias fuel exports in May jumped by 10.4% compared to April, as the authorities lifted on May 20 a temporary ban on gasoline exports and as more refineries completed planned seasonal maintenance or emergency repairs after Ukrainian drone hits. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Oil refiners in California saw lower-than-average margins in the past few months in an unusual twist where lower operating capacity did not automatically lead to higher margins. According to new data from the Energy Information Administration, the shrinkage in refining capacity did not lead to fatter profits because refiners increased the existing capacity's utilization rate. California has the most expensive gasoline of all the states, mostly due to regulations that have seen the tax load on gasoline swell continually, with the highest excise duty in the United States. The latest tax hike occurred just this month, seeing the total excise duty on gasoline reach $0.596 per gallon. However, California consumer groups and the Governor's Office have blamed high gas prices on refiners, threatening to penalize them for alleged price gouging. In March this year, for instance, more than 20 consumer groups decried the average refining margin of $1 per gallon for refiners in the state, calling on state regulators to investigate potential price-gouging. Related: The Value of Norways Oil Fund Soars to New High of $1.7 Trillion "California's oil refiners reported to the Energy Commission that their average gross refining margin from selling gasoline in the California gallon in 2023 was $1.01 per gallon," the groups wrote in a letter to the state's Energy Commission and Governor Gavin Newsom. "A buck per gallon is too much for oil refiners to take for profit and overhead when working people have to choose between paying for food and filling up," they noted. The California legislature responded to these allegations by adopting a new law allowing the authorities to cap refiners' profits whenever they deem fit. "These new transparency laws will help us track refiners' profits and shine a light on price manipulation so Californians aren't vulnerable to the greedy whims of Big Oil," Governor Newsom said last year as the legislation was being discussed. Chevron, the only Big Oil major based in California and a top target for anti-oil legislation in the state, warned a couple of months ago that the new legislation would create difficulties for industry players and ultimately hurt consumers. The company noted that the profit cap legislation would discourage refining investment, which has already declined consistently over the last decade, and compromise fuel supply security for drivers in California. Yet, the EIA data about refining margins in California suggests local refiners are doing what they can to secure that supply, even as prices keep climbing. But as refiners produce fuels, consumption is on the decline, too, what with California being the EV capital of the States. The Governor's Office earlier this year boasted that over the past 10 years, EV sales in California had gone up by 1022%, with one in four new cars sold in the state to date being an EV. This, however, still, leaves three internal combustion engine cars for every electric vehicle sold, meaning that demand for fuels is still quite robust, even if it is declining. The decline, moreover, could be a temporary thingin 2022 and 2023, the crack spreads for West Coast refiners were above the five-year average, the EIA noted in its report. It would be good news if those California refiners' crack spreads rebound, too. That's because California has seen its fuel imports from other states rise by 40% over the past 24 years. In other words, if California refiners don't make enough fuels cheaply, others elsewhere will. Californian authorities can strangle the local downstream industry, but other states are taking care of their refiners, who would ultimately benefit from California's continued dependence on oil products, EV capital or no EV capital of the States. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com A tanker that Irans Navy seized in the Gulf of Oman last year is currently moving into international waters, Reuters has reported, citing data from its affiliate data-cruncher LSEG. As for its cargo, Iran unloaded that earlier this year and said the oil would be sold and the proceeds used to import medicines for a rare but severe skin disease. The decision came after a lawsuit filed by patients with the disease against the U.S. government at an Iranian court. The suit blamed U.S. sanctions from preventing the patients from getting treatment for their condition. The courts final ruling in the case came yesterday, ordering the U.S. government to pay $6.8 billion in compensation to the patients with epidermolysis bullosa. The value of the oil on the Advantage Sweet was estimated at some $50 million. Irans Navy seized the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Advantage Sweet in May 2023while it transited international waters in the Gulf of Oman. The oil tanker had departed the Mina Saud Port in Kuwait and was destined for Houston, Texas, after being commissioned by U.S. oil giant Chevron. The crude oil tanker is Turkish-owned and operated. The U.S. Navy at the time demanded that the vessel be released, asserting that the tanker had been seized in international waters, halfway between Iran and the Omani coast. In response, the Iranian Navy said it was taking the Suezmax crude oil tanker back to Iran for investigation. Then, earlier this year, Iranian media reported that the Iranian government was going to unload the crude from the tanker in a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. unloading the cargo of an Iran-affiliated tanker it seized back in 2023 and in response to which Iran seized the Advantage Sweet. Reuters noted in its report the U.S. State Department had welcomed reports that Advantage Sweet was on the move. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com On Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met with Hamas, indicating it, too, would accept any Hamas decision on Gaza truce talks and would halt attacks on Israel if there was an Israel-Hamas peace deal. An all-out war with Israel would very likely erode Hezbollahs political power in Lebanon. However, should this turn into an all-out war, Iran-backed groups across the board have said they would join forces to fight Israel. While Hezbollah appears to be attempting to walk things back, its allies in Yemen (Houthis), Iraq (pro-Iranian militias) and Syria are chomping at the bit for more action, with little regard for Hezbollahs position in Lebanon. Only a month ago, though, Nasrallah threatened to strike Israeli energy facilities in retribution. For Egypt, the prospect of a war is devastating from an energy perspective, despite the fact that Israel in late June revealed plans to double the amount of gas it will export with a $500M investment in the expansion There is growing concern that any significant escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict would disrupt gas supplies, first and foremost to Egypt, which is monitoring this with a fair amount of dread. The situation continues to intensify. On Tuesday, Israel launched its deepest strike into Israeli territory yet, hitting Hezbollahs air defense systems in Janta, only about 50 miles outside of Beirut. Hezbollah then retaliated with a strike on an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights that killed two civilians. There is growing concern that any significant escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict would disrupt gas supplies, first and foremost to Egypt, which is monitoring this with a fair amount of dread. The situation continues to intensify. On Tuesday, Israel launched its deepest strike into Israeli territory yet, hitting Hezbollahs air defense systems in Janta, only about 50 miles outside of Beirut. Hezbollah then retaliated with a strike on an Israeli military base in the Golan Heights that killed two civilians. On Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met with Hamas, indicating it, too, would accept any Hamas decision on Gaza truce talks and would halt attacks on Israel if there was an Israel-Hamas peace deal. An all-out war with Israel would very likely erode Hezbollahs political power in Lebanon. However, should this turn into an all-out war, Iran-backed groups across the board have said they would join forces to fight Israel. While Hezbollah appears to be attempting to walk things back, its allies in Yemen (Houthis), Iraq (pro-Iranian militias) and Syria are chomping at the bit for more action, with little regard for Hezbollahs position in Lebanon. Only a month ago, though, Nasrallah threatened to strike Israeli energy facilities in retribution. For Egypt, the prospect of a war is devastating from an energy perspective, despite the fact that Israel in late June revealed plans to double the amount of gas it will export with a $500M investment in the expansion of the offshore Leviathan gas field. This will greatly benefit EgyptIsraels biggest customer, but its years away from being realized. But if there is an all-out war with Lebanon, some analysts believe that Israel would be first to shut-in part or all of its offshore production, as it was forced to shut down its smaller offshore Tamar production from Chevron at the start of the conflict with Hamas. (Tamar is operating again). Leviathan, Tamar and Karish, its newest field that overlaps a maritime border with Lebanon. U.S. and Israeli military officials say Hezbollah can reach them all. This is not the Hezbollah of 2006 (the previous Israel-Lebanon conflict). Today, Hezbollah is said to have an estimated 150,000 missiles thanks to Iranian supplies that have seen an uptick since the last conflict, as well as more advanced weaponry that has come from Syria and Russia. However, the bulk of Hezbollahs missiles are short-range (only a few dozen kilometers), but most estimates calculate that the group has enough longer-range missiles to do serious damage, even if not in a sustained manner. These weapons are intended as a sort of Iranian hedge against an Israeli attack on Iran. But if the conflict were to escalate into a war, Iran would lose its insurance policy and all bets would be off. As we have stated in the recent past, Hezbollah (by all indications) is attempting to avoid a war, though its orders are essentially aligned with Irans Quds Force. Israel, too, wants to avoid an all-out war, despite what some may think. While it continues to target high-level Hezbollah commanders (they track them by cell phone signals and cameras in border areas) with one arm, they keep extending olive branches with the other. The objective is clearly to find a diplomatic solution in the end. Like Nasrallah, Israel has also said it would cease airstrikes on Lebanon once there is a peace deal for Gaza. Both sides continue to make sure their responses do not tip this over the edge into a war. Thats why Hezbollah is not currently targeting Israeli energy installations. When it does, we know war is here. Chinas imports of natural gas, including via pipeline and LNG cargoes, increased by 14.3% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period of last year. China imported 64.65 million tons of natural gas in the first six months of 2024, LNG Prime reported on Friday, citing data from Chinas General Administration of Customs. The Chinese import bill for the first half fell by 0.8% to $31.7 billion, the data showed, as LNG prices were lower than year-ago levels early this year. Chinese imports of natural gas inched up by just 0.4% in June 2024 compared to the same month last year. China boosted its natural gas imports in the period January to April, as it looked to stockpile fuel for the power plants ahead of the summer amid international prices that were half last years levels in the first four months of 2024. Chinese imports of natural gas were estimated to have jumped by 21% between January and April compared to a year earlier. The Asian benchmark LNG prices averaged a little over $9 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in the first quarter of 2024, compared to an average LNG price for delivery into north Asia of $18 per MMBtu in the first quarter of last year, per Bloombergs estimates. However, spot LNG prices for delivery to North Asia increased in the late spring and early summer and have topped $12/MMBtu in recent weeks, which resulted in a decline in Chinese spot demand, analysts told Reuters last week. China could beat its 2021 all-time high of LNG imports this year, as industrial and commercial sectors are set to drive demand for the super-chilled fuel, an official at state-held energy giant PetroChina said in May. Chinese LNG imports hit a record high of 78.8 million metric tons in 2021. The following year saw the first decline in LNG imports as prices soared in the energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Last year, China imported around 71.2 million metric tons of LNG. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Nigeria's Dangote refinery is set to receive its first shipment of Brazilian crude oil as it continues towards full operational capacity. The purchase of Brazilian crude is a first for Nigeria. The refinery will import a one-million-barrel cargo of Brazil's Tupi crude, scheduled for delivery in the latter half of next month. The Dangote refinery has been pivotal in reducing Nigeria's reliance on imported fuel. Despite being Africa's largest oil producer, Nigeria has historically depended on foreign fuel imports to meet its domestic needs, with its refinery industry unable to quench demand. Nigeria hopes that importing crude and refining it locally will enhance Nigeria's energy security, reduce import dependency, and lower fuel prices for Nigerian consumers. The Dangote refinery's ability to source crude oil from diverse global suppliers will be key to its success and Nigeria's broader energy strategy. The Brazilian crude, sold by Petrobras, is among the most cost-effective and suitable oil grades available on the global market. Earlier this week, The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) reached an agreement with oil producers to supply crude oil to domestic refineries at market prices on Wednesday, ending a supply dispute that had strained relations with international oil companies, after chastising oil majors for hindering local crude oil purchases by demanding excessive premiums or claiming that they had no available crude. This move is part of Nigeria's broader efforts to secure a stable supply of crude for its refineries at market prices, ensuring that the country's energy infrastructure is resilient and capable of meeting its needs without over-relying on any single source. As Nigeria continues to build its refining capabilities, the Dangote refinery stands at the forefront of this transformative journey. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Norwegian oil and gas producer Aker BP reported on Friday a net profit of $561 million for the second quarter, slightly beating a company-provided analyst consensus estimate. Aker BP, one of the biggest independent oil companies in Europe, was expected to book $539 million in net profit for the second quarter, according to a consensus of estimates provided by sell-side analysts it has compiled. Core earnings, or EBITDA, at Aker BP rose to $3 billion, up from $2.8 billion for the first quarter of 2024, and just in line with the analyst consensus of $2.979 billion. The company reiterated today its recently updated production guidance which was revised up last week. In early July, Aker BP said that production is expected to be impacted by planned maintenance activities in the second half of the year. But due to higher output in the first half, the company raised the lower end of its guidance range. Full-year production is now expected to be 420,000-440,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boepd), revised from the previous guidance of 410,000-440,000 boepd. Aker BP also said that its greenhouse gas emission intensity was 2.9 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per boe, in Scope 1 and 2 emissions. This positions Aker BP among the companies with the lowest emission intensity in the global oil and gas industry, the company said. We are pleased to report that all our field development projects remain on track, poised to drive profitable growth for Aker BP into the next decade, chief executive Karl Johnny Hersvik said, commenting on the Q2 results. Through strong operational performance and strategic investments in new capacity, we are establishing a robust foundation for long-term value creation and consistently delivering attractive dividends to our shareholders. Offshore Norway, the company operates six field centers Alvheim, Ivar Aasen, Skarv, Edvard Grieg, Ula, and Valhall, and is a partner in the giant oilfield Johan Sverdrup, which is operated by Equinor. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Via Metal Miner Zimbabwes got itself a brand new iron and steel manufacturing plant, courtesy of the Chinese. This U.S. $1.5 billion Chinese-built plants blast furnace recently came online and is already producing pig iron, a crucial ingredient for making steel. The team over at Dinson Iron and Steel Company (Disco), the Zimbabwean subsidiary of Chinese steel giant Tsingshan Holding Group, announced the production of their very first batch of pig iron on June 13. The Mvuma steel plant, situated about 120 miles south of Zimbabwes capital of Harare, is slated to be Africas largest integrated steelworks. According to a report in the South China Morning Post, it will also be one of Africas leading iron and steel producers. MetalMiners Annual Metals Outlook provides 12 full months of industrial metal price forecasting. Our June update just released, get a sample report. The Plant Projects a Steel Manufacturing Capacity of 5 Million Tons The Chinese firm plans to take things up a notch next month. Thats when the new steel manufacturing plant will start producing billets, the precursor to making steel. There are also plans to begin creating steel products like pipes, bolts, nuts, and even smaller slags, rolled tubes, fences, shafts, wires, and bars. As part of the first production phase, the new plant recently set a target to make 600,000 tons of steel annually. Later, after the final phase, that production target grows to more than 5 million tons. The plant will also create jobs for the people of Zimbabwe. In the first phase alone, the new steel manufacturing facility hopes to employ around 2,000 people. This figure would double in the second phase. Zimbabwes Path to Economic Renewal through Local Resources According to some experts, the steel plant could be a game-changer for Zimbabwe. The country has wanted to revive its iron and steel industry for a while now, especially after its largest steel plant shut down during the reign of ex-president Robert Mugabe. In the coming years, the plant hopes to make use of Zimbabwes ample deposits of iron ore, chrome, coal, and more to produce iron and steel products that will strengthen the countrys value chain. Government officials recently stated that companies will mine and process these raw materials locally, with reserves projected to last for a whopping 100 years. As a nation, Zimbabwe remains blessed with a wealth of natural resources like precious metals, nickel, ferroalloys and coking coal. According to analysts from inside and outside the country, these resources have the potential to help alleviate the countrys economic crisis. Zimbabwe Set a High Bar The Engineering, Iron, and Steel Association of Zimbabwe (EISAZ) has set its sights on raking in a staggering $6 billion from exports each year. Clearly, theyre counting on this $1.5 billion steel plant in Manhize to help them achieve this ambitious goal. As part of their sector strategy, EISAZ plans to boost operational capacity, improve production efficiency, and create more job opportunities in preparation for the opening of the new plant. Back in 2008, when Ziscosteel shut down, Zimbabwe found itself forking over more than $1 billion a year on steel imports. Zisco shut down temporarily due to corruption allegations and mismanagement, though there are plans to revive the facility. However, with the new steel manufacturing facility, the country hopes to reduce its import dependence significantly, thus keeping more of that money within its borders. U.S. Sanctions vs. Chinese Investments in Zimbabwes Lithium Sector For over two decades, the U.S. and some European countries imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe. In March this year, the U.S., while terminating a Zimbabwe sanctions program, reimposed curbs on eleven individuals and three entities. This included the countrys president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, accused of human rights abuses, among other things. Chinese entities have capitalized on the situation by funding various projects in Zimbabwe, including dams, airports and a new parliament building. Zimbabwe is also rich in lithium, a critical raw material for electric vehicle batteries. As a result, Chinese companies such as Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and Sinomine Resource Group invested millions of dollars in acquiring lithium mines and over U.S.$1 billion in constructing processing plants. U.S. Keen On Africa Metals The U.S. is keen on accessing Africas resources. During a recent visit to South Africa, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo made it clear that the U.S. hopes to secure metals essential for the global energy transition. Adeyemo also emphasized the importance of supporting the growth of South Africas mining industry and expressed concerns about infrastructure development primarily benefiting foreign interests. The U.S. has strategically invested in African mining operations to challenge Chinas dominance in the supply of critical minerals, especially in the production of lithium-ion batteries. These investments also include rare-earth operations and infrastructure development. With its substantial reserves of minerals crucial for battery production, South Africa holds a vital position in the global supply chain. By Sohrab Darabshaw More Top Reads From Oilprice.com The Nigerian Citizens Association South Africa (NICASA) has condemned the Wednesday killing of two Nigerians in South Africa by yet-to-be identified assailants. NICASA President, Benjamin Okoli, gave the condemnation in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja. According to him, two Nigerians were shot dead while two others sustained injuries from gunshots by unidentified assailants in the country on Wednesday. NAN reports that the Wednesday killings brought to five, the number of Nigerians killed this month in South Africa. Three Nigerians were reportedly killed between April 6 and April 9 at different locations in the country. Okoli said the association had sought the intervention of the Nigerian Mission in South Africa to strategise and bring to an end, the unwarranted bloodletting among Nigerians in the country According to him, three Nigerians were shot at Sands Hotel Area of Berea, Johannesburg and two died instantly while one is in a critical situation in hospital. Read Also: Group wants speakership position zoned to North Central He said that another Nigerian was shot in Pretoria but he survived with an injury on the leg. Information reaching us indicated that there was a meeting of some groups of Nigerians in a restaurant at Sands Hotel Area of Berea on Wednesday at about 11:00am Shortly after the meeting as the people started coming out from the restaurant, a gun fire erupted and two Nigerians were shot dead, he stated. According to him, one of those killed hailed from Ozubulu in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra while the other was a native of Arondizuogu in Imo. The third victim is in a critical state and is currently receiving treatment at a hospital. We cannot confirm the name of the third victim but he is a Nigerian. Also in Sunnyside Pretoria on Wednesday, another Nigerian was shot on the leg in crime hot spot in the area, he said. The president of the association lamented that such killings had become common among Nigerians in South Africa, saying other Nigerians in the country were worried about it. He added: We appeal to the mission and consulate to strategise with the aim of bringing to an end, the unwarranted bloodletting among Nigerians. It is bringing shame and opprobrium. The remote and immediate causes cannot be established at this time. According to him, the killings in Johannesburg may not be unconnected with the Ozubulu crisis while that of Sunnyside Pretoria was cult related. The Consul-General of Nigeria in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mr Godwin Adama, had earlier said that the killings were more cult related and not xenophobic. It is clear that as much as any form of criminality and xenophobic attacks against foreigners, including Nigerians in South Africa is condemnable, the killings do not fit into xenophobic attacks. The three other killings earlier recorded in April were cases of stabbing of Mr Bonny Iwuola, in Turfontain in Johanesburg on April 6, and that of Gozien Christian from Agbor in Delta State, stabbed to death by three unknown assailants. The third case of murder which happened on the night of April 8 at Sunnyside in Pretoria, happened at the usual place of cult-related murders by Nigerian cult groups, he said. NAN One of the suspected robbers Operatives of the Lagos Rapid Response Squad (RRS) have arrested two suspected hard drugs peddlers in the Alausa community of Ikeja, Lagos. The suspects, Olukoya Ayodele (26) and Victor Godwin (30), were arrested following an intelligence gathering by officers of the Decoy team of the RRS, who were mandated to uncover illicit drugs being distributed in the area. The suspects in their confessional statement told the police that they buy and hawk different types of had drugs such as, Indian Hemp, Skunk, Tramadol, Refnol, Diazal and other assorted hard drugs to factory workers in the area. Ayodele, an acclaimed graduate of Information Management and a notorious member of the Black Axe Confraternity (Aye) was arrested with all sorts of charms which he claimed he used in protecting himself from the harm of other rival cult members back then in his days as a student. The suspect narrated that I armed myself with all these assorted charms to protect me from getting killed by other rival cult groups. I got the account of charm making from my father who is an herbalist. It makes it easy for me to prepare various charms for myself and friends. I came to Lagos after I graduated in 2015 in search for greener pastures to come and work as a factory worker but the work was too stressful for me. I later began to work as a motor boy in same area and added drug peddling to it to augment the low income from the motor boy hustle. I make over N3.6m annually from the sale of hard drugs and have been in the business for three years now. The charms also helped me to transact my business and prevented me from getting caught by security operatives as the charm shielded me from various arrests that had been carried out in the area even when I was a bad boy In his own account, Victor, a boutique owner in the area, was caught with hard drugs which he claimed he used in supplementing his income from the boutique business. Victor claimed he has been in the business for some time now and that he has been using the proceeds from the illicit business to pay his rents and that he was planning to get married soon, which he believed his boutique income could not take care of. I sell hard drugs to factory workers in the area. They use it to work because their work is energy consuming and requires agility. I sell one capsule of tramadol for N300 while Indian hemp and skunk goes for N100 respectively. Drug business is a lucrative one because it helps make sharp sharp money, but I regret my involvement in the illegal business, Victor said When briefed on the outcome of the raid, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Muazu Subaru, advised youths to be creative and energetic, and not to get themselves involved in illegal venture. He also urge them to stay away from the sale and use of hard drugs The suspects have been transferred to the narcotic section of the Command for further investigations. The couple A man has lost his life after his jealous girlfriend stabbed him with a barbecue skewer. Svetlana Boyarinova, 27, attacked her partner during a fight while the couple were enjoying a picnic with friends at a lake in Russia. According to reports, the woman plunged the 2ft long skewer into Evgeny Solyaniks chest after she accused the man of cheating on her. He always denied her frequent infidelity accusations but telling his friends: Its as if she uses black magic to keep us together. Boyarinova pulled out the skewer and she and a friend took the man to hospital where he was given first aid. Doctors even discharged him and the group went back to continue their barbecue picnic at Lake Kasargi in July last year. But next morning Evgeny was ailing badly and she rushed him to the hospital where his heart and lung were found to be damaged. He died hours later during emergency surgery. Boyarinova was detained the same day accused of manslaughter after confessing to stabbing him with the skewer. Now she has been convicted and sentenced to six and a half years in jail by a court in Chelyabinsk region. Scores of adhoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at Ojo and Iba Collation Centres in Lagos on Saturday staged a protest over unpaid allowances. The collation centres are at St. Michael Nursery and Primary School, Costain Road, Ojo, and Local Authority Primary School, Iba, both in Lagos State. As at 9.30 a.m, the adhoc staff were seen chanting. No Pay, No Work at the collation centres, refusing to go and resume duty at the polling units in the area. One of the ad-hoc staff who pleaded anonymity told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that they will not resume duty until they get their allowances. We will not go to work if we do not receive our money here and now. They promised to pay us for the Presidential Election held on Feb. 13 immediately after the elections, but some of us got paid only yesterday March 8. The N10,000 allowance for the governorship election was supposed to be paid yesterday, but till now nothing. So, we will not go anywhere until we get our money, he said. An Electoral Observer at the collation centre, Mr Davis Faleye, decried the poor organisation by the Commission. I was here at 7.30 a.m and I met this situation. INEC should have paid them their money so they can render their services to the government and for the election because I feel that their rights should not be undermined. If they are yet to leave the collation centre as at 9.30 a.m, I wonder when voting will start. I have called the commission and reported the situation, but nothing has been done, Faleye said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in some of the polling units in the area, voters were on queues waiting for the INEC officials to cast their votes. Boko Haram insurgents reportedly attacked the Kalagari community, a border village in northern Cameroon near Nigeria and did the unthinkable to the womens ears in the village. Reports have it that members of the deadly sect sliced off the ears of women, who apparently had been helping by passing information to the Cameroonian and Multinational Joint Task Force, set up to degrade the insurgency. The women were part of a vigilante group set up by the community, but when the Boko Haram militia came, they outnumbered the local forces and dealt with their women, Cameroon-info reports. Cameroon.-info.net that reported the latest brutality by the insurgents said they have stepped up their attacks in Cameroon in recent times. On June 9, 16 Cameroon soldiers were killed in an attack in the own of Darak, Logone and Chari district. The attack was carried out by an estimated 300 Boko Haram fighters. Eight civilians were also wounded in the attack. President Paul Biya has come under criticism, for keeping mute over the attacks on Kalagari and Darak. Biya however sent a condolence message to his Nigerian counterpart, President Muhammadu Buhari over the attack last weekend in Nganzai district of Borno, in which at least 70 people reportedly died, including over 23 mourners. The Boko Haram group had been known for all manners of bestial deeds, such as beheading victims, cutting their hands while pretending to enforce Sharia and burning homes of people. Lagos state government, in agreement with religious leaders, in a bid to control the spread of coronavirus has banned all religious congregational service of over 50 worshipers. The decision was reached after a meeting between the state government and religious bodies which comprised of members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Muslim leaders. Reading a statement after the meeting which held at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa, the state Commissioner for Home Affairs, Prince Anofiu Elegushi said the groups agreed that all large religious gathering of over 50 people should be suspended immediately. He said the suspension would last for four weeks, with a necessary review carried out if need be. He also announced that a 15-member committee comprises representatives of Muslims and Christians in the State has been set up to ensure the enforcement of the ban. Explaining why the figure was pegged at 50, the Commissioner said it would be easier to trace 50 people . We hereby agree we should suspend all religious congregation that is over 50 within the state for four weeks. While the constitution allows for freedom of association and worship, we are of the opinion that we should exercise our rights with extreme caution so as to avoid contacting and spreading of this disease. We hereby appeal to you to please pay close attention to people coming into our places of worship, anyone found showing symptoms of this disease should immediate be isolated and reported to the appropriate authorities. We should put in place measures that will ensure cleanliness of our environment bearing in mind that, cleanliness is next to Godliness. Aside our normal ablutions, our worshippers should be encouraged to make use of hand sanitizers, avoid bodily contacts as much as possible and ensure safety measures in and around their places of abode. he said Speaking on the ban, the Chief Imam of Lagos State, Sheikh Oluwatoyin Abou-Nolla, said the move is commendable and urged all Muslim leaders to abide by the decision and to also make personal hygiene a priority. The CAN Chairman, Apostle Alexander Bamgbola on the other hand, said the nation was at a critical point, stressing that since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Christians had been praying. We are at a critical moment in Nigeria, since we heard this, we have been praying. We have listened carefully to one another, particularly the government. The responsibility of every government is to protect the lives of the people. We must be proactive and take preventive measures. It is no longer the issue of religion but survival. We are going to accelerate the education of our people. We must listen to the instruction of the government and take the instruction seriously. We agree with the action of the government he said Lagos state recorded four new cases of Coronavirus in the state today March 18th. The Association of Professional Development Communicators-Ghana (APDC-Ghana) was officially launched on Friday, July 5, with a mission to ensure sustainable development across key sectors of the country. Speaking as a special guest of honour, Lebanese Ambassador to Ghana H.E Maher Kheir commended the timely initiative. He noted that like many nations, Ghana faces a wide range of problems where communicators can contribute to societal growth. Indeed the initiative is very timely for the progress of Ghanaian society. Like many countries around the world, Ghana has its share of a wide range of problems. I believe that communicators contribute to societal growth, he said. In her speech at the GNAT Hall, APDC-Ghana President Ruth Abanga laid out a vision for a sustainably developed Ghana, with universal access to basic amenities like healthcare, clean water and roads, as well as greater peace, security, inclusiveness and equality. "We aim to strategically communicate while inspiring a holistic global community and shared values for inclusive and resilient societies," Mrs Abanga said. Rebecca Ekpe, Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Journalist Association, urged the new group to make capacity building a priority and remain vigilant against disinformation and propaganda. "Make sure you do not become a tool for propaganda," Ekpe advised. APDC-Ghana will focus on development sectors including health, education, agriculture and the environment. Its objectives incorporate researching effective communication techniques, building skills, advocating for marginalized voices and promoting behaviour change through cross-cultural outreach. The Association hopes to utilize diverse communication methods and forge partnerships to address Ghana's development challenges. 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 Professor Kofi Agyekum has waded into discussions regarding Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh's comments about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President and the leader who led the nation into independence in 1957. Addressing a mammoth crowd of New Patriotic Party members and supporters during his official unveiling in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh a.k.a NAPO made some statements affecting Dr. Kwame Nkrumah which many people find insulting to the image and reputation of Ghana's political legend. He said; 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. Reacting to these comments during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show, Professor Kofi Agyekum, Head of Linguistics at the University of Ghana, questioned the reason(s) why NAPO would disparage Dr. Nkrumah. To him, speaking against Nkrumah is speaking against the lot of Ghanaian beneficiaries of Nkrumah's projects, hence left to him alone, Dr. Opoku Prempeh should have not dragged Nkrumah's name through the mud. He described NAPO's statements as uncouth and admonished the New Patriotic Party's leadership to manage him well going forward. Opanyin Agyekum, as he is affectionately called, advised NAPO's handlers to write his speech for him if he is not good with public speaking. "Sit NAPO down and train him...This should be a lesson for him!", he exclaimed. 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 Professor Kofi Agyekum, popularly called Opanyin Agyekum, has appealed to critics of Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, NPP Running Mate, and the general public to pardon him over his unfortunate comments about Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Opanyin Agyekum, speaking to host Nana Yaw Kesseh during Peace FM's Thursday "Kokrokoo" show, pleaded that Dr. Opoku Prempeh's comments may not have been intentional. Delivering a speech at his outdooring ceremony in Kumasi on Tuesday, July 9, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh strongly opined that no President in the history of Ghana has ever worked to develop Ghana like President Nana Akufo-Addo has done in his government. 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, he said. These comments have aroused public agitations with Nkrumah's party, the Convention People's Party, calling for Dr. Opoku Prempeh's immediate dismissal as Energy Minister and subsequent removal as NPP Running Mate. 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, a statement by the CPP stressed. But Opanyin Agyekum has asked the public to cut Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh some slack, stressing he may have made those statements on the spur of the moment. "Forgive him and going forward, he should watch his tongue," he said on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show. 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 Residents of Chereponi constituency in the North East Region were left stunned and impressed by the determination and humility of Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia Thursday morning. As part of his campaign, Dr. Bawumia was scheduled to engage with constituents early in the morning but a sudden downpour threatened his engagements as many expectant constituents had gathered. However, rather than take cover or seek shelter from the comfort of his vehicle, Dr. Bawumia displayed remarkable zeal by going through the rains to engage the people. The constituents were equally buoyant and hundreds of them joined Dr. Bawumia in the rains as he exchanged pleasantries with them at a durbar ground. A number of the constituents, in both local and English dialects, were heard commending Dr. Bawumia for his humility to walk through the rains to greet them. Later, Dr. Bawumia surprised many constituents by visiting their homes. He exchanged pleasantries with the elderly and young. Many, upon finding out the surprise house-to-house visits, could not even wait for Dr. Bawumia to visit them; rather, they trooped out in their numbers to watch as well as usher him into their house. After his engagement in Chereponi constituency, Dr. Bawumia continued his engagements in Mion constituency. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has directed Hon. Samuel Abu Jinapor, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and the newly vetted Minister of State at the Energy Ministry, Herbert Krapa to intercommunicate close with the outgoing Minister for Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, to ensure a smooth transition at the ministry. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the running mate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) turned in his resignation letter to President Akufo-Addo following his nomination as the running mate for the flag bearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. President Akufo-Addo asked Samuel Abu Jinapor to exercise Cabinet oversight responsibility at the Ministry of Energy while Mr. Herbert Krapa will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Ministry. The Manhyia South legislators decision to resign from the Ministry of Energy takes effect from the 18th of July. This is to afford him more time to focus on his campaign as he tours various parts of the country in support of Bawumias campaign. President Akufo-Addo expressed his deepest gratitude to Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, acknowledging his dedicated service to the government and the people of Ghana in the various ministries he served as cabinet minister. A statement issued by the Director of Communications at the presidency, Eugene Arhin said, His tenure as Minister for Education and as Minister for Energy has been marked by a stellar record of accomplishments and significant contributions to the education and energy sectors. President Akufo-Addo has asked the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Abu Jinapor, MP for Damongo, to exercise Cabinet oversight responsibility over the Ministry of Energy. Additionally, the Minister-of-State-designate at the Ministry of Energy, Herbert Krapa, will be responsible for the day-to- day administration of the Ministry. The President has asked the two persons to liaise closely with Dr. Opoku Prempeh to ensure a smooth transition in the affairs of the Ministry." The President extends his best wishes and Gods blessings to Dr. Opoku Prempeh in his new role, and is confident that he will continue to serve the party and the nation with distinction. 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 A pair of nudists in San Francisco sprang into action last week when they saw a man attacking a tourist with a blowtorch in broad daylight, and one of them punched the assailant and chased him off. The nude good Samaritans, identified by The San Francisco Standard as Pete Sferra of San Jose and Lloyd Fishback of San Francisco, were walking through San Francisco's Castro District on July 2 when they spotted a "crazy kind of pirate guy" wielding a blowtorch and threatening a tourist. A video shared on social media shows the assailant, identified as known neighborhood nuisance Zero Triball, threatening a man with the blowtorch just before a bystander sneaks up behind him and grabs it out of his hand. Triball then punches the tourist, and a fully naked Fishback responds by punching Triball as the first victim escaped. Fishback and Triball both tumble to the ground, and as Fishback gets back to his feet, he delivers an underhand slap to Triball's face. "My buddy Lloyd is a quiet, respectful guy, but he didn't waste any time and nailed the guy with a right hook," Sferra told The San Francisco Standard. After the smackdown, Triball can be seen walking away from the scene. County jail records show Triball was booked on the morning of July 3 on suspicion of multiple charges, including exhibiting a deadly weapon, battery, and assault with force likely to commit great bodily injury. His next court date is scheduled for July 19. Business owners in the area told the Standard that Triball has a history of causing problems in the neighborhood. Terry Asten Bennett, president of the Castro Merchants Association, told the outlet that Triball is "erratic and violent." She said he shouted at her employees and threw merchandise at her store Cliffs Variety several years ago. She also said the nearby Castro Country Club, a sober community center, had a restraining order against Triball back in 2021, but it is no longer in effect. Castro Country Club manager Brandon Stanton told the Standard that Triball threatened to burn the building down, and when staff tried to offer him support services, he threatened to kill the executive director. San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district includes the Castro, told the outlet that he has previously dealt with Triball, and has pushed for the expansion of conservatorship in part because of him. "In my view, he's a guy who'll continue committing medium violent crimes," Mandelman said. "I don't think he should be left to manage his own life. He should be in a conservatorship." Sferra, meanwhile, hopes Fishback's heroism helps lessen the stigma for nudists in the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. "Over the years we've been doing this, we've tried to show the neighborhood that we're regular people-we just have a relaxed idea of what we're supposed to wear," he said. "We just want to be seen as good contributing members of the community." Justice was naked yesterday in San Francisco's Castro District #thecastro pic.twitter.com/EvK7ooHE1n Alan Burradell (@alanburradell) July 5, 2024 --with reporting by TMX Abraham Amaliba, Director of Conflict Resolution for the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has told the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia that if there is anything to debate with, it should be the exchange rate, and not former President John Mahama. According to the former Director of Legal Affairs of the NDC, there is nothing to debate over in terms of the economy because the issues are already clear for all Ghanaians to judge for themselves in order to make an informed decision. The private legal practitioner stated that, Ghanaians are already feeling the impact of the exchange rate in the Akufo-Addo administration, hence they can tell the difference between the exchange rate during the erstwhile Mahama administration and the current administration of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government. Bawumia is not a serious man you would want to debate with. I have said he should go and debate with the exchange rate. The debate he is looking for with Mahama will be a complete waste of prime time and even suicidal for him [Bawumia], Mr. Amaliba said on TV3 on Friday, July 12. During his second phase of the nationwide tour, Dr. Bawumia visited the people of Nalerigu, where he reiterated the need to have a debate with the flag bearer of the NDC. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia dared former President Mahama for a live presidential debate to explain their respective visions and policies to Ghanaians. I am looking forward to a debate with John Mahama on the economy, on the country, on the governance. But I am afraid that he is running away from a debate. His people say he doesnt want to debate. I have never heard an opposition leader who doesnt want to debate. But he knows I will expose the emptiness of his policies. Dr. Bawumia further stated that former President Mahama and his team are unable to explain the 24-hour economy to Ghanaians, adding that the former President is avoiding a debate because the emptiness in the policies will be exposed. He says he has a 24-hour economy which he cannot explain. It is as empty as an empty barrel. He cannot explain it and none of his people can explain it. They say they will be exporting lions and elephants. When we meet man to man, we can debate, and the country will see where our policies lie and that is where we should go. We should give the country an opportunity to listen to us. If he chooses not to debate, Ill continue to sell my policies," he said. 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 Special Aide and Spokesperson for the former President John Dramani Mahama, Joyce Bawah Mogtari, has debunked allegations that the flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been to Russia to seek assistance from the Russian government ahead of the December Polls. The statement dismissing the allegations comes after publications by some media houses suggesting that Mr Mahama, under the guise of launching a Russian version of his autobiography entitled My First Coup Detat, sought the support of the Russian government in the upcoming December 7 elections. A statement signed by Joyce Bawah Mogtari on Friday, July 12, 2024, described the report as a shadowy and unethical journalism practice to defame and destroy the high earned reputation of an astute statesman. Excerpts of the statement read, Over the last almost eight years, the government of Nana Akufo-Addo has relied on misinformation and disinformation as tools to whitewash the corrupt, deplorable, disrespectful, incompetent and maladministration that has pushed many Ghanaians into hardships and difficulty in making ends meet. Read full statement below Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Chiefs and people of Nawuri and Nchumuru traditional area have commended Vice President and flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, for his role in ensuring development in the area. Welcoming Dr. Bawumia to Kpandai Friday morning during his campaign tour of the area, Paramount Chiefs of the two traditional area, in a statement, said Vice President Bawumia has excelled in assisting President Akuf-Addo. They further said Dr. Bawumia has made a significant impact in the area in terms of development. "The people of Kpandai are proud of you for the role you have played as Vice President in helping His Excellency to implement policies that address inequalities in the country, the Chiefs told Dr. Bawumia. They added; "Your administration has demonstrated to the people of Kpandai that equality is a hallmark to you.' The Chiefs also stressed that his mandate as Vice President 'has brought significant development in the Kpandai district". "The free Senior High School policy is the biggest social intervention this country has ever had. This has brought about an increase in secondary education enrollment in the history of this country. Kpandai has received a lot of development across the district in education, health, agriculture, among others. Kpandai senior high school has two new storey class room blocks and over 7000 furniture and other classroom blocks across the district. "On health, Kpandai is also benefitting from the Agenda 111 Hospital which is about 65% complete, and a number of chips compound across the district.' "In agriculture, Kpandai also benefitted from the one district one factory, water harvesting rice field at Lonto and Jangbai. On peace and security, the government has put up a district magistrate court building, a one storey police office and a district fore office in KpandaiOn the part of electricity, the District has over 95% coverage, just to mention a few." The Chiefs however requested an improvement in their road networks, especially the road linking Kpandai to Krachi as well as improved water system to meet the growing population of the area. The Chiefs wished Dr. Bawumia well and assured him of their unflinching support. "Continue to be who we have known you to be and your humility will send you far. Concentrate on your 70 point vision for the country. Dr, it is possible. "We want to thank you and assure you that, we as a people, will demonstrate that the breaking of the 8 is possible." 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 A former General Secretary of the Peoples National Convention (PNC) and a Social Commentator, Atik Mohammed, has described NAPOs apology as an after-thought. Atik Mohammed opined that, the apology came rather late, adding that, the outgoing Energy Ministers subsequent justifications of the assertions that President Akufo-Addo has received the most achievements, an enviable feat that, not even Ghanas first President could achieve. On Tuesday, July 9, 2024, the Manhyia South lawmaker, during his unveiling at the Jubilee Park in Kumasi, said, 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. NAPOs statement appeared denigrating in the eyes and minds of many people who felt that the statement was an unfortunate one. However, NAPO, during his visit to Wassa after the inauguration, reiterated his assertion, adding that, he made the statement without mincing words. In an apology letter dated 12th July, 2024, NAPO said, My statement last Tuesday, 9th July, in Kumasi on the performance of President Akufo Addo has elicited varied reactions." "The statements reflects my personal opinion about President Akufo-Addos impact relative to the other Presidents we have had." "I wish to emphasise that I never meant to disrespect our former President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, or any of our former heads of state, including my own grand Uncle and mentor, Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor. However, Atik Mohammed posits that, The apology is an after-thought. When he went to the Western-north region, he repeated the same thing. The apology should have come immediately after the event but if an event comes before your apology, then you can say it is an after-thought. Between the event and the apology, something happened which is exposing and creating an impression of insincerity because he attempted to rationalise what he said; but he should redeem himself. 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 For 25 years, the Telecel Ghana Music Awards has been the premier event for celebrating the best of Ghanaian music. This prestigious award scheme has been instrumental in recognizing and honoring talented artists and music makers in the industry. And this year, the 25th edition on 1st June was no exception, as over 30 plaques were presented to music makers were awarded for their outstanding contributions. But the celebrations don't stop there. On Saturday, the 13th of July, the Telecel Ghana Music Awards is embarking on a new journey with the introduction of the "Industry Mixer with the Artiste of the Year." This event is set to bring together all the major players and stakeholders of the Ghanaian music industry for an evening of networking, performances, and presentations on pertinent matters in the industry. The highlight of this event will be the live performance of the Artiste of the Year, who will also share personal moments and insights with all attendees. This will be a unique opportunity for industry professionals, including producers, musicians, music associations, DJs, bloggers, dancers, writers, and representatives from copyright and music rights organizations to interact with the biggest name in Ghanaian music and among themselves. The Telecel Ghana Music Awards continues to be the bedrock of the music industry in Ghana, showcasing the best of Ghanaian music and recognizing the hard work and dedication of talented artists and music makers. Be a part of this year's celebrations and join us for the TGMA Industry Mixer with Artiste of the Year Live on TV3 this Saturday, 13th July, 8pm prompt. Let's celebrate and elevate the Ghanaian music industry together! The 25th Telecel Ghana Music Awards is proudly brought to you by Charterhouse, partnered by TV3, British Council, Closeup Toothpaste, Guinness Ghana, and powered by Telecel Ghana, connecting energies. 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 To the naysayers questioning his qualification to one day rule Ghana, actor Prince has a message for them. He wants them to know that not even witches can stop him. The About To Wed actor said the universe, including witches support, my ambition to become president and nothing can stop it. He describes his ambition to assume the highest office in Ghana in future as a divine-calling which will manifest when the time is right. Since last year, the sound from the drums beating his desire to one day be Ghanas First Gentleman has been getting louder and in a recent conversation with Graphic Showbiz, Prince David discloses he is unfazed by the negative feedback. He rather expressed his devotion to readying himself for the role, saying, my desire to rule Ghana in future is a divine calling and not even witches can stop my presidential calling. By the special grace of God, my presidential ambition is a calling and a dream that will manifest when the time is right. For now, I am working, learning and preparing myself so I am not found wanting when the time comes. Interestingly, the witches, universe and elements are all in alignment with God's plan for me to become president of Ghana in future. It has been ordained in the realms and sealed with the blood of Jesus, he said. Prince David also stressed on the crucial role citizens play in shaping the future of our nation. Theres the need for active participation in politics, remaining vocal in our political beliefs, voicing our concerns and holding leaders accountable for their actions. It is inspiring to see that our voices are heard and that positive changes are being made for the benefit of all. I will continue to speak up and work towards a better future for our country and people. As a celebrity, I hold a unique perspective in politics. My intention is to serve, even if it comes at a personal cost. I am driven by my determination to pay whatever price if necessary, he added. Prince David, who is known for his roles in movies such as Fortune Island, Last Night, Hero, The Dead, encouraged his colleague creatives not to shun politics but get involved in the decision-making process of the country. Our voices carry weight, and our followers, who often seek guidance from us, share this mindset. It is essential for all of us to contribute to discussions that shape our society and be part of decisions that affect our very lives, he emphasised. Source: graphic showbiz 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: Animation of a rural scene showing how solar radiation is absorbed, reflected, and scattered as it passes through the atmosphere. It bounces off the Earths surface and is collected by a sensor on a remote sensing satellite. Credit: Sara Levine | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Turbulence, temperature changes, water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, and other gases absorb, reflect, and scatter sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere, bounces off the Earth's surface, and is collected by a sensor on a remote sensing satellite. As a result, the spectral data received at the sensor is distorted. Scientists know this and have devised several ways to account for the atmosphere's corrupting influence on remote sensing data. "This problem is as old as overhead imagery," said James Koch, a data scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) who developed a new way to address the problem that uses a branch of artificial intelligence called physics-informed machine learning and along the way enhances remote sensing capabilities. Koch presented a paper describing his physics-informed machine learning framework at the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Athens, Greece, July 712. This work is part of PNNL's remote exploitation capability and was supported by the National Security Directorate's Laboratory Directed Research and Development portfolio. Scientists can solve the atmospheric corruption problem because they understand the physics of how the atmosphere distorts sunlight as it passes through the atmosphere. This allows them to remove the atmosphere's influence from the data collected at the sensor. The process is called atmospheric correction. An atmospheric transmission profile is generally required prior knowledge to perform atmospheric correction. The profile is a representation of the properties and composition of the atmosphere at different altitudes that shows how light at different wavelengths interacts with an atmosphere. The process of creating an atmospheric transmission profile without prior knowledge is where Koch's AI technique is a potential game changer. Today, many atmospheric correction applications rely on off-the-shelf tools that use generic, statistics-based atmospheric profiles. These tools are sufficient for time-sensitive tasks such as disaster response monitoring and are cost efficient when mapping a large area. Applications where high accuracy is paramount, such as target detection, require the data-intensive and computationally expensive creation of high-fidelity profiles. Physics-informed machine learning To train and evaluate the machine learning pipeline, Koch used a dataset of labeled overhead imagery of Cook City, Montana, that includes cars and pieces of fabric with known spectral signatures. He used 112 of them, or 0.05% of those available of the scene, and performed the training runs on a mid-range laptop computer. The trained model can take pixels from any spectral scene to infer an atmospheric transmission profile and automatically perform atmospheric correction. At the core of the approach is a suite of differential equations that describe how sunlight changes as it passes through the atmosphere, bounces off a target, goes back up through the atmosphere, and hits a sensor. "The constraint of the differential equation, that physics-informed machine learning, is the secret sauce for making sure that this works well," Koch said. "By construction, what this model can issue is a prediction that will satisfy the first-order physics." In addition to performance that hits the middle range between the off-the-shelf models and the high-fidelity approach, Koch's framework is bidirectionalit can both remove the influence of the atmosphere from a spectral scene collected by a remote sensor and infer how a material on the ground would appear if imaged through a particular atmosphere. "Some things are highlighted or hidden depending on where things are observed," Koch explained. "It's not a one-stop shop. You've got to poke and prod at where things are most fruitful." Research to the real world Remote sensing is used for tasks that run the gamut from drought and vegetation indices that track changes in photosynthetic activity and water content over time to the detection of methane plumes, activity at foreign military bases, and human traffic at border crossings. Different approaches for atmospheric correction are applied to different scenarios, depending on factors such as time, cost, and available data. PNNL intern Luis Cedillo, an undergraduate at the University of Texas El Paso, presented a conference poster at SPIE Defense and Commercial Sensing 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland, about using the physics-informed machine learning technique for coastal ecosystem health monitoring. He used the machine learning pipeline to jointly learn the profile of the atmosphere and coastal waters, unlocking a new capability to track the health of coral reefs from satellites. The researchers are currently refining their approach with an eye toward applications where data is limited but high fidelity is required, such as target detection. "The key benefit here is we can get good accuracy with a limited amount of data while not having to rely on a lot of prior knowledge in the sense of where the sensor was, or where the sun was," said Koch. "We're learning those things on the fly." "I've taken some of what the subject matter experts do on this high end and wrapped that into a machine learning pipeline so that I can do that process in a data-informed way," Koch said. "This is a meet-in-the-middle approach when higher fidelity is required but we don't necessarily have all the resources to identify all the properties associated with the atmosphere. We use the available data." 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: Close to sea level: Langkai Island rises only around 1.8 meters above mean sea level. Waves Repeatedly carry sediment away from the beach and wash up new sediment. This is why a continuous supply of new material is important Credit: Dominik Kneer, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) Although it is surrounded by stressed coral reefs, an island in the Indonesian Spermonde Archipelago has not shrunk but continued to grow. Reef islands hence react dynamically to environmental changes that disturb their reef systems, according to a new study by researchers from the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, Germany. Scientists examined the composition of the inhabited reef island Langkai off Makassar and reconstructed the course of the island's coastline since 1999. The results have recently been published in the journal Sedimentary Geology. The calcareous skeletons and shells of corals, mussels, snails and calcareous algae are important constituents of tropical reef islands. Their sediments form the substance of reef islands and keep them stable or even allow them to growat least if the surrounding reef systems are healthy. For decades, however, coral reef ecosystems have been under the influence of strongly changing environmental conditionsfor example, due to climate change and the global rise in water temperatures, which leads to coral bleaching, or local human intervention in the ecosystems or through intensive fishing. How does the damage to coral reefs affect the production of calcareous sediment and thus the behavior of reef islands? An international research team led by Yannis Kappelmann, doctoral candidate in the Geoecology and Carbonate Sedimentology working group at ZMT, asked this question in their latest study. In addition to ZMT scientists, researchers from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in Hanover, Germany, and the Marine Research Center at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia, were also involved in the work. The scientists focused their research on the island of Langkai in the Indonesian Spermonde Archipelago off the coast of Makassar. Various studies in recent years have repeatedly described the condition of the reef systems around this island off southwest Sulawesi as poor. "We wanted to know how this severe damage to the reef systems is reflected in the island's sediment," says Kappelmann, first author of the study. "Can we also see these reef changes in the composition of the sediments? Is less sediment being produced for the island?" To answer these questions, the scientists took more than 50 sediment cores from the island, which they examined in the laboratory for their composition and changes over time. The results were initially not that surprising. "We actually found fewer pieces of coral skeletons in the sediments that had been deposited along the coast of Langkai over the last few decades," reports Kappelmann. "Instead, the proportion of the calcifying green algae Halimeda was significantly highera sign that the reefs around Langkai are now dominated by algae as a result of the changed environmental conditions." Island growth despite algal dominance in reef ecosystems This finding became particularly interesting for the researchers when they used satellite images to evaluate the change in the coastline of Langkai over the last 24 years (19992023). "The coastline reconstruction showed that the area of the reef island has increased by a total of 13%," says Kappelmann. "It looks like it initially makes no difference to island growth whether coral or algae skeletons provide the constituents for the sediment. Islands that are located in the vicinity of altered coral reefsin this case reef systems that are characterized by algal dominancecan continue to obtain sufficient sediment for their coastlines from these ecosystems." This suggests that changes in the sediment composition of reef islands do not necessarily lead to destabilization of the islands. Local and global relevance "The study underlines the highly dynamic nature of these landforms," says Hildegard Westphal, head of the Geoecology and Carbonate Sedimentology working group at ZMT and Professor of Tropical Geology at the University of Bremen. "Degradation of reefs and increased growth of calcifying macroalgae have been observed worldwide in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue in the wake of ocean warming and other stress factors. "Our findings show that the medium-term consequences of these developments for sediment production need not be negative. However, this does not mean at all that they have no negative consequences for reef islands, because coral reefs act as breakwaters and prevent the erosion of loose sediment along coasts in the long term. "If the reefs disappear, the islands are eroded very quickly. Reef protection therefore remains a key concern for the conservation of reef islands." Yannis Kappelmann adds, "In recent years, a number of projects have been developed by and with the local population to protect marine ecosystems. Healthy coral reef ecosystems are not only the most effective way to preserve reef islands, but also provide more productive fishing grounds for the local people." More information: Yannis Kappelmann et al, Island accretion within a degraded reef ecosystem suggests adaptability to ecological transitions, Sedimentary Geology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.sedgeo.2024.106675 Provided by Leibniz-Zentrum fur Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT) 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: Constraints on ((*)) from the measured ( / ) value (red), compared to the world average of ((*)) (blue ) and the standard model expectation (gray and black ). Credit: Physical Review Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.211804 The Belle II experiment is a large research effort aimed at precisely measuring weak-interaction parameters, studying exotic hadrons (i.e., a class of subatomic particles) and searching for new physical phenomena. This effort primarily relies on the analysis of data collected by the Belle II detector (i.e., a general purpose spectrometer) and delivered by the SuperKEKB, a particle collider, both located at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba, Japan. In a recent paper, published in Physical Review Letters, the Belle II Collaboration reported the first direct measurement of the tau-to-light-lepton ratio (/) of inclusive B-meson branching fractions. With this measurement, the team was able to test the universality of charged-current weak interactions. "Within our current best theory of particle physics, the standard model, charged leptonselectron, muon and taucouple identically with weak and electromagnetic forces," Karim Trabelsi, spokesperson for the Belle II Collaboration, told Phys.org. "This phenomena is called lepton universality." Notably, any sign of lepton universality being broken is an indication of non-standard model physics. As part of their recent paper, Trabelsi and his colleagues specifically set out to directly measure the ratio between tau and light leptons, as this could contribute to the search for and understanding of new physical phenomena (i.e., outside the standard model). "The particular interest in comparing the tau to the lighter muon and electron arises from a tension between the average of existing measurements and the prediction from universality," Trabelsi said. "These measurements have only been done in decays where the lepton is accompanied by a single charmed meson (exclusive decays to D and D* mesons), whereas our study does not differentiate between the different types of hadrons or number of hadrons produced that accompany the lepton (inclusive decay)." Theoretical predictions for exclusive and inclusive decay differ significantly, yet they are complementary when trying to probe any type of lepton universality. A comprehensive measurement considering both these decays, however, has so far only been performed using data collected by the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP), one of the largest particle accelerators located at CERN. The key objective of the recent study by Belle II was to gather the first measurement for this specific quantity in over 20 years. To do this, they used the last sets of data collected by the Belle II detector. "Our analysis relies on the production of pairs of B mesons, without any other accompanying particles that we have in electron positron collisions near threshold at Belle II," Trabelsi said. "We can fully reconstruct one B meson then search the rest of the event for a light lepton that may have come directly from the other B decay or from the decay of tau from the other B decay, that then decayed rapidly to a light lepton and two more neutrinos." On average, the momentum of leptons resulting from tau decay is significantly lower than that of leptons promptly originating from a B meson. Moreover, additional neutrinos present during tau decays entail a lower energy and momentum compared to those present during events linked to prompt leptons. "We thus used the distributions of lepton momentum and a variable related to the missing energy to separate the prompt and tau decays to determine the ratio," Trabelsi explained. "We calibrate the background distributions that can contaminate the measurement with subsidiary data samples enriched in the background processes." The calibration performed by Belle II introduces systematic uncertainty into their measurement. Nonetheless, this uncertainty will decrease as the data collected and analyzed by the collaboration increases. "Even though our measurement is compatible with both the standard model prediction and the anomalies seen in the exclusive decays, we have paved the way for a complementary probe of lepton universality once a larger data sample is available," Trabelsi said. "Such probes allow us to indirectly search for non-standard-model particles that would be inducing any observed lepton-flavor-universality violation." This inclusive direct measurement of (/) carried by Belle II could open new opportunities for searches aimed at observing and studying new physics outside the standard model. As the collaboration gathers more data in the future, the researchers plan to update this measurement and perform other precise measurements that could help to determine when lepton universality is broken. "We are currently collecting more data and we will update this inclusive measurement, as well as the exclusive ones, in the near future," Trabelsi added. "Within a few years we should be able to definitively tell whether lepton-universality is being violated in these decays or not." More information: I. Adachi et al, First Measurement of R(X/) as an Inclusive Test of the bc Anomaly, Physical Review Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.211804 Journal information: Physical Review Letters 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: Schematics showing the large-scale ocean-atmosphere feedback processes that occur during El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific Ocean (blue indicates cool SST anomalies while red indicates warm SST anomalies), and the influence on local weather patterns over the GBR that contribute to significant ocean temperature variability and coral exposure to solar radiation. Credit: Geophysical Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024GL108810 A new study finds a significant impact of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on coral bleaching events in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The GBR, covering almost 350,000 square kilometers along Australia's northeastern coast, is the world's largest coral ecosystem. Renowned for its biodiversity, cultural significance, and economic value, it contributes around $6.4 billion annually to the Australian economy. However, it faces serious threats from increasing ocean temperatures due to climate change. A Geophysical Research Letters paper, titled "Combined Role of the MJO and ENSO in Shaping Extreme Warming Patterns and Coral Bleaching Risk in the Great Barrier Reef", co-authored by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, led by UNSW Sydney, highlights how climatic phenomena influence weather conditions over the GBR, contributing to the rising threat of coral bleaching. What the study found Corals are particularly sensitive to weather conditions in the GBR. Sunny, calm weather typically leads to high ocean temperatures, increasing the risk of coral bleaching. Conversely, stormy, rainy weather can cool the ocean, providing some protection to corals. This is because calm, sunny days allow more sunlight to penetrate the water, heating the ocean's surface, while storms and rain increase cloud cover and wind, promoting the mixing of cooler, deeper waters with warmer surface waters. The study found that while ENSOa recurring climate pattern involving changes in the temperature of waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Oceaninfluences weather patterns over the GBR on a seasonal scale, the MJOa major fluctuation in tropical weather on weekly to monthly timescalescan alter these patterns on shorter, sub-seasonal timescales. This leads to unexpected impacts on ocean temperatures and corals. Catherine Gregory, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, supported by the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, explained, "We find that the MJO can significantly influence the weather variability over the GBR, altering the expected states of El Nino and La Nina periods. "While these findings do not tell us all the possible causes of extreme warming and coral bleaching in the GBR, they emphasize the need to consider drivers beyond ENSO, including the compounding impacts of multiple drivers." Why are these findings important? Understanding how ENSO and MJO influence weather patterns can help anticipate coral bleaching events. ENSO phases, like El Nino and La Nina, impact weather and ocean temperatures, with El Nino often leading to higher ocean temperatures and increased coral bleaching risk, while La Nina can bring cooler conditions. However, the MJO can disrupt these patterns, leading to unexpected weather variations that also affect ocean temperatures and coral health. Gregory said, "I'd often heard in the media that during El Nino periods the GBR is more likely to experience bleaching. Then during 2022, the reef experienced mass bleaching during a La Nina period, and it was reported that La Nina should mean cooling in the GBR. "However, in my research, I had examined this relationship and not found a strong connection between the ENSO index and ocean temperatures in this region. This motivated me to understand other drivers that could be influential. The MJO, as the leading driver of sub-seasonal weather variability, seemed like an important one to consider." Gregory emphasized, "While ENSO provides insight into the expected synoptic states, it lacks details of anticipated sub-seasonal weather variability at local scales." These findings underscore the need for comprehensive forecasting models that include both ENSO and MJO impacts to better predict and manage coral bleaching events. As climate change continues to pose the greatest threat to corals, she urged understanding these climatic drivers and their interactions, which could be useful for developing adaptive strategies to safeguard the GBR's future. More information: Catherine H. Gregory et al, Combined Role of the MJO and ENSO in Shaping Extreme Warming Patterns and Coral Bleaching Risk in the Great Barrier Reef, Geophysical Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024GL108810 Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters Provided by ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes An 18-year-old New Jersey man with known sympathies to the Nazi ideology allegedly solicited another person to destroy an energy facility, and had plans to travel to Ukraine to fight for Russia, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday. Andrew Takhistov, of East Brunswick, was arrested Wednesday and charged with charged with one count of soliciting another individual to engage in criminal conduct that involved destroying a public service enterprise group circuit breaker and substation. "Andrew Takhistov was allegedly on his way to Ukraine to join the Russian Volunteer Corps when we arrested him on charges of recruiting an individual to destroy an electrical substation here in the United States in order to advance his white supremacist ideology," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. "I am grateful to the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for their exceptional work disrupting this dangerous plot." According to the criminal complaint, Takhistov in January began communicating on social media with a person he did not know was in fact an undercover law enforcement employee. Takhistov had a history of posting messages on the platform that referenced Adolph Hitler, praised mass shooters, encouraged violence against Black and Jewish individuals, expressed interest in traveling overseas to undergo paramilitary training, requesting advice about weapons, and disseminating manuals on how to construct homemade weapons. In communications with the undercover operative, Takhistov allegedly repeatedly referenced "racially/ethnically motivated extremist [RMVE]" ideology, and his desire to advance that ideology through violence. Takhistov allegedly told the undercover operative he planned to travel to Ukraine in July to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, because the organization was openly National Socialist, a reference to Germany's Nazi Party, and because they specialized in assassinations, attacks on power grids and other infrastructure sabotage. Takhistov discussed sabotaging infrastructure with Mylar balloons or Molotov cocktails, and allegedly told the undercover operative that while he was in Ukraine, he wanted the undercover operative to carry out at least one such act. One two occasions in June and July, "at Takhistov's direction," he and the undercover operative traveled to two different electrical substations in North Brunswick and New Brunswick. Takhistov allegedly "instructed" the undercover operative on how to sabotage the facilities. Takhistov was arrested at Newark Liberty Airport on Wednesday, where he was planning to travel to Paris en route to Ukraine. "This complaint alleges that the defendant's posts referenced Adolf Hitler, encouraged violence against Black and Jewish communities, praised mass shooters, and discussed causing death and destruction on a large scale," said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger for the District of New Jersey. "The defendant was allegedly enroute to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, which he described as specializing in assassinations, attacks on power grids, and other infrastructure sabotage, so that he could act on his violent plans. We will not tolerate these kinds of alleged terroristic threats, and working with our partners, we will always be ready to root out and bring to justice anyone who attempts to carry out these acts." if convicted Takhistov faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $125,000. --with reporting by TMX 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: Vladyslav Dukhin from Pexels In a revelation that highlights the fragile balance of our planet's atmosphere, scientists from China, Germany, and the U.S. have uncovered an unexpected link between massive wildfire events and the chemistry of the ozone layer. Published in Science Advances, this study reveals how wildfires, such as the catastrophic 2019/20 Australian bushfires, impact the stratosphere in previously unseen ways. The ozone layer, a crucial shield protecting life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation, has been on a path to recovery thanks to the Montreal Protocol. This landmark international treaty, adopted in 1987, successfully phased out the production of numerous substances responsible for ozone depletion. Over the past decades, the ozone layer has shown significant signs of healing, a testament to global cooperation and environmental policy. However, the stability of this vital atmospheric layer is now facing a new and unexpected challenge. During the 2019/20 Australian wildfires, researchers observed a dramatic increase in stratospheric aerosolstiny particles that can influence climate, health and atmospheric chemistry. Utilizing advanced satellite data and numerical models, the research team successfully demonstrated the impact of wildfires through a novel phenomenon: the smoke-charged vortex (SCV). "The SCV is a powerful, smoke-laden whirlpool that transports wildfire emissions into the stratosphere, reaching altitudes of up to 35 kilometers," explained Prof. Hang Su from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the corresponding authors of the study. "This process led to at least a doubling of the aerosol burden in the southern hemisphere's middle stratosphere. These aerosols, once reaching such high altitudes, initiated a series of heterogeneous reactions that impacted ozone concentrations." The international team discovered that these wildfire-induced aerosols facilitated heterogeneous chemical reactions, which paradoxically led to both ozone depletion and ozone increase at different atmospheric layers. While the lower stratosphere experienced significant ozone loss, they found that the enhanced chemical reactions on aerosols at higher altitudes, i.e., the middle stratosphere, lead to increase of ozone. In Southern Mid-Latitudes, this complex interplay managed to buffer approximately 40% (up to 70%) of the ozone depletion observed in the lower stratosphere in the following months of the mega-bushfire events. So why does this matter? "Our study demonstrates an unexpected and crucial mechanism, by which the absorbing aerosols in wildfire smoke, such as black carbon, can induce and sustain enormous smoke-charged vortices spanning thousands of kilometers," said Prof. Yafang Cheng, another corresponding author from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. "These vortices can persist for months, carrying aerosols deeply into the stratosphere and affecting the ozone layer in distinct ways at different altitudes. This highlights the need for continued vigilance and research as climate change progresses." The ozone layer's role in filtering UV radiation is crucial for protecting all life forms on Earth. The Montreal Protocol's success in reducing ozone-depleting substances was a monumental achievement, but the new findings highlight that natural events, exacerbated by climate change, pose additional risks to this fragile layer. With the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires driven by global warming, the formation of SCVs and their impact on the stratosphere could become more common, threatening the delicate balance of the ozone layer. This study opens new avenues for research into how wildfire and other climate-driven events might influence stratospheric chemistry and ozone dynamics in the future. More information: Chaoqun Ma et al, Smoke-charged vortex doubles hemispheric aerosol in the middle stratosphere and buffers ozone depletion, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adn3657. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn3657 Journal information: Science Advances This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Zachary Graham A pair of biologists, one with West Liberty University, the other with Arizona State University, both in the U.S., has found evidence that challenges theories surrounding bright coloration always functioning as an adapted phenotype. In their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Zackary Graham and Dylan Padilla Perez studied coloring and other attributes of hundreds of species of crayfish to understand why a creature that lives mostly in the mud at the bottom of rivers would have vibrant coloring. Evolutionary theory suggests that accidental genetic mutations that offer some degree of advantage are preserved and passed on to future generations. Traits that serve little to no useful purpose but still require resources to maintain, on the other hand, tend to be phased out. But what happens when a genetic mutation does not serve a purpose but requires no resources to maintain? To learn more, they turned to the crayfish. Crayfish (also known as crawfish and crawdads) are freshwater crustaceans that resemble small lobstersthere are more than 300 species in North America alone. They come in a variety of sizes and colors, and many of them spend most of their lives in the muddy bottoms of rivers or streams and only emerge at night. Graham and Padilla Perez noted that some species, despite living in such conditions, still have vibrant coloring. The question is why. Most creatures with vibrant coloring use it to frighten predators or to attract a mate. Vibrantly colored crayfish do not appear to use their coloring for either purpose. To determine why, the team undertook a study of the crayfish phylogenetic tree and compared coloring between species. They found that conspicuous coloring had evolved independently in more than 50 of the species on the tree. They also found a correlation between the evolution of conspicuous coloring and burrowing behavior and they suggest that tan coloring has evolved in many of the species due to pressure to blend in with their environment; they observed no examples of brightly colored crayfish maintaining their colors as they evolved to have more aquatic behaviors. The researchers conclude that bright coloration evolved incidentally due to random mutations and was maintained because there was no evolutionary pressure for it to fadeuntil crayfish found a need to blend into the mud. More information: Zackary A. Graham et al, Correlated evolution of conspicuous colouration and burrowing in crayfish, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0632 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B 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 As of June 2024, Bill C-332 is at its second reading in Canada's Senate, following its third reading in the House of Commons. Introduced by NDP MP Laurel Collins, Bill C-332 is an amendment to the Criminal Code that would criminalize coercive control in intimate relationships. Coercive control involves a continuing yet often subtle and nuanced pattern of behavior by one partner through tactics of domination, isolation, manipulation, intimidation and fear. Many victims and survivors of coercive control have highlighted its insidious nature and how it's often invisible to those outside of the family. Bill C-332 seeks to criminalize "using or attempting to use or threatening to use violence against certain persons, coercing or attempting to coerce the intimate partner to engage in sexual activity or engaging in other conduct that could reasonably be expected to believe that their safety, or the safety of a person known to them is threatened." The proposed legislation calls for a prison term of up to 10 years for anyone convicted of coercive control. At first blush, the prospect of criminalizing coercive control seems positive. Through the creation and implementation of a uniform response, criminalization would indicate coercive control is being taken seriously by authorities. It signals to the public that coercive control is unacceptable and is being addressed by policymakers and the criminal justice system. Mandatory charging These arguments in favor of criminalization are familiar. They're similar to the arguments supporting the criminalization of intimate partner violence through mandatory charging policies that were implemented across Canada in the 1980s. These policies require police to lay charges in cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe that an assault has occurred at the scene of a domestic dispute. Mandatory charging policies also had seemingly benevolent intentions aimed at acknowledging the severity of intimate partner violence and that it was no longer a private matter but, instead, a crime. However, in some cases, mandatory charging policies have been harmful to the victim-survivors they were intended to protect, who are disproportionately women. Specifically, since the implementation of mandatory charging policies, there has been an increase in the number of victim-survivors who have been arrestedin tandem with their partner or solely. This criminalization primarily occurs as the result of women's defensive violence, which is often not recognized as defensive given the justice system's incident-based nature. Additionally, mandatory charging policies have been exceptionally harmful for Black women, Indigenous women and migrant women. They often face additional barriers, including racism and discrimination from those working in the criminal justice system, fears of police, concerns regarding deportation or language barriers. The criminalization of coercive control could face the same unanticipated outcomes. Women who are victims or survivors of intimate partner violence have detailed how mandatory charging policies have been weaponized against them by their violent partners. Some women have described how their partners fabricated accounts of violence or lied to police in order to portray them as the aggressors, while other women have said their partners used their knowledge of how the justice system operates to convince investigators that she was the primary aggressor, resulting in criminal charges against her. Systemic risk factors There are multiple reasons why criminalizing coercive control could face the same challenges that have plagued mandatory charging policies for the past four decades. Here are three: Patriarchal justice system. Like many other societal institutions and systems, our current criminal justice system is patriarchal in nature. This means that legislation and the judicial framework at large reflects patriarchal values and norms, upholding male dominance. As a result, women's needs and realities when they experience intimate partner violence will continue to be unconsidered, unacknowledged or distrusted. Gender-neutral policies. Like mandatory charging policies, coercive control policies are gender-neutral, which obscures the ways it occurs within an often gendered pattern of violence. Gender neutrality also disregards the reality of intimate partner violence, where statistics indicate that women are disproportionately victims and suffer more severe consequences of violence. Criminalized survivors. With mandatory charging policies, it became simple to blur the line between offenders and victims, and, given the tactics used by intimate partner violence perpetrators, they often found a way to turn this to their advantage. A significant concern regarding criminalizing coercive control is that women's protective behaviorsespecially when it comes to their childrencould be used against them by abusers, in concert with the patriarchal criminal justice system, to portray women as offenders. This can lead to "double victimization," resulting in serious impacts on women and their children across various systems, including criminal law, family law and child welfare. This is seen, for example, during custody hearings that delve into the discredited but still powerful and salient idea of "parental alienation." The system is already failing women who have been affected by intimate partner violence, and as other gender-based violence experts have acknowledged, additional criminalization through criminalizing coercive control is not the solution. In addressing intimate partner violence, scholars have suggested the implementation of trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC), which acknowledges the ways that interpersonal violence, systemic violence and structural inequities intersect to impact an individual's life. TVIC would serve to address institutional and systemic violence, including policies like mandatory charging policies that perpetuate harm. TVIC also emphasizes the responsibilities of health and social service organizations so that people who require assistance can get the help that they need. Coercive control is exceptionally difficult to identify, and as mandatory charging policies have shown, a solely criminal justice-based approach to intimate partner violencewithout acknowledging the broader social context in which gender-based violence occurswill likely continue to harm victim-survivors. 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: BT phase diagram of quantum Griffiths singularity in a three-dimensional anisotropic superconductor. Credit: Science China Press Exploration of exotic quantum phase transitions has always been a focus in condensed matter physics. Critical phenomena in a phase transition are entirely determined by the universality class, which is controlled by the spatial and/or order-parameters and is independent of microscopic details. The quantum phase transition is a class of phase transitions that occurs due to quantum fluctuations, tuned by certain parameters of the system at the zero-temperature limit. The superconductor-insulator/metal phase transition is a classic example of quantum phase transition, which has been intensely studied for more than 40 years. Disorder is considered one of the most important influencing factors, and therefore has received widespread attention. During the phase transitions, the system usually satisfies scaling invariance, so the universality class will be characterized by a single critical exponent. In contrast, the peculiarity of quantum Griffith singularity is that it breaks the traditional scaling invariance, where exotic physics emerges. The physics of Griffiths singularity dates back to 1969, when American physicist Griffiths proposed a type of phase transition in which the scaling invariance is broken. In this case, the critical exponent tends to diverge rather than remain constant. The quantum Griffith singularity refers to the Griffith singularity in a quantum phase transition. Since the proposal of quantum Griffith singularity, it has only been observed in conventional low-dimensional superconducting films and in a few three-dimensional ferromagnets. The existence of quantum Griffith singularity in three-dimensional superconductors and in unconventional high-temperature superconductors has yet to be confirmed experimentally. Such confirmation will shed light on the understanding of mechanisms in unconventional high-temperature superconductivity. Recently, a research group led by Jian-Hao Chen, a researcher at the International Center for Quantum Materials at the School of Physics at Peking University, the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, and the Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices of Peking University, conducted a study on the quantum Griffith singularity in unconventional high-temperature superconducting bulk single crystal CaFe 1-x Ni x AsF. Magnetic-field-driven superconductor-metal phase transition with multiple quantum critical points in CaFe 1-x Ni x AsF. Credit: Science China Press They and their collaborators grew a series of high-quality underdoped CaFe 1-x Ni x AsF bulk single crystals for the first time, and observed the evolution of quasi two-dimensional to three-dimensional anisotropic quantum Griffith singularities in the superconductor-metal phase transitions driven by magnetic fields. They found robust quantum Griffith singularity which can last up to 5.3 K, and it can be induced in the crystals by both parallel and vertical magnetic fields. This study not only reveals the universality of quantum Griffith singularity in three-dimensional and unconventional high-temperature superconducting systems, but also predicts the possibility of finding quantum Griffith states in more unconventional high-temperature superconducting families (i.e., nickel-based and copper-based superconductors), which may further promote the understanding of unconventional high-temperature superconductivity mechanisms. The findings were published in National Science Review in 2024, titled "Three-dimensional quantum Griffiths singularity in bulk iron-pnictide superconductors." Jian-Hao Chen was the corresponding author of the article, and the co-first authors include Shao-Bo Liu, a postdoctoral fellow, Congkuan Tian, a Ph.D. student, both from the International Center for Quantum Materials at the School of Physics at Peking University, and Yongqing Cai, an assistant professor at the School of Physics at Dalian University of Technology. More information: Shao-Bo Liu et al, Three-dimensional quantum Griffiths singularity in bulk iron-pnictide superconductors, National Science Review (2024). DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwae220 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 data of this study are very precise thanks to the long sedimentary sequence that outcrops in Orce, with 15 vertebrate deposits superimposed in different stratigraphic positions. Credit: Lluis Gibert. One of the most important controversies about human evolution and expansion is when and by what route the first hominins arrived in Europe from the African continent. Now, geological dating techniques at the Orce sites (Baza basin, Granada) place the human remains found in this area as the oldest in Europe, at approximately 1.3 million years old. These results reinforce the hypothesis that humans arrived in Europe through the south of the Iberian Peninsula, through the Strait of Gibraltar, instead of returning to the Mediterranean via the Asian route. The study, led by Lluis Gibert, researcher and lecturer at the University of Barcelona's Faculty of Earth Sciences, involved the participation of researchers from the Berkeley Geochronology Centre and Murray State University (United States). The work is published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. Analysis of a new sampling area The new dating has been based on the analysis of the paleomagnetism of an area of the Orce region, which has never been sampled before and which has been protected from the erosion that this basin has suffered over the years. This technique is a relative dating method based on the study of the inversion of the magnetic poles of the planet due to the internal dynamics of the Earth. These changes do not have a specific periodicity, but they are recorded in the minerals and make it possible to establish time periods from the different magnetic events. These new data are very precise thanks to the long sedimentary sequence that outcrops in Orce. "The uniqueness of these sites is that they are stratified and within a very long sedimentary sequence, more than eighty meters long. Normally, the sites are found in caves or within very short stratigraphic sequences, which do not allow you to develop long paleomagnetic sequences in which you can find different magnetic reversals," says Luis Gibert. The researchers have been able to identify a magnetic polarity sequence "with five magnetic events that allow them to place the three Orce sites with human presence between the Olduvai and Jaramillo subchron, that is, between 1.77 and 1.07 million years ago (Ma)," says the researcher. Subsequently, they have applied a statistical age model to accurately refine the chronology of the different stratigraphic levels with a margin of error of only 70,000 years. The result of this innovative methodology is that the oldest site with human presence in Europe would be Venta Micena with an age of 1.32 Ma, followed by Barranco Leon, with an age of 1.28 and finally Fuente Nueva 3, with an age of 1.23 Ma. "With these data, the other major site on the peninsula, the Sima del Elefante in Atapuerca, would be relegated to second place, far behind Orce, between 0.2 and 0.4 Ma more modern," adds the researcher. Fauna underpins the antiquity of the site To complete the dating, the study has also analyzed the fauna found at the different sites in Orce, as this is different depending on the period, and compared it with that found at other Early Pleistocene sites in other parts of Europe. In this sense, the paper presents a detailed analysis of the micromammals and large mammals from all the Orce sites, carried out by the expert Robert Martin, based on the paleontological collections stored at the Museum of the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology Miguel Crusafont (IPS) in Sabadell. "The results indicate that the small and large fauna of Orce is more primitive than, for example, that of the Sima del Elefante, where the evidence shows that the rodent Allophaiomys lavocati is more evolved than the Allophaiomys recovered from the Orce sites," Gibert explains. Another relevant indicator of the age of the Orce sites is the absence of the ancestors of the pigs. "These animals are considered to be Asian immigrants and have not been found in any European site between 1 and 1.5 Ma, while they have been found in the Sima del Elefante, supporting that the Orce fauna is older," explains the researcher. Key dated sites showing the world distribution of hominins before 1 Ma (orange color) and potential dispersion routes. The figure shows sites with Oldowan technology (black dots) older than 2 Ma in Africa and older than 1 Ma in Eurasia. Credit: Earth-Science Reviews (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855 Evidence pointing to passage through Gibraltar This new dating would be added, according to the researcher, to other evidence that would tip the balance in favor of the colonization of Europe through the Strait of Gibraltar, rather than the alternative route: the return to the Mediterranean via Asia, such as "the existence of a lithic industry with similarities to that found in the north of the African continent and also the presence of remains of African fauna in the south of the peninsula, such as those of Hippopotamus, found in the sites of Orce, and those of Theropithecus oswaldi, an African primate similar to a baboon, found in the Victoria cave, a site near Cartagena (Murcia), non-existent anywhere else in Europe." "We also defend the hypothesisadds the researcherthat they arrived from Gibraltar because no older evidence has been found at any other site along the alternative route," says Gibert. Similarity with hominins from the island of Flores With these results, the researchers point to a "diachronism" between the oldest occupation of Asia, measuring 1.8 Ma, and the oldest occupation of Europe, which would be 1.3 Ma ago, so that African hominins would have arrived in southwestern Europe more than 0.5 Ma after leaving Africa for the first time about 2 Ma ago. "These differences in human expansion can be explained by the fact that Europe is isolated from Asia and Africa by biogeographical barriers that are difficult to overcome, both to the east (Bosphorus Strait, Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara) and to the west (Strait of Gibraltar). Humanity arrived in Europe when it had the necessary technology to cross maritime barriers, as happened before a million years ago on the island of Flores (Indonesia)," says Gibert. In this sense, the researcher adds that the Gibraltar route currently requires crossing up to fourteen kilometers of sea route, but "perhaps in the past this distance was shorter at certain times due to the high tectonic activity in this region and the fluctuations in sea level that favored migrations." "As cited in the paper, we have identified other migrations of African fauna through Gibraltar at earlier times, 6.2 and 5.5 Ma ago when the Strait of Gibraltar was very narrow." Human remains in Orce A total of five human remains were found at the Orce sites since excavations began in 1982 by the paleoanthropologist Josep Gibert. Firstly, two fragments of humerus bitten by hyenas were found at Venta Micena, as well as parts of a cranial fragment consisting of two parietals and an occipital, associated with an abundant Early Pleistocene fauna. The human provenance of these remains generated great controversy for years, although independent paleoproteomic studies by the universities of Granada and San Francisco identified human proteins in the remains. The subsequent discovery at the nearby sites of Barranco Leon and Fuente Nueva 3 of two human molar teeth and thousands of Olduvayan lithic toolsone of the first human lithic industriesas well as cut marks on bones "served to consolidate the evidence of the presence of hominins in the Early Pleistocene at Orce," concludes Lluis Gibert. More information: Luis Gibert et al, Magnetostratigraphic dating of earliest hominin sites in Europe, Earth-Science Reviews (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104855 Journal information: Earth Science Reviews 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: K. Raja Reddy poses in a cotton field at the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station's R.R. Foil Plant Science Research Center, also known as Mississippi State's North Farm. Reddy is part of a team that produced the world's first cotton quality module, allowing cotton producers to better monitor output under changing environmental conditions. Credit: Dominique Belcher Does climate change have an impact on the quality of cotton? Mississippi State scientists hope to answer that question with a new way to monitor the environmental impacts on the cash crop throughout the growing season. Researchers in the university's Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Stationin collaboration with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Nebraska Water Center and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Servicehave produced the world's first cotton quality modulea part of a larger forecasting toolallowing cotton producers to better monitor crop quality under changing environmental conditions. Details published earlier this month in Field Crops Research. Cotton quality impacts how muchor littlemoney a farmer makes. Given its wide use in manufacturing, cotton is subjected to federal quality measurements. High-quality cotton fibers mean more income for the producer, while low-quality fibers could spell loss. K. Raja Reddy, MSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences research professor, working with Sahila Beegum, USDA Adaptive Cropping System Laboratory agricultural engineer in Beltsville, Maryland, developed a new cotton quality module that works with GOSSYM, a computer application that simulates the processes affecting cotton plant growth and yield. The acronym GOSSYM is derived from the scientific name of cotton, Gossypium. The application simulates cotton growth given selected weather, soil and management strategies. From there, it can predict crop growth, yield and now fiber quality. GOSSYM was first developed in the 1980s. As new prediction modules are added, its accuracy and application for cotton producers and researchers is enhanced. The new cotton quality module, now a component of GOSSYM, is a result of pioneering MAFES research. (a) Cotton-grown states (17 states) and counties (765 counties) in the U.S., (b) 15-year average of the daily maximum, (c) daily minimum, and (d) daily temperatures (C) in the counties where cotton is grown in the U.S.. The cotton-growing states are Alabama (AL), Arizona (AZ), Arkansas (AR), California (CA), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Kansas (KS), Louisiana (LA), Mississippi (MS), Missouri (MO), New Mexico (NM), North Carolina (NC), Oklahoma (OK), South Carolina (SC), Tennessee (TN), Texas (TX) and Virginia (VA). Credit: Field Crops Research (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109483 "While cotton is going through growth cycles, the cotton fiber quality will be affected by environmental conditions like temperature, rainfall and the nutrient quality of the soil and plant. All of these are included in the cotton quality module," Reddy said. The cotton quality module is the culmination of more than a decade of research between Reddy's team and collaborators at the Nebraska Water Center. Controlled experiments within MAFES Soil Plant Atmospheric Research chambers studied how organs in the cotton plant responded to different environmental variables, with the end goal of predicting fiber quality. The team has conducted experiments on 40 of the most frequently grown cotton plant varieties, making the quality module a robust tool for farmers. The module will be freely accessible for cotton producers and researchers to use across 74 million acres of cotton fields worldwide. It also has powerful implications in building resiliency to climate change. Researchers can now use the GOSSYM model to make future predictions on how climate shifts will alter cotton quality. Researchers can use this data to recommend changes in agricultural management or to propose new governmental policy. "If we need irrigation to sustain the way we are growing cotton now, what changes do we need to make? Or, if we continue to use irrigation as we are now, will that be sustainable in the long term?" Reddy asked. "If you want to grow the same quality crop, what are the breeding strategies you might use to make the crops more heat or drought tolerant? These are the types of questions we can answer from the quality module." The team is currently working to produce an intuitive user interface that will allow individual farmers and researchers to easily use the quality module to monitor the future of a cotton crop's quality. The new module will provide MSU with innovative research opportunities as well. Reddy and Beegum are looking forward to a new project that will attempt to predict the best planting date to maximize cotton quality, year by year, across 17 Southern U.S. states. The latest version of the GOSSYM source code, including the fiber quality module, is available on the USDA Adaptive Cropping Systems Laboratory GitHub page. More information: Sahila Beegum et al, Planting for perfection: How to maximize cotton fiber quality with the right planting dates in the face of climate change, Field Crops Research (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.fcr.2024.109483 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: Differences between two male pink salmon highlight morphological diversity in the species. Credit: Julia McMahon The ability of salmon hatcheries to increase wild salmon abundance may come at the cost of reduced diversity among wild salmon, according to a new University of Alaska Fairbanksled study. The number of juvenile salmon released into the North Pacific Ocean by hatcheries increased rapidly in the second half of the last century and remains at over 5 billion each year. Salmon hatcheries have helped push annual pink salmon harvests in Prince William Sound from about 4 million fish prior to hatchery programs to roughly 50 million in recent years. Using data collected from pink salmon streams in Prince William Sound, Alaska, through the Alaska Hatchery Research Project, researchers determined that many hatchery-raised fish are straying onto natural spawning grounds and interbreeding with wild populations. In a related study, researchers used simulations developed with the real-world data to ask what this continued input of hatchery fish might mean for wild populations. "Even if only a small percentage of hatchery-origin fish stray into wild populations, a small fraction of a huge number can still be a lot," said Samuel May, lead author of the studypublished in the journal Royal Society Open Science. "We were interested in exploring the long-term consequences of hatchery straying for wild population recruitment and resilience." Life-history diversity is a distinguishing characteristic of wild salmon, which are specifically adapted to the local conditions of their home streams. Simulations showed that wild fish population sizes increased because more fish reproduced than would have without hatchery strays. Those increases came at a cost: As hatchery-origin gene variants spread into wild populations, diversity among those populations was reduced. "Wild populations can be very different from one another, but hatchery fish are often more alike. If many individuals with relatively similar traits are introduced into diverse populations, it can make those populations more alike. Lower diversity among populations can reduce resilience to future changes," said May, who conducted the study as a postdoctoral fellow at UAF's College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. Previous studies have shown that hatchery-origin salmon, which may be adapted to environments different from those they stray into and which don't face the same evolutionary pressures as fish born in natural streams, produce about half as many offspring as wild fish. Introducing those gene variants into wild salmon populations could potentially affect their ability to adapt to future challenges in nature. The simulations tapped into an ongoing project in Prince William Sound that has gathered tissue samples from hundreds of thousands of pink salmon since 2011. The Alaska Hatchery Research Program has collected samples from 30 streams in the region, providing a huge collection of DNA and other data for conducting research to inform Alaska policies and sustainable resource management. This unprecedented sampling effort allows researchers to recreate the family trees of pink salmon from five of these sampled streams in the region and determine which fish can be traced back to hatcheries. May cautioned that, as with any simulation, it can be difficult to fully capture all the complex relationships in nature. Modeling for the study was specific to pink salmon in Prince William Sound, he said, and overarching conclusions about other systems or species should be done with care. "The same things that make these kinds of models incredibly useful in specific contextslike their simplifying assumptions and being parameterized with empirical dataalso make them misleading if applied in the wrong context," May said. Other contributors to the paper included authors from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Alaska Hatchery Research Project is a collaborative endeavor between the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, hatchery operators, nongovernmental organizations and academics. "Salmon hatcheries in Alaska have become a flash point, making discussions of policy options mired in contention and acrimony," said Peter Westley, a UAF associate professor of fisheries and principal investigator for the project. "Hopefully, this work can guide conversations by serving as an agreed upon realityhatcheries can increase salmon abundance of both hatchery and wild individuals, but it comes with an inherent trade-off for wild fish ecological diversity such as run timing." More information: Samuel A. May et al, Salmon hatchery strays can demographically boost wild populations at the cost of diversity: quantitative genetic modelling of Alaska pink salmon, Royal Society Open Science (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.240455 Journal information: Royal Society Open Science 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: Tree growth is affected by the interaction of complex physiological processes among various organs, and resource availability is the key factor. Credit: Shi, Han, et al. A recent study from China has shed light on the profound impacts of extreme droughts on forest ecosystems, particularly in water-limited regions. The findings revealed significant differences in how various tree species respond to such stressors. Conducted in the Horqin Sandy Land of Northeast China, the research used dendrochronology and remote sensing techniques to examine the responses of both native maple-oak forests and introduced poplar plantations to extreme drought conditions. The study's findings, published in the journal Forest Ecosystems, underscore the critical role of precipitation and the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) in influencing tree growth and vegetation health. The severe droughts experienced between 2000 and 2004 led to notable declines in radial growth and vegetation index (NDVI) across the studied tree species. The impact was particularly severe on the poplar species, with fast-growing poplar species showing more dramatic declines in growth rates and vegetation health than native maple and oak species. This indicates a species-specific trade-off between drought resilience and growth rate, with fast-growing species like poplar being more vulnerable to drought conditions. Moreover, the study discovered that while radial growth showed no significant correlation with scPDSI, NDVI demonstrated a significant positive correlation, highlighting the greater sensitivity of canopy performance to drought stress than on the scale of inter-annual events radial growth. These insights are crucial for forest management and afforestation efforts, especially in the context of climate change. Understanding species-specific responses to extreme droughts can guide the selection of tree species that are better suited to withstand water-limited conditions, ensuring the sustainability and resilience of forest ecosystems. More information: Han Shi et al, Resilience and response: Unveiling the impacts of extreme droughts on forests through integrated dendrochronological and remote sensing analyses, Forest Ecosystems (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.fecs.2024.100209. www.sciencedirect.com/science/ 2197562024000459?via%3Dihub Provided by KeAi Communications Co. 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: While many residents are still yet to return, morning joggers are allowed on the citys newly built roads. Credit: Dahlia Simangan/Hiroshima University Wars and conflicts leave devastating destruction in their wake. With so many conflicts now taking place in urban environments, scientists are studying how post-conflict peacebuilding happens in these urban settings. Dahlia Simangan, an associate professor at The IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University, has analyzed the case of Marawi, a city in the Philippines, to better understand the urban environment's influence on post-siege reconstruction and peacebuilding. The study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of peacebuilding by integrating conventional peacebuilding components and urban characteristics. The research was published in the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs on May 22, 2024. Although urban warfare is not a new occurrence, it has changed in recent years as conflicts ranging from gang violence to terrorist attacks increasingly take place in urban environments. These conflicts occur in both developed and developing societies. As the population in urban areas rises, people living in these areas are finding the consequences of the conflicts falling closer and closer to their homes. Where the population is dense in urban areas, the impact of the conflict is more widespread and the "enemies" are less easy to identify. These urban conflicts today are impacting the lives of civilians in ways that the traditional wars of past years did not, and the ways lives are impacted are not always visible. Because of this, cities under siege need a unique set of rebuilding tools relevant to the urban environment, including the people, places, and practices that make them. "In a rapidly urbanizing world, the nature of conflicts has also taken up urban characteristics. This study aims to understand how post-conflict peacebuilding can effectively operate in urban environments," said Simangan. The author conducted a field visit to Marawi City to document peoples perspectives about the reconstructed urban spaces. Credit: Dahlia Simangan/Hiroshima University Simangan focused the study on the city of Marawi, where in 2017, a five-month battle between Islamic State-inspired militant groups and the Philippine military occurred, resulting in the longest urban warfare in the country since World War II. This "Battle of Marawi" or "Marawi Siege" claimed the lives of about 920 militants, including the group leaders, 165 soldiers, and 47 civilians. Because of the conflict, 360,000 people from the city and neighboring areas were forcibly displaced. While the government has started an interagency reconstruction effort, the ruins of residential houses, commercial buildings, and places of worship are now part of Marawi's urbanscape. The case of Marawi offers insights into how post-conflict peacebuilding can effectively operate in urban environments. Simangan explored how the urbanscape of Marawi influences its reconstruction and peacebuilding. She specifically examined the role of people, places, and practices in building or impeding security, justice and reconciliation, and economic development in post-siege Marawi. This study advances an integrated framework for analyzing urban peacebuilding, using the conventional peacebuilding components of security, reconciliation, and development within Marawi City's people, places, and practices. Simangan used focus group discussions to gather data, examining practical issues like security, for example, the clearance of unexploded ordnances. She examined reconciliation, especially the return of displaced persons, and explored development, specifically looking at how the people resumed their livelihoods. "Urban spaces can facilitate everyday practices that can hinder or promote peace. Understanding the social significance and historical relevance of these spaces can guide the reconstruction and peacebuilding process of conflict-affected cities," said Simangan. Simangan is also working with a group of peacebuilding scholars on a research project about citizen inclusion in peace settlements. "I would like to apply the integrated conceptual framework on urban peacebuilding lens that I developed from this study to understand the power dynamics surrounding post-conflict settlements in cities," Simangan said. She will also continue the development of an urban peacebuilding geoportal documenting the transformation of conflict-affected cities by adding more case studies. More information: Dahlia Simangan, Challenges and Prospects for Urban Peacebuilding in Post-Siege Marawi City, Philippines: People, Places, and Practices, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs (2024). DOI: 10.1177/18681034241251864 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 Middle managers play an important role in an organization undergoing structural change. They are the ones who must implement the changes, but conversely, as employees, they will be subject to the very changes they put in place. This can often put them in a place of conflicting demands, where they must manage their own stress and uncertainty while carrying out new directives that will affect their colleagues and subordinates. A study in the International Journal of Work Organization and Emotion has taken a major bank as a case study in order to look at how middle managers might cope with this stress during corporate restructuring and what strategies they might use to overcome the stress and find their way around the many challenges. Pravitha Jogie, Annemarie Davis, and Catherine Le Roux of the Department of Business Management at the University of South Africa in the City of Tshwane suggest that middle managers generally respond to corporate restructuring in one of two ways. They either cope or they "cop out" and evade the responsibilities placed on them in some way. The team explains that coping usually involves proactive strategies such as positive reframing, where managers view themselves as agents of change and engage with the process. Positive reframing allows middle managers to perceive restructuring as an opportunity for growth and improvement. By contrast, "copping out" refers to disengagement and withdrawal behavior, such as territorialism, where the middle manager protects their own interests and is perhaps involved in spreading rumors, all of which can disrupt the restructuring process but also provide something of a psychological escape route for the managers who engage in such behavior. The business environment has always been marked by constant change where globalization, economic fluctuations, technological advancements, and international crises affect the way a company operates and its bottom line. The team explains that the financial services sector faces particularly intense competition, regulatory changes, and digital transformation. These factors have led to frequent organizational restructuring for many companies, which puts pressure on the middle managers to interpret, communicate, and implement new structures and strategies. The research suggests that it is obviously better that middle managers cope rather than cop out, and points to the learning of new skills and networking with peers and mentors as being useful tools to help in this regard. They even suggest that engaging in hobbies or other "extracurricular" activities might be useful coping mechanisms. It is possible then for a manager to maintain a sense of control and purpose, as this is essential for their mental well-being and their productivity in the workplace, as well as ensuring the same for colleagues and subordinates. However, the research often showed the converse. Middle managers might become withdrawn and disengage from the task at hand. This was especially common among managers who felt powerless or unsupported, indicating a need for organizations to foster a supportive environment to ensure smooth restructuring when this is needed. More information: Pravitha Jogie et al, Middle managers' practices during organisational restructuring: coping or copping out, International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion (2024). DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2024.139912 Provided by Inderscience California fire officials are warning residents to be extra vigilant as the state's fire season is off to an early, ferocious start. More than 220,000 acres have already been consumed by wildfires. That's nearly 20 times more acres than what's typical by mid-July, and it's just the beginning of fire season. Some 20 people have died in the state due to suspected high heat impacts, including a motorcyclist after traveling in Death Valley, where temperatures hit 128 degrees Fahrenheit. State firefighters have already responded to more than 3,500 wildfires so far this year. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and dozens of structures have been damaged or destroyed Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Joe Tyler warned at a press conference earlier this week: "We are not just in a fire season, we are in a fire year. Our winds and the recent heatwave have exacerbated the issue, consuming thousands of acres. So we need to be extra cautious." Crews this week were battling several wildfires, including the 34,000-acre Lake fire in the mountains of Santa Barbara County, which prompted evacuation orders for some 200 homes. California had more-than-usual welcome rains this past winter after a years-long drought. But the water triggered a bumper crop of grasses that have already dried out and are ready to burn in unusually high temperatures this summer. "Climate change is real," California's Gov. Gavin Newsom said at the press conference Wednesday. "Those extremes are here present every day in the great state of California." Donald Trump, presumptive Republican nominee for president, recently blew off the threat of soaring heat amid the extreme weather of climate change in the U.S. and around the world. "Basically, you have a little more beachfront property, okay?" he asked in an interview last month on Fox & Friends. In fact, the rising waters of climate change flood beachfront areas. June was the hottest month ever recorded on the planet, which also fuels the fires. It was the 13th hottest month in a row. More than 63 million people in the US were under heat alerts Thursday. Las Vegas last Sunday recorded its highest temperature ever: 120 degrees Fahrenheit. 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 drone lands for a battery swap at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig A fleet of drones patrolling New York City's beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. While the attacks have slowed, they have not stopped completely, fueling concern from wildlife experts about the impact on threatened species nesting along the coast. Veronica Welsh, a wildlife coordinator at the Parks Department, said the birds were "very annoyed by the drones" from the moment they arrived on the beach. "They will fly at it, they'll swoop at it, they'll be vocalizing," Welsh said. "They think they're defending their chicks from a predator." No birds have been harmed, but officials say there have been several close calls. The drones, which come equipped with inflatable life rafts that can be dropped on distressed swimmers, have yet to conduct any rescues. They spotted their first shark on Thursday, resulting in a closure of most of the beach. City officials said the "swarming incidents" have been primarily carried out by American oystercatchers. The shorebird, known for its striking orange bill, lays its eggs this time of year in the sand on Rockaway Beach. While its population has improved in recent decades, federal authorities consider the species a "high conservation concern." A drone prepares to land for a battery swap at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig The birds eventually may grow habituated to the devices, which can stretch over 3 feet (nearly a meter) long and emit a loud hum as they take flight, said David Bird, a professor of wildlife biology at McGill University. But he was quick to raise a far more dire possibility: that the drones could prompt a stress response in some birds that causes them to flee the beach and abandon their eggs, as several thousand elegant terns did following a recent drone crash in San Diego. "We don't know a lot about what sort of distance is required to protect the birds," he said. "But we do know there are birds on this beach that are highly endangered. If they abandon their nests because of the drones, that would be a disaster." On Rockaway Beach, a popular summertime destination for New Yorkers, American oystercatchers share their habitat with multiple tern species of waterbirds, as well as piping plovers, a small, sand-colored bird that is the city's only federally designated endangered species. Local officials closely monitor the plovers each summer, barring beachgoersand dronesfrom the stretches of sand where they primarily nest. A drone scans the shoreline for signs of struggling swimmers, sharks and other hazards at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig The city's Emergency Management Department, which also flies drones over the beach, flagged the coastal conflict last month to other drone operators in the police and fire department, who agreed to launch the devices further from oystercatcher nesting areas. "We pointed out that there's a nest here and there's two angry parents who don't want you anywhere near their eggs or their babies," said Natalie Grybauskas, the agency's assistant commissioner. Since then, agencies have been holding briefings on the issue, a departure from their usual work on disasters like fires and building collapses. "It's rare that you have to learn about the life cycles of baby birds," Grybauskas said. But even after the city adjusted its flight range, beachgoers said they witnessed groups of birds rushing at the drones. A drone lifts off at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig New York City is not alone turning to drones to patrol its waters. Following a spate of shark bites last summer, a similar effort was launched by officials on Long Island. Those devices are smaller and quieter and do not have flotation devices. In recent years, lifeguards in Australia also have used drones to monitor sharks and to conduct rescue operations. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a devoted drone enthusiast, has touted the new drone program as a "great addition to saving the lives of those that we lose over the summer," especially as the city struggles to hire lifeguards to staff its beaches. Four people have drowned off city beaches this summer, matching the total number of swimming deaths from last year. After two teenagers disappeared while swimming off a beach adjacent to Rockaway, the NYPD flew its drones as part of the search mission. Both bodies eventually washed up on the shoreline. A drone scans the shoreline for signs of struggling swimmers, sharks and other hazards at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig A drone with emergency flotation devices attached prepares to launch at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig An FDNY drone pilot launches a drone at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig An FDNY drone pilot demonstrates an emergency flotation device, carried by some of the drones patrolling the shoreline, at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig An FDNY drone pilot scans the shoreline for signs of struggling swimmers, sharks and other hazards at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig A drone lands for a battery swap at Rockaway Beach in New York, Thursday, July 11, 2024. A fleet of drones patrolling New York Citys beaches for signs of sharks and struggling swimmers is drawing backlash from an aggressive group of seaside residents: local shorebirds. Since the drones began flying in May, flocks of birds have repeatedly swarmed the devices, forcing the police department and other city agencies to adjust their flight plans. Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig The fire department's drones also have captured footage of lifeguards assisting swimmers on Rockaway Beach struggling in a rip tide. Chris Allieri, founder of the NYC Plover Project, a bird protection group, praised the city for taking an innovative approach to water safety. But he stressed additional precautions were necessary to ensure the drones weren't harming the shorebird population. "Wildlife in New York is often an afterthought," he said. "We should be asking ourselves how we can use this technology in a way that works for all New Yorkers, and that includes those with feathers." 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: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Reports of bald eagles dying from lead ammunition poisoning continue as populations of the formerly endangered bird soar. Bald eagle exposure to the pesticide DDT caused potential extinction a half century ago. And while the birds are no longer endangered and populations are still increasing, researchers say lead poisoning is taking a chunk of some of that growthalmost 4% to 5% annually. While the population remains more or less stable locally, a host of unpredictable environmental variables could tip that. "From the rehabbers' perspective, the overall eagle population is strong, but we have environmental issues going on and we are concerned," said Carol Holmgren, executive director and principal licensed wildlife rehabilitator at Tamarack Wildlife Center in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, which treats bald eagles as well as other raptors and wildlife. Eagles consume lead mostly through animal carcasses and gut piles with lead ammunition. A lead bullet fragment the size of a grain of rice is sufficient to kill a bald eagle, Holmgren said. At Tamarack, lead poisoning accounts for about one-third of its bald eagle caseload. Studies show decline Ingesting lead fragments in carcasses depressed the bald eagle population by about 5% annually in Northeastern states from 19902018, per a Cornell study, published in 2022 in the Journal of Wildlife Management. A separate study, published the same year in the journal Science, found that about 47% of bald eagles had high frequencies of lead poisoning in 38 states, including Pennsylvania. The report suggests lead poisoning-suppressed population growth rates continent-wide for bald eagles up to almost 4%. Lead poisoning has suppressed population growth rates for bald eagles across North America by almost 4%, according to the report. This is concerning news for the comeback of the charismatic raptor, from near-extinction to one of the country's most successful conservation stories. "With the PA population continuing to expand, it is hard to say how lead may be impacting the PA population of bald eagles," said Sean Murphy, state ornithologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The commission examined 228 bald eagles in Pennsylvania from 20062016 and found 30% had lead in their systems, Murphy said. The two national studies used different data and came to the same conclusion: Lead poisoning impacts the bald eagle population, said Krysten Schuler, a Mt. Lebanon native and co-author of the Cornell study. "For us in the science community, we knew that lead kills eagles but we wanted to know what it is doing to the population overall," said Schuler, a Cornell assistant researcher and wildlife disease ecologist who directs the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab. Cornell's finding of lead taking out 5% of the bald eagle population annually is not enough to stop the population recovery, she said. "It's like driving forward but having a brake on at the same time." The population hit from lead removes a cushion for the birds to weather future threats from new infectious diseases and climate change. "The concern is continued population resilience," Schuler said. Rehabbing poisoned eagles A fox or a raccoon is not affected by lead as much as eagles and other scavengers, Holmgren said. With acidic digestive systems that can break down bone, ingested lead is metabolized in bald eagles and sent to the bloodstream and organs, she said. Last year, Tamarack treated 12 bald eagles with a maximum of seven at one time. Of those, six recovered enough for release back into the wild. Last month, a bald eagle from Crawford County died from lead toxicity at the center. Treating bald eagles for lead toxicity requires special equipment, and drugs are expensive, costing about $3,000 in the first month and $2,000 in succeeding months, according to Holmgren. Tamarack recently drew attentionand fundsto its rehabilitation efforts with a naming contest for a bald eagle hatched at a nest on U.S. Steel Irvin Plant property in West Mifflin. The eagle was named Lucky and the April contest helped to raise $7,000 in donations. Other U.S. Steel fundraisers for Tamarack have netted more than $40,000, helping to pay for an X-ray machine and a generator in the last several years. Lucky and his parents aren't just symbols of patriotism but corporate and public intervention to save bald eagles from lead and other hazards. "For U.S. Steel, we're trying to put Tamarack on the map. They are doing great work with eagles and raptors and other wildlife," said Don German, manager of the Irvin Plant, who presents his "Eagle Talks" to schools, libraries and other venues. The mill, along with PixCams of Murrysville, offers a live public webcam trained on the eagle nest on the steel mill property. Mr. German often mentions the problem of lead poisoning in bald eagles and continues to promote Tamarack's work. "Obviously we are seeing so many more eagles even on our cameras," he said. "The need for Tamarack and their success with even more eagles, we want to help increase their resources that help with birds' survival." Voluntary lead shot ban? Since lead ammunition was banned nationally for waterfowl hunting almost 35 years ago, most proposed legislation for additional lead ammunition bans have proven to be political and contentious. Biologists and hunters are not waiting. A hunter, Schuler supports the North American Non-lead Partnership. "The major thing we're trying to say is that lead is a preventable source of eagle mortality," she said. Hunters can choose ammunition. "It's not about taking guns and ammunition away," she said. "If they harvest a deer or a bear and don't leave lead out there for scavengers, it is really important." The Pennsylvania Game Commission promotes non-lead ammunition and tackle and asks hunters to bury a carcass or gut pile to reduce the chances of a scavenger finding the carcass. Commission game wardens use non-toxic ammunition for wildlife when necessary. Holmgren supports the nonprofit Sporting Lead-Free, an initiative of the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson, Wyoming. "We want to be nonpolitical, just educational," said Hannah Leonard, program director for Sporting Lead-Free. "We have seen legislation proposed that has a negative impact on the sporting community. There's so much nuance." Some proposed legislation lacks the understanding of the ammunition and tackle market, she said. "We are not necessarily anti-lead." Leonard is a hunter who uses lead shot only for target shooting. Persuading hunters to switch from lead ammunition to something else poses challenges: cost, availability of copper and alternative ammunition, and misconceptions about accuracy. "Just like everybody's foot fits a shoe a little differently, same thing with ammunition in your firearm. Every firearm shoots every ammunition a little differently." Modern copper ammunition is better than in the 1990s, she insisted. The technology has improved and copper ammunition is more widely available. Many hunters and anglers don't know the latest information and products, Leonard said. "My job is to educate hunters, anglers and the public. We are not shaming people for not knowing something." 2024 PG Publishing Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: So far, the Garching scientists have been able to manipulate up to six rubidium atoms as quantum bits in the optical resonator with the light tweezers. To make them visible, the atoms are excited to emit light. In theory, the resonator can hold up to 200 atomshighly effective addressable quantum bits. Credit: Max Planck Society Entanglement, Einstein's "spooky action at a distance," today is THE tool of quantum information science. It is the essential resource for quantum computers and used to transmit quantum information in a future quantum network. But it is highly sensitive. It is therefore an enormous challenge to entangle resting quantum bits (qubits) with flying qubits in the form of photons "at the push of a button." A team led by Gerhard Rempe, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, has now succeeded in doing exactly that with atoms connected in parallel. The work was published July 11 in the journal Science. The atoms are sandwiched between two almost perfect mirrors. This setup guarantees reliable interaction with photons as flying qubitsa technique pioneered by Gerhard Rempe. Using optical tweezers, the team was able to individually control up to six atoms and entangle each with a photon. By applying a multiplexing technique, the scientists could demonstrate an atom-photon entanglement generation with almost 100% efficiency, a groundbreaking achievement for distributing entanglement over a quantum network. Interfaces between resting qubits and flying qubits come into play whenever quantum information needs to be transmitted over long distances. "One aspect is the communication of quantum information over long distances in a future quantum internet," explains Emanuele Distante, who supervised the experiment as a postdoctoral researcher, and is now a researcher at ICFO in Barcelona. "The second aspect is the goal of connecting many qubits in a distributed network to form a more powerful quantum computer. Both applications require efficient interfaces between qubits at rest and qubits in motion. This is why many groups around the world are feverishly researching quantum mechanical light-matter interfaces," says Distante. Several different technical approaches are being pursued. Gerhard Rempe and his team in Garching have been working for many years on a method that uses ultracold rubidium atoms trapped between two almost perfect mirrors as an optical resonator. The focus is on a future quantum internet. This approach has an inherent advantage because it allows a trapped atom to interact highly efficiently with a photon, which bounces back and forth between the two mirrors about 20,000 times, like a ping-pong ball. What's more, because one of the two mirrors is slightly more transparent than the other, the photon leaves in a precisely predetermined direction. This means that it is not lost, but can be reliably coupled into an optical fiber. If this photon is entangled with the atom using a specific protocol of laser pulses, this entanglement is maintained as the photon travels. Multiplexing to overcome transmission losses In 2012, the Garching team succeeded in entangling an atom in one resonator with a second atom in another resonator via "photon radio" through a 60-meter-long glass fiber. With the help of the transmitted photon, they formed an extended entangled quantum object from the two atoms. However, the photon must not get lost in the glass fiber along the way, and this is precisely the problem with a longer journey. The solution, at least for medium distances of a few kilometers, is called "multiplexing." Multiplexing is a standard method used in classical information technology to make transmission more robust. Think of it as a radio link through a noisy area: If you send the radio signal along several parallel channels, the probability that it will reach the receiver via at least one channel increases. "Without multiplexing, even our current Internet would not work," explains Distante. "But transferring this method to quantum information systems is a particular challenge." Multiplexing is not only interesting for more secure transmission over longer distances in a future quantum internet, but also for a local quantum network. One example is the distributed quantum computer, which consists of several smaller processors that are connected via short optical fibers. Its resting qubits could be entangled more reliably by multiplexing with flying qubits to form a distributed, more powerful quantum computer. Laser tweezers for handling atoms The challenge for the Garching team was to load several atoms into a resonator as resting qubits and to address them individually. Only if the position of the atoms is known can they be entangled in parallel with one photon each in order to achieve multiplexing. Hence, the team developed a technique for inserting optical tweezers into the narrow resonator. "The mirrors are only about half a millimeter apart," explains Lukas Hartung, Ph.D. student and first author of the paper in Science. The optical tweezers consist of fine laser beams that are strong enough to capture an atom in their focus and move it precisely to the desired position. Using up to six such tweezers, the team was able to arrange a corresponding number of floating rubidium atoms in the cavity to form a neat qubit lattice. Since the atoms can easily remain in the trap for a minutea little eternity in quantum physicsthey could easily be entangled with one photon each. "This works almost 100% of the time," says Distante, emphasizing the key advantage of this technique: The entanglement distribution works almost "deterministically," i.e., at the push of a button. Scalable to considerably more qubits In order to achieve this, the team used a microscope lens objective positioned above the resonator with micrometer precision in order to focus the individual beams of the light tweezers into the narrow mirror cabinet. The tweezer beams are generated via so-called acousto-optical deflectors and can therefore be controlled individually. Precise adjustment of the laser tweezers in the optics requires a great deal of dexterity. "Mastering this challenge was the cornerstone for the success of the experiment," summarizes Stephan Welte, who helped develop the technology as part of the team and is now a researcher at ETH Zurich. The current experiment gives hope that the method can be scaled up to considerably more qubits without losses: The team estimates that up to 200 atoms could be controlled in such a resonator. As these quantum bits can be controlled very well in the resonator, this would be a huge step forward. And as the interface even feeds 100% of the entangled photons into the optical fiber, a network of many resonators, each with 200 atoms as resting qubits, would be possible. This would result in a powerful quantum computer. It is still a dream of the future. But with the laser tweezers, the Garching team now has a considerable part of this future firmly under control. More information: Lukas Hartung et al, A quantum-network register assembled with optical tweezers in an optical cavity, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado6471 Journal information: Science 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: Glaciers and permafrost over the Tibetan Plateau. Credit: Weichen Tao The Tibetan Plateau hosts the world's largest permafrost region in the middle and low latitudes. Compared to the high-latitude Arctic permafrost, the permafrost here is thinner, warmer, and more sensitive to global warming. The active layer is a crucial zone for energy exchange between permafrost and the atmosphere, effectively reflecting the impact of climate change on permafrost. Studying changes in the active layer thickness (ALT) helps towards a better understanding of the hydrological environment in permafrost regions. However, due to the complex and variable environment of the Tibetan Plateau, the simulation of ALT remains a subject of debate. Recently, Jinglong Huang, from Hohai University, and Prof. Chaofan Li, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, utilized the China Meteorological Forcing Dataset to drive the Community Land Model, version 5.0, for simulating and studying changes in ALT from 1980 to 2020 on the Tibetan Plateau. Their findings have recently been published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters. The results show significant interdecadal changes in ALT on the Tibetan Plateau after the year 2000. The overall ALT of the plateau decreased from 2.54 m during 19801999 to 2.28 m during 20002020. This change took place mainly in the western permafrost region, displaying a sharp regional inconsistency with the eastern region where a persistent increasing trend was found, rather than an interdecadal change. Additionally, the active layer area also displays an interdecadal change around the year 2000, characterized by a continuous decline before that year and almost no change thereafter. The study further found that the changes and regional differences in the active layer of the permafrost on the Tibetan Plateau are significantly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and precipitation, reflecting the complex response to climate change under global warming. "The terrain of the Tibetan Plateau is highly complex, and the calculation bias for permafrost in some areas is often large. Thus, we hope to simulate the ALT of the Tibetan Plateau using a high-performing land surface model combined with high-resolution meteorological forcing data to better approximate the actual situation," explains Dr. Li, the corresponding author of the study. This result contributes to a better understanding of the transformation characteristics of the meteorological and hydrological environment in the permafrost regions of the Tibetan Plateau against the background of global warming, and to grasping the impact of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau's exchanges of water and heat. More information: Jinglong Huang et al, Variation in the permafrost active layer over the Tibetan Plateau during 19802020, Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.aosl.2024.100536 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: Scientists look at live feed from the ocean floor. Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology A new data visualization tool designed by a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student is helping a team of microbial ecologists, geobiologists, and oceanographers gain more insight into how deep-sea microorganisms interact within their environment. What began as an internship at NASA turned into a unique opportunity for fourth-year Ph.D. student Adam Coscia. Coscia worked under the supervision of an interdisciplinary team of collaborative researchers from Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Caltech manages for NASA and the ArtCenter College of Design. Coscia's mentors recommended him to a Caltech research team led by Victoria Orphan, a renowned microbial ecologist who studies microbial communities in the ocean and how they function within habitats in deep seafloor sediments. Orphan and her team, the Orphan Lab at Caltech, have conducted their research since 2004. They recently decided to take a data visualization approach to record their findings and plan future expeditions. "Historically, our data sets have been discrete and have lived in separate Excel spreadsheets," Orphan said. "Maybe at the end, we'll do some statistical analysis to find correlations in that data. Then we compare those to our maps. We didn't have a way of consolidating everything under one umbrella that allows us to learn more about these ecosystems." Orphan said her team typically takes one or two research expeditions off the California coast annually. They spend three weeks using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to collect sediment samples from the ocean floor. Because time is at a premium, identifying the locations of the best samples is crucial. Orphan is also an adjunct scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and works with the Seafloor Mapping Lab. The lab uses an ROV-mounted low-altitude survey system to produce detailed maps of seafloor topography. To help the Orphan Lab work effectively with topographic and photographic data, Coscia designed DeepSee, an interactive web browser that can annotate and chart data using 3D visualization models and environmental maps. "The idea is once you have the samples, and you're interested in a specific area with prior samples, you can go in and annotate on the map where to collect samples next with our drawing tool," Coscia said. "We focused on the exploration and notetaking process with maps and data and having new ways of visualizing it. Scientists can draw and map out all their samples in real time. They can reference specific data much easier and determine where the team should go to get the best samples." The Orphan Lab has taken DeepSee live onboard its ship for its two most recent expeditions. Orphan has noticed an increased efficiency in expedition planning. "The infrastructure put in place by Adam will make this an enabling tool not only for my group but for other oceanographers and scientists in other fieldsanywhere there is a spatial distribution of information you want to connect to other metadata," she said. Orphan brings new researchers into her lab at Caltech every year, and DeepSee has accelerated the process of getting newcomers up to speed. "We can onboard them much easier and give them a sense of what data is available and where we've collected information in a way that's much clearer than having them refer to an Excel spreadsheet," she said. DeepSee also creates 3D data models under the sea floor using data interpolation, which estimates new data points based on the range of a set of known data points. Using the known data points, DeepSee fills in the blanks of the estimated data quality the researchers may find in nearby locations or further underneath the surface where samples were collected. "You would never see anything visually below the sea floor," Coscia said. "You'd have to go dig. But our 3D models show you that you might have data suggesting a hotspot just a few feet below the floor. That tells you where to sample next." Coscia aims to incorporate machine learning (ML) models into a future version of DeepSee that will use collected data to predict future sites for sampling. However, ML model accuracy requires significantly more data. Coscia hopes the current version of the tool catches on so researchers can more easily incorporate machine learning into their work. For now, the current version has plenty of uses, he said. "Being able to organize and see your data, especially with maps, is always valuable," he said. "My passion is helping researchers and scientists see their data in new and valuable ways." Coscia authored a paper on developing DeepSee, which he presented in May at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024) in Honolulu, Hawaii. City of Glens Falls Wastewater Treatment Plant team was recently recognized for Operational Excellence over the decade from 2015 to 2024 by EnviroMix. New York State is well-known for having some of the strictest water quality standards in the U.S. The City of Glens Falls undertook an infrastructure upgrade of the 9.5 MGD Glens Falls Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2015, to remain compliant with ever stricter New York State Department of Environmental Conservation standards. One serious challenge for all wastewater treatment plants is controlling nitrate levels, excesses of which can cause overgrowth of algae and plants. The upgrade included the incorporation of biological nutrient removal, and two aeration basins were modified to incorporate anoxic selectors designed to facilitate denitrification, to help with this problem. EnviroMixs BioMix was the supplier of the denitrification system chosen for this upgrade. The award recognizes a combination of environmental protection (through denitrification performance), energy efficiency and maintenance. In a statement regarding the award, EnviroMix said that they are pleased to present the Operational Excellence Award to the outstanding team at Glens Falls and to provide the city with an energy efficient, low maintenance mixing system that supports denitrification. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, currently serving as Acting Governor, questions President Joe Bidens recounting of approving a natural disaster declaration during a press conference alongside Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd to update recover efforts after Hurricane Beryl at Galleria Tower II, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Patrick assumed the role while Greg Abbott is on a work trip in Asia. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Graffiti reading Centerpointle$$ is seen on the I-10 West freeway on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 in Houston. Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer A CenterPoint foreign assistance crew worker wipes sweat from his brow as he works with others to restore power lines on July 11, 2024 in Houston, Texas. Nearly one million people still remain without electricity in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which was a category one hurricane that made a direct hit on Houston and surrounding areas on July 8, leaving more than two million people without power. (Photo by Danielle Villasana/Getty Images) Danielle Villasana/Getty Images Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, currently serving as Acting Governor, holds up a copy of the states disaster declaration during a press conference alongside to update recover efforts after Hurricane Beryl at Galleria Tower II, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Patrick assumed the role while Greg Abbott is on a work trip in Asia. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer A cyclist rides past a fallen transmission line tower along the US 290 feeder road in the aftermath of a severe storm, May 17, 2024 in Houston. Brett Coomer/Associated Press Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, currently serving as Acting Governor, holds up a copy of a statement by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo during a press conference alongside to update recover efforts after Hurricane Beryl at Galleria Tower II, Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Houston. Patrick assumed the role while Greg Abbott is on a work trip in Asia. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Someone needs to investigate CenterPoint Energys abject failure to maintain a grid capable of withstanding a Category 1 hurricane. Unfortunately, after recent severe weather events, Texans cannot rely on those in power to reveal the truth, let alone find a solution. Gov. Greg Abbott called on the Public Utility Commission of Texas to dig into why the Houston region has experienced multiple outages in recent years. They should not be losing power, Abbott told Bloomberg TV while in Asia, where hes leading a trade delegation. Electric transmission and distribution utility executives, including one from CenterPoint, briefed the PUC on Thursday morning, but commissioners didnt ask any tough questions. Instead, they grasped for explanations that excused the utilities for widespread outages that have lasted for four days. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The PUC is supposed to represent Texas consumers, but the commissioners' coziness with the companies they are supposed to regulate betrayed the unlikeliness CenterPoint will suffer consequences for its atrocious performance in maintaining power lines and poles in the Energy Capital of the World. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick held a press conference Thursday. In his role as acting governor during a natural disaster, he was more focused on slamming Democrats and deflecting from his own failures than questioning why more than 1 million Texas homes and businesses will remain without power through Saturday. Our public officials are unfazed by the millions of Texans suffering from this crony capitalism. CenterPoint is a $19 billion, for-profit corporation granted a monopoly over a hundred years ago to manage and maintain the transmission and distribution of electricity across the Houston region. This regulated utility failed to deliver power to 85% of its customers during the height of a mild hurricane. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In a perfect world, the Public Utility Commission would have ensured CenterPoint maintained a grid resilient enough to withstand a stronger storm. Instead, elected officials are asking the wrong questions about the emergency response. 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. Patrick said earlier this week. Wrong. The important question is, why did so many CenterPoint powerlines and poles snap so easily? Why wasnt the grid built stronger, and why wasnt vegetation cut away? These are CenterPoints primary responsibilities for which they receive a guaranteed profit from customer bills, and they didnt fulfill them. CenterPoint officials have stammered their responses. What we've seen now is more impact than what we originally thought that we were going to see, Alyssia Oshodi, CenterPoint director of communications, told KHOU television. Advertisement Article continues below this ad CenterPoint had plenty of warnings. So is the problem shoddy maintenance work by CenterPoint subcontractors after the company trimmed 700 employees since 2020 to boost profits? Did the company cheap out on materials and engineering standards? Does the company believe blacking out 85% of its customers in a Category 1 hurricane is acceptable? Is the PUC allowing CenterPoint and other corporations to put profits ahead of people? I suspect the answer is yes to all of these questions because thats what happens when one political party runs the show for 26 years. Politicians get lazy when they think voters wont hold them accountable. Incumbents prioritize making powerful corporations happy, a problem true of all political parties. Investigative journalists are digging, but only someone with subpoena power can get to the emails, memos and data inside CenterPoint headquarters in Houston. An attentive attorney general would have already sent a letter demanding the company preserve records. But Texas top law enforcement officer, Ken Paxton, is too busy sending fundraising emails promising vengeance on his enemies. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Following the 2021 blackouts, Abbott promised an investigation and corrective action to fix the states primary electric grid. He proclaimed the problem solved that summer. Yet, within weeks, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas began declaring a series of emergencies, warning of possible blackouts. The grid is still broken. Patrick and Paxton promised to investigate why the energy system failed during Winter Storm Uri. Those inquiries have yet to yield results, with lawmakers too busy defending oil and gas campaign donors who pocketed tens of billions of dollars in profit from Texans suffering. Texas Republicans have bragged about the states low taxes, low regulations and pro-business environment since 1999, when they took control of every elected statewide office. They promised a deregulated electricity grid would produce inexpensive and reliable power, and it did for a while. However, decades of underinvestment and a refusal to prepare for a harsher climate have left Texans vulnerable. Our current leaders are more interested in covering up their neglect than acknowledging the truth. ATLANTIC CITY Housing Authority representatives told Stanley Holmes Village residents they must all be out of the troubled complex by October 2025, and gave them options for their future along with offers of credit repair counseling, at a meeting Wednesday evening. Some may even qualify for help becoming homeowners, a credit counselor told about 100 residents at the All Wars Memorial Building next to Stanley Holmes Village. I have talked to engineers and architects, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt on my mothers grave that Stanley Holmes has outlived its usefulness, said Diane Johnson, a consultant to the authority who used to run the Newark office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD funds and oversees thousands of housing authorities nationwide. Residents were told their options are moving to another housing authority property, moving into private rentals in the city or elsewhere with a Section 8 voucher, or becoming a homeowner with the help of Section 8 and other programs. Some residents have said they wont leave, but Johnson said thats not an option. You are not guaranteed an address, you are guaranteed a unit, Johnson said. Nobody is going to say, Im not going Ive been here 20 years. That aint the way it works. Seven buildings need to be empty by Oct. 15 of this year, which is the start of the heating season, Johnson said, to ease the demand on the problematic heating system that relies on 1930s underground water pipes. Some Stanley Holmes Village residents say they will fight to keep their apartments, others ready to go On June 27, the Atlantic City Housing Authority passed a Stanley Holmes Village transfer plan that said it would move most Village 3 residents out of their apartments by Oct. 1, into either other authority complexes or into private housing using Section 8 vouchers. Members of the media and attorneys for the residents were not allowed into the meeting, but one attendee recorded what was said and made it available. Under the Section 8 program, residents pay 30% of their income toward rent and the federal government pays the rest. You are all in a bad situation. I get it, said Russell Graves, executive director of Consumer Credit and Budget Counseling, a nonprofit multistate licensed credit counseling agency in Upper Township. The obstacles to buying a house or renting a place are your credit, said Graves, who said his agency will provide counseling to Stanley Holmes residents free of charge. If your credit is bad, a private landlord does not want to rent to you. His agency has 15 counselors and uses algorithms to help determine what actions will get a person from a 540 credit score to a 620, high enough to rent on the private market, he said. We can help you get in, Graves said. Graves also said there are programs to help Section 8 voucher holders become homeowners, and he can help people qualify for those programs. Who wants to own a house? he asked the crowd. A couple of hands went up. The housing choice voucher lasts 15 years if you go buy a house. You can take the voucher and pair it up with down payment assistance of $15,000 to $22,000. Atlantic City Housing Authority board member who pushed for residents rights set to resign Atlantic City Housing Authority member Charmaine Hall fought for transparency and residents rights, clashing often with the board's leadership. On Thursday, she said she intends to step down. Johnson said HUDs underfunding of all housing authorities for decades has resulted in poor conditions in Atlantic City and elsewhere, and HUD wants to get out of the business of running public housing because Congress wont properly fund it. Stanley Holmes first village was built in the 1930s, and two more additions were completed by the 1950s, bringing the total number of apartments to 420. Stanley Holmes Village 2 resident Robin Knuckles said Thursday she got a bit more information about how she will find new housing after the meeting. Credit repair will be my first step, Knuckles said. Im making an appointment today. She hopes to find an apartment in a complex on the mainland, she said, even though she needs dialysis three times a week and can now walk to it from her Stanley Holmes apartment. I can get a ride to dialysis, Knuckles said of medical transport by Atlantic County. She said she does not own a car. Under Section 8, she will have to pay her own utilities, she said, but she would still prefer that to going to another housing authority complex. Most are high-rises and she does not want to live in a place that requires use of elevators, she said. Some in the crowd, however, told Johnson other housing authority buildings are also in bad condition, citing friends who live with rodent and bedbug infestations and more. Atlantic City Housing Authority plans ignore court orders, force 'emergency' Stanley transfers Atlantic City Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Sahlin testified last month in Superior Court that the authority was moving to install a new heating system in Stanley Holmes Village by Oct. 1, as repeatedly ordered by the court over the past year. But documents sent to the attorney for about 130 residents of Stanley Holmes suing over unsafe and unhealthy conditions there show the authority has done no such thing. How can they pay (to move) people out of these conditions and send them in worse? asked one resident. Those high-rises, lets be honest, are worse than Stanley Holmes Village. Authority staff said units will be inspected and problems fixed before anyone is moved to them. If they dont have Stanley to worry about, problems in other buildings can now be corrected, Johnson said. I cannot begin to tell you how much money has been spent in Stanley. Housing Authority Executive Director Tom Sahlin said HUD will provide less funding to the authority once Stanleys 420 units are gone, but other buildings will still have more money available for maintenance. We could put 100% of our capital budget into Stanley for the next 10 years and barely make a dent in the projected needs, which would simultaneously create a deferred maintenance nightmare for the remainder of our residents, Sahlin said. Psychological scientists who study human behavior concur that past actions are the best predictor of future actions. If past actions caused no problem, then all is well. If, however, a person demonstrated poor behavior in the past, well, buckle up. The odds are very great the person will continue to perform poorly if given the chance. Donald Trumps past behavior on just one subject matter of protecting American citizens specifically national defense - says if he becomes the 47th president, were in a heap of trouble. Examining Trumps past national security endeavors needs to be seriously examined by Americans before voting on Nov. 5. A vast majority of Americans recall how Trump cozied up to Russia for them to assist in his 2016 election with disinformation, misinformation and propaganda about Hillary Clinton. Its no surprise that Trump repeated that same behavior when he and his friend Vladimir Putin, who he referred to as a genius, had Russia interfere on Donalds behalf in the 2020 election. As reported by the conservative-oriented Wall Street Journal (July 10), election interference by Russia is already being repeated for the 2024 election. Of major concern to journalists who write for the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation (Murdoch also owns Fox News), is Trumps relationship with CRINK (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) and its effect on our national security. Trumps embrace of CRINKs dictators if he becomes the 47th president - is disturbing as noted in a Wall Street Journal article: There are signs Beijing and its axis of chaos, which includes Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, is planning the next phase of violet disruption (May 1). CRINK, along with a few of their allies, have formed an axis of evil that is in direct opposition to Western power, freedom and democracy. CRINKs authoritarian-fascism rule is one Trump has embraced by the explicit praise hes lathered on each of CRINKs dictators. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence who passed a middle school history class knows China has been trying to take control of Taiwan since 1954, Russia started attacking Ukraine in 2014, Iran began their anti-Israel stance in 1979 and the North Korea-South Korea conflict has been in existence since 1950. But Trump is not a student of history or international relationships; hes a transactional individual who adores powerbrokers. On May 8, 2018, then President Trump withdrew America from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Howd that work out? On April 13, Iran launched more than 300 missiles in Israel. This act alone has caused U.S. intelligence services and international officials to conclude Iran poses a significant threat to America and its allies. For the record, Russia has a very large arsenal of around 6,000 nuclear warheads, China has over 400 and North Korea has 50. Joseph J. Collins, retired Army colonel who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Stability Operations and lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is critical of Trumps past actions. He notes besides Trump ending the Iranian nuclear development agreement, little was gained by Trump withdrawing America from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, Paris Climate Accord, Trans-Pacific Partnership and United Nations Human Rights Council and Health Organization. Collins contends these series of Trumps withdrawals has allowed China and other powers to fill into the leadership vacuum. U.S. security partners are troubled by these developments and see them as evidence of a new, selfish neo-isolationism on the part of the nation that used to take pride in its leadership of the new world (ibid). Furthermore, Collins has seen first-hand that Trump has a dysfunctional decision-making style. It's well documented former president Trump did not have long intelligence briefings, didnt read detailed briefing materials, misplaced confidential documents, designated some secret national documents as personal, shared classified information with unauthorized foreigners and made major decisions without consultation with allies and advisors. In summary, Collins states it is impossible to give the Trump national security policy good marks." Lets face the reality of homeland security. America cannot stand alone. We desperately need to maintain a solid relationship with our 200-plus allies, increase Department of Defense appropriations and vigorously oppose CRINKs advances, or we will cease to exist as a democracy. Should Trump return to the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, the safety and security of 342 million Americans is in jeopardy. Now that you are fully aware of Trumps national defense blunders and know past actions are the best predictor of future actions, is he our best choice to be leader of the free world? If Trump is elected, you can kiss democracy good-bye and CRINK-U.S. will be the newest acronym for authoritarian-fascism dictatorship-oriented countries.